Giving A Voice to the Voiceless

Ten years ago I was a normal poor woman from the Hood. I worked hard to provide for my family and struggled all the time. I lived through worrying about my sons surviving the violence that was common in my hood and I worried about the temptation my kids would face with selling drugs. I also prayed that someone would save the hood. I knew that no one was listening to us and that we did not have a voice.

best friends Jen and Carol

I love Hillary Clinton and was excited she was running for President. It was the media's unfair treatment that angered me enough to start blogging on Hillary sites. It was on these sites that I realized that I had a voice one rarely heard. I began talking about Poverty and violence in the hood and discovered that not only did these women listen they cared. I met the White, middle Class Republican woman who became my best friend on a Hillary site. I talked freely about being poor and worked hard to dispel the myth that poor women were sad, long suffering victims but strong women who were mostly happy despite poverty. My other mission was to shed light on Community Violence.

Because my friend Jen was a Republican and not the racist boogyman that most people in the hood thought they were I figured she must not be alone so I began befriending Republican women on Facebook and I was right not only were there more Republicians who were not racist the vast majority were not. Like their Liberal sisters I found them to not only care about what I was saying about poverty and the violence in the hood they learned about what life was like living in the hood. They cared about poverty and believed their ideas would help. A lot of their ideas were actually good ideas that the hood liked. Carol was in this group. She is actually a real time friend of Jen. She has become what my granddaughter Aleara says is my second best friend.

I realized also that I was a voice that was rare and not often heard and I started talking about more issues like mass incarceration for non violent drug offenders and the problems of public education and how often times Educators ignore us and how many fall beneath the cracks.  Issues I wanted to see change.

I continue to work hard educating women on what impact things like Prosecutors and Public Defenders pushing Plea Deals on terrified poor people who are innocent. My nephew who is serving time in Prison for a crime he didn't commit, encouraging me to continue to be not only his voice but the voices of the men serving time with him. Its a tremendous responsibility but one I must do because the hood needs not only my voice but others like me.

Happy New Year The Hood needs Resolutions in 2018

Midnight on the East Coast rang in 2018. Millions of people are trying to stick to their New Year Resoultions. The Hood need several this year. The following are things we as a people need to adopt.

1. We must resolve to learn how to handle conflict. We tend to jump straight to "I'll kick your ass" mode instead of stopping and thinking of our response that will attempt to squash any beef we make it worse. I did this yesterday when a young female tagged me in the post and I got angry and posted angry words. In the mean time she was speaking to my sister. My mentor talked me into deleting my comment.
 We do the same with fist fights and guns. We fight and now instead of trying again or even better accept our loss we get a gun or a gasoline can. We would rather steal a life. We are not God. We have no right to take someone's life because we can not handle our anger.

2. To much sex and drugs on our pages. We are not animals or sex objects. All the smashing and passing games prove to others that we are lacking morals. Most people who live here aren't having sex with multiple people or doing the drugs like crack and pills. We have to stop doing this nonsense on our pages. It's only hurting us.

3. Education: We got to stop thinking Education isn't for us. That is a lie. We just have to fight for it. We need to demand the Public Schools treat us as tax paying Citizens and it is our right. We have to get the basic education so that we can help our children and Grandchildren.
The most important thing we need to know is OUR rights and fight for them. Once we know our rights than they will stop scaring us with plea bargains.
The second thing is Financial Literacy so that we can learn how to manage our money better. This will prevent evictions and utility cut offs.

4. Voting We need to vote and not just for President but for Mayor, and Council, School Boards, State and Representatives and Senators on both State and local elections.

5. Regaining Hope We need to go back to before 1986 and get our old traditions. We Ole Heads have to tell our kids, grands, and greats what life was like when we were kids.

We have to start changing our lives depend on it.

What the Hood need is a respect for Education and Adult Education

What the Hood need is to stop discouraging our children from learning and since a good many adults have basic skills in both math and English, Reading, and writing.

