Obama: America's 'Deeply Rooted' Racism Will Take Time To Tackle

[Cecilie1200]

No, the feeling is coming from the poor people who see they have simply been left to rot in ghettos in the city.

That's the problem with too many "poor people." They are waiting for other people to change their circumstances. That is in fact why most of them are poor.

My supervisor calls it "stuck on a broken escalator". He says too many people run into a problem and just sit there, waiting for someone else to fix it, instead of looking for the answer themselves. And he's right.

 

[paulitician]

Just more shallow Race-Baiting. But he is a Communist Organizer, so go figure? 'Divide & Conquer.'

 

[Cecilie1200]

No, the feeling is coming from the poor people who see they have simply been left to rot in ghettos in the city.

That's the problem with too many "poor people." They are waiting for other people to change their circumstances. That is in fact why most of them are poor.

How do you change your circumstance if you're poor? How EXACTLY?

Hard work, sacrifice, tough choices, and more hard work. And education. Lots of education.

 

[Claudette]

Your type of senseless babble is the problem. You point fingers without one shred of anything but racism, but I doubt you realize it. The term "I have a black friend" has been a litmus test for true racists for a very long time.

You got any black friends? Probably not, but IF you do, ask them to explain racism to you.
That is, if you have the sense to understand what racism IS. Which I doubt. I have seen the shit you write and you seem pretty fucking stupid.

Why I bet you think that in Alabama back in the twenties and thirties that black men were treated as the equals of whites.

Come on, prove that my opinion of your stupidity is a fact and state that blacks in the deep south were always treated as the equals of whites.

Will you do that for me?

Let's talk about black friends. I used to have a friend, Doreen, who attended clerical school with me. After we graduated and both got good jobs, Doreen wanted to move out of the crappy neighborhood she lived in to someplace nicer with a better school for her son. She asked me to go apartment-shopping with her. Turned out that what she wanted was for me to pretend that I, with my middle-class whiteness, was the applicant because she was sure that the apartment managers wouldn't want to rent to a black woman, and would make excuses to reject her application. I refused, because I don't believe in lying and because she was being ridiculous, which I told her. As it happens, every single place she went to practically fell all over themselves to convince her to choose their complex. One guy put it succinctly: "You get Section 8 AND you're employed full-time. We know that one way or another, we're actually going to get our rent. That's huge."

Let's talk some more about black folks we know (since, unlike you, I actually know more than one). My sister, who is whiter than sour cream, has four children, three boys and a girl. The girl and two of the boys are albino-white with blonde hair and blue eyes. The third boy is black. When he was in his teens, he went through a rebellious phase, hanging with a bunch of other black kids at his high school, wearing his pants around his knees, blathering on about being mistreated because he was black, how the black man could never get ahead, yada yada. He was an enormous, insufferable pain in the ass at family gatherings for several years. I personally started refusing to go anywhere with him in public because it so often turned into an ordeal where he got into some waiter's or security guard's face. (Although there were some truly funny moments, too, like when my sister got mad at him in the mall and started chewing him out, and he started to walk away. She stopped him, and he turned to a bystander and said, "Who's the crazy white woman?")

My nephew is in his late twenties now, and he doesn't hang out with those friends from high school who taught him about how "hard" it is to be black in America. Why? Well, Simon was what his friends called "raised white", which means my sister and brother-in-law hounded him as relentlessly as his siblings about getting grades, graduating, and learning how to behave in polite society. Last I heard, one of his friends has done time, and the other dropped out of school and works at a cashier job. And Simon? Graduated from ASU, became an investment banker, and lives in Scottsdale with his wife and two daughters.

No, I don't think the difference was that my sister and brother-in-law are white. I think any parent of any color could have produced similar results with a similar mindset: keep your shit together, behave yourself, and get an education. Does Simon encounter people who have a problem with his skin color? Sure. Is that an insurmountable roadblock? Apparently not.

