To be Black in America means living at several different intersections. Writer and thinker Marcie Alvis-Walker joins For the Love Podcast to share the inspiration behind her beautiful, thought-provoking space called Black Coffee with White Friends. Marcie shares about her experience having to code switch as she grew up—she’d have to adapt her language, her likes and dislikes based on the group she was with—and what it’s like for her family to navigate the world being members of different races. Marcie leads us to think about what it means to “celebrate” holidays like 4th of July, Memorial Day, and Columbus Day when your skin isn’t white, and how siblings of different races can use their influence to help their Black siblings.
Podcast Category: Allyship
Recasting Portrayals of Race, with Brit Bennett
Stories come in many forms: in the reports we see in the news, the TV shows and movies that light up our screens, from books to toys and so many other places. New York Times bestselling author Brit Bennett is here to discuss the ways that Black stories are told and the ripple effects they have across American culture. She shares insight into her life as a young author and how she’s used her writing as a way to figure out the way she feels about different topics—like what it means to “perform race,” which she wrote about in her latest book called The Vanishing Half. Brit dives into the stories she’s looking to create in the world—ones that show the human experience of what it means to struggle and the ways we experience hope and joy and love.
Empowering Black Entrepreneurs: Jessica O. Matthews Turns Adversity into Strength
What does it mean to build the world in a way where every single person, no matter their color, gender, ability or religion has access to security and opportunity? That’s a question inventor and entrepreneur Jessica O. Matthews has spent much of her life asking. Jessica is the CEO of Uncharted Power, a company looking to build sustainable infrastructure in the world—which Jessica launched when she was just twenty-two years old! She shares the legacy of curiosity and hard work her parents passed onto her, and why having countless hmm moments leads to that one a-ha! moment. Jessica and Jen hash out the opportunities the world has left on the table of innovation and why Jessica’s place at several intersections—a Black woman who’s a dual US/Nigerian citizen—helps her recognize developments that are still possible for parts of the world that typically don’t receive investment. Because as Jessica says: “I have the ability to not see the world as it is but to see the world as it should be. That’s something that would not have happened not only if I wasn’t just Nigerian American, but if I wasn’t a woman of color.”
“Education Is Freedom Work”: Dr. Monique Morris on Investing in Black Students
Having access to learning is a portal to opportunity, a key to unlocking your dreams and leaving doors open for those who come after you. That’s what education has been for Dr. Monique Morris, an author, scholar, justice educator and die-hard Prince fan who, in sixth grade, found herself at a fork in the road. She got into a fight with a boy who’d provoked her. And instead of suspending her, expelling her, or arresting her and pushing her away, Dr. Morris’ teachers reconnected her to her learning community—a key moment in the life of a girl who’d been dealing with sexual abuse and violence in her home. This moment of restoration paved the path for Dr. Morris to go on to earn a doctorate in education. Others in Dr. Morris’ situation haven’t been as fortunate, and find their studies interrupted by disciplinary action and a descent down the slippery slope known commonly as the “school to prison pipeline,” where they are pushed out of the education experience and criminalized by administrators. Dr. Morris uses her own education and experience to advocate for Black and brown students, encouraging schools to look at themselves as places of healing and restoration, not punishment, so that more students of color can become the scholars they are meant to be. Because no person is “unrecoverable,” and the important“freedom work of education begins when teachers ultimately see themselves as healers.
Centering Mental Health & Self-Care in Black America, with Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes
Cultivating a healthy mind is essential for our entire well-being. Psychologist and theologian Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes joins us For the Love of Black Lives series to help us unpack how the anxiety and trauma carried through generations of Black Americans affects the flourishing of communities of every stripe (and newsflash: the trauma we experience can be passed down through four generations after us). For so long, Black women have been praised as “strong,” and they absolutely are. But when we only view Black women as unshakeable “superwomen,” we take away their right to vulnerability, their right to care for themselves, and their right to be cared for by someone else. And instead, we hand them a standard that’s impossible to achieve—which, as anyone knows who’s tried to achieve something that can’t be attained, causes shame and depression. Dr. Chanequa describes the effects of living in a community where anxiety is normal for everyone. As she says, “I was never taught to think of what I had as anxiety, even though now I realize, on both sides of my family, there’s anxiety.” She explains why it’s vital for Black women and men to have access to Black mental healthcare providers, so clients can feel truly seen and heard, and receive the true care they need. And above all, Dr. Chanequa reminds us that every Black woman, child, and man is worthy of self-care. They are worthy to notice and treat their pain and anxiety, so they can flourish in wholeness.
Celebrating the Rich Legacy of Black Culture, Art & Fashion in America, with Dr. Tanisha C. Ford
Black culture is central to American culture—we simply don’t have America without having the Black experience, born of slavery and systemic racism and white supremacy, of physical and mental and emotional pain. But through generations, Black women and men have passed down stories given from their mothers and grandmothers. They’ve cooked and sang and danced and played the most beautiful music. They’ve written and dreamed and created. Black culture has inspired us for hundreds of years as it has woven its way into the tapestry of American life. And today, we’re going to talk about the richness of it all with Dr. Tanisha C. Ford, a cultural critic and professor of history at CUNY. Dr. Ford shares the artists and icons that shaped her world as a young Black woman growing up (everyone from her own mother and her leather jackets, to the music of Aretha Franklin and TLC, Roberta Flack and Mary J. Blige). Dr. Ford shows us how looking deeply at culture helps us see the threads of politics and society woven within. We learn why cultural appropriation is tied to systems of exploitation. We see why we need to shift our eyes away from history books that haven’t centered important Black pioneers like Anna Julia Cooper and Ida B. Wells, why everyone needs to read words from thinkers like James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. We see how Shirley Chisholm paved the way for Kamala Harris. We see the beauty and strength of artists like Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, and how they birth artists like Alicia Keys and Janelle Monáe. And through it all we see how new forms of technology have carried Black voices to new corners of the world for decades, planting the seeds for social media to blossom into a powerful force for the change that we’re seeing today.
