Report: Nearly Half of Detroiters Can't Read (Taylor, Republic: 2014, day care)

[Shinhiryuu]

I couldnt see how this would work? With kids nowadays just on the internet all day. Its not like the computer talks text for you ( I know theres a program that does, but if they couldnt read you think they would be able to work this program?) I mean even in drug dealing certain skills in math and other areas are needed. So what is the common child doing in winter? Watching Tylor Perry shows? Everything from video games to reading a map requires some type of reading.

[trellbrown23]

Originally Posted by hiphopcr

This is so sad. Uneducated kids go on to be non-contributing members of society and only produce children who are at risk of doing the same.

And its a god damned shame.

[FlyiMetro]

Ya I know tons of Detriot people don't know how to read, but its a city. That makes cars so reading is not that important.

[313Weather]

Originally Posted by FlyiMetro

Ya I know tons of Detriot people don't know how to read, but its a city. That makes cars so reading is not that important.

The bolded is key.

Detroiters aren't bad people because they can't read. It was just that education wasn't stressed as a big deal when the vast majority of people were able to simply go out and earn big money using their hands.

I imagine if you pulled the statistics for traditionally blue collar areas in Metro Detroit/Michigan that are mostly white (Southern Macomb County, SE Oakland County, Downriver, etc.), the literacy numbers will be similar to the numbers in Detroit proper.

Of course, for some trolls on this forum, that tidbit of information doesn't fit the "black people/Detroiters are scum" mantra.

[Retroit]

Originally Posted by 313Weather

I imagine if you pulled the statistics for traditionally blue collar areas in Metro Detroit/Michigan that are mostly white (Southern Macomb County, SW Oakland County, Downriver, etc.), the literacy numbers will be similar to the numbers in Detroit proper.

So it's okay for you to "imagine" something that you provide no evidence for, and at the same time discredit the counterclaim which has been proven with state-wide student testing?

The fact is that illiteracy is a problem among all groups of people, but especially so with poor blacks. That doesn't mean that they are "scum". But it also doesn't mean that the problem is imagined or should not be addressed.

[Retroit]

Originally Posted by FlyiMetro

Ya I know tons of Detriot people don't know how to read, but its a city. That makes cars so reading is not that important.

Very true. Unfortunately, many of the jobs that don't require literacy have been shipped to foreign countries. So the jobs that remain are more-and-more requiring higher levels of education.

[313Weather]

Originally Posted by Retroit

So it's okay for you to "imagine" something that you provide no evidence for, and at the same time discredit the counterclaim which has been proven with state-wide student testing?

The fact is that illiteracy is a problem among all groups of people, but especially so with poor blacks. That doesn't mean that they are "scum". But it also doesn't mean that the problem is imagined or should not be addressed.

First off, I've never said that the problem in Detroit is "imagined", so try re-reading my post.

Second, student testing wouldn't prove a thing since we're talking about ADULT literacy.

Third, while I don't have definitive proof for my claim, given the fact that places such as Melvindale, Ecorse, River Rouge, Hazel Park, Warren, Roseville, etc. are populated with nothing but factories (abandoned and in operation) and have also suffered from the offshoring of those jobs to foreign countries (not to mention southern Macomb County/SW Oakland County are mostly made up of former east side Detroiters), I'm sure my conclusion isn't too far fetched.

You're more than welcome to disagree of course.

[Retroit]

Yes, I do disagree. You tried to discredit the concern over high illiteracy in black Detroit by claiming that it was similar to white suburbs and therefore anyone who brought up the subject was "trolling".

Most people don't learn to read as adults, so obviously if you compare reading skills of children, that will be reflected when they become adults.

The downriver inner suburbs are more industrialized than the northern, but neither are "nothing but factories". In fact, Roseville has very few and Warren's are not predominant except along Groesbeck and between Mound and Van Dyke.

Also, the blacks that have moved out of Detroit are often the more literate ones. You can no longer say that all blacks are alike. There has been a lot of stratification in the black community.

But I do appreciate you raising these interesting points.

[313 TUxedo]

Originally Posted by 313Weather

...........given the fact that places such as .........., Warren, ..etc. are populated with nothing but factories (abandoned and in operation).......

Warren has the GM Tech Center (huge) and several large corporate office buildings on Van Dyke in the North side.

[SadieMirsade]

Originally Posted by Retroit

I think many Detroiters have simply given up. Therefore, what use is knowing how to read? To get a job at McDonald's? To read a prescription that you can't afford in the first place?

People will learn to read when they have something to aspire to. Most of the opportunities for illiterate and under-literate have been shipped to China, Mexico, and elsewhere. Nowadays, you need a college degree to get even a menial job in the U.S. If you know you will never be going to college or getting a good job, why not just give up and complain that the government (and the rich capitalists who support the government) should take care of you?

There you go again with your neo-con, right-wing BS and propaganda.

Lately, it was the government that was supporting the rich capitalists.

As much as I mostly agree with you on so many subjects,
as much as you and I seem to come from similar bakcgrounds,
how can you spread around such BS?

You'd be so right,
if the US gov't hadn't been s busy bailing out rich, extremely powerful and well-connected capitalists,
who are currently "oh-so-busy",
also off-shoring American jobs to China.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against free enterprise, small business, entrepreneurs, capitalism.
I started working in my family's store when I was nine years old.

But I'm not sure that this system we're living in, can be called capitalism any longer,
when the White House can be blackmailed by a few powerful corporations......
who can threaten to take the entire country (and world's economy) down.....

As much as Detroit is a bottomless money pit, which seems to generate no returns,
and overall, seems to have become a political, financial and socio-economic liability,
of enormous proportions,

Why should we be offering capitalists
so many "favors", freebies, tax breaks, interest free loans,
with very few strings attached?

It's like we're prostituting ourselves to the highest bidding johns!

We're trading our youth, brains, energy, resources, land,
FOR WHAT? Jobs?
which may be here today, and gone tomorrow?
And once they're gone, who's accountable for the mess they leave behind?

You'd like to blame the entire Detroit mess on the lazy, poor, undisciplined, underucated, illiterate, dysfunctional poor,
who just expect someone else to take care of them, and the post-industrial wasteland they inhabit.

As much as I'm not impressed with the mentality of a lot of Black Americans,
I honestly can't accuse the poor of any color, of being cry-babies and free-loaders,
after all the free-loading that we've witnessed going on in Washington, and on Wall Street,
during the last decade.

The one big difference between the poor, illiterate and ignorant free-loader
and the Wall Street, Harvard MBA hustler,
is that the MBA class is educated on the ins and outs of the SYSTEM,
and has the intellectual, political and financial clout with which it can BUY our public opinion,
and co-opt our leadership and political and intellectual classes.

Neither really contributes much to our GDP.
Both classes are a liability to our economy.
Vultures and scavengers.

They don't invent anything.
They don't create anything.

This is a link which perfectly illustrates how connected and intertwined OUR intellectual-economic-political ellite and the Chinese one, really are.
One hand washes the other.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpzzE...feature=fvwrel
http://www.dw.de/new-scandal-rocks-c...hip/a-16223312

If we live in a supposedly democratic, capitalist system, in which the wealthy routinely vie for handouts, and directly affect our democratic process through their powerful lobbies....
and Chinese communists get to drive Ferraris.....
something's not adding up right...