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EMCC hosted the launch today of law enforcement agencies' 'Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over' campaign that runs June 30 to July 5. https://t.co/J6S93Eb9lx
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EMCC's Wellness Center is again holding a "Little Lions Making Strides Summer Day Camp" set for June 4-5. Campers will participate in a variety of fun activities and nutrition and wellness education. For more details, visit this link: https://www.eastms.edu/news/2019/little-lions-summer-camp-2019.html https://t.co/lUekzReK4o
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Student members of Eta Upsilon, the EMCC-Scooba chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, interviewed local professionals to learn about their stories that led them down a pathway to success. Listen to an interview with Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians Tribal Chief Cyrus Ben here. https://t.co/WRL2wwU65z
Video Transcript AI Summary
- Role models and influences: The speaker looked to elders and artisans in the community as mentors, including those who built artwork, carried tradition (chanting, drumming), or made items. Family examples included beadwork, basketry, and a father who made blowguns. Despite hardship, these elders remained focused on work and achievement, not poverty. Experiences of discrimination, such as being asked to sit in the back at a cafe in Philadelphia, were acknowledged, as were the sacrifices involved in public service. The speaker references Chief Martin, a predecessor who served in the military and then worked for the people, noting that public service requires sacrificing family and personal desires. The overarching message is that observing role models who worked with their hands and minds to overcome adversity inspired perseverance and responsibility.
- Meaning and practice of representation: Representation begins with everyday actions, not just titles—being a giver and community-minded, helping others, and remembering where one comes from. The speaker recalls a generational ethic of work and giving to youth, influenced by parents who uplifted others despite poverty. In formal terms, representation extends beyond local impact to county, state, national, and federal levels, including the possibility of walking the halls of Congress to represent the community’s interests and do the necessary work for its betterment.
- Steps for allies and understanding: The speaker advocates for a government-to-government relationship and networking across local, city, county, state, and federal levels to share who they are and why they act as they do. Emphasis is placed on respecting different perspectives and optics—acknowledging that one side may not see what the other sees—and the importance of mutual respect in all interactions. The core idea is that effective allyship and understanding come from open, respectful dialogue that recognizes diverse experiences and viewpoints.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: First one, it says who were your role models growing up and why? If you didn't have a role model, explain how that affected you. You know, for myself, would call them, you know, I may not have particularly viewed them as role models, but mentors or aspirations. For myself, it would have been many elders, elders in the community, whether they might have been artisans that were building our artwork or carrying the tradition, whether it was chanting, drumming, or maker, artisans themselves that made those items. For my dad himself, he done the blow guns.
And so we were immersed in that respect. Of course, I had family members that done beadwork and basketry. And so we would go to different events. In the use of also the artisans was a form of themselves being entrepreneurs. They bartered and traded that way and that's how it went back to is artisans would make their items and even today there are some that they're homemakers and but for the most part many are having to be in the workforce.
There are a few that are still homemakers that make their crafts and depend upon that. But my parents were very strong people. My mother was orphaned as a young teenager when she lost her parents. My father never had a father. Had to be raised by his grandfather until his passing and basically orphaned and lived in some foster homes and to be raised, to come through the hardships that they've done.
And then I see others that come through the hardship. I recollect the days where I went to a cafe in the city of Philadelphia and was told we had to sit in the back. And so it wasn't such a particular person, respected many of those that overcome those things. My predecessor, Chief Martin, he served in the military, he'd come back home, worked for the people, and know, and I understand it now because now in my position, you have to sacrifice your family. You have to sacrifice you could many many of personal things that you would like to do has to be put aside because you're working for people.
Of course that's in any political position that most of society does not see. And so I know that that was a lengthy way of saying, but were just so many of our elders in our community that I I I a young age, I was able to watch them. They were poor. Mhmm. But they didn't you never they never had the mindset of I'm poor.
They had the mindset of I won't I will I will work. They made they they work with their hands and their minds, to overcome diversities that was before. So that that always inspired me. The next one is what does representation mean to you or what does it look like being practiced in the community? For myself, it all began as just, you necessarily don't have to have a title, not only in a tribal community, but any community.
You can just be just being a giver, just being community minded to do for others. You know, my parents, that they come from their generation of having nothing, being poor, and so they never forgot where they come from. And that being said, it was instilled in us to work. And if there was a need to help someone to be able to do that, and I watched them day in and day out helping people. And so with that, representation for myself, it was not so much as a title.
And even before then, owned a business. I would give to the youth because of so many people, when I was a youth, they were coaches or they'd done something, Sunday school or youth leaders, they'd done for us. So I felt like that was representing. Sometimes you don't have to have that title and run around with a jersey per se by representing something. Just be you.
I guess to me that's more representation. Of course, now in my position, my representation goes beyond it. How can I help within the community, but how can I go on a county level, state level, a national level, on a federal stage of can I walk the halls of Congress? Can I be able to go across wherever to be able to represent who we are and and do the work that's needed for the betterment of our community? So it's again that position is just I'm blessed to be in this position.
And finally, your last one is what step do you think people or allies should take to better understand the ways of supporting your concern and needs in the communities? In today's era of bureaucracy, democratic process, I think it's great because, in the of politics, I'm able to have that government to government relationship and networking, whether it's local here, again with the city, county, state, all the way to the federal level, to be able to have the respect, to be able to allow us that opportunity to share with them who we are and understand why we come from the direction that we do. That's just with anything though. Just having your point of perspective and your optics and my optics. As I sit here at this desk, you're seeing the front side of the desk and I'm seeing this back side of the desk.
And I've got to respect that because I can't see what you're seeing. And so we have respect each other. So I think that's what it all comes down to. But that's just applicable in all lives, all society.