Black Teens on Unicycles

Here's a post based on my facebook status/twitter update based on a quick obversation the other day while driving through Mt Vernon not far from the Bronx.

 

Black teens on unicycles (I’ve noticed five or six on the street in Mt Vernon, Yonkers and the Bronx over the last six months) is shorthand for the way of the world.  The more we become a true multi-culture, a culture filled with a  multiplicity of various smaller cultures (not just White, Black and Brown, but surfers, eco-surfers, teachers, English speaking Latino Punks for Obama and so on) the more we have to keep an eye out for the Black kids on unicylces.

 A multi culture means that we are shaping a national narrative not with one overarching story, but with many. Not one big story, but a massive story that pieces together each of our individual narratives.  Culture used to mean the attitudes of a particular group. More and more we’re moving into the secondary meaning: that of a medium in which other things grow and flourish (like a culture of bacteria or some other living organism).

To see what’s growing and where it’s going, instead of watching the middle, we have to watch the fringes.

 This weekend’s New York Times had two articles that highlighted why the idea of Black kids on unicycles matter. 

The first is on the intergenerational differences between teens and 20 year olds today.  Kids under 15 already believe that information is something to be manipulated on screens, not keyboards and that email is as outdated as sending a note using paper. With things changing so quickly, the fringes become the center quickly.

Black kids on unicycles is also about making connections and noticing things. Check out this article on the rise of integrated thinking in business education (it's about time, right?). It’s about thinking critically enough to recognize the object, even if it is coincidental or not indicative of a broader trend (maybe there’s just a circus school nearby) as significant in some way. Business is about culture and about building the skills to read and respond to that, not just some vocational training program.

At the very least we have to recognize interesting things for their own merit, and use our ability for critical and creative thinking to integrate what are apparently contradictory pieces of information into an interesting whole.

Also, unicycles are cool. 

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[juicy couture outlet]

It’s about thinking critically enough to recognize the object, even if it is coincidental or not indicative of a broader trend (maybe there’s just a circus school nearby) as significant in some way. Business is about culture and about building the skills to read and respond to that, not just some vocational training program.

[tattoo supply]

multi culture means that we are shaping a national narrative not with one overarching story, but with many. Not one big story, but a massive story that pieces together each of our individual narratives.