Refining Self Through Service

i was blessed to grow up in a very

interesting time i grew up in the 60s

a time that is a lot like it is now we

had the civil rights movement we had the

vietnam

war we had a cultural revolution marches

and protests were about as common

as every day pretty much like it is

today

families friends racists

the entire nation was divided against

itself and there were very few people

who were bridging the gulf

i was also an anomaly i was a black kid

living in a black neighborhood some

might call it to ghetto

it was really a tight-knit working-class

poor family enclave

i was the only black male in my high

school for the entire four years

and for the for two years of that time

there was only one other

african-american person and that was a

woman who transferred in

in our junior year now neither the

people in my high school

nor all the people in my neighborhood

were totally comfortable with my

personal situation

at the end of the day however i was left

kind of questioning

why am i in this odd circumstance

i often wonder do i have to choose to be

on one side of this line

or the other as a result

i was fluent i learned to kind of roll

with the circumstances and the

situations as they arose but at the core

i actually kind of knew who i was

i was certainly a hippie i wore the

clothes

i sing the songs i was a good band mate

lead singer and a popular band and open

for jefferson airplane

i was a good and curious student didn’t

study much but somehow got by pretty

well

but i was also a black person living in

a wide world

i knew i wanted to be engaged somehow to

try to resolve some of the issues that

were floating around during that time

frame politics was an option but i not

one that i thought about seriously

my question was how could i actually

accomplish something that was meaningful

that would help solve some of the

problems that we had in front of us

but before i could get to that i had to

solve one little problem and that was

i was about to get drafted every week

i call the draft board and find out what

number they’re on

when they started getting close to my

number i knew i had to do something and

i knew it was time to

move on so i became a joiner i joined

the marine corps

i joined the marine corps because my

father had been a marine and

like a lot of parents you know who talk

to you about the music that you listen

to remember the statements uh that’s not

real music the music i grew up with was

real music

well when my father talked about the

marine corps he talked about the old

core the core that was hard rough and

turned people into rocks

but i wanted to prove that i could do

what he did so i enlisted for four years

because

i i was told and i learned that by

enlisting for four years

i cut my chances of going to vietnam

after being drafted for two years by 50

percent

and face it they have the best looking

uniforms anyhow so i wanted to look

sharp

but i found that the marine corps was

one of the most foundational things that

took place in my life

i learned there what was truly important

you know there’s something about being

faced with life-and-death decisions

life-and-death issues that kind of makes

all those other differences seem

somewhat trivial

after all who really cares whether

you’re jewish or

catholic or protestant black or white

whatever who cares when there’s bullets

flying

and you really have to do something to

protect yourself and live

at that point in time all you really

care about

is this the person in the foxhole next

to you gonna watch my back

are they able to shoot straight are they

willing to do

whatever is necessary to overcome

if i’m hurt are they going to help me

because if i’m

there in their place and they’re hurt

i’m sure going to try to help them

when you have those types of decisions

the issues of race religion geography

republican democrat all of those things

they become as nothing

they don’t mean anything because they’re

not on the hierarchy of priorities at

that time

i also learned one of the most

foundational things in my life a very

short slogan

improvise adapt and overcome

because in the marine corps we knew that

you could have the world’s best plan

but once the bullets and the bombs

started falling those plans went out the

door and you had to improvise

you had to adapt to the change

circumstances and you had to overcome

the adversity

i added that to the other great saying

that i learned in my life i learned from

my father

you can’t go wrong by doing right

very simple thing but between those two

things

those were the things that guided me

through some of the toughest parts of my

life

to get by when things weren’t working

out the way that i wanted to i learned

to improvise adapt and

overcome when i had a choice to make

should i do what i want to do should i

do what i should do should i do what

needs to be done

you can’t go wrong by doing right

and one of the things that i learned is

that when you are in the service of

others

and when you are dedicating your life to

someone else

for some short period of time that is

what is meant

by living so one of the things in my

the biggest professional honor i ever

had was to be mayor of

kansas city i learned during that time

that the ability of government to solve

chronic problems with sustainable

solutions is really limited

government is really meant to deliver

services to protect

to make sure the streets work the water

flows

the trees are trimmed taxes are

collected

pick up the trash shovel the snow those

are the things that government is best

at but government is called upon by the

citizenry to do more

government is often looked at as a place

to solve social problems

social problems are much more emotional

much more individual based in religion

often

government is not well suited to do that

however

there are people who can work directly

with individuals

directly with causes be on the ground

engage with others in some way in some

direct way

and have a direct impact on the lives of

the people that you’re engaged with

now people often ask me what was the

most significant accomplishment during

my time

as mayor during my time the thing i

thought was most significant

was our focus on education and we focus

on education because it is foundational

to the things of that will help bring

hope and

opportunity and change to an

individual’s life

so where to start how about at the

beginning

right now it seems that we always attack

problems when they arise and at the end

what we really should be doing is

attacking them at the beginning so they

never rise in the first place

we should be dedicating more money more

resources more time more

talent more effort to the ages of zero

to five in our children why because 85

percent of their brains are formed by

the time that they’re three

at the age of three children born in

poverty have a 30 million word

gap between their counterparts born in

more middle class

or affluent circumstances 30 million

words

kids born in poverty with that 30

million word gap often enter

kindergarten at the age of five

two years behind how can you be two

years behind

anybody at the age of five

what do we do about that how do we help

what are the services we can bring to

people that will help change their lives

how about quality child care that will

help parents

certainly now quality child care would

be helpful wouldn’t it

we engage in a systems thinking approach

because quality child care not only

helps the parents

it helps the economy because then a

group that is

largely overlooked in this type of a

circumstance women

women are the ones who are often stuck

with the issue of if somebody has to

stay home to take care of the children

who’s it going to be it’s usually the

woman not the man

if somebody has to sacrifice a career

for family it’s usually the woman not

the man

but with quality child care a woman can

pursue her dreams

pursue her career get out in the

workforce and do the things that are

important to her

just like any man and we can do that

with quality child care

quality pre-k to help eliminate that 30

million word gap

to prepare kids to enter kindergarten on

an equal basis

to give them the basic tools that they

need so that they are reading

proficiently by the age of three

by the third grade because up to third

grade you’re learning to read

from third grade on your reading to

learn and it’s very important that you

hit that third grade proficiency marker

because one thing that we do know kids

that are not proficient readers as they

enter the fourth grade

75 percent never catch up the most

prevalent reading level in prison is

fourth grade

all sorts of people start to fall slowly

off of a long

slow sloping cliff at third grade

because of reading

one of the things that led me to the

educational issue was the fact that

i have children myself my parents stress

education

as if it was the golden grill and for me

it was actually

but the other thing about it is is that

as the mayor i was charged with

representing the interest not just the

immediate interest but the long-term

interests

of 480 000 people we needed people who

would be able to

get into the workforce in an

increasingly technological world

and as i looked around and saw what was

going on it became increasingly clear to

me that that simply wasn’t

happening and i also looked around and

found that there were whole segments of

our population

poor brown black women that were being

left out of the economic

engines of this country so we had to

start looking at working long term

finding a sustainable solution to a

chronic problem

now we did that with an interplay with a

public-private partnership if you will

of government

and private parties foundations people

who were willing to volunteer time

to spend time with children we recognize

that by doing so we would have an impact

on the long-term chronic issues of crime

poverty earnings lifetime longevity

opportunity tribalism

education is the way that a lot of us

for the first time in our lives

come into contact with people who aren’t

like us

so the more education you can get the

more exposure you have the more exposure

you have the more open-minded you should

become

the more open-minded you become

the better you are able to accept

differences

and in this world today the ability to

accept differences

is absolutely crucial

it was only when i truly learned the

value of serving others that i was able

to refine

self now i like me

i don’t think i’m an evil person i’m not

a perfect person by any stretch but i

like me

and i recognize that the me that i like

today

is only here because of the experiences

i had yesterday the day before

years before that i wouldn’t trade any

of those things

i don’t look back with regrets i look

back sometimes with fondness and i look

back and say gee i wish i had handled

that better

but at the end of the day but for those

things that i did and didn’t do

i wouldn’t be here today i also found

out something

when i was serving others i got more

from

than i gave to the real insight to me

is where myself became more refined is

in knowing

that there are basic goals basic needs

and wants that we

all have regardless of who we are

and regardless of how of those things

that we would use

to separate us and make us different

we’re more likely to meet

the goals and the needs of people and

the once

if we understand the free concept of

self-help

and her service to others working with

government we can find ways to

achieve the refinement itself through

service

takes place when we work with others

when we learn to see ourselves through

their eyes

and when we see and when they see us

through theirs

that’s when we learn who we are and

that’s

how we learn our place in the community

of citizens thank you very much