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As a young mixed race kid, the writing of James McBride relate to me on a very personal level as most of the things he questioned, doubted, and went through relating to race I am either going through it or have gone through it in the past. When I was reading the book, I almost looked to James as role model once he got his life back on track. The things that he’s been able to accomplish in his life despite his situation as a kid and all the barriers that stood in his way makes him an inspiration in my books. I respect him for going out, learning about his origins and where his mother came from despite the fact that he stuck out and was often ridiculed because he look different than the people of his origins that he was researching. James’ story taught me that no matter how low, down, or bad my situation may be, I should always continue to chip away at achieving my dream because one day I will achieve it. James was at a very low point in his life while he was abusing alcohol and multiple drugs but he was able to turn his bad situation into something and make a career out of music and writing. He also showed me how to learn about my origins something I plan to do one day. This book also taught me that love has no boundaries, no matter what the colour your skin, what you do for living, or who you are. Ruth, James’ mother, taught me many things throughout the book but the one thing that stood out to me was when she told James that God was the colour of water. The way I interpreted this is that God looks like no human because he doesn’t discriminate, we’re all his children, and he loves us all.

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Believe it or not The Color of Water is book of two memoirs one of James McBride and the other of Ruth McBride Jordan, who is James’ mother. These two memoirs are both an excellent read and I’m sure they both could make a great novel on their own, as memoirs generally do, they perfectly complement each other and for a couple reasons they make the other a lot more interesting although the memoirs never cross paths. A reason why this book is very intriguing is because of the fact that it is a memoir. The first person aspect of any memoir make us feel like were watching the events unfold right in front of our eyes rather than third-person novels which just feels like someone who’s watching the event describe it to is. The first is generally the more interesting of the two. The two memoirs take place in very different times as Ruth’s takes place in the 30s, 40s, and 50s while James’ memoir covers the 60ss, 70s, 80s, and 90s. One of the reasons that the book flipping back and forth between memoirs, a chapter of one and then a chapter of another, makes the book a very interesting read is because the chapters are constructed in a way to end on cliff hangers. When a chapter of one memoir ends you instantly want to read the next chapter of the same memoir but it’s not the next chapter in the book and you can’t just skip a chapter of the other memoir and then come back to it because that would be doing a severe injustice to the book. The last reason why this strategy is very compelling is because the two characters, Ruth and James, experience many of the same things but all very different things. Ruth dealt with racism because she was Jewish, while James dealt with racism because he was black. Ruth dealt with a pregnancy and abortion, while James dealt with alcohol and drug abuse. Two things that are very similar and two things that are very different but the one thing all of them have in common is that have the ability to have harsh consequences.

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Throughout Ruth’s journey in her flashbacks in The Color of Water two things were very evident to me, the first being that her Tateh (father), Fishel Shilsky, despised black people. The second is that racism was very prominent in the town she lived in as the KKK would frequently and casually drive through town and how the book explains how they’d capture black people during the night and kill them. Although racism has severely toned down in today’s society compared to the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s it is still a very large and dangerous social issue that seems to arise way too frequently. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Racism is an ideology that holds that humans can be divided into different racial groups, each with characteristics that are inherited and unchanging. Racism argues that those differences explain inequality in society.” Racism is the belief that one’s own race is superior to another or every other race. An article in the Huffington Post explains that in the year 2016 at least 258 black people were killed by the new version of the KKK in some people’s minds, the American police. 39% of these African American’s were unarmed and majority of the black people who were killed by police in 2016 were fatally shot. This article also states that The Washington Post found at least 232 people of African descent were shot and killed by police last year. 232. That is way too many people. The article 34% of all unarmed deaths in the U.S. in 2016 were black males, which is very disproportionate as black males only make up 6% of the population. In Ruth story during the novel, she described how black people would run and hide whenever the saw the KKK because they feared for their lives. Today, there are many African American people who run for cover when the see the police because they fear for their lives, even if it is just a routine traffic stop we fear for our lives.

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U.S. police killed at least 258 black people in 2016, according to a project by The Guardian that tracks police killings in America.

Thirty-nine of these people were unarmed. Four were killed by police stun guns and another nine died in custody, a continuing problem in American jails. But the majority of black people killed by police were fatally shot.

Based on a tracker from The Washington Post, at least 232 black folks were shot and killed. (The Guardian's figures include all deaths resulting directly from encounters with law enforcement, while the Post counts only people who were shot and killed by police.)

