June 12, 2024 • 56 mins
This episode of Into Liberation features the extraordinary Dr. Cassandra Joubert, who starts by sharing her story of growing up in racially segregated Houston and becoming a passionate advocate for maternal and child health. Dr. Joubert talks about how her early life experiences and her time at Howard University in the early 1970s (amid the vibrant activism and Pan-Africanist movement) shaped her understanding of complex social issues, her work in her field, and her consulting with VISIONS.
Dr. Joubert also talks about how her mother’s advice on financial independence led her to a career in policy advocacy and early childhood development. From research in neonatal intensive care units to leading philanthropic initiatives to ensuring hundreds of people working in early childhood development received VISIONS training, her work has consistently focused on improving the lives of mothers and children. Join us for an episode filled with warmth, wisdom, and inspiration from a formidable person dedicated to making a difference.
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About us
Into Liberation: A podcast about transformative change, equity, and liberation is a production of VISIONS, Inc, a non-profit that offers effective tools that help individuals and organizations communicate and forge connections across differences that drive collective success.
Since 1984, we’ve offered research-based, time-tested approaches to cross-cultural learning that invite participants to engage in equity and inclusion work, starting at the personal and interpersonal levels and expanding to include changes toward institutional and cultural levels.
VISIONS offers actionable approaches that empower people to identify actions, explore their motivations, and effectively move through complex situations with respect and humanity for others and their differences.
Any opinions and views expressed by the speakers are their own and do not reflect the positions of VISIONS, Inc.
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Music credit: Tim Hall @tv_hall
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (00:01):
Hello, you're listening to Into Liberation, a
podcast about transformativechange, equity and working
against oppression.
I'm Lina Akhtar, director ofPrograms with Visions Inc.
Welcome, hi, everyone.
It is my pleasure to welcomeyou to another Visions Elder
Story podcast, this timefeaturing the brilliant Dr
(00:23):
Cassandra Jobert.
Cassandra is a Visionsconsultant and retired professor
of public health, specializingin maternal and child health,
whose career has spannedNICU-based research,
philanthropy, working on behalfof women and children and also
heading up the CentralCalifornia Children's Institute.
In this episode, we talk abouther upbringing and childhood in
(00:44):
racially segregated Houston,texas, including content note a
racially motivated attack thatshe was the target of when a
young girl.
We talk about her moving to DCfor college and fortuitously
ending up in a doctoral programat Johns Hopkins, and then how
she helped bring thelife-changing perspective that
she developed in her Encounterwith Visions work to hundreds of
(01:05):
people working in earlychildhood development in the
Central Valley.
The first time I met Cassandra,I immediately noticed her warm,
open and wise energy, and thatcame through and forced in this
conversation.
One of the things that I wasmost delighted to hear about was
how her love of children wasthe thread that she has followed
(01:25):
all through her life, from whenshe gathered up and read to the
neighborhood children when sheherself was a child, to what she
decided to study, how she spenther career trying to improve
outcomes for children, and nowhow, in retirement, she is
surrounded by her grandbabies.
It was a delightfulconversation and I'm excited to
share it with you.
Hi everybody, I am reallyexcited to be here with Senior
(01:50):
Visions Consultant, dr CassandraJobert, who is, among other
things, a former professor ofpublic health, has worked in
various sectors, including inmaternal and child health, and
also in philanthropy.
Cassandra, thank you so muchfor being with us here today.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (02:07):
Well, it's my pleasure.
Anything for Visions and foryou.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (02:11):
You know, as I mentioned, these conversations
have been a wonderfulopportunity to get to know
people in Visions communitybetter.
We've spent some time in spacestogether and when we first
chatted I learned so much aboutyou that I just didn't know.
And I'm really, really excitedto be talking about your
professional and also personaltrajectory, because it's so
(02:32):
deeply intertwined, especiallygiven how we do things at
Visions.
I'm excited to talk to youabout that here.
So for people who don't knowyou, can you introduce yourself
briefly?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (02:42):
Sure Cassandra Joubert, Visions
Consultant, retired universityprofessor, grandmother of five
under the age of eight.
I live in Vallejo, California,which is in the San Francisco
Bay Area.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (02:58):
Beautiful.
And then, how long have youbeen with Visions, or Visions
Consultant?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (03:05):
So I've been actually working as a
consultant since about 2014.
However, I was introduced toVisions back in Michigan,
probably in the early 2000s,when I first joined philanthropy
and got to know some of theearly, got to know the founder
(03:25):
of Visions one of them, drValerie Batts, and we were
working on a school-basedhealthcare project together.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (03:32):
Beautiful.
I always appreciate hearing howpeople, what their journeys
into the Visions orbit were likeand, as you know, this is one
of our elder stories that we'redoing in the lead up to the 40th
anniversary celebration thatwe're having later this year,
september 27th in Boston.
So, in that spirit, startingwith the early parts of your
(03:55):
story, we talked a little bitabout how you grew up and I
really appreciated hearing thediversity of your experiences
like before you came to Visionsand the things that shaped your
perspective.
So, starting with your earlylife, you mentioned that you
grew up in Houston, which Ididn't know about.
Tell me a little bit about that.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (04:13):
Yeah, so right.
I was born in 1954.
So I'll be 70 years old thisyear and was born in Houston,
texas, which, of course, wasdefinitely racially segregated
at the time.
My father was a mailman and mymother was a beautician, and
there were eight to 10 footfences that divided
(04:34):
neighborhoods black and whiteneighborhoods predominantly at
that time and grew up there, youknow, went to Houston public
schools until the ninth gradeand then I went to a Catholic
high school.
But the experience of growing upin Houston was that there was
no escaping the impact of racialsegregation.
(04:55):
An example would be that wewould load ourselves onto public
school buses to go downtown tothe Houston Opera, on to public
school buses to go downtown tothe Houston Opera, and as we got
to the opera building, twothings happened.
One, we noticed that the yellowschool buses that we were in,
none of them had airconditioning, and then up would
(05:17):
roll the white kids fromneighboring schools, and they
were all in air-conditionedbuses.
Then we would make ourselvesour way into the orchestra hall
and we could only sit up high inthe balcony.
As Black kids we were notallowed to sit on the lower
levels or mezzanine, and so itwas just always.
(05:41):
Just the fact that we wereviewed differently and treated
differently was always up frontand center in our, in our lives.
And with my father being amailman, he would deliver mail
into predominantly whiteneighborhoods and come home with
, you know, splattered tomatoeson his shirt or practice, just
(06:06):
humiliated and angry and justtried and tested.
So I'll never forget that thatwas the experience until later.
I guess Houston Public Schoolsmight have been integrated when
I was in middle school, perhaps,maybe high school, I'm not sure
, probably middle school.
(06:27):
And then the other racialdynamic growing up in Houston is
that I am Creole, my last nameis French.
There's a whole culture andcommunity of Creole people,
particularly in Texas, wholargely came to Texas from
Louisiana, particularly in Texas, who largely came to Texas from
(06:48):
Louisiana.
And you know Creoles by thefact that they have French last
names largely and are lighterskinned and are the offspring of
slave owners by and large.
And so there was a color linenot only between Blacks and
Whites line not only betweenBlacks and whites but also
(07:10):
between Blacks and Creoles.
So I experienced a lot ofantagonism and challenge going
to predominantly Black schoolsbecause I was lighter skin and
had a French last name.
For that reason I shifted to aCatholic high school.
My father took me out of publicschool, put me in Catholic
school because I was alwaysbeing threatened in the
predominantly Black publicschool.
So my Catholic schoolexperience was interesting
(07:33):
because I had never gone toschool with white kids, I'd
never met anybody white, quitehonestly, before that.
Overall it was a goodexperience.
It certainly had its bumps, butoverall I had a good, positive
experience in Catholic highschool in Houston.
And then the rest is history inthat I left Houston and went
off to college, to ahistorically Black college,
(07:55):
howard University in WashingtonDC, and then on to grad school
at Hopkins and sort of left thatlife of segregation behind sort
of left that life ofsegregation behind.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (08:06):
I'm really struck by.
Well, I was struck the firsttime you said what you said
about how your father would comehome having been pelted with
things.
It sounds like you could sensehis anger and how he felt about
it.
I'm curious how something likethat would land on a small child
, how it was explained, was itexplained, or what meaning you
made of it.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (08:26):
It was definitely explained.
My father was a bit of a socialjustice advocate himself.
He would always talk aboutunfairness and injustice and how
it surfaced in different waysin society.
So there was no hiding thatreality.
If anything, there was morepressure put on us as Black kids
(08:50):
to do well, to achieve, to bethe best that we could be in
light of the obstacles in lifewe were likely to face.
And my only regret is that myfather never lived to see Barack
Obama become president, becausecertainly it would have been
(09:14):
his view that that would neverhappen, that America would never
elect a Black president.
So, yeah, it was to ouradvantage.
I think that we were alwaysclear that, well, the experience
of Black folk in Houston, texas, was not a good one and that it
was something that we shouldtake up our armor, if you will,
against injustice.
That was sort of my father'sposition.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (09:37):
Okay, and then you mentioned that your schools
were integrated for the firsttime in middle school and you
went to a Catholic high school,and you know the demographics
were different there too.
What were those experienceslike for you?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (09:52):
It was very, very challenging on two
levels.
One, in the predominantly blackelementary schools we had all
black teachers and that was areally important factor, I think
, in the success of Black kidsin that school.
If you go back to, you know theyears that I was in elementary
(10:14):
and middle school.
Some of the people that we knowtoday, some of the African
Americans that came out of theSouth and did very, very well,
like Debbie Allen, for examplejust as one example and Felicia
Rashad Allen, both went to Blackpublic schools.
I think they both had teachersas parents, because Black
education, you know, teacherbeing a teacher was one of the
(10:38):
few professions that was reallyopen to African-Americans back
in that time.
So having Black teachers was soinstrumental in making sure
that we really truly got a greateducation and put that
education to good use.
So that was a gift.
Sometimes I actually refer tosegregation as a gift, because
(11:01):
once I got to middle school Ihad my first white teachers and
it was difficult to navigatewith white teachers.
