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Good Morning Tom, Sybil, and Jay.

Well guys, hold on to your seats because we are coming up on what promises to be a very bumpy ride … Stuff is about to hit the fan…

Of course, as we all know by now, that longtime civil rights pioneer, Glen Beck, is holding a march in Washington at the Lincoln Memorial labeled Restoring Hope, on this Saturday August 28, the 47th anniversary of Dr. King’s 1963 March on Washington…

And Glen Beck speaking at the March on Washington site is like Hitler keynoting at the Anti-defamation league;
Or, David Duke joining the NAACP;

Or, Osama Bin Laden going to Sunday Mass;

You get the point.  It’s ridiculous!!!

Maybe not quite as ridiculous as Jay taking off all his clothes in that Booty meat video . . . but pretty darn ridiculous!!

Now, putting aside the brazen disrespect to King’s legacy shown by Beck—I’m going to tell you what upsets me even more, Sybil…

As a community, it seems like we’re always caught reacting to problems and devastating events rather than preparing and organizing for the challenges that will surely come…

Let me explain. Even though I don’t know all of the details of Beck’s successful permit bid for his upcoming march, you guys likely heard the incomparable Dick Gregory come out and justifiably blame black folks for not thinking ahead enough to secure the date at the Lincoln Memorial before Beck could get it…

Maybe we were blindsided and just didn’t expect anyone to pull something like this… But whatever the case, one thing is clear…

An organized community, or a community with strong organizations, will avoid these kind of surprises because someone is always standing watch…

Effective organizations are seldom caught off guard… We need look no further than BP and the Gulf spill to see an example of a fractured organization where folks were inept, asleep, disorganized and even criminal in their negligence…

Effective organizations have to communicate with each other as well… and I’m certainly not blaming any one group for the permit thing, but what I am saying is, if folks were well organized and communicating, it’s much less likely this would have happened…

If we’ve learned anything as a community from the lesson of Katrina, it’s that we can not depend solely on government agencies to take care of us or assist us in our times of dire need… even though we pay taxes for them to do so…

No, we don’t need to let them off the hook for what we deserve as citizens, but we need our own back up plans or safety nets in place in case government agencies don’t do what they’re supposed to…

An example: Many independent and nonprofit support groups were created in the aftermath of Katrina and the recent oil spill… and that’s a good thing…

Well what if we didn’t wait for these massive tragedies to happen before we thought of creating such support groups or “first-responder” groups…?

And, more importantly, since we know that future tragedies and communal slaps-in-the-face will come given the tumult in today’s world, unpredictable weather patterns, and opportunists like Glenn Beck, shouldn’t we be proactive and prepare now…?

I don’t know, Tom, maybe I’m just talking crazy… I certainly don’t have all the answers and would never claim to…

But I do feel the organizations that claim to lead us and stand watch need to be proactive and on the same page when it comes to protecting and representing our community…

So I am pleased that you, Tom, Rev. Al and the National Action Network will be marching that same day at the historic Dunbar High School in DC…

All of our groups must be prepared not only to respond to –but also to prevent– the slights and atrocities before they occur…

I mean come on, if the FCC were on its job, would Jay ever have been able to flash his naked behind all over the internet?

Just kidding, Jay.  But seriously, if nothing else, we should all think about how we can bring this about by petitioning, joining and supporting our existing organizations to make this happen, OR starting our own organizations and support groups to do so…

Because right now, we’re getting caught off guard much too often, reacting to the last atrocity as opposed to anticipating and preparing  for the next one…

I’ll leave you with this:
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/despair-is-most-often-the-offspring-of-ill/411141.html

Until Next Time, this is Stephanie, in Love and Hope.

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Good Morning TJMS Family.

Well folks, we’re coming up on Black family reunion time.  There’ll be a lot of families getting together to celebrate reunions…

This is all good, but we have to face the sad fact that when it comes to one of the most important foundations of family life – marriage – the numbers aren’t looking too promising.

