WASHINGTON — The Smithsonian Institution is receiving a $52 million increase in funding from Congress for 2012, with the increase primarily devoted to building a museum on the National Mall devoted to black history.
Figures released Tuesday show the Smithsonian stands to receive $811.5 million in federal funding for the 2012 fiscal year. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the appropriations bill this week.
The budget includes $75 million to begin building the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
There is also $100 million for facilities improvements. That includes $11 million to renovate a wing of the National Museum of American History, $17 million for the National Zoo, $8 million to revitalize the National Museum of Natural History, and $17.4 million for the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Three days after her 21st birthday, Jenifer Schuerman had a stroke. When she emerged from her coma in the hospital, she was completely unaware of the left side of her body.
"Initially, there was no left side. It didn't dawn on me that there was another side," said Schuerman, now a 28-year-old student at Arizona State University.
If a family member spoke or a TV set blared from the left side of her bed, Schuerman could only look to the right. Initially, she said she was even unaware that her left side was completely paralyzed. After she could walk again, she constantly ran into walls on her left side.
"It was bizarre because my brain only acknowledged the right side," she said. "It's one of the most frustrating feelings I have ever experienced."
Doctors call the condition hemispatial neglect, and some studies estimate that 20 to 50 percent of stroke patients struggle with this lopsided condition. It happens most often when a stroke damages the right half of the brain.
A group of Italian researchers reported today that using magnets to stimulate the nerve cells of the brain can help remedy the condition. The treatment is called transcranial magnetic stimulation, and happens when doctors place a large electromagnetic coil against the scalp, creating electrical currents in one part of the brain.
"The treatment is based on the theory that hemispatial neglect results when a stroke disrupts the balance between the two hemispheres of the brain. A stroke on one side of the brain causes the other side to become overactive, and the circuits become overloaded," study author Dr. Giacomo Koch of the Santa Lucia Foundation in Rome said in a news release.
Koch and his colleagues studied whether using magnetic stimulation would help rebalance the activity on both sides of the brain. They tested 20 patients with hemispatial neglect, giving magnetic stimulation to 10 patients and a sham treatment to the other 10 patients. After two weeks, the patients who were magnetically stimulated performed 16 percent better on tests measuring their behavioral inattention, and their test scores improved by 23 percent after one month. The patients with the sham treatment showed no improvement.
The study was published today in the journal Neurology.
Even without treatment, patients can recover from hemispatial neglect after a few weeks. But Dr. Randolph Marshall, chief of the stroke division of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, said the first few weeks of progress after a stroke, which are vital in a patient's overall recovery, can be derailed by the condition.
"The weakness they have from the stroke may be harder to rehabilitate because they can't pay attention to that weak limb," Marshall said. "Recovery will be delayed and potentially less robust if they're unable to participate fully and take advantage of their returning strength."
Other researchers have studied different methods of brain stimulation to speed recovery in stroke patients. British scientists reported in September that mild electrical currents sped up the brain's learning processes, a potentially promising development for impaired stroke survivors. Other researchers have experimented with magnetic stimulation in stroke patients, but doctors say the latest study's results are the most promising evidence so far that the treatment could actually work.
The study was a small one, however, and doctors emphasize that magnetic stimulation needs much more testing to determine whether it's a more effective treatment than the attention and concentration training that many stroke patients receive. And, ultimately, the real test of whether it works won't be found in a laboratory setting.
"The real test is how such an incremental decrease in visuospatial neglect improves functioning in daily activities, such as eating from both sides of the plate, finding people off to the neglected side when they speak and crossing the street safely," said Dr. Bruce Dobkin, director of the Neurologic Rehabilitation and Research Program at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The racial makeup of a person's dream world mirrors that of their waking world, with television viewing habits making a difference, too.
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience
SWEET DREAMS: People who watched more TV reported more blacks and fewer whites in their dreams. Preferences for sports and comedy programs, in particular, seemed linked to dreaming about more blacks, perhaps because those genres represent more black people than other shows. (Photo: Afrociaal/Shutterstock)
Here's a new version of the old question "Do you dream in color?" What color are the people in your dreams?
A new study finds that the racial makeup of dreams tends to match up with the proportion of different races people run into in their daily lives. A person's own race matters as well, said study researcher Steve Hoekstra, a psychologist at Kansas Wesleyan University.
