MoCo Black Coffee Podcast Episode 3

Frederick Hawkins talks with Cherri Branson and Dr. Troy Boddy, Co-Chairs of the Montgomery County African American Advisory Group.

MoCo Black Coffee is a platform for intentional dialogue about the Black/African American community in Montgomery County, Maryland. Hosted by African American Community Liaison, Frederick Hawkins, we bring together visionary community and government leaders, dynamic entrepreneurs and cultural champions to build understanding, awareness and strengthen the community. Each episode is brewed strong with insight, intelligence, and intention, centering the strategies, stories and systems that sustain the Black/African American community.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:19

My name is Frederick Hawkins, and I'm the African American Community Liaison for Montgomery County. Welcome to Black Coffee. This is a community program for community progress. And today we have some special guests with us. I am honored to have with me today, so thank you guys for joining. We have Cherie Branson, very long bio. She said that it was a lot to read. But she was a director of procurement, served on Montgomery County Council, and she served for 20 years at the federal level and is a wealth of experience and knowledge who has poured into me personally since taking the role. Also, we have Dr. Troy Bodie. Thank you for being here. This gentleman has been a principal, a director of equity, a director of DEI, and is also a wealth of knowledge and spirit that he brings to the group. And they both are the new co-chairs of the African American Advisory Group. Welcome.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16

Thank you. Thank

SPEAKER_01: 1:17

you. Glad to be here. Yeah, thank you. for being here. You guys are two of my favorite people. So I guess we'll jump right in. We only have 30 minutes. So first, tell us about your experience with the African American Advisory Group. What is the advisory group, for those who don't know? And what is the vision for the group?

SPEAKER_02: 1:39

So I've been on the advisory group for maybe two or three years, I think. I don't know. I lose track of time. And basically the function of the advisory group is to make sure that the concerns expressed by the African-American community are relayed to the county executive. That is really the reason it exists. It has existed, my goodness, I think since Doug Duncan was county executive. This is a very old institution. And what makes it, and I should say we're all volunteers. I'm not getting paid to be here or anything. But what makes it continually vibrant is that we do bring in new members. Everybody does not have the same perspective when it comes to what's necessary to move the county forward. And every member of the advisory group, which I think is really important, comes from different parts of the county. You know, so, you know, it's not all, you know, everybody, people think all black people live in Silver Spring. Okay, so we don't. So it's not just the concerns of one group in one locality, you know, and that's what makes it, I think, representative of, or at least the attempts to be representative of the African-American community throughout the county.

SPEAKER_00: 3:26

And I'm probably one of the newer members. I've only been around for about the last year. And for me, it was seeking out in these crazy times we're in, seeking out spaces where the protection and elevation of black folks in this county was present. And so, you know, just like my colleague said, the wonderful thing about the organization is there are a variety of people from different backgrounds because we're not all a monolith. You know, we're not all the same, you know. And so we get various perspectives. Now, do we have them all? Probably not, you know. But we take in what we have and try to pass that information on again for the advocacy and benefit for african-americans in Montgomery County you know it helps build our community

SPEAKER_01: 4:22

you mentioned something was really important volunteer volunteer how do we balance and how do does the group balance volunteer with advisory advocacy how do you you know make that that balance?

SPEAKER_00: 4:40

I think one of the things that I appreciate because Frederick called and said, would you do this? I was like, I'll do it with someone. So I think that's one way we can create balances by working together because there'll be things that Sheree can go to and I can't and vice versa. And we have different skill sets. So we bring in a different, we even bring in a different perspective. And so I think that helps create that balance. And trying not to ask people to do things that you wouldn't do yourself. That was my philosophy as a principal is like I'm not going to ask my teachers or my support staff to do anything that I wouldn't do myself. So we're all in this together.

SPEAKER_02: 5:22

Exactly. You know, a long time ago I was the president of a PTA. And at that point I learned what I call the STP rule. And the STP is same 10 people. Whatever you need done, it's really going to be the same 10 people. And that has been true throughout any kind of volunteer organization I've been in. And it's not a bad thing. It's just that that's kind of the nature of how people are, right? And so I don't think you can, or I wouldn't expect anybody other than you, because this is like your job, right? So when it comes to volunteers, you really We have to take the pieces that people can give because everybody has full lives. We have jobs, I don't, I'm retired. But for people who have jobs and families and just other concerns, maybe caring for a relative, everybody's not gonna be available at every time. And everybody's not gonna be good at everything. And so the difficult part is is, you know, sort of piecing together that quilt of what people are able to do and when they're able to do it. You know, that's, you know, that's the STP.

SPEAKER_01: 6:52

I like that, STP. If you look around, you'll see a lot of STP. That follows through. Every organization. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Again, always some wisdom coming from that. What's the difference between black progress and the illusion of black progress. In your opinion. I'll go first

SPEAKER_02: 7:13

because I don't work for anybody so I don't care. I call it the illusion of inclusion. I mean, a lot of times, any non-white group is encouraged to believe that they are included in something and that their mere inclusion is enough. Being at the table is not enough if you don't get to eat. So progress, to me, means that you are figuring out out goals and objectives to actually move toward something of significance. And that something of significance has always changed throughout the years. In Jim Crow South, it was integration, or at least desegregation. That was where the goal post was. I mean, and now, you know, I can't speak to anybody else's motivations, but to me, progress means, you know, how are we moving toward freedom, you know, and real freedom, you know? And I think, you know, so we should not confuse the fact that we are at least in this moment included, whatever that may mean, with the notion that we are moving toward freedom. Inclusion is often just an illusion to make it look like you're moving toward something.

SPEAKER_00: 9:12

I think about it in terms of Confederate statues. although they're putting them back up. There was a time they were taking them down, and people were, yes, yes, we've arrived. Have we? Because have the laws changed that protect us, that make our lives better, that allow us to keep more of our money? you know, get us closer to this thing called the American Dream. And so that statue, while, you know, it's down, I don't have to look at it, or we don't have to look at it, it doesn't change our lives. So we have to stop being fooled in looking at the surface level inclusion. Just being allowed in the space doesn't mean you get to move around and access that space like other people do. And so... what's our deep, who really benefits from this, and how do we benefit from being in those spaces, or being in spaces where we're wanted, where we can grow, where we can be nurtured, where we can thrive. And so I always think about those statues and those pledges. We're going to really fight for DEI, and then a certain someone gets elected, it's like, oh, we're gonna move on past that, or that's no longer a thing. So we just have to be planned for what do we really want. Because removing the statue doesn't change our daily lives.

SPEAKER_01: 10:44

That's interesting you say that. When someone is well-intentioned, a non-black person, what are some blind spots that they may have when it comes to the black experience that they may need to know to push this thing forward?

SPEAKER_00: 11:00

I remember once when I was the director of equity, I got an email from a principal that was asking, okay, so how can our office support you? I want to see examples of black children that achieve. And I was like, this is in Montgomery County. And I was like, Montgomery County, if nothing else, there are lots of black folks at leadership positions. At least there were. And so you interact with these people every day and you're asking about black student achievement. You see black excellence all around you. And so that's a blind spot that people in certain spaces are different. I had a conversation with my nephew once. I was like, you're smart and all, but you're doing what you're supposed to do. And don't let people just pump your head that you're an exception. Your whole family's been excellent, even though they may not have all had the same access that you have. Don't let them think that you're any better than somebody down the street. And so the blind spot is... really seeing us as all the same. And, you know, thinking that just, you know, not seeing us, being invisible, you

SPEAKER_01: 12:30

know. The same thing my daughter says.

SPEAKER_00: 12:34

Yeah, it's just being invisible.

SPEAKER_02: 12:36

Yeah, I mean, even if people are well-intentioned, right? I mean, we all have... Being... Being black is a lived experience, right? I mean, I don't know what it means to live like a white man. I've never been one, right? I mean, so I think the biggest blind spot is assuming that you know what my life is, right? And that my life is somehow an example, quote unquote, of other black people too. It's not. But most of my life I've worked in predominantly white environments. And it's always interesting to understand the lack of exposure we have to each other. That is the biggest blind spot. This blonde spot comes from not having exposure. But everybody doesn't have to get together and hold hands and sing Kumbaya. But when I was, I tell this story often about, I went to law school in Indiana, right, because they were happy to pay for me to go to law school there. I was like, sure, I'll come out there and be your, you know. I will check the East Coast diversity box, the woman diversity box, and the black people, happy to do it because y'all gonna pay for my law school and that's gonna make me happy. So anyway, my first year out there, I met, I rode the bus, I didn't have a car, so we had a little bus that traveled around the university, right? Get off. in the dorm, you know, I rode the bus. So one of my bus mates, law school classmates was this guy, his name was George. He was from Indiana, from a very small, he lived on a farm in Indiana. And so, and he would tell me about life on the farm, which I found to be fascinating, right? But, and at some point during these conversations, he confessed to me that he had never actually talked to a black person before. And I was like, really? He's like, yeah. I said, so, but you went to college, there were black people there. You know, I mean, how did, he said, no, I mean, like had a conversation. I said, so what do you, what, where does your impression of black people come from? I'm just curious, you know. And he's telling me from watching Jefferson And I was like, that's interesting. But, you know, and I don't have anything against George and Weezy, but that's not how you learn about actual people, you know. I certainly did not want to be his ambassador to black America. And maybe he didn't want to be my ambassador to farm America, you know. But, you know, we kept having those conversations. And I bring that up because because if I would not have spoken to him, his blind spot would have been just about everything. This guy was gonna go out and practice law somewhere, right? And so his not knowing about just that black people are just regular old people, that would have created an incredible blind spot for him. You know, just like, quite frankly, you know, years later in my career, I worked with black farmers, right? They, you know, I grew up in a small town in West Virginia, but it wasn't really farming, you know. But a lot of what I knew about farming, and the reason they talked to me as opposed to other congressional folk, congressional aides who did what I did, was because I knew about farming. And I knew about farming because I spent those bus rides talking to George, you know. And so, you know, you never know. I mean, blind spots are, we all have them because we all do not live multifaceted lives, you know. And we really do have to take the time. You know, I know this is all kumbaya and stuff, and I don't mean it to, because it's really hard to have those conversations. And you may not want to. That's totally understandable. But those blind spots can either free us or they can continue to allow the prejudices about us to grow. And that's the true danger. You know, because if the prejudices are already there, you know, the ugly is already there. So the only way to undo that is with knowledge.

SPEAKER_00: 18:37

And we're in these silos now where you get fed that which confirms your beliefs. Exactly. So it's even harder now to get out of those cycles. And those stereotypes, too, you just made me think of when I, particularly when I was a principal, people never assumed So going back to that idea of being invisible, there were many instances where I guess these parents never read the newsletter, never looked at the yearbook, but I was the principal at a school for five years and there were still people who was like, you're the principal? Yeah, I'm the principal. And so even being able to see people of color, black people in leadership roles, in all the different roles we have, is still, in 2025, still amazing to some people that we exist in spaces.

SPEAKER_01: 19:32

Right. It's how the blind spot contributes to this institutional oppression, because these are decision makers who impact where you live, how you live, how much you pay, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, that's powerful. Thank

SPEAKER_00: 19:47

you. And in education, these are the people who support our school system, who sometimes teach teach our children, and if they can't see people like us in leadership positions, whether that be as the principal, the teacher in the classroom, there's so many stories. What do you think about kids that look like us, and what are you doing for them?

SPEAKER_01: 20:11

And how do you grade their papers? Right. How do you decide if they should be suspended or should take a second chance, or give them a second chance at whatever that is? So, yeah, pours in, blind spots. So from that point, what are some proactive strategies that we can suggest and we can take to kind of get us to freedom, to get us to this place that we put on paper?

SPEAKER_00: 20:42

It's a big question. I mean, we have to do what we've kind of always done, you know, in terms of being revolutionary. That doesn't always mean shedding blood, but resisting. and pushing back on these things that have happened. How do we protect one another? How do we keep one another safe? These are practices we've always done, which is why we're still here. Sometimes we gotta be forceful, stand our ground and make our voices heard, as well as fight and push back on the system and find joy in it. with all that because that's a lot. That's a lot, you know, to keep up with. You know, when we go back historically, what I do part-time in my retirement is I'm the co-director of the Sandy Springs Slave Museum and African Art Gallery. So grounding it in our history, we were our first emancipators. So we would not serve ourselves wrong waiting for Superman to come and save us because we've always been the ones to save ourselves. And so using these old practices to be proactive, because I think about the movie, The Help. And my great uncles and aunts were all maids and chauffeurs. We knew about how white people live. We knew everything about them. They may drop us off at our homes, but they never really went into our homes. They never explored our lives. And that really has not changed in modern times. And so I think about the help in that we know how they move. We know how they think, how they arrive at decisions. And so we need to use our time-tested strategies. Again, that's why we're still here, to push back on all this foolishness. Because it will pass. It can't sustain although it's going to be painful while we have to endure it.

SPEAKER_01: 22:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:00

You asked about strategies, right? I mean, so I think the first thing is we have to understand and acknowledge that individual tactics are not a strategy. People don't always understand that, right? I mean, so, you know, a tactic may be to protest. You know, a tactic may be to boycott. That's not a strategy. Strategies are linked together with an idea of how you achieve a goal. It's a very, very easy progression. And so as individuals, I think the best thing for us is to, first of all, understand what our individual goals are and what our collective, as a people, goals are. I'll say it 100 times, mine is always freedom. The question then becomes, how as individuals do we get to that? And how do we make sure that as we're trying to get to that, we're pulling other people along with us? That kind of thing is really going to depend on where you are, how you are, and who you are. Because everybody can't do everything. But we can all work in this collective quilt, I really believe in that quilt analogy, you know, to get us to achieve that goal. For me personally, it's always been the equity strategy for me has always been to be Unafraid to say things that other people won't say, you know, it's not that That I am, you know Necessarily Not afraid. It's just that Some days, you know, my great-grandmother told me fear nothing and no one but God and and and that's That's what I've had to live for. That's not a strategy for everybody right so you have to figure out in your spot in your place what can you individually do to move yourself forward but also making sure that you're making space for other people to move forward and probably sounds a little vague but as we all do that then we make space collectively for us all to move forward the best example of that recently is the Target boycott. It wasn't any big bruja. There was no, you know, I don't think there was a big black people meeting that said, we shall now all boycott Target. But somebody started it, you know, and then other people found out. And here we are. And then Target found out. And Target found out. You know, and they felt it. They felt it. And they're continuing to feel it. That is is the kind of collective action that moves us forward to achieving some sort of equity. The same thing happens every time people start pushing back against various and sundry budget cuts. It may be just you and your group that starts to ramp up the knowledge of what this means what affects us. But in doing that, you are also encouraging other people to act. I mean, I really think the days of sitting in the church basement and planning to march are long since gone. But it is totally possible for us to act collectively and to have an impact. And the goal must always be

SPEAKER_00: 27:25

freedom. And pull it on young people too because they need these lessons because they have never had to experience this. I was born at a time where I barely had to. I got to reap the benefits of those that came before me, but they really are removed. So how do we create opportunities too for our youth to learn these strategies so that we don't ever get in this space again. I

SPEAKER_01: 27:55

like that. I like that. Powerful. Final thoughts. Anything you would like the audience to go home with from you, each of you. Final thoughts.

SPEAKER_02: 28:10

Read history. Read history. You know, pick a book. 1619 Project is a good place to start. Watch, make sure, I'll put it this way, here's the most succinct thing I can say, is understand and remember that whatever you put in your head comes in your heart and then comes out through your actions. So be selective about what you're putting in your head. If you are not putting things in your head that spur your growth and development, then you are wasting your time. Muhammad Ali said, If you show me a man who hasn't changed in 20 years, I'll show you a man who's wasted 20 years. So that has to be your first goal, is your own development, your own nourishment, your own enrichment. And that has to take place every day, even as simple as reading a decent newspaper. I mean, that has to happen. The more you understand, the more you know, the more you can share.

SPEAKER_00: 29:34

And just to build, it starts within and moves without. You start putting yourself in places where you are around other people who are like-minded. And then collectively use your individual gifts and talents to create a movement. And show the youth away. I have to keep going back to that because we have to help them navigate these spaces. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 30:04

Thank you both for your time. Thank you. Thank you. A lot of information. I look forward to watching this when it is released. Dr. Troy Bodie and Cherie Branson from the African American Advisory Group.

SPEAKER_02: 30:17

Thank you. Thank you.