Be The One

These are quotes and points that I heard from speakers this weekend at the Big XII Conference on Black Student Government. I am not silly enough to assume that all of these are original quotes, as for the purpose of this, though, these are the people who used these quotes to make their points.

A couple weekends ago, I went to the Big XII Conference on Black Student Government and it taught me so much about what it means to be a good leader, what it means to be young in America, what it means to be Black in America, and what it means to be all of those things together. I got a week's worth of knowledge dropped on me in two days. If you ever have an opportunity to go to this conference, you should go. And FYI, there were several white people there. Lol.


“Education is an opportunity, not a free ticket to success.”
“You can’t compete with someone whose purpose is bigger than yours.”
-Dr. Joe Martin

“I pledge from this day forward that I will live life to the fullest, treat people with respect, take advantage of all of my opportunities, make it my mission to find my passion, keep it real, and know my next steps to accomplish my goals and live my dreams.”
-Passion Pledge
Passion For Leadership
Lamarr Womble

“Legacy = Intelligence + Vision + Excellence”
“If the grass is greener on the other side, the water bill is also higher.”
-Jonathan Sprinkles

“Don’t make an organization. Make an institution.”
-Amon Rashidi

We are the “warrior class” (ages 15 – 26)
“Make sure you get what you came to get.”
“Do we move up as a culture, as a ‘we,’ or will we abandon the ‘we’ for the ‘I’?”
“Let’s not sleep through the revolution.”
-Alonzo Jones

“’To whom much is given, much is required.’”
“We can do anything as individuals. We can do anything better as a team.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being rich. There is something wrong with being a rich, bad person, a rich person who doesn’t contribute.”
- Joseph Smith

“Too many of us try to see the world with our eyes and not with our minds.”
“You cannot hate the root of a tree and not hate the tree itself.”
-Dr. Lasana Hotep

“People should always be more important than protocol and politics.”
“Who got next?”
-Felicia Hall Allen

“Just because you know something, doesn’t mean you’re using it.”
“A good leader is always willing to fight one more round.”
“Students are one of the world’s most abundant natural resources.”
-Dr. Kathy Humphrey

Isn't it strange that princes and kings,
And clowns that caper in sawdust rings,
And common people Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass, A book of rules;
And each must make - Ere life is flown –
A stumbling block or a steppingstone.
-R. L. Sharpe

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates
others.
- Marianne Williamson

Barack Obama for President 2008

I don't see how you can NOT believe in this. If this doesn't give you hope, if it doesn't light a fire underneath you, if it doesn't make you want to trudge through snow to the polling place, then I don't know that I have any business with you (politically speaking).

Is Facebook an Accurate Representation of Young America's Political Views?

According to Facebook.com's Election '08 Application in which 263,911 people have voted on who they want to be president:
Barack Obama (Democrat) is in the lead with 24% and 64,670 votes
Ron Paul (Republican) is a far off second with 9% and 24,422 votes
Rudy Guiliani (Republican) is third with a slightly lower 9% and 23,961 votes
Hillary Clinton (Democrat) is fourth with a barely lower 8% and 23,331 votes
Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney (Republicans) each have 4% with 12,873 and 10,638 votes respectively
John Edwards (Democrat) ranks #6 with 3% and 9,201 votes
And Al Gore, who has not proposed any interest in the candidacy since the 2004 election, has 2% and 6,692 votes.

The reason I gave you all of that information is because I'm curious about the implications that these numbers make.

First off let me say that these questions are based on the assumption that people who have used the Election '08 application are people who are interested in politics and therefore who, if eligible, will vote when the time comes.
Facebook.com also started as an exclusively collegiate connective tool.
In using the application, people are allowed to vote for more than one candidate.

Now, my questions are these:

Are these numbers an even vaguely accurate representation of Young America?

If yes, will this interest be translated to action on polling day?

If Hillary Clinton does not have a following in young, collegiate America - arguably a non-traditional crowd, where is her following?

Does she stand a chance in the eyes of conservatives? Traditionalists?

Not a Joiner

There are a lot of things that I believe in and will stand for and will support, but I tend to not join anything. I tend to not want to advertise anything. This is consistent with my desire not to be labeled.

