Wake Up. Now.

I took a hiatus from writing in here for a myriad of reasons, the main of which I’ll get to towards the end of this piece.

But one thing that I missed greatly was reading the different opinions that came across my page; whether in the comments section here or on my Facebook statuses (and, by default, the statuses of others, since I’m pretty active in responding to things that interest me)–the debates and discussions that are had are usually nothing short of awesome.  

One of my favorite Jay-Z lines from one of the worst Jay-Z songs (“Change Clothes”) goes “but, if I write/I use the space to say whatever I like.” 

And so it goes on social media.  

Which is why the stories that have come across my newsfeed in the last few weeks have consisted mainly of the following:

a) My fraternity brothers doing great things all across the country and the world, which make me immensely proud.  More on that later in this writing, too;

b) Ridiculous and copious amounts of racism.  And not just covert racism.  Between the Bundy saga (which, as someone so eloquently put it, let a black man say that he’s not paying any taxes to the government and then takes up arms against them AND calls in his friends, he’d be dead before he could say “freedom” 0_o) and Donald Sterling’s longing for the days when darkies knew their place, there’s no running out of this, either.

c) Finally, the newest trend in multi-level marketing called “Wake Up Now”.  And I’m probably about to hurt some feelings with this one while making my point about this.  

Somehow, I feel like this all ties together.

I’ll explain.

See, a couple months ago, I wrote about my frustration that my fraternity, with the exception of a few that were featured, had no interest in promoting themselves to the masses.  Instead, they would be willing to just settle for the same ol’ same ol’, and be perfectly content with just sitting back and watching other organizations gain repute for the exact same ideas we’ve either done or are still sitting on the drawing board.

What good is 20,000 plus college-educated men going to do if people don’t see us regularly and noticeably?  We are Iotas, not the Foot Clan.

My point was that we can’t expect others to promote us if we’re unwilling to promote ourselves.

With the recent upswing in blatant racism in American society (we’ve known it was there, but some people are really pulling the sheets off of it lately), I’ve seen a lot of people come forward to speak out against it.  Minorities are mobilizing in ways that I never imagined possible, partially thanks to social media, and people appear to be being held accountable at much quicker rates than in years past.

But (and of course there’s a but)–I’ve also seen a great deal of people who are quick to defend their oppressors and people who do not have their best interest at heart.  Just because it is, again, comfortable.  They have no interest in rocking the boat or creating waves; they would rather ride in the bottom of the ship as long as the ride is smooth and they have something.

I won’t go into all the examples here, but I’m sure you’ll find plenty just looking in your feeds on any controversial issue involving race.  There always appears to be a chorus of voices who are quick to deflect attention from the actual subject at hand to discuss an alternate topic.  Why are we talking about Donald Sterling when we can discuss why Michael Jordan avoids talking about racial controversies?  Why discuss why black dollars don’t circulate among the black community nearly as easily as within other cultures (the disparity is amazing), when we can discuss why black kids are killing black kids in Chicago?

Let’s not talk about the issue at hand, let’s talk about something else.  It’s more comfortable to take that on right now.

As one of my more outspoken colleagues aptly noted yesterday during one of these discussions that was derailed by such talk, divergence doesn’t work.  For most of us who are focused on the actual issues at hand, it only serves to frustrate us.

Finally, I’ll be blunt: multi-level marketing at its core is designed to make sure that the people at the top stay rich while the entry level people have to do all of the footwork to make sure the pyramid does not collapse.  It’s not any different than a major corporation, with the exception that when you’re working for a major corporation, you’re at least guaranteed a check if you show up and work.

Also, please be wary of things that tell you that it’ll cost you nothing to get started; if it was that simple, we’d all do it and quit our day jobs.  It’s not that cut and dried.

There is no easy path to money.  There are no shortcuts to riches.  I hate to break it to you, but you can bookmark this page and a year or so from now, come back, print it out and use it to wipe your tears of sadness from wondering why your stint as an IBO didn’t work for you.  

No, not everyone is destined to fail at this.  But most of you will.  It’s the nature of that kind of business structure.  

It’s the nature of American business.

I tie these together today because the first two things go hand in hand to me.  My fraternity is a big part of who I am.  My race and culture is a big part of who I am.  And if I can do something to promote them both, while uplifiting, educating, and informing others, that’s just what I’m going to do.

The third is here because it illustrates perfectly what I see my people get caught in too often; thinking that the road to where we want to be is going to be easy because it comes with a smooth marketing pitch combined with a little bit of smoke and mirrors.

(I’ve gotta say this.  Please, please, someone show me where ANY celebrity has openly endorsed this and wasn’t being sarcastic or facetious.  They’re not with this and you know it deep down; it just helps the marketing to say they’ve mentioned it.  If you can show me I’ll delete this entire paragraph and issue a retraction.  And by celebrity, I mean currently relevant, not “C” list or below.)

So starting tomorrow, the features in the “50 Iota Men and Sweethearts You Should Know” continue.  And there are some good ones to come, folks.  

There will also be an initiative launched June 1st that I’m pretty excited about.  I can’t wait to see what comes of it.  But know that the goal will be using my God-given talents to do all of the things I mentioned above.  Promoting.  Uplifting.  Educating.  Informing.  So watch this space.

In the meantime, please know that there is nothing more that I want for people than to Wake Up. Now. and realize that the world that we live in, as much as it has changed, is still the same.  History repeats itself, and if we aren’t paying attention to the trends that follow, we’re bound to stay in the same cycle we’ve been in.

