May2014

TRUST IN FAITH

MINISTRIES

“My dad and I had a

conversation February

2013 and I’m sure that

made what was plaguing

my family tree turn into a

healing process in com-

munications between

fathers and sons in my

family ..”

- K. Brown

In This Issue

From the desk of the President

Fathers Are Essential

Health News You Can Use

Our Supporters

Advertising Opportunities

Happy Birthday Ma! Your boy made it happen… just like he said he would.

May 30, 1947-March 13, 1999

Volume 1 Issue 1 May 2014

From the desk of the President It gives me great pleasure to present my first official issue of the Trust In Faith Newsletter. The research took me back to when I was a freshman or sophomore in high school. Only the info or contents would not be as in depth and have the effects that it has on today’s society. The motivation behind this was me having to deal with not hav-ing my father in my life as a youth and knowing how uncomfort-able it was at times to just be. My dad had his reasons but he also had help making those decisions he made to have my mom play both sides. My dad and I had a conversation February 2013 and I’m sure that made what was plaguing my family tree turn into a healing process in communications between fathers and sons in my family so I want to share how I fight the powers so that my sons won’t grow up making the same mistakes in choosing a woman like I did. He won’t be afraid of bullying like I did. My presence allows him to know somebody is always on his side. My presence shows him who he will be…my presence, my image is the blueprint of a man, father, entrepreneur! My dad, my granddad and I’m sure his did the same. The courts agreed to take all of my children and give 100% custody to the moms. I have 4 biological and one I raised like he was mine. What I have to offer them the courts seem to not want them to receive it. By my calculations I get one visit every two payments…that’s 65 days a year…not counting holidays.

The B.I.G.S. Project In each newsletter, I will explain how the B.I.G.S.

(Beginning is A Good Start) Project shows fathers

how important they are. We will discuss how to talk

to them and teach them the importance of being a

father in today’s society.

K Brown, President of TIFM

A Father’s Love

Academics Shawn Christianson and Jeffrey Stueve wrote about the importance of a father’s love for their children. The majority of social science research, they maintained, does not recognize suf-ficiently the bond parents form with children in their loving and caring of them. Not only is there little mention of love in family theory, but many contemporary theories focus on self-interest.

A father’s love for his children is often expressed in the sacrifices they make, whether in times of crisis or just in the everyday choices of family life. Obviously some fathers fail to take respon-sibility for their children, Christianson and Stueve acknowledged. At the same time, however, many do cooperate with their wives in raising their child.

Most research in this area has been done on fathers of younger children. It has shown that fathers are indeed capable of being sensitive to a child’s needs and can show affection.

Defining fatherly love is not easy, Christianson and Stueve noted. One way to do so is to demonstrate the way in which a father is present in a child’s life, helping out in physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs. The sharing of time, activities, conversation and self, means a constant support that children perceive as being enduring in their lives.

Children with fathers at home tend to do better in school,

are less prone to depression and are more successful in

relationships. Children from one-parent families achieve

less and get into trouble more than children from two

parent families

Fathers ARE Essential

When couples have a

strong relationship...

…they can use their differences to

complement each other, and draw

on each other’s strengths, and

there is a much greater likelihood

that both mother and father will be

good parents, he argued.


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Shingles

Angela Robinson

The Murray Clinic

The Shingles virus may already be in-side of you!

Shingles is caused by the varicella zoster virus, the same virus that causes chickenpox. After a person recovers from chickenpox, the virus stays in the body in a dormant (inactive) state. You cannot get Shingles from another person by sneezing, coughing, or casual contact. The only way to get Shingles is by first having chickenpox. Shingles is a rash that usually appears on one side of the body. The rash begins as a cluster of small red spots that often blister. The rash can also be painful. People who have medical conditions that keep their immune systems from working properly, such as certain cancers, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and people who receive immune-suppressive drugs, such as steroids and drugs given after organ transplan-tation are also at greater risk of getting shingle. There’s no real way to predict if or when it will happen to you. But the facts clearly show that the older we get, the greater our risk of developing Shingles.

