Silence Of The Lambs

Have you ever wanted something so bad, that you made a conscious mental, spiritual, or even physical petition for it, yet once you received it, you were not as supportive of your request as you were during the petition phase? Well, since I have not had an opportunity to blog in 2012, I might as well make this one a "barn burner."

I received a call a couple of days ago regarding my thoughts on Mitt Romney's 47% speech. For those of you who are not aware, Mr. Romney stated that, "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what","There are 47 percent ... who are dependent on government ... who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it", and "Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax." While stating my thoughts, I began to consider the state of our nation's current situation, particularly from an African-American perspective, and I begin to realize that we have possibly overlooked the true issue.

So many of us are "up in arms" about President Obama's stance on the rights of gay marriage that we have lost or limited our support of him. This mindset and feeling is one that is seemingly undergirded by Christian principles and beliefs. In many cases, this has developed a disparity within the black church on its support of the President overall. Furthermore, many African-Americans, over the last 10 to 15 years have decided to change their Democratic affiliation and support the Republican Party, based on the conservative views that believe answers do not lay with the government generally, but rather with the people, as opposed to the liberal view, that larger federal government and implementation of tax plans to try to support the less privileged is necessary.

Realizing that today's current mindsets and responses are often developed on past experiences and processes, these issues are not simply political in nature, but more the lack of true spirituality and clear stances by the church. I believe that many of these issues from a political, economic, social, and educational standpoint are a result of what the church has refused to do or stand for.

Particularly, within the Black Church community, over the last 50 years, evolution has ceased to occur. In the 50's and early 60's, during the phenomenal growth and impact of the Black Church (B.C.), attempting to target the injustice of their own people, the B.C. began to communicate on a level that their target market could relate to. The heros of that timeframe, which the neighborhoods and culture admired (the drug dealer, the hustler, the pimp), became the look that the charismatic pastor portrayed to draw the wayward parishioner. Even the soul and R&B music sprinkled sermonic style and rhythm became the order of the day. The church took on the philosophy of "preaching with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other." The civil rights movement was birthed, social injustice was addressed, salvation was encountered, and economic growth was spurred.

Yet, the B.C. stopped evolving.

The workplace, economy, politics,and lifestyles have evolved, yet the traditional B.C. has become imprisoned to the 50's and 60's. With the advent of postmodernism, many young adults (ages 18-42) have no desire to attend church due to its inability to grow and embrace the changing society. Many traditional churches look and think exactly like they did 50 years, thereby finding themselves inadequate to address and understand the concerns of this present age.

The argument of supporting gay rights has caused many desires and prayers for a Black President to be soured due to a seeming difference in morals and spiritual ethics. Nevertheless, would we be here if the church was as passionate and vocal towards Madalyn Murray O'Hair's stance as the founder of the American Atheists when she decided to remove prayer from schools, as they are about supporting gay rights? Is not prayer one of the foundational principles of Christianity, yet the B.C. sat silent as it was removed from our educational systems by one woman. Would we be here if the B.C. went ballistic when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit to bar and remove the Ten Commandments monument and verbiage from county courthouse's nationwide? Is this not the means by which our legal system operates and a major cornerstone of Mosaic Law? Yet, the B.C. was muzzled!

The "Silence of the Lambs" has brought our nation to a place where we see the first African-American President being dubbed the Anti-Christ and a proponent of spiritual warfare due to his support of gay marriage rights, health care for all, and re-distribution of wealth. How hypocritical it seems that the church is against the rights of gay marriage, when for 50 years, the choir director, tenor section, musicians, and even the preacher can be glorified as a homosexual within the walls of your church, people can be saved and set free by their music and sermons, but in 2012 you refuse to support their rights in a free country?! Would the President be morally wrong if he decided to openly support the rights of single people to have sex outside of marriage? By biblical principle, this is immoral and wrong, yet we continue to miss the point.

The Silence of the Church, particularly the B.C., has fostered commentary such as the 47% speech, because the individuals within this percentile are in all B.C.'s!!! Seniors, working poor, low income parents, college students, and those who escape taxes due to their wealth! It must be hard to imagine everyone being economically empowered in our nation, when within B.C.'s all across the country, the major percent of the wealth sits in the pulpit and rarely extends to the pews. The "Silence of the Lambs" makes it hard to understand health care for all when cancer, high-blood pressure, diabetes, high prescription medication prices for seniors is not something that people within B.C.'s suffer and struggle to deal with...Really?!

The education, politics, social tension, and civil unrest within our country is by no means wholly the church or the B.C.'s fault, yet its silence has proven golden on all fronts, regarding the big picture problem. Nevertheless, when the B.C. speaks, they have seemingly oppressed and diminished their own prayers and petitions of Black Leadership. The nation is now reaping what the church has sown.

