We offer this collective endeavor so that we can get to know better our individual dreams. How have our individual selves been crushed under the weight of this thing called The ACADEMY?  Even in its most radical manifestations, people like us and not like us are harmed. People like us and not like us harm. We have to remember that it is ok for us to want something else, something beyond the binaristic options the Western Academy provides. So we ask that you read, share, and talk with others about this pledge. If it resonates with you, take this pledge for yourself.

Before making this commitment to/with/for The Damned Collective, appreciate yourself and the collective network potential. Choose a medium to “R&R”--Record and Reflect. Allow yourself to FEEL, HEAL, and be REAL.

• I commit to myself, to my healing, knowing that my individual healing is connected to our collective healing.
  Reflect and Record: What do I have the capacity to do?

• I commit to the cultivation of my deepest and biggest dreams, knowing that there is Divine Goodness in our visions.
  Reflect and Record: What do I envision myself achieving?  

• I commit to examining my relationship to institutional and (inter)personal harm. Reflect and Record: Is harm being enacted upon me? Am I harming someone else? Has harm been enacted upon me? Have I been harmed?

• I commit to a self-analysis of where and how I am situated in the academy. Reflect and Record: What are my privileges? How can I leverage my privileges to achieve the goals of liberation? Whose liberation (Who are your People?)?

• I commit to (re)learning and developing a classroom pedagogy that prioritizes critical thinking. Reflect and Record: How do I demonstrate that there are multiple ways to come to know a thing, anything? How do I question and lean into uncertainty with my students? How do I learn anew with students?

• I commit to developing a deeper relationship with The Damned Collective (2018). Reflect and Record: What would you like to build? What kind of support do you need? How might The Damned Collective help make you manifest those visions?

• I commit to _______________________________________.
  Reflect and Record: What additional commitments do I need to make for myself and my community.

We acknowledge and honor who WE are, the power that WE have in this moment. A commitment to The Damned is a commitment to yourself that names only one of our many current conditions. So we call ourselves The Damned in 2018 and in 1973, but we might use other names in the future. There are indeed other names circulating right now for this collective of people and the WERQ WE be doing: Emergent Strategy, Black Queer Feminism, Generative Somatics, Love with Accountability, Southerners on New Ground,and a Mobile Homecoming for the GAWDS! We come in many ways and our names may change, but we remain committed always to the work. We will not let names limit our capacity for being and becoming anew. The names we carry allow us to expand in our consciousness and in our radical praxis of LOVE. WE carry with us the names of Harriet Tubman, The Combahee River Collective, The Crunk Feminist Collective,  Assata Shakur, Ella Baker, Essex Hemphill, Blake Brockington and all of the future and past generations who have yet to have the space to name themselves.

In the words of The Mandate written by Mary Hooks: “The mandate for Black people in this time!/ Is to avenge the suffering of our ancestors!/ To earn the respect of future generations!/ And be willing to be transformed in the service of the work!”

Are Y’all willing to be transformed in the service of the WERQ?

Make a pledge to yourself and with your fellow Damned!

#doitfortheDAMNED #doitfortheDAMMM

(read full statement @ The Feminist Wire)

You can find more about us/WE here:

Email: lettersfromthedamned18@gmail.com

IG: The Damned (damned.the)

Twitter: The Damned (@TheDamned13)