THURSDAY HIGHLIGHTS: Town Hall – Will the Real Role Models Please Stand Up?
In Thursday afternoon’s Town Hall session – titled Will the Real Role Models Please Stand Up? – an entertainer, a college president, a corporate executive and a recent MBA grad took up the question of who is, or should be, a role model for African-American youth. The answers came from actor/producer Laz Alonso, star of "Jumping the Broom"; Spelman College President Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum; Terence Williams, regional vice president, Central Plains and Southern States, at Nationwide Insurance; and Ashton Clark, MBA, IT strategy information analyst at Accenture/UTicketIt.com. Television journalist Roland Martin did his fourth turn as Town Hall moderator, alternating audience polling questions with his own comments and queries directed at the panelists. Alonso noted that as an actor, he is very conscious of what audiences might take away from the characters he plays. Yet he was reluctant to call being a role model a "responsibility" for African American public figures. "I think that we start forgetting sometimes that celebrities and athletes are regular human beings who make mistakes," he said. Williams said anyone who is in the public eye – whether a celebrity or a high-profile business executive – should see himself as a role model. "I do believe we have a responsibility and a duty to be role models, because the things that we do influence others," he commented. People in all walks of life have a "spear of influence," according to Tatum. "We can be role models for young people even if we don’t know that they are watching us," she said. Clark spoke about the importance of successful African Americans reaching back to help younger people in their communities find their paths to success. "We have to go into the communities, because if we don’t do it, no one else will," he said. The Town Hall was sponsored by Nationwide. |
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