Best-sellingauthor Omar Tyree shared life experiences and perspectives on literature withSouthern University faculty and students Wednesday.
Tyree was partof an installment of the SU Motivational Speakers Series. His appearance washosted by the SU Men’s Federation.
Tyree, a HowardUniversity graduate in mass communication, is a well-known journalist, author,motivational speaker and entrepreneur best known for his best selling novelssuch as “Flyy Girl”, “A Do Right Man”, “Sweet St. Louis” and “For The Love OfMoney.”
The program’stheme was a post-Valentine’s Day Discussion on the appreciation of black women.
“Who’s better athelping us appreciate our black women than our speaker Mr. Omar Tyree?” Men’s Federation Vice-President Andrew Charles asked.
“Mr. Tyree hasgoals to create positive African-American reading materials,” Charles said.
Tyree gaveattendees biographical details about his life and endeavors before diving intothe themed discussion.
“I was a jock,ladies,” Tyree said. “The only time I dealt with women was if you were mycheerleader, or my girlfriend.”
Tyree admittedto a rowdy college past consisting of partying, football and hustling. He saidhe was always a person trying to make money, which led him to hisentrepreneurial interests.
According toTyree, his admiration for the girls around his college campus who liked to wearname-brand clothes and live an expensive lifestyle, funded by money slingingbad boys, led to the publication of his first best-selling work “Flyy Girl.”
“Because Icouldn’t afford these girls, I decided to write a book about them,” he said.
Tyree alsoexpressed how he felt that authors like Terry McMillian and E. Lynn Harris werebashing the honor of black men in their novels and he felt he had to defend thebrothers by publishing “A Do Right Man.”
“Nobody wantedto talk about a ‘do right man’,” Tyree said. “Women tend to turn away from thegood men and go for the bad boys.”
He went on tosay that young men need to grow up, and women need to stop putting themselvesin the predicament of bad relationships with “no good men.”
“Brothas respectyou more when you ask questions,” he said. “A guy has to make the decision whenhe’s ready to settle down — you can’t make him!”
