December 17, 2024 • 60 mins
Today I’m excited to introduce you to Terry Berman, a senior VISIONS consultant, elder, and mentor to many of newer VISIONS consultants as they have come into this work.
Terry grew up in a politically active Jewish family in South Africa, witnessing firsthand the courageous activism of her parents, whose anti-apartheid work forced the family into exile. Terry shares her story, reflecting on the complexities around her white identity and how her early experiences informed a lifetime dedicated to social justice and activism.
In this conversation, we talk about Terry's movement from apartheid-era South Africa to the challenges of navigating life in the UK, where she faced deep antisemitism and sexism, to the San Francisco Bay Area where she became deeply involved in women's rights and the LGBTQ community, organizing against police violence and doing solidarity work in Central America before connecting with VISIONS.
See what's coming up at VISIONS!
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.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, you're listening to Into Liberation, a
podcast about transformativechange, equity and working
against oppression.
I'm Lina Achter, director ofPrograms with Visions Inc.
Welcome.
Today I'm excited to introduceyou to Terry Berman, a senior
Visions consultant and elder whohas also been a mentor to many
(00:22):
of the newer consultants who'vecome into this work in the last
few years.
Terry is originally from SouthAfrica, where she spent her
formative years before herfamily went into political exile
in the UK because of theiranti-apartheid activism, after
which she moved to the SanFrancisco Bay Area, where she
has been ever since.
Terry was key to establishingVision's presence on the West
(00:43):
Coast in the late 80s and 90sand has also been a vital part
of ensuring that our model andcurriculum are being passed on
to the next generation ofVisions consultants.
In this conversation, we talkabout her growing up in South
Africa and how her consciousnessabout liberatory work developed
as she moved across the globeand engaged in various forms of
activism and social justice work, and then how she connected
(01:03):
with Visions.
I learned a great deal aboutTerry in this conversation that
I didn't know before, includingthat this work, which she is
extraordinarily good at, was aninteresting shift in career for
her.
That and more coming up.
Hi everybody, I'm very excitedto be here with a mentor and
friend and colleague, terryBerman.
(01:24):
Hi, terry, hi, thank you somuch for agreeing to do this.
I've been very much lookingforward to this conversation.
So, for people who aren'tfamiliar with you, your work,
who you are, who you are toVisions, would you introduce
yourself briefly?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Sure, I am, I guess, considered a senior consultant,
lead consultant with Visions,and I've been with the
organization about 35 yearsworking in different capacities
Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I mean, I first got to know you as a mentor to my
cohort as we were coming in andI'd love to hear a little bit
about how you think aboutmentorship a little bit later in
this conversation and to theextent that you're willing to
share.
I know that you've had and thisis a similarity we have
experiences growing up in anumber of different countries
before deciding to settle in thestates, starting with growing
(02:13):
up in Pretoria, if I remembercorrectly no, no, I grew up in.
Johannesburg.
Yeah, will you tell us a littlebit about your early story?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Sure.
So my parents werefirst-generation immigrants,
jewish, from Eastern Europe andvarious other parts.
I won't get into all thedetails of their origins.
They were radical, they wereinvolved in the anti-apartheid
struggle, they were part of theCommunist Party and then
(02:43):
subsequently left.
With the invasion of Hungarythey actually formed an
underground movement and wereinvolved in sabotage and other
forms of resistance.
So just to sort of contextualizetheir history, because their
commitment, I feel like, wasformative for me, it was complex
(03:06):
, you know, because I felt likeI got a really early education
about the realities of SouthAfrica.
My parents were in thetownships.
I was in the townships.
We had contact, a lot ofAfrican people coming through
our house, even though it wasillegal, and living with us etc.
(03:28):
And I feel like that very earlyon I had a profound sense of
the injustice because I saw it,that was going on, and my
parents would talk about it, youknow, very openly and I don't
think kind of tried to protectme from the realities of what
(03:49):
was happening.
And so I think my sense ofjustice was was formed very,
very, very soon in my life.
I mean, I can remember at fouryears old being with my nanny
and seeing the mistreatment sheexperienced and this is someone
I loved, you know and beingoutraged, and I think one of the
(04:10):
things that I came tounderstand was that I I had deep
shame about the fact that I waswhite, even as my parents were
sort of struggling and I hadpride in what they were doing.
I.
So the way I managed that wasto sort of like, get into I'm
better, they're better and we'rebetter, you know, than the
(04:31):
white people who supportapartheid Right.
So it's complicated, like thatchild mind.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well, I'm not only child, I think.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, but I'm just saying that was sort of how I
managed the contradictions in myexperience and I think one of
the things that was alsointeresting is that that
position that we sat in, youknow, in our community was that
I was very othered.
My parents when they were inprison, their names were printed
(05:04):
in the paper and people wouldyou know, like your, your
parents are criminals.
You know, oh, wow, yeah.
And you know, when I wasyounger, I wanted to invite a
friend from this is I'm talkinglike preschool to come and play
and their family wouldn't letthem come and play with me
because you know of who myparents were, wow, okay, so your
(05:27):
parents fled europe duringworld war ii.
My grandparents, grandparentsokay, my grandparents fled
europe during the pogroms, andthen my father actually did, did
fight in the war.
Okay, okay, yeah, so no, myparents are.
You know, they they're theirfirst generation who were born.
(05:48):
Got it okay.
Got it, got it, got it okay.
Yeah, so I'm second generationborn in south africa.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, and for people who aren't necessarily familiar
with the details of howapartheid work, would you
describe like how the spatialsegregation worked in terms of?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
your neighborhood.
Oh yeah, no, absolutely.
I mean, I think it wasdeliberately geographically
designed to isolate people fromone another and that the only
way in which black people couldcome into white space, which was
wealthy space relative to wherethey lived, you know, they
concentrated them, you know,essentially in sort of like
(06:28):
ghettos that were calledtownships, and then the way it
was constructed was that blackpeople's role was to serve white
people, basically, and toservice the system, but they had
no rights.
And you know, this idea that itwas sort of separate, equal,
was a total fallacy and it wasjust a way to sort of exploit.
(06:50):
So people had to have passes inorder to come into the white
space and prove that they werethere legally to work.
That was the only, and if theyweren't working, they were sent
to Bantustans, you know, orfamilies couldn't live with each
other, because if they weren'tbeing so co-productive, working,
(07:10):
then they were isolated inthese very arid areas that had
been identified townships.
What I got to witness was thedifferent quality of of life,
you know, even for the educatedblack people that were around us
(07:31):
.
You know, I know my motherworked with like the leadership
of the ANC, you know was sort ofan educator and we were with
some of the elite and the way,you know, the conditions under
which they were living was sodifferent from how we were
living and we were with some ofthe elite and the way you know
the conditions under which theywere living was so different
from how we were living and wewere not wealthy you know, but
relatively, we were extremely,you know, compared to.
(07:55):
And so I saw that and I mean, Iremember being a little girl in
the township with my dad goingto some event, and it was winter
time, and this little girl wassaid to me oh I like a black kid
, oh I like your coat.
And she didn't have a coat onand it was really cold.
And so I started to take mycoat off and give it to her.
My father was no, no, you know,because I think I had that
(08:22):
sense of unfairness, you know,and I already had that feeling
of wanting to change it.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And the kids you were going to school with?
Was it other Jewish?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
kids Dominantly white .
I wasn't in a strong Jewishcommunity.
My circle of friends, my familycircle of friends, were family
and other Jews.
My family circle of friendswere family and other Jews, and
particularly you know, yeah, Iwould say that a considerable
number of the white peopleinvolved in the struggle were
Jewish.
(08:52):
It was my experience when Istarted getting involved in
activism as well.
That's like we didn't talkabout it that much a little bit,
but we were predominantlyJewish, All the white people
that I was working with.
That's the sort of pride I havefor that part of my Jewish
(09:20):
heritage is the Jewish socialistarm of the Jewish experience,
if you will.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I know that your family moved to the UK.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
How old were you?
I was almost nine, so I wasyoung.
My parents, you know, like Isaid, they'd been incarcerated
and then they were in hiding andthen I guess my dad had been
arrested again and he was letoff on a technicality.
But the special branch officertold him look, we have enough on
(09:49):
you to put the two of you underhouse arrest for a long time.
And you know, my parents weretalking about it.
I was about seven years old andmy parents said that they were
talking about it and apparentlyI said I don't know that I said
this, but this is what my momtells me is that they were
talking about it.
And I said are you't know that?
I said this?
But this is what my mom tellsme is that they were talking
about it.
And I said are you going to getarrested again?
And they said very likely.
(10:10):
I said, then we should leave.
And they said when I said thatthat clinched it for them.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, I can imagine it becomesdifferent when you have kids.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, and so they felt like a response.
I think they kind of caught theprofound impact it was having
on us.
It was pretty intense.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Out of curiosity, what kind of activities were
they engaging in?
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well, you know they were part of ARM and they were
involved in.
Well, I know my dad wasinvolved in sort of moving
people across the border.
They did sabotage and helpedorganize and they were doing
that in south africa yeah okay,okay got it.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Okay.
That kind of thing that washappening okay.
Thank you, I'm sorry I got thetimeline a little bit mixed up,
okay oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And they continued to support the struggle in England
, you know.
So it took a while for us toget out of the country.
We got out of the country andwe went to Israel, first because
my mother has family there andI think they were considering
living in Israel.
But when we looked at thepicture there, my parents were
like, yeah, from the frying paninto the fire.
(11:25):
I don't think so.
You know, I felt like myparents.
It was very hard to leave SouthAfrica.
I mean, even though I said thatto my parents, I don't remember
it, but I do know that it was aprofoundly difficult move for
me, and the way they sold it wasthat, you know, britain was
(11:45):
better.
They had tried to come to theStates but they couldn't because
they had been members of theCommunist Party.
Was this?
Speaker 1 (11:51):
still on the immigration.
Oh, wow Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And so they decided on England and they said you
know well, england hasanti-discrimination laws, it's
so much better.
You know, said you know well,england has anti-discrimination
laws, it's so much better youknow, so I expected a very
different world than I found itwas very depressing.
I mean, I was very depressed.
Where did you move to?
So we moved to London.
(12:18):
So there was actually a largeSouth African community there,
many of them also, you know,activists, and so that community
kind of held us.
You know, they found a flat forus and we were living in a very
small flat or you know, I havethree sisters and the six of us
were living in a two room flatand then we did a sort of sublet
(12:43):
type situation where a familywas traveling for a while and we
lived in their house until myparents could get work and get
settled.
And it was a huge culture shockfor me.
One would think it's an Englishspeaking country and England
had such a large part ofcolonizing South Africa.
You know that it would not beas intense as it was, but it was
(13:04):
very intense and I had, I wasvery shocked by the level of
racism I experienced and sawthere and also the level of
antisemitism and it was so overtand out there in some ways, in
ways I hadn't experienced inSouth Africa, that level of
antisemitism.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Interesting Was that, like the big part of the
culture, shock just how thepeople were.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, it was.
Yes, it was just the climate, Ihave to say.
I mean I remember this time,you know, my family had a sort
of like practice of going forwalks together, like on Sunday,
and I remember standing at thewindows Sunday morning and
looking at the weather andstarting to cry because Very
(13:56):
different climate.
Yes, yeah, you know, I mean, Iacculturated but it was hard.
