Step up? Declined….

Last month, I attended a forum about the documentary, Black in America. There were several different aspects of the documentary that interested me, but the one that I thought about the most was the education of the youth. The education gap is widening now, more than ever. Drop-outs rates are rising left and right, and the desire for further education, in the black community, is getting slim. Most people in college today(all in general), are following a trend set by their mother or father, or even aunts or uncles. If someone in your family went to college, sometimes it is a requirement for you to go. But of course, that trend, has to start with someone. Many of my classmates, graduation year 2011, are first generation students. Meaning they are the first one in their family to attend college. That is great. Those people have not finished their work to the family yet though. They must go back, and reach out in their community to reach other students, and encourage them to attend college. On the flip side of that, there will be many people in the community looking down upon the bright college student. They may think that the college student thinks he or she is "better" than the others who decided not to attend college. And that creates a divide in the community and even in the black race as a whole. A lot of educated blacks, tend to have nice cars, and live in upscale neighborhoods. And in those neighborhoods, most times, your neighbors are white. The discrimination from the 'lower class' blacks will continue even further after your move. Why is that? Why cant we learn to appreciate the success of others? I don't understand.

To go even further on that topic, the educated blacks tend to send their children to private schools. Not because they think their children are 'better' than other kids, just because they believe a private education is better than a public one. Now the discrimination is upon their kids and the cycle will continue… The education gap widens, the discrimination continues, the black community is constantly divided.

Flakey Fake

Currently the value of friendships today is decreasing in value. The people who you think you can trust the most could be the very ones who scandalize your name, and create rumors about you. An incident that I witnessed a couple days ago was, this girl walked up to a group of her friends, apparently wearing some new, shiny shoes. Her friends sent continual comments of how great she looked in her new shoes, and how "fly" she was. As soon as the girl walked away, her "friends" started talking about how ugly and how dumb their friend looked in those shoes. I was completely disgusted in their actions and was speechless at the display of friendship that they showed their friend. That situation is not a rare one. I, myself, was a girl who talked badly about a friend one time. I learned from that experience, and never had done anything of the sort lately.

Friendship is something that takes a lot of work from both people. Love has to be shown to each individual or else, the friendship will not be complete. If you examine your personal friendships right now, you may discover that you have a lot of fake friends. Fake friends are the worst, but they happen to everyone. Hopefully the couple of fake friends you have, will not hinder you from achieving your personal goals and one day you will learn to gradually release them from your 'world'.

Wiki Wiki Wiki

I believe that Chapter 5 of Shirky promoted some great information about Wikipedia that I was once confused about. Wikipedia is a website where anyone can post information about certain topics to inform others about it. Wikipedia gives you an overview of one topic but also includes lists of links to direct you towards other information that would be beneficial to your inquiry. I believe that through this website people can be informed of information almost instantaneously. He noted that when the London transit system was bombed, a Wikipedia page was created extremely quickly, and as more users discovered more information about the incident, the page was updated to give the most up-to date accurate information available. I like how Wikipedia does not have a big group of fancy business people in suits, handling all the operations for this website. I like how the websites operates by a spontaneous division of labor. They start with a 'stub'er', which is a person who starts the original post, and then they have a numerous amount of 'contributors' who improve the existing data. Therefore, making a Wikipedia a process not a product. It is never finished.

Blogs are evidently similar to the foundation of Wikipedia. People can continually post information under blogs, enriching the original thoughts of the user. I like being helped. I strongly believe in, the "more the merrier!"

Only how many walked?

The drop out rate of high school students is unacceptable in my point of view. Barely 2/3 of students who started high school as a ninth grader, completed all four years of high school. I knew that dropping out did not benefit the student nor the society any, but I never thought of it effecting the job industry as it has. As of 2003, North Carolina has lost more than 200,000 jobs in manufacturing. What is the reason behind so many drop-outs in North Carolina? I know from personal experience that 395 students entered into high school with me and only 249 students walked the stage with me on graduation night. I know that a couple students moved here and there but majority of my class mates just dropped out. I know this one girl in my community who dropped out 3 months before graduation because she became pregnant with her second child. I believe pregnancy had an effect on a lot of students in my class and also the lure of the drug game with the "get rich quick" scheme. There should be more programs and counseling done in order to push students to stay in school. At my high school, we had more counselors who only cared about students wanting to go to college, and if college was not in your "game plan", then they pushed you aside until you changed your minds. Several students didn't want to 'change their minds', so they just dropped out. I think more focus should be placed on unstable minded children who are not really concerned about the future, rather than full attention placed on students who are set on college no matter what. As in the linked article, Richard Moore explains a plan about making community college tuition free. I think that would be a great idea and would give children from low-income families the opportunity to achieve a degree.

The article also speaks on how the mandatory school attendance should be raised from age 16 to age 18. I whole heartedly agree on this notion. I have not idea why the cut-off was originally set at 16 anyways. At the age of sixteen, students can easily become un-motivated by sex, drugs, and peers, and could rashly drop out of school if they have no concerned family members. I do not think that the power of their future should be placed in a 16 year olds hand. Teenagers make a lot of mistakes and I do not feel giving them the opportunity to drop out is a wise choice.

Wild Card

So as I was walking to class today, I suddenly saw a plastic face of McCain, standing around, greeting students. I was totally shocked at the lame attempt that was used in order to promote his campaign. But then again, since he is somehow amazingly ahead in the political polls in North Carolina, I guess that this little jester he pulled will benefit him greatly. http://www.usaelectionpolls.com/2008/north-carolina.html.
Economically, I really do not understand the need of another republican president, under the current leadership in the United States today, we are lead by a republican which has driven this country into a recession. Prices are inflated at a all time high and there looks like there is not going to be a end in sight. If McCain was to win the presidency, how would that benefit our nation? I am still clues to that point. Change is what is needed in our society today. The reason that the 22nd amendment was passed was to eliminate the possibility of having a communistic nation. If we re-elect a republican party, wouldn't that kind of be putting our country in the communist view point. The one political party of republicans would be governing our nation continually, making their point of views more prominent, and not allowing others to express their opinions.

Drizzle Drop

Well today, unfortunately, it is raining outside. :(
I forgot my umbrella in my room so now I am wet, with many more tasks to complete today.
Personally, I only like rain when I have nothing important to do, like school work, or working at my job. The rain is extremely soothing and makes you feel more calm. Most times I feel extremely sleepy during the rain. Currently, my bed seems like my only friend.