Education is everything. It is the way of out poverty and the path to freedom. My father repeated this message every day. He was right. It did pull us out of poverty and, it took us up the economic ladder. Like millions of other immigrants, a publicly funded education and hard work allowed us to attain the American Dream.

Let’s apply the “Myth Busters” TV show’s concept to Connecticut’s tolls controversy.

To my white friends here in Connecticut. Here’s a story of how white supremacy and structural racism are passed down to the next generation of our children: Once upon a time… a developer is approved, using some state and federal dollars, to build “affordable” apartments in a predominantly, white wealthy suburban town that borders a predominantly black and brown, low-income city. The apartments are to be located near the border of the two municipalities because zoning in the white town restricts multi-family apartments to only one neighborhood.

Once again, as we begin a new decade, Connecticut’s non-profits are at the mercy of state budget adjustments. One reason is that policymakers do not understand the importance of human services and why they are essential in our (their) communities. Human services are often perceived as charity for people who have not taken advantage of their opportunities, not worked hard enough and made poor decisions. It is believed that it’s their own “fault” that they need help. These assumptions are flat out wrong.

Would a Killingly energy plant powered with fracked natural gas have been approved if the Connecticut Siting Council hadn’t had three vacant seats last June? I doubt it, but it was, and something needs to be done.

The time has come for serious leadership and direction that works for WE THE PEOPLE OF CT. The time has come to put politics aside and fix a real problem to finally get our state on the right path forward.  We all know what the problem is.  We can debate who causes the problem and why – politics is the real issue here and both sides of the aisle are to blame, but real harm has been done and continues to be done to our state.  It is time to care more about fixing the problem than about politics.