By trade, Danii Oliver manufacturers whole food based beverages having founded several brands including Island to Island Brewery, House of Juice and Brooklyn Jun Brew. Formally, Danii applied her Creative Technology skills in the digital spaces of the advertising and marketing industry. Danii now applies her skills to her businesses and the education of her family and customers constantly learning and growing to remain independent in a world that has become restricted by limited archetypes to live by.
We talked about:
Emergent Structure. How learning to do “nothing” with her children, as she deschools, is also practice for her current business focus. She’s working with other people and having to trust them to do their part, express their needs, and own their part in the project.
Engaging in Full Nothings. A type of “Nothing” the allows for observation, synthesis, distilling, a level of knowledge that you can apply in all aspects of your life. A full and robust nothing. Deschooling leadership.
Intergenerational Communications – she has to walk away from wanting her mother’s love and approval in mutually agreeable ways because her mother is still reeling from that “colonized Caribbean” mindset and still needs her children and grandchildren to show up in specific ways that Danii is no longer willing to perform.
How do we heal from our childhood wounds while we raise free people? Is it possible to stay the course in a relationship with a parent that feels verbally and emotionally toxic while you mother your own children?
Are Caribbean parents doomed to relive what they were taught, or can we recover relationships that aren’t based on whether di White people dem undanstan we?
Blessed to be a part of a community that is seeking something bigger and better not just for their children but also for self through, work, dedication and paying the fare of the free child. Our tomorrow looks brighter without unneeded trauma and anxiety in the educational developmental phases of life.