TWO ENTITIES: ONE ROOF

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THE MISSION

The Griot Collective exists at the intersection of scholarship, storytelling, and liberation.

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We produce Black feminist media, advance public scholarship, build civic power, and create community programming that brings Black feminist thought out of the academy and into the streets... and back again.

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A griot is the keeper of community memory. The oral historian. The truth-teller. The cultural archivist of the African tradition. A collective is a community of purpose. Together, The Griot Collective is a living institution dedicated to preserving, producing, and amplifying Black feminist thought, culture, and civic power.

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We are not just a podcast. We are not just a nonprofit. We are a movement infrastructure built to outlast any single moment, any single platform, and any single person.

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THE FOUNDER

Hilerie Lind is a scholar, author, strategist, organizer, and media producer. She is The General.

• PhD Candidate, Africana Women's Studies — Clark Atlanta University

• Dissertation: The Price of the Ticket: A Feminist Analysis of the "Selling Out" Narrative in Black Culture

• Author — What If I Told You I Was Worthy Before?

• Host — The General's Briefing: A Black Feminist Analysis podcast

• Program Manager

• Campaign Manager 

• Prosci® Certified Change Management Professional

• Political Organizer 

• Founder — Reparations Books & Café, Atlanta, GA

• Member — Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

• Mother of two

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Her intellectual framework, the foundation of everything The Griot Collective produces:

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Her dissertation argues that the "selling out" narrative in Black culture is not a monolithic racial critique but a deeply gendered vernacular theory operating on a dual track:

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• For Black men: The Faustian Bargain — authenticity exchanged for capital and proximity to mainstream power, often exacerbated by the isolation of yes-men and the erosion of community allegiance

• For Black women: The Sacrificial Bargain — the body, sexuality, and relationships leveraged for access and success, with the community's complicity in demanding that sacrifice

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This framework is evidenced across cultural texts,  from Claudine and The Color Purple to What's Love Got To Do With It, from Tina Turner to Whitney Houston, from Megan Thee Stallion's assault to Cassie's lawsuit against Diddy. It is grounded in Black Feminist Epistemology and the intellectual traditions of Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Melissa Harris-Perry, Moya Bailey, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Brittney Cooper.

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The concepts of the "Faustian Bargain," "Sacrificial Bargain," "The Philosophy of Refusal," and the "Atlanta as the Crooked Room" framework are the original intellectual property of Hilerie Lind, PhD Candidate, Clark Atlanta University. All rights reserved.

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Hilerie is Zora, Harriet, Assata, Malcolm, and Fred, in the flesh, with a tinge of Tupac and Jay-Z.

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WHAT WE DO — THE SIX PILLARS

PILLAR 1: MEDIA & STORYTELLING (LLC)

The General's Briefing — A Black Feminist Analysis

The flagship production of The Griot Collective. Hosted by Hilerie Lind — The General. Drops every Sunday and Wednesday. Target runtime: 30-35 minutes.

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Every episode uses hip-hop as its primary analytical lens to examine Black culture, Black feminist theory, and the lived experiences of Black women. Hip-hop lyrics are treated as primary texts, the same way scholars use literature.

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The show connects a hip-hop song, album, or cultural moment to Hilerie's dissertation framework. The data-driven evidence is real: a Voyant analysis of Jay-Z's Blueprint trilogy reveals a quantifiable inverse correlation between the use of "hustle" and "business" across the three albums, a lyrical shift that is not just vocabulary change but a measurable representation of the Faustian Bargain in real time. This is the methodology. This is the show.

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Hilerie does not complain. She teaches. There is a difference.

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Current Episode Series:

• Brown Sugar — first love, hip-hop as first relationship

• Song Cry to 4:44 — Jay-Z's maturation arc, the Faustian Bargain in real time

• Black Cotton: Live Free or Die — revolutionary resistance lineage

• Chopped and Screwed — Georgia politics and Community Complicity

• The Crooked Room — Megan Thee Stallion, Cassie, Diddy

• The Loneliness Epidemic — Black women building empires and going to bed alone

• The Sacrificial Bargain — origin episodes, theoretical foundation

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PILLAR 2: PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP (LLC)

The Bargain Bin — Public Writing & Digital Humanities

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Written public scholarship that extends the work of the podcast and dissertation into accessible, community-facing analysis. Covers Black feminist theory, hip-hop culture, politics, and the lived experiences of Black women.

