Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers
TRIGGER WARNING -
THIS PODCAST CONTAINS THE STORIES & EXPERIENCES OF THOSE WITH LIVED EXPERIENCES OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE. CONTENT MAY BE TRIGGERING.
Welcome to "Conversations with my Sisters' Keepers," dedicated to normalizing the trauma recovery experience of survivors of complex trauma and gender-based violence (GBV). We bring awareness, share stories, and promote healing-centered conversations for lived experience professionals and allies in the gender-based violence and recovery sectors. By sharing authentic stories and experiences, we hope to break down stigma, promote understanding, and celebrate the self-discovery within healing.
Together, we’ll explore strategies, resources, and insights to support wellness, recovery, and leadership. Join us as we challenge stigma, celebrate autonomy, and normalize the healing journey.
Let’s build a community of understanding and empowerment—one conversation at a time.
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Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers
Dr. Celia Williamson: Empowering Change (Part 1)
Join us as we sit down with Dr. Celia Williamson, a pivotal force in the anti-human trafficking arena, as she invites us into a world where healing and empowerment go hand in hand. Dr. Williamson dismantles the stigma surrounding survivors and champions the necessity for authentic, survivor-led initiatives. Her insights into the Canadian G100 Anti-Human Trafficking Wing's mission highlight the need for collaboration and the power of lived experience in leadership roles, urging us to keep ego at bay for the greater good.
Our conversation widens to explore stories steeped in resilience, where overcoming systemic and racial violence becomes a journey of finding one’s voice. Personal narratives reveal the strength it takes to rise above societal injustices and how the encouragement of family and faith in education can inspire individuals to redefine their potential. These tales of grit remind us that self-belief and persistence are essential tools for navigating and challenging the adversities of gender-based violence and racial discrimination.
From grassroots activism to academic triumphs, discover how determination and support can lead to transformative success. Hear about the struggles and triumphs of those who faced domestic violence, academic hurdles, and a world demanding conformity, yet emerged as leaders and change-makers. Dr. Williamson shares how her path in social work led to impactful programs and conferences that challenge traditional systems, fostering creativity and innovation to address harm and support survivors effectively. Join us for a compelling exploration of perseverance, leadership, and the boundless potential for change.
Welcome to Conversations with My Sisters' Keepers, the podcast where we bring awareness, share stories, and promote healing-centered conversations for lived experience professionals and allies in the gender-based violence and recovery sectors.
I'm Shamin Brown, and together, we’ll explore strategies, resources, and insights to support wellness, recovery, and leadership. Join us as we challenge stigma, celebrate autonomy, and normalize the healing journey.
Okay, hello, thank you for joining me today. Today I have with us Celia Williamson. Dr Celia Williamson has been engaged in anti-trafficking work for over 30 years. She has published numerous articles, books and reports. She founded the first anti-trafficking program in Ohio in 1993 and directly worked with victims in Toledo for several years. Dr Williamson possesses two doctorate degrees, one in social work and an honorary doctorate in social justice.
Speaker 1:During her career, dr Williamson brought three and a half million to the community for research and services. She co-hosts the oldest and largest annual academic conference on human trafficking in the world and has included representatives from all 50 US states and 60 countries. She founded the first anti-trafficking coalition in her county and has been named the 14th most influential social worker in the nation within the last 10 years. She ranks among the top 100 globally and historically. Currently she serves as the Executive Director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo. We are so happy to have her here with us today. One of my heroes, dr Celia Williamson. Nice to have you. Thank you for coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much, I mean, for doing this, and you, of course, are one of my heroes and I'm just so thankful to have the opportunity to be on here to talk about. You know, what I've done and what I do.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. So you know, conversations with my sister's keepers are crucial for survivors and survivor leaders everywhere. We're really feeling that it's time to advance beyond trauma informed and resilience based narratives of surviving, thriving and leading, and to embrace a healing centered focus on wellness and recovery. So this is part of our aim to challenge the stigma and judgment that many survivors encounter during their healing process. By sharing insights into our own recovery and wellness journeys and our knowledge of the recovery and wellness journeys of others, we can normalize the ongoing and cyclical nature of the recovery experience. What do you feel about that? Do you think that's an accurate statement?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that because I really feel if we bring our authentic selves to the table, to the community, to society, we really can begin to normalize the fact that there are a number of us on a healing journey from whatever may have happened. And if we can normalize that, we can open the doors. And we open the doors, we can all open our hearts and, you know, we can do better work instead of work undercover, we can kind of do work very authentically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I love that so much doing this work authentically. I think it's so important, especially, you know, when we think about the experience of trafficking and being trafficked and how your voice is silenced right, you can't speak up for yourself in a lot of different situations and you're experiencing a lot of stigma when you do not getting the supports that you need, and so being able to have these conversations and normalize some of those experiences might also help people in understanding some of the behaviors of folks who are in this work and that are needing a bit more support Over the next three years. The goals of the Canadian G100 Anti-Human Trafficking Wing are to promote lived experience leadership and autonomy, to support the wellness of lived experience staff, to develop survivor-led, survivor-informed and survivor-facilitated prevention and intervention programs. And to identify ally organizations that are invested authentically in survivor leadership. What do you think about these goals of G100 Canada? Are there any gaps, strengths, barriers? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Well, my initial thoughts is I'm very jealous that you're in Canada and I think you should be in the US doing these things, but I'm very proud, I love those goals. But I'm very proud, I love those goals and I love the idea that there should be this, should be a survivor led movement and anybody who is genuinely concerned about this issue and not their own egos or their own whatevers will know and understand that that is the goal, that's the dream to you know. Help those folks get, gain their voice, power in their voice, lead movements, lead programs. That is the goal, so that, you know, the rest of us can go and tackle whatever. Be a support, be the wind, you know their wings, be all the things that support. You know.
