Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
BLOG:Easy as ABC’s & 123’s
I encounter beautiful black children in my travels. Their coconut brown, amber, almond, yellow and vanilla faces often stay in my memory, and my prayers are with them. I pray for them because I know the dark future they may encounter if they are not properly prepared.
Preparation through education is the key that will unlock boundless opportunity for them, yet they live at a time and in places where education has become a broken relic, a ruin of black people’s past glory. Public schools are named for relics, great African-American educators and emancipators like Frederick Douglass, Benjamin E. Mays, Martin Luther King Jr. and others.
The buildings named for them have become holding cells that detain our children for four years or so and release them unprepared and ill advised to prosper in the real world. Truthfully public schools are barely giving them the most basic of coping skills: reading, writing and arithmetic.
We all know the problems. We all know the cities that host the problem of under educating our young: Atlanta, Little Rock, Detroit, D.C., Newark and the list continues to grow. I want to talk about solutions.
African-American children are in dire need of intervention. The schools must be fixed or closed. When Dead Prez rapped “Fuck They Schools,” we all should have listened.
Neal Boortz and Sean Hannity advised their W.A.S.P. listeners to pull their kids from public schools. They know the American public school system has become the feeder program to welfare and prison. The proof is in the pudding − where education fails, crime prospers and gangs prevail.
Babies were once fatherless in the 80s and 90s; now they are completely parentless. No homework help, no assistance with school projects, and now, no dreams or goals grow in these homes. Can parents who were failed by public schools help public schools succeed now? Yes!
Parents must first join the P.T.A. The Parent Teacher Association is the easiest way to directly affect school policy. Meet your child’s teacher and engage him or her often. This includes being present at the school for special events and functions to aid teachers on a daily basis.
The increased adult presence will help to restore order and provide an environment where focus is possible. It will also serve as a watchful eye on what the administration is or is not doing to ensure the best quality of education possible for our kids. This can be done in shifts to protect parent employment.
School board meetings should look like the club on a Saturday night. 100 percent of P.T.A. parents should attend and make concerns, needs and wants known for their home schools and the entire district. The loudest wheel gets the oil. Our kids need us to be loud right now.
Next is homework − two hours of no TV; the entire house must engage in homework. The kids will do required work, and the parents can read self-help books, study guides or fiction, so long as the children see them reading.
Children who see parents read become readers. Black pulp fiction does not count. What you read reflects your aspirations, get rid of the “locked in the game” street novels. Also do homework parties with their classmates and have the teacher’s cell on standby in case your kids lie about not having any like my kids do.
So now you are active in the school and the school board, and study time is a staple in the home. What next? Next is Saturday School. WHAT?! Yup, Saturday School. We are so far behind the curve now that we have to look to other communities for effective ways to further our children’s education. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have the answer, Saturday School! Our schools and churches can easily be used for three hours on Saturdays to bring in young talented college students to tutor in math, English, science and also foreign languages. This will not be easy, but it will be worth it. With the 10 hours of homework a week and an additional three hours on Saturday, our students will begin to “180” within weeks, not months. The strongest learners will help with the slower ones, and all older grades will be required to assist younger ones. Parents also can use these resources to do online college courses and earn GEDs for those who may need them. Learning must become the culture of our entire community again.
Lastly, make school the biggest deal in your household. Sheer enthusiasm for good grades and the expectation of a solid parent can feed the ambition in a child that will create a drive to excel well beyond all imagined expectations.
If we can do these few things consistently and nationally in the black community and create partnerships with HBCUs, we can reverse the last 30 years of public school neglect by the time a ninth-grade student graduates from high school. Public schools can be saved; it will take the public to do it! Our children are not lost when we guide them.
I gotta get some rest now. Aniyah is expecting me at her school in the a.m. Fin. -It’s Bigga!
BTW, kids … I believe there is a direct correlation between the dropping literacy rate and the rise of dumb rap. You cannot appreciate lyricism if you cannot read. So, I guess my challenge to the hip-hop generation is to make sure our children are literate, which will help them appreciate lyricism and ultimately will make rap better.
Words By Mike Bigga
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
BLOG:“Put Me Up on that New New!”
Yo yo yo, I’m bored. I ain’t been put onto anything new in a while. I’m listening to all the same music the rest of Best Buy shoppers are (pick up that Underground Atlanta by the way). I’m watching the same movies (black women will drag yo ass to any Tyler Perry flick). I’m going to the same places: Museum, Borders Books, weed man, strip club, rapper clubs and I’m bored. I need ya’ll to put me onto some New New. Whatever hobby, music, place to travel or just a new way of doing something I want you to share on this post.
As I’m writing this, I’m surfing the web and looking for a speed boat to rent at Lake Lanier or a house boat for fishing. I’m just bored and sick of the city. The country boy in me is calling. So this weekend I’ma go fishing. I got shows at the ADIDAS store and I open for Slaughterhouse but by the time I get off stage, I’m headed to West Point, Sweet Water Creek or Lake Lanier to fish. Even though I grew up fishing it’s been so long it’s gonna feel new again. RIP to Grand Pa. Thanks 4 the memories Pappa.
So that’s it homies ya’ll got homework. Put Mike Bigga onto some new sh*t and I’m0a check it out and blog about it. I encourage all ya’ll who’ve never fished to give it a try. Take ya son or nephew and do some New New sh*t. Talk to ya’ll Monday. Hopefully I will have a “fish story” to talk about! Enjoy the weekend and please post up those New New suggestions. Please note going to Hypebeast and telling me what the hundreds are releasing this spring does not count! Lol. Ok now send me those ideas and suggestions.
It’s BIGGA!
Words By Mike Bigga
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
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