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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (21180)	5/1/1998 9:11:00 PM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 108807

Michael, I am not sure what you are saying about blacks and Native Americans. While there are a few tribes who have profited from opening casinos, most Native Americans are very poor, and live on reservations that are desolate, with very few essential services, and very bad schools. There is a new generation, though, where there are more college graduates, and particularly lawyers, and these young Indians are eager to lobby for their people. It should be very interesting!! It is true that a lot of blacks have made it out of poverty, and they are to be commended. But there are plenty who have not, and I just personally believe it was too soon to stop affirmative action in California education, for example. Most inner city schools are horrible. We can try harder to equalize opportunity, by starting HeadStart classes at two instead of three, and providing more parenting classes, and grants and loans and classes to show poor people how to start businesses, for example. While there are a lot of Americans who have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, blacks and Native Americans were more damaged than any other group because of the way this country was taken from the Indians, and used the slave labor of blacks. Being treated in these ways is so demeaning that several generations later, there is still a lot of anger, despair, and dysfunction. I think whatever efforts we can make to equalize opportunity and help these people heal is really good for all of us. A country with a large, stable middle class, and fewer festering inner cities, is just healthier. I don't believe welfare was a good way to help, though. I am not sure what point you are making with the statement that 70% of the poor are white. Because there is so much malnutrition, illness, and general lack of the skills it takes to help children succeed in poor families, I hope that all of them get more attention. But poor whites were not assaulted by genocide or slavery. This is an interesting little bit of writing about racism in America from today's Irish Times. Although I am not a fan of Bill Clinton, I thought the author's points were well taken: irish-times.com