Respect

“Men don’t need love; they need respect.”- Dr. Myles Munroe

One of the interesting things to me that I have begun to discover in the single life is no matter who I choose to date, or interact with, there are some non-tangibles that work within the friendship or within a realm of something more romantically. If those intangibles aren’t acknowledged, I find it can be hard to sustain. 

Most of my blog ideas come from things I hear or read. One of my friends sent me a video about marriage and the speaker said, “Men don’t need love; they need respect.” Also that, “The love women give a man stems from her respect towards him.”

This was incredibly insightful to me because it keeps speaking to the reality that I notice men and women need different things in life emotionaly. Even for my friends that experience diversity in their sexual orientation and romantic interests, or even how they identify in terms of gender, the fact still remains that men want respect. 

Let me unpack simple moments when I feel I am not respected. 

I. When I am not heard. 

One of the gifts I try to really refine constantly is to be a good listener, listening to what is said and not said from a person. Also learning to hear beyond my own perspective or even desires and hear that person’s truth. When I am not heard, it makes me feel I am not respected enough to allow me to express myself and my desires, so that the other person has a chance to understand me better. 

II. When my time is not honored

The greatest currency in my opinion is time. Why? Because I will never get it back and if my time is mismanaged, I find it can slow things down in my life. Not that I have to be moving at lightning speed, but I have a rule in my life that I must always be progressing forward. When people don’t honor my time, it makes me not feel respected. 

III. When people are not kind

I feel that one of the greatest gifts I can give someone is kindness. It’s free but it speaks volumes about someone’s character and if they are committed to being kind even in a difficult situation, it shows so much beauty in their core. I know that everything in life won’t be easy, but when I focus on being kind, it improves the quality of my interactions. 

IV. When people are not honest

Within relationships, I find that for some people it’s hard to be honest. Real talk, sometimes it’s been hard for me too because honesty can reveal some hard truths that I am not ready to face or deal with at that moment, or I feel there is going to be so much pain around that honesty for others connected to me. But when I respect someone, it’s best to just be honest because even if they end up being mad at my honesty, they will still respect me. 

Let me be clear, I feel women and men need to both be given respect; however, we both receive love in different ways. I truly believe that respecting a man, if his actions are respectful and worth, is the quickest way to build a solid bond.

Race

“The Race is not given to the swift or the strong, but to the one that endureth till the end."

I remember when I was in second grade, and I was attending private school with my sister in the suburbs of Florida. My father came to school, for “Open House,” and I couldn’t wait for him to meet my classroom girlfriend Andrea. Dad arrived, and I grabbed his hand and dragged him over to Andrea, as my father smiled. She was brunette, and Caucasian, and I didn’t think anything of the matter. My father was incredibly kind to her, and softly and graciously shook her hand, and then we went to the other side of the classroom to meet my other friends. 

What was interesting was that I wasn’t given the same exchange with Andrea’s parents, and shortly after, our school house romance ended.

I was just speaking to a mentor the other day, and he said, “Ulysses, racism is not born, it’s taught.”

I was taught that everyone is identified by their character and not their color, and if any basis exists, it is due to their behavior. Otherwise, we are all the same. I was also told by one of my mentors to “Go beyond and be brilliant, then they will see you as a man, and not a Black man.” But, even with all of my accolades, as a Black man, I’m discriminated against every freaking day.

I was leaving a high end bourbon tasting event in St.Louis the other day, and a white woman walked on the dirt so she could not be next to me. I took 5 flights last week, rode in first class all of them, and most of the time, I was the only black man in first class, and all the white men assumed i was boarding at the wrong time. I just did a lecture the other day, and everyone was shocked when I showed up as a black man, given the cultural ambiguity of my name. I’m constantly the only black face in most of my circles, or not being served in nice spaces. I am not necessarily being beaten up by the police, but as my life changes, certain places don’t want me to be there to diversify them.

But, I don’t let that irritate me because honestly, my goal is to unite, not point the finger or be angry. I want to help change people’s perspectives. With each blog, I get emails from so many people who read my blogs and they always say, my blogs help them "see things differently.”

As I look so much at what is occurring in this time, about race, is that I actually translate and process it as a race. 

We are on a track, with spaces and lines to separate us, and we have created a competition since the beginning of time between, African Americans, Caucasians, people of Hispanic descent, Jewish, African, and the countless other ethnicities that exist. What’s also interesting to me is the mere fact that the world wants a winner. It seems to want to identify one group of people to lead the pack, but in this space of humanity, we are all winners simply because we exists.

Also in our capitalistic society, we are driven mainly by someone being the superior, and someone being the lesser valued; societies are shaped around someone reigning, and the other person serving. 

As a child, you are given a box of crayons, and you are never taught which color is better, but to merely learn how to utilize all colors effectively and color within the line. 

Traveling the world, I have learned to understand the beauty and benefit of multiple cultures and the gifts that each culture possess. When you get to a certain country or city, you always have a tour guide telling you what is the best thing to get from that place or to experience from that culture, and the other reality is that people don’t call me “African American”, they immediately call me American.

On the race track of life, my hope is that we can one day focus on simply being the best, conditioning our body and mind around only being judged and measure by our character not color.