True 
story: Many years ago, I went to a Christmas function at a Lutheran 
Church to raise money for homeless women shelter. The choir was singing.
 Everyone was polite and  well dressed. They were serving food at the 
end of the ceremony. An African American homeless man had come into the 
church down stairs and used the rest room to wash himself up. I guess 
some of the guest had encountered him because
 the whispers started circling the room at how awful the bathroom 
smelled. The man came up stairs and joined the party. He had cleaned 
himself so much so that I didn't realized I was talking with the 
homeless man. He had on a clean shirt and shorts. Mind you when I looked
 at him I saw something was a miss with he clothes but really it went 
over my head because the man was articulate and fairly young. I would 
say late 30's. I was thinking to myself, hey maybe he just fell on hard 
times. It happens to the best of us. Right? So, the homeless man helped 
himself to some food and was chatting it up with other guess before long
 the police showed up and arrested the man. Not only was a livid, I was 
disgusted at they hypocrisy. A ceremony for the homeless and they arrest
 a homeless man was wanting to eat and socialize like a human being. 
This all happened inside of a church. I didn't make a fuss because I was
 invited by a friend of a friend who held a position at that church and I
 didn't want to make waves for that person. I didn't want to ruin's 
somebody's situation when ultimately the homeless was going to be let go
 with a warning in a few hours anyway. It baffles me how people can do 
such harsh things to each other when it just us on this planet. 
Baltimore has become like 10 people in a bathroom with the doors locked 
and the lights out all beating the hell out of each other and somebody 
broken the mirror and made a knife and one of them rascals snuck a gun 
up in the that joint.
                                   BALTIMORE'S VISIONARY OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE          By Belinda Trotter-James    Derick Thomas now Derick Prince always wanted to be a filmmaker.  As a kid he was inspired by the actor Robert Guillaume; you may best know him on the hit television show Benson.  At the age of six he has always been a fan of television and it just unfolded into the film-making business when he was a teenager.  That’s when he finally got a chance to explore all aspects of film-making.  “At the age of six there were not a lot of us on television and television influences children which is one of the reasons why we have so many bad influences today, but that’s another story,” says Derick.  “Robert Guillaume was intelligent, articulate, he had power, he had persuasion plus he was the guy who had everything and at six years old I watched him and thought, ‘I can do that.’  He was just a great role model for that time.”    When I asked what was he like as a child, he...
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