Abolitionist Sanctuary
Join Founder and Executive Director of Abolitionist Sanctuary, Rev. Nikia S. Robert, Ph.D., in a podcast about Black women/mothers, religion, and mass punishment. Connect with us to be apart of a faith-based abolitionist movement!
Abolitionist Sanctuary
S2:E5 EbonyJanice: All The Black Girls Are Activists
Join us as we welcome the extraordinary Ebony Janice, a luminary in the realms of authorship and activism, hailing from the rural landscapes of Ohio and North Carolina to the vibrant streets of Harlem. Listen as she recounts her journey and the essence of her impactful work with the Free People Project and the Ebony Janice Project. Discover how she champions Black women's healing and pleasure, and how her parents and ancestors have profoundly influenced her mission. Explore the cultural significance of her visual presence, and dive into her reflections on spiritual and romantic pursuits that drive her activism.
Experience Harlem through Ebony Janice's eyes as we uncover the community's unique challenges with environmental noise and the concept of "hood wellness." Hear firsthand accounts of the persistent noise pollution that affects mental well-being and the role gentrification plays in altering the cultural fabric of marginalized neighborhoods. We discuss the essential need for tranquil spaces where Black women and femmes can reconnect with their bodies and find peace amidst chaos. The dialogue extends to her transformative spiritual journey, navigating beyond a Christocentric identity to Yoruba priestess after an enlightening mission trip to Kenya, and the complex intersections of Christianity, Black identity, and slavery.
Throughout our conversation, we celebrate the wisdom of Black women elders, honoring figures such as Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou, whose contributions have paved the way for future generations. We delve into the intersectional challenges of race, gender, and state violence, emphasizing the resilience and joy that Black women cultivate in the face of adversity. Envisioning a future rooted in community safety and well-being, we discuss an abolitionist approach that prioritizes the protection and cherishing of Black lives.
This episode discusses the sharp contrasts among the attack, ascension, and activism of Black womanhood reflected in the murder of Sonya Massey by the police, the presumptive presidential nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris, and Black women leading organizing actions to redeem our democracy.
Don't miss this thought-provoking episode that honors Black womanhood, spirituality, and activism, offering both a reflective and forward-looking abolitionist perspective on these critical issues.
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Welcome to the Abolitionist Sanctuary podcast, where we consider critical conversations and call to actions at the intersections of faith, abolition and Black motherhood. I am your host, reverend Dr Nakia Smith-Robert, the founder and executive director of Abolitionist Sanctuary. We are a national coalition leading a faith-based abolitionist movement. Be sure to visit us at abolitionistsanctuaryorg and take courses or become certified in abolition as social change at abolitionacademycom. Thank you to our audio and visual audiences for joining us on YouTube audiences for joining us on YouTube, instagram, facebook and all platforms. Join me in welcoming our special guest for this exclusive conversation. I am so excited to introduce author and activist Ebony Janice Hi Hi. Thank you for being here. If you don't mind, may I just introduce you to our audience, please please you can do the abridged version of whatever bio you got.
Speaker 2:It's probably about the end of the book.
Speaker 1:I'll try my best. Ebony Janice is the founder and CEO of the Free People Project and the Ebony Janice Project. She has authored several books, including my favorite All the Black Girls Are Activists A Fourth Wave Womanist Pursuit of Dreams as Radical Resistance. Her spiritual mentorship program entitled Dream Yourself Free is designed to support Black women to heal intergenerational wounds and prioritize pleasure. Our talks embody a hip-hop womanist perspective. She is the visionary and creator of Black Girl Mixtape, a platform and safe think space that elevates the intellectual authority of Black women. She is the author of the All the Black Girls Are Best Sellers campaign, raising over a million dollars to mass purchase black femme books with the goal of getting them on the New York Times bestselling list. This project endeavored to spend the bulk of these funds in small black and indie-owned bookstores and gifted thousands of books to individuals and organizations nationwide.
Speaker 1:Ebony Janisse earns her bachelor's in cultural anthropology and political science and a master's of arts in social change, with a concentration in spiritual leadership, womenist theology and racial justice. Welcome, ebony Janice, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to have you here and I cannot wait to get into our conversation. So let's get to it. Let's begin, if you may, just describe how you are presenting yourself in this space what are your visual appearances, what are you wearing, your background aesthetics and also who are your people.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm sitting here with a 30 inch bust down with a part in the middle, long black hair to my back and have on a white dress. It is O'Shea Ifade, so I try to wear white on O'Shea Ifade and O'Shea Obakalade final show about a lot of days. And I'm sitting in front of a bookshelf that has some of my favorite books. Right to the left of me, which is right on the screen Left and above is like my womanist text, kind of on this shelf and this shelf. And then my romance novels are right here behind me, because that's important, and a stack of all the Black girls are activists are sitting right there as well, and I come into this space with myself. I come into this space with my parents, jacob and Cassandra Moore, and I come into the space with my honorable ancestors, emma Jane Baxley and Bernice Gully Moore.
Speaker 1:I share. So if you had a 90 second reel highlighting your life, what would you include and, most importantly, what would be the background music?
Speaker 2:What would be the background music, 90 Second Real, highlighting my Life, would say that, eb being because even as a little girl I used to think that I was magic and that has certainly guided the way that I exist in the world, even to white. And I started by talking about being a free Black girl going into a free Black woman. But Black women and Black girls have always been the center of all the work that I've ever done in all the different iterations of who it is that I am. So that would definitely be in the 92nd reel and she loves love and she loves her. Corinne Bailey raised like a star. So we'll go with it that's the church right and you got the romance in your bio.
Speaker 1:You mentioned pleasure. We love all of that. And now you, you like the hood rat, that the hood ratchet stuff, right, um, and so I like to say that, um, I like, uh, I am both redeemed and ratchet, um, and so I. What I really like is that you have some connections to one of my favorite places in the world, shout out to Harlem. Okay, so you moved from North Carolina to New York City, harlem. You may not know this, but I'm born and raised in Harlem.
Speaker 1:Anyone who knows me that's probably the first thing they'll say is she's from Harlem, because I rip it hard. And so I was just there and I grew up on 110th Street in Fifth Avenue, two tall towers, schaumburg Plaza. It's the same building that involved the Central Park Five. So Kevin Richardson was my next door neighbor. The building is Yusef Salam and Corey Wise and close to Antoine and Raymond. So a lot of things happen there in terms of policing, but you know, and there was also a lot of community, and so Harlem definitely shaped all that I am. But I'm interested to know how was your experience? What was it like for you making that transition from North Carolina to New York City?
Speaker 2:I love. Harlem is definitely and probably my top three favorite places on the planet, and I will say that first of all, I was living in North Carolina very briefly after grad school. So I live back in North Carolina now as well, but originally from Ohio, from Sandusky Ohio, yeah so, but even still kind of rural space is where I grew up and the rural space is where I was coming from at the point that I was moving to Harlem. So it was definitely, I won't say a culture shock, but it was definitely very different from my living experience prior to living in Harlem and I personally don't think there's any place in the world actually like Harlem, usa.
Speaker 1:Let's go.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's any place in the world like Harlem. For years, though my entire life, it was one of my dreams. Even before I'd ever gone to Harlem I was just like I want to. I mentioned the blackity, blackness you know kind of earlier in my 92nd reel that blackness and black folk and my folk right that has always been a part of it. So you know you're a young black girl who loves black things. Harlem should probably come up at some point in your mindset of like I got to go there, I got to be there. I got to be there, I got to see something. There's something there for me. So I had any time I would visit Harlem prior to living in Harlem, because I had a friend who's lived in New York since we were 16, she went to some Ailey summer schools and things like that. So anytime I ever went to Harlem I always was like I'm popping here. I don't even necessarily know if I'm popping anywhere else, I'm walking down the street and you know, street harassment is just even a little different in.
Speaker 2:Harlem and then and then by the time I lived there, it was. It was so many of the things that I dreamt that it would be. It was, it was black and I and I felt very seen and witnessed. And keep in mind, I've lived in California, which is where I went to grad school, and then I lived in Southern California. I lived in Northern California where I went to grad school, and then Southern California in my early twenties.
Speaker 2:So I've experienced, like larger, larger cities that did not witness me as a Black woman in this body, right, in the same way that I was very much so witnessed in Harlem. And you know, I even joke about the street harassment being different. It was different, but that doesn't mean that there was not problematic street harassment in Harlem, but it was even different in the sense of like the celebration of, you know, this regular black girl body I'm doing, you know quote fingers right this regular black girl body and um, and even when I had a fade while I was in Harlem, that was glorious. And if I had a bus down while I was in Harlem, you know if I had a wig or if I had weed, if I had braids, like so many versions, I feel like every version of me was very much so, you know, seen and witnessed in Harlem, both by the, the, you know, the men that I felt sexually attracted to, and also also by the women right Like that.
Speaker 2:All people, all the people you know that were in Harlem, was like I see you, you know experiences that you're having. I feel very, I felt very witnessed there. So Harlem gave me so much of what I thought I would get in Harlem, and Harlem gave me some stuff I asked for. It's life, though right, like you can just have this huge, beautiful, kind of dreamy idea of a space and then you get there and you meet people and you have, like it's just life. And so, you know, I lived on 132nd and 5th.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know that well. My family grew up in 131st. We were live on Linux. Yes, my church is on 132nd.
Speaker 2:I was right on the corner.
Speaker 1:My church is right across the street. Yeah, mcdonald's is right there, or a block up Linux Terrace.
Speaker 2:Literally, I lived, literally I lived in mother effing harlem baby central. The fire station is right there, about five blocks over is a police station, and so there there also felt like there was and I'm in this space that hasn't fully been gender, that this part of harlem it hasn't been fully been gentrified yet either. So what is very interesting about gentrification and this ain't you ain't asked me none of this, but I'm gonna go here what's interesting about gentrification is that when white supremacy has decided it's coming for your home, it will do everything in its power to push you out of it before it shows up and says you can't afford to live here anymore. So even the resources that were taken away from or not made readily available to make sure that this space could still remain beautiful and clean and safe, right, like having all the things that you need that I was kind of at the. I don't think they've taken 132nd and 5th yet, right, I don't think they've taken that area yet. No, you know what?
Speaker 1:They're coming for it. So the church has sold the land. They took Paragon, the fish market, manor, yeah, and they're about to build that.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:They gave all the money to Harlem Hospital.
Speaker 2:They're trying. You got the shop. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:They're trying. This is really. It really hits home for me because when gentrification took over our building, we were a Mitchell-Lama building, so we had tax subsidies, so it was affordable housing, rent control. But then the landlords privatized the buildings. And when they privatized the buildings my mother's rent went up 300 percent, believe it. And so I saw how gentrification worked to displace residents Right. And then the eminent domain that happened with the buildings of Columbia University and Mount Sinai and all the things.
Speaker 1:But what's interesting I don't know if you know Alicia Gordon she is the executive director of the Current Project. She's also based in Harlem and her organization focuses on economic empowerment for poor Black mothers. But she does this survey and she coins this term the Midler mother and the Midler mother was my mom. It's the person who does not make enough to qualify for section eight but also doesn't earn enough to afford the rent once it's privatized, in my mother's case. So they don't make enough for government subsidies, but they don't make enough to secure quality of life. This kind of Midler mom, and it's a very. It's a very, you know, it is an existence of survival.
Speaker 1:And so that is how abolitionist sanctuary emerged. It was based on this story of my single, poor Black mother, born in Harlem, new York, pregnant at 15, me receiving my first letter from my brother in prison at the age of 12, watching how carcerality decimated my community. And yet still Black women, including my mother, knew how to make something out of nothing, right, right, right. How to make a dollar out of 15 cents. And sometimes that meant bending the rules or breaking the law and according to society standards that's considered criminal, deviant, immoral, bad mother. But for us it was a source of salvation. It literally saved our lives and ensured that there was food on the table, clothes on our back, roof over our head. So Ablisher Sanctuary emerged to reappraise poor Black mothers' moral strategies, not as vice but as virtue, is using the womanist canon and scholarship as well as liberation theologies and grounded in experience and wanting to train faith communities to understand this intersection right and and and black mother survival.
Speaker 1:So we're doing a documentary and so I would say last month we were in Harlem, really like filming what it feels like to walk the streets from my building to my school, which was a four block span, and passing public housing, methadone clinics, corner boys, all the things right and how that's related to survival, and then walking to the church and highlighting not just community mothers but church mothers, carceral mothers, and this idea that no one should be punished for merely trying to survive. So this backdrop of gentrification is really important. It also takes place in an article that I wrote. That's forthcoming, but I really appreciate you mentioning that and the sensitivity, and for me that's some of the things that Harlem took away. Right, we talked about the great things about Harlem. Some of the things that have been taken away is the way in which gentrification, which is colonization and new casings, tries to erase our history Absolutely Displacement.
Speaker 2:So thank you. Those are the things. I don't need to belabor that either, but those are the things that you know I can talk about. You know the noise and you know just different things. That and I'm not talking about noise as in people, I'm talking about noise as in. There's something very insidious about how loud the sirens can be in your neighborhood. But if you go up to a different neighborhood and I know that the zoning is like that I know that there is a noise ordinance where it pertains to certain neighborhoods. So this isn't just somebody who's not from New York complaining about sirens. This is someone who spent time in different parts of New York and knows that you know you're not hearing the same things in your home that I'm hearing the same things in your home that I'm hearing about, and there's something intentional about that.
Speaker 2:I'm just thinking about the place of it because I've been gone for a couple of years. But, yes, the hospital's right there, the fire station, the police station, so you got to think about all these sirens 24 seven, what that does to your psyche. And I met she ended up becoming my editor but Tamela Gordon I used to talk when I lived in Harlem, used to talk about I wasn't using the language of hood wellness, but she ended up publishing the book Hood Wellness just this year. But I would talk about.
Speaker 2:You know, it's really easy to be, you know, a Zen guru when you're not living in this kind of experience and so trying to do the deep work of being seated, of taking care of yourself, it's just conversations that you cannot have at all, because we cannot meditate with sirens 24 seven and nobody cares. There's no one to report this to. Because nobody cares. You know why they don't care? Because it's intentional and so that they don't care. Because it's intentional and so that type of you know it's intentional. There will come a point when they've completely taken those blocks, the rest of those blocks, because let's skip a couple blocks and that 138 and up is pretty much gone as well. Right, but once they have taken those blocks completely, I can guarantee you that those sirens from the ambulance will not be as loud. I can guarantee you that they won't be as loud. We're on the cusp of like a gentrifying Harlem, where you go into places in Harlem and it's predominantly white and you realistic in real life, have people looking at you like how did you get here?
Speaker 1:Do you know where you are right now? Do you know where you are right now? Right, Do you know where you are right now? Listen, listen. I passed foster projects while I was there and it was a white family with their children playing in the basketball courts and I'm like Do you know where you? Are right now. I'm like I took my cameraman around the projects. I'm from here. We didn't walk through.
Speaker 2:We around the projects. I'm from here. We didn't walk through. We didn't walk through these projects. You know where you are right now, baby, so not looking at me like what am I doing here? What are you doing here?
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's deep though that's deep, because I remember my mom waking up in the middle of the night, hearing gunshots and out of her sleep, she will wake up screaming. Is that my baby? Right? So the trauma of noise, right. And then, in the case of sirens, right that it's almost as if, the more you know the non-Black, the privileged neighborhoods, right, it's almost as if they are entitled to a peace and safety.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh, because you're being socialized into chaos. Just be okay with the chaos, and how much does that incite even your own panic? That causes you to behave in certain ways that you might not necessarily normally behave? We're all on 10 all day long. We don't know how to make, we don't know how to get in arguments and turn it down because we're on. We started the argument on 10 because we were sleeping on 10. We went to sleep on 10, guys. So it really is a.
Speaker 2:I don't want to. You know I think that's very important. You know, when I talk about Harlem and I do talk about that a little bit in the book about you know how Harlem gave me just the fantasy I have met. You know, probably to this day, the great love of my life, the greatest love of my life in Harlem, life in Harlem. I have, like so many gorgeous experiences you know of, like the old man on the corner of you know 131st and Lennox in the middle of the night. Like just standing on the corner participating in me making out with my boyfriend at the time.
Speaker 1:I guarantee you that was my family.
Speaker 2:I guarantee you, I learned so much about what my body needs in Harlem and the thing that I deeply desire. I think that some of what all the Black girls are activists is trying to do in talking about this softness to at the very least introduce people who maybe have lived on 10 for their whole life because they're from places that have this kind of there's no place like Harlem, but they're from places that have this kind of 24 seven turned up energy outside, right that. Do you even know what it feels like to be fully seated in your body? Do you even know what that feels like? And if you've never experienced it, do you even know that that's a conversation to have? Do you even know that's a thing to reach for, to want to desire? I don't have the answer to that, because it's not the way that I was raised, but the absence of it for your whole life. And then maybe one day you travel out, you don't live in Harlem anymore and you and you wake up and it's quiet and do you panic? You know what do you do. You know like what do you do?
Speaker 2:So I want Black people in general, but particularly because my focus on my work is, you know, black women and femmes. Right, I want Black women all over the all over the world. You know Black American women most specifically. You know black women and femmes. Right, I want black women all over the world. You know black American women most specifically, you know. To get even more clear, I want black American women to know that it's an option so that they can, regardless of where you are, as far as your positionality or your geographical location to be thinking hmm, I'm not seated right now. What do I need in this space? Because I want to. I want to get to live, you know, spend more time in my, in my actual body and not in the survival, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I promise we haven't met before this call, but you're all up in my life. I really, really, really appreciate that. I think this is the power of um, sisterhood and womanhood, the way in which we can be a reflection of each other and provide each other the healing that we each need. It's therapeutic right and it's certainly not a substitute for professional therapy, but there's something that happens right Sometimes it's just language.
Speaker 2:right, it's just language. There are things that I need to hear you say, and I have experienced it, but I didn't have the language for it. Thank you for that language. I'm not out of my mind. I didn't make this up, thank you for that language. So yeah, 1000% agree with that.
Speaker 1:And that's the power of your book and others is the way in which writings right People's writing provides the language of our hearts, of our introspection, things that we couldn't articulate, but it's affirmation and validation that we weren't crazy right that somebody else is able to put words to it. I felt that the most when I read James Cone's Black Power, Black Theology. I was like, wow, this is what I've been feeling growing up in the hood, but we weren't allowed to say it out loud. So, yeah, absolutely so, thank you for sharing Harlem. Maybe we'll wait to after the call, maybe off camera, but if you really want your Harlem papers, like if you really want the cards, I'm going to have to see you shake, Well you ain't getting them, then because I'm from Sandusky Ohio.
Speaker 2:Let's not forget that part. It's the best I got for you.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it. So you are also seminary trained? Yes, can you share about your spiritual formation and how you found direction beyond Christianity and what?
Speaker 2:does that spirituality? Look for Black girls activism. Yeah, my spiritual religious formation is the Baptist church. I grew, I was, I feel like I met. I was born and raised in a church and that kind of language is a very specific language for very specific people and I didn't, because I was born and raised in the church, I didn't realize that there were other black people in particular that that weren't born and raised in a church. So I remember getting to college and having friends who didn't have a Bible and being like, oh, what in the world? Hell.
Speaker 2:In a handbasket In a handbasket honey. I really was born and raised in the church. My identity is so deeply rooted in Jesus Christ that when my theological shift started to happen, after a missions trip to Kenya which is hilarious to me but it makes sense at the same time it was a mission trip we didn't go there actually to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, but overall it was a mission trip because we went there to participate with the faith-based organization. But the last week of my time I was there, I was in Yajururu, kenya, for about 10 weeks this may be about 13 years ago now and the last week of my time in Kenya I went to Mombasa, which is predominantly Muslim, and that was the first time in my life that I had ever been in a place that was not Christocentric. So I'd never been somewhere where people, for generations, are not Christian. It's not a conversation whatsoever. Jesus is not. Jesus is an idea. You know we've heard of him, appreciate him. You know for what he's contributed, you know the true Christ, right, but Jesus is not the our way to God. And when I I didn't really uh. So when I say I'm in Mombasa and like this super Muslim space, I mean we're hearing the call to prayer all night long, right Every single hour. The siren, the loudspeaker is going off because it's Muslim, muslim where we are.
Speaker 2:And it's not until I got back home that I really started to process that, with one of the senior pastors at the church that I was attending at the time that I really was struggling with the idea of some so-called potential privilege that I had by being born in Sandusky Ohio. Because I am Christian, because I was born in Sandusky Ohio, and I cannot fathom that I mean more to God just based on the location of my birth than these people, these beautiful people that I had the opportunity to experience for a week and some change in Kenya. And I thank God for this particular pastor, pastor Derek Barbie. I thank God for him because in the midst of this journey, I really was going through a faith crisis because I'm like I can't see people going to hell and burning eternally because of where they were born. It's not that they have rejected Christ, it's that that is not a reality. That's not the conversation, that is just, it's not real, and I'm going to quote Jay-Z it's not real. To me, therefore, it doesn't exist. So, please, I do be having hip hop threats sometimes I love it. So, yeah, it's not real.
Speaker 2:And Pastor Derek Barbie said to me when I was in this crisis of faith, when I was saying I don't really know, it was deep.
Speaker 2:I really don't know what I believe right now because I knew why I believed, but I couldn't really fully flesh out what I believed at that point because I had this new information and it felt like I had to do something with this information.
Speaker 2:I can't just go back to business as usual after this experience. And I also positioned the fact that it was a mission trip because I personally think that if you go on a mission trip to Africa as a Black person who is the descendant of enslaved Africans, you got to do something with what it means that you are going there to potentially use Christ as a way to, you know, evolve people I'm doing quote fingers right Like to to enhance people's lives and that their lives, their culture, their reality that they've been deeply rooted in for generations is is less than because they may not have Jesus Christ or that may not have been their way to God. And so I returned from that and really was just having to deal with that and I was dealing with it, dealing with it, dealing with it. I also was accidentally dating a hotel at the time, but that's a conversation for another day.
Speaker 1:That's not what we're talking about today. Listen, I'm all for it. I can meet you there.
Speaker 2:I'm sure, harlem. So that was also, you know, a part of what was happening for me. I'm also like forced by this guy. Really, that is a conversation for another day, because it was actually very spiritually, emotionally abusive.
Speaker 1:You met him in Kenya.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, he was back when I came back to the States. Gotcha, yeah, yeah, yeah. So after Kenya, I came back to the States and was in accidentally I don't want to say accidentally, and that's for invite me to another podcast and we'll talk about that.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about the pleasure part, anyways.
Speaker 2:All big, spicy ratchet. But the point is so I'm having this crisis of faith, really processing all these things, these thoughts, these questions that I've never asked myself before because I've never had to, and simultaneously, in this relationship with this person who is sharing just so much super black, black, black language and information with me that I also never really really had to process or really think about, I never really thought about my to process or really think about, I never really thought about my relationship with Christianity and slavery. I never really thought about those things and, which is wild for me to say, because I again, my identity was Jesus Christ and I get it now, but you know, at the time it was really like a wait a minute what have I been doing with my black self?
Speaker 2:And you know a lot of words to say that. Pastor Derek Barbie said to me I think this is the best thing that will ever happen to your faith, that that you totally take Christ off for a minute and and figure out if, if your path is back to Christ or what it is. And the thing is I was, I was an ordained preacher, so I was still preaching in the pulpit and I didn't know if Jesus was even a thing to me at the time. And I was in a pulpit in Port Clinton, ohio, one Sunday morning preaching and in the midst of that sermon, jesus Christ came back to me. It was I was preaching about the trustworthy nature of Christ and I really I'm standing there in the pulpit having this like download, like Jesus, true Christ. Jesus Christ is so trustworthy. I'm preaching it. My sister is in the audience and she's the only person, of course, that knows that I'm in this crisis of faith. But she said she was like I was watching you and I was like is this girl having a stroke, like what is happening to her right now? Because I was like no Jesus in the flesh is so trustworthy. And that is the relationship that I began to have with Jesus Christ. It wasn't necessarily in that particular period of my time. Jesus as a savior, it was Jesus as this embodied, you know, manifestation of God that really was showing me what it looked like to say words and see it and you know to do what you say you're gonna do and to cough, speak those things that are not as though, like I saw jesus christ and fleshed in in that moment. You know of preachment and I wanted, I wanted that. Whether whether I fleshed that into back towards christianity or not, I wanted a relationship with that, with that guy. And the years my relationship with Christianity has drastically evolved.
Speaker 2:Obviously, I mentioned earlier it's O'Shea Ifa Day, o'shea Obatala Days I wear white, so I'm an initiated Ifa, obatala and Oshun priest. So clearly I am not a Christian, but I also, in the midst of my initiations, I just was talking to a girlfriend of mine about this the other day that nobody can out-churchy mystic me, because in my initiations I just was talking to a girlfriend of mine about this the other day that nobody can out-churchy mystic me Because in my initiations was I speaking in tongues. Yes, in my initiations was I whispering Jesus, jesus, so in my body that I'm sitting in front of the Bible and he's reading me, he's telling my Odu to me, which is this word for my life, and the word he's giving me is so profound. My natural response because I'm 40 at this, you know 40, 41 years old at this time, going through these initiations my natural response to like a word is Jesus. My aunt, aoife, my godmother, was like she just always so tickled Like you are the most non-Christian Christian ever. It was a foundation for you.
Speaker 2:And my first initiation was a Southern Black Christian experience. I was initiated into Christianity. I was initiated into you know, you know, being a Baptist. I grew up going to BTU, baptist Training Union. I was initiated, y'all. So I I definitely know like it's deeply in my bones but it's. I've just been able to reorient it in such a way that Christ, my relationship with Christ, is my own, personal, you know experience and I don't flesh it out for people very often, right, unless I feel like we have a sacred space where, you know, it makes sense that we can have that conversation. But even for my family very often I don't fully flesh it out because I'd be like I want you to stay Christian. So let's not have this conversation because I think that Christianity is a good path for you and I don't want to introduce, you know, anything to you that would make you feel like what am I doing? That's not my. That's not my. This is my path. That's not my. You know the journey that I'm on.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that with us. I understand the sacredness of your story and that spiritual journey, so thank you for for sharing it. And I could see you know Monica A Coleman was my doctoral advisor and a close friend of mine, and so I know her story well and I can hear parallels in the two narratives. I don't know if you know Funlayo, my name is Funlayo.
Speaker 1:She's also a good friend of mine and her mom is a Baptist pastor and she's a Yoruba priestess. So, yeah, it makes sense. Right, it definitely makes sense. Thank you for sharing with us. And it's interesting because there's some things that I do that are non-Christian not to equate this with yours, but for the very same reason, I don't share it with people. So if you ask me if I have to teach a Bible study and in that scripture something comes up about promiscuity and fornication, don't ask me what I really think about that, because I'm going to steal some people's whole faith. Walk in that.
Speaker 2:Let's just not have the conversation, just genuinely, not even trying to be haughty. You've gone to seminary a trained theologian. We are not having the same conversation. So it doesn't make sense for us to have that conversation. I don't think that it would be prosperous and I don't think that we would end in peace for either of us. So just don't flesh it out. Let's not have that conversation.
Speaker 1:peace for either of us. So you know, just don't flesh it out Like let's not have that conversation. Not at all, Not at all. So. But I have people come to me in private and say can you tell me about it one-on-one, right? So it's just, you know it's being discerning what people can handle and what's helpful for their faith journey. So I completely understand. So thank you for sharing your spiritual formation. And I want to make the connection to the ways in which you also identify as womanist and what you are presenting as a fourth wave womanism. How did you get there and why is that intervention important?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that if you at some point, if you identify as womanist, you could probably trace back through your life and realize that you probably were always womanist. You just didn't have the language for it. And I think about that. I'm from a family. My grandmother raised six girls by herself from a family full of mamas. You know the women really, the women in my family really, you know, like the hierarchy of eldership really is the women, and you know, this is just the way that the institution of my family worked, is that my grandma's word was the word and we went from there. There are certain ways to move out of that hierarchy and have maybe more power and authority. Your social status, economic status, you know, you might you got a little bit more money, you're taking care of the family. You might not have to wait for the highest auntie to rank you or whatever, but you know, and so there, there are just so many moments in my childhood that I look to. I don't think I talk about this in the book, but I had this experience as a young girl where everybody my grandmother never stayed alone. My on my mother's side. My grandmother never stayed alone on my mother's side. My grandmother never stayed alone. All of the grandkids, somebody was always living with her, staying with her, and so and there are periods of time where it was maybe two or three of us at one time staying at my grandma's house, and the way the rules were set up or unspoken rules, but we knew the rules is that if you came to spend a night at grandma's house, whatever bed you made up meaning you changed the sheets, you made that bed, that's the bed that you could sleep in for tonight. So, of course, we had our favorite rooms, because this room was too hot, that room was too cold. This is the perfect room. So I made up this bed. I'm going to sleep in his room tonight. My cousin Robert McKinney I'm going to say his whole name my cousin Robert came to the house and goes and gets his little nappy head in the bed that I made up, and I'm like that's not right. We about to fight because I'm sleeping in this room tonight and my grandmother comes in. My grandmother, who I believe was a womanist, comes in, however, and says just go sleep upstairs, you can just go make up that bed. And I look at her. I'm like 15, 16 years old at the time. I look at her and I say, grandma, you did wrong. Now I'm saying this to my grandmother from Talladega, alabama, right Like to my grandma. She probably could have, but she did not. But my cousin was like what you know, like it was about to be an issue. But I just go upstairs, I sleep in that bed.
Speaker 2:The next morning we get up, get ready to go to school. Robert leaves out before me. He says bye, hugs grandma, kiss grandma. He leaves. I go out. My grandmother is saying goodbye to me and I don't speak, I just walk out.
Speaker 2:I go to school and I think about it while I'm at school, in trouble when I get home, because she done been told my mom that I was disrespectful. Dah, dah, dah, whatever. But I get back to the house and as soon as I get to the house that evening, my grandmother says I need to apologize to you for that because that was not right. And I say you know, grandma, that really hurt my feelings because you do that all the time when it comes to the boys. You let the boys be chilling in the living room after we all just ate breakfast and the girls are in the kitchen cleaning up like they didn't. And so she really was fleshing out where she's from the way that she grew up, and it was this intergenerational exchange that really gave my grandmother a revelation for herself that she had been participating in a behavior that she didn't even agree with. So there's this transformative moment that happens for us, where my grandmother, who's maybe like 70, 80 at the time, is in a conversation with her 15-year-old granddaughter, who is without, you know, in a conversation with her 15 year old granddaughter, who is, who is without the language, again, of womanism or or feminism from a sociopolitical perspective, right Like who's without the language of gender equality is standing up to her grandmother saying this isn't right. And if it means that I'm going to get in trouble for expressing my disappointment, then so be it, because I know, you know, this isn't right, grandma. And there's again, there's something transformative that happens there.
Speaker 2:But I bring up just that story very quickly because I'm saying there's evidence of both how I arrived here and that it was always there. There was always something there for me that was troubling. What are we doing here and why are we doing it this way? What are we doing here and why are we doing it this way? And so it wasn't until, however, until I was in my late twenties, dr Renita Weems was preaching, who I never heard anything about Dr Renita Weems at this point, but she was preaching at this church I was going to and my boyfriend at the time, his mother, who I don't even think liked me very much, but she called him and said tell Ebony Janice, she needs to get up to the church.
Speaker 2:I go to the church because she needs to hear this lady that's preaching. So again, there's the fact that she knew that I needed to hear Dr Anita Weems preaching. Really speaks to the fact that she even saw the evidence of something there about me that I would be moved by Dr Anita Weems preaching there about me, that I would be moved by Dr Anita Weems preaching. And I get there and I hear Dr Anita Weems preach and I'm like what the F? I never heard.
Speaker 2:You know, I never heard someone do to the text with this like a basic text, right. I can't honestly remember the sermon, but let's say it was just Romans 8 and 28. This is not even something gender specific. I never heard somebody take Romans 8 and 28 and be like let's talk about the Black woman, right, and this was not a women's ministry event. That's's not what this was. So I'm like, wait a minute, what is this?
Speaker 2:And that when I when I I've started just I went and researched her, I'm gonna read everything she done wrote, I'm gonna everything, everything I was uh became friends a couple years later with um this is a random name drop conversation, but this is in the book too uh, with Tricia past, uh, tricia Hersey, patrick, uh, tricia, tricia, tricia Hersey is what she goes by publicly um of the net ministry, and she was in Emory at the time and so I would go to some of her classes sometimes, but she would share, like her um, uh syllabus for different classes and, um, she invited me to this class and Dr Monica Coleman is Skyping in let's tell you kind of how long ago that was Skyping in and I'm sitting there like what is this conversation? What is going on? I never, I never.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm on my own journey, but I certainly didn't have that language, and so that's really the the spark for me deciding that I knew for sure that I was going to go to seminary, but I didn't want to go to Candler because it's Christian centered. I knew I wanted to find a multi-faith I wanted to talk about. I know Christianity, I've been doing it for a long, long time. I want to go to a school that is thinking about Christianity but not thinking about Christianity as a central conversation, and so that is really, you know, a major part of my journey this language. Actually it was in that conversation. This is maybe 2000, maybe 2008.
Speaker 1:Okay, 2007. That's when you were in seminary around 2008?
Speaker 2:I'm thinking about this particular class that went on to Candler because I want to remember the year. It was, just to say that it was a long time ago, because I was sitting there and I was saying, while Dr Monica Coleman was speaking, I was saying to Tricia, I think we might be on the cusp of another wave of womanism. It wasn't 10 years ago, it may have been like seven, may have been like, uh, seven, eight years ago. Yeah, it was a little longer. I don't know what year it is right now, to be quite honest. So, yeah, maybe 20, 20, 2014.
Speaker 2:So maybe it was about 10 years ago. Anyways, I'm just uh again positioning that because I was thinking about it years ago. I was thinking something's happening where this Dr Monica Coleman is essential to the story because she is the one credited with introducing us to a third wave of womanist theology. And just listening to her talk and this is my first time hearing about third wave womanism, of course Just listening to her talk I was like that is very relevant to where we are. And also I think that something else is happening at the same time, and the something else that was happening for me, or what I was feeling, was that those of us who love God and are thinking about our spirituality, our religious truth systems, et cetera, thinking about justice, thinking about freedom, thinking about our embodied selves, we're thinking about it in such a way that maybe it won't require a pulpit, maybe it won't require academia at all. We're thinking about it because that certainly is how I was thinking about ministry. I wasn't going to seminary to become a pastor at an official institution. I knew that my religion, my spirituality, would be a part of whatever my work was going to be, whatever that was going to be, and so I saw that, I felt that the Nat ministry existed already. It didn't exist in the way that it exists now, but Trisha was calling herself the nap bishop already and as the nap bishop, the funny thing is she just used to be like y'all take a damn nap, and that was kind of what it was at the time and so I was even thinking about that, you know, like this is really important. This is not it's funny, but it's not a joke. So there's something here and I was thinking deeply about my relationship with hip hop and how there were things that I wanted to trouble with you know, the like with language that I knew. Of course Dr Katie Geneva Cannon, you know, gave us the tools to do that, but I hadn't seen anybody really flesh it out the way that I had been fleshing it out with these things. I was calling pre-chefs where I was like doing these full blown hip hop Bible studies to deal with the ethics of considering this sacred text, but not this sacred text. So it was a lot happening.
Speaker 2:But overall, this fourth wave that I was imagining, or this next wave that I was imagining, was really black women and femme folk who loved freedom, who, you know, loved the folk, loved spirit. You know Alice Walker's definition right, like who loved, who really identified as womanist or, you know, or even Black feminist, but were not thinking about spirituality or, you know, or our sociopolitical placement from a like an institutional space, our sociopolitical placement from a like an institutional space, and and also thinking about our wellness as the center of all of it, not as supplemental, but as the center of all of it. And I gathered that. I gathered that even in that conversation, that so much of what was happening prior, I think, to this fourth wave of womanism really was like we need to Dr Katie Cannon said that we need to get tenure was like we need to.
Speaker 2:Dr Katie Cannon said that we need to get tenure, you know we need to like. This is important and and so we can't be in a fourth wave and not acknowledge that we literally sitting on the shoulders of the ones who did all the work to get tenure and to be preaching in the pulpits and to, you know, be getting these positions and to be the first, the first, the first, the first to ever Right. And now here we are saying if the first, the first to ever right. And now here we are saying if our elders could have rested more and could have created soft spaces for them to exist and be seated, and if, as preachers, we didn't have to be so serious all the time, because to be a preacher, to be a woman and a preacher, there's a certain way that you have to exist, to be taken serious by the body. And you know, if we could really just be even centering the pleasure and, you know, centering all of that Right, like if we could even be in that, if that is the work and not the supplemental material, like, oh, we're going to preach hard, but then we're going to rest, no, we're going to rest and, but then we're going to rest, no, we're going to rest, and that will fuel what we preach, and so I felt that that was happening.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of the journey, and it's funny that you mentioned Dr Coleman and I'm done with this sermon. But it's funny that you mentioned the church though, so you don't be lying about when I'm done with the sermon but Dr Coleman being such a instrumental part of the spark, the beginning of the journey, in that now me in this IFA journey it wasn't inspired by Dr Coleman, but I was thinking about this as you were talking I also think that Dr Coleman is initiated Obatala priest as well. So it's funny how Jesus was such an important part of both of our earlier journeys and I think for Dr Coleman it's the same as well in so many ways and now both of us being Obatala priest. That makes sense To me. Jesus was Obatala in flesh, and so it just makes sense to me that Jesus was Obatala in flesh, and so it just meant to me that you know that, that that we would be here in this place, and she wrote the foreword for my book. So shout out to Dr.
Speaker 1:Coleman, she did, she did Shout out to Dr Coleman. You know you can't talk womanism and not mention Monica Coleman. And what I appreciate about her work is that she's always pushing the canon further, always pushing it beyond its limitations. Whether that puts her in the hot seat, right. Whether that's gonna attract critique there was some contention around even the language of waves right. That's the feminist work. And the way she goes beyond Christianity right. Like so much of her work, even questioning whether we should be beyond Christianity right. Like so much of her work, even questioning whether we should be womanism her courage to go beyond.
Speaker 2:Who can call themselves womanist?
Speaker 1:right Like all of it for sure, and she's not afraid to ask the questions that many of us are thinking, but we are afraid to ask it or the space isn't held for us to see if we ask those questions. So shout out to Dr Monica Coleman, shout out to Dr Renita Weems, who is the first black woman to earn her PhD in Hebrew studies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she is also a mentor of mine, and she's. She's just consistent. And she is also a mentor of mine, and she's just consistent. Right, she's going to transform any room she walks in and she does that by keeping it real, and she's not going to correct you. You know what I mean. Like you know that saying is you want to be around people who won't be afraid to pull you to the side to let you know your slip is hanging. That's Deidre Weems right, she's going to pull you to the side.
Speaker 1:She loves hard right. She loves in a way that's loyal and that's going to push you to grow. So you are amid a great cloud of witness. I am churchy Monica always teases me about that, that I'm a church girl but also I'm also deeply rooted in hip hop. So my journey was growing up in the church but in Harlem, and growing up poor and in that environment. One of the ways of getting out is either hustling, is playing sports or doing music, and I've done just about all of it.
Speaker 1:Right and so, um, you know, I played basketball. I was recruited to a D one school, but I also would go to my you know homeboys house and he's DJ. He's giving me a beat, I'm writing in my composition book, and that goes to come to the studio. I'm in the studio, I'm at Diddy's studio, I'm at, you know, in studios with Guru and I'm recording late night sessions to be the first lady of art, you know. And it just kept going, it kept going, it kept going, until I was asked to speak for a back to school celebration at a church. I spoke and afterward it was an altar full of people wanting to give children, wanting to give their life to Christ, and after the sermon the pastor said to me be you.
Speaker 1:Now this pastor is not anyone who would try to bring people into the ministry unless he absolutely saw it On the low I don't think he wanted to be in it, and so when he said that, I took it very seriously.
Speaker 1:I went back to my team. I'm like you know, can we curb the lyrics? Right, and they're like we already have a Lauryn Hill. I'm like, yeah, but what you have me saying, right, I'm on this mic like pull my hair a little bit while I'm rubbing the pole. It's almost like you're fucking my soul and I'm like I can't say that no more.
Speaker 1:And so I left, I left, and the people that remained are very successful in their industry right now music, execs and all. So I really connect with you on that hip hop theology piece. I think we should co-write something.
Speaker 2:Well, this hip hop thing too. Something on Harlem. I say this all the time If I wasn't so saved, I would have been the greatest female MC of all time. Listen Period. Stop playing with me. We're starting to launch my hip-hop career.
Speaker 1:It's like the life, the things you have to I won't say have to, but the things you do to stay creative and the things that you do. In a studio environment is very hard to do and do ministry.
Speaker 2:The lives are very hard to do and I also, you know, even though I joke, not joke, joke about that I also feel deeply grateful for this path, because I do think it is true that I probably would have tried to be a performer in that way if it wasn't for my faith or the faith of my youth no-transcript something and the way that I felt like I was when I was participating in this world in this way as an MC. It really forced me to get more creative, like, well, who am I then, if I am not the greatest female emcee to ever live?
Speaker 1:then who am?
Speaker 2:I, who am I, and and yeah, yeah, like I, I appreciate, I appreciate hearing you say that because it there. There are dreams that I do feel like we've had to surrender and I will say had to right. Like I do feel like there are dreams that I do feel like we've had to surrender and I will say had to right. I do feel like there are dreams that we had to surrender in order to really get to this path, you know, to this place in our journey. And it was like this elder at the church I used to go to years ago said you can either do it God's way or you can do it God's way. That always tickled me every time.
Speaker 2:That's just a little bit coerced, just a little bit. I'm thinking I'm about to get a second option. You could either do it God's way or you could do it God's way. I think you gave a second option, but ain't that the truth? That you could have said no, I'm not going to do that. I really love this. This has given me access and potential influence, et cetera, et cetera. My resources would be different. I could be here at this point in my life and you could have did that, and I still believe that at some point it would have came back around and God would have been like you could do it my way, or you could do it my way and snatched it. Here we are, here we are. So, yeah, I appreciate that If that comes full circle.
Speaker 1:They invited me back into the studio in like 2009. I was pregnant and I had to be in and out of that studio because things that happens in the studio. And they asked me to sample my sermon and they had like a whole amen corner of all these dudes that was hiding behind me.
Speaker 1:And I'm sampling my sermon to a track that was supposed to be for Fabulous, but the beat didn't get cleared so the song didn't go forward. And I'm sampling my sermon to a track that was supposed to be for Fabulous, but the beat didn't get cleared, so the song didn't go forward. But it comes full circle On the documentary. I'm thinking about doing a rap similar to how Fresh Prince did about Philly, so we'll see. We'll see how it comes back.
Speaker 2:Please do, because your voice is giving us something that we need. That's what people say.
Speaker 1:That's what people say and this is why my lyrics were so provocative Like you don't understand, like the things they would say in my ear, to get the voice they wanted. All right, let's take a break and go to some announcements. Visit abolitionistsanctuaryorg to purchase swag, sign up for our newsletter and to become a member of a national coalition with the mission to train Black-serving churches, civic organizations and educational institutions to unite against the moral crisis of mass incarceration and the criminalization of impoverished black motherhood. Volunteer with our task forces, such as faith-based initiatives and civic engagement, to mobilize our communities and help us to lead a faith-based abolitionist movement. Please also download the Abolitionist Sanctuary mobile app for Android and Apple to connect to other abolitionists and people who love freedom on our social media and learning platform. You can also enroll in our courses at abolitionacademycom and become certified in Abolition as Social Change. If you need a scholarship to access any of our courses, please email info at abolitionistsanctuaryorg. We also offer our courses in partnership with seminaries, colleges and universities, as all curriculum complies with accreditation standards. Inquire about booking Dr Nakia to speak at your conference, course or congregation and other events on the topics of religion, abolition and Black women and mothers. She is also available to help train your church and lead an abolitionist sanctuary Sunday worship service. You can also book Dr Nakia as a consultant for our IDEA services, which stands for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Abolition. We can help your organization to advance its commitment to DEI using abolitionist principles and framework. Other consultant services include creating toolkits, conflict resolution and other custom tailored solutions. Finally, you can support this podcast by downloading and sharing with others, as well as giving a one-time or reoccurring donation. Go to abolitionistsanctuaryorg backslash donate. Don't forget to tag us in your posts and use the hashtag abolitionistsanctuary and hashtag repair, Restore, Rebuild and hashtag Abolitionist Sanctuary Podcast.
Speaker 1:Ok, we are back Time for more conversation with the amazing Ebony Janice. So we don't have a lot of time and I have so much. I wanted to ask you um, and I'm grateful for this conversation that is just moving with spirit and organically and just with connection. Um, but if I could just ask two more questions what I think is really pressing issues for the day, um, one on on uh state violence against Black women and the second question on voting, and then connecting that to what you're saying about pain and joy, then we'll conclude with a rapid question and it's just. I'll say a few words and you just tell me what comes to mind, we out, we out. Okay, All right, so I just want to.
Speaker 1:We talked a lot about your book and I wanted you to summarize it, but I think you've done that in your responses. But I just want to really encourage our listeners to purchase this book. This book is really groundbreaking, formative, well-written. You don't want to put it down and I mean I do not say that with no cap whatsoever, Like it's no hyperbole. I'm not like. It is really like kudos to you for really writing a solid book that is. That will be a staple that will shape lives. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I received that and kudos to Spirit, because sometimes I reread parts of that book and I'll be like girl. Did you plagiarize this? Where did you get this from? This is so good.
Speaker 1:That's when it gets good to you, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I Back to you.
Speaker 1:Who wrote this girl? This is good, good, it's good. So the title of the book is All the Black Girls Are Activists, and I want you to go get your copy today, or audio book, however you, in whatever form you want to purchase it, of course, prioritize Black-owned independent bookstores, but if you must, you can go other places as well. But whatever, you do, get the book. So just want to plug that in, and then I want to talk about this presidential election. Mm-hmm, okay. So how does your book provide a framework to understand our presidential election? What are your thoughts or observations about the role of patriarchy and racism in response to the presidential nomination to reelect Donald Trump and the anticipated nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris, an African-American and South Asian woman of color?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just said this actually recently on social media that Audre Lorde you know who I quote several times in the book as well, but Audre, of course, because what am I talking about without talking about Audre Lorde? But Audre Lorde says Survival is not theory. And when that came to me recently and within the past week or so that you know came back to me, I'm like, yeah, we, we got a lot of theory about what we should do and what we need to be doing in this moment, but survival is not that. Yeah, uh, I break down in the chapter in pursuit of authority. Uh, and all the black girls are activists.
Speaker 2:I talk about this idea that I call the range, which requires theory, ethic and praxis. And and so you know, theory is wonderful, we need it. Hopefully, if you are presenting theory, that means you thought through, you have thought about this, maybe you've even thought it through, meaning you didn't just think it and just said it out loud, you talked about it, just said it out loud, you talked about it, you read a little bit, you pulled from the elders. You, you know, cite some sources. Right, you thought about this theory. It's wonderful, we need it. It moves us forward because it causes us to be thinking about how would we implement this? What would this look like? What is the actual, what would our ethic, what would our conduct, how would we, you know, in order to exist in this way? And then, what is the practice Like? How do we take this theory and put it into practice? And so, very often, especially in these last, you know, it's just been a week and some change now since you know, kamala has been pushed to this point where she's likely going to be the president-elect for the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2:That what do we do? You know what are we doing? Where do we go from here? And is this something that we really want? Are we getting the same of? You know what would have been either way? You know either way. And can we throw our vote away? You know, in any way, shape, form or fashion meaning, I'm not voting for that because I want this and I'm not going to get this, but I'm still going to give this my vote, whatever.
Speaker 2:And it just is that simple to me. It really is that Audre Lorde quote that theory that survival is not a theory. There has to be a way that we make sure that people are still going to be able to have jobs that people are still going to be able to have, be in the race, you know, be in the in the fight, at the very least to have their reproductive rights, to have bodily autonomy, that you know that people are still going to be able to have a vote in another four years, right, that that survive. Survival is not just theory. It's a lot of great theory that people are presenting, but the likelihood and this is my close to that, yeah, I say this all the time that we want to do whatever it is that we have to do to get to peace the fastest, there's a way in which we could fight and continue to fight the system, and I do think that that is important.
Speaker 2:I do think that you know demanding policy, you know to not just be touted but to actually be implemented, right, like, I do think that the fight is an ongoing fight.
Speaker 2:But what do we have to do to get to peace the fastest?
Speaker 2:And I think that that the fight is an ongoing fight, but what do we have to do to get to peace the fastest?
Speaker 2:And I think that that survival conversation is a part of it. Right, I'm saying something without saying it, obviously, but what is it that we have to do to make sure that, on January 21st, you niggas still got a job, right, right, and that there is still a place for us to even be thinking about our wellness and our wholeness and we not just back in this tight knot of? You know what it felt like for us to be in a deeper way, and an even more deep, in an even more strategic way than it was. You know what, eight, four, eight years ago, right, do we want to go back to that? So, thinking about survival and I'm thinking about what does, what would we have to do to get the feast the fastest and that that part of our journey may not take us directly to the our highest imagination possible, but that is how we get to our highest imagination possible, is that we, you know we, we think about survival and we walk in that direction.
Speaker 1:I've received that survival is not a theory. It's also not a thought experiment right Life and death situations. This is not time to start practicing your thought experiments right.
Speaker 1:Yes, we have a two-party system. Yes, it's not the best ideal approach to democracy right. And yes, it forces us into choosing the lesser between two evils right. But when we think about it's either elect Trump right, or buy into this two-party system right. It's not the time to start talking about alternatives when we like a hundred days out right. The beauty about organizing is the methodological approach to building grassroots base right, and a program that's going to get us to amass the power we need to change the system right.
Speaker 1:That doesn't happen overnight. It's not to suggest that people are, but I think to all of a sudden, you know, put a lot of energy into a third party party option a hundred days before election and we didn't hear about it, you know, in January, february, right, it's just. It feels for real.
Speaker 2:Yes, Keep it real If a third party was going to win In the history of the United States of America government, yeah, in the in the last 50 years, right, like if a third party was going to win, it's. It's really an idea and I love it. I love the idea, but you know, the was it. Ross Perot came the closest to actually gathering the largest amount of votes in the history of a third party candidate and got and got none of the votes from the electoral college Zero. So the? So do you fools, listen to music or do you just skim through it?
Speaker 2:Like you can't just again have this theory of if we could get a third the electoral. That's not the way our presidential elections even work. That Hillary Clinton has proven that you could get the largest number of votes and still not get all the votes from the electoral college. So, guys and girls and everybody else that don't believe they want to be a guy or girl and I don't mean that in an inappropriate way, I was just being gender non-inclusive when I started with guys and I kind of keep going. So, but yeah, everybody, that's not the way this works and we need to acknowledge that. The fact that the, the, the the quickest way for us to get to some peace is to not go to a dictator dictatorship.
Speaker 2:Right, that is the quickest way for us to get to even just a little bit of relief. And the last thing I say about that, too, is that people talk about a symbolic victory. Losses are not symbolic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, especially when their freedom is on the line.
Speaker 2:We don't need a symbolic victory, we don't need a symbolic loss either. They don't be symbolic. And so there's so much on the line for all of us, and you know, listening to what does it mean for us? To you know, both demand, I think we have a greater chance. People are talking about Kamala's statement after the nigga from Israel was cutting up recently in Congress.
Speaker 2:And I thought that it was trash. I agree with that. I didn't love it. I don't like the idea of talking about burning flags when we're talking in comparison to a genocide, right, so I didn't love that. But if we're going to be real, who do we think we have a greater chance of having a ceasefire? With? The person who is not going to have a ceasefire or the person who has actually, out of their mouth, said ceasefire?
Speaker 1:at this point right.
Speaker 2:So this is not a there is no perfect way for us to be in relationship with this, but at the very least, when we think of this as survival, that gives us something really to work with, and I think that's important for us, and this is, you know, even framing this in the sense of, you know, this idea of all the Black girls are activists All the Black girls are activists isn't suggesting that we are all going to be marching to Selma. We are all organizers. We are all going to be doing political commentary, right? That's not the suggestion. Going to be doing political commentary, right? That's not the suggestion. Really, the suggestion is that if the Black girls don't do nothing else but show up as our most authentic selves, we have done enough.
Speaker 2:What's inside of that, though, is it's also saying that Black women, our elders, have been telling us what to do and the way to go for years. And if we really could center that is womanist, pass the microphone to the marginalized voices, right. If we could center the wisdom of our elders before they become our ancestors. Let's not wait until Toni Morrison bell hooks, right? Let's not wait until my Angelou, let's not wait until they're our ancestors before we say maybe you know what you're talking about, june Jordan, maybe you know what you're talking. Let's not wait until Angela Davis and may God give her many more years, right? Let's not wait until she becomes our ancestor before we actually start listening to her. And again, I'm not saying that Angela Davis is saying go vote for Kamala Harris, but I am saying that, angela Davis, that the elders have given us so much wisdom and tool and insight on what it would look like for us to actually walk into a more liberative future.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. And I also just want to say one more thing, and I think this election piece is really important is I talked to a lot of my day ones from from from Harlem Right, and I get a lot of pushback from from black men in my community, and so I just want to encourage us right to be more than meme philosophers, to be more uh, you know, to be more than thumb activists, right, um, and so I need people to go and do their research. You cannot get behind memes that have not been vetted right or corroborated in any way, and the fact is there's a lot of fake news and false information, misinformation, in the memes that are circulating on social media. So, to set the record straight, we've seen more and more the true narrative come to surface that Kamala Harris was not the worst thing that happened to Black men and the carceral state Exactly that.
Speaker 2:If you look at her tenure, it was actually a drop in marijuana convictions right and that she created programming to even for the harder, more than just marijuana. She created programming to try to support recidivism. She created programming to try to make sure that you know there was so, so many of those. The worst things that we know about Kamala have absolutely been debunked, and if you're willing to go find the information and this is what I would say to the Black men in Harlem and the Black men all over the United States of America Many of you certainly already support this progressive journey that we're on, these memes and this misinformation is when have Black women historically ever led you astray? Come on, why, all of a sudden, now?
Speaker 1:It is as if we look for any opportunity to show how much America hates Black women. Honey Right. And the thing is no matter how bad you treat Black women, we still Show up for you, we show up, we visit you in prison, we post bail.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we don't take you to court for child support, right, you know what I mean. We show up, we even win democracy for you to court for child support, right, and we, you know what I mean we, we show up, we, we even win democracy for you. Look at Stacey Abrams, right Like we, we handle it. And we look at the first day, at what was it? Three hours after Kamala announced her you know wanting to to replace Joe, joe Biden, black women got on a call 44,000 deep and raised over a million dollars and the gag is that call has existed for four years, so black women never stopped getting on that call and that is the organizing we're talking about right.
Speaker 1:It's the consistent presence. So when it's time to get ready, you don't even have to do that, because you stayed ready.
Speaker 2:I started smiling and giggling when you started going down a list of all the things that we do for black men. Look at all we do for you, because I thought about the inappropriate things. What do we do for you? Listen?
Speaker 1:what are you doing? You know our body is hurting headache, cramps.
Speaker 2:And still show up. I do think that's so important really. I've never talked about this publicly in this way, but I do want to have a revival service of sorts for our relationships with Black men, particularly as Black know, as black women, as those of us that identify as black women, because social media really has seemed to highlight or give a platform to um, a lot of anti, a lot of black men who, uh, say they love Blackness, but their actions and their behavior and their words really speak to the contrary as it pertains to Black women. And, in the meantime, although Black women have been doing more intentional work around equality, that has never, never been, never, ever. Black feminist, you know, having like black feminists, black womanists have never been doing the work of excluding, excluding black men from our.
Speaker 2:It's not possible, was it, joe Morgan said? And when chicken has come home to roost, I always knew my feminism would be different from white women's because they don't call their men brother. To this day, no matter how deep our work is, we never, have ever separated ourselves. Even when we be like you, ashy niggas, you are still my ashy niggas. We never, ever, separated ourselves from you, and I think that there needs to be more conversation where we say you know how much we need each other and that you know the the. The ways in which social media has created like this, seemingly created. This divide in language is very problematic. But I'm saying all that just to go back to what I said, because, historically, when have black women ever failed you Historically?
Speaker 1:That's the mic. Drop Historically, and you don't even go to, don't go to the civil rights movement, just just go to your mama, grandmama. Last week, last week.
Speaker 2:Last week you needed to buy some boxers. You needed to buy some boxers and some. It was a cousin, maybe right, that's right, right.
Speaker 1:So thank you for for that. And I want to say, on the topic of black women, particularly, violence. So we talked about patriarchy, racism, but I want to talk about state violence and I'm thinking about Sonia Massey. Sonia Massey, our sister in Springfield Illinois. For those who are listening, this is a trigger warning of violence. I just want to give you a moment to prepare yourselves, but Sonia Massey in Springfield, Illinois was gunned down by deputies, posing no threat, not presenting herself as a danger in any way.
Speaker 1:In fact, she was in her home, she called for help and in an encounter with deputies, she had a pot of boiling water on the stove. And she went to, at the instructions of the deputy, to take the pot of boiling water off the stove. And as she was doing that, a deputy started to retreat and she inquired why. And he said because you have boiling water. And she looked at him and she said I rebuke you. And immediately he became vexed and he drew his weapon and said that he would shoot her and in fact he did. The bullet went through her eye, out her head, as she knelt down with her hands up and said I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:And so when we think about this contrast, this sharp contrast between the dehumanization and murder of Massey and the ascendancy or the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris. What do we do with this reality, what it means to be Black woman in America? Right, and I want to pair that with what you wrote about invoking the ancestors Zora, Neale Hurston and said if you're silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it. And this is in your conversation about joy in the mid of pain, where you say if my pain is the only thing that gets you to move, then I'll always have to be dying for change to happen. So what do you do with joy when pain never goes away? What do you do with joy when these injustices, this violence against Black women's bodies never go away? And then, finally, what I want to map onto that is in your response if all Black girls are activists, what, in the midst of state violence of Black women, what does it mean, with all Black girls being abolitionists? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:I want us in this moment, and always in these moments which is a sad thing to say, but always in these moments to to hold ourselves even more sacred, to lean even more deeply into your making this, this juxtaposition of Sonia Massey in this moment and, simultaneously, kamala Harris in this moment, and what do we do with that? And I want us to lean even more into To how, how brilliant it is to be a black girl, to how, to, how the world moves you know, really, whether it gives us credit or not, right, the world is thriving right now off of Black girl. You know everythingness, you know off of the way that we show up in our struggle and in our thriving. And I want us to lean even more into that. And I know that that's a very difficult reality, because I talk about this juxtaposition of, like, deep grief and sweetness.
Speaker 2:In the book, which you know very quickly, a little background story All the Black Girls Are Activists was originally going to be a romance novel because I wanted to. I had this experience several years ago. I was the guy that I met in Harlem. We were at this point we're in long distance relationship. He was in Harlem. Still, I was living in New Orleans and we were going to have a FaceTime date this night and, um, and it was the day that the young sister was murdered by the police in Columbus, ohio, and so you got these two black people who, who want to just be in love, on the phone tonight, you know, caked up. But we are having to process what it means for us to, you know, be taken away in this way, and for our children and for our little cousins and for our, you know, our siblings, right, and so we didn't end up having the FaceTime date that night. I was going to write, I wanted to write about black love in the midst of all this, but then I realized, along the as I was outlining it, that there was a lot of theory that I really wanted to flesh out before I, like I needed to talk about softness before I really wrote a love story, or I needed to talk about my journey to softness, or my pursuit in loudness, or like I need to talk about these things before I got to the love. And so, as I reflect back on that time, we didn't end up having the FaceTime date, but I've thought about it so much because I'm writing this book that's very inspired by kind of this moment in time of this is 2020, when, you know, every white person is Martin Luther King and they have a million dollars for whatever it is that all the Black people want to do and, simultaneously, all this violence is happening George Floyd and the baby in Columbus, right, like all this violence is happening.
Speaker 2:So what is the both? And I, as I reflect back on that, I wish we would have leaned into our love. I wish I wish that we would have had the FaceTime date still right. We felt we felt like it would not be appropriate for us to be humping on the camera tonight. We felt we felt that it would be most appropriate for us to just rest, and we did, and that's good. But I wish that we would have leaned even harder into the love in that time. I wish that we would have spent more time witnessing each other. I wish that we would have spent more time creating whatever it was that we were going to create in that moment.
Speaker 2:And that is what happens. I think. What could? What is happening for us? Because we're in this duality of both grieving this very awful thing that happened to Sonia, because we literally know that we could be that hashtag any day. There is no anything that sparks it. Like, if I don't wear a hoodie, if I don't carry Skittles, if I don't have my tea, if I don't, if I walk at this time, if I'm in the daytime, if I don't wear a hoodie, if I don't carry Skittles, if I don't have my tea, if I don't, if I walk at this time, if I'm in the daytime, if I don't play a violin, if I don't smoke the month Right. There's nothing we can do to not. But what we can do in the meantime is lean even deeper into our sacredness to make sure that our life is not just an activism that takes us out of our body, to make sure that our life is not just marching all the time, is not just positions all the time, that there is such a distraction for that to be our lives that here we are, generations after our elders and ancestors from the civil rights movement. Here we are generations after what our elders did in rebelling against slavery, right. Here we are all these generations later and we still marching instead of.
Speaker 2:You know being Buddha and I'm not saying to not, obviously I wrote a book about. You know activism and what it means, like defining a freedom. But you know, baby Shugs and Beloved said the only grace you can have is the grace you can imagine. And the grace that I want us to imagine is a grace in which our lives are beautiful and glorious and we really prioritize that and we don't feel guilty about prioritizing taking care of ourselves and becoming our hopeful selves. I have other, I think, more prophetic language to say in a longer format, more prophetic language to say about what it means when you lean deeper into your softness, what happens, what manifests when you lean deeper into your pleasure, what is able to be created when you lean deeper into you know, focusing on your wholeness and not just you know, and not just this one fraction of who we are that none of that is to minimize it. That is to say, there's something beautiful that's created. And the one thing that I'll say about that and I'm done with this sermon is because, in my imagination, what could come of that? As we lean deeper into our pleasure, we think about all the things that need to be in place in order for us to exist in this safe, pleasurable, soft-seated reality.
Speaker 2:Right, and in thinking about that, I am a Black woman that lives in a predominantly white neighborhood and I have a predominantly white HOA and I'm living in not just a predominantly white neighborhood. I live in a predominantly white, very rural part of North Carolina. My parents, my nephews and my middle sister live eight minute drive away from me. So thankfully for that and and there are other people that I know around that, when it comes down to it, the I would never call the police ever. I have a whole committee community coalition that exists, that me as a single Black woman in this very, very, very, very white space, that if somebody even was trying to, if the alarm went off at my house, my first call would not be 911. My first call would be to get up here now, right, get up here now, right, and so that.
Speaker 2:But the the reason why I can lean into that is because I've leaned into how do I exist? How do I have my land? How do I have my garden? How do I have these realities for myself? How can I create that and still be safe amidst a Confederate flag a couple blocks away, right? How do I have that and still be well?
Speaker 2:It is that I've co-created a reality within this community that supports that, that I can stay seated, I can stay soft, I can stay well, and they coming with the blicky if they pull up. You know what I'm saying. Like it is what it is. They coming, and so that doesn't take away from us giving ourselves the space to grieve this violence that happens to us on an ongoing basis. That still. That, however, does say that we don't want another Sonia Massey experience because we want the next I don't want to use that language. We don't want another Sonia Massey experience because we want the next black girl who is worried that somebody's breaking into her home, to have a coalition, a community, a whole cohort of places to call and people going to show up. It's not going to be.
Speaker 2:Oh, I got to go to see about this girl again. I'm going to see about this girl again. That's the reality that we've created and and I invite again, I invite this pursuit of softness. I invite black men into. I'm writing the book to black girls, but I invite black men into that softness reality, into that reality, because the only way that we can have it is because we've imagined it and you've co-created it. You've co-imagined and co-dreamed it with us as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah yes, mic drop no. But I think what you're describing is also an abolitionist project.
Speaker 1:But I think what you're describing is also an abolitionist project. Right, this ideal of softness, of thriving, of not just living to survive, of not just existing amid violence. Right, and also this radical move toward dreaming beyond you know the direness of our reality and believing that we can achieve it together as a community. Right, that police do not make us any safer and we keep saying that as abolitionists. Right, and unfortunately, sonia Massey is just another example of why that is true. The evidence it is the evidence that policing does not make us any safer. It is the evidence that policing does not make us any safer. But communities right, community safety is a thing that we can live within communities of care and live longer. Right Live our we need is within us and it creates a sustainability beyond the need for any other system to respond, and so, yeah, thank you for laying that groundwork.
Speaker 1:What I also like is and I'll conclude with this work what I also like is and I'll conclude with this on page 62, you say everything about me is good. That is who I am is good, and I don't have to equate my body or my desires or as inherently sinful or wrong. When we look at the society that we've inherited today, it is a society that has constructed Blackness and Black womanhood as inherently bad, and that's a theological project right.
Speaker 1:But this counter narrative is that we're not just, that there is no original sin and Michael Fox says this that in fact we are original blessings, and this original blessings to me really harnesses this phrase. That you're saying is that everything about me is good, and I hope that's the takeaway for our listeners of all the things we talked about the complexities, the nuances, the beauty, the terror of blackness, of black womanhood that at the end of the day, that we are created as good Period Period.
Speaker 2:I won't belabor this. I just want to say that I said this earlier that when I was having this download from the pulpit, as I was in my theological shift, that of Jesus Christ, theological shift, that uh of Jesus Christ, that that Jesus Christ is trustworthy, that Jesus Christ in flesh is is such a is such a beautiful uh, uh companion. It's such a beautiful example for me, because Christ is the manifested glory of God in the flesh, as am I. I am not separate from Christ. I am literally the manifested glory of God in this earth. I am one portion of God's personality and that is why everything about me is good, because I am the proof of God. I am the proof of God as I lean into that nobody can't tell.
Speaker 2:This is the reason why I don't really do a lot of fleshing out my faith for people who are struggling with their, whatever they think about what it is that I'm doing, because my faith is so personal and so intimate, because I am one portion of God's.
Speaker 2:Of course we're not going to have a cookie cutter relationship with God. Of course you cannot ABCDEFG what our relationship with God is going to look like, because I am one portion of the proof of God, and so I think that that is how I certainly want to close with and affirm and amen what you were just saying, that A lot of what is supposed to be wrong about me, sin about me, bad about me, even what brought me to Ifa, a lot of how I've decolonized my faith and dealt with my own anti-Blackness as it pertains to African spirituality and Black religion right, and Blackness inside of religion, is that I've acknowledged that me myself in this journey needs to be my whole self more than I need anything else, and that is going to look radically different for me than it might look for others, but we can. We can use these same tools to get there, and that, you know, may very well start by us at the very least acknowledging I am God in flesh.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I am good.
Speaker 2:And I am very good it's in the word you got. To read your word.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right, that's right. Thank you so much, ebony and Janice. Before we go, I want to have fun and practice joy as resistance. So I'm going to give you a series of phrases, words, and I want you to tell me quickly, just rapidly, the first thought that comes to mind. You ready? That's scary. Go ahead. Black women and femmes, us.
Speaker 2:Activism Praise. Favorite food Chocolate cake.
Speaker 1:Kendrick Lamar, the homie 90s hip hop Therick Lamar, the homie. 90s hip hop the best Harlem.
Speaker 2:Where I found my love.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about that offline because you've been bitching it a lot. I'm a chaplain, I'm a trained listener and when people repeat something, you got to go in on it.
Speaker 2:Move back to Molly Ancestor.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, okay, ancestor.
Speaker 2:Emma Jane Baxley.
Speaker 1:Ashe.
Speaker 2:Cannabis.
Speaker 1:Give me some Orgasms. Give me some, that's right. Toxic trait.
Speaker 2:Reading romance novels when I'm supposed to be doing work. God Me trait. Reading romance novels when I'm supposed to be doing work. God Me Church. Miss it sometimes. Abolition the truth, dream Myself free, create Because I'm God. Vote nigga, stop playing that part.
Speaker 1:Vote, vote, vote. Thank you for joining this conversation on Abolitionist Sanctuary podcast with our special guest, ebony Janice. Please download and share on all platforms. Again, I am your host, reverend Dr Nakia Smith-Robert, founder and executive director of Abolitionist Sanctuary. Find us on YouTube, instagram, facebook and download our social mobile app bringing together abolitionists and people who love freedom. Also, enroll in our courses and become certified at abolitionacademycom. Don't forget to become a member and join our mailing list at abolitionistsanctuaryorg. As we conclude this episode, remember that abolition is not only a practice, but it is a way of life, and for me, abolition is our religion. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me.