Picture: Courtesy of CDC

R.M.C. by Cora Connor

R.M.C.’s primary focus is to increase awareness of a devastating disease

called renal medullary carcinoma. In April 2012 at the age of 26, my brother

Herman Connor was diagnosed with this extremely rare cancer that is linked

to the sickle cell trait. Our local hospital was unfamiliar with this disease &

advised us to seek a second opinion elsewhere. Through our own extensive

research, we found MD Anderson hospital in Houston, TX and have been

traveling back and forth for chemo, doctors’ appointments, etc. ever since.

It is our goal to raise awareness because this disease is prevalent within the African American community. Almost every African American knows someone who has the sickle cell trait or the sickle cell disease. Most doctors don’t feel that there’s enough research to know whether or not sickle cell trait carriers experience any symptoms, but we do know that this cancer has been linked to the sickle cell trait, and if you have the sickle cell trait, you ARE at risk.

This is a major issue that has not received the national attention that it deserves. Our long term goal is to financially assist with RMC research at MD Anderson Hospital, as they are the only hospital that I am aware of that is researching this disease. In order to achieve the goals of our foundation, it is important to establish partnerships with hospitals, news media and community organizations. Collaborative multi-institutional efforts are needed to better understand the biology of this devastating disease. Heightened awareness

may potentially enable at risk individuals to understand the importance of early screening.

Cora Connor Executive Director R.M.C.

P.O. Box 73156 North Charleston, SC 29415

(702)337.CURE (2873) http://www.rmcsupport.org/

Health News You Can Use


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Saving Our Sons: African American Males

A Dying Breed in America’s Schools

Anthony D. Greene, Ph.D.

African American Studies & Department of Sociology

College of Charleston

The American educational system is in a state of emergency. Not only are we lagging behind our global

counterparts in science and math, we are not providing the basic educational skills for our kids to participate at the

post-secondary level to compete. Despite knowing the struggles of the American educational system, many

Americans continue to regard education as the best means for upward social and economic mobility. It is thought

that individuals with educational credentials will have enhanced life chance opportunities. Thus, a general belief is

that education can equalize gender, social, economic, and racial-ethnic inequalities.

One cannot ignore the fact that inequalities exist on many levels within education: disparities in achievement and

attainment (Jencks and Phillips 1998), school resource inequality (Anyon 1997), and student poverty to name a few.

The failure of our children in schools is clearly and consistently documented as a result of many of these

inequalities. Unfortunately, many of our children who are failing are students of color and those who are

economically disadvantaged. Despite school district’s attempt to implement school reform efforts, African

Americans and Hispanics school performance continues to lag behind White/Asians. Lower economic students

continue to perform poorly on most measures of academic success compared to upper middle class students.

Among those who are ethnic minorities and from lower social class backgrounds, it is poor African American and

Hispanic male students who are at greatest risk for failure.

The educational decline of African American males continues to be a major social and educational debate today.

Empirical evidence continues to show that African American males arguably are the most “at-risk” segment of any

school population (Schott Foundation 2005). For example, they are more at-risk of not being able to read on grade

level than are other children in America (NCES 2003); they are most at-risk of being absent from school due to sus-

pensions (Kalodimos 2010), and most at-risk of being placed in special education and of dropping out of school

(Harry 2006). For these reasons it may be that African American males may have distinctive school experiences,

therefore are less likely to receive a quality education, a necessary condition for maximizing life’s opportunities.

The disproportionate failure of African American males in the educational system has been identified as a major

cause for their over-representation in the criminal justice system and high unemployment rate. For example, African

American males represent approximately 8.6 percent of the nation's K-12 public school enrollment, but make up

about 60 percent of all incarcerated youth (Schott Foundation 2005).

Student’s failure in schools is a multi-layered complex set of circumstances. Students who fail are not always poor

students academically. Some scholars argue that the placement of students in varying academic programs as early

as elementary school actually contributes and sometimes predicts how well or poorly students are going to perform.

This placement highlights elements of racial disparities, gender inequality and social class differences (Southworth

and Mickelson 2008). As a direct consequence of widespread and entrenched patterns of sorting students into aca-

demic courses/programs based on ‘ability’ in public schools, students of color, often experience differentiated class-

room learning opportunities. This ‘sorting’ of students, whether directly or indirectly, in theory, is designed to place

students into curricular paths that match their levels of ability (Oakes 2005).

