Podcasts about castillejo

Santi Castillejo tras la permanencia de Osasuna Promesas en el descuento en Tajonar en Primera RFEF y un año más de contrato

Santi Castillejo tras la permanencia de Osasuna Promesas en el descuento en Tajonar en Primera RFEF y un año más de contrato

Este sábado se viene una doble cita para el osasunismo... pero antes del primer equipo, hay una final en Tajonar. El Promesas se juega la categoría en casa y necesita a su gente más que nunca. En este episodio repasamos su temporada: los momentos clave, las emociones, las voces del vestuario... y lo que se viene este 24 de mayo a las 19:00. Con Ibaider Garriz, Toni Herrero, Jon García, Carlos Lumbreras, Martín Pedroarena y la mirada de Castillejo y Osambela.

L’exjugador i exentrenador del Nàstic, Santi Castillejo, veu al conjunt grana preparat per competir per l’ascens al futbol professional. Parlem amb l’actual tècnic del filial d’Osasuna, rival dels tarragonins al grup 1 de 1a FEF, sobre com veu l’equip de cara aquesta recta final de temporada i sobre el pròxim rival, l’Andorra, a qui es […] L'entrada Santi Castillejo: “Veig al Nàstic clar candidat per pujar en el play-off” ha aparegut primer a Ràdio Ciutat de Tarragona.

Hoy, en la sección de Los alcaldes también son humanos ha venido a demostrarlo la primera regidora de Rivas Vaciamadrid nacida en la localidad. Cogió el bastón de mando por primera vez en 2022 con la renuncia de Pedro del Cura siendo ella concejal de su equipo de gobierno. Durante una charla distendida con Ely del Valle, directora y presentadora del Buenos Días Madrid, Castillejo se ha referido a algunos proyectos para este mandato como la nueva sede de la Escuela Municipal de Música, que es de las pocas de la Comunidad de Madrid de gestión directa municipal, y que llevará el nombre de su director, Txema Cariñena, recientemente fallecido. Rivas, Mejorada y Velilla: Rivas, el tesoro natural de Madrid También es importante la apertura del enlace directo de la localidad con la M-50, una demanda histórica teniendo en cuenta que Rivas ha sido durante décadas el único municipio por el que pasaba esta autovía sin tener conexión directa con ella. Ahora está a punto de comenzar la primera fase de esta infraestructura que será realidad fruto del esfuerzo del Ayuntamiento y el compromiso del gobierno central. En el cuestionario de pregunta y respuesta rápida con Nieves Ortiz, la alcaldesa ha contado, entre otras cosas, anécdotas de su vida personal como el lugar donde se quedó encerrada, que es muy maniática, socia del Atlético de Madrid y que su número es el 8. Rivas-Vaciamadrid es un municipio de la Comunidad situado a 14 kilómetros de la Puerta del Sol. Actualmente cuenta con 103.000 vecinos empadronados. Son los Ripenses. Ruta 179: Rivas, Velilla y Mejorada Atravesada en el 70% de su suelo por el Parque Regional del Sureste, allí confluyen los ríos Jarama y Manzanares y junto a sus cauces, debido a la extracción de áridos, se han ido formando lagunas donde conviven colonias de cientos de cigüeñas con halcones o milanos, un rico paisaje que es uno de los atractivos turísticos de la zona. También destacan vestigios históricos como los restos de un poblado carpetano o las trincheras de la Batalla del Jarama. Dentro de nada, a mediados del próximo mes, se celebrarán las Fiestas de Mayo con mucho ocio, feria y música a las que acuden no sólo sus vecinos sino muchos madrileños. Por cierto, que presumen de tener una tarta especial de palulú, regaliz de palo.

Si una persona coneix b

Dyan Castillejo and I met over 10 years ago covering the prizefighter Manny Pacquiao's career all around the globe, but it was in 2014 I saw her hitting some balls with her son in the parking lot of The Wild Card Gym in Hollywood- Manny's training camp in the US. It was then I realized that she had lived a special life in tennis. She is the first Filipino woman to have attained a WTA ranking. With the emergence of Alex Eala I thought there was no one better to learn about that unique and exciting situation, and Dyan didn't disappoint. Recorded 4.1 Released 4.2 The Craig Shapiro Tennis Podcast is Coming to Rome Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

En este episodio hablamos con Pepe Martín y Jesús Castillejo, fundadores de Minimalism Brand, sobre cómo construir una empresa rentable, sin logos, que apueste por el consumo responsable, el diseño consciente y la transparencia. Una conversación alrededor del emprendimiento, el diseño de producto, los dilemas éticos en la moda sostenible y el minimalismo en contraposición al maximalismo. También hablamos sobre lo que significa emprender y diseñar con propósito en un sistema que empuja al exceso, y sobre cómo mantener los valores de marca sin dejar de crecer. Referencias: Minimalism Brand, la marca de Pepe Martín y Jesús Castillejo ‘La moda justa', ensayo de Marta Riezu ‘Nunca te pares', autobiografía de Phil Knight ‘El experimento rendición', de Michael Singer ‘Libérese del dolor de espalda', de John E. Sarnö Artículo sobre el pasaporte de producto digital Noticia sobre el lector de etiquetas de ropa en iPhone

Santi Castillejo entrenador de Osasuna Promesas tras salir del descenso al ganar en el campo del filial del Barça y antes de medirse al Bilbao Athletic

Santi Castillejo entrenador de Osasuna Promesas tras salir del descenso al ganar en el campo del filial del Barça y antes de medirse al Bilbao Athletic

Además, María Haber, explica que se han organizado visitas de nuevo al Castillejo de Monteagudo y recomienda, además, la visita a la exposición del archivo municipal sobre documentos de la época islámica.

Hoy les vamos a proponer una visita por las Fortalezas del Rey Lobo. Un lugar que a pesar de ser visible desde todo el valle del Segura, es muy desconocido. Ha sido habitado desde el Calcolítico, que sepamos, y su momento de esplendor coincide con el reinado de ibn mardanis, el rey Lobo, que desde Monteagudo podía vigilar y defender unos dominios que ocupaban gran parte del sureste de la penínsulaPara entender la complejidad de este sitio histórico tan enorme y que incluye unos 160 yacimientos arqueológicos nos acercamos hasta allí con el concejal Marco Antonio Fernández. Las Fortalezas del Rey Lobo la conforman más de millón y medio de metros cuadrados repartidos entre las pedanías de Monteagudo y Cabezo de Torres y con elementos propiedad de 3 administraciones distintas (Ministerio, Comunidad Autónoma y Ayuntamiento de Murcia) e incluso propiedad privada de particulares. Se trata de un proyecto complejo que como dice el concejal Marco Antonio Fernández, no se puede realizar en un solo mandato, ni siquiera en una generación. Estos días se ha podido visitar el Castillejo tras la restauración de uno de sus niveles. Para conocer qué riquezas prometen los más de 160 yacimientos distribuidos en ese millón y medio de metros cuadrados hemos invitado a las arqueólogas Carmen Martínez y Ana Baño.

https://www.philallenjr.comPhil is a man driven by vision, compelled to fulfill God's calling on his life. His passion is not only to see individuals come to know and grow in a relationship with Jesus, but to see social transformation that includes addressing systems and structures that affect the everyday lives of people, especially those typically pushed to the margins because of oppression, injustices, and inequities grounded in race, gender, sexuality, ability, age, and any part of their being that does not fit the dominant group membership.As an All-American high school basketball player, Phil attended North Carolina A&T University to play basketball and study architectural engineering. Upon his call to ministry years later, he went on to receive his Bachelors in Theological Studies, with an emphasis in Christian Ministries from The King's University. While working as a full-time lead pastor of Own Your Faith Ministries (Santa Clarita, CA), Phil completed a Master of Arts in Theology degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, studying Christian Ethics. As a current PhD candidate in Christian Ethics, with a minor in Theology and Culture, his research involves race theory, theology, ethics, culture, and the theology and ethics of Martin Luther King, Jr.He is founder of the non-profit organization Racial Solidarity Project based in Los Angeles, CA. His passion for dialogue, resistance, and solutions to the problem of systemic racism was fostered by his family and personal life experiences as well as his educational journey. Phil was recently named a Pannell Center for Black Church Studies Fellow at Fuller Theological Seminary. As a fellow his research on Black Church theology, liturgy, and ethics further undergirds his own ethics of justice, healing racial trauma, and racial solidarity. He has taught undergraduate classes on biblical ethics toward racial solidarity. His fields of interest include Christian ethics, Black Church studies, race theory, pneumatology, theology of justice and theology of play and sport.When he isn't pastoring, studying, or writing, Phil enjoys running, bowling, basketball, and just watching his favorite television shows. As an all-around creative, he is an author, a teacher, pastor, filmmaker (see his documentary Open Wounds), but first a poet. His diverse experiences and interests have gifted him with the ability to relate to and inspire just about anyone he meets.He is the author of two books, Open Wounds: A Story of Racial Tragedy, Trauma, and Redemption (Fortress Press, 2021) and The Prophetic Lens: The Camera and Black Moral Agency From MLK to Darnella Frazier (Fortress Press, 2022).Speaker 1 (00:13):Welcome to the Arise podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, and the church. And tune in and listen to this conversation today. Dr. Phil Allen, Jr and myself are going to have a conversation today. And if you go to his website, phil allen jr.com, you can see that his quote is Justice Matters, my neighbors Matter, creation matters, faith Matters. And really in this conversation, I want you to pay attention to those points that he makes in this quote from his website and how that filters through in the research he does in the point of view he's bringing to the table for this conversation on what are we doing? And I think a lot of people are like, are we still talking about the Yes, we're still talking about it. Yes. It's still relevant and we're talking about it because from understanding creates pathways towards action, towards organizing, towards being together with one another in community so that we can support justice, so that we can support our neighbors so that we have faith in creator. And so I want to encourage you to listen through that lens. Go find his website, phil allen jr.com. Look up this amazing man, this professor, he's got a podcast, he's got books, poetry speaking, a documentary. Don't hesitate to reach out, but as you listen, focusing on justice Neighbor and creation and Faith.(01:48):Yeah. What has it been like for you since the election? Or what's that been likeSpeaker 2 (01:57):Since the election? The first couple of days were, I was a bit numb. I was very disappointed in 2016. I wasn't surprised. I had this feeling that he was going to win, even though people thought Hillary would win. I just didn't have the confidence in those battleground swing state. I thought he represented something that a lot of people in this country are drawn to. And this year I really felt like she was going to win. Vice President Harris was going to win because of the coalition, because of the momentum. People can critique and criticize her campaign, but there's nothing orthodox about starting a hundred days before. And I think what they did was calculated. I won't say perfect, but it was good. It was a solid campaign given what she had to work with. And I really thought she would win. And I was just extremely disappointed. It was like this heaviness over me, but then after day two, things started to feel a little bit lighter. I just put things in perspective. I wasn't going to sulk and sit in some sadness because this man won. I think I was more disappointed in the people like what is our standard, particularly Christians, conservative Christians, what is the standard now? How low is the bar?(04:04):And honestly, I don't know if there's anyone else on the planet, any other demographic that could have done that with 34 felonies saying the things that he says about people of color, about women, about veterans. I mean, he just literally does not care. There's no man or woman of color. There's no woman, there's no one else that could do that. And people would ignore everything, do theological gymnastics and to justify everything and still vote for 'em. No one else could pull it off. And I think for me, it just solidified the type of country we live in. So I'm good now, as good as I can be. I can't change it, so I'm not going to sulk and be sad. I'm going to continue to do the work that God has called me to do and continue to chat, put a video out. I think you may have seen it on social media just to put my thoughts out there, put words to my feelings and just move forward. Yep.Speaker 1 (05:24):When you think about, is it okay if I ask you a couple of questions?Speaker 3 (05:28):Yeah.Speaker 1 (05:29):When you think about your research and completing your PhD and the theory and work and the evidence and structures you uncovered in that research, then how does that continue to frame your outlook for where we are today? ItSpeaker 2 (05:52):Couldn't, this election was interesting. This election confirmed for me, my research,Speaker 1 (05:59):Yes.Speaker 2 (06:02):I'll give you one part of it. In my research I talk about the plantation complex and it's made up of three major categories and there are subcategories under each one, organizing properties, modes of power, and operating practices. Three major categories Under organizing properties, there are four properties I list. I'm not saying it's an exhaustive list. Someone else might come in and want to tweak it and change it. That's fine. What I came up with is for vision covenant, spatial arrangement and epistemology, and specifically theological scientific epistemology, specifically white racial covenant. For those two, those are the specific terms I use. And to me, vice President Harris asked a question, this is about what kind of country do we want? That's a statement about what kind of vision do you have? Would you like to see this country embody? So vision is always there. We're always talking about, we're always casting vision when we tell stories, when we talk about how we want the, whether it's the education system, immigration, whatever. We're casting a vision, but what do we want to see? And then that ends up driving so much of what weSpeaker 3 (07:45):Do.Speaker 2 (07:48):We have the vision now of this is what America wants.Speaker 1 (07:52):Yes,Speaker 2 (07:54):They want this man with all, he's not just a flawed human being, in my opinion. He's a vile human being. She also is not a perfect candidate. She's a decent woman. She's a decent person. Two vastly different visions for this country. Then you talk about spatial arrangement. Electoral college is about spatial arrangement. You have your blue states, your red states, but everything comes down to five or six. Sometimes one state decides the election, and it all depends on who's living in that state, how are the districts redrawn. All types of stuff can play out. But to me, I saw that going on and then I saw white racial covenant play out. You look at who voted for who, percentage wise, and I kept seeing this allegiance, this covenant with Donald Trump, and there had to have been independents and even some Democrats that voted for him to have voted at such a high clip when his base is only 37%, 40% at most, and a Republican party is half. And he gets, I don't know. I just started to see those things play out. And from my dissertation, just those four categories, the stuff that we don't even pay attention to, they shape society, vision, spatial arrangement, covenant whose allegiance, who has your allegiance, because that drives decision making that drives what you value. It influences what you value. And epistemology, theological, scientific epistemology, he's the chosen one.(10:03):God chose him for such a time as the, I keep hearing this language. So they're using theological language to justify everything about this man. So yeah.Speaker 1 (10:18):Yeah.Speaker 2 (10:19):It's hard for me not to see through that lens. Now that I spent six years researching it, it's hard for me not to see through those lenses the lens of power, how power is operating, what type of power is operating and the practices and all that stuff.Speaker 1 (10:38):There's so much you said that I know we could jump into. Particularly when you talk about the white racial covenant. I was struck at, there's intersection between our research areas, and I was thinking about in grad school before I even got into my post-grad research, I wrote about three things for the Latinx Latino community that kind of inform the way white supremacy has infiltrated our lives. One is silence, one is compliance, and then lastly is erasure. And as we saw the swing, and they've talked ad nauseum about Latinos when we are a minimal part of the electoral vote, but they've talked ad nauseum about the movement specifically of men. But when you think of the demand to be silent over centuries, the demand to comply, and then the sense that maybe I can erase myself and what can I trade in for the good graces to get into the good graces of white racial identity and vote against my own best interests, vote against protecting my community, vote against even maybe even protecting my grandma or my kid that's on daca, et cetera. What was the cost? And as you were explaining that, I was seeing it through that lens that you were describing.Speaker 2 (12:17):Yep, yep. What's interesting is one of the practices, I talk about tokenization on the plantation or some would say tokenism, and there's always white racial covenant is not just among white people.(12:42):It's anyone from any group, including my community. Those who want, they want to be in closer proximity to whiteness. They want to be accepted into the white way of being. And when I say whiteness, you understand what I'm saying? I'm not just talking about white persons or white ethnicity. We're talking about a way of being in the world, a lens through which you see the world and move in that. And you can be a person of color and totally embrace whiteness, internalize that it only takes a few to then that's an effort to legitimize it, to legitimize. See, look at those. Look at that black guy or that Latino seed. They get it, and it further legitimizes that worldview.Speaker 1 (13:38):Yeah. I know for me, I felt so deeply, I don't think disappointment is the right word, but maybe I felt betrayed, but also I felt deeply, I just felt the weight of what centuries have done. And then I think it was like a Sunday afternoon where he's in Madison Square Garden using the most vile of comments, the most vile of comments to degrade our race, our ethnicity, where we come from, and then to turn around and garner a vote. I mean, it fits into your theory.Speaker 2 (14:26):So think about what he said when he first ran in 2016. I can stand on Fifth Avenue in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and I won't lose any votes. Now, fast forward to 2024 in Madison Square Garden, the lineup, the things he said, he didn't condemn anything. He invites white supremacists into his home for dinner. He welcomes them. He literally does not care because he understands the allegiance, not just from his base, but even those adjacent to his base. And that's why I keep saying, how low is this bar that you can have those people? Because everyone thought, oh, this is it. That just killed it for 'em. It did not matter. No, it did not matter. Some of it is, I think based on race, and some of it is based on gender. Some of it's a combination of both. And that's why I said in my video, she didn't stand a chance anytime people kept saying, we need to hear more and I need to get to know her more. Well, what are you watching?Speaker 3 (15:47):WhatSpeaker 2 (15:47):Else do you need to know? She's told her whole story over and over again. She's literally laid out bullet point, what she wants to do. What else is there half the people who say that don't even understand these concepts anyway?Speaker 3 (16:04):Yeah,Speaker 2 (16:05):They don't understand it. They're not understand this stuff.Speaker 1 (16:11):I guess what you say, really, it triggered something in my mind and see what you do with it. He stood in Madison Square Garden, and I actually wonder now, looking at it with the lens of a tiny bit of space that maybe if even that was riveting for people, even some of the adjacent people of color that voted for him, because it's riveting that someone could have that much power and get away with it and move in the world without consequence. And I think a lot of people are looking for that sort of autonomy or freedom to move or it's appealing. The power of it is appealing in a way that I didn't think about it before you said it, and I don't know that that's it, but I get curious about it because it definitely didn't take any votes away.Speaker 2 (17:09):And I'm glad you used the word curious because we're just theorizing right now, sharing opinions how we feel. And so I'm curious as well about a lot of these things. I'm just at a loss for words. I don't even know how to wrap my mind around that. I do think is an appeal though. I do think there is in my dissertation that the type of power that I talk about is autocratic ideological power where the ideology, it's not a person, the autonomous sovereign power. And I borrowed from Fuko, so I'm using a little bit of fuko, Michelle Fuko, and he uses the term sovereign power like king, a dictator, Vladimir Putin type of person. And I'm saying, don't have a king. And it's not one person with that type of autonomy, but there's an ideology that has that type of autonomy and we can add appeal, and it's the ideology of white supremacy. And it's almost like, well, he should be able to get away with that subconsciously. Not saying that people are saying that consciously, but it's almost like it's normalized like he should because had she said any of those things, oh, she shouldn't say those things. How dare she?(18:44):Or if Obama, when Obama said they clinging to their guns and their religion, they wanted to crucify. He shouldn't say those things. How dare he? But Trump can say, grab him by the lose no votes,Speaker 1 (19:04):Right?Speaker 2 (19:06):I don't like some of the things that he says. I wish he would tone down some of the things that he says, but so there's an autonomy. So where is it? Is it in him or is it in the ideology that he embodies? And it's appealing because so many people can share in that on different levels. So the idea is that if you go back to the plantation, every white person had some level of power over a black body and immunity, unless they got in trouble with a slave owner for killing or damagingSpeaker 1 (19:45):Property.Speaker 2 (19:47):But every person on every level shared to varying degrees in this autocracy of ideology, autocracy of white supremacy, same thing is happening today. So he can say it, the comedian can say it, congressmen and women can say it, Marjorie till green can say whatever she wants. Gates can say, I mean, these people can say whatever they want, especially if they're in closer proximity to him because he is the ultimate right now, the ultimate embodiment of the superiority of whiteness. And so there is this subconscious, I think, appeal to that. How we are drawn to the bad guy in the film. We're drawn to the villain in the wrestling match. We just kind of drawn to them a bit. There's an appeal to that type of power and to get away with it. So I like that word appeal to it,Speaker 1 (21:04):Man. I mean, I started getting really scared as you were talking because this power and this appeal and the way you're describing it, well, how did you say it? The ideology or is, what did you call it? Autonomous powerSpeaker 2 (21:27):Autocratic. Ideological power.Speaker 1 (21:29):Autocratic. Ideological power isn't just one person. It's embodied in this feeling. And that I think fits with the way I'm thinking. I got scared as you were talking because it's been hyper-focused on immigration and on a certain group of people so you can gain proximity to power. And I kind of wonder how is that going to play out? How will people play that out in their imaginations or in their communities is like what gets them closer to that power? Especially if, I mean, we could debate on tariffs and all that stuff, but no one I'm hearing from is telling me that tariffs are going to bring down the cost of goods. I've heard that nowhere. So then what are you going to do if you feel more hopeless and you're part of that working, let's say white or white adjacent class, where will you focus your energy? What can you control? So I think as you were talking, I started getting scared. I was like, this is a dangerous thing.Speaker 2 (22:34):So here's what I've told someone. Sadly, the only person who could have beaten Trump in 2020 was Joe Biden, a white man. A white woman wouldn't have been able to do it. Black woman, black man, Latino, Asian. It took a white man because people still needs to be, they needed to vote against him. They needed to see themselves. That's the majority of the country. They need to see themselves. Biden wasn't the best candidate by far. No, but he was the only one who could beatSpeaker 1 (23:16):Trump.Speaker 2 (23:17):Now, he wasn't going to win this election, even though Trump has shown signs over the last year or so of aging, doesn't matter. He's loud and boisterous. So he gets a little bit of a pass. But guess what? If that hopelessness sets in the left, the Democrats are going to have to present another white man. You're not going to beat the part. You're not going to win the next election with someone other than a white man to beat this. He is the embodiment. He is the golden calf. You need at least a beige calf. You're not going to win the next election with with someone that looks like me or you, or its going to be, that's the sad part. So with that hopelessness, if they feel that and they feel like, okay, it is been the last four years has not been what he's promised, you're going to have to present them with an alternative that's still adjacent, at least in aesthetics, optics. And then you might, after that, if everything is going well, now someone can come off of that. This is the unfortunate reality. Biden is the only one that was going to be able to beat him in 2020, and I think it's going to take the same thing in 2020. It's definitely going to take a man because he's got the movement, the masculine movement. He's brought that up to serve. It's going to take a man to do it. Unfortunately, a woman may not be able to push back against that, but I think it's going to have to take a white man.Speaker 1 (25:08):Yeah, I think you're right. I don't think another female can win against him. There's no waySpeaker 2 (25:15):He embodies the ideology of white in his posture, his tone, his rhetoric, his height, everything about him embodies, if you look at the history in this country of whiteness is the physical manifestation of it. And I'm not the only one that has said that.Speaker 1 (25:37):No,Speaker 2 (25:39):He is not just a physical manifestation. He is, at least in this era, he is the manifestation of it. He is the embodiment of it, attitude and everything.Speaker 1 (25:59):Yeah, I guess you just find me silent because I believe you. It's true. There's no doubt in my mind. And it's also stunning that this is where we're at, that people, again, I mean to fall back on what you've researched, people chose the plantation owner,Speaker 2 (26:31):And many people who do don't see themselves in the position of the enslaved,Speaker 1 (26:39):No,Speaker 2 (26:39):They see themselves as benefiting from or having favor from the plantation owner. They're either the overseer or the driver, or they're one of the family members or guests on the plantation. But no one's going to willingly choose a system that they don't benefit from. So they believe they will benefit from this, or they're willing to accept some treatment for the promise of prosperity. That's the other issue that we have. People see this. They see the world through an economic lens only. For me, I got to look at the world through a moral lens, an ethical lens. That's how I'm trained, but that's just how I've always been. Because if I look at it through an economic lens, I'll put up with anything, as long as you can put money in my pocket, you can call me the N word. If that's my, you can probably call me the N word. As long as you put money in my pocket, I'll tolerate it. And that's unfortunately how people see, again, when people talk about the economy, how many people understand economics,Speaker 1 (27:53):Honestly, whatSpeaker 2 (27:54):Percentage they do understand how much it's costing me to pay these groceries. What they don't understand is the why underneath all that, because I think they did one thing they could have done better. The Democrats is explain to people corporate greed. The cost of living is always going up. It may drop a little bit, but it's always doing this.Speaker 1 (28:29):But Phil, I would argue back with you that I don't think these people wanted to understand.Speaker 2 (28:35):You don't have to argue. I agree. ISpeaker 1 (28:38):Talked to some folks and I was like, dude, tariffs, your avocado's going to be $12. They mostly come from Mexico. How are you going to afford an avocado? And it's like, it didn'tSpeaker 2 (28:52):Matter. The golden calf.Speaker 1 (28:57):The golden calf, Elliot comes back. I mean, I want to work to make these people, in a sense, ignorant. I want to work to think of it like that, not because it benefits me, but maybe it does. To think that some people didn't vote with the ideas that we're talking about in mine, but they absolutely did.Speaker 2 (29:23):And I think you're dead on. It's a willingness or unwillingness to want to know. I'm just simply saying that many don't. You may see people interviewed on television or surveys, or even when you talk to people, I'm just simply saying they don't really understand. I got three degrees. I still need to read up and study and understand economics. That's not my field, right? So I'm still learning the nuances and complexities of that, but I'm a researcher by nature. Now most people aren't. So I'm just simply saying that they just don't know. They think they know, but they really don't. But a more accurate description of that is what you just said. Most people are unwilling to know. Because here's the thing, if you learn the truth about something or the facts about something, now you're forced to have to make a decision you might not want to make.Speaker 1 (30:28):Exactly. That's exactly right. Yep.Speaker 2 (30:35):It's like wanting to ban books and erase history and rewrite history. Because if you really did, to this day, whether I'm teaching or having conversations, I share basic stuff, stuff about history. And there's so many people that I never knew that, and I knew this stuff when I was a kid. I never knew that. What are we learning? Is everything stem.Speaker 1 (31:11):When Trump referenced the operation under Eisenhower Wetback, operation Wetback, I knew about that. I had researched it after high school in college, and I knew at that point, part of the success of that project was that they were able to deport citizens and stem the tide of, they didn't want them having more kids or reproducing, so they got rid of entire families. That was very intentional. That's purposeful. And so when they talk about deporting criminals, well, there just aren't that many criminals to deport. But for the Latino to understand that they would have to give up the idea that they could become adjacent to that power structure and benefit.Speaker 2 (32:12):Absolutely.Speaker 1 (32:14):YouSpeaker 2 (32:14):Have to give up something.Speaker 1 (32:15):You have to give up something. And so they traded in their grandma, literally, that's what's going to happen.Speaker 2 (32:27):And so now there's a connection between the golden calf and fear. So not only is he the idol, but he has the rhetoric to tap the fear, the anxiety. And when you've been in majority for a few hundred years now, the idea of no longer being the majority in the country scares a lot of people. It doesn't scare people of color. We don't really think about it because we've always been the minority. And I don't think one group is going to be the majority, maybe the Latino community because of immigration one day, maybe, probably not in my lifetime, but most of us are used to being in the minority that scares the dominant group, the white group. I've had conversations within the church years ago where this anxiety, not just with Latinos, but Muslims,Speaker 1 (33:41):Yep, MuslimsSpeaker 2 (33:42):As well. This fear that they're having so many more babies than we are, and how they try to pull people of color who are Americans into this by saying they're trying to have more babies than Americans. So now they want us to also have this fear of the other. So you got the idol who has the rhetoric to tap into the sentiments,Speaker 1 (34:13):Right? Yeah. Sorry, keep going. No,Speaker 2 (34:15):Go on. Go, go.Speaker 1 (34:17):Well, I mean, it just brings up the whole idea of when he said, the migrants are taking the black jobs. I was like, what jobs are these? And the intent is only to divide us.Speaker 2 (34:31):Yes. So I've had conversations with some African-Americans who I know are not, I know these people. These are just random people. They're not as in tune with politics. They're just kind of speaking the taglines that they heard. And I said, what jobs are they taking? And they can't answer that. But it's the same thing that happened 400 years ago almost. When they created the very terms white and black. There was this revolt among poor whites and poor and enslaved black people, particularly in Virginia. And I'm thinking of Bacon's Rebellion and how do you defeat that coalition? You divide them, you find a way to divide them. How's that? They came up with the term 1670s. They came up with the term white and black, and they had a range, I think it was somewhat white, almost white. White, somewhat black, almost black, black. But they had the termed white and black. And if you were of European descent, you could now be considered a white person. And with that came privileges, or as WEB, the voice would say the wages of whiteness, theSpeaker 1 (35:55):WagesSpeaker 2 (35:55):Of you could own property. And if you own a certain amount of property, you could vote. You could be a citizen. You had freedom of mobility. If you were black, you were meant to be enslaved in perpetuity. So now the poor whites, even though they did not benefit from slavery,Speaker 3 (36:20):BecauseSpeaker 2 (36:22):The free enslaved Africans took the opportunities from poor whites who were able to work the land and earn some type of money, but now you've got free labor. So slavery actually hurt them. And the hierarchy, it hurt them. Wealthy white folks did not look well upon for white people. But why were they so had such allegiance? Because they had this identity, this membership into whiteness. And at least they weren't on the bottom.Speaker 1 (37:04):At least they weren't on the bottom. That's right.Speaker 2 (37:07):And so the same tactic is happening here is find a way to divide black and brown, divide black and Palestinian divide, because you knew black women were going to vote 90 plus percent. I thought black men would be 80 plus percent. Turns out they were 78, 70 9%. I thought black men would've been a little bit higher than that, but you knew black folks were going to vote in mass. But you find a way to divide and separate others from that coalition.Speaker 1 (37:53):Yeah. Well, here we are, Phil. What gives you, and I know we could talk about this for a long time. What are you operating on right now? I know you said you're not going to wallow in the sadness at the very beginning, but what is your organizing moment? What is your faith compelling you to do in this moment? How do you see the coming year?Speaker 2 (38:19):I am doubling down on my voice being more direct, being more the truth teller. I never want to lose truth with grace. I don't want to become the thing I disdain, but it is through my writing that I'm now doubling down and able to publish and put out what I believe is truth. It's factually based evidence-based. Some may call controversial, some may not. I don't know. But that's where I put my energy because I have more energy now to do that since I graduated, so I can invest more time, whether it's working on my next book, project op-Eds articles in the next year. So that's what I'm hoping to write. I'm hoping to take a lot of what I learned in the last six years and put it out there for the world. So it is just motivating me even more, whether it's poetry, academic stuff, teaching, and I've already been doing some of that. I just have the energy now to engage more.Speaker 1 (39:54):And sadly, you have more material to work with.Speaker 2 (39:57):Yeah, yeah, that'sSpeaker 1 (39:59):True. It's happening in real time. Yeah,Speaker 2 (40:03):Real time.Speaker 1 (40:05):Well, how can folks get ahold of you if they want to invite you to be part of their group or to come speak orSpeaker 2 (40:12):Easiest would be phil allen jr.com. And they can go to, and you can email me through there, social media on Instagram, Phil Allen Jr. PhD, Facebook at Phil Allen Jr. Not the author page, the personal page. I'm still trying to delete the author page, but for whatever reason, Facebook makes it very difficult to delete your own page.Speaker 1 (40:42):They do,Speaker 2 (40:44):But Phil Allen Jr. My personal page is on Facebook. Those are only two social media platforms I have other than threads. Phil Allen, Jr. PhD on Instagram and Threads, Phil Allen Jr. On Facebook, Phil Allen jr.com, and those are the ways to reach me.Speaker 1 (41:04):How can folks get ahold of the writing you've already done in your research and read more about what we've been talking about? How can they get ahold of what you've already done?Speaker 2 (41:15):So my first two books, open Wounds and the Prophetic Lens, you can get 'em on Amazon, would love it if you could purchase a copy and after you've read, even if you read some of it and you felt led to leave a review, that helps. I'm currently revising my dissertation so that it's more accessible, so I'm changing, you get it, the academic language, that's not my true voice. So I'm trying to revise that so I can speak and sound more like me, which is more of a poetic voice. So I want to write in that sweet spot where it's still respected and used in academic spaces, but it's more accessible to people beyond academia who are interested in the subject matter. So that hopefully, I've been shopping it to publishers and I'm still shopping. So hopefully, if not next fall, hopefully by early 2026, that book can be published.Speaker 3 (42:21):Okay.Speaker 2 (42:24):The dissertation, you can go to ProQuest and you can type in my name Phil Allen Jr. You can type in the plantation complex.Speaker 3 (42:35):Okay.Speaker 2 (42:36):No, not the Plantation Complex America. The PlantationSpeaker 1 (42:41):America, the Plantation.Speaker 2 (42:43):That's the title. And it's on proquest.com. That's where dissertations are published. So right now, it may cost something to read it, to get ahold of it, but you can look for it there until we revise and rewrite and publish the book.Speaker 1 (43:01):I'm really looking forward to, I haven't read your dissertation, but I want to, and I'm really looking forward to reading that book that's coming out.Speaker 2 (43:09):Thank you. Yes. And my YouTube channel, I don't really talk much. You can just type in my name, Phil Allen, Jr. There's quite a few spoken word videos, some old sermons I on there as well.Speaker 1 (43:25):Okay. Thank you, Phil.Speaker 2 (43:29):Lemme stop. Thank you.Speaker 1 (43:32):Thank you for joining us today, and I'm just honored to be in conversation with folks that are on this journey. We are not alone. If you need other kinds of resources, please don't hesitate to look up in our notes, some of the resources we listed in previous episodes, and also take good care of your bodies. Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Trigger Warning: Proceed only if you are comfortable with potentially sensitive topics.This is not psychological advice, service, or prescriptive treatment for anxiety or depression. The content related to descriptions of depression, anxiety, or despair may be upsetting or triggering, but are clearly not exhaustive. If you should feel symptoms of depression and/or anxiety, please seek professional mental health services, or contact (in Kitsap County) Kitsap Mobile Crisis Team at  1-888-910-0416. The line is staffed by professionals who are trained to determine the level of crisis services needed. Depending on the need, this may include dispatching the KMHS Mobile Crisis Outreach Team for emergency assessment. Danielle  (00:26):Welcome to the Rise podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, and spirituality. This is a part two of our season five opener, which was review and recap of the past year, and also engaging some questions around humanity, the election, and how do we see our neighbor? We are going to be hearing from a couple of organizers who have been in my county, Kitsap County for more than a decade. You're going to hear some of their experiences, some of what they've gone through, as well as a few other folks who are giving their response to the questions we posed last week. I've been doing a lot of listening. This isn't an endorsement for any candidate. This isn't a psychological advice, and this isn't a prescription for how you should vote. Voting is a right. It's something we can participate in. It's a way to participate in our system.  A lot of folks are swinging wildly between two pendulums. There's the thought of my vote doesn't matter and I'm not going to vote, or I'm going to vote for X person as a protest vote. These are all of your rights. You have the right to do. So. I've been thinking a lot about change and what does change mean? How do we want to see change come about, and what does long-term change really look like? I can't speak from an electoral politics standpoint because I'm not an elected official and I don't plan to be anytime soon. I can speak as a person, a mother, a wife, a partner, a colleague, a friend, and a community member. And what I can say is people powered movements are what I have seen from the ground up, bring change in communities. This isn't unlike what happens in our bodies from a psychological experience in my own body. Change doesn't come from merely thinking about it. It comes from the ground up in my body. It comes from addressing the feelings, paying attention to my body, and becoming a more integrated person. I would challenge all of us to look around and what are the people powered movements for social change that we desire, and what are the ways our body is talking to us and how if we listen, will it inform us where we stand on many of these different issues?  This brings me to another sensitive topic. The topic of how we are feeling, how we are doing in the sociopolitical climate. We're living in these United States. I can say that for myself in my own experience, my anxiety is heightened overall and feelings that I can keep at bay with regular normal coping mechanisms such as exercise. It takes me a little bit more and I have to offer myself a lot more grace in the process. I encourage you no matter where you are, to engage these topics with grace towards your own self, towards your neighbor, towards your family, and towards whoever's in your proximity. We won't get things done overnight. That's not how change works. Change is a process. It is for us as individuals, and it is for us as a collective society. So hang in there. If you need help, get the help you need.  Maybe it's a mental health counselor, maybe it's a spiritual advisor. Maybe it's your pastor, maybe it's your friend. Maybe it's someone in your community that you look up to, like a mentor, or maybe you just need to sit down with your friends and have a good old fashioned dinner and drinks and put your phones away. Whatever the help you need is, it's important that you seek out that help and that support. The goal isn't to be perfect. It isn't to be fixed. The goal is to be in our process and getting what we need so each day we can show up for ourselves and those in our community. We're going to jump into the conversation and voices from across the country. We are all different and we're not meant to be the same. I hope you find pieces of you in each of their stories.  Speaker 2 (04:37):Hi, this is Raquel Jarek and I'm coming to you from Bloomington, Minnesota, which is a suburb in the Minneapolis area. I teach astronomy for work to college students in downtown Minneapolis and am an aerospace engineer and was raised in a very Christian home. And I'm still a practicing Christian in many ways, and I make space for people with different political views in all kinds of moments in my life. I do it at my work with students because I have a variety of people in my classes. I'm actually challenging them to vote and to even investigate the two major political candidates for president on what they view of science and space and how they would support NASA or space exploration. And I get to know my students pretty well in person, especially not as much with my online students, but I want to make space and have a comfortable room where people can share a little bit of how they feel, but also not be offensive to people with a variety of opinions in the room.  Speaker 2 (05:44):And then there's a variety of opinions in my family on my side of the family and my in-laws and which candidates they support and which parties they affiliate with. I want to be a person who is about supporting different opinions and being able to be loving and welcoming to anyone in any opinion. And sometimes that can be difficult when people have conflicting views in the room. I think you might need to keep the conversation more surface level and fun and in smaller conversations maybe you can dive into what they think more. But that can be really challenging to go deep with people who are very opposite opinions. At the same time, I like to have challenging conversations about politics and religion, and I think being open to those conversations whenever those topics come up is good. And then also just remember to be kind. And I think that's definitely easier to do in person than online or in a social media space, but that face-to-face contact does bring out more humanity and more kindness in people. So I hope that helps and that people can make more time and space to treat others kindly and hear opinions. Thanks.  Danielle (07:04):What were you going to say about the election?  Sarah  (07:08):Oh, I'm just feeling stressed about how close this election is. And it's just sort of extraordinary to me that given the many, many flaws in the Trump offering that people would still vote for him, that he's clearly mentally impaired and authoritarian, happy with dictators, mean-spirited and more of a mafia boss than a presidential candidate. And it's just extraordinary to me that, and I've always known people like that existed. It's just extraordinary to me that so many people would be planning to vote for him. So I am feeling a little stressed this morning,  Speaker 1 (07:55):Pam, I saw you nod your head.  Speaker 4 (07:58):Oh, I agree with everything that Sarah said. I have the same I deep, deep apprehensions and anxiety, and I think we're living in a landscape of anxiety just on the edge of a nation that at least half of it wants to go over that edge and pull the other half down with them. And it's really frightening. It's real. And I think I'm also frightened by people who are putting their heads in the sand. That's their response either out of just inconvenience or their terror response. So we're in a situation,  Speaker 1 (09:04):I agree. I feel that. I feel it come out in so many different ways. So for instance, as a licensed mental health therapist, something gets said like it was this last week where the former president is at a rally comments on anatomy. It gets blasted across the airwaves. And then what I notice that happens across my workspace is that people are triggered in their family relationships. They're triggered in with community. They're on heightened alert with a neighbor. I noticed this is last week we had two different really random requests. One was to adjust our fence because of the view. And if you know my yard, I live way out in the country, no one's looking. The second thing that happened to us was like, your car is parked at an odd angle sort of thing. So can we switch it around? I wasn't home. I got the message. And immediately when the message popped up, I felt so much anxiety and I was trying to talk myself off the ledge. I'm like, you can move this car, Danielle, when you go home, you can move this. This is fixable. You can come back from this. But the way I understand it is there's all my cup of navigating anxiety and uncertainties already up to here. So if my car's crooked somewhere, I'm freaking out.  Speaker 4 (10:44):I think that's happening all over the place. I mean, we saw an example yesterday afternoon with that involved pizza and chicken and people being much deeper issues and wounds being triggered by that, and we just have to take care of each other. I think we really, my priority is number one for the foreseeable future is public safety and how do we take care of each other when a lot of us can't call the people in the system that are supposed to give us support when they're not there, or they are part of what is creating problems and cruelty and insensitivity. So I mean, that's the only thing that's on my mind right now is public safety.  Speaker 1 (12:16):Sarah, thank you, Pam. Sarah, what comes to mind? We're kind of discussing the nature of political dialogue in our current climate. What do you see at stake if we do not vote?  Speaker 3 (12:31):Yeah, so that's what I've been thinking a lot about because I know there's a lot of people feeling that as a principled matter, they don't want to participate in voting, especially when the Biden administration has not been taking the ethical stand. We would like them to take on Gaza, for example. That's kind of a particularly heightened one, and it's really hard to feel like by voting somehow you're participating, you're condoning genocide. So I really get that and struggle with that myself. And here's where I come down is that I don't feel like any presidential candidate since I've started voting, which was a very long time ago, that any presidential candidate, except for when McGovern was voting, was running to get us out of Vietnam War, that there's been a presidential candidate that I was voting for with enthusiasm, we vote strategically. And that's one of the things the working family party is so good at.  Speaker 3 (13:35):They say we're voting strategically. We're voting to build power so that we as a movement can get things done. That doesn't mean the person who's running for president or any other office is our leader. We're not getting behind them as like, okay, all our loyalty is to this individual. We're voting strategically because this person in office is more likely to, number one, give us the space to build a social movement that can actually build power. And number two, to be swayed by the social movement to care when people show up and protest and people gone strike. And when people's movements do what they do so well, they care enough to then be willing to change policies. And so that's the way I feel about it. I don't feel like we have to believe that Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz are the people that we believe are the most, are everything we would hope for.  Speaker 3 (14:33):We just have to say, will this person allow social movements that care about poor people, that care about immigrants, they care about the environment, will they allow those social movements to progress? And we desperately need that progress. And on the other hand, if we end up with somebody like Trump, I mean, I think part of the appeal of Trump in the beginning, I mean when he ran the first time around, I think the appeal for a lot of people was they were just so angry at the system as it is that voting for Trump was throwing a bomb into the middle of government and seeing what landed because they didn't want to continue the status quo. And that felt more satisfying. Well, we kind of know what that looked like. We know who got hurt there. And we know also that this time around he has less to lose.  Speaker 3 (15:25):He doesn't have another term to run for, so he doesn't have to placate anybody. There is no group of people that he has to be concerned about except for the people who give him money and give him power. And so that's what the entire government will be oriented around is giving Donald Trump lots of flattery, lots of power and lots of money. And we know what that looks like in Russia because that's kind of what happened when the Berlin wall fell, is that they kind of sold off the whole government to a bunch of rich people, and it became just thoroughly corrupt. It's not like we don't have corruption now we do, but just wait until the whole government is privatized and Elon Musk owns this chunk and Peter tha owns this chunk, and it's like the rest of you, we don't care because we've got AI to do your job. Anyway,  Speaker 1 (16:24):Pam, thoughts or response?  Speaker 4 (16:28):Yeah, no, I think all of that is right on. We sort of can oscillate between the most local level, the national level, and global politics. So we're part of a very extraordinary zeitgeist of authoritarianism popping up in multiple countries. And I heard a podcast a week or so ago talking about authoritarianism in other countries, and they pointed out, and especially in Europe, that there very, very forceful, very strong, very loud, very visible, but they are not the majority in those countries. And I think because we see and hear more about authoritarianism on a daily basis and the ratcheting up of the horrible violent rhetoric that we can easily feel like we are the minority. And I don't know that we're a big majority. And I think that there's a lot of qualifications to what constitutes authoritarianism because it is not that it's not here already. When we talk about voting for democracy, this is about losing our democracy. Well, that's a very relative term. I mean, the country was not founded democratically, this country was taken. I think that's why we have such a hard time dealing with Palestine. If we have to acknowledge colonization and genocide and all of the injustices there, we might have to then look at our own situation and history. So I mean, again, it just travels back and forth between the different levels. And here in sbo, hobo is proud of its colonization and it's just terrified of losing a grip. So I think we are in an identity crisis. You can't imagine.  Speaker 3 (19:28):Yeah, I think that's right. And I think a lot of that identity, I think a lot of it is where racism really flowers is people are afraid that they lose their privilege and entitlement of being white, and then they're willing to listen to and be convinced by really horrible racist ideas. And I think part of that is also this crisis of a sense of belonging that people have been, the social institutions that used to keep us connected have withered away in so many different ways. And then during Covid, we were so isolated, and then people just got this, it's a psychological trauma of a kind to be that isolated. And so without a sense of belonging, instead of turning to one another and saying, let's figure out how we rebuild our community in ways that are real and authentic and empowering, people are turning against each other because that's sort of the reptilian brain taking over and saying fight or flight, and I'm going to fight these other, and that's going to give me a sense of belonging because then I'll be part of this little group that all is fighting against the other. So I do feel like it's an incredibly dangerous time. And I also feel like at a local level, there are solutions that are about building that sense of belonging that are within our reach.  Speaker 1 (21:12):Yeah, one thing I think from a psychological perspective is often we're like toddlers or babies. We do this process of, we do split a split, what's good, what's bad? And we're dependent on a caregiver to make meaning of the world for us so we can understand those splits and we can become hopefully an integrated adult that's able to manage the good and the bad feelings. And I think an more general term, which it's going to shortcut some understanding here, it's far more nuanced than what I'm saying, but we have a collective split. And in that collective split, for instance, when a toddler can't get their bad feelings out, if you've ever seen a toddler rage, they rage about a candy wrapper, they rage about, I can't get it. X. And what does that toddler need? Yes, they need the physical containment, the love and the care and support. They need boundaries.  Speaker 1 (22:20):Then they need a parent to talk to them, even if they can't understand it either through touch or interaction or play or verbally to make sense of why they had those big feelings to normalize the big feelings. So the toddler can say, oh, I'm not weird because I had these big feelings and here's where I can put them. Here's how I can process them. And in a sense, Trump I think has capitalized on the splitting of our collective conscious. And he said, you have bad feelings and let's put 'em over here. Let's find someone to blame. So this becomes, let's externalize our bad feelings about maybe what we're coming to realize. It gets centered around a critical race theory or it gets centered around Haitian immigrants. Let's put all of our bad feelings, the things we haven't been taught to metabolize as a society and let's throw 'em over here into these people.  Speaker 1 (23:19):And because there's a lot of folks that are listening to this rhetoric, it feels good not to have to deal with our own bad feelings about ourselves. I'm just going to be honest. When I feel shame about myself, I feel horrible. I do not like that. And sometimes I deal with it well, and sometimes I don't. But I depend on other figures in my life to bring that shame to them and say like, oh, what do I do about this? I feel bad. And how do I make amends? Or maybe I can't make amends. And if you can't make amends, you also have to deal with that. So I think these authoritarians capitalize on the psychological collective consciousness of a society that doesn't often know what to do with the bad feelings. Think about Germany, think about Israel, think about, I'm trying to think about what we've done in Mexico and South America with corporations, and now all of a sudden people migrating north.  Speaker 1 (24:24):Now they're bad. So what do we do with that construction of consciousness? And I agree, Sarah, really the only way to take a piece of that elephant is to start with your friend or your neighbor and to vote for people that seem to have more space for us to organize or to continue to make meaning with our neighbor that may be very aggressive and hostile to us. I mean, the mistake is on the other side, if I vote for this radical person, they're going to eliminate that bad neighbor somehow because they're not actually trying to convert the person they think is bad. They're trying to get rid of them, expel them permanently. And what I think I'm looking for is something, what SMA talks about, resum is where do we, and I think what you guys are saying is where's that space where we may know we don't like someone, but where there's actually space to figure it out. And with an authoritarian, there's never going to be that space. They're dependent on the hate.  Speaker 4 (25:32):That's right. Go ahead, Pam. And then people want to think that if Trump just doesn't get elected, we'll be okay. We will have dodged the literal bullet in many cases. But that's not true because like you're saying, Danielle, it's the divestment of our own intolerable parts. For whatever reason, they are intolerable to us onto the others, and our system is constructed such that we have to have others. Capitalism has to have others, we have to have racism. That's what makes it work so well for the people that it works well for. I think we need a national intervention, and I think that's what we're going toward in a dark sense.  Speaker 4 (26:49):But I would hope that we could start to get ourselves moving toward a national intervention and within a more positive framework. And how do we do that? How do we do that? You're talking about the hyper-local level and with neighbors and family. And at this point, I mean, some of our neighbors want to kill us, and that's not being hyperbolic. And we know that those sentiments are out there, but the sort of signs are being flashed everywhere to intimidate others rather than to put down those weapons, whatever form they take and sit down together to find some commonalities to just bring the temperature down. Right now, so many other people have been very alienated from numerous family members over these issues and can't not bring the issue of guns into this conversation because the weaponization of our society is a huge factor. I think it's a huge factor in why many politicians, political leaders don't step up more. I think it's why they don't confront the atrocities that are happening in front of us, whether it's in other countries or it's in our own backyard. I think the arming of America has really deformed our national character, and I think that's a large part of this identity crisis.  Speaker 3 (29:11):So yeah, I think what you said earlier about this being that the authoritarian, the group that really approves of that is a minority. And even when Trump won in 2016, he won by a minority of the popular vote. And we know the electoral college system is to blame there, but we are pretty clear that he doesn't have a majority and he still may win, but he doesn't have a majority. So I think it's really important to remember that there are the violent folks who are really in favor and really relish the idea of violence, but they are a relatively small minority way more than I would've hoped, but still. So then I think a lot of our challenge is how do we work with the people that are still in the middle? And I don't mean that they don't have opinions, it's that they are struggling with the nuances.  Speaker 3 (30:08):And I think there are a lot of those people, even though they're kind of hidden from the media, but they're struggling with the nuances, they're not sure who to vote for or whether to vote. And one of the things I keep seeing is Kamala Harris and other people asking for money, which I don't understand, they raise so much money already. And what I wish Kamala Harris would ask for is, I wish you would ask us for our vote, and I wish you would ask us to talk to somebody in our family or in our friendship circle who is struggling with knowing whether to vote or not or who to vote for and ask them for their vote. And I'm not talking about uncle, so-and-so who's clearly going to vote for Trump? What I'm talking about is the person who says, well, my vote doesn't matter. Or the person who says, I can't bring myself to vote for a candidate who hasn't stood up to what's going on in Gaza. And those are things that I sympathize with. I think there are people who have intelligence and real concern who are expressing those things. One of the things I just heard about is I don't, if you remember a while, a few elections back, there was a swap the vote thing going on where you could talk to somebody in a swing state  Speaker 3 (31:35):And say, Hey, I'll vote for a third party candidate, Jill Stein or Cornell West if you'll vote, given that you're in the swing state and your vote's going to really make a difference if you'll vote for Kamala Harris. So I'm getting ready to do that. I'm going to see if I can find one of my friends at Michigan who is struggling with that question around Gaza because I struggle with it too. And I think that Kamala Harris has shown she actually cares, even though we're not getting the kind of position we would like, I think she actually does care about human beings. I don't see any evidence of that from Trump. So I think we're better off if she wins in Gaza, we're better off with Gaza, and then we can continue our organizing work. So much of our work is really not about the elections.  Speaker 3 (32:27):It's about building the power of ordinary people through social movements. And that's what we need to be about. And that's also, I think the part besides the crisis of the other part of the crisis we're in is this crisis of inequality and hopelessness in a sense that no matter what I do, if I'm a young person, I may never be able to buy a house, or I may never be able to have children because I can't afford daycare. I mean, the death that people and people in the media, often the Democratic party often describe this as inflation and say, well, inflation is so much better, and therefore, why aren't you guys happy? It's like, well, I still can't afford a place to live. Why should I be happy? They're kind of not getting that. So the whole way our economy is functioning to pour huge amounts of money into the military industrial complex and into a whole new generation of nuclear weapons, and to allow the wealth to trickle up, not just trickle, but flow up to the top tiniest percentage and the rest of people to be struggling.  Speaker 3 (33:36):That whole way of organizing the economy I think is really important to remember how popular Bernie Sanders was when he was willing to call that out. And I think the Democratic Party was not having it. They kept him from actually winning the nomination, but he won enormous amounts of support. And some of those people were people that then turned around and voted for Trump. They wanted an outsider who was going to shake things up. I think we have to be ready to shake things up in terms of the economy in a way that's inclusive, that says we can have an economy that includes everyone, where everybody has an opportunity and not, we could have a better economy by deporting massive numbers of people. I think when you can have a political message, that's also an inclusive message and also a message of belonging, I think that's where we have an opportunity to actually combat this authoritarian bent.  Speaker 4 (34:36):I would add that we need more than messaging. We need action because the Democratic Party has been very good at messaging, inclusivity, the big tent, economic equity, healthcare. But then we look at what happens. And Sarah, you and I have been in this for decades, and we make just enough progress to keep the populace from exploding. I mean, one of the best educations, best parts of my political education was taking the training with cell deaf. Do you know them? Community Environmental Defense Fund? Yeah. Oh my God. So every election cycle, we hear the same songs. The Republicans say, well, we need to get the government out of our lives. We need to deregulate. We don't need these people. The government telling us what to do. We need to tell the government what to do. And then we hear the Democrats saying, yes, we need to make things equal and better for everybody, and we will be your guardians.  Speaker 4 (36:23):And over these decades, we have seen some progress, but really not enough. I mean, when you're talking about Bernie Sanders, I'm thinking about when I was a delegate in Philadelphia, a national delegate at the Democratic Convention. And the last night of the convention, which was when Hillary was being, oh, she'd already been nominated but finalized, and I was the whip for the Sanders delegates in the Washington state contingent. And they sent being the Democratic Committee, national Committee, they put a detail of seven plain clothes. I've got pictures and everything of this plain clothes, secret service, FBIA, and then the local law enforcement figures armed to encircle me. We had delegates from other Bernie delegates from other states who were also organized to express our democratic voices. But I think our faith in the system really needs a deep examination, and we need other parties. And the electoral college is its own thing, but this identity crisis has so many dimensions to it that the work that we have in front of us is very broad. And I'm not sure that the public in general understands that. I think they think it's about electing someone, putting them there, and then back to business as usual. And we can't go on like this. So in a way, even though it's so painful, it's so frightening, and it's so awful. I we're at a turning point, and that's a good thing. Unfortunately it doesn't feel very good,  Speaker 4 (39:04):But we have to do it right.  Speaker 3 (39:12):Danielle, I can jump in, but I was, I'm curious about what you think.  Speaker 1 (39:15):Well, I think it brings back to what I was asking you all about how do we see change happening in our society, both long-term and short term? And which leads me back to hearing Resum talk last year and then reading and listening to his books and some of his just Instagram reels and him talking about we got here over 400 years, and it really didn't start then either. It started with disgruntled folks over in Europe thinking the best way to do something about that was to go live in another place and then conquer that place. So it started centuries before this. And wait, how long have we been out of Jim Crow? Can anybody tell me how many years technically zero. I mean, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1950, what was it,  Speaker 3 (40:23):1967 I think, or 68. Okay.  Speaker 1 (40:28):I mean, just put that in context. You got four centuries and you got whatever drove those people to come here, grew up thinking these guys were the puritan citizens of the world that were looking for a new place. I really wasn't the case. So you got all of that, you honor, you immortalize Christopher Columbus who wrote prolifically and told stories prolifically about murder and rape and state sanctioned violence that set the tone. And this is a man we immortalized. So when I think about long-term, and I think about SMA talking about, he talks about each of us taking, when we begin to make a shift in our family, it being five generations out till that shift is maybe completed. So on some level, that makes me think we're all effed and on the other level, someone has to start it. We have to get going. And that's what I hear you all saying, like, okay, we have this huge dilemma. We are here, and I agree Sarah and Pam voting for the president. Again, you can get caught in that realm. If you vote for Trump, he's your savior. If you vote for Kamala, she's going to save us. Well, she's not going to save us.  Speaker 1 (42:05):Jill Stein can't save us, Cornell West, and I hope one of them are thinking they can, the alternatives to Trump. I fear maybe that narcissism is so deep that maybe there is some thought of that, but our people's movements, the things we do on our block and our street matter the most, and those have the potential to make long-term effects for my kids and short-term interventions, look at what happened in the school district here. I mean, they've gone back to using common threads and other things as a foundation because of what was set decades. Was that like two decades ago? Three decades? Two, yeah, two decades. But there is a sense that when you have someone severely corrupt and empowered and dictating tone, you literally can't get anywhere,  Speaker 3 (43:05):Right? Well, I think the time horizon question is really important. We do have hundreds of years of this history. We should remember that some of the people who came over came over because they were fleeing horrific conditions. I mean, you think about the Irish people who were trying to escape a famine, and you think about Jewish people trying to get away from pilgrims. I mean, it wasn't that everybody who came over to the US came over here because they thought they could kill a bunch of native people and therefore have a good life. I don't think that was the intent. What they did when they came over here varies tremendously. So I just think we want to keep the nuance in the story because part of the reason is because that's part of what we have to build on, is that today's refugees are not that different in many cases from the people who are escaping the Irish potato famine.  Speaker 3 (44:09):They're people who are suffering and looking for a way to survive and raise their families and work hard. And so we have that part of our story to build on too. So that's just one part. A second thing is that I think our social movements in the United States have gotten kind of swallowed up by the nonprofit industrial. We've thought we could get the changes we need and alleviate suffering by service providing within the current system. And part of the reason that that has been dominant within the nonprofit sector is because where the funding comes from, funding comes from very wealthy individuals and companies, not in all cases, but in a lot of cases want to or are willing to alleviate suffering, but they want to make sure the system stays intact, the system that continues to distribute wealth and power to a small sector of the population. Well, a social movement that is hobbled by having to stay within the existing mindset and the existing system can't be, can't take on the fundamental challenge of inequality and of extractive capitalism because it's too tied into it.  Speaker 3 (45:37):So social movements have got to become independent. And there are good examples out there. I've mentioned the working families party before. I'm not a member of it, but I'm a big admirer because they insist on independent power based on their membership. They will help a Democrat, for example, get elected, but then they'll hold that person accountable to their agenda and say, these are the things we will only endorse you if you do these, if you commit to these things, then they'll go out and work for 'em and help 'em get elected, and then they'll come back and say, did you do those things? And they'll check their record. So they're building a form of independent power. They're not the only one, but they're a good example of how, instead of just saying, okay, democratic Party will come out and we'll vote for your candidate. I mean voting, I think we should all vote. I think we should all vote. I think honestly, that we should vote to keep Trump out of power. And that means voting strategically, and that means voting for Harris.  Speaker 3 (46:34):But that doesn't have to be the focus of our work. The focus of our work should be on building independent power that then holds the candidates accountable to us and does a bunch more in terms of building power. But that's just one of the ways that we need to be building power, is by having the wherewithal to be able to hold candidates accountable to our agenda. I mean, one of the things I used to do when I was at Yes magazine is around election season, we would put together a people's agenda. And this was an agenda of what do ordinary people want? And we figured that out, not just by what we wanted, but what the polls were seeing. And we could find things like a majority of large majority of Americans wanted nationalized healthcare. There was a poll that actually asked them that, and it was way over 50%. Neither democratic nor Republican parties were willing to talk about that. And before Obamacare, when they were working under Clinton on healthcare reform, they excluded any of the single payer advocates from the room. They wouldn't even let them be in the conversation. So one thing after another or that people want reasonable gun control laws, they want reproductive freedoms. They want us to convert energy from fossil fuels to renewables. They wanted that for decades. I can tell you, I was doing this work 20 years ago and the polling numbers showed it. So we need to do more to say this is a people's agenda. This is a people's agenda locally who can represent us and carry this forward and statewide and nationally. This is what we, the people want,  Speaker 1 (48:23):Pam.  Speaker 4 (48:26):Yeah, and we need imagination. I think we're so conditioned to accept systems and there's structures that our default is just, oh, whatever that system says, this is how we do things. And Sarah's talking about movements that are outside largely of those systems, at least in terms of analyzing what works for us and what works against us. And of course, we can't be just isolated satellites. We exist within these systems. So it's the nuanced little travels back and forth. I think that will, well, we've seen it. I mean, take the school district. That was an enormous breakthrough. Huge. Huge. It works. Some of the tactics involved a lot of imagination.  Speaker 1 (49:56):Yeah, I was going to say that. I said, I think we have to realize and understand, I think you're naming this, that people are vastly ambivalent. And so both in the way we think, and I think the way our trauma has hit us as a society and personally, and so I think a lot of us want to engage new forms of organizing or being together as a community. And I think a lot of times at the same time, people aren't ready to do so. There's some comfort in doing it the old way. So I just think we're up against, we have to realize that we're in this complex social movement where we're both invited to understand and know where we came from. And like Sarah, you pointed out the nuance of how we got here. It's not just one story or the other story, but we're also comfortable, I think on both sides of the coin, whether you're liberal or conservative, there's a similarity and you're comfortable and holding that type binary.  Speaker 3 (51:06):You're comfortable, but you're also afraid, right? I mean, we get into the reptilian mindset because we feel so under attack, and then we go into our more simple way of thinking. And I think the other side that we need to be doing our best to work on is to soothe our own alarm and fear by supporting one another, but then by opening that up so that more and more people can have that sense of possibility and belonging and joy and celebration and all the things that can happen at a community level that start calming people's anxiety and giving them a sense of hope and giving them the sense that we as a community have possibilities and can exercise our imaginative power and can make things different because we actually can when we're together in a way that we really can't on our own.  Speaker 1 (52:07):Pam, now that we solve that problem,  Speaker 3 (52:17):Yay, let's go and vote.  Speaker 1 (52:24):I didn't. I mean, I think the temptation is to try to wrap it up, but we just can't, to be honest. This is a conversation that hopefully not just for a podcast, but hopefully it's ongoing with people in our actual proximity.  Speaker 4 (52:42):Well, for one thing, the election isn't going to be decided on November the fifth. I mean, this is probably going to be the longest election ever, at least in this country. So I think it's important to have our communities know that we are paying attention and we are present especially, I mean, did you see the day that, I think it was a couple days ago when Trump gave that rally and made all of those disgusting remarks about Arnold Palmer and so forth? The thing that I think really fueled him for that was that just before that rally, 49 of 67 county sheriffs in Pennsylvania met with him to endorse the Trump presidency. And so when we put that together with things like the pre-positioned fake electors and all of the mechanics that go into our electoral process, I think it's going to be a while. Until this is settled, the outcome is settled, and I think it's important for us to have a presence based in peace and non-violence and tolerance. And I think it's really going to test us.  Speaker 3 (54:52):I agree with you. I think it's going to be really tough in the swing states. I mean, luckily for Washington, I think we'll probably be less in the crosshairs, but I do agree it's going to be really tough. And four years ago, I was on the board of Free Speech tv. I'm still on the board, but I was doing a bunch of research for them to find local people in each of the swing states that they could interview to find out what was going on on the ground. Because I just felt like anybody who thinks that Trump is going to give way to peacefully to a victory on the other side is kidding themselves. He's made clear. He made clear then. But he really is made clear now, and I think because of January 6th, there's more awareness now that we really have to have some safeguards in place. I don't know that they're in place, but there's more awareness of that. So yeah, I think it's a really frightening prospect. And I agree with you, Pam, that being ready to hold each other up is going to be really important.  Speaker 5 (56:05):I feel like it's really hard not to villainize the people I come in contact with who vote the other way. The tension is really hard to hold. How do I take a strong stance for what I believe in without hating the people around me who disagree, especially if they hold contempt for me? And what I think a few months ago on a local neighborhood Facebook group, someone posted, she was asking a question of where she could get a yard sign for what's the non-majority party here? The post caught my eye and I debated whether I should check it out to see the 50 plus comments. But ultimately, my curiosity won and I scrolled through them to see insole after insole hurled at this woman, her gender, her intelligence, and even her spirituality all came under attack, all because she asked the question. Others told her she should have known better than to bring it up in the first place.  Speaker 5 (57:00):I have to confess, I thought the same thing. There have been moments I've considered putting a sign up in my own yard again for the party that is not the majority here, but when I consider the community challenges I've faced over the last few years, I shy away from doing it. I don't know if I could handle any more loss of community. I need people in my life. We all do. And there's not only the risk of losing potential neighborhood friends, there's also the risk of losing family. Last week as I pulled around to the back of my parents' home, the home where I grew up, I noticed a yard sign for the candidate I do not support, almost as if it was there just for me to see in a family that loves to talk about politics, as long as you agree, I am no longer invited, or do I desire to be a part of the conversations.  Speaker 5 (57:49):But the sign in the backyard, which couldn't be seen from the road was placed there only for family to see. It's a statement, a line in the sand. I tell my kids as they ask questions about the fact that me and their grandparents disagree that it's one of the greatest, most beautiful things about our country, that we get to have our own opinion on who we want to vote for, and that it's okay to disagree that we can love people who think differently than we do. I should probably also tell them at some point that sometimes that's really hard to do. It's hard for me to breathe and ground when the hair stands up on the back of my neck and I feel my fist clench when men at the kitchen and my office building laugh and told lies about the candidate I support knowing where I stand. It's hard to stay calm when my middle aged client throws out her party's buzzwords to test me, but I try to remember her humanity. I try to remember that her views are built by reporting that is insulated and circular, and that she's being told that she should be really afraid, and she is. And fear can make any of us want to fight. We're all only human.  Danielle (59:05):Thank you for listening to this episode of The Arise Podcast, conversations on Faith, race, justice, gender in the Church. I want to thank all of our contributors. They've done this as volunteers. I'm a volunteer. This has got started off all volunteer work and so appreciative of those who have joined our podcast. Please download, please subscribe, and please remember that we are part of the human race and to treat each other with kindness and respect.   Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

