We are living in a time of collapse.
ICE raids are intensifying.
Peaceful protestors are met with tear gas, surveillance, and militarized force.
The U.S. President has now deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles without consent—and 700 Marines are staged and ready to be deployed against citizens exercising their legal right to protest. And as I'm writing this, he has called for the arrest of California's governor.
This is not public safety.
This is not protection.
This is a siege.
And beneath this militarized suppression lies another, quieter threat: The erasure of our memory.
Erasure in the Age of AI
We live in a world where AI is being trained by the public record.
That means: what gets recorded, remembered, and recognized becomes the foundation of our collective future.
So what happens when our stories—Black and Brown resilience, brilliance, innovation—are removed from the archive?
What happens when people and their stories are disappeared?
They are not just forgotten.
They are never learned.
And therefore, never passed on.
If we do not exist in the record, we do not exist in the machine’s idea of the future.
This is not just about censorship.
It’s about sovereignty.
And it’s about imagination.
Whose Imagination Is Building the World?
In her book, Imagination: A Manifesto, Princeton Scholar and Futurist, Ruha Benjamin asks this urgent question: Whose imagination is constructing our tomorrow?
The answer we see all around us—
is that colonialist, capitalist imagination is still designing the scaffolding.
Still writing the policies.
Still coding the algorithms.
And we see what that imagination has created:
A violent loop.
A recycled system that feeds itself our bodies, our dreams, and our futures.
The Answer Is in Our Memory: Sankofa
In Akan culture, there’s a sacred symbol called Sankofa—a bird reaching back toward its own tail, or a heart shape carved from memory.
The sacred symbol Sankofa calls us to “go back and fetch it.”
To retrieve what was lost, stolen, or hidden.
To study our history--not just so we don’t repeat it,
but so we can transform it through our future selves.
Sankofa says:
We carry the power to create something entirely new.
From the ashes. From the archive. From the ancestral.
Through our imagination.
This is the technology they cannot access.
This is the software they cannot replicate.
This is our original code.
It is not lost on me that it requires heart--that blend of love and courage--to awaken our imaginations to possibilities greater than fear.
RISE to the present moment, while BUILDING OUR FUTURES.
You Are the Only One With Your Story
Some of us are in the streets protesting. Some of us are protesting through our creative imaginations.
Some of us are doing both.
But ALL of us have a role to play.
Maybe you've been sitting on a story—a book, a song, a film, a truth you haven’t given yourself time to tell.
There is no one else with your unique DNA,
your lived experience,
your cultural memory,
your spiritual knowing,
and your one-of-a-kind blend of expression, skill, and vision.
Let me say this clearly: that project is not just creative expression.
That is your rebellion.
That is our restoration.
Your story is the seed of our new world.
This Isn’t About Perfection—It’s About Presence
You don’t need to be a best-selling author. You don't need to be the next Beyoncé.
You don’t need a fancy degree.
You don’t need permission from a broken system.
You just need to be willing to show up.
Willing to trust what’s inside you.
Willing to bring it forward.
Willing to begin.
The Invitation: Build It. Preserve It. Amplify It.
I created the H.E.L.P! Course + Mastermind Community—Hello, Elevated Life Purpose- for YOU.
It’s a one-semester creative container for your soul-level project. It's direct from me--professor to student, with no large institution between us.
It is a structured, sacred space where you will:
✨ Uncover the story or vision that’s been living inside you;
🎤 Unblock the fear and perfectionism that has kept it dormant;
🛠️ Build it with support, structure, and strategy;
📡 Amplify it through intentional platforms and peer community; and
🗂️ Preserve it by making it digital, accessible, and part of a living legacy.
When we are being forced into survival mode, it is our knee-jerk reaction to constrict until life feels safer. I am challenging you to EXPAND.
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Trailblazer Hall of Fame
I am beyond honored.
Being named a California Black Women’s Trailblazer Hall of Fame Awardee for 2025 is something I’m still wrapping my heart around. To be recognized by and alongside iconic peer sisters is truly transcendent. These are powerful, brilliant women from across California-- women whose work I deeply admire, who are revitalizing education, shaping policy, wellness, and art, leading movements, and transforming communities every day.
The Awards, sponsored by the California Black Women's Collective Empowerment Institute, and co-chaired by the iconic MC Lyte and powerhouse Dr. Lynn Richardson, is the first and only awards show exclusively honoring Black women who are breaking barriers and making history across California.
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