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NFL’s McCourty Twins Raise Awareness and Funds via "Tackle Sickle Cell" Campaign (VIDEO)

By goodblacknews on October 6, 2014

Lupita Nyong'o Stops By "Sesame Street" to Talk About the Beauty of All Types of Skin

By goodblacknews on September 16, 2014

skin-lupita-nyongo
Academy Award winner and Lancôme Beauty Ambassador Lupita Nyong’o stopped by “Sesame Street” to talk to Elmo about the importance and beauty of skin.
“Elmo’s skin just happens to be very ticklish. Lupita’s skin happens to be a beautiful brown color. Skin can come in all different shades and colors. Isn’t skin just the best? However, ticklish or smooth or black or brown or white or tan, be sure to love the skin you are in.”
See video below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIC2hHECZ6Y&w=560&h=315]
article via newsone.com

Detroit Dad Dan Davis Turns Vacant Lot Into A Play Area For Kids & Adults

By goodblacknews on August 6, 2014

Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 3.32.37 PM
On the vacant lot next to Dan Davis’ house on Washburn in Detroit, there is a homemade movie screen, a bonfire pit, a swing set, a barbecue grill and weights for working out.
Across the street, Davis turned a stretch of lots into a go-kart track and athletic field ringed by a wall of tires.
It’s all part of his goal to transform his block on the city’s west side into a place where families can have safe fun close to home. He mows the grass up and down the street and makes sure there’s no trash on the ground.
“He’s like an icon around here. What he does for the neighborhood, people look up to him for it,” said one of his friends, Michael Knight, 51.
Detroit's Dan DavisDavis, 50, grew up in the area. As a child, he was always cleaning or fixing things. His mother made him clean up trash outside their house.
Inspired by an outdoor movie screen he saw at Campus Martius Park, Davis decided to build his own, using sheets of wood spray-painted white that he positioned on top of a metal stand. On warm nights, his neighbors gather around on lawn chairs as Davis uses a projector to play kid-friendly movies and music videos.
“Everybody comes out, about 10 to 15 people. … and then some people, they just sit on their porch and watch it, and it’s all good. It’s beautiful, lovely,” he said.
The same field holds a bench-press, dumbbells and a mirror. A few feet away sits a play set and swings. Basketballs and toys are scattered on the ground, and there is a sand pit for playing horseshoes.

Doc McStuffins Merchandise Garners $500 Million in Sales, Record for Toy Line Based on African-American Character

By goodblacknews on July 28, 2014
Natalie Elisabeth Battles, 3, of Arkansas, with her Doc McStuffins toys. She sometimes wears a doctor’s coat to preschool. (Credit: Jacob Slaton for The New York Times)

Jade Goss, age 2, looks as if she just stepped out of the wildly popular “Doc McStuffins” cartoon.  “She has the Doc McStuffins sheets. She has the Doc McStuffins doll. She has the Doc McStuffins purse. She has Doc McStuffins clothes,” said Jade’s mother, Melissa Woods, of Lynwood, Calif.

“I think what attracts her is, ‘Hey, I look like her, and she looks like me,’ ” Ms. Woods said of the character, an African-American child who acts as a doctor to her stuffed animals.

With about $500 million in sales last year, Doc McStuffins merchandise seems to be setting a record as the best-selling toy line based on an African-American character, industry experts say.  Its blockbuster success reflects, in part, the country’s changing consumer demographics, experts say, with more children from minority backgrounds providing an expanding, less segregated marketplace for shoppers and toymakers.

DocMcStuffinsBut what also differentiates Doc — and Dora the Explorer, an exceptionally popular Latina character whose toy line has sold $12 billion worth of merchandise over the years, Nickelodeon executives say — is her crossover appeal.  “The kids who are of color see her as an African-American girl, and that’s really big for them,” said Chris Nee, the creator of Doc McStuffins. “And I think a lot of other kids don’t see her color, and that’s wonderful as well.”