Speaker 2:But some of us are too interested in leading and using our egos. Our egos go before us and that gets us in trouble. And I don't think many of us even understand the real definition of collaboration or that you don't always have to be the leader. You can. You know I make a pretty good follower too. I can lead in areas where there's gaps, but I'm a real good follower, somebody that I trust and has integrity in their leading. I love to follow good leaders. So, yeah, I think those goals set your country, in my opinion, on the right path.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I love that. And on the topic of leading and following, I'll say I hate to lead. I do it out of necessity but, you know, always looking for someone else to take the reins.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, that's much more comfortable helping folks, you know, develop their own leadership and, you know, being a voice in the background that helps people think through things and plan things and readjust things, as opposed to, you know, being the one who makes all of those decisions and guides or, I guess, leads that process. I do love. I do love to be the one to support and see how people grow and see how things take place when there's more ideas than just my own right, building on on the strengths of others.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So I would love, celia, I know before we started recording I had kind of asked you a little bit about your lived experience and what that looked like, because we've known each other for around six or seven years now but I didn't know that part about you. So how do you feel about walking us through some of your lived experiences and expertise in education, of course, in both supporting and perhaps even having survived abuse, trauma, addictions, mental health, any of those types of challenges?
Speaker 2:mental health, any of those types of challenges. Well, I think you know from my lived experience it of course has shaped who I am and why I do what I do. I have evolved, elevated from those experiences, but those experiences really shaped my heart and put me on a path to help other people, and it's through those experiences that I feel authentic and I feel like I'm in the right place to be doing this. And so my, I think, two, two major and then and then some less impactful, but two major experiences I had. You know, I was a victim of domestic violence, particularly intimate partner violence, not once but twice through my life. I just didn't know, I didn't. I think I got myself into that situation because I don't think I felt worthy of having somebody who respected me, and so those lasted about eight years in total and I think it also just this feeling of worthlessness I think that I felt really came from what I call like systems trauma. And you know, I went to, I went to a high school that when I asked for the college materials, they, they didn't, they refused them. They put me in my senior high school, my, my whole senior high school experience was being in home economics, I mean from nine o'clock to three o'clock and I didn't have special needs. I didn't have special needs, wow. So that was sort of the school system saying to me like we give up on you, I hope that you can cook so that you can work a fast food job or something like we don't have faith. When I went to my health care appointments they were. They consisted of pap smears to see if I had a sexually transmitted disease. I thought until I was 30 years old that that was what a physical was. I did not know that other people got their blood pressure checked and get blood work done. I knew none of that. It was always do you have a sexually transmitted disease? You don't? Okay, you're done.
Speaker 2:And you know my whole family being, you know, black in America back in the day, we were quickly redlined into a poor neighborhood, you know, and redlining, of course, in the US is when realtors and housing markets everybody agrees that we are going to designate this very poor area with pollutants and poor environment and we're going to let you all live here. And you know, despite my dad trying to get loans to which he could afford because he worked for the government and left the house every day in a suit and tie. But because he was Black, you can't get the loan to live here, you have to live here. So people in my neighborhood, their parents, were struggling, the kids went off to the children's home. Sometimes there was alcoholism, there was drugs, poor, very poorly rated school system. And so those traumas of telling you in every system, health care system, you know, you don't matter.
Speaker 2:That, I think, impacted my self-esteem probably more than anything and then led me into, of course, with this buying into what society keeps telling me, led me to choose partners in my life that were abusive, that continued to tell me in physical ways that you are indeed worthless.
Speaker 2:And so I think having and that's why I'm so happy about this a podcast like this is because it doesn't just say hey, so tell us about your successes and your, you know, I always call them like your real, your R-E-E-L. Oh, here's the highlights of my success story, you know, on Facebook and Instagram or whatever. And then I like to call it your real, your R-E-A-L, like what's really going on. Because I think if people knew where some people came from or overcame or still struggle with, they'd be like, oh, all right, Well then, yeah, I could still hold on to my dreams and hopes, even though I came from here, or I still struggle with this. So I love that there's an opportunity to talk about those things, but I think those are my probably the two traumas that really impacted and shaped. You know why I became a social worker and why I wanted to help people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's some systemic violence, some racial violence. So I'm even hearing some like hermeneutic, hermeneutic, like struggling with that word, but you know just this idea that because of who you are, you know less and being provided less. Epistemic injustice as well.
