My daughter and thousands of other public school students are stressing over FCAT. Their predicament makes me think of a recent Washington Post essay by a Georgetown University student who eloquently describes how he went to one of the best public high schools in Washington, D.C, but in college felt totally unprepared to compete against his private school-educated classmates.
He blames his teachers and...
The acronyms – USAID, DFID and CIDA – are emblazoned in my memory from having grown up in the Caribbean: United States Agency for International Development, the British Department For International Development and the Canadian International Development Agency.
For decades, these agencies were instruments for uplifting colonies and former colonies from poverty to progress.
...
Everyone has been talking about mothers having the talk with their sons. But I haven’t heard enough about us -- fathers, black men -- having that conversation with our sons.
Unlike our sisters, wives, mothers and daughters, we -- black men -- have been there. We know what it’s like. We’ve walked in those shoes. Time taught us tact, but we won’t live long enough to outgrow the frustration and the...
The video came to me unbidden. My 22-year-old son brought his Nook, touched the screen and insisted I watch Kony 2012.
The film details the lives of child soldiers, children abducted from their homes and trained to be vicious killers.
I knew enough about African politics to be familiar with...
The ceremony in the Capitol rotunda was a reminder of the kind of leadership this state once produced and now so sadly lacks.
On a recent morning, Gov. Rick Scott and Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll joined others to honor the first inductees -- two black, one white -- into the Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame: the late U.S. Sen. Claude Pepper, Mary McLeod Bethune and the Rev. C.K. Steele.
...The report seemed eerily familiar: pile-up on a Florida interstate shrouded by fog and smoke. This time it was I-75 near Gainesville.
The toll is high. Eleven dead, dozens injured. Enough charred metal on the highway to start a junkyard.
The details are still emerging. Someone is suspected of...
Their faces look normal. They are smiling, with even teeth, eyes alive. They are black, white, Hispanic, male and female. They are you and I. They’re us.
They are the faces of HIV and AIDS in Florida. They are the new symbols of AIDS at 30. Gone is the scarlet letter - disfiguring lesions and emaciated cheekbones.
...
Earlier this year, several of my childhood friends -- Eddy, Albert, Ricky -- the boys who once scampered around cricket and soccer fields like grasshoppers, turned 50.
Now it’s my turn.
Mine is one of those celebrations that get lost amid the hustle and bustle of the holidays. But in stolen moments of...
Amid the outrage over the hazing death of Florida A&M drum major Robert Champion, a name cries out from the grave: Chad Meredith.
In November 2001, Meredith, an 18-year-old University of Miami freshman, returned from a concert and began drinking with two members of Kappa Sigma, a fraternity he wanted to join.
...
Next year was supposed to be a big year for Florida A&M University. The nation’s largest historically black university is scheduled to celebrate 125 years since its founding in 1887.
Unfortunately, instead of talking about the many contributions its faculty and alumae have made to this country, the FAMU community will be consumed by the H and I words. Not high academic scores, not healthcare solutions for the underserved, but hazing and investigations...
