Uncovering Family Truths in Stories of Strength with Jerry Hawkins

Ever wondered how reconnecting with your roots could transform your life? In this episode of "Hope Dealer," we are privileged to hear from Jerry Hawkins, who shares his family's incredible journey from Mississippi to the Windy City. Jerry offers a heartfelt look into the struggles and triumphs faced by his grandparents as they settled in Chicago's housing projects and found solace in the Greater Harvest Missionary Baptist Church. You'll be captivated by the rich history of this church and the inspirational leadership of Reverend Louis Boddie, which played a pivotal role in the healing of Jerry's family and the south side of Chicago.

As we shift toward self-discovery and healing, Jerry opens up about his own path of uncovering hidden family truths and the socio-economic dynamics that shaped his upbringing. We discuss the misleading narratives about the hood and the internal conflict of being advised to leave the community for success. The conversation takes us back to my school days at Beasley Academy and Whitney Young High School, exposing the subtle segregation within the educational system and its role in perpetuating disparities. Together, we underscore the importance of acknowledging these histories and fostering shared healing to overcome collective trauma.

The narrative deepens as we chop it up about growing up amidst gang culture in Chicago, influenced by the role models within our own community. This episode is a testament to the resilience required to navigate personal, political and familial transitions. We explore the emotional journey of divorce, the professional challenges of working in predominately white spaces, and the eventual success in creating a transformative family center in Dallas.

Finally, we celebrate the grounding practices that reconnect us with the earth and our ancestors. Through Jerry's journey and personal rituals, we explore the intrinsic value found in our cultural heritage and the wealth of our personal narratives. By embracing these elements, we discover a redefined sense of wealth, focusing instead on the spiritual and cultural contributions that shape our identities. This episode is a testament to the enduring power of community, culture, and the shared human experience, inviting listeners to explore these themes within their own lives.

F.L.Y. L.I.B.R.E. a guide for healing and liberation can be purchased here: amzn.to/4iCzAAM

Get Dr. McBride's book "Becoming Changemakers" to explore more stories of resilience and community transformation. Connect with the Become Center at becomecenter.org or email [e-mail].

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Buenas familia, soy Jose, rico or Rico, if you know
me from the hood.
Thank you so much for yourattention today.
It means everything to me, andI want to welcome you to Hope
Dealer, which is a podcast aboutour journey towards hope,
resilience and joy through thestories that we carry about our

(00:22):
return home, and my intentionfor our time together is to
remind us that we carry powerfulmedicine within us that is our
guide to our transformation.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
I am so grateful to be able tointroduce you to incredible
people, incredible spirits thatwill share their journeys with

(00:46):
us.
All right, so I'm going to getus started.
I want to welcome everyone totoday's Hope Deal, a podcast

(01:11):
experience about your journeytowards hope, resilience and joy
through each of our stories ofreturning home to South and
reconnecting with that identitythat we have, and so I hope my
intentions for today is thatyou're able to reconnect with
your own journey and then alsoget to know our guest's

(01:32):
spiritual journey and hopefullyconnect with some of the
teachings that Jerry has for youtoday.
So I'm going to start off byjust thanking you, jerry, for
spending this time, and really Ican't wait.
You know when we were talkingearlier.
I can't wait to people to knowsomebody who's real Chicago yeah

(01:54):
Right, because there's.
There's part of the healingjourney for me, and I'm sure for
you, is because of where we are, yeah, yeah.
So I can't wait for people tohear your story and that part of
your healing journey.
So, as we begin, I just wantyou to introduce yourself, your
story, tell us a little bitabout who you are, what you want

(02:16):
to talk to us about and justkick us off.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Okay, Thank you for having me, my brother, Brother
Jose, I don't think it's everbeen a time where it's been not
a joy to be with you, so it'salready been a joy today.
My name is Jerry Hawkins.
I am the son of Julia and JerryHawkins, two kids whose parents

(02:46):
came here from Arkansas,Mississippi.
You know, as I was sharingearlier, they grew up in housing
projects in Chicago, so thestories that my aunt and uncles
would tell me about them aredifferent than the stories my

(03:06):
mother and father told, Becausethey talked about like real
struggle.
My mother and father wouldnever really like get into those
painful stories speaking abouthealing journey.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Even though they knew the stories.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Even though they knew the stories.
My mom still doesn't even talkabout growing up where she grew
up, you know, and my mother'sfrom the Dearborn Projects just
north of IIT, and uh, mother'sfrom the dearborn projects, um,
just north of iit, um, and myfather's from the harold icky
projects just south of iit,right, uh, so, uh, yeah, this.
They barely told those stories,you know, um, and I think again

(03:40):
, because they met at church,they were on a healing journey
of their own too.
You, we went to a very historicchurch in Chicago.
It's called Greater HarvestMissionary Baptist Church.
It's pretty historic because ofthe founder.
His name was Reverend LewisBoddy.
To give you an example of howpopular he was in the city, the

(04:03):
first Mayor Daley went to hisfuneral, papa Daley.
Papa Daley went to his funeraland gave the eulogy Wow On the
Chicago Defender.
He died the same day thatMalcolm X was assassinated, but
his name was on top of MalcolmX's headline in the Chicago
Defender.
Just to give you an example ofhow powerful he was.

(04:26):
He built the church, but theywere really popular because they
had a 3 pm broadcast servicethat went all around the country
and it was syndicated.
So you know, just learning notonly the history of my family,
but the history of even thechurch that I spent.

(04:46):
We spent like six days at thechurch.
You were a child of the church.
I'm a child of the church andour church again.
If you don't know, yourlocation was on 5121 South State
Street.
Yeah, so at the time it wasacross the street from the
second largest housing projectin the country, the Robert

(05:08):
Taylor Housing Projects.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Go ahead, brother.
Yeah, so I think, and I'mpretty sure, that that was the
same church my girlfriend thatlived on 89th Street went to.
Really, what was her name?
Youngblood, regina Youngblood.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Regina Youngblood.
She was in the choir, reginaYoungblood, did she have a
sister?
Yes, what's her sister's name?
I forgot her sister.
Okay, and a brother.
I got to look at this.
I got to look at this becauseit's a small world.
I got to look at this I got tolook at this because it's a
small world.
You know what I'm saying.
It's a really small world,right, right, right.
So, yeah, you know, we grew upin that church, like my mother

(05:56):
and father grew up in thatchurch.
Both my mother and father wentto the same high school, but
they are four years apart in age, so they never saw each other.
They went to Phillips HighSchool, got it Right Nearby,
yeah, and they walked the churchfrom their projects, by the way
, which is you know a few miles,if you don't know where.
You know, cermak is at 51st,where they went to church, right

(06:19):
, Right.
And if they had a couple youknow dollars, my aunt said they
would take the jitney cab.
Oh, yeah, but back then youcould get the jitneys, yeah, and
that was, you know, for 50cents to a dollar.
You can jump in with some otherpeople.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
It was a pre-Uber.
That's right, pre-uber.
I mean, that's an idea thatUber owes the Jitneys some
royalties man One hundredpercent.
That's another argument forreparations.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
And so my great grandmother andmy grandmother, they are the
generation because mygrandmother came after my great
grandmother the generation whomigrated, you know, to Chicago
from the South.
Wow, so they're part of thegreat migration.
And I don't want to be—I wantfolks to really understand, like

(07:14):
, what that meant for Chicago.
Chicago became the thirdlargest city in the country
primarily because— yeah, twomore of those in the country.
Primarily because, yeah, yeah,two more of those.
Yeah, primarily because blackpeople migrated in the 50s.
Yeah, and then Mexican people.

