Manns Medium

  “ In America, 39 million adults don't have a high school diploma and one way or another, they're getting by” but this is only the beginning trappings of how those who have lost faith in themselves may become a slave to society’s current attitude of failing to correct a problem before it grows seemingly too big to solve.   There are three major reasons why obtaining a high school diploma is in the best interest of not only the individual but this entire nation.   The first is employment because the requirement to get a decent job will require at least a high school diploma.   The second is educational requirement necessary to elevate yourself in the job market and the third and final is self-esteem. Self-esteem is by far, the most important because it forces one to believe even stronger in their abilities simply because by capturing a high school diploma or GED it allows them to believe more in themselves.   “ Too many smart people feel stupid because they we...

  When people say “the truth” they often are confused as to what this truly mean.   Many will tell you that there are but two ways to do things, the right way, and the wrong way when really there are quite a few more ways.   These other ways are often hidden from the view of many because they are never recognized or unacceptable to suit our idea of the truth. There is the perceived truth which spawns all other truths.   This perceived truth originates from what you were told, what you have learned and what you have perceived during your lifetime.   The number one reason for it being the perceived truth is that what we view as the majority of human beings believe.   Consider being told that the sky was blue.   We perceive this to be true based upon it being widely accepted and repeated as the truth, but what if whomever gave us the name of colors were wrong and what we consider blue now is brown.   Would then the sky be brown instead of blue? T...

  A brother Marine asked me “Why does the African-American community vote Democrat?   He asked me if I could try to explain it to him and below is my explanation. Since no race of people are all the same, I can only tell you what I think that reason maybe but if you want a more definitive answer you are going to have to ask individual blacks.   Here is what I believe could possibly be the reason so many others vote Democratic.     The first thing that needs to be made clear is the majority of African Americans don’t follow a party but an idea.   If a politician promises to do right by the African-American community, he/she has a really good chance of getting their votes but when they get in power, forget their promises and/or turn their backs on blacks, know that next go around, many blacks would not spit in their butts if their guts were on fire and if the turning of the back was brought on by a group of people, that group would pay as well.   Her...

  Today’s focus is on this election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden for the office of the President of the United States and while I cannot say that it is not something we should not be focused upon, there are other things going on behind the scenes of this that we refuse to recognize or choose to just simply ignore. Many claim that it is a fight between Democrat and Republican, Liberal and Conservative, the Right and the Left, the Right and the Wrong but that is not the truth, as I see it.   It is and always will be the fight between Good and Evil. This battle has been waging since the beginning of time and it is a never-ending war.   It is a battle that will be and must be fought every day of our mortal existence.   It is one that will never have clear winners and losers because if just a few of us fail to achieve victory in this war, we all fail.   This is not a battle to save the soul of a country, a nation, a world, or a universe.   It is the ba...

  Reading this article titled “ Two men arrested in plot to kidnap Michigan governor were Marine veterans ” by Philip Athey for Your Marine Corps , October 10, 2020, got me to wondering just where this idea of committing such an act originated from?   The article read “ Two of the 13 men arrested in an  alleged domestic terrorism plot  to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer  were Marine veterans , according to Marine officials.   Joseph Morrison was a Marine reservist who joined the Corps in March 2015 and was  discharged from the reserves  as a lance corporal on Thursday, Capt. Joseph Butterfield, a headquarters Marine Corps spokesman, told Marine Corps Times Saturday. He was assigned to Engineer Support Company, 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th Marine Logistics Group, Battle Creek, Michigan, and his awards included the National Defense Service Medal and the Selected Marine Corps Reserve Medal, Butterfield said.   Dani...

  When a Dream becomes so much more than just Reality   Adam Dixon had a dream, he dreamed of one day creating a space for at risk youth and adults that would go beyond the typical programs and offer something that no other has ever. He did not expect that this dream would materialize into far much more than that. He created The Adam Dixon Perseverance Foundation in 2014 after 3 year professional football career playing arena football and brief stints in the Canadian Football League. He recognized the immense and immediate need for this kind of organization providing not only sensible solutions but educational scholarships, mentorship, and leadership development. He was acutely aware that there were many others at-risk youth and adults programs out there but there were still a very large part of what was needed to guarantee the success of the students missing. He made it his heavenly mission to not only discover what they were but solve those issues.   It is n...

  Yesterday, August 6, 2020, I learned something that I would like to share with you. I need you to follow me here and if I lose you at any point please take a few minutes to re-read what is written here and think about it for a few seconds before continuing. Yesterday I was given an opportunity to try and explain to others how and why I came to believe that my work place was indeed a “hostile work environment”. I had practiced saying what I was feeling several different ways so as not to alienate anyone in the audience and actually thought I had figured out the correct way. Needless to say it did not go the way I thought it would and I left that meeting more hurt, agitated and angered than I did when I stepped into it. For the rest of the day and half the night, I could not understand how something could have gone so wrong and suddenly it occurred to me. The reason it went so wrong was not that I did not do what was right, it was due to certain expectation I had allowe...

