What Are the Needs of African Americans?

The other night I was watching some TV when a news channel said that after the break they had Danny Glover's viewpoint on what happened in Haiti. Because I was involved in a serious game of NCAA Football 2004 (thats right, 2004), I missed the story. So a few minutes ago I Googled it and I came across this blog post (http://sandrarose.com/2009/12/23/actor-danny-glover-blasts-obama/) by a lady named Sandra Rose. The blog post had to do with Danny Glover, but it actually has to do with something he said about President Obama, not Haiti.

In this blog Ms. Rose says this, "Obama pretty much avoided campaigning in black communities during his historic run for president, and at the time blacks had no problems with that. So why have a problem with it now that Obama continues to turn a deaf ear to the needs of blacks?" This led me to ask, what are the needs of blacks? What are the needs of whites? What are the needs of Hispanics? What are the needs of any group of people in this country?

Let me tell you where I struggle with this whole need thing. I work as a Special Education Assistant in a Tennessee school. Most of the students ride the bus to school, which is FREE. The students are then provided with a FREE education. Many of the students get to eat lunch for absolutely FREE. To make A's and B's in high school it takes about as much intelligence as a frog has. It does take showing up to school and doing your homework. If you make A's and B's and at least try on the ACT it is not hard to get accepted to a decent college and even if your grades stink and your ACT score is 4 you can at least go to junior college.

It is about as easy to get loans for college as it is to make A's and B's in high school. Some people are so poor that the goverment even gives them money for school in the form of grants. Our government gives out free medical care (Medicaid) and food stamps and even has housing programs for poor people.

So can somebody please tell me what needs any group of people could possibly have? If you cannot succeed in the United States of America, you cannot succeed anywhere. The system our government has in place is failproof. It takes effort to fail in this country. If you cannot succeed at some level in this country, if you cannot provide for yourself and your family, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Let me tell you why I struggle with this whole need thing even more. I already mentioned that I am an education assistant. I make $14,500 a year. That amounts to $1200 a month pre-taxes and $1080 post-taxes and other deductions (e.g., life insurance, eye and dental insurance). My wife is in graduate school and is currently doing clinicals. Those are unnpaid for those of you who don't know. I am also a full time graduate student. We live on $1080 a month. We have no credit cards and we only use our student loan money for college expenses. In other words, we do not use student loan money to pay bills or for any other expense besides educational needs.

I cannot afford the medical insurance offered through my empoyer so we have a private policy through Aetna (which has been very good to us by the way). I would be lying if I did not say that we have very supportive families. We have both been blessed with incredible families. With that being said, our families do not give us very much money. They spoil us at every turn but we pay all of our bills except for cell phone bills simply because my wife and I have been on our families plans for the last 10 years (we have only been married two) and its not like we were going to try and encourage them to remove us.

I hope you can see why I struggle with this whole need thing. My wife and I live on $14,500 without any help from the government whatsoever. I eat a bananna or a bag of popcorn for lunch almost everyday to make ends meet and then I see students get served free meals with meats, vegetables, fruits, and bread. I am glad our students get these meals. I am glad they do not have to suffer because of their parents worhlessness. Stop with the whole need thing, though. There is not a single group, race, or ethnicity that needs anything they cannot attain for themselves, whether it be through the government or their own actions.