From Beggar to Investor: Recipe For Self-Destruction Transcript

Please Note: This is not an exact transcript. It is the script I used to produce the recording. At times I do ad lib. The link for this video is https://youtu.be/Cbj54rhUTwg. Let's begin: 

Royal Family, welcome back to the From Beggar to Investor series. My name is Kara Lynn Kai Sanders and I have the honor of being your hostess for this journey we are taking together. I want to take a quick moment to say "Thank you Cierra". She gave me some important feedback that helped me realize I've been negligent in letting you know a few things about this series.

1. The videos are unlisted so, if I'm not mistaken, you can't find them without the link. However, once I post a new video, I'll go back and add the link to all the videos. There are four videos under the From Beggar to Investor playlist at the time of this recording. They all have links to the other videos in the series as well as the links to the transcripts on my blog. And...

2. The transcripts to the videos are available on my blog and 

3. The link to the video is at the beginning of each posts the transcript is for.

I apologize for not being clear. I hope this information helps. 

Our background music for today is once again courtesy of Black Violin. It is track #4 called "The Mission", another spiritually directed selection from my son. Besides the lyrics feeling like they reflect the life I've led, with lines like "until you live a life filled with love You will never know how it feels to be loved" and "sometimes life seems strange" the chorus sums up this next aspect of my journey, "The Mission is on. Let some stay together, with Love we can weather the storm. It's on, it's on, it's on, it's on, it's on, it's on, it's on, the Mission is on." And that is the perfect introduction to this video, because the Mission IS on! As a side note I've decided they will headline the Saturday show for our Proclaim Your Emancipation weekend. 

I'm so excited about life right now I can't even contain myself so please excuse me if I get emotional. In some aspects of this presentation there are moments where I get sad but there are moments where I am overwhelmed with joy and the way I express both of these emotions is with tears. I'm not sure how this is going to go so you might want to grab some tissues just in case and let's get started.

These last videos are really special to me. They contain the entire purpose of this journey through homelessness my son and I have been on. It has taken me a few days to figure out how to put them together because these are, perhaps, the most important topics I have spoken on at this point in my life. And I have spoken a lot in 46 years of life, maybe more than my fair share. This should tell you something. 

Of all the things my son has taught me, the information I share here I would not know if I was not his mom. So I am indebted to him especially. But I am also in debt to ALL the people I have ever shared life and space with. This is not just intimate personal spaces (like homes, hotels and shelters) but also public spaces, like the stores and the parks and the libraries and the churches and the museums I have gone to alone or accompanied by Wisdom once he arrived. God has taken every experience I have had in life, and I mean EVERY experience, and given me two recipes for creating a life. One is called the Recipe for Self-Destruction and the other is called the Recipe for L.U.V.

The Black community has been given a lot of labels to live down to. The ingredients in the Recipe for Self-Destruction lead to the creation of "troubled children", "at risk youth" and "angry Black women"! In that last statement women can easily be replaced with men. And angry can be replaced with violent, addicted, depressed, promiscuous, suicidal, etc..... All of these are aspects of self-destruction. Because of this variation in results, each recipe is a basic template. How you vary the ingredients will determine the outcome of the life being poured into. From the names alone you can determine that the outcomes will be far more positive for one versus the other. 

It's also important to recognize that the beauty and the horror of these two recipes is that whichever one you choose or has been chosen for you, you naturally perpetuate. So if you were created with or are using the Recipe for Self-Destruction, you will automatically perpetuate that recipe to others. The biggest challenge with this recipe is it doesn't just work to destroy self. Those who were created with its ingredients may seek to destroy others as well. We have seen it at work in a number of ways, especially in the Black community. 

However, unlike a recipe for food, where you can't change the combination of undesirable ingredients to create a delicious product, you can with a life. This means you can choose to change what you perpetuate. That's what I did. And that's why I'm here now. And yes, you guessed it, the Recipe for L.U.V. is the way. 

