Pusher/Pimp or Pusher/Pimp Girl Friend Graduating to Whore

[johnkarls]

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During our most-recent weekly multi-hour gabfest (weekly since 1988), George Kunath requested further elaboration on the third “bullet point” of the Second Short Quiz’s Q&A-5 which, together with Q&A-3 and Q&A-4 for context, read --

Question C-3

When in 1985 his [the antecedent for "his" was Eugene Lang] “I Have A Dream”® Project was publicized on the front page of the New York Times and on CBS’ 60 Minutes, was Yours Truly one of 178 individuals (most of whom were CEO’s of major corporations) to step forward to replicate in 51 American cities what Eugene Lang had done?

Answer C-3

Yes.

Question C-4

Did I also serve as the volunteer national treasurer in the 1990’s for Gene Lang’s organization that oversaw the 178 programs which BTW transformed the typically-SINGLE DIGIT high-school graduation rates for the classes just ahead and just behind each “Dreamer” class to more than 90%?

Answer C-4

Yes.

Question C-5

Were the typical conditions faced by those 178 projects in 51 American inner-cities as I personally witnessed from visiting the overwhelming majority of those 178 projects and 51 inner-cities as national treasurer (in addition to reports from the remainder) –

• 95% of those Dreamers living in single-adult households headed by druggies!!!

• 75%-80% of whom turned over any receipts to the pusher so the kids had to steal just in order to eat!!!

• The children knowing by Kindergarten that they were NOT eligible for their dreams and that their only realistic career objectives were pusher or pimp, or girl friend of a pusher or pimp graduating to whore – none of which requires much education!!!

Answer C-5

Yes.


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Original Encounter With Kindergartners KNOWING They Are Ineligible For Their Dreams

This painful fact was described most recently in Q&A-5 thru Q&A-13 of the Suggested Answers to the Third Short Quiz for our 6/3/2020 Meeting --

Question 5

Do our inner-city children know before age 5 that they are INELIGIBLE for their dreams?

Answer 5

Yes.

Question 6

Was this made PAINFULLY CLEAR to Yours Truly with the first group of housing-project third graders adopted by his own IHAD-Stamford(CT) program?

Answer 6

Yes.

Question 7

Did he and his Board decide that the best way to recruit volunteer tutors/mentors was with a brochure illustrated with colorful “kid art” comprising what children in our housing project wanted to be when they grew up?

Answer 7

Yes.

Question 8

So did he and his Board ask the Minister of the Baptist Church across the street from our housing project to have each child in his Kindergarten Church School draw one Sunday morning what each would like to be when s/he grew up?

Answer 8

Yes.

Question 9

Were Yours Truly and his Board SEVERELY CRITICIZED by the adults in the housing project for the resulting “kid art” brochure???

Answer 9

Yes.

Question 10

Were we criticized because ALL OF THE KID ART portrayed nurses, teachers, airplane pilots, chefs, etc., etc. – ALL OF WHOM WERE WHITE???

Answer 10

Yes.

Question 11

After apologizing profusely, did it occur to Yours Truly and his Board to go back and check ALL 35-40 DRAWINGS???

Answer 11

Yes.

Question 12

And did EVERY ONE of those drawings portray a WHITE PERSON???

Answer 12

Yes!!!

Question 13

In other words, did EVERY ONE of those kindergartners KNOW BY AGE 5 that s/he was INELIGIBLE FOR HER/HIS DREAMS???

Answer 13

Yes!!!

Question 14

Is that surprising when the typical conditions facing the “Dreamers” in our 178 IHAD Programs in 51 American cities were --

99% of the Dreamers living in single-adult households;

95% of total Dreamer households headed by single adults who were drug addicts; and

75%-80% of total “Dreamer” households headed by a single-adult druggie who turned over any receipts to the pusher so the kids had to steal just in order to eat.

Answer 14

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 15

Is it any wonder that the H.S. graduation rates for the class just ahead of each Dreamer class and just behind each Dreamer class WERE TYPICALLY SINGLE DIGITS???

Answer 15

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

BTW, such statistics are usually buried by grouping them with stats for other high schools in the same school district.


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Typical of Conditions Facing 178 “I Have A Dream”® Projects in 51 American Cities

George Kunath had requested elaboration for the third bullet-point contained in Q&A-5 of the First Short Quiz -

Were the typical conditions faced by those 178 projects in 51 American inner-cities as I personally witnessed from visiting the overwhelming majority of those 178 projects and 51 inner-cities as national treasurer (in addition to reports from the remainder) –

• 95% of those Dreamers living in single-adult households headed by druggies!!!

• 75%-80% of whom turned over any receipts to the pusher so the kids had to steal just in order to eat!!!

