Thought of the Weekend

Though people may make it difficult to get a good education, find a good job, and place many other obstacles between non-whites and success, they are not stopping anyone from doing anything.
No one is forcing kids to drop out of school, no one is forcing people to commit crimes. Perhaps what we should be thinking about is why are these such a popular choices?

7 Layers of Division

from Greg Dragon from the Hall of the Black Dragon a site that I found through a chain of blogs (you can read the entire article here), this has been on the web for a while, and I wish I we had have seen it sooner, but here goes:

  1. Bourgie vs. Ghetto
  2. American vs. Immigrant
  3. Church vs. Cynics
  4. Racially Scarred vs. Racially Ambiguous
  5. Light vs. Dark
  6. Huey vs. Uncle Ruckus
  7. Men vs. Women

but I want to examine the ending paragraph:

So will black people ever “unify” and appear as together as our fellow minorities? I don’t think so and after seeing the 7 layers that we would have to overcome, you can understand why.

I think the author is perhaps being a bit defeatist. Anything that can be done, can be undone. Of those seven layers there are things that are not so much because of the “condition” of being black but also being black in a capitalist society that was built upon racism, not just intrinsic to the sons and daughers of slaves. Religion has its opponents everywhere, we live in a country where the rich hate the poor (which in itself could be a remnant of slavery) and men and women are always going to have differences because we are different.
But for one to believe that these divisions can be overcome is incorrect. The thing that allowed slaves to free themselves was the ability to read. Access to knowledge was the key, and this bit of knowledge has started a conversation on this site, and those that read this will hopefully look at themselves and recognize where they can improve and as each one looks inward to grow, the results will be felt outwardly. This will reach from themselves, to their family, to other people, to the community etc… remember it wasn’t that long ago when the Black community as a whole valued education, faith and hard work above and beyond everything else.

Race to Nowhere: Open Discussion on Education

race

A colleague of mine sent me the following link Race to Nowhere Trailer to watch the trailer for the documentary “Race to Nowhere”. While watching the trailer, I saw some issues that have come up in recent discourse with higher education and K-12 professionals regarding pressures placed on K-12 and especially 7th-12th grade students by the government and colleges to be a “near perfect” student in order to succeed in an education system that is broken and yields very little promises for a successful future upon completing college….Though I have been discussing and debating my beliefs and thoughts regarding these issues frequently for the last couple of years, I wanted to put this out there to see what others think…

Is our education system in the country truly broken? If so, why? If not, why not? Is the federal or state government responsible for the improvements? What part does higher education (colleges) play? If you have some thoughts, please share….

 

Wellness Recharge

 

A new year brings new opportunities for change. In a fast paced world with political struggles, an economy still in need of much repair, violence, social media wars, weather disasters, and recently another flu outbreak, taking care of yourself and overall wellness is becoming increasingly important. One of my goals this year is to take an active stance in increasing and maintaining my overall wellness. That means more attention and intentionality in the way of my finances, career, physical and mental health, , spirituality, and in my personal life.

 

I recently read in article by Gina Roberts-Grey that included some great advice and tips on recharging the mind, body, spirit and maintaining wellness. Below are some of the tips from the article:

 

One of the first steps in recharging yourself, if getting a clear and honest understanding of where you are now. This means taking some time to assess your overall wellness. One way to do this is to create a personal roadmap by doing the following:

 

  • Take four sheets of paper and label them with the following: “Relationship”, “Health and Wellness”, “Business and Finances”, and “Spirituality and Faith”. Make two lists for each of these categories. One list should contain things about that area that you do not love or things that need to change. From that list circle the first two things that you want to being making improvements on. It can be the two things that are most important to you. Then on the other list write down the steps that you need to take to help you achieve those goals.
  • Find an accountability partner that you can trust to keep you on track. Share your roadmap with them and establish a system of accountability. Be sure that they know that no matter what, they are to help hold you accountable!
  • Set short-term goals and checkpoints of the course of a quarter. Be very specific and realistic about these and be sure to inform your accountability partner.
  • Remember that each time you accomplish one of your short-term goals or successfully pass through a checkpoint. CELEBRATE! It is ok to boast about your success. This will motivate you to continue.