The Black Woman’s Fight to Be Well, with Christina M. Rice
Though many of our country’s systems of care desperately need an overhaul, there’s one system in particular that could improve greatly to help Black Americans: healthcare. It’s unimaginable to any of us that we might get lesser care, for example, if we were giving birth to our first child. But black women find themselves in these situations often–even those who wouldn’t be considered to have less means–where healthcare professionals aren’t listening to their needs or taking time to understand their health concerns–and this sometimes leads to disastrous consequences, including deaths that could have been avoided. These healthcare gaps are part of an unhealthy loop that starts with a huge imbalance in economic resources, which leads to a lack of access to healthy food, gyms, nutritional education, and as our guest today says, “places that are considered well.” Christina M. Rice is a wellness expert and chief experience officer of OMNoire, a social wellness community for Black women and women of color dedicated to living well. Christina shares about her own wellness experiences as a Black woman, and how finding yoga helped her realize the need for wellness spaces where Black women and women of color feel seen and welcome. Christina describes why it’s so important for everyone to prioritize the health of Black women and men and that tackling the issues of health care inequity may be daunting, but we must speak up and do our part to amplify voices of color so that Black bodies are allowed to flourish.
Going to Church Shouldn’t Hurt: Alicia Crosby on Religious Trauma’s Effect on Black Lives
God created a beautiful world, filled with people who share love, creativity, friendship and hope in all kinds of ways. For thousands of years, some have tried to use religion to wield power and authority over people around the globe, claiming “their” way was the “right” way to gain access to God. That’s how the seeds of religious trauma are sown. And through generations, we’ve seen members of the white American Christan church push Black and brown people away from the center of the church’s stories in an attempt to gain control over those cultures. But as justice educator and equity consultant Alicia Crosby reminds us, we gain so much when we center stories that have been pushed to the margins, when we allow ourselves to be curious about ourselves and other cultures. Alicia shares her own history in the church as a Black queer woman, and how, after her “burn it all down” phase, she’s learned to embrace the beauty of who she is and how she chooses to express her faith in God’s love for her. Jen and Alicia dive into why it’s important to create protective spaces for affinity groups of all kinds (everything from parents, to race and cultural groups, to LGBTQ+ spaces), and why sitting down at the table is the most equalizing force in our universe.
CeCe Jones-Davis: Realigning the Gears of the U.S. Justice System
As lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson puts it, slavery never actually ended—it just evolved, and today it looks like mass incarceration. In the past fifty years, we’ve seen the prison population skyrocket from 200,000 in 1970 to 2.2 million in 2020. In fact, America holds just 5% of the world’s population but more than 25% of the world’s prisoners, where Black people clock in five times the number of inmates as white people. It is imperative that our generation abolish the overcriminalization of Black women, children, and men. And today we’re learning a bit more from CeCe Jones-Davis on how to bring that world to fruition. She’s an activist, a worship leader, and a teacher of social gospel who’s made it her mission to expose the underbelly of the criminal justice system as she fights for the freedom of a man she believes has been wrongfully convicted: Julius Jones. CeCe also shares the influences and experiences in her life that broke her heart and gave her a passion to advocate for others, and she helps us wrap our minds around what it looks like for the justice system to represent not a hope that truth will prevail, but a fear that bias for the color of your skin and socioeconomic status will remove you from your life and your family, and won’t allow you to return. CeCe reminds us that realigning the gears of the justice system is too big a task for one person to bear alone—but if we each pick up our small piece, it’s a load we can carry together.
Ending Black Oppression and Celebrating Black Dignity with Alencia Johnson
Today we open a new chapter of For the Love, where we’ll celebrate the beauty, wholeness, and dignity of Black Lives. At the same time, we’ll also explore the roots of the recent growing advocacy and racial reckoning with experts who will guide us through different facets of what it’s like to be Black in America—in education, health, culture, the church. We’ll unpack how the Black experience differs from the white experience, with true understanding of the gaps in these collective experiences becoming the catalyst for necessary change. Leading off this series is Alencia Johnson, who is the chief impact officer and founder of 1063 West Broad, a company focusing on social impact, brand engagement, and communication strategy (you may remember Alencia from the #sharethemicnow campaign, when she took over Jen’s Instagram to share some deep truths). Alencia helps us examine the intersectionality of racism and gender as she unspools more than 400 years of Black oppression in America, and helps us examine what our country could look like if we invested in the safety and health of ALL communities. Alencia longs to see action behind the words of those who have actual power to create change, and challenges us to implement that change swiftly to systems that uphold racism—and most importantly, sustain the change. Tackling some hard-hitting topics, Alencia touches on white fragility, voter suppression, and what “defunding the police” really means as she helps us imagine how our actions toward these problems might mirror the actions of an aggrieved, change-making, table-flipping Jesus in such a time as this.