• I was a black boy at the height of the crack era, which meant that my instructors pitched education as the border between those who would prosper in America, and those who would be fed to the great hydra of prison, teenage pregnancy and murder.

    Ta-Nehisi Coates: I was a black boy at the height of the crack era, which meant that my instructors pitched education as the border between those who would prosper in America, and those who would be fed to the great hydra of prison, teenage pregnancy and murder.
    "School as Wonder, or Way Out" by Ta-Nehisi Coates, www.nytimes.com. July 10, 2012.