A common and favorite reaction to my intentional tone of possibility, hope, and aspiration for Little Rock is to try and dunk on me by stating all of the statistical reasons Little Rock and Arkansas is the worst. I’m AWARE beloved. You don’t spend your life as a low income child in Southwest Little Rock without learning to be comfortable with the general feeling of standing with a deflated ball on a public court while someone with a privately funded court and a rack of new balls dunks unapologetically in your face and reminds you that you’re not invited. You can’t make me feel any more broke and busted than this city has made me feel. I pushed through and there’s literally nothing you can say. Obstacles are opportunities. 
It’s why I try and remind you dang near every day that we have a LOT room to grow and room to go to improve. Shame, blame, and trying to rub someone’s face in their own deficits is really only gonna do so much. Something has to come after IF you are authentically a person who cares.
I’m not afraid of rock bottom. Best thing about it is that once you’ve fallen as far as you’re willing to fall, you have a rock hard surface to place your feet to jump again.
Little Rock has problems. Arkansas has problems. Yes. Check. We are the bottom of the barrel, worst in class, 0 stars out of five on a million lists. And yet… we live here. So is popping off at the mouth with a statistical recounting of the problems going to be your contribution or what?
For what it’s worth, do you notice how the folks with all of their energy in our failures and deficits RARELY keep that same energy for our improvement and our gains? Be wary of folks who proudly parrot your worst and are nowhere to be found when you improve or find areas where you shine. My mama told me that everybody in your face ain’t your friend……
All of this to say that unless you’re hoping Little Rock gets worse, being the worst doesn’t have to be the end of the story.
When you’ve hit rock bottom, the only way out is up.
