Dear Friends:
How long are we going to let this go on? CNN has released the results
of yet another study indicating that many Black children are still
biased toward white or light skin. Isn't it time for all our children
to like what they see when they look in the mirror?
It is well past time for all Black
children to see themselves as beautiful, lovable, worthy and capable of
achieving great things. It is time for us to confront and work to
overcome the myth of Black inferiority. Toxic ideas about the
inferiority of Black skin, Black hair, and Black people will not
disappear on their own. We have to work to make them disappear.
As a people, we have to be intentional about overturning nearly four centuries of negative programming about who we are and what we can do. And, working together, we can
do it. Let's commit ourselves to changing the results of doll tests and
tests about skin color. Let's work together toward the day when all
Black children choose the Black doll, prefer Black skin, love Black
hair, and believe that they are beautiful, lovable, worthy, and
capable.
Let's make this the decade in
which Black people come together to build a powerful movement to
extinguish the myth of Black inferiority. Let's put "time for healing"
on the Black agenda.
Please mark your calendars now to
join with us on October 15, 16 and 17, 2010, for the third annual
celebration of Community Healing Days,SM three
days set aside each year, on the third weekend of every October, to
raise awareness about the continuing effects of the myth of Black
inferiority and to mobilize our community to free ourselves from it.
The celebration of Community Healing Days is
designed to do for the movement for emotional healing and renewal for
Black people what the celebration of Earth Day has done for the
environmental movement: put an issue at the top of the world's agenda
and serve as a catalyst for fundamental change.
Next month, we'll release an online guide with easy-to-do suggestions for celebrating Community Healing Days. Join
the movement for emotional freedom for Black people and encourage your
family and friends around the corner and around the world to join too. It is well past time for all Black children to pass the doll test.
Join the movement at www.communityhealingnet.org and join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you.
