[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good evening everybody Welcome uh my name my name is Alex Elliot I'm the interim director of Campus experiences and events for California Institute of integral studies a nonprofit University located in San Francisco and I'm thrilled to welcome you tonight to on being a revolution while we may all be joining from different places from all over the world as a representative of CIS I want to acknowledge our debt and gratitude to the ramush alone who are the o
riginal peoples and continual caretakers of what is now known as the San Francisco Peninsula cis's campus is located on the traditional unseeded lands of the Ramat alone which they call yamu in the ramitos alone language yamu identifies both the people and the territory this acknowledgement is just one very small step towards being in deeper connection and relationship with indigenous tribes and organizations in our own community and it doesn't begin to acknowledge all of the Native lands langua
ges and territories where you are right now or where you live and work every day so as we all get ready together to hear this amazing conversation tonight I invite you to take a moment right now to acknowledge the land where you reside and to commit to learn more about the native communities near you and importantly to support their work if it feels right for you to share in the chat about native communities near you or work that they you might be supporting or you want to raise awareness about
please do we always recommend native-land.ca as a starting resource if you're just starting to learn about Native lands near you before we move into the conversation tonight I have a couple of General tips and troubleshooting items to go over if you are watching this live there is a live Q&A after the conversation tonight you can submit your questions at any time using our web form which is linked in the event description just below this video um we do have automatically generated captions for t
his event you can toggle those on and off using that closed captioning button in YouTube you may have noticed Chat is enabled for this event but uh please note it is not being moderated and our presenters cannot see that chat if you choose to participate in chat please be respectful and avoid any language that could be offensive or insensitive to others you can hide that chat at any time and we really encourage you to do so if you find that it is negatively impacting your experience in any way i
f you do have any issues with your audio or video we always suggest you start by refreshing the page and then if you're still having issues um we suggest that you adjust your video settings within YouTube using that settings button now let me first introduce our presenters e and Preston and then we will get right to their conversation Preston Vargas carries the blessings wisdoms and joys of his ancestors he was born from the land of his grandmother's ancestral Wampanoag people it is a place wher
e his liberated black ancestors found family and home with the local indigenous communities it is also the land where his mother's Cape verian immigrant ancestors cultivated Cranberry Bogs and blueberry bushes amidst deciduous forests though he lives on the Pacific coast Preston honors his ancestors the land water spirits of Massachusetts who periodically draw him back home Preston holds a PhD in transformative studies and an MA in philosophy cosmology and Consciousness from CIS he has worked in
community based or in community- based organizations with underserved communities for 20 years currently he's the director of the center for black and Indigenous practice at CIS his focus is on engaging black and indigenous folks as they reclaim their ancestral wisdom traditions in present-day context to heal their community's souls through oracular ART and ceremonial collaborations with their ancestors deities and spirits of the land he enlivens his passions through his lived experiences as an
LFA practitioner animistic healer and reclaiming tradition Community ritualist Preston is a Storyteller and oracular artist he enjoys exploring how humans navigate through the land lenses of their own experiences engage their creative talents and represent these stories for healing and transformation he weaves the gifts of his ancestral traditions and scholarship with a commitment to anti-oppression pleasure activism and his embodiment of decolonial Love EA aluo is a seattle-based writer speake
r and internet Yeller her work on social issues such as race and gender has been published in the guardian Esquire Washington Post L magazine New York Times NBC news and more she has been featured on The Daily Show all things considered BBC news and more her number one New York Times best-selling first book so you want to talk about race was released January 2018 with seal press her second book mediocre the dangerous Legacy of white male America was published December 2020 with sealed press and
her latest book be a revolution how everyday people are fighting oppression and changing the world and how you can too was released in January 2024 with Harper 1 EA was named one of the most influential people in Seattle by Seattle magazine one of the 50 most influential women in Seattle by Seattle met one of the Root's 100 most influential African-Americans in7 and 20 2017 and 2018 and is the recipient of the feminist humanist award 2018 by the American humanist Association the Harvard humanist
of the year 20120 the media Justice award by the gender justice league and the 2018 Aubrey Davis Visionary leadership award by the Equal Opportunity Institute and now it is my honor to turn it over to Preston Anda good evening hello how are you I'm well I'm well um I do want to start by honoring you as a literary Elder um and your body of work and also to any of the elders that are viewing this um I would say aboru AB Abe just honoring you and asking for the blessings of the elders um as I come
here in a good way with my afro-indigenous ancestors um how does it feel to pop into some conversation uh feels lovely I'm excited right on um I wanted to start actually with The Importance of Being politicized um prior to working in Academia I worked for community- based organizations for about 20 years so like 2004 to 2023 serving folks who are in need of mental wellness support folks who use drugs people living with HIV lgbtqia folks unhoused folks basically my communities and all of these o
rganizations received Government funding and as conditions of this funding these organizations were barred from being publicly political they couldn't take a stance on candidates or political parties Wars genocide otherwise they'd lose their funding and academic institutions are bound under these same conditions and whether it's Government funding or high-profile donors or Boards of governance they will withdraw resources from institutions if they are politicized and these resources and sometime
s are life-saving right especially in terms of folks in community who need it and for bipo Learners who rely on federal financial aid they could be demant access to an institution if it's cut off for being too political so the ethos of people working in these institutions and organizations seems to be of Liberation and Revolution but the action of these institutions appears to be Shackled Shackled to the agendas of whoever holds the resources and as a black person as a queer person it's hard for
me to trust in institutions that aren't politicized especially when my life depends on it literally walking out the door every day yet almost every occupation I've had doing the work I love there's this complexity of institutional survival being tied to being apolitical and most people don't know this um so I'm curious if you could maybe start us off with how these systems are set up and what are some ways we can Empower folks to be politicized in Academia understanding that exclusion from acce
ss to education could be a possible result um yeah that was that was there was a lot that was a word um you know it's so interesting to me because I think that we see this all of the time and I think that we're seeing this um especially right now with regards to Palestine right we are seeing um often organizations feeling like they can't say anything um and and being punished if if they should choose to and it's always been interesting to me because there really is no such thing as political neu
trality um when we're talking about social issues I mean there's very few things in life that are politically neutral um and when we especially when we're considering entities that are funded by political entities themselves um whether they're funded or not whether they're deemed of value all of that's a political calculation that is made over and over again and so the hypocrisy of really you know determining the um life or death of many organizations based upon what some politicians or what is
politically feasible and then saying that those organizations themselves are not allowed to be political is has always been wild to me um you know when I know people who are trying to do work in community whether or not you know a black queer Org gets funding from its you know know City its state you know any grants there's so many politics that go into whether that money even exists and then to say you cannot be political even though politics we're so having into this but the truth is that we'r
e all political beings and even the the the idea that you could be apolitical about these things is in itself a judgment all of the time and we we see this right because there are always exceptions that are allowed to be made um everyone was allowed to be political about about like anything that's kind of agreed upon right it has to reach this level of white Comfort um it can't be threatening to hyper capitalism and then it's allowed to exist in this space everyone was allowed to be political ab
out Ukraine you know every that was there that was fine no one's funds were being threatened and being cut for having an opinion upon that um and yet time and time again I find that orgs working in the most marginalized communities people trying to get funding for work in most marginalized communities are being told that even addressing the issues that create the need for them to do this work in the first place is overly political and so I think first and foremost it's really really important if
