MBE/Finance/Career Nuggets

MBE/Finance/Career Nuggets

• Julius Cartwright’s Dream Team Realty Inc. is having an open house today in celebration of the relocation of its offices to Solon. The event runs from 2-9PM at 6001 Cochran Road, Suite 301, Solon OH 44139.

Cartwright served this past year as the president of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers [NAREB]. That group held its annual convention in Cleveland in August.

Also of note: NAREB’s local affiliate, the Cleveland Realtist Association, will host its Annual Scholarship and Installation Luncheon on Sunday, January 20, from 4-6PM at the Macklin Party Center in Solon, 6200 Enterprise Parkway. Lionel Lewis, vice president of A. J. Lewis Realty will be installed as the new president.

This will be Lewis’ second stint as president, a post he held in the early nineties. His installation this year will be an especially poignant moment as his daughter, Amber Lewis, also of A.J. Lewis Realty, will be installed as the president of the Cleveland Women’s Council of NAREB. This is believed to be the first such instance in the country of father and daughter holding simultaneous presidencies of local NAREB organizations.

How to Sell: Your Ideas and Yourself as a Trusted Advisor

Master sales trainer Marvin Montgomery will be offering insight into how professionals in any field can effectively sell themselves and their ideas at a Thursday, January 17 luncheon sponsored by the Cleveland chapter of International Associationof Business Communicators.

Marvin Montgomery

Montgomery is an author, trainer, and motivational speaker who has more than 30 years of sales training experience and is author of Practice Makes Perfect: The Professional’s Guide to Sales Success.

Early bird pricing of $20 is available through January 7 here.

The lunch presentation will be at the Sarah Benedict House, 3751 Prospect Avenue Cleveland, OH 44115. This historic mansion houses the Cleveland Restoration Society and offers free parking on either side of the building.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Lincoln Electric has the following openings: Director of Corporate Development, Head of Investor Relations, and Investor Relations Specialist. Interested parties should send inquiries and/or letters of interest with resume to Dalithia_Smith@LincolnElectric.com.

Kudos for Django, Tarentino

A Belated Happy New Year to all Real Deal readers! We wish for each of you a healthy and prosperous 2013. We had an enjoyable holiday that included a few days in Washington DC to visit family and friends, time spent catching up on some long-intended reading, and working on plans to improve and expand our work under this banner.

We start our new year with a large shout out to film director Quentin Tarantino for his immensely important and entertaining Django Unchained.  If you haven’t seen it yet, put it on your list of must-do items.

You have probably already received varying opinions on this film. Negative comments focus on claims of excessive use of the “N” word, the inappropriate juxtaposition of humor in treating the dead serious subject of slavery, Tarantino’s trademark gratuitous over-the-top violence, the super-Tom role played by Samuel L. Jackson, and even the lament that the story should have been told by an African American.

To all of that I say “Balderdash”.

Django is a path-breaking, highly entertaining film of great cultural significance. Mild spoiler alert: the black guy takes on racist evil and emerges victorious in a noble cause pretty much single-handedly. This is pretty much a Hollywood first, and likely a whole lot more significant than, say, the first cinematic interracial kiss.

The blood and gore, while brutal, are appropriate to the context of the story. Slavery was a brutal institution: black life was cheap, slaves were property pretty much akin to scrap that, at an owner’s whim, could be maimed or killed for pretty much any or no reason, including for entertainment.

I absolutely loved Samuel L. Jackson’s incredible work as Stephen, the contemptible HNIC*. It is entirely possible to admire the man’s craft while despising the character he portrays.

But here’s the real deal: Django is a movie that keeps on giving long after you’ve seen it. [My wife and I went to the late show on Christmas night.] I rejoice that so many people are discussing it with such intensity.

Almost four years ago, in February 2009, US Attorney General Eric Holder correctly called out Americans as a “nation of cowards” on the issue of race. He said Americans urgently needed to start confronting the issue of race relations before the country became even further polarized.

