We’re speaking with Eric Nixon, Father, IT Project Manager, Lover of Music, Human Rights Activist, and Mentor, about everything from identity, success, the importance of doing impactful work, mentorship and how he always has time for truth. Check out the interactive dynamic collage below.
**This conversation was recorded in the Fall of 2019**
Interested in learning more about what Eric has to share? Read on below for the in-depth interview.
In-Depth Interview
It’s a warm yet crisp fall afternoon in Albuquerque, NM, as Jakia and Nicole sit down with Eric Nixon, Father, Senior IT Project Manager, Lover of Music, Human Rights Activist, and Mentor. Grab your headphones and read on to see how the conversation unfolds covering topics from Black fatherhood, to the importance, impact and honor of mentoring youths, role and responsibilities of being an elder, expanding the narrative of success and learning about frequencies.
Who is Eric Nixon? Who are you and what do you do?
So my name is Eric Nixon. First off I’m the father of the most incredible queen and that’s my first job. I shouldn’t say job, because I enjoy it so much. So that’s my first joy. My second thing that I do, is that I work as a Senior IT Project Manager.
I grew up in Belen, NM. I was born and raised for the first 9 years of my life in Opalaka, FL, so we came here (NM).
I went from becoming a black activist to a human rights activist as my journey of learning our history grew. So I am also a community activist. I am active in the Northwest quadrant of the city’s community policing council as the Vice-Chair. I am also a mentor of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) with the Robotics program for our youth in middle school.
I am a life-long lover of music. Absolutely. I am learning how to play the bass and the guitar. I started to pick that up, when my daughter first picked up her instruments.
It’s incredible and that’s where I spend most of my time. Running behind Chloe, my daughter, and tweaking out some music.
Identity | How do you identify?
The universe is dynamic, therefore your thinking must be dynamic and must not be fixed on a finite point.
Communities
I am a part of the human species, first of all, called African. Civilization started in Africa, there was no such thing as race, there was no such thing as color, you were what you were. That’s the first identification, a human. As a human there’s a certain decency and respect that you have for all human life, and for all life. Secondly, and in a very close second, I consider myself to be a part of the African community that has spanned the globe for thousands of years and continues to do so, and I am very proud to say that.
As a human there’s a certain decency and respect that you have for all human life, and for all life. Secondly, and in a very close second, I consider myself to be a part of the African community that has spanned the globe for thousands of years and continues to do so, and I am very proud to say that.
On His Work
Its very impactful. Let’s break that down, because that’s a very good question. When you talk about the impact, one of the things that I understood about the African community that the African Community doesn’t necessarily understand about itself is, its not about a monetary value, its not about a materialistic value. Frequency 1, which is where I know my people reside on their best day, with doing the best with what we have, we’re frequency 1, our impact is incredible! I believe that our people don’t need a dime in their pocket to influence the next president of the United States or the next person to colonize Mars, or the individual who is going to develop the fully electric car that’s going to go 10,000 miles. I have no doubt, because I have been inspired by these incredible noble men and women, of course people would look at and say that they have been marginalized, oppressed and things, but in actuality had the where with all to impact positively in their community.
So when it comes to that impact, its not about where I sit or what I’m doing. It’s about being present in the moment, to take that moment to act as the spiritual being having a human experience. That’s frequency 1 and that’s very important.
It’s even like having a conversation with a young lady, Chloe did a performance and one of the performers was a dancer, but I had a conversation with her and this queen was absolutely incredible. But there’s also this joy that I get about it, because I’m thinking in 10 years this kid is going to be doing this, this, this. You can see the greatness and that’s the give back of doing this. So its not necessarily one-sided, I get something out of this. It’s the splendor of exploring who our people really are and understanding that and taking pride and joy in that.
Do you feel that there is a lack of people within our community who are intentionally doing impactful work?
There’s a lot of that mundane day to day that goes on, the definitions and the labels that we take as fact and then we build our foundation and then say that this is my reality and I will act accordingly. So that superficiality that you see is that in action.
How can our community our frequency to frequency 1?
The way we get to that is through knowledge…Understand who you are.
Success & It’s Ties to the Monetary
“I define success as a human being on a spiritual journey, who is successfully impacting the world in a positive way…you have to know who you are in order to be successful, really successful.”
When you’re looking at it from our Diaspora, there’s so many things that have been injected into our thought processes. Some people use the term Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, and I think, to a certain degree you have to be careful with some of these nomenclatures. In actuality, I understand what was attempted to be done, but that doesn’t necessarily define every single, ya know, Black human being on the planet being affected in that way. Like some how transmitted through the DNA and now you are affected. Its a lot different for one of our ancestors who is being whipped and beaten up and stuff like that, opposed to one who has just graduated from college. So we have to be careful, because we are in a situation of where we are imposing our own oppression and we don’t necessarily have to blame other people who have acted consistently the same way over generations. Now we are apart of the problem, because we are identifying and that we are limiting ourselves.
What I like to see if that so many of us are waking up, you know, they use the term ‘woke’, now they got white people using woke, its just like hip-hop.
‘Hip Hop is Highly Infinite Power Helping Our People, that’s what Hip Hop is’.
Woke or Awakening
You speak about this idea of finding yourself and coming to a place of awakening, I don’t like woke, just because, and I’ve always been on this grind. Woke for me talks about a destination, you miss out on the entire journey, like something of, I have arrived. Awakening, put an “-ing” on there, action is a continuous thing. It’s never going to ever end! You’re never healed. Right? You’re just changing, that’s how I see it. So how do you come into yourself and awakening in your journey and how do you think that can be supported in the African-American community? In education that doesn’t necessarily see your Blackness?- Nicole
I am a mentor with NSBE because I am not waiting for someone to educate my children. She will be home-schooled next year, because I am not waiting.
Confronting Your Mountain | Intergenerational Success
Eric’s Father to Eric: Do what you’re going to do, but if you’re going to do it be true to yourself and be right.
Eric’s Mother to Eric: (More reserved) Keep your head down, be careful, take the path of least resistance. Go to college, get yourself a good job for someone somewhere for this much and for this long, do that.
Eric to Chloe, Daughter: Pursue your dream. Do what you’re going to do…
Eric to himself: She (Chloe) defined what I was meant to do…I have dedicated my life to you.
Black Privilege – Seeing the Greatness In Each Other vs. The Well Deficient & Lack
The African thing though…It helped me for this part of the journey. It really helped me to understand the dynamic of being a Black man on this planet and I feel so much relief and joy to know and walk into a room and know who I am. But by the same token, when I see our Black people in all of their different ranges, from being homeless to the greatest on Wall Street, I see that Afrochordial frequency and I understand. But I ask ‘do you see what I see?’ If I don’t do anything else and everything that I’m doing, I have to give them glimpse, a glimpse, that I see a greatness in you that you may not see that I see a greatness in you and you were born with it. Don’t believe all of that other stuff, you were born with it, because the most high saw to it that you were born on this planet…I treat my community that way because if they have their White privilege, that is our Black privilege to treat one another like that.
I Black people watch. I do! I look at them, all of the hairstyles and the representations and all this stuff and I’m like Oh my God! We’re bad! We are some bad a****! I’m sorry, we are bad!
And so when it comes to (Black) women, what I’ve understood is that, you will be ignored if you walk in the door and everything about your very being in its physical form is the mark of the beauty industry in this country. And now we’re going to talk about the comparison factor. Black women are the comparison factor for beauty on this planet. There is Maybelline, MAC, L’Oreal, I don’t care what you want to call it, every single one of them have products to accentuate the human female body to look like a Black woman’s body.
Everything that you’re thinking about yourself that is positive is probably true.
Mentorship | It Takes A Village To Raise A Child
How do we educate ourselves to pull away from a diaspora that is marginalized? We do not apologize.
Do not apologize for being in NSBE, in STEM, a Mentor. Don’t apologize for looking at those (Black) kids and walking up to them and say hey, how are you doing and give them a fist bump and I didn’t fist bump anyone else. Don’t apologize. I’m not doing it on purpose. What I’m doing is going to where the love is. The love that I have is for me, for my Black babies, so therefore, that is the village raising the child. Going back to success and monetary wealth, it goes to saying using a tool to help if you can. And if you can’t, you give that time. It is our honor to mentor you.
And the nice thing about it is, we are still really good with our music and our arts. We’re even better at our sciences. We just haven’t known it. And that’s the real job. Which is to say ‘do you know who you are? Do you know? Do you know? Let’s have a conversation about that. So that you know what is actually going on. So you actually know how we got here. So you know who you are connected to. So you know who your motherland is.’
What mentors need to do 100% of the time, 100% of the time is to validate our Black babies period. If you don’t do anything else as a mentor, you don’t buy them a cookie. You validate them. Because those kids, when you validate them they just, boom, open up…that’s what mentors need to do. You validate first and then you’re right there with them on their team. You’re team whoever it is. I’m team so and so, what are we doing? Ya know? Not a problem. That’s the most important thing to me in mentorship is to validate them. And if you have any information about our history or where they can go get it, tell them about their history and who they are. All the lies your looking at in the school system is not true. And it pays off. It pays dividends.
The Importance of Balance
In the United States we’re intoxicating ourselves with racism, which is the decay of the country right now.
Balance, there has to be balance. This country has been out of balance for so long that you can only survive so long being that way. The only way to get back into balance is 1. we have to create, promote, and propagate our culture. That means our community and our people. 2. Women have to become the leaders that they are. To lead us out of this foolishness Men can’t do it. Look at how many years they had the opportunity to do something and look where we are now.
When he was elected it was a very good question, ‘ are you willing to let go of your racism?’ Which will let go of your White privilege in order to have a country that can be put back on track? It was stronger. The racism was stronger. ‘What would I do? Who would I be? Without this racial construct?’
All I’m saying is, if my ancestors toiled to build this nation, this nation is mine. That is my legacy. And since it is my legacy, I am going to build it, but I am not going to build it in comparison to someone else.
We need to start doing stuff for ourselves and for our own communities. So looking at that and saying, I’m going to go where the love is, is natural to human nature. You go where the love is.
Later this year The Black In Project will catch up with Eric Nixon to learn what has evolved, expanded and changed for him since we last spoke in 2019. So stay tuned!
For more of The Black In Project
- Main Features: Alphonso Jordan, The Hue Collective, Vernon Butler
- A Word From Our Ancestors: Cicely Tyson, Andre Leon Talley, Sam Gilliam, Bell Hooks
- Did You Know? Our Impressions on History – Educational Illustrations
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