Great post C and it just goes to show that iin this country you can do anything you want to do if you have the drive, determination and balls to do it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

No, the feeling is coming from the poor people who see they have simply been left to rot in ghettos in the city.

That's the problem with too many "poor people." They are waiting for other people to change their circumstances. That is in fact why most of them are poor.

How do you change your circumstance if you're poor? How EXACTLY?

Oh...oh....oh.....I KNOW!!!!!

Get a job and work hard. That's all you need to do. There is always a job for you if you want it. All you have to do is get it and work hard. Everyone who works hard will succeed.

Simple, huh!??!!

Simple, yes. Easy? No. They aren't the same thing. Nevertheless, you're absolutely correct, even if you're stupid enough to think you're being sarcastic.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Fucking idiots. MOST Poor people work HARDER THAN YOU DO. They work harder than I do. It takes more than hard work. Mother-fucking arrogant assholes.

And you base this on what? Your assumptions?

 

[Cecilie1200]

Fucking idiots. MOST Poor people work HARDER THAN YOU DO. They work harder than I do. It takes more than hard work. Mother-fucking arrogant assholes.

Yeah, I'm sure that lovely attitude has paid off well for you.

I'm good. I was born lucky.

Yeah, well, I'm good and I WASN'T born lucky. For the record, I also wasn't born good. I became good because I worked at it. When I was in high school, my father had a major stroke. By my senior year, he was clearly dying and my family was moving to Tucson with no income and no more belongings than we could pack into our cars. My mother had always worked, but never at anything skilled or high-paying, because she never needed to. Her job had always been more about "mad money", discretionary income that could be used for extras and luxuries. Now she had a dying husband and a teenager to support.

First thing she did was put her foot down and insist that, whatever happened, I was graduating high school. Second thing she did was apply to every single job she could find that she was even vaguely qualified for, no matter how much she thought it sucked. Third thing she did was accept an offer and work at a job she loathed, because it paid the best and had the most stability at the time. Fourth thing she did was get a second job, cleaning houses for retirees and shut-ins on her days off.

We lived in an apartment that literally had nothing to recommend it other than walls and a stable address. It had a roof, but the freaking thing leaked like a sieve. The cockroaches were big enough to throw a saddle on and ride, and we had to bug bomb the place once a month, because they kept coming back. At first, we couldn't afford the deposits to turn on both the electricity and the gas, so we did without the furnace and water heater (both gas) and took cold showers and slept in one room around an electric space heater. We learned the joys of the Tucson metropolitan transit system, since our cars broke down and died within a year of moving, and we couldn't afford to fix them. The nearest supermarket was a mile-and-a-half walk, and grocery shopping was a misery, because Mom was too honest to heist a shopping basket and we had to carry all the bags by hand.

The week after I graduated high school, I got a job cleaning kennels at a veterinary hospital. It wasn't long after that that my mother was able to quit her hated full-time job and make a steady living just off of her housecleaning business, because she was trustworthy and cleaned like a demon. None of this "swipe down the middle of the room with a vacuum and we're good" crap. She scrubbed toilets until you could drink your tea out of them, and the insides of the ovens gleamed (the secret is to thoroughly coat the racks with oven cleaner, tie them up in garbage bags, and let them sit until you finish the rest of the kitchen. Then you just wash them in soapy water, and they look like new.)

I went to clerical school, and when I graduated, no one would hire me, because I was 20 years old and looked about 16, and had very little practical work experience. I signed on with a temporary agency and spent a few years busing all over the city to temp assignments. Pay was crap, and there was obviously no job security at all, but I learned. And I made connections. Eventually, a temp assignment to one of the departments at the University of Arizona became a permanent position as a secretary, and I eventually had a very nice career as an administrative assistant. I also met my husband at the U of A, as he was just finishing up his degree. Amazing how much difference marrying the father of my children and staying together for twenty years made.

Dad's dead now, and Mom's retired to a nice little acre of land out in the county. And me? Well, I recently decided I wasn't happy with my current job, and started putting out resumes. My biggest problem is finding enough time on my days off - because I'm not stupid enough to quit a job just because I hate it without first finding another one - to fit all the interview appointments in.

