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#IMayDestroyYouEdition

Quote | #FUBU | #CoLearning Recap | #IMayDestroyYouEdition | Opportunities to Listen |  Ujima Time Bank | How to Invest in Ujima | Appreciations | Neighborhood Econ. Study Group | Ujima is Hiring | Membership Renewal | Jobs | Upcoming Meetings 

Derrick Bell

TONIGHT AT 6:30PM: For Ujima By Ujima: Troubling Voting, Citizenship, Democracy & Participation

Tonight, 6:30-8:30PM, in partnership with the Black Economic Council of MA (BECMA) and Mayor's Office of Resilience and Racial Equity, join us for a lively panel and Q&A discussion on the past and current mechanisms of democracy, citizenship and voting in the United States. 

What would it mean to look at the quality of our engagement with the United States, as if it were truly an experimental project? What would happen if we viewed our country as a continually evolving concept rather than a fixed model? How can we think through, and co-create new ways of engagement and participation? How do we understand power and governance through the ways it's enacted today, both in the Ujima Project and within the United States?

Together, Ujima staff will reflect on our experiences and use the Ujima Project and the American Project as the lens through which we can compare and contrast citizenship and the performance of citizenship in 2020.

Moderated by Yohana Beyene and Karl Kumodzi

Time: Wednesday, September 30, 6:30PM | Location: Zoom

Register via Eventbrite | Share on Facebook | Share on Twitter

#CoLearning Recap: Member Stories

Last Wednesday, members discussed educational experiences and dreamt up new forms of insurrectory educational models based on a prompt from Demita Fraizer.

Click here to view the full notes and video archive.

#IMayDestroyYouEdition

Michaela Coel, photographed by Liz Johnson Artur. Courtesy of Garage Magazine.

The particular violence which shapes the narrative arc in Michaela Coel’s BBC/HBO series I May Destroy You will go unmentioned in this editorial. Instead of providing a trigger warning, I choose to attempt not to trigger our readers at all. Instead of engaging directly with the subject matter, this piece will focus on Michaela, storytelling, and the inherent power in our attempts at healing, regardless of what happens to us. More resources and information will be available at the end of this section. Thank you for your readership. –Cierra Peters, Communications Director at the Boston Ujima Project

✸✸✸

Last week, London-born director, showrunner, writer, executive producer and actor, Michaela Coel, was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. The annual listicle recognizes movers and shakers the editors believe have changed the world, regardless of consequence or outcome. In the accompanying essay, Emmy award winning producer Lena Waithe observed, “You don’t just watch Michaela Coel shows; you experience them. With Chewing Gum and I May Destroy You, she takes you on these wild, funny, vulnerable rides, and you never know when the drops are coming. [...] Michaela makes work that forces the audience to grapple with themselves while also taking herself to task.” Coel, whose birth name is Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson, revels in truth telling.

 

In the pilot episode of Coel’s latest offering “I May Destroy You,” she captures elements of everyday life of a millennial artist recently thrust into internet fame due to the popularity of her blog turned book. Loosely based on her own experiences, the fictionalized portrayal gives us a glimpse into triumph, heartbreak, and healing through the eyes of Arabella, and her friends, Terry (Weruche Opia) and Kwame (Paapa Essiedu). The plot is centered on nuancing the casual and extreme violences we face in our work and social lives. Memories, absence, and trauma become characters as three friends navigate their late-twenties against an urban backdrop.

 

Coel, 32, was born to Ghanian parents and grew up in a public housing complex in East London. During her college years, she wrote and starred in a ten-minute scene, Chewing Gum Dreams, which she would adapt into a one-woman show and later a comedic television series. In the “45-minute one-woman show she inhabited 11 different characters over a series of vignettes in her imagined world of Hackney,” reported Vulture, “She did the fully formed version of Chewing Gum Dreams at the Yard, the Bush, and, in a sold-out run, the National Theatre.”

 

Chewing Gum Dreams was the culmination of her tenure as a student at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her experiences in the academy were formative: between creating lifetime friendships, who would later become actors in her TV shows, and surreal moments of misogynoir, she learned how to turn her experiences into content. She dropped out in her senior year after the play became a hit. “One teacher shouted the N-word at Coel and Essiedu (they each joked that he must have been referring to the other); another told Coel her vocal cords were just made different because she was Black. Over the course of three years, the school would try to put her in parts to make her explore her “soft” side. “It was just a really confusing place to be as Black people,” says Essiedu.


