Let's bleed the working people & the tax system some more for these welfare breeders... because THEY WANT MORE!
“We have an emergency here in Robbins.”
That’s how Robbins Trustee Shantiel Simon opened a community youth forum addressing the lack of summer jobs available for youth in the village.
“Why an emergency? Because crime in black youth and unemployment go hand in hand,” he said. White kids can go crimeless and be unemployed, colored boys can't!
Simon, along with pastors, and business and community leaders talked to parents and youths Thursday at the New Friendship Baptist Church on 139th Street.
According to Simon, he and several others supported Gov. Pat Quinn during the governor’s campaign, and Quinn made promises to provide jobs for the youth. The problem is, Quinn has not followed through on this, Simon said.
“The day is over when we don’t represent our youth,” Simon told the crowd.
According to the panel, the Community Youth Employment Act was approved by Quinn a year ago. That act was to provide 5,000 youths with jobs for a 10-week summer period. Simon said those jobs were to pay $7.50 an hour.
However, this program has not been funded.
“We’ve done everything Quinn’s office has asked us to do. Last week, lots of people blew up and called Quinn’s office — kids lobbying for themselves — and protested at the state building downtown,” Simon said.
“They offered us 10 jobs through the forestry, but that wasn’t enough. We have 400 young people in Robbins alone,” Simon said.
Rod Wilson, an organizer for the LIFE Campaign, which supports Chicago-area youth, said that in 1980, Chicago had 40,000 jobs available for youths during the summer, and now there are only 12,000.
“When you have only 12,000 jobs and 35,000 applying, you have a problem,” Wilson said.
State Rep. Will Davis (D-Homewood) explained why the program was facing trouble in Springfield.
“What’s important to me isn’t necessarily important to the other representatives, and vice versa,” Davis said. “Every budget year, the talk of summer jobs comes up, but there’s really no one way to approach this. The money (in the state) moves around so much.”
Putting legislation aside, the panel discussed ways they could help out right now.
“You (youth) need job skills to hold a job,” Pastor Vassel Stubbs said. “At our church (New Friendship Baptist), we have a ministry called Mind Your Business, where we teach our youth how to handle job interviews, how to present yourself, how to get those jobs,” Stubbs said.
