Life Lessons in a Movie: After Earth

WARNING: Totally biased review from a Will Smith fan!

After Earth came out this weekend. I have been looking forward to this movie since they first started playing the trailers. I think Will Smith is so very talented. I remember when I first seen/heard Parents Just Don't Understand on Yo!MTV Raps back in the 80's. It was sing-songy-sweet and innocent enough for my parent's to, ironically, understand. So here we are about 25 years after Parents Just Don't Understand. The Fresh Prince is now a father in real life, a husband, and largest donor of the New Village Leadership Academy. I love that he and wife Jada Pinkett are heavily invested in an elementary school and word is that they are looking to expand into high school. I quote their mission statement from their website:

The New Village Leadership Academy is dedicated to the cultivation of powerful, self-educating leaders - men and women of virtue, wisdom and courage. We are nurturing extraordinary thinkers who are capable of creating healthy, happy, purposeful lives - world citizens who inspire greatness in others and propel humankind toward the greater good.

Can there be a better Mission Statement than that? I would want all those things for my children. POWERFUL. Men and women of VIRTUE, WISDOM, COURAGE. EXTRAORDINARY THINKERS. PURPOSEFUL lives; world citizens who INSPIRE GREATNESS in others. I am amazed -- MOVED -- by their mission statement. Frankly, Smith & Pinkett's vision for the future is inspiring and is a perfect intro for the life lessons I learned in After Earth.

Actually, before I list the LIFE LESSONS I have to give some background information about the movie. I mentioned how talented Will Smith is earlier in this post. We can add to his list of accomplishments - DIRECTOR. According to IMDB, Will Smith did most of the directing while M. Night Shyamalan did the artistic work of camera positions and how a scene is composed, etc. Smith was also fully involved in the development of the screenplay and story line. Impressive! Will Smith never ceases to amaze me (I could probably do a full thesis on each of the movies he has appeared in). The movie is chock full of 1-liners that will probably be classics in a few decades but could actually be a guide on becoming our best selves collectively... right now!

So here's my list of lessons I've learned from the movie in my own personal affirmation. I'm not going to explain each of them or how I came to learn a lesson because that would spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it. For those who have seen the movie -- the lessons should spark a memory of the movie.

1. Fear is manufactured. Even in the face of danger, I will not let fear be my guide.
2. I will take deep breaths and ground myself in the earth to clear my mind.
3. I will allow all the good things that my parents have taught me be my guide especially when they are gone from my life.
4. I will never take for granted the beauty and magnificence of Mother Earth.
5. I am on my own journey and I can do hard things.
6. I will change the negative stories in my life, deal with them, put them to rest then charge full speed ahead..... NO FEAR!!!

Scientific Racism: The Eugenics of Social Darwinism

I absolutely love this documentary! I am writing my final paper in pursuit of my Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. The topic I have selected is Eugenics. I have done a decent amount of reading on the topic and just started perusing YouTube for videos on the subject.

This documentary sounds like it came out of my journals. The decimation of race based on the British empire and the emerging American empire of the modern era is mind boggling.

I will post portions of the paper. It turned out to be 11 pages so I will post each section as a post. Maybe you'll read it. Maybe you won't. All I want is to put the information out there.

Peace and Love...

Establishing....

I was sitting in an interview with a scholarship counselor for Kamehameha Schools. The counselor asked me what direction I'd be going in with my education. Up until that point, I had never thought about it in depth. I just thought that I'd go back to school, apply for the scholarship and make full use of the resources that are available. There is so much funding out there for people of Native Hawaiian ancestry through the Bishop Estate. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a member of the royal family before the overthrow, established a trust for the children of Hawai'i to provide for their educational welfare. The Bishop Estate is one of the largest, most wealthy estates in the world.

There I was sitting in the interview, scanning my mind for an answer, really wondering what I'd do with my education. Of all the infinite number of answers I could have given, I blurted out that I'd like to establish a Leadership Academy to educate kanaka maoli (aboriginal people of Hawai'i). I hadn't expected that the interview with the scholarship counselor would be so intense. However it forced me to formulate in my mind, within seconds, the driving force behind my desire to return to school. I've kicked around the idea of going to law school. I've experienced a certain amount of satisfaction and have displayed proficiency in reading and analyzing legal documents and figured that might be an avenue to pursue. I've thought about majoring in English due to my love of the written word. I've also thought of taking up History, so as to be able to influence future generations with real history, objective history. Even though I had thought about a major, the real application of it manifested itself in a simple blurb: I'D LIKE TO ESTABLISH A LEADERSHIP ACADEMY TO EDUCATE KANAKA MAOLI!