Neither of us became the next Bill Gates, because neither of us was trying to. But don't ever tell me that poor people can't work and educate themselves out of poverty.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Fucking idiots. MOST Poor people work HARDER THAN YOU DO. They work harder than I do. It takes more than hard work. Mother-fucking arrogant assholes.

Yeah, I'm sure that lovely attitude has paid off well for you.

I'm good. I was born lucky.

Yeah, well, I'm good and I WASN'T born lucky. For the record, I also wasn't born good. I became good because I worked at it. When I was in high school, my father had a major stroke. By my senior year, he was clearly dying and my family was moving to Tucson with no income and no more belongings than we could pack into our cars. My mother had always worked, but never at anything skilled or high-paying, because she never needed to. Her job had always been more about "mad money", discretionary income that could be used for extras and luxuries. Now she had a dying husband and a teenager to support.

First thing she did was put her foot down and insist that, whatever happened, I was graduating high school. Second thing she did was apply to every single job she could find that she was even vaguely qualified for, no matter how much she thought it sucked. Third thing she did was accept an offer and work at a job she loathed, because it paid the best and had the most stability at the time. Fourth thing she did was get a second job, cleaning houses for retirees and shut-ins on her days off.

We lived in an apartment that literally had nothing to recommend it other than walls and a stable address. It had a roof, but the freaking thing leaked like a sieve. The cockroaches were big enough to throw a saddle on and ride, and we had to bug bomb the place once a month, because they kept coming back. At first, we couldn't afford the deposits to turn on both the electricity and the gas, so we did without the furnace and water heater (both gas) and took cold showers and slept in one room around an electric space heater. We learned the joys of the Tucson metropolitan transit system, since our cars broke down and died within a year of moving, and we couldn't afford to fix them. The nearest supermarket was a mile-and-a-half walk, and grocery shopping was a misery, because Mom was too honest to heist a shopping basket and we had to carry all the bags by hand.

The week after I graduated high school, I got a job cleaning kennels at a veterinary hospital. It wasn't long after that that my mother was able to quit her hated full-time job and make a steady living just off of her housecleaning business, because she was trustworthy and cleaned like a demon. None of this "swipe down the middle of the room with a vacuum and we're good" crap. She scrubbed toilets until you could drink your tea out of them, and the insides of the ovens gleamed (the secret is to thoroughly coat the racks with oven cleaner, tie them up in garbage bags, and let them sit until you finish the rest of the kitchen. Then you just wash them in soapy water, and they look like new.)

I went to clerical school, and when I graduated, no one would hire me, because I was 20 years old and looked about 16, and had very little practical work experience. I signed on with a temporary agency and spent a few years busing all over the city to temp assignments. Pay was crap, and there was obviously no job security at all, but I learned. And I made connections. Eventually, a temp assignment to one of the departments at the University of Arizona became a permanent position as a secretary, and I eventually had a very nice career as an administrative assistant. I also met my husband at the U of A, as he was just finishing up his degree. Amazing how much difference marrying the father of my children and staying together for twenty years made.

Dad's dead now, and Mom's retired to a nice little acre of land out in the county. And me? Well, I recently decided I wasn't happy with my current job, and started putting out resumes. My biggest problem is finding enough time on my days off - because I'm not stupid enough to quit a job just because I hate it without first finding another one - to fit all the interview appointments in.

Neither of us became the next Bill Gates, because neither of us was trying to. But don't ever tell me that poor people can't work and educate themselves out of poverty.

I don't give a shit. You are too arrogant for words.

 

[Mac1958]

.

The Left doesn't want to hear any stories of people working hard and succeeding. They'd rather ignore the millions and millions and millions who have done it.

In this country and others.

They'd rather tell poor people that their situation is hopeless.

Good gawd. Nasty. What a horrible thing to do to people.

.

 

[Mustang]

How do you change your circumstance if you're poor? How EXACTLY?

