3 Takeaways from Attending Mighty Dream Forum
The 3-day “Davos of Diversity” to quote co-founder and host Pharrell Williams was nothing short of transformational. Speaking for myself of course. First, I was attending at the invitation of the Music.com executive team to help moderate panels on the Music.com Web 3 stage. Cool, cool. I can do that. That is my jam. But I was also excited, curious, and “fluttery” about attending the rest of the event. Why? Well, my 3 takeaways might explain this.
My 3 Takeaways: From the personal, the community, and then the world POVs.
1. I am a person of color! (The personal)
No, I did not forget that my name is José Abraham Caballer and that I am the product of a Dominican mom and a Puerto Rican father. (Though in high school and early in college I went by my middle name — Abe — To hide my “Latino-ness” a bit. Riiiight… it wasn’t until a M.E.Ch.A. sponsored event in college that I was like; “You know what, screw it, I am using my first name.)
Here, (At Mighty Dream) the question that came up for me was; What does it really mean to be a POC? How much do I understand about myself in this context? How much have I traveled on my journey without really coming home?
Just in attending Might Dream Forum — and being present to myself in the context of stories from African American, Afro-Caribbean, African, first-generation Latinx, and caucasian speakers and panelists from all over the world, in all professions and walks of life in attendance that week — I was able to really understand my own story a little better.
In witnessing myself in the joy of being in our communities at a scale and size I have never experienced (Imagine if people of color went to Burning Man in greater numbers!) it became clear that every bit of agency and access I have had until now and will have in my career (It ain’t over yet!) is for me to share with my communities, family, and loved ones. That it is not enough to quietly advocate, give access just when we can, or simply hold space for our communities. That there is so much more that can be done. That I can do! That I also need to share my story and my own mission way louder, with less fear.
Takeaway: OMG, I am a POC! Don’t forget it. Do more. Say more. The event as a whole was an epic example of giving back and giving access. Modeled masterfully by Pharrell Williams and his team.
2. Healing is a community experience… (The community)
Having the conversation across disciplines, art, music, technology, creativity, enterprise businesses, government, health, and wellness highlighted both the wealth and the diversity of experience that we collectively have in all of these areas and also the common challenges we all share.
In preparation for the Decentralized City Council panel on how local communities could use principles of Decentralization to provide better solutions for their stakeholders and in follow-up conversations with local representatives, artists, and entrepreneurs around the topic of civic engagement, public goods, and economic development it became super clear how serious systemic barriers are for stakeholders of color in our existing local governments manifest. (Low civic engagement, stakeholder representation in decisions.) It has also become super clear to me that Web 3 would need to seriously re-culture (The culture be redesigned) to successfully educate and onboard our own communities effectively. Starting with artists and creators.
Note: Though the space is currently in turmoil because of the failings of DeFi the hope for the models created by DAOs and tokenized communities is still there. Once the dust settles those communities that are providing true value to their users and are still standing will begin to flourish again. (2024)
But ultimately it still is up to us. It is up to the ghost builders, the big-picture thinkers, the culture makers, and the doers to build the future. (Read: Music, Art, Film, Fashion, Community, Identity.) LFG!
Something else that resonated greatly with me was hearing successful people of color share over and over that no matter how much success they had experienced the feeling of not-belonging or not being enough never left them. They had to remind themselves every day of how blessed they were and how much work was still remaining to be done in their own lives and in their communities. I have felt and still feel this every day. Hearing others share this, gave me the comfort of knowing that I wasn’t alone! And some practical tools to push me through the rough spots.
One tool I joyfully discovered was the simple use of praise. Imagine this, it is day 1, hour 5 — and I am on a post-panel tour of Norfolk (around the venue) hosted by the amazing Andria McClellan, Norfolk City Council member and Democratic Senate candidate who had attended the Decentralized City Council panel.
She introduces me to Jackie Hope Glass, Delegate for Virginia’s 89th District who after a brief and lovely conversation (In my post-panel “did I do ok” haze) delivers a brief “blessing” before we part ways. It brought me to joyful tears. What was the blessing? It was praise. “To where we come from, our ancestors, to the little Puerto Rican/Dominican Boy that resides inside me, whose creativity I channel, who was brought here by his parents to make have a better life for myself and my generations.” Needless to say, every time I saw Jackie Glass around the event we waved furiously and a huge smile came to my face. And though I can’t quote the blessing verbatim I can still feel its effects weeks later.
Which is a great segway to…
3. The path to access and agency is… (The world)
From all the themes that resonated during these 3 days, two themes came up over and over. Speaker after speaker and panelist after panelist. The dual themes of access to opportunities and having agency inside said opportunities.
In my own story, it has taken me some time to understand both of these themes. Early in my career, I had the energy of youth, attending a fancy Art School, not knowing any better and the outgoing and positive outlook modeled for me by my grandparents and family. My mid-career was fueled by ego, accomplishment (awards), and the pursuit of money. Let’s call it the “Silicon Valley” model. Finally, at 39 I felt called to find out where home really was. I had experienced professional success, made great money, but still, something didn’t feel right. So (Unconsciously at first.) I sought out a more spiritual path, a path to healing. All in parallel to building new types of education companies and communities driven by my mission to help transform my own people. (Creatives) Smacked upside the head by the difficulty of starting new companies but fueled by its rewards I doubled down on the spiritual part of the journey. All of which pushed me and challenged me further to heal and grow. In 2017 during this explorative time, I got the opportunity to witness what it looked like inside the chaos of Web 3. Spending two years at one of the darlings of the Ethereum blockchain gave me both access and heartbreak.
