Monday, February 16, 2015

Celebrate 150th Year of 13th Amendment; Sobering News About BlackMales; Saving the African American Child; Majority of Blacks in WorstEconomic Condition




Making Progress; Moving Forward!
Celebrate 150 Years of 13th Amendment
Sobering News About Black Males
Saving the African American Child
Majority of Blacks in Worst Economic Condition
Black Girls Matter
Breaking School-to-Prison Pipeline
Celebrate the 150th Year of the 13th Amendment with the Illinois Amistad Commission and the DuSable Museum of African American History on Saturday,
February 21, 2015 at 740 East 56th Place, 1:00 pm. Please call 773.947.0600 for more information.
Mark Russell: Some sobering news about black males

By Mark Russell
February 10, 2015
Lance Nowlin performs with Krash Krew during the Sankofa Black Heritage Festival at the Indiana State Museum, Saturday, February 7, 2015. (Photo: Kelly Wilkinson/The Star)
This has been a very busy new year, but I did have the opportunity to enjoy the movie "Selma" and reflect upon the realities of being a black male in America in 2015. Using sources such as the Black Star Project, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Tavis Smiley and PBS, the picture that emerges is both challenging and troubling.
Let's start with employment, where it is sadly true that it is easier for a black male to illegally obtain a gun on the street than to secure legitimate employment. The adult unemployment rates for whites in December 2014 was 4.8 percent, compared with a black unemployment rate of 10.4 percent.
On June 3, 2014, the Black Star Project released a devastating fact sheet about life for black men in America. According to the report, "at comparable educational levels, black men earn 67 percent of what white men earn; white males with a high school diploma are just as likely to have a job and earn just as much as black males with college degrees."
Elsewhere the report notes that "while constituting roughly 12 percent of the total population, black Americans are represent nearly 30 percent of its poor and . . . 44 percent of all prisoners in the United States." The challenges faced by young black Americans are also staggering.
Unemployment for white youths stood at 12.2 percent in 2014, compared with a black youth unemployment rate of 24.8 percent.
Black Star relates that 67 percent of black children are born out of wedlock; that only 7 percent of black 8th-graders perform math at grade level; that only 45 percent of black men graduate from high school in the U.S.; and that just 22 percent of black males who began at four-year colleges graduated within six years.
Probably the greatest challenge and sadness is the fact that homicide is the leading cause of death for black males ages 15-34 and that suicide is the third leading cause of death for black males in that age range.
I share these sad facts not because I hate my own race but rather because the first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is a problem. And, yes, I am compelled to add that many of these ills are moral in nature, be it the absence of values that produces children born out of wedlock or the seeming lack of respect for education as a tool for not only the liberation and transformation of the mind but for the economic and body politic as well.

Click Here to Read Full Article
Russell is director of education, family services and housing for the Indianapolis Urban League. Contact him at yourvoiceforindystar@gmail.com and at Mark A. Russell @IURuss on Twitter.
Possibly the Greatest Paper Written
on Educating Black Children!!!
Saving the
African American Child
Dr. Donald Smith was the president of the National Alliance of Black School Educators in 1984 when Dr. Asa Hilliard and Dr. Barbara Sizemore led a team of Black educators to produce possibly the greatest paper ever written on teaching and saving African American children!
Dr. Barbara Sizemore Dr. Asa Hilliard
These two educators, both now deceased, were world-renowned for the work they did with and for Black children. Today, education administrators, school teachers, college professors, foundation officers, elected officials, parents, community organizers, students and anyone interested in educating Black children must read this paper!


"Saving the African American Child is a philosophical statement of belief and expectations", Says Dr. Smith. He continues, "It provides the basis for an education whose content is true, appropriate and relevant and whose processes are democratic and humane."

And finally Dr. Smith says, "While our single objective is saving
Dr. Donald Smith.
African America children, we believe that all American children will be better served by an educational system which is based on the goals of academic and cultural excellence as defined in this report."

