What it's like growing up bi-racial in a white run world?

What boxes do you check for a survey? How do you chose sides? Do you chose sides? Who is your loyalty to? Imagine what it is like to grow up bi-racial and adopted to an all white family. You think you represent one race but you are not sure. This workshops discusses the pros and cons of living on both sides of the fence. What growing up 'white' around black friends and then discovering some horrific facts about the race of the very people that raised you.

Children are not born prejudiced, they are taught it. This workshop addresses the challenges of accepting multiracial ethnicity in the household and creating positive avenues of expression, public arenas and support facilities in the local area. This workshop also addresses how to educate children about their culture and how not to pick racial sides. Attendees discuss how to heal from self hate, how not to blame parents or anyone for creating a decision for the multi-racial person.

This 2-3 hour workshop educates the participants on literature to reference, public speakers and celebrities that are challenged with employment issues and how some are forced to chose sides. Here, we give equal political and social empowerment as well as controversial information on all races in the discussion. This is an empowerment session.

This workshop is designed to encourage women who delve into social politics throughout their careers.

Throughout Her-story, women have been lost between the pages of the his-story books, lending us only a line or two about the support to the men they serve. Hundreds of women are responsible for some of the most memorable parts of our lineage of politics.

This workshop erases color lines due to the outstanding work of the women that fight for equality, civil rights, liberties and the fair treatment of women in the workplace.

Many women are afraid to get into politics because we are afraid to face the adversities of an male dominated society. Women have hidden between the crumpled pages of his-story waited to be validated by the men we support. It is time to emerge from the pages and stand at the forefront of the very offices we fight to liberate. Our names will be removed from the administrative assistant's name plate and begin to replace the gold plated partners plates on the front of the buildings and the executives doors! This workshop is to guide the personal and develop the political.

Many teens are influenced by mass media and music videos. Many of those media and video clips condone acts of violence by rewarding the abusers with sexual encounters, cash, materialistic objects, fame and false notoriety. Teenagers idolize false role models then mimic behaviors repeated throughout the day on television, movies and radio.

In this workshop teenagers and young adults will learn various ways to express their deeper feelings, exercising their abilities to communicate with their friends and family without turning to violence.

In this workshop we practice exercises of non-violent expressions through daily behavior.

How to deal with overwhelming doses of fornication

What are the positive alternatives to premarital sexual activities

How to deal with prolific amounts of violence in the neighborhood, on the news and in music videos

What are the positive alternatives to aggressive behaviors.

Many children are able to tap into an artistic side they didn't know existed until someone took the time to help develop what is frustrating them and turn it into beautiful pieces of art. In this workshop children receive notebooks, writing supplies and a curriculum to take home and to work on during the workshop.

This workshop can be broken down in 1 or 2 hour increments depending on the number of participants. For the purposes of this proposal, we will look at a two-hour workshop and performance series.

I. 0-30 Minutes

A. The history
Introduction of the Griot & the history of Spoken Word as we know it today
   1. Introduce the woks of popular and unpopular poets
   2. Are we modern day Griots?
   3. Compare works:
      a. The Bible
      b. Slave Spiritual
      c. Social activists
      d. Black Renaissance period

II. 30-60 Minutes

A. What literary critiques have to say about Spoken Word
   1. Is it an art form?
   2. Is Spoken Word poetry?
   3. Is it purely entertainment?

B. What are the responsibilities of a Spoken Word Artist
   1. Should poetry be 'true'?
   2. Spoken Word versus Hip - Hop where is the line?
   3. Is Spoken Word a trend?

III. 60-75 Minutes

A. What is Slam Poetry?
   1. A brief history of Slam Poetry and how it was created as a literary sport

IV. 75-90 Minutes

A. The page vs. The stage
   1. Form vs. Function
   2. Dispelling stereotypical audible sounds and movements
      a. The poet voice
      b. The Hip-Hop hands
3. The conversion from the page to the stage. Can you go back?

V. 90-120 Minutes

A. Mock (or real) Poetry Slam
   1. Discussion and questions

VI. After the workshop

A. Performance by Queen Sheba
   1. Time determined prior to workshop

The children will sit in a circle or close group. If they are in a classroom setting they will move thier chairs to become as close as possible.

Children will be given a brief oral or written assignement, depending on time, to describe their favorite colors. The children will chose anywhere from 5-10 colors and give them original descriptions based on their experiences with these colors. IE: yellow can be hot or exciting. Red can be angry or love.

After the children have assigned each color two or more short descriptions, the presenter will engage in a performance piece of poetry, monolouge or any verbal activity for the group to watch. During the performance the children will participate by yelling out the colors on their sheet and the presenter will respond, without interruption, to the color given by acting out the color in within their own description.

Once the presenter has given a brief example of how to perform the exercise, he/she will ask for volunteers from the students. The students will be responsible for remembering the emotions assigned to the colors while giving thier presentation.