Tamarra Coleman: Alright, welcome everyone, thank you for participating in one of our Black History Month events hosted by Moorpark College.
We have other events going on throughout the month.
I think we're able to post it
at some point, the link to register to participate
at some point in the event today or you can go to the website on Moorpark College's web page specifically on Black History Month for the details of other events.
I am Tamarra Coleman for those who don't know me English faculty here at Moorpark College and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator for this semester. I'm excited to be here and I'm super excited to be on stage, right, this virtual stage with
four I will say amazing women, and I will use that lightly, as many of you know I am, I have a lot of energy for social justice work, and for activism, and advocacy and really getting people to use their voices so I'm excited to
have the women here today and for you to meet them and see their work and the ways in which they have been using their voices for many years, right, as a career, not just in a moment of need, but certainly as something they've dedicated their lives to.
We're going to start with, oh, I call this event hashtag Trust Black Women there is a hashtag trust black women that you could find right on social media.
An Inter-generational Conversation with Black Women Social Justice Activists.
We have a woman in her 20s, a woman in her 30s, I'm representing the 40s today, although I'm just simply the moderator it's not about me today,
and two women in their 50s so the work, and I think the perspectives that you will see span different generations and,
you know, different experiences, based on the time how the times have changed, and I think you'll hear that, in their conversations
about their work and what social justice work looked like maybe 20, 30 years ago, and what that world looks like today. So I think that'll be interesting, also for you all to hear.
So without. Oh, a couple of other things sorry I keep forgetting about all the technical aspects, the first half will be a conversation where I'll be asking the ladies questions.
The second half, you will be able to engage either through the Q&A.
The chat is not enabled for you all today but you'll be able to ask questions in the Q&A and we'll field those questions.
You'll also be able to ask an opportunity live just use the raise your hand feature. That is not activated in this moment it'll be activated in the second half of the presentation and then you can ask whatever questions you have for our panelists.
This will be recorded.
This will be
the captions will be available if you need those as well. You can enable those and without much
further ado, we will go ahead and get started.
So I want to start off with each of the panelists introducing themselves, I thought it would be more interesting than me reading long bios.
So we'll start with Dr. Toni Bond.
Hi Toni.
Dr. Toni M. Bond: Hi Tammy. Thank you, thank you for having me, it is a pleasure and an honor to be on this panel with my colleagues, my esteemed colleagues that I get to work with,
and get to see now it seems like every week, every Friday. My name is Dr. Toni Bond, and I have worked in the reproductive health rights and justice movements for oh my goodness, almost 35 years.
Somewhere thereabouts. I am one of the 12 Black women who coined the term Reproductive Justice in 1994.
And I was also the first
Black woman, I think, actually the first woman of color to lead an Abortion Fund in the country
In '94.
And
my,
my work really comes from my lived experiences. That is how I became an activist. I survived a botched abortion at the age of 12 and when I
became a teenager, I'll never forget I was walking downtown I had a what we call them in Chicago a cedar job, a city job
and I was walking past this rally with the National Organization of Women, and I saw this activist named Sue Purrington, who is now deceased but she was
telling her story and talking about abortion. And I just remember thinking, "I want to do that," you know, "I want to, want to have that experience." So it took me a long time to get to become an activist, but that was
a key moment in my life of why I wanted to become an activist.
I like to say that my reproductive and sexual her story is quite flowery.
And so
it is because of that, that I wanted to do work to ensure that
other people didn't have to experience the,
the journey through sometimes the thorns and thistles that I had to go through, and and so that is why I became an act, became an activist. My journey is
or I consider myself an activist scholar, because I was an activist first, before I became
a quote scholar, as you know, the way we think about it in academia, but in fact I firmly believe that there is scholarship and epistemology that comes from the grassroots anyway. So we've got a lot of community scholars.
So I'm going to stop there, and they let you pass it on to the next person.
Tamarra: Toni, can I ask you, real quickly to share with us you're not so much your educational journey, but your educational background, like the degrees that you hold, your major?
Toni: Well, I think it's important to know that I was a high school dropout until the age of like 24.
And I went back and got my GED because I was very shamed.
And when I,
so I have a that I went back well into my adulthood and get a B.A. in Women and Gender Studies my master's is in
Religion and Ethics, and my PhD is in Religion Ethics in Society. My area of scholarship focus is what we call womanist ethics. So I'm very interested in what we ought to do, and what we ought not to do, but through a womanist lens and my work is at the intersection of religion and reproductive justice.
Tamarra: And what are you doing for work now Toni?
Toni: Well, right now, I am doing a lot of consulting. I have a lot of quite a few clients.
USC is one of my clients. Some folks in Illinois. I also have a postdoc
at University of California San Francisco.
I think that's all that I'm doing. Yeah I think that's it.
Tamarra: Thank you, Toni what a journey.
Dazon on tell us about yourself. Introduce
yourself to us.
Dazon Dixon Diallo: Okay.
So my mic is my self,
my selfie mic check is concluded. So anyway sorry about that everybody I am Dazon Dixon Diallo, and thank you so much
Tamarra for inviting me to this amazing conversation I'm excited to have. So I am the founder and President of SisterLove Incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia and SisterLove International South Africa in Johannesburg in South Africa. SisterLove in the US is will be 32...
yeah will be 32 years old in June.
And in, well some point later this year, SisterLove in South Africa will be 22. And I am,
let's see my bachelor's degree is in English and Communications from Spelman College. I then went 10 years later
to get my master's in Public Health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and I'm also just, you know, still pleased as punch that the same school that spent four years trying to,
not trying, winning as treating me as persona non grata that was Spelman College, tell you that one in a second,
conferred upon me my Honorary Doctorate a few years ago in 2012, and so I do walk with that as well. And one of the persons who was there when I got conferred, aside from Oprah Winfrey,
was Roz Brewer and that's why I want to lift up Roz Brewer because she was named the CEO of Walgreens the first Black woman to head of Fortune 500,
she's a Spelman alum and she's also Chair of the Board of Trustees at Spelman College. So that's a little bit of my walk and
I'm from a very small town called Fort Valley or also known as Peach County here in the state of Georgia, so I'm born and raised here.
I am also the founder of SisterSong National Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective,
as well as a member, a partnership member of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda, and I am the convener of
Women Now, which is a global intersectional summit on the intersections of HIV with sexual reproductive health rights and justice. And so there's a lot more to that, but my intersection between the Academy and
activism started
probably long before I got to university, but by the time I got to it was during the anti-apartheid days and I started in the anti-apartheid activism, which was pretty big on HBCU campuses,
long story goes in between being introduced to the National Black Women's Health Project by being
fortunate enough to be a student on Spelman's campus that very summer that Byllye Avery and others hosted. The very first ever
conference on Black Women's Health, National Conference on Black Women's Health which was in June of 1983.
Which changed my life, sent me on a whole new trajectory I ended up working in the feminist women's health centers for a long time after six months at Mcdonalds which made me a vegetarian I haven't eaten at Mcdonalds since 1984.