Click Here to read the full report, Saving the African American Child.
Majority of Black Americans
Are Living through Worst Economic Conditions
Liquid Wealth of Black Americans $200
By Phillip Jackson
February 10, 2015
(Sri Lanka) Welcome to America, where Black Americans are more likely to be under-educated, unemployed and imprisoned than their White peers; where Black Americans, in general, have significantly less wealth, dramatically lower-quality housing, much poorer nutrition and sub-standard medical care. This is an America where Black people remain relatively silent while these conditions and a raging economic genocide, eliminates them, their children and their grandchildren from ever participating in the American mainstream!
Recent economic, wealth and employment reports confirm what much of Black America already knows: We are in serious TROUBLE and multitudes of Black people exist in deep poverty. Many Black people in America are not just poor by American standards; many of us are third-world poor. Black Americans are in an economic free-fall with no fiscal backstop. Many Black Americans will live their entire lives without ever having a positive net worth. Most Black people today who work are like "sharecroppers", men and families who did most or all of the work on a farm, but seldom earned enough to pay their debts and never owned anything of value.
But it gets much worse! When you remove vehicles and other durables from the equation, according to New York University economist Edward Wolff, the median Black family worth is just $1,700 (while 40 percent of Black families have zero or negative wealth). The median White family worth (without durable goods) is roughly 69 times more than that of Black families, or about $116,800.
And worst of all, the sad reality is that liquid wealth is largely non-existent within Black families. Liquid wealth is the money used to pay bills, buy food, pay the rent and cover emergency situations. In 2011, the Center for Global Policy Solutions in a report entitled Beyond Broke, showed the median liquid wealth of Black Americans as only $200, compared to $23,000 held by Whites.
More than $100 billion might have been extracted from Black American communities during the recent recession according to a report by the Center for Responsible Lending, Foreclosures by Race and Ethnicity. This economic carnage of the Black American economy constitutes a kind of "financial rape" of the African American community, similar to the devastating effects of colonization on the African continent. Black Americans might never recover. Never!
Black America cannot wait for the government, foundations and universities to save us. Annually, Black Americans generate about $1 trillion within the U.S. economy. We must take control of our financial resources and improve Black personal finances, our family wealth and our communities' economies. Although life might be good economically in America, the majority of Black Americans are living through the worst economic conditions in modern history!
Click Here to reaqd full article or to leave a comment on this article
Black Girls Matter:
New Report Exposes Gendered and Racial Disparities in Education Too Often Erased
In one school district, Black girls are 53 times more likely to be suspended than White girls
Photo provided by The Black Star Project
By Feminist Newswire
February 5, 2015
Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out,. Overpoliced and Underprotected was recently released by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and Columbia Law School's Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies.
Researchers for the study used data and personal interviews with young women of color in Boston and New York to expose how racism, sexism, and class issues erase Black girls' experiences in the school system, limit their educational opportunities, and marginalize their needs, while pushing them into low-wage work, unemployment, and incarceration.
"Gender and race norms place black girls at risk," said the report's lead author, Kimberlé Crenshaw, in its launching webinar yesterday.
Often, conversations about race in education focus on the achievement gap between Black and white boys, but many efforts refuse to acknowledge that Black girls experience these same gaps between themselves and their white counterparts - and often in greater numbers. Sometimes, the magnitude of racial disparities for girls is greater than that of boys, despite the minute attention paid to black girls' lives.
The report highlights the negative impacts of zero-tolerance school systems and punitive disciplinary philosophies on girls, such as how law enforcement and security personnel make girls feel less safe. "It feels like you're in jail," one interviewee told researchers. "It's like they treat you like animals, because they think that's where you're going to end up."
Girls interviewed for the study also cited sexual harassment as part of their educational experience, and reported that administrators did little to protect them from harassment and violence. Some were punished for engaging in self-defense or asked to leave classrooms where they were being harassed in order to make the disruptions stop.
