Dear Reader,

I am writing this letter to invite you to consider joining the revolution of love which has already started and will continue. Love comes in many forms. While the story of romantic love is well chartered the equally important stories of love from the world and love of yourself are often treated with silence and even rejection. This Revolution is a story of love from the world and love of yourself. We are not powerless against oppression; there are heroes and truth speakers among us and we can stand in solidarity with them. Based on a series of painfully beautiful conversations with folks who come from and lead black communities I have been informed of the way anti blackness, an attitude that violates love, has shaped the experience and undermined the physical, emotional, and spiritual fulfilment of huge swaths of the population merely based on the soothing and elegant darkness of a body.

What I have learned is that the attitude of anti blackness from others constructed a world that systematically disadvantages, ignores, and discriminates against black people globally. In some cases, this happens within black communities where the darker the skin, the stronger the barriers to love and acceptance. Perhaps most tragically, I have been alerted to the way this rejection can be internalised as a form of self rejection that leads to a life within which beautiful souls forget their own beauty. The Revolution, therefore, must necessarily come from within the black community to not only solve structural and active hate but to solve the absence of self acceptance. For those of us who are not part of that community, we can follow the lead of the Paul Hodges Trust in facilitating funding for revolutionaries within the community, whose soul and whose presence can shape the love within and without the members of their homeland both physically and emotionally.
So who are these truth speakers and leaders we seek to support and how can we support them each individually or as a whole collaboratively? Well, I’ll start with the leader I am closest to at a personal level and for whose organisation I will run a marathon with intent to raise 30,000$. His name is Darien Pollock, in his own language he comes from the streets but he has persisted all the way through acquiring his Phd in Philosophy at Harvard. His organisation, the Street Philosophy Institute, seeks to fight anti blackness in many ways. Among them he will shine a light on black brilliance by recognising street philosophers and also enabling children from America and Africa and elsewhere to connect through travel and exposure to the global black community. Next, I should mention Santigie who was a child soldier rescued by a slum community in Sierra Leone who now serves slum communities across the region by providing safe spaces, schools, resources and more through the We Yone Child Foundation. Finally, I will mention Buay Tut, with whom I am also close, he was a refugee from Sudan who recently finished his graduate study in education at Harvard. While he found a home in Black America but has returned to Africa to stand in solidarity and love with others. His organisation, R and R Foundation Scholar Solutions, seeks to bridge the gap between black Americans and black Africans while also providing significant educational opportunities to those who otherwise are not given such opportunities due to anti blackness. All these organisational leaders are in touch with each other and eager to collaborate on projects to cure the illness that is anti blackness. As such, they are building a website called fightantiblackness.com which allows people like myself to donate or run funding campaigns through running, cycling, swimming, or hiking to raise money for any of the organisations or for the mission as a whole.

The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a now famous prayer called the serenity prayer in which he asked God for the serenity to accept the things he can not change, the courage to change the things he can, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. This absolutely urgent crisis of love is not unchangeable. If we have the courage to fund the leaders who can transform the world then we will find ourselves less powerless in the world. The problem of anti blackness is not a black problem but a problem for all of us who must bear witness to it because, as John Dunne said, “don’t ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” We are in this world together and we will rise or fall together, subjecting anyone to harm subjects us all to harm and not acting when we can act is a form of action; an active preservation of anti blackness through inaction because we’ve chosen our personal serenity over our courage. We can’t be at peace with the acceptance of things we can not change when we are perfectly able to change this world. The leaders, the heroes are out there and they have the local networks, wisdom, strength, hearts and invincible hope to improve the lives of those around them. All they need is funding and there we can be of service. If one black child, and one black child alone, is saved from anti blackness whether internal or external then our efforts to fund righteous work will have been worth every ounce of sweat and love poured into fundraising. Let us serve ourselves and the world through serving those who can save us all.

To close I will leave you with two links. One links to an exceptional poem that harnesses the power of black love, and self love, despite the avalanche of ignorant anti love many black people face. The poem is written and performed by a true street philosopher who deserves attention. The second link is a link to the pre funding PayPal which goes directly to the Street Philosophy Institute and will fund the website. If you don’t act now, will you ever?

Yours in radical love,

Christophe, Santigie, Bayo, Dumbuya Buay Tut,  The Paul Hodges Trust,  Nienke Nina & Alex Grimwade