A few years ago, I visited a college in LA to pick up some information, and I looked in the financial-aid line as it was registration time. I saw at least 400 people. To my surprise, out of that 400 people, maybe 10 of them were black.
It got me thinking about our abhorrent history in this country as Black people and how hard Black leaders fought to provide opportunities for our community to go to school and to have opportunities in this country.
Why were we not in this line? At that point, without thinking twice about it, I went and registered that day to get a degree.
I thought it would serve me better to get a degree to satisfy my legacy as a black man in this country and to honor leaders who ended up being martyrs so that people like me could have a voice and a choice.
In that line, I saw people from other countries and other races taking advantage of opportunities that were provided for me, and I needed to do what I could to change that instead of simply complaining about it. I did not know in that moment WHY we as a community had not been LED to take greater advantage of situations like this.
During my time as an older student at the college, one of the classes that I took was an Anthropology class. I will never forget this class because there was one lesson where the teacher explained that when animals travel in packs if they deem one of the animals in the pack is holding the rest of the pack back, they kick him out, and he is left to fend for himself.
