Authentically Detroit
Authentically Detroit is the leading podcast in the city for candid conversations, exchanging progressive ideas, and centering resident perspectives on current events.
Hosted by Donna Givens Davidson and Orlando P. Bailey.
Produced by Sarah Johnson and Engineered by Griffin Hutchings.
Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @AuthenticallyDetroit!
Authentically Detroit
Live Episode: Rebuilding an Empire that Works for All People
This week Donna and Orlando hosted a live episode at the Stoudamire Wellness Hub with Yodit Mesfin Johnson, the President and CEO of Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW) to discuss navigating the new normal.
Utilizing facts published by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, they define the new normal as the dismantling of our government’s systems and institutions. Together, they come up with practical solutions and also invite the audience to offer wisdom and share strategies of resistance.
As President & CEO of NEW, Yodit stewards their bold vision, strategic direction and overall operations. A mother, poet, strategist, and champion for human rights and social change, she first joined NEW as a consultant in 2008, and became CEO in 2020.
Yodit thrives in building community around the questions that matter most; how can we unlock the potential and possibility needed to radically transform our communities, see the ecosystem and the whole, and design and act in ways that bend the long arc of history towards balance and harmony?
For more information on Yodit’s work with NEW, click here.
Up next, donna and I sit down with Yodit Mesfin-Johnson of Nonprofit Enterprise at work to discuss processing and navigating the new normal in a live recording of the Authentically Detroit podcast inside of the Stoudemire. Keep it locked. Authentically Detroit starts after these messages. Have you ever dreamed of being on the airwaves? Well, the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network is here to make those dreams come true. Formerly known as the Deep Network and located inside the Stoudemire, the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network offers studio space and production staff. To help get your idea off of the ground, just visit authenticallydetcom and send a request through the contact page. Hey y'all, it's Orlando. We just want to let you know that the views and opinions expressed during this podcast episode are those of the co-hosts and guests and not their sponsoring institutions. Now let's and the world. Welcome to another episode of Authentically Detroit broadcasting live from the Stoudemire Wellness Hub in a live recording. I am Orlando Bailey.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I'm Donna.
Speaker 3:Givens-Davidson.
Speaker 1:We thank you for listening in and supporting our efforts to build a platform of authentic voices for real people in the city of Detroit. We want you to like, rate and subscribe to our podcast on all platforms. Happy Monday, everybody. Yodit Mesfin-Johnson is a mother, poet, racial and economic justice facilitator and visionary strategist, as well as the president and CEO of nonprofit enterprise at work, or new. Yodit has her own podcast entitled Centering Justice, which has featured Donna as a guest twice in recent episodes, and I've also been a guest there as well. Yodit, welcome back to Authentically Detroit.
Speaker 4:Thank you Orlando, thank you Donna.
Speaker 1:Yodit welcome back to, authentically, detroit. Thank you, orlando, thank you Donna, and welcome to all of you who are here with us. Thank you for joining. Hopefully you all have enjoyed dinner. Donna and Yodit, how is the day finding you, donna? How you doing? It's good to see you. It's a beautiful day.
Speaker 3:Look I love the community. It's great to come together and talk about these issues, so it's a good day on the East side.
Speaker 1:You look good. Donna came out CEO To the nines. We ain't mad, yo D. You were so happy to see that I was dressed down a little bit. Yes, I was Yo D, how you doing? It's good to see you.
Speaker 4:I am always happy to be home in Detroit and to be with two of my favorite people, so thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:I love it. You're one of our favorite people too. We are so excited that we are closing out Women's History Month with one of the baddest women in southeastern Michigan in the person of Yodi Mesfin Johnson. Y'all and you all are going to find out just how bad she is as we get into this conversation. So, in lieu of our hot take segment, where we talk about newsworthy topics today, we're going to take a moment to discuss what we mean by the new normal. Here are some facts as documented by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
Speaker 1:During his first week in office, president Donald Trump made history by issuing an unprecedented 36 executive orders, which are legally binding mandates issued by the president and printed in the Federal Register. The White House has reclassified over 100 executive orders as presidential actions after their initial issuance. These actions are not printed in the federal register and are more difficult to track. These executive orders and actions have forced the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs from federal agencies, disqualified organizations and non-federal entities from using federal funds unless they dismantle DEI programs, and have pressured colleges and universities to follow suit. Y'all saw the news about University of Michigan getting rid of its DEI office right. Executive actions and orders have also attacked free speech through pressure and threats to an independent media, threats to universities that do not alter their curriculums, and plans to whitewash and remove history from public institutions like parks, museums and historical sites. The business community, colleges and universities and some media outlets have responded to these pressure campaigns by removing DEI departments, eliminating scholarship programs created to reduce inequities, altering editorial slant, punishing those who speak out and otherwise silencing criticism, analysis and protests. Many of these orders, including others that eliminate environmental protections, expand and expedite deportation, and rollback funding for specific programs, are being challenged as unconstitutional because they violate free speech or they usurp congressional authority. Nonetheless, trump has also established a Department of Government Efficiency y'all know it as DOGE and appointed Elon Musk without congressional approval to find waste and cut $1 trillion from federal spending. Under Doge authority, he seeks to cut the federal workforce by at least 10%, with employees offered generous buyouts.
Speaker 1:Trump foreign and economic policies are both isolationist and imperialistic, with efforts to own or control Greenland and Gaza and annex Canada as the 51st state. I'm sorry. Trump has imposed tariffs on any number of goods, with permanent 25% tariff on imported automobiles going into effect this Thursday. Canada, mexico, china, the European Union and Great Britain have all threatened or imposed retaliatory tariffs. Deportations of Mexican, cuban, venezuelan, haitian and other immigrants from Latin America, who are here both with and without documentation, are underway, with retaliatory deportations of university students who protested genocide in Gaza carried out in earnest.
Speaker 1:The combined impact of these federal actions have a profound impact on local government programs and services by A. Disallowing race-based remedies in those that seek to address other inequities. B planned elimination of the Department of Education and uncertainty over supplemental funds for underprivileged students, as well as free and reduced school lunches. Reductions in funding for housing and urban development, including Section 8 Community Development Block Grant and public housing funds. Reduction or elimination of funds to address environmental issues like air pollution and flooding. Reduction of FEMA support after natural disasters.
Speaker 1:Changes to the tax code that may increase taxes on low to moderate income households, while decreasing tax burdens on wealthy people. Increases in unemployment, especially among public sector workers, which will have a disproportionate impact on black workers. Economic recession, with greatest impacts on automotive sector. Sharp losses of unemployment, food assistance and other social benefits. Who being rude? The queen of the east side? Thank you for silencing the phone. All right, they want you to queen of the east side. Okay, all right, they want you to queen of the East Side. All right, so these are the current items that the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation are highlighting, that is, presenting the new normal that we are all contending with. Donna want to get into the discussion.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think every day many of us wake up and see the news and wish we didn't see it, or some of us just hide from the news. You know people who are regular news watchers. I have not watched television news in about 14 years but for those who have, it's traumatic right now and I find myself accidentally seeing stories and being traumatized and having to state wait a minute. Last Friday, march 28th, was my mother's birthday. She would have been 92. And on her birthday I woke up to news that the Smithsonian Museum for African American History was being treated as though it was teaching things that were untrue, and I felt Shirley McIntyre rise up through me.
Speaker 3:I was so angry and you know just the hurt and the pain and the loss and the offense. And then I get to the point where I realize they don't control our history, they don't control our knowledge, and our history has never really been depicted as it should be. And so I write myself by remembering that they don't control reality. What they control is the way they treat us, and sometimes, when they make their mistreatment so visible, it makes it easier for us to fight back as a people and come together. And so every day, I think is this far enough? Is this the day they've gone too far?
Speaker 3:And that's how I've been dealing with just the enormity, like I said, is every day, and the final thing I want to say is that the pain, the disorientation, the frustration is not accidental. All of that is their intent. They want us to hurt, right, but not it's. There's something that is so abusive about people who want you to hurt and then want you to suffer that makes me want to pull back and say you won't see me suffer now. And so there's that other part of me that comes from my grandmother. She said never let them see you sweat, and I try not to.
Speaker 1:That's why I got dressed up today. Yo, deed, I want to ask you you know, the question that Jimmy and Grace Lee Boggs would always ask, as we are processing all of what was just read for you what time is it on the clock of the world for you right now?
Speaker 4:The empire is falling and it was destined to fall and in some ways it has to In order for us to imagine a world where all of us can thrive. These systems are working exactly as they were intended to, and that's why the university can pull back a DEI program, because it's not a part of its continents, it's not a part of who the university believes it needs to be in order to help young people become productive citizens in the world. It's an act, it's a performance, and as soon as there is a threat right, they capitulate. I want to remind us the university is sitting on a 50 billion dollar endowment. If this was important to them, they could throw the middle finger to the federal government and finance the gap in federal funding, the gap in federal funding, right?
Speaker 4:I want to remind you that one of the regents and four of the six are Democrats is Mark Bernstein, whose daddy, sam Bernstein, made his money on the backs of black Detroiters who hired him when we were all calling 1-800-CALL-SAM. You understand me. So I, the time in the world that we are in now, and this we, I'm going to say, is a collective we, but I'm going to center black people in my we, okay, and I'm going to do that because in the entirety of social movement building, particularly in Western culture, when we have gotten free, particularly in Western culture, when we have gotten free, what Everybody got free okay, so the systems are working as they intended.
Speaker 4:We cannot rely on them and what we can do is remember. We can remember that we have always known how to take care of each other. The time on the world clock today is a time to remember, and it will be scary, and that is by design, and so every time you turn on the news which I discourage you from doing, but if you must, I want you to-. Read the news at least. Hey Listen read the news at least.
Speaker 6:Hey, listen, read the news.
Speaker 4:You know I don't put outlier on the same as this mainstream media right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we should differentiate between corporate media mainstream and because but it's corporate right and then the media that you do, which is always about the people. Yeah, no, I think it's important, though, to point that out.
Speaker 4:It is, and I'm gonna take it a step further and say stop watching and listening to mainstream media. It is also a part of the system, and a system that is meant to exhaust you, to make you afraid, to make you disengage, to make you feel powerless, to make you feel powerless, to make you feel there is nothing you can do. And yet we have within us a pre-colonial blueprint for how to be in relationship with each other, and our job is to remember that. Yes, Whoo.
Speaker 1:I want to follow up, especially around this pre-colonial relationship and how we care for each other. I think colonialism and Western civilization colonialism, racism, white supremacy and Western civilization has done a heck of a number on all of our psyches. How do we and how do you practice pushing through all of what we have acquired in our brains from colonialism and white supremacy to remember how we should show up for each other in community and take care of each other?
Speaker 3:My prayer life is not what some people's are. When I want to pray, I usually ask my husband to pray because he is so beautiful. Of course, I pray silently to myself, but the one thing I always keep in mind and thing that I always follow is the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And every day I wake up with the question what can I change? What can I change? What can I change? What can I change? Take the power back?
Speaker 3:And so, as we're looking at this, yes, we do know how to take care of each other, but in reality, we haven't been doing a very good job of it. We live in a world where homelessness is the kind of thing we just step over homeless people and keep them moving. I was in LA and homeless people have to hide inside of tents now because it's illegal to be looking like you're homeless. And we've lived in a society where we've tolerated that Poverty is something that we've tolerated. Injustice is something that we've tolerated. That Poverty is something that we've tolerated. Injustice is something that we've tolerated and a whole lot of us have bought into the system of white supremacy, which is all about, you know, getting ahead, individualism. How do I get over on this person? How do I get over on that person?
Speaker 3:We look at wealth as the determinant of great things. How many people celebrate billionaires because they have billions? It must mean they mean they do something right, and we can say we don't. But then we do. And I think we have to be really honest with ourselves. And one thing I thought about is you cannot have billionaires without racism and exploitation. Billionaires are built on somebody getting over on somebody else, a whole lot, and then hoarding it and keeping them to themselves. And so the idea of billionaires, to me, is offensive. Not just do billionaires do good things with their billions, why do you have them? This idea that I'm supposed to have everything because I am so much better than other people is inhumane. And what we're seeing is and I love the phrasing that is, the fall of the empire, because that kind of injustice cannot be sustained. It will not be sustained.
Speaker 3:And the other thing is for me, I understand, we have been here before. So when I wake up in the morning, I think about what can I do? And obviously I can't do it. So then the question is what can we do? It reminds us that we're in this together, and the other thing I say is I hear a lot of people say I've done enough, I can't do anymore. That's our trauma speaking right. Listen, I'm part of the 92% I voted. I'm a black woman. I'm done Because we're hurt, but the other thing that keeps me up at night is knowing that, if things fall apart, it's our children, grandchildren, husbands, brothers, sisters, aunts, cousins who will always be at the bottom of the heap.
Speaker 3:They may not be targeting us in the same way now, but they're coming, and we know that because we know our history. And so the final thing I want to say on this is we have to act now. We are at the very beginning of a crisis that we can't even conceptualize right now because it's so soon. When all these programs disappear, when the budgets change, things will be different. We cannot wait until things fall all the way apart to start acting. We're in crisis, but we're not in the kind of crisis we're going to be in in a few years. And so there's this urgency, the fierce urgency of now. What can we do now? Organizationally, personally, professionally, in my family. Those are the things that keep running through my mind, remembering to take my power back and not give it to people who never loved my people anyway.
Speaker 3:And let's talk about DEI, because I really love the fact that Yodit pointed out that this was always just performative. You have a university in a state that has what? 15% black folks in the state of Michigan, something like that 4% black people at U of M. Year after year after year after year after year, and it's always on this basis of black folks aren't good enough and it's a lie. We have so many high achieving black students who don't get into the University of Michigan because of structural barriers that keep us out and we buy into that lie. I know students who have 30s on the ACT, 3.9 grade point averages, who don't get in, some of them being children of alumni.
Speaker 3:You can't tell me that racism does not impact the admissions process, even in the wake of DEI. Somehow we got DEI and we still have discrimination, and standardized tests are racist, inherently racist anyway, and so we're talking about an inherently racist system for deciding who deserves to be here and who does not. There's no correlation between test scores and achievement. We know that and yet we allow these systems to persist. So I think when we have to get rid of the pretense of a move towards justice, we have to acknowledge that our universe is not bending as we wish it were. Then we have to take justice back in our own hands and remember what can we change all on our own?
Speaker 1:I want to ask you both about waves of regressive policy that have rippled up in certain eras within the United States. I think after the Civil rights movement of the 1960s and in the 1970s on into the 1980s and 90s, we just saw waves and waves of regressive policy trying to undo the civil rights protections that were won in the 1950s and 60s. The crack epidemic is one that stands out right. How FHA was moving at that time is one that stands out From 2020 to now. What happened in 2020, all of the declarations, all of the statements, all of the DEI offices that opened, all of the books that were written. Are we experiencing a regression? Is this just another regression from policies and social advancement that happened in the wake of the George Floyd murder in 2020? Or is this really it? This is really it Like? This is the fall. It's about to be over.
Speaker 4:It's a big question and wow, donna, and you said a lot. So first of all, I wanna be mindful about the ways in which we continue to center whiteness in a conversation about how do we reimagine the future.
Speaker 4:That's good, and I think we all have a tendency to do that and take a posture of being the victim. So I want to just share a little story that almost 15 years ago my father's from Ethiopia. Ethiopia was in political unrest and my grandmother sent him to the States. He met my mother in Detroit and that's kind of like my origin story. Okay, and because of my family's political affiliation I couldn't go back to Ethiopia for a really long time, and so the first time I went was about 15 years ago, and when asked to describe what the experience of going back to the continent was and at this time not as many of us were returning, you know the like the only way I could summarize it is that our story does not begin with pain. Our story does not begin with pain. And when you begin to understand that history, that I am the descendant of the birthers of civilization I'm from that line, you from that line right. This statement is because literally from my you know 50th, you know line back or more, was the very first human on the planet. You change your orientation to what's happening when you understand who you are right. So how does the story change when you situate yourself in that way that we, our wombs, brought forth all of this. So I look at Washington and say, look at my kids acting up Now so our story does not begin with pain.
Speaker 4:The next thing is to understand that when we people have been talking a lot more about white supremacy and let me tell you about how I orient to white supremacy is that it is insidious in that it is a pseudo-psychological conditioning. It's not just a policy, it's not just a civil rights you know, reaction to civil rights, it is a way of conditioning, and European elite colonizers used that. Let's be honest, globally Denmark, france, Britain, you know, portugal used this method all over the world. But it was unique in the West in that we were building a new economic system that now was tied to what? To labor. So I just want those of you who run organizations hold on a second, because this is where we have to interrogate the ways in which we've swallowed and ingested these systems. So if you run an organization or a business and you ever paid somebody minimum wage when you had the resources to pay them a livable wage, you, my friend, are participating in the same system that we are interrogating. So that system not only disconnected and dehumanized indigenous folk.
Speaker 4:Right, I love to talk about how Detroit was a black city, while also simultaneously erasing the indigenous history of these lands that didn't belong to none of us, right? Okay, so disconnects us from each other across these constructed racial identities. Disconnects us within our groups right, so we got you know what? What? How do we used to say it I love black people. I can't stand blank, right, where we disconnect from each other in group. We disconnect from the land, so now we commodify it and we create systems like owning land and property right, and we assign wealth to that. And it disconnects us from the things that shaped our world the air, the water, the way we live and survive these essential pieces, right, and in that disconnection, we have a set of principles and values that replace it.
Speaker 4:Donna talked about it. It's every man for himself. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, I got mine, you get yours. Individualism, right, there's perfectionism. There's only one right way to do this. It's Democrat or Republican, right. You either this right or that right. It has a validation and a love of the production of knowledge. What's that do? Disconnects us from our deep and innate knowing, what some of us call the Holy Spirit, which others of us call our intuition, what others of us call our connection to land.
Speaker 4:So the work right now is to understand the ways in which, to your point about what can I control? How am I complying with that system today that needs to be tended to or healed, just like a garden, right when you would go in and you would pluck out the ways in which those roots, right, those weeds that are making it impossible for other things to flourish. That's the work. To begin with is to think about how am I complying? Am I waking up? And I'm not good enough. Is that the message? I'm not smart enough, I'm not pretty enough, there's nothing I can do, I don't have any power, I can't change it.
Speaker 4:They do Washington doing this. Such'm not pretty enough, there's nothing I can do, I don't have any power, I can't change it. They do Washington doing this, such and such did this. They about to take such and such. Can I reframe that message? You are enough, you do have within you the power to transform communities and we have evidence of that. You are loved, valued, highly favored, anointed by the Most High. You are living. We are living in the prayers of our ancestors who never saw a moment like this, with 75 black people and multiracial groups in one space talking about how we get free. You are, we are in those prayers, and right now we are praying and stirring up for our descendants. That's the work, and we can't have our focus on what these fools are doing, distracting us from building the world that our children need now.
Speaker 3:And that's a word, right. And so I want to go back to your question. There's this myth of the greatest nation in the world right, the strongest nation in the world, the wealthiest nation in the world. There's this myth that the United States had one depression in the 1830s the Great Depression and then we had a couple of recessions here and there, but other than that we're stable. This is an unsustainable model of living and it has been from the start. You didn't just have the Great Depression. They don't tell you about the Panic of 1819, the Panic of 1837, the Panic of 1873, the Long Depression of 1873 to 79, the Depression of 1882 to 1885, the Panic of 1893.
Speaker 3:1993, this kind of economic boom-bust, destabilization happens because when you have systems that are built on hoarding of wealth, when you have systems that are built on exploitation, those systems become destabilized when you know you have any small thing happen. So let's look at the one that happened the most recently, the biggest one, and that's the housing recession in 2008. The housing recession in 2008 was no accident. It's not like oh, I can't believe this happened. You had the selling of exploitative, predatory mortgages to people all over the United States Uncontrolled, unmanageable and people getting wealthy off of all of that. And you had Ellen Greenspan being questioned, saying, oh no. They said, well, can you just keep on having these values go up, up, up? And he says, well, yes, this is entirely sustainable. And then it all fell apart. And who did they blame the people who purchased predatory mortgages, not the people who sold them, the people who created them. Nobody went to prison for that. The people who got harmed were people like us. So I think that we have to acknowledge the instability that is inherent in what we call America.
Speaker 3:After the Great Depression, roosevelt signed New Deal legislation and ushered in a period of New Deal legislation which inequitably enriched or stabilized the lives of white workers and still left black workers out in the cold. Minimum wage did not apply to people who worked in predominantly black professions, and that was not accidentally. We were excluded from a lot of the housing benefits. Why did that happen? That happened because of the rise of communism, bolshevism that was happening in other parts of the world, and the United States said, ooh, we better do something. We don't want these people to become communists. They saved this economic system by giving a few handouts to some people to make it seem stable, even when it was not.
Speaker 3:Now, if you are black in this room, you know that there's ancestors who are still living in sharecropping farms, even drawing a salary, having no property rights, having no human rights. Having no property rights, having no human rights, having no civil rights, having no voting rights, even though they were citizens of the United States and FDR and the New Deal did nothing about that. So it's unsustainable that you have a system by which you leave some people out in the cold, subject to Jim Crow, terror and every other kind of thing. They moved up here and then we said we've made it. And what happened after the civil rights movement is, I think then you had this movement and there was this fear of these black folks fighting, and they created these systems that helped some of us get out of that oppression and left others behind. And so over these past 50 years since you know, a lot of those programs came into being, since fair housing 50 plus years fair housing and, you know, affirmative action and other things that never really took hold in any real way Since those programs were created.
Speaker 3:Now you're seeing the dismantling of those and you're also seeing the dismantling of the New Deal, all of the New Deal legislation. They're trying to take it back. They want Social Security to go away. They want Medicaid to go away. They want Medicare to go away. They want subsidized housing to go away. They want us to be in those conditions we were in right back then.
Speaker 3:And what I want to remind you is the reason they created all of that was to stop the US empire from falling then, and when they dismantle everything they created to help keep us together such as it is, even though we weren't really together. When they dismantle those things, I believe this is when the empire falls in a more realistic and sustainable way and the empire has to be replaced with something. People now are more educated, more powerful and more together. A hundred years ago, we didn't have rooms like this, as Jodi points out. A hundred years ago, we were all in our separate rooms and now we're coming together. So I think there's power in the now. I think don't ever let a crisis go to waste. We are at a crisis time and it's up to us to turn that crisis into opportunity. It's up to us to figure out what can we do to create institutions that don't depend on HUD, institutions that don't depend on bridge cards and food stamps, institutions that do not depend on a government that doesn't like us, loving us and then constantly complaining we're not getting enough. We have the power to create things for ourselves.
Speaker 3:The final thing I want to say about this is if you're in this room, you're black. You learn anything about black history. You know you had slavery. Then you had the people freed from slavery and you had the Reconstruction period where people were allowed to own businesses and vote and go to school and all of those things were happening in the South, and then you had the government take that away in a post-Reconstruction period and most of us learn about post-reconstruction as a period of loss is a period where we lost everything. But during the post-reconstruction period, how many black hospitals were built? How many black savings and loans were built? How many black cemeteries were created? How many funeral homes? How many people created black schools and universities?
Speaker 3:At a point when the government, we knew they did not love us, when we were freed from this idea that we were going to get what we needed from people who do not love us, then we created things for ourselves.
Speaker 3:This is a time for us to go back to the bricks and say what can we create here Detroit?
Speaker 3:People moved from sharecropping communities denied any type of human rights to Detroit somehow. They didn't come here with Section 8 certificates, didn't even come here with jobs, but people moved from the south to the north in the great migrations that took place from 1909 until 1972 or something like that. People moved north in these great migrations because when they came here they came into a community that was prepared to care for them care communities. They came here with mutual aid in place and made lives here despite all of the challenges, and then brought other people here, all of those skills we had then, all of those institutions we had then. We have now and we have more. But we have to once again remember that we have then all of those institutions we had then. We have now and we have more. But we have to once again remember that we have to take care of each other and we have to sort of change some of our thinking so that we're willing to sacrifice something for the greater good.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 4:You made me think about a few things. One, going back to the way story shapes beliefs, right? So after World War II, during World War II, women went to work, right Because the men were off at war and they worked in factories, right, worked in, you know, helping construct all the things needed for a nation at war. And when the war was over and the GIs and the veterans were coming home, how do you get women out of the workforce? You're basically laying them off, like we're doing right now. Well, you launch a campaign from Sears and Roebuck about how cool automatic washers and dryers are right, why you need appliances and fancy stoves because, look, now you can be at home. You know, with all right and that story, over time, that was used through media to lure women back home and away from the financial autonomy that could be made possible by earning a living doing the work outside of the home.
Speaker 4:And then, thirdly, charity. Our sector, this nonprofit sector, is born of the wealthy, the elite, needing a place to shelter their income and the we went from, you know, the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds doling out their wealth as they saw fit to. Actually, it was Queen Elizabeth that said we need an institution where these resources could flow and the US modeled what we understand to be nonprofits and charity after that, what we understand to be nonprofits and charity after that. And so, still to this day, any one of these foundations that you heard about in Detroit Kresge, wilson, kellogg they are metering out to us the required 5% that the IRS says they have to give from their endowment in order to be able to use that shelter endowment, in order to be able to use that shelter. Now, when Reagan talked about the welfare queen, right, money went to nonprofits to get her together, to make her to shine her up, to be able to get a government benefit that was going to be doled out in not the way she needed but in the way the government could control, and I'll never forget how this played out. I was young at the time. But Focus Hope you see it still today.
Speaker 4:Focus Hope was giving out food boxes, right, and we couldn't have food that made you feel like you had dignity. Right, you couldn't even get a colorful label on the food for the boxes that we were getting from Focus Hope. You were reminded of your reliance on that system. Now some of us might say, well, hey, now we have, you know consumer-driven pantries. You can bring your cart in and you can get what you want, but you still have to rely on that system to meet your need.
Speaker 4:So again, I want us to interrogate the ways in which we can get doled out pennies and be somehow satisfied by we got the grant we got, when the reality is, if, collectively, we said, no, we're not gonna take your pennies on a dollar grant, if each of us said that, guess who would lose their nonprofit designation and actually have to pay the $175 billion in unpaid corporate taxes? Right, these very teats we go to to try to get really a trickle down economy, right? So what we want is we want justice, and what justice looks like is that we center community solutions with not for the people who are impacted, although, although and we one sec the people who are impacted Although, although, and we, one sec go ahead.
Speaker 3:I just want to point out increasingly, foundations are just forming their own nonprofits. They don't need us. They form their own nonprofits that do the work that they want them to do. You know, live Six, live for More, is Living. Six Mile was created by foundations. The Mary Grove Campus was created by foundations and they steer theirse there and take it from organizations like ours that are trying to do some of that work. So I hear you, but I also want to point out that they don't really need us anymore. They figured out how to get around us by paying and creating their own sectors.
Speaker 4:It's just it's more for me, more about a shift in mindset. I'm not. We still need them to move money to the community Okay, but it's a mindset shift. When you go to that conversation with that donor equipped with you need me as much as I need you you show up different, right. You ask different you, you demand different. So that's that's something.
Speaker 4:When we talk about things are changing, that I want to see change. A couple of other things. We talked about the empire falling. We don't want another empire, just to be clear. However, we do need to keep an eye out, because the falling of the empire is never sudden. It's not like an earthquake.
Speaker 4:The things I want you to pay attention to and some of this we're already seeing are hyperinflation. I want you to pay attention to food and water shortages. I want you to pay attention to increased state violence and surveillance. You asked about 2020. We saw a lot of that happening. Then I want you to pay attention to internet and power grid instability, what happened yesterday, right with the storms that moved through and, unfortunately and my heart is with the people of Thailand and Myanmar we are going to see and you know the folks in California increasing climate disasters that hit the most marginalized groups okay. So ignoring that is not going to help us. So turning off the news doesn't mean we're turning an eye. It means we're turning our attention to collective preparation, and I'm borrowing this from a post from Counseling for All Seasons just to attribute. These are not my words, they're theirs.
Speaker 4:So a couple of things I want you to pay attention to, because this didn't work in the past when we were here and, as Donna said, this isn't new. Pay attention to ensuring that we're not hoarding resources. You remember when COVID hit and everybody was stockpiling toilet paper right, hoarding the resources? That leads to competition and violence. So we want to be mindful of that lesson. We don't want to hoard resources. Want to be mindful of that lesson. We don't want to hoard resources. We also want to remember we can't rely on the state. Do you remember that access to vaccinations in the early part of the pandemic, when the current administration was in? At that time we actually could have prevented Marlo from dying. We could have prevented the millions of souls and lives lost had we had not been relying on the state or systems that prioritize power and not you.
Speaker 4:So when Donna says, I mean it's scary to think about the loss of Medicaid and Medicare and SNAP benefits and they want you to be scared, because if you're scared you'll think you need them. Right. But we really have to think about individualism and isolation. Nobody survives alone. We got to be checking on each other. You know, miss Gaston was sharing earlier a poem just about walking alongside checking on folks. I want you to make a practice of checking on even your strong friends, even the folks you think are okay. Just pick up the phone and call you. Okay, can I support?
Speaker 4:And here are some things that have worked, including that that we can do. First of all, we've got to be in study and struggle. Too many of our people are getting lured into voting for Republicans or participating in this ADOS movement because they don't understand that local and community-led networks are where it's at. That's what's worked Skill sharing, learning together, bartering, trading, mutual aid. If you're in a position, if you have a skill right now that you can share with others without charging them, do that. It will be returned to you a hundredfold. Food and water sovereignty is so important. Without charging them, do that. It will be returned to you a hundredfold. Food and water sovereignty is so important. This sister told me she's a black farmer registered with the Department of Agriculture, growing food, learning how to forage, learning how to purify water is hella important right now. Thinking about solar, wind, water-powered energy is really important and thankfully solar is much more accessible to us now cost-wise than it had been but also just thinking about other ways to decentralize our energy solutions.
Speaker 4:Couple more Learning. Indigenous and I don't just mean Native American that is one wisdom we can draw upon. But when I said we have a pre-colonial blueprint, I'm talking about every one of us is the descendant of a collectivist culture. Every one of us, regardless of these constructed identities black, white, asian that have been assigned to disconnect and divide us. If you can get beyond that which is why the learning and the study and struggle is so important you will know that you come from a culture that was interdependent and interconnected, and so it's super important that we are relearning the ways in which our communities resisted empire for generations.
Speaker 4:And finally, something that I'm studying and I spent time in Rwanda looking at, because on the continent they have the largest number of cooperative entities of any other country on the continent and that is how do we shift from these hierarchical structures of organizations, you know, top-down non-profit. It's a board. They ain't never be in the day-to-day work, but they dare to tell you know, provide oversight and tell you how to spend your money. How do we have more worker-owned businesses? How do we have more resource sharing, whether that's we're sharing our lawn equipment this summer, right, or we're sharing our cleaning products this summer, or we're sharing the food we have.
Speaker 4:And here's the thing and this will be my last thing During the housing crisis that Donna is describing the Urban Institute. Kurt Metzger, who was the CEO of United Way for Southeast Michigan at the time, brought the Urban Institute in, and this researcher showed that at the height of the housing crisis, we had nearly a trillion dollars flowing through an underground economy in Detroit. Y'all know what that economy is, that's who braids your hair, who we trade in our bridge cars with, who's watching the babies, who's taking right. We know how to and we may not be able to quantify it always and it might not look like that in your bank account, but trust and believe we have woven together a viable economy outside of this system to take care of each other, and your ancestors braided that in the plaits in your hair when Harriet was hauling ass out of the enslaved South.
Speaker 1:We're going to take a quick break. We're going to be right back to talk about futures with Yodit Mesfin-Johnson. Detroit One Million is a journalism project started by Sam Robinson that centers a generation of Michiganders growing up in a state without a city with one million people. Support the only independent reporter covering the 2025 Detroit mayoral race through the lens of young people. Good journalism costs. Visit DetroitOneMillioncom to support Black independent reporting costs. Visit DetroitOneMillioncom to support Black independent reporting. Interested in renting space for corporate events, meetings, conferences, social events or resource fairs? The MassDetroit Small Business Hub is a 6,000 square feet space available for members, residents and businesses and organizations. To learn more about rental options at MassDetroit, contact Nicole Perry at nperry at ecn-detroitorg or 313-331-3485.
Speaker 3:I just have a couple of things I'd like to point out in addition to what you're saying. I just have a couple of things I'd like to point out in addition to what you're saying. One when we're well, we need less medical care. Wellness should be part of our. You know what we do, so many things, so much of what we eat, so much of how we live our lives is sickness focused. We go to the doctor when we're sick and we don't necessarily know how to be well. One of the reasons for us looking at the wellness hub, the nine dimensions of wellness, is that wellness is more than just your physical body. Wellness is mental, it's emotional, it's spiritual, it's creative, it's environmental, it's vocational, it's academic, it's all of those things. And when we attend to all of that in ourselves and create opportunities for other people, we are healthier.
Speaker 3:In Detroit, you have more vacant land than anywhere in the nation. We hear that all the time right, and we always hear about it as though that vacancy is somehow a deficit. But that vacancy also provides opportunities for us to own stuff. How many people in this room own hubs, live and work and own hubs inside the community? Stand up. If you own a hub you know you do A space that people can come to, a space where people in this community can come to and get their needs met. We can provide physical spaces. We've always done that in our communities. There was always that place you could go to get your needs met. We need to rebuild and restore our hub activity.
Speaker 3:How many people own homes that you don't live in? Some of y'all, I know some of the couple of y'all know homes. I see Arlene over there. I know you guys own homes you don't live in. Some of us own homes that we don't live in. How can we make sure that we are working with these homeowners who own these homes they don't live in, to make sure that they have good tenants, and we can help match people who need housing with the homes that exist. I know so many people own homes and won't rent them out because they don't trust people to move in there and not tear them up right. We need intermediaries to make that happen and that's something we want to be. We're actually hiring a rental housing coordinator here to do that. I'm excited about that.
Speaker 3:But here's the other thing. I was talking to a former board member here who said she was living in a home. She lived there with her dad. Her dad died. She had five bedrooms in this home and she wanted to know how she could help people in need of housing live with her, access their home.
Speaker 3:We have how many people at risk of losing their homes to tax or closure, people who can't afford their energy bills or their water bills in these big old homes they can't afford. And you have how many people who need housing. How can we match people in need with people in need so that we are sharing our resources? We can build household incomes by expanding our households to include more people, and that's a scary thing, right, but it's done all over the world. There are roomster apps. There's these apps. You can go in. A lot of young yuppie. You know college students, whatever recent graduates go on these systems. You know college students, whatever recent graduates go on these systems. They find roommates. They do that.
Speaker 3:But in our community sometimes we're afraid we don't know our neighbors, and that's why it's so important to come together as a community, so you do know the people you're living among and you can make good choices about this person I trust and this one I don't. And then organizations like ours can serve as an intermediary. So that's one of my big picture projects I want to see going. You know, we have a lot of growers in this community and a lot of growers have a hard time finding people to buy their food. You open up and you set your food stand out. And it's a Tuesday and it's raining and nobody comes. It's cold outside, nobody comes and your food is not going. And it's a Tuesday and it's raining and nobody comes. It's cold outside, nobody comes and your food is not going to be good forever.
Speaker 3:How do we create spaces and connect the food that we're growing to the people who need food in this community? It's easier to sell that food to the village market because the village market can air condition, it can put it in a refrigerator, it can put it in a place and everybody goes to the village market. Can air condition, it can put it in a refrigerator, it can put it in a place and everybody goes to the village market. So we've been working with the Eastern Market for the past couple of years to do food stands down here right, and you've seen the Eastern Market markets that we have on Saturdays and the people who are coming are coming from the village market, selling food to a community where you have growers, and I'm like, why are we selling food from these stores and not food from these growers? Because somehow somebody's marked that food up and made money on this that other people should have. So creating spaces for markets and then buying into those markets and spending your money there.
Speaker 3:Does anybody in here have any gifts like sewing, candle, making lotions, potions? Anybody do anything Arts you have. We have some creatives in here, right, and so if we have things and people have gifts and people have things they can create, maybe we bring people, people together. I know people who are really really good at you know lawn care and I know people who really need somebody good at lawn care, but who do you call? You don't even know how to find them.
Speaker 3:So how do we create market places for our people to come together and exchange economy beyond just giving it away? If I have to buy it anyway, I'll buy it from you. I just bought some artwork right from somebody here and that's right, ms Dorothy, right and saw a beautiful piece of art, gorgeous, gorgeous art. When you were here during the Winterfest, you saw all of that beautiful stuff we have here. The thing is we do it once a year, twice a year. What if we did that more regularly? What if we created spaces for people to weigh in and share their skills and gifts, and all of that on a regular basis? Would you shop here, alright? Does anybody remember Seven Days? It's the last part of this. Oh snap, seven Days. It was next door. So my vision is start one day a week. Seven days Saturdays. Seven days Saturdays.
Speaker 3:Show up, bring people together. We'll do it at the Master Trade Small Business Hub right there on MAC and give people an opportunity to sell and purchase from each other. If you know the markets are going to be there, you're more likely to come than if it happens every once in a while. So we're just trying to create a habit so that, as we look at it, we're growing our own food, we're buying our own food, we're learning how to can our food, we're learning how to prepare our food, we're learning how to you know, preserve it Can.
Speaker 4:I say something about that.
Speaker 6:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:That is part of that healing. You know you started talking about, you asked us about and I would love to hear from some of you about our health right and being proactive in that. And immediately when you said it, I thought about Chris Rock. You remember when he said the money is in the comeback. That's why we haven't solved cancer because the money is in the comeback right, otherwise we would, because you've got to come back and get more meds.
Speaker 4:But the other thing is this piece around healing. I want to say this out loud because you corrected me and I thought this was a really important note that it was not 92% of black women in America who voted. It was of the black women in America who voted. It was of the women, black women who voted, 92% of them right? Why? Because what trauma does and I'm talking about the immediacy of trauma, like I can't meet my basic needs, but I'm also talking about generations of trauma, compounding trauma year over year, generation over generation and what that does to our nervous systems and our bodies is it immobilizes us, right? We talk about people who turn to maladaptive things, whether it's drugs or gambling or sex or working. We are all addicted, because you cannot exist in this country without some form of trauma, because that blood is in the soil of this nation. So the idea that we are telling people to go from having that acuity, and not just in our DNA but also in our lived experience. What does it feel like to be in a city that your grandmother and great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother poured into and then you losing it right from in front of you and there's nothing you can do right? That your neighborhood that your grandmother used to watch the people you know the babies on, is now been occupied by people who have no history of that and no connection to you. That also is a form of trauma, right, and the sense on top of that of I don't have enough to be able to do anything, at the rate with which this change is happening can have an impact on us. So the first thing I want to encourage each of us to do is rest. When black women said I'm out, we did our part. We did it on November 5th and y'all failed us understand that that is a trauma response and that some of us need some time to rest. And when we rest, that is when creativity and innovation and imagination can emerge.
Speaker 4:So first, about wellness, as simple as it may seem, is rest. Tricia Hersey, who characterizes herself as the nap bishop, talks about making herself useless to capitalism. Right, I'm going to rest after we rest, because what happens in rest both in sleep, in sitting down, in grounding in nature, in not doing one more email or one more chore or one more whatever is that we allow, also biologically, our cells to heal, we allow our brain to reset, we allow foreign things that are in our body to expel right. So there are many reasons to rest. The food piece is about how we fuel the revolution. The good food in our body gives our body the energy it needs to sustain. So if you're not eating well and you're not resting well, your best innovations cannot emerge, whether that's your best business idea, your best next podcast or your best next reimagination of this country. So we have to return to eating well, and it can't it's got to be from each other, because the commodification of food and the way in which healthy eating has gotten so inaccessible means that only the privileged of us can access good food. Right. So out rests.
Speaker 4:Also, if you cannot access mental health support in a formal way, how can communal mental health support be made available, and for me that was always the aunties right, hanging with the aunties or going to a church service or reading the word or whatever way in which you can continue to affirm and have others affirm your right to be here. That is something we can do for each other and it don't cost a thing, and black folks in particular know this. It's the nod when I see you and we nod. That's how I affirm for you, right in Trump's America and in white supremacy I see you and you matter and best believe that.
Speaker 4:At the center of any significant movement I don't care if it's insurrectionists or Black Lives Matter are the fundamental questions do you see me and do I matter? We all want to know that. I want to know you see me, you want to know I see you. It's part of our human existence, it's part of our tribalism, it's part of how we're built, and so constantly being told you don't matter erodes the psyche. So we have to affirm each other. Just take a moment to slow down and say, hey, I see you. It may seem simple, but for some people it is the one affirmation that occurs in a day. Okay, I recognize I've been talking a lot. I see y'all. I appreciate you being so engaged, but I also know y'all ate and I know what happens when we eat.
Speaker 1:We got 15. We got 25 minutes left. I just have so engaged. But I also know y'all ate and I know what happens when we eat and it's warm.
Speaker 3:I just have one thing to say you know I'm kind of on the opposite end in some ways. We need to rest.
Speaker 3:We need to rest. Right, she don't believe me yet. No, I do, but I also know that we have people. In December last year, we had our Winterfest and the woman who lost her children in that parking garage was here and we had no solution. So while I'm sleeping, her children are dying.
Speaker 3:I think we have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to taking care of poor people in America for too long. I'm not saying wake up every day in a frenzy, but I'm saying wake up. Wake up to the realities that we're in. Every day. We have people who are in desperate need of resources walking through our doors and sitting in here and asking for stuff we can't give them, and I want to be able to rest and I want to be able to say you know what? Let me just calm down, I'll get to it when I get to it and I know that's not what Yodit is saying, because I think we need to incorporate rest in action. We need to go home and rest, and then we need to wake up and love, because whatever we're seeing right now and there's a rise in people coming through here I'm on the board of Capuchins, their whatever board, I forget what they call it the ministry board, and more people are coming there and there's fewer answers and it's going to get worse. And so I want us to rest, I want us to get good mental health care, I want us to eat well and take care of ourselves, because you can't take care of anybody else until you take care of yourselves. But I also want to remember that we have, as a nation and as a city, been comfortable with people being homeless and hungry and poor for too long.
Speaker 3:Everybody who was standing there giving a standing ovation to Duggan last week during his State of the City, when he talked about all of that great stuff downtown, when he spent hundreds of million dollars tearing down the Renaissance Center so we can have a world-class city, a world-class city where people don't have homes, it's not a world-class city. And so my urgency is not telling you not to rest. I'm just saying rest, askers, and also get active. And when we come together Yodit has pulled us together a couple of times a few women together. That is my relaxation. I walk out and I feel better about the world. And I feel better because sometimes coming together with people who are about the same thing energizes us. It makes us feel powerful enough that we can go out and do something different. So all of that together, I think we'll have a community solution.
Speaker 3:I just wanted to just add that because I do feel this urgency and if you're working in this community on the east side of Detroit, you might actually feel that same urgency because you're seeing it and it's scary, not because of white supremacy, but because that person in front of me may not have a home tonight. Do you know how it feels when we close our doors at night and we have people who are unhoused and we put them outside and they don't have a home to go into? We're open six days a week. Six days a week somebody leaves here and doesn't have a home, and that is before Trump's America. Somebody leaves here and doesn't have a home, and that is before Trump's America. That's just been America. But I do want to.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I just had to. We want to bring you all into the conversation and so we want to. We have about 15 minutes left and so, if you feel it in your spirit, if you feel it in your heart to step up to the mic, what we are asking everyone to share, in the wake of all that has been laid out by these two dynamic practitioners, what are you hoping for? What do you want to see? What do you hope the future to be? How are we building this future, ms Ida Ford?
Speaker 6:So thank you so much, because sometimes I'm way out there at my end and you always need to be around people that think like you and have ideas. But one thing I wanted to talk about is education about who we are. So my grandmother was born in 1919. Her family came here in 1917. Her family came here in 1917. And one thing I learned from her early on like people get upset about the Black Lives Matter street and stuff like that, black liberation is not a sign, it's not a street name. It's who we are and what we are about.
Speaker 6:One of the books that my grandmother had me read before I went to college was called Before the Mayflower. We have to understand that. We were here before the pilgrims. In the war of independence, a black man was the first man that died for this country to be free. We did not like.
Speaker 6:I hear people like we're not our ancestors. Yes, you are. You don't know what your ancestors were doing. You're reading the story of the victor and I urge everyone, young and older, you talk to your older people in your family, because they are black history and you are too. There's stories in there and like right now, all of this stuff going on, people like what's wrong with you? I'm laughing because they're sabotaging themselves because they need you. You not gonna tell me Mr Whiskey Leaks DUI is smarter than me. When they burn this thing down, just like we build it up the first time, we're the ones that's going to have to build it up again, but this time it won't be with white supremacy. It'll be our way. They need us. Teach your black history at home. I hear too many people going they don't teach my kids black history at school. My grandmother says she don't want no one teaching our history at school. We learn our history from home. I'm 66.
Speaker 6:I used to challenge teachers at seven years old about lies, they would tell me at Joyce Elementary School. Next, don't get on board with Jim Crow. Jesus. Jesus was a black man. The oldest Bible was in Ethiopia. A white guy with blonde hair could not go and hide in Egypt and everybody not know about it. Okay, my next motto when I get up in the morning is the truth. Put your geography, don't just read the Bible. It's the truth. Put your geography, don't just read the Bible. You got to read about geography climate. There is nothing in a hot desert region that is white with blind hair, even the sand has a tan.
Speaker 6:When I get up in the morning, I have my prayer and I meditate. I have my prayer and I meditate, but the words off of my mouth when I leave out my house every day is agitate. Educate and organize. That refreshes me, that keeps me on point of what I have to do. And, as my grandfather said, don't get ready, stay ready.
Speaker 6:So all the things that they discuss, we have to get those things together. Like I have a CB radio, I have a handheld CB radio so if things go down we can talk. I have solar system panels where I can charge my phone or keep my refrigerator going. Hey, them guys at the gas station, at the stores, best lookout in the world, don't put them down. You talk to them, you affirm their dignity. Because we can't give it to them. They already deserve to have dignity.
Speaker 6:Take care of everyone and figure out secure systems so we can share our messages where people can't get us electronically. And also, our vets are really good. We got 23 vets in the neighborhood. They got guys ready to go. They know how to handle their switches now. So they're not, you know, doing the wrong things with them. They got them permits, things with them. They got them permits so we can do this and we can live through it and prosper. And I'm only shopping and encouraging people to shop at black businesses and I'm looking for some interns to help me create an electronic and a paper directory of all our black businesses so that we know who to go to, and I'm gonna be asking for money to get a website started and stuff, but we can do this, thank you. Thank you, edith.
Speaker 1:Ford, you coming up.
Speaker 3:The Eastside, queen Edith Ford.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a retired teacher.
Speaker 1:We got about five minutes.
Speaker 2:We talk about history in my classroom. But I have something right now I would like to share with you, because everything you said is just wonderful, but this is what we need. I didn't write it, you know, but I have it. If I believe in my heart, talk to the mic, talk into the mic. If I believe in my heart, if something is possible, then even if it is as difficult as moving mountains or filling in the sea, the day of success will ultimately come. If I believe in my heart that something is impossible, then even if it is as easy as snapping a twig with a flick of my wrist, the time of success will never come.
Speaker 2:And we are faced with that. We are faced with so much where people just don't believe that they can do things, and part of it is our culture. Our culture makes us believe that happiness is Jordan's shoes or happiness is whatever these designer stuff that we got, and it is. You're happy for about five minutes. Then you need something else to go on and basically it's believe in you and no matter how small it is, you know you got to start and believe. Like I said, if you believe and there are going to be all kind of obstacles coming your way when you say you believe, and even I still have to read this and keep on pushing, absolutely.
Speaker 4:And even I still have to read this and keep on pushing.
Speaker 7:That's so absolutely.
Speaker 4:All right, we have somebody else coming up While we're waiting for this person. Thank you for saying that?
Speaker 1:What's your name, ms Turner?
Speaker 4:Ms Turner. Thank you, Ms Turner.
Speaker 4:We appreciate you About that visioning piece or believing. Just one thing I want to acknowledge is that for many of our people it wasn't that long ago when we had folks dreaming that died in dreaming, and when I was talking about trauma right, there are people in this room today that saw many of our leaders laid down for dreaming and you got to believe that. That lives inside of you. That memory lives inside and it can immobilize. So what you're calling us to, I just want to say, is itself an act of revolution.
Speaker 4:To dream anyway, to imagine a future where we're free, right, is that is a, and to believe it and part of that happens in community, where we witness for each other what's possible, because a lot of folks have a hard time dreaming or visioning or imagining something else. You know, audre Lorde talks about radical imagination also as a form of revolution and self-care, a political act. So thank you for saying that. You are absolutely right that we have to believe and we have to be able to imagine something other than what's right here. Yeah, 100%. Thank you for your patience.
Speaker 1:Be sure to introduce yourself.
Speaker 7:My name is Daisy Herndon. My father is from Jamaica. Daddy used to say good, better best. Never let it rest till your good gets better. You better get best. But I got an alter ego. Her name is Sadie. Miss Sadie, say good better best. Sometimes you got to rest. I came up to teach you the first line of a poem. I'm going to recite the whole poem.
Speaker 7:I have a history of depression. Y'all don't know nothing about that, but you're getting ready to know about that. So I'm kind of glad that I went through that, because I know that you can survive it and I know that there are skills that you can survive it and I know that there are skills that you can develop that can help you with your thinking and your emotional skills. We can actually. People say you can't help how you feel. Oh yeah, you really can and you can and you have to. So on a day when I was really not going to make it, I'd made it anyway I was.
Speaker 7:I've been hospitalized like 10 times for suicidal depression. It's hard to say that, but hey, I'm here. I'm here, I'm alive and good, and one of the reasons I'm here, the reason I'm here to say this, is because we're going through, as I'm watching people grow through this and like it's really getting to me too. But I see that people are experiencing some of the kinds of things that I have survived, so I thought I'd share, and one of the things I did was I wrote a poem.
Speaker 7:I got a box. I'm getting ready to make up a product and it's called Now I Wake Me Up to Live Because, see, now I lay me down to sleep. Hey, when I was going to sleep if I was going to sleep, that was good it was getting up in the morning and dealing with the day. That was what was getting to me. So now I wake me up to live, and my granddaughter taught me that's a seven word affirmation. Now I wake me up to live, and there's times, even now, when I'm laying there and it's like that. But it goes like this you can remember it Now I wake me up to live, I'll give life all I have to give, and if today I should say when, if today I face a test, I'll hope, cope, pray and do my best.
Speaker 7:Wherever I may go today, may love's light guide me on the way, with each breath and each step I take. Be with me, lord, for heaven's sake. That poem has helped me. It's helped a whole lot of people. So if you can just remember just that first line, and when you're laying there and you just don't have it, ask yourself do you have anything else to give? Because if this is the best you got to give, then that's all you have to give. This is a day to rest, but if you got a little bit more, then that poem I've seen it help people get up and I hope it will help you get up too. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, ecn Eastside Legend Award recipient, the Alberta Tinsley Salavi. Y'all better act like you know.
Speaker 8:You have the last word, ma'am Well in that case, for everyone who is here, on my last birthday I reached my three scores and 10 years. Hallelujah, somebody. That means a big age of 70 and you know that in the bible you're promised three scores and 10 years. So right, I'm living out my bonus. And you know, when you talk about your bonus, that means you don't do nothing but win, win, win, win, win, and that's what we're going to do. Thank you, ecn, for bringing us all together. Thank you, my sister, for that powerful message that we will not sleep on, but we will walk on. So I'm so grateful for that. Just a reminder to everyone Mac is alive.
Speaker 8:Mac is alive and we are planning our 35th annual Mac alive parade and rally. Come on, somebody, I'm here to tell you and, growing up some of you will remember, lafayette Park had a parade, east Warren had a parade. I went to both of those places and said can my little nephews, who are deceased now, can they participate? They said, well, this is only for the community. I said, to hell with it, we'll start on our own. And now, 35 years later, we still kicking. Come on, somebody, but this Wednesday at 530, if you want to be a part of the planning committee for the 35th annual McAuliffe Parade and Rally. Come on over to McAuliffe 3546, fisher off Mac, and I'll see you then. God bless you and I love you.
Speaker 1:The Alberta Tinsley Talabi. To close out this beautiful and regenerative space, we've invited all of our mother, Ms Willie Mae Gaskin, to read a piece from Gotta Keep On Steppin'.
Speaker 5:Let me stand. You can sit down. Can I sit? Oh, okay, thank you very much and I'm happy to be here. And as we were talking, as they were talking, and you said talk to somebody you know we had that word that's been running. I don't talk to them folks, but we need to talk. You might be that one person down the road that you need to help you get the car going or move something out of the way. So that's not the point I was going to say. But, as you said, talk, call the phone number and say I'm just checking to see if this number's still working.
Speaker 5:Amen, thank you, encouraging myself to keep on stepping, and this was the word my mom brought down down through the years. She would be 125 as she was living today, but she told her, whatever the Lord tells you, it's for you, you keep doing it, you keep going. And I looked through the book. It says Encouraging, encouraging myself to keep on stepping. You can get this. Ms Donald will have copies after a while.
Speaker 5:My side okay, let me say that I am also can I say this the creator not the creator, but the founder of One Lunch, one Hub. My son was a policeman. He passed in 2000. And we started the One Lunch, one Hub with the gaming division and it became just a city all around. Everybody would come to this luncheon. Greg would pass, and one morning at 5 o'clock, his spirit woke me up. He said write this down. At that time they were bashing the policemen all over. He said write this down. At that time they were bashing the policemen all over. He said write this down Five o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 5:I know who I am. I am a servant of the people. I am a child of God. I know who I am. I am faithful, strong and respected. I demand respect for myself and from others. I stand tall. I know who I am. I'm a child of God. I am honest. I am. I'm a child of God. I am honest, I am faithful, strong and respected. I must walk the path laid out for me. I will not cross the line or walk too close to the edge. I walk with the men and women in blue and I'm proud to serve you. I am courageous, outstanding and priceless. Courageous, outstanding and priceless. Born to be Lived to be. Courageous, outstanding and priceless. I'm a child of God and I'm proud to serve you. I know who I am. God bless you.
Speaker 3:Before we close today, I want to take a moment to think about our sister, one of the founders of this organization, Angela Brown Wilson, on her 64th birthday organization, Angela Brown Wilson on her 64th birthday.
Speaker 1:Angela, we love you and this is for you. That's going to do it for this episode of Authentically Detroit. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to love on your neighbor. Outro Music.