I was bullied.
I was pretty severely bulliedin elementary school.
It was stuff around gender.
It was like the boys were veryjealous of me.
I was very physical, I was fast, I was like you know, could do,
I could swim really well.
You know, it's like I come froma I come from a physical
(14:19):
culture, right, you know, I wasoutside all the time riding my
bike, playing, and I was strong,you know, and and yeah, the
boys kind of like went after meand I had a very profound I mean
this is just a little side avery profound gender lesson in
that experience.
(14:39):
In that one time it got so bad.
The boys were like throwingstones at me on my way home and
you know, they hit me.
I was bleeding, I was liketerrified, you know, and I ran
into someone's house and refusedto leave until someone came to
pick me up.
I was so scared, you know.
So then the cow was out the bagand so my parents, you know,
(15:02):
got involved, which was one ofmy fears that it was going to
get way worse, if right.
I snitched and the head mistresscalled in all the boys and had
a chat with them.
And then she called me in andhad a chat with me separately
and I said to one of the boys Ididn't, I didn't say anything,
you know, they're like, we know,we know, you know.
(15:24):
Then the headmistress said tome well, you know, you know,
when you're a girl, you need tokind of play it down.
You don't never want to bebetter than a boy, because they
can't handle it, you know.
Oh, wow, so you know, you justreally need to to pull it back a
little.
Wow, right, I was so angry, Iwas so angry and I couldn't say
(15:48):
anything wow, wow this was age,what it must have been 10, 11,
10, 10, because then I 11, Iwent to to secondary school.
Yeah, such a trip, yeah, thestuff that in my life around
gender particularly, it got veryexplicit in britain was I had a
(16:09):
teacher who said you know, boyswere smarter than girls in the
classroom now, I suspect thatthat was different from
messaging you were getting athome.
Totally.
I think part of why, you know,the transition was difficult for
me was because I was verydifferent and my mom, you know
my mom was a feminist, but youknow, I will say you know.
(16:31):
My mom would say you know, Ithink a couple of things that
exemplify her sort of experienceof being a woman in the world,
in the world of work, you know,that was dominated by men, was
you've got to be 10 times betterthan a man, was one message,
and the other message was neverlearn to type or you'll get
stuck.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I mean probably very good advice.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Although I regret not learning to type Fair enough.
Yeah, but a couple of thingsjust to exemplify that.
Yeah, so she here was this oflike, and yet you know I had a
pretty kind of patriarchalfather, so it was a both end,
yeah kind of patriarchal father.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So it was a both end.
Yeah, so you mentioned that youwent to dance school out of
British equivalent of highschool.
Tell me a little bit about thatwhat that was like.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
So it was like it was like stepping back into the
Victorian era.
It was a tiny little school andit had no heating, and we would
.
It was a dance school it was.
I got I got a scholarship to gothere.
It was a little private schooldance school and you know, I had
(17:52):
studied dance since I was fourand we would, you know, there
was one little heater and we'dkind of stand there in our
little leotards trying to warmup before we had to do ballet
first thing in the morning andthen we were like all ages in
one classroom with one teacher.
It really was a wholeprofoundly weird experience.
(18:13):
Interesting.
And how long were you there?
I was there till I was 15.
Oh, wow, okay, okay, yeah from11 to 15.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, wow, okay, and was this like the?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
residential sort of situation.
No, no, no, I, I lived with myfamily and it was a day school.
Yeah, yeah, they didn't have aboarding school aspect to it.
It was very tiny.
I think at one point there wasonly about 20 students, you know
.
Okay, and then, following that,so then I went to Kingsway
College for further educationand that was a day release
(18:50):
school for working people whodidn't have an education and
then people who hadn't beensuccessful through the public
school system.
So there were day releasestudents and full-time students
like myself, and I went there totry and finish the O-levels
that I needed, because that'sthe British system.
You do O-levels around 15, 16,and then 17, 18,.
(19:13):
You do your A-levels, whichessentially you do.
Three that you know usuallydetermine what you're going to
study in university.
You need at least a minimum offive to six O-levels and three
A-levels in order to get intouniversity, and the more you
have, the more chance you haveof getting into, the more elite.
You know, and I was wanting toreally go to university.
(19:35):
I was.
That was the trajectory I sortof had for myself, but because
of my dyslexia and because mydyslexia didn't get recognized I
mean, it didn't dyslexia didn'tget recognized until much later
.
There were no, there were noaccommodations.
So when I wrote my exams I wasalways at a disadvantage,
because you know the Britishsystem is that everything is
(19:55):
essay.
You know it doesn't matter.
British system is thateverything is essay.
You know, it doesn't matterwhat it is, everything is essay,
and so geography is essay form.
You know everything other thanmath, obviously, which I passed
math.
And so, because it was aprogressive school, they
actually had a different system.
So not everything counted onyour exams and that's how I got
through, except for the A-levels.
(20:16):
A-levels, the exam weightedvery heavily and, of course,
without accommodation, Iperformed poorly.
So I ended up going.
I got a scholarship to theLondon School of Contemporary
Dance, okay, after KingswayCollege, that's where I went.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
London School of Contemporary Dance, and how long
were you there?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
I was there for four years.
It was kind of like myuniversity experience, you know,
without it being a fulluniversity experience because it
was primarily a dance theatrefocus and it was both a
wonderful experience and alsovery, very awful, in that that
(20:58):
world is really awful.
I had a lot of challenges and Isaw some of my friends, like
you know, just I was strugglingand there's, you know, a lot, of
, a lot of food disorder stuff.
I had it.
You know, most of the girls didthat.
I was around.
So there was that side of it.
It just the oppressive natureof that world, the competitive
(21:20):
nature of that world, and thenthere was also, like this,
incredibly, like camaraderie,creative.
You know, I got to do somefabulous creative stuff.
You know I got to choreographstuff and perform all over the
place and I was in this sort ofcircus theater group that our
theater teacher put together forthe summer and we toured
(21:42):
England with it and it wasbeautiful, it was total fun.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I imagine that that's a very gendered world too.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Oh, absolutely Absolutely and very controlled
by men, and the sort ofaesthetic was sort of a male
aesthetic in terms of what wasokay.
And when I was there I was likeI want to start a fat dance
group because I've gotten somuch flack about being fat.
Meanwhile I was like the size Iam now and I was told I was
(22:12):
that.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
You know, I get a little anxious when you put
space up like that and I wastold I was that you know.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I get a little anxious when you put space up
like that.
I became a super rad after thatman, that experience.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I can imagine.
And then, how did you end up inthe Bay Area?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So my sister was living here and I decided that I
wanted to.
I wanted to leave Britain.
I needed to.
I needed to get out of Britain.
I think I needed to get awayfrom my family.
I was in a relationship and Ididn't know how to get out of
that.
I needed to get out of that, soI just left and came here
that's very early 20s of youleave the country the man I was
(22:57):
involved with followed me.
So I had to actually deal in theend.
But and yeah, I came out hereand I was theoretically only
coming for a year, but I cameout and I got stuck and you know
, I know I was working in London, I was working in a refuge for
(23:18):
battered women, okay, yeah, andI was also very much involved in
Essex Road Women's Center doinga lot of work around women's
health, abortion rights, youknow just that whole movement.
I was very involved in that.
And so when I came here, thevery first thing I did I think
I'd been two weeks here and wentto this violence against women
(23:41):
conference and met up with somefolks and got involved in
forming a network of in thiscountry they called refuges, I
think, shelters.
No, they were refuge in Britain.
I can't remember now thelanguage, but anyway, yeah, yeah
so we sort of formed a networkacross the west coast of
(24:02):
organizations working in anattempt to do more advocacy
around violence against women.
So that was sort of, like youknow, my first step into my, my
sort of continued radical work.
Because when I was in Britain Iwas a squatter and I was, I was
organizing in my area as Ilived in Islington, and so we
(24:25):
had a huge organization inIslington that myself and my
friend were helping lead.
I realized I just had sort of anatural affinity for
facilitation, I guess, because Ijust stepped up into leadership
and that was a very empoweringexperience to be involved in
(24:49):
that movement, engaged in doinggrassroots organizing and and
actually that also, I think, waswhere I started learning some
of the sort of carpentry andplumbing and electric skills
that I learned because you hadto do that in order to kind of
get your house up and running.
Pretty I did some prettyterrible things.
(25:11):
I mean like I'm, like I can'tbelieve I did that, like
stealing the huge fuse out ofyou know, like really dangerous.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Yeah, so you got involved in the basically
women's anti-violence movementin San Francisco and then
building and things like that,and I want to ask you about that
in a moment what was yourexperience around being gay in
that movement when youintersected with it?
(25:43):
I imagine it was a particularthing out in the Bay Area.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
One of the reasons I think I was attracted to the Bay
Area was because there was sucha strong presence and I came
out when I was here.
Like I have sort of officiallycame out here, and I think part
of my draw here was becausethat's the trajectory I was on.
I had been on quite early in mylife but sort of like hadn't
been able to sort of find my waythere.
(26:07):
And as I got more involved inwomen's liberation movement,
that became more of apossibility and so when I came
here I came out and I mean ittook a little while but I found
myself there and so that wasliberating for me.
And so I did do work directly,you know, involved in like I was
(26:29):
in a group, I was in severalgroups and one of them was like
organizing against policeviolence, against the LGBTQ
community, and I sort of likepulled my theater experience.
We did these little skits andyou know education skits and I
mean it was creative, it was fun, it was interesting.
(26:49):
What I was saying about beingJewish is that predominant there
were Jewish lesbians in thesegroups that I was in, you know.
So that was potent for me.
And then I got involved in theAfrican People's Solidarity
Committee, and that was adifferent experience about being
queer, because then it was likeit was just all about being
(27:12):
white solidarity workers andthere was no room to talk about
intersectionality and when wedid like at one point we had a
whole conversation about classand gender differences.
You know how that was playingout in the movement and that got
squished by the leadership, theBlack leadership at the time,
(27:32):
and part of what had drawn me toit was that I'd gone to a sort
of study group that theyorganized.
You know which was one of theways that they pulled people
into the movement.
And actually I do want to justsay that I think that it was a
cult.
I don't think it was a cult.
It was a cult because of someof the things that I now come to
understand.
Unfortunately, my best friendgot in it heavy and that's why I
(27:54):
say it was a cult, because ofwhat I saw, her experience, and
you know I was more on theperiphery because I'm not very
good at sort of people like oh,no, no yeah, I.
I went to the study group andthey talked about
(28:15):
intersectionality.
There I was very excitedbecause I was interested in
navigating all my differentexperiences and I think, if I'm
honest, my focus had been upuntil that point on my own
target experience.
I was really navigating what itmeant to be a woman,
particularly to be Jewish, eventhough I feel like I didn't
(28:38):
always have a language for howmuch anti-Semitism had been
impacting me About being animmigrant, even though I
understood that I had relativeprivilege by virtue of my class
and race.
But my focus was really on mytarget level.
You know what it?
Growing up with a learningdisability, all of those things
that I had felt other thantargeted.
(29:00):
That was sort of a driver.
And yet as I got involved inthe solidarity movement, then I
was getting pushed to kind oflook at my privilege and I knew
that from South Africa.
You know I understood where Isat, knew that from South Africa
.
You know I understood where Isat.
