Good morning Bernie. You've swerved smack into something that I have seen happening for many years but that has exponentially grown since the " guidance" issued in the Obama Administration. I approach this from two angles. First, way back in the 1970's, I crossed the color line...in Birmingham,Alabama when it came to choice of mate and f…
Good morning Bernie. You've swerved smack into something that I have seen happening for many years but that has exponentially grown since the " guidance" issued in the Obama Administration. I approach this from two angles. First, way back in the 1970's, I crossed the color line...in Birmingham,Alabama when it came to choice of mate and friends. This began a long and sometimes steep learning curve as I became acutely aware of social realities that my mostly white and safe background obscured from my view. I began to see the painful realities of the failure liberal federal policies, sold as a help but in actuality reinforced second class citizenship for empoverished populations. I could see the destruction of nuclear family structure and the amount of angry young men it produced. I also saw how many liberal white people, likely trying to assuage personal feelings of guilt, persisted in giving what amounted to a patronizing pat on the head instead of opening the doors of opportunity to true ascension into the societal mainstream.
Second, my midlife career change to teaching in public schools lasted for 20 years. I taught in Title One majority/minority schools the entire time in urban DFW, Texas. Why not? My school kids very much looked like my natural kids. I quickly observed that the lack of fathers in our population was a massive unaddressed problem while the " generous" white hand of liberalism came in to empower , not the kids, but helplessness ,resentment and disfunction. Not much has changed. So where do we go from here? It is so easy to feel hopeless.
Good morning Bernie. You've swerved smack into something that I have seen happening for many years but that has exponentially grown since the " guidance" issued in the Obama Administration. I approach this from two angles. First, way back in the 1970's, I crossed the color line...in Birmingham,Alabama when it came to choice of mate and friends. This began a long and sometimes steep learning curve as I became acutely aware of social realities that my mostly white and safe background obscured from my view. I began to see the painful realities of the failure liberal federal policies, sold as a help but in actuality reinforced second class citizenship for empoverished populations. I could see the destruction of nuclear family structure and the amount of angry young men it produced. I also saw how many liberal white people, likely trying to assuage personal feelings of guilt, persisted in giving what amounted to a patronizing pat on the head instead of opening the doors of opportunity to true ascension into the societal mainstream.
Second, my midlife career change to teaching in public schools lasted for 20 years. I taught in Title One majority/minority schools the entire time in urban DFW, Texas. Why not? My school kids very much looked like my natural kids. I quickly observed that the lack of fathers in our population was a massive unaddressed problem while the " generous" white hand of liberalism came in to empower , not the kids, but helplessness ,resentment and disfunction. Not much has changed. So where do we go from here? It is so easy to feel hopeless.