The Dr. Vibe Show™: Christopher Norris, Rashaun Williams And Isaiah Thomas “Building New Communities Through Collaboration”
A Philly Drummer playing a Global Beat, Christopher A. Norris is an award-winning journalist, online content producer and professional drummer endorsed by TRX Cymbals. An American businessman, Norris currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Techbook Online Corporation, overseeing a strategic initiative of mobilizing local, regional, national and global communities by encouraging the production, safeguarding and dissemination of diversified contents in the media and global information networks.
Rashaun Williams and Isaiah Thomas served on an all-black-male panel last month in Philadelphia where the driving question was: “HOW do we engage culture to transform perception; hold media accountable for depictions that reinforce negative associations; and reset the vision of race for this and future generations?”
Both attempting to save the world – one through sustainability and the other through policy – Williams and Thomas represent 21st century thought-leaders who use their words to spread social change and leverage their actions for social impact.
Thomas, the youngest democratic City Council candidate in Philadelphia’s history, coaches an award-winning basketball league and serves as a mentor to countless youth – both in the league and in the community. With a new son and a young wife, Thomas is working tirelessly to ensure his family, friends and those in the city of brotherly love have a strong, reliable and hard-working elected official representing them in City Hall. Thomas has confirmed with Techbook Online his plans to campaign in the 2015 local election. Rashaun is DJ leads weekly classes with high-school aged youth, aiming to inform them of sustainable soil management practices and encourage the development of innovative, sustainable project-based learning activities.
The youngest BMe grantee in Philadelphia, Williams is sending sustainability through a culture-shock as he fuses animation, activism, technology, place-making and education into a future-proofed model called TechKnowledge G!™.
Neither Thomas nor Williams fit the narrative of what society says a young black man should be, but they do, however, fit the description. Regardless of their defining physical features, the two things that make these men such as threat turns out to be their greatest strength: young and black.
Both willing to work around the clock to “get the job done,” these brothers are a small window into the diversity of leadership that exist with BMe, a growing network of 3000+ inspired black men and their friends who everyday are working together to build strong communities.
Our conversation included:
– Chris sharing a little about himself
– The Tamayo McDuffy case background
– Chris’s thoughts on how the Philadelphia media treats Blacks and the lack of diversity in America media companies
– Chris’s concern about many Black media are not “changing the narrative”
– Chris’s launches BOLD (Board Of Leaders and Doers) and BOLD’s vision
– Rashaun and Isiah provided some background about themselves and how each of them met Christopher
– Each of their takes about the state of Philadelphia for African American
– Their thoughts on the challenges African American men are facing in Philadelphia especially “stop and frisk”
– Why Isiah wants to get involved in Philadelphia politics
– How their collaboration with each other made them better
– Who inspires them and what inspires them?
– What has BMe meant to each of them?
– Their thoughts on the state of Black America
– Rashaun shares what he thinks that young people should be utilizing social media for
– Rashaun and Chris share their words for Black America and for Black men
You can connect with Christopher via:
Website
Twitter – Flood The Drummer
Twitter – Tech Book Online
Tech Book Online
Tech Book Online – Facebook
You can connect with Rashaun via:
You can connect with Isaiah via:
You can connect with Black Male Engagement via:
