Now I know why I stay away from GD Pee

I had to jump into this thread because it hit close to home, but these people are nuts. At least I had a few people defending me. Check it out: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7906570&mesg_id=7906570

posting in an education thread. :scared:

I can see that someone posting in it seems to think she is the end all, know it all, be all because she lives in a poor neighborhood and has volunteered at schools. Big f-ing whoop! That does not equate into being a better person, which is what I think her bottom line is.

I'm not going to post in that thread (the magnitude of stupidity on DU about our education system and what people are trying to do about it just pisses me off), but good on you for at least trying to set people straight about the Detroit school system.

The tinfoil hatters with a paranoid philosophy to push are determined to keep pushing it in the face of all information to the contrary--and when challenged on their bullshit, they will try to cherry-pick whatever information they can about you to deride you and "prove" that your position has no merit. Look at how much this idiot decided Sharon "must" not know about the Detroit public schools based on no information other than the name of the town where she lives and some Googled information about the average income of its residents.

This is why I don't post a lot of info about myself on my profile. I don't want people jumping to conclusions about me based on what they find there. Besides, some of the information they would find there would probably be quite misleading.

It's just ridiculous to jump to conclusions about what people know and the authority from which they speak based merely on where they live. That tells you little that's terribly useful. Hell, if I posted where I live in detail, people would conclude from mere Googling that I must be poor, uneducated and black. As it is, I'm only the first of the three (and really, things could be a lot worse). And I didn't grow up here, although my parents were from a different part of the neighborhood; I grew up in rural nowheresville. And I know more than a little about upstate New York, because I lived there for almost 20 years.

And of course, where a person lives is such a teeny tiny tidbit of knowledge about that person. It tells nothing about what experiences that person has had or what education or knowledge or experience that person has.

There's no greater proof of the old saying "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" than the kind of conclusions people can jump to about you on DU based on Googling your town of residence.