5720 Search results for "black youth"

What happens when you answer the phone to the sound of your mother crying on a hospital bed asking for a kidney? Not a figurative request that represents the love and affection that is due to the person who deposited life into you on the day of birth. Not a theoretical entreaty that allows one […]

“I’m a hustler baby/I’ll sell water to a well”- Jay-Z. If Mr. Sean Carter took a stroll with me down Michigan Avenue this past weekend, even he might have been surprised by the ingenuity of today’s youth. As I strolled past the Chicago River on Wacker Drive I saw the beautiful  Chicago skyline. Every time […]

Langston Hughes wrote, “Let, me tell ya, chile, life for me ain’t been no crystal stair,” and I wholeheartedly agree. Life for me as a weekly blogger has been “no crystal stair.” It’s had tacks in it (i.e. People who call you a feminist bitch or dyke bitch because you see the intersectionality of Precious’ […]

The Winners and Losers in Minority Graduation Rate Gaps Nikhil Swaminathan, GOOD Education | August 11, 2010 Much like the achievement gap in K-12 schooling, higher education is plagued by its own gap—with respect to minority graduation rates. Nationwide, 60 percent of white students earn a degree within six years on a college campus, compared […]

What’s the fascination with white people quitting work? If Steven Slater were a brotha he’d be splattered on the tarmac and posthumously charged with theft (for the two beers). He would have also been labeled lazy, crazy, and quite possibly a terrorist.

Jimmy Santiago Baca, a leading contemporary Latino poet writing in the United States, reminds us that “Poetry’s mission is to subvert, to question, to challenge, provoke, to flail one’s vulnerability and voice into the marvelous whirlwind of poetry’s awe, flagging at the horns of the raging beast that is societies gluttonous comfort, ‘bringing social justice’…affirm […]

Since I only write here at BYP on Mondays, the blogging silence of the other six days often results in hateration build up.  Fortunately, I take notes.  What follows is a rather desultory dose of scathing haterade for your Monday morning.  Who needs caffeine? Feel my body! gettin’ cooooold. As a friend said on Facebook, […]

Diversity Debate Convulses Elite High School Sharon Otterman, New York Times | August 4, 2010 With one of its alumnae, Elena Kagan, poised for confirmation as a justice on the United States Supreme Court, it should be a triumphant season for Hunter College High School, a New York City public school for the intellectually gifted.But […]

How Many Americans Can’t Swim? Brian Palmer, Slate | August 4, 2010 Six teenagers drowned after slipping from a wading area into the deep water of a Louisiana river on Tuesday. None of the victims could swim, nor could the adult bystanders who watched helplessly as the children went under. What percentage of Americans can’t […]

People love using band-aids. As a little kid I can remember the security I felt after scraping my knee on the asphalt and receiving the ritual of having my grandmother comfort me through my childhood tears by offering a dab of Neosporin and a fresh band-aid. The band-aid made everything feel better. It covered up […]

Portrait of a Bronx Chess Champion, Age 12 Joy Resmovits, Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2010 When Bronx student Justus Williams started third grade at P.S. 70, his mother, Latisha, urged him to take on chess. The hobby was “less common” than basketball, she said.But Justus wasn’t enthusiastic at first. “I thought I was going […]

Granny, Am I “Biracial”? The Chattanoogan, August 1, 2010 Dress codes stifle student individualism Tim Brouk, JC Online, August 1, 2010 Mentors make a difference Karne Sullivan, Charlotte Observer, August 1, 2010 Gang members unite to stop violence Christina Dickinson, Colorado 9 News, August 1, 2010 The Truth About Beating Black Kids Jalyce Washington, Harlem Live, […]