When your looking at poverty, sure-it can be grouped by race, but there are many white people living in poverty in this country, too. How many? I don't know, but it's possible that it could be comparable to non-whites, but I could be wrong. In many areas, there are pockets of poverty where the vast majority of people are white, same as with hispanics and Blacks. The only real thing I can come up with is responsible parenting. I know it sounds so cliche, but case in point. I know of a single mother, she had 5 boys, she's a Black woman, and let me tell you, money was more than just tight raising her kids. She scrimped & scraped, depended on charities to clothe her kids, food boxes to feed them. She worked everyday in her life, but at low paying jobs because she didn't have the education or means to get anything better. She lived in a terrible, crime-ridden, poverty struck neighborhood filled with gangs and criminals. Everything for her children growing up to have lives of poverty and be gang members was there--every element for them to continue the lifestyle that pervaded their mothers life, grandmothers life, etc. But she chose to spend every available minute with her kids, teaching them, taking them to the library, imposing strict restrictions on them regarding who they could associate with and demanded they made all A's and B's. She helped them with their homework and basically did everything in her power to steer these young boys away from what appeared to be their destiny. It was her vs. everything else in their world. Guess what? The last boy is on schedule to graduate from college this coming May. They ALL received full rides, 4 year scholarships. So, in this case, responsible & exhaustive parenting broke the cycle of what would have been an impoverished life for these guys. Two of them have wonderful wives, have purchased their first homes & one is expecting his first child. If we had more mothers AND fathers like her, I really think that this country would be so much better off in a generation or two.southcitymom said:
ETA: It was a HUGE struggle for her, and there times that the boys hated their mother & deemed her unfair due to the restrictions and expectations she put upon them. Other kids who were "popular" in the gang and neighborhood circles made fun of them and called them "mama's boys' but she stuck to it, instilled confidence and pride in her kids and it paid off. The ones who made fun of them are still there, high school dropouts with no jobs, 5 kids of their own and no plans for the future.
They were both killed. If there was ever a perfect candidate for the death penalty, he would certainly be it. I would flip the switch on him in a second, without one iota of remorse. Sick *advertiser censored*!
