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

TRIBUTE TO MY FATHER

Like Father, Like Son
What is a father?
Any man can make a baby
But it takes a real man to father a child
To nurture, protect and teach that child the way, requires not only a man
But a father
I thought today how on Father’s Day
The radio is not blaring with music that represents the good fathers of the world
The ones who work 2 jobs to support a family of 6
The men who provide for their families in times of scarcity and abundance
Where is the love for those fathers?
For my father
No monetary value could replace the lessons and energy you have given me
However, I offer this gift of gratitude
A gift of appreciation for you took me as your own
and epitomize what a father should be
It’s not about hanging out in the streets
It’s about HOME
It’s not about fast girls.
It’s about finding a woman like my mother you would say
So today I say thank you to my father
And while the radio may not play a million songs
The rest of the world may not acknowledge you
I salute you dad, for without you I would not be the man God has destined me to be.
HAPPY HATHERS DAY KENNY MACK AKA DAD!
Yours truly,
Oscar

N.E.R.D “SEEING SOUNDS” Album Review

“I’ll never forget I was like 7 years old, I closed my eyes and that’s when it happened. I STARTED SEEING SOUNDS!” With the backdrop of music that reminds you of the Pee Wee Herman days, Pharrell spits these words on “Time for some Action” and the trance begins, you become a part of outer space, you’re traveling to Planet N.E.R.D. A world where a hard core hip hop head can meet an alternative skateboard punk rock kinda kid while their both tryna holler at a Soulful, R&B girl. I SEE DEAD PEOPLE, I SEE SOUNDS!

I think the thing you have to love about N.E.R.D albums is that they are not made for the mainstream. It’s almost as if Pharrell and Chad make beats and do cameos on all mainstream music just so they can afford their addiction. Their addiction to making music that transcends a kid from the projects to the suburb with tales of women, drugs, relationships, and everyday life. Expect the beats to blare out your speakers. Tracks like “Anti Matter” might throw you at first but then you’ll realize this ain’t normal, it wasn’t intended to be.

“Sooner or Later” has people who are not typical N.E.R.D fans crossing over into Planet N.E.R.D. The instruments take you somewhere you’ve been before, with every drum snare you are starting to see the picture they are painting, you are beginning to see your own sounds. With a NERD album you are really bound to get double the amount of songs you bargained for. Every song has a bridge where the beat changes up, the vocals change up and you are given a teaser of another dope beat. I guess when you get super producers who make albums they have so many hot beats to choose from they have to be creative to get all of their sound in there.

“Yeah You” finds any male or female’s nightmare; a stalker who just doesn’t get it! If on the album Pharrell and his cohorts were trying to make music where the listeners see the potential video it definitely worked. For this track I see a new version of Black Sheep’s Strobelite Honey video treatment. Most are too young to remember, just go on youtube and look it up.

The smash hit single “Everyone Nose” has the streets buzzing, the clubs buzzing and THE “Black Mac” has been pumping it for months. Celebrity Insiders aren’t even mad that N.E.R.D. is exposing why some girls always feel the need to “POWDER” their noses. On the bridge Pharrell might even be trying to tell the girl to slow down with all her reckless partying while also trying to help himself to some of her wild behaviors. Already an Internet favorite is the extra-terrestrial “Spaz”. With an opening line like “I’m a little teapot short and stout” you have to wonder what the f*** is this song about to be about. Just Spaz if you want to!

I walk into my 16 year old brother’s room, a young dude who is more worried about the new Jordan’s or some Air Force one’s and I hear “Love Bomb” pumping out of the computer speakers. Why is that, why is this album crossing age groups, genres, and racial boundaries. Because everyone needs an escape from reality and that’s what this album offers, FREEDOM. Freedom to say whatever you want, listen to whatever you want. There is nothing typical about the music and the vocals can be just as confusing. But uff it, just go with the flow. Welcome to PLANET N.E.R.D where the norm is not so normal but the catch is you don’t care because you like it! I SEE DEAD PEOPLE, I SEE SOUNDS!

More sickness reported to us on a daily basis by our local news channels. This one is a little different though because it exposes how some laws operate and how men can be victims of such strict liabilities.

Now I for one do not surf the net, myspace or facebook looking to pick up 8th or 9th graders. However some men do, the two gentlemen in particular claim that they did not know the girl was so young, her myspace page mislead them. I wonder how you can be mislead by a 13 year old, I know that the hormones they are  injecting our food with have the tendency to make these little girls look like grown women but often their minds are far from mature. So I just wonder how a man who is 22, can be mislead by such a  young girl after they had a few conversations. I mean what is she talking about at 13, flavor of love and sequential math homework.

Her father is a shame of a man, he still allows her to keep this myspace page that misleads young gentlemen and still allows her to stay out late. Then cries foul when he finds out that she is sleeping around with older men. This sounds like some nonsense on Maury, the parents should be jailed for allowing this to continuously happen and not taking any precautions to keep their daughter from attempting to mislead men on the internet. 2 Gentlemen have had their lives ruined because of these lies, they will be labeled as sex offenders, and probably raped in prison once the correction officers spread the word on the block what these brothers are in for. I think the father should be arrested and the girl should be monitored or taken away from these careless parents of hers.

As a message to the brothers, please use your head and be more careful when meeting people off of the internet. This man is now spending time in prison and has had his life ruined because he hastily went to bed with this young manipulative girl. Statutory rape cases are strict liabilities which means the court does not care that you did not know that she was a certain age. Because you committed the crime, you will do the time and claiming ignorance is not a viable defense in these scenarios.