"If you are, say, a black student at a predominately white school in a predominately white community, yes, you dream more about whites than do other black people in other communities," Hoekstra told LiveScience. "But you also dream more about blacks than most people do in your same community."
The idea for the study quite literally came in a dream. Hoekstra's wife, Anne, noted in a lucid dreaming moment that there was an Asian person in the dream she was having. When she woke up, Anne, who is white, told her husband how odd it was that she didn't dream about Asian people more often, especially because she has an adopted sister who was born in Korea.
"We got to wondering: The race of people in dreams, to what degree does it reflect reality?" Hoekstra said. "Are people even aware of the race of people in their dreams, and if so, does it map onto either the racial composition of places where they live or to their own family?" [Why We Dream]
Black or white
Hoekstra investigated the question with the help of a couple undergraduate research assistants and a few photocopies of a brief dream survey. The researchers asked 66 students at the predominately white Kansas Wesleyan University to fill out the survey. Next, Hoekstra asked a colleague at the historically black Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina to have another 60 students at that school fill out the survey.
The students answered questions about the racial makeup of their waking life as well as their dreams. They were also asked how much television they watched, and which genre of shows, from comedy to sports to drama, they preferred. Mixed in were other questions about dreaming to obscure the purpose of the study and to prevent biased answers.
Remembering race
They found that real-life race does matter in the dream world: Individuals reported that the largest proportion of people in their dreams were of their own race. The racial makeup of people's dreams also tended to match the racial makeup of their daily lives. The findings were true of both blacks and whites, Hoekstra said. Asian and Hispanic participants showed similar patterns, but there were too few of those races in the study to draw firm statistical conclusions.
Television can apparently creep into dreams as well, Hoekstra said. People who watched more TV reported more blacks and fewer whites in their dreams. Preferences for sports and comedy programs, in particular, seemed linked to dreaming about more blacks, perhaps because those genres represent more black people than other shows.
"If you're living in a predominately white community that [TV] would be another place you would run into people of color," Hoekstra said.
The study, published online Nov. 28 in the journal Dreaming, was exploratory in nature, Hoesktra said, and more research would be necessary to fully understand the role of television in dreamland. It's also possible that people exhibit a sort of selective memory bias when reporting their dreams, he said, so that they fail to recall accurately which races populate their dreams.
Hoekstra isn't sure yet whether he'll follow up on the research, but if he does, he'll likely investigate the role of media more thoroughly, he said. Keeping a daily dream diary is also a more accurate way to record dreams as opposed to surveys after the fact, he added. The idea interests him, he said, because most people seem to take the racial composition of their dreams for granted.
"That's what our participants were saying, 'Gosh, I hadn't really thought about it before,'" he said. "This was a harder task than they would have thought."
Questions behind Oregon prison inmate's conviction draw attention of National Advocacy Groups; who was almost immediately sentenced to two more years behind bars.
Terrence Kimble
(SALEM) - An Oregon inmate whose conviction is so questionable that it recently caught the attention of two national advocacy groups with solid track records of freeing wrongly convicted prisoners, just had two more years added to his 19-year sentence. Advocates close to the case say the saga of Terrence Kimble is one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in the current Oregon judicial system.
Kimble's problems are compounded by the fact that he offered court testimony in a case involving a former Corrections Officer, William Coleman, who filed a federal Whistleblower complaint against the state over very serious criminal allegations of official misconduct and federal Civil Rights violations of Black inmates.
'Torpedo' is the prison term for a guard's use of one or more hostile inmates to taunt or threaten another. If and when inmates in Oregon defend themselves or fight back during an assault, they are in automatic violation of prison rules and generally sent to isolation at minimum. Sometimes, as in this case, it can be much worse.
This man who has faced so much unfairness in his lifetime, was 'torpedoed' last year at the Snake River Correctional Facility, by men he describes as white racists, who surrounded him ominously and called him "nigger". As the men closed in to assault Kimble, he says he did his best to defend himself. Apparently correctional staff moved in to break up the altercation, and one was hurt in the process. The entire matter was blamed on Kimble, and this is the case that added two years to time behind bars, and it happened the day after his case was picked up by a noted advocacy group, The Innocence Project. The other agency involved in the case is New Vision.