You know it wasn't like it wasnew for me, but I don't think I.
(29:20):
I was very interested in how dowe navigate all those
differences, the ways in whichwe're complex beings, and so
when I was working in thesolidarity, particularly the
African People's SolidarityCommittee that experience of
being shut down around talkingabout intersectionality and
experience of being shut downaround talking about
intersectionality and sort ofbeing told essentially that if
we talked about any other issuewe were really like minimizing,
(29:44):
we were detracting from theimportance of race and
anti-racism and I felt like thatwas something wrong.
That was really not working forme.
And then I subsequently gotinvolved in doing more
solidarity work for CentralAmerica and I went to Nicaragua
and helped build houses there.
And that experience, bothworking, you know, in the
(30:09):
solidarity movement, working inthe left, seeing the ways the
left were fighting with eachother and I think I told you
before that I like had thisfeeling, like I don't know if it
would be good if these peoplecame into a power, because I I
was like I'd be scared if thesepeople came into power, because
(30:30):
I really felt like we weren'tliving what we were talking
about theoretically, like wewere like reproducing the very
things that we were talkingabout wanting to change and we
didn't have a language or apractice to be different.
And I think, my experiencebuilding houses in Nicaragua the
first time I went with a mixedgroup of people.
(30:51):
And the second time, at ORC, Iwas close with a Nicaraguan
woman who was a mover andgroover in Nicaragua and we
worked together and formed awomen's brigade and the idea was
to teach women constructionskills.
So we, like, brought downtoolkits for everyone and you
know, we fundraised so we couldbuild houses there and In the
(31:13):
experience of building thosehouses we ran into some real
cultural differences.
So it was actually around gender, like the men wanted to help
the women and help us build andthen they took over and we were
very reactive about that.
All the North American women Ithink there was eight of us and
(31:33):
there were eight Nicaraguanwomen and we were like no, no,
no, this is terrible.
And we were trying to push backand the women were like, no,
let them do it.
And so we stopped production,you know, and we had to have
because the women were angry assabout our response, you know
the Nicaraguan women and so theywere like, look, we live with
(31:54):
these men, this is our really,this is our community and this
is how we roll, not the languagethey use.
But you know, essentially theywere like, look, we live with
these men, this is our communityand this is how we roll, not
the language they use.
But you know, essentially theywere saying you can't dictate to
us how this has to look Rightand we have to find another way,
because in that moment it wouldnot have been okay to tell them
to stop doing what they weredoing.
So we were like, yeah, we heardthat, you know, we had to
(32:18):
account for the way in which wehad managed it.
And then I was like but we camehere to give you the skills and
if you let them do it, you'renever going to learn the skills.
So we need to convey that tothe men in the community that
while we appreciate their help,we actually want them to help us
(32:38):
by stepping out, you know.
And so the last two houses thatwe built because you know, we
built them one at a time we laidthe foundation and then we did
brick buildings and put thestructures on it.
The women agreed.
We talked to the men in thecommunity, they backed off and
we ended up building the housesall by ourselves.
(32:58):
And they were like well, wecan't mix the cement like the
men do.
I was like no, you can't mixthe cement like the men do,
because we just don't have theupper body strength like they
have, but we have strength, andso we're going to mix them in
wheelbarrows and do it in arelay, one bag at a time, so
that we can do it in a way thatworks for us.
(33:19):
And so we poured that wholefoundation, one bag at a time,
mixing and pouring, mixing andpouring in a little kind of
relay, and we built, you know,carried these heavy-ass posts
for the frame of the house, pureconcrete, all of us, all eight
of us, popping these up.
I mean, it was so empowering.
It was empowering for me and itwas empowering for them.
(33:41):
And that experience taught meabout the level of assumption
and sort of like our privilegeand the ways in which we had
approached it.
I was like I want to figure outa way how to do things
differently and in a way thatexperience helped me see the
(34:03):
possibility of being incollaboration rather than like
doing it my way, doing it ourway right, and like hearing the
difference and navigating thedifference.
And I think it was soon afterthat that I decided that I
wanted to get into At that timeit was like I heard about it as
(34:23):
cross-cultural communicationInteresting.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
So you said.
When we talked before we metfor this recording, you told me
that you transitioned toconsulting from building.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah, when I came to this country, I worked at the
People's Cultural Center.
I had already been a squatter,right, so I'd already got a
little bit of knowledge around.
I had, like, run electricity inmy house, you know, I'd done
plumbing, and the squatters welike had conferences where we
would teach each other, you know.
I mean first you have to knowhow to change a lock, because
(34:54):
you have to break in and thenchange the lock, and then you
can like, yeah, you know youprove occupancy, right, that's
the first thing you do.
To prove occupancy, you changethe lock.
And so I learned how to do.
I had to in order to get thehouse functional, and so when I
came here, I startedvolunteering at the People's
(35:15):
Cultural Center, which was likea community center that they
were starting that had culturalevents.
They were going to have a cafethat was very similar to what is
in the East Bay called La Peña.
The group of Chilean exilesstarted, and so the organizers
had raised funds and we werefixing up this building, and so
I volunteered, and then thegroup of people who were doing
(35:37):
that work formed a little likelittle company and we were doing
renovation work, and so Isubsequently decided to continue
.
After many other things that Idid, from being a bike messenger
to working in a hospital, youknow I mean I just did whatever
I could to survive working in ahospital.
(35:58):
You know, I mean I just didwhatever I could to survive I
decided to join the union and soI was a union carpenter and I
left I mean not like I left theunion, but I started doing just
more remodeling with a friendand that was primarily how I had
taken a little hiatus and Itried to learn to do printing
and I ran a printing press for awhile and then I went back to
(36:20):
carpentry and worked as anindependent not contractor, but
an independent person and did alot of renovation, mostly, yeah.
So then I was like, okay, thisis really hard on the body and
all this time I was doing allthis other stuff.
I was, you know, I was doingall my political work and I was
very interested in how do we dothis differently.
(36:42):
So I studied neurolinguisticsprogramming.
First I had done re-evaluationcounseling.
Then I studied neurolinguisticsprogramming, then I did
therapeutic hypnosis.
I studied that independently.
And then I did therapeutichypnosis.
I studied that independently.
And then I did communitymediation.
(37:02):
All of this was like I think I'mtrying to sort of find a place
to kind of navigate what I wasexperiencing in my political
life.
So I'm working as a carpenterand doing all these other things
.
And then I realized that Ineeded to get out of carpentry.
I couldn't sustain itphysically.
(37:23):
It's very demanding.
And I also wanted to in a waymarry my political life with my
survival, because I didn't feellike I could sustain the output
that I was.
It was a lot.
Yeah, output that I was, it wasa lot.
And so a friend of mine hadtalked about cross-cultural
communication and I was like, ohyeah, that's what I want to do,
(37:44):
you know, and I didn't knowwhat it was, but I, I went to
the Summer Institute forCross-Cultural Communication.
I went to every workshop Icould and that's sort of how I
started, you know, went to newbridges, a bunch of different
things.
And in 89, a friend of mine,who was then called Ildugudieres
(38:09):
Valdakin, said, oh, you have tolook at this video, and she
shared a video about talkingabout modern oppression,
oppression, internalizedoppression.
She, I was like, wow, that'sgreat.
She's like, yeah, well, come,you know, you should take a
workshop.
Then it was called changingracism, a personal approach to
multiculturalism.
Oh, okay, so in 89 I went tothat workshop and I was, yes,
(38:36):
after all the things I had tried, I was like, yes, this is it.
And I, you know, I was in aninterracial relationship at the
time.
It was very transformative forme to so understand give me a
language for understanding someof the dynamics that were
challenging in our relationship.
At a very personal level.
It was profound.
(38:57):
And then it was also verytransformative for me to sort of
like process some of the, Ithink, unhealed places that I
was carrying from my growing upin South Africa, in particular
around the complexity of myrelationship as a white person,
as a white child in thatenvironment, and so it was very
(39:21):
healing for me and I thought,yeah, this is what I want to do.
I told Val, I want to do this.
So here I am, 35 years later.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Amazing and you connected with visions right
when well, I think it's hard tosay a particular tipping point
in in terms of south africanhistory, and I know that things
were extremely intense andchaotic in the 80s oh yeah, yeah
, I mean that, yes, and, and Ithink things were pretty intense
(39:52):
in here too.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
you know, yes, of course, and you know the the
sort of Reagan era and just someof the consequences of that and
, like I said, and in mypersonal life, I think, the ways
in which I don't think I hadreally brought sufficient
attention to what it meant tosit where I sat as a in my
(40:16):
privilege, like I think I hadprimarily focused on my, you
know, places of beingdisenfranchised and I wasn't
attending the same way.
I mean, I knew it intellectuallybut I don't think in my
practice or having a reallyfully developed language it was
there and it wasn't does.
(40:36):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (40:38):
It absolutely makes sense.
Yeah, I mean in our approach,the way that we scaffold for
people the affective part ofunlearning and leaning into
different ways of being.
I think it's one of the thingsthat differentiates our approach
from so many others.
And to what you're sayingthere's a huge difference
(40:58):
between an intellectualunderstanding of privilege or
lack of disadvantage and anemotionally worked through
understanding.
I can certainly feel thedifference when I'm interacting
with somebody who's done thatuncomfortable affective work and
come to a certain place with it.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, absolutely yes, and so that was, and actually
it was interesting because Sarahwas the, was the white
facilitator with Bell and someof us connected afterwards and
continued meeting as whitepeople.
You know that was great.
I mean I had been in a groupearly on in the 80s, early in
(41:37):
the 80s, with a group of womenand we were meeting as white
women, as Jewish women, aspeople of color and working
class, and so that was sort ofthe criteria of you know our
focus to look at sort ofintersectionality and it just
went haywire.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
And it wasn't like the first time I had been in
white space and then, also beingtalking about what it means to
be white and Jewish, I'd been inJewish space and talking about
our own internalized oppression,so I'd done some of that work,
but I don't think I it was waspowerful for me about.
You know, what you're saying isthat there was an affective
(42:15):
piece to vision's frame and ithad an analysis around our
practice, like how does itactually manifest and giving
language to the practice of howwe perpetuate these dynamics.
You're talking about the modernoppression behaviors, yeah, and
how to, and then what theoptions are for you know,
(42:36):
noticing it and interrupting it,and for me that was like
liberating, because it helped mesee my own dysfunction, you
know, and the ways out of myawareness I was perpetuating,
the things I wanted to change, Imean the starting framework of
no blame shame is also veryhelpful when I teach modern
(42:59):
oppression behaviors.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
That's one of the things I emphasize no blame, no
shame Right.
We, as facilitators, are miningour lives for cringy examples
to bring to the table.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
That's so true, that's so true, so true, so true
, yeah, yeah, that's so true, sotrue, yeah, yeah, and you know,
I, if I'm honest, I kind oflearned on the job, you know,
and I also.
I also do just want to sort ofshout out to the people that I
feel like provided me with.
It was a fairly neworganization and I was, you know
(43:37):
, newer when I stepped in, andso people definitely helped my
development.
I had the opportunity to workwith a lot of the elders that
are in our community and somewho have gone.
So I would say you know myexperience of working with Ilda
Gutierrez, who later became aZen priest and is now called
Rimon.
It's absolutely profound interms of my learning and my
(44:03):
experience working with Waikesaas well.
He was pretty extraordinary inhis style and approach and you
know, I'm profoundly grateful tohave had the experience of
working with him.
I just want to shout out, andthen I'd say you know, jean
Washington was another personthat I grew deeply from being in
(44:26):
contact with Mark Wise when Istarted working, he was working.
And of course, joe Lewis isjust like the queen and,
needless to say, you know theopportunity to work with Val,
both as a facilitator and thenlater sort of working a little
(44:46):
with her.
We didn't do that much, but Ifeel like she's an absolute
master and it's just.
You know, like I said, sarahand Joan I've worked with Joan
and Countess Joan.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
I'm just thinking, you know, of all the, of all the
elders that I had theopportunity to work with, and
how how much I grew from theexperience and we and I realized
now we were growing together soI came to know you as a mentor
and you know speak of you as youwere speaking of your
(45:21):
colleagues and people who wereelders to you in the Visions org
and you know you were so key tobringing my cohort in.
I'm curious what that processhas been like for you and also
about what is it that you wantto make sure to pass along as
(45:42):
people are getting into thiswork or continuing with the work
.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I feel deeply grateful that I had the
opportunity.
So again, I sort of like I'mvery grateful to Val for
bringing me in.
You know, we were workingtogether and talking about what
our future looked like, told herthat I had always wanted to do
a training institute and she waslike, wow, we've been talking
about the same thing.
And so, you know, I want to saythat the legacy, the issue of
(46:10):
building legacy in theorganization, really was driven
by Val, was driven by Val.
I had been thinking more about,like us, creating it, or I had
originally not necessarily withvisions and thought about doing
a training Institute.
And then our desires sort ofaligned and she said, well, we
need to build our team ofconsultants younger consultants,
(46:32):
you know and do some legacyplanning.
And I was like, okay, I'm in,you know, and so I'm very
grateful for the experiencebecause it was something I have
wanted to do and felt like wasreally important to do.
And actually I realized I hadbeen doing Throughout my career.
(46:53):
Yes, I had been doing itthroughout my career and I had
had a role to play in bringingin some of the consultants that
are with us today, especiallyfrom the side of the coast.
So in a way, it was sort oflike a continuation of that, and
some of it was just that I wasvery turned on to this model and
I was into proselytizing.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
I hear that.
Yes, I understand.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
And also because I think there was growing interest
and you know we needed morepeople.
So, and I remember Val sayingwe need more people, so and I
remember Val saying we need moremen and we had a meeting at
Jane Ariel's house and that'show Jimmy and Alec came to be,
you know, by inviting variousmen into.
They stuck, you know.
So I had that experience andthen this was a much more
(47:41):
formalized process ofinvolvement and I think one of
the things that it was like whatI've really recognized is that
when I said to you I learned onthe job, I think that's what
happens is you learn on the job?
So there's ways that you canlearn the frame, but the
practice is very difficult toteach and that is the part that
(48:05):
I mean.
I feel like it was.
It's been a learning experiencefor me.
I don't think I knew how to bean educator really.
You know I was feeling my way,trying to figure out the
importance of being able to givepeople the content as a frame,
a base, work with folks around,application, understand that
(48:26):
everybody has their ownunderstanding and interpretation
and makes meaning differently.
Also, that teaching processskills takes time.
It takes much longer than Ithink we anticipate right and
some of us come in more.
You know our life experience,like I said, you know I had a
(48:48):
kind of penchant forfacilitation.
Early in my life I was runningstuff kind of organically.
But some folks don't have thatexperience.
So the sort of range ofcapacity for doing this work is
different, based on your ownlived experience and where your
skill base is.
So I think some peopleintuitively have it, some people
(49:11):
it's a little harder, and sonavigating that and trying to, I
think I hit up against you knowmy own expectations of like
there's some things I think cameto me more organically.
It's hard to figure out how toteach that, and so I I had to
really work hard around how tosort of sit with people's
(49:34):
process, let them go through theprocess they had to go through
in order to to get where theyneeded to go.
I want to say it's been a hugelearning curve journey for me,
as well as of like the beauty ofsupporting people.
I mean it's so rewarding for mewhen I feel like we've gone on
(49:57):
this journey together and then Isee people doing the work and
I'm like, wow, how fabulous isthat?
You know what I mean when I seetheir brilliance showing up and
it's like it's really differentfrom my brilliance, but it's
their brilliance.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
You know you get me yeah, I can imagine that trying
to teach this and teach all theskills that go with it is
interesting to what you'resaying about teaching the
process, skills obviously verymuch resonates.
There was learning the frameand the model and learning to
teach everything, et cetera.
And then I feel like when I wasfirst in consulting rooms, I
(50:39):
felt really relieved because,honestly, the way that I phrased
it was like thank God there'san adult in here for when stuff
comes up.
Because one of the way that Iphrased it was like thank God
there's an adult in here forwhen stuff comes up, because one
of the things that I had tovery deeply unlearn, and unlearn
through my visions, work, theinternal work and also the
external work is severe conflictaversion.
(51:00):
Oh yeah, oh, big time.
And it's tracked withunlearning it in my personal
life and stuff like that.
And now, five years in, I'mfinally at the point where, when
something comes up in the room,instead of wanting to, you know
, have a hole open up in thefloor and swallow me up so I
don't have to deal with it, I'mlike okay, great, this is here,
let's move towards it.
(51:21):
Let's like name the awkwardthing and work with it and that
is a shift that's only reallyhappened in, like the last year
and a half.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that piece is very is is
just practice.
It is a piece around unlearning.
I definitely, you know, cannotice, like when I get
triggered.
You know, I'm much more skillednow at noticing when I'm
triggered, and of course I stillget triggered, you know.
And then I love it sometimeswhen it happens, because then
(51:49):
it's like, oh, the next teachingopportunity.
I say, oh, just the other day Iwas in this meeting and I got
triggered and this is whathappened and I was so quick to
notice and clean it right.
That's where I'm inviting forpeople because, especially in my
work with white people feellike they're so caught in
(52:09):
perfectionism and not makingmistakes.
And I'm really about this isnot about not making mistakes.
There's no way, as human beings, we don't make mistakes.
This is about being able tonotice and clean it and address
it, either in the moment or assoon as possible afterwards, you
know, because that's what thework is.
(52:31):
That is how human relationshipsoperate, that's what makes us
deepen our relationships, andconflict is part of it.
So, yes, I absolutely agreewith you and I think one of the
things that I've had to learntoo is try on.
You know, I have my way ofdoing things and when I've
(52:51):
worked with newer consultantsand they want to try something
different, I was like, no, Iknow Hideko really called me on
that and it was reallyinstructive, because it was like
, yep, you're right, I'm totallynot trying stuff on oh, how
beautiful.
(53:13):
I definitely feel like I love.
I love mentoring, because youknow this might sound I don't
know, but I mean it's taken me along time to actually
appreciate how much, how good Iam at what I do.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
That is a good self-awareness in there.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Yes, you know, it's like it's been very hard for me
because I think I didn'trecognize and for a long time I
didn't get like like you're goodat what you do, you know, and
you know that has come just withlived experience.
It's not like because it'ssomething special about me, it's
just like I've been doing it along time, like I remember
(53:55):
someone talking about thedifference between a teacher and
a student is that the teacherhas just been doing it longer.
So I appreciate that I havecome to the place in my life
where it's like I'm good at whatI do and I really want to be
able to support other people tobe good at what they do, of have
(54:21):
some of the knowledge andexperience that I can say to
someone ah, have you tried this?
Or Mike, what about this, youknow, as an option, right?
And that's why I like coachingas well.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
So, what would you say to people who are in this
work, want to do this work?
What is it that you would sayfrom the perspective of having
done it this long?
What is something you want topass on or something you would
want to highlight?
Speaker 2 (54:52):
Well, I think the thing that has been most
important for me is mycommitment to living what I
teach, and I think that for me,if I didn't live what I teach,
then I don't think I would be aseffective.
But I really have been committedto the practice in my life and
(55:13):
then I feel like I'm authenticand genuine and I'm not fronting
, you know when I'm in the roomand I think people see that, and
so I think that's for me one ofthe most important things that
I would convey beautiful, andthen you've seen a lot of things
change and also a lot of thingsarguably regress.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Yeah, what do you want to see in the world?
Speaker 2 (55:39):
you know, I think right now I am.
I love the way Val talks aboutwe don't want to be bigots to
bigots, and one of the thingsthat I'm recognizing in this
current moment is my ownreactivity, my own emotional
responses of scare and angerthat bring me to a place of
(56:02):
judgment, shame and blame ofother people and the sort of
discounting of their humanity.
And so you know, my commitment,like when I said, you know, I
want to live what I teach, mycommitment to myself is to do
the work, whatever it is that Ineed to do, in order to shift
what's happening in meinternally and my responses to
what's happening in the world.
(56:22):
You know, and that I realized Igot caught in the divisive
discourse that is happening.
I got caught, I've gottencaught, and my commitment is to
detach myself from that and topractice what I know.
And so my desire is for us tofigure out ways to come together
(56:47):
and actually discount thepeople who are obviously angry
and scared about what'shappening in the world and how,
(57:12):
why, how is it they've beenimpacted that we don't
understand.
So that's my desire, because Ithink that's the only way we're
going to make, we're going toget some traction and make
change.
But but as long as we'redivided, so effectively divided,
we're not going to be effective.
It doesn't help talking to theconverted, if you will.
You know we have to find waysto be in dialogue across
(57:35):
differences.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
So one of the things that I find to be very well
interesting thinking about thehistory of South Africa,
thinking about US history andalso thinking about certain
history of South Africa,thinking about US history and
also thinking about certainpieces of our model is how key
separation and, as much aspossible, blocking and
preventing the development ofauthentic relationships across
(57:59):
difference, how key that is tomaintaining oppressive systems.
Yeah, exactly so.
The emphasis that we put onbeing in relationship across
difference, on self-managementaffect, on repair skills, all of
that is deeply important tothat.
So, circling back to thebeginning of our conversation,
(58:20):
do you come back to South Africamuch?
When was the last time you werehere?
Speaker 2 (58:24):
You know I came back to South Africa a lot when my
mom was alive.
She lived in Cape Town and Iwould come back on a regular
basis to be with her, but it'sbeen seven years since I've been
here.
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (58:39):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (58:40):
I miss it and I also made the decision that you know,
I spent a lot of time there andif I have the opportunity to
travel, I want to go and exploresome other places.
Now, sometimes I think aboutmoving back there, but I don't
know, I think that might be verydifficult.
Thank you, this was delightful.
Speaker 1 (59:02):
I just appreciate how much more of you I have the
privilege of knowing.
Speaker 2 (59:10):
So it makes me want to know a little bit more about
you, girl.
I feel like I should interviewyou next.
Speaker 1 (59:16):
I'm like weirdly microphone shy, believe it or
not.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
I read that about you .
Speaker 1 (59:22):
Between, like the dance and the carpentry and the
squatting, like just amazing andwonderful, and thank you Really
.
Thank you for taking the timeand for sharing your story,
absolutely.
If you've been with Visions fora long time or if you're just
discovering us now, we welcomeyou.
Our work is many things and,first and foremost, it is an
(59:44):
invitation into deep culturechange.
