When you are blessed to have good people in your life, it can be difficult to decide who you want to write about or pay tribute to during National Women’s History Month. However, there are always stars in the universe that shine so bright that there is no way you can miss their brilliance.
My heart is full of joy and overflowing with gratitude every time I think about my maternal grandmother, Rebecca Ruth Reed Harris. For as long as I can remember, everyone she loved and that loved her, called her, “Mother Dear.”
Recently, I was sitting with a few of my girlfriends and the topic came up, why do some smart and successful women have a hard time finding love? Why do they make good decisions in the boardroom and bad choices for the bedroom?
History has provided us with many heroes and sheroes that have fought hard to change the trajectory of how humanity is treated. Recently we lost Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Ending a year causes us to think about all the things that we did not accomplish or complete. I recently was having a heart-to-heart conversation with a dear friend, and she said that she hoped to be more like me and complete things that she would start.
I believe we all have experienced hearing or using “four-letter words”. These are words that if our parents or grandparents heard us say we would get our mouths washed out with soap. Four-letter words refer to a set of English-language words which are considered profane.
I once read that we will be the same person in five years as we are today except for the people we meet and the books we read. Interesting enough about five years ago I met a young man named Jesse, I met him through his girlfriend (soon to become his wife) Marqueta, someone who had worked with me and my family for many years.
I was in the event business for many years, and I was fortunate to have been part of wonderful events. One of the ways I was able to grow my business was by asking and accepting feedback.
Did George Floyd’s last gasps for air breathe new life into Black organizations, Black businesses and the Black experience or did the knee on his neck traumatize a nation into a knee jerk mea culpa?
Although former Secretary of State Colin Powell told Bob Woodward, in a final interview, “don’t feel sorry for me,” as he shared some of his health challenges, I cannot help but feel both sorry and sad about his passing. Colin Powell died at the age of 84 from complications due to COVID-19.
There can be no worse feeling for a parent to not know where their child is. Though it was over thirty years ago the terrifying feeling I felt has never left me. I was in downtown Los Angeles at the garment district with my daughter and three other children who I was babysitting and for what seemed like a brief moment, I was distracted and momentarily lost sight of my daughter.
In school, math was not my favorite subject but I do understand the importance of numbers. I want to share with you some numbers associated with the great city of Los Angeles.
Justice means giving someone what he or she deserves. Finally, after facing numerous allegations of sexual misconduct, payoffs to victims and unpopular acquittals singer R. Kelly was found guilty of racketeering and eight counts of sex trafficking in a Brooklyn federal courtroom. The jury found him guilty of being the ringleader in a decades-long criminal enterprise to recruit women and underage girls for sex. Allegations of inappropriate sexual relationships with minors have swirled around R Kelly for years, especially after his illegal marriage to the R&B singer Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just fifteen. The term racketeering is usually associated with organized crime, referring to a group of individuals that attempt to extort, coerce or otherwise create some type of scheme or a racket. In the case of R Kelly, the court and prosecutors felt that his expansive entourage of staff and enablers around the musician constituted a criminal enterprise.
Unfortunately, death becomes an unwanted visitor to our homes and family leaving pain, suffering and hurt. Last week my oldest male cousin on the paternal side of my family, Benny Rene Harris, passed away. We were both raised by our grandmother, but due to our age difference we spent limited time together. Like many of us, Ben’s life had many ups and downs, highs and lows, sorrows, and setbacks. But I am proud to say during the last decade of his life, he truly dedicated his life and work to serving the Lord. He was active in his church and various other ministries extending his gifts and talents anyway and anywhere he could. Over the years Ben and I had established a routine of checking in weekly to see how the other one was doing and what was going on in our lives. One day he shared with me that he was not feeling well and that something was wrong. I urged him to go to the doctor and get checked out. For some reason many men, especially Black men hesitate to go to the doctor. After getting checked he found out that he was struggling with various illnesses including cancer.
Once we are born, there are two things we all are going to experience no matter how hard we try to avoid them, no matter how much money or fame we have. One of those things is death. The Bible is very clear that all of us will experience a single permanent death, no one gets out alive. The second thing is problems.