Speaker 1:Right being provided less access to your knowledge and I, you know, hearing your story, I think how amazing to see where you are today as a doctorate. Oh my God, I will never do that. You know, someone who has their doctorate has like it's grueling. And to know that you were raised, grew up not up, not raised, sorry, but you grew up in an environment that basically told you that you could never be, that that you shouldn't even try to be. That is, you know, very powerful and profound, and I think it speaks a lot to how many survivors of gender-based violence have these messages that we're holding on to, that we allow to limit us, allowing the external world to define us, based often on colonial constructs of who we are.
Speaker 2:Exactly, that is so true. And the thing that I did have was I had parents who said, had parents who said you will go to school and you can do anything you can. And so I, I see my friends none of my friends graduated high school and you know, when I look back, there were some protective factors I had, there was some. There was, you know, of course, my family plenty dysfunctional, like everybody's family, but but they did say you can work hard and you can do things and you, you know. So I had that and I think a lot of my friends didn't have that, and so that really, the compounding what's happening in their lives and then a family that might have struggled or didn't really appreciate you know, sort of derailed their lives, whereas I had four other sisters, whereas I had four other sisters.
Speaker 2:We are all Black women and so we know how to roll our heads and tell you off and not listen. And I think you know not listening sometimes is a virtue and not being polite all the time is a virtue, and unfortunately, a lot of women have been taught to be polite and not to talk back and to listen. I didn't listen. I said I see these people on television and they have things and they look pretty happy, and you're telling me that I can't have these things and I'm just hardheaded enough not to listen. I've been that all my life. I think my sisters are too, and I'm very thankful for that, and I want women to hear that being hardheaded and not listening is not always a bad thing.
Speaker 1:It's a superpower. I mean honestly, in a lot of the work that I do, like you've said, so many things that I find really valuable, right. So when I talk about victimization, for example, I'm not looking at specific vulnerability factors. It doesn't matter to me what the specific incident is that happened. At the end of the day, we're looking at what did it cause? And it caused low self-esteem and it caused you to swallow your voice instead of own it, and what we need to do is move towards owning our voice, owning our truth, as opposed to, you know, allowing our voices to be limited by the truths of others.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, I mean, that's poetic because it's so true and it's hard to convey to people that that is the core. You have to begin to step forward and I know that little voice in you that has said don't do it, or I'm afraid. Or that little voice.
Speaker 1:I'm a fraud. That's a big one.
Speaker 2:I mean, it has served to protect us, of course, when we were vulnerable or we're still fearful. But sometimes you just have to have that hardheadedness, what I call it, that not listening to those people who have you pegged and saying you are about this because you know that you're multifaceted and you know that you're multi-talented and so you know I, you got to start turning that voice up a little each time in 2018.
Speaker 1:You said some really important things to me that that has stuck with me for quite some time, and one that you know there's always someone who's going to say yes. So you know, if they're not listening to me in my own community, in my own backyard, you know, just keep talking. So that was one, and relative to that was you know no is a good thing. No doesn't mean no, just keep asking. You just keep asking until you get a yes, and so you know this is this has been my motto, really is it's OK if I fail, it's just not OK if I don't try.
Speaker 2:Exactly. That's so true. I mean I do. I do live by that.
Speaker 2:Keep asking, because I promise you I have asked the ridiculous, because I promise you I have asked the ridiculous things that are ridiculous, that I know the person or the organization should have said no and they ended up saying yes, you don't. I mean if you don't tell yourself no, you've got a shot, but if you tell yourself no, there's never going to be an opportunity where there's going to be yes. So I ask I mean, even when I started my first organization, I had no money, absolutely none, no office space. I couldn't afford a phone. So I just went to different organizations and said, can you give me an office space and a phone and can I use the printer and the copy machine? Well, how much are you paying us? Nothing, but I'm going to do something that's really great and you know you want to be a part of this.
Speaker 2:And I had people give me office space and give me. You know it's ridiculous, but I have learned to ask the ridiculous in the right, for the right reasons, with the code of ethics, with integrity. There are people that will open their doors and they will. They will do it because they see you, they see your mission and they see your heart and they're like I do want to be a part of that. So yeah, I think for the right reasons, you can ask people for something you would never ask people.
Speaker 1:I love that. It sounds kind of like we're sliding in a little bit to like what early career looked like, and I definitely want to get back to that. But I just want to circle back a little bit to your education and expertise, especially knowing that education doesn't sound like it was something that was, you know, in the plans for you, according to others, right. So what did that look like? What kind of education and expertise have you gained over the years?
Speaker 2:Well, I went to a poor performing high school and actually every once in a while I still collect the improvement plans from the same high school. That's still poor performing, and that's been about 25 years. I went to school probably once a week. Once they when I got to high school, my senior year, because once they checked out on me, I'd certainly checked out on them and I would skip school. I would drink, I would smoke weed and we would play poker. We had a lot of fun, but education was not something I was interested in and in fact I.
Speaker 2:My vocation was going to be that of a drug dealer, because of course, that's who I saw in my community and that's who was successful in my community. So I had a great idea. My mother was going to California and she collect your alimony check from your father, because you're the responsible one, and put it in the bank, and you know, okay, I will. So she flew off, he dropped off the check, of course. I went down to cash the check and I thought my harebrained ideas I'm going to buy.
Speaker 2:You know, back then it was, you know, marijuana was illegal. So I'm going to buy a pound of weed, I'm going to bag it up. I'm going to sell it With that profit. You know, I'm going to bag it up, I'm going to sell it With that profit. I'm going to put myself on and I'm going to be a drug dealer and I'm going to replace her money in the bank Nobody's the wiser. And of course I'm in the drug business now. So I call all my friends over and we have a big old party to announce that I'm in the drug business. We're drinking, we're smoking and of course I pass out, and of course I wake up the next day all the weeds gone. No, so I um.
Speaker 1:So then your mom came and whipped your butt. I'm angry for her Right.
Speaker 2:No, so I I came up with my second you know scheme, which is you know you're in the neighborhood, so somebody rips you off. I mean that gets around town. You cannot let that happen. That's your credibility. You're going to be, you're going to be vulnerable to other things now if you don't handle that.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:So I call up the guy, of course that I think stole it, and I told him if he doesn't replace all of my product I'm going to shoot him. I have no gun, I'm just talking. You know talking, and so there's a lot that happens. But I end up intimidating the guy and he's willing to meet me in an alley. We meet in an alley. He gives me whatever he has left of the weed. He has some drugs Back then it was double dome THC which was the hot thing and so now within 24 hours I'm in the drug business.
Speaker 2:I got robbed. Now I'm on LaGrange Street, which is a notorious street here in my city, and I sold all the weed. I sold all the Double Dome THC, and I still don't have enough money. So I have to get my friend who has birth control pills, and now we're selling birth control pills up and down the green street as double dome THC. Now I have people pissed because they're getting what we call dummies. You're getting a drug that's not a drug and made just enough money besides putting my friend at risk for pregnancy now. But I made just enough money to put my mother's alimony money back in her checking account and it was an abysmal failure. And so I thought well, maybe I should try this school thing. The drug dealing thing isn't isn't panning out. So I ended up going to community college because I wasn't confident enough to go to like a four year university. So I did that. I did fairly well and then transferred. I took social services technology. So it's like being a social worker, but not really. It was an assistant to a social worker.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, I think that's great. You're learning from the bottom up. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I ended up transferring over to the four-year university, which they really didn't take many of my credits, which they really didn't take many of my credits. So basically, I had to start over and do a four-year degree and I did that at the University of Toledo, and then Ever since, no.
Speaker 2:There's never an end to the semester, it starts over and over and over. But I got my master's at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland and that's where I learned shortly before that. That's where I learned not to say no. So I applied to Case Western. You had to have a 2.7 grade point average, which is basically like a C, a hair above a C, a C, a hair above a C. And I had a 2.69, which is a little hair under a C. But I applied anyway because I had learned don't tell yourself no. So I applied anyway. Let them tell me no, and they didn't admit me, but they did ask to interview me. So I drove to Cleveland for an interview. I was 45 minutes late for the interview.
Speaker 1:Oh boy. Yeah, what happened, celia?
Speaker 2:Being cultural.
Speaker 1:you know, time didn't really mean much to me, Okay.
Speaker 2:So we're doing that.
Speaker 1:Caribbean time.
Speaker 2:I was, and you know I was driving like 80. I got a speeding ticket and all the things and I went in and I told the guy he was reading his paper by then and I went in and I said, hey, I'm so sorry I'm late Like this. You know I'm so sorry I'm late like this. You know I'm here for the interview. 45 minutes ago, and you know, he put his paper down and he said, yeah, you are late. And he put his paper back up and started reading it again. And so I said, okay, like I told myself, just walk away, just walk away, just walk away. But I just I see my feet moving forward toward him and I'm like in my mind, I'm like, oh my god, stop, stop. But I keep walking toward him. And I just took my finger and I pulled his paper down and I said, excuse me, sir, he's like yeah, I've said.
Speaker 2:You know I'm Celia Williamson. I just want a moment of your time. I just want to tell you about my hopes and my dreams and what I've been through and where I'm going. And I'd love to have Case Western's name attached to it. And you mind if I sit down while I'm sitting down. And then I just went I wouldn't let this man go. And then he, just after like 30 minutes, he was like look, I'm, I'm going to tell you what. I'm going to walk over here and I'm going to personally admit you into this school. And I just want one thing, and I was like what he goes, I want to see you walk across that stage during graduation. I believe I believe in you and so, you know, once I found out that not always works, but you could find people who believe in you if you're trying to do the right thing. So that's how. That's really how I got into Case Western and it's a pretty prestigious school and I was not of that material.
Speaker 1:That was a question I had actually, you know, curious about college and then making the decision to go into four years from that, like how were your grades? Did you surprise yourself? Like years from that, like how were your grades Did you surprise yourself? Like it seems like you just gained this hunger for education. It doesn't sound like it would have been a really positive experience based on the past, but what was it like?
Speaker 2:Well, my community college days was not. I was not the stellar student. I got C's. Occasionally I got D's. I was going through my first domestic violence relationship. Then I was a lot of energy going into hiding what was really happening and away from my studies. I went to that poor performing high school so I couldn't write. When I went to community college, the only thing you had to do in composition one was you had to write 10 successful paragraphs, and I couldn't do it, and so I I flunked out of that class and so again, I'm very, you know, stubborn person, so I took it again and I failed again.
Speaker 2:And so I took it a third time and I finally passed. And so I wasn't a great student then, and I spent my electives taking writing classes so that I could improve. And then, by the time I got to be a senior, I was like, oh my God. Well, first, when I graduated the two-year degree, I was like, oh my God, I fooled them. And it's like, no, no, you didn't fool them, you passed the classes. And so, yes, Before that yeah.
Speaker 2:And so yes, yeah, and I kind of always knew deep down that I was smart, but not book smart. And so I went on to the four year degree and I did better and by my senior year I was making A's and B's because I really focused in and I was not in an abusive relationship that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah so you can concentrate yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could concentrate. And then I got some self-esteem because you know, when you see something tangible, you say, wow, that really happened. And so then people encouraged me. I had mentors that said man, you should get your master's. And I tried it and I did and it worked. So then I wanted the PhD, because why?
Speaker 2:not I was so used to living under so much stress and being hungry sometimes or being, you know, living. I had leaky roofs, I had mice, I had roaches, I had you know, it was just. I cannot stay here. This is not me, it's not for me, I'm not designed for this. Because, you know, once you start having self-esteem, you start having like real, real hopes and dreams. Yes and so, yeah, yeah, that was the very first year in my PhD program. At the end of that first year, they called me in and the other PhD mentors told me that I was the weakest student in the program. Wow, and I went home and cried and I just thought, you know, I had dragged my daughter to a different state. She was under five. I quit my job, I sold my house. I didn't have anything else to go back to. Really, I mean my mom's house, of course. But so that second year, the end of that second year, I won the Researcher of the Year Award.
Speaker 1:Wow, oh yeah, from weakest student to award winner.
Speaker 2:I really didn't understand the, the socialization, the culture of what a doctoral student has to do. I didn't get that because I didn't have a mentor at that level. I didn't have family that did that. I didn't know. I didn't know how to behave. So once I knew that, it was like study all the time. We're serious. Once I understood that, then I understood the rules of the game. Socialization is the rules of the game, and then I could comply with that and even exceed that. I just studied, studied, studied.
Speaker 1:And you have an honorary doctorate as well.
Speaker 2:I do Just from doing the work over the years. Actually, the woman who runs G100, you know, the global 100 women of which you are the global woman of Canada honored me with that for the social justice work that I've done over the 30 years from a school in India.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love that. Yeah, yeah, you talked a little bit about sorry, I just want to circle back to this. I made a little note here. You were talking about being in school and kind of having that distraction from dealing with domestic violence and then, you know, being in school another time without that distraction. I just wanted to kind of comment on that around how much personal issues in you know, folks with lived experience, folks who are survivors of some form of gender-based violence, how those personal experiences can really affect our work, our productivity, the quality of what we're doing, our ability to achieve our dreams and sometimes even our ability to build relationships, all of which further affect our self-esteem, making us more vulnerable to, you know, bullshit, really Right, but just you know again, perfect example, because it's never that you weren't capable, right, it's that you didn't have the safety to be able to grow and learn.
Speaker 2:Yes, I didn't have the quietness. Sometimes my time wasn't mine, because if your abuser walks in, you have to. You know what does he need. What is he thinking? Is he in a good mood? Did I do this right? How should I answer All of your things?
Speaker 2:You know you go into survival mode. It's about survival and safety and that's your primary. So being able to put your sort of intellectual thinking cap on in another area is not only foreign, it's not in your best interest when you're dealing with that. And then even when that person is gone out of your life, well, first you don't know when they're ever going to show up, pop out of the bushes, kick your door in, but later on, even when they're gone, you don't feel worthy. This person is sort of beating you down, not physically so much as you know emotionally, and you just, yeah, you know it's a process and that's why I love for me anyway, tangible accomplishments really lifted my self-esteem and told me I mean, even today, you know, out of all the things I'm still learning, you know I'm still working on three things and I'm still discovering that.
Speaker 2:You know I have to pat myself on the back and go Celia, you don't, you don't't have to. You don't have to work so hard now. You don't have to prove yourself now. Who are you trying to prove? You know, it's like I still feel if I don't work hard, maybe I'm not worthy of this position. And then I have to say to myself you've done the things. And I have to say to myself you've done the things.
Speaker 1:And even if you didn't do the things, when you lay your head, on the pillow at night feel good that you've done some things, not all the things, yeah, and that's part of that socialization. I think that capitalist hustle culture, right, is part of the socialization and at some point we have to move into this place where we acknowledge that rest is resistance. Right, we are within a colonial system that's going to really drive us to do things that are not in the best interest of our social wellness, our mental wellness, our, our time over our creativity. You know, not saying be terrible employees, but absolutely have some limits and some boundaries and be paying attention to what you need to be well, Because that rest is just as important as the hustle.
Speaker 2:So much, so much so. And you know, I still I may be calling you up every now and then and say, can you repeat that again? Because I really, that is what you know. My struggle is now is get the rest in, get the rest in, and I'm doing that now, but it's still a struggle. It will creep up to me and say, hey, you remember, you have this too, and it's like, but I'm going to rest right now Because again it's the system telling you go, go, go.
Speaker 1:And you're not good enough. If yes, right. You're only good enough when, and we need to get rid of that and or kind of thinking and start moving into both and Right. I am both productive and entitled to rest. Yes, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely so, and a little bit of fun.
Speaker 1:So I'm into that. What is fun?
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:Can you define that for me? Yeah, working is fun for me. Yeah, working is fun for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I do so much enjoy what I do. So when people say, oh man, you work all day, Like part of that is I do enjoy what I do and I'm inspired by what I do and I love to be around people who are like you see it, when they found their thing, like they love it, whether it's accounting or whether it's whatever it is, you see them not really stressed in a bad way, Like they kind of enjoy it. And and I get up in the morning and I'm still excited to do the things that I'm into right now. And so you know I'm still loving it. But now I have learned to rest and learn to have some fun. But that little voice is still in there saying, yeah, you need, you need to get back to work.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, and those are the drivers. Again, thinking about victimization, I think that oftentimes we focus too much on the bandaid, like I described, for example, sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. A lot of people want to focus on that as the issue and not to say that it's not. But the underlying layers of that, all the way down to, again, poor self-esteem, right, those layers don't go away when you stop being trafficked and those are the layers that we really need to be attending to. And that kind of comes back to that ego-based work, because if I've saved you and you're no longer on the streets, I feel good about me and the work that I've done, but I'm not acknowledging that you still have work to do and need support in that work. That's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. I think that is the struggle with people who have a cursory understanding of sex trafficking or any kind of interpersonal trauma. If I find you housing, then I can say I found the housing, I and you and you have sort of some payoff from that. But what many people who only have you know. I mean we have people that have a very top of the surface understanding and they're going out and passing laws that are really creating collateral damage for vulnerable and poor people.
Speaker 2:And that's one of the issues is you know, what I see in women particularly, that experience interpersonal trauma, powerlessness and shame these two things derail a person's hopes and dreams.
Speaker 2:I mean, shame is so deep that I mean it incorporates worthlessness and low self-esteem and all the things that I won't, even you don't even have to tell me. You know, go to the back of the bus, I'll walk to the back of the bus and powerlessness like this is my lot in life and this is it and that's it and I don't have, I can't really change it and I'm just trying to make it. It and that's it and I don't have, I can't really change it and I'm just trying to make it and and those two sort of derail your hopes and your dreams in this, in it steals your joy. So. But even when they talk about trauma and PTSD and medication and treatment, they don't really talk about the daily living skills needed to combat powerlessness and shame. And so I mean that and I experienced that in domestic violence is just like you know, I was sabotaging some of my I get right to the threshold of something I wanted and then something would happen, and you know, but I was comfortable.
Speaker 1:I feel like you're telling on me right now.
Speaker 2:Because it's like we all experience it right and it it's like I could blame it on whatever. But you know it's, and I was just talking to to a person yesterday and I said did you? Did you apply for admission yet to school? No, because I'm on house arrest until mid-january. Okay, well, that mean you can't use the phone. No, I I said okay, why don't you list? I want you to sit down and list 10 ways that you're going to sabotage yourself and then you will bring it into your consciousness and then when you start to do it, you can skip all that and you can just go number three. So let's just get real. When we call each other, you can say, celia, I'm practicing number five right now. Ok, so yeah, but that's what I did. A lot is self-sabotage and I still will get to the brink and you know, some things will start happening and I'll start saying, well, I'm not going to send that form today, I'm not going to call them and I'll be like what are you doing?
Speaker 1:yeah. I'm with you, sister, yeah, yeah. So then that's where I'm like. Rest is resistance, I don't care, but sometimes, you know, sometimes rest is just foolish, yeah, but I mean, I don't know when to rest also.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean I remember you doing talking, talking about the podcast and then putting the pieces in place and now doing the podcast. So I'm you know it's just it's good to for the audience to understand that people still get to that threshold and still fear or whatever will take over, but they just end up pushing through it and doing it.
Speaker 1:You just got to do it anyways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know, there is that imposter syndrome, there's the shame, there's the worthlessness. I have a girlfriend right now who was the first person in her two, actually, who were the first folks in their family to do any post-secondary school One. It took her probably until she was 27 just to get her high school diploma because she kept quitting and then going back, quitting and then going back. She's now a doctorate, owns her own business, is doing fabulous. Another one who you know she was to go to school for nursing and I remember, like yourself, there was one class that she just couldn't get and I remember her saying to me I don't care, I'm going to be a nurse and I'm going to keep doing that class until I pass. She did it four times before she passed and at the end of the day, we can be and do anything we want.
Speaker 1:The trick is do not give up on yourself. That's it, that's it. The trick is do not give up on yourself. That's it, that's it, that's it. Right, eventually you're going to find your tribe. I'm curious, celia, why trafficking? I mean you, yeah. Why? Why sex trafficking? Why did you choose this work? What brought you into it, and what are you doing now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I worked at a little community center, um, on the north side of Toledo, in my city, and that's was the highest crime area. I think it still is today. I was a social worker and I was helping families and you know just all kinds of things. I had people that couldn't read and I would read their mail. They'd bring it to me every day. Or we take people to the grocery store and, um, and you know, I would drive by these women that were out there.
Speaker 2:And the thing is is I didn't like that. I thought what are you doing? We're trying to work with kids and families and healthy environments, and here you doing. And then I had a friend who drove into work and told me yeah, you know, I threw a glass of water on one woman. It's like, wait a minute, I don't like that. And so I went in my office. I said I don't like that at all. What is this coming up in me? And I thought, oh, I know what it okay.
Speaker 2:So social workers, we're supposed to be working with the poor, the vulnerable and the oppressed. That is our mission, and I'm working with the beautiful, the worthy and the deserving, pat myself on the back thinking I'm doing a good job and I didn't like this oppression that I saw and so I thought OK, you know, as a good student, I go to the library and I'm looking up stuff like programming. What do you do? What do you now see anything? And the research I do see is about HIV and I'm thinking wait, are they funding? Just just keep the HIV away from the good middle class people in society. I mean, this is the. These are the conclusions I'm coming up with. So there's nothing. The only thing in my city was called arrest you and incarcerate you and I was like how's that working? It's not working. So I started to build relationship and I started to smile. As I went by, I started waving. These women thought I was crazy.
Speaker 1:On the street you're saying shaving.
Speaker 2:These women thought I was crazy. On the street, you're saying yeah, and they would just turn their heads away from me, like what is this crazy woman doing, you know? And then I would slow my car down, I would say good morning, you know. And I kept doing that until one day I was leaving the center, I was getting ready to lock up and leave, and one of the women came to the door that I had been saying good morning to and she said it was her son's birthday and he was going to be five and he loved blue, the color blue, and she goes. You know what? You've seen me. You know I didn't make any money, you know I'm struggling.
Speaker 2:And so we went and we got some gifts that we had in the attic from an old Christmas party, got some coloring, food coloring and some cake mix and all the things. And from then on I would stop and I would talk to her for as long as she would let me, before she got uncomfortable, I would get out of the car and I would talk, and so I just built this relationship and then she would introduce me and introduce me and I just ended up like three times a week on the streets for six months just spending my day talking to women. And then I said well, you know, if we developed a program that would help and support women, what would it look like? And so what would it be called? And so they named it, they designed it and I went to the city council and I begged them for money and they promptly said no.
Speaker 2:And then I did a needs assessment that I learned in school in my master's program and I went to give it to a city council and they said do you have an appointment? No, I mean, I was really politically ignorant. So the secretary got up to go to the bathroom and I saw her leave the desk and I just right, this is honest to God's truth I turned around and I put the needs assessment on one of the city councilman's desks. That I thought was probably most sort of maybe sympathetic or something to the issue. So he read the needs assessment because it's on his desk. He thought he was supposed to read it.
Speaker 2:And so that's really how the whole thing got started, and I got a little bit of seed money from the city to start doing street outreach, and so I did that and I built my street credibility. And so when women went to jail or whatever, they would go to court and they would say, I want to go to this program that I had designed, and so the judges would be like what, what is that? And so it really grew from a grassroots issue and the program ran from 1993 to 2018. Wow, yeah, yeah, and it stayed kind of grassroots, with case management and groups. We ran. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1:And now? What are you doing now?
Speaker 2:Beautiful and now, what are you doing now? Now I I've done the same thing at the university. I got my PhD, got a job at the university, started the conference, which is now in its 22nd year, but in the name of the conference. The conference is the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference and people can find it at trafficking conference dot com here conference and people can find it at traffickingconferencecom in the air and it's always in September. But we started the conference just by saying, hey, we need to talk to other people in other communities about this issue. What is that called? Oh, that's called the conference. Okay, let's have one. Put up a website.
Speaker 2:They were well, we don't have any money like we never have money, just put up the website, we're gonna call it a national conference. Um, they're like who, who is? Who is endorsing who is telling us that it could be called the national conference? I'm like, I'm telling you it can be called a national conference, so nobody would do it. But I got these students. You know students believe and they are bright. I like to hang with them because they inspire me and they said, hell, yeah, we can do it. And they put up the website.
Speaker 2:And we got people that came from all across the US. You know we thought we would have it one day, one hour, a presenter every hour. We ended up having it three days because we had so many presenters that just wanted to collaborate or talk to each other. They were so siloed and you know we're cultural people, right. So my mother cooked, my sister cooked for the people and brought it in, and the university came over and said what the hell are you doing? Who authorized you to do this? I said I did. Well, you can't do that I love, because my saying is always oh, I didn't know that, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:I have a professor who was you know. The one thing I remember him teaching us is it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Exactly.
Speaker 2:So I said one of my favorite lines is yeah, I didn't know I couldn't do that. And by the second year they found out my family was cooking and they said you have to use the approved caterer. You can't just be people, can't just bring food. But oh, okay, well, I didn't know, I couldn't do that. I stand corrected. So we just kept doing that until around the fourth or fifth year. Some of the people that attended would call the central administration and they would say this is is amazing. Like your, your university is so progressive. And then you know they would say things like well, yeah, of course we are, you know if it fails, it's your fault, if it succeeds, it's ours.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. They would charge me for the room. You know it's everything except supported. They would charge me for the room. You know it's all everything except supported, until people were acknowledging this is very innovative. And then they didn't help me. They just didn't charge me. They let me use the space, and things like that. And so you kind of see in a pattern here of maybe stubbornness and not listening, and yes, so, yes and yes. So that passion and purpose is what I'll reframe that as get out there and do something harmful and hurtful. But you know, I look back on the social justice leaders. Like Martin Luther King, the leaders did not follow rules and policies that were unjust or that didn't help the people. I mean, you don't follow along just because they said you have to follow along. So I will color outside the lines if it's necessary and if it helps the people and you don't have new results by doing the same thing.
Speaker 1:So this is my challenge with education and systems. As I feel you know, we're constantly training people to be carbon copies and to reproduce work that's already being done, which is really just an exercise in maintaining the status quo. There's no change that comes from that and no real growth for our communities, our nation, our society or the survivors that we're trying to serve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I think that that kills people's creativity in it and that could be by design as a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 1:Well, tool of colonialism, right, we don't want new thinkers, we don't want to actually do anything other than maintain the status quo, because that may create some emancipation.
Speaker 2:that then affects the elitists and their control and their dominance right, which is why we learn about the wars and the dates in history class instead of learning about your rights and social justice leaders, because we might be growing people then that challenge the very system. So, yeah, I color out of the lines a lot until it becomes normalized, like in my state now it's very normalized to talk about the issue. In fact, politicians and the governor and the ohio attorney general, they host the anti-trafficking coalitions and commissions and yes, and that's, that's great. Um, but somebody has to come along as as pioneers and buck the system start the conversation yeah, exactly, let's uh put a spotlight on the elephant in the room.
Speaker 2:Really, right, right that's right that carpet up and look underneath, yeah yeah, exactly, and so that's been, that's been part of my role, and now my state of course is scaling way back to to say things like you know, racism really isn't an issue. Gender-based violence well, you know, we've already got enough in place. Women, you have equal rights to do whatever you, so why we don't need to do anything special, and so it's really rolling a lot of things backward.
Speaker 1:Backwards? Yeah, Well, and that's a byproduct of government as well. Yeah, I can't even imagine what women and people of color you know what that transition feels like right now.
Speaker 2:Yes, and of course, in this country, you know our immigrants are very fearful and things like that. But in terms of you know our work, my work, I will continue to do whatever I can at the university to help people, help students and help my community, which is local to global. And you know, the latest thing I'm doing is really working on a behavioral health organization to focus on healing from interpersonal traumas through groups and treatments and case management and all the things. So that's my next endeavor that I'm excited to get involved in.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, and I'll just say that the the human trafficking conference is one of my favorite programs experiences. It's something that I talked about quite a bit and I just want to kind of highlight what I find is very unique about it, which caused me to fall in love with it the first time I came, and there's a couple of different pieces, I think. First is the open invitation and the prioritization of lived experience. Experts having lived experience, people come in and share their knowledge. But, you know, alongside that is that we're not.
Speaker 1:There isn't a focus on abolitionism, right? We're not getting locked into this polarization of values. We're coming together as a community that wants to address harm being done, whether it's to pro-sex, you know, abolitionists, what have you? And finding those common ground, finding overlapping concerns, finding ways to work together to address the needs of the people we're serving, as opposed to, you know, working in silos and trying to be right, at the risk of good quality service, collaboration and expansion of knowledge, and that's super valuable. We have folks who are in this podcast who you know were pro-sex, did put themselves through school and had you know other experiences. However, in talking with them, they fully recognize that exploitation exists in that field. They saw it firsthand, even if they don't identify as themselves being personally exploited. And those are really important conversations for us to be having with one another.
Speaker 2:show you should be our publicist, because you came and you got it, because that is exactly what we do and that's why we call ourselves an academic conference, and people don't always understand that distinction.
Speaker 2:But an academic conference is not a political conference where everybody comes together and everybody agrees and everybody reaffirms what everybody agrees. An academic conference challenges you to say here are people that you might not agree with, here are people you definitely don't agree with. Listen to them, Because if you sit and listen you might walk away thinking, okay, I got to expand my mind to incorporate this new way of thinking. Or I walk away saying that's why I don't agree with that side, but now I walk away understanding that side's point so that I can be clear in what I don't agree with. Either way, it pushes society forward and not have people stuck in their silos being reinforced by each other. It's always uncomfortable to have diversity of thought, to hear from people who think differently than you do and you don't have to agree with them. Think differently than you do and you don't have to agree with them, but you need to know what they're thinking because that's going to impact how you should respond and what you should do, even if you don't agree.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and it helps to expand your thinking as well. I think, right, Like, yes, we know how to respond, but we also now know how to look for nuances that we didn't know existed before. Right, we learn something, but we also have the opportunity to teach something. And again it goes back to like we're starting conversations, right, Not with people who are saying what we're saying, but with people who are saying something different that we can learn something from. And again, if we want to move this work forward, those are the kind of conversations that are really important. That's awesome. Thank you so much, Celia, for coming today. It has just been so incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, much success with the podcast. I'm sure you are helping many, many people who will listen to it and I hope they get something from it. You know, take what you need and leave the rest.
Speaker 1:Thank you listeners for joining us for our conversation with our sisters. Keeper, Dr Celia Williamson. We're so glad to have had you listening today and we look forward to sharing more with you in the future.
