Professor Gates Plans To Meet With Officer Again Over Beers

 

 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The officer who arrested a top African-American professor said talks over beers Thursday evening at the White House were productive and the two men plan to meet again.

Sgt. James Crowley and Henry Louis Gates Jr. sat around a patio table with President Obama and Vice President Biden, drank beer, munched on snacks and talked about the arrest that has sparked debate about racial profiling and police procedures.

"It was a private discussion. It was a frank discussion," Crowley said of the meeting, but would not divulge specifics except to say that no one apologized.

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Manufacturing Success

Success is Manufactured
by: Lawrence Watkins

I remember it like it was yesterday. I’m sitting in Perkins Restaurant as we finished our Friday morning bible study class in Louisville, KY. With me was Carl Brazley, my closest and most creative mentor. We were about to start one of our usual mentoring sessions that we had about once per month. This session was special as he shared his wisdom about success that has become fundamental in my life philosophy.

Mr. Brazley asked me two questions right off the bat: “What does success mean to me?” and “How will I go about achieving it?” I shared with him my personal mission statement that I had recently developed at the LeaderShape program in Champaign, IL. It states that “I want to become a tycoon politically, socially, and economically so that I may have a positive impact on my community.” Mr. Brazley then said, “That’s great! Now how are you going to ACHIEVE your mission?” This was the question that I was still trying to figure out. I had seen ultra-successful all around me in person or on TV, but I found the process mystifying at times.

Mr. Brazley continued, “Lawrence, don’t believe the hype that you see on TV when it comes to people who you view as successful. The media loves stories about self mad millionaires and billionaires, but rarely are they self made.” What he said next changed my perspective, “Here is what they [the media and often the individual in question] don’t want you to know: Success is manufactured! Many successful people have other hidden influential people in the background guiding them on the right path. Giving them the connections that they need to accelerate their success. This is what I am going to do with you Lawrence.” Whoa!! Talk about some heavy material!

The Real Secret Sauce of Success

I researched the statement that Mr. Brazley made further and I started to read more about individuals who I view to be successful. I was very surprised at the results/trends that I found. Let’s start with Donald Trump, the King of the Self Made…His father had over $100 million in real estate by the time he was born. Warren Buffett (a major influence in my thinking), the Sage of Omaha… His father was a stockbroker and four-term congressman from the state of Nebraska. What about Bill Gates? His mother sat on the board of directors of a bank and his father was a prominent Seattle attorney. The more people that I researched, the more surprised I became. Then I started to feel apprehensive, “What do I need to become successful?”

There are two things that I don’t want to happen by sharing this story with you:

1. I do not want to relegate or belittle the accomplishments of successful people just because they come from a well connected family. The people mentioned above are all extremely intelligent and have a strong work ethic. It’s also important not to hide facts about people’s environment as if that doesn’t play a critical role in success.

2. I do not want you to feel like the situation is hopeless if you don’t come from a rich and powerful family. Throughout this article, I’m going to teach you how to create your own “synthetic power family.”

Your Synthetic Family of Networks

If you don’t come from a rich and well connected family, do not worry about it. It is not the end all, be all. In fact, I know many people who come from well-to-do families, but their lives are in shambles. Money and entitlement can be hindrances to living a WEALTHY LIFE just as much as they can be assets. I come from a solidly middle class family where my father was a high-ranking police official and my mother was a high school guidance counselor. I was able to use this base to expand even further and broaden my experiences to study at Phillips Academy Andover, Carnegie Mellon University, and now Cornell. The most beautiful part is that I have paid very little for my educational experience and it’s because I created a synthetic family to help me achieve my goals.

A synthetic family is not the family you were born with, but one that you created that helps provide the resources you need to accomplish goals. I’m not just talking about money, but also advice and connections as well. Having a synthetic family is not a substitute for your real family, proper planning, or an intelligent work ethic (see my Pareto and Parkinson article). I view the synthetic family as an accelerator of the success process. The great thing about the synthetic family is that it is easy to start and replicate.

Be Your Own Barack Obama

After President Obama (wow, that sounds great) won the election for United States President in November, he had to move his actions from campaigning mode to governing mode. Immediately, Obama selected Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff and then dozens of other appointments were announced in the following weeks. President Obama surrounded himself with individuals who have a greater knowledge about different aspects of governance than he does. When President Obama and his advisors meet about the current economic situation, the advisors give their expert opinions about what Obama should do. After that, President Obama escorts them out of the room and then makes the decision he feels will be best for the country.

I ask, “What’s keeping you from being your own Barack Obama?” I urge you to assemble your own personal board of advisors to help you when you have a tough decision to make. There is not a human being on the face of the planet who knows everything. Seek out those individuals who have general wisdom as well as those who have specific expertise. Bring them into your family and achieve your goals more effectively.

The Early Bird Gets the Worm

One of the great myths of networking is that you start reaching out to others when you need something. The people who really succeed in building relationships know that you need to start building way BEFORE you need anything. This is especially true if you are thinking of opening your own business. Many people start the networking process too late in the game. Prospective entrepreneurs think about details like incorporating or the specific name of their company. Although those tasks are important, they have much less influence over your business success compared to relationship building.

Immediately after graduating from college I worked for my brother, Dr. Boyce Watkins. My job was to book him for speaking engagements and manage his growing national media profile. I knew long before I started to work for him that I wanted to start my own company and I took steps to achieve this goal. For example, when Boyce would appear on a national TV show, he was often on the show with other high profile guests. We would make sure to collect that person’s contact information and follow up with him/her right away. When I started Great Black Speakers Bureau, those were my first speakers. Make sure to always begin with an end in mind!

