Hot Stuff: Injustice in Ohio

[Smiley and West]

	The case of Kelley Williams-Bolar. Smiley: "It’s not about school choice. It’s about all schools being choice."     West: "Nothing more sublime and beautiful than a mama’s love, and this is a mama’s love in action."

[Penguin Board of Directors]

@ Elizabeth

Elizabeth,

The issue of owning a home versus renting one makes no sense whatsoever in the circumstance. Many such idiotic obstacles are erected to serve some ulterior motives. The calculation of those spinning such devices is that people would think twice before walking away from their homes even when it was clearly a liability any financially savvy would throw away in a hurry. 

Some banks tried to pull the same trickery after they massively called in the credit cards of millions of Americans who were never late on their payments. Merchants, such as car rental companies, soon found that many people had only debit cards. To sustain their business, the merchants adjusted quickly.

Rational people felt it was odd that their credit cards were pulled when they were never late! Ironically, the fact that they were never late was the real reason they were not 'good customers' to these banks. The banks' definition of good customers covered only those who incurred late payment penalties, swelling the bogus profits these banks declared. Logical? Go figure!

Elizabeth Kendall said:

SMDH !  I live in Cleveland and when i heard this story I thought back when i was trying to enroll my nephew into high school after taking him in. ( He was getting into a lot of trouble in another state). I was told since he I don't have custody of him then I can't enroll him. Getting custody isn't easy and quick since he was about to be 18 and he was from another state. I was also told the main reason for the custody is because i a RENTER NOT A HOMEOWNER.  If i owned my own ~ i could allow whomever to live at my residents. SMDH.  I had to eventually find a home school program which I ended up encounter the same run around.  Somehow we got around some loopholes since he turned 18 BUT later on the program was eliminated. They found out to many kids were in the program improperly.  (definitely my nephew was one of them.)  When my son was in the 7th grade I did the same ... since my mom was a homeowner .. we said we lived with my mom ..so he could go to the best vocational school.  As a parent our job is to protect our children. AND WHAT HAPPENED TO NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND.  I've read stories of parents harming their children and not getting so much jail time.  Why didn't the school just have the children removed?  Why punish a good mom for trying her best at providing her children with a better education that her neighborhood could provide?  I know the school didn't suggest helping her with some financial assistance to possibly move into the neighborhood ... ANY SUGGESTION WOULD OF BEEN BETTER THAN JAIL. 

 

[Penguin Board of Directors]

Howard,

While you may be right about the disparity you highlighted (and I am not saying that to undermine the seriousness of the issue but just leaving room for error in the statistic), I have a different take on what I consider the appropriate pair of solutions. The first is to mobilize Black effort to get those kids the right  number of computers (and more to spare) they need to meet their educational aspirations. The second solution is that, once that is done, we can come back and make a big noise as to why some children in America should have disproportionate allocation of resources from the commmonwealth; regardless of whether the children are Black, Brown, Yellow, White or Green! Our noise must be accompanied by meaningful ACTION! Hold our servants accountable. Yes, our servants; those we elect to serve us in exchange for which we house them free and give them all the other perquisites of political office. That many of them have metamorphosed into our masters is our fault, not necessarily theirs. The gods are not to blame; we need to look inwards at ourselves. 

Many of us often get our priorities wrong. When we get them right, we adopt the wrong approach to addressing and fixing them. Yet, trust me, we have the brain and we have the brawn. Just take a cursory look at the stock of intellect in you and around you. 

Howard R. Lee said:

This case should serve as a wake up call to the nation. A catalyst for why we should take action to make public schools equal. In white schools we have a computer at every desk. In black schools we have 1 computer for every 6 to 7 students. Will you try to convince me this is not by design? You could never convince me this is not by design. I need to be talked down this is ridiculous!