OTP: Tell us about “Stories from the Stage” and the latest Episode “Changed Forever 9/11”?Liz Cheng: Produced by Boston-based GBH and WORLD Channel, Stories from the Stage (SFTS) gathers multicultural storytellers to share real-life experiences that illustrate compelling themes -- from family vacations and holiday disasters to DACA Dreamers,...
by Aminisha Black,The Parents Notebook
We’re familiar with the enthusiasm of a three- or four-year-old. They are eager to explore and learn. They are confident that they can do anything. Reality is not a concept they embrace.Notice how few of our children are still that...
By Daniele Alcinii, Realscreen.com Harlem-based prodco Firelight Media, founded by Peabody- and Emmy award- winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson, is launching an international development fund for diverse filmmakers. The William Greaves Fund, launching later this year, will offer financial and mentorship support to non-fiction filmmakers...
African-American youth comprise the largest numbers in youth-related stop-and-frisks, arrests, suspension from public schools and victims of gun violence. Since the future of African-Americans depends on today’s youth, it led me to create the phrase “The transformation of a Nation begins in the homes...
While insults affect adults, somehow from the home to the classroom there seems to be some unspoken agreement that it’s OK to insult children. Granted, it may have become so much of habit that we don’t recognize the remarks as insults, after all, they’re...
“If we are ever to have real peace in the world, we shall have to begin with the
children.” Mohandas K. Gandhi
This week’s news has been flooded with bringing to surface the incredibly negative conditions facing parents and caretakers of our children. While mainstream media keeps the...
During the past week, Nelson Mandela’s death created the context for citizens of the world to appraise the life and contribution Mandela made to his homeland and mankind in spite of having spent 27 years imprisoned before being released in 1990. A quote by...
If we accept as valid the proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”, and if we cannot identify the village, do we resign ourselves to being unable to raise our children or do we re-create the village? The saying was quite popular...
“There was this old Mohawk elder talking to his grandson. He says that there is a fight going on inside him. He said it is between two wolves.”
One wolf is evil: anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride,...
“The community is a body in which every individual is a cell. No harmful or inappropriate cell is allowed to remain in the body. One way or another it will be ejected. One must learn how to function as a healthy cell in order...
Reading, listening or watching the daily news, we are bombarded with the rampant violence occurring in our homes, neighborhoods and cities. Interestingly enough, while perpetrators (some) are sought and prosecuted for their acts of violence, our government rewards young men and women for volunteering...
While the media gives readers and viewers news flashes daily, it’s rare that we get more than a name, location and date of the incidents. The Children’s Defense Fund’s statistics are gathered and presented in a way that arouses attention and a call to...
For many years during and after slavery the first priority of African American parents was making sure their children stayed alive. This gave rise to the attitudes that “Children should be seen and not heard” and “Spare the rod - Spoil the child”.
These survival...
Nelson Mandela has been a hero for many years, an example of one with an extremely high sense of self-esteem. He has always been grounded in his life’s purpose; he has not shown anger about the past, including being imprisoned for 27 years. He...
By: S.E. Anderson
Ed Activist Folks,
Just a note to say that I attended our little counter charter school rally this morning. By "our" I mean the Coalition for Public Education. It appeared that no other progressive education activist group was in attendance to point...
It is in the day-to-day family interactions that either self-esteem blooms or the spirit is broken, flames of anger lit and seeds of hostility and resentment are sewn. For some years our teenagers, who are at a very vulnerable stage, have fallen prey to...
by Aminisha Black
The statistics on our youth is dismal and demands, deserves the attention of all. As the numbers rise of youth being killed by guns in Brooklyn, NYC and across this country, I’m convinced that the time is long overdue to resurrect the...
by Aminisha Black
The extended family has traditionally provided continuity in values, tradition and knowledge. There was ready access to elders who had traveled the road before. The statistics on the plight of our youth today demand that we change the way we do things. ...
by Aminisha Black
We’re familiar with the enthusiasm of a three- or four-year-old. They are eager to explore and learn. They are confident that they can do anything. Reality is not a concept they embrace.
Notice how few of our children are still that eager or...
By: Aminisha Black
The major cultural difference between Afrocentrism and Eurocentrism is “we” vs. “I”. Seeing the world and assessing actions based on what furthers the goal of the group rather than merely agreeing with an individual regardless of their status.
Capitalism is the outgrowth of...
