The historic conflict between Black and White Americans is well known, but the tension between African Americans (born in the USA) and the African diaspora (Africans who have recently migrated to America) is less understood. Despite a shared skin color, the cultural differences can be significant, resulting in misunderstanding. Read this exchange from a video with Cliff Chappell to hear about a creative solution to this problem.
Don: I'm really grateful to have Pastor Cliff Chappell here today to talk to our friends it about this really amazing coalition that you and others have put together in Portland, Oregon.
Pastor Chappell: Thank you, Don. It's my pleasure to talk about CAAAP, which stands for the Coalition of African and African American Pastors, where I serve as Secretary.
CAAAP formed during the pandemic. One of the things that we found was that as Africans were coming to this country, they were told not to associate in fellowship with African Americans. This created an African diaspora that was fragmented. But we realized if we worked together, we would be stronger. And so we formed this coalition, to prevent silos and individual voices. We felt we would be stronger if we had one voice. And so we have accomplished some great things within our community through the coalition.
We exist to empower our community to achieve effective change. We advocate for equality and equity to improve the quality of life, through development, empowerment, and education within our community.
Our vision is to reimagine and reengineer the future of our community. Our mission is to improve the quality of life within our local community by establishing meaningful social, cultural, and economic paradigms of equitable participation. We have five major priorities: 1) Community health, 2) Community engagement, 3) Leadership development, 4) Financial and fiscal management training, 5) Faith initiatives.
Don: Well, that is fantastic and I'm hopeful that other kinds of coalitions like this can happen in cities across the country, using the model you put together. So I'm really grateful to the Lord for what he's doing through you.
Comments