Hey Will,

What do you think? It's sort of a draft comment I posted. I was not to sure I wanted too, but what the hell, you only live once. Let me know what you think.

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Better than equal, Punish, Guilt, Slaves, The War of Northern aggression!

(scratching head thinks, minefield)

You have gone all out. How to answer all of that.

But yet I don't look back, I want to know what's back there because it impacts the present, but I am not interested in the past, I can't fix the past. My interest lie in the present. I look towards the future and that is where I want to expend my energy.

I know, I was not there either, I owned no slaves, I'm not guilty of hate or oppression, I don't what to keep anyone out of school. I wish there could be a seat for everyone that had the ambition to higher education, but like all things in life there are limits.

I don't accuse anyone, what I am trying to say to you is, it's in your best interest, my best interest to help raise those that were left behind. Not blame you for their situation. Or charge you for the actions of other for which you nor I had any control. What we need to do is look carefully at our best interest, today. Just think about your children, what world would you like to leave to them. What will their world look like, what opportunities will there be for them and their families. What kind or world will that be.

One in which huge tracks of the urban landscape resemble vast wastelands, riddled with crime, drugs violence, and broken families? I for one don't like that version of the future. I wonder, how will we pay for the jails when the population doubles, triples, quadruples, how will we pay for all the kids growing up without a role model, because they are either in jail, or dead. How will we rid the cities of gangs, when they become more powerful than the authorities.

How do we take back the streets, and build role models for the young men to look up to, Role models that offer an alternative lifestyles to the gang banger, drug dealers, and pimps. How do we bring back the very family values that we all aspire too. How do we compete with the low riders and bling, and grills, and bad boys that in so many ways wield real power on the street.

I'll tell you one thing, ignoring it and turning away, and just worrying about your own problems, and your own family, and looking inward, isn't enough. Look at Cuba, look at Venezuela. You know what people did there? The ignored the very same problems, and it came back to bite them in the ass.

This is why we need to work together to find the right solutions. It is our responsibility to make a better future, today. The only other option I can think of is building higher walls around our communities, putting more police, making checkpoint on every corner, walling ourselves off to the point where we live in a different world. But history has shown us that you cant build walls high enough, you cant put enough checkpoint on the street, secure gates on every driveway, you cant, you cant isolate yourself from the world around you, and still live in it.
How much is all this going to cost you?

I for one don't want to live that way. Anyway I don't believe we could do it for very long, much less afford it.
One day those walls will come crumbling down and there will be nothing between you and them. And they are going to be hungry, well armed, and angry as hell at you.