They didn't really understandnecessarily Black children, the
expectations and the experiencesof Black children, and so
sometimes that was a bit of achallenge just navigating the
(11:22):
cultural differences.
And then, of course, when I gotto high school Catholic high
school I had no Black teachersat all, all white nuns and
priests, but overall, again, Ihad a pretty good experience.
I had a couple of experiencesthat stand out in high school.
One was that my high school hadas its mascot the Confederate
flag as its mascot, theConfederate flag, and there were
(11:51):
a couple of radical Blackstudents.
When I entered in my freshmanyear, there were a couple of
radical Black students, who Iadmire to this day, who took on
the administration and said thatthe Confederate flag needed to
come down, and so it was thefirst time that the Confederate
flag at this school had everbeen challenged.
And what ended up happening isthat they did not change the
mascot from the Confederate flag, but they changed the colors of
(12:16):
the Confederate flag to brownand gold and white instead of
red, white and blue.
So the same rebel crossConfederate image in a different
color, which I actually thoughtfor that day and time I'm
talking 1970, was a prettydecent concession, and we can
attribute that to some of theBlack students who took on the
(12:39):
administration.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (12:40):
Wow, so wait, the Catholic high school had a
Confederate flag as its mascot,correct, wow, that's a lot.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (12:49):
Right, they called Carmel rebels.
That's right.
Oh, wow.
So yeah, I mean, even duringthat time, at football games
games, the black students didnot stand for the american, the
what is it?
The anthem, the national anthem.
(13:11):
We wouldn't stand.
I mean.
So the combination of growingup in segregation, having a
fairly progressive father whoalways talked about injustice
and what was right and what waswrong, and then having radical
what I call radical, I shouldjust say honest upperclassmen
(13:32):
when I went to high school, allof those things kind of factored
into my becoming very much asocial justice advocate at a
very young age.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (13:42):
Amazing.
Tell me about when that started.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (13:44):
Well.
So the bad news that I didn'tshare is that when I was about
nine years old, you recall thatI said that the neighborhoods
were divided.
Black and white neighborhoodswere divided by, like this eight
or 10 foot fence that ran formiles and we knew better than to
(14:05):
go into the white neighborhoods, but the whites came into our
neighborhood all the time.
So as we're walking down astreet pretty well traffic
street in Houston called JutlandAvenue, one day there were
about six or seven kids my agesay, between nine and 12 or
whatever walking down the street.
White boys flew by in a stationwagon with a gallon jug of
(14:29):
Clorox and threw the Clorox intomy face.
I happened to be the one to getit.
And back in that day we hadlarge, very, very deep ditches,
because Houston is below sealevel, so it floods a lot.
So we had these huge ditchesthat typically would have, had
(14:49):
it'd been raining, would havebeen filled with water, but
luckily they were not, becausewhen these white boys came by
and threw Clorox in my eyes, Iof course tumbled down into the
ditch because I was blindedtemporarily, and then of course
they sped off and one of theneighbors the kids were
(15:10):
screaming and one of theneighbors came out and took me
into her house and doused myeyes with water and called my
parents and I just knew I wouldgo to the hospital.
But guess what?
I didn't go to the hospitalsbecause the hospitals were
segregated and my parents feltwell, no use taking her to the
(15:32):
hospital, you know she's notgoing to get good care.
So they basically treated me athome and I did have some
blindness for a short time, butit didn't last, thank God, and I
recovered, you know, prettyquickly from that, at least
physically.
I recovered from that.
No one ever talked about itagain, no one ever talked about
(15:54):
it.
So the reality of being Blackin America and the implications
of that I just have been keenlyaware of all my life.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (16:07):
Oh, Sandra, I'm so sorry.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (16:09):
And I think I shared with you that I
didn't give any thought to thatincident and certainly did not
talk about it anymore until Istarted Visions work.
I just put it out of my mind.
And when I started Visions Workand was introduced to concepts
(16:35):
around racial violence as wellas internalized oppression,
modern oppression, I started towonder about the impact that
that event had on me, not onlyhow I reacted and interacted
with others so interpersonally,but also intrapersonally.
(16:56):
What impact did that have onthe personality and the person I
became later in life?
And that was when I reallyrealized that I had work to do
around internalized oppressionand I had things to heal that
had never been healed, neverbeen talked about.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (17:17):
Was that just out of curiosity?
Was that one that you talkedabout in the context of the
earliest encounter exercise, or?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (17:31):
yes, I think I did.
I think in my first pace I didtalk about that incident and
others that then started to comeup for me.
For example, I'll never forget aday in my home, with my mother
in the kitchen, when someoneknocked on the door and she
(17:54):
opened the door and it was awhite man who was coming to
maybe repair a utility orsomething and she, her whole
personality, changed when sheinteracted with him.
She became very differentialand very sort of yes, sir, in
her responses.
(18:15):
And I wondered about, Iquestioned that, I wondered
about that, you know, andclearly it was a survival
behavior that she had adopted inorder to manage fear, anxiety
and everything else that comesup when a white person knocks at
your door.
But again, I didn't have anylanguage or context or meaning
(18:40):
making of that at the time.
And it wasn't until I came toVisions and learned some of
those concepts around modernoppression and internalized
behaviors and survival behaviorsand all of that, that
internalized oppression, that Istarted to kind of put the
pieces together and the waysthat I had really silenced my
(19:02):
voice in a number of ways and ina number of different settings.
in a number of ways and in anumber of different settings,
not just cross-racial settings,but it just had this huge impact
on my own personalitydevelopment as a child to watch
that kind of adaptation that hadto occur and what do we call it
now?
(19:22):
The coding behaviors that youknow that, as people of color,
we I had adopted.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (19:31):
Yeah, yeah, code switching.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (19:32):
Code switching.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (19:33):
Yep, and for people who might not be familiar
with PACE, pace is our four dayworkshop and it's a
foundational workshop and italso goes really really deep.
As you probably surmised withthe earliest encounter exercise
I mean, that one was, for me,really profound in terms of
(19:55):
making me realize, oh, there'sso much early, these are early
templates that have this way offollowing me around in other
contexts of my life, in otherplaces, and that was, that was a
really powerful realization,just how influential those early
(20:15):
experiences, how, how deeplythey can be etched into us right
.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (20:20):
yes, yeah , in our cultural sharing
exercises, when we talk aboutwho did you learn to trust and
not trust?
Very, very impactful question.
And again, though, thecomplexity of being Black and
Creole I learned to distrustwhites, but I also learned to
(20:41):
distrust Blacks who didn'tembrace me or, you know, I
didn't necessarily feel safewith either.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (20:51):
Yeah, so when you left Houston after high
school, you left huh, Okay.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (20:58):
Never go back.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (21:01):
I mean I hear you with that.
There's places that I have nodesire to go back to too.
So and so, what was being in DC, like what was going to school
over there, like being in DC waswonderful.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (21:13):
So, first of all, one of the things that
happened when I was in highschool, before I left Houston,
was I joined a Pan-Africanistgroup that you know was very
much fans of Stokely Carmichaeland Stephen B Coe and different
Pan-Africanists around the world.
And so when I got to Howard Imean 1972, we were in the middle
(21:36):
of all sorts of protestsagainst guff oil and
anti-apartheid protests and itwas really a wonderful space.
I mean, howard University in1972 had 10,000 students even
then and they were from all overthe world.
You know, I met Black folk, notonly from the African continent
(21:57):
but also Black Canadians andIslanders, and you know, it was
just, it was just a wonderfulspace.
It was a place to really feeland learn the pride and the
beauty of being black, and sothat was very, very, very
positive, very positiveexperience.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (22:18):
And a period of a lot of activism.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (22:20):
A lot of activism.
Yeah, I laugh now, when I talkabout how we back in 1973 or so,
took over the administrationbuilding at Howard and locked
the president in his office.
Luckily we didn't do anythingthat harmed physically harmed
(22:43):
anybody, but we did block access, uh, block his access.
We were demanding that, youknow, there were tuition
increases happening and allsorts of things we didn't like,
the things that the money thathoward was receiving from
investors in south africa, andall sorts of things we were yeah
(23:04):
it's dirty money too.
Dirty money.
We were taking it on.
Dc had something called ALDAfrican Liberation Day once a
year every year and there wereparades and speeches and flags
and just it was just.
It was wonderful.
It was truly wonderful.
It was a wonderful experience.
(23:26):
I enjoyed being at Howard.
I really did.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (23:29):
Amazing.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (23:31):
But you know the student movement and I
have to say that I'm reallyimpressed with the students that
have been speaking out againstthe genocide in Palestine at all
these major universities, andhow because it's reminding me
that that is in my day that washow a lot of the divestment and
(23:55):
a lot of the shift in policytowards South Africa occurred.
It was prompted largely by thestudent movement and, of course,
locally, domestically, thesit-ins at the lunch counters
and all of that.
You know those were studentsthat were taking that on, and so
I really was glad.
I am glad to see that studentsaren't backing down to this day
(24:20):
against injustice.
It's really wonderful to see.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (24:23):
You know, on the one hand, what you're saying
is hopeful and I also feel likea twinge because you're talking
about a protest, that movementthat was active in the night in
1973.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (24:33):
And it wasn't until 20 years later.
Right.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (24:35):
I mean, apartheid fell in 94.
Like you know so, and I alsoknow, I've also been talking to
activists in South Africa aboutwhat it was like in the 80s and
it was just so hairy.
Anyway, yeah, that is an aside.
So college in DC.
What happened after that?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (24:55):
So finished up my work at Howard
and was really encouraged by myone of my advisors, my
instructors at Howard, to get mydoctorate.
And then so I moved on to JohnsHopkins to get my doctorate in
public health and I have to saythat that also was really a
positive experience.
(25:16):
I went to Hopkins on a minorityfaculty development scholarship
and I was blessed to comethrough, you know, undergrad and
grad school during a time whenaffirmative action was alive and
well.
Of course we know that I wouldnot be sitting here as the child
of a mailman and a beauticianwith a doctorate degree had it
(25:39):
not been for affirmative action.
And my experience at Hopkinswas very, very good, you know,
again not without bumps, but itwas a wonderfully stimulating
intellectual environment andthat I really thrived in and
really enjoyed that.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (25:56):
I'm really glad to hear that.
