Nurah Speaks

In an era popular with youth task forces and social programs serving ‘at risk’ youth, we must ask what we can do to head off delinquent behaviors in our young people.

In this episode, I suggest that ‘Family Is The Best Social Program’ and I have research that I share to support this assertion. The research indicates that, “Children born to unmarried mothers generally receive lower human capital investments because the contractual partnership between the parents is less stable, and sometimes nonexistent (**Becker, 1981).”

In other words, we increase the likelihood of unfavorable outcomes for our children when we do not anchor them in families to provide them the needed moral, social and economic supports. Frankly, we cannot reasonably expect to make a healthy community when a large segment of our children are conceived by people who neither parent likes or desires to create a family with.

Families are the beginning of life lessons that cultivate us to interact within our broader community and nation. So if we are diminishing the value of family, we diminish the possibility for our community.

And as the Black community is diminishing the value of traditional family, our youth are still seeking the natural structure and balance that a family provides. Therefore, some youth are finding their family in gangs. Some are finding their family in pimps and traffickers. Some are finding their family in drugs. And some are finding their family in prison.

We just cannot get around basic needs. Children need to know that they belong.  Children need to know that they are valued. We cannot continue ignoring their inherent needs and wonder why youth are delinquent after we’ve deprived them of a solid foundation.

We do not need another government funded program as much as we need strong families.

If you would like to engage with the Nurah Speaks podcast, submit your listener questions to [email protected].  Listeners can also learn more about Nurah by visiting her website: NurahSpeaks.com or reading her blog by clicking this link.

Follow Nurah Speaks @NurahSpeaksPodcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To bring Nurah as a speaker at your next event, email [email protected].

Remember, don’t just Join the Movement, Be the Movement!

Patriotism is a great quality to have and experience. National Pride. National Affection. National Devotion-everyone should have this for their own nation. It is unnatural to not.

Blacks in America are in a strange ‘in between’ in which some of feel American patriotism, some exhibit Pan Africanism, some are just indifferent and some others regard American patriotism or national pride as racism.

In this episode I discuss what I think is our misunderstanding of patriotism and the entitlement of white Americans to their national pride.

“If you had known the history of yourself you would not have been made a slave.  And you won’t be a slave now if you have a knowledge of yourself.  It’s hard to enslave a person who has equal knowledge as you.  You just can’t do it.”

Food For Thought With The Honorable Elijah Muhammad

If you would like to engage with the Nurah Speaks podcast, submit your listener questions to [email protected].  Listeners can also learn more about Nurah by visiting her website: NurahSpeaks.com or reading her blog by clicking this link.

Follow Nurah Speaks @NurahSpeaksPodcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To bring Nurah as a speaker at your next event, email [email protected].

Remember, don’t just Join the Movement, Be the Movement!

There is nothing normal about social media wherein children have access to millions and millions of people and ideas all in the palm of their hand. No reasonable parent would acquiesce to their child entering the homes of random strangers at will. And no reasonable parent would permit their child to entertain strangers or allow them in and out of their children’s bedrooms.

However this is exactly what social media is. 

It is a mechanism that creates access to any ideology, predator, media or lifestyle and all with a simple click. And beyond all that - we do not have the depth of what our children are accessing (and who are accessing them) because apps have technology to prevent parents from surveilling their children’s online activity.

Social media puts our youth at risk to

Even cigarettes comes with a warning label!  

Smart phones are not the only option if we want to stay connecting to our children, there are services that sell no-contract, no-data phones.  One such company is Tello.  However, even if we do put a smart phone in a child's hand, we must counsel them regularly on appropriate and inappropriate use, content and connections because these devices and apps come with such risk.

“Devote our minds and hearts to self! This will eliminate our desire for help from others. We must create confidence in self and kind. We have no confidence in self. We must create that with right guidance.”

Food For Thought with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad

If you would like to engage with the Nurah Speaks podcast, submit your listener questions to [email protected].  Listeners can also learn more about Nurah by visiting her website: NurahSpeaks.com or reading her blog by clicking this link.

Follow Nurah Speaks @NurahSpeaksPodcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To bring Nurah as a speaker at your next event, email [email protected].

