Kinships are the roots of the African and African American Community.

See ourselves

To see each other as family, we must stop looking at each other through the lens of white supremacy, oppression, and self-hatred. We have allowed it to promote colorism and dictate beauty in our community, pit us against one another, and reinforce the myth that we do not support each other.

Save ourselves

Systematic oppression tore black families apart and strives to break down the black family structure through endorsing stereotypes and misconceptions. Though no family is perfect, to save ourselves we must treat each other like family. We can acknowledge the imperfection and any dysfunction in our community of kinship, and work in love toward doing and being better.

We want to provide a platform for information, to stimulate conversation and to spark action. Besides seeing each other as our family, what other ways are there to create unity?

It is said that no one can take your education or what you have learned away from you. Having an education, whether formal or informal, brings a natural and lasting change in reasoning and ability to achieve goals. The language and vernacular we use with each other and having common goals creates stronger ties.

But, as black people, and especially in the peer groups of black children, we need to remove barriers within our community that disparagingly use terms like “acting white or talking white or being accused of deviating from our black identity when we strive for academic achievement or speak “standard English”.

For our children, education should be a priority. Yes, sports have been a means of wealth for a few of us. But, even with rich black entertainers and athletes, it has not increased the overall generational wealth in the black community, nor lifted the average income of the African American community.

We want to provide a platform for information, to stimulate conversation and to spark action. How does education create unity? Is education the key for destroying the effects of white supremacy?

Our Families

White supremacy tried to destroy the traditional black family. During slavery, families were torn apart. Post slavery, black fathers were stripped from their family through lynching … and now through mass incarceration. Instead of giving the deserved reparations that would have given blacks an economic start; the welfare system dismantled poor black families in need by requiring a father not be in the family.

Drug use made a significant number of our parents unfit and unable to raise us. The absence of strong intact families or strong role models to emulate, resulted in the cycle of teen pregnancy, single mothers, and young boys growing up not understanding their full potential as a man.

We want to provide a platform for information, to stimulate conversation and to spark action. How do you define “family”? Are traditional families a thing of the past? How do we strengthen the black family structure?

Black and brown communities are disproportionately impacted by environmental injustice. Pollution, lack of restoration or conservation, magnify oppression which contributes to the poor health and economic stagnation of their communities. Promoting and celebrating environmental awareness in our neighborhoods should be part of our narrative. Protecting and taking care of where we live improve health and wellbeing, peace of mind and happiness, –and security, and generational wealth.

We can take steps to lead the charge in our community by supporting

• Environmentally conscious black business
• Businesses that support black lives
• Businesses that value the black dollar

We want to provide a platform for information, to stimulate conversation and to spark action. Do you think black people and people of color understand how their environment effects many aspects of their lives? How do we get black people to become more environmentally aware and active?

Not only does #UsGotUs …We GOT each other. OurKinship recognizes we are our priority. Why? Because racism exists in America and across the globe, and systematic racism is structured to oppress us and devalues our lives. Our very existence is threatened. We need to save ourselves from this and we need to heal. We will make this a better world for African Americans by #SavingOurselves and we invite all peoples to join us in making this a better world for every living being in our global community.

OurKinship is not us disengaging as a race from others. We recognize that race is a social construct and we are part of the global family. Our efforts to uplift the black community is not done in isolation. When black people and people of color rise and thrive, it is indubitable that all people will rise up too. We are all human and essentially, we are more alike than we are different.

Skin color, eye color, hair texture etc., are trivial differences, but has been used to justify putting humans in “racial” groups to support superiority. Our DNA is 99.9% the same and historically all of our ancestors are black. At the end of the day we include everyone as our family, regardless of skin color, religion, or abilities. Reconciliation and healing does not happen without moving forward together.

We ask all of you (every “race”), to move forward together with us and take care of those in need, especially the poor, children, the vulnerable…and even our environment and animals.

We, at OurKinship, want to provide a platform for information, to stimulate conversation and to spark action. Let’s get to work, together. Visit our action network at blachaxs.com

Have a question or want to collaborate? Send us a message.