But on the positive side I’m really glad to see more and more groups springing up in an effort to uplift our youth such as Higher Achievement, which I had not heard of until we did a story on a program they put together a few weeks ago. To get that many kids participating in poetry, especially the young boys, now that was impressive.
The organization works with Middle School students, which is when kids are the most apt to get into trouble or lose interest in school. They have branches in D.C., Baltimore and Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh they concentrate primarily on students from the Hill District and Homewood, working with them after school during the school year, as well as during the summer months to get and keep them academically prepared. They’ve been around about three years. Hopefully they will be around a lot longer and able to expand to reach more than the 100 plus students they’ve been working with.
Kudos goes out to the committee that put together the re-union for Eugene Khorey who was the first principal of Brashear high school. Khorey is White and the majority of the people who put this program together are Black, basically a reflection of Brashear.
I remember when Fifth Avenue closed, there was a lot of bitterness because of the great history this school had, especially in sports. They had just won a state championship.
A lot of people feared race riots in the halls because of the mixing of 1,000 Blacks from the Hill District and about 1,500 Whites from South Hills and Gladstone. There were a few Blacks from South Hills and Gladstone, and probably some Whites at Fifth Avenue but I never saw them. But Khorey with the help of Black and White teachers and administrators kept the lid on, and to my knowledge there were no major incidents. Blacks and Whites got along just fine. The world didn’t come to an end.
This could have been and should have been a lesson for all but it was lost because people are still talking about how you can’t mix Homewood students with Hill District students with Allderdice students. But now days it’s not just Whites and Blacks, but it’s Blacks from one neighborhood compared to another. The world is a big world, and this country is a big country, so we had better learn that if we are going to survive we must learn how to get along and mingle with people not just of different races but also from different communities.
In case I lost you? I’m talking about the Blacks who complained about mixing Black kids from different communities because of the gangs. And I’m talking about Whites who still refuse to send their kids to schools with high percentages of Blacks.
As more and more Republicans enter the race for president and talk about President Obama failed policy, I keep listening to hear them come up with something different from the policies of former President George Bush and the majority GOP House and Senate that ran this country into the ground, to such a degree that President Obama took over a country that was in a deep recession and entering into a Depression. It is neither now. It may not be where we would like it to be but it’s nowhere close to where it was when he took over. And if they had not voted down just about every idea he proposed this country would be booming right now. I hate to think about what will happen to the Middle Income, Moderate Income and Low Income if they control the House, Senate and the White House. Lord help us, it could happen.
There’s a long list of GOP candidates. The leading candidates are: Jeb Bush, Florida; Paul Ryan, Kentucky; Ted Cruz, Texas; Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania; Marco Rubio, Florida; Mark Everson, Mississippi; Chris Christie, New Jersey; Lindsey Graham, South Carolina; Mike Huckabee, Arkansas; Scott Walker, Wisconsin; Bobby Jindal, Louisiana; Rand Paul, Kentucky; John Kasich, Ohio and Ben Carson.
Why Ben Carson, the great surgeon, is in this race is a mystery to me. There’s no way he’s going to get any votes but he’s on just about every Sunday Morning news show. After hearing Ohio Governor Kasich speak he sounded like the best candidate. He has real accomplishments as a governor, and he has helped people of all incomes, not just the rich.
(Ulish Carter is the managing editor of the New Pittsburgh Courier.)
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