HEALING WHAT’S HURTING BLACK AMERICA

VOICES OF HEALING WHAT’S HURTING BLACK AMERICA Carol L. Adams • Na’im Akbar • Noel S. Anderson • Maya Angelou

Esther Akasi Armah • Baayan Bakari • asha bandele • Harry Belafonte

Carl C. Bell • Dereca L. Blackmon • C. Diane Wallace Booker

Lashan Browning • Khephra Burns • Michael A. Burns • Michele Pierce

Burns • Madeleine Moore Burrell • Tom Burrell • Leon D. Caldwell

Iva E. Carruthers • Veronica Conway • Michaela angela Davis

Joy Angela DeGruy • Thomas W. Dortch, Jr. • Michael Eric Dyson

Andriette Earl • Glenn Ellis • Therman E. Evans • Shelia Evans-Tranumn

George C. Fraser • Marcia Ann Gillespie • Shawn A. Ginwright

Cheryl Tawede Grills • Adelaide L. Hines-Sanford • Shani Jamila

Theresa Kay-Aba Kennedy • Barbara Lewis King • Joyce E. King

Kofi A. Kondwani • Khary Lazarre-White • Carol D. Lee (Safisha L.

Madhubuti) • Sara Lomax-Reese • Damon Lynch III • Haki R. Madhubuti

Julianne Malveaux • Joel P. Martin • Linda James Myers • Wade W. Nobles

William Paden • Jessica C. Pinkney • Kevin Powell • Beloved Reese

Sheila R. Rule • Yvonne Samuel • Lena Sherrod • April R. Silver

Sobonfu Somé • Joseph A. Strickland • Susan L. Taylor • Iyanla Vanzant

Terrie M. Williams • Akoshia Fatimah Yoba • Malik Yoba

EDITED BY SUSAN L. TAYLOR COVER ART: KEBA KONTE DESIGN: [email protected] A National CARES Mentoring Movement Initiative

ANWF_0116F_COVER.indd 1 6/25/15 5:09 AM HEALING WHAT’S HURTING BLACK AMERICA

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: CORBIS HEALING WHAT’S HURTING BLACK AMERICA

EDITED BY Susan L. Taylor National CARES Mentoring Movement, Inc.

Third World Press Chicago COVER PHOTO: Keba Konte

GRAPHIC DESIGN: [email protected]

CREATIVE DIRECTOR: LaVon Leak ASSOCIATE CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Monica Whittick ART DIRECTOR: Donna E. Moxam ART DIRECTOR: Sandy Lawrence PHOTO EDITOR: Leah Rudolfo RETOUCHING: Sundree.tv

Third World Press Publishers since 1967 Chicago

© 2010 by National CARES Mentoring Movement, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Queries should be addressed to Third World Press, P.O. Box 19730, Chicago IL 60619.

Second Edition Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010937617

ISBN 13: 978-0-88378-322-1

16 15 14 13 12 11 10 6 5 4 3 2 1

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG The National CARES Mentoring Movement is devoted to closing the huge gap between the relatively few Black mentors and the millions of vulnerable Black children on the waiting lists of mentoring and youth-support organizations. As of this writing, we have a presence in 57 U.S. cities. National CARES is not a mentoring organization in and of itself; we are a movement that seeks to recruit and connect Black volunteers with their local youth-serving programs.

To that end, we have created A New Way Forward, an innovative mentor- recruitment initiative designed to create an ocean of gravely needed mentors who are practicing principles of wellness in body, mind, spirit and community, and who are devoted to seeding a consciousness of self- love and high achievement in the minds and hearts of the children they mentor. A project of National CARES, A New Way Forward will provide volunteers with the information and training needed to serve Black children and other under-resourced youngsters at the highest levels.

This effort has been made possible by the generosity of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Fannie Mae, Inc., and the indispensable time, talent and treasure of the people who make up our Braintrust.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG This manual is a work in progress and is intended to ignite di- rect action for us, as a people, to move through our collective hurt and cultivate effective pathways to healing and wholeness. The manual and its companion training are being piloted, evaluated and refined as we receive vital feedback from participants across the na- tion. In your hands, the work comes alive. Pilot sessions are tak- ing place in Oakland. As National CARES raises additional funds, more trainings will be held in other cities. We are committed to offering this transformational training wherever our children are suffering—beginning in the 57 cities where our devoted CARES mentor-recruitment leaders are working each day to save young lives.

A New Way Forward Braintrust

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: KEBA KONTE A Pledge to Rescue Our Youth By Dr. Maya Angelou

Young women, young men of color, we add our voices to the voices of your ancestors who speak to you over ancient seas and across impossible mountaintops.

Come up from the gloom of national neglect; you have already been paid for.

Come out of the shadow of irrational prejudice; you owe no racial debt to history.

The blood of our bodies and the prayers of our souls have bought you a future free from shame and bright beyond the telling of it.

We pledge ourselves and our resources to seek for you clean and well-furnished schools, safe and non-threatening streets, employment which makes use of your talents, but does not degrade your dignity.

You are the best we have. You are all we have. You are what we have become.

We pledge you our whole hearts from this day forward.

Written by Dr. Angelou expressly for the National CARES Mentoring Movement

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG For their phenomenal work in setting the course of this project by molding the first drafts of material from nearly 60 scholars, practitioners, activists and advocates, we thank the following writers:

Sheila R. Rule, team leader

&

Rev. Yvonne Samuel Akoshia Fatimah Yoba Dr. Noel S. Anderson

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG A NEW WAY FORWARD

CONTENTS FOREWORD BY SUSAN L. TAYLOR PG 02 EDITORS’ NOTE BY ASHA BANDELE AND SHAWN GINWRIGHT, PH.D. PG 04 TRAINERS’ STATEMENT BY DR. JOEL P. MARTIN AND DERECA L. BLACKMON PG 06 MESSAGE FROM HARRY BELAFONTE PG 08

HERITAGE MEDIA WATCH PG 10 PG 89 SPIRITUALITY COMMUNITY PG 21 PG 95 STRESS MENTORING PG 33 PG 103 WELLNESS PROFILES IN EXCELLENCE PG 47 PG 124 PROSPERITY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PG 61 PG 140 RELATIONSHIPS FOR YOUR LIBRARY PG 69 PG 142 CREATIVITY PG 83

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: PETER CHIN | 03

Susan L. Taylor National CARES Mentoring Movement CEO and founder Susan L. Taylor is the architect of A New Way Forward, a National CARES healing initiative and training manual, for which she served as editor-in-chief. Susan is pictured here at home in the summer of 2010 with her granddaughter, cousins, nieces and their friends. Clockwise from noon: Bakari Taylor, Ania Hughes, William Plummer, Zakiya Moore, David Wright, Amina Suzanne King, Nisa Bandele, and Malaika Taylor.

ONELOVE

One of the truths I have most relied on in Movement organized an intergenerational my life is that which tells us how our group of some of the fi nest minds to create a ancestors triumphed over tragedy. Beyond consciousness-changing curriculum to doubt, we are the people who refused to die. anchor Black people solidly in our Highest Enduring heinous acts of violence and Self, help us heal our hurt, depression and assaults to their psyche and soul, our self-denial, rarely named or recognized but foreparents donned their spiritual armor—a internalized over generations—and today walk-on-water faith—and kept moving prevents us from caring well for ourselves forward. Bequeathed to us from them is a and our vulnerable young. A New Way powerful legacy it often seems we have Forward is for our transformation. It is a forgotten. We are not on the rough side of healing and wellness training for our body, the mountain—it has been traversed by those mind, spirit and community, an offering of who pushed ahead while lifting the children restorative principles and practices to help over terrain more jagged and steep than we African Americans stand strong in love and will ever know. Let us lift up that legacy and unity, and repair the village. The trainings navigate what, in comparison, are hills. are to help “reculture” us—to invite us back Like you, I ache over the state of home to our beautiful selves. emergency in Black America: that we able They are for a critical mass of willing, adults are allowing our vulnerable young to community-loving Black people—the high fall. That we are leaving outside our and the humble—who want to de-stress and sanctuary doors “the least of these.” That fortify our spirit, who want to lead healthy, legions of our children are without peaceful, productive lives, who want to textbooks, art and technology training in mentor and advance our struggling young failing schools. That 85 percent of Black and imperiled communities. fourth-graders read below grade level and a A New Way Forward is created to million Black males are on lockdown. That revitalize us, to heal the incalculable damage there is no strategic alliance among Black done to our body, mind and soul by more leaders, no agreed-upon agenda. That we’re than three centuries of slavery, Jim Crow so stressed, moving fast, but losing ground practices, and racism. It is to root in us what in every quarter critical to Black progress. our ancestors knew: No matter how rough We have no time to waste. the course, we must believe the promise. We The work is ours to do, and the call to are not at the mercy of outside forces. Our action is now! power resides where it has always been— In 2009, the National CARES Mentoring within us, with our God, and in unity.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 05

asha bandele is the executive editor of this manual and has worked with the National CARES Mentoring Movement since it’s inception.

CREATING A WORLD

In 2005, after 80 percent of New Orleans that truly was love with no limits. There, was drowned, Susan L. Taylor put out a we determined that if we gathered all our call, which, five years later, has become a work and drew upon all our wisdom, if we movement to link arms and aims for the set our egos aside and remembered that our benefit of our children. I am honored that children matter more than anything else, in the process of Susan’s shaping the indeed, we could begin to chart a way out National CARES Mentoring Movement, of the hell that enfolds too many of them. and now its innovative training initiative, Now we are beckoning you to join us on A New Way Forward, she has asked that I this walk back into full humanity, real stand beside her as we work to create the peace and complete well-being. The kind of world in which all of our children chapters contained here will help guide you can live out the full measure of the gifts on this exciting new passage toward they were born with. healing. All the writers and editors toiled The manual you are now holding is meant over every word in order to provide you to be a road map on a path to freedom. It with useful advice, practical tools and represents an 18-month journey we took strategies that, when used consistently, will with nearly 60 of our smartest, most loving serve as a road to our recovery. and committed scholars, activists, Zora Neale Hurston once admonished us educators, entrepreneurs and faith leaders. to “jump at the sun. You may not reach it, We came together at Susan’s home for a but at least your feet will be off the ground.” historic meeting on October 30, 2009. It The work before us is mighty, but the was a moment, in its generosity and hope, possibilities? Well, there’s just no telling.

PHOTO: SADDI KHALI WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: KEN SCHLES/GALLERY STOCK | 07

Dr. Joel P. Martin and Dereca L. Blackmon Joel (left) is a New Way Forward’s director of training. Dereca is our project manager.

LET THE HEALING BEGIN

Join us as we bring to life the contents of relationships that result in strong Black this book through transformational retreats, children? What is the vision that calls us learning communities and practices. We are forth, that compels us to reinvent ourselves gathering the willing and making them as transformational leaders creating this new ready, not only for the work of saving our way forward? These are a few of the many children and reclaiming our communities, questions we are asking. but also for the vital and necessary We promise to create safe places where prerequisite of truly healing and loving our Black leaders can seek answers and go people as we heal and love ourselves. deeper than ever before to unearth Our transformational program is built on, optimism and liberate a generous and though not confined by, innovative models hopeful spirit. We promise to include of radical healing, leadership and action education and inspiration. And we learning used successfully over many years. promise to include caring professionals as We will shine the light on what is right and our guides. good about our very audacity to endure. After our retreat pilots in Oakland, we What are the secret places where our pain move on to a few other pilot cities, and then bridles our hope? How do we confront and to the rest of the nation where our CARES forgive the past so that we have a present Circles are recruiting mentors and priming worth loving and a future worth acting on? the pump for this work. Our children What does it take for us to sustain the deserve to live in a world where we are practices that manifest the legacy of our proud, honored and able to serve as role ancestors? How do we foster loving models. We are dedicated. This is our work.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG “The older I get, the better I know the secret of my going on is when the reins are in the hands of the young who dare to run against the storm. We who believe in freedom cannot rest.”

Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 09

Harry Belafonte Legendary artist and human rights activist Harry Belafonte reminds us that our children are central.

FOR OUR CHILDREN

For a quarter of a century, I have served gathered the collective will to truly know the needs of children all over the world as our history, to understand why we’ve been an ambassador for UNICEF, and I have oppressed, and to understand what our seen children at all levels of the human own role in our oppression has been—it is condition. Whenever I am asked to only then that we can begin to carve out a consider the spiritual and emotional future of equality and justice. well-being of our children, I do so from a place of concern. Our children have been Dr. King is not a holiday. and continue to be the victims of our greed and, most often, our indifference. But despite all the hardships, the We will never be able to fix what most disappointments, the failures, I wake up affects them until we finally fix what most each morning with hope. Rewarded with affects us. If we stay on the path we are another day of living, I know I am given, currently traveling, we will not leave our once more, the opportunity to fix the children the sort of legacy given us by things I have found so difficult to correct. people who committed their lives to That I am given that chance with each making this world a more joyous place. new day is a gift. And it’s not only my gift. The creating of a legacy that honors our It’s everyone’s: No matter what came children begins with each of us having the before, we have the choice to shape what courage to make a change. It is only when comes next. The power to heal our we have realized the imperative and have children lies entirely with us.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: DAVIDE MONTELEONE/REDUX PICTURES HERITAGE “History is a people’s memory…” — MALCOLM X

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 12 | HERITAGE

OUR HUMANITY Five hundred years of oppression did not destroy our soul

BY DR. JOYCE E. KING AND DR. WADE W. NOBLES

e are a magnificent not only breathed life into the New World people, awesome be- but also produced the vast wealth that yond measure, ancient enriched European monarchies and New as the origins of human- World nations, making it possible for the ityW itself in the womb of Mother Africa and latter to claim their independence from deeply rooted in spirit—in traditions of fam- colonial powers. ilyhood and kinship, where we individually The African presence is documented on and collectively affirm our humanity and every continent: In Europe, the Moors ruled the connection to spirit by recognizing the Spain for seven centuries; and in Asia, there humanity and divinity in others. It is here were African roots in the Xia, Shang and that we find humanity and perfectibility as Zhou dynasties of ancient China. When we expressions of the Divine. listen to almost any variation of music that From South Africa to South Carolina, from originated in the Americas—the work songs, St. Croix to St. Louis, from Sudan to Suri- spirituals, blues, jazz, the American popular name, from Mali to Mississippi, from Kemet song, gospel, R&B, rock ’n’ roll, hip-hop in (Egypt) to Kansas City, from the United States, and samba, salsa, rumba, Ouagadugou to West Oakland, from mambo, reggae, calypso, meringue, bomba Brixton to Brooklyn, we have been and have and plena, maracatu and other forms in borne visionaries and the valiant, peacemak- Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Brazil, Trinidad ers and power brokers, scholars and seers, and throughout the Caribbean and South the heavy hitters and healers. Our ancestors’ America—we are listening to the rhythms accomplishments throughout the African of African people. Some of Europe’s most continent—from Kemet in the North to Nubia celebrated artists copied or drew heavily on in the East to Great Zimbabwe in the South African motifs—often without acknowledg- and the classical civilizations of Ghana, Mali ment—to produce works widely considered and Songhoy in the West—laid the founda- innovative and “modern.” Likewise, tion for mathematics, science, medicine, American “modern dance” has benefited astronomy, philosophy, the arts and litera- from African influences. Since the time of ture. The knowledge, labor and skills of Imhotep, the Father of Medicine, African African peoples throughout the Diaspora and African American scientists, math-

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 13 ematicians, physicians and inventors have consciousness. Our historically Black achieved pioneering breakthroughs in these colleges and universities educated Native fi elds that remain excluded from the cur- Americans as well as Japanese Americans riculum at all levels. following their release from World War II The world owes a debt to our Motherland. concentration camps. Despite segregation and degradation, our foreparents served A Legacy for All with courage and distinction in the nation’s Our African foreparents honored the armed forces, not only in defense of country Creator, the village, the clan, the family. but also as acts of resistance and an They understood the oneness of being. affi rmation of our humanity. They affi rmed their humanity by What would America be without our recognizing the humanity in others, a way music, our style, grace and dance, our of living and being that cherished cultural literature and oratory? Without Dr. Charles unity, diversity and affi nity. Thus, African Drew’s blood plasma and blood transfusion humanity was an expression of the Divine. discoveries? Without African American

“The labor and skills of African peoples throughout the Diaspora produced the vast wealth that enriched European monarchies and New World nations.”

From the Nile to the Niger to the New scientifi c contributions to open heart World, our African spiritual foundation surgery and pacemakers, the development of nourished the spiritual strivings we express the computer and innovations that today through our diverse religious revolutionized the transportation, food- traditions. When they were barred from preservation, hair-care and other industries? worshipping in dignity in the White Moreover, what do we remember of these churches of colonial America, religious achievements or the successful cooperative leaders such as Absalom Jones and Richard businesses and mutual aid and benevolent Allen established African Methodist societies our foreparents established? What Episcopal churches that still exist today. do we know today of the history of African We have continued to express our American life insurance companies that humanity and collective identity through anchored thriving urban economic hubs like the excellence we have achieved in every Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn Avenue, Tulsa’s fi eld of human endeavor that our Black Wall Street, Claiborne Avenue in New foreparents managed to pry open. Orleans or Durham’s Little Hayti? Where Our accomplishments have benefi ted not would the world be today without the Black only Black Americans but others as well. In Freedom Struggle that inspired, among education, our foreparents established others, the Women’s, the Antiwar, and the schools in colonial New York and Boston, Gay Rights movements? free public schools in the South during Reconstruction, and citizenship schools that Creators and Caretakers defi ed Jim Crow in support of the Civil It is important to remember that our survival Rights Movement, which lifted the nation’s and our extraordinary accomplishments,

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 14 | HERITAGE overcoming centuries of adversity, have Americans have been denied the right to not been the result of the contributions of live in the fullness of our humanity. isolated individuals, but were nurtured in Captured, kidnapped and enslaved, we have Black communities, Black churches and been made the object of negation and other Black institutions and organizations. nullification. After all, the Black church became the We have been denied proper food, centerpiece of spiritual, social and clothing, medical care, shelter, education political reform. and meaningful and productive work, both We exist here in America and legally and extralegally. Consider, for throughout the Diaspora as African example, that for most of the time that we people with a legacy of human values that have lived on these shores, it was against have endured through millennia, across the law for us to read, write and enter time and space. Even if many of us are not libraries and theaters. Today, as deep- fully conscious of this heritage, we are the recession levels of unemployment remain beneficiaries of values that reflect respect historically high nationally—approaching for elders, self-mastery, patience, race 10 percent by some estimates—the pride, collective responsibility, moral devastatingly high rate of unemployment restraint, devotion to family, reciprocity, among Black families continues at double productivity, creativity, courage, defiance that percentage. In New York City, 50 and integrity. We are the creators of percent of Black men are unemployed. We customs that ground us in a belief in the have borne the shock and pain of one Divine, the sanctity of family and trauma after another, experiences that have children, hard work and social shattered much of our sense of personal responsibilities, the sense of excellence and collective identity, damaged our and appropriateness and the importance communities and devastated our families. of history. Only when we have sequestered ourselves Our challenge today is not only to together to unlearn the madness have we ensure our survival but also to reach back thrived. Because we have been so often and pass on this wondrous legacy of miseducated, most of us have little memory greatness to our children and the or knowledge of our history of collective generations to come. resistance and care for one another. By and large, without intervention, the deep In the Eye of the Storm emotional and psychological wounds of Yes, our greatness has been tested, these traumas will continue to pass from challenged and attacked through the one generation to the next like a toxic centuries. The history of European contact family legacy. The same way we have with African peoples, at least as far back as passed on our passion, pride and power, we the fifth century through the age of are passing on our pain. “discovery” until now, has been determined by feudalism, aristocracy, elitism, Our African American colonialism, greed and White supremacy. Experience: Being Black in an This history of dehumanization and Anti-African Reality destruction left our Motherland and our Millions of our ancestors were snatched people scarred both on the continent and from homes, villages and societies in throughout the Diaspora. Our beautiful Senegambia, the Bight of Benin, the Gold Blackness has been devalued, distorted and Coast, the Bight of Biafra and the Congo demonized. In every generation, African and crammed into the floating prisons and

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 15 death chambers of the Middle Passage. This Even now, brutality, violence and injustice invasion literally robbed the continent of continue to stalk us. Not one of us is untold genius and possibility. Our immune. We are seeing the justice system destination: centuries of bondage, dismantle the lives of our men and boys in deprivation and dehumanization throughout myriad ways. Their killers are seldom if the Americas. For nearly 350 years, our ever brought to justice for the crimes foreparents and their descendants were committed against them, as has been the enslaved under conditions that gave new case with all too many murders throughout meaning to brutality, oppression and the South. Black men have been the depravity. Our ancestors were relegated by particular victims of police brutality. They laws and pseudoscience to the classification have walked the streets with a bull’s-eye on of subhuman, the better to justify the their backs, the targets of White

“We have borne the shock and pain of one trauma after another, experiences that have shattered much of our sense of personal and collective identity, damaged our communities and devastated our families. Only when we have sequestered ourselves together to unlearn the madness have we thrived”

constant, state-sanctioned assault on their supremacists, from the Klan to skinheads to spirits, bodies and humanity. just good ole boys—as in the case of James And despite the demise of legal slavery, Byrd, who was dragged to his death in which eventually had even involved forced Jasper, Texas—or the targets of other young “slave breeding,” the brutal disruption of our Black men who have been taught to hate ability to live and prosper did not end. The themselves in a system of White supremacy. Emancipation Proclamation was followed Scores of shootings by police—like those that by virtual reenslavement through debt killed Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell and too peonage, the Black Codes and Jim Crow many others—are commonplace. A for- laws that perpetuated oppression and profit, privatized prison industry monitors subjugation. The Ku Klux Klan and the failure rates of fourth-grade Black boys like-minded Americans lynched thousands in order to project the number of new of our people—including women and prison- cells it will need to build to remain children—sometimes as entertainment at profitable. Lobbyists for the prison- Sunday picnics and advertised in local industry profiteers lobby hard-on-crime newspapers in advance. There were politicians to divert funding away from economic wounds, too; crippling barriers to education and into bonds for the building financial resources have locked our people of new prisons, thus ensuring underfunded out of the economic mainstream, robbing us schools, the derailing of our children and a of the benefits of our labor steady stream of new bodies in the and preventing our foreparents from school-to-prison pipeline or the morgue. accumulating and passing on wealth to the Our children literally are faced with next generations. alienating schools or death on the streets.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 16 | HERITAGE

And Black women have not fared much even at the ever-present fast-food chains in better. As Alice Walker states so our community. Still we stand. We are powerfully in her poem “Her Blue Body inspirers not just survivors. Everything We Know,” during slavery there was no need for pornography. “We Through the Past, Darkly were the thing itself,” she writes, We carry on. But we stand deeply underscoring centuries of rape that our wounded and in need of radical healing— women came to know as well as they for ourselves, our children and our knew their own names. And when rape community. Is there any wonder that such didn’t work, women, too, were lynched or fundamental healing is called for? No their lives were threatened in other ways, other people has faced the centuries of as Ida B. Wells-Barnett both reported on physical and psychological brutality that and experienced. When we call the names we Black people have endured. In the of Sean Bell and Oscar Grant, we must process of staying alive, we have also call the names of Eleanor Bumpers, internalized distorted beliefs, behaviors Tyisha Miller and 7-year-old Aiyana and perceptions that ultimately turn us Stanley Jones of Detroit, all of them against ourselves and one another. These, victims of police executions and a general combined with institutionalized racism, lack of regard for the lives of Black people, have thwarted our potential and

“The same way we have passed on our passion and power, we are passing on our pain.”

seeing our lives as less valuable than the undermined our progress. Aided by the lives of Whites. media’s conspiratorial proliferation of toxic And all these years after the abolition of images of our people, a music industry slavery, we find our communities crippled that ravages our children and schools that by a modern equivalent of enslavement: miseducate, too many of us of all ages the mass incarceration of African have come to view ourselves as inferior Americans under the guise of criminal and unworthy. This historic assault has justice. Today, one million Black men are undermined the traditional articles of faith incarcerated (one in eight Black men that have sustained our communities: that between the ages of 25 and 34 are behind we are all God’s children, that to be bars), and exploding numbers of African human is to recognize the humanity of American women are being locked up others and in so doing respond to them in throughout the country. Most of our humane and dignified ways. Because of people who were formerly incarcerated this assault, too many of us accept will return to our neighborhoods stripped society’s devaluation of our African of basic rights and needed access—from heritage and African American the right to vote to public assistance to culture and even adopt a belief in school financial aid—unable to get a job, White superiority.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 17

Thus, centuries of oppression have also resistance and overcoming bring our left us staggering under the weight of children back from the brink to a sense of pernicious stress and the systemic lack of their humanity? What if we tell them resources that sustain life, and in some about the Deacons for Defense and Justice cases, deep anger, which we typically turn of Bogalusa, Louisiana, who organized to in on ourselves or take out on the people protect their children and defended their closest to us. Alienated, disaffected and community against Klan violence? About disconnected, we are killing ourselves. Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s fearlessness and Often we try to anesthetize the pain by Fannie Lou Hamer’s divinely inspired self-medicating: We overeat and eat all sacrifices for our people? What if we tell the wrong things. We smoke, do drugs, them about how those men imprisoned at and overindulge in alcohol. We have Attica didn’t “sag” their pants but unprotected sex, a practice that has courageously defended their right to be left Black women, who are about 12 treated as human beings? percent of all women in this country, In fact, we have what we need to begin with 61 percent of all new HIV infections the radical healing and begin it now, for among women. we still carry within us the indomitable The cumulative effect of this litany of will and spirit that brought us through a oppression has been an internalized harsh past. We carry within us our alienation, self-inflicted abuse and magnificent heritage and humanity. historical, social and cultural amnesia. Are we as a community prepared to Shine Our Light on the World understand and address the impact of this Our heritage and humanity are bound by oppression on our children; on the sense the age-old African belief that the family, of identity and belonging our boys are our elders and our common ancestry are to seeking to satisfy, for example, when they be revered and respected. We are a people walk around grabbing their crotches, who traditionally hold elders in high holding on to their sagging pants with esteem and rely on extended families as a bent wrists, and showing us and the rest reservoir of love and a strategy for survival of the world their behinds? Unknowingly, and advancement. our young males are adopting a set of It is a heritage and humanity that social mores forced upon them in prisons, celebrates the beauty and power of art as a which, along with the misogyny in prodigious force. Our creative geniuses gave contemporary rap music and videos, birth to music, dance, theater, poetry and continues to have a devastating impact paintings that would become catalysts for on our relationships, families and social change. beloved community. Ours is a heritage and humanity that Even Black girls have begun to acquiesce values nourishing rituals, traditions and in the violence engulfing their symbols. We demonstrate this at worship neighborhoods and schools, hiding razor services, at family gatherings during the blades in their mouths to slash and holidays and family reunions. Even if they disfigure other girls in a bid to affirm their appear to be separating from us, many of own sense of belonging. We must find our children still embody these qualities in effective, humanizing ways to impart the their own ways. Some of us are community God-given gifts of our heritage and activists who plan and attend rallies and humanity to our children. Would hold our clenched Black fists high in recovering and sharing family stories of resistance. Still more of us stand to sing the

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 18 | HERITAGE

Black National Anthem as a symbol of self-determination and a reminder of our heritage and humanity. The African spirit CREATING THE VILLAGE has never stopped calling African BY DR. CHERYL TAWEDE GRILLS Americans, and we are responding by traveling to our Motherland more than ever, Our African heritage has blessed us some of us learning and speaking African with life-affi rming cultural principles and languages, giving our children names to tools that have helped us survive against honor their heritage and adopting African the odds, and in some cases, even thrive. rituals and ceremonies as a way of life. In From our ancestors in Ethiopia, we learn that to be a mentor is to be a jegna, “a New Orleans, Mardi Gras Indians, whose very brave person who is protector of rituals eloquently embody the cultural the culture and the rights of the people.” continuity of our Africanness, still refuse to A jegna is dedicated and diligent, shows “bow down.” And some of our young artists determination and courage in protecting are contributing to a genre of conscious rap our people and our culture. A jegna stands that speaks to our humanity. Ours is a steadfast in defense, nurturance and heritage and humanity with religious and development of our young. To be a jegna is spiritual practices that humbly honor the to be in the image of African homegrown Higher Power in each of us, that order the mentoring. At our deepest core, what universe and give us guidance. makes us human is our connection to one Our African ancestors were not stopped; another as spiritual beings, with full awareness that we are extensions of the they just kept going, kept moving our divine force in the universe. people forward. Our African ancestors— despite centuries of slavery meant to erase Our ancestors in the Congo gave us the extended self from ourselves—were not the nzonzi. An nzonzi acts as a shepherd stopped; they just kept going, kept moving who has learned from life’s lessons how to us forward. They carried our humanity and listen attentively and tirelessly and to grasp heritage with them and drew on this legacy deeply all that is spoken and unspoken. for power, courage and resilience when they An nzonzi knows how to observe all that were captured and cargoed over the seas surrounds, and missing nothing, knows over the centuries; when they were beaten, how to reconnect people to their inner tortured and raped. Their resilience and source of knowledge, purpose, resilience and self-healing. In essence, the nzonzi, the genius for surviving and thriving is ours. It shepherd, the mentor, knows how to call a is in us, in our DNA and ancestral memory. soul to its sacred meaning of being human. We carry this heritage legacy now, and as was true for our foremothers and Mentoring is a very old African tradition forefathers, tapping this inspiration will of touching another through spirit, heart light the way forward. and hand. In these times that try the souls of our people, to mentor our children, to Team Leaders: walk with them along their journey, to Dr. Joyce E. King, Dr. Wade W. Nobles, connect with them, encourage and inspire Adelaide L. Hines-Sanford, Dr. Na’im Akbar them, is to assume our responsibility to them: to be the architects and guardians Team: of healing communities. We are the ones, Dr. Joy DeGruy, Sobonfu Somé, hand in hand, arm in arm, who can and Madeleine Moore Burrell, Tom Burrell must make real the village.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG “Each day I talk to God, and I become more Godlike, and less like the world. I become more loving, trusting and patient.“

Haylei Cummings, 20

SPIRITUALITY “Any God I ever felt in church, I brought in with me.” —ALICE WALKER

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 22 | SPIRITUALITY

IS IT WELL WITH YOUR SOUL? No matter how rough the seas of life may become, when we honor, nurture and trust in Spirit, we not only ride the waves, we also soar

BY MARCIA ANN GILLESPIE

know that I’ve been caught up by brighten our lives. But life—like the storms more than a time or two weather—is not all sunshine. There’s grief and am still being tested. What’s and heartbreak along the way. Beloveds gotten me through, and is still die, love affairs sour, marriages fray, Igetting me through, is to go deep, get still, friendships strain. We worry about loved be quiet and meditate. I look to fill my cup. ones who’ve gone to war and those whose I take long walks in the park or sit by the lives are being degraded and wasted here at river. Listen to love songs, gospel and home. Folks encounter serious illness, classical music. I turn to sacred texts, violence, terrible accidents. In the midst of essays, sermons, prayers, poems from many the nation’s economic crisis, others struggle cultures and different continents that lift to make ends meet; they’re losing their and challenge, offer insights and meaning, jobs, their homes, their life savings. Some comfort, sustain and inspire me. And I talk have no savings to lose. And far too many to my spirit, affirming my love of life, of us are daily living the blues, struggling humbly asking, What is my life’s purpose? with depression, feeling lost and lonely, Time and again that Spirit within has given trapped on the rough side of the mountain. me strength, renewed me. Sometimes in a whisper, others in a roar, I hear that voice Their Blues Ain’t Like Our Blues urging me to stand, to keep on stepping Even if our lifeboats are sailing smoothly, at and have faith. some point we all experience sleepless In this journey, no matter how carefully nights and stressful days, periods when we you plan, there are always surprises. You are tested. And no matter how high we never know what’s waiting just around the may have climbed up Jacob’s Ladder, we corner. Some of those surprises are Black folk are still heavily burdened. welcome cause for celebration: They lift us Discrimination and racism haven’t up, fill us with joy, elicit our laughter, disappeared. The Obamas are in the White

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 23

House, but we don’t live in a postracial take the high road, the voice that can warn world. Past oppression and current us when we’re about to take a wrong turn, injustices exact a heavy physical, mental that provides insight, that calls us to be and spiritual toll, piling more stress on our better, do good, to love ourselves and love overstressed twenty-fi rst-century lives. one another. It’s our internal compass, From the moment we stepped into this always pointing us to higher ground and new millennium, we’ve been beset by noise the essence of our being. and clutter and sensory overload. The airwaves are jammed; everywhere you go, There’s a Way Outta No Way folks are wired for sound, talking on cell There is no one right path or way. But phones, tweeting, texting, plugged in to everything I’ve come to know in the midst their music, watching video streams, of the bad and the good times tells me that checking the headlines, e-mailing. We are honoring, nurturing and listening to the constantly being bombarded and are ever Spirit is how we grow as human beings. It’s more distracted. There’s so much chatter, what keeps us centered and is the ultimate gossip, mindless and malicious talk, so source of power. When all is well with our many images, so much news and informa- souls, we can weather life’s storms, gain tion—or what passes for news these days— wisdom, and become ever more graceful. constantly being piled on us. Our spirit has the power to keep us centered and whole, no matter how badly Slow Down. We Move Too Fast we may be battered. Our spirit urges us to And we are all so busy that our days learn and grow from the challenges, to seek become a blur. Like tourists on one of those to fi nd the light and not be consumed by whirlwind vacations racing to take heat, rage, recriminations or rancor. Our photographs but rarely pausing to really spirit calls us to open our hearts and minds. look, be awed, or quietly contemplate, we It reminds us that in this all-too-fl eeting miss being in the moment and what’s journey called life, we are all teachers and happening within us. all students. We know the importance of feeding and If we are to be of service mentoring and caring for our bodies, the value in enriching protecting our young, working within our our minds, but what about our spirit? communities to strengthen and sustain

“We’ve stumbled, sometimes faltered, but Spirit is what sustained us, guided us, and urged us to keep on keeping on.”

