Why school funding will always be unequal.

Today, I am going to share three somewhat related anecdotes from my life, a sudden realization that came to me while I was contemplating writing this post, and then give the reason behind the title above.

Anecdote #1)

In Juvenile Delinquency class my senior year of college, I read this book:

If you can't see the picture, it's Savage Inequalities, by Johnathan Kozol. This is one of those great books that makes you look at the world differently after you finish it. I don't remember a lot of the specifics of the book, but I do remember walking out of class one day and thinking,

After I graduate, I want to work on legislation that changes the way that schools are funded.

Anecdote #2)

Fast forward several years later. After becoming an adult,I realized that getting a BA in Sociology and Political Science from a state school doesn't typically put you on the fast track to a job crafting education policy in Washington D.C. ;)

I was talking to my friend (I'll call him Thomas,) who was a high school Science teacher. I say was because like many smart, capable young people who become teachers, he decided a few years in that teaching was not for him. I think I have a pretty good understanding of the reasons why, but I don't want to speak for him. So if you see him, just ask him yourself.

So anwyay, Thomas worked at a school in a district that had a reputation of being a very high-quality one, with schools in it that had a lot of money. However, the school that Thomas worked in had a lot of middle and low-income students, and had little in common with another well-regarded high school in the district. Since by law, both schools got the same amount of funding from the government, I was curious to know why there was a discrepancy in the facilities, resources, etc. of the two schools. His answer? Fundraising.

Anecdote #3)

At some point down the road, I started thinking about my own high school, and how we got a lot of the things that we wanted. The answer? Fundraising.

For example, when I went there, my high school auditorium had these really ugly, florescent orange, plastic seats. There were no seats broken or missing, (because we had an adequate maintenance budget,) they were just ugly.

At some point after I graduated, someone(s) decided that those seats had to go. Now there are these really nice blue velvet seats in the auditorium.

How were they paid for?

Parents and other members of the community pledged money for a seat, in return for having a little plaque on the arm that they could use to recognize someone, like their kids or themselves or a deceased loved one. I don't remember exactly how much the plaques cost, I just know they weren't cheap. And now my fellow Eagles (not my school's real mascot,) get to watch performances in style.

I was also in a singing group at that school, and we got new formal gowns to perform in each year.

I know what you're thinking, Singing and blogging?!? Yes it's true--I am a woman of many talents ;)

How did we pay for these? Parents could just cut a check, or students could sell stuff to cover/defray the cost. I remember one year we were selling holiday cards, and the woman who did my mom's nails bought three boxes. I remember being amazed, because like most school fundraiser stuff, these things were ridiculously overpriced.

It was only looking back that I figured out that she was also probably trying to make a positive impression on a customer, in order to bring more business back to herself.

So each year we would have these snazzy new dresses to wear and the male members would have equally snazzy tuxedos. When we went to concerts and whatnot across the state, it became clear that many other schools (with all-white choirs,) had robes or dresses that were passed down year to year.

On a semi-related note, the choir that I was in was very good. I'm not just saying that, we would win competitions and have people go to all-state and stuff.

There was one competition that we went to where we got a 1+. The lower the number the better, so a 1+ was like, the best you could get. Actually 1+ wasn't even a real score, 1 was the score that was on the form to give to people that were the best.

Okay, anecdote #3 is over.

And this is the part that I've been thinking about recently: how much of our 1+ was due to the fact that we were (to use the parlance of child beauty pageants,) the total package ?

Yes, we were very good singers, but would we have been as pleasing to the judge if we had come in wearing ill-fitting robes? Would we have felt as comfortable and confident if we weren't in clothing we had specifically chosen? Could that have made the difference between the 1 and the 1+?

Which leads me to my final point: the reason that school funding will never be equal is because even if there is Federal legislation that decrees every school in the land will get x amount per student, fundraising will always be there for certain schools to pick up the slack.

Why certain schools? Because in order for fundraising to be effective, you have to have a group of adults willing and able to buy overpriced products. They have to have the disposable income to buy things that they don't need, and the desire to use that income to put towards the extras that are nice for schools to have.

And I don't see anyway that you could eliminate fundraising, because like the Citizens United case has ruled, money is speech. And is it even possible or reasonable to try to infringe on a parent's right to give money to their child's school?

