Kate Anderson, a graduate student at the University of Arizona, recently conducted a study that showed people who experience racial discrimination have poorer health outcomes. African Americans are especially vulnerable to these symptoms. Anderson's results show 18.2 percent of black participants experienced emotional stress due to racial discrimination and 9.8 percent experienced physical stress.

Anderson’s study was brought up in the context of New York’s controversial Stop and Frisk policy, that allows police officers to stop anyone who looks suspicious. The policy is being challenged in court for targeting black and Latino people. Anderson’s results imply that the targeted population might be suffering from physical manifestations of racial profiling.

“Sometimes there are these unintended consequences of policy,” said Anderson, who recently submitted a paper for publication about the SB 1070 law in Arizona, that allows police to stop people they suspect to be undocumented, and ask for proof of legal documentation. “I don’t think anyone in Arizona was thinking, ‘Oh this is going to affect the health of this population’ -- but I think sometimes... the full manifestations of a law aren’t always thought through,” she said.

By: Joy White

Today, non-degree certificates are the fastest growing postsecondary credential in the country, and despite their proven trackrecord preparing students for jobs, there is a derth of financial aid. For example, people enrolled in child development certification programs have a much harder time finding financial aid than students enrolled traditional degree programs.

The New York Times forecasts that 18 out of 20 of the fastest-growing occupations in the nation will not require bachelor’s degrees. Economists note that certificates are often better options for students because they translate more quickly to jobs than traditional degrees. They also say certificates are better for the country because they would make the US more competitive in the global economy. According to a study from Georgetown’s Public Policy Institute, students with non-degree certificates in computer and information services earn more money than the majority of men and women with associate and bachelor degrees.

This story was published on Richmond Pulse.

By Asani Shakur

The “b-word” is so commonly used today, that it’s not really perceived as a bad word anymore. Young boys and girls hear it often in the music they listen to and other aspects of pop culture and they start using it themselves, without really understanding what it means.

Many of us, however, have made a conscious effort to omit the b-word from our vocabularies, along with other degrading words. The key word here is conscious. People who use the B-word are simply going off what they picked up as a child growing up, whether from people in their community, the mass media, entertainment, family members, or all of the above. The victims of the new colonization — or robots, as I call them — are just that. Robots do not have a mind of their own. A robot doesn’t think about why it’s operating the way it is. It just does what it has been programmed to do.

Here’s a scenario to illustrate the point: A woman in a store is getting off the phone with her girlfriend and says, “B—h, you crazy, I will holla at you later,” in an amusing tone. Another person at the store within earshot tells her, “B—h, don’t no one want to hear your conversation.” She flips and goes off. Then she gets in her car and calls her girlfriend up and says, “B—h, you won’t believe what this person just had the nerve to call and say to me after I hung up with you!” The irony of that…

By Donta Jackson

I met my first drone playing Call Of Duty: Black Ops. In the game, you can control one of these unmanned flying vehicles to hover and fire missiles to destroy enemy territory. In real life we also associate drones with death from above. The news constantly reminds us of their destructive power, but at a recent Brains and Beakers, Youth Radio’s science-speaker series, Chris Anderson demonstrated how drones can be constructive too.

By Brandon McFarland

This week, we take a critical look at the Steubenville, Ohio rape trial through the lens of social media, the juvenile court system, and sex education. A program organizer with 20 years of experience in sex education for teens discusses the connection between the lack of education about sex-ed and boundaries training for high-schoolers.

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By Davina La'Shay

A new website called Interrupt Violence allows anyone to set up a shrine online for people who were lost to gun violence.

Interrupt Violence is a transmedia community engagement campaign, created by Kartemquin Films with The Independent Television Service (ITVS) and The Mozilla Foundation.  It's part of the the Living Docs Project. The Interrupt Violence Living Shrines site was inspired by the 2011 award-winning film, The Interrupters.

Anton Seals Jr., a community engagement specialist in Chicago, helped produced the Interrupt Violence Living Shrines website about a year and a half ago.

The idea behind the Living Shrines is to keep memories alive. “As a way not to forget who those people are, we wanted to make something online that would keep those memories alive and allow people to tell their stories because usually you never hear those stories of Dameon or Frank,” Seals said.

Dameon Gault and Frank Parker are two of Seal's friends who died from guns. He made online shrines for them on the website as examples.

