What is your name, and what do you do?

My name is Dr. Ellen Burts-Cooper, and I lead a personal and professional development training and consulting company called Improve Consulting and Training Group, LLC. My organization specializes in Lean Six Sigma process improvement.

I spent yesterday a bit disappointed with entertainer Chris Brown after his alleged tirade on 'Good Morning America.' After being one of the few voices defending Chris Brown on CNN a couple of years ago, I quietly wondered if I was wrong about him. It's not that I thought Chris Brown was a good man. It's that I saw him as a 19-year-old kid who was not beyond redemption. America has a nasty habit of destroying the lives of young black men when they make mistakes at an early age.

Professor Carlos Thomas is one of the sharpest, most powerful black men on earth. Sitting on two Ph.D.s (not one), Thomas has built a career that embraces the essence of the black academic warrior. Not only is he typically the sharpest man in the room, he is a living personification of the essence of what it means to be a black man in America: To love your family, teach the children around you (not just your own) and to stand a stand for what is right. It is because he has chosen to live a life full of power and purpose that Dr. Thomas is today's Dr. Boyce Watkins Spotlight on AOL Black Voices:


What is your name, and what do you do?

My name is Carlos A. Thomas, and I am an assistant professor of information systems and operations management at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., father of three and husband to one!

Hollywood superstar Forest Whitaker was recently hit with a large tax bill after failing to pay $185,000 he owed to the IRS. The tax collectors in California have cited Whitaker and filed a lien for the balance. Both he and his wife, Keisha, are named in the complaint, which was filed in the Los Angeles County Recorder of Deeds.

What is your name, and what do you do?

My name is Stephanie Espy, and I'm the founder and president of MathSP (www.MathSP.com). MathSP is a math enrichment company that helps individuals to improve their math skills. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, MathSP provides instruction to middle school students, high school students, college students, adults who need additional math-based resources alongside their coursework, and students who need an added challenge beyond their coursework. MathSP also prepares individuals for the math section of various standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT, computer-adaptive exams such as the GMAT or GRE, and state exams such as the EOCT or GHSGT.

Media superstar and modeling-model Tyra Banks recently announced that she's headed to the Harvard Business School. While it's still not clear if she's getting an official degree (I assume it's a short-term executive education course; I can't imagine someone with her experience and schedule taking too much time off for school), one has to be impressed with her decision to continue educating herself. Some might think that education is simply a thing you tolerate long enough to make money to support yourself. Nothing could be further from the truth, since learning should be a lifelong process.

A survey taken this week at yourblackworld.com has revealed that 88.5% of all African-American respondents believe they have been victims of workplace racial discrimination at some point in their careers. The results were nearly uniform across men and women. A small percentage (5.5%) said they do not believe they've ever experienced racial discrimination in the workplace, and a similar percentage (6.1%) claim they are not sure.

Most people of color know nothing about where any of the stimulus money went. As far as we're concerned, it was allocated by a bunch of politicians who had no interest in stimulating anything in our communities. Well, Craig T. Williams found some of that money and successfully leveraged it into a powerful business. His financial success has given him the freedom to pursue other interests, including writing his first book. It is for his commitment to business success and use of money as a tool for personal liberation that Craig T. Williams is today's Dr. Boyce Watkins Spotlight on AOL Black Voices:


What is your full name and what do you do?

My name is Craig T. Williams. I am an entrepreneur owning and operating two construction companies, Pride Enterprises, Inc. and Fidelis Design and Construction, LLC. I am a partner in the Philippe Chow Restaurants, and I have recently launched a multimedia company called Vintage World.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act disallows employers to discriminate against applicants on criteria that relates to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. You can now add another item to the list: discrimination based on whether or not you already have a job.

An unknown but growing problem is employer discrimination against those who've been out of work for a very long time. Increasingly, companies are putting out ads for jobs that require that the applicant be "currently employed." This makes it more difficult for those who've been seeking work for long periods of time to have a chance to find a job.

This morning, I got a text from my respected colleague Roland Martin. I can't remember what Roland and I were talking about, but I do remember what he told me at the end of our conversation. Roland mentioned that he couldn't do anything next week because "the cruise is leaving in a couple of days." I immediately became jealous, because I knew he was talking about the Fantastic Voyage, hosted by Tom Joyner.

I'm not always big on black folks looking for another party, but there is something I love about the Tom Joyner Cruise. Anyone who's ever been on a cruise knows that seeing another black person on a cruise ship is like searching for Louis Farrakhan at a Klan rally. While cruises can be fun, comfortable and even exciting, there is a dryness that people of color experience from a lack of cultural diversity.