When was the last time you declared, like them, being there for our people requires the old church folks would sing out, “It is more than intellect and acquired skills. We well with my soul”? need to be on the good foot. Need to get It doesn’t matter if you believe in God better acquainted with Spirit. Nurture it, with a capital G or whether you pray to increase the light, listen to and for it, honor Allah, Buddha or Jesus or don’t pray at all. it. We need to be humble and hopeful, Everyone has a soul, a spirit. It’s that inner resilient and determined, patient and voice of wisdom, the voice that calls us to loving. We need to sweep away the clutter,

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 24 | SPIRITUALITY turn off the gadgets, mute the noise, and make us doubt and lose faith in our make time to be still, make time for peace, people—need to go. The decayed contents make way for Spirit, and do regular soul of those nasty bags diminish and corrode checks and serious spiritual housecleaning. our spirit and cause some of us to belittle and blame the many who barely have a The Weight of It All toehold on the ladder and to treat with We Black folks are all carrying heavy contempt those who have been sucked baggage. Trunks fi lled with memories and into the pit. Burn those bags and feel your stories—some are ours, others have been spirit lift. handed down from family, our parents and We come from people who dared to love, their parents’ parents. Bags weighted by dared to hope, dared to look to the chains—old iron from slave coffl es, iron and mountaintop in the midst of slavery. steel from southern chain gangs, and all Women and men who kept their dignity in the present-day shackles that have come to the face of oppression, kept their eyes fi xed

“The inner voice of wisdom calls us to take the high road, to be better, do good, to love ourselves and love one another more.”

symbolize a sick right of passage for far, far on freedom, kept moving forward. We’ve too many of our young men wasting away stumbled, sometimes faltered, but Spirit is in America’s jails and prisons. We carry what sustained us, guided us, and urged us suitcases full of tales about the bad old to keep on keeping on. days, about lynchings, the Klan, Jim Crow Yes, it’s important that we remember who and segregation, about our people’s long and where we come from, be conscious of struggle, about hard times and sorrow, and the current struggle. But it’s even more vital sad and bitter stories about current that we honor our triumphs and not dwell injustices, discrimination, blatant and on our pain, that we take strength from the subtle racism. Anger and hurt simmer in past, seek to learn and cherish the life- many of those bags. But others are bursting affi rming messages that celebrate our with joy, wit and wisdom. resilience and fi ll our cups with hope. Our If we, too, wish to sing out “It is well with spirits thrive on hope; they are strength- my soul,” we need to take a long, thought- ened by love. ful look at what’s in all those bags we may be carrying, do some repacking, and leave Who We Really Are some things behind. What’s in some of Our true power comes from the Spirit. those bags can lift and renew our spirits Anyone who watched or listened to and strengthen our resolve to stand and be Shirley Sherrod in the midst of the of service. But those moldering bags fi lled maelstrom swirling around her witnessed with all the hateful and damaging racist Spirit in full bloom. One minute she had lies about our intelligence, our competence, been quietly going about her business as our ability to succeed, our morality, our director of rural development in Georgia beauty, our humanity—those that under- for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, mine our self-confi dence, cloud our vision, the next, a speech she had given before

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 25 the NAACP was being cited as an example She accepted the apologies, ignored the of blatant racism, her name and face on mean-spirited remarks, and stayed true to every cable news show and all over the her commitment to “love and service.” Internet. Based on a video clip of that Weeks after that horrific storm had speech, she was publicly tarred and passed, Sherrod reaffirmed her commit- feathered as a racist. Her employer, the ment to the NAACP and urged others to do United States Department of Agriculture, the same. And she concluded by sharing demanded her resignation; the NAACP these hard-earned words of wisdom. “Life immediately condemned her. Even before is a grindstone. But whether it grinds you it was revealed that her words had been down or polishes you up depends on you.” taken out of context and that the video We choose to be diamonds when, like our was a malicious hoax, Sherrod remained sister Shirley, we embrace our spirituality, calm, never lost her composure as she take the high road, and give purpose to our quietly and firmly refuted the claims. She’d journey by seeking to bring light not heat. I been hurt, ’buked, and scorned and then didn’t need to hear her say it to know that fired, but she was at peace. Her heart stayed all is well with her soul. I could see the light open; she never gave way to bitterness, shining in her eyes. I’m working to join the never lashed out—she just stood her ground. chorus. What about you?

Listening In Ours is a knowing so ancient, so deep. The security and serenity we are seeking is within us

BY SUSAN L. TAYLOR

sacred place has been with fear and falling, but a minister’s wisdom prepared for you to commune brought sunlight to a seed in me that with God. As a youngster, I continues to blossom. “God is alive in you,” thought it was in the little the Reverend Alfred Miller repeated to the CatholicA church, St. Paul’s, in my East congregation that Sunday afternoon I had Harlem neighborhood, where every wandered into a church after seeking relief morning before class we Catholic school- at a nearby hospital’s emergency room. I had children attended mass. Our palms pressed thought I was having a heart attack. I was together, we would bow down and offer up 24, depressed and, in reality, having a severe rote prayers, begging for mercy and attack of anxiety. Out of my deepest despair, forgiveness to a faraway God. But as a young a new consciousness was born. single mother, sad and lonely, emerging from Pain is a purposeful teacher. It forces us a painful marriage, I learned that God is ever to focus on what we should be paying so near. I had lost my cosmetics company attention to moment to moment: that we and taken a job as beauty editor at the new are heaven-sent, the offspring of God, magazine Essence, but I wasn’t earning Allah, Amma, Jehovah, Krishna, Love—a enough to cover my expenses. I was frozen few of the many names people throughout

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 26 | SPIRITUALITY the world call our Creator. We have the I am soul. I knit my soul to your whole, right to live in all the many rooms of the dear God. mansion. God is offering us everything we need to fulfill our obligation to life; all Every crisis is a pathway to merging with our is at our fingertips. Every circumstance, essence, the spirit within. Every calamity is every joy and pain is for us to trust temporary, lasting as long as it takes for us to listening in. Our inner world is the retreat to the sacred place prepared for us architect of our external world. The life where we can listen. In the quiet, we we are living reflects the life we have remember what we know: Worry solves established within. As we grow in this nothing but is a host to illness. To doubt our spiritual awareness and merge our soul power is to doubt the power of the Almighty. with God, our suffering ceases. Still your mind and clarity comes. It’s so

07 | SPIRITUALITY THE REAL REVOLUTION BEGINS WITHIN

BY DR. LINDA JAMES MYERS

To secure ourselves, our neuroscience, Eastern Fortunately, we also know people, our world, we have philosophies, indigenous much about our true heritage to liberate our consciousness wisdom, as well as African and who we are called to be. from the false ideas that Common Sense. The wise ones taught that the separate us from Spirit, from We nonimmigrant Divine is within each of us one another. We must free Africans in America have and all around us. They and empower our hearts, been socialized into an alien revered those who came minds and souls. The insight cultural mind-set. That cultural before them, the divinity of to do this remains with us mind-set is the same one used nature and recognized that because our resilience has by the captors of our we, too, are a part of that never died. ancestors to deny their status divine order. With the The ancients said that all as fully human. Over the understanding that we are is Ntr, Spirit, God. They generations we’ve been divine, that God is within us taught that Ntr—neter brainwashed into accepting and all around us, we transformed into all things in the distortions of that experience connectedness, the universe—including suboptimal mind-set and the and our perceptions of things you—and that all is within lies about ourselves. A change. We see ourselves in you. Some of the earliest mind-set void of connection a clear light, we see our historical records from to Spirit is destructive to all of intrinsic worth. When you Khmet, which we now call humanity, and particularly know that you are one with Egypt, tell us that reality is damaging to us—African the Creator, that you are a “What the heart feels, the peoples, the lightning rod for creator and can be a change mind thinks, the tongue humanity. Disconnected from maker, you become full of speaks.” The wisdom of our Spirit, we are left without a courage. You know that you ancestors is now supported moral compass and the have a role to play in and reinforced by discoveries healthful reality we need to uplifting humanity and that in quantum physics and sustain us. you must play it. Your focus

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 27 simple, so mysterious, we miss it. Charm hired me part-time. Then Marcia The morning after my anxiety crisis, I took Ann Gillespie became editor-in-chief of the minister’s advice, sat quietly, and Essence and offered me a full-time position as listened. Like a waterfall, wisdom flowed: the beauty and fashion editor, and my salary Give thanks, Girl. Your man and business doubled. Not focused on what I had lost but may be gone, but look at what you have left: what I had left and God in me, I began your health; your beautiful, healthy baby, stepping into the world each day expecting Shana; and Mommy. A job, a roof over your good things to happen. In the quiet, in the head. Call the local modeling school. Ask if sacred place within, we can feel the they would like the magazine’s beauty editor Presence, and our faith is strengthened as to teach makeup-application classes to their what is hidden in the physical world is students. The Ophelia DeVore School of revealed—the connections, synchronicity,

shifts from “Me” to “We” and only open the door to deep thought of our African future generations. awareness, but over time it ancestors, faith is known to We have to cultivate will also allow you to live be the substance of things the ability to distinguish from your higher conscious- expected and the evidence of between the real and unreal. ness, above conditions. things yet to come. Faith is When we see clearly, we Each of us is unique. positive belief; it comes from feel empowered, the illusions Each of us has gifts to share an enlightened mind-set that dissipate. We see how and a divine purpose to knows no separation from meaningless it is—the fulfill. To discover yours, think Spirit and its source, and has conspicuous consumption about what you are good at eagerly pursued knowledge that we’ve been brain- and what you most enjoy of the nature and functioning washed into believing we creating and giving. To of Spirit. It judges not by need. We can break free sustain you as you strive to appearances and refrains of the color, caste, class, fulfill your purpose, you must from putting limits on religious, ethnic and have a plan, do the work, possibility. We can be sure of sexuality boxes this and learn to let go. Get out achieving the life outcomes culture relies on to of the way so Spirit can work we desire if we make faith separate human beings through you. Spend time our cornerstone. Faith that and control situations. with nature: Look for the has questioned, reasoned, We must stop and be insights and affirmations it challenged, studied, tested, transformed. Learn to offers. Learn to interpret and observed. Faith in love, embrace Spirit, that God nature’s signs and symbols. in the Spirit that sustains you. force within you. Sit down Cultivate stillness. If you feel The only reality is Spirit. and decide what is really down or too distracted to be Embrace your spirit, wrap true. Be still and know. Rest still, play a love song, dance, yourself in love, and remain in the reality of knowing that and think of the love being steadfast in seeking wisdom you are in Supreme Being sung about as the One Love and shoring up your faith. If and Supreme Being is in seeding all your relation- we believe that we can you. Let your mind think it! ships and the love of the intercede on behalf of Your heart feel it! Your Divine Infinite for you. ourselves and our people tongue speak it! This will not In the wisdom tradition and and turn the tide, it will be so.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 28 | SPIRITUALITY the larger spiritual forces that are always separation.” There’s nowhere to go and working on our behalf. Sweet surrender is nothing to do to merge with God. Praying our native state. It’s the path that always to God isn’t about pleading or an insistence: leads us home. “Listen, Holy Spirit, I am speaking,” It is an Pleading to a faraway God affi rms fear, invocation: “Speak, Holy Spirit, I am disconnection and the belief in a God who listening.” Retreat to the stillness within, withholds “his” grace and parcels it out for and listen with an open heart. praise and fl attery. This is the god of man’s Before you get out of bed to greet the day, invention—a jealous and vengeful god I was take a moment to greet the divinity within taught to believe would condemn me to you. Lie still, close your eyes, smile and send burn in hell. The image of a punishing, to the Giver of Life your own loving blessing-rationing god has been used to thoughts. These are mine: Good morning, dear instill fear and limit our vision, to justify God. I love you so much and I’m so grateful for our enslavement, even demean women and my beautiful life. I will use it wisely to serve you disempower our people. and the highest good this beautiful day. Fill your Make inner listening in the quiet your heart with gratitude, and listen to your slow, habit, not something you do on weekends steady breath—always with a paper and pen or just when things fall apart. In the near so you can capture the wisdom. In the stillness, the spiritual doorways open and quiet, answers to what seemed like monu- you learn what we were sent here to prove: mental challenges just fl ow—and if not The grace of God will never fail you. It instantly, always at the divine-right time.

“Sweep away the clutter, turn off the gadgets, mute the noise, and make time for peace.”

will knock you around at times, slap you When you listen in, the enemies of doubt upside your head to awaken you to your and fear are replaced with clarity and innate wisdom and ability and the work courage. It’s not that you’ll be forever free of you’re to do in service to the world. But losses and sorrows. But you’ll no longer be forsake you? Never! overwhelmed by them. Trusting the Seeing God outside yourself is like Master’s plan you don’t sacrifi ce your searching frantically for your glasses when serenity. In the quiet, we become aware of they’re sitting on your face. Our eyes are what God is calling us to do in what is not the problem; it’s our inner vision that is always a unique and special season of our clouded. You are life’s greatest miracle, a life—and we gain the faith and courage to temple of the living God. Human and move forward. divine, we are earth angels sent here to love and do God’s work. “You and God is one,” Team Leaders: my dear friend Olga Butterworth would Rev. Iyanla Vanzant, Susan L. Taylor say. During his Sunday sermons at Unity, Team: her husband, my beloved teacher Eric, Rev. Andriette Earl, Marcia Ann Gillespie, would often put it this way: “Like water is Linda James Myers, Ph.D., Dr. Therman Evans, to a wave, you are to God. There can be no Bishop Dr. Barbara Lewis King, Dr. Kofi Kondwani

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 29

PEACE, BE STILL: THE MIRACLE OF MEDITATION

BY DR. KOFI KONDWANI

Meditation is as old as ensure peace and joy is to shring. Don’t concern yourself humanity. The word make time each day to about its pronunciation meditation means to empty become still within. during the practice. Shring the mind of thoughts or to Consciously Resting (sha-ring) is an ancient concentrate the mind on a Meditation (CRM) is a process sound, known to have the single thing. Meditation may of allowing our minds to settle effect of settling the mind and be common to Eastern down to fewer and fewer bringing it back to its source. traditions, but the practice of thoughts so that eventually all The sound itself has no being still is completely thoughts are lost to our meaning. It’s the vibration African. Don’t think of awareness—all while our that is powerful. Just think the meditation as some exotic mind remains conscious and sound and let it be in you as activity. Like breathing, it is a our body lets go of tension. it comes. Listen to it, follow it, natural process of turning All we need do is commit to but make no judgments within and stilling the mind of resting from 10 to 20 minutes about it. Just stay with it as it idle chatter and the body of twice daily. It’s best to quiets and focuses your movement to rediscover who meditate as soon as you mind. If images intrude on you are. The demands and awaken and then again at your thoughts, replace them responsibilities of living the end of your day. with the vision of a place that distract us from our natural calms you. state of being. Without taking TO PRACTICE CRM: 4. Once you decide to time to relax and restore, we 1. Find a quiet, end your meditation, become weary and agitated relaxing space. No TV, stop thinking the sound in and are overcome by stress. telephone, no buzzing or your mind, but don’t open Meditation cures. It releases beeping PDAs or noisy your eyes for two to three tension, reduces stress, and appliances. Turn off the minutes. This allows the mind lowers blood pressure. music. Sound is no barrier to to slowly increase its thinking Practiced regularly, meditation, however, the activity but not so abruptly as meditation strengthens our quieter your surroundings, to be uncomfortable. immune system and the deeper your experiences Over time, you will train concentration and will be. your mind to remain encourages a more positive 2. Sit comfortably, close peaceful and calm no matter outlook on life. The more your eyes and take a few what is happening around regularly you meditate, the deep breaths. Breath in you. Through the practice of easier it becomes. When life through your nose as you meditation you build a gets tough and you’re extend your abdomen. spiritual sanctuary within tempted to push harder and Breath out through your yourself. As you make it your speed up to meet its mouth and empty your daily habit, the effect on demands, resist the urge. The abdomen of air. your life, your relationships way to good health and 3. Focus your breath, and achievements will maximum productivity and to and think gently the sound be profound.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 30 | SPIRITUALITY

We are shaking off the chains of pain and shame WHAT WORKS and reclaiming our spiritual birthright. We can overcome the past and live in the present as spiritually grounded and guided human beings. THE GOD We can begin to tell a story that holds oneself, one’s life and all life as sacred. Owning our IN ME spiritual identity offers us power, wisdom, wealth Seven Sacred Steps to and affi rmation. African culture employed Healing Spiritually principles of truth, order, love, faith as the BY REV. IYANLA VANZANT foundation of actions. This communal strength was the bond that sustained our ancestors, and it can sustain us today. When we act in contradiction to 1. FIND PEACE IN THE PRESENT; those principles, our lives become chaotic, RELEASE PAIN TO THE PAST disorderly and stagnant. In our pain and Each of us has a story, a story of how we have confusion stemming from our history in this come to be who we are and a story to explain country, we may lay blame and seek solutions why we may not be who we think we should be. outside of ourselves in drugs, sex, work, shopping Our stories are created as a result of and in or other pursuits. The key to spiritual wholeness is response to our experiences. Contributing to those to begin within. Begin with Spirit, and this is the experiences are the stories others have told us story we must begin to write and tell. about ourselves and themselves; stories that we have made up to support, excuse or deny the 2. UNDERSTAND WHAT IT stories we have been told, and the stories we MEANS TO BE SPIRITUAL embrace to explain the pieces and parts of the Spirit is the life force of every living element. It is stories we do not understand or cannot accept. the energy of the Creator coming forth in many Some stories make us stronger. Others deplete our different forms. Spirituality is not religion. It mental, emotional and spiritual energy. People of doesn’t matter to which faith community you color have a collective story of pride turned to sor- belong or which philosophy you follow. Religion row, freedom turned to enslavement, honor and offers a way, rules and regulations used to courage turned to devastation and desperation. approach the concept of God. Spirituality, on the Today we stand as capable authors with the other hand, means that you recognize, accept inherent right to tell empowering old stories and to and are aligned in your individual connection to write new, enlightening ones. Many of us don’t the Creator and use that connection as your feel fully sustained or supported by our stories, guiding force. Spirituality leads to peace, and the reasons are rooted in our history. We’ve fulfi llment and happiness. It enables you to survived more than 400 years of oppression. This overcome limitations of the physical mind and process shifted our people’s belief system from body by putting you in touch with the true source one in which the Divine Being was the essence of of power. Your soul represents how the presence all things, including themselves, to one in which of God manifests in a unique way, in a particular the human, physical self was separate from Spirit form, for a specifi c purpose. and under the control of the captors. The story of that history of oppression is that we have no 3. LET YOUR SOUL BE YOUR GUIDE means of escape from the painful past in our L-i-f-e is “Learning Inspired for Evolution.” It is a present experience. That viewpoint is distorted by spiritual process by which we are refi ned and an outmoded lens designed to manipulate how prepared to be of greater service to others. Our we think, what we think, and how those thoughts soul guides us to the experiences we need to create the stories we tell. learn. Our life lessons purify us spiritually, as long

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 31 as we are aligned with life’s seasons, with cause wholeness. There is a place of default that affi rms and effect, with balance and harmony, righteous- the worst possibilities and things that are not true. ness and order. These principles and laws We make up outcomes that are not there. We represent the nature and essence of God. affi rm them powerfully and use our prayer in However, the mind, ego and will are not in reverse to create what we do not desire to alignment with these spiritual laws. They are experience. Feed your mind the truth about concerned with the way things “appear” to be, yourself and God–that everything God made not what our experiences teach us on a spiritual works and works perfectly and was made to level. Ego out of sync with Spirit leads to work through and in connection to everything destructive behavior—living for physical else God made. A perfect creation following a pleasures and pursuits instead of for growth. perfect process leads to a perfect outcome. Habitual thought patterns in response to the physical experience and without regard to 6. MAKE DAILY DEPOSITS INTO spiritual meaning are at the root of all our YOUR SPIRITUAL “BANK” “issues.” Invite the Spirit into your daily living. We Repetition is how you retrain the mind. Feed it the need to think less and embrace l-i-f-e more! truth about yourself and God. Feed it the principles of truth, and then demonstrate your faith by living 4. LET GO AND LET GOD and practicing those principles throughout the day. Spirit provides everything we need to have an The more deposits we make into the spiritual authentic, fulfi lling connection to God. Spirituality account, the more strength and resources we have heals the desire to control and dominate because it to shore us up. Devote the time, energy and fosters greater understanding of our life’s purpose. attention needed to deepen God’s expression Consequently, your desire to control events, through you. Meditate and pray, and practice how circumstances and people is replaced by the to be a more loving, grateful, forgiving, compas- knowledge that all we need and want will be sionate person. provided for us in the perfect time, in the perfect way, as we move through our learning process. 7. READY YOURSELF FOR REVOLUTION As we chase material things and get caught up in 5. REJECT DOUBT AND FEAR the outer world, we are moving away from our We say God is everywhere, yet we exclude God power and greatness. But when we are no longer from so much of who we are and what we do. caught up in our emotions and senses, we become

“Today we stand as capable authors with the inherent right to tell empowering old stories and to write new, enlightening ones.”

When we forget we are children of God, we lose a danger to society’s status quo. When we as a our sense of wholeness. Wholeness is a matter of people tap into our God-given power, when we conscious choice and where we choose to put our direct our vision inward, recognize who we are attention–on God or on the problem. Relying on and the power and authority we have over our physical “evidence” rather than spiritual truth destiny, we will not only change our circumstances, leads us to doubt and fear and destroys our we will change the world.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG “My family lost all its income and we were being evicted. And on top of that, my grandma had recently died. On her birthday, I didn’t even have enough money to take the bus out to visit her grave and put fresh fl owers on it. That stressed me out.”

Oran Smith, 18

STRESS “Stressing solves nothing. It’s a waste of time and an invitation to illness. Manage your mind and you’ll keep stress at bay.” ––BISHOP DR. BARBARA LEWIS KING

PHOTO: GRAHAM ATKINS-HUGHES/GALLERY STOCK WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 34 | STRESS

PATH TO SERENITY We should all live our lives like they’re golden

BY KHEPHRA BURNS

y wife worries when well-equipped Black people ever to walk she sees me racing like the earth. We’ve been several million a runaway slave, as if years in the making. Endowed with gifts trying to stay a step by those who came before us, legions of Mahead of the hounds of my deadlines us stand poised to make the next leap snapping at my heels. The deadlines are forward—for our people, our families and real, but I also know that my anxiety about ourselves. But we can only go just so meeting or missing them is all my own far without confronting one of the most making, and that running from the phone insidious killers our community has come to the computer won’t get me where I need up against: debilitating stress. It moves to be any sooner. But we all know that through the Black community in myriad knowing right doesn’t always mean doing ways, laying waste to lives and dreams. right, even for ourselves. They say you Managing chronic stress is our challenge. should teach what you most need to learn. African Americans have the highest Somehow, making a statement makes mortality rates in the country, not from it your own, makes you the owner of it, drug overdoses or drive-bys, but from makes you have to try to practice what you chronic diseases. Death in the Black preach. That was surely the idea behind community seems to feed on death and the suggestion from my wife (Susan L. grows more voracious with every life Taylor) that I write the intro to this section consumed. The violence not only begets on stress: It would give me an opportunity more violence, but it also begets the to speak to our Braintrust members, who stress that is killing us secondhand when are experts on the subject, and I could violence isn’t the direct cause of death. remind myself of what I already know The sorrow and grief of bereavement while passing some science on to others. increase our susceptibility to disease. Just what I needed—another deadline. But And given the constant grieving, both rather than stress about it, let me stop, take personal and communal, for the thousands a breath, and think before I begin. of lives lost to Black-on-Black violence, there should be little wonder at the What’s Killing Us? disproportionate incidence of so many Today we have more to work with than stress-related illnesses among us. The in the past. In some ways we’re the most statistics, the nightly news assaults on our

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 35 humanity and sense of security with each entirely escape. This is the normal state of report of another life lost, and the nagging affairs for Black people in America, but it suspicion that the root causes of such doesn’t have to be this way. My fi rst trip to violence are intentionally left unaddressed, Ghana, West Africa, was a revelation. Like all weigh heavily on us as anger, fear and so many brothers and sisters who have frustration. We’re sick and dying of being traveled outside of America, especially to sick and dying. a Black nation, I relaxed, as if for the fi rst Statistically, Black youths in Harlem, in time, releasing tension I had unwittingly Detroit, on the South Side of Chicago, in carried around my whole life. Compton and South Central L.A. today Racism is the American equivalent of are less likely to reach age 65 than people a national autoimmune disease. It’s a in Bangladesh. We’re dying younger of crippling social and economic arthritis. diseases that commonly affl ict people in It’s America’s vitiligo, a chronic attack on old age, as if the aging process is being the increasingly melanin-rich complexion accelerated by all the chronic stresses of the country in an attempt to depigment that come with just living while Black in the population—consciously on the part America. A study cited in The Heartmath of militant White supremacists, but Solution by Doc Childre and Howard more effectively by legislation-resistant

“Racism is one of the more signifi cant causes of chronic stress among African Americans.”

Martin found that unmanaged reactions strains of institutionalized racism and to stress were more predictive of death racist media. In these forms it operates from cancer and heart disease than from unconsciously. It needs no individual to smoking cigarettes. commit its crimes. There’s often no one who can be singled out for blame or held It’s a Black Thing, Baby accountable. Institutionalized racism and High on the list of issues that cause its media partners merely maintain the chronic stress among African Americans momentum of economic advantage for is racism. It seeps into the everyday of one race of people to the disadvantage our lives like smog, like pollutants in of all others in a descending hierarchy of the air that make it hard to breathe. It’s disadvantage, with Black people sitting at so commonplace that we don’t always the very bottom. see it, but we feel it. We’re emotionally, Our responses to racism have not always psychically and physically sick with its been coherent. But then, as Dr. Na’im debilitating effects: Many of us must Akbar has said repeatedly, racism and the arm ourselves emotionally just to go out self-loathing it has engendered have made shopping or dining, before getting in an us all crazy. elevator, or going to work because of the innumerable indignities, assumptions Time Out and assaults that African Americans, Another source of stress is time, or the regardless of education or class, can’t clash between our traditional concept of

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 36 | STRESS time and the modern world’s concept of of the village elders asked him. “To their time as money. The latter view implies workplaces,” Somé explained. “Why do that you will be left behind if you don’t they run to something that is not running run to keep up. So we consciously away from them?” the elder asked. cultivate lifestyles we think will help us The question for us is how do we get ahead in a fast-paced world. But living reconcile healthier traditional attitudes like this puts us out of sync with our about time management with a heart and nature. We boast of our ability contemporary culture in which being out to multitask. But research shows that of step has economic consequences and multiple shifts in concepts, intention and other attendant stresses? focus within an hour or day create more anxiety than any other stressor. Similarly, Discomfort Food a cluttered environment is a refl ection of What we know is that constant exposure a disorganized mind and a major cause of to stress hormones weakens the immune mental stress. system. It damages the brain and other In cultures where a less frenetic attitude organs. It also signals the body to toward time holds sway, what we call accumulate fat around the waistline. “CP time” produces signifi cantly reduced These particular fat cells—abdominal rates of stress-related illnesses. In the fat cells—temporarily inhibit the brain Caribbean, when asked for a defi nite time from producing the feelings of anxiety of arrival, our sisters and brothers might we experience when we’re stressed. say, “Soon come,” meaning whatever time And so we have a situation in which they arrive is when you can expect them. the pressures of being poor and Black No problem. No stress. in America—of being profi led, denied, Studies of blue zones—places where an denigrated and demonized—create a

“Researchers found that Black people who accepted unfair treatment had higher blood pressure than those who challenged it and took control.”

extraordinarily high percentage of the biological urge to overeat in an effort to people live past age 90—have found that de-stress. Add to that the abundance, typically the people there like to party; convenience and affordability of fast they go to bed late, sleep late, and take food, junk food and comfort food in our daily naps. They’re also relentlessly communities, and we have a confl uence optimistic and never worry about time. of conditions that have made us, as a Work gets done when it gets done. group, the most overweight people Malidoma Somé, a native of the Dagara in America. people of West Africa and the author of These same abdominal fat cells are the Of Water and the Spirit and Ritual: Power, primary cause of our disproportionately Healing and Community, writes that the high incidence of high blood pressure, notion of speed in American culture is stroke, diabetes, heart disease, kidney baffl ing to traditional people. “Where do disease and other life-threatening these people run to every morning?” one illnesses. So for many African Americans,

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 37 stress-related failing health begins with given discriminatory hiring practices, and chronic, unmanaged environmental a wage that could support a family. What pressures, such as racism, which lead to seems to have been forgotten is that in the unconscious, self-destructive responses early 1900’s—a truly challenging time for like overeating, unhealthy diets and our people—90 percent of Black children toxic lifestyles, which in turn create were born into two-parent households. As

“Constant exposure to stress impairs the immune system and the brain, and signals the body to accumulate fat.”

physical distress, further weakening the recent as the late 1940’s and 1950’s, before immune system and leading to premature AFDC, the majority of African Americans death. Those deaths add the emotional continued to be reared in two-parent stress of the loss of loved ones to all the households. But AFDC accomplished other stressors, weakening the entire what even slavery could not. community, emotionally, physically, economically and in myriad other ways. Black and Blue The dissolution of community is The first thing Black people did after yet another source of stress. And the Emancipation was walk for as many breakdown of community begins with as a hundred miles to search for their the destruction of the family. The separated family members. The late evolution of culture began with sharing anthropologist Marvin Harris shows that food around a fire. But in our culture stable two-parent Black families were the today much of the communal aspect rule in both rural and urban communities of sharing food has been lost. Where after the Civil War. It was only after the meals were once occasions to gather great wave of European immigration daily around a common table; where when urban Black males were forced traditions, customs and the wisdom of the out of jobs by racist hiring practices, elders were passed from one generation Harris’s research shows, that the pattern to the next; where pride was instilled in of mother-centered households began to family, history and community; families develop. The number of families headed that once gathered together around a by Black single women soared 257 common table have been dispersed to the percent in the 1970’s, while the number fast-food outlets. The elders and family of out-of-wedlock births among us rose griots have been replaced by reality by 50 percent. And the levels of chronic TV. The male griots—the fathers—were stress in the Black community rose removed from the table by AFDC (Aid proportionately. to Families with Dependent Children), Stress hormones tell the body to get which required that Black men be absent ready for an emergency—for fight or from the home if the family wanted to flight. But a constant flood of these be eligible for the supplemental financial hormones weakens our body’s defenses aid it needed to make up the difference against disease. And many of us are between what Black men could earn, living in a constant state of emergency.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 38 | STRESS

We’re frustrated, we’re anxious, we’re in high levels during the body’s “fight or angry, and we’re stressed out. Feeling flight” response to stress. The presence like we don’t have control of our lives, of an immediate and significant threat or our environment or our own destiny is danger, whether real or imagined, triggers stressful. Researchers at Harvard have the release of cortisol and adrenalin, found that Black people who said they instantly readying us to fight for our lives accepted unfair treatment as a fact of life or flee as fast as we can. Cortisol prepares had higher blood pressure than those who us primarily by speeding up the heart said something or did something about rate, diverting blood flow to major muscle it. But this can be risky as well. Black groups, and giving the body a quick burst men particularly have a long history of of energy and strength. It also heightens suffering swift and brutal physical reprisals memory functions, enabling us to recall for any pushback or show of resistance. information that could aid in our survival. For generations the choice came down to Cortisol strengthens the immune system, a slow death or a quick lynching. Black although only briefly, and lowers our people today often have to make similar sensitivity to pain. It helps regulate blood if less literal choices when confronted by pressure, temperature, glucose and other law enforcement. And we frequently have blood levels. to decide between risking our survival When the threat ends, the body’s in corporate America or swallowing an relaxation response kicks in so that it insult to hang on to our jobs another day can return to normal. But too often in while having it eat us up inside. contemporary society the threats and A 20-year study of more than 1,700 attacks never end. The onslaught of racism older men conducted by the Harvard is relentless. Our responsibilities are School of Public Health found that worry numerous. The deadlines keep coming, about social conditions, health and and there never seems to be enough personal finances significantly increased time to do all that we have to do. The the risk of coronary heart disease. But chronic stress this never-ending threat

“We’re sick and dying of being sick and dying.”

an international study of 2,829 people produces in us doesn’t allow the body to between the ages of 55 and 85 found that return to normal functioning. As a result, individuals who reported the highest levels African Americans experience higher of personal mastery—feelings of control and more prolonged levels of cortisol over life events—had nearly 60 percent in the bloodstream, which have been lower risk of death compared with those shown to have a range of negative effects, who felt relatively helpless in the face of including impaired cognitive performance, life’s challenges. suppressed thyroid function, blood sugar imbalances such as hyperglycemia, Orange Alert decreased bone density, decreases in One stress hormone in particular— muscle tissue, higher blood pressure, cortisol—is produced in the adrenal glands lowered immunity and inflammatory

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 39 responses in the body, slower healing of cortisol when it should, says Lia Fernald, wounds and, as mentioned previously, assistant professor of community health increased abdominal fat. and human development at the University With the ongoing racist, virulent and of California, Berkeley, and lead author of often violent cultural backlash to Black the study. progress, the threat level to African Americans today has hit orange. Racists Free Your Mind openly advocate violence against Black To keep cortisol levels healthy and under people. Sadly, our response has been to control, the body’s relaxation response seek refuge in sugar, fat, fast food and should be activated with various stress- all the familiar toxins that have been management techniques, including dumped into our communities and are regular exercise, meditation, yoga, tai chi slowly killing us. For instance, a study and deep breathing exercises. Yet many published in the Journal of Clinical factors in a complex cultural web work Endocrinology & Metabolism shows a against African Americans’ managing correlation between significantly higher elevated levels of cortisol and chronic levels of stress-related cortisol in Black race-related stress. For example, one women and the presence of higher levels survey found that nearly one third of of another hormone, ghrelin, which women of African descent exercise less triggers feelings of hunger and is thought frequently because of their concerns

“It’s not the events in our lives, but how we perceive them that causes stress.”

to be related to a greater incidence of about managing their hair. The survey, obesity in Black women. In that study, presented at an international symposium Kimberly Brownley, Ph.D., University sponsored by L’Oréal Institute for Ethnic of North Carolina, writes, “These Hair and Skin Research, revealed that findings suggest subnormal [post meal] sweating out their hairstyles and the ghrelin expression [or faster ghrelin time it took to wash, dry and style their rebound] in Black women—especially hair were the top two reasons women of the obese—that might play a role in their African descent gave for not exercising increased prevalence of obesity and regularly. This concern about hair is cardiovascular disorders.” directly related to image, which in turn Researchers have also found “blunted” is related to the historic denigration of cortisol levels in some African American naturally kinky hair by White image children, which they think may be an makers, cartoonists and arbiters of adaptive response to chronic stress. The Western standards of beauty. It offers hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system, yet another example of the numerous which produces cortisol, simply shuts pressures Black people live with every down so that the body doesn’t produce day in America.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 40 | STRESS How We Begin to Heal

BY KHEPHRA BURNS

So where do we begin? Ultimately, healing is going to require a holistic approach that takes into consideration remedies to the historic, chronic social conditions that continue to make us all sick. A multitude of disciplines, practices, attitudes and activities must be employed to achieve health, wholeness and peace, and diminish the stress in our lives. But we can begin simply, by holding on to hope and a positive mental attitude—two virtues that have sustained our people. Both are vital to our physical, mental and emotional health. Despair and nihilism— whether given voice in popular media, in music and music videos or implied in our unconscious autogenocide—are not viable options.

We can smile or even laugh. Research in neurophysiology shows that when we smile, or see others smile, our mood is brightened and we let go of stress. When we frown or scowl, or see others do so, our attitude turns negative, defensive and guarded, and we become tense. Could it be that the emulation of scowling images of entertainment-industry “gangstas” on CD covers and in music videos has spawned a pandemic of negativity and verbal and physical violence that has spread virally throughout the Black community?

We can walk. The simple repetitive motion of putting one foot in front of the other synchronizes with the heart and restores rhythm to the mind and body. Walking can be the physical mantra of a meditation that repairs our fractured lives. It may be no coincidence that poetry is spoken of in terms of feet and meter. Writers and poets have long extolled the virtues of walking for its effect in clearing the mind and reconnecting us to the heart, the muse and inspiration. Walking is an externalization of hope and faith, the will to live and a determination to keep on keeping on.

We can change our perceptions. It’s not the events in our lives; it’s how we perceive and respond to them that cause us stress. We can allow ourselves to be angry, or we can master our emotions. Anger turns to bitterness, and bitterness destroys the host. “Catastrophizing” events—making every minor crisis a catastrophe—and obsessing about negative experiences only causes us to relive, re-create and reinforce those experiences inside us. Complaining causes dissonance and incoherence and drains our strength. On the other hand, cultivating gratitude and appreciation for life helps us live longer, happier, healthier. We can—and we must—remember that our personal health and wholeness are inextricably linked to the healing of our people and the rebuilding of our community. In nature there is no such thing as a solitary bee or ant. Separated from the hive or the anthill, these insects cease to have meaning, lose their connection to life and die. Divorced from community, we may not die immediately, but something inside does. And when the soul dies, the body soon follows.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 41

The ultimate embrace of community is synonymous with the oneness of God. The two cannot be separated; they are one and the same. “I am because we are, and we are because I am,” the traditional axiom goes. The memory of that oneness, down to the cellular level of our very being, is the source of our impulse and longing to gather in groups—in churches and mosques and sports arenas, in community and communion. It’s the sangha of Buddhism, the satsang of Hinduism, the hajj of Islam and the Body of Christ of Christianity. It’s the community of the village and the ancestors that goes under numerous names throughout Africa. By being one with our community we can be reassured, and reassure others, that we are not alone, that others have similarly endured and that we have a community of support. The miracle of being human and conscious is that we have the unique ability to pause, take a breath, and refl ect before we act. We have the ability to choose the life that we would have for ourselves. We can choose health and well-being.

