Spooky

Trick or Treat. Halloween is in a couple of hours and I have ZERO plans for the "big dance". Franklin street, the traditional Halloween throw-down, has changed drastically since the past years. This year the festivities are shutting down at 12a.m., the usual time for visitors to arrive. Due to the early closing, I do not think that the atmosphere will be as exciting as in past years and the attendance will be greatly reduced. Chapel Hill wants to make this years festivities more "home grown". The reason for the early closing is a tactic to decrease violence and drunk driving. Even though I know this will prevent a lot of trouble, I am still against the sudden change of the event. It's not like there has been shooting or anything fatal to occur on Franklin Street. I don't understand the problem. With this situation at hand, I may choose not to venture to Franklin Street and just stay in my room and watch some scary movies. That plan can never fail. J

Stop Snitching

So, as I was wasting time, avoiding my academic work, a friend of mine posted a link to an article which he acclaimed was so interesting. So of course, me, avoiding school work that should be in the process of completion, went and read the article. Now my desk is lined with wet Kleenex. The article I read was so touching. Entitled, "Honor Thy Father", this article has to be one of the most touching and inspirational piece that I have read all year. Basically the story is about a young girl, who is a great basketball player and her father. Her father is extremely supportive of her basketball career and is her "Number 1 fan". The girl's father is shot and killed during halftime of one of her basketball games. They still have no evidence on his killers because he is from a community where, "snitching", most times is punished with death. It amazes me how serious people take snitching. Snitching is the same principle of being a tattle-taler. Just like little kids get picked on in kindergarten for telling on people, people in the community are abused and sometimes even killed, for giving evidence on crimes. Even though the father in this piece was a very prominent man in the community, no one will reveal who they believe killed him or even give any clues to the authorities because of the "snitching" rule. It is so mind boggling. How can crime be stopped, if evidence will never be revealed because there is fear that more crime will happen, after the conviction of the initial trouble-makers? The system is ridiculous, but in most black communities, its one that everyone abides by. I just don't understand. I don't get it.

Wait or Weight

It still amazes me how many Americans actually get the gastric by-pass surgery, rather than actually attempting to diet and exercise on their on. The risk involved with the surgery, don't seem worth it to me. I know there are certain cases where the person has reached weights well above 300 pounds, and diet and exercise can not help them because their weight is outrageous. The surgery in itself masks the problem of your obesity. It only fixes your outer appearance, and not fixing the unhealthy mentality which you were suffering from. The best way to lose weight is to make a complete change of your lifestyle and eating habits. Going on diets, never work, because in most cases, you end up gaining the weight you once lost, back. Therefore creating an unhealthy cycle of unhealthiness. Once you go through that surgery there is a possibility that you will gain that weight back immediately if you don't change your eating habits. If that is the case, why waste money and risk your life on a surgery, which will result to you having to change your lifestyle and eating habits? Why not just start eating right and exercising now? I don't get it…..

Profile

It is still shocking to me when I hear of current accounts of racial profiling. I know that It is a bit naïve to think that no instances of it should still exist, but c'mon. Haven't there been enough years since the end of segregation to but an end to this madness? The reason this issue is bugging me currently because just last night, a friend of mine was harassed due to an incident of racial profiling. Him and two other young men where walking from their apartment on campus to a nearby fast food restaurant. A Caucasian police officer pulled alongside the young men and asked them to show their ID. The police would not accept their valid driver's license, but insisted on seeing a school ID card. After showing the officer proof that they actually belonged on the campus, the officer stepped out of his vehicle and proceeded to search each fellow, head to toe. The officer accused the young men of carrying weapons In the meanwhile; an African American officer came and assisted the Caucasian man in his un-lawful search. After the men were searched, the officer began to have a casual conversation with the young men, and acted like nothing just happened. As they were leaving, the officer yelled out to the men to have a fun and safe night, and continued driving on throughout the campus.

That incident was extremely uncalled for. Why were the young men, walking minding their own business, singled out and accused, out of the blue, of carrying weapons? Events such as those should not be occurring in the year of 2008. That is really an outrageous and I can't believe there was a black officer in the mist of this drama. That really makes no sense at all. It is really sad that we as a whole have not reached out and linked arm in arm with our other "brothers" regardless of race.....
But hey....not all people really care.

