Ok, is this stupid children Friday! I know, I know you should never call a child stupid but the nonsense in the news today is utterly ridiculous and disheartening.

A group of teens at Gloucester high School in Gloucester Massachussetts made a pact to get pregnant. Over 17 young women, most under the age of 16 have gotten pregnant during this school year. The numbers were so startling that the school officials decided to investigate what was going on.

What they found was that these young girls were getting pregnant on purpose. There is so much wrong with this situation that it is not even funny. 1. We have children playing with the lives and futures of these babies that they are about to bring into the world. 2. STD’s are spread through unprotected sex, it is logical to assume that if all these girls are getting pregnant that they are having unprotected sex with these men.

The article states that one man is 24 years old and homeless and he is the father of one of these young girl’s babies. These young girls are searching for love in all the wrong places. It’s sad that they went to such lengths to gain attention. I am truly worried for the young women of the coming generation. In a world where youtube booty shaking and naked photos of young girls pop up everywhere on the internet I am concerned for their well being. I am concerned for the future mothers of our children. Ofcourse it would be preposterous to assume that all young girls are acting this way. But any time you see 17 young girls at one high school making pacts to get pregnant that should let you know that this is a growing problem.

It would be a waste if I just ranted about these problems and said nothing in the way of solutions for such a  problem. We need young women to mentor these young girls. We need young men to mentor our young sisters and present them with more respectful and favorable images of themselves. We need to enstill respect in these young ladies. Not only respect for themselves but respect for their peers and most importantly their own bodies. I pray for these 17 young children coming into this world, and I pray for these girls because the road to parenthood is not be easy by any stretch of the imagination. Now that we have watched these young ladies make these mistakes it is up to their parents, communities, churches and us to help support young women in such a situation and to prevent other young ladies from making similar mistakes. Peace and Love!

Letter to a young black female

What’s up young lady. You may not know who I am but I know who you
are. You see, I see your potential, I envision you accomplishing all
of your dreams and goals. Anything that you set your mind to can and
will be yours if you just Believe!

Believe in what you may ask? Yourself! Believe that you are the
intellect which has governed civilizations for century upon century.
Believe that you are the standard of beauty and not whatever images
the media shells out at you. Believe that there is no task too big
or too small that you can not reach for and achieve.

Realize young lady that women have always been at the helm of
everything great. James Brown said it best, “this is a man’s world but
it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl”. You have so many big
sisters to look up to, so many sources of inspiration that have
provided the framework of the strong work ethic known as womanhood.

Notice I call you young lady for these terms that I hear you referred
to are not your names. You are a Queen who must demand respect, your
mere presence should command respect. You must first respect yourself
however, and respect your fellow sisters as well. Together you young
ladies make up the future table of leadership.

God made you to be special, he made you to stand apart from the crowd.
So fear not if you feel isolated or alone, look back to your big
sisters who have changed the landscape of history, they once felt
alone too. I write you this letter to show my admiration for you, to
pay homage to the beautiful gift that the creator is bestowing upon
us. Follow your dreams and believe in your path young lady, for the
very thought of you reaching a tenth of your potential is an
inspiration to us all!

Truly yours,
Cedric D. Shine (your #1 fan)

Here is the article

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/1016357,pregpact062008.article

Act I

Scene: The Assassination of Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton is set to take place.

Place: vacant storefront on West 40th Street

Characters: Yazmany Arboleda

Wait a minute this is not a movie or a play this is real life, in the Big Apple this past Friday. Apparently artist, Arboleda transformed a vacant storefront into an art exhibit showcasing his view of the assassination of Senators Obama and Clinton.

According to the nytimes blog this exhibit was shut down only 30 minutes after it started. The gentleman was then hauled of to jail. Now here is where it gets funny, why was he locked up. He claimed that it was art and that his main objective was to show how the media assassinates and villifies these two individuals and play on that.

Hmm I am not sure police were buying his story, but I wonder if he ever had access to this place on 40th street and is that why he got arrested because maybe he was trespassing. I am not sure either way here are the pictures courtesy of http://www.sandrarose.com

There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. Ecclesiastes 3: 1-3

I told you I would revisit this scripture because I feel it is so rich with knowledge and understanding if only we allow the wisdom to be applicable in our lives. As I was riding the train this morning it was raining, the beautiful blue skies had turned a stark grey. Mentally I prepared for the gloom, in the Western world some tend to de-value the rain and associate it with sadness. However, it’s funny that in other cultures the rain is honored, it is seen as a blessing from the Supreme Being. So all this thinking about the weather made me think of the storm of life and brought me back to this very scripture.

