Flashback to 2013 when Michelle Obama criticized blacks for wanting to become rappers and ballers rather doctors or lawyers or business owners. On March 12, Paul Ryan on Bill Bennett's radio show said that a decline in culture and lack of a work ethich in the inner city was responsible for poverty. Now Ryan got all sorts of hell for those comments from the Left. Marcia Fudge, Barbara Lee and the rest of the Black Caucus lashed out at Ryan.
"We've got this tailspin of culture in our inner cities in particular of men not working and just a generation of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work," Ryan said on the radio show.
Now one person who surprisingly came to Ryan's defense in a way was Bill Maher. On his Friday show he read 2 quotes and his guests though both were said by Ryan. One was the above quote while the other was said by Michelle Obama in 2013 at the commencement at Bowie State.
Yet Michelle did not get any criticism from the Black Caucus or others on the Left as Paul Ryan did. See, that is the sacrifice that those folks and so many others have made. That is the hunger they felt. For them and so many others, getting an education was literally a matter of life or death. But today, more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, more than 50 years after the end of "separate but equal," when it comes to getting an education, too many of our young people just can't be bothered. Today, instead of walking miles every day to school, they're sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV. Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they're fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper. (Applause.) Right now, one in three African American students are dropping out of high school. Only one in five African Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 has gotten a college degree -- one in five. But let's be very clear. Today, getting an education is as important if not more important than it was back when this university was founded. Just look at the statistics. (Applause.) People who earn a bachelor's degree or higher make nearly three times more money than high school dropouts, and they're far less likely to be unemployed. A recent study even found that African American women with a college degree live an average of six and a half years longer than those without. And for men, it's nearly 10 years longer. So yes, people who are more educated actually live longer. So I think we can agree, and we need to start feeling that hunger again, you know what I mean? (Applause.) We need to once again fight to educate ourselves and our children like our lives depend on it, because they do. We need to dig deep and find the same kind of grit and determination that drove those first students at this school and generations of students who came after them. I am talking about the kind of grit and determination displayed by folks right here at Bowie State.
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