More here on Austin issues, from Austin Talks:

African Americans make up a disproportionate percentage of the U.S. prison population, black students drop out of school at alarming rates and are increasingly victims and perpetrators of violence, causing many of us to wonder why.

One reason could be the dissolution of the African-American family.

A good, clear, healthy treatment of the matter. For instance,

I’ve seen even further dissolution as my grandparents pass on. The role of the African-American family is shifting from a joint family base to a more nuclear based unit where individual families essentially are fending for themselves without much network to fall back on.

Not that the writer prescribes this or that. Rather, she talks about the problem, which is step one, of course. And she is writing for Austin Talks, a project of journalism students at Columbia College Chicago.

(I taught there some years…

For several months, my four-year-old insisted she wanted to dress up like a letter for Halloween. Yes, a letter. As in, “This letter states that, due to an overdue library book, you never actually graduated college.” *

This past weekend, Estelle “flipped her mind” and declared that she wanted to dress as a princess instead.  A Princess! Within seconds, big brother and I delivered an onslaught of white lies in order to shield her from the Princess Industrial Complex  (despite the fact that her last name means “King” in Poland, she’s not next in line for the Polish crown).

“You don’t want to be a princess!” Max declared. “Everyone else is going to be a Princess.” I took the deceit a step further: “You know Biscuit, there is a strict limit on the number of Princesses on Halloween, and all those spots are already taken.”

Satisfied with our explantion…