Team Leader: Team: Khephra Burns Dr. Carl C. Bell, Dr. Kofi Kondwani, Dr. Therman Evans, Terrie M. Williams, Rev. Iyanla Vanzant

WHAT WORKS lungs increase their rate of respiration to catch up, and the muscles grow larger to retain more RESILIENCE oxygen for future needs. DISTRESS IN THE FACE Occurs when we lose our physiological or OF TRAUMA psychological balance, and the body must tax itself beyond its usual limits, but not beyond its It doesn’t have to break you to capacity, to regain its balance. make you stronger BY KHEPHRA BURNS TRAUMATIC STRESS Occurs when we lose our physiological or psychological balance to such an extent that NOT ALL STRESS IS BAD, and some, such as regaining it is beyond the capacity of the the mild physical stress we subject our body to mind and body. We can experience traumatic when we exercise, can be quite benefi cial. The stress with the death of a loved one, which can noted psychiatrist Dr. Carl C. Bell distinguishes produce an anxiety and depression so great that stress from distress and trauma, and suggests we cannot resolve our grief. ways to effectively cope with each. With symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a traumatic event—like STRESS having served in a war zone or being raped––is Occurs when we lose our balance—emotionally persistently reexperienced, decreasing our or physically––and the body strives to regain it. capacity to function. When we exercise, for example, we stress the body by using up more of the oxygen stored in Bell notes that, in general, there are several our muscles than we do when we’re at rest. The measures we can take to help us cope with stress body strives to regain its balance by having the and distress.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 42 | STRESS

! Cultivate an attitude of awareness safe, empathic interpersonal environment; taking that stressful, distressing and even traumatic a holistic approach to health and addressing experiences do occur and can happen to any of issues of diet, exercise, humor and spirituality; us. This will help minimize the “Why me?” shock making sure that social networks, such as family should something bad happen. and support groups, are in place; and turning !""Practice coping techniques regularly. negatives into positives Relaxation breathing is a good strategy for remaining calm in the midst of calamity. But if you HOW TO REDUCE STRESS AND have not practiced relaxation breathing, it won’t CREATE CALM be there for you when you need it most. !""Practice Constantly Resting When a calamity occurs, many of us panic. Meditation (CRM). This is a simple, natural Instead of reacting, stop, take a breath, think mental technique that is easy to learn and easy about what might be the best way to respond, and to practice, either alone or in a group. Constantly then act. Some emergencies are real and require Resting Meditation is the process of allowing us to react as quickly and effectively as we know the mind to do less and less. As the mind settles how. But real emergencies are rare. When you down, so does the body. When your heart rate have one, take a break and a breath. If we have and breathing settle, the body will naturally prepared ourselves by calmly meeting common begin to rejuvenate and purify itself. crises with minimal hysteria, we will have a head start on the real thing when it comes along. !""Sit comfortably and quietly with eyes closed. Centering the mind in the right !""Once we have stopped, paused and mental sound to quiet and calm it is the key. taken a break from reacting, we can Sounds can have positive or negative effects on deal with the crisis in one of two ways. both the mind and body. Some sounds elicit a We can change the outside––that is, change the positive, soothing, quieting response from the cause of the stress or distress. Or we can change mind and body. Others jar, irritate and disrupt. the inside––our emotional and philosophical The right sound used in the right way can cut reaction to the situation. If the job is distressing, through the noise of mental chatter that goes on we can change the job or change the way we in all of us. feel about it. If your mother dies, you can’t do anything to change the fact, so you will have to !""Constantly Resting Meditation change inside, perhaps by seeking a spiritual uses sounds that have been part of approach to the loss of your mother. We can also meditation practices for thousands minimize our sense of “traumatic helplessness” of years. In CRM, the sound attracts our by engaging in “learned helpfulness.” If your awareness and attention away from other mother died of breast cancer, you can devote thoughts. Our awareness and the sound settle yourself to breast cancer awareness and raise into the deeper levels of the mind. The mind money to find a cure, which can help change gradually gets quiet and still. The sound has a both the inside and outside. tendency to disappear, while the mind remains conscious, awake and aware of deeper levels !"In attempting to cope with traumatic of itself. When the awareness settles down, so stress, safety is a priority. Bell notes that does the body, and it’s in these quiet moments medication may be called for to reduce that the healing takes place. symptoms, but we should educate ourselves about traumatic stress, how it manifests and how !"Use the right sound correctly. best to cope with or treat it. A few strategies Straining or forcing the mind to focus on the he lists include being able to tell the story in a sound is incorrect and will not yield the expected

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 43 benefits of meditation. Fixing the sound as a word achieving inner peace and calm is possible. It or phrase is also not recommended. The sounds requires developing ways to strengthen every used in meditation are meaningless by design; aspect of our being—body, mind, spirit and they are meant to draw the mind away from behavior. When these key aspects of our lives thoughts. Sounds are vibrations that change by are working in concert, the way is opened to getting longer or shorter, louder or softer, clearer managing stress and achieving the harmonious or fainter, quieter and quieter. This property of life we all are longing for. sound is useful in quieting an active mind. It’s okay for the sound to change; just take it as it comes. ACTION STEPS: !""Nourish Your Spirit. Each day make ACTION STEPS: conscious choices to engage in activities that The best way to learn CRM is from a qualified are fulfilling and add to your health and instructor. The second best way is to play a CD happiness. Look for opportunities to be kind and containing a simple, guided meditation. Or you charitable—even to people who are difficult. can follow the instructions below, either alone or !""Work in the community with others in a group: who are giving back and helping those 1. Reduce the noise around you as who are less fortunate. Make service to our much as possible. Turn off all sources of community your ministry. sound that you can control, such as televisions, !""Set aside time every day for undisturbed radios, telephones, CD and MP3 players, stillness and quiet. Just sitting in silence for ten computers and nagging PDAs. minutes each day will change your life and bring 2. Sit comfortably in a chair, close your peace and calm to your days. eyes, and be still for at least a minute. !""Read inspiring books; practice meditation. 3. Softly and easily, repeat the sound !""Carry in your wallet a few affirmations that shirring (sha ring). Shirring is not a word; speak to strengthening your faith and finding it’s a soothing vibration. Move from whispering inner peace (“I am peace,” “I am power”or it to silently thinking it. Continue to repeat in “God’s got my back,” for example). Read them; your mind. turn to their wisdom and calming effect when 4. Don’t look for anything to happen. you feel the tension rising. Don’t strain or concentrate on the sound. Just think the sound and take it as it comes. MIND 5. When you are ready to end the !""Write down the things that cause you stress, meditation, stop thinking the sound how you react to them, and what you know you but don’t open your eyes for two to must do to find relief. three minutes. During this period, you may !""Laugh often! Laugh at yourself. A healthy think anything but the sound you used for the sense of humor is healing and creates happiness. meditation. After two to three minutes, or when It can help to keep communication open on you feel your meditation is complete, slowly open difficult issues. Laughter strengthens your body’s your eyes. If you feel you need more time to immune system. come out of the meditation, take it. !""Put yourself on your schedule. No matter how busy you are, downtime is necessary and REACH FOR INNER CALM nourishing. Make time for family, friends, fun When our bodies are constantly stressed and and relaxation—often. tense, we’re setting ourselves up for distress and disease. It is crucial to our healing and continued ACTION STEPS: good health that we achieve and maintain an Change the situation that’s causing your stress: internal calm. Even in our fast-forward world, You can learn to say no. Avoid difficult people.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 44 | STRESS

Stop procrastinating. Learn to compromise. !"Reshape Your Internal Life and !""Change your reaction to the External Environment. None of us is situation. Hidden in all the drama, no matter exempt from to the difficulties of everyday life. how painful or shameful it may be, there is The cycle of life itself—birth, growth, decline and always a lesson in living. Find it, focus on it— death—combines with the challenges of basic for your growth and development. There will survival, personal ambitions and interpersonal always be things we can’t control. Rather than relationships to ensure that joy and suffering, rigidly resist and possibly snap, bend like a success and failure, serenity and stress will visit willow in the wind and bounce back. See what us all. But chronic stress can lead to depression the ill wind has been sent to teach you. or even suicide. And we sometimes miss !""Practice forgiveness or be forever held the early warning signs of too much stress: hostage to hurts of the past. Forgiveness is a irritability and mood swings, restlessness, poor process that takes time and demands courage. concentration, negative self-talk, overeating and We may need the help of a minister or therapist unexplained body aches and pains. If you’re to honor our heart’s capacity to change and depressed, see your doctor to discuss treatment grow and trust again. Forgive yourself for your options. The good news is that self-help stress missteps; guilt is a heavy burden to carry. Ask relievers like those listed below can help to get for forgiveness from those you have hurt and stress under control, early. offer it to those who have hurt you. This will open wide a space in your life for healing, VISUALIZE YOUR GREATNESS renewal and joy. A close second to the power of faith is the power !""Cultivate the good within and around of the mind. One of the great motivators of you. There’s no need to grab, hoard or cling to our time, Napoleon Hill, said, “What the mind things or insist that everything go our way. Dr. can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” We Therman E. Evans, a master teacher, physician, all want happiness, good friends, affection, minister and member of the A New Way adventure, health, fulfilling work, a nice place to Forward Braintrust, offers these nourishing truths live, and so on. Stress often intrudes in the space from his phenomenal book From Purpose to between where we are and where we want to Promise Driven Life: be, or think we should be. Daily visualization I am committed to God. of our desire and affirmations like “I can do I am connected to people. this!” can help us manage the stress that fills that I am compassionate toward all. divide. Consider taking five to ten minutes every I am confident in thoughts and actions. morning in quiet prayer or meditation while I am conscientious in conduct. doing the following visualization techniques: I am complimentary all the time. !""Count your blessings by thanking your spiritual source for the things in your life that you BODY value or that bring you joy. !""Adopt a healthy lifestyle that !""Congratulate yourself on the goals you includes the following: have met. Identify clear objectives for the next 1. Regular aerobic exercise for 20 to 40 day or week. minutes, at least three or four days a week. !""Determine one step you can take today 2. A healthy diet that emphasizes fruits, to help someone else in your surroundings. When vegetables and plenty of water. Avoid you do something for others, you get the gift. caffeine, sugar, cigarettes, drugs and heavy use of alcohol. TALK TO OTHERS 3. Plenty of sleep, at least 7 to 8 hours Talk therapy, which is simply talking about what a night. is bothering us, can be practiced with a friend

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 45 or a loved one, a family member or a therapist. so that the work doesn’t become In the short term, it can help us identify and overwhelming. address problems we cannot address alone. Talk !""Keep a personal, professional and/ therapy with a professional can help us change or family planner. harmful ways of thinking and acting, and help !" Learn to say no. It’s not personal. us relate better to others. !" Everything has a place—put it there. !""Choosing the right person to talk to is critical. CREATE NURTURING PLACES A person with a different perspective on our “Peace in pieces” is a great approach to situation can help us decide how to fix the short-term stress relievers, and participating in problems we are having and how to deal with an art form is an excellent way to lift our spirits the things we can’t fix. Consider engaging and feed our senses. The growing field of art in conversation with an objective friend (one therapy encourages listening to music, dancing, who isn’t always inclined to agree with you), singing and painting, as well as attending live a colleague or someone of the opposite sex. If concerts, visiting museums, and attending the you feel you need professional talk therapy and theater. Adding the creative arts to our have privacy concerns, do some research or seek daily lives can lead to improved enthusiasm, referrals for a licensed mental health practitioner. energy and expectation. Music is perhaps the easiest of these to add to our lives. As new CREATE NURTURING SPACES technologies allow us to listen to music while A long-standing, commonsense principle engaged in other activities, it really doesn’t commends the oneness of life and the take time away from our busy schedules. Music environment: An unquiet, disorganized allows us to find increased enjoyment in what environment is the product of an unquiet, we’re doing and also reduces stress in our disorganized mind. Our internal and external day. Consider listening to music that represents lives mirror each other. Just as the power of a happy time in your life—whether it was an positive thinking can change our external old-school basement party or family cookouts. lives, organizing our external lives can quiet a Dancing is another creative way to relieve stress, stressed mind. with the added benefit of exercise. !""When our lives are in chaos—whether at the job, at home or both—our stress levels LOL are bound to rise. Preparation, planning, Laughter is indeed the best medicine! realistic goals and a set routine are the keys Laugh therapy is another growing method of to organization. It’s not going to happen in treating stress, as evidence continues to mount a day or even a week. But once we work on that laughter has both short- and long-term reducing our hectic schedule—by managing our benefits. When we laugh, it lightens our time more carefully and effectively, prioritizing load mentally, and it encourages physical and focusing on completing certain tasks, changes. Laughter goes a long way to soothe and establishing daily routines at work and at our nerves and relieve tension. Whenever home—we will feel more in control. possible, take things lightly. Plan a monthly night out with friends; visit a comedy club. CONSIDER IMPLEMENTING For young people, read Stay Strong: Simple THE FOLLOWING: Life Lessons for Teens by Terrie Williams. !""Read books on organization skills. There are also books and Web sites that offer !""Hire a certified organizer. specific ways to implement laugh therapy !""Have family spring/fall cleaning techniques. Be silly and goofy once in a while. parties that rotate among relatives It’s infectious and helps reduce stress.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WELLNESS “We cannot live without our lives.” —AUDRE LORDE

“What makes my body feel loved, strong and confi dent does not come from clothes or accessories. For me, it comes from an inner peace and comfort with myself. Everything else just accentuates these things.“

LaPrecious Polk, 19

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 48 | WELLNESS

HONORING THE TEMPLE Self-preservation is the first law of nature

BY GLENN ELLIS AND SARA LOMAX-REESE

ur people have long gathered percent higher. In fact, the overall life expec- around a communal table. As tancy for African Americans falls five years we’ve shared meals prepared short of that of Whites. From birth to our O with love, we’ve passed down twilight years, we have higher death rates. stories, traditions and the wisdom of our Daunting obstacles hinder African elders from one generation to the next. Americans from closing the health gap. Around the table, too, pride has been Poverty and poor medical care conspire to instilled—in family, history and community. undermine our health and shorten our Mealtime has been our daily occasion lives. And no matter our social status or the to celebrate and honor our beautiful size of our bank account, we are often Black selves. burdened with unyielding stress. The stress But we’ve somehow lost our way to the of living in a society that still refuses to communal table. Many of us replaced it fully value its citizens of darker hue weighs with fast-food restaurants and the cheap, us down and makes us more likely to deep-fried, salty, highly processed, high- smoke or drink in excess, paving the way to calorie, supersize meals they market. We more health problems. Stress also leads us gulp it all down with a sugary drink and to overeat. Obesity is a risk factor for many hurry on with our stressed-out, unhealthy of the diseases that plague our community, lives. The result? While poor habits among and again, we are more likely to be obese all Americans have pushed this nation into a than Whites. health crisis, the situation in Black America What we eat, how much we exercise, and is dire. We have disproportionately high in- how we manage stress are lifestyle choices cidences of the illnesses that are the leading that have a powerful impact on closing the causes of death in the United States: heart health gap and on the quality and length of disease, diabetes and stroke. Whether we live our lives. By changing our relationship to in inner cities or in upscale suburbs, we are food, jump-starting physical activity, and more likely than Whites to die from heart learning sound techniques to relieve stress, disease. Two times as many of us die from we can improve not only our own health asthma, and our death rate from cancer is 25 but also the health of our families. If we do

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 49 not make these changes, we may leave our foods have hidden calories? Which foods children the legacy of poor health habits, help to prevent cancer? Why do diets thereby realizing experts’ fears that this eventually fail? It’s easy to become frustrat- generation of American children may be ed. But we can’t let our frustration stop us the fi rst ever to have a shorter life span than from becoming smart about nutrition. Each their parents have. time we put food in our mouths, it circulates Eating less and exercising more seem to be through our entire bodies, either nourishing the fairly simple solutions to this situation, us or depleting us. It becomes either our but they belie the complex historical, medicine or our poison. cultural and emotional terrain we navigate We must make lasting, holistic changes in with food. For most of us, food is not just our relationship with food. A critical fi rst about eating to promote health and step involves becoming more informed and vibrancy. It has a much more textured getting our questions answered. connection to our lives. Food can be a celebration of family and culture or an What Foods Should We Eat? expression of love. It can also be a substitute A healthy meal plan features whole grains, for love. We may use it, too, to deaden our fruits and vegetables, and avoids high-fat emotional pain. Whatever the reason we eat, meats and cheeses, high-sodium canned or the food we reach for in our communities processed foods, and sugary drinks loaded tends to be the nutritionally defi cient variety with high fructose corn syrup. found at the fast-food joints and convenience Eat fruits and vegetables that are the stores that punctuate the landscape. colors of the rainbow. Experiment with Meanwhile, foods rich in vitamins, yellow, red, green, purple and orange minerals and fi ber—including whole grains, produce so you can experience the full dark leafy vegetables, fresh seasonal fruits— spectrum of nature’s nutritional bounty. are often overpriced and of poor quality. You’ll gain the benefi t of powerful

“What we eat, how much we exercise, and how we manage stress are lifestyle choices that have a powerful impact on the quality and length of our lives.”

And sometimes they are simply not phytonutrients that provide lots of available. Many Black communities are vitamins and minerals. And eat fruits and bereft of supermarkets that offer fresh veggies that are local and in season; they produce and other nutritionally sound foods. naturally have more nutritional vitality. Navigating this complex terrain is no Avoid those that have been shipped, simple matter. For starters, most people, trucked and left to sit for extended periods regardless of education or socioeconomic of time; their inherent vitamin, mineral status, are confused about what constitutes and nutrient content is diminished. good nutrition. There is so much contradic- Choose a diet rich in complex carbohy- tory information out there—“eat lots of drates and low-fat protein, which provide the protein,” “be a vegetarian”—that we’re left main ingredients for sustainable energy. with many questions: What foods should we Complex carbohydrates—vegetables, eat? What foods should we skip? Which whole grains, leafy greens, beans—feed the

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 50 | WELLNESS muscles, vital organs and the brain. For Certain foods and beverages put our protein, be guided by these three consider- bodies on a damaging energy roller- ations: quantity, frequency and quality. coaster. The usual suspects include Quantity and frequency vary depending on caffeine, sugar and refi ned or simple the person, but generally try to reduce carbohydrates, such as white fl our, white consumption of animal products, such as rice and sugar. And keep in mind that chicken, fi sh, eggs, cheese and milk. A caffeine is very dehydrating. So if you serving size should be no larger than the drink coffee, drink more water. palm of your hand. So “just say no” to Dairy can congest us. It produces mucus, those huge slabs of red meat at the local making us more susceptible to colds and steak house. fl u. Reducing or eliminating it can boost As for quality, when you do eat animal energy levels. Eat dairy in moderation, if protein, make sure that it is free of hor- at all. When you do, choose fermented mones, pesticides, antibiotics and other dairy, including yogurt, buttermilk and toxins. The best way to ensure this is to eat cheese, being mindful that these products organic whenever possible. The growing are high in fat. consensus among scientists is that small Wheat can also cause low energy. Many doses of pesticides and other chemicals can people are allergic to wheat and don’t cause lasting damage to human health, know it. Symptoms include bloating, especially during fetal development and indigestion, constipation, headaches, early childhood. The Environmental fatigue, insomnia, depression and excessive Working Group, a nonprofi t organization production of mucus. If you have any of dedicated to raising public awareness about these symptoms, stop eating wheat, toxic substances in our environment, has especially bread, rolls and fl our products. developed a list of the Clean 15. These are Some foods that are good for you are the least contaminated, conventionally exposed to pesticides at a higher rate than

“Eat organic whenever possible. Even small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can cause lasting damage especially during fetal development and early childhood.

grown fruits and vegetables—people who eat the Clean 15. These include peaches, them ingest fewer than two pesticides a day. apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, These are foods to make your favorites: strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, onions, avocados, sweet corn, pineapple, imported grapes, carrots and pears. The mangoes, asparagus, sweet peas, kiwi, Environmental Working Group has found cabbage, eggplant, papaya, watermelon, that people who eat these fruits and broccoli, tomatoes and sweet potatoes. vegetables consume an inordinate amount of pesticides. Rinsing reduces but does not What Foods Should We Skip? eliminate pesticides. Peeling helps, but If it’s deep-fried, salty, sugary, highly pro- valuable nutrients go down the drain with cessed and high calorie, it’s probably nutri- the skin. The best approach: Eat a varied tionally defi cient. Skip it! diet, rinse all produce, and buy organic

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 51 whenever possible. Doing this reduces the We sometimes add buttery sauces or spreads, quanity of pesticides you are exposed to. or drown our food in ketchup. Just one tablespoon of ketchup adds 15 calories. A Which Foods Have Hidden Calories? tablespoon of butter averages 101 calories. You’d be surprised at the number of calories Be aware that even the smallest servings—a lurking where you least suspect them. handful of chips, a two-bite sample of a new We too often guzzle down sodas, smooth- food item at the grocery store, those two or ies and fruit juices without giving it much three spoons full of a dish you taste when thought, but these drinks are laden with you’re cooking a meal—come with calories.

“In addition to the role fruits and vegetables play in protecting us against cancer, studies show that they also help prevent stroke and heart disease.”

calories. While they may quench your What Kind of Diet Prevents Cancer? thirst, they don’t go very far in satisfying It’s widely known that eating fruits and your hunger. Those coffee drinks we love— vegetables helps prevent cancer. Produce is lattes, frappuccinos and others—are loaded with antioxidants, fi ber, folate and calorie-rich, too. A 16-ounce café latte with potassium, and is low in fat and calories. In milk can run you 260 calories. addition to the role fruits and vegetables Alcoholic drinks are also full of calories, play in protecting us against cancer, studies and a few drinks in one evening can quickly show that they also help prevent stroke and increase your total for the day. Figure about heart disease. 85 calories for a small glass of wine. Alcohol Eat foods in the carotenoid family, a also makes us less inhibited, which makes widespread family of plant pigments found us eat more. mostly in vegetables; they provide us with Be careful about dairy products. Ice cream antioxidants. They include carrots, may be an obvious culprit, but cheese and cantaloupe, tomatoes, pink grapefruit, milk have more calories than one might watermelon and apricots, and dark green expect. One tablespoon of grated parmesan leafy vegetables like spinach, collards, kale cheese on your salad or pasta adds 22 and broccoli. calories. An 8-ounce glass of skim milk has Eat foods high in omega-3 fatty acids, 90 calories. such as salmon and fl axseeds. Sugar is a clear choice to avoid, but many of Avoid trans fats, red meats and charred or us don’t realize that refi ned carbohydrates smoked foods. like white pasta and rice or a plain bagel or Limit your fat intake to less than 20 white potato fl ood our bodies with sugar. percent of your total calories per day. This And how we prepare our food can also pile is an extremely small amount of fat to eat; on calories. Although the main ingredients an average amount is about 30 to 35 percent we select may be wholesome, deep-frying, of total daily calories. Start by eliminating breading or sautéing them defeats the foods with the highest fat content, like purpose. Sometimes we reheat the frying fried foods and margarine, and then oil over and over again, which creates a gradually lower the amount of fat you eat. cancer-causing agent called acrylamides. While soy remains somewhat controversial,

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 52 | WELLNESS soy proteins have been found to reduce classes every night of the week isn’t blood cholesterol levels and the risk of heart sustainable either. disease. Diets also fail because they start from a Soybeans also contain unique place of self-loathing. We hate our fat thighs, phytochemicals called isofl avones that our wide hips, our jiggling arms, our bulging behave in the body like weak cousins to the tummies. We want to do whatever it takes to female hormone estrogen, they are called tame them into submission. Instead, we need phytoestrogens. Although isofl avones work to affi rm all that our bodies do for us. with soy proteins to reduce blood Whether we want to lose 20 pounds or 120 cholesterol levels, they also act like pounds, we need to appreciate our physical

“Understanding the connection between what, when and why we eat can have a profound impact on our mental, physical and emotional well-being.”

estrogens, which are known to increase the selves. We must honor our uniqueness and risk of breast cancer and other cancers in become more aware of our own bodies, our women. This raises the possibility that soy own cravings. We need to fi gure out why isofl avones might increase cancer risks. we eat, when we eat, and what we eat, and Still, soybeans, high in good-quality protein not approach losing weight as a one-size- and minerals, contain a healthy balance of fi ts-all proposition that requires the latest carbohydrates and fat. It is processed soy fad diet or the latest diet book. We also products like soy milk and cheeses that need to examine the connections between should be avoided. Stick with fermented soy, politics, economics, education, race, culture which includes tempeh, miso, natto, and soy and access to health care and how these sauce, which is traditionally made by factors impact the personal choices we fermenting soybeans, salt and enzymes. But make every day about how we feed our beware: many varieties on the market are families and ourselves. made artifi cially instead. Understanding the connection between what, when and why we eat can have a Why Do Diets Eventually Fail? profound impact on our mental, physical Diets are a temporary fi x. We’re on them for and emotional well-being. Marc David, a fi nite period of time—and then we go back author of Nourishing Wisdom: A Mind, Body, to doing whatever we were doing before we Spirit Approach to Nutrition and Well-being, started them. To lose weight and keep it off, explains it this way: “How we eat is a we must change our lifestyle. We must stop refl ection of how we live. Our hurrying dieting and start living healthily. Losing through life is refl ected in hurrying through weight should be a side benefi t to developing meals. Our fear of emotional emptiness is a healthy relationship with food. seen in our overeating. Our need for Whatever changes we make need to be certainty and control is mirrored in strict sustainable. Fad diets—eating all protein or dietary rules. Our looking for love in all the all grapefruit or all low-fat cereal, all the wrong places is symbolized in our use of time—are not sustainable. And, for most of food as a substitute for love. The more we us, working out in the most strenuous gym are aware of these connections, the greater

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 53 the potential for our personal unfolding and your own life. It is an act of self-love that can inner satisfaction. For in changing the way have a ripple effect, spreading from you out we eat, we change the way we live.” to your family and eventually throughout The journey to lasting change begins your larger community. within. Cultivate self-awareness. Ground yourself in self-refl ection and introspective Team Leaders: exploration. Make gradual, incremental Glenn Ellis, Sara Lomax-Reese changes that make sense to you so that Team: they become part of your life. By doing this, Susan L. Taylor, Carl C. Bell, M.D., Therman E. you’ll cultivate a new relationship with food Evans, Md., Michael Eric Dyson, Terrie M. and, by extension, a new relationship with Williams, Dr. Sheila Evans-Tranumn

Exercise: You Were Made to Move!

BY SUSAN L. TAYLOR

ou can make the commitment player and follow along with before heading right now. out in the morning, or a stationary bike you The generations before us pedal while reading or watching television. didn’t have the lifestyle When you exercise, you are practicing being choicesY that we take for granted today. The your own best friend, caring for yourself in a choices we make now will go a long way in way no one else can, caring for the temple determining whether we are mentally alert, that the Holy Spirit dwells in. mobile and healthy in the winter of our lives. Starting today, recommit deeply to an We were made to move, not to be sedentary. exercise ritual you will love. Make a workout Make this your mantra: I love taking care of plan for the next month, then the next two myself. I love to exercise, and I’m committed months. Exercise for 21 days in row, and you to exercising regularly. You can train your will develop a lifelong habit that will stave off mind to work with the laws of life, rather illness and increase your confi dence and joy than working against them. Aerobic activity all the days of your life. And when you fall off releases both depression-destroying and the wagon, as we all do, just begin again. spirit-lifting hormones. Exercise is a natural way to release tension and anxiety. Often- Self-care Is the Best Care times, migraines, ulcers, asthma, rashes and Regular exercise is central to ensuring other tension-related illnesses disappear optimum health and longevity. If you want with regular exercise. to slim down or fi rm up, boost your mental Choose the types of exercise and times of clarity, or take years off your looks, get day that work best for you. (Always check going. This is such a critical move for our with your doctor before you begin an community. “African Americans are the exercise program.) That may mean investing most inactive, unhealthy population in the in an aerobics video you pop in your DVD nation, and we don’t have to be,” says Teresa

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 54 | WELLNESS

Kay-Aba Kennedy, Ph.D., M.B.A., certified !""Eat a small nutritious meal within two holistic health counselor and founder of hours after your workout—the sooner, the Power Living Enterprise. better—and drink water before, during and “Only 25 percent of us engage in regular after exercising. Pure coconut water is a great physical activity, which is why we have natural electrolyte—better than sugar-laden disproportionate rates of lifestyle-related sports drinks. diseases like diabetes, stroke, heart disease !""Make it a habit to incorporate more and certain forms of cancer. We also have movement into your daily activities, such high rates of obesity, which is a contributing as parking farther away from your factor to these chronic diseases,” adds destination, getting off public transporta- Kennedy. The good news is that exercising tion a stop earlier, or taking the stairs will improve our overall quality of life, she instead of the elevator. emphasizes. A certified personal trainer, yoga instructor and lifestyle and weight- Losing weight: management counselor in New York City, Effective weight loss requires a combination Kennedy offers these guidelines: of good nutrition and exercise. Here’s a breakdown: Getting started again !""Sweat. U.S. guidelines recommend two and staying motivated: and a half hours a week of moderate !""Find a partner and start walking. aerobic exercise, or one hour and fifteen Make it social, make it fun, and make it a minutes a week of vigorous exercise. family affair. Find out if your place of Moderate means you can still talk while worship or workplace has a walking club. moving but not sing; this includes brisk !""Or go solo and hook up your sound. walking, biking and ball sports like Listen to powerful sermons, motivational basketball or volleyball. Vigorous means you talks, your favorite sing-along music; or get breathless when you move and talk; use the time to learn a new language. this includes activities such as aerobic !""Follow a progressive plan. dancing, brisk walking, jogging, swimming, Do at least ten minutes each session, and cycling, cross-country skiing, tennis. then do a little more each time. In this way, !""Stretch. Stretching helps increase you’ll be up to an hour before you know it. flexibility, reduces risk of injury, minimizes muscle soreness, and improves overall Doing it consistently: performance. Yoga is perfect for this. When you stop an exercise regimen and !""Strengthen. Strength training is essential then start again, you lose momentum and to boosting your metabolism and enhancing increase your risk of injury. As with any- bone density. The more lean tissue you have, thing, planning is important. There are no the more body fat you will shed, even while valid excuses for not stepping up for your you sleep. You can use resistance machines total well-being each day, and you don’t owe or tubing, free weights or old-fashioned apologies to anyone for putting yourself on push-ups. Strength-train at least two days a your schedule. It’s the most important thing week, and include all major muscle groups. we all must do. Here’s how to start: We are the parents of our elder selves, ! Reserve a time slot on your calendar and we know what it takes to achieve opti- every day for exercise. mum health and longevity. Couch !""Plan to eat fruit before exercising—it’s a potatoes don’t get there. Be the guardian healthy choice and you need the carbohy- of your health—for yourself, our children drates for energy. and our community.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 55

WHAT WORKS !""Why Breakfast Matters !""Healthy Snacks !""Emotional Eating 5 ESSENTIAL !""Conscious Cooking !""How to Afford Healthy, Nutritious Food STEPS TO !""Stress: The Missing Link in Weight Gain !""Health Disparities HEALTHY !""The Obesity Epidemic !""Dark Leafy Greens: Nature’s Superfood LIVING !""Making a Plan for Long-term Success

BY SARA LOMAX-REESE If you can’t create your own program, explore existing nutrition awareness programs. Although we eat every day, few of us are A wealth of institutions from faith institutions to taught sound nutritional practices. We lack community-based organizations to schools, strategies to create and sustain the shift in might offer what you’re seeking. Make sure that consciousness that can lead to transformation. any program you consider is relevant, Arming ourselves with education can lead us to the engaging and interactive, with opportunities healthy lives we deserve. for ongoing participation.