The last names of the Snake River Officers involved in Kimble's incident are Curtis, Schultz, and Waldamaer. Coleman says the officers are part of a conspiracy to trump up false charges against Kimble. Kimble alleges that he has specifically been told he is suffering retaliation for his testimony in favor of the former Corrections Officer. He says the specific quote he has heard from prison staff is, "You shouldn't have testified for Coleman".
Haugen, Kitzhaber fights for. Haugen is a Caucasian inmate murderer convicted and sentenced to the death penalty. Over this case, Kitzhaber has proclaimed that Oregon's justice system is broken. However in Kimble's laughable conviction, an absolute backwoods joke of a legal opinion, Kitzhaber thinks the system is A-OK, okie dokie...
The video below offers a great deal of background on the story as do a number of articles about Kimble that are already published and always available to view. Long story short; Kimble is a man who had a rough life growing up in the Bay Area of California. He committed crimes, paid his dues and then after learning his lessons about petty crime, and gaining his freedom, became a motivational speaker.
His character is substantial to the point that one of his advocates, in Sacramento California, is a junior high school principal. After moving to Oregon with his wife and her children, he was accused, briefly and indirectly, of having raped his teenage stepdaughter. The girl told a friend that the offense occurred, the friend told her father and soon a police car arrived at Kimble's home in Eugene, Oregon. He was badly beaten by police though there is no evidence that he resisted arrest, and there is a parallel to the current additional two-year sentence. In each case the word of an African-American male had no power against the allegations of the police who claim to have been "assaulted" by this man.
Another image of Terrence Kimble
The alleged female victim was quickly taken to a hospital in Eugene, Oregon, medical professionals anticipated the arrival of a victim who initially said she was repeatedly choked and physically assaulted, before being raped by Kimble. Once in the care of doctors, the alleged victim said she had not been raped, in spite of her earlier allegation. A full examination revealed no signs of bruising, no signs of trauma, the girl joked with medical personnel, and the biggest evidence of all, was the doctor's revelation that the girl not only had not had sex, but that she had never engaged in a sexual act in her life.
The family of the girl sided with Kimble, and then DNA tests came back and indicated that there was absolutely no sign of Kimble's DNA present. The judge in the case was new to the bench, had never tried a major crime case, let alone one of a sexual nature. He made the remark that in spite of the evidence, he still would have found Kimble guilty of rape. William Coleman, who as a prison guard oversaw Kimble, has remarked before that when in the shower, Kimble was notably well endowed. The obvious thought is that if he had abused a young female, there would have clearly been evidence of it, there was none.
Terrence Kimble was convicted of sex abuse in the case and sentenced to 19-years. He had lived in Oregon for a total of three months when he was taken away and beaten and to this day, never released.
We have been writing about the malicious prosecution and Kimble's various difficulties under incarceration for some time and welcome the news that the Innocence Project and New Visions have each taken a strong interest in the case, making statements about the projected outcome that are very positive. All that Kimble's case has ever needed was the focus of an experienced agency that knows how to resolve judicial abuse swiftly and with excellent results.
Special report on the Terrence Kimble story
Coleman has written letters to Governor Kitzhaber and AG John Kroger about Kimbles' case. None have responded, which is surprising, even for a government agency. Governor John Kitzhaber was in office as the state's top official when Kimble was convicted, and now has again returned to the governor's office, however he has shown no interest in addressing the perceived injustice in Kimble's case. Instead of worrying about a false conviction of a Black man, Kitzhaber has been devoting large amounts of energy, time and taxpayer resources trying to undermine the will of Oregon voting populace by blocking the execution of a Murderer named Gary Haugen.
Haugen, Kitzhaber fights for. Haugen is a Caucasian inmate murderer convicted and sentenced to the death penalty. Over this case, Kitzhaber has proclaimed thatOregon's justice system is broken. However in Kimble's laughable conviction, an absolute backwoods joke of a legal opinion, Kitzhaber thinks the system is A-OK, okie dokie, just don't make him talk about it in honest terms, because it seems impossible to believe that a governor who is a medical doctor would let this fly.
What is a man's life, next to 19, now 21 years of a man's life? We know racism is rife in Oregon, however we did assume that it didn't creep its way right into the Oregon Governor's office. One thing is clear, there is no sign of any Black staff in his state office, never has a Black person served as a representative, never has one worked the reception desk, now I'm starting to wonder if they are allowed to work there? At any rate, Oregon's Governor John Kitzhaber's governorship has been the Alpha and Omega of Terrence Kimble's injustice.
