We Don’t Need Anymore Black Entertainers or Athletes- We need more SKILLED PROFESSIONALS!

It’s Graduation season. And Shawn wants to give some advice to the class of 2014.

Boys and girls we don’t need any more Black Entertainers in the Black community. We’re full up.

We don’t need any more rappers. We got enough Negroes running around here with sagging pants baggy T-shirts and bling looking hard, flexin and posing talking about they’re going to be the next Diddy and Jay-Z.

We got enough little girls twerkin’ jerkin and shaking their narrow little behinds trying to be the next Lil’ Kim.

We don’t need any more of these hip hop minstrels buckdancing and Coonin’ as they rap about bitches, hoes, and the dope game like it’s 1986. Stop trying to make Demo records on your iPhone and burning CD’s on your mama’s desktop. Stop harassing people in the neighborhood shopping districts on the weekend handing out free copies of your CD hoping to become a rap superstar. Diddy, Jay-Z and his producers ain’t coming to your neighborhood to discover your ass.

Black Boys and girls we don’t need any more Divas. We got enough Black females running around in short slinky dresses with all their cleavage and ass out talking about how they’re gonna be the next Beyonce. Or the Next Rihanna.

We don’t need any more of our sistas parading around half-naked and butt naked in music videos, on the covers of magazines and on record albums. We got enough little Black girls singing about how big their booties are and how sexy they are when they don’t even know what the word sexy means.

Sistas, we don’t need you to be Beyonce. We don’t need you to be Rihanna. We need you to be you. And we need you to go to school and get your education.

When you head down the wanna-be Diva road all that’s going to happen to you is you’re going to get told NO in the next series of American Idol auditions. Then what are you going to do with the rest of your life?

Black Boys and girls we don’t need any more Basketball players aspiring to be in the NBA. We got enough Negroes running around here with their chest and arms all tatted up talking about how they’re gonna be the next Lebron, the Next Kobe, or even the next Michael Jordan.

Half these Negroes think because they can dunk a ball on a playground court against some neighborhood guys they got the skills to be in the NBA. And the other half think because they scored a few points in a Varsity game or two in high school that they’re on their way to the NBA.

I’d advise them to focus on their algebra, trigonometry and calculus rather than their jump shot. If they did the math they’d see the chances of them getting that million dollar sneaker deal from Nike are a billion to one.

In most cases the handful of brothers who do make it in the NBA wind up second or third string. And most wind broke in three to five years after their careers end because most of these ballers lack the math skills to manage their money effectively.

It’s better for most of these brothers to focus their time on learning about finance and building wealth than being a basketball . Screw the Varsity and focus on getting a degree.

Boys and girls we don’t need any more football stars. The Black community is full up of Negroes running around trash talking about being the next Michael Strahan, Adrien Petesen or Jerry Rice.

Half these Negroes think because they can run with a football in Varsity they’re ready for the NFL. The other half think because they can catch a football tossed to them in a game of catch on the block they’re ready to take on the Super Bowl champs.

None of these Negroes are ready for Prime Time.

What they need to do is take them books on and learn more about plants in science class than practicing their End Zone Dance.

The chances of making it in the NFL are a billion to one. And in most cases the handful of brothers who do make it there wind up second or third string. And again, most wind up broke in three to five years after their careers end.

Let Shawn tell you what we really need in the Black community:

We need more scientists. It’s been decades since we’ve had a Dr. Charles Richard Drew create innovations like the Blood transfusion. Blacks have made countless innovations in the field of science. And we desperately need more brothers and sisters to enter the field of science to continue creating innovative medical procedures that will enrich the lives of mankind.

We need more doctors. Thirty years ago we had thousands of Black people entering the medical field and there was literally a doctor in almost every family. Now there’s a desparate need for medical professionals in the Black community.

We need more engineers. Engineers design everything from soda cans to skyscrapers. And many great inventions were created by Black engineers. However, we don’t  

We need more Black people in Information Technology. Lots of brothers and play video games. Lots of sistas spend their time texting people. But how many of us are creating games? And how many of us are creating apps to communicate with others?

Computers now are an integral part of life controlling everything from lights to our cell phones and even the content we watch on the internet and our televisions. However, most Black people are still living in a proverbial stone age thinking they can get by with a VCR and a tube television with a coat hanger attached to it. In Black communities more people are interested in being entertainers than IT technicians, coders, web designers and systems analysts. We need brothers and sisters to learn how to break down a tablet, a laptop or a desktop and put it back together. And we need people to learn how to build networks, Internet Service providers and web hosting companies so we can control the Black part of the World Wide Web.   

