News flash: Life's not fair.

Last night I saw a "Charles Theatre special", you know, the type of movie where they should be handing out Prozac (or razor blades?) with the ticket stubs! It was an excellent documentary called Boys of Baraka, which follows the lives of 4 Baltimore inner city kids who are given the opportunity to be sent to a boarding school in Africa, 20 miles from the nearest town, for 2 years prior to highschool.

The movie began with a shocking statistic:
In Baltimore, 76 percent of black males don't graduate from high school.

"I'm not an emotional person but even I will admit (along with everyone else in the theater) that I was choking back tears from the very first scene. The movie is hard to swallow, especially because the roughest parts take place only blocks away. "

Its more than heartbreaking; it is absolutely devastating, yet simultaneously uplifting, because you can see that there is hope in the hearts of even the 'worst cases,' hope for thier futures, if someone is willing to step in and give them the opportunities so many others have and take for granted.

How did we let it get this bad? This is America, land of opportunity, the wealthiest country. For a parent to say that their children are safer being in Africa during a civil war then in Baltimore city, and "Sending these boys back to Baltimore city schools is sending them to jail" is sobering in its truth.

When you see the conditions at school, their home lives, neighborhoods, they don't even have a chance.