Rap session sends teens an inspiring message

By MARK NEWMAN, Courier staff writer

OTTUMWA — Would you like to be a professional alcoholic? A professional drug user? A professional layabout? Or a person who brings their own good ideas to life, or a singer or a scholar? Whatever you’re doing now, in your teen years, it’s a good bet you are preparing yourself to do that later in life.

That was the message from professional rap music artist Wise during an assembly at Ottumwa High School on Tuesday. Wise and his son, rapper Double-A, were accompanying former police chaplain Phil Chalmers, a nationally recognized author and speaker on the subject of youth violence.

“He’s been on Montel Williams, Howard Stern, been in People magazine,” listed Ottumwa Police Officer Mike Murphy, who attended training by Chalmers last year in Des Moines. “I don’t know if people realize what a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity this is.”

Law enforcement officials from Ottumwa and around Iowa met earlier this week at Bridge View Center for a seminar aimed at school and police professionals by Chalmers.

Despite speaking engagements, TV appearances and book signings, Chalmers said his favorite thing to do is meet with students; being at OHS was important to him, he said.

“We’re all about keeping students safe,” he told students. “This is a life-or-death assembly.”

If they weren’t prepared to listen attentively, they should leave the auditorium, he said.

“The most common type of school violence is bullying,” he said. “[But] if you’re being bullied, violence is not the answer, because you’ll end up [in prison].”

That’s how some of the young people he met dealt with their problems. School shootings. Most of them shot the bully dead. Almost none stopped there.

“I’m trying to keep it real here,” he told students.

Chalmers showed crime scene photos where a victim of bullying had brought a gun and created murder victims.

The pictures of victims showed fellow students — even those who hadn’t done anything wrong — and teachers who moments before had been doing what they loved.

One color photo showed a teacher, bloodied and dead on the floor, with the chalk board eraser still clutched in her hand.

As soon as a teacher or student hears someone talking about killing people, they need to contact someone in authority, the school police officer, the principal — even Chalmers himself. He told kids how to contact him by e-mail, Twitter or even by telephone.

Wise said when he was a kid, the tough guys on the streets of New York were telling him and his friend Biggie Smalls (who went on to be to become a well-known musician) to carry drugs. If anything happens, keep your mouth shut and we’ll be there for you.

Everyone wants to be liked, and the gangs and drug dealers seemed to like the two youngsters. And when trouble came, their “friends” did not.

He and Biggie ended up in prison, sharing the same cell.

Popular media may glorify violence, but the reality is something different, Wise said.

Wise told the kids no matter how cool rappers try to make violence sound, when Biggie was killed, members of the entourage who said they’d lay down their lives for him were hiding.

“They say, ‘We’ll die for you.’ But when it was time, they were [saving themselves]. They’re not ‘homies.’ I call them phonies.”

Being a good person now, being constructive now and learning to respect yourself now is going to pay off dividends to teens in their future.

“You’re not always going to have cheerleaders — coaches, teachers. You have to learn to love yourself,” Wise said.

There are rappers he likes as people, he said, but don’t pay them to be disrespectful to you.

“Don’t give him your $15 to call you a ‘B-I...’ or a ‘H-O...’”

It’s not about demanding respect, either. Chalmers said it’s about everyone giving respect.

“Real men respect other men. And real men respect women,” he said.

Men don’t knock people’s books from their hands or hurt people because they’re weak. In fact, they don’t allow that type of behavior. And when it comes to women, he told male students, remember the female they see is someone’s daughter, sister, and someday, a wife or mom.

Think of how you treat a girl. Would you want someone treating your mom that way?

Punks have one answer, he said, while real men will have a better answer.

Mark Newman can be reached at 683-5358 or by e-mail at mnewman@ottumwacourier.com.