I was a kid in 1981, and people said the same things about us:
Kids in 1951: I can do anything I want if I work hard enough!
Kids in 1981: My mamma says I can do anything I want!!!
“Kids these days are lazy and spoiled” is an ancient meme. It goes back to Socrates time, at least.
Get it, folks? Tar baby? It’s funny because Argent Towers knows all you liberals are just dying to jump down CitizenPained’s throat for criticizing bad parents and drug addicts and gang members.
I don’t find it outrageous. Even though I teach Taekwondo and not a class in a public school like math or English, I have the same problems. Thankfully, not as many of them.
I’ve had a mom bring her 14 year old kid in so that I could teach him to “kick ass” so that he could better steal from younger kids, and then demand that I teach him for free because she was on welfare.
I had a mom with two kids, daughter age 12, son age 9, who were with me for a couple of years. They stopped coming and I lost contact with them until one day, they dropped by to show off the now 16 year old daughters baby by a 24 year old who was living in their apartment with them.
I’ve had kids get strung out on drugs by parents who thought nothing of lighting up a joint in front of the kid. I’ve managed to get the parents of two kids arrested for doing that and get the kids away from the parents and into a more safe, supportive environment.
I am proud as I can be of my success stories, like the one kid who got busted for dope on school campus. He straightened his act up, graduated high school and is now in college and plans to become an instructor in my school when he’s finished. And I cry inside for my non-success stories.
Yeah, it’s the poor sap’s tragedy: he desperately wants the affirmation of watching other people unfairly called racist, because if that happens, maybe the people calling him racist were similarly unfair.
I wonder if the converse applies, and if so, what he thinks of the complete lack of cries of “racism” in this thread.
Now there’s an argument for italicization and capitalization if ever I saw one. 
And if this were an online forum on the Internet, we could even use one of them new-fangled link thingies!
Having a little trouble picturing this one. “I want you to teach my kid to kick ass so he can steal from younger kids”?
That’s literally what she said, or that was just your appraisal?
No…that is not remotely what I was getting at. It was just a joke. (Tar Baby? Remember, the George Allen controversy?) I didn’t actually think CP was going to get piled on for “racism” - I only made the joke because she brought the possibility up in the first place.
Not sure I agree with that. In 1981 if I came home with a note from the teacher for screwing up, I’d get punished, no questions asked. Mom and Dad respected the teacher’s authority and opinion. Now Mom and Dad go down to the school, wave the note in the teacher’s face and ask why Little Johnny is being picked on.
The word that was George Allen’s undoing was “macaca,” which is much more obscure. The list of people who’ve gotten in trouble for saying “tar baby” includes Mitt Romney and the late Tony Snow.
I say, young feller-me-lad, here’s fun! I’ve a bright and shiny sixpence for the first young rogue who can write me a book report on the jolly scrapes the scamps in Hogg get up to. There’s a fine lark for a young Corinthian, what?
In 1986, if I came home with a note for screwing up, Mom and Dad had to discuss it with the teacher before they would accept that I’d done something wrong.
In other words, anecdotes aren’t data.
Actually, both of these statements are sad illusions. That’s the real summing up. And kids today, especially poor ones, are waking up to the first lie.
I’m no mind-reader, but I can tell you how I interpreted it. There are people who bring their young children into the United States illegally, and that generally results in the kid getting the shit end of the stick. I know a lot of DREAMers, bright kids, beautiful minds, who didn’t know they were undocumented until college scholarship time rolled around. And when their schoolmates found out due to blabbermouth teachers, they regularly beat the shit out of them and otherwise harassed them for being dirty illegals. This is the only home they know and yet they are caught in an existential limbo, not quite real in the eyes of society, not deemed ‘‘American’’ enough to get school financial aid, or serve in the military, or vote. And they are none too pleased with their parents for lying to them for so many years and failing to prepare them for the hardship that lay ahead.
So yes, fuck those parents.
Sorry–that was an asshole post on my part.
<groan> “No, Mr. Towers… we already read that!”
“Well you’ll GOD DAMN WELL READ IT AGAIN! Now GET TO IT!”
I asked another mom why she called her son Evander and she said “Cos he’s a fighter and he’ll kick the shit out of anyone to get what he wants.” From observation hitting and stealing (from other parents’ bags as well as kids) was actively encouraged.
It was a pre-school playgroup. Her kid was two years old. We didn’t go back.
They’re not common, but they’re out there.
and i want to see illustrations this time!
That was how I read that too. It absolutely blows for kids who grow up in the US and then make it out of high school or even college and then have so many barriers to putting their education and hard work to use.
As someone who works in juvenile court, I endorse this Pitting.
The vast majority of these kids desperately want to be good and do the right thing. They’ve just never been taught how to.