Parents who talk to children about the risks of illicit drugs sometimes despair that their warning goes in one ear and out the other. But the message just might stick in a young brain if it is repeated enough, according to a study of parental and adolescent attitudes released today.
The study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, a nonprofit coalition, also reported a dramatic disconnection between parents and children in getting the message through. The study is being released at www.drugfreeamerica.org.

An overwhelming 98 percent of the parents in the study said they had talked with their children about drugs, but only 65 percent of teenagers recalled having had such a conversation. And 27 percent of teenagers said they learned a lot from their family about the hazards of drugs.

Not surprisingly, the study reported that the more adolescents heard from parents about he risks, the less likely they were to use drugs, even though some failed to heed the advice. Of the teenagers in the study who said they had heard nothing at home about the risks of drugs, 45 percent said they had smoked marijuana within the last year. One-third of those who said they had learned a little at home used marijuana in the same period. But among teenagers who said they had learned a lot, only 26 percent said they smoked marijuana, the drug of choice after alcohol and tobacco.

Comparable reductions were reported in the use of inhalants, hallucinogens like LSD and crack cocaine.

When parents hesitate to tell their children about drugs, said Stephen Dnistrian, executive vice president of the partnership, "We can make a pretty safe assumption that there is probably not a lot of communication between parent and child about a lot of things."

The latest Partnership Attitude Tracking Study, the 12th such study since 1987, was conducted last year by Audits and Surveys Worldwide, a a market research firm based in New York. It sampled 6,852 teen-agers, ages 13 to 18; 2,358 children, 9 to 12, and 809 parents across the United States. The margin of error in the responses was 1.8 percentage points for teen-agers, 2.8 for re-teen-agers and 3.9 for parents.

By that they mean that while they are committed to anti-racist politics and realize that they will always have to struggle to stay clear of the unconscious racism that is so easy to fall into in a white-supremacist culture. At least, that’s what I meant when I used to say it.

But I don’ say it anymore, in part because in a discussion with a white political colleague I saw clearly how that declaration can allow people to avoid accountability, which led me to question whether such seemingly well-intentioned humility is politically useful. In another situation, I saw how the statement, even when made in good faith, is both imprecise and an unproductive rhetorical strategy.

The accountability issue first: This white colleague -- call him Joe -- and I were having a tense meeting about some problems in a political group. I was concerned about what I saw as his disrespectful treatment of two other political allies, one man and one woman, and both of them non-white and younger than Joe.

I am a white professional of roughly Joe’s age, and I suggested toJoe that while I was not branding him a racist, I thought he should thinkabout whether he would have dared to treat me the way he treated them. Thereason he wouldn’t, I suggested, might have something to do with theirage, or their race and ethnicity.

Joe blew up. “I know I’m a racist,” he began, and the usual speech followed about growing up in a racist culture and working to overcome the racist training.

I could have made the same speech. In fact, when I talk about racial justice I often mention that I grew up in an overtly racist household in a white-supremacist society, and I try to talk honestly about what that has meant in my life. Such discussions are not only reasonable but necessary if we are to makeprogress, both individually and culturally.

But there was something in the way Joe used the “confession”of his own racism to avoid accountability that bothered me. Joe could havesaid, “Yes, I am struggling with living as a white person in a white-supremacist society, Now, tell me more about why you think I acted inappropriately?”

Instead, his declaration derailed a serious conversation about the dispute at hand. By acknowledging racism in the abstract, he cut off the possibility of a meaningful discussion about a very concrete incident potentially tainted with subtle racism. I was left angry, both in personal terms (his mistreatment of the two allies was not going to be remedied if not acknowledged) and political terms (it’s difficult to imagine progress when white allies are stuck in such reactions).

My second concern is about language and rhetoric. In another incident ata public event about affirmative action, I saw a white anti-racist activist -- call him Jim -- make a similar declaration during the discussion period after an anti-affirmative action speaker. His comments were intended to make sure he didn’t appear arrogant or accusatory; he didn’t wantto exempt himself from the critique of white America. Unlike Joe, Jim’s motives seemed sound to me.

