[chicubs111]

Originally Posted by emathias

With all due respect, sir, a single exceptional example does not break a rule.

And your first "example" isn't even applicable. Obama was not born in Chicago, he did not grow up in Chicago, he did not, for the most part, grow up around poverty. He even spent a significant part of his childhood outside of the United States. He is not the example you seem to think he is. The vast majority of Obama's childhood was made up of choices he did not make. His (white) mother made them. His (white) Kansas grandparents made them. He did not.

The fact that you see a black man and hear he's from Chicago and automatically assume he shares all the same factors as other black men in Chicago is a direct example of your prejudice. Note, I am not calling you a racist, but you do have prejudices (as do many, probably most people). It's not a moral failing to have prejudices. But it does create a responsibility that you acknowledge them and work to correct them. Knowing you have prejudices and doing nothing to understand and correct them, that would make you a racist.

Yes, individuals need to make good choices. But you know what? Your choices are limited by what you know. You can't make certain choices if you don't even know they exist. If you go to a school that doesn't teach you that there are geologists, and you have to work to help your mother after school and don't have a lot of time for personal self-discovery, you may not even know that being a geologist is a career, let alone a career you might want to have.

If a high school student isn't taught that there are ways to pay for college other than just paying cash, they may not even know that going to college is an option for nearly anyone who would like to do so and who studies hard.

If you are a 2-year-old, you don't choose to live in an old house that still has lead paint and lead pipes because the adults in your city and state and country made the choice to not require those known problems to be fixed. That choice was not available to be made by that 2-year-old. If that lead causes brain damage, that's not the fault of bad choices by the 2-year-old. It may not even be the fault of bad choices by the parents of that 2-year-old depending on the circumstances, it very well may be the fault of the politicians.

Pointing out that there are many, many external factors that affect every single one of us is not making excuses for bad choices. But it is admiting that *luck* (as defined as mathematical probabilities, not a mystic force) plays a role in how well any of us ends up doing in life. Trying to mitigate the worst aspects of people that experience "bad luck" isn't excusing bad behavior.

If anything, identifying external factors that contribute to "bad luck" and working to mitigate them *reinforces* the concept of personal accountability because it lowers the impact of "bad luck" hurting people and increases the role of personal choice.

So if you advocate personal choice, then logically you also need to fully back the identification and mitigation of external factors that undo even the best choices people might make.

You have alot of fancy talk but when you look at the way you write and dig deeper your an example of why things would never change..firstly nobody said one example breaks a rule but Obama is a monumental figure for Chicago especially the south side to look up to...all black youth should be proud of him and he should give hope that larger goals are possible and can be achieved by a black person. Your basically saying he is a black man but he wasn't poor enough or lived in a bad enough area to validate himself?... Secondly my other point was there are poor black people from the south side who do not join Gangs and come from single family households , they finish High school, and go to college and become successful. It is possible you know. You should probably look at those success stories and find the common element that separates .

... Basically your a sympathizer of people who join Gangs and commit crime..you say its not there fault they drop out of school...the schools they go to are not good enough and don't teach them all the things they can do for there future ... Nobody said that the environment was an easy place for these youth to grow up in and that it would not have its challenges much more than some white kids from the suburbs but its not impossible and it takes a strong family and moral structure from the parents (or parent) to transcend down to the children, which many if not all of these Gang members/criminals do not have! they start off destined for failure without that, no matter how bad are good the school are (based on your opinion). The cycle continues and goes on and on. Wouldn't you think the most important factor is how your parents raise and en-grain personal responsibility/ moral code from your childhood as a pretty damn important factor in how your life will come out?