A Quote by Jesse Jackson
There's a full-court press to put down an uprising around Ferguson, but no preparation for lifting up the people there.
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The coffers are full of money and equipment for the Ferguson Police and the Missouri National Guard to put down a potential uprising, but no money for actually uplifting the people of Ferguson, St. Louis, Missouri and around the nation.
Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports... basketball. I use it because you're naive if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN.
Interestingly, if you write preparation out of history, leadership and preparation, the building of confidence among people who are exploited, you've actually methodologically written out the Communists because, when an uprising takes place, you don't necessarily see red flags everywhere.
Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.
You can either have one guy lifting a billion pounds by himself, and it takes many years of planning and preparation - or you can have a billion people, each lifting one pound, and it takes a mere moment. This is the power of unity.
I believe you have to learn how to win. And that just doesn't come from going out on the basketball court and playing. That comes from hours and hours of preparation, preparation before that game, preparation for the other team you are playing, mental preparation.
My strength did not come from lifting weights. My strength came from lifting myself up when i was knocked down.
I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flowers. I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars.
Spend your life lifting people up, not putting them down.
Every single day, entrepreneurship has highs and lows, and you need to feel like you have a community around you. That is insanely important - to have a community of people around you lifting you up and who really know you.
My parents put me in sports when I was 5 years old, and they put my sisters in sports. So that's what I grew up with, that mentality: "It's OK to want to be the best. Aggression is good." You have to have that little walk on the court or down the track. I love to put that into my female characters, because I don't think enough girls are taught that at a young age.
When at length we tire of putting people down, this self-inflicted fatigue can give way to the invigorating calisthenics of lifting people up.
Basketball is a full court game, so every drill must be done full court.
When journalists and politicians speak of a dwindling middle class that's under economic assault and a poor community that's getting bigger, they're talking about Ferguson. Independent of the racial demographics and dynamics of Ferguson, Missouri, there's a 'Ferguson' near you.
We need a full-court press on personal protection. We need to be able to protect ourselves.
Bipolar disorder is so swept under the rug as a nation and, I think especially, by black people. It's not our culture to go get therapy. 'Give them medicine for what?' We put people in court, put them in court again, versus really paying attention to what it is they are going through.
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