Sanfoka Leadership Continuum Series - Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St Louis

Don't miss this episode of #InflexionPointPodcast on The Transformation Network™. Join Anita, Mavis, and Gail as they discuss "The Art of Community Conversations in Today's Climate of EDI, Antiracism, and Book Banning."   Why Community Conversations?

These are an essential tool for promoting dialogue and understanding within communities. The PRESS Model, developed by Robert Livingston, is a valuable resource for facilitating these conversations. In today's climate of EDI and antiracism, community conversations are more important than ever. Join the discussion as the hosts explore the intersection of community conversations and book banning. 

 

Add Your Voice to the Conversation: Join the InflexionPoint Podcast Facebook Community. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1863715990493524 

 

Meet Guest Khamil Bailey, Founder of Cocoapreneur, Co-Founder of Greenwood Week Pittsburgh, and The Greenwood Plan | Corporate Consultant | Speaker | Black Business Advocate Khamil's Backstory Begins in East Orange, NJ Then Evolves After Attending University of Pittsburgh.

Khamil's vision of thriving Black communities was planted in her home city of East Orange, NJ; and then transplanted to the city of Pittsburgh when she attended the University of Pittsburgh. The evolution includes the Greenwood Plan, Greenwood Week, Emerald City Co-Working Space, and the acquisition of a $4.1M building in Pittsburgh PA.

"Life experience and an apparent need pushed me into social entrepreneurship and solving prominent and longstanding issues of inequity against Black Americans. My areas of focus is business, enterprise, and self-sustenance within predominantly African American communities.

Read Black Enterprise Article: "Pitt Building Now Black Owned Aiming to Ignite Black Businesses"

Final Community Conversation on the 7 Principles of Kwanzaa.

Mavis, Gail, and Anita finish up the series of Community Conversations about the Nguzo Saba: The 7 Principles of Kwanzaa. The goal with the series was to drive home the point that Kwanzaa Principles are working ideals. These ideals can be embedded into everyday life, particularly on the journey towards antiracist activation. In this episode they finish up the final two principles.

 

Creativity & Faith

Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

“Be unapologetically powerful and brave. Let no one convince you there are limits or boundaries to what you can achieve.” —Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts

 

Watch Here: https://youtu.be/cNe8CQnIg9E

 

Collective Work & Responsibility. Cooperative Economics. Purpose.

In the previous episode we opened up our community conversation with a discussion of the first 2 principles of the Nguzo Saba, Unity and Self Determination. In this episode we discuss the next 3 principles — Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, and Purpose, providig personal experiences and examples of work that exhibits the principles.

 

Ujima: Collective Work and Responsibilility - To build and maintain our community together and make our community’s problems our problems and to solve them together. Ujamaa: Cooperative Economics - To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together. Nia: Purpose - To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Happy New Year!

Thank you for joining us for the first episode of InflexionPoint Podcast in 2024. This the spot where we are dedicated to the art of listening in authentic conversation. We challenge our audience to listen actively and intentionally for the purpose of self-awareness, understanding, personal transformation, and ultimately social impact. As a matter of fact the 2024 Theme is Community Conversations.

 

So What's the Big Deal With Community Conversations?

Michael Halt, Founder of the Liminal School of Self-Directed Adult Learning defines Community Conversations as a process designed to be a simple and sociable informal conversation in which a small group of people come together to get to know one another, in a more meaningful way than usual, by talking about their sense of personal purpose in their lives and our community and about the issues that are of personal priority and concern.

The mission of the American Libraries Association is to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.

Libraries Transforming Communities is an initiative of the American Libraries Association that seeks to strengthen the role of librarians as core community leaders and agents of change. LTC addresses a critical need within the library field by developing and distributing new tools, resources, and support for librarians to engage with their communities in new ways. One of the ways is through Community Conversations.

The LTC and the Community Conversations Workbook is also supported by the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, which is creating a counterforce in society powered by community-led change. Website quote: "Our task is to get on a more equitable, fair, just, inclusive, and hopeful path forward."

