This being the final week of Black History Month, I couldn't let the entire month go by without a Black History post.

I remember Black History Month growing up in the inner city schools I attended.  While there was a great deal of attention paid to the same three to five figures most influential in Black History (Tubman, Parks, King, et al.), we were also encouraged to look up other African Americans and report on them.  The thinking back then, especially as we entered middle and high school, was that if we could find a role model in the field that we eventually wanted to work in, we might be more encouraged to stick with it.  Then, as now, most of the popular media attention was focused on African Americans in sports and entertainment, but we were told to dig deeper.  We were told to look into Politics, Science, Medicine, Education, Literature, literally almost anything but sports and entertainment.  Self images were being formed, and every adult knew it.  If we were going to pick role models outside of our parents (which happens as we try to build our separate identities), then our parents wanted to make sure that we were focused on the qualities that would eventually shape us into the type of productive, progressive human beings they knew we were capable of being rather than the shallow caricatures the media often portrayed us as.

In 1983, new wave group Oingo Boingo posed the question "Who Do You Want To Be Today?", then proceeded to ask if we wanted to be just like someone on tv.  For African American youth and young adults, this was a loaded question.  If television defined and reinforced our roles, then we were expected to aspire to little more than the thin visions of ourselves that were permitted to be shown in popular media.  Until Bill Cosby brought the vision of a successful, intact, middle class family headed by a physician and an attorney to American prime time in the mid-80's, we were often shown as broken families, loud clowns, or stoic sidekicks, with very few exceptions. This was at the dawn of the music video area, and the beginning of the definition of our lives and roles by the portrayals of Black men and women, and their relationships in these musical shorts.  During this time, we were also introduced to the excesses of the hip-hop genre, and although not all of the artists preached materialism as pseudo religion, those were the artists that came to dominate the airwaves.  We were assailed at all times by the tales of the extraordinary feats, and failures, of superstar athletes.

So who did we want to be?  For 28 days each year we were asked to expand our definitions of who we could be, by turning our focus away from the media driven definition of what success should look like for us, and based on our own research, begin to craft what we wanted our futures to look like.  There were, and there always will be, those who aspire to sports and entertainment.  For quite a few of our young men, and some young women, sports were just the ticket needed to pay for their college educations.  Educations that produced doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants and entrepreneurs.  Educations that were not wasted, because due to a partnership between home and the classroom, youth were given something to strive towards by first being made to look back.  Somewhere, in our shared history, was someone that we could relate to, whose career, or life, was something we would want to emulate.

For me, Black History Month has always amounted to finding the answers to three questions: Where have we been?  Where are we now?  Where are we want to go?  These questions were the basis of our study of Black History many years ago, and sadly are being overlooked today in our hurry for the next headline, the next hero, and sadly for African Americans, the next heartbreak or humiliation.  But if we continue to tell the old stories to the next generation, not just the safe, familiar narratives, but those diverse voices that tell every side of the African American story, maybe they will get something new out the stories.  We never know who we are inspiring when we inform our youth that there is more to our history than the snippet that is shown to them in the media.  Because if we don't give them the full picture of the possibilities available to them, how are we going to expect them to decide, with any real clarity, who they want to be?

On Presidents Day, we celebrate the combined birthdays of Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, at least in theory.  Most of us are just happy to get a day off work.  I know I am happy for any day that I don't have to get up at 4:30am, drag a sleepy 10 year old out of bed at 5:00, then get the day started.  But then again, I have a regular office job.  This morning, I found myself really thinking about the job of President.  Not the office.  The Job.

If you follow politics, it seems like President of the United States is the office every young politician aspires to, but so far only 44 have achieved.  But I've always wondered if, once they attained the Office, the actual Job was what they expected it would be.  I'd like to think that all young men and women that seek political office have the idea of wanting to help affect change both in their local community, and in their counties, states, and country to help those that might not have a political voice.  Initially they see it as a noble calling, and are willing to accept what they see as a challenge to try and wade through all of what they see as the bureaucracy to try and "get something done".  Few believe they are going to become part of it.

