Response to Professor Segun Gbadegesin

My first semester at Howard I was petrified that I would get a professor with a thick accent that I could not understand so I prayed over and over again and over analyzed that opinions of biased peers on ratemyprofessor.com to assure that this wouldn't happen, and it successfully did not until Dr. Gbadegesin.

However, after twenty minutes of deciphering what he was saying the first five minutes of his introduction I was finally able to get the hang of understanding his accent and overall I am glad because he a lot of important lessons and stories to bestow to our freshman seminar class.

Upon telling us the story of IWA, the moral that was portrayed is that you cannot lose you Iwa (existence/character) or you lose everything. This statement is more than truthful and it is obvious that even though this story of IWA is not apart of our contemporary black culture, this moral is universal. In school we are not taught the multiple sources of knowledge of existence and moral issues; instead we are taught that these moral standards are taught by the Artistoles, Socrates and Jesus'. There is always a constant issue in which we, as Blacks, are misrepresented and always made out to be less important and intellectual than which we actually are. How can our youth be expected to be proud of themselves and their people and follow standards that were presented as never having been for them or discovered by them? 

Professor Gbadegesin also goes on to define wisdom for us as how we use our knowledge and money to benefit others (the community) and not just for personal gain and greed.  This is also a moral lesson that we as blacks need to follow. Way too many of us become wealthy and "forget where we came from" as we buy expensive jewelry, cars and clothes just to impress people who do not really care for us at all. If we were to donate/invest even a minute fraction of the money that we utilize for our wardrobes we could make small but impacting changes in our communities; if we showed that we care, we could change the world but we need invest to gain a sense of community again in order to do this. During this lecture we were given the quote: "a man of character is a man of wealth." To me I believe this means that if we have a character that is made up of integrity and community action, we are already wealthy and we will be blessed by God and good Karma as opposed to if we just selfishly act and help no one, even if we have the means.


Daisa Gainey
Sociology '14