July 13, 2024 • 72 mins
Alvin and German conduct a great conversation with Corporate Trainer & Executive Coach, Karl Stewart, ’91. He is the owner of Work Well Groups, LLC, and brings over 20 years of experience in Human Resources. Based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, he is an ICF ACC credentialed and Certified Positive Intelligence Executive Coach. Karl's mission is to train and coach intersectional leaders to embrace their authentic leadership within organizations, fostering sustainable diversity. Karl's career spans significant roles in large HR teams at Warner Media and Paramount. He later led the People Function in smaller organizations, shaping the total Employee Experience in collaboration with company founders and their direct reports. Karl holds a Master’s degree in Organizational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Master’s degree in Theater from Brooklyn College. He earned his undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Colgate University.
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The following podcast is being brought toyou by the Defile Life podcast Network.
Welcome to Aftergate, powered by theDefile Life Network. Are You all Ready?
Aftergate is a podcast series highlighting Colgatealumni of color in their professional endeavors.
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Aftergate Are You all Ready? Aftergateis hosted by Alvin Glim aka Al
and Herman Dubois AKAA Jerry Already.We are doing Aftergate because Colgate University has
produced innovators who have changed the worldevery day, Yet many alumni of color
and the mainstream Colgate community are unawareof the amazing accomplishments of alums of color?
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Are you all ready? Welcome,Welcome, Welcome to another episode of
Aftergate season four. This is yourBoy, your big homie Al then Glenn's
aka Al, and I am joinedby my co host, mister headmand du
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Bois. This is that weekly podcastthat we are dedicated to amplifying the journeys
of alumni color from Coe University becausewe are just fascinated by the conversations.
The journeys have been epic, theconversations have been fascinating, and we are
batting one hundred percent in terms ofthe dopeness of the content. So I
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am so eager to get this conversationfor this week started. But before I
do that, Before I do that, let me introduce my co host,
mister Head of Mind Dubois aka Jerry. What is going on? My brother
all as well? All as well? Another week of being a love and
treat Yes, sir, and theblessing that continue to roll in despite life
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challenges and pivots, like I've learnedto embrace rather than receive a setbacks,
to pivot, to pivot and toadapt, you know. And if there
was any experience that I can sayprepared us for life challenges and the ability
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to pivot was Colgate. So withthat we will We can definitely segue into
the guests we have on the showto night, which honored to say that
we know we have we have alittle little knowledge of which is always the
case with a lot of our guests, which is the beauty of the show.
We get to meet some you know, reconnect with folks that we knew
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while we were on campus, andthen some instances meet folks we've never interacted
with, whether they were there beforeor after our time at Coviate. So
uh, definitely excited about tonight.So then let's push forward and invite this
week's powerful AOC in the room.So can I get you a blessing to
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invite this week's guest into the Aftergatestudios. Always Deacon out of the Church
says amen. Well, with thatbeing said, after Gate listeners, my
AOC family, we have the privilegeto honor to have the one, the
only mister Carl Stewart class of ninetyone in the building. What's up call,
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Welcome to Aftergate, brother, thankyou, thank you, and this
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is church. Yes, we aredoing the Lord work. I truly believe
that I've said this before. AfterGate will go down as some of the
best work me and this brother haveever done. And I said that we
were probably an episode like seven.I'm just I was confident then, but
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even more confident that we are doingthe Lowd's work. Brother, So welcome,
welcome, welcome, this is church, Church, It's lucky. Let's
start it off. Well. Forthose who haven't figured out the fact that
he's ninety one, we're ninety one, know that we were on campus for
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four years. We did know thisbrother for four years, and so we
do have a history. But asmany of our classmates who have been on
here. We know we don't knowthe full story. So looking forward to
learning the story of Carl pre Holegatebecause I'm looking forward to that and after
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Colgate as well. So let's jumpin your class of ninety one. You
graduate high school from in eighty seven. Where are you from? I?
Yeah, I was born in Vallejo, California. Oh did not know that.
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Parents took me back to mother,specifically to Jamaica, West Indies at
three and a half. And thenI came to the boogie down in Brooklyn,
not the bookdown Bronx. I thinkwe boogie harder. What do you
think, Jerry, we boogie harder? You know my travels that mean from
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the Bronx. You know, there'sonly won't boogie down. But I appreciate
that. I appreciate the comparison.You know, once you get outside of
New York City, Brooklyn Bronx meanshis all family, it's all love.
So we call it. We callManhattan work Island. Now there we go,
there we go work work interesting.Interesting, interesting. But yeah,
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you were raised you know, youwere raised in Brooklyn then for the most
part, so I spent fifteen andpretty much the rest of my life in
Brooklyn. Yeah, and we livedon flat Bush oh yeah, so similar
to kim but all the way outat the end by Brooklyn College, So
in a very West Indian neighborhood,all the you know, the deli stores
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by Asian Americans, just like inJamaica and the West Indies. So it
was literally a click and drag situation. When I first came was Ocean Avenue
and Flatbush area, close to ErasmusHall High School. And then I ended
up going to high school at SamuelJ. Children High School when it was
still yeah, Tilden because I waszoned for Erasmus. But my grandmother said,
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there's where you're going to Erasmus HallHigh School back in nineteen eighty five.
Yeah, tell me what's old Brooklynlike back then? What do you
remember about that time? What doyou remember about the culture that give us
a little bit of what's the contextfor you as you're coming into to Kolgate.
Well, Brooklyn was safe for mefor the most part. I I
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you know, Betstay was obviously downthe road, but but where I was
was we were pretty okay. Youknew to watch your back, but I
wasn't worried for my life, soto speak. But yeah, I mean,
the news was the news, andit's so interesting because I went back
and looked at the news from nineteeneighty seven Times and because then you were
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going to ask me about that,and honestly, there's so much that's similar.
I have a friend who only readshistory, and he says, because
we learn everything backwards. And whenI looked back, I went, oh,
yeah, there was a war andthere's all these things, but we
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were the Other thing that was interestingfor me to think about Alvin and Jerry
is that I, as a childhad very clear full sai and so there
were macro things. As I wasreading the New York Times from nineteen eighty
seven, there were macro things goingon that it was more life and death
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to pass the class and get outof you know what I mean. Like,
there were certain things that were onmy mind and that I was focused
on, and so I almost hadblinders on around some of the other things.
And for me, my experience wasI got up and it was get
to the bus that takes you toschool, and then bang out all your
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classes and then get to Wendy anddo your job that you did to get
your pocket money and get home beforegrandmother wondered where you were, because that
wasn't going to be a fun conversationif you were out on the street.
So that was my life. AndI went home and got my homework done
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so and they went right to bed. So my life was very I don't
know. I don't even know ifI was sheltered or protected at that point
because I had just grown up inJamaica with the rigor of you do exactly
what your parents say, you donot even blink. I remember my dad
would watch for whether we were frowningin public and say, I will give
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you something to frown about if youdidn't have your face right. So that
was all the way up to twelve. So by high school I was programmed.
And what was high school like foryou? What would you say for
folks from mourn listeners who don't knowabout Tilden and don't know about the type
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of school. It was academically,athletically, socially, demographically, Yeah,
I was. I was a supernerd. So I think they they ended
up doing something very interesting and wecould talk about it and if it's important.
But they did a thing where theyhad the enrichment classes, and they
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put a bunch of kids and itended up being a lot of West Indians,
interestingly, but it was African Americansand West Indians and they ended up
putting us in the track that wasa little bit different. So my experience
was different and than the general childin population. So I, honestly,
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unfortunately sometimes feel like I didn't havethe Tilden experience. I had this rarefied
version of it, and I onlyhad it for two years. How did
you hear about that? Yeah,very interesting story. So I was knew
in America that I ended up goingto college two years after I came to
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America, and so I took theSATs to the PSATs and then you know
how it works. You take thething and then all the schools get the
scores and they start mailing all thosecollege catalogs. So I just remember sitting
in my living room and I waswith my grandmother. My parents were still
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in Jamaica because I had come uphere by myself, because I was the
one who had the passport who couldcome up, and my parents were still
working on getting a visa because therewere Jamaican citizens. So I was lying
on my grandmother's living room floor,and I was surrounded by all of these
college catalogs, and there were somethat you applied to because Hail Mary pass
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right, Apply to Harvard, applyto Mit, app and then there was
this one catalog that was really beautifuland these pictures looked out of next world,
and I thought, it's probably nota real thing, but I will
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apply anyway. And then I gotthe acceptance letter, and I did ended
up getting a bunch of acceptances,and so I did this world tour because
they all threw money to say comevisit. So I flew to California and
to the Claremont colleges and the smogas soon as I got off the plane.
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I could not go to la forschool in nineteen eighty seven. The
smog was just really bad. Andso I came back and then I did
the Northeast tour. I ended upat Hamilton College. This was the last
one before I got on this busand I went over this hill and I
looked down, and when I lookeddown, the photographs in the stupid catalog
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matched this fantasy island of Colgate University'scampus. And I remember getting on campus
and I was staying with a basketballplayer, and for whatever reason, the
basketball player just disappeared as soon ashe showed me his room in Bryant,
and I think rationally and intellectually hehad practice. Did not see him for
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the rest of the time. SoI left, and I'm walking to the
student union and I start crying becauseI got into these seven schools. They're
all really good schools. This isthe last one on the trip, and
I need to make a decision.My parents can't help me. They have
no idea where I got into.My grandmother has no idea what I'm doing.
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She's cleaning toilets for families. AndI sit in front of the student
union and all these white people arewalking past me and saying hello, because
the Colgate Hello tradition. And Iam just dumbfounded. And Diane Munster comes
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by and sits beside me, andshe says, we cannot answer the questions
for you, but we can helpyou ask them. And that was the
first when that Colgate had, waswhat Diane said. And then Dan Sarasino
wrote me a hand written letter inthe math department, and then the president
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of Colgate University invited me to dinnerat the house up at Watson in another
handwritten letter, and I said,this is the school I'm going to go
to because they're going to pay attentionnow that that visit was that part of
an official sub frosh weekend or thiswas an independent visit on your own,
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because we've heard a lot of theguests talk about that particular weekend making an
impression upon them, but not sureif that was that same weekend. I'm
trying to remember. I want tosay it was that pre fresh weekend because
I remember Kim talking about it,but it could have been an independent thing
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where they just had a student hostme for a day because I was doing
this whole tour and I remember,you know, I literally went on the
bus, went to one school,went to one school, went to one
school, stayed overnight at each one, and then landed at Colgate. So
I think it could have been thatI sat down and mathematically figured out how
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to make the pre fresh weekend bethe last stop, but I'm not sure.
I'm not gonna lie and say Idid so for the record of o
US. Then was that summer.I wasn't there that summer, Yeah,
which was another thing that was awhole other part of my Colgate experience.
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So you start, you say,you start, you used to lect Colgate
and you attend in the fall,and what was it like for you?
Maybe recognizing well won the transition,you know, on every level, but
uh, maybe recognizing as a asa as a man of color on campus
that they were others that had hadsome prior engagement called o us that you
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were not a part of. Youknow, how did you process that?
Well? Jake's a really good question. I think I discovered about three or
four years ago, towards the endof COVID that I prefer introversion, that
I'm an introvert mm hm. Andso I don't know if I wanted that
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instrument summer experience then, because atthat point people just garried me number one.
And I don't know if being ona rural campus with a small number
of people would have necessarily been agood play. It would have probably been
dramatic. But I will say thatmy dad I never heard about the OUs
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program, by the way, butI know that my dad would not even
if I had gotten invited to it. My dad wouldn't have let me go
because my dad was very much aboutI don't want you to spend specific time
just with black folks. I don'twant you doing that because I don't want
you thinking that you're different than anyother human being on the planet. That's
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just my dad speaking. I don'tknow which way I feel about that.
I'm torn on that, but Iwill say that when I came on campus
and then discovered gradually, it waslike a little bit of a great fine
sort of wait they were Wait,Kim and Alvin and Jerry were all here
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during the summer. Why was Iinvited? So there's a little bit of
why I wasn't I invited to theparty, But there's a whole other dynamic,
which is I started in center Stillmanm with you know, three white
guys, and then we would gooff course. We'd go to Frank for
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breakfast, and then every once ina while I'd go to we Funk,
or I'd go down to HRC andjust sort of walk around and try to
say hi. And I just noticed, and it wasn't on purpose, that
there was a closeness and an almostautomatic familial relationship that people had that when
I would walk into the space,I would notice, Wait, they don't
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know who I am. And itwasn't don't hang don't sit down and hang
out in the living room and spendtime with us. It wasn't that vibe.
But it was just that we don'tknow you, and it wasn't a
negative. Internally, Carl, Ihad my home internal homophobia, right,
and so part of me thought,oh, maybe they're saying because you're gay,
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don't hang with us. And sothat was my stuff to deal with,
my stuff to process. And Iremember by sophomore junior year, I
think it was James and I forgotto look up his last name, but
James football player would sit with mein Frank dining hall at my little secret
hide James Moore would sit with meat my secret hideaway table in Frank where
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I was sitting so nobody else wouldsit near me. He was a good
guy like that. James just brokethrough my defense and said, Okay,
so I'm going to sit with youand we're going to have breakfast and we're
going to talk. And I don'tknow why or how James did that,
but it was it was a completerevelation to me because I thought football players
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were just going to rush me ifI actually looked in their direction. So
for him to do that was reallytransformational and a real breakthrough for me.
I definitely want to make sure weshout out Diane, Diane Monster months.
She lives in Atlanta now and it'sactually talked to her huge aftergate Man,
(20:23):
and she told me I should geton this podcast, and I told her
I was already scheduled. So Ijust want to, you know, give
a shout out because hopefully she'll listento this episode and know that we appreciate
her support and advocacy. So shoutout to Diane. So what do well?
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First, where did you live?You said you lived in Stillman.
Where else did you live? Fouryears instillman freshman year, moved to East
Stillman's second year, and in themiddle of second year moved to Creative Arts
House and broad to help start fundfound Creative Arts House and that became my
home for the rest of the timeof Colgate. What's that To talk a
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little bit more about the transition then, as you're you talked about it a
little socially as you live in astillment and kind of coming into HRC and
some of that dynamic, But generallyspeaking, how was the transition academically socially.
What do you remember about the earlyyears. Well, so I had
the Hill effect right because I hadgotten into the Harvard's and mits and so,
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and Colgate said, no, wewant you here the alumni scholar program.
And so because of that, right, it's that attribution effect. If
somebody says to you, you're gonnado really well here, you could have
probably even done well at Harvard.I was psychologically set up to believe that
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I was going to crush academically.So I actually wasn't worried academically at Colgate.
I was more worried mentally, psychologically, socially around social around social situations
because I knew I was gay,and I think everybody else knew, which
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I don't know if they did ornot. But there was a part of
my brain, my amygdalah, thatwas totally hijacked in fear that I was
going to get killed at some point, because obviously I came from Jamaica and
the West Indies where homophogius is reallyintense, and so part of navigating Colgate
was just trying to feel safe.MM, someone who you know, I'm
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pretty certain I suspected right having youknow, knew you early. But you
know, unless you know, youdon't know, right, I would definitely
say it was suspicion. But Iwould also say when I looked back at
those times, I think because ofhonestly, because of some of the exposure
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and awareness raising that we were getting, particularly at the Cultural Center in terms
of being aware and accepting of everyone. Right, I think shout out to
the Cultural Center director of Lady tedLast. She was trying to get us
to think about this coalition for abetter world, her thing of really trying
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to get us to just be sensitiveto all I mean as we think about
where the world has moved in thesethirty years in terms of trying to embrace
people for who they are and howeverthey want to identify in this world.
For me, it was those yearsthat started me on that journey of get
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people for who they are, fortheir greatness and not necessarily for the things
that I've brought to Colgate. Interms of some of my narrow minded thinking,
Yeah, was your was your theorycorrect and that you went in with
the mindset that you would crush Clgateand and uh not concerned about the academics
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or was it more challenging than youmay have. Uh, I thought it
would be. And what was yourmajor? By the way, mathematics?
Wow, yeah, you might.You might be our first math major.
Definitely, they're coupful of us.I think there's another black Carl who is
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also a math major. I haveto look him up for you and send
him your way. You you didyou roll through Colgate academically, because that's
definitely one of the other areas thatit's awesome to hear people share their journeys.
I did roll And how did youend up on them? Did you
know you were going to be amath major? Or did it? Did
it? Kind of like about thesodad my dad challenged me, and it
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was almost it's going to be reallyhard, but you can't or and or.
I really wanted my dad's respect,love and attention, right, and
this was a way to do that. And I wanted to be challenged.
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I wanted to have the hardest thingthrown at me. And I knew I
wasn't going to do physics, chemistry, science, any of those things.
I didn't really like them, butmath, because then I took some philosophy
classes. I don't know if thiswill make sense, but I took some
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philosophy classes, and it went Mathis the scientific version of philosophy, especially
when gets abstract algebra and numbers theory, which sounds as obscure, ridiculous,
and non useful unless you go onto try and figure out why the sun
moves around in the way that itdoes in the universe, which I did
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not care about at all. Butwhat I did enjoy is this idea of
creating a completely fictional world, creatingthe rules for it, and then building
complex problems in that space and solvingfor them. The other thing I loved
about math is that it's beautiful whenyou write it on paper and you draw
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all the way down. There's lotsof different ways to get to the answer,
but the answer is always the samefor the most part. It gets
weird later on, and then whenI sat in a philosophy class and we
started asking what am I here?Who is this person? And nice see
in the mirror? Then it gotsuper freaky. But mathematics in a weird
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way was like a foundation for that. The other thing that I got really
excited about academically is because math wasin McGregor, and then in the evenings
I would do what my dad didnot want me to do, which is
I would do theater and thank godit Coldgate. It's e nng L for
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all the theater classes. I'm sureit's changed now, but on my transcript
and I would go home, mydad would see ENGL, so you'd think,
oh, you're taking English classes.I am taking Margaret Mours Shakespeare and
I am doing pure ghint on thestage at Gramar and having the freaking time
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of my life because also code Gate, right, it was it was transformation
for me to be in a structureof mathematics in the morning and then spend
the evening in free wheeling theater anddance, and that it was such a
beautiful balance for me. Yeah,what other extracurriculums were you involved in during
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your time? So he did alot of the Bremmer, both theater and
dance, and I discovered dance duringa jam term, which kids don't have
that anymore. I didn't want togo home, so I would just stay
on campus from September through June.But yeah, I did that, and
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then I again helped Creative Arts Househappen, which was super exciting, and
I remember one day one of thefraternity brothers came over and they were hanging
out downstairs, and he said,so you pick who you want to be
in the house. You have kegparties in the basement, and you only
invite the people you want. Tellme again, how this is any different
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than the fraternities which I see doingthe side eye too. And yeah,
I found a community of human beingsthat I wanted to spend a lot of
time with. And I did aproduction of Six Degrees of Separation, which
I adored by John Guare, andI choreographed dance pieces with women, and
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we cooked food together. I rememberwhat Kim's last name is, which he
was a foodie, and brought theVegetarian cookbook and we bought our own food
and stocked the fridge and cooked ourown food together. And we had kimped
Tomas, yes, and we thetwo of us were kind of the headmasters
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at Great of oardselves. At onepoint John Janelle left and said, you
have become a tyrant and you havedetermined everybody's left and right step, and
I am done. You can haveit. But it was an amazing time.
We had dancers, painters, actors, writers, lighting designers. Shannon
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Rhodes who was majoring in science andthen minoring in theater and then went on
to do Yale assistant stage management.Now back in science, it was just
an amazing cauldron of creativity and alot of love, you know, a
lot of freedom to be exactly whoyou were. So it was my little
oasis. It was my little oasisat Colgate. And yes, I was
(30:30):
a little bit of a tyrant.M hmm, cold, huge tyrant.
God good, definitely. So whenyou look back at your time, then
what do you think of as yourhighlights, your accomplishments, things you're like,
really really proud of during those years. It's only in retrospect, you
(30:52):
know. I have to say thatone time when I choreographed that, we
were in the living room and Ihad done the choreiography and I was madly
in love with Merce Cunningham and JohnCage and so John Janone, who was
a music slash dex Tomorrow protege.John Janone and I created this whole thing
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and it was amazing. We wenton actually to do his MFA thesis long
after, and yeah, that collaboration, that partnership with somebody else to create
art and to make a statement ofpublic statement was it was pretty amazing.
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So that was one of my favoriteever things to do. But it's in
retrospect as an executive coach, andyou know that note today. It's it's
that creation of community that was reallythe pinnacle for me because COVID was I
(32:01):
add the dots up into the present. I ended up in a building that
was sixteen units for COVID, andwe ended up potting the entire building together,
and we said, as long asyou wear your masks and you stay
safe outside, we won't wear masksin the sixteen unit building. And we
ended up spending so much time ineach other's rooms during COVID and time on
(32:24):
the roof because remember the first year, the weather, it was warm and
out in the backyard cooking together,and I could not stop feeling as if
I had recreated for those four yearsthe Creative Arts House and learning from my
tyrant days, my dictatorship days,to really allow it to be a collaborative
(32:47):
experience more of a democracy. Itwas. Creative Arts House was my first
try at it right. You don'talways get it right the first time,
but I learned so much after Colgatethat built on that experience. We'll take
a pause here so we can showsome love to our sponsor and we'll be
(33:08):
back to finish the conversation with KingCall the First, the Tyrant himself and
looking forward to learning more about whathis life has been like after gate.
So this episode is sponsored by HopeMurals. Hope Murals is a nonprofit that
provides adolescent youth with an interactive experienceof creative expression via an urban arts platform
(33:35):
that stimulates both mental and physical development. Please visit that website at www dotemurals
dot org to learn more and findways you can support the work they do.
Welcome back, Welcome back. Weare here for the second half of
this week's conversation with the good BrotherCarl Stewart, class of ninety one,
(34:00):
looking forward to hearing his journey.But of course, before we jump in,
let's make sure we thank our sponsor, Hope Murals. Make sure we
show some love to Hope Murals becausewe greatly appreciate all that they do with
our youth. They are doing someamazing work exposing our youth to urban arts
and helping them with their development throughthe exposure of this art. So show
(34:22):
some love to Hope Murals. Theirwebsite is Hopemurals dot org and they are
on social media at at Hope Muralso make sure you are checking them out
staying up to tune with all thatthey are doing around the country. Also
want to show some love to ournetwork, the Defilelife network at godefilelife dot
co. Also, they have apodcast hub where you can find aftergate of
(34:45):
the podcasts on defilelifepods dot com.Just a reminder, you can find our
show on all of your major podcaststreaming services that's Apple, Podspotify, Spreaker,
our Heart, et cetera. Andof course, always want to show
some love to all of the alumsthat have been guests because we just want
to make sure they know we appreciateall of their stories and their journeys,
(35:07):
because without them, there is noshow. Now let me jump right back
into the second half of this conversation. So brother called. You mentioned you're
from Brooklyn. Oh that's all mySo I would love to hear give me
a sense of what Brooklyn is likenow, right because I grew up I
(35:30):
mean I grew up in Queens.The Brooklyn that I knew are actually referred
to as Old Brooklyn. Old Brooklynis not New Brooklyn, and so would
love to as you are living thereand getting an opportunity to experience it a
little bit more closely and deeply.What's your take? What do you know?
Give me a sense of some ofthe highlights of where Brooklyn is and
(35:52):
you know it helps me about thebotanical gardens. What do you know?
Brother, Brooklyn is alive and thriving. And as you know, New York
City has been on a gentrification runsince the eighties or probably even before.
And I live in Crown Heights,so the site of the Crown Heights riots,
(36:15):
and so it is drastically changing.I actually work out of co working
space and one of the organizations inthat co working space is helping the black
folks to hold on to their homesas things rapidly change around them. And
(36:37):
there's a lot of concern because therewas the white flight and then black folks
were able to buy some spaces,and now it's shifting again and people are
not happy about it. And soI don't know. Melting pot is one
(36:59):
of those things we talk of thesein these cities, and it is.
It's always churn and it's always moving, and that's why I love it and
That's why I will probably never leave. Because there's this one woman who joked,
mom, when are you going tocome and visit me in New York
(37:20):
City? And the mom said,when they're done building it, And they're
never done building Brooklyn. They're neverdone building New York City in general.
And so yeah, it's changing.The demographic changes rapidly all the time,
all over and I always wonder wherepeople end up going because the change is
(37:44):
usually, as I mentioned, moregentrified, so I'm more expensive. It
just keeps getting more and more expensive. But the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has been
there since I lived here back inthe eighties, and Prospect Park is been
there the entire time, and thereare certain traditions that never changed. The
Brooklyn Museum is still there. TheAlicia Keys exhibit was a great, Spike
(38:08):
Lee exhibit was great. So thereare some cultural The West Indian Day Parade
still happens, and so there arecertain traditions. The cherry blossoms. I'm
amazed. And during the pandemic,I ended up having my right hip chopped
(38:29):
out and removed and replaced with metaland plastic. But one of the things
in rehab starting in January of twentytwenty, I had to go for a
twenty minute walk, and the gardenand the park are about that distance,
and so I would walk there everyday. And when of the things you
(38:49):
realize if you go to the BotanicGarden, because we just got a membership
anyway, and it was one ofthe only places you could go during the
pandemic, and we would go everysingle Sunday in twenty twenty and we just
kept it going. So we've beendoing that now for over four years.
And you notice in the spring everyweek. Somehow nature is designed that a
(39:12):
different flower pops every single week.So the daffodil hill pops, and then
it's the lilies, and then everysingle year. I do not know how
nature and or the Botanic Garden figurethat out, but those things stay constant.
Nature in the pandemic, for me, reminded me that the Earth is
(39:34):
going to keep going no matter what. Yep, yep. Appreciate that.
I appreciate that. Appreciate that,and uh, that's some interesting perspective that
the Earth is going to keep goingno matter what, no matter how jacked
up we tried to make this world. She might try to throw us off,
(39:58):
she might and I don't blame it. Might go I'm done. This
was a good experiment, y'all.Dinosaurs made a mess. They got kicked
out. If we keep doing whatwe're doing, we might get tossed off.
But I think the silver lining inthat story is that sometimes it takes
(40:22):
some life altering circumstances for us totake a step back and appreciate what may
be in our immediate surroundings that weoftentimes either overlook or or take for granted,
or are just moving so quickly thatwe don't recognize what is immediate,
(40:46):
you know, surroundings, and it'sit's it's as as a plant lover and
and and fauna lover, you know, I always think about how I live
in the Bronx. I could ridea bike to the botanical garden and never
went, never went as a kid, and we'll make it one of my
(41:07):
stops when I visit now as anadult. And so whether it be nature,
or whether it be museums, orwhether it just be parks, or
whether it just be what's in yourimmediate walking distance. Oftentimes it takes you
know, a rehabilityy situation, oryou know, some other circumstances to actually
get us to appreciate what we havealways had access to it, and that
(41:31):
to me is the great is agreat lesson that we can always learn from
because there's always so much to Istarted to try riding bike more just because
you move slower, and by movingslower, you see more. Hey,
my grandfather in Jamaica and my father, we're all farmers, and so I
(41:52):
grew up planting seeds and absolutely havingto shell peas and those things. Only
to grow up now and plant thingsevery spring on the balcony and on the
roof of our apartment building and tento them. And it's a deeply spiritual
thing to watch your seed come outof the ground and nurture them. So
(42:16):
many Yeah, as we bring hereFolksirka, I know we're going to end
up talking about some more seed plantingand growing and nurturing. Where we're back
at Kogate. We're back up inHamilton, New York. It is ninety
one. You are, you know, celebrating in illustrious four years at Kogate.
(42:38):
Were you one of the few thathad kind of set plans and strategies
and visited the career Planning office andknew exactly what you wanted to do after
Kogate or was it like many ofus just uh, you know, happy
to graduate and would figure it outonce we got our degrees and left Hamilton
(43:00):
and a U haltruck. Jerry,Okay, I'm just going to tell it
the way it was, like itis. Junior year, I did the
internship and at insurance services office,and I was majoring in mathematics, and
(43:22):
the studies said survey says being anactuary is a guaranteed success and you will
not be discriminated against because there areall these exams that you take and if
you pass this exam, you makethis much money, and so the mathematics
(43:43):
of it, and as a wayto escape discrimination and all the other messy
stuff in life, I said,That's what I'm going to do. And
so I interned junior year. Theyinvited me back for a full time job.
So buy around January February, Iknew where I was going to be
working after Colgate. Okay, Okay, that's a blessing. That's a beautiful
(44:07):
day. Then that internship, wasthat something you'd discovered through a professor to
the office of career Planning? Howdid you even navigate that? Yeah,
I think I probably went to thecareer center. I don't remember, but
(44:27):
I think I probably went to thecareer center and I looked up the actuary
thing, because that's the only wayI would have figured that out. There's
no way a nineteen year old wasgoing to figure out the word actuary.
So I'm pretty sure I asked oneof the mass department folks what title,
and then went to a career centerand looked up the internships. But yeah,
(44:49):
I wasn't recruited or anything. Ijust kind of found it by scouring
the books that they had and thisis your company was back in New York.
You gave us a little Yeah,so I was very lucky. It
was right here in Manhattan Wall Streetarea, and I remember the guys went
to France's Tavern for lunch and seeingthis cut up antelopes and deer on the
(45:16):
walls of the restaurant was pretty freaky. But yeah, it was the Wall
Street area, and I took thetwo train from Flatbush Avenue and No Strand
to Wall Street and it was kindof cool. It was neat. I
have to say this too. Onething Colgate did for me, it was
(45:37):
connected me with Pascal CABMBA back inearly before I even started Colgate, and
so I went and visited him inthe Wall Street area. I think he
worked to work in the Wall Streetarea, or at least by Midtown.
And I walked into Pascal's office mahoganydesk, standing behind the desk in a
(45:57):
suit, and I remember I musthave been pretty fresher first year, and
I said to myself, well,if this is where I'm going to end
up, Colgate's going to do goodby me. And then his girlfriend,
Teresa Delgado was the ra in Andrews, and Pascal came up a lot that
first year, and so honestly,it's that kind of stuff that just made
(46:19):
me feel super comfortable that I wasgoing to get something good career wise out
of Colgate. So I'm really gratefulfor him. He was a sort of
secret mentor. And then Teresa wasthere in case anything went down. I
was like, Teresa, you canobviously call Pascal and he'll come and beat
anybody. So how long were youat that company and give us a little
(46:44):
bit about what how you moved there? Yeah, so I Jerry, I
actually hated it. I passed acouple of the exams, the exams weren't
that hard, but I literally feltmy soul leaving my body every time I
sat at the computer and just typeda bunch of auto data. One of
(47:07):
the things actuaries do is, forexample, figure out if red cars or
blue cars are going to get intomore accidents. But somebody has to enter
the data into the system so youcan tabulate all that data. And the
company I worked for summarized all theinsurance data from all the insurance companies,
and it just felt as if Iwas going to end up sucked into the
(47:31):
computer at some point, and soI said I need to go, and
I basically ran out of that buildingas if my hair was on fire.
So that's how that went. That'show that went down. And then how
long were you there before that occurred? Probably two years. I think I
lasted two years. And the otherthing that called me out of there is
(47:55):
I had taken last year Colgate,I took the fourth Jenet class. I
ended up taking a class called theFaust Legend, which is the story of
the man who sells his soul tothe devil. And it was done through
the opera, I know, dramatic. We did it through opera. We
(48:19):
did it through splicing cells. Sothere's a science component an opera component.
You know. Cheng was part ofthat and it changed my life that Jenet
class, because Jennifer Griffin and Iwould meet every year after that and go
did you sell your soul to thedevil? No? Literally, we asked
(48:42):
ourselves like, are you accepting cashin place of your evolution? And that
actually set the trajectory for my career. So I decided. The other thing
that happened is I became a HIVpositive and so I assumed that I only
had five years left to live becauseit just starting to figure out the protease
inhibitors. And so I made adecision, if I'm going to die,
(49:07):
I wanted to do what I'm puton the planet to do. So I
went to acting school and got mfaanActing awesome. And so how did you
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to hear about that.
So where'd you go to school?You know? What was that experience?
Yeah? Yeah, So I gota Masters in acting at Brooklyn College,
(49:30):
which was transformational because again I doprefer introversion and acting is about literally exposing
yourself on stage. And what Ilearned is how to speak my truth without
fear mm hmmm. And then Iended up at this point I was gonna
(49:53):
say where I graduated. Yeah,I graduated in nineteen ninety six from Brooklyn
College. Was a three year program. And then I ended up trying to
do the acting thing. But Ithink the gay thing was still a challenge
on screen and on stage. There'sa lot of if you're gay, they
(50:15):
think you're going to die from HIVanyway, so why cast you? And
so the world wasn't really ready forme at that point, and so I
ended up touring my one man lifestory called Innocence Lost, and I ended
up getting to tour it at PrincetonUniversity, and I ended up speaking at
Williams College on HIV. And itwas really cool because I got really fearless,
(50:43):
sort of that facing death down andbuilding a skill set that I thought
was incredible. The magic of theaters, it's pretty there's there's pretty much nothing
like it to me, because whatit is is you get to tell the
human story, which is what wedid as cave people. We would go
(51:05):
hunt, come back, get everybodyaround a fire, tell these stories and
carve things on the wall. Andit was we were telling stories to keep
the specie alive, and theater went'sdone really well calls at at that so
I was really excited to do theater. And I also then gave that up
(51:30):
and studied dance at the Merce CunninghamDance Studio. I mentioned that back in
my Coldgate days, I was inlove with the Merce Cunningham team, and
so I ended up studying with MerthCunningham for a little bit at the West
Beth Studio. It's on the eleventhfloor. It looks out on the Hudson
River in Manhattan, and that waschurch that Saturday morning class with the sun
(51:55):
coming up and shining in the studio, all white studio. It was literally
a heavenly experience because you're in yourbody, you're in the music, and
you're you're literally putting your soul outthere on the stage. And that was
so the combo was phenomenal for mefor my twenties. Loved it. Before
(52:22):
we get into how you you knowmore of the journey, I will say
I want to use the word fearlessbecause as someone who knew you at Colgate,
then you graduate and then of coursethings happen, and then you just
meet you kind of meet people again, right. I would say there was
(52:43):
a discernible difference in call, likethe call I met after graduation, after
Gate, after Gate, and Iwould say, I like the fearless.
I would have used the word bold, but there was this spirit about you
that I kind of remember, like, damn, this it's called, but
(53:07):
it's not call like and those thosefirst Now you've been that person since then,
but I can easily remember, likethe first kind of coming back and
meet and call again. It's likehm hmm, that's him. But you
said it's just a little different.And bold, I think is a great
fearless. I think that's a greatadjective to describe the post Colgate call that
(53:31):
I kind of re met as weare now alums and just kind of like,
all right, I like this call. I mean I like the other
call. Yeah, No, that'sspot on, Alvin. I think I
was terrified at Colgate and it wasfearless afterwards. Bold is nice too.
And I remember at one reunion,because I went to every five year reunion,
(53:55):
I remember one reunion one of thefraternity guys came up to me and
he said, it must have beenhard for you at Colgate and it was
one you know, I told Iwould tell my younger self stay for the
miracle, Stay for the miracle,because literally when he said that to me,
(54:15):
I went A, I feel soseen, and b thank you for
saying that out loud, like I'vebeen waiting quietly for you to say that.
But I was also grateful that Ihad done the work, that I
had done the work, not waitingfor the reparation, that I had done
(54:37):
the reparation. Internally, you knowthat childish gambi, you know, a
black man, get your money likeI had gone and taken care of it,
and whatever came after that was gravy. But here's the real kicker.
I think the gravy came because Imade the meal. Wow listen, Yeah,
(55:00):
you might want to replay that,but there's a lot of deepness in
that statement right there. The gravycame because he made the meal. So
okay, talk to us about then, to keep walking us through your journey.
How did you get to be thischorl Well, so, a lot
of therapy, twenty plus years therapyand a lot of self acceptance, really
(55:24):
dismantling the internal racism and the internalhomophobia. I'm still working on all of
it and embracing my Jamaican heritage.You know, it's interesting to get ahead.
Sometimes parents tell you things. Iloved when Kim said I defied my
(55:45):
high school counselor and it became thisalmost torch that lit her path going forward.
And my mom worked hard to tellus about our Jamaican accent and how
she wanted us to use a moreclean American accent to move forward in our
(56:08):
lives. And now we learn aboutcode switching. And it's not a skill
set, it's a tax. Wepay this black tax. We pay this
black tax, and we step outsideour door even in Brooklyn, New York,
much less in Utica and Syracuse andHamilton, New York. We pay
(56:30):
a tax and it costs, andit's expensive to be black besides the housing
stuff that happens and the pay disparitystuff. That's all plus plus, and
that it's important to know it,to acknowledge it, so that you know
(56:53):
that when you feel as if you'recarrying sixty to seventy pounds extra. What
I also learned is this exceptionalism thingis garbage, as in this idea that
my mom would say, sometimes blackpeople have to work twice as hard to
get what the white person does.I've really dismantled and let that go.
(57:16):
I don't need to work any harderthan anybody else. I need to know
that though. I need to knowthat if I do a fair day's labor,
I deserve to be paid fully forthat labor. I need to know
it in my DNA. It's nota fight. I'm not fighting you for
(57:40):
it. I'm just telling you Ideserve to be paid fairly for my labor,
that's all. And until I believethat internally, it's hard to say
it out loud because it is goingto be a struggle and I am going
to act as if I need towork to is hard because I'm buying into
(58:02):
a story that I'm being fed.So a lot of the work is internal.
I discovered a lot of the callsare coming from inside the house,
you know. When I walked intothe HRC space and I walked into a
we funk space, a lot ofthe homophobia was inside my head and not
(58:22):
necessarily reflected at others. And onsome level, we're still animal and so
if I was flinching before you evenhit me, there's an equal reaction on
the other side, like fixing fora fight, putting your dukes up and
getting ready to hit somebody. Yeah, they're going to put up their dukes
(58:43):
to flinching, creating the negative vacuumto say come hit me. Basically,
it's going to also trigger people topull out their defense as well. And
so I had to learn that.And that's a lot of work because a
lot of this is Pavlovian almost codedand programmed internally. That was the work.
