Kanye West calls slavery 'a choice' and states that black people are 'mentally imprisoned' as rapper implodes during interview

Kanye West appeared on TMZ Live Tuesday where he made a number of comments that managed to stir up controversy
'When you hear about slavery for 400 years. 400 years? That sounds like a choice,' stated Kanye during the interview
'You were there for 400 years, and it is all of y'all? It is like we are mentally imprisoned,' he went on to state



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Kanye West delivered a number of shocking diatribes while appearing on TMZ Live on Tuesday.

The first of these occurred early in the program when he was asked to respond to a statement made by Tha Dogg Pound rapper Daz Dillinger last week in which he said that he wanted members of the Crips to assault Kanye for referring to Cheeto-Faced Ferret-Wearing Shit Gibbon as his 'brother.'

'I said wow, this is really like the Malcolm X movie. They are really going to send some black people out to me,' said Kanye.

He then went on to say: 'You can live through an a** whipping. Probably the idea is to beat sense into me. But when you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.'

'You were there for 400 years, and it is all of y'all? It is like we are mentally imprisoned. I like the word prison because slavery goes too direct to the idea of blacks. It is like slavery, holocaust. Holocaust, is Jews, and slavery is blacks.

'So prison is something that unites us as one race. Black and whites, one race. It is like we are one with the human race, we are human beings and stuff.'

Kanye tried to to move on at that point, but Harvey Levin brought the conversation back to the rapper's comment about slavery.

'Right now, we're choosing to be enslaved,' said Kanye, who spoke about a recent FaceTime conversation he had with Ibrahim 'Ebro' Darden and conservative commentator Candice Owens.

He said that because Owens shut Ebro down during a conversation they had, Ebro refused to allow Owens on his show.

'So you're stiffling her voice,' said Kanye.

'You're choosing to enslave people's minds. You're choosing to not let the truth be free.'

The talk then shifted to Kanye's support of Cheeto-Faced Ferret-Wearing Shit Gibbon, for which the rapper believes he was unfairly attacked based on the fact that he is a black man.

'The mob tries to tell you what to think. The mob tries to make all blacks be Democrats for food stamps and stuff. It is the mob,' declared Kanye.

On the subject of Cheeto-Faced Ferret-Wearing Shit Gibbon however, Kanye did explain that politics has little to do with his affinity for the real-estate-scion-turned-commander-in-chief.

'My righteous point of view is freedom of thought. I don't have extremely strong political opinions. You can talk to John Legend if you want opinions,' said Kanye.

'I have never been into politics. I just love Trump. That is my boy.'

Kanye then pointed out that a number of rappers felt the same way before Cheeto-Faced Ferret-Wearing Shit Gibbon took office.

'It is like the media and the liberals and the echo chamber and all that is having the most soar loss of all time,' explained Kanye.

'We are going to keep putting out -- it is like torture porn. We are going to keep showing you negative, negative, negative, negative.'

He then went on to reveal that while watching the funeral for former first lady Barbara Bush and seeing George W. Bush push his father's wheelchair into the church he wanted to apologize for saying that the former leader 'did not care about black people.'

Obama meanwhile was referred to as an 'opioid' who 'pacified the pain' of the country by Kanye.




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5679763/Kanye-West-Slavery-choice-prison-unites-black-whites.html

Is his point to say that he thinks it's time to move on from the history of slaves? Not to dwell on the past and look to the future with less bitterness? Are people twisting his meaning and taking umbrage for the wrong reasons? Or is he just an arse?

HoratioTarr wrote:Is his point to say that he thinks it's time to move on from the history of slaves?   Not to dwell on the past and look to the future with less bitterness?    Are people twisting his meaning and taking umbrage for the wrong reasons?   Or is he just an arse?

His point wasn't moving on though was it?
He was saying that slavery was a choice.

I saw his video, I saw Wil.i.ams response to it, and I think his response is absolutely brilliant, true, and spoken from the heart.

He's alluding to the theory of positive liberty (or freedom) and urging that blacks are locked into a mind set that entraps us--i.e., positive non-freedom, or illiberty.  Negative freedom, of course, is the old, traditional notion of bondage or physical incarceration.    Positive freedom--the freedom of thought and perspective--is the obverse.  Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty”: Two Concepts of Liberty, Isaiah Berlin, Oxford University Press.  http://www.theamericanconservative.com/repository/isaiah-berlins-two-concepts-of-liberty/

America is an awkward place to speak about positive freedom with respect to race.  We equate the loss of positive freedom, or mental illiberty or restriction, more commonly with brain washing, or RW conservatism.  It's often referred to as a closed mind.

