Blacks earning less doctoral degrees

A recent study done by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education states that Black are earning fewer doctoral degrees. The following is an excerpt of Blacks earning fewer degrees by Jayne Matthews:

“A college degree is a ticket to middle class life”- Dr. Calvin Burnett, President Emeritus, Coppin State University

Dr. Burnett's words have proven to true for thousands of college graduates. For a small, but growing group of Africans Americans it was also the passport to the prestige of earning a doctoral degree and the economic power to enter the upper middle class.

However, after almost two decades of uninterrupted progress, the number of blacks receiving doctoral degrees has declined by 10 percent for two consecutive years. According to a report recently published in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, blacks earned 7.1 percent of all doctorates awarded in the United States in 2004 and 6.2 percent in 2006. Here is an excerpt from the article titled “Once Again, a Decline in Doctoral Degree Awards to African Americans.”

Despite the setback of the past two years, the overall progress in the past two decades has been rock solid. In 1987 only 787 African Americans earned doctorates. This year's total of 1,659 doctorates is more than double the number earned by African Americans in 1987. In 1990 the black share of all doctoral awards was 3.6 percent. That has now grown to 6.2 percent, a showing of significant progress in a relatively short period of time of 17 years.

Although African Americans have made solid progress in doctoral awards, much remains to be achieved. African Americans are nearly 13 percent of the U.S. population. Therefore, black doctoral awards still amount to less than one half the level that would occur were racial parity to prevail.

The bad news is that there continue to be wide differences among blacks and whites in terms of the academic fields in which they earn doctorates. For instance, 36.5 percent of all doctorates awarded to African Americans in 2006 were in the field of education. In contrast, only 17.8 percent of doctorates earned by whites were in this field. This large percentage of all African-American doctorates in the field of education has been the case for decades with only minor fluctuations.

Continue the rest here

Are you willing to be arrested for civil rights?

You have to give it to Al Sharpton. He led a display of civil disobedience in New York City in order to send a wake-up call to the nation about police brutality. Here is what CBS in New York is reporting:

"NEW YORK (CBS) ― The Rev. Al Sharpton and more than 200 others were arrested Wednesday amid a series of protests throughout the city, part of a response to the acquittals of three New York City undercover detectives in the 50-shot killing of Sean Bell.

Hundreds took to the streets in Manhattan and Brooklyn as part of the citywide "slowdown" effort led by Sharpton and his National Action Network. Police arrested those who took part in acts of civil disobedience by blocking the streets and entrances to the Triborough, Manhattan, and Brooklyn bridges.

Sharpton was arrested without incident at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, along with Bell's fiancé, Nicole Paultre Bell, and the two shooting victims who survived, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman.

Bell's parents were also arrested.

They were all released from police custody about four hours later, said Sharpton's spokeswoman Rachel Noerdlinger.

Hoping to avoid future instances of civil disobedience, Gov. David Paterson is scheduled to meet privately with Sharpton and the Bell family on Thursday in New York City.

The governor had expressed surprise at last month's acquittal because of the number of shots fired.

One of the arrested protesters told CBS 2 HD on Wednesday the protests go far beyond Bell's death alone.

"We have to stand up for something or we'll fall for anything. It's not just about Sean Bell, it's about every man that's been injustly killed in America," he said. "The point to make to the people is to get their attention. It could be their son tomorrow or their daughter tomorrow."

Police estimate about 216 people were taken into custody overall."

Check out the rest of Sharpton Arrested In Citywide 'Slowdown' Protests

How many of you are willing to be arrested for standing up for what you believe in?

In Defense of Rev. Wright

Father Pflegler being confronted by O'Reilly Factor Producer Porter Berry for supporting Rev. Wright and Min. Farrakhan. This is a must see!

Nailing cops is "virtually impossible"?

Check out Verdict in Bell Shooting No Big Surprise by Earl Hutchinson. The following is an excerpt:

Even before the first witness was called in the Sean Bell trial, a defense attorney for one of the three officers charged with gunning down Bell flatly said that he thought his client and the other two officers would be acquitted in the killing of Bell. This was not typical attorney bluster. The defense attorney was right.

