the way it is

every girl isn’t an ambitious girl. it doesn’t apply to you. stop.

Sometimes I start thinking about my Dad and how much I miss him. And I found this. 

‘Jepdy is Jeopardy but I found this letter that a little boy wrote like in December 2008. It was so sweet. :) ‘

Dear Santa, 

This year I am writing to you about someone else. I know you make dreams come true. Please help Mrs. Baxter. She’s been going through a lot of things lately. Also, Mrs. Baxter has been hoping Mr. Baxter stays well. Msr. Baxter knows her husband’s life might be in jepdy that’s why I think she needs the sweet touch of God for a miracle to happen. The Baxter family needs your help to save Mr. Baxter. Please give them the best Christmas or Christmas Eve they ever had. 

Love, 
Dontay

I’m taking a twitter hiatus. Let’s see how long this lasts. But for all watching television right now. More specifically CBS. The Pittsburgh Steelers are whooping ass and taking names! This is the team that I know and love!!! Let’s go Steelers!

“We declare our right on this earth…to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.” - Malcolm X

Obviously, from the recent events, more specifically the execution of Troy Davis we still have a long way to go to gain some sort of resemblance of equal treatment. To gain our liberty and justice for all as afforded to us in the US Constitution. 

The main thing we have to start on is educating ourselves on issues that are pertaining to us before, like in the case of Troy Davis, it’s too late. 

Unfortunately, Troy Davis is not the only case where a person, more specifically a person of color is imprisoned or set to be executed for a crime that they just did not commit. 

Now, things in the case of Troy are a bit confusing, because we do NOT know what exactly occurred… all that we know is that there is too much doubt.. and that for him have been executed where there was nothing concrete tying him to the shooting that he was executed for is a complete miscarriage of justice. 

The way that we came together in our attempts to stop the execution was beautiful, powerful, moving… yet was it just a moment or is it enough to become a movement?

We come from a powerful ancestry of people. Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis … the list goes on and on. These people fought for a cause that was larger than themselves individually and collectively. They fought for a cause and passed the torch to our generation, but have we dropped it? 

Seemingly. What can we do to pick up where they left off?

1. Change our mentalities. We are so concerned about the aspects that don’t matter. 
2. Educate ourselves. The media doesn’t cover ALL stories. We know that. They didn’t start covering Troy Davis in depth until the last futile attempts gained more publicity. We have to do research and stay abreast of social and political issues that affect us. 
3. Educate others. Don’t shun someone when they don’t know, embrace them and teach them. Draw them into the fold, into the movement. 
4. Take the necessary steps to become involved. Small changes from individuals make bigger changes.    

I believe in us. I hate to sound cliche, but we are the change we want to see, we just have to stop being so sedentary. 

Here’s some material on various issues that are really plaguing the Black community if you are interested in making this become a movement. Educate yourselves. 

• http://www.innocenceproject.org/ —> The Innocence Project works to exonerate those wrongly convicted by DNA testing and reforming the Criminal Justice System
• https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/179007.pdf —> Overrepresentation of Minorities in the Juvenile Justice System (this is somewhat outdated, but the numbers have only gotten worse, not better)
• https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/36897/10_McCarter_paper.pdf?sequence=1 —-> Understanding the Overrepresentation of Minorities in One State’s Juvenile Justice System
• http://www.restorativejustice.org/legislative-assembly/13restorative-justice-and-minorities-1 —-> Restorative Justice: Transforming the CJ System
• http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/MinoritiesinSpecialEducation.pdf —-> Minorities in Special Education
• http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/school-prison-pipeline-talking-points —-> School to Prison Pipeline
• http://www.urban.org/publications/410936.html —> Minority Dropout 

If you take the time to just research, there’s tons of material out there. Take the necessary steps to begin to make a difference. We still have truly not overcome.