Moving From Woke To Working For Black Futures
heather
i miss you since you died i have been
fighting to live
fighting racism fighting the survivor’s
guilt
and grief that’s persisted since racism
killed you
my best friend and college roommate
i’ve been fighting in all the ways i
know how heather and i am tired
i am on this stage today because your
death
14 years ago in your second semester of
law school
it motivated me to leave my own
anti-black workplace
i have been so grateful to have you as
my ancestor
so sis guide me now as i share our
truths with this audience
i need them to know how to go from where
i was when you died
quote unquote woke yet unsure how to do
anything meaningful
about the racism i knew was happening to
us both
to where i am now working systemically
so more of our folks can not only
survive academia
but navigate it successfully as their
authentic selves
i’m afraid that if more folks don’t
start fighting
for black survival and wellness that’ll
survive
or ever get well and even though i miss
you
so so much there’s still too much work
left for me to do
here
after heather died i left my miserable
insurance job and moved to southeast d.c
to start working at potomac job corps
center
it’s a residential center that houses
about 450 students
all between the ages of 16 and 25 mostly
black and brown
lots of queer and trans folks i
loved it i was hired as an
administrative assistant but within a
couple months
i became the work based learning
coordinator responsible for career
coaching and helping these students to
secure internships
jobs and other opportunities as they
finish their training in our program
i loved getting to know these students
hearing their stories
dominique caleb
paul these students taught me so much
about race
and power now don’t get me wrong i knew
about race and racism
my parents had taught me black history
and to have pride in my culture
so much so that i just had to go to
howard the historically black university
where i met heather during undergrad
y’all couldn’t tell me i wasn’t wasn’t
denise leaving the huxtable household
for hillman to live my black college
dreams
so even though i didn’t yet know that
charlene carruthers the author of
unapologetic defines anti-black racism
as the system of beliefs and practices
that destroy erode and dictate the
humanity of black people
but i knew anti-blackness too well one
of my
earliest memories i was six years old
and at a friend’s sleepover
the only non-white person there and
her mom is helping us decide who would
go first in a game that we were going to
play
and her grown self says to our room full
of six-year-olds
ketchup n-word by the
toe
and if that word is too violent
for me to say on this ted stage i hope
you will imagine
what it was like for me in my pajamas
at a slumber party as a child
i will never forget that moment so yeah
i was woke to anti-blackness
but i wasn’t able to work to do anything
about it
it wasn’t until i saw these diverse
black and brown young folks on their job
search
students who were hungry for work who
met all the qualifications of the jobs
we were going up for
who were doing every last one of the
tedious tasks asked of them to get hired
yet i watch them be denied job
after job after job in a systematic
fashion
due to their race sexuality gender
the darker their skin or the more
visibly queer or transgender
their presentation the harder it was for
me to place them on the job
that’s what it took for me to wake up
because like a lot of us who
struggle with our own hardships trauma
discrimination
i struggle to see my privilege for
example
that insurance job that i hated but had
the freedom to quit
yeah i secured that at a campus job fair
because that’s where these corporations
come to recruit for jobs pulling from
pools of mostly white
middle to upper class students students
who have the privilege to go to college
and the safety to make it to graduation
the ease of getting the job for me had
made it so i hadn’t really thought about
what it was like
for folks who don’t have access to
university or
who weren’t cisgender or didn’t have the
light skin or class privilege that i had
so yeah della you fat you black you
queer
you got a code switch every time you
enter these white spaces if you want to
be successful there
but you have benefited from privilege
too
like your parents both being the first
in their family to get a college degree
and the access to opportunities that
that has provided you like entry level
jobs
that lead to middle class possibilities
jobs and possibilities that your black
transistors are worthy of
yet are systematically excluded from
see i hadn’t yet read the combini river
collective statement or kimberly
crenshaw’s foundational work on the
concept of intersectionality
so i didn’t understand power not until i
took the time to
really learn about these students
realities and i noticed that
no matter whether they came from new
york new jersey baltimore any of the
areas that fed into our center
the education health care justice
systems there had failed them
the teachers doctors police officers
family members around them could not
keep them safe
or were the harm doers themselves
i had to learn how i had been a harm
doer myself
eventually i decided to go to grad
school to study counseling and how to
conduct research that facilitates safety
and wellness for those who have less
access to it and while i was on that
journey
the black lives matter movement started
i saw people creating black futures with
their words
black lives matter yes they do
say her name it is our duty to fight for
our freedom
it is our duty to win we must love each
other
and support each other we have nothing
to lose
but our chains thank you asada shakur
i saw people using their awareness
talents positionality
to shift conversations cultures
behaviors
so i thought maybe maybe maybe one of
the ways i could contribute
would be by studying how folks moved
from woke
to working for black survival and
wellness
i interviewed incredible black activists
and with a dope
dope team of co-researchers we created
the critical consciousness of anti-black
racism model
spoiler alert y’all we’re currently in
the model
you’ve already learned step one bear
witness
that’s what i did from that haunting
eenie meenie miney mo moment
at the sleepover to my time at job corps
bearing witness is about recognizing
anti-black racism at all the different
levels and ways that it shows up from
internalized anti-black racism to
institutionalized
you got to notice it you have to locate
yourself in relation to it
no matter your race no matter whether
you only ever interact with black folks
and are black
or whether you barely ever interact with
black people in real life
if every one of these impactful black
activists and i
all had to go through this process and
we identify as black
then you can imagine how challenging
though critically important it is
for those of you who identify as white
or as non-black people of color
and like no matter what your race is
there’s a practice that i sometimes
teach in my counseling and trainings
that can be helpful i call it cultural
mindfulness so i want to invite you to
go inward for a moment
you might even close your eyes if that
feels comfortable for you
and i just want you to think about what
has been coming up since you started
listening to this talk
what types of thoughts have been popping
up
what emotional reactions have you been
having
you notice any physical sensations at
all
what are you mindful of pay attention to
how your cultural identities
and experiences might be influencing the
way you can think or feel about these
stories and this research
get real curious being honest
yet gentle as you do and whatever you
notice
just decide how you want to be as a
result of what you notice
that’s the practice now step two of the
model it requires processing the
anti-blackness you witness
it’s the difference between folks who
know racism is real
and those who do something about it for
me
it was a difference between just being
able to sort of provide some emotional
support to heather
when she would call me in tears about
the anti-black racism
happening in her law program to now
being able to combat that in ways that
have the potential to help more than
just
one person or for just one moment in
time
there is no cookie cutter checklist for
the stage of the model though you have
to bear witness
practice cultural mindfulness and then
do your own reflection
but i need you to know that you staying
in the first stage bearing witness
being woke to the anti-blackness around
and inside you
that does nothing nothing for me and my
folks
but you working through this stage to
process it to grow
so that you can dismantle that
anti-blackness around and inside you
though
that is how we all get free
now black people at this stage in the
journey
we have to find ways to heal and
acknowledge the pain and trauma of
racism
but there are so many spaces that are
here for our healing
if we can open ourselves to receive the
offering if
and i know that this can be the hardest
part for some of us
if we can work through the challenges
that come with finding the right healer
with going through healing with being a
part of a liberation focused community
but baby it is so worth it it’s so so
worth it
and for non-black people of color for
white folks you’re also going to have to
practice self-care
and rely on community as you start to
get real about your impact on black
futures
we all have to do the work so we all
have to take care of ourselves
so find you a self-compassion or black
lives matter meditation
join an emotional emancipation circle or
or get a liberation focused coach
or counselor or whatever is right for
you
learn about miriam cabba and adrian
marie brown’s work
on transformative justice so you can be
better equipped to start the lifelong
practice
of taking accountability for your impact
on black futurity
and step 3 it’s so simple y’all get to
work
get to work if you need help identifying
your activism lane your
strengths or points of intervention
please check out the blueprint that
these activists gave us
anti-black racism is so pervasive though
that i am confident that you can find an
entry point
that’s right for where and who you are
right now
so in these last few minutes i want to
talk about how you do the work
move with love as you do this work this
model makes it clear
that you need to center the needs and
voices of black people as you do this
work
you need to move urgently in response to
anti-black racism
you need to follow black leadership
always be attuned to how power is
operating around
you be resourceful creative and look
just know that this work is going to be
hard
long sometimes risky often undervalued
definitely underfunded but black people
are worthy of wellness
and i know that some of you can help
with that i know that some of you have
the
the talent to create art that might help
more people to see the beauty and
blackness
i know that some of you may be able to
have the organizing skills that will
finally help us
to get the police out of our babies
schools
and i know that some of you have the
resources and networks
that can raise funds to support
culturally relevant
emotional and social support initiatives
specifically
by and for black people and that we all
can push in the places where we have
influence
and hold perpetrators of anti-black
violence accountable
no matter who they are we need to make
sure
that our heathers graduate and that our
trans siblings have their needs
met that’s the work
will you work so that i don’t have to
worry about whether my nieces will be
safe at your parties
will you work so i don’t have to worry
about whether black students will be
safe
in classrooms that you are in
will you work so that no one has to
experience the traumatizing realities
that heather faced
i still wonder and dream about what her
life would have looked like
as the entertainment lawyer that she has
set out to become
i don’t know that what i do know
is the pain that she was holding when
she died
the sole murder that had been taking
place
that feeling is familiar to black folks
but organizers like latasha brown
who co-founded black voters matter and
has been fighting against voter
suppression
they give me radical hope in these
revolting times
at an inauguration event this year
latasha said i am a black futurist
i am a visionary and i am a founder of a
new nation
that’s who i am and since hearing that
statement and resonating with it so
deeply
i’ve been asking folks if they’re
willing to be a founder
they may not see themselves as founders
of a new nation you don’t have to and
can’t be latasha brown
but can you be the founder of a new
culture wherever you are
one that works to actively dismantle
anti-black racism in all its forms
and to facilitate thriving black futures
can you be the founder of a new office
culture department
family church classroom culture
change is happening and you can be a
part of it
we are moving past woke we are working
for black survival and wellness
will you get information so you can do
the work with us
i hope they do right by our stories
heather i love you sis
you