Nancy Kanter, general manager of Disney Junior Worldwide, which developed “Doc McStuffins” — and who suggested the character be African-American in the first place — said Doc’s wide-ranging fan base could be gleaned from a spreadsheet. “If you look at the numbers on the toy sales, it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t just African-American families buying these toys,” Ms. Kanter said. “It’s the broadest demographics possible.”

11 Year-Old Soap Maker Donovan Smith Donates Proceeds to Help Homeless

By goodblacknews on July 21, 2014

Donovan Smith soap maker
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Donovan Smith is 11 years old and has an amazing talent for soap making.  He is starting his own business, and he is trying to help people in the process, donating to the same organization that helped him and his mother find a home.
Donuts, ice cream and hamburgers—treats that look so good you could just take a bite out of them.  “Someone actually licked one,” said 11-year-old Donovan Smith.  That someone quickly regretted it.  The treats are actually Donovan’s soap creations.
He makes soap with Aloe Vera and goat’s milk for his bath product business, Toil and Trouble.  Donovan chooses the molds, the colors and the fragrances.  “Darth Vader smells kind of like cologne. I tried to make it smell what Darth Vader would smell like,” he said.
Once Darth Vader smells just right, he sells him and the rest of the gang at the Rail Yards Market in Albequerque each Sunday.  He is the youngest vendor there.  He said his Yoda soap is one of the best sellers. It takes about an hour to make twelve of them.
Twenty percent of the sales from his pie-shaped soaps will go to Supportive Housing Coalition of New Mexico, an organization Donovan and his mother, Casey, said helped get them back on their feet three years ago when they struggled with homelessness themselves.
“He was still going to school every day. I was having meltdowns during the day because I could not see this getting any better at all,” Casey said.
Casey is a former Navy cryptologist, still dealing with PTSD and a leg injury as a result of her time in the military.  She said she couldn’t find a job during the recession, hearing she was overqualified.  Now, with the support of local groups, she has a job, an apartment and a hobby, helping her son with his budding business of soaps.
“They’re fun and the fact that they have the potential to help someone else makes it even better,” Casey said.
To see video of this story, click here.
article by Lysee Mitri via krqe.com 

Sara Gibbs, a Nurse Who Adopted Baby Left On A Doorstep, Sends Her to College 18 Years Later

By goodblacknews on July 17, 2014

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Thinking she’d never become a mom, single nurse Sara Gibbs decided to adopt the newborn girl abandoned on the doorstep of a Corinth, Mississippi, doctor’s office. Eighteen years later, Gibbs is sending her adoptive daughter, Janessa, to college.
“I was single. I worked night shift. I worked 12-hour-nights,” says Gibbs. “There was nothing in my life that had prepared me for a baby.”
Gibbs says she wasn’t even on the schedule for work that day, but she was called in and among one of the first responders.  “I feel like it was divine intervention, it had to be, because I wasn’t even supposed to be there,” she says.
But with help from her pastor and her hospital friends, she found the courage to adopt Janessa.  “She always tells me that whoever my mother is did it for her,” Janessa says.  “She’s the best mom ever,” she adds of Gibbs. “She’s always been my mom.”
Janessa heads to college in the fall.
To see video of this story, click here.
article by Teronda Seymore via clutchmagonline.com

Mixed Remixed Festival to Host Largest West Coast Loving Day Celebration Tomorrow (June 14) in Los Angeles

By goodblacknews on June 13, 2014

Mixed Remixed Staff
Mixed Remixed Festival Founder Heidi Durrow (center); Festival staffers (l-r): Lesa Lakin, Jennifer Frappier and Jamie Moore