One final thought before I ask y'all some questions: As I have a two-year-old that I have started researching preschools for (a year in advance,) I am struck by something. Parents often talk about wanting their kid to have advantages. But an advantage is not an advantage unless, by definition, some other kid is deprived of that same opportunity. Music classes are not an advantage if everyone takes them. A computer lab doesn't give students an advantage if every school has one.

So when we talk about advantages (that seem ingrained into the very fabric of our school system,) advantages over whom? What is it that we want our kid to get that these other kids aren't? What do we think these early experiences will bring to them later in life?

Oops, I already started with the questions. Here's some more...

Did you go to public or private school? Or maybe you were homeschooled.
What was your school like in terms of facilities, extra-curriculars, resources, etc?
How did students get money for things they needed and/or wanted?
Is there a way to make school funding more fair? If so, how?
Is fairness even a goal that we should be pursuing in education? Why or why not?

Feel free to answer any or all of these questions, or to leave your thoughts about whatever strikes your fancy in the comment section below.

Who owns the fisheries?

Hi y'all.

It's been a minute. I haven't been posting, and unlike most times when I haven't been posting, I also haven't been reading other blogs. So if I'm a regular commenter on your blog, don't worry. Your content didn't suddenly get super boring.

Today, I wanted to talk about an example from popular culture that I think is a good example of structural racism. Structural classism could probably apply too.

Like this previous post, the idea for today's post came to me as I was watching an episode of CBS Sunday Morning . Seriously, why I haven't I been watching that show my whole life? I really like it.

The segment in question was a profile on The Gregory Brothers. Even if that name doesn't sound familiar, it is likely that you have seen some of their work. This family takes news clips and then autotunes them and turns them into songs. They're really big on youtube. I was gonna put up one of their videos right now, but I think it would be better to first put up a news clip, so you can see the raw materials that they're working with:



Okay and now here's the song that they made:



Now here is the point in the post where someone is thinking, "Oh, I know what is going to happen next. Myblackfriend is going to tell us all about the evil white people and how bad they are for exploiting the black man from the projects."

WRONG.

Now, I'll admit I did think that was the direction we were going when I first started watching the segment on Sunday Morning. But then I heard the brothers say that they split the proceeds of all their song downloads with the person featured. I think that is honorable. Especially because there is probably a way that the siblings could have used some legal maneuvering to get out of paying the subjects of the videos anything. And it appears to be something that they really want viewers to know, because did you see how they made it very clear in the second video above?

So, I have to say I don't have a problem with them making money off the colorful characters from news broadcasts, primarily because they are splitting the profits 50/50.

However...

remember in this post when I said that black people own 1% of the wealth in the United States, which is the exact same percentage they owned at the end of The Civil War, 140 someodd years ago? The Gregory Brothers and Antoine Dodson are an illustration of one of the reasons that that is the case.

You see, The Gregory Brothers don't have this one song download that they're making money off of, they have hundreds of millions of views of their videos on youtube. They have an app for your phone that will autotune whatever you say. They also tour, and sell Gregory Siblings merchandise. They are working on a pilot for a show on Comedy Central. Something tells me they are not splitting the profits from all of these other revenue streams with anyone but people whose last name is Gregory.

So Antoine gets a nice chunk of change for being funny on the news, and the siblings get even nicer, even larger chunks of change for coming up with the whole idea.

Which leads me to my next point--how did they come up with this idea anyway? Realize the next paragraph is pure speculation. But if I can't speculate and put out potentially incorrect information on the internet--where else am I supposed to do it?

So my theory is that the brothers have been interested in computers and audio stuff for awhile, let's say starting in middle school. They had parents that had the means and/or went to schools that had the facilities to allow them to cultivate their talents. And since public schools are financed primarily by property taxes, people who live in housing owned by the government (like Antoine,) probably don't have schools with nice A/V departments. So people like Antoine aren't thinking "Hey, I'm gonna mess around with this soundboard, and 15 years from now I am going to think of something that's going to make me and my brothers a lot of money!"

I just want to be clear that I am not hating on The Gregory Brothers. They had an idea, and since they live in this great country that is the United States, they were
able to turn that idea into money.

What I am saying is that there were structures in place that made it much more likely that they would be the ones making the video and Antoine would be the one in the video, instead of the other way around.

Which leads me to the title of this post. You know that saying about give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish? What happened in this situation?

