Small Business expert and contributor to Forbes recently wrote an interesting and compelling article, If I Was a a Poor Black Kid. Piggy-backing on the inspiring and truth-telling recent speech of President Obama about the nation’s economy, Gene Marks, offers his own high-five to the President plus his own recommendations for how people can gain access to the middle-class. Which got me thinking, what would I do to change the realities of the socio-economic equation of this nation?If I were a wealthy white suburbanite … then I would host holiday coat drives for the inner-city children. I would rally others to contribute money to give away free gadgets and gizmos for them. I would sponsor bus rides and offer them free admission to the science museums. I would come and speak to them at their community events and tell them how much more reading and writing and arithmetic they ought to be doing. I would completely insult them, their families, and their communities by not acknowledging how much work is already being done by their parents, their teachers, their neighbors, community organizations, or their churches like the African Methodist Episcopal Church, or civic organizations like the National Urban League or the NAACP or by chapters of National Pan-hellenic Council, that share these very same messages plus physical, fiscal, and spiritual support and have done so for many, many years.
The nerve of him (and so many others) who think they can tell other people not only what’s wrong with them, but also rattle off solutions as if it were as easy as casting seeds unto ground and like magic, new crops will sprout! Instantly. Effortlessly. Easy.
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If I Were a Wealthy White Suburbanite: