While watching the TED Talk titled, “The hidden influence of social network”, the speaker said something that stopped me in my tracks. Christakis (2010) said, “If your friends are obese you have a 45% chance of being obese”. My eyes opened wide because I couldn’t believe he made a statement like this on such a public platform and because according to his research it was actually true. This immediately made me think of the social networks we all have.
I’ll share two examples:
My personal social network is why I am who I am. I enrolled in college because my social network at that time consisted of a case manager from an Independent Living Program (ILS), a program designed to help foster youth ages 18-21 once they aged out of foster care, and two random people who showed up at my high school and told me I should try community college. As I immersed in the social culture of college my social network influenced me to run track and field, take on leadership roles in the EOPS club and eventually transfer to a four-year college and graduate. From that point on my social network encouraged me to pursue more degrees and leadership positions. Thankfully my social network influenced me in a positive way, but I understand it could have gone in another direction.
Recently I traveled to the beautiful country of Cartagena, Colombia. I wanted my children to see Black people outside of America. I wanted their social network to be widened. San Basilio de Palenque or Palenque de San Basilio, often referred to by the locals simply as Palenke, is a Palenque village and corregimiento in the Municipality of Mahates, Bolivar in northern Colombia. Visiting this self-sufficient community is exactly what I wanted my children to see. I want my children to know that as a Black community we can and have developed our own communities throughout the world.
While touring the community of Palenque the tour guide said, “Here is our jail, but we do not use it because we solve all of our troubles by talking”. My mind was blown! The jail was empty and looked as if it had not been used in decades. Crime is almost nonexistent in this community of Blacks. Imagine being told your whole life by your own country that Blacks are uncivilized humans, but you later discover through travel that there’s a community with all Blacks and crime rates are so low it’s unmeasurable.
The community members of Palenque depend on their community for their needs. For many years the community did not have electricity, but when one of its community members became a famous boxer, we told the government to give his community electricity. The next day electricity was being placed in the community. Another community member became a famous Hollywood actor, he came back to support his community by building more homes. The beautiful paintings throughout the community are painted by a local artist. When people from the community make it, they come back to support their community. They return because it’s their community and they take pride in what they’ve built.
The community appears at first glance to be poor and nonfunctional. In reality, it’s a very functional community, and as it keeps growing. They’ve built their own social network and used it to influence the government leadership. This realization of social networks encourages me to be around more like influential people and to be an influence to those who need a new social network.
