Diddy doesn’t owe UCLA a dime!

Dumar Paden — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 00:29:50 +0000

By Dumar Paden

ENOUGH!

Throughout the past few days, in the news, and throughout social networking sites, people have been upset regarding Justin Combs, son of Sean “Diddy” Combs, getting a full athletic scholarship to play football at UCLA. The perception is that because of Diddy’s fame and wealth, he should be forced to pay his son’s tuition or at least give a donation to the university.

NONSENSE!

Quite frankly, Diddy doesn’t owe UCLA a dime. The problem is when people hear the word scholarship, they only think about need based financial aid. Athletic scholarships are given based ONLY on your ability to play sports at a high level. If Justin does not perform on the field, he will lose his scholarship. Its that’s simple.

Diddy’s money has nothing to do with this. In athletics, nobody cares who your father is, whether they make 300 million or 3 dollars. College football is a multi-billion dollar industry and schools such as UCLA have one purpose only, and that is to win. If Justin was not a very good football player, he would not be granted a full ride. PERIOD. It’s also worth noting that Combs did, in fact, receive similar offers from other top Division One schools such as Virginia, Illinois, and Iowa, according to ESPN.

If you want to be mad at the Combs family, take that energy and direct it to the system of college athletics where schools make hundreds of millions of dollars and pay their coaches millions despite increasing tuition for students every year. In addition, several schools recruit athletes to their institutions and could care less if they leave with degrees. This is seen with the dismal graduation rates of many top athletic programs. The system itself is a joke.

Justin graduated high school with a 3.75 GPA in addition to his athletic abilities. If anything, we should be applauding the young man for handling his business in the classroom in addition to the football field and hope that academic success can continue in his university studies. Instead of wasting our time worrying about Justin Combs, let’s do what we can to ensure other students who need more of our energy have an opportunity to get into college and excel.

About Dumar Paden

As a leadership speaker/trainer, educator, and social activist, Dumar Paden is committed to help develop a new generation of leaders designed to create sustainable positive change. His expertise covers topics such as organizational leadership, cultural diversity, youth empowerment, college readiness/success and personal performance development.

Out of Touch: Stop Dismissing Black Youth

Dumar Paden — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 01:38:57 +0000

By Dumar Paden

Hundreds of conferences, cable news specials, and panels have tried time and again to answer this age old question… What is wrong with our youth? There are many answers to this question but few tend to tackle another important issue at hand which is the distinctive cultural & generational gap between older blacks and the youth, especially in lower income communities. Due to this generation gap, black youth are often dismissed as uncivilized, sagging pants wearing lunatics. A failure to bridge this gap may impact new and fresh black leadership for years to come.

Take a walk in the hood and ask some random teens who their role models are. Sure, you’ll get a few who may name President Obama but the majority of their responses will be athletes, entertainers, or most will state that they don’t have any role models at all. Sorry to say, but Obama’s election to the presidency did not create the widespread excitement amongst the youth that most had expected or hoped for. This may seem like a blasphemous statement but the fact is that many simply don’t relate to a President Obama or similar figures that are seen as the model of black success. Many youth are living and thinking about day to day survival, not about graduating from Harvard Law School. Youth relate more to athletes and entertainers because they are people who look like them, speak their language, lived their struggle and provided a blueprint to get out of the ghetto. This is not to say that there are not successful black college graduates, doctors, lawyers, and business people that rose from poverty because there are many. The primary question is how many of these individuals willingly try to connect and give back to our youth population while still maintaining a level of authenticity?

How does all of this affect the future of black leadership? Our liberation movement has always been youth led with support from elders who were able to pass down a rich sense of history, guidance, and inspiration. The cultural and generational gap has eliminated this dynamic which has created an environment where there are young people using their brilliant leadership skills without any guidance or sense of who they are. We need more mentors to help guide our youth so they can use their natural leadership skills to create positive change.

Without building a base of young, smart, and dedicated soldiers, our progress will continue to be minimal at best. Time and time again, we look to recruit, market, and showcase the same mediocre prototypes to be leaders in politics, education, business, etc. There are numerous young people who have the ability to lead and want to make a difference but they often feel like they don’t have a voice, let alone a seat at the table. Next time you attend a panel, conference, or town hall meeting look around the room and you’ll notice how everyone looks and acts the same. We can not continue to be afraid of black youth and dismiss them as lost causes as they bring value to the table as well.

As long as we continue to dismiss those who talk, look, and act differently than what is considered to be mainstream and safe, our community will continue to be out of touch and the lifeline to future leadership will be disconnected.

Your Black Bloggers » Dumar Paden

Diddy doesn’t owe UCLA a dime!

About Dumar Paden

Out of Touch: Stop Dismissing Black Youth

About Dumar Paden