​ There is an article titled “ Everyday words and phrases that have racist connotations ” written by Scottie Andrew and Harmeet Kaur, CNN with a contribution from CNN's Anna Bahney. It begins with “Master bedrooms" in our homes. "Blacklists" and "whitelists" in computing. The idiom "sold down the river" in our everyday speech. Many are so entrenched that Americans don't think twice about using them. But some of these terms are directly rooted in the nation's history with chattel slavery. Others now evoke racist notions about Black people. "Words like 'slave' and' master' are so folded into our vocabulary and almost unconsciously speak to the history of racial slavery and racism in the US," says Elizabeth Pryor, an associate professor of history at Smith College. But America's reckoning with systemic racism is now forcing a more critical look at the language we use. And while the offensive nature of man...

In the wake of the televised murder of George Floyd, Black American began to think that this was their chance to make drastic and demanding and permanent change to what we had been existent under for over 350 years. It was something that not only could you feel but in some instances you could actually touch it. That was before white folks did what they always do when black folks began to believe that they are now in control. Here is how it happens. Black folks allow the wrong people to advance to the front of a fight and squander their opportunity by choosing the lowest hanging fruits. I mean these new black leaders will be offered money, power, prestige and a change of personal status which is what the puppet masters know will make them quickly forget what they rose up to proclaim. You see black folks are taking down confederate statues, removing the confederate flags and getting Corporate America to say Black Lives Matter. Not saying that these things are not imp...

When it comes to understanding why there is and will always be difficult to bridge the gap or find solutions for issues, major or minor, perhaps it is because each of us have developed our way of thinking and believing by our experiences. We tend to gravitate toward those of like experiences for confirmation that we might be right and are not alone. This newly-formed herd now acts as our strength and justifies all actions we take toward maintaining our thinking and believing. This believed utopia appears to only be threatened when another individual or herd enters the equation with a different thought or belief. We make all attempts to first correct their wayward thoughts and change their wrong-headed beliefs until we discover that not all of them can or chooses to comply. Those we then label as uneducated or any other label which allows us to rest and not have to expel the energy to try and listen, learn, hear and understand their reasoning. Soon, it becomes a power str...

Before anyone can began to discuss racism and truly have an open dialogue about over 357 years of oppression, they must first be willing to have their feelings hurt and be willing to hurt another person feelings. This conversation will never advance if we adhere too tightly to being politically correct. Now with that being said, there is always a way you can make your point without being harsh or abrasive. It’s the difference between hurting someone’s feeling intentionally or unintentionally. We began with the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The transatlantic slave trade was essentially a triangular route from Europe to Africa, to the Americas and back to Europe. On the first leg, merchants exported goods to Africa in return for enslaved Africans, gold, ivory and spices. The ships then traveled across the Atlantic to the American colonies where the Africans were sold for sugar, tobacco, cotton and other produce. The Africans were sold as slaves to work on plantations and as...

One of the factors that many of us seem to forget is the one factor that is often times over looked and is the most inconsistent part of not only the way we see things but the way we reaction to things. This factor is the “human factor” and when I say human, I mean human. We as individuals reaction based upon the knowledge that we have about any subject and since the bulk of that knowledge comes from our experience or what we have been taught at one point in our lives it is also gained from what we have been exposed to either directly or indirectly. Direct exposure tends to lend itself to something that we know and sometimes will not only base our existence around but flatly refuse to change or modify that stance for any reason. Indirect exposure is malleable and can be shaped by thoughts or opinion of others so it could be fluid and quickly changed or modified. Our divine over this George Floyd murder and many of the other atrocities when it comes to the authorities’ heavy...

Attention All Americans, let’s stop with playing the “blame game” and talk about “personal responsibility”. For decades now, many of us have been blaming others for our misfortunes and our lives not being what we think it should be and to be honest, in the begging, we had a very good case but that all changed, yet we refuse to change with it. We blamed others so often that it became easier to blame others than to take a good hard look at ourselves and accept the part of the blame that fell squarely upon our shoulders. We dismissed our personal responsibilities faster than we leveled the blame at others. It’s time for all of us to grow up, to mature and to clear the way for each and every one of us to become that perfect person God knows us to be. It’s time we stop looking to others to justify how we feel, why we feel that way and what we believe in, it’s time we all stop making excuses for our shortcomings and start to own them before they own us. In the beginning our ex...

When we are first born, we shed the protection of the womb and entire into an existence that is extremely frightening, we cry not so much about the doctor spanking us on the butt but simply because we know of no other recourse to express this fear. This is the first time we encounter a mentally traumatic event, we call abandonment. Our only true solace is to placed in the arms of the person whom we had come to know as our safe haven strictly by heartbeat and possibly smell because only after hearing that familiar heartbeat and later the sound of that safe haven’s voice, do we calm down enough to stop crying. If that sensation is missing, we will continue to be unsettled and affect by this for the rest of our lives. If this sensation is present, we tend to settle in and when something happens which creates a fear in us, we run to that safe place for comfort also for now and the rest of our lives. As we grow, several other mentally traumatic events happens, each leaves it’s o...