A couple of weeks ago, I met with Latino business leaders in New York City. This past week, I was in Dallas doing the same. The thrust behind the meetings is to start to build a network of Latino business professionals who could assist us in building our program and spreading the word about our L’ATTITUDE event. We met with eighteen high-level professionals in NY and about the same in Dallas. Our plan is to visit twenty cities over the next few months. So far, the discussions have been fascinating and there is tremendous enthusiasm for what we are trying to do at L’ATTITUDE. However, the subject of Latino leadership seemed to come up frequently along with the lack of alignment among the hundreds of smaller Latino organizations. Essentially, there seems to be a common opinion that Latino political and economic progress would benefit if there was more collaboration among Latino business and organizational leaders. I think this is true for any community or demographic, however the devil is always in the details and there may be some cultural reasons why there hasn’t been more collaboration in the past. It’s encouraging that there was plenty of alignment in the room and everyone we met with so far has been optimistic about what L’ATTITUDE is capable of providing. People have also been unanimous about another issues; There has never been a better time to be Latino in America. #latinprivilege
“Boomerang” was a different kind of film. It was a movie about friendship, loyalty, and romance set in NYC at a medium-sized Black-led company that sold beauty products. Boomerang had an all-black cast and a plot that had nothing to do with being Black. While that was unheard of at the time, Murphy was such a big star that it didn’t seem like a big deal.
About a year ago, I was convinced by some of my closest friends that I should do a podcast. Today it seems like everyone has a podcast, and frankly, 99% of them aren’t very good. I wasn’t sure I could do much better, but I realized I do have some ideas that some people have found interesting in the past.
The decision to invite President Barack Obama to the NAHREP Policy Conference last Spring was a decision I made with the NAHREP National Board. Anytime we have a political figure of that stature at one of our events, we know it will stimulate a lot of buzz among our members and stakeholders.