Episode Six: Victoria Boateng and Rose Chord

This episode highlights two storytellers from “Hands Up Forgiveness,” performed live in March 2025 at Northeastern Illinois University. This performance shared real-life experiences that reveal the transformative power of compassion, wisdom, and kindness in the face of pain and betrayal. 

Featured Stories

“My Rhythm My Way” - Victoria Boateng shares powerful story of a woman on the autism spectrum who finds her voice through music. From early silence and bullying to self-acceptance and triumph as a djembe drummer, she shows how art, resilience, and community can transform struggle into strength.

“Say Grace” - Rose Chord shares a raw journey from growing up in a rigid, religious family to claiming her identity as a queer woman and finding healing through chosen family. Her story explores grace, anger, self-acceptance, and the courage to walk away from those who could not love her fully.

Transcript

Robert 0:22

Hey Shui, what you're doing.

Shui 0:25

Just coming here to Tellin' Tales, Tales Told.

Steve 0:26

I Just hold up, hold up, hold up for the end.

Robert 0:32

Are you here for the podcast?

Shui 0:34

But of course, because there's always something great at . . .

Steve 0:38

later Shui.

Shui 0:40

Okay. So who are our presenters today?

Robert 0:45

Well, our first presenter is Victoria. She's an advocate for the autistic community.

Shui 0:51

Wait, so is she autistic herself or is she an advocate?

Steve 0:54

She's a person with autism. In her story, she tells us that she couldn't even make words when she was little.

Shui 1:01

That must have been frustrating us all get out.

Robert 1:04

Yeah, but she sure makes herself heard now. Let's have a listen.

Victoria 2:32

I am three years old living with autisim and I couldn't speak until I was seven years old. I was screaming and crying because I couldn't speak, I felt there was a ball stuck in my throat. I would try to say words like, Mama, um hu, hum, hum, hum, huh, huh, huh? But the words would not come out. I feel like life's not on my side. I feel like I want to rock my head back and forth, back and forth, I'll hit my head. And I realize that suddenly I realized that autism did define me. I feel like why I can't be normal just like everybody else. Why I can't fit in. Why I'm struggling to make friends. Why I can't be myself. One day at Blaine Elementary School, a school counselor came into the classroom and informed the teacher that I need to go to see her, go to her office. I was screaming on top of my lungs because I didn't want to go to the office. The school counselor grabbed me by the hand and took me to the office where my parents were sitting down and waiting. She closed the door. She went to her desk and she had a brown envelope and she opened it with my evaluation. In my evaluation, she told my mom, Your child needs to see a speech therapist. Your child is having a hard time speaking. She can't enunciate her words. She prefers to play alone and not with the rest of the group. Your child has autism. My mom didn't know what to do or what type of resources to have. The school counselor told her that she would have to see a speech therapist as the first step. So my mom had listened. And the following day, we went to see the speech therapist. And then I was able to learn words like mama and papa and sister and brother. And each week I would get better and better and better. My journey living on the alternate spectrum was a lifelong battle, struggling to fit in, struggling to make friends, learn to forgive the people that have bullied me. Trying to find my identity. Attending Bremen Elementary School from first grade to fifth grade, I was running to more trouble. And more people were starting to get on my nerves. And I ran to one student of mine, and she said, I would beat your ass if you come near me. I was scared as hell. So I went in to see the principal, and the principal had told me that I would have to sit down at the office and wait till everybody clears the school. I was sitting in the office and I'm like, why being mistreated like trash? Why have to sit here while everybody else gets to go home and I'm still here? The coast was clear, and I was able to leave the school. As I was walking home from school, I saw some boys playing some basketball in my neighborhood. I got excited because I wanted to play basketball. And I went to one of the guys and I asked, okay, can I play with y'all? They said, under one condition, yes. But you had to kiss one of the boys in the neighborhood. So I'm so excited, I'm gonna fit in so bad. And I'm playing basketball and I lost the game. Now I had to kiss one of these man, I gotta kiss this dude in the neighborhood. So I went to kiss him and his breath my like trash. Then he lied to my face and said I had to give him Felatio just to fit in. Right? Isn't that crazy? So I said, This one I have to do to fit in? This one I had to do to make friends. No, I'm good. I'm gonna beat to my own drum. The struggle was real. Learned the importance of forgiveness. Learn to let things go and not let the past define me. Now I'm entering my senior year of high school and we're in the cafeteria in our food. And I want to sit with my classmates. So I want to sit with my classmates and they shun me and ignore me. Pretend like I didn't exist. So I went to find another table and I sat there by myself. And one student named Dennis Barrea came to my table. And he said, Can I sit here? I said, Yes. I said, people are so cruel. But it only takes one person to be your friend. It only takes one person to be your friend. The school bell rang and everybody started to leave the cafeteria. As they were leaving the cafeteria, I heard my name on the intercom and it says Victoria Boateng, can you please report to the office? I was scared as hell. So I went to the office and I saw this brown beige bag with a zipper on the top. I said, What is this? She said, You should open it. So I opened it and I saw this animal skin, this goat skin with purple rope and wood on the bottom. She said, it's a djembe. She said, Victoria, I know you love music. I know you like to make it beats. And I figure a djembe would be a good instrument. Plus, it's an opportunity to connect with your roots from West Africa. So I started, I took the drum out of the bag and I started playing it. I started hearing it. And I felt the sound, the beating, the vibration. I finally found my voice playing a djembe. Before I took the djembe seriously, I took some drum set lessons, and the private teacher that I was taking the drum set lessons with had told me that I should stick with djembe. Because classes at old time school folk music that he could take. So I took his advice and I went to old-time school folk music where I met my first djembe teacher, Michael Taylor. And he told me everything I need to know about the djembe. The loud, thunderous bass, those deep, deep tones, those high slaps. He told me about the dun-dooms and the different type of instruments that they play in West Africa. He talked about master drummers like Mamady Keita and Famoudou Konate and Bolokada Conde . My, I was so excited. Then a year later, I joined an all-female group called Ayodele Drum and Dance. We went from seven women in a company and to over 20 people in the company. We went from performing at small weddings and small events to performing local and national, being on TV. In 2018, we had an opportunity to perform at the Jay Pritzker stage at Millennium Park. And I was able to tell my story of autism, and I was able to play the drum afterwards. I was so excited. Djembe is everything. Djembe is my life. Djembe is my testimony. Djembe is my therapy. Djembe saved my life. Thank you.

Steve 9:50

 Djembe!

Robert 9:50

 Voice!

Shui 9:50

 Life! L'Chaim!

Robert 10:35

I don't know how that goes when our next presenter had two preachers as parents and a pastor as a sister.

Steve 10:39

Maybe she was a little uncomfortable.

Shui 10:41

Let's give her a Djembe.

Robert 10:43

 Nah, she does ok on her own.

Steve 10:43

 Don't Give it all away! We need to listen to her story.

Speaker 3 11:38

My family growing up comprised two preachers for parents, a pastor for an eldest sister, a missionary of an aunt and a sweet lil old church lady grandma. A ton of God and Jesus in my family, and here I am, a queer witch. Being raised by the people who run the church is surreal as hell. It's a little like walking in to see Jesus, except his robe's half off and he's still hungover from all the communion wine he transmuted the day before. I learned all sorts of really crucial life advice at church. Things like love thy neighbor unless they're poor or black. We are all God's children except for old school Catholics. And there, but for the grace of God, go on. Read sucks to be you and I am so glad it's not my problem. Grace was a big concept. This idea that you can make mistakes and still get the forgiveness of God. I like that idea. It empowers us, it lets us know that our human fallibility is okay. And empowers us with hope and forgiveness going forward. Another side effect of growing up being raised by pastors is seeing how much they do, or in my case, don't, practice what they preach. My family preached grace but perfection was the expectation. When I came home with B's, my mother's face rang with disappointment. My father He craved being unique, special, different. One of his sermons defines him in my memory. The normal sermon runs about 20 minutes. This one ran an hour. While my father ranted that maybe he's just a pastor, or maybe he's a prophet. Yeah, Dad, you're definitely a prophet. And not just an egomaniacal bastard. The bastard who hated me for being everything that he craved. I learned very quickly to wear masks in that household, including around my heart. I spent 17 years in that house. It took me less than a year from leaving to come out as a woman. The journey to reopening my heart to trust has been much longer. The first big step in that journey happened in my junior year of college, where I met a cute, little, aggressive trans boy named Xander. We fought for each other hard and fast. Him, a wreck of incapacity to take care of himself, and me, an over-functioning, overperforming perfectionist. It was a match made in desperation. As my sisters had predicted, I had found my short, dark, angry man like the ones they had married. And like my sisters, I gave to him my heart and my time and my trust. And for me, he gave me anger. He gave me a place, a time to call out when people were treating me like shit. I scolded the professor who mocked my pronouns, yelled back at the people who yelled at me on the street, and said no to my parents for the first time in my life. They did not take it well. The guilt tripping hit hard and steady phone calls every week. What are you doing? Why don't you answer us? You're so closed off about your emotions. Gee, I wonder why. I stayed with Xander for four years. And in that time I saw more and more of my father in him. His control, his ego, his anger, his fear. Combined with his borderline personality diagnosis and my own trauma. It tore us apart. We broke each other's hearts. And he reopened my heart to trust. The next big step came about four years ago as the vaccine was rolling out for COVID. When this little band of queers I call my chosen family and I went to Walt Disney Worlds. While we were there, I sobbed outside of Peter Pan. Knowing no one had ever come to take me away to Neverland. At the end of that trip, I finally cut off contact with my blood family. Their rage boiled over at me, and I got gobs of phone calls, passive aggressive emails. I'd walk into work to find that my employees were having very confused messages saying my mother had called. I changed my phone number. I changed my email. I was relieved when I finally got to change my address. And I want to clear about something. As I got away from them, I raged. I screamed, I broke things, I hid in pot and sets and video games. I spent a week in therapy and several more in intensive outpatient trying to make any sense of the mess my so-called family had made of my life. And to be clear, I will never forgive them. As long as I live, they will not have a home in my heart. But, big and queer and pagan as I am, something they taught me stuck. I do not forgive them. Maybe I have grace for them. Not because I deserve it. And not for my own healing. But because I believe that even the unforgivable can receive grace. Time will tell. Thank you.

Shui 19:27

 Grace.

Robert 20:03

Beautiful, right?

Steve 20:05

We should all take a piece of that and share it around.

Shui 20:08

 I'm sure glad we have it on . . .

All 20:08

 Tellin' Tales, Tales Told!

Steve 20:08

 Now, that's how you do it!