(Akiit.com) The black males I work with suffer from hopelessness and delusions about life. Many are from single-parent homes and lack positive male role models to encourage, guide, nurture, discipline, and love them.

While I applaud black mothers who have tried for centuries to fill this gap, fatherlessness is a major crisis for black males.

When we look at our educational system, it is often unequipped to work with black males. The drop out rates, suspensions and expulsions for black males are startling. Unlike when I was growing up attending Indianapolis Public Schools’ School 69, it is a rarity to find black male teachers.

Wrong priorities

Excelling in sports has become more important in this society than achieving an education despite the reality that few will make it to the professional ranks. Only 5 percent of high school athletes go on to become college athletes — five out of every 100 high school athletes.

Only 3 percent of college athletes become pros.
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(Akiit.com) Keecha Harris is a registered dietitian, holds a doctorate in public health and is president of Keecha Harris and Associates Inc., a food systems and public health consulting firm. She is also a spokeswoman for the American Dietetics Association, a former columnist for MSN.com and an authority on African-American nutrition.

Here is her expert opinion on minority health and diet issues:

What are the different health problems African-Americans face?

African-Americans as a group experience more chronic health conditions, like diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease and some forms of cancer.

When talking about breast cancer and prostate cancer, African-American men and women tend to be diagnosed later in the disease process and often don’t receive the same quality of care as their white counterparts. Why the difference in care?

There are a lot of different theories out there. Sometimes, people don’t know how to navigate health care and how to work with health care providers. On the providers’ side, often times there is a communication disconnect. The provider may not necessarily understand the patient’s culture. Regardless of race, many times, health care providers tend to speak in medical terms. This makes it hard for any patient not to be intimidated. African-Americans tend to be underinsured, so insurance is a major factor as well.

Is obesity a major problem among blacks?

It is. African-Americans have a higher proportion of the population that is overweight and obese. Nearly 80 percent of all African-American women are in that category. Getting enough exercise, getting enough rest, correct nutrition - those are three things that are really important. African-Americans tend to be heavier than their white counterparts.
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(Akiit.com) Editor’s note: Long-time observers of African American reading habits are alarmed. On public transportation at least, African American romance novels and fiction seem have found a comfortable — and profitable — niche among adults. Rarely seen: history, science, cultural criticism. Even rarer, any book in the hands of a young African American male.

In a materialistic world, what is the most valuable thing you can give your young boys? Nope, it’s not money — they’ll spend it on rims and shoes. Nope, it’s not “bling” — they’ll only create a false illusion of wealth that, in the end, they’ll pawn. Nope, not video games — it only makes them fat and lazy (but they’ll have strong thumbs). How about a book? Yes, a book.

It’s time to recognize our children are bring significantly disadvantaged in their desire to get immediate information. Reading magazines and Wikipedia is not the same as reading books. We are in a new literary renaissance period. When a new Harry Potter book can sell eight million books in 24 hours (or 15,000 books a minute), you have to ask yourself, what’s going on?

They used to say that if you want to hide something from black people, put it in a book. I can tell you, having moderated panels on both coasts (the Harlem Book Fair and the first Leimert Park Book Festival) in the past month, that, for the most part, a lot of black people are reading. It’s what they’re reading (fiction, romance, erotica) that might be of concern, but at least some are reading. The African-American market is the “growth market” for the book industry. There is an exception. Young black boys.
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(Akiit.com) With hate Michael Vick mob hysteria raging in the sports world and among the general public it seems Tasha Levin is about the only person that got it right about the embattled Atlanta Falcons quarterback. The Northeastern University student stood outside the federal courtroom in Richmond, Virginia where Vick was arraigned on dogfighting charges and reminded the world that Vick hasn’t been convicted of anything, and that they ‘re trying to sabotage his career.

The “they” is the legion of animal rights groups, sportswriters, and irate fans who have screamed for Vick’s head. Levin seems to be one of the few that haven’t forgotten there’s still a few little Constitutional things called presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty, the right to an unbiased, fair trial, reasonable doubt, and that criminal charges are just that charges, not convictions, and that a defendant’s guilt or innocence is decided in a courtroom not by a gaggle of talking head sports commentators, animal rights picketers, and football crazies.

The capper though came from one blogger who claimed that Vick has now replaced O.J. Simpson as the most hated man in America. He’s right. Vick for the moment anyway is America’s pariah. He and Simpson have four things in common. They are and were football celebs. They lived an opulent and princely lifestyle. They were and are victims of a rush to judgment. They are black males.

These four items would spell disaster for anyone. As with Simpson, they have come crashing down on Vick. And as with Simpson, there were quiet grumbles from some blacks that the get Vick mania is in part a sneaky reaction to the distaste for a brash, rich, black athlete. That, of course, is the same thing they said when high profile athletes celebrities such as Mike Tyson, Don King, Kobe Bryant and bad behaving politicians such as Marion Barry wound up in a court docket. I expect any day the inevitable opinion poll will be taken on how blacks and whites see the Vick case. It almost certainly would show the same racial divide as in the other celebrated cases.
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(Akiit.com) The spotlight was on politics at the National Urban League conference in St.
Louis last week, but the agenda was all about expanding opportunity for black
Americans.

From pundits to preachers and from executives to teachers, three ideas echoed —
lifting up the poor, answering the call to lead and achieving independence
through financial success. The theme of the four-day convention that ended
Saturday was equally to the point: “You, Your Money, Your Future.”

If the NAACP is known for advocacy in the courtroom and through protest, the
emphasis of the more button-down Urban League leans toward economic policy and
individual empowerment. Consider two of Friday’s workshops: “Entrepreneurship
201, Putting a Real Deal Together,” and “Six-figure Careers You Never Thought
About.”

“Our goal is economic parity,” said James Buford, longtime president of the
hosting Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis. “We still have too many
African-American people who are disenfranchised. As we help motivate more into
the middle class, they become independent and viable citizens. They spend money
in the community and motivate the next generation.
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