<p>imiracle911 i understand your view that blacks and hispanics in the ghettos are scary to most. But you have to understand that these kids grow up in such a situation where violence is the norm that they too must put up or die. That is the key difference between black, latino poverty and white poverty. White poverty although more numerous is less concentrated and produces less violence because those that are poor were not and will not be habitually poor, or have been poor throughout there heritage.</p>
<p>Most of the people in the ghettos and barrios are people whose parents were poor, whose granparents were poor, and who see no way out.</p>
<p>Obviously they will not get a chance to go to harvard or yale, but by seeing there brethern especially those brethern that look like them succeed they will be motivated to move up in society. When you have determined individuals who see this in there communities, who see the destruction of people everywhere, whether rich or poor, they will help.</p>
<p>Cornel West, Julien Bond, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farakhan, these individuals did not grow up poor, they may have benefited from AA especially in the post civil rights era, and thus they continue to help there people out wherever they struggle. And thats why i feel like AA is sometimes good. </p>
<p>But i overwhelmingly agree that SEAA can do a much better job of attract the disenfrachised youth we are looking for.</p>
<p>These stories are so rare, that i have to point one out. This is the story of Cedric Jennings, a kid who grew up in the ghettos. This is why i feel like the ivy league in particular has to target these kids. Of course he had a 1200 SAT but does that mean he doesnt deserve preferential treatment, and if so to what extent. This kid ended up at Brown. </p>
<p>The inspiring true story of a ferociously determined young man who, armed only with his intellect and his willpower, fights his way out of despair. At Ballou Senior High, a crime-infestedschool in Washington, D.C., honor students have learned to keep their heads down. Like most inner-city kids, they know that any special attention in a place this dangerous can make you a target of violence. But Cedric Jennings, the lankyson of a jailed drug dealer, will not swallow his pride, though each day he struggles to decide who he wants to be. The summer after his junior year at a program for minorities at MIT, he gets a fleeting glimpse of life outside Ballou --an image that burns in his mind afterward and fills him with a longing to live in such a world. In his senior year, walking a gauntlet of sneers and threats, he achieves a 4.02 grade-point average and then the impossible: acceptance intoBrown University, an Ivy League school. At Brown, finding himself far behind most of the other freshmen in his academic training and his knowledge of broader culture, Cedric must manage a bewildering array of intellectual and socialchallenges. Cedric had hoped that in college he would finally find a place to fit in, but he discovers he has little in common with the white students, many of whom come from privileged backgrounds and enjoy partying. Even themiddle-class blacks have trouble understanding Cedric, a straight-arrow church kid from the ghetto who seems like an obvious product of affirmative action. Cedric is left to rely on his intelligence and his determination to keep alive hishope in the unseen -- a future of acceptance and reward that he struggles, each day, to envision.</p>