Ten pounds to Lose.

Today I wore a suit to work that I haven't been able to fit into in over three years.  That probably sounds like good news until I tell you that the last time I wore this suit I was pregnant with my youngest son. In fact, between you and me, it is still missing the button that popped off toward the end of my first trimester:)  This non-maternity suit was purchased during my "camouflage" phase to serve as a clever disguise until I broke out in my Motherhood Maternity gear during trimester two.

That said, it should be obvious that without pregnancy as a scapegoat, my ability to wear this suit is not a good thing. Let the running begin.  I started last week and am proud to say that I have already pushed through the first  few days of achy muscles and fatigue.  My goal is to get back to running five miles 4-5 times a week.  Right now I am winded after the one mile lap around my neighborhood. My, what a difference a few months of no exercise and junk food can make. I realize that perhaps this isn't the best time of year to embark on a weight loss quest;Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are all formidable foes to anyone trying to stick to a healthy diet.  (Curse you Halloween- the cheap candy sales that followed your holiday are what got me into this mess in the first place... !)

I've got ten pounds to lose, one run at a time. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.  Until then, I'll be revisiting my old "pre" maternity wardrobe that I hope one day to wear again for its original purpose.

Game Changer?

Yesterday, in the midst of a conversation with my five year old son about his school friends, I asked him to bring me his class picture so that I could connect faces with names.  After pointing to a few people, he looked at me and asked which kid I thought was the cutest.  I immediately pointed to his picture (of course) and had my three year old respond to the same question to confirm my assessment. My son looked up at me and said, "I'm not the cutest. I don't like the way I look."  As the hair stood up on the back of my neck, I asked him what he didn't like about his looks and he looked at me and said, "my skin, my eyes, ... everything."  I knew where the conversation was headed, but decided to make him go all the way there.  "What's wrong with your skin?" I asked.  ""You have the same brown skin as mommy. Don't you like our color?" His response, "Yes..errrr ... no. I want to be lighter."  I wanted to scream, cry and throw up in that instant.

Over the next few minutes, I probed gently and listened as my precious, intelligent, cute as a button, five year old black son told me that he is tired of being different.  In his words, "I am tired of only having 3 brown people in my class. Everyone else is white."   I had noted this fact very early on in the school year and been grateful that he had one other black boy in his class.  (I have never met the third little girl and truthfully, her racial makeup is not immediately apparent from the school picture.)   There is one other black boy in all of the school's four kindergarten classes.  He also told me repeatedly that he wanted to have more "brown people" to play with at school.

This conversation was deeply painful for me because I agonized for months over where to place my son for kindergarten, in part for this very reason.  I home schooled him for about a year when he was four and only gave up on that idea when it became apparent that I had to return to work for financial reasons.  One of my greatest concerns as the parent of two black males is how to balance their educational opportunities between exposure to a significant level of diversity and access to the best academic environment.  Generally I have found that the two tend to be somewhat mutually exclusive.  The most academically renowned private and charter schools generally tend to have very low diversity.  Equally troubling is that even the "best" public schools typically have jaw dropping achievement gaps when you factor in the performance of their black student population as compared to the whole.  We chose my son's charter school  because the performance among black students on end of grade testing was on par with their white counterparts in most areas. To me that demonstrated a climate of high expectations for ALL students and was an indicator that my son would be held to (and receive support in achieving) a higher academic standard. 

Dear Reader, I must admit that my son's confession shook me.  I wonder now more than ever- are my husband and I doing the right thing in terms of his education? How can we affirm his "blackness" in a way that allows him to enter a school with zero black authority figures and a 95% white student population with confidence and a sense of belonging? Should I try to find a school with more diversity and sacrifice some of the academic rigor? Should I revisit the home school option and believe God that He will work out the financial details? Should we keep attending an all black church so that he can be exposed to his peers in that environment? How do other black parents deal with this balancing act?


The scary thing about parenthood is that time only moves in one direction and you don't get a second chance to raise your children.  Sometimes I look at my son and pray that I don't "mess him up" because I see such great potential in his innocent eyes.

Is this a gamechanger?  What would you do?  How do you achieve a balance if your children have encountered this issue?

Looking forward to reading some comments on this one...

Thanksgiving Weekend

All good things must (usually) come to an end and so goes Thanksgiving weekend.  Four days of fried turkey, red velvet cake, banana pudding, and no work in the morning.  Ahhhh....I haven't posted in over a week and I have so much to share.  I hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving 2010. I had the wonderful pleasure of spending Thanksgiving with dear friends who treated our family like royalty for two days and blessed us with delicious food and heartfelt hospitality.  Awesome.  We put up the Christmas Tree and stockings today and our home is already filled with holiday cheer.

Sorry I've been gone for so long. This time off has given me a great deal to think about and much more to say. Hope to share deeper thoughts very soon.

The Card Says it All.

