White Boy Privilege

Introducing Royce Mann, an amazing 8th grader, and his poem, “White Boy Privilege.”

https://mic.com/articles/148386/8th-grader-royce-mann-understands-white-male-privilege-more-than-most-adults#.HvZFWjgyc

Excerpts from video:

It is embarrassing that we still live in a world in which we judge another person’s character by the size of their paycheck, the color of their skin, or the type of chromosomes they have…

We say that women can vote. Well, guess what, they can run a country, own a company, and throw a nasty curve ball as well, we just don’t give them the chance to…

I get that change can be scary, but equality shouldn’t be. Hey white boys, it’s time to act like a woman, to be strong and make a difference. It’s time to let go of that fear. It’s time to take that ladder and turn it into a bridge.

The dog days of summer

I’m melting. Seriously.

The Wizard of Oz and suicide

http://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/gallery/the-dark-and-secret-history-of-making-the-wizard-of-oz/ss-BBu6c6q

Dorothy’s Auntie Em, played by actress Clara Blandick, was perfectly cast as the tough, hardworking, farmer’s wife. As she aged, she developed arthritis, causing her to be in a lot of pain. In addition to the arthritis, she was also going blind. In 1962, Blandick overdosed on pills. She was found with a bag on her head and a suicide note that read, “I am now about to make the great adventure. I cannot endure this agonizing pain any longer. It is all over my body. Neither can I face the impending blindness. I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.” She was 81.

Just seven years after Blandick went on her “great adventure,” the lovely Judy Garland overdosed on barbiturates. The coroner ruled the death accidental. Garland, whose birth name was Frances Ethel Gumm, was only 47 years old at the time of her death.

If you suspect someone might be considering suicide, or you have struggled with those thoughts yourself, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Shootings of people with mental health disorders inspire less outrage

https://apps.bostonglobe.com/spotlight/the-desperate-and-the-dead/series/police-confrontations/

In the midst of impassioned national debate about race and policing, prompted by a spate of shootings of unarmed black men, shootings of people with mental health disorders have inspired less outrage. No national law enforcement database tracks police shootings of mentally ill people. Recent efforts by journalists to count them, notably at The Guardian and The Washington Post, found that mental health was a likely factor in at least one-quarter of all fatal police shootings in the U.S. last year…

In Massachusetts, where the suicide rate has long been lower than in most other states, the total number of suicides per year grew an alarming 47 percent from 2003 to 2012, from 424 to 624…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dylan-noble-fresno-police-shooting_us_577efcdce4b01edea78d494d

Cell phone video footage emerged this week showing police officers shooting a teenager to death at a gas station in Fresno, California.

The Fresno Police Department said the officers believed 19-year-old Dylan Noble possessed a firearm at the time of the shooting on June 25, but it emerged later that he was unarmed…

“When he gets within about 12 feet of the officers, he makes the statement ‘I hate my effing life,’” Dyer told local news station KFSN…

https://painkills2.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/suicide-by-cop/