Our podcast is a powerful wayto connect with the
organization's history and itspresent and, frankly, we would
love more people to know aboutour story and our work.
If you found this useful, we'dbe grateful if you would leave
us a review on whicheverplatform you're listening.
If you'd like to keep up withwhat we have going on at Visions
, please follow us on oursocials.
(01:00:05):
Links are in the show notes.
Thank you so much for listening.
Until next time.
Hello, you're listening to Into Liberation, a
podcast about transformativechange, equity and working
against oppression.
I'm Lina Achter, director ofPrograms with Visions Inc.
Welcome.
Today I'm excited to introduceyou to Terry Berman, a senior
Visions consultant and elder whohas also been a mentor to many
(00:22):
of the newer consultants who'vecome into this work in the last
few years.
Terry is originally from SouthAfrica, where she spent her
formative years before herfamily went into political exile
in the UK because of theiranti-apartheid activism, after
which she moved to the SanFrancisco Bay Area, where she
has been ever since.
Terry was key to establishingVision's presence on the West
(00:43):
Coast in the late 80s and 90sand has also been a vital part
of ensuring that our model andcurriculum are being passed on
to the next generation ofVisions consultants.
In this conversation, we talkabout her growing up in South
Africa and how her consciousnessabout liberatory work developed
as she moved across the globeand engaged in various forms of
activism and social justice work, and then how she connected
(01:03):
with Visions.
I learned a great deal aboutTerry in this conversation that
I didn't know before, includingthat this work, which she is
extraordinarily good at, was aninteresting shift in career for
her.
That and more coming up.
Hi everybody, I'm very excitedto be here with a mentor and
friend and colleague, terryBerman.
(01:24):
Hi, terry, hi, thank you somuch for agreeing to do this.
I've been very much lookingforward to this conversation.
So, for people who aren'tfamiliar with you, your work,
who you are, who you are toVisions, would you introduce
yourself briefly?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Sure, I am, I guess, considered a senior consultant,
lead consultant with Visions,and I've been with the
organization about 35 yearsworking in different capacities
Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I mean, I first got to know you as a mentor to my
cohort as we were coming in andI'd love to hear a little bit
about how you think aboutmentorship a little bit later in
this conversation and to theextent that you're willing to
share.
I know that you've had and thisis a similarity we have
experiences growing up in anumber of different countries
before deciding to settle in thestates, starting with growing
(02:13):
up in Pretoria, if I remembercorrectly no, no, I grew up in.
Johannesburg.
Yeah, will you tell us a littlebit about your early story?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Sure.
So my parents werefirst-generation immigrants,
jewish, from Eastern Europe andvarious other parts.
I won't get into all thedetails of their origins.
They were radical, they wereinvolved in the anti-apartheid
struggle, they were part of theCommunist Party and then
(02:43):
subsequently left.
With the invasion of Hungarythey actually formed an
underground movement and wereinvolved in sabotage and other
forms of resistance.
So just to sort of contextualizetheir history, because their
commitment, I feel like, wasformative for me, it was complex
(03:06):
, you know, because I felt likeI got a really early education
about the realities of SouthAfrica.
My parents were in thetownships.
I was in the townships.
We had contact, a lot ofAfrican people coming through
our house, even though it wasillegal, and living with us etc.
(03:28):
And I feel like that very earlyon I had a profound sense of
the injustice because I saw it,that was going on, and my
parents would talk about it, youknow, very openly and I don't
think kind of tried to protectme from the realities of what
(03:49):
was happening.
And so I think my sense ofjustice was was formed very,
very, very soon in my life.
I mean, I can remember at fouryears old being with my nanny
and seeing the mistreatment sheexperienced and this is someone
I loved, you know and beingoutraged, and I think one of the
(04:10):
things that I came tounderstand was that I I had deep
shame about the fact that I waswhite, even as my parents were
sort of struggling and I hadpride in what they were doing.
I.
So the way I managed that wasto sort of like, get into I'm
better, they're better and we'rebetter, you know, than the
(04:31):
white people who supportapartheid Right.
So it's complicated, like thatchild mind.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well, I'm not only child, I think.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, but I'm just saying that was sort of how I
managed the contradictions in myexperience and I think one of
the things that was alsointeresting is that that
position that we sat in, youknow, in our community was that
I was very othered.
My parents when they were inprison, their names were printed
(05:04):
in the paper and people wouldyou know, like your, your
parents are criminals.
You know, oh, wow, yeah.
And you know, when I wasyounger, I wanted to invite a
friend from this is I'm talkinglike preschool to come and play
and their family wouldn't letthem come and play with me
because you know of who myparents were, wow, okay, so your
(05:27):
parents fled europe duringworld war ii.
My grandparents, grandparentsokay, my grandparents fled
europe during the pogroms, andthen my father actually did, did
fight in the war.
Okay, okay, yeah, so no, myparents are.
You know, they they're theirfirst generation who were born.
(05:48):
Got it okay.
Got it, got it, got it okay.
Yeah, so I'm second generationborn in south africa.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, and for people who aren't necessarily familiar
with the details of howapartheid work, would you
describe like how the spatialsegregation worked in terms of?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
your neighborhood.
Oh yeah, no, absolutely.
I mean, I think it wasdeliberately geographically
designed to isolate people fromone another and that the only
way in which black people couldcome into white space, which was
wealthy space relative to wherethey lived, you know, they
concentrated them, you know,essentially in sort of like
(06:28):
ghettos that were calledtownships, and then the way it
was constructed was that blackpeople's role was to serve white
people, basically, and toservice the system, but they had
no rights.
And you know, this idea that itwas sort of separate, equal,
was a total fallacy and it wasjust a way to sort of exploit.
(06:50):
So people had to have passes inorder to come into the white
space and prove that they werethere legally to work.
That was the only, and if theyweren't working, they were sent
to Bantustans, you know, orfamilies couldn't live with each
other, because if they weren'tbeing so co-productive, working,
(07:10):
then they were isolated inthese very arid areas that had
been identified townships.
What I got to witness was thedifferent quality of of life,
you know, even for the educatedblack people that were around us
(07:31):
.
You know, I know my motherworked with like the leadership
of the ANC, you know was sort ofan educator and we were with
some of the elite and the way,you know, the conditions under
which they were living was sodifferent from how we were
living and we were with some ofthe elite and the way you know
the conditions under which theywere living was so different
from how we were living and wewere not wealthy you know, but
relatively, we were extremely,you know, compared to.
(07:55):
And so I saw that and I mean, Iremember being a little girl in
the township with my dad goingto some event, and it was winter
time, and this little girl wassaid to me oh I like a black kid
, oh I like your coat.
And she didn't have a coat onand it was really cold.
And so I started to take mycoat off and give it to her.
My father was no, no, you know,because I think I had that
(08:22):
sense of unfairness, you know,and I already had that feeling
of wanting to change it.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And the kids you were going to school with?
Was it other Jewish?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
kids Dominantly white .
I wasn't in a strong Jewishcommunity.
My circle of friends, my familycircle of friends, were family
and other Jews.
My family circle of friendswere family and other Jews, and
particularly you know, yeah, Iwould say that a considerable
number of the white peopleinvolved in the struggle were
Jewish.
(08:52):
It was my experience when Istarted getting involved in
activism as well.
That's like we didn't talkabout it that much a little bit,
but we were predominantlyJewish, All the white people
that I was working with.
That's the sort of pride I havefor that part of my Jewish
(09:20):
heritage is the Jewish socialistarm of the Jewish experience,
if you will.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I know that your family moved to the UK.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
How old were you?
I was almost nine, so I wasyoung.
My parents, you know, like Isaid, they'd been incarcerated
and then they were in hiding andthen I guess my dad had been
arrested again and he was letoff on a technicality.
But the special branch officertold him look, we have enough on
(09:49):
you to put the two of you underhouse arrest for a long time.
And you know, my parents weretalking about it.
I was about seven years old andmy parents said that they were
talking about it and apparentlyI said I don't know that I said
this, but this is what my momtells me is that they were
talking about it.
And I said are you't know that?
I said this?
But this is what my mom tellsme is that they were talking
about it.
And I said are you going to getarrested again?
And they said very likely.
(10:10):
I said, then we should leave.
And they said when I said thatthat clinched it for them.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, you know.
Yeah, I can imagine it becomesdifferent when you have kids.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, and so they felt like a response.
I think they kind of caught theprofound impact it was having
on us.
It was pretty intense.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Out of curiosity, what kind of activities were
they engaging in?
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well, you know they were part of ARM and they were
involved in.
Well, I know my dad wasinvolved in sort of moving
people across the border.
They did sabotage and helpedorganize and they were doing
that in south africa yeah okay,okay got it.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Okay.
That kind of thing that washappening okay.
Thank you, I'm sorry I got thetimeline a little bit mixed up,
okay oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And they continued to support the struggle in England
, you know.
So it took a while for us toget out of the country.
We got out of the country andwe went to Israel, first because
my mother has family there andI think they were considering
living in Israel.
But when we looked at thepicture there, my parents were
like, yeah, from the frying paninto the fire.
(11:25):
I don't think so.
You know, I felt like myparents.
It was very hard to leave SouthAfrica.
I mean, even though I said thatto my parents, I don't remember
it, but I do know that it was aprofoundly difficult move for
me, and the way they sold it wasthat, you know, britain was
(11:45):
better.
They had tried to come to theStates but they couldn't because
they had been members of theCommunist Party.
Was this?
Speaker 1 (11:51):
still on the immigration.
Oh, wow Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And so they decided on England and they said you
know well, england hasanti-discrimination laws, it's
so much better.
You know, said you know well,england has anti-discrimination
laws, it's so much better youknow, so I expected a very
different world than I found itwas very depressing.
I mean, I was very depressed.
Where did you move to?
So we moved to London.
(12:18):
So there was actually a largeSouth African community there,
many of them also, you know,activists, and so that community
kind of held us.
You know, they found a flat forus and we were living in a very
small flat or you know, I havethree sisters and the six of us
were living in a two room flatand then we did a sort of sublet
(12:43):
type situation where a familywas traveling for a while and we
lived in their house until myparents could get work and get
settled.
And it was a huge culture shockfor me.
One would think it's an Englishspeaking country and England
had such a large part ofcolonizing South Africa.
You know that it would not beas intense as it was, but it was
(13:04):
very intense and I had, I wasvery shocked by the level of
racism I experienced and sawthere and also the level of
antisemitism and it was so overtand out there in some ways, in
ways I hadn't experienced inSouth Africa, that level of
antisemitism.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Interesting Was that, like the big part of the
culture, shock just how thepeople were.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, it was.
Yes, it was just the climate, Ihave to say.
I mean I remember this time,you know, my family had a sort
of like practice of going forwalks together, like on Sunday,
and I remember standing at thewindows Sunday morning and
looking at the weather andstarting to cry because Very
(13:56):
different climate.
Yes, yeah, you know, I mean, Iacculturated but it was hard.
I was bullied.
I was pretty severely bulliedin elementary school.
It was stuff around gender.
It was like the boys were veryjealous of me.
I was very physical, I was fast, I was like you know, could do,
I could swim really well.
You know, it's like I come froma I come from a physical
(14:19):
culture, right, you know, I wasoutside all the time riding my
bike, playing, and I was strong,you know, and and yeah, the
boys kind of like went after meand I had a very profound I mean
this is just a little side avery profound gender lesson in
that experience.
