The Ujima celebration hosted by Nsoroma Institute at the Charles H Wright museum was powerful. From the call of the drums to the libations (with kola nut, water, spirits, and smoke--because Queen Mother believes in doing things real) to words from the youth and the elders, I was fed.
I wish I had been taking notes during Minister Dawud Muhammad's talk. He said so much that really spoke to me and that I needed to hear. He noted that "there's no picking and choosing in 'collective'" and likened "throwing up crescents, crosses, and ankhs" to divide to gang divisions. And Baba Malik Yakini shared a little of the history of Nsoroma and outlined plans to think about how to move forward the educating the youth since the closure of Nsoroma as a charter school.
Also, on today's theme, there's an editorial that suggests making a New Year's Resolution to not call the police. I've thought about this a lot recently. Of course the question becomes what do to instead. Rather than "handing off" the problem to police, committing to not calling them means that we take collective ownership of the problem and attempt to solve it. In the remote past, I called police twice: once after a really unsuccessful mugging (he got nothing; I got a strong dislike of people behind me unexpectedly touching my neck) and once for a very loud domestic dispute in an apartment above me. I've mostly convinced myself that I could just let random property crimes go (the main challenge there being that if I ever needed a police report for an insurance claim, there would be a problem), but I don't have any strategy for safety concerns. INCITE! seems to have developed the beginning of a toolkit on the "community accountability," though I haven't explored the listed resources yet.
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