RaeBerlin

"12 Things The Negro Must do to Improve Himself - Nannie Helen Burroughs"

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:27:59 -0600

“12 Things The Negro Must do to Improve Himself - Nannie Helen Burroughs”

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1. The Negro Must Learn To Put First Things First. The First Things Are: Education; Development of Character Traits; A Trade and Home Ownership.
• The Negro puts too much of his earning in clothes, in food, in show and in having what he calls “a good time.” The Dr. Kelly Miller said, “The Negro buys what he WANTS and begs for what he needs.”

2. The Negro Must Stop Expecting God and White Folk To Do For Him What He Can Do For Himself.
• It is the “Divine Plan” that the strong shall help the weak, but even God does not do for man what man can do for himself. The Negro will have to do exactly what Jesus told the man (in John 5:8) to do—Carry his own load—“Take up your bed and walk.”

3. The Negro Must Keep Himself, His Children And His Home Clean And Make The Surroundings In Which He Lives Comfortable and Attractive.
• He must learn to “run his community up”—not down. We can segregate by law, we integrate only by living. Civilization is not a matter of race, it is a matter of standards. Believe it or not—some day, some race is going to outdo the Anglo-Saxon, completely. It can be the Negro race, if the Negro gets sense enough. Civilization goes up and down that way.

4. The Negro Must Learn To Dress More Appropriately For Work And For Leisure.
• Knowing what to wear—how to wear it—when to wear it and where to wear it, are earmarks of common sense, culture and also an index to character.

5. The Negro Must Make His Religion An Everyday Practice And Not Just A Sunday-Go-To-Meeting Emotional Affair.

6. The Negro Must Highly Resolve To Wipe Out Mass Ignorance.
• The leaders of the race must teach and inspire the masses to become eager and determined to improve mentally, morally and spiritually, and to meet the basic requirements of good citizenship.
• We should initiate an intensive literacy campaign in America, as well as in Africa. Ignorance— satisfied ignorance —is a millstone about the neck of the race. It is democracy’s greatest burden.
• Social integration is a relationship attained as a result of the cultivation of kindred social ideals, interests and standards.
• It is a blending process that requires time, understanding and kindred purposes to achieve. Likes alone and not laws can do it.

7. The Negro Must Stop Charging His Failures Up To His “Color” And To White People’s Attitude.
• The truth of the matter is that good service and conduct will make senseless race prejudice fade like mist before the rising sun.
• God never intended that a man’s color shall be anything other than a badge of distinction . It is high time that all races were learning that fact. The Negro must first QUALIFY for whatever position he wants. Purpose, initiative, ingenuity and industry are the keys that all men use to get what they want. The Negro will have to do the same. He must make himself a workman who is too skilled not to be wanted, and too DEPENDABLE not to be on the job, according to promise or plan. He will never become a vital factor in industry until he learns to put into his work the vitalizing force of initiative, skill and dependability. He has gone “RIGHTS” mad and “DUTY” dumb.

8. The Negro Must Overcome His Bad Job Habits.
• He must make a brand new reputation for himself in the world of labor. His bad job habits are absenteeism, funerals to attend, or a little business to look after. The Negro runs an off and on business. He also has a bad reputation for conduct on the job—such as petty quarrelling with other help, incessant loud talking about nothing; loafing, carelessness, due to lack of job pride; insolence, gum chewing and—too often—liquor drinking. Just plain bad job habits!

9. He Must Improve His Conduct In Public Places.
• Taken as a whole, he is entirely too loud and too ill-mannered.
• There is much talk about wiping out racial segregation and also much talk about achieving integration.
• Segregation is a physical arrangement by which people are separated in various services.
• It is definitely up to the Negro to wipe out the apparent justification or excuse for segregation.
• The only effective way to do it is to clean up and keep clean. By practice, cleanliness will become a habit and habit becomes character.

10. The Negro Must Learn How To Operate Business For People—Not For Negro People, Only.
• To do business, he will have to remove all typical “earmarks,” business principles; measure up to accepted standards and meet stimulating competition, graciously—in fact, he must learn to welcome competition.