The Post found that 34 percent of the unarmed people killed in 2016 were black males, which is quite disproportionate since black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population. There was also a considerable uptick in deaths caught on camera via cellphone and police cameras.

Take the case of Keith Lamont Scott, who was shot and killed by an officer in Charlotte, North Carolina, in September. Scott was the 173rd black person to be fatally shot by police in 2016, based on The Washington Post tally.

Police were searching for another man when they came across Scott, who they claim was armed. Charlotte police Chief Kerr Putney said in a news conference on Tuesday that officers told Scott to drop his weapon, but that Scott got back into his car and came out again still holding the gun.

A woman who identified herself as Scott's daughter recorded the shooting's aftermath on Facebook Live. Scott, according to her and other witnesses, did not have a gun and was disabled. Scott's killing has touched off violent protests in Charlotte.

A day before Scott was killed, police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, released several videos depicting the death of Terence Crutcher. The 40-year-old was shot and killed by police on Friday after officers saw his stalled SUV in the middle of the road. Initially, the police department said Crutcher had not followed orders to put his hands up.

The released videos, however, show Crutcher walking toward his car with his hands in the air.

Warning: This video contains graphic content.

We've seen back-to-back deaths like this before. In July, Philando Castile was shot and killed in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. His fiancee, Diamond Reynolds, filmed a graphic video that showed Castile bleeding to death from gunshot wounds. The officer "shot him three times because we had a busted taillight," Reynolds says in the clip.

The day before Castile was killed, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old father of five, became the 135th black person killed by police in 2016.

Police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, fatally shot Sterling following an encounter with Officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake. The two officers were responding to reports of a man carrying a gun, threatening others and selling CDs in front of a Triple S convenience store.

Two videos of the incident, apparently filmed by witnesses, were released to the media. One showed a detained Sterling lying on the ground as officers hovered over him before shooting him at close range. A second video offered a clearer perspective, showing that Sterling wasn't reaching for his pockets and didn't have anything in his hands.

Since the 2014 death of 18-year-old Michael Brown at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri, the media has reported extensively that police arrest and kill black men at far higher rates than other groups. Six out of 10 black men say they have been treated unfairly by police because of their race, according to a 2015 study.

Based on The Guardian's data , black males between the ages of 15 and 34 are nine times more likely to be killed by police than any other demographic. This group also accounted for 15 percent of all 2015 deaths from law enforcement encounters, even though black males in this age range make up just 2 percent of the U.S. population.

In 2015, The Guardian estimates, at least 306 black people were killed by U.S. police. The Washington Post puts the number of black people who were shot dead in 2015 at 258.

Activists have called for diversifying America's predominantly white police force. But interactions between black officers and black civilians can be stained by violence as well. A 2007 study found that black residents of Washington, D.C., felt as though black cops treated them more harshly than white officers did. A 2006 study of Cincinnati police records discovered black officers were more likely than white officers to arrest black suspects.

"Race is a trigger for police brutality," Jack Glaser, an associate professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, told The Huffington Post in 2015. The reasons for this may lie in the history of policing in America and the fact that modern-day policing, at least in the South, can trace its lineage to slave patrols.

But statistics and history aside, Keith Scott, Terence Crutcher, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile didn't deserve to die.

"Sterling was a black man who lived in an America that consistently devalues, disrespects and destroys black lives," HuffPost Black Voices editor Lilly Workneh wrote in July. "Now is not the time to stay silent about these injustices. Black men and women have raised their voices to declare that black lives matter and to say the names of those who have died unjustly."

"Alton Sterling, father of five," Workneh added. "May he rest in peace."

Same goes for all the others. May they rest peacefully.

This post has been updated to incorporate data on police killings through the end of 2016.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article said The Washington Post estimates that police killed 285 black people in 2015. That number is actually 258. The article also previously misstated Scott's middle name as "Lamar."

