I must preface what I am about to say with this clear declaration: I do not accept the colour-coded identity of ANY people. Colour coding is part and parcel of the system of White Supremacy under which human beings were separated into “races,” creating racism as a tool of control and profit.

Therefore, when I speak of Black and White, I am not bowing to the system. I am inviting us to awareness of the cages in which we have been bound—so that we can SET OURSELVES FREE.

Acknowledging racism (or any other form of supremacy) does not weaken a community. Denying it does.

Real progress comes when leaders, neighbours, and institutions have the courage to face what is real: that we are equal in human worth and capacity, but not equally or ethically resourced or supported.

To move forward as a healthy community, we must not only refuse the myths of White Saviourism and Coloured Helplessness—we must also confront the shadows of superiority and inferiority, dominance and subordination, dismantling the structures that keep resources, relationships, and opportunities unequally balanced.

When we can finally do this we will be free. And only then can we begin to live the divine dream of building communities founded on wholeness, worthiness, authenticity, love, and belonging.

The recent attacks on the character of Black people—and especially of Black women, so-labelled within the system of White Supremacy—are not random.

This is strategy. A diabolical strategy of elite White patriarchs—those who profit most—to rebuild the foundations of White Supremacy. Foundations that were shaken when a six-year-old Ruby Bridges walked bravely through mobs of rioting White mothers. Mothers who, unrestrained, would have strung her up as “strange fruit,” just as their forebears had done for generations.

That foundation has kept on shaking. It splinters every time Afro-descendant women refuse to let “Black” be the final word of erasure and containment.

Our children, unseen as valuable, were expected to be left starved of love, affection, and connection—while our bodies, our minds, our labour were used to nurture theirs. Then our children were gaslit into believing that White mistresses—those who have not examined their supremacy, superiority, and privilege—were heroes for tossing a few crumbs of charity while preaching respectability.

No! Absolutely no thank you.

As our foremothers resisted, so too have we resisted—standing tall and fighting like lionesses to love and nurture our children too. We taught our children that they were already respectable, already worthy, already whole as themselves. And our children rise. Yes, “like dust they rise.”

So now, suddenly, Dr. King is recast. They say he cared more about race than about character. As if race is not the millstone tied around the neck of our children—intended to strangle their dignity, forcing them into the role of beasts of burden—worthy only of crumbs.

And here is the truth that makes them afraid: the women who used their intellect and wisdom to raise White children produced intellect, resilience, and the courage of agency and self-advocacy in their own children and households too.

Against all odds, we raised their children and our children too. And the children whom we touch bear resilient fruit. A hundredfold.

That fruit scares them. That fruit is still here.

And so when we stand up and insist that our children must also receive their birthright of education, opportunity, dignity, and love—we are not asking for favours. We are claiming what has always been ours. We are naming the lie, breaking the pattern, refusing the crumbs.

We are declaring that the time of scarcity, shame, and silence is over. That the fruit of resilience and self-respect which our foremothers planted—and which we have also planted—will no longer be harvested for others’ gain but will nourish EVERY CHILD in our communities.

And to be clear, as an Afro-descended single mother, I also wrap single mothers in this blanket of truth, and invite us to lift our arms in resistance and praise in bold divine defiance against the patriarchal supremacist rhetoric that seeks to diminish the power of our influence in our children’s lives by quoting statistics of failure in single mother households- as if the lionesses were failing!

We work twice as hard to lead and support our children because communities that have been designed to idolize marriage and worship the traditionally defined nuclear family ABANDON the children of single mother lead families.

In the testimony of our lived experience this is more than unconscious abandonment and exclusion. We have experienced the reality of teachers and religious leaders explicitly advising the children of nuclear families to steer clear of relationships with the children of single mother households.

We have experienced the reality of married mothers excluding our children from their children’s social lives expressing fear that our children will contaminate their children’s delicate sensibilities – while those children bully and torment our children into despair.

Then when our children naturally refuse to be a part of communities that have degraded them, the religious establishment uses their absence to generate statistics which assert that the presence of fathers in religious gatherings with their families is a high predictor of “successful” attendance at religious gatherings.

If only the establishment recognized that attendance at the building designated as holy is not indicative of connection to the character and heart of Christ!

In three days of the attempted destruction of THE temple, Yeshua/Jesus raised the temple up again. The apostle Paul even very clearly informed us that he had come to recognize that human bodies – not buildings – were the temple in which the Spirit of divinity dwelled.

SO single mothers we rally together, and elevate our children’s understanding of their worth in the divine order of things and THEY thrive. If we create community together and honour the value of that community as Christ honoured the children who recognized how much He did with what THEY offered him, we would be well.

Our intimate romantic relationships would not be seen as legitimizing our honour. We would simply enjoy such relationships because we wanted to do so!

We have long recognized that we are better together – in community – and so the Single and Strong Momunity which we built from the ground up has just grown bigger with the inclusion of romantic partners. Not better. What is better is our ability to value ourselves because our sisters valued us when we struggled to value ourselves, and so we have developed the confidence to wrestle in relationships with our partners AS EQUALS!

Singleness was no longer a deficit. Marriage eventually became a choice, and not a marker of false superiority! I prayed over us for that realization and I have had the honour of seeing it come to pass.

And so while some fight to keep their plundered supremacy, we who continue to bear fruit and build good soil together will gather and intentionally create community based on equality and equity for all.

We will persist in being open, honest, and inclusive; free of gossip, resentment, bitterness, and false hierarchies.

Neither gender, relationship status, religious affiliation, income, education, skin colour, fame, or any other social construct determines our level of honour. We are for each other, with growing love, kindness, patience, respect, accountability, acceptance, hope, and integrity.

We know how to “live love well” and we are unafraid to seek healing for our inner child wounds so that we can be healthy happy big people guiding our beautiful children home together as a community experiencing the kingdom of God, NOW, on Earth as it is in heaven.

We are building community together as curious, open, kind women who recognize that love is the great equalizer, and that diversity of abilities and talents is our strength, as each perfect piece of the puzzle is supported to find its place in the whole as we rise from the fires of historical and daily adversity, bonded into a new creation with the purified gold of informed compassion and mutuality.

And so from wherever in the world we may be I invite us to gather as people open to being intentionally equal and anti-supremacist:

Kindred Gatherings

We are moving from vision to practice: gathering as peers in community coming together in love, respect, patience, curiosity, openness, and kindness

Thursday, at 8 PM PST — Women,

Sunday, at 4:30 PM PST — All genders and ages welcome.

Tuesday, at 6:30 PM PST — Single moms

Saturday, at 11:30 AM PST — Afro-descended women

If a man is open to facilitating, we will create a gathering space for men too.

The noise of children living is welcome in all spaces.

Zoom links will be provided for each meeting.

Interested? DM me here on Facebook Messenger, email at nurturingkindred@gmail.com, or WhatsApp at 778-809-9986.

We seek partners passionate about creating a community of peers where every voice is valued, dignity is honoured, and and our beautiful differences, skills, knowledge, and abilities are embraced as strength.

The noise of children living is welcome in every space.

We seek partners who are passionate about creating a community of peers where every voice is valued, dignity is honoured, and our beautiful differences, skills, knowledge, and abilities are embraced as strength.