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Thanks Josh, again living in the hood is not easy and its so hard to stay away as well as disassociate from certain hood aspects, however its so easy to fall into hood aspects like a woman I know who moved to NYC from the south, she's from a suburban white neighborhood and ended up being and acting ghetto in the Bronx how does one take a complete nose dive on life? For me I took advantage of free education as well as other activities such as sports and academics which offer free trips to other parts of the state and country, this was very helpful and also an eye opener back then as a teen.
There is so much peer pressure on youths in the hood as well as adults from circles they associate with. I also put a good portion of the blame on media for certain advertisements' that plague ghetto neighborhoods even here in Mott Haven such as Ciroc, Hennessey and VSOP billboards, Air Jordan Bill Boards, Timberland Bill Boards, these advertisements don't help people in the ghetto and only helps people like Michael Jordan and others put money in their own pockets, sadly people in the hood don't realize that until its too late. I don't drink hood alcoholic beverages and don't wear ghetto catered clothing.
What is sad is that I'm able to hang out with Transplants and Yuppies why? Because I'm educated and also a traveler and they look at me as an equal, ghetto hood people see me as an equal to some extent because I'm from the hood, I can walk it and I can also revert back to hood lingo in a second even though its politically incorrect. I can say its a hard pendulum to swing back and forth amongst these subcultures. I already spoken to Transplants here in Mott Haven for them meeting me takes their guard down.
I'm similar except I'm not really from the hood (Canarsie and Flatlands) but I have a few family members that live in the hood and friends/associates that lead that kind of hood lifestyle so I can relate to them and see things from their point of view. But at the same time I'm educated and speak well with still a little NY accent and dress well(I try to dress myself after the models in GQ lol).
But yea I know exactly how and why these ppl can stay caught up in that cycle, a lot of ppl who are outsiders can't comprehend why these ppl just can't change now that laws aren't holding them back.
But I don't care about solving their internal issues. God helps people who help themselves. Ghetto people don't help themselves. So why should I stress myself out to help them? I want a quick fix. A quick fix as in displacement. Let them be someone.e else's problem, not mine. Ghetto people get in the way of progress. How am I suppose to make the neighborhood more desirable while still having hood people living in the community and messing up whatever good we put into the community.
My dad always says you can crap in one and and wish in the other, which one do you think is gonna fill up faster. Wish all you want for a quick fix but actually doing something about it will make it happen faster than wishing.
My dad always says you can crap in one and and wish in the other, which one do you think is gonna fill up faster. Wish all you want for a quick fix but actually doing something about it will make it happen faster than wishing.
If gentrification and displacement worked for Manhattan and other borough neighborhoods without "rehabbing" the ghetto people who made it undesirable, why shouldn't it be ok for the Bronx to wish the same gentrification results with the same technique?
I just don't agree with the above statement sir. I understand what you are saying about ignorance and how these people have no hope and therefore no ambitions. I really really understand what you are saying...
But I don't agree. I think we as a society have put a TREMENDOUS amount of time, effort, and money into combatting the problems of non-education and poverty.
There is one thing that is true amongst humans...there will ALWAYS be poor people. That is not something that goes away. Since the beggining of societies, regardless of whether they are socialist, capitalist, monarchies, whatever..there have been poor people.
There are sections of the Hammarabi code that mention the impoverished.
So I don't think ANY amount of effort on the part of society or government or the church or anyone is going to end poverty as we know it. The best you can do is improve the living conditions of the poor, and in America...our poor have it better than any other poor population on earth or in the history of humanity.
In America, even the poorest of the poor has access to food, clean water, shelter and medicine. Sure there are working poor in America who will never make enough to break the cycle of poverty for themselves, and that is sad. But The working poor in America have it 4000 billion times better than the working poor of other countries that basically live a life of indentured servitude who have NO opportunity to ever get ahead.
Even the poorest of the poor in the ghetto, the working poor, has the opportunity to send their children to a public school, and that child will get an education (if they choose to take it) that will allow them to be 10 steps ahead of their parents. They may never make it out of the ghetto...but they will have a better job than their parents. And if they don't start having babies at 12, then they can start saving money and getting raises, and moving up in their jobs. They have the OPPORTUNITY to change their station in life.
And many of them just don't take it. They act like thugs, breed like rabbits, and say "more, more more! Give me more..I won't work, I won't educate myself. I will abuse alcohol and drugs...AND I WANT MORE! The government needs to pay me to be a thug!"
And that's what really gets me...Most of the programs we have enacted to help the poor only continue the cycle of poverty. Their is no incentive to leave the ghetto and improve yourself, and every incentive not too. And I don't buy the fact that these people in the ghetto are not responsible for their actions. I hear this a lot on this board. "they are raised in ignorance, they don't know any better, it's a way of life for them, they don't see it as not being normal" and frankly that is BS.
Every child in America grew up with after school specials. Every child in America gets enough education to know how babies are made, and that drugs are bad for you, and that you shouldn't be spray painting and defacing property. Every ghetto child has at least one grandmother on the block that slaps them upside the head and says "don't be bringing home no babies. Don't be smoking on rock."
The THUGS in the ghetto, on a daily basis, CRAP on every opportunity handed to them. And why shouldn't they? It's so much easier to just live off the government.
And what is the solution to this problem? Well according to some on this board it's to give ghetto lay abouts even MORE welfare. It's to prevent property owners and entrepeneuers like HilltopJay from buying and improving property, and improving HIS situation in life. Or making money so that he can send HIS kids to school or put food in their mouth.
I just don't buy it........