I introduced L.U.V. Enterprises as a whole when I introduced myself. Our motto is "Building the village; raising the child". Now... there's a reason it's called an enterprise. There are several ground breaking services we will provide, that are not currently being offered in any other realm. Let's talk about one line of them. I briefly introduced The L.U.V. L.I.F.E. Cooperative in the last video, describing it as the place where all the investments will flow through! Once again our motto is "Motivated to live Love, have compassion and extend mercy to break boundaries, connect community and invest in people based on the parable of the Exceptional Samaritan in Luke 10 (KJV)". 

This is a community organization which will offer an extensive array of unique and exclusive services across the nation and eventually the world. Where we desire to duplicate a service we will partner with established organizations to magnify their capacity to provide. The overall purpose of the The L.U.V. L.I.F.E. Cooperative is for all those who utilize our services to Love life, in general, but especially their own. This is true for those who experience living the Parable of the Exceptional Samaritan, regardless of the character they represent.

L.U.V. L.I.F.E. will operate our training facility called The Center for Aristocratic Development. One day I hope to name it The Troy Anthony Davis Center for Aristocratic Development with the acronym, The TAD CAD! CAD will launch our signature program: PAID 2 Parent or P2P. It is the first of three courses of study being implemented by CAD. PAID, of course, is yet another acronym. (I know they are everywhere!) It stands for pleasure, appreciation, intelligence and dignity. Those are some of the main elements missing from the opportunity to parent today. P2P will change that.

PAID 2 Parent or P2P will provide the ingredients and the services needed to execute the Recipe for L.U.V. This is unlike any other program out there. At CAD, P2P is a prerequisite for our other courses.  In the School of Life that everyone attends, this program is the prerequisite for success in any other program that is currently offered anywhere. Audacious right? Well... that's God. Not only is it audacious but it is true. 

To find out how and why the Recipe for Self-Destruction is devastating, I'm going to talk about each ingredient and the effect it causes. When I'm done it will be important to talk about the ingredients in the Recipe for L.U.V. and the importance of those components to successfully annihilate the ingredients from Recipe for Self-Destruction. So let's go!

Recipe for Self-Destruction

First I want to tell you how the name for this recipe came to be. God gave it to me, just as He's done with everything else. To be more specific I want to share how He gave it to me. You see I'm an 70s/80s/early 90s baby, graduating in 1991. I grew up in a predominantly White communities so to this day I can appreciate music from almost all genres of music. My first cassette tape was Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet! Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me" is still one of my personal favorites. And I will forever appreciate Rachel Bohne giving me my first country CD Sevens by Garth Brooks, just months before she lost her battle with cancer at the age of 22. But I listened to R & B music more than any other genre. 

I watched Yo! MTV Raps on MTV daily when it was really Music Television. Boyz II Men was and still is my favorite "boy band" ever with New Edition coming in a close second. It's mostly because "Can You Stand the Rain?" is one of my, if not my all time favorite song. Both groups did the song but I like the acapella version better.  

Before music descended into the pit it is now in, there was so much Black Love and empowerment going on through the radio and TV. It was 20-30 years after the Civil Rights Act and the death of such iconic leaders as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr but R & B music didn't reflect the loss, it reflected the Love with songs full of positive lyrics. How could you not feel Love with such memorable voices as Michael Jackson, Patti LaBelle and Luther Vandross serenading you? A more racy set of lyrics began to be introduced during my youth but the two managed to mingle in a healthy combination over the radio waves.

The song God brought back to my remembrance, after I had received and compiled the recipe I'm about to share, was "Self-Destruction". I remembered the chorus but not the verses so I looked it up to get the lyrics and find out the history because I didn't remember. All I could remember was "Self destruction. You're headed for self-destruction." 

In preparing this segment I pulled up an actual video of the song versus just reading the lyrics. This is in the description box, "The Stop the Violence Movement was formed by rapper KRS-One. During a Boogie Down Productions and Public Enemy concert, a young fan was killed in a fight. Galvanized into action, KRS-One founded the Stop the Violence Movement. Comprised of some of the biggest stars in contemporary East Coast hip-hop, the movement released a single ('Self Destruction') in 1989 with all proceeds going to the National Urban League." From another source, I learned they raised over half a million dollars.