ACTION STEPS: Increase access to affordable food. Find a knowledgeable facilitator to 2 We need to examine the connections 1help develop and operate a holistic nutrition between politics, economics, education, race, program via webinar or teleconference. culture and access to health care and how they This kind of interactive forum can be an effective impact our personal choices about how we feed way for you and others to learn about the our families and ourselves. In urban communities, connection that the mind, body and spirit have to there is a well-documented connection between diet and lifestyle choices. Participants could meet rising rates of obesity and lack of access to as a group twice a month for three to six months, nutritious food. Taking these steps can help ease followed by monthly check-in sessions to assess the situation. ongoing progress. Questions could be e-mailed Seek out farmers’ markets, cooperatives and to the facilitator, who could offer personal, community-supported agriculture (CSA) organiza- individualized feedback. tions. Farmers’ markets and CSAs have some of the To find a knowledgeable facilitator, freshest local produce. Many farmers’ markets are explore these sources: now accepting food stamps. If your area doesn’t National Association of Nutrition Professionals have this kind of resource, contact the Food Trust (www.nanp.org/cndb/search.php) and the (see information that follows) to find out how to set Institute for Integrative Nutrition (www.integra one up. Co-ops are much cheaper than specialty tivenutrition.com/Alumni/WorkWithAGrad.aspx). stores such as Whole Foods, and they often support local farming communities. Find out if your TO DEVELOP A MEANINGFUL state and local governments provide start-up funds PROGRAM, CONSIDER THESE TOPICS: and technical assistance to local not-for-profit !""Creating an Awareness Practice organizations that want to organize co-ops. CSAs !""What Exactly Is Real Food? and farmers’ market programs like New York’s Low !""Sugar Addiction Income Investment Fund and the Reinvestment Fund !""Carbs, Fats and Proteins are designed to help in this type of effort; they !""You’re Not Hungry, You’re Thirsty bring not only nutritious, affordable food to

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 56 | WELLNESS neighborhoods across New York State, but they available to all. Working with neighborhoods, also create good jobs and private investment. schools, grocers, farmers and policymakers, it has To find food cooperatives, community- a comprehensive approach that combines nutrition supported agriculture programs and farmers’ education with greater access to affordable, markets in your area, visit the following Web sites: healthy food. Here are some of its efforts: www.localharvest.org www.farmersmarketcoalition.org FOOD TRUST FARMERS’ MARKET www.biodynamics.com PROGRAM www.coopdirectory.org !"Opened and expanded farmers’ markets in urban communities in North, South and West Support businesses that support Philadelphia and completed a farmers’ market local farms. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Many restaurants and grocery stores are (SNAP)/food stamp pilot program that resulted in committed to buying from local organic farms a substantial increase in SNAP/food stamp sales. that yield foods that are often cheaper and more nutritional. Locate them through these SUPERMARKET CAMPAIGN Web sites: !"Helped to create city and state programs in www.eatwellguide.org New York, Illinois and Louisiana that encourage www.organichighways.com the development of supermarkets in communities www.organickitchen.com/rest/rest.html that don’t have access to healthy foods. !"Has begun work in New Jersey and Make your dollar count. Colorado to promote policies intended to Organic produce and meats are popular among stimulate supermarket investment in the health conscious, but they can be expensive. underserved areas. Your best bet for managing costs is to buy them !"Earned the Centers for Disease Control and at farmers’ markets, food co-ops and CSAs. Prevention’s Pioneering Innovation Award for Prices for organic foods tend to be higher at work by its Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing supermarkets. However, if that’s where you Initiative in advancing policies and environmen- shop, be aware that you can help bring down tal strategies to prevent and control obesity. those prices. Supermarkets track everything that consumers purchase. If more members of our PROGRAMS IN SCHOOLS AND communities buy organic fruits and vegetables, RECREATION CENTERS supermarkets will increase the quality and the !"Reached nearly 70,000 Pennsylvania quantity, which can help drive down the cost. students through a number of education For example, Walmart has introduced a line of programs, including Fuel Up to Play, organic dairy products and more. Kindergarten Initiative, Healthy Corner Join forces with groups that are working to Store Initiative and Healthy Times. increase access to affordable food in low-income communities. Organizations across the country, THE URBAN TREE CONNECTION including those listed below, are participating in www.urbantreeconnection.org this effort. Contact them to learn how you and This organization helps low-income urban others in your neighborhood can roll up your communities revitalize their neighborhoods by sleeves and get involved. transforming abandoned open spaces into safe, functional places that inspire and promote THE FOOD TRUST positive human interaction. Since 2006, growing www.thefoodtrust.org vegetables has become a major programmatic The Food Trust seeks to make healthy food theme in the organization’s Growing Healthy

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 57

Initiative, a multiyear community gardening and even more muscles. Your mind and body will love health education project designed to promote the you for it. benefits of healthful eating and physical activity. ACTION STEPS: TEENS4GOOD !"Start slowly. Ease into it. Don’t make the mistake www.teens4good.orbius.com of doing too much too soon. Too much of anything A program of the Federation of Neighborhood will make you sick of it—fast. Eventually you’ll Centers, Teens4Good is a youth entrepreneurship learn to love exercising and eating healthy foods. business that transforms blighted vacant lots into !"Use the 5 & 10 rule for escalators and urban gardens and farms, thereby improving elevators: Take the stairs if you only need to go access to healthy foods for communities, creating up five floors or fewer, or if you need to go down meaningful jobs for at-risk youth, and empower- ten or fewer flights. ing youth to become healthy, responsible young ! If walking outdoors raises safety concerns, invest leaders who give back to their communities. in a treadmill or simply high step in place at home or walk indoors at the mall during the least busy WEAVER’S WAY CO-OP hours. If you’re unable to resist shopping—or www.weaversway.coop buying those fiendishly aromatic cinnamon buns at This 3,500-member community-owned market is the food courts—leave your credit cards and cash located in two neighborhoods in Northwest at home. Philadelphia. Its nonprofit arm, Weavers Way For more information on how to make exer- Community Programs, seeks to foster cooperative cise a lifelong investment in your well-being, activities that support local food production, please see “You Were Made to Move” on economic literacy, a sustainable environment and page 53. healthy lifestyles. Manage stress. Exercise regularly It’s a proven path 4 Many people don’t think about stress 3 to wellness. Before you begin any exercise management unless they’re already on the program, have a checkup. This is especially verge of burnout. With our busy lives, it doesn’t important if you’re new to working out or have always seem obviously important to practice been less active than you once were. Once extra stress management until a worn-out body you’ve gotten your physician’s okay, begin! or an overly taxed psyche forces the issue. A small dose of stress can be helpful. It’s Millions of us suffer from illnesses that can be represented by those stomach jitters that can prevented or controlled through regular physical help you knock a presentation to your bosses activity. Moreover, by increasing muscle strength out of the park. It’s that rush of adrenaline that and endurance and improving flexibility and keeps you mentally alert. It’s that extra burst of posture, regular exercise helps prevent pain in strength and energy during an emergency. But key areas, like your hips and back. If your life is too much of it can lead to a laundry list of jam-packed with other responsibilities, take woes, from poor judgment, anxiety, moodiness, charge and make room for yourself. Shorter anger and depression to chest pain, rapid workouts throughout the day can usually be as heartbeat, frequent colds, dizziness, eating too effective in burning unwanted calories as longer much or too little and loss of sex drive. In the workouts are. Try to make the sessions intense. end, too much stress can kill you. Managing Get your heart rate up, and repeat the workouts stress can save your life. for 15 or 20 minutes at a time throughout the ACTION STEPS: day. As you get stronger, consider adding jump- ! Breathe slowly and deeply. Instead of reacting ing jacks and crunches to your routine to work to a stressful occurrence, take three deep breaths

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 58 | WELLNESS and release them slowly. burning those calories. !"When you feel yourself becoming tense with Water helps maintain muscle tone, and it stress, note what triggered that response. lubricates the joints. Water should be our drink of ! Take five minutes for a stretch and breathing choice, for it is the elixir of life. session. This will provide a calming effect that will last for hours. ACTION STEPS: !"Get adequate rest and sleep. Experts suggest ! Drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a 7 to 9 hours for adults, 9 to 18 hours for infants, day. The more active you are, the more water you and 9 to 15 for younger children and adoles- need to replenish lost fluids. cents. Your body needs sleep to produce new ! Drink an 8-ounce glass of water before you go cells and renew itself. to sleep and when you wake up in the morning, ! Do not rely on alcohol or drugs to calm you because sleep is the greatest time for dehydra- down. They can lead to addiction. tion. But, as we age, we must be sure to drink our fill of water earlier in the evening. Probably a Stay hydrated. good time to have a final glass is two hours 5 Water is critical to our survival. It helps before you normally retire. If you drink too much our bodies function. Without it, we would die water close to bedtime, you risk ruining a night’s in a few days. sleep with frequent bathroom breaks (this is The amount of water in the body is dynamic important for younger children as well). and always changing. We lose water routinely ! Do not replace water with beverages like when we breathe and humidified air leaves the soda, alcohol or caffeinated drinks. They can body; we sweat to cool the body; and we act as diuretics, causing excessive water loss urinate or have a bowel movement to rid the because of increased urination. body of waste products. Dehydration occurs ! Drink water before you feel thirsty. By the when the amount of water leaving the body is time thirst hits, you’ve probably already used up greater than the amount being taken in. Proper much of your body’s available water reserve. hydration can aid in preventing and curing a ! Make drinking water as convenient as range of illnesses, and it can cut the risk of some possible. Carry a bottle with you wherever you cancers. If you’re dieting, you need a good go—while running errands and commuting to supply of water to burn calories efficiently. And work. Keep a bottle of water bedside, and take you need water to flush out the toxins created by water breaks instead of coffee breaks.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 59

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PROSPERITY “I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.” —MADAM C. J. WA L K E R

“Being rich means enjoying what I have no matter how much of ‘it’ I have. It’s enjoying the little things. And fortunately I’m rich in those.” Jeremy Damian, 19

PHOTO: CORBIS WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 62 | PROSPERITY

WEALTH-BUILDING WISDOM These smart steps will lead you to financial security

BY LENA SHERROD

he current economic crisis enslavement and legalized racism has yet has revealed why wealth— to be definitively calculated. But we know what’s left over after all that these crippling barriers to accessing your debts are paid off—is so resources have caused an unconscionable importantT to your family’s stability, notes a wealth disparity between African new study by the Insight Center for Com- Americans and our White counterparts. munity Economic Development. Consider this: The wealth of Whites in “Wealth, or net worth, refers to the total the United States—many of whom have value of one’s assets minus debts. Without access to financial resources through savings or wealth of some form, economic family inheritances—is now 15 times stability is built on a house of cards that greater than the wealth of African quickly crumbles when income is cut or Americans. And although African disrupted through job loss or reduced pay, Americans are 13 percent of the U.S. or if the family suffers an unexpected population, we own less than 3 percent of health emergency,” write the authors. the wealth. Forty-one percent of African Wealth is what cushions your retirement, American households have less than keeps the family home in the family, and $1,000 in net assets. The median net puts your kids through school. worth of an African American family is Yet nearly 300 years of oppression, $8,300, while the median net worth of a superexploitation and legally sanctioned White family is $56,000. racial discrimination have been ruthlessly We lag behind in other ways too. For effective in locking our people out of the example, home ownership represents economic mainstream. more than four fifths of a typical family’s The end result: Generations of African wealth. It is the major source of wealth for Americans have been robbed of the most Americans, with assets built from benefits of their labor and the benefits of home equity (the market value of a home their tax dollars. minus the balance due on home loans). The financial cost of centuries of But African Americans were

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 63 systematically discriminated against by is determined by your liquid assets, policies of the Federal Housing specifi cally, how much cash or cash Administration (FHA) that prohibited equivalents—like checking and savings them from buying prime property in accounts, stocks, bonds and other suburban America. To complicate matters investments—you have that will cover even more, African Americans faced such your monthly expenses. That time is discriminatory practices as redlining—the also set by your passive income, which unwillingness of banks to offer housing refers to earnings you will receive loans. As a result, Whites got a colossal from royalties, rent, interest, dividends, head start on accumulated wealth. business profi ts and other means. Today, legions of our people who sought Owning real estate and businesses to build assets and embrace their dreams and investing in stocks and bonds are by buying homes are the primary victims critical building blocks to individual and of mortgage fraud and subprime and community wealth. They both require a predatory lenders. They are losing their commitment to manage your resources homes to the plague of foreclosure. wisely, to exercise fi nancial smarts, and Yet history has shown time and again to rein in out-of-control consumerism. that racism and discrimination are no We must make the commitment. We match for the indomitable will of our can start by challenging ourselves to people. We have within us the power to think about why we spend the way we get money-smart. We can learn how to do. Economist Dr. Julianne Malveaux, save and invest wisely. We can learn how who is president of Bennett College, to manage our money effectively. We can explains it this way: “We live in a learn how to build wealth. consumer society where sport shopping is the way we live. We feel good, we buy. Wealth—It’s What’s in the Bank, We feel bad, we buy. Not What’s on Your Back When we deal with the African American Wealth is also called net worth. If you psyche, we come from a culture of lack. owe more than you own, you have We have not had access, opportunity and negative net worth, which is the equality. Some of us think we can bridge predicament too many African Americans the equality gap in spending. We can fi nd themselves in. Why? Because too spend with the big boys, even though we many think that wealth is defi ned by a do not have big boy wealth—we don’t have lavish lifestyle: the money they earn, the 3 percent of the wealth Whites have. But money they spend, the car they drive, the we can buy name brands to fi ll up a hole clothes they buy, and the bling they wear. that says we may be inadequate. We can Not so. As fi nancial adviser Michelle step up and spend up. To what end? If we Singletary points out in her book understand the psychological reasons we 7 Money Mantras for a Richer Life: How to spend heavily, we may be able to stop.” Live Well With the Money You Have, “If it’s on your ass, it’s not an asset.” (Or it’s a depreciating asset.) True wealth equals fi nancial freedom. Team Leader: To fi gure out what this means in your Lena Sherrod own life, answer this question: How Team: long can you sustain your lifestyle if Dr. Julianne Malveaux, you stop working? That length of time Veronica Conway, George Fraser

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 64 | PROSPERITY

DR. JULIANNE MALVEAUX BREAKS DOWN WHY WE ARE EMOTIONAL SPENDERS

Many years ago, I was admiring some pricey earrings at a fancy department store. The sales clerk, a White woman, stared at me and said, “Are you sure you want these?” To my mind, she was looking down on me, and my initial thought was, Who does she think she is? I’ll show her I can afford these. I asked to see another pair, then another and another, intending to buy them all—almost a thousand bucks’ worth of jewelry! But then another part of me put that emotional impulse in check. I didn’t know this woman. Why should I care what she thought, and why would I allow someone who had dissed me to make a 7 percent commission? I left empty-handed. When we look outside of ourselves in order to feel good, often the end result is emotional spending. We don’t feel good, so we go buy something. Add to that the fact that we live in a culture that’s designed to separate us from our money for somebody else’s benefi t. Everywhere we turn, we’re being hit with “reasons” to spend. On the college campus where I work, young people are constantly barraged with images and ads online, getting signals from Facebook and Twitter. And the messages are clear: If you don’t own this or wear that, then you don’t belong. It’s as though they are brainwashed into believing that they have to have the trendy new pair of heels or jeans, because everybody is wearing them. And if they don’t wear them, then they’re nobody. We’ve all seen folks who have next to no money spending the few dollars they have on hair extensions. Hair is one of the most emotionally fraught issues in our community, because we’re still bombarded with images that tell us ours isn’t good enough, as is. And while no one wants to criticize another sister for trying to look her best, if hair care is costing you 25 percent of your take-home pay, something is really wrong. (I should point out that emotional spending isn’t limited to women. Men often overspend on big-ticket items like cars or electronics.) Spending to fi ll emotional needs leads us to neglect truly important money goals like saving, investing and giving back to the community.

BUT WE CAN REGAIN CONTROL BY DOING THE FOLLOWING: !""Acknowledging that we are worthy and worthwhile human beings, whether we’re wearing a designer suit or a T-shirt and jeans, because we are designed by the Divine. This self-confi dence comes from surrounding ourselves with positive people who affi rm us for who we are. !""Being conscious of every dollar we earn. When a dollar comes in, earmark it for a purpose, be it personal survival, savings or investing. !""Setting fi nancial goals. If you want to go on vacation, consider saving your money and paying cash as opposed to paying by credit. If you think about it that way while you’re saving, every time you’re tempted to make a purchase on impulse, you’ll say to yourself, What about my vacation? !""Setting spending limits. Don’t go shopping without knowing beforehand how much money you’re going to spend. And don’t go to the mall if you don’t have any money.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 65

financial management habits, and stumble WHAT WORKS through their lives learning by trial and error.” But organizations like Jump$tart can help us turn that situation around. A national coalition of groups 5 WAYS TO whose mission is to prepare youth to make WEALTH successful financial decisions throughout their Information we all need lives, Jump$tart offers advocacy, research, standards and educational resources. It encourages curriculum enrichment to ensure that BY LENA SHERROD students gain basic personal financial manage- ment skills during the K–12 years. “The wheels of TEACH CHILDREN THE BASICS OF education do not need to be reinvented,” 1HOUSEHO LD FINANCES Jump$tart stresses. “They simply require balance.” Most young people can—and want to—master the basics of day-to-day finances. We simply MAKE IT YOUR GOAL TO LEARN have to spend an hour or two each week going 2 SOMETHING NEW ABOUT MONEY over family money matters with them. When we EACH DAY do, there’s an added benefit: Financial education Amid the whirlwind of financial products, tends to promote family stability. services and providers available today, it is essential that consumers acquire the knowledge HOW TO DO IT: and skills to evaluate and identify options that Show your children the bills. Teach them the best suit their needs and economic circumstances. value of saving—saving money as well as saving This is especially true for African American the planet—and how to spend wisely. The consumers. We have traditionally been Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) underserved by financial institutions and, as a offers a curriculum called Money Smart for result, may become the victims of transactions Young Adults (fdic.gov/consumers/consumer/ that are financially destructive. moneysmart/young.html), which helps young people ages 12 to 20 learn the basics of HOW TO DO IT: handling money, including how to create positive Financial books, magazines and Web sites can relationships with financial institutions. When help you become financially literate. Spending equipped with the basics of financial education, just 15 to 30 minutes a day, you can find the right young people gain the knowledge and strategies for rebuilding credit, reducing debt, confidence needed to manage finances securing personal loans, building a 401(k) responsibly when they enter the adult world. retirement plan, buying a house, sending your For now, too many of our young people are child to college, and building wealth. ill-equipped. The Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Many banks and other institutions offer informa- Financial Literacy (jumpstart.org/index.cfm) tion about financial literacy. Web sites like The reports that the average high school graduate Motley Fool (fool.com) will walk you through a lacks basic skills in managing personal financial basic education about financial instruments affairs. Many cannot balance a checkbook, and available to savers and investors. Take advantage most have little or no insight into the fundamental of the numerous online tools that can help you get survival principles involved in earning, spending, your finances straight. For instance, click on saving and investing. Practical Money Skills for Life (practicalmoneyskills As a result, the coalition says, “Many young .com/budgeting), Visa’s free personal financial people fail in the management of their first management program. You’ll find budgeting consumer credit experience, establish bad worksheets and calculators there, along with tips

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 66 | PROSPERITY for living within your means, budgeting sugges- waits until he’s 32 to invest $100 monthly, which tions, and more. also earns 8 percent a year. He keeps investing But knowledge isn’t power unless you put it into until he’s 64. When they both retire at 64, Tisha practice and make financial know-how your has a total of $234,600, while Jamal has only launchpad to wealth. Some smart moves that $177,400— a difference of $57,200. What a will help get you on track include building an difference ten years makes. emergency fund and developing, and sticking You can begin building long-term wealth by to, a budget. investing in stocks using a technique called dollar-cost averaging (DCA): buying a fixed BEGIN SAVING AND INVESTING dollar amount of a particular stock on a regular 3 TODAY schedule, regardless of the share price. With this The age at which you start investing will determine method, you automatically buy more shares how much wealth you build. Financial planners when prices are low and fewer shares when recommend that you save and invest 10 percent prices are high. Learn more about saving and of your income; if you can’t save that much, start investing at mymoney.gov. with a smaller amount. Set a goal for how much you’ll save each month and how the money will BUY REAL ESTATE OR START YOUR eventually be used. Perhaps you want to start a 4 OWN BUSINESS business, buy a home, grow a retirement fund, or Homeownership is still the single largest creator of pay for your child’s education. wealth for most Americans. Assets are built from the equity in your home, which can be passed HOW TO DO IT: down from generation to generation. With the Create an emergency fund that will cover at housing market currently cooling off—a least six months of expenses. If you don’t combination of low interest rates, decreasing already have one, open an individual and/or a prices and increasing inventory—buying a home family savings account. You can save automati- is one of the smartest investments you can make. cally so that you don’t have to think about it. In addition, the interest on the mortgage and on Have your bank transfer a set amount monthly the property taxes can generally be fully deducted from your checking account into a higher-inter- from your gross income, thereby reducing taxable est savings account. Consider opening your income and resulting in thousands of dollars in tax savings account at an African American savings. Another tax break comes when you sell financial institution, and urge your church, your primary residence after living in it for two community organizations and family members years. A couple can keep up to $500,000 of the to do the same. This will increase the available profit tax-free, while a single owner can hold on capital in your community. to $250,000. If you’re not already enrolled in your com- pany’s 401(k) retirement plan, sign up right HOW TO DO IT: away. You’ll be putting in pretax dollars, thereby Buying a home is a big move, so you must do reducing your tax bill. You’ll also be taking your homework. Use an online calculator to advantage of an employer match, which is figure out how much you can afford to pay for a literally free money. house. Next, find out your credit score for free at As far as investing, you’ve heard it said that annualcreditreport.com; a good score can help “Time is money.” Here’s proof: Tisha begins you better negotiate interest rates. Then shop putting away $100 a month when she’s 22. Her around for the right loan. To be as smart as investment earns 8 percent a year; after ten possible in what can be a daunting process, years, she stops contributing while her money consider enrolling in a home-buying program in continues to grow. Jamal, on the other hand, your area. For more information on home

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 67 buying, visit nahb.org/timetobuy or hud.gov. as 30 percent, they are designed to keep you in Does your road to wealth involve starting your lifelong debt, costing you thousands of dollars in own business? Whether you create it from the penalties and finance charges—especially if you ground up, buy a franchise, or take over a make only the minimum payment. We need to family business, you must learn how to run it say no. By doing so, and taking additional successfully so that both you and the business steps, we can break the shackles that hold us will thrive. captive to debt. Once you’ve targeted your market and developed a product or a service that the HOW TO DO IT: market needs, there are myriad financial and Debt is a tool to be used wisely. Borrowing for a legal steps you must take, from writing the home or for college tuition makes sense; business plan and getting training to finding borrowing more than you can comfortably financing, choosing a location, and marketing afford to pay back does not. Whenever you your business. Plenty of Web sites offer borrow, be sure to shop around for the best beneficial tips and advice on getting your rates, and try to pay your monthly balance in business off the ground and operating it full within a month or two. However, if you can’t successfully, including allbusiness.com and afford to pay off credit card bills in full during a entrepreneur.com/bizstartups. particularly tight month, pay the minimum by the You can also obtain sound advice and guidance due date so you avoid incurring late-payment from SCORE, the “Counselors to America’s fees and higher interest rates. Small Business,” formerly known as Service Avoid using a credit card to pay for anything Corps of Retired Executives. This organization that will be quickly consumed, like drinks, food, provides, free of charge, information on such and vacation; that’s the quickest way to fall into topics as writing a business plan, analyzing the deep debt. If there’s something you really need competition, targeting your market and staffing, but it’s expensive, try saving for it (or putting it and financing and marketing your business. on layaway) before you say, “Charge it.” Contact SCORE at score.org. If you must use a credit card, use it wisely: Learn everything about the card, including the interest TAKE CONTROL OF DEBT rates and fees and penalties for late payments. 5 Credit card debt has been called the new In other words, read the fine print. Scores of slavery because it gives other people and books and online sites are available with advice institutions control over your future earnings. In on eliminating credit card debt. One of the most his book Debt Is Slavery and 9 Other Things I important tips is to save money so you’re Wish My Dad Had Taught Me About Money, prepared for unforeseen circumstances. Michael Mihalik talks of the “Giant Marketing In addition to the books and Web sites Machine that constantly tries to brainwash us mentioned earlier, check out Lynnette Khalfani’s into wanting more and more stuff, which leads Zero Debt: The Ultimate Guide to Financial to more and more bills.” He offers practical Freedom or 7 Smart Habits to Building the advice on saying no to unnecessary spending Wealth of Your Dreams; Brooke Stephens’s and gaining control of your finances. Talking Dollars and Making Sense; and Suze Most people get into serious debt because they Orman’s The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom. can’t control spending, didn’t plan for the future, You can do this. Changing your money situation and didn’t save money. The increasing amount begins with changing your mind-set. Make a of interest they pay on debt, especially credit conscious decision today to choose to build card debt, cannot be saved or invested. It’s gone wealth, to become one of the “haves” and to forever, significantly reducing their net worth. stop living paycheck to paycheck. It’s a decision With some cards carrying interest rates as high that will pay off for generations to come.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG RELATIONSHIPS “I will bring you a whole person / and you will bring me a whole person / and we will have us twice as much / of love and everything.” —MARI EVANS

“To me, a loving relationship is when you don’t have a lot of fi ghts. Instead you have power talks and work things out as a team.” Nisa Bandele, 10

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 70 | RELATIONSHIPS

LOVE NO LIMITS Healthy, committed, intimate and lasting relationships are what create strong communities

BY ASHA BANDELE AND APRIL R. SILVER

n 2001, just before my father my mother once why it was so, why they went into the hospital to remove never argued. Isn’t a good fight healthy in a the cancer that had begun to relationship once in a while? My mother I consume his esophagus, he got answered my question with a question. organized. I’m not talking about making “asha, aren’t there other ways to resolve sure his papers were in order. I’m talking differences besides fighting and yelling?” about cooking. The doctors said that if he survived, he would likely be in the hospital Indeed. for seven days. So my father made seven meals, labeled and dated them, and put But my parents are of another time. They them in the freezer. He didn’t want my were acutely aware of all that had been lost mother, who would be at the hospital late to them, or more accurately, aware of all with him, to have to worry about having to they’d never had as little Black Depression- make herself dinner. When I brought my era children who, between them, did not mother home that first night and saw what have one father they knew. My own sense of Daddy had done, I wept. I couldn’t believe things is that when they came to each other, that, debilitated by the harsh chemicals they came with a deep gratitude for the coursing through his body and facing a good love the Universe had presented them. surgery that might or might not have made They honor that every day still. Fifty-five him well, all he could think about was tak- years after they wed and 56 years after they ing care of Mommy. But I shouldn’t have met, their gratitude for each other shows up been surprised. with each “Good morning” they share. I am one of the lucky ones who grew up Today, for too many, the landscape of how watching real love in action. I have never we learn to love is not populated by images heard my parents utter an unkind word to of, and real-world experiences with, people each other. I have never seen them argue— who cherish themselves and each other. Too fuss a little maybe—but raised voices, many of us traverse landscapes that have slammed doors? These behaviors had no been carved out by video shots of Black place in my parents’ hearts or home. I asked women having credit cards swiped down

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 71 their butts, Black men leading sisters around more staggering unemployment among on leashes. Too many of us still, Black men, reaching more than 50 percent unbelievably, watch Jerry Springer and seem in some cities; the overincarceration of our to think that buffoonery and violence have a young, especially our males; and shifting place in our relationships. values. These are on one end of the We can change this. There is infinite love spectrum, while on the other end, new in the universe waiting to be shared. opportunities and avenues have increased But it will not be easy. To have the love we women’s choices and fostered a degree of need, deserve and can call to us, we must financial independence for some. And

“We are still creating families, but far fewer Black parents are doing it together.”

first confront and then remove, brick by when men do not fulfill their breadwinner brick, the wall that keeps us trapped on the responsibilities, women get angry. Where other side of joy. once Black men had a clear role within the family structure, for many, these days What Our World Needs Now Is there’s a fog. Even for sisters who are not of Love, Sweet Love means, since the 1970’s, welfare has No matter how possible great love is, if we fostered male absenteeism by requiring that are open to it, there’s no denying the fact the man stay out of the home if the woman that creating and sustaining loving “was getting a check.” In that one decade relationships—something even medical alone, out-of-wedlock births by Black science now acknowledges as a key factor in women rose by 50 percent, and the number maintaining happiness and good health—is a of families headed by single Black women challenge for people who seem to have been rose 257 percent. Adding to these dynamics born with every advantage. Divorce rates in and the toxic cocktail of racist lies that the wealthiest White communities state this demean and distort our view of ourselves clearly. For we who bear the harsh weight of and one another are a host of unresolved a color-coded social system causing and cross-cultural issues and tensions disparities and stress at every turn, relaxing about behavior, expectations and goals. into love is often our greatest challenge. But Instead of pulling together we drift apart. good love begets strong families, and strong So yes, we are still creating families, but families beget the building blocks for all far fewer parents are doing it together. societies. We do not have a choice but to After the Civil War, self-supporting choose love. two-parent Black families were the rule. In But how do we get there from here? 1900, nearly 90 percent of Black children According to a U.S. Census estimate, in were born into stable two-parent 2007, only 44 percent of us are married, and households. Today 50.2 percent of Black nearly half of all Black American adults children live with their mother alone, and have never married. The reasons are both one in three Black children live in poverty. complex and numerous: Chronic and ever The overincarceration of our men has led

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 72 | RELATIONSHIPS to fatherless families and the increase of Open up in a support group; there are struggling Black families. Although there many valuable support circles out there. are many single parent families thriving We need not carry the pain, suffer in against the odds, the deck is stacked silence, or pass our pain on to our children against the single mom who is and others. If we survey the depths of our inadequately educated and lacking in souls, open up and own up to our deepest skills, underemployed or unemployed, with feelings, our heartache, feelings of betrayal, few resources and fragile to nonexistent the demons that rip and tear us apart, not support systems. The bottom line? only do we discover that we are not alone, Regardless of whether we choose to marry we also will find support and healing. Truth or not, whether we choose to become is, most of us are struggling emotionally. parents or not, regardless of our sexual Real talk. That’s what’s needed. Instead, orientation or our so-called socioeconomic many of us shut down and crawl into our status, this is a fact: We need each other. shells. Or we raise hell: yell and scream, Need to love and be loved. Need healthy hit and curse, or even violently assault our supportive relationships. wives, husbands, partners and children. Unhealed and left to fester, pain and rage Removing the Wall manifest in self-destructive behavior. The With matters of the heart, we can turn the pain freezes our hearts and our faces. Our page from hopelessness to hopefulness. anger and feelings of betrayal cut deep.

“Do not lower your standards—only your demands.”

The first thing many of us have to do is Feelings of self-loathing spew in what release the fairy-tale ideas of who our some of us call ourselves and one perfect partner is. Let go of what you think another—dog, nigga, bitch, ho, pig, MF. “fine” looks like. Beauty is as beauty does. Our unexpressed pain shows up as It’s an inner value. Release your idea of virulent attacks against those in close wealth. Some of the happiest people we proximity. Many of us are people in can look to have never earned into the six trauma, in need of emergency care—sort of figures, let alone seven. True wealth can like a person with a broken leg whose never been measured solely in dollars and bones have never been correctly reset but sense. Susan L. Taylor encourages us never who wants to run a marathon! That’s who to lower our standards, just some of our we often are when we turn to another: in irrational demands, and watch how sweet love and in trouble. the love can flow. And why is that? But this is not to say the task is easy. Are we crazy? Unlearning a way of being and seeing is a No. process that begins with talking about the Here’s the truth: We live in a nation that toxins we’ve been bottling up. We need to has shown little regard for our health and identify and name them. Air them out in well-being. And so often, African Americans therapeutic counseling with a trusted are resistant to counseling, leery of asking spiritual adviser, a wise elder or a friend. for help. It’s understandable. But we can no

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 73

“Release the fairy-tale ideas of who the perfect partner is.”

longer afford our fear. understanding of our history—the values we And it’s also true that the road to healing held dear in our Motherland, what was may include some bumps along the way. But stripped away from us over the seas and the rewards are sweet. As Taylor offers, “We centuries. Then we will heal deeply, be are called to repair the village. Primary to bound heart to heart again. Then we will that is Black women and men’s bring to our relationships the peace,

Securing the Sacred Union

BY JOY ANGELA DEGRUY, PH.D.

ntimacy, religion and spirituality Sylvester begins, “I noticed this girl in the are recurring themes in studies of yard next door. She was making mud cakes. I successful African American mar- went across the way and asked her if I could I riages and relationships. Given the play with her. She said yes, and we made course of our history and culture, this comes mud cakes together. When we finished as no surprise. People of African descent playing, I went and told my Daddy that I was throughout the Diaspora have strong spiri- going to marry that girl, Linda. tual traditions and rituals that have helped As the pastor of Gates of Heaven Church guide them through their lives. According of God in Christ, Reverend Sylvester Silver to Sobonfu Somé, author of The Spirit of teaches that there are two things that Intimacy: Ancient African Teachings in the Ways make a relationship work: the couple and of Relationships, “There is a spiritual dimen- God. Linda agrees and adds: “We also sion to every relationship.... The role of spirit both came from broken families, and as is to be the driver.... Spirit helps us fulfill our teenagers we vowed that when we got life’s purpose and maintain our sanity.” married, we would not divorce or separate. Because despite all of the bleak studies and Those things were never an option for us. mean realities, we have countless positive We knew that from the start.” The Silvers and successful African American don’t paint a picture of pure bliss 100 relationships to celebrate. We have strong percent of the time. Surely in 39 years of marriages that can guide us, teach us, and marriage there has been friction. What help our own relationships heal when distinguishes their relationship and many needed. Consider the deeply spiritual others, however, is their determination to marriage of Sylvester and Linda Silver of stay together—and not to wound each Suffolk, Virginia. They have been together other when there are disagreements and since she was 3 and he was 5. “One weekend pain. “Sure we have said hurtful things to while I was visiting my father’s house,” each other,” Linda explains, “but I don’t

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 74 | RELATIONSHIPS seek to destroy my husband. I know what we enrich each other’s lives and the lives of triggers his pain, and I don’t go there. We those around us? have boundaries.” Too often we run headlong into marriage In the Silvers’ relationship, we see that they or “marriage-equivalent” relationships came together with their eyes wide open and without examining these questions. But their purpose conjoined. These things are success largely hinges upon whether or not key. With intimate relationships, the task is we are in agreement on key issues prior to to know the reason for the sacred union: committing to one another. My life and Why did we/are we coming together? What studies have taught me that all of us should are we seeking? What do we want to humble ourselves to certain steps before accomplish? What do we bring to each turning to one another—and God—and other? How can we grow together? How can making a life-changing commitment.

BY JOY ANGELA DEGRUY, PH.D. WITH ADDITIONAL ENSURING OUR LOVE BYRE POJOYRTING ANGELA BY A DEGRPRIL R.UY, SILVER PH.D. Here are 15 concise tips about how to do relationships well. Some of the wisdom here is amplified in this chapter’s What Works section.

1. Observe silence; learn to listen completely 8. Commit to your relationship as a spiritual and to communicate openly. (See the chapter practice; the commitment is to each other and “Stress,” which includes wisdom on meditation.) the Divine. 2. Communicate consistently and frequently; 9. Practice fidelity; be faithful in word speak honestly and bring your best self. This and deed. requires check-ins with your partner and 10. Be open and honest with each other. yourself. 11. If one of you stumbles, acknowledge it 3. Consider the timeliness and appropriateness and the pain it has caused. Seek to make of your communication. Bear in mind that amends, ask to be pardoned. Practice forgive- things said in the heat of the moment all too ness. The great challenge is not to keep the often add to the fire. But do not avoid hurt alive by repeatedly bringing up the communication when the topic or issue is incident. Let it go. Get help if you need to. We difficult if you feel it’s important. all mess up. As we learn to forgive, we heal 4. Before you say something, consider: How and are forgiven. can I say it kindly? Is it honest? Is it useful? 12. Speak your love and demonstrate your Work hard to meet all three of these bars in all caring and loyalty. Be tender in touch, words that you say. and deeds with your beloved. 5. Identify trusted and wise significant 13. Trust and be trustworthy. No spying or individuals, loving family members, friends, tracking your mate. No accusing. No and mentors with whom you can meet and tolerating indignities or disrespect. And consult about your relationship. violence must never be tolerated. Trust is 6. When you and your partner are seeking earned, not built overnight. counsel from significant individuals whom you 14. Make it your lifelong ritual to look for have identified, remember that it’s up to the wisdom and guidance from sacred writings two of you to determine the relevance and and or traditions—and to value of their advice. practice them. 7. Set goals and monitor your progress 15. Model what you believe. together.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 75

Candles in the Window

BY ASHA BANDELE

emeritus in the Department of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University and founder and executive director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family, Life and Culture, Inc., in Oakland. Dr. Vera Nobles, who holds a degree in African American studies, has focused her work on education, literacy and writing. Married since 1967, the Nobleses have five children and 12 grandchildren. Africa is deeply Drs. Wade and Vera Nobles and family rooted in the Nobles family lives. In talking about their marriage, or a moment, set aside the time and again, Wade Nobles references the mean statistics always being influence, spirituality and values from the tossed at us about Black love Motherland that have enriched, informed F and marriage. Listening to and sustained their union. them being repeated again and again Dr. Wade begins, “We’ve been sweethearts could persuade almost anyone not to since high school and throughout our even try to find a soul mate, not to even marriage we’ve made space and time for attempt to take a stand for love. Well, our love. We wake up early every morning

“Black men and women need each other. Need to love and be loved.”

never mind that that’s the steady beat and share pillow talk. We know that God is pounding in our ears. The people you’ll in us. Part of our romance is in the meet below, who range in age from their recognition of God in each other. I am thirties to nearly eighties know love, have always in wonderment that she sees God in embraced love, and have great advice to me. And every morning, I see God’s glory share about love. Listen to them. They’re shining in her eyes.” the remix. Dr. Vera continues, “We believe that we are all Gods. We can see the kindness, the Wade and Vera Nobles live in Oakland, gentleness, the love—and God’s love for us. California. Dr. Wade Nobles is professor Knowing this helps both of us

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 76 | RELATIONSHIPS

Monifa and Lumumba Bandele and family have to learn to be fl uid. We all grow, so you have to learn how to re-situate yourselves.” For the Bandeles, that means regularly scheduled time for each other—date nights—and open, honest communication. And laughter, stresses Lumumba. “Doctors say that laughter is good for the body. Well, we think it’s good for a relationship as well.” To balance out the challenging times, he says, “We laugh a lot.”