I mean, being a grad studentcan be very dicey because
there's so much that can happenat the institutional level and
then with the power dynamics inthe department.
That's really really good tohear.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (26:11):
I feel that I don't know.
I feel like I had a fair amountof support and I'm thinking, as
we're chatting, about myadvisor at the time and other
faculty members.
I did, you know, have onefaculty person that basically
said you're really not as smartas you appear and that you have
(26:31):
the halo effect.
But within a year he was bootedout of the university.
So that was.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (26:38):
That must have been satisfying.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (26:40):
Not because of what he said to me,
but he was now granted tenureand was kicked out.
But you know, so it was not aneasy experience, but I actually
think I thrived in thatenvironment of sort of nose in
the books and you know we westudied 40 hours a week.
You know, really, we were inclass or studying 40 hours.
(27:02):
It was like a full-time job andI loved it.
I loved it, I did, I did wellwith in that environment you
mentioned to me when we talkedthat pathway was not inevitable.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (27:14):
By any means, I hate that's right.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (27:17):
I didn't know.
I didn't really know how smartI was and I didn't know my
potential.
It had never really been.
I mean mean, despite having youknow I had straight A's in
college.
In fact, I went to HowardUniversity with $500 in my
pocket that I had earned thesummer before by working in a
(27:39):
record shop.
I'm the youngest of fivechildren, so I'd asked my father
if he was going to be able tohelp me go to college and he
said basically no, that he wasout of money.
He had sent two of my brothersto Morehouse and my sister had
gone to college here in MillsCollege in Oakland but then
ended up transferring back toTexas Southern and finished her
(28:02):
degree there in finance.
But by the time it got to me asthe fifth child, he said he had
no money.
So I said, well, I'm going tocollege anyway and I'm just.
You know I'm casting my fate tothe wind and stepping out on
faith.
So I went to Howard Universitywith $500, which is what a
semester tuition was in 1970.
(28:25):
And my father did pay my roomand board At the end of the
first semester.
I got a full ride because I hadmade straight A's.
I got a full ride for the restof my time at Howard.
Wow, that's how I, that's how Igraduated.
But I didn't.
I still even being, you know,doing well, I still never saw
(28:49):
myself.
As you know, I never reallyaspired much beyond getting.
I guess I never really saw intothe future.
I guess it was I.
It was like really truly livingin the moment every step along
the way.
And it wasn't until after I gotmy undergrad degree that my
brother said to me, as I wasworking as a receptionist at the
(29:10):
George Washington UniversityHealth Plan.
He said so what are you goingto do next?
And I said what do you meannext?
I'm a receptionist, I love myjob, I love interacting with
people.
And he said no, you're not,you're not, you should do more.
You really should continue withyour education.
And he said you know, theretalk about the impact of racial
(29:49):
violence and growing up in thekind of segregated society that
I grew up in.
I can't say you know, when Iapplied to college out of high
school, I applied to these.
Really I aspired to theseschools, like Brandeis and other
schools, but my counselors weresaying you won't get into those
(30:09):
schools.
And so when I didn't get intoBrandeis, which, by the way, I
only was interested in becauseAngela Davis had graduated from
Brandeis.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (30:19):
That was the only thing I know about Brandeis
.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (30:22):
When I didn't get in I started to look
at HBCUs and getting into Howardwas I knew other people there,
other people that had gone there, and it was just a good.
It actually turned out best forme.
But I didn't have anyone.
You know my parents neither ofthem graduate.
They graduated high school.
Neither of them went to college.
(30:44):
So I didn't have anyone, youknow, prodding me to move
forward and do more.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (30:50):
And no models as well, I'm guessing.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (30:52):
Right, right.
Well, my brother, the youngestof my three brothers, he did go
to law school, which I had nointerest in, but I didn't really
really know that there weremany other options and I think,
a combination of being theyoungest of five who kind of I
feel like I kind of just didwhat people told me to do, you
(31:16):
know, and these several diplomaslater that I see on your wall
behind you now.
Yeah, I'm glad somebody wastelling me what to do.
In that case, speaking about mybrother, he was telling me a
good thing yeah, you can do more, you can do more, you can do
more.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (31:36):
I mean, what a beautiful life, pivot moment.
Right.
So you did your degree, yourPhD in public health, in
maternal and childhood health.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (31:49):
Yes.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (31:50):
Okay, tell me about that.
Tell me about how you gotinterested in it, and I mean
you've had a storied career init by now.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (31:57):
So you know, I think that as the
youngest of five, by the time Icame along, I wasn't getting a
whole lot of attention, quitehonestly, at home, and maybe
there was even some neglect atthat point.
You know, my parents did thebest they could with what they
had, but I just had a love ofchildren, I just loved all young
(32:21):
children.
From a very young age.
I would collect the kids up inthe neighborhood and read
stories to them and, you know,entertain them, babysit them,
and so I knew that I wasinterested in children and my
mother oh, I have to share thispart my mother had gotten
pregnant with my oldest brotherwhen she was a teenager and she
(32:44):
was really, really adamant abouther girls not becoming pregnant
early and having, you know,having a life without having to
think about a child.
And she would tell me, youshould never depend on a man for
(33:04):
your livelihood.
You have to have your own career, your own money.
She would say that even thoughshe you know, she, she was a
cosmetologist.
She ran her own business nextto our home.
She was very smart, very smart,but again, only had a high
school degree, and and then shegot her cosmetology degree,
(33:25):
which actually she got adoctorate in cosmetology, but
that's still a trade school.
But in any case she always feltno, you cannot depend on anyone
else, you must be able to makea life on your own.
And she seemed to have thiskeen awareness of how women
(33:45):
often are trapped inrelationships that they can't
get out of because they don'thave the economic resources to
go out on there, and so she saidwell, you got to do something.
And I said to myself well, theonly thing I really love are
children, that's all.
I really just love children.
I can't think of a professionor a job or anything else, I
(34:07):
just love children.
And I just kind of saw myselfas just being a mother and that
was going to be it.
But she wouldn't let that be.
So that's how I decided well,since I love children so much,
why don't I study children?
Why?
don't I love children, so that'swhat I did when I got to Howard
.
I studied developmentalpsychology and early childhood
development and quickly realizedthat I was not cut out to be
(34:30):
like a preschool teacher oranything like that, but that I
was a policy advocate.
I realized that the way to makechildren's lives better was
through policy change.
And then, you know, when Istarted looking into public
health, I realized that thewhole world of maternal and
child health is applied scienceabout.
(34:50):
How do you use data about thestatus of children in various
communities and at differentstages of their lives.
How do you use that data toadvocate for better outcomes for
children, and that's how Iended up going into maternal and
child health.
Comes for children, and that'show I ended up going into
maternal and child health, endedup doing my dissertation work
(35:11):
on children in the neonatalintensive care unit, which back
then, in the early 80s by now,neonatal intensive care and
keeping very small babies alivewas still pretty new and
learning.
Some of the a lot of thetechnology, like the ventilators
, were causing brain deficitsand all of that.
(35:32):
So it was a real exciting time,though, that we could keep a
preemie at 28 weeks alive withno severe developmental delays.
So that's how I got into thefield, really having worked at
Children's Hospital NationalMedical Center with my college
advisor, one of my instructorswas a research psychologist
(35:54):
there and she hired me to workin the NICU and the rest of it
was yeah.
So that's the story.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (36:04):
Yeah, amazing.
So from there there was thephilanthropy and then doing the
going into academia.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (36:14):
However, I should say that the one thread
that has been consistentthroughout my career has been
working in roles that advocatedfor women and children, for
women and children, having firstgotten you know.
When I first got my doctoratedegree, I worked in a community
(36:35):
nonprofit that did work aroundteenage pregnancy prevention and
low birth weight children.
Then I worked for stategovernment in the state of
Michigan, was director of theOffice of Minority Health for a
short time, but my main role wasadvocating for family planning
services for women.
And then I went to work for theMott Foundation Ruth Mott
Foundation in Flint, michiganand in that role I was also over
(36:58):
their health promotion programsthat focused on children.
So children have been a themethroughout my career.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (37:05):
Yes, Amazing, okay, so then tell me about how
you encountered visions and cameinto our orbit.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (37:13):
Right.
So I met Val when I was inphilanthropy.
Dr Batts had gotten Vic Grantfrom the Kellogg Foundation to
do some work with Kellogg and Imet the program officer at
Kellogg.
I knew the program officer atKellogg who had brought Visions
on and she introduced me to Val,invited me to a school-based
(37:35):
health conference.
I can't even tell you what yearthat was.
I'm going to guess it wasaround 2003 or so.
And to make a long story short,it was through Dr Val and Dr
John Kabat-Minn that I got toFresno State because through the
network of colleagues I learnedabout the director of the
(37:58):
Children's Institute and thefaculty position at Fresno State
and moved to California fromMichigan, moved to California
from Michigan and quickly, beingin the Central Valley of
California, realized that therewas a dearth of information
about the basic needs ofchildren and how to promote
(38:20):
optimal development of children.
Professional developmentopportunities were very limited
for both the paraprofessionalsand the professionals that
worked with children.
So I worked with an agency thatworked with children with
disabilities to secure a grantto hire Visions to train their
(38:43):
staff in the Visions model.
I was also very acutely awareof how thick the oppression was.
You know the socioeconomicdisparities were tremendous in
the Central Valley of Californiaand again, bringing in the
insights of visions I felt forfolks who work for on behalf of
(39:07):
children and who work withchildren I felt was really,
really important.
So I brought visions in to workwith professionals and
paraprofessionals up and downthe Central Valley eight county
region over a three or four yearperiod.
We had big grants to do that.
I wrote those grants and youbrought that money in, brought
(39:30):
in visions and then that's whenI got introduced really more
deeply into the model.
I had been, you know, I hadtouched on the model back in in
Michigan, but this was when Ireally learned what visions was
all about.
And just listening to thevisions was all about and just
(39:52):
listening to the vision'strainers and consultants work
with the providers that wereworking with children, to see
the way the model really landedon those providers.
I was really nervous bringingin conversations about racism,
modeling, oppression,internalized oppression.