My mother is Samoan. Her language and culture are still intact in a way that never was for my Hawaiian father. I think of my father's generation as the "assimilated Hawaiian's". The language was effectively colonized out of Hawaiian society until the renaissance of Hawaiian culture in the 1970's. This renewed interest came on the heels of the successful voyage of the Hokule'a, a traditional Polynesian double-hulled canoe. The crew of the Hokule'a successfully navigated their way, in traditional Polynesian fashion, without the use of modern seafaring instruments. It would be many years after that maiden voyage before we would see a resurgence of the Hawaiian language.

The development of "immersion" schools began to take shape in the years following Hokule'a's historic feat. They were modeled after Aotearoa's (New Zealand) Maori Immersion program where Maori children would be totally immersed in the language of their ancestors. Hawai'i followed suit and developed a successful program that still exists today. Hawaiian used to be the official language of the State of Hawaii. I'm not sure if that is still the case. To hear it spoken in leisure today is an enormous feat, considering it was on the brink of extinction just 25 years ago.

I have to give the Department of Education in the State of Hawaii some credit for requiring the study of Hawaiian history in the public school system. You can expect to review the Hawaiian monarchy at the 4th grade level, the 7th grade, and the 11th grade. (I wonder if the Oklahoma school system requires the study of Native American history. Does anybody know?)

There are several immersion programs in Hawai'i beginning in pre-school and continuing all the way through high school and beyond. There is a highly developed Hawaiian Studies program at the University of Hawaii as well as BYU-Hawaii. Even with all these things in place, I felt there was a few components missing in influencing a generation of kanaka maoli. I would like to see LEADERS. Real leaders with the ability to reason within the context of their culture and moral human behavior. Philosophical leaders that esteemed themselves highly and would take full responsibility for teaching and perpetuating their values.

I have not fully developed the idea of the LEADERSHIP ACADEMY but I find that it might be something worth looking into. First, because it instantly sprang from my mouth when I was asked what I'd like to do with my education. Second, I think it is a worthy goal to pursue in contributing to the preservation of my ancestral heritage. I love Hawai'i!

I believe we are each placed on this earth for specific reasons, to serve humanity with our unique talents and abilities. I feel privileged to be made up of the DNA that connects me to Polynesia. I feel such great pride to have a degree of melanin in my skin that makes me not-white. May the Creator find purpose in me to do HIS work and not mine.


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**Bernice Pauahi Bishop Photo Credit
**Canoe Photo Credit

College Education, For Me?

Every Thursday, I tune into The Pacific Eye Radio Show broadcasting out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Before moving to Alabama, the time difference in Hawai'i didn't allow me to tune in regularly. Now that I can, I do!

Last week's show was about leadership. I had the chance to call in and share some of my thoughts on the subject. Actually, I called in reaction to Richard (the co-host) discussing western style, university education.

Up until this point in my life, I haven't really been interested in "academia". Immediately following high school, I flew out to L.A. and hung out for a couple months. I had received a one-year tuition scholarship for the Fall semester at a university at home so I left L.A. and went back to Hawai'i. I wanted to try my luck at it even though I had known for quite some time that "conventional education", like the kind that is dispensed in public high schools, was just not for me. I failed miserably in my first semester of college. I had a tough time adjusting to the social differences and I didn't really feel like more education would do me any good.

I entered the work force as soon as I started college. I was working 40-hours at the local grocery store making more money than I have ever made in my life. Let's do the math: $12/ hour, 15 years ago, and I was just 18 and no bills?! Yeah, I was doing WELLLLL!! All of a sudden there was no need to attend college when I was making enough money and then some to live quite comfortably, even in Hawai'i.

Fast forward through the years and my resume includes several supervisory positions. One at a lucrative, brand name, timeshare operation in Waikiki. Another at the University that I had flunked out of when I was 18. I'm still not a college graduate and I'm quite confident in my marketability even without the diploma/receipt.

I share all of this to say that Richard (the co-host of The Pacific Eye Radio Show) hit it on the money in the radio show that I called into. He said that he attended a leadership conference in Hawai'i. (This is me generalizing/ paraphrasing) The mentors there said that we must go into "their" world, use "their" system, take what you need from it, and leave to help our people. I am totally WITH THAT! Can you dig it?

So, here I am, into semester #2 of my attempt at a college education. Not only am I better equipped to handle the curriculum, I'm also much more mature, much more hungry, and have an intense purpose. I intend to help raise my people from obscurity into the light and together we will LIGHT UP THE DARKNESS!