For certain, I'll be reading his book. It's fighting the good fight. https://woodsoncenter.org/team_members/robert-l-woodson-sr/ Robert L. Woodson, Sr. founded the Woodson Center in 1981 to help residents of low-income neighborhoods address the problems of their communities. A former civil rights activist, he has headed the National Urban League Department of Criminal Justice, and has been a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Foundation for Public Policy Research. Referred to by many as “godfather” of the neighborhood empowerment movement, for more than four decades, Woodson has had a special concern for the problems of youth. In response to an epidemic of youth violence that has afflicted urban, rural and suburban neighborhoods alike, Woodson has focused much of the Woodson Center’s activities on an initiative to establish Violence-Free Zones in troubled schools and neighborhoods throughout the nation. He is an early MacArthur “genius” awardee and the recipient of the 2008 Bradley Prize, the Presidential Citizens Award, and a 2008 Social Entrepreneurship Award from the Manhattan Institute.
Deserves funding more than what we're getting from the police funding....I think we should empore more of these community programs in inner cities across the country/world......I'm a fan of proactive community leadership like this...good find
Yes, this thing needs to be cured from the bottom up. Apparently, Woodson & Co. has a firm understanding of this concept.
Fred Hampton was doing this in Chicago in the 60s when he was assassinated by the FBI ...he held a daily fish fry for poor youth everyday...he fed the hungry....civil rights has many unselfish heroes in face of generations of abuse
I knew of Fred Hampton's work when I was a young man...he inspired me to read black literature and get woke ..H Rap Brown, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou Nelson George, etc....all eye opening for a dairy farmer's son in Iowa. I reread Maya Angelou's "I know why the caged bird sings" just a couple of years ago. These are deep souls.
where did you come up with that take? I didn't find that yet...maybe I'm missing something here but...from what I saw, this is a proactive organization
I did already. But keep presenting this broken mindset that the only and best way to fixing it, starts from the ground up. Because god knows, that the oppressors totally won't oppress people if they just had better family life.
The 'from the ground up' thing. It's blaming the victim for why bad things happen to them by people in power.
I don't interpret that saying as victimization...it's something the Fred Hamptons and Mother Theresas have always done.....Gandhi did.....these people are trying to empower the disenfranchised, not play the victim. People who oppress them and have power need to be chastised and brought to face their abuses of power but teachers and mentors in poor urban society have nothing to do with that in my view...I cheer for them.
No it it isn't. It's effecting change from the ranks. Like the dude in the OP has been doing. That's not "blaming the victim" in any way, shape, or manner.
THIS is what I'm talking about. It doesn't need to be 'cured from the bottom up', because it's not the bottom that causes the issue. That is blaming the bottom for why shit happens to them. How can they improve schools, if they aren't given equal funding and opportunities? It totally passes the buck to say the thing needs to be "cured from the bottom up". Because it implies it's the bottom that causes it.
what this man is doing is what our govt has failed to do....sure, the govt needs to change but these kids don't have years to wait for legislation and funding to reach their hoods before they get caught in a drive by shooting.....govt doesn't make quick turn arounds in policy, they can't even fund health care properly...meanwhile these kids either grow up angry or hopeful....it's important work
Not saying it's not important work. Just that it's not the only solution. You can fix up the tires on a car, but if the engine is still made by Fiat, it's gonna be shit. You can fix the schools, fix the upbringings, but as long as the government allows people to make laws that make it harder for people to vote, harder for people to get loans, harder for people to get housing, it's not going to fix itself from the "ground up". It's not just the ground up that needs to be fixed. It's from the up to the ground. Or however that would be said correctly.
I wonder why their insistence on bottom up doesn't apply to their ideas of the economy. It's like people who claim mandating wearing masks impinges on their choice, yet they have no problem regulating women's bodies. GOP/Right wing nuts are full of hypocrisy.
nobody disagrees, at least I don't but I don't live in Southside Chicago or Compton....that demographic is pretty far removed from Capital Hill and not near the top of any govt agenda...money will buy and sell weapons long before it reaches these kids...that's an area WE can impact with our vote ...poor kids don't have that access or a vote. BLM is coming from the ground up...not from Clarence Thomas or Ben Carson
Kids in the urban ghettos see economics in a have or have not way and the money in the ghetto is usually connected to drugs and prostituion...not the stock market ...when those who grew up there, turned it around and go back to give back, I think it's a wonderful, unselfish thing that should be celebrated...Damian Lillard is a hero in Oakland for doing just that every year...
It's a two way street though. Yes, it can start from the bottom, but it can also come from above (again, not sure what proper word to use). I guess it's just a different interpretation of what it means. I would give your definition, and your posts on the subject, a lot more of the benefit of the doubt, than someone who tends to use the talking points of those who oppress.
