Africa in April

Africa in April Cultural Awareness Festival

                   

The 23rd Annual Africa in April Celebration held in Memphis, TN will take place April 16-19, 2009 in Robert R. Church Park in downtown Memphis. This year’s featured country is The Republic of Mauritania. 

I will definitely be in attendance. I love going out to the festival each year and viewing and purchasing the beautiful paintings, handmade jewelry, clothing, handbags and a host of other rarities. The smell of the delicate incense fills the air along with the great food being prepared by the country’s natives.  The music is vibrant and flowing through the festival by way of the breezes from the Mississippi River. This is an event for the entire family. It is an opportunity for those young and old to get a glimpse of Africa and its major significance to African Americans.

“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”
-Margaret Mead

This video has footage of past Africa in Aprica festivals —> Africa in April, Memphis, TN

Here is more information on the featured country of The Republic of Mauritania

National Geographic – Mauritania

Business Africa.net - The Islamic Republic of Mauritania

I also found this blog on Blogger that has good info on The Republic of Mauritania and some beautiful photos of the country –> Saharan Vibe – Mauritania

Music…the good ole days (I♥Music)

I ♥ MUSIC

While blog browsing I came across a picture of MC Lyte and immediately the following lyrics began to flow through my head

You can cha-cha-cha to this Mardis Gras
I’m the dopest female that you’ve heard thus far
And I do get better, the voice gets wetter
Nobody gets hurt (as long as you let her)
Do my thing with an ‘89 swing
The dopeness I write, I guarantee delight

Hot shit wasn’t it? ♥

Sometimes I find myself getting completely lost in music. I put on a David Ruffin cd or maybe some old New Edition and I’m gone…zoning, somewhere back to a time and place where music grabbed a hold of your senses and wouldn’t let go. You had to pry yourself from its grasp because they were so tight and strong that even though you fought back, sometimes you eventually let yourself go to be engulfed by the music.

speaking of David Ruffin…check out this video…classic…

Music like that can’t be replaced. With today’s mixture of drop and shake your booty music and wanna be gangsta’s the quality of music is nowhere near the level it used to be.  Nowadays you have to partake of 99% of the stuff we really loved back in the day and find a few songs out of the 1% left to fulfill your music needs. But back in the day it wasn’t like that. You could throw on some Eric B & Rakim or some Whodini and forget yourself. You’d be jammin’ so hard that you’d be tempted to buy yourself a boom box and carry it on your shoulder like Radio Raheem just so you wouldn’t have to be away from the music for one moment.

The artists enjoyed what they were doing and we enjoyed listening to them and watching them perform. Back when New Edition said they were With You All The Way…it was believable. When LL Cool J said he would Crush You Like a Jellybean…it was believable lol When Whodini asked about Friends the listeners were like hmmm what about my friends, how many of us really have them? When Freddie Jackson crooned Have You Ever Loved Somebody….we got to thinking about real love…..Music used to sweep you off your feet and take you to another level. True enough there are some artists today that can hold their own such as Anthony Hamilton, Common, Kanye West, India Arie and a host of others, but it still doesn’t take the memory of the back in the day music from my heart and my head.

Here’s to us music lovers! Enjoy!

Whodini – One Love

LL Cool J – I’m Bad

(I aint seen shit like this SINCE!!!)

Marvin Gaye- What’s Goin On (live)

Salt & Pepa – Push It

Doug E. Fresh & Slick Rick on Soul Train

Teen Pregnancy-Post 1

Teen pregnancy is on the rise….

I am pretty sure everyone is aware that teen pregnancy is on the rise. Everywhere you look there are babies having babies. I can speak personally on the topic because I was a teen mother. I got pregnant with my oldest son my senior year in high school.

One of the biggest disagreements I have when it comes to views of why most teen girls get pregnant is that they were somehow influenced by the media…I do agree that the media; including videos, television and the music industry play a major role in how teenage girls and boys view sex and their personal identities, but I disagree when it comes down to media influence and the actual act of having unprotected sex resulting in pregnancy.

