When an AA grows up in a poor neighborhood, attends a school where there's one textbook per classroom, as opposed to a white who grows up in an affluent neighborhood, gets her own textbook & sometimes even a laptop to take home w/her, then you do not have equal opportunity. My brother is a HS teacher in north Philly, he said almost all of his students live in single parent homes on some kind of public assistance. Some of them are even homeless & living out of a car. It's a wonder they even make it to school every day.
Just curious, what kind of neighborhood did you grow up in? Did you get your own school books? Did you have 3 square meals on your table every day? Did you have your own clothes, & enough to wear something different 5 days a week, that didn't come from the Goodwill or a hand me down? Did you have parents who supported you? Did have role models who didn't sell drugs or were professional athletes?
I was a latchkey kid and pretty much lived on PB and J, yes we did have books.
Laura everything I had was a hand me down and not just from my 2 older sisters either but from 9 of my older cousins. And no I didn't get to wear something differant each day of the week. I remember alternating 3 pairs of pants that had holes in them.
My 6th grade school picture I was in had holes under the armpits. Grades K-5 school was fun. But 6-12 when my elementery school class was integrated with the affluent kids, uh, not so much. We were made fun of because our parents were'nt rich.
My dad was abusive and when i was around 13/14 he broke my mothers neck, left us, refused to pay child support while my mother could not work and was in a halo vest for an entire year. My childhood was far from glowing. And we survived by my oldest sister's meager income and the assistance she was living on because her husband died when she was 3 months pregnant.
I've been jobless and homeless-camping out in a tent one entire summer and one night even sleeping under a bridge. Where's my handout?
Just saying we all have issues.
That's why affirmative action is OK from my perspective. BTW, I didn't get into a PhD program in the late 90s, while 3 of my fellow AA classmates who had much lower GPAs than I did were accepted. You know what? I was fine w/it. Disappointed I didn't get to follow my dream, but glad they got the opportunity to follow theirs.