you're in these spaces to know that because the language is always the opposite if you're not brushing up against it you know I know so many people who are like I've joined this big nonprofit I've come into this space it is it has all the right politics right because you can have politics without being political in a lot of these spaces and we're gonna change the world and you're just not and and I think it's really vital to know that because it doesn't actually mean there's no value in these s
paces but there's real harm done when we act like spaces are doing work that they're not doing and so recognizing that you're still in an institution that you're still a part of a system regardless of you know what signs that Educators might be hanging up on their walls regardless of you know like what it feels like to be in that space you're still a part of this system and the system is always going to protect itself and so what I try to get people to do is recognize whatever power they have in
that space push where you can of course push to get Space where you can build alliances and protection where you can but also recognize that one of the most important things you can be doing in that space is just trying to create a buffer around people who can operate outside of systems and then I always tell people this because I'm constantly kind of sitting with people who are in spaces like this especially black and Indigenous queer trans and disabled people who are in these spaces who feel
like they have to be because at the end of the day if you're trying to get work done you're going to want to be where the money is you know where the resources are and often they're going to be in larger Institutions and they're feeling like they have to be in this space and it's beating them down and I always try to tell people you're not going to change an organization you can change people within it and that change will last in the space as long as it is convenient to the space but it will la
st in the people forever and that is something that we have to understand and you know we have to really start being honest about what spaces can do for us because if we put all of our resources into spaces that we have seen time and time again aren't able to do the work that we need in our communities that's where we end up in these problems and I have met with so many people who have lost entire organizations not because they were too political and their funding at canceled but because that wa
s where most of their funding came from right and so you know understanding that that there's always going to be that price to pay is really really important you mentioned a bit about um the even you're you will not change necessarily change the organization but you can change people and you've talked a little bit just now about um the work being valued and so I'm coming in with this question about how do we measure success in a way that's healthy because if I'm thinking about the costal system
you could work for years in the costal system trying to get people free trying to get people out and it may you may not be able to but it does not mean the works not value so where is this measurement of success coming from and what is the healthier measurement actually look like that is a great question and I'd say it's one of the most important questions if you're going to be doing any sort of movement work or just work even in community and advocating with Community because there are so many
ways in which the work will never be done and it will often feel like two steps forward five steps back you know um and that's part of the nature of the work because that's what systems do and it's really important that we have multiple definitions of success and so we always have our goals our long-term goals and if we are doing systemic work and I'm a systemic worker um a lot of these goals are things I won't see in my lifetime and I know that you know but I also have to know what success look
s like for me today and so I think it's really important that we understand that when we're talking about systemic oppression we're not just talking about these systems existing we're also talking about the ways in which every day these systems seek to devalue populations and really say you know that they don't deserve to live and that story is really really important for these system survival and so I find my definition of success I can access right now is the definition that tackles that right
so yeah that system may exist and I'm shipping away way at it and we're trying our best to build something you know better and we're constantly challenging these really big things that you know really are fighting us with everything they have but also right now every day I have countless opportunities to really prove the idea that the populations that I am in the populations I work with don't deserve Joy now don't deserve to thrive don't deserve care and we have to recognize that you know the p
hrase black lives matter isn't just black survival matters right it's how we live right and if we ignore that we're really denying that truth and so it's really really important that we recognize that it's so easy to get caught up in what we're fighting against and forget what we're fighting for to forget that at the end of the day if we were able to defeat every harmful system our measurement of success isn't actually going to be the way that these systems don't exist anymore because they just
won't exist it will be how we live and that is something we have access to at least to some degree right now and it's actually something we have to invest in right now so you know every time I was talking with seasoned um movement workers especially for my book you know where they would get really bogged down where they would feel like they couldn't do this anymore is when other people were allowed to Define for them especially people from outside of of their groups what success was and they wer
en't allowed to find it you know in the experiences in the faces of the community they were working with and that is something that we really have to stay connected to and keep our focus on I think a lot about like what success looks like from the point of view of the person who's undergoing the experience or the journey and for myself I definitely have had to shift into the fight all the time into what I like the feed like I was very addicted to the fight and and the action and in some ways lik
e the drama triangle of it in some ways the adrenaline rush and it really has taken me a while to learn how to like feed the world that I'm trying to grow with the people that I'm trying to grow it while still yeah doing like still pushing back and and pushing against these systems but at the same time not um empowering them by placing all of my energy and focus in them but rather into um you know what I want to see manifest when I'm thinking about San Francisco I'm sorry oh when I'm thinking ab
out um San Francisco and CIS we're um located right on Mission Street in San Francisco and downtown there's there are multiple worlds and they have Stark differences I see the power and the privilege and the financial wealth that flows through the city it's it's astronomical yet the social dynamics of privilege and power and lack of privilege and power and wealth have created outrageous conditions when I was working with folks who were using drugs it was in the city an average of three people th
ree people every day dying from overdoses which is preventable especially when I'm thinking now about like safe consumption sites and and how that has been proven to work there are food desert still in San Francisco and a housing crisis now I I walk down the street I walk on Market or Mission I see empty luxury condos everywhere yet there's a housing crisis of folks who are unhoused and the city's response has been increased policing um Street sweeps sweeping everything that unhoused people have
all their belongings their medication um everything they have with them relocating them um and SF has been built on genocidal projects by the missions against Native Americans land theft then you know now progressing to low wage labor environmental racism and the city is almost consuming itself I have seen a drastic change in the past 15 years and I'm sure folks have been here longer can and there is still a beauty to this land I can't deny but I keep asking myself like what could Revolution lo
ok like in San Francisco today yeah and that's a great question I think I think it's something that people grapple with all the time and here in Seattle it's so similar I mean the sweeps here through homeless encampments are horrific and for a few years they were using prison labor to actually do this so there were often you know people really sweeping their own areas you know um the hostility to Poverty the real eraser of poor people the idea that the city they're wanting to build doesn't inclu
de poor people disabled people bipox um and that you know we can be replaced so easily is horrific and it all feeds into this you know idea that it will then be this Utopia for people who aren't us and people can still you know have vote a particular way and recycle enough to keep their liberal cred while causing real you know extreme harm to marginalized and vulnerable populations and it is you know we've witnessed here I've lived in Seattle my whole life and watching our whole populations disa
ppear watching the whole Black Arts Community really disappear um most of my peers gone you know um has been really really brutal and I would say you know that is where we have to recognize first you know for me Revolution is you know when we decide that we're going to operate outside of the established systems I think that's fundamental to revolutionary work and so part of it is looking at when we're solving this issue and every day you know there are people who are doing projects like trying t
