Page 5 - 3-10-15 Tuesday's Edition

Editorials
Millionaires’ Prepare For Your Success
Perhaps, We Should Listen To Our Children
At a recent summit, Tampa Bay students spoke out. And many adults didn’t like what the students had to say. They admitted not feeling respected at school. A
growing number had seriously considered quitting alto- gether, and they sited financial difficulties and family ambivalence as major stumbling blocks to their aca- demic success.
They talked about guidance counselors who were ei- ther overwhelmed or disinterested regarding their stu- dents’ futures. Consequently, many graduating students with above 4.0 GPAs were given little assistance to get collegiate scholarships. Students complained of burned- out teachers who responded only to what students did wrong rather than to student success.
So, when a Black student received a perfect FCAT score, his teacher laughingly commented, “I don’t know how you got that score because you never study.”
But students aren’t laughing. They include Latin His- panic students as well as white students and their Black classmates. They point to a growing disillusionment of both students and teachers, if not parents as well.
Racism still runs rampant. Now it is accompanied by increased student-teacher mistrust. Warehousing of students is no stranger. No doubt, a revolution is brew- ing.
Perhaps, if we want to save our public school system, we need to see it through our children’s eyes. Only then will true pomp and circumstance return to our elemen- tary, middle school, and high school halls.
Almost forty years ago, representatives from inde- pendent community groups reviewed cases of police shootings by Tampa Police Department officers.
Painfully, but surely, the problem of police-oriented shootings quietly faded away in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Furthermore, the Tampa Police Department used to hold police-community relations seminars with resi- dents and neighborhood groups throughout the city on a regular basis. Moreover, there once was an advisory group that met on a regular basis and counseled the Tampa Police Department on issues relating to the Black and Hispanic communities.
Today, however, none of these groups exist, and word has it that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement recently stopped requiring diversity training for the state’s thousands of law enforcement officers.
Fast forward to 2015 and to the White House Policing Task Force appointed by President Barack Obama, which recently recommended independent investiga- tions when police use deadly force. Moreover, the Task Force calls for a change in practices that build trust in minority communities including “more police training to reduce bias and to help officers deal with stressful sit- uations.”
No doubt, had police-community relations initiatives begun in the late 1960s and early 1970s, continued through today, Ferguson, New York, and other cities could have avoided a return to the same recommenda- tions made nearly 50 years ago. We didn’t learn from our history, and now we are about to repeat it. For, God’s sake, where are our ears?
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Ben Franklin
Empowered greetings. Pre- pare for your success in life through personal development. I have a credo which states: Prior, proper planning: pro- motes, perfected peak perform- ance!
Most of us have heard the adage: “knowledge is power.” I would like to add, that if you have knowledge, you have the power and the advantage needed to be successful... if you use it.
Personal development pre- pares you with knowledge and
After investigating the Fergu- son police department, follow- ing the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson last summer, the U. S. Depart- ment of Justice recently re- vealed that they found no evidence to support charging Officer Wilson with violating Brown’s civil rights. In the same report, commissioned by Attorney General Eric Holder, the Justice Depart- ment also included a scathing critique of the Ferguson Police Department and court system stating that they each practiced “a consistent pattern of racial discrimination against African Americans.”
In a press conference last Wednesday Atty. Gen. Holder outlined several exam- ples of gross police impropriety including one involving a woman who was forced to pay $550 for a $152 parking ticket she received in 2007 and some- how still owes the City of Fergu- son $541 and that of a Black male driver, pulled over by a Ferguson police officer because of a window tinting violation, who ended up with a gun placed to his head while being falsely accused of practicing pe- dophilia. His detainment and arrest ultimately resulted in the man losing his job.
Among the other obvious in- cidents of racial bias mentioned by the Attorney General was the unsettling discovery that Fergu- son police officers appeared to use dogs exclusively on African Americans and the existence of several emails between Fergu- son public servants that rou- tinely included disparaging remarks about African Ameri- cans. Many of the messages often alluded to Black women and men as being little more than welfare mothers or com-
power to face what lies ahead. In other words, when preparation meets time and opportunity the outcome is success.