Remember, don’t just Join the Movement, Be the Movement!

Social media, podcasting, blogging-each provides a platform to be heard and seen. But what qualifiers have entitled us to a platform? What problems have we solved, what have we accomplished, what foundations have we built that justifies us having an audience?

In an age where just anyone can be a coach, speaker and social media ‘influencer’ we should not bypass the process of growth. Before we speak, we should listen. And after we speak, we should listen again and continue listening. The learning is in the listening. And if we want to have longevity and a firm foundation, we will need to input more than we output.

“The lack of knowledge of self is one of our main handicaps. It blocks us throughout the world. If you were the world and you were a part of the world, you would also turn a man down if he did not know who he actually was. If we, the so-called Negroes, do not know our own selves, how can we be accepted by a people who have a knowledge of self?”

Food For Thought with The Honorable Elijah Muhammad

If you would like to engage with the Nurah Speaks podcast, submit your listener questions to [email protected].  Listeners can also learn more about Nurah by visiting her website: NurahSpeaks.com or reading her blog by clicking this link.

Follow Nurah Speaks @NurahSpeaksPodcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To bring Nurah as a speaker at your next event, email [email protected].

Remember, don’t just Join the Movement, Be the Movement!

What is the metric by which we measure progress in Black America? What is the gauge and how would we define our progress or success?

It can be difficult assessment to make if there are no clear markers.

In Episode 194 I explore these questions and how we can compare the way we analyze an adult's success in using his skills, knowledge and means to live an independent life with the ongoing conditions in Black America.

What are your thoughts? How would you say that our progress should be measured?

“What I want to get over to you is this: due to the lack of the knowledge of truth, you feel satisfied today to be here and satisfied to remain here while your fathers were not satisfied in coming here nor even to stay here. What has made you to be well-satisfied to be here and to remain here? It is this: the destruction of the knowledge of yourself and your God, your religion and your kind by the slavemaster has now made you satisfied in what the slavemaster says is his , while you have nothing whatsoever that you can be secured in of your own.”

Honorable Elijah Muhammad

If you would like to engage with the Nurah Speaks podcast, submit your listener questions to [email protected].  Listeners can also learn more about Nurah by visiting her website: NurahSpeaks.com or reading her blog by clicking this link.

Follow Nurah Speaks @NurahSpeaksPodcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To bring Nurah as a speaker at your next event, email [email protected].

Remember, don’t just Join the Movement, Be the Movement!

Episode 193 continues as the second part of a two-part series of guidance that we should share with our girls and our adolescent women. This part addresses 'Speaking and Language' and 'Education and Career.'

In this installation I share ways that we can support our girls and adolescent women to be successful by enabling them to be effective communicators, understand how to manage the work environment and understand the connection between education and their future aspirations.

We certainly cannot exhaust the wisdom that we must share with our young women but we should exhaust ourselves in our efforts to enlighten them.

Remember to pick up or order your copy of Barracoon by Zora Neal Hurston. Be sure to support Black-owned book retailers. Here are a few below:

LaUnique Bookstore - Camden, NJ

Uncle Bobby’s - Philly

Ida’s Bookshop - Collingswood, NJ

Harrietts Bookshop - Philly'

“You are too proud.You have your diploma and your education and you think that you should be white. You are too proud. The white man’s education has made you too proud, so proud until you hate yourself and your own kind. I say you need to be re-educated into the knowledge of yourself and your kind now. Learn something about your own black people.” Honorable Elijah Muhammad

If you would like to engage with the Nurah Speaks podcast, submit your listener questions to [email protected].  Listeners can also learn more about Nurah by visiting her website: NurahSpeaks.com or reading her blog by clicking this link.

Follow Nurah Speaks @NurahSpeaksPodcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To bring Nurah as a speaker at your next event, email [email protected].

Remember, don’t just Join the Movement, Be the Movement!

There are some key life skills that our girls and young women should know before leaving our homes. If when we see them, and they are not showing a capacity to manage basic care tasks, it is a sign that we need to continue our training of them, or begin the process. We cannot fault them for what we have not taught them.

