Blame Game

“Who else is gonna hire a man who went to jail for killing somebody; somebody you have to call to wake and pick up…nobody” J

Systems are not designed to fix the problems they create. So you create a new system to fix the old one. The lineage goes something like this:

The State begat the education system
The education system begat the jail system and GED programs
The jail system begat the prison system which had twins, welfare and child support

You could contest that order, and I could rearrange it but family is family and they all carry the same legacy: failing urban communities.

At the forefront of every media outlet is the failing school system. It’s supposed to prepare students for their next step in life, whether it’s further education or work. If they don’t get an adequate education life forces them to move on to the next step, unprepared.

So when Ray Ray and Nique Nique apply for jobs and school and are unsuccessful we blame them. In reality fault lies with a system that was designed to fail them. (Yes parenting and self-motivation play a part in this. We all know someone who overcame a bad public school education, but that’s why we call them overcomers.) When they have no money and nothing to do they run around committing petty crimes and conceiving kids who will be born into the same system.

The jail system and GED programs which are supposed to rehabilitate, teach lessons and provide second chances don’t. The teachers who work in GED programs are mostly retired public school teachers who came from the same system who failed these people in the beginning. They are trained to teach 12-year-old 7th graders not 30-year-old 7th graders.

If the State would have done its job the first time the Department of Human Services wouldn’t be overflowing.

It’s amazing that Michigan has such deep budget problems. If you spend the bulk of your money re-correcting the school system’s wrong you don’t have the money to fix it.

But states like Massachusetts and Connecticut are known for having great school systems and the largest populations of affluent resident.

It’s an old principle, if you get it right the first time you never have to do it again. Does this mean I’m saying if the state created a better educational system we could eliminate crime, not one hundred percent, but it’d be a heck a lot less.

I read it in Mrs. Swayne’s classroom when I was in the 6th grade on a red and yellow poster: Education is the key to life. Which makes lack of education….

I'd Rather Be a ToysRUs kid...

I’m afraid that one day I won’t be who I am today. I get the privilege of talking with a lot of older people and hear them talk about how they had an elaborate plan when they were my age. And then they say the very thing I’m afraid of.

Life happened.

I know all too well how life can change your life. So ideally, I’d hope to plan for what life brings. But like the day when the principal called me into the office and I was shoved from foster home to foster home, life doesn’t knock, it already has a key.

Still, I’ll tell myself that I won’t make the mistakes of my mother. You would think her story is ideal. She had one love, my father. She’s been with him her whole life. All she has to show is 9 beautiful children, she didn’t raise and a life-long relationship of ups and downs that will probably end down.

Or your mistake, loving a man who makes you look happy on the surface but inside you’ve been so busy supporting him that he never really supported you. My condolences, I watched you dying to please him.

What girl doesn’t want a fairy tale life? But how many of us deserve it or could really handle it. I’ll say, I can, but I’m afraid that means that I actually can’t.

So today I’ll judge an older woman and say that she lost herself trying to find a man to love her while clutching my ID to my heart, hoping to never lose it.

But how do we know that we won't be one of those men or women who loses themselves in life. I could say, I'd never do that to my children, I'd never gain that much weight, I'm not like them...

they weren't always them.

Life is a journey, that I'm afraid of.But I guess if I get off track, how hard can it be to be me again.