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LadyEllen -> one of my hopes for an Obama Presidency (10/18/2008 9:48:43 AM)
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One of my hopes for an Obama Presidency is that it has a profound and lasting influence on black youngsters in general - and in particularly on young black lads over here and around the predominantly white world.
Its one of those "dirty subjects", and its something that has to be tiptoed around it seems, to even bring up the subject of young black people - predominantly boys - performing poorly in our education system in the UK.
From age 5 when they start school, to about age 12, black students here show no significant difference in performance compared to students of the other various ethnic backgrounds we have in our schools. After about age 12, their performance drops very significantly compared to others, and for black boys it drops more spectacularly than for their female counterparts.
There are many factors that are taken to occasion this, but they boil down to a sense of disenfranchisement in our society which no interest in or performance in education can overcome for them. This then becomes a vicious cycle that self perpetuates and strengthens over time.
I hope that Obama becoming President goes a long way towards saying to these young black students that they can achieve, they can break into the wider society, can accomplish and succeed on their merits just the same as anyone else - and that for this coming generation of black students this vicious cycle will be broken forever.
And thereby that our country and countries around the world will start to finally throw off the ridiculous and shameful racist undercurrents that linger, and with our people enabled to participate equitably in the socio-economic life of our nations, we can finally turn the page on disunity for the most bizarre of reasons.
E
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