I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.. I don't need to chose a side..
 

fuck it!

finding a good career in america can be difficult.. sometimes I feel like I am not in fact a white, american male citizen well educated with two college degrees.. I work with nothing but pisas and undocumented workers, as I have for the past five years, and as it appears I will have to do forever and ever..
what ever happened to all the white privilege america is founded on? I-man can't even get a piece of the action.. (oh yeah, its because I despise that shit. I work with pisa because inevitably I am one)
what the land of the free? whoever told you that is yr enemy..

what the fuck happened to moving to ethiopia?

has that been moved to "long-term goal" or "fuck it"?

I work in warehouses, landscaping and factories for the past few years to pay rent and for school.. until I-man can get a career that pays some serious duckets I can't get to Ethiopia, not on undocumented worker wages seen?

further I am trying to get some experience in schools because i-man's meal ticket in ethiopia is school teaching, but I am rather unexperienced, and though they will take me as is, I think it is most appropriate to have some experience working in schools and eventually teaching around my hometown first before I try to dare first-year teach in a technically foreign country (though its not that foreign to me, I eat the food, I pray in the church, I speak some of the language, I love the music and culture, and my degrees are in Ethiopian history but I have never been there, it is therefore technically foreign to i-man until that great day when I arrive)

I have been applying at dozens of schools for the past 8months finding nothing but open flyers but closed doors :(

fuck em, they schools can't teach us shit!

yeah...from a mile away.

I've often wondered if yr bank account could support yr heart.

why not try peace corps?

You have given out too much Reputation in the last 24 hours, try again later.

I did, they just reinstated Ethiopian peace corps for the first time since 1975! but alas, in peacecorp you do not chose where to go, they send you where ever they need you :(

I feel much like the early back-to-africa folks in the 1870s-1920s who dreamed of africa but could by no means ever afford to make it.

but I have confidence that inevitably it will happen, I-man is a young man yet, just an old old soul.

so...what you do is, get into the peace corps, do yr stint in south america and request a position in ethiopia after you've put in some time.

at least, that sounds like a good idea on paper.

ps: don't you have to actually go to africa before you can go back? not taking the piss, just sayin'.

My husband knows where you're comin from. He built up a Landscaping Corporation over the past 10 years. However, with a shitty economy and an abundance of under the table cheap illegal immigrant labor in Florida his business is crumbling out from under us. The larger companies in town pay these people pennies and we get bidded out of the jobs because of our overhead. He's about ready to say fuck it to that shit and move on to something else. We shall see what the future brings.

Good luck making it to Africa. A girl I work with actually went this year. She stayed in a hut out in the middle of the wilderness in some village. Looks pretty cool from her picks.

May God Bless You.

thank you for that!

I know very well about making those pennies..

to floatingslowly, I thought about that as well, but honestly, I am not down to work for 2 years with the peacecorp on the prayer that they MIGHT send me to Ethiopia afterwards, its already been 8 years as it is..

all I'm saying is, if you continue to live paycheck-to-paycheck on low wages (in LA for fuck's sake), you won't see Ethiopia in another 10 years, let alone 2.

truth (hence my dilemma)


I feel lucky in one regard though.. I feel that LA/Babylon schools are corrupt, police-state institutions of the military-industrial complex.

I am secretly happy they won't give me an in, because honestly, I think it would be selling out, and what does a man profit to gain the whole world but forfeit is very soul?

argh argh argh..

on the brightside there is a good opening for a Youth Minister at catholic school, and thats what I do with volunteer groups and my church so I think it would be a cake/dream job for me right now. sometimes I feel like ANYTHING to get out of warehouse work would be nice, but then again the anything part often includes selling out in america and in LA in particular

but is it really selling out? what happened to "by any means necessary"?

make it work for you as a means to yr end.

I know that cali is in a budget crisis, but I highly doubt that they require you to sell yr soul upon hiring.