I am sure, once they began to become familiar with local politics, they began to learn the art of compromise.  Compromise is the currency by which any accomplishments are made in politics, some relatively minor, some heartrendingly huge.  I wonder, as they attain higher and higher Offices, if the compromises required by The Job don't ever become particularly discouraging.  Especially if they still have their sights set on the Office of the President, if not necessarily The Job.  The more prominent the Office, the more high profile The Job, unfortunately means the larger the compromises.

The Job of President of the United States is the performed in the largest goldfish bowl in the world.  Even the smallest aspect of how you do The Job is scrutinized by everyone from the most respected political analysts to every armchair critic in every corner of the globe.  Whatever ideals the young politician went into the Office with will be sorely tested by the realities of The Job.  As much as they expected that compromise would become a way of life, I wonder if they realized not only on what scale, they would have to compromise, but to what level they would become vilified for it.

In hindsight of course, we knew they were men that did what they had to do to move the country forward, but look at the opposition they faced, and the fact that historians still argue over their decisions to this day.  Lincoln and slavery.  Roosevelt and the New Deal.  Johnson and Civil Rights.  These were times of great conflict, and decisions had to be made as to what was in the best interests of the largest number of American citizens.  Unbeknownst to many, there were actually quite a few compromises and deals made to get these decisions made, but there were people in Office committed enough to the Job to get it done, even in the face of enormous criticism.

I am probably one of the few people honest enough to admit that as critical as I can be of politics, and politicians, I could never be a professional politician.  There are far too many competing interests, and for me, far too many people willing to try to corrupt the will of the many for the interests of the few.  Once you attain the highest Office in the land, and might be trying in earnest to do the Job, multiply those competing influences, and the ensuing compromises, by 1000.  Then I begin to realize that, as a former supervisor used to say, that while the Office sounds glamorous, the Job is more than a notion.  And I start wondering how many of these young politicos have thought long and hard about The Job.  Or are they just thinking about the Office?

Side thoughts on a holiday afternoon...

I almost didn't write a post this week.

Busy, distracted by work and other issues, blah, blah, blah.  You know how these things go.

Then I got hit by perhaps the corniest inspiration on the face of the earth.

During the week leading up to Valentine's Day, radio stations like to bombard you with all the love songs they think you can possibly stand.  A grinch I am not, but I like to rock out when I'm driving, and all that soft, slow stuff makes me flip the station faster than you can say "talk radio".  A couple of days ago, though, I got caught on the tail end of a song I liked by the Foreigner track "I Want To Know What Love Is".  I let out a snort, then said to no one in particular, "Wouldn't we all?"  Later on that night,  the song replayed in my mind a few times (because that's how earworms work, unfortunately), and I realized that the song was such a hit because it stated a profound truth in an extremely, almost excessively simple way.  A man has been hurt many times, but he wants to try again, hopefully missing any landmines on the way.  What he would like, he says in the song, is some kind of map or guidebook that would tell him what he is looking for and how to get there.

It's like that with us singles.  Been around a few times, not all of them pleasant.  Wouldn't mind getting out there and trying again, but so many considerations.  One of the biggest considerations is where to start.

I have to say I like the way singer Howard Jones sang the question: What is Love, anyway?  Does anybody love anybody anyway?

The question is not as cynical as it sounds, and really neither am I.

A point of reference for me as to what Love is, is the 13th chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians in the Bible.  To me, it makes some very good all around points about what love is, and is not, and how you treat people when love is involved.  It also goes far beyond romantic relationships into the larger kinds of love.  I have a great deal of affection for the New International Version, so that's the translation I'll be working from here.

What I have always understood from this particular passage was that while there are a lot of people that have a lot of talents and can do a lot of things, if they are not doing it from a place of love, it means nothing.  If you knew, beyond a doubt, that you stood to gain absolutely NOTHING from your efforts, but that maybe, just maybe, you might help one person, would you do it anyway?  That might be a little on the extreme side of examples, but a small sample of what it means to use your gifts and talents out of love.

