Be proud of yourself that you broke the cycle. If you have children they will not be raised in that type of environment and will hopefully understand the difference between working hard for yourself and not expecting your government to give it to you.

And your aunt is a POS. I am sorry for you, but just because they are family does not mean you have to like them. Surrounding yourself with good friends as a support is the first step to get rid of the riff raff that you are born into.

I wish you a wonderful and drama free life!

I don’t usually talk about this, but I thought it was somewhat relevant considering I was the one speaking of entitlement. Of course typing that early in the morning there were typos and a double negative in my statement of disregard. Oh well.

Yet, the point is, had this been a white person that had done this, I would feel the same way. It would be nice if we could address the content of one’s character without automatically calling foul simply because of the color of their skin.

For example,I don’t think anyone would be saying much if I talked about my white aunt, who’s pretty much a POS. She’s self centered, selfish, and feels entitled. She has never held down a regular job or tried to. She has been on welfare most of her adult life. She sales drugs to support her drug habit and has had 3 kids on top of that. And she somehow thinks she is entitled to be able to do all of this and get free money like it’s a right. Yet if I talked about someone of a different race that held the same mentality and lifestyle as my aunt, I would probably get some comments on my “insensitivity” aka racism.

I know that can be difficult too, because people can and sometimes do make assumptions/stereotypes based on a person’s race and we all have beliefs/values/attitudes and yes….prejudices. Ironically, I’ve even seen a person sterotyping a race while trying to defend the person of that race. Danielle’s comments on another thread related to this story come to mind.

It always seems so polarizing. It’s either this or it is that, but it never seems to come to the middle and I think most people are in the middle, really.

You work ethic is one to be respected. I am sorry about your mother but I respect you even more for being able to recognize her issues and not making yourself a victim as many people would do. It would have been very easy for you to stay in the failure mode and make it all about yourself in a destructive way. Instead, you pulled yourself up and made a good life for yourself.

These days, if you disagree with anyone who is not white, or point out a flaw with anyone who is not white, you are a racist. Fine, call me a racist. I am sick of all of it.

I’m not denying that racism isn’t an issue. There are certainly issues of racism both on an individual level and at some systemic levels. I’ve seen and experienced all races express racism. I’ve worked with Vietnamese that threatened to quit their jobs if the boss was going to hire the Cambodian that applied.

But I wonder if you’re not making over generalized assumption stereotypes to make your point with implications of equating being black with growing up poor in your statement.

I would also say that you’re making assumptions about people if they are stating that this guy felt entitled that they most likely haven’t had to face many of the same challenges of life.

I’m white and I grew up in Vallejo, Ca. and grew up poor. We lived in apartments that by today’s standards would be condemned. At one point, the bedroom that my sister and I shared was the closet. I had to learn how to fight to protect myself just because the color of my skin. While I obviously didn’t have the same challenges as this guy, I had a mother who was an alcoholic and suffered from Schizophrenia. Forrest Gump’s statement that life is like a box of chocolates because you never know what you’re going to get had no idea the gravity of that statement growing up with a mother suffering from these two diseases.

I made a promise that I would not be poor and it has not always been easy. Sometimes working two jobs to make ends meet. When I got laid off, I worked any odd job I could find (and that’s where I put my focus on finding work rather than the easy way) just to make ends meet.

So the point is, if you thinking people are claiming entitlement from the perch of having a wonderful life and not having challenges, that is simply not accurate.

As I’ve also said before, when I went back to school in human services, and while I do lean to the left, the teachers leaned so far to the left and put so much blame on the system, that they virtually quashed any personal responsibility.

The sense of entitlement from students that were getting all of this financial help was astounding! This was with all races involved. People getting their phone plans paid for, free computers, money for classes and still complaining! Complaining that they didn’t get the newest model phone. Complaining about their computer. People were even taking money and buying new dress shoes, fancy jewelry, among other things. How do I know? Because they bragged about it! And they found a loop hole in working the system to be able to do it and still keep the financial aid rolling in.

So there needs to be some middle ground here instead of either getting all Fox News or Air America about it. Yes, there is certainly racism happening, both on an individual level and systemic level and people cannot just put their head in the sands and deny it. People of all races needs to face it, otherwise we as society cannot heal it so to speak. As I’ve said before, racism comes from an idea about a people rather than a relationship with a person.

But we cannot also put our heads in the sand and say there is not a culture of entitlement happening. A mindset that the person is “owed something”. A mindset that has no disregard for other people. A mindset that is selfish, self centered and self serving. That culture that comes from all races also needs to be addressed. We can blame the schools, the system, the this and the that, but at some point personal responsibility of both parents and the child need to be taken into account also. There are many people who are not emotionally, financially, or mature enough to be having children that are having them. That also needs to be addressed, because these values are being passed on from parent to child and on and on it goes.

Eric

Eric: Whether it is or is not, it seems to me to be something that is widely accepted to be OK to say.

From what I read, he was only sorry to his family and himself. What about the victims?

He did say in court that he was sorry. The prosecution said that during interrogation, he said he wasn’t sorry. The prosecutor, yesterday, offered to play that video clip for the judge and courtroom if anyone didn’t believe her. The judge said that wasn’t necessary. (The prosecutor had come equipped with a laptop full of clips, apparently, including the long in-bus video of the actual incident that was played during the hearing.)