Month: March 2011

Using Social Media to Defeat Enemies of HBCUs

It’s time out for people who graduated from, attend, work for, and/or support historically Black college and universities (HBCUs) to continue to stay on defense about the significant value of HBCUs. We need to get on offense. Yes, defense is important because it is the side of the ball where a team prevents the other team from scoring points, but you cannot win without scoring points. Of course, great defensive efforts can lead to the scoring of points but those defensive efforts must be converted into offense. This is how it goes in basketball and football and this is how it goes when it comes to winning the war being waged against our beloved HBCUs.

We’ve been on defense far too long and we’ve not converted our defense into offense, meaning we are not scoring any points against our opponents, those who try to dismantle, devalue, and/or undermine HBCUs. We already know that most of the enemies of HBCUs are White. These are not just any White people either—these are racist, elitist, classist, and/or prejudiced White people. Therefore, just don’t look at any White person and assume that he or she is an enemy of HBCUs. You have to evaluate words and actions of people to resolve whether or not they are enemies of HBCUs. Don’t just think that the enemies of HBCUs are all White—many Blacks are some of the greatest enemies of HBCUs.

You may be thinking that the only Black enemies of HBCUs have to be those “nefarious Black conservatives.” Unfortunately, many of the nefarious Black enemies of HBCUs are those who attend or have attended one of these institutions or work for or have worked for one of these institutions. Now, these previously mentioned Black enemies of HBCUs represent a tremendously small percentage of the enemies of HBCUs, but their power can be just as damaging as White enemies of HBCUs—possibly even more injurious.

Instead of letting misinformation, unmerited negative criticism, blatant lies, unfair characterizations, belittling viewpoints, and etc. continue to have a significant impact, Black people and non-Blacks who support HBCUs need to use the power of social media to saturate the internet with true information and responses to misinformation about HBCUs and offer positive messages about HBCUs. If you only know information about the specific HBCUs you attend/or graduated from, then just talk about your specific HBCU through social media. Use your Facebook status and the “Note” function to periodically say something positive about HBCUs. Use Twitter to occasionally say something positive about HBCUs. Make YouTube videos that present HBCUs in a positive light. Bloggers should pen pieces that communicate positive academic, social, and professional student experiences at HBCUs. For those who don’t blog, get a free blog at WordPress (http://wordpress.com) or Blogger (http://blogger.com) and compose positive pieces about HBCUs—they don’t have to be long pieces either.

Again, the goal is to saturate the internet with positive information and messages about HBCUs. Now, I see many Black people engaging in all kinds of foolishness through social media. Take a little time to devote to supporting HBCUs through social media. We must focus on making it clear that HBCUs offer great academic value and experiences. The internet needs to be filled with great success stories of those who have graduate from HBCUs.

Although I’m not attempting to present the ideas in this article as panaceas to the problems HBCUs confront, the ideas in this piece are practical ways to help us advance, defend, ameliorate, and support HBCUs. Black people have the power to use social media to form a potent collective to market HBCUs in the way they deserve to be marketed.

Please take at least a small amount of the time you spend using social media to devote to uplifting, improving, advancing, and supporting HBCUs. We are strongest when we are united!

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Herman Cain Could be the Next U.S. President

With Republicans still not having a clear frontrunner for President in 2012, Herman Cain could capitalize on this reality and give Republicans a person to rally behind all the way to sealing the Republican nomination for President in 2012. I know that many people reading this piece may not be familiar with Herman Cain. This piece will help you to get to know who Herman Cain is a little better by offering you some background information about him. Moreover, this piece will present arguments about why he could win the Republican Party’s Presidential nomination in 2012 and why he could defeat President Obama.

Herman Cain was raised in Atlanta, Georgia and currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia. He is 65 years of age. He graduated from Morehouse College, one of the leading historically Black colleges in the nation, with an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and minor in Physics. While working for the United States Department of Navy, he earned a master’s degree in Computer Science from Purdue University. Cain is a highly accomplished businessman and proven leader. He has served as a business analyst for Coca-Cola, Vice-President of Pillsbury, and Chief Executive Officer of Godfather’s Pizza. Herman Cain managed 400 Burger King stores in Philadelphia and took this region of stores from being the least profitable to the most profitable in the nation in just three years. Cain has also served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the National Restaurants Association.

Herman Cain has never held a political office. He ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004 in Georgia and did exceptionally well, but was not able to defeat the strong name recognition of now Senator Johnny Isakson.