(59:08):
Who are you now? What areyou doing? My brother? Yeah?
I'm helping other people unlock it andfigure out what blocks them and creates
this internal friction. So I focuson helping senior after latinas lead their teams
as badasses and go home and bepresent with their families at the end of
(59:31):
the day, have enough bandwidth.A lot of people spend it all at
the office, leave it all onthe field, and that's no boy.
No. I think it's important forpeople to know that their whole lives.
We learned that during COVID. Wegot to see that people had children and
partners. And I don't think onceyou let that genie out of the bottle
(59:54):
that you should put it back.And this whole return to office we know
was disproportionately discriminatory, and a lotof big companies still pushed it forward,
and people have to stand up andask for what they deserve. So I
hope people to just sit down andask these questions internally of themselves and then
(01:00:17):
show up for themselves and for theteams that they lead, and for their
families, because we need people strongto get through the next couple of years,
because it's going to get ugly,ugly error. Alvin says, sir,
it's it's already ugly. If you'rea business looking to get your brand
(01:00:39):
in front of a loyal, supportive, successful market, you need to become
a sponsor of Aftergate. Our networkrecognizes the opportunity to work with co Gates,
a lum of color, to leveragethe reach of the show to increase
awareness and profitability for your business.Reach out to the Defile Life podcast network
and we will work with you throughoutthe entire process. We have special packages
(01:01:01):
to get you started. Contact usat info at godfirelife dot com. Every
week, professionals of color ranging frompoliticians to educators, to judges, to
entrepreneurs, to lawyers, corporate leaders, and even retirees aftergate reaches in a
rate of successful bipod listeners. Contactus to learn more about how we can
(01:01:24):
benefit you as as you reflect onsort of the journey, the post Kogate
journey and even you know, thejourney through Kogate and pre Kogate. You
when you reflect on call at seventeeneighteen entering Kolgate, what might be the
words of wisdom that you would tella younger call knowing what you're doing now,
(01:01:50):
And what would also be the adviceyou were to give called exiting Kogate,
going into the world based on yourexperiences and understanding them life now.
Yeah. I really enjoyed listening tothe Kim and the Dan and Wendy podcasts
(01:02:12):
earlier because I really loved some ofthe themes that came out of them.
I think the kids are going tobe all right. I get to talk
to a lot of them, andthey're muddling through and figuring it out the
same way I was. I wouldput my headphones on my walkman m nine
(01:02:38):
eight nine pm. I would putPrince the Eurythmics chardet and walk around campus
while it was really quiet. Everythinghad gotten really quiet, and that was
one of the smartest things I couldhave done. I would walk up past
(01:02:58):
the cemetery. I would walk onthe ski hill all the way up into
the woods and get really quiet andlook up at the stars and just walden
pond Man, think about think aboutthe meaning of the universe, and notice
(01:03:22):
the Earth's spin. And in thosequiet moments, it was a Bob Marley
moment. It was Everything's going tobe all right. It was no woman
to cry. It was that stuffis real. And honestly, that's one
of the reasons why I'm so gratefulI went there, because I do that
(01:03:44):
now in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden onSunday every Sunday, and so I have
that experience continues with me, andthere is an eternal wisdom I personally believe
and we I think it's important totap into that in whatever way that works
for you. If it's swimming,if it's running, if it's playing football,
(01:04:08):
I guess if it's doing Nautilus inthe gym. I also am grateful
to Colgate for teaching me to goto the gym because it's saving my ass.
It's saved my ass after the surgeryto be in physically good shape,
and then the thing that I don'tknow if I was intentionally doing it as
a kid at Coldgate, that Iwould tell myself is the resilience. The
(01:04:32):
mental rigor of academics is one thingthat's a one way to exercise your brain.
But there is a resilience that welearned through sports, which is why
the hockey and football games were somuch fun. Is this ability to bounce
back and pivot when things are goingoff or when you're almost going to lose,
(01:04:53):
but you still put your body intoit and get at it. There's
something visceral. Yeah, I mean, this is one of the reasons why
Colgate's average salaries so high is becausewe learn climbing up that hill, et
cetera. It teaches you a physicalresilience. I would tell my younger self
(01:05:18):
also think of it as building yourmental resilience. You know. There's a
guy named John Maida, and hewrote that the cadence of trauma in our
lives is increasing, whether it's schoolshootings, disease, war, political upheaval,
(01:05:43):
recessions, etc. The cadence andthe height and low of those traumas,
school shootings, the use of AIto bully people, these are just
increasing in our world. There wasa time when we need physical strengths,
need brawn to get through stuff.There was a time when it was muscle
(01:06:04):
and money. There was a timeand now it's how well do you bounce
back from trauma? How well doyou pivot when things change? That's the
muscle we need and a lot ofthat is mental. You see it with
you know Serena and some of ourother amazing players, Madison Keys, and
(01:06:28):
they are able to pivot on adime when things change on the court,
and we need to do that mentallyas well as we need to do that
physically. And that's that's my focus, is teaching people to change what they're
focusing on as their success. Loveit, Love it, Love it.
(01:06:54):
Last segment. Last question is justan opportunity for you to promote any initiative
website cause that you find extremely importantor something a way for people to reach
out to you in terms of yourcoaching, but a way for our listeners
(01:07:14):
to support the efforts of what's importantto you. What would you like to
plug? I love what I dofor a living, so work Well Groups
is my website. And yeah,if you know an Afro Latina leader in
(01:07:35):
design technology, education who's trying tofigure out how to lead their teams,
stay sustainable, show up for theirfamilies. I would love to support and
help them shine in their lives.And Wendy and I are friends, so
I do ally, I will.We have a very specific plan to ally
(01:07:59):
together. If you've listened to Wendy'spodcast, you should, it's really good.
But yeah, there are a bunchof US coaches in the Colgate community,
which is which is kind of cool, So please take advantage of coaching.
It's an incredible tool in your toolbelt for your leadership. Dope,
(01:08:24):
dope, dope. Any last words, my brother, I am incredibly grateful
to both of you personally. Thankyou for embracing me and proving my little
kid Carl that he wasn't gonna hewasn't in danger. And Alvin, you
(01:08:45):
have embraced me physically at reunions andit means a lot. It heals a
lot of the trauma that I experiencedinternally, not externally. That was probably
my own internal voice and I amgrateful for that. And tonight was really
meaningful, really meaningful, So thankyou appreciate that. Know that you are
(01:09:11):
and you know I don't I don'tsay this to all guests. You're one
of my favorite people, like youknow, in terms of my cogate experience
from the beginning. And I tryto look at myself as a decent judge
of realness and genuinely good people,right even though we might be doing different
things, but I still think Ican see in the people and pick out
(01:09:35):
that guy's a good guy, thatguy's a real person. And that's how
you've shown up to me since wewere eighteen nineteen twenty. So that has
been that connection because real recognize isreal, and so I've always tend to
connect with people that I'm just like, oh, you know again, we
(01:09:57):
have different interests down like I mean, honestly, if you were to check
the box, like, well helikes that, Yeah, I don't.
I like that. He don't Ilike this. You know, it's not
not a lot of what is football, what what where we do? A
line is in the sense of,yeah, that guy's a good cat.
And so I've always appreciated that andappreciated you. So appreciate you jumping on
(01:10:21):
after gate because we've been trying toget you a little while. So I
appreciate you honoring us with that,and so on that note, let's take
us out by saying that this hasbeen another episode of Aftergate season four.
Thank you to our guests, thankyou to our listeners. Because after Gate
(01:10:44):
is always powered by the the fireLife Network. So make sure you check
us out on all of your favoritepodcast streaming platforms because we have many more
dope episodes to follow. And rememberthat do the best you can and all
the ways you can, for allthe people you can, for as long
as you can, and that thecogate of your day is not the colgate
(01:11:08):
of today, and it's certainly notthe coviate of the future peace family.
You hear that, listen closer,that, my friend is the Defini sout
of focus. It drowns out allthe useless noise that can clutter. Not
only nay sayers, don't exist,haters, smaters, the peanut gallery.
(01:11:32):
Who's that When you're in your zone, all that noise and all that buzz
is just elevator music. So enjoyyour journey, focus on your goal and
basque in the choiet role that isprogressed, because when it's your time to
shoot that shot, spit that verse, or close that deal, the only
voice that matters. It's yours.The firelight
The following podcast is being brought toyou by the Defile Life podcast Network.
Welcome to Aftergate, powered by theDefile Life Network. Are You all Ready?
Aftergate is a podcast series highlighting Colgatealumni of color in their professional endeavors.
(00:23):
Aftergate Are You all Ready? Aftergateis hosted by Alvin Glim aka Al
and Herman Dubois AKAA Jerry Already.We are doing Aftergate because Colgate University has
produced innovators who have changed the worldevery day, Yet many alumni of color
and the mainstream Colgate community are unawareof the amazing accomplishments of alums of color?
(00:45):
Are you all ready? Welcome,Welcome, Welcome to another episode of
Aftergate season four. This is yourBoy, your big homie Al then Glenn's
aka Al, and I am joinedby my co host, mister headmand du
(01:10):
Bois. This is that weekly podcastthat we are dedicated to amplifying the journeys
of alumni color from Coe University becausewe are just fascinated by the conversations.
