Book Recommendation: Wrong Place, Wrong Time

What: Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men by John A. Rich Why: In a book review for the Washington Post, columnist Colbert I. King writes: The shooting of a young black male doesn’t make the front page. It’s most likely to appear inside the Metro section — [...]

Bailout for Black Males

James Alan Fox writes in USA Today on the need for a bailout for at-risk youths: The customary year-end scorecard of city homicide tallies from around the USA always seems to reveal some winners and losers, and this past year was no exception. According to an Associated Press survey of city murder counts, Chicago, Seattle and Kansas City reported some of the largest increases in 2008 over the previous year, while Los Angeles, Detroit and Baltimore saw substantial drops.

Turn Obama’s success into gains for black boys

The USA Today editorializes on translating Obama’s win into gains for black boys: You can see the message on brick wall murals in inner cities: Yes we can. You can hear it in the music of Black Eyed Peas’ frontman will.i.am: Yes we can. You can imagine hearing it pass the lips of thousands of [...]

Study: Murders among black youths on the rise

WASHINGTON — The number of young black men and teenagers who either killed or were killed in shootings has risen at an alarming rate since 2000, a new study shows.  The study, to be released Monday by criminologists at Northeastern University in Boston, comes as FBI data is showing that murders have leveled off nationwide.  [...]

Young Black Men Yet To Receive “Obama Benefit of the Doubt”

Bryan Weaver, chairman of the Adams Morgan advisory neighborhood commission and president and founder of Hoops Sagrado, an international youth leadership program based in Washington, writes in The Washington Post: Remember on election night, when pundits on cable news shows shouted to the mountaintops about this moment in history? Remember that strangers were hugging each [...]