This week in seminar class was very interesting and informative to me. Dr. Cain Hope Felder gave us great insight to freedom, justice, and some history on Sojourner Truth. Dr. Cain explained how Jesus is the epitomizer of Freedom. According to Dr. Cain, “Freedom is the opportunity to make choices.” He stressed that we as human have the power to make a difference, just some are given to much power and abuse their authority. Also, “ Justice is about things being balance and fair” says Dr. Felder. I was never aware of the true history that lies within the bible. He gave us a few biblical verse to follow up if we were really interested in understanding the truths of the bible and Traveling Biblical Waters. Sojourner Truth is something that I heard of but new truly understood it. It has been one of those things that in high school they expected me to know but never took the time to explain and teach me. Dr. Felder went into great depth of the corruption that is in within the church. The truth is, the teachings on the bible has change for what is was when it was originated. We have to take time to research and understand things for ourselves. Dr Cain also stated that, “We are the people the day before yesterday and potential to be people of the day after tomorrow.” With this I have to take the initiative to be all that I can be and not settle for great. I have to strive to be better than what I am. There shouldn’t be any limits.

I had never heard of Sojourner Truth until the latest class session. I don't know whether or not I should be disappointed in myself, or in the schools in which I've been educated. I began to doubt if my right to knowledge and the truth had been satisfied in the past. I wonder how many other things my schools had trivialized and ignored in the history of my people. This should not be acceptable, history should be looked at with the same critical eye that science is. In science there is no dogma, only observations and the conclusions born for those observation. In history however, the winning man is the one who writes the tale. History has no method of discovering the truth as science does. The abuse and distortion in history is rampant even in the churches, a place that people go to and expect nothing but the truth. The actual history in the bible is dropped in favor of a lot of feel-good lines that are taken out of context. The sacrifice of Christ is often lauded over, as well as his position as lord and savior. The pastor emphasizes the need of subjecting yourself to him. Why is it that swearing servitude to the man is often held as more important than the lessons that he had taught? Why is it that the bible as a whole is, for some reason, immune to the scrutiny, analysis, and criticism? This session has reminded me once again that it is important to set out and learn the truth on my own instead of relying on the words of others.

Ronald W. Walters, a political activists for African-Americans, wrote a book called Black Presidential Politics in America: A Strategic Approach. In this book he makes the case that Blacks in America have a substantial effect in presidential elections. For example, he points out that the Black vote had provided the victory for president Carter. Walters also shows that Blacks have a great potential to influence the House of Representatives. He also presents ways to further increase the amount of power Blacks have in the political process.

In his book, Walters often talks about two reoccurring political strategies used by Black Elected Officials (BEOs) and groups focused upon African-American issues: Dependent-Leverage and Independent Leverage. The Former strategy is the attempt to influence the political atmosphere by gaining access to an existing party and changing the party platform. Logically, if Blacks were to lend their support to a party, said party would be more than willing to listen to the needs and desires of the Black community. In most of the cases written about in the book, it is the Democratic party that was the beneficiary of the Black vote.

This stradegy, while providing some great and much needed advantages, was not without fault. The Black vote was in danger of being a guarantee for the Democratic party. As such, less effort was put into appealing to the Black community. The shift to more conservative practices had also impeded the prevalence of Black issues in politics.

Independent-Leverage, on the other hand, seeks to become relevant by rewarding or punishing candidates as necessary. Instead of unwavering support of the Democratic Party, blacks would have a more neutral position between the parties. This would force the Democrates to make an effort to win the Black vote, and Republicans would see that Blacks are not only a potential swing-vote, but are also viable constituents rather than certain opponents.

Walters himself favors the second strategy as the former has not proven to be very effective in making African-American issues be taken seriously. The later, on the other hand, brings the community's voice to the forfront and allows for BEOs to become powerful leaders in the community and in higher offices.

We Are All Unique

In this week's lecture by Dr. Georgia Dunston, she explained to us that there was a loss of Abandonment, Dismemberment, and Reawakening. She gave insight to what it is that makes each individual unique. The Human Genome, is what gives us our creative edge. I was always aware that, humans are very creative, but never aware of the actual force that gives each of us our creativity. The Human Genome is the most powerful source of knowledge. Dr. Dunston says, " We as humans never stop learning." She went on to inform us that we are the "Problem-Solving"generation. The knowledge that we gain each day, gives us power to overcome any obstacle that lies ahead of us. The genome allows our generation to expand upon our creativity not just as individual but as a whole. Einstein's E=MC^2 equation, is not just important in mathematics but just as important as a necessity to life. E=eternal energy that is created from our individual genomes which enables us to give light into new ideas. Most of all, the knowledge that we gain give us wisdom. Th more knowledge that we gain, the more wiser we become. In order for our generation to advance, we have to rely solely on the genetics given by our elders.

The Human Genome: The Keys to our Past and Future

I found Dr. Georgia M. Dunsten’s lecture to be exciting, informative, and enlightening. I learned that she is the director of the human genome center. She also works at Howard University as a physics and an astronomy professor. I found out that we are connected to our past through our blood, that the human experience is recorded into our Genome. all of humanities past triumphs and struggles are encoded in our DNA. we are inextricably bound to the past, yet we are not ruled by it.