With America we have the physical manifestation of negative freedom right up until 1863, followed by a century and a half of peonage, separate but equal, and blatant segregation.  It's not the place, nor the history, to talk about positive illiberty since the evidence of negative illiberty is so glaring.  Hence all the reactive criticism.

Original Quill wrote:He's alluding to the theory of positive liberty (or freedom) and urging that we are locked into a mind set that entraps us--i.e., positive non-freedom, or illiberty.  Negative freedom, of course, is the old, traditional notion of bondage or physical incarceration.    Positive freedom--the freedom of thought and perspective--is the obverse.  Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty”: Two Concepts of Liberty, Isaiah Berlin, Oxford University Press.  http://www.theamericanconservative.com/repository/isaiah-berlins-two-concepts-of-liberty/

America is an awkward place to speak about positive freedom with respect to race.  We equate the loss of positive freedom, or mental illiberty, more commonly with brain washing, or RW conservatism.  It's often referred to as a closed mind.

With America we have the physical manifestation of negative freedom right up until 1863, followed by a century and a half of peonage, separate but equal, and blatant segregation.  It's not the place, nor the history, to talk about positive illiberty since the evidence of negative illiberty is so glaring.  Hence all the reactive criticism.

Good points

My first reaction to his statement was exactly as you said.  That he was trying to point out that the mind set of people now has to free itself from the negative energy that's gone down through the centuries to still affect lives today.   I watched a documentary just the other day about those very brave people who defied all the hate and racism to attend college/uni in the 1960s in the deep south at a time when you couldn't even sit in a shop with whites to have a coffee.   They did it with such courageous dignity it makes one very humble and ashamed of how they were treated.   But there comes a point when you have to let go of that, though not necessarily forget.

This image always moves me, because you can really feel for this girl.  Dorothy Counts...was one of the first black students admitted to the Harry Harding High School, in Charlotte, North Carolina.  She was spat at.  Had rocks thrown at her.  Endured terrible racial hatred.   Not once did she feel sorry for herself.

Syl wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:Is his point to say that he thinks it's time to move on from the history of slaves?   Not to dwell on the past and look to the future with less bitterness?    Are people twisting his meaning and taking umbrage for the wrong reasons?   Or is he just an arse?

His point wasn't moving on though was it?
He was saying that slavery was a choice.

I saw his video, I saw Wil.i.ams response to it, and I think his response is absolutely brilliant, true, and spoken from the heart.

He said after 400 years it was a choice? I took that to mean that today, now, people have a choice not to let that past affect them in negative ways.

HT wrote:But there comes a point when you have to let go of that, though not necessarily forget.

Unfortunately, I believe we haven't reached that point yet.  Oh, we've stopped blatant slavery, but we have replaced it with much more subtle forms--peonage, separate but equal, and segregation.

What we have seen since 1964 is the hostility gone underground.  As Lee Atwater urged, the way to speak and act negatively toward blacks, is through code.  https://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-Southern-Strategy/

Those who believe that racial antipathy is gone from America forever, are simply naive.  As Atwater urged, you simply hide it.

Original Quill wrote:

HT wrote:But there comes a point when you have to let go of that, though not necessarily forget.

Unfortunately, I believe we haven't reached that point yet.  Oh, we've stopped blatant slavery, but we have replaced it with much more subtle forms--peonage, separate but equal, and segregation.  What we have seen since 1964 is the hostility gone underground.  As Lee Atwater urged, the way to speak and act negatively toward blacks, is through code.  https://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-Southern-Strategy/

Those who believe that racial antipathy is gone from America forever, are simply naive.  As Atwater urged, you simply hide it.

Yeah, agreed. America in particular seems to have had, and still does, terrible racism problems on a scale you don't see here in the UK. But then the States also seem to have terrible employment laws too that simply would not be tolerated here. I have a friend who lives in Mechanicsville. She endures the most awful sexist and ageist abuse in her workplace that would see the company sued here in Britain.

