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Stop Trying to Build Unity—Start Stripping Away the Heavy Noise

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Stop Trying to Build Unity—Start Stripping Away the Heavy Noise We’ve been sold a lie about unity. We’ve been conditioned to believe that building community means adding more to an already exhausted life—more meetings, more emotional labor, more managing other people's chaos while holding your own together with duct tape and willpower. That isn't Umoja. That's martyrdom. In Black America, our survival history taught us to construct thick, impenetrable walls around our spirits. We call it "hyper-independence." We wear "I do it all on my own" like a badge of honor, while inside, we are burdened, exhausted, and stuck in cycles of fear, anger, and isolation. We stack blame, shame, and guilt like rust on pure silver, then wonder why we’ve lost our shine. Here is the hard truth: Umoja is not an addition; it is a subtraction. Through the Gye-Nyame Journey system, we practice via negativa —the power of stripping away what was never meant to be there in the first...

Salute to Nommo X

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I have to start this by saluting the men who have blazed a path in my life. I will do this in order and then I will dive in to this tribute. First I have to give shots out to my grandfather Cleven Brown who taught me to care and take care of my family (RIP). Next in line I have to say thank you to the person who this article is about Nommo X. Nommo then introduced me to Dr. Moriba Kelsey the founder of APDS, and the Tawi Village. Through Dr. Kelsey and Nommo I met Dr. Lewis Dodley entrepreneur and the Baba of the Simba Nation. Through Baba Dodley I was introduced to Gaylord Thomas. These men have shaped me through the fire of their love into who I am today. You may never hear about these men but they are in my pantheon of greatness. When I needed fatherly guidance each of these men gave it to me in their own way. Nommo X was a historian, warrior, entrepreneur, and a all around great man. He was a mentor that accepted you where you were and helped moved you to where you needed to be. ...

Sending Props to Seth Godin

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On this Journey you have to sometimes adjust your trajectory. You sometimes end up on a dead end trail, because the Journey is about gaining the experience so that you can share what you know. At these times it is good to humble yourself and admit that you are lost. What I have found in life is  that when you let your ego go and ask the universe for help, something always appears. Sometimes it's a book, a map, gift, and if you are lucky  a person. During one of my lost moments, I happened to be on TED.com looking for videos. This is when I ran into Seth Godin's presentation entitled " The Tribes We Lead ". He presented answer to questions I had been wrestling with. I suggested that those on the Journey check the video out. Now I want to send props for a few major things I learned from @sethgodin: 1. I was not trying to build organizations, but Tribes. It was something I had being doing but did not know what to call it. By being introduced to this idea, I have cha...