hello my name is angela cleo's mit and i will be your homes today with a show entitled a call to action how are we as community leaders addressing the problems of today's use i think it's only fitting to dedicate this show to nelson mandela who was a south africa apartheid anti apartheid revolutionary politician and philanthropist who served as the first black president of south africa from one thousand nine hundred ninety four to one nine hundred ninety nine he died on december fifth twenty thirteen my guests today are legendary oakland a's pitcher mike norris and community leaders both the rechristen and rodney best we would discuss a call to action the guest will speak to that action by giving to be here today to talk to this public about what we feel is really needed to bring the kids forward thank you and we have three christian yes alone are you doing it's good to be here and i want to be able to share some ways of how we can improve our community and really get our young people thank you and we have course our legendary mike norris oakland a's former pitcher how are you mi good you know today we're going to be discussing about our youth how are we going to address are you and i'm going to start with you rod and now i've been you know when you a long time and you've been in the open area for let's just alameda county for over twenty five years and i remember you were doing s p n news with so be television and you gave a lot of information to our community so if we were to address the problems of today for you why don't we start with the question what are our problems today for you you know the number one thing i would in a fight is education and that's that's it i think if we started dressing education not it a high school level let's go back into the grammar school i think we start coming forward so i think education is what we really need to address ok so you're saying that education is probably number one on your list of some of the things that we need yes that's that's somewhere where i can see myself i have worked on the campaign yes with the late gary bell we won the campaign we worked hard in the richmond area and so you and i are going to be doing some other work because you're running for school board west contra costa county and i'm going to be sure that you may make that seat yes so that we can help our you so you also went to kennedy high school and you're a native of richmond that's your area and you know there are some issues and richmond right now oh yes so what do you say is the problem that something that highlights the problem of our youth today one of the things that comes to my mind is leadership ok and when you have a lack of leadership then you don't have the stability to make things happen nothing never happen from the bottom but it happens at the top ok and the leadership is not right then everything else is not going to be right ok ok so you're saying that leadership is number one because and it is important to have leadership because if you don't have that leadership then you won't have the followership to be sure that that that these things come to yesterday so that's really important so we got education  you became this the history the thirty fifth pitcher in the major league history to pitch a nine any complete game shutout now that's very very impressive and that's been a few years however today's issues with our youth now could is that realistic to say we could see a young black boy going into the major leagues i mean do we even have baseball fields so what do you say some of our issues are today for our problems for our youth well the down to eight percent and what has taken that spot is the latin developmental ball players from puerto rico venezuela and the dominican republic and now they comprise to be thirty three and a third percent of major league baseball so i'm trying to figure out how can we get our kids our young black kids back into baseball again to fill that void so i'm trying to attack this on multiple levels by mentoring tutoring  educating and nurturing their minds in their bodies ok all right so you're saying that part of the issues is that you're trying to get more kids back into that into baseball and part of that is mentoring nourishing their mind and their bodies and i think all of that is really important so we have some of the problems and issues on the table right now so let's just discuss a little bit more about how we're going to address it now we know that the educational leadership is really important so bravely running what are your plans for two thousand and fourteen on how you think you can go about helping our youth today you know it's really interesting you ask me that because you know i see all these private academies opening but what i don't see is men going in talking about the interest rupture of the community the interest of the neighborhood and i think now it's time to do that so my mission is see how i can put that whole concept to gether to go in and talk to the kids eight seven eight nine years of data hey why not open up folks to support me and go out and tell the kids instead of walking around think about how you dress think about how you can dress your community put money back in your community yeah you know i want you and i've talked about several things before and you've always mentioned that university yes and you also went to religious christian priest southwest southwestern christian college in texas yes and you also served on capitol hill george miller yes congressman george miller so i mean twenty four eighteen is to get busy and one of the things i'm looking at is actually is ready for school board for the west country cause unified school district because we believe i believe in change and making things better because i young people need a strong foundation and that foundation stars in the elementary level if you can cultivate and mentor and really the bill of young people from all directions now you will be able to produce so assessed for young people who will be able to matriculate from middle school and into high school and going into college or in other areas in life but we sitting right and when i walked in there you know i actually was interviewing several schools and that's one school that needs resources and i'm looking at public schools and saying why is one school public schools have all these resources yes and then another school doesn't rank so i hopefully that will be part of your agenda yes he will say you know my you know you've done some really wonderful work that actually worked with you so i'm i'm working like you know neck and neck with you on your projects and you open the show with talking about you know your calendars and brochures what is that so what is your plan briefly for twenty fourteen welp i've got a traveling baseball league for ages eight to eleven and i think travel is want to better educations and live to the cure i want to remove all the the stereotypes of you can't go here because of this game is co heir and there's this nature so i want this generation to grow up with that without that fear right and i think that's going to be stepping in to be really great achievement if we can accomplish that ok all right and you know accomplishing these goals as i said always an issue and put in that the structure together and the partnerships and all of that more talk a little bit more about that later on some of the needs and how we're going to approach that but i always say that leadership and elaboration and whatever you want to do whether it's a nonprofit organization working with school doing your wellness program you need a grassroots approach right you know and grassroots is usually something that a community has to have a vision so just basically ronnie what would be your grassroots approach well doctor you're seeing it right