{"id":52349,"date":"2023-01-12T23:06:31","date_gmt":"2023-01-12T23:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/forusa\/?p=52349"},"modified":"2023-01-20T22:58:15","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T22:58:15","slug":"choosing-spiritual-activism-as-my-weapon-of-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/forusa\/2023\/01\/choosing-spiritual-activism-as-my-weapon-of-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing spiritual activism as my weapon of choice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article is an excerpt of an essay originally published by<\/a><\/em> The Arrow<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My parents had created a sanctuary, a place where I was free to be myself: reading, creating, laughing as loud as I wanted. Home was our tiny apartment in the Walt Whitman housing projects of Fort Greene, Brooklyn \u2014 an oasis from the outside world. I was loved. The end. I was over-loved. My mother and father wanted more than just what the public school across the street could offer. My father, who had not long returned from a trip to Africa when I was around three, could not bear the thought of sending his child to a regular \u201cwhite man\u2019s\u201d school. So he conspired with my then 20-year-old brother to send me to a school founded and run by young Black Power militants who were conscious, hopeful, and full of fight and fire. This is one of the two great interventions my brother made in my life at a very young age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Uhuru Sasa Shule (Freedom Now School) was African-centered, and their mission of social justice education focused on making sure we loved our Black selves as descendants of the first people. My enrollment in a school that prided itself on its commitment to \u201cnation building\u201d meant that days were filled with learning about African kings and queens before the trans-Atlantic slave trade. While my classmates and I did indeed receive our math lessons using abacuses and manipulative rods, our social studies lessons consisted primarily of the historical plight of Black people in the Americas. We learned about how white supremacy impacted Black people from the moment we were stolen from our homeland. This has been and always will be ingrained in me.<\/p>\n\n\n

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I grew up watching not-so-old footage of Black people resisting, as well as being bitten by police dogs and hosed by cops. Protest comes in many forms. For some of us that have experienced the overwhelming emotional and physical trauma of raised voices, aching pains, and the threat of police brutality, returning to the streets may pose challenges both mentally and spiritually. In my case, I was very young when I first encountered the art of resistance through protests, marches and demonstrations in 1970s New York City. This introduction was not voluntary; it formed a mandatory part of my early childhood curriculum. While the school\u2019s goal to create revolutionary babies may have been well-intentioned and seemed necessary, for many of us kids who actually experienced it, the environment was unpleasant and even traumatizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand, I\u2019m sure I know more about the role of white supremacy in the oppression of Black people than I would have learned in a typical public school education in North America. On the other hand, this truth does not make any of these childhood experiences less difficult. Would I change any of them if I had the chance? Absolutely. I would erase the trauma of witnessing corporal punishment \u2014 when the teachers beat students with belts and electrical cords. I would change the economic conditions that forced us to be served \u201chalf rations\u201d when the school didn\u2019t have enough food to feed us for lunch. I would confront the patriarchal standards that shamed my mother for wearing a wig, frowned upon by male teachers for not being Black enough compared to \u201cnatural\u201d hair styles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I cope with the pain of these contradictions by reminding myself that I\u2019d be a totally different person now if I hadn\u2019t experienced much of what I did. I\u2019m not sure I would even be a spiritualist if the harsh teachings during my youth had not impacted me so uniquely. This Black radical schooling \u2014 albeit flawed, misogynistic and overly focused on violent rhetoric \u2014 combined with my experiences in the Black church to birth my spiritual practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n