Hip-Hop and ballroom dancing collide in Take the Lead, opening April 7th everywhere. But you don't have to be a dancer to take the lead -- check out how these teens take the lead in their own lives.

I Stopped Following Friends and Became A Leader

7 Comments » March 27, 2006

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When I first came to high school I was shy and insecure. This caused me to be easily influenced by people who I found were not really my friends. On top of that, these people were not positive.

Two years later, in my junior year some classmates of mine told me about the YMCA leaders club. I came to the meeting and liked what I saw. The YMCA leaders club is a national organization that builds leadership through team-building activities, leadership training, and community service.

Within the first three months of me being there we organized a community service activity where we would teach softball to elementary school kids. After several calls we got through to an elementary school on the east side that was connected to the YMCA and we went twice a week and taught them the basics of throwing, catching, hitting, running, etc.

This helped me to build my confidence and taught me how to take the lead.

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Comments

Our black community needs more leaders. It's sad that all the youth has to look up to are athletes, musicians and gang-bangers. Everybody has an opinion but nobody wants to step up and be the one to actually do something about it. We are clearly dying off at a much faster rate than our counterparts. It would be nice to say that we don't need leaders like NAS said in one of his songs, but the truth of the matter is that the social conditions that have plagued our people for hundreds of years have put us at such a disadvantage mentally and financially that it's going to take some serious planning and leadership ability to bring people together on the same wavelength mentally to even discuss tackling our social position. It is so sad now that our people are just content with the way things are. There is such a thing as mental slavery, and a large part of our society are victims of it. We went from being the greatest civilization ever in Africa to the bottom of the totem pole here in Amerikkka. This is not a problem that effects only some of us. This effects all of us, and the sooner we all realize that, the faster we can take steps to solving this problem. I love my black people more than anything in this world, but we all need to stop playing the victim, step up, become leaders, organize and get on the right track to changing our status in this country. After all, we did build it, we should be the ones enjoying it's splendor.

Posted by CR March 28, 2006 12:29 PM

Good thing you decide to take control. Only Bitch Niggaz allow other dumb niggas to run them.

Posted by gully son March 28, 2006 05:02 PM

Thats cool. We need more people like you that helps out the community.

peace

Posted by Rosebud March 28, 2006 11:35 PM

i used to me a Y camp leader during the summer, for me it was really just a job for cash at first but the kids made it really fun. i remember some of the organizers did a similar thing with softball and the elementray schools kids, kind of like a head start to Pop Warner. i didn't thikn much of of it then but when you think about it, a lot of black kids really never learn all that much about the game of baseball, as compared to basketball and football if it werent for these programs.

Posted by sandiluv March 29, 2006 02:48 AM

It is a beautiful thing to see a young black male doing something positive . May God bless u .

Posted by Malika March 29, 2006 03:31 AM

That's some good stuff right there. More positivity, less negativity.

Peace.

Posted by The One March 29, 2006 07:43 AM

I'M GOING TO BE A COUNSELOR MYSELF THIS SUMMER, I HOPE TO DO SOMETHING SIMILAR. THX!

Posted by jARL aGE April 10, 2006 03:52 AM

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