There is time to plant and a time to harvest. We can’t plant all of the seeds that we want into our lives but without the rain they will not grow, our harvest will not flourish. The rain in your life is the same way, it is vital for your growth and continued living. You ever see someone you love wet with rain on their face, with their smile you are reminded of life and growth. Whether the rain is a golden yellow with the light from the sun or that dark grey from the clouds it is still serving a purpose in your life at that moment. Allow yourself to be immersed in the rain, cherish the experience because it is only making you stronger and more beautiful. I think of the storms that I have seen in life, I walked out of every storm a better man. A step closer to the man that God wanted to me be. We are his crops, and without the rain that he showers into our lives we cannot grow and be the full blessing that he wants us to be. Peace and Grace be unto you!

Patience can cook a stone.

Them N.E.R.D. boyz r wild I see. This is why you don’t play groupie for any star even if it’s all in good fun. Pause I can’t wait for the new NERD album!

Misunderstood: A Hustler’s Tale

Driven by dreams of material things
Cant blame em; on TV that’s all he seen
Takes more than a reckless spirit
To build a crack empire
Learn the ways of the street fast
Or your life will soon expire
Fiends is clickin’ to what they got on 43rd
So you set up shop next to the woods on 45th
House in the cut you don’t want no shit

Takes more than a reckless spirit
To do what your doing
More like economics and trade agreements
In that language you’re fluent
If only Columbia or Harvard came to the hood
Maybe this young man wouldn’t be misunderstood
With these practices
You’d be a top CEO
But instead we’re relegated to the streets
It ain’t fun out here
Everybody’s packing heat

So you wholesale your product
So all the abusers come to you
Now their consumers
Are your customers
And everybody knows you
Business is good, assets and such
Be careful brother, don’t press ya luck
You got big dreams
To get ya family out the hood
Never was too flashy
But now your rims are what make you look good
Just some more attention
Before they wave ya ass goodbye
Coppers watching, enemies plottin’, snitches will end ya life

He coulda been bigger than John Rockefeller
Coulda taken his charisma
And used it for something better
The world judges you
For serving with hope with despair
The streets is watching
You cant sleep
This lovely crack house
Is surrounded by fiends
Your enemies creep with guns
With ambitions to blow holes in your dreams
Yet the cops pick you up
Putting football numbers behind this big dream
Too many keys to count
You’re on your way to the bing

Don’t get me wrong, they crooked too
You ain’t got no boats
To get all these drugs through
All them drugs they caught you with
Didn’t even make it to the precinct
They supply your competition
And our communities are still bleeding
Only if Penn State and Temple
Came to the hood
Maybe this young mans life
Wouldn’t be so misunderstood

People have it confused; if you and your man do a crime and you get caught and he doesn’t and you tell. THAT’S SNITCHING! You chose that lifestyle, you are only telling because you got caught. However if a little girl gets shot in the street and you say you’re not going to “snitch”, a. that’s not snitching, b. you’re a punk and you’ll end up dead soon enough. See because you chose not to snitch you bring death to your own front doorstep! 1

START SNITCHING

We see it glorified in old mob flicks, rap records hail it as the sin of all sins; the number one code of the streets; “don’t snitch”. LOYALTY, I understand the concept very well, but when does it border stupidity and become a cause in fact of the violence and destruction of our neighborhoods. The “Stop Snitching Campaign” was subliminally etched into our minds long before the celebrated t-shirts with stop signs and the word snitching embedded within. Well please forgive me, for I am about to break the ultimate code of honor, I’m about to become the rat of all rats, because my charge for us as a community is to… “START SNITCHING”.

There, I said it, START SNITCHING, start snitching if you want your children to live to see past their elementary school graduation. Start Snitching if you want to stop living in fear as you walk to the corner store. This is heavy, because as a people we have a strong distrust for law enforcement. I mean, why wouldn’t we, after seeing many of our leaders crippled by this system of American Justice. We vividly remember news clips of the Civil Rights Era, watching police officers brutally attack people of color with water hoses and K-9 dogs? Many of us can attest to the “random” car stops, the harassment and brutality that our people face on a daily basis from those who are supposed to protect and serve. Yet I still say START SNITCHING, far too many of our children are becoming victims in the crossfire of drug wars, domestic disputes and other various forms of crime that begat violence.

What do you tell a mother who just lost her 6-year-old child to gun violence and you know what happened? What do we put on your grave when you’re no longer here, “here lies a good man cause he wasn’t no snitch”. No, more like here lies a coward who was too afraid to take ownership of his community and protect the lives around him. Now you’re thinking, “I‘m not snitching because then they are going to come and get me”. I agree, and sadly once again law enforcement does an awful job at protecting those who come forward with the truth. There is power in numbers, if we take a stand as a people we can combat these atrocities. We can put pressure on the legislators to create better programs for those who come forward, put pressure on city hall to allocate sufficient funds to the police department for such programs. Once we become aware of our power we won’t have to live in fear, we will begin to think for the system and have our thoughts implemented, as they should be in the first place. We elect, key word “elect” public officials, they are in their positions to serve us. So if we don’t feel safe it is our duty to get that message across to those who we have elected to make us feel protected. We can employ “effective snitching” by going to city council meetings, arranging town hall meetings and charging elected officials with doing their job and implementing programs that will make our streets safer. Our taxes are what pay the salaries of these elected officials and law enforcement personnel, so essentially they work for us, its time that we remind these people who write their checks and demand that produce results!