Heartbreak because for the first time in my career, I lost my own sense of agency. Not because I couldn’t have it (It was there to take) but because couldn’t handle how others struggled in a new and unprotected decentralized culture. It made complete sense that people of color were so often excluded in these new tech cultures, if not by design by simply overwhelm. I won’t go into the full story here, because I haven’t shared a lot about this in writing, but the short of it is that it was a huge struggle for me. One that took me to the edge of the abyss and back. I felt powerless, voiceless, and worst confronted by the built-in cultural shortcomings of the space, I eventually felt alone. But that is a whole other post! (Don’t worry, it has a happy ending.)
So, the two themes of access and agency are very interconnected and important to me. On the one hand, how do we access opportunities in emerging spaces such as blockchain technologies? And on the other hand, how do we achieve agency inside systems that have been historically homogeneous and structured to protect existing power structures and exclude others? A hint, it’s not our current models for activism. (Though civic engagement is a huge part of it.)
As writer, activist, and philosopher Bayo Akomolafe brought home both as a speaker at the event and later in reading what he means by “Postactivism” on his blog; “Postactivism is not an external journey. It is an internal journey.”
My favorite quote from Might Dream:
“We need a new form of underground, subterranean spirituality. We need a new kind of trickster.”
Bayo Akomolafe
Is Akomolafe hinting that the path to access might be the “inner journey?” If this wasn’t enough to validate my decision to start my own inner journey in my late 30s it was at least a great way to heal some of the self-judgment. Self-judgment for choosing to explore outside the comforts of my very Christian upbringing. This judgment came even closer to an end when at the last party — the very, very nice VIP afterparty — a chance conversation with a young artist, about to leave the party — when we strike up a conversation about plant medicine which joyfully punctuated the pachinko machine of insights and connection that was Might Dream Forum for me.
Here is the story. He was leaving because after recently doing plant medicine he didn’t feel like he could relate or fit in well with his creative community and his family. He didn’t want to talk about the normal subjects of life, such as career, and relationships. He wanted to dive deep into the journey. I completely understood this feeling. The mundane, the material becomes boring. Small talk becomes painful. You are broadcasting on a clear channel. And the world becomes a big scary material reality show. I get it. This issue until now had been one of the single biggest reasons for me to isolate myself. Sooo, I shared my own plant medicine journey and we were both able to find some catharsis in our shared stories. We also laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. We shared stories of our respective communities and our hopes for the future. Through this conversation, we were able to find some self-acceptance and we both felt seen and understood. That we weren’t “ese primo loco!” (But kinda) That it was all right that we chose to return to our “ancestral forms” of spirituality. That this is what was happening now. Right now! We the children of the diaspora were returning home. To the plants, to our roots, to nature, to our sovereignty.
“Be proud and walk in the present whispering stories of ancient wisdom and ancestral praise. Knowing that we walk awake through the night. That we are the wizards of the diaspora. That we have always been here. And now you know that you are one of us.”
Unknown
Yo, so what do MFing “wizards of the diaspora” have anything to do with access and agency?
Takeaway: Well, getting the opportunity to take the inner journey is usually a byproduct of success. As Osho said; “Enlightenment is a rich man’s sport.” But why not take that as a prerequisite? Instead of “when we make it.” How about “now!” By whichever route possible, your church, plant medicine, sitting in nature, communities of like-minded seekers of color, friends, spouses, or homies who are seeking more. What if our access is not through our CVs or our “excellence”? What if our entry is through the healing of the generational trauma that our parents carry and passed on to us? What if our agency is not about projecting strength but about surrendering ego and slowly permeating existing cultures and designing and building brand-spanking new ones? On the blockchain ; )
What if as Bayo Akomolafe put it: “Postactivism is an inner journey, not an outer journey?”
In Conclusion: Mighty Dream Forum made a huge impact on me. Personally, professionally and spiritually. I came to talk Web 3, but instead discovered that Dios mio, y Virgen de la Altagracia I am a person of color! That I am not doing enough! But, I am enough! I am perfect as I am! And my journey was the exact journey I needed to take! (And now need to share!) Mighty Dream was to me what the road to Damascus was to Saul. (Not the crooked lawyer in Albuquerque.)
Finally, to quote Afrofuturist Keone Chong 🕹,🌐,🏴 :
“In Web 3, culture is the real currency.”
With this in mind, my journey is driven by my mission, the “Transformation of my People.” Which I have defined as creatives and those considered “other”. But Mighty Dream Forum helped me better define the “my people” part of my mission. Because it was missing my own acceptance of myself as a child of the diaspora. With a very different experience and a unique worldview. It was what was explicitly missing, my people of color, my queer people, and those of us returning to our ancestral spiritual practices before we were colonized by Isabel la Catolica and the East India Trading Companies of the time. It was missing self-acceptance and suspension of judgment.
I can try to build all the community and culture I want in my quest to fulfill my mission but I have been missing the most important part of the journey. For me to come home.
Thank you to everyone at Mighty Dream Forum, Edelman, Pharrell Williams, Robby Wells, and the Music.com team for putting this together. Can’t wait to participate again next year.
Much love,
-José
PS. As with all epic tales of adventure, they are made up of many scenes, chapters, and events. All interconnected, all hinting at the whole. Through my travels, from British Colombia to Bushwick, Costa Rica, Dubai, Cairo to BRC, day and night the one person I kept meeting over and over was — “wizards of the diaspora!” greeting me with a smile and making me feel at home. To be continued…
