We all know how I feel about Sarah Palin.  Also random, pointless atrocities are usually Icarus 30’s department.  So I felt no need to comment on the Tuscon Shooting and Sarah Palin’s supposed link.  I know we (and by we I mean I) stretch the premise of this blog to sort of talk about what we want to talk about BUT I actually do not see a link between mass-murder/mass-murder-suicide and student debt.  Sure, kids have no options, there’s no hope, yadda yadda yadda but let’s think about this people.  Anyone who is willing to roll over and take the constant abuse from the for-profit and student-loan industry probably just doesn’t have enough of the will to act, for good or evil, to either perpetrate or try and stop an attack like this.  But then as always…Sarah Palin rears her head and now I have to rant.  The day after the Dr. King holiday no less.

Look, Sarah Palin just got unlucky.  She put up cross-hairs on some congressmen and congresswomen and one of them actually got shot at a bad time for her.  She of course responds by accusing the shooter of being “Left-leaning.” Alright, that’s pretty reprehensible but here’s what REALLY urks me, Palin’s mention of Dr.  King in her most recent garbage memoir.

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Roy Jones Jr. is a 16 year-old engineering protege who decided to attend The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, an HBCU, over ivy-league institutions and since has suffered ridicule for his courageous, brilliant and right decision. He exemplified honor, discipline and pride throughout the ordeal and has responded admirably to his critics. It is high time someone commended this young man and help him up as an example of someone who has acted with audacity, pride and power.

The implication for this blog is obvious. Mr. Jones chose the school that offered him the best scholarship, education and experience. He demonstrated wisdom beyond the grasp of 18 and 19 year-oldsters, citing the quality of his specific program and his recognition that many of the schools that accepted him are prestigious in name only. Mr. Jones is not a clown or a performer. He is not here to amuse or impress you because you don’t have a job for him. You can’t afford his services. Mr. Jones has impressed Lockeed Martin. Perhaps you’ve heard of them – they are one of the many employers unimpressed with your over-academic pedigree and has yet to respond to your unsolicited job application.

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When I was a kid I loved punk rock and still do to this day. The difference between now and then is as a kid I felt bad when people bullied me for listening to “white music.” Now people say I am too old for the genre, but my 300+ bench press says I can listen to whatever I want.  I also have the same attitude about education and debt.  To quote Green Day “I think it’s alright that I do what I like because that’s the way I want to live.” Thats from J.A.R. kids. Hit it up on YouTube.

To the traditional Republicans who point to Affirmative Action as the source of my advancement let me say this: sure you can shut me out of job markets eroding the market value of my degree but know what? Each time you focused your efforts on me a future Obama was on your blind side and he made it through. I am like the GI who got machine gunned on the beaches of Normandy. While you riddled my body with bullets my brothers were getting through. Plus, it is enough to know that every single day I was there I was pissing you off.

To the Tea Partiers who hate education generally and say I should be making a greater effort to pay back my loans because “it’s the right thing to do” I say meh, pass. Think of it this way, instead of “no taxation without representation” it’s “no repayment without adequate employment.” Think you guys can remember that? Keep in mind that taxes are often used to pay for services already rendered/promised, such as the wars and police you love so much.

So for “an angry black man” I am feeling just fine.  Sorry to disappoint.

When I was just a kid with a newly minted driver’s license I was dropping off my first girlfriend who happened to be of the Caucasian persuasion when I was spotted by a cop. He tailed me from a distance and pulled me over after I dropped her off. Now I was just a kid and I didn’t believe pigs, er cops were really as bad as the rappers and every single black male in my family made them out to be. I sputtered and stuttered said I’d never been in trouble, stated my gpa, church and showed him my honor society membership. He laughed in my face, yanked me out of the car, harassed me and in the end wrote me up for reckless driving and every other moving violation in existence. The point is groveling doesn’t work with cops and it doesn’t work with law school deans, Sallie Mae or anyone else with the power to free you from some crushing debt.

Look, I understand that this idiot was either desperate, giving into a moment of weakness or trying to be funny. Unfortunately it doesn’t matter because either way you gave some asshole dean the personal satisfaction of putting a face and a testimonial to the lives he helps ruin. Think of it. This idiot is tired of the freedoms of academia and now is comparing himself to his friends who are mid-level and senior partners who by now have amassed net worths of $1 million or more. Maybe if he was a federal judge the prestige of poverty would be worth it but not a likely dean. You just made this fool’s day.

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There’s nothing like creeping up on 30, barely out of school and making less than a janitor (they have unions) with mounds of debt, turning on the TV for your 15 minutes of television a week and seeing a teenage barely literate deadbeat high school dropout dad running for mayor. Anger. Then I listened a little closer and realized that this fool was being asked the same damn questions that his almost mother-in-law was asked in 2008. So basically this idiot was at the plate in a Major League Gsme a d he’s allowed to use a tee like in tee-ball (what you play before little league).  The fool answered “I don’t know” to about half the questions. And you know what? He still outperformed a woman who could have been President of the United States. Believe me, I know how to read McCain’s health chart.

So during another brief monthly break I mentor young girls at the Sadie Alexander School.  I asked her what she wanted to do/be when she grew up and she said she wanted to have Lil’ Wayne’s baby. I won’t tell you how old the child was because it will make you cry. I won’t tell you the race either (it’s not the one you think) because you won’t believe me. Now this girl isn’t dumb so I just assumed she was a slut, furthering my argument that sluts are born not made. But now I can see how a student could come to the following conclusion: why spend an additional 10+ years in school working hard to distinguish myself when the chance you have worked so hard for will be given to some idiot who had a child with a famous person? Why graduate high school when you can simply conceive a child with someone you plan to use for personal gain? The child will understand of course and if not they will be rich enough to afford whatever necessary therapy is required.

