Who’s Running the Show Here?

If memory serves me correctly the intention of Take Your Child to Work Day is to:

1. show your child what you do for a living
2. educate them on the company
3. learn what your co-workers do
4. create a work project pertaining to your industry that the kids can handle

If that is the intention, somehow that got lost in translation at my current place of employment yesterday.  I am a copywriter for a real estate media publishing company.  The office has three floors that are separated by wide open stairways in central locations that filter traffic into entryways near offices, conference rooms and cubicles.  Each floor has perimeter corridors that create a circle so it could be perceived as a track-like atmosphere. I think you know where I am going with this.

Instead of an organized day of getting to know what mommy or daddy does for a living, a scavenger hunt kicked off the day where kids got clues to go visit people’s offices to pick up random items that had nothing to do with the job.  This led to dozens of kids running around the hallways, racing up and down the stairwells and screaming at the top of their lungs while looking for their treasures.  When the first sound of chaos started I just knew that the adults supervising the day would stop everything and lay down the ground rules for no screaming, running and jumping down the stairs.  I was sadly mistaken.

It was 5 hours of recess; 5 hours of Kids Gone Wild; 5 hours where employees who were trying to get work done couldn’t do so effectively.  It was the most unproductive work day I’ve had since I began working there a few months ago.  I was dumbfounded that so many people around me didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.  I did however, find a few people who agreed with me and I knew why I would find common ground with them.  Sometimes it really does boil down to cultural differences.  I knew the co-workers that probably had similar backgrounds and upbringings as me would understand my point of view.  I wasn’t raised to go into someone’s work place and act like I just went through the turnstile at an amusement park.  I wasn’t raised to go into someone’s work place and speak in a tone that would be disrespectful to my elders.

I commented on Facebook and Twitter during the day’s events the following: “Take Your Child to Work Day has been a great birth control method and an eye-opening look into how my co-workers have raised their children.”  I think the latter part of my statement is what it boils down to: parenting.  I am not a parent, but I can see when a child is running the show.  The majority of these children were running the show because the parents never disciplined them or gave them any boundaries.  The organizers of the day lost sight as to what the day is meant to be.  It was a missed opportunity to provide teachable lessons to their kids about what it takes to have a skill, to make a living and to work well with others.  Now I am stuck with a fuller plate of work to do today because yesterday was a bust.  Happy Friday!

Maybe this was the master plan all along and why the organizers didn't plan a proper TYCTWD.

Read ‘Em and Weep

Since the Trayvon Martin case dominated the airwaves a few weeks ago, I’ve heard several journalists ask the question: Are race relations better or worse since the election of President Barack Obama?  The responses were varied.  The optimistic side of me wants to believe things have gotten better, because now we hear more people of various ethnic backgrounds agreeing to the same cases of social injustice.  Seeing a multi-racial man as the most powerful figure in the world has made many people proud, but also provides a gut wrenching reality check to those who still can’t swallow the accomplishments of someone who doesn’t look like them.  This makes me feel race relations are just the same; it’s just now social media platforms have given people the opportunity to voice their opinions for a wider audience to know how they feel and that is why we’re feeling this barrage of tension.   Before the phenomenon of sharing your thoughts via blogs, Facebook, Twitter and comment boxes on various websites, your opinions were either shared with your family or close friends or you kept them to yourself.  You never knew what your colleague or next door neighbor thought, and more than likely you still don’t.  But you aren’t as surprised knowing they may be spewing hate behind a keyboard all the while they are smiling in your face.   

My friend posted this story yesterday on his Facebook wall.  This happened in Cincinnati, Ohio last summer – June 2011.  After seeing this maybe I would answer the aforementioned question differently.  It’s unfortunate that the hatred gets the spotlight when I know there is a lot of love and kindness in the world.  I suppose I am guilty of shining a spotlight on it since here I am blogging about it.  {**sigh**}  

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Not So Quiet Riot

The parents of the Kentucky Wildcats are beaming with pride this morning – the parents of the players that is.  I would gather the parents of the students that decided to riot, destroy private property and get arrested for public drunkenness are hanging their heads.  There is a man in the hospital with serious injuries due to being shot.  The only shots that should have been taken last night were the ones made with a basketball into a hoop.  According to this article the mayhem in the streets was even more intense Saturday night after Kentucky beat Louisville to make it into the championship game.  How could the city and the police department let this happen again two nights later?  Were they prepared?  Did they just chalk it up to this behavior is the new norm?

This phenomenon of trashing a town or city after the hometown team has brought home the trophy or beaten a rival unfortunately isn’t new, but it’s just plain stupid.  I don’t recall being a college student and feeling the need to set fires and destroying other people’s property as some sort of rite of passage that has no consequences.   Happiness should beget more happiness, not bring harm and destruction.  The One Shining Moment for Kentucky is now just one shining spotlight on how people’s euphoria can turn awry especially if induced with personality altering substances. 