HoratioTarr wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Unfortunately, I believe we haven't reached that point yet.  Oh, we've stopped blatant slavery, but we have replaced it with much more subtle forms--peonage, separate but equal, and segregation.  What we have seen since 1964 is the hostility gone underground.  As Lee Atwater urged, the way to speak and act negatively toward blacks, is through code.  https://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-Southern-Strategy/

Those who believe that racial antipathy is gone from America forever, are simply naive.  As Atwater urged, you simply hide it.

Yeah, agreed.   America in particular seems to have had, and still does, terrible racism problems on a scale you don't see here in the UK.   But then the States also seem to have terrible employment laws too that simply would not be tolerated here.   I have a friend who lives in Mechanicsville.  She endures the most awful sexist and ageist abuse in her workplace that would see the company sued here in Britain.

Employment discrimination is covered by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  This law has gone up and down over the years, depending upon who is seated on the Supreme Court.

Today, America is the most divided (between parties) that it has ever been.  Title VII is a victim of this fracturing.  Along with abortion and voting, a lot of negative decisions have come down regarding equality in employment since the Republicans have been in control.

Mechanicsville, is in Hanover County, Virginia, and Virginia is one of the states that is controlled by Republicans.  What these states do with regard to issues such as abortion and employment, is chip away at the edges, challenging decisions of more liberal courts, not directly, but by incrementalism.  Any conditions left permissible by the S.Ct., are expanded by southern states to the maximum; alternatively, any expansion is most narrowly interpreted.

Equality and tolerance is much more customary in states like California, Washington, Massachusetts and New York--the bi-coastal regions of the US.

I’ve come the thread late but I do think that he was trying to say that if you hold on to something, then that’s all you’ll ever be because you’re not moving on.

He makes odd statements about the illuminati too.

Tbh I thought he was talking of slavery and that they could've left, which they couldn't. Seeing some of the answers here, I can see he could've been saying your all slaves because you allow things or maybe hold back.. Not sure though.

I don't know why he said it to begin with. Blacks were taken from Africa, never saw their home or loved ones again and enslaved for rich people on their plantations. What choice did they have.

He has been in hospital for being mentally ill, so maybe he says things without thinking.

I think it's just Kanye being Kanye, which is all Kanye can be. To be fair, he was probably talking more about how you need to shed any sort of victim mentality, or you really are kind of choosing to be a slave to it. But he's a media phenomenon and is probably subconsciously trained to say things in the most attention-grabbing manner he can come up with.

Ben Mothafuckin' Reilly wrote:I think it's just Kanye being Kanye, which is all Kanye can be. To be fair, he was probably talking more about how you need to shed any sort of victim mentality, or you really are kind of choosing to be a slave to it. But he's a media phenomenon and is probably subconsciously trained to say things in the most attention-grabbing manner he can come up with.

That's a good way to put it.  The "victim mentality" is the mind restricted to forever being in a slave mindset.  That's a lack of positive freedom (restriction from positive freedom = closed mind as to alternatives).

Any inflexible mentality is a closed and locked mind, and so positive freedom is a free mind, open to alternatives.  To put it backwards: Negative restriction is handcuffs for the hands; positive restriction is handcuffs for the mind.

West makes some valid points but his target audience does not respect him.

So the whole exercise is a fail.

Will.i.am is respected.

Dear friends of mine are Windrush children. When we first met they had nothing, lived in poverty in a rough area of Manchester, but with hard work and determination they are now building their own £350K retirement home in Dominica. Both have run their own businesses very successfully for decades. Life is what you make it. They could just as easily have sat there in their pokey council flat moaning about how black people are never given chances and remained in that situation for life.

I agree HT.

My friend and neighbour comes from Dominica, and her husband from Jamaica. Both in their eighties, both came in the 60s. They've bought their house, never had benefits and her children have built a house in Dominica where she goes a lot. Also they and her grandchildren pay for her to go.

Theyre lovely people, who are always laughing. Love them to bits.

HT wrote:Life is what you make it. They could just as easily have sat there in their pokey council flat moaning about how black people are never given chances and remained in that situation for life.

That's the picture that society wants to believe, particularly in a democracy, but it's not so real as it sounds.  One, life is not always what you make it.  You live in a society where other people and institutions affect your options.