o reclaim houses um trying to create new ways of living together new ways of employing people um new ways of co-working and um co-oping together and mutual Aid programs it's when we decide we're going to do this work outside of the systems I really do not think that there's going to be a thing that you're going to bring to ballot in our current political system that's going to be revolutionary um and I would say it's really important to recognize that Revolution is happening every day because pl
aces like San Francisco and like Seattle are extraordinarily hostile two poor people two populations of color two disabled populations and every day that they continue to exist in these spaces it is because of revolutionary work that honestly just needs a lot of support um and so I think that when we are doing this work outside of systems and we are aware that we are doing it because I do think that awareness is an important part of it I think it's inherent to a lot of our communities to work ou
tside of system simply because we don't have access right but that political awareness of why we're doing it and then making choices that try to undo harm and create radical Alternatives I think are really really vital and so what I try to get people to do is first and foremost look at what's already happening in your neighborhoods right look at what is working to get housing to people who are being you know left out of housing look what is working to you know treat people who are struggling wit
h addiction with compassion and care and as members of your community and moving away from carceral you know um ways to try to you know silence people and really kind of evict them from Community um look at that and look how you can invest it and look at it with an eye that is politicized with an eye that is looking at this as a way to invest in alternatives to harmful systems we can do this and we can do this on multiple levels and it's really important that we do so much of the Focus right now
is National right so much of it is who's going to be in the White House and you know how is this going to impact us and the truth is no matter who's in the White House what's going to impact our day-to-day life is really what we're doing right now on the ground in our neighborhoods and so I try to tell people to treat really every entity they interact with as the system that it is is and then look at each one of those systems as an opportunity to create revolutionary change and so pick one that
works with your skill set pick one that works with your access or your privilege and then start looking around to see what people are already doing I I always recommend that first see how you can support it and learn from that and ask where your skills can really be put to use what I'm thinking and and feeling really into working outside of the system especially for black folks and Dees folks people of color people of culture and undoing harm I can uh feel the drive and the passion that many fo
lks have as activists as revolutionaries and I also notice that this sometimes comes with an attack on other folks that bipo folks feel aren't doing enough and I've done this myself in the past and I think for me it's been a bit of age and experience and burnout and Leadership that has shifted my perception I was um I I take the ferry back and forth to work I live in Vallejo I'm one of those folks with fantastic privileged education and a great job and still San Francisco was unaffordable for me
and so I commute in and out and there's this amazing group of young folks who um often times are at the faery building and they've got their megaphone and they're really trying to engage folks around defunding the police and the way that it often pans out is they will often end up with an argument yelling and screaming at folks who are walking by that aren't signing the petition um sometimes it devolves into almost almost violence and that is that's an extreme example yet I've also seen you kno
w more subtle examples over my last two decades of being in the workplace um you know being a black queer man in leadership I'm often on the end of these attacks um I avoided leadership positions for years for most of my career because I saw what happened to Black leaders if they did not act in the same way as uh White leaders that were mistreating bipac folks then I felt that they were brought into leadership to be the mamy and clean up the messes that the white leadership had created or to be
the over and get all the other Brown folks in line or to um to be the black show Pony and to be trotted out in tokenism and the perceived you know power of black leadership never measured up with the actual power of leadership to make change yet I was still called to leadership and from this position I have a different experience of how bipo folks sometimes replicate harm when they feel that somebody else especially another bip person isn't doing enough and I feel their passion I feel their Just
ified anger yet I'm not getting sometimes where is the disconnect between the value and then the action that's a great question and you know I think we see different levels of this all of the time and part of it I think always stems to access right you're going to yell at people that you feel like might hear you you know if you're yelling at the the the white guy who's never said or done anything you already know he's not going to hear you like what you you didn't even get your hopes up you know
so what are you going to do like he's doing what he's always going to do so sometimes it's this level of disappointment this idea this expectation that having someone who looks like you someone who came from where you came from might be able to do things in a radically different way and when they don't that can really feel like a let down and you still feel like you have access to them you feel like for once you can actually voice that frustration on them and of course it's incredibly unfair ri
ght but it's all unfair from beginning to end and you know also part of it I think is we tell people when they move into these spaces into these positions that they can make change they could never make how many times have we seen a black person promoted you know into these higher echelons in a time of Crisis and being told you're going to change things for us and they no one ever intended that to happen but they sure are selling it selling it to the person moving into the space they're selling
it to the people that you know that person is supposed to be representing and it's it was never going to happen from the beginning and that let down is crushing it feels like a lie across the board right and then also I think you know we have always talked about movement work as this one particular way right it is people yelling it is people handing out flyers and being willing to lay their lives down or you know marching in the streets and that's the real work and everything else is a softer ve
rsion everything else is isn't really it and that is something that I have found that many people not all grow out of you know they they realize like oh wait there is actually more to this and maybe the fact that I was able to go in the streets pretty safely someone was making sure that happened you know maybe like knowing that people knew when to meet me there and had it all straight in Oregon someone you know made that happen or maybe the person who took our demands and typed them up and wrote
out a step you know step-by-step program to try to get those achieved like that there's so much work that goes into this but we don't talk about it and even when we talk about you know like the Montgomery Bus Boycott we talk about you know the people that were out in the streets we don't talk about the people you know who made sandwiches every single day and made sure they're out there about the people who carpooled to make sure that people could get to work you know so they could continue to s
upport their families while you know respecting the boycott right these are things that even when we talk about our you know hallowed Tales we don't talk about all of the work that really goes into movement work and you know someone has to know how computers work someone has to be able to know Logistics you know someone's going to have to make sure that you know people are safe someone's going to have to make sure people have water someone's going to have to make sure that Representatives even k
now that you're going to be at the place you're going to be at you know people have to know all of these different things and and then when it comes to implementing it you're going to have to have people in all of these different spaces trying to help Implement what's done and we don't talk about it and we don't teach it and the reason why it doesn't get talked about or taught is because our government had you know made a real point to incarcerate and murder most of our movement leaders you know
in this in the 70s and this in the late 60s and we have a big generational Gap around that so actually you know don't blame our young people I think they're learning as they go and you know it's it's definitely something they're picking up on a lot faster than I think a lot of other people did and that's really where I think even when we're looking across generation and across levels of privilege and experience we have to be able to hold space for each other and we have to be able to explain wh
y things are the way they are there's a lot of language around harm right and we talk a lot about being able to identify people who really aren't with you who people who aren't about that and then we forget that sometimes the people that may look like this will be in our community and that there is nuance and yeah there may even be people in our community standing in our way and they're responsible for harm that they contribute to but also they are harmed and also they are part of our community
and we don't actually get to say we move forward without them and it's really really important that we make space for them that I have I talked to so many movement workers who had experiences like that Richie R especially went in at length about being a young person who was basically like if you're not you know living this from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed you're not about it and if it isn't struggle it's not the work and forget healing forget community building we you know
