11 JUNE 2017 BODY OF CHRIST NEWS We Must Step up There is no reason for young Black men to become victims of the institutionalized slavery that exists today. This is something a young man, Odis Spears, was passionate about and spoke on during last month’s Father and Son Breakfast at Now Faith Church. "Black men are in a state of vic- timization and feel there is no hope. Until other men who overcame vic- timization let them know there is more to life than what they have dealt with – not looking back at the past but the future.æ" “You have to lift their minds up and they will learn to lift up their pants,” says the New Orleans, LA. native. Spears said 43 percent of young black men drop out of school and half of them end up in prison. “Private institutions are creat- ing prisons based on standardized test scores of third graders, deter- mining how many cells to build based on how they performed in the third grade and will drop out before the 10th grade. They look at Black men as a commodity that has become institutionalized slavery in this modern era.” The realization, Spears adds is, “Until we step in, nothing will change.” By Odis Spears SCRIPTURE Odis Spears Private institutions are creating prisons based on standardized test scores of third graders.