There is No True Orator Who is not a Hero.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once stated that "There is no true orator who is not a hero," and I found that to be the perfect title for this post as I celebrate five young heroes who were indeed heroes this morning. This post is a tribute to all five of them and their parents/guardians. As many of you who follow The Critical Thinker know, I have been on the war path for the last couple of weeks because of a series of events that have caused one to wonder just where is our future going based on what we are seeing with our up and coming generation. There was the young lady in Florida who blatantly disrespected and disregarded a judge to the point where he increased her fine and sentenced her to thirty days in jail due to contempt of court and then there was the story I shared with you on The Critical Thinker Podcast concerning the young man who was in the upscale restaurant I was in on Valentine's Day donning a flipped and twisted baseball cap while no other being in the building had on a cap or was dressed like he was. To make matters worse, he was with a female who didn't know any better either. But alas, listening to these five young heroes this morning let me know that indeed all hope is not lost.

I had been working with these five students for the last couple of months as a part of our oratory club at my church, and today was their day to present to the larger congregation their oratory skills and present they did. Each self-selected his/her topic and was charged over the last few weeks to research and develop it. I served as the head coach along with others who served as coaches as well. There were some nights during practice I felt as if I were Donnie McClurkin and Coach Tiffany was Yolanda Adams or CeCe Winans on BET's Sunday Best. We coached our five students to hone their skills and they took our advice like a duck to water. This morning all of their hard work paid off. I stood and watched them deliver their speeches like a "proud papa."

I thank Stacy, Malachi, Da'Wan, Zhania and Jahlil for letting us all know that our young people can and will produce positively if we continue to work with them, guide them, teach them and believe in them. I don't know if you will take the time to view the entire video(though I wish you would and encourage you to do so), but for however long you choose to watch, you will see students doing something positive and seeking to make a difference in their lives and the lives of others by bettering themselves. I am excited and I welcome your feedback as always in the commentary section of the blog and by visiting the red feedback tab on the right side of your screen. You can follow The Critical Thinker on Twitter @thinkcritical01 and The Critical Thinker Podcast at http://thecriticalthinker.podbean.com/

There is a Time and Place for Everything; There Isn't That Much Cool In The World

Check out The Critical Thinker Podcast. It is the audio format of The Critical Thinker Blog.

http://thecriticalthinker.podbean.com/2013/02/16/there-is-a-time-and-place-for-everything-there-is-not-that-much-cool-in-the-world/

You are invited to join me on Twitter @thinkcritical01 and as always I welcome your feedback in the commentary section and the "Feedback" tab on the right side of your screen.

Look How Far We've Fallen

As I watched the news tonight the clip of the story about the teenager who disrespected a judge came on the air. As I watched the story, the first thing that came to my mind is the title of this post, "look how far we've fallen." In 2013, no one is respected regardless of his/her title or anything else. This young lady did not even have the wherewithal to understand that she was standing in front of someone who had the power to literally put her in jail. She cursed at him, stuck up her middle finger also known as flipping the bird and totally disrespected him with her sarcasm and body language.

 I don't know about you, but when I was a child, we did not dare disrespect an adult let alone one with a title such as a teacher or a judge. My father and mother would have killed me if they had learned that I had disrespected an adult. As a school principal, I see this type of behavior every day as too many of our children disrespect their teachers and making matters even worse is their parents condone it with their words and actions when the child's behavior is explained to them. What type of parenting (if any) did this young lady in the video receive? Where were her parents when she was cursing and flipping the bird at the judge?

It's a sad statement to hear a parent say "That's my child and I cannot do anything with him/her." Can you imagine a parent saying that? An adult saying he/she cannot do anything with a child. I would not be sitting here today if I had even thought about doing some of the things that I see children and teens do today. We are on a continuous downward spiral of our morals and values. I could go on and on, however, I will end this post as I began with, look how far we've fallen. I welcome your commentary in the comment section of the blog and your feedback by visiting the red feedback tab to the right of your screen. I invite you to follow The Critical Thinker on Twitter @thinkcritical01.

