NUBIAN KNIGHTS NETWORK: Sunday, January 27, 2008

QUOTATIONS OF "BLACK"

"Whenever I use BLACK it relates to some history of Africans in that particular place. It’s the idea of the color BLACK as a metaphor, or as a representation of African-Americans. It’s the notion of BLACK- BLACKNESS - and all its other meanings in relation to the history of race..."

- Fred Wilson

"Most of my fortitude to continue doing the work comes from the moral outrage I feel about the injustices that Black people endure disproportionately daily."

- N. Abdul-Wakil

"In the end, what matters is not skin shade but pan-African consciousness. Loving your complexion, your nose, lips, hair length and texture, no matter what the politics or trends decide, and simply be. That's the problem with us (African folks). We're still learning how to love ourselves. So used to glorifying others and putting others first..."

- Dredlocks Tree

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Scholarships Aren't Just TRIX For Kids

Cuz,

Thanks for the follow-up.

The Gaia Community Scholarship and most of the others out there are typical of the criteria by which a lot of adults like me and others in similar situations don't fit into. I believe I told I you that when I went through that email that (floats around the Internet from people forwarding it) listed 101 African-American scholarships, all of the criteria was you either have to be (1) a high school senior, (2) a college undergrad, (3) a college graduate or (4) a filmmaker (in my field) that has a project already finished filming and needs post-production monies to finish or "sweeten" the project. Unfortunately I and other adults don't fit any of those categories.

I'm glad I'm not a bitter person in regard to this topic, but at the same time I think there should be more programs out there that support motivated adult individuals who have a career or life path goal already figured out and wish to get monetary assistance in obtaining their dream. I have no doubt that there may be (scholarship) programs with monies waiting in the wings for people to claim, but it becomes an issue of people simply not knowing about it. I've read on-line and heard on progressive radio stations (probably NYC's WBAI 99.5 FM) of sooooo many monies going back to the government vault because people didn't claim or apply for the grants, scholarships or whatever. Well! If people don't know about it then how can they claim it?????!! While most of these programs are geared toward younger people (which is not a bad thing), the fact also remains that a lot of young folks 18 to 25 in age and sometimes older have no idea what they wanna do, yet have all these monies made available to them from the get-go. I think a lot of people who reach their 18th birthday are not always sure what they wanna do with the rest of their lives. Or people change goals (sometime numerous times) in life which is not uncommon especially in the information age (as opposed to the industrial age where it was common for our parents to reside at the same job for 20, 30 or 40 years) in which we live and can simply roll-over one's 401k plan from one account to the other.

In any case, Cuz, I'm so passionate about this that I'm going to copy and paste this in my Nubian Knights Network: Writings on the Black Wall blog. LOL! I can only laugh for now, I guess.

ROD