Black Youth

Last week a 13-year old boy named Robert Freeman was shot 22 times while riding his bicycle in front of his home on Chicago’s far south side. Last night I almost became a statistic while taking my daily walk in another south-Chicago neighborhood not far from where Freeman was killed.

From NYDailyNews.com: A Brooklyn teen who was about to start college spent four days in a coma after he was slammed to the ground by cops in a post-barbecue beatdown, his mother and lawyer say.

From STLToday.com: Eight-year-old Davion Chatman does a handstand in about three feet of water in the Fairground Pool one recent afternoon. Nearby, his brother, Chris Chatman, 13, rolls himself into a ball and does somersaults.

From TheGrio.com: Kids are finding new and more creative ways to get high these days. There has been a growing trend of drug abuse using concoctions made from everyday items found in refrigerators and household medicine cabinets.

From HuffingtonPost.com: Poet Maya Angelou has often visited St. Sabina Catholic Church on the South Side to read her poetry. This week, after a rash of shootings in Chicago, she once again joined Rev. Michael Pfleger and said “we have to stop this madness.”

The recent education reforms to No Child Left Behind proposed by the Obama Administration sadly perpetuate a flawed testing policy that will continue to leave our children behind.

From TheLoop21.com: The Texas Board of Education has made a series of history revising moves to its curriculum, altering how the Civil Rights Movement is taught among a host of other things.