 I was 13, I was strong, I was weak, I was beautiful but thought I was ugly because some named me so and I wore the tag like a badge of black brown shame pinned to my newly bedding chest which was another source of shame, another place to hide and cover, to shield and protect this body I was 13, I was fearless, I was afraid but still I rolled my bike everywhere and walked the street to my neighborhood like it was my divine queen though demons whispered in my right ear telling me the lies meant to break my stride my mother, grandmother, aunties and ancestors son in my left daring me to claim a different truth to walk with a determined game I was a beautiful mess but only felt the messiness, the sloppy, disjointed parts of myself that refused to come together and make me whole I was 13, I had never heard the words black feminism spoken anywhere never read them in a book and really know what to make of them that I had I was 13 and lived through the daily contradictions of home spaces where I was seen and loved and the world outside of this cocoon that refused to see me though I could always feel as hot as fire player I was 13 and had enough humility to know that whatever this was this feeling, this confused knowing, this was not mine at all I was 13 and knew we, whoever we, a squarflung home girl to her we were stepping into and breaking out of boxes swarmed around us without our consent we were bound and free, heavy with our unclaimed weightlessness moving through bright sun and shade with the deafness of seasoned tight road walkers to train themselves to forget the consequence in one misplaced step marking the space between life and death I am Rome, at least I'm no longer 13 I'm an anthropologist wanting to study the brilliance of black girls and this thing some are calling black girlhood and labeling a new academic discipline still curious about the messiness, the contradictions, the partial truths and boxes and boxes and boxes I made my way to the fresh start homeless shelter for girls in Detroit in search of the fiercest of loves the fresh start residents, these young black women, as soon found out were shape shifters strategically and poetically moving through and reshaping the narratives, institutions and authoritative sites that attempted to reshape them and define them simply as those poor black girls like all everyday matchmakers and real-life superheroes, these young women referenced a rich history to sustain and direct them their black girl archive was curated from multiple sites from the far and recent past and was often at odds with itself Erica Pratt was a seven-year-old black girl who was abducted near her home in Southwest Philly in the summer of 2002 and subsequently freed herself by shooting through the duct tape that held her captive in the dark basement Erica was a key figure at the center of their black girl narrative a history explained and given a different kind of life through this example of courageous determination and also offered support to the black girl model you got to have your own back out here truth and fiction, one and the same stories were told and retold with so much frequency and passion and content straight next to the performance of the new truth as was the case with the murky details surrounding Erica's ill-planned kidnapping and sometimes the most stunning accounts because they were so commonplace in the young women's lives circulated through the shelter like cheap wind-blown fighters the stories of bleach and beach-making were like this Erica the air smells like summer even though it is dark now, the thickness of sweat hangs heavy in my nostrils and the charcoal is still burning from this run-through barbecue makes me hungry all over again I'm breathing it in and it's like so active and urged and everything feels present we start running, I dare them to meet me knowing I'm the fastest and I pull up first my sister and then Ricky fading behind my shoulder with the blur of passing houses Brass turns to concrete under my feet I close my eyes, extend my arms out to my side and imagine taking off in flight for the pull that my elbow rests not providing while my legs do not in front of me churning the air like I'm riding in this little bicycle I scream, I think and now I know I'm screaming because I hear Ricky imagine my screams as my name the one who's not crying sits in the back seat holding on to his lap after he's covered in my eyes my body is shaking and his rib becomes slippery but I'm too terrified to cry it is clear that our job is not to protect me that they might mean me every harm but I'm still surprised that this grown man does not know who can help to find the words to comfort me I'm too careful not to say too much to another the driver and my back to the captor but when they do speak their voices sound like my body feels shaking and quivering when we get to the wear of this brief and bumpy journey they remove the cough from my eyes so I can see my way down the steps of basement my legs are now spaghetti and my hands seem to be grasped for the span I fear and therefore hate I have to tumble head first to the foot of the stairs moments later I sit in dust my sight lined again by a different cloth and my hands and feet bounce together by the steep strength of duct tape and now I am prime contracting and heaving my belly and shoulders dance like this for what seems like forever as I wonder what will happen to me I picture Ricky and my sister still running behind me just over my shoulder and imagine them catching up to the car holding on to the bumper tight determined to make it here with me they are hiding underneath the car waiting for just the right second to rescue me they are not like me crying and expecting the worst I bring my wrist to my mouth it's comfort, grass, sugar, dirt, gasoline and my sister's smell rise from my skin to surround me and I'm more than anything I have ever wished for in my life wanted to be home to be safe I take my tears that should be the tape freeing myself removing the blood I pierce to the darkness and realize I am all alone which somehow makes me feel a little calmer and aware of how much work I have to do within what feels like seconds my fear free I press my palms into the seat floor stand and feel 8 feet tall for my wobbly legs remind me I am terrified still why am I here? but these men kill me these men pull so much like my uncles and it's how I call the men of my block girls like me get hurt and go missing I know and they are always for that these thoughts make the floor solid and my body is returned to the force that propels me up the same stairs I can bear to walk down I am flying it is not the same as raising a brick in my sister I don't feel free but this other feeling is powerful in a different way surging from every part of my body to simultaneously ground and uptake me it sends my foot through the weak wooden panel on the bottom of the door and guides the rest of my body into the space I created I don't know where I am but I am here and there is room now when I take it running to the first place I see light it is dusk and dark only but not as dark as it seems as when I was taken how long ago was that? the street lights make me feel better that there must be someone who knows me who cares about me on the other side of that window as I run towards the yellowish light it occurs to me that I might not be alone after all my head darks from side to side but my feet keep moving until I am close enough to the glass to put my fist through the window I feel nothing but the warmth of my air bearing the relief of my skin help help me who's there help I holler into the coming night surprised at how normal the sounds of the street scene in between my screams each bath the smell of bleach makes me nauseous my eyes water and I think of the shame we could fuse with stains but the first part shows to us that it's talked about bleach bath in the same matter of fact tones they used to talk about the best way to wash dishes a lot before for some, a bleach bath is a remedy but also a cure for others it was an element but most agree that the fumes tend to get caught in the throat Jalisa's grandmother put bleach in her bath water Jalisa thought it was for her eczema but over her and her grandmother told her sister maybe it might light that child up too from that point on even after eczema cleared up when Jalisa thought of her body she could treat it fairly black, dirty as far as things like that make you feel like you might never be clean as a little girl Ronald was fascinated by Jalisa's powers of erasure her mother would fill the tub with equal parts of water and bleach overnight and in the morning the sides of the bath leaned the whitest white to Ronald the smell of bleach was comforting and in the prospect of stripping off the shade or two of her rich deep skin inspired her to add a few capitals every now and then to her own bath rising with the steam from the running water Ronald filled the air of her one bedroom apartment her 10 year old sister Tiny was the only person that requested her cracking the bathroom door one eye and one small mouth fielding this sliver of space to say what's sincere concern what the hell is wrong with you everyone knew Yolanda's time in the shelter was temporary she was recently placed at the top of the list of section 8 housing and would be moving with her 2 year old daughter to her own apartment in a few weeks all of the case workers and shelter staff told her it was her own personal business and no one needed to know by the end of her first day in the shelter all of the residents knew that Yolanda was HIV positive against her demands of obvious frustration the other 18 young women in the shelter started to treat Yolanda with what they felt was kindness but she read as difference her chores were complete before she could get to them and she frequently found paper bags filled with tins and candies on her bed Yolanda suspected these were acts of guilt meant to make up for the way she was quietly bored when the girls to turns were eating each other's hair and greasing their scouts in the activity room or just how being in full physical contact with her made some of the residents physically uncomfortable the hallway was praying Yolanda Yolanda as she passed by was in no way a consolation after the first week Yolanda spent most of her time and the parenting suite wore a large bathroom that joined the two rooms reserved for mothers and their children she was the only parenting resident at the time who was able to enjoy the space to herself every evening reporting as if providing dispatches from the field wanted the residents to come back to the activity room to confirm their chores and offer I hear Yolanda back there humming or she sound like Shari asleep or her music is up her mouth so I don't know or she's reading to her baby or she said goodnight but didn't open the door on the last night of her stay Jelisa walked into the activity room carrying Yolanda's power to Kiana come on Kiki let's find something to play with while Yolanda takes a bath Jelisa put the child down and was helping her walk to the coat of apartment in the toddler area and then to me Jelisa says Yolanda said she hadn't been able to take a bath for like a month the next day Yolanda's ride was in no show so I volunteered to drive her and Kiana to her new home you must be excited to be on your own you have to choose that first part I said it came out soundly wrong with the question and the statement yeah I guess her voice started spinning her on certainty I mean I don't know well did you at least get your bath on the last night of your bath I didn't know it was a silly question but I asked her anyway wanting to leave her in some pond in the shelter yeah but y'all need to get some more bleach Yolanda said okay I said but there should have been plenty of other stuff to clean the tub with nah Yolanda seemed confused by our response I needed a bleach for the bath why are you bathing in bleach came out of my mouth before I could think of a better way of formulating the question or better of asking it in the first place it kills everything Yolanda's swimming down you should know that in addition to the normalization of violence black girls have heard the retelling of Erica's kidnapping in mainstream media an old trope of black female superhuman strength and indefatigable resilience was reinforced and given intergenerational traction through Erica's black girl body Erica acts she patiently shoots the duct tape that binds her she kicks through a door busts out a window and screams for help her physicality is heightened as a primary active agent in a broader context of passivity and neglect in ensuring the right to safety, health and protection for black children Erica became a heroine primarily because she could be used as a distraction from the impact of interlocking force of capital, white supremacy industrial decline and enabling speculation that contribute to the conditions that threaten lives of Erica and other black girls in South West Virginia Erica's admirable resiliency allows resiliency to be found as an extraordinary individual act that disappears the less newsworthy everyday ways black girls are collectively forced to save their own lives I rewrite Erica's story with information we have using a voice I imagine and a story that is a collage of the images from stories I've heard from black girls at Freshart and from out other cities and institutional spaces across this culture the way black girls talk about their bodies and what it feels like to live in and through them is significant they embody knowledge that allows them to feel powerful and in control or degraded and on protected can in many cases provide the information that keeps them alive y'all are going to talk about what spaghetti led signal and how they notice when their fear is matched by and divided by those they know intend to do it wrong they also talk about the sensation of energy that flows through them at that moment when it becomes clear they will have to come to their own rescue it matters that this story begins with the sensory reflection of Erica's neighborhood and her friends and family and the feeling of joy and freedom in her own body those sense memories those physically embedded stores of knowledge are frequently brought back to the ploy so that they can return their bodies to themselves as contradictory evidence of theirlessness or failure the evidence they receive from all manner of voices and locales sometimes includes those very close to home often unintentionally or at least without the conscientious motivation to destroy messages about their unfit or unworthiness encapsulated in their bodies comes from family members and other black girls and themselves Leech appears in the many storylines I've listened to as a home remedy for household dirt skin conditions like eczema general physical rhyme as well as the problem of the two black body and the impure Leech making its path down and across is something that Yolanda says kills everything we have to wonder what stays alive and yet it was always clear that the young black women at Fresh Start wanted desperately to shift the definition of the definition of terms we use to talk about health, success and well being applied to black girls and women as a capacity to take it be resilient or settle for lives marked by physical struggle and it is here in these shapeshifting practices of re-narrating yourself naming these deep contradictions and addressing boxes that almost everything has a chance to live I'm from Athens International we are the producer in partnership with 651 from the museum to bring you the last generation of true consciousness I would say we're saving the best for last and each generation has its own value and I'm really excited about this and we're here this was developed in partnership with Shay Waco 651 so thank you and also our curator who is also the model of this today let me give you a few whose engagement today we're going to have a panel in the middle way of the conversation we're going to flip the panel to you guys for the conversation your ideas to flood the space often times panels kind of make the assumption that the experts on the stage but we want to also figure out what the experts are in the audience as well so we're going to do some strategies and stories keep them at 30 seconds please that would be great with that said, I'd like to introduce Heather today the resources take up space take up time and these institutions have dedicated themselves to doing that I'm excited I did moderate I'll give my thoughts out today I'll show you a recording and they hear me back come on now black girls have a choreography of citizenship which was published by Duke University Press on the editorial board of the feminist flyer and the board of public a journal of imagining America to the right of a leading and community organization whose mission it is whose mission it is to transform individual lives and whole practitioners I issue a research agenda concerned with how black women across the diaspora mediate historical trauma a broad spectrum of cultural protections to the right of Ayesha we have Jamila Lemieux Jamila is a writer, speaker and senior digital editor for Ethny Magazine a Chicago native and graduate of Howard University Jamila is a leading millennial voice on issues of race, gender, and sexuality in 2005 she launched her blog a two book struggle where for more than six years she governs a broad national audience with her meditations on cultural identity relationships and her own less than ordinary life to the right of Jamila we have Florence based programming as a tool for the advancement of girls, women, and under-resourced communities as former flow develop students before this role she served as lead program manager at computers for youth where she worked with over 40 New York City public schools and helped to provide 9,000 middle schoolers with free computers currently she serves as a consultant for the Department of Education where she has helped execute trainings for nearly 1,000 educators and counting and to the right of Miss Noelle in 2006 she quit her day job in the corporate sector to become a full-time activist for social justice and equity in doing so she created her own organization called the Black Project to help under-sourced women of color by creating women's-led economic development opportunities centered around the local good food movement currently Phyllis is an urban farm which brings mostly local and pesticide-free homes to the South Bronx community these opportunities give local women the chance to build community learning workshop and gain skills please give all of these religious institutions dreaming that sometimes it short-change when we are in institutional spaces like this so I want to have a moment to drop the first question and then we will hear from the discussants who will ask you a question so we are expecting for you to be immediately a part of this process I'm going to give my microphone to our community today what do you think some of the most poignant issues are in women and I think we are talking specifically about feminism I think that there is a intersectionality and there is a nuance that does not necessarily apply when we talk about feminism in the mainstream way aka the white feminism because you are thinking of sexuality where the black thing about it is constantly the beginning of time we were brought here and slayed folks as our lands have been colonialized the black female body has been sort of at the receiving end of violence it has been exasperated who would encapsulate it more than Sarah Bartman and then you think about owning your sexuality this idea that we don't want to shame young women this idea that a lot of times against that violence was this whole Twitter had a trend a while ago fast ass girls how many of us grew up in a community where a young woman would be brutalized and she would be blamed because she was a fast ass girl and so I think for our young women this constant idea of how to toe that line between owning their own sexuality while also having a complete and real understanding of their bodies and their own autonomy is something that I think our young women continue struggling with particularly in a world that is over sexualizing them both in and out of their communities right you know everybody is getting blood injections you know this whole idea that they want to look like black Barbies you know it's really hard for me as a mother of four daughters to see my girl number 12 again breast having pubic hair exploring boys to talk to her about what it means to show up in a space and be comfortable in the whole scheme without also simultaneously shame her and so I think that that is something that as I look at young women particularly young girls between the ages of like 14 to 24 I think they're struggling with and many of them are struggling with it I didn't know that I think sexuality is a problem in personhood and I think one of the larger issues that have been plaguing black women especially across the globe is being seen and heard and felt as a person in your own right who can be able to craft your own narrative and design your own life so much of our experiences is having to interact with how people see us and to adjust or respond to someone's opinion of us as opposed to being able to create our own our own thoughts, our own experiences and sexuality falls within that I mean you are all many of us are very well aware in studying history but hearing from our parents about what we shouldn't shouldn't do as black women in response to an idea of us being hyper-sexualized naturally but even beyond that wanting to be seen or heard because people are misseeing us but sometimes also not being seen at all so many black women and black girls are missing and we don't hear nothing about it you know and I think it speaks to so many different ways in which we as people are constantly trying to fuck against various systems, myths institutions etc that work to not see us I think that's one of the reasons we shouldn't do that The needs and concerns of black men are often treated as the needs and concerns of black men, the needs and concerns of white women are often seen as the needs and concerns of women so then you take poverty if you take sexual orientation if you take any others to create some sort of additional barrier or complication for a black woman as Tissus just said before me you are struggling to be seen you are struggling to be heard you are struggling to be seen and heard on terms that you are okay with constantly have to negotiate with what that will assume you to be from the moment you enter the room whether you have a degree from Ivy League University or didn't finish high school and unfortunately because there is this attachment to the idea of an angry black woman and then the angry black woman is a bad thing then when you do want to speak up and say these are my very specific needs and concerns of a black woman and in some ways my oppression is sustained if not created by black men white men, white women in some ways these people whether they are sympathetic or kind to me contribute to the oppression that I'm faced with you are accused of being angry and hostile, unfair where we are talking feminism so that obviously means we are talking about black women we say women we meet you we are not talking about the things that are important to black women you know we are ignoring certain things that are important to black women so how do you say we are talking about black women in this grander context and unfortunately there are so many people who want to tell us how much they are allies to us we are completely unwilling and unable to challenge themselves to actually be allies to listen to us and say well what does an ally look like to you how are the things that you need from people what are the things that we both seek out mentors that look like us which doesn't provide us the same benefits having a mentor who is a white male because the thing that he has access to but we are going to be fractured in other ways because there is access that you are going to get and I'm not going to get and I can't think of any other group of people in this country trans persons that are so attacked when they talk about the things that are wrong with them and I think that and black women are right there with us but there are things that collectively people are able to acknowledge about the the victimhood of black women which is why there has been international mobilization around the death of Michael Brown which I cannot imagine any circumstances in which some black women would create the same level of outrage despite the fact that black women have been leading the charge to gain justice for the family of Michael Brown and other young black men for me it's this notion of black women by and large are not seen as human beings because if we were we wouldn't be leading this panel and we wouldn't need to be having these conversations so now we just by major culture I mean white folks in general we are also marginalized within our communities and just echoing what has been said before and there's this idea that we are not full autonomous people and that we are either owned in multiple ways by black males and then we remain invisible to everyone else so I'm a believer that there needs to be intersectional feminism but I've gotten to the point in my life where I really don't care about black women's needs so I don't because they're not caring about mine and they're not caring about the needs of my daughter or her daughter so if you're not going to actually be an ally and if you're just going to speak ally with them you can stay over here and that's fine with me for the women in my community so for me it's also this issue of us not hearing one another because we're busy pushing back against black men which is rightfully needs to happen because hello we are in this together and we're also busy pushing back against the major feminist movement I don't have time for that anymore it's about working with other black women and other women of color to create the communities that we need to do and to create the intergenerational because there are things that 90 year old great grandma needs to say that my 10 year old needs to hear and find person there are things that we need to hear from you and at this point you know it's this failure 2015 of I'm just not in a place to even absorb or care about people who do not care about me yeah I just want to echo what everybody has said and think about it in a moment of a different way so the time of boxes and binaries to me is not enough they're all an act of the concept and I'm thinking about the way that Tanya spoke to these contradictions and these contradictions are not theoretical they are very much lived by black girls and they impact our lives so when we think about this dueling hyper visibility and invisibility so going off the top about the fact that they are embraced and not seen as rightful social citizens but are hyper physical physically their bodies are hyper visible and released and constrained and violating so many different ways and then the body itself as it's like when we have so much anxiety about black black girls' lives as you know we're very visible in the public eye are an awful opportunity to plant their bodies protected by the white ones protected by the black so the body for a lot of young women I think this is true for wrong black women is this place where we are the first sight in our violation are also the space where people's power we use our bodies to create beautiful things with our bodies not just life but by being this is the history of our movements we place our bodies on the front lines often in protection of black women so this contradiction between our bodies I mean dangerously vulnerable but also where we gain our power and to speak to that as well how we are often unprotected in these spaces that we still see time and time and time and get to the time that I don't use to do just as a group of people we're talking about that we're saying some of the critical things for black women girls right now we're talking about sexuality in our bodies in a long way HIV and AIDS is not my way and I think you know I have a therapist who is this beautiful afro women woman who said that one of the biggest risk factors for young women in regards to HIV and AIDS contraction was their self-esteem not the lack of education not the availability of comments their self-esteem because they don't feel they have the right to say no they don't feel that they have the right to want to say what a brother is not going to do but let me tell you that they sexually act with women how many brothers I've met and you're like you know you don't know anything about me and you didn't know what you were talking about so so for a lot of young women that ability to say this is my body this is how I show up not to sound cliche but this is my temple and I've faced this before even with my own father he might start questioning my fidelity right and so you oftentimes feel like you know you don't have the autonomy and so this is putting out the young women at risk and this is why black women continue to be demographic with the highest rates of HIV construction so clearly we're here to get into some messy and some odd topics and the idea that you came here for a reason I actually want to know why do you all decide to come here and somebody come to the microphone and say why did you choose to come here it's just my third count and one of the reasons I'm thrilled to be here again there aren't enough places for us to have these conversations I came here because I want to be inspired and enlightened and feel the sense of unity that I don't get a chance to be a woman even in our quote unquote spiritual temples of our church and faith institutions now do you control like this doesn't you it's very strictly and it's very closed on and I can say that because I'm a minister okay we've averaged about what we can talk about and what we can do is even less so I came here to be enlightened and I'm here because I have a major concern and I just made a a little note I'm concerned about the rationalization of seniors, of elders where we're invisible in this society and we're even invisible in our very own communities where health issues to be held is seen, it's like we don't have a right to our full personhood it's questioned in the suspect and all of this is our sexuality our dance and our laughter we're we're at a certain age at a certain age that sexuality our design has appeared we're no longer desirable we engage also our dance is questioned now when I say our dance when I was speaking I was at his I was at his program he did we have a mini-member who posted and it had this wonderful African music and because I have a concern I got up and I just started and I just started and I was like did you feel new when I was doing me to dance we're not even entitled to our laughter so I just wanted to share those things I wanted to be born into the conversation I wanted to be able to bring this on last time we have things to say I found I'm a proud rock woman in my sixties and I'm always going to various events because I I demand my place that's just going by myself again and I'm so curated that people that have come to them their voices that are not heard will come up it's like sit beautifully in your seat and watch us pontificate about this, that and the third so we, you know, this is a living room and we do the work issues that just, you know that are just theoretical topics we need to have these conversations with folks who want to help well for the future so this conversation is now that we have heard some opening remarks we know what the issues are and oftentimes the space of visioning the space of strategy the space of building out structures is relegated to the last five gamut of a conversation and we are taking the rest of this time what are the strategies what are the facts what are the people we need to know what things can we do when we get up out of our seats and go out with questions for you and these questions mobility issues, if you need the microphone to come to you, they're wireless and we'll bring the microphone to you or if you are nursing or if you just don't want to get up right if we don't have this as a security do you feel like does anyone feel like their question is important for them I think my question is the same way bringing the world to the next portion of this, whoever feels so inspired what do you do to tell yourself self, I owe you to the song and bag, direct flight translating if you're not feeling the poetry what do you do you can take a look because I just gave you a lot of things come to the night and we'll get into our own practices to ensure we start with you so I don't be shut down some of you might know I will call you out to the audience with microphone yes ladies and gentlemen I want to say thank you for organizing something that feels very important for the first couple of days but I love yours from everyone so my question is what I need to say I love physically making things I'm a very cerebral person all of us are and I think it's really important that we get physical whether it's working out or whatever and I love making things with my hands so I'll tell myself that it's okay not that we're taking care of other people I can make things because it's important to be more tangible and I'm really curious to hear how everyone else makes things physical for themselves my name is Kim thank you good afternoon and thank you for me my major charcoal lineage has really helped me I was supported a lot and it's a lot to give individuals I'm a part of it for a moment because most of the people know how to do it so if you want to talk to the community you can just swivel right on around okay if you feel comfortable it's okay okay I'm just going to be like this but I think I was very much blessed in being able to explore my individuality with still with a strong black core and so for me and you've been looking at having these conversations and surrounding myself with women and wanting to intellectualize the experience of being a black woman allows me to to foster that individuality and the different perspectives that go into being a black woman so it's like it's taking stop and being like I wouldn't be anything else and I love myself and I love black women that's it thank you question what do you do to say I love you I was wrong okay yeah hi I go get a massage I go get a massage yeah I do that when I get in two weeks you know you gotta change the oil in the car I gotta go get a massage in the next intentional about making selfish decisions to be your you know because you do a lot of things like this with my mother and if I do this this will make it and then you get to a place where you're like look I'm selfish and so good morning and it kind of piggybacks all we were just discussing so in your daily lives what strategies do you employ to navigate the various spaces you would have like home, school, community etc and what impact does this have on your identity no matter how say you are in the world strategies spaces come on good afternoon everyone I love I love this layout thank you I do a process maybe you could call it a new one a process of listening a counseling a peer counseling process and I find that I actually cry a lot about sexism that's a real piss off I think we all are pretty much everything that you say so I do that but I also teach in a high school in Newark, New Jersey and I come up against those struggles that I think you might know about the primacy of black men or black men on screen or black women I call them male co-workers out on sexism regularly but the key for me has been to not treat them like I don't like them I've seen that but basically treat them older children but treat them like one of the same team because we are and actually I would say the same thing for my relationships with white women as well that I think at some point I think that I do advocate or believe that we have to see each other as a nation of women so to speak and so it means calling them a racism but again we are on the same team Thank you How are you bringing these practices into the institutions and the spaces you are having Hi everyone I'm Carrie and for me the first thing about showing up in a space is accepting the way I show up in a space so whether in my home or my relationships it's accepting that I try to bring the sunshine to any space that I come into but sometimes I bring the thunder and the lightning and that's okay accepting and giving myself permission to show up that way no matter what it looks like for that day and then also almost the first question as well the first 15 minutes of my day is mine so I don't have an email I don't read text messages it's my time to connect to my higher power who I call God it's my time to accept what's going to happen that day it's thunder it's thunder but that's okay you know I'm going to accept it for that day for that first 15 minutes because every other minute of the day is about someone else but these 15 minutes are about me thank you we have a question that's very similar okay sweet coming soon a little thank you all my name is Elizabeth and I would say to meet you back I have a couple things to say definitely it's a huge way of conversation and again holding to the standard they said to identity which was brought up using the privilege of your identity so in my case being a white female within different spaces to call people out call people in especially when I'm using that that space in which to assert my voice and to bring people into a conversation in a way that perhaps in other spaces white people would be on the defense and knowing that they shouldn't be on the defense but it's coming from a person of color they made these verses recognizing that because I'm white there is a different entry point in which because it's the messed up institution of racism they will listen to me in a different way continuing to be open and vulnerable to your household awareness what that means to white talk about it all the time as a male white antiviruses activist that he shouldn't actually be in front of a room having people listen to him but the only reason why that's happening in many spaces is because he's white and he's male and that didn't know how the world should be but that's the world that we live in so he talked about that so in a way election but just based on listening and observing and attachment listening and observing and to notice that they're not observed otherwise in situations where they all is something that emboldens them it's negative and actually it's destructive to the conversation of including more voices so I always continually checking that myself and my listening skills and my observing and again always being open to that calling in myself and others and before the series began is the usefulness of a conversation about black feminism I've recently been in conversations with people who are literally asking me you know why would you dedicate so much time to talking about black feminism why aren't you building a program or doing something in community to doing something else that people think we should be doing and the idea that the time that we take to leverage thoughts and ideas is really integral and important and I said this last one sitting around the kitchen table it's a revolutionary technology it's a revolutionary practice because there's something that you can do when you are gathered in that safe space that you can't do anywhere and so this time is just really resonating for me I wanted to discuss this to answer this question that Aisha posed but I want to reframe it a little bit based on the second question that we that I want us to explore so for the discussions what do you see as the greatest opportunity for the holistic and sustained liberation of black girls and women so Aisha's question is asking us to consider how we're showing up in institutions what are the ways in which we show up that is affirming to who we are and what we need in these shared spaces but the question that I want us all to consider and I would like to discuss this to speak about in any corner is just that we can see it up here what do you see as the greatest opportunity for the holistic and sustained liberation of black girls and women what is it going to take again we're thinking about tools and strategies, people organizations things you have experienced in your own life but I want us to get I'm going to be honest with you I want us to get off the surface what we're dealing with the idea that we need to even have this conversation is because of group issues that are deeply embedded in the background of this country in terms of how we are treated and how we are positioned in the world I think we are we're getting under the label we're talking about personal we're talking about sexuality we're talking about these things that will never be centralized if we don't address the root the root because that's where we gather what it takes for us to be free so what that is about I think that at this point the greatest opportunity is in the conversation starting the conversation this is a very sophisticated one right so even though we have different educational backgrounds different platforms different employment then we're having this conversation on this level is not what you're going to find you go to most conversations that are taking place about black women's needs and that's not to say that the community at large is not capable of those conversations and there are other ways in which they exist just because you don't save boxes or binaries or narratives we're still saying I need to make more money I need child care I was had called coming home from school and I feel uncomfortable so the issues are being discussed but not necessarily in this way but for us to bring this conversation to everyone and to make it as accessible as possible to everyone means that we have to not we can't reduce this conversation to something that's just some bourgeois waste of time but you should be outbuilding something quite frankly, I don't want you building an institution, a program an initiative for myself for my child and people, my community for women if you haven't had these conversations so the idea that you should just go out and do some work is how you end up is a phenomenal idea just the idea of benefiting something specifically to young black men and boys is radical, is revolutionary but because there were some challenges that should have been made that should have been had about why we're not immediately parentless with a program for black women and girls why we're focusing so much of the labor of fixing what's wrong with black boys and black men on black boys and black men and suggesting that his mentor should take them out of the system of prison industrial conflict schools that could not succeed if they put forth their best efforts but somehow if a mentor said if you get an after-school program everything is going to be okay hopefully you just won't have any right in New York so there are wills to be killed on the street and the girls, black boys you keep hearing this, you all are doing really well working in schools so I've really looked at the numbers but you keep that going after school programs you all get married, be clean with their husband everybody's going to smile so with that for me I think that I'm full wrong, I'm someone's mother but I'm still a young woman but at no other point in my life has there been this level of public conversation about black feminism and about black female identities outside of being a problem to be solved so as opposed to just having respectability policies constantly brought upon us which we're still dealing with in fact there's public pushback saying that you can be publicly said it's true, you can be the human you can be reality and they're all beautiful and talented, problematic and complicated you can do it over three hours talking about it and what's wrong, what's right what, you know, but that's it I don't want to say stand any more thank you, respect you and either some white women sign the application and say can pull a draw or for those of us who I guess aren't on this side of the room and that's not good there are other faces in the room who do these sort of things find the opportunity to speak on panels and to address the audiences they'll need to continue to emphasize the importance of conversation not just being where you're at so as long as it's that way it's in the classroom if you do any sort of volunteer work with young people if you're talking to elders, because there are elders who are not at all warm with the idea of feminism probably successful in kind of converting my mom and my dad requires not to censor themselves at any point ever for so many years when you tell somebody and I'm already telling you like no release you are at the center of your university, you that, right not just because you're the best there are 12 year olds I think to just contextualize what Jamila just said for me it's also having that conversation with the intention that we are going to build an intentional community around that inclusive, I would speak from the perspective of the unmarried woman who has five children and three they had so to speak now when I come and I saw this panel I would say that to anyone or my titties not in my daughter's mouth when nobody knows that I'm somebody's mother it's like time is wonderful but when I show up in a space unapologetic about the fact that I have children and that I'm not married and I come from the same man there's no respectability politics coming to play I have a couple months ago last year I had what I like to call Melissa Gaye where I went to see Melissa Harris Perry and Bell Hooks and they had this amazing conversation and Bell Hooks who I always like in my mind she's my auntie don't take no crap who tells you like it is and still says baby I love you and I was so happy to go see her sitting up there she's wonderful and she's talking about black women in their perspective and how they're treated in media representation she's talking about the trope of the bruised and battered black women and that's the only time that we can celebrate the presence on the small silver screen and she's talking about when are we going to get out and we pray love and being a whole person and it sounds wonderful but to me it also sounds like a black woman who has the ability to have privilege who seamlessly fit in and out of like spaces and therefore who is experience that and so I come to the mind and question and answer and give my testimony about the fact that a lot of the violence that I have felt when I'm involved in spaces have come from other black women who find out that I am an unmarried mother and who want to systematically tear me down and it is not physical damage it is right there out of control and they do so with the permission and encouragement of other black women and I didn't know that it was being live streamed and the whole internet somebody said and in my stream I said oh shit and the reality is that if I had known it was being live streamed I wouldn't have come with that level of vulnerability because I haven't learned to feel ashamed I haven't learned to sure and then everything I had talked about in that two minute testimonial became true on the web people said to me how could she be the community and she can't lead herself to a play of heroism how dare she you know maybe she wouldn't be poor if she didn't have five kids maybe she was simple in the end I'm not gonna ask I didn't ask anybody to beat my kids I got my old car and my old money it's a struggle I don't give a crap how many kids you have one or five is a struggle in your city and so for me it took a real toll on me and there were like six months on line I mean I went and searched my name looking for an image of myself and lipstick alley had put a forum about me creating a tumbler and then this tore me apart every time it was craziness and every time I come into a space and talk about this I talk about it with the idea that it doesn't just happen to me it happens to me it's too I mean like you know I say people all the time if you want to find out what it means where to have a baby with it you know what I'm saying we have to have actual community that can have these conversations but also be willing to deconstruct all of this craziness that we have internalized living in what Bell Hooks call the plantation syndrome that we've internalized black folks have had alternative family structures I don't even like calling them alternative family structures they have had diverse family structures since they came to the shores of this country before they came to the shores of this country and it is our idea of thinking that if we just pull our pants up if we just get married if we just do it the right way then we won't have my brown land in the street somebody won't throw a tear gas canister through our window and kill our Ayana Jones on the couch that our children will be protected and yet time and time again that's not happening we just break this article on the Huffington Post about this man who is very intentional about marrying someone and hiding them in the education as in this case the private school and I guess what they're nice people in town these kids are walking down the street somebody called them a neighbor your respectability will not protect you in more periods when you create community unmarried mothers are not poor because they're unmarried mothers unmarried mothers are poor because we do not have a system in place to nurture them we keep talking about this community that it takes this healthy community that it takes to raise our children but we are not putting enough attention now we're going into building the dam to help all this respectability politics if we know that kids in our community are not helping let's make sure our kids are meeting if we know that Tunisia needs to finish school and somehow got to shame her and support the types of things that will only continue her property but instead make sure that we are creating opportunities for Tunisia to go and finish her college education and that her child will go someplace safe with quality childcare and also be educated I mean I thank God for the community system every day and the support for my family that was to get to school and that I went to a school that had early education learning center so that while I was in school getting my education my children were also being educated as well but not everybody had that opportunity I'm living in a community where 49% of the people have not graduated high school 51% of the people in my community do not have high school education this is a black and brown community overwhelmingly led by women predominantly children and family based and so if we're not talking about the feminization of poverty if we're not talking about the feminization of you know, domestic violence we're not having a conversation and so we have to have a conversation with the idea that we are going to then reconstruct a community that allows us to be inclusive of re-education that's where a good thing is we have conversations in the world we can sit and talk and sit and talk but people don't know why they do what they do and they don't know why they subscribe to respectability politics and here's the thing who created these politics whose lives are we trying to live up to we're not it's just like this massive double-edged form you know black women being marginalized as being black and being women are put in the space where it's almost as if we have to not only emulate black men but we have to emulate white women and then white culture as a whole and that's not who we are there's that whole adage of this is what happens when you put crabs in a barrel you know what, a barrel is not the natural and I would have a crab so therefore they're going to do what they do you know, this culture you know, I don't care how long we've been here on these shores how long we've existed in the United States this is still not the natural habitat and the natural environment of black women and black people in general so we've gotten away from it I'm not trying to go inside you know, I'm not trying to go over that but there are these other ways of being and these other ways of knowing that we've been completely cut off from and we have incorporated the idea of the plantation emulating what the master has done to try and do what we need to do for our community and clearly it has failed black women have been feminist since before the word feminist was inexistent my grandmother was a feminist when she could not go to school and when she was turned away from voting and all the things that she did her life to give my mother the life that my mother had and my aunts and my uncles had my grandmother born in 1909 in northern Florida was a feminist my mother born in 1954 she was told in some range but my mother born in 1934 she is a proud feminist you know, and you know there are mothers before them and we need to stop with this whole feminism is a bad word and you have this conversation with black men black women shouldn't be feminist where do they get that idea from white men so they need to stop tripping on them they need to understand that all the excuse my friends all the shit that their mothers have been through their aunts have been through their grandmothers and their great grandmothers the fact that their people have survived guess what that was due to an internal feminism that we did not necessarily have the language for so therefore we need to have again this reeducation about what our communities can be why do you do the way do what you do there is this whole idea of science that is not being climbed and talked about called epigenetic memory so whatever it is you might be sad because your great grandmothers and you don't know that you may turn left because your great great granddad turned left what we are is it coded in our DNA so I get from my mama and her mama and so on and so forth and so therefore there is a cultural memory that black people have in this country to cultures that some of them don't exist anymore and so when we behave in certain ways when we do certain things you know it harkens back to a place in a space that does not exist for us and then all of a sudden we are criminalized and we are deviant for being who we are and that makes absolutely in my mind because I can encapsulate look at the bigger picture so we need to have an intergenerational conversation about feminism and about black women and about black women's issues not just with black women but with black men too and sit there behind us now and say look this is what feminism has done for your behind now you need to open up your eyes so we can move further as a community because we are not women we have been taught by every single thing the savior of the black community is going to come through black women and it is playing into that I have no idea why I am not carrying the world weight I am not carrying my communities weight I am none of that it is going to take us together it is going to take black men and black women together and speaking to them in a way that doesn't demonize what their ideas have been but they need to understand and realize that black women have always stood up for black men and there was a point where black men used to stand up for black women there was a point where that happened so we need to have conversations about that change and how that changed and what we are going to be doing to come together as a people because our communities are under siege look at our educational institutions look at what is done to our schools our public schools that our tax dollars communities of color are under siege and it is not going to happen it is not going to get better and so we work together and that is where these conversations needs to lie things lay in language we can't sit around and just be cerebral about it we can't just be writing academic papers and sitting on panels at academic conferences this is about people people in their real everyday living experiences this is not just about some theory we need to progress and advance and do what we need to do and be bright people how we can do that resilience the danger of this idea we and your children we talk a lot about what we need to do internally in our community how we talk about we need to hold inside we hold a lot of work and especially when we are talking about black women black women and framing when we talk about them in terms of their resilience and they can take it they are so strong we even have programs devoted to increasing young black girls' self esteem helping to do better all these things are meant to make this transformation happen from within you are a child transforming your community transforming your environment we need to pay I think more attention to holding our societal norms to the carbon and to thinking about how privileged we are to vote within outside of our community how we can change how we can adapt how we navigate this how we manage that I want the conversation to turn to what we will demand other people will do for us how we demand transformation to happen with our society as we are thinking about the ways that we should be more open how we talk to each other as we are thinking about how everything we are talking about on this panel about material lives I want the focus to we spend so much time talking about how we can change how we can be better how we can step up how we can come together in community and that is important you get on your cue we are talking about dance the rain I love the fact that you use the word entitlement and the word entitlement has been transformed the word particularly as it is applied to black people and black women to be entitled is our right we are entitled to pull how we live we are entitled to be able to take care of ourselves and our children we are entitled to walk down the street and be safe and so the way that entitlement has been recaptured through policy language or what have you really has done not just a disservice but it's feeling the way that we think about our entitlement to live and so I wonder that's part of one of your stations that allow us to own our entitlement to the man that needs change we are to work on that seeing those changes happen but it can't just happen with black women in black girls you just put your feet on the low bang so let me answer this question because we have to move on so pray for me because I have to make this too concise the visual question was asking about opportunities for ballistic and sustained collaboration of black girls and women and I would like to assert two things the first is self care and the second is loving somebody starting with self care I think for many of us we identify ourselves through the trauma that we experience from a world that we talked about seeks to see as it's being hyper-visible in ways that we don't really not seen as it are or the trauma that's passed on from generations and generations of women and men who've experienced the same thing and so a lot of how we see our role is to fight to fight I have to resist my name is Florence Noel it's not resistance, resistance or struggle struggle you feel what I'm saying and it will never be I don't want to understand that taking care of yourself is a revolutionary act because we live in a space that hopes to disappear us unsee us in other words, we're not human so why should I be the same if I'm against this way, you know so when I think about what self care can do it's not just having a massage to the same massage or moving to a city that I just want to explore it's affirming in a major way that I am human despite the systems that have been placed for some time to stay otherwise the second thing is loving someone and I'm sure that someone's like oh it sounds hella poetic and like but through through loving someone let's be clear loving someone that you can cure it as a person who can see who needs to take care of self and to build with people who recognize us and see us for who we without qualification without vocation it will give us the strength to sustain this effort to be free so when you see me know that my intentions is not to be fighting all the time and bucking against this and that my intention is to be well my intention is to be cared for my intention is to be loved because that's how I feel I'll be able to also be free I want the next discussion to prepare a question for our community and there is a lot going on in this space right now I want to also say that I wanted to say thank you to the children who are here who every time I hear one of them and I keep looking over at Honey that these conversations happen not just for us in the here and the now but the next question that I'm going to ask is about a future forward vision and getting deeper into the question that we just we just discussed up here so so who's next? something that I want to question that's going to move us to I think the next questions were intergeting space and we're getting to the vision and I will be transparent in saying that we won't get to all of the questions from our discusses to you and that's only because it's just been so vibrant and rich up to this point but who has the next question? you know I generally come to these spaces from a very food center place and recently you know since the Alyssa game I'm seeing you know also just doing food and I'm seeing that exception between poverty, gender equity food justice and I think that we don't talk enough about that in these spaces particularly because there's so much stigma around we know lots of people talk about his mom right and we also know because of the fragility of our families the fact that historically folks would come in and kidnap our children that it didn't take a lot just don't see them now they got something called educational neglect so if you bring your kids to school too late too often or they deem that you haven't brought them enough they've been absent, you children then guess what the people that you're dealing with they don't want to do everything and so you know I think our defense mechanism is to be like that's a very private thing you know I heard this a lot you don't tell no one else what to do today ladies but with this you know we're now having public conversations around spanking etc etc I really want to ask folks how do we bring radical mothering radical parenting into this conversation in feminism I think from traditional standpoint in feminism right we always looked at the family as this confining restrictive thing to get married if you have children play with June Cleaver then somehow you're not really a feminist but for black women in particular the ability to get married and have your children and have families are very liberating sometimes so who wants to come and talk about radical parenting, radical mothering in the space of feminism or beyond how are those things related or how are those things showing up in your whole life in your own experience and I'm very grateful for you guys coming to this conversation I know everybody is saying it but it is a wonderful discussion and I agree that I have these discussions in a private space in a religious space but having it in a public forum is wonderful I'm scared as a mother I've been quite allowed with the shame that you were speaking about there I think that across the board as women feminist rounds mothering has been seen as a bad thing people are waiting until they're older and older to have children young mothers are judged very quickly for having baby daddy not being married they're very ashamed I think that a really important aspect both culturally and as being a woman that we have to do in our mothering is expressing all these issues to the president talking to our children about why their father is there or it's not there talking about all that a lot of children are confused why do I have a dad and they don't why don't I have a dad and I say they do why am I seen as different than my friend I think these kinds of conversations are so important that the children be present for the adults are having those conversations because that in itself is part of the right to the village to raise your children it doesn't matter if you have a partner or you don't have a partner or whether you're coming from a community of different cultures that have access to information the aspect of thought the aspect of conversation with your children around your children so I'm just going to go on that level and say that opening those conversations in those environments for your children or your friends to open mind about their relationships and not the relationships whether their fathers are the same or not in opening creating that unity because the unity is what's going to help across the board from grassroots level from larger level if you have that conversation on the public level and the children see it I've seen children both of color and white children and all the different mixes in between level rights in schools learning about marketing for games learning seeing things about children at a shop they want to know why they want to know they don't understand and sometimes those are difficult conversations especially when they're younger but again as a mother making sure that you don't close those doors that you don't hold back those conversations and make sure that there's a lot of that they're not resisting all the time nor that they're embarrassed to ask the questions I'm going to speak to mothering radical mothering I want to hear from some of what haven't heard from yet and if not then I'm going to ask ask you to come up The question for me really specifically was how do we bring mothers you know if that's a little bit broad for you what does that actually mean what is radical mothering it's one it's one of a very, very brief statement what other students we speak about feminism we speak about history we speak about the quality of living we lie we lie just like our sister on time feels stated there's too much damn judgment and true feminism means allowing everyone a place at the table to be themselves without judgment and too much of that is coming on so now I'm just when you open up your mouth and the stench of judgment comes out the shade just goes down just keep it moving keep it moving but we have to be we have to be real we have to be real about ourselves real about this being called feminism and just say it feminism I don't even know what that means because it's just a place of being for me in the length that I've seen growing up I'm a child of 50s so I saw my mother with her father with her children alone no father present in the home mom was getting out making an incident everywhere that she could that for me translates into true feminism she didn't have she wasn't on any pedestal she wasn't waiting for something had to go out and break it and she was doing that herself this is for how she was doing this this is how she tomorrow was cleaning Miss Anne's kitchen caring for Miss Anne's children while Miss Anne's husband was trying to give peace and she had to put many jobs because he was so this is the reality this is the reality for us I like women since day one of enslavement we have always been this is so cool never this has been nothing new to us that's why we're trying to come in here okay thank you anyone else want to talk about mothering rather than mothering yes let's think that basically I can't thank you enough sister I really can't thank you enough I'm going to have to listen okay and everything I can actually imagine what I want to say is we have to start loving mothers I mean sometimes you know the bus and you see a child passing out and you see the faces pull away and you know that mama is kind don't go over and say the culture word her that means somehow maybe you can hold the baby's hand while she does that that stroke of you don't need violence our institutions our institutions are better of course we don't have enough time to get all the things we need to get to but we have a question from live stream and live stream is asking us to go deeper so I think we are still in for the folks who are tuning in they come to the grassroots they want strategy they're asking for tools so what do we need what are the specific you know of we need to stop the mad responses but what this question is asking for is make it make a real plan and all the way the meaning of black women a hundred dollars a hundred dollars I know so many many women in this world included who are so educated both you know formally and informally who have done whatever they have to do we know that we've got to work triple as hard as Lori to get a third what she got and how in this world once we have to show for it so many of us are still so fragile and we are talking about liberation in a society such as this one academic development is this is why I started the global market this is why I'm starting the urgent bar now because I just I think those thematic things we talked about are beautiful and they are necessary so people in my community have a safe green space to take their babies and learn a few cumbers but I hope to be able to get in there work with me learn finding a succession of planting how would we make sure we grow enough few cumbers what is the foundation how much money is that going to net because she needs to know what it's like to take a paycheck home we need to know that safety and programs are important I affect my children on food stamps I say that apologetically when I'm shown up at that food stamp office to me there is something grating about the fact that someone is now bringing her 18 year old daughter to fill out an application like it is a rite of passage that food stamps have been in that home for 20, 25 years there is stagnation we are talking about liberation the ability to be able to whether you are married or not be able to buy a co-op or a home for your family the choice if you want to because I only need to invest in my child's future the ability to say that when I retire that I will not have to make a choice between food or medicine women have been the backbone black women and immigrant women have been the backbone industry and don't have a hundred dollars to show for it it's criminal so when we are talking about the liberation of black women we have to be having a conversation about how do we make sure that black women are no longer living specifically I really want to say this because I know we are last but I will get a report as my report and come out in the morning we have to share this and you can be saying this in my life or in my child's life so come on I am a black woman in my community and I am also a woman myself and I think perceptions will be internalized about ourselves is a huge part of it and I do a lot of work with education I realize a lot of women people I teach and I work with potential watch shows I go to Housewives and tell them Americans have to stop now but there are a lot of messages that are in there telling us things about black what it means to be a black woman and I don't tell the students that I work with not to watch the shows but I try to critically engage them in what's going on because there's a lot of negative images that's the first thing and I think once we internalize these images and how we interact with other black people really that impacts how we interact with other black people how we talk to other black people the expectations that we have with them whether or not they fit into that what we think it means to be black so if somebody falls out of sight that you're not having to be a black person that has to be a person that you don't trust if they do fall out whether or not maybe we internalize some of the negative messages about what it means to be black and I find it really interesting that it comes to that that you realize that you like to expand your mind and like to learn about things that fall outside what it means to be seen as black do you form coalitions or are you able to expand your comfort zone being able to walk into institutions that traditionally tell you you don't belong there you're head held high but that's one of the first things you have to do and then once you reach those gates do you turn around and see behind you who may be interested in forming those coalitions I don't know if that makes sense but what I'm saying is positive messages about what it means to be black we may not feel comfortable walking into spaces and being the only black person which is sometimes what you need to do in order to build that capital and build that wealth what you do when you are the only black person how does that make you feel how you do the microaggressions once you're in that space and how do you then build capacity and sometimes it's not always reaching out to the other black women sometimes it's reaching out to the Latina women sometimes it's reaching out to the Asian women and sometimes it's also understanding where you are privileged as a black person as a black American as someone that lives in a country that has plenty of water which is being really aware of on a wider basis but I think the bigger thing is being able to be comfortable in a lot of spaces and being comfortable in a lot of spaces it means quickly the messages that you get about being black it means if you're going to keep watching Royal Housewives of Carolina ask yourself why do all these women have leaves why is there a high correlation between straight and black and financial equity so it sounds to me that you have given several points that you have questions but I'm going to restate back to you what I got a question as a statement so first investigate how you feel about yourself second, after that investigation use that investigation to inform how you might want to build coalitions with other folks how you spend your time how you spend your time who you hang out with and then after you after an integration after an interrogation of the way you spend your time and build your coalitions then what's the next thing the next thing is who's going to join you on that training being really discerning about who you spend your time with so the coalition and establishing the coalition is then a foundation for building a move so when people join you then you gain you gather steam and for whatever cause or purpose that comes out of that it begins with those four steps I feel like a lot of times the way that I speak a lot of black women will grow in shape and I'm going to have to open my mouth sometimes my hair is nappy I don't have problems with my nappy hair but a lot of other black women do so they're not going to speak to me the minute that they see my nappy hair and I'm fine with it I wish they would be fine with it white trend in the conversation a black white because we don't want to do this and our destination is a global and want to change the world so that's why I want you all to talk to speak like this discusses to respond to that so we're thinking about future forward visionings that we lead with a global so Jessica hello everyone I just wanted to put forth the notion of archiving and documentation of the total liberation I think often about boys that have come to womanhood and have learned specifically about thinking about black womenhood. I've learned that in other black womenhood physically written in social history. And in a digital age in particular, there's so many different ways that that can look like. So I would argue that being particular about how we, how our children, our mothers write down their stories and how those stories are preserved and shared via libraries and Tumblr and Twitter. I think our life can be very important space for liberation in there, which is like, you know, just thinking about that. I love you. I love you too. One strategy that people work with them, find, to listen, to listen, to listen, to love, to offer the girls compassion. And don't say you can't find a circle. You can find a circle. Girls are doing this work all over. There's a special conference at Red Reverie. Girls find a circle. Girls have to subversely teach about Ida Wells and what she's doing. The feminists have to subversely teach those messages. But the main thing is to be in the room with the girls so we show up for them to listen, to feel, and to know. Um, an international, you know, institution, major cultural institution in the world. It's out there in the room today. OK. Astral projecting into 20. I thought you could cover this with something. You just, yes, please. Thank you, because I have three words. Style keeping students. So I try not always to be, you know, sexist, misogynist. Just, you know, promising on it. I try to make my Facebook page 90% articles about women's liberation, black women's liberation, affirming things about black girls and women. And also, just, I think we can also ask each other, what was it like for you today as a black female? Just that simple question. But not dismiss the female. And so to what you were saying about this cultural article this year about reparations, I feel like it was this really not so low-key critique of capitalism. I just think that the more we can just understand this system. Thank you, first, for addressing this question. Yeah. Just a question that I really wanted to ask, which is, how can black feminism save our lives? How can we save the lives of those who are born around our communities? And I just want to make two comments. We have to figure out ways for people to get paid for the invisible labor that they are doing in our communities, doing hair, taking care of children. I mean, this is a very normative rule. People are working hard and not able to take care of themselves. So we need to redefine everything of this labor and figure out ways in our community to support those young women and women who are sending help themselves and not being paid for it, especially when we're giving to us. We're all in privilege. The second thing is, I feel that we've got to replace the black feminism or the way that we talk about power and power, where we're constantly using this language of how do we transform, how do we get in, how do we make space? Within institutions, we need to be building our own institutions. Our own black girls, they would join them, stare at babies in their homes, and I would cut out there. But we need to create a new, not trying to get in. I'm really going to pay back. All of you are cooperation and interdependence. Those are my two things, cooperation and interdependence. So instead of trying to, again, make inroads into institutions, back out of institutions that don't want to stand for not educating us or not providing us with the economic stability that we need. So from the ground up, we are happy babies. Let's educate our babies together. Let's form educational cooperatives. Let's take it out of that class and create our own classrooms. I know black women who compare, I know black women who sell, I know black women who make, sell, grow food. Let us begin creating our own economy, outside of an economy that doesn't want to even empower us to live in a way that is healthy and helpful to us. You cannot participate in feminism. You cannot participate in institutions if you are not convinced of your own commitment. I think the straight horizon conversation is such a powerful example. When you look at the number of black women and girls who said, if you're not even convinced of the fact that you can have education traveled down the street, you're not talking about saying hello. I'm talking about being called out of your neck, being sexually harassed, and not feeling that another girl is possible. And not feeling that you have a right to challenge that. So for those of us who have already made that peace with feminism, or decided that it's something that we do whether we aspire to do every space of your life, your work, when you're on the bus, when you're in basis, when you see something, interrupt it. Let black girls and women know that they have a right to have an entitlement to everything that this world has to offer. And the job you want, the love you want, the sex you want, the peace you want is there for you. You just have to understand that you deserve it. If my show of hands, how many of you guys work for somebody else? My show of hands, as a result, that will keep your hands up if you have checklists, and Excel spreadsheet, and all the other prohibitions that you need to have to keep track of what you need to do. It's not everyone. I think that level of intentionality, that level of specificity, that level of unlimited attention to detail should be what we use to care for ourselves. In response to, again, the space in which caring for ourselves is a larger accessory, bring it all the way down. You need massages twice a week. OK, where can you get the cheapest? You need to talk to someone extra as he happens. OK, who can hear you the most? You need to be able to be in a space in which you feel most seen and heard. OK, how do you create it? And through that, creating a collection of love, self-love practices that you can share with other people in order to create a space in which you can feel most alive. And I think that's what we will pass on to our children, children's children, other black females. They can then go forward with that practice and find a way to really create them. Let's do it for a minute. Oh, no. I feel like Amy and Aisha have ridden this drove and hold. I just want to say I think the thing that we need to do is also to show our apology. So I know for me, I've read a lot of colors, a lot of police. I've put this big body in a lot of colors. I expect a lot of time feeling sorry, apologizing for being loud, apologizing for having children, apologizing for being dark, apologizing for not being pretty enough, apologizing because my hand was too narrow. You know, I grew up and I say this with forgiveness and love to my mother, who came from a southern Baptist rural plantation family. She said, ain't no neighbor with no loud ass woman. You're not late, but I'm ain't no neighbor with no fat ass woman, right? So I started internalizing that. And there was a world that we affirmed that. And I know so many of us walk into spaces. Some of us we used to apologize for coming in before we could come into a room and say sorry. Sorry for what? You shut up. That's not how I feel. I love this. We ask no place. We create these cooperants. All our customers, we have our babies, we're choosing not to, right? That we are okay with showing up in a room that way. Be okay about your nappy hair. And anybody that got a problem with that, that's their problem, not yours. And if you want to wear a booty weave, be all right with that. You know, so just when we are, showing up lovingly, showing up intentionally, and showing up in a way that is inclusive. I want to end with some kind of work and I want to just start thanking you now for your time, your attention and your presence here. It's really, really, really much, much appreciated. Now is the time to activate some of the collective genius we have to dig into the current conservation of a visionary black feminist project. One that introduces new developments in art, culture, traditional medicine, healing and other sectors as we collectively unshackle our girls and women from the chains of dominant stereotypes, disregard and swap stories, interventions, lesson plans and recipes for our own revolution. It is time to immerse ourselves in the language of our liberation to fan the flames of a black feminist future that makes this world hear our names in our mother's tongues. It is time to come back to the kitchen table and figure out how to snatch back our destinies from the claws of capillary institutional oppression, debilism and individualism. It is time for strategic engagement and strategic action. The power, yes, black women and girls have participated in the movements for social justice and culture and nations all over this global technology for liberation and we know how to get free. Take up a phenomenon about being a black girl, a woman in 300 years. What do you see when you walk down the street who is the president of this country and where do you shop and how do you treat this planted? What are the most pressing issues? What do you listen to as you astral project to work? Who has the authority to legislate and how you build your family, your reproductive rights and how you make or is somebody of skill and control and determining your life? I want you to think about this. Think about what happens when the stereotype of liberation movement in which black girls and women are currently participating. Black women is a world as robust and barren as the diaspora. Black feminism is a series of experimental methods for living in this world. Black feminism is a ritual, an honoring and remembering of what it needs to be reborn and fly. It disturbs contemporary norms of... Black feminism is a living, breathing organism. It is a framework. Black feminism is home. Thank you for that liberation. I appreciate being a part of the process. Please stay in touch with us. We all are with radical programming. If we don't support it, they won't do it. Okay, and thank you. Thank you.