Must See Documentary

- 'Colored Confederates:

Myth Or Matter Of Fact?'

News by Sergio | June 2, 2012

There has been a movement for the longest time by so-called "historians" who argue and claim to have definitive proof that there were many black slaves, up to over 90,000 some claim, who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

The reason why this fact hasn't been more well known, according to these mainly white Southern historians and defenders of "Southern heritage" , is because of an evil and diabolical conspiracy created by Union sympathizers and historians who have the audacity to claim that black slavery was a horrible and destructive thing - the lasting legacy of which we're still struggling with today.

In fact, they say it wasn't even remotely as bad as people say it was. It was simply one neighbor just helping out another neighbor in times of need.

Thankfully, educator and documentary filmmaker Ken Wyatt, has made a truly fascinating and much needed film to set this nonsense straight, in his new documentary, Colored Confederates: Myth or Matter of Fact?, which is now playing the film festival circuit here and in Germany, and will soon be screened at the Black Harvest Film Festival in Chicago in August.

Wyatt sets the facts straight and clears away this utter nonsense with clear analysis and undisputed evidence that there weren't any black slaves who fought for the Confederate, despite alleged "evidence" otherwise.

And besides, even the idea of such a claim of slaves fighting for the South is totally illogical. What slave owner would give a gun to one of his slaves, to use against the Union Army? The slave would have turned the gun on HIM instead.

However, as the documentary shows, not only are there many whites who truly believe that there were black Confederate solders, but it also explores some black sellouts as well, who defend the Confederacy and raised the rebel flag with pride, such as the amazing H.K. Edgarton (pictured above).

The trailer below gives you just a hint of this truly baffling person who travels around the South dressed in a Confederate solider's uniform, praising the Confederacy, slavery (which he likes to call the greatest gift God has ever given to America) and white sumpremacy.

Edgarton, is currently the chairman of the board of directors of the controversial Southern Legal Resource Center, which defends white racist organizations in court, such as the KKK  and was in fact, at one time, president of the Asheville North Carolina NAACP.

Well, that is until he was kicked out in 1998 "for not complying with the organization's rules," which is a polite way of saying because he was bat-shit crazy.

I would SO like to believe that Edgarton is really a performance artist and his whole act is really one big put-on, mocking the very beliefs and attitudes of the people who come to see him. Alas, he's for real folks.

As I've said before, I don't make this stuff up. Sometimes it just writes itself.

But do yourself a favor and check out Wyatt's documentary if you have an opportunity to do so. It's definitely worth checking out:

Andrea Kabwasa

by Mary Mills on January 26, 2011 · 13 comments

Andrea Kabwasa is a California surfer, artist, and teacher who exudes stoke every minute of the day. The joy she feels while surfing is evident in the style and poise she exhibits on every wave. Andrea exemplifies all that is right about this thing we call “surfing.”

What was your life like growing up?
Our family traveled a lot when I grew up. Every couple of years, we would pick up and move to a new, and very different, part of the world. It’s all kind of a blur really—except, of course, for bits and pieces that stayed lodged into my long term memory… like watching my parents dancing at a friends party in Ethiopia. They seemed really happy. Or drinking fresh spring water squirting out of a cliff in a jungle on our way to our family clan’s main village of Aten, Congo. I remember jumping into the Kwilu River in Kikwit. My sisters and I loved riding the river’s current. My aunts would always scream hysterically that hippos and alligators would eat us. We never believed it. Our dad said it was just superstition.

I also have memories of always wanting to be close to my sisters, Celine and Florence. Celine gave me backbone and exuded fun. Florence always let me sleep in her bed when I was afraid at night. I remember making my first free throw shot at a local park in Hawthorne, California. It surprised me so much I lost my breath. There are so many random, and not so random, memories scattered throughout my life growing up.

When did you get your first surfboard?
Age 32. That was the year of major epiphanies for me.

