JustINSPIRE Mentoring

Category: JustINSPIRE Quarterly

Seasonal updates, spotlights, and reflections from the JustINSPIRE movement.

  • When the Why Finally Shows Up

    Man, if I’m being real with you — purpose doesn’t arrive the way most people describe it.

    It doesn’t come in a flash. It doesn’t hit you during some big dramatic moment where the music swells and everything suddenly makes sense. For most of the young people I’ve worked with, the why shows up quietly. It’s subtle. And if you’re not paying attention — if nobody’s taught you what to look for — you can miss it completely.

    That bothers me. Because I’ve watched too many young people walk right past their own purpose without recognizing it. They had it. It was right there. But nobody helped them see it for what it was.

    That’s what we’re talking about today. What it actually looks like when a young person finds their why.

    It Doesn’t Look Like Certainty

    Here’s the first thing I want you to know: finding your why doesn’t feel like having all the answers. It doesn’t feel like a locked-in plan or a five-year roadmap. What it feels like is more like this — you stop avoiding a certain kind of work. Something that used to feel like effort starts to feel like relief. You find yourself thinking about a problem when nobody asked you to.

    That’s not certainty. That’s alignment. And alignment is what purpose actually feels like on the inside.

    I’ve sat with a 17-year-old who couldn’t stop talking about why kids in his neighborhood didn’t have access to good food. Not because someone assigned it to him. Not because it was a project. Because it genuinely bothered him at a level that other things didn’t. That’s the signal. That quiet, persistent pull toward something that actually matters to you. That’s your why starting to show itself.

    It Usually Shows Up in the Middle of Service

    I want to say this clearly. Purpose almost always reveals itself in the act of giving, not in the act of figuring yourself out. I’m gonna say that again because I know somebody heard it but you missed it. Purpose reveals itself in the act of giving, not in the act of figuring yourself out.

    When young people sit in their rooms asking what is my purpose, they’re working with very little data. But when they step into service — mentoring a younger student, volunteering, leading a project, showing up for their community — they start to gather real information about themselves. What feels right. What comes easy. What they want to fight for.

    The 6 Circles to Purpose program is built on this exact understanding. You don’t discover who you are by staring at a blank page. You discover who you are by being somewhere, doing something, and paying attention to what happens inside you when you do.

    It Shows Up in What You Return To

    Your why is usually something you keep coming back to without being asked. Think about it. What do you talk about even when the conversation didn’t start there? What problems do you notice that other people walk right past? What’s the thing you researched at 11 o’clock at night not because it was homework, but because you genuinely wanted to know?

    That stuff is not random. That’s information.

    The young people who have found their why have a kind of energy about a specific thing. It’s not hype. It’s not performance. It’s a quiet focus. It shows up in their posture. The way they listen differently when that topic comes up. The way they speak with more conviction about it than anything else. Purpose is always specific. Vague inspiration doesn’t count.

    The Mentor’s Role in This Moment

    If you’re a mentor reading this, I want to talk to you directly. Your job in this moment is not to hand a young person their purpose. You can’t do that. The reality is, if you try to impose your vision onto them, you will delay their discovery, not accelerate it. I’ve seen well-meaning adults do this — projecting what they wanted for a young person onto the young person — and the damage it does takes years to undo.

    Your job is to create the conditions. To ask better questions. To stay curious longer than they do. When you see that signal — that particular interest, that persistent pull — you name it. Not as a declaration, but as a reflection. “I notice you keep coming back to this. Have you noticed that?” That question alone has changed the trajectory of young people’s lives. I’ve watched it happen.

    And that’s the whole architecture of the 6 Circles to Purpose program. Self-awareness. Values. Vision. Skill-building. Community. Action. It’s not a formula. It’s a framework for having the right conversations in the right order — so that by the time a young person gets to action, they’re moving toward something that actually belongs to them.

    What It Looks Like When It Lands

    When it actually lands — when a young person genuinely finds their why — there’s a shift you can feel in the room. They stop asking if they’re good enough for a path. They start asking how to walk it. The question changes. That’s the thing to watch for. The question changes.

    They’re not looking for permission anymore. They’re looking for direction.

    I challenge all of you — parents, educators, mentors, program leaders — to create more moments like that. Not moments of inspiration. Moments of discovery. There’s a difference. One is something you give them. The other is something they find themselves, inside work that matters. That’s the whole point.

    Explore the 6 Circles to Purpose Leadership Training at JustINSPIRE Mentoring — or bring this program to your school or organization.

    JustINSPIRE Mentoring is a mentoring-based organization focused on helping youth, emerging leaders, and communities grow with clarity, confidence, discipline, purpose, and expression. Learn more at justinspirementoring.online

  • Is God Is (2026): Why I Won’t Watch It — And Why You Should Think Twice Too

    There is a film coming to theaters on May 15, 2026 called Is God Is. Directed by Aleshea Harris and based on her award-winning stage play, it follows twin sisters — disfigured by burn scars — who are sent on a mission by their dying mother to find and kill the father who abused and scarred them. It stars Janelle Monáe, Sterling K. Brown, Kara Young, Mallori Johnson, and Vivica A. Fox. By Hollywood’s metrics, it has all the ingredients of a prestige film.