(07:37):
We're going to be real clearabout who came.
Mexican people created theselarge communities, especially on
the south side, and then we gotto talk about again our Puerto
Rican communities on the Northside.
So, again, people of colorcreated the third largest city
in the country, and I don'tthink people talk about that
enough, you know.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
And when black folks came here in many places in
Chicago it was called themigration crisis.
That's right.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Right, Migration crisis.
I mean, I just think about thestory of migration crisis.
That's right, Right, Migrationcrisis.
I mean I was thinking about thestory of Lorraine Hansberry's
father.
He was actually a real estateowner.
He created something that'sagain official to Chicago called
Kitchenettes Right, when theywould split up apartment
buildings for families migratinghere so they could live in a
space that was so cramped.

(08:25):
You know, similar to tenements.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
And that's very familiar to a lot of black folks
that came from the south of.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Chicago, yeah, yeah, but I remember him.
He owned some of thoseapartment buildings but he was
trying to move into Kenwood andat the time Kenwood restricting
covenant.
When they moved in there theyblew up his house.
You know, Wow, yeah, and Ithink you know, fast forward the
story of Lorraine Hansberry'sfather.

(08:54):
He wanted to move to Mexico andwent down to Mexico because he
said he had fought the racism inChicago and the United States
so much that he can't beat it,and she believes that he died of
a heart attack because ofracism.
Wow, so he thought I'm his.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
He was conscious that I'm going to go to a place
where I'm loved and seen as ahuman being, to go to Mexico,
and, as you know, there's a lotof black folks doing that.
Now, yeah, it is.
So there's that legacy ofpeople, particularly black folks
, saying I want to let thisracism, I'm just done with it.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
And contrast that with what folks are quote
unquote, calling a migrantcrisis here.
And you know the border here,right, not talking about the
people who leave it here, right,because Chicago is also the
largest city with the largestblack population lost in the
country.
Black people used to be themajority in Chicago.

(09:53):
A lot of people don't realizethat either 35% of the
population.
When I was a kid, there wasover a million black people in
this city, and now I think thelast number I've seen is almost
700,000, you know.
So we're talking about a hugetown, a small city, somewhere

(10:18):
gone.
You know.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
So, jerry, but tell me how that history right and
that your analysis right.
I'm really wondering about howthat shaped your healing journey
.
Like what is in that history ofyou know, of your parents not
talking to you, because they maybe trying to protect you from
what they suffered and thechurch allowed them to

(10:41):
understand.
We don't need to pass that onto Jerry, including the bad
stories.
Yeah, right, so that might havebeen part of your healing
legacy.
One note is what is, what isyour?

Speaker 2 (10:51):
healing story.
So all these things I'm tellingyou are things I learned as as
a late adult not you know I'mtalking about.
I learned these things in mylate 30s and 40s and that's part
of my healing journey.
You know, my healing journey islearning these things.
You know, part of the stories Itold myself and others told me
about the place I live was thatit was a terrible, fucked up

(11:13):
place.
You know, learning the historyof my mother and my father and
the things that they wentthrough that they wouldn't tell
me.
You know, I mean, my mothertold me that my uncle worked for
the government.
He was in federal prison.
You know what I'm saying.
He worked for the government.
Wow, he was working for thegovernment.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, we actually call that slavery according to
the 13th Amendment Right, that'swhat I mean.
He was working for thegovernment.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
He had worked to get paid, you know, a fair wage.
He wasn't job at sport bardowntown was paying his wage,
you know.
So, yeah, like when I'm, whenI'm, when I am, I think uh, you

(12:01):
know, uh, when people hear mesay like historical facts or
some, they think it's just likeme, like I learned something and
now I'm like repeating it backbecause I think it's cool or
awesome or no, I'm telling aboutstuff I needed to know as a kid
and I didn't know so you'reclaiming that, I am claiming
that and you are accepting itand moving on and being able to

(12:21):
share it not only that, one ofmy biggest ways of healing
myself is learning the thingsI've been through, which is why
I'm interested in learning aboutthe places in which I've lived.
you know, I'm like, oh, that'swhy I was there.
I wasn't crazy, because part ofyou know, being in a traumatic
situation is like the tricks youplay on yourself, the tricks

(12:42):
people play on you, you know.
So, yes, it is.
That is a huge part of myhealing journey to learn these
things and to repeat it back toyou as a witness.
You know Right, because I wantto know if you notice it too,
because if you didn't know it,then we, you know we both need
some more healing, you know.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
And another thing we share you and I share is that we
were both in schools thatreally rewarded and prioritized
the intellectual side, the sideof our really developing our
intellect on an analytical and Iwas told by one of my high
school counselors there was theonly way you're going to get out

(13:24):
of the ghetto and be middleclass is if you leave the ghetto
.
And I thought that hit me hardbecause I was like but all the
people I love are in the ghetto,Like the ghetto, you ghetto.
You know 18th street and 26thstreet, those are the places
that I know people love me nowyou're telling me I have to
leave because that's the onlyway I'm gonna make it in US
society.

(13:44):
Yeah, so that was what was, Ithink, taking a lot of our time
and our intellect was that type.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Oh, for sure um, you know, looking back at my school,
and again I didn't, I didn'trealize this, I'm talking about
my elementary school now, right?
So, um, if you can imagine,like not the, just the trauma,
and I think we're all connectedso we gotta can't, can't just
like centralize our trauma, likeyou know, I'm having a worse
situation because I wasn't.

(14:13):
You know, I'm having a terriblesituation because I wasn't.
You know I'm having a terriblesituation.
But it ain't as terrible as thebrother next to me.
So I got to talk about it allRight.
So you know what I felt after Ilearned about where I went to
elementary school was verydifficult for me to comprehend.
So I went to a school, aselective enrollment school,

(14:37):
called Beasley Academic Center,and Beasley Academic Center was
a mostly black school on thesouth side, on the same block.
I've seen the school all mylife because I went to church
there all my life and I went toChild Parent Center Farron,
beasley Child Parent Center.
So what I didn't realize aboutwhat was happening, even though

(15:00):
I realized my parents, all thecommunity, did not want me to go
to Farron.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Because that was closer.
Was it closer?