So here we are...

The first black president in our country's history is being diminished by his job function to support the rights of others, but the church is implementing hypocrisy to foster division. No president in our history has left office with a zero balance budget and no president in our history has come into office with such a major mess on his shoulders. Not everything the POTUS has done do I agree with, yet there is nothing anyone in leadership, that I know, has ever done that I totally agree with.

Being a republican or democrat is your decision; do what's best for you! If you are going to be the church that Christ desired you to be, recognize that He was a political rebel fighting for the cause of the poor, disenfranchised, and the blue-collar worker, not just the wealthy and business-oriented.

One decision or man won't turn this country around, yet one vote at a time will. More importantly, a church divided cannot change a world in turmoil. No need to be silent, but please don't speak if you really have nothing to say.

Everybody, please vote in November for somebody...


Kervance Ross
Author, CEO, Mentor, Motivational Strategist

Troy Davis: A Dying Soul to Save...

Tonight at 11:08PM EST, with all the facts leaning against Troy Anthony Davis' guilt, he still lost his life, yet some may ask, "What is the lesson to be learned from this loss?" There is a traditional baptist hymn which bellows the destinctive stanza, "Who gave His Son my soul to save...", but will any one truly be saved due to this injustice?

So many of us as African-Americans often miss the message. We generally complain that our vote doesn't matter and that our voices are not heard. We have listened to the republican rhetoric and complained about what President Obama has not done, yet consider this. Georgia IS a RED state. We as citizens vote into office our judges, district attorney's and congressmen. Literally five minutes outside of beautiful downtown Savannah, is a poverty stricken, racially biased county. Republicans continue to prove to each of us and to our President, that when it boils down to matters that specifically target our people, WE DON'T MATTER.

One of the most obvious messages that this dying soul can save us from is US! Within our own communities, we MUST stop portraying ourselves in a unfavorable light. Do you really understand the reason why the police pull so many black men over when they see one of us in a luxury car, with tinted windows and nice wheels? Because of the multiplicity of US who have manufactured these luxuries via crime, illegal activity or other unfavorable means, the Taste for Negativity and Judgement has been developed.

Troy Davis is a perfect example of being in the wrong place, with the wrong people, at the wrong time. We have to change this persona within our own communities. How often do you get frustrated with the status of your community? How many times have you shaken your head in disgust with the down trodden manner in which our people seemingly operate?

It's such a simple message, that we run the risk of missing it again and again. Be careful of the company you keep and the surroundings you maintain. It could honestly cost you your life!

Does this negate the fact that an innocent man will die tonight? No. Yet, will you allow his dying soul to save a seemingly "living dead" race of people? It's sad to see a martyr die for the living, yet the living care less about staying alive.

Troy Anthony Davis is a victim of racial tension, a crooked justice system and a few bad personal decisions. His life will be lost tonight...the question is, "Will the African-American community, holistically, find our lives tomorrow, before it's too late?"

Clemency is not available for him, but it's still available for us.


Kervance D. Ross, Author
To book Kervance Ross to speak, visit www.kervance.com
To view KDR Consulting, LLC, visit www.kdrconsults.com

Ladies, STAY FOCUSED!!!

an excerpt from the book, "How to Change the Mind of the Mediocre Man"

I recently conducted some focus group sessions which had a comfortable mix of women and men of varying ages, backgrounds, social classes, and ethnicities in the effort to put to the test my concept that a woman's perception of a man may be shaped by their initial or long-term encounter with a man. I also wanted to explore the probable difficulties that might be encountered in changing that perception, when women entered a relationship with another man at a perhaps "more seasoned point" in her life. I particularly wanted to examine how a different "type" of relationship (with a man who possessed better/differing "Matterment" than in previous contacts) might impact her generalized views of men. It is not surprising that you're wondering, "What in the hell is Matterment?" Well, here we go...{Mat-er-muh-nt}-noun A system of measuring that which matters to an individual, as it relates to the weight placed on specific items or ideologies, from greatest to least.

I found it quite intriguing in this somewhat informal and certainly non-scientific behavioral study, that most of the women had preconceived ideas and viewpoints of the "ideal man" that were obviously fashioned and formed early in childhood. Almost without exception, they preferred the following: The man who would keep their automobile gas tanks filled, the man who regularly read the "Business Section" of the evening newspaper, the man who was at ease wearing suits and dress shoes regularly, the man who possessed dreams and aspiration, and the man with specific "spiritual principles".

