"How can we, future ancestors, align ourselves with the most resilient practices of emergence as a species? Many of us have been socialized to understand that constant growth, violent competition and critical mass are the ways to create change. But emergence shows us that adaptation and evolution depend more upon critical, deep and authentic connections, a thread that can be tugged for support and resilience. The quality of connection between the nodes in the patterns”. - Octavia Butler
More and more I come to realize that I do not and cannot stand alone. That every movement is a continuation in the story of my people. Capitalism would have us think that we are capable of being individuals. That the stories of those who came before us are inconsequential and our value is derived from how different we can be. How quaint that in proving our difference we must quite literally BUY into labels, worn to mark our independence and self-importance. “I’m different” thinking has never sat right with me. Seems like so many of us are ought to prove we are better than the whole, but we can never be. Ubuntu “I am because we are”.
To be without the spirit of Ubuntu is to be disconnected. Many of us today are indeed disconnected from space and time. We have little understanding of where we are in space, the story of the land, what is has given and what it offers. We don't know who we are in time so we fall for the same tactics like separation, domination or gentrification. We exist disjointed, thinking we know better than our mothers, failing to benefit from their knowledge.
The Rites of Passage program seeks to establish a reconnection not only for youth participating but for the community as a whole. The next generation and the one receiving it into adulthood must know one another and cannot risk the inability to support and care for one another. The narrative of irreverent and rebellious teens and their tonedeaf and ignorant parents does not serve us nor does it fit our cultural practice. We belong to each other and no one else. No other people's culture or narrative will serve us in our pursuit of liberation and joy. Our quality of
connection will birth a resilient generation and ensure we live on for generations to come
- Kristen Williams