Mission Statement
The Black Languages, Arts and Culture Foundation (BLAC FOUNDATION) was founded to create a greater awareness of the history and rich cultural heritage of Black peoples of the world by:
- encouraging a genuine and scholarly interest in Black Languages, Arts and Culture;
- giving interested parties (Black Scholars in particular) an opportunity to conduct research (both in the US and overseas) in areas of interest to the Foundation;
- forming a cadre of ranked blacfellows, who can (and hopefully will) acquire and disseminate quality knowledge in the Foundation’s area of interest;
- helping to publish new materials (generated by blacfellows and possibly others) dealing with the Black experience from a Black perspective;
- disseminating selected Foundation materials to the general public and /or interested parties at cost;
- matching willing donors with Black scholars, artists, musicians, and others in need of funding; and
- otherwise creating an atmosphere conducive to the realization of social justice worldwide.
In short, the BLAC Foundation seeks to affirm BLACK HUMANITY and promote a psychic conversion that creates networks and groups that foster love, care and concern for and within black communities around the world and eliminates the evil effects of racism. Just as the Chinese Republican period (1912-1948) heralded native fighting techniques as the means of rebuilding the spirits and the bodies of its citizens who were faced with the onslaught o Western athletics, so the BLAC Foundation has chosen Capoeira and Umlabalaba to help develop the bodies, minds, and spirit of Black citizenry.
BLAC Foundation aims at Serving BLACK Communities Worldwide – “Serving is different from helping. Helping is not a relationship between equals. A helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality. The danger in helping is that we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity or even wholeness.
When we help, we become aware of our own strength. But when we serve, we don’t serve with our strength; we serve with ourselves, and we draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve; our wounds serve; even our darkness can serve. My pain is the source of my compassion; my woundedness is the key to my empathy.”
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“… serving is different from fixing. In fixing, we see others as broken, and respond to this perception with our expertise. Fixers trust their own expertise but may not see the wholeness in another person or trust the integrity of the life in them. When we serve we see and trust that wholeness. We respond to it and collaborate with it. And when we see the wholeness in another, we strengthen it. They may then be able to see it for themselves for the first time.”