“Help us to make our beautiful young girls that which they should be. You are the most beautifulest women there is on earth and I saw several girls and women out of the nations over in Asia and Africa.  And I have not found any of them as beautiful as you are.  On a whole, you are the most beautifulest people there are.  You don’t think so, but you are.” Honorable Elijah Muhammad

If you would like to engage with the Nurah Speaks podcast, submit your listener questions to [email protected].  Listeners can also learn more about Nurah by visiting her website: NurahSpeaks.com or reading her blog by clicking this link.

Follow Nurah Speaks @NurahSpeaksPodcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To bring Nurah as a speaker at your next event, email [email protected].

Remember, don’t just Join the Movement, Be the Movement!

Do we notice how they insert our adverse economic, health or educational outcomes whenever the leaders of this nation have a new political argument?

For the COVID 19-vaccine-they said we should be vaccinated because the Black Community has substandard health outcomes due in part to the poor access to quality care.

For the abortion debate-they said restrictions are an unfair penalty against Black women because Black women do not have the same means to take time from work to travel out of state to receive an abortion like white women do AND that additional children will cause additional economic hardships.

These same pundits make no argument to tackle the root causes of our health and economic disparities.  

So I question, do Black women really matter except to exploit our condition to advance a political or social agenda? 

There certainly is no argue over the cultural influences that help maintain these disparities. They are just another mechanism that promotes these same conditions but our mainstream so-called allies are silent on that.

"If our forefathers had the power of life, to speak from their graves, they would condemn you for wasting your time and life -- after being freed -- and not availing yourself of this freedom. They were forced into slavery against their will, but you are now forcing yourself to remain in slavery by trying to force the white man to allow you to remain with him and provide for you as he has always done."   Food for thought with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad from 'Message to the Blackman In America'

If you would like to engage with the Nurah Speaks podcast, submit your listener questions to [email protected].  Listeners can also learn more about Nurah by visiting her website: NurahSpeaks.com or reading her blog by clicking this link.

Follow Nurah Speaks @NurahSpeaksPodcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To bring Nurah as a speaker at your next event, email [email protected].

Remember, don’t just Join the Movement, Be the Movement!

This episode is dedicated to exhibitionistic oversharing being masqueraded as transparency and that has become the norm in our culture.

Where have we gotten the idea that making our personal lives an all-access event is a virtue?

There is still great value in privacy and boundaries. Don’t let social media and reality television convince you otherwise.

“The worst kind of crime has been committed against us, for we were robbed of our desire to even want to think and do for ourselves. We are often pictured by the slave-master as a lazy and trifling people who are without thoughts of advancement. I say, this is a condition which the slave-master very cleverly wanted and created within and among the so-called Negroes.” Honorable Elijah Muhammad from the book Message To The Blackman In America.

If you would like to engage with the Nurah Speaks podcast, submit your listener questions to [email protected].  Listeners can also learn more about Nurah by visiting her website: NurahSpeaks.com or reading her blog by clicking this link.

Follow Nurah Speaks @NurahSpeaksPodcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To bring Nurah as a speaker at your next event, email [email protected].

Remember, don’t just Join the Movement, Be the Movement!

Consistent, collective activity is our best means to achieve change in a meaningful way.

We are mistaken to believe our emotions are a compelling force. Activity, not anger is what compels change.

We should be concerned with entities that give us platforms for our emotionalism rather than our collective action.

“I say, you should have your own Black police who have a Black heart like yours-a feeling for yourself; not a beast like heart who depends on nothing but a nightclub loaded with iron or lead to crack your skull. Don’t want that kind. I say, you should demand Harlem to be policed by Black policemen. You should also work to become your own mayor. You should not never accept…I say we should always choose your own representatives for the city government, or the county, state and for the U.S. state. I say, we should choose our own representative-vote for him ourself…!” Honorable Elijah Muhammad

If you would like to engage with the Nurah Speaks podcast, submit your listener questions to [email protected].  Listeners can also learn more about Nurah by visiting her website: NurahSpeaks.com or reading her blog by clicking this link.

Follow Nurah Speaks @NurahSpeaksPodcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To bring Nurah as a speaker at your next event, email [email protected].

Remember, don’t just Join the Movement, Be the Movement!