    I will not be watching it.

    And I want to take a moment to explain why — not out of ignorance, and not out of a refusal to engage with complex storytelling — but out of a deep, considered concern about the kind of narratives that continue to get greenlit, funded, distributed, and celebrated when it comes to Black film in America.

    Art Is Not Neutral

    Let me be clear from the start: I believe in the power of art. I believe storytelling is one of the most profound tools we have to process pain, build empathy, and reflect the full range of the human experience. And I believe Black artists deserve every platform, every resource, and every opportunity to tell their stories.

    But art is not neutral. Stories carry weight. They shape how we see ourselves, how others see us, and — perhaps most critically — how the next generation comes to understand what is possible for their lives. When a story is told about Black people primarily through the lens of violence, trauma, dysfunction, and vengeance, that is not simply “art.” It is a narrative choice. And narrative choices have consequences.

    Is God Is is, by its own description, a story about abuse, disfigurement, and murder. A mother ordering her daughters to kill their father. Children weaponized by the wounds of adults. Whatever artistic merit the original play holds, the question I keep asking is: why is this the Black story that gets the green light?

    What Gets Funded — And What Doesn’t

    This is not a new conversation, but it is one we keep having to restart. Go back and look at the pattern. Look at what films and television projects featuring predominantly Black casts get the budgets, the distribution deals, the award season campaigns, the critical praise. How many of them are centered on poverty, crime, addiction, sexual trauma, domestic violence, or intra-community conflict? Now ask yourself: how many of them are centered on joy, aspiration, intellectual achievement, love, spiritual depth, or community-building?

    The math is not complicated.

    There is a long, documented history of Hollywood being far more willing to fund and distribute Black stories that center pain than Black stories that center power. Not because pain is more artistically valid — it is not — but because certain narratives about Black life are more comfortable for certain gatekeepers. A story about Black dysfunction rarely threatens the status quo. A story about Black excellence, Black ambition, or Black joy sometimes does.

    So when I see another prestige production — with a star-studded cast, an award-winning source material, and a major studio distributor — built around Black pain and Black-on-Black violence, I do not simply see “a film.” I see a pattern. And I refuse to pretend that pattern is accidental.

    Division as Aesthetic

    One of the most troubling things about films like Is God Is is not just what they depict — it is how that depiction functions culturally. When a story about Black family destruction, abuse, and revenge is packaged as prestige art, it does something very specific: it normalizes division as a feature of Black life rather than as a wound to be healed.

    Some creators have chosen to use division as the foundation of their art. That is their prerogative. But we as an audience — and specifically we as a Black audience — have a choice about what we choose to support, celebrate, and allow to define us in the cultural imagination. Every ticket purchased, every streaming view counted, every award season conversation amplified is a vote. It is a signal to the industry about what you want more of.

    I am not willing to cast that vote here.

    Gone Are the Days

    I grew up watching films and television that made me want to be better. Stories that held up mirrors to the best of who we could be — not just the worst of what had been done to us. From the Huxtables to Soul Food, from Boomerang to Love Jones, from Coming to America to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air — these were not naïve or sanitized stories. They dealt with real issues. But they did so within a framework that affirmed Black dignity, Black aspiration, and Black possibility.

    Where are those stories today? They exist — but they do not always get the same red carpet. They do not always get the same distribution budget. They do not always get the same breathless critical coverage. And that is worth talking about honestly.

    I am not saying every Black film must be uplifting in a simple or superficial sense. Life is complex. Pain is real. Art should reflect all of it. But there is a difference between a story that illuminates darkness to help us find the light — and a story that seems to wallow in darkness for its own sake, or worse, for someone else’s comfort with how Black people are portrayed.

    My Advice: Choose Intentionally

    I am not telling you what to do. You are a grown adult capable of making your own decisions about what you watch, what you support, and what you allow into your mental and spiritual space. But I am asking you to be intentional about it.

    Before you buy a ticket or hit play, ask yourself: What story does this film tell about people who look like me? Is this a story I want told? Is this a story that serves my community — or one that exploits it? Those are not easy questions, and reasonable people can disagree on the answers. But the very act of asking them matters.

    I choose not to watch Is God Is. Not because I am afraid of complexity. Not because I cannot handle dark themes. But because I have decided to be very deliberate about what I consume, what I fund with my attention and my dollars, and what kind of storytelling I want to see more of in the world.

    I want more films that make us want to be better. More stories that show us at our fullest — not just our most fractured. More projects that ask the question: what could we become? — rather than simply rehearsing everything that has been done to us, or that we have done to each other.

    The Final Question

    There is a final question I want to leave with you, and it is one I genuinely wrestle with: What would it look like if the same energy, the same funding, the same industry infrastructure, and the same critical enthusiasm that elevated a film like Is God Is were poured into a film about Black triumph, Black love, Black genius, or Black community?

    I think we already know the answer. We have seen glimpses of it when those films do get made. The audiences show up. The community responds. The impact is real.

    So why isn’t that the standard? That is the question I want Hollywood — and frankly all of us — to sit with.

    This is an opinion essay. The views expressed here represent the personal perspective of the author and are intended to spark thoughtful conversation about representation, narrative, and responsibility in Black film.