El artista plástico Cristóbal Gabarrón lidera el proyecto "Ámbito Tres Culturas", en el que refleja la multiculturalidad de Murcia. Será el 16 de noviembre en el Castillejo de Monteagudo y se hace tras el último proyecto de recuperación del lugar.El recinto interior del Palacio del Rey Lobo acoge por primera vez una iniciativa cultural, en la que Murcia se convierte en una de las ciudades de un evento internacional que ya se ha hecho en otros países, como India, Egipto o China. En él, artistas de distintos ámbitos, como la pintura, la música o la poesía, se unen y hacen un proyecto que quedará reflejado en un documental. Eso sí, las actuaciones de todos los artistas deben ser improvisadas.Cristóbal Gabarrón habla de las tres culturas en un contexto internacional complejo. Nos decía que tras hacer estos eventos, y con lo que está pasando en el mundo, ha visto que los humanos no somos tan distintos.El proyecto terminará en Melbourne. Posteriormente, se hará un documental y todo el material artístico realizado está previsto que se presente en la Bienal de Venecia. El evento se hace junto a la Fundación Gabarrón. Es un momento muy importante porque coincide con la finalización de uno de los proyectos de restauración del Palacio a las Fortalezas del Rey Lobo, según han explicado José Ballesta, alcalde de Murcia, y Marco Antonio Fernández, concejal de Pedanías y Vertebración del Territorio del Ayuntamiento de Murcia.

Marco Antonio Fernández, concejal de Pedanías y Vertebración Territorial de Murcia del Ayuntamiento de Murcia, explica otros proyectos que tienen previsto hacer desde el Consistorio.

Os contamos el último día de mercado para el Valencia con la salida de Castillejo, la llegada de Barrenechea o la cesión de Alberto Marí. Hacemos la previa del duelo ante el Villarreal con Xavi Mata, escuchamos a De la Fuente tras citar a Pepelu para la absoluta, charlamos con Vicente Iborra y cerramos con la útima hora del Levante.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Santi Castillejo y su séptima temporada al frente de Osasuna Promesas ante el inicio de la liga en Primera Rfef de este sábado en Tajonar

Santi Castillejo y su séptima temporada al frente de Osasuna Promesas ante el inicio de la liga en Primera Rfef de este sábado en Tajonar

Este sábado se celebra una visita guiada dirigida por el director de las investigaciones, arqueólogo y profesor de la Universidad Complutense, Luis Benítez de Lugo 

Santi Castillejo y su futuro en Osasuna tras lograr la permanencia del Promesas una tempora más en Primera Rfef

Santi Castillejo y su futuro en Osasuna tras lograr la permanencia del Promesas una tempora más en Primera Rfef

The Getting2U (G2U) crew get the chat with Adam Castillejo, also known as The London Patient. Adam was the second person in the world to be cured by HIV through receiving a bone-marrow transplant to combat against his Leukemia. The team sets the tone for the episode with a brief talk about “safe spaces” and … Read More Read More

Marco Antonio Fernández, concejal de Pedanías y Vertebración Territorial del Ayuntamiento de Murcia, explica que este jueves tiene lugar la jornada del proyecto de restauración y conservación del recinto inferior del palacio de Ibn Mardanis, Castillejo de Monteagudo. Tiene lugar en el salón de actos del edificio Moneo a partir de las 17.30 horas.

In this episode of Going anti-Viral, host Dr Michael Saag interviews Adam Castillejo, known as the London patient, who is the second person to have been cured of HIV infection. The discussion, recorded on March 3, 2024, at The Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), touches on Adam's initial HIV diagnosis in London during the early 2000s, the societal stigma and personal impact of the diagnosis, and his dual battle with HIV and cancer. Adam shares the complex journey of his treatment, including the failure of initial interventions and the ultimate success of a bone marrow transplant from a donor with a CCR5 delta 32 mutation, leading to his cure of HIV and cancer. The conversation delves into the technical aspects of bone marrow transplant, the emotional and physical challenges Adam faced during recovery, and the continued stigma he experiences even post-cure. The episode reflects on the broader implications of Adam's story for HIV research and societal perceptions of the disease.00:00 Introduction01:10 Adam's Early Struggle with HIV Diagnosis02:46 Confronting Stigma and Finding Support05:26 The Battle Against Cancer and Mental Health Challenges08:35 The Turning Point: Bone Marrow Transplant15:14 The Journey of Recovery17:29 Life After the Cure22:37 Concluding Thoughts__________________________________________________Produced by IAS-USA, Going anti–Viral is a podcast for clinicians involved in research and care in HIV, its complications, and other viral infections. This podcast is intended as a technical source of information for specialists in this field, but anyone listening will enjoy learning more about the state of modern medicine around viral infections. Going anti-Viral's host is Dr Michael Saag, a physician, prominent HIV researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and volunteer IAS–USA board member. In most episodes, Dr Saag interviews an expert in infectious diseases or emerging pandemics about their area of specialty and current developments in the field. Other episodes are drawn from the IAS–USA vast catalogue of panel discussions, Dialogues, and other audio from various meetings and conferences. Email podcast@iasusa.org to send feedback, show suggestions, or questions to be answered on a later episode.Follow Going anti-Viral on: Apple Podcasts YouTube InstagramTikTok...

Jaime Ugarte repasa junto a Jorge Lera los 25 años del campeonato de Europa de Javier Castillejo

CONOCE TribUX

Charla / Entrevista #14 en nuestro canal de Twitch a Carles Castillejo (@C_Castillejo), ex-atleta olímpico de 5.000, 10.000 y maratón a la par que entrenador para que nos hable con algo de idea de que es correr con los mejores del mundo y cómo es entrenar a atletas de élite y a populares. #SENDPRIMES https://www.twitch.tv/tiradalarga También puedes seguirnos en twitter @tirada_larga e Instagram @Tirada_Larga_Podcast y si tienes una historia sobre correr sin tener ni idea puedes compartirla enviando un audio (cortito) o texto al e-mail tiradalargapodcast@gmail.com Tirada Larga es un podcast de running con cosas presentado por Angel (@Contadordekm) y Victor (@Premarathon) que puedes escuchar todos los sábados (si no rompemos algo) en tu plataforma de podcasts favorita: Spotify , Apple Podcast, Ivoox, Amazon Music, Podimo, Google Podcast o Youtube (entrevistas). Los presentadores: Angel https://www.instagram.com/contadordekm/ Victor https://www.instagram.com/premarathon/ Intro musical: krackatoa - Noahs Stark

Un Podcast Para Nadie, creado por Psicología Para Nadie. Conducido por Gabriela Rodríguez de Castillejo y Cristian Mosquera. Episodio: Hablemos de infidelidad - T1 - E01 En este primer episodio, abordaremos el concepto de la infidelidad, explorando qué implica este término. También discutiremos las repercusiones emocionales al descubrir que hemos sido víctimas de una infidelidad, así como su impacto en nuestra salud mental. Finalmente, examinaremos posibles acciones a considerar si nos encontramos en esta situación.

Hey y'all, some reason I have to think that all of us got into this work is because there's something about telling our story or being on the other side of listening to someone else's story that connects us. And it's not just the pain that connects us, it's the goodness that brings us together when we can be with another person in their pain and the story of their people and the pain of their people. And when we joined them in that, when we witnessed them in that story, there's a sense of love, a sense of healing, a sense of like, you're not alone anymore. A sense of we can be together on this and move forward. And so the past weekend, we weren't together. I felt that rupture. So what does it mean to tell a truer story? What does it mean to engage collective trauma, but also collective healing?I mean, when we think about collective trauma, it's a traumatic experience. Like here's the, like by the book Play of Collective Trauma, it's a traumatic experience that affects entire people, groups, communities, or societies. The size and scope of which shatter the very fabric of the communities impacted. I think about Uvalde, I think about Buffalo. I think about the Atlanta massacre. There's a number of examples we have in our communities of collective trauma. It not only brings distress and negative feelings and consequences to individuals, but it also changes the very fabric of our communities. A sense of life, like before the event, and a sense of life after the cataclysmic event. When I think about collective trauma and the Latinx story, it's like, how do we even define Latinx, right? Like, I'm Mexican. My mom's mostly indigenous, and her family came over from Mexico. Then I know there's those of us that come from other countries in Latin America that are often forgotten.There's Puerto Rico, there's Afro-Latinos, there's the indigenous Latinos, there's fair-skinned Latinos. There's really dark-skinned Latinos that aren't black. So we have this wide variety of what it is that's come to be called commonly as Latinx. So when we talk about telling, uh, a truer story, we're engaging all of these ethnicities at once under the Latinx umbrella, which actually isn't very fair. We're talking about memories. We have these collective traumas. We didn't really talk about collective resilience, but let's be real. We have collective ways of being resilient and surviving and thriving. We're not just surviving. Many of our communities are thriving in our own ways. But let's go back to collective memory. So we remember these historical accounts, and there's facts and events, but how do we make meaning of those facts? Or the memory is how we make meaning. What are the stories we tell about the events?It lives beyond the lives that are directly impacted. So there will be stories told about Uvalde, the stories told about the teachers, the stories told about the students, the parents who were waiting and fighting to get into the school. They will tell their own stories now. And in a generation, people will be telling stories about what they remember from the stories they were told. Collective memory is remembered by a group members that may be far removed from the original traumatic events in time and space. There's three things I want us to think about from a Latinx, and I'm, I know it's very general. I want us to think about [inaudible] heart to heart listening. I want us to think about testimonial like a testimony technically in English, but it's a sharing, telling or expressing these events in the presence of a collective community. It's a strategy for survival resistance, and it's a refusal rooted in indigenous traditions and the Latin American social movements.Speaker 2 (05:06):So I think that, that, that might be the sense of heart to heart listening, right? Like there's something that happens where, right, that, that's a part of the alignment is I can read with my eyes the, the space, right? And then this thing about testimonial, what comes to my mind is that the phraseology keeping it real, right? This idea that with there, like the story that is being told needs to be a true story. Mm-hmm. , we have lots of, you know, when you hear the snaps and all this, but the sense that something has resonated in my body, w with the sense of like, now what you just said is that that's the truth, right? Mm-hmm. and, and, and a problem. If that, if that's not what happens, right? To the point, that is a compliment. Oh, he keeps it real. She keeps it real. He keeps it 100, right? It's the basic sense. You're, you are telling, you're, you're saying the story that you're giving is the truer or truest version of what happened. Um, and probably for the last one, in terms of trust or confidence or inclusion, My, I I will probably say, um, the, the sense when I be like, oh, that's my girl and we're here, right? Mm-hmm. , that's, and again, with the eyes, it's something like these two things. If the first two things happen that leaves the door open for a sense of, there, there is a trust and a confidence in the sense that we are in alignment together, right? Right. And, um, if one of those three things is not legit, then you are out. We are like, we not here. Mm-hmm. , do you know what I'm saying? I mean, that's very, uh, colloquial in the language, but I think the, the, the dynamic is true nonetheless. Right? What's the version? And so there is a sense even that my whole body has to be engaged in the process for me to feel this kind of alignment. I need to see it, touch it, taste it, hear it. Like all of my senses need to be engaged before I feel like I could say, right? And if I, if I don't have that, I don't know. I don't know. You , right? Like, I don't know. You like that?Speaker 1 (07:32):Mm-hmm. ? Mm, mm-hmm. . Tj, any thoughts or anything to add or comments? Not yet that I'm enjoying this conversation. I think one thing I wanted to add, Brooklyn is like, trust is something that happened at my daughter's quinceanera. Now my fam, no, they're not my family, but I'm calling them my family. They all came and chow and Corte, it's their, um, their daughter and their, and their son-in-law came, the son-in-law's white. He's, and he's, he's joined the family. And, uh, they're always telling me like, Hey, he didn't say hi to so-and-so, can you help him out? You know? So he didn't speak.Speaker 2 (08:14):Yeah.Speaker 1 (08:15):Didn't speak. So, uh, that's a big thing, right? To say hi to everybody. I'm all say, Hey, did you say hi to them? He is like, I think I did. I'm like, brother, like, you better go do it again. They don't feel like you really said hi. He's like, I waved. I'm like, no. They wanna like, no, thatSpeaker 2 (08:29):Ain't no,Speaker 1 (08:30):No. They, you gotta like shake your hand. And so they're giving him, they're giving him hands, right? But they, they're keeping him. They're not, they're not, they're not pushing him out. And so at, at the point where the dancing was on and the dj, they requested a song and they're like, Sam, Sam, get out there and dance. And Sam was like, okay. And it's this, it's this, basically it's this Mexican line dance. And he was right on it. He had the whole dance down and everybody cheered for him. They were like, you're in, you're in. And they were going nuts. And afterwards he was glowing. He was so happy. And it, it wasn't a sense of like, if he didn't do it right, he was gonna be ridiculed. It was just like, you're part of us, you know? Mm-hmm. . And so that's kind of what I think too about trust and inclusion, like the trust to share moments like that with someone mm-hmm. even in fun times, you know? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Does that make sense? ItSpeaker 2 (09:33):Makes perfect sense.Speaker 1 (09:35):I wish you could see this guideline dance. ItSpeaker 2 (09:38):Makes perfect sense.Speaker 1 (09:40):. And by the way, Mexicans do a lot of line dancing. And that's,Speaker 2 (09:44):I mean, you know, black people know a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit about mine.Speaker 1 (09:50):So we have [inaudible] testimonial and za, these are the three elements that I believe are essential when bringing our voices, when bringing our stories, when living inside of the collective story of Latinx peoples. What happens when that story is fragmented or edited? When we just take out a little piece of history when we say, oh yeah, there were three cops at Uvalde. What happens to the story? What happens to the memory of that story? And how is that passed on from generation to degeneration?Speaker 2 (10:29):And by the time they get off the ship, it is, it is the creation of a new people group,(10:36):Which is, it's, it's mildly controversial, but not really. Cuz nobody, even though, even though there's a whole sort of back to Africa and I wanna do the 23 and me thing and find out like what tribe from Ghana I came from, it, it isn't really about that kind of fracturing, right? Mm-hmm. and I and so there wasn't people, there's something about what she said that resonates with people enough that you didn't hear any real pushback on, on that ideology. So I'm wondering Right, if I'm wondering about that, I'm wondering about that felt experience and lived reality and if the invitation, even in the Latinx experience, is to not, not, not fracture it that much, right? Is there some invitation in the text and in the lived experience that is about, we we're not going back to EdenSpeaker 1 (11:26):Mm-hmm.Speaker 2 (11:27):We're we like, we are pressing forward to, to the city of God and when we get there, your, you are, you will be able to hold and there's absolute invitation from Jesus to hold Mexican AmericanSpeaker 1 (11:44):Mm-hmm. mm-hmm. ,Speaker 2 (11:49):Right? In a way that would allow you to note the Asian ancestry and the African ancestry, whatever else in the indigenous ancestry with all the honor and celebration it deserves, and not have that be a fracture. But African American, it is, is a term of respect. And it, and it's also a notation that you are an outsider cuz we don't call each other that mm-hmm. , you know what I mean? So, and, and to me, whenever I say like Asian American, I feel stupid. Like I be, I feel like I'm un I'm entering into the conversation in a way that is unintelligent because I, I, I think it's a dishonor to, to slap that name when what I really wanna know is what country are you from? And is it better for me to identify you as Japanese-American or Chinese-American or Taiwanese than it is for me to say Asian American. You know what I mean? Like, I, I just feel the awkwardness of how's this gonna read a a again, I think because I'm aware none of these are self named monikers. Mm-hmm. , they're all imposed, but, um, by whiteness. And so it always feels awkward.Speaker 1 (13:09):And I mean, the additional con conversation for Latinx, even Latinx, I hate that word, but even the additional conversation is how have people of all these various backgrounds had to rally together to fight western intervention in their cities, in their countries, you know? Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So they have to rally around that. But even that gets confusing because with the infusion of like money and power from the United States or other outside interests, it even splits. It splits people even more. But I think when people get to the United States, they say stuff like, I'm Cuban. Mm-hmm. , you know, or I'm Mexican. There's not, there's a way of surviving in that. Right?Speaker 2 (13:56):Right. Plus what do you do with the, because like where I grew up, if you were Puerto Rican on the west coast, that made you Mexican, but if you're Puerto Rican on the east coast, you are black like end of story, end of conversation. And so even, even that is like mm-hmm. . Yeah. Like all, yeah, all those, all those lines, it is different.Speaker 1 (14:25):So trauma decontextualized over time in a family can look like family trait and trauma decontextualized in a people can look like culture. Yeah. SMA MEK had a lot of good points there. As I say that, what do you notice in your body? Are you numb? Are you angry? Are you frustrated? Why is intergenerational story important to you? Why do you think it's important to La Latinx peoples, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans folks from El Salvador, Argentina? Why does collective story matter? And what happens when that story is fragmented or edited? If we just take out a piece of the story like in Alde, what was going on for you when you believed that there were only three police officers there when there were 10, when there was a possibility that the police didn't arrive until after the shooting started, that the door was locked to the school? What happens when we edit the story of a people group, or the traumas that a people group's experienced, or what happens when we edit the healing power that a culture has within itself? When we forget about Tika, when we forget about testimonial, when we forget about the idea of za, and that at the root of our culture perhaps was inclusion and trust,Speaker 2 (15:59):I think in some ways we've been asserting that the, the whole, this whole time, right? This idea that like, if you're black, you need to lean fully in into that and fully into the ways in which your culture, that culture has made you, made, made pathways towards healing for you mm-hmm. , right? And the way that your culture has understood and made meaning out of your story, um, and, and, and therefore created avenues of, of, of, of, of healing for you, right? In, in a sense, you're asking what archetypes right? Ha has, has your culture created for you? Um, and, and, and, and that the more that we do that, the less dissonance we have, right? Mm-hmm. mm-hmm. . Um, and in some ways the very creation of sort of the identity of the oppressed, right? Is the, the, the, the very identity that gets created under the force and weight of oppression is that is what healing looks like, right?(17:04):I mean the, like, the meaning that gets made out of the identity of the hyphenated existence is to define the harm and then define what it looks like could be healed from it mm-hmm. in a way that is unique to the story that you have, right? And then the truth is the same is true for the majority culture, right? I mean, and the, and the work that will have to be done on behalf of our white brothers and sisters is what does it look like to tell a true story? And what does healing look like? Mm-hmm. , right? And, and I think the, the pitfall is if the invitation at a majority culture is to not tell the true story, if the invitation out of the perpetrator culture is to be dismissive and to live in a level of denial for what the true story is, you never get to those pathways or architects of healing because you, you can't admit that harm has actually been done.Speaker 1 (17:57):I actually have a frame in my body that's working towards healing. I have been created that way. And that is good.Speaker 2 (18:06):And that is resiliency, right? It is the God given capacity to navigate the harm that is embedded in your story, right? And, and it is this sense that Jesus knew in this world you will have trouble. Like, like it's, it's, it, trauma is going to hit you, right? But, but I have embedded in, in, in, in your collective story, a a sense of what healing looks like and redemption looks like for you, right? And, and, and resiliency is your, is really in some ways the capacity to tap into that mm-hmm. and to leverage it.Speaker 1 (18:47):I'm gonna jump into something a little more heady, even though it's about the body. So this chart's gonna pop up and you're gonna look at it and you're gonna be like, what the heck? Well, the chart is made by my friend Jenny McGrath, and she has, uh, worked it from Ruby j Walker, and so it's been adapted. So we have a number of citations here, and I want you to notice that's very important, and this is my take on this chart. Our different cultures allow us to be in these different states and, and kind of like what we've talked about before. And that's not wrong. And, and I think, I think what's hard about this is that some of our resiliency has been pathologized.Speaker 2 (19:32):Yes. Mm-hmm. , very much so, right? And the, the simple argument that, uh, uh, because our, our whatever reaction we took in the moment was in fact a reaction to something traumatic is the thing that pathologizes it, right? And, and I, I think that's a mistake. It's like to say that we were kicked out of the garden, and because of that, we built, we built a response to that severing that the response itself is pathological. Because our goal is to be back where we were in the garden before sin entered it. That that's not how the story go. That's not how it works. Mm-hmm. , right? I mean, yes, we were excised from the garden, right? And what's pathological is that she ate the damn apple when you kind said don't do it, that that part is a problem. But, but, but, but the capacity that we developed to live life outside of the garden is not itself pathological simply because it is in reaction to the fact that we no longer live in the garden, right?(20:37):That the, like, there will be a reaction and there's good reaction and healthy reaction that is, that is in fact resiliency. Mm-hmm. . And then there are other reactions that are pathological that are problematic and that we do need to address, right? Mm-hmm. . But the simple factor that something is a reaction to a traumatic event does not itself pathologize it. Mm-hmm. , right? And this is the part where I, I, I, tide Trit has a song, um, and there's a line in the song where he says, um, something of like, the devil's gonna wish he never messed with me because I, like, I came back stronger and better than I would if, if he would've left me alone in the first place. Right? And so there, there's, there's something I think we're missing in the theological frame that that is like, um, the, there's something that happens in the WestEd and for evil, God moves for good. There's something in whatever that switch is that rotation, that flip that is of significant valueSpeaker 1 (21:46):Mm-hmm.Speaker 2 (21:47):, right? And if we simply pathologize it, because it is a reaction to a move of evil, we have missed the, like, the mystery of God in that moment to take a thing that was meant to be our downfall, and not only caused us to survive it, but to, but it is that thing that actually makes us better, stronger, more like him, right? And so, so that in and of itself is good. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. , I, and so there's something of the ability to move up and down this chart that is, that is freaking brilliantSpeaker 1 (22:23):Mm-hmm. . So, so I think I wanna go back to that story in Genesis. And when, you know, they ate the apple and then God came walking through, he, he asked them where they were, and, and through the conversation he says to them, you know, he finds out that they ate this apple and that that's why they were, you know, wearing, had sewed these fig leaves and made this, this, um, made these like coverings, right? I'm assuming for their body. But that's not, they weren't in trouble for their shame about their body. Mm-hmm. , you know, that's not why he, he kicked them out of Eden. It was for what they did, right? And then actually when they were out of Eden, he honored that shame. He made them close out of animals. So God actually didn't take them, didn't take their shame and move them through this polyvagal chart and force them to be calm in their body in a certain way.Speaker 3 (23:24):I think that's a really important thing to say. Mm-hmm. ,Speaker 2 (23:30):Right? And, and I think there's also a sense in which(23:36):That what, what you're, what that means then is that something was fundamentally altered in Adam and Eve, and they never got to go back to the state in which they were in Eden as if it had never happened. Right? And, and, and I think there's something about the gospel that is, um, that that isn't what, that's not what you're meant for, right? There's a kind of naivete before she eats the apple mm-hmm. , right? That we, we don't get to go back to mm-hmm. . And, and there might be some loss there, right. Of, of, of innocence, right? But there's also something to be gained in the process of having God honor the shame and re reshape it and reimagine it for us, right? Mm-hmm. . And, and it, um, there's a quote on my Facebook page, something of like, uh, um, a gratitude that I have for my struggle because in it, I stumbled across my own strength mm-hmm.(24:42):. And, and so there's something, I think, uh, there's something that we gain in the wrestling and the struggling and the coming out in a place of God honoring where we've been, including the shame that we have felt that that, so you don't ever really get to go back home again, right? Like, you never get to go back to life before the apple, but you do know the grief of having ate the apple, the agony of having eaten the apple and the sweetness of God having restored your relationship to him even after you ate the apple, right? That, and so there's a different depth to your relationship with Jesus.Speaker 1 (25:25):So the polyvagal chart, I think some people are like, what the heck is a polyvagal? And it, it's this nerve and it's got like this bowl of like nerve endings in your gut, and you have all of these neurons around there. So when people think they say, well, I'm thinking with my gut. Yeah, you are. You literally are. And when you feel, feel like I have a gut feeling or my stomach's upset, or I can't breathe, what's going on for your body, you're likely somewhere on this chart, or the way perhaps our cultures have been pathologized for staying in different places in this right cycle. And therefore, as a practitioner working in a cross-cultural environment, we have to come in with an attitude of first alignment and then willingness. Yes. To be curious and receive, you know what Ernest said, that criticiz ability,Speaker 2 (26:23):Right? Right. That plus I think, like I said, I think there's a time and a place for every single thing on here. So some of the pathologizing of communities of color is like, sometimes vigilance is not hypervigilance, sometimes it's just situationally appropriate vigilance, right? . And, and the problem is that the majority culture is isn't isn't paying attention to the power dynamics in the room. So they are misreading the need for vigilance in the room, right? And so and so then I'm not actually in this pathological space of hypervigilance, right? I'm not in this space of PTSDs where I'm actually not on the battlefield. And so my vigilance doesn't make any sense. I actually am, and my body is rightfully reading some sense of threat in the room. The problem is that in your not reading the room, well, as you know, as a, as a member of the culture that happens to be in power in that moment, you, you're, you're, you're not, you're not being honest about what the dynamics in the room really are.Speaker 1 (27:32):So thinking about the dorsal vagal system, dorsal vagal, sorry, it's freeze and appease. So in freeze we have some categories. Now these are categories that can be defined within each culture. They're not gonna look the same for me as they look for you. And this is something that we have to engage one another in curiosity and kindness. And as a therapist, I don't make assumptions about you, um, where you might be on this polyvagal chart, I chart, I can notice with you where you might be or what I'm experiencing. And then it's a collaborative effort for us to kind of decode what language comes between us. So I'm saying those, these words with that caveat in mind. So we have freeze, which is dissociation, depression, um, raised pain threshold, um, helplessness, shame. We have appease lack of boundaries, overcompensating, victimization, acquiescing. When you are in freeze and appease, that's gonna look different based on your individual story and your collective story.(28:38):And boundaries are defined differently. Overcompensating is defined different differently, victimization, acquiescing, all these things. So that's why it's important that you're in community when you're experiencing. You may feel like, Hey, I, I'm in this trauma state and, and I can tell you honestly, I was a little bit depressed this weekend and dissociated, uh, and what I experienced, just kind of being zoned out around my family, not able to focus after not being able to be together this weekend. We also have the sympathetic activation, which is fight flight. So fight again. Now, uh, western psychology has pathologized many of these words. So I want you to take these words with the caveat that I'm speaking from a particular location, from a particular education, which is largely a European white lens. And I am additionally adding on this lens of my Latinx culture and history and how I'm raising my kids.(29:33):So you're gonna hear all of that mixed together. So fight is rage, anger, irritation, and honestly, a lot of those I've needed to make change. Um, I'm gonna think about flight, panic, fear, anxiety, worry, concern. And again, have you been in those states? Cuz I have been, I've been worried, like, how's the group gonna be? How am I gonna be? Um, are we gonna be able to hang together? What's this gonna cost one another? Um, then I wanna think about ventral vagal, and that's called rest and digest. So you have words like centered, grounded, settled, curiosity and openness, compassionate and mindful of the present moment. It's possible you may be going up and down this chart, like what is Danielle gonna say? Mm-hmm. , what is Rebecca gonna say? What will happen in this moment mm-hmm. and, and to, for us to honor those bodily experiences. And maybe, you know, how we did with Jenny, just slow down and ask mm-hmm. , because I will be going up and down this chart during the talk because, you know, there's performance pressure. There's the idea of I wanna honor my culture. There's the idea of how do I interpret myself mm-hmm. . So I think it's fair to name that.Speaker 2 (30:59):Yeah. And that there are really good reasons why Right. That that, you know, and, and how do you step into a sense of self-evaluation about how much,(31:14):What, where's the line for me between like, this is a, a, a resilient response that I need to honor. And where there are places where there's some hyper vigilance, right? I mean, not that you wouldn't honor all of it, but to help them start to understand like there, there are resilient reactions and then there are reactions that are more about like being resigned to, to the weight o of our collective stories. Right? And the, the text doesn't ask us to be resigned. Right? Right. It it, it asks us, uh, to, to fight and to persevere, right? Um, and to press on towards the mark.Speaker 1 (31:51):And in in fact, that's what, you know, that's where we can come back to. Like, God didn't ask Adam to get on with it to like stay naked, right? And he didn't even call it out as a problem. He's just like, here man, here's some nicer clothes. Right?Speaker 2 (32:11):Right. And right. And, and, and you can almost hear in that a sense of like, like, Eden is where you started, but it isn't where you're gonna end up. And, and, and, and there is a journey that we will be on together, right? And so like, there's some things you're gonna need for the journey, including some clothes.Speaker 1 (32:33):And so you're gonna say, well, maybe I've been there this weekend too, but maybe you had trauma. So what is normal? It is normal to go through these different areas on the chart with some fluidity to move between them. And it's also normal for you to be a part of a collective that may be feeling a collective response to a trauma or to even a good moment. And for you also to have your own individual experience. So it's far more complex than either or. It's likely both. And.  

Latino parents, students say they face racism, discrimination at North Kitsap HighPeiyu LinKitsap SunNORTH KITSAP — More than 40 members of the Latino community gathered in the library of North Kitsap High School on Tuesday to tell high school administrators about instances of discrimination against Latino students.Participant after participant stood up and spoke, most in Spanish, offering testimonies that ranged from stories of racial bullying on school buses and on campus to not getting important school notices for parents printed in Spanish. One parent shared a story of her son being subjected to racial stereotypes, being told by a teacher he eats too many burritos.The meeting was organized by NK High Principal Megan Sawicki. Danielle Castillejo, a therapist, and her husband, Luis, parents of students at North Kitsap High School and Poulsbo Middle School, led most of the conversation and interpreted what Latino families shared from Spanish to English to the Sawicki. They also interpreted what Sawicki said from English to Spanish to the attendees. A Kitsap Public Health District community engagement specialist was at the meeting to help with the interpretation.Sawicki said she called the meeting after hearing from Castillejo and other Latino families that there was a need to better understand the experiences of Latino families and students in North Kitsap High School, and what the school can do to make them better."I may not have all the answers, but I'm hoping that we can — I can — start learning a little more from you about how things are going for you and for our kids," Sawicki told those at the meeting.Some parents said that some teachers do not respect Latino students and the Hispanic culture they belong to. Others said their students are being bullied on campus and on school buses, and when they reached out to the school to report it, their requests were ignored or not followed up on by school administrators. One parent said that a teacher told a student their performance was harmed because they had eaten too many burritos. One said students are not taught to be proud of their culture at school.Some said Latino students were not given assistance in applying for college or given information about scholarships. One shared that a student was discouraged to pursue his dream when the student told a teacher he wants to become an engineer. One claimed that Latino parents didn't get notices to attend school meetings and that none of the information provided by the school was in Spanish, creating a barrier for Latino parents who speak little English to understand what happens at school.The system needs to be changed, they said, and they urged the district to hold more meetings in the future.Melissa Ramirez, whose parents are immigrants, graduated from NKHS in June. She said she never saw any representation of her culture in her years growing up in North Kitsap and she felt she had to leave her culture to fit in at school."And the reason why I'm saying this in English is because the school system did rob me of a lot of my Spanish-speaking skills," Ramirez said at the meeting.Ramirez's parents are immigrants from Mexico and she was born and raised in Washington. Ramirez is now a freshman at Western Washington University studying business administration with a concentration in marketing, she said.Ramirez said her university has an ethnic student center that provides support for students of color, and she wishes she would have had that in North Kitsap.Julie Castillejo, Danielle Castillejo's daughter, an NK sophomore, said on Skyward, an online portal where North Kitsap High School communicates with students and parents, the system automatically put her race as "Chicano," which refers to Mexicans living in the U.S., and her main language as Spanish, instead of leaving the race and language parts blank for her to decide. Julie said she's three-quarters Mexican and one-quarter European."It was unfair for them to just assume my race and it wasn't the right thing to do," Julie Castillejo told Kitsap Sun.Charo De Sanchez, a Latino community leader and a parent who previously had a child in the district, told the Kitsap Sun she thinks teachers should be educated to respect the Latino Hispanic community, She said students learn from their behaviors.Danielle Castillejo said that more meetings are needed to discuss discrimination and racism against Latino students."Latino students are under-resourced, so we need to create more resources, more options," she told the Kitsap Sun. "The first thing we need to have is that the teachers are able to have some training on inclusivity."In a written statement sent to the Kitsap Sun following the meeting, the North Kitsap School District said that the district is "deeply saddened" by the examples shared and that it is committed to listening to students, parents and the community to address discrimination and racist behavior."While the stories we have heard in this meeting are hard to hear, we are grateful that our students and families feel safe in talking about these concerns with us; we realize that has not always been the case," the district said in the statement. "Students and families should feel welcome and have a sense of belonging in our schools. When there are barriers to this, it is on us to have the courageous conversations to make meaningful changes."The district said providing equitable access to educational opportunities for all students is in its strategic plan and that efforts to support staff development in diversity, inclusion and equity began in 2019 and continue."We have worked in partnership with many community members, our two sovereign nations, and families to improve how we serve all students. We have increased support resources at all schools in response to concerns and needs," the district said in the statement.The district said that all secondary schools have student voice groups with diverse representation that meet with the superintendent. Creating a safe, welcoming, inclusive school where all students and their families feel like they belong is the school district's top priority, it said. It encouraged students to report concerns immediately."As we are learning from our students we continue to work to improve systems, structures and their school experience," the statement said.Reach breaking news reporter Peiyu Lin at pei-yu.lin@kitsapsun.com or on Twitter @peiyulintw. Since late 2022, KAIRE has supported and come alongside the grassroots efforts of Latino/a/x students, families, and community of North Kitsap, amplifying their concerns and self-advocacy within North Kitsap School District (NKSD). These are broadly stated as equal access to education for English Language Learners and pursuit of a culture of belonging with teacher skills development in nondiscrimination. KAIRE and Latino/a/x community have articulated these issues and proposed specific solutions, directly communicated to NKSD in the FEB 22, 2023 "Seven Solutions" letter. For months, NKSD has failed to meaningfully engage with individual families or respond with a plan to implement the proposed solutions. KAIRE supports Latino/a/ students, families, and community in their demand that NKSD meet them on theirterms. The table must be set by community, not by the District. https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/2023/02/06/latino-parent-group-meeting-with-north-kitsap-schools-over-race-issues/69864128007/

LINKS to ARTICLEShttps://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/2022/11/26/latino-parents-students-discrimination-racism-at-north-kitsap-high-school/69673972007/https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/2023/02/06/latino-parent-group-meeting-with-north-kitsap-schools-over-race-issues/69864128007/https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2023/03/10/parent-group-offers-steps-toward-safety-inclusion-in-schools/69987422007/https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/2023/05/22/eliminate-racial-violencehundreds-protests-at-nksd-for-racial-discrimination-against-latino-students/70229951007/https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/opinion/readers/2023/05/20/we-have-no-confidence-in-nksd-leadership-to-handle-racism-bullying/70237118007/https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/2021/05/07/kitsap-public-health-district-declares-racism-public-health-crisis/4984962001/IN Partnership with KAIRE:Kitsap Advocating for Immigrant Rights & EqualitySince late 2022, KAIRE has supported and come alongside the grassroots efforts ofLatino/a/x students, families, and community of North Kitsap, amplifying their con-cerns and self-advocacy within North Kitsap School District (NKSD). These are broadlystated as equal access to education for English Language Learners and pursuit of aculture of belonging with teacher skills development in nondiscrimination. KAIRE andLatino/a/x community have articulated these issues and proposed specific solutions,directly communicated to NKSD in the FEB 22, 2023 "Seven Solutions" letter. Formonths, NKSD has failed to meaningfully engage with individual families or respondwith a plan to implement the proposed solutions. KAIRE supports Latino/a/xstudents, families, and community in their demand that NKSD meet themon theirterms. The table must be set by community, not by the District.Speaker 1 (00:25):Good morning. Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender healing. Um, sometimes we're talking a lot about the church, and you may have noticed a few months hiatus. Partly that is due to me, Danielle Rueb, Castillejo, doing this on my own, and also just in February, having a town hall and gathering the community together, which I want to talk more about and, and which this situation with the school board has not been resolved yet. So sadly, that has taken an, an honorable place of, of my time and I'm continuing to work towards that. But I thought it might be helpful to tell a little bit of the history of how that got started and, um, what happened for me and why the meeting happened in November of 2022. If you're following along, I'll put some links to the Kitsap Sun articles, uh, in the notes.  But if you're following along with the story, there was an original meeting in November 22nd, 2022 at North Kitsap High School in the library. It was me, my husband, uh, a couple of community members I didn't really know very well. And then we had like seven to 10 days, I can't remember exactly, I could look it up in my notes to invite, uh, community members, la Latino community members. But there was things and events that preceded, um, preceded that meeting time in November. And I think those, that's part of the history that's important to know over the last three years and actually since maybe even like 2015 and right leading up to Trump's election, there were so many things that happened in the school that Luis and I, my husband, my partner and I, we just really let them slide, uh, microaggressions with the kids, bullying comments at school.  And, you know, we semi address them, semi didn't address them, but just kind of trusted the school district to be following up on those issues. In 2016 when Trump was elected, I got a call from a friend and she said, Hey, we're not doing the celebration of Guadalupe. Everybody's afraid to meet, you know, Trump made president. This is a scary time. And if you're not familiar, what it is, uh, of, uh, December is the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the que that app appeared in Mexico and she's called the que de Guadalupe. And, and so I won't go into that history, but to celebrate that there's a mass, uh, there's singing, there's a process of communion, and then there's a celebration afterwards. So like the kids would dance, like sometimes there's mariachi, um, there's professional dancers that would come all, all the way to this little town here in Paul's bow.  And my kids, we got four little kids, they were always invited to participate by one of my dear friends. So I was assuming this event would happened. I got a call from my friend like, hey, it's not going to happen. And, and there's a lot of fear in the community, and we said, no, like, let's make it happen. Let's move in solidarity, let's do this thing. And I even had a little op-ed, uh, published in the Seattle Times about, uh, this event. So we had, we had the celebration of Guadalupe. It was amazing, amazing food. And Trump, uh, his presidency continued for the next four years, obviously, and 2020 hit and we were in election season and then suddenly it was also pandemic season. And so we were all at home. And it, it quickly became clear to me, um, just in my own personal family situation and with the other situations that I knew of in the community, that not everything was equal.  Not everything was going to be fair staying at home. When we first were at home, we had this, we didn't actually pay for internet at our house. I was in grad school at the time. I was trying to graduate 2020. I was going to graduate. We had this little hotspot we had bought on Verizon and we paid for a certain amount of like, gigs of internet per month. And we only turned it on when we really needed it. And we, we tried to limit our data too. So all of a sudden, imagine you got like four children at home, husband's unemployed, I need to do grad school. And we're all freaking sitting around our table cuz we live in a small house and, and we're trying to do schoolwork and we're, we got this hotspot running. Um, that's, that's an example of something that happened. And it, it took a few months, I think for us to get internet out to our house.  Speaker 1 (05:14):Um, just, they were backed up and whatnot. But I actually had a friend offer to pay for our internet. And that's what helped us get us through what was during this time that things became even more apparent in the school system. To me, various things happened to my kids, even being online. We struggled in a rural area to, um, my kids struggled to, when they would turn their homework in online, it would show that it was turned in on our side, but at the school side, it would look like they hadn't turned in any homework. And so, for instance, one of my children, it, it showed like complete zeros everywhere and being in grad school and all the stress we had, I I, I didn't pay attention till I got a letter and someone's like, like, yo, your kid's failing class, so that's not like my child. So we contacted the high school, um, a math teacher was super helpful and an English teacher was so helpful and they were like, look, like we think something's wrong here, like, what's going on with your kid?  Speaker 1 (06:21):So it was a combination of factors, combination of internet, combination of overwhelm in a house where you have kids with different learning styles and needs and we didn't have access to separate rooms and the internet capacity to do that. And that's when I think it just picked up. We had some bus incident bullying with my daughter being called effing Dora. Prior to this we had an incident at the middle school where my son was targeted and pulled in and said they had a video of him, uh, like basically like messing with gas caps of cars and siphoning gas. And when he said like, Hey, can you check the attendance? They're like, no, we have this video. So we had other experiences. Like I said, I, I just won't forget one of the teachers who I won't name here, just the callousness, the lack of engagement and uh, lack of understanding. And we didn't say anything about it. I'm not in charge of anybody else's how they're responding in a meeting. I just wanted to help my son get through, you know, this school year.  Speaker 1 (07:30):So as you can imagine, it was hard. It was really hard. And uh, fall of 2020 was brutal. And 2021 was just as hard. So things began to build up for us. Had trouble getting this particular teacher to accept assignments from my son, had trouble communicating with this person and I was working full-time. My husband ended up having to quit his job because we could not manage four children in school and all of us absent all the adults absent from the home. Of course, of course not. It's not meant, it's not meant to be like that. My husband would go into the school district or the school and ask for things either at the middle school or high school. Like he would often encounter a barrier just at, at the front desk. I mean, he's very dark brown and curly hair and speaks English, but you know, he has an accent I can understand and many, many people understand him. But, but in that frame, it became really hard for him to access the help he needed for our kids. Then I would have to send an email and when I would send an email, then there would be a response, but response to him, no. So this thing snowballed. Like we tried to have a meeting with the superintendent, tried to get this scheduled. It got put off until fall of 2022 September.  Speaker 1 (08:59):So we get a meeting scheduled, we get it on the calendar. I'm a licensed mental health therapist associate in Washington. So I have like clients scheduled, like, you know, scheduled weeks out. They have their time during the day. So when we scheduled this appointment with the superintendent, I made sure to be careful of my schedule, arranged it around her, and the day before she changes it by an hour. And that messed with me and my schedule and my client. But I said, you know what, I, I need to do this for my child. So I moved my client, I was able to move. My client showed up to the meeting. I think it was like an hour before the meeting, the superintendent emails like, oh, sorry, emergency came up. I won't be there.  Speaker 1 (09:43):We're talking like a year since the first incident happened. Over a year. Show up to the meeting. I had some community witnesses there. My husband and I were able to tell our story. There was some response, some compassion. Um, and outta that meeting, a principal of the high school invited, invited us to gather some of the families from the school. We set a date. The first day didn't work. And then we landed on November 22nd. It was the week of Thanksgiving last year. And I was like, man, I don't know if anybody's gonna come. And I was honestly afraid to invite people. I didn't know if other people, I knew other people were talking about issues, but I didn't know. I didn't know what I didn't know. We put the word out, text messages, kind of like called friends, but it was last minute. There wasn't a lot of notice. There was there was like, we made like a handmade flyer. Um, not a lot of social media. If you go back and look through my social media, there just wasn't a lot at that time.  Speaker 1 (10:48):Show up to the school. The meeting was supposed to start at six 30. I show up around six and I'm getting calls at like, people are like, Hey, where are you at? I'm like, Hey, the meeting doesn't start yet. And people are like, Hey, we're here. So we go in the meeting. Um, it becomes really apparent that we wanted to talk through some stories but also move towards solutions. We really wanted to move towards solutions in this first meeting, but what became really apparent is that the racism and the discrimination and the stories of the people that attended, which was somewhere between 40 and 50, it was so significant that we were not gonna get through just like three stories and people were gonna feel cared for almost three hours later. We ended this meeting. We did not get to solutions. We, we committed at that meeting to get to solutions, but we didn't get to them. So much trauma, so much harm happened in the last few years. And I'm not talking just North Kitsap High school people showed up that attended other schools in our districts because they had not had a way to communicate where, where they felt safe and heard.  Speaker 1 (11:57):And I left that meeting and for days I just was tired and sick and my body was achy. It's something, you know, it's kind of like one thing when you know your family's experiencing discrimination, but it's another thing when you hear the discrimination happening on all fronts with other families. And there were kids in this meeting, teenagers, and you know, when teenagers are in these meetings, they are normally like, uh, they're like looking at their phones, they're like texting, whatever. Like no one was doing that. No one. And so I just wanna point out that this is the history, this is where this came from. I didn't know these families had these stories. I had heard rumors and I wanted to hear from them, but I didn't know what we were opening up. And it wasn't just stories about Latinx families, it was stories about what happened to African American folks in school, what happened to native folks, what happened to Asian American folks in school?  Speaker 1 (13:02):There were stories, there were stories about people feeling suicidal, people having their mental health affected stories about not knowing how to apply to college, not having the resources to do it. And I won't repeat the trauma stories here because some of them are documented in the news articles in the notes. But what I wanna say is this movement in North Kitsap school district has a history. And it has a history far bigger than my family. It has a history far bigger than my kids. And also because we're exposing the history, there's blowback, there's payback, there's slander, there's gossip, there's other people like pushing in because justice has been stalled for so long. Equal access to education for so long, discrimination has just been a given. It's been a given. Racialized comments and stereotypes. I mean it's a given.  Speaker 1 (14:03):And I think at the beginning I had some naive idea that when we would come back to solutions in which we did get to solutions in February when we didn't hear back from the school district that somehow those solutions, they would, the school district would see them as proactive, as good, as caring, as like we're invested in our community, but that's not how it's gone. So I wanna tell more of that story later, but I just wanted to share the history of how November came to be. Some of the details of how, how it got planned, which was barely any plan at all. Not even like planning for an official interpreter. Thank God some people just showed up that could help with that. Because I can tell you that Luis and I were beat like so tired at the end of that. And I wanted to share where I've been for the last few months, been involved in organizing bridge building, doing a lot of apologizing, a lot of learning, a lot of crying, a lot of frustration and a lot of like working in systems that are actually not meant to prevent racial violence or discrimination.  Speaker 1 (15:15):They're actually meant to prevent equal access to education. These systems aren't looking for solutions. And so when we walk in with solutions, they're like, what the heck is this? But it, I don't think it has to be that way. I think our county can be different and that may be a fool's errand. I don't know. Sometimes I think it's very foolish. Hope is like that. It can feel very foolish. But I wanna acknowledge that there's been amazing community support and unity. We don't always think the same. We don't always have the right way to get there. We don't know how to get there. We have different problems sometimes we don't like the person we're organizing with. That's all true. But the fact is, we want something better for our kids. We want our kids to have access to education. We want our kids to live in a place where they feel like they belong and they don't need to resort to suicide and gun violence and they can come to us for help with anxiety and mental health issues, depression, sadness. I think we can't agree on those things and that's why I'm here in my community and that's why I've stayed because I believe that as humans we do share those things in common. And um, I hope you'll follow along on the next few podcasts as we tell more of these stories. And um, I'm just honored to be able to share a bit of this history with you today and go ahead and check out the notes. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.  

TELLING A TRU(ER) STORY MASTER CLASSAre you struggling with a traumatic experience or maybe trying to better understand how your past keeps impacting your present?  Are you in a helping profession (mental health professionals,  ministers, spiritual directors, teachers, mentors) and want to learn how to assist others that are navigating traumatic experiences?Introducing a NEW 2-Track professional training from The Art of Living Counseling Center.Final registration closes on February 24, 2023. Don't miss out. https://artoflivingcounseling.com/professional-training/ Cyndi Mesmer Speaker & Facilitator Cyndi Mesmer, LCPC identifies as a white cisgender, able-bodied, straight woman. She is the clinical director and co-owns, with her husband Steve, The Art of living Counseling Center in Crystal Lake, IL. Cyndi worked as a teacher, supervisor and trainer at The Allender Center in Seattle WA. Cyndi has worked in all levels of care for mental health.She has about 30 years of experience working with individuals, families and groups. She primarily works with clients working through trauma, both past and present. She sees the world through the lens of story and invites others to engage their stories in a way that brings more freedom and life, both personal and communal. She is a seeker of racial justice and advocate for other oppressed groups believing that there should be equal rights and flourishing for all humans. You can read more at www.artoflivingcounseling.com Rebecca Wheeler Walston Guest Speaker & Facilitator Rebecca Wheeler Walston holds a Master of Arts in Counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary and currently serves as a Fellow with The Allender Center, facilitating Story Workshops and NFTC. Rebecca also comes to this work through The Impact Movement, a college ministry to Black students, as Impact partners with The Allender Center to bring this work to BIPOC spaces in creative and innovative ways. She lives in Williamsburg, VA with her husband Vaughn and their two children, where Vaughn works as an Engineer and Rebecca runs a Law Practice and serves as General Legal Counsel for The Impact Movement, Inc. Danielle S. Castillejo Guest Speaker & Facilitator Danielle holds an MA in Counseling in Psychology from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate in Washington State, story lover, owner of Way-Finding Therapy, podcaster, avid reader, writer, adventurer and advocate.She works and advocates from an anti-oppression lens, holding space for hope, love and repair. She loves the anticipation of Spring and Summer in the Northwest – the long days and sunlight we miss in the dark winters. You can easily find her out on a trail, laughing, cooking with her kids, or working in the yard.If you choose to reach out and we embark on a counseling journey together, it will be one that is co-created. I do not believe that I have all of the answers, nor all of the ideas or intellect to guide you. I trust my body and intuition. I trust your body and intuition. We will work with both narrative and somatic narrative. I believe our bodies tell a story. You can read mine at www.wayfindingtherapy.com DATES OF TRAININGFinal registration closes on February 24, 2023.DATES OF TRAINING & TOPICSMarch 10, 2023 9:00am – 4:00pm CTMarch 24, 2023 9:00am – 4:00pm CTApril 21, 2023 9:00am – 4:00pm CTMay 12, 2023 9:00am – 4:00pmCTWe are excited to offer two interconnected tracks for this training:Track 1:  The Teaching Experience.  Track 1 is for those participants who want to be further educated about trauma and traumas impact on an individual.  There will be four teaching sessions over four Fridays in the Spring of 2023 (see dates above). Each sessions will include interactive teaching and discussion as well as a live story facilitation.  If you are signing up for The Teaching Experience of the Telling a Tru(er) Story Spring Training you will have access to the live virtual training as well as, access to watch or re-watch the recorded teachings at your leisure.  Tier 1 is recommended for individuals who would like to gain further understanding about the nature of trauma, and how it affects us.   It is open to an unlimited number of registrants and no prior experience is needed. Track 2:  The Story Group Experience.  Track 2 includes everything in Track 1 but adds more in depth training through participation in six, 2-hour Story Groups.  Participants signing up for Track 2 will have the opportunity to practice what they are learning in the Track 1 teaching through written story work as well as practicing engaging another persons story of harm.  With this Story Group Experience participants will gain experience both as a reader of a personal narrative and as a Co-facilitator of a fellow group members personal narrative.  As a reader you will gain experience writing two personal narratives, reading your stories within a group setting and receiving feedback and care around your personal narrative.  As a co-facilitator you will gain experience engaging two group members personal narratives and receive coaching and feedback on your facilitation experience from your coach.  The coaching and feedback will be offered in real-time as the facilitation happens and through one follow up Private Coaching Session.  The Story Group Experience is recommended for those participants who have some prior story work experience and would like additional practice engaging stories of harm.  Track 2 is also appropriate for those participants with little to no experience but, have a strong desire to learn how to engage trauma in a group setting and/or want to become a Story Group Facilitator in their place of influence.  For this Spring Cohort we are taking only 30 participants for The Story Group Experience, 15 of these registration spots will be reserved for our BIPOC participants.For Track 2 Participants:You will have (6) 2 hour groups in addition to the Friday teaching schedule.  See schedule below to choose your preferred group times.  You will be with the same group for all 6 sessions and there are 6 participants per group maximum. Track 2 Groups Day and Time Options: (When you apply, you will be asked to pick your first three preferences.)Friday's 4pm- 6pm CST (March 10th, March 17th, March 24th , April 14th, April 21st &  May 12th)Fridays 6pm – 8pm CST (March 10th, March 24th , April 7th, April 21st, April 28th &  May 12th)Fridays 5pm – 7pm CST (March 10th, March 24th , March 31st, April 21st, April 28th &  May 12th)Saturday's 8am – 10am CST (March 11th, March 25, April 15, April 22nd, May 6th & May 13th)Saturday's 10am – Noon CST (March 11, March 25, April 15th, April 22nd, May 6th & May 13th) 

DanielleGood morning. Welcome to the ARise podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, agenda and healing. My name is Danielle Castillejo, and I'm coming to you solo today. Uh, it's the year 2023 and I don't know how many of you have actually looked at the date and been like, what happened to the time? I know. As 2023 started and the last year since 2020 arrived, I, I had some trepidation and I still have that trepidation. So stepping into the new year and there are gonna be some guests coming up and some podcasts coming up. But living in the reality of post pandemic life meant that over Christmas break this year, uh, my kids out at Christmas break, there was a lot of sickness that went through our home. We still haven't tested positive for Covid. Um, we didn't test positive for flu, but we were diagnosed with a cough.And that cough actually took out my entire voice for over a week. So I'm just aware that I think during the pandemic, there was this sense, like in the thick of it, in 2020, in 2021, that we were in this state of the world where sickness was alive. It was active and literally physical sickness that would threaten our health. And then the racial disparities and the racial uprising that these were things that were able to come to light. And I think there was a sense of, and I remember talking about it with Maggie and talking about it with other friends, like, actually, we're not in post-trauma right now. This is an ongoing thing that's happening. So, I think one of the things I wondered stepping into 2023 was whether or not I would feel that we were post pandemic and it was interesting to become or get kind of a big illness at the end of 2022.I remember thinking, I wonder what Covid feels like and having some panic around, is my my throat sore because I never had that experience? Or is this cough? Can I breathe? Just the panic around that was still very present and I haven't experienced covid 19, I wasn't infected by it. Um, so I, I think that that was just an interesting response to me. And as 2023 started, I had this feeling that I was just going to move into the year slow. That's what I told myself. And there's no criticism or judgment. A lot of people make words for the year or gain some kind of resolution or goals or setting standards. And I do actually periodically evaluate where I'm at and what I'm doing and things I'm working toward, towards and moving towards.And I just have never been able to write a word down or set up New Year's resolutions. I always feel that if I do that, it will fall shorter. I will fail. So it's kind of a little internal battle with myself, but I, I do think I'm walking into 2023 with a sense of deliberateness and maybe a little bit of fear and a like very keenly aware that there are so many things about a new year that I don't know. I think in the past, like when I was in grad school, pre-grad school, there were just things that seemed for sure, it seemed for sure that the kids would go back to school. It seemed for sure that I would be able to show up to my classes. It seemed for sure that we would have work, and all of those things are in flux.Not that they're shutting down schools anymore, but will we be well enough to do this? Will we feel well enough? Will we feel safe? And I, I do wonder if we're in this transition phase from pandemic to post pandemic, and I still don't know if we're out of some of those mentalities last weekend and had the great honor and privilege of going to the Seattle School and listening to a dear friend, um, Phil Allen Jr. Talk about his book Open Wounds and the Prophetic Lens. He was a keynote speaker and there were so many people I haven't seen in a long time, or maybe I've just seen over Zoom. And so I found myself, you know, people walking up to me wanting to be social, starting a conversation, and we're engaging over just a certain topic. And as they're talking to me, someone else walks up and says Hi.(04:45):And I didn't know the social cues. I didn't know how to relate to the person that was, I was in deep conversation with. And that was in an instant. Hmm. And I didn't know how to switch gears and pay attention to the next person. I'm so outta practice. I mean, I've been getting together with friends and obviously talking with my family, but in a situation where there's many people that I would like to connect with or don't realize that I would like to connect with, I was just like, socially, I felt socially inept. I did not know what I was doing. I was jumping from conversation to conversation. I was a little bit mortified that I was allowing myself to be interrupted when I was having a good conversation with one person. And so I'm just aware that like, I don't know what to do in that situation. I don't have practice at it. I have to reengage somehow. Um, I'm outta practice. So there's just so many layers to coming out of a period of isolation. Maybe you weren't someone that went into isolation. Maybe you, you were able to have like a pod or people that you related with. ButI think there's something that still feels in the air to me that feels siloed, that maybe when I walk to the grocery store and I've seen it with other people, like people that know each other, that I know, know each other, and they don't say hi. I'm like, what is going on there? What is happening for us in our individual spaces and the places that we have maintained connection? How have we been able to do that? Is it by miracle? Is it through intentional effort? Um, I don't know. I, I don't know the answer. Been thinking a lot about how the younger parts of ourselves have been both likely activated by those periods of isolation. And how, what do we do with that now? I think, I mean, I think, I mean, just even in those conversations in that group, just feeling very young and very excited and very happy to be with everybody and literally not knowing what to do.And do I spiral into shame and feel like, well, I can't enter another social, so social situation again, no. I mean, I'm gonna do it. Um, but the temptation is to beat myself up a little bit, if I'm honest. So I mean, that is not the most serious of scenarios that have happened, but it is one scenario that has happened and I keep, I keep returning to it. Um, and this new year also brought about, uh, some changes in my family. Uh, we had, uh, a close family member, uh, like a second mother to my husband pass away, and she passed away this week suddenly.(07:51):And I say suddenly, but I, we all knew that she was sick. But there was some, I think, reluctance to engage, uh, the despair that would come if we acknowledged that, that she was close to death. I, I felt it in my own body. I felt it in conversations with my husband and my family. And then when she died, it was like, everything just paused and I felt paralyzed. And I looked at the calendar, actually 2023, and my husband looked at me. He's like, I don't know if 2023 is gonna be okay. Like, I don't know if this is gonna be a good year. And so again, I just returned to that, like living in the unknown. And as the grief has settled in around this dear woman, I have to admit, I haven't really wanted to engage it. I've pushed it away. I've laughed. I'd made jokes, I've gone out to eat, and maybe that is my way of grieving.I think it just didn't fit for me that there would be more grief in this year. I, I, I think I was a little bit like our family. Like we know there's some sickness in the air. We know there's still a lingering tension. We know things aren't well, and yet I didn't wanna touch it. I didn't want to. And I, you know, I've been, as you know, my family is split apart for the moment because, you know, part of family members are in Mexico grieving, and then I'm here, uh, holding down the fort. I just, I think about that. I think about the in between, between spaces. I think about the spaces between life and death and how often those are just these tenuous spaces that can go either way at any moment for a any reason.(09:53):And so, 2023 E even though we're saying, and like, I'm feeling like it's post pandemic, I just, it feels like something shifted in the air a few years ago. And there's going to be a, like a more living into this tension I haven't ever done or recorded my thoughts in a podcast on my own before. And I decided to do it because I really felt like it was important to kick the year off with some, for me, just being honest of where I am and recognizing those limitations and, and limiting that tension, I think forces me to, to acknowledge the limitations and find, like search for some way to bless them, search for some way to understand them.(10:48):Yeah, the tension between not knowing and knowing between the joy of being able to be together, not knowing how to do it. The tension of there is still going to be death in 2023, and there will still be life. And, and what do I do with those younger places in me that wanna cry? I wanna laugh, wanna, wanna ignore, wanna move on quickly or wanna, or just want to like run around at the park and swing on swings. I don't, I don't know what it is about stepping into a new year, but every year for a while, January has felt long. And I think I'm appreciating that. I'm appreciating it as a time for me to hibernate and also warm up, warm up to a year with my family, warm up to the gift of, of more space to live and to breathe and to be with those that are dying and to be with myself as things die in my own life or come to life too.(12:05):So, I don't know if you're li if you listen to this, like where you find yourself today, where, where you're at, if you're in that social awkward space of like, if you've moved past that, if you got it together, if you do find yourself like, hey, I got sick again. Maybe you got covid again. Maybe you got the flu. Maybe you got a cough like my family. Or, or maybe someone did die in your family and, and after everything that survived over the last three years, you're like, damn, why? Now? I think that's what I was thinking and why this good person, why now? Or why this job? Why now something that I've worked for? Or why is this system not working out the way I wanted it to? Or why do I have to return and fight for justice again in 2023? I thought we did that. I thought, I thought we moved something. Hmm. Excuse me. If you find yourself there, you're not alone. If you find yourself asking why or you find yourself repeating or you find yourself on a track and not able to embrace those younger parts of you or to that you find yourself in shame, you're not alone.(13:23):And so I, I wanna I wanna just normalize that. And, and then I wanna, I do wanna encourage you to, to, to find community, to be in community, to reach out to people, to say hi to the person that's making your coffee, to commit to socially awkward moments and laugh about them later. To send an email after you're in a socially awkward moment and say, Hey, I don't know what happened, but I let our conversation get interrupted. And I really do wanna finish a talk with you to allow yourself to cry when one more negative thing happens. Maybe it's a job layoff, maybe it's a death. Maybe it's someone's diagnosed with cancer. Maybe it's long-term covid to allow that one more chance to shed some tears. I don't think that we're out of the grieving process of the pandemic. I don't, I don't think that, I don't think that. And I think it will keep, keep showing up in different ways. Um, those are my thoughts for the beginning of 2023. And in the next week or so, you're going to hear about a town hall that's been organized across ethnic and, uh, diverse communities in my county and the town hall is toBring, bring awareness and advocacy and change into our school system. I, I don't know if we can change things, but we are going to try. And so that's, that's one of the next things you're gonna be hearing, you'll be hearing from more community members and I really look forward to being with you. We're also gonna have a couple podcasts on spiritual abuse and the intersection of that, and racial trauma and sexual trauma. Um, yeah, so I'm excited about this new year in the podcast season and, you know, if you've signed on to listen and you've been so gracious as to download this podcast, I just wanna say thank you. Um, I know Maggie and I have been blown away by the support and the feedback and the, the ways we've engaged our community through, um, making and forming and using a podcast. So, uh, happy New Year and I will catch you in a week or two.          Announcements

The boys discuss the ongoing transfer window, which continues to the search for a 6, a central and winger position, the Real Madrid loss in PKs in the Super Cup, and the chances of winning against Girona tomorrow. * Yunus Musah is the Young Player of the Year for the USA and we also discuss the Gio Reyna drama inside the USA Campaign* Transfers!! ---Guedes wants to come home? And who blames him?-- Is Januzaj the guy?-- Diakhaby Renews! A sign Valencia is getting it's act together?Real Madrid Recap-- The breakout of Almeida-- A stellar finish from Lino from Lato-- The PKs and why is Gaya no good?Sporting Gijon Match Preview-- Capable of wins! Rayo Vallecano loss shows this-- Missing players: CB and Mid out-- Valencia injuries: Castillejo, Correia, Dia-- Tim and Sam's PredictionBONUS: Sevilla lose against Girona =)

WE BUILD POWERFUL HUMANS www.elevatestrengthco.com@bethaneerandles@elevatestrengthcoMeet the Team HERE. (https://www.elevatestrengthco.com/our-team ) Welcome to Elevate Strength and Conditioning, Home of Bainbridge Island's Most Inclusive Fitness CommunityHOME OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND'S MOST INCLUSIVE FITNESS COMMUNITYACCOUNTABILITY: Every member is important to our coaching staff. Each person will have a full accountability partner in every staff member, paired with a community that will support you every step of the way.Elevate is not just a gym where you pay a membership, Elevate is a family. Your goals are our priority. COMMITMENTWE CARE ABOUT YOUR GOALS.We are committed to helping you become your strongest, most confident self.Every session spent working with our highly skilled staff will help you, “become the machine,” and prepare you to move through life with ease and confidence in your movement. Our mission is to help you actualize yours, one step and one drop of sweat at a time, at a pace that works for you.GRITWe are going to do hard things. We are going to struggle. We are going to fail. We are going to succeed. We will do all of these things together. Strength is the key piece of everyone's individual independence in movement, and together, we will overcome obstacles to become stronger, more capable humans.INTEGRITYWe are honest in our assessments and programming to meet each person where they are so we can take them where they want to be. We believe in our method and our programming and its ability to help every single member progress responsibly and with quality movement. Transcripts:Danielle (00:38):Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, and healing. Uh, so proud to welcome my dear friend, uh, Bethany Randall's, owner of Elevate Strength and Conditioning on Banbridge Island, Washington. And this girl, this friend of mine, really knows and cares for human beings. And so here we go. Um, that I'm recording. Okay. Got it. Well, hey, Bethany, uh, welcome to recording a podcast with me. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, so it feels really special and important, and in fact, I just saw you today, so that was fun. Yeah. I brought my whole, well, three of my kids with me, so that was kind of a surprise for you and also for me, . Yeah, no, Bethany, I wanted to just, people may be like, well, how did Danielle and Bethany know each other? And I would say, it's been like a decade, right? Bethanee (01:39):Yeah. Yeah. It's been, let's see, yeah, it's been at least nine years since I've met you, right? Nine years. Yeah. And for anybody watching this, just just know that my two, uh, French bulldogs are in the room, so if you hear any funny noises, it's just them. And, sorry, . Um, Danielle (02:00):That's great. Um, yeah. So I met you at the Y M C A and I came to one, I think I came to your ripped class first and then started working out, and that was when it was like in a smaller room, but eventually it grew to like the gymnasium to where you had people lined up. Bethanee (02:19):Yeah. Yeah. So when I met you, sorry, the dog's cracking me up. Um, when I met you, I was working at the Y and I might have still been a volunteer at the Y I'm not sure if I was an actual employee there, but, um, I started teaching some group fitness classes there, uh, kickboxing, cycling ripped, which was a, like a high intensity interval class. Um, and when I started, I was being trained by two other instructors, and eventually I was able to go off and have my own classes. Um, and then they kind of grew into really big classes. And that was kind of the start of my, um, career and teaching fitness to others. So, but I, I, you and Louis would come to those classes, which was great. Danielle (03:06):That's true. And I remember he filled out like a comment card once, , do you remember that comment card? Bethanee (03:12):Yeah. I still have that comment card. . Yeah.Danielle (03:16):Yeah. Um, yeah. Well, then I started doing some personal training with you there, and you actually introduced me to some movements that weren't a part of the classes. I think it was like deadlift and cleans, um, and just a lot of laps around the upper track, like bear crawl laps sometimes. I remember those. So just a lot of, um, fitness. But the one thing I remember about you from the very beginning, and that still stands out every time I see you, is that you, the way you relate to people and the way you show up is consistent and kind and inviting. And that, not that I don't love to work out. I do. I do it on my own too when I can. Um, but I, I did just enjoy showing up to get to hang with you and experience being with you. So, um, yeah. Bethanee (04:09):Yeah, yeah. So you're talking about, you know, just the time you spent kind of around me, I guess we got to spend more time with each other, whether it was in the private training or in the classes. And, um, we developed a friendship mm-hmm. over the years. Uh, yeah, go ahead and like, refresh me a little bit on, yeah. Danielle (04:29):So then tell me about your journey from the why forward, and I'd love to hear like how you made it. One thing we're just checking in with business owners and people, therapists, whoever we're in, whoever I'm interviewing is like, how did you make it through c what is your business doing? And like, where are you headed? So those are a lot of questions, but yeah, just catching up. Bethanee (04:50):Yeah. So, um, I moved to Bainbridge Island in 2015 to manage another gym, and I was still working for the Y M C A at the time, and I continued to work for the Y M C A for another year and a half, uh, after I moved. So I was commuting from Bainbridge to Silverdale, uh, multiple times a day. putting like 400 miles on my car, um, every week. Um, but eventually I left the Y M C A in 2016 to be in Bainbridge full time. And I took over, um, as an operations manager for a local gym out here. And it was a CrossFit gym. Um, and I came on as a personal trainer, and I came on as somebody that would be the basic, like on-ramp coordinator. There was no, um, program for new members or people coming into the gym to like safely assimilate into the regular gym communi. So, um, before I was hired, the gym saw a lot of turnover. Uh, its membership numbers were pretty low, and my job was to kind of turn that around. So within, I think it was within the first two years, uh, we doubled the membership size. Uh, we started to double the, uh, revenue, and we grew a personal training clientele in addition to group fitness clientele. Um, so that gym kind of became my home base, and I found, you know, lots of great friends and family, um, chosen family there. And some of my favorite people, like Danielle came with me, um, made the, the drive out to Bainbridge multiple times a week to work out. And in 2017, I became co-owner of that gym. Okay. And I was minority owner. I was not, um, like a big player in terms of partnership, uh, but it allowed me to kind of take on a little bit more in terms of what my role was. And at the end of 2019, um, the decision was made to take me off of the ownership. Okay. Um, which in retrospect was actually a really good decision. Okay. So, uh, the, the majority owner wanted to keep kind of control of the business and wanted to do it, um, so low. So I kinda stepped back a little bit. Um, then Covid happened. We moved the gym right before Covid happened to a new home, and that was really rough. We actually had a more than 50% turnover Oh, geez. When that happened. So, um, we had a very small membership, and then the shutdown came along shortly after Covid kind of became a mainstream thing. And so we immediately pivoted to an online type of format. We rented out all of our gym equipment, and I started putting on, uh, two days a week, or two days a week, two times a day, um, five days a week, live workouts for people. Whoa. So people could, they could tune in from their phone or their computer or, um, we actually linked it through YouTube as well. And, um, the gym owner at the time, he was streaming the content and I was delivering the workout, so I was writing the programming. Um, but we made this accessible for everybody by making it free. And our members continued to support us by, you know, keeping their membership active. Um, and we supported them by the videos and letting them borrow equipment. So, um, that went on for a few months, and then in May of 2020, um, it was time for me to step away from that business and go on my own because the owner was going to close the business down. So I did, and I kept doing the live videos. So twice a day, five days a week, um, up until actually over a year after that timeframe. But, um, in July of 2020, I was able to finally, uh, open my own gym business. And, um, I was working at a deal with the owner of the former gym to basically buy the assets of his company. So the membership, the equipment, um, the social media rights. So I didn't actually wanna buy the, the business itself. I wanted to kinda start fresh on my own. So, um, I was able to do that. It's a very, very long story that I don't know if you wanna spend time on, but, um, a lot of hard work on my part and a lot of support from my community, um, made that possible. So, so yeah. So in July of 2020, um, I decided to open my own business entity, and I didn't have a home for the gym. Um, I was basically training people in parks, in people's driveways, uh, school basketball courts, um, outdoor baseball fields, soccer fields, like anywhere I could find space, I would host classes, I would take private clients. Um, and I hauled equipment everywhere. I have like a little suv, it's like a mini suv. And it was full all the time of like, you know, thousand pounds of dumbbells medicine balls and kettle bells. Um, I even got three rowing machines in there a couple times to take them to the park, and, uh, yeah, rain or shine. Um, the community, like, they followed me. They came with me, and I held classes at 6:00 AM eight 30, noon, five 15, um, every day throughout the week for about six months outside. So, so that, that started in May or July, well, we couldn't see people until June. So when they shut down the state for fitness and in person, like wellness, activities, restaurants, all of it, they shut it down mid-March, and we couldn't do anything until June 2nd. Okay. I'll never forget the date because it was, you know, I was waiting for that date. Um, so as of June 2nd, 2020, I was able to meet people. Um, there was that little bit of time there between May and July when I officially opened where I wasn't technically, um, an employee of the former business, but I was still running the classes. I was still doing the live streams. Um, and my hope with that was that people would stay with me through the transition. Um, I also couldn't talk about a lot of it while it was going on, because it was in transition, uh, and I didn't wanna freak anybody out, if that makes sense. So my hope was to continue to foster a feeling of like, okay, this is our normal workout group, this is our normal time, this is our normal instructor. We're gonna keep that going. Mm-hmm. . And then behind the scenes I'm working with, you know, people to get the, the business deal done. So, um, hang on one second. Sure. You're okay, . Um, so yeah. So then in July I announced, um, that I was opening Elevate. Um, I didn't solicit anybody. Um, it was understood with the, with the buying the assets from the former business that we were going to just transfer everything over. Um, so the former owner was kind enough to do that for me. Um, and I solidified my deal of buying the former gym assets, uh, on September 3rd, 2020. So at that point, um, I still hadn't signed a lease. I still didn't have a space. I was still training people outside. I was still doing, you know, two times a day live videos on Facebook or YouTube. Um, and four days later, I signed my first commercial lease. Um, I found a space on Bainbridge, 4,000 square feet, uh, within my price range. And the location of the gym is, it's kind of North island, so it's kinda away from the ferry. It's closer to the bridge. So when you're driving onto Ba Bridge Island, it's about two minutes past the bridge. And so, um, a lot of people had feedback from me and they said, you know, that's too far for a lot of people to go. And I just said, you know, if people are willing to follow me to a park, to a school, to somebody's random driveway, to somebody's random property in the middle of the woods to do a workout, like, they'll come to this location. And, and so, um, I signed my lease, I put my deposit down. And so yeah, that week I had my, my business deal done. I had my lease, and luckily I had a really great landlord who was willing to work with me and, um, make it so that I could afford to be there. So, um, my gym community helped me remodel the space. Uh, they donated money for the floor. They donated money for, uh, repairs that we needed. The building I moved into, needed a lot of work to be a functional gym space. And, um, on October 10th, so a little over a month later, we opened our doors. Wow. That is So, yeah. And it was just in time for like, the rain and the cold. So our workout hours were starting to get kind of cold, you know, 6:00 AM class was in the dark. Um, but overall, like, you know, it was perfect timing. And with Covid, sorry, there's lots of seagulls outside right now. Um, with Covid, there were a lot of restrictions around opening a business, and I had been really enjoying being outside because we had less restrictions outside. Like, everybody felt a little more comfortable. We didn't have to wear masks. Like we could space out, you know, 50 feet away from each other if we wanted to. Um, moving everybody inside was a challenge. I would say at least 30% of my membership didn't wanna be inside. And even with that, we could only run classes of five people at a time, because state regulations said five people at a time. So we made these squares, like, I think it was like seven by seven squares. You'd come into the gym, you'd go to your square, you'd get your equipment, you'd stay in your square, keep your mask on. Um, it was hard, you know, and trying to basically tell people, like, you know, your workout will still be fun while you're wearing a mask. Uh, a lot, a lot of people got it. And a lot of people did not like it. You know, it was different. It was uncomfortable and sweaty. Um, but for me it was like, you know, this is a really small price to pay to do the thing that you really wanna do. So if, like, you have to make this little tiny sacrifice for an hour to get your fitness on, like, so, um, I'm happy to say we didn't have a lot of turnover, you know, because of that. Yeah. Um, there, there were a couple people that had strong feelings, and I, I very, you know, happily said goodbye to them mm-hmm. because the, the health and the safety of my community is like the most important thing to me. So, um, yeah, I wanted to make sure that I did everything I could to keep people safe. Yeah, so we opened on October 10th, and then on November, I wanna say it was November 15th. So a little over a month after that, they shut down indoor fitness again in Washington State . So we had like a nice little month in our new space. And so, um, I reached out to the community and I was like, look, we have all this space outside. I need some popup tents. And the community came forward. I got seven popup tents. I put 'em up right outside the gym. I strung some Christmas lights, um, through them. I moved all the equipment up next to the big doors. So it was just accessible. And we ran classes outside from mid-November until February 1st. So we were out there Christmas Eve, we were out there in New Year's Eve, we were out there in the snow. Um, some days we had, I mean, we had to wear masks, I think up until like January. Like there was, there were a lot of rules. And I'm just really grateful that people were there to, to work out. And, you know, they were uncomfortable and they were cold. And, um, I figured if we could make it through that park, like basketball courts, like snow outside, inside, like I figured whoever was still there would probably stay. So Danielle (16:32):I think what you haven't said, I think what you're saying, and also didn't say very clear, like it's very clear, but it's not like in a clear sentence, is Bethany, people love the community that comes around you and the, the vibe and the community you create. And I think it's just evident, you know, first I know it for firsthand from my relationship, but even to hear the story again, I'm just so impacted at there's more there than just like, Hey, I wanna show up and lift a dumbbell. Bethanee (17:05):Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. You know, the, the, the gym community during Covid, I think we all really needed each other. You know, we needed, um, we needed a sanctuary, we needed an outlet. You know, there were people that were working from home who had never worked from home before. And all of a sudden, you know, your environment changes. And with that comes, you know, do you have kids that are also home? Do you have a spouse that's also home? Like, are you able to have, you know, you time, are you able to have self care time? Um, are you able to take out, you know, your stress from the pandemic in like a healthy way? Uh, elevate became a place, I mean, for all of us, for me too, um, where we were able to just, you know, work on ourselves or be with people that we loved, you know, outside of our families. Um, and with us shut down restrictions. Like, you know, we're not all hanging out with other people. So for some people, like this was their only social interaction mm-hmm. that they'd had, you know, all year And, you know, for me to, to be able to try to foster that environment for people, like that was everything for me. Like, it's great for me to see all of you. Like, I love that. I never take that for granted. I'm always happy when anybody walks through the doors. But to see people be able to, you know, develop relationships with other humans, you know, even if it's like in a, like we're workout buddies, you know? Um, I think during that time, especially during like strict quarantine, lockdown time, like coming outta that, like we needed interaction mm-hmm. and like the other, the other places you were gonna get it was gonna be like grocery store, gas station, Costco, you know, but there was no, you couldn't just go hang out with people Yeah. So anyway, it was kind of a safe haven. And we also got to work out, which was like a super bonus. So Danielle (19:02):One thing I always notice about coming into your gym too, I think that creates a community feel for me is that you have all of these different flags hanging in the gym, and you've supported, um, supported so many different causes that I think move towards community or inclusivity. And I just wonder you've made that a really important part of your community and how you do business. I just wonder if you'd speak to that a little bit. Bethanee (19:29):Yeah, yeah. So, um, I come from, you know, pre elevate days. I come from a background of doing general fitness in a, in a big setting, corporate setting, like the Y M C A, you know, or a Snap Fitness or a, or a Silver Fitness. Um, and then coming into the CrossFit world, elevate is not a CrossFit gym, but the gym I used to manage was coming into that world and seeing, you know, flags up in gyms that are representative of the, the armed services, you know, honoring people that serve their community in some capacity. Um, so when I open Elevate, I wanted it to be different. Obviously, I didn't want it to feel like a CrossFit gym because I was trying to get away from that. Um, and that's a whole other great story. Um, but there was more, there was more than that, right? So, not only do I wanna honor people who have served their country, so whether it's Army or Coast Guard, you know, um, air National Guard, Navy, space Force, um, somebody got us a Space Force flag. Uh, I wanted to make sure to touch on the other community members. Um, so like the l lgbtq community, the trans community, the non-binary community. Um, so we have flags that represent all types of people that are up in our gym. And, you know, when people walk in to elevate, I want them to, to see something that resonates with them. Like, I want them to see something that makes them feel like, oh, like, I belong here, or I'll be accepted here. Or there are people like me here. Mm-hmm. , um, yeah, without question. I think, you know, if, if you walk into Elevate, like you're gonna know right away what kind of person I am. Like, you're gonna know what kind of community we have. You're gonna see Black Lives Matter signs on the walls, like you're gonna see rainbows everywhere. And it's not just that, like, those things are great, but I also think that the people really make it special. So if like, you walk in, you don't know anybody, you just moved here, you, you've been in isolation for two years cuz of Covid. Like, I totally expect every single person in that room to say hi to you the first time you walk into that gym. And then every time after that mm-hmm. , you know, um, Danielle is really good at saying hi to everybody, everybody, you know, and, and making it special. Like, and it's never, how do I, it it's always genuine. Like, you, you genuinely mean it because you genuinely care about people and you're not the only person like that. And I'm so happy that there are more people like you, you know, welcoming, like caring, giving humans that are like, willing to give their energy or their space, you know, or a hug or just how are you, how are your kids? You know? Um, like I've, I don't want our gym to be a cold space. I want it to be a space where, you know, you walk in and you see a picture of somebody that you know on the wall doing something amazing, right? We have all these black and white photos of our community, um, doing hard things, doing workouts, like mm-hmm. it. Yeah. So, so I really want it to be, um, known like from the second you walk in that that space is special mm-hmm. and inclusive mm-hmm. . So, um, I think in terms of like providing, you know, um, equity for my members or accessibility for my members, um, I've never turned anybody away. And, you know, if people, like, we have people that range all over the board. Um, bay Bridge Island is a pretty affluent community, but not everybody that lives here is affluent. Right? We have lots of people that lived here that live here currently, including myself, who depend on affordable housing, who depend on help, who depend on, um, additional resources like to stay here. And whether it's they wanna stay here for a job or maybe they have a family member or kids or a school district, like, I think that no matter what your, like social status is, your economic status, like your demographically, you should be able to have access to health and wellness. And what we do falls into those categories mm-hmm. . And so, um, we have our general membership options, which is our standard, you know, this is what we charge per month, this is what we charge per a year, you know, if you wanna deal. Um, but we also have a scholarship fund so that we can really help people who aren't in need of financial assistance. Um, yeah. And, and you know, some people have offered to help, you know, they've reached out to me and they've said, Hey, like, is there a way I can sponsor somebody? Like, is there anybody that needs, um, financial assistance to be here? And the answer is yes. Like, there's probably always gonna be people in our community that need help. And so the, at the very least, what I can do on my end is have options ready for them. Mm-hmm. . So, um, the other side of that is like, you know, there are people that don't live here that wanna be a part of our community mm-hmm. . So how do we reach those people? Like maybe those people can pay for services, maybe they can't. So I keep, you know, over 350 videos, prerecorded videos of workouts on my Facebook, my business Facebook people can access at any time. So if they wanna do a strength workout, they can access that. If they wanna do a conditioning or cardio workout, core workout, if they wanna do mobility and stretching for an hour, all of that is up there and all of that is free. Mm-hmm. . So, you know, if I can hit all of those targets and, you know, if people wanna be a part of the community, like give them an option to be a part of the community and whatever that looks like for them. Danielle (25:00):I love that. I love that. And, and just, I wonder if you would speak to now more recently, and I think you had some other, like, kind of like growing programs. You had a hiking group, I saw, um, you've had some workshops that are, have either happened or are happening. Like how does that work at Elevate? And, and would you talk a little bit about about more like what you guys offer for that too? Bethanee (25:22):Yeah. Yeah. So, um, the Elevate staff is made up of 11, 12 people. 12 people including myself. Um, and all of our staff are different. They're all amazing. They all have their strengths. Um, none of us are the same. Mm-hmm. , you know, we all have different backgrounds in terms of how we, you know, came to this place, how we came to be trainers, um, our stories might be different and why we even want to help people through fitness mm-hmm. . And, you know, my goal as a, as a gym owner is to try to help my staff take their strengths and help them grow their strengths. Mm-hmm. , right? And then also help them, you know, if, if they need like, developmental work in other areas, like to help them, you know, get to where they wanna be. Um, but if they have a specialty, like let's hone in on it. Like let's shine some light on it and let's make it your thing. Like, if you're really good at it, like you should absolutely be doing it if that's something you want. So, um, yeah, we've had a couple programs and I've, this has kind of been this last like six months or so. Um, I feel like we're finally coming out of the Covid Haze. Yeah. So we're able to actually do some of these things. Um, we've been able to establish a hiking group. So we have two coaches, Lance and Nikki. Both of them are certified mountain guides. Both of them are certified personal trainers. Both of them, um, do bouldering. They do like really long distance hiking, um, mountaineering, like this is their jam, right? And so I'm basically like, build a program. Mm-hmm. bring it to me. Let's make sure everything clicks and works and let's figure out, you know, what we wanna charge for this extra service. Cause this is your specialty, and then let's put it out there. Mm-hmm. . So first year hiking program, we had 13 attendees. Uh, we had two scholarship attendees, and yeah, they, they did I think six big hikes. And, uh, the feedback was great. Like people really had a good time. Um, they were challenged. There were people of all fitness levels. So again, like when we talk about like inclusivity or, you know, people being in different places with their fitness, um, we had people who were new to fitness who were pretty deconditioned all the way up to people who were like very experienced hikers and everybody was able to be a part of this. Okay. So we did like a, a base charge for that charge. Like, Hey, you know, six weeks, I can't remember what we charge. I think we charged $370 for six hikes. Um, it also included six one hour workouts that elevate, um, the program was called Fit to Hike. So the goal was to help people basically start to be conditioned for hikes, but also to help them maintain and improve their, um, their strength, their stability, their coordination, um, their balance and mobility and their ankles, their knees and their hips. Um, but it was all very specific to helping them be better hikers. Okay, cool. So that was the first big program that we launched. Um, second program that we've launched recently. Um, Megan, one of my coaches, she is a prenatal and postpartum fitness specialist. Um, she has multiple certifications and education background in serving women, um, who are either expecting or recovering their body after having children. Um, and her program is amazing. She's probably the most thorough human I've ever met in my life. , um, . But she's lived it, right? So she has two babies of her own. Um, she knows what it's like to go through pregnancy, to have to, you know, bring yourself back to a place where you, you know, really feel strong in your own body. So it's not so much about, I wanna lose the weight, or I wanna, you know, be, um, more fit than I was before I got pregnant. Like, her approach is holistic. Like, she wants you to feel good in your own body, right? And for some of us, it's gonna look very different than I wanna lose 30 pounds or 60 pounds. It's like, I wanna feel strong. Mm-hmm. , you know, and I think Megan really shines in terms of helping people, not just women, but people in general, you know, find their own strengths again. Mm-hmm. . And so she started this new program. Um, there's four classes a week. They're 45 minute classes, and it's, we've called it Elevate Moms. Um, but it's, it's working with that demographic and enrollment is open. So if you are still thinking about trying a class, you know, or if you love it, we do punch cards. Um, it's a separate service outside of our normal class membership because again, it is her specialty and it is her, you know, taking her time to really build these programs specifically for these women. So, um, in the future, we have a cycling program coming, um, from Coach Holly. Yeah. And Holly is, um, a newly certified personal trainer. She just recently passed her NASM certification, which is, it's a big deal. Um, that test is not easy. That's, that's the certification I hold. And it took me over a year of self-study to feel ready to take that test. Um, but she's developed a really, really nice, and what I think will be really effective program. Um, and we have quite a few people who are interested in doing this with her. So, um, stay tuned for more information on that. But yeah, so that's coming. Um, and then in addition to that, we also have, uh, an onsite physical therapist, Greg Spooner. And he has started doing, um, free workshops for the community, not just the Elevate community, but his community of clients and, you know, Bainbridge Island general population community. So he's trying to, um, one, bring awareness to the fact that he does have a business here on Bainbridge and his, uh, practices run out of Elevate Space. So he, he runs space from us and, um, basically you'll see him working with clients in our gym and we share the space with him. So he's been a really great, um, addition to our business model. So he's got, I think, a, uh, hip pain workshop tonight. Oh. And I, I think it starts at 6 45. Yeah. Anyway, I'll find the link, I'll send it to you. And then he is got another one coming up in December. So, yeah, Danielle (31:30):I mean, look, you went from like being, like managing a business a few years ago to then working out in parks and in people's driveways to having your own space, and not only doing classes and personal training, but all of the programs you're launching. It's amazing. Bethanee (31:48):It feels really good to see it all kind of coming together. And, you know, if I think back to, let's see what, it's 2022. So 2015 before I started working on Bainbridge, um, I was working at the Y M C A making minimum wage. I was working at a local nutrition store making minimum wage. I was going to college full-time, and I was working in a restaurant, and I was, you know, living day to day . And it was very, very hard. Um, but I knew for, I just, I knew that if I kept going down this path, that things would be okay and and Mm, you know, I think all the way up through the pandemic, I sorry to hear my dog snoring . Um, like I know what it feels like to like really struggle, you know? And to finally feel like I have some roots in something. I have some equity in something. I mean, it's a really powerful feeling. Like I am 32 years old. I think it's taken me most of my, you know, working adult life. I've been working since I was 15, um, to feel like I, I'm rooted mm-hmm. , and, you know, I'm not rolling in money. I'm not , you know, but I, but I, I feel like I've worked, you know, pretty hard to have some stability in my life and I have it mm-hmm. Um, but I wouldn't have it without my community, and I would not have it without my staff. So I just wanna really shine some light on that, that, you know, the people around me have made it so that, you know, we can all benefit from this. Um, like as much as I wanna take care of myself, I wanna take care of the people that work with me. Mm-hmm. , absolutely. Like, I want my staff to feel like it's worthwhile for them, not just, um, in a rewarding sense of helping other people find their own power, but, you know, like, can I survive on this? And so, um, yeah. You know, while my, my biggest goal is wanting to serve my community, I, I wanna, I wanna serve people that work for me too. Danielle (33:53):Yeah. How, how do you look at when you come to a new year? Do you have goals or hopes for the new year? Even? Like, thoughts about what you're doing in your community? Like, or do you get there when you get there? Or like, how does that work for you? Bethanee (34:10):Yeah. Um, I have some big goals. Uh, I feel like if I, if I try to do too much at once, that's when I get, you know, everything gets jumbled. It takes way longer than it should. So, so what I've been practicing is just kind of attacking one thing at a time. , instead of having, you know, 15 irons in the fire as like, I have two, you know, and that feels, that feels good. Um, one of my biggest goals is to get involved more in our youth community. Um, and we already, we already do that to some extent. You know, I work with the Bainbridge Island Rowing community, and this year I think there's about 80 youth, um, participants in that program that I'm working with. And that's just one way that I have some outreach into the youth community. Um, I'd love to do some seasonal sports training, um, whether it be with the cross country team, I do work, work with some football kids and some water polo kids already. So basically growing those connections, um, with the youth sports. Um, but I've also had an introduction to Bainbridge Youth Services, um, which is an organization on our island that helps teens work through all kinds of things, whether it's at risk, teens, um, finding help, whether it's teens needing mental health, um, um, resources. Um, like I wanna become, I want Elevate to become a hub for, um, basically working with the youth and being a resource for them, being an anchor for them and whatever that looks like. So whether it's through fitness, you know, know, maybe it's through stretching, maybe it's through just finding, you know, some sort of mentorship program. Um, that's really important to me. Mm-hmm. . And, you know, I've been really lucky to work with mostly the adult population on Bainbridge, um, and some youth stuff sprinkled in, but I'd really like to dig a little bit deeper into that and, and, you know, build on that. Um, and that's gonna take some work in other ways, but I've got some stuff moving and some people helping me with that, so I'm really excited about that. Um, I also would like to expand, you know, my business visibility in terms of being a safe place for people, um, who may not, uh, feel like they fit in in a normal gym setting. So, uh, one thing I've really enjoyed, especially in the last year, is meeting more of our local, um, trans community, um, meeting more of our local non-binary community. Um, especially in like, again, like the youth here. Like, there's a lot of change happening and there are a lot of people who are, you know, becoming more comfortable being their authentic selves or feeling like they're in a place where they can, you know, join a gym or find a community or be friends or, I just, I'm seeing a lot of that happening right now. And, you know, I want Elevate to be like a giant beacon of like, acceptance for everybody. Um, yeah, I'd love to obviously increase my membership. Um, , I, uh, that's always a goal, right? How I would love to serve more people, um, right. As far as, you know, personal training, I have the world's best training clients. Um, some of my clients have been training with me for almost a decade, Danielle. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of them have been here with me since I moved here, so 2015. And I feel very lucky. Um, yeah, I feel like this is not a normal thing. Like it's great, you know, but in, you know, where I live before, I'm not sure if I would've had this type of longevity with people. And I think, you know, people have the resources here to make it long term, and even if they don't, but they wanna be hero, you know, we figure it out. Um, but yeah, the only, the only other big goal that I've got is just helping my staff grow and, you know, become stronger coaches or, you know, work on skills that they wanna work on if they already are strong coaches. And, yeah. So, Danielle (38:00):Well, Bethany, if someone like is listening and they're like, and they're maybe not in the area, like maybe you can put a link in for your gym, or if they wanna give to your scholarship fund or, you know, pay someone's membership. Like, I would love anybody who's listening to just join that so we can get that in the notes or whatnot. Bethanee (38:18):Yeah. Yeah. I'll drop that. Danielle (38:23):Thank you for joining us on The Arise podcast. And I just wanted to give a little shout out that the website is elevatestrengthco.com. And when you, you get on that website, there's a couple different tabs you can hit. You can hit get Started, there's a link to their Facebook and Instagram page, group fitness, personal training, get to know the team and some of the values that Elevate holds. So check it out. 

Website is reclamationcounseling.net and my instagram is @reclamationcounselingllcJenn is a therapist and writer who resides in Mobile, Alabama. She is also currently working as a fellow with the Allender Center. A lifelong resident of the south and a mother of four wild and remarkable daughters, she is passionate about reclamation. She loves to see those who know the legacy of trauma carve new paths forward and reclaim their voices, their bodies, and their stories - that they may truly live. She is currently taking new clients for therapy within the states of Alabama and Florida and also has story work coaching availability for those across the country.Danielle:Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, and healing. And today, I'm so honored to be joined by a therapist and a colleague, Jennifer Jordan. We talk a little bit about spiritual abuse and its impacts, so, uh, link in notes to get ahold of her bio and find out how you can hear more from her. Just so honored to have this conversation. Yeah. It's, it's really good to be with you. You know, I got, I got to know Jen a little bit. Do you prefer Jen or Jennifer?Okay. I got to know you a little bit through our, when we intersected at a training course at the Lander Center, and we were in the same group, and I was like, oh, I like that woman. Um, I loved your vulnerability, your skill as a facilitator. I trusted you, and then just who you emanated as a person. And so it feels really like an honor to get to talk with you in this space, like on a podcast. So thank you for coming.Jennifer  (01:44):Yeah. I'm so glad to be here and like, echo everything you're saying, like it feels really fun and exciting and like, um, uh, an honor to get to have this conversation. Mm-hmm. , you know, outside of the context that I've known you previously, so.Danielle (02:00):Right. Um, you know, like, I don't know if you're familiar with my pod, with our podcast, but, um, Maggie is on a break right now, like doing grad school and doing other things. But a lot of what we've noticed since the pandemic and since we've started talking on the podcast is how much spiritual abuse has been highlighted. Of course, prior to even, I think that awareness was the me Too movement, and then just patriarchy just seems like dripping every, like in all the systems we operate in mm-hmm. . And so yeah. As a clinician, as a therapist, like, before we jump into that, just love to hear like, what are you doing, where are you located, and what are your passions around serving, uh, people?Jennifer (02:49):Yeah, so I'm in Mobile, Alabama, down in the south, um, working as a therapist. Um, so I see clients, um, see clients in, um, Alabama and Florida, and then also offer some, um, a bit of a different service story work, consultation to people outside of, um, those states. But, um, really, really passionate. Um, my, my, my practice is called Reclamation Counseling. I feel super passionate about helping people to reclaim, um, what's been taken. Um, whether that's, um, their, their bodies, right, their voices, um, or just their stories have kind of been co-opted into a larger narrative, um, that, that removes their personhood and their individuality, um, and their culture. Um, I think that that's, that's my passion. I think it comes out in different ways, um, depending on the type of, uh, client that I'm working with. But, um, that's what I'm, that's what I'm about. And, and it's a major, it's a major thing for me. It's a big deal for me because that's been so much of my story. Um, and so, yeah, that, that's where I'm at. That's what I do. It's what I'm about.Danielle (04:02):I love that idea though. Like reclaiming, I think you said bodies and stories mm-hmm. . So when you think about that reclaiming process, like what do you see happening for clients or people you work with or maybe in your own life, if you can just speak to that a little bit.Jennifer (04:20):Yeah. So there's so much overlap there certainly, um, but overlap in terms of, um, like what I see happening with my clients and then what I see happening with myself. Um, but, you know, at the root, um, like naming the truth of the stories, the stories of both our personal individual lives within our families of origin, but then also, um, the larger narrative, like the stories of our ancestors, the stories of the culture that we come from, um, and, and as we piece together the truth of those stories, um, and, and, and the ways that, um, buying into, um, falsified stories, um, have cost us, um, that process of reclamation can begin. Um, and so, you know, you talk about spiritual abuse and patriarchy and pure culture and, um, and, and, you know, white supremacists, like all these things are so overlaid and so, um, so connected. But, um, so much of my process has been, um, like naming these multiple layers, these multiple layers of harm, um, that have like, been the building blocks on which my particular stories of harm have have been laid. And so, um, yeah, pulling the stories apart, naming the, naming the truth of the stories and then, um, like what, what has buying into, um, the, the, the false narrative of somebody else cost me? And what do I wanna take back as my own?Danielle (06:00):Hmm. Oh, when you think about that, like take back as your own and, and the intersection between, you know, you named a lot of layers. Yeah. Um, would you be able to speak a little more particularly to patriarchy and spiritual abuse?Jennifer (06:14):Yeah. So, um, you know, I, um, sharing some of my story, um, that, that's kind of the lens that I, I typically think through. Uh, I think we all do that, but, um, it's, it's what I'm most expert in, I guess. Um, uh, you know, if I think that this is true within many, um, evangelical circles, I think that being in the south, being raised in the deep south, um, in soybean fields on a farm, um, there's, there's an added layer to this, but, um, so much of what it means to be a good, good Christian girl, um, is to be, uh, what the, the system of patriarchy demands, um, of, of a female child. And, and so, um, you know, I learned at a very early age what was, what was, uh, most well received by the men, um, in my family, um, which was also kind of the spiritual context that I was raised in.Um, and so I, I became really expert at doing that. And in that lost a lot of my voice, uh, lost a lot of my body, um, and also like gained some things that I've had to lay down. Um, and so yeah, it, it's been, I mean, there's, so, I mean, even as I'm starting to kind of name the reality, right? I feel the weight of the layers and I feel the just memories coming back and, um, uh, just, just the reality that it's been, been a process of kind of crawling out of a hole. And, um, I think for many of us who have, who have had that experience of, um, like our, our, our position and existence as a female wedded within, um, patriarchal spiritual systems, um, and then you put like the, the intricacies of like how white supremacy connects into that. Um, it, it is like there are layers and layers and layers and layers and layers to kind of dig out of. And so, um, I feel that even as I'm starting to name some of those truths,Danielle (08:28):Right? And I hear in what you're saying that you're able to hold or talk about, like, yeah, I, I lost these things, and and maybe you can say exactly what, even if it's general, what you, what a person tends to lose in that group. Yeah. And then I also gained some things. Yeah.Jennifer (08:50):Yeah. So, you know, I i going to, going into what I lost, um, you know, there is a very, um, particular thing that happens to me even now as a, as a 35 year old adult, right? That I've, I've done so much work around and have fought to ground my body in the midst of, but there is something that happens when, um, a man who has positional or spiritual authority, um, speaks to me. And, um, it, it, I've described it as almost like a brainwashing, um, a Halloween out, um, a a robotic falling in line, um, and a pleasant expression. Um, and so, so in that, you know, there's the loss of, of my own response, um, my own, uh, choice to disagree or agree, um, my own emotion, um, because kind of having a big emotional response was not, not okay. Um, and also, um, just the, the reality of the truth that my body holds in those moments, um, it, it, there's no space for it.And so, yeah, learned from a very early age that that really needs to be set aside, which that in and of itself set me up for lots of other harm later down the road. Of course. Yeah. Um, but, but yeah, those are the things that it lost that I lost. But I think, you know, navigating what that gained me and my complicity within that, um, is, is a such a, like a concept that is so full of grief, um, and, and almost like it feels maddening to consider, but it, it, like we have to face it. Like I, as a southern white woman have to face that, right? Um, and so, um, it, it, it got me specialness, it got me preference and privilege mm-hmm. , um, it got me protection mm-hmm. , um, it got me, um, a voice even though it wasn't my own mm-hmm. . Um, I had, I had a space to exist where others didn't mm-hmm. , um, and it, it, and it got me the reputation of being, um, what I didn't wanna be and also what I wanted to be, which was, um, pure and preferred and desired. Um, and so there's a lot of complexity there, certainly, um, and a lot to grieve and, and much more to name, I'm sure. But those, those are some of the first thoughts I have.Danielle (11:31):It is kind of a miracle if anybody makes a 20 years of like, but when we got married, Luis, uh, came from Mexico on a fiance visa, and, um, he crossed, he was able to cross the border sooner than we thought because the visa came through so quickly, and then we had 90 days to get married. And so that 90 day window, we had scheduled our wedding for November, and I, it, we were out of the window for getting married. So the church wedding was in November. So he came up, we needed to get married, and the sooner we got married, then the sooner we could roll on the legal paperwork. Right. So we found a judge, the judge came to my parents' living room, and I remember telling him, like, and mind you, this is a guy not raised in purity culture, not raised in the strict evangelical setting. I was raised in telling him like, we can't have sex until we're married at the church because we're not married in front of God. And he's like, what? What do you mean? Like, ? Like, we're getting married. But I was like, no. Like, I'm convinced. So we got married in front of the judge, and I remember we got married, and I remember telling him like, I feel married. He's like, we're married.I had like kind of proclaimed my purity in a sense to friends and family, like, we're not gonna have sex until we're married at the church. Mm-hmm. , and I was praised for that. Mm-hmm. , like, we were admired for that. And I remember even one time my parents went outta town and Louis was living there, and I made him, I locked him out onto the front porch to like avoid the quote unquote appearance of evil.Wow. I just, as you know, 20 years came up. People are like, why do you have two wedding anniversaries? I'm like, actually, it's purity culture.Gosh. But I think of the status even I gained in my family, gained by me holding to some false narrative of what, what marriage actually meant mm-hmm. that somehow it wasn't in the sight of God because it was a judge. Mm-hmm. . And so I did gain access and privilege, and I think in the meantime, Luis was like, well, I really love this woman. Like, what are we doing? Yeah. I'm just gonna go along . But that, I mean, that story's been so present in my mind as you share, like, uh, they, I did hold a sense of pride in that time mm-hmm. mm-hmm. , look what I did like Yeah. Yeah. And was praised for it among friends and family, you know? Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.Jennifer (14:14):. Oh, yeah. Yes. I mean, look at how, yeah. And there's something of the, the holy struggle there too, right? That makes it even that much more admirable. Like, oh, we're, we're married, but we're not, actually, we're gonna, we're in a way, you know, there's, there's, yeah. That's complex. But yeah, I mean, I feel that, I feel that I feel, um,In a, in the, the system I was raised in, um, which was highly patriarchal, uh, my grandfather was Greek is Greek, um, but, but just high, high, highly patriarchal, um, kind of extended family system that I lived in the middle of. Um, and, and women had a few jobs, um, which was, you know, to safe in and cook good meals and, um, and, and don't have emotional outbursts. Um, and so in that, in that, that place, like I felt very invisible, right? And so to, to be really pure and really, um, good and what they needed me to be, um, felt like it got, it got some of the attention that I was so longing for. Um, so it's really, it's really quite a trap, um, to be in the middle ofOh, that's a great question. Um, and a complex question because I think the truth of the answer to that question is that I was really good. I was really good at being what everybody wanted me to be, um, really, really good at it. Um, and even in, in places where I wasn't so good at it, I was really good at hiding. Um, so I, I kept the appearance of, um, of, of, of what everybody wanted, um, and, and, uh, and it, it enabled me to survive, but also, um, caused my death in many ways. SoDanielle (16:24):Yeah. There's something about that type of survival where you have to kill off who God created you to be. Mm-hmm. that, and I'm not saying the survival is unholy, but what's required of us to survive in the system is an unholiness mm-hmm. in a system that's proclaiming Yes. This is the way to be more holy. Right?Jennifer (16:49):Yeah. Yeah. I mean it, I mean, try, I'm trying to put word more words around that, and it, I just feel kind of the madness of it, right? Like the madness of to exist here and belong here, I need to be a certain thing. Um, and yet to be that certain thing means that I, I have to forsake and kill off so much of, of like the truth of who I am, and so either I'm cast out or I'm, um, or I'm being a fraud to stay. Um, and so it, it's, it's a, it's a bind.Danielle (17:24):Mm-hmm. when you feel that bind, I think there's always, like, you know, as therapist, we like talk about, like, let's highlight the bind. Yeah. And sometimes I'm like, well, what good is that? Yeah. Thanks for intensifying it, but like, how the heck do we get out? Or how the heck is this made Right. Or redeemed? And just curious, like, where does your mind go? Not that you have the answer and need to have the answer, but how do you meander through that for yourself or for clients?Jennifer (17:55):Dude, I mean, I think the, the first thing that comes to mind is just, um, like being willing to feel the grief of, of the unspeakable bind that, that, that position is. Um, and, and I think the grief brings us softness, um, that enables us to, um, feel our hearts again, , if, if that makes sense. Because I, I think that there's so much hardness required, um, to exist in that bind. And so I think that grief brings us softness that then allows us to face the truth a bit more, a bit more realistically. And then I think that, that if we are in a system that requires that of us, um, like we have to, we have to make the hard choice to face our complicity, and we have to make the hard choice to, to, to crawl our way out of that. And I know in my experience, like that has not been pretty, and that has not been easy. Um, but I think that, I think that like we have a, we know we see the truth, like we have to do something with it.Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think hardening and I think like, um, just in existence, that that hollow is the, the best word to describe it, um, in existence, that that looks, looks pretty good, looks really good to people within the system. Um, but I think internally, um, like there, there are places within us that know that it's not, it's not real. It's not, it's not full, it's not authentic. Um, so yeah.Danielle (19:53):Yeah. I love that way. You talk about it like, first entering the grief, being willing to grieve both the ways we've been complicit in the ways we've been harmed and like that feeling. I think what I heard you say is what brings kind of that alignment mm-hmm. for our heart back online. Mm-hmm. , I just think it's like so crazy to me that in order to acquire belonging or acquire acceptance, we actually have to deny who God created us to be. Mm-hmm. .Jennifer (20:26):I agree. And it makes you question like, okay, if that's what's happening here right then, then what is, this is what's the good in this,Like, if, if we're all created uniquely in the image of God and, and the mission is that we would be more in alignment with that and be, be bringing God's kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. Like if that's, if that's the goal and this, this system and structure, um, that is coded in spiritual candy, um, if you will, like, if it's requiring us to set aside those particularities to who we are, um, you know, I, you have to question like, Craig, what's the intent here? And I think the truth is a lot of the intent is like to hold power and supremacy. It's not to really do the, do the, the mission quote unquote mission of Jesus.Danielle (21:28):Right. Then I come to like, well, is that faith or religion or a cult or what's going on here? Because, because when I look back I'm like, well, well the, like, I can't deny what I read in the Bible. I can't deny what I felt Jesus. And yet I can say that where I was at was harming so many other people. Mm-hmm. , including myself., and how do I make sense of that? How do I make sense of learning about Jesus, learning about God learning, like, I'll just never forget, like around the whole abortion issue, the whole thing is like you're fearfully and wonderfully made mm-hmm. , and yet they don't want what God fearfully and wonderfully made once you're born and thinking and moving.So then I'm like, well, what, what? Like, what was I really was that Yeah.Jennifer (22:16):Yeah. I feel that intensely. And I think, um, I don't, you know, the question remains because it is, it is, you know, this I think for so many of us that are, that are pulling our way out of systems that have been harmful to us, right. Like these are, this is the place where I was introduced to the thing I most care about in my life. This is the place where I was introduced to the person of Jesus. And, and I don't know where I would be without that. And yet, um, to really be in alignment with Jesus, I have had to peel back all the other pieces of, of what else this system gave me. Right. The other messages. And so I hear you. I mean, I think it is just, it, it is a question. And I do think that there are, uh, I think that we can't, you know, we can't deny the, the pursuit of power mm-hmm. and comfort mm-hmm. and, and, and wanting to hold onto like black and white truth cuz it's comfortable and easy to stomach. Um,Danielle (23:30):Yeah. When you talk about reclaiming, I think for, for me, what I come back to is part of what I reclaimed is that Jesus showed up to me in a lot of spaces where he actually wasn't even welcome , but he introduced himself to meThrough almost a false narrative about him, but he, he showed up in himself, which is how I came to faith mm-hmm. and how I see my faith moving despite, despite the falsification of who he wasJennifer (24:04):Yeah. Which is so wild, like, and beautiful. Right. And, and just points to like his I amenity mm-hmm. that goes beyond these systems that, um, make him something other than he is. Um, but yeah. I love that. I love reclaiming, um, I love the way you said that, that in, in these systems where it was, you know, in fact wasn't very welcome like that in those places, he introduced himself to you. Mm-hmm. . I love that. And I feel that, feel that too. YouDanielle (24:44):Yeah. Sorry, I interrupted. Um, no, you're good. Jen. When you think about that reclaiming process then for, for your clients or for someone who's listening, being like, I actually can't leave the system, or Sure. You don't understand if I leave, I'm gonna lose my family. Mm-hmm. , you don't understand if I say anything about white supremacy or share anything about what I'm voting for, I might lose my entire community. Like when someone walks into your office in that situation, what, what do you do with that?Jennifer (25:18):Yeah, I mean, I, I I mean first thing is like validate because it's true. It probably is true. I mean, and, and, and I think that that reality points so strongly to the truth of the situation that that individual is in, right? The truth of that system, that there really is no space for individuality. Um, and, and that to begin to speak up or to begin to move out of that, um, can't have great cost. Um, I think that, that that's a truth that needs to be acknowledged. And, and, um, you know, I so acknowledging that, that that's a reality. Um, and I, I think with a lot of kindness, the question I would pose to that person would be, um, I don't know, I, I, you know, at at what, what's it, what, what is it costing you to, to, to, what is it costing you, um, to remain, right? Like, like cuz there is a big cost to leave. Like there is a huge cost, um, that, and you need support, you need resources, and you need, um, you know, people who, uh, can, can be with you in the grief of all that it will cost. Um, and I think just in the, the quiet like pondering of our own soul, we have to, we have to be willing to face what is it costing me of me to not do something? Um, and I think it begins with like very small Cause my experience was that like, it wasn't like being within a system, it wasn't just about the system, it was about the ways that I had been groomed mm-hmm. to not think, groomed, to not ask questions, groomed to not like Yeah. I mean, even ask a question, just say, Hey, like, why does this have to be this way?Mm-hmm. like, I, I like those things didn't even cross my mind. And so I think like, it, it, it, in truth, I think it has to begin very small, um, with the grounding of your body, the telling of the stories and safe spaces so that there can be an increment of change toward, um, toward peeling back those layers of grooming Right. To where you can't ask a question and, and, and, and do the work to hold your own. Um, and trust that a series of those little moments of reclaiming your own voice and your own body and your own opinion and your own sense of who Jesus is, um, can accumulate and you, you doing what you need to do, whether that's leaving or whether that's staying and trying to be a voice for good, a voice for change. So that, that's kind of a framework that I think through.Danielle (28:17):Yeah. I like the way you put that. Like, it, like, I think a lot of us think like change is going to be like, suddenly I just like tear the building down mm-hmm. or burn all the books that were, you know, like cult like . I think often the longest change is so incremental, which makes it so painful.But more sustainable, I think. Mm-hmm. it doesn't mean you don't lose what you were fearful you lose in the end. Sure. You still may lose all of those things, but you do gain a lot by through incremental change. Mm-hmm.Jennifer (28:53): certainly. Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, you gain the, the beauty of who you are apart from that and, and, and you gain the, the feeling of, um, like I am being true to my own knowing, my own sense of right and wrong, my own, um, you know, my own spirituality. Um, and, and you know, I think it, it always is such a motivator for, for us as parents, um, to when we, when we know that what we're doing will have generational implications, right? It's like there is the potential for so much loss, even in the incremental changes that can't be denied, but to have a generational forward, like a, a forward facing view of what might be gained beyond my generation, should I be willing to take these incremental steps that, that could lead to major loss? Like is, is a worthwhile, worthwhile gain, um, just to give my kids a different chance, you know, just to give them like, like the beginning of a different narrative.So my website is reclamation counseling.net. Um, and I'm also on Instagram, um, building a presence there. It's at Reclamation Counseling llc. Um, so those are probably the two best, best places to find me. Um, but yeah, I'd love to connect and, um, I really, I feel so passionate, like you wanna come along alongside people who are asking them really hard questions and, and doing the really hard work of incremental change, um, within their stories that can lead to bigger waves of change outside of them. So yeah.Danielle (30:55):I wonder what you would tell someone who can't even pick up the phone or send an email or an Instagram message. Like, what, what do you tell that person that isn't up to doing that part of the labor? Like, what's your word forJennifer (31:09):Them? Oh man, that question like, brings tears to my eyes because, um, that just feels like very, like I remember those days mm-hmm. . Um, and I, I would say stay curious. Like, just stay curious, keep reading. Um, know that if you're not there yet, that's okay. And yet, like listen, listen to and honor that voice inside of you that's like wanting something more for yourself and wanting something more for your kids. Even like, don't, don't deny that there's time, there's space. Um, but keep, even if it's a little step of listening to another podcast or picking up a book or, um, you know, like asking the questions in a journal cuz you don't have anybody you can talk to about 'em. Like stay with that, that voice inside of you and stay curious.Danielle (32:04):Yeah. Well just thank you so much for your wisdom. So there's three questions that we usually wrap up with. It's what are you reading, what are you listening to, and who, or what's inspiring you?Jennifer (32:16):Okay. So, um, I'm reading The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Yeah. So trying to recover some practices of creativity and, um, it's been very disruptive and good for my life. Um, so yeah, I'm reading that, um, listening to Part from, you know, podcast. Uh, music wise, I've been listening to three things depending on who's in the car with me. Um, the Hamilton soundtrack, um, zombies, three soundtrack or, um, the new Taylors Swift album. So those are the three things that have been playing for me recently. And then, um, what's the last question? Are you inspired by Yeah. Who are you inspired by? Oh, man. Gosh, so many people, um, faith who are like, who are still speaking up and who have the courage to continue to be that prophet voice in the wilderness, like in the face of such violence, um, and, and, and dishonesty, um, from so many, um, other people of faith. Um, so I, I feel very inspired by those voices. So, and you're included in that, Danielle. Oh, thanks man. Appreciate your voice. Yeah. I'm inspired by this conversation, so we gotta do this again. Yeah, I would love that. I would love that. Yeah. Yeah.  

From Danielle: "Alethea is a skilled facilitator, and compassionate truth teller - and all around good people. Alethea teaches me, through her way of moving in the world, to continue to use my own voice. I know her to bring her awareness in difficult spaces for herself and others in moving towards healing. Alethea lives her life through the lens of love."I would be honored to co-host a podcast with her any time. She is also a DEI consultant, lives in Atlanta, GA, and loves being an auntie! Is...." A Black woman. Love being a black woman. Proud to be a black woman single, live in Atlanta, Georgia. Love it here. One of the homes of the civil rights movement. So it's been great to live here. And I love, one of the things I love about living here is I'm in the majority in a lot of places, which I was not used to prior to six years ago when I moved here. So it's part of, I feel like who I am and what I get to experience in my day to day, which is refreshing. I have served in the non-profit sector for the last 10 years specifically in a sports ministry context. But over time, that evolved to getting into doing work around training and development in the areas of race, power, privilege, ethnicity, culture in the gospel. And so really for my own journey, one understanding of how being a racialized person in a racialized society, what my experience has been. And I didn't have language for a lot of my experiences until I was probably 27 years old and realized that God cares about that. So that was just so new to me. So I feel like part of who I am is helping others understand themselves first and foremost of how they experience the world, how they show up in the world how they navigate the world. And then adding the faith perspective in as well and combining the two. And so that's very much a part of who I am is our history as followers of Jesus in this sense matters, but also who we are as people in whatever place we call home. For me it's here in the US in Atlanta, Georgia."   Danielle (00:40):Welcome To the ARise podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender and healing. And just wanna welcome a colleague and a dear friend. She's located in the Atlanta area and she gives herself a robust introduction here and I love it because it is who she is. She about belonging, she is about being with others in their stories. She's about being authentic and true to what she believes. And I'm just so honored to have her with me today and it's election season. So we're gonna get into it and talk a little bit about that belonging Tiffany Cross from MSNBC whose contract wasn't renewed. And I encourage you to listen in and with curiosity and hold space for any kind of resistance you feel and just be curious about that and jump in with us. I mean, let's get into it. But Alicia, tell me a little bit about who you are, what you do. Yeah, jump in. Who are you?Alethea (01:52):, who am I? That's a great question. Are you? I am a black woman. Love being a black woman. Proud to be a black woman single, live in Atlanta, Georgia. Love it here. One of the homes of the civil rights movement. So it's been great to live here. And I love, one of the things I love about living here is I'm in the majority in a lot of places, which I was not used to prior to six years ago when I moved here. So it's part of, I feel like who I am and what I get to experience in my day to day, which is refreshing. I have served in the non-profit sector for the last 10 years specifically in a sports ministry context. But over time, that evolved to getting into doing work around training and development in the areas of race, power, privilege, ethnicity, culture in the gospel. And so really for my own journey, one understanding of how being a racialized person in a racialized society, what my experience has been. And I didn't have language for a lot of my experiences until I was probably 27 years old and realized that God cares about that. So that was just so new to me. So I feel like part of who I am is helping others understand themselves first and foremost of how they experience the world, how they show up in the world how they navigate the world. And then adding the faith perspective in as well and combining the two. And so that's very much a part of who I am is our history as followers of Jesus in this sense matters, but also who we are as people in whatever place we call home. For me it's here in the US in Atlanta, Georgia.So that's very much part of who I am. That's the type of work I do. And so now I've transitioned, I'm still in a nonprofit space but transitioned to a different space and continuing that work. So under the, what the other people call it, under the umbrella of dei, you know, everyone's like dei, what is that? I thought it was more common, I say it than people ask me, but diversity, equity, and inclusion. I've seen some people adding the B on there belonging, which is very intriguing to me. Brene Brown just has a two part podcast two part series on her podcast that she put out with two women of color. And I listened to part one about a week ago and was like, Oh, okay, this is some good stuff for me to think about. So anyway, so that's what the type of work I'm involved in.(But for me, it's not just a job, it's what I feel like to commit my life to right now. I feel very much a calling and a commitment to that type of work because it matters if we can see and how polarized just our country is not even thinking about the world cuz then we get into it. Even more matters there. But anyway, so that's part of who I am. I live in the context of community. Community is very important to me. So it hadn't been prior to 10 years ago I didn't understand the value of community but I knew I was longing for it. I knew something was missing. And so I feel like very part of much of who I am is being my connected to community. And I have an awesome community of people around me, both here in Atlanta and all over the country.I feel like when you hear people talk about me, one of the things that they will say is Alethia highly values her people. And I do. And so that, that's very significant to me, very much part of who I am. And I love being an auntie. I'm an auntie. It's my favorite title. I would probably say I love being a sister and a cousin, a friend, all that. But auntie is by far my favorite title of any title I've ever had. Lots of nieces and nephews part of my larger family, not just blood related but I love, love those kiddos and get to see one of my nephews next week, which I'm really excited about. But that's very much part of who I am. If you know me, I love being an auntie. So yeah, some of who I am,Danielle (05:55):I could see why you would want the word belonging in there. Cause I mean your story is about not only belonging to others but being belonged to.Alethea (06:04):Yes. And it's just been good for me to start reading some more about D E I B and just the significance of having belonging on the end of that. We belong to one another. One of the things some of my colleagues that we work together, we say we're better together and that's part of what we're trying to one live out but also help other people understand as well. And so I just love that. I don't feel like I can add it yet. I don't know, I feel like I'm just learning. So it feels weird to be like, yeah, I'm doing D E I D and it's like I'm still trying to figure out that part. But the more I read about it, the more I hear people talk about it in their work, the more I'm like, yeah, that actually is a significant part of it. Cuz if people don't understand that who we belong to and what belonging looks like and how to understand that, we're gonna miss out on some of those other elements that we're trying to reach people with.Danielle (07:00):Yeah, I mean as a Latina, as a Mexican, I'm like, yeah, if we don't belong then it just feels bad. , we see that playing out across society right now. So yeah,Right so we were talking, you and me were like, hey, I was like hey we should do a podcast together. And we were like, what should we talk about? And I gave you seven things, and at the end I was like, well what about if something comes up? And here we are on election day and you texted me last night and you texted me this story about Tiffany Cross and we'll jump into that. But I mean how can we even jump into that without saying where we are literally today? And I mean you're in Georgia and it feels to me out here in Seattle, Washington, we are very interested in what happens in Georgia.Alethea (07:48):A lot of people are, yes, it feels reminiscent of the 2020 election. Again, all eyes on Georgia, it was very funny, I was getting text as I was going to bed, I'm watching the polling numbers for Georgia from people that don't live here. I said, yeah, I gotta stop, I gotta go to bed. But yeah, it is all eyes I know on us among a few other states as well. But yeah, it's huge. Stacy Abrams running for governor again her race in 2018 was wild. And I still was talking to someone recently and they were like, I was kind of surprised she ran again and I actually read her post this morning, she posted cuz people have asked that question, why would you run again when you have such a public loss? And I love what she talked about, about who she is, where she comes from, her connection to her family when she lost what she did and why she's running again.She has so much purpose, which I love, it's very clear for her. But yeah, it was a wild, 2018 was wild cuz Brian Kemp was the Secretary of state. So he was overseeing the election he was running in which I still to this day am baffled how is that legal ? But it's apparently it's legal here in Georgia. So yeah, we have a significant number of major seats up for election actually. So governor, lieutenant governor, Secretary of State Attorney General, and then the Georgia State Superintendent. And so big things going on here in Georgia. So yeah, big day here and I hope Stacey Abrams wins. I voted for her, I had such a warm feeling and smile on my face and I got to vote for her when I went to vote on Friday. But yeah, it's gonna be ING to see and her social media, it will continue to be a buzz as all eyes are on us today and probably into tomorrow as well.So I know some of the votes actually in one of our counties have until November 14th to get them in because Georgia is one of the many states that passed a voter suppression bill last year and SB 2 0 2. And that bill is very problematic. And one of the things, the issues in that bill, which we saw in one of many ways come out just the other day, which the A C L U got involved was there are over a thousand people in one of the counties that never got their absentee ballots. And they were supposed to because of in the bill, it changed the amount of time that people have to request their absentee ballot and then to get it in. And people, I don't think people knew that. But then what happened was it backed everything up and there's not enough officials to process some of the things.And so in Cobb County they didn't get over a thousand ballots out and so they were supposed to mail them on Friday overnight they did it. So the A C L U got involved, sued Cobb County and won yesterday. And so the ballots went out, I think last night overnighted, but they have until November 14th to get them in. So as I was reading this morning on the so informed Instagram page, every vote matters because of how close on those races are. So I'm be interesting to see how much those votes, while we wait for those to come in, will affect some of the larger things in the stateDanielle (11:07):. Yeah, it's interesting. I think people from around the country get hyper focused on something is something that is happening in another state. And I was just talking to an elder in our community and we have things that matter in our county, in our state that we also need to be, We can't just assume because Seattle's a blue area or Washington's blue that it doesn't matter that we don't vote for instance, there was millions of dollars poured in from out of state to run television ads for a particular conservative candidate and the ad was literally the Democrats have opened the border and two, there's a picture of a two year old getting supposedly killed by Fentanyl and it's because of immigrants. And you're just like, I was telling my friend, I was like, that happened in Washington. And we're like, yeah, that that situation necessarily happened but that the political money pouring in actually happened. , which I think really highlights a lot of why you sent me this article, , because whose voice matters, whose voteWho gets equal air time , who is allowed to say what they think , who's allowed to push conspiracy theories, who's allowed to push voter suppression, and whose voice actually get eliminated from the . So I mean you sent me this article on Tiffany Cross and I'm just curious how you came across it.Alethea (12:40):Yeah, I mean all over social media. So I think it was on Friday Tiffany Cross, she hosted it was called the Cross Connection on msnbc. It was a weekend show and I just open up Instagram and my feed is just filled with people responding and reacting to Tiffany Cross not having being fired or something. And I'm like, wait, what? So look into it some more and find out her contract wasn't renewed but they, MSNBC sever ties with her immediately, which is not common . And so social media obviously is in an uproar. So that's actually how I found out about it. Just some different accounts I follow everyone was talking about it. Tiffany Cross is a black woman for those who don't know. And she held I think a significant spot especially in talking about politics and things of that nature. And so for her contract to not be renewed, but for four days before the midterms for her, immediately her show was just done.It was very problematic. So again, that's how I initially found out about it. I've just been reading quite a bit about it. And I think too, for me as a black woman there Friday was, it was like that happened and then an album dropped where Meg, the stallion was very inappropriately targeted in the album by Drake and 21 Savage. And so I think for me there was also this other layer of, First it was about Meg, the stallion, so that's my social medias and then we find out Tiffany cross' show, she's just done, It's like, hold on, what's happening to black women today? So I think it was also compounded in that nature too. But yeah, that's how I found out about it was the buzz on social media,It's been thinking quite a bit about this over the last few days and it's just such an interesting thing to navigate, I think being a black woman and seeing what happens to black women in media and in public and things of that nature. And so there's this double whammy of what's happening where we're in election season and so it's like black women save us every time. Black women save us. Like, oh my gosh, we gotta get Stacy Abrams in first, black female governor. Black women are, we gotta get 'em out and they're gotta get people voting and we need black women, black women to save us. That's what it's been for the last few years. So you have this happening again now in 2022. And at the same time, black women are being targeted for who they are as people, which is what happened to Meg, the stallion or because of how they show up in a space, which is what happened to Tiffany Cross. And so yeah, it's interesting to watch it. Very problematic to watch it unfold in that sense of, so you want us when it's convenient, but don't do too much . Hey Tiffany, don't be that candid. Don't use that type of language. Be careful of how you say certain things. But we want you to for so you can reach an audience that our network is not reaching. So I looked it up msn nbc, part of the reason they brought on Tiffany Cross she is said, I wrote an article that her audience was 55% female, 35% African American. She was targeting a specific audience. That's part of the reason why MSNBC brought her on. So it was almost like, hey, we know people listen to you and people watch you and so it's going to help us and that's really what we care about, but we don't wanna deal with the heat that comes with that. So we can only handle it for so long. So after a couple years, we'll see you . And I feel like the thing that's very common with black women, it's like, hey, we know people listen to you. We know people follow you. We know that you hold a significant place in society, but we only want part of you. And when we're done with that part we'll throw it out. Move on. And so I feel like again, that's really what happened. I feel like what happened with Tiffany is another example of that which is not uncommon. I feel like for the black experience in particular being a black woman in this country.Danielle (16:50):I mean I read a couple articles and they called her far left. I was like, Oh what Oh, Far left about. And I wondered if they needed to mirror the fact that they're now calling these extreme conservatives. Far . When I started reading what was far left, it really wasn't her views, it was more the way she communicated. Weren't comfortable with her candid observations,She wasn't actually purporting certain ideologies, it was more like observations. So I found that very curious. Did you pick up on that? Yeah.Alethea (17:30):I mean I feel like that again happens all the time. So I think we live in such a polarized society right now that it's the easiest thing to do is to pinpoint people. They're either far right or far left, no in between. It feels like you're, you say one thing that has a tinge of what we deem progressive liberal so far outreaching because it's so counter to what people on the very far side of conservatism would say. You're just deemed you're far left. And I don't think that's a helpful thing to do. And essentially, cuz really look at what you did was, well what's her ideologies? What is it that she is portraying or talking about that would put her in this quote category that people are putting her in their Audi is, well that's not true, but it takes some work. You had to read some things to say, Is that really true?Cuz I don't really know, so let me find out. But we don't know how to do that. We just do a couple clicks. And someone else told me she's far left, so I just gotta believe that she's just as far left person because she had to come back to Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly and they're far, so she's gotta be far left. And I think that's just pretty sadly very common in our society right now is it's easy to categorize people. And so really no, let's get underneath that. What was she actually doing that you didn't like? didn't like how candid she was? You didn't like that She held a spot on a weekend show, the most watched weekend show, and it was on MSNBC and she's the second most watched weekend cable news show in America. In America on the weekends. People got time on the weekends, they're watching tv.It was the second most watch in all of America in the us. And so what you didn't like was she held a significant place in cable news and you didn't like how she very honestly talked about situations and people. Now was she kind of bra with her some of her wording? Yes, she was. I read some of the stuff that she said like I don't know if I would say that on cable news, but hey, we're different people. But again, it's like, well then where does the standard lie? Because Tucker Carlson can be that brash and be that racist and that sexist, that misogynistic and it's fine because that's just who he is. So it's okay. But if Tiffany does it now, it's a problem. Now we're not gonna renew your contract.Danielle (19:54):Yeah. I just have even a hard time. I'm not, I just feel like Tucker Carlson actually won a lawsuit saying he actually doesn't tell the truth. That's how he won the lawsuit. Right? He's like, Actually you can't be deceived by me cuz I don't tell the truth. So he gets to stay online. It's interesting. It's not interesting. It's not a surprise that he targeted her. And it's also not a surprise that he actually carries that much power. And MSNBC is supposedly more liberal,Alethea (20:29):Supposedly that part. Right? Supposedly there's supposed a close up part, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think I just had this thought too, when you're making that comment of he win the lawsuit by saying, Hey, I don't sell the truth, but the power that comes with that. So I was reflecting on, as I was prepping to vote, actually last week, I was going back through and actually reading the bill SB 2 0 2 of what the voting laws used to be and what they turned into because of this bill. And then I went through and I was looking at as much research as one can do, right? I'm looking at all the different candidates for all the different things we're voting for here in Georgia. And I found it interesting that several of the Republican candidates voted for SB 2 0 2 and I was like, Help me understand something.If you are certain there was no voter fraud in the state of Georgia in 2020, why do we need to pass a bill to secure voting ? I don't understand that. I'm trying to understand if you are say, I mean people are saying there was no fraud here. Brad. Brad, he was like, I will not overturn the election. I will not find you 11,000 votes cuz it's not true. Our elections are safe and secure. What he said in 2020, why do you need to pass a bill then to tighten up, to tighten up voting rights if there's no fraud? Because even though they were saying we, there's no fraud in Georgia, you still believe the lie that there was fraud in the election. And so part of what you did, Brian Kemp, and the power that he has held as governor is, yeah, he doesn't like me anymore. 45. Okay, that's fine, but I'm gonna pass a bill because I have the power to do that because I wanna make sure I get reelected. Even though I've said, even though I've said there was no fraud, Rod Rothenberger Secretary of State said there was no fraud in our election, but I'm gonna vote for that bill.And so it's again, it's that point that you made of the power that comes with stuff like that and the ability to cling to a lie or just blatantly lie and still win or still have progress forward or still be able to hold your seat . And again, that's very common in our country. I think it's embedded in the very foundation of this nation. And so again, it's not surprising, but again, I think that's the part of the historic part that people wanna overlook is it's still playing out today. You can say, I don't believe a lie, but actually believe a lie by that your actions that you take.Danielle (22:58):And I would even go so far as to say I don't actually think they don't know the truth. I think that's letting people off hook. And I think they know it's a lie and they're like, But the lie feels good to me.So the lie feels so good. And also I actually know my ass is on the line. If we do this legal, I may not get reelected. So I have to find a quote legal way, Votes for me, and to eliminate certain populations from the likelihood that they can vote. Of the things I think Tiffany Cross could highlight, would highlight around this season. And people did not want the spotlight on Georgia, on Seattle, on places where there's inequities. Arizona, I've already theories coming from my own family, I'm like, Lord, have mercy have to mute you. I think they don't wanna hear that. So now you just have sson, right?Alethea (24:04):Yep, yep. I mean that's what, at the end of the day, people, it sounds good initially, but the reality is when you keep talking about it and you keep doing it, it's like, Oh, you actually meant what you said in 2020 that actually mattered two years later, you're still talking about it. Oh, we thought that would pass. So it was a convenience. It makes us look good as a network. It makes us look good to hire someone like Tiffany Cross to bring on a joy read or Simone Sanders. I think about these black women who have been brought on in particular to talk about one, to talk about the reality in part of black people in our country, among other people people of color among other marginalized groups. So they're not just highlighting black people. We're gonna highlight the marginalized communities in our nation because not enough people, Tucker Carlson's not talking about that me.Kelly's not talking about that. They're not talking about that stuff on Fox News. They're not talking about some of those things even on a CNN or something. So because it will increase your viewership, it's a smart move from a business standpoint. It's a smart move. And we have to check our box and say, Look, we're more diverse. We're trying to diversify what we have on cable news. But then you keep talking about it and you keep talking about it and you're like, Wait a second, I don't know where we actually weren't ready for that . And we can't take the heat that comes with that. Because part of what Tiffany was doing in her candidness and her brashness was msnbc, from what I've read, was taking heat because of things that she was saying on air. And they didn't want her to do that. And so at the end of the day, you get to a point where you're like, Well, we don't either like that, or we can't handle the heat that's coming with that.So yeah, we'll let Fox News do whatever they wanna do, but here we're just not gonna do that. We can't handle it. So instead of continuing to work with her and navigate some of that even, I would say let her be who she is as a journalist, as an reporter, whatever spot she's filling and letting her be that and being able to sit in the tension of the heat that's coming with that. Because the reality is, that's part of what is, I feel like as a person of color in this nation is there's going to highlight being a part of a marginalized community. We're gonna highlight the things that people don't wanna see, that people don't wanna talk about, that people don't wanna hear about. Because one, especially, and I can say too in a marginalized group, but part of there's privilege. I also hold, it's uncomfortable , so it's uncomfortable for people.I wonder how uncomfortable it is. People are like, Oh, well there's a black woman that's president at msnbc, you guys are missing the point. It's not just about that , right? It's so much deeper than that. It's so much greater than that. But there's a part of it, it's like it makes me uncomfortable, so I don't wanna deal with my discomfort, so I just remove it. I ignore it. Right? I minimize it. And that's part of, I think what happened with Tiffany too is because of the things that she would talk about. I don't believe it's just in the way that she said it. I don't believe that at all. , right? That that's an excuse to defend a decision. But I think it's because of what she highlighted and what she represented in that space that people outside of MSNBC didn't like it. So then it required MSNBC to do something and they had a choice. We can keep her and deal with it and deal with the tension that comes with that, but we really care about who she's targeting. We want people to engage, We need to talk about this. Or we can do what other people do, other companies, other organizations, other businesses and say, Hey, it was cool for a year or two, but you gotta go. Right,Danielle (27:33):Right. And what's your sense there? She was gaining power. If she didn't have power, that would be no threat, let's say.There's complaints because there's power in her voice. And I think that experience likely, I know that experience, when you begin to use your voice and it carries some weight, then people are like, Oh, I actually didn't want that. Would say something and people will listen.Alethea (28:01):. Yeah. I don't think people realize that that's what comes with giving someone access to a space . And your motive isn't genuine or, and you have deceived yourself to thinking that it is right, or it was genuine, but you did not understand the layers of that or what would come with that. And then it got flipped really quick because you actually weren't ready for that. And so I don't think people realize when you have someone like a Tiffany Cross who's existing in a space where there's not a lot of black women existing, and the Billy for her to use her voice in the way that she does, people are gonna listen to her people. I didn't watch her show, I just don't watch cable news like that. But I've watched clips and things of that nature on social media and I'm like, Man, she got some fireShe got some fire. And as a black woman who I feel like it can engage similarly, I might not be as brash, but I'm candid. I feel like I'm pretty candid. I hold back at times depending on the context, but I feel like I've come more into myself over the last few years. People start listening to you and then the people who are in the power positions above you are like, Wait a second, what's happening?People actually like this. Oh, people are actually supporting her. So now, because you weren't ready for that, because you didn't think about that, and because Tiffany did start getting some power in that space because people were listening to her and people appreciated how she engaged with space, what she talked about, what she sent, what she made central. You have other journalists and reporters bringing heat on msnbc, and it's gonna be hot for a little while. Tiffany's not gonna go away. Someone else will pick her up and she's out. I saw this morning on Instagram, she's out doing her thing, helping people with voting, making sure people are getting out to vote. But when you've got a Latasha Brown founder of Black Widows Matter, a Jemele Hill, a Simone Sanders, a Joy Reed jumping in quick to say stuff, you're gonna feel that. And that's what comes with it.(30:13):When you wanna take that away because you weren't prepared for what that person would represent and what would come with that, that's the consequence of it. But to your point, she was gaining power. I think that cuz people listen to her , it makes sense though. She was reaching a group that wasn't being reached, at least on msnbc. So it makes sense. But if your viewership is up, that means people are engaging for a reason. , you don't just become the second most watch show and all of America if people don't actually care to hear what you have to say.Danielle (30:44):And I think that's the thing, people don't want that powerful group in America to have a voice . And so it's led folks like us or Tiffany to find alternative ways to communicateAnd to go around mainstream media. I mean, you know, think about this liberal organization, and I often think of Seattle when I think of that. It's very similar on the outside. It's like shiny. It's blue. It's like, we got you. And then my friend, this elder in the community was telling me when the clan split in Oregon, the guy that came up to Seattle said, Well now I can just take my hood off and put a suit on. And I was like, that's true, right? Because we have this area, and even in our county where the indigenous lands were taken a close friend of mine had a Japanese family here and their land was taken and they were deported to a camp. And then that land is worth millions of dollars on the water . So whose voices do we remove? What history has been removed? And Tiffany embodies that, right? Yep. You said as a platform. And she embodies so much of that. And she's one particular race from one particular world, majority people's group. And that is scary The truth that she can tell about Florida. I mean, I read it, I won't repeat it here, but I was like, I don't disagree.Alethea (32:16):Hey, the truth doesn't feel good sometimes, but truth is truth. So ,Danielle (32:20):Right? And sometimes I think I felt, when I read that, I was like, man, I wish I would've heard her say it. And I, I'll go back and find the clip just because I think it feels refreshing to hear someone on the other side be candid about all the BS that we have to invest . And I can understand why she was the most watched or second most watched.Alethea (32:42):So , yeah, she said things in a way that maybe validated people, but it was refreshing in a sense of that it was just different. And I think that's been part of it too. I think about some other, a joy read for example, different some differences in how she would communicate compared to Tiffany. But again, people tune in to Joy Reed, Simone Sanders got her own show. So you see again this the diversity of even the black women that represent those spaces. So I think in multiple contexts, it's very refreshing to hear people who are not prioritized, who are not heard from often, who look different and sound different. To hear them talk in a way where you're like, Dang, you said that on cable news.You're actually gonna call it what it is. You're not gonna shy away. I mean, Trevor Noah, I think about him, for example, on a daily show, there's a reason people enjoy watching Trevor Noah is because again, he's gonna talk about things and be honest and be candid about some of those things and say, I mean, this is true. This is what it is. So again, it's not a popular voice from certain people,Danielle (33:56):But let's be clear, she said some of these comments on a separate podcast, and then she was that part Tucker Carlson's out here spewing garbage every single day on the platform.Alethea (34:09):Yeah, I heard that from what I read, the story around MSNBC is that, yeah, that was, I guess the cherry on top that got her contract not renewed was what she's done a podcast separate. Again, people would say, Well, she's representing the network. I hear that. But what I really think it was, was that she did not shy away from saying stuff in response to people like Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly who would publicly bash her on their shows publicly. They took Tiffany's name and drug it through the mud every single time they could. And so what I think was my opinion is MSNBC didn't like, while Tiffany would engage in that. And part of me is again, hey, people that are being beat down the most in society, we see it happening. But please don't ruffle feathers. Don't say nothing. I understand. I've navigated spaces being in a predo, predominantly white context where I've been told to minimize parts of who I am and not show up fully as I am because the people in the room can't handle it.They don't know what to do with it. You're gonna be viewed a certain way if you X, Y, Z. And so I've minimized parts of who I am to try to be in those spaces without being able to fully be myself. But it's okay for in the predominantly white spaces for the white folks to say and do as they please . And I just gotta take it. Someone's touching my hair, I, I'm just supposed to take it is what I'm told, what I've been told. Well, I'm not gonna do that anymore and I'm not gonna deal with their discomfort. Don't touch my hair. That's part of my body. You didn't ask me something as minor yet. Very significant as an example again. And so I think it was because Tiffany wasn't willing to be used in that way and to be talked about in the ways that she was being talked about.So in her humanity as a human to say, I will not let you talk about me like that. So I am gonna respond to you and you're gonna keep talking about me and I'm gonna keep responding to you. And I know that you think you can just get away with it and do whatever you want. But I'm gonna keep saying it because I am here and I can say it. And I think that's part of MSNBC couldn't handle what was coming back from that because of how she was attacking or responding to other news anchors who were coming for her neck every chance they could get. Which is wild to me. Wild to me, defending her from my understanding, doing nothing, saying nothing, saying, Hey Tucker, chill homie. Stop saying that about Tiffany saying none of that. So you guys expected her to get on the second most watch show in America and not say anything in response to the stuff that's being said about her. Make it make sense.Danielle (36:50):Yeah. I always, I struggle so much with this idea on the small level and on the big level of the bully can do whatever, and you're never supposed to respond. That just for me, it's always a struggle. It's a struggle with how to teach my kids how to deal with it, especially when there's no one to go to that can help them out. It's a struggle with clients I see in a system that's gonna continue to bully them. And I see it here. I know some people are like, Well, you know, just gotta take it like you said. And then at what point are you like, Yo, this is abuse.This is not just like, oh, you know, suck. This is repeated bullying, repeated hard behavior towards someone that's abusive and slandering. And you're right. Where was msnbc? That's their job.Alethea (37:43):. If you don't want her to respond to that, then it's your responsibility to protect your employees . So, because for me, it's like Tiffany is a human before she is any, she's a news anchor before she's a journalist. Yeah. She embodies all of those things. But she is a human first and foremost. And so I'm not saying you get on a cable news show and you just be cussing people out. I'm not saying do that. Okay, lemme be clear about what I'm saying here is she should be able to respond to the vitriol that's being thrown her way, the racism and the misogyny that's being thrown her way, especially as a black woman in a space of journalism and reporting and a news anchor that that's not common. There's not a lot of women of color women, but then women of color in particular and then black women. And so you have to understand the dynamics that are at play there. And to expect her to show up every weekend and not say anything and you not do anything to protect her or have her back. I think they did her dirty. And at the same time I'm like, Tiffany, go somewhere else. Right?Cause you will get picked up. Go somewhere else where you will be supported, where you won't have to show up every weekend and defend yourself because the people that hired you and supposed to have your back. So go somewhere else, girl. Cause you won't get picked up. Go somewhere else.Danielle (39:14):Right? I mean, I don't wanna linger too long on this, but just to even bring up the point of the tack on Paul Pelosi, the kind of rhetoric from Tucker and these other pundits, it's actually violent. Yes. This is not just a racial slur, just anything. This is actually inspiring these nationalists to go and take physical action against other people. I mean, we're talking about mental distress and I'm not invalidating that. But this is physically dangerous for people. And so his attacks are actually inciting violence towards her body, not just that emotional, mentalBut there's the potential, and I'm sure the very real physical threat to her and to people like you and me who walk about and tell the truth. And so I do think that we have to stand for one another and it's important. Yes. Cause the threat is not just, I don't wanna say just, but it is mental emotional, but it also physical threat.Alethea (40:14):Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm so glad you named that too because again, the way of our society is right now, it doesn't take much. You have someone who literally said, You can't say that because I'm telling you, I don't tell the truth. And people are like, And we like watching you and we believe that you, and you just told us you lie. You have to do some crazy mental gymnastics to get to a point of believing someone who literally said, I don't tell the truth. That's wild to me. But because of the way our society is right now, where you're getting stuff, you're hearing so much from we have access to everything, all the sound bites, all the things. And so you're getting this constant leap fed in. And so yeah, Tiffany's having to navigate showing up at work every weekend and saying, Okay, here's what they said about me.Here's what I gotta respond to. Here's what I prep for. While I'm also trying to highlight what people of color in other marginalized communities are navigating in our political season. I gotta hold both. It's already distressing. Now I gotta hold both of these every weekend. And then because of the things that are being said, and we see the attack on Paul Pelosi knowing they were coming for Nancy Pelosi, what happened? They were going to kidnap the governor of Michigan. What? Gretchen Whitmer is that her name. Because of things that were said about her people said, Oh, we're gonna kidnap her. So now her physical body is in danger, right? Because people don't like, cuz she's liberal or progressive and so we need to take some physical action, not just demean her. Cuz it's not enough to do that. It's not enough to get on social media and say some really crazy things about people. We're actually gonna respond in a physical way. And we're seeing that all over when you tell a lie that there's voter fraud and people have believed this lie and internalized it like Georgia and Arizona and some of these other states, people cheated the election. The election was wrong. The results were wrong two years ago, . So you know what? We're actually gonna show up and threaten people at the polls. It happened in Arizona last week. Yep. I'm actually nervous about what it's been like in certain places of Georgia today because of the fear that is stoked by people like a Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly and others.There's so many other of them. But it turns into not just seeing your point, not just some emotional and mental distress, but it's a physical, I'm now feeling that in my body and I have to leave my job. I'm going to go vote in person because in Georgia it's really hard to vote with your mail in because of the rotor suppression bill. So now, now I really need to go in person. Cause I don't know if you actually get my vote if I mail it in. So now there's more potential harm to me as a black and brown person in the state to show up at the polls. Cause I have no idea what I'm gonna encounter. Because a bunch of people believe there was a lie from two years ago and they wanna incite violence to scare people. It's a whole nother layer. That's why we are, I love the work that you do.And what some of I've been learning over the last year or so is the body work. It's to be connected to our bodies. And I can only imagine what it's been like for Tiffany over the last year with what she's had to endure in a very public way. , you're the second most watched show on the weekend. It's a very public thing. And then you add in social media and all of those things. , I can only imagine what it's been like for her to leave MSNBC every day that she had to go there and just go about her day. Cuz people recognize her. People know her face, they know her voice. They know her name. So there's an added distress to that. We hold in our bodies as women, as people of color in this very crazy, violent society that we live inDanielle (43:58):That breath. I mean honestly. Right? I mean, think over the next weeks we're all gonna be holding our breath And for good reason. I mean, I think what's so telling about Tiffany is just that it could be any of us and it has been any of us in different systems in different places. And actually know that the truth is you don't actually have to be crass You don't have to be radical or far left. You can actually just say, Hey, I think Kitsap County has a racism problem. And people, No. Right. Just what you're talking about with voter suppression in Georgia, you can actually say something small people agree on For dominant culture. And then that can get you canceled or get you in or get you taken away from a position or power or you're an extremist or et cetera.Alethea (45:12):. Yep. That's actually why I wore my stay woke shirt today. Oh yeah, . Cause I, I knew we were gonna be recording, so I had to, even with that, I saw someone on Instagram, Jasmine Holmes the other day talked about how she gets labeled being so woke in her comment section or something when she's highlighting history. She's a history teacher, researcher. That's what she does. And she recite her sources all the things. But she's woke because she said, Hey, don't just listen to this black voice. Let me highlight all these other black voices that talked about slavery. But now I'm woke because I just gave you some history. So we joke there, some of the comments joking about how we take it as a compliment. Now. That's part of, I think what we do too, I think as people of color is we take the things and we have to turn it into some kind of joke or something like that. So we don't take the intensity of that with everything. Cause there's just so much of it. But yeah, it doesn't say, Man, that was racist. Gosh, you're so woke. I hope so. .Danielle (46:32):My night or whatever. So you feel like, what are your takeaways then around this time of year? Or what are the things you hold onto?Alethea (46:44):Good question. I think to answer what do I hold onto? I think for me it's part of it is my faith. My faith is what grounds me. My faith is also what puts me into action. And so when I think about the scriptures, when I think about Jesus embodied, right, walking this earth what did Jesus care about? The poor scriptures saw about the orphan, the poor, the widow, the oppress, the immigrant, the foreigner, the least of these, the poor, All of that's highlighted. And so for me, when I think about election season for me it's helpful as I'm thinking through who, who's running, More and more people are being educated around voting. So I think the more that people are being educated about policy, about what matters in your local and your state and federal, that more people are gonna start wanting to get engaged in policy politics for the good and for the bad.So mindful of that but because we're learning more and understanding more, for me, my faith should move me to action in a way that I am able to hold the complexity of a politician and to know that no one politician stands for. I feel like everything I have conviction around or what I may believe in. So if I hold that view, that means I'm not gonna vote, right? Because I'm gonna be conflicted about every person. And so for me, as I even just went to vote on Friday last day of really voting here in Georgia. I did my research and for me, man, I wanna vote in a way, am I voting in a way that's going to center those who do not hold privilege like I do. When I think about the people here in Georgia, myself included. And so am I voting in a way where I can say that person, I don't agree with Stacy Abrams on every matter.I don't cosign everything just cuz she's a black woman. We don't land in the same place in every way. But for me, with the things that she is going after and wanting to do as governor and the power that holds and who she's working for and her vision, I'm voting for her over Brian Kim . Cause I don't believe Brian Kim has the interest of those who are marginalized in our community. The second, there are two trauma centers in Atlanta. Atlanta Medical Center closed last, I think last week was last day. There's only one trauma center in Atlanta now Kim. And that one had been there forever. And this happened under Brian Kim, where the Atlanta Medical Center is in the old fourth ward. While it is gentrifying, because what city is not being gentrified right now, it's still that population. It was, it's an underserved, it's a lower income, predominantly black area.And that close, that served a significant population of people. Grady is downtown. So now people have to travel a bit further. And so I think about things like that. So Stacey is not perfect. I don't agree with her on every policy and position she holds. But Stacey, to me, I can say as I think about my faith in expressing that there are things that she is going after that I can get behind. And there are things that I can say, I don't agree with her and I can try to hold what does accountability look like? So I feel like for me, reminded that there's a long game here that I can't put all my faith or X one basket type of deal with who wins the election, who does it What does that mean for me? No matter who's elected, there's a responsive for me as a citizen, as a neighbor, as a friend as a follower of Jesus, what do I do tomorrow?What do I do on Thursday? What do I do on Friday? What do I do next week? What do I do in the next four years? Those things matter. So for me, I think for me, what do I hold onto to answer your question is did I do my homework, ? Did I do what I needed to do within my conscious and from where my faith grounding me? Did I act in a way that I can with clarity, say I feel really good about this decision and I can be really clear on don't, I'm not putting any of my value or worth in any political party because I really don't fit in either. And so that's been helpful for me the last few years to understand that. And so how do I live in a way where I vote and yet to say, and also say I don't agree with everything, but there's more here that I can align to than in other spaces.So again, I think for me, my faith is not in a politician or a party. And so I can have clarity around that and some freedom there. And then to know there's a responsibility for me after November 8th and make sure I do that. And I continue to live in that way. So for me is what I feel like I've learned over the last few years in election seasons. There's been so many. I feel like 20 18, 20 20 and 2022. It's like this two year cycle of intense 16, 16, 18, 20 22. This intensity of elections every two years. So I feel like I've learned quite a bit over. I'm a different, I feel like I engage it differently six years later than I did in 2016. Cause there was just so much I didn't know six years ago. And what I put my hope in, what I put my faith in, I feel like it has shifted immensely.And so I engage my civic duty. I posted this morning, I got to meet Mr. George Sally, he's 93 years old. I got to meet him in Selma Montgomery where we were together after our trip in August. And I posted about that this morning on my Instagram. And I said, on election day, I'm reminded of courageous people like George Sally who survived bloody Sunday and March 50 plus miles so that I could live out my right as a citizen and my engage, my civic duty and the privilege I have to vote. I recognize that. And so for me, that's also what I hold onto is as a black woman, I carry a responsibility that my ancestors so many did not get to do when they should have. They had every right as a citizen to vote. And they were not allowed to do that. And while that same is under attack, I still have more access and ability to vote that they did not have that George Sally didn't have in the sixties that he was fighting for.And so for me, I also carry that with me, is to say it matters today, but it matters cuz of who those came before me. And I wanna honor, I honor that. I wanna honor Mr. George Sally, I wanna honor John Lewis from Atlanta. I wanna honor Afeni Lou Hamer. I wanna honor Shirley Chisholm. I wanna honor the black women and black men that are not named that I will never know, but who died trying to exercise their right to vote even in this very state. And so I hold onto that as well. That matters to me immensely. To not minimize that or overlook that in this time. And to know what they were fighting for granted me a right that I should have had. So I need to carry that legacy and say, what is it that I'm gonna continue to fight for so that when I look back, people look back at whatever amount of years, whether my name or not, I'm a part of that continued legacy of fighting for rights that we should have as citizens and just as people. Mm-hmm. ,Danielle (54:13):As I listen, I'm just aware of the way you have a gift of seeing people and their stories and the gift that you have to step in with truth and with honor for your ancestors and the work you're called to do now. And so I'm guessing that that's part of what you're doing with D Ei B . Like I wonder if you can own the B And I feel that in your communication, maybe you don't have the research of the technical term of it, but it is something I experience of you as a person and even in this conversation How do people find you? How do they find your work? How do they know what you're up to? I know you have your own podcast. I've listened to it.Alethea (55:00):. Yeah. Well first Danielle, thanks for Yeah, yeah, thanks. What you just said, that's very meaningful to me and I hold that and I appreciate that a lot. I think it's really important to name things for people that we may not see in ourselves or that I tend to overlook. So I appreciate you. Yeah, just naming that. So thank you. Yeah. I on You can find me on Instagram. I am not on Twitter for good reason now, but I haven't been on Twitter. I haven't been active on Twitter in a year. I took a break when I was on sabbatical last summer, and then when I tiptoed back in I was like, Oh, I don't wanna be here. And so I just deactivated my account though with the new Elon Musk take over and the crap show I'll say. But that has been so, I was like, I don't even want anything represented.So I am no longer on Twitter. I love Twitter, but Twitter is too crazy right now. And I value my piece. So I'm on Instagram Leaf 14 l E A t h 14. That's my IG handle. You can find me on there. That's really where I occupy on social media. I have a TikTok, but I don't post anything public. It's all private. And then I share it from there, . So yeah, you can find me there. And then, yeah Danielle, you just said I cohost a podcast. It's called The Roll Down. It is on, I think, so many different, It's on Apple, Spotify. I didn't even know this, but it's on Google Podcast too. Not many people listen on there, but you can. Yeah, Apple and Spotify, it's there. Season one, we had 18 episodes. I co-host out with Matthew Melindres, one of my dear friends.The roll down we say is a space where people of color to be known and seen and guidance for those in the pursuit of justice. And we are finally, after a long delay we are getting going with recording for season two. So be on the lookout for that. Subscribe, download, all the things. We really appreciate it. The podcast has been such a gift for Matthew and I in ways that we did not anticipate and super encouraging. So we, we've gotten the texts or dms. When are y'all coming back? When are y'all coming back? When can we expect season two? So it's coming, coming finally. I actually have things on my calendar this week to record. So yeah, the roll down podcast, you can find me there too. But yeah, feel free to dme. I like engaging with people. So yeah, y'all can hit me up, but that's where I'm atDanielle (57:28):This person list. I'm like, I want Alicia in my space working with my community, my business. You're doing DEI work. So is that possible through Instagram or is there an email that people should reach out to you for?Alethea (57:41):Yeah, I would say right now just DME on Instagram. That way I can yeah, connect that way. Yeah, because of where I left, I have more freedom to engage in the work that I feel called to do. And so I can doke some contract work, things of that nature. Consulting is something I feel like I'm really gifted at and I love helping people see things that they don't see and move forward in a better way. And to really understand how do you understand yourself as a person and then as a leader. So if you're an individual wanting some stuff or if you're a team, you lead a team and you're just trying like, how do I love my team better? How do I engage these conversations in a way that's meaningful? A lot of DEI work. There's actually a book that just came out today d e I deconstructed that I'm really excited to get to read.I saw her on LinkedIn. Lily Zang I think is, I might be, I probably mispronouncing her last name. Z H E N G I believe. But she is a DEI consultant. She talks about how a lot of DEI work, people don't realize it, significance of it, and they're actually not ready for a lot of what they say they want. And so stuff falls through or they aim for something. And so for me as a consultant, I wanna say, what's, what are you trying to achieve and how do we get there? And then actually follow up and coach people along the way. I love coaching people too. So yes, hire me. I love this type of work. Got some credentials and I'm getting some more and just continue. I think I feel equipped in what I'm doing too. So yeah, hit me up on Instagram and yeah, we can go from there.

Akuyea Karen Vargas: source (https://www.tidelandmag.com/articles/2022-03-a-warrior-for-peace)(photo credit:  Nora Phillips)"Vargas may be small in stature, but the 59-year-old mother of three is a towering presence in the West Sound's African American community. An army veteran, community activist, arts educator, youth mentor and historian, she has been a tireless advocate for the young and underserved, and for healing racial divisions in our communities for over 25 years.After growing up on the East Coast and serving in the Army, Vargas arrived here in 1992 when her husband was assigned by the Navy to the Bangor submarine base. Raising her three Black children in the overwhelmingly white Bainbridge schools was a rude awakening, Vargas recalls. Advocating for her own children in the school system led her to start advocating for other children of color. Eventually she joined the district's Multicultural Advisory Committee, which she co-chairs to this day.Through two programs she founded in 2003, the Living Arts Cultural Heritage Project and Living Life Leadership, Vargas has taught cultural history and life skills to hundreds of youth throughout Kitsap County, including many of the young leaders who spoke at those demonstrations in 2020.Recognizing her contributions, Governor Jay Inslee bestowed Vargas a 2021 Governor's Arts and Heritage Award in the new category of Luminaries, honoring people who “stood as shining lights for their community during the pandemic.” Commenting on the award, Sheila Hughes, executive director of the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, described Vargas as “a trusted advisor… as well as a great friend who has a genuine laugh and a huge hug just when you need one.”Multicultural Advisory Committee Living Arts Cultural Heritage Project and Living Life Leadership2021 Governor's Arts and Heritage AwardDanielle (00:35):Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations on race, faith, justice, gender and healing. And as many of you know or aware, I mean it's election season. It's election day. And whether we're voting today, we already voted. Maybe some of us cannot vote for various reasons in our communities. This is an important time in the nation and it has been an important time for many years. I think back to 20 16, 20 18, 20 20. And now we're in 2022 and we're still working through what does it mean to exercise this right to vote? What does it mean? What is impacting our communities? What things are important? And today I had a Coyier, Karen Vargas of Kitsap County. She is an elder. She is on the Multicultural Advisory Committee for our county. She is living arts cultural heritage, founded the Living Arts Cultural Heritage Project and Living Life Leadership. She has taught cultural history and life skills to hundreds of youth throughout Kitsap County and including many of the young leaders who spoke at demonstrations in 2020. Ms. Vargas is concerned about the impact of what Covid did. She is deeply invested. And in 2021, the governor of Washington, Jay Insley, bestowed on Vargas an arts and heritage award in the category of luminaries honoring people who stood as shining lights for their community during the pandemic. And someone that commented on the award, Sheila Hughes, the executive director of the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, described Vargas as a trusted advisor as well as a great friend who has a genuine laugh and a huge hug for just when you need one. So as you think about listening tune in and hopefully keep an open mind to the conversation. So it's just an honor to join forces Akuyea (02:51):, what we need to be doing. We have done tremendous work together for many years back from the Civil Rights Movement and even before we were working in a collective collaborative way to address the issues that affect all of our communities. And so the more we can do that, the more we can cultivate that, I think we can begin to do some impactful work that will move things forward. Danielle (03:24):And I love the way we got connected. It happened at church. Yeah, I saw you at a couple events before that, but then you were speaking to church and I saw the post on Instagram. I was like, I told my family we're going to church today, I know. So we showed up and we made this connection around youth and mental health. Would you be able to speak to that a little bit? Akuyea (03:50):Yes. Our children are not doing well, let's just start there. Our children are having a difficult time. They're dealing with trauma, they're dealing with depression, they're dealing with anxieties, just dealing with life and they don't know how or what to do. In 2019, I had one of my living life leadership students take her own life and it devastated me the way she did it. She ran in the middle of a highway, sat down and allowed car to run over her. And what I still mean, the actual act devastated our students, our parents, her friends, the school. And we have to address some of the issues because we knew before that time that she was struggling with her mental health and with depression and all these things. And so what do we do when we, when actually know we are aware that our students have social and emotional stuff and trauma and stuff? Pauses. Because she was struggling with her meds too. She said those medications made her feel all wacky And then she was telling me some of the medication that she said would cause depression. I said, Well, why you on medication? It's gonna cause depression or anxiety. And so we need to have a conversation. We need to be talking about it. And we need to be talking about it from multiple issues, not just with the parents or the students or with the schools, but for the health and wellbeing of that young person. Should we be prescribing all this medication? They don't know the chemical imbalances. I'm not sure. That's not my field . But to be able to help them to process some of all of this , we really need to be talking more about the mental health of our young people. We have to do it. Danielle (06:43):I mean, first I'm stunned and not stunned because death of young, of the young is always shocking. And I'm aware that it's also I'm angry and sad that also it is not surprising. And I think you named the year as 2019. So this was even before a pandemic. Akuyea (07:12):Before the pandemic. So I know that we were dealing with this way before the pandemic. And only God can tell you The depth of all of that during and even now the results of the pandemic in the state of our young people's health, mental health, especially their mental health. Danielle (07:40):I think one thing that struck me when I spoke to you after that church service was the fact that I began to tell you stories of my own children at school. And you were like, I got into advocacy because of my kids. And it's not that I wasn't paying attention before I had kids experiencing it, but it becomes heightened alert, heightened awareness, and just even watching the depression cycle through my own family cycle, through my friend's kids on multiple levels. I mean from depression to anxiety to suicidal ideation to self harm, to just the lack of ability to pay attention or find interest like you described the hopelessness. And so just the heightened awareness. And then we were talking about schools and this and we are now post 2020, George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd by police, the multiple other lynchings that happened in that year. And we're back. We're actually talking on election day and the impact this has on students of color and their mental and frankly white bodied students too. This is not just a one section of society's problem, this is a larger issue. Akuyea (09:05):And the role of social media plays in their isolation and just being focused on what I call the device and not engaging and not having those healthy social skills and not being able to sit down in a room and just have a conversation. Being in rooms plenty enough time that our students are talking to one another, sitting right next to one another. And that's about, they don't want us to know what they're talking about. I know what that's about too. Let's not play. We don't know what that's about too. But when you ask them to sit down and just let's talk, they act like they don't do it. They don't know what to do. . And I think we are losing how to engage personally and how to have healthy relationships personally. One, we were doing some conflict. I can remember we were doing some conflict resolution and someone had advised, and I won't say the name, someone had advised, Well let's do this on Zoom. I said, Wait, wait, wait. , you know, can be brave at a distance, but you need to come into a circle . And you need to be able to look the individual in their eye. . You need to be able to see their body language and to be able to feel what's happening in the environment. . I said there are elements that when you are moving to do conflict resolution or healing and peacemaking, that that's done in a , intimate in an environment where those can come together. . And I understand Zoom has been a good tool in everything , but I also know social media and zoom, give your balls that you don't have when you sitting in front of somebody and you got to be accountable for some harm that you have done. , you feel safe because you know what, You can say what you want to say and you can do all of that. Because you know what? I'm just on a zoom , I'm over here , I can be brave over here. Could you stand before the individual and confront some mess that go down But if we're going to get to a place of healing and reconciliation, you have to be able to step into that Because the bottom line, if I got conflict with you and you got conflict with me and we can say all we can be on social media calling each other, boom, bam, bam, bam, bam. When, and this happened with some of our students too. , when they confronted each other, one of them stabbed the other one to death. Now all of that hostility was allowed over the social media to be able to do all that. Building up, texting. I'm coming over, I'm gonna kick your tail. And Danielle (13:19):I think you bring up something that I'm thinking about Aku, which is not only do we need to, we can't intervene on our students behalf unless we as caregivers, parents, community members, adults in the community are willing to do the work first. Gonna smell it a mile away. Yes. They're gonna know if we haven't done the work ourselves. AKuyea (13:46):Let tell you about our young people. They are the best hustlers learners. And they, they're watching us And they say, Oh yeah, they ain't about it. They ain't about it now. In fact, they're learning from us We are their first teachers. . They know when we talk trash and they sitting over here. That's why all of this stuff is coming up in our schools. You've got all of these racist ideologies coming out. The students are listening to their parents in their home talking yang yang and saying, Oh no, we ain't doing this. Yeah. Them negros in, Oh this, that, all of that racists ideology at home. And when the students, they're ear hustling, they say, Oh no, my parents, no. And giving them the green light, they come to school and guess what? They feel em bolded and empowered to say and do what they want. Because guess what? Those parents have modeled it for 'em and modeled it for them very well. . And they feel like they can say what they want. Their parents got their back Even the teachers come to school with racist ideologies, . And it pours out on students of color. When you got staff and teachers calling students the N word and it's okay, going on, something's very wrong with that picture . But yet here we find ourselves in 2022 So we've got all kinds of dynamics happening, but popping off in the schools Danielle (15:51):So we can't be people as community members, adults, people that wanna see change in progress from whatever lens you're coming from. We cannot be people that say, Hey, let's have peace. If we're not gonna be willing to have that conversation in our own homes, Because our kids will go into schools which they are doing and they will enact what we're doing in our private lives. They'll continue to perpetuate it. So we have to be people about what we do in our private lives is what we do. What privately happens is publicly is publicly congruent. Akuyea (16:34):Oh, I'm glad you said that. Because what's done in the dark will come to life. Danielle (16:39):It will. Akuyea (16:40):And it does. And it manifests itself. We look at the attitude and the behavior and the character of our young people . And we're saying, Okay we're dealing with some stuff. And I hear me say this, I pray and I commend our teachers. Our teachers have to deal with whole lot of stuff . But when they were looking at the condition of the learning environment in our schools and they understood that they had to train their teachers with having trauma, they have to train the teachers to look at diversity, equity, and inclusion. They have to teach our kids. So when they started introducing social emotional learning, I said that was social, emotional and cultural learning. Why in the world did you take off culture? Culture is an ideology as well. . You bringing in these cultural elements and cultural, what I said, behaviors, It's not all just about, They said, Oh no, we don't wanna, That's a race. I said, No . What culture we have in our schools. The culture that we have in our school is very unhealthy. That's an unhealthy culture. . And what are the cultures that are manifesting in our schools? There's a culture of what I would call hatred going on in our school. . Oh, culture of bullying. They did a whole thing for years of bullying. Well, what culture were you deal. You have a culture of unhealthy behavior and bullying going on in your school. They always get all squeamish and fear all culture that has just to do with race. And I come from a culture and you come from a culture and everyone that steps themselves into those environments come from a culture Danielle (19:17):I love what you're saying because don't get me wrong. I wanna do this work of anti-racism. Yes. I learned from the president of my grad school Dr. Derek McNeil. He said, Anti-racism is enough for us to say, Hey, stop that. Stop the harm. But where we find healing is within our cultures, In our cultures. You got Mexican culture, you got Irish, you got I'm You got African culture, there's a lot of cultures we could be learning from to bring healing. If we change and we try to operate under the social Akuyea (19:54):That's right. Because think it European Western culture here in this United States. Danielle (20:01):And if we operate under the idea that no, it's just a melting pot or we're just whitewashed, we miss the particularities that cultures can bring us that also don't bring harm. They also bring healing. Akuyea (20:14):One of, you know what, I'm glad you said that. It's not a melting pot. The United States is not. One of the things that Bishop Lawrence Ray Robinson taught us is that we are a salad bowl. We come in with distinctive things within that salad. The onion is the onion. It doesn't lose itself in there. The tomato is the tomato. The lettuce is the lettuce. The broccoli, if you wanted to throw it in there, is broccoli. You know what I'm saying? How I'm the peppers are the peppers, the olives are the olives. Very distinctive. But they come together to have a beautiful, wonderful salad . And each of them bring a distinctive flavor to that salad bowl. . Now when we think of a melting, we're talking about what are we a melting pot? What does that even mean? ? We haven't even examined our own terminology and our own languaging. That can be very confusing. Cause a melting pot means everybody gotta assimilate in that pot. Danielle (21:35):. So I think about this and I think it comes back to our young people. They're smart enough to know what we've been doing isn't working and they're also picking up on what we're leading by example in They're doing the same as us or they're trying to do something different. But I think what you and I were talking about, we need some other frameworks here. This is a crisis. Oh Some action steps. Let's have some frameworks for our community because we are not trying to have a school shooting here. Right? Danielle (22:14):We are ripe. And that is very alarming. We hear about all of these school shootings and atrocities that's happening across our nation and all of these things that are popping off and other countries and everything. But honey, this Kitsap County, I have always said, let us do some intervention and prevention because we don't wanna be on the national news for the atrocities that could be committed in our community. And I can say this, we are no better than any other community. And it can happen here. It can happen Anywhere else. . And that's real because guess what the signs are telling , What is popping up and manifesting in our communities is telling and the unhealthy behavior and activities that have been manifesting is really alarming. And we should be paying attention. And our community is only gonna be as healthy as we are and we're not. Speaker 2 (23:33):Right. There's a high level of depression, a high level of anxiety high level of despair across our adult communities in the area. There's a great Danielle (23:48):There's a great amount of actually division in our community. And I don't think that that division is necessarily wrong. Now listen to me because It tells you where you're at If you say, Oh, we're so divided, let's just come together. I have to say, Wait a minute, let's find out why we're divided. Maybe there's some good reasons. And once we know the reasons, then there's opportunity to tell a more true story about Kitsap County. And through the true story, hopefully we can move towards some reconciliation and understanding. Yeah. Yeah. That's what's gonna benefit our youth. So I don't think it's like, Oh, just throw your kids in mental health therapy. No, you need to be doing the work too. Akuyea (24:38):Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you said that because one of the things that I've been just kind of thinking of is, what does that even look like? What does truth and reconciliation even look like? And I said, Well, you can't get there if you're not willing to acknowledge The history, acknowledge the culture that's here in our county that has been prevalent here for hundreds of years. Kensett County is a very racist county. Very. If you're not willing to say that, that's a problem. If you're not willing to look at that history here, cross-bar, even lynchings even, you better understand when we talking about the history, the taking of land, all of that. If we go back just to the late 18 hundreds early In this county, we would better know how to move equity forward in our community. But because we're not willing, Oh, everything's tucked under the rug and things that have happened, Oh, those things have been erased. . I can remember that back when I first got here in the nineties, it was a lot of work going on with Raymond Reyes and with Jean Medina and Theor. There was a lot of racist behavior with a lot of ill behavior a lot of what I would call racist ideologies in our school districts at the North end that was manifest. But it was at the south end too. It was in the Mason counties. It was all over. But we were dealing with it here at the north end, the SaaS drive and kids at school district, the Banbridge Island School District they were coming together cuz they had to deal with all the stuff that was popping off in the schools. . And I can remember they formulated common threads and once Jean Medina retired, it was like all those years of work just went away. Bam. And it came straight back. What did that say to me is that racism was alive and well and has always been alive and well in Kitsap County, . And if we're not intentionally addressing it and calling it out, it will continue to manifest and grow. We have to begin to hold the schools and our community accountable for the behavior that, because otherwise what I see is you just give them a green light. You give these young people a mind that okay behavior that that's acceptable. Oh, I can go to school and say, Oh, because that's the culture that breeds here. Danielle (28:19):Right? I mean, you reminded me of some of the history. I actually have a friend who grew up as a child in this area on La Molo on the waterfront, a Japanese American family. They were removed from their house prime property and they were deported to a internment camp and they lost their land right on the Molo. And now when I drive by that piece of property, it's worth millions of dollars. Akuyea (28:50):All I'm saying, right, The removal. And she's not the only one. The removal of native individuals off their own lands, And not, let me say it like this. In the 1920s, they held one of the largest in Seattle. They held a lot of their meetings right here on Bay Bridge Island on Pleasant Beach Back in 1992. When I got here, they were all up in the uproar talking about why did the clan target island? Well it wasn't until I did research later that I found out the history. They have strongholds here. They have headquarters camps all over Kitsap County, . If you do look at Chuck's report, he works with the Human Rights Council. He has done research about the entire region here and the headquarters and where white supremacists and Klan members and all of them set up their headquarters and kids that . So we need to understand the history that has thrived here for over a hundred years , and understand that that culture is alive and well. in Kitsap County, Danielle (30:46):Cause if we tell a false history, we can't actually heal the wound. Akuyea (30:50):It won't be able to. You gotta know your history, good, bad, and ugly. You got to know your history. And let me say this, there are regions that have deep history. If you go down to Mississippi and Alabama, Oh those are strong holes. , Virginia. And guess what? This northwest got stronghold too. . And we act like, oh no, not here, But that's a false narrative. when they left the south back after slavery, they came here to formulate a new frontier. A new frontier in Oregon and in Seattle in this north, deep roots in this northwest. And if we don't even know that history, we are just, we're fooling ourselves into thinking, Oh no, not here. Not in the northwest. We're not like Alabama. I said, But after the Civil War, they came and set up roots here. Strong roots, You don't think so. You better check your history. Danielle (32:30):And I think we can be lulled to sleep because people will say, Well you got a democratic governor and you got a Democratic senator and you vote unquote blue. But we both know that being blue doesn't mean you're telling something true. Akuyea (32:48):Honey, let me tell you what one of the Klan masters said he was taking off his, when he left, it was a split in Oregon. And when he left Oregon and came to Seattle, he said he was taking off his hood and he was putting on a suit He went and got those jobs, started setting policy, started working in government, law enforcement all over. So don't think just because they don't have the hood that they're still not working in those ideologies. Danielle (33:36):, I mean as you've named in Kitsap County, the idea of manifest destiny has been repeated over and over. And we see it in some of the ways that even the county commissioners have ran and used. I'm thinking of one county commissioner that owns land that therefore wants to create housing resource. And the danger of that. And Danielle (34:05):If you don't think it's entrenched and institutionalized, you better think again. If you don't think it's in our systems, you better think again because those systems were created by those individuals. We have to understand the legacy of that as well. , we've got a lot of work to do. I, I can tell you, I don't know everything, but I'm sure willing to research and learn Oh no. We never move out of hopelessness. We are people of hope. We are as human beings. We are people of hope. We always hope for the better. We hope for the son to shine. We hope that we have a good dinner tonight. We are steeped in hopefulness . And for us to operate out of hopelessness is, we ought not to even perpetuate that Because hope is in our dna. is part of our being. You hope your children will do well. you hope you find a good husband. you hope you find someone that can love you the way you wanna be loved. No, we, that's in our DNA to be hopeful, . And when we start being hopeless or working hopelessness, what happens is we start to decline depression and all these other things begin to come into our lives. And oh, it filled with anxiety. When you remove hope from someone's life, then you know what they spiral to that place that they commit self-harming and harm others as well. So no, we don't wanna move outta hopelessness . And we wanna talk about that need. You have to empower our young people to understand we don't move in hopelessness, I even tell a kid, you hope you get an ice cream. Oh yeah, they want that. Yeah, , we can build hope, we can cultivate that. We can begin to push back on hopelessness Danielle (37:05):And I think the way we do that is, it's this funny thing. If you're from a dominant culture and your culture wins by not telling a true story . And it can feel that if you tell the true story or what's behind the curtain, that you will be plunged into despair. And let me say this, you should grieve and be sad and be angry at that history behind the curtain. That is not bad for you. It is And then that will enable you to take small steps to help your young person with a white body Be able to learn to hold history and hold making change. Akuyea (37:52):And what when we continue to perpetuate lies and perpetuate harmful history, we have to do some self examination going on with us that we wanna keep holding this harmful history in place here. What? What's going on with us as human beings that we would want to perpetuate harm on any individual because they're different than I am. They come from somewhere a different, they have a different culture. They talk different . Why do we always go to that place? Danielle (38:56):I think we can learn so much from what happened in different places in the world and how they subject and no one's done it perfectly. Cuz there's not a perfect way to do it. It's messy. But I think of my friend from Germany who's talked about learning about the Holocaust and her family's involvement in the Nazi regime. Family has worked with their own shame and worked to change their attitude towards the Jewish peoples there in Germany and the fighting of that nationalism. And then I think of the conflict in Rwanda and how yes, now be currently neighbors with someone where hoot season and Tutsis that they were formerly enemies. Blood enemies. So it's not that this hasn't been done, but in both those spaces you see that there's memorials to the harm that was done in Germany. Akuyea (39:53):That's exactly right. That's exactly right. They moved. And that's important. They move their nation into addressing the harms that had been perpetuated and those atrocities that had been done. And they had to move their entire nation and the globe into acknowledging and moving those families into a place of healing And that work that was deep work But we've not done that deep work here. Danielle (40:35):No, we haven't. And then we see our young people in despair and acting out the same fights. And then we have the gall to say, Well what's wrong with you Akuyea (40:51):Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And we've gotta take a pause and look at ourselves because we've gotta examine ourselves in this . We can't point fingers. We have to begin to be accountable for the harms that we have done here in our own country. , we wanna always say, Oh well that was Germany and oh that was Africa. That was over in Asia. What about what happened on this soil? You exterminated the entire indigenous population. . There are tribes we'll never see again. Think about that. And have we even addressed those atrocities, All of the souls that was lost during the trans-Atlantic slave trade that didn't even reach the shores. And if the sea could give up her dead, she could tell a story. But yet we don't wanna step into that harmful history. We don't wanna acknowledge that harmful history. We don't wanna talk about, Oh, don't teach my child how in school this critical race theory thing. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't dig that up. Don't bring that up And I said, Well what's the pushback on telling whole history Danielle (43:02):And I think from a Latino Latinx perspective, there has to be the acknowledgement of the anti-blackness in our culture.Affects our sisters and brothers in the communities of color outside of us. I hate from Latinos. And what's interesting, all those mixtures are part of what makes a Latino Akuyea (43:31):Thank you. That's why I said, Oh, we have to understand we're where we come from our history. Cause that's where the work begins. Danielle (43:41):And then the xenophobia Cultivated. And I think what is important about knowing this history for me, because then I have to say, and I'm Oh, I'm gonna die in shame. I'm some shame. But it's a way for me to say, how do I build connection with you then Akuyea (44:03):I wish Carrie was on here because we work with our equity sisters and we've worked with our Kitsap race and for a whole year we were doing aging our voices and speaking truth together with our Kitsap serves. Those Europeans showing up for racial justice and all of us. And coming together, it was the coming together to be able to talk about some hard things and for them to be able to hear and for us to be able to hear, for us to be able to share our experiences and our voices and be able to put it down and be able for them to say, I'm feeling like Harry would say, Am I in denial here? Is this implicit? Buy it, what's going on? But to do that self, that type of self evaluation and be able to stay in that space when it was very uncomfortable, to deal with some hard history And so those are transformational, engaging opportunities and experiences that we've got to bring to the table. That's real truth and reconciliation, . That's the layer of foundation to be able to move forward and be able to heal and be able to reconcile and talk about how we gonna reconcile it. What will we do? How will we begin to build a healthy way of engaging with one another and build in a relationship. Now the relationship might not be tight. I might not be come away being old lovey dovey fu fu fu. But understanding one another and being able to speak peacefully to one another. being able to say, You know what? I agree or I don't agree. And stay in that space where we can work through some of the challenges that we have and some of the difference of opinions and ideals we have between one another. Danielle (46:29):And I think our kids are just waiting for us to pass these tools to them. My daughter was part of a meeting and part of what happened with my daughter who's Mexican, is that she heard a classmate called the N word and then spoke up about it and then was sharing that story. And then one of the Latino students was talking about , how another Latino student was talking about being told to go across the border. And my daughter shared that the African American student presence said, I don't want that to be like that for you. That doesn't happen to me. I wish I knew so I could say something before they got there faster than I've gotten there. Akuyea (47:13):But you know what? And I can say this, and this is not taking away back to where you came from. This ain't your country. And I'm like, how did we be an enslaved and brought here in chains? You be able to say, you need to go back to where you come from. I didn't come here , many came. But most of the Africans that are enslaved to these Americas, they come here on their own He knows, he knows. And we have to talk. I mean for us to sit here, whether we're black, white, Asian, Pacific Islanders or Dominicans or Puertoricans or we have a understanding of who we are, Where we come from, our ancestral history, history of our parents and their parents and their parents parents, . We carry all of that in our dna We understand in a way that we should be able to have some healthy conversations and not feel bad about who we are. But many of our children have been forced into force assimilation in this nation. , they got to lose who they are in assimilate to be accepted, which very unhealthy they made the native students, you either assimilate or exterminate And the same thing with a lot of the enslaved Africans that they brought here. I don't call myself a African American. I come from an enslaved people brought to a stolen land. An enslaved to this America. I'm African I'm an African woman who's ancestors were stolen and enslaved to these lands. They've gone over, What do you wanna call yourself? I call myself black. I'm black. Danielle (50:18):As we're wrapping up here, how do folks are at listening? It's voting day. We have all the charge of the events. I think people are gonna hear the passion in our voices today. I wonder in Kitsap County, how can folks connect to you? How can I think, I wanna encourage us to have more of these restorative circles. How can they get in touch with you? How can they support what we are trying to do in this community? Akuyea (50:52):Yes. Well, you can always get in contact with the work with Kitsap Erase coalition, with the work that we do in our schools with our multicultural advisory council, with Living life leadership, with the Living Arts Cultural Heritage Project. I mean, I'm accessible in our community. I try to make myself available for our parents, for our students, for community members. We like to work in coalition . We understand that we can work in silos and we can work alone in our agencies and our stuff. But I'm more concerned about the collective collaborative work that it will take all of us to do to transform our communities . We have to be able to learn how to work together with one another as human beings. So yes, if you go on Kitsap e Race coalition, you'll be able to connect with the coalition because we want us to be able to cultivate working together. On. No, you ok girl. . No, we wanna be able to work together and if we got is let's talk about our issues and together and see how we can have a healthy relationship with one another. Danielle (52:35):We are one place, but this is the work we need to be doing across in small conversations like this across our country, which can lead. Akuyea (53:11):That's right, that's right. And hear me say this, we have a unique opportunity to model something not just for our children, our families, our community members, our schools. We have the unique opportunity to model for a nation how to do the work in your own community to bring about change. Danielle (53:37):We do have that opportunity. Akuyea (53:40):And to me, that's inspiring to me. That's what gets my juices up and flowing in the morning. 

Misty Harper-Anderson is someone who values deep connection and authenticity inrelationships. She has led in various faith spaces for the past eight years after spendingthe first part of her vocational life in the corporate world. She is a visionary leader whoappreciates the power of collaboration. Misty is the Senior Director of Event Management for Pulse (https://pulse.org). Additionally, she serves as the Lead and Planting Pastor for Aspen Community Church. Misty and her husband, Bill, live in Eagan. Even though their children are all adults, atleast technically, they spend a lot of time together. Their oldest daughter, Sydney,married a great man, Ludwig, in 2020. Their son, Jacob, lives in Alabama and loves thesouth. Their youngest daughter, London, is now at MNSU Mankato. So, they areexperiencing the empty nest for the first time. This is a family who loves board games,hiking and traveling togetherDanielle (00:18):Hey, welcome to theArise podcast, Conversations on faith, race, justice, gender and healing. And the guest on the podcast is just a dear friend today, Misty Harper Anderson. First of all, you're gonna hear me say that I have a room in her house. I've stayed in the same room twice, and I have, uh, my own drinks in there, LaCroix my own flavor, Misty Ann is truly the embodiment of hospitality, someone I trust, uh, who's willing to have difficult conversations. Someone who's been in the liminal space before and has persisted in that space. She's an event planner, um, a pastor, a church planter, and someone that's hung onto her faith in very authentic in real ways. Love to hear where you're at, what you're doing. Any recent changes you're willing to share. I, I love you. Respect you. I've been in your house. I have my own room there. Um, yeah, , and I've been wanting to get you on the podcast for a long time. I know we collaborated on a writing project a while backElection. And I think after that experience, I was just knocked out. I've written here and there since then, but, you know, it was like a lot of emotional experience for all of us. So yeah, tell me what are you comfortable sharing about what you're doing? I know you have some exciting things going on, so I'd love to hear about them.Misty (01:36):Yeah, for sure. Well, first know this, you still have a room here. It still has your LaCroix water in it, and there were some m and m's there now safely in like a, a jar that's tightly sealed. So whenever you come back, they are waiting for you in your room. Uh, what I'm doing right now, so many things. So, so many things. Um, I, I just accepted a full-time job and, uh, I am really excited about the, the title of, of the position as Senior Senior Director of Event Management. So really it's going to be logistics behind these really large evangelism events. And, uh, I love nuts and bolts and things. I love spreadsheets. That's like one of the nerdy things about me. I love color coded spreadsheets. Uh, so that's new that will start this coming Monday. So in just a couple of days.And in addition to that, I am doing event management for our friend Joe Saxton and, and Steph O'Brien. And that, that part of my work will wrap up probably like the end of November. Uh, and that's been very fun. You know, I have such great love and respect for both of them, and I love AZA is their event, and I love that. And just everything that they represent in this world and how they uplift and encourage women. So it's been such a privilege to work with them. And then I teach a New Testament and Old Testament at Buffalo University, and that too, that will wrap up, uh, the first week of December. And I teach students with intellectual disabilities, so autism, uh, and Down syndrome. And it has been my oldest daughter, Sydney. She said, Mom, there's no other job that's given you that has given you heart eyes than like that job, because it's been such a good passion project for me.I love those students and I'm glad that I get to finish up this with them. Uh, and we're church planning still. We've been in the process of church planting since, uh, fall of 2020. Really, really started to kick things off more like spring, summer, fall 2021. And now we are moving into this model of church that actually comes outta Seattle. Uh, it is in Seattle. It's known as Dinner Church, and we will call it Table Church. But it's simple. It's this, We meet around tables, we share food together. Uh, there is, uh, what's called a short Jesus story. So we just, uh, any, any of the stories that come out of the New Testament about Jesus, because I love the Old Testament, will sneak some of that in there too. Uh, and, and then it creates space for conversation about we're, what we're teaching about, and there are a few things that I really love about this.Something that's just really been on my heart lately is that when we come to these tables, there's no food insecurity. We don't know where people are coming from. We've had people join us who are homeless, to people who come from relatively significant wealth. I mean, at least comfort. And when we're at the table, it is an even playing field, and you only have to share your story or those parts of your story if you really want to. And, uh, it is just this way for us to get to know each other deeply, and for us to build this place of trust. So many people are coming out of situations where they've been hurt by church. And so for us to be able to have this, what's called fresh expression of church, which really is like original church, right? Book of Acts church is what this is. Uh, it's been so beautiful to watch this unfold and it's still unfolding. We're still figuring things out and how, how this will look for us and for our community specifically. So those are all the things, Danielle,Danielle (05:34):That's so many things. I mean, that's funny. You've been on a journey, right? We were, I think we paralleled like being in grad school together for a bit.And then you graduated and what's your master's degree in?Misty (05:46):It's a master of divinity.Danielle (05:48):Okay. So you're a boss,Misty (05:50):, that's the goal, right? I mean, that's the goal,Danielle (05:53):And so I, I know you were on this journey, like what is, uh, what does the next step in life mean? Like, I have my degree, what do I wanna do next? And so I know you've been exploring and allowing yourself to try different things, and I don't know if you'd be even be willing to speak about like what it was like to like live in that unknown or be exploring that.Misty (06:16):Yeah, so incredibly uncomfortable , so uncomfortable. Uh, you know, that part of my story is leaving a really traumatic church experience and, and feeling so confused because that happened just as my seminary time was ending and feeling like, Okay, God, I really feel like you led me into seminary. I feel like this was the right move. And yet here I am, uh, I'm no longer part of a church. Like we didn't have a church to attend. I wasn't working at a church anymore, and that was March, 2020. So it's pandemic. So finding a new place to come together to worship with people, uh, it it was just a really tricky PO process. And we have met some great church planters and church people along the way, and that's been part of this redemptive story for us, Uh, to see, to see healthy churches that are functioning well, people who really love each other.Well, that's been so good. And still, and I'm gonna be real honest here, that Tuesday morning, uh, so a week ago Tuesday, I'd been praying about this, this position that I was just offered. And I, and I've been praying for months, like, God, what, what is it that you want from me? Like, have I really missed so many cues for you? Or have I messed my life up too badly that something good can't come from this? And just so many big doubts. And that morning I'd had it really, my husband who has been working from home, uh, actually went into the office that day. So I had the whole house to myself, and it was my voice raised to God. And I don't mean like raised and praised, I mean like, I was yelling at God and tears and like, What do you want from me? And I'm so frustrated. And in that same time is when I was getting the email saying, Hey, can you send us your resume and cover letter for this job? So then I had to go back to God the next day and be like, Thanks for loving me how I am.But also like he sees, he sees these frustrations. He knows how difficult this liminal space is. And, uh, that is much as I know that I'm seen and known and loved by God. I couldn't feel that then I, I felt so, uh, yeah, not seen, not understood, not heard. And I know that timing and prayer isn't necessarily our timing. And still, I was just getting to the end of my patienceBecause you can't see, you can't see when the end is coming. Right. The, I didn't, there wasn't anything in my path at that moment that even looked like a glimmer of hope to me mm-hmm. and I was at my lips end.Danielle (09:20):Yeah. Yeah. So you've got an invitation to submit a resume and a cover letter. Like how did they find you? Do you know?Misty (09:27):So I'd applied for the job. Okay. And, uh, through an online application process. And they specifically wanted my resume and cover letter to go to a specific person, so that, to the hiring manager. So to send it again, which allowed me the possibility of rewriting my cover letter because I'm an overthinker Danielle, I, I wrote one, I sent it, it was specific to the job, but still kind of generic. And then I'm thinking about this over the course of like, what, three or four days? Like, Mm. I should have said this. So then I did.Danielle (10:00):Yeah. I love it that you gave your chance yourself a chance to rewrite the cover letter yourself permission to say, Hey, I wanna do this differently. And you tried it.Misty (10:11):Yeah. Yeah. And it's paid off. Uh, the meetings with this organization were so good. And now I have a friend who started working with them on Tuesday, and she, uh, has been just talking about her time with them so far, and how it seems to be like real relationship, like healthy relationship between, uh, director level and employee level and management. And, uh, so just, just to even have this hope of, of a healthy work environment mm-hmm. is really encouraging.Danielle (10:45):Right. Because part of what I think was like stalling was this traumatic event at this church organization.Misty (10:52):Yep. Yep. And all of these people who I believe really love Jesus, and yet people who really love Jesus can behave very poorly sometimes. So, uh, and, and I'm not, I I'm guessing that we're gonna have moments of that too in this new position. I am not looking for rainbows and unicorns here. I, uh, I hope to be in a space that, that we recognize when we are behaving poorly and can ask for forgiveness after that. And, and that's been some of the, the redemption, the restoration story from this church experience too, is that there's been lots of healing in those once broken relationships. And while they'll never be what they once were, they're so much better than what they were two and a half years ago.Danielle (11:45):How do you see your experience now as you're mo you've moved through so much liminal space and now you have like many jobs.Misty (11:54):It's too many.Danielle (11:55):Yeah. Too many. Like how do you see that traumatic experience right at the tail end of grad school? Like, has it reframed it for you? Has it cemented things for you? Like Yeah.Misty (12:07):Yeah. Good question. I, one of the things, it's made me more aware. So even going into the interview process for this new position, I was, uh, very upfront with the questions that I had about things like accountability and support for their leaders mm-hmm. . Uh, so how, how does this organization, uh, I don't know that you can actually ensure, uh, that there isn't going to be any bad behavior, but what, what are, what does this organization do to, uh, to try to prevent it anyway, to, to keep their people accountable? And there were some really good answers, and those were questions that I wouldn't have necessarily thought to ask before. Uh, because with the work that I do with our church plant, well, I'm the person that needs the accountability. And, uh, because that's something important to me. I'm, I'm, I'm very open and honest with the people that I'm leading.Uh, with the work that I'm doing at Bethel University, uh, I am accountable to a director who also is very open and communicative and also, and then, and then there's the work with Steph and Joe, and we just know them so well. So it's just not something that I even think about with them. But going into this, it's a larger organization with people that, I don't know, it made me more aware of. I, I want to know the answers to these questions before I would ever say yes. And it, it seems to me like they have really good systems in place, uh, to try and avoid some of maybe that celebrity culture that we've seen in the Christian realm in the last few years. And, and a lot of the shake up and the, the lights that, the light that's been shown on some bad behavior in Christian culture. Mm-hmm.Danielle (13:59):How do you, I think what I hear is you see yourself as part of the change.Misty (14:05):Yeah. Yeah. That's been my part of my hope.It was in the last church too. And, and part of that is there are a couple of things. One of them being a woman in ministry, uh, and coming out of a highly complementarian setting, uh, and also wanting something so different for the church as a whole. And I would, I would say specifically the, the Western church, uh, wanting to be part of something that's so much like in the community, getting to know the people, whether, whether people ever come to your church or not, But getting to know people and really caring for them. Uh, that's been part of the change that I've wanted to see. And now there are ways in which I get to be part of making it.Danielle (14:53):What things do you particularly latch onto as, um, as pre, like, as ways you wanna engage leadership?Misty (15:01):I love being able to see giftedness in people and then to challenge them to use their gifts. I also love learning from other leaders. So for instance, in our church plant, we're small. We are about maybe seven households right now. And, uh, in that, I've seen three other people who are excellent communicators. And so they, they teach for us sometimes on Sunday mornings, but also in that we have people in, even in the small group of people we have, uh, Gen Z through, I think boomers probably. Okay. And, uh, and then people, like my very own son-in-law right, is from El Salvador. And so we have different perspective from him. We have, uh, a family who, the husband in the family is African American, the wife is Iranian. And, um, so just learning different perspectives from different people and how do we incorporate that into our church? Because isn't at the beauty of the kingdom of God is people from every tribe and tongue and nation. And so I think to be an effective leader in our community, in our family, in our church, it's really about seeing people for who they are and how uniquely they're created and celebrating that instead of trying to make everybody be the same.Oh, it's been a really, um, maybe like more like Lewis and Clark style, right? Like, it's taking some time, it's taking some time. This isn't a, a fast trail. Um, cuz when you think about, okay, let's think about really creating a trail and like chopping down branches and making a path and going through storms and, and whatever that means, uh, there's a lot of grit that comes with it and, uh, you don't necessarily see the rewards right away. That's been one of the things that I've had to really hold onto in the last couple of years, is in a society that highly values instant gratification, that's not what this work is about. Mm-hmm. , this isn't about selling a product and seeing profits instantly or quickly. Uh, this is long, hard work that is so beautiful. And some of this, I would guess I may never see the results of it, Right. They may be things that happen in generations to come and can I sit in that tension and, and be okay with it. Mm-hmm. , it's been a lot. That's been a lot of inner work that I've been doing. Mm-hmm.Thank goodness for my therapist and my spiritual director because I don't know how I would do this without them.Danielle (18:03):Yeah. Talk to me a little bit how you care for yourself through this process, because clearly you have your mind around things, you're able to really articulate where you're coming from. And I, my guess is you're doing that with care.Misty (18:15):Yeah. Yeah. Self-care has been a key for me. And, uh, also I'm somebody who loves schedule and routine, and so that's gonna shake up a little bit in this next week. Uh, uh, like physical self care. So exercise has been super important to me. I love to lift heavy weights, , it's a really great way to get rid of some tension and walks. It's fall here in Minnesota right now, and it's beautiful. I know that winter's coming, but for right now, I'll enjoy fall. Uh, but my therapist and my spiritual director really are two key people in my life and functions so differently. Uh, and I tell, I tell my kids sometimes I feel like my therapist, I pay her a copay to be my friend , like, she's so lovely. Uh, uh, but just to have these, uh, so my therapist isn't somebody that I know outside of, you know, my normal life.She is a professional that I've met and, uh, has this perspective of my life that is different from the people who are in my life, who are who, right? She can give me this outside perspective of it. And then, uh, my spiritual director actually is a woman that I've known for, I think 20 years now, or almost 20 years. And she, uh, knows so much of my life and also, um, really is so very connected to the Holy Spirit. And so to have conversations with her, again, with both of these women, it's this opportunity to, uh, see pieces of my life from their perspective, things that I wouldn't see on my own. Uh, so that's been really key for me to, uh, keep, keep calm, uh, to stay focused. Uh, now clearly I told you I just freaked out at God, just a week ago. So that doesn't happen all of the time, but, uh, it does happen most of the time that I can stay focused on what really matters.Danielle (20:29):Yeah. So what, what are like your top three things you would tell to someone else in like coming through that liminal space?Misty (20:43):First, have really good people around you. Really good people. Yeah. Um, my husband has been incredibly supportive. Uh, he just, he's a really supportive man and, uh, has given me the space to like li sometimes physical space, like literal physical space. Like I need to be left alone to process some of these things, but also as somebody that I can have a conversation with. So him, our kids, friends, uh, the people in our church, like these are good people who've come alongside me. Uh, I also am a huge proponent of journaling, and that is because now I can look back, I actually have the same journal for, uh, the last two years. And I can look back on these pages and see some of these repeated prayers and repeated themes. And uh, it helps I think in those times where you, for, for me as a person of faith, where I'm like, Okay, God, are you even hearing what I'm saying to you? And, and then to see maybe the, the gradual answers, whether they're yes, no, not now, whatever they are mm-hmm.And then the third thing is to take time to see what really brings you joy.And I think that I, I read something or I saw something the other day about, uh, people who go through long periods of liminal space and can no longer even remember their why or, um, have like no sense of calling anymore because they are just trying to, Oh, it might have actually been stuff. And Joe, it it, it was this like, you just are so used to disappointment that you don't even know what it's like to like long for something or hope for something more. And that holding onto that hope can be really difficult when it's been such a long time since it's been affirmed.Danielle (22:49):Right. That feels hard to hear.Yeah. And you know, like those seasons of drought when, you know, hope is dangerous.Misty (23:02):Yes, for sure. For sure. Uh, I was in this training a couple of months ago and they were talking about, it was different language, but it was liminal space and how also also understanding how things might not go back to the way that they once were mm-hmm. . And so it's also learning to, to let go of something so that you can lead in the space that you're in instead of holding onto this hope of the past. Can we hope for something in the future, even if there's this hard thing that you have to let go of mm-hmm. that has been a, a theme in my life. I think you maybe know I turned 50 in August. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Yay. And I'm one of those people I'm super thankful for every year that I get, uh, I, I last both of my parents in the last few years and so you bet I'm gonna celebrate every single birthday that I get to celebrate.And I've always loved my birthday. I actually celebrate the whole month. But turning 50, I was thinking about this year of Jubilee and that comes from the Old Testament. And it was like after 50 years you release debts, you release people who had been enslaved to you. Um, like so there are these people that are coming out, uh, and have this freedom, whether it's freedom from debt or freedom from being somebody's servant. Well then also there's this letting go of the person who was holding onto the debt. So there it's this, this idea of, for me it's this idea of, okay, what do I need to let go of that I've been holding so tightly to so that I have a room for whatever God has next to me. And that too has been part of this process in the last couple of years. Okay. I'm holding on to some hopes and dreams of, of things from the past and those things, they're not reality anymore. And so can I let go of them so that I can be open and ready for whatever is next. And it's hard. It's been really hard, but it's also been what's been so good.Danielle (25:15):I just, I would love to ask people three questions. Okay. Okay. What are you reading right now? What are you listening to and who are what's inspiring you?Misty (25:26):Mm, good questions. I am somebody who reads lots of things at the same time, . So, uh, we as our church have been talking about spiritual practices. Uh, we've been calling them Jesus experiment. So I have been going back through some of Ritual Lotus's, the deeply formed life. And also I love that book. I, he is, he is just one of my favorites. I I share almost everything that he has on his Instagram cuz there's so much wisdom there. Uh, and then, uh, the Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Those are a couple of things that I'm reading and I appreciate both of their perspectives. Uh, I listen to a pile of podcasts, so the Lead Stories podcast is one that I listen to every week. I so just for fun, I love The Office Ladies, have you ever listened to that or did you ever watch The Office?Danielle (26:20):No, I know what you're talking about though. ,Misty (26:23):It's so silly and it's so funny. So it's just a really nice way to not have to think about anything, just just to laugh about something. Gemma Kucher, that's another, I think her podcast is called Gold Digger. Like Gold Geo l Digger and that's primarily for entrepreneurs. But, um, I don't know, there's lots of good stuff that she shares too. And then was the last one what brings me joy orDanielle (26:49):What Yeah, sure. What brings you joy? Who or what's inspiring you?Misty (26:52):Oh, what's inspiring me? Well, the other thing that you know about us is our youngest went to college in August and uh, it's been a huge change just for all of us. Uh, so three kids. Our oldest is married and she and her husband just bought a house. So that's been exciting. Uh, our son's in Alabama so we don't get to see him actually very much. And then our youngest moves out, so it's just my husband and me at home now. And while he and I like we are enjoying our time together. Uh, it's been this really weird freedom of we don't have soccer games three nights a week anymore. So that's been so weird. Uh, but to see my kids, my kids really inspire me. So to see Sydney and her husband and they've been married now for two years and worked so hard and now that they, um, are working hard again cause they bought this house and there's lots of work to do and thankfully a lot of super handy.So we can do lots of things, but like to see them coming into their own and finding their own path and life. And now for, uh, London. Uh, so she goes to college the first week is like, Yeah, awesome. I'm on my own and I am making these new friends. And then a couple of weeks later it's like, hmm, there's some conflict between some of these people and I don't like conflict, but I don't really wanna address it. Mm-hmm. and maybe I should just transfer schools. I was like, okay. And then now we are at this place where she's finding where she fits and she is enjoying school and thinking that this will be the uni university that she'll be at for the next three and a half years or so. And to see them all go through such change mm-hmm. and they're doing okay.But, it's hard sometimes and, and too when like, I see her, our youngest who is almost 19, but still my baby mm-hmm. and she's hurting and she doesn't wanna go back to school mm-hmm. . Uh, but to see those things and no, I can't fix them and also I shouldn't fix them because it's part of what makes her her is learning how to take care of some of these things. Um, again, they're figuring it out and they're becoming stronger, better people for it. And uh, I just so appreciate them and all that. I get to learn, learn through them. I hope that they've learned some things from me, uh, but also I learned things from them.Danielle (29:33):Well, I'm sure they're learning things from you because one way to manage transitions is to have strong attachment with your parental figure or figure. And so I think that indicates some groundedness that you've instilled in given to them. So.Misty (29:49):Well, thank you for that encouragement,Danielle (29:51):Yeah. Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough, you know. Yeah,Misty (29:55):That's right. Yeah. There is no perfection in parenting.Danielle (29:59):No. Um, thank you so much for being with me and you know, I'd love to have you back and interview a guest or you know, love for us to collaborate in the future. So thank you.Misty (30:10):Yeah. Thanks for having me. This was so good. Yeah. Talking to you.Danielle (30:13):I know. Me too. 

 Bios:Ernest Gray Jr. is the pastor of Keystone Baptist Church located in the West Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago.  He is a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute with a degree in Pastoral Ministries, and a graduate of Wheaton College with a Master's Degree in Biblical Exegesis.  He completed his PhD coursework at McMaster Divinity College and is currently completing his thesis within the corpus of 1 Peter. Mr. Gray has taught in undergraduate school of Moody in the areas of Hermeneutics, first year Greek Grammar, General Epistles, the Gospel of John and Senior Seminar. It is Mr. Gray's hope to impact the African American church  through scholarship. Teaching has been one way that God has blessed him to live this out.  Ernest is also co-host of the newly released podcast Just Gospel with an emphasis upon reading today's social and racial injustices through a gospel lens. www.moodyradio.org    Jen Oyama Murphy  "My love of good stories led me to Yale University where I received a BA in English. Upon graduation, I felt called to bring individual stories into relationship with the Gospel Story, and I have worked in the areas of campus and church ministry, lay counseling, and pastoral care since 1989. Over the years, I sought a variety of ongoing education and training in the fields of psychology and theology, including graduate classes at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology and Benedictine University. I also completed the Training Certificate and Externship programs at The Allender Center, and I previously held roles on their Training and Pastoral Care Team, as Manager of Leadership Development, and most recently as the Senior Director of The Allender Center. Believing that healing and growth happens in the context of relationship, I work collaboratively to create a safe coaching space of curiosity and kindness where honesty, care, desire, and imagination can grow. Using my experience and expertise in a trauma-informed, narrative-focused approach, I seek to help people live the story they were most meant for and heal from the ones they were not. I am passionate about personal support and development, particularly for leaders in nonprofit or ministry settings, including lay leaders who may not have a formal title or position. I'm especially committed to engaging the personal and collective stories of those who have felt invisible, marginalized, and oppressed. I love facilitating groups as well as working individually with people. I currently live in Chicago with my husband, and we have two adult daughters.Rebecca Wheeler Walston lives in Virginia, has completed  Law School at UCLA, holds a Master's in Marriage and Family Counseling, is also a licensed minister. Specializing in advising non-profits and small businesses. Specialties: providing the legal underpinning for start-up nonprofits and small businesses, advising nonprofit boards, 501c3 compliance, creating and reviewing business contracts.TJ PoonDr. Ernest Gray (00:41:40):Absolutely. Absolutely. There will be stories told in the next five, no, two or three years now about, this is the fascinating thing I'm trying to wrap my mind around is that it is this, I need to do a more research upon the Ukrainian Russian thing wherein you have, um, my ignorance, you have an apparent Eastern European, you have, uh, you know, have an eastern European kind of, this isn't anything about pigment autocracy, but culturally, I'm op I'm opposed to you because you have Russian descent, and I'm a Ukrainian descent. So upon the, upon the outside, it's not anything that has to do with the, with the merits of, of, of, uh, racial, racial, a racialized racialization. It has more to do with the cultural, um, ethnicity kind of, um, indicatives that create this hostility between the two. And to hear the atrocities that are ongoing right now against, you know, each o against the, the Ukrainian Russian conflict, right now, we're gonna hear about those things and, and, and hear just how egregious they are or whether it's the, um, the tusks and the Hutus in the Rwandan conflict, or whether it's the Bosnians versus the, um, the Serbians. I mean, there's gonna be a lot of that. There's, we, we find that these things occur, um, and that, and that it's, it's all because of these notions of superiority and, and tools of the enemy in order to, to, to divide and conquer. Um, and then coupled with power create, you know, devastating effects. I, I I, I, I think that there's a, um, there's a, there's a, the, the collectivist idea of seeing us all in the same boat with various facets is something that we need to strive. It's not easy to always to do. Um, but it's gotta happen. If we're going to create a, a better human, if we're not creative, if the Lord is gonna work in a way to, to help us, uh, move toward a better humanity, one that is at least honoring may not happen in our lifetime, may not happen until we see the Lord face to face. But at the same time, that's the work that we're, I'm called to is to be, uh, or, you know, to, to be the embodiment of some type of re repa posture, um, modeling for others what it could look like. Danielle (00:44:19):Sure. Yeah. Um, Rebecca and I put this in here, Hurt versus harm. Um, hurt being, and, and again, these, these are definitions coming from us, so I recognize that other people may have a different view and we can talk about that. Um, hurt being in, in, when Rebecca and I were talking about it inevitable in any relationship may cause painful feelings and hurt someone's feelings. Um, harm violating a person's dignity, and it takes energy non consensually from someone So how do individual hurts add to or cement structural power structures and our perspective and experience of harm? How do individual hurts add to or cement structural power structures and our perspective and experience of, of them? Dr. Ernest Gray (00:45:31):Yeah. Um, it's cuz you've got muscle memory hurt, um, over and over and over and over and over of sorts provides a muscle memory, a knee jerk, a kind of , Oh, this is familiar, here we go again. Ow. So I think that's one way, I'll, I'll step back now, but I think that, that it's the body that maintains a powerful memory of the feeling and it feels, and it's gonna be a familiar kind of triggering slash re-injury that until it's interrupted, can create, can see this as, um, broadly speaking, a a, a more, um, yeah, a reoccurring thing that is, that needs to be interrupted. TJ Poon(00:46:27):I'm really mindful of this in my relationships because there's a lot of horror from white people, from white women towards different communities. And so, like in my relationships, you, there's a, there's a mindfulness of like, maybe we have a disruption and at the level of me and this other person, it is a hurt, but it, it reinforces a harm that they've experienced or it feels like, um, feels similar to. And so it's not like we, I it's not like we opt, we can opt out. Like it can't opt out of that collective narrative. I can't say, Oh, well I'm just, you know, this one person. Um, so I, I think that is complex because the individual hurts do contribute. They feel like what Dr. Gray was saying, like it is muscle memory. It's some sometimes where something can feel or just reinforce, I guess, um, what has already happened to us in contexts. Jen Oyama Murphy (00:47:36):I mean, I think the complexity of the relationship between hurt and harm, um, contributes to how hard it can be to actually have meaningful repair. Because I, my experience sometimes, and I, I know I do this myself, that I will lean into the hurt and apologize or try to do repair on a personal one to one level and somehow feel like if I do that, it will also, it also repairs the harm. And that doesn't, that's, that's not true. I mean, it can perhaps contribute to a restorative process or a repair process around the harm, but Right. Just me, um, in charge of a small group repairing for a particular hurt that may have happened in the small group doesn't necessarily address the structure, the system that put that small group together, the content that's being taught, you know, the, the opportunity for those participants to even be in the program, Right. That there is something that's happening at a, at a harm level, um, that my personal apology for something that I did that hurt someone in the group isn't actually addressing. But we can hope that it does or act like it does or even have the expectation, um, that it will. And so the, I love the new, the nuance or the, the clarity between the two definitions that you guys are, um, asking us to wrestle with. I think that's, that's good's making me think just for myself. Like where do I go first, you know, out of my own, um, training or naivete or just like wishful thing, thinking that, that I can't repair systemic harm by apologizing or repairing like a personal hurt. Danielle (00:49:36):Um, I mean, Jen, I've been wrestling with that and, and when I, when I, in my experience, when someone apologizes to me, and I know they're apologizing for personal hurt, but I feel like they haven't said in, in, in a way I can understand often I'm not understanding how do I actually get out of this so we're not pitted against each other again. Mm-hmm. , when I feel trapped in that space and I receive an apology, I often, I, I feel more angry even at, even if I know the person sincerely apologizing, if I'm telling a more true story to you all as a Latinx person, and I've noticed this in my family, I receive the apology, and yet when I have to continue to function in the system, I am more angry afterwards. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , there's a frustration that happens, which then of course is bottled down and it, I often talk to my clients about this, but I was talking to my husband about it. It's like we threw all this stuff in the pressure cooker cuz we do a lot of pressure cooking and put a plastic lid on it. And now the s h I t spread sideways. And that's kind of how it feels when we, now I'm not saying we can do this perfectly or I even know how to do it, but when we address hurt, that's part of systemic harm without addressing the system. I think in my experience, it feels like I'm feeling my own pressure cooker mm-hmm. and I'm not able to contain the spray at different times. Mm-hmm. . Dr. Ernest Gray (00:51:20):Yeah. I think I think about for, I think about for me, the, my, my the, you know, systemizing, systematizing the way in which I associate things, what the right environment, the way in which my, you know, my senses have associated things. I'll have dejavu because I had a certain smell from my childhood and it'll, it could be triggering, right? I smell something and I'm like, Oh man, that reminds me of this moment. All that categorization to me tells me how my brain functions and how mm-hmm. associative. Mm-hmm. , it is for instances, smells, places, um, things that occur. And it's, it's the, it's the ongoing sense of that, especially if we've come out of, um, houses or, um, families where this was it, it was normative for us to experience these things on a regular basis so that any, any hint of it elsewhere outside of that, outside of the confines of that can reignite that same kind of shallow breathing and response. And I don't wanna, um, but, but definitely the advancing of hurt versus harm. It, it, it, the harm the those in whatever that instance is that creates, that, that response outta me lets me know that more that it is, it was the ongoing nature of those things which created the harm. Um, and so it almost asks, I it's first acknowledgement and then secondly saying, What do I need to do to take care of myself in this instance? Where do I need to go? What do I need to give myself in this moment so that I'm not going down this road of, here we go again. I'm in a corner . I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna kind of check out. But, um, I think about the west side of Chicago where I'm ministering, um, and I'm thinking about, you know, just this community that it doesn't really affect them. It, it really doesn't to hear gunshots, to hear, um, to hear, uh, sirens and things like that. These are everyday occurrence so that the, so that the, so that the ongoing nature of what they're used to just has evolved into this kind of numbing sense. But I, but I guess in going back, it is interrupting that, that delicate, um, sequence of events so that it does not cause me to shut down in that moment that I've, that I'm still learning how to do for myself. Right. And I think that in our interpersonal relationships, especially, here's where it meets the road, is in our interpersonal, or even our most intimate relationships, the ongoing hurt and does eventually, uh, you know, cross the line into harm because it has taken away the energy out of that, out of the other person, uh, or or out of us. Um, after such a long time after repeated, repeated instances. Rebecca W. Walston (00:54:31):I, I think what I think I'm hearing everybody alludes this sense of like, can there be an awareness of, of the, where the interpersonal and the individual kind of collides with the collective and the systemic, right? And, and just a more complex understanding of how any incident, however big or small the rupture is. Where is the interplay of those two things? So, so that a comment between two people can actually have this impact that's far more and reverberates with the kind of generational familiarity that that all of a sudden, it, it, it, it, um, we're, we're out of the category. My feelings are hurt and into this space of it feels like something of in me has been violated. Um, and I think it takes a, an enormous amount of energy and awareness on the part of both people, both the person who perpetrated something and the person who was on the receiving end of that, to have a sense of like where they are and where they are and where the other person is to kind of know that and build all to hold it, um, with some integrity. There was a point in which we brought a group of people, uh, to, to view the equal justice initiative, um, landmarks in Montgomery, Alabama, and the conversation and a processing conversation between a white woman and a black woman. And, you know, after having come from the, the National Memorial and Peace and Justice and witnessing the history of lynching, understandably, this black woman was deeply angry, like profoundly angry, um, and trying to manage in the moment what that anger was and, and, and turned to the white participant and said like, I, like I'm really angry at you. Like, I kind of hate you right now. Mm-hmm. , um, two people who are virtually strangers. Right. And, and, and, and for the white woman to have said to her a sense of like, um, I get it. I got it. I'm, I'm white and I'm a woman.And there's a sense in which historically white women called this particular place in the lynching of black bodies mm-hmm. . Um, and also can, can I be in this room in the particularity of my individual story and know that I personally, Right. Um, don't, don't agree with that, stand against it, have not participated actively in it. Kind of a sense of like, you know, and it may have been an imperfect or, or generous engagement, but you can hear the tension of like, how can we both be in this room and hold the collective historical nature of this? And the particularity of the two individuals in the room together hadn't actually been the active participant interrupter. So Yeah. I think it's hard and messy. Danielle (00:57:51):I, I love what, uh, Rebecca wrote. There was, you know, been talking to me about do we imagine Shalom as a return to where we started? Cause the very nature of the disrupt disruption being we cannot return from Eden to the city of God. Um, and Rebecca, I'll let you elaborate on that a little bit more, but when we were talking Rebecca and I, you know, as a mixed race woman, and in those mixes, you know, is indigenous and Spanish and African, and, you know, just this mix, I'm like, where would I return to? Right? Mm-hmm. , what community does a Latinx person returned to? If, if it's a return to Eden, where is, is Eden lost? And so, um, yeah, Rebecca, I don't know if you wanna expand on what you were thinking. Rebecca W. Walston (00:58:43):Uh, I mean, I I've just been wrestling with this in particular, you know, we talk about individual hurt. It's easy to talk about like the disruption that happened in Eden, that what God meant for me individually, what you know, is reflected in the Garden of Eden. The kind of peace and the kind of generosity and the kind of, um, uh, just more that, that is in the Garden of Eden. And, but when I, when I try and so, so there's a depend in which I can step into this work and have this individual sense of like, Oh, you know, I wasn't meant for the fracture and my relationship between myself and my parents, Right? I was meant for something that was more whole than that. So how do I, how do I have a sense of what that was like in Eden, and how do I have a sense of going back to that kind of, that kind of space? But when I translate that into like collective work around racial trauma, I get lost like Danielle, right? In this, this sense that like, um, in, in her book, Born On the Water, um, the author sort of makes this argument that though these African people got on the ship at the beginning in Africa, while they made the journey across the Atlantic and before they landed in the United States, something happened on the water. And there's something in that hyphenated existence that created a new people group in, in a way that like, I can't actually go back to Africa. I like, I can't, I mean, I will go there and for half a second somebody might mistaken me for a, a colored person, right? And if you're inside Africa, that means I'm not fully African. I'm not fully white, I'm somewhere in the middle. But the second I open my mouth, they, they know I'm not African. I'm something else, right? And there's a sense in which I can't actually go back to Eden. There, there's something that happened in the rupture and the displacement that actually makes it impossible for me to return for that, right? And, and I still have that sense of being displaced in the hyphenated existence in the US that makes me, in some ways not fully American either. So what, what is the answer to that? And as I started to wrestle with that theologically, you know, I'm looking at the text going, actually, the, the journey for the Christian is not back to Eden . Like the end game is not back to Genesis, it's to revelation in the city of God. And so that's my sense of this comment is like, do do I pivot and start to imagine repair as not a return to Eden, but onto something else? And, and, and, um, you know, then I begin to suspect that, uh, that, that there's something even in the journey of, of that, that that is a far more value to me that I would want more than just the return to Eden. There's something sweeter having made it onto the city of God. So this is my wonderings. Curious how, how that hits for any of you. Dr. Ernest Gray (01:02:09):I think the, I think you're spot on. And I guess I, I guess it's a maturity mark that says that this continuum, this, this, um, I think you get to a certain and you just realize you never really arrive. And I think this fits within that same conceptual framework of like, you know, hey , you know, you, you could reach the pinnacle of your career. And, um, and yet, you know, it's still not be ultimately satisfying because it's like, is that it? You know, I think I'm on top of the mountain and I, and I guess that's the, that's inherent of human, of human of humanness for me is that I'm, I'm, I'm resigned to thinking about completion and absolute perfection. I'll be perfected when I meet Jesus. They'll be the more work for me to do or work in me to be done. But in the meantime, um, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna be striving, blowing it, striving, um, gaining some, you know, gaining some, um, some skills and learning how to navigate better life and figuring out what works and doesn't work any, uh, as I go, as I age, as I, and hopefully in growing wisdom. Um, but I, I like this idea because there's a sense of, of jettisoning your experiences as though they're irrelevant. No, they're what brought me to this place and they're what's propelling me forward. Um, there's this sense of I might as well give them a hug and bring them with me on the journey, uh, because then they create a sense of meaning and value for me and for those of, uh, you know, for me, uh, as I'm, as I'm making my progress through, through life. So, so, so, um, that to me shows marks of, uh, a sense of maturity and, you know, some restore some restoration. I think, you know, and, and again, it comes down to like this sense of like, you know, the things that have value for us are can, can be worn. You know, Like, my son's got a got, you know, a favorite stuffed animal that is horrible. I wanna wash it every time I see it. You know, it's just like, we get rid of this thing. No, it's just, there's something about this particular stuffed animal that I just cannot part ways with. And so that's, that's kind of how we don't wanna get rid of our vinky or you know, our blanky, whatever it is. We got . Cause we love itself. , TJ Poon (01:04:53):I was really moved when I read this slide and listened to Rebecca and Danielle talking, I think, um, so I named my daughter Eden. And, you know, the, the meaning of pleasure, delight, just that, that the nature of what we were meant for. And in the end, we find it in the city full of people that look like us and not like us. And the image of that is represented there. And just kind of that shifting from like, our delight is found in this garden where it's just as in God, um, to our delight is in this city and, you know, the lamb of God is their light. All these different images that are really powerful and revolution, I think about that. Like that, that has meaningful too. Uh, just a shifting, um, where is our, where is our pleasure? Where is our delight? How do we come to experience that shaone? And who are the people that we experience that through? Dr. Ernest Gray (01:05:53):That's huge. And I, and I, yeah, and I, it's those people that are really part of that, you know, that space for us, that that really kind of helps us to, you know, experience the full, the sum, the full sum of what shalom means for us. I think that that's really important for us to really, for me especially to, to not shy away from that because I, I I, I, my ma my natural inclination would be to just be very isolated and monastic as opposed to engaged in community . But it's experienced in community and it's experienced together, and it's experienced with other shattered people too. Right. Um, and that to me is where I draw strength and energy and, um, you know, peace from as well. So, thank you, tj. I think yours mm-hmm. , I like what you share there. Danielle (01:06:57):I, I guess I would add like, to that, like, I think so much of my experience is being like in this very moment when I feel joy or maybe shalom or a sense of heaven, even in the moment, because unaware of what, I'm always not aware of what will come next. I don't know. Um, yeah. So just the feeling of heaven is in this moment too, with, you know, in the moment that I get to sit with the four of you, this is a piece of heaven for me, a reflection of hope and healing. Although we haven't even explored the ways we might have, you know, rubbed each other the wrong way. I have a sense that we could do that. And in that sense, that feels like heaven to me in spaces where there could, there are conflict. I'm not saying there isn't just a, just, I think in my own culture, the, that's why Sundays feel so good to me. For instance, when I'm with a couple of other families and we're eating and talking and laughing and, you know, the older kids are playing with the younger kids, like, to me, that feels, oh, that feels good. And, and if, if that was the last thing I felt, I would, that would feel like heaven to me. So I, I think there's also that, I'm not saying we're not going to the city of God, but there's just these momentary times when I feel very close to what I think it, it might mean. Mm-hmm. , Rebecca W. Walston (01:08:41):I, I do think, Danielle, I mean, I resonate with what you're saying. I think, I think the text is very clear that there are these moments, um, along the way. Right? I think that's that sense of, yay, do I walk through the valley of the shadow, Right? I, I will be with you. I, I think like wherever you are in the process, along the journey, the moments where you have a sense of, um, I am with you always. Right? And however that shows up for you in a faith, in a person, in a smile and an expression, in deed, whatever, however that shows up, it definitely, like, if I, I do have a sense of like, things we pick up along the way and, and a sense of final destination all being a part of the, the, the healing, the, like, the journey of repair. Um, and, and I start to think about, um, You know, the story of Joseph is a very significant one to me, has very reflected my own story, and then, then will know what that reference means, um, to me in particular by, you know, the, the sense in, in Joseph of like, what sad to meant for evil, God meant for good, right? And the sense of him naming his two sons, Manas and Efram, and one of them, meaning God has caused me to forget the toilet of my father's house. Um, and God has caused me to prosper in the land of my infliction is the meaning of the other son. And so I do think that there's, there's something in the text even that, that is about the journey and the destination being sweeter and holding something more, um, that than had our, our soul existence only been in Eden, Right? I mean, and, and that isn't to say like, I don't wish for that, you know what I mean? Or that I wouldn't love to be there, but, but I, but I mean like, leave it only to God to, to assert this idea that like, um, all of the rupture holds something more, um, that than life without any, without there ever being any sense of rupture. Right? And I think we're in the category of like, the mysteries of God by I, I think. I think so I think there's, there's such value in the journey in the valleys and what we pick up there about ourselves and God and people in it with us. Um, you know, Yeah. Like that, that feels aspirational to me and also feels true in some senses. You're muted, Ernest. I can't, can't hear you. So I said Dr. Ernest Gray (01:11:33):I was low, I was very low when I said that resonates. I, um, I was thinking about, um, you know, for me in the last few years, you know, Covid has done a, has done an, an immeasurable service in many ways. It has been incredibly harmful for a lot of us, but it's been a, it's done an immeasurable service at the same time, um, to reorient us. Um, for me it is increased my, depend my creaturely dependence on God in a way that here to four I would not have been focused upon. Right? I, you know, I spent 12, 13 years in the, in, in the classroom as a professor teaching, uh, on autopilot, um, from God's word, from, um, and teaching students how to study and think and what, what these words in the Bible say and what they could potentially mean, um, to the best of my ability. But that was autopilot stuff. And I felt insulated, if you will. But, but the repair and the why of the repair, why it's important, why, why the, um, the rupture is necessary, and we can call I, I, I would call covid and the time prior to, and subsequent to be very rupturing, I, I would call it as necessary, because it helped me to see my why and why dependence upon God had it be reframed, refocused, re you know, recalibrated so that I could not, so I could get out of a sense of, um, oh, my training prepared me for this to know my, you know, what I am and who I, what my journey has been, did not prepare me for this, and all the attendant features that have come as a result, the relationships that are broken and realizing that they were jacked up from a long , they were jacked up. I just couldn't see them during all those years. Um, but these remind me of the need for God to be embodied, uh, in my life in a way that, um, I had been maybe not as present with. And I think that that's part of the reason why, um, this is my re my why for repair, is that it creates a better, more relational dynamic between me and God that had I not gone through some rupturing event, I would not have appreciated the value of where I'm at with him now. More than that. I think one other thing is that I think that there's a sense too that there's a, um, there's a heightened awareness of all these other aspects that are coming, that are coming about. My eyes are now not as with, you know, blinders on. Now I can look around and say, Wow, this is a really jacked up place. Where can I help to affect some change? Where could I, you know, where can I put my stubborn ounces? Where can I place you know, who I am and what God has put in me, um, in the way so that I can, um, be a part so that I can help, you know, groups that are hurting, people that are hurting communities that are struggling, Um, and the, like, Jen Oyama Murphy (01:15:19):I'm trying to work this out. So I'm just working it out out loud for you all. But, um, I think kind of pi backing off of Rebecca, your, um, juxtaposition between Eden and City of God, and like, why for repair? I think for me, it's the invitation to both humility and hope. And, and for me, humility, um, often in my story and experience has led to what I felt like was humiliation, right? And the way that I learned culturally to avoid that was, um, to not need to repair, to do everything perfectly. To do everything well, to always get the a plus, you know, to, to not make a mistake where I would need to repair. But there's a desperation and hopelessness that comes with that kind of demand or pressure where, um, it's, it is dirty and painful, and it doesn't have that sense of like, Oh, there can be something of the goodness of God that can restore these parts that are dying or dead back to the land of the living. And, um, I think that the idea of that we're move, it's not binary. I'm not completely broken, and I'm not totally healed, and that there can be, um, hope and humility in making that journey. And if I'm able to make that journey with all kinds of different people, um, how much richer and deeper and broader that experience, that growing of humility, I think that can lead to growth and restoration and learning and healing. That just feeds into the hope, right? The hope that yes, I, I will reach the kingdom of God at the end, and there will be kind of the way that what we'll all be who we were meant to be. And there will be such goodness there, all that will continue to grow. Um, if I can stay kind of on that journey and not feel like, um, not give into the poll to be at one place or the other, you know, where I'm either totally broken and there's no hope or completely healed and there's no humility Dr. Ernest Gray (01:17:54):Sounds like a dash to me, a hyphen space, very much so that that hyphen space does so much, it preaches a better word, really does. Then the opposite ends of those two, those two realities are consum, consum, you know, conclusionary kind of places you wanna be. It's the hyphen that where we, where we ought to be. Rebecca W. Walston (01:18:25):Did you, is that word hyphen intentional? I Dr. Ernest Gray (01:18:31):Think so. I think so. It's the interim, well, we call hyphen the interim, you can call it all of that good stuff. Um, I, I think it's because, you know, whether, you know, whenever we, wherever we frequent a cemetery, we always think about how stoic it is to see the name and the date of birth and the date of death. And that hyphen is, that's what preaches the better word, is the hyphen in between what this person and how they went about their, their lives with their, their ups and downs, their navigation through the world for people like, um, people, for people who have been on the receiving end of, um, of trauma pain, um, and racialized, um, uh, this ambi or dis disor dis dis dis disorientation or trauma , we, we realize that they have a lot more weight to bear and that their experiences were far more complex. Um, and so this makes their stories even more winsome and more intriguing for us to learn and know about because we're, we're in relationship with them. Um, but the hyphen is the best place to be. And I find that in many ways, um, that is where real life occurs, and that's where I'm at right now. Um, as, as, as a matter of fact, Rebecca W. Walston (01:19:59):I, I mean, I've, I've heard that it has a very black sermon right there about the hyphen and the dash, right? But it hit me in particular because Danielle knows I often introduced myself as African hyphen American. So that your, that word hyphen hit me in that, in that context. Right. And as I was listening to Jen talk about humility and hope and how she, what she learned of how to settle into that space in her Japanese nest or her Japanese Hy American, I just, it just hit me, it hit me about the hyphenated racialized experience in the US and what you might be suggesting consciously or subconsciously Right. About that being a good place to be. Danielle (01:20:50):Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Jen, when you were talking, I was like, wanting to cry. I can still feel the tears. And I was just like, I felt the literal pull, I think at both end of that spectrum, when you talked through them for yourself, I was like, Oh, yeah, that's where I'm, Oh, wait a minute. Then you described the other end, and I was like, Oh, that's where I am . And I was, I think I was like, I was like, Oh, to sit in that, that interim space, you know, the hyphen space, sometimes I have felt like that space would kill me. Mm-hmm. the shame of not knowing how to be one or the other. Mm. Or to try to hold, or to try to explain to someone, you know, I, I think, what is your wife or repair, Why wouldn't I repair? I think of my own, you know, body. And, and, and when Rebecca's talked about not earnest, and, and you, I, I think like I have to be doing that internal work. I mean, because, you know, as you know, if you live in the body of the oppressor and the impressed , how do you make, how do, how do what repair has to be happening? It it, it's, it's happening. And, and if I'm fearful and wonderfully made, then God didn't make me like this on a mistake. It wasn't like, Oh, crap, that's how she came out. Let me see if I can fix it. Hmm. Um, indeed. So those are the things I was thinking as you were talking, Jen. Hmm. Rebecca W. Walston (01:22:47):I, I think Danielle, you're, you're in that sense on the slide of like, any version of repair must work towards the salvation and their redemption of the oppress, the oppress onlooker. Right. And that there has to be, we, we have to have a sense of categories for all of those things. Dr. Ernest Gray (01:23:10):And the work by each, I wonder, which, you know, I'm always trying to determine which one is gonna be the easier to repair, which, which person are you, the pressor or onlooker? And we would just assume that the onlooker would have the least amount of, but they might actually bear the biggest burden is because they're gonna have to deal with assumptions and biases that they have accumulated that are entrenched and that they don't wanna deal with and come to terms with. That's why it's easier to simply, you know, just lull their response or, or stay silent as the, as the notion below here says it's, it's easier to stay silent, to be, you know, resign, say it's not my issue than it is to get in and, and, and to really unearth whether or not this is actually something in internally that they're wrestling with that's far more scary to do. Um, and the majority of people might have some, this is a generalization, but it seems to me like the majority of people don't wanna really, really do that work, Danielle (01:24:19):Um, because all of us have been onlookers to one another's ethnic pain, whether we like it or not. I know I have absolutely. I've been an onlooker mm-hmm. , Yep. Mm-hmm. . Yep. And, and just, and then that's where you have where to step in is just like, Oh, that does not feel good. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. try to own that. My part in that, Dr. Ernest Gray (01:24:45):Ladies, it's almost a sense of a little bit of a reunion that I've had with you this afternoon, but I do need to go and pick up my two boys. And so for this part, I'm gonna need to jump off of the, um, of this, of this great time together, and hopefully I'll be invited back again so that my, um, so that we can, we can continue the conversation. Danielle (01:25:37):I will. Did you all have any final thoughts? TJ Poon (01:25:44):I've been noodling something since the very first slide, which is just like this distinction. I don't know if it's a useful one between disruption and rupture And how like rupture needs to be repaired, but a lot of times repair can't happen without sub disruption. And, you know, that first slide talks about how we kind of pathologized or like said negative anything that has to do with rupture, but you can't, like, you literally can't, um, repair without disrupting the systems. And I think in white imagination, those things are often made equivalent. Like anything that's disruptive is rupturing uncomfortable. Like, I need, I, I need to fix it as fast as possible. Um, versus no, actually this disruption is an invitation to something different. It's a disruption that actually will lead to an authentic repair or real repair as opposed to like, what calls dirty pain, like silence avoidance. Um, so I've just been thinking about those two different words and what they can mean. Mm-hmm. , Rebecca W. Walston (01:27:07):I like that distinction a lot. It, it feels almost like trying to get at like harm versus hurts, right? And, and try to have a sense of like, um, you know, are we always in the category of this is bad and awful and it needs to see immediately, Right. Or are there places where actually good and we need to let it play it itself out, So, yeah. Jen Oyama Murphy (01:27:35):Mm-hmm. Well, I think that also connects maybe fun too to Rebecca. You are, um, differentiating between like the demand to return to Eden or the like blessing of being on the journey to the city of God. Cause if the demand is to return to Eden, then anything disruptive is gonna feel, not like Eden, Right? But if, if it is about growing and learning and healing and developing on the road to the city of God, then disruption is part of that process, then it's something that may be hard, um, but it's necessary and hopeful or has the potential to be that. Rebecca W. Walston (01:28:22):Yeah. It, it does pivot something for me pretty significantly to be, to be talking about like the, my destination isn't actually Danielle (01:28:40):New ladies are really smart. can bottle all that up. I like that. TJ Poon (01:28:53):I mean, Jen, when you were like, I'm just working this out. And then you said something super deep and profound. I think what I was, what I was struck about what you said was like, um, just the demand to not ever need to repair like that internal pressure demand. And that's, that's how I feel all the time. Like, just, just be perfect and then you all need to repair mm-hmm. . Um, and just what, uh, yeah, just what a demand. What a, a burden. I don't, I don't know all the words, but like, it, it's dehumanizing cuz what it means to be human on this earth is to have disrupt, is to repair. Like you are going need to because we're all, we're all humans. And so there, when you said that, I was like, Oh, that's so important. Danielle (01:31:07):Because everything feels so lost. But I hope that this will be an encouragement to people about a conversation. Hopefully it'll feel like they can access something in themselves where.  

Bios:Ernest Gray Jr. is the pastor of Keystone Baptist Church located in the West Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago.  He is a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute with a degree in Pastoral Ministries, and a graduate of Wheaton College with a Master's Degree in Biblical Exegesis.  He completed his PhD coursework at McMaster Divinity College and is currently completing his thesis within the corpus of 1 Peter. Mr. Gray has taught in undergraduate school of Moody in the areas of Hermeneutics, first year Greek Grammar, General Epistles, the Gospel of John and Senior Seminar. It is Mr. Gray's hope to impact the African American church  through scholarship. Teaching has been one way that God has blessed him to live this out.  Ernest is also co-host of the newly released podcast Just Gospel with an emphasis upon reading today's social and racial injustices through a gospel lens. www.moodyradio.org    Jen Oyama Murphy  "My love of good stories led me to Yale University where I received a BA in English. Upon graduation, I felt called to bring individual stories into relationship with the Gospel Story, and I have worked in the areas of campus and church ministry, lay counseling, and pastoral care since 1989. Over the years, I sought a variety of ongoing education and training in the fields of psychology and theology, including graduate classes at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology and Benedictine University. I also completed the Training Certificate and Externship programs at The Allender Center, and I previously held roles on their Training and Pastoral Care Team, as Manager of Leadership Development, and most recently as the Senior Director of The Allender Center. Believing that healing and growth happens in the context of relationship, I work collaboratively to create a safe coaching space of curiosity and kindness where honesty, care, desire, and imagination can grow. Using my experience and expertise in a trauma-informed, narrative-focused approach, I seek to help people live the story they were most meant for and heal from the ones they were not. I am passionate about personal support and development, particularly for leaders in nonprofit or ministry settings, including lay leaders who may not have a formal title or position. I'm especially committed to engaging the personal and collective stories of those who have felt invisible, marginalized, and oppressed. I love facilitating groups as well as working individually with people. I currently live in Chicago with my husband, and we have two adult daughters.Rebecca Wheeler Walston lives in Virginia, has completed  Law School at UCLA, holds a Master's in Marriage and Family Counseling, is also a licensed minister. Specializing in advising non-profits and small businesses. Specialties: providing the legal underpinning for start-up nonprofits and small businesses, advising nonprofit boards, 501c3 compliance, creating and reviewing business contracts.TJ Poon serves with Epic Movement, where we both serve on the People & Culture Team (HR). TJ is the Director ofPeople & Culture and and also serves on Epic's leadership team to provide her leadership, wisdom, vision and direction for the ministry.Danielle:SO on screen and feel free to add to your introductions. Uh, Ernest, um, Dr. Gray is someone I'm met Yeah. Um, on screen during one of our cohort, um, virtual weekends and just listening to him talk, I think he was in the Caribbean when he was giving us the lecture mm-hmm. and talking about theology, and I was frantically taking notes and eventually resorted to screen shooting, like snapping pictures of the screen as he was talking. Uh, and then like quickly texting some friends and my husband to say, Hey, I was learning this that. And so that was kinda my introduction to Dr. Gray. And then we of course had a chance to meet in Montgomery. Um, yes, my respect just, uh, grew for you at that point. Um, the ability for you to be honest and be in your place of location Absolutely. And show up and show up to present, it felt like a theology that had life, and that feels different to me. So, um, thank  Dr. Ernest Gray:Thank You for that.  Thank you for that. No, I'm, it's a pleasure to join you all. I, I see some familiar faces and I'm excited to be with you all, and, um, yeah, I'm, um, yeah, I'm, I'm thankful that you thought me, um, thought my voice would be, uh, would be relevant for this conversation. So I'm, I'm grateful to be here and, um, yeah, I'm, I'm here to, um, to both participate and to, um, to learn as much as I can in this moment, so thank you.  Danielle:Mm. You're welcome. Um, and then there's Rebecca Wheeler Walton who is the boss, and she's both smart and witty and funny and kind and extremely truthful in the most loving ways, and so have highest regard for her. Back when I answered the phone, Luis would be like, Is that Rebecca  Yeah. Um, yeah, and tj, uh, TJ had gotten to know TJ over the last year and, um, you know, she's kind of introduced as like an admin person, but I've quickly learned that she, her heart and her wisdom are her strongest attributes and her ability just hang in the room in a tough conversation, um, has, I've just had an immense respect and hope for, for the future by, in getting to know ut j mm-hmm. touching. Yeah. And then at the top, y'all on my screen is Jen Oyama Murphy. She was my first facilitator at The Allender Center. Um, and she showed up in her body and her culture, and I was like, Man, that is freaking awesome. Um, and I wanna, I wanna do what she's doing with other people in this world. Um, Jen loved me and has loved me, and I don't think it can be overstated how wise and patient she is. Um, and just like when I say the word intuition, I mean it in a sense of like, deep wisdom. And, and that's, that's like, I keep searching. Like I wanna have access to that me. So, so thank you, Jen. Yeah.  Jen Oyama Murphy :Hmm. Gosh. Thank you, Danielle. Thanks. Well, I'm, I feel very privileged to be a part of the conversation, so thanks for inviting me.  Danielle:Yeah. So, I mean, I, Ernest you probably didn't get a chance to watch this clip, but it's this clip we're not gonna show. We talked about it. It's about, um, it's the border and there's like a three minute time, um, like timer for people to cross the border and hug each other and interact with one, one another on the southern border. And so there's like a tiny clip of this here. And, um, it's Latinx Heritage Month, and it felt really important to me to have a diverse conversation around repair, because Latin X is, um, Asian, it's black, white, it's European, it's white, it's indigenous. And I feel like, you know, in this conversation, what does repair look like for a Latinx person? And what, what does arriving, you know, to heaven mean, you know mm-hmm.  Dr. Ernest Gray:Indeed.  Danielle:So, yeah. So that's kind of where I'm coming from. And I have the slides up, but I, you know, I wanna hear your all thoughts on, on it, you know? Do you mind hitting the next slide, Tj?  Dr. Ernest Gray:Very good.  Danielle :Do you want me to keep moving? ? Yeah. Um, this is this guy that isn't red in, uh, Western psychology, although he was European descent and lived in El Salvador. He was murdered by, um, CIA operatives in El Salvador. And, uh, he was a liberation psychologist. And partly part of the reason he wasn't as well known here is because he gave almost all his lectures in Spanish on purpose. Hmm. Because he wanted to be rooted in a Latin American tradition. Um, and so I thought it was important to just lay the foundation for what rupture and repair means. He had a real vision for psychology to be a liberating movement, not just one that maintains like, Here, let me get you healed so you can function in this oppressive system. Like, um, yeah.  Dr. Ernest Gray :You know, I think about that kind of, um, movement, which seems to me has always been very much so a part of, you know, this resilience, this resilience push amongst indigenous people, groups, communities. It, it, it is a, it is a sense to regain their, um, their humanity when they've been trampled on, when that humanity has been trampled on. And so there are different epox I think that I've seen as of recent, um, where we see that this has come to a head. You know, I'll never forget the, in the, the ministry of, um, Dr. Cera Na Padilla, um, who was, who just passed a couple of years ago. And, um, I was fortunate to have a class by him, but it was his eyeopening class, uh, a world Christian perspective that gave me the ability to, um, um, hear just how liber the gospel can be and how restorative to the humanity of people groups that have been trampled upon, uh, actually is.  So I think that repair in many ways is just the, is just the acknowledgement that, hey, something in me is not right. And, um, it's not any one person. It feels as though this is a, um, this is the water in which I'm swimming, Like the water I'm in is like rotten. Um, and, and I wanna be rejuvenated through a, a water that, that refreshes and rejuvenates my life. Um, and that, that that water that it seems to be about is my aka the systemic kind of components that have trampled upon, um, indigenous groups. But that first step is acknowledgement, saying, Hey, um, something's broken in me. And it's not any one person. It's more of a system. It's more of the water in which I'm in. Um, that needs to be, uh, ameliorated. It needs to be, um, you know, I, I need it. It, I can't live like this. I can't, I can't, I can't live like this anymore.  Um, I think as well, there's, there's a lot of things that I think are many, very much so, um, um, you know, kind of tied to this, this equilibrium. I think, um, when I, when I hear about these struggles and I hear about how people are trying to, um, go for at least make sure that they are, um, pursuing their inherent dignity and worth it, it, it shouldn't seem as though it, it's such a, um, a, um, there's so much resistance to that work. I mean, where, as human beings, we really want to be affirmed. We wanna be loved, we wanna be cherished, very, very basic things. Um, but to have, but to have resistance to that amongst systems also shows that we, we've got to pull together to be able to make a, uh, a concerted effort towards bringing back a type of, um, um, regenerative and healing kind of ethic to our communities that are shattered, that have been broken.  And I, and I, and I, and I, and I personally see this right now as it relates to, you know, my community, which is African American, and I personally feel this, especially when I think about, um, people who are in survival mode and making bad choices. I always wanna pause and, and tell people, Listen, do not, don't, don't blame the victim. I mean, you're looking at William Ryan's book here as Right in front of me blaming the victim, Right. And I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna blame the victim because they don't, people don't wake up in the morning and think, you know, I wanna go out here and commit crime. I wanna do things I don't want, I don't wanna do these things just because I'm inherently, um, you know, um, malevolent person. No, I wanna do these things cause I'm, I'm trying to survive.  And, and it, and there, that signals to me as well that there's something broken, uh, in the social order. And that these communities in particular, the most vulnerable ones, uh, shouldn't be subjected to so much, um, to, to these things, to, to where they have to resort to violence, crime, or, um, you know, pushing against laws, unjust laws, if you will, uh, that people see is, um, oppressive. Shouldn't we should demo dismantle the laws that, that create these things. So that was a very, Forgive my thought, forgive my, um, thought, thought there, but I, I just wanted to kind of think and, and draw out some, some, some broad strokes there.  Jen Oyama Murphy:Yeah. I, I resonate with that a lot, Dr. Gray. I mean it, like, we've all been trained in kind of this narrative, um, therapeutic way of working with people. And so much of my experience has been looking at that story only as that story and not being able to look at it within a culture, within a system, and even within the context in which that story is being read. So if you are a person of culture in the group, you probably are at best, one of two in a group of eight mm-hmm. . And that has a story and a system all to itself. So even the process of engaging someone's story, even if you are mindful of their culture and the systemic story that that's in, you're also then in a, in a story that's being reenacted in, in and of itself, you know, that, um, I mean, Danielle and Rebecca know cuz they were in my group.  Like, you, you have best are one of two. And even within that too, you're probably talking about two different cultures, two different systems. And so that sense of, um, having repair, healing feel really contained to not just your story, but then a dominant structure within where that healing is supposed to happen. Like, it's, it's the water. Most of us have swarm in all our life, so we don't even know right. Where the fish that's been in that water all the time. And so we don't even know that that's happening. And so when, when the healing process doesn't seem like it's actually working, at least for me, then I turn on myself, right? That there's something bad or wrong about me, that, that what seems to be working for everyone else in the room, it's not working for me. So I must be really bad or really broken.  And it doesn't even kind of pass through my being of like, Oh, no, maybe there's a system that's bigger than all of us that's bad and broken. That needs to be addressed too. So I, I love what this cohort is trying to do in terms of really honoring the particular personal story, but also then moving out to all the different stories, all the different systems that are connected to that personal story. I'm, I'm grateful for that. And it's hard work, hard, hard, complicated work that it's full of conflict, Right. And math, and it's not gonna have five steps that you can follow and everything's gonna work out well for, for everyone. I mean, it's, it's gonna be a mess. You guys are brave.  Dr. Ernest Gray:This final statement here about overthrowing the social order not to be considered as pathological. Um, you know, that, that, that last part there, uh, the conflicts generated by overthrowing the social order not to be considered pathological people. I mean, I think that there's a sense that people really don't want to have to resort to this language of overthrow if these systems were not malevolent from the very first place. Right. And, and I think about this, how, how the exchange of power has become such a, has created such a vacuum for, um, the most vulnerable groups to be, um, um, you know, maligned taken advantage of, pushed under the bus or where's eradicated, um, without, with, you know, with impunity. And I think about that, that there, there has to be, in many ways when we see the e the various, um, TIFs and the various, um, contests that arise around the, around the globe, there seems to be a common theme of oppressive oppression, power abuse, um, and then it's codified into laws that are saying, Well, you're gonna do this or else.  And I guess that's, it's, it's almost as if there's a, a type of, um, expectation that this is, this is the only means that which we have to overthrow social orders that need to be, um, uh, eradicate need to be done away with. So, so there's, there's a lot of truth to this, this, this, this last part especially as well. Um, but I, I think that's what we see, um, constantly. One of the things that's popping in my mind right now is the ACON in South Africa. Um, and they're, they're dominant, The Dutch domination of South Africa and the indigenous group there, the, the South Africans, um, of af of, of, um, of black descent and how their struggles have ha have, you know, just constantly been, um, you know, so, so, so rife with tension and there's still tension there. And so it just takes on a different form.  I, I think that there's a lot of things that we can learn from the various contests, but we might, when we strip away layers of the onion, we might find that a lot of it is the way in which this power dynamic and power exchange, or lack thereof, is actually going on. Um, and again, we can call that what we want to, we can say it's Marxist. We can say it's, um, you know, um, critical, but critical theory helps us to, helps us with some of this to see in which power way in which power is leveraged and the abuse of it. Lots of it.  Rebecca W. Walston :I mean, I think, um, Ernest, if I can call you back if I've earned right quite yet, maybe not . Oh,  You got that right . Um, I, you know, I think what, what what hits me about your statement is, is, is the sense that, um, that there's that power and a sense of overthrow inextricably tied together in ways that I, I don't think they should be, I do not think that they were meant to be. Um, and I, it, it makes me think of a conversation that I had with the Native American, uh, uh, um, friend. And we were, we were together in a group of, um, diverse people watching, um, a documentary about a group of multi-ethnic, a multi-ethnic group engaging around race and racism. And we were watching the, um, this group of people sort of engage about it. And, um, I was, by the time the thing was over, like I was full on like angry, all kinds of things activated in me a around the Black American experience.  And I turned to this Native American guy sitting next to me, and, and I said, I'd like to know from you, what is your version of 40 acres in a mule? A and, and I said, you know, in, in my community, like, we have a thing about 40 acres in a mule, that kind of encapsulates a, a, a sense of what was taken from us as, as enslaved Africans, and some sense of what it means to, to start to repair that breach, right? And, and to give some sense of restitution. And it's codified in this sense of 40 acres and mule given to freed, uh, newly freed Africans as, as a way to, to launch into a sense of free existence. And I said to him, If I were you, I'd be like, pissed. Yeah. I, as an indigenous man, like, I'd want all of my stuff back, all of it, all of the land, everything. Like all the people, everything, everything. And so, I'd like to know from you, what is your version of 40 acres in the mill? What's your measurement of what it would look like to start to, to repair and to return to indigenous people? What was taken from them?  Hmm. And this man looked me dead in my face and said, We, we have no equivalent because the land belongs to no one. It was merely ours to steward, so I would never ask for it back.  Dr. Ernest Gray:Wow. Floored. Mm-hmm.  Rebecca W. Walston:A and I'm still by that it's been maybe six, seven years. And I've never forgotten that sentiment and the sense that, um, I, I wanted to sit at his feet and learn and not ask more questions. I just, and just the sense of like, what could my people learn from the indigenous community and how might it allow us to breathe a little deeper and move a little freer it? And so I, you know, I hope you guys can hear that as not like a ding against my community and what we're asking for, but just a sense of for how another people group steps into this question of rupture and repair that is radically different from, from my experience, and causes me to pause and wonder what must they know of the kingdom of God that would allow them to hold that kind of, that kind of sacred space that feels unfamiliar to me,  Dr. Ernest Gray:That is quite revolutionary. And if are representative of this type of, and again, those are just, those are just the terms we use to, to talk about repair and, um, and re restoration. I wonder if the, if see what I, what I'm struggling with is that what we are, what we wrestled through as an African American context was, and the vestiges is of, um, ownership. It's ownership and, um, ownership of bodies and ownership of land. And the indi, the aboriginal people of America, the Native Americans, they have this really robust sense of it belong. If that's the case that belongs to no one, my next question would be then, and again, if I'm thinking about ownership, well, that it's the damning sense of what ownership did to their communities, how they were decimated, how they were ransacked, how, how, um, you know, the substance abuse has ran rampant.  So if from, if it were me, I would ask a follow up question to this individual and ask why. Well then if the land is not an issue and it's not a, it's not a monetary thing that needs to be repaired, what about the damage? How will we go about putting a value upon or putting some type of thing upon the decimation of, of communities, the, um, the homes. Let's take, you know, Canada is r in pain, especially with the Catholic church and what was done in certain orphanages. Okay. And so, um, if not a monetary thing, what would be the re another response to repair the brokenness that the people have experienced? And I, and I, I don't, I understand the land is one thing, but there's also a people that have been shattered absolutely, absolutely shattered. And, and I think that still remains a question for me.  And again, it's a perennial question that is affecting multiple communities. Um, but these are felt more acutely, especially as, um, you know, Africans, uh, in the transatlantic route. And, and, and aboriginal native Americans who were, who are, um, you know, no one discovered them here. But this ownership piece is something that I think is what is inherent to whiteness, and it has created this vacuum. And why we need to have a sense of, um, you know, how it impacts every single debate. Every single debate. I would go down a rabbit trail about, you know, gospel studies and New Testament studies, but that's just, it's all, it's there too. It's, it's right there, too.  Danielle:TJ, can you hit the next slide? I think we're into that next slide, but I think what I'm hearing, and then maybe Jen has a, a follow up to this, is, I, I think part of my response from the Latinx community is we're both perpetually hospitable and perpetually the guest. Mm. Mm-hmm. We don't own the house. Mm. And we, and yet there's a demand of our hospitality in a house that's not ours. Mm. And there's a sense of, I think that comes back to the original cultures that we come from, of this idea that you showed up here, let me give you food. Let me, let me have you in, let me invite you in. And in the meantime, you took my, you took my space and, and you put a, you put a stake in it that said, Now this is mine and you're my guest. And now there's different rules, and I may be polite to you, but that does not equal hospitality. Right. And so, and I don't know, I don't have the resolution for that, but just this feeling that, that Latinx communities are often very mi migratory. Like, and, you know, we have, then you get into the issue of the border and everything else. But this idea that we, we don't own the house, and yet there's a, there's an, there's a demand for our hospitality wherever we go.  Rebecca W. Walston:What's your sense, Danielle, cuz you said, um, both there's a demand on the hospitality and also something of that hospitality hearkening back to your indigenous culture from Right. In the place where you're not a guest, you're actually at home. So is that a both and for you  Danielle:Mm-hmm. , because I think that's the part that's, that's robbed the meaning, The meaning that's made out of it is robbed. I think sometimes the hospitality is freely given. And, and that's a space where I think particularly dominant culture recognizes that. Right. And so there's, there's the ability to take, and then, then there's the complicity of giving even when you don't want to. And also like, then how does a, and this is very broad, right? And the diaspora, right? But the sense of like, the demand, if you don't give your hospitality then at any point, because you're the perpetual guest, they can shut you out and you can never return. So I haven't quite worked that through, but those are some thoughts I was having as you all were speaking.  Dr. Ernest Gray:Mm. I think that's, I think that's very keen, uh, you know, as a keen observation, my wife is, you know, from a Caribbean context, and so there's the hospitality notion wherein it's, I mean, that's just, it's irrespective of what you feel. This is just what you do. And so I think that it's, when it's taken advantage of or hoisted upon people in a way that is saying, Oh, you must do this, that harm can enue. But, um, there's a, there's a, for me, it's, it's, it's really, really foreign to, from the outside looking in to understand how that culture, um, has, um, historically genuflected or just kind of, um, it can become a part of weakness. It can become a part, or it can be become abused. Especially when this is an expectation of the culture. Um, and I think that's where the harm lies, is that there, there has to be some measures of, of like,  When conditions are, are, you know, almost in a sense of like, this isn't automatic. And it, and then there needs to be some kind of, some kind of ways in which it can remain protected. So that's to not be abused by those who know that this is an expectation of the community. Um, but yeah, that's, that's from the outside looking in, it's hard. My only connection is through, you know, my wife and her culture and seeing how that is, you know, I don't care what's going on inside. You know, you're gonna, you're gonna be hospital, You're gonna host, you're gonna continue to be, you're gonna reach out. You're gonna continue to be that person because that's what's expected of you.  Jen Oyama Murphy:I mean, Danielle as a Japanese American. I mean, I feel that bind of, I mean, it's not even perpetual guest for, I think Asians often. It feels like perpetual alien. Um, and, and yet, you know, there are cultural expectations and norms, you know, among the Japanese, around what it looks like to welcome someone into your home, what it means to be gracious and deferential, and that, So there's a whole culture that's, um, informing of a way, a style of relating that I think to Dr. Gray's point can be taken advantage of. Um, and can, I think be in some ways, consciously or unconsciously used by, um, that culture to kind of escape wrestling with the experience of, of marginalization and abuse and trauma. Because there's a culture that can give you some sense of safety and containment and soothing. If you go back to what, you know, um, culturally, I mean, after the internment camps, the incarceration of the Japanese during World War ii, that's exactly like what happened is the, the idea of, you know, being polite, being deferential, working hard, using productivity as a way to gain status and safety, and in some ways, right, taking the bait to, to be, to like out white, white people.  We're gonna be better citizen than the white people. And like, what that cost the Japanese Americans who, if you had asked them what kind of repair did they want, they would say none. We're just so grateful to be able to be in this country. It, you know, the, the grandchildren of the people that were incarcerated that kind of ly rose up and said like, This is wrong. And so it's just, it, it feels so complicated and like such a, such a math, um, in it. And that's where I feel like, um, learning not just the, the white Asian story, right? But having exposure and experiences and relationships with, um, a variety of different ethnicities and being able to learn from their histories, their culture, their way of, um, engaging trauma, working through a healing process, and not staying in a single lane in my culture only anymore than I wanna stay in a single white Western culture only.  But being really open to learning, growing. I mean, my experience with you, Danielle, and you, Rebecca, even in my group, right, opened me up to a whole different way of engaging story and working with the, um, methodology that we had been learning. And I'm so grateful I wouldn't have had to wrestle or contend with any of that if I hadn't been in relationship with both of you who have a different culture than I do, and a different style relating and a different way of responding to things than I do. That was so informative for me in broad slu, um, opportunity to really first own that there is a rupture, and then what it looks, what it could look like to repair. And that I didn't only have two, two options like my Japanese American way or the, the White Western way that I had learned all my life.  Rebecca W. Walston:I resonate with that, Jen. I think that, um, what comes to my mind is the sense of Revelation seven, nine, um, and at the throne of grace at the end of this, that identifying monikers every tribe and every tongue mm-hmm. . And, and it causes me to wonder why that moniker, why is it that the identification that the throne of grace is tribe and come. Right? And, and I think it hints at what you just said, this sense of like, there's a way in which this kind of hospitality shows up in each culture, um, in, in a way that I think each culture holds its own way of reflecting that text, um, in a way that is unique, um, in the sense that we won't have a full and complete picture of hospitality until we have a sense of how it shows up in every tribe and every time. Um, and, and so I love that that image from you of like, what can I learn from, from you as a Japanese American, and what can I learn from Danielle? What can I learn from tj? What can I learn from Ernest and, and how they, they understand, uh, and embody that with, with the sense of like, my picture will be a little bit clearer, a little bit more complete for having, having listened and learned.  And I, I do think we're talking in terms of hospitality about sort of, to me, the connective tissue between a erector and a repair is really a sense of resiliency. And, and it feels to me a little bit like the, there's a way where we can talk about hospitality that is really about, um, something of a God given capacity to navigate a rupture, whether it's individual or collective in a, in a way that allows for hopes, for pushes, for some sense of repair. And, you know, I was listening to Ernest talking, you know, I feel like I can hear Michelle Obama saying, when they go low, we go high. Right? And that is a, that is, it's a, it's a different kind of hospitality, but it feels like, feels like hospitality than the infant, right? It, it feels like I won't give in, um, to, to this invitation to join the chaos. I, I, I will, um, be mindful and thoughtful and intentional about how I move through it so that I don't find myself, uh, joining joining in it, but actually standing against it. And that, that feels very hospitable to me. To, to stand on the side of what is true and right. And honoring and, and, and not not joining the fray.  Danielle:You can see how our collective ruptures that we've all described, and I know TJ, you haven't spoken yet, um, how our trauma rubs up against one another and likely is in a heated moment, is very triggering.  If I'm in a, if Jen and I are in a space where we feel like we have to stay, keep our heads low, because let's say I have a family member, um, who's undocumented, right? Or Jen has a memory of, I don't know, a traumatic experience dealing with dominant culture. And we're with, you know, like you say Rebecca, like our African hyphen American friends, and they're like, Come on, let's go get it. Mm-hmm. , you can feel the rub of what repair might look like, and then there's a fracture between us. Mm-hmm. . If we don't, that's, I mean, and then the hard thing that I've been challenged lately to try to do is stay really close to my experience so I have a sense of self so that I can bring that full self to you and say like, I feel this way, and then I can more, more be able to listen to you if I can express a more truer sense of what I'm feeling. Does that make sense?  Dr. Ernest Gray:Perfect.  I think, I think, um, yeah, I, I, I think about the triggering aspects of how we have been collectively kind of retraumatized. You know, when you think about, you know, this since Trayvon Martin and and beyond here in America with African American context, we've just been trying to figure out how to stay alive and t-shirts keep printing regarding, um, you know, can't go to, can't go to church, can't go to a park, can't do this, can't do that, can't breathe. And it's almost as if it's, it's exhausting. Um, but it's entering into that space with other groups, other communities that creates a sense of solidarity, which is sorely needed. Because we would assume, and we would make this as this assumption, like, Oh, well, you don't have it so bad. That's not true. It looks different. It feels different. And until we can, at the same time, um, I like what you said about own, what we are feeling while we are in that moment, it allows us to at least get it out there so that we can then be active engagers with others and not just have our own stuff, you know, uh, for stalling, any meaningful connection.  I wanna think that there's a sense that, um, because, you know, our expressions in every way, whether it's hospitality or whether it's in the way in which we deal with, um, the various cultural phenomenons that we're closely associated with, is that these create the mosaic. If we, back to Rebecca's idea of Revelation seven, nine, these re these is why I love mosaics is because the full picture of our, um, similar, similarly expressed experiences do not look the same, but when they're all put together, eventually we'll see the, the picture more fully. And I think that that's the key is that it, it's so easy for us to be myopic in a way in which we look at everyone else's, or especially our own, to where we can't see anybody else's. That that creates this isolation, insular kind of isolation idea of, Well, you don't have it as bad as I do. Or they're not as, they're not as shaken as this community or that community or this community. Um, and wherein there's some truth to that, Um, if we're going to regain a sense of human, our full humanity, we've gotta figure out ways to, to do that active listing so that our ours doesn't become the loudest in the room.    

Episode: 038 “Coming Home to Myself: Healing from Lies and Narratives (Danielle Castillejo)               Airdate: November 17, 2021Length: 48:03Guests: Danielle CastillejoIn this episode Danielle Castillejo discusses her journey in rewriting new narratives around her identity as an Indigenous, Mexican, and German woman, as well as new narratives around her faith. She learned as a child what it meant to not belong in white spaces by observing her mother's experiences. Now she navigates that space with her own family—husband of Latino background and her children. But what does it mean to be in white spaces, particularly in white conservative, evangelical Christian spaces? One thing we learn from this episode is what it means to deconstruct and reconstruct. Danielle shares we were never deconstructing in the first place because we have not been whole. The narratives of the dominant culture has left us in pieces. It's time to turn the lights on and become whole.Danielle grounds her work, personally and professionally, in Jesus. Despite the theologies that have oppressed and manipulated, she rests in the kindness and love of Jesus. This is certainly where wholeness begins, when we identify and allow the brown-bodied Jesus to love us through the Spirit. Listen to a snippet of her own story from childhood to adult. Glean from her faith. Take heed to reintegrate body and mind and live into wholeness.You can follow her at www.daniellecastillejo.com or www.wayfindingtherapy.comAlso check out the podcast she co-hosts called The Arise Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. ____________Phil Allen, Jr. is a Los Angeles-based author, poet, social justice activist, and filmmaker. Allen's book Open Wounds explores the murder of Nate Allen—Phil Allen's grandfather—in the Jim Crow era of South Carolina and how that traumatic event resonated through generations of his family. Open Wounds – which is based on the Allen-produced documentary of the same name – was published on February 9, 2021. Allen is a Ph.D. candidate studying Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.