Becoming (Un)Exhausted is an act of participatory exploration, one that offers complete resolution in place of conflict. Inside the 200 pages of this interactive journal Dr. Bryan K. Hotchkins’ concept of moving beyond racism is unpacked in order to eliminate racial exhaustion, and in doing so has served as a catalyst toward the unfurling of productive conversations about race in America. His work has taught us how to purposefully prepare to identify, engage and navigate the geographies of racism in order to save ourselves and the communities we love. Whether or not you have read his national bestseller, My Black is Exhausted. Forever in Pursuit of a Racist-free World Where Hashtags Don’t Exist, this guided written opportunity provides several literary moments for monitoring your holistic state of being daily, weekly and monthly for the next 365 days. The halo effect is that everyone benefits from participating in this process and by using the interactive journal, people are made whole. As an extra caveat, you don’t have to be Black to gain from taking this collective journey with us and by making this purchase you instantly become a member of our newly established community: The Neighborhood Kinfolks Collective (Members Only). Bryan welcomes your reflective effort to become free of racialize stress and offers his interactive journal as the template for doing so.
Journal Introduction
“From ideation until publication, I hesitated about whether the general public was ready to engage in a communal conversation about how to move beyond racism and what would be needed in order to begin. My Black is Exhausted. Forever in Pursuit of a Racist-free World Where Hashtags Don’t Exist was written under tremendous stress as my escapism project. I needed an outlet in order to forget my reality, disconnect from an imploding world and to explain why not knowing about racial exhaustion can be catastrophic. Pens over swords. With increasing frequency, I have felt less safe and everyone to whom I have spoken mirrored the sentiment. We now live in a global pandemic where COVID-19, Asian Hate and the devaluing of Black lives are a thing. In response, I began to journal, to monitor and track my inability to be happy while attempting to identify the why. I exhaled. Knowing the who, what, where, when and how racism harms us is the bar. As a result, I was bombarded with numerous antiracist declarations about how to fight racism as we coped with it. I want far more. I want to live in racist-free world. I want to move beyond racism.
In order to do so, healing must first occur within ourselves, our communities, our nations and ultimately the world. No one can achieve a beyond racism state of being unless we understand what is at stake—the psyche of humanity. My book, My Black is Exhausted. Forever in Pursuit of a Racist-free World Where Hashtags Don’t Exist is my blueprint for first navigating the geographies of racism then eliminating them altogether. It is my racial exhaustion confessional, my come to Jesus moment with myself about who I am, what I represent and how to holistically preserve both. Consider this Becoming (Un)Exhausted interactive journal to be your paginated confessional, the place where you allow yourself to experience an unfettered transparency and vulnerability about how you construct race, are harmed by it, participate in it and plan to eliminate it. I am unable of moving beyond racism by myself. Your assistance is needed! Engage in this personal documentation process alone, with family members, co-workers, colleagues, students and religious communities. Although the purpose of this journal is to aid in understanding your racial exhaustion for the next 365 days, it can be completed in 30, 60, 90 or half a year.
A declaration does not an exhaustion free life make. Answer these two beyond racism foundational questions, “Who currently benefits from racism?” and “Who stands to lose the most if racism is eradicated?” In order for racial exhaustion to decrease we must first learn how to locate it within our lives and actively respond by separating ourselves from it. In order to live beyond racism, we must dare to live in a world where being racist cost more than enacting racism.”
IN EMANCIPATION,
SINCERELY, DR. BRYAN K. HOTCHKINS