Yet, in almost every case, these women "subjects" admitted dating or otherwise developing socially interactive relationships with men that were totally opposites of their perceived and preferred ideals. They openly admitted dating men who possessed few, if any, of the aforementioned personal characteristics that they had indicated were preferred. They had "settled" for men who were void of most of those "ideal" prerequisites for long-term relationships that they had so vehemently demanded as priority consideration. Others, of course, optioned not to date at all, acknowledging that "good men were hard to find".

Interestingly, these women had become attracted to men with the negative and unpolished characteristics, which in their childhoods, they had been "programmed" to avoid. They had subliminally, or at least unwittingly, become "seduced" by negative traits that these men possessed, without reservations and pretty much without exception. They seemed to have found it very difficult to find the attraction of a man who they could respect or who could provide some challenge or additional goal attainment dimension for them.

My message to you Ladies, "STAY FOCUSED!" Never lower your standards or your personal "Matterment". Require us as men to be held to a higher standard...Standards are set for a reason, when they are lowered you send the message, "I'm not worth my standard!"

Whatever you do ladies..."STAY FOCUSED!"


Kervance Ross
Author, CEO, Mentor, Motivational Strategist

Turning off the Financial Faucet

The story is told of a mental institution that administers a preliminary exit exam within a controlled, structured setting. The test area resembles a kitchen with a counter top, faucet, hardwood floor and other amenities. When the institution observes a feasible amount of progress with one of its patients, they test several subjects in this environment. Before the orderlies bring the patient into the room, they first turn on the faucet in the kitchen, allowing the water to overflow onto the counter top, from the counter top onto the floor and lastly, they allow the water to accumulate on the floor. Just as the water begins to puddle, the orderlies bring the mental patient to the room and hand them a mop. If the patient has enough sense to FIRST turn off the faucet before mopping the floor, the doctors move aggressively towards the patients planned release. Yet, if the patient begins mopping the floor before turning off the faucet, the doctors concur that a few more sessions may be in order...

This may seem comical or even absurd, but many of us are applying this type of ridiculous methodology to our financial pictures. We know the source of our financial flooding and instead of turning off the faucet to aid in financial restructuring, we continue to put a band-aid on our monetary cancer. We must start at the source! There are five key steps towards your personal recovery:

Step one: The source of many of our financial woes is not the RECESSION! Let's face it, many of us were hemorrhaging in our finances before the recession started and have now transferred our lack of structure to the fault of the recession. If you were over-spending, over-extended, over-burdened financially in 1999, then 2009's financial troubles may be magnified by the recession, but not caused by it. You must realize that you are the root cause of this problem.

Step two: Start with the basics...This is a great opportunity to re-evaluate for many and get acquainted with for others the core financial concepts. Learn to use your checking account as it was designed to be used...to check what goes in it and to check what is coming out of it BEFORE it comes out. Learn to balance this with your life. Purchase only those things that you need, not that which you want. Develop a budget and stay within the parameters of your budget.

Step three: Plan for the future, not just for your present...At the onset of 2011, one lesson to be learned in the midst of turning off your financial faucet is key...LEARN TO SAVE! If its only ten dollars, five dollars or one dollar a month...SAVE AT ALL COST. Putting some money to the side for emergencies, rainy days or for special events will help you curtail loses on every end.

Step four: READ!!! This concept is still fundamental and necessary. Gaining as much knowledge and understanding regarding financial concepts, matters and viewpoints is a must when re-developing your financial picture. The more you know and understand, the better your money will perform for you now, henceforth and forevermore. When you don't know, you are forced to lean on others for directions for your dollars...IF IT BELONGS TO YOU, LEARN THE BEST MEANS OF GROWTH AND SUSTAINABILITY ON ALL FRONTS.

Step five: SHARE...Your understand is vital to the growth of others. Its truly not yours until you give it away. The best way to stop a financial storm is to help as many as you can when you find a place of shelter. Financial literacy is major in the goal of getting our personal and national economic situations in line. Once you've been strengthened, strengthen someone else.

If you follow these five basic steps, you will soon see a bright light at the end of your financial tunnel. Make 2011 a much better financial year than 2010! The opportunities are endless...


Kervance Ross
Author, CEO, Mentor, Motivational Strategist

Are you ready to change?

"The Recession" has been a consistent theme echoed over the last few years into our psyche through our media airwaves, and at some point, it has impacted many of our lives for the worse. Yet, very few of us have defined this recession in a positive light. Any time a situation of mass crisis arises, I genuinely believe that it is a great teaching tool.

Let me build the premise for this vantage point. What is a crisis? A crisis can be defined as an emotional and physical response to some precipitating event or series of events that disrupts our normal day-to-day functioning. Well, what is a recession? A recession can be defined as a business cycle contraction, a general slowdown in economic activity over a period of time.

