> "Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave."
>
> http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003704.html
>...Being poor is your kid's school being the one with the 15-year-old
textbooks and no air conditioning.
When I was a substitute teacher in Oakland, Ca. from 1985-1991, one junior high school I subbed at alot (across the street from the projects where crack cocaine, "kingpin, " Felix Mitchell, who applied corporate managerial methods to the trade, became a millionaire, paid for tons of food and rent and other necessities for the families of his employees, before being killed in prison. His funeral was as big as Huey Newton's) had textbooks from the early 60's. And the, "portables, " had no air conditioning.
One classroom I was the sub for, a good amt. of time, for the , "developmentally disabled, " in the 7th grade, one kid after the final bell letting the kids out, said to me, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." I hadn't blathered about politics, in that classroom, so I was jolted for a second and asked the kid where he'd heard such an adult perception. His parents had been in the BPP. Mao's Red Book was at home. And, like alot of black kids, who were "behavioral problems, " "at risk, " there was nada to indicate this kid, if he had been white, wouldn't have been class valedictorian.
-- Michael Pugliese