"anyone who has lived a life of poverty with no encouragement from anyone"

Exactly Dianavan, Who has given them encouragement? Their parents? All they get is sympathy from their "leaders" who turn everything into a race issue.


''A lot of us,'' Mr. Obama argues, ''hesitate to discuss these things in public because we think that if we do so it lets the larger society off the hook. We're stuck in an either/or mentality -- that the problem is either societal or it's cultural.''

It's important to talk about life chances -- about the constricted set of opportunities that poverty brings. But to treat black people as if they're helpless rag dolls swept up and buffeted by vast social trends -- as if they had no say in the shaping of their lives -- is a supreme act of condescension. Only 50 percent of all black children graduate from high school; an estimated 64 percent of black teenage girls will become pregnant. (Black children raised by female ''householders'' are five times as likely to live in poverty as those raised by married couples.) Are white racists forcing black teenagers to drop out of school or to have babies?