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More Than 250 Black People Were Killed By Police In 2016 [Updated]

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Relating Teen Drug and Alcohol Abuse to The Color of Water

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Relating Teen Drug and Alcohol Abuse to The Color of Water

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The Color of Water touches on many things that happen in our world today from families struggling in the projects, high schooler turning to stealing, to selling and/or abusing alcohol and drugs because of their circumstances, who they hang out with, and/or they want to make money. It also touches on gangs, violence, death, kids flunking out of school, success stories, people wanting to discover their past, etc. The one that really stood out to me was how in life and in the book is how less fortunate kids are turning to stealing, doing drugs, drinking alcohol, and selling drugs and/or alcohol because of the circumstances in their life. There’s an article written by Carl Azuz of CNN that talks about high schoolers who abuse drugs during the day. It says that about 17% of kids in high school are abusing either alcohol and/or drugs during that day at school just like how James would drink, smoke, or do drugs any day at any time. The article continues to talk about how one of the reasons that kids turn to things of this nature is because of peer pressure. The survey conducted by Azuz says that about 75% of people from 12-17 are encouraged to party with either marijuana or alcohol, possibly even both. During his adolescence James was a frequent user or alcohol and drugs, one of the reasons he turned to doing these things was because of the crowd he hung out with. Imagine if James didn’t hang out with the wrong crowd and he didn’t abuse drugs or alcohol during his high school years. Maybe he wouldn’t have miserably failed those years of high school, his life would be completely different now than it is. Even though James life turned out really well right now this won’t be the same case for everyone person and it might ruin the rest of someone’s life.

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By Carl Azuz, CNN

( CNN) - About 17% of American high school students drink, smoke or use drugs during the school day, a new survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University says.

It's no surprise to their classmates, either: 86% say they know the 2.8 million who are abusing substances during the day, according to the latest version of the center's annual back-to-school survey. The estimate is based on information gleaned from telephone interviews with about 1,000 kids ages 12 to 17.

The survey found that 44% of high school students know a classmate who sells drugs at school, and 60% say that drugs are available on campus. Marijuana was the most-sold on school grounds, students said, as well as prescription drugs, cocaine and ecstasy.

Here are some factors that can increase substance abuse, according to the survey.
Peer pressure
It's not just chatter in the hallways that gets kids started on booze or cigarettes. Digital peer pressure is a problem, the study says. For example, the survey found that 75% of 12- to 17-year-olds say they're encouraged to party with marijuana or alcohol when they see images of their peers doing so.

Some 45% have seen online photos of their classmates drinking, doing drugs or passing out - a statistic that's up 5% since last year's survey.

Those who haven't seen these pictures are less likely to try drugs or tobacco, the survey said.
Public schools - and now, private schools
The survey suggests there's been a big jump in drug use in private schools.

In 2011, 36% of private school students said their school was "drug-infected." But in the past year, that figure jumped to 54%.

It was the first time in the history of the survey that a majority of private school students reported drugs on campus.

The overall proportion of high school students, public and private, who reported drug-infected campuses was 60%.
Parental involvement and faith
Teens who say their parents are more laid back about drug or tobacco use are significantly more likely to smoke or drink, according to the survey.

Teens who say they've been left alone overnight - almost 30% of those surveyed - are about twice as likely to have used alcohol or marijuana and almost three times more likely to have tried tobacco than teens who've never been left alone at night.

Faith plays a role here, too. Teens who regularly attend religious services aren't as likely to use illegal substances or tobacco.

The takeaway is "for parents to talk to their children and get engaged in their children's lives... It takes a teen to know what's going on in the teen world, but it takes parents to help their children navigate that world," said Emily Feinstein, CASAColumbia's senior policy analyst and the project director of the survey.
Do you think kids at your school regularly use drugs or alcohol during the school day or during nights and weekends? How could schools or families try to stop it? Share your comments and ideas below.

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Survey: 17% of high schoolers drink, smoke, use drugs during school day

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By Carl Azuz, CNN (CNN) -- About 17% of American high school students drink, smoke or use drugs during the school day, a new survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University says. It's no surprise to their classmates, either: 86% say they know the 2.

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James McBride, a man who has experienced many trials and tribulations throughout his life, is a mixed race person made up of Polish and African descent. I, Adam Trotman, a kid who is three years from twenty and finding his true passions every day, am a mixed race person made up of Italian and African descent. We both deal with all the problems mixed race people deal with: if we belong to our parents, how to identify, ignorant comments, etc. and if we were to stand beside each other we might look alike a little bit due to our fair skin but we have more in common than meets the eye. At times James explained that he felt embarrassed that his mother was white and visually completely different then him. He would continue to say that at times he didn’t want to go out in public with his mom because he looked black, she was white, and at the time it was frowned upon for a white mom to have black kids. Despite this, James learns to be appreciative of his mother and to never be embarrassed of her even if he’s different. Although I’ve never been embarrassed to go out in public with my mom because of that reason, I have been embarrassed of her because of that reason. This is because I was I was always the only one out my friends who had parents of different races. I have been embarrassed to go out with my mother before thought because at the time it seemed like she’d always do things to purposely embarrass me but looking back I was just being obnoxious. Just like James, I have learned to always be appreciative of my mother, to never be embarrassed by her, and to not care what others think about us. Growing up his mom and step-dad were always hard on him about his marks in school and he was a straight A student most of his life, there was a couple years during high school where stopped caring about school. Like James, my parents are always on my case about doing well in school and I have been a straight A student most of my life just like him, the only difference here is that I continue to care about school in high school.