I was really nervous becauseCentral Valley is just ultra
(40:13):
conservative and I didn't knowhow this was going to land and
people just ate it up.
I mean I think that's just oneof the beauties of the Visions
model is that Everyone in theroom could find themselves in
the model and their experiencesin the model and also know and
(40:35):
learn about what they didn'tknow.
And there were always ahamoments and they kept coming
back.
They kept coming back monthafter month, year after year.
That work with visions and theearly childhood providers that
lasted for about five years andjust so many people were trained
through that and after that Iknew a lot about the model and
(40:57):
said, oh well, maybe, maybe I'llwork a little bit with visions.
You know, when I retire, I waskind of looking for a way to
stay connected to all thewonderful people I had met
through visions and stayconnected to the model.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (41:11):
So that's when I started as a consultant about
in 2014, 2015, maybe Wow, and Imean it sounds like the process
of being in these trainings andbringing visions in was really
transformative for you as well.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (41:25):
Yes, yes, you know the model is so deep
and the tools are so extensive.
You think you see the slidedeck and you hear the tools and
you think you're done.
You've seen every slide andheard every definition and you
think you kind of got it.
And then when you get into theprocess with different groups of
(41:48):
people, invariably new thingscome up, new opportunities to
see things from a differentperspective.
And for me it was mostimportant to really learn to
find my voice in cross-culturalconversations and to be able to
listen to the multipleperspectives of others.
(42:10):
And the most impactful tool, Ithink, for me was the chart that
showed the historicallyincluded and the historically
excluded groups and thequestions that follow that tool.
And looking at from your ownpersonal perspective, in what
(42:30):
ways have you benefited fromprivilege and from being in a
historically included group andwhat ways have you suffered or
had to face what the impact ofbeing in a historically excluded
group?
Because my own experience wasalways more focused on what it
(42:52):
felt like to be historicallyexcluded and it wasn't until I
could start to really see wow,particularly as I look at my
educational trajectory and Ilook at my professional
trajectory and I look at thefinancial resources I've been
able to amass for myself becauseof the privilege that I've
(43:16):
experienced then that I couldreally see that I have work to
do as a privileged person, aswell as being aware of,
certainly, my historicallyexcluded status.
But how has my privilege beenplayed out and how does it
continue to play out?
And that was life-changing forme.
(43:38):
That was really life-changingfor me to get out of the victim
box and to really ask myselfwhat's my role, given the
privilege that I have.
What's my role?
So, yeah, that's just one ofmany ways, and also, of course,
learning about internalizedoppression and survival
behaviors and differentpersonality elements that I
(43:59):
adopted over time just to makeit through, just to make it and
you know forgiving myself forthat, moving on, acknowledging
it and moving on, you know, tohow can I help change the world?
Dr. Leena Akhtar (44:18):
Beautiful.
Yeah, you know this thing thatyou said about the
responsibility of privilege,that's something that came up in
a recent workshop, one of ourpublic facing fundamentals of
inclusivity workshops.
I mean, I certainly had anuncomfortable first reflective
encounter with oh, these are mydeeply privileged identities.
If any of these were different,my experience in life would be
very different.
(44:38):
It's not a comfortable thing tothink about and it came up in
this workshop that a way to fallout of the guilt or shame trap
about it is to think exactlywhat you said.
What do I do with this guilt orshame trap about it is to think
exactly what you said what do Ido with this?
So with this, what is theresponsibility or what?
What can I choose to do with it, which I think is a really
beautiful and powerful way outof it?
(44:59):
So, the impact of, of trainingall those 500 people what did
you see and I'm asking this justin a professional sense,
because it sounds like youtrained a lot of people yeah,
what was?
What was that pipeline changelike?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (45:14):
You know, I, I know that it was impactful
because often folks would leaveour training, go back to the
agencies that they worked withand design something that they
wanted us to either help, youknow, facilitate or grow like,
take to scale, like maybe theyhad elements within their
(45:36):
organization that looked atdiversity, equity and inclusion,
but not to the extent or thedepth that visions had taken.
And so you know, to see folksconstantly thinking about how to
alter professional developmentwithin their own organization,
sometimes bring Visions in to dothat.
And to this day, visions has,you know, been contacted by
(46:00):
agencies within the CentralValley to come in and do more
in-depth work with individuals.
Because as we introduce theVisions model to large numbers,
as you know because of yourfamiliarity with the model, is
that you know, you, you can't dothe process things as much in
large, large groups.
(46:20):
We did divide folks into small,reflective, what we call
reflective practice groups todrill down more into the various
tools.
But again, we didn't have the.
We didn't have enough visionstaff, couldn't afford enough
vision staff to do that.
So that was often done by otherfacilitators, but I think that
(46:42):
it's had a great, a tremendousimpact.
I think, to the extent thatfolks now are aware of what they
don't know and the importanceof continuing to do the work is
a good signal that it wasimpactful.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (46:57):
yeah, I good, I'm excited about that beautiful
yeah, so central californiachildren's institute and then
professor of public health atfresno and then recently ish
retired, as I understand it yes,retired actually.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (47:15):
Well, I went part-time okay into the
faculty early retirement programin 2016 when my first
grandchild was, and then fullyretired in 2019, okay, and since
then I've done a little bit ofvisions work here and there,
continue to work with a coupleof clients now that are smaller
(47:35):
organizations, and I really it'sreally important to me at this
stage of my life to be able tomaintain some deep connections
with people.
The consultations that I'mdoing now allow for either some
coaching, long-term both.
In both cases, I've beenworking with both organizations
that I happen to work with nowfor about five years.
(47:58):
So I like that.
That visions allow that workallows you to maintain deep
connections or to just go in anddo a training for a few days
and and then the training's done.
But, yeah, love the.
The value of that for me isthat I can continue to go deep
(48:18):
and integrate the content in myown life because, as you're
having to teach it and work withfolks in different settings
with the model you know.
You can't help but absorb thatcontent and take it into
situations that you'reencountering, that I'm
encountering day-to-day basis.
So it's the value of stayingconnected.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (48:41):
I've also been marveling lately at how much I
learn in the rooms that I'm in,when people really are present
and really in a place that theyfeel comfortable sharing.
I learn a great deal, not justfrom their experiences, also
from the insights and ways ofdifferent ways of seeing things
(49:09):
that people have.
So that's something.
I end of my questions.
You know you've had thisbeautiful career doing wonderful
work on behalf of women andchildren, particularly done this
wonderful work training peoplein this sector up and we're in
this particular place.
You've seen a lot of changeover the course of your life and
(49:33):
been part of a lot of changeprocesses.
Two questions, and you cananswer one both in whatever
order you want.
One is what is it that youstill hope to learn?
And then the other question iswhat do you hope to see in the
world?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (49:49):
Well, one of the challenges that I
continue to face is that doingvisions work can be really
difficult, and so having folk inthe room sometimes dismiss the
importance of the work that's areality.
(50:09):
I mean, that happens.
Not everyone, you know, notevery organization that we work
with has this eagerness andsuper high awareness of the
value of the work.
Periodically we run into folkswho say, well, why should I care
about what my ancestors did?
These are, you know, typicallywhite colleagues who are in the
(50:30):
room.
Why should I care about what myancestors did?
These are typically whitecolleagues who are in the room.
Why should I care about whatwhite people did 50, 75?
Why should I care about that?
How is that my job or myresponsibility?
And so it's really work to getpeople to see how we're all
deeply connected to each otherand how change in the world only
(50:54):
happens when everyone steps up.
So that's probably the mostdifficult thing that I'm facing
as a visions consultant is justthe stamina to keep going back
and to hang in there when thereis opposition or apathy in the
room, and so what I would mostwant to see in the world is that
(51:20):
there is increasingly anawareness of how all of our
actions and all of our states ofmind matter and how we
influence each other, and thatworking on our own consciousness
, our own awareness, our ownroles in the world is the most
(51:41):
important thing that we can do,and that we have to do it have a
world where there's lesssuffering, where there is
greater peace, where there ismore joy and more equality and
equity for everyone, that all ofus have a role in.
That Every breath we breathe,every move we make, every smile
(52:06):
we give, every mean thing we doimpacts the society that we live
in and the world that we livein, and so taking responsibility
for what is created on theplanet, I think, is the biggest
challenge and the biggest hopefor me that we would all start
to see the impact of just thesmallest things that we do or we
(52:30):
fail to do.
Yeah, I wouldn't say that Ihave a dream that suffering will
end.
I have a dream that we willlearn how we can support each
other and love each other in oursuffering.
Suffering is simply a part ofour existence.
That's my hope.
That's beautiful.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (52:51):
That's my hope , cassandraandra.
Do you know what I justremembered?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (52:55):
what did you just remember?
Dr. Leena Akhtar (52:57):
it's the first time I met you yeah and it was
at an early training that Iattended in the course of
becoming a consultant.
I think it must have been oneof the trainings in north
carolina and you and I ended upin a concentric circle activity
where we were givingappreciations as an exercise to
(53:18):
people we'd just met.
And you know I do this in myfacilitations to people all the
time I say you know, this is askill, you can come up with
something even if you've justmet with somebody.
Because this is aboutrecognition and I do not
remember what you said to me,but I do remember what I said to
you because I see the samething now that I saw then, which
(53:41):
is this beautiful, joyful andjust wonderful warm energy that
emanates from you that I sensedas soon as I was in proximity to
you and that I've seen here andnow in in how you show up
everything you do and also your,your beautiful wishes and
(54:01):
desires for the world thank you,lena.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (54:06):
I appreciate that.
I take that in.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (54:11):
I didn't know anything about you then.
I didn't know about the long,storied career or anything like
that, and was really drawn in byby your beautiful energy.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (54:21):
So thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
I'm so glad that we had thistime together that I got to
share, and maybe next time I'llbe on the other side.
I'll be holding the mic going.
Dr Lena Oktar, can you call me?
Dr. Leena Akhtar (54:41):
it's a point interviewing you as a senior you
know, paradoxically, I thinkI'm a little mic shy about
actually being in a very cageyabout my stuff.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (54:55):
I can't believe it.
You seem so forthcoming andopen, and just an open book.
I'd be surprised you'd be cagey.
