Taking Charge Of Our Lives Depends On Us…

It is dif­fi­cult to advise any­one with­out com­ing off as preachy, con­de­scend­ing, or both.
When it comes to our peo­ple, the chal­lenge is even greater because we do not want to accept advice or guid­ance from our own.
So the advice is gen­er­al­ly greet­ed with a healthy dose of skep­ti­cism and dis­dain and even­tu­al­ly result in ad hominem attacks on the giver.
Whenever I think about this sub­ject, I tend to be rather hes­i­tant as Bill Cosby comes to mind. Bill Cosby spoke out about what he per­ceived to be some things we could change about our­selves. People turned on Cosby because it forced them to look inward, and we tend not to like to do that.

So even though Cosby had the suc­cess to back up his advice, peo­ple chose to grav­i­tate to the neg­a­tives that they per­ceived in the mes­sen­ger rather than use the mes­sage to their advantage.
What was so wrong about pulling up your damn pants that are show­ing the crack of your ass? What was wrong about say­ing that women must behave respect­ful­ly to get respect or choose who they have babies with wisely?

Like every­one else, Mister Cosby was human, and he made mis­takes like the rest of us but he had every right to speak on the sub­jects on which he spoke even as his own fail­ings and frail­ties were becom­ing evident.
I am nowhere near Bill Cosby’s suc­cess­es finan­cial­ly, but nei­ther am I car­ry­ing his shame at what he has been accused of doing. However, that does not pre­clude me from say­ing we can do some sim­ple things better.
Save some mon­ey for a rainy day and for­go spend­ing on shiny objects. Buy bur­ial insur­ance, par­tic­u­lar­ly for elders, so there will be no need to set up (Gofund me pages) that begs for mon­ey to bury a deceased loved one.

Invest a lit­tle mon­ey in stocks and bonds. Start our own busi­ness­es &, where pos­si­ble, sup­port Black-owned busi­ness­es to stop a lit­tle bit of the cash hem­or­rhag­ing out of our communities.
If you go into an estab­lish­ment and they refuse to serve you, please take your mon­ey some­place else. Sure it is impor­tant to let the pub­lic under­stand that a par­tic­u­lar estab­lish­ment refused to serve you.
I also get the need for the social media videos; racism needs to be uproot­ed and dis­card­ed, which requires that it be exposed.

Nevertheless, be advised that pri­vate estab­lish­ments have a right to refuse ser­vice to whomev­er they chose.
Your mon­ey is your pow­er, do not spend your time yelling and scream­ing at peo­ple; worse, why beg them to serve you. Do you know what they do to the food before they bring it to you, or don’t you care?
Why empow­er peo­ple who despise you?

Where pos­si­ble, grow some veg­eta­bles in your front, back, side yard, in pots, wood­en box­es, flower- pots on porch­es wher­ev­er. If you can grow flow­ers, you can grow veg­eta­bles and herbs that are good for you.
I hear the fan­cy term food deserts being bandied about these days, and I do get that based on the def­i­n­i­tion below, there are regions where poor peo­ple may find it hard to get health­i­er options in gro­cery shopping.
One def­i­n­i­tion for that ter­mi­nol­o­gy is’ regions where peo­ple have lim­it­ed access to healthy and afford­able food. This may be due to hav­ing a low income or hav­ing to trav­el far­ther to find healthy food options.
Traveling far­ther to find fresh fruits and veg­eta­bles can be a chal­lenge for peo­ple with lim­it­ed resources and no transportation.

One way to alle­vi­ate that prob­lem may be to find friends and asso­ciates who have a car and go gro­cery shop­ping where healthy foods are. Ask if you can trav­el with them and offer a few dol­lars toward their gas mon­ey. It is hard to imag­ine a friend or fam­i­ly mem­ber turn­ing down five dol­lars to pur­chase gas when they were going to go shop­ping anyway.
Essentially what I am say­ing is to build coali­tions around these events that are ben­e­fi­cial to you. Make it an out­ing to go gro­cery shop­ping, and this is also a great way for elder­ly res­i­dents to spend qual­i­ty time together.
And while you are at it, buy some veg­etable seed or seedlings; each per­son can plant two or three types of veg­eta­bles depend­ing on the space they have.

Well-tend­ed veg­eta­bles will pro­duce a har­vest which may then be shared. Those who plant­ed toma­toes and pep­pers can share with those who plant­ed let­tuce and egg­plants, and so on.….
The ideas are not panaceas, but they offer health­i­er alter­na­tives to McDonald’s and fat­ty and processed foods.