if if there are people in cages you have to be doing nothing but this and you know he he said one of his friends you know finally got through to him by saying what do you think we wanted to get you free to do like to live to be a part of our community and we forget about that and we don't prioritize that and so I just think that we have to be able to recognize all around like the way in which this harm makes a lot of our young people feel like they can only exist to struggle um makes a lot of p
eople feel too that the way we reclaim power is by our ability to do harm or to coorse people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do a lot of times we Define power even within movements in these really harmful ways because it's all that we know um and that we don't we haven't really given uh how to and what goes behind the scenes for a lot of this work a lot of it comes with time and a lot of people end up burning out if people don't make that space um and then I always try to get young people
to kind of understand and you know what it takes like when I I see this in campuses all of the time right when I'm meeting with black student unions or other campus groups and the first the biggest frustrations they'll have are for people within their group for black people in administration right um and they feel like they're the obstacles to the work they want to do and one I try to be really honest about the limits of what they can do but also try to hold space and say you know I want I reall
y want you to understand this is a harmful space for you right which is why you're doing this work and you will be here four years and they have been here 12 and so when we're talking about harm and we're talking about what it means to survive in a place like this it's really really important that we recognize that um across generations and what those levels of harm mean and how it can impact the ways in which we come to this work how we can help with the work or not you know and what our place
might be working in with teams that were primarily um black I experienc you know when folks would have that sort of clap back or the the expression that came as as anger or even a little violent and I remember doing exactly what you did and like I stepped back and I would think okay there I can feel the hurt there and this person trusts me enough to be honest about the way they're feeling and then how how do we from there create a culture of care because I'm hearing you say we focus A Lot F focu
s a lot on how people are doing harm what is it then look like to shift and focus on a culture of care with people especially knowing that there may be people in our communities that may be standing in a way and as you said we can't move on without them so how are we creating a culture of care that is such a great question and I think that's so fundamental to this work and I think really at the heart of it we have to really practice some radical imagin um we have to really say and I say this on
an interpersonal level on an organization level on a group level what do we want our relationship to each other to look like and everyone has to participate in this right so if you're working with young people and there is this disconnect and they are feeling hurt and disappointed and you're feeling confused and what is happening here that is where it's really really vital to think okay if everything is Flowing smoothly and beautiful and we're able to do what we want to do what does this look li
ke what do I want this relationship to be how do I want to feel how do I want to enter this space how do I want to be received what do I think we can accomplish and then you share that and exchange that because a lot of times one of the biggest problems we have is we never voice that and we don't realize how radically different our idea of relationship can be or we don't even have an idea of what relationship can be we're only aware of Disconnect we're only aware of strife we're not aware of wha
t we could build and so starting with that radical vision and saying like if everyone entered in here and felt seen and heard and safe and appreciated and we felt like we could work through our issues we felt like we could move forward and everyone had space in this work what would I be doing what would you be doing you know how would we talk to each other and from there actually what's in the way becomes really obvious right when you start talking about well you know we would work on this and y
ou know I I always Envision that in this space you know my experience here would be helpful and if people like I don't see that I don't see why that's helpful okay well then now you have a gap you can work on now you have a disconnect you can work on right and that can work in ORS and it's vital I think for any people trying to do movement work but even interpersonal relationships you know when you're trying to bridge generational gaps racial gaps class gaps and you're finding these issues a lot
of times you haven't had this basic conversation of like what would it look like if I felt like I could bring my whole self into this and be completely safe and you know what would it look like for us to move through conflict in a way that I felt like I was happy that we moved through it and um that is something that we can all practice and in fact I think we must because we really do enter into Uncharted Territory when we do care work and when we move away from carceral you know solutions to c
onflict because it isn't something we're taught you know it isn't something that's regularly practiced or modeled for us in films in books in our own families often and so we really have to start with imagining our goal and then being able to identify what you know falls short of that and when we do that work then we find where people's skill sets are in that you know we find ways to really appreciate what everyone brings to the table and in that then we find care work that's not extractive righ
t you can find care work that recognizes everyone's strengths and abilities recognizes people's needs um and doesn't over text people that appreciates everyone that doesn't say that this particular part of our population does all of the caring and this particular population gets all of the Care um we are able then to say actually this is what works for us all and I think that that is so important I love that that um Gap I'm gonna call it like the all nourishing Abyss for me that's I have a frien
d that she says like I'm sending you love and Beautiful Darkness and like for me that is like the the the dark matter the all nourishing abyss of the universe where infinite possibility can emerge from and I actually was really inspired by um when you know a piece in well lots of pieces in in be a revolution but particularly around creativity race the Arts um Arts as culture uh community and culture holder for me I spent so many years as feeling like I was a Healer and an activist and working on
the front lines and the burnout was real and my immune system also could not keep up now in my you know mid-40s I have a different experience of living in this body and for me it was a shift from uh maybe being the Healer and being acst to being the creative and the artist and the Storyteller but I felt guilty and I still sometimes do about taking up that you know being that that artist in that space yet you you shared a quote from Grace Le bogs that um a people exercising their creativity in t
he face of Devastation is one of the greatest contributions to humankind and for me that like encapsulates what I what I feel and I hear you talk about this place in between where there is kind of this Gap I I see this as I don't feel this well here's the space in between how do we get creative about it how do we imagine a world we may have never experienced yet now when I'm scrolling through what is often produced as creative content and and I recognize we're in like the age of influencers I no
ticed a good number of folks see those products as creativity and for me I I don't often I don't feel that way as an artist I respect some of the work that's done but I I have I have questions about it but I'm going to ask you in your perspective what types of art and creativity F The Liberation abolition Wellness in The Souls of bipo folks and you know in creating this world that we may have never yet lived in right you know I would say when we're talking sorry when we're talking about revoluti
onary art I think it's art that moves people right and um whether that is art that you know soothes broken hearts and allows people to feel like they can continue to do work helps people feel seen galvanizes people into action um unites people you know and because art can really do that it can reach across language it it has fewer barriers than just about any other way communicating with people um because even if you don't speak a particular language that's being spoken there is so much communic
ated when we are doing these things in artistic ways and I think that it is really important that we recognize that there is I feel like good art has to do that on any level even if you're saying you know I am just creating I'm not speaking to this particular political moment if it doesn't move a person in a particular way I just you know you're you're you're making wallpaper and I love wallpaper I have wallpaper in every room of my house but it's not it's not the same thing and it doesn't mean
it was never right to exist I think that what's interesting right now is with social media with the Internet is that there are different levels of art being made there's art that's not being made for me there's are I do not get I you know my my youngest my 16-year-old spends a lot of time in spaces kind of consuming um art that obviously has a political bent that I don't get and I look at it and I'm like ah why why this but it's moving in him and it's educating him and he would much rather learn
from any of these things than me um much rather engage with these things than me because he's 16 and therefore it has value or at least it has you know it it's important and should be paid attention to and then I think there is also art that you know there's work that co-ops this art and kind of strips it of what would move you of what would um really come from a place of community what would you know speak to change or create these authentic spaces and it really gives this kind of fimile of fe