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This work is grounded in Africana Digital Humanities methodology, using tools like Voyant to identify and track patterns in Black cultural production that might otherwise remain anecdotal. As Ramsby and Ossom-Williamson (2023) argue, this kind of data tracking allows us to quantify what the culture already knows.

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Core Theoretical Frameworks:

• The Faustian Bargain — authenticity exchanged for capital; community allegiance traded for proximity to power

• The Sacrificial Bargain — the body, sexuality, and relationships leveraged for access; the community's demand for Black women's silence and sacrifice

• Community Complicity — the community's protection of male transgressors and punishment of Black women who tell the truth (Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, Diddy)

• The Crooked Room — the disorienting psychological space Black women navigate when confronted with distorted images (Melissa Harris-Perry)

• Misogynoir — the specific interlocking racism and sexism Black women face (Moya Bailey)

• Controlling Images — Jezebel, Mammy, Sapphire, Strong Black Woman — archetypes used to police Black women's bodies and choices (Patricia Hill Collins)

• The Philosophy of Refusal — Hilerie's original framework, the deliberate, conscious refusal of the Sacrificial Bargain in all its forms

• Atlanta as the Crooked Room — Atlanta as the "Black Mecca" is the physical stage where these bargains are negotiated, demonstrating how patriarchal structures are replicated within a Black-dominated space

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PILLAR 3: CONSULTING & STRATEGIC SERVICES (LLC)

The Griot Collective Consulting

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Professional consulting services that put The Griot Collective's expertise to work for community organizations, nonprofits, and mission-driven businesses.

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Services include:

• Grant writing and grant strategy (specializing in community development, housing, arts, and civic organizations)

• Strategic communications and messaging

• Political organizing and campaign strategy

• Change management consulting (Prosci® certified)

• Speaking, keynotes, and media appearances

• Curriculum development and educational programming

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Current clients include community development organizations, housing nonprofits, and civic institutions across the Atlanta metro area.

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PILLAR 4: CIVIC ENGAGEMENT & ORGANIZING (Foundation)

Community Power Building

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The Griot Collective Community Foundation is a political and civic organizing infrastructure rooted in the belief that the ballot is a tool of liberation, and we use it.

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Programming includes:

• Voter education and registration drives

• Civic engagement events and community forums

• Political organizing and campaign support

• Annual sponsorship of the John Lewis Commemoration Event (established tradition)

• Partnership with other community organizations

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PILLAR 5: EDUCATION & CULTURAL PROGRAMMING (Foundation)

Community Learning, Events & Reparations Books & Café

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The Foundation produces educational resources, curriculum, and community programming that brings Black feminist scholarship out of the academy and into the community, and into the bookstore.

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Programming includes:

• Community reading and literary events

• Author talks, panel discussions, and community forums

• Workshops on Black feminist theory, political education, and community organizing

• Curriculum development for community educators

• Events and programming connected to Reparations Books & Café — Atlanta's first Black feminist brick-and-mortar bookstore and community gathering space (opening soon)

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Reparations Books & Café is the physical home of The Griot Collective's community programming. Every book on the shelf is an act of resistance. Every event is a curriculum. Every dollar spent there is an investment in Black feminist legacy.

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PILLAR 6: DIGITAL HUMANITIES & CULTURAL ARCHIVE (Foundation)

Preserving Black Feminist Memory

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The Griot Collective Community Foundation is building a living digital archive of Black feminist cultural production, music, film, literature, oral history, and scholarship.

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This work is grounded in Africana Digital Humanities methodology. It uses computational tools to identify, track, and preserve patterns in Black cultural production that the academy ignores and the culture forgets. The Jay-Z Blueprint Voyant analysis is one example of this methodology in action, quantifying the Faustian Bargain through data, not just argument.

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We preserve what the academy ignores and the culture forgets.