 It is my honor, pleasure, and duty to begin this new season of Difficult Dialogues. My name is Dr. Demetria Shabazz, and I'm here with my co-host Amilkar Shabazz, Dr. Amilkar Shabazz, and this is another installment of Difficult Dialogues here at Amherst Media. We have been since June 19th. We have been focusing on the subject of reparations for Black people. And we have several in a series, and this is another exciting installment having to do with reparations. And we see reparations in many ways, culturally, economically, educationally. And so here we're going to explore how that might look through the eyes of two young entrepreneurs. So I will hand it off to the other Dr. Shabazz. Dr. Sanna, thank you. And it's my pleasure to welcome and to say a quaba to our guests here on Difficult Dialogues. This Public Affairs program for many years, it's been going now, really tries to open a space for folks who live here in the Connecticut Valley or who pass through, who come through for different reasons to create a space for engaging some of the difficult topics of the day. The reparations, the struggle for reparative justice being one of those, but before getting into that, I would just like is in welcoming you to the space, just ask you all to introduce yourselves as you would want us to know. Peace, y'all. I'm D.W. McCraven. My pronouns are they, them, and a one half of counterculture educator. I am Kinga McCraven pronouns she they I'm also part of the other half of counterculture educator and interdisciplinary artist entrepreneur student of life always creator constantly creating. Oh, so you went in so I'm going to give a little bit more. Right, so also like disciplinary artists as well. We share that we share that vibe. The work that we do is in helping, helping turn around the culture of communities one authentic relationship at a time. And we do that through artistic expression, community engagement, self care and play. So that can look like many different things in many different ways and we're still discovering that because we are our business is so fresh. It was just based off our experiences of, hmm, we know some things. People always ask us the things we know. What if we put those things down and we're able to provide tools for people to know the things we know and how we interact with the community and build relationships with other people because it seems to be. It seems to have helped support our life for the many years that we've been doing it and people have asked for us to do it and many different forums and many different places so why not do it in the way that we would like. Fantastic. As I understand both of you spent time here in the Valley before now perhaps grew up in the Valley I think Pellum or wherever else could you just speak on that a little bit, your roots here and then kind of where you've been before coming back here. Sure. I grew up in Pellum and went to Pellum Elementary from kindergarten all through sixth grade. Pellum is a very small school so out of 120 kids. I was in the same classroom with same kids K through sixth grade and was one of maybe a handful of kids of color in the school. And then I transitioned into the middle school and high school from there into Amherst and so that's where I grew into the Amherst community more. I left for university to go to temple in Philadelphia for two years and studied dance over there and had to come back home that was temple temple was rough. Billy was rough and and I had a I had a heartbreak with my love dance when I was there there was some new things coming into my life about how to approach that and so I came back here to UMass because UMass has a program where you can build your own major and so I was able to do a more creative combination of cultural studies through dance tradition and movement and that more so fit in what I was doing. So I came back to UMass for a few years. That's where I met my wife and then we moved to Chicago together and lived there for five years where I focused a lot on body art. I started my body art business through five, which we did festivals all over actually all over Illinois and did some tours through New England area as well and also was doing a lot of education in in theater and in dance and that was in school program out of school programming, but a lot of that was through outreach artistic organizations that were bringing arts education to the public schools in Chicago because that wasn't something that they had so that was in Chicago and then and then we moved back here a few years a few years ago in 2017 and and since then I've been working on more of my business skills and so root of five actually ended up coming to a close because I started to work on organizing and operations when it comes to business and I started to work with small business owners in organizing their operations and creating systems and automations and and things like that and so I have this I have a lot we have we both have a lot of different skills and that's how we got into counterculture educator because you know it's all coming together do you want to share a little bit more about before that the root of five work where what is root of five me root of five comes from the five elements of hip hop the fifth element in our philosophy being knowledge of knowledge knowledge of self knowledge of community knowledge of history and so root of five came from you know knowing who you are knowing what you're doing and sharing that knowledge and that's a huge part of all the artistic work that we do so while I was doing body art I was doing face paint henna and makeup and I was really into kind of just knowing so that and talking about where that comes from culturally right so I think that to add to that having cultural reference yeah having cultural framing of the work that you're doing always keeping that in mind that it comes from somewhere and not being part of the erasure that often happens whenever other people are exploring different cultures but keeping that that that rooted element of hip hop on that we that we know so well and that we taught in hip hop theater because King mentioned theater but we taught specifically hip hop theater that's true I'm so how that blends into all the things that we do. Right. And how about you in Chicago and then transitioning back here. So, I'm wanting to think to encapsulate this do you just want to know about my experience in Chicago and then being here or before. I'm just kind of finishing out the story she. What happened. Yeah, she. I'm picking up where the story had gone she. Yeah. Yeah, take it away. Take it away right on because we have very different experiences up until Chicago so you know I was a cracker farm graduate middle school transitioning and then an Amherst high school graduate as well my experience was in athletics. And also, my experience was with the first time I really remember being seen in Amherst was through project 2050, which was a now defunct company, New World Theater, and it was the first time that I had actually seen people that look like me were doing this work and that's where we got introduced into hip hop culture and understanding like oh it's not just right, but the understanding that this is a whole culture and it has elements. And these these things are ignored because the underground of hip hop is ignored, and really where a lot of that is happening but people just elevate or maybe like people through an institution lens they co-op what they want to co-op right and so when we talk about root of five how do we not just co-op something how do we know where these things come from and how when we're moving with people where we're carrying that as well right so or carrying the history so my transition I personally like my undergrad work was in New York so I spent time maybe five or six years in New