"Part: 15 Listen to Michael Davis's In Search Of Heroes Interview" by Ralph Zuranski
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Ralph Zuranski: Get to know who you are and what you are doing and what you do best.
Michael Davis: If you are a phenomenal photographer, you can take any kind of pictures. One of the reasons comic books make great movies is because they are great stories. Frank Miller, phenomenal comic book artist and writer, isn't doing anything different with the movies. He is doing what he does. He is creating content. But now he is creating that content for a different medium.
Ralph Zuranski: Who do you feel who are the real heroes today in our society who are not getting the rewards and recognition they deserve?
Michael Davis: Teachers. I can say that without even thinking. Teachers. Teachers. Teachers. The future of our country, the future of our planet, rests in teacher's hands and in their ability to reach young minds. I think clergymen also. One of the tenets of Christianity is that you bring other people to Christ; you give them the opportunity to come into that.
A lot of times you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time trying to teach that lesson, because it gives them something to look up to. Being a rock star is very cool and glamorous, but being a teacher has real substance. I still remember my sixth grade teacher. She was phenomenal. I was a class clown, but she said, "You know, Michael, you do your work and I will give you five minutes just to be stupid.”
She didn't try to pigeonhole me. And I used to couldn't wait for that five minutes! I was able to cut up in class! I do a lot of lecturing and public speaking and I am a motivational speaker on some levels. I talk in front of just about everybody. And I know for a fact that my ability to do that now came from Mrs. Rabenow letting me have my five minutes. The hardest thing in the world when you are a kid is to get up in front of people, and I loved it! Yeah, I think teachers are it!
Ralph Zuranski: I think that is one of our problems with our world today. Schools don't allow kids to be individuals. They just try to look at every one of them as the same.
Michael Davis: The only reason I have any use for private schools, because I think private schools are kind of elitist and it is not fair, but it is because they really nurture individuality. One of the problems with people of color, in my opinion, is that their parents are usually so busy trying to work that quality time spent with one person at home is difficult.
Reading and writing is one thing, but it is the little things that really help you get ahead. Personality, the importance of not being late, the importance of dressing well, et cetera. Private schools really nurture that individuality. I almost taught at one, which would have changed me entirely as an artist if I had gone to teach at this school. It was making it really hard for me not to because it was such a great deal.
I just would have been a different person.
Ralph Zuranski: What do you think are the things parents can do that will help their children realize that they can be heroes and make positive impact on the lives of others?
Michael Davis: Listen to their kids. Talk to their kids. Be interested in what their kids do. Little things, like if a kid draws a picture and they put it on the refrigerator, that’s kind of cool for a kid. Just nurture what it is they’re doing, but be parents.
My mother was not my friend. My mother was not a disciplinarian but I knew for a fact that no meant no. She was not my friend. She was not my buddy. If I did something wrong I was in trouble.
I was a good kid, collectively speaking. My mother only hit me once. That’s all it took. (Laughter) That was it, dude! My mother hit me once and I knew I was never doing that again.
Mostly you can listen those kids and know that those kids are not dim. You see these nanny shows on TV, Ralph, like Nanny 911 or Super Nanny? Very seldom do you see a black or Asian kid on those shows. You don’t talk back to your mother, you respect your mother and father. Martin Luther King said, “If you’re a street cleaner be the very best darn street cleaner you can be.”
Respect yourself. Respect others around you. Respect others’ cultures, others’ religions. Once you get to the point where people understand you’re doing the best that you can, I think that makes you a hero. You’re doing the best that you can and you are acknowledging them in your space and you’re doing the things that people can go, “Oh.”
If someone can say, “You should look at what Michael Davis is doing,” if someone can say that to their kid, I would feel like a hero.