I watched the video. It is far more powerful than just reading the lyrics and brought me to tears. When you listen to the song, each verse speaks on some horrific aspect of disrespect found among Black people and includes a few statistics on Black on Black crime. As a result, self-destruction is what they said we were headed for. Sadly, we have arrived. 

It was a prophetic production. Violence has dramatically escalated in the 30+ years since that song was originally released. Music has also experienced a dramatic shift glorifying self-destruction. Although many people have spoken on violence, I think it is simply written off as another effect of poverty. But not all poor people act the same, not even in the Black community. So what is different? 

As far as I know, no one has openly spoken on why this is occurring or what to do about it. That's what I'm here for. The Stop the Violent Movement named the results. I am going to give you the recipe that causes them, then go a step further by also providing a solution.

Please Note: What I am about to share with you comes from a number of personal experiences. They are from experiences I have seen and heard with my own eyes and ears from a front row seat, both in public and in private. I am not sharing those personal experiences to protect the individuals I experienced them with. I have no professional training. I am not college educated in psychology, psychiatry, or early childhood development. But... I am an educated mom. 

I have been on a mission to give my son the best opportunities in life. I've been on a mission to raise him, not just let him grow up. I am on a mission to train him up as Proverbs directs. Whether I see him as a potential Olympian or a garden growing up to bear the fruits of the Spirit, he is being trained to go a certain way. I have God and Google, in that order, as my primary co-parents. They have taught me how to raise my son in the very best ways. 

And I'm not perfect at it. Far from it actually. I recently had to tell myself to stop telling Wisdom it's time to find him a new mom he will listen to. He is four and is heavily invested in being a ferocious four year old which includes the art of imitation (one of the main ways children learn). Our challenge is he is imitating the behaviors of his cousins who he spends time with 3-4 times per week. They are 18 months and 9 years old. He is four so neither of their behaviors are appropriate for his age. To make matter worse, many of their behaviors are NOT appropriate for them either. So Wisdom has been stuck on another behavior that is appropriate for his age, defiance. 

I wouldn't give up my child for anything ever and I definitely don't want him taken away so I've got to figure out another tactic. It genuinely is my honor and pleasure to be his mom but there are moments. Thankfully he has said he doesn't want another mommy and no one in the world can ever take his place in my life. Keeping those in mind definitely helps me to return to sanity. Gotta be honest with how I struggle to be a mom at times. 

Once we're out of this living situation things will go back to where they should be. In the meantime I feel like I'm sacrificing my child in this experience and it has been a blessing as well as a curse. Therefore the following ingredients I share because I have seen these ingredients dispensed and the subsequent effects. I have not employed them and I've seen the difference. I have only recognized the difference because of how different my son is from other children who are growing up in the same economic situation. He is the Wisdom I needed to share this information with you!

You might wonder how is it possible that I've seen all the ingredients and the effects of them if I only have one child. I mentioned earlier how God took all my experiences and gave me two recipes. Well before they were recipes they were movies... in my mind. You see God took the experiences I had and put them in my mind by the age of the person in the experience, not by the date I experienced it. The He removed the identity of the person and just left the behaviors and the emotions. Starting before the birth of a child, here is the Recipe for Self-Destruction.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What? Errrrrr.... Pump the brakes. Hold up a minute. 'Starting before the birth of a child...' What do you mean?" 

Did you think that? 

Well... that's when the ingredients start to be poured into an adult. Yes, an adult! That's eventually what a child becomes. So from the beginning, that is what you're molding. It's not something that happens overnight. It's not even something that happens over a few years. It's not about peer pressure or being born into poverty. It's about how the mother takes care of herself during her pregnancy and the dynamics of the relationships she is in. It is about how the parent interacts with their child(ren). And how that parent allows others to interact with them as well. So here's the recipe...

1. Ingredient: Be in a relationship or have unprotected sex with someone you know you should not be in a relationship with for any number of reasons: they're abusive (physically or verbally), they don't care for you like you care for them, they've cheated, there is no balance in your relationship, you're not in a "good place"; you're doing everything while they do very little for you or the household, and the list goes on. Notice this list isn't specific to male or female. Because they both contribute to the energy that child is created with.

