“Killing Cool: Igniting the Soul of Society” is the topic of a talk by Derrick Ashong to be held at ETSU on March 21, in the D.P. Culp University Center’s Martha Street Culp Auditorium.
In this 7 p.m. lecture, actor, entrepreneur and author Ashong addresses how today’s youth, influenced by many teen music, television, movie and sports stars, feel compelled to achieve at earlier and earlier ages.
“Young people everywhere feel overwhelming pressure to fit in by being ‘cool,'” he said. “Yet in society, those who achieve the most are not those who adapt to fashion but those who know what is right for them. These people effect change. They free their minds from the shackles of popular thought and allow themselves to be different.”
Ashong encourages his listeners to be true to themselves to succeed, to get in touch what they want to be and question everything that tells them what they should be, without succumbing to “self-centered individualism.”
“The pursuit of ‘cool’ limits your options,” he says. “You make decisions based on appearances, on fitting in, on doing the right thing or on gaining approval. ‘Cool’ can become a prison that will cut you off from a whole world of opportunity. And ‘cool’ changes with time and circumstance. One day you’re in the groove, (and) the next you’re in a rut. You waste effort in the never-ending attempt to keep up.
“Being cool is hard work with short-lived rewards. ‘Killing cool’ is about resisting the ever-expanding advertising of large corporations; it’s about reading between the lines of media messages; it’s about not listening when people say, ‘You can’t.’ But it’s also about self-determination and accountability.”
Ultimately, Ashong believes, those who “hold fast to their own individuality, refusing to be swayed by pressures to conform, will find greater creative potential and opportunities to be agents of social change.”
Ashong, born in Ghana, West Africa, in 1975, attended school in the Middle Eastern states of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and has also lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., and New Jersey.
As an actor, he played a featured role in Amistad, and as an entrepreneur, he has begun and maintained a successful record label.
In addition, he is completing his first major work of non-fiction. He attended Harvard University.
This free public event, held in conjunction with “Raise Your Voice: A Month of Action,” is co-sponsored by the Student Government Association-606 Funding, Buctainment, Volunteer ETSU, Black Affairs Association and Office of Multicultural Affairs.
For information, contact Joy Fulkerson in the ETSU Student Organization Resource Center, at 439-6633 or fulkersj@etsu.edu.

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