 

Community Conversation - The Hidden Potential of the Nguzo Saba: 7 Principles of Kwanzaa

Frank Dobson Associate Dean of Students, Vanderbilt University, describes What Kwanzaa Means for Black Americans:  Each day of Kwanzaa is devoted to celebrating the seven basic values of African culture or the “Nguzo Saba” which in Swahili means the seven principles. The principles are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics (building Black businesses), purpose, creativity and faith. A candle is lit on each day to celebrate each one of these principles. On the last day, a black candle is lit and gifts are shared. Kwanzaa is rooted in the struggles and the gains of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements in the 50s and 60s.

Professor Keith A. Mayes, a scholar of African American History at the University of Minnesota said, "For Black power activists, Kwanzaa was just as important as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Kwanzaa was their answer to what they understood as the ubiquity of white cultural practices that oppressed them as thoroughly as had Jim Crow laws.”

 

Watch Here: https://youtu.be/p2vF1sgcY2k

 

Book Discussion - White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones Land, Labor, and Slavery

“It's nothing short of astonishing that a religious tradition with this relentless emphasis on salvation and one so hyper attuned to personal sin can simultaneously maintain such blindness to social sins swirling about it, such as slavery and race-based segregation and bigotry.” ― Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity

 

Doctrine of Discovery: The International Law of Colonialism

(a) The idea that God designated America as a new promised land—shaped how five centuries of Europeans would understand the “new” world and the people who populated it. (b) The right to go in and kill, conquer and reduce their persons to perpetual slavery. (c) Interconnection between land and slavery - enslavement of Africans was the continuation of genocide and dispossession flowing from the first European contact with Native Americans.

 

Legal Dimensions of the Doctrine of Discovery

(a) First discovery. (b) Occupancy and current possession. (c) Religion - a significant aspect of the Doctrine of Discovery (d) Civilization. 

 

From Columbus Day to Black History Month and Indigenous People’s Day

Recognize the significance and need for a broader understanding of American history that includes the contributions and perspectives of Indigenous and African-American peoples.

 

Watch Here: https://youtu.be/cux-vwcPLtc

 

Dr. Robert P. Jones: The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy emphasizes the importance of truth-telling and cross-cultural conversations in addressing the legacy of white supremacy and working towards a more equitable future.

Robert P. Jones, President/Founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). Dr. Jones serves on the national program committee for the American Academy of Religion. Jones writes a weekly newsletter for those dedicated to the work of truth-telling, repair, and healing from the legacy of white supremacy in American Christianity. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future; White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, which won a 2021 American Book Award; and The End of White Christian America, which won the 2019 Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

Doctrine of Discovery: The International Law of Colonialism

The idea that God designated America as a new promised land—shaped how five centuries of Europeans would understand the “new” world and the people who populated it. The right to go in and kill, conquer and reduce their persons to perpetual slavery right. Interconnection between land and slavery - enslavement of Africans was the continuation of genocide and dispossession flowing from the first European contact with Native Americans.

Legal  Dimensions of the Doctrine of Discovery (doctrineofdiscocery.org)

• First discovery. The first European country to discover lands unknown to other Europeans claimed property and sovereign rights over the lands and native peoples. First discovery, however, was usually considered to have created only an incomplete title.
• Actual occupancy and current possession. To turn first discovery into recognized title, a European country had to actually occupy and possess newly found lands. This was usually done by building forts or settlements. Physical possession had to be accomplished within a reasonable amount of time after the first discovery to create a complete title.
• Religion was a significant aspect of the Doctrine of Discovery. Under Discovery, non-Christian peoples were not deemed to have the same rights to land, sovereignty, and self-determination as Christians.
• Civilization. The European ideas of superiority based on the belief God had directed them to bring so-called civilized ways, education, and religion to Indigenous Peoples and to exercise paternalism and guardianship powers over them.

From Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day: Recognize the significance and need for a broader understanding of American history that includes the contributions and perspectives of Indigenous and African-American peoples. Watch Here: https://youtu.be/3TxDvMxUWnE

 

Synopsis: A 2022 period film drama based on true events of desegregation and busing in Boston schools in 1974.

The District Court of Massachusetts ordered Boston to integrate its public school system, using busing.

The order was met with White community pushback, fury and violence. The film centers on police officer Bill Coughlin, an Irish cop, confronting fierce social pressure when tasked to protect Black students as they are bussed into all-white South Boston High School. The film also centers on two high school teens about to begin their senior year under the integration order. Wendy Robbins, an 18-year-old Black student selected for bussing, and her father, Lamont, are caught in the middle of violence and protesting by the White community. At the same time Katy, the police officer's teenage daughter is faced with her own racism.

