Please revise your abstract and research paper for a general audience. Be engaging. You may use informal or colloquial language. Place your post here,
Please revise your abstract and research paper for a general audience. Be engaging. You may use informal or colloquial language. Place your post here,
From Africa to America
History is a mystery. Many Black African Americans and other cultures do not know or have concepts of their history or legacy. Most do know our forefathers and mothers were Africans force to come to America to be slaves. In schools of America we are taught of what famous Black Americans have done and invented, yet the puzzle is not complete. The African part of our ethnics is not taught, or barely recognized. Knowledge is power. To grasp where you re going it is certainly important to know where you are from.
In the beginning of the Era of Enslavement, The Europeans arrived on the West African coast during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they had already established the economic and technological foundations for the international slave trade. Between 1433 and 1488, Portuguese mariners used new knowledge of ocean currents to navigate Africa’s western coast, establish trade relations on the so-called Gold Coast, and set up sugar plantations on the northwest African islands of Madeira, Principe, and Sao Tomé.
Lerone Bennett Jr., Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, 5th ed., 1982
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Follow the leader.
Leading one person is just as difficult as leading 10,000. How you may ask. Sell them something to believe in, look like you believe it too, be pretty while doing the right thing and make it so complex they think about it. That’s how James MacGregor and Bernard M. Bass saw it. They are the fathers of modern day transactional and transformational leadership theory. They believed people wanted to be led, but they want to follow those who at least look like they know what their doing. As a leader, you’ll need to take a vision, package it and sell it in a way that makes others feel better about themselves and the organization they’re serving. In way, they’re thought process is interrupted by the song and dance. By the time their mind resets they’ll be singing and dancing along with everyone else driving your vision foward.
Dancing Trans.
So what’s transactional and transformational leadership you may be asking. The difference isn’t all that great. Both are morally centered meaning that if you’re a dictator or a prince, you’re not really a leader. You need to be morally bound to lead people in the right direction. Transactional essentially means I give you money, you give me something. Services, goods and such. Transformational leadership is different in the end by the salesmanship of that vision. Your followers will believe so strongly in the vision, that they will ultimately forgo their own ambitions for the success of their your leadership. Their success is your success.
Help me, help you, help me.
So how does this help you lead 10,000 followers into the depths of hell and back? The main requirement for both, transactional and transformational leadership, is a strong moral center. The more you sell that, the more people will want to follow you. Each leadership style will drive the success of your packaged vision by different means. Transactional leadership calls for having enough gold in the coffers to maintain the relationship with your followers but their effectiveness is solely based on your strength of character and morality. Once you the transformational stage, gold becomes less important to mutual success. Followers will begin to pursue the vision with almost dogmatic reverence thereby driving your success to new levels.
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Fantasy football is a growing phenomenon across the country. It brings friends together from all across the country. It provides a spike in a struggling economy; from the fantasy football websites to the fast food pizza chains. It makes people like you and I feel like we have a purpose for just a few short months. It gives us the opportunity to see what an owner of a professional football team goes through. Granted, it is on a much smaller scale, but we go through the same basic decision making process as the owner does on a daily basis.
The first thing people do when they are organizing their draft is to pick a date and place to be held. Usually it is at one of two places: someone’s home or a local restaurant or bar. This decision alone stimulates the economy with the amount of food and beer that is consumed in the few short hours your league is there. I can tell you from firsthand experience that restaurants love this time of the year. My friends and I just recently had our draft at a local restaurant. They opened early for us, gave us our own room, and even our own two waitresses. The draft takes about four or five hours, so they figure the more comfortable you are, the more you will eat and drink. They were so right.
A group of my friends and I have been doing our fantasy football league for fifteen years now. Every year, around the beginning of July, we start sending e-mails out trying to set a date where we can all meet to complete our draft. It takes a few weeks to get everyone’s schedules to match so we can set a date, time, and place for the draft to be held. It used to be easy because we were all local, or at least in the same state. Now we are scattered across the country from coast to coast. It makes it a little tougher, but we get it done, and have a great time doing so. Where it gets frustrating, at least for me every year, is when injuries come into play. Now I know what actual NFL owners go through. Every year, without fail, one or two of my top picks gets injured on the first week, and is out for the year. On two occasions, I have had a player either get arrested or killed. I have only once in the fifteen years I have been doing this. Even through all of this I continue to compete in fantasy football every season. Why? Because it allows me to feel like an owner, rather than just a spectator.