Is there any early credible evidence to suggest that Herman Cain even has a chance to win the Republican nomination for President in 2012? In the first state to vote for the Republican Party’s Presidential nomination, Iowa, Cain won a straw poll by a large margin. Look at the results of the Iowa straw poll here: http://draftcain.org/blog.aspx.

In the 2010 Midterm Election, we witnessed the significant influence that the Tea Party had on the outcomes of elections. The Tea Party was instrumental in helping Republicans to take the U.S. House from Democrats, aided Republicans in picking up the most new U.S. House seats in history, helped closed the gap between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate, and assisted in the winning a number of new Republican governorships. Unquestionably, the Tea Party is a force to be reckoned with in the current national political milieu. The Tea Party will certainly have a tremendous influence on who will receive the Republican nomination for President. With the Tea Party’s demonstrated success in the 2010 Midterm Election, the fact that Herman Cain is one of the Tea Party’s favorite candidates for President greatly increases his chances of becoming President in 2012.

Ten years ago, the fact that Herman Cain has never held a political office would have prevented him from having a chance to win the Republican nomination and become President. However, there’s a strong anti-incumbent and anti-establishment political mood all across the country. Cain’s great business experience and his marketing of himself as a “problem-solver could help him to capture the Republican nomination for President. Of the Republican candidates who are running and who may run, he’s among the most inspiring and charismatic.

If he’s able to secure the Republican Party’s nomination for President, he can be a formidable candidate against President Obama. Cain has the anti-incumbent and anti-establishment political mood in his favor, the support of the Tea Party, experience as an accomplished business leader, and the ability to communicate in a way that enables him to go toe-to-toe with President Obama. I really think that his marketing of himself as a “problem-solver” is going to become as powerful as messages of “hope” and “change” were for President Obama in 2008. Messages of “hope” and “change” are not going to work for President Obama in 2012. If Cain is his opponent, he will not be able to enjoy the advantage of people wanting to vote for him just because they could make history by voting for the first Black President of the United States, considering Cain is Black.

Herman Cain’s strategy of building a strong grassroots movement in support of him in the early voting states is proving to gain him some serious support in those early states. Many people vigorously oppose President Obama’s healthcare reform bill. Cain led the fight against HillaryCare during President Clinton’s tenure in office when he led the National Restaurants Association. This opposition to HillaryCare, which shares many affinities with President Obama’s healthcare bill, can assist Cain in garnering more national support.

Don’t simply discredit the possibility that Herman Cain can win the Republican nomination for President and defeat President Obama in 2012 because you don’t see and hear about him all of time. Guess what? We didn’t know much about President Obama when he was running for President in 2008. Remember that?

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

De-romanticizing the Black Barbershop in the 21st Century

Ever since the Black barbershop’s provenance, there has been this pervasive thought that it is a utopian space where all types of liberating discourses take place. The Black barbershop has been widely thought of as a space where Black men “keep it real.” Black-owned barbershops date back as early as 1854 in America (see http://www.chopitupbarbershop.com/html/first-black-owned-barbershops-d5.html), and they have been spaces where men have discussed serious topics and have organized and strategized for substantive change in this country, especially during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements.  For this piece, I limit the focus on the Black barbershop to its 21st century epoch, the epoch we currently reside in, of course.  From the outset, I want to admit that my direct experience with Black barbershops is primarily limited to those in the American South and Midwest.  The Black barbershop has certainly lost much of the utopian, liberating, and subversive energies that it once had during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements.

While I’m not arguing that the Black barbershop has completely lost all of these aforementioned energies, I am contending that the Black barbershop is not as powerful of a space as it was during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. Our nostalgia for Black barbershops during those aforementioned movements is conspicuous in how we perceive and discuss Black barbershops. The purpose of this article is to complicate and extend the discourse about the 21st century Black barbershop.

Performativity in the Black Barbershop

While Black men in the barbershop showed serious signs during the 1960s – 1970s of “keeping it real,” this past site of “keeping it real” has largely morphed into a space of performance. In many Black barbershops I’ve visited, many of the Black men in them have traded in the revolutionary spirit of Black men in the 1960s and 1970s for a “cool pose.” Majors and Billson (1992) assert that the idea of “cool pose” is a stress coping strategy that is employed by Black males that features hypermasculine behavior to help them to be able to bear the multifarious barriers and pressures an oppressive, racist, and discriminatory America present them. While the Black barbershop was once a place where Black men were highly focused on talking about subversive ways to resist oppression and discrimination, many of them are now competing with one another in this space to prove who has had sex with the most women.

