I just received this from one of my fraternity brothers this morning... Well worth passing on! Thanks Greg for sharing.

A friend came to my dorm room just to chat while her laundry was drying. As we were chatting, two young freshman came by. One of the boys wanted to "talk" to my friend (as in date). She asked him how old they were, and both of the boys replied 18. My friend and I both laughed hysterically because we are both 22 years old. After my friend left the young men were still hanging around and he wanted to know how he could gain the interest of her. The first thing I told him to do was to pull up his pants. He asked why, then said he like saggin' his pants. I told him to come over to my computer and spell the word saggin'. Then I told him to write the word saggin' backwards. S-A-G-G-I-N N-I-G-G-A-S I told him the origin of that look was from prison. Men in prison wore their pants low when they were spoken for. The other reason their pants looked like that was because they were not allowed to have belts because prisoners were likely to try to commit suicide. We as young black people have to be the ones to effect change. We are dying. The media has made a mockery of the Black American. Even our brothers and sisters from Africa don't take us seriously. Something as simple as pulling up your pants and standing with your head high could make the biggest difference in the world's perception of us. It is time to do right by ourselves. We need to love and embrace each other. No one is going to do for us. It all comes down to perception. What people perceive, is what is reality to them. We have to change not only the media's perception of us, but we need to change the perception of ourselves. Remember all eyes are on you Black Man. All eyes are on you Black Woman. All eyes are on you Black Child. People are waiting for us to mess up. We have let not only the media, but the government and the world taint the pure essence of us. They have stripped our culture down to the point where we only believe we can become rappers and sports athletes. We are so much more. To all my black men, Its time to stand up. There are billions of Black Women who want to do nothing more than worship the ground that you walk on. We are so in love with your potential. We want to have your back, we want to love, support and cherish every ounce of your being. But with that you have to show that you are willing to be the head of our households. You have to prove yourselves worthy of our submission. We need you to be hard working...Not a hustler. We need you to seek higher education, to seek spirituality. We need you to stand! And trust us, we will have your back. We know that it gets hard, we know you get weary. Trust and believe that there is nothing that a Black Woman and a Black Man can't handle with God on their sides. To all my Black Women: It is also time for us to stand up. It is time for us to stop using our bodies as our primary form of communication. It is time to be that virtuous woman that Proverbs spoke of. We can not sit by the way side, while our men our dying by the masses. We are the epitome of Black Love. It starts within us. We need to speak with conviction to let not only our Black Men know, but the world know that we are the Mother's of this world. We are so powerful. We are so beautiful. We need to love and embrace every blessing God has given us physically emotionally and spiritually. For all My Black Children: We need to love them. We need to teach them. We need to stand up for them. We need to protect them. We need to show them that there is no "get rich quick." We need to tell them that they WILL die trying if the submit to a life of crime and deceit. We need to teach our children to that no one will love them the way we can. And being a basket ball player or a rapper is not reality, its not realistic and a small percentage of people ever make it that far. We need to teach our children that we can be better than the rappers and athletes. We can be the owners of these sports teams, we can be the CEO's of our fortune 500 companies. We need to believe in literacy. I am almost certain if we were to look back to the 1930's and 40's, the literacy rates for Black American Children are probably still the same.

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Posted by: Marty at November 10, 2006 11:58 AM