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Save Youth with Sex
It no longer surprises me when I hear that another teenager is pregnant. Teenagers these days no longer value the importance of experiencing something as intimate as having sex with someone.
It’s more of a mad dash to the finish line, a competition of who can sleep with
the most people before they hit 20. I can’t recall a time in my younger years when all my energy was focused on boys, let alone sex.
I remember when my younger sister was asking about sex; I informed her as best as I could, but I also told her that if she didn’t wait until she was at least 18 I would kick her ass.
Literally!
Teaching sex in school never seemed like a priority or even a necessity.
Now-a-days something drastic has to be done to teach these kids the consequences of their actions. Parents don’t seem to want to step up to the plate and educate their own children. If kids can’t get the information from home, where are they to turn?
Schools are being required to take the reins and teach these kids about having sex. But which method is better. Should children only be taught to withhold sex? Is that realistic considering our culture and the pressures teens face everyday. Not only should all schools be required to educate our youth on sex but it should be done in a well rounded manner.
Our children should know that condoms prevent pregnancy and STDS. Our children should know that sex while in monogamous relationship in important. Our children should know that sex is not love.
I challenge the government, parents, religious groups and teenagers alike to put their difference of moral high ground on the back burner and make the decision that we all know is necessary to help these kids in crisis, crying out for our help.
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Jack Dempsey arrived home from his pizza delivery job to announce to his beloved wife, Francy, that he had earlier that day signed an “interest only” mortgage agreement on a three-bedroom condo on Miami Beach. Out of breath and overcome with excitement, he exclaimed that “we’ll be able to flip that baby in less than twelve months, and we’ll walk away with at least $100,000, perhaps even as much as $200,000! ” When Francy asked her diligent spouse how he had happened upon the down payment for their new property and, equally important, how they were supposed to pay the their rent and the new mortgage payment, Jack explained that everything had been taken care of by his mortgage broker friend- “no questions asked.”
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The Revolving Door of Reentry Revolves No More at the SARC
A few weeks ago, I walked into a room full of men singing annoyingly loud and way off key. With every ounce of their being they shouted:
God’s still working on me.
God’s still working on me.
I’m not what I used to be
I’m not what I ought to be
but
God’s still working on me
The charismatic leader chants “One more time” and with the same vigor and intonation they start again…”God’s still working on me…” We are greeted by the chaplain who welcomes us to the 2010 graduating class of the Salvation Army. No, not the donation center for unwanted clothing and household items, but the Salvation Army Center for Reentry the “SARC”.
Patiently and proudly waiting on the stage of the SARC sat 7 cap and gown adorned graduates. I attended the ceremony along with my father and brother as a support to my neighbor across the street. Peter (whose name is changed to protect his identity) was a criminal habitual offender and a substance abuser and now stood as the valedictorian of his small class. Over the years, Peter had been through several programs designed to assist in successful reentry back into the community. Like many ex-offenders, mid-stream through all of his previous programs, Peter failed and ended up back in the penal system.
Most of the programs designed to assist ex-felons deal with only one aspect of reentry. There are programs that deal with substance abuse, but not education and programs that deal with job placement, but not job readiness. The Salvation Army’s program is a Christian based community program that encompasses all aspects of transition and re-entry and provides support to ensure that participants can successfully enter back into the community.
The residential program strategically designs the following benchmarks for progress:
• All participants are drug tested at the door. This eliminates any chance for using illegal substances while housed at the SARC.
• Participants are subject to random drug screenings at any time.
• For the first 60 days, participants may not leave the premises for any reason. This stage targets detoxification and isolation.
• In month 3, participants earn the right to leave the premises on Saturday for 8 hours. They have a strict curfew and violators of the curfew have to return back to stage 1.
• In month 6, participants earn the right to sit through job readiness training and apply for jobs in-house at the SARC.
• In month 12 successful participants graduate from the program and are released back into the community.
All graduates are assigned a sponsor who commits to be available 24 hours a day for the newly released participant. Additionally, the SARC invites graduates to come back to attend church services and graduations of the next classes.
The Salvation Army has successfully put together a program that supports the community and the clients it serves. The program should be a model to other programs to end the revolving door of reentry. Congratulations to the 2010 graduates of the SARC!
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Obesity in Children in America
The United States has seen an increase in the amount of children who are obese and overweight in recent years. One can go back in time and remember a time when children were totally different than what they are today. Could this be the cause of obese and overweight children? Are we more concerned with weight now than we were before? These are some of the questions one might ask when discussing the obesity in childhood issue. This is not just an issue for America but around the world as well. First Lady Michelle Obama has teamed up with the White House on this issue and this has become her platform to try and change this growing crisis around. “Let’s Move” is the campaign Mrs. Obama has created to help, inform and change childhood obesity in the United States.