In many Black barbershops, women are being heavily reified by many Black men to gain the approval of the “audience” in the barbershop.  The Black barbershop is a space where you can witness how important performing hypermasculinity is. Before many Black men leave the barbershop, they want it to be clear that they are the biggest “pimps” in the whole barbershop. When observing many of them, you can tell how much they are laboring to manufacture false narratives about the number of women they have had sexual intercourse with and how many they currently have on their shoulders. The feeling of the need to perform in this way is vital to comprehend because it makes the barbershop a space that is sexist and demeaning to women, especially Black women.

Another way in which many Black men put on performances in the Black barbershop is through the way they present themselves as being so “messed up” from last night. Now, some of the barbers who have cut my hair I could just smell the marijuana and alcohol on them so much that I often felt like I got high from just being in close contact with them. For many of the Black male customers who come into the barbershop, it becomes really hard to believe them that they are still so “messed up” from last night. It seems to me that if you are really “messed up” you will not be able to drive to the barbershop. Now, this is if you are really “messed up.” These types of performances in the barbershop make it a space where drug use, abuse, selling, and possession is celebrated. You will increase your social status by the approval that many people in the barbershop will grant you for persuading them about how “messed up” you got last night and how “messed up” you still are.

Moreover, television programming, namely sports programming, affords many Black men in the barbershop to be able to receive the attention they are seeking. You have many Black men who will try to present themselves as experts and coaches while watching sports programming in the barbershop. Many Black men will speak vociferously and holler just to get attention. Now, they know that they are not at home. I don’t have any problem with you acting like that when you’re at home, but you are only putting on a performance for your “audience” when you do this in a barbershop, a public space where we should have some level of decorum.

Conclusion

Let’s not fool ourselves anymore. The Black barbershop is not simply a space where liberating, subversive, and useful discourse takes place. It is very much a place where unhealthy, demeaning, and unproductive discourse does take place. Yes, useful discourse and activities do take place in the Black barbershop, but let’s not pretend like the Black barbershop is a space where we always “keep it real.”

Reference

Majors, R., & Billson, J.M. (1992). Cool pose: The dilemmas of Black manhood in America. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Revolutionary Paideia March 2011 Person of the Month: Anthony Robles

Each month, Revolutionary Paideia selects a person who embodies the spirit of “unsettling, unnerving, and unhousing” that founded this blog.  It is not often that Revolutionary Paideia is unsettled, unnerved, and unhoused by someone, but a truly exceptional young man has been able to accomplish this feat. Anthony Robles, who will graduate this May from Arizona State University with his undergraduate degree, has won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Wrestling Championship. Guess what? This young man won the NCAA Division I Championship in Wrestling with only one leg. He was born without a right leg. What an amazing accomplishment! What is even more amazing is the mental strength that Anthony Robles evinces. You would think that a person with only one leg would not even consider participating in Wrestling at the NCAA Division I level, but this young man did not allow what others would consider to be a lifelong physical disability to prevent him from doing what others who have two legs were afraid to do and/or did not have what it takes to compete in Wrestling at the NCAA Division I level.  Let’s not overlook the fact that Anthony Robles is a student-athlete who is graduating. Far too often, many people try to make it seem like student-athletes don’t graduate from college. However, in a little over two months, this young man will be graduating from Arizona State University.  Read more about his story here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/22/earlyshow/living/main20045830.shtml

We all can learn a great amount from Anthony Robles. This man did not simply allow his physical disability to keep him from achieving great things. He understood the real struggles that he would face in life with having only one leg. Mr. Robles knew that his physical disability would require him to have to work that much harder than people with two legs. Do you really understand the courage that this young man has? Do you really understand? If you have even a slight idea about Wrestling, you know that it is a physically demanding sport. Just imagine how difficult this sport is for something with only one leg.

When we feel like things are too challenging for us to accomplish, we can think about what Anthony Robles was able to accomplish with just one leg. His example can give us the courage we need to face our current and future challenges and problems. This man developed a mindset focused on victory that was crucial to materializing his victories against his opponents. For those of us who have all of our limbs, we need to realize the advantages that we have. We need to recognize that if Anthony is not complaining about what his body cannot do, then we don’t need to be complaining about what our bodies cannot do. A dominant and powerful message about his story is to fearlessly face all of your challenges and problems because you can conquer anything if you have the courage to do it.

