Posted on 10/17/2009 4:19:27 PM PDT by Artemis Webb
DETROIT – Like the rundown houses and shuttered storefronts in his Detroit neighborhood, bleakness abounds in LeRoy Taylor's future.
He is among tens of thousands reaching adulthood in a city where the American Dream appears just outside their reach. Taylor, 20, spends empty hours on basketball courts, zoned out in front of a television or aimlessly pedaling through streets he desperately wants to leave, but doesn't have the work skills, education or money to do so.
"I fill out applications. No one will call me back," said Taylor, stopping his bike long enough to hustle change for cigarettes near a west side bus stop. "It's useless. It's real scary."
(snip)
Detroit high school students historically have done poorly on standardized tests. For example, 32 percent of 11th graders met or exceeded reading standards and only 14 percent did the same in math on the 2007 Michigan Merit Examination. Statewide averages were 60 percent in reading and 47 percent in math.
(snip)
Tina Evans, 19, said she has submitted about 25 applications, mostly for minimum-wage work. While she waits, Evans pushes her 4-month-old daughter around the neighborhood in a stroller.
"There is nothing else to do. Nothing is out here," said Evans, who lives with her mother. She said she was kicked out of Detroit schools for fighting.
Taylor — who said he's been jobless "my whole life" — dropped out of Cooley High School when he was 16 due to "lack of wanting to go to school," he said. If only he could get out of the city, he said, he could be accomplishing something.
He and his 4-year-old daughter live with his mother, who reminds him constantly that he still needs to get his diploma.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
1. Pull your pants up
2. Quit living your life for weed, cheap brandy and malt liquor.
3. Learn to speak a coherent sentence.
BooHoo. Can he afford a bus ticket to a “red” state? That is, if he is willing to work. A BIG IF.
Sounds like these people are living high off the welfare hog.
Maybe LeRoy should just send his 4 yr old daughter to a red state. Her future cannot be too pretty.
No mention of where his father is. These folks are definitely engaged in a self defeating way of life. Sad what people work against their selves.
People make choices and have consequences. Where’s my onion?
People make choices and have consequences. Where’s my onion?
Here’s another question: if he has time to “aimlessly pedal around the city,” seems by definition he’d be able to get out of town on his bike. Dude, buy a backpack with your smokes money, head south, and send for your little girl when you have a job!
(I know that’s axing a lot.)
He dropped out of school. That tells you a lot.
This is mostly self-inflicted city-wise
There is nothing that inspires men more than women that keep their knees together.
Yes, they do and the serious results go on and on. Still it’s sad.
Productive work, LeRoy Taylor, will get you everything you and your daughter will ever need. Finding a job(s) is job 1. Back it up with education whenever possible. Best wishes.
A grandchild of the Great Society.
Too bad Lyndon Johnson isn’t around to see the culmination of his grand plan.
Believe it or not, the black family structure in the 50s and early 60s was still pretty much intact.
Detroit: The real monument to Democratic Party (one-party) rule of
what used to be a vibrant major city.
And now is Beirut, without the car bombs.
Well, for now.
I hope the proposal to bulldoze a large part of the mostly-abandoned
areas of Detroit are not done.
Detroit, like Albania, should be left untouched to show Americans
what happens when the wrong people are allowed to run a city/country.
The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit
http://www.detroityes.com/home.htm
Amazing. I guess they don't even have Army recruiting stations in Detroit anymore. Military service was always one time-honored route out of the doldrums.
People were bitching and complaining about this years ago. In fact, this looks like 30 years ago. In another 30 years from now, it will look like 60 years ago. Nothing changes for these people because it’s not suppose to change. They’re supposed to be victims, forever and forever Amen.
If you don’t have a computer, go to the library, get on line. Go to K12.com or the many homeschooling sites that are available on line to EVERYONE today. Investigate these sites, sign up with one that meets your needs, complete the course, get a diploma, get the hell out of Detroit.
If you go to church, perhaps you can enlist their aid in helping to pay for your courses — don’t bother to ask officials in the Detroit public school system. It should be apparent to you now that Detroit public schools are a racket and they don’t now, nor have they ever been, interested in educating kids.
Do something for yourself — close your legs, keep your zipper up.
People were bitching and complaining about this years ago. In fact, this looks like 30 years ago. In another 30 years from now, it will look like 60 years ago. Nothing changes for these people because it’s not suppose to change. They’re supposed to be victims, forever and forever Amen.
If you don’t have a computer, go to the library, get on line. Go to K12.com or the many homeschooling sites that are available on line to EVERYONE today. Investigate these sites, sign up with one that meets your needs, complete the course, get a diploma, get the hell out of Detroit.
If you go to church, perhaps you can enlist their aid in helping to pay for your courses — don’t bother to ask officials in the Detroit public school system. It should be apparent to you now that Detroit public schools are a racket and they don’t now, nor have they ever been, interested in educating kids.
Do something for yourself — close your legs, keep your zipper up.
Now I'm trying to get out of California.
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