 This is Think Tech Hawaii. The community matters here. Welcome to Perspectives on Global Justice Think Tech Hawaii program. This is your host Beatrice Cantelmo. Today, we will talk about gender equality issues with special emphasis on black women and girls empowerment and healing. As you know, women's human rights across the globe are one of the most pressing issues that we faced with. The truth is that in 2017, no society in this world have been able to successfully bridge gender equity. We live in a male dominant culture and world. Gender empowerment would fill many obstacles, yet there is a lot of resistance to gender parity in different levels, be it in Hawaii, in the United States or across the globe. One of the most pressing issues that we must face globally is the problem with family violence and violence against women, in particular black women and children. Women deal with gender-based violence of all forms, from genital mutilation to child marriage to sex and domestic violence. Until we, as a community, country and world, make an effort and a concerted commitment to work with programs and policies that aim at eradication of gender-based violence and pay particular attention not just to the barriers, they are preventing that from happening, but also focus on equal access and opportunities where women equal access to education, health, justice and labour market, and where women's equal participation in different institutions of civil political society becomes a norm, gender inequity will be the norm we see today. Today, we have a very special guest, Laila Ji, who is our wonderful friend from Madison, Wisconsin, and she is a black woman, a sexual assault survivor and an accomplished author and also the founder of Laila's Living Room, an organisation specialised in providing Afro-centric services to black women and girls sexual assault survivors. This marvellous organisation also provides cultural diverse training and services to advocates and service providers. The mission is bold and very simple in essence. Laila's Living Room was created to be a safe haven that can inspire black women and girls survivors of gender-based violence to reclaim their spirits, mind and bodies and to have an equal chance to heal. On that note, welcome to our program, sister. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. Absolutely. So, Laila, to our viewers who do not know about you, do you mind giving a little background about where you come from and a little bit of how Laila's Living Room was created? Absolutely. So, I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. I always had to throw it out. I was originally born in Chicago, but I grew up in Madison and I grew up with my mother, my brother and my stepfather. And from all accounts, we had this perfect family, things that were going well and love and all this kind of stuff. But what people didn't know what was going on behind closed doors and my stepfather was sexually abusing me and it went on from about age six to age 11. And it was really something that I intended to go to the grave with. I didn't intend to tell anyone. I thought I was just going to hold this secret and when I was 11, I told my mother and it was a really long journey from there to where I am now. And I think the biggest shift that happened in my life was when I became a mother and I wanted to begin to create a different reality for my children than I had and my mother before me had. And I went on a deep healing journey and out of that came understanding that this wasn't just an experience that happened to me, but this was a live call to work in this field and to be a gateway to so many women and girls that have just been stuck in the shadows in the secrets of sexual abuse. So I see that your organization has a very specific emphasis on providing afro-centric services in a cultural-competent environment for African-American women and families and children to heal from one of the most traumatic experiences one can possibly face, which is sex violence in general. So why did you feel that there was a need to create a different organization to meet specific needs of a population For example, there is rape crisis centers all over the nation since the 1970s and collisions in every state that's supposed to respond to the needs of anyone who finds themselves in the position of being a sexual survivor. What happened? Why did you feel like I have to do this? So we'll park at the word supposed to help everyone and they'll say we serve everyone, meaning that if someone comes through the door, we'll serve them. But what I learned in my own state of Wisconsin was that there was just a deprivation of black women who were advocates. For years, there were absolutely zero sexual assault advocates in the entire state. And it just brought me to an awareness that said, you know, I had group in Madison, I was very well-versed in working cross-culturally, but I said with the lack of black women represented in these agencies, I'm going to focus on that because when we look at statistics, we know that one out of 15 African-American women will report a rape or sexual assault. And I believe that a lot of that is due to the fact that they don't see people represented that look like them at these agencies. You know, in my state, there's a lot of talking across the U.S. talk about cultural competence that I just don't believe in cultural competence because usually what that means is that a white person has trained a white person to work with people of color and I just don't know how you get the cultural competence by being trained by someone who doesn't understand the cultural either. You might be able to be sensitive by true competence, I think, and an organization has to do with having diversity, not only of curriculum that represents really the reality and the needs of a specific ethnic group, but also staff. It's not just the color, but also, you know, the understanding and the ability that older clients may have to be able to relate and to build rapport and to be able to, you know, start this journey. So, I mean, could it be for you to be able to do this? And so when did Leila's living room start? It started about 2010 in a very formal way. But what happened was, years before that, I shared in my church that I was a survivor. It was something really kind of risque to do at the time because there's still so much secrecy around it. And after I shared my story, women and girls literally showed up at my home and we sat in my living room and we cried and we prayed and we worked through, you know, how they could progress in their own healing. And so it kind of found me, in a way, by sharing my story that I meant to keep secret, by sharing it, I found that it really opened up the gateways for other women to walk through. So besides representation of African-American presence, not only in programmatic development in cross-segmental organizations and staff, what are the barriers that you see, the Black women in particular and their children? Both girls and African-American boys are faced with when they have to not only seek services to heal from domestic and sex violence, but also from their whole realm of the cultural barriers that you see that may prevent someone from going forward and say, I need the help. Yeah. Well, you know, historically, you know, as Black people, we have learned not to trust systems. And so sharing certain information with systems has always had repercussions that come back. And so with any family that is hiding a secret of violence, you know, there's this depth of, we keep this inside. With Black families, we have the same thing, but even more so, we don't trust the system because we don't see people who look like us. We don't believe that there are good intentions necessarily for our families. And there's like misinterpretation and you're having so many families being torn apart and not really working to bring healing in. And so there's just this pause by a system that you just don't feel understands you or represents you. So in all the walls, you still see many bridges that needs to be built, not only for a system that walks towards healing and not blaming the victim and revictimizing someone who may have to resort to the system to be able to address their issues and may find themselves with their families torn apart. Kids may be in foster care or services that are supposed to be sensitive just to sexual assault response period and actually ended up wounding the person. So not the response, the healing, the help ended up being more harmful and more traumatic than a family coming together and trying to figure out how to deal with the situation themselves. And yet these are the crucial services that helps people transition from that place of secrecy and victimhood into survivorship and empowerment. So on that note, what is the latest living room doing as far as your problematic development and the services that are being provided in the community, not only in Madison, Wisconsin, but here in many other places. Absolutely. So one of the initiatives that we took on is Black Woman Hill Day. So in April 2015 was the first year. I was thinking about what is a way to bring Black women across the nation together and have the feeling of power and community that is so important to the Black community. And I came up with this idea which seemed simple at first and it got really complicated in a good way by providing on April 1st a very first day of sexual assault awareness month recruiting women across the nation to host a healing gathering. Because I believe that once you begin to talk and you create a safe space where these crucial conversations can happen, there is just this reverberation of healing and a relief that you have in having a place where you can share. And so what I found in the first year was as I started sharing about the day quickly became an international day because Black women from other countries I want to be a part of it. So which countries have embarked in celebrating international Black women Hills Day? Well we've had women in Jamaica and several countries in Africa we've had women in Belize and we've had women in the Dominican Republic and in Haiti and just a cross section of Black women throughout the African diaspora really start to get involved with this and it's been just an amazing thing we had a new partner last year in the UK so it's really growing and it's really exciting. And it's grassroots based Black women in allies hopefully can join in with us. So what typically happens during Black women Hills Day as far as activities because I want our viewers to get a little taste because every place, every country does something a little bit different. Yeah and it's really exciting. So last year I got an opportunity to meet with Nikki Giovanni and one of the things that she shared with me is really encouraging women to use that day to make meals together and how food and to share and how healing that is. And so that was one of the new initiatives that we put out for this past year is like get together and eat and talk. Women do gatherings with family members they do gatherings in churches or coffee houses I know here you joined me the first year and you had a beautiful event on the beach you know so it's really about not just doing some huge grandiose event but really doing something that makes sense to you and the people you know and creating a space for healing now in Wisconsin being the capital city each year we do something either at the capital or we do something at the governor's mansion as well as having various events throughout the year so the first year we did just one event but last year we had about 12 different events going on throughout the city for both women and girls. That's marvelous. So we're going to take a quick break and we're going to continue right away. Fantastic. This is Think Tech Hawaii raising public awareness. Ted Rawson here folks you're a host on Where the Drone Leads our weekly show at noon on Thursdays here on Think Tech where we talk about drones anything to do about drones remotely piloted aircraft unmanned aircraft, whatever you want to call them emerging into Hawaii's economy educational framework and our public life we talk about things associated with the use the misuse, technology engineering, legislation with the local experts people from across the country please join us noon on Thursdays and catch the latest on what's taking place in the world of drones that might affect you. Welcome to Sister Power I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough where we motivate educate and power and inspire all women we are live here every other Thursday at 4pm and we welcome you to join us here at Sister Power Aloha and thank you. Welcome back to Perspectives on Global Justice Think Tech Hawaii program this is your host Beatrice Cantillo and we are back with Lailita so Lailita we're talking about the wonderful events that happens right now I can say across the globe, different continents that we start really small seeds but it is taking a momentum and it is growing and on the one hand I'm very happy that you are felt inspired to do this and to have that calling shared with all their sisters and brothers in their lives and on the other hand I feel really heartbroken that in 2017 we still have to create an international black women healed day to bring awareness to the issues that women face so do you mind sharing with our viewers a little bit of the cultural history of our violence and black women not only in this country but around the globe Absolutely so when I started digging more into my own family to try to understand my mother was a survivor her mother was a survivor I believe that her mother may have been beyond her my great great grandmother was a slave once you hit slavery I realized that every black woman in my lineage had been sexually assaulted through the slavery system and I realized that my daughter was the only one through my lineage that I could attest had not been sexually assaulted and I thought that was just me that as I start understanding I was like wait this is every black woman's experience that has come through the African diaspora whether you have directly been sexually assaulted or not you carry forth that trauma in your body because in slavery not only were black women systematically raped men were too but it was an economic benefit because babies that were produced from that rape could also be sold at a higher price so black women have experienced rape throughout the African diaspora in a way that no other collective group of women have experienced it and what I began to realize was that what I experienced in the US was the same thing that my sisters had experienced in the Dominican Republic and in Jamaica and throughout that whole process and you know I was very intentional by calling it Black Woman Hill Day and not African American Hill Day because I wanted that bigger piece of understanding of blackness and our need for reunification of blackness around this issue and realizing that we were the original healers and so there is the need for unity there is the need to recognize but there is the need also for reparation where do you see room for reparation moving forward for example over micro perspective like in every community if you were to look domestically as in the United States and then transfer that to a broader level, micro level like in the world how do you see reparations opportunities for reparations well I hope, don't hold a lot of hope for reparations so I really say what can we do for ourselves as black women and for our girls because our black girls are spiring out because they are caring for this trauma too and so more than looking for someone else to do something for us I'm really looking to empower us to do something for ourselves and especially for our girls and I think reparations is an important conversation and it's an important concept but I don't have the energy for that I want to sink all my energy into empowering black women and girls to heal themselves and to be places of healing for others so you touched on very soft spots of vulnerability and boundaries when you talked about don't hold much hope that there will be a big systemic change of response all that there will be enough time resources or energy to tackle every single aspect of such a broader issue to be able to do it so how do we empower older women especially black women and families so that we can do this ourselves my invitation to you is that yes we continue to work with the tools and the strength that you have at your disposal however a big part I think of this shift is really also being able to sit down on the table with organizations with policy makers with a community at large and say look it's not our job to do this alone if we're really going to heal from a place of peace we have to have unity and that needs to be reflective in policy making in grants they are available and then convert it into working with organizations that can provide the services where the gap is lacking right now in terms of services the empowerment comes from a survivor to understand how his rights are no any different or any less important than a broader sister that comes from a different ethnic background so I think part of the response of closing and saying we're going to do this ourselves is a direct response of the systemic and boundaries that the system imposes on black people we have Black Lives Matter movement which is directly a response to the lack of response and how black people's lives are so dismissed and disrespected historically not only from the time of slavery where we were able to control the slavery but Jimmy Crow was allowed to be in place so there are so many layers of this that we still need to address and just like race relations we got major issues to go through and we cannot heal we cannot move forward if we don't acknowledge and if we don't have allies from the other side to recognize that I think I'm a healer and what I found is when I work in these systems that were not designed for me and were not designed for my people to heal and to progress it sucks that healing energy out of me so I've decided that I'm going to focus more on healing and empowering other people to heal and to be healers that work is important but I think we all have to take different pieces of it because I've seen so many women leave this field because they have been so oppressed by these agencies that are mostly white women led myself included, you know my history I've worked many years in the nonprofit sector as an advocate and as a direct service provider you know, working to provide culturally competent and sensitive services to not just black women and Latino women and yes it was very draining I had to take a step back and step out and find different ways where my voice and my expertise and my experience could not die along with me leaving the field but could be applied elsewhere and so stepping back is healthy and changing directions and changing strategies is very important too be relentless and walking from a different place where you don't feel completely defeated it's also very important I am relentless about healing and I am relentless about looking to the faces of black girls and telling them that they're beautiful and that they're worthy and that their lives deserve to be lived I'm relentless about that and I've just resolved that there's only so much fight that I want to have against systems that have been fighting for hundreds of years and we see what we're seeing right now going on in the US so I'd rather put that energy there into that place because I think we can heal and then that will reverberate but if we're still broken and we're still trying to fight the system we at the end of the day end up being so depleted we have nothing to bring home and it becomes this vicious cycle of a downward spiral I believe if we start with that core healing ourselves then for those of us who need to take on the systems because it needs to be done absolutely we have a little bit more fortitude and we have more strength because we feel the feeling of the sisterhood behind us it's not just that one person as you know it's often one of us in an organization very isolated very oppressed and our voices are silenced very true I can't believe how quickly this program came to an end but I really want to thank you for being here for the beautiful work that you do for speaking your truth and just speaking like it is and I hope that you come back to Hawaii many times and that you come back to this program and give us an update about what's happening if I can give a shout out to women to join us on April 1st absolutely not just April 1st but every day of the year my shout out in this process is that we recognize the struggles of women in general who are dealing with violence in families but we pay particular attention to black women and families and their children and also there's a call for unity it's a call of we we're not going to be able to move forward without everybody embracing this concept and that concludes our Perspectives on Global Justice Think Tech Hawaii program today thank you so much Alvias for watching us and until next Friday we hope