It is with great pleasure that I name Anthony Robles as The Revolutionary Paideia March 2011 Person of the Month. Anthony Robles, keep doing great things! You’re such an inspiration!

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Spring Clean Some Human Beings Right Out of Your Life

As I approach 30 years of life, it really just hit me: I’m responsible for how I continue to allow people to treat me. There comes a point when you have to get fed up with the things that people do to you. It’s only when you acknowledge that enough is enough that you will truly reclaim full dominion over your life. At the very minimum, you must demand people to treat you with basic respect. If people are not willing to treat you with respect, then take a stand against them. Cast those who are not willing to respect you out of your life. Do it right now! I had to come to the realization that if people are not going to do anything else they are going to respect me. I have recognized that I have the power to not allow disrespectful people to occupy space in my life. As long as you accept disrespectful people in your life, you need to own full responsibility for their treatment of you. It’s not their fault—it’s your fault. You keep allowing it so go ahead and own what you are doing to yourself.

Many of the people in our lives are disposable, but we keep them around like they are necessities. In essence, many people are optional but we let them stay around us like we don’t have a choice. When they keep mistreating and disrespecting you, look right in the mirror at the person who should be held completely responsible for this mistreatment and disrespect. You begin to press yourself smaller and smaller when you give people the constant authority to devalue you. Your mother and father did not conceive you to sit up there and let people persist to push you around and do you any way they want. You have the power right now to stop this from happening.

What’s really sad is many of us are not able to even understand when people are constantly disrespecting and mistreating us. We have allowed disrespect and mistreatment to become such the norm in our lives that we don’t see them as needing to be eradicated from our lives. Open your eyes and see what’s really going on around you. You deserve to be valued. The things that are important to you deserve to be respected.

I want you to think critically about the people in your life and give them a comprehensive evaluation. Are there any people who really do not value you as a person? Are there people who do not value your education, business, responsibilities, time, and/or etc.? Are there people who don’t show you appreciation for the things you do for them? Are there people who don’t evince their gratitude to you? If you have people like this in your life, then you need to dismiss them right now. It really is that simple when you truly love yourself.

Are you in a “serious” relationship with a person who only values you for the sexual intercourse? If so, eliminate this person from your life. Do you have “friends” who only come around you when they want something? Cast these people out of your life! Are there people in your life who only want to talk to you about themselves all the time and everything is always about them? Get rid of them right now.

We need to start appreciating and valuing ourselves more. Love yourself enough to get rid of the people in your life who are not good for you. The right time for some Spring cleaning is right now. Get busy!

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Key to Black Male Academic Success: Mentorship

A significant body of empirical research has demonstrated that Black male students academically underperform all students throughout the educational pipeline (Hawkins, 2010; Jackson, 2003). One has to wonder how this can be a reality when there are so many successful Black men in America. Unfortunately, many Black men are not taking Black male academic underachievement as serious as they need to take it. Imagine if White male students academically lagged behind all students throughout the educational pipeline—it would be declared a national emergency. Why will we not declare Black male academic underachievement in the Black community to be a national emergency? Do Black people not really care about Black male academic underachievement? Of course, we do! The challenge for members in the Black community is to resolve the best way to lead a coordinated national effort to begin to tackle this critical problem. This article contends that mentorship is crucial to dramatically ameliorating Black male academic achievement.

Mentorship is the most immediate, practical, and effective tool that we have in the Black community to tremendously improve Black male academic achievement. Yes, there are many important factors that contribute to the national academic underachievement of Black males, but we, Black men, have the power to address this problem ourselves. We cannot depend on others outside of the Black community to educate our children—we have to do it ourselves!

When we are discussing community development and building, we need to include improving Black male academic achievement as a part of this conversation. Community organizers need to organize Black men and women around helping Black male students to experience higher academic achievement. Those discourses about Black male students do not have to be inundated with examples about Black male students who are academically underperforming. Harper (2005) offers us an opportunity to focus on those factors that contribute to high-achieving Black male students. Instead of us always concentrating on what is not working for Black male students, let’s start devoting more of our attention to what is working for Black male students who are experiencing academic success. Harper’s study provides us with critical insights into what factors have enabled high-achieving Black male students to be academically successful.