eling and it's a a cheaper way to access it without ever feeling challenged without you know ever feeling really moved you're just kind of L to sleep it's content for Content sake and that I think it's important that we recognize it is what it is you know I was reading I can't even remember where I was reading this article but they were talking about how you know I have ADHD right so I have you know my brain is dopamine seeking at all time and and what was interesting was was realizing that dopa
mine doesn't necessarily mean that you're valuable so what gives my brain dopamine what hits that fix is actually often the cheapest least enriching content and not not is in like oh I loved it but I'm not going to admit I loved it I don't even love it it is stuff that I'm like why why am I still staring at this well because it kind of pisses me off you know it annoys me why am I in these Reddit threads well because I get the high and low of like oh that was absurd and then I can you know I feel
like I've scratched that itch that my brain needs and I feel like a lot of content that's out in the world that's being created kind of seeks to do that but it calls itself something different and so I think it's really important that we recognize when we're talking about art and we're talking about you know um art in political spaces that we say you know there is difference and what comes from our community what comes from these authentic places is important and the way we can tell is by wheth
er or not it moves people versus plates people you know if it lulls people to sleep it's not that if it reaffirms some everything that everyone's ever known it's not that you know if it's something that explains a problem you've not been able to put words to it probably is that if it's something that gets you out into the streets it's probably that you know if it's something that you know makes you know if you post something on the internet and suddenly your cousin's calling you wondering why yo
u're calling her out with this piece of art it's probably that you know like it's these are the things you can tell by what it does and we just have to kind of be more aware that sometimes the thing that scratches that really easy itch is the exact opposite of what we want to be really engaging with the art that allows folks to feel seen moved he breaks up the status quo I remember years ago I think I was in undergrad I wrote a paper about graffiti because um as a young black man like I I defini
tely tagged things and a lot of my my my my peers did and I recognized it took me a lot of I don't remember how I came to recognization I think maybe it was some Reflection from friends but it was about being seen feeling seen and feeling visible I didn't have the other things that the over culture was telling me made me important or visible I didn't have the job the car the money just putting my name on something meant I was seen and I was living and I was there and now 20 years later I'm in a
therapy session and I just get your book and synchronistically the thing that comes up is this concept this awareness that I thought I would be dead by this time right I thought I would never be seen wouldn't exist wouldn't grow into anything most of the black men in my community were dead or in jail by 30 I thought 30 was it for me and like that was a long stretch and most of my black friends also felt like they were living on borrowed time my trans anderon binary friends also now in their adul
thood feel like they've been living on borrowed time you've pointed this out but I I just wonder like what does this what do you see this doing to folks like when you feel like I thought I'd be dead by now right yeah no it's um it is so harmful to our communities you know and it's not something that you can like tell people to snap out of you can't be like don't worry you'll you'll be fine because this this idea comes from reality it comes from the world that we come up in and when you have you
know an entire a large portion of an entire Society an entire group not feeling like the future is out out there for them really feeling like their days are numbered you know what are you building towards what decisions are you making with your life you know if you were told that you had five years to live you would live very differently right now and yeah it might be cool or beautiful if you actually go out in five years but what if you don't you know like then how have you lived and if that is
the case for so many people and it's your case for your whole neighborhood what does that mean for how a neighborhood functions what does that mean for how you build relationships why do you need to have to learn conflict resolution why do you have to you know focus on education why would you want to do why would you focus on building up in your community when you may go out and it may feel like your community is why you're going to go out right like why would you do these things and why would
you how would you be centered enough to when you're constantly under threat and that threat is real and then suddenly you're 30 and you didn't actually go through these things that everyone says you're supposed to go through to emotionally mature and grow you know to uh you didn't get to try and fail you didn't get to do all of these things that you're supposed to do to get into a balanced adulthood and yet you're an adult and you'll be seen as an adult and punished as an adult for all of the th
ings that you may do that may be a cause of that and you don't actually get to go back in time and so when I see this in our communities I see a couple of things happening so it was so interesting talking to Manny um who had said you know like he had felt like he wasn't going to live past 16 and that so many other kids hadn't my partner had said that to me multiple times that he you know he grew up in the crack era in in a black neighborhood in the '90s feeling like yeah he wasn't going to make
it to 18 absolutely and how harmful that is and I I would say that there are a couple of different things that happen like one thing that happens is you have a lot of young people who really live like it's I I better get life before life gets me you know I have to do all of these things and they're not planning long term and then you also have people and I would say often black women end up in this category who feel like oh I have to do everything perfect and I better be an adult from the moment
that I'm born and what's interesting is really both of these things end up in a suspended adolesence it looks wildly different but you know as a black woman in my 40s realizing that I didn't actually get to experience being a teenager you know I I felt like if I wasn't going to be a statistic I was going to make every perfect decision and I was going to care for everybody and I had to care for everybody and you know I was going to be serious all the way through and now you know I'm like oh well
you know I I don't get to go do that again and I'm watching my kids and trying to make space for them to be kids and that's you know it's unfamiliar for me it's really unfamiliar and so that is where it really breaks my heart because you can make recompense for so many things but we don't actually get to give people life back we don't get to give formative years back to people and we have to acknowledge that because when we talk about moving forward as a community when we talk about all the thi
ngs we need to do to bring our community together and change all of these things we don't actually talk about the healing that has to be done um we don't need we don't talk about the reconciling with that harm that has to be done because I think that that's a huge component when we talk about healing we don't we we think of it as like you can put an ointment on it and it goes away and not we have to reconcile with harm done and figure out who we are in this reality and it also means that you kno
w we have to really make protecting the phases of life that our young people are supposed to have a priority of our work um instead of often what we lean into which is either teaching them to survive at all costs or teaching them to be above reproach and thinking that somehow then they will escape the reality of what they're in and instead saying we have to protect for while they're here their ability to be young people like that has to be a goal and that's often missed and then even when we mak
e systemic progress we end up really kind of codifying this sort of harm to our younger generations and that codification comes in the caral system as well and I think one of the um one of the shifts in my heart and in experiencing your body of work has been around this piece of a suspended adolescence or the reconciliation around healing and then you know especially in protecting our young folks how do we engage in learning and accountability and growing up that is not punishment and revenge an
d retribution and I don't know if many folks actually get the distinction between accountability and the learning process and the caral system of Revenge and retribution and I'm just wondering if you could break that out for us a little bit Yeah and this is actually something I struggle with as a mom of a teenager like I feel like you know the last kid in the house gives you a run for your money and mine absolutely does and you know pushing every button possible trying to you know work his way a
round every rule possible and I'm trying to seriously engage with this as a parent and trying to you know use these skills and for me I think it's really important to recognize and miam Kaa breaks this down really well as well you know accountability right is about the relationship you have with with other people and people that you've harmed or contributed to harm and accountability is about restoring that balance it's about you know recogniz and and reducing harm right and so if you are in a p
osition of authority and you abuse that Authority accountability is you do not get that Authority anymore um and not until you can prove you can you know that you can handle it and then you still may not if you know it just doesn't work out that way um it's also looking at repairing that harm and going through a process to look at what contributed to the harm you know did the space raring contribute to the harm you know how can we make sure this doesn't happen again and how can we protect space
