Why The 'Race Card' Is Played

Christian school bars black child from its Florida campus because of his hair: lawsuit The ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund are pursuing legal action against a Florida school that barred a black child from campus because of his hair. “As a father, I’d tried to shield him from racism for as long as I could,” writes Clinton Stanley on the A C L U b l o g . Stanley was shocked with the predominantly white staff demanded that his son change his hair in order to have access to an education. “As a father, I’d tried to shield him from racism for as long as I could. But we had just been turned away in humiliating fashion from A Book’s Christian Academy in Apopka, Florida, on the first day of classes,” Stanley writes. “The school’s administrators, led by John Book, barred CJ from entering the building because of his locs. They treated him like a leper, and then they gave me an ultimatum: my son’s hairstyle or his schooling.” “On behalf of my son and other Black child...

Charter schools successful with black children - Daily Reflector

It took this Texas school district 48 years to desegregate. Now, some fear a return to the past. LONGVIEW — At the first Friday football game in the first school year since the school district in this East Texas town had been declared racially integrated — nearly 50 years after a federal court order — thousands of spectators dressed in forest-green Lobos gear filled the stadium anticipating a win. Enduring the late-August heat, fans piled out of haphazardly parked cars and filed into creaky fold-down seats they’d reserved for years. Some who had attended segregated white or black schools in Longview decades ago now shared the same rows. When the marching band played the school’s fight song, most of the crowd formed an “L” with their fingers and rocked them back and forth in unison. Opting for the bird’s eye view from the press box, Ted Beard, a longtime Longview Independent School District board member, watched the football players race across the field to the cheers of a rapt...

Columbia University's Teacher's College finds swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs spray-painted on her office walls The office of a Jewish psychology and education professor at Teachers College, Columbia University has been vandalized with swastikas and an anti-Semitic slur.  Professor Elizabeth Midlarksy discovered the disturbing Nazi symbol and slur 'YID' spray-painted in red on her  New York City  office walls Wednesday afternoon. She alerted campus security and the incident is now under investigation by the NYPD. There is no known suspect.   Midlarsky, who is Jewish, is a also a prominent Holocaust researcher who has written a number of articles and papers on the subject. 'I was in shock,' Midlarsky told the Columbia Spectator . 'I stopped for a moment, because I couldn't believe what I was seeing.'  She added that she is an organ donor recipient who has been battling health issues. This isn't the first time her office has b...

The Anchor-Mentor-Father Plan BY SAQUON BARKLEY I was fortunate to have a dad who let me try different things and allowed me to follow my true passion, and I would love to provide that for other kids. There are so many kids who don’t have a father figure, or who don’t have access to top-of-the-line facilities for one reason or another. Or maybe they just don’t have someplace that helps to keep them away from all the bad influences that are out there. I would like to provide a place like that for them. A place where I can help develop kids as athletes, but also as people. That’s how I see myself giving back. Through kids. I want to be a positive role model. I want to be known as a guy who’s doing things the right way. And just like my parents and coaches — and so many other people I’ve been blessed to have in my life — I want to spread my knowledge around and pass on the lessons I’ve learned to the next generation. I think that’s how you truly leave your mark in this world. ...

The Anchor-Mentor-Father Plan  BY SAQUON BARKLEY Everything was going great until I got punched in the face. I was maybe 10 years old and my dad had taken me to this boxing gym to spar against a kid who was training for a tournament. My dad did stuff like that all time. He would set me up to fight guys at the gym, or have me box random people in the neighborhood. He always had me fighting. My dad was a pretty good boxer back in the day, and my great uncle, Iran Barkley, also boxed — he was a three-time world champion. So boxing was … I don’t want to say it was forced on me, but even though I had been telling my parents ever since I was able to talk that I wanted to be a football player, my dad definitely wanted me to be a boxer. So I was 10 years old and I was in the ring against this kid — I had the big red Everlast gloves on, the headgear, the mouthpiece, the whole nine — and for the first two rounds, I was feeling good. I was jumping around, dancing, ducking and dodging...

Arkansas Christmas parade features Confederate soldiers offering bullets to kids asking for candy A Christmas parade in the Ozark Mountain community of Springdale, Arkansas didn’t just have the customary Santa Claus. A c c o r d i n g t o t h e K a n s a s C i t y S t a r , one of the floats at Saturday’s Christmas Parade of the Ozarks featured two men dressed as Confederate soldiers and flying the Confederate flag. One of the two Confederates carried a rifle with him. In video posted to Facebook, the two soldiers are asked to hand out candy, as is customary at Christmas parades. “I got bullets. Want bullets?” replies the man with the rifle. “Why do you have a rifle with a bayonet on it?” asks someone in the crowd. “I’m looking for Yankees!” the man answers. A r e p o r t e r f o r t h e D e m o c r a t G a z e t t e talked to a man who was at the parade and turned his back to the Confederates. “It was supposed to be a Christmas parade,”...