We need to get past the point where being black and a male means that I am likely to mug you for your wallet, likely to have a minus 15 on my IQ, likely to not go to college and likely to wear my pants below my arse.
John AmaechiMy particular interest area is working in issues of emotional literacy. What I see of the way that we educate boys and more than that, the way we socialize boys within their families and then in schools to me is tantamount to just removing any element of emotional intelligence from them.
John AmaechiCombining the lack of emotional literacy they may be imbued with, with the fact that if you're black you're not supposed to be that smart and if you... as a boy you're not even supposed to like school. All of the sudden you've got kids who are afraid, black kids and Latino kids who are afraid to be great, afraid to bask in the enjoyment of education, lest they be labeled less than black, less than Latino, less they be called the oreo.
John Amaechi