"Black issues" is a racist statement, "Inner city chicago residents below the poverty line" isn't. The longer we continue to keep groups separate, the longer racism continues.
Here, let me fuel the discussion or arguement.
In grammer school I took all of the Vocational H.S. School Test. There was the Bronx School of Science, Aviation H.S., Edison H.S. Automotive H.S,, Regents H.S. and Brooklyn Technical H.S..
I admit that I went on so many of them because they were school sponsored field trips. So I was able to get out of class for the day and ride the subways with my class mates to the others cities in N.Y. outside of Brooklyn.
I did well on all of the tests but one. The very one I wanted to go to - Brooklyn Technical H.S..
I passed all the others (I think minimum passing was 90%) but Brooklyn Tech. It was the last of all of them. It was really my first choice but it was taken in a sequence based on scheduling by the individual schools.
I scored a 87% on the Brooklyn Technical H.S. test. Only three points shy of passing. My parents spoke with the administrator at the school. Apparently the neighborhood that my grammer school was in was in a neigborhood that was considered an underprivileged neighboor.
Now I am no dummie now and was not then. The grammer school I went to was a private Catholic School. I was middle class and not underprivileged. I lived in Boro Park Brooklyn. The grammer school was in Sunset Park Brooklyn. Sunset Park Brooklyn is and was known for being very Hispanic, Latin, Puerto Rican, Hatian, Dominican, African American and many other minority ethnic groups.
Boro Park on the otherhand was a Norweigan, Irish, Italian, Jewish community.
Because I was going to a grammer school that was in that area they had a program (don't recall the program name) that afforded me the opportunity to take a summer school class to qualify to attend the school. Upon completion and pasing of the summer school class I was ultimately allowed to attend Brooklyn Technical H.S.
Like I said, even then I was well aware that this program was for the purposes of affirmative action for minorities. Even when I attended that summer school class I was a minority white kid among all of the minorities qualified to attend the class simply because of their minority neigborhood and minority ethnicity.
I was the white kid that was able to take advantage of this. So even though I did not meet the ethnic majority of a minority that were in that "inner city" I was attending a school that was located in that "inner city".
Obviously I was grateful for the program and do support the way it was implemented.
But I see many areas of inequality or preferential treatment in ethnicity in places like civil service jobs. I have know white males to be on waiting lists for civil servant jobs for teens of years while Asian, Hispanic, African American, female, short, handicapped, disability and other minority groups get preferential placement because of diversity quota satisfaction requirements.
Anyway....carry on!