This passage is the one most often read at weddings, for the obvious reason that it lays out in very plain language how we are to treat each other in day to day relationships.  We need to demonstrate patience with, and kindness towards one another.  (As difficult as I know this can be, because there are people that will go out of their way to work our LAST nerve!)  When we love each other, there is no need for envy, or bragging, and among real friends, pride never enters into the conversation.  Not dishonoring others and not being self seeking are two sides of the same coin: one example might be gossiping  about someone else in order to bring down others estimation of them in order to bring yourself up in the eyes of those same people.  No, you are not to be happy when bad things happen to people you don't like, but be happy when the truth comes out for truths sake, nothing else.  With love, the urge is always there to protect, trust, hope and persevere.  These last four are much harder for those who have been hurt (or manipulated), but if they are thought of as goals, rather than insurmountable obstacles, they may be achievable.

We all grow and change over time.  Very few of us look, act or think the same as we did when we were children, and for good reason.  We know more than we did then, we can reason, and we have more self control than we used to.  Well some of us do.  The one thing that never changes is Love.  Perfect love, without flaw or defect (or price or hidden agenda or any of the modern equivalents) will always, we hope, come to drive out the imperfect, shed light on dark corners, and answer questions we've always had.  This is what we'd like to think.  What we dream of.  What we hope for.

I think so anyway.

I figured you guys might need a lighter read after that last blog post.

Since I ride the bus, and have no desire to overhear conversations, musings or rabid delusions, I wear a pair of earbuds plugged into a trusty MP3 player.  I have roughly 225 songs on the device divided into multiple genres: Gospel (mostly for mornings), Rock (classic, progressive and alternative), Jazz (fusion and modern) and R&B.  What I listen to on the way home is mostly affected by whatever mood I happen to be in from the events of the day.  I used to listen to a lot of Jazz on the way home.  Jazz helps mellow me out after particularly rough days.

Lately, I've been listening to rock music.  At first I was well into my alternative list, then all of a sudden my attention turned to Jethro Tull. Specifically the track "Locomotive Breath".  I could be attracted to the train motifs throughout the song.  I could be attracted to the tale of a man and his impending doom.  Actually, I am drawn to the impressive flute solo smack in the middle of the unlikeliest of places, a progressive rock song.

I like the flute.  It's light, beautiful notes can be compared to the sound of a bird singing.  I used to not mind listening to my older sister practice the flute when she was in her high school band.  She wasn't a bad player, and the stuff she played (band versions of popular music) sounded pretty good to my untrained ears.  I thought that the band or the orchestra were the only places for the flute until I got more into music.  That's when I realized a well placed flute in a song where you least expect can add a nice kick to anywhere it happens to be.  

Other than Jethro Tull, here are a couple more of my favorite flute solos in unusual places:

"Chase Me" - Con Funk Shun: I'll take my funk with a side of flute solo.  And you can dance to it!  Con Funk Shun is a reminder of a time when Funk ruled the dance floor, and it was normal to see an entire band on stage, including several woodwind and brass instruments.

"Funky Reggae" - Stone City Band:  Amid the joyous inquiry "What Kind of Music Do You Like?", this is a jazz/funk fusion song from the band most famous for backing singer Rick James, who himself started out as a backing musician for James Brown.  In other words, the man knew how to put together an incredible band that can insert a beautiful flute addition in such a way that it fits perfectly into a song about the universality of a love of music.

I love a well placed musical solo, especially if it's an instrument you don't expect to hear in that place.  Think the xylophone solo that begins the Oingo Boingo track  "Grey Matter".  Solos featuring unexpected sounds wake up your ears and force them to actually listen to the music, instead of the music fading into background noise, as it usually does.  Really listening to the music helps to develop more of an appreciation for the creativity and artistry that went into the creation of it.  Especially when you start to wonder how on Earth they managed to work THAT solo into THIS song.

That's when you know that you are really into the music.  Which is the BEST way to listen.