Andrea Imafidon | Tough Times Don't Last Forever | #BostonHighlight

“An American Experience” vs. “[The] American Experience” in Boston

“I believe I defy every stereotype of a stereotypical black man. I seek knowledge, I am motivated, I am loving, and caring. I hope to really change the world and change the image or representation of a black man in America. And, I will do this by motivating young black men and teaching them that their life is as important as their counterparts. No matter what race, creed, or religion. ” — Reginald Fils, Entrepreneur, High School Student

Why It Takes A Village To Teach A Boy How to Be A Man

"Black men struggle with masculinity so much. The idea that we must always be strong presses us all down - it keeps us from growing." -Donald Glover.

I was privileged to present to a group of Young Black Kings and Young Gods in my hometown (Boston). I have to give a significant big up to my sister-friend, Michelle, for seeing the greatness and Goddess within me and suggesting me as a workshop facilitator to the Boys 2 Men group mentoring program coordinator. I am thankful whenever the youth are involved, and I can insert my knowledge, wisdom, and life experience into them. I remember being a teenager in Boston and having some influential Black community leaders and role models from various professions also pour into me. Each One, Teach One. 

I am thankful that I grew up with all the guys who have guy friends and a husband; I have observed various masculinity, insecurities of being male, hardships, and overall men's issues. I took all that knowledge and studies and presented "What Masculinity Looks Like From A Women's Perspective and Respect Our Boundaries." I had to place myself in the shoes of the young Kings and their inner issues to develop the concept and imagery because young men need to understand how to transition from boyhood to manhood without being effeminized as some women would love to do to men. There is indeed a war going on outside with the Effeminization (to give a (more) feminine, effeminate, or womanly quality or appearance to; "This hairdo feminizes the man) of Black Boys and Men. (Research and do your own due diligence) It takes the right person to bring the balance of feminine and masculine energy together versus getting all my feminine energy, thoughts, and beliefs and placing them on these young gentlemen. We all have both energies that keep life in check and balance. When you have the wrong person (woman) trying to insert and force all their feminine energy onto young men, it never goes well because they are at the age in which they are freely exploring who they are, and they need someone to love and guide them during the self-exploration stage. My mission and vision of the workshop were to identify and define black masculinity, their role in society, how society views them, boundaries within self and relationships, and open-mind and open-heart dialogue. 

My job as the workshop facilitator was to explore masculinity from their and my point of view and merge the two together, along with understanding boundaries and respect within relationships. I appreciate the young men's honesty, rawness, and unadulteration because they expressed themselves unapologetically, asked questions, and listened. As adults, we want to be authoritative to these youths, and we lose them instead of bringing balance, non-judgment, love, kindness, open hearts, and open minds. Remember being a teenager? I remember being a teenager wanting to be heard, validated, and guided. Hence, I played sports, worked, mentored, and went to leadership camps because I thrived on bridging the gap between teenagers and adults. We wanted the same thing for adults, especially those outside the parental unit, because we didn't want our parents to explore or expose our insecurities and self-consciousness to our family, neighbors, or favorite cousins who would never let it go. Whenever I present to teenagers, I come with an open heart and show empathy because I was a teenager at one point in my life. While I had Blackplanet and AOL chat rooms (LOL), I still didn't face as much struggle and challenges as today's youth. Today's youths, especially Brown and Black youths, are being exposed to various things such as cyberbullying, watching and playing violent, over and hyper-sexualized, and traumatizing videos and shows on TV, YouTube, and other social media outlets, to listening to "Shit Hop" AKA Mainstream/Corporatize/Prison to Pipeline Rap music (this is coming from a Hip Hop Head) that is warping and casting a spell of the mindset of the youths and even some adults that are mature or suffer from cognitive dissonance. This is what I am faced with while trying to shape the minds of the youth. 

Back to the topic! I thoroughly enjoyed listening, learning, and analyzing the words, actions, and behaviors of these young men because they taught me a lot about their intelligence level, maturity level, environment, and the overall potential they have if they stay on the course of being part of mentorship with the guidance of two knowledgeable, discipline, and loving Black brothers. I created an imagery board to display the various masculinities from the point of view of popular culture. The opinions and dialogue opened up by reviewing the board and asking about masculinity. The answers were out of this world. I had a few young men tell me that Drake is a bad example of masculinity because of his lyrics promoting being promiscuous, taking other men's women, and having sex with them, etc. We discussed James St. Patrick (Ghost) and Omari Hardwick from Power.

