Amazing 9 year old Asean Johnson brings the crowd to their feet at Chicago school closings rally
Asean (ah-Shawn) goes to Marcus Garvey Elementary School, slated for closure by the Chicago Public School administration, an un-elected board who’s members are appointed by Mayor Rahm Elmanuel, former Chief of Staff for President Barack Obama
Daaaamn. Watch this 9-yr old student stand up and spit hot fire at a mass rally against the Chicago Mayor and Public School administration who are trying to close his and dozens of other schools in mostly non-white neighborhoods.
The future of social justice activism.
Crying. Black and brown children shouldn’t have to grow up so fast. This kid is absolutely amazing, but I wish we lived in a world where he could just play with his friends, hang out with his family or spend time worrying about if that girl down the street has a crush on him, instead of having to take on the responsibility of advocating for himself and other black, brown and low income childrens’ education. POC kids can never just be kids, man.
"Short sleep duration and decreased sleep quality are emerging risk factors for obesity and its associated morbidities. Chronotype, an attribute that reflects individual preferences in the timing of sleep and other behaviors, is a continuum from morningness to eveningness. The importance of chronotype in relation to obesity is mostly unknown. Evening types tend to have unhealthy eating habits and suffer from psychological problems more frequently than Morning types, thus we hypothesized that eveningness may affect health parameters in a cohort of obese individuals reporting sleeping less than 6.5 hours per night."
Where the inspirational figure is selected for us, and the gap between their life and ours is too great, the effect is not one of encouragement but of disillusionment - especially if their story is told in terms of personal qualities like bravery or persistence.
Knowing a famous person has the same impairment as you can be reassuring, but only in the vague way that hearing of a successful distant relative is reassuring.
Most of us will never scale Everest, compete for our country at sports or have a showbiz career. This doesn’t mean we’ve failed.
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For BBC’s Mental Health Awareness Week, Mark Brownquestions the value of glorifying role models who share our own disabilities and pathologies.
A flipside of the same coin to consider is the perilous “tortured genius” myth of creativity, which implies that depression, addiction, and other mental health issues that plagued some successful creators were central to their genius. The human antidotes to this mythology are worthy role models.
