Ron Finley A Guerilla Gardener In South Central LA

“South Central Los Angeles, home of the drive thru’s and the drive-by’s… Funny thing is, the drive thru’s are killing more people than the drive-by’s.”

This was awesome. A TED by a man practicing exactly what he preaches. I felt like there were no buffers, no dreams, no what if’s or maybes. Mr. Finley defined a problem and gave a solution. We may not all be able to change the world, but we can help ourselves, and help change whats going on in our own backyard.

(Source: AmbassadorNique.com)

I Vow… (Written By AmbassadorNique)

For the past few months… maybe even years… I’ve been in search for ways to apply the knowledge that was placed upon me via a college education, my environment, and life experiences. With the economy only getting worst since my graduation the dream that myself and many of my peers bought into becomes less possible as each day passes. The dream that we would be able to take our diplomas into the real world and change it for the better, and not starve while trying to make this happen.

Over half of recent college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed. Wow… Post undergrad I expected to be greeted with open arms with options of where I could take my talents, however I was met with a student loan debt that I hadn’t begun to understand. Wishful thinking I suppose. A private loan from Wells Fargo that I still cannot afford, and a government loan.

3 1/2 years later the struggle continues. After a day of listening to hiring managers from some of Seattle’s largest employer’s, it became clear that they to had no new answers for recent college graduates.

I never like to bring up a problem without doing my best to create some sort of solution. I’ve looked high and low for answers, hints and tips of how I can use the talent and knowledge that I work so damn hard to accumulate. After listening to so many people, their opinions, their stories, and points of views it is time I focus more of my energy and time on ways I can create an answer of my own. I must work harder, work smarter, work longer, and increase the level of passion. Fears must be faced, sacrifices must be made, and money must not be a main objective. I must do what I want, how I want too. I must surround myself with like minded individuals who too are dedicated to their passions. I must Invest in entrepreneurs, inspiration, and most importantly myself.

As the stop watch on life continues to get closer to its point of expiration what is important to me is legacy, knowledge, happiness, my message, truth, longevity, and equality. I cannot promise that it will always be pretty, but I will give my all… In a world where ugliness and perception is valued more than love and truth, if it is meant for me to go against the grain, than I must. It is my right to live life, with liberty, in pursuit of happiness…

-Ambassador

(Source: AmbassadorNique.com)

The GOPs Rick Ross Convention

While this was hilarious and true on every level in my opinion, I still cringe because its true. There are those that simply HATE Obama enough to look past the fact that Romney’s an idiot… No matter who you vote for, do yourself and the rest of the WORLD a favor and VOTE!

HOODWINKED

The sad part about this is that as a young black male these facts and stereotypes have been so deeply engrained into my head that I STILL have doubt. I still question if the facts are skewed, or misleading. Its very unfortunate. However, true or not, there is a lot of work to do in all communities of color to overturn these stereotypes and bring the resources and opportunities that are needed in order to find better ways to give everyone a fair shot at the American Dream.

Sidebar: I didn’t like the swipe at Wayne but everyone is entitled to their own opinion I suppose…

There are more Black Males in College# than in Jails, Prisons, Private Corrections, Military Jails and Institutions for the Criminally Insane combined#

(1,236,443 in College/841,000 Incarcerates – regardless of age)

4 to 1: The ratio of 18-24 year old Black Males in College# vs. Jails, Prisons, Private Corrections, Military Jails and Institutions for the Criminally Insane#.

(674,000 in College/164,400 Incarcerates)

32.3% (1 in 3) Black Males ages 18-24 are enrolled in College#

(674,000 in College/2,082,000 Total)

1.37 to 1: The ratio of 18-24 year old Black Females enrolled in College to Black Males#.

(930,000 Black Females Enrolled/674,000 Black Males Enrolled)

6.3%: Black Males (age 18-55+) enroll in College at a higher rate by sex than White Males and Hispanic Males and are surpassed only by Asian Males#.

(Black Males is 6.3%, White Males is 5.8%, Hispanic Males is 4.7%, and Asian Males is 9.7%)

25.1% of Black Males (age 25 or over) have either an Associates, Bachelors, Masters, Professional, or Doctoral Degree#.

(2,519,000 with Degrees/10,018,000 Total)

82.1% of Black Males (age 18 or over) have at least a High School Diploma or GED# .

(9,897,000 with HS Diploma or GED/12,044,000 Total)

12.1%: The Black Male Dropout Rate# (ages 16-24) for 2008.