On the website, there are many different ways to show your respect and express your feelings for your loved one. Seals said, “You can essentially upload pictures of your loved one, favorite songs that remind you of that loved one, or something that kind of sets the mood. You can attach clips and you can do kind of a basic sketching, on a graffiti wall of the kind of stuff you would like to paint ... for that loved one.”

By Nick Miller

Researchers asked 160 high school students in New York to identify their close friends, regular friends and acquaintances, and then used the data to draw connections between friend circles and students' grade point averages, attendance and disciplinary actions, according to an article in Education Week.

The study, "Spread of Academic Success in a High School Social Network," used a social network approach to identify the relationships between students and their social circles. The study’s results showed that students were more likely to improve their GPA if they had friends who got good grades. Students who started with high GPAs who were friends with students with lower GPAs, were likely to see a decrease in their grades.

According to a 2012 study from the US Department of Education, high school graduates from low income households are 30 percent less likely to enroll in college than high school grads from high income families. The disparity widens even more when it comes to actually completing college. Youth Radio commentator Derek Williams describes the psychological hurdles teens often face when they don't matriculate to a four year college and lack a well trodden path to success.

In high school we are told what to do. We do it and then we’re rewarded in some way, whether it be verbal praise or a grade that tells us we’re doing well, but for those of us who graduate from high school and don’t go directly to a four-year college, we enter a transitional phase where there isn't a clear outcome to our efforts. The obvious pathway disappears.

Recently while celebrating my 21st birthday, I was forced to ask myself, “What am I doing with my life?” After almost twenty years of instant gratification, action and reward, I now find it difficult to invest in hard work towards “my future,” without knowing what that hard work is leading to, and I think that is also the case for many of my peers.

The Chicago Board of Education recently approved a new sexual health education policy, based on the National Sexuality Education Standards that were released in 2012. 

Under Chicago’s new policy, championed by Dr. Stephanie Whyte, Chief Health Officer for Chicago Public Schools, kindergarteners through 12th graders in Chicago will receive sexual health education that is tailored to their age group. The previous sex-ed policy in Chicago Public Schools had taught students “abstinence as the expected norm,” which according to Whyte, does not decrease adolescent risky behaviors.

When Whyte came into her position at Chicago Public Schools in January 2012, high school students in Chicago were twice as likely to have sex before they turned 13, than in the rest of the country, according to the Center for Disease Control. Between 2000-2006, young Chicagoans between 15 - 24 years-old saw a 42% increase in HIV diagnoses, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health. And 27% of Chicago high school students said they never received any instruction in school about AIDS or HIV.

Amidst the troubling data, Whyte saw an opportunity to revamp sexual health education, and connect it to several larger public health issues. She said the new sex-ed policy aligns with President Obama’s National HIV/AIDS strategy and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Healthy Chicago initiative.

Under the National Sexuality Education Standards, by the end of second grade, students should be able to use correct names for female and male anatomy, and explain why bullying is wrong. They should also be able to demonstrate how to clearly say no, how to leave an uncomfortable situation, and how to identify and talk with a trusted adult if someone is touching them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable. In fourth grade students begin learning about puberty and adolescence, and how to use contraception and prevent HIV in middle school.

(Photo: Marco Perez, a senior at Roosevelt High School, gained confidence from the school’s Dreamers Club. / Photo by Mitzy Ballesteros)

This story was published on Boyle Heights Beat.

By Mitzy Ballesteros

Seventeen-year-old Marco Pérez seems like an ordinary teenager. He wakes early each morning and rides his bicycle to Theodore Roosevelt High School. As a senior, he is applying to college. Yet he has a challenge unlike those of most other college-bound students. He is a “dreamer,” an undocumented immigrant student with dreams of legalizing his immigration status in the United States.

High school is a time when most teens struggle with belonging, but being undocumented can add to the feeling of alienation. Undocumented students often avoid being active in their communities to minimize the chances of getting caught by immigration authorities. “I had the fear of getting caught by cops, and I would fear going into deportation procedures,” says Pérez.

Well before President Barack Obama’s new policy toward dreamers opened up new opportunities, high school dreamers clubs have helped undocumented students like Pérez, providing guidance for continuing education and helping them find financial aid. The clubs also provide students with a secure place to fit, giving them the chance to lean on each other and share similar fears about their futures.

Eileen Truax, a journalist who is writing a book on the dreamers’ movement, says dreamers clubs have increased in the last three or four years, especially in states where there are significant undocumented teen immigrants.

“The main idea of these groups was to organize other students, to let them know that they have certain rights, that they can stand up for those rights, and they can fight for a better life,” Truax says.