Obama’s Story Resonates with Bronx Students
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Bill Dedman, MSNBC, Oct. 31, 2008
At Validus Preparatory Academy, a new public high school in the poorest congressional district in America, students have kept journals since the early primaries, created election art, studied opinion polls in math classes, designed brochures on the issues, read memoirs by the candidates and even delivered speeches in their stead. And after the principal dashed around to plumbing supply stores for enough PVC pipe to build a voting booth, they got a chance to punch their own electronic ballots in a national mock election for students.
Being so steeped in the presidential race, the students at this predominantly African-American and Hispanic school on Bathgate Avenue are a little on edge about the outcome. They say they are excited about the possibility that Sen. Barack Obama could become the first black person elected president of the United States. (In the mock election results so far, 88 percent of Validus students chose Obama.) But many also admit to some nervousness that it won’t happen. And even if he does win, they’re crossing their fingers that he’ll be up to the job.
“If Obama doesn’t win, it’s a big disappointment,” said Dorian Whyte, 18, who moved to New York City from Jamaica. “And I think if he does win, also, it can be a disappointment, if he doesn’t deliver.”
‘I just hope that he keeps his word’
“I just hope that he keeps his word, as he’s said, that he’s going to make a lot of good changes,” said Shaday Brown, 17, whose uncle is the noted Black Arts playwright Ben Caldwell. “I just hope he’s up to his part, just hoping he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do.”
{snip}
The students said that the Democratic candidate’s life story is not unlike theirs. Many of the students are immigrants from Africa and Latin America. Many have multiethnic ancestries. Many, maybe most, are being raised by single mothers and grandmothers. Like Obama’s family, they are putting their hope in a better education, and in the belief that minorities can get a fair chance in the United States.
These students didn’t live through the 1960s. Heck, they didn’t even live through the 1980s. More than once, when asked what role race plays in their lives, they answered, “Can you repeat the question?”
‘Race doesn’t really matter’
In some ways racial tension is muted in the South Bronx, where there are few whites. The school rolls list only one white student out of 426.
“I live in the Bronx. Race doesn’t really matter,” said Ahmed Hunt, 18, who played the part of Obama in a school program. “We can go as high, as far as we want. Bronx has some really good schools, some really good students. I go to a real great school.”
But there is racial tension at times between blacks and Hispanics in the neighborhoods, and between recent immigrants and established families. There are fights in the lunchroom, as at any school anywhere, though the spark is more likely to be a filched French fry than a racial slight.
{snip}
“If McCain wins, I’ll be crushed, because I do not want to see McCain running this country. I don’t think he’s fit enough… . I’ll try to pick up the pieces and move on, I guess.”
There are McCain supporters at the school, 19 students out of 270 voting in the mock election, but they didn’t turn up for videotaped interviews with msnbc.com.
{snip}
(Posted on October 31, 2008)
Comments
An Obama presidency will make it even worse for young black kids in this country because they will now think they can realistically achieve anything, regardless of their low average IQs. The imagined institutional barriers will have been removed, and they will have no one to blame but themselves. Remove all affirmative action, and we’ll see them really get nervous.
Or as John Stuart Mill put it in his essay “On Liberty”, the problem for the majority of these children lies with their parents:
“The fact itself, of causing the existence of a human being, is one of the most responsible actions in the range of human life. To undertake the responsibility—to bestow a life which may be either a curse or a blessing—unless the being on whom it is bestowed will have at least the ordinary chances of a desirable existence, is a crime against that being.”
Posted by at 6:15 PM on October 31
I still haven’t got over that “typical white person” comment.
Posted by at 7:22 PM on October 31
In their own countries, they would have no future to speak of. Whatever future they do have will happen only because they live in a white country. And of couse, they are as totally oblivious to that as any fish is to the water it swims in.
Posted by JustSaying at 8:43 PM on October 31
These yoofs, like the rest of the Obamination’s supporters are clueles. This is why I believe the voting age should be raised to 21 or 25, and only tax paying citizens. The founding fathers wanted the right to vote to be granted only to property owning males. Their logic was that only people with a vested interest in the country would follow the issues closely enough to make an educated vote. I think their idea was a little to restrictive, but I think that only those who are experienced enough in life, gauged by age, and those who pay taxes should be eligible to vote.
Posted by pinchegabacho at 9:37 PM on October 31
““I just hope that he keeps his word, as he’s said, that he’s going to make a lot of good changes,” said Shaday Brown, 17, whose uncle is the noted Black Arts playwright Ben Caldwell. “I just hope he’s up to his part, just hoping he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do.”
“Keeps his word?” “Going to make a lot of changes?” Well, what is being referred to here? I mean, all the Obamanation has ever said was that he will instill change, but he’s never elaborated on what those changes would be.
I’m betting blacks like these have the impression that if Obama gets in they’ll be able to sit on corporate boards, work as brokers on the stock exchange, engage in all the professions Hollywood depicts them as excelling in, etc. They’ve been told by all the lefties and every single one of their leaders that their low test scores, their lack of achievement, their school drop out rate and their absence of any kind of accomplishments in math and the sciences have all been off limits to them because the white man is holding them back.
