Apathy Slam

As Anthony, one of the three people in this doc said, in the 'hood if you're just ordinary you'll end up dead or in jail. You have to excel just to survive, and you have to do it with much fewer resources and infinitely more obstacles than someone does who doesn't come from poverty or a lower social class.

OK, now a bit of poetry slam from me (dusts off skaldic origins):

THIS is what I am trying to get through to the haters and the 'personal responsibility' proselytizers out there who find time to pigeonhole the poor and stigmatize the lower class because of their lack of success. YOU had the chance to be ordinary and survive. You had the ACCESS to exponentially more resources at your disposal. You had a SAFETY NET where these kids have none.

So for EVERY FEEL-GOOD RAGS TO RICHES STORY which helps us to feel more justified by our collective bystander syndrome there are the rest who remain in rags or end up in body bags. Every single soul who transcends the 'HOOD in a tear-jerking biopic tends for the 'haves' to cauterize our own inaction. We of the privileged few, 99% or not, who did NOT live in poverty or with the stigma or race, social class, or zip code, have NO IDEA what difficulties lie in the way of success for those we call 'other'.

So it's time to do a collective cranial-rectal extraction, to understand their poignant dissatisfaction, and create an equal and parallel reaction to the grief and the grandiosity of the problem of poverty. We can no longer stigmatize the victims with the condescension of our perspective. In this case life isn't merely about the size of where we put OUR EYES. No, we must find theirs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVdBrv0HjAE