The State of Black Liberation 2021
African-heritage people in the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities are gaining greater depth with the theory, practice, and tools of Re-evaluation Counseling (RC). We are seeing great strides forward in our individual re-emergence. We are seeing great strength in the growth and development of our Communities. We are seeing huge collective strength in our re-emergence as a Community. We are growing in our ability to identify and discharge on the hurts that have been installed on us as individuals and on us as peoples.
We are a diverse Community geographically. We speak many languages. We are both faith-based and with no faith. We have a variety of spiritual practices, gender identities, sexualities, class backgrounds, and abilities. Some of us are Indigenous to the lands where we live, and many of us are far removed in time and geography from our ancestral Indigenous lands. Some of us are immigrants to the lands where we now reside, and some of us are second, third, and more generations removed from our ancestral lands. Some of our ancestors were relocated from our ancestral homes through enslavement and sold into a diaspora by colonizers. Some of us have migrated from the lands into which we were settled and have become immigrants in the home of the colonizer. Settlers in strange lands, we are adapting and adopting, finding and making home alongside the descendants of the enslavers of our ancestors. Some of us left our ancestral home because we found our lives stifled by the conditions created by colonization, genocide, and by internalized colonization and internalized genocide. Patterns of oppression, installed by the colonizers and now perpetrated by our own people, forced us to flee. We have become settlers in lands far from home.
A range of issues affect the lives of Black people in all parts of the world. We get to notice those issues, recognize their systemic nature and their impact on the well-being of our communities, and take the individual and collective actions that will bring about change.
BLACK LIVES MATTER
Recent events in the United States, Canada, and Europe, including state-sponsored and state-approved violence toward Black people, have led to a great awakening about racial equity and have led us to emphasize to the world the existential reality that Black lives matter.
This declaration of our right to life, the demand for freedom from harassment, and the need to defend our existence have led to patterned reactions and resistance. For example, firefighters are called to extinguish the fire in one house but are burdened with the reactive demand that “all houses matter” which pulls attention away from the state of emergency of the house that is on fire. We persist in reminding ourselves and all others, without apology and need for explanation, that Black lives matter.
Black lives are under attack from uncontrolled, unsupervised, unaccountable police action in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Black lives are under attack in many African and Caribbean countries because of the unaware but deadly internalized racism and internalized colonialism. We face internalized genocide in Cameroon, Chicago (USA), Congo, Port Au Prince (Haiti), Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago), and Portland (Oregon, USA). In addition to the project of reducing police violence toward Black people, we also have to reduce violence by Black people toward Black people, whether in Chicago, Cameroon, or Congo.
BLACK FAMILIES MATTER
We are connected through our biological and chosen families and the family of the Black Liberation Community Development (BLCD) Village. In the early stages of our lives, family is the place where we expected to have all of our needs met: our physiological needs for food, clothing, shelter, safety, protection, love, and belonging. We needed to be treasured and held dear along with needing to be seen as worthy and whole. Our pathway to re-emergence is directly through our early families. We recognize that the members of our families did the best they could for us. We also recognize that their best was often not enough. It was the inability of our families to meet some of our needs early in life that left us with false messages about ourselves and with patterns that interfere with our living our best lives. These patterns interfere with our ability to act in the world with agency. They hinder our ability to recreate the world and make it one that works well for everyone. We are increasingly able to go to those early memories in our sessions, release those false messages, and let go of the patterns that were installed on us through our early experiences.
Our BLCD Village family has become a place of resource. It is a place where we remind each other that we can fully recover. We can reclaim the brilliance, beauty, power, connection, love, and sense of our goodness that got distanced from us. We hold space for each other while we do this work, each in our own time while fully intending to achieve our complete liberation.
