Last night, I listened to Morgan Freeman say, on American Idol's "Idol Gives Back", "Literacy is the ladder out, but we must be fit enough to climb." That statement hit me strongly when I heard it and its impact is still pressing me.
Morgan was with Randy Jackson on a visit to Idol's Save The Children partnership in Mississippi...But they could have been "Anywhere" USA, or Canada, or UK - Anywhere in the world. And they could have been as easily in a company as a community. Literacy is an issue....It is not only the ladder up...It's the bridge across. Literacy is not just knowing how to read with comprehension the books placed before students on a campus. It's about comprehending the language of business, and knowing the difference between comprehensive information and pre-determined statistical data. Literacy is about empowerment.
How well are we doing with this? How truly empowered do we feel?...How truly empowered ARE we? Do we trust one news delivery over another? Do we trust one advertising or marketing campaign over another? Do we trust one political party or politician over another? If so, why?
Haven't we yet learned to research and read for ourselves? My alma mater, North Carolina A&T State University, prides itself on teaching students to learn to think - not what to think. While I did not complete all of my studies there, I have brought that empowerment with me throughout my life and professional growth. As a matter of fact, I recall a conversation I had with Dick Gregory during half time at a Laker win at the Staples Center years ago. The BIG thing, he said, and that I have taught in varying applications since, was that he made a habit early in his career to get off the plane, train or bus at each stop to a travel destination and buy every newspaper he could - local and national - and read what each had to say about the issues of importance to him. By the completion of his destination, he felt he could line through rhetoric and get the essence of 'what was what, and who had said it".
We live in a much more technologically enabled world today, and we can get multi- and deeply sourced information without getting out of our seats. We can turn on our phones or our laptops. We just have to turn on! So, in a world and time where more information is more accessible than ever, and more issues are more connected than ever, our futures, no matter where in the world we live, are literally tied together. (American Idol's Idol Gives Back has proven that information and help is just a text message away.) Why then don't we make the literal effort to learn...Truly learn...Not just listen to condensed or rinsed information thrown at us...but really read. Then again, if you're reading this, I'm preaching to the choir. Okay...now, choir...go out and sing to the world. Others may listen...and they may, too, come into a new dawning of citizen literacy.