The journeys have been epic, theconversations have been fascinating, and we are
batting one hundred percent in terms ofthe dopeness of the content. So I
(01:37):
am so eager to get this conversationfor this week started. But before I
do that, Before I do that, let me introduce my co host,
mister Head of Mind Dubois aka Jerry. What is going on? My brother
all as well? All as well? Another week of being a love and
treat Yes, sir, and theblessing that continue to roll in despite life
(02:01):
challenges and pivots, like I've learnedto embrace rather than receive a setbacks,
to pivot, to pivot and toadapt, you know. And if there
was any experience that I can sayprepared us for life challenges and the ability
(02:22):
to pivot was Colgate. So withthat we will We can definitely segue into
the guests we have on the showto night, which honored to say that
we know we have we have alittle little knowledge of which is always the
case with a lot of our guests, which is the beauty of the show.
We get to meet some you know, reconnect with folks that we knew
(02:44):
while we were on campus, andthen some instances meet folks we've never interacted
with, whether they were there beforeor after our time at Coviate. So
uh, definitely excited about tonight.So then let's push forward and invite this
week's powerful AOC in the room.So can I get you a blessing to
(03:05):
invite this week's guest into the Aftergatestudios. Always Deacon out of the Church
says amen. Well, with thatbeing said, after Gate listeners, my
AOC family, we have the privilegeto honor to have the one, the
only mister Carl Stewart class of ninetyone in the building. What's up call,
(03:31):
Welcome to Aftergate, brother, thankyou, thank you, and this
(03:55):
is church. Yes, we aredoing the Lord work. I truly believe
that I've said this before. AfterGate will go down as some of the
best work me and this brother haveever done. And I said that we
were probably an episode like seven.I'm just I was confident then, but
(04:19):
even more confident that we are doingthe Lowd's work. Brother, So welcome,
welcome, welcome, this is church, Church, It's lucky. Let's
start it off. Well. Forthose who haven't figured out the fact that
he's ninety one, we're ninety one, know that we were on campus for
(04:42):
four years. We did know thisbrother for four years, and so we
do have a history. But asmany of our classmates who have been on
here. We know we don't knowthe full story. So looking forward to
learning the story of Carl pre Holegatebecause I'm looking forward to that and after
(05:04):
Colgate as well. So let's jumpin your class of ninety one. You
graduate high school from in eighty seven. Where are you from? I?
Yeah, I was born in Vallejo, California. Oh did not know that.
(05:26):
Parents took me back to mother,specifically to Jamaica, West Indies at
three and a half. And thenI came to the boogie down in Brooklyn,
not the bookdown Bronx. I thinkwe boogie harder. What do you
think, Jerry, we boogie harder? You know my travels that mean from
(05:47):
the Bronx. You know, there'sonly won't boogie down. But I appreciate
that. I appreciate the comparison.You know, once you get outside of
New York City, Brooklyn Bronx meanshis all family, it's all love.
So we call it. We callManhattan work Island. Now there we go,
there we go work work interesting.Interesting, interesting. But yeah,
(06:11):
you were raised you know, youwere raised in Brooklyn then for the most
part, so I spent fifteen andpretty much the rest of my life in
Brooklyn. Yeah, and we livedon flat Bush oh yeah, so similar
to kim but all the way outat the end by Brooklyn College, So
in a very West Indian neighborhood,all the you know, the deli stores
(06:35):
by Asian Americans, just like inJamaica and the West Indies. So it
was literally a click and drag situation. When I first came was Ocean Avenue
and Flatbush area, close to ErasmusHall High School. And then I ended
up going to high school at SamuelJ. Children High School when it was
still yeah, Tilden because I waszoned for Erasmus. But my grandmother said,
(06:59):
there's where you're going to Erasmus HallHigh School back in nineteen eighty five.
Yeah, tell me what's old Brooklynlike back then? What do you
remember about that time? What doyou remember about the culture that give us
a little bit of what's the contextfor you as you're coming into to Kolgate.
Well, Brooklyn was safe for mefor the most part. I I
(07:24):
you know, Betstay was obviously downthe road, but but where I was
was we were pretty okay. Youknew to watch your back, but I
wasn't worried for my life, soto speak. But yeah, I mean,
the news was the news, andit's so interesting because I went back
and looked at the news from nineteeneighty seven Times and because then you were
(07:49):
going to ask me about that,and honestly, there's so much that's similar.
I have a friend who only readshistory, and he says, because
we learn everything backwards. And whenI looked back, I went, oh,
yeah, there was a war andthere's all these things, but we
(08:11):
were the Other thing that was interestingfor me to think about Alvin and Jerry
is that I, as a childhad very clear full sai and so there
were macro things. As I wasreading the New York Times from nineteen eighty
seven, there were macro things goingon that it was more life and death
(08:31):
to pass the class and get outof you know what I mean. Like,
there were certain things that were onmy mind and that I was focused
on, and so I almost hadblinders on around some of the other things.
And for me, my experience wasI got up and it was get
to the bus that takes you toschool, and then bang out all your
(08:56):
classes and then get to Wendy anddo your job that you did to get
your pocket money and get home beforegrandmother wondered where you were, because that
wasn't going to be a fun conversationif you were out on the street.
So that was my life. AndI went home and got my homework done
(09:18):
so and they went right to bed. So my life was very I don't
know. I don't even know ifI was sheltered or protected at that point
because I had just grown up inJamaica with the rigor of you do exactly
what your parents say, you donot even blink. I remember my dad
would watch for whether we were frowningin public and say, I will give
(09:43):
you something to frown about if youdidn't have your face right. So that
was all the way up to twelve. So by high school I was programmed.
And what was high school like foryou? What would you say for
folks from mourn listeners who don't knowabout Tilden and don't know about the type
(10:05):
of school. It was academically,athletically, socially, demographically, Yeah,
I was. I was a supernerd. So I think they they ended
up doing something very interesting and wecould talk about it and if it's important.
But they did a thing where theyhad the enrichment classes, and they
(10:26):
put a bunch of kids and itended up being a lot of West Indians,
interestingly, but it was African Americansand West Indians and they ended up
putting us in the track that wasa little bit different. So my experience
was different and than the general childin population. So I, honestly,
(10:48):
unfortunately sometimes feel like I didn't havethe Tilden experience. I had this rarefied
version of it, and I onlyhad it for two years. How did
you hear about that? Yeah,very interesting story. So I was knew
in America that I ended up goingto college two years after I came to
(11:11):
America, and so I took theSATs to the PSATs and then you know
how it works. You take thething and then all the schools get the
scores and they start mailing all thosecollege catalogs. So I just remember sitting
in my living room and I waswith my grandmother. My parents were still
(11:35):
in Jamaica because I had come uphere by myself, because I was the
one who had the passport who couldcome up, and my parents were still
working on getting a visa because therewere Jamaican citizens. So I was lying
on my grandmother's living room floor,and I was surrounded by all of these
college catalogs, and there were somethat you applied to because Hail Mary pass
(12:01):
right, Apply to Harvard, applyto Mit, app and then there was
this one catalog that was really beautifuland these pictures looked out of next world,
and I thought, it's probably nota real thing, but I will
(12:22):
apply anyway. And then I gotthe acceptance letter, and I did ended
up getting a bunch of acceptances,and so I did this world tour because
they all threw money to say comevisit. So I flew to California and
to the Claremont colleges and the smogas soon as I got off the plane.
(12:45):
I could not go to la forschool in nineteen eighty seven. The
smog was just really bad. Andso I came back and then I did
the Northeast tour. I ended upat Hamilton College. This was the last
one before I got on this busand I went over this hill and I
looked down, and when I lookeddown, the photographs in the stupid catalog
(13:09):
matched this fantasy island of Colgate University'scampus. And I remember getting on campus
and I was staying with a basketballplayer, and for whatever reason, the
basketball player just disappeared as soon ashe showed me his room in Bryant,
and I think rationally and intellectually hehad practice. Did not see him for
(13:33):
the rest of the time. SoI left, and I'm walking to the
student union and I start crying becauseI got into these seven schools. They're
all really good schools. This isthe last one on the trip, and
I need to make a decision.My parents can't help me. They have
no idea where I got into.My grandmother has no idea what I'm doing.
(13:54):
She's cleaning toilets for families. AndI sit in front of the student
union and all these white people arewalking past me and saying hello, because
the Colgate Hello tradition. And Iam just dumbfounded. And Diane Munster comes
(14:15):
by and sits beside me, andshe says, we cannot answer the questions
for you, but we can helpyou ask them. And that was the
first when that Colgate had, waswhat Diane said. And then Dan Sarasino
wrote me a hand written letter inthe math department, and then the president
(14:39):
of Colgate University invited me to dinnerat the house up at Watson in another
handwritten letter, and I said,this is the school I'm going to go
to because they're going to pay attentionnow that that visit was that part of
an official sub frosh weekend or thiswas an independent visit on your own,
(15:03):
because we've heard a lot of theguests talk about that particular weekend making an
impression upon them, but not sureif that was that same weekend. I'm
trying to remember. I want tosay it was that pre fresh weekend because
I remember Kim talking about it,but it could have been an independent thing
(15:24):
where they just had a student hostme for a day because I was doing
this whole tour and I remember,you know, I literally went on the
bus, went to one school,went to one school, went to one
school, stayed overnight at each one, and then landed at Colgate. So
I think it could have been thatI sat down and mathematically figured out how
(15:45):
to make the pre fresh weekend bethe last stop, but I'm not sure.
I'm not gonna lie and say Idid so for the record of o
US. Then was that summer.I wasn't there that summer, Yeah,
which was another thing that was awhole other part of my Colgate experience.
(16:07):
So you start, you say,you start, you used to lect Colgate
and you attend in the fall,and what was it like for you?
Maybe recognizing well won the transition,you know, on every level, but
uh, maybe recognizing as a asa as a man of color on campus
that they were others that had hadsome prior engagement called o us that you
(16:30):
were not a part of. Youknow, how did you process that?
