Tagged With "Black"

By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, April 20, 2020 Latoyha Young had a birth plan. She was going to have the baby in Sacramento with community doula Joy Dean by her side. Dean was funded by the county’s Black Child Legacy Campaign , which works to reduce the disproportional number of Black infant and child deaths in Sacramento. But in mid-March, when Young went into labor just as Governor Gavin Newsom ordered Californians to stay at home to avoid spreading the novel...

By Dani McClain, The Atlantic, November 21, 2019 Jessica Black is a Pittsburg, California, mother of two black teenagers, both of whom have been disciplined multiple times at their middle and high schools. Her daughter has been suspended more than once, and teachers often deem her son’s behavior out of line, reprimanding him for not taking off his hoodie in class and for raising his voice. In observing her own family and others, Black has noticed a pattern: Behaviors that many black parents...

By Noel King, National Public Radio, October 17, 2019 NOEL KING, HOST: Actress Lupita Nyong'o became a household name playing Patsey in "12 Years A Slave," and then "Black Panther" brought her worldwide fame. Her characters are strong, and they are undeniably gorgeous. But growing up as a dark-skinned girl, she didn't always feel beautiful. Now she's written a children's book called "Sulwe" about a little girl a lot like herself. LUPITA NYONG'O: Five years old, I had a younger sister who was...

ACEs Connection envisions a resilient world where ALL people thrive. We are an anti-racist organization committed to the pursuit of social justice. In our work to promote resilience and prevent and mitigate ACEs, we intentionally embrace and uplift people who have historically not had a seat at the table. ACEs Connection celebrates the voices and tells the stories of people who have been barred from decision-making and who have shouldered the burden of systemic and economic oppression as the...

By Lydia Blanco, Black Enterprise, May 15, 2020 Tyde-Courtney Edwards, founding director of Ballet After Dark , is a classically trained black ballerina , art model, and survivor of sexual assault who is on a mission to help others heal from their trauma through the art of ballet. Now, during the pandemic, she is helping people unwind and reset their focus on healing virtually as her studio is closed. Edwards began her journey at the Baltimore School for the Arts and has over 20 years of...

In this special conversation, Oprah speaks directly with Black leaders following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. The panel offers insight and tangible plans to direct our actions going forward. Watch Part 1 and Part 2 online today.

By Desmond Ang, EducationNext, June 4, 2020 How will the death of George Floyd affect Minneapolis schoolchildren? New research I conducted on the effects of police violence indicates that it will significantly hurt their educational and emotional well-being. Examining detailed data on more than 700,000 public high school students and over 600 officer-involved killings in a large urban county, I found that police use of force has large, negative spillovers on educational achievement and...

By Olivia Bowden, Global News, June 22, 2020 Some Black parents teach their children never to lose a receipt in case you’re accused of stealing or to keep your hands out of your pocket so they are visible to those around you. These are just some of the lessons Black people may tell their children to keep them safe from violence linked to anti-Black racism, said Myrna Lashley, an assistant professor in the department of psychology at McGill University in Montreal. But the need to constantly...

By Dominique Parris, Victor St. John, Jessica Dym Bartlett, Child Trends, June 23, 2020 Most Black children in the United States encounter racism in their daily lives. Ongoing individual and collective psychological or physical injuries due to exposure and re-exposure to race-based adversity, discrimination, and stress, referred to as racial trauma , is harmful to children’s development and well-being. Events that may cause racial trauma include threats of harm and injury, hate speech,...

By Karen Gross, The Hechinger Report, June 22, 2020 Our students are traumatized. They are living with fear and confusion. They are experiencing or witnessing police violence, rioting and looting. And schools, a place where children typically process events and emotions, are shuttered. What are children to do? Who will acknowledge, understand and respond to their trauma and its accompanying symptomology? Who’s there to enable our students to understand racism and violence, and to mitigate...

By Rachel R. Hardeman, Eduardo M. Medina, and Rhea W. Boyd, New England Journal of Medicine, June 10, 2020 In Minnesota, where black Americans account for 6% of the population but 14% of Covid-19 cases and 33% of Covid-19 deaths, George Floyd died at the hands of police. “Please — I can’t breathe.” He was a black man detained on suspicion of forgery, an alleged offense that was never litigated or even charged, but for which he received an extrajudicial death sentence. “Please — I can’t...

Building Resilience with Children During Racial Discrimination & Violence: This attached Resilience Brief for Children has been the hardest one I have written yet. I have been an active advocate for the equal treatment of people from all backgrounds, religions, ethnic heritages, orientations, and families my entire life. It is hard to see the pain present today, not only due to COVID19 but also due to the harm and anger we see daily in the news. I want to share a story about the person...

By Valerie Echeverria, Ronishlla Maharaj, Karina Mascorro, and David Sanchez, Ed Source, July 28, 2020 Black Lives Matter and the coronavirus have etched deep memories, as well as life lessons, this year for Richmond area students. Here are reflections from students and recent graduates, based on interviews conducted by participants in the West Contra Costa Student Reporting Project. Except for graduates, their class levels indicate their status in the upcoming school year. Irene Kou, 15,...

By John Rich, USA Today, August 30, 2020 As a primary care doctor in Boston in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I saw many young Black men who were injured by violence. But one young man stands out in my mind. The first time I saw him, he was lying in a hospital bed sweating and writhing in pain. Like many young men I saw as a doctor in an urban medical center, and despite what I – and many of my colleagues – might have assumed, this young man had done nothing to provoke the attack. Rather,...

By Vanessa Grubbs, California Health Care Foundation, August 4, 2020 It was the Black woman’s third trip to the emergency department because she was feeling short of breath. She was starting to panic. She knew the COVID-19 death toll was climbing and that it was far worse for Black people than white people , and yet the doctors told her to go home again. But this time she pleaded, “If you all don’t admit me to the hospital, I’m going to die. I can’t breathe.” This is the story told by Sheila...

It’s been all over the news for months: Black women in the United States are dying from complications during their pregnancies or in childbirth at alarming rates, and those deaths are preventable. Less well explored is how systemic racism and historical trauma have been at the core of what’s driven up these rates over several decades. A March 20 conference entitled The Impact of ACEs on Black Maternal Health took an in-depth look into why Black maternal mortality and complications during...

By Patrice Gaines, Image by Chelsea Stahl/NBC News; Getty Images, NBC News, December 30, 2021 Parents say their Black children have had to grow up faster, especially in the post-Trump era, facing issues most white children don't confront until they’re adults, if at all. This year has been full of stress, chaos and uncertainty for all parents — whether it’s adjusting to the impact of the pandemic on jobs and children’s school schedules or trying to protect them while they were ineligible for...

By Christina Caron, Image by Rachel Levit Ruiz, The New York Times, June 16, 2022 The editor of a new book of essays shares how Black men can attend to their mental health while growing their families. This year Father’s Day will fall on June 19, or Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved Black people in the United States after the Civil War. And for Michael D. Hannon, an associate professor of counseling at Montclair State University in Montclair, N.J., that...