I’m talking about taking a stand for the well-being of the children we are raising. We know exactly what goes on around the way from violence to drug dealing and we even know what times it is more probable that these crimes occur. Effective snitching means as a community going to these elected officials and providing them with this information, demanding that they not only look at the information but that they create a plan of action to address it. Jail time is supposed to serve as a deterrent for crimes committed, meaning if you do the crime you do the time. By not snitching and taking a blind eye to the crimes within our neighborhoods, we are sending our people the message that what they’re doing is right and will be tolerated. We’re saying there’s no reason to think before you act because no one is going to tell so you don’t have to worry about prison time. No wonder the murder rates are so high, we have sent a message that people can be killed and we will protect the killers by keeping silent. START SNITCHING, effective snitching, lets be a catalyst for the change that we wish to see in our communities. Let’s Make It Happen!

Cedric D. Shine

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12: 2

Funny how you find things, I read a letter yesterday to the graduates of 2008, where a Princeton professor apologized for the lack of education that older generations have bestowed upon the younger generations. One thing that struck me was that she spoke of how we are taught to be afraid to take risks, we are taught to chase the dollar and not our passions. Then I was rapping with my man who quit his job in search of his dreams, in search of his passion. Of course that’s a brave move, took a lot of courage and support to make such a transition but he’s doing it and doing it well. How can we succeed if we place all of our faith in worldly perceptions of how we should live and what we should follow?

I love that here in Romans the word tells us to no longer conform to the pattern of the world but be transformed by renewing our own minds. To me that concept is such a blessing, the road that I am traveling may not be the path of others or the path that is widely accepted by the world but trusting in God’s will will surely land me where I need to be, where he wants me to be. In order for us to renew our mind we must be concious of what we allow to affect our thoughts. In order to be transformed we must believe that we can change, that we can make a change. It does not matter if your background is finance and the world is telling you to go make bookoos of doe, if your passion lies somewhere else follow that. Follow it with God’s strength though, we have to truly believe in our own abilities. Sometimes that’s the hardest part, if we are truly honest often it is easier to see someone else’s talent and neglect your own, I know I do. But when we start thinking like that we just have to re-read the first part of today’s scripture and allow our minds to be renewed.

Realize that so many of us want more, yet do so little with what we have been given.

This is really sad news, my heart truly goes out to this man’s family. Kirk Wright, a Harvard educated manager of a popular hedge fund killed himself this past Memorial Day weekend after being convicted of mail fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering in federal court.

Kirk Wright was the manager of the Marietta Hedge Fund. The bigger issue here to me is that a well educated, intelligent brother has taken his own life. A problem we often neglect in black communities and believe it or not white communities as well is how serious depression really is. It seems we have yet to find a productive way as a society to deal with how people emotionally handle times of crisis. Often these states of depression drive people right off the edge and they do drastic things like committing violent crimes even inflicting pain upon themselves. I send my deepest condolences to this brothers family and I pray that as a community we can start discussing the need to make mental health a core issue in our lives and finding beneficial remedies.

for more on this story check out:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/05/26/wright_0527.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139: 10-14

It’s funny I would stumble upon this verse. I feel like this is the basis for how I feel about my relationship with God. You know how they say you reap what you sow, that’s why I am amazed at the type of relationship God and I have. He doesn’t let me get away with anything! If I do something incorrect, he gets at me immediately and I just sit back like “wow, he’s good, I thought I could get away with that one.” Of course sometimes I get caught up watching what others do, how they hurt people and continue to press on and be happy. However, I know it is not my place to judge their actions and I know that by him showing his disapproval of my actions he is only attempting to make me wiser. Everything that is done in the dark will surely come to the light, so I am thankful that I catch the jack immediately rather than way down the line.

The words are so genuine; “for you created my inmost being, you knit me together”. God is our creator, the masterpiece that you see in front of your mirror every morning is his work. Beauty fades and this is why the Lord teaches us humility and to be noble. A loving, kind, helpful person will receive the blessings of the Lord because they are remaining faithful to his word. We can not hide our flaws from the lord in darkness because he sees us there. Instead we might as well just confess our troubles and flaws to the Lord and ask for his guidance so that we may move out of the darkness rather than trying to hide in it. Today I am going to follow my own advice and try to steer away from doing incorrect things that I will catch the jack for later. Peace and Grace be unto you.

The fool is thirsty in the midst of water.

When I first started watching this I thought it was funny. However this satire may have gone a little too far. You be the Judge.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Lstkiexhc&hl=en]