The Mixed Remixed Festival, a family festival, hosts the largest Loving Day celebration on the West Coast at the Japanese American National Museum in downtown Los Angeles (100 N. Central Ave.) tomorrow, Saturday, June 14, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Loving Day is officially held every year on June 12, the anniversary of the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia, which struck down all anti-miscegenation laws remaining in sixteen states.
The festival celebrates stories of the mixed experience and multiracial Americans, the fastest-growing demographic in the U.S., bringing together film and book lovers, innovative and emerging artists, and multiracial and multicultural families and individuals for workshops, readings, performances, and film screenings.
A fiscally-sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization, the festival is produced by New York Times best-selling writer Heidi Durrow and a talented staff of volunteers.
The event is free and open to the public. The complete festival schedule can be found at www.mixedremixed.org. Highlights include:
• The largest West Coast Loving Day celebration at 6:30 p.m. with the annual Storyteller’s Prize presentation and live show. The prize will go to Comedy Central’s hit comedic duo Key & Peele, award-winning writer Susan Straight, and Cheerios’ marketing team as part of a dynamic live show featuring comedians, musicians and spoken-word poets. This program is currently reserved at capacity, but any open seats near showtime will be offered to individuals on the wait list. Call (213) 293-7077 or email heidi@mixedremixed.org.
• Families can enjoy interactive craft activities all day as part of the Target Free Family Day; storytelling time with Sebastian Jones, co-author with actress Garcelle Beauvais of the children’s book “I Am Mixed”; and a writing workshop for kids with Lora Nakamura, author of “Bonsai Babes.”
• KPCC, Southern California’s largest public radio station, will produce a special panel called “#Multicultivate,” moderated by KPCC’s Josie Huang.
• Two award-winning feature films: “Sleeping with the Fishes” (directed by Nicole Gomez Fisher), winner of the Best New Director Award at the Brooklyn Film Festival, and “Closure” (directed by Bryan Tucker), a feature documentary about a transracial adoptee’s search for her biological parents. The latter screening will be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmaker and transracial adoptees and activists. The festival will also present a program of several ground-breaking short films.
• Readings by Krista Bremer, author of the hit memoir about her bicultural marriage, “My Accidental Jihad” (Algonquin Books); Crystal Chan, author of “Bird”; Chris Terry, author of “Zero Fade”; and many others. Skylight Books is the Festival’s official bookseller.
• Acting and writing workshops will be led by published authors and professional actors. Award-winning poet Aaron Samuels, author of the prize-winning “Yarmulkes & Fitted Caps,” will present a poetry-writing workshop; celebrated voice-over artist and acting professor Rayme Cornell will lead a voice-over class; and Khanisha Foster will offer a Performer’s Bootcamp. A complete list of workshops appears on the festival website.
• More than a dozen esteemed panelists will speak on diverse topics related to the mixed experience. Panelists include scholar Marcia Dawkins, activist/filmmaker Thomas Lopez, and YouTube’s Channing Sargent.
Festival sponsors include: Cheerios (Silver Sponsor), Japanese American National Museum (www.janm.org), Zerflin.com, Pitfire Artisan Pizza, Miss Jessie’s, and Poets & Writers through a grant from the James Irvine Foundation.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Beyoncé Donates $125,000 to Embrace Innovations to Help Save Infant Lives

By goodblacknews on June 13, 2014

"Charles James: Beyond Fashion" Costume Institute Gala - ArrivalsAccording to MTV Act, Beyoncé is donating $125,000 to Embrace Innovations, an organization that gives out little “sleeping bags” to keep alive underweight infants whose parents can’t afford (or don’t have access to) an incubator.
They aren’t actually sleeping bags, but they look like them, and they are lifesaving and easy to use. Thanks to Beyoncé, there will be pilot testing with these inventions in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda, and Beyoncé could be saving at least two thousand infants via her contribution. The baby warmers have already been used in some areas of the world, but this will ensure more parents are able to get them.
Beyoncé announced her donation while at Gucci’s Chime for Change anniversary party.  Since Chime for Change is dedicated to helping women, it was great timing.  Jane Chen, the TED Fellow and TED speaker behind the baby warmers, was thrilled by the support.
“She [Beyoncé] told me how incredible she thought the innovation was,” Jane said. “I think what struck me was how sweet and genuine she was—and just so excited about our work. One of my most memorable moments was getting to dance with her after we spoke.” Beyoncé’s publicist, who had given birth to a premature baby, also fully understood the importance of this invention.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Parenting: How to Help Build Friendships Between Typical and Special Needs Children

