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WhatchuTHINK: mine your mind

FORWARDEVER MEDIA CENTER

Writer Alex Haley writing The Autobiography of Malcolm X with Brother Malcolm.

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."
- Malcolm X

Mission

The Forwardever Media Center is 100% committed to providing unconventional writing workshops and media literacy training to "at-risk" Black youth, particularly males, ages 14 through 24. Working in partnership with The Mentoring Center in Oakland, CA., the Center's writing workshops, website internship, and film forums, help students develop critical thinking skills and discover their creative talents. We recruit youth for our programs from the California Youth Authority (the state's largest prison for youth) as well as from universities and high schools. This cross-pollination of young minds creates dynamic shared experiences.

Programs

Whatchusay Cinema–A monthly film forum hosted at schools or community centers in Northern California that explores issues such as race, class, gender, and society. Students are joined by a panel of activists, educators, athletes, entrepreneurs, etc. to rate the films and convene roundtable discussions about corresponding relevant issues in society. For info about film screenings and schedules contact: cheo@whatchusay.com

Writing Workshops–We offer intensive seminars in journalism, creative writing, cultural criticism, new media, film production, etc. These seminars are taught at the center, located at 1224 Preservation Park, Oakland, CA, 94612. They are also available on location, at schools, community and detention centers, churches, etc. For info about class schedules contact: cheo@whatchusay.com

Internships–Whatchusay.com offers competitive internships to young writers who have clearly demonstrated a passion for the craft of writing or media production. The 3-month internship covers news writing and reporting, feature writing, creative writing, media literacy and new media. Working in partnership with community based organizations, universities and international and national media outlets, we produce a pipeline of informed journalists of color who will go on to create their own independent media organizations or work for major media organizations.

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Slingshot

Father to Son

my pops mailed me the story of his life a few days ago. It's a rare occassion when a son has a view into the sorted details of how his father fell down; how he lost his wife, kids, and bright career to alcoholism. like all tragic stories, his started brightly and faded quickly, sadly. after one too many let-downs, my mom left him, packed me and my two brothers on a train bound for Springfield, Mass. to start over on the east coast; although he tried to find his own way back to us a few times, he failed, wasn't trying to be a cosby dad or didn't know how. found success in the corporate world over and over again, only to drink it away...tried to jetison outside of history itself, out, beyond the confines of what Black men were allowed to do during the 60s and 70s. he made up his own rules and shined brightly in the face of hope held hostage...broke sales records for Fortune 500 companies and set his sights on the ladder... he shined, then went out, out, as a lightbulb burnt too quickly by a short circuit...in the end, his simple, then as-yet, unrealized goal was to become nothing but a man. and nearly ten years later, he did it. they remarried, he rebuilt his career... Of course by then, he had done a lot of growing up too, wasn't the 20 year old kid he was when they first married...he came back to us, clean and sober and ready to reclaim his place in our lives. But it took almost another ten years for he and I to mend our own broken fences, some of them still need mending... However, I must say, my pops, Donald K. Taylor, has replaced lost time by finding himself, by being a father I can be proud of. he has become one of the most influential people in the making of who I am, the MAN I am, today. his unexpected, unabashedly self-honest 30-page autobiography is a profound gift to his son, one that I hope to be able to give to my son one day.
- cheo