Jan. 2, 2012

Study: Black Children Form Identity Through Race; Opposite for Whites

(Courtesy Photo/commons.wikimedia.org)

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspapers

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Black children in the same age group tend to form their identity more strongly by the color of their skin than a shared language, according to a new study, while the opposite was true for White children.

A study published in the November issue of Developmental Science and conducted by University of Chicago researchers Katherine Kinzler and Jacelyn Dautel presented some preliminary findings regarding how young children identify with others.

According to a report in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, the study cites four experiments, each designed to provide a specific piece of information and control for some variables. Experiments 1, 2 and 4 used children ages 5 to 6, while experiment 3 used children ages 9 to 10.

Experiments 1, 2, and 3 used White children and experiment 4 used Black children. In all the experiments, the children were shown a child and adults and asked, "Which adult does this child grow up to be?"

In experiments 1 and 2, the children picked the adult that spoke the same language as the child in the test, though it was not a racial match. In experiments 3 and 4, the children picked the adult that was a racial match, though they were not a language match to the child in the test.

“The difference between European American and African American children of the same age highlights the potential role of experience in facilitating children's reasoning about the stability of different social categories,” the researchers wrote.

“Presumably, infants in all social groups are born viewing their earliest social worlds the same way. Nonetheless, children's early experiences may shape their reasoning about the relative importance of race compared to language.”

The authors said other experiments were required before making any hard conclusions based on this evidence, viewing their work as a first step the research process.

Dec. 26, 2011

Military Families Celebrate the Reason for the Season
By Yanick Rice Lamb

Chief Warrant Officer Richard Bellamy and some members of his family at his warrant officer induction in Aberdeen. PHOTO: Afro American Newspapers

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspapers

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Rev. Raichera McCray pumps her fist in the air as she repeatedly shouts “Hallelujah! Hallelujah Jesus!” Her joy is contagious, and Reid Temple A.M.E. Church in Glenn Dale, Md. has already been primed by the cranberry-robed choir’s song of praise, For Every Mountain. She encourages congregants to have faith whether they have mountains of debt or family drama.

The theme of Rev. McCray’s guest sermon is I’ll Holla If I Want To, drawing from the book of Joshua and her own life.

These days, the 25 year old has a lot to shout about, she says. Just three days earlier, her husband, Ensign Byron McCray, returned home to her and their two babies from Bahrain in the Middle East.

“I thank God for my honey-bunny being back in the States,” Rev. McCray tells the Prince George’s County church on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

The McCrays are among many African-American military families relieved that their loved ones will be home for the holidays — a combination of tours ending in the world’s hot spots, but mostly a result of the end of the 9-year war in Iraq.

American families -- and Black families --have experienced monumental stress while trying to cope with fathers and husbands serving in Iraq.

As the conflict in Iraq intensified, Black Americans experienced varying amounts of grief and fear, according to mental health experts. Nobody is unaffected by war. In military families, however, there is the added fear for the safety of loved ones who may be or already have been deployed, as well as the potential challenges of coping as a single parent.

Mental health officials said some men and women who were impacted by the war in Iraq experienced problems that included, difficulty completing tasks, trouble concentrating, fear and anxiety about the future, apathy and emotional numbing, irritability and anger and sadness and depression.

In this time of heightened anxiety over the war with Iraq, mental health experts also say Black children experience fear and anxiety too. They’re seeing news reports and hearing people around them talk about the war and terrorist threats here at home. But unlike adults, children have little experience to help them put this information into perspective.

Whatever their age or relationship to adults who are involved in the war effort, experts say, children need to be able to express their feelings and concerns about the war.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have been welcoming soldiers back home and greeting their families for the holidays.

“Now it is up to us to serve these brave men and women as well as they serve us,” President Obama said in his weekly address, offering the “thanks of a grateful nation” as he made good on a promise made during his inauguration in 2009.

“More than 1.5 million Americans have served there with honor, skill and bravery,” he said of troops in Iraq. “Tens of thousand have been wounded.” The president also praised the families of the 4,500 who made the “ultimate sacrifice.”

Renee Harris of Laurel, Md., misses her cousin, Chief Warrant Officer Richard Bellamy, who has moved back and forth between Afghanistan and a U.S. Army base in Baumholder, Germany. Harris is praying for an end to the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, but welcomed the news of those leaving Iraq. “I was just as happy like it was my family,” she said.

Harris reminisces about Bellamy’s “perfect smile” and laughter when they “crack on each other.” Bellamy is the family magnet who pulls his relatives together for Sunday dinners, cookouts and other gatherings when he’s home in Washington, D.C.

Bellamy talked about the importance of family in a phone call from overseas. “You try to get family time when you can get it,” said Bellamy, who missed out on key moments being in the military but now has his immediate family in Germany: his wife, Sherrie, sons, Kenyatta, 13, and Keyshawn, 10, and daughter, Layla, 4, who he saw briefly two-and-a-half months after she was born. “It feels like I’m still getting to know my baby girl.”