William Coleman says Kimble has spent 10 years in prison as an innocent who has done nothing wrong, he has never admitted to any wrong doing. Evidence indicates that without a large degree of theatrics and a judge and prosecutor bent on convicting, Kimble would never have been so much as arrested.
Republican diners haven’t yet picked their entree, but they’ve narrowed it down to the steak or the fish. Still, just as interesting as their main course will be their side selection: Will they go for a drab salad, or something more exciting? Maybe a spicy Rice dish?
Yes, that Rice: Condi. She’s rested and ready - and buff.
America’s first black female secretary of state is quietly positioning herself to be the top choice of the eventual Republican presidential nominee, ready to deliver bona fide foreign-policy credentials lacking among the candidates. The 56-year-old has recently raised her profile, releasing her memoir in November and embarking on a monthlong book tour.
After 2 1/2 years as a professor at Stanford, Miss Rice is reportedly getting “antsy” to get back into the political game. “She’s ready to go,” said one top source.
Ready indeed. She still rises at 5:30 a.m. and runs through a vigorous P90X workout. (Her guns are now a match for those of first lady Michelle Obama.) Sure, she’s been playing a lot of golf, and no doubt banging on the piano (sometimes with cellist Yo-Yo Ma), but she’s clearly ready for more.
Her addition to the ticket, which wouldn’t come until late next summer, would dramatically change the dynamics of the 2012 election. As a black woman - her family has roots in the Deep South stretching back to before Civil War era, and worked as sharecroppers after emancipation - she would mute Democrats’ charges of racism among conservatives, especially tea party members. And her sex would likely prompt moderate women to take a serious look at the Republican ticket.
Plus, her selection would be a giant chess move to counter the expected replacement of Vice President Joseph R. Biden with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Sure, the White House denies and denies, but that should really make any political watcher more suspicious. One White House insider even told me that the position swap was the only reason Mrs. Clinton joined the administration in the first place.
Unlike 2008, when Miss Rice repeatedly played down all suggestions that she might like to join the Republican ticket as the vice presidential candidate, she is actively staying mum, while quietly encouraging speculation that she is ready to run.
Clearly, the 2012 election is shaping up to be all about the U.S. economy. Everything Mr. Obama has tried has failed, so American voters are looking for someone who can actually fix the problems. But what the Republican presidential hopefuls lack is foreign-policy experience.
Cue Miss Rice. With Vladimir Putin set to reascend to the Russian presidency, the Soviet scholar is perfectly suited for what’s coming next.
Of course, like any black conservative (see Cain, Herman), she is mostly reviled in the black liberal community. In the midst of the Bush administration, Eugene Robinson, a columnist for The Washington Post, asked, “How did she come to a worldview so radically different from that of most black Americans?” Funny thing is, she is, unlike Barack Obama, an “American black.”
And Miss Rice, in her inimitable way, had a response. “Why would I worry about something like that?” she said about the criticism. “The fact of the matter is I’ve been black all my life. Nobody needs to tell me how to be black.”
The White House, through its Chicago mafia, was intent on taking out Mr. Cain. Unfortunately, he proved an easy target. But they were clearly frightened by a strong American black, even as a veep candidate. And yes, it won’t be Mr. Cain - he is completely done.
But imagine the debate, whether it’s against Mr. Biden or Mrs. Clinton: Miss Rice would bring a huge resume - not to mention a real understanding of the world, on which top Democrats seem to clueless. Talk to Iran? Um, maybe not. Negotiate with Mr. Putin: Been tried, doesn’t work. And all issues of race would be moot.
There are a few other women available as down-ticket choices: Rep. Michele Bachmann will certainly be considered, as will Nikki Haley, the South Carolina governor who last week endorsed Mitt Romney. But nearly no one on the Republican side - man or woman - can deliver what Miss Rice can. And while you haven’t yet heard her name when the political pundits tick off the top tier of vice-presidential players, you’re about to. Starting today.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at jcurl@washingtontimes.com.
To mark the holidays last year, we pulled our oldest Christmas-themed episode down from the shelf and posted a 1968 story called "What Christ Looked Like." As odd as that piece seems by today's television standards, it went viral as soon as we posted it and became one of the most popular "60 Minutes Overtime" videos of 2011.
