I can remember when I was a child and
the first time I discovered a paper
airplane from which classmate of mine I
remember how excited I was and how my
mind just took off with imaginations and
possibilities I could do with this paper
plane the thought of being able to go
into my desk take a piece of paper out
fold it a few times and throw it across
the classroom without the teacher
catching me was so exciting but here’s
the thing that excitement only lasts for
a brief time you see once I realized no
matter how many times I fold it
increased that plane and tried to throw
it it never truly went the distance I
wanted it to I got bored with it stopped
playing with the paper planes and lost
his belief you see a paper airplane can
only truly soar in the imagination of a
child once the pilot of the paper plane
loses his belief in the paper plane the
paper plane stops trying to fly I call
this the paper plane effect now just
like a child who lost his or her belief
in the potential of a paper airplanes
flight the same thing happens to a
child’s belief system depending if their
environment they live in is conducive to
their growth or not a child in the
inner-city many times for us to identify
with the hood and the mis-education that
comes along with the hood for example a
man coming home from a four-year prison
sentence many sounds would be celebrated
more than a man coming home from four
years of college with a degree or four
years of military service Ravi Zacharias
said what we applaud we encourage be
careful what we celebrate now this also
applies to my precious culture of
hip-hop what we applaud we encourage be
careful what we celebrate when when
we’re at home sometimes watching the
evening news
and we see a criminal being arrested for
a crime they may have committed and
their mugshot is plastered on the screen
we often find ourselves feeling a bit
safer this person’s off the streets as
we probably should but what most of us
never do is stop in the moment and ask
the question why why why did this young
man choose to tattoo his face in his
neck why is this young man’s eyes filled
with so much anger and hate and
hopelessness why does any man choose to
risk his freedom and his life to rob a
store for sixty two dollars and 32 cents
why author and speaker John Maxwell said
in his book that 15 laws of growth then
in order to grow to our full potential
we must be in the right environment he
goes on to say that growth thrives in
favorable conditions and when you and I
surround ourselves with people and
opportunities conducive to our
development is when we grow the season
of spring gets its name from nature’s
sudden display of growth the word spring
means to leap to fly up or burst forth
in the right environment where there’s
longer days good rainfall good sunlight
the grass and the flowers seem to spring
up from the ground almost overnight but
in the wrong environment where there’s
an adequate rainfall freezing
temperatures or too much Sun and too
much heat growth gets delayed or it
barely exists at all see when I was a
kid growing up in the inner city the
older kids on the block had told me the
outskirts of the city was called the
white section today I know that as the
suburbs now what I did not realize at
that time is that description alone of
us calling the suburbs the white section
was unconsciously excluding me from ever
believing that I could live in that
environment see our environment is
vitally important to our growth the man
we see on the six o’clock news as a
child that I aspire to be a criminal and
ooh and go to jail before the realities
of his environment set in and stole his
belief he dreamt a big sea belivers a
condition where we are certain of
something based on personal experiences
Vence feelings and gain knowledge
through the avenues of the human
experience and the human experience
happens where in our environment even
Thomas of the Bible one of the twelve
said I won’t believe it until I see it
for myself I need to see him and then I
need to touch him I need to take my
hands and put him in the holes of his
hands then I need to take my hand and
put it into wound in his side and only
then will I believe I’m gonna ask you
all to take a little walk with me for a
moment we’re gonna leave this auditorium
in our mind and once I could walk to the
suburbs just for a moment I want you to
pay attention to what you can hear see
and touch in this environment in this
environment most of the households not
all but most have both a mother and
father living in the home also in this
environment either one of the parents if
not both have a good-paying job or
career so the child inside the home
starts to relate and believe that’s
something attainable because it’s part
of their everyday lives or what they can
see in touch also in the suburb
community most of the parents are only
hope and pray their children to go into
college but it’s something that is
instilled in the youth at a young age
until they are going to do when the
child in this environment steps out on
the front porch and looks to the left at
the neighbor’s home he sees a boat and
two jet skis in the driveway and they
know the neighbors the neighbors own a
successful real-estate business
when the child looks that are right at
this home of the night beautiful home
has the in-ground pool in the yard and
he knows these neighbors they’re both
retired professionals one being a
retired doctor the other a retired
college professor see when this child
looks running his environment see
success pretty much everywhere and when
they can identify with someone who looks
like them comes from the same background
they believe in a similar future if not
better now for a moment this leave this
environment this walk to the inner city
but I need you to be careful because
it’s dangerous like crime and murder is
a normal occurrence in this neighborhood
pay attention to which you can see hear
[Music]
now unlike the suburbs were less than
20% other households are fatherless that
number jumps to over 57% in this
environment more than half so in many
cases you have a single mother raising
her children on her own now unlike so
many information that we have been
receiving to the media she’s a hard
worker she works well over 40 hours a
week cleaning hotel rooms for minimum
wage but what she brings her check home
it’s not enough to live on so she needs
to collect government food stamps to
help feed her children also on her home
she doesn’t talk about college because
she never went to college her parents
never went to college so the kid grows
up in this environment and starts to
think college is an unattainable pipe
dream that I hear in school when the
child steps out in the front porch it
looks at home to the left there’s no
boats or jet skis in the driveway
there’s not even in Shrive way but he
knows the lady that rents there she’s a
single mother of four kids she doesn’t
work she collects government assistance
and lives in section 8 housing we look
to the neighborhood delet on the right
he also knows a lady that lives there
just this is a lady that has a part-time
job as a newborn baby she recently
brought home and a new boyfriend they
moved in a few months ago this new
boyfriend has a big black SUV fully
loaded tinted windows big rims shiny
really beautifully kids love this truck
in the neighborhood he parks it out
front all the time now if you look at
this house long enough you’ll see that
people come and go in and out in and out
in and out all day and all night why the
new boyfriend is selling drugs out of
the house in the hood we call this a
Trap House
that’s what provides him the money to
buy the big black SUV had the fresh
clothing and sneakers in the flashy
jewelry the kids admire now also the
kids in this neighborhood look up to him
and he knows it why because when he was
a kid he also looked up to the
neighborhood drug dealer now see when
this kid looks around his environment he
doesn’t see any retired professionals no
retired doctors or professors no
in-ground pools boats or jet skis no
driveways or white picket fences you
know what he sees poverty crime death
now uh here’s the thing both these
children grow up in two different very
different environments both at an early
age believe they can be anything they
want when they grow up anything but for
one of these children their environment
will start to steal their belief system
from them while the other child’s
environment will start to fuel his in
her imagination to believe in a great
future and potential just like the
people around them now I’m not saying
that in the suburbs you don’t have shot
children ain’t suffering
there’s abusers addiction is neglect all
that is real but today I’m speaking on a
broader perspective of the effects
environment have on our children so what
is the answer to this what’s the
solution to this problem plaguing our
inner cities of America I don’t have
enough time to discuss all the issues
like like our failing public school
systems like the archaic ways that we
educate our youth like um generational
poverty and and for-profit prisons but I
can’t talk about one solution one very
powerful solution and that is for people
like myself that come from the
environment that have found a way to
make it out to become successful without
being a famous athlete a famous rapper
or a drug dealer to come back in the
physical form of someone the child can
see and touch and believe in so that way
their belief system could be
re-established see just like doubting
Thomas the kids in the inner city they
need to not only see it but they need to
be able to touch it in order to believe
in a future of success now I discovered
this and had this this this calling in
2012 when I found a division program
vision stands for values inspiring
students and overcoming negativity
I knew that over 90% of our inner-city
youth are engulfed in hip-hop music and
not only hip hop music hip hop culture
and hip hop culture is the most
influential youth culture on planet
Earth today so I designed a series of
workshops and programs that uses
elements of hip-hop to gain the useful
attention because I know once I have a
child’s undivided attention I can get my
message across we developed these
programs one of the programs that we run
is called the art is called the
influence
pop Probie take the kids and we dig into
where hip-hop started where it came from
a play a beautiful place of positivity
and creativity and the kids get to see
where this really came from and how
powerful could be if they use the
positive aspects of it through lectures
and workshops and group discussions and
workbooks we challenge the youth to see
how it is to have negative negative role
models and how to change from negativity
to positivity one of the other programs
we run is called the art of
entrepreneurship where we actually look
at the drug trade with the kids and the
outcomes of participating in it now
remember these children are surrounded
by the drug trade I have to talk about
I’m not gonna hide from it in this
program we also find successful men and
women that come from that environment
that made it out so that way we can show
them they can identify with oh he’s like
me he comes from this and he made it so
we look at all this we teach the kids
about credit credit building assets
liabilities investing another program we
run is called hip hop’s influence on
young men and women see in hip-hop
culture women are looked at as
accessories to successful men they are
objectified young boys within the
culture at an early age are taught it’s
ok to objectify women and call them
disrespectful names like bitches hoes
and thoughts the young girls in the
culture will start to emulate and copy
the women they see in videos our hip-hop
native contact in order to get the young
boy’s attention so you have to remember
over half of these children don’t have a
positive male role model in their
household that teach them otherwise so
the culture teaches them for them we
challenge these kids and give them the
information to see how these negative
images and content is affecting them and
we make them learn to respect themselves
and others and bring that back to their
circle of influences in their
communities now please understand I’m
not against hip-hop I am hip-hop
I am the culture hip-hop has saved
millions of lives across our planet and
has a lot of great assets to it but
there’s some negative messages that are
killing our youth that I must not run
from vision is not just a program that
runs workshops where you’re also a
mentoring program for youth upon release
from treatment facilities and one of the
main things that we teach our kids and
we push on them is reading
with the help of author and entrepreneur
Tom pace with the help of Success
Magazine and the help of the author of
the book the secret Rhonda Byrne we have
given away over 700 copies of personal
development books to incarcerated youth
now you may be asking yourself this
question right now well how can I
influence change if I’m not from this
environment or I don’t know anything
about hip-hop culture if you’re asking
that question I’m glad because we need
your help you can volunteer at youth
based programs like the Boys and Girls
Club of America big brothers and sister
programs
Crispus Attucks centers and even
nonprofits working right in our area
doing amazing sync things with children
like the mix at our bure place or the
York Choice foundation if any of this
does it’s not a calling to you you can
give financially because all these
organizations need money in order to
continue providing you and I have the
power to influence change in youth if we
take action to build relationships with
these kids that most of America has
when most of you guys came in here
before this on before the break
hopefully you received a mini paper
airplane when you came in
can I ask everyone that received a mini
paper airplane to take it out for a
this mini plane guys is a gift from me
to you but it’s a gift with a purpose I
want you to please keep it it’s a
reminder can you guys hold it up so I
can see it thank you I’ll keep it there
for a moment this is a reminder for us
to remember that when someone loses
belief they lose hope and hopelessness
is a dangerous place to be this is a
reminder that our belief systems become
our reality what we believe manifest in
our lives this is a reminder for all of
us not to be so quick to judge like we
do the person on the news is 6 o’clock
news but most of all it’s a reminder for
possibly one of you in this audience or
someone at home watching this on video
or an inner city kid that lost hope that
that that believes their disability is
hurt holding them
you are more than your disability you
were more than that addiction your
fighting you are more than that
depression that’s lying to you day in
and day out you were more not just like
a paper plane that won’t fly too far
you’re a fighter jet you have to believe
you’re a fighter jet that you can take
on any opponent and you will soar to any
height unmanageable you are a fighter
jet and I am you and I believe in you
and that is the paper plane effect thank you
the first time I discovered a paper
airplane from which classmate of mine I
remember how excited I was and how my
mind just took off with imaginations and
possibilities I could do with this paper
plane the thought of being able to go
into my desk take a piece of paper out
fold it a few times and throw it across
the classroom without the teacher
catching me was so exciting but here’s
the thing that excitement only lasts for
a brief time you see once I realized no
matter how many times I fold it
increased that plane and tried to throw
it it never truly went the distance I
wanted it to I got bored with it stopped
playing with the paper planes and lost
his belief you see a paper airplane can
only truly soar in the imagination of a
child once the pilot of the paper plane
loses his belief in the paper plane the
paper plane stops trying to fly I call
this the paper plane effect now just
like a child who lost his or her belief
in the potential of a paper airplanes
flight the same thing happens to a
child’s belief system depending if their
environment they live in is conducive to
their growth or not a child in the
inner-city many times for us to identify
with the hood and the mis-education that
comes along with the hood for example a
man coming home from a four-year prison
sentence many sounds would be celebrated
more than a man coming home from four
years of college with a degree or four
years of military service Ravi Zacharias
said what we applaud we encourage be
careful what we celebrate now this also
applies to my precious culture of
hip-hop what we applaud we encourage be
careful what we celebrate when when
we’re at home sometimes watching the
evening news
and we see a criminal being arrested for
a crime they may have committed and
their mugshot is plastered on the screen
we often find ourselves feeling a bit
safer this person’s off the streets as
we probably should but what most of us
never do is stop in the moment and ask
the question why why why did this young
man choose to tattoo his face in his
neck why is this young man’s eyes filled
with so much anger and hate and
hopelessness why does any man choose to
risk his freedom and his life to rob a
store for sixty two dollars and 32 cents
why author and speaker John Maxwell said
in his book that 15 laws of growth then
in order to grow to our full potential
we must be in the right environment he
goes on to say that growth thrives in
favorable conditions and when you and I
surround ourselves with people and
opportunities conducive to our
development is when we grow the season
of spring gets its name from nature’s
sudden display of growth the word spring
means to leap to fly up or burst forth
in the right environment where there’s
longer days good rainfall good sunlight
the grass and the flowers seem to spring
up from the ground almost overnight but
in the wrong environment where there’s
an adequate rainfall freezing
temperatures or too much Sun and too
much heat growth gets delayed or it
barely exists at all see when I was a
kid growing up in the inner city the
older kids on the block had told me the
outskirts of the city was called the
white section today I know that as the
suburbs now what I did not realize at
that time is that description alone of
us calling the suburbs the white section
was unconsciously excluding me from ever
believing that I could live in that
environment see our environment is
vitally important to our growth the man
we see on the six o’clock news as a
child that I aspire to be a criminal and
ooh and go to jail before the realities
of his environment set in and stole his
belief he dreamt a big sea belivers a
condition where we are certain of
something based on personal experiences
Vence feelings and gain knowledge
through the avenues of the human
experience and the human experience
happens where in our environment even
Thomas of the Bible one of the twelve
said I won’t believe it until I see it
for myself I need to see him and then I
need to touch him I need to take my
hands and put him in the holes of his
hands then I need to take my hand and
put it into wound in his side and only
then will I believe I’m gonna ask you
all to take a little walk with me for a
moment we’re gonna leave this auditorium
in our mind and once I could walk to the
suburbs just for a moment I want you to
pay attention to what you can hear see
and touch in this environment in this
environment most of the households not
all but most have both a mother and
father living in the home also in this
environment either one of the parents if
not both have a good-paying job or
career so the child inside the home
starts to relate and believe that’s
something attainable because it’s part
of their everyday lives or what they can
see in touch also in the suburb
community most of the parents are only
hope and pray their children to go into
college but it’s something that is
instilled in the youth at a young age
until they are going to do when the
child in this environment steps out on
the front porch and looks to the left at
the neighbor’s home he sees a boat and