BEING BLACK MATTERS
The first woman named to run an American megabank stated that the woman wanted “her gender not to matter.” In contrast, everywhere we go, we want everyone to know that being Black matters. If being Black is not going to matter, then we might as well have white people stay where they are and continue to occupy the positions they currently occupy. We want Black people, throughout their lives, to bring with them a perspective rooted in Blackness. We want that perspective at the tables where decisions are made, and in the rooms where policies are formulated. We always want Blackness at the table. No single Black person can represent all Black people. Every Black person who has had a chance to discharge even some of their assimilationist material [distress] will be able to bring their experience as a Black person with them wherever they go.
DISPROPORTIONALITIES MATTER
Disproportionality affects almost every aspect of our lives. We are disproportionately policed. We are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. We are among frontline, low-wage workers, among COVID victims who are hospitalized and dying, and among COVID victims who do not receive appropriate care. We live in communities for whom vaccines are sketchily available. We experience harmful school “discipline” and dropping out of and being pushed out of school. We experience high infant mortality rates and maternal morbidity rates. We are also underrepresented in policy and decision-making positions in every arena of the societies in which we live. For example, we are underrepresented in STEM disciplines. [STEM is an approach to learning and development that integrates the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Through STEM, students develop key skills, including problem solving and creativity.] We are underrepresented among doctors, nurses, and health care workers, and among the leadership of nations that set policy and trends for the rest of the world. These disproportionalities reproduce their own skewed results so that the rate of positive change in the state of our lives is laboriously slow. In the face of this, we stand in solidarity with each other and with the ancestors; we will push the arc of the rainbow until it bends toward us and toward justice and liberation.
RESURGENT RACISM AND BLACK LIVES
Resurgent racism affects the lives of Black people in many parts of the world. Emboldened and encouraged by a U.S. president who abhorred truth-telling and whose only guiding principle outside of serving self, seemed to be to fan the flames of division and hatred, white supremacists and other hate mongers in many parts of the world feel free to show their racism on a routine basis. From the halls of the U.S. Congress to Australia, England, Italy, France, and other parts of the world, white supremacy and neo-Nazism show a bigger and bigger face. At the same time, Black people in all parts of the world are emboldened and finding voice and courage to speak out and to build movements for change.
Many white allies are learning to recognize racism and are finding courage to speak up and oppose it. The Black presence in the white consciousness has begun to shift. Whether because of determined lack of information or studied indifference, many white people were ignorant about racism. They just didn’t know. The knee on the neck of George Floyd ignited a rolling wave of consciousness. Despite two hundred and twenty-three Black people being killed by police in 2017, two hundred and nine in 2018, two hundred and thirty-five in 2019, and two hundred twenty-six in 2020, white people just didn’t believe that it was happening. They had to see it for themselves. One aspect of racism is that white people reserve for themselves the right to be the arbiter of the experience of Black people. It didn’t happen until white people said it happened. Once white people looked directly into the eyes of that policeman while he calmly knelt with his knee on George Floyd’s neck until there was no life left, they could join the parade of human protest and demand that things must change. Across the globe, allies from many backgrounds, nationalities, languages, and other identities are demanding change.
“RETURN TO WAKANDA”
This is a call for African-heritage people to return to our true selves. The time has come for African-heritage people to remember who they are and recall the truth about themselves and their history. It is not for no reason that “Lucy” first walked in Africa. [“Lucy” is a collection of fossilized bones that once made up the skeleton of a hominid from the Australopithecus afarensis species. She lived in Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago.]
It was in Africa that beings on four legs stood up on two legs, grew a thumb and a cerebrum, and willed themselves to be human.
In the present time, we African-heritage people are making space for African-heritage people to return to our biggest vision of our humanity. The widely celebrated Black Panther and Wakanda were broadly perceived to be fantasy, not possible, and not realistic. However, we are now reclaiming our capacity for Return. [Wakanda is a fictional country located in sub-Saharan Africa and is home to the superhero Black Panther. It is a highly developed country, depicted as the most technologically advanced nation on the planet.]