• The children knowing by Kindergarten that they were NOT eligible for their dreams and that their only realistic career objectives were pusher or pimp, or girl friend of a pusher or pimp graduating to whore – none of which requires much education!!!

*****
As stated in the intro, each of those three conditions --

“I personally witnessed from visiting the overwhelming majority of those 178 projects and 51 inner-cities as national treasurer (in addition to reports from the remainder).”

And yes, I was so amazed by the “Original Encounter With Kindergartners KNOWING They Are Ineligible For Their Dreams” (please see the section above that is so entitled) that I did inquire about that condition vis-à-vis every one of the 178 IHAD projects in 51 cities AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY.

And why should it be so surprising that I did???

After all, I queried IHAD projects on other matters such as an important one most-recently reported in Q&A-C-7 thru Q&A-C-10 of this month’s First Short Quiz --

Question C-7

In visiting the early programs among the 178 as volunteer national treasurer, did Yours Truly notice that 50% of the female “Dreamers” had become pregnant and, as a result, dropped out?

Answer C-7

Yes.

Question C-8

And did Yours Truly ask the sponsors of those early projects to ask their females who had become pregnant why – for which the typical response was that the female had NEVER had anyone who cared about her and by God, she was going to CREATE someone who did?

Answer C-8

Yes.

Question C-9

And did Yours Truly follow up by asking the sponsors of those early projects to ask their females who had NOT become pregnant why NOT – for which the typical response was that one of our tutors or mentors had become a surrogate parent and had expressed early and often that the Dreamer could make something of herself with the IHAD program AND IT WOULD BREAK THE HEART OF THE TUTOR/MENTOR SURROGATE PARENT IF SHE DIDN’T?

Answer C-9

Yes.

Question C-10

So when Yours Truly asked the sponsors of the later projects to have ALL OF THEIR TUTORS AND MENTORS express their hopes for their Dreamers EARLY AND OFTEN, did the later projects transform the typical SINGLE-DIGIT high school graduation rates for the classes just ahead and behind the Dreamer classes TO MORE THAN 90%?

Answer C-10

Yes.


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Pushers Recruit Third-Graders As Runners!!!

Why should anyone be surprised that inner-city Kindergartners KNOW they are ineligible for their dreams???

After all, those Kindergartners need only open their eyes to see what is happening in plain sight!!!

For example, as described most recently in Q&A-16 thru Q&A-24 of the Suggested Answers to the Third Short Quiz for our 6/3/2020 Meeting --

Question 16

Was the “Project Coordinator” (the “mother hen” for the flock of Dreamers) for my first group of Dreamers just graduating from Columbia U. after a career as a four-year starter on the Women’s basketball team?

Answer 16

Yes.

Question 17

Did Valerie Purdie (I hope she won’t mind my using her name -- she is currently a social psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia U) grow up in the projects?

Answer 17

Yes.

Question 18

From her experience growing up, did she know that THE PUSHERS recruit the third graders AS RUNNERS because they don’t want to risk being arrested themselves?

Answer 18

Yes.

Question 19

So did Valerie, the first day on the job, size up the housing project to identify the pushers and challenge each of them to basketball one-on-one???

Answer 19

Yes.

Question 20

I don’t recall what Valerie promised if she lost, but did she make each of the pushers whom she beat promise to refrain from recruiting any of our Dreamers as runners???

Answer 20

Yes.

Question 21

Did she beat ALL of the pushers??? And did they mind being beaten by a woman because, after all, she was a four-year starter for Columbia and she was beating EVERY ONE OF THEM???

Answer 21

Yes, she beat all of them!!!

And they didn’t mind because, after all, she was a four-year starter for Columbia and she was beating every one of them!!!

Question 22

So is it surprising that children in our inner-city ghettos KNOW BY AGE 5 that they are NOT ELIGIBLE for their Dreams???

Answer 22

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 23

And that their only realistic career objectives are Pimp or Pusher, or girl friend of a Pimp or Pusher, graduating to Whore???

Answer 23

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 24

BTW, was Valerie an outstanding success because every child in the projects knows that if s/he can steal a pair of sneaks, s/he can play basketball???

Answer 24

Absolutely!!!

If Valerie did her hair this way, they all did their hair this way. And if she changed to doing her hair that way, then they all changed to doing their hair that way.

And it was fun to see how they all tried to walk the same way she walked, as they trailed along behind like ducklings following the mother duck.

[Sorry to switch metaphors from “mother hen.”]


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More Recent Info -- TWO Sources

*****
FIRST Source – Continued Contacts

Yes, I have maintained contact with quite a few sponsors and project coordinators of those 178 IHAD projects in 51 American cities.

And am UNHAPPY to report that they still have their “fingers on the pulse” of conditions in those venues!!!