I can't see that.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (55:05):
Depends what we're talking about.
Cassandra, thank you so muchfor taking the time to do this
and for sharing your story Again.
I learned so much in these andI feel really privileged to have
been able to hear about you andyour experiences and the things
that you've learned and all ofthe many, many things that you
have to teach.
So thank you.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (55:26):
Well, you're so welcome, and I can't
wait to hear some of thesepodcasts.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (55:53):
So yeah, about that, if you haven't wait to
hear some of these podcasts,podcasts, spotify and so on.
2024 is Vision's 40thanniversary year and we will be
celebrating in Boston onSeptember 27th.
Please join us, if you can.
Links for more informationabout that.
Our workshops and otherhappenings at Visions are in the
show notes.
Thank you so much for listening.
Until next time you.
Hello, you're listening to Into Liberation, a
podcast about transformativechange, equity and working
against oppression.
I'm Lina Akhtar, director ofPrograms with Visions Inc.
Welcome, hi, everyone.
It is my pleasure to welcomeyou to another Visions Elder
Story podcast, this timefeaturing the brilliant Dr
(00:23):
Cassandra Jobert.
Cassandra is a Visionsconsultant and retired professor
of public health, specializingin maternal and child health,
whose career has spannedNICU-based research,
philanthropy, working on behalfof women and children and also
heading up the CentralCalifornia Children's Institute.
In this episode, we talk abouther upbringing and childhood in
(00:44):
racially segregated Houston,texas, including content note a
racially motivated attack thatshe was the target of when a
young girl.
We talk about her moving to DCfor college and fortuitously
ending up in a doctoral programat Johns Hopkins, and then how
she helped bring thelife-changing perspective that
she developed in her Encounterwith Visions work to hundreds of
(01:05):
people working in earlychildhood development in the
Central Valley.
The first time I met Cassandra,I immediately noticed her warm,
open and wise energy, and thatcame through and forced in this
conversation.
One of the things that I wasmost delighted to hear about was
how her love of children wasthe thread that she has followed
(01:25):
all through her life, from whenshe gathered up and read to the
neighborhood children when sheherself was a child, to what she
decided to study, how she spenther career trying to improve
outcomes for children, and nowhow, in retirement, she is
surrounded by her grandbabies.
It was a delightfulconversation and I'm excited to
share it with you.
Hi everybody, I am reallyexcited to be here with Senior
(01:50):
Visions Consultant, dr CassandraJobert, who is, among other
things, a former professor ofpublic health, has worked in
various sectors, including inmaternal and child health, and
also in philanthropy.
Cassandra, thank you so muchfor being with us here today.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (02:07):
Well, it's my pleasure.
Anything for Visions and foryou.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (02:11):
You know, as I mentioned, these conversations
have been a wonderfulopportunity to get to know
people in Visions communitybetter.
We've spent some time in spacestogether and when we first
chatted I learned so much aboutyou that I just didn't know.
And I'm really, really excitedto be talking about your
professional and also personaltrajectory, because it's so
(02:32):
deeply intertwined, especiallygiven how we do things at
Visions.
I'm excited to talk to youabout that here.
So for people who don't knowyou, can you introduce yourself
briefly?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (02:42):
Sure Cassandra Joubert, Visions
Consultant, retired universityprofessor, grandmother of five
under the age of eight.
I live in Vallejo, California,which is in the San Francisco
Bay Area.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (02:58):
Beautiful.
And then, how long have youbeen with Visions, or Visions
Consultant?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (03:05):
So I've been actually working as a
consultant since about 2014.
However, I was introduced toVisions back in Michigan,
probably in the early 2000s,when I first joined philanthropy
and got to know some of theearly, got to know the founder
(03:25):
of Visions one of them, drValerie Batts, and we were
working on a school-basedhealthcare project together.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (03:32):
Beautiful.
I always appreciate hearing howpeople, what their journeys
into the Visions orbit were likeand, as you know, this is one
of our elder stories that we'redoing in the lead up to the 40th
anniversary celebration thatwe're having later this year,
september 27th in Boston.
So, in that spirit, startingwith the early parts of your
(03:55):
story, we talked a little bitabout how you grew up and I
really appreciated hearing thediversity of your experiences
like before you came to Visionsand the things that shaped your
perspective.
So, starting with your earlylife, you mentioned that you
grew up in Houston, which Ididn't know about.
Tell me a little bit about that.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (04:13):
Yeah, so right.
I was born in 1954.
So I'll be 70 years old thisyear and was born in Houston,
texas, which, of course, wasdefinitely racially segregated
at the time.
My father was a mailman and mymother was a beautician, and
there were eight to 10 footfences that divided
(04:34):
neighborhoods black and whiteneighborhoods predominantly at
that time and grew up there, youknow, went to Houston public
schools until the ninth gradeand then I went to a Catholic
high school.
But the experience of growing upin Houston was that there was
no escaping the impact of racialsegregation.
(04:55):
An example would be that wewould load ourselves onto public
school buses to go downtown tothe Houston Opera, on to public
school buses to go downtown tothe Houston Opera, and as we got
to the opera building, twothings happened.
One, we noticed that the yellowschool buses that we were in,
none of them had airconditioning, and then up would
(05:17):
roll the white kids fromneighboring schools, and they
were all in air-conditionedbuses.
Then we would make ourselvesour way into the orchestra hall
and we could only sit up high inthe balcony.
As Black kids we were notallowed to sit on the lower
levels or mezzanine, and so itwas just always.
(05:41):
Just the fact that we wereviewed differently and treated
differently was always up frontand center in our, in our lives.
And with my father being amailman, he would deliver mail
into predominantly whiteneighborhoods and come home with
, you know, splattered tomatoeson his shirt or practice, just
(06:06):
humiliated and angry and justtried and tested.
So I'll never forget that thatwas the experience until later.
I guess Houston Public Schoolsmight have been integrated when
I was in middle school, perhaps,maybe high school, I'm not sure
, probably middle school.
(06:27):
And then the other racialdynamic growing up in Houston is
that I am Creole, my last nameis French.
There's a whole culture andcommunity of Creole people,
particularly in Texas, wholargely came to Texas from
Louisiana, particularly in Texas, who largely came to Texas from
(06:48):
Louisiana.
And you know Creoles by thefact that they have French last
names largely and are lighterskinned and are the offspring of
slave owners by and large.
And so there was a color linenot only between Blacks and
Whites line not only betweenBlacks and whites but also
(07:10):
between Blacks and Creoles.
So I experienced a lot ofantagonism and challenge going
to predominantly Black schoolsbecause I was lighter skin and
had a French last name.
For that reason I shifted to aCatholic high school.
My father took me out of publicschool, put me in Catholic
school because I was alwaysbeing threatened in the
predominantly Black publicschool.
So my Catholic schoolexperience was interesting
(07:33):
because I had never gone toschool with white kids, I'd
never met anybody white, quitehonestly, before that.
Overall it was a goodexperience.
It certainly had its bumps, butoverall I had a good, positive
experience in Catholic highschool in Houston.
And then the rest is history inthat I left Houston and went
off to college, to ahistorically Black college,
(07:55):
howard University in WashingtonDC, and then on to grad school
at Hopkins and sort of left thatlife of segregation behind sort
of left that life ofsegregation behind.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (08:06):
I'm really struck by.
Well, I was struck the firsttime you said what you said
about how your father would comehome having been pelted with
things.
It sounds like you could sensehis anger and how he felt about
it.
I'm curious how something likethat would land on a small child
, how it was explained, was itexplained, or what meaning you
made of it.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (08:26):
It was definitely explained.
My father was a bit of a socialjustice advocate himself.
He would always talk aboutunfairness and injustice and how
it surfaced in different waysin society.
So there was no hiding thatreality.
If anything, there was morepressure put on us as Black kids
(08:50):
to do well, to achieve, to bethe best that we could be in
light of the obstacles in lifewe were likely to face.
And my only regret is that myfather never lived to see Barack
Obama become president, becausecertainly it would have been
(09:14):
his view that that would neverhappen, that America would never
elect a Black president.
So, yeah, it was to ouradvantage.
I think that we were alwaysclear that, well, the experience
of Black folk in Houston, texas, was not a good one and that it
was something that we shouldtake up our armor, if you will,
against injustice.
That was sort of my father'sposition.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (09:37):
Okay, and then you mentioned that your schools
were integrated for the firsttime in middle school and you
went to a Catholic high school,and you know the demographics
were different there too.
What were those experienceslike for you?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (09:52):
It was very, very challenging on two
levels.
One, in the predominantly blackelementary schools we had all
black teachers and that was areally important factor, I think
, in the success of Black kidsin that school.
If you go back to, you know theyears that I was in elementary
(10:14):
and middle school.
Some of the people that we knowtoday, some of the African
Americans that came out of theSouth and did very, very well,
like Debbie Allen, for examplejust as one example and Felicia
Rashad Allen, both went to Blackpublic schools.
I think they both had teachersas parents, because Black
education, you know, teacherbeing a teacher was one of the
(10:38):
few professions that was reallyopen to African-Americans back
in that time.
So having Black teachers was soinstrumental in making sure
that we really truly got a greateducation and put that
education to good use.
So that was a gift.
Sometimes I actually refer tosegregation as a gift, because
(11:01):
once I got to middle school Ihad my first white teachers and
it was difficult to navigatewith white teachers.
They didn't really understandnecessarily Black children, the
expectations and the experiencesof Black children, and so
sometimes that was a bit of achallenge just navigating the
(11:22):
cultural differences.
And then, of course, when I gotto high school Catholic high
school I had no Black teachersat all, all white nuns and
priests, but overall, again, Ihad a pretty good experience.
I had a couple of experiencesthat stand out in high school.
One was that my high school hadas its mascot the Confederate
flag as its mascot, theConfederate flag, and there were
(11:51):
a couple of radical Blackstudents.
When I entered in my freshmanyear, there were a couple of
radical Black students, who Iadmire to this day, who took on
the administration and said thatthe Confederate flag needed to
come down, and so it was thefirst time that the Confederate
flag at this school had everbeen challenged.
And what ended up happening isthat they did not change the
mascot from the Confederate flag, but they changed the colors of
(12:16):
the Confederate flag to brownand gold and white instead of
red, white and blue.
