Posted on Wednesday, November 27, 2013

The Wonder Years…Mom & Dad Edition…

Hello World,

My mom and dad on their wedding day in 1971, just months before they arrived at Milligan College…

On this Thanksgiving Eve, I am thankful for so many blessings! But in today’s post, I want to express my gratitude for my mother and father. A week ago today, my parents and I traveled on the interstate through the mountains to Johnson City, Tennessee for my speaking engagement the next day at Milligan College. I was invited to speak there about a week or so before my wedding date. I thought it was one of those weird coincidences because I had never met anyone from the college except for my Dad! That’s right, my father received one of his several degrees there in 1972, the year before I was born. So I asked my parents if they would come with me, and they happily agreed as they had not been back to the campus since 1972.

The entrance of Milligan College…

So even though the trip was about speaking to the students and hopefully imparting some of the lessons I’ve managed to learn in my 40 years, the trip was also a chance to get to know my parents before they were my parents. In fact, when they arrived on Milligan’s campus they had just gotten married months before in August 1971. I thought it would be interesting to learn about them as a newly married couple, particularly as I’m newly married.

The chapel were I spoke…When I saw the size of this place, I was so very nervous…

So here is some of what I learned about my mother and father before they were my parents:

My mom experienced “culture shock” moving to Johnson City which is still pretty small now but was even smaller then. Although she is from Jamaica, she had been living in New York City with one of my uncles before she married my father so it was a definite change to move from the hustle and bustle of gritty New York City to the serene mountains of Johnson City.
An outside view of the beautiful chapel…
My father also had to deal with culture shock from a racial perspective. After I spoke during the chapel service, my parents and I had lunch with several students in Milligan’s Goah Diversity Scholars Program. Through this wonderful program, several minority students have been able to receive full-tuition scholarships to Milligan. The students that we met are Hispanic and shared how they often feel other than or different for a variety of reasons ranging from missing familiar foods to cultural celebrations. My father empathized with them because he said he had similar experiences back then.
An outside view of the dining hall…
My parents lived in a trailer on campus! I cannot imagine trailers being all that comfortable, but my parents said the trailers were actually quite nice. They did mention there was a student from Grenada that used to regularly barge into their trailer and march up to their refrigerator to see what my mom prepared. With a laugh, my father said he had to “nip that in the bud” pretty quickly.
Emmanuel Christian Seminary is across the street from Milligan College..

My parents raved about how beautiful the campus was, and it is still a very beautiful campus.
While my father was in school, my mother worked worked in the president’s office as well as another location on campus. My father was actually a co-pastor at a small church in Johnson City.

While eating dinner in town, a Milligan student who worked at the restaurant came up to me and said she enjoyed my message...Made me so good I had to take a picture with her:)

While eating dinner in town, a Milligan student who worked at the restaurant came up to me and said she enjoyed my message…Made me feel so good I had to take a picture with her:)

As I watched my parents reminisce, it occurred to me that they probably really bonded as a newly married couple in Johnson City because they were there without family and friends. I think that would probably be an experience that would valuable for most newly married couples. And it must have been an incredible adventure considering their age! My parents got married just as they turned 30 years old. I wasn’t ready to get married at 30 years old, but I must admit, I feel a little sad about waiting until I was just shy of 40 to get married. But then again, I trust in God’s timing…

So on this Thanksgiving Eve, I thank God for my parents – the people they were before they brought me into the world and the people that I have known in my 40 years…And thank you Milligan College for inviting me to speak and being a part of my parents’ history together…

The mountains from my parents’ hotel room…

What are you thankful for this year?

Any thoughts?

Posted on Sunday, November 24, 2013

Three The White Way – Why Three of the Black Male Actors in ‘The Best Man Holiday’ Married White Women…

Hello World,

The ’90s were the golden age of black cinema…Let me hit you with just a few — “House Party” (1990) “Boyz in the Hood” (1991), “New Jack City” (1991), “Juice” (1992), “Menace to Society” (1993),”Jason’s Lyric” (1993) “Friday” (1995), “Above the Rim” (1995), “Waiting to Exhale” (1995), “Love Jones” (1997) and “The Best Man” in 1999…Although during the ’90s, I was a poor high school and college student and later a brand new journalist, a considerable portion of my non-existent budget was spent seeing these pop culture classics…

I think that’s why so many of us who came of age in this golden age of black cinema bombarded the box office last weekend, making “The Best Man Holiday,” the sequel to “The Best Man” rank second during its opening weekend, earning just over $30 million to the surprise of Hollywood…When we met Harper, Jordan, Lance, Julian, Quentin, Robin, Mia, Shelby and Candy in 1999, many of us where right where they were…We were recent college graduates and newly minted professionals…Many of us were getting married or watching our boys and girls from college days become other people’s husbands and wives…I identified the most with Jordan…I was more excited about nurturing a career than nurturing relationships and was often shocked when I watched my male buddies that I once had in abundance get married…

So when I started hearing the rumblings about a sequel to “The Best Man” a couple of years ago, I knew I would be among the first seeing just what happened to these beloved characters over the years…And my high expectations were exceeded! Dare I say “The Best Man Holiday” was better than the original! And like, that never happens! Can you name any other sequel that was better than the original?! I can’t. At least right now. Let me know if I’m wrong. These characters became even more rich with time, wisdom, hilarity and — tragedy. As in real life, when you are young, you live in a bubble in which life makes sense and your parents are always there to nurse your boo boos. After you’ve been an adult for a while, you realize that life, while beautiful, is less than sensible and some hurts never truly heal…I won’t spoil the movie because I still want others to see it…But I now consider it a classic…A definite must-see…

However, in spite of this movie’s brilliance, there have been unfortunate efforts to diminish this movie’s shine…And I just don’t get it…but I will write about it…We’ve all heard about USA Today and it’s “race-themed” commentary on the movie’s success..Also, the next day after I saw the movie last Saturday, I saw a Facebook post by one of my friends in which he noted that three of the four lead actors in the movie have been or are married to white women…As if to say, that the black on black love that we saw in the movie was just movie magic, hardly a depiction of real life…Okay, so you know what I’m talking about – Taye Diggs, who plays Harper, is married to Idina Menzel, who is white. Harold Perrineau who plays Julian, is married to Brittany Perrineau, who is white. Terrance Howard, who plays Quentin, has been married to white women…So what, I say?!! I didn’t watch a movie about Taye Diggs, Harold Perrineau and Terrance Howard! I’m watched a movie about Harper, Julian and Quentin….And yes, in real life, some black men marry white women, but I will not fall for the okey doke and not speak well of the movie because some of its actors didn’t marry women that look like me…And furthermore, there is nothing wrong with interracial relationships…So they married outside of the black race, but they didn’t marry outside of the human race!!!

And now let me address the Taye Diggs issue…Over the years, I have read that Taye Diggs has an issue with black women…I don’t know if this is true or not as I’ve never spoken to the man, but I am aware of the rumor…And yesterday, I read an article someone posted on Facebook about how Taye Diggs was happy to get back to his white wife after being with all of those black women on the set of “The Best Man Holiday.” And now, I’ve seen Facebook posts in which people declared they will no longer support Taye Diggs nor the movie. Maybe it’s because I’m a journalist that I know that first you have to consider the source…I have seen no mention of this statement from any reputable news outlet. Secondly, seeing a movie is not a sweeping endorsement of the every single life choice or belief of every actor in a movie. Thirdly, while I am no conspiracy theorist, I do believe there are forces at work that try to tear down legitimate successes…just who released this supposed story about Taye Diggs and why? Just something to ponder…

If you want to see a great movie with multidimensional characters that manage to touch every emotion on the spectrum, see “The Best Man Holiday.” And for those who want to get into Black Power arguments, have several seats (at the movies) at “12 Years a Slave,” which is the proper forum for this kind of conversation…

In sum, support.black.cinema.

Any thoughts?

P.S. Just a snippet of the fine black men in the movie…

Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Let There Be Peace on Earth…(with condolences to the people of Newtown…)

My niece and her friend at church…May God keep them safe as they grow up…

Hello World,

With Christmas less than a week away and the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut fresh in my heart, mind and soul, I awoke this morning with this song playing in my head…

As the nation and the powers-that-be commence to have this long overdue discussion on gun control, I must invoke the words of 1 Corinthians 13 also known as the love chapter…I hope love for humanity and humans guides this conversation…Although this chapter is a bit long, I hope you take a minute or so to read the words and let their meaning awaken you to what really is important whether it’s Christmas or any day of the year…love is the answer…

1 Corinthians 13 (The Message Version)

The Way of Love

13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

²If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

^3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

^8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

¹¹When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

¹²We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

¹³But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Amen, amen and amen…

Any thoughts?