At first glance, there was good reason to think that he was off base in his prediction and that the cops that fired the volley of shots that killed Bell would be convicted. An anguished New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly questioned the shooting. Two of Bell's companions gave eyewitness testimony that the officers acted like Wild West cowboys and opened up without warning. And most importantly Bell was unarmed and seemingly posed no threat to the officers.

But expectations, witness testimony, seemingly unimpeachable evidence, and the official condemnation of the deadly shooting by city officials obviously weren't enough. There's equally good reason why it almost never is.

The rest can be read here: Verdict in Bell Shooting No Big Surprise
"In"justice system...seems like we never win

Sean Bell murderers acquitted

I'm simply without words. Read the story on CNN here...

Gracefully bow out? In your American Dreams

The New York Times endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton during the New York primary, but is slowly coming to its senses in regards to Senator Clinton's campaign strategies. Check out the following excerpt of the editorial posted by its board entitled, "The Low Road to Victory."

"The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned."

Read the rest of the article here: The Low Road to Victory

Oh and if you're curious about Clinton's 9/11 ad check it out below:


Need I say more? Let me know what's on your Righteous Minds.

Is Homeland Security Invading Your Campus?

Seven Steps to a Homeland Security CampusBy Michael Gould-Wartofsky, The Nation and TomDispatch.comJanuary 17, 2008http://www.alternet.org/story/73504/

Consider the ultimate gift in a homeland security country: the iTaser, a weapon with its own MP3 player and earphones that can deliver a 50,000 volt electrical charge while you catch your favorite tunes. This new Taser, on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, will be available, reports Richard Wray of the British Guardian, in "red, pink and even leopard print designs." Anyone carrying the iTaser will be able to make what may be the first homeland-security fashion statement in any one of the 43 states where Tasers are legal. The company that makes the weapon, Taser International, has already sold 160,000 less-stylish versions to private individuals. According to founder and company CEO Rick Smith, "Personal protection can be both fashionable and functionable."In November 2006, the Taser infamously broke into the news on campus when a student at the University of Florida, questioning Senator John Kerry harshly, was dragged off, Tased, and subdued by campus police. His plea, "Don't Tase me, Bro!," is now the stuff of bumper stickers, T-shirts, and cell phone ring tones.

Thanks largely to him and the publicity the incident got, the New Oxford Dictionary made "Tase" one of its 2007 words of the year, the Yale Book of Quotations put it at the top of its yearly list of most memorable quotes, and the rest of us got a hint that something new might be happening in America's "ivory towers."As Michael Gould-Wartofsky indicates below, that incident was just the tip of an enormous homeland-security presence on campus. Gould-Wartofsky's remarkable report -- a piece that the Nation Magazine and Tomdispatch.com are sharing -- offers real news about just how deeply the new homeland security state is settling into every aspect of our world. -- Tom Engelhardt, editor of TomDispatch---------------------------

-----------------------------Repress UHow to Build a Homeland Security Campus in Seven StepsBy Michael Gould-WartofskyFree speech zones. Taser guns. Hidden cameras. Data mining. A new security curriculum. Private security contractors... Welcome to the new homeland security campusFrom Harvard to UCLA, the ivory tower is fast becoming the latest watchtower in Fortress America. The terror warriors, having turned their attention to "violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism" -- as it was recently dubbed in a House of Representatives bill of the same name -- have set out to reconquer that traditional hotbed of radicalization, the university.Building a homeland-security campus and bringing the university to heel is a seven-step mission:1. Target dissidents: As the warfare state has triggered dissent, the campus has increasingly become a target gallery -- with student protesters in the crosshairs. The government's number one target?

Peace and justice organizations.From 2003 to 2007, an unknown number of them made it into the Pentagon's "Threat and Local Observation Notice" system (TALON), a secretive domestic spying program ostensibly designed to track direct "potential terrorist threats" to the Department of Defense itself. Last year, via Freedom of Information Act requests, the ACLU uncovered at least 186 specific TALON reports on "anti-military protests" in the U.S. -- some listed as "credible threats" -- from student groups at the University of California-Santa Cruz, State University of New York, Georgia State University, and New Mexico State University, among other campuses.At more than a dozen universities and colleges, police officers now double as full-time FBI agents and, according to the Campus Law Enforcement Journal, serve on many of the nation's 100 Joint Terrorism Task Forces. These dual-purpose officer-agents have knocked on student activists' doors from North Carolina State to the University of Colorado and, in one case, interrogated an Iraqi-born professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst about his antiwar views.

