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My son has been suspended five times. He’s 3.

 

…
As we talked, I admitted that JJ had been suspended three times. All of the mothers were shocked at the news.

“JJ?” one mother asked.

“My son threw something at a kid on purpose and the kid had to be rushed to the hospital,” another parent said. “All I got was a phone call.”

One after another, white mothers confessed the trouble their children had gotten into. Some of the behavior was similar to JJ’s; some was much worse.

Most startling: None of their children had been suspended.

Tunette Powell’s 3-year-old son, Joah, has been suspended from school five times. (Tunette Powell)

After that party, I read a study reflecting everything I was living.

Black children represent 18 percent of preschool enrollment but make up 48 percent of preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension, according to the study released by the  Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in March.

Click through to read more.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

 

implicit bias

 

racial discrimination

 

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What White Children Need to Know About Race

 

Silence is a racial message and a “tool of whiteness.” In order to support the goals of their diversity mission statements and work toward a “racially just America,” schools need to take a more proactive approach to teaching white students about race and racial identity.
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Students must develop a sense of how systemic racism works on an individual, community, and institutional level.

 

– Click through to read more –

 

Source: www.nais.org

 

Many white people do not have an urgency about racial injustice.

 

Many white people live in segregated communities where they do not see racial injustice. Unless people tune into the right media channels, they are not going to have a feeling for the insidiousness of racial injustice.

 

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New Yorker who died after apparent chokehold during arrest is mourned

 

The mourners trickled slowly into the crowded church. Inside, a huge man lay in a white casket topped by white and yellow flowers — a man who in life was known to few outside his Staten Island neighborhood.

In death, though, Eric Garner has become a symbol of policing gone awry: He was videotaped as he was put into an apparent chokehold by police officers. His case has jolted a city that began the year with a new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and a new police commissioner, William J. Bratton, vowing better lives for people such as Garner: black men living far from the glassy skyscrapers and shaded brownstones of the well-heeled.

 

 

Civil rights leaders and other New Yorkers say Garner’s death July 17 shows the need for faster change in the New York Police Department.

“People in all five boroughs are fired up. They’re fired up right now because we don’t like this,” said Isaac L. Mickens, a pastor, community activist and friend of Garner’s family. “We need action.”

 

– Click through to read more –

 

Source: www.latimes.com

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New Yorker who died after apparent chokehold during arrest is mourned

 

The mourners trickled slowly into the crowded church. Inside, a huge man lay in a white casket topped by white and yellow flowers — a man who in life was known to few outside his Staten Island neighborhood.

In death, though, Eric Garner has become a symbol of policing gone awry: He was videotaped as he was put into an apparent chokehold by police officers. His case has jolted a city that began the year with a new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and a new police commissioner, William J. Bratton, vowing better lives for people such as Garner: black men living far from the glassy skyscrapers and shaded brownstones of the well-heeled.

 

 

Civil rights leaders and other New Yorkers say Garner’s death July 17 shows the need for faster change in the New York Police Department.

“People in all five boroughs are fired up. They’re fired up right now because we don’t like this,” said Isaac L. Mickens, a pastor, community activist and friend of Garner’s family. “We need action.”

 

– Click through to read more –

 

Source: www.latimes.com

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Inside the final minutes before 13 year old Andy Lopez’s murder

 

Moments before 13-year-old Andy Lopez was fatally shot by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy who mistook his replica AK-47 pellet gun for a real rifle, a man in a truck drove by the boy and felt a surge of worry.

 

Click through for more.

 

Source: www.sfgate.com

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Trial Begins For Man Who Shot Unarmed Black Teenager On His Porch

  DETROIT — As a prosecutor showed a jury photos of Renisha McBride, her father rushed out of the court room. The photos of the 19-year-old — first smiling, and then lying lifeless on a porch — were shown in quick succession at the beginning of one of the most highly publicized and racially charged trials of the year. Opening statements began Wednesday in the trial of Theodore Wafer, the 55-year-old Dearborn Heights, Michigan, man charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of McBride. Wafer is accused of shooting her with a shotgun through his locked screen door around 4:40 a.m. on Nov. 2. His attorney seeks to show that he was in fear for his life and shot her in self-defense, while the prosecutor has maintained Wafer had no reason to be fearful, and killed an unarmed, impaired woman. “His actions that night were unnecessary, unjustified and unreasonable,” Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Danielle Hagaman-Clark said. Defense attorney Cheryl Carpenter said what happened to McBride was “horrible” but that the jury should set aside their feelings and focus on the law.   Click through for more.     Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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Businessman Allegedly Raped Woman On Job Interview In His Home

 

Recently released police documents detail an alleged grotesque rape of a mother of four who wanted a housekeeping job in the home of a Memphis businessman.

The suspect is the businessman himself,Mark Giannini, the co-founder of IT company Service Assurance, according to WREG. He allegedly repeatedly raped a 26-year-old for several hours until she blacked out on June 19.

 

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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Botched Execution In Arizona Drags On For More Than Hour

 

Lawyers filed emergency papers to stop the execution of Joseph Wood in Arizona on Wednesday, saying prison officials botched the lethal injection.

“He has been gasping and snorting for more than an hour,” according to the motion filed in federal district court in Arizona. “He is still alive.”

 

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com