Well? Jake's a really good question. I think I discovered about three or
four years ago, towards the endof COVID that I prefer introversion, that
I'm an introvert mm hm. Andso I don't know if I wanted that
(16:55):
instrument summer experience then, because atthat point people just garried me number one.
And I don't know if being ona rural campus with a small number
of people would have necessarily been agood play. It would have probably been
dramatic. But I will say thatmy dad I never heard about the OUs
(17:19):
program, by the way, butI know that my dad would not even
if I had gotten invited to it. My dad wouldn't have let me go
because my dad was very much aboutI don't want you to spend specific time
just with black folks. I don'twant you doing that because I don't want
you thinking that you're different than anyother human being on the planet. That's
(17:42):
just my dad speaking. I don'tknow which way I feel about that.
I'm torn on that, but Iwill say that when I came on campus
and then discovered gradually, it waslike a little bit of a great fine
sort of wait they were Wait,Kim and Alvin and Jerry were all here
(18:04):
during the summer. Why was Iinvited? So there's a little bit of
why I wasn't I invited to theparty, But there's a whole other dynamic,
which is I started in center Stillmanm with you know, three white
guys, and then we would gooff course. We'd go to Frank for
(18:26):
breakfast, and then every once ina while I'd go to we Funk,
or I'd go down to HRC andjust sort of walk around and try to
say hi. And I just noticed, and it wasn't on purpose, that
there was a closeness and an almostautomatic familial relationship that people had that when
I would walk into the space,I would notice, Wait, they don't
(18:51):
know who I am. And itwasn't don't hang don't sit down and hang
out in the living room and spendtime with us. It wasn't that vibe.
But it was just that we don'tknow you, and it wasn't a
negative. Internally, Carl, Ihad my home internal homophobia, right,
and so part of me thought,oh, maybe they're saying because you're gay,
(19:15):
don't hang with us. And sothat was my stuff to deal with,
my stuff to process. And Iremember by sophomore junior year, I
think it was James and I forgotto look up his last name, but
James football player would sit with mein Frank dining hall at my little secret
hide James Moore would sit with meat my secret hideaway table in Frank where
(19:37):
I was sitting so nobody else wouldsit near me. He was a good
guy like that. James just brokethrough my defense and said, Okay,
so I'm going to sit with youand we're going to have breakfast and we're
going to talk. And I don'tknow why or how James did that,
but it was it was a completerevelation to me because I thought football players
(19:59):
were just going to rush me ifI actually looked in their direction. So
for him to do that was reallytransformational and a real breakthrough for me.
I definitely want to make sure weshout out Diane, Diane Monster months.
She lives in Atlanta now and it'sactually talked to her huge aftergate Man,
(20:23):
and she told me I should geton this podcast, and I told her
I was already scheduled. So Ijust want to, you know, give
a shout out because hopefully she'll listento this episode and know that we appreciate
her support and advocacy. So shoutout to Diane. So what do well?
(20:45):
First, where did you live?You said you lived in Stillman.
Where else did you live? Fouryears instillman freshman year, moved to East
Stillman's second year, and in themiddle of second year moved to Creative Arts
House and broad to help start fundfound Creative Arts House and that became my
home for the rest of the timeof Colgate. What's that To talk a
(21:10):
little bit more about the transition then, as you're you talked about it a
little socially as you live in astillment and kind of coming into HRC and
some of that dynamic, But generallyspeaking, how was the transition academically socially.
What do you remember about the earlyyears. Well, so I had
the Hill effect right because I hadgotten into the Harvard's and mits and so,
(21:34):
and Colgate said, no, wewant you here the alumni scholar program.
And so because of that, right, it's that attribution effect. If
somebody says to you, you're gonnado really well here, you could have
probably even done well at Harvard.I was psychologically set up to believe that
(21:59):
I was going to crush academically.So I actually wasn't worried academically at Colgate.
I was more worried mentally, psychologically, socially around social around social situations
because I knew I was gay,and I think everybody else knew, which
(22:19):
I don't know if they did ornot. But there was a part of
my brain, my amygdalah, thatwas totally hijacked in fear that I was
going to get killed at some point, because obviously I came from Jamaica and
the West Indies where homophogius is reallyintense, and so part of navigating Colgate
was just trying to feel safe.MM, someone who you know, I'm
(22:45):
pretty certain I suspected right having youknow, knew you early. But you
know, unless you know, youdon't know, right, I would definitely
say it was suspicion. But Iwould also say when I looked back at
those times, I think because ofhonestly, because of some of the exposure
(23:10):
and awareness raising that we were getting, particularly at the Cultural Center in terms
of being aware and accepting of everyone. Right, I think shout out to
the Cultural Center director of Lady tedLast. She was trying to get us
to think about this coalition for abetter world, her thing of really trying
(23:34):
to get us to just be sensitiveto all I mean as we think about
where the world has moved in thesethirty years in terms of trying to embrace
people for who they are and howeverthey want to identify in this world.
For me, it was those yearsthat started me on that journey of get
(24:00):
people for who they are, fortheir greatness and not necessarily for the things
that I've brought to Colgate. Interms of some of my narrow minded thinking,
Yeah, was your was your theorycorrect and that you went in with
the mindset that you would crush Clgateand and uh not concerned about the academics
(24:23):
or was it more challenging than youmay have. Uh, I thought it
would be. And what was yourmajor? By the way, mathematics?
Wow, yeah, you might.You might be our first math major.
Definitely, they're coupful of us.I think there's another black Carl who is
(24:44):
also a math major. I haveto look him up for you and send
him your way. You you didyou roll through Colgate academically, because that's
definitely one of the other areas thatit's awesome to hear people share their journeys.
I did roll And how did youend up on them? Did you
know you were going to be amath major? Or did it? Did
it? Kind of like about thesodad my dad challenged me, and it
(25:08):
was almost it's going to be reallyhard, but you can't or and or.
I really wanted my dad's respect,love and attention, right, and
this was a way to do that. And I wanted to be challenged.
(25:30):
I wanted to have the hardest thingthrown at me. And I knew I
wasn't going to do physics, chemistry, science, any of those things.
I didn't really like them, butmath, because then I took some philosophy
classes. I don't know if thiswill make sense, but I took some
(25:51):
philosophy classes, and it went Mathis the scientific version of philosophy, especially
when gets abstract algebra and numbers theory, which sounds as obscure, ridiculous,
and non useful unless you go onto try and figure out why the sun
moves around in the way that itdoes in the universe, which I did
(26:14):
not care about at all. Butwhat I did enjoy is this idea of
creating a completely fictional world, creatingthe rules for it, and then building
complex problems in that space and solvingfor them. The other thing I loved
about math is that it's beautiful whenyou write it on paper and you draw
(26:41):
all the way down. There's lotsof different ways to get to the answer,
but the answer is always the samefor the most part. It gets
weird later on, and then whenI sat in a philosophy class and we
started asking what am I here?Who is this person? And nice see
in the mirror? Then it gotsuper freaky. But mathematics in a weird
(27:04):
way was like a foundation for that. The other thing that I got really
excited about academically is because math wasin McGregor, and then in the evenings
I would do what my dad didnot want me to do, which is
I would do theater and thank godit Coldgate. It's e nng L for
(27:25):
all the theater classes. I'm sureit's changed now, but on my transcript
and I would go home, mydad would see ENGL, so you'd think,
oh, you're taking English classes.I am taking Margaret Mours Shakespeare and
I am doing pure ghint on thestage at Gramar and having the freaking time
(27:52):
of my life because also code Gate, right, it was it was transformation
for me to be in a structureof mathematics in the morning and then spend
the evening in free wheeling theater anddance, and that it was such a
beautiful balance for me. Yeah,what other extracurriculums were you involved in during
(28:14):
your time? So he did alot of the Bremmer, both theater and
dance, and I discovered dance duringa jam term, which kids don't have
that anymore. I didn't want togo home, so I would just stay
on campus from September through June.But yeah, I did that, and
(28:36):
then I again helped Creative Arts Househappen, which was super exciting, and
I remember one day one of thefraternity brothers came over and they were hanging
out downstairs, and he said,so you pick who you want to be
in the house. You have kegparties in the basement, and you only
invite the people you want. Tellme again, how this is any different
(28:56):
than the fraternities which I see doingthe side eye too. And yeah,
I found a community of human beingsthat I wanted to spend a lot of
time with. And I did aproduction of Six Degrees of Separation, which
I adored by John Guare, andI choreographed dance pieces with women, and
(29:19):
we cooked food together. I rememberwhat Kim's last name is, which he
was a foodie, and brought theVegetarian cookbook and we bought our own food
and stocked the fridge and cooked ourown food together. And we had kimped
Tomas, yes, and we thetwo of us were kind of the headmasters
(29:44):
at Great of oardselves. At onepoint John Janelle left and said, you
have become a tyrant and you havedetermined everybody's left and right step, and
I am done. You can haveit. But it was an amazing time.
We had dancers, painters, actors, writers, lighting designers. Shannon
(30:06):
Rhodes who was majoring in science andthen minoring in theater and then went on
to do Yale assistant stage management.Now back in science, it was just
an amazing cauldron of creativity and alot of love, you know, a
lot of freedom to be exactly whoyou were. So it was my little
oasis. It was my little oasisat Colgate. And yes, I was
(30:30):
a little bit of a tyrant.M hmm, cold, huge tyrant.