Yesterday my 5 year old son greeted me with this card when I came home from work. It instantly became my favorite work of art.  We will laugh about this when he wins the National Spelling Bee;)

A Call to Arms!! Black Parents, It's Time to Grab a Mirror and Stop Waiting for Superman.

Say what you want to about the Tea Party -- You can question their motives, criticize their candidates and poke holes in their agenda-- But one thing you can't do is ignore their effectiveness.  They saw something they didn't like and mobilized to change it.  It's time to get organized black parents.  
This post is a call to arms.
Seriously.
I read a study today that first saddened, then enraged, then inspired me.  I hope it will do the same for you. The study was published by The Council of the Great City Schools, a consortium of urban public school systems from around the country. The subject: academic underachievement among black males.   If you are the parent of a young black male, YOU MUST READ the recently published Call for Change study. If you are not the parent of a young black male but know someone who is, YOU MUST READ this study and pass it along to someone else.  Oh, and if you are the parent or know the parent of a young black female, you are not off the hook.  YOU MUST READ this study because what it says about our daughters isn't any more promising. Put simply, the word CRISIS is now an understatement.
  
Some context...
Yes, we've all heard the hoopla in recent weeks surrounding the new Bill Gates backed Waiting for Superman documentary.  You know the one that everyone from Oprah, to President Obama, has been touting as a "call to action" for our country?  The one that laments the fact that U.S. students are now ranked a lowly 25th in math among 30 of the world's developed countries.  The one that points out the shocking statistic that by fourth grade, 68% of public school students scored below a proficient reading level in 2009. The one that blames the public school bureaucracy for pretty much everything.  Well, if you're a black parent and you thought things were bad, perhaps you should sit down. It gets MUCH worse.

First let's look in the MIRROR:

• In 2009, only 11% of black boys in 4th grade performed at or above PROFICIENT levels in reading. (Students attended public schools in cities with populations of 250,000 or more)
• In my hometown of Cleveland, OH, only 3% --That's right--THREE measly PERCENT of 4th grade black males scored at or above proficient levels. UGHHHHHHHH!

Think it's just a financial issue? WRONG...Read on:

• In 2009, black male 4th graders NOT eligible for free or reduced priced lunch (based on income) had reading and mathematics scores similar to or lower than white males who WERE eligible for free or reduced priced lunch (based on income).  About 21% in each group performed at or above proficient levels. 
• By 8th grade,  the achievement gap between this same group widened to six points in favor of white males.     

Can't blame economic disadvantage for that.

That's pretty bad, but here's the real slap in the face. Brace yourself and read on:

•  In 2009, black males WITHOUT disabilities performed worse than white males WITH disabilities! Only 13% of non-disabled black male 4th graders compared to 17% of disabled white male 4th graders performed at or above proficient levels in reading.

These stats are just the tip of a very big, immensely depressing, iceberg of negative data on the state of academic underachievement among black boys.  The study also looks at many other enlightening data points including some demographic insight into what's left of the black family unit,  high school and post-secondary achievement and earning potential as adults.  It's all related and it's not pretty.

I read this study today, all 106 pages of it. And I was ready.  With each dismal statistic, my will to be part of the solution grew stronger.   But when I read the "Plan of Action and Recommendations" conclusion, I realized (with anger) that the study authors in their "scholarly wisdom" had once again let me and every other black parent off the hook. Not one of the recommendations asks black parents to do ANYTHING differently (much like the Wait for Superman, blame the system approach). The word, "parent", isn't even mentioned.  That is sickening. Our babies are failing at epidemic rates, and we have no obligation to change the outcome? Ridiculous.

Let's Do Something About It.
Black parents, we need to pick up the mirror and face the fact that the blame for our children's failure starts and ends with us. Not the school. Not white racism. Not cultural bias. US!  We need to take ownership of success of our next generation like our ancestors did and our counterparts in other races still do. Realize that the schools can't and shouldn't have to do it all.  

I am fired up and ready to start a movement of black parents ready to return our children to excellence.  Our black boys are too precious to leave in the hands of anyone else. If you're ready to take some responsibility, please jump in.

Dear Reader, I crave your thoughts and prayers on this issue.  It has been near to my heart since the birth of my first son and for some time I have felt that God has a purpose for me that includes helping black boys to achieve. I am still seeking God for exactly what this purpose looks like, but I know that it starts with raising our two sons to be high achieving, Godly, men of character.

Stay tuned, this is a call to arms!!




P.S.  Don't forget to read the study for yourself to fully understand the populations of students examined- there are some significant nuances that I didn't get into here.  Also, the first nine pages are an Executive Summary that lays out the parameters of the data examined and includes every data point separated by bullets.  The rest of the study is mostly graphs illustrating the data.