I personally think it's somewhere in the middle. They didn't give Antoine a fish, because he did do something. But I don't think they taught him how to fish either, because the brothers are in the process of building an empire that Antoine is not a part of. I mean, Antoine wasn't the one being interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning.

I hope that Antoine is able to take the fame and money that he receives from the song and parlay it into financial security and for him and his family. And I also hope that we as a society can take a closer look at situations like this one, and figure out a way that generations from now we won't have a really good idea of who's playing what role based on the color of their skin.

There are a lot of other questions that can be discussed (this whole thing started because of an attempted rape--what's funny about that? Does Antoine make black people look bad because he's keepin' it real? The newsclip has way more views than the song--who's making money off of that?) But I am going to end it here.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts. So don't be shy; leave me a comment.

#whitepeopleproblems

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably already know where this is going ;)

I have a problem with white people problems.

If you are not really down with the internet scene, whitepeopleproblems is a thing going around (a meme?) where white people talk about some minor conundrum or annoyance that exists in their lives and at the beginning or end they say, #whitepeopleproblems.

Here are some examples:

I have to recycle after my housekeeper does all the cleaning #whitepeopleproblems

My wife and I got upgraded to first class, but they had no adjoining seats. #whitepeopleproblems

I have also heard them called #1stworldproblems. I guess is that this is so people who aren't white, but also want to complain/humblebrag/attempt to be funny won't feel left out.


I don't know why, but I have been neglecting my bullet points! I think now is a perfect time to bring them back.

--#whitepeopleproblems is a lot like the swagger wagon video. With the minivan commercial, it was like look how unhip we are because we drive a minivan. With the meme it's like, look how petty and spoiled we are because we get irritated by such unimportant things.

The problem with both of these situations is that we're supposed to think the white people are making fun of themselves. But it doesn't come across that way to me, and I have a hard time believing that it comes across that way to anyone else, regardless of race.

What's left unsaid is the mocking and minimizing of the group that is not part of the meme.

It's like, it wouldn't be funny to explicitly say,

black people don't have housekeepers!
black people don't fly first class!

So, what makes it funny to imply it? I don't get it.

--another problem with wpp (hey it's like opp, but different) is that it continues to perpetuate this myth that white people don't have problems. That to be white is to have not a care in the world. You don't see on twitter:

eating disorders #whitepeopleproblems
meth #whitepeopleproblems
drinking yourself to death at a frat party #whitepeopleproblems

And yes, I know that the things that I listed above do not happen exclusively to white people, I am trying to make a point. The meme problems are never anything serious, when we all know that white people do in fact have lots of real problems.

There seems to be a lot of real discomfort around discussing white people as a group. So much so that it is rarely ever done, and when it is it is usually in some sort of joking manner.

--It is important to note that most (all?) of the #whitepeopleproblems are closely tied to being from a certain socio-economic status. Like having housekeepers and flying-- these are things that low-income white people don't have a lot of experience with. It is just another example of the idea that white and upper middle class are synonyms, and you can't really be one without automatically being the other.

This puts a lot of pressure on white people, because if you want to live up to the white ideal, it involves presenting this image of living a certain lifestyle. If you don't do this, you can be labeled white trash and from what I have gleaned, that's something that no white person wants to be. You can read more of my thoughts on the white trash label here.

--Another problem with conflating whiteness and money is that it can harm people of color who like money and decide that they want to try and legally make some. If they decide to go to college, pick a major that will actually make them money (i.e. not, Sociology ;) and get a well-paying job, they are often accused of acting white. And contrary to what some white people might think--that is not considered a compliment. Some people are so concerned with being perceived as a sellout that they will consciously make choices that harm their chances of being traditionally successful in our society, believing that it makes them more authentically black/latino/etc. The reality is there are many (ok, some) people of color that do fly first class and have housekeepers, and they should be free to do such things without having their racial identities questioned.

--So it would really make more sense to call this meme #problemsofpeoplethatappeartohavemoney. #1stworldproblems doesn't work because not everyone in developed countries has money, and there are people in developing countries that do have money. Plus 1st world, and 3rd world, are rude, imnsho. And I said, appear to have money because we all know that just because you have something, doesn't mean you can actually afford to have it--keeping up appearances, ykwim?

But my suggestion is wordy and not a lot of fun. It also doesn't allow for the detrimental myths to continue to be perpetuated. So I am not expecting it to catch on anytime soon ;)

That's pretty much all I've got to say; but I am interested to hear what you think. Leave me a comment.