I didn't realize my basic skills were as bad as they were until my friend told me. She began to tutor me in basic math skills. She taught me Multiplication and Division tables. She also gave me vocabulary words to learn. I surprised myself I found myself studying. After years of pretending I didn't have any issues. I had to admit that I lacked basic skills.  I am not alone either but a lot of people who live in the hood, due to either Teachers refusing to educate or parents who didn't like all that learning. The people who talk about "talking White" describing a person speaking proper English. Children are capable of learning both Ebonics and English teach him/her the time and place for each. As for the teachers its our job as parents to advocate for our kids. We have to let the teachers know that we expect them to do their jobs and educate our children.  It is very important that we be able to back up our children by teaching our babies ourselves. We need to make sure we have basic skills in both math and Laungage Arts. If our skills are lacking then we must obtain them. I was humaniliated when I admitted to my friend how poor my skills were. I have nothing to be ashamed of but I needed to acquire those skills. I still have a way to go in Math but my vocabulary which was poor in February this year has drastractly improved.

We have to not only speak English we must also learn grammar. Unless we learn what pronouns to use with what verbs and the correct tense then we will continue to work in low paying jobs with no chance for advancement.

We need to pay close attention to what is going on in schools. We need to volunteer if we can so we can know what goes on and what your kids are learning about so we can help our children.

We have to stop being so afraid of our babies leaving the hood that we bash being smart and make fun of them. The smart kids need to be encouraged and when its time for them to go to college help them get student loans and grants. Teach them to come back and teach the others and help their community.

We will never excape poverty if we lack basic skills.

Its Time for Us as a people to make some Changes

I was listening to Tupac's Changes last night. Anyone who knows me knows I love Tupac. Tupac was a rapper and film star back in the late 80s early 90s. He was murdered at the age of 25 shot to death on a Las Vegas street. His homicide remains unsolved.

In the rap Changes Tupac says "We have to change the way we live. We have to change the way we eat and change the way we treat each other" He's right we do have to change our ways. We have to decide rather we change or die. Its that simple. This is a list of changes we need to make.

1. Adults we were poorly educated and as messed up as that is we have to step up and fix it. We are not stupid we are smart we are not educated. That is what we need to change. We need to change that. We need to be able to pick up the job for our kids and grandkids.  We will continue to give off negative emotions. We have to stop making fun of the Bougsies for "talking white" its speaking English. We do not want to discourage our babies from learning. We need to learn the basic skills to teach the next generations.

2 Two parent families. I did not say marriage but if you are Christian get married. I don't care how its done let's do it. My friend Jen and her husband Donald were living together and raising their kids together. Marriage came on July 17, 2016. Their kids grew up in a two parent home. I love Jen I was glad she got married.

3 We got to change the way we treat each other. We got to stop picking up the gun for dumb beefs. I am not going to lie I was 52 and still fighting in these streets but we got to stop that. We need to learn how to be non violent. We need to start using our words.  We have to stop the killing I'm tired of saying RIP and RWG all the time.

4 We no longer need the No Snitching rule back in the day it was necessary for survival but that is no longer needed. You see something call the police if it were your family you would want justice. We have to corporate with the police. Do not listen to the Bougsies talk to the ones who do not want you to talk to the police. Remember this they do not live in the hood its not them who have to put up with daily shootings. Its not them loosing their families.

5. We need to learn to budget our money. We stay broke because we are not keeping track of our money. We have a lack of money we can still budget but you have to account for every dime.

We have better stop or we will all die. We have to stop catching cases and stopntaking plea bargains. We need to start exercising our rights.

Finally we have to have each others back we are the only people who truly understands when your lights get cut off. We need to remain united.

Research into Poverty and Eliminating Poverty

A big topic of the last campaign was elimating income inequality ( a feel good term replacing Poverty). You cannot get rid of poverty its not going anywhere. Not one Country on Earth has gotten rid of poverty no matter how hard they try. Its not gonna happen because life isn't fair some people have money and some people don't. Poor people are not sad people with hard lives. We are not pitiful creatures who must be saved. We do not want the Government to take care of us, we want jobs to take care of ourselves.

I am researching Poverty and the effects of poverty. Most of what I found were incomplete because it followed children. The adults weren't separated in groups such as Urban Poor or Rural Poor. How does the Red Neck and the Hood Rat differ? They don't follow the children tested to see if most kids who lived in poverty got out and what percentage stayed.

