So much is toxic in the air. Take a breather with me, won’t you?
I love these kids.
H/T Perez Hilton

We adults can argue all we want to. We can call each other names, denigrate each other and physically assault each other because of our differences. But you know what? Our children are listening. They see everything and they are modeling our behavior.
Some call it "bullying," but I call it emotional and physical torture. And it was school centered, emotional torture that claimed the life of 11-year-old Carl Joseph Walker Hoover last Monday. This young boy, who played football, basketball and was a Boy Scout, hanged himself when anti-gay …

My AOL Black Voices/Black Spin editor shot me this eye-opening article he found over at Cognitive Daily. I think you all should know about it. The report details a study which demonstrated that black students who participated in fifteen minute affirmations prior to taking tests, narrowed the "achievement gap" on test results versus their white student counterparts.

At every performance level, this chart (adjusted for covariates) shows that black students who completed the 15-minute affirmation exercise got better grades than students who did not (control). Interestingly, there was no similar effect …

I found the request below interesting. I do not know Calisha Myers personally, but I am sure on board with the cause.
So, please check out her proposal, share any ideas you have with her and cast your vote. Also, forward this post on to anybody who might be able to help.
We have to support each other in trying to craft solutions as often as we can.
Cheers!
Carmen
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CMyers
mediaforchange@gmail.com
I need your help. I have submitted a proposal–”Media for Change”– to the Ashoka Changemakers “The Power of Us: Re-Imagine Media” competition. The …

In White Plains, New York a white teacher has apologized for attempting to teach about the horrors of slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black girls. One of the girls had volunteered for the misguided experiment, one had not. Truth is stranger and, at times like this, dumber than fiction. According to WCBS:
Christine Shand says it was a terrible experience for her daughter, Gaby, descended, like most Jamaicans, from slaves.
"She burst into tears, she was crying and she was horrified," Shand told CBS 2 HD.
In a social …

I had a hard time sleeping last night, I kept thinking about mothers of missing children this Thanksgiving week. My blog amigo Yobachi asked me if I knew anyone here on the west coast who could spearhead an effort to get the word out about Chioma Gray, a beautiful, smart, kind and ambitious young girl now missing for almost a year. I don’t know anyone like that, but I can lend my voice to the effort to find Chioma Gray and to bring her home to her family. Here is …

Don’t get it twisted, America is one of the richest countries on earth. Even as our financial meltdown accelerates, the global markets follow us. Our dollar is getting stronger as the greenback is still popular in a time of global instability. And yet, we as a nation, do not make feeding each and every child who lives here a priority. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA):
Children as well as adults experienced instances of very low food security in 323,000 households (0.8 percent of households with children) in 2007, …

It’s a pretty radical proposition to protest the underfunding of inner city schools. But is it a necessary step in the fight for parity?
Please click on over to my post at AOL’s Black Voices/Black Spin blog to read the details and voice your opinion.
Click Here.

Several months ago, Topsoil Columnist Andrew Padula submitted a piece triggered by TI’s gun insanity. It was a good post, but in it Andrew made the observation that increasingly, there were two kinds of people in America. Beyond black and white or brown, there were those who were striving, adhering to the law and doing their best to fight for a taste of the American dream and there were others engaged in perpetually self and community destructive behaviors. He argued that the gulf between the two cultures was rapidly widening.
I …

Congress is poised to take 16 million books out of the hands of 4.6 million poor children. We must stop them from doing that.
For the past two years I have had the privilege of giving out new books to some of the poorest children in the most blighted communities in Los Angeles at Christmastime. What you most need to know is that the eyes of these kids light up when you put a book in their hand. They say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ usually unprompted. They hold the …

Read it and weep:
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — A couple fighting about which gang their 4-year-old toddler should join caused a public disturbance that resulted in the father’s arrest, Commerce City police said Thursday.