Springfield College (S)ocial justice (E)quity (A)ccountability (T)ransformation at the Table Week Opening Event
The Springfield College Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Collaborative Council hosted its (S)ocial justice (E)quity (A)ccountability (T)ransformation at the Table Week Opening Event on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020.
The Springfield College Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Collaborative Council hosted its (S)ocial justice (E)quity (A)ccountability (T)ransformation at the Table Week Opening Event on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020. The virtual welcome begins a week of events and presentations seeking to make the collective stronger, create awareness and understanding around deconstructing oppressive systems, cultivating a sense of common purpose, boost engagement, and build more authentic and collaborative relationships across “commUNITY.”
Springfield College President Mary-Beth Cooper and Vice President for Inclusion and Community Engagement Calvin Hill opened the event with a welcome address each.
Hill introduced the opening event's keynote speaker, Heshima Moja, a contemporary composer and musician who draws on various musical idioms, literature, visual art, dance, cultural narratives, and aural traditions from African diasporic communities to explore themes of social justice through the multiple lenses of identity, migration, cultural memory, individual and cultural narratives, and healing from ancestral trauma.
Moja is a dynamic bassist, vocalist, composer, and cultural arts presenter who walks in a world where music, art, and scholarship intersect. He is heavily guided in his work by the influences of Black classical music (often termed jazz), orchestral music, Afro-Cuban rumba, hip-hop, music of the Arab world, Sufi music, ghazals, Indian classical music, as well as other musical forms from throughout the African diaspora. His influences also include the work of James Baldwin, Eugenio María de Hostos, Gaye Theresa Johnson, Fernando Ortiz, Juan Flores, María Teresa Linares Savio, and Steven Biko. Moja believes that art should be used as a tool to aid in the development of critical consciousness and to inspire people to imagine new ways of being in the world.
Throughout his impressive career, Moja has composed music for Nickelodeon, PBS, and various films throughout Latin America, and has released two CDs, The Awakening (2017) and Round and Round (2011). Moja has recorded and shared the stage with some of the greatest names in the music industry, which represent a broad cross-section of cultural expression, including rhythm and blues legends Patti Labelle, Hi-Five, and Mary J. Blige; Latin music superstars La India, Paoli Mejias, Grammy-winning Latin jazz trombonist and composer William Cepeda; Indian sitar master Ustad Shafaat Khan; jazz icons Arturo O’Farrill, Avery Sharpe, Fred Ho, Onaje Allan Gumbs, and Salim Washington; Senegalese superstars Pape Diouf, Élage Diouf; and hip-hop pioneers Questlove of the Roots, Guru, and Farrah Boule and Tribal Hop.
In addition, Moja dedicates equal time and energy to the causes of anti-racist research and work, focusing his efforts on both addressing the need to critically interrogate ideologies, policies, and practices that guide systems and structures of white supremacy as well as focusing on efforts to turn inward and engage in the healing work that he believes necessary in order to begin to imagine and construct new systems that make old ones obsolete. He regularly facilitates workshops, appears as a conference speaker, and guides discussions that help participants to further develop critical consciousness as well as to prepare to engage in anti-racist work.
The event continues on Monday, Oct. 26 with the following virtual presentations. It's not too late to register for the following virtual events:
11:00am - 12:00pm White People, Teach Thyself with Patrick Love
https://springfield.zoom.us/j/95087139060
12:30pm-2:00pm Exploring Racial Trauma & Black Mental Health Panel Discussion
https://springfield.zoom.us/j/95262516974
1:30pm-2:20pm Language Judgments as (Micro)aggressions
https://springfield.zoom.us/j/92680206347
1:35pm-2:35pm Jazz Fusion
https://springfield.zoom.us/j/93986242373
3:00pm-4:00pm Expanding Our Thinking about White Racism
https://springfield.zoom.us/j/93434066008
4:00pm-5:00pm Colorism in Popular Media
https://springfield.zoom.us/j/94317577327
5:30pm-6:30pm Meditation and Hip-Hop: Contemplating Consciousness