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The Color of Water is the tales of two people’s lives, the first being Ruth McBride Jordan and the second being James McBride (Ruth’s son). James is a mixed race kid, his dad being Protestant African American and his mom being an immigrant from Poland, thus making him fair skinned. It is worth noting that James’ father, Andrew D. McBride, died five months and six days before he was born. Throughout the younger times in his journey, James is constantly dealing with people who question if he is his mother’s child due to the fact that they look nothing alike. In one of the earlier chapters in the book he explains that when he was really young his mother used to pick him up or drop him off from school. When she was doing this everyone used to stare at them and whisper things to each other; imagine the things that were being said. They definitely had to do with him being light-skinned and his mom being black, something that was very uncommon in those days. James admits that at times he was embarrassed by his mother because she wasn’t visually like him but he learns to be proud of her and that he is extremely lucky to have her. Defined by mixed race is an article on the Globe and Mail written by a girl one year older than I named Mckenzie Small who lives in Mississauga, Ontario. She too is a light-skinned person like James; she has a Caucasian mother and an African American dad. In her article she explains how people in her past and continue to always make comments about the fact that she looks nothing like her mother, like the people at James’ school when he was young. She tells a story from her life when she is 10 years that her mother and her were in the airport travelling to Florida and they were passing through customs. The custom guard pulled her aside and asked her if she belonged to her mother, Mckenzie said of course she did. She continues to explain how the officer gave a look that said it was impossible for a white mother to have light-skinned or partly black kids. Even though this experience has stayed in Mckenzie’s mind seven years later she explains, just like how James did, how she is lucky and proud of her mother even though they look nothing alike.

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She just keeps staring at me - as if I'm from another dimension - and then she asks the all-too-familiar question: "So what are you, exactly?"

I have to ask myself: Is she asking about my race or my species?

I'm mixed with more than one race. It has defined me a lot more than you would think. This part of my life shaped the way I grew up and I never really noticed until I got older.

Ever heard of the guessing game?

Probably not. It's a game people play where they try to guess where you're from, because "Canada" is never sufficient.

When asked, I could show my birth certificate that clearly states I was born 17 years ago at Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga - on Father's Day, 1999 - but that will likely still be followed by: "But where are you really from?"

I explain that my mom is Ukrainian and Polish and my dad is from Barbados.

"Wow! That's so cool!"

That's synonymous with most of the responses I get, with eyes that look at me as if I'm from another planet.

You might think I'm exaggerating - and I wish I was - but this is my life.

I remember travelling to Florida with my mom when I was 10 years old.

Looking back on it now, passing through customs was funny. I was pulled to the side and asked if I was my mother's daughter.

"Of course," I responded.

The officers just stared, as if it was impossible for a Caucasian woman to be walking around with a curly-haired, mixed girl. It takes two, last time I checked.

As time passed, I started to become more used to it.

This is what life is like. A blessing and a curse. Two cultures, two Christmases, so much good food - but a lot of questions.

Writing provincial exams is always fun, especially when you get to the survey and can only circle one answer for each question.

Simple as A, B, C, and 1, 2, 3, right? Not so much for me. When I get to "circle your ethnicity," I circle both "Caribbean" and "European," but that voids the question because you can only pick one. What happens when you have two or more?

When my friends see my father pick me up after school, I hear, "I always forget that your dad is black."

Yes, he is. (I didn't think it was something they tried to remember.)

I've lost track of how many times someone has said that to me. Or this: "So, which one of your parents is black and which one is white?"

Common to a lot of mixed children, I have tanned skin and curly hair. Yes, it's time to talk about the hair. Mine is a huge part of my life, believe it or not.

Of all the questions I get, most of them are about my hair. Most are complimentary and I appreciate and am grateful for them. But - I don't mean to be rude - sometimes I would rather not have your hands in my hair. Ha, ha, yes, it's hilarious how I could hide anything in it. Yes, I do brush and wash it. Nope, I'd rather not straighten it, I kind of like it. Fine, touch it. My hair is a mobile museum for some people.

