Can MD Africans Be Civically Engaged?

At this point in my life, there just might be a picture of me right next to the #doingtoomuch hash tag dictionary if there ever was one to exist. Besides the two jobs I have, 1 I love, 1 I hate, I recently got involved with the Continental African Leadership Council (CALC) after a very good referred me to them as a great person to get the organization kick started and engaged in the community. Even in that involvement, I’m doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that - pretty much doing the most I can when I can given the sliver of time I have leftover when I get done with the real gigs.

What is CALC:

CALC = Continental African Leadership Council. Why "Continental" you may ask?! Well because the state of Maryland already has the African-American Leadership Council so the distinction had to be made.

Who is a "Continental African" - For the sake of getting greater engagement in Maryland politics, these Africans are the ones that are either first generation Americans or naturalized ones. They are people who's cultural identity is still strongly tied to their African/ethnic heritage and therefore whose political needs as a community are unique.

CALC was commissioned by the Governor of the State of Maryland, Martin O'Malley (Dem.) in August of 2010 in an effort to get the growing African community in Maryland more involved in state level politics be it at the city, county, district and state levels. The purpose was to create a platform for African communities, whether business, social or otherwise more actively involved in shaping or driving the policies that directly influence the success of the collective African community.

At this point I have attended some pretty amazing events and I'm excited not only to be getting Africans, young and older, civically engaged. After the hardship stories we hear and sometimes can see ourselves from older generations about the struggles of America, why not grab this opportunity and empower ourselves to smoothe the path for future continental Africans in the state of Maryland and beyond.

You can find an great and informative video of Congressman Steny Hoyer's birthday event. A representative from the Continental African Leadership Council [me] was invited and had an opportunity to speak to former House Majority Leader, meet other state representatives and generally be a presence representing the African community in Maryland.

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I'm most looking forward to more of you being involved because when given opportunities like that, it would be vain and idiotic to think that I am representative of the community at large. The more involved we get, the better and more representatively we will be represented.