Speaker 2 (15:10):
They were literally separated by two blocks.
So 51st to 53rd is called asuper block, right, and they
created it when they created the, the projects, right?
Uh, you know, and again thesuper blocks.
That'll take me down a wholenother pathway, but farron is on
51st.

(15:31):
Beasley is here, so there's noneed for both of these schools
to be here.
And, mind you, there's alsoTerrell.
Across the street, there'sanother elementary school, but
these schools were known asdropout factors, and these are
elementary schools, by the way,this is not high school, and so
what I knew as a kid is I'm notgoing there, right, but I didn't

(15:53):
know why, you know, butlearning why was very traumatic
for me.
So let me give you anotherexample.
Beasley, as a school, is onState Street and it faces the
Robert Taylor Project, but thereare no windows on that side.
All of the windows are on theWabash side, where there are

(16:14):
single-family homes, there'sapartment buildings, things like
that, and so we knew very earlyon that those people were
different than us, though my, myfamily's, from there, right,

(16:36):
but that was something you weretold at the school or it was
told at the school.
We're told, um, even from peoplewho came from there, like my
parents, like church, yeah so,but my aunt lived over there,
like what you know, and so, yeah, man, it was, it was really, it
was really.
You know, the healing journeyI'm on is really like connected

(16:59):
to how I saw my community, how Isaw that.
So, you know, we moved again toAuburn Greshen and also what I
quickly found out was that Ilive on a GD block, right.
So we see the older boys andmen on our block and they're

(17:24):
doing this handshake and we'recopying them, but about 10 years
old.
So you were 10?
10 years old.
They came to our group after wewere doing it and said all
right, y'all been having fun.
If y'all serious about this,come over here, if y'all not,
it's all good, go over there.

(17:46):
And out of my friend group, Iwas the only one who said I'm
going over there because myfather wasn't going to have it.
My father, again, was a CookCounty sheriff, oh yeah, yeah.
And my mother was an educatorin Chicago Public Schools.
So you know, I had some thingsthat in my family, my life, that
none of my friends had on thatblock.
All of them came from eitherdysfunctional household or

(18:10):
single parent household, eitherdysfunctional household or a
single parent household.
That's when I saw, you know,differences happening, changes
happening, you know, even thoughthese are my friends, and so
they went to the side and joinedthe GDs.
They went to the side andjoined the GDs, you know, it
didn't stop us from playingtogether, but as we got older,

(18:32):
less and less of their time wasspent playing, going to play
basketball, ride bikes and moreof their time spent selling
drugs, doing GD, you know, goingto meetings.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
You know People don't know that when you're in a
street organization it's abusiness meeting, it's like a
job.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
It's literally called growth and development.
That's right, it's a job.
When the boys asked usdevelopment, that's right, it's
a job.
When the boys asked us, do wewant to join?
They gave us literature.
It's called read your lip, knowyour lip, they literally gave
us these.
You know it wasn't the bestcondition papers you could tell
somebody else had this beforeand the photocopying was done a
little clearer but they gave usliterature Exactly.

(19:11):
They also said y'all got tostay in school, y'all got to do
good in school, yeah and don'tbe late.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, and keep your word.
Yeah, yeah, you know shit thatyou need to hear.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, the other thing is that I didn't see
necessarily the people on myblock as bad people.
Right, they actually protectedme, exactly Because these people
were my friends I grew up with.
Yeah, you know, when I camehome from school, they protected
me.
Somebody tried to steal my bike.
They beat them up.
Right, these people were achampion in there, you know,

(19:49):
they realized that I was goingto be one who can make it out.
You know, yeah, there's areason.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
I believe there's a reason when you and I were
growing up that our parents andpeople in the neighborhood knew
that we were safe out there,Because they also knew that
there was a code and the gangsprovided a level of protection
on the block.
Oh, 100%, Right.
So my, I mean you know, justlike your parents, like there

(20:19):
was a reason why they had afucking commercial at 10 o'clock
at night telling parents gocheck on your kid, Right,
Because our parents werechecking on us.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Nah, my parents couldn't because they were
working Right, exactly, myfather worked three jobs.
He had County Sheriff and thenhe moonlighted in so many places
.
One was the Taste of Chicago orAshley's or Nightclub.
He took me there for my firstrap concert.
It was Yo-Yo and DJ Quick, isthat right?
It was the wildest place I'vebeen to in my life.

(20:50):
You know 63rd and you knowHalstead.
And then he also worked atAthlete's Feet over there 63rd
and Halstead as a security, as asecurity guard, you know.
So he had so many jobs.
You know my mother, again,schoolteacher.
So she, we couldn't, you know,we had to figure it out.
You know.

(21:10):
Yeah, yeah, we had to figure itout.
Yeah, yeah out.
You know, yeah, yeah, we had tofigure it out.
Yeah, yeah, I broke into myhome house a couple times she
still was losing my key or, youknow, trying to chase my little
brothers.
You know.
So, yeah, it was man.
Uh, if they would have known,you know where we were, what we
were doing, you know how muchour life is in danger.

(21:33):
You know they would have aheart attack for sure, you know.
So what is it?

Speaker 1 (21:37):
What do you see at some point Because, like for me
I talk about, there was a pointlooking back now, that was a
defining moment where I had tomake a choice, yeah, about
towards my healing, right, yeah,yeah, yeah and I've had to
revisit that choice right, I hadto go back into being
intentional about my healing.
After my divorce, I needed togo back into it, you know, when

(22:01):
one of my kids was sick.
There was there what, for you,is one of those important
moments.
Early on, you said in your 30sand your 40s, that's when you
were more intentional about it.
Was there a specific momentthat brought that upon and made
it more conscious?

Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, for me, it was also a divorce.
Like I said, I married my highschool sweetheart from, whitney
Young and, again, we dated onand off in college.
We dated on and off in college,but we saw each other all the
time.

(22:39):
Like I said, this is the firstperson I've ever loved in my
life and we have three beautifulchildren together.
But, yeah, we got a divorce.
And what I realized is when Igot a divorce, it was the first
time I had been alone as anadult, wow.

(22:59):
So, yeah, like I said, I was incollege when we got married and
had our baby, and so I wentstraight from college to getting
a job, apartment, take care ofa family.
So I've never lived alone as anadult.
I had a roommate at college,that's right, that's right.
So I've never lived alone as anadult, you know.

(23:21):
And so being married 15 yearsand actually like living by
myself was very difficult.
You know, I went to a darkplace.
You know you know nobody at thedoor to say, hey, daddy.
You know, hold your leg.
You know you know nobody at thedoor to say, hey, daddy.
You know, hold your leg.
You know it was rough.
You know Nobody scheduled yourdoctor's appointment, man.
You know what I'm saying.

(23:42):
Like, you know, you got toactually do everything yourself
and deal with yourself.
You know you actually got toclean up your house with no help
, you know, yeah, it was verydifficult for me, you know, just
not to have my family felt likeI felt, you know, yeah.