Leonard and Rosalind Jeffries acknowledge our own anxieties and fears have been married for 46 years . and release them because we want the best They reside in New Jersey and are both for each other.” academics at universities in New York What does it take to get there? “We need City. Although they have no children of to re-Africanize ourselves,” Dr. Wade their own, they have parented, mentored offers. “There is great worth in connecting and shepherded a host of young people. with many of the practices and the The renowned Dr. Leonard Jeffries, a spiritual values that sustained our passionate and fearless champion for our ancestors. If we are to make strong people and Afrocentric scholarship, is marriages, families and communities, we the former chair of the Department of need to reclaim both path and purpose.”

Monifa Bandele has been married to Lumumba Bandele for 12 years. Lifetime community activists, the Bandeles are residents of Brooklyn, New York, where they are raising their two daughters, 8-year-old Adasa and 11-year-old Naima. Monifa says, “We’ve known each other all of our lives. Our fathers were friends, and we grew up in the same circle. But we didn’t start to date until we were in our late twenties. One day we just Drs. Leonard and Rosalind Jeffries seemed to look at each other with fresh eyes. But since we are both children of African American Studies at the City divorce, we had no road maps.” College of the City University of New Here’s what worked for them, according York and the City University of New to Lumumba. He says, “We made a York Institute for Research on the conscious decision not to model our Diaspora in the Americas and Caribbean, marriage after anyone else’s.” Monifa where he remains as a professor. Dr. agrees: “We decided to create our own Rosalind Robinson Jeffries is an equally rules, ones that work for us, and to fi nd courageous advocate of African and our own way. Every family is its own African disaporic history and culture. country.” And, adds Lumumba, “You Museum curator, educator, lecturer, Dr.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 77

Rosalind Jeffries is on the teaching faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York WHAT WORKS City. Dr. Leonard is sure that having a deep and unbreakable connection to Africa is key to a successful African BUILDING American marriage. And, he says, “Rosalind and I share a deep commitment FAMILY to our people and an abiding love for Expert advice for every couple Africa, where we have lived and worked BY MARCIA ANN GILLESPIE many times over the years. Africa is at the heart of our scholarship, and imbedded in the fabric of our marriage—as is our From the moment we are born, we are in commitment to the struggle to help our relationships. First and foremost with ourselves, people rise.” and then with everyone we encounter intimately And to this, he adds, “What sustains our or casually throughout our lives. Every smile we marriage—and I would argue, any good exchange, every glance, each and every word we marriage over time—is that we have an speak or is spoken to us may not have the same agreed-upon process of communication weight, but has significance. and a process for handling problems. My We ought to be mindful of all our relationships, wife is very spiritual, and she brings her no matter how casual. But our significant powerful sense of spirit into every aspect relationships require diligent work and a great of our relationship, and I trust and rely on deal of care from both individuals. When two her wisdom. We share the belief that we, individuals–wife/husband, gay/lesbian/ like all people, are a manifestation of God, transgendered partners, boyfriend/girlfriend, living a human experience. Rosalind and I father/son, daughter/mother, brother/sister, have mission, purpose and direction. Ours friend/friend, mentor/mentee—are relating, then hasn’t always been a marriage free of two worlds are, in essence, intertwining. We each struggle. But from the moment we bring all our life experiences, pains, joys, filters exchanged vows, we’ve been a couple and insecurities with us—and when our lives building for eternity. This is our entwine, the complexities begin. lifelong commitment.” Which, Rosalind Jeffries, underscores: TENDING THE GARDEN “When you’re young and getting married, the Our relationships afford us opportunities to grow power struggle can sometimes be fierce. and learn. “The strength of relationships,” noted There’s not enough love in those early days— author Iyanla Vanzant so wisely points out, “is in of each other, of the Almighty. Each one of their ability to provide individuals with a mirror you has to master your fears. And each one of which enables them to see things about the self that you has to have patience.” would not or could not be accessed on their own.” Significant relationships—the ones we have, the Team Leaders: ones we may be seeking or longing for—are like Marcia Ann Gillespie, Joy Angela DeGruy, Ph.D., gardens. If you want your garden to take root, asha bandele you have to prepare the ground, get your hands Team: in the soil, and dig. If it is to grow and flourish Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D., April R. Silver, from year to year, it needs consistent care, Rev. Iyanla Vanzant, Susan L. Taylor, Michael fertilizer, water, warmth and light. Though some Eric Dyson, Kevin Powell, of us discover an intuitive understanding of how to Khary Lazarre-White make our gardens thrive, if you have never seen a

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 78 | RELATIONSHIPS garden or been taught how to make one grow, they are really communicating. Communicating chances are the results may not be what you deeply requires understanding far more than just hoped for. And even the best gardeners are words; it’s about opening our mind and heart. constantly seeking more information. It’s about talking to and with and not “at” or “past” each other. And it’s about learning to LET LOVE SPEAK really listen. Listening is the root of understand- Eric and Elaine Johnson have been providing ing—not the same as hearing. We can hear relationship counseling and advice to singles and sounds, words being spoken, but we must listen couples and with groups and organizations in intently to understand what’s being said and what Houston, Texas, and around the country for more the words mean. To do so, we must recognize and than a dozen years. Helping people establish and remove our filters, all the perceptions and maintain healthy relationships is what Optimum opinions we’ve been taught or picked up along Lifestyle Community Development Corp., their our life journey. If our filters are not removed, our counseling service, is all about. In conversation interpretation can be flawed. with this dynamic duo, the joy they each have and Effective communication is an ever-evolving, share is palpable and contagious. There’s lots of lifelong process, something we must continue laughter, the talk flows freely, openly, and oh, so working at. A lack of effective communication often honestly about their own relationship and the tops the list of problems that lead to the failure of understanding that they seek to foster in their many relationships. African Americans have the counseling. They are each master gardeners who, added problem of struggling with open emotional in addition to training as counselors, bring an wounds, the product of racism and a host of other abundance of innate wisdom, skills learned during destructive issues visited upon us in a hostile and their 15-plus years of marriage and parenting of dysfunctional environment. We are faced with the six children. The Johnsons bring a passionate sense task of supporting and assisting each other while of purpose and mission to their practice. trying to avoid the vulnerable places in our own When talking to singles and couples, they stress hearts and minds. This makes learning to the importance of knowing one’s self. They urge communicate effectively all the more important. us to take time, think long and deep about our Similarly, it is vital to remember that all words purpose in life, our values and goals, acknowl- have power. Our society too often lacks positive edge our humanity, recognize our weaknesses, speaking. We build up or tear down one another vulnerabilities and strengths. They remind us to and our relationships with our words. When we see ourselves as one with nature and that, like speak positively, we cause the universe to create nature, we are constantly changing, experiencing and manifest that which we request. The same is different seasons. They encourage us to see and true for negative words. Slander, gossip, embrace the Divine within ourselves. mean-spirited words and put-downs are pervasive And they recommend that we use in our society and the media and generate so the following proper tools to tend much ill will, violence and death. our gardens: Knowing that words have such impact, monitor how you use them. Ask yourself, Am I building up 1. COMMUNICATION or tearing down? Find ways to speak positively of Open and loving communication is a key and to your partner, your children, the people in component of successful relationships When a your world. It will cause change and harmony to person brings understanding to a relationship and happen in you and in others. can feel in his or her heart what another is saying, not merely repeating what was spoken but clothing 2. EMPATHY themselves with understanding of the person’s Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Try to thought process, reasoning and conviction, then understand what the one you care for is feeling

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 79 and thinking. You won’t be able to show grace genuine and real is the essence of intimacy. We when grace is needed if you lack empathy. The must be willing to be vulnerable. Having intimate lack of empathy makes us selfish. We think only of relationships is a hallmark of the human experi- ourselves, what’s in it for me. With empathy comes ence; don’t allow fear, insecurity and past hurts to a sense of service and the desire to benefit others. rob you of this rewarding dimension of life. Some of us make deep connections easily, for 3. INTEGRITY AND TRUST others it requires practice. Integrity is all about living one’s life honestly, telling Intimacy begins within. We have to do our own the truth, opening our heart, and not hiding behind personal self-assessment and self-reflection work. the mask we’ve been taught to wear. It means Our guard comes down with our partners and trusting being you—being true to yourself, your others when we let go of the fear of being judged. word and to others. Integrity eliminates suspicion When we realize that each person is perfectly from our relationships. When we are kind and imperfect, made so by our Creator, and doing the gentle with one another and walking our talk, trust best we can to take care of ourselves. Open your naturally flows. heart to yourself and to others. Enjoy the journey of self-discovery and learning what’s in the hearts 4. VISION and minds of others. All of us must have a vision for the life we want so we can plan and know where we are going. 7. ALLOW FORSPACE Partners need a shared vision for their relation- Successful couples know that spending every free ship as well, so they are planning, building and moment together isn’t a wise move for themselves growing together. Vision forces us to see or their relationship. It’s smothering. We should long-term, so even when the present looks grim, give our partner what we need ourselves— we know where we are heading. Having a strong breathing room, time alone. We all need space vision will keep us anchored in the midst of a for other friendships, to pursue hobbies, personal storm and throughout the seasons of life and goals, to read, go to ball games, hang out at a relationships. With vision, we maintain focus. spa. We all need and are nourished when we take time alone, time with our thoughts, time to 5. STANDARDS contemplate, time to listen to the Holy Spirit. We need to have standards, principles that we believe in and try to live by. This calls for 8. COMMITMENT self-examination. What are your values? How did Commitment is about bringing our mind, heart you come by them? Are these things that really and soul fully into our intimate relationships so matter to you, or are you simply repeating a litany that we are prepared to journey together through that you learned from others? Take the time to good times and during the rough patches. understand yourself and what really matters to Many successful couples say that they have you. You were created to express in words and committed not to bring drama to their sacred deeds who you are and what you value. But we union—no blowouts, knockdown and drag-out must be careful not to impose our values on others battles, no skeletons in the closet, no ugly or to expect them to be who we want them to be. surprises. They say they strive to be each other’s We have to be mindful that relationships will be best friend, that they share everything, the good, rooted in conflict when partners don’t share the bad and the ugly about themselves and work similar values and standards and lack under- at staying committed to this all the time. standing, tolerance and mutual respect. Couples in happy long-term relationships have identified commitment as the glue that keeps their 6. INTIMACY partnerships tight—the commitment to “stay put,” Being comfortable with each other, completely not give up, shut down or stray. This is no small

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 80 | RELATIONSHIPS feat. Compassion, counseling, forgiveness, folks need to feel fulfilled and move our children recommitment—many long-married couples say and community forward. The rewards we will these have been in the healing mix. Commitment reap—personally and collectively—will be rich at this level builds the relationship muscle we Black and deep.

HOW TO LOVE: A VIEW FROM A BLACK MAN’S PERSPECTIVE

BY SHAWN GINWRIGHT, PH.D.

There are places, hidden from public view, truth is, you wanted to watch the Lakers beat up where Black men love, laugh and cry together. the Knicks! Simply tell her that she was right, and Sometimes, however, we cover up these feelings clean up during halftime. Over time she will so as not to appear vulnerable to the world. In develop the same habit of not battling over our relationships, we make statements like “I’m every little thing. aight” or “I got this” as a way not to let others in too deep. While these tough fronts protect us Dream together. It is important to encourage our from unnecessary pain, we also develop a cool partners to dream, no matter how unrealistic that detachment from our partners that ultimately vision or goal might seem to you. Encouraging makes it difficult to foster true intimacy. their dreams communicates to our partners that we care about their intimate thoughts. How can Black men love more fully? Given the long-standing, color-coded obstacles in our Give yourself permission to grow. Often we paths, deep loving relationships, healthy carry baggage from past relationships into new families and joy in our dating can be revolu- ones. We also have images of what relationships tionary acts. The need is for us to heal from the are supposed to be, and we are disappointed multilayered traumas—the collective and the when our partners don’t meet our expectations. personal—so that we can be better at living, We need to give ourselves permission to grow and loving, caring and dreaming together. learn from each other and from people who I have learned a little about love, marriage model what we want to become. and relationships over the span of my 16-year marriage. Here are a few practical lessons Get on the path to healing our relationships. that I hope can lead to healthy and more There is no blueprint for how to have a healthy fulfilling relationships: relationship with a Black man. However, we brothers have a responsibility and a right to Tell the truth. It is easy to hide the truth from our learn how to love. This means that we will make partners, because truth telling can be scary. It mistakes, but in doing so, and with our can also be empowering. You will learn that by partner’s loving forgiveness, we will become telling the truth, you develop a sense of power in better men for our children, our partners and the relationship. our communities. I believe that every Black man wants to love and give himself fully in his Every battle isn’t worth fighting. There is no need relationship. Our challenge is not just learning to argue about why you didn’t clean the house how to love, but garnering the courage, the while she was out shopping for groceries. The light and the wisdom to live and grow in love.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG CREATIVITY “To speak a language is to assume a culture and take responsibility for a civilization.” —FRANZ FANON

“Playing the piano helps me to focus and to express myself in ways I can’t do just with words.”

Amina Suzanne King, 12

PHOTO: CORBIS WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 84 | CREATIVITY

ARTS AND ACTIVISM A new world is possible. Our children need only the right paintbrushes, pens, music and moves to create it

BY SHANI JAMILA

rt is a primary energy force. to pass on our triumphs as people. It emanates from the core Using art in this way is particularly of us, from our soul. It is not important in reaching our young people, so simply a raw, disconnected many of whom are trapped in schools that Aexpression. The statement an artist creates are failing them. Too often, the poor comes out of a social and artistic context, and education and simultaneous pop culture that statement—whether it’s one we watch or socialization they receive in these listen to or read—is then experienced by institutions tend to prepare them for others. Throughout this process, all involved prison rather than college. Most often are changed in some way. We are angry, or students go through school with little if we are uplifted. We feel connection with a any exposure to the arts or the role that wider group, or we feel excluded. We exhale art has played in African American because our stories are being witnessed and history. This means they are not always told, or we cringe because we are made small, accustomed to being embraced by an art narrow unreal versions of ourselves. This that heals. Instead, they are force-fed, is how art moves society along, changing vis-à-vis television and hateful music, a attitudes and perceptions that impact so- mean art, an art that tells them they cial, political and economic systems. Art has should only aspire to be thugs and hos. great power, and when offered with love and To combat this kind of tracking, we must imbued with truth, it can heal our psyches. ground our children in a worldview that And because it can, it is a cohesive force in promotes cross-cultural communication, creating and sustaining community. understanding and sharing. And we must Art can also be the catalyst for widespread nurture in them the kind of unshakable social change. African Americans have self-awareness and self-esteem that enables historically used art as both a source of them to navigate a difficult world. If we want liberation and inspiration. From spirituals to them to achieve the success they deserve, we folk art to poetry to dance, African must help them hold fast to the following: American artistic expression has been used to emancipate the enslaved, to strengthen 1. A deep understanding of the world our communities in the face of struggle, and in which they will have to function. The

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 85 foundation of their knowledge must be anchored in a positive self-concept and taught in an environment that encourages growth. THE ARTS ACTIVIST’S 2. A realization that all education is GLOSSARY foundational. The values we practice are The 4 Terms You Need To Know introduced early and often in a range of ways, from school settings and family to media, BY APRIL R. SILVER church, entertainment and sports.

ACTIVISM 3. An understanding that education can Activism is a purposeful act or series of be fun, but that it is often hard, monotonous actions designed to effect social, political, work that requires a commitment far beyond economic, spiritual, or environmental change. the kind of commitment required to learn a new dance or handshake. It demands ART deep study and quiet time. But its reward is In a global sense, there are many defi nitions freedom. Its reward is something that no one for this word. They range from using the can ever take away. word as a concept and as part of a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics to 4. An appreciation that multiculturalism using the word as a process of creating. Historically, art has also come to be defi ned is created from the substantive contributions as a vehicle for the expression of human of all cultures, from Africa to Europe to Asia thoughts and emotions or as an indirect to the Americas. We need not hate, disavow means of communication. or diminish any one group’s contribution to society. To honor our Black selves does ARTS ACTIVISM not mean we must dishonor those who are Arts activism is the concept, study and non-Black. It means that fi nally we have to practice of relating and/or intertwining embrace the whole of the truth, exposing the the fi elds of art with methods of activism. ugly, elevating the beauty. It’s an interdisciplinary approach to In the end, it is young people’s active understanding, experiencing, and sharing participation in music, dance, painting, one’s life. Arts and activism support the idea that art has holistic, practical and poetry, fi lm, photography and the transformative meaning in an individual’s indigenous crafts of their people that rounds life and that of his/her community, and that out their humanity, makes them more activism is necessary for individual and comfortable in their own skin, culture and collective development. capabilities. An integral part of A New Way Forward’s approach is encouraging our CULTURE young ones to create their own narratives Culture is represented by the shared and expand their imagination to foster experiences, ideals, customs and traditions individual and social change. of a people. The most popular expressions are often thought of as performance or visual-based expressions (music, dance, sculpture). Yet cultural expressions may Team Leader: also manifest as cuisine, hairstyles, clothing, Shani Jamila literature, social games and much more. Team: Khephra Burns, April R. Silver, Haki Madhubuti, Lashan Browning, Malik Yoba, Michael Eric Dyson, Iyanla Vanzant, Kevin Powell

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 86 | CREATIVITY

paper and have each one write two sentences. WHAT WORKS Before each person passes it on to the next, the sheet is folded so that only the second sentence of what he or she has written is visible. After TOOLS OF everyone has participated, the sheet of paper should be unfolded and read aloud to the THE TRADE group. Altogether the sentences make up a Great activities for artists poem that establishes equal validity of voice and activists and creates community. BY SHANI JAMILA LITERATURE AND JOURNALING We must encourage young people to be both WRITTEN EXPRESSION readers and writers. In addition to exposing them HAIKU to accomplished authors, we can introduce them This Japanese lyrical verse form is accessible to to journaling. Writing just three pages every young people. Haiku simultaneously transmits morning as a creative, spiritual process can turn writing, history, literacy and healing. It also allows lives around. Journaling can also be done in a for the history of artists who are activists in our group, with a set amount of time—say, 15 community to emerge. For example, by using minutes—allotted for writing. At the conclusion of Sonia Sanchez’s haiku, people who may not have the exercise, participants can share their thoughts known of her work before can now become with the group. acquainted with her poetry and community work. A trained person can teach the form Sanchez VISUAL ARTS innovated—sonku—as a way to demonstrate COLLAGE how to become bold and create our own Collage can be done by anyone because, structure and definitions. although everyone is not an artist, everyone is creative. Collage can also have a therapeutic “I AM FROM” POEM effect as a form of meditation. Encourage young people to create poetry from an Have facilitators or participants cut out experience or a memory. To start an “I Am From” images and words from magazines so that poem, have them follow these three steps: each person can make a collage that repre- sents them. All the collages should share 1) name three objects in their home collective elements by having participants 2) identify a thing in their backyard address such points as the following: or neighborhood 3) name a food from their childhood or !"Where the participant is from three places in their community !"Favorite subject !"Least favorite subject This exercise allows participants to reflect on !"Hobbies the kinds of experiences they’ve had and to !"Goals create a different way of introducing them- !"Dreams selves. It also provides a different way to think about creating poetry. After assembling the collages, each person can explain to the group what the piece means and COMMUNITY POEM why he or she chose particular images or words. To create this kind of poem, a facilitator should Then they all can post their papers on the wall. The give a group of young people one piece of individual collages can be used to create a

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 87 collective “quilt” on the wall. This process allows for But performance art need not be restricted to the individual and the team to merge. music. Use the talents of the group, incorporating performance and visual arts. Examples include VIDEO JOURNALISM creating graffiti backdrops, staging live perfor- Our young people must begin to “think” in video. mances, painting, or holding poetry readings. In There is a dearth of Black video journalists (VJs), this way, you can support local artists who are who are both shooters and producers, looking for exposure while simultaneously modern-day one-person bands. They can have providing an atmosphere that will support the lucrative careers and make an important other aspects of your work. contribution as news outlets all over the world dispatch them to get video content for television THEATER and the Internet. Live theater and its attributes—music, dance, As traditional news outlets continue to fall by the singing, acting—are all part of the healing arts. wayside, it is imperative for young people to be It is a way for us as human beings to connect trained for the new, highly technical society so that with ourselves, our stories and our history. they can translate the knowledge of conventional Unlike film, another powerful medium, live journalism to video. They need to learn how to theater experience is immediate, a way of research story ideas and produce content in order seeing performers use their craft to invoke to keep in step with the ever-expanding digital age emotions and thoughts in real time. It inspires and to tell their own stories. and causes reflection. We have a strong history in our communities PERFORMANCE ARTS of tying theater in to movement work. For More than any other art form, music and its example, during the sixties and seventies, the physical response, dance, are integral and Free Southern Theater would tour predomi- harmonizing forces in the lives of Black people nantly Black, rural towns in the South to do

“African Americans have historically used art as both a source of liberation and inspiration.”

throughout the Diaspora. The history of African performances that explored civil rights themes. American music reveals it to be a social and That same era also saw the emergence of El psychological reflection of our experience in, Teatro Campesino, which began as the artistic and response to, America. Music is an aural arm of the United Farm Workers union and representation of the people. Music is the people. delved into Chicano life in the United States. To engage youngsters and set the tone for the day, Young people today should be trained in open with a song. It can be a solo performed by a theater arts tradition as actors, producers, great singer, if there’s one in the group, or it can be writers, directors and more. The National Black a community chorus. Or use both approaches. You Theater Festival, the Hip Hop Theater Festival can also divide the room into sections and assign and the performance poetry forum Brave New each a part of the song, whether separate parts of Voices provide outlets for contemporary harmony or a lyric or phrase that can be sung as a creative spirits. The viability of the urban round. The most that’s required is for one person to theater market also provides artistic outlets and serve as director to teach the song and direct the career possibilities for talented young people in group in singing it. our communities.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG “I listen to music and watch movies, but I don’t apply any of it to my own life. They’re too violent.” D’vaughn Brooks, 20

MEDIA WATCH “The media speaks louder than Mom. Neither parents nor teachers can compete with the power of media propaganda.” —TOM BURRELL

PHOTO: NEW LINE CINEMA / PHOTOFEST WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 90 | MEDIA WATCH

SAY IT LOUD It’s 9:00 P.M. Do you know what your children are watching?

BY TOM BURRELL

or centuries, African Americans identity. If they are consistently exposed have been bombarded with the to negative images of Black folks, it stands prolifi c messaging of a mar- to reason that those images will strongly keting and media campaign impact their sense of self and racial designedF to instill a sense of Black inferior- identity—and not for the better. If, for ity. From slave auction posters to minstrel instance, one of their media heroes boasts shows, from Amos and Andy to The Flava of murdering his enemies for “respect,” or of Love, we Black folks have been exposed proudly calls himself a “pimp,” how could to toxic images of ourselves; images that this not affect a young mind? have burrowed their way into our very Take Jay-Z’s video for “Run This Town,” souls and become a poisonous element of for instance. Jay-Z, along with megastars our self-concepts. Rihanna and Kanye West, is stylishly Why is media messaging so important? outfi tted in postapocalyptic gang threads, Study after study has shown conclusively replete with bandoliers of bullets, clubs, that media messaging—particularly and a plethora of other blunt-force media such as television, fi lm, music and weapons. They are surrounded by a music videos—has a huge impact on the violent-looking mob of Black faces, each worldview of both children and adults. wielding a stick or a club, each ready and These studies suggest that this is why waiting for the impending turf war. They there is such a strong correlation between make it look tough; they make it look sexy. violent and sexual behaviors and mass- They make it look like all the things that media viewership. young kids want to be. Now, if one were to watch this back-to- Sticks and Stones Will Break Your back with the never-to-be forgotten video Bones and Names Will Also Hurt You of the heinous murder of Derrion Albert, According to Albert Bandura’s Social the 16-year-old Chicago high school Learning Theory, the process of student, what similarities would we see? socialization involves children forming a The sticks, the clubs, the surging Black set of beliefs and values about themselves, mob intent on violence and victory have culture, family, society and ethnic/racial lost any shimmer of sexiness and glamour.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 91

Yet the similarities are there, and they are 1. The Black family has failed. more than chilling. We are exposed to words and images of broken homes, struggling single parents, Listen to the words of “White Meat” by or families with physical, sexual or Lil’ Jon & the Eastside Boyz: verbal abuse.

I know where yo kids and yo wife be, wife 2. Blacks are sexually promiscuous. be…Bust a nigga head to the white meat, We are exposed to words and images white meat... of men and women who are chronically incapable and uninterested in loving, While nodding to the catchy beat, refl ect monogamous relationships. We are shown on the planks of wood used to pummel images of both men and women who use Derrion about the head and body. In real their sexuality to “get paid” and “get over.” life, the death of a child in what amounts to a senseless turf war is sheer insanity 3. Black is NOT beautiful. From the moment we stepped off of slave We are exposed to words and images ships in chains, there has been a well- that encourage a Eurocentric beauty executed media campaign, a well-executed ideal, and portray traditionally “African”

“Videos of violent-looking Black kids wielding a stick or a club make it look tough, sexy, like all of the things that young kids want to be.”

strategy with consistent messaging, resulting features as “ugly,” “bad,” or as something in the branding of African Americans as that “needs fi xing.” inferior to Whites in intellect, physical beauty and spiritual worthiness. The tragic 4. Blacks are violent. result has been the internalization and We are exposed to words and images acceptance of Black inferiority by Black that portray Blacks as dangerous, violent, folk themselves, to such a great extent that brutish and criminal. we have become powerful promoters and creators of content for the media messaging 5. Black equals unhealthy. campaign, and voluntary consumers of We are exposed to words and images that its poison. portray us as self-destructive and physically unhealthy. This messaging promotes an WHAT MESSAGES DO THE MEDIA unhealthy food culture, and a culture that SEND ABOUT US? overimbibes in both alcohol and drugs. The media messaging campaign has been nothing if not consistent. One has 6. Blacks overspend and only to watch or listen to most media undersave. designated as “Black” to witness its We are exposed to words and images of promulgation. In almost any piece of Blacks “living to the limit” and “living for Black media, you will witness at least one today.” Blacks are often marketed high-ticket of the following toxic messages: “status” items that depreciate quickly.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 92 | MEDIA WATCH

“Media messaging has a huge impact on the worldview of both children and adults.”

7. Black are underachievers. We are exposed to words and images that WHAT WORKS celebrate the Black underachiever, and viciously mock Blacks who are smart, educated or “reach too far.” BREAKING

8. Black are followers. IT DOWN We are exposed to words and images that How to be media-savvy portray Blacks as incapable of effecting change in their lives or communities BY MADELEINE MOORE BURRELL without outside leadership.

9. Blacks are not united. We are exposed to words and images that portray us as backstabbing Judases, What can we do to dismantle this media incapable of sticking together, forever messaging campaign and begin to heal the grasping for other Blacks’ successes. centuries of trauma and feelings of inferiority that it has produced? There is a school 10. Blacks are buffoons. of thought that advocates turning off the We are exposed to words and images that negative messages by using parental controls portray us as buffoonish, willing to do on the television. This does have merit, but anything, including denigrating ouselves, we cannot isolate and insulate ourselves and for a laugh. our children 24/7. To raise awareness and develop the ability to consciously dissect Often we hear the cry of civil rights media messages is an option that allows us advocates to increase the number of Blacks in to at once understand and transcend the decision-making positions in the media. This negative onslaught. has happened to some extent, yet there is no evidence that having more Black editors, AWARENESS: television network owners or executives has Our fi rst goal must be to spread Media decreased the negative media messages; in Literacy. No Black person should ever watch fact, the opposite may be true. or listen to another piece of media without having his or her antenna up for any toxic messaging. We must ask ourselves the Team Leaders: following questions: What is this piece of Tom Burrell, Madeleine Moore Burrell media trying to tell me about Black folks? Team: Does the messaging hurt Black people? Does Dr. Na’im Akbar, Khephra Burns, the messaging help Black people? Does the Michaela angela Davis, Michael Eric Dyson messaging have no impact? Being Media

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 93

“There has been a well-executed strategy to brand African Americans as inferior to Whites in intellect, physical beauty and spiritual worthiness.

Literate allows us to watch with a purpose, to be esteem. Our own Black artists, actors, musicians “media watchdogs,” and to ferret out the poison and rappers, etc., will create this campaign. that is killing us and expose it to the light. The Web site will also provide action steps on how to use new media to expose the good and ACTION: bad media products targeting our communities. When we discover that a piece of media is part of the campaign, we have the opportunity and EDUCATION: the obligation to do something about it. In this The multimedia presentation designed to new technological age, we can all be soldiers in complement the recently published book this effort. Send an e-mail blast, start an online Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black blog or video log (vlog) that chronicles your Inferiority by Thomas Burrell, who built the media fi nds, and use social networking sites largest Black-owned advertising and marketing like Facebook and Twitter. The idea is to fl ood company in the world, is a useful tool to the Internet with our fi ndings, raise awareness, aid in providing mentors and mentees with cause a stir, and begin to hit them where their information to understand and begin reversing money is: the Black consumer base. the negative messages that shape our internal and external worldviews. It’s a life-changing ADVOCACY: read to give to young people and adults alike. We need to use our currency wisely, not to spend it on our own destruction. We must TOOL FOR MEDIA LITERACY: become aggressive in supporting artists and To help develop and/or enhance critical thinking companies that create healthy Black images, skills necessary to discern if what you are and withhold that support from those who watching is moving us forward or dragging us are part of the problem and go public with backward, spend a day making notes of every both strategies for change. The Web site negative image you see or hear on television www.stopthebrainwash.com is a resource and radio, and read in the paper. What are the for action steps to wielding the power of messages you hear about Black people? Ask our currency. yourself about each one: Does this message help Black self-esteem? Does this message hurt Black AUTONOMY: self-esteem? Does this message have no effect on We must invoke our imaginative genius in Black self-esteem? If you see anything that hurts creating a Positive Propaganda campaign, Black self-esteem, this piece of media is part of designed to defeat feelings of Black inferiority the Media Messaging campaign and warrants an and replace them with feelings of pride and organized, collective and strategic response.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG COMMUNITY “Make a difference about something other than yourself.” —TONI MORRISON

“I want to start an outreach program to get the gangsters off of the streets; they need to know they have a better life to live without gangbanging.”

Martika Thompson, 19

PHOTO: CORBIS WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 96 | COMMUNITY

REIGNITING THE FLAME The power to shape the laws that govern our lives belongs to the people, and we must learn to use it

BY SHAWN GINWRIGHT, PH.D. AND DR. NOEL S. ANDERSON

or years Joyce Williams, a single store nearby, Joyce attended a meeting mother of three boys, did not at her church that was sponsored by have access to fresh, quality pro- the organization People Improving duce in her East Oakland neigh- Communities Through Organizing borhood.F The only fresh foods available at (PICO). Following a powerful leadership the grocery store in Joyce’s community were model long employed by southern heads of wilted iceberg lettuce, bags of oranges Black churches, PICO uses a method that collected dust, and sacks of old potatoes of working with faith communities to piled on the floor right below the chips, cook- address the problems and concerns of ies and motor oil. In fact, the local store sold their neighborhoods, and, in turn, to more liquor than food. Joyce had to take the revitalize and strengthen neighborhoods. bus all the way across town to feed her family. At the PICO meeting, Joyce learned that The last straw came when Joyce ran out the city of Oakland was granting three of food while entertaining a house full of times more business permits to liquor family and friends over the Thanksgiving stores than to food markets and grocery holiday. She had the money to buy more stores. She also heard that some city food, but not the five hours it would take council representatives even encouraged to ride the bus across town to the nearest the opening of new liquor stores because well-stocked supermarket, shop and return they generated lucrative streams of home. Joyce felt embarrassed and humiliated. revenue for the city. Joyce could see that She was angry—and, most important, a major part of the problem was that the Joyce was committed to doing something city discouraged grocery stores from about the meager shopping options in her doing business in her neighborhood. She neighborhood that had disrupted the holiday resolved to change these policies and she had planned for her family and friends. create more positive options for her community. A Blueprint for Change Joyce and her neighbors worked After talking to a number of her neighbors closely with their local city council about not having a decent grocery representative. It would take months for

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 97 the group to gather enough signatures neighborhood? What changes are needed to move the city council to consider its that will benefi t your area? What will it request to invite well-stocked grocery take to effect change? Are you willing stores into the community. But Joyce to get involved and work with others to and the team’s persistence in canvassing bring needed changes to fruition? These the neighborhood with their petition questions and answers are at the heart ultimately forced the city council to vote of driving the civic and political changes on and approve a policy that would make needed to revitalize our under-resourced it easier to create grocery businesses and struggling communities. throughout the city. Our Legacy of Political Action Lessons Learned African American communities have long Joyce and her neighbors learned three played a critical role in local, regional and important lessons in devising the national policy development. And their successful strategy that compelled participation has led to a better quality of the city council to work with a local life for those suffering from injustices and developer and grocery chain to social ills. We have a history of political build a quality grocery store in their engagement. Courageously, we organized, neighborhood. First, people closest to faced violence, fought to end slavery, and the problem are best suited to solve gained the right to vote and access to it. Community residents know better education along with many other freedoms than policy experts what families and many of us take for granted today. In neighborhoods need. The residents’ recent years, we have had a higher voices should be at the center of political number of Blacks in Congress than ever life in their communities. before, according to the Congressional Second, government can play a vital role Research Service. Our political will and in improving neighborhoods, but local civic might helped to put the fi rst African leaders need to have the power to shape American president, Barack Obama, in policy and hold public offi cials accountable. the White House.

“We have a history of political engagement. Courageously, we organized, faced violence, fought to end slavery, and gained the right to vote and access to education along with other freedoms taken for granted today.”