Overcome your Fear of Rejection

Bestselling author and networking guru Keith Ferrazzi calls this the “genius of audacity.” If you never ask for what you want, very rarely do you ever get what you want. The two major emotions that stop people from asking are the fear of rejection from the other person and a feeling that the other person is better than you. Question: What’s going to have a longer impact on your life? FEAR of rejection or FAILING to reach your goals? The answer to this question for me is not reaching the goals I set out to accomplish. In this scenario, rejection MIGHT happen but failure WILL happen.

Follow Up and Stay in Touch

If the yin is overcoming your fears and asking for what you want, then the yang is following up with your contacts. This is something that I have personally struggled with lately as my number of contacts has grown significantly. However, I have noticed a direct correlation between my rate of follow up and the amount of success I achieve over any period of time. It is funny how people spend so much time making new contacts and so little time following up with them. This reminds me of the local ladies man who is only interested in the chase of a woman. Once he gets her, he then loses interest. In business and in life, don’t be this person! It is much more expensive to attain a new client/contact/friend than to maintain the ones you already have. I am not telling you to not meet new people, just do right by them when you do meet them for long lasting business/personal relationships.

Your Black Politics: The Obama '08 Phenomenon: What Have We Learned?

The Obama '08 Phenomenon: What Have We Learned?
By: BAR executive editor Glen Ford

"This generation will have to learn from damn near scratch what a real social movement looks like."

Without question, the nation has experienced an election of historical significance, for reasons that go beyond the obvious "first Black" aspect of race. This has also been the most-hyped presidential campaign in U.S. history, if for no other reason than the simple fact that every presidential campaign is more hyped than the last, since hype is what corporate media sells. But what has the experience taught us?

We have learned that a large and decisive national minority of whites can be persuaded to vote for a certain kind of Black man for president if that Black man possesses the following characteristics:

A family history that includes no African American lineage, and is thereby untainted by the negative cultural baggage associated with North American slave descendants. (This is similar to the special white dispensation afforded in past generations to Afro-Caribbean baseball players.)

An eagerness to embrace racist political icons such as Ronald Reagan, while vociferously denying that white racism is and has been "endemic" to America. This man must also be willing to without hesitation denounce, repudiate and otherwise vilify other Black individuals - even those who have been personally dear to him - at the first sign of white displeasure with that person.

A compulsion to telegraph whites that he shares their disdain for Blacks as a group. This specially endowed individual must be prepared to castigate Blacks in every arena of life, from incompetent child-rearing (the cruelty of fried chicken breakfasts) to failures of Black manhood (acting like "boys" rather than responsible adults), the shame of Black female promiscuity (stopping black girls from having babies out of wedlock is "the single biggest thing that we could do to reduce inner-city poverty") and Blacks' collective lack of good hygiene ("You know what would be a good economic development plan for our community would be if we make sure folks weren't throwing their garbage out of their cars"). But the Black man who would woo white presidential votes must have the smarts and discipline to never, never, never subject whites to such egregious, blanket group criticisms.

"This specially endowed individual must be prepared to castigate Blacks in every arena of life."

He must possess an imagination fertile enough to declare that Blacks have already come "90 percent of the way" towards racial equality - a statement without statistical validity based on any social or economic indexes, but one which assures whites that their long suffering at the hands of bothersome Black complainers is nearly over. This Black president-to-be must implicitly promise that his own election will provide the missing ten percent, and bring the race issue definitively to a close.

We have learned that whites took the candidate's words to heart, en masse. A CBS/New York Times poll taken one week before the election showed that 68 percent of whites believe that Blacks and whites "have about an equal chance of getting ahead" in American society. This fantastic conclusion was clearly inspired by Barack Obama's singular success, since less than half of whites gave that answer in July. Even more astonishingly, 43 percent of Blacks said the same thing -a response unlike any ever recorded in the history of professional polling, and totally divorced from Black realities. We have learned that Obama-L'aid kills healthy Black brain cells.

We have learned that Black politicians and activist-poseurs have an infinite capacity to celebrate not having engaged in struggle with Power, and that the Black masses can be made drunk by the prospect of vicariously (through Obama) coming to power. Having failed to make even the mildest of demands on Obama in return for unquestioning support, Black misleadership vowed they would press for firm commitments on issues of importance to African Americans once Obama had passed the final hurdle. (White progressives who were similarly self-neutered during the campaign also promise to begin acting like real people's advocates, any day now...just you wait and see.) We have already learned that "Progressives for Obama" of all ethnicities, who failed to put pressure on the candidate early on, when it might have made a difference, are full of crap.

"Sixty-eight percent of whites believe that Blacks and whites "have about an equal chance of getting ahead" in American society."

We have learned that even in failure and collapse, the Lords of Capital are smart enough to know they desperately need a new face, and are willing to bankroll the Black man who can provide it. During this election cycle we learned that capital can switch its party allegiances in an instant, first vetting and then jump-starting the Black candidate who would become the biggest campaign spender in U.S. election history, by far. In 2008, the Democrats became the party of Big Capital, whose choice was Barack Obama. We have learned that capital is never blind to color, when it can be used to capital's advantage.

We have learned that this generation will have to learn from damn near scratch what a real social movement looks like - which will be doubly hard, since they have been misled to believe that this year's frenzied electioneering was actually a "movement." Now it is over, and one Black man is moving - into the White House, having never promised his Black supporters a single thing of significance. But of course, hardly anyone Black made any demands of Obama.

Some folks never learn that Power concedes nothing without a demand.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Originally Appeared In Black Agenda Report