Rochelle "Race All The Time" Riley Is At It Again, Now With Detroit Schools

Rochelle Riley's columns in the Free Press are generally quite predictable.

Pick any two, and ofttimes you'll get all three:

a. Racism is everywhere. Racism is alive, well, and just around the corner, except black folk can't be racist.

b. Whatever it is, it's not the Democrats', and Especially Not the Detroit Democrats' fault.

c. Someone, Anyone, else other than Detroit's Democrats need to take the blame and step up and fix Detroit's Problems, but don't suggest Detroit's Democrats can't be in charge for an instant.

Such it is yet again with her latest piece on Detroit Schools:

The Detroit Free Press: For leaders to fix Detroit's education problems, they need to talk about race

Yes, she's decided that Business Leaders, yes Busienss leaders, not say the heads of School Boards or other government officials actually in charge of education, are not talkig sufficiently about race as the core problem for the sorry state of Detroit's schools.

Of course, it could be that race isn't the core problem, but don't tell her that.

Our business community, for the most part, believes those problems lie with transit, training and trade. They plan to spend almost three whole days focused on three themes: preparing Michigan’s workers for a new generation, creating mobility for the future rather than the past and restoring trust in government, media and business.

But they always start the conversation in the wrong place.

Our region’s most pressing problem isn’t that we have a talent shortage, or that we aren’t competitive. Our most pressing problem is that we don’t care enough about education — and haven’t for more than a half century — nor do we realize that our talent problem begins in third grade.

What does that have to do with race? This: We have believed that if our suburban schools are adequate, we don't really have to care about urban or rural schools.

Unfortunately, that means that black students — and some rural ones — attend inferior schools and too many of those students grow up to be prison inmates or a part of Michigan’s poor.

She then blames Detorit's faling schools on racism. Not on the parents of the kids, not on the teachers, not on the board of education, not on the corrupt Democrat officials that beld the system dry. Nope, just on racism.

She then goes to list a multitude of factors that have little if anything to do with racism but instead crappy parenting, a high-crime urban environment, and administrative corruption and malfeasance by the peole who are the same race whether perpetrator or victim:

Ninety percent of the district’s third-graders read below grade level at a time when the Legislature has banned promoting them if that remains true.
More than 70% of children seen by Community Mental Health officials in Wayne County have experienced at least three potentially traumatic events that could change how they think and learn. Many of those children are in Detroit.
Every day, 14 children in the city became victims of crime. In 2014, the last year the study was done, about 43% were victims of homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault or robbery.
Many of Detroit's children suffer from toxic stress related to the environments in which they live.
Many of Detroit's children have parents who are either undereducated or have difficulty reading. Parents who cannot read cannot teach their children or be partners in their education. Demanding that they do, without providing a way to do it, is folly.
Many of Detroit’s children are victims of adult misbehavior. Because the district was long plagued by mismanagement and corruption, it has become harder to persuade supporters to donate to the children. The district and its new superintendent must find a way to make businesses focus on the children, not the past.
The city schools began the year short 300 teachers. And as more teachers retire each year — and fewer head into urban school districts — the problem could get worse.

None of these things are due to the boogeyman of "racism". Instead, they're due to the complete breakdown of the Detroit family structure, runaway crime, and endemic Democrat corruption. Rochelle Riley of course wants to keep the kids in these same corrupt institutions, do the same things, and expect a better result. Oh, and she likely wants Michigan business to fork over more money to expiate the imaginary sins of systemic racism to buy some shiny objects and hope that fixes the problem. It won't.

Money spent isn't the issue, it is how badly it is being mismanaged and how badly the kids are being taught.

The Detroit Public School system currently spends more per student than "all but eight of the nation’s 100 largest school districts, or $14,259. Even with all that money, the district still generated the nation’s worst reading scores among low-income students."

Anywhere else that would be regarded a massive failure. In the business world with such a lousy result, business leaders would either be fired or their business would be driven into bankruptcy.

At $14,259 per student, it would be better to free them from their Democrat and union-run schools and send them off to private schools - likely there would be better results, but that would be taking away control of yet another one of Detroit's tarnished "jewels".

Scratch A Leftie Columnist, Find A Fascist Underneath

The Detroit Free Press' Rochelle "It's All About Race" Riley writes a column amazingly not dealing with race, the greatness of Obama, or gun control.

Taking a break from her usual tripe and expanding her horizons fascist-wise, she writes that she wants Congress to regulate cable television because 9 year-olds might watch the Walking Dead at 9pm at night and be psychologically harmed thereby.