What was the feeling you had when you first stood on a surfboard?
I can’t remember really. I do, however, remember how I felt afterwards—happy. I had forgotten what that felt like, to be truly happy without a care in the world (even if it was only for an hour). Needless to say, I was hooked.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young woman?
What is young? I feel younger now than ever before. When I was 12 and under, I looked up to my sister Florence. At around 13 to 20 years of age, I looked up to my sister Celine and my mom. Between 20 and 30, I fell in love with artists. Charles White? His figures felt monumental to me. Jusepe de Ribera? His intense subject matter and masterful figure painting blows my mind. Basquiat? His paintings speak to me for their childlike style. Yet, at the same time, the paintings are complex and layered, like jazz music. Basquiat cracked that secret “kid” code. I envy that.

Of all the places you have traveled to, what place in particular stands out and why?
France, Southern Baja and Southern California are all important to me for different reasons. France stands out because of the traumatic boarding school experience. It haunted me all my life. Surfing and counseling was the cure. Southern California is the only location that has truly felt like home to me.

Southern Baja stands out as my place of rebirth. I had the longest noseride in my life in Baja. It lasted so long that I closed my eyes, looked up to the sky with my hands raised to the sky and said “Thank you.” This ride changed me internally, completely and forever. I found my heaven here on Earth while surfing. I feel so blessed, humbled and grateful for this opportunity to feel pure happiness in the midst of all the troubles that are occurring in our society.

Who or what inspires you?
Creativity, music, the ocean and wave riding.

What is the greatest thing you have learned in your life?
That is a tough question for me… I tend to look at life lessons in non-hierarchical terms. In my view, the act of learning is organic. I know that all lessons learned, lead to a healthier and happier me. If I had to choose a consistent theme in most of my life lessons, then it would to value “change”. Surfing is all based on movement and learning how to adjust/adapted to change successfully (without fighting it).

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done something differently?
Student loans. Oooooh, I regret them so much!

What are you most proud of?
Another tough question … I guess the moments in life that show me that anything is possible. I feel happier within myself these days. I’m proud of that.

What meaning does surfing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
Short version? Surfing saved my life. Long version? When I discovered surfing, I was trying to recover from the psychological effects and residue of an abusive relationship. Surfing gave me joy and happiness when I hadn’t felt happiness in years. I will never forget my drive home after my first surfing lessons. I was filled with a pure happiness, the kind of happiness that wasn’t connected to anything or anyone. I was simply happy.

So, for me, surfing is happiness, love and self-empowerment. The act of interacting with water cleansed my inner spirit. Before surfing, the lens from which I viewed life was pretty dirty. I was filled with low self-worth and, at times, I made some pretty self-destructive choices. Surfing redirected that energy in a positive direction. When I surf, I feel beautiful. I’m a starting to feel beautiful on dry land too now.

Did your artwork change when you started surfing? If so, in what way(s)?
My art work is a reflection of how I feel emotionally. Before surfing, my artwork had a sad, emotional undertone to it. Then, surfing allowed me to experience happiness on a daily basis. As I began to heal within myself, so too did my artwork. Lately, I mind surf on canvas. I paint my versions of what I believe Paradise would look and feel like. It’s fun to paint my surf dreams. The icing on the cake is when my surf dreams come true. That’s a total trip!

What brings you the most happiness in the world?
Happiness is those rare moments when you are so completely locked in, that you feel like you are dancing in harmony with life itself. Each wave has a different rhythm and a different dance. I like wave-dancing. It makes me happy.

Who are some of the people you feel are shaping the path for surfing today?
Cyrus Sutton is important. I love the “Surf Sufficient” posts on his website, Korduroy.tv. The site is all about helping you learn how to do-it-yourself. Learning to surf sufficiently is a concept that I hope will help shape the path for surfing today and in the future. I also think style will always shape the path of surfing. Surfers that stylistically excite me are Derek Hynd, Tyler Warren, Jimmy Gamboa, Julie Cox, Joel Tudor and Kevin Connelly.

What is your favorite board?
I have three boards on rotation. My Tim Phares Fluid Drive (Combat Model) is my favorite. Thank you, Tim!! I am more of a fin addict than a quiver junkie. My fins allow me to breathe new life into my old surfboards. I love figuring out how a fin’s design, and/or placement, changes the feel of my ride. I have fun exploring how fins enhance my sliding options.

Your favorite surf spot?
To date, Scorpion Bay, Surfrider Beach and Saladitas.

