Give me a little hope, one small thing to cling to
Running in circles while terrorized to walk a straight line. Battling with the deconstructive sprint that was implanted in each of us by enculturation. They used culture as an instrument of power.
This ignited the spark that led me into a deep dive of research, asking the questions, who conditioned my mama and ‘em, and how did they not see they were being conditioned? I found myself seeking the answers to help me understand the psychology of supremacy. How did this conditioning result in us accepting ourselves as inferior beings? The European frame of reference has become a part of our own personal worldview.
Toni Morrison taught us to write for ourselves and not the white gaze, while Mambai Ari taught us how to decolonize our minds from their frame of reference. Everything in life has a cause and effect, and the cause of white supremacy has affected everything about Black culture as we know it today. And if you try to say this can’t be true, humans cannot condition the mindset of another group of humans so much that it changes their way of living. To that, I would tell you to do some research on pigeons. They don’t even know how to be birds after being domesticated while being used as messenger birds.
However, it’s something so special about Black people and our connection to the Universe when we are in our practice of writing. In the book, Yuguru, Mambai Ari breaks down how the African worldview is based on spirituality and our connectedness to the Universe.
Yuguru explains how the European frame of reference is not spiritual, so therefore the past, present, and future are separate in their ideology. While we believe our ancestors are a part of us and we are the vessel for them to express freely, the Europeans look at their forefathers as competition with them presently, not as a guiding light. They do not have a connection to them, and because their world is a one-dimensional linear line, the past and the present coexist as one time in their eyes. The future is unknown, so they fear it, and that ideology has conditioned many of us indoctrinated in this worldview.
What made me have a real ah-ha moment was in the opening with Mambai Ari’s Author’s Note, where she explains the story of the Dogon people of Mali, in West Africa. Their spiritual practice is rooted in the belief that the Creator is Amma, a woman. Now that shit expanded my mind so much because I immediately thought about how I have always had this inner knowing that the Universe was female. I couldn’t prove how I knew, but I knew it was true, and I believed this with every bit of my being. The only thing that made me second-guess myself was my embedded knowledge from conditioned, organized religion. God is a man, outside of us, judging us, and we have to seek validation outside of ourselves.
On this spiritual journey, we believe our soul is whole when we find balance between the masculine and feminine parts of ourselves, and the Dogon people believed that Amma equipped each soul with both male and female parts. However, there was one particular male soul who thought he could create a better world than the one Amma had, a very competitive little fella. Yurugu was his name, and he procreated with his own placenta to create Earth. And because he did not have his female counterpart, he lacked “equilibrium, cooperation, balance, and harmony.”
Ironically enough, this is the reality of Earth today.
“Most times, we don’t realize how our emotions and thoughts are subconsciously driving the ship of our reality. Our ego locks away emotions in our prison of misery, and our thoughts fuel the ego to believe this process is protecting us from what we used to fear. The “work” comes in when you start getting curious about the thoughts that come up, the ones that have become your beliefs. Do those beliefs provide fulfillment or temporary peace?”
…
“I spiral into thoughts that support my beliefs that I am not good enough to deserve true happiness and fulfillment. We give our ego dominance over our life, resulting in our inability to recognize our identity is attached to a conditioned belief. The belief is either getting us closer to our dreams or it has taken us away from it. To shine more light, does this belief bring you unconditional love, peace, joy, fulfillment, and happiness; or is the love, peace, joy, and happiness temporary based on conditions?”
Excerpt from “Untrap da Hood: Chapter Seven - I Denounce Dominance”
As I continued to dive into this work, I heard the voice in my heart say to me, “This is your life’s work, baby, you got it now.” And then I remembered the book I published last year and the chapter I wrote about denouncing dominance and recognizing the cultural conditionings. The subtitle of the book is “Break Free from Cultural Traps”. It couldn’t be clearer to me that this question, I have been searching for the answer to for quite some time.
The news broke on Friday, September 26th, that Assata Shakur had transitioned into our ancestor on Thursday, September 25th. When searching for a photo of her, I came across this quote. Now, call me crazy, but our connection to each other can only be explained through spiritual multidimensional understanding.
My research question for this study hall/study group residency is simple. How do we define freedom for ourselves, as Black people, from a decolonized mind?
Assata showed us that it is possible, and it does not happen without action.
Assata died free, not in a prison cell, not at the hands of supremacy.
She is our hero story in 2025. As an ancestor, she gives us hope.
Assata Shakur lived a powerful, radical, groundbreaking, revolutionary life as a Black woman, and died a free Black woman.
xoxo,
Jacquie
October Book Club & Workshops
I am so grateful for the turnout for both the book club and zine workshop this month. The groups really inspired me to continue this work with more intention. I’ve been craving an intimate space to expand the mind beyond the surface. Rather than waiting for the opportunity, I decided to open my study circle to the collective to see if we can’t together achieve a mutual goal.
Book Club will be free; the download is below. And yes, you guessed it, the book is Yurugu, and we will be covering this book for the rest of the year.
The Zine workshop will be hosted on Wednesday, October 15th, at 3:30 pm PT in honor of the publication date of the Ten-Point Party Program. We will be making a newsletter-style zine with our own Ten-Point Program using a template provided.
Now, this next one is my baby, okay. Today’s newsletter and podcast episode find you from deep in my research bag. It started with a question and has led to some answers that I need to share and have discussions with other like-minded Black women, or men, if you come in with an open heart and mind. I’m so grateful to the people who signed up while I was still working through my idea, so I will keep the price at $85 for the full residency through the end of the year.
My goal is to close the sign-up by the end of next week, and I pray the seats sell out before then so we can get started this week. After this episode and essay, I am ready for the discussion.
Here’s the link for the zine workshop and study group residency: https://www.jacquieverbal.com/workshop
“Many of our students go into schools consuming, and their minds are not being developed to produce the true means by which they will accomplish equality.”
-Dr. Amos Wilson
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