Study the story
See how stories shape identity, memory, behavior, and what our families believe is possible.
AYA Adult Educational Series
Black Family
Storyology Night
Stories nurture our power—or kill it!
Stories direct our power—or misdirect it!
You're not the target—our children and youth are!
DateThursday, August 13
Time8:00 PM EST
Live class90 minutes
Tuition$47
Register for Storyology Night
Supplemental study guide included
Why storyology?01
The recent Talk 2.0 Townhall about helping our youth survive and grow in this anti-Afrikan attack raised three powerful questions:
01How do we teach our children and youth to survive without teaching them to submit?
02How do we teach them about oppression without depressing them?
03How do we transform real losses into stories of real warrior, healer, builder power?
The most powerful technology ever created which will answer those questions is already in your mouth and at your fingertips. It is The Story!
Stories
Stories educate, heal, motivate, manipulate, inspire, and shape identity, memory, power, and possibility.
Our ancestors knew this and were masters of it. Today, we have become mostly consumers of other people’s stories. Racism, oppression, and injected oppression have left too many of us with broken stories about ourselves, our Afrikan past, and our future.
That changes with this course.
The method
Storytelling from the inside-out.
At the center of “The Talk 2.0” must be new stories and new storytelling. The inside-out method begins with our collective mission, our Afrikan worldview, and the needs of our children—not with the assumptions of those who narrate us from the outside.
“We heal broken stories and banish the alien stories that diminish our power to fight oppression, heal from its wounds, and build with each other.”
No matter the technology of delivery (social media, AI, movies, etc.), our neurobiology demands a story, and if not given one, will make one up. Owing to oppression and injected oppression, our stories are often “broken stories” about ourselves, our past and our future. These broken stories encourage behaviors based on delusion, depression, apathy, misplaced anger, or what Nana Amos N. Wilson calls “pathological anxiety.” None of these will serve us well, and most alien remedies encourage us to become “well-adjusted individuals” in this increasingly oppressive system.
What you will learn02
Become the premier storyologist in their lives.
Select and tell stories of the Black experience in ways that equip our youth to become the best warriors, healers, and builders they can be.
Heal the story
Recognize broken and alien stories—and replace them with narratives rooted in truth, purpose, and power.
Tell it inside-out
Narrate resistance, struggle, victory, and even loss in ways that help our people fight, heal, and build.
The essential challenge
Can you tell the story of a loss so it still builds power?
Victory stories matter. Still, they are not enough!
Our young people can see the losses around them. They need to
recognize retreat without mistaking it for surrender, and to
recover courage, strategy, unity, sacrifice, and ingenuity from
every chapter of our history.
Tulsa case study
AYA students could not change the facts of Tulsa. They could recover the Black citizens who defended Dick Rowland, fought for their community, and organized through the African Blood Brotherhood. Their assignment: tell the truth—and make it empowering.
“But, Baba Wekesa, how do I tell a story about our losses in Tulsa in ways that are inspiring to me and my peers?”
Baba Wekesa replied
“That’s exactly why your parents sent you to AYA Educational Institute. Let’s go.”
This night is for
The people shaping the stories our children inherit.
01Parents
02Grandparents
03Teachers
04Black adults
Just when we need it most
Fetch the gems.
Change the story.
Black Family Storyology Night Thursday, August 13 · 8 PM EST · $47
Reserve your seat 90-minute live class · Supplemental study guide included