Award-winning writer, healing justice practitioner and yogi Yolo Akili Robinson hosted Black Love as A Practice: A WorkShop to Help us Embody The Love We Desire Wednesday night, an event planned by the Black History Month Planning Committee (BHMPC) and the Black Cultural Center (BCC) where students rethought Black love not just as a feeling, but as a practice and a behavior.
Robinson told The Daily Cardinal the workshop’s goal was to restructure how attendees show love to themselves and their communities.
“I want people to think about Black love a little more expansively,” Robinson said.
The workshop is just one of many events the BHMPC and BCC are hosting under this year’s Black History Month program centered around Black love. Robinson emphasized the importance of workshops like this one during Black History Month, especially given current challenges facing Black communities.
“When we talk about Black love…we’re talking about our love of Black communities [and] our love for human rights. We want to have dignity,” Robinson said. “So in these moments, [we’re asking] how is love the solution?”
Pointing to increased economic distress and attempts to restrict voting within Black communities, Robinson said love must be understood as an action.
“What do I do when I love my community?” Robinson asked, “I advocate. I try to build community infrastructure in the face of divestment.”
Robinson also noted that love isn’t limited to a romantic scope. Instead, they emphasized love as a practice to support communities as a whole. Whether hosting workshops or leading the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective, an advocacy organization that Robinson founded and directs, he can be found uplifting his community through love in every form.
UW-Madison senior Miles Duncan, who was in attendance at the keynote, said Robinson’s holistic outlook on Black love will continue to stick with him.
“[Robinson] didn’t limit his message to celebrating Black love. He expressed the entire spectrum of emotion: joy, vulnerability, pain, resilience and hope,” Duncan said. “He inspired me to lean into the full range of my emotions rather than compartmentalize them. I believe everyone in that room walked away with a deeper understanding of Black identity.”
When BCC Co-chair Caasi Woji first approached Robinson about the theme, he immediately agreed to participate. Not only is love one of Robinson’s favorite subjects, but they felt the workshop came at a time when “love is becoming increasingly commodified” and it would help people understand the intention of their love.
Woji said the committee chose this year’s theme to highlight positivity and emotional wellness within the Black community.
“We want to highlight a positive within the Black community, and love is all around us,” Woji said. “Whether it’s self love, familial love or friendship..I hope [attendees] find a new outlook on love and how to give that back to their communities.”
Before deciding on the workshop theme, the committee toyed around with ideas centering family or community celebrations before settling on Black love as a grounding concept.
With multiple aspects to the workshop, Robinson said they hope people walk away with a new understanding of love and how it shows up in our day to day lives.
Madison Hird, another BHMPC member, said one idea that really resonated with her was the separation of people from their ideas and behaviors.
“[Ideas] don’t correlate to who [someone is] as a person,” Hird said. “[That’s] hard to acknowledge when you encounter someone with opposing views to your own.”
According to Robinson, the best solution is to approach the situation with love instead of criticism.
Hird also said the roots of the topic and theme of the workshop ran deep.
“Yolo reminded us that Black love is in our grasp and can be grown through connection, breaking generational curses and reshaping our behavior to align with love instead of hate,” Hird said. “Black love is genuinely a privilege because it is one of the purest things known to man…it is big, soft, loud, quiet, fluid, forgiving…but really it is light, and I’m beyond grateful to feel it everyday.”
