Sublimely Powerful

Never in my 22 young years of existence have I ever felt such a strong sense of purpose. A moment in this journey towards eternal life, I feel may be the most impactful for me than any other experience thus far or to come- the opportunity and privilege of teaching and cultivating the future of our world. I have suddenly conjured up an excuse for teachers not being the highest paid career in the history of careers. Its because teachers pay is there students success. Teachers pay is the excitement of waking up early every morning to go and dictate the future through what we teach and instill in our students. WOW, do I feel powerful or what! This life of purpose that GOD has bestowed upon me is simply unbelievable, I CONTROL THE FUTURE. OK,I'm a bit redundant but its for a... purpose! lol. I have been chosen for the teaching and preparing of these little naive, malleable, ambitious creatures that we refer to as students. These students are essentially the FUTURE itself! they will be the next OBAMA, the next GATES, the next OPRAH. Somewhere in a classroom is Malcom X reincarnated, Huey P. Newton born again, Mother Theresa, Michael Jackson, James Brown and Jay Z, Colin Powell and Shirley Chisolm waiting for their time and opportunity to assume their rightful positions in society. My ability to activate these leaders inside of all of them is a beautiful burden. My effectiveness of explaining a verb versus a noun, a simile versus rhyme scheme will ultimately contribute to the channeling of their unique God given Genius. It is quite possible I might spend more time with my students than their parents and family, I hope not, yet a sad reality for some. My ability to inspire, to motivate, to educate and create curiosity will ultimately mold them into who they will become. Observe a classroom and there you have it, the most credible source for predicting the future(besides, obviously, the fact that GOD controls life itself) . Forget the statistics, the solution and the answer to the mystery of life tomorrow lies in the student and their capacity to learn and grow into meaningful citizens of this global community. I feel sorry for any teacher that is just going through the motions and has yet to realize their enormous obligation and POWER. Yet, I look forward to their moment of epiphany because man is it surreal, well at leat it was for me! Teachers are the surrogate fathers and mothers of children all over the world. Everything I do when planning for class is always deeply rooted in, "how does this increase lifetime opportunities for my students and society". This power I am so excited about is not power I solely posses but the power I speak of is completely dependent upon and only exist (in regards to me) when I TRANSFER it from my myself to the students. The ability to transfer, rather transcend power from myself to my students is what makes me feel so meaningful. I feel it is my duty to not only make sure my students retain the technical info needed to past standardized test, but to teach them life skills that prepare them for when life and the operating of society is officially transferred from me and other generations to their generation. It is my hope and dream that the daily affirmations, newspaper articles, inspirational songs, the chants,the pep talks and the one-on-one teaching meshed with my passion and their drive will translate into them possessing sublime power that will pave the road of progress and evolution for the human species. We are all teachers, whether in or out of a class, whenever we see someones "lack of whatever it is we have that can help elevate their state of existence", we then become SUBLIMELY POWERFUL. So I challenge all to think about what exactly are you doing with this power that you possess,because it really isn't effective power if you cannot not transfer and transcend it to continue beyond your stay here on earth. Do you want your power to die when you die?

Please excuse any typos, I'm suppose to be working and stopped and typed this, now I have to get back on task
-Alex D

GOOD HAIR Coming Out in October!

Goapele

http://www.streetetiquette.com/

THIS IS VERY INTERESTING!

As you know this movie renamed Precious will be in theaters Nov 6, 2009, the previews for the movie are blowing up the air ways and internet every day. After watching the previews for this movie I had to read the book to see what it’s about…it succeeded every expectation of my thoughts. Now I should warn you that it this book is disturbing, but it shows the Struggles that this young girl went through. I hope many of you can purchase the book then see the movie THaNKS!!

Light Skin or Dark Skin!- By: DANA

Gentlemen, ask yourselves this question: If there are two girls, they both have the same type of beauty: cute face, shape, and everything. Which one would you approach? However, the only difference between these two gorgeous young ladies is one is dark skinned and the other is light skinned. Ladies, the same question goes for you.

Fall semester 2007, my friends, Keisha, Monica and I gave a survey to at least 15 PVAMU male students by asking them this same question. 75 percent chose light-skinned, 20 percent chose dark-skinned, and five percent chose both.

The reason for this survey was that Keisha, a dark-skinned female, attempted to prove a point to Monica and me. She stated that male students on our campus tend to ignore the dark-skinned females. Monica and I had never encountered this situation before or even noticed it for this matter. After our research, we came to the conclusion that she was right.

Monica would be considered a light-skinned female; however growing up, her family encouraged her to believe dark-skinned women were prettier than light-skinned women. She was often ridiculed for being lighter than most of her family members.

I, myself, could be considered in between dark and light-skinned. I had never been exposed to the criticism of the color of my skin. Personally, my battle was with another African-American issue: which was good-hair versus bad-hair.

The media could be a huge influence on how we perceive certain images, regarding light-skinned and dark-skinned women. Rapper Young Berg, best known for his recent hit "Give you the business," was recently reported on an XM radio interview as referring to dark-skinned woman as "dark butts." He stated that deep, brown skin tone women are not dateable for him because they just do not look good enough. According to him the women he dates must pass a "pool test," meaning the woman must look just as good as she did before she stepped into the pool and her hair should not be "nappy" when stepping out of the pool. He is also reported to say that he wanted nobody darker than him. Furthermore, the next day, after the interview, Young Berg made a public apology to all dark-skin women, claiming that he was sincerely remorseful. Also, he informed the public that his mother is a dark-skinned female.

However, rappers and their influence should not get all of the blame, due to the fact that L'Oreal cosmetics shot an ad with Beyonce. They attempted to darken her skin in the ad for Essence magazine, but lightened it in the ads for the mainstream magazine. Is it possible that L'Oreal darkened the ad for Essence magazine?

The originality of the entire issue within our African-American community, came from the William Lynch speech and letter. A slave owner of the West Indies declared that he discovered the "secret" to controlling enslaved Africans. This theory was an address delivered by Willie Lynch in Virginia 1712 regarding control of slaves within the colony. The letter informs other slave masters how to control slaves mentally by setting them against one another.

"I guarantee everyone of you that if installed correctly it will control the slaves for at least 300 years...

I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies, and it will work throughout the South... Take this simple little test of differences and think about them. On the top of my list is "Age", but it is there because it only starts with an "A"; the second is "Color" or shade; there is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations, attitude of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley, on a hill, East, West, North, South, have fine or coarse hair, or is tall or short...

I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust, and envy is stronger than adulation, respect, or admiration. The black slave, after receiving this indoctrination, shall carry on and will become self refueling and self generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands...you must use the dark skinned slaves versus the light skinned slaves, and the light skinned slaves versus the dark skinned slaves," said Lynch.

Willie Lynch discovered that when the slaves worked together, they were very productive and successful, possibly more than other races. Consequently, he figured out a way to keep the slaves ignorant and mentally dysfunctional.

Today, an issue that black people probably struggle with is attempting to conceive "pretty light skinned or light-brown skinned babies." As a people, we should strive to improve our personal perceptions of our race. So that when we do have children, we can teach them to love themselves and embrace the race they originated from.

Just a Love Story