FBI agents, or their campus stand-ins, don't have to do all the work themselves. Administrators often do it for them, setting up "free speech zones," which actually constrain speech, and punishing those who step outside them. Last year, protests were typically forced into "free assembly areas" at the University of Central Florida and Clemson University; while students at Hampton and Pace Universities faced expulsion for handing out antiwar flyers, aka "unauthorized materials."2. Lock and load: Many campus police departments are morphing into heavily armed garrisons, equipped with a wide array of weaponry from Taser stun guns and pepper guns to shotguns and semiautomatic rifles. Lock-and-load policies that began in the 1990s under the rubric of "the war on crime" only escalated with the President's Global War on Terror. Each school shooting -- most recently the massacre at Virginia Tech -- just adds fuel to the armament flames.

Two-thirds of universities now arm their police, according to the Justice Department. Many of the guns being purchased were previously in the province of military units and SWAT teams. For instance, AR-15 rifles (similar to M-16s) are now in the arsenal of the University of Texas campus police. Last April, City University of New York bought dozens of semiautomatic handguns. Now, states like Nevada are even considering plans to allow university staff to pack heat in a "special reserve officer corps."Most of the force used on campus these days, though, comes in "less lethal" form, such as the rubber bullets and pepper pellets increasingly used to contain student demonstrations. Then there is the ubiquitous Taser, the electroshock weapon recently ruled a "form of torture" by the UN. A Taser was used by UCLA police in November 2006 to deliver shock after shock to an Iranian-American student for failing to produce his ID at the Powell Library.

Last September, a University of Florida student was Tased after asking pointed questions of Senator John Kerry at a public forum, his plea of "Don't Tase me, bro" becoming the stuff of pop folklore.3. Keep an eye (or hundreds of them) focused on campus: Surveillance has become a boom industry nationally -- one that now reaches deep into the heart of the American campus. In fact, universities have witnessed explosive growth in the electronic surveillance of students, faculty, and campus workers. On ever more campuses, closed-circuit security cameras can track people's every move, often from hidden or undisclosed locations, sometimes even into classrooms.The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators reports that surveillance cameras have now found their way onto at least half of all colleges, their numbers on any given campus doubling, tripling, and in a few cases, rising tenfold since September 11, 2001.

Such cameras have proliferated by the hundreds on private campuses, in particular. The University of Pennsylvania, for instance, has more than 400 watching over it, while Harvard and Brown have about 200 each.Elsewhere, it can be tricky just to find out where the cameras are and what they're meant to be viewing. The University of Texas, for example, battled student journalists over disclosure and ultimately kept its cameras hidden. Sometimes, though, a camera's purpose seems obvious. Take the case of Hussein Hussein, a professor in the Department of Animal Biotechnology at the University of Nevada, Reno. In January 2005, the widely respected professor found a hidden camera redirected to monitor his office.4. Mine student records: Student records have, in recent years, been opened up to all manner of data mining for purposes of investigation, recruitment, or just all-purpose tracking. From 2001 to 2006, in an operation code-named "Project Strike Back," the Department of Education teamed up with the FBI to scour the records of the 14 million students who applied for federal financial aid each year.

The objective? "To identify potential people of interest," explained an FBI spokesperson cryptically, especially those linked to "potential terrorist activity."Strike Back was quietly discontinued in June 2006, days after students at Northwestern University blew its cover. But just one month later, the Education Department's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, in a much-criticized preliminary report, recommended the creation of a federal "unit record" database that would track the activities and studies of college students nationwide. The Department's Institute of Education Sciences has developed a prototype for such a national database.It's not a secret that the Pentagon, for its part, hopes to turn campuses into recruitment centers for its overstretched, overstressed forces. In fact, the Department of Defense (DoD) has built its own database for just this purpose. Known as Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies, this program now tracks 30 million young people, ages 16 to 25. According to a Pentagon spokesperson, the DoD has partnered with private marketing and data mining firms, which, in turn, sell the government reams of information on students and other potential recruits.5. Track foreign-born students, keep the undocumented out: Under the auspices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been keeping close tabs on foreign students and their dependents through the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS). As of October 2007, ICE reported that it was actively following 713,000 internationals on campuses, while keeping more than 4.7 million names in its database.The database aims to amass and record information on foreign students throughout their stay inside the United States. SEVIS requires thick files on the students from the sponsoring schools, constantly updated with all academic, biographical, and employment records -- all of which will be shared with other government agencies. If students fall out of "status" at school -- or if the database thinks they have -- the Compliance Enforcement Unit of ICE goes into action.