What’s your favorite meal?
My favorite meal is an Ethiopian meal eaten with friends and family. Ethiopian food is served in a huge round platter and you eat with your hands. You grab the food with a sour, doughy, flat, pancake-like bread called injera. For the appetizer, vegetarian samosas. For the main course, dorot wot, kitfu, awaze tibs, yellow and red lentils, cooked cabbage with potatoes and carrots along with fried trout.

What are you currently listening to on your iPod?
My summer downloads included Lauryn Hill’s “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind,” Xavier Rudd’s “No Woman No Cry,” Sublime’s “Doin’ Time (Uptown Dub),” Indigo Swing’s “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” Sade’s “Babyfather” and Kate Nash’s “Nicest Thing”.

What are you most grateful for?
I am grateful for my family’s love. I am grateful for the oceans and surfing. I am grateful for my drinking water. I am grateful for creativity. I am grateful for the students that I love to teach. I am grateful for Southern California weather. I am grateful for my friends. I am grateful for my planet. This list could go on and on. There is so much for me to be thankful and grateful for. Life is beautiful and I am thankful I have the opportunity to experience it.

What’s next for Andrea Kabwasa?
Some sort of change.

Photography credits: Ken Samuels (top photo, surfboard art, portrait). Barrel photo by Jack Hudkins and  soul arch photo by JD Massey.

__________________________

In this video, Andrea Kabwasa, a special education teacher, discusses one way she's been able to motivate one of her students with special needs, and the role of progress monitoring in her classroom.

Jackie Wilson

Jack Leroy "Jackie" Wilson, Jr. 

(June 9, 1934 – January 21, 1984)

Biography

In the annals of black music history, Jackie Wilson remains one of the most important entertainers of the genre, a showman known as "Mr. Dynamite" who influenced artists like Elvis Presley, a recording artist with close to fifty charted hits and arguably one of America's first black male superstars, rivaling Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and James Brown in terms of prominence and impact. With his dazzling live stage act, charisma and handsome good looks, Jackie built a solid audience for himself and tales are legendary of women fainting, crying and falling out as he would perform soulful hits like the 1960 million-seller "Doggin' Around" and "A Woman, A Lover, A Friend."

Born in 1934 in the Highland Park section of Detroit, Jackie's early interest was in amateur boxing but music played a significant role in his life: after singing in the local church choir, Jackie entered several local talent contests and in 1953, he was asked to replace Clyde McPhatter in the popular ‘50s group, Billy Ward & The Dominoes. Jackie stayed with the group long enough to enjoy Top 20 success with the 1956 hit, "St Therese Of The Roses" and the R&B hits "You Can't Keep A Good Man Down" and "Rags To Riches."

In 1957, Jackie went solo and was provided with an immediate hit courtesy future Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. who was just beginning his own songwriting career. The song, "Reet Petite" started a run of hits with writer Gordy that included the pop/R&B smash "To Be Loved" and the now-classic "Lonely Teardrops," the first of six R&B chartoppers for the man with an amazing vocal range. Jackie's natural falsetto and skill at singing in the upper part of his register meant that he could handle tunes like "Night," a gold single in 1960 that was actually based on a Saint-Saens aria!

While he did score a couple more hits with classical pieces - notably "Alone At Last" and "My Empty Arms," it was as an R&B powerhouse vocalist that Jackie Wilson thrilled packed theaters and nightclubs. Early '60s smashes included "Am I The Man," "The Tear Of The Year," "I'm Comin' On Back To You" and the frenetic "Baby Workout," all recorded for Brunswick Records which remained Jackie's recording home for his entire career.

Albums reflected Jackie's phenomenal diversity as a performer and included the best-selling 1962 set, "Live At The Copa" and six years later, "Manufacturers Of Soul" that featured Count Basie and his band. Ever popular as a stage performer, Jackie reinvented himself as a contemporary soul artist by virtue of late ‘60s hits like "Whispers," the classic "Higher And Higher" (a Top 10 pop and No. R&B hit in 1967) and "I Get The Sweetest Feeling," expanding his appeal to a whole new generation of record buyers in the process.