Follow-Up Fridays

I want to revisit this post that I made two weeks ago about an anti-abortion ad that was put up in New York City and taken down the next day. I got some good comments/questions, so I just want to expand further on some of my own ideas, and maybe hear more about what you all might have to say.

My white friend Rebecca said:

Is it true that when the unemployment rates are low and the economy is thriving that crime rates drop?

To the best of my memory the time during the Clinton administration our economy was thriving (we were operating on a surplus right).

Yes, Rebecca I do believe that you are right that when the economy is good, crime rates tend to go down. And you are also right that we had a budget surplus under Bill Clinton (Oh, how times have changed...)

But I also think that the authors of Freakonomics took this into consideration when writing the chapter, and found that crime decreased more sharply under President Clinton than during other times of economic prosperity, leading them to speculate that economic prosperity alone was not an explanation for the significant decrease in the crime rate.

My black friend Michelle said:

My understanding as to why that billboard was immediately taken down was that the parents of the little girl in the ad were not informed (or misinformed) as to the ad content.

Yes, I also heard that the little girl's parents were not aware what her picture was going to be used for. But my understanding was that they knew that it was a stock photo, and models for stock photography know that they don't have any control over where their image is going to end up. It reminds me of that Friends episode where Joey is on posters all around Manhattan that say he has an STD.

Additonally, after doing some more research on the internet, it would seem that the protests of pro-choice groups was the biggest factor in getting the billboard removed. At least according to one of the leaders of a pro-choice group. She wrote in part:

I truly believe that our collective quick action, phone calls and letters to the [billboard] company are directly responsible for their decision to pull the ad.

When I wrote the post, I came across some blogs with phone numbers telling people to call and complain about the ad, saying that it was racist. I'm like, "How is this racist?"

One of the (white) bloggers said that is was insulting black women's intelligence by assuming they weren't smart enough to make informed choices about their own reproductive health. I would argue the opposite; that it was giving black women information they most likely didn't already know that might or might not have a significant impact on what reproductive decisions they choose to make.

Now, I understand that the ultimate goal of the group producing the ad is probably to decrease the number of choices that all women have by making abortion illegal. But I personally don't see anything wrong with bringing to light the fact that there is a disparity in the abortion rates between black women and white women. Just like I don't see anything wrong with highlighting disparities in home ownership, incarceration rates, higher education rates, life expectancy, etc. These disparities exist and they should be discussed.

Michelle also said:

So what if abortions occur disproportionately among Black women?
Black women are at a disadvantage. And that's just the way it is.

I would say if black women are at a disadvantage (at least in part,) due to the legacy of historical racist practices and policies, that is an issue of concern for me. Hell, even if this turns out to be an issue of class and white women are aborting their babies primarily because the don't have the financial means to take care of them--that bothers me a lot too.

The reason that I asked you all if it might be racist/racish to be concerned about the rate of black abortions, is because if a white person was like, "I'm going to have this baby so I can help propagate the white race." We would all be sitting here thinking, "Hmm...white supremacist much?" The whole discussion of the number of white babies vs. the number of black babies can start to sound a little Race War-y. But no one reading seemed to have an issue with that. If you did, leave me a comment and I can try to explain why I don't see it that way.

Both Michelle and my new black friend Dayka (Hi Dayka!) offered up some alternate explanations for why the statistics might be the way they are, or aren't actually the way they seem to be. I guess my answer to this would be that the statistics from the CDC are pretty clear cut, and I don't know that the alternate explanations that you provided would be significant enough to explain away the huge disparities in the abortion rate.

For example, Dayka I know you mentioned that white women are more likely to have abortions through private doctors. This may be true, but most hospitals are required by their state laws to report the number of abortions that occur in their facilities. And I don't believe that two out of three white doctors are "protecting" their white patients by not reporting the fact that the patient had an abortion. Especially when you consider the reporting of the procedures is completely anonymous.

My white friend John Ferguson suggested that maybe more black women don't have abortions, perhaps a subset of black women have several abortions which skews the rates. My response would be: either way, this is a problem.