I love Jesus and spend a considerable amount of time doing things because of that love, but in general, you don't see me wearing a cross around my neck or wearing a Christian t-shirt.
Unless something changes over the next year, I want Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States of America. But it was a struggle for me to add the Election '08 application to my Facebook. You probably won't see me wearing Obama For America t-shirts. I won't buy a bumper sticker.
I have to lay my pride down everytime I put on Alpha Chi Omega letters even though I adore my sisters and everything that our fraternity stands for.
A lot of the men on campus that are friends of mine are in the Kappa Sigma fraternity, but I had a big dramatic episode earlier in the year because I can't wear their letters. I don't want to be a Kappa Sig Sweetheart. I don't want to advertise for them.

I point all of this out to make the point that I am just not a joiner. I love music and singing but ever since I graduated high school, I have lost the desire to be in choirs. I love expressions of individuality and anything that's different than the mainstream, but that doesn't mean I can devote half of my weeks to OCURhythms.
I have to find a way to support the things I approve of without losing my identity in them.

If you ever run across Dave Chapelle's documentary on krumping called "Rize", give it the 2 hours it asks for. It's the most interesting thing I've ever watched.

What Will People Think...?

some of you know and likely resent the next lines of this song.

What will people think if they hear that I'm a Jesus Freak?
What will people do when they find that it's true?
I don't really care if they label me a Jesus Freak.
There ain't no disguising the truth.

And let me start off by saying that I can understand and relate to your resistance. I have the same problem with being labeled as anything. I don't like to be labeled as a Christian or as a Jesus Freak for the same reasons I don't want to be labeled as black or as woman or as young or as nerd or as sorority girl. I just don't like labels, because they leave nothing to be imagined. Even the person with the best intentions, when they think of me as Christian there are bound to be some thoughts that come along with that label that are not pleasant. Christians persecute and exploit people just as badly as others.

But I realized tonight while I was at the Thousand Foot Krutch, Barlow Girl, Toby Mac concert that I miss the days when I could sing that song and know it's true. And there's a reason why "I don't want gain the whole world and lose my soul" makes me cry almost every time I hear it.

It's not because I don't want to do and be the right thing. It's because standing for the things I'm inclined to stand for will elicit that undesirable label. Of all the things to be labeled as 'Jesus Freak' is the thing that I can tolerate. But it kind of scares me that I am so against being labeled that I do things outside of character in order to make sure that people are always wondering about me. I "go ghetto" on the white kids so they always remember I'm not just like them. I stand out among the black people so they'll remember that I'm different than most. I'll drink because I'm not a stick in the mud, but I won't get drunk because I'm responsible. I won't tell you premarital sex is wrong but I won't do it either. I won't touch narcotics, but I laugh with you when you talk about getting high.

I realized tonight that my fear of being misidentified is stealing my identity.
Just like I told Christian last year over Spring Break: I've been trying to "educate myself" by trying everything and doing whatever I want, but I'm kind of running from the fact that I'm a good girl, a Christian girl, at heart.

To renege just a little on what I said in the last post...
I think it was really important, and with some things still is important, for me as an intellectual person who was born to be a leader in a pluralistic society to question everything. Because unfortunately for me I really only learn by action. So it wasn't until I questioned everything - God and His power and authority and capacity of love included - that I came to understand the hearts of people who question everything. It wasn't until I lived a lukewarm, hypocritical lifestyle that I was able to understand why people do it. It wasn't until I experienced the immoral that I realized the safety and peace and prosperity that come when you stand for the moral and just.
Yesterday, my advice to the world was to question everything.
Today, my advice is to figure out what works for you. How do you learn? By hearing, by experiencing, by observing? However it is that you learn, you need to seek that out until it brings you to the foot of the cross.

Now it's time for me to take my stand and truly say "I don't really care if they label me a Jesus Freak. There ain't no disguisin' the truth."

Formulating Ideas

My friend Liz once told me to question everything.

I realized this theory early in my life, but I never thought to put it into words that way until she said it. I come from a background extremely driven by faith, as the substance of things hoped for, and because of this I felt like my world was telling not to ask questions, to accept things as they are and will be. But I don't think faith, the evidence of things unseen, is the same as blind faith. As Talib Kweli said, "Just because the Lord is our Shepherd doesn't mean we have to be sheep." Blind faith has no more depth, no more efficacy, than blind disbelief. People who don't believe in and try to discredit things they have never heard or experienced are ignorant (they choose to ignore the information that is available for observation). People who follow blindly behind anyone's teachings (once they are of age to think for themselves responsibly) are just as ignorant.