Third, when neighborhood people use their Tremendous progress has been made. power, they can protect what is important Some of us are thriving, but many are to their families and their communities. Our losing ground. One in three Black children power is created by organizing and forging lives in poverty. Now we must organize relationships with people who care about the and push for more access—to quality same issues and are willing to work together education and health care, affordable to improve things. housing, jobs that pay family-supporting What issues matter most to you in your wages, high-level corporate and

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 98 | COMMUNITY government posts and appointed positions with authority. Racist practices make securing investment capital to develop and REDEFINING grow Black entrepreneurial efforts a tough POLITICAL fight that only unity and strategy can win. Charismatic leadership is abundant in ENGAGEMENT our community. But we must demand IN OUR COMMUNITIES more. We need leaders who don’t allow BY SHAWN GINWRIGHT, PH.D., ego to override mission. In our houses of AND DR. NOEL S. ANDERSON worship, we must have prophetic leaders who inspire congregations to stand strong for social justice. Our elected officials were put in It’s up to us to keep our leaders focused government to represent us, but our and fighting for justice for Black people. political engagement does not stop there. All of us must hold them accountable to Political leaders who deliver must have the communities they represent. Further, our unwavering support. We must vote true political engagement calls for more and push family, friends and neighbors than individual charismatic leaders but to the polls—organize transportation to collective action by all—from the grass the polls through our faith institutions— roots to the halls of government—to create so our voices are heard strongly in all policy that uplifts our communities. primary as well as midterm elections. The economy This is one area in which Equal Rights for All targeted public policy is required for our The old top-down model of leadership, communities. Steven Pitts, labor expert at where direction comes from just one the University of California at Berkeley, reminds us that higher-than-average person, does not empower people to unemployment for African Americans is a take ownership of an issue. It takes the chronic problem, and young Black people collective effort of the many to make experience discrimination in the labor and sustain real change. Community market and much greater unemployment organizers like Ella Baker, Kwame Toure than their White peers. The reality of an (Stokely Carmichael) and Barack Obama increasing number of underemployed and understood this and promoted through unemployed will have long-term effects if word and deed that each person in a we don’t organize for more job creation movement can help shape the movement. and job training in our communities. We need to move toward the alternative model that the Reverend Eustacia Moffet- Pitts argues that we need “not just jobs, but good jobs, with livable wages.” Marshall calls mutual accountability Pushing our elected officials to create jobs in leadership. In this alternative model, in government and the public sector is a leadership is from the bottom up. place to start. Promoting incentives for Everyone is considered a leader, and we’re private businesses to create jobs in our accountable to one another. And primarily, communities is another charge to initiate. we must make a place for young people’s Finally, youth-employment and training participation and for their voices to be programs that develop needed skills is one heard at every level. They are brilliant, area that young people themselves should passionate, tech-savvy and prepared not organize and advocate around. just to follow but also to lead.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 99

Education or Catastrophe: The Choice Is Ours

BY SUSAN L. TAYLOR

Pushing for top-tier public schools and current technology, in-school literacy curricula, academic-enrichment programs in under- science- and math-enrichment programs and resourced communities is how we will transform up-to-date textbooks. Ensure a safe learning the lives of our struggling young and our environment and drop the chain-link gates communities. This demands coalition building and police stationed at our children’s schools. and collective leadership. Parents, students, Real security is not about bars and cops. It’s teachers, elders, faith communities and about love—learning to value ourselves, each representatives of all political parties must be other and the genius in our children. It’s our at the table. Children in failing schools are in a having high expectations for them and putting state of emergency—today 80 percent of Black in place the supports they need to discover the fourth-graders in the nation are reading below extraordinary within themselves. This means grade level, and 56 percent are functionally meeting our children where they are and illiterate. They can catch up. All they need is ensuring that along with all of these measures, us—able, caring adults to act strategically and we provide culturally competent curricula so that swiftly on their behalf. our young will know who they are and grow Starting today, we must not only talk about strong and proud of our heritage. the crisis but also move toward solving it, The National CARES Mentoring Movement toward preparing all our young to meet the was founded to recruit caring mentors and role extraordinary demands of the twenty-first models anywhere in the nation our children are century so they can thrive and lead in this new losing ground. One of the areas we are focused world. Our children need all hands on deck. on is working to connect stable, able adults with Changing the landscape is possible, but only at academic-enrichment mentoring programs. This our command. Support and demand that our is our commitment as we develop our capacity civil rights organizations and denominations, our to serve children beyond the 56 cities where we fraternities and sororities, the union leaders and now have volunteer leaders recruiting mentors political leaders of all parties take up this critical and connecting them with existing youth-support fight. Whether or not you’re a parent, even if organizations and in-school programs. your own children are in great schools or are The bottom line—our bottom line—is that adults, this is the battle we all must join in order with community involvement, Black children will to secure the vulnerable ones who are falling win. Members of Bishop Geoffrey V. Dudley’s into peril on our watch. New Life in Christ Church congregation in The battle for quality schools must be all- Lebanon, Illinois, or as he calls them, the Life encompassing. We have to push for school Changers, have adopted the entire ninth grade facilities that don’t look like prisons but are of a challenged school in nearby grossly bright, welcoming, safe and equipped with underserved East St. Louis, Missouri. The Life well-trained, well-paid teachers, the most Changers are mentoring the youngsters straight

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 100 | COMMUNITY into college. With group mentoring, academic themselves. Make room for their voices and support, retirees and the love and guidance of perspectives to be heard. Empower them to other congregants, grades are up, truancy is petition school-district leaders and elected down, and the children are succeeding. There offi cials to meet their needs. Encourage students are many more churches than there are schools to canvas their community, assess its needs, and in our communities. If we connect them—small write up specifi c policy proposals for elected churches adopting a single classroom, midsize offi cials. A number of cities throughout the ones a grade, megachurches an entire school— country have experimented with youngsters within a decade we will see a seismic change in working alongside elected offi cials to inform the landscape of Black America; we will write public policy that impact their communities. Let’s new history. link arms and aims and commit to doing the Children—including those in the historic most important work of our life. 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which outlawed “separate but equal” in education— Team Leaders: have led the charge for better schools and for Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D., Dr. Noel S. Anderson quality education. Young people have powerful Team: voices and can be the best advocates for their Steven Pitts, Susan L. Taylor

“With community involvement, Black children will win. Mentoring equals higher grades and lower truancy.”

WHAT WORKS 1. IDENTIFY A SPECIFIC ISSUE OR PROBLEM YOU FEEL PASSIONATE ABOUT THAT IMPACTS YOUR LIFE AND YES, THE LIFE OF THE COMMUNITY Rein in reforming schools, ending police harassment, WE CAN advocating for job creation in your area, having more traffi c lights at busy crossings—we all have The 5-point plan for victory things around us we want to change. When we are BY SHAWN GINWRIGHT, PH.D. personally or emotionally invested in the issue, our engagement will be deep and sustained.

How do we continue to build upon our legacy of 2. GALVANIZE NEIGHBORS, FRIENDS political engagement to end Black suffering and AND FAMILY WHO SHARE THE SAME foster Black joy? How do we hold not only elected CONCERN Few issues impact us without offi cials accountable but also redefi ne leadership touching others similarly. Children’s poor from the grass roots to shape and infl uence public performance in school could be the result of policy to better our communities? There are many a districtwide policy that places the least- paths to a more responsive political system and qualifi ed teachers at the lowest-performing keys to assuring that our voices matter. Here are schools, affecting all families. By asking fi ve critical points with some strategies culled from questions, talking to others, organizing and the Berkeley Labor Research Center to remember. investigating, we will discover that issues are

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 101 not an individual’s problem but a community’s policy. The core team’s leadership and challenge, which, with collective action, we networking skills will determine the depth can change. and scope of its influence with responsible parties. Egos out of the way! Get the right 3. DETERMINE WHAT THE SPECIFIC people in the right positions. Here are ways to OUTCOME SHOULD BE, RATHER THAN build your power base and gather support to WHAT IT SHOULD NOT BE Many people can address issues: identify things that are wrong about a policy, but !"Build neighborhood-resident councils few offer a viable alternative. For example, rather because there is always power in numbers. than focusing on reducing violence, community !"Create intergenerational policy councils in residents should discuss how citywide policy could our faith communities. Don’t forget the elders support ways to increase safety or peace in a (they are brave, have the time and will fight); neighborhood. Focusing on what we want, rather don’t forget our young (they have ideas, passion than on what we don’t want, forces us to consider and technology skills). what resources are required to achieve our goal. !"Use social networking strategies In the name of reducing violence, residents could like blogs and Facebook to disseminate request funds from the city to support initiatives information about relevant topics to with an emphasis on working together and constituents. To keep the community informed looking out for one another: enriching after- and connected, create simple newsletters school activities, cultural events, mentoring and that are distributed electronically. Also print job-readiness training programs that provide the them and place them as handouts in locations way out of gangs to productivity that so many where people won’t miss them. beleaguered youngsters are longing for. These !"Shore up effective youth social are some of the supports that bring about safety networking and community-support in the streets. organizations in the Black community, even if you aren’t a resident in one. Coast 4. IDENTIFY AND DETERMINE WHO HAS to coast, our effective grassroots nonprofit THE POWER TO FACILITATE THE DESIRED organizations are struggling for funding and CHANGE While writing letters to Congress or shutting their doors because support continues the local city council is an effective first step for to flow nearly exclusively and in large sums policy change, it is also important to consider to big-name organizations. Many groups exactly who has the power to make the specific connected to the funding stream receive change you desire. While Congress is powerful, grants to help our community, and though it is unlikely that your representative in Congress their leaders may have the best intentions, can create legislation to repair the potholes on from their boards to their executive directors your street. That’s a function of local government. and staff, too, they are disconnected from By identifying specifically where the governmental what’s happening on the ground and the power lies, you can focus your attention and critical issues underserved Black families are leverage your influence more efficiently. Setting struggling with. up regular meetings with your local city council Identify the most effective programs and representative or state legislator is an important work to ensure their survival, growth and way to build local political relationships that lead sustainability. Speak up! Work with faith and to policy change. political leaders, corporations and foundations to get proven-effective organizations into 5. BUILD COLLECTIVEPOWER—AND funding streams. Make sure they have top- SUSTAIN IT Building support is the most tier grant writers, financial governance and important step in creating change in public pristine records tracking their successes.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: CORBIS MENTORING “A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him.” —JAMES BALDWIN

“Knowing that my little brothers are looking up to me reminds me to show them right from wrong.“ D’vaughn Brooks, 20

PHOTO: CORBIS WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 104 | MENTORING

THE MIRACLE OF MENTORING We are all called to take up this mission—the mission of securing our children

BY THOMAS W. DORTCH, JR.

t 38, as I lay in the hospital confronting mortality, I had no regrets. I combating one of the deadli- knew I had made the right choices. Every est forms of cancer, a form second I spent mentoring was worth it. I that fewer than 8 percent sur- knew that I had more to do. vive,A I did not know whether I would have Today, more than 22 years later, I give no the opportunity to return home to love and less than 40 percent of my time to guide my 2-year-old son and 10-year-old mentoring, either personally mentoring, daughter. I so desperately wanted to be designing mentoring programs, or present in their lives, to be the ever- informing adults of the tremendous need important male role model that I believed for and benefits of mentoring. For those was critical to their well-being and success. who care, mentoring should be a way of life. While I was struggling through major Mentoring is a way of creating miracles. surgery and chemotherapy, I received There are too many young men and an outpouring of love not only from my women in our communities without family but also from the people in the sufficient support systems. What they communities that I had served and the have instead are peers who in their own people with whom I had worked and way define what life should be and how supported. I was moved. There was one they should live. By being responsible group of well-wishers whose sentiments adults, I know we can change the were particularly gratifying: the young negative direction that many of those people I had mentored over the years. In young people take—if we are there for their unique voices, they expressed what them. They just need someone who is I meant to them, how I had touched, even willing to listen, to hear what is on their transformed, their lives. Their expressions minds, to hear their wishes for a better were often comical. Through the pain, life, and to work with them to get where they made me laugh. Through the fear of they want to go.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 105

When I was growing up during lock us in and seek to barricade us from all segregation in Toccoa, Georgia, each of that we fear, particularly from our young the caring adults in my community played people. The sad reality is that the very a part in taking care of me and every other people we will be protecting ourselves child, the old village approach. Children from tomorrow are the ones most in need who entered our home without adequate of our help today. These young people clothing did not leave that way. My fi ve need our help before it’s too late, before siblings and I would note visitors’ they turn to a life of crime, before they run dimensions and hope that they were not out of ethical options, before they believe our size. We knew that our mother would that their lives and the lives of those raid the closet and drawers of her same- around them are worthless, before they gendered child who was closest in size to murder, before they die a violent, our guest. As children, we didn’t premature death. It is that urgent. understand. As adults, we are grateful for Mentoring works. Today, at age 60, I have the values that were instilled in us. As a mentors. I’ve always had mentors and people, we have begun to experience people who looked out for me, even when I soaring success. was rocking and rolling to success. Today I

“We’ve moved up, moved on, moved away—and one unintended consequence is that the children who were left behind are suffering.”

We’ve moved up, moved on, moved do this work, in part, because I understand away—and one unintended consequence is that I didn’t get to where I am by that the children who were left behind are happenstance. I had a foundation. I had suffering. They are no longer surrounded help. I had, and still have, people to by the loving elders in the village who lovingly guide me. wanted a better life for every child, not just I fi nd myself still checking in on the for the children in their own families, not young people I started mentoring years just for the children who were fortunate ago. Though they are now adults and enough to have been born into a loving, professionals, I still work with them, still educated, progressive family. The children give them advice. Until the day we die, we no longer have an abundance of positive will always count on somebody who has role models right in the community. Today meant something to us, who has been we have to re-create and strengthen what there for us. My mentors are a diverse should be the village that surrounds the group. Former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn is young men and young women in our my mentor. Ambassador Andrew Young, community. We can no longer afford to who has been a mentor over the years, is have the I-take-care-of mine-and-you- still there for me. I still think about the take-care-of-yours mentality. lessons I learned from my late mentor If we don’t step up as a people, we are Mayor Maynard Jackson and the late going to fi nd ourselves incarcerated— Jondelle Johnson (one of the most incarcerated by our protective fences, infl uential women in the NAACP). incarcerated by the security systems that I have had male and female mentors.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 106 | MENTORING

We sometimes forget that there is a state court and the department head of something to be learned from all people. one of the largest juvenile-court systems One of the greatest joys I have today is in the country. She is my friend, and refl ecting on the young people I have during my tenure as the chairman of 100 worked with and marveling at how far Black Men of America, Inc., she often they have come. Many of them were called upon me and my staff to help with surprised when I told them that when I young people who were entangled in the was growing up, I got into trouble. I did legal system. not violate the law, but I got into trouble. I When I showed up for Nigel, he was in remind them that there are no perfect another court on a probation violation. I people. It is important for young people to told the judge I would be responsible for know we have all made mistakes, but we him. I would employ him. I would watch overcame them or we kept going in spite over him. The judge knew of my work and of them. We have to share our lives, share the great work of the 100 Black Men. He our journeys. We have to help young trusted that we could give Nigel what he people understand that success is not so desperately needed. Though the magical. There are basic things that we all prosecutor was seeking a three-year have to do. We need to help them achieve prison sentence, the judge admitted whatever they want in life, against openly in court that to give Nigel a

“We have to share our lives, share our journeys, and help young people understand that success is not magical.”

whatever obstacles they face. three-year sentence was, in essence, to I am especially proud of the intervention sentence him to life. Nigel would I had with one young man who had inevitably be back in the courtroom, each already turned to crime. At 17, Nigel had time more damaged and having done his own bevy of prostitutes. He had been more damage than the time before. The in trouble with the law several times and judge concluded that it was in the best was hooked on marijuana. He had been interest of Nigel, the court and the involved in an incident in which he had community to release him under waited in a friend’s car while his my supervision. companions committed a robbery. Before he was an adult, Nigel was the Though Nigel did not participate in the CEO of an illegitimate operation. What I robbery, he was found with a small saw was an enterprising young man amount of marijuana in his possession and whose talent was not channeled properly. he was arrested. He was referred to Judge Nigel was great with technology. He was Glenda Hatchett, who for her television highly intelligent. He simply needed show, Judge Hatchett, would help young direction. I was thankful that I was there offenders get back on the right track. to help him recognize his value, his Judge Hatchett had been Georgia’s fi rst talents and his skills. I only wonder where African American chief presiding judge of Nigel might be today if he had had a

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 107 mentor when he was younger, if he had had someone to help him realize all his THE NEXT GREAT potential before he turned to crime, GENERATION before he gave up. The underlying principle of why Our children are not born bad. They are we mentor our children valuable. Our forefathers knew this, and the decisions they made reflected this BY REV. DAMON LYNCH III truth. They all gave of what little they had to help their children as a whole. Your children are not your children. They came together. They always They are the sons and daughters of Life’s sacrificed and fought for a better life. longing for itself. That was their focus. With so little, they They come through you but not from you, did so much. Today, though we are more And though they are with you, yet they fortunate, we are, unfortunately, more belong not to you. —Kahlil Gibran broken. In all our blessings, let us not forget that we still have a responsibility to Our children do not come to us as empty help those less fortunate. When we don’t, vessels waiting to be filled; rather they come we all suffer. to us as bundled gifts of potential and One hour a week can be all that it takes promise, like the babe in scripture wrapped in to transform a life. There are more Nigels swaddling to whom wise men brought gifts, out there who just need someone to listen realizing that the babe himself was a gift. If to their dreams, to help them discover we mentor because we see our children as their talents, to care about them. The needy, disadvantaged and underprivileged, phenomenal thing about this 60-minute then we mentor from the wrong vantage investment is that when you give to a point, and our results will mirror the results of child, you get the best return possible. community revitalization efforts based on You are enriched. You are lifted. Your life community needs rather than assets. has more meaning. Mine sure does. Recent community building efforts in I cannot imagine life without the young the States and abroad are now focusing on people I have mentored. I will leave this community assets and strengths as the building earth peacefully, knowing that I gave—I blocks for community renewal. The question is helped to change one person’s life, which often raised, Is the glass half empty or half full? may have a positive impact on the lives of The answer is both. The half-empty part that person’s children for generations to represents the needs and deficiencies of come. That’s a legacy to be proud of, a communities and people, while the half-full legacy no amount of money can part represents the gifts, assets and strengths, guarantee. Through mentoring, I will and capacities of community and people. have gained more than I ever gave, and so Our young people are half-full glasses of will you. potential and beauty, and it’s only when we Our children need a caring soul to be focus on their talents that we begin to make a there periodically, yet consistently, to difference in their lives. Our goal is to discover talk, to listen, to encourage. Many and then increase their capacity. We say to children are waiting. One hour a week is our youth, “What’s important to me is your the commitment, one hour to give hope, gift.” We don’t label them; we love them. to make a child feel valuable, to give a Together we will lock arms and aims, and child direction, to save a life, to enrich witness the next great generation. yours. One hour.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 108 | MENTORING

LOVING OUR GIRLS Every girl holds all the great promise of the universe within her. Are we ready to help show her?

BY ESTHER ARMAH

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: DELPHINE FAWANDU | 109

ur girls are as diverse as their of truth, awareness and positive action. In environments. Whether they these places, too many of our girls are hail from public schools to floundering and in some cases falling. For O prep schools, dilapidated all our girls, we have an opportunity to urban centers to affluent suburbs, from shine a light, lend a hand, and make a one- and two-parent households or from difference. group homes, raised as Christian, Muslim, Yoruba, Buddhist, nondenominational What Is Real Wealth? or without a formal religious practice at It is so important for us to consider how all, there are nevertheless universal needs we measure success. For too many of us, that define them all. Every girl who comes success has to do with things superficial— to us needs and deserves to be supported fancy cars we can never afford, designer

“You don’t become what you want. You become what you believe.” —OPRAH WINFREY

and nurtured, loved, validated, relentlessly clothes, big jewels we wear in small places. encouraged and regularly affirmed. And we Children can go to the best schools, live in have to say yes, she is beautiful and smart great neighborhoods, have a stable home and a treasure of our community. For our environment, and still feel empty inside. girls to grow sturdy, confident and wise, we While these supports have their must create a place for them to feel safe— significance, if they are not married to an physically, mentally and emotionally. ethic and demonstration of abiding love, Many have the support they need to they may provide no shield against the ills rise above the myriad challenges they that detour and too often diminish the face on their journey from girlhood to quality of our girls’ lives. The bottom line: womanhood. Who brings this home more Money has virtually no power over what beautifully than our own Michelle Obama transpires on the inner landscape of our and her inspirational relationship with her girls. Illegal or prescription drug abuse, parents and now with her daughters? The obesity and anorexia, aggression and Michelle Obamas of the world, the First depression are all flip sides of the same Ladies of our communities, are a coin, reflecting a deep pain and testament to the fact that we do indeed dissatisfaction with “self.” Media images of possess blueprints for success, and that young Black females are predominantly sometimes our village works for some of toxic and serve to besiege our girls with us in some ways. Our challenge is to spiritual, psychological and sexual expand on these success stories and find messages from a world around them that ways to proliferate them into those not only doesn’t value them but also corners of our village that need the light threatens to destroy them.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 110 | MENTORING

Profi ting From the Pain We do not exaggerate when we declare Girls learn early on to swallow their pain, that too many of our young Black girls are their rage, and what feels like impotence— facing a death sentence. From ages 12 to turning these emotions inward. We know 21 and beyond, HIV/AIDS, prison, how the search for peace and place makes violence, sexual and physical abuse, drugs, us grown folks vulnerable. Multiply this for poverty, obesity, mental health issues and children. In the struggle for safe harbor neglect are factors conspiring to amid the war zones of their minds and undermine their very existence. The environments, some of our young have statistics tell their own story. drifted toward unhealthy coping According to the Centers for Disease mechanisms, holding their pain tenuously Control (CDC) in Atlanta, although Black at bay. Profi t is made from our girls’ women represent only 12 percent of the confusion. Industries thrive on the U.S. female population, they represent 61 multitude of ways in which young females percent of all new HIV infections among hurt themselves to numb pain and women—a rate nearly 15 times that of neutralize rage. Their feelings have been White women. An astounding 83 percent alternately ignored and sensationalized by of Black women were infected through a society that devalues them and has little heterosexual activity, and for our girls interest in understanding what they most who are between 15 and 25, AIDS is the need and want: love. Throughout this leading cause of death. nation and others, there are far too few But AIDS is not the only stalker after our stories about what real love is, how it feels, girls. The juvenile justice system locks what it looks like, and how it shows up them up 2.6 times as often as it locks up

“For too many, success has to do with the superfi cial—fancy cars, designer clothes, big jewels we wear in small places.”

healthy. The absence of love for Black White girls. Why? Is it because our girls girls—continuously refl ected in the commit more crimes, or is it because they messages of the mass media, political are seen as disposable? Consider the case and social policies, education systems, of the 5-year-old in Florida who was our communities and, sadly enough, taken, handcuffed, out of her kindergarten sometimes families—has created a void in classroom because she had a tantrum. Or many a young sister’s psyche, leaving her the 14-year-old from Dallas who was with a deep craving for connection. incarcerated for an indeterminate time It’s their seeking to fulfi ll this urgent until she was 21 for shoving a teacher’s need for love that often puts their young aide. At the same time, a White girl in lives at risk. Paris, Texas, was convicted of arson—she burned down her family’s home on Who’s Stalking Our Girls? purpose. That child got probation. Here’s what we know: Vulnerable girls Underscoring these terrible fi gures is the crave love but settle for attention, even concurrent reality that the numbers of violent, life-threatening attention. African American women being

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 111 incarcerated—generally for nonviolent fi gures are solely about obesity—not being drug or property crimes—has exploded. juicy, round, curvalicious and bountiful, According to the April 2009 Women in but grossly overweight, a state of being in Prison Project of the Correctional which health is seriously threatened. Association of New York, Black women African American women are the most are incarcerated at three times the rate of obese people in the nation, and our girls White women; 62 percent of women in are 1.6 times as likely to be overweight state prisons are parents of children under as White kids. 18. More than 64 percent of mothers in state prisons lived with their children What a Girl Wants before being incarcerated. So what does All of this said, ultimately, our girls are our this mean for our girls? girls; the brilliant, the challenged, the

“Vulnerable girls crave love but settle for attention, even violent, life-threatening attention.”

Consider Ashley, 16. She has lived in 11 successful, the walking wounded, those foster homes, and her mother has been in who are hurting, those who are on the and out of jail since Ashley was age 3. path to healing: They are ours. Both those Ashley says she has no guidance, no who are thriving and those who are mother love, no tenderness in her life; struggling are waiting—waiting for us. And she’s been abused and “left out there.” She we are late. Our girls want truth without talks about foster caregivers treating her judgment, compassion without and her brother so badly that she has just condemnation. Our girls want a way—and wanted to give up. Ashley’s hurt is turned not just one way, not just your way or their inward, but for many others the response way—but an understandable, useful way, to to abuse is external, a public cry. If we traverse all the forks in the road, the follow the potential narrative arc of roundabouts, and avenues, some tree-lined, Ashley’s story, there is no happy ending. some bare. They want a way that declares It’s no coincidence that an estimated eight loud and strong that we are here with in ten women in prison have experienced them and for them, so they can shine and severe abuse as children. They’ve had, in fl y and fail and grow and be loved, and other words, Ashley’s life. then love in return as they learn, each one But going to prison, misusing alcohol of them, what it means to be truly whole. or illicit drugs, or staying in unhealthy relationships are likely not the most common reactions to pain. Arguably, for most who are left alone to wrestle with the Team Leader: demons, our salve is food. Esther Armah The Offi ce of Minority Health at the Team: U.S. Department of Health and Human Michaela angela Davis, asha bandele, Services reports disturbing facts about Dr. Sheila Evans-Tranumn, C. Diane Wallace weight for girls between 12 and 17. These Booker, Shani Jamila, Rev. Iyanla Vanzant

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 112 | MENTORING

LOVING OUR BOYS There is a precious tenderness underneath the thin veneer of toughness of every Black boy. We only need to open our hearts to see how much they are crying out for us to really see them, hold them, and love them. BY SHAWN GINWRIGHT, PH.D.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: NICKY WOO | 113

ove is a term we rarely use to for you.” Our Black boys need love. With our describe what Black boys need guidance and support, they can begin to find in order to mature into healthy it in themselves—and in one another. adults. Often we point to quality education,L strong role models, consistent Boys Should Be Boys mentoring and manhood training. While all Dr. Noel Anderson, an associate professor at of these are important, loving relationships the City University of New York, has allow us to pierce through their toughness commented that rather than teaching our and truly see them. Unfortunately, when we boys how to become men, we need to only focus on the exterior toughness, we consider teaching them how to be boys. Our focus only on the problems facing Black boys focus on manhood has robbed Black boys of rather than the possibilities for their lives. their childhood, a precious time to learn how Some may ask, How can love shift the tide to love, feel and grow. In many ways, gangs of deep despair our Black boys are facing? have fulfilled the function of providing bell hooks responds to this question with meaning, purpose, support, protection, and simple brilliance. She says that if love does love to Black boys in urban neighborhoods. not bring an end to difficulties, it gives us the Gangs have been a presence in our

“If you hear how wonderful you are often enough, you begin to believe it, no matter how you try to resist it.” —DR. BEN CARSON

strength to cope with difficulties in a neighborhoods for decades, and the negative constructive way. Our young Black boys are activities they foster are partly responsible filled with the anger of not having their for the deterioration of our communities. Yet fathers in their lives. They are enraged about research on gangs does not equate their the conditions of neighborhoods. They are presence only with violence. In fact, it shows frustrated by schools that do not seek to that only a small percentage of gang- educate them but appear, at times, only affiliated young men can be labeled hard- willing to train them for prison. They are core members, an indication that many have angry at being constant and unfair targets of only loose affiliations and may simply equate law enforcement. They miss green spaces gang association with peer acceptance and and community centers in their areas that support. Scholars have documented how might provide an alternative to both rage young people will seek ways to have their and the streets. They are frustrated at need for purpose, guidance and love met, watching their mothers work so hard with either positively or negatively. little to show for their efforts. It is a heavy Amid the array of negative connotations burden that no single school, job-training they present, youth gangs also show that program, or mentoring program can address. young men have the capacity to be leaders. These feelings fester in Black boys, and at But our boys need support and opportunity times erupt as an act of power to proclaim, I to take on positive leadership roles. We can matter in the world! However, in the midst of do our part by viewing our young men as darkness and misery, our love says to our community assets and by helping them Black boys, “Good morning, my child, the expand their possibilities so that they lead sun is bright and a beautiful day is waiting lives they have reason to value. When they

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 114 | MENTORING lead lives they value, they telegraph positive look tougher than he actually is. During one messages to other boys; they build self esteem of the support groups at Leadership and self-effi cacy in themselves and in others. Excellence, a community-based organization that provides Black youth with love and The Political Is Personal transformative leadership development in We must develop a range of ways to love Oakland, California, Vince mentioned to the and build healthy relationships between group that he wanted to see if he could get Black men and boys. But our men and boys over the hatred that he held for not having fi rst require healing. Healing from the his father in his life. He wanted to go up to trauma of oppression—poverty, racism and the county jail, where he had recently heard sexism—is an important political act. As bell that his father was incarcerated, and tell his

“We can save our boys from a life punctuated by one terrible statistic after another. All we need is love.”

hooks wrote, daily trauma, hopelessness father how he felt about not having him and nihilism “prevent us from participating around. With support from one of the adult in organized collective struggle aimed at counselors, Vince took one of most ending domination and transforming courageous steps of his life: He placed his society.” Healing happens when we offer name on the visitor list at the jail and wrote personal testimony to reconcile the painful his father’s name next to his. Vince described experiences stemming from oppression, and the emotional visit: when we call what may seem at fi rst to be simply personal misfortune or self-blame I told him how much he hurt me for not being what it really is—systemic oppression and there. I told him I wished he was around to discrimination. show me how to knot my tie on prom night. I Healing requires a consciousness of wanted him to tell me to run faster at my possibilities, strong caring relationships, football practices. I wanted him to get on me for and safe spaces that encourage our young not doing my homework! You know, all that men to navigate current circumstances in kind of shit. I got emotional and started to cry their communities as well as see a brighter because I was so angry at him. I wanted him to future for themselves. When young Black know how much he hurt me and my family. men are conscious of the root causes of the problems that confront them, they tend to Vince’s father didn’t respond with excuses, fi nd ways to transform their own lives and blaming his mother, or blaming the system the lives of their communities. the way Vince had anticipated. What his father said shook him to the core. His father A Story of Love, Radical Healing looked directly into his eyes and said with a and Boyhood low, sincere voice that he was so very sorry Fifteen-year-old Vince always wears a dark for causing Vince and his mother so much hooded sweatshirt and baggy pants. Even pain: “Nothing I can say or do will ever heal though he has a fake set of gold front teeth, that. I did y’all wrong, and I’ll have to live he rarely smiles. Instead, his emotionless “I’m with that for the rest of my life. But you, cool” demeanor and dreadlocks makes him Vince, can make another choice and not

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 115

repeat the mistakes I made.” Vince wasn’t ready to hear that from his father. He was GETTING IT RIGHT: prepared for excuses and would have ORGANIZATIONS THAT preferred a heated confrontation. Instead, he KNOW HOW saw his father shed tears for the pain he had caused. The encounter was overwhelming. TO LOVE BLACK BOYS They both cried without words, not really knowing what to say, but feeling they were THE BROTHERHOOD/SISTER SOL, headed in the right direction. During a HARLEM, NEW YORK subsequent support group meeting, Vince Brotherhood/Sister Sol (BHSS) was commented: established in 1994 to offer supportive programs for young Black and Latino men Meeting my father changed my life, because in economically impoverished communities. when I released all the hate that I was holding, Cofounders and childhood friends Jason it was like there was more space for positive Warwin and Khary Lazarre-White founded things to come in my life. the Brotherhood when they were seniors at Brown University on the south side of By letting go of his pain and anger, Vince Providence, Rhode Island, at the John was able to heal from the pent-up frustration Hope Community Center. They recognized he held for his father. Vince’s visiting his the obstacles young men faced growing up father was more than reconciliation, it in poverty, and they believed that the illustrates how adults can provide loving creation of a strong, supportive community support for Black youth to heal. Leadership could help youth overcome challenges of Excellence and other organizations can circumstance and succeed in life. They support young Black men to develop clear began work with a group of 15 deeply visions of their lives and a sense that they can disaffected youth, and within one year had change things in their communities. Love helped guide all but one of these young requires that we tell the bold truth about our men away from criminal activity and lives and struggle with young people rather disassociated behavior and back into than distantly lecturing to them. This is not school and stable lives. an easy task, because as adults we have the They brought their innovative and idea that we know more than young people, successful youth development model for and they need only to heed our wise advice. young men to New York City in 1995 and While adults certainly have experiences from incorporated the Brotherhood as a which young people can learn, it is equally as nonprofi t. Jason and Khary began working powerful to simply listen to understand what with about 45 young men in two public we adults can learn from Black youth. schools—one of them was Jason’s former Listening is loving, and this simple act starts high school, Central Park East, in East us on our healing journey together. Harlem. Over the next three years, they hired additional staff, grew the organiza- tion, and doubled the number of young Team Leader: people in the program. Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D. Brotherhood/Sister Sol provides Team: comprehensive, holistic and long-term Khary Lazarre-White, Dr. Joseph A. Strickland, support services to Black and Latino youth Dr. Rustin Lewis, Haki Madhubuti, Kevin Powell, who range in age from 6 to 21. It focuses Diane Booker Wallace, Dr. Noel S. Anderson

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 116 | MENTORING

on such issues as leadership development supervision of the prison system, none of and educational achievement, bias BHSS members or alumni members are reduction, sexual responsibility, sexism and incarcerated, and fewer than 1 percent misogyny, political education and social have a felony conviction. justice, Pan African and Latino history, and global awareness. The organization offers LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE four- to six-year rites-of-passage program- OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA ming, thorough five-day-a-week after-school Leadership Excellence was started in 1989 care, school and home counseling, summer by college students at San Diego State camps, job training, college preparation, University to give African American youth employment opportunities, community-orga- meaningful ways to improve conditions in nization training, a community-garden their schools and communities. While in stewards and environmental-education college, cofounders Shawn Ginwright and program, and free legal representation. The Daniel Walker believed they could create an group continually seeks to expose its young organization that focused on training young people to new opportunities through Black people in low-income neighborhoods wilderness retreats, cultural performances, with positive leadership and organizing.