I can remember a time when I was young and you played outside until the street lights were on and you ate sweets and snacks without a problem. Today’s children some do not know what it is to go outside and play. Sweets, snacks and all kind of treats is there daily menu until parents come home and maybe cook a meal or have a fast food restaurant or microwaveable meal for dinner. Television, video games and the computer have become the past time for kids; the games that were once played outside with neighborhood friends can now be played on the computer either by yourself or people from around the world you do not even know. This is a major concern of our youth they are not physical active as they used to be. Parents and adults need to encourage their children to have a little free time outdoors; it will stimulate your body and keep you healthy.
A single parent or working mother may not have the time for outdoor time or even a healthy family meal, but as a parent you have to make sacrifices and your children’s health should be your main priority. Single parents and I am one of them let’s wake up and stop saying we cannot do because we are a one parent household. Yes we can, I am a single mother of four children, the ages or 15, 13, 7 and 3. My girls are the oldest and the boys are the youngest. I know it is hard, trust me on this, but whatever it takes to maintain a healthy family I will do it. We all cook from the microwave at times and fast food also, but don’t make a habit of this every day. If you are on the do make snack time healthy with fruits and vegetables. Prepare meals a day or a whole week in advance in you have to. If there is time when you come home send the kids out to play while you do cook. In the long run all that hard work you put in being the only parent will pay off. Your kids will be healthier, the family will be healthier and you will have taught your kids valuable lessons. One hard work pays off nothing in life is easy or free. Controlling your health and weight at an early age will help you live a longer life.
The Let’s Move campaign started by First Lady Michelle Obama is geared to the children and informing parents and the public on the awareness of childhood obesity. There are several commitments from television networks, pediatricians, websites and sports teams that are helping in the fight. Nickelodeon, New York Yankees and some of the top nation’s pediatricians just to name a few. Mrs. Obama has started an organic garden in the White House an idea that has turned into a national conversation across the nation. People from all over are talking about what and how they grow foods in there garden and feed off of it and it is healthier than some of the items in the stores. There are several avenues one can use to start with the fight on childhood obesity this is just one.
Childhood obesity is a major concern and we all must take stock in this fight, because the children are our future. We need to teach them the healthy way as a child so they can grow up to live a healthy long life. Physical activity, better eating habits, healthier foods with a balanced nutritional diets are the starters. What we start we have to continue. We cannot start the cycle of healthiness today and stop when the road gets heavier in other aspects of our lives. Parents are the key to success when it comes to childhood obesity what is starting at home can continue at school. A quote from Mrs. Obama is how I would like to end this passage, “ The beauty is we don’t need to be 100% of the way there. If we get 20% of the way there, we will change the health status of our kids for a generation.”
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Knock, Knock…
Those are the knocks of children searching for a home. Children with needed homes have increased over the past 10 years. In spite of the increasing numbers, children in foster care and foster parents are mostly invisible in communities and frequently lack many needed support and or resources. In situations of abuse and neglect, children may be removed from their biological parents’ home by a child welfare agency and placed in foster care for their safety. Other reasons for foster placement consist of severe behavioral problems in the child and or a variety of parental problems, such as illnesses; physical or emotional, abandonment also known as child neglect, incarceration, AIDS, alcohol and or substance abuse, and or death.
African-American children make up roughly two thirds of the foster care population and remain in care longer. Two out of three children who enter foster care are reunited with their birth parents within two years. A significant number, however, can spend long periods of time in care awaiting adoption or other permanent placements.
There are magnitudes of ways on how to assist these children that are very much in need. Ways as obtaining a foster care license walking a marathon is another method, in raising funds that will directly benefit local agencies that work with foster children and the families that serve them. Also being a Court-Appointed Special Advocate, known as a CASA worker. Becoming a Big Brother or Sister in teaching them a new hobby or learn about theirs. Volunteering at a children’s home, children’s homes are usually one of the first stops on the foster care journey for many kids, or it could also be a stop in-between foster homes. Children’s homes are often looking for volunteers complete an array of different duties. Moreover, donating items to a children’s home or foster care agency is greatly appreciated. Many of these children are in need of school supplies, shoes, clothes, or even toys. Suitcases or bags of any kind are usually needed. Sadly, many children go from home to home with their belongings in trash bags. In conclusion, give today, change tomorrow!
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