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It is a man-bites-dog story when I support or applaud something that former President Barack Obama says or does. You may recall President Obama started a mentoring organization called My Brother’s Keeper. This initiative attempts to provide a responsible, positive message for young African-American men, a demographic plagued by poor lifestyle choices like dropping out of school, having multiple kids out of wedlock with different women, drug and alcohol abuse, gang involvement, and criminal and obnoxious behavior. These urban pathologies have been triggered by what I believe is our most urgent social crisis in the black community—absent fathers.Recent empirical data shows...

Former President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that he plans to invite civic leaders to Chicago next month to exchange ideas and plan ways to solve some of the world’s common problems. The inaugural Obama Foundation leadership summit “will be a place to gather and learn from one another, and then go back to your communities to lead others in the hard work of change,” Obama said in a video and email released to supporters. The former president said he expects the summit, which will be Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, to bring hundreds of leaders from around the world. The...

Rick Ross’s ankle monitor went off while he was at the White House this weekend.The 40-year-old rapper — whose real name is William Leonard Roberts II — was in Washington, D.C. to support the administration’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which aims to keep young black people out of jail. Barack Obama had just finished speaking when Ross’s ankle monitor began beeping loudly, TMZ reported Monday.

President Barack Obama is launching a version of "take your child to work day" that's focused on America's science laboratories instead of its corporate workspaces. It's part of Obama's effort to encourage young people, especially girls and minorities, to pursue careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. [...] The students, including from communities aligned with Obama's "My Brother's Keeper" initiative, will participate in mentoring sessions, hands-on experiments and other activities. My Brother's Keeper is a public-private initiative started by Obama to help boys and young men of color stay on the right path. The White House Council...

Baltimore County schools are featured in a documentary that will air this weekend about President Barack Obama's initiative to help young men of color.. The film, which will run Sunday on the Discovery Channel and the Oprah Winfrey Network, is focused on the president's My Brother's Keeper effort, which uses private money to target job training and educational programs at young men. "I always see myself in them," Obama said in a portion of the documentary released Friday. "I do know what it means to come of age uncertain about your place and not clear about what it means to...

President Obama reflected on growing up as a young black man and relayed the example he hopes to show other boys and young men of color in a new documentary. “I want every young man who sees me to know that I’m not that different from them. I wasn’t born into wealth. I wasn't born into fame. I made a lot of mistakes but I kept at it,” the president said in the Discovery documentary, “Rise: The Promise of My Brother’s Keeper.” The president touted the work of the My Brother's Keeper initiative, which aims to help struggling boys and...

Cain was a witty fellow. He asked one of the best-known rhetorical questions, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Of course he was not. But that was irrelevant. He was covering up something. About what he had done to his brother. So, when I hear the phrase “my brother’s keeper,” I look around for casualties. Earlier this year we saw President Obama more than Abel to raise Cain’s phraseology. His “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative is a $200 million public-private partnership to help mentor and assist young black and Latino boys in maneuvering the admittedly treacherous terrain of growing up. Since this...

My Brother’s Keeper, the initiative introduced by President Barack Obama earlier this year, was a major focus of what was a full schedule of activities and events during the 2014 Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference weekend in the nation’s capital. This year marked the 44th year of the event. “Too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement, guilty of walking while Black, or driving while Black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness. We know that, statistically, in everything from enforcing drug policy to applying the death penalty to pulling people over,...

Broderick Johnson AprilDRyan @AprilDRyan The head of the the Obama Administrations My Brothers keeper Initiative,Broderick Johnson is attending Michael Brown's funeral Monday 4:34 PM - 23 Aug 2014 72 Retweets 25 favorites The Obama administration is sending Cabinet Secretary Broderick Johnson, an African-American who heads up an Obama initiative to help young black males, to lead the administration’s all-black delegation to the funeral on Monday of Michael Brown. Brown is the unarmed black 18 year-old robber shot dead in a confrontation by a white Ferguson, Missouri police officer two weeks ago in a case that has stoked racial tensions. Johnson’s...