For the most part I believe that teen pregnancy is the  result of carelessness and being irresponsible.  Unprotected sex is not the main result of media influence, unprotected sex is the main result of being irresponsible due to lack of knowledge or lack of putting the knowledge into play.

When teenagers are acting irresponsibly and having unprotected sex I can guarantee that images like the one below is not what is going through their head at that very moment.

In the heat of the moment they aren’t concerned with how hot Britney Spears looked with her big belly or how fierce Halle Berry looked soon after she gave birth. No, they are concerned with having sex, nothing more, nothing less. 

True their paths before making the dangerous and immature decision of having unprotected sex may have beenfilled with consumption of half naked young ladies gyrating in music videos, or watching television shows and reading countless magazines that publish articles on hot pregnant celebrities, but that alone is not why teens are having unprotected sex and having babies.

Many of these teens who are having unprotected sex are not facing reality when it comes to what the act of not using protection can cause. Sure they know about sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, but they still don’t always use protection for numerous reasons.

• One reason being that they really don’t take protection that seriously.  They know that it is important but for them using protection each and every time they have sex is not a mandatory or necessary step.
• Another reason is that many of them are putting ill fated trust in their partners and in their self. They are under the pretense that their partner is clean and that they both know how to not get pregnant even when not using protection. That may sound ridiculous, but it is reality. Many teens are using the “pull out” method also known as the highest baby making method to date. They are under the false assumption that a young man can pull out of the vagina before he ejaculates. This method is being used by countless numbers of teens, most of whom have or will soon come face to face with teen pregnancy. 
• Others are not using protection because they really don’t feel comfortable buying condoms or talking to their parents or other adults about birth control because that means they are admitting that they are having sex. Instead of facing facts and getting the information and guidance that they need they sneak around and have unprotected sex putting their self at risk for STDs and unwanted pregnancies, along with tons of emotional stress.

The statistics show that teen  mothers are 40% more likely to

*drop out of school

 *end up single mothers

I wholly agree. I was a teen mother who had to drop out of college after the first semester, forfeiting a full scholarship. I also fell into the category of single parent by the age of 24.

An article published with stats from the CDC  on teen pregnancy rates states that  Mississippi has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, followed by Texas and New Mexico. All three states have high numbers of teen births with the majority of the pregnancies being African American or Hispanics.  The article also states that; “Some conservative organizations have argued that contraceptive-focused sex education is still common, and that the new teen birth numbers reflect it is failing.”

I agree. The sex education classes offered in schools are a complete mockery.  Most teens are unfortunately learning about sex from their peers and from personal experience. They are not being informed in their schooling the hard hitting facts about sex, sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy. They don’t take the classes seriously and the information provided in the classes is just the basic, these are your reproductive organs and information on body image. This information is informative, but not practical for teens that know what sex is, want to have it and know that they like it.

I was surprised to read that in some states two types of sex ed are classes being offered in schools depending on  what the state or local school district mandates. Both seem much more effective than the general Lifetime Wellness classes that many of us took and never thought twice about.

Even with these classes and some schools offering condoms, the rate of teen pregnancies is still on the rise, even more so for the Southern region of the United States. Personally I don’t know what can be done, when the information is readily available, there are countless forms of birth control and the evidence of the effects of  unprotected sex is in plain view for those who are taking the risk. Yet, teens everywhere are still neglecting to use protection.

This video really touched me. It reminds me so much of when I was a young mother and faced the reality that my baby depended upon me for everything that he needed. I knew that I had made a mistake that could not be changed, but the love I had for that little boy filled my heart enough that I could get over my mistake and try to be more for him and for myself.

Teen Pregnancy Post 2 to include the topics of 
(peer pressure, baby fascination 
parental involvement and generational teen pregnancy)