My baccalaureate service was today

It's a religious ceremony that immediately precedes my actual commencement on Sunday. This is a ceremony that is described as religious in nature with symbols of Jesus all about with either a picture of his body on a cross or (something I learned in my very last semester at Morehouse) his initials in Greek. An interesting highlight was a chant by a Bhuddist. It was somewhat confusing and different and it seemed to go on forever. It wasn't like it took too long but it seemed like he was repeating himself once too often until he slowed down indicating that he was finishing, finally.

Our speaker was a pastor from Los Angeles, CA billed as a minister to the stars. Well Los Angeles is largely home to the entertainment industry, it's bound to happen and even those stars needs some spiritual guidance.

Well typically I don't often like to listen to preachers. There are various reasons for this, perhaps I just hear the preaching style so often that I'm not always impressed. Of course that doesn't mean he didn't have a good message.

Morehouse Men will make up only part of 18% of black people with degrees. This may include anyone who goes to an HBCU especially since Spelman and Clark Atlanta are in the same area. If you really break up the numbers then also of concern are those who don't graduate within 4 to 6 years. Especially tracked if you're an alumni of the Chicago Public Schools.

His point may well have been that we're a rare breed even now, especially the fact that we as black people, well nevermind being black males since we're hard to find on our nation's college campuses, are truly a rare breed. Unfortunate but surely there are many reasons for this such as little or no support from friends or family, going to bad schools that fail to prepare them for that step, or it's even financial. That is worth some academic study as well.

Our baccalaureate speaker, himself a grad from the AUC as an alumna from ITC, mentioned the plight of Africa talked up President Obama as setting the standard for leadership and humanitarianism. He sees our role as "African-Americans" to become to our "ancestral homeland" what the Jewish people are to Israel. No one disagrees with that as Africa isn't often protrayed as being in good shape. However perhaps we can do things to be sure that African nations can become participants in the 21st Century world with a free people who are able to cast a ballot without fear of retribution or perhaps even not as a slave to the former colonizers. They probably are to some extent.

Anyway it was a very nice service that I had today. Would I have gotten this on any other university? I feel like I wouldn't have, but the end is near. Finally.

You know I started this blog as a student and now where can this blog go now that I'm no longer a student here. Well I'm now a graduate, a Morehouse Man with all the prestige and priviledge thereof. It was a very long time coming, but I'm glad I'm there.