Arrogant, insensitive, entitled white people

[del]

You said Democrats and Liberals aren't the same, your assertion, your burden of proof, but hey if you can't prove it you can't prove it. I was sort of amazed that you even tried.

When have I ever said liberals are evil? Truth be told I'm in agreement with about half of the 'liberal' positions you listed, so what does that mean if I think liberals are evil?

And just curious, did I miss the memo and 'partisan hackery' is the word of the day? Or is it more like if you say it enough times it becomes true?

I proved my assertion, you chose to not believe it. At this point, I agree with Del, google it and stfu about it if you want to know so badly. It's not my job to do shit if you don't want to listen to what I say and just repeat the same shit over and over again.

You didn't prove anything, you gave an opinion. And what you and apparently Del don't seem to be getting is that I'm not Googling it because I don't care. I already have my opinion, if you want to assert that my opinion is incorrect the burden of proof is yours. So you can either provide some actual proof (maybe links to platform position from where ever it is Democrats keep that stuff) or... what was that eloquent phrase? oh right, stfu.

if you don't care, why do you keep whining about it?
stfu

 

[Bass v 2.0]

Continually accusing? Mr. Bass, it was his own words. Since you seem to have a problem reading, let me take the time to point it out for you:

He said:


And since you seem to have a serious problem with reading comprehension I'll point it out to you yet again:



Now Mr. Bass, please tell me how he is NOT blaming white people for the problem he described. Go ahead. I'd be curious to see your spin on this one.

What he said was the truth, not blaming white people, to think otherwise is playing the victim.

Mr Bass, you had a golden opportunity to man up, and you decided to pass it by.

Lets say it is the truth. How is it still not blaming white people???

You simply can't spin fast enough to get out of this one. He blamed white people. Period. Doesn't matter if you think what he said was true or not. You can't get around the fact that he placed the blame solely on white people. Now the question becomes do you agree that the blame rests solely on white people?

The truth is the truth and there is no way of escaping the obvious, white people are responsible for the race problem in America, its a fact, to state so isn't blaming anything on anybody, to blame someone is to hold someone else accountable for you have done wrong.

 

[RadiomanATL]

What he said was the truth, not blaming white people, to think otherwise is playing the victim.

Mr Bass, you had a golden opportunity to man up, and you decided to pass it by.

Lets say it is the truth. How is it still not blaming white people???

You simply can't spin fast enough to get out of this one. He blamed white people. Period. Doesn't matter if you think what he said was true or not. You can't get around the fact that he placed the blame solely on white people. Now the question becomes do you agree that the blame rests solely on white people?

The truth is the truth and there is no way of escaping the obvious, white people are responsible for the race problem in America, its a fact, to state so isn't blaming anything on anybody, to blame someone is to hold someone else accountable for you have done wrong.

Methinks you need to spend the 5 bucks on a cheap dictionary:

blame
Pronunciation:
\ˈblām\
Function:
transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
blamed; blam·ing
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French blamer, blasmer, from Late Latin blasphemare to blaspheme, from Greek blasphēmein
Date: 13th century

1: to find fault with
2 a: to hold responsible



He blamed white people and now you are too. Man up and admit you were wrong.

 

[Bass v 2.0]

Mr Bass, you had a golden opportunity to man up, and you decided to pass it by.

Lets say it is the truth. How is it still not blaming white people???

You simply can't spin fast enough to get out of this one. He blamed white people. Period. Doesn't matter if you think what he said was true or not. You can't get around the fact that he placed the blame solely on white people. Now the question becomes do you agree that the blame rests solely on white people?

The truth is the truth and there is no way of escaping the obvious, white people are responsible for the race problem in America, its a fact, to state so isn't blaming anything on anybody, to blame someone is to hold someone else accountable for you have done wrong.

Methinks you need to spend the 5 bucks on a cheap dictionary:

blame
Pronunciation:
\ˈblām\
Function:
transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
blamed; blam·ing
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French blamer, blasmer, from Late Latin blasphemare to blaspheme, from Greek blasphēmein
Date: 13th century

1: to find fault with
2 a: to hold responsible



He blamed white people and now you are too. Man up and admit you were wrong.

