A friend of mine came by just to chat while her laundry was drying. As we were chatting, two young men 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 she is 22 years old. After my friend left, the young men were still hanging around and one wanted to know how he could gain her interest.

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.

You 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 it 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 our 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 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 wayside while our men are dying by the masses. We are the epitome of Black Love. It starts within us. We need to speak with conv iction to let not only our Black Men know, but the world knows that we are the Mothers 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 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 are no "get rich quick" schemes. We need to tell them that they WILL die trying if they submit to a life of crime and deceit. We need to teach our children that no one will love them the way we can. And being a basketball player, a rapper, or a drug dealer is not reality. It's not realistic and only a small percentage of people ever make it as a rapper or professional athlete. We need to teach our children that we can be more than 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.