Two, the disenfranchised person is not always sitting "there in their pokey council flat moaning about how black people are never given chances and remained in that situation for life."  Is a black man, murdered by policemen, sitting in his pokey council flat?  Or the black child who can't get an education, or god forbid a decent meal?

What you have there is the myth that life is fair.  Tell the cop to holster his weapon, feed the child, and stop preventing the education and employ the disenfranchised ... let's include a little reality, and then let's take a serious look at the myth.

Original Quill wrote:

HT wrote:Life is what you make it. They could just as easily have sat there in their pokey council flat moaning about how black people are never given chances and remained in that situation for life.

That's the picture that society wants to believe, particularly in a democracy, but it's not so real as it sounds.  One, life is not always what you make it.  You live in a society where other people and institutions affect your options.

Two, the disenfranchised person is not always sitting "there in their pokey council flat moaning about how black people are never given chances and remained in that situation for life."  Is a black man, murdered by policemen, sitting in his pokey council flat?  Or the black child who can't get an education, or god forbid a decent meal?

What you have there is the myth that life is fair.  Tell the cop to holster his weapon, feed the child, and stop preventing the education and employ the disenfranchised ... let's include a little reality, and then let's take a serious look at the myth.

In the UK everybody has access to an education, free health care and our police don't generally shoot people because of their ethnic background or the skin colour. Are you saying that black kids in the States are denied an education?

HoratioTarr wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

HT wrote:Life is what you make it. They could just as easily have sat there in their pokey council flat moaning about how black people are never given chances and remained in that situation for life.

That's the picture that society wants to believe, particularly in a democracy, but it's not so real as it sounds.  One, life is not always what you make it.  You live in a society where other people and institutions affect your options.

Two, the disenfranchised person is not always sitting "there in their pokey council flat moaning about how black people are never given chances and remained in that situation for life."  Is a black man, murdered by policemen, sitting in his pokey council flat?  Or the black child who can't get an education, or god forbid a decent meal?

What you have there is the myth that life is fair.  Tell the cop to holster his weapon, feed the child, and stop preventing the education and employ the disenfranchised ... let's include a little reality, and then let's take a serious look at the myth.

In the UK everybody has access to an education, free health care and our police don't generally shoot people because of their ethnic background or the skin colour.   Are you saying that black kids in the States are denied an education?  

I've ranted about this before -- and I don't know if it's the same in the UK -- but in America, schools are funded by local property taxes in the surrounding area.

What that means is that schools in poor neighborhoods get very little money, while schools in rich areas get tons of money.

Now, I think the exact same should be spent on each student, regardless of how wealthy their family is, because of course they didn't get a choice in that.

You could even make an argument for spending a bit more on poor kids than you do on wealthy kids, seeing as wealthy kids' parents can afford tutors, private school, etc.

HoratioTarr wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

HT wrote:Life is what you make it. They could just as easily have sat there in their pokey council flat moaning about how black people are never given chances and remained in that situation for life.

That's the picture that society wants to believe, particularly in a democracy, but it's not so real as it sounds.  One, life is not always what you make it.  You live in a society where other people and institutions affect your options.

Two, the disenfranchised person is not always sitting "there in their pokey council flat moaning about how black people are never given chances and remained in that situation for life."  Is a black man, murdered by policemen, sitting in his pokey council flat?  Or the black child who can't get an education, or god forbid a decent meal?

What you have there is the myth that life is fair.  Tell the cop to holster his weapon, feed the child, and stop preventing the education and employ the disenfranchised ... let's include a little reality, and then let's take a serious look at the myth.

In the UK everybody has access to an education, free health care and our police don't generally shoot people because of their ethnic background or the skin colour.   Are you saying that black kids in the States are denied an education?  

they are denied a properly funded education most definitely.
they are LOCALLY funded, the amount they get depends on the wealth of the neighbourhood.
the US system is Systematically designed to keep the poor uneducated.

Here and in the UK too I believe the Poorer the areas tend to get additional funding, in the USA they get substantially less funding.

HT wrote:Are you saying that black kids in the States are denied an education?

Yes.  For the reasons stated about by veya and Ben.  It's the old separate but equal...

Ben Mothafuckin' Reilly wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:

In the UK everybody has access to an education, free health care and our police don't generally shoot people because of their ethnic background or the skin colour.   Are you saying that black kids in the States are denied an education?  

I've ranted about this before -- and I don't know if it's the same in the UK -- but in America, schools are funded by local property taxes in the surrounding area.

