Brain Dump Ep.4

Before jumping right into the first Monday morning dump, let me set the intention and let everyone know what I'm trying to achieve with these shorty but goodies. 

A brain dump is simply the act of dumping all the contents of your mind onto paper.  kind of like grabbing your bag and dumping it onto the floor in order to see all of its contents. I'm using that practice in a slightly different way as I'm trying to locate what are my immediate log jams as it relates to this work so we can keep things moving. So after I dump my thought on the page I'm looking for a particular nugget to share that others can benefit from. Take a listen and let me know your thoughts. 

There are a lot of efforts to tackle what it takes to change the distorted perception of blackness placed on us by society. Moving back home to East Cleveland from a very progressive east coast and reconnecting with the people the furthest away from the conversation yet at the center of it - had me grappling with how to bring the voices from the oppressed to the doorstep of the holders of the wealth to help change it.

One thing that emerged for me during the difficulties we are all challenged with, is we as a people can speak for ourselves, to our community, and to the holders of those clinging to the systems that put us here, hold us here, and are working to keep us here.

This is OUR reality.

Our self-reflection and intra-communal dialogue is the fuel that powers the desire to change narratives placed on us by society. "Academic" conversations and white papers have dipped their toe into the realness of the inner narrative we hold in our disinvested communities.

It's time for US to dive in and ask:

What does it take to insist that loiter in our own neighborhoods is a natural part of community living?
 
Loitering is the only crime that you can be arrested for and even lose your life if you’re a black male, for not fitting a particular social construct. Why?

Jamal Collins and I, natives of East Cleveland, the poorest city in the state of Ohio, created the Loitering and Unarmed podcast as a commitment to narrative control and spatial and economic justice.

The caveat is, our podcast is primarily speaking to and with the people of East Cleveland. This means that some of you may not see yourself in our conversations, but we hope we bring you into the challenges of doing our work and invite you to engage with empathy.

We ask for the acknowledgment that some have enjoyed our culture for the purposes of entertainment in the form of other media (music, film, etc...) which gave a window into a world of us chasing dreams while living in a perpetual nightmare. With that in mind we invite you to be at OUR table and just listen, as a guest.

To be honest, I give this first episode a C.
I need to work on setting the table a bit better and Jay and I need to continue to build chemistry and stay on track. In conversations with others in the podcast game, that comes with time, and an intern! lol. For those that know me, this is a huge step outside of my comfort zone.

It's time for us all to lean indifferently.

It is our hope to invite East Cleveland residents and our collective networks to un-arm themselves of their armor of biases and remind the world that black men engaging in provocative conversation either on the corner or online is not a threat but a think tank to solve America’s disease of racialized poverty.

Open call to East Clevelander’s and others committed to social change to jump in on the conversation!!

#socialchange #narrativechange