Quotes from Geoffrey Canada

Kids who are poor often have families that have not really been kept informed about... how important it is to read to your child, to reduce stresses in their life, to use positive incentives and words.

The rates of soda consumption in our poorest communities cannot be explained by individual consumer preferences alone, but rather are linked to broader issues of access and affordability of healthy foods in low-income neighborhoods, and to the marketing efforts of soda companies themselves.

Lots of boys pick strong messages about who they are and who they want to be from the media.

While reaching up for manhood they tumble over a moral and ethical precipice and many can never scale their way back up.

Americans have been slaughtering one another in record numbers, in what can only be called America's secret war against itself.

It is important to have permanent safe spaces in Harlem.

There's not a day that goes by that I don't draw on my undergraduate background in psychology.

I believe that for lots of churches and religious institutions, their main focus on the development of faith among parishioners needs to spread to the community.

My contract with my teachers is fair, and is two pages. The union contract is 200 pages. You cannot manage your business when you cannot make any decision without going back to 200 pages worth of stuff.

When I was growing up, kids used to talk about snitching... It never extended as a cultural norm outside of the gangsters.

One of the things that sells music is when the artist is looked at as someone who's come up from the streets. Not just any streets, but the toughest, meanest streets of the urban ghetto. And that's called 'street credibility.'

Monsters work seven days a week and don't take vacations.

The system decides you can't run schools in the summer.

When I first found out that Superman wasn't real, I was about maybe eight. And I was talking to my mother about it. And she was like, 'No, no, no. There's no Superman.' And I started crying. I really thought he was coming to rescue us. The chaos, the violence, the danger. No hero was coming.

Video games offer violent messages, and even the sports video games include taunting and teasing.

It's just becoming more acceptable for girls to react violently.

My own faith was nurtured by my grandmother and her clinging deeply to her faith when she was dying a painful and slow death from cancer.

Education is the only billion dollar industry that tolerates abject failure.

Osama Bin Laden is not going to come here and destroy America. Our education system is doing that just fine.

Many schools today are sacrificing social studies, the arts and physical education so children can cover basic subjects like math, English and science.

An extended school day gives administrators the ability to ensure children get a well-rounded education.

I want to be a children's hero… Children need heroes because heroes give hope; without hope they have no future.