K Workshops

Besides writing books for and about hard to reach youth, and the parents and teachers/counselors who are trying to reach them, I also teach general life management skills and urban psychology. For those interested in having me come speak to their students or participants, the following is a list of workshops I've either done or are on-going--


Message to a Youngblood - Reaching and Understanding Our Sons
Before You Fly Off - Lessons and Advice for Our Teen Daughters
English Can Be Fun -- Helping Students Fight Their Fear of Writing
Educating Urban Youth - When the Curicculum Doesn't Fit
Counseling the African American Male - The Audacity of Not Judging
Trouble Girls - Working With Female Teen Bullies
Single Parenting - Parent Stress/Peer Pressure
The Marginalized Student - From Identifying to Celebrating
Am I in the Right Major? - Learning and Developing College Skills
Prison Bizness - Why Are So Many Black Men in Jail?
Teaching the Young, Gifted and Incarcerated
You Talkin' to Me? - The 411 on Conflict Resolution
Gay Youth - Counseling Them, Counseling Us
Beyond the Bling - Black Male Self-Awareness
Black Masculinities - Hyper-Masculinity in the Black Community
Love and Happiness - Developing a Relationship With Yourself First!
Creating Your Job and Finding True Purpose
Learning How to Better Manage Your Time
Wholistic Wellness - Creating a Positive Environment For Success
Writing the Autobiography - Leaving Your Written Legacy
The University Male Center - Challenges, Tools, and Leadership
The New Academic Advisor - A Different, More Wholistic Approach
Despierta! - How Culture Can Affect Academic Performance
Toxic People - The Art of Recognizing and Avoiding
Doing It Your Way - How to Self-Publish Your Book
Doing It Another Way - How to Create, Market and Sell Your T-Shirts
No Rage, No Guilt - The Difficult Process of Addressing Race-ism

K Books
Message to a Youngblood - A Conversation with Our Sons
Before You Fly Off - A Father Offers Advice to His Teenage Daughter
Before You Fly Off - Volume Two (Released July, 2009)
The Dredlocks Tree - Prose and Poetry
Throw - Photos and Words (tba)

Recent Essays
From Ground Zero With Love
50 Means Reset
The Color Complex
One Drop of Blood
How the Haitian Government System Works or, The Waiting Game
Dear Oprah
If I Interviewed Obama...
The Writing Process: On Writing For and About Young Black Males
When Doves Cry - The 2010 Haiti Earthquake
Dancehall Music is Not Reggae
When Dumb Wasn't Cool
Bang, Bang. I'm Dead!
Youth Participation in Neighborhood and Community Settings
Letter to My Prez - Wyclef Jean for President
The Other Writing Process
How'You Like Her Now?-- The Makings of An Irish Rasta

Interviews
Naj
If Life is a Dance, Where's the Music?
Akasan: Rap and Hip Hop in the Haitian American Community
Generation Entitlement: Where We Went Wrong With Our Youth
What Are You Doing Here? - A Conversation With a Former Inmate




My current project is on the overall development of young urban males of African descent; how parents can better relate to their troubled sons; their education and spiritual wellness; social identity concerns; hyper-masculinity and buffoonery; and how we can help them define and discover their purpose.

"Most books about us are about teaching us how to fit in. Your book helps us understand our rage and learn how to be ourselves in a world that has a problem with that."‎--22yrld Tariq









For more info on workshops and book orders, feel free to contact me at Lifejak@aol.com

Thank you again for your support!

Book Discussion (Part 1)

Book Discussion (Part 2)

Images 15: Grand Canyon

Red man walks to the beat of a drum
that goes way past yester-morning
Holds the key of life in his hands
but hardly anyone is noticing
I can see far beyond these projects
I can hear the Red man calling
Deferred dreams all over the ground
but I’m steady meditating














Just like a native man,
I give my prayers to the sun
Give thanks for my visions
and I bring love back around

Red man lives by the light in his eyes
he’s a child of the mountains
Liquor stores stay open late in the night
like me, he’s on a reservation
Govament cheese or gambling for loot
and still, no reparations
Drive-by shootings just a way of life
but I’m steady calling on my guides
Just like a native man,
I throw my hands up to the sky
Give my prayers to the sun
and I bring love back around

Sometimes I don't like my own tribe
Lose my sense of direction
I pour my libations
And bring love back around.




I like the desert; not the poor ghettos Native Americans were forced into, but I like the way dried up trees turn their contortions into art.




































































































































































The West Rim











Amazing's not the word. Some people say they feel a certain pull to jump over if they stand close enough to see below. I'm not gonna front. I kinda felt it too. People have fallen off, by the way; and Canyon officials are proud of the fact that "we were able to find all the bodies"!













In and from the Hopi Tower

















Bell Rock Mountain, though the original people probably call it what it should be called-- Red Mountain

















Bringing back with me some of that red earth to remind me of what I walked on, climbed and meditated over...































































And I like cacti; the way they take your mind off the concrete jungle and keep you centered and your smiling.





Where all points meet...


It's important to travel beyond your place of familiar, and abroad if you got it like that, so that your definition of the world and of your self isn't limited to hype and false expectations.