 Hi, I'm Mitch Mitchell in case you forgot who I am, but how could you forget you came to watch the video, right? So I'm gonna tell you a funny story. This is something a little different, but it does have its point So a lot of times throughout my life I've been with folks and they will see someone and they will say oh So do you know who that is and I'm like no why would I so no reason we just thought you would and The people I'm with are white and the person who they're wondering if I know is black And it's a very interesting thing But for a lot of my life people have assumed that I know every other black person in the world And it's a funny thing just because in most cities in America You're walking down the street and you see another black person and you you give them a little little that thing whatever That's what we call it. You know now they got a dance called the death I think so it's not the same thing Do this kind of thing because you're showing some recognition. Hey, look, there's another one of us here We're not just by ourselves. So you always gave that thing didn't matter whether you were male or female You always did that so people had this assumption that we all knew each other It's just kind of a natural thing that we always used to do but we really didn't know each other So a few weeks ago Goodness, I guess it's a little more than a month now. I spoke up at Circus University Yes, I do do professional speaking and presentations I may not be as smooth on the video, but I do these things So I gave this presentation to a black sorority at Circus University Actually, they put it on and there were something like 50 55 people in the room. So that was kind of cool and the subject was Healthcare and leadership in the community. So it was talking about how You know, you have to have leaders in healthcare because the black community, you know If you look at any stats online, you will find that the black community is the one that has served the least The highest rates of diabetes the highest rates of heart disease You know stillborns. I mean, you know There's a whole lot of things that impact the black community and so I give this talk where I talked about You know, how come you need to be leaders? I told some stories of things that happened to me and it was well received and it went off Well, but what was funny because you know, I really don't know anything about sororities or fraternities I do know that when I was in college, I didn't like them just didn't I don't really get along with people who like to belong to groups like that and then adopt What I call the group mentality because the group mentality is never good. It just isn't I hate to say But y'all know, you know, I'm telling the truth. So anyway These two ladies came in who are close to my age. Maybe even a little older. I really I don't know You know, it's hard to tell for us how we are sometimes and so they start asking me all kind of questions So what do you do? Oh really? How long have you lived here and they were stunned to find out that I had lived there 40 years That I belong to another group that we used to be called people of color whose intention was to try to help kids to get the opportunity to learn and You know possibly get better jobs later on they had no clue and they said well, how come we don't know you I said well You know, it's not like I you know everywhere. I said most of the time when I've worked. I've worked out of town I've only really worked in Syracuse maybe five years out of all the years. I've been here You know, I've worked out of town I've traveled to do work because I'm an independent consultant and they asked me well, how did the young ladies find you? So I don't know you have to ask them so they you know kind of hesitant because in their minds They thought they should definitely know me if I'm a business person in the Syracuse area They had to know me and if they didn't know me then what could I know? What you know, what good could I be? after the talk Things changed drastically and they said wow you gave great information and you were a great speaker And how did we not know about you beforehand? We're definitely gonna know who you are now we're gonna spread the word about just Thank you y'all have a good time with that and it was the first time that I had actually had black people who thought that they Should know me or so I thought Because I've been remembered that when I met my wife back in 1994 Um She did one of those things where it never really ever even occurred to me to do this kind of thing But she did it she started asking some of her friends if they knew who I was turned out not a single one of her friends Knew who I was well because I didn't live in the city of Syracuse. I live in Liverpool living in suburbs I didn't hang out in the city except for okay Saturday nights when I went to the dance club other than that I didn't really hang anywhere else so none of them knew me So I was kind of suspect and I thought how funny that was when she told me that she says nobody seems to know who you are So well, you know, that's good for me It was way before the days of social media. So, you know, I wasn't doing anything To try to make myself known just how it was then I thought how funny it was because it wasn't until we actually got engaged and And Mention came to one of her friends father who asked and he said you have parents named Lloyd and Betty and my I said, yes It's all I knew them from years ago Turns out that he had known my parents through some other people and they used to all show up at these Friday night parties That we're kind of rotating in the area, you know, this is what older folks did back then too bad We don't do that now. Anyway, they would you know, maybe once a month There'd be a big party and they'd have tons of food and they'd have some alcohol They'd have none, you know, non-alcoholic stuff as well And then they were set up a card table and they played bid with and they put on the music and I You know back then their music was my music. So we all had a good old time. Well, okay I'd be upstairs if I was home Because we didn't mix you don't mix with younger people you'd be mixed with your own group Even I was I was in my 20s. You didn't mix actually. I started out in my teens So it turned out that he knew my family and if they'd gone to him He might have known something and then he told him, you know, that's a very nice young man. You're meeting He was always so well behaved. You know when older folks say you're well behaved you take that So here's this thing. We don't know each other. We don't all know each other All the y'all don't know each other all of Hispanics don't know each other all of Asians Which includes a whole bunch of people don't know each other just because they see someone else on the street It ain't how it works. So Just thought I'd mention that, you know diversity is an interesting animal Because we want folks to get along and we want us to be fair with each other But it doesn't necessarily mean that just because there's two or three in town means we know each other You know what my high school had 3,800 kids and there were maybe 50 black kids if that and you know what I met to My my junior year cuz I moved here during my junior year. I meant to the first year I was there after that I got to know a couple of others who didn't like me and that's okay I didn't like them either, but I didn't know anybody else. You know, we don't just Naturally gravitate to each other because we happen to have something shared, you know race Religion any how it works any how I thought that was kind of funny y'all Let me know what you think have you ever encountered something like this in any other degree or even in the same degree you let me know I told you who I was remember me can I mention it for the next two videos y'all take care