Discourses about Black male students that only involve the negative dimensions about them ultimately lead to them being viewed as “problems.” When one perceives Black males as “problems,” he or she reifies them. Black male students are human beings—don’t treat them like objects. Let’s work to engender the factors that have contributed to the academic success of the Black male students that Harper’s (2005) work promulgates.

I mentor 50 students across the United States, mostly Black males. For most of them, I only need to send them an email, text, or call them once a month just to make sure that everything is going okay. They may ask me for advice about certain problems they are confronting, to look over a paper for them, pen a recommendation, and/or etc. This does not take much of my time. Some of my mentees, however, consume much more of my time and this is quite fine. I may have to tutor them weekly, heavily critique their papers often, give them lengthy advice frequently, and/or etc. Now, I’m just one person and I’m mentoring 50 students. If I could only get every capable Black man to mentor just one Black male, then we would not have to witness so many of our Black males dropping out of school, experiencing academic failure, and/or being incarcerated or put in juvenile detention centers.

At “The Think Tank for African American Progress” in 2008, a scholarly national conference held in Memphis, Tennessee, I served as a panelist and presenter of a scholarly paper about ameliorating Black male academic achievement. As both a panelist and scholarly paper presenter, I posited that one of the most important reasons why Black male academic achievement is not being improved is we don’t have enough Black people evincing the will to aid with bolstering their academic achievement. At first, many people at the conference thought my argument about not enough people in the Black people having the will to assist Black male students with improving their academic performances was too simplistic. However, as they begin to offer their solutions and positions about Black male academic achievement, they were able to see that everything they were saying came back to my argument about the importance of having more people exhibiting the will to augment Black male academic achievement.

We don’t have to wait for a government program to help Black male students to ameliorate their academic achievement. Capable Black men need to start mentoring Black male students so that they can be on a path for academic success. Even if mentoring a Black male student does not amplify his academic achievement, you will have given him a true chance to improve his academic performance. You probably will help in many other ways. The key thing is to act. Act now!

References

Harper, S.R. (2005). Leading the way: Inside the experiences of high-achieving African American students. About Campus, 10(1), 8-15.

Hawkins, B. (2010). The new plantation: Black athletes, college sports, and predominantly White NCAA institutions. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Jackson, J.F.L. (2003). Toward administrative diversity: An analysis of the African-American male educational pipeline. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 12(1), 43-60.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Posing as a Great Singer: Examining Trey Songz’s Intriguing Success

After engaging in a close examination of Trey Songz’s discography, there has to be significant factors that have contributed to his success—other than being able to sing—because he cannot sing. Now, Trey Songz seems to be a nice young man, although I have never met him in person. He has never, from my knowledge, been arrogant and has not had any beef with other artists. Mr. Songz has encountered trouble with the legal system since he has been an artist. He just seems to be a really good guy. Unfortunately, all of those things have nothing to do with singing. Trey Songz was named the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Best Male R&B Artist at the 2010 BET Awards. Really? Trey Songz? Are we really ready to say that this man is one of the best male R&B singers? Is he really a good enough singer to be granted such a prestigious award? This article seeks to offer possible explanations about why Trey Songz has been a successful artist.

While many may assert that I’m attempting to mar the reputation of Trey Songz as a singer, this piece is purely an attempt to try to understand the factors that contribute to the success of Trey Songz.

Many women I’ve asked posit that Mr. Songz is a very attractive man with a very nice body. With many women driving his sells, one has to dedicate at least some serious thought to the idea that Songz’s success results largely from his looks. Every opportunity Songz gets he takes off his shirt or simply shows up shirtless. We are all now familiar with the reality that sex and sexy sells. Trey Songz and his marketing team comprehends this well. They recognize that his sex appeal, good looks, and nice body resonate well with the ladies. It would be imprudent not to think about how vital his physical appearance is to the way in which his singing is primarily received. One’s physical appearance is crucial to one’s popular reception in today’s music industry.

Moreover, Trey Songz has done a fascinating job of becoming an award-winning singer without proving his ability to sing. When you listen to any song by Trey Songz, you never have an opportunity to really hear him sing. On many of his songs, his voice is drowned out by the musical accompaniments and sound effects. To be frank, he basically talks instead of sings on all of his songs. He and his handlers have orchestrated a great strategy to always ensure that he has the right songs, the right musical accompaniments, and the right sound effects that prevent his inability to sing from being exposed. He gets exposed, however, when he has to sing live.

