Have You Ever Heard of ALEC? Well, You Should Know Who They Are...

Short video-long on knowledge about an entity that's been at work, shaping laws that affect us in plain sight. Check it out.

Decompression

de•com•pres•sion (ˌdi kəmˈprɛʃ ən) 

n.

1. the gradual reduction in atmospheric pressure experienced after working in deep water or breathing compressed air.

2. the act or process of releasing from pressure or stress.

Certainly, I am referring to the second definition of the word when I reference it. I am officially decompressing as of now. I took November off from blogging to effectively get my thought process in order. After 2014 essentially flying by so quickly, I've found some opportunities to actually breath a little deeper.

It seems just like yesterday that I asked my beautiful wife to marry me and now here we are, married for almost two months now. I know that's super cliche', but it's true. I'm really just starting to wrap my head around saying "wife" as opposed to fiancee'. It sounds real weird when you first start saying it, but in a good way.

Needless to say, I've found appreciation in just the little things. When we hug, seeing her smile and hearing her laugh. These are the things I live for...

I take pictures of the sky because it's so amazing to me. I love seeing clouds and sun rays and the like. I'm going to start sharing them on this blog. Below is the first I'll share of God's amazing work that we take for granted. I took this one from my balcony.I find a sense of calm in these scenes. Hopefully, you can too.

Wedding Day-Amber Reinink's Photos

Tahirah & Elijah: Rockville Vis Arts Center Wedding Photography

October 25, 2013

tags: maryland, md, photographer, photography, rockville, vis arts, visual arts center, wedding, wedding venue

tahirah and elijah were married just a few weeks weeks ago in rockville, md. it might have been a rainy day…but the smiles and the love these two were surrounded with was unstoppable! i mean look at the smile on her face. tahirah…you were such a gorgeous bride.











due to the rain all of our portraits had to be taken inside. the vis arts center was perfect for indoor portraits! what a stunning couple! and i adore how they look at each other…


this might be my favorite one!











one last image to end the night…nothing like a sweet kiss in the rain in the middle of the street!


thank you elijah and tahirah for letting me share your special day with you and capture all of the moments. your family and friends were amazing and it was so easy to see all the love that surrounded you both. many wishes for love and laughter and a beautiful life together.
thank you also to elizabeth who was my sidekick and second shooter for the day. couldn’t have done it without you e.

-Amber Reinink

On OCTOBER 11th-I Married My Best Friend!!!

50th Anniversary of the March on Washington

Here are a few scenes from the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that took place a couple of weeks back. I had the privilege of attending with a few friends and also had my son in tow. It was good to take him so that he could not only understand the historical significance, but the cultural significance of the event as well. Jamie Foxx gave my favorite speech of them all. While we've come a long way, we've got a long way to go yet. Hopefully the torch that was passed to us to carry will be given to our future generations to carry on!