two jet skis in the driveway and they
know the neighbors the neighbors own a
successful real-estate business
when the child looks that are right at
this home of the night beautiful home
has the in-ground pool in the yard and
he knows these neighbors they’re both
retired professionals one being a
retired doctor the other a retired
college professor see when this child
looks running his environment see
success pretty much everywhere and when
they can identify with someone who looks
like them comes from the same background
they believe in a similar future if not
better now for a moment this leave this
environment this walk to the inner city
but I need you to be careful because
it’s dangerous like crime and murder is
a normal occurrence in this neighborhood
pay attention to which you can see hear
[Music]
now unlike the suburbs were less than
20% other households are fatherless that
number jumps to over 57% in this
environment more than half so in many
cases you have a single mother raising
her children on her own now unlike so
many information that we have been
receiving to the media she’s a hard
worker she works well over 40 hours a
week cleaning hotel rooms for minimum
wage but what she brings her check home
it’s not enough to live on so she needs
to collect government food stamps to
help feed her children also on her home
she doesn’t talk about college because
she never went to college her parents
never went to college so the kid grows
up in this environment and starts to
think college is an unattainable pipe
dream that I hear in school when the
child steps out in the front porch it
looks at home to the left there’s no
boats or jet skis in the driveway
there’s not even in Shrive way but he
knows the lady that rents there she’s a
single mother of four kids she doesn’t
work she collects government assistance
and lives in section 8 housing we look
to the neighborhood delet on the right
he also knows a lady that lives there
just this is a lady that has a part-time
job as a newborn baby she recently
brought home and a new boyfriend they
moved in a few months ago this new
boyfriend has a big black SUV fully
loaded tinted windows big rims shiny
really beautifully kids love this truck
in the neighborhood he parks it out
front all the time now if you look at
this house long enough you’ll see that
people come and go in and out in and out
in and out all day and all night why the
new boyfriend is selling drugs out of
the house in the hood we call this a
Trap House
that’s what provides him the money to
buy the big black SUV had the fresh
clothing and sneakers in the flashy
jewelry the kids admire now also the
kids in this neighborhood look up to him
and he knows it why because when he was
a kid he also looked up to the
neighborhood drug dealer now see when
this kid looks around his environment he
doesn’t see any retired professionals no
retired doctors or professors no
in-ground pools boats or jet skis no
driveways or white picket fences you
know what he sees poverty crime death
now uh here’s the thing both these
children grow up in two different very
different environments both at an early
age believe they can be anything they
want when they grow up anything but for
one of these children their environment
will start to steal their belief system
from them while the other child’s
environment will start to fuel his in
her imagination to believe in a great
future and potential just like the
people around them now I’m not saying
that in the suburbs you don’t have shot
children ain’t suffering
there’s abusers addiction is neglect all
that is real but today I’m speaking on a
broader perspective of the effects
environment have on our children so what
is the answer to this what’s the
solution to this problem plaguing our
inner cities of America I don’t have
enough time to discuss all the issues
like like our failing public school
systems like the archaic ways that we
educate our youth like um generational
poverty and and for-profit prisons but I
can’t talk about one solution one very
powerful solution and that is for people
like myself that come from the
environment that have found a way to
make it out to become successful without
being a famous athlete a famous rapper
or a drug dealer to come back in the
physical form of someone the child can
see and touch and believe in so that way
their belief system could be
re-established see just like doubting
Thomas the kids in the inner city they
need to not only see it but they need to
be able to touch it in order to believe
in a future of success now I discovered
this and had this this this calling in
2012 when I found a division program
vision stands for values inspiring
students and overcoming negativity
I knew that over 90% of our inner-city
youth are engulfed in hip-hop music and
not only hip hop music hip hop culture
and hip hop culture is the most
influential youth culture on planet
Earth today so I designed a series of
workshops and programs that uses
elements of hip-hop to gain the useful
attention because I know once I have a
