Family

Most friday nights we have "Family" night at Dad & Mom's/Mom & Dad's house. Dad cooks, as he has most of my life, and we all enjoy. Tonight while sitting with my arms around Mom Dad told a story about Advent Community Church, the church he began in Columbus Ohio. The United Church of Christ intended the church to be a bi-racial church where (so-called) Blacks and Whites worshipped together as they had been aware that naturally only a 90-10 rule would apply. The U.C.C. gathered the 5 white families for Dad although he wouldn't begin the church until he had a black group as well. The church met with 15 whites and 35 blacks until the decision for a name surfaced. Pops really wanted to name the Church 'The Emaeus Road' yet the whites wanted to name the church "The New Hope" to recognize the hope of racial conciliation through intergration. Pops shared how the blacks decided, without regard to the name, that they were not going to let the whites name their church. Dad & Mom then noticed that the church was deeply into studying early christian celebrations and they were in the time of Advent. A vote allowed the divided groups to come together in a name...Advent. A name that is a big part of my life came about to bring the races together. Intrestingly enough the church my family attends has as one of it's tenants the concerted and delibrate effort to be Transethnic as a ways to destroy racism. I love the church for it's children-based offerings, the transethnic drive isn't really a draw for me but somehow it had a familar twang. I then considered my desire to place my children in a Black-owned elementary school while my wifey wanted a Christian-based school. We found a mix of the two in New Light Baptist School of Excellence. I also enjoyed the fact that New Light had a diverse Afrikan-descendant experience for my kids as American, Caribbean, Hatian, Afrikan, and Latinos of Afrikan descent all placed their kids into New Light. As my son became a first grader I/We decided that it was time for him to be placed into a school that offered a........(I hate this word).....transethnic experience that involved more than children who were of Afrikan descent to ensure that my son could conquer the world. As Dad finished his story I looked around the room at my family and realized that my Afrikan-centered family has always made strides to immerse ourselves into a morally-high quality Afrikan-experience before entering the more diverse world. I couldn't help but smile as Mom shook her head in agreement with Dad's story. My Dad, who broke racial bariers with instution-creation, my Mom who broke racial bariers by being strong enough to face the devils of the white supremacist paradigm, and our family who have always made decisions to break racial bariers only after becoming firm in our African/Indian experience. My family is your family......Let's be family.