 Hello, my name is Naila Canaver, and I am going to present to you today women of color in democracy on the carnival spaces at all times. I currently serve as the first African-American leader for a municipality that is in the county of St. Louis, Missouri. The municipality is made for, it consists of 800 people, excuse me, and then within the county of St. Louis, there are 88 municipalities. So we are invited similar to Memphis, Tennessee. And so we started off this talk to know that first time a very great place you are here. Second, at some point in this conversation is not meant to harm. This conversation is not meant to blame. This conversation is meant to lift women of color up in times. So, with all of that being said, I am going to let you all know that shortly, there will be a video. And this video is a mini documentary from a transformational summit that took place in New York in March of this year. And this took place because of my partner who is not here with us today due to a family crisis. My partner in this presentation, her name is Melida Bres, and she is with Democracy Rising, and she's a badass. I was talking with my partner who is going to sit here today because she was like, that person can talk to me today. So, this women of color transformational summit is for each one of us. And she thought to herself, you know what, I want to make sure that democracy is more inclusive. Democracy is accessible to all. And I believe that women can be the lead in that. And so she brought a very diverse group of women of color together that in New York. And this video that you're about to see is just a snippet of what came out of that lead. So Grace, would you like to join me? In the United States, we've never truly had democracy where every citizen had all of their rights and is still in power. Particularly women of color are facing a lot of threats of violence and abuse. Full time of their work, their movements. We've seen a lot of backlash and a lot of pushback. I am giving my life to people that don't know. When we get back here, it's horrible. It's horrible. And if you do? Decisions where we're never going to support the United Kingdom. And you know it's something that the community really wants to leave. We just can't get up. We can always really help for so long until we can go through those spaces and leave people. That's all we're going to have to do. We cannot continue to exact change in the city without a single change. No one should die. We started at low, low, and now we're going against the state government. We're not just trying to go on the road for transition. We all have a responsibility to make sure that women and children are actually safe. We shouldn't have to stop and work. Everyone has equal access to this. Especially the government. It's always a limit. We need to fight to get the community. That's all I have to say. This is something that we will continue to fight. And we will move this community. I believe we are going to be out of this space. We're going to help our petitioners to engage, enjoy, and care. And we're going to support that. We need to work. I think first of all we're trying to make sure that we're working. We're not going to ask all of this around here and get to protect everything that can pass to people. We're building on the future that the community deserves people who will come out and support that. And try to protect and counterpart those who you have to deal with to fully bridge back the green in the future. We're going to let the best of the rest come to action. It is so cheap to be that way. And so for me to feel like that after 113 years to serve as the mayor is huge, and I had persistence and backing, honestly, it felt like I caught the Obama effect, where a lot of people get really excited about change and being history. They want to be part of that. But then once that person gets into that space of leadership, all the excitement dissipates. Everybody seems to go away. And so I had to figure out a way to have an ally specifically for me. And so when I was elected, I thought, or council, I thought that my colleagues were going to support the agenda that I have. I was wrong. And so when I thought I could count to seven, I learned I could only count to one. It's very, very safe. And so I needed to be able to understand, okay, who was my opposition on council? Who can rise to a communal side? And then who is just going to roll off so I can make sure that whoever comes next is going to support my agenda? I am an attorney. I am a district judge for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And the only experience that I had from politics was maybe watching House of Hards. I couldn't get the rules right. You know what I mean? Watching a few episodes of that history from school, I did not want to be a politician. My only goal was to make sure that low income families could stay in our school district so they could go to our grade school. That's it. So when I came there, I was just focused on how we were going to help everybody on council. Was this focused on that? No. Maybe people were focused on power. And what I learned was that I thought it would be the white women on council and my opposition would be the white men. And it was the reverse. And so that was shocking. I continued to occur where there was a power grab and I had one of my white women colleagues on council reading me, if you will, because I was trying to make appointments pursuant to our charter. And they didn't like that. That was the only one that didn't talk to me after I died because it was so nasty the way that it was done. And because I'm a black woman and if I want to get my agenda passed and if I want to continue my community support I can't act a fool. Other people can, but I cannot. I cannot be seen at the end of my life. And so I am taking all of this time, fullery, in a public meeting and then we move on. Thank you. Someone was just like, you did an excellent job. I couldn't tell it. You were angry at all. You just kept going. I got out of bed and I was like, no, no, no. Because this is building a bond where our conversation is going to be in a few minutes. I got with Holly and council white men and I'm telling them that the councilman who spoke this way never came to me, they never spoke to me. This wasn't fair. And he agreed. Now he counts it. Because he saw that I was in training and he's not. He is a person that hears about fairness. So now he has some people that are rolling along with council for whatever reason. And I see openings coming in. Now I'm going into the community to find people that are going tomorrow because I need to have us. I need to count to four. I'm able to pull it or convince rather two people to run the council. They come on board. Now I'm accountable. I get another person on. Now I can count to five. At that point, we don't want you to give them money. I don't care. Whoever else is going to come on board, that's fine. As long as I have my numbers, I'll need to go. Now, let me tell you, I have people that support me. Having people that that keep this world out of the way for me in the St. Louis region. There I say, the state that has an affordable housing and has a tear filling price deals with county assessors with real property taxes for leading democracy have the opportunity to make a change. We will make a change. And so what I'd like to do now is ask Chris any questions and answers that may cause you to feel vulnerable and in your vulnerability you may be asking these questions to be getting on. I am asking these questions to have an exchange of information because what we hear today my goal is to what can I do to move a hurdle out of the way of a woman of color so she can lead and make change. What can I do to support a woman of color that wants to be in a space that she that no person of color has ever been in to support and to do for all. That is the intent. So I'm Chris I'm very honored to be here and to talk to you all. I was just explaining the format of these conversations that we're trying to set up so we're going to split up into two chairs we're going to have a group of people in the room together to discuss some little talk there and talk about your experience and what it means to be in a democracy space in an American apartment working to change it and to share stories and build a community. And then we're going to have a whole white policy that goes together in a conversation with me and the other white folks just talking about exactly what I was saying talking about how we as white folks who want to build a democracy that looks like the people in this room that wants to build a democracy movement that reflects American the whole American populace how can we build people of color with power how can we get like the same those and obstacles out of the way so that's what that's the goal that's the goal is to have these two groups having these terrible conversations and then we can bring it home and make something out of it all. Thank you Chris Thank you Chris so what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask questions give your groups time to discuss and provide answers you know and then we're going to share out before I go to the next end of questions alright sounds good okay so let's bring that Andrew you want to say what's your opinion or said question people of color work in your organization how many people of color work in your organization next how many of them are women of color how many of them are women of color in the final part of this set how many women of color work in leadership roles as opposed to assisted roles so I'll go again how many people work in your how many people of color work in your organization how many women of color and how many of those women of color work in useful roles as opposed to assisted roles so if you go ahead and you all can have that conversation and you know these groups are big so you must with them like a half yeah I guess we're going to talk about two groups over there I'm going to call it that it's pretty much 81 that is 9 it's in between 8 9 9 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 10 9 19 10 11 11 9 9 10 19 20 21 22 23 23 23 23 23 24 24 24 issue. I don't see like, I mean, she's a bad guy. She's awesome. And, you know, she listened to me. I had a hard conversation over weeks and weeks, but, you know, they didn't give me the same little word because sometimes we just don't understand each other. And I say, it's less than a white woman in a weird place because that's our offering. We need $40,000 less than being a wrong person. I try to assess her. And so, I think for us in this group, especially this lady right here, you know, it's scary to not have any people around you. Where people like to just do this. So, yes, that is a good example. We have some cleaners. So, they started the organization. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Steve Bonho. We did have a plan before. We identified that there were very degrees of organizations. So, we also, I want to say, I had this one person that was a woman of color organization, but it was a very different place. Unfortunately, we didn't get to get into more conversation like this kind of increase in ourselves at that point, but I didn't know a lot. Okay, this is what all of them looked like. Oh, we can move forward until I could not hop. Thank you. Okay, so organizations, there were some people of color and others that weren't. There was a discussion about my example. We were talking about an organization led by a woman of color. Pretty much almost all the employees in the entire organization are all women of color. Almost. Very few white people, very few. Yeah, I think the general just knows that there's maybe not enough women of color in leadership. I mean, let me ask, forgive me for putting y'all on the spot. Okay, so after hearing what Tyra, yes, after hearing what Tyra said about being in a space and wanting to essentially get the proper pay and the same pay, you be an advocate and support, especially when you and we have one black person, right? Can you tell me how or how you show up and if you are uncomfortable and you're going to be enough to share that you are uncomfortable about showing up? Can you tell us why? Yes, thank you. So that's it. And if you can get in a relationship with the person you know you got, they know you're not going to be bad first of all, right? Then that could be pretty awesome, but we can't really capture this. Thank you. I'm going to come here to help. So you can come policy by recommendations. All right, who would like to volunteer or who shall be volunteered to share? Okay, Chris. I didn't get volunteered somehow. So I think our conversation was similar to, it was a big variety. There were some who swear, everybody has some women of color on staff, but some, you know, it's a really small share of 5% of fewer of those folks. And then you've got the organization and staff. Tyra would say led by women of color, created by women of color, or led by people of color because they were created with the express purpose of the individual justice organization. So it seems like the attention of the app is when people are coming this sort of generic like do good things lens. They're not being quite as intentional as they could be especially in the start-up stages of these organizations are bringing in people of color at any level, especially at leadership levels. So that was my sort of takeaway of this conversation. Chris, do you feel comfortable in being vulnerable in answering the question, have you facilitated or have not why? Yeah. Yeah, so mine, I, sorry about that question again. Jim was saying like at that eye to just sort of keep saying like at that eye to just sort of keep me out of all times for women, you know, like conversations are happening when I feel like my colleagues who are primarily women, but also women of color, if they are experiencing micro approaches, if they're experiencing micro approaches, I try to watch that and see if they'll be able to know what's happening so that I can reach out and check in and see how they're feeling and see like I don't want to take action. I want to take action. I don't want to do it. I want to see them. I want to check in with people of color when they're experiencing car non-workplace and strategize with them about what what is my most effective sphere, where can I get in, where can I sort of like disrupt this hard so that's how I try to reach I just wanted to type I was like, I think my affair that I run into like definitely want to echo like I might have to do anything outside of relationship. Everything needs to be done with that relationship, but I know that if I am here with going into a conversation with somebody who I try to communicate to like superior, I am able to put with apps and experiences and data, I'm more likely to fail and I think I can tell me that and I think it's important to really know the whole story going in. I know it's going to be like a fraction of the guess, I think that goes on. It's like 100%, but does one have to mean that we also can't see when we're trying to speak? We, I'm sorry, like we like white co-workers who are trying to stand up for our co-workers of color with their bits and pieces. I want to speak on what Jim and Chris were talking about. I want you all to notice that I had a whole white man come to crime to tell y'all separately, but white people know how to talk to white people that are white people. I can tell, I say my improvement, I can tell black and brown people, hey, y'all, we're going to, we're going to separate into this group because as Tara said, there is comfort in that, there is a feeling of safety in that because we are all going through the same thing. And so when I want to communicate, I'm with me and I'm going to communicate that to white people more often than not. I'm going to be the representative. This is the truth. It's the truth. It's the truth. And am I like, oh, you know, this is, this is so unfair. It's the truth. It's the truth. And am I like, oh, you know, this is, this is so unfair. It shouldn't be this way. I ain't got time for that. I'm going to be wrong with you all. I do not have time to be like, oh, it's so unfair. It shouldn't be this way. What I'm trying to do is, which is my agenda form and my agenda supports my community. And so if I'm interested in the representative to get something done, that's what I want to do. And I appreciate the representatives that go into the room and talk to the white people and then say, hey, because I wonder because what this woman is doing helps everyone. So thank you, Jim, for speaking out to that. Thank you all. Thank you. What's your name, Carrie? Thank you, Carrie, for saying I'm trying and it's difficult. It is what I would ask, though, is when it's difficult for you, recognize it's even harder for us and stay in that space with us because it's very easy to be uncomfortable and then to say, well, I'm going to put up a big I'm out, right? So thank you for being in that discomfort and moving us and helping us to lose what we're trying to do forward. It's about comfort. For you to feel comfortable in talking to a white person in leadership to assist you or if you are running your own business, if you're running your own business, what would help you to feel comfortable to talk with someone else that could assist your business first, push your agenda forward? So that's the question. But what it takes for you to feel comfortable and then for this to feel comfortable and assist me in moving forward, either in the space that you're in, whether it's space that you're in, moving forward and ensuring that their voices are heard. All right, so we will help you in those two minutes. So, okay, here we go. Let's say we have three things. Yes, yes, okay. But this will be a five-way conversation, so then we can go around. This will be the last question. I mean, you can start with. This is so awesome. Thank you for participating. That was an interesting decision of yours. Should I say, for people to assist a woman of color with the information that she may have or getting rid of pearls, cleaning them up so they can have voice, what was going to help you feel comfortable with that. And then on this side, I was asking you all to talk about what you do need to feel comfortable so you can have that. And I'll just tell you the space that I have in my household is two minutes off the life you need to know. So, it's fine. Independence is not here to work for me in this space. I need you to ask for help, right? And so, I have a sense of representative and now I have a change for the better in my community. And so, we're going to start here. I would love for that to not be the case. I don't want anyone to have to be like, oh my, really, reach the depths of hell. And now I need to ask for help, right? You know, so trauma, what can make you feel comfortable? And then I'm going to spot like the system right here, which I'll be able to sell. Because you said something, you know, the story that happened here. And I'm asking you to be normal until the end, because that's the space that we're in. And I'm here as the more AES thing, you know, maybe one of the, one of the two books that I need to be proud of. So anyway, in the green room, yesterday, I was standing up at the media. We said, ooh, I'm going to be proud of her. I was already nervous in the green room. Welcome to the media. She's so tired of her and I'm too into interviews. Perfect to schedule those. Do you also want to, so I brought it to the group early. So I don't know how to have a conversation and the team is right and communication. I think it was that one Asian woman, one Asian man that has spoken on any of the communication trends. And I would like to say, and I'll quote it like, this kind of strength is black people running internet, like people color. With their communication, sometimes interacting with others, especially in an era of conversation, isn't clear. Some of the things that have been very intentional of their words and thoughts before coming into this conversation. And a couple people are mentioning is conversation. They all want to bring things up because they don't want to lose their job. That's also something to do online. And then it's going to make me feel comfortable in four positions where I'm the one person and all of the others in the order. But one of the things that I try to do is just listen and give people space to say what they need. I often, when I can't bring something to someone, I'm going to say, oh, we'll do all this instead of giving me the space to explain what I need, what I'm going to be the space to, for them to understand where I'm going to be conversation is let them to understand. For being vulnerable and strong and saying that in this space, I wanted for you to share that because I want you to hear it. I think that I'm sure that our society was in your environment, but it was in your community. I'm sorry that you were dead. And yeah, I'm thinking about what Jean just said about listening. When someone or other tells you this may be a little comfortable or what you said was offensive, we not change that personally. I think a personal attack on you, what I've experienced is I tell someone, we're not true, okay, David's not okay. They're like, oh, you think I'm a bad person? No, that's not it. We're just talking about that one thing. So we're on a one thing and not center, not center, but this person is not going to be in school at first. We are not products when you're guilty because you don't have time for that. You don't have time, right? You're just really trying to think of time. And so, please don't take it as, hey, we have different cultures. You may think that this is okay, but in my culture, it's not. So can you work on that? Get a bridge there and then get over that bridge so you can get whatever the task is we're trying to get done. All right, so thank you for listening to that scale. Who would like to report out for this? A little bit of a different transcendental organizations, but what we're talking about is being a safe zone for those people of color who are in those positions and making sure that's known. It's okay to get out of your voice shakes. It's okay to be that person that's a little bit scared of speaking off of being that person because that's how you put yourself into that atmosphere where those people of color feel like they can talk to you. And we talked about knowing your power as a white person, as a white man, knowing your privilege that you have to stand behind somebody to color and listen to that. But you shouldn't have to do that from the ground, ground zero, so she can ask, what do you mean? If you need that understanding, let me be that one side of it. Right, I think that's what our role is, is be behind the people that want to make that change. If they do make that equal change, you don't have to go years. And that is, I think that's really important to talk about. We're going around. Thank you. All right, I need to get out of the way. You're like, not today, sister. All right, who is volunteering to be on the phone? Come on, come on. So some of the things you talked about were white people are afraid of bucking it up when they want to have a conversation about something that they think they see, and they think you might need to be addressed. Making sure that they are exactly what you said. What she said, she said a way about making sure we're giving you the space appropriately, so that if we're going to say, whoa, I see something that is not okay needs to be addressed, it's actually fine. And we're not stepping where we shouldn't be stepping. And so I think we were talking about tools and tactics to making sure like having that courage to not just speak up, but to speak to the person that we think needs to be given the space to explain what they experienced and have that elevated and changed, but to talk to that person first. And so that was one thing we talked about a lot, which is making sure that, you know, we want to be an ally, let's be an ally in the right way, in an invited, welcomed way. And I think the other side was, you know, we talked about this kind of one of, have you ever felt retaliated or potentially retaliated against if you started to raise an issue that you're seeing with your colleagues in color? And is that going to be backlash to you? And we're just going to put some conversation around, you know, I'm not going to repeat what you said, but what he said, you know, you got to do it. You got to do it, you got to take the risk, now that you're privileged and see how we need to raise people up. And like, you got to take the risk, even if there is retaliation, which is an unfortunate start. Thank you. If you would like to leave or if you have a question and you would like to follow up on, you're welcome to do so at this time. Thank you. I'm also in love to official at the second platform in Portland, New York. I never was going to say that I was a grassroots activist and somehow, you know, I'm experiencing that in also a very white city, very white state in Portland, New York. So a lot of things we talked about with things that I personally deal with. I guess my question for this is the challenging and scary part about being a black woman in a leadership position and a lot to the official is I speak out on a lot of the differences that have been passed since I was a little bit of a threat to myself and to the people that I love. And it's so, it's a little bulky because I know that we need people like us in these positions to keep fighting and fighting. So I guess if you're wondering personally, why don't you move forward because I'm getting close to trying to figure out how to run for election. And part of me, you know, if I could, again, the second platform we've ever had in front of the end is remember that survey of a very non-politician politician. So I know a lot of ways of a lot of people who come back. But then there's also this level of my own personal health and mental health. And I think it's welcome to do so often to just like keep going, keep it buried and fighting. And I'm wondering how do you balance the two personally and how do you feel like I can be in this space and I can keep moving forward. But I'm also going to be prioritizing my mental and emotional health because I'm hiding myself throughout. So I guess I'm wondering if I can continue to fight for our community. And when do you feel like you can also step out and say I need to take care of my mental and emotional health and feel like you're not giving up for other communities and letting balance the people that are in question. Okay, so I am going to be extremely vulnerable with you all. After the incident that occurred that I shared with you where I had colleagues on council inappropriate at an other meeting, it was down over there. And I became extremely anxious. I didn't know. He knows that I'm going to seek for those council members. I didn't want to, I didn't want to go to council. And we were on the zone, you know, and it just a little side over it. But when you get up on the side, extremely depressed, I became extremely anxious to the point that I have to get on anti-depressant medication. And I am anti-anxiety medication just to continue to do this work. But for me, I'm still in that space. That's what it meant. And I didn't want to leave the space. And so I'm like, okay, if I'm not going to leave the space, but I need to help myself, what do I need to do? I need to start putting the seats. And so I had to do that work to get more allies on the council. Well, before that, I didn't have to get allies on the council. I went to the community. Let the community know that you will be involved. Let the community know that you will be harassed. I promise you, the people that had the intention, purpose to get out of their house to go to the voting board, right? They had to be the commentator of their home to do that for you. They will be there for you. And they see that you are not treated the way that you should be treated. So they didn't have a little gas left in the tank. Go to your community. Because that's how I was able to survive that time until I can start to count to three, four, and five. They'll do the other one. This is just a small amount. It's very funny. I think I'm sure everyone's voting has experience where you will hear all of this negative communication. And it's so loud. But the group that is coming from is so small. So we give them a back. City Council, we really did a lot of housing. We were going to ask, we were going to housing every grantee. And so we're with him and his vision is to be able to serve people, to follow us, to keep it for him. We need support. So it's really hard to talk about it at our organizations. It's the intersection, the race, the gender, and the health. So it's much like surfing in the schools. You know, I'm kind of curious, I'm really good with that. What kind of pitch did I give it to? Was it hard to say what she's dancing? Oh, no, no, no. What are you saying again? I'm going to say to them. So what the work that I do is what the moves that you give that I haven't had to give a pitch. Seeing that, because I, that's not a note that I haven't had to give a pitch to someone, you know what I mean? I rest in this house and I understand, take toes on that because you have white women in my community that will have reading circles and they're reading white storytelling. So I think we see this woman in what she's trying to do for children. And if we want that to be more, so we're going to do whatever we need to support that. I am very blessed to be in the community that I'm in. And that's not to say, for instance, right? I will tell you that, and if I'm not getting T, I'm not. Oh, make a woman so progressive. We're just going to be this couple. And then I'm ready to make this vote. You're hearty with mine. I am about changing policy. As much as I can change a policy or ordinance that is going to be enforced, let's make that policy so it's important. A lot of the things I have to do about the state politics is I go on for a little more research work position, isn't it? And so I've heard, and these are sacrifices that for our conferences, I've always heard black men and I'm sure that on the other side of the hands are people. And that there is an ability to host some, some sacrifices. So, we all have that feature, too. And I know there has to be some love set up on this street, but they believe the full moon to the moon is right in the street. She was like, okay, you got to be careful about that. You got to be careful about your low. You're not going to do that.