Oh...oh....oh.....I KNOW!!!!!

Get a job and work hard. That's all you need to do. There is always a job for you if you want it. All you have to do is get it and work hard. Everyone who works hard will succeed.

Simple, huh!??!!

Do you even know what the word, circumstances, means? Getting a job doesn't change you're circumstances if you're poor. Getting a job changes your status if you're unemployed, but WEALTH changes your circumstances if you're poor.

So you don't get the connection between work and money? Seriously?

The simple truth of the matter is that plenty of poor people work. They just don't make much more than what it takes to limp along in poverty. They can put food on the table, but it probably is not very good food. It will be cheap food. They can afford a car, but not a new one and maybe not even a reliable one. When people are poor, they live paycheck to paycheck. They aren't as worried about getting ahead as they are about falling even further behind.

They need to make better decisions. Work harder. Spend less. Americans, even "poor" ones, are among the wealthiest in the world. That they can't work harder and smarter and be responsible and make more is ridiculous. How old are you that you never learned that?

The cost of living is up. The cost of a college education is WAY up. Wages are down, and productivity gains have not been reflected in an increase of pay for workers even as the wealthy are taking home a large share of the nation's income.

As for me, I'm one of those people who DID pull myself up by my bootstraps unlike a lot of the people who actually hand out that advice despite the fact that they had every advantage along the way including having parents and other family members who paved the way for their future success. The point is that I KNOW how hard it is to overcome the obstacles. But it's actually getting harder to do that in America than in generations past. And of course, prior to Obamacare, a medical emergency followed by a medical bankruptcy could derail any family, even families WITH health insurance.

Again the politics of fear. That they "could" get derailed by bankruptcy is not an argument for an entire community remaining poor.

I was strictly middle class. My parents helped me some with my undergraduate degree (U of Maryland, double major in Math & Computer Science). I worked, took five years and paid most of it myself. I worked a full time job while getting my first Masters degree (MS in Computer Science, Virginia Tech). They paid for it, I worked long hours. Then I quit my job and borrowed the money to get my second (U of Michigan, MBA). Then I started earning six figures and paid it back. I did nothing that no one else can do. I worked my ass off and did what I had to do. That door is open to everyone. For most of the world and most of history it's not. You sit in a country where no one has any excuses and make excuses. If you did it as you claim, then you know that it's just up to you.

Now supposed someone kept telling you like you do to blacks that you can't make it, the system is against you, don't even try. And suppose you decided to listen to that lie and quit, thinking they are right. Who is that on?

The door is NOT open to everyone, as what you wrote made abundantly clear.

I live in a moderately-sized American city where the gulf between the wealthy and the poor just seems to be growing. I see more BMWs than ever while I also see more homeless than ever. As an example, a few years ago to supposedly 'balance the budget' the amount of public financing that went to support public transportation was slashed, thereby immediately raising the fees for riding the bus from an off peak rate of less than a dollar and a peak rate of $1.25 to a flat rate of $2.25 regardless of when people take the bus. All that managed to do was to drive away more affluent riders who then decided to start driving and it left the buses mostly full of people who can't afford to drive and have no choice but to take the bus which is not taking a higher percentage of their earnings in order to get back forth to jobs that don't pay much at all.

 

[Mustang]

.

The Left doesn't want to hear any stories of people working hard and succeeding. They'd rather ignore the millions and millions and millions who have done it.

In this country and others.

They'd rather tell poor people that their situation is hopeless.

Good gawd. Nasty. What a horrible thing to do to people.

.

The problem on the right is that they won't face up to problems or take a good look at what's really going on. The reason why they're afraid to address problems, especially systemic ones, is because they see it as an indictment on the system. They'd rather turn a blind eye and have a parade and shoot off some fireworks and say America is great, and good, and all things lovely. Well, guess what, if you don't face up to the problems, then it IS an indictment on the system if and when the affluent can convince themselves that everything is just swell.

 

[Mac1958]

.