Some Election Results That You Probably Haven't Seen

Now that the "shellacking" of the Democrats is old news, I thought you might enjoy a few recent election results that you probably didn't hear about or either MSNBC or FOX.  Black politicians are still making history around the globe and right here in the U.S. Here are a few notable results:

Look Mom, There ARE Black Republicans...
The Republican wave in Congress swept in two new black congressmen, Tim Scott of South Carolina, and Allen West of Florida.   Both men will be the first black Republicans to serve in Congress since J.C. Watts retired in 2003. Both men also made history as the first black Republicans elected to Congress from their states in over 100 years.  Both men also ran with the blessing of the Tea Party and Sarah Palin.  They joined a wave of black Republicans on the ballot this year. According to ABC news, this year 42 blacks ran for the Republican nomination for House seats, and 14 of them won the nomination. For an interesting story on the recent surge in black Republican candidates, click here.   For a look at all of the black Republican candidates who ran this year click here.

Allen West

Tim Scott

Allen West is a decorated army veteran who will serve Florida's 22nd District in the Boca Raton area. Tim Scott is a business man who won in the 1st congressional district where white voters outnumber blacks 3 to 1.  For a comparison of these two candidates, click here.

Around the Globe...

In July 2010, Russia elected its first black politician (at any level), Jean Gregoire Sagbo. 

Russian Councilor Jean Gregoire Sagbo

 
A native of the West African Country of Benin, Sagbo migrated to the Soviet Union in 1982.  He was elected as one of 10 Municipal Councilors in the town of Novozavidovo.   Sagbo's election is particularly remarkable given Russia's notorious culture of racism. See video of Mr. Sagbo below.





In October 2010, the country of Slovenia elected Europe's first black mayor, Peter Bossman, a Ghanian physician.

Mayor Peter Bossman

According to Bossman, "I think that people don't see me as a black man. They see me as a good man, as a doctor and the racial question really didn't came into play here."

Congrats to all the winners.

I Voted Today

I voted today.
Not with the exuberant expectation I felt in 2008.
Not with the civic duty I felt in 2006.
Not even with the cautious optimism that I felt in 2004 and 2000.

Today I voted with about the same level of enthusiasm that I experienced the last time took my son to the doctor.  For shots.  Voting this year was a painful obligation. I have never been so torn.  If this election were just about the candidates on the ballot, my choices would have been easier.  But for the past six months, I have been constantly reminded by the political pundits that EVERY race- no matter how local, is actually a referendum on the President himself.  I hate that.

My relationship with our President is quite complicated. On a personal level, I love him, his wife, his daughters and even his mother-in-law.  I relate to them like no other Presidential family and would be highly honored to shake any one of their hands and invite them to my home for dinner.   I take personal offense whenever I hear people question his citizenship, his religion, or his patriotism.  Thank God he graduated at the top of his class from Harvard Law School or I'd have to take offense every time some C student pundit questioned that too. I take even more offense at the suggestion that he is so "different" from past presidents, that "most" Americans can't "relate" to him, and that he doesn't "connect" with the electorate. I think those comments stem from the discomfort felt by many because of his race.  I buy my children books and tee-shirts about the President, because I feel a certain level of reverence for him as a historic figure.

That  said, I recognize that my true relationship to President Obama is first and foremost as a voter to a politician.  I have never forgotten that my personal pride in his great accomplishments must be separated from my responsibility to vote for candidates that best reflect my political agenda. I am a social conservative and I don't appreciate the values I hold dear being portrayed by most Democrats (including the President) as extreme.  I am not fooled by local Democrats hiding behind the endorsement of President Obama to claim that they deserve the African American vote when their actions have not shown any more concern for my community than their Republican opponents.  I am disgusted that someone with such questionable credentials as Sarah Palin is now running the Republican party.  (I am equally annoyed that her rhythmless "teen activist" daughter is still a contestant on Dancing With the Stars)  I watched the debates of my state candidates for Senate hoping that one of them would say something meaningful. It didn't happen. Both claimed to be the candidate of "change." (Where have I heard that one before?)  I watched the attack ads that my Democratic Congressional incumbent ran against his Republican challenger with disgust because it was obvious that they were intended to distort and not inform.    The one Congressional candidate that I actually liked was not running to represent my district.

In the end, I split the vote and halfheartedly took my "I voted" sticker with the same bittersweet reluctance my son shows when he is offered a sticker reward after a painful succession of shots.  Yes, I voted today. But I'm not happy about it no matter who wins this election.

Say What?

The first time I saw this commercial I turned the channel and immediately informed my children that this kind of behavior is completely unacceptable.  This child has the nerve to call his parents lame!  I went to the Toyota channel on youtube  to find out how to complain and saw that most of the comments posted there had the same sentiment.  I also saw that this ad is only one of several offensive commercials featuring this character.  In each commercial he obnoxiously refers to his parents as "dorks" or "lame" and sarcastically ridicules them. How dare Toyota portray a child showing such disrespect for his parents in a commercial for a product aimed at families!! Not cute.

I also submitted a formal complaint on Toyota's main website in the customer help/contact us section.  Click this link if you would like to submit your own complaint. It will take about five minutes to set up an account and then you can leave your complaint.  I selected "website" as my area of concern and also pointed out that I am a current owner.  I'll get back to you if Toyota bothers to respond.