Acclaimed author, Dennis P. Kimbro, Ph.D., will be the keynote speaker at FAMU's Summer commencement scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday, August 8, at the Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center.Kimbro, the author of "Think and Grow: A Black Choice", "Daily Motivations for African American Success", and "What Makes the Great Great: Strategies for Extraordinary Achievement"aims to provide Blacks appropriate models to achieve success.
Kimbro received a B.A. and M.S. degrees from the University of Oklahoma, and a doctorate from Northwestern University, where he studied wealth and poverty among underdeveloped countries. He is currently a professor at the Clark Atlanta University School of Business Administration.
It's a good thing a speaker of merit is giving the commencement address. When I heard that poet Nikki Giovanni was slated to give the spring address, I simply could not believe it. Does everyone remember all (and still present) hype and media coverage of Michelle Obama's alledged use of a racially offensive word for whites? Well, had FAMU's officials done any kind of research, they could have heard Giovanni -- on records -- using all kinds of racially charged and offensive words over and over: the N-word, the word for "Saltines," and the "W" word, that George Jefferson used so frequently on his show. Now, don't say, "Well, Giovanni wasn't this, or that, blah, blah, blah..." She was a public speaker at a public, taxpayer-supported institution, at a public event. That, plus the fact, that the university shelled out $5,000 for a five minute speech. I have copies of her CDs -- from her albums in the 70s -- and I hear the woman saying this stuff over and over. Don't say, "Well, the language was a sign of the times." No excuses. I believe I heard a university official say that Giovanni was selected because of a speech following the killings at Virginia Tech. Doesn't matter. University officials can tell students to do their homework, but it didn't do its own. Sometimes we have to go beyond the surface. Appearances don't always cut it.
ReplyDeleteSTFU! It's a University for Christ sake and all deserve to be heard.
ReplyDelete2:44 WOW! What is your point? How about you take your concerns to West Virginia and share your concerns with the taxpayers of that state, which employees Nikki. Futhermore, did you share these same concerns when the VP Of America was the commencement speaker over at the otha school in tallahassee? You know the one who lead us into a fake war based on lies and deceit, that has caused the lives of over 3500 innocent American soldiers? I would argue that his words were and are alot more offensive to the families of those dead soliders!
ReplyDeleteYou know, Anonymous 7:5l, so many of us at FAMU (if you're even a student, faculty, or staff member) are SO tired of hearing people discuss issues related to FAMU by comparing them to issues at the "otha" (I assume that's your uneducated way of saying "other") university in Tallahassee. It isn't okay with me for FAMU to bring a speaker to campus who is going to be divisive and critical of entire groups of people, calling them names based on the color of their skin. I am so hopeful that Sen. Obama will be elected President, and he is as much white as he is black. It's time to stop writing "otha" and time to stop dragging FSU's choice of graduation speakers into a discussion of FAMU - what is your point?? That we need be no better than FSU? If you're a racist, please go find a university to associate with that shares your focus on the color of someone's skin, rather than the content of their character. I'm sure you can find some "otha" school, FAMUans spell the word "other," as in Love One Another.
ReplyDeleteThank you FAMU for bringing a speaker with a positive motivational message. No more name calling of whites, Asians, or Hispanics, please. And even more so, no more N-word at FAMU. We are better than that.
3:16 & 7:51--both of you are so very ignorant. Of course, the university should do its homework before selecting someone based on one public appearance following a tragic event. and 7:51, who cares about what someone said at "the other school"? what does that have to do with FAMU? anytime someone disagrees with someone on this board, the filthy mouths -- and plain and simple ignorance -- get to wagging a stupid tongue.
ReplyDelete2:44 must've said something right. A hit dog will holler.
Bow-wow, 3:16 & 7:51.
what is your point 7:51. what does fsu and dick cheney have to do with famu?
ReplyDelete3:16 you are a piece of work. What do you mean: "Everyone deserves to be heard"???? What kind of moronic statement is statement is that? Would David Duke, the Klan guy from Louisiana be a candidate, according to your logic, to stand before our graduates and "be heard"? Would the right wing guys and gals on FOX news be candidates "to be heard" at our commencement? What about Pat Buchanan? Do you even listen to the news or read an occasional paper, even? What about Don Imus? Juan Williams? Howard Stern? Everyone might have a voice, but everyone DOES NOT DESERVE OR NEED TO BE HEARD.
