Power to Know Kids Say The Darndest Things
By Cimajie Best
Cimajie Best is a program manager in Dallas. .
“Are you driven by your spirit or your wound?”
I sat pondering this posed question for the better half of an hour. I finally concluded that anyone driven by their wound is an emotional actor and thus I must be driven by my spirit.
Little did I know I would soon be presented with a moral dilemma that would prove me wrong.
At the time I was serving as the Director of Curriculum at Café Momentum. Not at all the kind of café you think it is, Café Momentum is a 12-month, post-release paid internship for teenagers recently released from juvenile detention.
Not long after I began working there we were approached by a rather affluent private school to collaborate on a fundraiser. Essentially the idea was our interns would go to the homes of different 4th grade students, host a cooking demonstration for the group, and then we’d compile the recipes into a cookbook to sell.
Pretty awesome, right? Except for the fact that all of my interns at the time were Black and Brown and most all of the students they would be cooking for were white.
As a Black woman with deep Southern roots, the thought of willingly putting my children in the kitchens of these families to work was all but nauseating. I struggled with this project for a very long time until one of my kids came to me expressing their excitement.
“Ms., I learned a lot since being at Cafe and I thinks it’s cool to be able to teach somebody something they can use for the rest of their life!”
Here I was being driven by my wound of American racism, while that had never even crossed this child’s mind. He was leading in the spirit of paying it forward, of giving back. He doesn’t know it, but he shifted my entire perspective that day.
Recently, it was the third day of Kwaanza celebrating Ujima or collective responsibility, when we meditate on being “our brother’s keeper.” So I ask you, are you being driven by your spirit or your wound?
Cimajie Best is a program manager for an international non-profit organization. @cimajiebest
““He was leading in the spirit of paying it forward, of giving back. He doesn’t know it, but he shifted my entire perspective that day.” —@CimajieBest #PowerToChangeStories ”