The great conversation around him because he can be hyper-masculinity something that most men strive to be because he gets street cred for being a big-time drug dealer and owning a nightclub while having a side chick along with being married to his wife who is the "ride or die" Most young men didn't feel that image because they felt he wasn't honest, loyal, and loving because of his lifestyle. Lastly, we spoke about President Barack H. Obama, whom the young men admired because he could be the President of the United States without hearing any drama, gossip, or scandals surrounding him. They said they admire his masculinity because he is smooth, married, Black, single-parent, and well-educated. When we discussed the marriage aspect, one young man stated, "Marriage is for White people and not Black people." So, I explored that statement more because I wanted to know where he got that concept from and how it can turn into a teachable moment. The young man stated that he doesn't know anyone married because all he knows is that fathers come and go, leave their mothers, have more children, and never commit to anyone. He also stated that it is normal where he comes from and that the only reason why President Obama is married is that he is half-white. I had to dispel that myth because, as a Black Woman who has been married to a Black Man for almost six years, I have witnessed healthy and unhealthy relationships. Marriage is for mature and understanding people who love one another and strive to be their best version to make the marriage work. When I explained this to the young gentlemen and discussed my own relationship with my husband, I saw the light bulb go off, and their minds shifted because marriage isn't just for White people. 

Overall, I enjoyed presenting to this group because I grew as a woman, wife, spiritual mother, and one day physical mother. I have learned that it takes a village and balance to raise children. We must be more proactive in our youths' lives instead of being judgmental, finger-pointing, blaming, and authoritative. We must teach young men boundaries, respect, and unconditional love. We also need to let these young men know that it is okay to be who they are: intelligent, athletic, inquisitive, kind, strong, well-educated, loving, monogamous, husbands, homeowners, entrepreneurs, and all positive things. We should try to dumb down the youth because they know what they want and have no problem telling you. We need to be the change agents and display appropriate actions. We must teach about consent, boundaries, the consequences of crossing borders, the importance of a family unit, social media dangers, and critical thinking. When I left the young men yesterday, I gave them a lot of homework and research on consent laws, goal setting, boundaries within relationships, positive and conscious Hip Hop, role models, and self-define themselves. We also must teach our boys that they are not niggas. They are Kings, Gentlemen, Classic Men, Gods, and most important essential. We need to encourage them that being intelligent is cool. Being an independent thinker is cool. Being a leader is cool. Being involved in STEM, school clubs, activities, and sports is fantastic. 

If you read this blog post, please consider being a mentor, volunteer, foster parent, role model, and positive figure in a young person's life. They need us, and we need them. 

Want to Become A Mentor? Sign up at Mentoring.Org

Want to Become A Volunteer and Give Back to Your Community? Sign up at Volunteer Match

Love, Light, and FLYness,

Drea

We Are Suppose To Be Gods: David Banner and #TheGodBox Lecture in Boston

                            "It is easy to kill a nigga but hard to kill a God." -David Banner

With the climate of the world, we are running on high emotions, fear, and anger because of police brutality, violence, and low frequency. I had the privilege to go to my hometown this past weekend to check out Mr. David Banner and The God Box lecture. Not only did I check out the lecture but my husband and I had a chance to be part of history at the Strand Theatre. We had a chance to Buy Black through shopping with the beautiful Black Businesses who were vending. You all know how I feel about "The People" having their businesses, making money, building generations, and recycling money within our community. I had a huge smile on my face while entering the building.

I was kind of surprised but not surprised that this event was not sold out because many people are not ready to receive the knowledge, some people had to work, some people just didn't want to come, and some people probably was frightened because of the content and context of Blacks in America and the honest and raw truth. Despite other folks feelings, my husband and I drove from Providence to Boston because we are community leaders, activists, married, and a family unit that will birth and bring folks Black babies into this world. We are seeking and appliers of knowledge and the knowledge we have received about the Blacks in Boston, Blacks in America, and Blacks Globally was definitely on point. I do a lot of researching and studying on historical and present day Black folks and honestly, time haven't changed but history remains and it is getting uglier by the day. Hence, why The God Box lecture is needed and why this event was pertinent especially during this time when Police Brutality is high, social engineering is revered up, and why Black Lives never mattered because we as the people have been conditioned since the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade by the oppressors.

Being a Brown Girl From Boston, Mattapan to be exact; I was taught to know my history and study people and the conditioning of my people from an early age. I have always been taught that history will repeat itself because systems are in place for the programming. I always go back to when one of my favorite teachers and mentor from high school, Ms. Bailey in which she taught my Sociology class. (hence why I am probably a Social Worker, Social Scientist, and Life Coach) She told me to read this book entitled: "The Death of an American Jewish Community: A Tragedy of Good Intentions" by Hillel Levine and in this book it discussed my neighbor of Mattapan being once a predominately Jewish community until the "Great  Migration" which caused "White Flight and the creation of suburbs" which we are now seeing once again in Boston with gentrification and the Whites are redeveloping areas that people of color lived, causing more income inequality, segregation within the City of Boston which is causing Black folks to live out because of the unaffordable to live within the Boston city limits.

Wealth Inequality within the City of Boston. African America families wealth in the City of Boston is $8 compare to White Families in Boston which is $247,500.