ReplyDelete11:13pm 12:42am 12:44am All Wrong All The Time. The point of 2:44 was simple and clear. FAMU is a state university and it is compared to all the state universities everyday! If you really would like to know the feelings of Tallahassee and the "otha" school simply read the Tallahassee Democrat in the section where people can leave comments. The writing is on the wall and TRUE FAMUANS & AFRICAN AMERICANS will continue to stand up for FAMU! It is simple 11:13 if you work at FAMU I pray for the day when you leave! You should have left with Gainous you both seem to share the same type of mind set and I had a limited respect for him. 12:42 Nikki has a lifetime of work, no one moment can sum up her lifes works so how about you do your homework. Based on the asinine argument that is being made on this blog anyone who has ever said anything that could be considered offensive to someone somewhere no one would ever be able to speak at FAMU!
ReplyDeleteI think that l0:0l and all the "othas" are missing the point. There are speakers brought to campus as part of a speaker series, representing many points of view, and then there are graduation speakers, who are speaking to a wider audience, and for a different reason, i.e. to inspire rather than to educate and/or present a wide variety of viewpoints. Are you saying that a graduation speaker who uses the terms N-***ers, crackers, whitey, etc., is appropriate for a GRADUATION speeh? If so, you're stuck in the 70's and are harming the cause of Unity in our Community. I hope ll:l3 is a FAMU employee and that he/she stays.
ReplyDeleteWe need to build bridges NOT WALLS to all of mankind - not insulate ourselves into a "black community" where no one else is welcome, or welcome to have a point of view. But at graduation? Let's hear the best of us, not another speech on how downtrodden we are...
10:01, No one's disputing that Giovanni has a lifetime of good works. That's a no-brainer. What I think 12:44 said is valid. I don't think the university would have selected her had they known of her rants & raves and her offensive tongue years ago. That kind of stuff may have been a sign of the times, but I still think it has merit. There are so many other folks that the university could have gotten to address the graduates. But if people are not familiar with their history, well, now, this is what we get. Anyway, I think the summer commencement speaker is a wonderful pick.
ReplyDeleteWhen you hear Mrs. Obama being criticized for not being a proud of America as white folks would like, think about this book review, written in l922, about W.E.B. DuBois's "Darkwater." The article excerpted below was written by a famous Caucasian humorist of the day, Robert Benchley, in his book Love Conquers All.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/15851/15851-h/15851-h.htm#toc_21
"...But W.E.B. Du Bois insists on justice for the Negro, and in his book "Darkwater" (Harcourt, Brace & Co.) his voice rings out in a bitter warning through the complacent quiet which usually reigns around this problem of America.
Maybe it is because he finds himself, a man of superior mind and of sensitive spirit who is a graduate of Harvard, a professor and a sincere worker for the betterment of mankind, relegated to an inferior order by many men and women who are obviously his inferiors, simply because he happens to differ from them in the color of his skin.
Maybe it is because he sees the people of his own race who have not had his advantages (if a Negro may ever be said to have received an advantage) being crowded into an ignominious spiritual serfdom equally as bad as the physical serfdom from which they were so recently freed. Maybe it is because of these things that Mr. Du Bois seems overwrought.
Or perhaps it is because he reads each day of how jealous we are, as a Nation, of the sanctity of our Constitution, how we revere it and draw a flashing sword against its detractors, and then sees this very Constitution being flouted as a matter of course in those districts where the amendment giving the Negroes a right to vote is popularly considered one of the five funniest jokes in the world.
Perhaps he hears candidates for office insisting on a reign of law or a plea for order above all things, by some sentimentalist or other, or public speakers advising those who have not respect for American institutions to go back whence they came, and then sees whole sections of the country violating every principle of law and order and mocking American institutions for the sake of teaching a "ni***r" his place.
Perhaps during the war he heard of the bloody crimes of our enemies, and saw preachers and editors and statesmen stand aghast at the barbaric atrocities which won for the German the name of Hun, and then looked toward his own people and saw them being burned, disemboweled and tortured with a civic unanimity and tacit legal sanction which made the word Hun sound weak.
Perhaps he has heard it boasted that in America every man who is honest, industrious and intelligent has a good chance to win out, and has seen honest, industrious and intelligent men whose skins are black stopped short by a wall so high and so thick that all they can do, on having reached that far, is to bow their heads and go slowly back.
Any one of these reasons should have been sufficient for having written "Darkwater."
It is unfortunate that Mr. Du Bois should have raised this question of our own responsibility just at this time when we were showing off so nicely. It may remind some one that instead of taking over a protectorate of Armenia we might better take over a protectorate of the State of Georgia, which yearly leads the proud list of lynchers. But then, there will not be enough people who see Mr. Du Bois's book to cause any great national movement, so we are quite sure, for the time being, of being able to devote our energies to the solution of our other problems...."
That was written by a white man, in l922, and it is still true today. Let all voices be heard...
9:41, no one cares that the article "was written by a white man in 1922." Ok?
ReplyDelete