That, that's a truth that's fact. That has sent me on that same trajectory of not only intersecting the activism work with my feminism work with the reproductive health rights and justice work,
but also, by the time I was doing reproductive health and rights work and AIDS came along, there was no question that HIV and AIDS were also a sexual reproductive rights issue, especially for Black women and so that's been a core intersection of the work that I've been doing for,
that long.
That. [Tamarra]: Thank you, thank you Daz- [Dazon]: That...
long, yeah.
Tamarra: Weren't you also in the room when those Black women coined the phrase reproductive justice?
Dazon: I was in spirit.
[Tamarra]: Okay. [Dazon]: Yeah.
Because there was something. I'm trying to remember Toni because that meeting was in because I remember Mabel was going to that meeting, Loretta was going to that meeting, I was supposed to be in that meeting,
and I'm trying to remember exactly what point of the year, it was, but we were smack in the middle of organizing for the Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and that and I remember having to be out of town for something else that weekend but,
boy, I would have been. So yeah I was there in spirit, because I was the one yelling about what we took into Cairo and what we didn't win when we were there, but we can get into that later.
Tamarra: Okay, thank you Dazon.
Jeryl, next up, tell us about yourself, your background, and your journey?
Jeryl Hayes: Alright. Hi everyone I'm Jeryl Hayes. I'm the Movement Building Director at If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice. We're a national organization
that mobilizes and trains lawyers, law students, we have a fellowship program about, you know, advancing reproductive health rights and justice and
I am excited to be back at If/When/How. If/When/How is part of my origin story. So,
If/When/How has chapters on law schools across the country, and when I was in law school I had taken off some time between
my undergrad, I took a four years between undergrad and and going to law school, and I was interested in social justice work and, specifically, using my law degree to do, social justice work but wasn't entirely sure exactly how to use it and then came across the
you know, the If/When/How student chapter and started learning about this concept of reproductive justice,
and it really
like it felt like home it felt like a framework that and that really got at all of the different social issues that I was
really passionate about. And then I had an opportunity, my second year of summer of law school to actually be a legal intern at the organization about 10 years ago. And that changed my entire trajectory.
Had the opportunity to meet other lawyers and activists who are working on on different parts of reproductive justice. I got the chance to see how expansive
this movement is and, and seeing people thrive in their work, see them be happy in that work, and being successful in that work.
And that summer I also learned about a fellowship program that at that point was was brand new to the organization that was really looking to expand
entry into the policy world. And policy was something that I hadn't thought about as a legal career. It's a form of advocacy. Where having
legal training is really helpful and I was a finalist for a fellowship position but wasn't placed
but I ended up coming to D.C., anyways at that time, all of the fellowships are placed in D.C.,.
And did a one year Masters of Law Program. And so at American University and where I have a master's in Law in Law and Government with a concentration in Civil and Constitutional Rights and then within that concentration a specialization in Gender in the Law.
So, like to think of myself as a professional legal feminist. And I had the great opportunity to use, you know, I could shape, how I wanted to use my,
how I wanted to shape my master's work and I used it to to really study the history of the reproductive justice movement and the role of women of color and the sort of broader reproductive health rights and justice movement. And so it, it still tickles me to this day that
I, you know, learn so much about the framework and then in a later position, later on, during policy work for Physicians for Reproductive Health got a chance to work
on a daily basis with Dr. Toni Bond and it just, It makes me super, I nerd out all the time about getting to connect,
you know, with the founders of this really incredible movement and, you know, having having that space and time to really
do some, you know, studying around reproductive justice and then having the opportunity to actually do that, the fellowship, I after my master's in Law, I then did a one year fellowship
reproductive justice fellowship with placement at the Black Woman's Health Imperative.
My first week of my fellowship I had an opportunity to meet Byllye Avery, who is the founder of the Black Woman's Health Imperative and just, you know, at the time Dorothy Roberts was the board chair, she signed my copy of Killing The Black Body, I like,
these Black women are, who just paved the way and it's just incredible the the generosity that they are, you know, give to other young
activists, to help, you know, they I look up to them so much. And so really enjoyed that opportunity to learn about on the ground, what what does reproductive justice look like in action? And so I did federal policy for
several years, several reproductive health rights and justice policy,
and then move to a position at If/When/How doing movement building work where my focus now is on organizing and training
Law students, we have Law students and lawyers. We have a reproductive justice lawyers network. We, you know, have chapters on over 100 law school campuses, and our fellowship program, those are the three major programs that I oversee and we use a foundational
training that we call RJ squared which is reproductive justice, racial justice, where we really you know, look at the
the principles of reproductive justice. We talk about the history, we talk about the importance of
those 12 Black women really naming a framework that centered on the people who are most marginalized,
and then the people who, you know, who should be at decision making and being able to make, you know, at decision making tables, being the ones who are consulted, being the ones who are
you know, coming up with the solutions for what's needed in their lives. And so that's my great privilege on a day to day basis that
I get to train law students and lawyers in how to use their legal privilege that we are afforded as lawyers to really advancing issues that we're super passionate about.
Tamarra: Thank you Jeryl, Jeryl, I'm sorry, I must say to that I get kind of excited now when I talked to people who know reproductive justice
activists. We had Loretta with us last fall and a couple people said, "You know Loretta Ross? You know the Loretta Ross? I have her book Undivided Rights."
And even now, full disclosure, I worked with Toni Bond for several years at Black Women's Reproductive Justice in Chicago and that was kind of my entry
post being in the academic world, I moved into the social justice world, and then back into the academic world. So when I talked to folks and say, "Oh, I know, Toni, and Loretta, and Dazon," and folks who know these names get all excited so I'm like, "Ooh, I feel important," right?
I want to have one of you tell us what reproductive justice is just because I don't think we have an audience where
the distinction between reproductive rights and reproductive justice is necessarily clear, but before we do that, I want the final panelist and the youngest of our group and Nzingha to introduce herself to us.
Nzingha Hall: Hello, thank you so
much for having, thank you so much for inviting me and having me. I'm really grateful to be here, my name is Nzingha, she/her pronouns. I am all things and nothing at the same time, so this is so funny, but I am a manager of youth and leadership programs as SisterLove.
And I'm originally from St Louis.
And it's a funny story how I ended up in Atlanta, but I am passionate about public health, and reproductive justice, and global health.
So I always knew that these were my passions probably since around my first and second years of college. I worked in HIV my junior and senior years of college.
I did HIV promotion and prevention programming. I went to school called the Beloit College and I was part of the Boyd Public Health Initiative so that's how I got my start working in STI prevention and HIV prevention.
I knew I wanted to continue in public health, and so I moved to Atlanta, and I pursued my Master of Public Health degree at Morehouse School of Medicine.
I loved everything I was learning at my school except I knew I didn't want to be a lab rat I knew I didn't want to be just, you know,
the data person, right? So when I did an amazing fellowship called the Errin J. Vulley Fellowship also at Feminist Women's Health Center,
I got the reproductive health, rights, and justice training I needed to really become an advocate. So at Feminist's Women's Health Center I was a I guess you can say a fellow, slash intern,
and then, after that fellowship ended I worked at Feminist Women's Health Center as an abortion doula. So this is essentially I am a person that guides
pregnant folks through the abortion care process. So this is everything from explaining what an abortion is, whether that be surgical or medical,
to all the way, where the person goes in for surgery, and I'm literally holding their hand while they're getting a local procedure done. So,
this is me, you know, sharing affirmations, wiping snot, wiping tears, holding hands, you know, singing, you know, lullabies, singing spirituals. Like all those sort of things
with being an abortion doula. I absolutely love it I now work at a different clinic in Atlanta now but I'm so grateful for all of those experiences and all those, you know, important stories and i'm just so happy to be in that position to help people.
I have, you know, myriad of passions.
I speak Mandarin. I speak Portuguese. I actually had the privilege of studying abroad in Salvador by Brazil two years ago so I'm very, very passionate about the diaspora.
I also had an honor of attending Women Now, which is where I met Byllye Avery in Kigali, Rwanda and I'm sure Dazon will share more about Women Now later, but,
that's really about me. Aries/Taurus cusp, oldest born. I always share that every single time. And I'm super excited to be talking to West Coast folks because, you know, everyone's so separated right now so it's super exciting to be talking to folks in the West Coast so hey ya'll hey.
Tamarra: Well, it is exciting to have you here with us Nzingha
thank you for sharing.
Yes, I concur with the comment that was just made, "What an impressive group of women," certainly, I always forget ya'll's biography I just know y'all is Black women, sister girls, right?
But it is impressive to hear the background that you all have and the experience you all have. Can one of you share with us what reproductive justice is, since you all have identified yourself as reproductive justice advocates or activists?
Toni: I'm happy to take that but before I do, can I share one quick story about Byllye Avery since people mentioned Byllye Avery, right, so we think of Byllye Avery is the mother of the Black Women's Health Movement,
and Byllye is the reason why I went back to school to do my graduate studies. So we had invited Byllye to Chicago to do,
to do a town hall to talk about universal health care reform. I had not even completed my bachelor's yet.
And so I'm driving from O'hare Airport from picking Byllye up and Byllye looks at me she says, "You know we've been having a really hard time trying to find Black women,
African American women, to take advantage of this master's in public health and we literally give it away to Black women she says, did you apply Toni?
I said,
"No I didn't apply," she said, "Why not?"
And I can't get the answer and she says, "Why not?" and I said, "Well because I haven't finished my undergrad yet," and Byllye like she turns, she's like "Don't let me talk to you and see you again, and you haven't went back and finish your undergrad. That doesn't
make sense," I had to listen to Byllye blast me out from, from O'Hare Airport to Hyde Park, Chicago and let me tell you that was about an hour and a half drive, words of Byllye,
you know, giving me the business about not going back and complete my undergraduate degree.
Oh, my goodness, so I just I needed to tell that, and so I said, "I am not going to let Byllye catch me again and see me and I cannot say I have went back and did my undergraduate degree," so.
But reproductive justice. So as we said reproductive justice was coined in 1994 by 12 Black women in Chicago at a conference about universal health care reform but,
in just in, you know, just in short, reproductive justice is really about
the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy. It's about the right to have children. The right not to have children.
The right to parent the children that we have in safe and sustainable communities with the social and economic supports,
so that they don't just survive, but thrive. And it's also about the right to sexual pleasure and sexual expression without procreation,
without the requirement of procreation. And also it's important to know that reproductive justice is grounded in
the human rights framework and also Black feminist thought which sometimes to leave out the fact that it's grounded in Black feminist thought
because it's that Black feminist thought that really helps us understand intersectionality, understands Black women's standpoint and why we were coming at
the construction of reproductive justice, the way that we were because we were coming from our lived experiences,
we were coming from the experiences that we knew from the women in the communities that we were working with, and we were really coming from our unique standpoint as Black women living with,
living within our communities, our families, surviving and thriving in the midst of numerous a myriad of health disparities. So it's important that we also include that Black feminist thought, because that also
speaks to the fact that this is a framework, theory and framework that came, originated from Black women.
Early on Black women were somewhat invisiblized in terms of the origins of the reproductive justice
theory and framework, and it's important that we lift up that history and say, not only did it come from
Black women but also it's under great undergirded by Black feminist thought, because that really speaks to and gives credit to the fact that Black women can construct
and present, you know, the world basically with critical analysis and formulate epistemologies, because, as we now know reproductive justice is around the world, so.
Tamarra: Thank you for that Toni. Did anybody else want to add to it before we move on to the next question?
Jeryl: Yeah I, I just wanted to note the importance of having a framework that, that centers in particular Black women and women of color,
having, someone who has worked at a reproductive health organization, reproductive health focusing on like the provision
of reproductive health care, reproductive rights organization where reproductive rights, you know, is more focused on sort of the legal
protection of the legal right to, you know, really working for organizations that are focused on what is the lived experience, what are the structures, what are the the structures of inequality
that are at play and just really looking at using this framework as a way of not just addressing like an individual's need, but what is our collective need? What our community needs? Like this framework is, it doesn't I don't think it gets enough credit for how,
you know, for the ways that it allows us to bring in more perspectives, more voices, to think more expansively, and to think more,
you know, more about our liberation, than just like what are the structures that are already in place, why are we thinking in sort of these narrow frameworks about you know, using the current setup the current system,
where using this framework allows us to really think beyond what, you know, thinking beyond what currently is to how we want it to be, that's centered on our needs, not just on
what somebody else tells us what we can or cannot have. So I just I don't know that that the RJ framework gets enough of that just how beautiful
it has been laid out and the ways that that's been able to be adaptable to sort of the changing needs
that arise to be able to meet
the, you know, the additional like thinking about sexual expression and sexual identity, just thinking about the other things that sort of have come up and the ways that it responds to that, that it was created in a way to be able to meet our needs.
Dazon: That, the one thing I would add and only because I may
have missed that
in some and in what's been said already, but I think what's really critical is that when Kimberly Crenshaw coined the term Intersectionality years before
the sisters who sat and joined reproductive rights and social justice into this framework of reproductive justice, she literally already had created
not a framework, but more or less of a process for us to think differently about oppressions and about how oppression showed up differently in different peoples.
When looked at Black lives, when you looked at women's lives, when you looked at Black women's lives, when you looked at
Black women's lives in certain contexts, certain cultures, certain socio economic dynamics, that you, you really no longer can talk about single issues,
you no longer can talk about resolving one issue and setting forth a strong pathway for liberation, because if you're not addressing all of the issues, then we'll never get there. And so it helped me very, very early on, decide and determine because I was in HIV.
And I came into HIV through reproductive rights. And in reproductive rights, there was no room for HIV and in HIV, there was no room for reproductive rights and for women, especially Black women who were carrying the burden worldwide
of the AIDS epidemic that didn't make sense to me. So intersectionality had already created that. Rights framework was giving me the language I needed to sort of situate everybody's lived experiences
as Jeryl has talked about, but then it was reproductive justice that helped us give it the further definition. So I say you know every person that we deal with, including myself, but every human,
especially those of us in the margins we walk with all kinds of intersectional issues in our lives every day, which means that our responses to those issues must be intersectional as well. And that's what RJ allows us to do is it allows us to define those intersections based on...
not based on some political agenda of one majority population or another.
Tamarra: Thank you for that Dazon, Toni, and Jeryl for providing clarity on this word or a phrase that we keep throwing out in this group that we're so familiar with.
So I want to ask you all about how you navigate as Black women activists, how you navigate the gender and race dynamics, right? I also feel like I get a little bit schizophrenic when I'm, you know,
advocating for different aspects of my identity, on the one hand, I have my black power fist up and then the Black community makes me angry and as an I get into my,
I'm a feminist phase, and then I, and then the White girls make me angry and I jump back over. Talk a little bit about what that means to you, and am I just crazy or is that a thing?
And anybody can start jump in.
Dazon: I'm gonna jump in and say I don't think you're crazy. I think it's the thing, but I don't think it's that much. And, and I say that because what I made the choice to do was to never be forced to de-link it by anybody else, one,
and at the same time, gave myself permission to and I think in sometimes and your question was whether I privilege or prioritizing, and
it's going to depend on the situation. One of the things we know is, especially for Black women that we wear the mask, right? So we show up as we need to to get things done, sometimes complicitly, sometimes explicitly, sometimes in voluntarily, but what I'm very clear about
is that
neither one of those constructs around whether I was born black or whether I was born female, will change.
And so I only focus on the things that I can or need to change in that regard. So if it's about identifying me from a gender standpoint as a woman.
Was that a non queer person? What is a queer person? Can a queer person be a straight person? You know all those kinds of things I'd rather have those converse conversations, because you will always have to center
everything, and I mean everything around sexual reproductive health rights and justice will all... heard in Black womanness, period.
And there's that, there's no way to get around that to get away from that or to even try to deny that. Why? One, we coined it, but I can take you back millions of years.
Because it was a Black woman that gave birth to every human being on this planet. And so you can never disassociate that originality of Black womanness
with any and everything we have ever experienced and including what we are experiencing today. So even when we talk about, for example, the issue of the police state and
malady that happens to Black lives, and how, in a patriarchal context we're talking about Black men so much,
even when say her name comes around and we're talking about Black women what is never not clear is that every last one of those people at some point had a Black mother.
And so, everything still centers in Black womanness, no matter what that issue is when it's around the issues of sexual reproductive health rights, justice, and human rights too. I don't de-link them ever.
Toni: I am in my work at the intersections of religion and reproductive justice, I really get a chance to see it, particularly in my work with the black church.
Because there is this
issues of
not just respectability politics in terms of the role of women and how we should behave, particularly Black women, I also call it respectability norms that have been
imposed upon us by black church, but also this this idea of that our bodies belong to our literal being-ness, our bodies belong to some
entity, other than us than ourselves, it belongs to you know our fathers, our husbands, you know, the community at large, our families.
And so it's right. Dazon's right, yeah I can't separate being black and female. It all goes together and it's very much so tied together,
and is the struggle that I must work on simultaneously, right? I can't, I can't piece them apart, particularly around, particularly when it comes to doing work
i the black church, because you know, in the black church, oftentimes the the the Black woman's body is invisiblized, and that is how,
that is how Black women's bodies are handled or dealt with in the black church. That we are invisiblized, only when it becomes only invisiblized only up until the point that we have
committed some transgression about how we are supposed to be,
or we have violated, one of the respectability norms of the black church and maybe had, you know, sex out of marriage or become pregnant out of wedlock, as they say,
or are involved in same gender loving relationships, then the spotlight is shown upon our bodies, but in a very shameful way,
in a very damning way. But when we're talking about what we need to support our very ontological existence to live and thrive, to talk about our reproductive health, and what it means to be sexual beings who experience the gift of, you know, passion and sexual pleasure,
as beings who are created by something greater than ourselves, we don't have those conversations. So for me working at that intersection of religion and reproductive justice I don't separate it, and in fact I talk about how they are very much so interconnected.
Jeryl: So,
I'd like to talk about us from a
different perspective, which is, you know, in my day to day work the repro space is pretty feminine in terms of the the the gender dynamics, it's, most of my career has been working
more with women and so like the agenda aspect in terms of,
specifically on the binary male female binary, it doesn't come into play as much, but the race aspect definitely does, and I feel like I've been on a bit of a journey
especially these last few years of really fully leaning into my identity as a Black woman and more so the power that comes with that realization of like Black women are incredible. And the more that I've realized, like the people who have poured the most into me, who have,
who have helped me to see and understand what my pathway are when I really, you know, start to think about it was like it's Black women who have really
created that space for me and have also helped me kind of understand in my own identity, how
you know, really learning the ways that I had sort of in some ways internalized some aspects of white supremacy and how I was thinking about myself, how I was thinking about professionalism
writ large, how I was thinking about even just even how I interacted with other colleagues and it's, you know, especially in the in the past, I would say the past three years,
with the support of Black women and particularly a fantastic Black woman executive coach who really understood the dynamics that are at play of
in particular, Black women in leadership positions and what holds us back on what the barriers are, being able to have somebody help me navigate that space
that has has made a huge difference for me and just in terms of really understanding the racial dynamics being able to name them, you know, I remember when I was younger,
you know, not having the the language to really identify what was happening, but knowing like something's not quite right here and to really being able to identify it, "Yeah that's white supremacy in action," that is, you know that is you know somebody who's not
prioritizing your growth and leadership, you know, that those are elements of white supremacy and just being able to have that support to, you know, to be able to identify that. And then now be
to be in a position now to help other especially other Black women in the movement, but other women of color more largely like that dynamic comes shows up
in a lot of our work, and I think it has been one of the the benefits of, you know, even though we've noticed it for you know, for as long as we've been doing the work that there have been these racial dynamics at play, there's been especially in the reproductive
health and rights movement there's been a reckoning that's been happening because of, you know, because of the events of last summer, because of, you know, more attention being
played to these racial dynamics because of you know, to be honest
people just really leaning into their power and saying, "We're yeah we're not we're not dealing with this in the same way anymore. We're, you know, we're not scared of
having funding taken away. We're not scared of that people are going to pigeonhole us into, you know, very specific roles," where we know we recognize our collective power, and we are standing in that,
and it's been beautiful. You know, beautiful to sort of see that. But that's what I've seen a lot, you know,
more recently, is is that the way that the racial dynamics come into play
in our work, in our activism and now, you know, people are seeing
this is what happens when you when you actually trust Black women when you put women, Black women in charge of things like we get shit done, excuse me, we get things done. We get, you know, we
we there, there, you know, there's this saying that you have to do twice as much to get you have to be twice as good to get half as much, the other side of that as we are twice as good. We are really, really well,
well, well positioned to understand dynamics, we have, you know, we understand relational dynamics in a way that means that you know we are observant of
people we value relationship and base building
in a way, that means that we know what our communities need. We know what's happening on the ground. We know what what people need
to be motivated. So we are in the best positions to be able to to move that work forward and it feels like we're finally getting to a point where that is being, you know, acknowledge and recognize more, you know, more largely. So I'll stop there.
Tamarra: Thank you for that Jeryl.
Sorry, Nzingha. Last but not least, on this particular question did you want to add to that as well?
Your perspective?
Nzingha: Yeah I'll make mine quick. One thing that sort of immediately came to my mind, is like the global conversation. So I'm gonna give a really random example.
I was fortunate enough to be in this amazing fellowship with the United Nations that connected Black people in the diaspora was called the United Nations Fellowship of People of African Descent.
So we all discussed US traditions. United States Black Americans tend to eat black eye peas. Lo and behold, our Brazilian sisters they eat something like lentils and it's like the same thing as bringing like good luck and good fortune.
Sort of what Jeryl was saying in terms of like how when Black women show up,
we it's not just ourselves we're keeping our ancestors in mind, we're keeping our sisters in mind, the whole thing.
And one thing that I'm sort of thinking about in terms of like this is a longer story of the diaspora is like,
out in West African cultures or East African cultures, you might have like ugali or fu fu but then that might have been turned into like grits, or cream of wheat, or something like that, right?
Something that always keeps me in mind when we have this, you know, debate with, you know, white supremacy and patriarchy is no matter what
the struggles of Black women globally, are the same,
right? And so when I show up in United States, I know, someone in Brazil, showing up for me, too, I know, someone in France is showing up for me too.
I know, someone in Australia is showing up for me, too, and I think that is something that always gives me that confidence in that the issues that happen in 2020 in the summer in Minnesota,
everyone rose up for us, but especially Black women around the world, showed up for us in solidarity, and I think that's what gives me the confidence
and the encouragement because I'm not like, you know, we have those days it's just like these really dangerous, you know, violent systems
are horrible and depressing, the one thing that always keeps me going is that this is a global united struggle and I know that there are sisters all around the world with me filling it. So, yeah.
Tamarra: Thank you for that Nzingha and I'm actually going to field the next question to you, first, because I know you need to
leave us a little bit early talk a little bit about the the generational divide in this work with women? Is that real and what's been your experience, being the youngest on the panel working with older women, but even maybe working with women younger than you as well?
Nzingha: Sure.
It's hard, because when I do this work with amazing women like Toni and Dazon who are like my mentors so it's just like,
Is there a problem with inter-generational movement work? Like obviously not when I'm with them like I'm an embraced, I'm a sister, like I get to learn so much, right?
But sometimes when we are thinking about where we're going into the future, in terms of Black girl joy, Black girl pleasure, you know, Black girl confidence, like sometimes I am in circles, with women in their 40s and 50s and 60s, when I say I'm an abortion doula. I get,
you know, just like you can say abortion, you can say abortion, right? But there's this hush hush, "What do you do? What is the place that you work at? Is it clean? Where is it?"
Like all of these, you know, sort of like questions, and, you know, here I am openly talking about you know sexual health, sexual pleasure,
HIV, and sometimes those conversations, you know, I can be like "I'm Nzingha, and I like to talk about the clitoris," but like that won't transfer to someone in their 50s, "Oh my,
like class but pearls," you know what I'm saying? So I'm not gonna say that isn't an inter-generational like issue because
there might be, but it comes from the fact that we have been told generationally we cannot have these conversations without shame.
So that's, I think, where it comes from. I love supporting my sisters younger than me. We have at SisterLove, Robin, Araya has been doing a great job with Women Now.
Araya was the intern that worked with Healthy Love Youth Advocates, and those are young folks doing advocacy work about reproductive justice and
that work has been really great I will say Gen Z is doing an amazing job talking about consent and everything related to reproductive justice and reproductive health.
Baby boomers might need a little bit more help and that's okay. I'm happy to have those conversations, you know, with them and that's something that really, really excites me.
Tamarra: Thank you for that in Nzingha. Other ladies, you want to chime in, in the generational question?
Dazon: I was just gonna say first of all I'm an X-er but,
I don't think we have any boomers on this one, but the I'm a Gen X-er and at least we don't whisper, "white people," anymore in our conversations so
I think that that's a generational jump that we've been able to make even if there are folks who still can't talk about abortion and
other, you know, women's body parts without a lot of shaking and discomfort. What I do want to add and I'm really grateful because one of
inter-generationality is also a very strong intention at SisterLove that our leadership has to come from all of the experiences, and that we have to be learning from our younger and new generations that are leading us into our future, as we are
transferring and sharing knowledge and the lived experience of what is our own past that informs the future for the next sets of leaders. And so I am very committed. It's a part of my DNA, I think, and mostly because I became active in this work, when I was 17.
I could, there are moments, where I feel like I'm back in that situation sometimes, and so I understand what that feels like to be 17 working in an environment like,
what I used to be was a lay health worker in the Feminist Women's health Center.
That lay health worker, is now the abortion doula. So I mean, you know, there's terminology that changes that affirms a lot of the things that we didn't know were affirming at the time, because lay health worker doesn't sound as powerful. It doesn't sound is full...
as abortion doula does, however, what abortion doulas can do now in that same setting, lay health workers they couldn't do what lay health workers were doing, which was actually teaching the doctors, how to give abortions in a very feminist women centered way.
Abortion doulas don't get that opportunity to do that anymore, and so I think there's a lot that we still have to look at what we build on and what we leave behind because of changing times,
and what we actually seed to the power spaces when we're trying to prioritize what's most important.
So are we trying to prioritize making sure that there are trained clinicians who can actually do abortions,
or are we trying to fight that fight about letting lay non-medically trained people do abortions? I mean which fight is it that we want to get into?
And so I think that that's also important about how we hold these inter-generational conversations. The other... is there's a lot
especially with regard to our sexual reproductive health, that older generations never learned.
And so there's a lot that we cannot teach I can I'm fortunate privileged to come through a house, full of people who are biologists so that's different.
But for people whose mamas, grandmamas, and great grandmamas couldn't talk about periods, couldn't talk about first sexual debut, couldn't talk about rape, can talk about incest, couldn't talk about sexual pleasure, couldn't talk about their sexual preference,
orientation, that those things are actually creating more traumas for younger people than sometimes the traumas that the older women went through themselves because we'd never had a place to put it. And young women now know that there's a place that we can put it, but it's not with our...can't
talk about it. So those that's why, when we talk about doing sexual health literacy and reproductive health education, I make no assumptions
of whatever age is in the room, of what they know and what they don't know, because we all have to start from a common set of knowledge and we have to
be willing to not make those assumptions and be uncomfortable with possibly stepping on somebody's toes as a,
"Child I learned that in eighth grade. Well there's like 12 other people who did not." So can we make sure that we're creating a space where, when we are deciding what we do with our lives
that we all at least they're working with information? And so I think that that's what's important about being intentional in terms of bridging the generations. I think the most challenging thing about doing inter-generational work,
is proving to ourselves that it can be done. That it can be done without the fear, without the, you know, push pull, the competing
knowledges, the competing experiences, the competing traumas there's a certain level of respect to my age, because I've been here and I've been through it,
and there's a certain level of respect to what I don't know because I'm not coming up at that age, at that time.
Still stuff that I need to learn. I'm never having, I'm never having babies. So I have to rely on those people who are in those years where their opportunity to get pregnant
is still now and they know a hell of a lot more about how to deal with that in the now, than even I knew in the then when it was my day.
Toni: Yes,
and
there are some tensions. There are tensions.
And I think some of it comes from, you know, Dazon said, you said that you, you know, basically have a there's a healthy respect for,
being a healthy respect for our elders who have been doing this work for very long time,
and then, a healthy respect for the activists who are coming up behind us that they have knowledge that we don't, we're not privy to right? But there is this sometimes tension, I think
that happens when the more, you know, the older activists seem to forget that we were young at some point to, and we were trying to figure out how to...
Bye Nzingha.
We were trying to figure out, we were finding our way, right? We were finding our place in the work. We were trying to sometimes find our identity in the work.
And we were trying to carve out, you know our uniqueness in the work, right? So I think sometimes we forget that we
have been, have experienced that to what it means to be young, right, coming up in this coming up in the movement and I think sometimes the activists who are coming behind us forget that
we were at that point too, right, that at one point, we used to be young. We may not seem yeah now but at one point we did used to be young, right?
And there's also this sometimes it feels like sentiment that,
that the seasoned activists needs to get out of the way, and
and sometimes a sentiment that we need to pass the baton. I think I heard Dazon say it one time, "I'm not giving up my baton," right? and but, why should-?
Dazon: I'm gonna tell you what I said what I said is...
Toni: You. I'm not giving up my baton,
get your baton.
Dazon: Yeah well I did say, you know,
I started my organization when I was 24. So you don't have to have my job, you can start your own organization if that's important but it's not about my job, this is my work, this is my purpose and I will be doing this until I die
when liberation and then I can go sit and write nonfiction erotica on a beach somewhere, but until that time right, I might get out of the way because you can have my job that's not my worry, so I can get out of the way, but I ain't going nowhere.
Toni: Well, and I think basically what you're saying is
that
why should the older activists have to go somewhere and sit down? There's work to be done, right? We have not achieved, we aren't liberated. And so there's a lot, a lot of work to be done. You know I think some of us were able
to predict and see what was going to happen the past four years,
and even how it ended. I distinctly remember being it coming to Moorpark and talking about, you know, giving up the new acronym about what this was, right, but we were getting ready to to see which was authoritarianism, and a dictatorship, and
being in a state of what looked like, you know, apocalyptical, right?
So I mean, I think that there has been that, there is that tension and that challenge, and we can't, we haven't quite figured out how to resolve it. I think, you know, Dazon the work that you all, are doing
in terms of at SisterLove, is a good example of what it means to work inter-generationally and still there's work to be done, because when I think about the work of the report of the RJ movement, it still focuses
on
the right to have a child, not to have a child, parent of the child, the children you have, and sexual pleasure, but we're not talking about menopause.
What happens for those of us who are peri and post-menopausal and children aren't, you know, part of the equation, but what about us?
Post-menopausal women have reproductive health issues, too. And so we still haven't figured out how to bring those conversations into the mix. So, you know, there's still work to be done and it takes everybody
the older activists and the younger activists. We need all hands on deck because we're in, you know, quite a fragile time, you know, that this white supremacy and racism has been kind of in a pandora's box and the past four years that box has been opened.
And so now, what are we going to do?
Dazon: Let me give you an example of what we do. You were talking about menopause.
So for Women Now because that's a very intentional inter-generational space where we work hard to have half of the meeting
to be people under 25, right? So and that's a meeting that's going to bring together somewhere between four or 500 people.
So when we were in Rwanda there's two times we've done this with this big fishbowl inter-generational fishbowl exercise and the last one we did was on
menstruation across the lifespan. So in our fishbowl we had one chair that was reserved for a certain age group, and there were five chairs that were reserved for different age
bands that you could only be in that age band to take that chair during the fishbowl exercise, so that people were answering questions about their lived experiences with menstruation and menopause based on the age that they were at that time.
And that's how we do these conversations, so that there are things that I
needed to learn about peri-menopause and menopause that they didn't tell you. I don't need know about, "Ooh that's the change," I don't need know just about,
the,
what do you call it, I don't need to know just about the because I don't get them, what do you call them the hot flashes or all of that.
Tell me about the whole experience that you go through over those 10
plus years, not just those few moments that are visible to everybody. So we have those conversations very intentionally because there's like you said, still a lot to do, but there are clear examples of how to do it in a way that doesn't continue to amplify those tensions. [Jeryl]: Yeah.
Tamarra: Go ahead Jeryl, I'm sorry.
Jeryl: I just wanted say something that we haven't touched on, yet that I think
contributes to some of the inter-generational challenges is resources in the way that resources are allocated and and, you know, folks who've been chronically under resourced and not, you know, not having what they need to
or finally getting to a point where they have what they need to actually thrive and not, you know, not wanting to sort of give that up
right away, they, it took a long time for them to sort of get to where they needed to. And it creates this, you know, almost
putting into this false equivalency that it has to either be, you know, the seasoned folks to doing the work or making that space for young people, because we haven't,
we haven't had the resources that we need to imagine how to make it work, you know, in the way that Toni was talking about, with the balance between,
you know, the folks who are who understand where we've been and the folks who, you know, are thinking about where we're going,
and who are able to, you know, think about what is the current, what's the current context, what are the current
resources that are available. Thinking about technology and the way that technology has changed, and how people are using technology, and who are the experts in the technology.
So I think we also have to talk, you know, talk about how resource allocation has limited our ability to really be able
to create space for, you know, for both, right? So making sure that their spaces for the folks who have the most knowledge, who have seen some stuff, you know, who have,
who have lived through so much and have, and us be able to take advantage of the experience and the wisdom that comes from, you know, decades of doing this work and honoring
their contributions and making sure that there's that space to continue to grow. That we are are making the space to groom that we are
creating those leadership pipelines, we are creating those opportunities and those trainings for folks to get the
leadership opportunities that they need, so that we're,
you know, honoring our past but also thinking about what is the future of this look like? How do we, how do we do this work in a sustainable way? So, you know, so that people can actually retire and and feel good about like "Alright, I can rest now," because
like, you know, we know that this work is a sustainable is going to be carried on in a way that,
you know, creates space for for so many different folks and, and for that continuity. We're not there, right now, because there has been this just chronic under resourcing
of what our organizations need and there's, that's a luxury to be able to you know, to have people feel like, Oh yeah, I can step back now," because the movement has what it needs to thrive. We're not there yet.
Tamarra: I can see, on Toni and Dazon's face, there's so much to say on this question, but in the interest of time and to allow folks to ask questions, I'm going to give you all one last closing question. What or who inspired you to
keep going in this work?
Because we all know that activist work is high burnout, because when we're, when you're in it, you're in it and you don't take vacations and time off it's always in you, and a part of who you are. Well Dazon's looking at me like, "I took a vacation," but,
what keeps you going or who?
Dazon: So,
you know, they're obviously the women in our ancestry that are leaders that we all look to that continue as even the more I read the more I learn, right, about all of the liberators, all of the
queens, all of the warrior women, all of them, and my mamas and my grandmamas.
But I'll tell you I think that the people who inspire me, the women who inspire me the most right now, are the folks that I think of who have the path of
resilience, to resistance, to revolution, and those are the women who are not just survivors of whatever trauma it is, whether it's violence, whether it's HIV,
whether it is cancer or any of those things that... part of ourselves through equity issues, through health issues, through knowledge, through just quality of life,
to do better, is that they come through that and then they become involved.
And they don't just, you know, like the woman who gets a diagnosed with HIV and then goes back to her job at the bank and doesn't say anything to anybody and keeps up with our healthcare and her medicines.
She's phenomenal in one way, but there's the woman who's diagnosed with HIV, who then decides that she's going to learn how to teach others. And she's going to stand up and get and put her status out there in the public, so people can see what a woman living with HIV looks like.
And sit at the table so that the person who is living the experience has has the most authority and has the most power in that space to speak to the issues.
Those people inspire me every single day. The women who fought the good fight students and then grew up through the apartheid movement and now fighting
for the end of gender based violence in South Africa and are doing it openly and out loud. The folks who are fighting as survivors of female genital mutilation and now we're fighting to end it
You know, because I don't have that pathway in terms of the survival of a specific are given, you know, pivotal trauma,
defining trauma like that, I have probably enough microaggressions I can add them up, but I don't have that level of having to struggle, just to survive through it, so they inspire me because I can never get weary in my fight if they never get weary in theirs.
Tamarra: Thanks Dazon.
If we can keep the last responses pretty quick I know there's so much I kind of underestimated what a conversation with four activists would look like.
What keeps you going Toni and Jeryl?
In a minute.
Jeryl: There's a lot of folks who keep going. I'll talk about a specific group. I love talking to young people,
and especially folks who are just sort of getting started and trying to figure out their pathway. I love having those conversations and helping
folks to figure out what they can do. There's so much potential. There's so much opportunity and helping them figure out those pieces. So,
I am inspired by the young folks who at a younger age that I was getting into their activism, and helping them to connect them to resources and yeah their energy and enthusiasm keeps me going.
Toni: So I'm going to say ditto to every thing that Dazon and Jeryl said and just add that, for me, there's a new population of folks of women, and that is Black women of faith.
That I am having some exchanges with them around sexuality and reproduction, and what it means to become liberated within the black church. So that is keeping me inspired.
Tamarra: Thank you all for sharing that inspires me to hear what inspires you. I want to open it up now for questions. There are a couple of questions in the Q&A. You can feel free to add them there. You can also use the raise hand feature.
And I will make you audible so you can ask questions. Okay, so I think I'm supposed to be looking at the
participant list, okay, in order to do that.
So it may take me a moment to navigate all the different options on my screen here. I got a Q&A going and
hand raising and Michael in the background, let me know if I'm missing something?
Alright, one of the questions in the Q&A, and this is not to any one specific,
but it says how did, "How did y'all," I love that, "How did y'all get more serious about activism when you started? I still feel like an amateur since what I've been doing is mostly social media and petition based. Can't exactly do stuff in
person because of the pandemic."
Yeah there's some constraints.
How'd you all get more serious?
Dazon: I feel like I didn't have a choice.
The day I stepped on my college campus,
we were already in the throes of a fight against apartheid. We wanted our school to divest from South Africa in terms of our dominant funds.
And it was a fight, because our president was a constructive engager. So it was not actually a choice, it was a do this or be irrelevant.
And that led me through a whole lot of things, but it wasn't just that, it was start with the people you know.
You know, there are plenty of folks in your own personal life who have not yet capt, you know, been captivated by the issues that inspire you.
They may not have directly wanted to engage for stigmas, for ignorance, for whatever reasons.
If you start with the people that you know and love and they know and love you, then you already learned how to navigate those areas of discomfort, you learn how to talk about these issues and learn how not to talk about these issues, and who not to talk with them.
And who not to talk with them and then you can pick those signals up. It's all right in this era of Covid because we're all trying to figure out our way.
What I recommend, however, is to not use or allow the digital space that's using your fingers only.
Like there's nothing wrong with holding your own private Zoom session, even if you got the free Zoom and it's 40 minutes.
There's nothing wrong with bringing your folks together and just kiki-ing up on a specific topic, you know, if you haven't had a chance to talk with people about some bull stuff that happened that you saw in a film on Netflix that just...
or something that happened out here in the world in politics, bring em in, have a conversation, mobilize people to do something different, don't
even if it's about signing the petitions don't just send them to them. Pull them all together and talk about what's in the petition and why.
Why would we sign it? Why not? Have those conversations because that's how you build and that's how you mobilize, and that's also how you activate others. So that's my first recommendation is to not let
this era of distancing silence us to just typing and posting anonymous things or videos that last 30 seconds...
that repeat, if you don't touch the screen. I forgot about that the other day and that drove me crazy.
Toni: I say for me that,
I said earlier, during my introduction that my activism came out of my lived experiences.
And so, becoming liberated around my own reproductive and sexual health, was a political act for me
because it was so very liberating and I found myself wanting to share that with my good girlfriends.
And so I would pull us together and we would talk about, you know, issues of reproductive and sexual health. We'd talk about the coochie, and we'd talk about,
you know, having good sex, and having orgasms, and who's not having orgasms and
I kind of like started to bring them along. I think every job I have had my good girlfriends
have been a part of it in some kind of way. You know, I'm like, "Come on girls you got the volunteer on this, because this is important and serious work." So sometimes I feel like you know, every time I start something like,
"Here she comes, you know, here she comes she has something she wants us to do," but, you know, I would say, you know, like Dazon said, start the conversations in amongst your own, you know, friends and open and willing family members, if you can.
And then, you know, start to look at who's doing work that you're interested in. What are the groups,
you know, in your area who are doing groups that you're interested in? And reach out to them and ask, you know, is there some way that you can become a part of the work that they're doing.
Jeryl: Yeah.
I would also say pay attention to what drives you and what you find yourself getting the most excited about. And I'll give you an example. So I worked for an educational nonprofit and the two years before I went to law
school
and it was something that was important to me, and that I, you know,
thought was a, you know, a definitely worthy cause, but I was surrounded by people for whom, you know, educational reform was their passion it's what drove them it's what,
you know, they, it's what they wanted to dedicate their career and, for me it was like, "This is important to me, but this is not the thing that is like,
you know, I get the most passionate about," and when I was, you know, starting to think about what are the things, what are the issues, what are the news topics that come up that I'm just like, "I'm all over that," when,
you know, when this pops up? And, for me it was gender equity issues, it was reproductive health and rights issues, it was, you know,
those the issues that were just related to, you know, how people's identities impact their
ability to make decisions about their own body. And when I recognized like, "Okay that's what I'm super passionate about,"
that helped lead me to resources and opportunities, you know, I was able to,
you know, seek them out in when I was in law school, it was the extracurricular activity and that led me to this group that was, you know, working on these particular issues. It led me to like the organizations
and a career path, and I feel, you know, I feel very lucky that I get paid every day to do something I'm super passionate about.
So pay attention to like what are those things that sort of drive you, and then that helps you, helps to figure out what are the ways, then, that you can use the resources that you have now.
So online activism, there is, you know, there's a lot that you can do even during the pandemic.
You can call your member of Congress. That is not something that needs to be restricted to just during the pandemic.
Being able to identify who are our decision makers, and how can you influence them, and using collective power. You know, they have to log every single call that comes in, every single email that comes in.
You know if you're regularly
contacting your legislators becomes a regular part of your activism, and then encouraging, you know, your friend, you can send, you can send out scripts your friends to be like,
you know, "Hey this issue is coming up. This bill is coming up. Talk to your legislators and tell them that this is something that's important to you." There is a lot
that you can do just where, you know, start where you are. And then seek out the other people who are doing the work
that you're interested in what are the organizations that are working on the issues, and then just, you know, start getting
familiar with them. Follow them on social media. Sign up for their newsletters. Get their, you know, see how they're talking about these issues.
Get connected to them. See if there are volunteer opportunities. There's plenty of things that can be done now, and that you don't have to wait for, you know, the sort of pandemic to end
to be an activist, you can be an activist right now, because you have a voice, right now, and you have
their tools that you can, that are at your disposal. So you can just, you know, start where you are,
figure out what you're like super passionate about, and then seek out, you know, the organizations that are working on these issues, and connect to, you know, their social media connect to, how they're engaging and get involved that way.
Tamarra: There's a another.
Thank you Jeryl for that. There's another question in the chat which is similar and if you have more to add to it, we only have a few more minutes but go ahead, but I just want to
put the question out there, because I think it's really important.
So it says, "Thank you so much ladies. All the information was so inspirational and motivating. I'm a complete newbie to the world of activism as well.
I'm pursuing a career as a physician assistant and want to bring equity and broader awareness to the social, racial inequities that are present in the healthcare system.
I founded a nonprofit PA's for Black Lives, because White Coats for Black Lives is only for doctors and I'm trying to do the background work of educating myself to the history needs,
political, and policy of the world. Any recommendations on how to reach a greater audience and educate myself better in the field?" And I know well, a couple of you have degrees in Public Health, and then the other, have you worked in in health, so.
Dazon: I was gonna say PA's need to get a color and a
coat. I'm just kidding.
Feel like white coat is an issue for a lot of reasons.
it's interesting because there's enough to do even within your peers and within the educational space,
that I think is important about is to, the activism about what is even in our academic spaces, is also critical.
Right? Like what are we learning, how are we learning it, and how is that learning preparing us to be more engaged, more response
full, more intentional about equity, and equality, and justice, and liberation? What is it that we're learning that's allowing for that, and what is it that we're learning that is meant to dis,
disrupt or to impede that growth and that progress? And how do we go to work on stopping that? So it's not enough to
be the PA that has that consciousness. It's more to work, and organize, and mobilize to make sure that the training for PA's
imbibes that consciousness. That would be one of the things that I think is important. You're doing the background work of reading.
How are you doing, how are you sharing that? How are you expressing what you think about the stuff that you're learning the history, the political stuff, the policy issues?
There are so many, for example, if, I'll just throw it out there, the last two weeks, the President has signed I don't know how many executive orders
that are meant to dismantle and turn around a lot of the damage that has been done just in the last four years that will last forever.
What has been said about that from your own community? What have you said about undoing the global gag rule? Or about the fact that we actually had to have an executive order that restored
education around racial justice and Black history in our school systems, or in our Federal Government about restoring DEI, you know,
policies and practices? What have people generally been answering and moving around those issues, because they're all things that
brought us to where we are right now with the second dag gum, you know, trial against the former miscreant. So there's.
He's not a former miscreant. He's a former commander in chief. He isn't gonna be a miscreant forever. But
the point is, is that there are ways to actively engage in what people are paying attention to right here and right now, because
it needs to be responded to not just for those who live these issues or look at these issues from activism perspective every day,
but the everyday people for whom these issues impact them every day and they're not engaged in them. That's where I would say start. Start where you are and bring others to it.
Tamarra: Thank you Dazon. I have to read this. It's more of a comment than a question, but one of the participants said, "Thank you, this was great I appreciate and recognize all of the energy in this panel.
Also, that everyone owned their time. I forget to do that all the time. Great lessons on so many levels."
Someone else said, "Yes. Thank you so much, everybody. I'm so inspired right now. Gotta love standing with my sisters."
We have about one minute until the end. Are there any final words,
inspiration of education, you all want to leave us with?
Toni: When you hear, I firmly believe that opportunities are always in the universe, and so, when you hear an opportunity, don't sit, don't be complacent.
You know, if you think you want to act on something, act on it. The worst that you can do is, you know, it's not successful, but the best that can happen is that is successful, and you can make a huge difference. So, you know, listen to the call that you're hearing.
Jeryl: I would say, surround yourself with people who believe in you and who will pour into you. And, you know, seek out mentors who
could not just only, you know, not just support, not just thinking about like the career path and that sort of thing, but just your, who can nourish just your being, and your, you know, just the opportunities to share in culture and share in and just
that space and particularly, you know, seeking out Black women, because it has, to me it has made a huge difference in just my ability to thrive by connecting with with those in my community who
are resources for me, but who are, who I learned so much from, who I get to glow in there, and learn from all that they have, have gone through before. So find those people in your own communities.
Dazon: Have joy.
To have joy, I mean,
you mentioned it very early, Tammy about whether or not we take vacations,
even if it's a half a day
I'm taking it. It's about finding that which because this work is hard and some days,
you know, even if you are winning it doesn't feel like it, because it takes so long, and so it gets hard, and it gets painful, and it gets lonely, it gets all of those things,
but what we cannot do is let it get us. So we have to remind ourselves to find our joy, practice our joy.
I don't know if people what they did for Bob Marley's day but I went and made a play. All I do great for like three or four hours, I curated a playlist of
all cover songs of Bob Marley music sung by women. I mean that's, you know...I'm happy to share that or you can follow me on Spotify, either way, but my point is, is that music is my love language and so that's my joy.
There are other things, I right now traveling is the other one I can't do it, so I have to put it into other places.
All I know is that as hard as I work I want to play harder than that or I cannot sustain myself in this work. And so that's really, really important is to find happiness, it is a choice and...
you found it so you can always go back and get it, because you're going to always need it.
Tamarra: Thank you for that Dazon. Thank you, Toni Bond. Thank you Jeryl Hayes. This was really wonderful and inspiring. I'm sure folks appreciated your words. I'm actually getting texts from people
responding to the experience of being in this space and engaging in this conversation with Black women social justice activists. Thank you all, and thank you to all the participants for joining us and you all have a happy Black History Month.
Dazon: Yea! Bye Tamarra.
Tamarra: Yea!
Jeryl: Bye everyone. Take care.