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Black Lives Matter

A Letter from CEO John Washington

Tweet: “As far as blog post goes this one really speaks to our values and why we stay in the game. All Black Lives Matter.”

Hey, you… Yeah, you…

The one who picked up this magazine, checked out the cover art, “Black Lives Matter”, then decided to flip through the pages and get a look at the stories inside. Let me invite you to sit down with me and consider these stories that are propelling a renewed civil rights movement to the forefront. Who we are, where we are going and what we are doing collectively, defines what it means to be Black in America at this moment in time. I intend to have a seat at the table and a voice in the discussion. How about you?

For more than a decade, our magazines have been culturally focused and exciting to compile, but this one, for me, has had the deepest emotional impact. It invited me to be more self-aware of my blackness, aware of my people and aware of our condition as expressed internally and externally. Recognizing the external conditions was the easy part. Painful, but at least easy to recognize, these conditions are becoming more widely known thanks to social media and the internet exposing rampant, unchecked racism, economic inequity, prison-industrial oppression and racially motivated violence. 

Once seen, the current bleak conditions and trail of devastation experienced by a disproportionate percentage of Black Americans, cannot be unseen. I find myself raging, seething and sad at the realization that things have gotten so bad for so many of my people. Economic inequity has resulted in a disparity of wealth that is staggering. The U.S. Census Bureau Survey of Income and Program Participation cite that the typical white household has OVER 16 TIMES more wealth than the typical black family. Though we make up 14% of the country’s population, we claim only 2.7% of the country’s wealth. How does this happen? Where is OUR equity? And where is OUR justice? What systems are in place that account for the fact that, currently, black people constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million of the U.S. incarcerated population? Numbers show that unless something drastic changes and current trends reverse, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. Do I have your attention yet? 

Despite these sobering statistics, the hardest part, for me, was upon critical examination of our conditions as expressed internally. The sad truth of the matter is that sometimes our worst enemy is within our own ranks, working and propping up the very systems that contribute to the own fall of our people. Jim Crow attitudes creep even amongst influential black power-players, centers of influence and within institutions that seem almost conveniently implanted to suppress the growth of all of Black America. The monopolization of resources meant to advance the whole, subsequent gatekeeping for systems and organizations not interested in advancing the black community or the causes of humanity, has also had a devastating impact. What then, do we ask, does one person or group of people, do to address the inequity facing Black America? How can we confront and change these systems from the inside out?

While I can’t speak for everyone, I can certainly speak for myself. I have spent the better part of 6 decades on this earth, the first two growing up in the New Jersey projects, seeing images of crushing poverty and violence as my daily reality. It was only by sheer force of will that I lived even to tell about it. But will wasn’t enough. It took self-reflection and me revisiting the source of my anger and frustration, to lead me to my ultimate work. That work is to motivate and agitate, to confront and challenge both external and internal factors that block us from our prosperity, our birthright. It is with this focus that I intend to deploy Flossin Media’s platforms, in order to help inspire mobilized action through recognition and exposure of systematic corruption embedded within public and private institutions. 

Everyone is holding pieces of the solution to our shared challenges. In seeking inspiration for the cover of this magazine, I was visiting Seattle when I came upon a young Black artist on the pier, who was painting and selling his finished pieces. I watched him for a while, observed his street style, observed his way of SEEING the subjects that he painted and was struck by the inspiration to talk to him. I found myself commissioning him to lend his artistic expression to Flossin Magazine’s cover art, by creating a piece that reflected the images that came to his twenty-something-year-old mind when he heard the words “Black Lives Matter”. When he was finished, it was the downcast eyes of Treyvon Martin, tears streaming down a face framed against the background of the iconic hoodie, looking over scenes of black devastation that seared through my soul, renewing my commitment to this subject matter and the liberation it represents. 

Liberation through education and inspiration in the ultimate reason we will continue to use this platform to convey and acknowledge not only what needs to change but what possible in terms of achievement, what is possible when one selflessly gives for the betterment of humanity. 

For me, hearing the term Black Lives Matter, invokes the lives of those profiles within these pages. Luminaries like, D’Wayne Edwards, Commissioner Loretta Smith, Dr. William Johnson and Michael Harper, take their place amongst the way-showers of our time. Additionally, we captured the voices of the black journalists, activists, artists, creatives, healers, community philanthropists, educators, and entrepreneurs, all whom strive towards the future against the currents of hatred, ignorance, and oppression. Their lives matter because they choose to matter. They are freedom guides, propelling us forward, around, over and through the obstacles in our path, shinning as bright as the Northern Star that our ancestors followed out of the bondage of slavery. 

I want to usher you forth into this book with these final thoughts. It is most critical that we do not allow specters of the suffering we witness and experience all around us to weigh us down or become the seeds of our disempowerment.

I realize, however, that the statistics can seem insurmountable at times. But, my friends, don’t you ever forget that it is YOU, it is ME who defines who we are and what we are made of in this brief moment in our collective story. We all matter and we all are amazing. And don’t you dare forget who and where you came from either. You come from warriors. You come from survivors. You come from ancestors that beat all odds. And do you know why they did it? Because YOU. You’re all the seeds of their hopes for a better world. Your life matters. ALL Black Lives Matter. Don’t you forget it. You and me, we are still in the game and as long as we have Heart for our people, the Capacity to love one another and the Courage to rise to the struggle, we are going to make it. In the end all lives will matter ONLY when all lives matter equally. See you on the other side of the book.

John Washington

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This article was originally published in Flossin Magazine. This article is edited by Edna Waters. This article is optimized for web by Steven Christian (Artist | Author | Podcaster).