This year, we decided to go back to that same episode from December 24, 1968 and show you more. This one reflects the troubled mood of the nation that year: it's a somber Christmas story from the family room of Martin Luther King just months after he was killed.
"60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace joined the King family as they gathered around the tree to celebrate the first holiday without their father. We meet little Dexter, Bunny, Yokie, and Martin Luther King III, all dressed in their Sunday best. We also hear from King's widow Coretta who told Wallace that Christmas of '68 would be sad not only for the Kings. "I would imagine that the whole nation cannot really have a happy Christmas," she said.
"But I think that it doesn't mean," she added, "that we will sit around and bathe in our grief." A good message to remember.
Jason Getz, jgetz@ajc.comAPS truancy specialist Shadonna Tookes (left) consults with police truancy Officer Gary Wade. Almost 44 percent of high school students missed 10 or more days of school last year.
Atlanta parents face a $1,000 fine and up to 60 days in jail when their students skip school under a 2009 ordinance city officials say they now plan to enforce.
It stands out as one of the toughest truancy penalties among metro Atlanta school districts. But Atlanta has a troubling truancy problem. Almost 44 percent of high school students missed 10 or more days of school last year, up from 40 percent in 2009-10, according to district data. That’s compared with about 25 percent in Fulton County.
Under the ordinance, if a student is caught unsupervised on a school day more than once, the parent can be fined, put in jail or sentenced to community service. Each additional absence can carry the same fine, and the same punishment.
The 2-year-old rule has seldom been enforced until now, said Atlanta City Council President Ceasar Mitchell, who helped create the ordinance. Mitchell said the goal is to get the attention of parents, to educate them about the importance of good attendance and to help connect them with social programs to ensure their children are regularly going to school.
But critics say the approach is flawed and could cause more worry for families already in distress.
“Given the crisis we’re facing in terms of truancy, we could haul droves of parents into court,” Mitchell said. “That is not our objective.”
Research shows that students with better attendance are more likely to earn a high school diploma. But unexcused school absences are a persistent problem in metro Atlanta and across the state despite an array of interventions and deterrence programs.
In Cobb, 8 percent to 10 percent of students log more than 15 absences each school year. In Fulton, almost 25 percent of high school students missed 10 or more days. So far this year, about 8 percent of Gwinnett’s high school students have logged 10 or more absences, both excused and unexcused, according to a school spokesman. DeKalb County, Powder Springs and Kennesaw have ordinances similar to what’s in Atlanta, according to school and county officials.
There’s also punishments built into state law. Georgia students with 10 or more unexcused absences can lose their driver’s license. A query by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found students in virtually every county had their licenses yanked because of missed days. Gwinnett, the state’s largest school system, had the most absence-related license suspensions in 2010, with 2,269 out of a statewide total of 12,974.
After five unexcused absences, a parent can be fined up to $100 and sentenced to 30 days in jail or community service, according to state law. The most severe cases are referred to Juvenile Court.
In Cobb, the district has seen some declines in truancy by putting more emphasis on intervention, said Paul Pursell, truancy coordinator for the school district. After seven absences, parents meet with a school-level truancy panel that tries to determine what’s driving the poor attendance, Pursell said. Court referrals are a last resort, but are made in hundreds of cases each school year.
“We see a lot of families that have relocated from other places. That’s an emerging trend,” he said. “When they get here, they have no support system. If transportation is lacking, there is no one to call. If they run into financial dire straits, there is no one to turn to.”
APS has a truancy center in which police officers bring children found loitering during the school day. There, social workers try to find out why the student isn’t in school. Social workers suggest programs to help solve problems at home that may be keeping students from the classroom.
Denise Revels, coordinator of social work services for APS, said absentee students may be caring for a sick family member or have children of their own and no access to day care. She sees the threat of a $1,000 fine as one more approach to solving the truancy problem.
“It’s an inner-city school district, so truancy is a huge challenge,” she said. “But if you teach a child to go to school every day for life, then they will take those same skills into employment and adulthood.”
Three high school zones — Douglass, Jackson and Washington — will serve as pilot sites for the enforcement. Last month, parents of students with five or more unexcused absences who attend schools in these areas were invited to a meeting and notified of plans to enforce the law. Revels said attendance has already improved since the meetings.
But some Atlanta parents feel the fine is too steep, especially in this economy.