By goodblacknews on June 7, 2014

Parents can help smooth interactions – and build friendships – between typical children and those with special needs

By Lori Lakin Hutcherson

Xav & Soph
Good friends Xavier Hutcherson and Sophie Heifetz

Look at me! Why don’t you talk to me? What’s the matter with you? Do you have cancer?!
“A young girl stopped my son and started screaming at him,” says Monika Jones, describing an incident at the park with her 7-year-old son Henry, who was born with Hemimegalencephaly, a non-genetic condition where one side of the brain is abnormally larger than the other. Henry is non-verbal, and his behavior can be similar to that of someone with autism, including repetitive actions such as humming, flapping and walking in circles.
“The mom was on the phone and didn’t stop her daughter, just seemed to be totally oblivious,” continues Jones, co-founder of the Brain Recovery Project in Pasadena. “My husband was not oblivious and proceeded to let the mom have it. It was a sad moment for him to see another child do that to our older son.”
This type of interaction between typical children and kids with special needs is, unfortunately, all too common. My son Xavier, a first grader who gets around in a wheelchair because of challenges due to cerebral palsy, epilepsy and dystonia, hasn’t been screamed at but is often stared at in stores, at the park or at birthday parties.
Sometimes, he even receives fearful glances or full-on eye aversions. Like other children with disabilities, he is often ignored or spoken over as if he can’t respond or understand, or as if he isn’t even there. While most kids’ curiosity is harmless and vastly more welcome than avoidance, it saddens me when people bluntly ask, “Why is he in a wheelchair?” or “Why is he drooling?” without even introducing themselves or saying hello first.

A Good Start

As parents, it’s up to us to facilitate kind, respectful, and friendship-building interactions between typical and special-needs children. We can begin by assuming that people with disabilities can, and want to, interact with us. “Never underestimate their capabilities. Look at them as a whole individual,” advises Keely Arevalo, a special-education teacher at CHIME Charter School in Woodland Hills. Speak to the person – with their parent or caretaker – not about the person, Arevalo adds.
Modeling good conversation, Arevalo offers, is another major way parents can help. “Maybe say ‘Hey, how are you? How’s your day? It looks like you have a Harry Potter book. Did you read it?’ And even if the individual didn’t respond, that’s OK. Let your child see a good way to interact in those situations.”
Amanda Hsu, a case supervisor at Working With Autism in Encino, suggests finding similarities to create positive exchanges. “Let your child know that, just like they have things they like or don’t like, kids with disabilities have those same things,” Hsu says. “Finding common ground is a good starting point to focus on instead of focusing on the differences.”
Teaching respectful curiosity is another important thing parents can do, according to Fred Johnson, whose 15-year-old son Ulysses has Down syndrome. He advises parents to let their children know that it is OK to ask questions – within limits. “Role play with your kids,” he says, suggesting that you ask a question your child finds embarrassing, then ask how that makes them feel. “You don’t ask anything of someone you wouldn’t be ready to answer yourself,” is his rule.

Be Prepared

This kind of preparation helped Arevalo’s 5-year-old niece have a successful visit to CHIME. “I told her, ‘Every person is different, every person has different needs, different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. Despite those things, we’re all human beings, we all deserve to be treated fairly,’” Arevalo says.
Arevalo also taught her niece how to ask questions in an appropriate way.
“She did have questions and she did pull me to the side at an appropriate time,” Arevalo says. “The rest of the afternoon, she actually was gravitating towards the individuals with disabilities and wanted to sit with them and play with them. My niece looked past the disability and saw an individual.”
If you notice that your child is uncomfortable around people with disabilities, reassure them and encourage them to talk with you about it so that you can help. “Let them know it’s OK to have fears,” advises Arevalo. “Guide that conversation and say, ‘I noticed you looked a little bit uncomfortable’ to find out exactly what they were afraid of. A lot of times those fears will go away once there isn’t that unknown.”
Make your explanations age-appropriate. “For a 5-year-old, you want to explain it as simply as you can,” Hsu offers. “For example, ‘Maybe the little boy is in the wheelchair because he’s not able to walk, so the wheelchair is a thing that helps him move around just like you and I move around with our legs.’”