Is that so called "blame" he put on white people fact or fiction? If its fact, which it is, you have no choice but to accept the truth and quit whining like a baby. If someone throws a rock at the Bass' car and causes damage and the Bass witnesses the act and blames it on that individual whats the problem with that? Since whites perpetuated and started the race problem in America the blame does belong on whites because its rooted in the truth and facts, playing the blame game fallacy is a poor man's way of trying to avoid accepting the responsibility for the obvious and or intentionally running away from facts. Stop tapdancing.

 

[RadiomanATL]

Is that so called "blame" he put on white people fact or fiction? If its fact, which it is, you have no choice but to accept the truth and quit whining like a baby. If someone throws a rock at the Bass' car and causes damage and the Bass witnesses the act and blames it on that individual whats the problem with that? Since whites perpetuated and started the race problem in America the blame does belong on whites because its rooted in the truth and facts, playing the blame game fallacy is a poor man's way of trying to avoid accepting the responsibility for the obvious and or intentionally running away from facts. Stop tapdancing.

No no no...we're going to continue to debate the point that YOU brought up. You said the OP wasn't blaming white people. I have shown that he was. I am not arguing the merits of his his case.

So straight answer and stop obfuscating. Was he blaming white people? I don't care if you think he is correct in doing so. A simple yes or no will do.

 

[Bass v 2.0]

Is that so called "blame" he put on white people fact or fiction? If its fact, which it is, you have no choice but to accept the truth and quit whining like a baby. If someone throws a rock at the Bass' car and causes damage and the Bass witnesses the act and blames it on that individual whats the problem with that? Since whites perpetuated and started the race problem in America the blame does belong on whites because its rooted in the truth and facts, playing the blame game fallacy is a poor man's way of trying to avoid accepting the responsibility for the obvious and or intentionally running away from facts. Stop tapdancing.

No no no...we're going to continue to debate the point that YOU brought up. You said the OP wasn't blaming white people. I have shown that he was. I am not arguing the merits of his his case.

So straight answer and stop obfuscating. Was he blaming white people? I don't care if you think he is correct in doing so. A simple yes or no will do.

Did he state the truth, yes or no? When you answer this the Bass will answer.

 

[driveby]

Way too many white people in the USA are arrogant about the advantages they have, insensitive to challenges faced by minority groups and have a huge sense of entitlement to what they deserve in our society.

In a general sense whites have advantages in our society that minorities do not. Divisiveness between races is caused by whites not acknowledging the advantage and trying to understand the challenges of minorities.

With that being said minorities need to understand the challenges we all face including whites. We all must attempt to understand the circumstances of people different from us.


At the end of the day we all must realize life is not fair and go out and do the best we can dispite the unfair challenges we face.

We cannot use the unfair challenges to do nothing.

You're right, here is a whole list of white racist fucks:

Harry Reid
Nancy Pelosi
Barney Frank
Ted Kennedy
Barbara Boxer
Chris Dodd
Steny Hoyer
Barbara Mikulski
Diane Feinstein
Joe Biden
Hillary Clinton
Chuck Schumer
Al Franken

I could go on for days, but you get the picture ....

 

[BrianH]

Way too many white people in the USA are arrogant about the advantages they have, insensitive to challenges faced by minority groups and have a huge sense of entitlement to what they deserve in our society.

In a general sense whites have advantages in our society that minorities do not. Divisiveness between races is caused by whites not acknowledging the advantage and trying to understand the challenges of minorities.

With that being said minorities need to understand the challenges we all face including whites. We all must attempt to understand the circumstances of people different from us.


At the end of the day we all must realize life is not fair and go out and do the best we can dispite the unfair challenges we face.

We cannot use the unfair challenges to do nothing.

Where is your proof that minorities have less opportunity than whites? As far as I'm concerned, they born with the same opportunity as any other "average" white. Sure, there are the elite, who have more opportunity than the rest of us, but that is a class issue, and not a race issue. Our public school systems offer the same education to minorities as they do whites. It's a personal value in education that distinguishes opportunity. My school was about 50-50 between hispanics and whites. We all had the same opportunities... In fact, I'd be arguing that minorities have more opportunities. Considering minorities are typically less wealthy, they are offered more from the government, especially when it comes to college financial aid.

The problem, is that many minorites don't value an education. Their parents didn't, so they don't encourage their kids to. Then again, I have many white students who say their not going to go to college because their parents go jobs at plants without college degrees...what they don't realize, is that it was 20 years ago when they got their jobs.

