Thirteen years ago, I moved to a heavily-policed neighborhood in southern California. I realized things were different when suddenly I was pulled over by the police three times in one week. I’d been pulled over before, but something other than the frequency of these stops stood out to me. It was the first time police asked me if I was a gang member.  ... read more »

Indeed, for her, freedom meant more than seeking and finding a comfortable place in oppression and letting those who would and could follow you. That is why, having escaped form enslavement, she could only feel free and happy for a brief while and was thus compelled to turn around and bring all she could out of bondage so that they could enjoy the collective and inclusive freedom both she and they needed. For she tells us that all the people she loved and knew and who suffered and longed for freedom were back in the belly of the beast, fighting daily against the deadening, debilitating and acidicly corrosive and erosive effects of the Holocaust of enslavement, and she was determined and duty-bound to liberate them. ... read more »

Every year, the 11th day of the 11th month is observed as Veterans Day. It’s a time to honor the 18.2 million men and women still living who served in at least one war. Though observances vary across the nation, each celebrates the American ideal of service to country.  ... read more »

As California deals with raging wildfires and unprecedented power shut-offs, residents are grappling with the roller coaster of emotions that often come with personal loss and an uncertain future. The reality is many residents who have been displaced will need mental health and other support services as they try to piece their lives back together.  ... read more »

Success On “The Way”... Ask Dr. Jeanette Parker™ ... read more »

The nationally televised October 25 funeral services for the late Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, paused partisan debates and revealed how a son of Baltimore worked tirelessly for his constituents and for this nation. In the days since his home-going, I have marveled at how his life’s work somehow brought together officials who held firm to their stark political divides but united to honor a man who believed that everyone deserved a fair chance at all America had to offer. ... read more »

It was a fundamental teaching and central source of battlefield talk, derived and discussed in the Sixties about the motion and meaning of history. There are, we assumed and argued with no small amount of certainty, two tendencies in history, that which is rising, grounding itself and growing stronger and that which is dying, decaying and passing away. And we defiantly declared that we and other oppressed and struggling peoples of this country and of the world belong to that rising tide of history. Likewise, we asserted with equal surety that oppressors of all kinds—racists, colonialists, capitalists, imperialists—and their lackeys, collaborators, hirelings, henchmen and handmaidens, belong to the declining side of history. And they would eventually be defeated, and freedom and justice for all would emerge and triumph in the world. ... read more »

Wendy's Window ... read more »

But, not when it’s the only medicine, responds the America that far too many have known and continue to know. Not when the United States alone is one of the world’s top 33 most developed countries that does not have a form of universal health care that covers all of its population. ... read more »

A recent Daily Beast article written by Sil Lai Abrams is the latest example that in the age of social media, factchecking and accuracy are no longer criteria to getting a story published. ... read more »

Pushing back the thick fog and fumes of the putrid propaganda of White supremacist triumphalism, what can we really see and sing by the dawn’s early light except Trump’s deformed and deficient conception of America unmasked? For all the hype, hustle and hypocrisy around “making America great again," it presupposes an imaginary past void of its victims and of the violence, genocide, enslavement, segregation and other forms of decimation and oppression they suffered. And such a deficient and dishonest vision also fails to confront the contradictions obvious and oppressive in the lived conditions of current daily life in America. For surely there is no greatness in greed and no virtue or bravery in creating and indicting victims; no freedom, justice or honor in oppression, imperial aggression and betrayal of allies; and no pride to be praised in corporate plunder and predation against vulnerable others and the earth. ... read more »

This month, my organization, the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools released its highly-anticipated report, “Identity and Charter School Leadership: Profiles of Leaders of Color Building an Effective Staff” which examined the ways that school leaders of color’s experiences and perspectives influence how they build school culture, parent and community relationships, and effective staff. ... read more »

Make no mistake: Kamala Harris has been committed to criminal justice reform her entire career. You don’t have to take her word for it - her actions speak for themselves. Here in California, we saw first hand how she fought with her whole heart to keep our families safe and out of the system. ... read more »

Forgiving For Living’s Vision is to give young ladies hope and purpose through understanding the power and importance of forgiveness. ... read more »

Success On “The Way”... Ask Dr. Jeanette Parker™ ... read more »