You Gotta Be The Change
For the last several weeks we here at 99problems.org have focused on the nation’s biggest problems. When our government is throwin’ around numbers like 2.5 trillion dollars, it’s easy to think that change has to be that big, has to come down from the top.
We know that’s wrong. We know that the latest drastic measures are another symptom of our social malaise. Day to day, we aren’t taking care of each other. We need an inspiration that isn’t government mandated. We need each other to make it through the storm.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to introduce a young man by the name of Valentino Grey.
Like so many other young people living in urban areas across the country, Valentino got into a bit (okay more than a bit) during his teenage years. A product of Milwaukee, WI’s post industrial inner city, by his early teens he had become a stick up kid, who was robbing dope houses to keep money in his pocket.
By the time he was 17, Valentino’s night time activities caught up with him. Never mind that he was a multi-talented artist who spent his days as a student at the city’s most prestigious art school; to the law, he was just another punk.
3 years in a lockbox is the fuel for his fire. Today, a free man, Tino has given up on the streets to become an organizer. Using his gifts as a song writer and vocalist, Valentino uses his talents to edutain people in his community. He realizes that no matter what he has done in his past, that he is not a thug. He is learning to give up on the pains of his child and is ready to become a leader.
We think he is the perfect example of what change looks like: from convicted to conviction, Gray uses his music to build a community based on love. He’s too busy looking forward to waste time dwelling on the past.
voice = change
let’s speak up! i believe that our responsibility is to not hold anything in and let it be out! we are the change…