ICE has also done its part to keep the homeland security campus purified of those not born in the homeland. The American Immigration Law Foundation estimates that only one in 20 undocumented immigrants who graduate high school goes on to enroll in a college. Many don't go because they cannot afford the tuition, but also because they have good reason to be afraid: ICE has deported a number of those who did make it to college, some before they could graduate.6. Take over the curriculum, the classroom, and the laboratory: Needless to say, not every student is considered a homeland security threat. Quite the opposite. Many students and faculty members are seen as potential assets. To exploit these assets, the Department of Homeland Security has launched its own curriculum under its Office of University Programs (OUP), intended, it says, to "foster a homeland security culture within the academic community."The record so far is impressive: DHS has doled out 439 federal fellowships and scholarships since 2003, providing full tuition to students who fit "within the homeland security research enterprise." Two hundred twenty-seven schools now offer degree or certificate programs in "homeland security," a curriculum that encompasses over 1,800 courses. Along with OUP, some of the key players in creating the homeland security classroom are the U.S.

Northern Command (Northcom) and the Aerospace Defense Command, co-founders of the Homeland Security and Defense Education Consortium.OUP has also partnered with researchers and laboratories to "align scientific results with homeland security priorities." In Fiscal Year 2008 alone, $4.9 billion in federal funding will go to homeland security-related research. Grants correspond with 16 research topics selected by DHS, based on presidential directives, legislation, and a smattering of scientific advice.But wait, there's more: DHS has founded and funded six of its very own "Centers of Excellence," research facilities that span dozens of universities from coast to coast. The latest is a Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, the funding for which cleared the House in October. The Center is mandated to assist a National Commission in combating those "adopting or promoting an extremist belief system... to advance political, religious or social change."7. Privatize, privatize, privatize: Of course, homeland security is not just a department, nor is it simply a new network of surveillance and data mining -- it's big business. (According to USA Today, global homeland-security-style spending had already reached $59 billion a year in 2006, a six-fold increase over 2000.)Not surprisingly, then, universities have, in recent years, established unprecedented private-sector partnerships with the corporations that have the most to gain from their research.

The Department of Homeland Security's on-campus National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), for instance, features Lockheed Martin on its advisory board. The Center for Food Protection and Defense relies on an industry working group that includes Wal-Mart and McDonald's offering "guidance and direction," according to its chair.While vast sums of money are flowing in from these corporate sponsors, huge payments are also flowing out into "strategic supplier contracts" with private contractors, as universities permanently outsource security operations to big corporations like Securitas and AlliedBarton. Little of this money actually goes to those guarding the properties, who are often among the most underpaid workers at universities. Instead, it fills the corporate coffers of those with little accountability for conditions on campus.Meanwhile, some universities have developed intimate relationships with private-security outfits like the notorious Blackwater. Last May, for example, the University of Illinois and its police training institute cut a deal with the firm to share their facilities and training programs with Blackwater operatives.

