Chosen to be Black

BlackBox is a group dedicated to guiding black people towards expressing power by claiming our value. Through contemplative practices and group discussions, we desire to liberate our culture’s collective voices and each individual soul’s unique expression. We aim to show black culture that our power comes from within and is not determined by another.

An excerpt from our upcoming book:
We are a noble people. The chosen people. We have an obligation to be true and generously share the truth with love and compassion, fierceness and directness. If that truth doesn’t feel like love, then it’s not truth. Blackness is soul, and soul is about love, about resilient love. Truth is love. Truth is not used to punch someone in the face and not used to retaliate. Anything that doesn’t feel like love is old hurt inside of us; it eats us alive to hold on to that hurt or use it on others — no matter where it came from.

Blaming from hurt, name calling from hurt, making other people our enemies from hurt, that should be over with because none of it is effective at all. How many times have we been willing to change anything about ourselves when others yell at us about how bad we are? Maybe we change to get people off our backs and out of our faces, but this does not stick. The minute they leave us alone, we’re back to our old behavior. This is what all the protesting, cancelling, and calling out is doing: We’re yelling at folks to change, so they cater to us to get us to shut up. The moment we shut up, they go right back to what they were doing.

It’s not that we’re asking for too much. We aren’t even asking. We’re demanding. When we do ask, it’s not for too much but not enough.

The Rehumanization Magazine

newslettersGet access to the monthly Rehumanization Magazine featuring contributors from the front lines of this effort—those living on Death Row, residents of the largest women’s prison in the world, renowned ecologists, the food insecure, and veteran correctional officers alike.