Jackie continued recording and performing until 1975 when he collapsed during a show at the Latin Casino in New Jersey. Suffering from the effects of a stroke, he spent his last nine years hospitalized, mostly in a coma, until he passed away on January 21, 1984. Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 1987, Jackie Wilson left behind an incredible legacy of recorded music, much of which has been made available again by Brunswick Records, and fond memories for all those who had the privilege of seeing one of the greatest entertainers in popular music in action, thrilling audiences with his own special brand of soul.

Contributed by David Nathan

http://www.soulmusic.com/

First Listen:

Whitney Houston sings

"His Eye Is On The Sparrow"

 

Whitney Houston's sad death at age 48 in February put to an end the life of one of the iconic performers of our time.  Fortunately for her fans, Whitney had completed her work in the upcoming musical, Sparkle, which is due to be released later this Summer.

The most buzzed about track from the movie is Houston's inspirational take on the classic Gospel hymn "His Eye Is On The Sparrow."

We have it as our newest First Listen. Check it out below and tell us what you think.

 

 

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Posted June 9th, 2012 by administrator

 

Competitions:

Frieze Writer’s Prize 2012

By Holly Bynoe Friday, June 8th, 2012  

Frieze Writer’s Prize was established in 2006 and is presented annually. The aim of the prize is to discover, promote and encourage new critics from across the world, and many of the previous winners and commended entrants have gone on to contribute to frieze magazine.

Aspiring writers are invited to submit an unpublished 700-word review in English of a recent contemporary art exhibition. Applicants must be over 18 years old and must not have had more than three pieces of writing on art published in a newspaper or magazine. The closing date for entries is 20 July 2012 and the winner of the prize will be announced in September. The winner will be awarded £2,000 and commissioned to write a review for an upcoming issue of frieze.

Sam Thorne, Associate Editor of frieze commented: ‘With the seventh annual Frieze Writer’s Prize, we’re proud to continue our commitment to discovering and publishing new critical voices. This year I’m excited to be sharing judging duties with Negar Azimi and Brian Dillon, whose work as both editors and critics I admire. That so many previous Writer’s Prize entrants have gone on to become regular contributors to frieze, as well as to other publications, is testament to the initiative’s importance. I’m looking forward to the prospect of discovering new writing talent.’

Conditions

–Entrants must submit one previously unpublished review of a recent contemporary art exhibition, approximately 700 words in length
–Entries must be submitted in English, but may be a translation (this must be acknowledged)
–Entrants must be over 18 years old
–To qualify, entrants may only previously have had a maximum of three pieces of writing on art published in any national or regional newspaper or magazine
–Previous online publication is permitted
–The winning entrant will be commissioned to write a review for frieze and be awarded £2,000
–Closing date is 20 July 2012 Entries should be emailed as a word attachment to writersprize@frieze.com. Please do not send images

Judges
Negar Azimi (Editor, Bidoun)
Brian Dillon (critic, novelist and UK editor of Cabinet)
Sam Thorne (Associate Editor of frieze)

http://www.frieze.com/writersprize/

 

 

 

Holly Bynoe is a Vincentian visual artist and writer based in the Caribbean, and a recent graduate of Bard College International Center of Photography where she earned her M.F.A. in Advanced Photographic Studies. Her work has been shown regionally and internationally, and has been featured in numerous publications.

The Bard Fiction Prize

is awarded to a promising, emerging writer who is an American citizen aged 39 years or younger at the time of application. In addition to the monetary award, the winner receives an appointment as writer in residence at Bard College for one semester, without the expectation that he or she teach traditional courses. The recipient gives at least one public lecture and meets informally with students.

2012 Bard Fiction Prize Recipient:
Benjamin Hale

The creation of the Bard Fiction Prize, presented each October, continues Bard’s long-standing position as a center for creative, groundbreaking literary work by both faculty and students. From Saul Bellow, William Gaddis, Mary McCarthy, and Ralph Ellison to John Ashbery, Philip Roth, William Weaver, and Chinua Achebe, Bard’s literature faculty, past and present, represents some of the most important writers of our time. The prize is intended to encourage and support young writers of fiction to pursue their creative goals and provide an opportunity to work in a fertile and intellectual environment.

Bard College invites submissions for its
annual Fiction Prize for Young Writers.