2. Ingredient: Miss doctor's appointments

3. Ingredient: Don't take your vitamins

4. Ingredient: Eat junk food and processed foods, drink sodas, soft drinks like Kool Aid and juices, very little water

5. Ingredient: Sit around all day with very little extracurricular activity

6. Ingredient: Smoke cigarettes, marijuana, do other drugs, drink alcohol

7. Ingredient: Make no connection with the child growing inside of you. Don't talk to the baby or play music to help with its development. Don't rub your belly.

8. Ingredient: Argue and fuss excessively with the father and others. Personal Note - Some of that is the results of being pregnant but in my mind, what's coming out was there already; it's nothing new. It's just escalated.

9. Recipe Note: Children live what they learn.

10. Ingredient: Once the baby is born, ignore them when they cry, believing they should just "cry it out". This creates a sense of abandonment at an early age, children grow up feeling less confident that their needs will be met and so they will cling to their parents to assure their needs will be. It's like in their mind they are saying, "well if I never let them go, then they'll have to take care of me when I cry. I won't have to wait." The clinging is often viewed as inconvenient to the parent who created the problem.

11. Ingredient: Teach them to become self-sufficient and no longer "baby" them when they are still well... babies. In my mind, this is to up to age 5, when they are not entirely self-sufficient. By "baby" them I mean pick them up (especially when they are asking), carry them, feed them (make them feed themselves), potty train earlier than their body might be ready for, let them sleep with you, push them on the swing, etc. When a child stops asking for the simple things because you keep saying no, they will not say something when it is important for them to speak up.

12. Ingredient: Don't read to them daily/often starting at 6 months of age

13. Ingredient: Feed them more than what is recommended. Start them on foods sooner than they should be

14. Ingredient: As they age introduce Kool Aids, soft drinks, sodas and juices instead of water; feed them lots of processed food, fast food, junk food and snacks versus regularly scheduled meals

15. Ingredient: Ignore the needs for sleep that children have which are generally greater than it is for adults.

16. Ingredient: As they grow and become mobile, tell them to get up and stop crying when they fall and get hurt. This is a huge error. Children need to understand what they are feeling so they can handle their emotions appropriately as adults. If they are not allowed to acknowledge the hurt and are not being told what they are feeling as a child, they will not be able to as adults. For instance, too many people think that if they "go off" on someone they are acting like an adult. But really it is a sign of an adult temper tantrum because they were not raised to acknowledge the emotions they are feeling so they don't learn how to handle them until they can't ignore them any longer. 

17. Ingredient: Along the same lines, be excessive in your physical punishment and tell them to stop crying when you've hit them. Often these punishments are administered with an object other than the palm of the hand but depending on the age of the child, a hand is a likely weapon. If you want to know why so many sex crimes are committed against women and children, especially in the Black community, this is the main reason why. As a child, this one concept alone tells a child they need to keep quite about things that are hurting them and that their pain will not be acknowledged. It also tells them that when an adult hurts them they should be quiet about it and have no power to stop it. If they are being silenced by their aggressor, should something far worse come along they will not speak when something is genuinely happening to hurt them. 

18. Ingredient: Tell them they are being a "big boy" or "big girl" when they don't cry. The reality is they are not big. They are babies and just as you wouldn't allow a 10 year old to drive a car, you shouldn't expect a baby not to cry or act older than they actually are or even older than their understanding. The challenge with this is, from my experience, lots of parents and care givers have no clue what is age appropriate for their child. They just expect them to know whatever it is they want them to know. 

19. Ingredient: Don't let them explore

20. Ingredient: Don't play with them 

21. Recipe Note: A child's natural behavior is to explore their environment, this helps them to learn. If they are not allowed to explore they are not learning at the most critical stage of development. They are not allowed to explore when they get in trouble (especially being hit) for touching things that are within their reach because the parent refuses to childproof the place they live in. They are also not allowed to explore when they are limited to far less than a reasonable amount of toys in their possession or they are directed towards technology versus toys. Technology is often utilized by parents as a major form of baby sitting under the false impression their child is learning when they are actually causing developmental delays.