Taking the Lead

If your child becomes frustrated in trying to make friends with, or be a friend to, a child with special needs, remind them that friendship isn’t always easy. “Interacting or playing with your friends, sometimes that’s a difficult thing for some kids,” says Hsu. “Have your child come up with some ideas as how to engage that child.” You can help lead the way with questions such as, “What is your friend like?” and, “What do you think you could do to make her more comfortable?”
Parents can help by reaching out, too. “Sometimes it starts with the moms becoming friends,” says Jones. “That’s how you open up the friendship with the kids.”
For typical children, extending themselves to peers with disabilities is well worth the effort. “There’s a sense of, ‘I did something good,’” says Hsu. “It’s a two-way thing that’s a good lesson for both [the typical and the special-needs child].”
“Bring special-needs children to your parties. Ask for play dates after school, even if they’re wheelchair-bound and tube-fed and can’t talk,” urges Jones. “I wish every parent reading this article who has only typically developing kids would assess if their child has a friend with special needs. If they don’t, tell them to make one, and incorporate that child into your lives. If every typically developing child had one friend with significant special needs, then what a beautiful world we’d live in.”
Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson) is a film and television writer/producer, editor of the award-winning website, goodblacknews.org, and mother to Xavier (@XavysWay), one of the coolest kids in the world, who also happens to have special needs.

Building Bridges Between Typical and Special-Needs Kids

  • Model appropriate behavior. Greet people and ask respectful questions, so your children see how to do it.
  • Find common ground. Focus on similarities instead of differences.
  • Be inclusive. Invite special-needs children to a party, to play or join a group.
  • Assume ability. Always assume the child with disabilities understands you. Speak directly to that child and include them in conversations with parents or caregivers.
  • Open communication. Let your child know it’s OK to have fears and ask questions.
  • Don’t ask “What’s wrong with you?” or any question in a way that might hurt feelings.
  • Don’t exclude. Don’t assume a child with disabilities can’t handle a situation or activity. Let the child and the child’s family decide.
  • Don’t look away or avoid individuals with disabilities. Smile!
  • Don’t patronize. Most kids with disabilities like the same things their peers do.
  • Don’t touch without permission. Ask first!
  • Don’t pull your child away if they say something embarrassing. Use the incident as a teachable moment.

article via laparent.com
 

Obama Administration Lays Out Ways Groups Can Support Program for Minority Men

By goodblacknews on May 31, 2014
President Obama met with My Brother’s Keeper task force members at the White House on Friday. (Photo Credit: Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times)

The Obama administration announced recommendations on Friday on how public and private entities can participate in a White House initiative meant to support minority men and boys, including a move to focus on summer jobs and recruit adults who can serve as mentors.

“Already we’re seeing, I think, a much greater sense of urgency this summer about putting these young people in opportunities where they can learn the basic skills that they’re going to need to get attached to the labor market,” President Barack Obama said Friday. The former basketball star Magic Johnson and Joe Echevarria, who heads the accounting and consulting firm Deloitte, will help lead the program.

“We’ve got a huge number of kids out there who have as much talent, and more talent, than I had, but nobody is investing in them,” Mr. Obama said, adding that over the next couple of weeks, more specific programs would be announced.

The recommendations come three months after Mr. Obama announced the five-year initiative, called My Brother’s Keeper. Standing in front of a group of young minority men and executives from businesses and nonprofit organizations in February, the president recalled his own experiences as a black man growing up without a father at home and sometimes making “bad choices.”