To apply, candidates should write a cover letter explaining the project they plan to work on while at Bard and submit a C.V., along with three copies of the published book they feel best represents their work. No manuscripts will be accepted. Applications for the 2013 prize must be received by July 15, 2012.

 

Contact the Bard 
Fiction Prize:

Address: Bard College,
PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
Phone: 845-758-7087
E-mail: bfp@bard.edu

 

Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award

For publication in the Los Angeles Review
$1000 Award
Deadline: September 30, 2012

Established in 2003, the Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award is for an unpublished poem. Awarded poem is selected through an annual submission process which is open to all poets. This year’s final judge is Cynthia Hogue.

Award is $1000 and publication of the awarded poem in the Los Angeles Review published by Red Hen Press. Entry fee $20 for up to 3 poems, maximum 120 lines each. Name on cover sheet only. Send SASE for notification. Entries must be postmarked by September 30.

Guidelines

Eligibility: The award is open to all writers with the following exceptions:

A) Authors who have had a full length work published by Red Hen Press, or a full length work currently under consideration by Red Hen Press;
B) Employees, interns, or contractors of Red Hen Press;
C) Relatives of employees or members of the executive board of directors;
D) Relatives or individuals having a personal or professional relationship with any of the final judges where they have taken any part whatsoever in shaping the manuscript, or where, for whatever reason, selecting a particular manuscript might have the appearance of impropriety.

Procedures and Ethical Considerations

To be certain that every manuscript finalist receives the fairest evaluation, all manuscripts shall be submitted to the judges without any identifying material.

Bios, acknowledgments, and other identifying material shall be removed from judged manuscripts until the conclusion of the competition.

Red Hen Press shall not use students or interns as readers at any stage of its competitions.

Red Hen Press is committed to maintaining the utmost integrity of our awards. Judges shall recuse themselves from considering any manuscript where they recognize the work. In the event of recusal, a manuscript score previously assigned by the managing editor of the press will be substituted.

Please submit materials to:

Attn: Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award
Red Hen Press
P.O. Box 40820
Pasadena, CA 91114
www.redhen.org

Red Hen Press will only accept submissions that have been mailed to the above address; please no email attachments or faxes.

May 16, 2012

‘Changing the Game’

from North Philly

to Wall Street

By BFC/A

Four days ago, Rel Dowel’s ‘Changing the Game,’ with Tony Todd, Irma P. Hall, and Kirk Jones, opened in 5 cities (Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, D.C., and Atlanta).  It’s been getting some great reviews and generating an amount of hype, with NYC Movie Guru calling the film “suspenseful, intriguing, wise and genuinely heartfelt.”

The synopsis:

An epic tale about a supremely intelligent young African-American male who rises from the ferocious and oppressive streets of North Philadelphia to being a shining star in the lucrative world of high finance at Wall Street’s most prestigious firm. However, he soon finds that the white-collar world is filled with crime and death just like the drug-filled hood he left behind. His only chance of survival is to fully integrate a mysterious gift from a slain childhood friend fully into the fabric of his character.

The trailer:

And some audience reactions from its premiere:

 

Gail Collins on

Texas’s Abstinence

Sex Education Problems

Jun 4, 2012 4:45 AM EDT

Gail Collins

The state pushes abstinence sex education yet it has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy. So why is the rest of the country paying half a billion dollars a year to support their teen mothers? An excerpt from Gail Collins’s new book, As Texas Goes…

 

Fact: Texas refuses to accept federal funding for sex education programs that teach kids how to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases with tactics other than celibacy. The reason, according to a spokeswoman for State Health Services, is that its “first choice is that teens chose not to have sex.”

Texas subscribes to the creed of America’s empty places. (Even though parts of it are actually getting quite crowded.) It’s an ethos that celebrates everyone’s right to be left alone, with no government telling you what to do. It’s an intense, deep-felt creed of personal freedom which for some reason does not apply at all when it comes to sex. Long after the Supreme Court struck down the state’s anti-sodomy law as unconstitutional, the legislature still refused to take it off the books. Texas regulations on abortion are among the most draconian in the country, and it pushes abstinence-only sex education in its public schools.