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President Obama and Retired General Powell each are undertaking laudable efforts to promote education in this country.  Sometimes investing in one’s education means taking on debt. I am undertaking a questionable effort to raise awareness about oppressive student debt that basically amounts to a prison sentence. Sometimes avoiding this debt means delaying or foregoing education. Are these two conflicting goals? I don’t think so. Plus, if they were, would Alpha Man write for a blog that questioned two black leaders of such prominence? Probably not.

Read on to see where I am coming from.

When Obama or Powell say “education” they mean a high school diploma plus MAYBE a two year college degree in some kind of trade (think ITT Tech before they started scalping students).  When I say “education” I mean a highly-specialized graduate degree where pre-2006 you could expect a six figure salary for the foreseeable future after completing the necessary post degree work (research, clerking, residency, exams, etc.) That’s a wide gap. Let’s examine the prospectives.

I do not pruport to be an expert on either of the aforementioned gentlemen. However I do know that Obama worked between college and law school and I believe Powell attended West Point (which is free if you get in). While both Obama and his wife Michelle had student loans they are simply more talented than you and I and being twenty instead of two years removed from school, had much more reasonable debt loads. On the same token as a white suburban kid they had tons of adversity whereas I occasionally overslept the alarm clock and would have to have a cold breakfast…or demand my hot breakfast and feel somewhat guilty as my dad drove me to school. The guilt was minimal.

Also Obama and Powell are concerned with education at a macro-level. Their policies, advocacy and foundations affect millions of students. This blog is concerned with education at a micro-level. The posts are highly anecdotal and meant to warn potential students who far and away have already exceeded the metrics that Obama and Powell are talking about.

There are countless other differences. Obama and Powell are targeting children. This blog targets adults. They command armies. I have a half-dozen surly bloggers. They have lived all over the world. I live in my mother’s basement…

Um, but back to the point. I believe that there is a great deal of overlap in our positions. I support a higher graduation rate. High School is free. Am I in favor of a longer school year? Sure, that’s more free school. Likewise Obama has eliminated alot of the middlemen allowing the Federal Government to loan directly to students.

Now that is not to say we’d agree on everything. Whereas Obama or Powell might tell some kid to follow his dreams Id tell him he’d be better off avoiding his nightmares or more specifically my nightmare. My endless horrid nightmare.

Point is parents, aunts, uncles, older siblings etc. Do not just dismiss what you read here as useless satire. There’s good stuff here and it’s not by any means anti-education.

I was challenged by a new friend I met at my new favorite hangout the Grindcore House to come up with an argument FOR higher education.  Plugging in my tempermental discarded laptop a book called “Stolen Lives” caught my eye. It was about the thousands of people – mostly young men of color like myself- who have been murdered by law enforcement between 1990 – 1999. I don’t know what’s sadder, that the best argument I can give (at least for people of color and those involved in social justice causes) for higher education is a reduced chance of being victimized by police brutality or that this higher education doesn’t eliminate or even reduce to highly unlikely that one will suffer this fate.

Even though I don’t even try and make my student loan payments anymore, that decision basically excludes me from using credit and therefore affects my life on a daily basis.  Instead of a bank account any money I do not directly carry on my person is kept at a friend’s cousin’s restaurant. Yet I’m still alive, I’m still here, and if the debt saved my life well it’s worth it.  There is even a cruel symmetry- arguably the most worthless degree, a law degree, is most helpful for dealing with police. But really, what kind of society is it where two groups of students each pay hundreds of thousands for an education and one group gets access to incomes immediately putting them in the top 5% of earners while the other gets nothing but another means of protection from an entity that is itself supposed to be protecting them regardless of their educational level?

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We are definitely going to address this topic again and in more detail but I wanted to get this idea out before the entire legal/student debt related blogosphere is completely subsumed in posts about how hard it is to find a date.  Please people, just go to matchmaker.com or whatever.  Anyway, unserviceable student debt is tantamount to the inability to add to or maintain networth/wealth.  The inability to maintain wealth is essentially a reduction in one’s socio-economic class.  The reduction of one’s socio-economic class is the antithesis of the American Dream and really if one thinks about it what it means to be an American.

Once again I will come back to this when it has had more time to simmer but Benito insisted that we have a post of the week for the short post labor day week and it was either this, an Erin Samus post about dating or another article about Benito’s “Mama’s Boy” business.  Please, someone find that kid a job. 

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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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I hate pre-season football.  It’s kind of like masterbating in my book. If you hear it from the other room it sounds like the real deal but at the end you don’t feel like a winner and you haven’t conquered anyone.  In my disgust I decided to see what Benito and company have produced recently.  Predictably it was a sea of crap, and really I could comment on anything written in the month of August but for the sake of time let’s focus on this “Tales of an Unpublished Author” series.  Typical Benito, he finds a loser similar to himself who writes about why he has accomplished nothing in life.  Soon he will have kids writing who got rejected from every school they applied to giving advice about how to get into Yale Law or Harvard Med.  So that’s why I hate this blog. 

And here’s why I love America.  May I present Ms. Kathryn Stockett whose novel “The Help” has been a best-seller for over a year now.  Ms. Stockett is a lilly-white 41 year-old who, from the looks of her, is no stranger to cosmetic surgery (the work is very tasteful).  She comes from old money and her book is a condescending tale chronicalling the generations of black servants employed by her family told form the perspective of one of the servants.  I promise this is not a joke and I can’t believe neither Alpha Man nor Simons Girlfriend has written about this.

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