This is it in a nutshell.  I’ll see if I can get the gang to weigh in…

Y’all must think you’re pretty slick. Seriously, pulling something out of Reagan’s playbook: paying faux homage to King (in Reagan’s case in the form of a national holiday) while doing everything you can “behind the scenes” to promote the disparagement harassment and discrimination against African-Americans. Oh, do I have some words for you! But first let me say this to all you minority inmates in debtors prison (which like real prison is made up of a disproportionate number of us) first we’ve got to look up from staring at our own problems long enough to notice things like this and second  we may not have gotten jobs or meaningful contacts out of our fancy degrees but at least we pissed off uneducated white trash like Beck and Palin. Sure they are millionaires and we owe six figures but their jealousy and envy can at least get you through the day.

Ok now for Beck and Palin. Look, Reagan got away with what he did because 1) he was President 2) he was a charismatic actor and 3) that was 30 years ago before the Daily Show.  Glen Beck is so stupid he thought Al Sharpton marched with Dr. King…I mean can he even count to 47? Sarah Palin is on record mocking the very IDEA of being a community organizer… What do you think Dr. King WAS?! The unofficial Prince of Negroes? And these aren’t things those idiots did or said ten years ago, this is all since 2008.

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A question was posed in the New York Times recently

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=10&hpw

asking whether the collective failure of “twenty somethings” to 1) finish school 2) move out 3) become financially stable 4) marry and 5) have a child by age 30 and hence achieve adulthood is so rampant that perhaps we are witnessing some kind of collective devolution such that a new category in addition to adolescence is needed between childhood and adulthood called “emerging adulthood.”  This article is more than just another slap in the face to young people who have never had the opportunity to start a career mixed with some struggling, debt-ridden academic’s sad attempt to make a name for himself.  This article is the very antithesis of what this blog is all about and as such merits a response.  As I peel back the layers of lies and hypocrisy I ask that you the reader not lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day life is not about 1-5. 1-5 simply has to do with a society perpetuating its own existence.  Your LIFE is measured by how you advance an organized movement designed to benefit others well beyond your few years on the planet.
 
First, let me say this: ouch.  I don’t say ouch lightly.  This was not a bee sting or a splinter.  This was a sledgehammer to the ankles.  This is like getting a test back from a teacher that you failed so badly the teacher actually begins to wonder if whether you have some unknown mental deficiency.  I mean, the article is saying someone in my situation is so hopelessly pathetic that SOCIETY NEEDS TO MAKE SPECIAL LAWS TO ACCOMMODATE MY EXISTENCE.  I have a friend who completed 1-5 by age 23.  I was 0-5 then.  Now I’m 28, 1-5, with nothing on the horizon.  This article suggests that when we rent cars, purchase alcohol or engage in other activities that the law treat us differently…kind of like insurance companies do when evaluating what kind of risk you are or mortgage companies do when deciding whether or not to give you a loan.  According to this article pursuing a graduate degree and not being able to get a job right away could eventually make you a protected class under the Constitution!

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Several months ago Erin (I think) wrote an article called why I don’t care about the national debt. Maybe someone else stole the by line but I remember the conversation that spurned the entry. About a week and a half ago the President reminded us how in a generation we had plummetted from 1 to 12 in terms of countries with the highest percentage of citizens with a college degree. And of course this is Debtors’ Prison so you know how we get down. Let’s explore how the three are interconnected.

Student Debt and National Debt. It’s really hard to care about the latter when entrenched in the former, particularly when the latter is used as an excuse for why the govt can’t help you but they need another fleet of 100 million aircraft to hunt the 50 Al Qaeda left in Afghanistan. But let’s look deeper. We as students behaved alot like our country, borrowing a ton for a questionable large investment and assuming everything would just work out because hey, it’s us.

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What do student debtors and the unemployed have in common? No, not Benito (or the millions of others who are in the same boat). Selfishness. That’s not a criticism. I’m not judgmental. It’s certainly not praise. I am not Mike Triforce. It’s not even a challenge because I am not President Kennedy.

But I would be remissed if I didn’t point out two trends and suggest that perhaps one should rethink which hole their particular cog in the machine fills.

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I know, I know.  The saying goes “Missing the Forest for the Trees…” or something like that.  But that’s not going on here.  Alot of you people are missing the Forest for the damn stumps.  Case in point, recently a kid demanded that his law school admit to swindling him so he could discharge his loans in bankruptcy.  And yes this story was on ATL.  Why do we quote ATL so much when this blog is supposed to be out all student debtors? Because ATL is about law and has a major black contributor.  Out of the 6.5 bloggers we’ve got two lawyers, a paralegal, a law student and two African-Americans.  This ain’t rocket science.  Link below.

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/07/student-v-school-charlotte-school-of-law-sued-by-student-seeking-admissions-for-bankruptcy-proceeding/

But what I’ve got to say goes back to just that, we’re for ALL STUDENT DEBTORS not just law students and stories like this distract from the message I hope we’re helping to convey which is that we are witnessing a fundamental paradigm shift in what used to be unassailable advice for young people, particularly women and minorities, which was EDUCATE. 

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For a drifter, I really hate sleeping outdoors particularly in the summer.  The bugs are loud as hell. The ground gets damp in the morning. You can’t tell the newly homeless from the experienced hippie. You smell like ass as does your surrounding environment. I’m going over to Benito’s basement and I don’t care if I wake his mother so long as she doesn’t call the police.  I better have a new post though when I show…hence this post. About Monopoly.

So what’s the biggest difference between Monopoly and life? If you said in life everyone doesn’t start with the same amount of money you would be correct. Next question, what is the biggest difference between Monopoly and the life of a student debtor?

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People don’t listen.  This point was so eloquently made a few weeks ago by my favorite DJ Roach in response to simultaneously getting alot of people asking questions he’d answered and people complaining that he sounded like a broken record. People don’t listen. Therefore people with a platform repeat themselves, no matter how high or low that platform happens to be.

Which brings me to “scambloggers.” I don’t like the term bit at least take comfort in the fact the movement has gained enough traction to have a derogatory name. Scambloggers suggest the bloggers are scamming people instead of trying to bring a scam to light. It would be like calling fire fighters “fire manipulators” or “fire handlers.” It sort of makes them sound like pyros, not the guys who clean-up their handiwork.

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I know this is a year late, but for those of you that know me I was dealing with a little something last year and for you smart-asses the blog’s not a year old yet.  Michael Jackson.  The King of Pop.  A Legend.  He was also an accused child molester, the father of three 100% biologically Caucasian children…and a much lighter complexion than the one he was born with.  I have a theory about the motivations behind the latter.

For those of you who follow my posts you know that I recently saw a production of Thurgood, one that still resonates with me.  After five drinks and ten Michael Jackson videos (or was it the other way around) something occurred to me.  Brown v. Board was decided in 1954.  Michael Jackson was born in 1958.  Now, it was proved during that case to the satisfaction of all nine Supreme Court Justices that Segregation, and to a greater extent American Society,  poisoned the self-image of young African-Americans.  Now suppose Michael Jackson was not immune to this affliction?

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As all of you know I am an avid reader of www.abovethelaw.com and a big fan of Elie Mystal.  Rarely however do I cover the exact same material 1) because Elie does it better and 2) because if you read this site there’s a 99.9% chance you also go to Above the Law so it would be needlessly repetitive.  This post is going to be an exception.  Here’s Elie’s post:

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/law-professors-part-of-the-problem/#comments

If you’re still here read-on for my two cents.

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