Comments by "One MercilessMing" (@onemercilessming1342) on "Are Chicago and Philly worse than war zones?" video.

I taught for a quarter century in an inner city, labeled one of the most dangerous cities in the USA. We came to work to find a section of our school playground taped off with a dead body and police investigators all over it. Our kindergarten classroom was riddled with bullets from a drive-by. I've held a weeping wife whose husband was shot dead in front of her and the little boy assigned to my classroom. I went to children's funerals all killed in drive-bys. In my first 20 minutes on one site, I took a gun from one fifth grader, a knife from another, and stopped a girl from attempting to slash her wrists with the blade she got out of a pencil sharpener. I filed CPS reports on parents who abused their precious children that were ALWAYS said to be "unfounded". One mother made her daughter up and traded her innocence for drug money. One father was periodically feeling up his fifth grade daughter to see if she was ready for him to make a woman out of her. When she begged us teachers for help, her brothers beat her for telling on the father. Teachers are mandated reporters. If we even suspect abuse, we must file a report BY CA LAW. One principal hid the reporting forms which you could only access by her permission because she feared the administrative offices would see her as unpromotable due to "excessive" filings, which the community activists insisted were racially motivated. YES, INNER CITIES ARE WAR ZONES.
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It's also a reflection on the populace who vote for them and don't demand better representation.
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@thrushvalley Thank you for the kind words. I retired when I woke up one day and said, "I can't do this any more." I retired.
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@1525boy Start at where the I 10 and the 240 meet at the northeast side of Redlands. Point your car west on the 20 and drive until you meet the Pacific. Any of those towns/cities will do.
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@Marta-to1mf Absolutely true. But keep this in mind. In the wake of WWII American children were taught, in their last year of high school, the responsibilities and privileges of being a citizen of America. Look up your state's Ed Code and find the curriculum requirements for various grades, but mostly 5th, 8th, and 11th grade American history. Civics was 12th grade. The pledge was no longer recited. The American flag was removed from classrooms by Mexican teachers. Patriotic songs no longer are sung. There is nothing inherently wrong in teaching multiculturalism, but what happens when children no longer are taught that America is a melting pot, but, instead, a tossed salad where the immigrant doesn't identify as an American, but as a [fill in the blank] who just happens to live here and TAKE from our nation without strengthening the Republic as the immigrants from two centuries ago did as America evolved? Granted, there were abuses. Ask the Irish who came here as indentured servants, working for 21 years to regain their freedom. Ask the Italians who were denigrated until great numbers of them served in WWII. Ask the Dutch who worked on lands in New York State owned by a patroon that they could not leave. Ask the Hessians who were brought here to fight in the Revolution and only embraced their task when they realized they could OWN land of their own. Ask the Polish, Lithuanian, Slavic, and other Eastern Europeans who were brought here to work in the anthracite mines of PA and coughed out their lungs due to a disease called anthrasilicosis (black lung). Ask the Chinese laborers, and the French casket girls, and the young girls who worked in horrible conditions in factories. Yes, and ask the Native Americans and the African descendants of slaves, and any other group. Then think on these words: "America, my country. In her intercourse with other nations, may she always be in the right. But my country, right or wrong." Originally attributed to Stephen Decatur.
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@gemox3225 You want to know why innercity kids' test scores suck so bad?? Bad environment, poverty, drugs, gangs, street warfare, parental illiteracy, broken families, refusal to learn English, and politicians who need to keep control of the voter bloc by keeping them in poverty and not enforcing legislation. Instead, they blame "incompetent teachers"--teachers with degrees, credentials, and certifications. Did you ever wonder how it was possible for universities--seats of learning--to put out only incompetent teachers and districts to only hire incompetent teachers?? Or is it simpler to blame teacher/educators? CA Ed Code states that scholastic success is a four-way responsibility: administrative, teachers, parents, and students. How much success is there going to be when students refuse to do the work, parents refuse to support the education curriculum requirements, administrators refuse to enforce Ed Code, and teachers get tired of being told what lazy incompetents they are???
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