Welcome to My Hood, Mr. President

Just found out President Obama will be visiting the high school seven blocks from my home. My two sons went to the school. Back in the 90's when they went to Abraham Lincoln High School, stepping into the school was like stepping into chaos. Students were running up and down the halls, graffiti was on the outside walls and the whole vibe was chaos and loss of control. During that time one of my sons was threatened in one of the smoking areas by a gang member wielding a switchblade. Apparently the gangster didn't like the way my son looked at him. A faculty member happened by and the gang member walked away. The smoking areas no longer exist.

So, this Tuesday Obama is coming to Lincoln. The school is cleaned up now. Too late for my kids and all the kids they went to school with. Still, the graduation rate for Hispanic and Latino males is barely above 50% when the drop out rates are figured from middle school on. Lincoln will tout a higher graduation rate and more college bound students but statistics by Denver Public Schools are skewed like most statistics when it comes to "new and better" schools.

The discouraged students, the behavioral problem and suspended students and the pregnant/married students amongst others are taken off the books. Leaving only the student that would likely succeed anyway.

I'm glad Lincoln has made strides to meet the challenge of educating students from a neighborhood with over half of the population living in poverty. A neighborhood where over half the kids need a breakfast program and a lunch program to stave off hunger. A neighborhood where a majority of the families speak English as a second language. A neighborhood that has families without documentation of citizenship in the US. The vile term "illegal" takes the place of "wetback" and other disparaging slurs.

Paul Lopez is our city councilman. Good man. He and I worked together with a group to keep huge amounts of money from being used to build a new jail instead of using it to prevent incarceration. We lost. Real estate and the prison industry won over the people of Denver. Now the city can't hire new staff for the new jail and has laid off staff in budget cuts. Paul was a union organizer before he was elected. He knows about the poverty here in the neighborhood. Hopefully Obama will talk with him.

Hopefully the man at Jewell and Sheridan, which is a block away from Lincoln, will be there with his young daughter of about six years old. He's been at that corner just recently with a sign begging for help to feed and house his family. Hopefully the disabled guy with his dog will be at the corner of Evans and Sheridan, the corner where the Lincoln athletic fields end. The guy is always there in evening rush begging with a sign asking for help. Often there are homeless people across Federal on the corners with signs asking for help also. The intersection of Federal and Evans is one of the busiest in Denver. A good place to ask for help from the commuters stopped at the traffic lights. And people in this neighborhood are generous. I see people giving money to the people on the corners or at the stores all the time. We're not a rich neighborhood but despite the dangers of gangs and poverty my neighbors understand the need of those brothers and sisters on the corners.

I doubt Obama will see the people I see almost every day on those corners. No doubt police and Secret Service will clear them out like they did the homeless when the DNC was here in 2008. I'm sure the feeling of a police state will return in the neighborhood on Tuesday. Helicopters over head and Denver Police SWAT teams huddled near the school. They'll have all that "neat" stuff bought for them when the DNC came.

Too bad Obama can't go down the street to Newbarry's to have a cup of coffee. He'd hear from the wait staff how tough things have gotten for them. The coffee shop used to be packed with a wide variety of customers. On Sundays we used to wait to get in for breakfast after church. Now, because of demographic changes and the increased poverty in my neighborhood, Newbarry's is seldom crowded. There are fewer wait staff working there.

I wish the President could do a tour of the neighborhood to count the "For Sale" signs. Every block seems to have at least two or three. Most are foreclosures. It would be good if he could go over to the projects at Westwood or down to Sun Valley to listen to the people hurt most by the bipartisan bickering and hatefulness. And the 'banksters" and Wall Street speculators.

Of course the President won't do any of this. He's coming to my "hood" to court the Hispanic and Latino voters. He's losing them in the polls. He's demonstrated he's all show without game. He'll give a fiery speech about putting Americans back to work.

He's done a good job at keeping a lot of our neighbors here employed by extending the wars. It's kids from neighborhoods like mine and my old neighborhood on the Northside of Denver that end up fighting these wars, Mr. President. It's the kids who dropped out and ended up with GEDs who can't afford college without veteran benefits. The average student who can't get a scholarship and doesn't want to go in debt to the rip off merchants shilling education end up enlisting instead.

Nah, President Obama coming to my neighborhood is all about show. I heard Tavis Smiley say his momma always told him words are just words without deeds.Wish his momma had talked to the President.

I'm not hopeful about this President or any other President helping me or my neighbors. We're on our own when it comes to the American government. Like the street people, the homeless and the beggars on the corners we will be forgotten as soon as the last words are spoken and the applause is finished.

Some fell for the eloquence of Obama's words back in '08. I really didn't because he surrounded himself with too many K Street types without a clue of how folks live outside the D.C. beltway. Unfortunately my feeling about him proved to true.

But welcome, President Obama. Wish you could really see my neighborhood. Despite all the poverty and struggles going on here, I like it here. The Lincoln High neighborhood is America. Too bad your entourage will keep you from seeing it.