 The heavy metal band Quiet Riot is famous for singing the words

Come on feel the noise, girls rock your boys, We’ll get wild wild wild wild wild wild.

Well, a few of the Kentucky Wildcats did just that by living up to their school’s nickname.

Universal Rhetoric

I am tired of the one-sided conversation.  I am tired of hearing about The Talk that African-American parents have to have with their sons on how to behave in public.  Don’t get me wrong – I believe The Talk is important, but it’s important for every child. Male. Female. Black. White. Brown. Yellow, Pink. Interracial.  It would appear from the response of some non-African-Americans that The Talk is something foreign to them; they had no idea this was a necessary tool in raising young Black boys.  I find that somewhat odd because since the age of slavery it has been documented in books, movies and in the news, that Blacks have always been forced to walk through the world on eggshells, and had to know how to respond to the likes of:

Are you eyein’ me boy?

Don’t talk back to me nigger!

OK.  For arguments sake let’s just say having The Talk was an unknown fact, but now it’s known and it can’t be ignored now that the lesson has been shared on multiple newscasts on multiple news outlets for the past several days.  But let’s get real here.  Our issues on race relations will never get healed if we only focus on one side of the coin.  Why are Black families holding the burden on how they need to act in the world?  Where are the discussions about how non-Blacks should be conducting themselves in public and how they should be polite, respect authority and show kindness to their fellow-man?  Trayvon Martin and countless numbers of young Black men conduct themselves as law-abiding citizens everyday based on the lessons they learned from their family, but all of that is for nothing when someone else has a different agenda – a different perception.

Education has to set precedence.  In grasping for minor solutions to this major problem I’ve mentioned to some friends that it is time to implement new curriculum in our school systems. Diversity and cultural sensitivity courses should be standardized curriculum beginning in grade school, so the awareness and discussions can begin early. I’m not using calculus in my everyday life, but cultural awareness is used on a daily basis.

If cultural awareness and understanding were second nature for the entire human race there would be less opportunity for someone like Geraldo Rivera to make careless remarks about blaming the hoodie Trayvon Martin was wearing for his death.  Should Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Bieber fear for their lives because they wear hoodies and baggy or low riding pants?

If cultural awareness and understanding were second nature then all the news outlets and their anchors would want to put the same amount of time and energy behind the injustice of all the men and women, boys and girls that go missing or are murdered.  Is Nancy Grace on vacation, or has she shown her true colors by not caring for the well-being of people of color?

Twenty years ago after the Los Angeles riots in 1992 Rodney King pleaded with the world by saying, “Can’t we all get along?” Such a simple phrase that seems so easy to put into action.

Let’s start talking, and not just with people who look like you and are like-minded.  We need to start talking with friends, colleagues and acquaintances who may have different life experience.  We need to learn and educate one another. What do we have to lose by doing this, that we haven’t lost already?

Right to Remain Silent

Have you ever heard the term “Nunya” before?  For many of you no explanation is necessary.  But for others, it will be your new word of the day. “Nunya” is short for None of Your Business.  And if you add a neck roll when saying it, it translates more into None of Yo’ D*mn Business!  I wish singer/actress Brandy had used this term when recently asked about the note Whitney Houston passed her last Thursday during an interview she had alongside fellow singer Monica and music industry executive Clive Davis for E! Entertainment News.  Brandy took the classy, professional route be responding: “I’m going to just not say what it was and just keep it to myself for my own personal reasons.”  Ironically the singers were being interviewed for their new duet called “It All Belongs to Me.”  Well, you know what? It does Brandy.  Whatever was in that note belongs to you, and no one else.

Our culture is so obsessed with knowing every intimate detail about other people’s business.  It’s gotten out of hand.  It needs to stop.  Simply because a famous person is labeled as a public figure doesn’t mean all things need to be divulged.  Of course a reporter has the right to ask any question, but they should also proceed by using a moral compass.  They need to respect that the interviewee has the right of refusal to comment — not turn around and scrutinize them if they don’t get the answer they want. Last I checked in the United States of America we have this thing called Plead the Fifth.

As I was preparing this post, my friend Dr. Renee Clauselle posted some extremely thoughtful ideas and insightful questions about the same topic called Mind Your Own Life?  It’s on our minds, is it on yours too?  Let’s give this family and their friends a moment to grieve.  Have you ever lost a loved one?  Would you want hundreds of reporters and photographers preying on you when you get off a plane or coming out of your home to ask you how you feel?  I already know the answers to those questions.  I just wish the media would do unto others as they would want do unto them.