PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh (https://www.publicsource.org/category/first-person/)
I attended inpatient rehab again, and when my mother wouldn't let me live at home, my only option came to be a three-quarter house. It worked for me and, while I acknowledge the opinions of those who criticize three-quarter houses, this is my story.
From 2017 to 2018, I investigated the opioid crisis in Southwestern Pennsylvania while my father was homeless in Pittsburgh. He was dying in the street as I wrote about others experiencing the same reality.
About 14% of poor white people in Pittsburgh lived in high-poverty neighborhoods (those with 30% poverty or more), but a staggering 59% of poor black people did, according to an analysis I completed using data from 2017 American Community Survey estimates. These trends are alarming.
There are many forms of safety for school crossings that are expensive, but high-visibility paint for crosswalks to a school — how hard can that be?
I have been teaching in the Pittsburgh area for the past decade. I chose a career in public education because I couldn’t imagine a better way to change the world. Teachers educate and inspire the young people who will be the leaders of tomorrow. When I walk into my classroom, I’m witnessing the future take shape.
But it’s tough being a teacher, and it’s even tougher living on a teacher’s salary.
I’m juggling a lot: My own business. My three boys and what seems like all-day potty talk. Economic adversity. And recovery from cervical cancer. I consider myself a momtrepreneur. I’m a woman who is raising children while building a healthy vending machine company from scratch.
Those who don’t know me may see me merely as an intersection of many identities — a deaf, black woman. Each one of those identities on their own would commonly put me into the marginalized category. But as a mom to 10-year-old Aaron and 5-year-old Manny, I can’t rest on these statistics.
You know me. If you’re over the age of say, 40, chances are you went to school with a girl like me. I was more or less on even footing with you academically, but I struggled with everything else. My physical movements were often spastic and jerky. I blurted rather than talked. I couldn’t hold a pencil properly. I got upset when rules weren’t followed. I was eager to please; yet I sometimes said the dumbest, rudest thing possible.
"Racial achievement gap? The only chasm is between our poor vision of what counts as achievement and the real-world excellence these children demonstrate every day," writes Steven Singer, a teacher at Steel Valley Middle School.
Vanessa German, a visual and performance artist based in Pittsburgh, has written three poems addressed to Antwon Rose II this week during the trial of former East Pittsburgh police officer Michael Rosfeld who fatally shot the teenager on June 19.