22. Ingredient: Punish a child for getting dirty. 

23. Recipe Note: Being a child is a messy business. The younger they are the worse it is. You might as well join them and have fun doing it.

24. Ingredient: Punish them (different from discipline) for displaying the same behaviors, attitudes and/or actions they are being shown and are therefore naturally learning by imitation. They should not be punished for what they are being taught.

25. Ingredient: Expect them to learn what they are not being taught, if a child is not being talked to, they will not learn to talk. If they are not being played with, they will not learn how to play.

26. Recipe Note: Another natural behavior in children is to imitate behaviors. They learn to navigate their world by imitating those who they spend the most time around. Children might not be able to name emotions when they are young but they can sense them. How the adults around them respond to situations, children will imitate. For instance, if a child is being hit they will imitate or learn to hit. Generally the reason they hit will be because they are frustrated with a situation just as someone has hit them when they were frustrated. 

27. Ingredient: Don't allow them to have fun. This one is hard to pin down simply because people have their own versions of what "fun" looks like. For a child, fun is simple. They will genuinely laugh and so will everyone else who is participating. That laughter is not at someone else's expense though. For instance, a child could be playing and laughing but it's because they are chasing someone with a gun like they are going to kill them. NOT FUN!

28. Ingredient: Make older siblings responsible for the care of their younger siblings. There is something to be said about natural responsibility but there is a level of care older siblings should not be exhibiting towards their younger siblings. I have found this to be true especially in cases of discipline. Children should not be disciplining children.

29. Ingredient: Yell/scream at them; use degrading language ("you're no good", "you're stupid", "dumb a**", "b*%#h", etc.); compare them to or talk negatively about others (esp. the other parent) in a negative way

30. Ingredient: Don't apologize for your errors but expect apologies.Newsflash: Parents are NOT perfect!

31. Ingredient: Allow siblings to contend with one another, especially tattle telling versus telling the truth; there is a difference

32. Ingredient: Expose them to violence and sex at an early age (movies, music, videos); don't protect them from things that are not appropriate for their age. Things are labeled with G, PG and R for a reason.

33. Ingredient: Focus on the acquisition of material things as they grow up.

34. Ingredient: Jump from relationship to relationship.

35. Ingredient: Wear promiscuous clothing, primarily wear name brand clothing, dress them based on fashion's demoralizing standards. 

36. Ingredient: Focus on acquiring money instead of spending quality time interacting with them 

through conversation and non-competitive play

37. Ingredient: Disrespect. 

And there it is. That's what this recipe all boils down to: disrespect. And this is where I loose my mind. I cannot fathom why adults do not treat children how they, as adults, want to be treated. No adult wants to be hit. No adult wants to be screamed at. No adult wants a punishment that does not equal the mistake they made. So why in the world do they do that to their children? 

Because they do not recognize how valuable they are so they can't recognize how valuable their child is. The one thing I knew about Wisdom from the time I found out I was pregnant is he is God's child. And God has directed me to do things, unlike other parents, to make our journey easier. That's why this has been such an amazing journey with him. 

I have the humbling responsibility of giving direction to this life who is changing the world. From the time Wisdom was born, he has been a game changer. All the talk about our children being our future... WRONG! Our child are our NOW! When he was a baby and people would ask to see him, they would smile when they did because he was such a beautiful child. He changed their world right then, even if it was just for a moment. 

As he has gotten older, with a memorable name and an even more memorable personality, Wisdom changes the world to be a better place one life at a time. He is still such a beautiful child, inside and out. One of my greatest pleasures is to watch people interact with him and have fun with him. He has never met a stranger. Everyone is a friend he Loves and treasures. 

Not everyone feels that way about their child or children though. And their children know it. They just don't know what to do about it. So they perpetuate what they are seeing. Self-destruction? We have arrived.

Our baby girls are growing up to be pretty instead of intelligent. We're sexualizing them at a young age to attract men. There is this ridiculous and dangerous misconception that the more women show off their bodies, the more self-confident we are. I definitely disagree. Self-destruction? We have arrived.

