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Monday, March 06, 2006

A True Renaissance Man.....a la The Apprentice



In the future I will really try to make this blog as informative as possible. It gets real difficult to refrain from proselytizing when Black imagery is a constant victim. Case in point....where is Randal Pinkett? If you remember(and I promise to tone down on media discussions...just allow me this one last indulgence) Pinkett was the tall brother that actually won last season's Apprentice. This cat has received no real media attention since his win nor has he done any interviews of note with the African-American media. Mind you, Randal is perhaps the best educated and most qualified contestant to ever appear on this show since its inception. We are very adept at showering praise and accolades to sports and entertainment personalities but blatantly fall short when it comes to heroes in academia. Randal, truth be told is the "Michael Jordan" of the scholastic world and you can barely hear a pin drop. Let's run this gentleman's stats shall we:

1) He currently holds five university degrees.

2) The degrees include a B.S. in electrical engineering from Rutgers University as well as a Master's in computer science from the University of Oxford in England as one of approx. 60 Rhodes Scholars in U.S. history and the first from Rutgers.

3) Thereafter, Randal received a Master's at MIT in electrical engineering followed by a Ph.D. in media arts and sciences also from MIT.

I could go on but his accomplishments thus far are just too lengthy to enumerate. And mind you, Randal is just 34. But hey at least we have Three 6 Mafia's Oscar win. Actually this cat reminds me of one of my personal heroes, Paul Robeson who also was a multiple degreed Rhodes scholar and Rutgers graduate who was frequently referred to as a "renaissance" man. It is definitely a title I would espouse for our youth. But oh I forgot didn't a Shawn Carter(current president of Def Jam) receive his degree from the University of Marcy Projects? Folks it's time to replace highly learned superstars of color like Dr. Pinkett on that pedestal that we have for some reason reserved for former drug dealers turned rappers. Our futures are in peril. All is not lost though.....Dr. Pinkett I have your back bro!

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