Isn’t it time we had an adult discussion about race and identity in America? How much longer are we going to let this wound fester and keep letting demagogues and firebrands on all sides use pains of people to enrich themselves and divide the rest of us? A politician not too long ago got elected by promising to have a much needed discussion of race, we are still waiting for that discussion to take place.

What we are treated to are swindlers from both the “left” and the “right” who leverage the suffering that people go through and the real life hardships that confront the masses to peddle grievance instead of presenting solutions. Well, if our leaders won’t lead this conversation, perhaps it is time for us, the masses to have the courage to have this conversation and in the process talk to each other instead of yelling past each other.

We have been letting race lead us for too long, how about for a change we lead the race? Instead of re-litigating the past and letting very cunning people splinter us into camps of grievances, why don’t we change it up and let love and compassion be the north star towards redemption for all of us. Revolutions don’t work and would be revolutionaries who espouse conflict are just as much a part of the problem as injustice, it is time for us to be solutionaries instead and find way forward and in time fulfill the dreams of Martin Luther King where we judge each other not on our color but based on our character.

It is with this notion of bridging divides and healing wounds that Ghion Journal will host “Construct: a discussion about Race and Identity in America” on Saturday, April 22nd 5:00 PM MST. If you are in the Fort Collins area or anywhere near Norther Colorado, come check out this event next Saturday and bring friends with you. This event will be live streamed for those who are not in Northern Colorado.

I am presenting one additional challenge to those who are not in Northern Colorado or are unable to attend. About 9 years ago, I was an uber organizer for the Obama campaign. Those days are past because I realize that politicians are all full of rhetoric and nothing else. But I did pick up a few ideas from my days traveling state to state and energizing people to vote for a politician. One of the most effective means of galvanizing voters was the “primary watch parties” where everyday people invited their friends and neighbors to watch the results of the primaries. Well in that same way, I challenge each of you reading this to organize another type of watch party, watch the video below, which is probably the most important work I have ever put together for it speaks of my hopes for all of us, and after watching it organize the “adult conversation” that we were supposed to have 9 years ago.

Forget depending on the elites to lead us, how about we be the change we want to see. So over the coming days, weeks and months, organize an “Race and Identity Conversations” in your homes, coffee shops and parks, present the video and then have an in depth conversation about the issues which are brought up in the video below. This is the model that will be used this coming Saturday at Dazbog Coffee shop, I hope you use the same model on your end regardless of where you live. As you organize these dialogues and host conversations, please share the experience with us (with pictures and videos if possible) and end we will use some of the submissions on a one hour video that we are going to put together and on a future write up titled “Leading the Race”. Email us with your submissions at [email protected]

Have courage to speak against the crowd and stop being led by the nose. It is hard to speak your truth for those who do initially get vilified by those who have accepted the dogma and ideologies which have been inculcated into us for centuries. But truth tellers are the ones who change conventional wisdom and their courage is eventually rewarded not by the status quo but by the knowledge that they made a difference. Moreover, we as a society are getting tired of divisive people on all sides splintering us and feeding us anger, there is a marketplace for those who choose to speak against ignorance instead of uttering nothingness to the crowd. This article I wrote about a month ago is the second most read article on Ghion Journal for a reason, the mass majority of people are initially repelled by the title “We are Not Black” (LINK) only to realize that the message is not one that disavows culture and instead embraces our oneness through love instead of anger.

Share this link if you believe we need to have an honest and adult conversation about race in America. This event is free to the public and very much child friendly, in fact students and teenagers are highly encouraged to attend. Change can only happen from the bottom up because those at the top are too busy feeding at the trough of injustice to want real change–they just pay lip service to it. For more information or if you are with the press and want to cover this event, contact us at [email protected]

Construct: Discussion about Race & Identity

Saturday, April 22nd, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM MST

Location: Dazbog Coffee Store : 401 Mason Court, Fort Collins, CO 80524

(click on picture below to RSVP or click HERE - the YouTube video below the picture will be the focal point of our discussion)

Feature Video

(try not to watch if you will be attending next weekend)

Tags: Fort Collins, Ghion Cast, Ghion Journal, Teodrose Fikre, We are Not black