Let's review: A crisis is therefore, your overall response (which you control) to an event or series events that you have no direct control over, and a recession is an aspect of the economic cycle, a contraction (or uncomfortable "pain") that will and can happen periodically, and oft times slows down the spending of a given economy over a period of time. If this is the case, a recession forces you to make a designed change and if you understand the crisis that a recession presents, it is your job to make the proper emotional and physical adjustments to adapt to the change, for your benefit! For those of us who understand this concept, many can attest that the recession has been an opportunity to change for the better, due to the "pain" presented within our personal crisis.

If this is so, the one constant that prevails during crisis is rooted in one's ability to change. How many times have you uttered the words, "I'm tired of this situation", "I'm fed up", "I want more out of my life"? If this has been your thought, your feeling or your dilemma, the question that must arise is simply, "ARE YOU READY TO CHANGE?"

Many of us find ourselves stuck in a "rut" due to our inability to change. It has been said that the only person who likes change is a wet baby, but is it your lack of ability to change that continues to stop you from walking in your total destiny?

What is your dream? Is it to own a business, to have a family, to live in a beautiful home, to be rich and famous? Dreams are free and they're open for anyone to have, but they have little value until they are parlayed into reality. Dreams design the fabric of reality and therefore, clothe our futures, but if we as individuals neglect to change for the better, we aggressively choke the life out of our dreams. The great German physicist, Albert Einstein considers doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results as being insanity.

My challenge to you today is to see each situation in your life and/or business as an opportunity to evoke change and growth into your life for the better. Challenge yourself to be a vessel of growth in any environment and become allergic to cycles that hold you fast. Break out of your personal insanity to allow your dreams to ultimately become your reality!


Kervance Ross
Author, CEO, Mentor, Motivational Strategist

I Hope You Die...

It's amazing to me the personal and professional struggles that many of us face on a daily basis that cause us stress, frustration and dismay. Most of the obstacles and potholes that we encounter on our journey are never meant to set us back, but simply to propel us forward. Yet, the question arises, "How do I learn from these situations in my life?" The answer: YOU MUST LEARN HOW TO DIE DAILY!!! My hope: I HOPE YOU DIE...

I know this may sound callous, demented, and morbid, but it is the reality that many of us overlook throughout the course of our existence. There are so many people, jobs, problems, habits and thoughts that must die, and die TODAY in your life if you desire to reach your true calling!

How many times have you felt like the people you associate with and collaborate through didn't foster your best interest, yet you continued the relationship? How often does the "dead-end" job you go to, day-in and day-out, leave you desiring more from your overall dreams, gifts and aspirations? How many nights have you spent wrapped up in a habit or addiction that you so desperately desire to shake?

To live the AMAZING LIFE you have been designed to live, you must DIE to the MEDIOCRE existence that holds you fast! Learn to DIE to toxic relationships in your life that are choking your character , draining your dreams and suffocating your success. Even if these toxic relationships involve family members or long-time friends, your success henge's on your ability to relinquish that which is detrimental to one's self. You must commit this SUICIDE on the useless and dangerous connections that stunt your growth, if your desire to succeed beyond measure.

When a child is conceived in a mother's womb, that embryo turns into a fetus, the fetus then becomes a baby. During these 40 weeks, the baby has been given "new life" inside the mother's womb. The baby develops eyes, but has nothing to see. The baby develops ears, but really has nothing to hear. The baby develops hands, but has nothing to feel. It develops feet, but has no where to go. As the baby progresses into the third and final trimester, the environment it has been in for roughly 294 days begins to impede its continued growth and development, thus causing it to have to DIE to it's current life and situation, in order to "GIVE BIRTH" to a NEW LIFE in a better situation. Only when the baby becomes uncomfortable and aware of the "DEATH" it must experience to gain "LIFE" does birth come. The baby has been equipped with the tools (i.e. eyes, ears, hands, feet) for the NEW LIFE, but doesn't truly discover how to use them until it "DIES" and therefore leaves it's prior comfort zone for it's TRUE LIFE!

The challenges you face on your daily journey to become AMAZING are filled with potholes, stumbling blocks and obstacles...begin to use them as stepping stones to achieve your ultimate destiny. You're being equipped with the tools for your destination, but you may have to commit this figurative "SUICIDE" to truly learn how to use them, so that you can live abundantly in your NEW LIFE!

I only hope that you DIE, so that you might LIVE!

Are you ready to start LIVING? IF SO, START DYING!


Kervance Ross
Author, CEO, Mentor, Motivational Strategist