In I May Destroy You, Coel’s Arabella is routinely faced with balancing her personal and creative dignity against an industry and culture which revels in self-exploitation. The show, Coel declares, is calling for introspection. “We know how to look out,” she continues, “We’ve been doing that. Don’t forget: Also look in.”

Since the first Black situational comedy, Amos n Andy gave the United States a series about the Black community with Harlem at its center, television shows with Black leads have always struggled with representation and editorial control. Amos and Andy started as a radio program, with the two lead characters written and played by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll who were white, for over 30 years. Set in Chicago against the backdrop of the Great Migration, the show’s content was built primarily upon racial parody and minstrelsy. Once adapted for television, the issues that plagued the first Black sitcom foreshadowed the conversations on narrative, representation and diversity we are still having today: who is telling the story, and who are the stories for? After Amos n Andy’s primetime adaptation was cancelled, there wouldn’t be another all Black cast on television until Sanford and Son, two decades later.

 

What does it look like to tell our stories honestly, and when is the industry “working the wound,” as musician Mark Stewart puts it? Several famous works have captured DuBoisian double consciousness in cinema, which calls into question the performance of identity. Black thespians, producers and writers have long struggled with the nature, and quality, of our participation in the television and film industry.

 

In 2017, Coel grappled with the pendulum of so-called Black excellence: contortion or abject refusal. That spring, Netflix offered her a deal for I May Destroy You. The distributor had brought Chewing Gum to stateside acclaim, and helped cement her as a household name. She had a working relationship with the streaming service, as she’d later starred in an Emmy award-winning episode of Black Mirror, as well as sci-fi film Black Earth Rising. Netflix gave a $1 million offer, but wouldn’t allow her to retain any percentage of the copyright. By this time, she had already ended her first show, due to being creatively sidelined, after two seasons.

 

According to Coel, “There was just silence on the phone. And she said, ‘It’s not how we do things here. Nobody does that, it’s not a big deal.’ I said, ‘If it’s not a big deal, then I’d really like to have 5 percent of my rights.’” The creator ended her relationship with her talent agency, CAA after it “tried to push her into the deal” while they would be making “an undisclosed amount on the back end.” She walked away and pitched the series to the BBC in fall of 2017. The network offered her everything she wanted, and eventually HBO joined as a co-producer of the project.

 

 

After the events of I May Destroy You’s pilot, trauma becomes a phantom, omnipresent in every chapter following. Justice and liberation undidacticly lace the characters’ dialogues as they navigate life after.

 

Arabella, grief-stricken and determined to gain control of her life, is anxiously hyper aware of harm, but completely unaware of the ways that she is dissociating from her trauma and stress. She drinks, she shaves her head, she parties, she “gets woke,” she goes broke, she avoids her publisher, she gains a following, she hurts the people she thinks are hurting her, she becomes an influencer, she becomes egocentric, she stops smoking, she gets bad press, she gets good press, she runs away to Italy and comes back even more defeated than ever. Our most authentic selves are usually accessed through failure and revision, unstylish experiments which require trust to unlock and harness.

 

Iteration is the perfect metaphor for healing. Michaela wrote 191 revisions of the sublimely unsettling twelve episode arc. The show’s opening even features a facsimile of a computer typing “I May Destroy You” before backspacing to reveal “I May Destroy.” Each episode challenges the idea of linear healing, and reveals what the process, for one person, looks like. The difficulty and messiness inherent in the human condition requires self-reflection and choice. Eventually, Arabella realizes how far she is from her own healing because she had never really taken time to process the painful events that happened throughout her life. By the end, she realizes how far from the ground she had always been, and the murky, intentional path begins again.

Further Reading:

Organizations you can donate to:

Opportunities to Listen

Opportunities to listen

Join the Ujima Time Bank!

Speaking of alternative currency... The Ujima Time Bank is another way to save money and create community connections while creating a new economy in Boston!

What is a time bank?

A Timebank is a system of exchange where the unit of value is person-hours. When a member of a timebank performs one hour of service for another member, they are awarded one hour of credit in the Timebank, which can then be redeemed for one hour of service from another member. For example: Samantha can fix Jess’s blinds, and then Jess can teach Freddie Spanish, then Freddie later gives Samantha a ride, and the Timebank keeps track so it’s fair.