(24:04):
So, yeah, that was the start ofme being intentional, because
it took me a long time to getout of that and well, when you
said it was dark, what was?

Speaker 1 (24:14):
It took me a long time to get out of that.
And when you said it was dark,how did you confront that
darkness?

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, it's a good question as well, partially also
because my father recentlypassed a few years before,
recently passed a few yearsbefore and you know what I
remember about my father sayingis you know, if you are man, you

(24:43):
got to take care of your family, and I felt that, being in this
dark place, I was not take careof my family, was I.
Was I fought for co-custodyduring this divorce?
Yeah, um, because my first jobI worked at a fatherhood program
at the Chicago Urban League andI remember one of the things

(25:05):
that was most prevalent withguys who were really successful
is that they fought for theirfamily.
You know, and I don't want tomy my children to come back to
me as adults and say, dad, whydidn't you fight for me, why
didn't you fight for thiscustody?
So I said you can have anythingas a divorce, but I need
co-custody of my children, andpart of that co-custody was we

(25:25):
were supposed to alternate weeksbecause we lived in the same
city, right, but even in thatdark place, because we were
divorced, I was so distant Iwouldn't even alternate my weeks
.
My kids were missing me, I wasin a bad place, and so my

(25:57):
daughter called me one day andsaid that you know, we have this
tradition of going to themovies and you haven't taken us
to the movies in months.
And I lifted myself and I saidyou know what, let me fix this.
You know, starting with myself.
You know, let me fix this.
So your daughter reached out toyou.
My daughter reached out to me.
My daughter is about tograduate from college next month
.
So yeah, she reached out to me.
My daughter is about tograduate from college next month
.
She reached out to me and I hadto get myself together, wow.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
So yeah, it's the power of our children and our
relationship with our children.
Bro, I just won my custodybattle with my ex last week
Congratulations.
It's tough, ain't it?
It's tough, bro.

(26:39):
It's tough.
Like you said, it is aboutfighting.
Sometimes you have to fight forthose relationships that are
important.
That, at the end of the day, isa big part of what I think you
put healing into action.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.

(27:00):
It's about the relationshipsthat we're in and the trust and
the magic that happens.
And you have to be inrelationship to be able to do
that.
That's right, you know.
So.
Doing that, what does that sayabout you as a person, as
somebody who's a racial healingpractitioner, who's thinking

(27:23):
about how do you change thenarrative of a whole city, like
you're doing this and goingthrough that at the same time?
Yeah, you know.
So what coming out of it anddoing?
Making the taking the decisionsthat you take?

Speaker 2 (27:41):
what does that say about you, jerry?
Well, I want to also say that Iwas, you know, when it started.
I was actually at another role,but that other role was
traumatic as well, and thesetraumas happen at the same time,
that's right as well, and thesetraumas happen at the same time
, you know.
So my first uh, the rolepreviously to dallas trht, was
um.
I was working for the dallasfoundation, so I was working in

(28:02):
in philanthropy at the oldestcommunity foundation in dallas,
uh, but I was the only externalemployee and I was charged with
um.
They gave me millions ofdollars to Wait bro.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
What's an external employee?
Is that a consultant?

Speaker 2 (28:18):
No, it is not a consultant.
I went to the big staffmeetings, but I was the only one
who didn't work in the office.
I worked in the community.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Oh, because your office was over at the library.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
No, my office was in Community Bank and again, this
is a Latino community.
I live there too, but I'm theonly black person working here.
There are dozens of Latino menand women working here and I'm
in charge of all of them.

(28:48):
I didn't speak fluent Spanish,you know.
So I'm just telling you likethe challenge I had in doing
this, because I was tasked withthem, by them, with tearing down
a strip club and building anearly childhood collective
impact family center for thisLatino community that.

(29:08):
I lived in, you know.
So yeah, I also had to buildthe community um network of
organizations that would workwith these families right, and
then work with the communityorganizing moms who kind of ran
the neighborhood, you know soyou had to get through them
first.
They were, they were they'restill trying to get through them

(29:28):
.
And I didn't work at all.
You know they hold meaccountable, that's right.
That's right.
I give an example of some of mywhite cultured daughters.
You know, man, and I didn'twork there, no more.
You know they hold meaccountable, that's right,
that's right.
I'll give you an example of someof my white culture norms that
I brought to this space.
That's right, that's right.
So one of the things is becauseI had, you know, just these
work environments where peoplework whenever they wanted to.
I was At lunch, I used to pullout my laptop and I'd do a

(29:51):
little work.
Sometimes, you know, thatdidn't fly with these moms.
They said, yeah, lunch I'mfeeding you, put that work down.
And then at 2 o'clock I workedjust 30 minutes after lunch they
say okay, it's coffee time andbring out the panduce.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
You know, bro, there's nothing to me to be able
to work with Mexican women,Mexican moms, and just being in
that environment is, I mean,that was and is still the
biggest accountability factorthat I also am in relationship

(30:31):
with.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, so you know they would try.
They would say, jerry, speak tome in Spanish, don't speak to
me in English, and I would pushback on them Speak to me in
English.
So it was a great relationship,you know.
But getting back to like sofast forward, a year after this

(30:55):
family center opens which isbeautiful, that I designed and
worked with with the help of thefamilies, and you know, to make
a long story short, trump gotelected.
That's when everything went toshit.
So our community went to shitas well.
You know, texas had a law thatthey were trying to put on the
books, called SB4, to basicallydeputize all police officers to
check documentation, status ofpeople.

(31:16):
And then one of our elementaryschools got surrounded with
signs saying Trumpies here, goback to Mexico.
Right, only elementary schoolin Dallas, texas.
And did you all know who did it?
No, no, what we knew was thecommunity around it.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
What so?
It was a community where theschool was at put those signs up
.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Correct.
So yeah, so right here is myneighborhood and then right here
is this wealthy white community.
So we knew that.
We knew where it came from.
We didn't know who did it.
But the parents said we'rescared now.
So that's when we knew I had tobring racial equity to this
early childhood environment.
You know, I couldn't be justthis black person and I was

(31:59):
doing racial equity work, but Ihadn't integrated it into work.
We was doing it because I knewthere would be rejection of it.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
So this was 20, what 19?
No, this is when Trump gotelected, 2016.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
2015,.
2016 is the time frame I'mtalking about.
Okay, so I knew we had to focuson racial equity and now I had
a reason and good cause, youknow.
So we started, I got a grantand we started doing two things.
One is training our communitypartners on racial equity.

