One should know that blessings and silver linings come when you least suspect them – even for poets, authors and essayists. Giving credit where it’s due often can make the difference at the expense of guilt that shouldn’t be harbored when it’s time to acknowledge the right thing to do. Time and circumstance will render us at times to be the masters and mistresses of our destinies, especially being in the right place for the harbinger of something good! Stay with me a bit as I share with you a poignant situation that truly made my day.

After years of listening to frustrated Floridians beg for solutions to the ills facing black men and boys, a state panel finally is proposing a network of mentoring programs and more study to spark economic and educational change. Family literacy and mentoring to young black boys has been part of an accountability regimen that I embraced way back before I finished school. The programming that the state has now is to prevent boys from dropping out of school and winding up in Florida’s prisons. Enter Joshua Blanding…Joshua is a 12-year old and the product of a broken home which caused him to run away from it numerous times. Now he is a ward of the state and susceptible to the foster home care system that is fraught with problematic issues that has failed him. Joshua is neither the brightest nor an ‘A’ student, and has had problems scoring adequately on his assessment testing modules. He regularly skips school and at the moment is falling further back in his classroom work. I first noticed him hanging around my tutoring and mentoring sessions with the boys that are under my jurisdiction. One day he approached me with a book under his arms and asked me, “Sir, can you explain to me what this book is all about…I like the cover of it but I can’t understand it.” At that point I looked at him long and hard and saw within those haunting and pleading eyes a child that needed me.

I knew too that Joshua, and perhaps like many other youngsters trapped in a dilemma, were looking for answers that begs for some type of ‘mea culpa’ to be rendered by those in prominent places in the system to wrought change. Change can mean giving our young boys a better chance to succeed with more programs like what is being introduced at the opening of this essay. In my opinion it’s the result of trans-generational discrimination in our society, and the lack of familial relationship between fathers being in place to hold dominion over their families. South Florida’s black communities much like that of others across the nation have been struggling to stop and implode black-on-black violence. Doing so would communicate a sense of love, and improve the economic and educational future of children from impoverished homes where fathers often are absent. Joshua is a product of the system. It was easy for me to take that book and give him insight to it, and in the process articulate a much better meaning to his idea of interpretation. What really gave my initiation to this situation more clarification was after I questioned him with the question: “What would it mean for you to get this understanding?” And what he said floored me! He told me succinctly that there were others like him that may benefit from what was given to him by me! I thought about what we go through daily living the life as writers trying to be heard through words, wit, and the wisdom we seek. This writer’s life I speak of takes on occasional twists and turns attempting to navigate space for legitimacy for the humanities. Well, at least in my life, and Joshua has made a point that I couldn’t ignore.

We all have saviors and shinning white knights lurking on horizons just waiting to give assistance. When Joshua approached I was teaching a class while being down a bit trying to put a few sentences together for a short story; I drew a blank and just couldn’t come up with anything tangible. A few of my colleagues aware and a bit concerned about my state steered clear of me, save for this brave young man who only wanted someone to read to him. What is your saving grace…and who made YOUR day? Joshua diligently led me back to his peers, which were a foster home full of children his age. I went through the proper channels and got the chance not only to read to them, but have initiated a writing club there…And the book that Joshua wanted me to give him understanding to? The Mis Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson!