October 13, 2025 • 36 mins
George is joined by storyteller and community organizer Charlene A. Carruthers. Charlene talks about how growing up in Chicago shaped her organizing, about occupying the Chicago police headquarters in 2020, doing her work through a Black queer feminist lens, and why telling stories is central to being an activist.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If our work is just making people feel comfortable and
like not curious, then there's something wrong with it. If
you don't feel a little bit agitated, a little bit
uncomfortable questioning something, then something is.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Off with the art.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Charlene Aker Others is a writer, filmmaker, and community organizer
from the Chicago area. She is the author of the
best selling book Unapologetic, a Black, queer and feminist mandate
for radical movements, about the power of effective organizing.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
The art should move people to not just feel good,
but to question the very conditions in which we live
and like hopefully want to do something about it.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And that's also good organized. That's good organized. Singing in
them heavy, handy to pup the world, tickets.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Superbranded and spoken.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Guy, you know what the plan.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Is over gaining You know when to see see me.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
My name is George M. Johnson.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I am the New York Times bestselling author of the
book All Boys Are in Blue, which is the number
one most challenged book in the United States. This is
Fighting Words, a show where we take you to the
front lines of the culture wars with the people who
are using their words to make change and who refuse
to be silenced. Today's guest, Charlene Carruthers. We are here
(01:30):
today with Charlene A.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Carruthers. Did I say it right? Look? I forgot you.
How are you doing today? I know that question is
very heavy.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, George, I am glad to be alive and also anxious,
deeply troubled, and trying to just remind myself of the
refrain that this is the time that artists are supposed
to go to work.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
So that's beautifully stated, and I think that's one of
the reasons why I definitely wanted to speak to you,
because I think a lot of people are just looking
for answers at a time where we don't necessarily have them,
and so it's like, if we don't have answers, what
do we have? I feel like our bios precede us.
Sometimes people don't actually know who we are outside of
(02:25):
the accolades. So if you could let everyone know who
is Charlene Akerrothers.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I am the daughter of two people whose mothers migrated
from Mississippi to Chicago. My mother and my father grew
up in Chicago with lots of siblings, and both of
their mothers, respectively from Greenville, Mississippi and Friar's Point, Mississippi,
and that lineage to me, like really shape so much
(02:55):
of who I am and how I am today, everything
from how I talk to the things that I eat
and I cook, the things and the people that I
honor and I feel connected to.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So I'm a daughter of migration. I'm a daughter of Chicago. Oh.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I like to say that in many ways Chicago raised me,
but I was also like I grew up in Chicago,
I was raised.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
All over the world.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Wow, I'm a lover of travel. I've been really fortunate
to see so much of the world. I love food.
I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm a friend. I
think being a friend is one of the most important
things to me. Like, being a friend is so important
to me and a core part of my identity.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
I love that, the being a friend part.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I've been thinking about that heavily, Like I feel like
that has been one of the things that is keeping
me afloat is friendship right now and the ability to
sometimes just pick up and leave and see a friend
or a friend come and see me. And you talked
a little bit about Chicago, but that was something I
was going to ask you, how do growing up in
(04:00):
Chicago like shape your understanding of like movement work and organizing.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So it's interesting even when I introduced myself, I'm like,
how do I talk about organizing because I don't organize
the way I used to. In some ways, I'm a
recovering organizer.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I still do movement work. I do.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I don't know what you mean, you know, but I
don't do it the way I used to. And growing
up in Chicago, I grew up in the back of
the Yard's neighborhood, which for some people really signals like
a long organizing history with Salolensky in the back of
the Yard's neighborhood council and just all the organizing that happened.
(04:39):
It's literally the back of the stockyards, the infamous stockyards
in Chicago. I grew up within arms resistance to the stockyards,
and so in that neighborhood, on my particular block at
that time, of course, there were black folks, and it
was largely a Mexican American Mexican immigrant community, with some
(05:00):
folks who were also Polish immigrants. So in a very
segregated city, there were people from many different.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Parts of the world in that way.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And after the second grade, I went to a school
called Beasley Academic Center, and it was Black history every
single day. It was with a touch of respectability, for sure,
but it was very much so them instilling in us
an expectation that we were going to do great things
as black children and as black people, and that we
(05:31):
had a responsibility.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
To our people. And it was extremely formative.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And then I went to high school on the north
side of Chicago at another public school, Nicholas sen High School,
and there are still to this day, people from all
over the world are there, all over the world.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Like I was a black.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Girl from the US, and there were black people from
all over the world, all over East Africa, North Africa,
West Africa, and my school, and so it absolutely shaped
like my understanding. In addition to how I was raised,
my father was in the Naval reserves for like over
twenty years, so he did.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Quite a bit of travel.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
And so my organizing work, I mean, first protest I
ever attended was around immigrant rights. In college, somebody told
me that undocumented students couldn't go to college or get
scholarships because of their status, and I thought that was wrong.
I was like, wait a minute, there's something wrong with this,
Like I was in class with these folks, like I
in community with these folks that are being barred from
(06:36):
a certain level of education or being able to have
it funded and supported. And so my first direct action
was around immigrant rights in Chicago. And so Chicago was
my foundation and understanding blackness global blackness, like understanding what
blackness was and could be was never just limited to
(06:56):
one group of people. It was for me, it was
always connected to a diaspora, even if I didn't have
that language. That was literally just based on who I
saw and who I knew to exist in the world.
And also like Chicago, I think people call it like
well they refer to racial self esteem, like I do not.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I have high racial self I'm not confused.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
The history wasn't hidden from me. Even though I'm still
learning a lot, I'm learning a lot, and that's why
I went back to school in many ways the.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Study black studies. But Chicago, Chicago is everything.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Let's talk about like Black Youth Project one hundred, which
is when I first met you in DC, when I
was a part of DC chapter many years ago with
Preston Mitchell, my best friend. That was many years ago,
when I first met you, and I just was in
all of the work that was being done, and I
was new to organize it, new to active as a
new defining My that was a baby journalist at the
Times was during the time of Trayvon Martins, during the
(08:04):
time of a lot of unarmed black.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
People being killed by the police.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
It felt like weekly we were writing a story about it,
and a huge movement was kind of growing with the
youths that hadn't been seen before, a movement that was
being heavily criticized by some of the I'm not gonna
call them the older activists, but they just felt that
activists needed a center head and couldn't understand a non
center head organized type of movement that had many different factions,
(08:32):
parts and leaders. What was that experience, like, you know,
leading that during that time.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
And I also will stay at the height of Twitter
and social media too, So it's a.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Lot of criticisms and a lot of things that will
put on your head specifically, Oh.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, it was wild. It was a wild time.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
There were over a series of months we would go
in and occupy the Chicago police headquarters and calling.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Like what, calling for the firing of.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Dante servant who killed were Kia Boyds. Yes, while he
was on the Chicago Police in the Chicago Police Department.
And I was looking and like we did what Like
So we sat in the meeting and was like, Okay,
we're going to go into the Chicago Police headquarters and
we're going to demand this thing. Oh, like that is
(09:22):
something that is one of the wildest things if I
really think about some of the things that we did.
And also it was extremely important in also shifting how
people talked about policing in this country. And it was
a bunch of young black people and we brought in
people from all over Chicago. Folks started showing up from
(09:43):
so many organizations to support that effort.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It was a long.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Journey in battle and the time, especially with social media
and being in the position that I was in, I
was stressed all the time.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I was always stressed. I was always concerned.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I was responsible not just for organizing alongside folks. I
was responsible for fundraising for people's salaries, fundraising for organizational work,
and anything I said could be used like against or
in support of the organization. And so I was never
(10:23):
like just me and I understood that because that is
a part of leadership, and that wasn't my first leadership role.
What was really challenging was like when I felt like
I couldn't say when I was being personally attacked. I
remember this one time after the video of the killing
of Laquam McDonald was released and we had a ton
(10:44):
of organizing happening in Chicago across many organizations. Definitely not
just BYP one hundred. I mean, there were people posted
all kinds of wild stuff on the Internet about me
and Kathy saying, like these lesbians, you can't trust your
children around them, and like people having issues with us
being feminists, being black feminists, and just our overall politics,
(11:07):
our commitment to organizing through what we call a black
cod feminist lens, which is really about bringing in the
histories the knowledge from black and LGBTQ plus movements and
applying them to what we were doing and thinking about
self governance and self determination and prioritizing people in stories
(11:30):
that are oftentimes left out.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And so it was just it was wild. It was wild.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
I remember I went to Palasign for the first time,
the only time so far, in twenty sixteen. A few
weeks later, I was in Baltimore. During the Baltimore Uprising,
I was in Charlotte. There were just lots of things,
And I do firmly believe that the work we did
(11:55):
during that era impacted the world like it impacted the world,
and it is part of the reactionary things that are
happening now with the conservative right. It is a part
of that because they saw what we could do and
what was possible, and that we were moving people more
people into our values to say that, like, actually, everybody
(12:17):
should be able to be to live in their full dignity.
We're not gonna leave anybody out, and that scares people
who want that to be limited, want dignity and respect
to be limited to them and their people, and really
people who want to have power over everybody else.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So being in BYPO one.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Hundred organizing alongside incredible, incredible young black organizers, thinkers, artists, leaders.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Changed my life forever.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And I'm not a movement elder yet, I'm only forty,
but it's I find myself more now just like how
can I support, how can I help flank, how can
I help people develop?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
How can I share the lessons that we learned?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Because there are plent teat of them things, I'm like, oh,
I wish I'd done this differently.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Can I cuss on this podcast? Yes?
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Okay, well I fucked that up. So it was a
hell of a time.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And being able to reflect with elders of the Student
I Violent Coordinating Committee, like folks who were organizing in
the sixties and the seventies, people from Combe River Collective
who are still alive to this day. We have been
very fortunate to be able to have their perspective.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
And now it's like, we got perspective.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
We need to offer two folks because the work isn't
done yet. We still have a responsibility to the younger
folks and newer folks, not just younger.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
But also folks who are newer to movement.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So I'm glad to have survived that particular error and
working on survive in this one.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And now back to my conversation with Charlene Carruthers, I
found myself kind of stuck yesterday, like, Okay, I have
to get back involved because I write books now. I'm
a storyteller now, and I've taken a step back from
the days of pounding the pavement every day and doing
the things every day. But now I'm like, maybe I
have to get back a little bit bored because things
(15:00):
are moving a lot faster than even I could have
ever imagined.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
I do still feel like art.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Though, is one of the best forms of how we
fight that, and that transitions into your community organizing, and
then you went into storytelling, Like were these two things
always interlinked for you? With storytelling something you always knew
at some point you wanted to do, or was it
something that was like burst out of.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
The organizing you were doing.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, so I would definitely say that they're connected. I
remember maybe it was the only time I spoke. I
sat and talked with Nikki Giovanni and I was an
undergrad at the time, and I remember telling her like,
I just don't feel like I can write.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I don't feel like I'm a writer. It's not my thing.
And then she told me, well, first of all, she
just shut that down like the doubt that I had,
and she talked about how writing, at least part of
writing is talking to paper.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
It's like talking to paper, and it helped me get
through some of my insecurities and doubts about being a writer.
And over the years I have really committed to becoming
a more rigorous writer. And what I found through organizing
(16:14):
is that good organizing requires us to be great storytellers,
or at least good storytellers.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
It's rooted in story.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
There's this thing called a relational meeting or one on
one in organizing, where it's an intentional meeting with another
with two between two people, where the organizers intentionally trying
to determine or discern another person's values, what.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
They care about, what makes them upset.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
And where between the organizer and the other person can
connect and potentially do work together.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
And in the process of doing.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Those one on ones, you share stories like I would ask,
tell me about what it was like growing up in
X place?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
What was that like for you?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Can you remember anybody who was really important to you
and how you understand yourself? Or when's the first time
you went to organizing meeting? Who invited you, what made
you go? So it's there's so many stories that is
a part of doing day to day organizing on that level.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
But also campaigns are build through stories. Direct actions are
build through stories.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Like when we talked about were Kia Boy, it wasn't
just her name, it was like she was somebody's sister,
she's somebody's daughter, she was a person. She was just
a regular Degla black girl.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Like so many of us in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
So storytelling is something that we like work on as
organizers all the time, being able to tell our story,
our stories of our movements, the stories of like why
we fight for what we fight for, and also the
story of what's possible, like our visions for the future.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
And so for me when it comes to the storytelling as.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
An artist, I was an artist before I was an organizer,
and I actually returned to our like myself as an
artist after I wasn't organizing full time anymore. I started
to work on a novel which I've written a good
amount on and one day I'll finish it, maybe after
my dissertation. But I started to do the fiction or
(18:16):
narrative writing once my head wasn't in the organizing world
as much. I had room and I made room for
that part of myself again, And then I turned to
visual storytelling through film and screenwriting because I love I
love movies. I fell in love for real, for real
(18:37):
when I was living in New York and I used
to go to the theater all the time and I
would watch Averra Dubernet's releases when they were on a firm,
and I remember seeing Mother of George and seeing the
cinematography and Mother of George Bradford Young. I saw Bradford
Young's work and I said, hold up, wait a minute.
(19:00):
And it didn't make me want to be a DP
or a cinematographer, but it did make me want to
make movies. I want to make films, and so I
got it is one of the most expensive forms of art.
Learned Oh yes, as someone who is yes, Oh my gosh,
oh my goodness, and I knew I wanted to make
(19:22):
stuff up like I was, like, Okay, I'm a historian,
and I wanted to take things that happened in black life,
in black history and makeup stories around worlds, some new worlds,
but also based in worlds that people.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Were familiar with that I was familiar with.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It, in worlds that existed that maybe people didn't know about.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Because everything I do is going to be hella Hella, Hella, hella,
hella gay, super super queer.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
I'm always going to have chance people, I'm going to
have the lesbians, I'm going to have all kinds of
folk in my projects.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And it is that part of black history culture that is.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Not seen enough, not seen enough, We deserve a lot more.
I turn to film because I could tell stories visually
and sonically, So I care address as much about the
screenplay and like what you see on the film on
the screen as I do about the sound and the music,
and so being able to tell stories that people can see,
(20:23):
if feel, hear, experience, engage with in various ways is
different than a protest or organize a meeting or direct
action or march or rally.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I wanted to reach people in different ways. I wanted
to tell stories.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
About black life that offer more complete stories about black
life in service of crafting more complete solutions about black life.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
And that's why I organize too, and that's why I teach.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
So all of my work comes back to telling more
complete stories about black people's lives in service of crafting
more complete solutions.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
No better pr on me, you can call me for
as we brand no web with the brand no Place.
So they all are jealous, Oh my god, they all
are jealous. Brand no Drift. How they all got umbrellas,
call them moss and nobrella's. And I heard your lesson, dog,
you can do better.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
And how do you feel in terms of like how
we use that art to push back against fascism. I'm
because talking Morrison said like, that's why fascism comes at art,
because art is like the thing that can shift culture
to fight against so many other things, and so they
try to take that away first because that's the thing.
(21:38):
But that's why she was like, that's why artists get killed,
Like she was like, to be an artist ain't safe,
Like I think people think like I write books and
that gives me some type of safety, and it doesn't
because my books are putting thoughts in the world that
a certain particular group of people don't like. And that's
why we have to keep doing it as artists. What
do you think our job now is as artists to
(22:00):
against the current I'm gonna call it tyranny. It feels
like tyranny to me because it's so chaotic and one
of my favorite quotes is a tyrant will always create
a pretext for his own tyranny. And that's when I'm like, Okay,
how does art push back against this right.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
And what is our job as artists now to this?
Speaker 1 (22:22):
When it comes to the artist right now, Like you said,
Tony Morrison has a word for everything, and I think
what you do and what you are doing, it's so
so important. One important to our people, important to people
who have experiences that are like yours, connected to yours,
or feel like they can relate to you being seen.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I mean, like, actually, you're real. I'm real, And even.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Though these people are telling me that I'm not real
and that I don't deserve to exist like that is
something that is important to our people, to black folk,
black queer folk to be out there and that's fuel
for people to be able to still show up and
be in struggle. So that the work that you do
as an artist is extremely important. And I don't think
to be under soul, and I think in this moment.
(23:06):
I was having a conversation with a comrade the other
day and she was like, you know, I'm gonna just
keep it funky with you and ask like, you're a
sis woman, why are you writing a story about a
black trans woman in this moment?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Why? Because like that might not actually help your career.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
She's talking a screenplay that I'm working on, which is
a featureless film project that center is in part, at
least the journey of a young person who grows up
to be what we would call a black trans woman
today because I'm like working in the thirties and forties
and on the film Yes, and so she was just like, yeah,
(23:43):
why you want to.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Do this and.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Not from a place of transphobia, but like, girl, what
is the end this for you? And I said, this
is exactly the time we need to be writing these stories.
When and when I feel like I need to be
writing these stories are like literally trying to erase trans
folk from society. And for me, it's an act of refusal,
(24:08):
and it's in recognition of, like the I think a
black lesbian responsibility to be super clear about when we
talk about liberation and black feminist liberation, who we mean
when we say that, who we see ourselves connected to.
And so it's in refusal of people saying like that
black art has to be one thing that we should
(24:30):
be afraid to or veer away from things that aren't mainstream.
This is the time I see this film when it's
gonna get financed. I'm a claim that's gonna get finance,
It's gonna have the money.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
For it to make it. And it is a story about.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Like a black community choosing each other, and to centralize
this particular role or element of gender deviance throughout the
film is like black folks, we don't ever fit neatly
into gender categories at all. And I want to show
(25:05):
like even historically because I ain't fully making it up,
like black trans women then just pop out out of
the fen there in the past twenty four years, people
use different language, even perhaps thought of themselves differently. The
folks were still there, and I want to again tell
a more complete story about black people's lives. There's lesbians,
(25:25):
there's other career boats, all kinds of floks, vodoo, all
kinds of stuff that's happening in this story. And this
is a time where I think black artists we should
refuse to take the easy route because it ain't or
what we think.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Is the easy route, because I ain't. None of it
gonna be easy for us. It never has been.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
It might be smoother for folks who are willing to
fit into the status quo on surface. At least some
people even make money off of it, you know, and
our people deserve to see that there are folks thinking
about all of us and valuing all of us, and
(26:07):
in doing that work, I think it invites other people
to be more free too, and to say, actually, no,
I'm not gonna fit into this binary. No, I'm not
gonna fit into this box because I see this other
person giving me a vision of what else is possible.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Something else is possible, and that's what we should be doing.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And also in doing all of that, feel agitated to
want to do something differently, to ask different questions.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
So like, Okay, I'm.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Curious about this, I'm gonna get curious, I'm gonna find
out more about this, Like all the conversation people had
around centers. Yeah, you know, the level of curiosity, the
research that people started to do.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
That's what our art can do.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
It can make people get curious and want to learn
more about themselves and the world that they live in,
the communities that they're a part of. And if our
work is just making people feel comfortable and like not curious,
then there's something wrong with it. If you don't feel
a little bit agitated, a little bit uncomfortable questioning something,
then something is off with the art. The art should
(27:13):
move people to not just feel good, but to question
the very conditions in which we live and like hopefully
want to do something about it, and that's also a
good organizer.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
That's good organizer.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
And now back to my conversation with Charlene Carr others.
What is it that you bring into your classrooms with
your students to try and even help them be a
student during a time like this when being an intellectual
is under attack, Like the choice to want to know
more is under attack, the choice to be curious is
under attack.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
And part of what I do really believe and I
write about it is like I'm not trying to replicate myself,
am I just trying to have students.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
To repeat everything that I say.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
I do think it's important to create a learning environment
where people feel like they can ask questions and disagree
with the person who is the teacher.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
So disagree with me, ask questions.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
I always say, don't take what I say is the
final word on a thing. Get curious for yourself as well.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I'm not the end all be y'all.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And so I do try to bring critical thinking and
also community building in my classrooms. So it is very
common for me to come into a classroom and the
chairs I lined up in the rows, and then to
myself and eventually begin in the habit of students just
helping me put the chairs in a circle like that
is a regular thing that I do so people can
(29:18):
see each other, so people can participate. I've alsolitate my classroom,
how like I facilitate political education or organizing workshops.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
I do also use, to.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
A certain extent like a popular education approach, even in
academic classrooms, which basically I assume that everybody in a room.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Has something to offer in the conversation.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I assume that whether you've done the reading or not,
which is very possible that you have not done the reading,
there's something you can contribute to the conversation, even if
it's a question that you have.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I also I remember this one class I taught.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It actually was able to take the students to an
occupation that was happening in Chicago at the time called
Freedom Square, is across the street from Home and Square,
which is a black site in Chicago where they would
just disappear people. And actually got to take my students
there so they can experience that in real time. And
(30:14):
for me, learning is experiential. It is about agitating people.
But I think it's very challenging to stick with what
you've always thought to be true. If you have the
opportunity to ask questions, you have the opportunity to hear
from other people, to develop some level of empathy.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
You might not become like.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
A far left or radical or revolutionary person. But what
does become possible is the exact opposite of what the
folks in the White House and the Christian nationalists, the
right wing folks are.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
They want us to like, have no empathy. They don't
want us.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
To they don't attempting to remove empathy.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
That's what the exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
So in learning environments we can help foster empathy, even
if it's not like total alignment.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
That's the result.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Like we all agree, I don't need us to all agree,
but I do want you to question this thing that
you always talk about, like you have some superiority because
you are white, because you are since gender, because you're
a Christian, because you are currently able body, or you're
a US citizen and you have some level of superiority,
or because you are black, you are African American and
(31:38):
not from the diaspora, so you got some level.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Of superiority over other people or whatever.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I think that's what we can do in the classroom
is that we can foster empathy.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
I love that. I love that well as we close out.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Getting to the end is to have a column that
was called George's Tired, where I would write about everything
I was tired of for the week.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
I'm like, I really need to bring it back.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Is there anything that you are tired of going on
in the world today?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I mean, I am tired of these people trying to
gaslight us into thinking that, like one to the point
around empathy, that we shouldn't care about other people. Yeah,
that defense is actually like violence or like being offensive
(32:39):
is defense. Like just this morning I heard on the
news them reporting that the raising of tariffs, the increase
in tariffs was a national security measure.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And who is it keeps in sane your corporation? You're
ae haigeas what is becoming more secure? So I'm really
tired of them acting like we are like just.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Fools, like we have no level of intelligence whatsoever, and
we are just we just.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Don't know anything about anything.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I'm tired of them accent like that. I'm also tired
of us not settling our quarrels within movement spaces. But
y'all we oh, it was George Jackson. George Jackson says,
settle your quarrels, come together, Understand the reality of our situation.
Understand that fascism is already here, that people are already
(33:34):
dying who could be saved, that generations more will live
poor butchered half lives if you fail to act, do
what must be done. Discover your humanity and your love
and revolution. And George Jackson was incarcerated, and he was
killed in prison as well. I think we actually do
(33:58):
need to disagree more openly in being principal disagreement with
each other. Just be honest about our disagreements or like,
be honest about why we disagree, or if we just
don't like somebody, just say that, just say that that
that's what's going on here, because we don't have time
for this, Like we're always going to have conflict. But
if we were actually way more honest with each other
(34:19):
about where we were coming from and what we need
and what we're holding and what we're dealing with, we
can actually get closer to settling our quarrels with each
other and moving in coordinated ways that we need to
to really defeat what is happening right now and what
has been happening?
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, Charlene, thank you for being on
Fighting Words today. Thank you for all the work you
have done and groundwork you've plade for so many of
us as organized as creatives.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
It is super appreciated. And yeah, just thank you for
being you.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Thank you for having me. When I got the invite,
I was like.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, yes, thank you.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Fighting Words is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership
with Best Case Studios. I'm Georgian Johnson. This episode was
produced by Charlotte Morley. Executive producers are myself and tweaty
Fu Gigar Song with Adam Pinks and Brick Cats for
Best Case Studios. The theme song was written and composed
by Coole Vas Bambianna and Myself. Original music by Colevas.
(35:46):
This episode was edited and scored by Max Michael Miller.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Carl Ketel. Following
rap Fighting Words, wherever you get your podcast about the
Pact
If our work is just making people feel comfortable and
like not curious, then there's something wrong with it. If
you don't feel a little bit agitated, a little bit
uncomfortable questioning something, then something is.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Off with the art.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Charlene Aker Others is a writer, filmmaker, and community organizer
from the Chicago area. She is the author of the
best selling book Unapologetic, a Black, queer and feminist mandate
for radical movements, about the power of effective organizing.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
The art should move people to not just feel good,
but to question the very conditions in which we live
and like hopefully want to do something about it.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
And that's also good organized. That's good organized. Singing in
them heavy, handy to pup the world, tickets.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Superbranded and spoken.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Guy, you know what the plan.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Is over gaining You know when to see see me.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
My name is George M. Johnson.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I am the New York Times bestselling author of the
book All Boys Are in Blue, which is the number
one most challenged book in the United States. This is
Fighting Words, a show where we take you to the
front lines of the culture wars with the people who
are using their words to make change and who refuse
to be silenced. Today's guest, Charlene Carruthers. We are here
(01:30):
today with Charlene A.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Carruthers. Did I say it right? Look? I forgot you.
How are you doing today? I know that question is
very heavy.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, George, I am glad to be alive and also anxious,
deeply troubled, and trying to just remind myself of the
refrain that this is the time that artists are supposed
to go to work.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
So that's beautifully stated, and I think that's one of
the reasons why I definitely wanted to speak to you,
because I think a lot of people are just looking
for answers at a time where we don't necessarily have them,
and so it's like, if we don't have answers, what
do we have? I feel like our bios precede us.
Sometimes people don't actually know who we are outside of
(02:25):
the accolades. So if you could let everyone know who
is Charlene Akerrothers.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I am the daughter of two people whose mothers migrated
from Mississippi to Chicago. My mother and my father grew
up in Chicago with lots of siblings, and both of
their mothers, respectively from Greenville, Mississippi and Friar's Point, Mississippi,
and that lineage to me, like really shape so much
(02:55):
of who I am and how I am today, everything
from how I talk to the things that I eat
and I cook, the things and the people that I
honor and I feel connected to.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So I'm a daughter of migration. I'm a daughter of Chicago. Oh.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I like to say that in many ways Chicago raised me,
but I was also like I grew up in Chicago,
I was raised.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
All over the world.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Wow, I'm a lover of travel. I've been really fortunate
to see so much of the world. I love food.
I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm a friend. I
think being a friend is one of the most important
things to me. Like, being a friend is so important
to me and a core part of my identity.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
I love that, the being a friend part.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I've been thinking about that heavily, Like I feel like
that has been one of the things that is keeping
me afloat is friendship right now and the ability to
sometimes just pick up and leave and see a friend
or a friend come and see me. And you talked
a little bit about Chicago, but that was something I
was going to ask you, how do growing up in
(04:00):
Chicago like shape your understanding of like movement work and organizing.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So it's interesting even when I introduced myself, I'm like,
how do I talk about organizing because I don't organize
the way I used to. In some ways, I'm a
recovering organizer.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I still do movement work. I do.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I don't know what you mean, you know, but I
don't do it the way I used to. And growing
up in Chicago, I grew up in the back of
the Yard's neighborhood, which for some people really signals like
a long organizing history with Salolensky in the back of
the Yard's neighborhood council and just all the organizing that happened.
(04:39):
It's literally the back of the stockyards, the infamous stockyards
in Chicago. I grew up within arms resistance to the stockyards,
and so in that neighborhood, on my particular block at
that time, of course, there were black folks, and it
was largely a Mexican American Mexican immigrant community, with some
(05:00):
folks who were also Polish immigrants. So in a very
segregated city, there were people from many different.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Parts of the world in that way.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And after the second grade, I went to a school
called Beasley Academic Center, and it was Black history every
single day. It was with a touch of respectability, for sure,
but it was very much so them instilling in us
an expectation that we were going to do great things
as black children and as black people, and that we
(05:31):
had a responsibility.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
To our people. And it was extremely formative.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And then I went to high school on the north
side of Chicago at another public school, Nicholas sen High School,
and there are still to this day, people from all
over the world are there, all over the world.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Like I was a black.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Girl from the US, and there were black people from
all over the world, all over East Africa, North Africa,
West Africa, and my school, and so it absolutely shaped
like my understanding. In addition to how I was raised,
my father was in the Naval reserves for like over
twenty years, so he did.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Quite a bit of travel.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
And so my organizing work, I mean, first protest I
ever attended was around immigrant rights. In college, somebody told
me that undocumented students couldn't go to college or get
scholarships because of their status, and I thought that was wrong.
I was like, wait a minute, there's something wrong with this,
Like I was in class with these folks, like I
in community with these folks that are being barred from
(06:36):
a certain level of education or being able to have
it funded and supported. And so my first direct action
was around immigrant rights in Chicago. And so Chicago was
my foundation and understanding blackness global blackness, like understanding what
blackness was and could be was never just limited to
(06:56):
one group of people. It was for me, it was
always connected to a diaspora, even if I didn't have
that language. That was literally just based on who I
saw and who I knew to exist in the world.
And also like Chicago, I think people call it like
well they refer to racial self esteem, like I do not.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I have high racial self I'm not confused.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
The history wasn't hidden from me. Even though I'm still
learning a lot, I'm learning a lot, and that's why
I went back to school in many ways the.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Study black studies. But Chicago, Chicago is everything.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Let's talk about like Black Youth Project one hundred, which
is when I first met you in DC, when I
was a part of DC chapter many years ago with
Preston Mitchell, my best friend. That was many years ago,
when I first met you, and I just was in
all of the work that was being done, and I
was new to organize it, new to active as a
new defining My that was a baby journalist at the
Times was during the time of Trayvon Martins, during the
(08:04):
time of a lot of unarmed black.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
People being killed by the police.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
It felt like weekly we were writing a story about it,
and a huge movement was kind of growing with the
youths that hadn't been seen before, a movement that was
being heavily criticized by some of the I'm not gonna
call them the older activists, but they just felt that
activists needed a center head and couldn't understand a non
center head organized type of movement that had many different factions,
(08:32):
parts and leaders. What was that experience, like, you know,
leading that during that time.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
And I also will stay at the height of Twitter
and social media too, So it's a.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Lot of criticisms and a lot of things that will
put on your head specifically, Oh.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, it was wild. It was a wild time.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
There were over a series of months we would go
in and occupy the Chicago police headquarters and calling.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Like what, calling for the firing of.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Dante servant who killed were Kia Boyds. Yes, while he
was on the Chicago Police in the Chicago Police Department.
And I was looking and like we did what Like
So we sat in the meeting and was like, Okay,
we're going to go into the Chicago Police headquarters and
we're going to demand this thing. Oh, like that is
(09:22):
something that is one of the wildest things if I
really think about some of the things that we did.
And also it was extremely important in also shifting how
people talked about policing in this country. And it was
a bunch of young black people and we brought in
people from all over Chicago. Folks started showing up from
(09:43):
so many organizations to support that effort.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It was a long.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Journey in battle and the time, especially with social media
and being in the position that I was in, I
was stressed all the time.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I was always stressed. I was always concerned.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
I was responsible not just for organizing alongside folks. I
was responsible for fundraising for people's salaries, fundraising for organizational work,
and anything I said could be used like against or
in support of the organization. And so I was never
(10:23):
like just me and I understood that because that is
a part of leadership, and that wasn't my first leadership role.
What was really challenging was like when I felt like
I couldn't say when I was being personally attacked. I
remember this one time after the video of the killing
of Laquam McDonald was released and we had a ton
(10:44):
of organizing happening in Chicago across many organizations. Definitely not
just BYP one hundred. I mean, there were people posted
all kinds of wild stuff on the Internet about me
and Kathy saying, like these lesbians, you can't trust your
children around them, and like people having issues with us
being feminists, being black feminists, and just our overall politics,
(11:07):
our commitment to organizing through what we call a black
cod feminist lens, which is really about bringing in the
histories the knowledge from black and LGBTQ plus movements and
applying them to what we were doing and thinking about
self governance and self determination and prioritizing people in stories
(11:30):
that are oftentimes left out.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And so it was just it was wild. It was wild.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
I remember I went to Palasign for the first time,
the only time so far, in twenty sixteen. A few
weeks later, I was in Baltimore. During the Baltimore Uprising,
I was in Charlotte. There were just lots of things,
And I do firmly believe that the work we did
(11:55):
during that era impacted the world like it impacted the world,
and it is part of the reactionary things that are
happening now with the conservative right. It is a part
of that because they saw what we could do and
what was possible, and that we were moving people more
people into our values to say that, like, actually, everybody
(12:17):
should be able to be to live in their full dignity.
We're not gonna leave anybody out, and that scares people
who want that to be limited, want dignity and respect
to be limited to them and their people, and really
people who want to have power over everybody else.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So being in BYPO one.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Hundred organizing alongside incredible, incredible young black organizers, thinkers, artists, leaders.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Changed my life forever.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And I'm not a movement elder yet, I'm only forty,
but it's I find myself more now just like how
can I support, how can I help flank, how can
I help people develop?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
How can I share the lessons that we learned?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Because there are plent teat of them things, I'm like, oh,
I wish I'd done this differently.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Can I cuss on this podcast? Yes?
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Okay, well I fucked that up. So it was a
hell of a time.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And being able to reflect with elders of the Student
I Violent Coordinating Committee, like folks who were organizing in
the sixties and the seventies, people from Combe River Collective
who are still alive to this day. We have been
very fortunate to be able to have their perspective.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
And now it's like, we got perspective.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
We need to offer two folks because the work isn't
done yet. We still have a responsibility to the younger
folks and newer folks, not just younger.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
But also folks who are newer to movement.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So I'm glad to have survived that particular error and
working on survive in this one.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And now back to my conversation with Charlene Carruthers, I
found myself kind of stuck yesterday, like, Okay, I have
to get back involved because I write books now. I'm
a storyteller now, and I've taken a step back from
the days of pounding the pavement every day and doing
the things every day. But now I'm like, maybe I
have to get back a little bit bored because things
(15:00):
are moving a lot faster than even I could have
ever imagined.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
I do still feel like art.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Though, is one of the best forms of how we
fight that, and that transitions into your community organizing, and
then you went into storytelling, Like were these two things
always interlinked for you? With storytelling something you always knew
at some point you wanted to do, or was it
something that was like burst out of.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
The organizing you were doing.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, so I would definitely say that they're connected. I
remember maybe it was the only time I spoke. I
sat and talked with Nikki Giovanni and I was an
undergrad at the time, and I remember telling her like,
I just don't feel like I can write.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I don't feel like I'm a writer. It's not my thing.
And then she told me, well, first of all, she
just shut that down like the doubt that I had,
and she talked about how writing, at least part of
writing is talking to paper.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
It's like talking to paper, and it helped me get
through some of my insecurities and doubts about being a writer.
And over the years I have really committed to becoming
a more rigorous writer. And what I found through organizing
(16:14):
is that good organizing requires us to be great storytellers,
or at least good storytellers.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
It's rooted in story.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
There's this thing called a relational meeting or one on
one in organizing, where it's an intentional meeting with another
with two between two people, where the organizers intentionally trying
to determine or discern another person's values, what.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
They care about, what makes them upset.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
And where between the organizer and the other person can
connect and potentially do work together.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
And in the process of doing.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Those one on ones, you share stories like I would ask,
tell me about what it was like growing up in
X place?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
What was that like for you?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Can you remember anybody who was really important to you
and how you understand yourself? Or when's the first time
you went to organizing meeting? Who invited you, what made
you go? So it's there's so many stories that is
a part of doing day to day organizing on that level.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
But also campaigns are build through stories. Direct actions are
build through stories.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Like when we talked about were Kia Boy, it wasn't
just her name, it was like she was somebody's sister,
she's somebody's daughter, she was a person. She was just
a regular Degla black girl.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Like so many of us in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
So storytelling is something that we like work on as
organizers all the time, being able to tell our story,
our stories of our movements, the stories of like why
we fight for what we fight for, and also the
story of what's possible, like our visions for the future.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
And so for me when it comes to the storytelling as.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
An artist, I was an artist before I was an organizer,
and I actually returned to our like myself as an
artist after I wasn't organizing full time anymore. I started
to work on a novel which I've written a good
amount on and one day I'll finish it, maybe after
my dissertation. But I started to do the fiction or
(18:16):
narrative writing once my head wasn't in the organizing world
as much. I had room and I made room for
that part of myself again, And then I turned to
visual storytelling through film and screenwriting because I love I
love movies. I fell in love for real, for real
(18:37):
when I was living in New York and I used
to go to the theater all the time and I
would watch Averra Dubernet's releases when they were on a firm,
and I remember seeing Mother of George and seeing the
cinematography and Mother of George Bradford Young. I saw Bradford
Young's work and I said, hold up, wait a minute.
(19:00):
And it didn't make me want to be a DP
or a cinematographer, but it did make me want to
make movies. I want to make films, and so I
got it is one of the most expensive forms of art.
Learned Oh yes, as someone who is yes, Oh my gosh,
oh my goodness, and I knew I wanted to make
(19:22):
stuff up like I was, like, Okay, I'm a historian,
and I wanted to take things that happened in black life,
in black history and makeup stories around worlds, some new worlds,
but also based in worlds that people.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Were familiar with that I was familiar with.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It, in worlds that existed that maybe people didn't know about.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Because everything I do is going to be hella Hella, Hella, hella,
hella gay, super super queer.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
I'm always going to have chance people, I'm going to
have the lesbians, I'm going to have all kinds of
folk in my projects.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
And it is that part of black history culture that is.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Not seen enough, not seen enough, We deserve a lot more.
I turn to film because I could tell stories visually
and sonically, So I care address as much about the
screenplay and like what you see on the film on
the screen as I do about the sound and the music,
and so being able to tell stories that people can see,
(20:23):
if feel, hear, experience, engage with in various ways is
different than a protest or organize a meeting or direct
action or march or rally.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
I wanted to reach people in different ways. I wanted
to tell stories.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
About black life that offer more complete stories about black
life in service of crafting more complete solutions about black life.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
And that's why I organize too, and that's why I teach.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
So all of my work comes back to telling more
complete stories about black people's lives in service of crafting
more complete solutions.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
No better pr on me, you can call me for
as we brand no web with the brand no Place.
So they all are jealous, Oh my god, they all
are jealous. Brand no Drift. How they all got umbrellas,
call them moss and nobrella's. And I heard your lesson, dog,
you can do better.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
And how do you feel in terms of like how
we use that art to push back against fascism. I'm
because talking Morrison said like, that's why fascism comes at art,
because art is like the thing that can shift culture
to fight against so many other things, and so they
try to take that away first because that's the thing.
(21:38):
But that's why she was like, that's why artists get killed,
Like she was like, to be an artist ain't safe,
Like I think people think like I write books and
that gives me some type of safety, and it doesn't
because my books are putting thoughts in the world that
a certain particular group of people don't like. And that's
why we have to keep doing it as artists. What
do you think our job now is as artists to
(22:00):
against the current I'm gonna call it tyranny. It feels
like tyranny to me because it's so chaotic and one
of my favorite quotes is a tyrant will always create
a pretext for his own tyranny. And that's when I'm like, Okay,
how does art push back against this right.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
And what is our job as artists now to this?
Speaker 1 (22:22):
When it comes to the artist right now, Like you said,
Tony Morrison has a word for everything, and I think
what you do and what you are doing, it's so
so important. One important to our people, important to people
who have experiences that are like yours, connected to yours,
or feel like they can relate to you being seen.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I mean, like, actually, you're real. I'm real, And even.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Though these people are telling me that I'm not real
and that I don't deserve to exist like that is
something that is important to our people, to black folk,
black queer folk to be out there and that's fuel
for people to be able to still show up and
be in struggle. So that the work that you do
as an artist is extremely important. And I don't think
to be under soul, and I think in this moment.
(23:06):
I was having a conversation with a comrade the other
day and she was like, you know, I'm gonna just
keep it funky with you and ask like, you're a
sis woman, why are you writing a story about a
black trans woman in this moment?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Why? Because like that might not actually help your career.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
She's talking a screenplay that I'm working on, which is
a featureless film project that center is in part, at
least the journey of a young person who grows up
to be what we would call a black trans woman
today because I'm like working in the thirties and forties
and on the film Yes, and so she was just like, yeah,
(23:43):
why you want to.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Do this and.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Not from a place of transphobia, but like, girl, what
is the end this for you? And I said, this
is exactly the time we need to be writing these stories.
When and when I feel like I need to be
writing these stories are like literally trying to erase trans
folk from society. And for me, it's an act of refusal,
(24:08):
and it's in recognition of, like the I think a
black lesbian responsibility to be super clear about when we
talk about liberation and black feminist liberation, who we mean
when we say that, who we see ourselves connected to.
And so it's in refusal of people saying like that
black art has to be one thing that we should
(24:30):
be afraid to or veer away from things that aren't mainstream.