(32:31):
Right, we had lunch and learnsis training our community
partners on racial equity.
We had lunch and learns.
We also created a program justfor our moms and brought in
scholars from Mexico, peoplefrom SMU, to do this thing
called Abuela's Kitchen,teaching them about race through
food, and they were going towrite their immigrant stories

(32:51):
from a racial equity lens forthe final project.
So the second time I'm doingthis work, I get called into an
office with the HR lawyer andthe people from the foundation
and my board chair and they toldme well, we love the work
you're doing, but you've got toautomate it.
Well, we love the work you'redoing, but you got to automate

(33:12):
them.
Don't talk about race and, yeah, do mistake.
Free work or Resign, take theseverance.
You got four days to decide.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
Resign and take your severance.
You got four days to resign.
That's how they treat you.
No, four days to decide.
Oh, four days to decide.
Yeah, that's how the communityfoundation, the ultimatum they
gave me, that, the ultimatumthey gave me, that's the
ultimatum they gave me, man, andso I can't believe they did
that.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
I couldn't just do that, but what I learned from
that.
I mean it was very traumaticBecause, again I told you, I
built out all of those thingsRight now like they're
flourishing and all that, whichis great, but I built that.
You know what I'm saying.
I built that from.
You know, from the ground up itwas.
I have a degree in earlychildhood, by the way, you know

(34:02):
what I'm saying.
So this is the quote-unquotedream job.
You get to do everything in mywheelhouse.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
I get to be creative and I get to do early childhood
education and race your record.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
It was my quote on, quote, dream job.
But what I learned is, you know, just like when it's the
darkest, because, again, I don'thave a job and I'm on my own,
or I'm feeling like I'm on myown.
That's when Dallas TRHT showedup and I'm seeing this name

(34:42):
Truth, racial Healing andTransformation, not thinking
that it was going to be a wayfor me to heal myself by doing
the work Wow but alsoconfronting that I thought
racial healing was some bullshit, you know, and it wasn't
because of racial healing,because I didn't really know
much about it at that time.

(35:03):
You know, I think when you cameto Dallas, you made this great
statement and I love that.
You made it in front of mystaff that it takes years to
learn the TRHC framework.
Yeah, and then you said you'restill learning from it, right?
So what I knew about racialhealing wasn't from the
framework, it was from the 2016police shooting In Dallas.

(35:25):
In Dallas, where five policeofficers got killed at a protest
for Armand not for Armand, I'llbe frank for Lando Castile and
Alton Sterling.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
And Superintendent Brown.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
That was the actual ticket to him coming to Chicago,
because if that didn't happen,he would have been fired and he
would have been some lowly chiefsomewhere.
He would have never come toChicago.
He became a superstar from thatevent, right?
So I'm telling you, this eventled him to Chicago.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Well, that's the event that brought this on for
you.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Because Kellogg said no to Dallas what?
But when that shooting happened, they said yes to Dallas.
Wow, so I'm just telling youthat event is so pivotal in so
many ways I don't know if youremember, uh, even with um, um,
every living president descendedon that city at the time and
obama gave this great speechabout race, but dallas didn't

(36:29):
care.
Right Right, dallas respondedby putting a blue ribbon on
every tree in Dallas.
Right, right, did you hear whatI said?
Yeah, I said every tree.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
So talk a little bit about Dallas, bro, because I
think that people, you knowpeople from Chicago, don't
understand how that, how Dallashas been colonized and the
culture of Dallas.
It's like a cowboy.
Another round, please, yeah.
And some water too, please, yes.
So yeah.
So talk a little bit aboutDallas and Texas, just so people

(37:05):
could understand that context.
You've been living under man.
How are you?
Yeah, from what part?
Wimberley Wimberley.
Yeah, from what part?
Wimberley Wimberley?
Okay, where's that at?

Speaker 2 (37:15):
It's southwest of Austin, it's between Austin and
San Antonio.
Okay, so it's not the RGB.
Austin and San Antonio is like40 minutes away.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, it's not on the RGB side, right.
What does that mean?
The?

Speaker 2 (37:26):
real Grand Valley.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
No, no, no far south austin is central.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
It's really a hill country, got it?
Yeah, good barbecue there.
Oh yeah, yeah, all right.
So, yeah, dallas, uh, dallas isa crazy interesting place.
Um, it's central, like chicago,right, so it's a, it's a hub
for the country to travel.
So, it has the second largestairport in the world, but Dallas

(38:00):
again wants to be Chicago, isthat right?
Yeah, I want to largest metroin the country.

(38:30):
So Dallas, if you all want toknow, always keeps its eyes on
Chicago, is that right?
There's a park in the middle ofDallas.
It's called Clyde Warren Park.
It's over a highway.
They built it studyingMillennium Park, you know.
So I just want you to know thatDallas is always keeping its

(38:51):
eye on Dallas and Dallasactively recruits people from
here.
So when I first moved there, Iactually came.
I used to come back home allthe time, come back to Chicago,
just longing.
I was missing food, missing myfamily, my friends.
And when I was downtown, I sawDallas on the bus and I'm
thinking like it's a sports teamor this is like a no.

(39:13):
It was actually from thisorganization called Visit Dallas
who was responsible forattracting people to Dallas, and
they said move to Dallas on aCTA bus.
And I said how is this allowedto be possible?
You're supposed to bear that ifyou work for the CTA, but they
pay the ad just like anybodyelse.
So they actively recruit peoplefrom Chicago to go there.

(39:37):
So there's a large I just wantto just share.
There's a large Chicagocontingent in Dallas.
I mean, they have their ownhouse music festival in Dallas.
But let me tell you a littlebit about the history of Dallas.
Again, it's not as old asChicago, it's around the same
time but Dallas is the essentialTexas city.

(40:01):
Texas was the westernmost stateto become a Confederate state.
That history is there.
It is currently the fastestgrowing region in the country.
It is also currently Texas thelargest population of black

(40:26):
people in the country.
Now, yes, really, texas has thelargest population.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Oh, texas, not Dallas , but Dallas is growing, but is
Houston the city that has thelargest population?
Oh, texas.
Well, is it Houston, not Dallas?
But Dallas is growing, but isHouston the city that has the
largest population?

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Yes, houston, because it's the largest populated city
in Texas, but it's also themost diverse city in the country
.
Right, houston?
Yeah, you know, yeah.
But Dallas, particularlyDallas-Fort Worth, is a reason
why there are so many blackpeople moving to Texas.
Most black people are movingbecause it is a business model

(41:02):
of a city.
I describe Dallas as Dune.
You know the sci-fi movie, youknow it's like Arrakis.
And what Dallas folks, if yousee in history, have known is
that it's like the spice mustflow.
Anything can't get, nothing canget in the way of business in

(41:23):
Dallas.
So if you want to understandDallas, it's a business model of
a city.
It's where people go to dobusiness.
There's no like cultural reasonto go to Dallas.
They have smashed all of that.
I mean, there's still peoplethere, there's tons of cultural
gyms in Dallas, but they haveadequately removed all of that
and Dallas is split into likethemed.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
So, yeah, so how did the shooting change the
trajectory for you?
You were talking about thetrajectory.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Given.
You know what I know aboutDallas.
It was also primed for work ofTRHT2 because of what was
happening.
That's right.
So at the time, you know,dallas was once the most racist
city in America, based on thelargest per capita Klan
membership in the 1920s.