for the person who needs to heal from that harm um and usually and always accountability has to be connected to the harm done so you couldn't say you had this power at work and you hurt me therefore you're not allowed to do this particular thing outside of work anymore like that's if it's not connected it doesn't work and so like as a parent I always have to remember that right because I grew grew up with if you did something wrong regardless of what it was you were e you either had to get the b
elt or you weren't allowed to go anywhere and interact with anyone for a particular period of time and unless the you know unless the harm done had to do with something around interacting with these particular people like that is not a punishment that works and never is go get the belt going to be directly connected to the harm done and so I'm always trying to think of like okay so you know if if I told my son you know he could hang out with friends and you know the agreement that allows me to k
now that he's safe is that he's honest about where he's going and what he's doing and then I find out he was not and then you know the accountability isn't you don't get to go anywhere or see anyone it's okay that freedom that you had to you know go and hang out with this particular group right now is curtailed until you know I'm feeling that there is some consistency but it's also there's consent in this process so we talk and it's not just I've decided this is the punishment it's let's talk ab
out this this is you know what I want in the relationship I need to know that I can trust you in this space what do you want from this you know I want to do what I want and you know and okay so where do we meet in the middle here and now when we're talking about accountability you know you you are accountable to the way in which you broke my trust here and there for you don't have it in this space right now and this is how it comes back right and that's it and people will be like well that's it
you didn't you didn't ground him he can go out you know he can still he can still have friends in your house yeah because nothing happened in our house he can have friends in our house but well he's not really pun no he it's not punishment I'm not punishing you know like that's the thing this is accountability this is how we move forward and I think that that is hard for people because the fast easy way that it seems like is if if the consequence is big enough and painful enough you won't do it
and it doesn't work in our carceral systems it certainly doesn't work with teenagers all it does is tell them get better at hiding that next time get better at lying next time um because they don't actually understand what they did wrong or why it's you made a rule and it was violated and it's the same with society and so looking at that and saying like just like I was saying before about Imagining the relationship I asked my son this and even though it really annoys him you know what how do you
what what's the solution you envision to this because we have a breakdown right now in our relationship around you and how much time you know where you go and what you do and how much Freedom you want versus like my job as a parent to make sure you're safe and so what how do you envision this let's reimagine this together let's see what's in in the way of us being able to accomplish that it is more work on the front end but in at the end of the day he doesn't feel like I'm a Jailer I don't feel
like I have to I'm punishing we're not repeating patterns over and over and over and he is learning skills that will help him his whole life and he is learning how to build relationships that aren't about power that aren't about punishment because we really carry that we carry that into our intimate relationships you know we carry this into everything and that is what I want you know the most important relationship he will have in his young life is with me and how we move through that I have to
take really really seriously and I think we forget that that it's not just you keep your kid alive for 18 years you're teaching them you are the most important model of what relationships look like for the young people in your life for me that's such a wealth like and I feel like that's redefining intergenerational wealth like it's not based off of a western capitalist you know model of you buy this individual piece of property you you milk the resources you know it's all yours and you Court it
but this skill building this emotional maturity the relationships as part of the intergenerational wealth we can build in bipac communities what are some of the reframings around wealth or the other aspects that contribute to intergenerational wealth to be able to break you know out of these cycles that you've been naming you know that is such a great question and this was something that you know hit my family in so such a weird way because I mean I grew up in extreme poverty um you we were hom
eless at times um often you know didn't have food didn't have electricity didn't have phone for most of my childhood and even as a young writer I was you know writers don't get paid a lot of money and then suddenly I had this sort of success that had me in a financial place that I hadn't been in before and I had to really make a decision of like what does this mean what does it mean to be financially successful to me in my ethos and you know I for me it meant a couple of things it meant that I c
ould try to build as much community and insulate my community from you know systemic harm as much as possible and so that meant like building a space for my mother to live in you know and like investing in education for relatives and then it also meant that you know I remember when 20120 hit and you know as an artist I was watching everyone's work dry up you know and this is around the time that we started the artist Relief Fund but on a personal level I remember thinking if I get through this a
nd I told my partner this because we were looking at budget and looking at all of the gigs that were cancelled they said if I I get through this with a full bank account and all of these other people I've worked with are struggling we've done something really wrong really really WR and so we had to look at it and really say what is this for what what did we do this for what are we doing this for and what can we do to to build and so you know we were just paying people to live to get through you
know like we want this is our definition and and we had to challenge it a lot because there were a lot of people in our lives who we would call and say how are you doing you need anything how are you doing oh you know I'll figure it out I'll figure it out I'll figure it out you know and I have to remind people I thought you anti- capitalist so you're not gonna you're not going to let me hand you some of this you're not going to let me do this you know you really think do you think I worked this
much harder than you to get you here like take this do this um and it's so important that we ask like at the end of the day what is this for what are we trying to build what you know when we think of wealth and what it will build us especially when we've been denied it we often think like there is a dollar amount that will get us in a particular place we don't actually work from where do we want to be what what do we think it will get us and for so many of us especially I would say for populatio
ns of color what we think it will get us is community safety connection belonging opportunity and so then the question is okay that's the goal it's not a dollar amount that's the wealth because if it's it's not there's very few people I know who are like I just want that number in the bank at least not in communities of color like I really do feel like we are oriented toward each other there's a lot of programming that tries to pull us away from that right but we are oriented toward each other a
nd when we envision what we would do with our Millions it is often I'm going to build my mom a house I'm gonna do all these things right first thing yeah right and that's literally first thing yeah building my mom a house was like oh dream come true right but then it means like we can we can actually build that you don't have to have the millions we can start building that today and so that's what I loved you know when I was looking at the business section for the book which I wasn't even sure h
ow that was going to go I started first with unions and I was like who's fighting the system and then I was like wait though who's building something completely different and finding that you could have a a coffee shop and say from the ground up everything about this coffee shop is going to be about building up Community from the rules from the dress code from everything it's going to be building our community up you know get getting young people to move up and out of here as quickly as possible
to their dreams you know doing all of these things um there's so many different ways that we can Define wealth and we have to start with the end goal we have to we have to let go of the I'm going to have this much in the bank and say what would it get us okay so now how can we get this together because at the end of the day if you envision Community with you you can Envision Community with you in your definition of wealth and then think you're going to go build it all on your own that's not how
that works you know and that is something that I think we have to really challenge because we are spoonfed that idea right that kind of hugable dream you get the right degree you become a lawyer you become a doctor and then suddenly you have a big house and then suddenly black people find their way to your house where no other black people live you know like all of these things that don't happen right if you envision Community there with you at the end then you have to build it with Community a
