Community care at your fingertips

The biggest discount I've ever offered, because we matter.

• Upcoming book club! We have had many volunteer community members come forward, eager to help maintain and sustain the Diaspora Reads book club. Our first book club for paid subscribers will be on February 24 at 9-10pm ET. We are reading Hijab Butch Blues. See you there! Link will be sent out day of.

• Mark your calendars for the upcoming paid subscriber community conversations over Zoom: January 7th, January 21st, Feb 4th, Feb 18th — all at 6pm ET (we are trying a new time slot for the first couple of months).

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Today is a confusing, hard, dreadful day for so many of us in the world and in the United States. I am taking a pause this week from our theme on change (next week’s post will still give you tips and tools for actually making a change in your life!), to discuss how so many of you may be feeling.

Two things can be true for you today…

• You can feel scared and angry about what’s to come AND You can find hope and meaning in communities of care and grassroots activism and organizing

• You can stay informed of what is going on in the world and in the news AND You can find ways to healthily distract or retreat to take care of yourself

• You can be happy that TikTok is coming back so quickly and understand its positive impact on many folks AND You can be resistant to social media and critical of the strategy and propaganda associated with its ban and comeback

• You can feel like you may not know enough to speak up or engage AND You can commit to learning more and be mindful of whose voices you are uplifting

• You can be directly/immediately unaffected by something AND You can care about what is happening in the world and to other people

With everything going on in the world, I continue to want to lean into community care.

I want these community spaces to grow, and grow, and grow. I want it to be ours, not mine. I want it to challenge and defy the “usual” way to do things. Now more than ever community care is where we should focus. That’s why I continue to build this space — rooted in mutual support and in community and in awareness.

I am always asking myself: what else can I, and we, do to tap into these spaces of community— or restructure them? We can have all the language, and do the work, and yes, we can certainly experience growth and healing in this way, but where can we supplement this work with others. With connection. With safety.

We live in a favor economy, one that has us giving to receive or falling trap to the White supremacist value of building transactional relationships to get ahead ourselves.

I get it. I struggle with it too, but I want to reframe this as reciprocity. I want to consider what is equitable, not equal. I want to focus on where we can each offer peer and mutual support when we have capacity, and when we can be held and cared for when we need. I don’t want this to feel transactional or for their to be receipts that make us feel like we are keeping tabs on who did what when. Instead, I want us to invest in our collective care.

Community matters. We matter.

And as Dr. Ayesha Khan (@wokescientist) says: “Our collective liberation is contingent on us practicing interdependence, not independence . The goal is mutual aid & reliance on each other.”

That’s why I am offering the lowest price ever on this community subscription. If you sign up today until January 31, 2025, you will get a perpetual 15% off a subscription!

Membership price for the newsletter will increase on February 1, so if you’ve wanted to join the community, 2x Zoom community discussions, upcoming book club (see above), and get the monthly guided meditation, full essays, reflections, and content, do so now! I have so many exciting things in store here.

Culturally Enough. Community Mission and Goals

• To empower you to feel encouraged to actively contribute and feel shared responsibility to this community

• To democratize mental health by creating access to resources and content that speaks to our community’s specific mental health experiences

• To create a space and hosting events that facilitate connection, trust, mutual support, (un)learning, and collective healing

• To integrate and commit to self, social, and cultural awareness, transparency, inclusivity, curiosity, adaptability to changing needs, active listening, and vulnerability and honesty

What can you expect:

• 📝A weekly letter on that month’s theme

• 💬Upcoming paid only chats to connect with each other and me

• 💻 At least 2x a month, the community of paid subscribers can join us on Zoom for live chats and connection

• ⁉️The occasional Q&A with me

• 🎉First dibs on community workshops and events with the occassional discount for being a loyal member here

• 📚Bimonthly, community-led book club starting in February

• 📝More robust monthly roundups with resources, readings, links, products, and more (and your recommendations— see above survey) at the end of the month

And don’t forget you can click the link above and gift it to a loved one ;)