Again, if there needs to be an explanation for any apparent lack of motivation, learned helplessness goes a long way. All their life these kids haven't had the power to do anything to change their lives, eventually you give up. Please quit saying they are all lazy deadbeats as if it's a matter of choice, there are too many factors that play a part in determining a good work ethic. I don't need empirical proof to show you that people don't like living in poverty, and that if they could easily advance they would. The point is that the system has been built on a foundation where the richer you are, the easier it is to make money. If you're at the bottom you're fucked.
Now I don't want to stick my head out for Sotomayor and say she's not a racist, (i havent' met her). But lets look at the full context of that quote.
The larger context of the sentence is Sotomayor addressing former
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's famous quote that "a wise old man and
wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases."
"I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement," Sotomayor
says. "First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be
a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina
woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not
reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
"Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and
Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race
discrimination in our society," she said. "Until 1972, no Supreme Court
case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case.
I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to
believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are
incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a
different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to
me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on
many occasions and on many issues including Brown."
"However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not
all people are willing to give," she continued. "For others, their
experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of
others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the
proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women
and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts
that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my
experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am
unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be
in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and
my Latina heritage.
That does not sound racist to me.  Unfortuate that this ended up as a major digression from the topic at hand, but atleast i hope people actually take time to read her full quote above and keep it in thier head