What that means is that schools in poor neighborhoods get very little money, while schools in rich areas get tons of money.

Now, I think the exact same should be spent on each student, regardless of how wealthy their family is, because of course they didn't get a choice in that.

You could even make an argument for spending a bit more on poor kids than you do on wealthy kids, seeing as wealthy kids' parents can afford tutors, private school, etc.

That's a raw deal and shame on America, is all I can say. For such a large wealthy country you'd think they'd have their shit sorted by investing in all young people for the betterment of their future. Having said this, there will always be those who show no interest in a free, decent education and go on to have wasted feckless lives.

How does one account for those who have little education yet through dogged determination and focus make something of themselves? There's plenty of examples of that. And it's not down to luck. It's down to personal striving for betterment in spite of poverty and little education. Steve Jobs springs to mind, the college dropout. And being poor hasn't stopped kids in third world countries from trekking miles to school in order to get an education. Yet in the UK, when presented on a plate, lots of kids skive school and perform badly for their entire time there.

So, as I see it, how successful you are in life is down to one thing. Yourself.

We all have choices to try to do our best to succeed in life no matter the odds against us.

+1

HT wrote:That's a raw deal and shame on America, is all I can say. For such a large wealthy country you'd think they'd have their shit sorted by investing in all young people for the betterment of their future. Having said this, there will always be those who show no interest in a free, decent education and go on to have wasted feckless lives.

America (the US) is neither a democracy, nor does rule of law prevail.  It is a system of privilege.

You have expressed the privilege yourself, HT, only you expressed in terms of meritocracy.  But merit is hard to recognize--most people don't bear a tattoo saying I am meritorious--so most people use profiles instead of actual merit.

A black child receives a poor education, due to a poor neighborhood, holding back his natural talent.  This happens all the time in black neighborhoods.  As a result, most people brand blacks as underachievers.  And so it goes, round and round.  The poor education brands the black child, and so he is self-selected into poor neighborhoods, and round it goes.

Any attempt to reach down from above, to correct this improper branding, is considered government intervention, and so it is socialism.  Round and round in a bigger circle.

America is neither a democracy, nor is it ruled by law.  It is the perpetuation of privilege.

HT wrote:How does one account for those who have little education yet through dogged determination and focus make something of themselves?

So you admit (and accept) that there are obstacles placed directly in the way of certain brands of people? Once you grasp that concept, you are on the right path. You use terms like "dogged determination", yet the real question is, why are some penalized in the first place? We mentioned brands, above, and for sure the black man carries a brand around in his skin color.

So he starts out with this man-made obstacle, and the circle continues. How much better if we could all start out at an equal starting line? But we don't. We have institutionalized our rigged competition.

HT wrote:There's plenty of examples of that. And it's not down to luck. It's down to personal striving for betterment in spite of poverty and little education.

Now, I've already made the point that the person, of your "personal striving", shouldn't have to start the race at a disadvantage. But you ignore that...you seem to be saying he is deserving of his downfall, because he doesn't have special qualities.

What kind of a twisted world is that? The victim is victimized once again. It's bad enough that we brand him inferior because of his black skin, but then we say he is at fault doubly for not having the overriding qualities you call 'dogged determination'.

Then, when a black man has the initial talents, and shows the 'dogged determination' to overcome these man-made obstacles, and goes to Columbia University, and thence on to Harvard Law School, and graduates with honors and President of Law Review, and goes on to become President...he is accused of being 'uppity'. In fact, the entire RW nation goes apoplectic. They oppose his entire administration, and claim he failed because he was black, despite the fact that he overcame all odds they put in his path.

Where's your meritocracy now? Where's your 'dogged determination' get you when they still count your skin color more than your achievement?

America is not a democracy, nor does it abide by rule of law.

Quill, I’d like to pick up on this point, if I may, clipped from one of your posts, above:

Quill wrote: A black child receives a poor education, due to a poor neighborhood, holding back his natural talent.  This happens all the time in black neighborhoods.  As a result, most people brand blacks as underachievers.  And so it goes, round and round.  The poor education brands the black child, and so he is self-selected into poor neighborhoods, and round it goes.

I agree with this statement as a whole but I’d like to pick it apart just a little, if I may.