Every time I go out it's the same series of questions from at least one person.

One incident I adored was the time I was in a lineup - waiting for funnel cake - when a woman asked for tips on how to do her daughter's hair. I gave her a list of what I use and do to keep it healthy and she was so thankful.

Or once when I was sitting in a café and a mixed woman came up to me and told me that I've inspired her to start embracing her natural hair. This community that I'm a part of gives me the opportunity to have many interactions with people that I otherwise wouldn't have had without my genes coming from two different places in the world.

Differences make you stand out.

No matter if you're tall, green-eyed, black, white, Asian or all of them. If there's one thing I've learned through my experiences, it's that it's something to be proud of. I have two very different sets of genes inside of me and I feel lucky to say so.

It's okay that I look a little different, my hair is a little bigger and my parents don't look like they're related to me, because, like Michael Jackson said, it doesn't matter if you're black or white (or both).

Mckenzie Small lives in Mississauga.

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Being mixed race has shaped my life, but I feel lucky to be different

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She just keeps staring at me - as if I'm from another dimension - and then she asks the all-too-familiar question: "So what are you, exactly?" I have to ask myself: Is she asking about my race or my species? I'm mixed with more than one race.

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“As I stepped on the bus she squeezed a bunch of bills and change into my hand. ‘It’s all I have,’ she said. I counted it. Fourteen dollars. ‘Thanks, Ma.’ I kissed her and go the bus to quickly to hide my own tears.” (McBride, 189).

James was about to take a big step in his life as he is about to go to college. He had had been accepted to a school in Ohio called Oberlin College and this was the moment he was leaving his mother to go. It was an emotional moment for both Ruth and James, Ruth had seen her eighth kid grow up from a small kid to a young adult and James who was leaving the one person he had spent his whole life with up to that point, but they had to get through it because it was next step in James’ life that he need to take. For Ruth that was her eighth straight kid she sent to college at that point, she ended up sending all 12 of them, which is an extraordinary accomplishment for a family and woman who had so little. The moment that really stuck out to me in this conversation is when Ruth gave James all the money she had, only fourteen dollars. To me this is one of the purest forms of motherly love, she was willing to give up all the money she had for one of her kids and it’s not like this is the first instance where she exemplified this type of love. Throughout her life as a mother she was always willing give up anything for her children and do whatever she had to do to help them succeed. That mindset is the reason she was able to send twelve, I repeat twelve, kids to either university or college even though she and they had so little. It’s not like they were rich, they were a very poor family, who at one point relied on donations from other families to survive. This quotation introduces the theme of motherly love and is testament to Ruth’s character as a person.

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Some of the things this book often touches on is the black-white relations and racial division in the United States of America. During the many decades this book took place in, there many occasions of racial division. There were many black people who hated white people, many white people who hated black people, many people who despised all races but their own. There were massive racial divisions at all times of this book especially in Ruth’s memoir. People thought that white people should only marry other white people, that black people should only marry other black people, most people throughout Ruth’s story did not like the idea of marrying or dating outside your respective race. Now, Ruth did care what other people thought and she married outside her race not once but twice. The black-white relations are at some of its’ lowest points during the novel and some of the recent happenings over the last few years would suggest that the U.S. is heading back in that direction. In the summer of 2016, two black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, were gunned down a day a part by white police officers. Alton Sterling was brutally murdered outside a convenience store on July 5th, 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Philando Castile was ruthlessly slaughtered while reaching for his ID during a traffic stop on July 6th, 2016 in Flacon Heights, Minnesota. Castile was shot at seven times by the one police officer. These two wrongful deaths caused an immediate reaction from the African American community as numerous riots arose all over the country. On July 7th, 2016 just a day after the second murder a black army veteran named Xavier Johnson mercilessly assassinated five police officers by the use of a sniper during a riot in Dallas, Texas. These three incidents are examples of the never ending racial divide between white and black people, one that will hopefully come to an end in the near future and never arise again.

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First came the cellphone video of an African-American man being fatally shot by a Louisiana police officer, and the astonishing live feed of a Minnesota woman narrating the police killing of her African-American boyfriend during a traffic stop. Then came the horrific live television coverage of police officers being gunned down by a sniper at a march protesting the police shootings.

And suddenly, the panoply of fears and resentments that have made this a foreboding summer had been brought into sharp relief.