There is no other way to say it, but they’re so dimwitted they really believe all the nonsense coming from Jeremiah Wright and the rest of black leadership, and they really expect to excel if a black man is in charge of the country.
Nobody on the left has considered these kinds of possibilities, and I’m betting there’s going to be some real problems and disappointments to handly during an Obamanation tenure.
Posted by ice at 10:40 PM on October 31
In regards to the comment made above by “ice”. I couldnt have said it better. However, I believe the blame will still be passed on to whitey, its going to be that way until we have some “real” change.
Shaun
Posted by Shaun at 1:54 AM on November 1
“And I think if he does win, also, it can be a disappointment, if he doesn’t deliver.”
An Obama victory is seen as both a pay-out and pay-back.
How much blacks can demand before whites see where this is going is the great unknown.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 10:00 AM on November 1
” ‘If Obama doesn’t win, it’s a big disappointment,’ said Dorian Whyte, 18, who moved to New York City from Jamaica. ‘And I think if he does win, also, it can be a disappointment, if he doesn’t deliver.’
‘I just hope that he keeps his word’
‘I just hope that he keeps his word, as he’s said, that he’s going to make a lot of good changes,’ said Shaday Brown, 17, whose uncle is the noted Black Arts playwright Ben Caldwell. “I just hope he’s up to his part, just hoping he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do.’”
Even these callow “yoofs” know, deep down, that they have been sold a bill of goods by The Messiah(tm). Think of the backlash that’s coming from some of his own “supporters” when they don’t get a free Escalade and plasma screen TV, just for voting for him.
Growing up is often painful.
Posted by Wild Eyed Charlie at 11:17 AM on November 1
In the original article, it was nice to see pictures of young black men willing to smile for the camera instead of striking the more customary pose of looking as “bad” as possible.
Maybe it has to do with the absence of whites. Most things improve with segregation.
Posted by H. Dumpty at 4:22 AM on November 2
There is peril whether he wins or not, only the timing differs.
Posted by zone at 7:16 PM on November 2
What the Department of State has to say about Obama’s beloved country, Kenya.
2004, the Department of State found that
“Kenya is a country of origin, destination, and transit for victims trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor. Victims are trafficked from South Asian and East Asian countries and the Middle East through Kenya to European destinations for sexual exploitation.
Asian nationals, principally Indians, Bangladeshi, and Nepalese, are trafficked into Kenya and coerced into bonded labor in the construction and garment industries. Kenyan children are trafficked internally from rural areas to urban centers and coastal areas into involuntary servitude, including work as street vendors and day laborers, and into prostitution.
Women and children are trafficked from Burundi and Rwanda to coastal areas in Kenya for sexual exploitation in the growing sex tourism industry. “
Posted by at 7:15 PM on November 3
the laughing, gun-wielding, straw-haired CIA man, Felix Leiter. He rescues Bond in Goldfinger, and as far as I can remember he helps to rescue him in Thunderball, in Dr No, and he goes on to provide invaluable assistance at critical moments throughout the series, in spite of having his arm eaten by a shark in Live and Let Die.
As a child growing up in the Cold War, it was always obvious to me that Felix Leiter was more than just a prop, a plot device. By the sheer regularity with which he rescues the British agent he is clearly intended to stand for the whole relationship between America and Britain as it has been played out over the last 100 years.
He is a symbol of that great guarantee offered by America - with all her power and her can-do spirit - to the rest of the world. He reminds us of the historic role of the United States: the rich, friendly relative who, having exhausted all the other options, can generally be relied upon to do the right thing.
When Felix Leiter pulls Bond’s chestnuts out of the fire, as he so often does, he stands for the America that came to our aid at last in the First World War, the America that stormed Omaha beach, the America that faced down the Russians in the Cold War and defeated what Ronald Reagan was right to call an Evil Empire.
That’s what Felix Leiter means to me; that’s roughly what I imagine he meant to Ian Fleming; and so it was of course fascinating to see how he has evolved in the latest Bond film, Quantum of Solace. There are two important differences. First, in what can only be seen as a sad comment on the Bush years, the other Americans (apart from Leiter) are no longer good guys. Absolutely not.
Leiter saves Bond’s life, as usual, but the other Americans are up to all sorts of mischief, trying to destabilise Bolivia and even trying to assassinate Bond. And the second notable divergence from the Fleming canon is that Felix Leiter is now a black man, in recognition of the way that America is changing.
Posted by at 9:17 PM on November 3
Obama’s mother was an educated white liberal, and his father a Kenyan.
Although Bronx students may not be always conscious of it, he’s not a ‘typical’ black like them.
Posted by at 10:34 PM on November 3
Even these callow “yoofs” know, deep down, that they have been sold a bill of goods by The Messiah(tm). Think of the backlash that’s coming from some of his own “supporters” when they don’t get a free Escalade and plasma screen TV, just for voting for him.
Not all of em want escalades, some would settle for HUMMERS!
Posted by Skip at 6:27 AM on November 4