Local journalists later revealed that the director of the campus program at the time was on the Blackwater payroll. In the age of hired education, such collaboration is apparently par for the course.Following these seven steps over the past six years, the homeland security state and its constituents have come a long way in their drive to remake the American campus in the image of a compound on lockdown. Somewhere, inside the growing homeland security state that is our country, the next seven steps in the process are undoubtedly already being planned out.Still, the rise of Repress U is not inevitable. The new homeland security campus has proven itself unable to shut out public scrutiny or stamp out resistance to its latest Orwellian advances. Sometimes, such opposition even yields a free-speech zone dismantled, or the Pentagon's TALON de-clawed, or a Project Strike Back struck down. A rising tide of student protest, led by groups like the new Students for a Democratic Society, has won free-speech victories and reined in repression from Pace and Hampton, where the University dropped its threats of expulsion, to UCLA, where Tasers will no longer be wielded against passive resisters.Yet, if the tightening grip of the homeland security complex isn't loosened, the latest towers of higher education will be built not of ivory, but of Kevlar for the over-armored, over-armed campuses of America. Michael Gould-Wartofsky is a writer from New York City and a recent graduate of the new homeland security campus. He has written for the Nation Online, Z Magazine, Common Dreams, and the Harvard Crimson, where he was a columnist and editor, and his work has also appeared in Poets Against the War (Nation Books). He was a recipient of the New York Times James B. Reston Award for young journalists and Harvard's James Gordon Bennett Prize for his writing on collective memory. This piece is also appearing in the latest issue of the Nation Magazine.

What are American Values?

Arizona

I'm pretty disgusted. If you read the short clip above, Arizona is trying to eliminate public funding to race based student organizations at higher ed institutions.

Lets visualize this for a second.

Imagine the University of Maryland's Black Student Union without any funding from SGA. The Pan Hellenic Council, NAACP, Black Graduate Student Association. Latino Student Union, Asian American Student Union. Literally ALL would cease to exist because they would be DENIED funding.

No program through the BSU to mentor freshmen, the Honors program could no longer fund the Black Honors Caucus or Latino Honors Caucus. We would be telling students of color that college was no longer a place where you could embrace your culture and learn about others.

If this doesn't make your stomach turn, the rationale will.

It is that these groups do not create an "inclusive America; therefore they: “denigrate American values and the teachings of Western civilization.”

So here in lies the story of one of the most racist states this union has, rationalizing is hatred of ethnic minorities by denying us the opportunity to form communities of strength and unity on predominantly white campuses.

What happened to celebrating our diversity? What happened to remembering that American values rest in capitalism which seldom aids the rest of the world?

Righteous Minds wants to know your thoughts on this extremely important issue. What can happen in one state opens the floodgates for other states to try to pass similar laws.

Hot Topic: Controversial ABC Democratic Debate

As a result of the biased ABC Democratic Debate earlier this week, Moveon.org has created a video and petition to stop the media from taking control of the course of the election by only focusing on controversy instead of the issues. If you missed the debate, I suggest you watch it. In the meantime, below is a video the folks at Moveon.org created that pretty much sums it up:



Here's the link to the petition: Shame on ABC: Enough Distractions!" Sign it and get involved!

Hot Topic: Who Gains from the Green Economy?

The great folks at Colorlines have provided yet another gem. Check out this article on "green-collar jobs" and the fight to make them available to communities of color.

From the article:

“Green economics needs to be eventually policy-driven. If not, the greening of towns and cities will definitely set in motion the wheels of gentrification,” Pinderhughes adds. “Without a set of policies that explicitly ensures checks and measures to prevent gentrification, green economics cannot be a panacea for the ills of the current economy that actively displaces and marginalizes people of color, while requiring their cheap labor and participation as exploited consumers.”

HOT TOPIC: 70% of Black Women Single?!

...(interesting video, from Oprah...check it out!!!)

Hot Topic: Boondocks' Banned BET Episode

Check out Aaron McGruder's banned episode about BET! Comedy Central banned the controversial episode, but we have it for you right here. Watch it. Then speak your mind on it! *Courtesy of the folks at www.JustRealeyez.com <--check out this blog written by students at UMD!

Hot Topic: Obama's Pastor Jeremiah Wright

I've been searching for unique takes on this debate. And I found two columns that I found to be quite interesting. The first is from a columnist for The American Spectator, a conservative journal. The following is an excerpt:

"Ever since Barack Obama delivered his much praised but inadequate race speech on Tuesday, the editorialists have been telling us how much we need a national dialogue on the subject.

Right. It's high time. So here's my contribution:

Rev. Jeremiah Wright's remarks about America were the worst things said about my adopted country since I came here from England in 1962. Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X are not in the same league as this champion of race hatred from Chicago. Imagine if Senator John McCain had for years been a member of a church where a white pastor said that blacks should go back to Africa where they came from. And McCain were to respond: Well, I disagree with his remarks and I reject what he said but I won't disassociate myself from him, because he has been so important to my life. McCain would be out of the race in the blink of an eye. Yet Obama has not felt the need to distance himself from Pastor Wright.