We need more Teachers. Enter any inner-city classroom and you’ll see all the teachers are White. That’s bad for Black children. When Black kids don’t see someone who looks like them as their teacher they learn White Supremacy at an early age because the first adult authority figure they see is a White person. They grow up believing White means smarter and associate being intelligent with being White. And when they’re told that there’s something wrong with them for acting out in class, they believe it in most cases for the rest of their lives.

When Black kids have Black teachers there’s a positive impact. When kids see someone who looks like them as their teacher, they grow up believing it’s possible for a Black person to achieve something. That it’s possible for Black people to be authority figures. And that being intelligent isn’t a “White” thing, it’s a human thing. There’s a desperate need for Black teachers, especially Black male teachers in the classroom. If more Black boys and girls saw someone who looked like them in the classroom the chances are better for them to aspire to be something other than a rapper and a ball player.

We need more screenwriters. Less than 2% of all the screenwriters who work in Hollywood in a given year are Black. And In order to get films, TV shows and movies made about the Black experience we need Black people with the ability to write our stories in format for the screen. Screenwriting is a craft and a skill trade that desperately needs more Black people in it and learning about it.

We need more directors and Black people behind the camera. The film industry in America is 95% white and 95% male. And we desperately need more Black people behind the camera. Film production is a skill trade with dozens of careers that can last a lifetime. But most Black people don’t think of becoming grips, best boys, stage hands, set designers, set decorators, wardrobe specialists, prop supervisor, camera operators, script supervisors, visual effects specialists, make-up artists, stuntpeople and other people with better paying union jobs behind the camera because they’ve been made to believe that the real power is in front of it.

We need more actors. Most of our Black actors and actresses are now in their 40s 50s and 60s. And there’s no one learning the craft to replace them. Right now we need young talent to become the next Angela Bassett, the next Denzel Washington, and the next Morgan Freeman. We need more Journeymen like Samuel L. Jackson. We need young brothers and sisters to pick up the baton and learn the craft of acting so that our stories can be told to the next generation.

We need Black Studio Executives. Want to know why there are so few Black films produced in a calendar year? Because there are ZERO Black executives in Hollywood. In order to get films greenlit you need to have a seat at the studio table. And because Black people don’t have the business skills to get a seat at the table great screenplays by Black writers never get the greenlight for production. Without a Black man controlling the money at the top, Black people at the bottom from actors to commissary don’t get jobs.

We need more writers and artists. An image, a sculpture, a painting or a written or a spoken word can inspire a generation. The only way to tell stories about the Black experience and Black culture is for us to do it ourselves. We desperately need Black writers and artists to tell our stories in the arts for African-American audiences. Art is another skill trade with plenty of jobs. But because the money isn’t fast, most Black people don’t see it as a set of skills that are valuable.

We need more people in the culinary arts. Foodservice is a huge business. It’s a skill trade that can be taken anywhere once a person learns it. Whether in a food truck or working the line at a restaurant there’s always a need for skilled foodservice workers. Everybody’s gotta eat, so there’s always a job in a restaurant somewhere.

We need more publishers. The image of Black people is now controlled by six corporations. That’s dangerous. It’s due to these big six corporations controlling the image of Black people that we have so many images of minstrel rappers and athletes, and jezebel singers and reality show stars. If there were more responsible and conscientious Black publishers controlling the image of Black people we’d see more images of Black scientists, engineers, doctors and other Black professionals and less of these two bit entertainers.

We need more businesspeople. In Hollywood there are no Black executives. And in Corporate America there are next to no Blacks in any of the senior executive positions at multi-national corporations. Right now we need more Black people starting their own businesses and creating opportunities for other Black people. We need businesspeople focused on creating a group economic business model for the Black community to create jobs that get Black people out of poverty.

Brothers and sisters, as you finish school and take yourself to the next level realize that what your community needs are skilled people ready to make a difference in the lives of people in this generation and the next one to come. The average entertainment career barely lasts two to four years, and after it’s over most entertainers are broke or struggling to make ends meet. But people who have specialized skills have careers that last a lifetime and will oftentimes always find a way to make themselves money.