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Excerpts from the Keynote Address Titled
Loving and appreciating our families, youth and communities
as we define our future
by Christopher Anne Easley, Ph.D., RODC
Setting forth the reason why we need a challenge
to our existing paradigms
"We are living in challenging times, from a global
as well as domestic perspective. But most important,
I believe that the African American community is facing
the most critical challenge we have had since slavery.
We are living in times where there are many people who
believe that we have made significant progress.
However, there are just as many people who feel,
that as a race, we are moving backwards. During the
days of the civil rights movement, we at least
understood our challenges and the actions that were
required to address the injustices society had
imposed upon our race. However, now I believe we
are being lulled to sleep, yet our rights are constantly
being challenged. And, in the midst of being lulled
to sleep, our children have lost the sense of our
history that people in my age bracket and my parents
age bracket had.
However, the most important reason I felt compelled
to address these issues at this conference is that we
have an opportunity, through the spiritual connections
that will ensue this week and the learning that you will
walk away with relative to Appreciative Inquiry, to
understand how to strategically address the change that
is our inherent right. I believe that it is critical
that we do not settle for what we use to be, or have been,
but that we keep reaching for what we have yet to become.
So, bear with me tonight, I hope I can inspire you with
some of the learning I have been blessed to walk away
with from my own experiences.
The first thing I have learned is that
Appreciative Inquiry is a very powerful change
intervention strategy. It positions us to draw
out the good in people and situations…a
perspective that is needed in this country.
We have become a society that is very comfortable
with the concept of the glass being half empty
versus half full. And, I believe that it is time
we learn to turn that perspective around, particularly
in the African American community because we have
lived with the perspective of a half empty glass
for far too many years. As a result, I firmly
believe that it is critical that we take the
concepts of Appreciative Inquiry and use them to
address the multiplicity of issues that face our
communities that require a new approach for driving
change…an approach that teaches us to express
hope and love on a consistent basis as part of our
daily interactions.
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