Race doesn't play an issue when it comes to opportunity in this country, it's what you do with the opportunties that differentiates us.

 

[Anguille]

"Who knew the black man to get the most press post-Michael Jackson would be a Harvard professor? But the story of Henry Louis Gates Jr. is making for hot copy; Gates getting busted in his own home for being "tumultuous," "secretly reading," and for "general uppitiness".
Why? Why all this interest -- besides the curiosity as to whether or not the arresting officer had ever once in his life previously used the word "tumultuous" in a sentence? I think it's 'cause the professor was putting into action what a whole lot of us were thinking: nun-uh. We're sick and tired of having to prove things to the self-righteous reactionary fringe which looks at life as one, big racial profiling traffic stop: Step out of the car Mr. President and show me your birth certificate. Ma'am, could you show me how being a "wise Latina" isn't going to infringe on my male whiteliness? This despite the fact the reactionary fringe is the one with the history of duplicity and infringing.
Culturally this "prove it" mindset dates back to the passage of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act which put the burden on Freedmen to prove they were in fact not slaves.
You can imagine how the bulk of those cases went down in the 18th century."


John Ridley: Gates Says What A Lot of Us Are Thinking: You Prove It!

 

[BrianH]

"Who knew the black man to get the most press post-Michael Jackson would be a Harvard professor? But the story of Henry Louis Gates Jr. is making for hot copy; Gates getting busted in his own home for being "tumultuous," "secretly reading," and for "general uppitiness".
Why? Why all this interest -- besides the curiosity as to whether or not the arresting officer had ever once in his life previously used the word "tumultuous" in a sentence? I think it's 'cause the professor was putting into action what a whole lot of us were thinking: nun-uh. We're sick and tired of having to prove things to the self-righteous reactionary fringe which looks at life as one, big racial profiling traffic stop: Step out of the car Mr. President and show me your birth certificate. Ma'am, could you show me how being a "wise Latina" isn't going to infringe on my male whiteliness? This despite the fact the reactionary fringe is the one with the history of duplicity and infringing.
Culturally this "prove it" mindset dates back to the passage of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act which put the burden on Freedmen to prove they were in fact not slaves.
You can imagine how the bulk of those cases went down in the 18th century."


John Ridley: Gates Says What A Lot of Us Are Thinking: You Prove It!

Still haven't proven it. Sure, minorities got a raw deal in the past, but every new minority (born now) has the same opportunity as every new white kid. Like I said before, it's a class (monetary) issue, not a race issue. Opportunity depends on the amount of money you have, and considering that many (not all) minorities do not value an education, they tend to make less money. Where I live there are some hispanics and blacks that make 3 times what I make, and I went to college for 4 years. Let me tell you, there are a shit load of poor white folk too...

 

[RadiomanATL]

Is that so called "blame" he put on white people fact or fiction? If its fact, which it is, you have no choice but to accept the truth and quit whining like a baby. If someone throws a rock at the Bass' car and causes damage and the Bass witnesses the act and blames it on that individual whats the problem with that? Since whites perpetuated and started the race problem in America the blame does belong on whites because its rooted in the truth and facts, playing the blame game fallacy is a poor man's way of trying to avoid accepting the responsibility for the obvious and or intentionally running away from facts. Stop tapdancing.

No no no...we're going to continue to debate the point that YOU brought up. You said the OP wasn't blaming white people. I have shown that he was. I am not arguing the merits of his his case.

So straight answer and stop obfuscating. Was he blaming white people? I don't care if you think he is correct in doing so. A simple yes or no will do.

Did he state the truth, yes or no? When you answer this the Bass will answer.

No Mr. Bass, that is not how it works. I pointed out that Elmer was blaming white people, which then you wished to debate. I have offered all the evidence of Elmer's words which you have yet to refute, and now you wish to change the dialogue of the debate. Only when we finish this one can we move on to another one. Your lack of a straightforward answer says a lot, but I will give you one more chance to man up and give a straight answer.

Was Elmer blaming white people or not? Yes or no. A simple one word post will suffice.

 

[Amanda]

Let me tell you, there are a shit load of poor white folk too...

Well, there's an inconvenient truth.

 

[ElmerMudd]

Bingo.