There are over 600 talents available for you to tap into, or join, in the Ujima Time Bank! This week's featured talent is Services. There are 89 people available to give you lessons or assistance with computer support, jewelry repair, writing and more!

Join the time bank to respond and see more! Anyone who lives in Boston can join the Time Bank at www.ujimaboston.com/timebank!

How to Become a Co-Investor in the Ujima Fund

Another Boston Is Happening. Now You Can Invest in It.

www.ujimaboston.com/invest

  1. Read Ujima's Offering Memorandum. This document describes the risks, regulations, and background of the fund. The Offering Memorandum should be read in it's entirety, with careful attention to the Risk Factors (page 11), Description of Notes (39), and Subordination Agreement (77).
  2. Consult the personal finance worksheet if you are unsure of how much to invest.
  3. Invest online (multiple payment options available):
    1. Choose the option next to the type of investment you are making.
    2. Complete and sign all forms via Docusign (Investment Agreement, W-9, and Demographic Information).
    3. After submitting, select your payment option. (You will see instructions on how to send a check if that is your preferred payment.)
  4. OR: Invest via mail:
    1. Choose the option next to the type of investment you are making.
    2. Select the print option on Docusign.
    3. Complete and sign all forms manually (Investment Agreement, W-9, and Demographic Information).
    4. Write a check, payable to the Fund, for the amount you wish to invest in the applicable Notes.
    5. Send the Investment Agreement and your check to the Fund [PO BOX 180310 Boston MA 02118].
  5. Email invest@ujimaboston.com or call 617-446-3863 with any questions

Please contact invest@ujimaboston.com with any questions or issues that arise!

#UjimAppreciations

Thank you to...

  • Demita Frazier, for her riveting personal history of creating Black study and resistance spaces, and graciously agreeing to return the following for a part 2, as part of our exploration of Alternative Education!
  • The Full Set with Didi Delgado, for inviting the Ujima team to share our perspectives and what we do and conducting a live membership drive!
  • All of our new members who have joined Ujima!
    • Laigha
    • Sharon
    • Nancy
    • Didi
    • Tyson
  • All of the members who have renewed their Ujima memberships!
    • Devra
    • Joyce
    • Robin
    • David
    • Naomi
    • Sarah
    • Michael
    • Denisha
    • Fran
  • All of our recent investors!
    • Michael
    • Episcopal City Mission
    • Louise and John
  • To Peers, Partners, and Community Members who are doing their part to keep us informed, safe, and loved during this time. 

Ujima Neighborhood Economics Study Group

We are excited that the Ujima Neighborhood Economics Study Group is underway, continuing to explore the feasibility of projects that address our community-wide needs. The group meets the second Wednesday of the month, and the next meeting is next Wednesday, October 14th. This study group is co-coordinated by Ujima members and staff. Some participants will focus on a specific area of study and some writ-large. The group will build on the learnings from the exploration that Ujima members have already done, and will carry this research forward to get even closer to implementation and investment in projects that meet our needs.

The topics include:

  • Community Land Trust
  • Community Owned Internet
  • Community Owned Energy
  • Urban Farming
  • Creative Economic Placemaking (Black Market)
  • Community Space
  • Arts/Cultural Organizing Space
  • Childcare

There is also space for members to coordinate study groups on additional topics of interest. Please email lynchcasey2@gmail.com if you are interested in getting involved or want more information!

Internship Opportunities

We need your help to find great interns to grow our team. Ujima is offering these internship opportunities on an ongoing basis. Please share widely!

To apply, email intern@ujimaboston.com to express interest and get further information. 

Ujima Membership

Help us reach our goal of growing our membership to 700! Renew your membership with Ujima today and help spread the word about our network and activities!

Jobs in the Ujima Network

If you are hiring and would like to be included on our biweekly newsletter, send your listing to comms@ujimaboston.com!

Upcoming Ujima Meetings

We hold Open Meetings every Wednesday at 6pm, on ZOOM! Check out our September Calendar below!

6:00-7:15 - Community Building + Financial and Political Education.
7:15-8:30 - Member Team Meetings (Based on rotating schedule; See calendar above)

www.ujimaboston.com

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