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 October 8, 1992, at 8:04am, I gave birth to an 8lb., 4oz. baby boy.  Other than immediately wondering if 8 was going to be your lucky number, I had no thought other than "How on Earth am I supposed to raise this tiny little person into an adult?"  Twenty-one years, and many bumps, bruises and odd side trips later, I think I have finally come up with a hard list of things that I think are important as you move forward into the next part of your life.

1. Keep some form of spiritual grounding in your life.  I started this process by bringing you to church, and whether or not you continue, I hope you remain spiritually centered.  A foundation of faith, not religion, can bring a type of inner peace and strength that nothing can replace. Cultivate this.

2. Education is the gift that keeps on giving, and the one thing, once earned, that no one can ever take away.  Complete the concrete steps you need to move on with your goals, and never stop learning.  There is always something new to learn.

3. Ask for help when you need it.  The only people that will think less of you for asking are the people that already thought less of you to begin with.  Those are people you need to avoid if at all possible.  Conversely...

4.   If you can do it yourself, do it!  Self-reliance is not a dirty word.  The trick is in knowing when to do it yourself, and when to ask for help.

5. Surround yourself with people who love you and value you for who you are, not what you are, or what you can do for them.  As you work towards personal and professional successes, many more people will enter your life.    It is my hope that you will develop Discernment to know which relationships to nurture, and which people to allow to walk away.

6. Change is inevitable.  Never fear change.  Stay flexible, especially on the job.  This will come in handy more often than you realize.

7.  Feeling fear is normal.  Wallowing in it, or allowing it to dictate your choices in life is limiting.  Tempting as it is to not do things based on fear of the unknown, taking calculated risks (where you measure the possible outcomes against the size of the risk you are taking), might actually be some of the best decisions you ever make.

8. Knowledge is easy to obtain; Wisdom is not.  You will gain both as you get older: Knowledge through study, application and practice; Wisdom through a painful teacher called Experience.  The only people that don't gain Wisdom are people that don't want to.  On that same note...

9.  Proper money management is critical.  I didn't learn about what credit really meant until after I turned 30, and I have paid dearly for that lack of knowledge.  It is crucial that you realize there are a lot of little ways to stumble, and seriously damage your financial future. Nothing to fear, but a few things to know in order to have secure finances.

10. Failure is not the end.  Look at setbacks as the opportunity to reassess your goals and methods.  Then you can either try again from another angle, or go on to your next goal.  The point is always to keep moving forward, even if only an inch at a time.

11. Working hard and working smart are two different things.  Both are required to have a happy and successful life, and you will learn when to do each.

12. There are worse things than being alone.  This goes for friendships and relationships.  This also goes along with #5 above.  Red flags are exactly that:  an internal warning that something is not right, and from there you can make the choice to either explore it further, or leave it be.  But to be in negative relationship with people that either don't really like you, or are envious of you, or are unnecessarily and overtly competitive with you is emotionally draining.  In these cases, it is better to be alone than to wish you were.

13.  Kindness and decency are the meat and potatoes.  Intelligence is gravy.  Pretty is the dessert.  If she respects herself, and treats you and everyone else around her with respect, courtesy and kindness, she's a keeper.  If she is smart about the things that count (her strengths hopefully complement your weaknesses, and vice versa), that is an incredible bonus.  If she's also pretty, you hit the jackpot!

14.  Do pay attention to the world around you.  There is always a lot going on in the world.  Know enough about the world outside of your bubble of friends and interests to be able to speak intelligently about at least a few other subjects.  Notice when people are hurting or in need, and learn to be there for them.  Also notice when people want to be left alone, and respect their wishes.  The practice of empathy with the condition and circumstances of others will lead you to a better understanding of the world you live in.

15. Take care of yourself, too.  You already know that eating right (all things in moderation) and exercise are important for physical and mental health.  Take little time outs for your emotional health as well.  Spend a little time alone.  Unplug.  Listen to soothing music.  Read a good book.  I guarantee you will find yourself refreshed by the downtime.

Above all, know that I love you, and am truly looking forward to seeing the man you are becoming.

When I was younger, I was a huge reader.

As I got older and more "busy", I ended up reading less and less.  But every once in a while a novel would capture my interest, especially if I heard or read that a movie was being made from it.  I would always rush to try and read the novel before the movie was released. Or conversely, I would watch a movie, then when I found out it was based on a book, I would find and read the book to compare it to the movie.  And without exception, I have found that the book was always better than the movie.

To me, books give you more insight into characters lives and motivations.  You get a much richer background, and get to create your own visions of who and what the characters are.  You can open a book, and let your imagination take you wherever it may.  I remember lolling away many hours, lost in another time and place, completely shutting out the world around me.  It was comforting to be able to get away from my drab, day to day reality, and escape into someone else's life. 

I am always initially excited about a books translation into a movie or TV show.  I am interested to see how the various cast and crew translate the written words into concrete visions, both for those who have read the books, and for those who are viewing the program for the first time, and likely have no knowledge of the book.  As much as I love a good literary experience, I also enjoy a well crafted movie or TV show.  A well written movie draws you in, and keeps your attention until the very end.  A well written TV program keeps you coming back week after week, never boring you, and always telling you something new about the characters.  Theoretically at least, if you have good source material, you will likely have a good end product.

Or not.

I understand the television and movies are limited mediums.  You only get 45-60 minutes  for television, and a minimum of an hour and a half for movies to tell your story.  There is often so much ground to cover, that there is no hope of cramming all of the information, characters and motivations in the book into such a small times frame.  So the movie and television industries do the best they can, and hopefully, the fans of the book (or books) are satisfied.  My experience has been about 50/50.  Half of the adopted books have been wonderful, faithful adaptions that enhanced my view of the printed material.  The other half left me wondering if we had we read the same book.  But I do applaud the time screenwriters take to read an entire book, often more than once, and try to adapt it as faithfully as possible to the screen so that those who are not avid readers might get to enjoy a story they might not otherwise have known about.  Who knows?  The movie might actually get them to the book.

I am trying this approach with my daughter.  When my son was younger, he and I used to love the British cartoon series Redwall that played on PBS on Sunday mornings.  I found out later that it originated from a book by Brian Jacques.  I always told myself that at some point I was going to get the book for my son.  While my son did eventually get into reading lots of fantasy and science fiction, Redwall slipped off both of our radars for quite some time.  Fast forward to about a month ago when I was perusing a used book store that popped up not too far from us.  Sitting right next to each other on a shelf were the first six books in the Southern Vampire Mysteries (upon which the True Blood TV series is based) and Redwall.  I scooped them up immediately, and while my son was definitely interested in the vampire books, he figured my daughter might be more into Redwall.  When she came home from camp, I introduced her to Redwall, reading the first chapter with her.  She seemed to be okay with it (the chapters are pretty short), but what really piqued her interest was my son finding Redwall on Netflix, and allowing her to watch the first few episodes.  Now she is more interested in finishing the book.

Not a perfect way to get your child into reading for pleasure, but it's a start.