It's also insensitive to keep giving a man a fish and making him dependent on you instead of actually helping him by teaching him to fish. But those dependent people sometimes vote so it's hardly about compassion, it's about amassing political power.

I am a firm believer that everybody able in society should know how to fish. (teach them to fish, don't give them a fish)

But we need to understand that everyone's fishing hole is a little different. Some fishing holes require more work.

But if we have to work harder to catch our fish it does not mean we don't fish and expect someone to give us a fish. That is fishing and we all need to learn to deal with it.

This thread is about fishing not Baby Boomers. Alagorial.

You're lucky I popped in and said what I said. Without my instigating this thread would have died under it's own ponderous weight after 2 pages. You need to learn how to write an OP that sizzles.

But to your point...

We don't need to understand that everyone's fishing hole is a little different. We need to not be concerning ourselves with such petty bullshit. So what if someone else has it a little easier. So what if someone else has it a little harder. Things tend to even out and in a case where it doesn't... so what? There's nothing to understand except that's life.

I was a business major not an English major.
Thanks for the help.

I feel one of the biggest problems we face as a society is there are too many people that feel their fishing hole is way tougher than anyone elses to catch fish so they say screw it, someone better give me a fish. That includes people and corporations.

We need to get these people fishing.

The way we do this is understand their fishing hole and teach them to fish.
It probably requires different strategies than our fishing hole so we need to understand their fishing hole.

I didn't start this fishing hole talk but I have sure gone with it. Do you get what I am trying to put down here?

 

[RadiomanATL]

No Mr. Bass, that is not how it works. I pointed out that Elmer was blaming white people, which then you wished to debate. I have offered all the evidence of Elmer's words which you have yet to refute, and now you wish to change the dialogue of the debate. Only when we finish this one can we move on to another one. Your lack of a straightforward answer says a lot, but I will give you one more chance to man up and give a straight answer.

Was Elmer blaming white people or not? Yes or no. A simple one word post will suffice.

Aaaaaaaaand Mr. Bass runs away from a yes or no post.

 

[ElmerMudd]

Way too many white people in the USA are arrogant about the advantages they have, insensitive to challenges faced by minority groups and have a huge sense of entitlement to what they deserve in our society.

In a general sense whites have advantages in our society that minorities do not. Divisiveness between races is caused by whites not acknowledging the advantage and trying to understand the challenges of minorities.

With that being said minorities need to understand the challenges we all face including whites. We all must attempt to understand the circumstances of people different from us.


At the end of the day we all must realize life is not fair and go out and do the best we can dispite the unfair challenges we face.

We cannot use the unfair challenges to do nothing.

Where is your proof that minorities have less opportunity than whites? As far as I'm concerned, they born with the same opportunity as any other "average" white. Sure, there are the elite, who have more opportunity than the rest of us, but that is a class issue, and not a race issue. Our public school systems offer the same education to minorities as they do whites. It's a personal value in education that distinguishes opportunity. My school was about 50-50 between hispanics and whites. We all had the same opportunities... In fact, I'd be arguing that minorities have more opportunities. Considering minorities are typically less wealthy, they are offered more from the government, especially when it comes to college financial aid.

The problem, is that many minorites don't value an education. Their parents didn't, so they don't encourage their kids to. Then again, I have many white students who say their not going to go to college because their parents go jobs at plants without college degrees...what they don't realize, is that it was 20 years ago when they got their jobs.

Race doesn't play an issue when it comes to opportunity in this country, it's what you do with the opportunties that differentiates us.

I agree with your last statement that it depends on what you do with your opportunities no matter what your race, religion, social status etc.

I do not feel you can paint every races opportunities with the same brush.

But in a general sense, everything else being equal, whites have more opportunity than minorities. That may be because of social class. But that is a reality of the beginning of our country when all power positions were held by white males.

I am a white male. I have become very close friends with minorities in my later life. Some are doing much better than I. Through youth sports I have been involved with minority inner city youth.
These experiences have taught me alot. I have found that in a general sense the minoriities did not have all the advantages I did.
Obviously there are many minorities that had greater oppotunities. I am talking in a general sense.

What is great about our country is many with less opportunity, whether white or a minority can obtain more.

But we all must understand that everyone's circumstances are different.

I feel if the average white man could spend some time in a minorities shoes it would be tougher than they thought.
I feel if a minority could spend a day in a white man's shoes it would not be nearly as good as they thought.

