Final fulbright thoughts

Last Friday was my first day back in the States after living in Senegal for the last few months. Friday was also the day the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended my friends, family, and neighbors' constitutional right to abortion. In the strangest turn of events, I landed in JFK, stepped back into my “home,” and felt any sense of comfort erased by the cruel reality of cultural bias, corruption, and the complex human condition polluted by desire and control.

In Senegal, at least once every day, a cab driver would ask me, “Where are you from?” “Oh, America,” I would say. “What’s your ethnicity? “Oh, I’m African American,” I would say. At times, a stranger would even hear me drag out the <<A>> in my “carefully constructed” French accent and they would instinctively ask, “Are you American?” (Sigh)… Oh, to be an American. To hold the weight of a country that tends to treat the marginalized so poorly, and yet, the world around you sees it as being “Yours.” Something that is “Mine.” It’s wild how something that is “mine” could leave me and those who are closest to me feeling so spiritually malnourished.
 

In a more academic and tangible sense, writer, activist and facilitator, Adrienne Maree Brown is inspired by the brilliant Black & female Science Fiction Writer, Octavia Buter. Throughout Brown’s book, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, they [Brown] teaches us to “map” and “assess” the systemic structures that ultimately shapes us, personally and politically.

Brown defines “emergent” as “the way complex systems and patterns arise out of relatively simple interactions.” For instance, the simple act of birds flapping their wings sparks the complex process of migration and survival. Brown then states that, “humans are an emergent species amongst emergent species.” Arguably, the process of “emerging” can also be seen as a “strategy.” To this same point, you can also be a “strategic leader” who causes a lot of harm. As a result, Brown urges all humans to create the “right” relationship with “change” that moves us closer to community, justice, and healing. 

Echoing Brown’s point on “emergent strategy,” I truly believe that we can do more than blindly fuel “strategic advancement.” Instead, we can nourish “it,” hold “it,” embody “its” meaning with pride. I hope to add to a country that prioritizes spiritual nourishment over “strategy.” I hope to create space for an abundance of liberation as there’s always some place that needs justice.

I hope that we can each find space to help humans evolve generatively, and of course, generously. In time, I hope we can find peace in an interconnected system of existence. 

Thank you for reading these words & thoughts.

Lastly, thank you, Senegal for showing me a new way of thinking & being. 

-LSB ✨