(42:23):
Shit, one out of every threeeligible men were part of the
Klan in the 1920s.
And that turned into somethingcalled the Dallas Citizens
Council, which was not likeWhite Citizens Council.
Those were like very racistworking class white folks.
These were wealthy white peoplewho controlled government until
2017.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
So it was just an open way to control the city
100%.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
So by the time 2015, 2016 gets here, Dallas has one
of the most segregated schooldistricts in the country.
If you count exposure to whitekids and kids of color, Dallas
ISD was 98% kids of color, youknow.
It was also the most leastinclusive city in the country.

(43:09):
According to the UrbanInstitute, it had the worst
economic mobility byneighborhood in the United
States.
It had the highest childpoverty rate.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
So it seems like you said Dallas and Chicago.
Dallas imitated Chicago right,because Chicago was the same
right 100%.
You have the civic clubs whocontrol those aspects of the
city here and participate in theChicago way right, which is
where these individuals all worktogether to extract wealth of

(43:40):
Chicago A hundred percent and sothat's why we have this very
similar statistics, right yeah,and this is why we're living
this fucking thing, chicagostill remains the most
segregated city in the country.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Right, you know.
So yeah, dallas was primed tohave an awakening.
But as I share, you know, I wasworking for the Dallas
Foundation, so I sat at thetables in which they made these
decisions.
When those police officers werekilled, they decided to raise
money right then for thosefamilies.
I saw them raise $10 million inan hour For the cops, for the

(44:15):
families of the police officersCorrect, wow.
They weren't the only peopleshot that day.
They raised no money for theblack people who were shot also.
They made a conscious decisionjust to do it for the police
officers, correct, even though abunch of folks got killed, and
that wasn't a bad decision allthe way, but they raised so much

(44:40):
money because all of thesedonations were coming in all
around the country that they hadmoney left over and what they
did was a racial healing projectin the city.
But that racial healing projectthey didn't really care about
black people killing whitepeople, which is what they were
fearful about.
They were saying we don't wantcrazy black people to do this,

(45:02):
so let's create mental healthopportunities for black people
in Dallas.
And that's what they did, andthat was their racial healing
project.
It was all about making sureblack people have access to
mental health so they won't gocrazy, like they thought this
man did, and kill policeofficers.
And again they show what theywere doing by surrounding every

(45:22):
tree in Dallas with a blueribbon, every tree, and there
are hundreds of thousands oftrees.
Dallas has the largest urbanforest in the country.
What In any big city.
So I'm just telling you like itwas crazy, and as in any big
city, so I'm just telling youlike it was crazy.
So, yeah, that that created theopportunity for us to really

(45:50):
like, do some really city movingwork in Dallas, because it was
right for it.
You know it also has a weakgovernmental structure.
Right, there's no all powerfulferal mayor like there is in
Chicago.
Right, this is a weak mayoralcity manager-run city, and
that's for a reason because thebusiness community runs down.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
All they need to do is tell the city manager what to
do, correct.
And the city manager must havebeen living large representative
government is also new indallas.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
You know um they just had um 14 one um member
districts in 1991.
That meant that there's 14districts in dallas and then one
at which is the mayor and forthe first time in 1991, you were

(46:40):
able to represent your district.
Before that it was eight atlarge districts where white men
all around the city even tookcare of you know, or ran
districts they weren't evenliving in.
Just to give you an example,representative Democracy is also
new in this place.
We've had war politics heresince the beginning of the city.

(47:02):
I'm used to war politics inthese all-powerful aldermen.
These people didn't have nopower in Dallas.
You can.
Also, the bureaucracy is lower.
Right now I have all of thecouncilmen's phone numbers in
Dallas Right, because that's howclose they are to the public.
Because they don't have thatmuch power here in Chicago, it's

(47:24):
going to be hard for you to geta meeting with your local
alderman, you know, because ofthe power that these people have
.
So I'm just giving an exampleof how different this city is in
comparison to Chicago.
And that also left anopportunity.
The opportunity is to create anidentity beyond business,
because business is not anidentity, right.

(47:46):
And so we started to do thatwork with TRH2.
And I knew that this journeywould change me in some way, you
know.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
And how about identity?
How have your identitytransformed in this last 10
years, in terms of how you seeyourself, your physical self,
but also your metaphysical self?
Yeah, yeah, also, you'remetaphysical.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Yeah, yeah.
So because I've worked innonprofit all my life, I knew I
did important work, you know,because even as a CEO of a
nonprofit you are closer to thepeople than you'll ever be in a
corporate setting, right.
And so at the Urban League, youknow, I had people say I saved

(48:41):
their life before, yeah, whenyou were here in Chicago, yeah,
but in Dallas I had to learn awhole new city, I had to learn a
whole new environment and I hadto also, like, reinvent myself.
So you know, reinventingyourself is difficult sometimes,
but I think that's the ChicagoI had.
You know reinventing yourselfis difficult sometimes, but I
think that's the chicago I hadit.
You know I came with some, some, some, um, hubris.

(49:05):
You know I came with somebravado, you know, uh, you know
I felt like I survived thetoughest neighborhood and the
toughest community, the toughestcity.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
You did bro.
So I'm like you know I can dothis, I can go with this.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Moving to the South is tough, though, man, because
you got to learn relationshippolitics, I think even more than
you do in Dallas, because youmay have somebody smiling at you
and they're applauding yourdemise, Right, your demise, you
know.
I think that's different here,because people will tell you
about yourself in Chicago.
Well, what was it that you said?

Speaker 1 (49:41):
earlier today, when you're from Chicago, you got to
be comfortable in all spaces andplaces.
What did you say?

Speaker 2 (49:47):
All spaces and places , Like you know, existing in
educational spaces and researchspaces and community meetings.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
You're real Chicago.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
if you can do that, you know you got to know how to
gamble, you got to know how toroll dice you got to, you know.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
You got to know how to.
You got to be a gangster and aculprit.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Exactly exactly.
You know, when I was a rapper,we said we made an educated hood
music.
You know what I'm saying.
So you got to live in thosespaces and that's what you know.
The Chicago helped me kind ofreinvent myself in Dallas.
I also became a leader oforganizations in Dallas, which
also changed the way I thinkabout my responsibility but also

(50:27):
the stress level, you know,because now you're responsible
for people's livelihoodspeople's livelihoods in some
ways, because you're a man, um,you know you're also responsible
for their.
Uh, you know the way that theythink about other men.
You know, yeah, the way thatthey treat you and then they may
mirror that with you.
You know, and then you have tomodel that.

(50:48):
That's right, you have to beable to be that for them so yeah
, so, um, yeah, when you talkabout identity, um, you know it
is.
It has changed me in a lot ofdifferent ways, but grown me in
so many more.
Um, one is that, um, I justknow, um for a fact that if you

(51:08):
are committed to um somethingparticularly like TRHT,
framework um, which is all about, like, dismantling the things
that harm us, I don't know howyou can't be more powerful after
that.
You know right, um, that'sright.
So I don't identify as a healer, you know.

(51:29):
So all of the healing work.
Again, coming from a place likechicago, I also grew up very
homophobic.
I grew up very, you know,thinking of masculinity in one
way.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
So even in my Of, course you had to kick people's
ass Late 30s Dude.
I grew up here on 18th Street,right down the street and you
practiced fighting.
That was like play right.
You always were practicefighting.
You were always doing thatbecause you knew I got.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
You had to get down at one time or another see, I
didn't know that I had again aangel by the name of kian.
Kian was a older guy who took aliking to me.
I had, you know, nerdy glasses,but I'm a tough kid.
So kon had a younger brother'sname, it was Baron, and Keon,

(52:20):
because he took a liking to me,told Baron to fight me every day
.
Is that right?
Because he said, I'm going totell him to fight you every day
until you beat him, because youneed to be tougher.
You ain't tough enough rightnow.
And I dreaded going outside.
I dreaded going outside,dreaded going outside.
But I had to go outside becausemy little brothers wanted to go

(52:41):
, because I knew I was gonnahave to fight baron.
But once I finally beat him,you know, but this is what I'm
talking about, this, this typeof toxic masculinity that was
really you know him, type of himshowing love, right he was
showing his way in his way,right, but you know, creating,
creating this you know monster,so to speak, that I want to be
tough enough to protect myselfand also to deliver that

(53:02):
punishment at me, right, right.
So when I'm telling you about,like racial healing or even
going to any healing space, thisis talking about healing, right
?
Things like yoga I thought thatwas for white people or for
rich women, rich white womenhave taken yoga.
Bro, I'm just saying like it was.

(53:23):
It was not in my stratosphereof things to do.
You know, in my life, you know,going to, uh, you know places
where you know people are doingsound back like all that stuff
was just foreign to me.
You know, and still somewheredeep inside of me I still feel
like what am I doing?
You know what I mean?
But it has been my biggest, youknow, learning about like just

(53:46):
ways of healing.
But also being in those spaceshas been so instructive to my
life because what I realized isthat it's really about humanity,
you know, and that the thingsthat fell for me was because I
wasn't really in touch with whoI was as a human being.
You know Exactly, I wasoperating in this box of these

(54:10):
stereotypes about who I was,instead of you know who we're
supposed to be.
You know, sitting in a healingcircle listening to somebody's
story, particularly somebody whodoesn't look like me.
I would have never done thatliving in this city, but it has
been life-changing to me doingthis work, seeing people in

(54:34):
different ways, knowing that itis not about your color, your
representation, but who you areas your person, your politics,
right, I actually learned whatsolidarity is through that
racial healing circle, you know,knowing that someone may even
have my same politics butdoesn't look like me, you know,
throwing those stereotypes away,right, all these prejudgments.

(54:55):
What do we call it?
Throwing those stereotypes away, right, all these prejudgments?
What do we call it?
Like these beliefs that we holdand these ridiculous,
irrational thoughts about people.
When you hear these storiesabout what they've overcome and
what they've encountered andthey look different than you I'm
like, oh man, I got to cut itout.

(55:16):
I've been tripping.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Right, right, so so yeah, it'sbeen eye-opening and
life-changing to be part ofthose things, you know and it's
just, uh, you know it's for me.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
You know that circle.
I did a circle this morningwith, uh, high school sophomores
, right and um, and being ableto be in that space where one,
you know, one of the commentswas like why do we got to be at
a circle?
This is spooky to me, right,because you know it was like 8

(55:52):
o'clock in the morning and oneof them thought we were going to
have a seance.
Right, because I had the copalout and you, you know, I blessed
the circle and I blessed thespace.
But at the end, you know, um,when they wanted to take the
stage with them, right, I mean,again, this is one circle, bro,

(56:13):
sophomores in high school rightand all that stuff look weird to
you, not knowing that it isyour family's inheritance.
You know, right, that youblessing the circle with these
things that if they knew deepdown were theirs, you know it
wouldn't feel like somebodyelse's, but they recognized at
the end that it was theirs andthey were like we want to do

(56:33):
more of this and thank you, justone circle, because that just
means that, because you know,obviously you make that
connection and you want to.
That connection feels good,right, it does Right, that
connection feels good and thatconnection is.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Particularly if both of those people are open to the
circle.
You know, because that's one ofthe biggest things, you
actually have to be open to thecircle.
You know, because that's one ofthe biggest things, you
actually have to be open to theexperience.
You know, like I said, firsttime I was not open to it.
So imagine doing yoga, yourbody tight because you don't
want to let go.
I'm just saying like you're notopen to it.
So it's hard, it's difficult,you know.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
So what's a practice that you've been you?
So what's a practice thatyou've been you know?
Because obviously, right now,amongst everything, you are
still operating out of hope.
Yeah, you have to, and that'swhat learning too, but how do
you maintain that hope?
What is?

Speaker 2 (57:35):
the practice and what is the discipline of hope that
you practice?
Yeah, so one thing I learnedabout in racial healing and this
is something that racialhealers do in the beginning of
circles is grounding.
Grounding the space, right,getting us all to be there and
be present, right, they call itmindfulness, but it's really

(57:55):
really, you know, getting us allto be there.
Um, so we've been doing thatstuff for a long time, but I
didn't understand.
I didn't have a practice myselfwith doing that.
I didn't even know why I waseven there for it.
I'm like, what the hell are youtalking about?
Let's get grounded.
I'm already about, you know,yeah, but I know what it means
now.
You know actually means to likebe present and notice things

(58:16):
around you, like, you know, tolose all of the, the tightness
in your jaw and all that, you'llmiss life, right?
So every morning, um, I gooutside and I have a amazing
like greenery in front of me.
Uh, and it's really importantin the winter months because I
got a couple evergreen uh thingsin front of me.
Uh, and it's really importantin the winter months because I

(58:36):
got a couple evergreen things infront of me, because that's
really important.
Yeah, you know, I learned thatthat looking at nature is
healing.
You know, being in nature iseven more healing, right?
So I go outside every day, Idon't care what the weather is,
and I ground myself and justclear my head.
No, I don't think about work.
I don't think about work.
I don't think about my kids, Idon't think about no bills, you

(59:00):
know, right, right, I just lookand observe.
I look at birds, I look atsquirrels, you know, take deep
breaths, Take very deep breaths.
You know I might smoke here orthere, you know, right, right,
might get some coffee, you know,but I am like trying.
Smoke here or there, you know,might get some coffee, you know,

(59:21):
but I am like trying to be.
When they say one with nature, Iknow I'm one with nature.
When, you know, the animalsstart coming back around me, you
know, because they getscattered when you move.
But when you are so still thatthe animals start coming back
around, that's when I know I'mone with nature and that's my
practice.
I do that every morning.
You know, beautiful bro, um andI and I again, I notice the
sounds around me, I notice theway the wind is blowing, like

(59:42):
that's what I'm talking about.
One with nature.
Our ancestors had these, that'sright.
It's how they guided themselves, how they planted crops.
We lost all of that, likeliterally living in the city,
you know, we lost thesepractices.
Now, I mean everywhere, I feel.
I noticed the wind because Ifeel it on my face going this
way.
Right, so it's blur and do, norright, I mean, I wouldn't, I
wouldn't have had, I would haveknown that knowledge, you know,

(01:00:04):
if I didn't have this practiceof grounding myself, you know,
being one, you know, um,noticing my humanity, right, you
know, we're meant to understandthat.
You know what I'm saying.
That's something we're supposedto understand, that.
You know what I'm saying.
That's something we're supposedto overlook, you know.
So, yeah, you know you cansmell.
As kids, we were more in onewith nature, you know, oh yeah.

(01:00:25):
We're like it's about the rainyou can smell it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
you know that's right .
That's right Because we wereoutside all the fucking time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Yeah, like our parents would say, you smell
like outside because we werethere, you know.
So we knew things instinctively.
You know what I'm saying.
But we are nature, bro, we are.
But I'm saying that.
But I think that's again partof losing your humanity.
You know Becoming part of thissystem, particularly as an adult
, you know you lose yourselfbecause you have to participate

(01:00:52):
in this racket.
You know this hamster wheel ofa life that subtracts humanity
from you.
You know that's right.
So I was.
I was definitely in a space, um, subtracted from my humanity,
and being part of this work hashelped me get it back, piece by
piece, you know so in closing,brother, um, I want to close

(01:01:14):
with what's something thatyou're grateful for.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
So today, this morning you know you've been
here a couple days, but thismorning I shared.
I was grateful for the sun,yeah, and for the warmth, yeah,
right, because it's been coldhere in Chicago, yeah, yeah, and
it's been a while since we'veseen this sun.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
You know Chicago winters, bro, look y'all,
there's so many people outsideof Chicago Like it's summer.
It's still, you know, look,it's still April, but people
outside like it's summertime.
They couldn't wait for the sunto come out.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Look at this.
So that's what I'm grateful for.
What is it that you're gratefulfor today, bro?

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Man.
I'm grateful for all of thosethings as well, but, um, I'm
grateful for um being able torecognize um and know my value
and the value of people I'm inrelationship with um.
You know, I think the nextjourney of my um work would be
exploring value and how we canturn things that we value into
power.
So I've been archiving a lot,I've been collecting black

(01:02:24):
people's things, and that'sbecause I've been, over the last
10 years, very intentionalabout visiting museums that
collect black people's things,and it's not just black museums
or even, you know, museums inthe in the community, but every
museum that has something black.

(01:02:45):
And it started with thisneighborhood that we're in right
now in pilson.
Get out of here, yeah.
So again, when I lived inchicago, I went to an exhibit.
It's called the african presenceof mexico yeah, at the National
Museum of Mexican Art.
Yeah, and it changed my life.
It may have been the first timeI saw black people represented

(01:03:05):
in a way that was so beautifulbut counter to my culture,
because it was mostly aboutMexico and Central America.
Because it was mostly aboutMexico and Central America, it
showed me black people livingsomewhere else in North America,

(01:03:25):
and I couldn't get it until Istudied abroad in Central
America and saw black peoplespeaking Spanish.
And I'm going back to that tosay that once those things were
in that museum, to say that oncethose things were in that
museum, for some reason theywere valued more than the things
that are in somebody's house orbasement.
Right, right, right, right.
But those things in the houseor basement are now what more

(01:03:49):
valuable, right?

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
Because they're in this museum.
Right right, does that makesense?
Yeah, it's a fucking museum.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
It is a museum, right , and so this museum, just by
the space this thing is nowoccupying just for this exhibit,
is now more valuable, eventhough you may have one sitting
on your desk.
To me this value is veryarbitrary.
It's similar to, again, thehousing appraisal stuff, right,
very, where we've seen all thesestories about black people

(01:04:15):
having to remove all traces oftheir blackness when people come
into their space right, so theycouldn't.
The value could be higher it'sarbitrary right, but I'm
grateful for recognizing like,not only my value but your value
.
You know you're such a veryvaluable person to me and to
other people and it's becauseit's not arbitrary right, it's

(01:04:39):
because you've activated yourhumanity and by doing that, my
humanity, others.
You know you've done things youdidn't have to do.
That's because you understandvalue of human connection.
You understand it, you actually, you practice it.
You know, know, and so I'm verygrateful for value and I think
that's the work I want to do.
I want to let folks not need amuseum to find value in their

(01:05:05):
lives.
Right, they can actually say Idon't know, my, my grandmother
lived here for right, you knowso many years my mother lived
here.
Now I live here.
This house is worth a milliondollars you know what I'm saying
uh, and I can, beautiful man.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
So, yeah, you know, I , I, you know, being able to, uh
, to get to know about the valuethat we inherently have, but
also to be able to have thatvalue recognized, and, yeah,

(01:05:45):
recognized right.
And so for me, you know, a lotof times people only think about
value as currency, as cash,currency as cash.
And people are doing a wholebunch of things to try to, you
know, eliminate the householdwealth gap bullshit, right, when
we all know it's a fuckingwealth distraction 100%.

(01:06:07):
And so, to be able to be ableto understand that the value
that we have, not just our pain,but what we're able to
contribute and what we're ableto bring to Chicago and to this
country, is so much morevaluable than what we're

(01:06:32):
exploited for in wages, that'sright.
What we're rated for in creditscores, that's right.
What we're rated for in creditscores, that's right, right,
what we are, you know, marketedto.
So, to me, that is the practicethat I think.
For me, what I love doing, anda practice that I've just been

(01:06:55):
the most faithful, is to be ableto see that value and bring it
together in my altar in my homeright, and see my ancestors and
see, bring water, and bring someearth and some flowers and be
able to burn a sage and to beable to see that in my home, I'm

(01:07:24):
able to value everything that'simportant, which is the earth,
the water, the fire, and that isa value, and with that I don't
need anything else.
That's real Right, because oncewe know that we have everything
we need, that is important toknow not only that that has

(01:07:46):
value, but that is we have all.
Yeah, and that is the practicealso that I talk about with your
shirt.
Love it All right, brother.
All right Always.
Thank you're sharing.
Love it All right brother, allright, always.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Thank you for that.
Appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Thank you, your history books got it all wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
So I come to you with a song.
In 1810, con el gran grito depasión, se levantaron con razón
Black and brown fightingtogether On a day I'll always
remember.