John Ferguson actually said a lot of other things. John, I wish you and I had been able to talk about this more the last time we saw each other, so I could have cleared up some of the things that I said. But I guess instead, I can do it on my blog where everyone can read it (:

Just a few things I want to clear up:

1) I don't believe that black men are inherently more violent or genetically predisposed to commit more crimes than white men.
2) I do agree with the idea that people born to poor,uneducated mothers are more likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system. Note that I didn't say commit crimes, I said come into contact with the criminal justice system (i.e. get caught.) So if there are fewer poor black males to target and incarcerate because of abortion, then the crime rate is going to go down.
Just like if there are fewer poor white males to target, the crime rate is going to go down. Remember, the Freakonomics chapter said nothing about race, it focused on class.

As a sidenote, nobody answered my question about if a decrease in the crime rate should be seen as a benefit of legalized abortion.


I think it's interesting that just based on the comments, no one seems to have a problem with the idea that class based abortions are something to be concerned about. Even if it were proven that this had nothing to do with race, and everything to do with class, should it be disturbing to us that poor women have three times as many abortions as middle-class women or rich women? Perhaps it is not racism; it's just classism--does that make it somehow ok?


I think my white friend JD made an excellent point when she said:

It seems like as a society we've decided that age and situation of the mother, the circumstances of the pregnancy, and disability are "good" reasons, whereas race and gender are "bad" reasons [to have an abortion]. Or put another way, if the mother doesn't want a child, it's a good reason; if the mother (or society) doesn't want a particular child, it's a bad reason. [emphasis added]

JD posted a link in her comment to a very thought provoking article about abortions being used for sex-selection in countries like China and India. I would recommend that you all read it.

I think that the pro-choice camp (of which I am currently still a part, ) has painted itself into something of a corner. By promoting this idea of abortions for whomever, whenever, for whatever reason, and fighting tooth and nail any and all attempts to restrict access to abortion, they are insulting the intelligence of the average human being who recognizes that abortion is (at the very least,) an end of the possibility for a particular organism to have a life. And certain organisms are being disproportionately targeted by the procedure.

One of my most favoritest english teachers in college said that abortion was like waking up one morning and having a world class violinist attached to your shoulder. The violinist would die if you cut him off of your shoulder, but if you didn't cut him off, he'd be with you everywhere you went for the rest of your life. What should you/would you do?

I know that there are more comments that I didn't get to and I also know that this post is probably not as polished as it could be. But little dude is doing his afternoon nap wake-up routine, so I have got to go get him. Thank you all for leaving your comments and I hope that we can continue this conversation. And if you are a new reader like Dayka, I hope that you will look over to the sidebar on the right hand side for all the different ways that you can stay connected with me and know when I make new posts.

Thanks for reading; I look forward to hearing your feedback.

It's better to say too much, than never to say what you need to say again...

There's been something I've been wanting to blog about for awhile now, but I haven't. Mainly because I don't want to start crap and also because I am not exactly sure what I want to say. The possibility of crap starting is very high, because it concerns an extremely sensitive topic: abortion.





The billboard above was put up in a neighborhood in NYC a few months ago. It was taken down the next day, amid protests from I'm not sure who.

Now, I have always considered myself pro-choice. But something about the idea that this billboard is so offensive that it immediately needs to be taken down rubs me the wrong way. It is certainly a provocative ad, and the overt racial angle makes it even more so. I have written here before about how black women get a disproportionate number of the abortions in the U.S. They get almost 40% of the abortions and are only 12% of the female population. To me this is not something to be happy about, or even indifferent about.

But part of me feels like if I want to keep my pro-choice label, this is not something I can have an issue with. Because having an issue with the idea of abortion without restrictions is a slippery slope that leads to abortions for no one other than people who have enough money and connections to get them even when they are illegal.

I have also been doing a fair amount of reading about eugenics lately, and it is disturbing to me how closely the ideas of family planning and getting rid of "degenerates" have been tied if you look back in history. And it makes me wonder how much of that pairing is still unspoken today.

Let's make this even more uncomfortable. I don't know if you've read the book Freakonomics, but you should. It is a really interesting book that uses the lens of economics to explain lots of different things that you wouldn't normally look to that field to explain. There is a chapter that talks about how when Bill Clinton was President, there was a precipitous drop in the crime rate that people were not sure how to explain.

The authors of Freakonomics theorized that the reason for the drop was the legalization of abortion. They argued that babies/fetuses/whateveryouwanttocallthem that were most likely to be aborted, are the same people that were most likely to commit crimes. Fewer potential criminals exsiting = less crime. I believe in the book they talked about people most likely to be criminals were males who were born to young, poor, uneducated single mothers. I read the book a few years ago, but I am pretty sure that I remember that they pointedly did not mention race. However, looking at what I said earlier about the abortion rates, and what I wrote here about incarceration rates, what is left unspoken is that many of these abortions were given to black women having black babies.