The Left doesn't want to hear any stories of people working hard and succeeding. They'd rather ignore the millions and millions and millions who have done it.

In this country and others.

They'd rather tell poor people that their situation is hopeless.

Good gawd. Nasty. What a horrible thing to do to people.

.

The problem on the right is that they won't face up to problems or take a good look at what's really going on. The reason why they're afraid to address problems, especially systemic ones, is because they see it as an indictment on the system. They'd rather turn a blind eye and have a parade and shoot off some fireworks and say America is great, and good, and all things lovely. Well, guess what, if you don't face up to the problems, then it IS an indictment on the system if and when the affluent can convince themselves that everything is just swell.

I agree with that overall. The Right definitely has a habit of looking at a problem and acting completely oblivious about it. Or maybe they're not acting, I really don't know. White on black racism does still exist. An effective, affordable health system is a problem. There really is a wealth imbalance problem. There really are people who don't have the capacity to help themselves.

The two sides are so dug in that essentially everything has become politicized. In other words, binary and dumbed down.

.

 

[LoneLaugher]

.

The Left doesn't want to hear any stories of people working hard and succeeding. They'd rather ignore the millions and millions and millions who have done it.

In this country and others.

They'd rather tell poor people that their situation is hopeless.

Good gawd. Nasty. What a horrible thing to do to people.

.

We don't do that. That is a bullshit meme. Period.

 

[mudwhistle]

.

The Left doesn't want to hear any stories of people working hard and succeeding. They'd rather ignore the millions and millions and millions who have done it.

In this country and others.

They'd rather tell poor people that their situation is hopeless.

Good gawd. Nasty. What a horrible thing to do to people.

.

The problem on the right is that they won't face up to problems or take a good look at what's really going on. The reason why they're afraid to address problems, especially systemic ones, is because they see it as an indictment on the system. They'd rather turn a blind eye and have a parade and shoot off some fireworks and say America is great, and good, and all things lovely. Well, guess what, if you don't face up to the problems, then it IS an indictment on the system if and when the affluent can convince themselves that everything is just swell.

What is the problem and who is offering real solutions?

The problem is blacks are growing up and being taught to carry a grudge.

What is the solution?

Stop living in the past and move on. Stop blaming others for your problems the way white supremacy has throughout the last century or the way Muslims do with respect to Israel. Move the fuck on. Learn to forgive racist. Learn to forgive you hateful bigot. Learn to forgive you GD progressives. Learn to forgive.

Mkay?

 

[kaz]

Oh...oh....oh.....I KNOW!!!!!

Get a job and work hard. That's all you need to do. There is always a job for you if you want it. All you have to do is get it and work hard. Everyone who works hard will succeed.

Simple, huh!??!!

Do you even know what the word, circumstances, means? Getting a job doesn't change you're circumstances if you're poor. Getting a job changes your status if you're unemployed, but WEALTH changes your circumstances if you're poor.

So you don't get the connection between work and money? Seriously?

The simple truth of the matter is that plenty of poor people work. They just don't make much more than what it takes to limp along in poverty. They can put food on the table, but it probably is not very good food. It will be cheap food. They can afford a car, but not a new one and maybe not even a reliable one. When people are poor, they live paycheck to paycheck. They aren't as worried about getting ahead as they are about falling even further behind.

They need to make better decisions. Work harder. Spend less. Americans, even "poor" ones, are among the wealthiest in the world. That they can't work harder and smarter and be responsible and make more is ridiculous. How old are you that you never learned that?

The cost of living is up. The cost of a college education is WAY up. Wages are down, and productivity gains have not been reflected in an increase of pay for workers even as the wealthy are taking home a large share of the nation's income.

As for me, I'm one of those people who DID pull myself up by my bootstraps unlike a lot of the people who actually hand out that advice despite the fact that they had every advantage along the way including having parents and other family members who paved the way for their future success. The point is that I KNOW how hard it is to overcome the obstacles. But it's actually getting harder to do that in America than in generations past. And of course, prior to Obamacare, a medical emergency followed by a medical bankruptcy could derail any family, even families WITH health insurance.