So the same rebel crossConfederate image in a different
color, which I actually thoughtfor that day and time I'm
talking 1970, was a prettydecent concession, and we can
attribute that to some of theBlack students who took on the
(12:39):
administration.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (12:40):
Wow, so wait, the Catholic high school had a
Confederate flag as its mascot,correct, wow, that's a lot.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (12:49):
Right, they called Carmel rebels.
That's right.
Oh, wow.
So yeah, I mean, even duringthat time, at football games
games, the black students didnot stand for the american, the
what is it?
The anthem, the national anthem.
(13:11):
We wouldn't stand.
I mean.
So the combination of growingup in segregation, having a
fairly progressive father whoalways talked about injustice
and what was right and what waswrong, and then having radical
what I call radical, I shouldjust say honest upperclassmen
(13:32):
when I went to high school, allof those things kind of factored
into my becoming very much asocial justice advocate at a
very young age.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (13:42):
Amazing.
Tell me about when that started.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (13:44):
Well.
So the bad news that I didn'tshare is that when I was about
nine years old, you recall thatI said that the neighborhoods
were divided.
Black and white neighborhoodswere divided by, like this eight
or 10 foot fence that ran formiles and we knew better than to
(14:05):
go into the white neighborhoods, but the whites came into our
neighborhood all the time.
So as we're walking down astreet pretty well traffic
street in Houston called JutlandAvenue, one day there were
about six or seven kids my agesay, between nine and 12 or
whatever walking down the street.
White boys flew by in a stationwagon with a gallon jug of
(14:29):
Clorox and threw the Clorox intomy face.
I happened to be the one to getit.
And back in that day we hadlarge, very, very deep ditches,
because Houston is below sealevel, so it floods a lot.
So we had these huge ditchesthat typically would have, had
(14:49):
it'd been raining, would havebeen filled with water, but
luckily they were not, becausewhen these white boys came by
and threw Clorox in my eyes, Iof course tumbled down into the
ditch because I was blindedtemporarily, and then of course
they sped off and one of theneighbors the kids were
(15:10):
screaming and one of theneighbors came out and took me
into her house and doused myeyes with water and called my
parents and I just knew I wouldgo to the hospital.
But guess what?
I didn't go to the hospitalsbecause the hospitals were
segregated and my parents feltwell, no use taking her to the
(15:32):
hospital, you know she's notgoing to get good care.
So they basically treated me athome and I did have some
blindness for a short time, butit didn't last, thank God, and I
recovered, you know, prettyquickly from that, at least
physically.
I recovered from that.
No one ever talked about itagain, no one ever talked about
(15:54):
it.
So the reality of being Blackin America and the implications
of that I just have been keenlyaware of all my life.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (16:07):
Oh, Sandra, I'm so sorry.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (16:09):
And I think I shared with you that I
didn't give any thought to thatincident and certainly did not
talk about it anymore until Istarted Visions work.
I just put it out of my mind.
And when I started Visions Workand was introduced to concepts
(16:35):
around racial violence as wellas internalized oppression,
modern oppression, I started towonder about the impact that
that event had on me, not onlyhow I reacted and interacted
with others so interpersonally,but also intrapersonally.
(16:56):
What impact did that have onthe personality and the person I
became later in life?
And that was when I reallyrealized that I had work to do
around internalized oppressionand I had things to heal that
had never been healed, neverbeen talked about.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (17:17):
Was that just out of curiosity?
Was that one that you talkedabout in the context of the
earliest encounter exercise, or?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (17:31):
yes, I think I did.
I think in my first pace I didtalk about that incident and
others that then started to comeup for me.
For example, I'll never forget aday in my home, with my mother
in the kitchen, when someoneknocked on the door and she
(17:54):
opened the door and it was awhite man who was coming to
maybe repair a utility orsomething and she, her whole
personality, changed when sheinteracted with him.
She became very differentialand very sort of yes, sir, in
her responses.
(18:15):
And I wondered about, Iquestioned that, I wondered
about that, you know, andclearly it was a survival
behavior that she had adopted inorder to manage fear, anxiety
and everything else that comesup when a white person knocks at
your door.
But again, I didn't have anylanguage or context or meaning
(18:40):
making of that at the time.
And it wasn't until I came toVisions and learned some of
those concepts around modernoppression and internalized
behaviors and survival behaviorsand all of that, that
internalized oppression, that Istarted to kind of put the
pieces together and the waysthat I had really silenced my
(19:02):
voice in a number of ways and ina number of different settings.
in a number of ways and in anumber of different settings,
not just cross-racial settings,but it just had this huge impact
on my own personalitydevelopment as a child to watch
that kind of adaptation that hadto occur and what do we call it
now?
(19:22):
The coding behaviors that youknow that, as people of color,
we I had adopted.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (19:31):
Yeah, yeah, code switching.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (19:32):
Code switching.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (19:33):
Yep, and for people who might not be familiar
with PACE, pace is our four dayworkshop and it's a
foundational workshop and italso goes really really deep.
As you probably surmised withthe earliest encounter exercise
I mean, that one was, for me,really profound in terms of
(19:55):
making me realize, oh, there'sso much early, these are early
templates that have this way offollowing me around in other
contexts of my life, in otherplaces, and that was, that was a
really powerful realization,just how influential those early
(20:15):
experiences, how, how deeplythey can be etched into us right
.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (20:20):
yes, yeah , in our cultural sharing
exercises, when we talk aboutwho did you learn to trust and
not trust?
Very, very impactful question.
And again, though, thecomplexity of being Black and
Creole I learned to distrustwhites, but I also learned to
(20:41):
distrust Blacks who didn'tembrace me or, you know, I
didn't necessarily feel safewith either.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (20:51):
Yeah, so when you left Houston after high
school, you left huh, Okay.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (20:58):
Never go back.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (21:01):
I mean I hear you with that.
There's places that I have nodesire to go back to too.
So and so, what was being in DC, like what was going to school
over there, like being in DC waswonderful.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (21:13):
So, first of all, one of the things that
happened when I was in highschool, before I left Houston,
was I joined a Pan-Africanistgroup that you know was very
much fans of Stokely Carmichaeland Stephen B Coe and different
Pan-Africanists around the world.
And so when I got to Howard Imean 1972, we were in the middle
(21:36):
of all sorts of protestsagainst guff oil and
anti-apartheid protests and itwas really a wonderful space.
I mean, howard University in1972 had 10,000 students even
then and they were from all overthe world.
You know, I met Black folk, notonly from the African continent
(21:57):
but also Black Canadians andIslanders, and you know, it was
just, it was just a wonderfulspace.
It was a place to really feeland learn the pride and the
beauty of being black, and sothat was very, very, very
positive, very positiveexperience.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (22:18):
And a period of a lot of activism.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (22:20):
A lot of activism.
Yeah, I laugh now, when I talkabout how we back in 1973 or so,
took over the administrationbuilding at Howard and locked
the president in his office.
Luckily we didn't do anythingthat harmed physically harmed
(22:43):
anybody, but we did block access, uh, block his access.
We were demanding that, youknow, there were tuition
increases happening and allsorts of things we didn't like,
the things that the money thathoward was receiving from
investors in south africa, andall sorts of things we were yeah
(23:04):
it's dirty money too.
Dirty money.
We were taking it on.
Dc had something called ALDAfrican Liberation Day once a
year every year and there wereparades and speeches and flags
and just it was just.
It was wonderful.
It was truly wonderful.
It was a wonderful experience.
(23:26):
I enjoyed being at Howard.
I really did.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (23:29):
Amazing.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (23:31):
But you know the student movement and I
have to say that I'm reallyimpressed with the students that
have been speaking out againstthe genocide in Palestine at all
these major universities, andhow because it's reminding me
that that is in my day that washow a lot of the divestment and
(23:55):
a lot of the shift in policytowards South Africa occurred.
It was prompted largely by thestudent movement and, of course,
locally, domestically, thesit-ins at the lunch counters
and all of that.
You know those were studentsthat were taking that on, and so
I really was glad.
I am glad to see that studentsaren't backing down to this day
(24:20):
against injustice.
It's really wonderful to see.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (24:23):
You know, on the one hand, what you're saying
is hopeful and I also feel likea twinge because you're talking
about a protest, that movementthat was active in the night in
1973.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (24:33):
And it wasn't until 20 years later.
Right.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (24:35):
I mean, apartheid fell in 94.
Like you know so, and I alsoknow, I've also been talking to
activists in South Africa aboutwhat it was like in the 80s and
it was just so hairy.
Anyway, yeah, that is an aside.
So college in DC.
What happened after that?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (24:55):
So finished up my work at Howard
and was really encouraged by myone of my advisors, my
instructors at Howard, to get mydoctorate.
And then so I moved on to JohnsHopkins to get my doctorate in
public health and I have to saythat that also was really a
positive experience.
(25:16):
I went to Hopkins on a minorityfaculty development scholarship
and I was blessed to comethrough, you know, undergrad and
grad school during a time whenaffirmative action was alive and
well.
Of course we know that I wouldnot be sitting here as the child
of a mailman and a beauticianwith a doctorate degree had it
(25:39):
not been for affirmative action.
And my experience at Hopkinswas very, very good, you know,
again not without bumps, but itwas a wonderfully stimulating
intellectual environment andthat I really thrived in and
really enjoyed that.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (25:56):
I'm really glad to hear that.
I mean, being a grad studentcan be very dicey because
there's so much that can happenat the institutional level and
then with the power dynamics inthe department.
That's really really good tohear.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (26:11):
I feel that I don't know.
I feel like I had a fair amountof support and I'm thinking, as
we're chatting, about myadvisor at the time and other
faculty members.
I did, you know, have onefaculty person that basically
said you're really not as smartas you appear and that you have
(26:31):
the halo effect.
But within a year he was bootedout of the university.
So that was.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (26:38):
That must have been satisfying.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (26:40):
Not because of what he said to me,
but he was now granted tenureand was kicked out.
But you know, so it was not aneasy experience, but I actually
think I thrived in thatenvironment of sort of nose in
the books and you know we westudied 40 hours a week.
You know, really, we were inclass or studying 40 hours.
(27:02):
It was like a full-time job andI loved it.
I loved it, I did, I did wellwith in that environment you
mentioned to me when we talkedthat pathway was not inevitable.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (27:14):
By any means, I hate that's right.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (27:17):
I didn't know.
I didn't really know how smartI was and I didn't know my
potential.
It had never really been.
I mean mean, despite having youknow I had straight A's in
college.
In fact, I went to HowardUniversity with $500 in my
pocket that I had earned thesummer before by working in a
(27:39):
record shop.
I'm the youngest of fivechildren, so I'd asked my father
if he was going to be able tohelp me go to college and he
said basically no, that he wasout of money.
He had sent two of my brothersto Morehouse and my sister had
gone to college here in MillsCollege in Oakland but then
ended up transferring back toTexas Southern and finished her
(28:02):
degree there in finance.
But by the time it got to me asthe fifth child, he said he had
no money.
So I said, well, I'm going tocollege anyway and I'm just.
You know I'm casting my fate tothe wind and stepping out on
faith.
So I went to Howard Universitywith $500, which is what a
semester tuition was in 1970.
(28:25):
And my father did pay my roomand board At the end of the
first semester.
I got a full ride because I hadmade straight A's.
I got a full ride for the restof my time at Howard.
Wow, that's how I, that's how Igraduated.
But I didn't.
I still even being, you know,doing well, I still never saw
(28:49):
myself.
As you know, I never reallyaspired much beyond getting.
I guess I never really saw intothe future.
I guess it was I.
It was like really truly livingin the moment every step along
the way.
And it wasn't until after I gotmy undergrad degree that my
brother said to me, as I wasworking as a receptionist at the
(29:10):
George Washington UniversityHealth Plan.
He said so what are you goingto do next?
And I said what do you meannext?
I'm a receptionist, I love myjob, I love interacting with
people.
And he said no, you're not,you're not, you should do more.
You really should continue withyour education.
And he said you know, theretalk about the impact of racial
(29:49):
violence and growing up in thekind of segregated society that
I grew up in.
I can't say you know, when Iapplied to college out of high
school, I applied to these.
Really I aspired to theseschools, like Brandeis and other
schools, but my counselors weresaying you won't get into those
(30:09):
schools.
And so when I didn't get intoBrandeis, which, by the way, I
only was interested in becauseAngela Davis had graduated from
Brandeis.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (30:19):
That was the only thing I know about Brandeis
.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (30:22):
When I didn't get in I started to look
at HBCUs and getting into Howardwas I knew other people there,
other people that had gone there, and it was just a good.
It actually turned out best forme.
But I didn't have anyone.
You know my parents neither ofthem graduate.
They graduated high school.
Neither of them went to college.
(30:44):
So I didn't have anyone, youknow, prodding me to move
forward and do more.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (30:50):
And no models as well, I'm guessing.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (30:52):
Right, right.
Well, my brother, the youngestof my three brothers, he did go
to law school, which I had nointerest in, but I didn't really
really know that there weremany other options and I think,
a combination of being theyoungest of five who kind of I
feel like I kind of just didwhat people told me to do, you
(31:16):
know, and these several diplomaslater that I see on your wall
behind you now.
Yeah, I'm glad somebody wastelling me what to do.
In that case, speaking about mybrother, he was telling me a
good thing yeah, you can do more, you can do more, you can do
more.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (31:36):
I mean, what a beautiful life, pivot moment.
Right.
So you did your degree, yourPhD in public health, in
maternal and childhood health.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (31:49):
Yes.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (31:50):
Okay, tell me about that.
Tell me about how you gotinterested in it, and I mean
you've had a storied career init by now.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (31:57):
So you know, I think that as the
youngest of five, by the time Icame along, I wasn't getting a
whole lot of attention, quitehonestly, at home, and maybe
there was even some neglect atthat point.
You know, my parents did thebest they could with what they
had, but I just had a love ofchildren, I just loved all young
(32:21):
children.
From a very young age.
I would collect the kids up inthe neighborhood and read
stories to them and, you know,entertain them, babysit them,
and so I knew that I wasinterested in children and my
mother oh, I have to share thispart my mother had gotten
pregnant with my oldest brotherwhen she was a teenager and she
(32:44):
was really, really adamant abouther girls not becoming pregnant
early and having, you know,having a life without having to
think about a child.
And she would tell me, youshould never depend on a man for
(33:04):
your livelihood.
You have to have your own career, your own money.
She would say that even thoughshe you know, she, she was a
cosmetologist.
She ran her own business nextto our home.
She was very smart, very smart,but again, only had a high
school degree, and and then shegot her cosmetology degree,
(33:25):
which actually she got adoctorate in cosmetology, but
that's still a trade school.
But in any case she always feltno, you cannot depend on anyone
else, you must be able to makea life on your own.
And she seemed to have thiskeen awareness of how women
(33:45):
often are trapped inrelationships that they can't
get out of because they don'thave the economic resources to
go out on there, and so she saidwell, you got to do something.
And I said to myself well, theonly thing I really love are
children, that's all.
I really just love children.
I can't think of a professionor a job or anything else, I
(34:07):
just love children.
And I just kind of saw myselfas just being a mother and that
was going to be it.
But she wouldn't let that be.
So that's how I decided well,since I love children so much,
why don't I study children?
Why?
don't I love children, so that'swhat I did when I got to Howard
.
I studied developmentalpsychology and early childhood
development and quickly realizedthat I was not cut out to be
(34:30):
like a preschool teacher oranything like that, but that I
was a policy advocate.
I realized that the way to makechildren's lives better was
through policy change.
And then, you know, when Istarted looking into public
health, I realized that thewhole world of maternal and
child health is applied scienceabout.
(34:50):
How do you use data about thestatus of children in various
communities and at differentstages of their lives.
How do you use that data toadvocate for better outcomes for
children, and that's how Iended up going into maternal and
child health.
Comes for children, and that'show I ended up going into
maternal and child health, endedup doing my dissertation work
(35:11):
on children in the neonatalintensive care unit, which back
then, in the early 80s by now,neonatal intensive care and
keeping very small babies alivewas still pretty new and
learning.
Some of the a lot of thetechnology, like the ventilators
, were causing brain deficitsand all of that.
(35:32):
So it was a real exciting time,though, that we could keep a
preemie at 28 weeks alive withno severe developmental delays.
So that's how I got into thefield, really having worked at
Children's Hospital NationalMedical Center with my college
advisor, one of my instructorswas a research psychologist
(35:54):
there and she hired me to workin the NICU and the rest of it
was yeah.
So that's the story.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (36:04):
Yeah, amazing.
So from there there was thephilanthropy and then doing the
going into academia.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (36:14):
However, I should say that the one thread
that has been consistentthroughout my career has been
working in roles that advocatedfor women and children, for
women and children, having firstgotten you know.
When I first got my doctoratedegree, I worked in a community
(36:35):
nonprofit that did work aroundteenage pregnancy prevention and
low birth weight children.
Then I worked for stategovernment in the state of
Michigan, was director of theOffice of Minority Health for a
short time, but my main role wasadvocating for family planning
services for women.
And then I went to work for theMott Foundation Ruth Mott
Foundation in Flint, michiganand in that role I was also over
(36:58):
their health promotion programsthat focused on children.
So children have been a themethroughout my career.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (37:05):
Yes, Amazing, okay, so then tell me about how
you encountered visions and cameinto our orbit.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (37:13):
Right.
So I met Val when I was inphilanthropy.
Dr Batts had gotten Vic Grantfrom the Kellogg Foundation to
do some work with Kellogg and Imet the program officer at
Kellogg.
I knew the program officer atKellogg who had brought Visions
on and she introduced me to Val,invited me to a school-based
(37:35):
health conference.
I can't even tell you what yearthat was.
I'm going to guess it wasaround 2003 or so.
And to make a long story short,it was through Dr Val and Dr
John Kabat-Minn that I got toFresno State because through the
network of colleagues I learnedabout the director of the
(37:58):
Children's Institute and thefaculty position at Fresno State
and moved to California fromMichigan, moved to California
from Michigan and quickly, beingin the Central Valley of
California, realized that therewas a dearth of information
about the basic needs ofchildren and how to promote
(38:20):
optimal development of children.
Professional developmentopportunities were very limited
for both the paraprofessionalsand the professionals that
worked with children.
So I worked with an agency thatworked with children with
disabilities to secure a grantto hire Visions to train their
(38:43):
staff in the Visions model.
I was also very acutely awareof how thick the oppression was.
You know the socioeconomicdisparities were tremendous in
the Central Valley of Californiaand again, bringing in the
insights of visions I felt forfolks who work for on behalf of
(39:07):
children and who work withchildren I felt was really,
really important.
So I brought visions in to workwith professionals and
paraprofessionals up and downthe Central Valley eight county
region over a three or four yearperiod.
We had big grants to do that.
I wrote those grants and youbrought that money in, brought
(39:30):
in visions and then that's whenI got introduced really more
deeply into the model.
I had been, you know, I hadtouched on the model back in in
Michigan, but this was when Ireally learned what visions was
all about.
And just listening to thevisions was all about and just
(39:52):
listening to the vision'strainers and consultants work
with the providers that wereworking with children, to see
the way the model really landedon those providers.
I was really nervous bringingin conversations about racism,
modeling, oppression,internalized oppression.
I was really nervous becauseCentral Valley is just ultra
(40:13):
conservative and I didn't knowhow this was going to land and
people just ate it up.
I mean I think that's just oneof the beauties of the Visions
model is that Everyone in theroom could find themselves in
the model and their experiencesin the model and also know and
(40:35):
learn about what they didn'tknow.
And there were always ahamoments and they kept coming
back.
They kept coming back monthafter month, year after year.
That work with visions and theearly childhood providers that
lasted for about five years andjust so many people were trained
through that and after that Iknew a lot about the model and
(40:57):
said, oh well, maybe, maybe I'llwork a little bit with visions.
You know, when I retire, I waskind of looking for a way to
stay connected to all thewonderful people I had met
through visions and stayconnected to the model.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (41:11):
So that's when I started as a consultant about
in 2014, 2015, maybe Wow, and Imean it sounds like the process
of being in these trainings andbringing visions in was really
transformative for you as well.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (41:25):
Yes, yes, you know the model is so deep
and the tools are so extensive.
