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On Hardball Monday, MSNBC contributor Michelle Bernard said the U.S. is on the verge of experiencing a “genocide” of young black men. Bernard was on the program with the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson to discuss the ongoing unrest in Ferguson, Mo., following the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Bernard, who is black, said her 11-year-old son had asked her recently if someone was going to shoot him, as was the case with Brown. ADVERTISEMENT “I don’t have an answer that is palatable to be able to look my children in the face and say there are people in this...

Another little boy has gotten in trouble at school for having something that represents a gun but isn’t actually anything like a real gun. This time, eight-year-old Asher Palmer rolled up a piece of paper, called it a gun and pointed it at other kids, reports the New York Post. Officials at the special-needs school in New York City which Palmer attended then expelled him. The school is the Lang School, a ritzy private bastion which specializes in educating students with language difficulties. Annual tuition is $51,500. “Asher is exactly the type of student Lang is supposed to be serving,”...

On March 8th, Breitbart News was able to sit down with author and radio host Tammy Bruce to discuss the ongoing war against boys--especially as seen via zero tolerance school policies that result in suspensions for young students who pretend to point their finger like a gun. We asked her, "So many times we hear about 'the war on boys'--of a boy fashioning his hand or breakfast pastry into the shape of gun, then being suspended. What are we to think of this?"

Did an Ohio elementary school jump the gun in its punishment of a 10-year-old? Devonshire Alternative Elementary School in North Columbus, Ohio, suspended a fifth grader for three days after he pointed his finger in the shape of a gun at another student’s head. Paul Entingh said his 10-year-old son, Nathan, was just messing around during science class. "He asked his friend to borrow a pencil and when his friend dropped it, my son Nathan was playing around and he did that with his fingers. Pointed it at the kid, said 'boom,'" Entingh told Fox 28. Paul and Nathan were...

America's kids have been suspended for pretending that pencils were guns, but an Ohio school may have topped that. A 10-year-old student at a Columbus elementary school was handed a three-day suspension for making a finger gun and pretending to shoot a classmate. The suspension letter more formally referred to his weapon as a "level 2 lookalike firearm," reports the Columbus Dispatch. Devonshire Alternative Elementary School's principal says students have been frequently told not to play pretend gun games, with a district rep saying kids were warned consequences would follow. Those consequences hit hard last week for fifth-grader Nathan Entingh,...

More young men in California rise in pitch at the end of their sentences when talking, new research shows. This process is known as "uptalk" or "valleygirl speak" and has in the past been associated with young females, typically from California or Australia. But now a team says that this way of speaking is becoming more frequent among men.

As a binge-TV watcher, I’ve relished devouring serial dramas in advertising-free gulps. But “Breaking Bad” — the story about a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher turned clandestine meth-cooking badass – didn’t appeal. Then Anthony Hopkins declared it an “epic work” with “the best actors I’ve ever seen.” Midway through season two, I understand why Walter White is heroic. As men increasingly check out of work, marriage, and fatherhood, it’s hard not to root for a man fiercely determined to secure his family’s future before dying – despite his morally abhorrent methods. That there are dramatically fewer men willing and able to safeguard...

In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, Paglia, now 66, demonstrated that she has not strayed from her role as the self-described “notorious Amazon feminist” who is quick to lambaste the movement and its orthodoxy. Weiss observed, however, that the topic that gets the greatest rise out of Paglia is how attempts to dismiss the biological differences between men and women have influenced the collapse of Western civilization. The diminished status of military service is only the start of the decline of the culture, according to Paglia. "The entire elite class now, in finance, in politics and so on, none...

As school begins in the coming weeks, parents of boys should ask themselves a question: Is my son really welcome? A flurry of incidents last spring suggests that the answer is no. In May, Christopher Marshall, age 7, was suspended from his Virginia school for picking up a pencil and using it to “shoot” a “bad guy” — his friend, who was also suspended. A few months earlier, Josh Welch, also 7, was sent home from his Maryland school for nibbling off the corners of a strawberry Pop-Tart to shape it into a gun. At about the same time, Colorado’s...

A Suffolk school suspended a second grader for pointing a pencil at another student and making gun noises. Seven-year-old Christopher Marshall says he was playing with another student in class Friday, when the teacher at Driver Elementary asked them to stop pointing pencils at each other. "When I asked him about it, he said, 'Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy,'" said Paul Marshall, the boy's father. "It's as simple as that." Christopher's father was a Marine for many years. He thinks school leaders overreacted. "A pencil is a weapon when it...