Again the politics of fear. That they "could" get derailed by bankruptcy is not an argument for an entire community remaining poor.

I was strictly middle class. My parents helped me some with my undergraduate degree (U of Maryland, double major in Math & Computer Science). I worked, took five years and paid most of it myself. I worked a full time job while getting my first Masters degree (MS in Computer Science, Virginia Tech). They paid for it, I worked long hours. Then I quit my job and borrowed the money to get my second (U of Michigan, MBA). Then I started earning six figures and paid it back. I did nothing that no one else can do. I worked my ass off and did what I had to do. That door is open to everyone. For most of the world and most of history it's not. You sit in a country where no one has any excuses and make excuses. If you did it as you claim, then you know that it's just up to you.

Now supposed someone kept telling you like you do to blacks that you can't make it, the system is against you, don't even try. And suppose you decided to listen to that lie and quit, thinking they are right. Who is that on?

The door is NOT open to everyone, as what you wrote made abundantly clear.

Obviously that was a typo. I said the opposite through the whole post and that I said "can" instead of "can't" once threw you?

I live in a moderately-sized American city where the gulf between the wealthy and the poor just seems to be growing. I see more BMWs than ever while I also see more homeless than ever. As an example, a few years ago to supposedly 'balance the budget' the amount of public financing that went to support public transportation was slashed, thereby immediately raising the fees for riding the bus from an off peak rate of less than a dollar and a peak rate of $1.25 to a flat rate of $2.25 regardless of when people take the bus. All that managed to do was to drive away more affluent riders who then decided to start driving and it left the buses mostly full of people who can't afford to drive and have no choice but to take the bus which is not taking a higher percentage of their earnings in order to get back forth to jobs that don't pay much at all.

Wealth envy isn't an excuse for anything. That other people work harder is no excuse for you to want the same things and not to work as hard. Tell me what I did that anyone else can't do. I got little from my parents as an undergraduate and then nothing from them through two graduate degrees, I did it my self. I got jobs, saved. Anyone can do it. There is no trick but thinking things through and working hard.

 

[Mustang]

.

The Left doesn't want to hear any stories of people working hard and succeeding. They'd rather ignore the millions and millions and millions who have done it.

In this country and others.

They'd rather tell poor people that their situation is hopeless.

Good gawd. Nasty. What a horrible thing to do to people.

.

The problem on the right is that they won't face up to problems or take a good look at what's really going on. The reason why they're afraid to address problems, especially systemic ones, is because they see it as an indictment on the system. They'd rather turn a blind eye and have a parade and shoot off some fireworks and say America is great, and good, and all things lovely. Well, guess what, if you don't face up to the problems, then it IS an indictment on the system if and when the affluent can convince themselves that everything is just swell.

What is the problem and who is offering real solutions?

The problem is blacks are growing up and being taught to carry a grudge.

What is the solution?

Stop living in the past and move on. Stop blaming others for your problems the way white supremacy has throughout the last century or the way Muslims do with respect to Israel. Move the fuck on. Learn to forgive racist. Learn to forgive you hateful bigot. Learn to forgive you GD progressives. Learn to forgive.

Mkay?

LOL! You think they need to be TAUGHT to carry a grudge? That's hilarious.

 

[LoneLaugher]

.

The Left doesn't want to hear any stories of people working hard and succeeding. They'd rather ignore the millions and millions and millions who have done it.

In this country and others.

They'd rather tell poor people that their situation is hopeless.

Good gawd. Nasty. What a horrible thing to do to people.

.

The problem on the right is that they won't face up to problems or take a good look at what's really going on. The reason why they're afraid to address problems, especially systemic ones, is because they see it as an indictment on the system. They'd rather turn a blind eye and have a parade and shoot off some fireworks and say America is great, and good, and all things lovely. Well, guess what, if you don't face up to the problems, then it IS an indictment on the system if and when the affluent can convince themselves that everything is just swell.