Bobby Bell, whose children attend Washington High, said it could be a good deterrent but should be enforced with common sense.
“It depends on the situation that causes truancy,” he said.
City Council members next year will vote on a measure that would alter the ordinance to give judges more discretion over what to do in truancy cases, Mitchell said.
Jessica Pennington, executive director of the Georgia Truancy Intervention Project, a group that works with students in Atlanta and Fulton County, said she does not think the program could hurt families instead of helping them.
“What’s going on in these families are layers and layers of things that needs to be addressed,” she said. “Fining and locking up parents is not the most effective approach.”
(CNN) - Kimberly Bryant knows what it is to yearn and to succeed. The electrical engineer and mobile health technology entrepreneur works for pharmaceutical giant Novartis and is in the midst of launching her own company.
But she also knows what it’s like to be "the only one" - the only woman, the only African-American.
That's why Bryant started Black Girls Code, a volunteer organization in San Francisco that's dedicated to teaching young girls of color about computer programming and technology. She hopes they will be better prepared to experience that yearning and success instead of loneliness and isolation. By giving them an early intro into the world of computing, she hopes they'll see it as a potential career path.
"I want to have that exposure before they go to college so that they can have [computer science professions] as a choice when they go to college," Bryant said.
Bryant founded Black Girls Code in April and finished its first program this month. Fourteen girls from ages 6 to 13 spent six weeks learning about the basics of programming at the facilities of the 100% College Preparatory Institutein San Francisco. They also took trips to leading tech companies, including Facebook and Google. The girls used a computer language called Scratch to make a simple game, and to create graphics that illustrated each girl's name and personality.
It's a bit more kid friendly than a typical day at school.
"I really enjoyed being able to win candy AND learn to code," Kai Morton, 12, wrote in a blog post about the KidsRuby code class. "I got so much candy that after a while the teacher asked somebody else to answer a question!"
In another blog post, 7-year-old Nailah Reynolds wrote, "The one thing I liked the least about my KidsRuby class was all that typing! What I liked the most was that I could learn to hack my homework!"
There has been so much interest in the program recently that Bryant changed her original plans to start the next session in March. Now, she’s gearing up for a session aimed at younger girls for January, followed by one for the older girls in March. And she’s keen to open branches of the program in other areas, including Atlanta, the East Coast and the Midwest.
Bryant said the name of her organization was chosen to emphasize its focus on girls of underrepresented minorities - particularly African-Americans, Latinas and Native Americans - and to distinguish it from other programs that tend to draw more white and Asian participants.
Black Girls Code participants Nailah Reynolds, 7, left, and Kai Morton, 12.
"One of the things that’s true about the computing talent pipeline in this country is that it's really in jeopardy," said Lucy Sanders, CEO of the National Center for Women in Technology. "With the degrees we’re granting now, we’re only going to graduate enough people to fill a third of the jobs … We’re not going to fill this talent pipeline if we only go to the places where we’ve always been traditionally looking."
The field needs diverse voices to serve an increasingly diverse population, Sanders said.
"Computing is a creative endeavor, and when you have a diverse set of voices at the design table, you’re going to have people creating technology in different ways than if it was a homogeneous group," Sanders said.
Lack of access to technology and computer science classes in schools and a lack of role models and mentors are among the barriers that make it difficult for women and people of color to enter - and stay in– computer and technology fields, according to the 2009 Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology report,"Obstacles and Solutions for Underrepresented Minorities in Technology."The report said educators might overtly or subconsciously steer them away from the sciences as a career, and some experience feelings of isolation and exclusion caused by being the only woman, minority, or minority woman in the workplace.
Another factor is tokenism, in which the person feels more closely scrutinized or more harshly judged because they are "the only one" in the organization.
Black Girls Code aims to show girls who are used to being consumers of technology - on computers, tablets, mobile phones, iPods and gaming consoles - that they can have a role in creating it. But first, Bryant had to get some of them to throw out the outdated, stereotypical image of a computer programmer - a white, geeky man sitting alone, punching numbers into a keyboard in front of a dimly lit computer screen.
"That doesn’t resonate with most girls, especially elementary and middle school girls," Bryant said. "We do a lot of group work and pairs programming projects because they need that connection and collaboration. So that helps break down the stereotypes of always being alone."
Black Girls Code participants Nailah Reynolds, 7, left, and Kai Morton, 12.