Despite the sacrifices and long days, Bellamy said, “I know that we are making a difference.”

McCray, who works on ships as a diesel mechanic and welder, has had similar experiences. A reservist now on active duty, he has served in Iraq, Kuwait, Germany and Italy as well as Bahrain. McCray witnessed the birth of year-old Byron Jr., but he just happened to be home on leave when his daughter, Skylar Alyse, was born two years ago. Then his two-week leave was suddenly cut short to five days.

He hasn’t been home for a full year of his three-year marriage, but he and his wife are making up for lost time. The McCrays celebrated Thanksgiving with their families in South Carolina, but they plan to spend a quiet Christmas, home alone in Maryland.

'Occupy the Dream' Aims to Grow Black Business Ownership

By Hazel Trice Edney

Dr. Benjamin Chavis

Dr. Jamal-Harrison Bryant 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – A national group of Black clergy, led by former NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Chavis, is aiming to reverse the Black unemployment rate by changing the economic mindset of Black people.

“You’d be surprised that a lot of people ask why we are the most unemployed. They say we need jobs,” Chavis said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire. “But, the truth of the matter is that in order to get jobs, we have to have employers. We need more Black business people to hire Black people. If we are waiting for somebody else to hire us, it’s the consciousness, our mindset has to change. Empowerment means what you do for yourself; not what somebody constantly does for you.

The mission, which is being called “Occupy the Dream”, will start on Monday, Jan. 16 in commemoration of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. birthday holiday. On that day preachers, who are part of the “Occupy the Dream” movement, will connect with the well-known “Occupy Wall Street” group to hold protests at Federal Reserve Banks in 10 cities around the nation, Chavis said.

The strategy will be to raise the conscious level of African-Americans starting in church pulpits by spreading the message of income equality, economic justice and empowerment leading up to Jan. 16. “It starts in the pulpit and then we’re going to go to the community at large,” he said.

Then, the ministers will grow and sustain a movement with monthly activities focused on transforming the Black mindset from consumer to owner, he said.

“And so, I see ‘Occupy the Dream’ as first – and to some extent, challenging the mindset of over 40 million Black Americans who various stats show will spend a trillion dollars in 2012. So how is it that we’re spending a trillion dollars on the one hand, but we are the most unemployed on the other hand? Our children are not finishing high school on the other hand. We’re losing homes; we are the most foreclosed on the other hand. That’s a contradiction,” Chavis said. “And so, Occupy the Dream is going to challenge that. That’s something internal in the Black community that we need to face. And the Black preacher is strategically placed to meet these challenges because we meet with the Black community every week.”

The new group has set up a website for more detailed information: www.occupydream.org. It is also on Facebook and Twitter.

Chavis and the Rev. Dr. Jamal-Harrison Bryant, pastor of the 10,000-member Empowerment Temple AME Church in Baltimore, are working together along with a list of other clergy and participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement which has held protests in cities across the nation for the past eight months. The focus of Occupy Wall Street has mainly been, “We are the 99 percent”, meaning the community of 1 percent wealthy in American appear to wrongly hold the balance of power. Chavis said the Occupy the Dream movement will simply take that message to the next level by activating the reversal of that 1 percent vs. 99 percent power – especially in the Black community, which is most affected by poverty and unemployment.

“We have made tremendous progress politically in terms of Black elected officials – we have more Black state legislators than ever before, at one time we had Black people who were mayors of just about all the major cities, we have over 40 members of the Congress– and so politically we’ve made some significant gains, but economically, we have not,” Chavis says.

When Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, he was planning a poor people’s march and campaign because of economic inequity and economic injustice across America. That movement never fully took off. A former foot-soldier of Dr. King who was a South Carolina state wide youth coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the 1960s, Chavis said the Occupy Wall Street message reminded him of Dr. King’s vision.

Occupy Wall Street was started by mainly White youth who were not only conscious of the economic inequities, but has specifically called attention to the suffering of common people while those largely responsible for America’s disastrous economy appear to benefit by bail outs and business as usual. The movement started in September with protests on Wall Street in lower Manhattan and has since spread into cities across the U. S.

Chavis, who will turn 64 on Jan. 22, has been a mentor to the 40-year-old Bryant, who served as NAACP national youth coordinator during Chavis tenure as NAACP executive director in the early 1990s. Chavis, who has worked the past 15 years for Russell Simmons’ Hip Hop movement, says the Occupy the Dream movement will combine older seasoned leaders and youthful leaders to assure that people from all walks of life are included.

