RACISM faces SOLUTION

VESTIGES OF RACISM CANNOT BE SOLVED BY STATE AND LOCAL MUNICIPALITIES I share, perhaps, a slightly different perspective on the post Trayvon Martin discussions. I really don't think much will come out of talk on changing the life experiences of black, brown, poor boys and girls in our country. The reason is there will only be discussion around symptoms – such as the actual shooting of Trayvon, police shootings of our youth, profiling , our young filling the prisons faster than they can be built, our young killing each other, our youth seeing no value in public education, female headed households, and so on. President Obama, in his recent comments on Trayvon, stepped away from the notion of some large federal program being the source of cure for some of these symptoms – (if I understood him) he believes instead that states should handle their own problems. I think we should look at the fact that the slave trade was a federal effort – the whole nation threw it's money and might into making it a success and reaped fortunes as a result. The use of free labor did more than make a few slave owners wealthy; it fed the growth in America's legal, political, financial and industrial systems. The whole of America grew and enriched itself on the backs and blood of slaves. Now to my different perspective: When you take a people, strip them of all the things that make them unique – their spirituality, their art, their religion, their language, you take away their soul, the center of their being, the thing that gives them a right and reason to be. When you make them accept your spirituality, your education, your art, your religion and your language, but force them to maintain a slave mentality – you have a mass of people headed down hill toward self-destruction. What our country needs now is the best willing minds from virtually every discipline in higher education to apply their focus on undoing the harm that's been done to many citizens -- while at the same time creating and applying proven remedy. An aside note but to the point: Detroit should've never have been allowed to die. It says to the rest of the world, and more importantly to our selves, that America is willing to hold its nose as a part of it rots and stinks. It really does suggest that a very shallow mind set is at work.