Our return is not to a specific location or to a longed-for homeland or African point of origin. This is not a return to a location in the past. Before the forced separation, when some of us were sold into bondage and the rest of us remained in Africa, we occupied villages and spaces where we did all the things necessary to live in community. Some of us were kings and queens and lived in the royal palace, and some of us were goat herders and yam diggers. Some of us were goldsmiths and bronze smiths and some of us were weavers that created the nwentoma (Kente cloth) worn by our queens and kings. We lived in the collectivities of our villages that aimed to look after the well-being of every member.
This current call for Return is a call for a Return to Consciousness. It is a call to extend our Global Village so that none are left outside the resource of the Village. The celebrated resource of our true Wakanda is extended to us all. All of us are called to remember who we truly are and to whom we belong. We get to remember the gifts we bring to each other, gifts of our beauty, brilliance, power, connection, our sense of our goodness, and the healing power of our love.
A FEW HAPPENINGS IN THE BLCD VILLAGE
Developing and Supporting Black Leadership
The BLCD Leadership Development Project (LDP) aims to support the leadership of Black people in all parts of the International Re-evaluation Counseling Communities. We are serving as International Liberation Reference Persons (ILRPs), Regional Reference Persons (RRPs), and Area Reference Persons (ARPs); as constituency leaders, support group leaders, topic leaders, teachers, organizers, and in many other ways. The BLCD LDP includes a succession planning program to prepare for the next ILRP for African Heritage People, an apprentice program to prepare the next round of BLCD Regional workshop leaders, and a Tiers Leadership Development Program to support people to think about, discharge, and organize to move their individual leadership forward, and the Black Liberation and Community Development and Sustaining All Lives development project to support our increased involvement in learning about and sharing information about the impact of climate change on communities of African heritage People.
The ILRP Succession Planning Project is designed to support the preparation of leaders to assume the role of ILRP of African heritage people once the current ILRP steps out of the role.
The Regional BLCD Leaders Apprentice Program includes people who are preparing to become the next leaders of the BLCD Regional Workshops. They are apprenticing to the eight current Regional leaders
The Tiers Leadership Development Project includes people who want focused attention on their leadership development in preparation for extending their leadership in BLCD and in the International Re-evaluation Counseling Communities.
OTHER LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT HAPPENINGS
ILRP for “Mental Health” Liberation (MHL)
In 2020, Jenny Martin became ILRP for “Mental Health” Liberation. Jenny describes her vision and the scope of work to include the following:
- Making sure MHL is on the map
- Encouraging everyone to take responsibility for ensuring that MHL is part of the work that they do
- Supporting the BLCD Leadership Team to make sure that MHL work is included in every aspect of BLCD
- Encouraging every BLCD leader to become a champion of MHL
- Working with specific groups of leaders to push the MHL agenda
- Building her team to support the forward movement of the work
- Teaming up with Regional leaders to bring the MHL work to various parts of the world
East Africa Leadership and Community Development
Wanjiku Kironyo is the RRP for the East Africa RC Communities.
- Zoom meetings with leaders have made it possible to have more communication across the Region.
- Bi-weekly meetings on specific topics enable leaders and Community members to come together and talk about the theory, have questions and answers, and discharge.
- Different people are taking responsibility for developing family work.
- The Healing from War Workshop has been highly successful.
- There are plans to bring MHL work to East Africa. The social and economic problems in Africa are leading to high rates of depression and suicide. RC work has been especially useful in helping those who are RCers not to bottle up their feelings and find a way to release emotions. Recently, awareness of the high rates of suicide has made Kenya acknowledge psychiatric treatment and even establish institutions to address such issues. Unfortunately, our psychiatrists subject the “patients” to the pharmaceutical industries and counterfeit “medicine” that have been pushed into the country. Re-evaluation Counseling is much needed among the population with a specific focus on MHL work.