Here are a five strategies for personal development:
1. Take time to explore and discover who you are through self-awareness. Learn what makes you tick, your values, gifts, talents, abilities, strengths, weaknesses, motives, passions, purpose, fears and inhibitions. If you know yourself you can grow yourself.
2. Read, research and study about the focused area of your development. There are self- help books on a myriad of topics
mon criminals.
All of these occurrences
clearly showed how Ferguson law enforcement officers and other city government employ- ees went about blatantly mis- treating and abusing a segment of the population they were re- sponsible for serving and pro- tecting. Yet, ironically, no one has been held accountable.
After watching Holder’s en- tire news conference, the first thing to cross my mind was, “So what else is new?” I imagine, for some individuals, the Justice Department’s findings were shocking. But, for most Black people, it was simply official confirmation of the things in which we are already keenly aware.
Viewing how Ferguson law enforcement responded to the protests over Brown’s shooting death last year, with militarized vehicles and snipers patrolling the streets, I don’t think anyone believed that the predominately white police force and the pre- dominately Black population of the small Missouri city had an amicable relationship. In fact, I’llevengoasfarastosaythata large number of Blacks feel the truth uncovered about Ferguson could be applied to any city gov- ernment across the nation.
I mean, how else could you explain the high number of similar incidents that have been taking place for decades? Al- most all of them coming to the same, seemingly, forgone con- clusion that anytime a cop takes a Black life it’s deemed justifi- able.
It doesn’t take a 6-month in- vestigation or even a rocket sci- entist to realize that the root cause of the devaluing of Black lives stems from a cultivated at- mosphere of bigotry. The “why” is fully understood, now it’s time to figure out how to keep it from
to help you develop spiritually, mentally, physically and finan- cially, etc. Read and learn about current and historical figures that have blazed trails to success, even though dire situations.
3. Identify and connect with people locally, regionally and na- tionally that are successfully doing what you are doing or what you want to do. Get advice and guidance from them. Learn the ingredients for their recipe for success. Use what you need for now and save the rest for later.
4. Be a lifelong learner; at- tend continuing education courses, workshops and train- ings to enhance your skills and knowledge.
5. Prepare by practicing what you’ve learned so that when you, your business or your ministry takes center stage you are ready to present a peaked performance.
To contact Selphenia Nichols Simmons you can email: selphenia@suc- cesscoachtowomen.com.
continuing.
Every time a police force,
governmental agency or private sector company has a problem with race relations in a urban community, you began to hear about things like sensitivity training and cultural awareness seminars becoming imple- mented. Activities that have proven to be about as worthless as the bull—— certificates they give the participants who com- plete the courses.
The real issue comes from the fact that many of the people trusted with the authority to en- force laws and codes of conduct come from backgrounds where prejudice and buying into pre- conceived stereotypes is firmly imbedded into their thinking. And, absent some kind of divine intervention that removes that element from the equation, it’s hard to imagine anything changing that narrative regard- less of how many lawsuits are filed.
The only chance that Black people have of making a real dif- ference is by flooding police sta- tions and courtrooms with people who, not only looks like us, but who are willing to pro- vide a check and balance system while making their presence known. That means grooming our children now to take over those types of jobs in the future and voting in mayors, city coun- cilmen and judges who won’t look the other way in order to protect blue shields.
We can continue to celebrate iconic marches, like the one in Selma, for another 50 years. But, if we don’t begin to build on what those pioneers of the civil rights movement began, by ac- tively participating in the politi- cal process to initiate real change in order to save Black lives down the road, the only thing we’ll really be doing is blowing hot air, providing great photo opportunities and wast- ing a lot of precious time.
Reality On Ice is © by the Florida Sentinel Bul- letin Publishing Company. Anyone wishing to contact Clarence Barr can email him at: Cbreality1@yahoo.com.
It’s Not Just Ferguson
Learning From Our History
TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2015 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 5