What is the problem and who is offering real solutions?

The problem is blacks are growing up and being taught to carry a grudge.

What is the solution?

Stop living in the past and move on. Stop blaming others for your problems the way white supremacy has throughout the last century or the way Muslims do with respect to Israel. Move the fuck on. Learn to forgive racist. Learn to forgive you hateful bigot. Learn to forgive you GD progressives. Learn to forgive.

Mkay?

Yes...Mud. They are being taught to carry a grudge. That's the real problem. Brilliant.

 

[JFK_USA]

Yeah people calling him a Muslim and a Kenyan are all Obama's fault. Shit I think many white people just want to live in ignorance that everything is okay and that they are good people so nothing is wrong.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Fucking idiots. MOST Poor people work HARDER THAN YOU DO. They work harder than I do. It takes more than hard work. Mother-fucking arrogant assholes.

Yeah, I'm sure that lovely attitude has paid off well for you.

I'm good. I was born lucky.

Yeah, well, I'm good and I WASN'T born lucky. For the record, I also wasn't born good. I became good because I worked at it. When I was in high school, my father had a major stroke. By my senior year, he was clearly dying and my family was moving to Tucson with no income and no more belongings than we could pack into our cars. My mother had always worked, but never at anything skilled or high-paying, because she never needed to. Her job had always been more about "mad money", discretionary income that could be used for extras and luxuries. Now she had a dying husband and a teenager to support.

First thing she did was put her foot down and insist that, whatever happened, I was graduating high school. Second thing she did was apply to every single job she could find that she was even vaguely qualified for, no matter how much she thought it sucked. Third thing she did was accept an offer and work at a job she loathed, because it paid the best and had the most stability at the time. Fourth thing she did was get a second job, cleaning houses for retirees and shut-ins on her days off.

We lived in an apartment that literally had nothing to recommend it other than walls and a stable address. It had a roof, but the freaking thing leaked like a sieve. The cockroaches were big enough to throw a saddle on and ride, and we had to bug bomb the place once a month, because they kept coming back. At first, we couldn't afford the deposits to turn on both the electricity and the gas, so we did without the furnace and water heater (both gas) and took cold showers and slept in one room around an electric space heater. We learned the joys of the Tucson metropolitan transit system, since our cars broke down and died within a year of moving, and we couldn't afford to fix them. The nearest supermarket was a mile-and-a-half walk, and grocery shopping was a misery, because Mom was too honest to heist a shopping basket and we had to carry all the bags by hand.

The week after I graduated high school, I got a job cleaning kennels at a veterinary hospital. It wasn't long after that that my mother was able to quit her hated full-time job and make a steady living just off of her housecleaning business, because she was trustworthy and cleaned like a demon. None of this "swipe down the middle of the room with a vacuum and we're good" crap. She scrubbed toilets until you could drink your tea out of them, and the insides of the ovens gleamed (the secret is to thoroughly coat the racks with oven cleaner, tie them up in garbage bags, and let them sit until you finish the rest of the kitchen. Then you just wash them in soapy water, and they look like new.)

I went to clerical school, and when I graduated, no one would hire me, because I was 20 years old and looked about 16, and had very little practical work experience. I signed on with a temporary agency and spent a few years busing all over the city to temp assignments. Pay was crap, and there was obviously no job security at all, but I learned. And I made connections. Eventually, a temp assignment to one of the departments at the University of Arizona became a permanent position as a secretary, and I eventually had a very nice career as an administrative assistant. I also met my husband at the U of A, as he was just finishing up his degree. Amazing how much difference marrying the father of my children and staying together for twenty years made.

Dad's dead now, and Mom's retired to a nice little acre of land out in the county. And me? Well, I recently decided I wasn't happy with my current job, and started putting out resumes. My biggest problem is finding enough time on my days off - because I'm not stupid enough to quit a job just because I hate it without first finding another one - to fit all the interview appointments in.

