“BROAD AND BLACK” FAMILY DEVELOPMENT

This thematic namesake page, “Broad and Black” is the centerpiece of this site’s table of inclusion. Its sub-pages present some dabbling into crown concerns of our time that weigh heavily on the mind of your host; and have far more impact on our collective psychic, spiritual, and social health than many know.

Our dilemma surrounding Black community response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and how that response has resonated in this one writer’s life is discussed herein. Also, a more complete discussion of Domestic Violence helps expose its impact on diverse Black households, and exhibits its roots in notions of attacking one’s own Blackness by brutalizing others.

With various approaches, these sub pages beg us to take a more pressing look at intra-race bigotry, and how it disables our greatest potential as a people. Black journalists, poets, media and entertainers analyze and express our concerns, hopes and dreams as if throngs of us do not exist. Sheer habit of old behaviors along with a fear of being branded “gay” obstructs many of our ability to openly engage the depth of our collective humanity.

Because that depth can only be realized with an inclusive lens, our divisions wrestle our future prospects to the ground. In the meantime, gifted, influential socio-political “leaders” meekly peep around the corner at our corroding conditions as if under an emotional gag-order. Our traditional oppressors celebrate their verbal lock-down.

Our prohibitive, self-defeating and oftentimes unquestioning narrow thinking leads us to a political frailty and social handcuffing of our ability to project truly deep, meaningful Diasporic problem-solving. These sub-pages aim to awaken our senses that we might think for ourselves and stretch our professed philosophical sensibilities so they cover and protect the whole beloved community.

Finally, the gallery - “Claiming the Whole Beloved Community,” not only provides an inclusive presentation of the authentic truth of our communities, but it proposes to hurl that online exhibition to an offline community building project. That provides www.terryhowcott.com with the potential to serve as more than a website.