The New York Times has praised Obama's speech as a "profile in courage." That is baloney -- reflecting the gross double standard that has prevailed for decades on the subject of race. The underlying problem is that the liberals who still control so much of the debate quietly agree with much of what Wright said."

He goes on to say several paragraphs down:

"Anti-white discrimination has been legal in this country for 30 years now, even though it is politically unpopular and goes down to defeat when voters are given a voice in the matter.

THE TRUTH IS THAT the African-American establishment benefits from the current system of affirmative action and racial preferences. They feel ennobled by their victim status. White liberals like this arrangement, too, because the cultivation of victimhood and the arousal of guilt feelings is their stock in trade -- practically their raison d'etre. The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof sought to excuse Pastor Wright's mendacious claims that the U.S. government engineered HIV as a death-dealing weapon against blacks. Maybe 30 percent of blacks believe that, Kristof wrote, in extenuation. Perhaps it's time to expose the lies that black leaders spread within their own communities, and not excuse them."

Click here to read the rest of Tom Bethel's, Senior Editor of The American Spectator, op-ed piece entitled, "Obama and His Minister".

In response to his piece, Vince McKnight responds. He offers great insight into what many people leave out in this debate: the history of racial discrimination against blacks in this country and its effect on our lives today. The following is an excerpt from his response:

"I read your article about the Obama-Wright flap, and there is an element to this story that you are missing. Indeed, much of the press is missing this point.

You minimize and trivialize the pernicious, virulent, and lasting effects of state sponsored racism in the United States. I will be the first to admit that the United States of America has made spectacular progress in becoming a more open and just society. However, many white journalists look at the world as it exists today in a vacuum, as if the past has been eradicated by the passage of landmark legislation and Supreme Court cases.

I am a 54 year old African American, Ivy League educated attorney. In my lifetime, I have personally experienced acts that you can't imagine. Moreover, I dare say, that if you took the time to speak to any African American over the age of 45 -- anybody -- and ask them to candidly tell you their experiences with racism in this country, you would understand that this is not a figment of their imaginations, that it had real and lasting impacts, and that no law can fix or undo the harm that has been done."

Click here to read the rest of his response (you will have to scroll down the page to find it, but it's worth it). Then I pose to you, did you agree or disagree with Pastor Wright's remarks? Also, what is your opinion on how the media has framed this debate? Since black voices are not the ones heard in mainstream media because we do not have control over CNN or MSNBC, we do not have shows like Glenn Beck or other political pundits, how do you feel about the silence of black voices in the media? And anything else you have to say about this, just speak your mind.

Hot Topic: Something in the water

So I guess when we're joking with our friends about the children today and we blame it on the water, we're actually telling the truth. If you haven't heard the Associated Press is reporting that there are drugs in our drinking water.

Here's an excerpt from their article, AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water:

"A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health."

Click here to read the rest. Am I the only one wondering when American's will begin to hold our government accountable? Speak your minds.

Hot Topic: America- An Apathetic Nation

My friends and I often ponder just when Americans will begin to stand up and fight for our rights and civil liberties. Maybe this video by puppetgov.com will show you what has happened over the past seven years that illustrates what happens when we don't. Check it out and then speak your mind.




Maybe these lies will make you mad. Check out this video entitled, "How to Create an Angry American," also by the people at puppetgov.com

Hot Topic: Typecasting

I received a Facebook message as a part of the BGLO Scholar group from Gregory Sparks, a scholar in Black Greek-lettered organizations, about the controversy surrounding the Lebron James cover of Vogue and was compelled to send you all the story. Check out the images below:


Here's an excerpt from the blog:

"Tom Withers of the Huffington Post describes LeBron James on the cover of the April cover of Vogue thusly:

LeBron James is striking a pose.

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ superstar will appear on the April cover of Vogue, joining actors Richard Gere and George Clooney as the only men to do so in the influential fashion magazine’s 116-year history.

Wearing a tank top, shorts and sneakers from his own Nike clothing line, James appears on the cover dribbling a basketball and screaming as if in game mode while throwing one arm around supermodel Gisele Bundchen with Tom Brady nowhere to be found.

