Surpassing Educational Boundaries: Criminal Intent?

The Internet is buzzing about President Obama's most recent State of the Union address, wherein he emphasized the importance of improving primary and secondary education in addressing social and economic issues and ensuring a better future for America. 

Sounds like a plan.

The unfortunate truth is that, not only is America as a whole lagging behind in education, some schools and districts don't have the money or resources to meet even minimal standards. The facts are well-known. Not all schools are created equal. Schools in poverty-stricken, low-income areas often face issues with violence and crime, and usually have lower test scores and dismal retention rates. In fact, according to an article in the Huffington Post, about 15% of schools account for over 50% of dropouts, the majority of those being Latinos and African Americans.  Although it's nowhere near impossible, this means the odds are stacked against our next Black president hopefuls.

One Ohio mother was recently jailed for trying to even that playing field for her children. Kelley Williams-Bolar lives in the projects of Akron, OH. She has been sending her children to school in a nearby suburban public school district for nearly three years. The students' grandfather lived in the more affluent district, and their mother used his address on school documents. The district hired a private investigator who confirmed the actual address of the students.

She has since been convicted of falsifying records, a felony charge for which she will serve 10 days in jail and 180 hours of community service.  The sentence sounds like a slap on the wrist in comparison to the original 10-year prison sentence, but the felony charge will remain on the mother's record, limiting her employment opportunities and probably barring her from a career in teaching .

Sounds like cyclical injustice to me.

I understand that the law is black-and-white. What Williams-Bolar did is clearly fraud; that cannot be disputed. However, we should be examining not only the "criminal activity" but the system that drove her to it. Something is flawed here.

Time Magazine Article
Change.org Article
Show Me Campaign

True Life: When Hate Kills.

 From an overhead view, we might've looked like a high school youth group or a church choir getting out of an evening rehearsal.  A couple hundred high school sophomores standing around outside a downtown chapel wearing matching white t-shirts and rainbow-colored bracelets.

Zoom in on the scenario. Get a little closer than panorama, and you get the image of the first funeral I ever attended. You hear his best friend screaming in the background for Ricardo to wake up. You see her falling to her knees, heaving and doing her best to convince herself this was some sick sort of joke.

But, it wasn't funny.

Ricardo heard a lot of jokes in his brief 15 years.  He was often the punchline.  There were a lot of one-liners. 

Faggot. Queer. Homo. Loser. Devil-worshipper.

But they weren't funny.

My friend Ricardo always had a smile for me on a bad day.  He wore mostly black clothing, braided rainbow bracelets on his wrists, and star patches on his backpack. From panorama, he was that "different" kid in the trenchcoat.  But when you got a little closer, he was good at keeping your secrets. He gave the kind of hug that makes it hard to breathe and hard to let go at the same time. He was the costume designer in my theater group. He was a kind-hearted person and a good friend. He was gay.



Zoom a little closer. You get a kid who wished he wasn't what he was. A kid who told me, when we dropped him off at home after the school dance, that home was the worst place to be--because while at school, he was a target-- at home, he was invisible.  A kid who, at the age of 15, had been kicked so many times, he'd rather hang from a showerhead than wake up in the morning.

I know that paints an unsettling picture.  Maybe I shouldn't have said it so bluntly? But I wanted to invite you into the reality of the first funeral I ever attended.

This is the reality for so many people in our country, people of all ages who are badgered, harassed, tormented, and mocked every day. Some of them are good people. Some of them aren't. But all of them are people, and none of them deserve to feel like anything less because of their sexual orientation.

Kim Kardashian poses for Adam Bouska's NOH8 project

October 11th is National Coming Out Day, an internationally observed civil awareness event for coming out and other issues in the gay community.

If you are supportive of Gay Rights, consider becoming a straight ally.

If your religious beliefs support that homosexuality is a sin, practice the tolerance of your Lord, and pray for the safety, acceptance, and deliverance of the gay community. We are all His children. Acts 10:28  Matthew 7:1

 If you absolutely cannot find any tolerance or understanding in your heart for these kinds of people, simply choose to live and let live.

For one person, that could be enough.

For more resources and information, visit these websites:

www.gladd.org

www.hrc.org

gayrights.change.org