City of Ruin

Torn by a situation, life is everything you make it, everything you will it to be.
Young black men wine and cry about the knowledge their fathers never taught them.
Beautiful black women confused by what their daddy didn’t show them.
Moms play a Part TOO!
Young black men spoiled by their mothers attention and affection. Longing to be spoiled by their women in a similar fashion. Sometimes creating unrealistic goals of a relationship that is supposed to be reciprocal.
Young black girls caught up by their mothers imperfections. Either they were silent so she learned nothing or they spoke chords of wrongness and those chords echoed into empty halls of mindlessness that became stone.
So what is this confusion, these mind games, these strange feelings. I call it
LOVE

Freedom, you asking me about freedom, you asking me about freedom! Well I’ll be honest with you, I know a whole lot more about what freedom isn’t than about what it is, cause I’ve never been free. I can only share my vision with you of the future about what freedom is. The way I see it, freedom is the right to grow, the right to blossom, freedom is the right to be yourself. - Assata Shakur

New York Pricks & Dicks at its finest are no more than the murderers of a young family man with ambitious goals and aspirations. Truth is, I am Sean Bell, my brothers and friends are Sean Bell, and you too could be a victim of unjustifiable force by the people who your tax dollars pay to serve and protect; thus making you Sean Bell.

I pray that this time we really do wake up and take this for the issue that it really is. This is not a race issue on it’s face; why yes racial politics are part of the reason things went down the way that they did. However, now that two young girls are being raised without their father we have to look deeper within ourselves, past our skin color and see that this is a humanity issue. Why are young black men’s lives disposable? We get so caught up between black and white that we do not realize that their is a power structure in this country that oppresses people. It often privileges people of caucasian backgrounds and oppresses people of color.

New York Pricks & Dicks serve as an oppressive force upon the many young black males who live within the city limits. In an attempt to “promote safer neighborhoods” they are trained to act a certain way in neighborhoods that are closer to the poverty line than those which are not. You never hear about some wild white boys getting shot in a barage of bullets in a white neighborhood. Why? Because that would be unacceptable to the power structure.

If we think back to the days of slavery you had the slave master but he often had an overseer; an Uncle Tom who he would use to keep negroes in check. Detective Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and all of the other black police enforcement who continuously use excessive force on public enemy #1; the black man, are those same Uncle Tom’s. This serves two purposes; 1.) the power structure is still able to control minority men and keep them in check. 2.) They use people who look like them so that their racist power structure is not undermined by political correctness. It looks so much better when its blacks killing blacks rather than whites.

This is not a race issue, this is a humanity issue. White people who are tired of being benefactors to such a racist system and receiving the privilege of not having to be victims of this system should stand with people of color fighting these injustices. This is not the America Barack Obama speaks of; but this is the America that many of us know too well. Couple Hope, Change and groups of different ethnic and racial groups together towards humanitarian issues such as police brutality and we can fight to make this the country the way we would like to pretend that it is!

Congratulations to Ms. Crystle Stewart who was recently crowned Miss USA 2008. I honestly normally would not pay this contest any attention but I was impressed by this young lady’s entrepreneurial mindset.

Crystle Stewart, of Missouri City, Texas, runs a party-planning and motivational speaking company, as well as modeling professionally. Ms. Stewart looks to dedicate her life to international philanthropy. In a society that relegates women’s roles in the media to video girls and scantily clad outfits highlighting all of their assets except their minds, I am happy that this young lady is forward thinking. I pray that she takes this opportunity to continue to network and build her professional possibilities. But also stand as a monument for all women in this country, showcasing her intellect rather than her beauty and empowering young girls to reach beyond the restraints of the images the media offers them.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jzpNUzT8xA&hl=en]

February 29, 2008

Hard hearted people are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity. Ephesians 4: 17-19

Another scripture that has been running through my mind as of late is “a heart at peace gives life to the body”! I think of that scripture because a closed mind and hardened heart seems to be the direct opposite. Going through trials and tribulations in life harden us all, we all deal with these things differently but how we deal with them can affect our future progress. This verse is very descriptive, calling us who have had these feelings hopelessly confused, full of darkness. We shouldn’t be offended by these words because at times we all have dark periods, but once again it is how we deal with the dark period. For me when it speaks of closing ourselves to God, I think of when I am in a place of darkness and I call out to God in prayer and I don’t feel like he responds. It is sometimes in our human nature to feel abandoned even though that is not the case but sometimes we have these feelings. We build walls around ourselves, not allowing our loved ones in, and not allowing the Lord’s conventional wisdom in, propelling us further down a dark path further from the light. When we face drama, we must look to handle it in the way that will bring us the most peace and try not to close ourselves which will lead to more confusion.

The second part is interesting though. It reminds me of a story a wise woman told me recently. She did a focus group with a group of young women who were in the church, had children, and then were judged by the church for their promiscuity. The girls were angered by this of course, they felt betrayed, while they were in the church the church knew what they were doing and made no strides to reach out. This is these young ladies opinions, this is how they felt. However when they had the baby out of wedlock, people wanted to judge them. Not only driving them further from the church but further from God and his ever loving guidance. “They have no sense of shame” We all have been riddled with troubles and lost our faith, it does not mean that we live for lustful pleasure and wish to be impure, we are just confused. It is at this point that we as a community must love those who are in conflict with the Lord, and in conflict with themselves. Through our love and lack of judgment the hard hearted people become kind hearted people, their closed minds become open and loving. Why? Because we are doing what God has asked us to do, spread love and spread his word! Together this type of action will do what my man Mike calls “turning the tide” and make being spiritually minded socially acceptable, moving us all closer to having a spiritual connection and moving closer to God. Peace and Grace be unto you!

A proud heart can survive a general failure because such failure does not prick its pride.