leZlie lee kam: Hi, my name is leZlie lee kam.
Ty Sloane: And hello, my name is Ty Sloane,
leZlie lee kam: And this is season two of the Youth/Elders podcast, creating space for identities, histories, and perspectives across generations.
Ty Sloane: This season takes a look at personal stories of coming out, navigating identity and finding home
leZlie lee kam: While also discussing the impact of institutional spaces and activist movements on the very places we find community.
Ty Sloane: This season's episodes are curated and recorded by myself, Ty Sloane, lezlie lee kam, Naomi Bain, Bear Bergman and Rhoma Spencer.
Ty Sloane: Most of our recordings were made in Toronto on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat, and treaty territory of the Mississaugas of the credit.
Ty Sloane: The conversation you're about to listen to is hosted by myself, Ty Sloane and Naomi Bain.
Ty Sloane: We're joined by guests, Adam Benn and Ravyn Wngz who share some thoughts about community organizing, institutional accountability, and how they sustain themselves in their activism.
Ty Sloane: I'm wondering if we can do a little bit of an introduction and identify your pronoun or any other identities or experiences that you'd like to before we dive in.
Ty Sloane: So Ty, they/them, I'm an Anishinaabe, Chinese, Irish, Greek, and Scottish mixed race, Two-spirit complexity moving through Tkaronto and I'll pass it over to Naomi.
Naomi Bain: Hey Ty, thank you for passing it over to me.
Naomi Bain: My name is Naomi.
Naomi Bain: I use they/them pronouns.
Naomi Bain: I am black diasporic: my parents have roots in the Caribbean.
Naomi Bain: I am a mystic, I'm an artist.
Naomi Bain: I'm a free thinker.
Naomi Bain: I'm a professional nerd, and I'm really just here to dive deep into this conversation.
Naomi Bain: I would like to welcome our guests today.
Naomi Bain: We have Ravyn Wngz and Adam Benn.
Naomi Bain: Ravyn, would you like to go ahead and introduce yourself?
Speaker 2: Hello everyone.
Speaker 2: Raven wings, Afro indigenous two-spirit trans women currently living in[inaudible] right now.
Speaker 2: I have lived over three different borders from you to Atlanta, Georgia, and now here in Toronto.
Speaker 2: And so my experiences and sharing has come from those perspectives.
Speaker 2: Um, I'm also a member of black lives matter, Toronto and a co-founder of black lives matter, Canada, um, working in advocacy and dance and storytelling and burlesque and all the things.
Naomi Bain: So let's have me here, Raven, Adam, would you like to go ahead and introduce yourself?
Speaker 5: My name is Adam Ben.
Speaker 5: I use the pronouns, he, him and I identify as a black living with disabilities and similar to folks here, uh, really looking forward to enjoying the conversation.
Speaker 5: A lot of the work that I've done has been in institutions and, you know, as we talk about white institutions and organizations, but a lot of my work has also been activism, right?
Speaker 5: So I'm looking forward to hearing again how we can marry the two together, if they could be married together.
Naomi Bain: Thank you for that.
Naomi Bain: Ty, where do you want to start this conversation?
Speaker 2: That's a good question.
Speaker 2: There's so much to unpack.
Speaker 2: There's so much time back.
Speaker 2: I guess I'll start off with, um, the interesting thing with my art journey and my own queerness is that both activism and arts pulled me to Toronto.
Speaker 2: So art community and identity pulled me here for sure buddies in bad times as an institution pulled me here because I knew it was the institution of the city.
Speaker 2: And then Raven wings, you pulled me here with the BLM chapter protests in 2016.
Speaker 2: And I remember seeing that on the news that folks could speak out.
Speaker 2: Folks could hold other folks accountable, print Toronto, as an example, felt like this mega thing that at the time didn't even think it was touchable or approachable.
Speaker 2: And I remember, I remember seeing you and Rodney and other folks with your veils and being like, this is the moment.
Speaker 2: This is a moment for me.
Speaker 2: And a big moment that was happening.
Speaker 2: And I remember, cause I felt so lost as an individual right after POS had happened that month.
Speaker 2: Um, but I remember for the first time being confronted with all aspects of my communities and then institutions pulling me to the city.
Speaker 2: And then what you were talking about, Adam, about what does it mean to marry and what does it look like when they become divorced or when they start holding each other accountable?
Speaker 2: So, um, I guess I'd be curious to know what does accountability look like and how has your experience with institutions been with navigating that
Speaker 5: I think accountability for these organizations or these institutions, um, requires, uh, acknowledging their roots because all of these institutions, many of them started with community activism.
Speaker 5: And again, I think that's why, um, when you're in these institutions, you hold onto it so hard because you recognize how hard you have to fight in order to get that space or to get that institution.
Speaker 5: I think the challenge is that as it becomes more institutionalized, it loses touch with the community.
Speaker 5: Um, and again, this is where that rift comes, where the community actually then becomes a critique of these institutions.
Speaker 5: So, you know, how do we ensure that communication is still happening?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 5: And I think, uh, institutions that do it well have, um, good connections with community, they have good advisory committees and that allows for some accountability, but it has to be in a way that allows for, um, people to actually have an ability, make transformative change, not just superficial type of inclusion.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that, Adam, uh, Raven speaking, something that I think about when, when we have these conversations about institutionalized spaces, um, they actually are reflections of the world we live in.
Speaker 2: They're not so different from what we have to experience when we're walking down the street, when we're on an app, when all, all these different things meant, teach us about the systemic oppression of black indigenous and people of color individuals.
Speaker 2: And so an institution is only as, as accountable as its principles as its goals.
Speaker 2: If it's commitments, I think that there is, there's such, um, a popular narrative that's happening right now.
Speaker 2: And since 2020, where institutions are having these diversity workshops and conferences, and of course is black history month.
Speaker 2: So all the black artists are being hired more than ever and you know, all that, um, because they don't want to appear, um, as if they're not ahead of the times or, or with the times or a part of the times.
Speaker 2: Um, but I say this often, it's like, you can't really backseat drive your, your activism.
Speaker 2: And just as an institution, like you need to have a flexible understanding of your, your idea of change of growth.
Speaker 2: When we talk about accessibility, for example, right?
Speaker 2: It's a journey like you have to learn, you have to grow.
Speaker 2: Um, conflict is a part of that.
Speaker 2: Sometimes when conflict comes up, when, when people call you out when community and say, Hey, you're not doing this, are you, you said you were doing this and you're not.
Speaker 2: Then it's an opportunity for you to meet that moment.
Speaker 2: Um, sharing knowledge, sharing, understandings, misunderstandings, and then growing out of that behavior.
Speaker 2: I think that's required of folks to think a little bit beyond their own institutions and how their actual week impacting people.
Naomi Bain: Thank you for that.
Naomi Bain: I have a follow-up question for both of you.
Naomi Bain: Do you think that institutions are willing to do the work that is required for them to hold themselves accountable?
Naomi Bain: Raven, you brought up a really good point when you see things like black history month and all of a sudden black people are being hired, left, right.
Naomi Bain: And center.
Naomi Bain: What happens after that?
Naomi Bain: How do you feel these things come into play and is this just to save face or people actually trying to actively divest from these things that they have created?
Speaker 5: I do want to sort of recognize that in 2020, there was a bit of a shift that happened.
Speaker 5: Fundamentally.
Speaker 5: I have to sort of talk about in my, my circles in my world, uh, and recognizing that, uh, part of it, I think is the pandemic.
Speaker 5: The fact that people were at home had no choice, but to sort of watch what was happening.
Speaker 5: Um, the ways in which we were interacted was limited and changed.
Speaker 5: So I feel that fundamentally there is a different understanding of, uh, systemic racism in particular.
Speaker 5: So at least in my circles, I see that people want to try to change.
Speaker 5: Um, however, again, whenever we talk about things in abstract, people can agree, but when you talk about that in regards to themselves and, uh, you know, the anti-black racism that potentially exists within them and the bias that exists within them and the transphobia makes us spin them and the homophobia that no one wants to acknowledge that.
Speaker 5: So again, people need to do the work, right?
Speaker 5: But ultimately there needs to be a motivation for those people to do some of that work.
Speaker 5: And so that's the other thing too, I'm sort of grappling whether it is a good thing now, because I think back to the black lives matter, uh, interrupting the pride protest and being an institution and not necessarily being able to say anything, uh, whereas now institutions are like, you know, posting it on their walls, right?
Speaker 5: So is it, is it a better thing?
Speaker 5: Is that a better thing that we have that recognition and that understanding, recognizing that, you know, one of the challenges with institutions is that they start to take these things that the community used to own, um, and start to transform it right at the same time, how do we create this systemic change without those institutions, recognizing that those institutions are bedrocks and foundations of our institutions and our systems.
Speaker 5: And I do sort of recognize that there is a change.
Speaker 5: There's a shift that's there at least that I've noticed in my world, it's a bit of a different world in terms of the leverage that we have around being able to have some of those conversations.
Speaker 5: But again, I think I recognize that people themselves don't want to change.
Speaker 5: And that's the hardest piece, right?
Speaker 5: If they don't want to change, how do we actually get changed here?
Speaker 2: So Sonya, Renee Taylor said this, and I think it applies to this moment.
Speaker 2: Um, it's easier to, to cry than to change.
Speaker 2: And so people can show up with their outrage, uh, over St.
Speaker 2: George Floyd or affordable care homes.
Speaker 2: Right now they can have the outreach, but without action, without actually committing to offering solutions, showing up, not knowing what the solutions are.
Speaker 2: I find that people don't really want to change people like who they are.
Speaker 2: They like what they have.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of folks feel like, oh, I've worked so hard.
Speaker 2: And now I have all these, these things.
Speaker 2: Whereas we're all sitting in different relationships to privilege.
Speaker 2: And I think for me, these institutions, how privileges, how have these privileges of resources have the privileges to be able to reach out to you?
Speaker 2: Naomi, are you, Adam, are you tie all of us to, to have us in for a moment to make everyone feel good about what they believe that they're a part of, um, as opposed to not making it one weekend, you, you can change your behavior.
Speaker 2: In one conversation is like going to therapy.
Speaker 2: You think you're going to deal with it in one session.
Speaker 2: That's not actually how this thing works.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 2: And so people want quick fixes, which is literally white supremacy, right?
Speaker 2: And so you can't fix white supremacy with the same tools of it like ignorance or, um, you know, you're never satisfied, whatever, whatever question is.
Speaker 2: And things come out of that even as, as a member of black lives matter Toronto, there are folks who disagree with the things that we do.
Speaker 2: You brought up Thai, um, 2016 pride pupil.
Speaker 2: We're not down for that.
Speaker 2: Naomi were there.
Speaker 2: People were not down for that.
Speaker 2: People are to hear for it.
Speaker 2: Now you see, so, so history is important, right?
Speaker 2: We need to remember what people were actually saying, how our lives were actually threatened.
Speaker 2: After that moment, people were out into their families.
Speaker 2: People like risked quite a lot.
Speaker 2: Um, stop after operate just the same way.
Speaker 2: Um, have the best health raids here fighting against the police.
Speaker 2: Vetting needs to police at Stonewall in New York.
Speaker 2: And what I find is now that it's popular to be on the bandwagon for BLM, we were able to terrorist all kinds of things after that.
Speaker 2: And so people were like, why are they stopping gay stuff?
Speaker 2: Like isn't this about blackness and completely erasing the, the sort of intersections that we sit with, um, as man folks, black folks, trans folks as all the different things that we are and become afraid.
Speaker 2: And so, yes, it was such an important moment.
Speaker 2: Yes, we, we opened this conversation or continued this conversation more appropriately of civil rights, trans rights, all the inclusion, but it's similar to how I think about black history month.
Speaker 2: And now everyone loves Martin Luther king, but when he was alive, he was the most hated man in America.
Speaker 2: And everyone wants to sort of pretend that that wasn't a thing or that he wasn't assassinated.
Speaker 2: And so I feel like it's always this month of talking about the people who are acceptable to be leaders of that time period, the faces of that time period, never really thinking about everything else that was happening alongside that to the indigenous movement that was happening everywhere.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: The people who had to hide there's so much about Toronto, talk it on so that people don't realize like forest hill with the forest, for example, these things, then you sort of take for granted in 2020 for the sake of progress.
Naomi Bain: I think both of you hit some really important things on the head.
Naomi Bain: Raven, I wanted to address what you said about that protests for pride.
Naomi Bain: That that was the scariest moment of my life being on that, float it, looking down and seeing the amount of white rage that was coming toward that.
Naomi Bain: Even thinking about some of those same people that were raging at us now, trying to come in and be like, oh, well, I'm woke now.
Naomi Bain: I get it now.
Naomi Bain: And I feel like there's so much fatness with that.
Naomi Bain: There's so much things that are in that conversation that I'm just like, Hmm, I'm not here for it.
Naomi Bain: A lot of people put themselves at risk at risk if that moment.
Speaker 5: And I think that's where the accountability also comes because people need to see right.
Speaker 5: Uh, I'm thinking of that documentary that was made the name of it is escaping me.
Speaker 5: But again, a lot of it's centered around the black lives matter protests.
Speaker 5: And it talks about the black community.
Speaker 5: There was a lot of footage that you, you saw the hatred in the eyes of the people, right?
Speaker 5: And so this is that accountability piece.
Speaker 5: How do we use that as a way to frame these conversations so that people can sort of recognize that this is not a, this isn't a nice thing.
Speaker 5: It's not like, you know, oh, we got a black lives matter is this is actually dealing with hatred trauma violence.
Speaker 5: Uh, but again, it requires people to take an, a mirror and look at themselves and reflect on the fact that those people who are screaming are also you, it, it changes and shifts in terms of how that interaction is, but it's still you,
Speaker 2: The effects are still happening.
Speaker 2: I think people think that it ended it, no, you know, um, we just released a lack mutual aid fund and the amounts of hate that came through our email from just doing that.
Speaker 2: Um, I'm a pessimist.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna put that out there.
Speaker 2: And I, I feel like I I've, I have to be in a way, I don't have the same opportunity to sort of be gracious to, to anyone who woke up in 2020.
Speaker 2: And here's why, because for me, if, if what it would take is to witness someone's death that already happened and what it would take to understand that we are in a time period of a genocide of indigenous people, people already know that they celebrate Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And so I feel like what we need to tell the truth.
Speaker 2: People actually need to be honest about where they were about how they feel so that we can have real movement, real change.
Speaker 2: People were, were dying, are dying.
Speaker 2: Still people believe that all these protests happen in that was really great, but the work happened after the protest.
Speaker 2: Actually everyone thinks it was a protest as the big job, but the job comes after when you have to sit with families and talk through their trauma.
Speaker 2: When you have to sit with families and lawyers and figure out resources and deportation, and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this.
Speaker 2: And so for me, it's convenient.
Speaker 2: It's too convenient.
Speaker 2: It's easy now, black lives matters, Nobel prize nominees, you know?
Speaker 2: And so now it's time to, to celebrate what we're doing.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 2: It's time to celebrate Stacey Abrams and all these people who are doing this work.
Speaker 2: Um, but, but for me, it falls really short.
Speaker 2: And Phillip had falls short of real acknowledgement and real change.
Speaker 2: And, and the reason why I'm saying that is because we heard about Brianna's Hillary dying in her home, right?
Speaker 2: We heard about Regis.
Speaker 2: Christian's key dying in her home.
Speaker 2: Andrew Lowe, whom died in his home.
Speaker 2: These are things that people know already.
Speaker 2: That's not even the stuff that people have no idea about.
Speaker 2: So if that's not enough, it's act to get people not just talking about, but actualizing their politics and that's what's needed.
Speaker 2: You actually have to be the abolitionists.
Speaker 2: You actually have to be the person who's going to interrupt the conversation and say, yo, this is not, we can't continue.
Speaker 2: That's racist.
Speaker 2: That's anti Asian regions.
Speaker 2: That's anti indigenous racist.
Speaker 2: That's anti-black.
Speaker 2: We just need to call things exactly what they are so that we can actually deal with them.
Speaker 2: We have a really horrible relationship to conflict, and we need to shift that.
Speaker 2: I don't think conflict is a bad thing.
Speaker 2: I mentioned it a minute ago.
Speaker 2: I don't think that criticism is a bad thing.
Speaker 2: If we need to be able to be criticized and be able to handle that so that we can be more accountable to what we say we're about.
Speaker 2: And so people need to get out of their egos.
Speaker 2: It's important to let that stuff fall away.
Speaker 2: It's not solely about me.
Speaker 2: It's not solely about Raven in the, in the street.
Speaker 2: It's about every single person who, who sent this thing or how that conversation black lives matter is a continuation of the civil rights movement.
Speaker 2: And that's why I say this stuff is not new Ruby bridges.
Speaker 2: The first black woman to go into a segregated school is still alive.
Speaker 2: So I just feel like it's too soon to start celebrating people for, for doing what's easy.
Speaker 2: Now, when we say work, what do we actually mean?
Speaker 2: That means studying.
Speaker 2: That means having these conversations, that means sitting with your group of friends and being like, Hey, how are we going to be not even less fat phobic, but not phobic at all?
Speaker 2: How are we going to change our way that we talk about mental wellness, right?
Speaker 2: Because that's also a huge piece of why black folks are dying in the street or why indigenous folks are criminalized in high percentages in these prisons.
Speaker 2: Um, because of our relationship to things that make us uncomfortable, or we feel like make us unsafe in the streets, people behaving irrationally.
Speaker 2: And so when we shift our behavior, our understanding, we move away from language like, um, mental illness and mental health, as opposed to mental wellness, holding people exactly where they are.
Speaker 2: So we're actually creating these new systems of care.
Speaker 2: And the thing is, we don't have to reinvent it.
Speaker 2: These things already exist.
Speaker 2: When you look at mad communities, they actually already know how to take care of each other.
Speaker 2: You, you see it happen.
Speaker 2: And so if we're actually looking to people who are the victims of these crimes and these, these things, we're actually already doing the work and people would recognize that these are the strategies that would be helpful.
Speaker 2: You know, um, I was listening to an indigenous elder the other day who talked about talking on, so being a food forest, and that's how they learn how to be compassionate with each other.
Speaker 2: It's the lens, bringing food and medicines and good Oak and poison Oak and all these different information that the land had.
Speaker 2: We don't have a relationship to the land, and that's why we don't have a relationship to each other.
Speaker 2: So even for us who are displaced, even for us who are Africans, who were moved all over the Caribbean, all over the place, there, there is still a need for everyone to not just be aware of their own fight.
Speaker 2: We're all in this whole white supremacist soup together.
Speaker 2: So how do we say, you know what, this is why I receive.
Speaker 2: This is what you receive.
Speaker 2: Both of that is really crappy.
Speaker 2: Let's figure out how we help each other, supporting each other to movies, not only conversations, but policies.
Speaker 2: So if there is no need for trainings, it's just built into how you work together.
Naomi Bain: I like what you said there about a world where we do not have to train people to be good people.
Naomi Bain: You know what I mean?
Naomi Bain: I think that's something that when I look at these institutions and I think about how many diversity workshops I've sat in, how many I've taught, how many conversations I've had, how many times I've had to call anti-black racist out in organizations only to get only to get fired only to get removed only to get kicked out, pushed out only to be considered combative.
Naomi Bain: The minute that you open up and you say, Hey, something's going on here?
Naomi Bain: And we need to pay attention to this.
Naomi Bain: And I think when we're looking at institutions, often these, uh, institutions that are dedicated to trying to build a new world around us that are the same ones that are perpetuating the most harm.
Naomi Bain: Um, I'm wondering if either you Raven or Adam have anything to contribute to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's real.
Speaker 2: When you see the pride sticker on an office building, you think, oh, these people are going to be welcoming to all trends, spectrum folks, but that's not usually the case.
Speaker 2: People are usually only open to people who they're comfortable with and people are very uncomfortable with each other.
Speaker 2: And so I feel like it hurts more.
Speaker 2: Actually it hurts more when you go into those spaces, like thinking, oh, we're going to be able to have these conversations.
Speaker 2: No, it's not going to be perfect.
Speaker 2: You know, we're, we're black and indigenous and people of color in the world, but you know, it's not completely safe.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 2: But we go into these spaces and we're like, oh, they have this diversity plan.
Speaker 2: It seems like everyone knows what it is.
Speaker 2: Everyone can recite it.
Speaker 2: And they're just stickers.
Speaker 2: You know, they get you more money from the government because you are moving with what's.
Speaker 2: The people in the streets are saying, and there's this Russian, um, more tactic where if you can't meet a movement and you join it, that's why the police officers were kneeling because they wanted to like, make it ridiculous.
Speaker 2: So they join it to lessen the blow of it.
Speaker 2: And it did, at least opera singers are doing this thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 2: People are chanting in the streets, everyone's got their BLM.
Speaker 2: T-shirts, they're still calling the police on people who are having mental health breakdowns, that they don't connect.
Speaker 2: That those two things are actually why we're marching in the street during a pandemic, because I would rather not do that.
Speaker 2: But you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: I can't be here like, oh, well, I'm not going to go out in the street and let people know how we feel or stand up for this person or this person, because people are dying literally in their homes.
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 2: And so for me, I'm thinking about a program, right?
Speaker 2: I want to build a program.
Speaker 2: I want to build a new fellowship or whatever it is, what I mean by that is I'm not going to wait for, for someone to need ASL before provided.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to wait for us to have an anti-black racist ethic, a black love ethic.
Speaker 2: I should say, I don't want to wait until people are in the space and then start doing the work.
Speaker 2: We know that everyone exists already.
Speaker 2: Why not prepare for everyone to show up?
Speaker 2: I find that often in these diversity conversations, you're the first trans person they met the first two-spirit person, the first indigenous person that came across the first lesbian, the first black, whatever, LA all the things.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 2: And so they don't have a context for what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: And so after they leave, they go back into their world and they're like, well, that was interesting.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll watch it on Netflix.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's not real yet.
Speaker 2: And so if your ecosystem of relationships of work environments, don't actually include all voices, then you're not going to have something that's diverse.
Speaker 2: You know, so many for us who are trans.
Speaker 2: And two-spirit like, all of the decisions and policies are made without us being in the room in the building, you know?
Speaker 2: And so I found that that happens a lot.
Speaker 2: You get to these conversations and like, so what do we do for trans people?
Speaker 2: Or even I'm like, well, ax, trans people.
Speaker 2: I am one of how many, I can't answer that question.
Speaker 2: I say, what I need, I can say that if I was in your office space, I wouldn't be able to use your bathroom.
Speaker 2: And so bringing me into your space so that you can be like, oh, Raven wings is here.
Speaker 2: Yay.
Speaker 2: You know, you were popular this year.
Speaker 2: We are woke.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I can actually use the bathroom in public, which means I can exist in public, which means I'm invisible to you at the same time that you were using my hyper visibility in this time period, to make you seem like you understand what's happening because my speech made you feel good.
Speaker 2: And I keep saying this, but it's like, I don't know how I made anyone feel good unless you were being validated by what you already felt like you were saying in the world.
Speaker 2: But it was a heartbroken breaking moment.
Speaker 2: It was like this awful situation.
Speaker 2: It's still awful.
Speaker 2: And we're still fighting those charges.
Speaker 2: So when we have to stop wanting to be romanced by activism, you know, yes, we have to make it sort of joyous and full and all the kinds of things that it already is.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, it's going to be messy.
Speaker 2: And so when you're looking at racism, it shouldn't make you feel comfortable.
Speaker 2: There's no part of this that should make you feel like, you know what, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2: Now they're like, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 2: And so people are free to make mistakes because we have this carceral, punitive prison type behavior where we just like push people away who are problematic.
Speaker 2: And we invest in each other in really different ways.
Speaker 2: What kind of relationships are you trying to build with people?
Speaker 2: You know, what kind of world do we want to have this world?
Speaker 2: The way we describe it right now was designed.
Speaker 2: It was the imagination of Europeans.
Speaker 2: And so why is it so hard for us to believe that we can imagine something better, something different.
Speaker 2: And it's always sort of relying in their institutions, their systems that they stole from indigenous doctrines and teachings anyway, um, and did badly, obviously we're here before people were starving and hungry.
Speaker 2: There was a time where that it wasn't a thing and these institutions, um, should want to be a part of creating that.
Speaker 2: I think everyone doesn't identify this way, but we're all artists, right?
Speaker 2: We all get to paint.
Speaker 2: We all get to har and create something expensive.
Speaker 2: As a burlesque performer, I get to show you what humanity and a black trans woman looks like.
Speaker 2: And that's, that's great.
Speaker 2: This is what we have that opens up our spokes, our scope and our ideas, podcasts, like what you're doing now.
Speaker 2: So people can sort of ingest it in all these different ways.
Speaker 2: You know, you have to do your own work.
Speaker 2: Um, and you don't have to be in front of a movement to be impactful.
Speaker 2: You don't have to be the look of a, of a leader to be impactful.
Speaker 2: And I'm not the look of that, but when I'm out here.
Speaker 2: So I feel like there's so many ways we sort of stop ourselves from being as revolutionary as change-making, um, because we're all afraid to be uncomfortable and it's like, we're already uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: This is already crappy.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, why don't we all just kind of fix it, get it in and do it.
Speaker 2: So that's, uh, how I feel
Naomi Bain: For that.
Naomi Bain: Adam, did you want to add anything onto that echoing
Speaker 5: That it really requires people to do the work, same thing, right.
Speaker 5: And, and it's not as mentioned having people come in and talk to you, you didn't know about that.
Speaker 5: There's Google, there's YouTube, right?
Speaker 5: Like all of this information is available to you if you really want it.
Speaker 5: Um, so again, I think that institutions can be well intentioned.
Speaker 5: And so there are institutions that do put in the work and recognize the institutions are made up of individuals.
Speaker 5: So again, it's really about people's individual capacity, but, you know, again, I'm, I'm swirling in, in places where there are institutions that are doing the work like they're really trying to do can transformative change.
Speaker 5: Um, and there's some institutions that are, you know, again, just putting a check mark on diversity inclusion equity.
Speaker 5: I think it's also about the intentions of the institutions.
Speaker 5: One of the things, and this was what you mentioned.
Speaker 5: I don't mean just in terms of your experience, working in organizations is that black people, indigenous people, racialized people, um, transcend and LGBT to STT.
Speaker 5: People generally get pushed out of many of these institutions due to their experiences of racism, homophobia, transphobia, all of the isms.
Speaker 5: And so the challenge is that again, we're having these institutions that, that really lacked diversity, because again, there's just not the representation sometimes in terms of the people that they're working with, who are demanding, that they change, right.
Speaker 5: Maybe they must change, but it's one of those eggs and chicken things where it's so difficult for that system to change as Raven, as acknowledges that the system has been designed in a way that is built off of European colonialism in every aspect.
Speaker 5: And so in some ways it's sort of how do you work within that?
Speaker 5: Or how do you sort of reimagine a new system?
Speaker 5: And can we even do that?
Speaker 5: I think that's why this coronavirus pandemic has been so influential because it shifted people's ideas of what they should be doing.
Speaker 5: Oh, I shouldn't be on vacation and I should be doing this.
Speaker 5: So that's why I think it's made these conversations about race, uh, racism, et cetera possible, because there's an opportunity to, to create that shift and that the window is closing though, right?
Speaker 5: As we move more and more towards quote-unquote reopening, I'd be very curious to see again, how these conversations do continue outside of, um, this time period.
Speaker 5: One thing I will say is that I I've worked with LGBT to sq organizations and I've also now worked outside of them.
Speaker 5: And I do think that LGBTQ organizations do do it better in terms of those equity, diversity inclusion initiatives, right.
Speaker 5: Again, I protect them when I there, but now being outside, I'm like, Ooh, this is, this is, this is terrible.
Speaker 5: This is horrific.
Speaker 5: In many of those institutions, there's an understanding and grappling around race, but outside of race, there is no understanding or grasp or concept.
Speaker 5: And so again, recognizing that as people, I think that there's a unique position in terms of understanding a lot of these oppressions.
Speaker 5: And re-imagining a world that can be very different, you know, even in terms of disabilities and how we even conceptualize that and trying to put all these labels on people.
Speaker 5: But for a lot of people, they haven't even started to think about these things yet again.
Speaker 5: And I realized that being in communities for such a long period of time, there's conversations that are happening in these circles, that, you know, when you talk about to people, they're like, what?
Speaker 5: So again, it's just one of those capacity things as well.
Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing that I'm mindful of our time.
Speaker 2: And I also want to offer a question to both of you because I'm an individual who came to the city five years ago and like rammed myself to get my hands in the dirt of the work.
Speaker 2: As an example, like now I'm an education coordinator for a trans inclusion anti-oppressive organization.
Speaker 2: And I also get to exist in this complex thing where I'm holding a lot of people of color, who aren't indigenous and black accountable in my personal life.
Speaker 2: And I'm holding all of the collectives that I'm part of accountable and myself, I'm now going to therapy and beginning to actively work on it, which is to say, I'm not necessarily a part of the 20, 20 beginning, but I will say that I am part of the 2016.
Speaker 2: I kind of woke up in various ways as well.
Speaker 2: Being able to finally name all the complex identities that I am accountable and harken from.
Speaker 2: And so the thing that I'm struggling with that sometimes it feels like every single day, I get to a moment where it just feels like my brain is so tight.
Speaker 2: I called out things to friends.
Speaker 2: And I have tried to explain things to my mother who, a white woman, and I've done the work at my work at all of my positions, all my jobs, and then my art.
Speaker 2: And then I, I go through these periods every single day where I just feel tightened and I just feel kind of pessimistic.
Speaker 2: Like, I don't know why I'm doing this.
Speaker 2: I don't feel like anyone's listening.
Speaker 2: And so this is the question that I have as we maybe wrap up.
Speaker 2: What has your individual care look like when navigating institutions and accountability?
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 5: Think, again, as you recommended having a mental health worker, a therapist has been very helpful for me having someone I can talk to, um, both in terms of my personal life, but also actually in institutions, I've had someone who's provided like clinical therapy or clinical supervision, so has made connections to the work that I'm doing, um, and racism.
Speaker 5: So I've had opportunities for, and in both ways.
Speaker 5: But I think the number one thing is circles of support circles of for me, black men, but also black women who I can draw on when I need that support.
Speaker 5: I think one of the challenges of last year was the cup was empty everywhere.
Speaker 5: Usually you can pull a little from here a little from there, but it was very difficult last year.
Speaker 5: I also think disconnecting, like I'm not very big on social media, but I think that sometimes stepping away from technology and media, there's a lot of negativity.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of focus on the negatives that are out there.
Speaker 5: And so for me, it's just being able to reconnect with the moment, reconnect with nature.
Speaker 5: For me, reconnect with my spirituality, reconnecting with the universe, I've gotten back into prayer, uh, spells, whatever you want to call it in terms of just engaging in different ways and recognizing that all of those are valid in exploring with that and using that as an outlet to process all of this trauma.
Speaker 5: Um, and, and to your point in terms of why you're doing this.
Speaker 5: And one of the answers that I have is that I don't know what else to do.
Speaker 5: It's just one of those things that, what else can I do, but fight this.
Speaker 5: And, uh, and the way that I fight it is sometimes I laugh because I push paper.
Speaker 5: This is what I can do to make a difference here.
Speaker 5: So that's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 5: Even when, sometimes I'm like, is this actually making a difference?
Speaker 5: I'm not sure, but I know that what I can do is this.
Speaker 5: And I hope that that can make a positive change.
Speaker 5: Thank
Speaker 2: You for that.
Speaker 2: Um, had, um, you know, I, um, I agree all of that.
Speaker 2: We are not the only ones.
Speaker 2: There was so many people doing the work elders who are memory keepers, reminding us of those time periods through these oral traditions and these storytelling art forms that we frequent.
Speaker 2: And, and then there's unplugging plugging in and doing it in different ways.
Speaker 2: My brain is always working on something, but I do like, I watch tennis.
Speaker 2: I watch like little clips of Serena Williams winning, and it is therapeutic.
Speaker 2: And so sometimes it's that, um, sometimes it's watching a ridiculous movie.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's having a real conversation with the people you're having these conversations and saying, I know that I have been the resource for checking y'all on the crap checking y'all on the racism, but I need you to now hold me accountable.
Speaker 2: So you're not the only person doing that work in your group, you know, that creates particular kinds of dynamics.
Speaker 2: And so you still want to feel like you can grow to, and now you're like, not like you're always teaching and that can be a thing too.
Speaker 2: Like you're always outputting, there needs to be something reciprocal.
Speaker 2: And so I say this often when I'm having conversations about people who are like, do I do activism?
Speaker 2: Is there a difference between art and activism to me?
Speaker 2: No, because the only way that I am actually able to do what I do as part of BLM is because art is all throughout.
Speaker 2: It is because I get to dance stories in it.
Speaker 2: I get to create black arts fellowships and, you know, um, design, protests, whatever it is like you use my choreographic brain to me, like, okay, what do I want this to look like?
Speaker 2: So I'm still activating things that are fun for me.
Speaker 2: Things that are joyful for me, you know, it's not, as Chicara said, make the revolution irresistible.
Speaker 2: And so you wanna bring in the things that actually bring you care into your activism.
Speaker 2: Like activism doesn't have to be separate from care.
Speaker 2: They can actually be working together.
Speaker 2: So you don't end up burnt out.
Speaker 2: Like my goal is to not burn out of my activism, but that actually means I need to be honest about when things are done.
Speaker 2: Oh, this part of frontline work for example, oh, you know what I think I'm done here.
Speaker 2: I think I've done all that I could do in this particular area.
Speaker 2: I need to move into infrastructure.
Speaker 2: I know I've done all that I can do here.
Speaker 2: I need to move into policies.
Speaker 2: I haven't done all that I can do here.
Speaker 2: I need to move into eldership work, mentorship work so that other people can, can be emboldened to take it on and move forward.
Speaker 2: Like we are not supposed to do it all by ourselves.
Speaker 2: It's like African ancestors, enslaved peoples were the architects of abolition.
Speaker 2: And so they abolished slavery.
Speaker 2: And so now it's our job to abolish prisons and this carceral kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: That's why I do it too, because I actually also have a privilege in this time period, to be exhausted in a way that my ancestors did not, you know, which doesn't mean I'm saying to run yourself into the ground, but I'm saying in terms of thinking about like Harriet Tubman, for example, who freed 700 slaves, I'm like, whoa, I do a little bit, do a little bit more, maybe just a tad, you know, and then I want to take a break.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm going to take two days off.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm not going to answer that email.
Speaker 2: I think having a good team also is really, really helpful to have a really great team who when we're like, you know what, I just needed a day y'all and then everyone was like, you know what more care let's let's do it.
Speaker 2: Let's take the day because activism will still be there.
Speaker 2: The, these things that we're still fighting will still be there until there's this collective tipping point.
Speaker 2: I thought that that might've already happened when there, you know, dead zones in the ocean, but Hey, that's just me.
Speaker 2: So hopefully the conversations that are happening, be the books that are being published, the art that's being created and continue to open people's minds.
Speaker 2: I'm really inspired by Nina Simone and James Baldwin.
Speaker 2: And, you know, someones was, was saying, you know, as an artist, like my job is to reflect the times James Baldwin was saying yes, as an artist, your job is to reflect the times, but also be the hammer, create that new future, you know, so Afrofuturism and indigenous futurism, like, what are we crafting?
Speaker 2: There's a reason why in science fiction, there aren't black people, people in that genre of television create that you can actually create something that's artistic.
Speaker 2: That also creates something new, like having black Panther, for example, a Marvel movie, like really, but it really impacted hugely.
Speaker 2: A lot of us who felt like we couldn't have our African ancestry, like it wasn't allowed.
Speaker 2: And so that's what art can do.
Speaker 2: And so your wave might be different from somebody else's.
Speaker 2: Um, but that's why there's you.
Speaker 2: And that's why there's them.
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to be somebody else.
Speaker 2: So just keep doing it.
Speaker 2: I
Naomi Bain: Want to thank you.
Naomi Bain: Both Raven wings and Adam Ben for being here today, this conversation was very impactful.
Naomi Bain: I'm taking away a lot from this conversation, but I'm also feeling very hurt.
Naomi Bain: And I think that's also really important that when we share stories, we're reflecting one another reflecting the truth of this world that we're living in.
Naomi Bain: So thank you so much for being here.
Naomi Bain: Thank you so much for sharing your stories.
Naomi Bain: Thank you so much for giving voice to what so many of us are experiencing when dealing with these institutions when they're trying to navigate this bigger world.
Naomi Bain: So thank you so much, Ty, do you have any last
Speaker 2: Words?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 2: Timmy, thank you so much for sharing and restoring my cup a little bit, because that really actually helped me with a lot of institution, accountability that I'm actually doing outside of this podcast.
Speaker 2: So I appreciate all the wisdom that each of you shared and of course to you and I only for, for carrying a lot of those questions.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
leZlie lee kam: Thank you so much for being here today.
leZlie lee kam: This was excellent.
leZlie lee kam: Thanks for listening to the youth elders podcast.
leZlie lee kam: A big thanks goes to our sound editing team.
leZlie lee kam: Denato Hepburn and M labels with support from Maddie bowtie stack.
Ty Sloane: The youth elders podcast is produced by buddies and bad times theater and is funded in part by the theaters community and education partner, Katie bay.