Chavis has received the endorsements of civil rights icons the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Other clerical representatives involved are the pioneering African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Vashti McKinzie; Dr. Carroll A. Baltimore, Sr., president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention; and Bishop John Bryant, senior Bishop and presiding prelate of the Fourth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Chavis says he is also working with student leaders on campuses of historically Black colleges and universities around the nation, an effort led by Morehouse College student President Steven Green. “We couldn’t afford to have a generation gap or a culture gap between older Blacks and younger Blacks,” he said.

The new movement was announced Dec. 14 at a press conference held at the National Press Club. Independent journalist David DeGraw, largely credited with leading the Occupy Wall Street Movement was at the conference welcoming the ministers, noting that Chavis’ life has been “a battle”.

He is correct that Chavis is no stranger to struggle. He was a member of the group known as the Wilmington Ten, arrested during school desegregation protests in Wilmington, N.C. in 1971 and charged with firebombing, conspiracy and arson. The group got international attention as they served nearly 10 years in prison until their conviction was overturned in 1980. Amnesty International called the group “American political prisoners”.

After 50 years of involvement in the civil rights movement, Chavis says the key battle ground of the Occupy the Dream movement will be the mindset of African-Americans.

“There comes a time and place when all of us have to do something in terms of being active. And January 16 is an opportunity. It’s a national holiday for Dr. King. Everybody’s off work that day. What are we going to do?” he says. “One way to recognize and be grateful for the legacy of Dr. King is move from the monument to the movement. …Now that we have the monument, it’s time to rekindle the movement that the monument represents.”

Dec. 26, 2011

Rev. Jesse Jackson Celebrated Abroad, Receives Honorary Degree from De Montfort University 

Civil Rights Icon Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is bestowed with an honorary degree from De Montfort University in Leicester for his international human and civil rights efforts. In this photo, he poses with Professor Dominic Shellard, vice chancellor. PHOTO: Butch Wing

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from De Montfort University Leicester

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., revered by millions as one of the world’s greatest civil rights leaders, has received an honorary degree from De Montfort University.

He was honored during a special ceremony at the 12^th century St Mary De Castro Church, which is adjacent to the university campus in Leicester.

After receiving his award, known as “the great unifier”, told students: “I want you to face whatever challenges come your way, but have the mind to think it through. Have the courage of your convictions, see people as they are, have character, measure who you lift up, not how you climb. It is good to know, but even better to care. Keep your hopes alive and go forward with those hopes. Never go backwards because of your fears.”

He received a standing ovation lasting several minutes from an audience of more than 200 students, staff and people from the city of Leicester. There was then a performance by the DMU Gospel Choir before Jackson’s daughter Santita gave a moving rendition of an old Gospel song.

The Right Hon Keith Vaz MP opened the proceedings with a speech in which he praised Rev. Jackson for being one of the world’s great leaders and told the audience he would be putting Rev. Jackson’s name forward for a Nobel Peace Prize.

He added: “Martin Luther King’s famous dream has come alive and been kept alive by Rev. Jackson. Reverend Jackson, you have many, many friends here in Leicester and the rest of the country and we hope this honor will serve to create an even more unbreakable bond between you and the people of Leicester.”

De Montfort University Vice-Chancellor Professor Dominic Shellard then delivered a citation, telling the audience about Rev. Jackson’s 50 years of campaigning for civil rights in the U. S. and abroad.

Professor Shellard chose a quote from Jackson’s speech to the 1988 Democrat Convention when he put his name forward to run for president: “The only justification for looking down on someone is when you stop and pick them up.”

Professor Shellard said, “While we face the threat of a double dip recession, a collapsing Euro, protestors making a stand against oppression, inequality and poverty around the world, we should not lose sight of the fact that we are all one human race, we are no less a person than anybody else. In times of trouble, we need to support one another, pick one another up and, to use one of Reverend Jackson’s most famous phrases, ‘Keep Hope Alive’.”

Jackson responded, “I am honored to receive this award today. It is here to serve the higher purposes of the university which is that you, as young people, come along and have the power to change the world and make the world a better place.”

Jackson had spent the day at the university taking part in a national Home Affairs Select Committee conference in which he was the keynote speaker on the theme of Roots of Violent Radicalization.

The conference was attended by MPs from the select committee, as well as representatives from universities, prisons, the police, the probation service, religious organizations and think tanks.

The findings from the conference will be used by the select committee to inform the Government’s Prevent strategy, which aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

During his keynote address to the conference, Jackson had used a football analogy to explain how to bring people together and move forward after watching Chelsea play Manchester City the night before.

He said, “There is a lesson from the world of athletics we can all learn from. The match between Chelsea and Man City involved a multi-racial body of athletes, speaking different languages but all joined by the same set of rules. They shook hands before the game, engaged in competition and then they embraced each other when the game ended. Those that won were ecstatic but knew there would be more games coming and those that lost were down, but not too much so. They lost their game but not their dignity. What made it possible for those young athletes was that when you play and the rules are made public, and the goals are clear and the referees are fair, then we can all make it.”