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*Inspired by
Mama Marimba Ani
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to listen to Mama Marimba on AYAradio.net
Listen to Amos
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With prolonged oppression, there is prolonged adaptation. We have adapted to
survive. It is painful to see and experience ourselves, our people "acting
more white" than white folks, taking advantage of each other, not
supporting our own businesses, etc. Simple condemnation is futile.
 Transformation is key.
Are you prepared? Are you skilled? How's your track record with your
family? Yourself?
Our transformation is facilitated by:
You ask: What is WSLKA?
It's a series of "cognitive program
interrupts." I designed them in preparation for a presentation
to some college students in Alabama 12 years ago. Each letter in
the acronym starts the phrase designed to interrupt negative
cognitive and behavioral program born of Yurugu. My assumption
is if we can interrupt the "program," we'll naturally do the
right thing.
W= Who's in yo' mouf?
S=Say What!?
L= Leadership is...
K= Keep your hands on the plow ....
hold on!
A= And instead of but
- Out of context they have little
meaning. "Who’s in yo
mouf" you may recognize from Zora Neal
Hurston’s Their Eyes Where Watching God. It
interrupts the subtle Yurugu instruction to surrender our
power, even while thinking we're challenging Yurugu.
-
Say What!? interrupts the Maafa nurtured tendency
to focus on what is negative (and/or what we've be taught to
see as negative) about us or our efforts.
- "Leadership
is..." breaks the spell of Europeans defining
both our leadership and what "real" leadership is.
-
"Keep your hands on the plow", works to realign
those of us who left our communities determined to get an
education to better make a positive difference in our
communities. Often, for example, we find ourselves working
on pathology when we started out wanting to help our
community become healthier. This interrupt quickly calls us
to break the "spell" of Yurugu academic training.
- The last one (And,
instead of but) is a quick reminder to eschew the
superior/inferior paradigm for Afrikan balance, reciprocity
and "twinness."
The infection rides on our good
intentions and natural inclinations to help ourselves and our
people. The infection's subtleness increases at each descending
phase. Needing only one entry point, once it takes hold, it
opens the door for all of the programmed messages to direct and
control us.
Presented in the context of the
retreat, WSLKA become audio icons associated with already
implanted Yurugu infections that seek to re-direct our healthy
work with and for our people. Whenever the infection seeks to
strike or run a "program," WSLKA is called up to counter or
interrupt the Yurugu directed thinking and behavior. With
regular use, those Yurugu programs are neutralized and our
natural good thinking, feeling and behavior flows unimpeded.
- Now what about those other transformative
ideas and processes:
- Seven Steps to Recovery
- The Flow of Recognition
- Feelings as Messengers
Well, you'll just have to attend the weekend
retreat to learn how these work.
Ok, we will give you a few more gems for free.
Click on the audio links on this page and listen to
the wisdom there. These will increase your awareness and hopefully inspire
you as well. However, at the we process them. We take time to shape the
inspiration and awareness into confident and supported action.
Amos Wilson's Falsification of African Consciousness provides
another blue-print for transforming our accommodation and adaptation to
confrontation and reality construction. Falsification is great pre-reading or
review to prepare for the retreat. Also listen to the audio clip.
Scroll down and click on the Amos audio. This is a short 15 minute piece
that we'll revisit during the retreat:
"In Africa the woman's `place' was not only with her family; she often
ruled nations with unquestionable authority. Many African women were great
militarists and on occasion led their armies in battle. Long before they knew
of the existence of Europe, the Africans had produced a way of life where men
were secure enough to let women advance as far as their talent would take
them."
--John Henrik Clarke
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OurStory is a key part of healing the wounds of the
Yurugu infection. Listen to Baba Clarke as he applies the healing salve:
#1Drama for the Ages...
Come back and listen for more:
#2 Nothing From Outside...
Come back and
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