11. The Average So-Called Educated Negro Will Have To Come Down Out Of The Air. He Is Too Inflated Over Nothing. He Needs An Experience Similar To The One That Ezekiel Had—(Ezekiel 3:14-19). And He Must Do What Ezekiel Did.
• Otherwise, through indifference, as to the plight of the masses, the Negro, who thinks that he has escaped, will lose his own soul. It will do all leaders good to read Hebrew 13:3, and the first Thirty-seven Chapters of Ezekiel.
• A race transformation itself through its own leaders and its sensible “common people.” A race rises on its own wings, or is held down by its own weight. True leaders are never “things apart from the people.” They are the masses. They simply got to the front ahead of them. Their only business at the front is to inspire to masses by hard work and noble example and challenge them to “Come on!” Dante stated a fact when he said, “Show the people the light and they will find the way!”
• There must arise within the Negro race a leadership that is not out hunting bargains for itself. A noble example is found in the men and women of the Negro race, who, in the early days, laid down their lives for the people. Their invaluable contributions have not been appraised by the “latter-day leaders.” In many cases, their names would never be recorded, among the unsung heroes of the world, but for the fact that white friends have written them there.
The Negro of today does not realize that, but, for these exhibits A’s, that certainly show the innate possibilities of members of their own race, white people would not have been moved to make such princely investments in lives and money, as they have made, for the establishment of schools and for the on-going of the race.

12. The Negro Must Stop Forgetting His Friends. “Remember.”
• Read Deuteronomy 24:18. Deuteronomy rings the big bell of gratitude. Why? Because an ingrate is an abomination in the sight of God. God is constantly telling us that “I the Lord thy God delivered you” —through human instrumentalities.
• The American Negro has had and still has friends—in the North and in the South. These friends not only pray, speak, write, influence others, but make unbelievable, unpublished sacrifices and contributions for the advancement of the race—for their brothers in bonds.
• The noblest thing that the Negro can do is to so live and labor that these benefactors will not have given in vain. The Negro must make his heart warm with gratitude, his lips sweet with thanks and his heart and mind resolute with purpose to justify the sacrifices and stand on his feet and go forward— “God is no respector of persons. In every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is” sure to win out. Get to work! That’s the answer to everything that hurts us. We talk too much about nothing instead of redeeming the time by working… . .

Nannie Helen Burroughs - published in the 1900s

(via unapproachableblackchicks)

YMCA

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:47:32 -0600

So I’m here trying to get a tour of my local YMCA and it’s taking forever for anyone to show me around. Which is already turning me off to the idea of going to the gym. But of course that would happen so easily. I get pretty discouraged about working out and it don’t take much (bad English, good unnerstandin’).
There’s an easiness to just hopping on your bike and just going. It’s easy to do it alone too. Using fancy equipment and having a ton of other people around seems odd. But I guess I should do this.
I’ve never been really overweight but I fluctuate pretty badly and I’d just like to keep up good health. I’m never going to be one of those girls with a bikini on at the beach and I feel silly in skinny jeans. I just want to be comfortable with myself. Hopefully this will workout and I’m most interested in core exercises because my bike legs are awesome already. I’ve just got a bit of a belly. I just don’t want to feel weird going to a gym. So here it goes…

P.S. Now that I’ve seen Zumba, I’m wondering why folks don’t own a couple of B52s and Beyonce songs. You could do that in your living room, y’all! Is it that hard to dance around?

jasonrbradshaw: A valid question. When talking to people your...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:51:30 -0600

jasonrbradshaw:

A valid question. When talking to people your age makes you feel less sane than crazy.

Know this feeling all too well. “no, I’ve never seen that show. What band? Life goals? Career choice? Eh!?”

nprfreshair: Heartbroken over the news that New York Times...

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:26:44 -0600

nprfreshair:

Heartbroken over the news that New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid died in Syria yesterday. Shadid was on Fresh Air six times, most recently this past December, where he talked about covering the Arab Spring. We’ll be devoting a portion of the show today to remember him.