LeBron James is striking a pose, all right.

What Withers does not say is that neither Gere nor Clooney struck a pose remotely close to that of James’. What Withers does not say - nor does anyone else as of yet - is that Tom Brady would never have been asked to pose with his girlfriend, Gisele Bundchen, in full New England Patriots gear.

And Tom Brady never, ever would have allowed himself to be cast as a human ——-

King Kong.

Some people who see the Vogue cover and see the inescapable similarities between King Kong and King James will blame Vogue and/or photographer Annie Leibovitz for the ape-like visage of James, mouth agape, all 6′9″, 260 pounds of his blackness charging out of the cover with Bundchen swept up in his arm and her in her best German-Euro version of Ann Darrow."

Click here to read the rest of Dwil's post, "Lebron James and the Vogue Cover: More 'King Kong' than 'King James'" and also check out this amazon review of the book Typecasting and then speak your mind.

Hot Topic: No Child Left Behind

Under No Child Left Behind, schools that receive a failing grade are penalized in an effort to force schools to increase student proficiency in the subjects of math and reading. However, in many instances, the schools that are penalized are low-income and under-resourced schools who need the federal funds. A recent New York Times article reveals that the government is easing the penalties of failing schools under the law. The following is an excerpt:

"The Bush administration, acknowledging that the federal No Child Left Behind law is diagnosing too many public schools as failing, said Tuesday that it would relax the law’s provisions for some states, allowing them to distinguish schools with a few problems from those that need major surgery."

However, is this really solving one of the complexities in our nation's schools system? Click here to read the rest of the article, "U.S. Eases 'No Child' Law As Applied to Some States", and then speak your mind.

Thank you for Someone with some common sense

Hello Righteous Minds fans,

Please watch the video clip below in its entirety. The fam here at Righteous Minds always wants our readerbase to be well informed. The following depicts the horrendous freefall in ethics that the Hillary Clinton campaign has taken. Please read the post below this for a recap of that!



Once you finish watching this let Righteous Minds know your thoughts!

Hot Topic: Obama, Working Class Whites, and Racial Sensitivity

Today in the Washington Post, there is an interesting article about working class whites and their role in the presidential election. Here's a snippet:

Ronald Walters, a University of Maryland political scientist who tracks racial trends and is writing a book on Obama, thinks Obama's strong support from blacks made it easier for some whites in Ohio and Texas to vote for Clinton.

"There's some of that," Walters said in an interview. He pointed to exit polls from Ohio, where 62 percent of all whites lack college degrees and many are anxious about their jobs in a weak economy.

"This is a racially sensitive group," he said, referring specifically to whites who earn less than $50,000 a year and did not attend college.

"They are the quintessential Reagan Democrats," he said. "They feel they've been left" and their resentment can have social and racial overtones.

Ohio exit polls support Walters' view. Eighteen percent of white Ohio voters said race was an important factor in their decision, and of that group, three in four voted for Clinton

Check out the rest of the article, here.

No matter which way you slice it, race is playing a role in the election. Many are quick to shed light on Blacks who are voting for Obama, but on the same token there are many whites who will not vote for Obama based off of his skin color. Righteous Minds readers, let us know what you think about this.

Hot Topic: Collapse of Teen Job Market & Its Effect on Minorities & Low-Income Youth

A recent report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at NortheasternUniversity sheds light on the shrinking job market for teenagers. In the report it states that "the teen employment rate last year was only 34.8%, the lowest annual average employment rate for teens ever recorded since the end of World War II." The following is an excerpt:

"The success of teens in finding any type of job last year, however, differed considerably across schooling, race-ethnic and household income group. Those teens from low income families (incomes under $20,000) who were Black or Hispanic fared the worse in the U.S. labor markets. For example, only 19% of low income Black teens worked during 2007 versus nearly one-half of their more affluent White counterparts living in families with incomes above $60,000."

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Besides fast food jobs, and those at grocery stores, where else can teens look for jobs? Think about it, if the jobs aren't there teens, especially those in low-income communities, will create their own jobs (ie. the drug market) to survive amongst the shortage. What are your thoughts on how this shrinking job market is effecting teenagers especially minorities and those from low-income communities?