You think you see the slidedeck and you hear the tools and
you think you're done.
You've seen every slide andheard every definition and you
think you kind of got it.
And then when you get into theprocess with different groups of
(41:48):
people, invariably new thingscome up, new opportunities to
see things from a differentperspective.
And for me it was mostimportant to really learn to
find my voice in cross-culturalconversations and to be able to
listen to the multipleperspectives of others.
(42:10):
And the most impactful tool, Ithink, for me was the chart that
showed the historicallyincluded and the historically
excluded groups and thequestions that follow that tool.
And looking at from your ownpersonal perspective, in what
(42:30):
ways have you benefited fromprivilege and from being in a
historically included group andwhat ways have you suffered or
had to face what the impact ofbeing in a historically excluded
group?
Because my own experience wasalways more focused on what it
(42:52):
felt like to be historicallyexcluded and it wasn't until I
could start to really see wow,particularly as I look at my
educational trajectory and Ilook at my professional
trajectory and I look at thefinancial resources I've been
able to amass for myself becauseof the privilege that I've
(43:16):
experienced then that I couldreally see that I have work to
do as a privileged person, aswell as being aware of,
certainly, my historicallyexcluded status.
But how has my privilege beenplayed out and how does it
continue to play out?
And that was life-changing forme.
(43:38):
That was really life-changingfor me to get out of the victim
box and to really ask myselfwhat's my role, given the
privilege that I have.
What's my role?
So, yeah, that's just one ofmany ways, and also, of course,
learning about internalizedoppression and survival
behaviors and differentpersonality elements that I
(43:59):
adopted over time just to makeit through, just to make it and
you know forgiving myself forthat, moving on, acknowledging
it and moving on, you know, tohow can I help change the world?
Dr. Leena Akhtar (44:18):
Beautiful.
Yeah, you know this thing thatyou said about the
responsibility of privilege,that's something that came up in
a recent workshop, one of ourpublic facing fundamentals of
inclusivity workshops.
I mean, I certainly had anuncomfortable first reflective
encounter with oh, these are mydeeply privileged identities.
If any of these were different,my experience in life would be
very different.
(44:38):
It's not a comfortable thing tothink about and it came up in
this workshop that a way to fallout of the guilt or shame trap
about it is to think exactlywhat you said.
What do I do with this guilt orshame trap about it is to think
exactly what you said what do Ido with this?
So with this, what is theresponsibility or what?
What can I choose to do with it, which I think is a really
beautiful and powerful way outof it?
(44:59):
So, the impact of, of trainingall those 500 people what did
you see and I'm asking this justin a professional sense,
because it sounds like youtrained a lot of people yeah,
what was?
What was that pipeline changelike?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (45:14):
You know, I, I know that it was impactful
because often folks would leaveour training, go back to the
agencies that they worked withand design something that they
wanted us to either help, youknow, facilitate or grow like,
take to scale, like maybe theyhad elements within their
(45:36):
organization that looked atdiversity, equity and inclusion,
but not to the extent or thedepth that visions had taken.
And so you know, to see folksconstantly thinking about how to
alter professional developmentwithin their own organization,
sometimes bring Visions in to dothat.
And to this day, visions has,you know, been contacted by
(46:00):
agencies within the CentralValley to come in and do more
in-depth work with individuals.
Because as we introduce theVisions model to large numbers,
as you know because of yourfamiliarity with the model, is
that you know, you, you can't dothe process things as much in
large, large groups.
(46:20):
We did divide folks into small,reflective, what we call
reflective practice groups todrill down more into the various
tools.
But again, we didn't have the.
We didn't have enough visionstaff, couldn't afford enough
vision staff to do that.
So that was often done by otherfacilitators, but I think that
(46:42):
it's had a great, a tremendousimpact.
I think, to the extent thatfolks now are aware of what they
don't know and the importanceof continuing to do the work is
a good signal that it wasimpactful.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (46:57):
yeah, I good, I'm excited about that beautiful
yeah, so central californiachildren's institute and then
professor of public health atfresno and then recently ish
retired, as I understand it yes,retired actually.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (47:15):
Well, I went part-time okay into the
faculty early retirement programin 2016 when my first
grandchild was, and then fullyretired in 2019, okay, and since
then I've done a little bit ofvisions work here and there,
continue to work with a coupleof clients now that are smaller
(47:35):
organizations, and I really it'sreally important to me at this
stage of my life to be able tomaintain some deep connections
with people.
The consultations that I'mdoing now allow for either some
coaching, long-term both.
In both cases, I've beenworking with both organizations
that I happen to work with nowfor about five years.
(47:58):
So I like that.
That visions allow that workallows you to maintain deep
connections or to just go in anddo a training for a few days
and and then the training's done.
But, yeah, love the.
The value of that for me isthat I can continue to go deep
(48:18):
and integrate the content in myown life because, as you're
having to teach it and work withfolks in different settings
with the model you know.
You can't help but absorb thatcontent and take it into
situations that you'reencountering, that I'm
encountering day-to-day basis.
So it's the value of stayingconnected.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (48:41):
I've also been marveling lately at how much I
learn in the rooms that I'm in,when people really are present
and really in a place that theyfeel comfortable sharing.
I learn a great deal, not justfrom their experiences, also
from the insights and ways ofdifferent ways of seeing things
(49:09):
that people have.
So that's something.
I end of my questions.
You know you've had thisbeautiful career doing wonderful
work on behalf of women andchildren, particularly done this
wonderful work training peoplein this sector up and we're in
this particular place.
You've seen a lot of changeover the course of your life and
(49:33):
been part of a lot of changeprocesses.
Two questions, and you cananswer one both in whatever
order you want.
One is what is it that youstill hope to learn?
And then the other question iswhat do you hope to see in the
world?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (49:49):
Well, one of the challenges that I
continue to face is that doingvisions work can be really
difficult, and so having folk inthe room sometimes dismiss the
importance of the work that's areality.
(50:09):
I mean, that happens.
Not everyone, you know, notevery organization that we work
with has this eagerness andsuper high awareness of the
value of the work.
Periodically we run into folkswho say, well, why should I care
about what my ancestors did?
These are, you know, typicallywhite colleagues who are in the
(50:30):
room.
Why should I care about what myancestors did?
These are typically whitecolleagues who are in the room.
Why should I care about whatwhite people did 50, 75?
Why should I care about that?
How is that my job or myresponsibility?
And so it's really work to getpeople to see how we're all
deeply connected to each otherand how change in the world only
(50:54):
happens when everyone steps up.
So that's probably the mostdifficult thing that I'm facing
as a visions consultant is justthe stamina to keep going back
and to hang in there when thereis opposition or apathy in the
room, and so what I would mostwant to see in the world is that
(51:20):
there is increasingly anawareness of how all of our
actions and all of our states ofmind matter and how we
influence each other, and thatworking on our own consciousness
, our own awareness, our ownroles in the world is the most
(51:41):
important thing that we can do,and that we have to do it have a
world where there's lesssuffering, where there is
greater peace, where there ismore joy and more equality and
equity for everyone, that all ofus have a role in.
That Every breath we breathe,every move we make, every smile
(52:06):
we give, every mean thing we doimpacts the society that we live
in and the world that we livein, and so taking responsibility
for what is created on theplanet, I think, is the biggest
challenge and the biggest hopefor me that we would all start
to see the impact of just thesmallest things that we do or we
(52:30):
fail to do.
Yeah, I wouldn't say that Ihave a dream that suffering will
end.
I have a dream that we willlearn how we can support each
other and love each other in oursuffering.
Suffering is simply a part ofour existence.
That's my hope.
That's beautiful.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (52:51):
That's my hope , cassandraandra.
Do you know what I justremembered?
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (52:55):
what did you just remember?
Dr. Leena Akhtar (52:57):
it's the first time I met you yeah and it was
at an early training that Iattended in the course of
becoming a consultant.
I think it must have been oneof the trainings in north
carolina and you and I ended upin a concentric circle activity
where we were givingappreciations as an exercise to
(53:18):
people we'd just met.
And you know I do this in myfacilitations to people all the
time I say you know, this is askill, you can come up with
something even if you've justmet with somebody.
Because this is aboutrecognition and I do not
remember what you said to me,but I do remember what I said to
you because I see the samething now that I saw then, which
(53:41):
is this beautiful, joyful andjust wonderful warm energy that
emanates from you that I sensedas soon as I was in proximity to
you and that I've seen here andnow in in how you show up
everything you do and also your,your beautiful wishes and
(54:01):
desires for the world thank you,lena.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (54:06):
I appreciate that.
I take that in.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (54:11):
I didn't know anything about you then.
I didn't know about the long,storied career or anything like
that, and was really drawn in byby your beautiful energy.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (54:21):
So thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
I'm so glad that we had thistime together that I got to
share, and maybe next time I'llbe on the other side.
I'll be holding the mic going.
Dr Lena Oktar, can you call me?
Dr. Leena Akhtar (54:41):
it's a point interviewing you as a senior you
know, paradoxically, I thinkI'm a little mic shy about
actually being in a very cageyabout my stuff.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (54:55):
I can't believe it.
You seem so forthcoming andopen, and just an open book.
I'd be surprised you'd be cagey.
I can't see that.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (55:05):
Depends what we're talking about.
Cassandra, thank you so muchfor taking the time to do this
and for sharing your story Again.
I learned so much in these andI feel really privileged to have
been able to hear about you andyour experiences and the things
that you've learned and all ofthe many, many things that you
have to teach.
So thank you.
Dr. Cassandra Joubert (55:26):
Well, you're so welcome, and I can't
wait to hear some of thesepodcasts.
Dr. Leena Akhtar (55:53):
So yeah, about that, if you haven't wait to
hear some of these podcasts,podcasts, spotify and so on.
2024 is Vision's 40thanniversary year and we will be
celebrating in Boston onSeptember 27th.
Please join us, if you can.
Links for more informationabout that.
Our workshops and otherhappenings at Visions are in the
show notes.
Thank you so much for listening.
Until next time you.
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