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EX-CONCERT PROMOTER EYES COMMUNITY CHANGE
By Jonesetta Lassiter/SPECIAL TO THE COMMERCIAL
Monday, March 16, 2009 9:56 AM CDT
Andre Sims, a Pine Bluff native who now resides in Minneapolis, gave up a career promoting live concerts to start one of fostering creative change in communities. He and several associates brought that concept back to his old hometown over the weekend in hopes of strengthening the village concept here.
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| Dr. Joseph L. White addresses the Pine Bluff NAACP Saturday night at the Ramada Plaza Hotel. Pine Bluff Commercial/Ralph Fitzgerald
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Joseph L. White, Ph.D, known as the “godfather of black psychology; Cherie Collins-Sims, a licensed clinical social worker and wife of Sims; and Shane Price of the African-American Men Project in Minneapolis all met with some juvenile justice leaders and in a series of seminars, they challenged incarcerated youths to find a new direction for their lives. At a dinner Saturday night, the three urged community leaders, family and friends to use past experience to move this generation forward.
“The question I submit to you is ‘How do we go back so that we can move forward,’” White said. “What were the strengths that helped us to survive — from slavery through de jour de facto segregation, through 1957 and the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, through 1964 and that attack on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, to putting an African-American in the White House?’
Answers from the 100 or so persons attending the dinner at the Ramada Plaza Hotel and Convention Center included faith, prayer, tenacity, family and extended family, hope, values, community and hard work. Cosponsored by Dianne’s Adult Health Care, Sessilee’s Catering, along with the Pine Bluff Branch of the NAACP and Sims’ Inside Out organization, “It Takes A Village — Strengthening the African-American Family and Community” was “an attempt to get people moving” Andre Sims said.
“Everywhere I go, I get the same answers,” White said. “I’ve pulled them together into seven principles, and my contention is if we go back and rediscover them, we’ll be all right in the village, but we have to find a way to rediscover them and internalize them.”
He listed these principles:
Improvisation. He defined it as making something from nothing.
“It means you have to be resourceful and creative,” he said.
Resilience. The ability to bounce back from a setback, the retired professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of California-Irvine said, is what leads to psychological maturity. He cited the example of former Washington Mayor Marion Barry’s ability to come back from a drug conviction and prison time to win a seat on the city council as an example.
Connectedness to others. White said he believes, contrary to Sigmund Freud’s contention that sex is the most basic need, relationship with others is humans’ most significant need. “From cradle to grave, we need that human connection.” That’s why they have nurses in the preemie ward take those babies every few hours and cradle them, he said. On the other end of life, he recalled how he held the hand of his last uncle as his life slipped away. Such need for connection is seen in familial relationships, extended family, close friends, romantic relationships and mentors.
Spirituality. Beyond organized religion, White said there is a deep spiritual essence throughout the black community, a life affirming spirit or soul force that is the foundation for inner strength.
Emotional vitality. Simply, it’s a zest for life, he said.
Gallows humor. White used the example of poet Langston Hughes’ character, Jessie B. Semple or Just Simple, to illustrate this principle. Hospitalized with pneumonia, Simple tells a friend of all the misfortune and ills that have beset him throughout his life. Yet he concludes, “I’m just afraid of dying before my time.”
Healthy suspicion of “you know who.” White said he does not advocate blaming another race for all the ills that exist in the black community, but it is important to examine every situation from all angles.
“Finally, if we can rediscover our roots, cultivate them and pass along what we’ve learned to our children,” he said, “We’ll be all right.”
Cherie Collins-Sims followed up with the challenge for those present and for the community in general.
“The question is how can we use these principles to move forward in Pine Bluff.”
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