Tzedek Transitions: From Staff to Society

Happy Pride Month and Happy Juneteenth! Both celebrations commemorate the relentless pursuit of liberation, honoring the places we've been and progress we've made while pushing for continued change. In this episode, we're serving Funder-Frontline Realness in welcoming Zeke Christopoulos, our new Director of Mindful Operations & Finance. As a Middle Eastern, Jewish, queer, trans person, Zeke brings a depth of intersectional personal and professional experiences to Tzedek.

Get to know Zeke in this candid conversation offering a glimpse into the struggles and triumphs of visibility and representation within minoritized communities. This Big Talk goes deep, from touching on the pressures and privileges of passing to building a culture of mutual accountability and support. The result is a compelling narrative of hope, resilience, and healing in the collective quest for acceptance, inclusion, and belonging.

Get comfortable and prepare to receive a gift of inspiration as we ride this dialogue forward and toward greater equity, equality, and justice. 

We'll see you same time, same place next month. Until then, peace.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

We're profoundly, profoundly interconnected. We don't always live that way.

Speaker 2 0:08

We don't always acknowledge it, but if we're going to heal, we have to live it, experience it and create institutions that celebrate it. Can we create a we where no one's on the outside of it?

Speaker 1 0:20

Welcome to the Uplift with Zedek Real talk for real change. Before we jump in, a quick reminder of why we're here and what we hope to achieve. We're here to build authentic community relationships and help fuel social transformation in Asheville, north Carolina. We believe collective liberation is not only possible but probable as we share, listen and learn together. We're here for the process. However, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. Hey, hey, it's a good day for great conversation and today will not disappoint. I'm Michael Hoban and I am privileged to welcome Zeke Christopoulos to the Zedek team as our new director of mindful operations and finance. Hey, zeke, how's it going? All right, hey?

Speaker 2 1:05

it's going well, thank you.

Background & Upbringing

Speaker 1 1:06

So, Zeke, that's a beautiful title for a beautiful human, but your self-story and service is so much more. And it's Pride Month, and Juneteenth is right around the corner. So much to talk about. Let's jump in. Can you share a little bit about yourself, your background, what brought you here?

Speaker 2 1:21

Sure, so name is E Christopoulos and I use primarily he and him pronouns. Every once in a while I throw in some they and them as well.

Speaker 2 1:31

My background, without going too too terribly far into it spent the first couple of years of my life in Greece. My family came back over to the States, spent some time growing up in Miami, a beautiful, incredibly multicultural environment. Part of my background is my religion as well. I was brought up in the Jewish faith. My mother's Jewish and, according to Halakha or Jewish law, your mother's Jewish. You're Jewish. Cool thing about that is my dad was very on board, even as a devout Greek Orthodox individual. That was part of my upbringing. It was interesting for me growing up in Miami. Also, we grew up on a boat. My dad was a boat captain and we lived on a boat until the age of 14. That's wild, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 2:13

So one of the themes of my life was just feeling a little bit other in so many places, right, you know, like all the other kids lived in houses, apartments, what have you? I lived on a boat. Don't run any other kids around me other than the ones in the marina who grew up on a boat. I was a Jewish kid and, you know, got some very clear messages from my mom about not to share that because Jews had definitely, even in Miami, been very. There was a lot of bias and also a lot of fear, I think generationally. You know, coming from an interfaith family, that was another place where I felt others. I never really quite felt completely at home or accepted in the Jewish community and that was tough, and some of that's my own stuff. But the other piece that comes is in my father's background. My mom always, in addition to saying don't tell people you're Jewish, said if people talk to you about being Greek, make sure that they don't think that you're, you know, middle Eastern, or don't think that you're Arab. You know Greece is part of Europe. She was really big around that. She wanted to make sure that we were being seen as European. Oh yeah, there's lots of conversation around who you are. On my maternal grandfather's side, you know, fleeing the Holocaust On my on my maternal grandfather's side, you know, fleeing the Holocaust. On my grandmother's side fleeing pogroms in Russia before then. So lots of generational trauma happening.

