Reply #5: Let's talk personal responsibility AFTER [View All]

[bread_and_roses]

we address our social responsibility to address the third-world conditions many of these young people grow up in - hunger, crumbling schools with insufficient books, desks, PAPER; with mold and holes in the floor. Let's talk personal responsibility when we address the lack of jobs, recreation, public transportation, housing, drug treatment, police brutality. And especially let's address the underlying racism that allows us as a society to ingore these conditions because so many of the people living in them are minorities.

Along the way we could address rural poverty, which interestingly enough seems to have the same effects on many of the non-minority kids who grow up in it.

Humans are largely creatures of their environment. Blaming individuals before addressing underlying structural and systemic problems is not only a waste of time, it's reactionary.

Let's talk bootstraps when the boots have some straps.