Here are some of my musings on King’s impact. This is not polished and not complete, but they are my thoughts.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DAY
Today is a federal holiday - more than a day off from work - but a celebration of the life, work and impact of Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a preacher/teacher/speaker, civil rights leader, author, father and husband who helped to change the course of American society at a volatile time in our history. As I sit here thinking about his life and looking at my 15 month-old son playing on the floor, King’s legacy comes to mind. It’s been 44 years since King’s assassination in 1968, and we as a national and international community are still talking about his ability to galvanize and polarize a nation around civil rights issues and the true meaning of humanity, equality and justice.
Have you ever had to look in a bag while you were busy doing something else? You can’t see, so you put your hand in and feel around for the object you need. In essense you are “seeing with your hands”.
I think we need to do more “seeing” with our hands. We spend so much time merely viewing the world with our eyes - looking hurriedly at things from the vicarious distance. But when we take the time to feel texture with our hands… to explore and even create with our sense of touch - we begin to “see” in a new way.
October is National Bullying Prevention and Awareness month and we must use this time to raise awareness about what happens all year long—every year—in our schools. Asher Brown and Phoebe Prince lost their lives to bullying. Because of the increased frequency of this type of tragic outcome, the official term is bullycide: when a person commits suicide because of bullying.
WAKE UP! I’m sure Asher and Phoebe are not the only youth to die within the past year, but their stories were covered by national media. So in a sense, they are the “faces” of a growing epidemic in our country. And their deaths beg the question: How many children have to die before we take bullying seriously?
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. It wasn’t deliberate… it was just I didn’t have anything that I thought needed to be said. Oh, and there’s also me being busy with my job, church, marriage, Speedsuit Powers novel and a baby on the way. And I just returned from a 10 day trip in Ghana, West Africa and spent over a week being sick. That gives a person a lot of time to think about life -although I think it may be impossible to think clearly while congested
I know it’s 2010, but I don’t have much to say at this point. It’s said that if you want a productive blog, you have to write new content weekly. But quite honestly, I haven’t had anything that I’ve been burning to write about.
This doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about what to write:
I had the opportunity to be interviewed (on 11/18/09) on the “Open” talk show, hosted by Daren Jaimes. It’s a local show on Bronxnet Community Television. We discussed my new book, Speedsuit Powers, and how it can help bring hope to urban youth. Here’s the update from my Speedsuit Powers book website.
Speedsuit Powers releases Tuesday December 1, 2009. You can purchase your copy at Amazon.com
Alright, here’s the first official Speedsuit Powers book trailer. The story follows a boy who has to deal with some major “bully drama”. If you have middle school/high school aged kids, or you work with youth, you’re going to want to get them a copy of this novel. You may even want a copy for yourself! (One adult read the book in 5 hours. She said she couldn’t put it down.)
The novel releases December 1, 2009 on Amazon.com, so save the date: Tuesday December 1st. Feel free to let me know what you think and also pass this video onto others!
What’s happening to our youth? In California, a 15 year old girl was gang raped for 2.5 hours. What’s worse is that other youth watched, participated and did nothing to help her. What’s happening to our society, where we don’t get involved to help someone else? At the very least, we should realize that there may come a time when we will be the victim and need someone to step in to help us.
Here’s the article from CNN.Com. And here’s a video from CNN.com:
What are your thoughts about what happened and what we can do to make a difference?
I am holding in my hands for the first time, the very first copy of my new book, Speedsuit Powers . It’s a teen fiction novel where the main character, Curtis, is the new kid at a new school dealing with bully issues. It releases this December. My prayer, hope and desire is that this book will help to positively impact urban youth culture. That it will inspire, motivate and educate youth to see their lives differently and make new choices (or stand by decisions they’ve already made) which lead to true and lasting success.
When I heard about the beating death of Derrion Albert - an honor roll student with his eyes on college, who stayed out of trouble - I was saddened that we as African Americans would do this to ourselves and have such blatant disregard for the life of others. Let me stop here and say, that after having traveled to Africa, China and Europe and having done some studying of various genocides around the globe, the underlying root issue of violence is not skin color - but the faulty condition of the human heart and mind which frames and contextualizes our daily circumstances to promote ourselves at the expense - and even detriment of another. I need to make this distinction, because there are those who believe that black people are simply savages. This couldn’t be further from the truth as the issue is that under certain conditions, people have a tendency to act savagely.