I believe in 95% of the things that "conservatives" or "traditionalists" or "religious people" believe in, but A) my reasoning for believing those things and B) the way I came to believe those things differ from the people on whom those labels are placed.

I don't believe anything just because someone said it. I believe what I see and what I experience. Don't tell me that isn't faith. Because the faith came, not when I saw it the first time, but when I continued to believe in once I couldn't see anymore.

I don't base my actions on anyone's mandates. For the most part, I make my own decisions based on my analysis of the situation. And I live with whatever consequences and rewards may arise from my actions.

I don't try to force people into a way of thinking that they aren't inclined toward. I drop hints, I make my opinions and beliefs known, and I truly believe there are many "religious" principles that it would behoove mankind to abide by. But abiding by those principles is their decision. I don't need to shove someone to their knees. When Life has had it's way with them, they'll end up on their knees of their own accord. Better to help and love and protect them while they work their way toward the breaking point than to spawn animosity by trying to break the unbending.

I'm also not a movement-joiner/cause-supporter. I believe one should experience anything and everything that they can, but it is possibly a limitation of yourself to align yourself solely with any one thing. Attend a peace rally and a march on Washington. Hear a political activist speak live. Go on a mission trip. Volunteer with the homeless. Attend a revival. But to become the champion of one cause is the calling of the very very few, not the many. John Wesley said, "Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can."

The Journey of Learning

This is the first of a series of English assignments that I'm going to post here. Because apparently, my professors think they are rather good.

The Journey of Learning

As students beginning an academic year at Oklahoma City University, all have, at some point, made a formal pledge to the concept of university. By continuing to attend, and by paying tuition, upperclassmen acknowledge that it is still their desire to be part of a “community of learning.” When students became aware of this desire, whether as freshmen at matriculation or before or since, there were three main inferences made about said community. The statement, “We desire to begin this journey into the community of learning,” has a multilayered interpretation. Students are inferring that as a body they are stepping into an atmosphere that they expect to be safe for exercising their intellectual muscles, free for expressing their thoughts, and inspirational for further thought and reason.

A feeling of safety is imperative to a student’s ability to learn. Students must feel that they will not be made fun of, degraded or harmed if they are wrong or do not understand immediately. It must be communicated to them that this learning environment is one where mistakes are expected, corrected and reversed. A student who doesn’t feel like it is acceptable to be wrong will not feel like it acceptable to expand their wealth of knowledge because many learn only by trial and error. A student may not try if they do not feel safe to err. They may not feel secure in mental risk-taking if they do not trust that their advisors and instructors will be there to cultivate their risks or redirect the efforts. The classroom must be an environment that is comfortable, not full of fear. It is the faculty and fellow students, the other members of the community of learning, who alleviate this fear.

In the same way that students must feel safe to learn, they must feel free to express themselves. For many people, in order to retain information, facts must become thoughts and then conversations or writing assignments. A student who is afraid to speak up in class or enter into a dialogue with his instructor is less likely to gain a working knowledge of the subject matter. He may memorize facts and learn to regurgitate them, but he will lack true understanding. A student whose writing is limited by topic or length may feel like they are being told to think inside a box or structure. It may be assumed that traveling outside this structure is wrong and the student might then begin to place cognitive limits on himself. This contradicts the journey of learning; it places unnecessary roadblocks along the path to knowledge. Students are expressing between the lines of their pledge that they desire to have these roadblocks, these limits, removed for them.

Students “desire to begin” their journey. This says they are aware that they have likely not yet started to truly learn. It could be implied that students believe it is the job of instructors to show them the broadness of the horizon of learning. It is instructors’ responsibility to open students’ minds to the idea that learning has no limit and no set path. Prior to matriculating into college many students have felt that they were only “allowed” to hypothesize to a certain extent, only allowed to mentally reach so far. Yet it is the desire, the deep-seated longing, of these students to go past what they have already learned into realms of cognition that they never knew existed. In order for them to succeed in this journey, students need to feel inspired. Some only need services like matriculation to hint to them that the walls are broken down and they are at the threshold of the world. Others need to see it in their professors eyes during lecture, recognize it in the assignments being made, and understand it in the way those assignments are graded.

Students want to feel secure in their learning endeavors and free to express their ideas, conceptions, and misconceptions so that they can be more and more inspired throughout this journey in their community of learning. The desire is underlying in almost everyone and is brought to the forefront through calls-to-action like matriculation convocation.