 

Personally, I have decided to use the next week to create my road map and find an accountability partner. Then I will begin on my journey to wellness!

 

Source: Essence Magazine, January 2013.

College+

They always used to tell me, “pretty soon, you will have to at least have a master’s degree to get a job worth a damn” and it seems that they were right. The walls that guard a comfortable life are growing ever taller, but the base is weak, because its predicated on haves and have nots to an extreme degree.

 

It has been hard to keep track. Over the past four decades, we have experienced the oil embargo, Carter-era malaise and a few recessions. Mixed in were the thrills of the late 1990s and mid-aughts, when it seemed as if you were a sap if you weren’t getting rich or at least trying. But these dramas prevented many of us from realizing that the economic logic was changing fundamentally. Starting in the 1970s, labor was upended by a lot more than just formal government work rules. Increased global trade devastated workers in many industries, especially textiles, apparel, toys, furniture and electronics assembly. Computers and other technological innovations had an arguably greater impact. While factories continue to make more stuff in the United States than ever before, employment in them has collapsed.

Computers have hurt workers outside factories too. Picture the advertising agency in “Mad Men,” and think about the abundance of people who were hired to do jobs that are now handled electronically by small machines. Countless secretaries were replaced by word processing, voice mail, e-mail and scheduling software; accounting staff by Excel; people in the art department by desktop design programs. This is also true of trades like plumbing and carpentry, in which new technologies replaced a bunch of people who most likely stood around helping measure things and making sure everything worked correctly.

As a result, the people whose jobs remained valuable in that “Mad Men” office were then freed up to do more valuable things. A talented art director could produce more work more quickly with InDesign. A bright accountant could spend more time thinking of new ways to make and save money, rather than spending endless hours punching numbers into an adding machine. Global trade works much the same way. It’s horrible news for a textile factory worker in North Carolina, but it may be great for a fashion designer in New York.

A general guideline these days is that people are rewarded when they can do things that take trained judgment and skill — things, in other words, that can’t be done by computers or lower-wage workers in other countries. Money now flows around the world so quickly, and technology changes so fast, that people who thought they were in high demand find themselves uprooted. Many newspaper reporters have learned that their work was subsidized, in part, by classified ads and now can’t survive the rise of Craigslist; computer programmers have found out that some smart young guys in India will do their jobs for much less. Meanwhile, China lends so much money to the United States that mortgage brokers and bond traders can become richer than they ever imagined for a few years and then, just as quickly, become broke and unemployed.

One of the greatest changes is that a college degree is no longer the guarantor of a middle-class existence. Until the early 1970s, less than 11 percent of the adult population graduated from college, and most of them could get a decent job. Today nearly a third have college degrees, and a higher percentage of them graduated from nonelite schools. A bachelor’s degree on its own no longer conveys intelligence and capability. To get a good job, you have to have some special skill — charm, by the way, counts — that employers value. But there’s also a pretty good chance that by some point in the next few years, your boss will find that some new technology or some worker overseas can replace you.

Though it’s no guarantee, a B.A. or some kind of technical training is at least a prerequisite for a decent salary. It’s hard to see any great future for high-school dropouts or high-school graduates with no technical skills. They most often get jobs that require little judgment and minimal training, like stocking shelves, cooking burgers and cleaning offices. Employers generally see these unskilled workers as commodities — one is as good as any other — and thus each worker has very little bargaining power, especially now that unions are weaker. There are about 40 million of these low-skilled people in our work force. They’re vying for jobs that are likely to earn near the minimum wage with few or no benefits, and they have a high chance of being laid off many times in a career.

http://nyti.ms/rwRPZN

With all this being said, none of this is any excuse to not go to school and get that knowledge!