A Set Back for Me, A Set Back for Us

The most amazing truth in the world is, being recognized for who you are and not for who people want to see you as. Being open to all truths about yourself that you can see the real truth in others. On January 26 I got a call to truth and the truth is this system we live in is so entangled in their Image of Brokenness it forgets what it's truth is supposed to be. Allow me to explain.

I landed a position in the fall of last year with a Historical Black University, facilitating a program called the Promise Program - a program set up to help Black Men understand who they are and promote their success in life through nonviolence intervention by educating and supporting them through a proven method (Evidence Based Practice).

What is so ironic about this is three months into the process I was terminated for my background. I remind you, I have walked a whole and victorious life for over twenty years. Not perfect, but not criminal. I was told upon my hiring that my background would be the one thing that would help me connect with the men coming into the program.

After countless hours of training, interviewing participants and building relationships with other facilitators, three days before the start of this program I was fired for the very thing they said the program was designed to help black men overcome.

"The Promise Program," I will promise you, program you, but not promote you or hire you because you are a risk factor we can't take as a University after "we tossed it around and went back and forth." I am wondering in their truths, are they telling this truth to the men they say they want to help, (that for real they are expendable)?

I can promise you after programing you, I can't hire you or promote you to a position here, because you may be a risk we are not willing to take because of "who we are as a University."

This (trial) program might work for many, but will it work for the many that live in my reality? This program might work for many, but will it work out of the truth that it is just another way to offer false hope and dreams to already torn and scarred men? Men that will probably never get a job sweeping their floors, cleaning their toilets, or grooming their lawns because at this "University of Integrity" they will probably be considered a risk.

Mind you I did not put in an application for this position of hire, I was recommended. I did not lie about my background upon this hiring, I was truthful to the point that at the interview before I was hired (or welcomed "On Board" as they so elegantly put it) I not only gave them a resume but I gave them a copy of my cut-no-corners book, STILL CONVICTED. I also asked them "Are you sure you have the right Eddie Howard?" and they (the Interviewing Professors) assured me: I was the right guy.

Finally, in my twenty years of rewriting my life story from villain to victor I believe to date this is the biggest blow I've had to endure, when it comes to moving forward as a man. I must confess this is a major setback for me mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

The promise of God is yea and amen. And if that is so I must say, Thank You God for once again revealing this brokenness of truth to me before I got in too deep.

Please share this. There may be others out there going through a similar setback. I want them to know they are not alone.

This story may not hit the media or get overwhelming response but the story needs to be told. It is not just the guns killing us BLACK MEN, it is a systemic taproot that we have allowed to penetrate into the very fabric of who we are as a people and a culture. And I must add, Still Convicted tells this story of the plight of the "Black Man in America."

Thank You for taking the time to read this.