Speaker 2 3:40

Also, as I was growing up, I was born I don't know a term that I'd always love is assigned female at birth, but that's the easiest shorthand for who I am and where I come from, from the land of female and now I inhabit and love the land of being a man and also love the land of in between. However, growing up I was very much a tomboy. Lots of gender policing going on. So there's another place, of other Also, south Florida. All kinds of incredible cultures there, but certainly a large and vibrant Latina community. And, looking the way I look, as a Middle Eastern person, everybody assumed I was Spanish, hispanic, from Latin America, from the islands, something like this. I wasn't. So another place where I didn't quite fit in, so just had all these experiences of not quite fitting in, but also really an inquisitive and curious person. So that's a brief bit about otherness and childhood.

Speaker 2 4:34

From Miami we moved to another area of Florida I went to a year I don't know, like a semester of college, had a good first semester, second semester flunked out. My parents really wanted to make sure that I went to school in Florida because that's where we had scholarship money. My family is not one of wealth. We don't come from a rich background at all, so that was the only thing that was really available to me. So first semester went okay. Second semester I was very busy trying to figure out who I was, and the reason I chose the college in Florida that I went to is because they were the only ones who advertised that they had a GL student union, so gay lesbian student union.

Speaker 1 5:11

There was no B, there was no T there was no Q, yeah, when we had that short alphabet or anything.

Speaker 2 5:18

Yeah yeah, the alphabet was a lot shorter. Anyway, I got involved with that. I had to circle the building a few times on a few occasions before I went into my first meeting. But also there was deeper stuff going on as well, let's see. So you know, flunked out of college, moved back in with my parents for a little bit, moved up to Gainesville, managed to pay for my own schooling and get some schooling under my belt. Right after eight years I moved to Asheville, north Carolina, and a lot of that was around geography. In Gainesville I had an interesting and diverse community with lots of different folks. You know political and social justice movement ran really big. Through what I've done.

Speaker 2 6:04

From some of my time in high school, the little bit of college that I have, and then also beyond that in community, it was becoming apparent that I was ready to really examine something that I'd been pushing back. I'd been policed about gender my whole life. Interesting thing is that when we lived in Greece my mom was making audio tapes and sending them to family in different parts of the world and we've got one from. When I was two years old my mom asked me what do you want to be when you grow up I said I want to be a boy. At the time I was a toddler. I spoke toddler English, toddler Italian and toddler Greek. So my mom's like, oh, maybe, maybe my kid's not getting this in English, let me ask in Italian. And she asked me in Italian same response. Let me ask in Greek same response. So that was pretty clear from an early age.

Speaker 2 6:52

After so much gender policing and othering and whatnot, I pushed it down. I pushed it down. I pushed it down. Eventually I was able to come to some terms with that and start to find some resources. It was a lot harder to find resources then and I knew that there were two trans guys who lived in Asheville Wow. And so I moved here and that was how I started to figure out needing to transition, et cetera.

Finding Community

Speaker 2 7:17

Moved here almost blindly, almost sight unseen. I knew that Asheville had an art scene which was important to me. I was told that Asheville was diverse For me. You know, growing up in South Florida in a multicultural environment, being somebody who is brown and is red as brown in other places other than Asheville, that was important to me. I needed to find a place where I could find some community, got involved in a whole bunch of different projects, etc. It's been 20 plus years since I've been here and now I get the incredible honor, privilege and pleasure of serving as the Social Justice Fund Director of Mindful Operations and Finance. I skipped a whole bunch of activism in the middle there, so you might call me on that.

Speaker 1 8:02

But you also just did this glossing over of, like, a whole bunch of other projects. But that includes the starting and founding of Transmission Right, which is huge to our community, and I say our because right now we have two trans men from Miami sitting here being paid to talk that right. There is still something every day. I am, I'm shocked that there is a place for me to exist wholly as I am doing this work and making a living doing it 100% 1000%.

Speaker 1 8:30

Two right so I'm not even the token anymore Truly representation and inclusion. So that is beautiful and something that I'm deeply grateful to Zedek about. You mentioned childhood experience of understanding yourself and trying to communicate it, which I also share, and we're talking a time where words for who we are did not even exist.

Speaker 2 8:48

Yeah, we didn't have a trans tipping point, you know, 10 years ago with, you know, a Time magazine with a trans person famous on the cover who all of America knows and talks about. That was not happening when I was growing up. There's some Donahue, some Maury Povich, real sensationalized stuff. Jerry Springer yeah, and Jerry Springer came along later, so we didn't really have possibility models, we didn't have people to point to and look to, and in fact, the first few trans men that I saw didn't look like me, didn't smell like me, and I wasn't sure that I could do it. I had to find people who I was like okay, I can do this. I knew that I wanted to. I had to like see it to believe it. It had to be real, it had to be flesh and blood, and I think that's so different than a lot of the digital experience that people who are uncovering and discovering and recovering their gender identities do online today. Yeah, that's very true.

Speaker 1 9:34

You also mentioned fear around both your trans and your Jewish experience. So I'd like to touch on, if we can, for a minute, this idea of passing. Yeah, because we do a lot of that, don't we? Yes, and I understand the privilege that comes with passing completely, and I use it and wield it to keep myself safe when and where I can. So, truth to that, and I think there's a lack of compassion or understanding around the risk and the fear that is held in the body with that passing experience. Has that been true for?

Speaker 2 10:06

you. Ooh, you got me, man. Let me dust off my soapbox, I speechify a little bit about it, but I really like to be in conversation and in dialogue with it because, with everything, everything's so rapidly changing and evolving. And with that I would start out foundationally with looking at where we're, at what the current political and cultural climate is. We're sitting in the US, so we'll talk about US culture and climate Without getting too deeply into politics.

Navigating Passing and Visibility

Speaker 2 10:30

We're in a position where there's literally over 500 bills that have been passed that are anti-LGBTQ and when we examine those a little bit more closely, most of them are really anti-Trunes. Whether that's health, healthcare for youth and adults, whether certain kinds of entertainment are even allowed to happen and who's allowed to view them, whether that's hey, this is a basic thing called needing to use public facilities or the restroom. Who can use them, who can't and all of this is up right now and it's pretty scary. So when I think about passing and I think about visibility, the number one primary thing is that everybody needs to be as safe as possible. Threats to physical safety are real. I'm mostly a white, passing trans guy. Also, I pass as cisgender, so people don't think that I'm trans when they meet me. I am married to a woman, although my identity might be queerer than that. You know, passing is a heterosexual as well, but my identity is a little bit different. So lots of passing happens and goes on.

Speaker 2 11:29

You know, in these times I think it's so important for those of us who can have the safety to be able to be visible when and where we can, because we have a potent place to speak from. We have incredible life experience that not many people have. However, when people are talking about, say, legislating bathroom use, do people want Michael and Zeke in the woman's room? Because if you're legislating that, that's what you're legislating. We have a place to speak from on things like that. But more importantly, well, I don't know. That's pretty important.

Speaker 2 11:59

In addition, I mentioned possibility models. Being a possibility model is so important. There's a recent research that's out and suicidality across some identities Trans men 71% suicidality. And we're not talking about overlaps of identity here. This is just being transmasculine in general 71%. Non-binary people are like the low 60s. Trans women are like 51%. So being visible for other transmasculine people who are out there struggling, that's important to me because, you know, I mentioned in my story being able to see somebody like me was so key and so important. So for me that's what I think about with visibility joyous riotous incredibly diverse and fantastic experience of of being zeke in the world.

Speaker 2 12:49

Right, you know, because, like we have, we have incredible lives, we get to do incredible things, we have all the things that everybody else has and we have a really nuanced view and take on a lot of those. So a lot of times our relationships can be quite exceptional if we are bringing our whole selves and by relationships I mean our friendships, I mean our. By relationships, I mean our friendships, I mean our coworkers, I mean people we might be in religious community, with Whatever that might look like. We bring a unique flavor and that's pretty valuable when it comes down to it I wouldn't change.

