obviously i'll have something to say about this...

Vivian Stringer is among the longer-winded people on the planet. Anybody with a working knowledge of women's basketball is well-aware of that. If she spoke for 15 minutes at the press conference, it wouldn't be about her trying to get attention, just about how she communicates on a daily basis.

 

The comments of a comedian and the prodigious influence he weilds in the African American community bears the same gravity as comments made by a daily radio personality and the weekly pilgrimage of notable policy makers who frequented his popular talk show. I'm lost here. Theres an obvious staidness given to Don Imus by his distinguished panel of guests that was beyond your average shock jock. The level of political discussion was a dynamic I actually appreciated about his now defunct talk show. Lassoing in DL Hughley's "importance" to the black community as well as his appearance on the Late Show as counterpoise in the debate swirling around Don Imus is pretty lame, don't you think?

That's the problem here, I'm not sure if some of you guys partake in the act of critical thinking.


Thankfully, Don Imus' claims of falling victim to popular culture euphemisms as the cause for his Freudian slip opened the door for ambulance chasers to hitch a ride. From the reverends on call, hacks and their poorly researched articles to comedians with a few minutes face time on a big stage they rarely frequent, its all a sea to shining seafull of shit if you ask me. A gathering of opportunists niche marketing themselves as affiliates to the Imus controversy. And somewhere in there, we can find substance? I found that in Vivian Stringers graceful response as well as the comments made by the young women of the Rutgers Basketball team. Why won't Jason and people of his ilk address the substance of their words rather than resorting to ad hominem attacks?

re-read the comment I made two paragraphs ago. That isn't a requirement in Jason's world.

 

you found substance in stringer's responses? yes, a true plato, indeed.

 

Hyperbole aside, what about her actual comments bothered you? Was it it's length? Were you on the same line with the black coach who called Whitlock? The remarks by the Rutgers plaeyrs also bothered you? Please explain.

 

Dave: So glad you brought up education because I've been beating that drum for awhile. Obscenity has been around since the dawn of time. The reason its impact has become more volatile, intrusive and alarming -- speaking directly in terms of the black community -- is because of terrible parenting and a public education system that is downright horrendous.

I'll use Detroit as an example because I'm from there. But a jaw-dropping 60 percent of the folks in the D are illiterate. That leaves me speechless and depressed. I read another story in the last few months about how in the 1950s and 60s, more than half of black folks were married. Today, you don't even want know that percentage.

So when you have a bunch of single parents running around -- many of whom are the product of the crack-heavy 80s -- and a failing education system...well, you get a lot of madness. An underbelly develops. It trickles into pop culture, of course. Lambasting rappers, violence, Imus, whoever, is a small piece of it, though. It's scratching the surface.

And those are easy targets because, well, folks, we've got no idea how to deal with the real problems. How do you make parents care about their kids? How do you change education systems? How do you make education important to a depressed portion of the community?

I don't know. Do you?

 

Oh, someone asked why didn't I go to the forum. Didn't know anything about it.

 

I agree with this. Biggest factor in how well students do at a particular school is how involved the parents are.

 

Jemele,

You want to start by ending the typical funding mechanism for schools: Property taxes. Now, most states have a state aid program that further supplies property-depressed areas with money, but those schools never match up to the funding of richer districts that simply increase their property tax levy, or accept big donations from corporate or parent sponsors to improve their schools. Like health insurance, which is inexplicably attached to employment, American schools are often destroyed by the means they get their money.

 

My thought on education came from a San Francisco Chronicle piece on a great teacher of history named Leon Litwack, 77, the son of Russian immigrants, a Cal-Berkeley legend and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of America's racial struggles.

Litwack believes we need a movement on education that is the equivalent in power, commitment, and perseverance of the civil rights movement.

 

Disagree. The funding mechanism is a greater determining factor. Schools should not be funded according to the property that surrounds it.

 

In my area, children from the poorest areas are at the same schools with kids from the wealthiest areas the entire run through public schools. And the poor kids -- on average -- are way behind the other kids.