You cannot save the black community. You cannot save the lower class. You cannot save the uneducated. No matter how young they are, no matter how young you are, and no matter who provides, nothing will get done.

There will always be winterized homes, people who don’t know how to budget and the lower class. We will do our best as a society to forget who the lower class is and raise their taxes until they starve. This is our fate: to destroy the lower class by economic means until they no longer exist.

You know the lower class. Some of them sleep off of Loyola Avenue heading into the Quarter, some of them live on the other side of Napoleon Avenue on Freret, Carondelet, Orethea and Simon Bolivar. You won’t help them. You can’t teach their children. You offer no hope. They are dead. They are dead, their children are dead, and they have no hope of advancement. As long as the poor can make it by on a food stamp or a paycheck, they will.

As long as you can go to college and decide your own career path, you will. That Teach for America email you got? You’ll forget about. You don’t want to teach. The kids you’ll reach are dead anyway. They won’t make it out. They weren’t raised in a stable household by two parents. They weren’t afforded the advantages you were, and they’ll never be able to fit into society.

Maybe you made it. Maybe you are the exception. Maybe you think that there are those in the lower class who can follow you. Maybe you think we are all born equal. Well, we’re not. Some of us are fortunate enough to be reading this newspaper and thinking what to do about those under the poverty line. Some of us only have enough time to think about how they are going to afford groceries this week. Obviously, there is a group that progresses beyond the other.

Now, even though these people are a product of a bad environment, that doesn’t mean you can just clean them up. They’ve been indoctrinated in their mindset. They will always be poor. The chains have been set upon them, and no matter what you do you cannot set them free.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we do in fact walk among the dead in New Orleans. The sooner we let them die, the faster we can reclaim New Orleans for the educated, for the privileged and for the Loyola graduate. Don’t prolong their deaths. Don’t let them think their future generations have a chance. Haven’t we done enough damage already?

Please, if you disagree with this article, I’d encourage you to prove me wrong outside of a letter to the editor. LUCAP, Teach for America, Campus Ministry, and similar organizations exist for a reason.

John Valdespino is a music industries senior. He can be reached at [email protected]

In My Opinion is a weekly column open to any Loyola student. Those interested in contributing can contact [email protected]