Devon Sanford’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when he was in the eighth grade. After barely finishing at Henry Clay Middle School in South Los Angeles, he never enrolled in high school. He spent what should have been his freshman year caring for his mother and waiting for police to show up asking why he wasn’t in school.
No one ever came. Continue reading KPCC: Invisible Dropouts: Thousands of California Kids Don’t Get Past Middle School | 89.3 KPCC
The Beveridge Curve (BC) is a favorite tool of labor economists showing the inverse relationship between job openings and unemployment. It’s thus a kind of index of strength of labor demand: when the job market is tight, there’s low unemployment and more unfilled openings/job vacancies, and vice versa.
Continue reading Jared Bernstein: Has the Beveridge Curve Really Shifted? |
A California school district has agreed to temporarily shelve a ninth grade sex education textbook after parents complained it included material that’s inappropriate for teenagers, including information about masturbation, orgasms, and erotic touch. The parents asking for the removal of Your Health Today have compared the book to porn.
In Pluto’s diary on the life of Michael Brown, you might notice one detail that’s both touching and disturbing:
Mike’s graduation photograph was taken in March 2014, still many months ahead of when he would be able to graduate in August. Imagine the “why” of this fact:
The grinding poverty in Mike’s world only allowed Normandy High School to acquire two graduation gowns to be shared by the entire class. The students passed a gown from one to the other. Each put the gown on, in turn, and sat before the camera to have their graduation photographs taken. Until it was Mike’s turn.
What kind of American school would have to share robes across the entire senior class? Continue reading UPDATED: It’s a miracle #MichaelBrown even graduated from this beleaguered school
You can’t really understand Ferguson—the now-famous St. Louis suburb with a long history of white people sometimes maliciously, sometimes not, imposing their will on black people’s lives—unless you understand Kinloch. Continue reading Ferguson, Missouri’s Complicated History of Poverty and Racial Tension | The New Republic
The racial divide that exists in communities like Ferguson, Missouri, and the effect it has on the lived experience of white and black people, reminded us of a conversation from last week’s show in which poet Maya Angelou remembers how, as a little girl, she hated going to the white neighborhood in her hometown of Stamps, Arkansas, because she felt unsafe and unprotected there.
Continue reading Maya Angelou: “Because if You Were Black You Never Felt Really Safe” | BillMoyers
August 17, 2014
Jesse Williams’ very eloquent thoughts on Mike Brown’s depiction in cable news shows:
I was irritated and distracted as I watched a panel discussion on CNN yesterday. What was the source of my irritation? Continue reading Cable News’ Depiction of Mike Brown | MSM and Ferguson
Reverend William Barber visited Netroots Nation and provided an inspirational speech that electrified the entire room. Most importantly, Rev. Barber gave a history lesson on moral fusion movements. Rev. Barber described the moral fusion movement in the context of the first and second reconstruction. He is imploring the effecting of the third reconstruction.
Continue reading Rev. William Barber’s electrifying speech at Netroots Nation 2014
Senator Rand Paul published an op-ed in Time Magazine and gave a speech this week about Ferguson Missouri and Civil Rights. Given Senator Paul’s long-held views on civil rights, how should we interpret this latest effort? Is it opportunism or a genuine attempt at curing a longstanding social wrong? Let’s examine the record: Continue reading Rand Paul: Opportunist or Ferguson’s Libertarian Civil Rights Hope?
Congressman John Lewis – a recognized leader of the Civil Rights Movement – spoke out Thursdayon the police violence in Ferguson, Missouri, during an msnbc interview saying President Obama should use the authority of his office to declare martial law to “federalize the Missouri national guard to protect people as they protest.”
Continue reading @RepJohn Lewis Calls For #MartialLaw in #Ferguson | MSNBC
