Ubuntu in Action
One Day and a Few Hours Left to ACT
💙💛 Power in Practice. Ubuntu in Action.
Along with Sorors from the Albany, Brooklyn, and Midtown Manhattan Alumnae Chapters, Xi Beta Sigma of Binghamton (my beloved Chapter) had the honor of helping organize the panel, “Power in Practice: Black Women in Political Leadership,” at the 55th Annual New York State Association of Black Puerto Rican Hispanic and Asian Legislators Inc. (NYSABPRHAL) Conference on Valentine's Day weekend. I also moderated the panel, an honor I will remember forever.
We gathered at Empire State Plaza to hear from extraordinary Black women serving at the highest levels of political and civic leadership from city government and state legislature to public service and law enforcement. Their stories are not abstract theories of leadership. They are lived examples of courage, strategy, discipline, and service.
As moderator, my role was to create space for truth-telling, for complexity, for mentorship in real time. I asked questions designed to move us beyond titles and into practice.
The through-line was clear: Leadership is not just about visibility. It is about responsibility.
And that responsibility requires resources.
That’s why this work connects directly to something urgent.
My chapter, Xi Beta Sigma Alumnae Chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., is currently in our annual (and only four-day) fundraiser, and it ends TOMORROW, TUESDAY, MARCH 2ND at 8:00 PM ET.
The funds support:
✔ Scholarships for students (including in Oneonta)
✔ Community service initiatives
✔ Operational capacity that allows us to convene spaces like this one
If you believe in investing in Black women’s leadership…
If you understand that “I am because we are” is not just a quote, but a practice…
You can support here (shop):
Or donate directly:
CASHAPP: @XBS1922
VENMO: @binghamtonsgrho1922
PAYPAL: Binghamtonsgrho@gmail.com
ENTER "SUPPORTING SHEENA" IN THE MEMO.
Every purchase helps. Every share helps. Every dollar extends impact.
Ubuntu: I am because we are.
Let’s practice power together.
Biography: Sheena Michele Mason is an associate professor of English at SUNY Oneonta. She holds a PhD with distinction in English from Howard University in Washington, DC, USA, and specializes in Africana and American literary studies and philosophy of race. Her work has garnered recognition, including the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities (2025) and the inaugural Chancellor’s Horizon Award for Faculty Research and Scholarship (2025), Pillar Awards (2024 and 2025), Esther Hubbard Whitaker Award (2023), the Alden Scholar Lecture Series Award (2022), and the Outstanding Scholar of the Year Award (2022) at SUNY Oneonta. She is published with Oxford University Press, Palgrave MacMillan, Cambridge University Press, and the University of Warsaw among other presses. She is the innovator of the togetherness wayfinder (formerly and alternatively called the theory of racelessness) and founder of Togetherness Wayfinder, an educational firm. Her book The Raceless Antiracist: Why Ending Race Is the Future of Antiracism shows how ending our belief in “race” and practice of racialization is required toward the goal of ending the causes and effects of racialized dehumanization.