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Opinion
Focus on: Carol Liu, State Senator
Carol Liu was born in Berkeley, California and raised in Oakland, California. She is the product of a family with a family plan. The plan was that the boys would become doctors or dentists and the girls would become teachers or nurses. This plan began with her grandfather who, because he was the eldest male in the family, was, essentially, assigned the role of going to medical school. He attended the University of California at Berkeley and chose to be a dentist.
Carol followed the family plan and attended U.C. Berkeley and San Jose State college and entered the teaching profession. Her brother became a dentist. Teaching seemed to be a perfectly logical choice and had a family benefit in that it allowed three months off during the summers to work or spend time with children, when the time came. Liu utilized the family plan as she and her husband raised two boys and one girl.
Carol Liu worked as a teacher for the Richmond School District for seventeen years and then entered administration for five years. She strayed from the path when her husband's job eventually transferred him to Southern California. Then someone had the bright idea of suggesting that she run for the City Council.
Adapting to the New Global Marketplace
A first-time 2012 Legal and Business Tele-Webinar Series trains and supports professionals and businesses in adapting to the ever-changing global marketplace: It examines how we can effectively adapt to: "Change, Change, Change ..."
Heather Atkinson, the TeleWebinar Series host, stated that "The Series was designed for entrepreneurs, professionals, corporate executives, sports & entertainment enthusiasts, and law students to support open discussion and collaboration on solutions, as our economy adjusts to a new "normal". The objective of the Series is to support individuals and businesses in focusing on priorities and identifying meaningful information that can improve business and professional life. Presenters in the Series are from diverse business and professional disciplines. They have agreed to share specific tools and skills needed for personal or professional transformation that enables effective management of an ever-changing business and professional landscape.
The Tele-Webinar Series kicked off on February 9, 2012, 6:00 p.m. PST with licensing expert Rand Brenner educating and training entrepreneurs on how to leverage their "know how" and business processes by associating with established brands. The Series can be listened to live and for a limited time thereafter free, via the Internet and by phone line by visiting and signing up at: http://www.WorkFlowGuaranteed.com.
Black History and Education
After all is said and done, Black History Month is an opportunity to emphasize the importance of education for, by, and of Black people, worldwide. It is not just about African Americans. It is about Black folks across the world and the Diaspora, if you please. Why Educate is a question that is addressed in a 2009 book by Mike Rose entitled, "WHY SCHOOL". It is also a question addressed by African Americans, ever since they arrived on the shores of the so-called United States of America. The reasons addressed by Rose and writers from the Black Diaspora are different. That should come as no surprise. Rose says education's primary purpose is to secure a place in the economy, whereas writers from the Black Diaspora also feel, in addition to the economic reason, education as also a method of passing on our culture and our traditions.
The question of how we educate is another serious question. Blacks were denied schools in America for a few hundred years, and then there was the separate (and unequal) version of that. Some would say we are still getting that version. So as to how we educate, I agree that we are getting educated in school, and the Black Press is an integral part of that education. The Black Press tells the story like no other source can or has told our story. Howard University professor, Clint Wilson, in his book, "THE HISTORY OF THE BLACK PRESS", makes it clear that the Black Press has played a seminal role in recording American history.
Further, the Black Press had a role in interpreting that history for a predominantly Black audience, as it serves as Black America's voice. It was the Black Press that told of a better place and better times in places like Detroit and Chicago for former slaves, following slavery. This education gave rise to the greatest inter-American migration (or escape) in American history to avoid the Caste system of the American south. That story is again being told in Isabel Wilkerson's new book, "THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS". Wilkerson says that this mass relocation dwarfed the California Gold Rush of the 1850's and the Dust Bowl, moving Blacks from Arkansas and Oklahoma. Note: my parents and my father's family (the Hopkins') and my mother's family (the Shaw's) were part of the group that left Oklahoma joining the great migration to Bakersfield, California.
Mike Rose addresses Why School, as a professor in the UCLA graduate School of Education. Wilkerson's book addresses why educate for a people looking for freedom. Rose indicates that education and work are intimately connected and that one (schooling) is the primary justification for preparing for the other (work). The question is why schooling for Blacks and is there another justification for schooling for Blacks since skills for work can be learned by experience and non school education like apprenticeships, and generational and legacy training such as where a mother teaches a daughter to sew, cook and keep house by teaching and having her watch the things she does.
Celebrating Family, Valentine’s Day and Black History
My wife and I attended a conference on marriage as participants and presenters, last week. The event was sponsored by Abundant Harvest Christian Center of Altadena where pastors Anthony and Michelene McFarland serve as leaders. The event is held annually, in conjunction with Valentine's Day and, therefore, is conducted in a romantic setting with dinner, speakers, workshops, games to magnify marriage and have some fun with music, dancing entertainment, along with ministry intertwined dealing with serious issues of marriage.
The romantic location this year was the Queen Mary ship (hotel) in Long Beach, California. The event provided an opportunity for my wife, Miss Ruthie, and I to share a few of the things we have learned over the fifty years we have been together with other couples and leaders who also served as presenters. Marriage is, after all, hard work and needs constant attention to make it work and keep it working. We say thanks to Abundant Harvest leaders for focusing on what is important to communities, i.e.; keeping families together. That is more important than anything for a church to focus on, including the offering, the pastor, or the building fund.
The event has been going on for twelve years. Last year the romantic dinner event was held at New Otani Hotel in Los Angeles. If you are getting the idea that this is a romantic weekend getaway, with benefits, you are right. And when is the last time you took your wife on a weekend to a hotel to spice up your relationship? You even tune up your car once a year.
If We Ever Needed to Know Black History Before, We Need to Know It Now!
There is an old Black Gospel song that says, "If I ever needed the Lord before, I sho (sure) do need him now." I can relate these words in these hard economic times that the world is going through right now. I think about Black History because Black folks as a people have seen hard times before, and survived, leaving the world to wonder what makes us so strong. Truth be told, we should have all been dead, or crazy, with what we have had to go through, but we keep coming back, strong.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright addresses our strength in his book, What Makes You So Strong?. You recall Rev. Wright. He was Barack Obama's pastor until white folks started analyzing him and determined that they couldn't deal with the truth of what he was preaching and failed to understand the context in which he delivered his messages.
In his sermon (circa 1990/1991), What Makes You So Strong?, Wright preaches from the book of Judges (16:4-31) and asks, "What makes you so strong, Black man, after years of slavery, segregation, and racism? Jim Crow laws and second class citizenship cannot wipe out the memory of Imhotep, Aesop, Akhenaton and Thutmose II. He goes on to say, "What makes you so strong, Black man. How is it that after all this country has done to you, you can still produce a Paul Robeson, a Thurgood Marshall, a Malcolm X (El – Hajj Malik el-Shabazz), a Martin Luther King and Ron McNair? What makes you so strong Black Man?"
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