I had goosebumps through that that piece um I I okay so I have so much more questions but I know the lines are on fire so is it okay with you if we switch to some questions from uh folks who are viewing sounds great all right um this question is from hio faki says hi Miss aluo I recently read your book so you want to talk about race and it would be an understatement to say that it is lifechanging I am 18 years old and often times when I view inequity in my communities in school Etc and I try to
speak on it or bring attention to it I feel as though I am not taken seriously mostly because of my age do you have advice for how young people can fight against the notion that our ideas are invalid I feel as though when I I say something I get shut down but when I don't there's a prevailing culture that suggests that non-white people are not doing enough that is a really good question and I see that all of the time and it really upsets me because one I think that young people are in a unique
position to do this work because you've been less shaped by these limitations placed upon you um you know you're still in a fit throwing stage and I mean that with full love I really love that about young people the idea of this isn't right and this isn't fair and I'm absolutely going to throw a fit about it because when we let go of that we're really kind of giving into complacency and a lot of harm gets done in that space the truth is is that the stage of life you're in now is just as valid as
any other stage of life and it's just as important and just as real and it just makes me so upset when I hear older people act as if there is a practice round of life before you get into the real round um you know what what's happening to you right now will impact you for the rest of your life just like what will happen to you 10 years from now and 20 years from now and the way in which you are experiencing it is important and what you have to say about how you're experiencing it is important b
ecause I'm not living your experience I am not being impacted by systems in the way that you are and when I was your age I wasn't being impacted in the way you are because the systems have changed and so first I just say know that like know that truth come back to that truth understand that it is vital we absolutely need young people in our movements we need the energy we need that Viewpoint we have done all of us in past Generations so much work and so much fighting we're all conditioned by the
limitations placed on us we're we can all see only so far past those limitations and we fight to get rid of those limitations so that you can see further and so inherently your vision for the future it is much further than mine because you're standing on the work that I and so many other people did and that's such a beautiful thing the advice I would have first is to recognize that you are in multiple systems right now and they all have power and so find where you have the most power in yours y
oung people often don't think of their social groups as systems they don't think of their school as a system they don't think it's their friend group their church group as systems they are and meet with other people in that and start talking about what you're seeing and what power you have and really get people to stand with you on it and then I would say it's also really important to try to build alliances with other Generations by one like trying to figure out what that would look like you kno
w ask what would I be able to learn from other generations and what would I be able to contribute to other Generations I know as someone who's older often I'm told by young people like I already got it I was able to Google that I actually don't need to hear from you it's fine and then you're like oh really okay you know and so then often older people feel quite dismissed as well and like the lived experience that they're bringing is dismissed and it's really easy to forget that that goes both wa
ys that often the posturing I'm getting from young people is in defense because of so many people my age saying you don't have the experience you'll understand when you're my age you don't really understand what's happening and the truth is is that we're just coming with very different and important viewpoints that are actually really valid because they're just other different aspects of what we're fighting so asking and trying to build Bridges with people who are willing to see that know that y
ou absolutely have the right to expect accountability from older people in those relationships and then just really also look at where you personally have power so a lot of times people will really focus ahead and say why can't I get this entire institution to change and they're actually overlooking where they have the most power in their own peer groups um and if you don't start there you're actually going to have a lot more trouble doing that bigger work and so don't leap over the people close
st to you that is really really important um if you want to be seen for the power that you have recognize the power of your peer groups and the power of their systems and the systems that you're a part of as well I grew up in a household where my grandparents were present and I was able to have that intergenerational connection spending so much time with my grandparents um especially my parents having to work for us to be able to to survive and when I now as an adult my my nephews are in their e
arly 20s and I remember of course when they were babies um but I am constantly astounded by the wisdom they bring and what they bring to the conversation I actually am honored when they ask me something about ADV I am like wow you're asking me um as I've you know worked in orgs I have actually shifted away from this idea of Council of Elders be while I think that's important and actually intergenerational wisdom holders right and so there is this uh this this uh dialogue this generation and we c
an kind of address that you know both sides of the spectrum that might feel like they've been dismissed absolutely um what what you said about like your vision will be first further because you're standing at this work and we done wow that for me like gives me the Hope about yeah like building the world we have in yet experience is more possible and maybe of course in this person generation but they could actually take it further than I could have imagined um I have a question this question is a
nonymous how do we stay connected to each other in community with each other when working outside of existing systems um you know I think it's really important that we first of all give it time and attention and that is the first thing that goes right there's this idea that we have to be dedicated to struggle and especially with regards to time um so staying connected one is like working out agreements of what relationships look like right and making check-ins an important part of the work havin
g time where you can get together with people and feel safe and just talk and chat and talk about the work or not talk about the work and just know that you exist and you're is a part of the work and therefore it's not this thing that you do every six months and when I see people doing movement work especially outside of systems when they start to really struggle and and it's really taking a toll on their mental health really feeling like they can't do it anymore and I ask when's the last time t
hat you were in community just to be in community I'll get six months seven months you know a year year um oh I don't have time for that I can't remember you know I've been too busy um there's too much to do but that is actually the work I say this not only because it keeps us healthy and whole but because if you're not accountable to community you will never actually know if the work you're doing is the work that needs to be done if you're not connected with Community if you're not tapping into
the joy of community if the community doesn't trust you because it never sees you anymore then how can you expect your work to stay flexible with the needs of community how can you expect Community to want to be able to come to you if you are doing something that is harmful right how is your community even supposed to support you if they can't see that connection to you and then also it's important to just remember that you're part of who you're fighting for and so we have to value that and I w
ould say that this is also something that's important to resource so often people forget and when I ask like when when like white people are like you know I don't know what to do I don't know where to be one of the things I always say is put your resources toward funding supporting where Community is being built stay out of it support it because that is often the first thing to go when times get tough when budgets get cut you know when there seems to be crisis we don't actually ga gather and say
now is the time to invest in the restoring connection that we have it is really I firmly believe in our blood it is in our blood we are oriented toward community and so leaning into that even if it just means asking your parents your grandparents how did you stay connected what did you do bring back these practices bring back cookouts build them on the internet if you're covid conscious and there are people doing that in fact you know my friend J mace who's in the book um he's been doing such a
mazing work in building online Hangouts for people who are Co conscious who are disabled and un compromised so that they can stay actively connected in a real way that our community needs you need it more than anything and it is the one thing that other people cannot do for you other people can't come in and be like I'm connecting you like that you know that's my work no you you have to do that work and it is vital the work suffers so much when we let that go I really miss sitting out on the fro
nt porch late nights summer nights and hearing People's music and cookouts and that was a way of saying in community growing up I actually am now going through my head and thinking about how many folks have I consciously made agreements about what the relationship looks like and what a drastic change that would actually make in community conscious agreements about what the relationships look like and is revolutionary it's a thing I you know like my mother is white this is a thing we had to do th