The state does not actually dictate what kind of sex education public schools should offer, beyond requiring that abstinence must always be presented as the best choice, and until recently, no one had any real notion of what was going on in all these classes. Then in 2009, the Texas Freedom Network, a liberal nonprofit, funded a herculean effort to come up with some answers. David Wiley and Kelly Wilson, two professors of health education at Texas State University, contacted every district and requested information on their sex instruction programs. Wiley said he was drawn to the subject since his undergraduate students regularly told him that they got little or no sex education in school. Also, he said, “Last year a sincere male student asked aloud, ‘What is my risk for cervical cancer?’”

The professors concluded that “abstinence-only programs have a stranglehold on sexuality education in Texas public schools.” More than 94 percent gave that instruction exclusively, while a small percentage completely ignored the rule that said they had to have something.

Most districts got their sex-education materials—and sometimes their speakers— from private vendors marketing programs like “Worth the Wait,” “Aim for Success,” or “W.A.I.T. Training.” If non-abstinence methods of preventing pregnancy came up in the class material at all, the researchers found, it was almost invariably in terms of condom failure rates. “Students, condoms aren’t safe. Never have been, never will be,” one abstinence speaker warned her classes. Students in another program were told to pass around a leaky balloon to illustrate the danger of using condoms. The teacher was instructed to tell the student left holding the deflated balloon at the end that “if he had been the one to get a leaky condom it could have meant he was at high risk or even death.” Another curriculum, “Why kNOw?” has the poor teacher construct an 18-foot-long model known as “Speedy the Sperm” to demonstrate condoms’ alleged failure to guard against STDs.

Kathy Miller, with the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, prepares to speak during a news conference outside the Capitol in Austin, Texas. She announced the release of a study that shows Texas is failing families and teens when it comes to sex education. The Texas Freedom Network is a watchdog group that focuses on public education, religious freedom and individual liberties. (Harry Cabluck / AP Photo)

“There’s this huge myth that if you promote condoms it gives kids a false sense of protection,” said Dr. Susan Tortolero, an expert in pregnancy prevention issues. “Seat belts have a higher failure rate.” The only foolproof way to avoid pregnancy is, of course, not to have sex. But once that horse is out of the barn, there doesn’t seem to be any effective way to get kids to refrain from having it again. That’s the point at which it becomes important that they understand the dangers of unprotected sex, and that sex with a condom is far, far safer than sex with nothing at all.

Almost 30 percent of Texas school districts simply relied on one of the four state-approved health textbooks, whose publishers generally opted for self-censorship and obfuscation. Three of the four never mentioned the word “condom.” (The other brought it up exactly one time.) The most widely used book, the imaginatively named Health, warned that “barrier protection is not 100 percent effective in preventing the transmission of STDs,” but never explained what “barrier protection” was. Another, Lifetime Health, listed “8 Steps to Protect Yourself from STDs,” none of which involved using condoms. One of the steps was “get plenty of rest,” which the book suggested would lead to better decision-making.

Quite a bit of the information Texas students are getting seems to have arrived from another era. An abstinence-only program used in three districts assures them that “if a woman is dry, the sperm will die”—which harks back to Colonial-era theories that it was impossible for a woman to get pregnant unless she enjoyed the sex. There are repeated suggestions that premarital sex could have fatal consequences—reminiscent of the 1950s’ legends about couples who had illicit sex in the backseat of a car and then were murdered by the Lovers' Lane Maniac. (A video used in three Texas districts has a boy asking an evangelical educator what will happen if he has sex before marriage. “Well, I guess you’ll have to be prepared to die,” is the response.)

As Texas Goes...: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda By Gail Collins 288 pages. Liveright. $25.95.

The biggest problem with trying to frighten kids, or shame them, into not having sex is that it doesn’t work. The schools may assure students, as one program does, that “divorce rate for two virgins who get married is less than 3 percent.” But most Texas high-schoolers are not virgins. Slightly more than half of 9th- to 12th-graders reported having had sex in 2009—higher than the national figure of 46 percent. By the time they’re seniors, 69 percent of Texas students are sexually active, and they indulge in risky behavior like sex with a large number of partners at rates higher than the national average.

A video used in three Texas districts has a boy asking an evangelical educator what will happen if he has sex before marriage. “Well, I guess you’ll have to be prepared to die,” is the response.

