Dr. BraVada Garrett-Akinsanya is a healer. She talks about healing both for individuals and for the community, and I think healing is what we need right now in our community. We are going through a period of contentious allegation and accusation. I’ve asked Dr. Akinsanya to preface my conversation with Scott Gray, Minneapolis Urban League’s new President and CEO. I asked Dr. Akinsanya to explore the notion of resilience and growth for our community. How do we create a protocol, a Code of Conduct, that gets us from Point A to Point B intact, without self-destroying implosion.We are progressing in our community. The movement that the Urban League is making towards change says this is our time, as a community, to change. And change is not always bad, although it is difficult to make. As a clinical psychologist with almost 30 years of experience, I know people change. I know people go through stages of change. One of the first stages is called pre-contemplation, where you don’t even know you need to change. Remember how we used to feel about salt and pork, until we started realizing it was giving us high blood pressure? Well, some of us have to understand you move from places of not knowing to knowing. One of the biggest strengths we have as an African people is our ability to survive. We have survived on cornbread, collard greens, ham hocks, turkey legs, chicken wings, way before they got popular. The reason we survived is because we have Kuumba: creativity. We know that through our creative selves we can create a new reality.
The strength that we have as an African people here in Minneapolis is that we have overcome oppression. Often we experience setbacks because of the Willie Lynch Syndrome, that put us one group against another. But right now we know that our greatest struggle is to learn how to be well, and that wellness is a right of every human being. We were created divinely. It’s not because of stature, it’s not because of finances, it’s because we were created equally, with the divine right to be well. We have to claim our right to be well, as individuals, and as a collective group in this community.
Now, what does wellness mean? Well, through our Afrocentric studies, we know that wellness means embracing each other and embracing the concept of consubstantiation. That means that all living things are connected. It means that everyone is our brother and sister. Although we may come in different containers, we are mostly water. So we are more alike than we are different.
We’ve got to remember where we came from. So to heal, to be well, we’ve got to understand that power, in the African community, is always in a circle, where there is no beginning and end, there is no top and bottom.
There is the hierarchical structure that was imposed upon us as a people. But we need to step back and realize that every voice is of value, whether it’s a dissenting or consenting voice. So, in this process, as we rediscovered our “we-ness,” we have to know that I am because we are. We’ve got to understand that to love ourselves doesn’t mean we have to not love our other brothers and sisters. To be pro-Black does not mean to be anti-white. To be pro-woman does not mean to be anti-male. You can love yourself without hating somebody else.
So let’s move into this place of healing. Let’s think about what we have to do. Think about our babies that are waiting for us on the other side, hoping that praying every day as they struggle against drug abuse, HIV, low school success, poor – hope for themselves. We are the hope makers. We cannot give up. We cannot turn around. We cannot turn back. We cannot fight each other. We have to combine our strength. Every voice has value – every voice, from the smallest to the largest. And bring your voice to the table. Bring it for healing.