child’s undivided attention I can get my
message across we developed these
programs one of the programs that we run
is called the art is called the
influence
pop Probie take the kids and we dig into
where hip-hop started where it came from
a play a beautiful place of positivity
and creativity and the kids get to see
where this really came from and how
powerful could be if they use the
positive aspects of it through lectures
and workshops and group discussions and
workbooks we challenge the youth to see
how it is to have negative negative role
models and how to change from negativity
to positivity one of the other programs
we run is called the art of
entrepreneurship where we actually look
at the drug trade with the kids and the
outcomes of participating in it now
remember these children are surrounded
by the drug trade I have to talk about
I’m not gonna hide from it in this
program we also find successful men and
women that come from that environment
that made it out so that way we can show
them they can identify with oh he’s like
me he comes from this and he made it so
we look at all this we teach the kids
about credit credit building assets
liabilities investing another program we
run is called hip hop’s influence on
young men and women see in hip-hop
culture women are looked at as
accessories to successful men they are
objectified young boys within the
culture at an early age are taught it’s
ok to objectify women and call them
disrespectful names like bitches hoes
and thoughts the young girls in the
culture will start to emulate and copy
the women they see in videos our hip-hop
native contact in order to get the young
boy’s attention so you have to remember
over half of these children don’t have a
positive male role model in their
household that teach them otherwise so
the culture teaches them for them we
challenge these kids and give them the
information to see how these negative
images and content is affecting them and
we make them learn to respect themselves
and others and bring that back to their
circle of influences in their
communities now please understand I’m
not against hip-hop I am hip-hop
I am the culture hip-hop has saved
millions of lives across our planet and
has a lot of great assets to it but
there’s some negative messages that are
killing our youth that I must not run
from vision is not just a program that
runs workshops where you’re also a
mentoring program for youth upon release
from treatment facilities and one of the
main things that we teach our kids and
we push on them is reading
with the help of author and entrepreneur
Tom pace with the help of Success
Magazine and the help of the author of
the book the secret Rhonda Byrne we have
given away over 700 copies of personal
development books to incarcerated youth
now you may be asking yourself this
question right now well how can I
influence change if I’m not from this
environment or I don’t know anything
about hip-hop culture if you’re asking
that question I’m glad because we need
your help you can volunteer at youth
based programs like the Boys and Girls
Club of America big brothers and sister
programs
Crispus Attucks centers and even
nonprofits working right in our area
doing amazing sync things with children
like the mix at our bure place or the
York Choice foundation if any of this
does it’s not a calling to you you can
give financially because all these
organizations need money in order to
continue providing you and I have the
power to influence change in youth if we
take action to build relationships with
these kids that most of America has
when most of you guys came in here
before this on before the break
hopefully you received a mini paper
airplane when you came in
can I ask everyone that received a mini
paper airplane to take it out for a
this mini plane guys is a gift from me
to you but it’s a gift with a purpose I
want you to please keep it it’s a
reminder can you guys hold it up so I
can see it thank you I’ll keep it there
for a moment this is a reminder for us
to remember that when someone loses
belief they lose hope and hopelessness
is a dangerous place to be this is a
reminder that our belief systems become
our reality what we believe manifest in
our lives this is a reminder for all of
us not to be so quick to judge like we
do the person on the news is 6 o’clock
news but most of all it’s a reminder for
possibly one of you in this audience or
someone at home watching this on video
or an inner city kid that lost hope that
that that believes their disability is
hurt holding them
you are more than your disability you
were more than that addiction your
fighting you are more than that
depression that’s lying to you day in
and day out you were more not just like
a paper plane that won’t fly too far
you’re a fighter jet you have to believe
you’re a fighter jet that you can take
on any opponent and you will soar to any
height unmanageable you are a fighter
jet and I am you and I believe in you
and that is the paper plane effect thank you
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