ok.. I figured I would start with a small disclaimer that this is not meant to be a racist post.. but its going to end up sounding like that in the end most likely.. deal with it….

I was reading an article on CNN about how Obama addressed the NAACP and one of the concerns of the NAACP that would probably not be addressed directly by Obama was why the economic downturn is having more of an impact on people of color. Now, im not sure what numbers there are to back this up or in what regards it is having more of an impact on people of color. Perhaps they are hit with more unemployment and higher foreclosure rates. But, why would this economic downturn have such an impact on one group of people over another?

I keep hearing about Black America and how tough it is growing up on the streets when you are poor and have nothing. I have seen documentaries done that show the neighborhoods of where people grew up and live and they are taking video cameras through the streets. I’m not really feeling it. I guess maybe they are trying to attract the attention or more affluent people than me…

I grew up in a small town of less than 5000 people that was built on the anthracite coal industry and tucked away in the mountains of Pennsylvania. My house growing up was a 3 bedroom row home. Our yard was a small patch of grass between the cement base that used to hold up our garage and the lower level basement of the house. My dad had a stroke when I was 2 years old and my mom busted her ass to raise 2 kids and a husband that was left with the brain of an 8 year old after his stroke. The majority of the houses in the neighborhood were like ours, small 3 - 4 bedroom row homes. They were cheap to put up and the miners that first lived in them barely spent more time there than to sleep, shit and wash.

When I saw the houses in the neighborhoods on a Black in America segment on CNN one night, I practically shit myself. Here these people were complaining about the neighborhoods they had to live in. The houses they were showing were at lease 4 bedroom singles with fenced in yards. Run down, yes… but, I have seen plenty of run down houses in my own neighborhood so that didn’t really phase me because the houses they were showing still had great potential.

I guess my point here is that I didn’t have a whole lot growing up. I didn’t have a nice house, I didn’t have money out the ass, my father was a shell of the man my mother married and planned on growing old with, the school system in the area I lived was pathetic, the job market sucked stinky balls and some of the people are so backwards that you wonder how they function day to day. But, still through it all, there was one thing we always had and that was family, friends and the desire to do better. Despite that desire, I ended up dropping out of high school in my senior year. Now… while I am not black, I am a fat bastard. Literally. I weigh a good deal and while I will never know what it is like to live in a black persons skin. I do know what its like to be discriminated against. But, all that aside I persisted, I taught myself how to build Internet based programs, I figured out databases, I found a woman who deals with my 22 hour coding sessions and I busted my ass to try and build something for my future and my family. I don’t have a 9-5 job that provides steady income. I have a shitload of debt and sometimes we struggle to make it to the end of the month. But, I keep trying. I’m not sitting here at the end of the day asking what President Obama is going to do to help me because the economic downturn we are in has cut my income by more than 65%. I’m figuring out ways to make more money and working harder to get it. I’m not sitting on my ass collecting unemployment and crying about how im being held down by the upper class or better yet, by white people. I’m working my ass off to ensure my family has something for our future. Why is it that one of the most influential men in the entire free world is half black and groups like the NAACP is still insisting that the white upper class is holding back the black people? When do we stop blaming other people for our problems at the same time looking to them to fix our problems and start accepting the responsibility of who we are, taking advantage of the freedoms we have and being part of society instead of trying to blame it for all of the problems that are faced by an entire race of people? I mean honestly do we really need to continue being so divisive? Stop fucking blaming the white man and start looking in the mirror. When I see slums where black people are living in nasty conditions.. I don’t see white people selling the drugs they are using, I don’t see white people holding the guns and killing black people. I see black people doing these things. I hear horror stories from teachers that tried to do their jobs in inner city schools. Teachers that went into the job hoping to make a difference, but the kids don’t give a fuck. Caring about getting an education doesn’t come from the teacher. It comes from the home. Where the fuck are the parents that are supposed to be raising these kids and getting them ready to go to school? When my son was 4 I started telling him about all the great stuff that he will be able to do once he starts going to school. I prepared him. I told him he would meet new friends, learn lots of fun things and have fun at school. I took the time to help him prepare, even though I had to bust my ass working as well. I didn’t have the time I wanted for myself anymore. I gave it to my kids. My son is going into 3rd grade this year and even though the school system we live in isn’t very good and we can’t afford to move to a better district we still push him to do well and he does. Exceptionally well. Because of his hard work, he is in the gifted program and he loves school. He respects his teachers and he likes to go there and learn what they have to teach him. I don’t hear stories about kids like this from those teachers that moved away from the inner city schools after they were broken by the kids going to them. When are the parents going to get tough and start accepting some of the responsibility? It always seems to be someone else’s problem or fault. Get over yourself. If you are a piece of shit and your kid is a piece of shit. It is nobody’s fault but your own and probably your piece of shit parents.

I’m not trying to say that just because people are black or live in the inner city there is anything wrong with them. There are some amazing people in this world that have come from the slums and worked their way to be outstanding members of society. And I’m also not saying that only black people are like this. I know plenty of white trash trailer park morons who expect everything as well. But this rant is related to the article I read about the NAACP wondering what president Obama is going to do to help black people affected by the economic downturn. My question is, why don’t these people follow the the lead of President Obama and other black people who came from rough neighborhoods or troubled pasts and look inside to find their strength and do something productive with their life rather than try and point fingers and blame at others?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.