Police accountability and racial bias have been at the center of the civic debate since August 2014, when a black teenager was killed by a white officer in Ferguson, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis. Mass murders in Newtown, Conn.; Charleston, S.C.; Orlando, Fla., and too many other locales have revived gun violence as a social issue and national shame. Both black anger at police killings and the boiling frustrations of some whites who feel they are ceding their long-held place in society have been constant undercurrents in politics since January and the Iowa presidential caucuses.

Now, in the space of three days, the killings of two black men by Louisiana and Minnesota police officers and the retaliatory murders of five Dallas officers, this time by a black Army veteran, have coalesced all those concerns into a single expression of national angst. In the midst of one of the most consequential presidential campaigns in memory, those convulsive events raised the prospect of still deeper divides in a country already torn by racial and ideological animus.

Since the Thursday night sniper attack the national conversation has swung between bitterness and despair over seemingly unbridgeable gulfs in society. The New York Post's front page blared "CIVIL WAR." The Drudge Report warned in a headline that "Black Lives Kill." Some Minnesota protesters on Thursday night chanted, "Kill the police."

Police officers and sociologists alike say that racial tension is approaching a point last seen during the street riots that swept urban American in the late 1960s when disturbances erupted in places like the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts and Detroit and Newark, during summers of deep discontent.

"Even in the 1960s and 1970s, when there was a lot of tension around policing and civil rights and the antiwar movement, we'd never seen anything like what happened in Dallas," said Darrel W. Stephens, the executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association and an instructor at the Public Safety Leadership Program in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University.

Mr. Stephens and other police officials said that departments were increasingly schooling officers in ways to avoid and defuse violent encounters with minorities. But other experts said the parade of cellphone videos depicting shootings of black men have only reinforced African-Americans' conviction that little has changed in six decades.

"There is a constant bombardment of images of brutality against African-Americans, and not just brutality, but state-sponsored brutality," said Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor and a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center. This week's videos, he said, were particularly devastating. "It's visceral," he said. "It hits you in the gut. It's emotional and graphic, so it makes you feel worse."

There are some parallels today to the 1960s. Those riots were largely touched off by violent encounters between blacks and the police. Scholars say and statistics show that attacks on police officers became an increasingly frequent African-American response to decades of inequality and mistreatment at that time.

The Kerner Commission, established by President Lyndon B. Johnson, reported in 1968 that "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white - separate but unequal." And a white backlash became a driving force in the presidential campaign that year that saw a tough-talking Republican, Richard M. Nixon, end eight years of Democratic rule.

Whether this week's violence presages a repeat of that history is, of course, an unknown, as the nation's first black president nears the end of two terms in office and the two political parties move toward their national conventions this month.

But racial tensions are clearly rising. A June survey by the Pew Research Center found that only 46 percent of whites surveyed thought that race relations were generally good, a sharp drop from the 66 percent who held that opinion in June 2009, shortly after Mr. Obama took office. For blacks, the corresponding decline - to 34 percent last month from 59 percent in 2009 - was even steeper.

The same Pew survey found that about three-quarters of African-Americans thought that blacks in their communities were treated less fairly by the police than were whites; a bare 35 percent of whites felt the same.

In the hours after the Dallas ambush, stunned officials and civic leaders pleaded for citizens to repair the rips in the nation's social fabric.

"Our profession is hurting," said the Dallas police chief, David O. Brown, who is African-American. "Dallas officers are hurting. We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city. All I know is that this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens."

The Rev. Bryan Carter echoed him at a Friday memorial service for the fallen officers, saying: "We refuse to hate each other. We commit to pray together."

President Obama, speaking on Friday from Warsaw, where he was attending a two-day NATO summit meeting, said of the police, "Today is a wrenching reminder of the sacrifices they make for us." He called the attack a "vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement."

In a presidential race in which racial and ethnic divisions have become an issue, both Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump canceled political events on Friday. Mr. Trump called the events in Texas "an attack on our country."

"It is a coordinated, premeditated assault on the men and women who keep us safe," Mr. Trump said in a statement. "We must restore law and order."

Mrs. Clinton wrote on Twitter on Friday, "I mourn for the officers shot while doing their sacred duty to protect peaceful protesters, for their families and all who serve with them."

But on social media, there were salutes to the sniper, blame of the news media for dividing the nation, charges that black protesters had spread hysteria, calls for love, fear of civil war and laments that the country is headed toward an unbridgeable divide.

