"Why I Stayed"

[grumbler]

Warning:  someone will start chopping onions in your house if you watch this: http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9454322/why-stayed?src=mobile
One of the most inspirational stories I have ever heard.

It says a lot about a society that you have to be blind or crippled to get noticed in a school with a sixty percent dropout rate - or that losing your sight or legs probably increases your chances for success.

[crazy canuck]

Unfortunately the video is not authorized for my location.

[grumbler]

Unfortunately the video is not authorized for my location.

The written story tells you everything. The video is just what was broadcast, which isn't as complete as the written story is (though it gives you some interesting examples of how these two coped).

[crazy canuck]

Thanks.

She deserves a lot of credit for all the effort she put into getting those two kids a shot that most take for granted.  But I have to wonder how many more kids could excel if they had guardian angels like her or at least some basic support.  One gets the sense that the kids from that area have simply been written off.  As the cop said, nobody ever gets out of there.

[Jacob]

Touching story.

And yeah, I'm sure CC is right and that many more kids who are written off could excel if they had some support.

[grumbler]

Touching story.

And yeah, I'm sure CC is right and that many more kids who are written off could excel if they had some support.

Agreed.  It's almost to say that it says a lot about a society that you have to be blind or crippled to get noticed in a school with a sixty percent dropout rate - or that losing your sight or legs probably increases your chances for success.

[CountDeMoney]

One gets the sense that the kids from that area have simply been written off.  As the cop said, nobody ever gets out of there.

That's because they have been.  Before they're even Born To Lose.

[merithyn]

Well now I'm sitting at my desk, bawling like a baby.

Thank you for sharing that, grumbler.

[Berkut]

That is a great story.

My problem with stories like that is this:

They don't really help solve the problem.

I don't mean that in a negative way - what she did was amazing, and I wish more people were like her - I wish *I* was more like her.

The problem with stories of individuals making profound differences is that it frustrates me because I know that individuals mostly only make individual differences.  They cahnge one life, or two, or even ten. If they are in the right position, they might even change a hundred.

But how do you change the lives of those 60%? The tens of thousands? You can' scale up individual's making a difference enough to, well, make a difference at the macro scale. How do you change the culture, the society, OUR culture that allows this?

What I don't understand is why we don't seem to have any idea, still, how to fix these things. This has been a problem for, well, forever, and yet we don't seem to be any closer to a solution than we were 100 years ago, or even 500 years ago. We've thrown a lot of money at it, and that has helped some - it has made it so the exceptionally driven can have the chance to get out.

But that isn't the problem, not really. The problem is not "How do we let exceptional humans break free from a screwed up culture of poverty and desperation". Rather, the problem is how do we make it so that the typical, the average, the normal people are not doomed to that life. How do we make it so that the non-exceptional can have a shot at a non-exceptionally terrible life, even when they start in an exceptionally terrible world?

I don't think we can - we have to figure out a way to get rid of that world to begin with. And I don't know how to do that, and I am afraid nobody else does either.

[crazy canuck]

I don't think we can - we have to figure out a way to get rid of that world to begin with. And I don't know how to do that, and I am afraid nobody else does either.

There are lots of people who have a lot to say about how to begin to solve the problems associated with poverty.  But there has to be the political will to do something about it and, as I posted above, that seems to be completely missing as these kids have essentially been written off.

[merithyn]

Why can't you focus on the good one person does for one other person? And hell, if it moves you enough, why not try to do a little bit of good yourself for someone else? And that might inspire one other person to help another. And so on and so on.

Just because you can't save the world one person at a time doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to make life better for one other person.

Life, to me, is about making the sacrifices that I can and helping those that I see every day, whether it solves the world's problems or not. I may not even be able to solve that one person's life-long issues, but for that one moment, that one day, I've made a difference to that one person.

It's the best I've got, and you can bet that I'm going to do it to the best of my ability.

[Berkut]

Why can't you focus on the good one person does for one other person? And hell, if it moves you enough, why not try to do a little bit of good yourself for someone else? And that might inspire one other person to help another. And so on and so on.

Just because you can't save the world one person at a time doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to make life better for one other person.

Life, to me, is about making the sacrifices that I can and helping those that I see every day, whether it solves the world's problems or not. I may not even be able to solve that one person's life-long issues, but for that one moment, that one day, I've made a difference to that one person.

It's the best I've got, and you can bet that I'm going to do it to the best of my ability.

Meri, I have no problem with that - I agree that one should in fact do exactly that.

But people have been doing that for, well, most of human history to one degree or another, and yet we still have, in the wealthiest nation in the world, entire portions of our population that are mired in this fucked up reality.

Yes, if everyone did a little more, than maybe the problem would be solved. Actually, I don't really believe that, but that isn't the point, at least it isn't my point.

I am jsut saying that continuing to do the same thing hasn't made this problem go away at the systemic level. Yes, you can solve the problem at the individual level, but that is no real solution overall.

[crazy canuck]

Why can't you focus on the good one person does for one other person?

If one only focuses on the two that were helped then you miss the big picture that there were so many that were not simply because they were not the kind of kids that would make middle class people feel as good about their success story.

This reporter stayed in that school for a long time.  Surely these were not the only two how deserved a better shot at life.  They need something more than a guardian angel who comes to the aid of just a couple of people.

[Berkut]

I don't think we can - we have to figure out a way to get rid of that world to begin with. And I don't know how to do that, and I am afraid nobody else does either.

There are lots of people who have a lot to say about how to begin to solve the problems associated with poverty.  But there has to be the political will to do something about it and, as I posted above, that seems to be completely missing as these kids have essentially been written off.

But it clearly is NOT completely missing. This is incredible amounts of political will to do something about poverty in America - we spend billions and billions on it. We have programs, and funds, and this and that. We make incredible efforts. We provide free education, we provide social services, we have myriads of programs designed to help the poor. And many of those programs work to the extent that they allow some of them to break out of these places, leave, and move themselves into the "typical" middle class American society.

But all those programs seem to fail at the more fundamental task of eradicating this screwed up societies to begin with, which is the only real solution (I think). You can go to college for essentially free in the US, if you are poor. And that is great, but it just means that some few percent (and very few at that) can make the exceptional efforts necessary to take advantage of that opportunity. That is great, of course, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem, and it doesn't really even reduce poverty overall.

[Berkut]

Why can't you focus on the good one person does for one other person?

If one only focuses on the two that were helped then you miss the big picture that there were so many that were not simply because they were not the kind of kids that would make middle class people feel as good about their success story.

This reporter stayed in that school for a long time.  Surely these were not the only two how deserved a better shot at life.  They need something more than a guardian angel who comes to the aid of just a couple of people.

Exactly. The "guardian angel" model does not scale.