Take Action

We really do have the cure for everything that ails people of African descent.  We have the benefit of lived experience--- year after year, generation after generation-- of surviving in a hostile environment.  

Despite this truth, most of us have not been involved in a research study where someone asked us about what we go through daily or what we think the solutions are.

Well, we have a solution for this.  We have formed our own think tank.  The goals of the community think tank are:

• to talk with everyday people like you and me, and document the details of our concerns
• to compile these facts into publications and action plans.
• If applicable, implement these plans by working to change policies in the community or local or national government.

Join us every third Sunday, and bring your brain so that we can get to work.  We're located in Florida but these conversations are necessary everywhere.  Would you like to start a branch of the Community Think Tank in your area?  We'd love to get started wherever you are!  Contact us today. 

We really do have the cure for everything that ails people of African descent.  We have the benefit of lived experience--- year after year, generation after generation-- of surviving in a hostile environment.  

Despite this truth, most of us have not been involved in a research study where someone asked us about what we go through daily or what we think the solutions are.

Well, we have a solution for this.  We have formed our own think tank.  The goals of the community think tank are:

• to talk with everyday people like you and me, and document the details of our concerns
• to compile these facts into publications and action plans.
• If applicable, implement these plans by working to change policies in the community or local or national government.

Join us every third Sunday, and bring your brain so that we can get to work.  We're located in Florida but these conversations are necessary everywhere.  Would you like to start a branch of the Community Think Tank in your area?  We'd love to get started wherever you are!  Contact us today. 

Let's talk to each other to discover every way that we have truly sucked in rancid water and spoiled rations in the form of lies about our essential essence and true nature. Let's excise those lies from our bodies, emotions, minds, and spirits.

Focus Exercise:  Think of three controversial concepts related to your culture that you have about your body, mind, feelings, or beliefs (for example, are you too dark/light, smart/dumb, radical/passive, religious/scientific?)   Have these beliefs been caused by bias, or have you experienced bias because of these aspects of yourself?  Talk to one enlightened person that you trust about what you will do to eliminate one of these beliefs in the next month.

Let's get rid of the concept of chattel slavery as a real thing from our past. Seriously, let's put it to rest. We were never chattel. Period. 

We are full members of one world community, and we have responsibilities to care for and contribute to that community. We are FULL MEMBERS, in the skin we're in right now, with the money or lack that we have right now, with the information or education we have, RIGHT NOW.

We are free of whatever mistakes or missteps were made or taken by the generations before us. 

We belong to ourselves and our Creator.  What will we use our talents for today?   Together, let's transform ourselves and our world.

Focus exercise:  Spend at least five minutes in a quiet place reflecting on these ideas.  Have you allowed yourself to think that you are less than anyone else?  Have you thought of others as being less than?  Look at five people who are the same as or different from you.  See the FULL Member of the world community within them.

Let's stop seeing things we hate in ourselves and in others who look like us. Let's put the tangible and intangible weapons down and only step toward each other in love.

Focus Exercise:   Sit alone in a quiet space for ten minutes.  Think of one thing you really hate about people who have skin like yours but may come from another neighborhood or country.  Imagine yourself spending one day as a person from one of the places you thought of.  Imagine that you have that geographic history, that way of speaking, those looks, that brain, those advantages or disadvantages, those ways of doing things.  Write down five things that you have in common with the person.

 Let's do the personal work to heal our internal rules. No more 'soldering on', 'sucking it up', or band-aids. No more. Let's look it in the eye, see our truth, and get on with our lives.

Focus exercise:  Get together with a friend.  Exchange stories about the last time you were judged because of your skin color, race, or economic status.  Discuss the ways that you carried on, in spite of feeling devastated. Grieve for this moment in your life.  Commit to each other to call each other for support and encouragement the very next time that you acquire such an injury.

THE 30-DAY CULTURAL WELLNESS PLEDGE:  

For the next thirty days, I pledge to acknowledge in these ways that cultural wellness is within me and the people I know and love    

I will honor and respect myself, my family, and my community. I will fast from making disparaging remarks or slurs about my own or other people's 'race', culture, educational or economic status, country of origin, or beliefs.   

I will engage in one positive conversation with a new person each day about cultural wellness. At least five of the 30 conversations I have will be with people who don't look like me.   

I will spend five minutes each day reflecting on my readiness to release false beliefs about my skin or my ancestry.  I will focus on releasing the generational trauma and my willingness to be whole and healed.   

I will take the “Internalized Racism Inventory” at the beginning of the month, and again at the end of the month, to see whether my ways of thinking and behaving have shifted.