(14:39):
In that one time it got so bad.
The boys were like throwingstones at me on my way home and
you know, they hit me.
I was bleeding, I was liketerrified, you know, and I ran
into someone's house and refusedto leave until someone came to
pick me up.
I was so scared, you know.
So then the cow was out the bagand so my parents, you know,
(15:02):
got involved, which was one ofmy fears that it was going to
get way worse, if right.
I snitched and the head mistresscalled in all the boys and had
a chat with them.
And then she called me in andhad a chat with me separately
and I said to one of the boys Ididn't, I didn't say anything,
you know, they're like, we know,we know, you know.
(15:24):
Then the headmistress said tome well, you know, you know,
when you're a girl, you need tokind of play it down.
You don't never want to bebetter than a boy, because they
can't handle it, you know.
Oh, wow, so you know, you justreally need to to pull it back a
little.
Wow, right, I was so angry, Iwas so angry and I couldn't say
(15:48):
anything wow, wow this was age,what it must have been 10, 11,
10, 10, because then I 11, Iwent to to secondary school.
Yeah, such a trip, yeah, thestuff that in my life around
gender particularly, it got veryexplicit in britain was I had a
(16:09):
teacher who said you know, boyswere smarter than girls in the
classroom now, I suspect thatthat was different from
messaging you were getting athome.
Totally.
I think part of why, you know,the transition was difficult for
me was because I was verydifferent and my mom, you know
my mom was a feminist, but youknow, I will say you know.
(16:31):
My mom would say you know, Ithink a couple of things that
exemplify her sort of experienceof being a woman in the world,
in the world of work, you know,that was dominated by men, was
you've got to be 10 times betterthan a man, was one message,
and the other message was neverlearn to type or you'll get
stuck.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I mean probably very good advice.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Although I regret not learning to type Fair enough.
Yeah, but a couple of thingsjust to exemplify that.
Yeah, so she here was this oflike, and yet you know I had a
pretty kind of patriarchalfather, so it was a both end,
yeah kind of patriarchal father.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So it was a both end.
Yeah, so you mentioned that youwent to dance school out of
British equivalent of highschool.
Tell me a little bit about thatwhat that was like.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
So it was like it was like stepping back into the
Victorian era.
It was a tiny little school andit had no heating, and we would
.
It was a dance school it was.
I got I got a scholarship to gothere.
It was a little private schooldance school and you know, I had
(17:52):
studied dance since I was fourand we would, you know, there
was one little heater and we'dkind of stand there in our
little leotards trying to warmup before we had to do ballet
first thing in the morning andthen we were like all ages in
one classroom with one teacher.
It really was a wholeprofoundly weird experience.
(18:13):
Interesting.
And how long were you there?
I was there till I was 15.
Oh, wow, okay, okay, yeah from11 to 15.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, wow, okay, and was this like the?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
residential sort of situation.
No, no, no, I, I lived with myfamily and it was a day school.
Yeah, yeah, they didn't have aboarding school aspect to it.
It was very tiny.
I think at one point there wasonly about 20 students, you know
.
Okay, and then, following that,so then I went to Kingsway
College for further educationand that was a day release
(18:50):
school for working people whodidn't have an education and
then people who hadn't beensuccessful through the public
school system.
So there were day releasestudents and full-time students
like myself, and I went there totry and finish the O-levels
that I needed, because that'sthe British system.
You do O-levels around 15, 16,and then 17, 18,.
(19:13):
You do your A-levels, whichessentially you do.
Three that you know usuallydetermine what you're going to
study in university.
You need at least a minimum offive to six O-levels and three
A-levels in order to get intouniversity, and the more you
have, the more chance you haveof getting into, the more elite.
You know, and I was wanting toreally go to university.
(19:35):
I was.
That was the trajectory I sortof had for myself, but because
of my dyslexia and because mydyslexia didn't get recognized I
mean, it didn't dyslexia didn'tget recognized until much later
.
There were no, there were noaccommodations.
So when I wrote my exams I wasalways at a disadvantage,
because you know the Britishsystem is that everything is
(19:55):
essay.
You know it doesn't matter.
British system is thateverything is essay.
You know, it doesn't matterwhat it is, everything is essay,
and so geography is essay form.
You know everything other thanmath, obviously, which I passed
math.
And so, because it was aprogressive school, they
actually had a different system.
So not everything counted onyour exams and that's how I got
through, except for the A-levels.
(20:16):
A-levels, the exam weightedvery heavily and, of course,
without accommodation, Iperformed poorly.
So I ended up going.
I got a scholarship to theLondon School of Contemporary
Dance, okay, after KingswayCollege, that's where I went.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
London School of Contemporary Dance, and how long
were you there?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
I was there for four years.
It was kind of like myuniversity experience, you know,
without it being a fulluniversity experience because it
was primarily a dance theatrefocus and it was both a
wonderful experience and alsovery, very awful, in that that
(20:58):
world is really awful.
I had a lot of challenges and Isaw some of my friends, like
you know, just I was strugglingand there's, you know, a lot, of
, a lot of food disorder stuff.
I had it.
You know, most of the girls didthat.
I was around.
So there was that side of it.
It just the oppressive natureof that world, the competitive
(21:20):
nature of that world, and thenthere was also, like this,
incredibly, like camaraderie,creative.
You know, I got to do somefabulous creative stuff.
You know I got to choreographstuff and perform all over the
place and I was in this sort ofcircus theater group that our
theater teacher put together forthe summer and we toured
(21:42):
England with it and it wasbeautiful, it was total fun.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I imagine that that's a very gendered world too.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Oh, absolutely Absolutely and very controlled
by men, and the sort ofaesthetic was sort of a male
aesthetic in terms of what wasokay.
And when I was there I was likeI want to start a fat dance
group because I've gotten somuch flack about being fat.
Meanwhile I was like the size Iam now and I was told I was
(22:12):
that.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
You know, I get a little anxious when you put
space up like that and I wastold I was that you know.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I get a little anxious when you put space up
like that.
I became a super rad after thatman, that experience.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I can imagine.
And then, how did you end up inthe Bay Area?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So my sister was living here and I decided that I
wanted to.
I wanted to leave Britain.
I needed to.
I needed to get out of Britain.
I think I needed to get awayfrom my family.
I was in a relationship and Ididn't know how to get out of
that.
I needed to get out of that, soI just left and came here
that's very early 20s of youleave the country the man I was
(22:57):
involved with followed me.
So I had to actually deal in theend.
But and yeah, I came out hereand I was theoretically only
coming for a year, but I cameout and I got stuck and you know
, I know I was working in London, I was working in a refuge for
(23:18):
battered women, okay, yeah, andI was also very much involved in
Essex Road Women's Center doinga lot of work around women's
health, abortion rights, youknow just that whole movement.
I was very involved in that.
And so when I came here, thevery first thing I did I think
I'd been two weeks here and wentto this violence against women
(23:41):
conference and met up with somefolks and got involved in
forming a network of in thiscountry they called refuges, I
think, shelters.
No, they were refuge in Britain.
I can't remember now thelanguage, but anyway, yeah, yeah
so we sort of formed a networkacross the west coast of
(24:02):
organizations working in anattempt to do more advocacy
around violence against women.
So that was sort of, like youknow, my first step into my, my
sort of continued radical work.
Because when I was in Britain Iwas a squatter and I was, I was
organizing in my area as Ilived in Islington, and so we
(24:25):
had a huge organization inIslington that myself and my
friend were helping lead.
I realized I just had sort of anatural affinity for
facilitation, I guess, because Ijust stepped up into leadership
and that was a very empoweringexperience to be involved in
(24:49):
that movement, engaged in doinggrassroots organizing and and
actually that also, I think, waswhere I started learning some
of the sort of carpentry andplumbing and electric skills
that I learned because you hadto do that in order to kind of
get your house up and running.
Pretty I did some prettyterrible things.
(25:11):
I mean like I'm, like I can'tbelieve I did that, like
stealing the huge fuse out ofyou know, like really dangerous.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Yeah, so you got involved in the basically
women's anti-violence movementin San Francisco and then
building and things like that,and I want to ask you about that
in a moment what was yourexperience around being gay in
that movement when youintersected with it?
(25:43):
I imagine it was a particularthing out in the Bay Area.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
One of the reasons I think I was attracted to the Bay
Area was because there was sucha strong presence and I came
out when I was here.
Like I have sort of officiallycame out here, and I think part
of my draw here was becausethat's the trajectory I was on.
I had been on quite early in mylife but sort of like hadn't
been able to sort of find my waythere.
(26:07):
And as I got more involved inwomen's liberation movement,
that became more of apossibility and so when I came
here I came out and I mean ittook a little while but I found
myself there and so that wasliberating for me.
And so I did do work directly,you know, involved in like I was
(26:29):
in a group, I was in severalgroups and one of them was like
organizing against policeviolence, against the LGBTQ
community, and I sort of likepulled my theater experience.
We did these little skits andyou know education skits and I
mean it was creative, it was fun, it was interesting.
(26:49):
What I was saying about beingJewish is that predominant there
were Jewish lesbians in thesegroups that I was in, you know.
So that was potent for me.
And then I got involved in theAfrican People's Solidarity
Committee, and that was adifferent experience about being
queer, because then it was likeit was just all about being
(27:12):
white solidarity workers andthere was no room to talk about
intersectionality and when wedid like at one point we had a
whole conversation about classand gender differences.
You know how that was playingout in the movement and that got
squished by the leadership, theBlack leadership at the time,
(27:32):
and part of what had drawn me toit was that I'd gone to a sort
of study group that theyorganized.
You know which was one of theways that they pulled people
into the movement.
And actually I do want to justsay that I think that it was a
cult.
I don't think it was a cult.
It was a cult because of someof the things that I now come to
understand.
Unfortunately, my best friendgot in it heavy and that's why I
(27:54):
say it was a cult, because ofwhat I saw, her experience, and
you know I was more on theperiphery because I'm not very
good at sort of people like oh,no, no yeah, I.
I went to the study group andthey talked about
(28:15):
intersectionality.
There I was very excitedbecause I was interested in
navigating all my differentexperiences and I think, if I'm
honest, my focus had been upuntil that point on my own
target experience.
I was really navigating what itmeant to be a woman,
particularly to be Jewish, eventhough I feel like I didn't
(28:38):
always have a language for howmuch anti-Semitism had been
impacting me About being animmigrant, even though I
understood that I had relativeprivilege by virtue of my class
and race.
But my focus was really on mytarget level.
You know what it?
Growing up with a learningdisability, all of those things
that I had felt other thantargeted.
(29:00):
That was sort of a driver.
And yet as I got involved inthe solidarity movement, then I
was getting pushed to kind oflook at my privilege and I knew
that from South Africa.
You know I understood where Isat, knew that from South Africa
.
You know I understood where Isat.
You know it wasn't like it wasnew for me, but I don't think I.
(29:20):
I was very interested in how dowe navigate all those
differences, the ways in whichwe're complex beings, and so
when I was working in thesolidarity, particularly the
African People's SolidarityCommittee that experience of
being shut down around talkingabout intersectionality and
experience of being shut downaround talking about
intersectionality and sort ofbeing told essentially that if
we talked about any other issuewe were really like minimizing,
(29:44):
we were detracting from theimportance of race and
anti-racism and I felt like thatwas something wrong.
