Be True To Yourself
By Terry Artis, Founder/President/Publisher
To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man…
William Shakespeare’s – “Hamlet”
I honestly believe that this article will be the most important editorial that I will ever write even as it is the first of many editorials that I will publish in my paper and news service, the RiverCity Examiner. I am most certain that it addresses a topic that is central to all of us as Black people, White people, Asian people, Hispanic people, Arab people, etc…, yet as simplistic and cliché as it is, I feel that the ‘catch phrase’ Be True To Yourself is the most powerful idea for us to live by these days.
RiverCity Examiner is a Black Publication. It is Black owned, Black operated and dedicated to young Black professionals and Black youth. I have a serious vested interest in young Black people as I have spent 26 years of my life (more than ½) providing music education to them as well as White, Hispanic, Asian and other youth and providing young Blacks with a means to a higher education - many with full music scholarships. This publication will survive and thrive on advertisement revenue as all free publications do. As with all Black publications, that revenue will largely come from White businesses with an interest in reaching the niche that we serve.
I recently read an article in one of my fellow Black publications, which exposed the fact that there are 2 of my other fellow Black publications that were receiving pay for positive press about Mayor Slay. Let me first be clear in the idea that I despise a practice that was devised to deceive my community and I find it most despicable that it was perpetrated through Black publications. Yet, I must say that I felt more angry about reading this in a fellow Black publication that seems to have an underlying agenda of what I term as “shaking and baking” certain Black people in our community at certain times.
Being the sort of person that I am, I called the fellow Black publication that ran the piece and asked to speak to the author, who is the paper’s editor and who happens to be White. Allow me to state for the record that I have no objection whatsoever to a Black publication having a White writer/editor… and EVERYONE who knows me, knows this to be true. The reason that I even make it a point to write that the person is White, is because I made it a point in my conversation with the writer to ask, (paraphrasing) “Do you think that it is wise for you, a White associate of that Black publication to participate in the ‘shaking and baking’ of more Black people in this community?” Needless to say, the conversation went down hill from there, but that’s okay, I said what I felt as a man to a man that didn’t share my view and it’s cool.
Back to Be True To Yourself and to tie this all together. I not only publish this service, but I am the Founder/Executive Director of the Show-Me Sound Organization (since 1993). I serve predominantly Black youth through my not-for-profit. (Notice that I wrote ‘I serve’ and didn’t call myself a ‘leader’ like many of my contemporaries tend to do – but that’s another subject as well). The youth of Show-Me Sound will be competing in a Winter Guard International Percussion Festival in Temecula, California in March of this year. WGI is a competitive arena that serves, by and large, White youth (there are a few ensembles with a couple of Black youth, some with Asian, Hispanic, but it is largely a White arena). To prepare my Black youth for an arena that largely serves White youth and is largely adjudicated by White judges, I hired a White design technician/consultant, Nathan Sickmeier, to work on the staging of our show. Now, please understand that Nathan is exceptional at staging and design concepts, no matter what color he is, but Nathan realizes that he brings a White perspective that will benefit my predominantly Black ensemble in this arena. Nathan also works well with a variety of musical styles (symphonic, hip-hop, soul jazz, country) which are what our show is comprised of, so he’s a perfect fit all the way around.
Nathan doesn’t look, act or talk Black. He doesn’t believe that he ‘has his finger on the pulse of the Black community’ either. He’s a colleague with a perspective that will be invaluable in this endeavor and we are all clear on that. Nathan Sickmeier is True To Himself.
We can ALL work together, Black people, White people, Asian people, Hispanic people, Arab people and ALL people - as long as we are True To Ourselves.
Below: Young Performers of the Show-Me Sound F.O.C.U.S. DRUMLINE "Being True To Themselves" 