“The creation of a strong community can help a child overcome challenges of circumstance.”

college tours and monthlong intensive study They began working with a small group from programs to places such as Ghana, South Gompers Middle School in southeast San Africa, Egypt, Mexico, Morocco, the Diego, training them how to think critically Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Brazil. about root causes of social problems and Brotherhood/Sister Sol (BHSS) is an providing them with hands-on organizing evidence-based model, and its documented and leadership activities. results over the past 15 years are clear. The In 1989 they created Camp Akili, a summer City of New York’s teenage pregnancy rate is transformational leadership camp for African 9.4 percent, while BHSS alumni members American high school students. The camp have a rate of less than 2 percent. Eighty- utilizes powerful and interactive workshops eight percent of BHSS alumni have gradu- that encourage participants to discuss the ated from high school, with 94 percent either painful experiences in their lives, and it graduating from high school or earning their creates an environment where youth can graduate equivalency degree, while West be open and reflect on their lives, communi- Harlem’s graduation rate is 42 percent. ties and personal struggles. The camp is Ninety-five percent of BHSS alumni are located in the tranquil mountains of northern working full-time or enrolled in college, California and offers young people a versus 30 percent of 18–25-year-olds in West quiet, peaceful wilderness environment Harlem. And while one out of three Black to reflect, talk and heal. men in America ages 20–29 are under The camp’s curricular goals are threefold:

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 117

(1) to provide structured activities that develop and resources to implement a community- and enhance cultural and racial awareness, service project that addresses the problem. (2) to provide participants with opportunities The fourth phase, international and global that encourage and promote psychological awareness, empowers and trains participants and physical wellness, and (3) to provide to organize and implement an international

“AIDS is the leading cause of death for our girls who are between 15 and 25.”

hands-on experiences that will stimulate service project that addresses and/or learning about leadership. eliminates a problem and improves the In “villages” consisting of up to ten teen social, educational, economic and health youth, trained college student and young adult conditions for people who live in the targeted volunteer counselors (ages 18–25) lead group community. This is accomplished through discussions about various community and Camp Akebulan, a three-week summer youth issues, such as confronting racism, abroad program in which teens implement accepting sexual responsibility, and avoiding an educational or economic community- violence. Youth are exposed to a series of service project in Ghana, West Africa. hard-hitting experiential activities that force Finally, those of us who work closely with them to look beyond the surface of issues. Black boys and young men should constantly In 1993, the organization moved to ask, Where is the love in our relationships Oakland, launching its signature four-phase with these boys? How do we build and sustain model of youth development for African love in our interactions with our boys? The American youth. The first phase, cultural and answers to these questions require us to make self-awareness, develops children’s self- difficult choices about our own lives. Effective esteem and racial and cultural pride through work with African American youth demands Oakland Freedom Schools (OFS), which is a more than simply following step-by-step six-week summer and yearlong after-school recipes for success. The conditions in which program that provides academic support and our young people find themselves did not self-esteem–building activities. The second come about from a simple three-step recipe, phase, community and social awareness, is so we should not expect simple solutions to accomplished through an intensive summer difficult problems. Effectively working with camp called Camp Akili. The five-day Black youth requires a commitment to love, summer camp educates participants about justice and a vision for freedom. No course, the root and systemic causes of social training program or book can adequately inequality. The third phase, civic action and provide this type of commitment. However, if community organizing, is accomplished we dedicate ourselves to the relentless pursuit through a yearlong leadership development of love, peace and justice, perhaps we can program that trains teens to examine a achieve a better quality of life for young community problem and are given the tools people, ourselves and our society.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 118 | MENTORING

WHAT WORKS BOYS TO MEN LOVING BY DR. LEON D. CALDWELL OUR We are held back by the socialized belief that “real men” don’t express emotions, as CHILDREN are our White counterparts. But for us it goes BY ESTHER ARMAH AND deeper. Popular images of Black men SHAWN GINWRIGHT, PH.D. expressing their normal reactions to trauma, pain, fear, marginalization, disappointment Choosing to mentor is one of the most incredible, and hurt are regularly interpreted as rage. life-affirming gifts you can ever give someone. Love is reduced to lust. And these become the Together, you and your mentee will likely explore primary proxies for a host of real emotion. everything from education, relationships and There is a gender- and race-based self-love to spirituality and history. The universal expectation of emotional expression, whether needs of children are love, affirmation, validation, we are conscious of it or not. Consider Chad relentless encouragement and support. Children Ocho Cinco of the Cincinnati Bengals. How come from all different types of families, back- many times has he gotten in trouble for his grounds, situations. They may or may not have a “end zone” celebration dance, a spontane- supportive parent in their home and they may or ous—and Black male—expression of may not have a healthy, loving family environment. happiness that was banned a few years ago In short, mentoring—which falls into two distinct in college and professional football, a sport categories, formal and informal, is not one size dominated by us. So even in our accomplish- fits all. Crucial to its success is your ability to ments the message sent to Black boys is that be flexible and adapt. Here are steps to help just being yourself is a penalty. guide you as you embark on the beautiful What do we do? Listening is probably the adventure that is mentoring. most powerful tool we have. We have to sit with ourselves and our sons and hear what WHAT IS FORMAL MENTORING? they are trying to say. It’s a selfless act of Formal mentoring means working with an surrender and will work wonders. We are organization that will likely ask that you often accused of not speaking. But we do, volunteer just one hour a week of your time to though in select circles—in barbershops and help guide and encourage a youngster. at sporting events where we are not the focus of the conversation but part of the WHO ARE MENTORS? experience. Black men enter into covenants A mentor is an advocate, coach, developer of on golf courses and basketball courts and talent, an encourager, a supporter, a nonjudg- around barbecue grills. Our deepest feelings mental listener, an active affirming presence. A are coded in stories because they are safe. mentor is the power of example; one who Our own healing requires us to find places teaches best by how s/he lives her life, not how and spaces where we can listen to one s/he tells her mentee to live hers or his. A another. As healers our role is to acquire and mentor loves and respects her or his mentee practice the skill of listening to our boys. They enough to allow for failure and then growth. A need us to really listen, hear and “feel” them. mentor is not a mentee’s parent, teacher, lecturer, minister, fairy godmother, professional counselor, financier or playmate.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 119

WHAT IS MENTORING? This lets the child know that you are willing to It is the process of developing a trusting, caring inconvenience yourself to check in to see how relationship for the purpose of offering s/he is doing. guidance, support and encouragement. Formal mentoring is when an adult enters into a 2. Do be committed to your own structured program specifi cally with the intent to development and self-improvement. engage in a supportive relationship with a young Participate in intergenerational discussions about person. The National CARES Mentoring your own struggles and challenges as adults; Movement connects our recruited volunteers to understand that you can learn from youth as much programs that offer training and conduct as you can teach them by simply listening and not background checks if the mentee is 18 years of telling them what to do; and work through your age or younger. Mentor programs often have a own negative attitudes about young people. set time for the mentor to meet with the mentee. The program will have guidelines to follow and 3. Do learn how to really listen. will usually provide training to help the mentor Sit, make eye contact, and listen to our children’s prepare for his/her role. truths, stories and lives without interrupting or judging or lecturing. Try to identify instead of

“In the midst of darkness and misery, our love says to our Black boys, ‘Good morning, my child.’ ”

HOW SHOULD I MENTOR? compare. Sometimes our “back in the day” THE DOS & DON’TS stories condemn or put down the current generation, expanding the gap and lessening DOs the potential for positive impact. Use humor to 1. Do be consistent, stay involved, and lighten the work. Encourage relentlessly. We encourage relentlessly. learn through repetition. Set up scheduled times that are convenient for As a mentor, become the CEO of our girls’ and each of you. Add the scheduled times to both the boys’ fan club, without condoning actions that mentor and mentees calendars on a semester may endanger him or her. Challenge, but with basis. Choose your activities together—research hope. Don’t lecture your mentee. If she tells you demonstrates that a mentor/mentee relationship is she is engaged in activities you do not approve of, stronger when the mentor and mentee select the do not lecture her. Ask questions to help uncover activities they will do. The act of deciding together alternatives, warn about some of the dangers of strengthens the bond between two people and the activities, and practice harm reduction. That is, assures the mentor that the mentee is indeed mitigate some of the dangers if your mentee is not engaging in activities that she likes. Staying willing to stop right away. So if, for example, you involved can be done in person, on the telephone are mentoring a girl who is having frequent or on the computer. If the mentor is out of town on intercourse with different guys, ask her if she’s business or for personal reasons, send the mentee using protection. If not, why not? Does she an e-mail or a text message, or give him/her a understand the role of protection against disease? call at the regularly scheduled time. Once she feels you care about her health and you

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 120 | MENTORING are not there to lecture her about morals and Every young woman needs a spiritual founda- values, she will open up more about her feelings. tion. Maybe her quiet time, her quiet place is You can then have a more constructive discussion writing in her journal. Maybe it is listening to about why she is engaging with multiple music. Discover how she connects, how she partners. You may get her a book to read that expresses her soul. Her ways of connecting may deals with this issue. Your goal is to work to keep be myriad. A spiritual foundation is different the lines of communication open rather than than religion. Religion is tricky water. Tread closing them by judging and lecturing. carefully. Share your religious beliefs, but don’t shove them. If your mentee asks you about God 4. Do discover your mentees’ passions, or your religion, as you would any friend who likes and dislikes—and help expand asks, share that information. Do not bring it up at their horizons. every session, do not force your mentee to pray Use your home city to expose our children to with you, and do not take your mentee to church new experiences. Go to a museum or an exhibit, with you unless it is agreed upon with the parent check out a play at the theater, watch a socially and the mentee. Do not offer your mentee overtly conscious film, see a dance performance, or go religious books unless you have cleared it with to your job or your friends’ offices. If your her parent first. mentee is passionate about fashion, embrace and encourage her passion and use creativity 7. Do explore her relationship with and resources in the process. The two of you money/finances. could develop weekly activities, such as going to All of our young people today must understand a local fashion show, shopping at secondhand and engage a meaningful concept of money and stores to create a new look, or taking a sewing finances. S/he must value money for the benefits, class together. Perhaps you have a friend who not just the property it brings into her life. S/he works in the fashion industry. Introduce him/her must value saving, sharing, even investing. S/he to your mentee; have her share with your mentee must be willing to earn money, not just “get” what steps it took to arrive at this stage. money. She must also have clear boundaries Afterward, you talk with your mentee about the about what s/he will and will not engage in to experience and intentionally point out the steps receive money. your friend took to get to her position. If you’re mentoring a boy who is interested in entertain- 8. Do offer feedback. ment or sports, as many young men are, show Regular feedback enables a mentee to see and him the behind-the-scenes and off-the-court jobs. enjoy their growth. It builds confidence. The Show him that he can have a good career in one mentor should be in communication with a of these fields without being an athlete or a parent or guardian at least once per week to rapper—and that there is a better chance for a keep them in the loop and support the work that stable life beyond the cameras and spotlight. you are doing. In giving feedback there should also be 5. Do make yourself aware of any suggestions and recommendations for how to preexisting challenges. correct/enhance/improve whatever the issue is. Does your mentee have any physical or mental You should as well consider a level of confidential- health challenges, dietary restrictions, prescrip- ity with the young person you’re close to. This, tions or therapy sessions you should be aware of? however, must not include withholding vital Find out immediately. We want to be a support in information. If at any time the young woman or their health, not an enabler to their illness. man you’re mentoring shares something with you that could be harmful or dangerous, you must 6. Do explore spiritual mentoring. encourage the young person to share the informa-

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 121 tion with the parent. Or you must inform them that or he is inviting you into that part of their life. this information will be shared. It would not be a Still, be careful not to become too aggressive in bad idea for you to create a feedback form or this area out of your own desire to want to see sheet that can be mailed to the parent with an your mentee do well in school. They will need to invitation for further conversation. Again, this will develop that desire for themselves and will pull really depend on the girl or boy and the child’s away from you if they feel you judging them. home situation and relationship with the parents. 2. Don’t share your frustrations or 9. Do be understanding. disappoints. Realize that the young man or woman you are Keep your frustrations to yourself. We should be working with may often bring his or her issues to a soft place to land for our children, not your relationship. S/he may not have money to burdened by our history, staying centered and pay for transportation to meet you, for example. optimistic even when they disappoint us. Or the responsibility of caring for younger siblings may lead him or her to cancel a meeting 3. Don’t try to replace a parent. with you at the last minute. A young person’s cell Be careful about giving advice about sex, phone may get cut off, and he or she may have sexuality or religion. These are highly personal difficulty reaching you. Perhaps your mentee family issues that should be discussed with a hasn’t eaten that day, or they witnessed violence. parent, depending on each young person’s When these situations crop up, be supportive and situation. If your mentee asks you about any of understanding so that your mentee does not feel these subjects, you should always answer from you are angry with him or her, but flexible and your own perspective and end the brief conversa- empathetic. And realize that you will face tion by encouraging your mentee to talk to their developmental issues; a 12- or 14-year-old boy parent about the issue. If you know there is no will present a set of developmentally appropriate other person in their lives that they can talk to, behavioral patterns that are far different from you should use your judgment about how much those of a young man who is 16 or 17 years old. advice to give. Do more listening than talking. If Similarly, a girl just reaching puberty has a set of your mentee is engaged in sexually dangerous psychological and physiological challenges that activities you need to report this to your program a young woman of 20 doesn’t likely have. Be manager of your mentor program. sensitive to this. Seek out advice from loving, healthy people you know who have confronted INFORMAL MENTORING and successfully dealt with the variable you’re You may not have the time to engage in a formal, facing with your mentee. structured mentoring program. Here’s the great news. Pick at least one thing from the list below that may help transform the life of a young MENTORING DON’TS person. Moments are transformative too, so your input is invaluable. Select from this list and 1. Don’t force tutoring on your mentee become part of the village of mentors and Research has shown that when mentors insist supporters of our girls. that the mentee do homework before a mentor session or the mentor insists upon knowing the mentees grades or how she’s doing in school, 1. Invite the young woman or man the relationship shifts from a friendship to a with you to an event or activity as a student–teacher or parent–child relationship. If way of exposing him or her to oppor- your mentee asks for help with schoolwork or tunities and people not in the child’s openly talks about her difficulties in school, she present circle.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 122 | MENTORING

2. E-mail youngsters who are in need architects, doctors, lawyers and other of a friend just to see how they are doing and professionals. to give a word of encouragement. Black civic and religious organizations provide fertile examples of the potential for sustained 3. Have a breakfast, lunch or dinner mentoring of young men. For example, creating meeting on a periodic basis with one or a group links through the National CARES Mentoring of young people to have critical face-to-face time. Movement allows organizations to work together to reach youth who may not already be a part of 4. Walk a child to school and listen or a positive community of talk with her or him. young people.

5. Text words of encouragement to a 3. Propose initiatives that use trans- young girl or boy. formed individuals returning from jails and prisons to provide coaching, If you are looking to start a mentoring program of counseling and mentoring for your own, here are some important guidelines: hard-to-reach youth. The transition from prison back into the commu- 1. Develop community venues and nity is terribly hard for both girls and boys, but activities that showcase youth culture especially our boys. There’s very little strategic and allow hard-to-reach youth to support on how to find housing and work and build social support networks and ways to adjust to life outside of prison. To link social capital. young people with those who have successfully Set up a program in your community that allows adjusted to “life on the outside” is powerful and young people to express themselves and share often lifesaving. through art, dance, academics, sports and peer mentoring. There are numerous programs 4. Develop peer education programs throughout the country, including larger ones like that provide stipends and training for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and smaller hard-to-reach high-school-age youth community- or church-based programs that work so that they can teach younger with young men to build community, provide children about anger management, self- safety, and allow for self-expression. responsibility, cultural empowerment and youth leadership development. Working through 2. Increase resources through faith- programs like Brotherhood/Sister Sol in New based institutions, fraternities, sorori- York and larger organizations like the National ties and business groups that provide Urban League, which has affiliate offices hard-to-reach youth platforms that throughout the country that provide peer mentor- allow them to redefine themselves as ing initiatives to address academic future artists, poets, engineers, and social issues.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 124 | BRAINTRUST

A NEW WAY FORWARD BRAINTRUST PROFILES IN EXCELLENCE

CAROL L. ADAMS, PH.D.

Carol L. Adams, Ph.D., is president and CEO of the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, Illinois. Since the age of 16, when she became president of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Louisville, Kentucky, she has remained engaged in the struggle for the freedom of African Americans and Africans as she evolved from civil rights activist to Pan-Africanist. Adams also launched an award-winning model community-development and social-services program, raising more than $400 million to fund its activities. She later served as secretary in the Illinois Department of Human Services. As a woman who reveres her African ancestors and as the mother of a daughter, Nia Mallika, Adams looks to support “the promise of the current generation, as much assailed as we have ever been, struggling mightily to survive the vicissitudes of contemporary America.”

NA’IM AKBAR, PH.D.

Na’im Akbar, Ph.D., president and CEO of Na’im Akbar Consultants, is a leading scholar in the field of Black clinical psychology and has worked for 40 years as a researcher, author, teacher, and healer. At age 27, he was appointed chair of the department of psychology at the prestigious Morehouse College. For the past 12 years, he has cohosted study groups traveling to Ghana and Egypt with Dr. Wade Nobles (see Wade Nobles profile). An active and engaged father of three successful adult children (a daughter and twin sons), Dr. Akbar was among the invited speakers at the historic 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Author of seven books, Dr. Akbar has also received two honorary degrees from Lincoln University and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (both doctorate of humane letters). “The passion of my life, “he says, “has been to spend each day of the last 40 years doing something to raise the consciousness and help restore healing to the minds and lives of African people.”

NOEL S. ANDERSON, PH.D.

Noel S. Anderson, Ph.D., associate professor of political science at the City University of New York, Brooklyn College, says his deepest passion is “helping youth find freedom.” He is the author of Our Schools Suck: Students Talk Back to a Segregated Nation on the Failures of Urban Education and Students Talk Back: African-American Educational Thought and Activism, which won the 2008 Whitney M. Young Junior Education Leadership Award. Dr. Anderson notes that for him, critical personal milestones include the birth of his son, Avery Lloyd Anderson, witnessing the election of President Barack Obama, and spending time with the late and iconic South African musical performer and activist Miriam “Mama Africa” Makeba.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 125

ESTHER AKASI ARMAH

Esther Akasi Armah, an international journalist, playwright, author and radio host, has worked in Africa, Britain and the United States. She is widely noted for her composition “I Want a Gun for Christmas,” a BBC radio broadcast monologue about an 11-year-old girl who wanted to trade in her Christmas gifts for a gun so that she could feel safer at school. The fi rst of Armah’s plays staged in New York City was Forgive Me? The drama was produced by Debra Ann Byrd’s theater company, Take Wing & Soar, and directed by Tony Award winner Trazana Beverley. (She won Best Supporting Actress in the original Broadway production of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls. . .) Armah declares that her choice to travel widely “shaped my world, molded my vision, infl uenced my view of people, the legacy of my ancestry, and taught me the majesty of God’s bounty and beauty.”

BAAYAN BAKARI

Baayan Bakari is a fi lmmaker, community educator and director of mentor training at the Mentoring Center in northern California’s Bay Area. He was called to do this work when he was 15 years old and, in 1996, received the prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship for community service, which he used to develop his fi rst rites-of-passage curriculum. Bakari is married to Dr. Na’ilah Nasir, and they have four children. “Working on behalf of my people is the greatest purpose of my life, outside of family,” he says.

ASHA BANDELE

The executive editor of A New Way Forward, asha bandele is also a mother, a journalist and an award-winning author of The Prisoner’s Wife and four other books. Her work has been widely anthologized and published in outlets as diverse as The New York Times, Vibe and Family Circle. A onetime performance poet and senior editor at Essence magazine, bandele lives in Brooklyn, New York, and devotes most of her time now to her greatest passion: traveling with and homeschooling Nisa, her wild-as-the-wind 10-year-old daughter.

HARRY BELAFONTE

Harry Belafonte says he is a second-term high school dropout who got lucky. But the world knows him as an artist and a human rights activist, as the fi rst artist in the history of the music industry to sell one million records, as a Tony Award recipient and the fi rst African American to win an Emmy. The world knows Harry Belafonte as an adviser to President John Kennedy in launching the Peace Corps, as a confi dant of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and as an advocate who fi nanced the Freedom Rides during the Civil Rights Movement and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington. He was at the forefront of the Antiapartheid Movement, organized the recording session for “We Are the World,” and initiated The Gathering, an event that culminated in a lasting truce between rival gangs in California. But his greatest accomplishment, Belafonte boasts proudly, is his fi ve grandchildren.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 126 | BRAINTRUST

CARL C. BELL, M.D., F.A.P.A., F.A.C.

Carl C. Bell, M.D., F.A.P.A., F.A.C. Psych., is CEO and president of the Community Mental Health Council, Inc., in Chicago, Illinois; a director at the Institute for Juvenile Research; and a professor in both the Department of Psychiatry and the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has planned, collaborated in and/or led groundbreaking research studies on mental health, ethnicity and race, and ways to intervene in violence affecting children, youth and families. The father of three, Bell says he manages to stay grounded by attending to his spiritual center daily. He feels it is essential to know one’s gift and to live with purpose—his is “saving lives and making a difference.” But he also recommends understanding such basics as how to breathe and how to cultivate resiliency.

DERECA L. BLACKMON

Dereca L. Blackmon is project director of Oakland/Bay Area CARES. Her work for Oakland residents ranges from having raised more than $3.1 million for area youth as director of Leadership Excellence (a community-based nonprofit group) to organizing thousands of residents to speak out for justice in the aftermath of the widely covered police killing of Oscar Grant. Nationwide, she uses radical healing to help thousands of young people confront internalized racism, violence and sexism. Blackmon is a firm believer in the art of learning, practicing and teaching forgiveness, and is deeply passionate about helping people reveal their divinity. She notes that raising her blended family of four daughters to “love themselves and each other unconditionally” is a great joy. Her proudest moment was when she was the Women’s Day speaker at her family’s church. Her 88-year-old nana, who has never believed that women should be in the pulpit, turned to Blackmon’s husband to say, “How about that!”

C. DIANE WALLACE BOOKER, ESQ.

C. Diane Wallace Booker, Esq., executive director, U.S. Dream Academy, Inc., in Columbia, Maryland, was the first person in her family to earn a law degree. She has helped build a national organization to reach children of incarcerated parents, as well as a team of bright, committed and compassionate individuals with the mission of helping young people live up to their potential. Her personal commitments include raising her two children to love God; being kind to others; embracing the diversity of their friends, family and community; nurturing and enjoying lifelong friendships; and, she says, “accepting myself for who I am and all that I can be in the future,” as she works to secure fairness and justice for people who have been traditionally oppressed.

LASHAN BROWNING

Lashan Browning, founder and CEO of Nola Productions, Inc., based in Brooklyn, New York, started her business at age 32, realizing that innovation is making it up as you go along. Her multimedia imaging company is dedicated to preserving family histories and documenting special occasions. She says she has been blessed by a father “who shared his feelings with me.” A critical turning point in Browning’s own life was her decision to work on location for six months on the film Waiting to Exhale. She points out that she stays in focus by “peeling back the layers of me.”

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 127

KHEPHRA BURNS

Khephra Burns is a playwright, author, producer and scriptwriter. His play Tall Horse toured South Africa, Germany, France and the United States in 2006; it opened the New Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and closed out its run at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He also wrote the NBC News prime-time special Images & Realities: African American Men. And for 18 years, Burns has edited the Boulé Journal, the official publication of the distinguished African American men’s organization Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. He credits “direct experience of the transcendent reality” for grounding his spiritual life and self-knowledge. He cherishes his 21-year marriage to National CARES Mentoring Movement CEO and founder Susan L. Taylor. He notes that his deepest passion is “dispelling ignorance—my own and that of others—which is the source of the world’s fear, injustice and pain, from which the Black community suffers inordinately.”

MICHAEL A. BURNS

Michael A. Burns is a training consultant and entrepreneur. He holds an M.B.A. from the UCLA Graduate School of Business. He previously worked at 20th Century Fox Film Corp. Burns cites the three critical influences that shaped his life as being born in the United States in the fifties; being introduced to jazz music as a child; and being married to the former Michele Pierce, who has a child with autism (see Michele Pierce Burns profile). Burns is motivated “to be of service to someone each and every day and looks to inspire others to create works of art that bring us all closer to truth and to God.”

MICHELE PIERCE BURNS

Michele Pierce Burns is executive director of the Academy of Excellence for Autism and administrative director of the Children’s Academy at McCarton Center in New York City. She has cofounded two charter schools and an academic enrichment program for inner-city youth, and she homeschooled her son, Danson Mandela Wambua (who has autism), for two years. She holds certifications as a teacher, administrator, reverend, yoga instructor, reiki master and bartender. Burns says she is dedicated to “being the best parent I can possibly be; learning to really listen to my beautiful husband, Michael; and honoring elders and children every day.”

MADELEINE MOORE BURRELL

Madeleine Moore Burrell is the retired founder of Moore Creative Marketing, which was awarded one of South Africa’s first postapartheid contracts. In addition, she launched a sister-city agreement between Johannesburg and New York City. As president of the New York Coalition of 100 Black Women, she spearheaded the launch and endowment of mentoring programs for young African American women in four New York City colleges. The mother of a grown son, she feels affirmed that he has become a loving and active parent in his own right. She also feels blessed that as “a woman fully grown,” she found her husband, Tom Burrell, and continues learning with him “the true meaning of being wholehearted.” Burrell aspires to “reach the hard-to-reach with power tools and to assist them in becoming world-class legacy builders.”

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 128 | BRAINTRUST

TOM BURRELL

Tom Burrell, chairman emeritus of Burrell Communications in Chicago, has been inducted into the American Advertising Federation Advertising Hall of Fame and identified by Advertising Age as one of the “100 Most Influential in the History of Advertising” as well as “Fifty Who Made a Difference in the History of Television.” Burrell is the author of Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority. He takes pride and joy in having witnessed not only the strength and vitality of his mother but also the success and promise of his three children. Burrell cherishes his marriage to Madeleine Moore Burrell, who he maintains is “the love of my life whom I found late in my life,” and he still looks to “contribute significantly to the psychological and spiritual healing of Black people.”

IVA E. CARRUTHERS, PH.D.

Iva E. Carruthers, Ph.D., professor emerita at Northeastern Illinois University, has built a camp and several schools that model principles of community engagement and African-centered education. An innovator in educational software, she received the ComputerWorld Smithsonian Award for Innovation and Design and, in 2000, was named Woman Entrepreneur of the Year. She worked with Ghana’s educational ministry on an initiative that established a model computer and community educational center in Saltpond. She celebrates the joys of being a mother, wife, sister, daughter and mentor, and the privilege of mentoring young people for twenty-first-century global leadership, while remembering and honoring the sacrifices, power of the spirit and faith of our people.

VERONICA CONWAY

Veronica Conway, founder of Tribe Coaching, Inc., also founded and runs the Black Professional Coaches Alliance. Conway has created financial coach training programs that have transformed the lives of thousands of low-income urban clients across the United States. Among results produced in her own coaching practice is an African American female CEO who led her team to generate $5 million in the 30 days following a single coaching session. Conway is especially proud that as a single mother, she managed to obtain top-tier education for both her children, including a son with a severe ADHD diagnosis, whose symptoms were completely remediated without drugs. She describes her son and her daughter as “the sanest, most loving teenagers I know.” Her deepest passion is “the rapid and sustainable transformation of the mind-set and performance of people of African descent, locating and deploying cutting-edge technologies for behavioral change, empowerment and peak performance.”

MICHAELA ANGELA DAVIS

Michaela angela Davis, a cultural critic and writer, describes herself as a lover of Black girls whose deepest passion is to “free the girls.” She has been editor-in-chief of Honey magazine; an editor at Essence, where she spearheaded the Take Back the Music campaign; and a founding editor of Vibe magazine. The mother of college- age daughter Elenni Davis-Knight, Davis declares pride and gratitude for her experience recovering from a physical, mental and spiritual disorder, and growing ever closer to her God.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 129

JOY ANGELA DEGRUY, PH.D.

Joy Angela DeGruy, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Portland State University in Oregon and president of JDP, Inc., a consulting firm. The author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing, she is a sought-after scholar, lecturer and keynote speaker who has addressed both the United Nations Conference on Race in Barbados and The Oxford Round Table at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. DeGruy relies on her deep and abiding spiritual foundation as a member of the Bahá’í Faith. She is the vanguard of the racial healing movement taking root.

THOMAS W. DORTCH, JR.

Thomas W. Dortch, Jr., is the founding chairman of the National CARES Mentoring Movement. He is also an Atlanta-based entrepreneur and the owner of seven companies. He was the first African American to serve as an executive officer of the Democratic Party of Georgia when he was appointed associate director. In 1985, he founded the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame Foundation, Inc., of which he is chairman. In 1990, having served as a trusted adviser, Dortch became the first African American to be appointed state director for any U.S. senator (Sen. Sam Nunn). He also served as national chairman of 100 Black Men of America (1994–2004). The author of Miracles of Mentoring: How to Encourage and Lead Future Generations, Dortch says his deepest passion is “working to secure the future for our youth.”

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON

Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of sociology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., is the author of 17 books and has won two NAACP Image Awards and an American Book Award. He is the father of Michael Eric Dyson II and has been married to the Reverend Marcia L. Dyson for 18 years. He cites the mentorship of both the late renowned Baptist preacher Dr. Frederick G. Sampson II and Essence Editor-in-Chief Emerita Susan L. Taylor as crucial to his development. His greatest passion, he says, is “writing and speaking on behalf of the oppressed everywhere, and making the life of the mind sexy.”

REV. ANDRIETTE EARL

The Reverend Andriette Earl, founding minister of the Heart and Soul Center of Light in Oakland, is the author of Embracing Wholeness: Living in Spiritual Congruence. Published the year her mother died and when her marriage ended, this book was the key to her own continuing peace and sanity. Prior to her ministry, Earl worked for 30 years as a corporate executive, empowering and mentoring many. In fact, she is most passionate about “empowering others to realize that the good they seek they already possess.”

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 130 | BRAINTRUST

GLENN ELLIS

Glenn Ellis, president of Strategies for Well-Being, LLC, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a health writer and columnist, media commentator and health advocate. Ellis is an avowed Black book and film history buff, as well as an avid collector of Black art. He declares that his deepest passion is “working for social justice and equity in health care.”

THERMAN E. EVANS, M.D.

Therman E. Evans, M.D., pastor of Morning Star Community Christian Center in Linden, New Jersey, is the author of From Purpose to Promise Driven Life: A Prescription for Making the Difference You Were Born to Make. He has been married to his wife, Bernetta, for 44 years, and is the father of two sons, Therman Jr. and Clayton, and the grandfather of Taylor and Mitchell. Evans is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Meharry Medical College, Bethune-Cookman College and Rust College, and in 2000, he was nominated by his alma mater, Howard University, as a distinguished alumnus. He asserts that he is driven to be “at my best in all I do, to make a positive difference for others, and to experience joy.

DR. SHELIA EVANS-TRANUMN

Dr. Shelia Evans-Tranumn, a systems improvement and performance-based management consultant, is trustee/secretary of the Casey Family Programs and retired associate commissioner of education, New York State Education Department. She has been education adviser to President George W. Bush and the U.S. Department of Education, a consultant to various educational ministries internationally, including Denmark, Sweden, China, Taiwan and American Samoa. She led the U.S. effort to develop a methodology of accountability for state schools that received an A rating on National Assessment Evaluations. An ordained minister in the A.M.E. church and the mother of one daughter, DeAnna Elizabeth Evans, Evans-Tranumn notes that another critical turning point in her life was buying a tractor trailer truck at age 22. Currently residing in Brooklyn, New York, she says that her deepest passion in life is “to serve God with gladness and to show the power of His love for ‘the least of them’ by improving institutions to better serve vulnerable children and families.”

GEORGE C. FRASER

George C. Fraser, founder and CEO of FraserNet, Inc., in Cleveland, Ohio, is a popular speaker and author (Success Runs in Our Race, Click: Ten Truths for Building Extraordinary Relationships and Race for Success), and the entrepreneur responsible for the PowerNetworking Conference and SuccessGuide Worldwide, a directory of Black professionals, business owners and community leaders. He has been married for 37 years and has raised two sons. He professes that his deepest passion is “making a difference and adding value to all things I’m a part of,” and he takes particular pride in making a difference in Black America.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 131

MARCIA ANN GILLESPIE

Marcia Ann Gillespie, a writer, consultant and adjunct professor at the State University of New York at Old Westbury, was editor-in-chief of Essence from 1970 to 1980 and editor-in-chief of the trailblazing feminist publication Ms. from 1993 to 2001. She considers Jamaica a homeland although she has no actual roots there. While living and working in this predominantly Black country as an adult, she was privileged to discover what it was like to be a part of a majority. Another powerful life influence, she says, was “standing in the Door of No Return in the slave fort on Goree Island in Senegal and feeling the spirits of our ancestors all around me.” She acknowledges blessings in having “a powerful, ever-growing extended chosen family that includes people of different cultures, countries and walks of life.” Her daily motivation comes from two questions she always asks: “Can I be of service?” and “Am I bringing light?”

SHAWN A. GINWRIGHT, PH.D.

Shawn A. Ginwright, Ph.D., Special Training Consultant to the A New Way Forward initiative, is an associate professor of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University. He is the author of Black Youth Rising: Radical Healing in Urban America. He also founded and directed Leadership Excellence, a community-based nonprofit organization in Oakland, California. He takes pleasure in watching his 13-year-old son, Takai, develop a passion for drumming and his 9-year-old daughter, Nyah, write her first book. Ginwright’s greatest passion is to create places for Black people to heal, love and dream together, and he and his wife both dream of creating a healing retreat for Black people in Napa, California

ADELAIDE L. HINES-SANFORD

Adelaide L. Hines-Sanford is vice chancellor emerita at the Board of Regents of the State of New York. For 19 years, she was principal of Crispus Attucks School, P.S. 21, in Brooklyn, New York. She was also visiting practitioner at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Mellon Scholar at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Sanford established the first recognition award for research in African and African American history at the Board of Regents, developed the Board of Education of People of African Ancestry in Harlem, and inspired the creation of the Adelaide L. Sanford Institute. Her daily motivation continues to be “to make sure the sacrifices of our ancestors were not in vain.

SHANI JAMILA

Shani Jamila produces and hosts a radio talk show on Black culture and politics in Washington, D.C.. Her show is a platform for independent voices grounded in progressive hip-hop. She has also designed and directed a tutoring and arts-based mentorship program for incarcerated teens. A graduate of Spelman College, Jamila won the prestigious Fulbright Fellowship to study at the University of the West Indies, and then earned a master’s degree in African studies from UCLA, followed by postgraduate research at Cornell University and the International Institute for Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. “So far,” she says, “I’ve visited and/or lived on five continents and in more than 30 countries.” Jamila’s deepest passion is learning about Black culture and exploring what it means to be an informed, aware and engaged global citizen.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 132 | BRAINTRUST

THERESA KAY-ABA KENNEDY

Theresa Kay-Aba Kennedy, Ph.D., M.B.A., is president of Power Living Enterprises, Inc. She founded VH1 Interactive in 1994, and as vice- president of Business Strategy and Operations, she ran MTV Interactive and launched an online radio network and six digital cable networks. She was the youngest staff member at Harvard Business School, consulting and writing case studies on Fortune 500 companies. In 2009, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, named Kennedy one of its Young Global Leaders. She enjoys traveling with her “amazing family,” and has reclaimed her practice of yoga to transform her health and life. “Being present with this gift of life” is her deepest passion.

BISHOP DR. BARBARA LEWIS KING

Bishop Dr. Barbara Lewis King is a highly revered minister and spiritual leader. She was the first non-psychiatrist to direct the South Central Community Mental Health Center of Emory University, housed in the Southside Comprehensive Health Center in Atlanta. She wrote the paper “Serving the Community Through Projects Designed by the Leadership,” which she delivered at the International Social Work Conference in Helsinki, Finland. Bishop King is also the first female chief enstooled in the Ashanti tribe in the village of Nsuta, near Accra, in West Ghana. Her most important personal milestones are the birth of her son when she was 37 and the arrival in her life of her grandson, who is a recent graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta.

DR. JOYCE E. KING

Dr. Joyce E. King, Benjamin E. Mays Endowed Chair for Urban Teaching, Learning and Leadership and professor of Educational Policy Studies, Georgia State University, is president of the Academy for Diaspora Literacy, Inc., and editor of Black Education: A Transformative Research and Action Agenda for the New Century. She also chairs the American Educational Research Association’s Commission on Research in Black Education. She is the nana (grandmother) of Jordan Maya and Makena Jaye Reeves, Joyce Adama Maiga and many granddaughters and grandsons of the village Thirissoro in Gao, Mali. She holds the honored title of Amiira Songhoy, wife of the Amiiru, Paramount Songhoy Chief, Dr. Hassimi O. Maiga. Dr. King lives by a process expressed best in the Songhoy language: alasaal-tarey, which means “how we come to know our origin as human beings in order to save humanity.”

KOFI A. KONDWANI, PH.D.

Kofi A. Kondwani, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Morehouse School of Medicine and president and CEO of Consciously Resting Meditation Programs, is known for his research contributions on the use of meditation to reduce cardiovascular and other risk factors among African American populations. He has also taught meditation to thousands of people from different ethnic groups, cultures and beliefs. He is principal investigator on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation of HIV/ AIDS in Ghana. He has watched with pride as his son Heru has “grown into a fine young man striving to fulfill his purpose for this lifetime.” Dr. Kondwani’s deepest passion is “helping ordinary people experience ‘pure silence’ when accessing ‘their source of thought.’ ”

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 133| 133

KHARY LAZARRE-WHITE, ESQ.

Khary Lazarre-White, Esq., is executive director and cofounder of Brotherhood/Sister Sol, a Harlem-based nonprofit youth organization that provides comprehensive, holistic and long-term support services to young people from ages 6 to 22. The organization also publishes curricula and trains educators. Lazarre- White earned his B.A. from Brown University in Africana studies and his J.D. from Yale Law School. The daily motivation for his work is “to create a world of greater equity, to work for social justice and to seek to educate and provide access for young people.”

CAROL D. LEE (SAFISHA L. MADHUBUTI), PH.D.

Carol D. Lee (Safisha L. Madhubuti), Ph.D., Edwina Tarry Professor of Education and professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University, is cofounder of four African-centered schools, including the Institute of Positive Education, the New Concept School and the Betty Shabazz International Charter Schools, where she also chairs its board of directors. She was elected to the National Academy of Education and is president of the 25,000-member American Educational Research Association. Married to poet, publisher and activist Haki R. Madhubuti for 36 years, they have raised three children, Laini, Bomani and Akili. She cherishes the long-term friendships made over the last 40 years as she worked to develop independent Black institutions. “Beyond the lifelong work of loving and supporting my children,” she declares, “my deepest passion is educating Black youth.”

