Liberating The Black God Within

Community Safety

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

For centuries, Black Bodies, and the souls that inhabit them, have been devalued and dehumanized. Unfortunately, anti-Black racism in this country is alive and thriving as evidenced by the school-to-prison pipeline, disproportionate expulsion rates, low college application/acceptance and over incarceration. Los Angeles county Blacks are incarcerated 13x more often than whites. Even though Blacks only make up less than 10% of the county population, they represent 24% of law enforcement killings. The 2020 assassination of Mr George Floyd projected the egregious reality of the US on the world stage: the ramifications of this country's oppressive historical truths - genocide, slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, police brutality of epidemic proportions (and a society-wide addiction to watching violence against Black bodies) - still live on. Black men and boys are unsafe, physically and emotionally, because their humanity is not a given. This project asks: How do we make their humanity visible?

As an extension of the Black Goddess Within oracle deck project, The Black God Within Initiative seeks to work with 50 Black men from Los Angeles County between the ages of 18 and 100 remember the sovereignty of their Black Body, reconnect with lost histories and reignite relationships with their ancestral wisdom so that they can shake off the shackles of anti-Black racism, build community with other Black men, and live unburdened. We provide 12-weeks of programming that explores the history of precolonial Africa as a way to reclaim ancestral wisdom to be applied in their contemporary lives. We introduce the participants to the wisdom in the myths and stories related to the various deities from across Africa. The program culminates in a photoshoot to document the participants as they connect to their heritage, embody the ancient wisdom and live into the god-like qualities explored in the sessions. The photoshoot is a full-scale experience and includes wardrobe consultations, hair and make up and professional photography. The images from the photoshoot will be used to create the third installment of the successful Black Goddess Within Oracle Deck series. I've chosen oracle decks as a medium because nearly all human communication is nonverbal. Symbols, signs, and images carry much of our cultural and social information. Through repeated use, this information becomes embedded in our subconscious. The images in the Black God/desses decks assert and normalize our humanity.

We acknowledge that this project won't solve anti-Black racism. The project is, however, a power contribution to the reversal of anti-Black racism and we know this work is restorative and changes lives. Our vision for project success will be determined by several factors: Do the participants report emotional safety over the course of the program? Are they able to open up and share vulnerably? Can they apply the wisdom from the deities of Africa to their lived experience in Los Angeles? When the participants have these experiences, we affirm that there will be shifts in other parts of their lives as well. Secondly, we now have a relationship with Hay House, the largest international publisher of self help and spiritual books and decks. Our second deck is currently available for pre order and launching on December 12! We would love to see the Black God Deck distributed through Hay House as well. We would love to see this deck in the hands of at least 15,000 people.

With Black Beauty, Black Divinity, and Black Joy as the central pillars, this project relies on the power of representation, storytelling and community building to create both individual transformation and cultural shifts. Cultural shifts are nearly imperceptible as they are happening, but we can capture qualitative information (i.e. healing, self-esteem, belongingness) from participants. Past program participants, for example, have reported: "getting more out of the program than ALL of my therapy sessions put together." "I found value in places I wasn't looking for nor even knew existed." "I am able to embrace my power as a Black person" "We cannot look away from the atrocities committed against Black bodies. This program helped me reckon with and heal this history." Working with men in the Los Angeles area will impact the way they see themselves, change the way others see them, ultimately making the world safer for black bodied people.