The outrage & outpouring of support for fallen officers where there was silence and indifference in the last 2 days shows how divided we are
- Halleemah Nash (@halleemah) July 8, 2016

United we stand, divided we fall. I don't think this Nation has ever been quite as divided as now and it's mortifying and terrifying.
- Dolly Patrón (@TheDesertDoll) July 8, 2016

Some activists said their movement would press on, demanding that the police be accountable. Aislinn Sol, a Black Lives Matter organizer in Chicago, said, "The disproportionate state-sponsored violence against African-Americans has not changed," adding, "What we have seen is a change in the response."

In interviews, a number of police officials said that they believed the only lasting solution to the violence and division was to end the glaring inequalities that fuel them, but that they saw little hope for that.

"We're the most heavily armed violent society in the history of Western civilization and we dump this duty on 25-year-olds" in police departments, Ed Flynn, the police chief in Milwaukee, said in an interview before Thursday's killings. "The problem for American policing is we're learning the hard way that our political establishment finds it far easier to develop a constituency at the expense of our police than to solve these social problems."

Perhaps it was Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch who captured the day's mood. "This has been a week of profound grief and heartbreaking loss," she said on Friday. "After the events of this week, Americans across our country are feeling a sense of helplessness, of uncertainty and of fear."

"We must reject the easy impulses of bitterness and rancor," she added, "and embrace the difficult work - but the important work, the vital work - of finding a path forward together."

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police brutality  misconduct and shootings

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video recordings  downloads and streaming

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Shootings Further Divide a Nation Torn Over Race

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First came the cellphone video of an African-American man being fatally shot by a Louisiana police officer, and the astonishing live feed of a Minnesota woman narrating the police killing of her African-American boyfriend during a traffic stop. Then came the horrific live television coverage of police officers being gunned down by a sniper at a march protesting the police shootings.

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“You think if you drop out of school somebody’s gonna beg you to go back? Hell no! They won’t beg your black ass to go back. What makes you so special that they’ll be you! Who are you? You ain’t nobody! If you want to drop out of school and shoot people and hang out on this corner all your life, go ahead. It’s your life!” (McBride, 150)

During this time in the novel James was on the verge of dropping out of school, and was abusing drugs and alcohol so his mom would send him to spend summers with his sister Jack. While there he hung out with her husband and his friend, one of them being named Chicken Man. James had just gotten fired from a job pumping gas at a gas station after getting in a confrontation with his boss and a costumer. James, who was heated at the time of the firing, walked across the street and started ranting to Chicken Man about how smart he really was and that he should’ve shot them. Chicken Men became infuriated and dropped some knowledge for James. He ripped James apart and let him know that no one cares if he’s smart, that he’s no better than anyone else, that he’d go to jail, that he’d end up being a bum who hung out on this same corner and/or be killed if he continued to live the way he was living. When James heard Chicken Man speak to him in a severe way he’d never heard him speak before, he just brushed it off and just thought that he was drunk. It didn’t hit him until another guy named Mike, who encouraged James to get off the street, was killed. After this James started to get his life back on track and what Chicken Man said finally hit him, he could end up dead like Mike. After this James began to take his school more seriously than before and he started to avoid the crowd he drank alcohol or did drugs with. James developed into a more mature character who cared a lot more about his education and life than he did before.

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God is the Color of Water. Water doesn't have a color

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God is the Color of Water. Water doesn't have a color

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“’Oh boy…God’s not black. He’s not white. He’s a spirit.’ ‘Does he like black or white people better?’ ‘He loves all people. He’s a spirit.’ ‘What’s a spirit?’ ‘A spirit’s a spirit.’ ‘What color is God’s spirit?’ ‘It doesn’t have a color’, she said, ‘God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color.’” (McBride, 50-51)

This interaction took place when James was a very young boy and he had just become aware of the colors of skin and race in society, when one day he decided to ask his mom if God was black of white and who he loved more. Ruth, James’ mother, explained to him that God is a spirit that loves everybody equally and one that has no color, he’s simply the color of water. This passage introduces the theme that love has no boundaries. In my opinion Ruth is essentially saying that we are all children of God and he loves us all so how could love possibly have boundaries? If God can look past the color of our skin, are social class, where we live, our circumstances, etc. then why can’t we do this? Love has the ability to make us see past these things that shouldn’t be a reason not to love someone. Love makes us blind to all things that people say are supposed to prevent us from loving someone. A perfect example of this is Ruth, who has had two African American husbands and twelve mixed race kids. Her husbands and her weren’t supposed to fall in love because they were black and she was white but love made them she past that. She wasn’t supposed to have eight kids with her first black husband and for with her second but love made them see past that. Love has no boundaries because love is something we all desire and it has the ability to see the good in the worst people.