The problem, however, was that many folks thought he sounded silly. Frommy vantage point in the auditorium, it appeared that at least half of theaudience members, white and non-white alike, rolled their eyes at his comment.They had heard it before, and they didn’t find it meaningful. As arhetorical strategy to an audience that was decidedly mixed in its supportof affirmative action, Jim’s declaration was ineffective; it rang hollowwith them.

From my own personal experience of being involved in certain relationships, I have come to realize there are three different levels of Soul Mates.


Level One: Your mirrored image – These are a rare example. However, it is possible that they do exist in each of our lives at one point or another. We might have one or two in a lifetime from this category, if we are lucky! What makes them special? Soul Mates of this sort come into our life in a fast, weird and unexpected way. The situations and events in our lives begin to change of their own accord, in order to accommodate the arrival and the reunion of both Souls. In such a case such as this, it is can almost be said that it is 'written in the stars!' Both Souls have to be ready for each other, as I did explain before it is not enough to sustain the relationship at its full potential, only by existing as Soul Mates. This level is the strongest and most powerful type of Soul Mates. They do have many similar interests and share an almost equal interest in their life direction. They will think alike, and in many cases will be able to continue speaking a sentence where the other one has left off. They are a mirror of each other, although they do not have to be exactly the same. However, each one compliments the other with their individual strengths and weaknesses and they will understand each other by being on same 'wavelength'.

Level Two: Your Supporter – Soul Mates of this sort are everywhere around you. Try to take deeper look at the people who surround you. Just look around when you are in dire need of help or guidance in a 'life or death' situation or at a time when you have a heavy burden on your shoulders. Who is around you and ready to listen to you when you really need their assistance? Think of the people who bring you comfort and peace when you need it, or who answer your call when you need some help. These types of Soul Mates do have unconditional love towards each other which can sometimes be difficult to comprehend. Is there someone in your life, of whom, you can relate to being there in that fashion?

Level Three: Your Provider – We encounter these types of Soul Mates in situations that might feel 'weird' or perhaps in some un-expected places. We like to refer to them, sometimes, as being our angels. If they occur, they usually will not stay in our lives for a great length of time. You might come across a Soul Mate of this kind when you are just wondering along the street, thinking away to yourself and from nowhere someone will provide with you a small message that will open up a possible answer to those 'thoughts' you have upon a certain circumstance in your life. These Soul Mates are placed on your path 'out of the blue' and we might never see their face again! We then carry on, feeling blessed at having had them in our life at that necessary moment. Their role is to provide us with an answer or a push toward making a small decision in order to keep us moving in our lives and struggles at that time. Can you relate to such an occurrence in your life?

ook around on the streets of any major city, and you will see a sampling of the outward variety of humanity: skin tones ranging from milk-white to dark brown; hair textures running the gamut from fine and stick-straight to thick and wiry. People often use physical characteristics such as these--along with area of geographic origin and shared culture--to group themselves and others into "races." But how valid is the concept of race from a biological standpoint? Do physical features reliably say anything informative about a person's genetic makeup beyond indicating that the individual has genes for blue eyes or curly hair?

The problem is hard in part because the implicit definition of what makes a person a member of a particular race differs from region to region across the globe. Someone classified as "black" in the U.S., for instance, might be considered "white" in Brazil and "colored" (a category distinguished from both "black" and "white") in South Africa.

Yet common definitions of race do sometimes work well to divide groups according to genetically determined propensities for certain diseases. Sickle cell disease is usually found among people of largely African or Mediterranean descent, for instance, whereas cystic fibrosis is far more common among those of European ancestry. In addition, although the results have been controversial, a handful of studies have suggested that African-Americans are more likely to respond poorly to some drugs for cardiac disease than are members of other groups.