The argument continues that if African American and Hispanic students are disproportionately represented in lower

level courses, they are not poised for the academic rigor required to perform at levels comparative to their White

classmates. Also, these students are most ready for the school-to-work transition rather than preparation for post-

secondary education. This outcome leads to disparities in the occupational field where students who were enrolled

in lower level courses are most likely to hold low-wage, menial occupations while college-prep tracked students are

poised for upwardly mobile, white collar occupations (Greene 2008). Because students primarily learn what they are


taught or exposed to in schools, the differentiated learning opportunities created by placing students in varying academic

levels have important implications for equality of educational opportunity, particularly for African American males

(Mickelson and Greene 2006).

The disparities can be seen across school districts in the U.S. For example, in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, among all

school suspensions African American students make up approximately 72% compared to only 22% of White students.

Among its special education population, 78% of CMS students are African American, with a significant proportion of

them being males (Mickelson and Greene 2006). Similar statistics can be found in other large, urban school districts

throughout the U.S. like Wake County (NC); Charleston County (SC); Dade County (FL); Chicago Public Schools, and

Baltimore Public Schools. School suspensions and special education significantly hinders the educational progression of

students. The fact that there are a disproportionate number of people of color, particularly males, increases the likeli-

hood of dropping out while decreasing the chances for post-secondary educational opportunities.

Dropout rates are at an alarming rate throughout the country (Rumberger and Thomas 2000). However, students do not

become dropouts the moment they leave school. Dropping out of secondary school is a process that develops over many

years and has multiple, dynamic, interacting causes. With limited foreseen options from education coupled with nega-

tive school experiences, dropping out becomes a primary option for many students. Unfortunately, African American

males’ dropout rates are consistently higher than other groups. For example, Baltimore, MD has one of the highest drop-

out rates among African American males and ironically African American male’s ages 16-21 are five times more likely

to be arrested for drug related offenses. The problem does not just exist as a problem of urban inner cities such as Wash-

ington, DC; Baltimore, MD; Charlotte, NC; or Chicago, IL. In Nashville, TN it was reported that upwards of nine

schools had suspended 50% of its African American male students (Kalodimos 2010). For example, Kalodimos (2010)

noted that one middle school suspended 58% of African-American boys but only 10% percent of its White male stu-

dents. Also, another middle school suspended 58% of its African American males while only suspending 13% of White

males. These rates have significant effects on students’ performance, self-esteem, and the like.

A central tenet of the American Dream is the promise that the United States is, by-and-large, a meritocratic society

where people enjoy an equal opportunity to achieve their goals through education. However, the promise hinges on the

existence of equality of educational opportunity. Unfortunately, this dream may escape people who fail to have an oppor-

tunity to obtain a quality education. Today, African American students academically perform at lower levels than their

White and Asian counterparts on standardized tests, continue to drop out of school at alarmingly high rates, and are dis-

proportionately labeled and placed in special education classes (Mickelson and Greene 2006). The statistics are most

acute for African American males and a growing number of Latino males. These series of events have significant rami-

fications for students’ eventual matriculation into post-secondary education and the workforce. One could argue that

despite the attempts to save our students by providing them with educational, social, and economic opportunities, schools

may in fact navigate students’ path differently. There is a segment of the student population that are prepared to go on to

post-secondary education and beyond, others being primed to take on blue-collar occupations, while some are destined to

fill our prisons. One must ask the question, why do African American males disproportionately fall into the latter cate-

gories and too few in the former?

How do we address this crisis? There is no one answer nor is there one solution to such a complex problem. In order to

address this cycle of negative school outcomes, attention needs to be directed to efforts in the educational sector that will

challenge the ways in which many Black males experience school. This attention and efforts must first begin in the

home, accompanied by community efforts, as well as school officials. A call for policy implementation at the federal lev-

el could begin to place more attention on one of the most significant academic problems currently facing schools today.


Published by Alcox Enterprises, LLC [email protected]

“The distance between a

dream and reality is

discipline. The struggle

for success is a test to

one’s discipline. Stay

consciously aware of all

things in and around

you, so that your dream

becomes reality. Remain

disciplined”

Khalid Gadsden

Owner of Lucciono’s 2x

Platinum Salon

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May2014

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