Stupid Is As Stupid Does

It’s been a few short days since I’ve heard anything stupid in the news that is blogworthy until the controversy over Barack Obama’s speech yesterday. As always, it was divided among Democrats and Republicans.

Very rarely do I call people stupid, but those who opposed his speech are. Those who pulled their kids out of school so they wouldn’t hear a speech on education are even dumber. I didn’t have the chance to see the speech live, but I did read the text, and I’m appalled! How dare Obama tell our kids “don’t ever give up on yourself?” Or “If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying?” Or that “you can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job?”

God forbid Obama has “The Audacity of Hope!” Hope that we will become great doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other great contributors to our society. Most students liked his speech. One girl said “he made me think I can do anything I want to.” Others were motivated to study harder.

One guy from Texas said “there are few moments in my life when I’m embarrassed to say I’m from Texas, this is one of them.” Being from Dallas, I totally understand!

The one thing that he said during his speech that stuck with me the most was “we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.”

This is the root of America’s problems (well of the roots anyways). Our schools are the best in the world, hence why we’ve got an influx of international students flocking here to get a great education only to go back to their home country to make it better. We don’t value education as much as people in poor countries do. In some countries, students can’t even afford to go to public school because their families can’t afford the required uniform. We take education for granted in America, and here is a man telling our future to stay in school so we can better compete with foreigners and we’re mad?

One lady said that she did not appreciate Obama’s telling the kids to do well in school and succeed because “it is the parents’ job to be their kids’ role models and to instill these values in them.” I totally agree, but the problem is that most parents aren’t instilling these values in their children. Most children are being raised in single family homes, and a disproportionate number of black children are being raised in fatherless families. For these kids to see an intelligent black man stand there and tell them they are valued and they can achieve anything they put their minds to makes all the difference in breaking the cycle of young black men turning to lives of crime to ultimately wind up dead or incarcerated.

I wouldn’t expect most conservatives and republicans to care about the welfare of black people in America, but I do. Party politics, race, sexism, and all other divisors aside, we need to realize we’re all in this together. We are only as strong as our weakest link and Obama was trying to motivate our youth to study hard and stay in school. Think about it, these children are our future, and they are more concerned with their friends, their clothes, their iPods, their Myspace page, and which Jonas Brother is dating Miley Cyrus this week, than with school, and their idea of a complete sentence is OMGWTFFML and we’re mad that our president is encouraging them to focus on school??? Stupid is as stupid does people!

feel free to check out the text to his speech here: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/09/07/obamas-long-awaited-back-to-school-speech/

Run Your Race

Many people believe that the election of Barack Obama finally ended the race issue in the United States of America, but recent events make it seem like the race hasn’t even started yet. It’s like America’s been training for a race by running on a treadmill- we haven’t gone anywhere. We’re taught to believe that we can accomplish anything we put our minds to regardless of race. We believe in achieving the American Dream; we believe that getting an education, having a family, making a living, owning a house with a white picket fence are some symbols that “you’ve made it”- yet recent events show that racism still lies behind some of life’s Gates.

Unless America whips itself into shape, it will lose this race. We all know that race is a big part of America. The America we know and love today wouldn’t exist if not for the many different cultures that came here (whether involuntary or not). We pride ourselves on being the land of the free, the home of the brave, the land of opportunity, yet so many of our liberties are being stripped away, we’ve become fearful of expressing our beliefs and opinions, and we’re wasting our opportunities to truly be the best nation in the world.

America needs to stop running in place and start running its race. We need to “throw off all that hinders us.” The biggest weight on our shoulders is racism. Some studies show that if not for racism, we would be able to weather this economic storm a little better. While we continued to allow racism to divide us, people in other countries worked together to attain higher levels of education, to better manage their economic situations, to help one another, and some have even been able to take some of our jobs away from us.

There is a Haitian saying that reads “l’union fait la force”- unity makes strength. This saying was so instrumental in its becoming the first Black nation to free itself from slavery that it is featured on the nation’s flag. America needs to be reUNITED with the values on which it was built, and we need to hit the ground running because this race is far from over, and at this pace we’ll surely lose.