Before Sunday’s NFL game, five St. Louis Rams stood with their hands raised in a show of solidarity with Ferguson protesters. But…THE REAL PROBLEM IN AMERICA IS NOT YOUNG BLACK MEN BEING ARRESTED BY THE POLICE BUT RATHER THE MILLIONS OF YOUNG BLACK CHILDREN WHO ARE LIVING IN POVERTY.

The Rams players and the folks in Ferguson and other areas of the country have been demonstrating about the estimated 37,000 young black men being arrested annually in America by the police and they should be demonstrating about the 5,000,000 black children who are living in poverty in America. NOW THAT IS CRIMINAL!

These are children who receive little education during their early developing years. And according to Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed:

“A lot of what we think we know about the effect of poverty on a child’s development is just plain wrong. It’s certainly indisputable that growing up in poverty is really hard on children. But the conventional wisdom is that the big problem for low-income kids is that they don’t get enough cognitive stimulation early on. In fact, what seems to have more of an effect is the chaotic environments that many low-income kids grow up in and the often stressful relationships they have with the adults around them. That makes a huge difference in how children’s brains develop, and scientists are now able to trace a direct route from those early negative experiences to later problems in school, health, and behavior…The problem is that science isn’t yet reflected in the way we run our schools and operate our social safety net. And that’s a big part of why so many low-income kids don’t do well in school. We now know better than ever what kind of help they need to succeed in school. But very few schools are equipped to deliver that help.”

For the past 20 years I’ve been working on launching a new program that will educate young pre-school children living in poverty and relocate them and their families, on a voluntary basis, onto kibbutzim (plural for “kibbutz”) throughout America. It’s called “Kibbutzim Across America” and anyone who contacts me at marv@mindoversports.com will receive a free e-mailed copy of a news article that explains what a kibbutz is and how the program will work.