The 2009 census showed that 42 percent of black adults reaching their 40s had never married as compared to 23.6 percent of whites… It also showed that African Americans divorce more and have more children out of wedlock…

Now, of course, there are a number of complex reasons behind these stats: the legacy of slavery, black male incarceration, high unemployment, and the list goes on….

But I want to talk about something that is often overlooked when it comes to relationships and marriage…

And that is the individual… yep, you heard me right, even though the idea of the individual seems to contradict the idea of marriage and family…

It doesn’t … I’d argue it could even be one of the most important elements in a relationship…

You see, in marriage we assume important roles… that of wife, husband, mother, father, provider…

But, even with these assumed roles, each of us is still an individual who deserves to enjoy life, set and accomplish goals, and fulfill our dreams…

Think about it: How many times have you heard of marriages or relationships failing because one person feels ‘stifled’ by the other, or are forced to put their goals or dreams “on the shelf” because of the roles they now play…?

My point is this: healthy individuals help produce healthy relationships; healthy relationships produce healthy marriages; and healthy marriages produce healthy families…

If we want to have strong relationships, we have to work on ourselves and become the best individuals we can be… Then we can fully appreciate and more clearly recognize other healthy individuals…

And even if we are already married or in a relationship, we need to spend each day growing spiritually and engaging life in ways that make us happy…

Or, to put it another way, if we want good, solid relationships, both individuals need to be happy and fulfilled…

A wedding should not be the end of one’s growth; it represents a new opportunity for our growth within a committed and loving relationship where both people are growing, learning and maturing…

For as they say, when it comes to relationships, “We can grow together, or grow apart.”

Until Next Time, this is Stephanie in Love and Hope and this is TJMS at its Best.

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Good Morning Tom, Sybil, and Jay.

Tom, international events have been in the news a lot recently… There is, of course, the ongoing carnage trouble spots like Afghanistan, Iraq, the Congo, Somalia and the Sudan…

There have been important developments in South America as well, especially the growing tensions between the border countries of Venezuela and Colombia over Venezuela’s alleged harboring of Colombian left-wing rebels…

As you know, Sybil, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently threatened to cut off his country’s oil supplies to the U.S., accusing the American government of using its alliance with Colombia to instigate the conflict and potentially start a war so that the Americans can finally get control of Venezuelan oil…

hmm…certainly not the first time America has been accused of instigating an international conflict to get more oil…

In any event, while many folks have heard of the outspoken Chavez and his oil-producing nation of Venezuela,  I want to focus more on Colombia today, a country commonly known for its prominent role in the international drug trade…

But there is a lot more to know about this country … For example,…there are an estimated 5 to 10 million Afro-Colombians in the country, making up 21% of the population.

In fact, Colombia has the third largest Black population in the Western Hemisphere, following Brazil and the United States.

And unfortunately, just like Black folks in many other places, Afro-Colombians are going through some serious struggles…

While the country has recently tried to further stabilize itself with the election of a new president with ties to the U.S., its Afro-Colombian population has continued to suffer racism, exclusion from significant political power, and displacement as a result of the nation’s ongoing internal conflict.

Over 4 million Colombians have been internally displaced by violence and an estimated 700,000 refugees have fled to other countries… Few people realize that Colombia rivals the Sudan as the largest internally displaced population in the world…

Tom, the situation there is ugly…

You see, many Afro-Colombians are suffering and dying, and their leaders are being assassinated because they own rights to lands where multinational mining companies want to dig for gold, oil and other valuable resources…

Those who speak out are being threatened and targeted by brutal para-military groups that operate with impunity since the Colombian government is fully aware that these land owners are getting in the way of international commercial profits…

Dozens of Afro-Colombian leaders have already been murdered this year…

And people are being forced from land where their ancestors have lived for hundreds of years…

It’s very sad… and what our Afro-Colombian brothers and sisters need is our attention and our voice…

Especially since the United States has an emerging relationship with the new regime and has considerable influence on the country…

Many people who are outraged by the violence are pushing the United Nations, the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, the United States Congress, and the United States Department of State to pressure the Colombian government to protect the lives, rights and liberties of Afro-Colombians.