Neither of us became the next Bill Gates, because neither of us was trying to. But don't ever tell me that poor people can't work and educate themselves out of poverty.

I don't give a shit. You are too arrogant for words.

People who actually know what the fuck they're doing generally are. And people who don't know what the fuck they're doing generally dismiss everything with, "I don't want to know the truth. All I care about is YOU'RE MEAN."

Very mature.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Fucking idiots. MOST Poor people work HARDER THAN YOU DO. They work harder than I do. It takes more than hard work. Mother-fucking arrogant assholes.

Yeah, I'm sure that lovely attitude has paid off well for you.

I'm good. I was born lucky.

Yeah, well, I'm good and I WASN'T born lucky. For the record, I also wasn't born good. I became good because I worked at it. When I was in high school, my father had a major stroke. By my senior year, he was clearly dying and my family was moving to Tucson with no income and no more belongings than we could pack into our cars. My mother had always worked, but never at anything skilled or high-paying, because she never needed to. Her job had always been more about "mad money", discretionary income that could be used for extras and luxuries. Now she had a dying husband and a teenager to support.

First thing she did was put her foot down and insist that, whatever happened, I was graduating high school. Second thing she did was apply to every single job she could find that she was even vaguely qualified for, no matter how much she thought it sucked. Third thing she did was accept an offer and work at a job she loathed, because it paid the best and had the most stability at the time. Fourth thing she did was get a second job, cleaning houses for retirees and shut-ins on her days off.

We lived in an apartment that literally had nothing to recommend it other than walls and a stable address. It had a roof, but the freaking thing leaked like a sieve. The cockroaches were big enough to throw a saddle on and ride, and we had to bug bomb the place once a month, because they kept coming back. At first, we couldn't afford the deposits to turn on both the electricity and the gas, so we did without the furnace and water heater (both gas) and took cold showers and slept in one room around an electric space heater. We learned the joys of the Tucson metropolitan transit system, since our cars broke down and died within a year of moving, and we couldn't afford to fix them. The nearest supermarket was a mile-and-a-half walk, and grocery shopping was a misery, because Mom was too honest to heist a shopping basket and we had to carry all the bags by hand.

The week after I graduated high school, I got a job cleaning kennels at a veterinary hospital. It wasn't long after that that my mother was able to quit her hated full-time job and make a steady living just off of her housecleaning business, because she was trustworthy and cleaned like a demon. None of this "swipe down the middle of the room with a vacuum and we're good" crap. She scrubbed toilets until you could drink your tea out of them, and the insides of the ovens gleamed (the secret is to thoroughly coat the racks with oven cleaner, tie them up in garbage bags, and let them sit until you finish the rest of the kitchen. Then you just wash them in soapy water, and they look like new.)

I went to clerical school, and when I graduated, no one would hire me, because I was 20 years old and looked about 16, and had very little practical work experience. I signed on with a temporary agency and spent a few years busing all over the city to temp assignments. Pay was crap, and there was obviously no job security at all, but I learned. And I made connections. Eventually, a temp assignment to one of the departments at the University of Arizona became a permanent position as a secretary, and I eventually had a very nice career as an administrative assistant. I also met my husband at the U of A, as he was just finishing up his degree. Amazing how much difference marrying the father of my children and staying together for twenty years made.

Dad's dead now, and Mom's retired to a nice little acre of land out in the county. And me? Well, I recently decided I wasn't happy with my current job, and started putting out resumes. My biggest problem is finding enough time on my days off - because I'm not stupid enough to quit a job just because I hate it without first finding another one - to fit all the interview appointments in.

Neither of us became the next Bill Gates, because neither of us was trying to. But don't ever tell me that poor people can't work and educate themselves out of poverty.

I don't give a shit. You are too arrogant for words.

People who actually know what the fuck they're doing generally are. And people who don't know what the fuck they're doing generally dismiss everything with, "I don't want to know the truth. All I care about is YOU'RE MEAN."

Very mature.

Tell us again how rough you had it during your formative years. You know what those are, don't you?