Community Agreements

The aim for having community agreements is to provide a space that is welcoming, comfortable, inspiring and beneficial for all. Using such practices and tools we can challenge ourselves and each other while still recognizing that we all contribute unique knowledge and experience, while hopefully creating a positive impact on our community/ies.

COMMUNITY AGREEMENTS:
Original community agreements by BUFU, modified by MINKA brooklyn practitioners, adapted by Flatbush Mixtape

FOR USE EXTERNALLY AND INTERNALLY

• Honor this Land - Flatbush occupies Lenape land on Turtle Island.  For those of us who are settlers of this Indigenous land, we must constantly give thanks and acknowledge the stolen lives and the ongoing struggles of our Indigenous family in the face of American imperialism - we ground our session from this.

• Honor the history of this Land - We honor Brooklyn’s abolitionist history and uplift our legacy of resistance. What differentiates Brooklyn from other boroughs is that we had the largest and most politically aware and active Black community in the United States standing for the liberation of enslaved Africans and the abolishment of slavery.
  

• This is a BRAVE space, and a SAFE space - Release judgement based on identity and identity, expression of both can be affirmed without fear or pressure to educate, encouraging dialogue.
  

• Speak from the ‘I’ - Speak from your own experience.
  

• Confidentiality - Take home the experience and learning, not the identity of folks who are courageous to be vulnerable. Do not speak of shared experience outside of shared space without prior consent
  

• Be the risk taker/truth sharer - speak your truth, be open.  We are here to listen and learn from all of us. Make mistakes - it’s only human, and there is no shame in falling on your beautiful face. Discomfort is your new friend - expect to be challenged, yet expect no one to judge you. We are here to explore the discomfort - so we can learn the lesson for integration.
  

• Throw sunshine not shade - It takes all of us to create a safe space of growth and healing.  Curb your judgement - and inquire where this judgement is coming from.
  

• Be curious - about others’ points of view, and about your reaction to them. Be willing to try on new and unfamiliar ideas and ways of doing things.
  

• Respect people’s identity - don’t assume, ASK. We strive for an anti-oppressive space. Be conscious of points of privilege and oppression that live in the space, and the power dynamics between us.
  

• Move up/Move Back - Be aware of the space you are taking up, make sure everyone feels heard, not just the outspoken few.
  

• Practice mindful listening - Listen for the sake of listening, allow the new idea to surprise you and open you up to new possibilities of reality.
  

• Practice self care as community care -  Stay engaged with your whole body. Mental & emotional reaction has physical consequence, listen to your mind, heart and body.
  

• Read the room - We all live our own realities, and they are all different, be flexible and open to other ideas while making sure you are not imposing your ideals as the ‘truth’.  Look around, and see how the room ‘feels’.
  

• Expect ‘non-closure’ - We want you to hang out in uncertainty.  It is the place of possibility, learning and unlearning.  True learning and transformation takes time - do not rush to have an easily packaged conclusion.  Life is messy and it’s beautiful.