I absolutely love this poster. It is in significant contrast to what I saw when I visited Cheryl's Beauty Supply two days ago.

My teenage son is training his hair for waves and he has been asking for a Crown Quality brush for his birthday.

The http://www.crownqualityproducts.com/caesar.html is either sold out or out of stock. So, naturally I ask the father of one of my daughter's classmates, who happens to have some Hardcore waves (o.k., I don't think I can get away with that--nice waves) where I might find a "Is it Royal Crown, or Crown Royal, brush?" My children cringe every time I open my mouth.

"Why do you have to talk to Elijah's dad like that Dad? You're embarrassing."

I find the shop. It is just down the road from Barber Love's where Jake and I get our hair cut. I park my car behind the new development in old Lansing, a joint project with a local developer and Michigan State University attempting to gentrify a Michigan Avenue Shopping District.

Parking is in the back and I enter the rear door to Cheryl's Beauty Supply. I step inside and am overwhelmed by an abundance of straight hair packaged in plastic hanging on all the walls--blue, red, blonde, black, streaked, tipped, brown, pink. The only place there isn't straight hair in plastic packages is on top of the aisle shelves where there is straight and wavy hair perched atop foam heads. The earless heads with pointed noses and the thin lips seem to be staring at me through the their concave depressions where eyes should be. "Wrong door, Subways around the corner."

But, long ago I found that my comfort zone is being uncomfortable, and I walk up to the counter and ask if they have a Royal Crown brush. "You mean a Crown Quality brush?" Donna nicely corrects me.

They don't carry them but they do have a collection of 100% boars bristle brushes. She also shows me the wave curl activator section. I walk out with Luster's S-curl Wave Jel Activator.

I give my son the activator and ever since he has been brushing more than Snapchatting.

I'm still looking for the Crown Quality Brush. But, I was informed that in addition to the brush, he now requires a doo rag.

Now, I bought him one when he as seven. At the time my wife was like he doesn't need a doo rag. But eight years later now it is, "Well you know the cotton pillow case absorbs the gel and his hair will get all out of place. He needs a doo rag." Thank you Erica and Adoption hair_skincare Facebook Page. Seriously though, thank you, we have both learned a lot from the page.

With time running out before his birthday, I think I'll be stopping by Cheryl's this afternoon.

This time I'll just glare a "Yep, I'm in the right place," at the army of straight haired foam heads as I enter the backdoor.

Family Oreo photo taken on hike in the woods.

In the waning days of the school year, I am happy to report that the new school principal at my daughter's elementary school finally can tell my daughter apart from a girl who's only similarity is that she is in the same class and is the same height. Sure the girls are both African American, but they wear their hair differently, and their skin tones are different, and one wears glasses.

Last year my daughter's principal, who was African American, would say, "Hello little Ms. D," when she saw her in the hallway. She would also invite my daughter as well as other students to lunch regularly. I developed a nice relationship with her when we both read Langston Hughes to the fourth graders when my son was in fourth grade. She provided some of her own experiences growing up in Detroit, before she read Mother to Son which starts, "Well son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair."

My daughter's new principal seems to doing a fine job, she just hasn't impacted my daughter or our family like her previous principal.

As white parents raising strong, compassionate, self confident African American children I relish opportunities for our children to have strong, self confident, and compassionate African American role models in their lives.

While our district couldn't keep her previous principal in the district, I am glad that they have hired a Superintendent who who appears to be extraordinarily capable and happens to be African American. Even though, I doubt my children will even meet our new Superintendent - her leadership at the top will help to improve our schools, set the tone for increased diversity in hiring to reflect our multi-cultural district, help to narrow the achievement gap with which our district struggle, and improve community relationships after our district recently closed of our most racially diverse elementary school.

This picture is making the rounds on many Facebook pages. It is disturbing when seen through today's politically correct lenses. I decided to look into the picture further, to understand the complete character of Franklin. And, while Chris Rock might be right that Franklin doesn't talk in the television specials, he has plenty to say in the comic strip and was a very good friend of Charlie Brown. I think it speaks well of Charles Schultz that he added Franklin to his strip in 1968. Did, you know that Franklin's father was a Vietnam Veteran. MLK Jr. was certainly speaking out against the Vietnam War prior to his death. I also, wonder about this particular still when regardless of where Franklin was sitting at the table, would he still feel that he was isolated at this all white Thanksgiving dinner. And, as for Snoopy being at the table, the entire strip is about an anthropomorphizing dog. 

In this link http://peanuts.wikia.com/wiki/Franklin you'll see a strip about Lucy and Franklin arguing over ice time at the local pond. Franklin says that he needs time to practice his hockey so that he can join the NHL and Lucy points out that there are no Blacks in the NHL - which I believe was true in 1974. He was called out on it and Charles Schultz defended his column as a joke with no intended racism. Perhaps he could have benefited having subtle racism sensitivity training. Or, he could have added one more pane which had Franklin say that he would be the first. We measure progress by celebrating the first. I prefer to celebrate that in a tumultuous time in race relations in our country, Franklin was the first kid of color to enter the Peanuts Comic Strip.