At the end of the day we need to take advantage of our opportunities and we will be fine.

 

[chanel]

we've (white people), at least many of us, have tried to get past feeling guilty for our ancestors' crimes-- u should too-- being a coward is hiding behind an easy out which is: "it's the white man trying to keep the black man down" for why u can't get ahead in society-- in the case of Gates and his "tumultuous" behavior i think it was a case of: "me thinks thou doth protest too much"-- once he'd uttered, either in anger, tiredness or both that that cop was a "racist" he was caught in his own web of cowardice from which he could not escape, especially in front of witnesses, without continuing on the path of his own distruction-- this coward to this day is still trying to malign a good man who was doing his job to the best of his ability and self-righteous bloviators like charlie bass just exacerbate the moment-- i don't think charlie realizes how offensive he sounds to many white people when he defends an advantaged black Harvard professor and the most powerful man in the world, a black president of the United States (elected by whites) and tries to accuse a "regular joe" working white man that he was "keeping the black man down"-- it's absurd, not only on it's face, but shows him and his kind have problems recognizing what goes on in the real world and what we've become-- many of u folks will never let it go-- never-- for some sick twisted reason u use ur masochism as a way to try to "top from the bottom"-- many of us whites simply won't buy into ur garbage anymore-- equal rights under the law is what u've got-- and that's all u'll get-- no more apologies, no more reparations, no more scewered test scores for jobs-- that's it-- if u want to be equal American citizens and not be noticed for ur skin color my advice would be to put ur nose to the grindstone, accept that not all in life is fair for anybody, stop ur whining and "mutt the fuck up"-- Regards, probus ps. if Officer Cowley goes to that White House ambush set up i guarentee u no good will come of it for him-- only for cowards like Gates who wants to remain living in the past

Listen coward, nobody wants white people today to feel sorry for what your ancestors did years ago, the only thing wanted is for whites today to put an end to the causes that lead to the conditions and actually admit that your ancestors as well as some whites today are responsible for what things are today, people of color are not responsible for the condition, they just live in them and survive the best they can in them.

End the causes? Like out of wedlock birth? How does a white man do that?

 

[JBeukema]

Where'd bAss go?

 

[BrokenAngel]

"Who knew the black man to get the most press post-Michael Jackson would be a Harvard professor? But the story of Henry Louis Gates Jr. is making for hot copy; Gates getting busted in his own home for being "tumultuous," "secretly reading," and for "general uppitiness".
Why? Why all this interest -- besides the curiosity as to whether or not the arresting officer had ever once in his life previously used the word "tumultuous" in a sentence? I think it's 'cause the professor was putting into action what a whole lot of us were thinking: nun-uh. We're sick and tired of having to prove things to the self-righteous reactionary fringe which looks at life as one, big racial profiling traffic stop: Step out of the car Mr. President and show me your birth certificate. Ma'am, could you show me how being a "wise Latina" isn't going to infringe on my male whiteliness? This despite the fact the reactionary fringe is the one with the history of duplicity and infringing.
Culturally this "prove it" mindset dates back to the passage of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act which put the burden on Freedmen to prove they were in fact not slaves.
You can imagine how the bulk of those cases went down in the 18th century."


John Ridley: Gates Says What A Lot of Us Are Thinking: You Prove It!

Gates got press because he knows a lot of people and has been an activist in race relations for a LONG time now. Hell he helped put together the African American Encyclopedia even. The man has a prestigeous career, the problem is that he has been so focused for so long on one idea that he doesn't see an officer checking into a reported break in as just that. He saw a black man being harassed. They released the 911 call in and nothing about race had been stated in any of the tapes.. I take that back, a dispatcher told an officer arriving on the scene that there might be a hispanic male inside but no one is sure.

The story also got a lot of press because of the President's poor choice to speak when he didn't have all the facts. You would have expected his response to that question to simply be "I don't currently have all the facts so.. NO COMMENT." That is where the story blew up because as soon as the president seemed to take sides it had to be proven one way or the other and the media is so focused on bullshit they didn't bother paying attention to the actual 55 minutes of talking about health care reform they had just been privy to. Instead it was all over everything "Obama says cops acted stupidly" There was no recovering.