America blackened

Well as we all know, the 2008 Presidential Election is only weeks away. This election will be historical because we, as Americans, possibly may elect the first ever African American President to office. We all know that Obama’s campaign slogan is CHANGE. I agree that when he is in office, there will be changes made. But one thing I highly doubt is that Obama will be able to keep all the promises to Americans right away about incredible change. I think this because America is clearly in a recession. The economy is horrible right now, and low and middle class Americans are suffering. Once Obama is in office, the changes he promised will not be immediate because there is only so much he can do right now with the conditions at hand. Yea, he may have great ideas, but when it is time to act upon those ideas, Obama may not have the money nor resources available for change. How can he fix the health care system when the US is “filing bankrupt”? It’s outrageous. I point out all these things because many Pro-McCain voters will bad talk Obama if he is unable to make the changes that he implied. They will ignore the current state of the US and the conditions he has to work under, and point his lack of improvement or greater economic problems to the fact of him being BLACK and “not ready” for this job. As sad as it may seem, the “black” card, standing for uneducated, and dumb, and not responsible, will be played on him. Even though Bush has put us in this mess, if Obama gets into office, I’m pretty sure, a lot of Bush’s mess will be placed under Obama.

So why do we plan things again?

Why do we always plan, when our plan, always seems to go “unplanned”. That is so ironic to me. For instance, this weekend, my plans where to go to my high school football game, go to NC A&T University’s homecoming concert, and to end the excitement with a trip straight from Greensboro to Chapel Hill. Unfortunately, when I reached my home county, my car, apparently, had other plans. I attempted to start my car, but umm….I didn’t answer me back. It was terrible. I mean, I know the situation could have been worse, like me knocking off in the middle of nowhere, in a big four-lane highway, but hey, who likes not having a car. Well now, I’m sitting here in my house, wondering how I am going to get to Greensboro and enjoy the rest of my weekend. Or maybe I should not plan this out. We don’t want this to fall through. As odd as it may seem, most of the people I know, who always has to change their plans at the last minute, they seem to plan the most events. I wonder why people do that. I think it’s odd, but then again, It kind of seems that I am heading down the same path. Well, I didn’t plan on that….

Racer Eraser

If all of mankind would suddenly go blind, that would be the ultimate race eraser possible. Until a couple of days ago, I never really thought that our “eyes” have caused the most drama throughout the world today. We use our eyes to separate what we think looks good and what we think, looks bad. Our ours tell us who to love and who to despise. Without eyes, can you just think of all the things you would not have to worry about? How you could truly as someone how they are feeling, and be fully attentive on what they were saying, rather than being distracted by what they are wearing or the size of their belly. Why have we let such a luxury, be the thing that deprives us from so much. We are limiting the possibilities that we never will know that we have, because we chose not to look with our soul. We use our eyes just to see, see what society has told us to believe and not what we think or really feel. I’m not saying that I want to be blind in order to experience those unseen joys, I am just saying that it would be beautiful to be in a world with no eyes. There would be no big “I’s” and little “u’s”. Everyone would be equal. No “white”, “black”, or “in-between”, why? Because those are things that only our eyes see. Our soul can see so much more. Kind of ironic huh? Being that our soul is inside and will never see the light of day.

Black needles

On Saturday, I volunteered my day at North Carolina Central University at a conference geared towards encouraging more black students to go into health fields. This conference was inspiring and also bursting with valuable information which the young minds of the middle and high school students soaked in, word for word. At the conference, I learned some information also that I was unaware of. The keynote speaker was Dr. Lois Sullivan, also member of the Sullivan Commission Alliance. He was a great speaker with informational slides presented through is slideshow. (I helped present it!) Did you know that minorities only make up 9% of the nurses, 6% of physicians, and 5% of dentist in or nation? Those percents where shocking to me, realizing the amount of people in the world.

I wonder why many black people are running away from the health fields? A point in the presentation was that many students encounter a particular subject in college and it deters them from achieving their goals. For example, many hopeful nurses and doctors, hit Chemistry or Biology 101, fail it, and quickly change majors. What can be done to encourage them to move on? How will this cycle end?