 

"Why America needs a new approach to school desegregation" by Jerry Rosiek Published: May 17, 2018 6.41am EDT on theconversation.com

• Despite all the time and effort invested desegregating the nation’s schools over the past half century, the reality is America’s schools are more segregated now than they were in 1968.
• This new segregation is not directly enforced by law, but indirectly through school zoning, housing patterns, and recently by neighborhood secessionist movements, permitting affluent white families to continue to monopolize premium educational resources.
• School segregation communicates corrosive messages to students of color; concluding that they were regarded as “bad kids,” “garbage people,” or “violent or something,” and therefore not worthy of investment.

Watch Here: https://youtu.be/h8_2E08ogco

 

 

 

Films That Spark Community Conversations   "Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America" - Hosted by Presbyterian Church of Sudbury MA Documentary Film Presented by Jeffrey Robinson, lawyer and social justice advocate.

In Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America, Robinson faces his largest audience, asking all of us to examine who we are, where we come from, and who we want to be.  Anchored by Robinson’s Town Hall performance, the film interweaves historical and present-day archival footage, Robinson’s personal story, and vérité and interview footage capturing Robinson’s meetings with Black change-makers and eyewitnesses to history. From a hanging tree in Charleston, South Carolina, to a walking tour of the origins of slavery in colonial New York, to the site of a 1947 lynching in rural Alabama, the film brings history to life, exploring the enduring legacy of white supremacy and our collective responsibility to overcome it.

 

The "Who We Are Project" was founded by Jeffery Robinson, renowned lawyer who has been fighting for racial justice for almost 40 years.The organization is an outgrowth of a talk that Robinson has been giving for the past 10 years on the history of anti-Black racism and white supremacy in the United States. This talk forms the basis of the feature length documentary film. The "Who We Are Project" will be one of the central voices that will correct the narrative on our shared history of anti-Black racism in the United States. Watch here: https://youtu.be/woCTKzg9t_w

 

"Hate" - A Film Directed by Jevon Dewan Synopsis: Hate is the #1 Disease in the World. Have you been tested?

The birth of hate: A journey through America's most fraught eras illuminates the multi-layered effects of hatred, via slavery, segregation, police brutality, and more. Conveys how the disease of hate has impacted the entire world.

Hate, a journey where the characters realize that the solution lies within education, respect, and the understanding on one another's experiences. Watch here: https://tubitv.com/movies/613466/hate

 

Photo Credit: Homer G. Phillips Hospital, A Prominent Landmark in The Ville, St. Louis, MO. Courtesy Onegentlemanofverona (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Racism Is a Disruptor of Health and Wellness & Integration Is Not Synomymous with Equity The Story of Homer G. Phillips Hospital, 1937-1979, a segregated hospital in the heart of Black St Louis, Missouri The Ville and Its Champions of the Community: Kids raised in a walkable community where the folks look like them - doctors, nurses, lawyers, tradesmen, and business owners; where wealth stayed in the community.

The Story of Segregation in St Louis by Jeanette Cooperman, October 17, 2014. "St. Louis is divided along many lines. And race plays a role in every one of those divisions. It also determines our future, because if you make a transparent map of racial segregation and lay it over other maps—political power, cultural influence, health, wealth, education, and employment—the pattern repeats."

#Redlined: A St Lous Story by Jacobi Commons. Exposing deeply-rooted systems of redlining that have disproportionately affected Black and Brown people dating back to the 1920's. 1915 Initiative Petition avoided mixed blocks occupied by both white and colored people "...written to the Board of Election Commissioners petitioning White and "Colored" citizens to live separately. In Section 1 and Section 2, the petition describes the strict requirements that would be upheld in a new St. Louis ordinance, mandating specific "blocks" be created. Section 3 defined the word "block". Later sections of the petition have been omitted, but included penalties that will be carried out if ordinances are broken by either race group."

In How Racism Takes Place, George Lipsitz writes that in St. Louis, “protection of white property and privilege guided nearly all decisions about law and policies that promoted the establishment of new small and exclusive suburban municipalities with restrictive zoning codes.”

 

Watch Here: https://youtu.be/Q1IkYl9VklI