Topic for the Decade:

Emotional Freedom for Black People

A few years back, I was at a Chinese restaurant with an African-American girl I was mentoring at the time. When the young man who took our order added up the charges in his head,...

My young friend looked up at me with a knowing grin on her face and whispered words I will never forget. “Wow, did you see how he figured that out so fast?” She added these words that broke my heart: “It’s a well-known fact that Chinese people are smarter than Black people.”

In this Black History Month of 2010, we can say with pride that as a people we have come a long way. But it is also true that we have some crucial unfinished business to do. It is well past time for us to free ourselves—and our children--from the myth of Black inferiority. Barack Obama is the President of the United States and Oprah Winfrey is the queen of the media world. But too many Black children still believe that they are not as smart, not as beautiful, not as capable, and not as lovable as other children. Too many Black people are still talking about “good hair,” preferring “light skin,” and equating being smart with “acting white.”

When we talk this way, and teach our children to think this way, we are passing on the myth of Black inferiority. That myth says that whatever is Black is not as good as whatever is White. It was created nearly four hundred years ago to justify the enslavement and colonization of African people. It continues to undermine our sense of self-worth, our physical and emotional well-being, and the health of our relationships. It is a root cause of many of the challenges facing Black communities around the world.

In his famous book The Mis-Education of the Negro, Carter G. Woodson, who launched the annual celebration of Black history, said: “When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him to stand here or go yonder. He will find his ‘proper place’ and will stay in it.” Black History Month was in large part an attempt to help us, as a people, regain control of our minds. It is time to take Woodson’s insights to a new level. It is time for us to be intentional about liberating ourselves—and our children--from the internalized myths that are keeping us from reaching our full potential.

The Community Healing Network, Inc. (CHN, www.communityhealingnet.org), launched in 2006 in New Haven, Connecticut, is working to build a grassroots movement for emotional healing and renewal for Black people—a movement aimed at freeing our minds and changing how we see-- and feel about-- ourselves. Our purpose is to help build a global network that will engage Black people in their own healing to help promote emotional renewal and transformation for Black families and communities.

We have set out to help heal the intangible damage done by the myth of Black inferiority--with tangible strategies. In 2008, inspired by Dr. Maya Angelou’s wisdom that we must “take a day to heal from the lies that have been told to us and the ones we’ve told ourselves,” CHN issued a Call to Healing and Renewal. The Call to Healing and Renewal urged Black people everywhere to come together for an annual celebration of Community Healing Days SM to put “time for healing” on our calendars.

Community Healing Days, SM are three days set aside each year, on the third weekend of every October, for us to focus on taking special care of ourselves and taking steps to promote healing in our families and communities. In October 2008, people in New Haven were joined by people in Montclair, New Jersey and Tuskegee, Alabama, in sponsoring movie nights, panel discussions, community walks, and religious services focused on healing. In 2009, people in seventeen communities across the country responded to our call. And we are making preparations now for the third annual celebration of Community Healing DaysSM on October 15, 16, and 17, 2010.

Community Healing Days SM is not just a once-a-year celebration. It is a catalyst for building a sustained movement for emotional healing and renewal for Black people and CHN is working to create an infrastructure to support that movement with its Community Healing Institute SM and its Community Healer Awards.SM Through the Community Healing Institute, SM CHN creates safe spaces for us as individuals to deepen our understanding of the impact of our history on our emotional lives and to share stories and resources to promote personal healing. The Institute will also offer workshops and trainings to equip leaders to be able to promote emotional healing in their local communities. And through the Community Healer Awards, SM we are lifting up and honoring women and men who are defying stereotypes and helping us as a people to “see ourselves in a whole new light.”

SM is for my young friend who believed so wrongly that Black people are not as smart as Chinese people--and for all Black children, CHN has set itself the goal of engaging a critical mass of Black people in the movement for emotional healing and renewal by the end of this decade in the year 2019, the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Africans on American soil. We invite you to put “time for healing” at the top of your agenda for this next decade and to encourage your family and friends around the corner and across the world to do the same.

Join the movement. We invite you to imagine—and help us build--a world free of the myth of Black inferiority—a world in which we are finally free to fully love ourselves and each other. We need a bold and bright new vision of who we are--and what we can be--to captivate, energize, and save our children. At CHN, we believe that there is nothing we can imagine that we will not be able to create. We believe that one of the most important things we need to do is to remember that we are the descendants of the extraordinary men and women who, as so many of our grandmothers used to say, “made a way out of no way.” Once we take the time to heal, there will be no limits to what we—and our children---will be able to achieve.

Enola G. Aird is the founder and president of the Community Healing Network, Inc.
She can be reached at info@communityhealingnet.org.

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