Before her presentation I never knew the difference between her profession and geneticists. geneticists just look at certain parts of our genes when researching instead of at the whole genome, they think that they can take it apart to fix the problems that plague us. what really interested me was all the medical benefits that can come from researching our genome sequence. how we can find out which medicines will work better for a particular persons. the effects of these possible discoveries would result in more personalized health-care and less allergic reactions to medicines, and more preventative care.

Another thing that stuck out from her presentation was the effect of thoughts and words on not only yourself and on the world around you. since we are all energy beings, the energy that we put into our words has a profound effect on the world around us.

Her lecture was not just insightful, it was also empowering. she kept reminding us of how unique each person in this room is unique, and how no one in the world can offer what we can. I left Freshman seminar feeling empowered and hopeful.

In this weeks freshman seminar class, we discussed how Egypt is not just the first great civilization but how it relates to our African culture. I never took the time out to connect to my heritage and know about the truth of my culture. We went through many examples that explain where we have originated from, the ways we have learned, and how Egyptian culture has powered us to the generation that we are now.

From the presentation by Dr. Carr, I learned that the origins of our African culture equals humanity, intellectual work, and cultural unity. If you were to trace back to our roots, it would explain that our culture was meant to learn and grow as a people. It wouldn’t show any trace of one person succeeding while others struggled to survive one day at a time.

Learning and wisdom was the goal that has been traced back to our Egyptian ancestors. Culturally it explains that leaning is collective, experimental, incremental, and is measured by the rites of passage. This serves as the groundwork for our schoolwork and how it has cultivated our leaning skills.

I realize, that you must first understand where you have originated from in order to move forward with history. It’s extremely important to reserve the ancient history of our heritage. Not taking it for granted as many our generations today are doing. This has inspired me to not only seek knowledge and understanding for myself but to also spread the works to the upcoming generations.

I always thought of Egypt as the first great civilization, but I didn't know how much it contributed to the other great civilizations of the world, mainly the greeks. Much of the greeks discoveries from religion, toArchitecture, to art, to math and science you can trace back to Egyptian culture and inititive.

The greek god hermes was originally derived from an Egyptian god they just changed the name and the image of the god.

Egyptian architecture was the first to use collumns which is why it still stands tall today. their monuments have lasted for thousands of years, such as their pyramids, the sphinx's and many obelisk's. which were stolen from the lands of Egypt and given as gifts. looking at the architecture you can see the similarities between Egyptian and Greek architecture.

If you look at art in the first 100 years of the Greek empire you can see similarities between theirs and Egyptian art.

Astronomy is where egypt made many of their big discoveries, the pyrimids are set up to correspond with differnt positions of the sun, and over the picture of the scribe is an instrument that was used to measure the positions of the stars.

the Greeks say many times that the land of Egypt is where they go to get educated but they never sited their work. the Egyptians passed on knowledge to the Greeks, and from them it was passed on to the rest of the world.

The True African Experience

In this week’s class we discussed how Africa is the origin of all things. I learned about how important it is to connect to our roots and learn about our heritage. We looked at examples of how our African ancestry is being preserved through the efforts of scholars and researchers. Overall what I took from this class is that I am a part of a very rich heritage and culture.

From the presentation about Egyptian society I learned that the basis of almost everything comes from our Egyptian ancestors. The Egyptians are responsible for giving us many different intellectual ideas such as language, math, and astronomy. Without the Egyptians we wouldn’t have most of the modern concepts we take for granted everyday.

I learned that it is important to preserve our heritage and keep treasures that document the journey our people have been through. By keeping these elements of our past sacred and treasured are able to look back on the struggles that our ancestors have been through and progress towards a brighter future.

Our ancestors worked to get us to the point that we are at now. We must continue to achieve intellectual excellence. By creating our own history and becoming apart of a heritage that goes back to the beginning of time we place ourselves in a position to be prominent members of a culturally rich people.

Inheritance

I had never truly understood the depth of my antecessors in Egypt. I knew that the Egyptians had built one of the greatest ancient civilizations. I knew that they were the vanguards of knowledge in the world west of India. I knew, but I never understood. I had never recognized that I am of their blood. I had never considered Egypt and everything they had built to be apart of my heritage until now.

I suppose that a few of us would take this as a justification of black superiority. Personally, I don’t think that superiority was the goal of our ancestors, and it shouldn’t be our goal in this day and age. One of the three important facets of learning is the student. It is the student that will gain knowledge and pass it on to others. My ancestors not only passed on what they learned to their own kin, but to other peoples as well. They understood that knowledge shouldn’t be stowed away in secret like a cache of precious metals and jewels. It’s meant to be shared with others; family, friends, even total strangers are worthy recipients.

Embracing Egypt as a part of my heritage was one of the proudest moments of my life. I’ve never been one for ancestral arrogance though, even now. I have great reverence for the Egyptians, and I acknowledge what they have done for all civilization, but I don’t like to put myself on a pedestal upon the accomplishments of others. Rather that boast about my people, I’d rather take up a few of their cultural practices: to revere, seek, use, and pass on knowledge to the next generation.  Personally, I will do all that I can to learn as much about them and other African cultures in the future.

Our Mission; Entry 0

My name is Denzel Wright, and this is a blog belonging to myself and my fellow Howard University students, Robert Sykes, Joseph Daniels, John Amara F. Walters, and Charderch Patterson. We, along with other students in our class, will blog about the weekly classes that will introduce us to the Collage of Arts and Sciences and teach us to use our resources to the fullest potential. We hope to use this Blog to share our ideas and experiences with the rest of the world as proud students of Howard University.