is is a thing we absolutely had to do one we had we had to do it first when I became a writer because suddenly I'm writing about my personal life I'm writing about things that involve her and we really had to sit and say okay what does this relationship look like what does it look like moving forward for us as this is what I do I'm processing these things and then you know with race we had to sit down and say I'm like Mom hey this I I this is what I really Envision for us as a mother-daughter re
lationship I Envision that you know I will feel safe and comfortable when I come to your home and if you mess something up if you say something racist that we're going to have this sort of conversation and that means then that I don't I'm not looking at it as a sign that you'll never learn because you are actually we're having conversations it's not happening again and for her it was like oh I I really Envision that I can come to you and that if we talk about these things it doesn't mean we're n
ot close and that I won't mess up so bad one time that i' never hear from you again or that you know you'll feel like I'm the worst mother ever or it means that I didn't love you and you know and we started talking about this and talking about what it would mean to move forward and it means that you know and also saying like it also means you don't call me with every single question you ever had about race in your life right um I know that like you recognize like like the capacity I have and and
it means that you know we really do get to move through these things and there isn't any fear from being like all right I think we're going to have to have this conversation you know let's let's let's move forward all of our relationships can be made better by these sort of agreements there is uh there are two questions here and I'm wondering if they uh might they seem to kind of dovetail so I'll read them both one is from uh Kiko Kiko Cortez is there key advice for people struggling with burno
ut and right under that um you know I've got a question from an anonymous person how do you and how can we maintain hope and possibility given that we are working in and under oppressive systems these are great questions you know I would say one I think it's important to recognize like where a lot of where Define burnout is really harm institutional harm it's not even like burnout often it is we are being harmed and we aren't supposed to be able to withstand that level of harm and we're being ex
ploited and we're not supposed to be able to withstand that level of exploitation and then we're hitting our limits as human beings and so know that that can often be the case and we often call that burnout it's like oh you know I've been working at this nonprofit and they've had me working 50 hours a week and I'm burned out you're not burned out you're exploited and you're not supposed to be doing that you know and know that there's a difference between like I pushed myself too hard in the stru
ggle or I haven't been checking in or you know this has been a really really tough period And I can't do it anymore there's a difference um and so there are times where the solution to what is being called bur out is accountability from the people who are actually exploiting you or the entities that are exploiting you and often that is what needs to happen or at least you need to be aware of it if you're going to be able to address it because saying I have to individually do something to fix the
way in which a corporation or a nonprofit or an entity is exploiting me isn't going to help right um and so knowing that and then maybe saying like Okay either I you know need someone to come in and help or I need to find a way to hold this place accountable or I need to step away or I just need to know that this is what it is and so instead of saying how do I solve burnout it's how do I get care and healing in this time right um you know is really important when it comes to like you know movem
ent workers who are really feeling burned out or even if you're just working in a space where you're like I am so tired of being the person that explains what's racist every day while also working all the time and raising my kids and I can't handle it um it is really important first to recognize that the care that you're providing others like it should be in relationship that you don't exist just to care for people you don't exist just to save people and so when I talk the part of reason why I t
alk about relationship building so much it's coming from the position as a black woman right where every room I enter in there the majority of people think I have come in to save them to nurture them to care for them to educate them and then I leave and I've never had a need of my own or care of my own and that's not a relationship I'm not in relationship with people who expect that and so when you're feeling really burned out like I would say first and foremost investigate the relationships in
your life do you have relationships with people who might say hey I think you're a bit disconnected I haven't heard from you you know or when's the last time you did anything you cared about you know do you have relationships with people where you would do that for them and they would do that for you look at that focus on that if your relationship ship with people are defined by what you can do for them and then when you need help you're looking around and no one's there for you you're not actua
lly in relationship with those people um so have that relationship have that relationship with your work as well you are not a murder to your work if you are saying I need to be a part of this Revolution and no part of that actually fulfills you no part of that gives to you especially if you are in the population that you were fighting for um find a new relationship with that work and it does exist and so that is really important and the thought that you could actually say I am in relationship w
ith this work and I actually do have the right to expect as a member of this population that I'm fighting for to benefit from this work as well not someday deep in the future but now um and it may not be in the most direct ways but I I there is a space for that exists was really revolutionary to me but it's something I recommend that people find because where people find that they find their work for life um and it does absolutely exist like if you are in a marginalized population doing movement
work in community that you should be feeling the benefit of that work and if not it does it needs a shift and I can see how that also you know developing the new relationship to work that way work generates that hope and the possibility absolutely what we create when we have a vision that we're working toward what we create from a centered place of whole of more of more wholeness is always going to be beautiful and amazing in ways that it can't be when we're working from these places of pure tr
auma or stress you know or overwork um you just don't have the ability to like our systems when we're in fight figh or flight mode a huge percentage of our systems are shutting down in order to save energy for that fight but that's where a lot of our planning comes from right that's where a lot of our Insight comes from that's where a lot of the beautiful imagination comes from so it's actually really really vital to the work I would actually love to be able to um close on this uh this beautiful
inspiration with this this next question that we have um what is your vision of a radical and revolutionary future what is your vision of 20150 for example you know that is such an interesting question for me because when I said earlier that people that young people can push in ways that we hadn't imagined my idea of a revolutionary future is I it will I hope it surprises me like I really hope that I'm like this this is what is because I if it's not different for every person it's not real righ
t self-determination is such a huge part self-determination not only on an individual level but on a community level right is such a huge part of this work and I want to be surprised I don't want to say it means that we will have toppled this and built this I want to say I will walk out and go this is what you did with Liberation oh my goodness wow that's I would have never ever imagine that that's amazing like I wanna I want to be you know at the end of this fight I want to be ostri you know I'
m a mom and when I when I gave birth to my kids and held them they're like these blobs right they're these kind of unknowable blobs and you're deeply connected to them but you know you don't speak the same language um it's very hard to tell what's going on in their heads and the possibilities are endless and I remember staring at at them and going what will you be like what in what could you be and they were just whole universes just inside of them and then you watch the world chip away at that
Universe over the years you know and say now you can't expand in that way and often even as parents we contribute to that we say it's not safe to go in that direction and we watch what had no limits have these very finite limits on it and so whatever it is I imagine one day to be able to look at our young people and not have to fight so desperately to stretch out those boxes that have been placed around them and instead just get to watch them expand into infinity and and I have no idea what that
will look like I just really hope that I'll at least get to see some of it I want to share that intention with folks as we close for tonight that for our young people and for our elders and for folks of all stages that it's easier and more permissible and more accessible for them to be able to stretch out and limit Limitless potential and that the revolution may look different for everyone but there is that moment of aesthetic rest where the heart stops and the breath stops and the beauty and t
he ASR and the Wonder is more than one could ever imagine and so as we close tonight offering y'all that invitation to take that intention stretch it back to your ancestors forward to your uh descendants and also to hold it for yourself in your heart and in your actions and in your beingness thank you IGA luo for Just A Soulful Soulful conversation tonight same thank you and for such thoughtful um questions and it is really a [Music] pleasure [Music]
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