now this is the beginning in the beginning is that i'm saying to the public appealing to the public we have to change education for ou and we have to change it in a fact where they are not saying i got to wear purple pair she says school in order to achieve what we have to do is teach them how to become not financially successful not financially poverty but how to be financially responsible in the community in today is my grass roots because i'm kicking it off today where i go from here it's only going to be a successful walk because i got my mind made up i can give back the talents and i think right now i'm on the roots with you when i'm a see if i can get use to realize they are superman in this book is really a good book for a school system t really put to simulate the kids know that you're a super person and i think if we start teaching them to be super in the community we can see our interest rate to change yeah i hear what you're saying because a grassroots group approach could be just what we're doing we're just sitting here i'm story here berkeley community media we're talking about it we're in the community so it starts with us it starts with our with our resources and whatever we may have now let's talk to you mike per minute on  grassroots i'm sure you have probably a lot of connections out there and resources and so on so on a grassroots level how would you how would you oppose that well you know basically it's just getting into the community health and wellness educating this calendar has math that has english it has geography it has science nutrition wellness and so this is a very complete piece of information for  earlier and you have so much information that calendar i mean you can have nelson mandela's birthday on there but you also talk about nutrition and wellness and so on these are key factors in life yes and this is what we lack in our communities and i just to understand what that means is that more of our preventive or is that something that now that you're there's an issue or a problem we have to address it well it has to be addressed now i mean prevention is something is obviously going to  starts in your own backyard and you know we we might complain about some of the issues nationally and all of them but if we don't talk about our issues right in our own backyard how else are we going to do it and that is the grassroots level now to read yes you are you know i look at you know you're your buddy bio you know you're you're the president of the iron triangle which is in the heart of the richmond community and now you're the president of the black envious and lacy of richmond now that's a response you have a lot of responsibility so it's almost like top down and yet it's bottom up so what would be your grass currently we know what the medical change that understand insurance it's not just life and death insurance is what moves america it with the wellness change affordable care that's a wellness change in it means now that instead of want to one location we're going to have many you know i served on the board of directors for the bay area black consortium for sixteen years now it's gone from serving for social programs and we kind of put community medical services in the community that's why you see the clinics are opening up so if you're sick you don't have to go to the emergency room you can go to one of the local cl people currently today that are assisting getting these clinics ecstatic in our community so that people begin to receive care in wellness is extremely important right now because do you know what's going in  it's a whole community approach and it starts at home starts in the schools we as community leaders i mean it's it's all of our responsibility and you know and i was just saying about you to be in the read about it and the president yes what does that mean when you're the president does that mean that now you have this position that you just sit on it presidents don't do anything or what it was is that no that means you go go to work this time the word that's leadership and leadership is lead buy a sample and and if you don't lead and don't do anything you just haven't a title but what is a  everybody yes you can make a difference each individual has the power and themselves to make a difference i hear what you're saying so as an individual we have to know that we have the power and then you as a president of an organization we can come to you and say these are issues and rights addressed you know mike you are part of the black aces could you tell us a little bit about what that  an elite group of african american pitchers in major league baseball have won twenty games in a season there's only fifteen percent done that wow so wait a minute you want twenty games in a gooding jr jr richard this is still a credible bunch of guys and it's just so with that which is what led me into what i'm doing now because i'm looking at what is going to be another black twenty game winner  with the population of us decreasing like and so this is what led me to want to become able to get these black kids playing baseball right right now that's the this is what we're trying to nurture people to get to that level of what you're talking about but if even if they don't get to that level at least you have the power and control in the connections to make sure that some things happen so we're looking forward to you do what you know stan and i michael and we'll be lot of great wonderful things in twenty fourteen and you have some great plans because you are transitioning rodney to from one career move to now giving back and you get to a point in life i know that's why i went back to school you know it's taken me forever to get this doctor integrated but at the same time i'm time is going to go by anyway so now we're talking point that we want to give back and if there's something we just have a few more minutes in the show and we just want to talk about how can we as community leaders gather the community to come up with some solutions so let's start with you my what what what the situation that we are right now currently with there you have basically to do with the generation i grew up in and that being that we grew up not wanting to raise our children like our parents raised which was the wrong thing to what about right what's the vision that the vision is that we've got to get people to really look at themselves say look these are us as african american people we come a long way and the thing is is that we cannot be individual lives we've got to look at the fact it takes a village to raise a child so it takes all of us as a community to raise and help each other and we have become disconnected a reason why people are doing you know and it started even how he united sports and a whole country by changing the mindset so yeah i had an opportunity to see him when he came to america to add a deal oakland coliseum but basically where where i'm going is different in that's what i'm about i'm about going to the kids in saying let's show you the next step will be something different how i'm going to get out the door it's a little walk and i'm a walk out on face in believing that and be ensure that we take accountability not only for ourselves but for our children for the reset it takes a vision might nora's you saying that you know you have some of the resources but you know it's got starts in the home and you're saying this is this is what we have to do we have to start now and as we end twenty thirteen and go into twenty fourteen these are this is our responsibility you know i know personally i have some plans again my name is angela smith and i want to be sure to thank all of the crew today you know it's it's always exciting to be here at berkeley community be the men and brand that wasn't for them you know my show would probably not be