Black Education... or, the lack thereof.

Dr. Walter Williams is probably today's most coherent writer about America's black community. Yesterday he wrote a column titled Black Education Tragedy. For his opening shot, he wrote:

"As if more evidence were needed about the tragedy of black education, Rachel Jeantel, a witness for the prosecution in the George Zimmerman murder trial, put a face on it for the nation to see. Some of that evidence unfolded when Zimmerman's defense attorney asked 19-year-old Jeantel to read a letter that she allegedly had written to Trayvon Martin's mother. She responded that she doesn't read cursive, and that's in addition to her poor grammar, syntax and communication skills."

I have not closely followed that trial, but I did see the segment where Jeantel testified. I was saddened by her performance. Saddened that this young American girl will, next spring, graduate from High School unprepared for a successful future.

It made me think of the difference an education, and a dedication to learning, can make. Williams, himself, and Dr. Thomas Sowell, are both positive proof of the successful future awaiting a couple of poor black boys, raised in the housing projects of Philadelphia and New York.

They are proof, also, that skin color, ethnicity and "pedigree" are irrelevant.

So, my question is this: Why isn't their story being shouted from the rooftops? Why isn't their story being told in schools? Why aren't black mothers telling their sons they could grow up to be another Walter Williams or Thomas Sowell?

I am hopeful that today's black students are taught about outstanding black Americans of the past. That is good. But it would seem that the story of two men who grew up in an environment similar to the one in which today's students live, would be more powerful.