That was really not working forme.
And then I subsequently gotinvolved in doing more
solidarity work for CentralAmerica and I went to Nicaragua
and helped build houses there.
And that experience, bothworking, you know, in the
(30:09):
solidarity movement, working inthe left, seeing the ways the
left were fighting with eachother and I think I told you
before that I like had thisfeeling, like I don't know if it
would be good if these peoplecame into a power, because I I
was like I'd be scared if thesepeople came into power, because
(30:30):
I really felt like we weren'tliving what we were talking
about theoretically, like wewere like reproducing the very
things that we were talkingabout wanting to change and we
didn't have a language or apractice to be different.
And I think, my experiencebuilding houses in Nicaragua the
first time I went with a mixedgroup of people.
(30:51):
And the second time, at ORC, Iwas close with a Nicaraguan
woman who was a mover andgroover in Nicaragua and we
worked together and formed awomen's brigade and the idea was
to teach women constructionskills.
So we, like, brought downtoolkits for everyone and you
know, we fundraised so we couldbuild houses there and In the
(31:13):
experience of building thosehouses we ran into some real
cultural differences.
So it was actually around gender, like the men wanted to help
the women and help us build andthen they took over and we were
very reactive about that.
All the North American women Ithink there was eight of us and
(31:33):
there were eight Nicaraguanwomen and we were like no, no,
no, this is terrible.
And we were trying to push backand the women were like, no,
let them do it.
And so we stopped production,you know, and we had to have
because the women were angry assabout our response, you know
the Nicaraguan women and so theywere like, look, we live with
(31:54):
these men, this is our really,this is our community and this
is how we roll, not the languagethey use.
But you know, essentially theywere like, look, we live with
these men, this is our communityand this is how we roll, not
the language they use.
But you know, essentially theywere saying you can't dictate to
us how this has to look Rightand we have to find another way,
because in that moment it wouldnot have been okay to tell them
to stop doing what they weredoing.
So we were like, yeah, we heardthat, you know, we had to
(32:18):
account for the way in which wehad managed it.
And then I was like but we camehere to give you the skills and
if you let them do it, you'renever going to learn the skills.
So we need to convey that tothe men in the community that
while we appreciate their help,we actually want them to help us
(32:38):
by stepping out, you know.
And so the last two houses thatwe built because you know, we
built them one at a time we laidthe foundation and then we did
brick buildings and put thestructures on it.
The women agreed.
We talked to the men in thecommunity, they backed off and
we ended up building the housesall by ourselves.
(32:58):
And they were like well, wecan't mix the cement like the
men do.
I was like no, you can't mixthe cement like the men do,
because we just don't have theupper body strength like they
have, but we have strength, andso we're going to mix them in
wheelbarrows and do it in arelay, one bag at a time, so
that we can do it in a way thatworks for us.
(33:19):
And so we poured that wholefoundation, one bag at a time,
mixing and pouring, mixing andpouring in a little kind of
relay, and we built, you know,carried these heavy-ass posts
for the frame of the house, pureconcrete, all of us, all eight
of us, popping these up.
I mean, it was so empowering.
It was empowering for me and itwas empowering for them.
(33:41):
And that experience taught meabout the level of assumption
and sort of like our privilegeand the ways in which we had
approached it.
I was like I want to figure outa way how to do things
differently and in a way thatexperience helped me see the
(34:03):
possibility of being incollaboration rather than like
doing it my way, doing it ourway right, and like hearing the
difference and navigating thedifference.
And I think it was soon afterthat that I decided that I
wanted to get into At that timeit was like I heard about it as
(34:23):
cross-cultural communicationInteresting.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
So you said.
When we talked before we metfor this recording, you told me
that you transitioned toconsulting from building.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah, when I came to this country, I worked at the
People's Cultural Center.
I had already been a squatter,right, so I'd already got a
little bit of knowledge around.
I had, like, run electricity inmy house, you know, I'd done
plumbing, and the squatters welike had conferences where we
would teach each other, you know.
I mean first you have to knowhow to change a lock, because
(34:54):
you have to break in and thenchange the lock, and then you
can like, yeah, you know youprove occupancy, right, that's
the first thing you do.
To prove occupancy, you changethe lock.
And so I learned how to do.
I had to in order to get thehouse functional, and so when I
came here, I startedvolunteering at the People's
(35:15):
Cultural Center, which was likea community center that they
were starting that had culturalevents.
They were going to have a cafethat was very similar to what is
in the East Bay called La Peña.
The group of Chilean exilesstarted, and so the organizers
had raised funds and we werefixing up this building, and so
I volunteered, and then thegroup of people who were doing
(35:37):
that work formed a little likelittle company and we were doing
renovation work, and so Isubsequently decided to continue
.
After many other things that Idid, from being a bike messenger
to working in a hospital, youknow I mean I just did whatever
I could to survive working in ahospital.
(35:58):
You know, I mean I just didwhatever I could to survive I
decided to join the union and soI was a union carpenter and I
left I mean not like I left theunion, but I started doing just
more remodeling with a friendand that was primarily how I had
taken a little hiatus and Itried to learn to do printing
and I ran a printing press for awhile and then I went back to
(36:20):
carpentry and worked as anindependent not contractor, but
an independent person and did alot of renovation, mostly, yeah.
So then I was like, okay, thisis really hard on the body and
all this time I was doing allthis other stuff.
I was, you know, I was doingall my political work and I was
very interested in how do we dothis differently.
(36:42):
So I studied neurolinguisticsprogramming.
First I had done re-evaluationcounseling.
Then I studied neurolinguisticsprogramming, then I did
therapeutic hypnosis.
I studied that independently.
And then I did therapeutichypnosis.
I studied that independently.
And then I did communitymediation.
(37:02):
All of this was like I think I'mtrying to sort of find a place
to kind of navigate what I wasexperiencing in my political
life.
So I'm working as a carpenterand doing all these other things
.
And then I realized that Ineeded to get out of carpentry.
I couldn't sustain itphysically.
(37:23):
It's very demanding.
And I also wanted to in a waymarry my political life with my
survival, because I didn't feellike I could sustain the output
that I was.
It was a lot.
Yeah, output that I was, it wasa lot.
And so a friend of mine hadtalked about cross-cultural
communication and I was like, ohyeah, that's what I want to do,
(37:44):
you know, and I didn't knowwhat it was, but I, I went to
the Summer Institute forCross-Cultural Communication.
I went to every workshop Icould and that's sort of how I
started, you know, went to newbridges, a bunch of different
things.
And in 89, a friend of mine,who was then called Ildugudieres
(38:09):
Valdakin, said, oh, you have tolook at this video, and she
shared a video about talkingabout modern oppression,
oppression, internalizedoppression.
She, I was like, wow, that'sgreat.
She's like, yeah, well, come,you know, you should take a
workshop.
Then it was called changingracism, a personal approach to
multiculturalism.
Oh, okay, so in 89 I went tothat workshop and I was, yes,
(38:36):
after all the things I had tried, I was like, yes, this is it.
And I, you know, I was in aninterracial relationship at the
time.
It was very transformative forme to so understand give me a
language for understanding someof the dynamics that were
challenging in our relationship.
At a very personal level.
It was profound.
(38:57):
And then it was also verytransformative for me to sort of
like process some of the, Ithink, unhealed places that I
was carrying from my growing upin South Africa, in particular
around the complexity of myrelationship as a white person,
as a white child in thatenvironment, and so it was very
(39:21):
healing for me and I thought,yeah, this is what I want to do.
I told Val, I want to do this.
So here I am, 35 years later.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Amazing and you connected with visions right
when well, I think it's hard tosay a particular tipping point
in in terms of south africanhistory, and I know that things
were extremely intense andchaotic in the 80s oh yeah, yeah
, I mean that, yes, and, and Ithink things were pretty intense
(39:52):
in here too.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
you know, yes, of course, and you know the the
sort of Reagan era and just someof the consequences of that and
, like I said, and in mypersonal life, I think, the ways
in which I don't think I hadreally brought sufficient
attention to what it meant tosit where I sat as a in my
(40:16):
privilege, like I think I hadprimarily focused on my, you
know, places of beingdisenfranchised and I wasn't
attending the same way.
I mean, I knew it intellectuallybut I don't think in my
practice or having a reallyfully developed language it was
there and it wasn't does.
(40:36):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (40:38):
It absolutely makes sense.
Yeah, I mean in our approach,the way that we scaffold for
people the affective part ofunlearning and leaning into
different ways of being.
I think it's one of the thingsthat differentiates our approach
from so many others.
And to what you're sayingthere's a huge difference
(40:58):
between an intellectualunderstanding of privilege or
lack of disadvantage and anemotionally worked through
understanding.
I can certainly feel thedifference when I'm interacting
with somebody who's done thatuncomfortable affective work and
come to a certain place with it.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, absolutely yes, and so that was, and actually
it was interesting because Sarahwas the, was the white
facilitator with Bell and someof us connected afterwards and
continued meeting as whitepeople.
You know that was great.
I mean I had been in a groupearly on in the 80s, early in
(41:37):
the 80s, with a group of womenand we were meeting as white
women, as Jewish women, aspeople of color and working
class, and so that was sort ofthe criteria of you know our
focus to look at sort ofintersectionality and it just
went haywire.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
And it wasn't like the first time I had been in
white space and then, also beingtalking about what it means to
be white and Jewish, I'd been inJewish space and talking about
our own internalized oppression,so I'd done some of that work,
but I don't think I it was waspowerful for me about.
You know, what you're saying isthat there was an affective
(42:15):
piece to vision's frame and ithad an analysis around our
practice, like how does itactually manifest and giving
language to the practice of howwe perpetuate these dynamics.
You're talking about the modernoppression behaviors, yeah, and
how to, and then what theoptions are for you know,
(42:36):
noticing it and interrupting it,and for me that was like
liberating, because it helped mesee my own dysfunction, you
know, and the ways out of myawareness I was perpetuating,
the things I wanted to change, Imean the starting framework of
no blame shame is also veryhelpful when I teach modern
(42:59):
oppression behaviors.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
That's one of the things I emphasize no blame, no
shame Right.
We, as facilitators, are miningour lives for cringy examples
to bring to the table.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
That's so true, that's so true, so true, so true
, yeah, yeah, that's so true, sotrue, yeah, yeah, and you know,
I, if I'm honest, I kind oflearned on the job, you know,
and I also.
I also do just want to sort ofshout out to the people that I
feel like provided me with.
It was a fairly neworganization and I was, you know
(43:37):
, newer when I stepped in, andso people definitely helped my
development.
I had the opportunity to workwith a lot of the elders that
are in our community and somewho have gone.
So I would say you know myexperience of working with Ilda
Gutierrez, who later became aZen priest and is now called
Rimon.
It's absolutely profound interms of my learning and my
(44:03):
experience working with Waikesaas well.
He was pretty extraordinary inhis style and approach and you
know, I'm profoundly grateful tohave had the experience of
working with him.
I just want to shout out, andthen I'd say you know, jean
Washington was another personthat I grew deeply from being in
(44:26):
contact with Mark Wise when Istarted working, he was working.