I was listening to this on Friday and was amazed by this dude in the interviews. Towards the end of a segment I realized he had just passed away. And from a severe asthma attack no less. What a dangerous job to take on. Be shot once, have the Libyan government take you into custody…and have an asthma attack be the way you go. Wow. As long as he was doing what he love, being that he was reporting on the uprising in Syria, I think that’s important.

I’m really interested to read his book coming out next month about building up his family’s ancestral home in Lebanon. I think he had an exciting and long career and I was happy to learn about him.

House of Stone is expected to be released March 27th.

heyoscarwilde: Mopka Read. Everyday.

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:52:45 -0600

heyoscarwilde:

Mopka

Read. Everyday.

Not so English breakfast for dinner. Surprisingly good.

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:05:56 -0600

Not so English breakfast for dinner. Surprisingly good.

This is a good mix, y’all. Let’s dance! (via The...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:51:00 -0600

This is a good mix, y’all. Let’s dance!

(via The Mix: Ari Up, The Slits And The Women Of Post-Punk : NPR)

Today:

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:15:01 -0600

I did a late afternoon bike ride as a Valentine’s Day gift to myself. It’s in the 70s here so it was perfect.
I tried avoiding the strawberries on sale at the grocery store and had about $15 in savings. I’m getting better at this coupon-clippin’ business.
None of my jeans fit. They’re all too big! Can’t wait to buy a new pair even though I’ve become more of a dress-girl anyhoo.
I realized I mostly miss my dog on this day. I need a new pet. I think my apartment will allow a hedgehog. I think…
I decided to practice my piano a bit more because I’ve saved up for a bass. But if I’m not even playing the instrument I already have, I’m sure the bass will end up being a waste of money. I gotta check to see if I still enjoy playing music. Turns out I do, it’s just stupid hard.
It’s official, everyone at my job thinks I’m weird. But I guess that’s OK.

fuckyeahthevelvetteen: After the Minus the Bear tour, our band...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:34:24 -0600

fuckyeahthevelvetteen:

After the Minus the Bear tour, our band of plucky adventurers took some time off to replenish their stamina and level up… but now they’re back for ~~the boss fight~~ a mini-tour in March:

MARCH 8: The Independent (w/ The Twilight Sad) - San Francisco, CA

MARCH 9: The Satellite - LA, CA

MARCH 10: Soda Bar - San Diego, CA

MARCH 11: Rhythm Room - Phoenix, AZ

MARCH 13: The Korova Basement - San Antonio, TX

MARCH 17: Red 7 - Austin, TX

MARCH 18: Dan’s Silver Leaf (w/ Justin Stein) - Denton, TX

MARCH 20: Santa Fe Sol Live (w/ As In We) - Santa Fe, NM

MARCH 21: Club Congress (w/ Coathangers, White Mystery) - Tucson, AZ

MARCH 23: Cellar Door (w/ Young Prisms) - Cisalia, CA

MARCH 24: The Partisan (w/ Young Prisms) - Merced, CA

For a bountiful wealth of more info and also tickets, check out the Tour page.

(Thoroughly adorable show poster by Eric Stafford)

Ah cheese and crackers, they’ll be in both SA and Austin! This is like I dream come true! I could possible cry. Ok, maybe I will.

magnolius: Official Little Dragon video for the song...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:17:14 -0600

magnolius:

Official Little Dragon video for the song “Crystalfilm”.

Shot beautifully by Daniel Wirtberg.

thesmithian: “When I decided to be a singer, my mother warned...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:22:05 -0600

thesmithian:

“When I decided to be a singer, my mother warned me I’d be alone a lot. Basically we all are. Loneliness comes with life.” —Whitney Houston

She died today. Houston was 48.

Finally got around to seeing Fish Tank. Really lovely, awesome movie. The dance scene at the end...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:08:15 -0600

Finally got around to seeing Fish Tank. Really lovely, awesome movie. The dance scene at the end is probably one of the most iconic scenes I’ve ever seen in a while. There’s this really incredible essay in the booklet of the DVD which really inspires me to see more of Andrea Arnold’s work and her contemporaries. It refers a lot to Ken Loach and Alan Clarke who I’ve never heard of before but since I enjoy seeing a different side of England, I think I’ll check them out.