If Gates had left race out of this the issue would have died quickly, if the President had not taken a side the issue would have died out. What is really awful in all of this is that if an accusation of racism is honestly made in that same district, chances are it will now be ignored or not pursued as heatedly because this ended up being a gentleman who got hot headed rather than dealing with the police and just getting on with his night.

 

[BrianH]

Way too many white people in the USA are arrogant about the advantages they have, insensitive to challenges faced by minority groups and have a huge sense of entitlement to what they deserve in our society.

In a general sense whites have advantages in our society that minorities do not. Divisiveness between races is caused by whites not acknowledging the advantage and trying to understand the challenges of minorities.

With that being said minorities need to understand the challenges we all face including whites. We all must attempt to understand the circumstances of people different from us.


At the end of the day we all must realize life is not fair and go out and do the best we can dispite the unfair challenges we face.

We cannot use the unfair challenges to do nothing.

Where is your proof that minorities have less opportunity than whites? As far as I'm concerned, they born with the same opportunity as any other "average" white. Sure, there are the elite, who have more opportunity than the rest of us, but that is a class issue, and not a race issue. Our public school systems offer the same education to minorities as they do whites. It's a personal value in education that distinguishes opportunity. My school was about 50-50 between hispanics and whites. We all had the same opportunities... In fact, I'd be arguing that minorities have more opportunities. Considering minorities are typically less wealthy, they are offered more from the government, especially when it comes to college financial aid.

The problem, is that many minorites don't value an education. Their parents didn't, so they don't encourage their kids to. Then again, I have many white students who say their not going to go to college because their parents go jobs at plants without college degrees...what they don't realize, is that it was 20 years ago when they got their jobs.

Race doesn't play an issue when it comes to opportunity in this country, it's what you do with the opportunties that differentiates us.

I agree with your last statement that it depends on what you do with your opportunities no matter what your race, religion, social status etc.

I do not feel you can paint every races opportunities with the same brush.

But in a general sense, everything else being equal, whites have more opportunity than minorities. That may be because of social class. But that is a reality of the beginning of our country when all power positions were held by white males.

I am a white male. I have become very close friends with minorities in my later life. Some are doing much better than I. Through youth sports I have been involved with minority inner city youth.
These experiences have taught me alot. I have found that in a general sense the minoriities did not have all the advantages I did.
Obviously there are many minorities that had greater oppotunities. I am talking in a general sense.

What is great about our country is many with less opportunity, whether white or a minority can obtain more.

But we all must understand that everyone's circumstances are different.

I feel if the average white man could spend some time in a minorities shoes it would be tougher than they thought.
I feel if a minority could spend a day in a white man's shoes it would not be nearly as good as they thought.

At the end of the day we need to take advantage of our opportunities and we will be fine.

I feel that I can agree with that. With any topic, it's difficult to make "broad strokes."

I will also agree that yes, many minorities are less successful, but is it necessarily because this country doesn't offer them as much opportunity as whites? I'm not so sure I can believe this notion. IMO, much of the opportunity is passed by. When a black child is born into this world, he has the opportunity to attend a public school, just like any other race. Now, it's up to the child, and his/her parents to encourage him/her to learn and finish school and possibly attend college. (To which there are numerous government programs to assist financially) When the student drops out of school to sell drugs, work at McDonald's, or pick-up trash, it's not society's fault for not giving him/her the same opportunity. The kid shouldn't have dropped out of school, and now he/she has to live with his/her mistakes.

Now, saying that, I do believe that there are SOME minorities (as well as whites) who do have less opportunity. But I believe the vast majority of minorities that aren't successful become so at their own lack of achievement (whether it be their fault or their parents).

But like I said, this delves into more of a social problem than a race problem. Our system doesn't restrict opportunity based on race, but rather social economic status.

I don't ever like to "toot my own horn" but I'm the first in my family to get a college degree of any kind. My family was southern share-croppers and suffered alot during the depression. My great-grandmother was the only person in her family who knew how to read and write. My father's family was also in the lower class. They did what they could to earn money, even if it meant cutting firewood to sell in the winter. Now, my dad and his siblings are all in the middle class because of their work ethic. None of them obtained a college degree but all of them have great work ethic and were determined to do better than their parents did. Saying this, I grew up in the lower middle-class, however, my parents did not help me through college. I paid my own tuition and worked 40 hours a week to put myself through school. It was really hard to do, but I got it done.