Ā Charles X. Cook (far left) receiving an award from the African-American Leadership Association A few months ago, I interviewed Charles X. Cook, owner of One on One Personal Fitness, for the Ā GAME CHANGERS PROJECT. Charles tells the story of how he went from a highly recruited High School basketball player, to drug dealer, to federal […]
A new year brings a new start, and offers us the temporal metaphor to leave our failings and mistakes ābehind us,ā and march boldly into a reality of opportunity, reconciliation, and love. In this effort, I offer that we leave many of the detrimental narratives surrounding Black youth in its rightful placeāin the past. Let […]
Critics of the New York City Police Department’s “Stop and Frisk” policy can celebrate a small victory this morning. A federal judge has declared part of the tactic unconstitutional. Here’s hoping that subsequent judgments compel a thorough dismantling of the policy.
According to a new report, language and definitions surrounding homelessness render homeless black youth invisible to service providers. Homeless black youth often do not self-identify as homeless, and are thereby less likely to access services catering to homeless populations.
According to a recent study, black students whose families instill in them a sense of racial pride do better in school. The instilling of racial pride is an integral part of the learning process!
Django is a film thatās been pivoted as an answer, when it raises more questions than anything. Should it be viewed within its historical significance, and the extent to which it can portray the horrors of slavery while reinvigorating a moment in history that many find irrelevant and antiquated? Or rather, should it be divorced […]
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5fa6TZc8kI Lately, Iāve been greatly concerned with the misconceptions and myths that continue to be perpetuated about youth in our society. For Black youth in particular, we are often subjected to ahistorical misconceptions that revolve around notions of youth apathy. We often get projected as rebellious ciphers that are for some reason less respectful, less […]
Megan Piphus, an upperclassman at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, recently appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She’s using music, ventriloquism, and puppetry, to inspire youth to dream big and in color!
I write this in ambivalence, dejectedly trying to wrap my mind around a string of incidents that continue to unearth the plight of young Black men in this country. In scarcely a weekās time, 17 year-old Jordan Russell Davis was shot to death by another gun toting āscaredā white man, while Brandon Jackson, another Black […]
In light of the recent protest at Walmart last black Friday. I think it is appropriate to revisit the Walmart debate. If there is ever a battle between big business and everyday citizens struggling for their labor rights, I will always be on the side of those who are struggling for a better life. As […]
Yesterday we told you about the shooting of 17 year-old Jordan Davis, who was gunned down in an SUV by 45 year-old Michael Dunn after an argument about loud music. Dunn’s attorney says this case is nothing like Trayvon Martin, and that Dunn is no vigilante. What do you think?
The youth of generation Y struggle to overstand the meaning of their actions; I know this since my daily fate mingles with the universal problems for youth. I felt so bad the other evening, I felt like I wasn’t doing anything with my life. These are the days of my personal history in which I […]