Full-Time Fatherhood

Well, well, well; so it's finally here. The time is now upon me to take the mantle and raise my child full-time. My son has been here a little over three weeks at this point and I must say that my fiancee' and I have adjusted pretty well. It seems as if he has too, at least on the surface... I know that raising a child 100% of the time isn't "easy" and much respect to my parents and all those who have and continue to do it. My son is a good kid with a good heart and lots of potential. I realize that my role is to nurture that potential and help mold him into a man. We've spoken frequently over the course of the past few weeks about his feelings around living here now. I'm sure as much as he's filled with excitement about his new school, the prospects of 9th grade and curiosity about making new friends, he feels the anxiety that accompanies missing home, missing the norm. My fiancee' and I have tried to reassure him that these feelings are indeed commonplace and he shouldn't feel guilty for speaking to the fact that he misses home and his mom, in fact I try to encourage him to have voice and speak his mind. I know that allowing him this ability leads to catharsis, and repressing these things lead to angst and uneasiness. The best thing we can can do for our kids is to validate their feelings and let them know that they are entitled to feel and express themselves without fear of being shut down or belittled. I know that this is a journey that I'm suited for. As I look forward to my wedding day and the prospect of future children, I know that this is invaluable practice. I watch my fiancee' and my son interact with each other and the ease they have with each other when they talk, even about the most serious of subject matter. I'm in awe of the respect and love they hold for each other and realize that this is a reflection of their love for me. For that I am truly blessed. Any initial nervousness I had dissipated rather quickly when I realized just how lucky I am to be able to have my son so close. In a time where we see our young men toeing the margins of society and falling victim to a host of social ills it feels good to know that now I don't have to listen to or attempt to pick up on verbal ques in his voice as he calls me when he gets home from school to see how his day went. Now I'll have the ability to see him day in and day out and the guesswork(somewhat!) is gone. I just happen to have the extra ability to pick up on the non-verbal ques that were honed over the course of the past five years that I've parented from distance. Gone are the days that I'm relegated to heading to Cleveland to see him, waiting for the school breaks and holidays or for summer vacation to spend an extended period of time with him. Gone are the days when I could essentially come and go as I please with no care of what time dinner had to be ready or solely being responsible for my schedule alone. Gone are the days when my fiancee' and I could walk around our place barely clothed as we watched tv or ate. But you know what? I don't find these things to be difficult of a trade off for the opportunity to raise my son into a man just as my Father did with me. I'm embracing full-time fatherhood and all that comes along with it and wish that more Fathers did the same. We must take interest in our children, especially our boys when they are constantly fed negative imagery of themselves or feel as if their lives do not matter as they meet death at the hands of each other or others as if it should be typical. When low-expectation for their matriculation is all they have to live up to or relay on some gross generalization of societal expectation that they have the false choice of only either being an athlete or entertainer to "make it" or be deemed successful. Full-time fatherhood is to fight against that negative gravitational pull and show your son there are other ways in which he can grow. To show him the importance of being a good husband to your wife and taking care of your family's needs financially, emotionally and spiritually. These things are all investments that we make as fathers to our children. However, out of all these investments, there is one that you either make or don't that you can never get back and your children will remember most; that investment is time. The time we invest in something shows not only others, but ourselves how important that thing is to us. Raising your son is worthwhile investment, one that money nor any material good can do for you. Welcome to full-time Fatherhood.

No Shame Day, July 1st/National Minority Health Month July

This was my favorite story from No Shame Day celebrated annually on July 1st to call attention to the need for mental health treatment, especially for people of color. We are shamed into believing that there's no need to seek treatment for our mental health and that's a HUGE disservice to our community. Do not let social stigmas keep you down! God can do all things, and you best believe when there's a problem, God also sees to it that there's a way to address it. You can't always pray away your "issues". Remember James 2:14-take steps to seek help if need be! Enjoy this testimony from homegirl Brokey McPoverty(not her real name lol)

America Has Lost A Generation of Black Boys

Who are young black women going to marry? Who is going to build and maintain the economies of black communities? Where is the outrage of the black community at the destruction of its black boys?

By Phillip Jackson

There is no longer a need for dire predictions, hand-wringing, or apprehension about losing a generation of black boys. It is too late. In education, employment, economics, incarceration, health, housing, and parenting, we have lost a generation of young black men. The question that remains is will we lose the next two or three generations, or possibly every generation of black boys hereafter to the streets, negative media, gangs, drugs, poor education, unemployment, father absence, crime, violence and death.

Most young black men in the United States don't graduate from high school. Only 39% of black male students graduated from high school in Chicago and only 26% in New York City, according to a 2010 report by The Schott Foundation for Public Education. In Chicago, only 3 our of 100 Black boys who attend Chicago Public Schools graduate from college.  In San Francisco, only one of 100 black males qualify to attend a public California university.  

Young black male students have the worst grades, the lowest test scores, and the highest dropout rates of all students in the country. When these young black men don't succeed in school, they are much more likely to succeed in the nation's criminal justice and penitentiary system. And it was discovered recently that even when a young black man graduates from a U.S. college, there is a good chance that he is from Africa, the Caribbean or Europe, and not the United States.

Black men in prison in America have become as American as apple pie. There are about 1.1 million black men in prisons and jails in the United States, more than there are people incarcerated in the entire rest of the world combined. This criminalization process now starts in elementary schools with black male children as young as nine and ten years old being arrested in staggering numbers according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education..

The rest of the world is watching and following the lead of America. Other countries including England, Canada, Jamaica, Brazil and South Africa are adopting American social policies that encourage the incarceration and destruction of young black men. This is leading to a world-wide catastrophe. But still, there is no adequate response from the American or global black community.

