al sharpton on CNBC now,the injustice of more blacks in prison today than were slaves

Is it racist that I came in here to make a joke about him sharting then realized it was sharpton not roker?

 

thanks for the reply. so if i've understood you correctly, skin color is not a determinant, in your view (at least as a solitary attribute.)

i find it interesting (truly) that "black people who can trace their ancestry to the beginnings of this country" are so insistent on doing so, while most of the rest of us are focused on getting on with life in the present.

i'm first generation, the old man having grown up in northern europe during the war, and immigrated to the US in the mid-50s. i rarely think of the old country, except in an abstract way, and there was no community here to fall back upon, then or now.

 

since you're rolling in so much dough , why not contribute to the tip jar and you'll be able to edit your post's

 

Not bad eddiewinslow, so you save money by using your fathers 17 store locations for the atm's. And 3 more in nightclubs. Do you pay a percentage to the the club owners for monthly or is it family owned too? I started 4 business right after high school, 3 failed and my last one I was bought out by a bigger company. First generation as well, since my parents crossed the border and was granted amnesty from Reagan in 1986. I see your fathers point of view, he wants the best for his kids, and your parents did a damn good job about it. Now I am in that position to also give my son the best in education, so he can have more opportunity to earn a higher income. There has to be a starting point, so your children can reap the benefits.

 

with comments like these, who needs any dialogue?

yes/no do you endorse the statement above? TIA

 

Brb going to get my popcorn!

 

No I do not endorse that statement.

Would a focus on education help or hurt?

 

Good morning.
Pretty much, sir (or ma'am).

Your father didn't bring the "old country" with him. He brought himself. He gave you the promise of this country. Not the history of his old one.

Your father didn't bring you pain or hardship or grief or any negative, I'd image, with him as an immigrant. He gave you hope and a path forward to determining what kind of life you'd have, and how you'd go about interacting with your fellows.

A community of one (if you only had one parent) is still a community, to me.

I had more than that. I had a mother and uncles and aunts and teachers and ministers...people from all walks of life (and all races) who did not subscribe to the past being prologue.

I've said several times myself that the best way forward often is not to look back. Hindsight is always 20/20, but no one lives their lives with from that perspective. I can understand (truly) the thinking that there is an unhealthy preoccupation with our historical past from those who do not believe it has any bearing on a black person's self-worth or his determination or his intelligence.

Except that it did. Black people do have parents and siblings and family members who remember what it was like to be denied, no matter how independent or intelligent or well-spoken or well-dress or accomplished you were, by a large segment of its kin. Their disqualification had nothing, often, to do with what they did or did not do. They were seen as archetypes and caricatures, largely...vehicles to place insecurities and fears and every bad and wicked impulse that sometimes creeps into human interactions and finds a way to justify itself.

A "poll tax", by any other name...

My mother did not pass on to me the consequences of her largely segregated life (self-loathing, suspicion, expediency, self-pity, material and spiritual povery) and a host of other negatives that begin and take root in the places legislatures and laws can't reach, and often for black people, violate: the mind and the heart.

SHE is my "old country". And while she did me the greatest service in encouraging me to go forward, as generations of our forbears did with little to no hope of things getting better for them in their lifetimes, and subsequently made the "investment loss absorption" analogy apropos...

...I always marvel myself (truly) at the idea that what black people have to set aside dosen't include those who came before us and told us to do better even when they were not going to do better no matter what effort or responsibility they put into it.

It's never about being "rich" or having "rich-envy" (whatever in hell that means). Not for me, anyway. A lot of people in this country understand and accept that they won't be millionaires or billionaires. Not everyone is going to get filthy rich or be "successful". Most people want to be able earn their place in society with work, to live comfortably from that work, and make it easier to leave something for their posterity to look back on positively.

The way eddiewinslow's parents were able to do for him.
The way your father did for you.

The way my mother did for me.

And, hopefully, prayerfully....
...the way I can for my own son...

 

would you go as far as to say it is a racist comment?

it's terrible what is happening to public schools in areas such as Chicago.

just terrible.

but teachers certainly aren't part of the problem.

 

Very well written Mrdrowe, very insightful.

 

these are great

Spoiler

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/2Sv_2c-E35c" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9qW8ZrZEvAA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/BPQmLV5rZtw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ggHWRpsMEmk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Whats even funnier is that idiots actually watch that guy. How can you even take someone like that serious? I guess hatred can make you like anything

Gee wiz, even Glen Beck can read a teleprompter

 

who here would actually take time out of their day to watch a video with Al Sharpton?

those are the idiots watching this guy.