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The greatest success stories in life are about those who started with very little in life but took advantage of every opportunity they had and turned nothing into something. Throughout the McBride/Johnson family journey 13 success stories were created. There’s one for every kid in the family and there’s one huge success story for Ruth. This family was a very poor who had very little to begin and at times had to rely on others donations just to keep above water but they were able to turn nothing into something. The most important success story is the one of Ruth McBride Jordan who was able to create a very successful Baptist Church in Brooklyn with her late husband Dennis McBride. She was able to send all twelve of her kids and eventually herself off to post-secondary school, by doing which you could say Ruth accomplished her version of the American dream. Out of the twelve kids: nine completed post-graduate degrees, two attended Yale University, one at University at Pennsylvania, two at Colombia University, and one at the historically prestigious Howard University. If I was able to attend one of these very fine and well known universities; just by going to one of them a person could truly say that they have accomplished something great in their life. This story reminds me of the parable were Jesus was able to turn a very small amount of bread and fish into enough food to feed the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people that came to see Jesus at the time. The correlation I find is how Ruth was able to turn very little money and things in gerneral into a strong loving family, a successful church, and thirteen post-secondary degrees. These success stories are ones that should be able to inspire the masses as the McBride and Jordan clan were able make the best of their situation by turning nothing into something.

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We all love our mother’s very deeply, whether we’ll admit or not, because they play such a big role in our lives and who we become when we grow older. The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother is two memoirs, one about a man named James McBride, who mixed race person comprised African and Polish descent, which covers the 1960s all the way to the 1990s, and the other about his mother Ruth McBride Jordan, who is Polish, which covers the 1930s to the 1950s. The novel is one James dedicates to his mother as it tells the story of both of their lives. The reader is taken through the hardships both Ruth and James experience throughout their lives but also gets to experience the pure joy of their lives. Both of them exemplify resilience throughout their stories as the turn they unfortunate and bad circumstances they are face with into great accomplishments, both of them are true success stories. The book flips between the two memoirs chapter by chapter, which is done really as the two complement each other very nicely. The novel covers a wide range of social issues from sexual abuse to the racial divide between black and white people to racism to alcohol and drug abuse. The Color of Water also sheds light on the struggle for identity that many people in this world are faced or have faced in the past as James struggles for identity. He turns to many negative things because he didn’t know who he wanted to be or what he wanted to do, so he did what everyone in this world should do. He followed his heart and set aimed to make a career out of his two passions, music and writing. As you can tell from this book James has become a successfully writer and even though he isn’t as successful is music he continues to work on his two passions. While reading the book the reader will notices multiple themes such as ‘love has no boundaries’, ‘turning nothing into something’, ‘money over everything’, ‘motherly love’, etc. Ruth is a strong independent woman who was able to provide for a family with very little to her name and send all twelve of her kid to post-secondary school, many of them obtaining post-graduate degrees as well. If I were to rate this book I would give it an 8.5/10 because it tell two very compelling stories, that go hand in hand for some unknown reason, and it sheds light on many social issues that still occur in the world today.

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In James McBride’s The Color of Water, one of the themes that is very prevalent during the early flashbacks is Tateh’s money over everything attitude. When he opened his, not the families, grocery store everything was about the money, no time was made for anything else with the exception of the Sabbath day. Tateh has this enormous desire to achieve his version of the American Dream and to him money was the biggest part. He sacrificed actually loving his wide and his kids in order to roll in dough. He worked his kids past their limits and basically enslaved them, especially Sam, in order for his business to become successful which led to Sam leaving the family and running away. Tateh was also very tight with his money as he would rarely buy things for Ruth and when he went away on trips he knew around how much his store should earn with him gone. He would also scam any black people who shopped in his store by raising prices for them which means more profit for him. The same greed that drove away Sam eventually drove away Ruth from the family and when he begged her to come back it wasn’t because he missed her, loved her, or anything like that. The real reason he really wanted her to come back was because he needed her to help run the store once again so he could make the most amount of money possible. Tateh absolutely loved his money, he wouldn't let anything come between him and his money, money was his number one priority. Although Ruth parented her kids with different values, as a kid she was taught that money should be more important than family and everything else but luckily for her kids she did not follow in her dads’ footsteps.