Black girls are also targeted unfairly by administrators for suspension and expulsion. In the 2011-2012 school year, for example,12 percent of all African American girls in pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12 were suspended, a suspension rate six times the rate for white girls and higher than rates for white, Asian, and Latino boys.
In some school districts, all the girls suspended were Black. In one, Black girls were 53 times more likely to be expelled than their white counterparts.
Click Here to Read Full Story
Click Here to Read Full Report, Black Girls Matter
Breaking the School-
to-Prison Pipeline
sponsored by
Citizens United to
Save The Southland
with
Dr. Bambade Shakoor-Abdullah
The Honorable David Johnson
and Phillip Jackson
Saturday, February 28, 2015
12:30 pm
Thornwood High School
17101 South Park
South Holland, Illinois
An International Look at the Single-Parent Family
By L
udger Woessmann
SPRING 2015 / VOL. 15, NO. 2
When Daniel Patrick Moynihan raised the issue of family structure half a century ago, his concern was the increase in black families headed by women. Since then, the share of children raised in single-parent families in the United States has grown across racial and ethnic groups and with it evidence regarding the impact of family structure on outcomes for children.
Recent studies have documented a sizable achievement gap between children who live with a single parent and their peers growing up with two parents. These patterns are cause for concern, as educational achievement is a key driver of economic prosperity for both individuals and society as a whole.
But how does the U.S. situation compare to that of other countries around the world? This essay draws on data from the 2000 and 2012 Program for International Student Assessment studies to compare the prevalence of single-parent families and how family structure relates to children's educational achievement across countries. The 2012 data confirm that the U.S. has nearly the highest incidence of single-parent families among developed countries. And the educational achievement gap between children raised in single-parent and two-parent families, although present in virtually all countries, is particularly pronounced in the U.S.
The U.S. stands out in this analysis as a country that has seen a substantial narrowing of the educational achievement gap between children from single-parent and two-parent families. These varying trends, and the pattern for the U.S. in particular, confirm that family structure is by no means destiny. Ample evidence indicates the potential for enhancing family environments, regardless of their makeup, to improve the quality of parenting, nurturing, and stimulation, and promote healthy child development.
Single parents tend to have fewer financial resources, for example, limiting their ability to invest in their children's development. Single parents may also have less time to spend with their children, and partnership instability may subject these parents to psychological and emotional stresses that worsen the nurturing environment for children.
Documented disadvantages of growing up in single-parent families in the United States include lower educational attainment and greater psychological distress, as well as poor adult outcomes in areas such as employment, income, and marital status.
Disadvantages for children from single-parent families have also been documented in other countries, including Canada, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. But cross-country evidence has been difficult to obtain, in part because of differing methods for measuring family structure and child outcomes.
The PISA studies, which asked representative samples of 15-year-olds in each participating country the same questions about their living arrangements, provide a unique opportunity to address this challenge.
At the same time, it should be noted that the descriptive patterns documented here do not necessarily capture a causal effect of living in a single-parent family. Decisions to get divorced, end cohabitation, or bear a child outside a partnership are likely related to other factors important for child development, making it difficult to separate out the influence of family structure.
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an internationally standardized assessment given every three years since 2000 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). PISA tests the math, science, and reading achievement of representative samples of 15-year-old students in each participating country.
Click Here to Read Full Article
State Rep. Emanuel 'Chris' Welch and The Monroe Foundation
Present
T.J. Morris Reveals Her
Family's Secret Black History
with
A historical fiction based in the 1920's. The protagonist named Eugene "Jack" Brewer is a mulatto man who had an unfortunate mishap with a white sheriff, during which a woman was killed in the crossfire. Jack fled north to Chicago and was labeled a fugitive in Mississippi. Once in Chicago, he was able to pass himself off as white, but he always had the fear of being caught. Jack was also related to the Ex-Governor Earl Leroy Brewer of Mississippi.
Hear a lecture by TJ Morris on genealogy, her book and her family's history on Saturday, February 21, 2015 at 1:30 pm at The Black Star Project. Please call 773.285.9600 for more information.
Click Here to Purchase "Blood Is Thicker Than Color"

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