Firstly, why aren’t there any decent black teachers who want to work to amend this? Surely there must be some black people who decide to go into teaching so that they may change this merry-go-round of poor education?
Secondly, I know that a student who wants to do well will do well, wherever they are educated. So are these children deciding to stay uneducated? Are the parents deciding to keep them uneducated?

Education is free so I’m not sure where being poor comes into it.

Having said all of those points - and they are debatable, I agree - I still know that poor kids nearly always fare worse when it comes to schooling.

Original Quill wrote:

HT wrote:There's plenty of examples of that. And it's not down to luck. It's down to personal striving for betterment in spite of poverty and little education.

Now, I've already made the point that the person, of your "personal striving", shouldn't have to start the race at a disadvantage.  But you ignore that...you seem to be saying he is deserving of his downfall, because he doesn't have special qualities.

What kind of a twisted world is that?  The victim is victimized once again.  It's bad enough that we brand him inferior because of his black skin, but then we say he is at fault doubly for not having the overriding qualities you call 'dogged determination'.

Then, when a black man has the initial talents, and shows the 'dogged determination' to overcome these man-made obstacles, and goes to Columbia University, and thence on to Harvard Law School, and graduates with honors and President of Law Review, and goes on to become President...he is accused of being 'uppity'.  In fact, the entire RW nation goes apoplectic.  They oppose his entire administration, and claim he failed because he was black, despite the fact that he overcame all odds they put in his path.

Where's your meritocracy now?  Where's your 'dogged determination' get you when they still count your skin color more than your achievement?

America is not a democracy, nor does it abide by rule of law.

How about looking at helping do away with what segregates people, through, the invented concepts of race?

There is nothing stopping anyone achieveing in life, if this is their goal.

You will find people that will hinder this, no matter their views, on a multitude of reasons, but overall, this can and is overcome. You have to ask yourself, what is the end goal here with people? You simple paint everything as black and white and by such reasoning. Ensure such a divide continues to exist, because you look at it politically. You are not showing anything to actually solve actual racial problems itself. You just continually look to blame.

Of course its important to recognise problems, so we can get to the bottom of these issues, but your answers, in no way actualluy help.

I mean using your reasoning, how is it that here in the UK, now poor white boys are at the bottom of the pile,when it comes to learning. Is this, due to an over emphasis of trying to correct a problem, that now through such good work, ends up effecting and discriminating against others?

Hence the point is to stop looking at this through invented labels and actually tackle the real problems, that of relative poverty. The moment you continually look to divide people by their skin colour. Then of course, these problems will continue to exist. Its time we eradicated these labels, as they are doing nothing, but continue to segregate humanity through the most stupid and dumbest way possible. Through the definition of their skin colour.

We all want to see an end to racism and to me, the way to end that, is to educate away from such dumb racial labels. The US does it better than the UK in once sense, as they identify as an American people, no matter their ethnicity. Of which the US has far more of a wide diversity in ethnicty, that any other nation.

You want to end racism, then you have to get at its very core, The dumb belief to divide people through races, that have next to no biological bases.

This sums it up best

A good education also depends on the attitude of the pupils. You can't buy a good attitude, no matter how much money you chuck at a school.

Raggamuffin wrote:A good education also depends on the attitude of the pupils. You can't buy a good attitude, no matter how much money you chuck at a school.

That is a point I just made too. If a pupil wants to do well, they will.

HoratioTarr wrote:

Ben Mothafuckin' Reilly wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:

In the UK everybody has access to an education, free health care and our police don't generally shoot people because of their ethnic background or the skin colour.   Are you saying that black kids in the States are denied an education?  

I've ranted about this before -- and I don't know if it's the same in the UK -- but in America, schools are funded by local property taxes in the surrounding area.

What that means is that schools in poor neighborhoods get very little money, while schools in rich areas get tons of money.

Now, I think the exact same should be spent on each student, regardless of how wealthy their family is, because of course they didn't get a choice in that.

You could even make an argument for spending a bit more on poor kids than you do on wealthy kids, seeing as wealthy kids' parents can afford tutors, private school, etc.

That's a raw deal and shame on America, is all I can say.    For such a large wealthy country you'd think they'd have their shit sorted by investing in all young people for the betterment of their future.  Having said this,  there will always be those who show no interest in a free, decent education and go on to have wasted feckless lives.  

