Can We Talk For Real?...@vnona

If you don't model what real love looks and feels like for your family (children), they will never know what to expect and require when it comes to committed relationships and love. Likewise if we don't model what love and respect means in the black community, and I highlight this community because that's the one I belong to and am most familiar with, then how can we require people who are not intimately familiar with the community to behave with more respect towards us than we demonstrate toward each other on a daily basis? To demand more of someone else than you yourself are willing to give is #hypocrisy.

This does not excuse any wrongful and demeaning acts toward members of our community. I'm just simply saying it's past time to shore up the foundation of our own house. 

--Nona O.

A Week Of Senseless Violence...What To Do Now?

If you did not know any better, you would think that America was in the middle of the same kind of civil war that has plagued the Middle East for the last 50+ years.On Thursday, July 7, we watched media images of a peaceful protest that turned violent when a sniper attacked police. The scene in Dallas as police scrambled to take cover from the gunfire could have easily been a scene in Iraq or Israel. America, who is arguably one of the most if not the most civilized nation in the world, is in crisis.

 

The chaos that has come to the surface as a result of the police shootings of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minnesota, two black men, as well as the killing of five police officers* in Dallas, Texas on this week has been brewing for a long time. Police shootings like that of Mike Brown, Tamir Rice and LaQuan McDonald, and the deaths of Freddy Gray and Sandra Bland in police custody, all occurring within the last two years, have stoked the fires of anger and indignation in African American communities and those individuals who sympathize with them.

At a time when technology and social media has made communicating around the world as easy as shouting across your neighborhood street, our nation is experiencing the worst of times with regard to how we relate to each another. Police brutality seems to be on the rise and even with the recent videos of police dancing with kids in communities like Washington, D.C., New York City, and North Carolina, it has not assuaged the feelings of discontent that many feel as a result of the unexplainable deaths of black men and women at the hands of police or while in police custody.

We need change and we need it now. It starts with each of us. William Henry Johnson said, “If it is to be, it is up to me.”

Here are a few helpful steps you can take to start bringing about the type of change we need:

• No. 1 – Pray, meditate and/or do whatever you need to do to get yourself centered. Pray for a strategy. Pray so that God or your “inner spirit” reveals to you what action to take or what group you should unite with.
• No. 2. – Get informed. Do more than just look at the news. Read and view information from several sources.
• No. 3 – Do not resort to violence. You are your brother’s and sister’s keeper. Make sure they do not partake in violence. We cannot afford to lose another soul to violence.
• No. 4. – Take Action: March, Write, Organize, Donate, Use Your Voice…Speak Out, etc.
• No. 5 – Practice self-care. Care for yourself, your family and close friends. Spend time talking about what’s going on so that we give one another the opportunity to express our feelings and release some of the emotional pain that these events have caused us.

If things are going to change, it is going to be “us” who bring about the change. We are the ones…we are the Martin Kings, Ella Bakers, Thurgood Marshalls, Malcolm Xs and Fannie Lou Hamers of this generation. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the ones to rise up.

*The Dallas police officers killed on July 7 were:  Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarippa
For more information on the sniper killing of five police in Dallas, see: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/07/08/multiple-snipers-dallas/86839430/

Be Accountable

Hitler, Idi Amin, Gaddafi wanted absolute power over people's lives without accountability and look at where it got them. Being mature, being responsible, and being a leader means being accountable for not only what you do but also being accountable for what people do who are under your leadership.

Only bullies, cowards, and the immature despise accountability. Be accountable!

Happy New Year!

from womenatliberty.com, #LeadershipTuesdays and #WomenMakingHistory!

The Best of Leadership Tuesdays 2015!

To mark the end of this year, we are posting our most popular ‪#‎LeadershipTuesdays‬ features today on Twitter:

Check them out here: @womenatliberty or http://ow.ly/WqGwa

Thanks for your support and Happy New Year!!

Cleveland Police Officers Not Indicted For Tamir Rice's Death

 

Tamir Rice
June 25, 2002 - November 23, 2014

#‎TamirRice‬: My heart grieves for this family who not only has lost a son and brother, but also probably feels despair tonight at the grand jury‬'s decision. We pray that the people who are around them will comfort them and that God will give them peace.

This was a little boy who tragically lost his life. Tamir was not a hoodlum. Not a drug dealer. But he was a child who was playing with a toy gun. Whether or not he should have been playing with a toy gun is not even a topic that should be explored. The bottom line is you can not police children the same way you police adults.

Tamir should not have lost his life.

For more information on this story, read: 

"Tamir Rice and the Value of Life" by Charles Blow, New York Times, January 11, 2015

Happy Holidays!!

Hoping this is your most happiest Season ever!

--Nona O., @womenatliberty andWomenMakingHistory