(301,000 Dropouts/2,583,000 Total)#

5.1%: Percent of married Black Men who marry White Women#

(279,000 Black Husband-White Wife/5,654,000 Married Black Men)

88.8%: Percent of Black Males earning income# ages 25-64 (employment)

(7,899,000 Employed/8,893,000 Total)

$23,738: Average Income for Black Males# 15 and older

$19,470 Average Income Black Females

1,812,000 The number of Black Men making $50,000/year or more#

71.6% of Black Men pay their agreed to or Court Awarded Child Support#

(855,000 Payers/1,194,000 Recipients)

$253 Billion: Total Income earned by Black Males# (15 and over)

($262 Billion earned by Black Females)

13,104,000 Total Black Men age 15 or over#

(15,816,000 Total Black Females age 15 or over)

(Source: AmbassadorNique.com)

Lupe Fiasco - Around My Way (Freedom Ain’t Free)

I’m not going to lie.. I refused to listen to this song at first because of the whole Lupe v. Pete Rock thing… (Which I believe could be a publicity stunt…) There are always 3 sides to every story and at the core beef is dumb anyway. At the end of the day it should be all about the music and the bars. Hate it or love it Lupe delivers bars on this record…

“Manifested… say that we should protest just to get arrest, That goes against all my hustling ethics, A bunch of jail niggas say its highly ineffective…”

(Source: AmbassadorNique.com)

“This is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be, indeed one must strive to become, tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of man. (But remember: most of mankind is not all of mankind.) But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime. Now, my dear namesake, these innocent and well-meaning people, your countrymen, have caused you to be born under conditions not very far removed from those described for us by Charles Dickens in the London of more than a hundred years ago. (I hear the chorus of the innocents screaming, “No! This is not true! How bitter you are!”—but I am writing this letter to you, to try to tell you something about how to handle them, for most of them do not yet really know that you exist. I know the conditions, under which you were born, for I was there. Your countrymen were not there, and haven’t made it yet. Your grandmother was also there, and no one has ever accused her of being bitter. I suggest that the innocents check with her. She isn’t hard to find. Your countrymen don’t know that she exists, either, though she has been working for them all their lives.) Well, you were born, here you came, something like fourteen years ago: and though your father and mother and grandmother, looking about the streets through which they were carrying you, staring at the walls into which they brought you, had every reason to be heavyhearted, yet they were not. For here you were, Big James, named for me—you were a big baby, I was not—here you were: to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world. Remember that: I know how black it looks today, for you. It looked bad that day, too, yes, we were trembling. We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived. And now you must survive because we love you, and for the sake of your children and your children’s children. This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born, and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth , you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could do it and whom you could marry. I know that your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying “You exaggerate.” They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you. Take no one’s word for anything, including mine—but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence your came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what that believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear. Please try to be clear, dear James, though the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for so many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shinning and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is our of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of one’s own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don’t be afraid. I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man’s definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality. But these men are your brothers—your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved and unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off. You know, and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you, James, and Godspeed. Your uncle, James”

This is just a sample of the letter that was written by James Baldwin to his nephew. The exert is written at the end of Michelle Alexanders “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness.” The ambition to do whats right and to progress even when it seems as though everyone else has given up.

“This is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be, indeed one must strive to become, tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of man. (But remember: most of mankind is not all of mankind.) But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.
         Now, my dear namesake, these innocent and well-meaning people, your countrymen, have caused you to be born under conditions not very far removed from those described for us by Charles Dickens in the London of more than a hundred years ago. (I hear the chorus of the innocents screaming, “No! This is not true! How bitter you are!”—but I am writing this letter to you, to try to tell you something about how to handle them, for most of them do not yet really know that you exist. I know the conditions, under which you were born, for I was there. Your countrymen were not there, and haven’t made it yet. Your grandmother was also there, and no one has ever accused her of being bitter. I suggest that the innocents check with her. She isn’t hard to find. Your countrymen don’t know that she exists, either, though she has been working for them all their lives.)
          Well, you were born, here you came, something like fourteen years ago: and though your father and mother and grandmother, looking about the streets through which they were carrying you, staring at the walls into which they brought you, had every reason to be heavyhearted, yet they were not. For here you were, Big James, named for me—you were a big baby, I was not—here you were: to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world. Remember that: I know how black it looks today, for you. It looked bad that day, too, yes, we were trembling. We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived. And now you must survive because we love you, and for the sake of your children and your children’s children.
         This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born, and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. Wherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth , you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could do it and whom you could marry. I know that your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying “You exaggerate.” They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you. Take no one’s word for anything, including mine—but trust your experience. Know whence you came. If you know whence your came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what that believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear. Please try to be clear, dear James, though the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words acceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for so many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger. In this case, the danger, in the minds of most white Americans, is the loss of identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shinning and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is our of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of one’s own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don’t be afraid. I said that it was intended that you should perish in the ghetto, perish by never being allowed to go behind the white man’s definitions, by never being allowed to spell your proper name. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp of reality.   But these men are your brothers—your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved and unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of poets, some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off.
        You know, and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you, James, and Godspeed.
                                                                                                                                        Your uncle,
                                                                                                                                        James”

This is just a sample of the letter that was written by James Baldwin to his nephew. The exert is written at the end of Michelle Alexanders “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness.” The ambition to do whats right and to progress even when it seems as though everyone else has given up.