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The agonizing beating and murder of Tyre Nicols by five Black policemen left me pondering how and why we have sunken so deep into inhumanity and turned so brutally against each other. I couldn’t help but reflect on the theories of two Black scholars that posit that one of the deadliest and most insidious end products of the colonized and oppressed mind is the negative internalization of self - our value, our worth, our divinity.
In his book Black Skin, White Mask [1952], Martinique born psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, MD argued that Black people’s contact with whiteness is traumatic and has sullied the unconscious cultural archetype of Blackness with the negatives and prejudices they have projected onto us. And that we too have become victims of ‘negrophobia,’ believing that the Negro symbolizes sin, the lower emotions, the baser inclinations, and the dark side of the soul.
In a similar vein, in her publication A Gardener’s Tale [2000], Camara Jones, Ph.D. outlined a framework for understanding racism on 3 levels: institutionalized, personally mediated, and internalized. She defined internalized racism as “acceptance by members of the stigmatized races of negative messages about their own abilities and intrinsic worth,” the manifestation of which can be self-devaluation in the form of racial slurs and fratricide.
So now I wonder, what are the questions we need to ask?
How do we heal the Black Collective Unconscious to rid ourselves of the anti-Blackness that White Supremacy culture and structures have projected onto us?
Fanon suggested that we need periods of Collective Catharsis – channels and outlets whereby the energy accumulated in the form of reactive aggression can be released. So how do we reclaim the jouissance that has been robbed from us?
Maybe the answer lies somewhere deep within the magic of our creativity. Maybe we can lessen the pain of Black men crying out with their last breaths for their mothers with a collective cry to saturate our imagination with the nectar of our poets, our dancers, our musicians, our visual artists. These are just my thoughts, but I want to know from you, how do we reclaim our joy so that we can thrive as we toil to survive?
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As we kick off 2023, we're looking forward to continuing comprehensive sex education in classroom and community settings through Believe in Youth Louisiana 2.0, as we plan to reach over 2,000 youth from by May of this year through our existing partnerships! Check out our Youth Leadership Council (YLC) for additional engaging opportunities for Louisiana youth!
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We love including parents, caregivers, and advocates for sexual and reproductive health in our work to support adolescent health and wellness. This year, we’re launching additional workshops for parents and caregivers, as well as collaborating with partner organizations to facilitate and participate in more community events.
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Come train with us this year at IWES! As we move into 2023, we are excited to continue offering capacity-building and professional development opportunities related to adolescent health and development. Check out our training offerings here!
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In January, we convened our first cohort of Policy Advisory Fellows, local youth leaders who will explore policies that impact Black youth mental health. Congratulations & welcome to Aaliyah Bailey, Ama Sumbry, Eilah Wahlin, Kailynn Williams, Ka’sha Fenceroy (who we introduced in our end-of-the-year newsletter), Keondra Carter, Khayin Maheia, Stacey Li, Tiwani Oseni, and Youma Diabira! We're very excited to work with them this year!
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We're currently accepting new members for what will be our final year of Out of the Shadows/Into the Light, a support group for Black cis- and transgender women living with HIV. Since the group began in 2019, participants have achieved personal and professional goals, appeared on panel discussions for HIV awareness and advocacy, and formed a sisterhood with one another. If you would like to join or would like more information, please contact Brittney at bdurham@iwesnola.org.
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We are very excited to be partnering with Metropolitan Human Services District (MHSD) to launch a support group for teen girls to cultivate and nurture relationships with themselves and others. Want to get involved or know someone that does? Contact Emily at edoyle@iwesnola.org.
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This year we're looking forward to sharing a brand new Doula Awareness Campaign, set to launch during Black Maternal Health Week in April. We're bringing our background in social marketing to the MCH world and working collaboratively with doulas, providers, and more to bring more attention to doula support in birthing spaces.
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After such a successful year last year in regards to policy and perinatal health. this year we're preparing for the 2023 Louisiana Legislative session, and we hope to see even more wins for MCH that lead to reducing systemic and individual inequity!
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We're excited to continue working with our partners in the MAMA+ Health Policy Agenda — Birthmark Doulas and the National Birth Equity Collaborative — to improve maternal health in Louisiana by expanding services and supporting birth workers. We especially want to thank Fondation Chanel for continuing to fund this important work.!
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We're ready to show you even more of what we do and who we are at IWES! This year look out for more information about what it's like to work at IWES and more media and takeaways from our programs, more cutting edge designs and graphics to communicate health concepts clearly, and more films, of course, creating more ways to show rather than tell.
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Look out for the relaunch of our two core IWES campaigns — In That Number and #ThisIsWhy — where we will continue to advocate for impactful change on a societal level that has meaning for our everyday lives, all informed by and featuring those who are impacted by inequity the most.
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It's time you heard from us more! No, we know we send enough emails, so don't worry, we won't be increasing that volume this year. Instead, we're intentionally connecting with broadcast media and journalism to share our experiences and insight, and elevate the voices of those we work with and for to new, broader audiences. So look out for more articles, more reports, more features, and if you ever want to collaborate, email Iman at iman@iwesnola.org.
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This year, while we continue to support our IWES programs, we're excited to be expanding our department so that we can grow our research and evaluation initiatives with local, regional, and national partners, and set a new bar in community-serving research. And this doesn't always look like typical research, monitoring, and evaluation techniques. For example, we're especially excited about re-engaging the youth involved in our Catapult study by hosting an in-person event featuring edutainment, group conversations, food, and fun!