This is the time I see this film when it's
gonna get financed. I'm a claim that's gonna get finance,
It's gonna have the money.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
For it to make it. And it is a story about.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Like a black community choosing each other, and to centralize
this particular role or element of gender deviance throughout the
film is like black folks, we don't ever fit neatly
into gender categories at all. And I want to show
(25:05):
like even historically because I ain't fully making it up,
like black trans women then just pop out out of
the fen there in the past twenty four years, people
use different language, even perhaps thought of themselves differently. The
folks were still there, and I want to again tell
a more complete story about black people's lives. There's lesbians,
(25:25):
there's other career boats, all kinds of floks, vodoo, all
kinds of stuff that's happening in this story. And this
is a time where I think black artists we should
refuse to take the easy route because it ain't or
what we think.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Is the easy route, because I ain't. None of it
gonna be easy for us. It never has been.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
It might be smoother for folks who are willing to
fit into the status quo on surface. At least some
people even make money off of it, you know, and
our people deserve to see that there are folks thinking
about all of us and valuing all of us, and
(26:07):
in doing that work, I think it invites other people
to be more free too, and to say, actually, no,
I'm not gonna fit into this binary. No, I'm not
gonna fit into this box because I see this other
person giving me a vision of what else is possible.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Something else is possible, and that's what we should be doing.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And also in doing all of that, feel agitated to
want to do something differently, to ask different questions.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
So like, Okay, I'm.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Curious about this, I'm gonna get curious, I'm gonna find
out more about this, Like all the conversation people had
around centers. Yeah, you know, the level of curiosity, the
research that people started to do.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
That's what our art can do.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
It can make people get curious and want to learn
more about themselves and the world that they live in,
the communities that they're a part of. And if our
work is just making people feel comfortable and like not curious,
then there's something wrong with it. If you don't feel
a little bit agitated, a little bit uncomfortable questioning something,
then something is off with the art. The art should
(27:13):
move people to not just feel good, but to question
the very conditions in which we live and like hopefully
want to do something about it, and that's also a
good organizer.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
That's good organizer.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
And now back to my conversation with Charlene Carr others.
What is it that you bring into your classrooms with
your students to try and even help them be a
student during a time like this when being an intellectual
is under attack, Like the choice to want to know
more is under attack, the choice to be curious is
under attack.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
And part of what I do really believe and I
write about it is like I'm not trying to replicate myself,
am I just trying to have students.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
To repeat everything that I say.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
I do think it's important to create a learning environment
where people feel like they can ask questions and disagree
with the person who is the teacher.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
So disagree with me, ask questions.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
I always say, don't take what I say is the
final word on a thing. Get curious for yourself as well.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I'm not the end all be y'all.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
And so I do try to bring critical thinking and
also community building in my classrooms. So it is very
common for me to come into a classroom and the
chairs I lined up in the rows, and then to
myself and eventually begin in the habit of students just
helping me put the chairs in a circle like that
is a regular thing that I do so people can
(29:18):
see each other, so people can participate. I've alsolitate my classroom,
how like I facilitate political education or organizing workshops.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
I do also use, to.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
A certain extent like a popular education approach, even in
academic classrooms, which basically I assume that everybody in a room.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Has something to offer in the conversation.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I assume that whether you've done the reading or not,
which is very possible that you have not done the reading,
there's something you can contribute to the conversation, even if
it's a question that you have.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I also I remember this one class I taught.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It actually was able to take the students to an
occupation that was happening in Chicago at the time called
Freedom Square, is across the street from Home and Square,
which is a black site in Chicago where they would
just disappear people. And actually got to take my students
there so they can experience that in real time. And
(30:14):
for me, learning is experiential. It is about agitating people.
But I think it's very challenging to stick with what
you've always thought to be true. If you have the
opportunity to ask questions, you have the opportunity to hear
from other people, to develop some level of empathy.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
You might not become like.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
A far left or radical or revolutionary person. But what
does become possible is the exact opposite of what the
folks in the White House and the Christian nationalists, the
right wing folks are.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
They want us to like, have no empathy. They don't
want us.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
To they don't attempting to remove empathy.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
That's what the exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
So in learning environments we can help foster empathy, even
if it's not like total alignment.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
That's the result.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Like we all agree, I don't need us to all agree,
but I do want you to question this thing that
you always talk about, like you have some superiority because
you are white, because you are since gender, because you're
a Christian, because you are currently able body, or you're
a US citizen and you have some level of superiority,
or because you are black, you are African American and
(31:38):
not from the diaspora, so you got some level.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Of superiority over other people or whatever.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I think that's what we can do in the classroom
is that we can foster empathy.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
I love that. I love that well as we close out.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Getting to the end is to have a column that
was called George's Tired, where I would write about everything
I was tired of for the week.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
I'm like, I really need to bring it back.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Is there anything that you are tired of going on
in the world today?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I mean, I am tired of these people trying to
gaslight us into thinking that, like one to the point
around empathy, that we shouldn't care about other people. Yeah,
that defense is actually like violence or like being offensive
(32:39):
is defense. Like just this morning I heard on the
news them reporting that the raising of tariffs, the increase
in tariffs was a national security measure.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And who is it keeps in sane your corporation? You're
ae haigeas what is becoming more secure? So I'm really
tired of them acting like we are like just.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Fools, like we have no level of intelligence whatsoever, and
we are just we just.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Don't know anything about anything.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I'm tired of them accent like that. I'm also tired
of us not settling our quarrels within movement spaces. But
y'all we oh, it was George Jackson. George Jackson says,
settle your quarrels, come together, Understand the reality of our situation.
Understand that fascism is already here, that people are already
(33:34):
dying who could be saved, that generations more will live
poor butchered half lives if you fail to act, do
what must be done. Discover your humanity and your love
and revolution. And George Jackson was incarcerated, and he was
killed in prison as well. I think we actually do
(33:58):
need to disagree more openly in being principal disagreement with
each other. Just be honest about our disagreements or like,
be honest about why we disagree, or if we just
don't like somebody, just say that, just say that that
that's what's going on here, because we don't have time
for this, Like we're always going to have conflict. But
if we were actually way more honest with each other
(34:19):
about where we were coming from and what we need
and what we're holding and what we're dealing with, we
can actually get closer to settling our quarrels with each
other and moving in coordinated ways that we need to
to really defeat what is happening right now and what
has been happening?
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, Charlene, thank you for being on
Fighting Words today. Thank you for all the work you
have done and groundwork you've plade for so many of
us as organized as creatives.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
It is super appreciated. And yeah, just thank you for
being you.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Thank you for having me. When I got the invite,
I was like.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, yes, thank you.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
Fighting Words is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership
with Best Case Studios. I'm Georgian Johnson. This episode was
produced by Charlotte Morley. Executive producers are myself and tweaty
Fu Gigar Song with Adam Pinks and Brick Cats for
Best Case Studios. The theme song was written and composed
by Coole Vas Bambianna and Myself. Original music by Colevas.
(35:46):
This episode was edited and scored by Max Michael Miller.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Carl Ketel. Following
rap Fighting Words, wherever you get your podcast about the
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