The study I read talk about lower cognitive skills and education. The rates of Learning Disabilities were increased in children born into poverty. Yet they couldn't tell you why. To bad none of them thought to ask the parents of the children if they knew why.  Poverty a produces Food Emergencies and when you are hungry you can't learn. Yes the kids have free lunch and for the children in grades K through 8 have breakfast and they help but the children know they may not have dinner unless their parents could get to a food bank or help from other poor people. Poor children worry about financial problems of the household because besides hunger utilities are often off. The electricity being off means they must get dressed in the dark. The water being off means they must get water (mainly older kids) they must carry heavy jugs from their friends or family until the bills can be paid and services restored. Having Gas off in the winter means they are cold even with electric heat its cold. Stressed children have difficulty learning.

The problem no one wants to talk about is the public schools that serve poor kids.  Some teachers hate poor children they may be dirty, hungry, and they never have school supplies. The teacher may wish she had students who didn't have so many problems. Maybe they don't want to waste their times on "dumb" children. Most teachers are frustrated because they know the parents can't afford things like pencils and the School Board will not purchase pencils. This leaves the teacher themselves to purchase teachers and papers. This is beginning to change and both Churches and Non Profits are having book bag give aways. Its a wonderful thing for children and their parents. Children are embarrassed when they don't have money.

The requirement of Uniforms is another problem because of the expense. Uniforms should never be required at any public school because parents can't afford them. Schools that require them have truency problems. This ends up with the parents ending up in jail. The kids miss because the one uniform ends up dirty. Kids skip because no one wants to be laughed at.

When you have issues like this your study on cognitive abilities make sense. Its the Poverty issues stupid to quote Bill Clinton.

The Hidden Shame of Having a Poor Education

I've mentioned before that poor children especially those that attend inner city schools are not being educated correctly. 
Even in wealthier school districts poor children in the ghettos are not getting the proper education due to racism and crashing.
I'm 52 years old who graduated from High School without the following skills Multiplication, Division,  Fractions,  and Decimals. I can barely add or subtract.  I was told by several teachers that they tried their best but my brain just couldn't work right enough to learn these skills.  Professional teachers spent years trying to teach me what took an artist in Maine, Carol Douglas,  one day to teach me.  I learned my 3 and 4 tables in one day.
So my brain wouldn't work for the teachers but worked for Carol Douglas. It was then I realized that I was a victim of a society who does not want to educate the poor. 
To many teachers look at poor children and assume they either do not have the capacity to learn or they don't have the parental support.
I had both but they used my so called Learning Disabilities as an excuse for not teaching me basic skills. I have had to live with that decision all my life. 
I spent years coming up with ways to hide the fact that my math skills were poor.  I hid the fact that I did not know my multiplication tables.
I believed their lie until a few days ago when Carol taught me my 3 and 4 tables. I knew then it was a lie. 
A woman from Rockport, Maine decided to give me the Education that the Commonwealth of PA and the General Braddock and Woodland Hills school district did not.

Inner City Education

This is the third time I wrote this Blogger can not find my picture.
I went to an inner city school district 98% of the students received free or reduced lunches. 
The buildings were in disrepair and school supplies were in short supplies.
Most of the teachers were wonderful people who often had to purchase school supplies in order to teach the kids
Some teachers we're cruel while others were lazy.  My fourth grade teacher grouped her students by income level the poorest students we're placed into the group she called the Dummy group.  The Dummies had to do all the physical labor.  We had to wait until the other kids ate before we ate because we had to throw away their food.  Often times she never allowed us time to eat. We didn't have a lunch room. I finally told my mother who told the other parents and they reported the teacher they did not fire her and we we're ignored the rest of the year.
We had a teacher in Junior High  who read newspapers drank coffee and fed the roaches while we drew math
I learned how to write an outline this week my friend who is tutoring me now said I was a quick studies and one of the best students she ever taught.  I know I'm not the only smart person from the Hood and as I told my friend picture what I could have done with a real Education.