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Part of our work entails supporting community partners, and this year we're looking forward to our evaluation partnership with Healthy Start New Orleans to review processes, conduct a needs assessment, and ensure program alignment with outcome measures!
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We also look forward to supporting our communications team in piloting the efficacy of a brand new film to increase reproductive health knowledge among justice-involved youth. We're hopeful this initiative, funded through the Policy Research Group (PRG) Juvenile Justice Innovation and Impact Network (JJIIN) funding, will transition into a rigorous evaluation launching as early as this summer!
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We are thrilled about the development of a new Doula Services campaign where we're aiming to bring more attention to the life-changing benefits of having doula support within the birthing space. We're excited about some amazing partnerships to help bring this campaign to life, and we hope by raising awareness and answering questions we can increase access to doula support among economically marginalized communities.
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This year, the continent of Africa is hosting its first Social Marketing Conference in South Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand. This conference is sure to shed light on the uniquely outstanding approaches to behavior change communication used to improve health outcomes across the continent, and we're hoping to go back again this year!
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Artificial intelligence is projected to expand its creative footprint into the digital marketing arena. We're keeping a watch this year to see how ChatGPT can be used as a tool for social marketing. Any thoughts?
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Our Year in Top Social Posts (by Platform):
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Last May, our (now) CHC Program Manager, Meagan Dunham, LMSW, graduated with her Master’s in Clinical Social Work. We couldn’t have been prouder of her hard work, both in attaining her master’s degree and for the many years she has been with us, dedicated to improving the health and well-being of different communities. Check out the post and follow us on our IWES NOLA Facebook page.
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In September, Iman Shervington, MFA, our Media and Communications Director, and Petera Reine Diaban, MPH, our Sr. Social Marketing Manager, attended the International Social Marketing Association's World Social Marketing Conference, where they presented a method for applying Jungian archetypes to social marketing campaigns to help bring positive behavior change. Read the full post and follow us on LinkedIn. |
What do you know about the stories of the everyday lives of those that were enslaved? Author Clint Smith wrote a fantastic piece for The Atlantic, “Stories of Slavery, From Those Who Survived It,” which we couldn’t help but share out. Check out our post and follow us on our #ThisIsWhy Twitter account.
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Please read Dr. Shervington's thoughts on the National Day of Racial Healing:
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"IWES is proud to have been engaged since 2016 with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's (WKKF)'s Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation initiative. This began with being a co-lead in the national inaugural design team that was tasked with developing a transformational vision of society focused on unearthing and jettisoning the belief in a hierarchy of human value. We later continued our commitment to this work by participating in local efforts to create Welcoming Tables and honor and celebrate the National Day of Racial Healing, which occurs after the MLK holiday.
This January we had the immense honor to attend the MSNBC town hall at StudioBE, in the presence of the WKKF leadership team, their New Orleans and Mississippi grantees, and of course, the amazing multiracial panel of racial justice scholars and activists being interviewed by Joy-Ann Reid and Chris Hayes; it felt as if the day had finally found its way into the lives of all Americans. In her concluding statements when asked what racial healing meant, the CEO/President of WKKF, La June Montgomery Tabron, simply and profoundly responded that it was to remove the structural racial inequities that negatively impacted the lives of Black and Brown children, especially those living in conditions of poverty. We agree wholeheartedly and are even more committed to centering racial healing in our work so that our children in New Orleans (and beyond!) may continue to flourish and thrive."
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Thank you for this awesome recognition, LaFHAC!
Fit for a King is the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center’s (LaFHAC) annual tribute to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and it is a reminder to continue building the movement for fair housing across Louisiana. We were so grateful to be a featured awardee, along with Crescent Care, at this year’s event! You can visit their website at the link above to learn more about their work to eradicate housing discrimination and see how you can support!
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We are seeking a CHC Program Associate who will support all phases of the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the CHC (Collective for Healthy Communities) program. They will be responsible for coordinating day-to-day program operations, plans, and schedules to ensure effective and efficient program implementation.
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Thank you to the publications, journalists, and news outlets that allow us to share our work, research, and important updates about IWES. See where we have been popping up these past few months!
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In celebration of W.E.B. Du Bois' birthday this month on the 23rd, we chose “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois,” a powerful novel by acclaimed poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, for our book giveaway this quarter. If you are not familiar, Du Bois was an influential African American rights activist during the early 20th century who also co-founded the NAACP and author. He wrote, “The Souls of Black Folk,” a book of essays (including on race and the Black experience), where he introduced the term “double consciousness” and which had – and continues to have – a large influence on sociology, history, and American literature.
“The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois,” tells the story of African American history and the Black family experience through the lens of the novel's main protagonist, Ailey Pearl Garfield, as she comes to terms with her identity and the themes of what Du Bois called "double consciousness," or the need to have two fields of vision; one in which a person is conscious of how they view themselves and a second lens, in which they are conscious of how the world views them. This novel will resonate with anyone with a family, a daughter, a sister, or a mother, and anyone interested in the American origin story.
Complete the brief form below to enter the giveaway by Wednesday, February 15th at 12pm CT. |
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Shop With Us On Amazon Prime
If you've found yourself shopping more online lately and you'd like to support IWES, please designate us as your charitable institution of choice on Amazon Smile. To set it up, go to Amazon Smile and select "Institute of Women & Ethnic Studies" as your charitable designation or follow this link and then just continue to shop. By shopping here a portion of your purchase will be donated to IWES, and it will not increase your purchase price!
You can also donate via PayPal at any time.
Thanks for your continued support to help us bring even more vital programming to our community during this time and all year!
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