"LA is more confusing now...than anywhere I've ever been to..and I'm from New York city....."

my world is unaffected, there is an exit here.. (isn't that a good album?)

well, at local high schools you deal with kids getting arrested, dragged onto campus in hand cuffs, teachers snitching to their probation officers and administrators using the constant threat of jail/snitching to the PO to manipulate the youth.. its not my cup of tea thank you, in fact it is selling out by definition in my book, as I am anti system, anti-police, anti-manipulating the youth..

this is born very redu
im a lawyer now so i am taking notice on the events of the current

yeah, or so you've told us on several occassions, but I'm not so sure, even lawyers who are low-lives like the rest of us don't often say things like, 'hey assholes i'm a lawyer!'

I have my doubts

no seriously i wil lscan my merzbow sce

sorry

i will burn my scan

what i MEWANT to say was i bwill scan my certificate of lawthencation

There's no privelege on the basis of colour. There's privelege on the basis of culture. White middle-class culture isn't necessarily white (it just lacks blood). I can't really speak for the States, but I'm pretty sure Obama no more represents black America than he does white working class America. Skin is an illusion, it's all about importing British prejudices.

In b4 'lol@Marxism'.

fucking A your a genius Glice! That is the most accurate synopsis of american race issues I have read in a long time. White in america is not a skin color, its a culture, and thats why I am not really a white man at all, because I don't relate to the 'white culture' of traditional, backwards (or backwoods ;) ) americana.

in fact, I have been what white-american culture affectionately refers to as a "nigger lover" (everybody's someone elses nigger, I know you are so am I)

god bless america eh?

then don't be like the rest of their teachers! effect positive change at the root of the shitstem.

the point is, as a warehouse worker and/or message board poster, yr not likely to accomplish any of the grand goals that you've set for yrself.


please note: I use "the rest of their teachers" to fit inside yr context, but do not believe that yr description automatically applies to all teachers in cali.



you and I both, my friend. you and I both.

no its not really the teacher's fault, it is the school system which works directly and in tandem with the courts, police and probation. The principals and administrators use these agencies of oppression to manipulate the youth. further, I don't even like the idea of working at a school where the kids are LEGALLY obligated to go to and both THEY AND THEIR PARENTS are threatened with JAIL TIME if they don't. It kinda kills its for me..

essentially the public school system here is a tool of the military-industrial complex and the police state, and they leave kind-hearted and sincere educators such as myself very little opportunity to effect any kind of proactive change, in fact they want just the opposite, they just want us all to continue on as ever with the status quo.

LA schools in particular (from personal experience) have a tendency to use the courts/police/probation as a filter mechanism to get bad apple kids out of their hair rather than dealing with the problem in the first place. The kids only become billy bad ass criminals because the schools fail them continually since kindergarten, and in a fucked up cycle the school decides NOT to help these kids, rather they want to filter them out of the system to make it easier on themselves.. its fucked up to the core, and truthfully I want no part in it. BUT.. catholic/private/charter schools who are not part of this system of oppression are hard up for $$$ these days with few openings and extreme competition..

alas alas. (however I am very confident for the victory, I just am having to learn patience to achieve it)

thank you again for the kind reasoning and the empathy, I needed it today fe real! the weight of conscience has been fucking with me for weeks now, hence all my identity crises/culture shock/angstful threads..
you guys are the best.

peace and love,
habte selassie
(ps, just sent out two resume packets for Youth Ministers at local catholic schools, I hope to at least get an interview, these are my dream jobs and the only job in the world that I don't have to BS in the slightest to show my qualifications at the interview)

SuchFriends....I just read thru this rather quickly so maybe I'm missing something. Consider these factors:
What are your long-term goals (of course making a living #1)?
What are your strengths?
What would be the best direction to go in terms of channeling those strengths into a passionate career (not just a "job")?
You seem qualified and confident but discouraged because yr being led around in circles.
If I were as knowledgeable about a foreign country as you are, I would leave L.A. behind for sure.
I'm gonna reread through this thread again. But I hope I helped a bit.