For you parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. out there -- please bring a child to the theater.

Millions out of work; homeless camps filling up in every town and those lucky enough to have a job barely getting by, always worried. Stratification everywhere, either you're a have, or a have not and the gap between seems unbridgeable.

I viewed Annie at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco, it was the first time I had seen the production. The national touring company plays in San Francisco now through June 14th. Here are 11Things I learned:

We need to tell new stories. We need to see new actors who look, sound and act like the real America. Racism is not just a concept. It is as staring down at us from the big and small screens.

It's a hard knock life for poor black and brown youth and their parents not because they are not willing to work hard, but because of the legacy of discrimination embedded in the structure of past federal government policies such as the New Deal.