 Thank you, Gio, for opening up our space and helping to ground our community for today's conversation. Talofa Lava Highland Community. Hello, community. My name is Edwina Fuiayushi, her pronouns, and I will be your host for today's conversation. I am super thrilled and excited to introduce our friends and our guest speakers for today. A little bit about our speakers. State Representative Jesse Johnson is a lifelong federal way resident and a graduate from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Masters of Education. Go dogs. Jesse's values are rooted in equity, inclusion and social justice. His focus comes from his close partnership within the community in the South King County region where he has worked as a high school career and college counselor and in workforce planning and development for the Highland School District. In 2017, Jesse was elected the youngest city council member in federal way history when he first took office at the age of 27. Now he serves as the legislators youngest member where he works to help working families and seniors struggling with high costs, students looking for the right pathway to a good paying job and family struggling with housing and security across the state. Addressing youth violence prevention and expanding behavioral health services are important issues for John for Jesse stemming from the work he championed on the federal way city council. Just recently elected back to the state House of Representatives Jesse will serve as a vice chair for the public safety committee and a member of the community and economic development committee. Our next presenter epiphany Nick Johnson is a second year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She graduated with a dual bachelor's of science in biology and bachelor of arts in American ethnic studies from the University of Washington. Her values are addressing the health needs of marginalized communities with an emphasis on intersecting identities, particularly the needs of black and Samoan LGBTQIA plus youth. She also has a passion for destigmatizing mental health conditions and combating racism in the medical education, which leads to adverse health outcomes for black and brown communities. Epiphany is now preparing for clinicals and her medical school journey. Today I'm excited for the Johnson's to share with our community on racial equity, moving from commitment to action. Highland family, I know you're out there. I'm sure your love in the chat and let's welcome Jesse and epiphany. Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. I love seeing that photo that was pre COVID and my hair was much more content and I think COVID has taken its way with me but thank you so much Edmina. I know epiphany is going to share screen for our presentation. Well it is an honor to be with you this afternoon, a day after an historic inauguration. I just want to first salute Highland College for your visionary leadership around racial equity work. And now we will move to epiphany is going to do a quick land acknowledgement as well. And thank you all for having us thank you Gio for the land acknowledgement that you moved us into. I just want to reiterate what Gio said and just really remembering that we're all on indigenous land and land that was stolen by force and by genocide and I just want to take a moment to honor the original caretakers of this land, who are still here, and to invite folks, if you would like to take one of those things for moving from commitment to action and visiting www.realrentduwamish.org and consider taking the action of honoring indigenous folks with money financials, something that will actually help them. Sometimes we think you know things like our thoughts are good and acknowledging them as good and also taking that action to the next step is very good. Thank you so much epiphany for that that is that is crucial. Now move into what I love to do when we're presenting is ground ourselves and commitments for this presentation. And so the first one is to stay engaged don't let your heart and mind check out it's very important for today. Number two is to listen for understanding truly listening with an open heart and an open mind. Experience discomfort, agree to experience discomfort and so you can learn about these issues of race in an honest way we know this is emotionally charged topic, a really experienced that discomfort and be okay with it. And number four speaker truth, once we get to questions be honest about your thoughts and feelings and opinions as you're hearing us speak today, and say them in a way that is authentic for you. I expect an accept non closure. This is probably one of the ones that's most difficult for me, accepting that you may not reach closure and your understanding about race, racism or race relations, and there is no such thing as a quick fix. Number six call to action reflecting on today's dialogue will impact your current practice, whether you're a student faculty staff, or just a community member hoping to achieve racial equity in your own life. So we'll move to the beginning of our presentation. Thank you Jesse I agree that accepting the non closure is so important and also understanding that this work is never done within our own lives and within community work we're always coming back to be introspective with ourselves. And throughout this talk with you all community, we're asking that we would use the lens of targeted universalism as our framework for this discussion and our lens with which we move forward to come to understand this discussion. And what targeted universalism is coined by Dr john Powell who is a social justice advocate author and professor at UC Berkeley. It's basically the understanding that if we focus on and provide resources additional resources for the most underserved, the most marginalized subgroups that will help all under underrepresented groups and also help all groups in general. So remembering to really focus and understand the most marginalized groups need the most resources, and a lot of times globally these groups are black communities. And so really coming to understand that as our framework for this discussion. Thank you so much epiphany. Before we move on to our commitment for racial equity. I wanted to ground us in how we got here as a society. As you can see I shared a book by e room x candy. I know a lot of folks have probably read his book how to be an anti racist from 2019 but this was his first novel that talked about the enslavement of African Americans in this country. So I really want us to ground ourselves in that. And I would like to make the case for why we must strive to achieve racial equity and racial justice. As Dr corner West says any justice that's only justice soon degenerate into something less than justice, giving us a sense of the moral regeneration of violence that has led to this point in society. As America was celebrating its independence and liberty in 1820 there was similar circumstances where America also inhabited 20% of its population that were enslaved at that time. How we as a country have viewed ourselves as civilized folks whereas the other are the savages indigenous folks black folks and people of color, combined with this manifest destiny mentality of our country for a long time. The enslavement of African people, subordination of poor and working people domination of women gay lesbian and trans people. This is what America is founded on the rule of big money the rule of big military in the rule of racist ideals, racist system that's what Dr King talked about in his three evils of America. This has manifested into today where people have very little sense of who they are without the means of financial capital rule and domination over others in their sense of white superiority and black inferiority. This is the history that has led us to this point, and the worst of our power driven foundation from the very beginning. So I just wanted to reference that and I would love for you all to check out that novel by Eram X candy. This is the time for us to fight and the time for us to search within ourselves for new possibilities for change and that's what this conversation is about today. We can move to the next slide. I also want us to think about our why this is very important. We are now, I believe in one of the most prophetic moments in the history of America. Just this year we have experienced what I believe to be five concurrent crises, a public health crisis with COVID-19 and the global pandemic and economic crisis with widespread unemployment that we see in our communities and closure of businesses, a crisis of safely educating our students and the resulting learning loss from the digital equity gap, a crisis of the soul of our democracy with corruption and chaos that's plaguing our leadership from the White House to city halls across this country. And finally a crisis of racial reckoning, which is our conversation today stemming from our racist history and ongoing systemic racism in our institutions. And I believe this pain and suffering and trauma has been wide and it has been deep. And this moment calls for us to look within ourselves and suppose that question what is your why. So this being MLK week, Dr King answered that question not just with his words but with his actions. When they threw him in a Birmingham jail in 1963 he wrote letters that inspired America. And that gave us to the moral consciousness of what it means to truly be free, and that freedom is not just a state, but it's an act. And that silence in the face of oppression and injustice is worse than oppression and justice itself. And that gives us his life to the cause of civil rights and justice for all of us and his ideas and legacy lives on today. And that legacy of an unstoppable love of truth in a love of moral consciousness and justice. That's why we are here today to spearhead your why. So I just asked that you think about your purpose and why, as we proceed today in this conversation, and we'll now move to our vision for racial equity so we can ground ourselves in that. So let's see the why is so critical. I remember growing up and learning about Dr Martin Luther King and thinking oh I want to be like him and now being in an adult mindset. It's like understanding if you, you know, want to be like the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Junior you have to be willing to give up that. You have to run for financial security as some may say, or accumulation of wealth. That's that's not what his legacy is about at all. And so being willing to speak up in spaces for racial equity, knowing that you will lose other things and a lot of times. Those other things are finances, maybe friends, losing comfortability. It's all about why, and, and the why is linked to the vision, and the vision is about not what we can see. It's not about what we are living currently. It's not about what we see on the news right now. The vision is about seeing forward past what you can see with your blind eye. Some may even say that without a vision, the people will perish, and vision is about peace, joy, love and community. I would even go forward when I envision what a vision for racial equity is. I see a vision of a place where I would love for my, our future children to grow up, where they don't have to worry about their skin color dictating how others treat them or view them with an education system within community with friends or whoever it may be. I envision a community where I don't have to worry about educating my little children about how they need to act when they're interacting with our police force and telling them what they need to do to make sure that they stay alive. No quick movements. Not talking back. All these things, not having the fear of giving birth to children that when they reach a certain age and they go out into the world that I'm worried about what they might come in contact with just based on how they were born, what they look like and who their parents are in this sense, you know, of our culture and saying, Wow, I hope my little babies come back home because to me I always see them as babies. And so vision for racial equity is not about one group being above the other, but about us all being equal. That's all we just want to live. And what that takes though is equity because we can't ever get to this third final step of us all living in kumbaya enjoying individual characteristics and talents that we all have uniquely without us first addressing what our roots of our problem is. And it's racism. It's all the isms. And it's, it's founded in anti blackness as Jesse has so eloquently stated and anti blackness is not just here in the US but it's global. Unfortunately, and Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. knew that the country that we live in right now is not one of racial equity, and even now in 2021, regardless of the inauguration which gave us hope yesterday. We are still battling with the root of the evil and I quote the good Reverend Dr. King when he said, Our country is sick, and it is a mess. And he gave his life his life was taken from him, trying to work towards a vision. One where he knew that you would plant seeds and we are called to plant seeds for trees that will grow and have shade that we will never sit in. So what that looks like is working towards that is us interrupting and dismantling inequitable practices that all the isms racism, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, all these isms are all combined with this. And in doing so, we're not asking for us to go forward in what we would call performative antics, such as social media things saying hashtag, hashtag black lives matter is nice saying hashtag say her name is nice. But in it in itself does not save lives. It does not save folks as they are black and indigenous brown folks as they are being shot in their homes, as their lives are being taken in hospitals, while they are giving birth. What does is interrupting systems, speaking up in the classroom, speaking up to colleagues, speaking up within our own families, and addressing the racism and the isms that we hear from our own community who surrounds us and addressing it within ourselves, within our communities, and within the institutions that we work and live within. And then, hopefully we can from there, build better systems that do not base people success off of what race they are, what their socio economic status is their gender or sexual expression, and maintaining these systems to then be able to cultivate. But first, we have to tear down what is there and reform into something new. Epiphany just summarized our presentation right there. No, she did amazing that. So, I really appreciate when she said grounding ourselves in hope, because I think we have to be candid about the grimness of the reality in which we find ourselves at this moment in time. A lot of folks talk about racial progress but there's also been a progression of racism in that progress. And yet we still must ground ourselves in hope. In the black tradition the word hope has always been understood, not just as a virtue but a verb, no matter what you have to keep on pushing in the face of tragedy and despair to show up again tomorrow. You must be in movement, you must be in motion, you have to have momentum, and to be a part of a larger calling that moves you physically, mentally and spiritually to be the best version of yourself. This translates to always fighting for breakthroughs in that moral consciousness and justice. So our mission to achieve the vision that epiphany just eloquently stated so well is racial equity must mean closing gaps so that race is not a predictor of one's success. And to close those gaps, we must center communities of color, which we'll talk about in our five steps towards action of racial equity. And moving beyond just services and reconciliation to transformation of policies institutions and structures that were made to benefit white communities to now benefit black indigenous and POC communities that's what we must do moving forward in that mission. So I just wanted to say that and we are now going to move to our racial equity commitment that we all must make today before we proceed. Now this racial equity commitment is important. When I joined the historically black fraternity I'm really proud of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity incorporated the same for as Dr Martin Luther King Jr. He became an alpha at Morehouse College. I was asked this question, would I like to join the organization or commit to the organization. You can join a club, a sports team, a church or even a movement, but it means something entirely different to commit to make a commitment to a cause to a conviction or a course of action. And I decided to commit which has its challenges, but it was a concrete decision in a moment of 2020 clarity for me to do something with 100% purpose. And in order to make this decision personally for us all today is different for everyone. For me personally this comes from from three sources from truth, uncomfortability and reconstruction of thought. As someone who has always been inherently curious and observant. This comes from a love of wisdom in a search for truth. In that search for truth. We have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, like we mentioned earlier and what you may find in that tree. And this causes you to self reflect and almost engage in a critical self inventory of how you view the world. And this may lead to you to reconstruct the ways in which you think, in which you feel and act in everything that you do. And that starts with listening. Can you listen to even yourself. Are you slowing down to hear your own thoughts, or are you just taking in information on the news or social media, or are you reflecting on that information and developing an analysis of what you're hearing. That is the definition of critical thinking which is super important on an individual level as we think about this racial equity commitment. And this is all to really ask ourselves today from an individual standpoint what is your purpose towards achieving racial equity and what gets in the way of that purpose. What do you need to maintain that purpose, whether you're a staff faculty student or community member. How are you going to lead with authority on that purpose and your wise we talked about earlier, towards racial equity. And as from an individual standpoint we can move to an institutional level to begin to align around transformative and anti racist values relationships and goals. So that is what this is about in this commitment and I asked that you all stand with us today to make that commitment so we can begin to move towards acting on this racial equity commitment. Thank you Jesse. I would like to add that in regard to the vision and the commitment. A lot of us are committed to racial equity work, because our lives literally depend on it. And the lives of our future generations to have a better life and a better outcome literally depends on racial equity, a step by step more coming into fruition, and because it is the right thing to do. So step one, we're basically examining the ways that we're perpetuating broader systems of racial and equity racism. This is levels of oppression, which could also be seen as levels of racism. So individual words that you have interpersonal interactions with folks. Stereotyping micro aggressions. A lot of them that I get usually is if I say to someone that I'm in med school or they ask what I'm doing. And then they say I hope that nursing school goes well, or they ask what kind of doctor I'm going to be because they see my face, and they see just what I look like on the outside, and it's hard for them to match that with. I'm going to be a physician I'm going to be a doctor treating people. And then there's the institutional level where the institutions we're in our schools, our workplaces. They have policies practices procedures that benefit the dominant culture, which is white culture, and it's to the detriment of the non dominant culture which are black indigenous and communities of color. So how we see that is the way that classes are taught is a way could be that some folks learn better another way than just sitting on a zoom session, or the the kind of things that professors bring in that are examples that one culture is familiar with that maybe like if we're from immigrant backgrounds that's not a familiar metaphor for us and so these are ways that institutions will benefit the dominant culture and then structurally. So that's overarching, like we're looking at government, the incarceration mass incarceration system, overall education systems, and the way that I like to think of these is that they really all work together. The overall big structures have laws policies, all these things that say this, these are our norms, this is how we are going to function and it's to the benefit of the dominant culture and then because the bigger structure has these norms, the institutions have their norms and we're all moving through these institutions, and we're you know trying to make it through. And then individually within the institutions, we meet other classmates or we meet other co workers who may have these preconceived notions and then it goes back out from folks within individually within institutions, some professors may say something that we say, ooh that's homophobic, ooh, that was racist, but because the institutions don't have policies like in my med school, they have nothing that says that racism that isn't super overt is not a fireable offense. So then those professors get to stay there and then structurally overall in medicine, we see that racism is pretty much propagated in medicine and that's why we see folks who are individually working for working with patients. It institutions which are hospitals, and we see black, indigenous Latinx communities of colors, the Pacific Islander community in Washington State dying from coded at way higher rates. And it's because all of these structures institutions and individuals are working together and it's culturally acceptable within our systems to partake in oppression. Jesse what does that look like within the legislature. I really appreciate your definitions around individual institutional and structural from a legislative standpoint, I would say it's both institutional and structural in a sense, and individual and from it from an example just the other day actually we had our public safety committee, and we had a hearing on my police tactics bill. And there was a black mother who had lost her son to police violence, and was sharing her lived experience and speaking her truth. And spoke about the fact that her son was racially profiled for being black was stopped by the police and fatally shot under this perception that he posed a serious or imminent threat. A committee member proceeded to respond with the question to that mother directly. How did she know that he was being stopped for being black in that, no matter why he was stopped he should have done everything possible to adhere to the demands of those officers. We know that this comment is insensitive racist and not only a micro aggression to that mother but an assault on her in that moment. Both myself and another colleague responded directly to the member in the live session that he was out of line, not only in terms of the legal details of the case that was ongoing in civil court, but also neglected to pose any ounce of empathy for that mother who was in pain, and putting her in a spot live and in public. And, and that basically, with that comment he reversed the widely understood notion that you are innocent until proven guilty, and basically said that that young man was guilty until proven innocent. And so, I think, from an individual level we have to begin to address these comments that are being made every day in our institutions, whether you're in education, health care and housing in an economic field. It's so important that we address this from an individual level because these are the people that are making policy decisions that will basically make policy for our lives that we're in right now. And unless we address it at an individual level, it will then proceed to reflect itself and rear its ugly head at an institutional level and a structural level. And so in that moment, knowing that that's why we had to respond to that person and basically correct what he was saying. You can respect someone's opinion, but you also must correct when you see something that's wrong or hear something that's wrong. And that's what we're doing because, again, institutions are built up of individuals that make up the institutions. And it's important that we address the racism in that moment so it doesn't reflect in our policies practices and procedures as epiphany talked about. Thank you, Jesse. And I also agree that sometimes we can't change everyone's heart and it's just the reality of the matter. And so we have to vote for folks who can make policies or promote people who will make HR policies that will hold folks accountable for their racism so that those people aren't able to then make more policies or laws or interact with more folks. So it's all working together addressing individually as well as trying to put in policies and structures in place to help move along the folks who don't want to change. And step two, and this one is so important is understanding the concept of intersectionality, and I kind of touched on how they all come into play all the isms. And the thing about intersectionality I really want to give honor to this trailblazer, Kimberly Crenshaw, who's an attorney, philosopher, leading scholar and critical race theory and she coined this phrase in 1989. So over 31 years ago, she's so ahead of her time. And intersectionality is about how an individual can have multiple identities. And because of these multiple identities, they can face basically different isms and that will impact, you know, their life. So something I think I hear a lot, even now is when people talk about white privilege, and someone says, Well, I'm poor, I grew up poor and I'm white, and I had no privilege. And so it fails to acknowledge the racial privilege that our dominant society, due to the structures we touched on, and the institutions and the way they work, basically just lead to better outcomes for folks and it has nothing to do with their own merit or our own merits. And one way I can paint this in for my medical background standpoint is a white woman who is poor and has a high school diploma or even less education versus a black woman who has a doctorate and has a high income. The black woman is four times more likely to either die in childbirth, have a premature childbirth or additional complications in child birthing that could possibly take her life or the baby's life. And that is just based off of the racism and then also the intersectionality of sexism, but the way that different individuals with different identities experience those things. So another thing is, if someone, this example here identifies as queer, trans or non gender binary, and they have a differential ability or disability, and are a woman then you're marginalized. And when you add on that the race factor of being black queer have a differential ability or disability, and are maybe femme identifying, then you're adding on more identities that have basically more insults from society from the structures from the institutions and from individuals and that's intersectionality is about it's about how multiple identities impact and we also see this in medicine where black LGBTQ ai youth are like having the worst health outcomes out of like any unsheltered youth. The intersectionalities of their identities of being black and LGBTQ ai plus. And so this is intersectionality it's, we can never take one thing out of the other. They're all combined in how people are experiencing life. And my third and final example, which is another health one is folks, we know that trans women experience the most gender based violence in the US. And within that of the trans women who are experiencing and countering violence which a lot of times and their lives 90% of those are black trans women. And so that's the intersectionality between race and gender expression, and possibly other things as well that are leading to these outcomes and their disproportionate outcomes. Jesse anything you'd like to add. I think you explained it so well for me this shows up in the political landscape in terms of the policy and the humanity of others. So, if I am black as a state representative how am I showing up for my indigenous community and vice versa. If I am a straight cisgendered male how am I showing up for my gay lesbian or trans or non conforming community with love and love and is truth in action because love is a verb just like we said hope is a verb. And right now, we're actually working through this as a state legislature. For the first time in our legislators history we are adding pronouns to bills in our bill language, which has never been even discussed before. We're also looking at every bill that comes through the legislature must have a racial equity impact statement so that we're able to gauge impact of legislation on historically and currently marginalized communities of color. We have a racial equity lens tool that our caucus is beginning to use for all our budget decisions. So these are the critical steps that I believe we must take to be able to move from our individual commitments to systemic and institutional and structural action. Thank you Jesse for touching on how we can use our different privileges or advantages, even if we have other ways that we are disadvantaged or that we're marginalized, and we can still use what privileges we have to stand up for marginalized communities with the lens of intersectionality. We have three in this process for us we've talked about grounding ourselves in the different levels of oppression, if if any touched on intersectionality. And now we move to how we can reach out to marginalized groups and learn to strengthen our community engagement in the process because equity is not just the outcome but it's the process. And this means that we're centering and elevating the voices of those marginalized in our communities, the everyday poor and working class people, black and indigenous people women of color and so forth. These are the groups that have historically not had a seat at the table from a systemic standpoint. And this is how we also begin to add courageous conversations. We may have conflict and differences and polarities that exist because we can begin to recognize the humanity of others. However, we have to bring people to the table outside of our own echo chambers and that's super important with social media these days are so many echo chambers with everyone that may agree on an issue that's together. Everyone over here that may agree on an issue and then there's division and fear and polarization and we must begin to bring those folks together to the table but it starts again with bringing folks that are most marginalized to the table. And then understanding how they're affected by the policies we're discussing. How can our decisions worsen those existing disparities. And how are we intentionally involving the stakeholders. So they're not just a voice and we not just are providing a microphone but a platform for that microphone so their voices are elevated. So I just wanted to, to, you know, touch on that epiphany how does this show up in medicine for you. Thank you so much. And I believe that that's what sees a band which is a group at UW School of Medicine which is a group of black students have been trying to work so hard as a marginalized group at UW with changing the way our medical education is because we firmly believe that in changing the way that we're educated in the medical system that will change the way that doctors are practicing, and that's one of the steps towards decreasing the health disparities that we see. So this goes with, again, folks who have power folks to have privilege professors, other students if you have different privileges, especially racial privileges, really holding accountable professors stakeholders, the administration towards having equitable education and curriculum. I think it looks like, you know, making sure that our teachers aren't doing things like a professor was upset with a student for her correcting him and his racism essentially. She is a African American student and he called her Rwanda, even though he's known her for over a year and a half. Instead of her name, which was not Rwanda, and it's like these kind of micro aggressions are assaults. We need to make sure that our systems are holding accountable. We need anti-blackness, racism, all the isms, so that our education systems are better. And I think a lot of the times, it's folks in community from the marginalized communities having to come and hold the folks with power accountable. It also looks like people who do have those powers, sometimes folks need to step aside. Like you may be a tenured professor or, you know, whatever kind of supervisory position. But you know, maybe it's time for a black or indigenous or black and indigenous person to come and lead, because what we've been doing so far hasn't been working. I think it involves people getting uncomfortable and in our transformation, giving up some of your power for you to step aside, because what you're doing more times than not is not working. Absolutely. We have two more steps here in our process. The fourth step is to uplift and empower community capital. And this is so important once you've reached out to communities you have these intersections and these broad based coalitions. And now you must begin to realize their capital. And what I mean by capital, a lot of folks think of it as resources or money, which is obviously a factor in this country and across the world. But a lot of times because of disenfranchisement, because of how we've been oppressed, because of 400 plus years of terror and discrimination and racism. We have not had resources in terms of financial capital in our communities in terms of other resources, but we do have other types of capital. I'm reminded that the Black National Anthem begins with the quote, lift every voice. The best inside of you can be lifted up along with everyone else. So whatever gifts that you have to give to your community, try to somehow ensure that you're providing those gifts to others, so that they themselves can be a firm and pouring something out of yourself that others can be enhanced, and others are pouring into you that's how we begin to build our own version of capital, and it becomes a reciprocal process and that is how we can build capital together so I just wanted to touch on that. So in terms of aspirational capital, our ability to maintain hope in the face of obstacles, which is something the Black Lives Matter movement has showed so well this year. A navigational capital, the ability to navigate our institutions and advocate and agitate the system so that we can begin to see policy change. And finally, social capital, how are we developing these broad based coalitions, so that it's everyone together, working together so that we can achieve a common goal. And then to touch on that that's our fourth step is being able to uplift and empower what we built through the first three steps. Thank you. Thank you Jesse I was going to say I liked when you said agitate because often agitation is a necessity. And it reminds me of you know, right now I would be more of an agitator because I'm a student in the institution at the school but I'm not holding any power in that in like a different sense of decision making. So I'm agitating the administrators and faculty to make some changes and also we do need folks who are working within the institutions, like yourself, making policy to work together and also to agitate to make sure the policies you make are implemented. Pardon us that is our dog. Which leads us to the final step, build political will to advocate for equity based policy at the local state and national levels, and I think this basically ties in everything. It starts off with the political will which I would also call the moral will, some may say something like a moral compass. It just goes back to when I was speaking about. When I was a child I said I wanted to be like I'm okay. Well now as a medical student, I said that I was getting into this field, and a little bit of my bio stated to help marginalize communities to help decrease or eliminate health disparities that are formed by healthcare systems, which are perpetuating these structural institutional and individual levels of oppression. And at the end of the day, my will, my vision is tied into, I just want to see black indigenous Latinx communities of color p I folks live. I just want to see them live if they go into the hospital for cove it if they go into the hospital for anything or preventative care. I want to know that they are getting the best care, and that folks aren't giving them lesser care, just because of the color of their skin, or because they have pre conformed preformed ideas that, oh well these people aren't compliant so we're not going to give them this medication because we should save it for somebody who's compliant. I want to know that our education system, particularly the medical education system is teaching physicians what they need to know to help these communities, and specifically help these communities, who have been historically experimented on the Tuskegee syphilis trials saying that they were going to help folks but infecting them with lifetime conditions that could lead to permanent brain damage that could lead to death. And so we see that now people are concerned about the vaccine and it's because there's centuries of trauma that I've been enforced by these larger systems, including the medical system. What we need to continue to do is say, hey, I think that this is the right thing to do to help these communities that are dying at disproportionate rates, when they should be living. And so what I'm going to do is disrupt at the local level. So I'm going to disrupt at the school level, and then I'm going to work with policymakers to make differences in the state policies, which there's something going on right here, Senator Randall and then moving to national levels. So it's all going but starting within ourselves, community, and branching out. And I think it's so important. Jesse has here plot plan, strategize organize and mobilize. And that's what we're doing at the UW School of Medicine as seeds of bam. We said hey, we've been encountering the encountering these assaults again and again. What are you going to do about it. And you always want to be strategic, because speaking out against it. Okay, but what do I want to come out of it. So coming up with that vision. This is what I see medical school education being. This is what I see my community being and saying, what are the steps that we need to take to get there. Who do I call in. And mobilizing includes expanding networks. We can never do it all on our own. We always need help. So many of indigenous culture and I can speak on Pacific Islander culture is about community and about how we're not apart from ourselves. When Edwina introduced herself. She said not just her name. She said, who her mother her father her family is where they're from. And so what we're saying is, I'm not me on my own. We have to let go of the rugged individualism that America, or the United States of America teaches us and say hey, I am from my family. I am from my ancestors. And in this way we see that we're bound together. We're not standing on our own. And we know that black liberation, indigenous liberation. All liberations were tied together. And the more we work in solidarity, the more we can work towards our vision, a vision of indigenous folks having their land back. A vision of reparations, a vision of people simply living, being in joy, being at peace. Thank you so much epiphany I know we're going to wrap up here soon so we could have our 10 minute intermission. And I see two outstanding questions from Corey and Stephanie and possibly would love to get to those questions. Once we return from intermission but I just wanted to touch briefly on your point around our liberation being bound together. And I think, you know, as a legislator, I see that the system is really wrestling with the reality that the black community has experienced in the past 10 months. And that we're standing in pain, and not just current pain but current pain is also triggered past pain, and we're standing in hurt, because as much perceived racial progress that we've had as I talked about earlier, there's also been this progression of racism. We have this incredible show of spirit and allyship from communities across the globe really throughout the summer after we saw the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and people marching in the streets holding up black lives matter across ethnicities cultures and languages, and really connecting with humility and also tenacity around how we can achieve racial justice and racial equity and progress. So that's how our liberation is in fact bound together. And so then we must ask ourselves the question, what is next, how do we move beyond this allyship to co-conspiratorship and also accomplices so that we can actually achieve racial equity. So in our closing, before we go into our intermission, I want us to begin to think about moving forward. What is it going to take for us to lead in this moment of global racial reckoning? Because each of us in this virtual space has something significant to contribute to making a difference in our society. And you're here for a divine purpose, a reason to build and a reason to help our communities. And I just want to leave us with that question. And we will now go into a eight minute intermission and return at 1pm. Thank you, DJ Donmar. Alright, welcome back family from your break. So this time we'd like to welcome you to our Q&A section, a.k.a. CCIE and Highline's TV show talk with the Johnson's JK. That last part is not true. I am so thankful I have my co-host, Gio. We are both going to rotate or alternate between some of the questions that folks have posted in the Q&A. If you're still here, feel free to also add any questions below. And so Jesse and Epi, first question that we have in our Q&A box is what's the best way to approach a colleague who says micro aggressive comments? That's a great question. I can go ahead and start. You know, I think one of the things that I've come to learn in working in a predominantly white institution, such as the legislature and education as well, is that sometimes, you know, what I perceived to be racism. I think a lot of times denial, it's like the heartbeat of racism, right? We feel like when folks are denying what their assaults are on others, especially in communities of color, it feels so real to us and it feels like it's bringing up so much pain. And I've also come to learn that a lot of it is ill information from the other side. And so how do we educate them in that moment? And as someone that, you know, is more of a listener, I've had to learn to interrupt what I see as blatant racism or even small microaggressions. And so that means to maybe, you know, respect an opinion, however you have to correct them, like you mentioned in our presentation, we can't let it slide because that can develop. It's on us to interrupt that and make sure that they're not going to use that again. So in a moment like that, I would just say, don't, you know, just move to judgment too quickly, listen to what they're saying, but then, you know, stop them and say that this is how the impact of what they're saying. A lot of times we talk about intent versus impact. This is the impact on the communities of color or whoever is the non-dominant community in that situation that they're making the microaggression for. So, again, a lot of it is ill information, like I talked to a former military vet white male the other day, who made the comment to that black mother about her son. And by the end of the conversation, the guy was almost in tears because he did not know what he was saying how racist it was. I mean, I think, you know, we think that he should know that, but we're talking about a guy that has never experienced racism can't even comprehend something like individual or institutional or structural racism that we talked about in today's presentation. So educating him about that in a conversation where he wasn't going to get defensive. So it wasn't in public, but it was later in the day when we talked about that is really important. I might have a different opinion. I know she likes to put people on blast, which is, you got to do that too sometimes but hey, I mean I think I think it's important to at least try to educate them in a way that they're not going to get defensive and not listen. I was going to say, I'm just going to be real for this question and answer. First off that's Jesse, Jesse's nice or whatever I guess he's being a politician or, you know, a bridge builder diplomat. First off, I don't respect their opinion whatsoever. Okay, no. And then, second off, it's hard because whoever answered the question I know that's what we said to do, and it is the right thing and it's especially good. Somebody said how can, like somebody with privilege be or privilege be utilized by allies in black and brown movement. And I think that a couple things about the micro aggression. First off, sometimes I'm so stunned by things people say, especially when I'm like, at school, like trying to focus I'm about to go see a patient or something and somebody says something wild and you're just like, No, they didn't not just say that. They're just like, How do I even respond and so sometimes you just be like, you don't say anything and you keep it moving and you just be like what did you hear that. But hopefully we can get to a point where we get used to addressing things like sometimes I have been able to do it, like on the spot sometimes it's like, I would like to say, for the folks who are basically like directly being impacted by the micro aggression. It's good for them to not have to be the ones to address it. So that's where the privilege comes in, because it's like you're being assaulted by the micro aggression, and yes the term is micro aggression, but it's an it's an assault. So it can cut so deeply. The way that the term was phrase was like these things that people say, and it seems like a small thing but it really is not. It's just the way the term was coined. You can still die a death by 1000 cuts, and it's like it's these micro aggressions that lead to folks having hypertension. It's the chronic stress of racism that is micro aggressions and these other things that leads to bad health outcomes for folks. But it's never like their race that is it's the racism they're facing that make them more predisposed to have these outcomes. I would say one thing that my therapist told me to was to ask them a question about it. So like one time somebody said something so wild about South Center in like a clinical setting, he said it was like a ghetto, because it was just like all Asian and I was like, that's he's like you know it's so such a strange place. And I was just like, it's strange that you just said that. And like that's all that I could get at the moment. And I'm like the teacher was looking like this. And afterwards I told her you know you should have said more she's like what can I have done and then she's like, Well, I didn't want to and then I'm just like why do you even ask me if you weren't going to do what I told you. But just like making a comment something like you know that's not okay, or why do you think you can say that another way to do it if you really want to be a little bit more diplomatic, like Representative Johnson is ask a follow up question like. I said this. So like, what did you mean by that. And then they'll kind of get into a spinning around in their tail and make hopefully they'll uncover for themselves that what they said was jacked up. But if not, it might lead to this. I am also a believer that people from marginalized communities don't have to educate people like we don't owe people anything. Like I could just read you out and be like, you're being racist because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and leave, like, and I don't want to hear nothing you got to say and also for building community, sometimes it's good. You also have to kind of base it off of what your atmosphere is because I'm not. So I think about like you could lose monetary things, like if it's your supervisor you might want to be strategic or something about how you go about it, or if it's your professor, and they're in charge of your grade. You know you might just want to be reporting them to whatever the special anonymous thing is on the down low, because you don't want to get a bad grade so I'm saying, try to be strategic and choose a plan wisely. I hope that makes sense. Thank you. So your next question is, how can we bet, how can we be better advocates with ourselves and our family. For example, my doctors seem to take me seriously but based on years of treatment for chronic conditions, it's become clear over time that they don't use appropriate treatment until I've kept coming and the severity has increased. I'm so sorry to hear this. This is exactly the stuff I'm talking about Stephanie. I hate this because we shouldn't have to be fighting so hard to be advocates so hard for our family, but it really is necessary from what I've seen and experienced within the medical system. One of my thoughts is, gosh, it sucks because basically one thing is to do research, which I'm sure you probably already done how you know that they're not using the treatment necessary. And like maybe that might become from like support group for whatever this chronic condition is and trying to do medical research. I know it's basically like Googling to see what the standard treatment is. And then from there, like using that information when talking with the doctor doctors. I'm gonna, you know, honest to be honest and this is really going to take me down a little road to meet doctors are like a lot like police officers like we're literally trained as physicians in training to like cover each other's back and never say if somebody gave a patient the wrong thing or made a mistake. It's like, Oh, don't say anything like just smile and mind your business and keep going. So that's interesting. But I guess it's like try to do as much research as you can to be as knowledgeable as you can, which really isn't what we as like individuals should have to be doing. And then I was going to say this one's tough is if you know anybody in the medical system, try to leverage that because sometimes they'll basically treat you better if like, you know a doctor or a nurse or like even a technician like anybody that works at a hospital. And then also can report them like anonymously. And also, I'm a firm like person of I don't know what the insurance capacity is for you, but switching doctors. I also like the idea of like trying to find a doctor that I might have cultural concordance with being like they might be black or someone or I might look them up and I'm just like, It feels like we might it may or may not happen because unfortunately, not all skin folk or can folk, but sometimes that can be a good place to start. Um, so those are the things is like try to be knowledgeable because unfortunately, if doctors think that you know things. Usually they'll act better because they'll think Oh, this person can hold me accountable which is like, that's how we should all be acting from the get go is giving the best care to everybody. Um, and I've heard this, like with one of my friends who's in my medical school class, her mom has high blood pressure, and apparently the doctor wasn't like upping her medications, and was just like, Oh, she doesn't know how to take her blood pressure properly. And that's why the numbers are high or she doesn't even do it every day. Her mom does it every day. She went with her to an appointment and was like, I'm a medical student at UW and then the doctor like started prescribing her blood pressure medication when she started asking questions so I know it's tough because before now, I didn't really have anybody to be like, Oh, I'm going to talk to my uncle at Valley Met or something like I don't have any people. I've met like two someone doctors in my whole life. And if you know someone to lean on that and just to try to hold them accountable and I see the also follow up about the depression statement and it, it kind of cracked me up in the sense that I went to an appointment yesterday and the medical system was like, are you depressed and in my mind, mind you I'm a medical student. I was like, and if I was I wouldn't tell you, we should be opening up but I was just like, maybe you're just asking me we're really supposed to be asking different questions like, have you been feeling like you don't want to do things you enjoy in these things. It just basically the it all comes down to for being our best advocates are doing research as to what kind of treatments our folks should actually be getting. What does mental health illness look like. So that hopefully we can identify it within our own families and move towards, you know, oh it's time for us to you know talk with a therapist, and it's so hard. And it's something I've experienced within my own family life, where we didn't know that these were the signs of mental health illness, until it was like really far down the line, but doing our best to educate ourselves and maybe even move providers. If insurance allows, we have to be like if you're not going to give us the treatment we need, I'm moving along, and hope to find a better person and keep moving until you find the people you need. All right, Dr. Epi I'll be reaching out to you in the future. What do you think about this report, but our next question that we have for you I know you kind of like touched on it a little bit earlier but one of the questions is how can privilege be utilized by allies to help in black and brown movements. I can go ahead and lead us off with that I think what we saw this year was an incredible showing of allyship, but we want to move towards being an accomplice and that's really making sure that you're leveraging resources either material resources, either networking resources, or giving up something to help the cause for someone else. And I think that's what white folks can do in this moment. Because I think, you know, we have a lot of folks that want to stand in solidarity and there's this mention of how can I be an ally how can I be in solidarity. In order to move towards what we talked about with racial equity action, we have to give up something for someone else in that moment that's that's how it's going to have to work because we are in a moment where people are being literally disregarded and public health and educational in criminal justice reform, and so on, and we don't have people standing up and clapping back either through social media, or in a real way to say hey, we got to stop this we got to end this we have to literally look at ourselves in the mirror, and and say what can we do from our individual standpoint to leverage resources for other communities and so that's just something I would say because we can disrupt racism in so many ways and be an accomplice and use our privilege. And same goes for it for other levels of intersectionality like we talked about earlier, as assistant or straight male what can I do to leverage my privilege. And so there's just so many ways that we can look at ourselves in the mirror and leverage either time money resources, or some type of actual, you know, thing that we can do beyond just saying, you know, oh yeah we stand in solidarity so I would just say that figuring that out in your own individual is super important. I agree and would like to add on really taking a look and that involves introspective introspection to say what are my privileges, and Jesse kind of gave us an example. I think making sure that we're allowing the folks or the communities we're wanting to serve to be the leaders. And so basically one thing is going up to folks and be like, I want to do something to help you all. What do what could I do what like literally asking folks, like usually there's people that you see either they usually speak up or you see an organization forum or something like that. You know, you're looking up against something and you say, maybe even, hey, these are my skills or talents like I'm good at writing and editing or I'm good at web design, like I whatever you all want, I'm in like try not to take credit for stuff just like know that you're there to help and these folks are leading for their own liberation. And that that's the major thing is like letting the folks lead. And I think also another way. I feel like with racial equity is, you know when you see something that's gone wrong, and if someone speaks up. I always agree with them in front of all the people that they've spoken up against, and don't text them, or DM them after the fact like I agree with you, because that's doing absolutely nothing to help them. It would be nice if you would be the one to speak up, and also if someone is speaking up be publicly out in front with them, because that helps. And the thing about privilege is usually the folks that we're speaking up against, you know, addressing microgressions or what so have you are folks with privilege, and they usually somehow tend to respect other people with privilege or other folks that they identify. So that could help because I can't help who someone, you know, takes their word over mine. But if this other person speaks up and then the people are like, Oh, well, I do respect that person's opinion or that person's like me so maybe I should think about it. It really helps to speak up in person in public. Thank you. I'm your next question. I guess this is more for Jesse. And we can imagine the challenges Jesse has faced on his road to being a black politician in the state of Washington. My question is, what are some of your favorite success stories along the way. Oh, that's a great question. And that's from my good friend the lawn. Good to see you on here. The line. I think being in politics. You know, one of the things I talked about when I first ran for city council was increasing our communities seat at the table and increasing our ability to be able to transform a transform the system. What I've seen since, at least in my own hometown in federal way is we saw so many more young people communities of color at city council meetings that were engaging in the process. We had a record number of people come out to vote this year, a record number of black women and women of color elected this year. We increased actually our black members caucus from four to nine members. And that's not all attributed to myself, obviously, but I think it has been a process of just seeing when we see one of us. We begin to think that we can see more of us at the table, and that has been awesome to see just this year we had over 80 young adults that are in the juvenile justice system, registered the vote for the first time for this election, right here in the state. And these are young people that have been disenfranchised, since they were in school, put into the school to prison pipeline, and they're now registered to vote, and voted this year for the first time in their life and that was incredible because voting is that first step kind of in our journey of activism process, but there's so much more to do beyond that, and to be able to see those young folks have their voice heard and really make a difference as we saw across the country. That was a success story, I think. Also, I would just say, you know, beginning to at least see some progress and closing opportunity gaps, like we had our, our state voted for an equity office last year that we're fully funding, hopefully this year for the first time. We're talking about, you know, things like digital equity and how do we get laptops to young kids and communities of color that don't have access to laptops and broadband access. We're making progress on police reform and accountability this year, although we'll have to see how far we can go with it. I think we're just making the right steps and 2021 I think is going to be a year in which we see the system being challenged in ways that we've never seen before because we have so many people at the table, not only in terms of the seat itself in the legislature but in the community that are engaged young people that have a vision for what they want to see in the world, and they're engaged in the process and I'm just really excited about that. It makes me want to keep going and keep furthering our cause in the legislature so I would just say those are just a couple examples but it's been a, it's been a great time and an honor really to be in this position to help our community. That's awesome Jesse. I know folks are probably still thinking of some more questions, but I have a question for you to. This is more you know thinking about you two as a couple. What is your, what would, how do you two practice self care as a couple and then also like or maybe like, what is your favorite date night so welcome to the TV show part of our Q&A. Before Jesse would love for me to answer this question look at how excited he is. He's like hype me up babe, but I just want to say I do love hearing how excited Jesse is to do the work that he's doing serving community and especially working with you, which has always been at the forefront. I, it makes worth standing out on the corner with a sign in the cold weather worth it. It's 6am. I think my, we do a lot of Netflix binging or Hulu, like we're watching prison break right now. And I'm into this new show called sirens. You know I love anything with the ocean you know Edwina it's an interesting one it's about mermaids it's on Hulu. There's one based off of like the one of the Australian coast on Netflix but I don't know my brother got me into it but we watch TV to decompress like at least by nine, usually, but my favorite date night or date day, whichever that Jesse plans for us is when he books us massages at Salish spa and pre COVID, they could be couples fireside massages, but I love a good massage and it's always sweet and we get to go over there and I like being. It's all indigenous land by like being like by the snow call me waterfall and like, you know, I can't be in Samoa so like getting in touch with water somewhere. So I love that because it always feels so like before I go and put on the robe and before COVID could like go to the hot tub the steam room so we would make our little rotation before with a little mimosa. And yeah, it was one of my favorite things to do. I love that. I think, for me, I love the fact that epi has been like such a big support in the political space because that's not always easy on the partner like it's it's a lot like you see like all these like crazy things that are being sent to me on Facebook or other social media platforms from community and and yeah, you know, she, she keeps her her lifts steel pretty good on that because that's difficult but she's been a big support. In terms of date night, I'm pretty simple I love when we can just order in some takeout watch a basketball game or football game on TV. I'm a pretty fanatic sports fan so I know that epi kind of gets annoyed with that sometimes but she sits through the game so watch the Lakers with me. Watch my guy LeBron and you know that's a great date night is just is just something simple like that. Jesse is lucky that his guys LeBron I really kind of only sit through it because it's LeBron and I love what he does with the community. I love how somebody said storm over Lakers. True true true super right. Right. And we have any questions for them like my next question is, or I guess like for our attendees do you all have any other questions you know feel free to use a chat button or chat feature would love to hear from you. While we're waiting for them. My question is, like, with you both having very different respected field, you know, politics and medical field like how do you see yourself working along each along each other you know like towards. I guess like equity really build that community. And I'll just finish this off and I'll let Jesse finish us off with a nice bow. I think something I've seen and it's from watching Jesse live his life and be out in community as a city council person then the state rep is that I think the biggest thing is being able to be working together to serve community, because I can have all these ideas about making policies and regarding medicine. I think the biggest thing is being on the ground to with community like in person showing up for different events or providing resources. I think a lot of like community work and supporting community is done kind of like on the ground work. And it brings me back to tie in the thing about privilege. Like I'm thinking eventually when I'm making more will also be like working to redistribute some of our funds and income towards community to. My, my only main goal and making more money in life is to redistribute to community who needs it. But I think working on the grounds a lot and then hopefully eventually some kind of policy work. Maybe Jesse what do you foresee. I think because we have such specific focuses between politics and medicine like having some type of foundation that can benefit community. Similar to what epi said just something that works together for our communities also being that you know, I'm black epi black and someone like really focusing in on those two communities specifically but then benefiting everyone through that targeted universalism again everyone can get that up Dr john pal, but that's really important and then also doing something we enjoy. I'm a huge coffee fan and I love working out. So I kind of want to open a gym with like a cool coffee stand and like smoothie stand, and investing in that for community to come in at a low cost and like young kids that can't afford to go to LA fitness or whatever one of these other gyms. So that's something I'm really passionate about to and just combining like our passions with our professional careers and doing what we enjoy and we feel excited to go to work every day. Thank you. I think Edwina has a lot more questions I know you're No, I'm not I mean, yes, I can ask you all the questions all day, but I was going to say Jesse when you open up that gym slash cafe I have a recess go so what's up like, can I get a job there. Manager. Okay. Yes, doors are saying yeah we need that in federal way. We are coming up to like the end of our time I can't believe it's already 1130 because like I said earlier like we could just like sit here and soak up so much knowledge from the both of you. I know our community at Highline. I know our team is like, you know, hashtag relationship goals, the Johnson's but you know there's just so much that we have learned from the both of you today for our community who's still here. I know some folks had questions about the recording we will be posting all of our MLK events on our CCIE page as well as our Highline YouTube channel. We want to say thank you to our community for joining us today with the Johnson's we also want to say thank you of course Jesse and epi just for everything that you shared with our community and for all the work that you two are doing. Locally, you know, like it's just so amazing that we can have these conversations with the two of you. You know, folks, you know, you know who's who's local, you know, you know, Dr. Epi, you know if you have questions for her, you know, ask those questions but also make sure you know you show some love to her as well. But we wanted to say thank you both again, folks, please fill our feedback form, which our moderators are posting in the chat. Doris is asking how can we reach out oh yeah if you have like an email on how can folks get in touch with the both of you if you can put that in the chat epi and Jesse. That would be wonderful. I had one more question no I don't have one more question because time is up at we know so you can't we'll just have to talk on the side. But yeah epi just posted her email and I think Jesse's going to post his email as well. Tonight folks today is not over for MLK week. Join us later on this afternoon at 430 to six. Speaking of more we have some more local leaders. We have Cynthia Delostrinos who works with our tequila community, who's going to be hosting a conversation on the first but not the last a call for new leaders so please join us. It's been wonderful having you all here in the space and of course tomorrow in closing our MLK week. We have Lydia Brown. So thank you all once again for being here. Thank you epi and Jesse and yeah and we'll see you all soon.