I have noticed in conversations that I have had with pro-choice women in the past, there are often statements like, "Well, I would never get an abortion, but I think they should be available for other women."

I have always wanted to ask (and now finally am,) "Why is it necessary for you to let people know that you personally would never have an abortion? What are you trying to tell people about yourself by saying that? And who are these other women that abortion should be an available choice for?"


Here are some other questions that I have:

Do you think it is racist/racish for a black person to be concerned that black women are more likely to have abortions than white women? Why or why not?

Should a reduction in the crime rate because of the legalization of abortion be seen as a benefit of abortion? Why or why not?

If you are pro-choice, reading this, and getting mad me...I want to offer something to you. I think that part of the reason you're getting upset is because I am taking abortion, something that is commonly associated with liberals (i.e. the good white people,) and joining it up with not wanting black people around/not caring if fewer black people are around--something usually associated with conservatives (the racist white people.) Think about it.

I am not sure of the answers to the questions that I posed, which is a big part of the reason I asked them of you. I am very curious to hear your thoughts, so you should strongly consider leaving me a comment. Remember that you can leave comments anonymously.

Ghetto Fabulous

I am watching American Justice (if you haven't figured it out, I watch a lot of tv--Tivo is a wonderful thing.)
So I'm watching American Justice about the Central Park Jogger case from the late 80's. First: did you know that all the people that were orginally convicted were set free because someone else confessed? So much for that whole "wilding" theory...

Anyway, I'm watching it and there's some white woman talking about crime in NY in the 80's. There was a lot more than there is now, and she says, "There was a concern that the ghetto crime would spill over into the white neighborhoods." What? Let's think about this critically, people: What is she saying with this statement?

White people don't live in ghettos
White people don't live in neighborhoods with crime
ghetto=non-white----> non white people do not live in low crime neighborhoods

Now, she seems to have enough savvy not to say, "There's was a concern that black/Latino crime would spread into white neighborhoods." No no no, that would be racist. But she can substitute the eupehmism, "ghetto" and we think nothing of it.
I'd also like to point out that this woman works for the Columbia Journalism School, responsible for shaping the young minds of the future media. Whoo hoo!

CBS Evening News

Yes, there has been some time between posts. I am something of a perfectionst, and this is not a good thing. So I am trying to work on it, which means that I am going to write about stuff that I yell about to the tv and get excited about when talking to my friends.

So yesterday, I was watching the CBS evening news with Bob Schieffer. I watch this newscast pretty much every night. Why? I want to stay up to date on what is going on in the world. I loved it when Dan Rather was on. I don't love anymore, but I fear change.

So it's near the end of the newscast and Schieffer starts his intro on a story about how gas prices are affecting how people live their daily lives (really?) What struck me about the intro was that he said something like, " Higher prices are especially affecting the poor..." I was like, "That's kind of rude, to just call people poor." But maybe that's just me.

My thoughts quickly moved to, "Well, are they going to show a black person in this story? I hope they don't show a black person in this story." I don't know if this is something that other black people do, but I do it regularly.

Needless to say, the featured person was a home health care worker who was black, and the client that they showed her taking care of was also black. Then they talked about how she was a member of the "working poor" a concept I am very familiar with.

Now in this broadcast they also showed Condoleeza Rice playing the piano in Malaysia, and she is also black.

But it bothered me because another time I can remember that they did a story about "regular americans" was when they were talking about some new banking regulation that would make it harder to "float" checks, because now they could be cashed electronically. "People" of course were worried about this. And who do they show and interview--two freaking black people again. And this time there was no Condi story to conrast it with.

This irritates me because I am sure there are plenty of white people who are members of the working poor affected by gas prices, and also white people who float checks because they don't have any money. Were they not able to find some of these people to interview? There are already do so few representations of people of color and I feel like the ones that do happen are disporportionately less than positive.

Yes, it's not bad to be a member of the working poor, and if you want to almost bounce checks, go ahead. But I just don't understand why CBS couldn't find some white people for these stories, since they seem to have little problem featuring whites for stories that show them as multifaceted human beings--mothers, fathers, scholars, autistic basketball heroes, etc.

Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome your comments.