Worst of all is the passivity, neglect and disengagement of the black community concerning the future of our black boys. We do little while the future lives of black boys are being destroyed in record numbers. The schools that black boys attend prepare them with skills that will make them obsolete before, and if, they graduate. In a strange and perverse way, the black community, itself, has started to wage a kind of war against young black men and has become part of this destructive process.

Who are young black women going to marry? Who is going to build and maintain the economies of black communities? Who is going to anchor strong families in the black community? Who will young black boys emulate as they grow into men? Where is the outrage of the black community at the destruction of its black boys? Where are the plans and the supportive actions to change this? Is this the beginning of the end of the black people in America?

The list of those who have failed young black men includes our government, our foundations, our schools, our media, our black churches, our black leaders, and even our parents. Ironically, experts say that the solutions to the problems of young black men are simple and relatively inexpensive, but they may not be easy, practical or popular. It is not that we lack solutions as much as it is that we lack the will to implement these solutions to save black boys. It seems that government is willing to pay billions of dollars to lock up young black men, rather than the millions it would take to prepare them to become viable contributors and valued members of our society.

Please consider these simple goals that can lead to solutions for fixing the problems of young black men:

Short term 
1) Teach all black boys to read at grade level by the third grade and to embrace education.
2) Provide positive role models for black boys.
3) Create a stable home environment for black boys that includes contact with their fathers.
4) Ensure that black boys have a strong spiritual base.
5) Control the negative media influences on black boys.
6) Teach black boys to respect all girls and women.

Long term
1) Invest as much money in educating black boys as in locking up black men.
2) Help connect black boys to a positive vision of themselves in the future.
3) Create high expectations and help black boys live into those high expectations.
4) Build a positive peer culture for black boys.
5) Teach black boys self-discipline, culture and history.
6) Teach black boys and the communities in which they live to embrace education and life-long learning. 

NYPD data: Whites much more likely to be carrying drugs and guns than minorities

By Stephen C. Webster
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 14:08 EDT

 

• 1851

   
• 
• 

The report’s summary, first spotted by Think Progress, puts this striking divide in no unclear terms, explaining:In a detailed analysis (PDF) of publicly available New York Police Department data on crime in 2012, the New York Office of the Public Advocate revealed Wednesday that white people were much more likely to be carrying drugs and guns than minorities, despite making up a tiny fraction of individuals police subjected to so-called “stop-and-frisk” searches.

• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded a weapon was half that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered a weapon in one out every 49 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 71 stops of Latinos and 93 stops of African Americans to find a weapon.
• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded contraband was one-third less than that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered contraband in one out every 43 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 57 stops of Latinos and 61 stops of African Americans to find contraband.
• Despite the overall reduction in stops, the proportion involving black and Latino New Yorkers has remained unchanged. They continue to constitute 84 percent of all stops, despite comprising only 54 percent of the general population. And the innocence rates remain at the same level as 2011 – at nearly 89 percent.

In a separate analysis by the New York Civil Liberties Union (PDF), also published Wednesday, the group revealed that out of 532,911 stop-and-frisk searches in 2012, just 729 guns were found. By contrast, over 5,000 people were arrested for private marijuana possession, which was decriminalized city-wide in 1977. However, possessing marijuana within public view is an arrest-level offense, leading many officers to demand people empty their pockets during stop-and-frisk searches thereby upping the criminal penalties for simple possession.

As a result of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s insistence upon rampant stop-and-frisk searches, marijuana possession arrests have skyrocketed under his tenure. He attempted a fix last year by announcing that all lower level marijuana offenses would be dealt a ticket instead of a night in jail, in the absence of a law Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is pushing that would decriminalize possession across New York state.

“In the last decade since Michael Bloomberg became mayor, the NYPD has made 400,038 lowest level marijuana possession arrests at a cost of $600 million dollars,” a 2012 report by the Drug Policy Alliance explains. “Nearly 350,000 of the marijuana possession arrests made under Bloomberg are of overwhelmingly young Black and Latino men, despite the fact that young whites use marijuana at higher rates than young Blacks and Latinos.”

A class action lawsuit filed over the search practice concluded Tuesday in a New York courtroom with city attorneys arguing that even with numbers like these, there’s no evidence of racial discrimination. Clinton-appointed District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin — who said Sunday she is inclined to “treat the government as only one more litigant” without any “deference” to their authority — is expected to issue a ruling on the matter in the coming weeks.
——

[Photo: New York police officer on horseback. Stuart Monk / Shutterstock.com.]