Django’s power makes it an excellent vehicle for entering that dialogue. Most of us know by now that black people are no more monolithic than any other ethnic group. I say it’s a good thing that spirited debate has erupted over the movie. It’s called the marketplace of ideas or something.

The only way black people are going to shed some of our retrograde notions is by airing them out and having them defeated by healthier ones.

Unlike most Hollywood movies that feature an abundance of powerful black actors portraying strong black people, this movie is likely to attract more white viewers than black ones. Now that latter group is certainly one that could use some healthy discussion of race, especially if it is at least partially framed around a historic reference to the nation’s bestiality.

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* If you don’t know the meaning of the term, ask an African American colleague or friend [the older the better], or email me.

Gun Control: A Matter of Perspective?

A lot of folks may wonder how a “black perspective” may differ from the “white” one.

[Note: I say “a” black perspective because there are of course many black perspectives. I say “the” white perspective to refer specifically to what often appears the dominant perspective of the larger society, which does not mean of course, that all white people share that dominant perspective. One might say with some accuracy — and perhaps a trace of irony — that this Note to Readers is a widely held black perspective.]

1. A black man kills, he’s a menace to society… a foreign man kills, he’s a terrorist … a white man kills, he’s psychologically unstable. SMH [shaking my head]

2. Gun control?

Black People kill Black People every day, but there is no public outcry for gun control…

It is only when white people get in on the act that it is now a matter of Public Urgency… Hmmm.

These observations were posted on Facebook by a couple of very large mild-mannered black men who grew up in different parts of this country [Ohio,  Texas]. They are both middle age or better, professionals with graduate degrees.

I have always thought that gun control was a no-brainer. We in America kill people in all kinds of situations, abetted by the fact that we pretty much have more guns than people. Our free society is more “jeopardized” by marginal people heavily armed with assault weapons than it is “protected” by armed law-abiding citizens. The US Supreme Court, as it has done in too many instances, has followed prevailing political will rather than a fair reading of the Constitution in such matters. Thus, after many years of a contrary interpretation, it now holds that the Second Amendment should be interpreted to read that individual citizens pretty much have a “right to bear arms” that extends to weapons of mass destruction.

Rev. Dr. Marvin A. McMickle

In his “Weekend Reflections on Events in Newtown, Connecticut”, our good friend the Rev. Dr. Marvin A. McMickle[1] considered the recurring tragedies encompassed by these places where public officials and innocent bystanders were shot and killed: Oklahoma City, Columbine, Aurora, Ft. Hood, Virginia Tech, a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin and a mall in Tucson. 

As he observed, save in the case of Oklahoma City:

“In every case the weapons of choice were high-powered, automatic and semi-automatic weapons more suited for a battlefield than as part of the culture of a 21st century industrialized society. Without easy access to such guns it is possible to imagine that none of these horrific events would ever have occurred. Crazed and/or cowardly people do not become mass killers without access to such weapons.”

Canada Lee as Bigger Thomas
in Orson Welles'
1941 Broadway production

Could it be that those who proclaim that arming our teachers and legislators[2] is essential to preserving our safety are actually more concerned with protecting themselves from the Bigger Thomases of the world than the Adam Lanzas?

Adam Lanza

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[1] President and Professor of Church Leadership, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, NY.  Former pastor of Antioch Baptist Church, Cleveland OH [1987-2011]. Past president, Cleveland NAACP.

[2] Ohio Gov. John Kasich is about to sign House Bill 495, allowing for the first time guns to be legally brought into the parking garages under the Ohio Statehouse and the nearby state tower containing his and legislators' offices. … In one of their last acts before ending the current two-year session before the holidays, the Ohio Senate voted 26-7 to approve House Bill 495. The House then voted 66-23 to accept the changes made by the upper chamber and forward the bill on to Mr. Kasich. Source