Listen to Trey Songz’s “Bottoms Up” and witness how the music operates as a masking agent to camouflage his inability to sing. “Neighbors Know My Name” is a classic example of how he principally just talks instead of sings.

The aforementioned factors that contribute to Trey Songz’s success are important for us to remember when we start endowing accolades like “Best Male R&B Artist.” The previously mentioned factors that have contributed to his success collectively divulge that his success has nothing to do with his singing. We denigrate the venerated prestige of an award like “Best Male R&B Artist” when we give it to someone like Trey Songz. There’s a conspicuous difference between talking and singing. Now, do you really think Mr. Songz measures up vocally to the likes of R. Kelly, Brian McKnight, Eric Benét, Jamie Foxx, Chris Brown, and Usher? As far as Trey Songz’s vocals go, I contend that he’s not even qualified enough to hold their jockstraps.

Critically listen to Trey Songz’s singing and don’t just look at the pretty face and nice body. If you love his pretty face and nice body, then say that but don’t anoint him to be “Best Male R&B Artist.”

I’m afraid that we are giving many contemporary artists who are posing as singers a pass on their vocals just because we love how they look. Trey Songz should thank God every day for blessing him with the good looks he has because he would not have experienced the success he has without his good looks. I guess Trey Songz offers us a new model for being a successful artist in today’s music industry: Have the right hue of Black skin, a nice body, and good looks and you can become a successful singer without being able to sing.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Men Get Raped Too

Grown men get raped too. For many people, they cannot even fathom the thought that it’s possible for a man to get raped. Some people think that if a man gets raped that he needed to get raped because he should have been man enough to prevent it. Of course, a man getting raped by another man or by a woman happens much less than a woman gets raped by a man. We still, however, need to engage in serious discourses about men who are raped. One of the dominant reasons why men who are raped is largely underreported to the authorities is shame. The shame that male victims of rape experience may be greater than the shame women face. When one thinks about the hypermasculine expectations that American society places on men, especially men in the African-American and Latino communities, the thought of a man who “lets himself get raped” is unacceptable. Men who are truly raped are not letting themselves get rapped—they are being victimized in the same ways as women who are raped.

We must create spaces where men who are victimized by rape can speak and where they can find support and refuge. Those of us who are committed to truth and justice need to include male victims of rape in the work that we do. There’s a true need to find real and innovative ways to counter the shame that men face when they are raped. Shame is keeping many men from coming forth or causing them not to immediately report the vicious sexual attacks on their body.

It’s important to give people some examples of how a grown man can be raped because many people don’t believe it’s possible. A grown man can be raped by a group of bi-sexual or down- low men who outnumber a man who is alone. You have to understand that sometimes a group of men will want to have sex with a man so bad that they will set him up to be sexually gang-banged. Moreover, a woman can use a date rape drug to rape a man. The date rape drug can render him powerless to her desire to rape him. Many men are too hypermasculine to see this as rape because they will see that he’s a man and he’s receiving something “good” out of the encounter. It’s rape! A gay man can overpower another gay man and rape him. It happens!

Just because you have never heard about a man getting raped does not mean that it has not and does not occur.

Rape is one of the most violent acts that can be inflicted on a person. Women are, of course, most often impacted by rape. We have to, however, become more sophisticated about the ways in which we discuss rape because men are not included in our popular discourses on rape. Since men are mainly the rapists, their relationship to rape is primarily as victimizers. There has to be an understanding that they are victims too when discussing rape. In no way am I trying to diminish the focus on the impact that rape has on women, but I want us to realize that men are being victimized by rape too.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Rootlessness is the Source of Randomness

Rootlessness means lacking foundation and purpose. People who embrace randomness are increasingly becoming more popular across the nation. It seems the nation has a fascination with the random things that people do. A growing number of people are consuming much more of their time with doing random things. Even on Twitter, you will see many people type #random for a thought (or utterance) that comes out of nowhere and/or that makes absolutely no sense. Because many people refuse to stay focused for even two minutes during a conversation, they will say, “I know this is random but…” They don’t want to sit still long enough to continue a coherent conversation. They have so many random things that they want to say that they don’t make it possible to have a coherent conversation. When you have a conversation with someone who embraces randomness, you better be prepared for the conversation to take all kinds of unexpected twists and incoherent transitions.

