#9

This week, preparing for class it was similar to most weeks. I read through the speech several times to make sure I had a thorough grasp of what she was saying and one more time before class on Tuesday to refresh my memory since the piece wasn’t long. After reading the speech, I went through the page for this week. I just realized I rarely ever do the assignments in my journals and usually just do it in my notes, on a random document, or just in my head. I’m going to make a conscious effort to add that before the end of this. Preparing to write this journal has been a little more difficult than usual because even as I type this I have no clue what direction I want to go in, when usually by this point I have several different ideas about what I would like to talk about.

I loved this piece being picked for a reading for the class because it is vastly different than the other pieces we have read and brought it back to real life. Not saying that all of the others weren’t real-life situations. Speaking on the weeks I participated in because I did miss a reading or few..but while the Normal Heart was speaking on real-life situations it was still a fictional story with fictional characters. Bring it back to an actual person that is also a known leader so I am able to place the characteristic we’ve been talking about over the weeks to a face helped me gain a deeper understanding of leadership because I am able to connect it the information from class to the person more simply than the other characters from the stories which are also new information for the most part, but I think both are great for my understanding of leadership.

In this speech, Ida B. Wells talks about how Love for Humanity is the more important principle when it comes to true leadership and listing other requirements of a quality leader that all fall under the love for humanity category: perseverance, devotion to principle, patience, and self-control. After reading this speech, being a leader seemed a lot more difficult if love for humanity is required because I took it as needing to have love for all people that fall under humanity at first, but now I understand it to be simply not necessarily loving every single person but being able to have a love for others past those you have personal relationships with and having a love for the people that you are leading. I agree with Ida B. Wells if she meant it how I interpreted it. It is important to have a love for the people you are leading because like Wells was saying devotion to principle is a requirement and you can only be so devoted to a principle you don’t deeply care about nor will most people be willing to make sacrifices for people/a cause they don’t even deem worthy of their care so I am sure making sacrifices for it/them is completely off the table. In this speech though, she is talking about a group of people in the complete opposite position and talks about how the things they need to be able to come leaders for the well being of themselves. She breaks down how important they are to the country and talks about how they’re being used because they might have an understanding and a want to put themselves in a better situation but how they also need the skills and tools to back them up to fight for what they deserve. She also talks about how some black people get the education, skills, and all that good stuff to matriculate up the social latter but that still won’t stop the discrimination and the unfair treatment like they think it will and goes on to talk about how the skills that the white man teaches them is not enough for them to become the true leaders that they need and uses the black people who have moved classes as an example. The things that she talks about being necessary for a true leader are similar to the ones we have been talking about in class with the Reputation, Behavior, Relationships, Knowledge, and Decision, but some of these fall under the skills that she says are not all you need and some of them fall under the category of the ones you *actually* need. I would think that Relationships, decisions, and behavior fall under the ones she says you need in addition to have knowledge and reputation. The one that I believe is the most important “in addition to” skills that you need to have is the relationship because that goes along with her whole speech of being a friend to humanity but also you can be in the same group as the people that you are trying to lead but if you don’t have the relationship with the people then everything else really doesn’t matter at that point. In this speech, she also exhibits all of the qualities that she talks about as with her devotion to the principle: she wouldn’t be making a speech explaining and breaking down the matter if she wasn’t devoted. I’d say patience: because she understands the situation her people are in and she isn’t coming at people in a way of malice but of understanding. Perseverance: you probably can’t see that from this one speech but she had a track record on her and self-control of course.

People that I would consider a friend to humanity would be HUSA. They came to mind because I saw their tweets while procrastinating doing the assignment, and I realized they were the perfect fit. Thanks, procrastination. The behaviors they exhibit that suggests that they are a friend to humanity is their commitment to the student body and advocating for us, especially during such “unprecedented times”. They promised the student body that they would advocate for us and not just be a figurehead and they have been doing that ever since they got into office. Do they seem happy/fulfilled with their friendship to humanity? I would like to say yes, but I’d just be assuming. The hardships they had to overcome to be a friend to humanity were to win the election and I believe something else after that, but it happened like 23 years ago in quarantine time and I cannot recall it at the moment. What I imagine that informs HUSA’s friendship with humanity is their duty to serve the student body, but also natural impulse since they voluntarily put themselves in these positions. I feel like they could be considered philanthropist, unlike the millionaires/billionaires who are considered philanthropist for making donations to give themselves a tax write off. The word philanthropy seems like it has been reduced to people making donations and not actually people who care and want to genuinely help people.

Putting myself in the leadership position and asking myself do I see myself as a friend to society, going back to what I was saying about Ida B. Wells interpretation of the phrase, it depends. If my interpretation is correct then I would consider myself a friend to humanity. I don’t think there is anything I would do for any and all people on this planet. There’s a lot of I would do or a lot of people, but also a lot I wouldn’t do. I can’t get specific because I honestly my boundaries haven’t been tested in that sense, but I do treat everyone the same that I meet and greet everyone the same, and I would say that is because of how I was raised and wouldn’t credit it to my leadership but the morals and southern hospitality I was taught to have growing up. When I interact with others, sometimes consciously think that me being the best me could potentially better them as well, but that usually happens when I am in a mentor-like position. Interacting with others is usually easy for me when I’m not thinking too hard about it but once I start thinking about it, my mind starts acting like it’s never interacted with another human before. It is the same thing for me with making friends, when it happens naturally it’s quite easy but when I think I want to be friends with someone and make an effort to form a friendship I feel like I’m awkward and be doing too much, and I had this realization a couple of nights ago texting an old classmate that the easiest way to make friends is to not try. When I make friends though, I love connecting them with my other friends when I see that they would mesh well together because putting people on to new connections and experience I think they’ll enjoy/benefit from is fun to me. Seeing people win and progress is one of my favorite things to witness whether it be a friend or a stranger and if I can be apart of that for them it’s even better. Humans are very interesting to me, I am intrigued by the way we work physically and mentally and how the mind and body all work together to make a functioning person, my interest even inspires my education choices to be a Sports Medicine major and potentially double minoring with philosophy. These are also career paths that would benefit others if I am successful in reaching them because they are completely about helping others get better physically or researching to help better the human body. Choosing this path because I am passionate about the well being of others especially since medical racism severely harms the black community and I want to be someone that my people can count on to come to in whatever career path I ultimately end up choosing in the end. My love for humanity is driven by me wanting the best for us all and wanting to help in anyway I can to help us reach it especially in a field that I have an interest in. Helping people through problems is difficult for me because I never really know how much I can serve them other than listening and I feel bad when that is all I can do to help the situation.