Back to the God Box lecture...
Many of these topics were discussed because I felt that I did my due diligence as Tayla Andre and Sabir Bey stated numerous of times during the event. Tayla, Sabir, and the young sister who name escape my memory did a thorough job discussion the history of Blacks in Boston, nationwide, and globally. I appreciate hearing that we should know the laws, study, and not take things at face value. We should also go beyond knowledge itself, we should be out in the communities being on the front line and helping the voiceless and "powerless" dismantle the policies and procedures that are outdated and unjust. We need to build that Black Wall Street that was once was in Tulsa, OK and Durham, NC. We definitely need to participate in group economics, buy Black, mentor our youth, gain wisdom from the elders and involved them in community affairs, build our own schools, hospitals, and other needed community things versus relying on the government to provide these things to us which are normally hand me downs, filled with chemicals, lies, and toxicity anyways.

I have been checking out David Banner's lectures and interviews online because I truly wanted to see the evolution on this brother. I appreciate The God Box lectures because it isn't a "Come to Jesus Meeting" so please leave your religious beliefs, things your Pastor, Deacon, Imam or whoever your religious leaders says. The God Box lectures is not about making you feel good about your religion or having folks be lullaby-ed by rhetoric, lies, and a feel good message. The God Box helps liberate your mind, provoke some though, provoke you to study, and expand your mindset to think beyond a surface level. David Banner spoke truth to power like many other conscious Black speakers, lecturers, and common folks do every day. David Banner just has a bigger platform and the money to back him. I just want to be transparent about that. Most things he says is honest and things I have heard growing up with my family being from the South as well. I appreciate hearing it coming from a reformed (lol) rapper who previously took a page from the Iceberg Slim's books.

My tweet from  Twitter on Being A God!

When David Banner hit that stage, he went all the way in. He told us, to take our photos now and cut our phones off. I appreciate that because we are always plugged in and often miss messages because we are trying to get the video to post for the folks to gloat about being in the presence of David Banner, helping others to tap into the knowledge of self, or for our own personal propaganda. I appreciate being present because I was mindful, received the knowledge, and applied the knowledge. One hard truth that David Banner spoke about was being a Black person in America. He was gutsy by saying that Blacks don't like being Black. Whoa!!!!! I had to sit all the way back in my seat and ponder on this strong, aggressive statement because it was bold, in your face, and his truth. He stated that we have been socially engineered to hate ourselves, our image, our holistic selves because of the things we do to self, calling ourselves "niggas",  the way we assimilate into the dominant society and treat one another. It was a hard, ugly truth because as people of culture, we do a lot of manipulation to self and our culture to assimilative despite being treated less than an animal. Many people treat their animals better than they treat Black people. We also allow this to constantly happen to ourselves as well because we call ourselves "niggas" "hoes" and "bitches" versus "Gods" "Queens" and "Kings". There are an unlimited amount of words in the dictionary but we choose to call and answer to these derogatory words rather than using positive, uplifting and moving words. David Banner went ahead and explain The God Box and proved that we are all Gods and went to the Bible and pulled out about six scriptures in which God who can be "She" "He" or "It" stated that we all are Gods. My favorite scriptures he quoted: Psalms 82:6: "I have said, ‘You are gods, All of you are sons of the Most High."

I am not going to give any more away about the God Box lecture because it is very powerful and I suggest that all my people and Brown Girl Tribe should go and attend the lecture. I don't care what color, creed, nationality, religion, ethnicity, or whatever you claim, just go with an open-mind, and open-heart. The information and delivery that David Banner presents it in are raw, emotionally, but it makes you want to do your due diligence by reading, studying, helping your community and do more for yourself and the people. Also, apply the five solutions he provides:

1. Studying and Learning
2. Practicing Group Economics
3. Education
4. Nation Building through Ownership
5. Accountability and Responsibility of Ourselves and Others

In conclusion, make sure you support people doing real things out there. Support your local folks, support folks who are in your community, support people who are doing positive work. Make sure you pre-order The God Box which is David Banner's upcoming album! Also, I want to give David Banner a special shout out because he took the time to take photos with my husband and I and spoke knowledge to us. Anytime, someone takes the time to speak pure love and knowledge to you, thank them because that creates community, a spark of vision and it shows that humanity hasn't died off yet lol. Speak life to someone just because we all need that spark, love, and knowledge.

Remember, you are not niggas, you are Gods. Don't ever allow that word to enter into your sacred space.

The social inequality of Bostonians 

This sign was hung throughout the City of Boston during the 1800s by the Boston Vigilance Committees informing Black People of communication with police officers and watchmen. 

Thank you for reading the blog post! I truly appreciate you all! Make sure you comment, support, and share the blog post!

Peace, Love, and FLYness,
Drea
Brown Girl From Boston