York and then I came back here and was doing and then I was always doing mentorship right mentorship and being involved with young people I was a collegiate athlete so you know it was a lot of these things crossover whether I was teaching young people how to play basketball or athletics I did personal training as a personal trainer for a bit and strength conditioning coach in New York and then I did volunteer work as mentors in like Washington Heights and stuff like that so those things were have always been a part of I feel I feel like who we are to just be like this is our community and how do we exist within our community and how are we making sure we're building relationships with people that that feel again authentic and or authentic in nature and that come from a place of care so from that transition from New York then we met I was doing program development here as well artistic program development on and creating programs for a lot of for a couple of different organizations before we left to Chicago and I transfer some of that work over and for whatever reason I did work out was new world theater here did I was part of the work with New World Theater or gone to phone it was it was a little bit yes and no because New World Theater was kind of on the downward trend let's say but I'd spent some time working with those rising youth right so I had worked with them and I was working with another organization and I was actually working I was working with a couple of different organizations doing different projects most of them were creating creating building the programs from the ground up so recruiting the young people I'm engaging with the communities engaging with their parents engaging with whatever community I said so if I was in Springfield I was engaging I was in chickpea I was engaging so I was creating these processes having these dialogues with young people about what do you need what do you want how can I serve you right rather you know just kind of meeting meeting young people meaning community from from that space and that's when we met and we traveled to Chicago and it's kind of just continuing that work of Kinga had an opportunity to be I was working in another space with young people that I didn't particularly enjoy it was in it wasn't a really really nurturing space yeah it was a really wonderful space like I would say it was a really wonderful space because it had a lot of culture around it specifically Mexican cultures I was like in the little village there in of Chicago and I was working there but there's also a lot of things that were happening a lot of conflict that was happening when I was there and a lot of things that just changed the way I looked at the world and so there's some experiences are like whoa that just happened someone you know I the first two weeks we got to Chicago is it I've been involved in a shootout and like I wasn't doing the shooting I mean like I'm not obviously but I wasn't doing the shooting but I was walking down the street and some of the youth that I was working with had made some decisions that didn't that they thought were gonna end up well and it didn't end up well for them and so I'm so glad that nobody died but it just changed my lens you know even even being in New York and but every experience just really changed my lens of how do I want to be in relationship with people yeah what is it that we really need how do we really want to move and so from then Kinga would have opportunity she like you know I know you're really good at behavior management so let's come in and do this work so we started to pair that together and then when we had opportunities to teach together we would do that and if we didn't have the opportunity to teach together we would create it oh y'all y'all want to just hire one of us we're gonna create a co-teaching situation here so it's also we're very into where people see walls we build bridges it's like nothing is impossible we create our own opportunities right and so that's what we started to do and that's how we got some mentorship I did mentorship with the working through the city of Chicago with on the south and west sides we did some work teaching there so we were very well traveled within the different areas in Chicago and we learned a lot we learned a lot about programming about ways of being and how people can show up in a community that really benefits them and how they can show them and create harm so like you have a real you both have a very wonderful approach to working with people especially young people one that really builds their the individual's own sense of self-confidence takes them from where they are to where they want to go is that is they as you've both developed and learned through experience is there also some some other particular sources you you reference for for how you've developed that particular type of practice and something that we've been talking about a lot these past couple of weeks in uncovering you know the story that we want to tell and be attached to counterculture educator and one of the things that has come up a lot is that you know when you are somebody who has experienced not being seen and welcome and accepted into spaces or denied your power silenced you know especially if you you know being two black queer women we offense we you know we experience a lot of different layers of oppression with all the different intersectionalities and we have different completely different experiences coming together in a relationship whether that be our you know our personal relationship of being in marriage and on top of that in business comes a lot of complexities as well with dealing with those traumas together working as a team and so I think honestly a lot of that has come from our own experiences and and knowing what it is like to not be seen and to not be heard and realizing just how important that is because also as as black fems we have been it's been ingrained in us to have a nurturing energy and when we tap into that and we offer that to the people around us we really started to see how that that was a quality that improved our work it was not just a piece of who we are of course it's a piece of who we are but it also was a quality that improved our work that can be that can be identified and can be named and can be packaged and can be replicated if we actually pay attention to the technology that's being used and to the skills and the and the systems that that we've developed and so I think that yeah that's yeah that's one of the major sources that I've identified I want to maybe just add I'm thinking about okay let me just say as far as when I think about credentials right and I always before before coming into counterculture educator I was like make sure people know I have a master's degree make sure people know I have a bachelor's degree and you know I've done I've done countless work in in kinesiology and science you know I was really into the institutionized way of being yeah the way of presenting information of here's it let me put my degree on it because without my degree I'm nothing right and that's really how I how I thought and then walking into counterculture educator I wanted to be purposeful about because what I had learned from my experience is that yeah I know about restorative justice yes I know about a digital circle process yes I know about program development yes I know about management yes I know about all these different things however when I walked into different spaces and every other person had degrees to they were carrying the work that I was the way that I was carrying it right so there was different ways that people were going about it not saying that we were all different right we had all embraced the work differently it's kind of like a psychologist who goes to school and learns about trauma but never considers racial trauma so you're going to interact with black and brown people and you don't know about racial trauma to know that them actually walking into the door they're already carrying something and they're never going to be able to give that to you don't recognize it and how important that is specifically for people who are identified as white in the world to understand that that that people are carrying these these things and so it's almost like the invisible soul killers and when we walked into these institutions these spaces even even not even in institutions the places I would see that even lived in us and black and brown people of the ways we have been indoctrinated into the structure of whiteness and how that's that structure so violent and so what to be clear it's not about white people it's about the structure of whiteness and how we're taught we're taught these ways we're taught these ways of colonization and how this violence is in us and so the practice of freeing ourselves from that and so those things like the institution couldn't teach me that right it didn't teach me how to free myself it may have given me information but it depends on the person who's giving the information as to whether or not I can assess on how I could go about getting free so when we walked into schools we would have young people respond to us more than they would respond to principles and it's just how does that happen how does that happen then when we tell young people to get into a lie and be ready to come in and get some of this joy today that their response is I can't show up today because this happened but I still want to be in class and our response is that you can't know you can't not that you can't be here but okay well this is what you can do this is how you can continue to ask the class because we want you to be here because we know your spirit is valued and thank you for wanting to spend your time with us because it's a gift institutions don't teach us that yeah and I yeah I'll just say like I know I I you'll never just hear me naming my credentials because I don't hold a lot of weight to that and I've just never felt like the things that I've learned and the things that I carry come from the institutional education that I've received or any of the areas that seem to be validated and held as important in society and so you know I think that the most of what our learning has come from is our own healing and when DW talks about a project 2050 out of the world theater I was also a part of that and I would say that a lot of our of our experience with healing stems from that space and I and that is why I would say that the that fifth knowledge that fifth element of knowledge in hip-hop really stood out to us because when you start to dive into yourself and your identity and you start to attach that to everything else that's happening in the world and you have like these studies of all the different all the different issues that are coming up coming up in the world all the different movements all the different ways that people are coming into liberation I keep I keep referring to the liberation of all people that's the movement that we're in right now we're seeing it in so many different ways it's not just the movement for black lives it's also you see there's there's a movement for gender identity there's a movement for global warming and for environmentality there's there's so many different movements that are coming together that's like the liberation of all people and I think that when we are are learning more about ourselves tuning into ourselves learning more about the world what's going on around us and making those connections and whatever way you express that it doesn't always come out as art for us it is most often art for other people it might be inventions it might be business ideas whatever it might be but I think that that spark that 2050 taught us of self-healing created a whole ripple of of ways that we are studying people studying the way that we are interacting and how that ties back to our personal experiences and identities and connecting with people connecting with people authentically and what their personal experiences and understanding that we all have different experiences and that's I think a lot of the the work the self-work that we've done individually in healing right and I just want to add when you talk about creative leaders we're talking about people who are who are change makers right we're agents of change who are you could be a an educator we are so defined sometimes in the way that we are this like oh there's gonna be creative leaders oh you're a parent and you're interested you're leading somebody and you you need some you you would like to have discussion about how you can be how you can show up for yourself let's have that let's have that conversation right because if you're feeding whoever's feeding themselves and whoever's willing to be a change agent that to me is a creative leader that to us is a creative leader right so I just wanted to to that really rich I appreciate that that's wonderful I have to say as well you know I have three sons all three are artists and the middle one was a teenager and a few months before I got involved with the hiring process to come to UMass so about a year a little less than a year before we eventually found our way here to UMass we had gone to a meeting in New York City of the national conference on on race and ethnicity in core one of the in core this big annual meeting and I had my middle son with me a milk car the second the younger and we there was a session we went through the program I had some things to be at I went through the program got him a little tag and also he could go to sessions as well and one of the things we saw that was youth oriented that he was interested in was a session at in core of project 2050 so we he went to that I came at the tail at the very end of it I got out of my session and went to meet him at it and so I caught a little bit of the Q&A the discussion going on but let me tell you he came out of that so lit so on fire you know and then when I told him later that you know we were looking at moving to to UMass and all of that and you know remembered that that's where you know 2050 was he was so excited then when we got out here 2050 New World Theater was all you know beginning it was the beginning of the end so it was unfortunate but anyway he found other things youth action coalition get up get down working in the in the visual arts and public art making that was also very powerful for him and unleashed a lot of his creative energies that that he's still very active with today so I think this is this is the work this is the liberatory this is a great part of the liberatory work but let's let's drill down a little more now into you all mentioned a number of things both personally that you confronted and you you know struggled with and healed from in terms of I heard things like silencing invisibility uh different kinds of phenomena that were were things that that did harm uh did harm the did harm in the lives collectively of people and and also in your own lives and there was a pushing through that had to occur and and it's part of then as I see it as your practice is uh sharing those tools with other people especially other young people and as they confront many of the same kinds of phenomena how do you um how do you grab I mean where is that coming from where is that harm coming from you know I know you all are dealing with it with from the arts and creatively um I deal with it as an historian uh D deals with it as a communications scholar and media activist where is this harm though really coming from and how are and and how do we find ways to sustain ourselves in the fight against that that that which is producing this individual and collective harm heavy I'm ready for this I'm ready started um so a couple things popped up for me and as a historian and you know also knowing that history matters and that's where we are lineage like understanding lineage and understanding where we come from feeds what happens in the future right so if we're not understanding for me the understanding what really clicked in my mind was ha I literally was bred into violence so when I talk about my lineage and I talk about part of my lineage is uh having the generational violence that is transcended from understanding that lived in the bodies of my ancestors right and so when I say native black the ancestors that were brought here right and then what were their exchange and what were their interactions that were with the people who were colonizing which is the white colonizers what was that interaction like and there's nowhere that I've discovered that that interaction was friendly there's nowhere that I've discovered that it wasn't filled with violence with rape and pillaging and abuse and um physical abuse and mental abuse and the scarring the stealing economically the commodification of bodies so nowhere in the history can I trace back for me in in being in in the US of a time when law and order existed when colonizers came that it was ever peaceful for anybody who looked like me and so when I think about that I think about how that's four or five hundred years of this constant pressure this constant abuse of our minds and our bodies I will spend a lifetime breaking and healing from those generational curses from those those those habits that have been learned I'll spend a lifetime working to undo that and heal myself and part of that lifetime is making sure the next generation that comes after me understands it comes from someplace and we have to work we have to know where it comes from we have to know the history you have to know everything but you have to know enough to know how to heal yeah I think the other part of that is at the generation that we are at now I I have found that a lot of the times older generations like to remind repetitively the younger generation at hand you know whatever like repetitively meaning each generation does this likes to remind the generation that's that newer that things were worse before you know and and so and and that's so true in so many ways that it was more overt and I think the way that things have become more covert and embedded and like sly and slick because it exists right in front of you in a way that is just not right in front of your face and so extreme or vulgar or obvious is really a whole another weight to carry as that next generation because there's a certain amount of like gas lighting too that happens of like it's not that bad or what you're experiencing isn't what people before experienced so I know that myself have carried for years that you know I I should be more grateful I should not um feel the way that I feel I should not be as affected and only recently as I get older and I I get wiser and do more healing I realize that that's that is the gas lighting you know what I experience is my experience and all of that covert and under you know under the breath you know microaggressions like all the stuff that we are still even like identifying and learning how to name because there are these new ways of oppression and and um of of being targeted it really plays a huge psychological effect on you and then on top of that you're telling yourself well you shouldn't feel this way and you should be grateful and yada yada and I think another piece for me is the erasure of culture and the the ripping away from roots and and and my people and I have an experience because you know my mother is from Hungary so I'm the first generation you know Hungarian American from her and you know in addition to that there's been a lot of white assimilation I've experienced in the black side of my family in in the name of survival and so you know in a lot and I and I and I grew and I didn't grow up with my with my black father in in the house so there was a lot of different ways that culture has been you know separated from me and my experience not only from my mother my mother my mother's culture of being overseas and me not having you know too much hands-on connection with that being you know a brown Hungarian that is not common and not necessarily hugely accepted in Hungary and then you know being separated from a lot of my black culture here in the states it's there's there's so much there's so much pain and trauma there that we don't talk about often in society that is not just a unique experience to me and the more that I talk about it and the more that I allow myself to feel the the actual repercussions of what that that did for me in my life and my identity the more I hear other people you know relating to that and being able to say yeah that that's actually my experience too in so many ways in so many ways that is the black experience you know and I grew up not realizing how much that is the black experience that we've all been ripped from our roots all been ripped from our culture and then separated and divided within ourselves and I experienced so much of that and felt so much gaslighting about that that I shouldn't feel that and that that's not happening and it's not important that that silence you know eventually like you know if you if you are familiar with abuse if you experience abuse so much you end up just abusing yourself and so no longer did I need to be silenced because I just silenced myself oh I shouldn't feel that that's not important it's not real you know and so people didn't have to keep on telling me I just I just started telling myself and and you know it's the it's the awakening to that that has opened up so much more understanding that that's not like I said that's not just a unique experience that I had by myself that this is the black experience and in so many ways it is the human experience you know and that we we've been so ripped away from our roots and our connection a connection with each other that we're we're like we're walking around numb we're like losing our senses and our connection with each other which is what keeps us moving it's what keeps life progressing you know so you know a lot of ways people have been talking about how the world and our society is deteriorating and degrading and I think that that has a lot to do with that I think you ask me love is one of the greatest answers right now for people for our survival you know we have to see each other and offer each other love yeah Dee come on in on this um thank you for that message that it's love I think love has always been the answer we just don't heed that call so thank you for inserting that and reminding us of it um you know you talk about the harm and oftentimes it's difficult to see particularly in the context of the the valley of Amherst where there's this myth or impression oftentimes people have that as you make a comparison as you were saying how we older folk do that oh it used to be so much worse back in the day but it's to recognize that there's still harm being done and that people still need healing and particularly the the BIPOC community here experiences from from what we've been able to gather and have experienced ourselves you know different manners of harm and I know that part of what you shared today and what you've shared with me in different conversations is that you are undertaking projects together and individually to kind of repair that breach that bridge building that you referred to earlier DW can you both talk about some of these projects that you're undertaking locally to repair the harm in a way that has set in in in Amherst I would say first first thing I think I want to say is just that you know we came back with just big bright shiny eyes about wanting to hold the youth here the way that we were not held and feeling like we we wanted to create this you know this new way of them being able to feel safe and and like they have a space here and we knew how messy it was here in Amherst because we you know we grew up here but coming back I think it was a culture shock all over again and definitely sobering the reminder of how deep the trauma is in Amherst how deeply dysfunctional the community is especially because there's so much denial of what's really happening here so we so lately our focus I mean we did we have been doing some work with some of the youth of youth of BLM and taking on a couple of youth in particular to kind of mentor and help them figure out what they're trying to do when we were young here I should say when I was down here because we're of sort of different generations when I was young here I was a part of all of these different organizations Amila Khar you mentioned I went to I went to school with your son actually so I was also a part of Get Up Get Down when he was there I did 2050 I did Bomba I did dance you know dance theater and there's a lot of those things that are still happening in the area and a lot of the energy around them have shifted and that was one of the first things that I noticed coming back is that there there wasn't as much vibrant energy moving through the programs the way that I experienced it and even talking to the youth I got that same impression so so our focus has has been working with particular youth to help them identify what it is that they're wanting to do and how do we help them accomplish that because they don't have as those same kind of programs to go through that we had when we were young and so I don't know if you want to talk more about the work that we're doing with with them or well I want to just as a scope okay to bring it back there like when we came here the work was we're going to as as people we're going to set up something we're going to set up a heartbeat here where people don't want to leave that was where we're going to come like why do we not why don't we want to be in Amherst oh there's no black young professionals there right and so and so and when I say like there's no darker young professionals there so this is the scope of like by five people we're not we're not seeing ourselves in this in this community and there's a reason why right right so so you have to investigate those reasons right but beyond that is we can sit here and go back and forth as to reason why the the town and the people are so committed to keeping people out or we can just go about doing things that we want to do how we want to do them right and so when we came here for counterculture education because when a system is so in place where you don't even have a community center that supports uh black and brown people you are committed you're committed to racism right if there's no way around it because when you don't have a place where people are like I'ma go here even there's no place for anyone to go and when we talk about what was um what was so important when we talk about art growing up in your experience your your um son's experience was that there was something that they had that was paired with their education and most of the learning that we did uh the most of the learning that we did were yet in affirming spaces right so we me seeing somebody so the first time and I'm gonna paint this picture when I was in 2050 one of the classes I walked into was um the art of emceeing and it was taught by Camila Forbes and Camila Forbes is a Howard Howard graduate right and um she looked like me and I walked in and I was like oh I'm about to walk in here and do this or whatever and then I saw Camila Forbes and I was like oh my gosh it just changed my life and then this person was telling me about experiences and teaching me about experiences that I had never experienced before and then I met uh Big Girl Rockefeller who I still speak to now these people I still speak I wound up interning at the hip hop theater festival for Camila Forbes and Camila Forbes is now has done work on HBO has done work um and is now the artistic director of of the Apollo Theater I would have never been able to see how far I could go had not that person sat in front of me had they not been delivered from an organization that said you know what we need this we're going to create this affirming space and to deny whole communities that is an act of violence and that's what I'm talking about we're talking about violence it's so inherent that you can't even see it and that is dangerous right so how do we when we talked about coming back counterculture educator counter to the culture of violence right so when we come here how do we create affirming spaces that give people what they need and so it's like I could work with the community but you've shown me time and time again you're not interested in me yes and that and that I think is referring back to what I was saying when we first got here and and when I said your big bright starry eyes is because we realized after the first few years it reminded us or I guess it solidified for us that working within the institutions is not where we need to be because there is a whole lot of restriction and hurdles and and toxicity especially that exists there that doesn't really allow for us to do our best work because we're so outside of or we're so into rather going counter to the culture and so it it became more clear to us as we started to allow ourselves to build those boundaries and allow ourselves to be like yeah okay well if this is what it means to be a part of the education or the institution then we're going to have to step away from that and once we allow ourselves to do that we realized that the methodologies and the mentality that we've been working with could really support the people who are working within institutions and who are wanting to make big change in areas that it seems impossible maybe we were not meant to be there because there needs to be a step in between right so that we can protect the parts of us that are that are envisioning to something different because when you're inside of the institution it's so difficult to see that there's any other way of being than the way that you're being forced to be you know and so we had to take a step outside and that's when so we like I said we came in with the passion of the youth especially reflecting on our own experiences because when DW says wanting to make a space here where people want to stay and want to give back to the community they they feel supported by the community so they want to support the community back we didn't we didn't experience that and nobody that I know who grew up here experienced that I do not know one person who grew up here who feels that way and that I think really speaks to the dysfunction that's happening overall and we realized okay we can't just focus on the youth this needs to be something where we're supporting people who are making change make that change because it's a it's a ripple effect everything is included and that's how I got involved with the co-op the common sheriff food co-op because I kept hearing you know a friend and a neighbor of mine talk about this co-op and how they're going to make change in Amherst and they have this anti-racist you know mission and they want to do art you know stuff with the artists in the area and with creators and business owners and the farmers and I was like that sounds amazing and who's involved you know and and I look at the member ownership and I don't I see almost nobody that I recognize you know and there's like nobody that I know who's on the board and I grew up here how did I grow up here and I know all these people here and I'm not recognizing any of these names that feels like maybe we're not rooted to the community the way that we think we are and that just felt so much like the Amherst I grew up in that I didn't feel welcome and included into that didn't feel like it was an anti-racist space so that started to ring a bell to me that was like okay this is one of those moments where Amherst is doing that thing where we're like we're going to make change we're going to make everyone feel great and everything's going to be great and we're not even seeing the way that we're just replicating the harm over again and how do we see that when the people who are doing it are just ingrained in their way of being and that's one of my biggest you know what I try to do in every situation is understand that everyone has their story you know like I imagine white guilt is extremely painful and difficult to experience and I think a lot of black folks don't have the the the patience to think that way because we're so exhausted and also there is a certain amount of like okay so this is really hard for you how do I hold space for that so we can we can kind of move forward together because we all need we all need a little bit of empathy to move forward to the next to the next step you know and so like when I when I come into the co-op I understand you know y'all are trying to do good things here there's good intention okay so what's missing you know why isn't the whole community feeling this why doesn't the whole community feel inspired and excited about this there's something missing and I think we have to have patience for people in uncovering that because it's uncomfortable in difficult dialogues y'all know it's uncomfortable to talk about and people are not used to being uncomfortable especially in a place like Amherst where we act like everything is okay and we don't like to have that conversation that people are running for the hills but people are running for the hills you know it's it's you know and this is something that just gets me fired up because I like I said I've had so many friends and and loved ones who have literally run for the hills from Amherst amazing people are being raised up out of this town and why why don't they want to come back and give back to this community I don't know one person who's like yeah I want to come do something for Amherst right that's problematic you know we yeah I'd like one is to add about the crippling effect of white guilt yeah um and you know uh right the myth of the happy valley exactly right so the way that um that shows up and people in the way showing up now like even I get messages daily daily from people I know from from people who are identified as white in the world message me daily hi how are you but we weren't having conversations just six months ago right I wasn't on your mind so your white guilt is like I need to check in and this is my thought we know that it's for right now is some of my friends my black friends are saying to me if you find me somewhere missing know that I did not want to go right these are the messages that people are saying like if if someone says I committed suicide know that I am not feeling suicidal right but these are the messages literally that are happening and like these are the experiences that we that are being captured if not by us by our friends who are in in Milwaukee in Minnesota who are speaking on these experiences and you know uh the feeling of the people that I know the the white people that I know that are scrambling right now trying to figure out like what do we do what do we do what do we do and my thought is um uh my thought about that I'm trying to attract to bring the bring that back is if we've made it we made it um about healing about how to heal for whiteness if white people made it their business to heal and all of us just like all of us made it our business to heal because we are oppressing each other and that oppression stems from a place another place right so it stems from the oppression of whiteness so if we made it if we made it our business to heal we'd be too busy healing to oppress right and so it's not it's not about like when we talk about like I don't hate white people right like and when I talk about whiteness they're separate right I don't I don't have I don't have hatred in my heart right and I don't have a seeking revenge I'm not seeking any of those things but I understand the fear that can come from whiteness of people who only know that they only know revenge they only know harm so they can't even imagine what it would be like to sit and have a conversation with me and me to be totally okay like I'm good and I'm gonna let you know just just do your work do your work so we can all move right so it's just like that that that holy undoing of yourself and that's to say if we want to talk about practice we got to talk about white healing yeah because because it's the people who are doing the oppression they're doing an oppressing if they heal then we don't have we don't have this situation right it starts to evolve into something to something that that we can imagine together thank you I just want to make two comments and then a question particularly to let folks know that we'll put the website for counterculture it's a facebook page so folks could get in touch with you if they're interested in your work and then also for the food co-op they can buy shares in the food co-op if you want to give us a little on that and then i'm going to close out with a question here as we bring it to an end I found out recently that you all are being recognized for a video project that you are involved with and it's part of the official selection for the 2020 virtual Atlanta Black Pride so if you could talk a little bit about that your video project called recognizing my humanity which as I understand is also about healing but before that if you could tell us about the food co-op and buying shares thank you yeah can I can I just say something all right I want to mention that counterculture educator officially became an LLC in july of 2020 because of donations that people gave to our Go Fund Me account and I want to say the reason why our website is not up yet is because we are still generating because of the funds that people are giving us to create counterculture educator we're using those funds to create branding and I'll support the building of the website so we're in the process of doing that right now so we want to thank the community for supporting us and also offer to the community continue if you'd like to continue to support we would be grateful for that as well so sharing the lake we have an Instagram page of counterculture educator where you can link links to our Go Fund Me where people can donate to support us getting the business up and running because that's our focus right now focusing on the infrastructure and I just wanted to put that out there so people knew we are moving towards a website that's where we're working at right now and we're still wanting to create some sort of revenue stream so that we can we can build that up yes website is coming and that that link for the Go Fund Me is also on the Facebook page so you can find us at counterculture educator either on Facebook or on Instagram and for the common share food co-ops saying you can find us on Instagram and Facebook and our website is commonsharefood.coop and that's where you can find the link to or the page to sign up as a member owner or you can purchase some partial share for somebody else to become a member owner if you want to gift to our funded shares both are available and we're almost at 700 I last I grew at 699 member owners so we need to get to a thousand to get prepared to open up our store we are still in where we took a step we took a pause for a moment once covid started to go back to our foundation and our systems of operating like I told you all I've done some work in operations and systems so that was something that was really important as I stepped into the board presidency role to support us and making sure that stuff is really super clear because we're about to open a whole grocery store it's a huge business it's a big undertaking and so just as we're getting closer to the final stages we're really excited to be making our systems and processes really clear and powerful so that's the community properly that is really amazing thank you dw for talking about the go fund me as well which uh I think we've given to both of them the shabazzis so we're so glad you all are in the community and doing the the good work that you all are doing and uh kinga with the shares I did not know it was uh so you're heading towards uh a store and opening a store which is really important people don't they really don't think of uh Amherst as a as um kind of I guess a food desert they call it but I started to call it a food apartheid because my friend over at gem city market um Amaha Salasi really clarified and reminded me that this is not some you know nature built situation where there was no food here and we were put into the situation with no food that there were actual systems and laws created that make it difficult for us to access food that make it that there is not food accessible here in the area so so I've been using the term food apartheid I I think that actually works well here um because if you think about it folks who either have chosen not to have a vehicle or do not have a vehicle they have to get on the bus and and the bus I think there's a limit with how much you can carry back and forth from you know shopping um so there's this inconvenience and difficulty and challenges for for folks in certain places in Amherst and and people just don't think about that right you know well and I think that you know just going back into that I think the the part that's really important there that we've been looking at a lot is that the reason why people are not as aware of it is because there is a huge separation between the economic stability in Amherst so the classes are just wildly divided and there are people who have the ability to get into their car and go shop wherever they want which mind you is usually outside of the town of Amherst but there are a whole lot of people who don't have that ability and there's a large there's a large population in Amherst that's living in poverty and the the bus systems are very limited you know and if you look at the actual area of Amherst like I said there aren't really a lot of grocery stores in Amherst and the ones that are available might not always have the freshest produce are really expensive and it's it's not accessible for people when you really look at the situation and that's part of the challenge with Amherst is that there is so much segregation and there's so much divide and there's so much extreme you know and let's just say that that also is a choice it's a choice like to have to not have a way for people to have access to food right that you're choosing not to uplift your community because if I'm 36 and I went to Crocker Farm Elementary School and there was no way for my family to have groceries unless they had found a taxi or a ride and you know my my mother five five children so we we're not eating unless we're eating honey buns from up the street so that's my reality of being being here living here and so there's there's no when people come to me when anybody from Amherst on the town council and all that stuff come and talk about we want to change you want to change I got time for that yes because if you did it would be done and that's when we do programming when we want it done it's done it's not about oh what will this in this in this which way do we have to go to get there there's a need let's make it happen and I'm not going to sit here and like beg people to meet the need we go create counter culture educator and we're going to move with the community for the people who want to move together and then we're going to create sustainability for ourselves because nobody is coming to save us and I just want to be very clear about that it's very clear that we need to be doing stuff for ourselves and getting up and activating and supporting the people who are activating and doing the activation because nobody's coming to save us because if they were interested it would already be done thank you for that dw um so we're we're gonna close out in a few minutes I do want to hear about your video project and that's receiving some accolades if you could talk about it a little bit so recognizing my humanity was a piece I had an idea well I had an injury I was suffering from an injury and I was going through a really tough painful transition out of um out of the job within institutions and so it was like this transition of getting out of the institution and how painful it didn't have to be but it became because people were committed to making it painful right and so a part of my releasing that a part of me stepping into the healing that needed to happen this project came to be and so not only did it capture the moment of me separating from the institution but it captured all of the moments that were held of the institutions um in a way for me I feel like it captured all of that and the fact that I had been traveling in these places and asked asked to be in service to so many people because that was the expectation my blackness was an expectation for me to be in service to others and how did I how was I able to come out of that and understand that I was enough I am enough and so the the project for me being able to be in my body and get up again when there are literally physically things that wouldn't allow me to walk again and in the same way and then I was able to get up and figure out how to rediscover who I am in my own healing um and so that is what recognizing my humanity is about essentially me being able to recognize my humanity and most of the projects that that we've done thus far Kinga really does a good job of editing so if there's an idea that's happening in my head and like I need it to be right here um I usually ask Kinga to come in and do the edits but I also I think it is really important because people always recognize the face of a project but they may not recognize the work that happens behind it and so a lot of the projects that are on Council Culture Educator a lot of those conceptually I mean there's parts that I play and there are parts that um that Kinga plays right and so she may not have been the concept of the video but she was the person who was rubbing my leg in order for me to get up and do it right and I think that that's that's very important right and to making sure that this was was streamed in the way that it needs to be you got to get up and do your video you said you're gonna work on it today when I was feeling like I couldn't Kinga was the one who's telling me to get up oh you need to get these edits in I'm gonna do these edits when I was too tired because I was healing because my Achilles was hurting yeah right so but truly this is a project that is mostly of DW's conceptualization and creation and I would say the largest role that I had was that this this project came in a moment when I spoke earlier today in our conversation about how um we realized that being in the institution was not the place for us and that there was so much uh there was so much threat I'm gonna say that was it that was involved with being there that was like crushing the the part of our spirits that create the light that we create and that the world needs from us we started to realize that as we started to go deeper into our healing and commit more to ourselves we started to realize how important that was and in that process was also while DW was in their in their deep in their injury in their healing in tremendous loss in lots of different areas and in a place where people there were a lot of people around them that were not holding them up in in their need in their time of need of this dramatic healing I mean you're tearing your Achilles is huge because it's not just your leg it's you can't put any pressure on it you can't you can't put any pressure on your Achilles it's extremely sensitive it takes a long time to heal so it it disrupted it disrupted our household wildly and then they tore it twice so it became a very disrupting moment in our lives and there was a lot that came to light about the ways that we were not treating ourselves well enough by building boundaries around us that allow us to survive and even more so thrive and so during that time while DW was going through their healing and feeling hopeless I kept reminding them of their ability to create and tell their story through creation and so I I believe during those first six months to even a year there was different ideas that started to pop up but that project came towards the end of that year and really was an accumulation of all of those different pieces of their humanity being stripped and not not being not being acknowledged or even protected and held when in in a time of real need whether that be within the institution whether that be within the systems that are meant to protect us whether that be within community there was so many different ways in which your humanity was being stripped and that that's the experience that I had with you and that's where that project was birthed thank you thank you for the share of all of this I I hope that as this airs on all the different platforms Amherst media channels YouTube Facebook wherever else that your your GoFundMe just blows up or even that people come and say hey let me invest in shares and things just really blow up for both of you we we got you back here you know and we believe in this this is this is the way to our liberation you know we since the murders of of Brianna Taylor of George Floyd and even a few years before that with Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his murderer which is really where this difficult dialogue series started the we have really seen that we've got to continue to have these these kinds of conversations and bring forth these messages because this is not the the harm we're talking about isn't anything on its own the damage isn't repairing itself on its own it takes work it takes money as we would say for a long time back freedom ain't free so I just would give you or invite you all to take the last word on on you know connecting this all to the work of reparative justice the struggle for for reparations like you say we we we center that work as about black folk and about the hundreds of years of anti-black oppression through slavery through Jim Crow but that we understand this reparative work is is everybody the whole planet is involved that you know if we can't begin by repairing the harm in our own human ecosystems you know we're not going to get out there to the larger ecosystems of climate change and and preserving our environment for future generations to be able to live so I just give you all the space to to kind of close us out here on this difficult dialogue any way that you all want to to connect in with the with the call for reparations the struggle for reparations I think before I even want to say anything about that I just want to give a huge gratitude to the two of you we've spoken about this many times before and this just feels affirmed so much in this conversation right now but I don't recall having elders in my life like you all ever who get an emotional but it's like it's so deep and so needed to have elders who are willing to see you and hold you in whatever wherever you are at and affirm the new like the new wave of wherever we're going I spoke earlier about how that dysfunctional relationship can happen between generations and the comparison and to have elders who are willing and ready to see a new wave or to be able to welcome in the perspective of a new generation and just be affirming and appreciative of that it seems so simple but it's just something I haven't experienced it's something I haven't experienced not much in my lifetime and especially not here in Amherst and so I feel that this is a part of something really huge even just our relationship with you all right now feels really huge that we're starting to build that repair and we're starting to build that community just together and I'm I'm just really appreciative of not only you all and the work you've been doing but also you all reaching out to us and welcoming us in to your arms because not having experienced that after a while you know like you just don't feel comfortable approaching people and and opening up that way so I mean that's just something I needed to say and get off of my chest yeah I mean I want to add to that and this is something that we do um we started to do on counter-culture conversations with the homies is the gift giving um and just to keep the energy to know to let people know this is the energy that we're working with right and when we talk about love we mean it oh we mean a radical love and uh I want to extend um the gifts from from King and myself to the both of you and I'm going to start it by saying um what I asked is that and we I teach this with young people and I got this from actually uh Palante sitting in circle with Palante and I really loved it so I added it to my repertoire um when I do when I do work and I tell the people in the circle to imagine in your hand that there's a gift of word that you can pass to the person sitting next to you and the words that you would give them would help them move through their day or maybe even through their week if you don't see them again but it's something that you wish for them you wish something that um is of love and what kind of gift would that be and so then I say imagine so for me I'm going to imagine the gift that I want to give a milk car right now the gift of word and then I'm going to ask Kinga to imagine the gift that that she would want to give to deep right and then once you imagine that that word I'm imagining it right now and I tell the the people in the circle to put it in your hand and when you imagine it you close your hand so let me give the the word so now that I have my word and I imagine the gift that I want to give to a milk car right now what we would do in the circle is I would say it and as I would say it when I was done I would pass it into your hand so I'm going to wish for you the gift of sustainability and what I mean by sustainability is that you're able to always recognize how much that you are sustaining a lot of us in the work that you do and you're able to recognize that the sustainability has caused has created so much joy and love and faith and um courage for people so I want to give you the gift of sustainability so you remember that that's what you bring into our community uh D I would like to give you the gift of appreciation because the way that you hold the people around you and the way that you dedicate yourself selflessly to our community and to all the all the different projects that you're in you're connected to is so inspiring and I hope with everything inside of me that you feel the appreciation because I think that maybe we're not telling you enough how much you're offering and how much you're appreciated and I hope that with that appreciation you take some breaths some rest and give yourself some of that energy that you've been offering the rest of us thank you to you both that was beautiful and I don't think we could have ended it any better and what a blessing to have you too thank you so much thank you thank you preparations now yeah