If you walk the campuses of many black colleges, you are bound to notice young female students strolling and talking, clusters of young women having lunch together, classrooms filled mostly with women. It’s impossible to miss the absence of male students and not worry about that. Young black men are not attending, or graduating from, college at the same rate as black women. Although their absence is more apparent at historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, black male students are scarce at colleges everywhere.

To say that Blacks are the majority of individuals who take advantage of government support is completely absurd and downright ignorant. Poverty does not disriminate. No one on this Earth's surface chooses to be born into a life of poverty. Everyone has a story to tell and anyone can fall on hard times, no matter how wealthy one may or may not be. Most people in America today will never take the time to sit down with someone who is downtrodden and try to understand their situation or the problems they are going through. That's the problem with people today. If we spent as much time showing compassion to our fellow human beings as we do judging them, the world would be a much different place.

Joel Ward is a class act. Instead of giving all the racist remarks and tweets much more importance than they deserved, he avoided letting it become a hysterical media mess and side stepped it by saying that a few fans let their emotions get away from them. I am a new fan of this hockey player and role model. This man is flying high above all that because he has class. Racists morons only embarrass themselves these days. Just let them keep talking.

It is so nice to finally hear someone say that there is no color to poverty. For decades the focus has only been on the African American community or the Hispanic community. Poverty does not discriminate against race, size, sex, or religion. We need to stop separating ourselves by color and look at ourselves as human beings that are all subject to the same illness, financial problems, and etc. When we start to look at ourselves as a whole and not separate parts of a whole, then our country will run as a whole.

An adolescent was killed going to the store to purchase skittles and ice tea prior to the basketball all star game. Trayvon didn't watch basketball due to an aggressive neighborhood watch man who has a history of assault and aggressive behaviors. If this was your teenage son who was stalked and killed for no reason, while talking on the phone with his girlfriend in the rain with his hood over his head, while being profiled as a criminal due to his "SUSPICIOUS" appearance would you want justice? My prayers are with the Martin Family, as crime victims, for the extreme pain their family is going through.

If nothing else, I took from this class that African Americans are the most resilient people on the face of the earth. After being mistreated, used and abused, in every single form and fashion since we were brought to the United States, we are still here. But now is the time to look inward and showcase the leadership and strength that has been in us from the beginning of time. We now have to expect more of ourselves. We are a tough people and we need that toughness more than ever now in order to become successful in this country today.

I was surprised to see an African-American president elected in my lifetime. I had not anticipated that. I think it's a very good thing for the country, even if one disagrees with the policies of this particular president. The interesting thing now will be to see if an African-American candidate from the opposite end of the political spectrum can ever be elected. If that ever happens, race will truly have receded in importance as a political issue in this country. I look forward to the day when politics in the U.S. really can be truly color-blind.

When we are judgmental about others, we tend to be judgmental about ourselves. By looking at only the outside of the person we then determine whether or not that person is good or bad, smart or not or even worthy of our time. We tend to put a label on people based on looks alone. When we judge people it is like we are making that person out to be someone they are not. Instead of immediately passing judgment, we need to understand and have compassion for that person – to put one self in their shoes. Often, we are so quick to make judgement of others that we fail to take notice of our own faults. We need to pay more attention to our own imperfections and learn to understand others. If we truly step back and take an objective look at ourselves, then perhaps we wouldn’t be so critical of others. We need to keep in mind that everyone has a story and if we show compassion instead of jumping to conclusions, they will reveal their true selves. Most people we come in contact with can even teach us something about mankind and about ourselves.

I don't understand how we, as Black people have created a culture where everyone is in a rut, and barely anyone shows the ambition to get out. Everyone wants to keep living the same way they always lived --like a slave. What is it about that lifestyle that appeals to us? The right to play the victim. When you think like a slave, you think that someone is always against you. You think you are being attacked all the time. This why so many of us are so sensitive and angry.

One of the most damaging features of African American stereotypes is the influence they have on young African Americans. When young people grow up under the stigma of these negative African American stereotypes , it somehow informs their psychology and these African American stereotypes bring about what Psychologists refer to as the self-fulfilling prophecy. Quite a number of African Americans do not even know that they play into and help to reinforce the African American stereotypes . They believe that the African American stereotypes have been imposed upon them and while partly right, they reinforce them through acceptance. For example, some African Americans do not aspire to higher education because they live under the African American stereotypes of being dumb and lazy. It is even more tragic to hear children label themselves according to these stereotypes. Historically some African American stereotypes labeled African Americans as servile, primitive and simple-minded. These African American stereotypes created negative stigmas for African Americans and since then these African American stereotypes have been upgraded and unfortunately expanded. The current African American stereotypes include criminal, poor, athletic, religious and musically gifted. Though some of these African American stereotypes seem to be positive, it does not make the practice of perpetuating these African American stereotypes right.

The debt is a huge result of Republican policies. Obama didn't plan on spending a lot when he campaigned in the Democratic primary of 2007. It was only because of the recession. He had to spend a lot. Banks locked up and nobody could get money. We would have collapsed without government spending. Was that what Republicans really wanted? I wouldn't be surprised -- a Black Democratic president with the economy crushed. Yes, that would indeed be the Republican fantasy. Obama's foreign policy has cleaned up a lot of our problems and by the end of 2014, we'll more than likely be completely out of Afghanistan. Republicans have a lot of fake arguments, but they were at the root of most of our problems. Obama is the leader to get us back on track.

In society, the use of the n-word has long been a topic of debate, especially in the black community. Personally, I feel that the n-word paints a verbal picture of negative stereotypes along with many other racial slurs used when describing Black people. with all other minority groups, there is little use of racial epithets to identify each other. When have you heard Latinos calling each other ‘Wetbacks'? I do not see this happening and why should it be happening to us? I see the word as being very degrading and animalistic. Nobody should use the n-word, even to refer to themselves. The elimination of the n-word must start somewhere. No other race, especially the white race should use the word "nigga" because it only reinforces 400 years of systematic oppression and pain.

All I could do was laugh at the ignorance of the girls in the video. The stereotypes along with the categories in which they placed African-Americans were completely ridiculous. The stupidity expressed in this video obviously started in their homes, as they were probably never taught to embrace others before passing judgement. This clearly shows that racism is still alive and well in America. The media just chooses to conceal it.