If you don't like the first impression, come see me again tomorrow. You might see something totally different. The older I get, the less tolerance I have for bullshit. Any questions? You're welcomed to ask. Be prepared for the truth.


"The only things worth it in life is what you give, freely with an open heart."
-my homegirl, Dsquared-


"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."
~Booker T. Washington~

To Be Great
===========
Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve.
You don't have to have a college degree to serve.
You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.
You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
~Martin Luther King Jr.~


Being Black in the Work Place
-----------------------------------
They take my kindness for weakness.
They take my silence for speechless.
They consider my uniqueness strange.
They call my language slang.
They see my confidence as conceit.
They see my mistakes as defeat.
They consider my success accidental.
They minimize my intelligence to "potential".
My questions mean Im unaware.
My advancement is somehow unfair.
Any praise is preferential treatment.
To voice concern is discontentment.
If I stand up for myself, Im too defensive.
If I don't trust them, I'm too apprehensive.
I'm defiant if I separate.
I'm fake if I assimilate.
Yet, constantly I am faced with work place hate.
My character is constantly under attack.
Pride for my race makes me, "TOO BLACK".!
Yet, I can only be me.
And, who am I you might ask?
I am that Strong Black Person who stands on the backs of my
ancestor's achievements, with an erect spine pointing to the stars with pride,
dignity, and respect which lets the work place in America know, that I not
only possess the ability to play by the rules, but I can make them as
well.
ONE GOD, ONE FAMILY, ONE FAITH


MITCH ALBOM
Detroiters carry on amid all the hardships
'And yet...' Detroiters go head-to-head with the realities they face, good or bad
BY MITCH ALBOM . FREE PRESS COLUMNIST . January 10, 2009

"Any mature city has its echoes, but most are drowned out by the chirping of new enterprise. In Detroit, the echoes roll on and on, filling the empty blocks because little else does. There is not a department store left downtown. Those three casinos hover like giant cranes, ready to scoop up your last desperate dollar. We have all heard the catchphrases about Detroit: A city of ruins. A Third World metropolis. A carcass. Last person to leave, turn out the lights.

And yet to live in Detroit these days is to want to scream. But where do you begin? Our doors are being shuttered. Our walls are falling down. Our daily bread, the auto industry, is reduced to morsels. Our schools are in turmoil. Our mayor went to jail....

For years, we took those insults as a challenge. We wore a cloak of defiance. But now that cloak feels wet and heavy. It has been cold here before, but this year seems colder. Skies have grayed before, but this year they're like charcoal. We've been unemployed before, but now the lines seem longer; we hear figures like 16% of the labor force not working, Depression numbers. I read one estimate that more than 40,000 houses in our city are now abandoned. Ghosts everywhere.

....Detroit may be suffering the worst from this semi-Depression, but we sure didn't invent it. And we can't stop it from spreading. We can only do what we do. SURVIVE."

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