People Interacting with People
A podcast about People Interacting with People. In April 2015, I became homeless. I decided to embrace this homelessness and what followed was five years of nomadic life, over 250 moves in Canada and the United States, on an average budget of roughly $22 a day.
While sitting in a 24 hour diner in Toronto on my first two homeless nights, a young man sat beside me and when I told him about my experience - spending 9 hours each night at the diner, getting a free coffee and a brownie on my second night - he turned to me and asked:
"Do you think you'd be having the same experience if you were Black?"
Over those next five years, I had a series of "chance" encounters with Black people and had some very interesting conversations. I documented some of them in writing but when I compiled them into a 300 page script during the pandemic, I realized that - in writing it myself - I had lost the authenticity of the other person's voice.
And so, I decided to hit the road and reconnect with some of these wonderful people while also leaving myself open to meeting new ones. These are our conversations.
People Interacting with People
S2 EP5: Hair Freedom, Beauty Standards, Learned Behaviours in Childhood, The Value of Lived Experience & When Art Goes Beyond the Artist with Aleathia in Manhattan
In this episode, I sit down with my friend, Aleathia, to talk about her initiative called Unveiled Unlocked.
She tells me about how it all started, its mission to change the narrative around being "bareheaded" or "hair free", and what they have coming up in celebration of their ten year anniversary in Harlem next month.
We also talk about learned behaviours in childhood, the value of lived experience, and Aleathia's journey as an artist which has led her to understand that art often goes beyond the artist.
We hope you enjoy our episode.
To see photos and video of Aleathia visit us at: https://www.instagram.com/peopleinteractingwithpeople/