I feel like I needed this movie because there’s been a lot of uninteresting movies out lately. I’ve been fairly bored with television too. And then I feel very out-of-touch, like maybe there’s something wrong with me to not care or know anything. I guess all I need is a really good book and some Alice Donut. And Rihanna too.

Gah, I’m so lame. But who cares. Movie trailers, new albums…I’ll get to them when I can. Three years on, Fish Tank is still incredible. And Michael Fassbender is still around.

Own this record. It’s probably one of the most beautiful...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:04:28 -0600

Own this record. It’s probably one of the most beautiful ones I own because the piano is like a flap and underneath it’s Roberta Flack standing up singing. Perfect design.

Mom actually made bangers and mash for dinner tonight.

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:06:39 -0600

We live in Texas. It is tasty.

Aint goin’ stop loving you M.I.A.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:05:00 -0600

Aint goin’ stop loving you M.I.A.

"Black History Month is wonderful. But the best thing about our history is that it’s not going..."

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:47:00 -0600

“

Black History Month is wonderful. But the best thing about our history is that it’s not going anywhere. It’ll be there for us whenever we need it. But the present? That can slip through our hands like water if we don’t pay attention—water that can thin the “gumbo” and dilute its flavor.

So, for the next twenty-eight days, I propose we kick off a celebration of Black Present Month by gifting ourselves with wonderful creations by inspired artists and writers currently putting pen to paper and digit to keyboard. What’s out there now that we can pluck from the shelves or add to our feeds?

And for those of us who feel the drive to create as well as consume? Well, a Black Future Month is in order. The pot’s waiting.

Throw something new in it.

”

- Cheryl Lynn “Digital Femme” Eaton

Cheryl Lynn is the founder of the Ormes Society, an organization supporting black female comics creators, characters, and consumers. Her work has been invaluable to the development of the Black Creators category at the Women in Comics Wiki, and I support her proposal 100%.

(via ladiesmakingcomics)

reuters: Inmates working at a correctional unit’s print shop in...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:44:02 -0600

reuters:

Inmates working at a correctional unit’s print shop in Vermont sneaked a prank image of a pig into a state police crest that is emblazoned on police cars, and 30 cruisers sported the design for the last year, according to officials.

The official crest depicts a spotted cow against a background of snowy mountains, but the inmates’ version featured one of the cow’s spots shaped like a pig in an apparent reference to the pejorative word for police, state police spokeswoman Stephanie Dasaro said.

Read more: U.S. inmates hide pig in official police car decal

Kehinde Wiley’s works reference specific paintings by Titian...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:21:00 -0600

Kehinde Wiley’s works reference specific paintings by Titian and Tiepolo, but he incorporates a range of art historical and vernacular styles in his paintings, from the French Rococo to the contemporary urban street. Wiley collapses history and style into a uniquely contemporary vision. He describes his approach as “interrogating the notion of the master painter, at once critical and complicit.” He makes figurative paintings that “quote historical sources and position young black men within that field of ‘power.’” His “slightly heroic” figures, slightly larger than life size, are depicted in poses of power and spiritual awakening. He deliberately mixes images of power and spirituality, using them as a filter in the portrayal of masculinity. Kehinde Wiley’s exhibition Infinite Mobility recently appeared at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. (via Deitch)

Totes digging’ this and don’t know why.

thesmithian: “I have learned over the years that when one’s...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:16:18 -0600

thesmithian:

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” —Rosa Parks

She was born on this day in 1913. Parks died in October 2005.

+++++

art: Kim Luttrell, “Rosa Parks,” 2006, Digital Bus Tickets and Mixed Media, 24” x 18”

thesmithian: It follows the lives of the Evans family as they...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:43:26 -0600

thesmithian:

It follows the lives of the Evans family as they tackle such hardships as financial problems and discrimination.

Good Times premiered on this day in 1974.