UNHAPPY because they invariably report that 5-year-olds in those venues still KNOW that they are ineligible for their dreams and that their only realistic career objectives are pusher or pimp, or girl friend of a pusher or pimp graduating to whore.

*****
SECOND Source – “2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America” (our focus 2/7/2018 focus book which made clear that the $2.00 is CASH ONLY!!!)

“$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America” by Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer [Originally published by Houghton Mifflin September 2015] – was proposed by Ted Gurney, a retired U/U Biology Professor.

The authors of “$2.00 a Day” were --

(1) Prof. Kathryn J. Edin -- the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, and

(2) Prof. H. Luke Shaefer -- an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

The Suggested Discussion Outline for our 2/7/2018 meeting on “$2.00 a Day is available at viewtopic.php?f=528&t=1701&sid=38f56e39 ... 6c74051798.

Salient points in the Discussion Outline were –

U.S. Census Bureau Statistics proved that by 2011 there were 1.5 million households living on less than $2.00 of cash/person/day and that those 1.5 million households INCLUDED 3 MILLION CHILDREN!!!

High unemployment (low job availability) forces many single mothers to sell blood plasma to hospitals, scavenge for cans and bottles in trash barrels, OR SELL SEX!!!

The Meaning of Less Than $2.00 of Cash/Person/Day -

• Since Food Stamps (aka SNAP) are a “cash equivalent” for buying groceries, Edin and Shaefer INCLUDED THE VALUE OF FOOD STAMPS in their $2.00 of cash/person/day calculations (Introduction p. xvii).

• Since 1946, the National School-Lunch Program provides free school lunches to “extreme poverty” children.

• Since 1965, the “extreme poor” qualify for Medicaid, which is NOT the same as receiving medical treatment since medical providers are NOT required to accept Medicaid patients.

• Since 1986, hospital Emergency Rooms MUST screen ALL patients regardless of ability to pay, for an emergency condition which, if found, must be treated and stabilized by the ER free of charge for those unable to pay.

• If the “extremely impoverished” do not have some sort of housing subsidy (Edin and Shaefer ascertained that only 20% of them do), they are “couch surfing” with friends/relatives, in a homeless shelter or out on the street.


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The “Root Cause” of the Loss of Hope – Crack Cocaine

The focus book for our 7/8/2020 meeting was “The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business” by Prof. David Courtwright (Harvard U Press - 5/6/2019).

The Suggested Answers to the Second Short Quiz for the 5/6/2019 meeting entitled “The Crack Epidemic and America’s Tragically-Wrong Response” are available at viewtopic.php?f=593&t=1937&sid=38f56e39 ... 6c74051798.

Those Suggested Answers started with --

Question 1

Should the Crack Cocaine Epidemic be the “star attraction” (or Exhibit A) of any book entitled “The Age of Addiction: HOW BAD HABITS BECAME BIG BUSINESS”???

Answer 1

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 2

Has cocaine been obtained for thousands of years from coca leaves with the “purified chemical” (commonly called “powder cocaine”) being identified as “cocaine hydrochloride” whose chemical formula is C17-H22-Cl-N-O4?

Answer 2

Yes -- per the US Government’s National Institute of Health.

Question 3

Is crack cocaine created by processing the drug with ammonia or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and water, then heating it to remove the hydrochloride to produce a smokable substance? Is it called “crack” because of the crackling sound when it is smoked?

Answer 3

Yes -- per the US Government’s National Institute of Health.

Question 4

Do users inject or snort the “powder cocaine” (cocaine hydrochloride) which is water-soluble enabling it to enter the blood stream directly through nasal membranes or by being mixed with water and injected directly into blood vessels?

Answer 4

Yes -- per the US Government’s National Institute of Health.

Question 5

Do users smoke “crack cocaine” which is water-insoluble?

Answer 5

Yes -- per the US Government’s National Institute of Health.

Question 6

Has “powder cocaine” been big business for more than a century?

Answer 6

Yes -- per the US Government’s National Institute of Health.

Question 7

By the 1970’s and early 1980’s, had Miami become the location of drug cartels controlling 70% of the nation’s cocaine supply (most of which was sourced to Colombia)?

Answer 7

Yes.

Question 8

And were these drug cartels at war with each other because (like OPEC’s perennial problem of trying to maintain oil prices without curtailing oil production whose production costs were a small fraction of the sales price), they were fighting over market share with “guns blazing” -- literally???

Answer 8

Yes.

Question 9

Was the real economic solution for the cartels to bifurcate the market, maintaining the high retail price for powder cocaine sold primarily to long-standing affluent customers? While beginning to manufacture crack cocaine which could be sold at a “bargain basement” price that was still profitable because of the low production costs for cocaine, whether powder or crack -- IN MASSIVE QUANTITIES TO SOAK UP THE EXTRA PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY (“massive” because of the “bargain basement” price) to the poor inhabitants of our inner cities???