SUFFOLK, Va. — Two Suffolk second graders have been suspended for making shooting noises while pointing pencils at each other. Media outlets report the 7-year-old boys were suspended for two days for a violation of the Suffolk school system’s zero-tolerance policy on weapons. They were playing with one another in class Friday at Driver Elementary. “When I asked him about it, he said, ‘Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy,’” said Paul Marshall, one of the boys’ fathers. “It’s as simple as that.”

Four years ago, psychologist Leonard Sax (MD, PhD) wrote a well-received book titled “Boys Adrift.” The doctor tried to answer the question, why have so many young males fallen into passivity and indifference? Dr. Sax had heard more and more parents complain that their boys stayed indoors most of the time, spent hours on video games, and in general seemed to lack the confidence and esprit de corps that had characterized boys throughout history. “Something scary is happening to boys today,” Sax concluded. “From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were...

A pervasive anti-boy culture is wrecking our nation’s very future. As I look at my 5-year old son, I hope that I am helping to mold a young man who lives his life with integrity and self-reliance, understanding the value of hard work and good manners and the true self-esteem that only these things can create within a productive life. I think my wife and I are doing well, being conscious of these things, but as I look around us, what is happening — what has happened — to a generation of boys and young men in America is saddening...

As one critic told me recently, the classroom is no more rigged against boys than workplaces are rigged against lazy and unfocused workers. But unproductive workers are adults — not 5-year-olds. If boys are restless and unfocused, why not look for ways to help them do better? As a nation, can we afford not to? A few decades ago, when we realized that girls languished behind boys in math and science, we mounted a concerted effort to give them more support, with significant success. Shouldn’t we do the same for boys? When I made this argument in my book “The...

One of Germany’s 16 states has declared circumcision legal, but only if performed by doctors — not, as required by Jewish law, by mohels. Berlin, Germany’s capital and itself a state, is the first to declare the practice legal following a Cologne court ruling in June that non-medical circumcisions on children amounted to a criminal offense, according to DPA, a German news wire. National legislation is pending to legalize circumcision. State Justice Minister Thomas Heilmann made the announcement Wednesday, saying he felt it necessary to allay fears in this “difficult transitional period,” the Associated Press reported.

Walking home this morning, I saw a frizzy-haired mother with a lefty vibe and Savonarola expression. Her young son ran in front of her, chasing pigeons. I listened, awestruck, as she admonished him thusly: "In your next life, I hope you come back as a pigeon, so you know what that feels like." Confused, the boy said, "What?" She repeated her wisdom in sterner tones. I'm dazzled by her genius at packing several soul-crushing blows into one sentence: 1) You're going to be reincarnated as punishment 2) Your mother eagerly awaits your eternal punishment 3) Walk robotically by my side...

A Rhode Island mother says her 8-year-old son's school would not let him wear a patriotic hat she says he designed for a project to honor Army troops because the school thought it was inappropriate. --- SNIP --- Morales said the principal at David's school called her to say the hat wasn't appropriate because it had guns, which violated a school ban on weapons and toy weapons.

As a volunteer in my daughter’s kindergarten class, I was asked to help children write a “story” (a few words) to illustrate their pictures. Only one girl needed my writing help; only one boy could write for himself. Nearly all the boys seemed to be a full year behind nearly all the girls in their ability to pay attention, follow directions, control frustrations, sit still, handle a pencil or crayon and do what used to be considered first-grade work. As reading and writing are pushed down to earlier ages, boys are struggling harder to meet higher expectations, writes Richard Whitmire,...

As a volunteer in my daughter’s kindergarten class, I was asked to help children write a “story” (a few words) to illustrate their pictures. Only one girl needed my writing help; only one boy could write for himself. Nearly all the boys seemed to be a full year behind nearly all the girls in their ability to pay attention, follow directions, control frustrations, sit still, handle a pencil or crayon and do what used to be considered first-grade work. As reading and writing are pushed down to earlier ages, boys are struggling harder to meet higher expectations, writes Richard Whitmire,...

Every time I write about how the modern culture seems dead-set on destroying the confidence of America's little boys, I am swamped with e-mail. It seems that everyone with a son or grandson has a story to tell about how manhood and chivalry are under attack. Last week I heard from a dad, Bill, who echoes the sentiments of many: "The boys are getting emasculated and wimpy/passive as they're now intimidated by girls due to fear of sex harassment charges and pro-female/anti male societal/educational tilts." Sadly, he's right. As a mom of two sons and a youth leader I have...