- We have continued to have support group meetings every two weeks and attend online workshops and organized classes on Zoom. The use of Zoom has proven effective in communication and has enabled us to come together to discharge and have sessions. We have had men-only meetings every two weeks. People are taking on leadership in the different areas of RC work. We are working closely with the leaders to set up weekly meetings.
- We have a technical and leadership team including Griffins Ndhine, Kennedy Nyutu, Kamau Gaceru, Wycliffe Mwiti, and Jean Shema (Junior).
West Africa Leadership and Community Development
Chioma Okonkwo is RRP for Nigeria and West Africa.
- Zoom has been helpful and has allowed us to share RC and liberation theory with many more people.
- The number of people involved with RC has grown significantly.
- More people are growing in their leadership roles. Regularly meeting support groups include those for men, women, young adults, and on climate change.
- West Africans on the team for COP26 events are all our Community leaders. We want to continue to organize this work so that participation in COE (Care of the Environment) work supports and reinforces local Community development work.
Southern Africa Leadership and Community Development
Bafana Matsebula is RRP for Southern Africa.
- People are becoming more comfortable with Zoom. Participants are able to use the meetings to discharge the feelings of not being wanted, feeling uncomfortable, and other areas of distress.
- A number of support groups meet regularly using Zoom: young adults, allies to Jews, parents, women, “mental health” liberation, men working on building relationships, leaders helping people to get the discharge they need, organizing local intensives for leaders.
Large Women’s Liberation
Marion Ouphouet is leading Large Women’s Work.
- Large women’s work is going well.
- Leadership development is moving forward.
- Support groups are working well.
- As this work develops, there is more thinking about women’s health.
Black Men’s Liberation
Rudy Nickens is leading Black Men’s Liberation.
- There are weekly Zoom gatherings of twelve to sixty Black men, led by Desmond Reich. Two other Black men are beginning to share leadership of the group.
- Black men’s workshops are on the RC International calendar.
- A group of men is thinking together about how to work on heteronormativity and its impact on the group and on Black men’s liberation. Rudy Nickens is supporting the leadership growth of a number of men to increase their leadership in BLCD and in the International RC Communities. This includes the possibility of participating in Tim Jackins’s Men’s Leadership Group that is thinking about men’s liberation in the overall RC Communities.
Black Family Work
Fela Barclift is leading Black Family Work.
Black Family Work is going well. It is going brilliantly in Africa. There is much receptivity and readiness to be involved in the work in Africa. We want more discharge about the experience of enslavement for U.S. African-heritage people who are doing Family Work. Plans are underway to organize a Wygelian leaders’ group for Black Family Work to support and encourage Family Work in each of the regions (United Kingdom and Europe, Caribbean, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa; and West, East, Midwest, South and West Coast North America.
Black People and Jews
Dorann van Heeswijk is leading the work on ending anti-Semitism among Gentiles. A key issue for us at this time is to discharge our way to solid and firm committed relationships with our Jewish partners; to start where we actually are right now instead of trying to work from where we want to be. It is important to not jump over hard things that we think we can’t face, and to build robust relationships that enable us to have the fights we need to have and not run away. We are learning to have the session we need to have so that we can stay loving of ourselves and our Jewish partners.
Black People and Care of the Environment (COE)
Janet Kabue, the Area Reference Person for Nairobi, Kenya, has agreed to accept the position of Apprentice International Commonality Reference Person (ICRP) for Care of the Environment. She will apprentice with Diane Shisk, the current ICRP for Care of the Environment, until she is confirmed as ICRP.
Black Elders
Jackie Kane, DeLoresjean Britt and Martina Wharton are leading Support Groups for Black Women Elders.
Black Re-emergence Journal
Sondra McCurry is coordinating editor for Black Re-emergence Journal. Donna Paris, Jackie Kane, Ekwa Msangi, Rachel Noble, and Dorothy Marcy are part of the editorial team. Plans are shaping up for this expanded editorial team to include people handling artwork, supporting the collection of materials and articles, and encouraging and supporting people to write articles for Black Re-Emergence.