Don’t know about you, but I refuse to stay there.

Join me, won’t you?

More tomorrow.

Honorary

So, you know what grinds my gears?

No?  Allow me to share a story with you, so that this might make a little bit of sense.

Back in my undergrad days, I recall a discussion with my chapter fraternity brothers that centered around whether or not we should have more honorary members than the one we currently had (and have; it hasn’t changed as of this writing)–when it was called to my attention that there was a fraternity who actually had made a deceased man, who happened to be one of the most recognizable names in the abolition of American slavery–a honorary member.

I will maintain some shred of civility and not put them all the way on blast, but when I heard that, I was annoyed, offended, and annoyed again.

Prior to that conversation, I was aware of the honorary member status that most Greek letter organizations bestowed upon people.

After the conversation, and doing some research on my own*, I was appalled by the overuse of honorary statuses, as it didn’t seem to make much of a difference whether or not the organization dealing out these honorary titles really thought the recipients would uphold and uplift their organizations from that point on.

Honorary.

No, it just seemed like another name to put on the webpage to draw people to want to join that organization.  Another chance for a photo opportunity, another potential donor with deep pockets that could save the fraternity/sorority should they face yet another hazing lawsuit.

And it still, to this day, annoys me.  

But I also find it humorous how often it’s accepted.

So today, when frat mentioned that legendary singer/civil rights activist Harry Belafonte was introduced as a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., at a recent event in Chicago, my first reaction was to laugh.**

Now, I had seen a posting from a friend who is a Sigma, implying that he seemed really happy to be up on that stage, as he took a long-ass time to wrap his speech up (& hell, if you’ve ever heard him speak, you know Belafonte is not a short-winded brother)–but mainly I found it funny because here is yet another person who gets honorary status from an organization that has been around for exactly 100 years this year.

Why now?  On the 100th anniversary?  Why not last year?  10 years ago?  

Back in the ’60’s, ’70’s, when BGLO’s could have used another visible representative in the civil rights movement?

(I’m aware there were many, but still.  More wouldn’t have hurt anything.) 

It all just seems suspect and like a big money grab to me.

Which is why what I’m about to say next may seem extremely small and contradictory, but here we go:

Iota Phi Theta isn’t smart enough or willing to take advantage of this, because…why?

I’m thinking out loud here, and hopefully how conflicted I am comes across clearly.  One side of me sees the honorary status bestowed by most organizations as a cheap attempt to shore up members and money.  And I don’t think I’m wrong about that.  I also think that handing them out every year to so many people cheapens the status and makes it seem like, hey, as long as you are famous and/or rich, you, too, can be approached to represent our organization.

On the other hand…if this is the way that all of these other groups are finding their way into mainstream recognition, why couldn’t that work for us?  Couldn’t it increase visibility to a point where people recognize the name more because there is a celebrity/public figure/leader behind it?

Maybe that’s the point, and the reason it’s not done by us.  We have always been a group that goes against the grain, far more often than not.

But sometimes, I can’t help but to think that the very things that we revel in and that make us different can also be the things that hinder us from growing.

I will use this very blog as an example.

In the latter part of 2013, I started to feature different men of Iota Phi Theta here and Iota Sweethearts who were either selected by me personally or nominated by other people.

And I will say this: those who I knew would respond and give their best efforts to make their profiles worth reading did so.  

But for every one of those, there were a handful of others who half-assed the assignment, or told me they would get around to it and never got back to me.  Some didn’t respond at all.

Also, for those that were featured, sharing your profile and those of others was encouraged and highly recommended.  With two exceptions, that didn’t happen.

Although I am rarely and not easily discouraged, I’ll be the first to admit that did it for me.

I started the hiatus and decided that I would only do features at my whim and not on the two-a-day schedule that I previously planned.  Because if I can’t get my own brothers and sisters excited about their own brothers and sisters, how can we expect anyone else to be excited for us?

As of today, I’m still in that mindset.  

In order for us to succeed, we have to want it, and not just stand back and wait for it to come to us.

With me having a couple of committees lined up that I will be a part of in 2014, I hope to be a big part of that success and the change that will cause us to reach it.

Until then, though, I will call it out at every turn and every chance I get.

I gladly welcome your thoughts on this in the comments section, whether you agree or not.

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I fully expected that I would be writing in here sometime in early 2014, after taking a brief hiatus from this blog.

I also anticipated having a whole lot of things to write about that I didn’t dare touch in the last few months of 2013, for a bunch of different reasons.  Most of which had to do with either not being informed on certain subjects, while just wanting to steer away from others because they ventured into uncomfortable territory.

When I first started writing editorials back in high school, I did the opposite.  I sought out the most inflammatory, incendiary things I could write about, chose a side, and sat in front of a keyboard and banged it out.

This year shall be dedicated to doing just that, again.

Hope you guys stick around for it.  Should be fun.

*(Don’t believe me?  Type “honorary members of” into Google with autocomplete on, and watch what comes up.  Take it a step further and go to each org’s website and note the list of honorary members.  Not notable–there’s a difference.)

**(Editor’s note: I haven’t found anything that explicitly says that he is now a member, only that he delivered the keynote address.  Still, I’m sure that may not be common knowledge just yet, so I’ll take the word of people who were there.  I also wouldn’t be laughing because of the quality of the organization, as PBS gets a lot of credit from me for doing a lot of good in the community.  I’ll be forthcoming and say there’s only one organization that I’d kind of be like 0_o if someone accepted honorary status in it.  Those who know me will definitely get it.)