A great paradox of Obama’s America is that racism has been so thoroughly condemned that it only rarely receives public /*0attention. To some extent, the election of a black president relaxed what remained of our national focus on race matters, it triggered a prolonged self-congratulation and a deceptive notion that we had reached an ending, a resolution. Obama himself is, of course, a sophisticated, and very particular, thinker about race on a number of levels -- as a child of a mixed marriage, he saw race from the inside out and the outside in; as a local politician, he ran...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama told a group of young black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian men on Monday that they need be proud of their backgrounds and draw strength from their cultures, but ignore people who accuse them of “acting white.” Obama shared the advice to the young men as part of his “My Brother’s Keeper” program that is marshalling private and public resources to help more boys from minority groups succeed, a program that he views as an important part of his legacy.

The notion that black men need to act, dress or speak in a certain way to be “authentic” is something that "has to go," President Obama said Monday at an event promoting his initiative to aid young men of color. "The notion that there’s some authentic way of being black, that if you’re going to be black you have to act a certain way and wear a certain kind of clothes, … that has to go, because there are a whole bunch of different ways for African-American men to be authentic," Obama said. "You don’t have to act a certain...

On February 27 of this year, President Obama launched the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative (MBK). MBK stands for the core principle that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should have the opportunity to succeed, and that your ability to get ahead should be determined by your hard work, ambition, and goals – not by the circumstances of your birth. Yet boys and young men of color consistently face some of the most severe challenges to success. We need make sure we’re giving all Americans the chance and opportunity to get a quality education, grow up in...

Another bizarre Obama holiday address… In his Easter Address this year Barack Obama reminds us that the great religions, including Islam, teach us to “love our neighbors as we love ourselves.” From the White House website: Hi, everybody. For millions of Americans, this time of year holds great meaning… …For me, and for countless other Christians, Holy Week and Easter are times for reflection and renewal. We remember the grace of an awesome God, who loves us so deeply that He gave us his only Son, so that we might live through Him. We recall all that Jesus endured for...

These results from Rasmussen poll done March 2-3 have got to be disconcerting for Obama. Obama’s voter base is unhappy with their life under Obama. President Obama is going to have to do a whole lot more than promise to make things better for young blacks under his new “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, because 71 percent of voters in a new poll say life for the group is the same or worse than before he came into office. Rasmussen Reports reveals that just 16 percent of likely voters believe life for young blacks has improved since Obama’s 2008 election, while...

Long before he arrived at the White House, Barack Obama was the son of a single mother, challenged and tempted by the same societal ills that disproportionately keep African-Americans impoverished and behind bars. Now the nation’s first black president is unveiling a new initiative aimed at breaking down those obstacles, and pledging to continue the fight long after his presidency ends. Joined at the White House by young men of color, Obama on Thursday was calling on America’s businesses, philanthropists and government leaders to join forces to put more boys on a path toward successful lives. Foundations were to announce...

President Obama will announce a $200 million commitment from nine foundations Thursday afternoon to bolster the lives of young men and boys of color. The funding is part of a larger initiative from the White House to bring private businesses, non-profits and local governments together to intervene in key moments in the lives of young black and Hispanic men to ensure they stay in school and eventually train for and get good jobs. As Yahoo News first reported, the cause will be a major focus of Obama’s—and the first lady’s—even after he leaves office. "I think it’s something that's deeply...

Many passages in Holy Scriptures implore rulers to treat the poor fairly. It is only a slight exaggeration to suggest God measures nations largely by justice towards "the least of these." Is charity best dispensed publicly through a secular state or privately by churches? Does Washington really not do enough? Let's not confuse justice with grace. Despite the demagoguery trumpeted every election, America's rich pay almost all our taxes while the less fortunate are net recipients of government largesse. Washington's focus has shifted from defense and foreign affairs into social programs advancing egalitarianism. The federal government's primary endeavor reflects paying...

Barack Obama's long-lost half-brother has surfaced in Kenya - living like a recluse on less than $1 a month and hiding his family ties. George Hussein Onyango Obama, 25, said he's embarrassed to reveal his identity - because he makes his home in a 6-by-9-foot hut on the outskirts of Nairobi while his world-famous brother is hoping to move into the White House. "If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related; I am ashamed," he told the Italian Vanity Fair. "No one knows who I am." Barack Obama, 47, wrote warmly about his youngest half-brother...