The state has the third highest rate of teenage births in the country, and the second highest rate of repeat births to teenage girls. Sixty-three out of every 1,000 girls between 15 and 19 years old becomes a mother. That compares to 5 out of 1,000 in the Netherlands, and 42 in the United States as a whole. Texas is also well ahead of Rwanda (44), Micronesia (51), and Egypt (50).

It doesn’t have to be that way. Back in 1992, California’s teen birth rate was about the same as that of Texas—74 births for every 1,000 women between 15 and 19, while Texas had 79. Then California committed to do something about the situation. California refused to take any money for abstinence-only education. It requires all of its public middle and high schools to teach HIV/AIDS prevention, in a way that stresses the superiority of the abstinence option while also giving kids all the facts about the importance of using condoms if one decides to be sexually active.

We know the consequences of a large number of teenage births. The young mother is more likely to drop out of school, live in poverty, and remain a single parent. The children themselves are more likely to experience abuse or neglect, end up in foster care, and, if they’re male, end up in prison.

Still, if you didn’t know better, you’d think there was a concerted effort going on in Texas to increase the number of children being born to teen parents. The state is also one of the most restrictive in the country when it comes to teen access to birth control. Even if a teenage girl has already given birth, she can’t get state-funded contraception services without a parent’s consent. In 2012, family-planning providers in Texas—a state with nearly five and a half million women of reproductive age—were receiving less than $13 million in government aid. One inevitable result is a huge number of poor women giving birth. Texas has the second-highest birth rate in the country after Utah, and nearly 60 percent of the women giving birth are low-income enough to qualify for Medicaid.

Now we’re getting into the national impact of the way Texas handles sex ed. Medicaid is a federal program, and more than half of that billion-dollar bill is paid by federal taxpayers. Happy to be of help—but don’t the rest of us have a right to demand that Texas at least make sure poor women who don’t want to be pregnant have easy access to federally funded contraception?

There’s also the matter of our shared future. Texas has had an 800,000 increase in the number of schoolchildren in the last decade, and all those youngsters aren’t going to be spending their lives within the state’s borders. Eventually, more than a tenth of the national workforce will be Texas-born.

When Texas decisions stay in Texas, the rest of us might be willing to let the state do what its elected officials like, even if that means educating its children that condoms kill and frigid women can’t get pregnant. But the decisions made about Texas sex education have echoes. They reverberate through the educational system, and then into the national workforce and the national economy a couple of decades down the line.

Jamaican

BLACK SURFER CHICK

Imani Wilmot

 

Source: Surf Girls Jamaica,2012

Jamaica is not only know for it’s track and field stars but for it’s surfers. The Caribbean island has a strong history of surfing dating back to the 1960’s. Imani Wilmot, 21, also referred to as Jamaica’s “Daughter of Surfing” is the country’s top female surfer. This past summer, Imani was the first Jamaican female to win the Makka Pro International Surfing Championships. At the age of 9, Imani began surfing, she learned from her father, President of the Jamaican Surfers Association, and brothers who are also  professional surfers. 

In the July 2011 issue of  Teen Spirit E-zine , Imani said, “ to me, being a surfer is a privilege. It really doesn’t matter if you are male or female ‘cause everyone has their own unique experiences with the sport. The only thing I wish, is that there were more girls participating in the sport.” Imani also noted that a lot of girls in Jamaica don’t have the opportunity to surf. To increase their involvement Imani created Surf Like a Girl, a summer camp in which she teachers girls how to surf.

Imani was fortunate to be awarded the International Surfing Association Individual Scholarship, this award has allowed her to gain more participation in competitions and develop her skill. Imani is sponsored by INSIGHT clothing and Quashi surfboards.

Jamaica’s “Daughter of Surfing” is making her ranks in the surfing world and planting seeds of social good for unprivileged girls in Jamaica. Major props to Imani!

Learn more about Imani!

 

Check out Imani’s Ripping Skills!

I was so excited when I first read about Imani and I love seeing a fellow Caribbean sister defying the odds in a male-dominated sport. She is inspiring both Caribbean girls and girls of color all over the world to become more involved in surfing. As we say in the Caribbean “it’s only forward we going from here” and female athletes like Imani are helping to pave that path.