AphroChic Magazine: Issue No. 11

WHO ARE YOU
Name: Dr. Kerry A. Foster Sr.
Based In: Philadelphia, PA
Occupation: Educator / Mentor / Therapist /
Comedian / Minister / Martial Arts Instructor
Currently: I’ve returned to teaching — my
purpose in life. I teach mathematics in a
private school that I helped build 30 years ago.
Simultaneously, I am back in the dojo teaching
martial arts. I teach from the perspective
that math, like martial arts, is a language of
self-expression, a journey of introspection
and environmental awareness tied to
learning, reading, and knowing before doing.
I’m entering a graduate program with the
hope of earning my Ph.D in mathematics by
age 70. This is exciting because though I have
earned BA, MTS, MDiv, and DMin degrees, I
was once a high school dropout.
Black Culture Is: A collective sharing of
values, norms, and beliefs — the universal
involvement, acknowledgement, acceptance,
and affirmation of all human life. It includes
everyone’s participation and gifts to
humanity: music fashion, arts and sciences,
along with athletics, education, poetry,
politics, religion, and more. It comes with
the high honor of the responsibility to teach,
to protect, and to pursue a better future. It
holds us accountable to welcome and embrace
life and the living — accepting that everyone
was born with something the world needs, to
affirm that everyone needs to be cared for, to
grow and excel authentically.
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