SARA LOMAX-REESE

Sara Lomax-Reese is president of WURD Radio, LLC, Philadelphia’s only African American talk radio outlet. She was founder of the nationally circulated African American health magazine HealthQuest: Total Wellness for Body, Mind and Spirit and continues to integrate yoga, meditation and holistic nutrition in the culturally relevant workshops she leads. She has been married for 17 years and is the mother of three boys. Her daily yoga and meditation practice keeps her grounded and uplifted as she strives to “live a life imbued with truth and purpose.”

DAMON LYNCH III

Damon Lynch III, pastor of New Prospect Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, teaches and preaches across generations on a daily basis and sees lives being changed by the power of God. Pastor Lynch led a national boycott in Cincinnati to protest the city’s racial profiling in law enforcement and also its economic segregation. He is president of an organization that filed a class action lawsuit that changed how policing is done in Cincinnati. Pastor Lynch says, “My wife is someone I can trust, love and lean on when all else fails.” They have two sons, ages 26 and 21, and have just adopted a girl, born July 1, 2010. Pastor Lynch cites his travels in Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia as giving him a greater sense of his own cultural identity and the sources of the greatness and the struggles of the Black race. “I share the tears, joys, sorrows and laughter of those who are trying to make it and feel like the odds are against them,“ he says. “My deepest passion is justice for all.”

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 134 | BRAINTRUST

HAKI R. MADHUBUTI, PH.D.

Haki R. Madhubuti, distinguished poet and founder of Third World Press, is the Ida B. Wells University Professor at DePaul University and the author of nearly 30 books. In its 43 years of operation, Third World Press has published hundreds of poets, writers and scholars. Madhubuti also helped to develop four schools and the Institute of Positive Education in Chicago, Illinois. With his wife, Safisha Madhubuti (See Carol D. Lee profile), he also built a home and foundation for their family of three children. In addition to his family, he values his relationships over the years with such mentors as Malcolm X, Margaret and Charles Burroughs, Hoyt W. Fuller, Dudley Randall, Barbara A. Sizemore and Gwendolyn Brooks. In his opportunities to mentor young men and women around the country, he passes on their influence. “My daily motivation is the love of Black people and the love of all children from all cultures,” he says.

JULIANNE MALVEAUX, PH.D.

Julianne Malveaux, Ph.D., an economist and author, is president of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her first book, Sex, Lies and Stereotypes: Perspectives of a Mad Economist, a collection of columns, was published in 1994. She cites a 2001 trip to Ghana, particularly a walk through Elmina Castle—a port of the historic Atlantic slave trade—as bringing her powerful new insights about anger, history and slavery, and perceptions that continue to inform and enrich her life. Malveaux values her connections with nephews Anyi and Armand, godson Matthew Brown, and numerous mentees, because they all “deepen her heart, enrich her soul and tickle her imagination.” Her deepest passion is for social and economic justice and “for young women to be equipped with the tools they need to thrive as they live through always challenging times.”

DR. JOEL P. MARTIN

Dr. Joel P. Martin, a transformational trainer, consultant, speaker and coach, is president of Triad West, Inc., and Positively Powerful Transformational Events. She was the first Black woman to own and operate a full-service advertising firm in New York City. She recently led a five-year corporate culture change initiative that generated industry recognition, leadership in diversity and inclusion, and employee satisfaction. A breast cancer survivor, Martin started her postgraduate work late in life, earning an M.A. in psychology and a Ph.D. in communications; she was named a Wharton Fellow as well. She is the loving and supportive wife of a fine artist and the proud mother of a daughter, who is a cinematographer.

LINDA JAMES MYERS, PH.D.

Linda James Myers, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Ohio State University, is recognized for developing a theory of human functioning grounded in the African wisdom tradition that incorporates the spiritual aspects of our being. This is the basis upon which she has developed the psychology curriculum in African American and African studies at Ohio State and the Institute for Optimal Transformation and Leadership. She has also served in leadership roles in organizations devoted to the liberation of the African mind and illuminating the African spirit and human psyche. The mother of two accomplished sons, Ptah Harrison Myers and Ikenna Sekou Myers, she spends time with family and friends while pursuing lifelong learning and a closer relationship with the Divine. “My motivation for the work I do is to uplift fallen humanity,” she says.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 135

WADE W. NOBLES, PH.D.

Wade W. Nobles (Nana Kwaku Berko I, Ifagbemi Sangodare, Bejana), Ph.D., professor emeritus of Africana Studies and Black Psychology at San Francisco State University, is founder and executive director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family Life and Culture, Inc. He is the author of Seeking the Sakhu: Foundational Writings of African Psychology, an anthology of 30 years’ research and scholarship, published by Third World Press. He has been married to Vera Lynn DeMoultrie since 1967, and they have two sons and three daughters. Nobles has been initiated into the Ifa spiritual system by Bablawo Ifaymi Elebuibon, the Araba of Osogbo, Nigeria, and he also received the high honor of being enstooled as the Nkwasohene (development chief) of the Akwasiho-Kwahu region of Ghana in West Africa. Dr. Nobles engages himself daily in contributing “to the liberation of the African mind and the worldwide development of African people.”

WILLIAM PADEN

William Paden, retired educator and cofounder of the Village Nation in Reseda, California, an organization dedicated to the successful education of African American youth, was voted Teacher of the Year by the local chapters of the NAACP (Los Angeles, 1987 and again in San Fernando Valley, 2008). His organization’s work was featured on Oprah in May 2007, and he was tapped as a resource on strategies for moving our people forward in the twenty-first century by Bill Cosby. Paden and his wife, Laura, are parents of two sons, Ahmad and Khalil.

JESSICA C. PINKNEY

Jessica C. Pinkney, a productivity consultant, is principal of Relativity Consulting/My Relative Assistant, in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Her consulting and coaching practice supports clients using harm-reduction strategies to create safe and reliable resources that move them beyond survival mode to long-term sustainable solutions. The motivation for Pinkney’s work is delivering services to people who seek empowerment, and her deepest passion is “love, or acknowledging every individual’s unique qualities and helping them to see that they have something to contribute.”

KEVIN POWELL

Kevin Powell is a writer and activist in Brooklyn, New York. His appearance in the cast of the pioneering reality show The Real World on MTV launched him into the media spotlight; he went on to become a founding staff writer for Quincy Jones’s innovative hip-hop magazine, Vibe. Powell also hosted the landmark MTV documentary Straight from the Hood, about young people in postriot Los Angeles. He credits his mother’s taking him to the library as a child for his lifelong love of books and reading. As a young man in his twenties, Powell made a conscious decision to live a healthy, holistic life. He says, “My deepest passion is the people—all people—and helping them to help themselves.”

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 136 | BRAINTRUST

BELOVED REESE

Beloved Reese, founder of Chance to Change, Inc., in Charlotte, North Carolina, is an ordained interfaith minister, spiritual life coach and chairwoman emerita of Charlotte CARES. A dedicated mom to three children—Maurice, Thomas and Sophia—she prides herself in being a great listener and an advocate for love. Her deepest passion is to serve others.

SHEILA R. RULE

Sheila R. Rule is the founder of Resilience Multimedia, a publishing company that presents a more accurate and just image of the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated and their loved ones. She also founded the Think Outside the Cell Foundation, a nonprofit that helps people with prison backgrounds build more successful lives. Rule retired after a long and distinguished career at The New York Times, where she rose to senior editor. An activist since college, she is the mother of one son, Sean William Rule, and the wife of Joseph Robinson. “My deepest passion is giving,” she says.

REV. YVONNE SAMUEL

The Reverend Yvonne Samuel is founder and chief executive officer of Samuel Communications, a St. Louis–based marketing and public relations firm. Previously she was a reporter for 29 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where she also served as diversity facilitator and community outreach coordinator. As a spiritual leader, she has pastored five churches and received the Dr. Martin Luther King Community Service Award from the governor of Missouri. Rev. Samuel says her deepest passion is simply “helping others.”

LENA SHERROD

Lena Sherrod is currently executive director of the Shrine of the Masters Jazz Gallery in New York City, where she curated the Lee Morgan Legacy exhibit. A founding member and first treasurer of the New York Association of Black Journalists, Sherrod was also a longtime program coordinator/editor at the National Urban League and retired as Essence magazine’s finance and careers editor. She spent two years living and traveling throughout Africa, including West Africa, East Africa, North Africa and southern Africa. Sherrod aspires “to learn to incorporate the spiritual laws of the universe into her life, understanding that they—like the laws of gravity, electricity and mathematics—operate with indisputable precision.”

APRIL R. SILVER

April R. Silver, managing editor of A New Way Forward, is a social entrepreneur, writer activist, and founder and president of Akila Worksongs, Inc., a communications firm in New York. The firm is dedicated to arts and activism in the African American, people of color, and progressive communities. Coleading a 1989 protest at Howard University launched Silver as an activist. The author of Be a Father to Your Child, she continues to lavish loving attention on her relationships with her mother, her father and her siblings. She is dedicated to using her “God-given skills and talents to add more light to the world, to tell the truth and to embody balance.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 137

SOBONFU SOMÉ

Sobonfu Somé, president of Wisdom Spring, Inc., in Sacramento, California, is the author of three books: The Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient Teachings in the Ways of Relationships, Welcoming Spirit Home: Ancient African Teachings to Celebrate Children and Community and Falling Out of Grace: Meditations on Loss, Healing and Wisdom. She teaches African wisdom in universities and other institutional settings and communities in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Somé founded www.walkingforwater.org to help give African communities clean water and better health, and she has created a scholarship fund for children in her native Burkina Faso, which today supports the education of at least 1,000 children. “I yearn to see a revolution around the way we birth and care for children and our elders,” she writes. “My deepest passion is to see healthy people living in healthy communities, where they can find deeper meaning in life, knowing who they are and what gifts they bring to the world.”

DR. JOSEPH A. STRICKLAND

Dr. Joseph A. Strickland is a research specialist at the Jane Addams College of Social Work at University of Illinois in Chicago. He currently teaches a course on community violence to graduate students in social work and has conducted a research study on postprison employment experiences of Black males. A founder of MAGIC, the Metropolitan Area Group for Igniting Civilization, Inc., a youth empowerment organization in Chicago, Illinois. Strickland is a board member of the Woodlawn Children’s Promise Community and the University of Chicago Charter Schools. He has mentored more than 40 former Chicago-area students who continued on to college or have since earned college degrees, and he has created a support network for former prisoners and former gang members who are striving to transform their lives. He is committed to “helping people connect the dots so that they can reach their full potential.”

SUSAN L. TAYLOR

Susan L. Taylor, founder and CEO of the National CARES Mentoring Movement, is also editor-in-chief emerita of Essence magazine. She was the first to make spiritual growth and development a subject of popular media with her widely read Essence column, In the Spirit. In the 27 years she wrote the column, she influenced the personal development of three generations of Black women. Taylor also guided the phenomenal growth of the magazine while authoring several books and helping to expand the Essence brand into sectors beyond magazine publishing, including entertainment, book publishing, merchandising, and special events and conferences. Meanwhile, as a single mother, she raised a conscious and committed daughter, Shana, and is devoted to her 21-year “sacred union” with husband Khephra Burns. Today, Taylor says she is focused on “becoming the best possible leader I can be in service to our vulnerable children. So many Black children are living in dream-crushing pain on our watch. All they need is us. Our love and support is their only hope.”

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 138 | BRAINTRUST

REV. IYANLA VANZANT, J.D., M.A., SP. PSY.

The Reverend Iyanla Vanzant, J.D., M.A., Sp. Psy., is a well-known author and spiritual life technician/coach. Her professional milestones include self-publishing her first book, opening her spiritual center in Silver Spring, Maryland, and becoming the first certified African American master EFT (emotional freedom techniques) practitioner. Critical touchstones in her personal life include supporting her late daughter through her encounter with cancer and her transition, raising her grandson and granddaughter, and participating in the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Vanzant says, “My deepest passion is facilitating the evolution of human consciousness one Mind, one Heart, one Spirit, one Life at a time.”

TERRIE M. WILLIAMS

Terrie M. Williams is an author, mental health advocate and public relations practitioner. She launched her highly successful marketing and communications firm, the Terrie Williams Agency, in 1988 with two high-profile clients, Eddie Murphy and Miles Davis. She also founded the Stay Strong Foundation in 2001 to change lives through educational and support programs. Its motto is, “If we don’t give our kids time, the system will.” She is the author of five books, including Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting, written after she discovered that the pain she had suffered for many years had a name: depression. She was blessed with the courage to speak out and share her story with the hope that others would share theirs as well, and, if needed, seek professional help. The motivation for her work is “knowing that when you go through the fire, you will come out on the other side whole and understand, with every fiber of your being, what you are called to do.”

AKOSHIA FATIMAH YOBA

Akoshia Fatimah Yoba is a writer, speaker, mother and mentor. She is completing her first book while raising four beautiful children. In addition, she devotes time to nurturing her dearest friendships and “discovering the love inside of me.” Her deepest passion, she contends, is to “use my creativity to inspire others to recognize the beauty of life to align with well-being.”

MALIK YOBA

Malik Yoba, actor, entrepreneur, producer, musician and educator, has a career that spans three decades. The father of three children, he says, “My deepest passion is life itself, the breath God breathes in me every day and the opportunity to make what is not, exist.”

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG PHOTO: LEROY HENDERSON | 141

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We Are Grateful There are many people whose hands have helped craft this manual. Their help has ranged from offering encouraging words to editing pages to keeping us organized. The support has been critically important, and we are grateful, for without their skill, patience and personal sacrifi ce, this manual would not exist.

We thank: Yasmin Bedward, our amazing young intern; the young people who appear in the foreword with Susan L. Taylor (clockwise from noon): Bakari Taylor, Ania Hughes, William Plummer, Zakiya Moore, David Wright, Amina Suzanne King, Nisa Bandele, and Malaika Taylor; Daniel Gonzalez, who made the space available for the initial Braintrust gathering; Janice K. Bryant, Hope Wright, Susan McHenry and Claire McIntosh for their exceptional editing and proofreading talents; Phillip Shung for so generously assisting the art team with his computer expertise; Peter Chin, Saddi Khali, Delphine Fawandu, Dwight Carter, Leroy Henderson and Nicky Woo (the greatest photographers); Leah Rudolfo, our photo editor; Keba Konte for the inspiring photo assemblage on the cover; Brenda M. Greene, Ph.D., for hosting an editorial meeting at her home; Cybel Martin for helping us to see things differently; Tamara Y. Jefferies for her review of chapter drafts; Gayle Graves, who always stands up; Eddie Bridgeman, comptroller, for keeping track of the ANWF expenses; and Debra Parker, who holds us all together.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 142 |

FOR YOUR LIBRARY

Selected Books and Films by A New Way Forward’s Braintrust

NA’IM AKBAR, PH.D. MICHELE PIERCE BURNS ! Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery ! Danson: The Extraordinary Discovery ! Know Thy Self of an Autistic Child’s Innermost Thoughts and ! Visions for Black Men Feelings by Michele Pierce Burns and Danson Mandela Wambua DR. NOEL S. ANDERSON ! Education as Freedom: African American TOM BURRELL Educational Thought and Activism by Noel S. ! Brainwashed: Anderson and Haroon Kharem Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority ! Our Schools Suck: Students Talk Back to a Segregated Nation IVA E. CARRUTHERS, PH.D. on the Failures of Urban Education ! Blow the Trumpet in Zion! Global Vision and Action for the 21st Century Black Church ESTHER AKASI ARMAH ! Can I Be Me? VERONICA CONWAY ! The Black Paper BAAYANBAKARI (an e-book found at www.theblackpaper.com) ! Equinox: Boys Are Born, but Men Are Made (a film written and directed by Baayan Bakari) JOY ANGELA DEGRUY, PH.D. ! Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: ASHA BANDELE America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and ! The Prisoner’s Wife Healing by Joy DeGruy Leary ! Something Like Beautiful: One Single ! Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: Mother’s Story The Study Guide

CARL BELL, M.D. THOMASW. DORTCH, JR. ! Sanity of Survival: Reflections on Community ! The Miracles of Mentoring: How to Encourage Mental Health and Lead Future Generations by Thomas W. Dortch, Jr., and Carla Fine KHEPHRA BURNS ! The Boulé Journal edited by Khephra Burns MICHAEL ERIC DYSON ! Confirmation: The Spiritual Wisdom ! Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas’ Illmatic edited That Has Shaped Our Lives by Michael Eric Dyson and Sohail Daulatzai by Khephra Burns and Susan L. Taylor ! Come Hell or High Water:

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 143

Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster Cleanse your Body, Mind and Spirit While ! Holler If You Hear Me: Living Your Daily Life Searching for Tupac Shakur ! I May Not Get There With You: BISHOP. DR. BARBARA LEWISKING The True Martin Luther King, Jr. ! Transform Your Life (revised and expanded to ! Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle include “How to Have a Flood and Not Drown”) Class Lost Its Mind? DR. JOYCE E. KING REV. ANDRIETTE EARL ! Black Education: A Transformative Research ! Embracing Wholeness: and Action Agenda for the New Century Living in Spiritual Congruence ! Black Mothers to Sons: Juxtaposing African American Literature with Social Practice GLENN ELLIS by Joyce E. King and C.A. Mitchell ! Which Doctor? What You Need to Know to Be Healthy CAROL D. LEE, PH.D. (SAFISHA L. MADHUBUTI) THERMANE. EVANS, M.D. ! African-Centered Education: Its Value, ! From Purpose to Promise Driven Life: Importance, and Necessity in the Development of A Prescription for Making the Difference You Black Children by Haki R. Madhubuti and Were Born to Make Safisha L. Madhubuti, Ph.D. ! Culture, Literacy, and Learning: Taking Bloom ! What Are the Leading Causes of Life? A in the Midst of the Whirlwind Prescription for Living at Your Highest and Best HAKI R. MADHUBUTI GEORGE C. FRASER ! Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous ! Race for Success: The Ten Best Business ! Enemies: The Clash of the Races Opportunities for Blacks in America ! Tough Notes: A Healing Call for Creating ! Success Runs in Our Race: The Complete Exceptional Black Men Guide to Effective Networking in the Black Community JULIANNE MALVEAUX, PH.D. ! Surviving and Thriving: MARCIA ANN GILLESPIE 365 Facts in Black Economic History ! Maya Angelou: A Glorious Celebration by !"Paradox of Loyalty: An African American Marcia Ann Gillespie, Rosa Johnson Butler and Response to the War on Terrorism Richard A. Long DR. JOEL P. MARTIN SHAWNA. GINWRIGHT, PH.D. ! How to Be a Positively Powerful Person ! Black Youth Rising: Activism and Radical Healing in Urban America LINDA JAMESMYERS, PH.D. ! Black in School: Afrocentric Reform, Urban ! Blessed Assurance: Deep Thought and Youth, and the Promise of Hip-Hop Culture Meditations in the Tradition of Wisdom from Our Ancestors TERESA “TERRI” KAY- ! Understanding an Afrocentric World View: ABA KENNEDY, PH.D., M.B.A. Introduction to an Optimal Psychology ! 40 Days to Power Living: Think, Eat and Live on Purpose WA DE W. NOBLES, PH.D. ! Seven-Day PWR Detox: ! African American Families: Issues, Insights and

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 144 |

Directions by Wade Nobles, Lawford Goddard ! The Personal Touch: What You Really Need to and William Cavil Succeed in Today’s Fast-Paced Business World ! African Psychology: Towards Its Reclamation, by Terrie Williams and Joe Cooney Reascension and Revitalization ! The Km Ebit Husia: Authoritative Utterances AKOSHIA FATIMAH YOBA of Exceptional Insight for the Black Family by ! Please Return My Phone Call: Preventing the Wade Nobles, Lawford Goddard, William Cavil Demise of Personal and Professional Relationships and Pamela George by Malik Yoba and Akoshia Fatimah Yoba

KEVIN POWELL MALIKYOBA ! The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life ! Please Return My Phone Call: Preventing the ! Open Letters to America Demise of Personal and Professional Relationships by Malik Yoba and Akoshia Fatimah Yoba SHEILA R. RULE ! Counting the Years: Real-Life Stories About Waiting for Loved Ones to Return Home from SELECTED WORKS Prison edited by Sheila R. Rule RECOMMENDED BY and Marsha R. Rule A NEW WAY FORWARD’S ! The Hard Journey Home: Real-Life Stories BRAINTRUST About Reentering Society after Incarceration edited by Sheila R. Rule and Marsha R. Rule Our History ! The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or APRIL R. SILVER Reality by Cheikh Anta Diop ! Be a Father to Your Child: Real Talk from ! African Origins of the Major Western Religions Black Men on Family, Love, and Fatherhood by Yosef ben-Jochannan edited by April R. Silver ! African People in World History by John Henrik Clarke SOBONFU E. SOMÉ ! Balancing Written History with Oral Tradition: ! Falling Out of Grace: Meditations on Loss, The Legacy of the Songhoy People by H.O. Maiga Healing and Wisdom ! Beautiful Also Are the Souls of My Sisters ! The Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient African by Jeanne Noble Teachings in the Ways of Relationships ! Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, 1619—1962 by Lerone Bennett, Jr. SUSAN L. TAYLOR ! The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James ! All About Love: ! Children of Fire: A History of African Favorite Selections From In the Spirit Americans by Thomas C. Holt ! Lessons in Living ! The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams REV. IYANLA VANZANT ! Disintegration: The Splintering of Black ! Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through America by Eugene Robinson What You Are Going Through ! Ella Baker and the Black Radical Tradition ! Until Today! Daily Devotions for Spiritual by Barbara Ransby Growth and Peace of Mind ! From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin TERRIE M. WILLIAMS ! Life and Times of Frederick Douglass ! Black Pain: by Frederick Douglass It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting ! The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 145

! A People’s History of the United States ! Cornrows by Camille Yarbrough by Howard Zinn ! The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical ! A Shining Thread of Hope Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership by by Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson Harold Cruse ! Slavery by Another Name: ! Dare to Take Charge: How to Live Your Life on The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from Purpose by Glenda Hatchett the Civil War to World War II ! The Games Black Girls Play: by Douglas A. Blackmon Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to ! The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois Hip-Hop by Kyra Gaunt ! There Is a River: The Black Struggle for ! Having What Matters by Monique Greenwood Freedom in America by Vincent G. Harding ! In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens ! They Came Before Columbus by Alice Walker by Ivan Van Sertima ! Like Loving Backward ! Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of by Cheo Tyehimba Taylor Themselves by Deborah Gray White ! Mansa Musa: The Lion of Mali ! A Voice from the South by Anna Julia Cooper by Khephra Burns ! When and Where I Enter by Paula Giddings ! Stay Strong: Simple Life Lessons for Teens ! World’s Great Men of Color, Volume II: Europe, by Terrie Williams South and Central America, the West Indies, and ! Welcoming Spirit Home: Ancient African the United States by J.A. Rogers Teachings to Celebrate Children and Community ! Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in Self, Family, Youth and Community the Cafeteria? A Psychologist Explains the Development Development of Racial Identity ! African American Families: Issues Insights and by Beverly Daniel Tatum Directions by Wade Nobles and Lawford Goddard ! Africanity and the Black Family: Relationships The Development of a Theoretical Model ! How to Be an Adult in Relationships: by Wade Nobles The Five Keys to Mindful Loving ! An American Paradox: by David Richo and Kathlyn Hendricks Young Black Males by Dr. Renford Reese ! How to Love a Black Man by Ronn Elmore ! Becoming a Woman of Destiny: Turning Life’s ! How to Love a Black Woman by Ronn Elmore Trials into Triumphs by Suzan Johnson Cook ! The Spirit of Intimacy: ! Beyond Resistance! Youth Activism and Ancient African Teaching in the Ways of Community Change: New Democratic Relationships by Sobonfu Somé Possibilities for Practice and Policy for America’s Youth by Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D. Race, Identity, Gender and Society ! Black Families in Therapy: Understanding the ! The Condemnation of Blackness: African American Experience Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban by Nancy Boyd-Franklin America by Khalil Gibran Muhammad ! Black Men in Their Own Words, ! The Evidence of Things Not Seen Khephra Burns, Contributor by James Baldwin ! The Black Parenting Book: Caring for Our ! Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center Children in the First Five Years by bell hooks and Ellen P. Shapiro by Anne Beal, M.D. ! The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin ! Black Stars in Orbit by Khephra Burns ! Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s ! Choosing Truth: Equality in African American Communities Living an Authentic Life by Harriette Cole by Johnnetta B. Cole and Beverly Guy-Sheftall

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 146 |

! Love, Race, and Liberation: by Carter G. Woodson ’Til the White Day Is Done edited by JLove ! Pass It On: A Guide to Navigating the Public Calderon and Marcella Runell Hall School System by Marilyn J. Goodard ! The Maroon Within Us: Selected Essays on ! The Power of One: How You Can Help or African American Community Socialization Harm African American Students by Asa G. Hilliard by Dr. Gail Thompson ! Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their ! Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips, and Other Parts Schools by Jonathan Kozol edited by Ayana Byrd and Akiba Solomon ! Walking in Circles: The Black Struggle for ! Race and Reality by Guy P. Harrison School Reform by Barbara A. Sizemore (Foreword ! Race Matters by Dr. Cornel West by Safisha L. Madhubuti) ! Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line by Michael Eric Dyson Business, Networking, Wealth-Building ! Shades of Black: Diversity in African and Entrepreneurship American Identity by William Cross ! Black Wealth/White Wealth: ! Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women A New Perspective on Racial Inequality in America by Charisse Jones and edited by Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro Kumea Shorter-Gooden ! Click: Ten Truths for Building Extraordinary ! Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack: Relationships by George C. Fraser White Privilege by Peggy McIntosh ! Good Is Not Enough: And Other Unwritten ! The Violent Social World of Black Men Rules for Minority Professionals by Keith Wyche by William Oliver ! Leadership from the Inside Out: Becoming a ! Walking Proud: Black Men Living Beyond Leader for Life by Kevin Cashman Stereotypes by George Edmond Smith and ! Love Leadership: The New Way to Lead in a Gwendolyn Goldsby Grant Fear-Based World by John Hope Bryant ! When Affirmative Action Was White: ! Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Inspiration & Wisdom for Challenging Times Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson by Donald T. Phillips ! When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: ! Outliers: The Story of Success A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down by Malcolm Gladwell by Joan Morgan ! Speak Like a Pro: In Business and ! White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Public Speaking by Margaret M . Bedrosian Privileged Son by Tim Wise ! Who Moved My Cheese ! Who’s Gonna Take the Weight: Manhood, Race, by Spencer Johnson, M.D. and Power in America by Kevin Powell ! Words into Type ! Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture by Prentice Hall (Rules of Grammar) Wars in Urban America by Robin D.G. Kelley ! Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for ! Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of Wealth, Health, Peace, and More European Cultural Thought and Behavior by Joe Vitale and Ihaleakala Hew Len by Marimba Ani Politics Education ! Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the ! Can We Talk About Race? Future of American Politics by Cathy Cohen and Other Conversations in an Era of School ! Letters to a Young Brother: Resegregation by Beverly Daniel Tatum MANifest Your Destiny by Hill Harper ! The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer ! Some of Us Did Not Die by June Jordan ! The Mis-Education of the Negro ! The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 147

Paradox of Progress by William Jelani Cobb ! When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for ! Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön Practice of Freedom by bell hooks Mind Spirituality ! African American Mental Health ! Acts of Faith: Daily Meditations for People of edited by Reginald L. Jones Color by Iyanla Vanzant ! African American Psychology: ! The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New From Africa to America by Dr. Faye Z. Belgrave Midlife by Marianne Williamson and Dr. Kevin W. Allison ! Becoming a Woman of Destiny: ! African American Psychology: Turning Life’s Trials into Triumphs! Theory, Research and Practice by Ann Kathleen by Rev. Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook Burlew, W. Curtis Banks, Harritte Pipes MsAdoo ! Deep Is the Hunger by Howard Thurman and Daudi Ajani ya Azibo ! Embracing Wholeness: Living in Spiritual ! African/Black Psychology in the American Congruence by Rev. Andriette Earl Context: An African-Centered Approach ! Faith in the Valley: Lessons for Women on the by Kobi K. Kambon Journey to Peace by Iyanla Vanzant ! African-Centered Psychology: ! For the Inward Journey by Howard Thurman Culture-Focusing for Multicultural Competence ! Growing Edge by Howard Thurman edited by Daidi Ajani ya Azibo ! In the Meantime: Finding Yourself and ! African Origin of Biological Psychiatry the Love You Want by Iyanla Vanzant by Richard King ! In the Spirit: The Inspirational Writings of ! The African Personality in America: Susan L. Taylor by Susan L. Taylor An African-Centered Framework ! Life Is for Living by Eric Butterworth by Kobi K. Kambon ! Light from Ancient Africa by Na’im Akbar, Ph.D. ! African Psychology: Toward Its Reclamation, ! Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman Reascension and Revitalization by Wade Nobles ! A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of ! Akbar Papers in African Psychology “A Course in Miracles” by Marianne Williamson by Na’im Akbar, Ph.D. ! The Roots of Transcendence ! Black Psychology by Reginald Jones by Edward Bruce Bynum ! Boys No More: A Black Psychologist’s View of ! The Sacred Yes: Letters from the Infinite Community by Charles Thomas by Deborah L. Johnson ! Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery ! Self-Healing Power and Therapy: by Na’im Akbar, Ph.D. Old Teachings from Africa ! Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal by K. Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau About Getting It Right When You Have To ! Strength to Love by Sian Beilock by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ! Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of ! This Thing Called You by Ernest Holmes Psychology by Robert Guthrie ! Too Blessed to Be Stressed: Words of Wisdom ! Kambon’s Reader in Liberation Psychology for Women on the Move by Kobi K. K. Kambon by Rev. Dr. Suzan D. Johnson Cook ! Our Health Matters: Guide to an African ! The Value in the Valley: A Black Woman’s (Indigenous) American Psychology and Cultural Guide Through Life’s Dilemmas Model for Creating a Climate and Culture of by Iyanla Vanzant Optimal Health by Linda James Myers ! Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic ! Psychopathic Racial Personality and Initiation in the Life of an African by Bobby E. Wright by Malidoma Somé ! Psychotherapy with African American Women:

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 148 |

Innovations in Psychodynamic Perspectives and ! Sacred Woman: A Guide to Healing the Practice by Leslie C. Jackson and Beverly Greene Feminine Body, Mind and Spirit by Queen Afua ! Seeking the Sakhu: Foundational Writings for an African Psychology by Wade Nobles Soul ! Standing in the Shadows: Understanding and ! A Plentiful Harvest: Creating Balance and Overcoming Depression in Black Men Harmony Through the Seven Living Virtues by John Head by Terrie Williams ! Understanding an Afrocentric World View: ! Power Choices: Signpost on Your Journey to Introduction to an Optimal Psychology Wholeness, Love, Joy and Peace by Brenda Wade by Linda James Myers ! Seven Soulful Secrets for Finding Your Purpose ! Understanding the Black Family: and Minding Your Mission A Guide for Scholarship and Research by Stephanie Stokes Oliver by Wade Nobles and Lawford Goddard ! Voodoo or IQ: An Introduction to African Art, Culture and Media Psychology by Syed Khatib ! Blues People by LeRoi Jones ! Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes by Byron Body Hurt (Film) ! An American Health Dilemma: A Medical ! Television Myth and American Mind History of African-Americans and the Problem of by Hal Himmelstein Race by W. Michael Byrd and Linda Clayton ! Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal ! The Black Women’s Health Book: Speaking for ! To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Ourselves by Evelyn C. White Hop Aesthetic by William Jelani Cobb ! Blessed Health: The African-American ! What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis Woman’s Guide to Physical and Spiritual Well-Being by Melody T. McCloud Poetry and Angela Ebron ! The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes ! The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde ! Morning Haiku by Sonia Sanchez ! The China Study: The Most Comprehensive ! Our Dead Behind Us by Audre Lorde Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the ! Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and ! Selected Poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar Long-Term Health ! Things That I Do in the Dark by June Jordan by T. Colin Campbell, Thomas M. Campbell II, ! Where a Nickel Costs a Dime by Willie Perdomo Howard Lyman and John Robbins ! The HeartMath Solution Biography, Memoir and Conversations by Doc Childre and Howard Martin ! All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes ! Living Matrix: A Film on the New Science of by Maya Angelou Healing directed by Greg Becker (Film) ! The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to ! Medical Apartheid by Harriet Washington Alex Haley ! Menopause, Sisterhood and Tennis ! Dust Tracks on the Road by Zora Neale Hurston by Alice Wilson-Fried ! Fist Stick Knife Gun by Geoffrey Canada ! The Mocha Manual to a Fabulous Pregnancy ! Gather Together in My Name by Maya Angelou by Kimberly Seals-Allers ! I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ! A Path to Healing by Dr. Andrea D. Sullivan by Maya Angelou ! Prime Time: The African-American Woman’s ! The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Complete Guide to Midlife Health and Wellness Positive by Marvelyn Brown by Marilyn Hughes Gaston, M.D., ! No Momma’s Boy: How I Let Go of My Past and Gayle Porter, Psy.D. and Embraced the Future by Dominic Carter

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 149

! Open Wide the Freedom Gates by Dr. Dorothy I. Height ! With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee ! The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore ! Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas by Maya Angelou ! Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde ! Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood by June Jordan ! A Song Flung Up to Heaven by Maya Angelou ! W.E.B. DuBois by David Levering Lewis ! The World Has Changed: ! Conversations with Alice Walker by Alice Walker and Rudolph P. Byrd

The selections suggested by A New Way Forward’s Braintrust represent just a small sampling of titles for your library.

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG Dear God, Let the community come. Let us use all our oars in the water to pull smartly in the same direction. Let the healing fl ourish. Let us see our children through.

Susan

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG 152 NOTES

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG | 153

WWW.CARESMENTORING.ORG HEALING WHAT’S HURTING BLACK AMERICA

VOICES OF HEALING WHAT’S HURTING BLACK AMERICA Carol L. Adams • Na’im Akbar • Noel S. Anderson • Maya Angelou

Esther Akasi Armah • Baayan Bakari • asha bandele • Harry Belafonte

Carl C. Bell • Dereca L. Blackmon • C. Diane Wallace Booker

Lashan Browning • Khephra Burns • Michael A. Burns • Michele Pierce

Burns • Madeleine Moore Burrell • Tom Burrell • Leon D. Caldwell

Iva E. Carruthers • Veronica Conway • Michaela angela Davis

Joy Angela DeGruy • Thomas W. Dortch, Jr. • Michael Eric Dyson

Andriette Earl • Glenn Ellis • Therman E. Evans • Shelia Evans-Tranumn

George C. Fraser • Marcia Ann Gillespie • Shawn A. Ginwright

Cheryl Tawede Grills • Adelaide L. Hines-Sanford • Shani Jamila

Theresa Kay-Aba Kennedy • Barbara Lewis King • Joyce E. King

Kofi A. Kondwani • Khary Lazarre-White • Carol D. Lee (Safisha L.

Madhubuti) • Sara Lomax-Reese • Damon Lynch III • Haki R. Madhubuti

Julianne Malveaux • Joel P. Martin • Linda James Myers • Wade W. Nobles

William Paden • Jessica C. Pinkney • Kevin Powell • Beloved Reese

Sheila R. Rule • Yvonne Samuel • Lena Sherrod • April R. Silver

Sobonfu Somé • Joseph A. Strickland • Susan L. Taylor • Iyanla Vanzant

Terrie M. Williams • Akoshia Fatimah Yoba • Malik Yoba

EDITED BY SUSAN L. TAYLOR COVER ART: KEBA KONTE DESIGN: [email protected] A National CARES Mentoring Movement Initiative

ANWF_0116F_COVER.indd 1 6/25/15 5:09 AM