It's Hard To Run Carrying Luggage

As I write this post I write not only to you the reader but also to myself. Since the new year arrived, I have been posting on Twitter and Facebook for us not to carry our luggage from 2012 and before into 2013 to remind us how luggage can and does slow us down. Of course like many things, it is easier said than done; however, we must find a way to check our luggage at the counter, curbside or at a kiosk of 2013. The metaphor of luggage is truly appropriate in terms of the things that we carry from one year to the next that constantly weigh us down. When you think about it, even at the airport you are only allowed to check a certain amount of luggage with each bag only allowed to weigh but so much. Ironically, dependent upon the airline you are travelling with you are now even charged a fee to check your luggage; so luggage costs. The luggage of life also costs. So let us go into 2013 determined to be able to run like Jerry Seinfeld is running and not be bogged down by luggage like Elaine. I wish all of us a blessed, luggage free and prosperous new year. I welcome your feedback in the commentary section as well as by visiting the "feedback" tab on the right had side of your screen. I also invite you to follow The Critical Thinker on Twitter @thinkcritical01. The Critical Thinker podcast can be heard at www.thecriticalthinker.podbean.com.

Happy New Year - 2013

To all of you who take the time to read The Critical Thinker, I say Happy New Year to you and thank you. I realize that you do not have to take the time to read The Critical Thinker and for that I am truly grateful. I look forward to providing more thought provoking posts in 2013 because I truly believe that we as Americans are always being intentionally misinformed. The objective of The Critical Thinker is to cause the reader to pause and think about what is being shared with us via the media, advertisements, events, etc.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best when he said "Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think." The purpose of The Critical Thinker is to provoke you the reader to willingly engage in some hard, solid thinking. You don't have to agree with my view, but at least give the subject at hand some additional thought compared with just glossing by it and taking everything that is fed to us as the truth.

With that in mind I have also launched The Critical Thinker Podcast and it can be visited at www.thecriticalthinker.podbean.com  The podcast allows me to speak about the various topics, many written here in the blog and some that are not. So I encourage you to subscribe to The Critical Thinker Podcast in ITunes to be challenged to think even more. The latest edition of the podcast can be found at http://thecriticalthinker.podbean.com/2012/12/31/happy-new-year-happy-2013/.

I look forward to your feedback in the comment section and by clicking on the red "feedback" tab  located at the right side of your screen. You can also follow me on Twitter @thinkcritical01.  May your 2013 be blessed and prosperous.

Marc A. Medley

"Which we always thought was the safest place in America"

"It's alarming, especially in Newtown, Connecticut, which we always thought was the safest place in America."  Every time one of these incidences occur,  reporters always find someone who says, "We didn't think that could happen here."  My question when I hear that is , where is it supposed to happen? Why could it not happen "there."  This whole notion of anywhere being the safest place in America is absurd.  We must come out of denial and face the brutal truth that anything can happen anywhere at anytime.  Read between the lines or decode what the statement really says. It says it could happen somewhere else, but not here.  Why? Because it is quiet and has tree lined streets?  I truly wish the reporters would remove that line from the scripts. This also holds true for the phrase "Quiet tree lined streets" said in a hushed tone.  Does the fact that the community is quiet and have tree lined streets make them exempt from tragedy?  Take a listen to today's podcast at thecriticalthinker.podbean.com.  It is The Reading Circle with Marc Medley in its entirety for December 15, 2012. The show is heard live on Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. ET on WP88.7 FM and is web streamed around the world on www.gobrave.org.  My prayers are with the people of Newtown, Connecticut and everywhere else these tragedies keep occurring. Something has got to give because enough is enough.  As always I welcome your commentary in the comment section of the blog and in the feedback tab to the right of your screen. Follow the Critical Thinker in Twitter @thinkcritical01 and follow The Critical Thinker podcast at www.thecriticalthinker.podbean.com.  

Subliminal Racism or What's Wrong With These Pictures? - Part 2

This post is part two of “What's Wrong With These Pictures? Does anything strike you?”  I intentionally wrote "What's Wrong With These Pictures?" to be a two-part post because I wanted to see how many people would take me up on my challenge and really critically think about what was occurring in the advertisements before I rendered my views. Not surprisingly, no one really took me up on my challenge, or if they did, they did not respond in the comment or feedback section of  The Critical Thinker. So in this post I will provide further hints and clues as to what I think is wrong with these pictures while still not giving you my complete hypothesis because I do not want to be accused of telling you what to think.