Speaker 1 13:15

There's been a lot of pain in that journey, but I would not change who I am and how I am, having understood the gifts. And there is something truly beautiful. I remember as early as five we've got video too but really when you're that young and you're pushed because your own lived experience we're not talking about external influences, but who you are and understand yourself to be innately challenges everything in society Congratulations. It's a boy, girl from that to boy meets girl. But when you have to question, really forced to choose your authentic self versus society, that's a beautiful gift, because then you question everything, even the chills when you started talking about that, like the hair on the back of my neck stood up a little bit and I want to also name that.

Speaker 2 14:02

Trans. People come in so many different varieties and no journey to transness is the same. You and I share the fact of having known it early on in our lives. Some people don't come to it until they're in their 20s, their 30s, their 40s, their 60s. I've met trans and non-binary people who didn't, for whatever reason, figure out or come out until 60s, 70s. Again, just like beautiful diversity and a lot of different life experiences to share.

Speaker 1 14:28

The truth is, if we're looking at it as who fits into societal norms in those very small boxes, we all fall outside of that Definitely.

Trans Voices

Speaker 2 14:35

Definitely, and I think that with the experience that most of us have when we think about social justice, we understand molecular level what it means not to be seen, not to have rights, to be feared, not to be able to exist and to be targeted. A lot of the time when we're talking about passing, so many people make assumptions looking at white trans men in particular, or white passing trans men, and they just see somebody who they think is a cis guy, and cis men have a lot to bring to the world, have a lot to bring to social justice movements. One of the things that trans guys can do as allies is to use our voices. The unfortunate truth is that our voices carry a weight and an authority that they did not prior to our transitions.

Speaker 1 15:19

But that passing piece is that there's a weight and authority or there's an acceptance and inclusion until there's not. Flip side of that is discovery and one thing, being a parent. My wife and I have a seven-year-old daughter who is amazing, and we have to out ourselves every time she makes a friend she wants to be close to outside of school, and when I tell people that why, you know that's your own business. The hell it is.

Speaker 2 15:43

What about that parent who's going to find out?

Speaker 1 15:45

otherwise, the risks and the threats to my family myself, my child's safety, is huge. If someone feels they're being tricked, definitely. I guess my hope right now, and not just for the trans community but for Jewish Asheville, is that our community can kind of see and hold that while many Jewish people can be perceived as white, there's still that passing fear that when I'm really known, am I still safe, am I still wanted, am I still included? And for me that's heartbreaking.

Speaker 2 16:14

Yeah, lots of weighty stuff there, you know, starting with, you know talking about your child. My wife, caroline, and I have an incredible two-year-old and she's beginning to speak sentences and learn language. We've had other kids in our lives as well, and you know like there's even disclosure to your own child right.

Speaker 2 16:30

Yes, you know like when and where do you disclose? When is it safe? How do you set it up properly? That calculus is going on in the back of all of our minds as people of any variety who pass in a variety of ways that's a big one with schools, parents or around your kid. What's going to happen if disclosure occurs? You know like I definitely have experienced not being out at work and leaving workplaces because I knew that if it came out I'd be fired. I've been lucky enough not to necessarily be fired, and you know also with hiring, showing up as trans, as a prospective tenant, that's another story too, you know. Showing up in faith communities Are you going to be accepted? Are you not going to be accepted? Big stuff.

Speaker 1 17:10

Even with the door alphabet right. Our own alphabet's history is complex.

Speaker 2 17:15

Yeah, and definitely with race as well. There's big news stories happening right now about, basically, somebody who halted a home sale to a black woman. They went back on it. They're like, nope, we're not going to sell to her, she's black. And that happens all the time. It happens here in Asheville. When I first moved to Asheville I was desperate to find a place to live and I was looking at this one place and the prospective landlord looked at me and said to me well, you can't have any black people here after dark. And I was like what? What in the world? This is not that long ago, 24, 25 years ago here in Asheville. I know it's still going on, still going on everywhere. That dude had known I was trans or known I was Jewish.

Speaker 1 17:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:58

I will say that I didn't go forward with that situation. Anyway, that's the world we live in. You know the piece around the Jewish people and anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. A lot of people, especially within the Jewish community, don't even understand like what the differences are there. When you were talking about it, the thing that really stood out to me was A we want to make sure. I want to make sure that people aren't conflating Israel with Jews and even Israeli citizens. I was talking with an Israeli citizen this past weekend and he was saying I don't want to be conflated with what my leaders are doing. I'm out there protesting and so many of us are protesting. The state of Israel involves citizenry that are not aligned with the decisions that are being made. Could you?

Speaker 1 18:40

imagine if Americans were held To Trump, to any, like Israelis are held to debts on Yahoo right.

Speaker 2 18:49

Yeah, true. Oh, I said some names. I wasn't going to say the Voldemort.

Speaker 1 18:54

Okay. So the question that I really want to ask you has been adapted full transparency. I went to a conference in New Orleans emerging practitioners in philanthropy, it was awesome and a panel moderator, miko Faneuil, asked a question that I'm going to add another little piece to, but I want to give credit where credit's due. So the question I have for you who are you in your home, who are you in the world and who are you in this work?

Speaker 2 19:19

In my home. I am a parent father. That piece about being a father is really important to me. I never thought I'd ever get married. Marriage was not legal when I was a kid. It wasn't legal for the vast portion of the time that I've been an adult. Always knew that I'd have love right.

Speaker 1 19:41

Always knew that I've had a partner, or partners, depending on how my life went, but marriage and a child and a family.

Speaker 2 19:43

that was Marriage first and then a child second For me. I wanted to make sure that if children ever entered my life, that there would be more than one parent. I think that kids really need so much more support than our westernized version of a family offers. Parents too. Extended families are big parts of my cultures.

Personal Growth and Family Values

Speaker 2 20:01

Also, I never thought I'd have a kid because I never trusted I would probably make it far enough in life and I really want that to read as I would be alive. I did not think I would be alive to get to a point to where I would feel that I was able to provide a firm foundation for a kid, a positive foundation for a kid, a place where a kid could thrive and a place where, explicitly, I could love a child. I have so many friends who were not given love or not given financial support or not given both, not given any kind of emotional support, and I know pieces of that and I've seen what that can do. If I'm involved in bringing any human up in a world, I want that person to be as well-loved, full-throatedly supported as possible.

Speaker 1 20:47

That's a big piece for me, having done your own healing journey and gotten to the place where you can actually do that, awesome. I love being married. I love being a dad. It is everything and it's where I get to put my values really into practice every day.

Speaker 2 21:02

I think, other roles for me, you know, at home, or you know as a spouse, or you know, really making sure that I'm staying as present and checked in as I can be with Carolyn. She continually keeps me accountable for that and that's incredible. You know, for me I definitely. You know I'm getting into the whole marriage journey and I did not.

Speaker 2 21:23

I do not want to be a traditional patriarch, but I am a patriarch in my family doing a lot of caregiving for my mom. My father-in-law just passed recently, so we're doing some caregiving for my mother-in-law as well. But really I think what I'm talking about more is like the power and the equivalencies between the traditional man and woman looking marriage that we have from the outside, but from the inside inside and even from the outside wanting to make sure that I'm projecting like Caroline and I have equality and equal weight in making decisions. Again, looking from the outside, we've been very privileged in that I've been able to do the traditional sort of breadwinner role and she's doing a lot of childcare and stuff like that. But still like we're thinking through how we make decisions, how our kid sees us making decisions what we do, who holds the power, you know who's doing the chores, all of that stuff.

Speaker 2 22:10

And I think when we think critically through similar lenses in the work that we do in the social justice and employment or whatnot, I think that's how we begin to change the world slowly.

Speaker 1 22:20

So is the same Zeke that's at home, the same one that's able to show up in the work. If you catch me at home, we're talking like goofy, really different version that you're going to get, especially in doing this work in Asheville. It'll take a while for me to feel I can let go and bring that self, because there's so much that goes into first proving myself not white, not straight not cisgender male. The opposite of that expectation there. That to get to me takes a while, yeah.

Speaker 2 22:51

I think how we show up is multilayered. Who we know we are versus who people think we are is key to your point. It's all relational. It's about building relationships. When I can let people know that I've got a goofy side and a silly side, I think that can really help bridge some gaps. When I can also begin to underscore and relate with my life experiences, I can do that and I think so many of us want to move at light speed because so many issues out there that need attention and they need rapid responses, they need to be moved on.

Speaker 2 23:23

But sometimes if we back up and we take a minute, take a breath, we take a pause, we examine what some of our underlying biases might be and we look at the whole issue, look at the people that we are interacting with to help bring about change, and really know who they are, I think we have a tighter solidarity, a tighter bond to move forward with. Bond to move forward with. Reminding myself of that is hard, because I'm like, oh my gosh, something, something's in need. We've got to mobilize, we've got to do it now, we've got to do it fast. It's like being in a fire department yeah, a fire drill and the cool thing is like if you are already in community ahead of emergencies, although they do happen all the time. But like, the more time you can spend building community, the more effective and impactful I think your movement work can be Consider people as a whole and treat people as whole.

Speaker 2 24:08

Yeah, yeah, and realize that we're human, right and also like be able to forgive. I think that right now, everything's so polarized, everything's like good, evil, black, white, whatever the other thing that I think comes with. That is like canceled, not canceled, and also is there not room for that person to heal, to grow, to say I made a mistake? One of the really amazing large sort of Jewish traditions happens during Yom Kippur. It's the day that we fast in atonement, we make a fist and we thump over our hearts. We say I missed the mark, I made a mistake. We meditate on how we can move forward and do better. That's beautiful.

Speaker 1 24:46

Okay, Zeke, Complete this thought. As a human being, I am most proud of you know.

Speaker 2 24:52

Michael, that one's hard and it almost makes me tearful, and I think it's because of all of the messages I've received across my life of being bad, being not worthy, not good enough, not worth existing, not worth any time, not worth any effort, certainly not deserving of any kind of love. Oftentimes I may have to like just really fight to exist so for me to think I mean I can't even remember the question I'm going- to give it to you, because the fact that you feel tearful and I understand that entirely is why I'm asking it.

Speaker 1 25:24

Yeah, so as a human being, this is just you, as Zeke, I'm most proud of.

Speaker 2 25:31

I guess I'm most proud of. I'm proud of what I've done, and that's that's hard for me to say because, again, you know, kind of talking about how I was brought up and how I was socialized and a lot of my ethos is that you don't talk about what you do, you don't brag, you don't boast. You get the work done humbly. You get the work done quietly. You're not doing the work for recognition, you're doing the work because it needs to be done. You're doing the work to repair the world because of love. And what I've seen happens is that there's so many people who have worked so quietly in so many of our movements and never get any acknowledgement that people don't understand who's actually doing the work Good and bad about all kinds of things. So, like those quiet folks, yeah, they're getting the work done, but like nobody's seeing that. Maybe this, like fat, disabled, cisgender, white woman, for example, yeah, all right, let's use that identity has done X, y and Z Right.

Speaker 1 26:23

I can think of a number of women that fit, that yeah. Who have been critical to my own work and service of community Definitely.

Speaker 2 26:33

Yeah, who have been critical to my own work and service of community? Definitely yeah. And then I think about you know, like people who've got some slick social media accounts. Again, nothing wrong with that, and it's good to broadcast really how, everything that we've done, what our accomplishments are because, again, being possibility models is cool. It's also important to use those platforms to shout out the people who might not be doing that stuff. So for me, my challenge is to step out of that space of humility and step more into my own self-worth and my own authenticity and to say, yes, I did that. 25 years ago. I moved to Asheville and came out as a trans person and there were no resources here. Nobody knew how to connect and people started asking me and I started a movement that built that. I need to be able to say that and claim that, and I still feel funny doing that, you know.

Building Community and Social Justice

Speaker 1 27:18

Well, thank you for doing it here with me. I appreciate that idea. Okay, so next one I wish my parents were proud of talking about you.

Speaker 2 27:26

Yeah, yeah, I wish my parents were proud of some of those in-between times of my life. And when I say those in-between times, the times when I was very much a butch dyke and very much genderqueer and genderfluid and sort of those were good times.

Speaker 1 27:42

Those were good times?

Speaker 2 27:43

Yes, definitely, I love them and you know that's one of the reasons why I hang on to the they and them, Because one of the things again that can happen with passing is your past and your experience gets erased.

Speaker 2 27:53

You know, I like to call myself a multidimensional master.

Speaker 2 27:57

I can live and access in places of being a girl, or I can live and access places of being a boy or a man or a genderqueer, or like somebody who every time I walk down a street gets a million stares. I don't know if I'm going to get smacked in the back of the head with a two by four because that happens, you know it does. I don't know if I'm going to get like kicked out of a place because people think I'm a dirty so-and-so because I'm being red is not white, you know. So I feel very lucky in that I have a good relationship with my mom and my dad, who just passed recently, and my dad, before he passed, was able to say I might not understand who you are, but I see the choices that you've made and I of from my parents was knowledge about how to be an emotional person in this world, how to have emotions healthily but man every once in a while my dad will throw down a one-liner like that and, poof, just knock me right over.

On Touch

Speaker 1 29:02

That's transformative, that sentiment alone. If we could all embody the idea of still valuing and respecting even in the least that which we do not understand. It's like half of our work is done right there, yeah.

Speaker 2 29:14

And I mean that's an interesting thing too. You know, when I think about my family, my family was all about, like physical love and touch. I recently ran across a statistic that 80% of Americans are chronically under touched Touch, and especially for, I think, lgbtq communities. I think especially for men's communities, especially when you place on top of that identities and existences with race. So many of us are feared and people don't want to touch us because they don't know what's going to happen, right, and we're all running around unloved, and we won't dive deep into this.

Speaker 1 29:45

but the socialization of men, what is done to men, and then that removal of male affection devastating there's definitely like stigma around male affection.

Speaker 2 29:56

A lot of that can definitely be rooted in homophobia, for sure. And then I also think that people are racialized. There's fears that come out around such and such kind of a man, and then also, I think, as men, so many of us are on guard from being too friendly with women, too friendly with kids, for fear of what could be leveled against us, and that's part of what we really need to like dig into as a society and as a culture. We want our men to show up. We have to be accountable. One of the things that I was talking about before around cancellation is important too, in that we have to be real about this world and bad things happen, right, but if we run people out of our communities, they move on to other communities and then they become predators in other places where people don't know who they are. When we can enfold people into our communities and make sure that there's some safe boundaries and make safe containers for our communities with individual accountability, that to me, is what the beginnings of real liberation and real freedom looks like.

On LGBTQ+ Community

Speaker 1 30:55

A thousand percent agreed. So this one, you ready for it?

Speaker 2 30:59

The one thing I wish others understood about my community is that we're all crying inside, but also that we're all beautiful and we have the deep capacity to love and that we bring such varied skill sets. We bring tenacity, we bring the incredibly focused will to be who we are and to be real to whatever work we end up pursuing, and we work hard.

Speaker 1 31:24

Yeah, in such beautiful, creative ways. Yeah, I love that too. Okay, so the one thing I wish my community, or communities, understood about this work, it's never ending to give yourself a break.

Speaker 2 31:37

There's other people alongside of you who will work with you. Allow others the opportunities to do the work. Also, make sure you have others to help you. One person can't do it all, and then the big thing is like we're all humans, so we got to forgive ourselves. We got to know that we're all showing up as best we can. Mistakes are going to happen.

Speaker 1 31:59

And guess what? This is something you are still going to be grappling with, probably a year from now, if we talk again you're a funder, now right, like I. Still, there's no space where I'm like I'm a, I am funder. I got funder power, except in community. That's how I'm perceived and it's a wild switch. So when we're talking about this work, I'm talking about that funder perspective, because now you're on that flip side Got you, got you. Yeah, it's a hard, it's a hard transition, definitely yeah.

Speaker 2 32:23

It's just beginning to unfold. I'm a bud.

Speaker 1 32:26

I guess I'll say like we're trying our best, especially in the context in which we're doing this work, the South 30 mile radius outside of Asheville city center. It's hard, there's so many histories.

Speaker 2 32:36

Yeah, you know, people always talk about the South and like everything's about being in relationship. Everybody says the South is very relational and I agree with that Really long memories and we don't forgive a lot of the time. But that's the kind of stuff that we need to shift and that's where, like, let's be real about it, let's have actual conversations where we're speaking truth, we want to be respectful of individuals and not try to hurt people's feelings, but also like let's not not say something because so-and-so is in the room, for example. Like we just have to be real about what's gone down in the past and how we can do differently and be better be about it be better.

Wrap UP: Hope & Visions

Speaker 1 33:13

So earlier I asked you who you are and how you show up and how those differences play out for you. So, following up on that, wrapping this up, I have this question for you. So, first, who do you hope to become in the world and in this work? And second, what, if anything, would expedite you getting there, so in this world?

Speaker 2 33:31

I want to be somebody who is thoughtful and uses access to the resources that I have to make greater access for others who are doing important social justice work.

Speaker 2 33:43

So if there's anything that we can do to make a process more streamlined, easier, so that we can bring the resources that are needed, and also to be creative, I want to be creative about what that looks like the resources that are needed and also to be creative. I want to be creative about what that looks like. The biggest thing that I would love to do is try to help figure out more around how we can heal as a community. To me, really, what that looks like is how can we find the places and be real with each other where different groups of us have been in opposition, basically because we've been competing for resources? How can we work shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand? How can we really be in community with each other rather than in community alongside of each other? That, to me, is what I would like to learn how to do more personally Social justice and justice and equity in Asheville, and in Asheville is what makes it so exciting.

Speaker 1 34:32

Yeah, it is exciting Because we talk about those histories and those harms, but we're right here in front of each other. We can sit down and say hey, about that, I'm sorry, and move along, because there truly is work to do and I don't know how the other side comes together so quickly. But it is definitely something that I hope we can lean into. We can hash it out over dinner sometime, but, like right now, we need to come together and figure out how to keep all of us thriving and safe.

Speaker 2 35:01

We all know the other side we'll just call it the other side is trying to keep us divided. It's petty infighting that keeps us divided, and is that rooted in real hurts and real humanity? Yes, it is A lot of it's, because we really truly want equity. We don't want just one person leading us and telling us all what to do, and I think that that might be part of what we struggle with, and it can be harder for us to build a movement, because it's a lot easier when one person's running the show.

Speaker 1 35:26

I just want that definition of all to truly include all.

Speaker 2 35:30

Yeah, yeah. We can't be single issue, we've got to all jump in. So what would?

Speaker 1 35:34

you need or what would help you get to that future self faster in this work?

Speaker 2 35:39

That is a tough question, michael. I think it's more opportunities for that communication, more opportunities for people to lean into trust with each other and speak the truth about what they feel either has happened or about how certain people are, so that we can dispel some of these myths that are keeping us bound.

Speaker 1 36:00

So, in terms of in Zedek's office, what we can do then is work and keep working towards creating that kind of culture and that environment where those tough conversations can be had but where we can be human and screw up screw up a thousand times over, but also held accountable, and then just be together, really know each other. It's kind of the container that would help you, bring you out. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 36:24

And lots of coffee Zeke.

Speaker 1 36:25

any final words before we wrap this up?

Speaker 2 36:28

This has been fantastic. I'm really excited to be a part of CEDEC and to carry the work forward. It's also really cool to be a Jewish person in this organization as well. Just, I hope to bring a little bit more of that flavor into the work and thank you so much.

Speaker 1 36:43

We are thrilled and privileged to have you as part of this team. Ashley, you heard it here first Until next time we'll see you. Same time, same place. Until then, peace, Peace.