L. A. Parker

Many of you in Blogoland do not like L. A. Parker, but his column in today's paper was super terrific. Yes, the word is, "Crime is Up!" Maybe so; I'm leery of statistics because they are so easy manipulate. And back in 2005 when the police were at full force, we had thirty-five murders here in Trenton. But the point of L.A.'s article was the lack of education. Black Trentonians are not big on education. And that's a big mistake. And it's something I don't understand. Prior to the Civil War, it was a capital crime to teach a slave to read and write; it was a crime for a slave to learn to read and write yet many took the risk - education was important. Today the attitude is, "School is Mr. Charlie's thing; I be from da hood." I often wonder what happened to the United Negro College Fund which had a TV commercial that announced, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." We've wasted a lot of minds over the years and it's time we stopped. Instead of looking for ways to keep kids amused, maybe we should be looking for ways to get them behind a desk taking notes - you know - learning. (Sorry about the underscoring - I hit something and don't know how to make it stop)