How does one account for those who have little education yet through dogged determination and focus make something of themselves?   There's plenty of examples of that.   And it's not down to luck.   It's down to personal striving for betterment in spite of poverty and little education.   Steve Jobs springs to mind, the college dropout.  And being poor hasn't stopped kids in third world countries from trekking miles to school in order to get an education.   Yet in the UK, when presented on a plate, lots of kids skive school and perform badly for their entire time there.

So, as I see it, how successful you are in life is down to one thing.   Yourself.

We all have choices to try to do our best to succeed in life no matter the odds against us.

Steve Jobs attended good Schools and got a good education.

the College drop out thing has NOTHING to do with education and EVERYTHING to do with Copyright of Intellectual Property since if you Make something using the universities Facilities then it belongs to the university... exactly the same as Gates and Zuckberg.

veya_victaous wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:

That's a raw deal and shame on America, is all I can say.    For such a large wealthy country you'd think they'd have their shit sorted by investing in all young people for the betterment of their future.  Having said this,  there will always be those who show no interest in a free, decent education and go on to have wasted feckless lives.  

How does one account for those who have little education yet through dogged determination and focus make something of themselves?   There's plenty of examples of that.   And it's not down to luck.   It's down to personal striving for betterment in spite of poverty and little education.   Steve Jobs springs to mind, the college dropout.  And being poor hasn't stopped kids in third world countries from trekking miles to school in order to get an education.   Yet in the UK, when presented on a plate, lots of kids skive school and perform badly for their entire time there.

So, as I see it, how successful you are in life is down to one thing.   Yourself.

We all have choices to try to do our best to succeed in life no matter the odds against us.

Steve Jobs attended good Schools and got a good education.

the College drop out thing has NOTHING to do with education and EVERYTHING to do with Copyright of Intellectual Property since if you Make something using the universities Facilities then it belongs to the university... exactly the same as Gates and Zuckberg.

Doesn't change anything of what I've said. You can have people with no education at all that make a success of their lives.

In Reality very very few successful people have no education.
in the arts and sports but besides that bugger all

eddie wrote:Quill, I’d like to pick up on this point, if I may, clipped from one of your posts, above:

Quill wrote: A black child receives a poor education, due to a poor neighborhood, holding back his natural talent.  This happens all the time in black neighborhoods.  As a result, most people brand blacks as underachievers.  And so it goes, round and round.  The poor education brands the black child, and so he is self-selected into poor neighborhoods, and round it goes.

I agree with this statement as a whole but I’d like to pick it apart just a little, if I may.

Firstly, why aren’t there any decent black teachers who want to work to amend this? Surely there must be some black people who decide to go into teaching so that they may change this merry-go-round of poor education?
Secondly, I know that a student who wants to do well will do well, wherever they are educated. So are these children deciding to stay uneducated? Are the parents deciding to keep them uneducated?

Education is free so I’m not sure where being poor comes into it.

Having said all of those points - and they are debatable, I agree - I still know that poor kids nearly always fare worse when it comes to schooling.

Education is not free, it paid for by the local community in the USA (Nationally, here and in the UK which makes a HUGE difference)

there are decent Black teachers but they want to be Paid so they work in middle class (or higher)schools with sufficient funding,

It doesn't matter how much determination the Student has if they don't have access to good textbooks/tools etc they are not going to do well. They don't have a choice unless they can afford to send them to a private school.

Okay so where are all the decent, black adults who go into teaching because they love it and want to change a child’s world?

eddie wrote:Okay so where are all the decent, black adults who go into teaching because they love it and want to change a child’s world?

They are reassigned to better schools, for the most part. Teachers don't get to choose what school they teach in, they're assigned to teach in whatever school within the school district needs a math teacher or a science teacher or whatever.

People in wealthier parts of the district tend to have sway and know the members of the school board and the administrators, so they have some influence over this as well.

It's not really that the poor schools are full of bad teachers -- they're just full of inexperienced teachers, with a few rotten ones who never impressed anybody enough to move them to a place where they'd be more visible.

Well then, you need a president that makes that stupid law about “teachers being assigned and not getting a choice” abolished.

Obama should’ve done that. He’s black.

I'm not, by the way, defending our horrible system in the least. I've said for years that America is unequal unless we start investing an equitable amount into the education of every child.

