encourage black kids to grow up to be guardians of empire … just like the distinguished senator from the great state of Illinois.

Yes we can …

lay the responsibility for their circumstances wholly at the feet of their parents and those in education who see NCLB as the vehicle for spitting out drones to tend the machinery of oppression that it is … rather than with a system that has crushed the souls of those parents, then moves inexorably on to the children.

Yes we can …

blame the victims, as we always do.

Is there righteous criticism to be made of these persons? I think so.

But only after acknowledging the existence of the political forces that create the context that leads them to make bad choices … and working to defeat those forces.

Yes we can …

take responsibility for our own lives.

When we have the means and the support we have to have so that we can.

We need the audacity of real hope, not slogans and symbolism … the putrid product of a "liberalism" incestuously wedded to the status quo.