Black In Business

You know the guys, the hip ones. In my day they wore leather coats, smoked cigarettes, and misbehaved in school. As we got older they were the first to drink, experience sex, try this thing called marijuana. They hung out late and were cool so cool. We all looked up to the cool ones.
Recently I was watching a show on early morning weekend TV dealing with black boys. It showed a program on exposing young black men to the arts and technology. It was of interest because it appeared these kids took a genuine interest in being fine young men as oppose to gang bangers. I do not remember a lot of the details of the show, (hey man, it was early Saturday morning) but I do remember a statement the program director made, a black woman with a PHD; “we need more nerds in the hood! We have enough cool guys, enough gangsters, what we need are nerds. The nerds have the opportunity to be a Bill Gates. They bring their books home at night and want to stay out of trouble and learn.” They are not so cool anymore.
Nerd is in! I came across an article regarding, “Inspiring path from dropout to principal,” in the Tribune on Tuesday. Robin Walker-Johnson was hip and cool, so much so, when she turned 16, her public school days were done. She was told to report to the office and hand in her books; she was done as a student. She had to attend alternative schools. She was defiant and had only passed one class prior to the alternative school. She got pregnant and dropped out completely for one year.
She accepted the responsibility of being a parent and through the encouragement from loving teachers she applied her self. She now has a master degree and will be a role model and principle in her home neighborhood .She will lead a new Renaissance program school in an effort to replace low performing schools. What a trip; from cool to mom to nerd to master degree and success.
This relates to blackinbusiness because Ms. Walker-Johnson is in the business of education and will help motivate nerds to become blackinbusiness success stories in the future. I will profile another nerd who is now in the movie making business in an upcoming post. Keeping Hope Alive.