I know that some students can thrive in any environment. But if we had a fair system, deliberate underachievers and truly lazy students would have one less excuse.

eddie wrote:Well then, you need a president that makes that stupid law about “teachers being assigned and not getting a choice” abolished.

Obama should’ve done that. He’s black.

No President of the United States has ever had the power to do that. The president can only influence laws at the federal level, and education is administrated by law at the state level.

Yeah, you need a law to change that too.

Seems to me that someone, somewhere wants to keep certain people uneducated. Someone higher than your president, if even HE can’t get the law changed.

Odd.

eddie wrote:Yeah, you need a law to change that too.

Seems to me that someone, somewhere wants to keep certain people uneducated. Someone higher than your president, if even HE can’t get the law changed.

Odd.

People from any particular state -- say, Texas -- having a problem with the federal government having that level of control over education is roughly, quite roughly, analogous to the people of the UK having a problem with the EU having that level of control over education.

So the people have the say? They can override the presiden?
That’s even odder.

Sorry I do ask a ton of questions

eddie wrote:So the people have the say? They can override the presiden?
That’s even odder.

Sorry I do ask a ton of questions

The president's powers are rather severely limited -- and a lot of Americans don't understand that either.

A short list of things presidents can't do, according to the constitution:

* Enact a law that hasn't been approved by majorities of both houses of Congress (or refuse to sign a bill that has been approved by both houses, including two-thirds of the Senate)

* Declare war

* Create taxes that haven't been approved by Congress

* Appoint judges without Congressional approval

* Establish a federal budget without Congressional approval

The constitution also delegates a lot of power to the states, which can create their own taxes (income, sales, etc.), their own laws (remember when gay marriage was only legal in some states?), their own sentencing guidelines for criminals, and their own military forces (Texas has both its own army and its own navy).

There’s always someone higher than someone.
But no one knows who’s the highest!

Or maybe I’m chatting my own kind of whackadoodle nonsense.

eddie wrote:There’s always someone higher than someone.
But no one knows who’s the highest!

Or maybe I’m chatting my own kind of whackadoodle nonsense.

If you're saying our government is bought and paid for, I agree. If you're saying the New World Order controls all the governments, that's whackadoodle.

I didnt give them a name.
You can name them what you like. There’s still someone higher than the government, right?

eddie wrote:There’s always someone higher than someone.
But no one knows who’s the highest!

Or maybe I’m chatting my own kind of whackadoodle nonsense.

it not 'Someone Higher' it is their Jurisdiction
it is the same in Australia the constitution outlines Aspects that are Federal Jurisdiction and some that are State Jurisdiction (Education is in the State's Jurisdiction)
the big difference is in Australia we favour uniformity between states as much as practical, While the USA loves it some 'State rights' which I think in part comes from their Civil war.

And YES the US system is PURPOSELY designed to keep the poor uneducated

There’s still someone higher than the government, right?

there not supposed to be if your a secularist

“It’s not someone higher, it’s their jurisdiction” isn’t an answer?

How is that an answer to “there must be someone higher”?
If you don’t know, just say so. I’ll accept it. I won’t think any less of you!
Who makes the decision to make a jurisdiction? Who decides what one is? Why has no one challenged it?

eddie wrote:“It’s not someone higher, it’s their jurisdiction” isn’t an answer?

How is that an answer to “there must be someone higher”?
If you don’t know, just say so. I’ll accept it. I won’t think any less of you!
Who makes the decision to make a jurisdiction? Who decides what one is? Why has no one challenged it?

Who makes the decision to make a jurisdiction?
the Constitution, it's how they work. The US constitution has a lot of flowery stuff but the Australian Constitution is just an Outline of Which Representative Bodies Do what with what restrictions.

Who decides what one is?
the Founders of the Nation that wrote the Constitution

Why has no one challenged it?
It does routinely get challenged but in the Case of Australia it requires the Passing of a Referendum to change, so not successful very often.

So there is No "SOMEONE" higher, what is higher is our "Blueprint of Nationhood" an Administrative Document that all citizens agree to uphold.

For things within the Presidents(or Parliaments) Jurisdiction they are the most powerful BUT they are NOT a King unrestricted.
In Australia, Federal have Jurisdiction over Taxes, Defence, Corporate law, Mail, Welfare and some others, While States have Jurisdiction over Criminal Law, Health, Education, Roads (and some others) .