Rather than asking what parent lets their 9-year old be awake at 9pm on a Sunday, much less letting the little tyke watch The Walking Dead?; Rather than advocating that parents you know, actually parent and control their kids bedtimes and tv content; she instead demands the government regulate and ban the evil she believes is the Walking Dead's gratuitous violence.

She actually called the FCC to complain. She was told to politely take a hike as the FCC doesn't regulate cable. She did not like that response.

So, joining the ranks of leading Democrats like Tipper Gore, she doesn't mind the government regulating and banning speech as long as it regulates things her way, and she calls on Congress to expand regulation onto the cable companies.

'Walking Dead' snuff episode should be a wake-up call

Rochelle Riley, one of the Freep's most liberal commentators actually wrote:

"We have freedom-of-speeched ourselves to death"

Rochelle, you have lots of control over your television, and you don't even have to leave your comfy chair in your liberal cocoon to do it. It's called picking up the remote control and changing the channel. Or even better, parent, supervise and have your 9 year old in bed before 9 on a night before school and the problem is solved - no big government censorship necessary.

Freep's Rochelle Riley Calls On Obama To Exercise The Divine Right Of Kings

After all, what use is separation of powers and the limitations on the executive when you want to get something unconstitutional done for your side after all? Until a Republican is elected president the Democrats are cool with untamed executive power. It almost makes me want to vote for Trump to see the proggy commentators pull the fastest 180 degree turn on executive power. Almost.

The Detroit Free Press: President Obama has just this one more thing to do

Dear Mr. President: ....

This will be hard.

This will be unprecedented. ....

But I know that you can do this thing I’m asking — because you are the president.

You must, by executive order, ban the use of assault rifles by non-soldiers, ban their sale and ownership and use away from the battlefield.

Ms. Riley apparently never took a civics class or understands or even cares the limit's on a President's power, after all she makes the tautological argument that he can do it as president because he's the president, QED.

Most adults would describe this as magical thinking.

Then she even admits it won't work, but hey, futile grand gestures and appearing to do something is important.

Yes, I know that it would be constitutional folly and that you are a Harvard-educated genius at constitutional law.

Ms. Riley if that is so, why did you just waste your time bloviating asking for it. The second half of that question is itself most questionable, especially as we still don't know what grades the genius got at Harvard, and his present performance has hardly shown any hints at genius, just sayin'.

This is what is passing for reasoned discourse from a regular byline columnist in a major progressive newspaper. Then again, it's the same major progressive newspaper that excused any hint of Islam from the Orlando attack and the fact that the shooter was a registered Democrat and instead blamed it on availability of firearms and Republican political rhetoric regarding gays.

Sympathy for the Sheehan?

Apparently Rochelle Riley is, not for Casey Sheehan mind you, but for Cindy "15+ minutes of fame" Sheehan.

In Empathy for Sheehan in her quests, in the Detroit Free Press, Riley says

I can imagine what I would do if someone happened to her. I would hunt that
person down and stalk them until they were brought to justice, unless justice
got there first.

That's all Cindy Sheehan is doing. And guess what? I understand her pain and
her mission. But I'm at a loss to understand how any other parent couldn't
understand.

So who's Sheehan hunting down? The terrorists that killed her son? Nope she's lashing out at anyone insufficiently "anti-war" Bush or even now Pelosi.

Riley then says

Sheehan's son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Austin Sheehan, signed up in August 2003 for a tour of duty in Iraq. He was 24 years old. Five days later, he was killed in Sadr City during a rescue mission for which he volunteered. He will never know the glory of being awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. I cannot imagine those medals mean much to a grieving mother.

Such medals would mean a lot to someone realizing that Casey Sheehan died not for himself or self-aggrandizement but in trying to save others, as a hero. Indeed, isn't until 6 paragraphs later that Riley notes that Casey had volunteered and signed up for a second tour in Iraq and he wasn't there involuntarily- he's the hero in this not Cindy. Rochelle doesn't bring up that Cindy had disowned her son when he joined the military.

The story mentions that Sheehan saw Bush once but doesn't seem to mention her demanding to see him yet again, but does note she called Bush a terrorist and speaks with approval about Sheehan's plans to try and impeach Bush and run against Pelosi.

Nice to see that Rochelle Riley has gone from being a Democrat talking points talking head to full on moonbat supporter. Sheehan had her more than fifteen minutes of fame - even the Democrats are done with her, and its time that Riley realized that.