And of course, joe Lewis isjust like the queen and,
needless to say, you know theopportunity to work with Val,
both as a facilitator and thenlater sort of working a little
(44:46):
with her.
We didn't do that much, but Ifeel like she's an absolute
master and it's just.
You know, like I said, sarahand Joan I've worked with Joan
and Countess Joan.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
I'm just thinking, you know, of all the, of all the
elders that I had theopportunity to work with, and
how how much I grew from theexperience and we and I realized
now we were growing together soI came to know you as a mentor
and you know speak of you as youwere speaking of your
(45:21):
colleagues and people who wereelders to you in the Visions org
and you know you were so key tobringing my cohort in.
I'm curious what that processhas been like for you and also
about what is it that you wantto make sure to pass along as
(45:42):
people are getting into thiswork or continuing with the work
.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I feel deeply grateful that I had the
opportunity.
So again, I sort of like I'mvery grateful to Val for
bringing me in.
You know, we were workingtogether and talking about what
our future looked like, told herthat I had always wanted to do
a training institute and she waslike, wow, we've been talking
about the same thing.
And so, you know, I want to saythat the legacy, the issue of
(46:10):
building legacy in theorganization, really was driven
by Val, was driven by Val.
I had been thinking more about,like us, creating it, or I had
originally not necessarily withvisions and thought about doing
a training Institute.
And then our desires sort ofaligned and she said, well, we
need to build our team ofconsultants younger consultants,
(46:32):
you know and do some legacyplanning.
And I was like, okay, I'm in,you know, and so I'm very
grateful for the experiencebecause it was something I have
wanted to do and felt like wasreally important to do.
And actually I realized I hadbeen doing Throughout my career.
(46:53):
Yes, I had been doing itthroughout my career and I had
had a role to play in bringingin some of the consultants that
are with us today, especiallyfrom the side of the coast.
So in a way, it was sort oflike a continuation of that, and
some of it was just that I wasvery turned on to this model and
I was into proselytizing.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
I hear that.
Yes, I understand.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
And also because I think there was growing interest
and you know we needed morepeople.
So, and I remember Val sayingwe need more people, so and I
remember Val saying we need moremen and we had a meeting at
Jane Ariel's house and that'show Jimmy and Alec came to be,
you know, by inviting variousmen into.
They stuck, you know.
So I had that experience andthen this was a much more
(47:41):
formalized process ofinvolvement and I think one of
the things that it was like whatI've really recognized is that
when I said to you I learned onthe job, I think that's what
happens is you learn on the job?
So there's ways that you canlearn the frame, but the
practice is very difficult toteach and that is the part that
(48:05):
I mean.
I feel like it was.
It's been a learning experiencefor me.
I don't think I knew how to bean educator really.
You know I was feeling my way,trying to figure out the
importance of being able to givepeople the content as a frame,
a base, work with folks around,application, understand that
(48:26):
everybody has their ownunderstanding and interpretation
and makes meaning differently.
Also, that teaching processskills takes time.
It takes much longer than Ithink we anticipate right and
some of us come in more.
You know our life experience,like I said, you know I had a
(48:48):
kind of penchant forfacilitation.
Early in my life I was runningstuff kind of organically.
But some folks don't have thatexperience.
So the sort of range ofcapacity for doing this work is
different, based on your ownlived experience and where your
skill base is.
So I think some peopleintuitively have it, some people
(49:11):
it's a little harder, and sonavigating that and trying to, I
think I hit up against you knowmy own expectations of like
there's some things I think cameto me more organically.
It's hard to figure out how toteach that, and so I I had to
really work hard around how tosort of sit with people's
(49:34):
process, let them go through theprocess they had to go through
in order to to get where theyneeded to go.
I want to say it's been a hugelearning curve journey for me,
as well as of like the beauty ofsupporting people.
I mean it's so rewarding for mewhen I feel like we've gone on
(49:57):
this journey together and then Isee people doing the work and
I'm like, wow, how fabulous isthat?
You know what I mean when I seetheir brilliance showing up and
it's like it's really differentfrom my brilliance, but it's
their brilliance.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
You know you get me yeah, I can imagine that trying
to teach this and teach all theskills that go with it is
interesting to what you'resaying about teaching the
process, skills obviously verymuch resonates.
There was learning the frameand the model and learning to
teach everything, et cetera.
And then I feel like when I wasfirst in consulting rooms, I
(50:39):
felt really relieved because,honestly, the way that I phrased
it was like thank God there'san adult in here for when stuff
comes up.
Because one of the way that Iphrased it was like thank God
there's an adult in here forwhen stuff comes up, because one
of the things that I had tovery deeply unlearn, and unlearn
through my visions, work, theinternal work and also the
external work is severe conflictaversion.
(51:00):
Oh yeah, oh, big time.
And it's tracked withunlearning it in my personal
life and stuff like that.
And now, five years in, I'mfinally at the point where, when
something comes up in the room,instead of wanting to, you know
, have a hole open up in thefloor and swallow me up so I
don't have to deal with it, I'mlike okay, great, this is here,
let's move towards it.
(51:21):
Let's like name the awkwardthing and work with it and that
is a shift that's only reallyhappened in, like the last year
and a half.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that piece is very is is
just practice.
It is a piece around unlearning.
I definitely, you know, cannotice, like when I get
triggered.
You know, I'm much more skillednow at noticing when I'm
triggered, and of course I stillget triggered, you know.
And then I love it sometimeswhen it happens, because then
(51:49):
it's like, oh, the next teachingopportunity.
I say, oh, just the other day Iwas in this meeting and I got
triggered and this is whathappened and I was so quick to
notice and clean it right.
That's where I'm inviting forpeople because, especially in my
work with white people feellike they're so caught in
(52:09):
perfectionism and not makingmistakes.
And I'm really about this isnot about not making mistakes.
There's no way, as human beings, we don't make mistakes.
This is about being able tonotice and clean it and address
it, either in the moment or assoon as possible afterwards, you
know, because that's what thework is.
(52:31):
That is how human relationshipsoperate, that's what makes us
deepen our relationships, andconflict is part of it.
So, yes, I absolutely agreewith you and I think one of the
things that I've had to learntoo is try on.
You know, I have my way ofdoing things and when I've
(52:51):
worked with newer consultantsand they want to try something
different, I was like, no, Iknow Hideko really called me on
that and it was reallyinstructive, because it was like
, yep, you're right, I'm totallynot trying stuff on oh, how
beautiful.
(53:13):
I definitely feel like I love.
I love mentoring, because youknow this might sound I don't
know, but I mean it's taken me along time to actually
appreciate how much, how good Iam at what I do.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
That is a good self-awareness in there.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Yes, you know, it's like it's been very hard for me
because I think I didn'trecognize and for a long time I
didn't get like like you're goodat what you do, you know, and
you know that has come just withlived experience.
It's not like because it'ssomething special about me, it's
just like I've been doing it along time, like I remember
(53:55):
someone talking about thedifference between a teacher and
a student is that the teacherhas just been doing it longer.
So I appreciate that I havecome to the place in my life
where it's like I'm good at whatI do and I really want to be
able to support other people tobe good at what they do, of have
(54:21):
some of the knowledge andexperience that I can say to
someone ah, have you tried this?
Or Mike, what about this, youknow, as an option, right?
And that's why I like coachingas well.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
So, what would you say to people who are in this
work, want to do this work?
What is it that you would sayfrom the perspective of having
done it this long?
What is something you want topass on or something you would
want to highlight?
Speaker 2 (54:52):
Well, I think the thing that has been most
important for me is mycommitment to living what I
teach, and I think that for me,if I didn't live what I teach,
then I don't think I would be aseffective.
But I really have been committedto the practice in my life and
(55:13):
then I feel like I'm authenticand genuine and I'm not fronting
, you know when I'm in the roomand I think people see that, and
so I think that's for me one ofthe most important things that
I would convey beautiful, andthen you've seen a lot of things
change and also a lot of thingsarguably regress.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Yeah, what do you want to see in the world?
Speaker 2 (55:39):
you know, I think right now I am.
I love the way Val talks aboutwe don't want to be bigots to
bigots, and one of the thingsthat I'm recognizing in this
current moment is my ownreactivity, my own emotional
responses of scare and angerthat bring me to a place of
(56:02):
judgment, shame and blame ofother people and the sort of
discounting of their humanity.
And so you know, my commitment,like when I said, you know, I
want to live what I teach, mycommitment to myself is to do
the work, whatever it is that Ineed to do, in order to shift
what's happening in meinternally and my responses to
what's happening in the world.
(56:22):
You know, and that I realized Igot caught in the divisive
discourse that is happening.
I got caught, I've gottencaught, and my commitment is to
detach myself from that and topractice what I know.
And so my desire is for us tofigure out ways to come together
(56:47):
and actually discount thepeople who are obviously angry
and scared about what'shappening in the world and how,
(57:12):
why, how is it they've beenimpacted that we don't
understand.
So that's my desire, because Ithink that's the only way we're
going to make, we're going toget some traction and make
change.
But but as long as we'redivided, so effectively divided,
we're not going to be effective.
It doesn't help talking to theconverted, if you will.
You know we have to find waysto be in dialogue across
(57:35):
differences.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
So one of the things that I find to be very well
interesting thinking about thehistory of South Africa,
thinking about US history andalso thinking about certain
history of South Africa,thinking about US history and
also thinking about certainpieces of our model is how key
separation and, as much aspossible, blocking and
preventing the development ofauthentic relationships across
(57:59):
difference, how key that is tomaintaining oppressive systems.
Yeah, exactly so.
The emphasis that we put onbeing in relationship across
difference, on self-managementaffect, on repair skills, all of
that is deeply important tothat.
So, circling back to thebeginning of our conversation,
(58:20):
do you come back to South Africamuch?
When was the last time you werehere?
Speaker 2 (58:24):
You know I came back to South Africa a lot when my
mom was alive.
She lived in Cape Town and Iwould come back on a regular
basis to be with her, but it'sbeen seven years since I've been
here.
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (58:39):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (58:40):
I miss it and I also made the decision that you know,
I spent a lot of time there andif I have the opportunity to
travel, I want to go and exploresome other places.
Now, sometimes I think aboutmoving back there, but I don't
know, I think that might be verydifficult.
Thank you, this was delightful.
Speaker 1 (59:02):
I just appreciate how much more of you I have the
privilege of knowing.
Speaker 2 (59:10):
So it makes me want to know a little bit more about
you, girl.
I feel like I should interviewyou next.
Speaker 1 (59:16):
I'm like weirdly microphone shy, believe it or
not.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
I read that about you .
Speaker 1 (59:22):
Between, like the dance and the carpentry and the
squatting, like just amazing andwonderful, and thank you Really
.
Thank you for taking the timeand for sharing your story,
absolutely.
If you've been with Visions fora long time or if you're just
discovering us now, we welcomeyou.
Our work is many things and,first and foremost, it is an
(59:44):
invitation into deep culturechange.
Our podcast is a powerful wayto connect with the
organization's history and itspresent and, frankly, we would
love more people to know aboutour story and our work.
If you found this useful, we'dbe grateful if you would leave
us a review on whicheverplatform you're listening.
If you'd like to keep up withwhat we have going on at Visions
, please follow us on oursocials.
(01:00:05):
Links are in the show notes.
Thank you so much for listening.
Until next time.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!