The Washington Office on Latin America, wants members of the U.S. Congress to move forward with House Resolution 1224 that promotes the protection and rights of Colombia’s Afro-Colombian population and Internally Displaced People.

Certainly, we should push for the same… You can locate and contact your representative at www.house.gov and tell them to get HR 1224 passed.

You can also find out more about the plight of Afro-Colombians at www.wola.org.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that sums up why we should always be aware of and committed to the plight of our fellow man and our fellow black people in need of help around our world…

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Until Next Time, this is Stephanie in Love and Hope.

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Good Morning Tom, Sybil, and Jay.

Tom, August is upon us once again and, in the South, it’s back to school for those countless students hoping summer would never end…

…don’t know if they’re gonna run that Staples commercial again where the joyous father floats through the aisle past those sad-lookin’ children on a shopping cart singing, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” but they need to…

And speaking of sad realities for children going back to school, a new year brings a not-so-delightful return to school lunches as our children become reacquainted with such memorable entrees as Tater Tots, that durable American classic; Turkey Tetrazini, which most researchers have yet to figure out…

…and hot dogs & burgers as rubbery as MC Hammer’s checkbook…

But wait a minute –bad jokes aside—what if, this year, schools and communities became interested in taking a healthier, more local approach to their student lunch programs…?

What if, Sybil –given the mountain of research linking our poor diets to such childhood disorders as obesity, diabetes, Attention Deficit Disorder and other learning disabilities—there was a movement afoot to transform school lunches, where healthy food is a priority and where chicken nuggets lose out to fresh local produce…?

Well guys, there is… and the Kellogg Foundation is a big part of it…

The WK Kellogg Foundation, of course, has supported and advocated for children and their communities for almost 80 years… One of their current targets for reform is, in fact, school lunches…

In April, Kellogg surveyed adults across the country and found that most Americans believe nutrition in local school meals falls far short of what children need, and that the foods most associated with school meals – pizza, nuggets and burgers – are the same foods parents believe should be significantly reduced on school menus…

The survey also revealed that, given the crisis of childhood obesity, there is near-unanimous agreement that improving the health of American children requires communities to prioritize access to fresh produce and daily exercise…

Now this information is all well and good, Jay, but there are reasons why what these parents want has, for the most part, not happened thus far… especially in our communities…

The federal government currently only provides a few bucks to schools for subsidized lunches and most of that goes to pay for cafeteria workers and overhead, leaving little money for meal ingredients…

As a result, many schools don’t cook at all, but merely rely on reheating cheap, processed foods for their cafeteria menus…

But Tom, check this out… Here’s an example of what one innovative community is doing to combat this…

In Washington, D.C., some local chefs are collaborating with parents to take over kitchen operations on a nonprofit basis at Tyler Elementary, a school that is over 80% African American with most of its children receiving subsidized lunches…

They are replacing the prepackaged meals with food cooked from scratch and served on real plates with real silverware…

They’ve pledged to get rid of all processed foods filled with preservatives, additives, food coloring, and other chemicals, and to buy directly from local farmers, and organically when possible…

And they are getting around the money issue by putting parents to work in the cafeteria as volunteers and using the savings in labor to buy better food from local growers…

Wow… Now this is democracy in action… a community taking control of its food supply for the sake of its children…

And isn’t it time we stopped allowing institutions to feed our students whatever kind of crap they may while we sit around as parents and wonder why our children are obese, diabetic, inattentive, struggling in school, and constantly ill…?

Fortunately, Tyler Elementary is not alone; Other school communities, in CA and other states, have taken similar steps…

You can find out more about how your community can keep your children healthy and well fed by going to foodandcommunity.org…

I leave you with a very simple saying that is as timeless as it is true…

And that is: “You are, what you eat.”

Until Next Time, this is Stephanie in Love and Hope.

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