Over the past few years, scientists have collected data about the genetic constitution of populations around the world in an effort to probe the link between ancestry and patterns of disease. These data are now providing answers to several highly emotional and contentious questions: Can genetic information be used to distinguish human groups having a common heritage and to assign individuals to particular ones? Do such groups correspond well to predefined descriptions now widely used to specify race? And, more practically, does dividing people by familiar racial definitions or by genetic similarities say anything useful about how members of those groups experience disease or respond to drug treatment?

In general, we would answer the first question yes, the second no, and offer a qualified yes to the third. Our answers rest on several generalizations about race and genetics. Some groups do differ genetically from others, but how groups are divided depends on which genes are examined; simplistically put, you might fit into one group based on your skin-color genes but another based on a different characteristic. Many studies have demonstrated that roughly 90 percent of human genetic variation occurs within a population living on a given continent, whereas about 10 percent of the variation distinguishes continental populations. In other words, individuals from different populations are, on average, just slightly more different from one another than are individuals from the same population. Human populations are very similar, but they often can be distinguished.

Classifying Humans
As a first step to identifying links between social definitions of race and genetic heritage, scientists need a way to divide groups reliably according to their ancestry. Over the past 100,000 years or so, anatomically modern humans have migrated from Africa to other parts of the world, and members of our species have increased dramatically in number. This spread has left a distinct signature in our DNA.

To determine the degree of relatedness among groups, geneticists rely on tiny variations, or polymorphisms, in the DNA--specifically in the sequence of base pairs, the building blocks of DNA. Most of these polymorphisms do not occur within genes, the stretches of DNA that encode the information for making proteins (the molecules that constitute much of our bodies and carry out the chemical reactions of life). Accordingly, these common variations are neutral, in that they do not directly affect a particular trait. Some polymorphisms do occur in genes, however; these can contribute to individual variation in traits and to genetic diseases

Probably the single greatest problem between blacks and whites in America is that we are forever witness to each other's great shames. This occurred to me in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, when so many black people were plunged into misery that it seemed the hurricane itself had held a racial animus. I felt a consuming empathy but also another, more atavistic impulse. I did not like my people being seen this way. Beyond the human mess one expects to see after a storm like this, another kind of human wretchedness was on display. In the people traversing waist-deep water and languishing on rooftops were the markers of a deep and static poverty. The despair over the storm that was so evident in people's faces seemed to come out of an older despair, one that had always been there. Here--40 years after the great civil rights victories and 50 years after Rosa Parks's great refusal--was a poverty that oppression could no longer entirely explain. Here was poverty with an element of surrender in it that seemed to confirm the worst charges against blacks: that we are inferior, that nothing really helps us, that the modern world is beyond our reach.

Of course, shame is made worse, even unbearable, when there is a witness, the eye of an "other" who is only too happy to use our shame against us. Whites and blacks often play the "other" for each other in this way, each race seeking a bit of redemption and power in the other's shame. And both races live with the permanent anxiety of being held to account for their shames by the other race. So, there is a reflex in both races that reaches for narratives to explain shame away and, thus, disarm the "other."

Therefore, it was only a matter of time before the images of deep black poverty that emerged in Katrina's aftermath were covered over in a narrative of racism: If Katrina's victims had not been black, the response to their suffering would have been faster. It did not matter that a general lack of preparedness, combined with a stunning level of governmental incompetence and confusion, made for an unforgivably slow response to Katrina's victims. What mattered was the invocation of the great white shame. And here, in white racism, was a shame of truly epic proportions--the shame of white supremacy that for centuries so squeezed the world with violence and oppression that white privilege was made a natural law. Once white racism--long witnessed by blacks and acknowledged since the '60s by whites--was in play, the subject was changed from black weakness to white evil. Now accountability for the poverty that shamed blacks could be once again assigned to whites. If this was tiresome for many whites, it was a restoration of dignity for many blacks