If you REALLY wanted to help people in the ghetto break the cycle of poverty, you need to give them incentive. Incentives are the only thing that human beings, rich and poor, respond too.
If I could wave a magic wand, then I would do the following.
1) Put all girls beggining at the age of 12 on mandatory birth control. There are forms of birth control you can take that last 5 years and have no negative side effects. Children already have to get immunizations before they can go to public schools. Let them get their birth control shot at 12 and again at 17 so that no girl will accidentally get pregnant before she is 22. (And I am not sexist, I would be perfectly fine with giving this to boys if such a form of birth control existed and was proven safe.) I don't want ghetto people to never have children, they can have as many as they want, but let's help break the cycle of babies having babies.
2) If we have a vaccine or preventative medicine that we can administer to people, give it to them. Let's help them not ruin their lives by contracting some STD that is avoidable.
3) Overhaul the education system so that it actually teaches something VALUABLE. I think History and PE are great. I also wished that it was mandatory for everyone to take Home Ec, so they could actually learn how to cook food cheaply and healthy, and so they knew how to upkeep a house. I wish there were high school classes on how to balance a check book, and how to read a credit card application.
4) School shouldn't end in the 12th grade where you get a diploma that is worthless for getting a job. Education should continue to trade school where you take two years to learn how to DO something. Auto mechanics. Legal Aid. Dental assistant. You are not going to become rich getting jobs like these, but you will be employable and make enough to break the cycle of poverty, and give your CHILDREN a better life.
5) Mandatory drug tests for anyone on Welfare. Period. I have heard the arguments against this, but I don't care. Drugs ruin peoples lives. They ruin families. They destroy society. If you test positive for crack, you don't get a check tha tmonth. Incentives! Give people reasons to actually join and stick with AA, or a drug cessation program.
6) Make Welfare limited. I totally support welfare. I think a social safety net is great. I think the difference between America now and America 150 years ago is tha twe don't allow the least of us, the poor, the infirm, the elderly to just die in the streets. That's great.
What's not great is the current welfare system is set up in such a way that once you get on, it's nearly impossible to get off. Welfare should be limited. You get say, 10 years in your lifetime to be on welfare, beggining when you turn 18. If you have a couple of bad years and you need government assitance, fine. But just know that you can only go to that bucket so many times. Give people a REASON to get off welfare.
I don't belive what you are saying that the people in the ghetto are victims of their own ignorance. They aren't ignorant at all. They are smart as hell. Smart enough to know gaming the system is better than working.
But whatever, rant over. I don't have a horse in this race. I just don't agree that HilltopJay is the greedy capitalist because he wants to use real estate to improve his financial situaiton. He has a right to buy a property and do what he can to improve the value of said property. He has a right to be pissed that ghetto people spray paint the front of his house, or sale crack on his corner. I don't see him as the bad guy you are all painting him to be.
What I see is a whole lot of excuses. Being poor sucks, I have been there. But to say "these people can't help themselves, they need sympathy because their situation is hopeless" is just utter BS to me. It's HARD to break the cycle of poverty, it's not impossible. We just go about it the wrong way. And well meaning people help oppress the poor by enabling them.
I agree with much of this. Especially points 1,3,and 4.
I will also add to it.
The Religious Right has done so much to screw up this country and interfere with policy making and decisions. Birth control is not being offered to underclass sexually active teenagers because the Religious Right thinks that per-marrital sex is wrong. Others in the Religious Right this premarital sex is wrong and contraceptives are wrong.
This insane crusade against birth control by these religious fanatics has had a deleterious effect on our society, bringing children into the care of older children children, who then rely upon public assistance. Not infrequently, these children are abused of even murdered by the mom's current boy friend.
We need to STOP rewarding bad behavior and take any stigma away from birth control. Make birth control available,affordable, accessible, or better FREE.
As far as points 3 and 4 I agree again and have more to add. A High School education means nothing today. Which is not to say that it isn't required, but it's only the beginning. Community College and Vocational and Technical Schools (not disreputable ones, but that's another subject) should be required of every American high school graduate who is not going on to a four year college. Working at a fast food store will not cut it.
We should make attendance free to the underclass, with the provision that while in school they do not become pregnant.
People act as though this would be wildly expensive. It would not.
It would be more than manageable.
How expensive is welfare, food stamps, housing subsidies, social services, child protection intervention, and prison? Over the course of a lifetime, there is no comparison.
Currently, we permit religious zealots to impose their values upon others and to have a huge influence on public policy.
I am NOT against religion, and people should feel free to attend the church, temple or mosque of their choice.
But, religion has no business in politics, and since the early 1980s when Reagan made friends with these extremists, they have exerted a huge amount of influence on American politics, and in particular the GOP.
Throwing money at people isn't working either, With out an education that provides a skill set that is compatible with employment, the money will be squandered and more unwanted babies will be born to ill-educated unprepared teenaged "parents" Neighborhoods will continue to go down because the people living there have too many children - and a financial incentive to have more, no hope for a better life, (and they are right about this) no way to be creative or constructive, so they become destructive, to themselves, their neighborhoods and to society.
There is a way to stop this cycle. Initially, as with all change some money will be needed. However the savings will ultimately be huge.
^ so u want a grammy or something
for all that rappin'?
Dude, you sound like a 8 year old with the stuff you write. "so u want a grammy or something". That's something a kid would say. Come on bro, grow up. Everything out your mouth says so and so is racist or this person is racist, etc. All you are doing is making a fool out of yourself with your uneducated replies. You lose all credibility and no one believes you. Just stop it.
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