In many instances when I share my thoughts I am told that I think too deeply or look too deeply into things and that what I am thinking really is not the case. For example in 2002, Halle Berry and Denzel Washington both received history breaking Oscar Awards. Halle Berry became the first African-American female to win the best actress Oscar and Denzel Washington followed Sidney Poitier as only the second African American male to win the best actor award. While I was happy for both, Mr. Washington and Ms. Berry, I was also saddened because of the roles in which they had won the Oscar. Both Denzel and Halle had played much stronger and more positive roles prior to winning his/her Oscar yet did not win; however, when Halle stripped fully nude in Monster’s Ball and Denzel played a rogue cop in Training Day, they were both awarded an Oscar for his/her respective roles. I found it interesting because in each of their roles of which they won the Oscar, the roles were stereotypical African-American roles; portrayal of an African American either being loose and promiscuous or being crooked and corrupt. People told me at that time that I was thinking too deep; maybe…….maybe not?

A few days ago The Daily Caller, a news and opinion website based in Washington DC that focuses on politics, original reporting and breaking news reported that United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice who is currently being nominated for Secretary of State had argued for the aggressive inclusion of a black history curriculum in American schools in a paper written in 1986. According to The Daily Caller, Ambassador Rice stated at that time that “American history cannot be understood fully or evaluated critically without ample study of black history.” My thoughts on whether or not Ambassador Rice should become Secretary of State or not is neither here nor there (that's a separate blog post altogether) and in my mind she is no better or no worse than anyone else who has held the position; however, I do agree with her in terms of the inclusion of not just black history but of everyone's history in our school system to teach our children about everyone and not just one group. This lack of historical knowledge and wherewithal is what in my view allows us not to truly see the message that is being sent when a Halle Barry and Denzel Washington wins Hollywood’s highest achievement for portraying stereotypical roles. It’s this same lack of historical knowledge that blinds and deafens us as to what is really going on in some of our current advertising, hence the four commercials I shared with you in “What's Wrong With These Pictures?” 

I will once again invite you to go back and review the four advertising videos in "What's Wrong With These Pictures?" and look and listen carefully. As a hint, in the NFL Play60 ad with the little boy and Cam Newton, listen and give some thought to what the little boy is telling Mr. Newton. In the video with Eli Manning and the lawnmower, listen and think about what the wife says to her husband at the end of the commercial as Mr. Manning leaves. In the video with Ray Lewis and Tom Brady, take a look at what the mother and Mr. Brady refers to Mr. Lewis as and lastly when you look at the video with the senior citizen and the cat in the tree, listen to what she does not say when Mr. Manning leaves compared with what the wife says in the other version in the Toyota campaign(that’s all the hints and clues I'm going to give you in terms of what I see wrong with these pictures).

In 1974, PhD and author Wilson Bryan Key wrote a popular book at the time titled Subliminal Seduction. It was a book that had as its subtitle “Here Are the Secret Ways Ad Men Arouse Your Desires - To Sell Their Products.” For the most part, Dr. Key was dealing with subliminal sexual messages, as his theory was as we are aroused sexually by the subliminal sexual messages embedded in the ads, we will subconsciously make a connection with the products and ultimately purchase them. On page one of Chapter One titled “The Mass Media's Illusion of Reality,” he says

“This story is about subliminal perception and about the ways we think we think. In the concept of subliminal phenomena are included all those techniques now known to the mass media by which tens of millions of humans are daily massaged and manipulated without their conscious awareness. Key goes on the further state that “Every person reading this book has been victimized and manipulated by the use of subliminal stimuli directed into his unconscious mind by the mass merchandisers of media. The techniques are in widespread use by media, advertising and public relations agencies, industrial and commercial corporations and by the Federal government itself.” 

One reason knowing history is so important is because anyone who is familiar with history would be able to see in these ads the historically racially charged scenarios and dialogue that has been intentionally created subliminally in these ads. Again, I am not looking for you to think as I think; I am asking you to check each ad out for yourself. Each of the scenarios and dialogue in the four videos contain historically racially charged subliminal messages. Talk show hosts are constantly talking about the use of the “Race Card” and yet the race card is around us every day. Perhaps if Wilson Bryan Key were alive today he could write a book called Subliminal Racism; something to critically think about. As always I welcome your comments in the commentary section of the blog as well as your feedback by clicking on the red feedback box on the right side of your screen. I also invite you to follow The Critical Thinker on Twitter @thinkcritical01.