Answer 9

Yes - Yes.

Question 10

Did the resulting “crack epidemic” produce the national Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that called for a 100:1 criminal sentencing disparity for trafficking crack cocaine vs. trafficking powder cocaine?

Answer 10

Yes.

Question 11

And was there extensive “piling on” in the national Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 which, for example, funded 100,000 new police officers, provided $9.7 billion for new prisons, even stooped to denying Pell Grants (for taking college courses) for prisoners, etc., etc., AND PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANTLY, in its Sec. 70001, provided a notorious “three strikes and you’re out” requirement of a MANDATORY LIFE SENTENCE if --

“a person is convicted in a court of the United States of a serious violent felony… [and] the person has been convicted in a court of the United States OR OF A STATE of (i) 2 or more serious violent felonies; or (ii) one or more serious violent felonies and one or more serious DRUG OFFENSES…..”

Answer 11

Yes.

Question 12

And re the “three strikes and you’re out” rule, did the 1994 Act define “serious violent felony” as including any criminal offense that involves physical force (the “stock in trade” of every drug dealer) punishable by as much as 10 years of imprisonment?

Answer 12

Yes.

Question 13

And re the “three strikes and you’re out” rule, did the 1994 Act define “serious drug offense” as including a criminal offense involving 5 kilograms (11.023 pounds) of any mixture containing powder cocaine OR INVOLVING ONLY 280 GRAMS (ONLY 0.617 POUNDS) OF ANY MIXTURE CONTAINING CRACK COCAINE?

Answer 13

Yes.

Question 14

Did 28 states “take their cue” from the national Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to enact their own “three strikes and you’re out” laws?

Answer 14

Yes.

Question 15

Have the anti-drug laws and “three strikes and you’re out” laws destroyed a high percentage of inner-city families by incarcerating their husbands/fathers?

Answer 15

Yes.


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The Solution to the Perception of Inner-City 5-Year-Olds

No surprise, Yours Truly firmly believes that the only solution is “I Have A Dream”® or IHAD-style programs.

ALTHOUGH I have been intrigued by the 180-degree about-face of TV advertisers during the last year or so in featuring African-American actors either solely or prominently in TV ads.

Yes, those ads show African-Americans “living the American Dream”!!!

AND MOREOVER, Columbia U. Psychology Prof. Valerie Purdie (who was described as the first Project Coordinator of my own IHAD program in the section above entitled “Pushers Recruit Third-Graders As Runners!!!”) has co-authored an intriguing article in Science Magazine (the premier American publication for announcing scientific discoveries) entitled --

“Recursive Processes in Self-Affirmation: Intervening to Close the Minority Achievement Gap” – Science, Volume 324, Issue 5925 (2009) for which Science Magazine’s “abstract” says –

“A 2-year follow-up of a randomized field experiment previously reported in Science is presented. A subtle intervention to lessen minority students’ psychological threat related to being negatively stereotyped in school was tested in an experiment conducted three times with three independent cohorts (N = 133, 149, and 134). The intervention, a series of brief but structured writing assignments focusing students on a self-affirming value, reduced the racial achievement gap. Over 2 years, the grade point average (GPA) of African Americans was, on average, raised by 0.24 grade points. Low-achieving African Americans were particularly benefited. Their GPA improved, on average, 0.41 points, and their rate of remediation or grade repetition was less (5% versus 18%). Additionally, treated students’ self-perceptions showed long-term benefits. Findings suggest that because initial psychological states and performance determine later outcomes by providing a baseline and initial trajectory for a recursive process, apparently small but early alterations in trajectory can have long-term effects. Implications for psychological theory and educational practice are discussed.”

[If any of our 198 members would like to read the entire article, I would be happy to provide an Adobe.pdf copy. However, it is very technical which is why I never proposed it as the focus for one of our meetings.]

NEVERTHELESS --

(1) Feedback from my contacts with former IHAD sponsors and project coordinators (in addition to my direct contacts with inner-city residents) indicates the new TV ads are NOT effective!!! Inner-city children refuse to ignore what is in front of them and view the African-Americans in the TV ads as a “privileged few” who probably afford the life-styles portrayed in the ads from their earnings as KING-PINS in the drug or sex industries.

(2) Valerie Purdie’s experiments with “a series of brief but structured writing assignments focusing students on a self-affirming value” measurably reducing somewhat “the racial achievement gap” does NOT mean that they can do the “heavy lifting” that is required to eliminate that gap. [And the article does NOT claim they do.]


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Respectfully submitted,

John Karls