There is something praise-worthy of women who don't feel they need to use their bodies to get attention because that's all that is. Instead of being lauded for our intelligence we're being led to believe that our bodies pay the bills. It's all about the shock value we can produce. Yes, a lot of women AND men are definitely successful because of those things. But what was the internal cost for externally selling themselves for  dollar?  

This is no different for our baby boys who are growing up with heavy gender stereotypes leading to a thug life mentality: sex, drugs, alcohol, violence. Yes, they are being sexualized too. Self-destruction? We have arrived. 

Many escape through video games. But unmonitored there is the exposure to violence, even when it is veiled. Others escape through sports. But the focus is often on competition. This is not play for fun. This is a false show of play with the overall objective being escape from the reality of their lives. 

The media, the clothes, the money... where their focus is being directed is all external. I read somewhere "where your focus goes your energy flows". Self-destructive energy is flowing unchecked from a fountain that is fathoms deep. 

If that mentality worked there would not be so many youth in line to perpetuate the cycle of poverty, where their families are in generations deep in. And for those who do escape living in poor communities, there are still many who employ self-destructive tendencies. Why? Because, true wealth happens internally. It's in our hearts and in our intelligence and how we honor our spiritual connection with God. Every baby came from the presence of God, just like each one of us has. They are human beings. They are people, regardless of their ages. They are worthy of the respect we want for ourselves as adults.

For all the Love we say we have towards our children, if we exhibit any of this behavior, especially in excess that's not Love, that's slavery. Every child that enters this world comes as a blank slate, fresh from the presence of God. Yet so many parents hold so much animosity towards their children for a number of untold reasons. These babies didn't ask to be here and parents are making it clear they didn't want them. Disrespect is an awful, vicious cycle. It's got to stop. L.U.V. is the answer.

Do you see why if it weren't for Wisdom I would now know what I know? It's one thing to deal with other people's children, which I have had a lot of experience with. But more importantly, it's about what you do with your own. Wisdom may be the only child I have the gift of birthing into the world. I didn't want to miss a moment of his life. 

He is my biggest mirror and has taught me that imitation is the greatest form of flattery but it is also the greatest form of error. When Wisdom acts a certain way, I know where he gets the behavior from, even if he gets it from me. I knew if he were in a day care situation I would not know where he got his behaviors from when they switched. That's why I sacrificed a paycheck because I was not going to sacrifice Wisdom by putting him in someone else's care.

I have known more than a few parents who have had a child pass away. If I become one of them (just being real), I want to make sure I can say I had no regrets in how I raised him. Even the mistakes or errors in judgment I made I feel OK about because I apologized to him. And yes, he is being raised. He's not just being allowed to get older. 

He is my heart beating outside of me. He has allowed me to pursue my dream career. So if I pass away before he becomes an adult, I want Wisdom to know how much he is Loved and cherished and respected and adored. His is an ever evolving product of the Recipe for L.U.V. 

One day he took an empty toilet paper and held it to his eye as if it were a telescope. He kept saying, "I'm looking for my treasure. I'm looking for my treasure." When I was in his lens he said, "There's my treasure. You're my treasure, Mommy." Dang! How did I get so lucky? Everyone should have moments like that with their children. The way you raise your children would create them. The Recipe for L.U.V. can help with that. 

I wish America felt the same way about the importance of parenting. It is the most important responsibility in the whole entire world yet there is no required training and there is no pay. What we have instead is parents sacrificing their children for a paycheck. PAID 2 Parent endeavors to change that. 

The other thing it is going to change is who is being parented. Children are the focus of so many programs. But at the end of the day, most of those programs will not be as effective as they could be simply because there is little to no parental involvement. And if those children are in a program in the first place, the way they are or are not being parented is the reason why. P2P is a family affair. The first person to be parented in this program is the adult participant. 

Having said that it needs to be made clear this program is not just for parents. It is for parents AND their children. It's for those who have no children. It is for children who are un- or under-parented AND their parents. This is a family affair. This is the beginning of true, deep and lasting healing in the Black community.

Please continue to the next video to find out more about PAID 2 Parent.