Many people enjoy randomness so much that their enjoyment of randomness renders them fundamentally useless. It seems like many people consume most of each day doing random things and living random lives. Have you ever just stopped and asked yourself why do people love randomness? These people suffer from rootlessness. They have failed to establish a strong foundation for themselves and have not identified their true purpose in life. If you consume most of your day with trivial things, then you suffer from rootlessness. A rootless person is a dangerous person. Rootless people have the capability of doing anything without notice, including things that can cause others around them to die. When you are truly rootless, you are unstable.

I know rootless graduate and professional school students who should be spending more time with conducting research in their fields, but will elect to devote a significant amount of their time to trying to come up with random outfits that are going to catch people’s attention. These graduate and professional students will spend a great amount of time on putting things on Facebook and Twitter just to get attention. The stuff that they post on Facebook and Twitter never has any substance—it’s just stuff that they know will get a reaction from the people who see it. To invest such a considerable amount of time on inconsequential stuff like this is a problem. You may say, “Antonio, you are making more of this than it really is,” but I want you to know that many people are wasting lots of their time on doing random things.

I wish that those who get a significant amount of attention for having a true commitment to being random would not receive so much attention from those of us who know we should not be entertaining their randomness. When people who are embracing randomness reveal their ignorance, we should not simply laugh at them—we need to tell them that they are being stupid. We need to ask them what’s ailing them. If we really care about them or just care about people in general, we need to help them to work through their rootlessness. Let’s help people to understand the how and the why behind their randomness. Many people who love randomness may not really understand why it is that they do what they do. You can make a true difference in a person’s life by simply asking him or her to think critically about why he or she does the things that he or she does.

When an adult constantly does random things every day, there’s something wrong with this adult. Doing random things every day evinces a person’s immaturity. Start to challenge adults who love to be random to replace their randomness with substance.  Don’t simply stand by and let people waste their lives being fools. I want you to understand that people who are regularly random are people who suffer from rootlessness. They need someone to care for them. They need someone to help them to develop a foundation and a purpose. Be that person that they need to change their lives for the better.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Don’t Be a Leech

You should not always have your hands stuck out begging. At some point, you should have something to offer to someone else. When people give to you, learn how to give back to them. People will start to hate seeing you come around them because they know you will have something that you want them to do for you. Do you have people in your life who only call, email, text, and/or visit you when they want something from you and you never hear from them until they want something? Today, I want to let you know they are leeches. If you continue to feed leeches, they will zap all of the blood out of you. You may not understand what’s going on with how you feel,  why things are not going right in your life, why it seems that you don’t have enough time in the day, and/or why you are not able to meet your daily responsibilities. You need to check for leeches in your life. Leeches could be the very reason you are not progressing, improving, and/or feeling the way that you long to feel.

Don’t be so compassionate that you allow people to crumble your foundation. You have to be wise in your giving. Always examine your giving and make sure that you are giving to the right people and places. You are not the savior of the world, so don’t attempt to help too many people because you will be denying yourself from the great things that you need to enjoy for yourself. Helping too many people on your own is simply not healthy and not wise. You will physically, mentally, and emotionally weigh yourself down with stress when you are trying to help everyone. When you need some help, watch how many of those people who you helped will be there for you.

People will hang around you and contact you just to get benefits from you. Now, this can be expected from the complete strangers you may help or the random people you meet, but it’s those friends and family members you have to be more alert about being leeches. Leeches are not always easy to detect. We allow friends and family members to occupy certain spaces in our life that we don’t allow others to occupy. This is the reason why we have to have on more protective clothing when we are around our friends and family—they could be the greatest leeches we have on us. If you are always thoroughly examining yourself, then you will know if your friends and family members are leeches.

We often make ourselves too vulnerable to people who we believe love us and have our best interest in mind. You need to understand that you need to constantly assess those who you make yourself vulnerable to in some way. It can be the venomous people around you who are killing you and pushing you off of your road to greatness. The people who you love and trust can be the very people who are simply using you for what they can get from you. You cannot sit there and allow folks to suck all of the blood out of you and not have enough left for yourself.

I know that it might be difficult to think about your loved ones being leeches, but you have to be willing to examine them as potential leeches. Guard yourself in wise ways. Build necessary walls with certain people in your life. We hear a significant amount of discourse about tearing down walls, but there needs to be more discussion about building necessary walls. Walls exist for a purpose: to make sure that not just anyone can enter.

Beware of the leeches out there—they might be some people you least expect! If you are consciously a leech, stop being one today!

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison