From: zursch@whizkid.corp.sgi.com (Jeffrey B. Zurschmeide)
Subject: Re: I'm enraged.
Reply-To: zursch@whizkid.corp.sgi.com (Jeffrey B. Zurschmeide)
Organization: SGI TechPubs
Distribution: ca
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 16:34:04 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.005330.2993@cheshire.oxy.edu>, Thomas VanNess Leavitt writes:
>Hmm... I could mention the now 16 year old manic depressive Panamanian...
>Did I mention the kid has an I.Q. of 150, and could be a highly productivew
>member of society if the support structures were there?

That is clearly a great waste of this kid's potential. I agree 100%. 

>Not to mention the dozens of kids with and without high school diplomas
>unable to find steady work?  Or the way in which kids with "invisible"
>handicaps, behavioral or emotional (such as the above) get tracked
>together when they're diagnosed and put in "remedial" courses (especially
>frustrating when you're highly capable...) and wind up creating a sub-
>culture of their own which often reinforces negative perceptions of the
>larger society and the school system.

Yeah, they did that when I was in school, too. It's a hard thing to watch when
school administrators who can barely function in their jobs get to track someone
and (more or less) put them in a groove that defines their future. A groove that 
is difficult to get out of. 

>Put a dozen brilliant kids, with multiple invisible handicaps in one room,
>give them make-work and remedial level coursework, try your best to handle
>the multiple disruptions caused by the behavioral disturbances combined
>with problems at home and possible drug abuse, have little or no guidance
>in how to deal with them, and what do you produce?

People like your friends who don't get what they should get (and need) out of the 
educational system. I agree that something ought to be changed about the system,
but I'm not sure what changes can be made. People will still make tracking decisions,
unless we want to end up with some sort of school system that Pol Pot would enjoy,
i.e. everyone getting the exact same instruction all the time, with no regard for individual
talent and ability and interest. There's a balance that must be struck between giving 
support to those who are clearly on the success track and giving remedial help to those
who need it, and most importantly, being able to tell the difference between a bored kid
with a personal problem and a kid who just can't hack the material at the speed with which
it's being presented.

I don't think you'll find anyone in this forum who doesn't want to see each person succeed
to the best of their potential. We differ on the best means to achieve that end, though.  

>How about the people who meet my brother at a party, and a couple of days
>later, call him up at 4 a.m. talking about committing suicide?  Or the
>ones that he's known for years who do the same thing, from out of state?

Are these people looking for attention or is your brother the kind of person who 
people feel will understand their problems enough to overcome whatever emotional
barriers they may have against calling someone who is essentially a stranger at 
4 a.m. and pouring out their woes?  I agree that people committing suicide is a 
great tragedy. In the time since I graduated from college (7 years), I've had 3 friends
kill themselves. The youngest was 23. Another friend was shot and killed by police
in San Diego during a suicide attempt of his own. (that's a long story that's sure to
fuel your rage beyond belief. It fueled my own rage for quite a while.) I agree that its
a big bad problem, but I'm not sure how to address it with the resources currently
available. 

>How about coming accross just a small sample of the utterly alienated,
>and knowing that there are hundreds of kids like this making their living
>selling T-shirts and acid at Venice beach, and living in communal apartments?

How about it? It's not like it's a new problem. Dickens talked about them in Oliver
Twist. Jesus said "The poor we will always have with us". --I'm not denying that 
it's a national disgrace and tragedy, Thom, quite the opposite. But I'm stumped if
I know how to give all these people what they need. 

>Of course, these are just my brother's friends, in another post, I'll talk
>about my Latino buddy who stood in the Quad (central hang out area) and
>shouted about how he hated whitepeople and what have they ever done for him,
>producing massive hysteria from whitepeople on campus, and somehow over
>shadowing the positive peaceful statements of the other 90 participants...
>who is cool, who told me that he realized it was not cool, and not productive,
>but wasn't going to apologize, I told him, "Cool, you told them how you
>feel, I support you 100%, I know what you really meant."  More detail later.

And he has every right to be upset. In the State of California, the INS makes sweeps
through neighborhoods and picks up anyone who is not identifiably Anglo and forces
them to produce positive proof that they are citizens or legal residents - if they can't
produce such, they get deported. This is not a practice that the home of the free and 
brave ought to allow. It sounds like South Africa, not the USA. But there it is. I agree that
it doesn't solve much for your friend to vent like that, but it might make him feel 
better, which is at least something, and it might make some of those listening understand
the situation better. My own understanding (consciousness?) was raised during a similar
group meeting at my college where the students of color and various minorities spoke about
their feelings about whites, the school, the USA, etc. I didn't agree that all points made were
100% true, nor did I agree with the list of demands that were made, but that's not the point
of the excercise. The point of the excercise is communication, and that clearly happened.

>Enough?  Polite enough?  Don't see any foul language there...

No, not enough. You should stay and post more and engage in communication, thinking, 
defense, apology (in the greek sense), and figure out what your program is to fix these 
problems. 

It was polite enough. Thank you for that. There's no point in railing at the people in 
this forum. It won't win any listeners or sympathizers for you. If you want to realize 
political goals, railing against all and sundry is counterproductive.  

>however, just to stay honest:  F*ck you, GHWB and DQ and all you other
>bastards who've made it damn well near impossible for many people to live
>with dignity. :)

Honesty we can handle. 

JZ

Xref: sparky ca.politics:6007 ba.politics:3751