The Crowd is Here.

I was asked, a few months ago, to speak to a class at Northwestern High School in Detroit, a leadership class to be precise, by the debate coach there. I had no idea why. I don't, to this day, know what inspired him, on that day, as I took pictures covering a debate tournament for a Detroit Urban Debate Education newsletter, to see me as a leader, but I accepted the opportunity.

I imagine that when I finally do get the opportunity to speak to that class, I will look like the many people before me who, after just a few short months in college, returned to their communities to divulge the secrets they've learned in college into the minds of the students they left behind.

I'm not that guy, I don't think. But, I accepted the task. I've kind of just decided to take on the high standards that others seem to see in me, to the best of my ability, but that's another log for another time.

I thought for weeks about what I would talk about until, in one faithful shuffle before my iPod was forever lost in a short walk between rooms in my Scholar House, Lupe Fiasco "Superstar" hit me like a ton of bricks.

If you are what you say you are
A superstar
Then have no fear
The camera's here
and the microphones and they wanna know

If you are what you say you are
a superstar
then have no fear
the crowd is here
and the lights are on and they want a show


To a self-proclaimed, or even a critically acclaimed, "superstar", the message should be clear. If you've got it, show it. Not in a way of a braggart or the average doucher that we often find in the post-secondary setting, but in the way of someone simply living up to their own ability.

The camera's here to see you, the microphone to listen, and they're waiting to be amazed.
The crowd is here to follow you, the lights to show your path, and all that's left is to walk it.

We often find that we spend so much time afraid of what we are. Let's not do that.
Let's just be who we are and stop wasting our majesty.

That is all.