Honoring MLK's Legacy

On the third Monday of January, many of us “celebrate” MLK Day. For lots of people and organizations, this day is a day focused on service - it is considered a “day on” instead of a day off. One of Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous quotes is as follows: “everybody can be great because anybody can serve”. Another one of my personal favorites is: life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “what are you doing for others?”. 

Service is an important and consistent aspect of my personal life and Sharp Brain Consulting exists to support organizations that serve their communities. So don’t mistake what I am going to write for a lack of focus on service. I wonder if our laser focus on service means that we are not focusing on the full legacy of Dr. King and the full scope of his work. If we look at the full scope of his work, we cannot ignore the work to achieve full equity for African Americans. 

Most of 2020 was an exceptionally difficult time for a lot of people, but I have talked to so many black people who struggled in a significant way. For many of us, the societal unrest associated with the murders of black bodies was almost too much to take - watching these murders, having conversations about race, being reminded of past traumatic experiences was all just a lot. When I saw the feedback from people who were viscerally angry about “Black Lives Matter”, it made me sad. All of this reminded me that even though there has been progress for black folks, there is still much work to do. 

If we want to fully honor MLK’s legacy, we should certainly engage in service, but we have to do more than that. We have to continue to fight like hell for equity in our communities and organizations. We have to continue to have brave and real conversations about race and inequities. White folks have to use their privilege to demand change and create space for black and brown voices. Black folks have to engage in self-care and self-love because this work is hard and sometimes painful. 

What will you do to honor MLK’s legacy? 

Is it the most wonderful time of the year?

For some people, the holiday season is a wonderful and happy time. It includes family, food, and celebrations. Throw in a global pandemic and food and celebrations are gone. There are also other folks who have a very different experience. For them, the holiday season is a time of increased loneliness and isolation. It may be a reminder of challenging relationships with family and friends.

There is a real possibility that for many of us, we will experience a difficult set of emotions right now. Here are a few things to do to cope with your holiday emotions:

Engage in mindfulness: I talk about this a lot because I believe in the power of mindfulness. Mindfulness is the art/science of being in the present moment. One of my favorite forms of mindfulness is meditation - deep slow breathing. If you have not engaged in meditation before, I’d recommend starting now.

Gratitude: every Thanksgiving I have dinner with my parents and younger brother. We make a point to share what we are grateful for - how often do you think about what you are grateful for? Oprah does it every day. There is some research about the impact of gratitude - engaging in gratitude feels even more important during a particularly hard year.

Therapy: I believe in the power of therapy partly because it has been so impactful on my life. I believe in therapy during hard times, therapy for people who live with a mental illness, and therapy to talk through an issue with a neutral party. Psychology Today’s website has a fantastic filter and I have heard good things about Talk Space. PS: finding words for your emotions and expressing those has positive brain impacts.

I hope that you use the end of this year to reflect and think - what will you leave in 2020? What will you focus on in 2021?

I am sending you all love, joy and well-being this holiday season. <3

Liberation Workers

The past few months have been such a bizarre and crazy time. We started the Spring with a global pandemic then entered into a phase of racial reckoning. I don’t know many people or organizations who are not talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Sharp Brain Consulting, like many other consulting firms, is working alongside organizations to improve their outcomes as it relates to this work, but we don’t want to stop there. Beginning in August, SBC will be working with women who want to take their race and justice work to the next level. Using the liberatory consciousness framework created by Barbara J. Love, we have created two groups to help white women. 

We should all work to be liberation workers; Love describes liberation workers as people who are committed to changing systems and institutions characterized by oppression to create equity and social justice. To do that, we have to develop liberatory consciousness. The four elements are awareness, analysis, acting, and accountability/ally-ship.

Love says that the awareness component involves “developing the capacity to notice, to give our attention to our daily lives, our language, our behaviors, and even our thoughts”. It is about noticing what is happening in the world around you. 

Analysis requires every individual “not only to notice what is going on in the world around her, but to think about it and theorize about it -that is, to get information and develop her own explanation for what is happening, why it is happening, and what needs to be done about it”. 

Action is next because awareness and analysis are not enough. This component involves deciding what needs to be done, and then seeing to it that action is taken. This can be taking action personally or encouraging others to take action. 

The framework ends with accountability. This involves taking the consequences of actions taken or not taken. This phase is “concerned with how we understand and manage the opportunity and possibility for perspective sharing and allyship in liberation work”. 

The white women’s equity and justice groups were created based on this framework. Phase 1 is about awareness and analysis. In this phase, participants learn more about race, equity, and liberation. Participants begin to look internally to understand their role in this work and how they can work to become a liberation worker. In Phase 2, we focus on action and accountability. Participants begin to examine their lives to understand what action looks like for them individually. This work, work of equity and inclusion, will be challenging, but it is necessary. Women can no longer be complicit in an unjust society. 

Learn more about Phase 1 and register here.