i want to start off by thanking CNN for this story, I often feel as though when it comes to the black story, there is never enough time to tell the complete story, yet CNN's report showed both sides of the black community. The negative and the positive that faces black americans. I would like to start off by stating that i feel as though as a black women that i have to wear two hats, i'm first a women then a women of color. sometimes my only options is to let one outrank the other. Yet in the media i do feel as though they only show the negative images in the black community. Me and my cousin was raised from a family that started off in the projects. My great grandmother moved her children up north from down south so that they could make a better way for themselves. All three of my great grandmothers children strived to move themselves out of the projects and so thats what they did. We moved to a nieghborhood that at first was considered a middleclass neighborhood. All my friends had both mother and father including myself and so i never thought that i was any different. Yet as more blacks started moving to my nieghborhood, the neighborhood went down. Me and my friends was now considered sellouts or was accused of talking white, my thought is why is it because i talk properly that i'm considered to be talking white, why not congradulate that i'm educated. I feel as blacks, we have to stop hating on eachother. I went and got my education, i didnt have it easy, beacuse yeah i'm black, I dropped out of high school and was depressed for years, i fought hard to go back and get my g.e.d and then go on to college, So stop hating. but instead of doing the same thing, blacks feel as though,"I got to get mines, so i'm a take yours," why not get it for yourself. Now dont get it twisted, as i said i am from the projects and if needed i can act projectly. I choose to better myself, not just for me, not just for my kids, (That i had out of wedlock, so yes i'm a single mother.) but because i feel that because i'm from a people who broke down barriers. I vote because many of my people gave their lives, so that i can. I go to school for those girls who got blown away in the 16th street baptist church. I do it because i come from a line of women who never quit and did what they had to do to make sure their kids had, who washed clothes for the white man then walked home because of the unjustice in the riding of a bus. Me and my cousin, who i'm am proud to say graduated from Westpoint military college, did it becuse we are proud that we have the opportunity to do it because others have paved that way. As far as black men, i feel as though they have to step up and do a better job, like i said earlier i came from a family, but many blacks are growing up without fathers, it is so easy for a black man to walk away from their kids its scary. i have two kids and after six years, their father walked away, i take them to school, i pay for everything, i do it because thats what a women does for her kids. Why cant black men do the same. My mother was a nurse, yet my father was a janitor, yet he worked his ass off to make sure we had and he spent time with us. I didnt understand what happened, when the father of my children walked away because i always had my father. I feel really bad fro my children, because they want to see their dad and he's just not around. When my son has school, on fathers day, there are so many kids who dont know who their father is or they are simply not around, It's common now to be a single mother and i dont belive it's just a black thing. I feel like blacks need to come together again, i raise my children and i tell them everyday that they can be whatever they want to be. Someone tells you no, then you find away. I feel as though because i can they can. I feel as though men as well as women in the black community should take back their strength, it aint always the white man, blacks are their own worsed enemy. All black men arent rappers and/or sports stars and thats not all that we can do is entertain. Women need to express love and self respect to their kids, if you tell your daughter that you love them, she wont fall for anyone who tells her they love her and hurt her, if you say i love you to your son, he wont grow up to hit women and will have the repsect to better himself. Black people better shape it up. GO OBAMA!!!!!!