God good, definitely. So whenyou look back at your time, then
what do you think of as yourhighlights, your accomplishments, things you're like,
really really proud of during those years. It's only in retrospect, you
(30:52):
know. I have to say thatone time when I choreographed that, we
were in the living room and Ihad done the choreiography and I was madly
in love with Merce Cunningham and JohnCage and so John Janone, who was
a music slash dex Tomorrow protege.John Janone and I created this whole thing
(31:17):
and it was amazing. We wenton actually to do his MFA thesis long
after, and yeah, that collaboration, that partnership with somebody else to create
art and to make a statement ofpublic statement was it was pretty amazing.
(31:38):
So that was one of my favoriteever things to do. But it's in
retrospect as an executive coach, andyou know that note today. It's it's
that creation of community that was reallythe pinnacle for me because COVID was I
(32:01):
add the dots up into the present. I ended up in a building that
was sixteen units for COVID, andwe ended up potting the entire building together,
and we said, as long asyou wear your masks and you stay
safe outside, we won't wear masksin the sixteen unit building. And we
ended up spending so much time ineach other's rooms during COVID and time on
(32:24):
the roof because remember the first year, the weather, it was warm and
out in the backyard cooking together,and I could not stop feeling as if
I had recreated for those four yearsthe Creative Arts House and learning from my
tyrant days, my dictatorship days,to really allow it to be a collaborative
(32:47):
experience more of a democracy. Itwas. Creative Arts House was my first
try at it right. You don'talways get it right the first time,
but I learned so much after Colgatethat built on that experience. We'll take
a pause here so we can showsome love to our sponsor and we'll be
(33:08):
back to finish the conversation with KingCall the First, the Tyrant himself and
looking forward to learning more about whathis life has been like after gate.
So this episode is sponsored by HopeMurals. Hope Murals is a nonprofit that
provides adolescent youth with an interactive experienceof creative expression via an urban arts platform
(33:35):
that stimulates both mental and physical development. Please visit that website at www dotemurals
dot org to learn more and findways you can support the work they do.
Welcome back, Welcome back. Weare here for the second half of
this week's conversation with the good BrotherCarl Stewart, class of ninety one,
(34:00):
looking forward to hearing his journey.But of course, before we jump in,
let's make sure we thank our sponsor, Hope Murals. Make sure we
show some love to Hope Murals becausewe greatly appreciate all that they do with
our youth. They are doing someamazing work exposing our youth to urban arts
and helping them with their development throughthe exposure of this art. So show
(34:22):
some love to Hope Murals. Theirwebsite is Hopemurals dot org and they are
on social media at at Hope Muralso make sure you are checking them out
staying up to tune with all thatthey are doing around the country. Also
want to show some love to ournetwork, the Defilelife network at godefilelife dot
co. Also, they have apodcast hub where you can find aftergate of
(34:45):
the podcasts on defilelifepods dot com.Just a reminder, you can find our
show on all of your major podcaststreaming services that's Apple, Podspotify, Spreaker,
our Heart, et cetera. Andof course, always want to show
some love to all of the alumsthat have been guests because we just want
to make sure they know we appreciateall of their stories and their journeys,
(35:07):
because without them, there is noshow. Now let me jump right back
into the second half of this conversation. So brother called. You mentioned you're
from Brooklyn. Oh that's all mySo I would love to hear give me
a sense of what Brooklyn is likenow, right because I grew up I
(35:30):
mean I grew up in Queens.The Brooklyn that I knew are actually referred
to as Old Brooklyn. Old Brooklynis not New Brooklyn, and so would
love to as you are living thereand getting an opportunity to experience it a
little bit more closely and deeply.What's your take? What do you know?
Give me a sense of some ofthe highlights of where Brooklyn is and
(35:52):
you know it helps me about thebotanical gardens. What do you know?
Brother, Brooklyn is alive and thriving. And as you know, New York
City has been on a gentrification runsince the eighties or probably even before.
And I live in Crown Heights,so the site of the Crown Heights riots,
(36:15):
and so it is drastically changing.I actually work out of co working
space and one of the organizations inthat co working space is helping the black
folks to hold on to their homesas things rapidly change around them. And
(36:37):
there's a lot of concern because therewas the white flight and then black folks
were able to buy some spaces,and now it's shifting again and people are
not happy about it. And soI don't know. Melting pot is one
(36:59):
of those things we talk of thesein these cities, and it is.
It's always churn and it's always moving, and that's why I love it and
That's why I will probably never leave. Because there's this one woman who joked,
mom, when are you going tocome and visit me in New York
(37:20):
City? And the mom said,when they're done building it, And they're
never done building Brooklyn. They're neverdone building New York City in general.
And so yeah, it's changing.The demographic changes rapidly all the time,
all over and I always wonder wherepeople end up going because the change is
(37:44):
usually, as I mentioned, moregentrified, so I'm more expensive. It
just keeps getting more and more expensive. But the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has been
there since I lived here back inthe eighties, and Prospect Park is been
there the entire time, and thereare certain traditions that never changed. The
Brooklyn Museum is still there. TheAlicia Keys exhibit was a great, Spike
(38:08):
Lee exhibit was great. So thereare some cultural The West Indian Day Parade
still happens, and so there arecertain traditions. The cherry blossoms. I'm
amazed. And during the pandemic,I ended up having my right hip chopped
(38:29):
out and removed and replaced with metaland plastic. But one of the things
in rehab starting in January of twentytwenty, I had to go for a
twenty minute walk, and the gardenand the park are about that distance,
and so I would walk there everyday. And when of the things you
(38:49):
realize if you go to the BotanicGarden, because we just got a membership
anyway, and it was one ofthe only places you could go during the
pandemic, and we would go everysingle Sunday in twenty twenty and we just
kept it going. So we've beendoing that now for over four years.
And you notice in the spring everyweek. Somehow nature is designed that a
(39:12):
different flower pops every single week.So the daffodil hill pops, and then
it's the lilies, and then everysingle year. I do not know how
nature and or the Botanic Garden figurethat out, but those things stay constant.
Nature in the pandemic, for me, reminded me that the Earth is
(39:34):
going to keep going no matter what. Yep, yep. Appreciate that.
I appreciate that. Appreciate that,and uh, that's some interesting perspective that
the Earth is going to keep goingno matter what, no matter how jacked
up we tried to make this world. She might try to throw us off,
(39:58):
she might and I don't blame it. Might go I'm done. This
was a good experiment, y'all.Dinosaurs made a mess. They got kicked
out. If we keep doing whatwe're doing, we might get tossed off.
But I think the silver lining inthat story is that sometimes it takes
(40:22):
some life altering circumstances for us totake a step back and appreciate what may
be in our immediate surroundings that weoftentimes either overlook or or take for granted,
or are just moving so quickly thatwe don't recognize what is immediate,
(40:46):
you know, surroundings, and it'sit's it's as as a plant lover and
and and fauna lover, you know, I always think about how I live
in the Bronx. I could ridea bike to the botanical garden and never
went, never went as a kid, and we'll make it one of my
(41:07):
stops when I visit now as anadult. And so whether it be nature,
or whether it be museums, orwhether it just be parks, or
whether it just be what's in yourimmediate walking distance. Oftentimes it takes you
know, a rehabilityy situation, oryou know, some other circumstances to actually
get us to appreciate what we havealways had access to it, and that
(41:31):
to me is the great is agreat lesson that we can always learn from
because there's always so much to Istarted to try riding bike more just because
you move slower, and by movingslower, you see more. Hey,
my grandfather in Jamaica and my father, we're all farmers, and so I
(41:52):
grew up planting seeds and absolutely havingto shell peas and those things. Only
to grow up now and plant thingsevery spring on the balcony and on the
roof of our apartment building and tento them. And it's a deeply spiritual
thing to watch your seed come outof the ground and nurture them. So
(42:16):
many Yeah, as we bring hereFolksirka, I know we're going to end
up talking about some more seed plantingand growing and nurturing. Where we're back
at Kogate. We're back up inHamilton, New York. It is ninety
one. You are, you know, celebrating in illustrious four years at Kogate.
(42:38):
Were you one of the few thathad kind of set plans and strategies
and visited the career Planning office andknew exactly what you wanted to do after
Kogate or was it like many ofus just uh, you know, happy
to graduate and would figure it outonce we got our degrees and left Hamilton
(43:00):
and a U haltruck. Jerry,Okay, I'm just going to tell it
the way it was, like itis. Junior year, I did the
internship and at insurance services office,and I was majoring in mathematics, and
(43:22):
the studies said survey says being anactuary is a guaranteed success and you will
not be discriminated against because there areall these exams that you take and if
you pass this exam, you makethis much money, and so the mathematics
(43:43):
of it, and as a wayto escape discrimination and all the other messy
stuff in life, I said,That's what I'm going to do. And
so I interned junior year. Theyinvited me back for a full time job.
So buy around January February, Iknew where I was going to be
working after Colgate. Okay, Okay, that's a blessing. That's a beautiful
(44:07):
day. Then that internship, wasthat something you'd discovered through a professor to
the office of career Planning? Howdid you even navigate that? Yeah,
I think I probably went to thecareer center. I don't remember, but
(44:27):
I think I probably went to thecareer center and I looked up the actuary
thing, because that's the only wayI would have figured that out. There's
no way a nineteen year old wasgoing to figure out the word actuary.
So I'm pretty sure I asked oneof the mass department folks what title,
and then went to a career centerand looked up the internships. But yeah,
(44:49):
I wasn't recruited or anything. Ijust kind of found it by scouring
the books that they had and thisis your company was back in New York.
You gave us a little Yeah,so I was very lucky. It
was right here in Manhattan Wall Streetarea, and I remember the guys went
to France's Tavern for lunch and seeingthis cut up antelopes and deer on the
(45:16):
walls of the restaurant was pretty freaky. But yeah, it was the Wall
Street area, and I took thetwo train from Flatbush Avenue and No Strand
to Wall Street and it was kindof cool. It was neat. I
have to say this too. Onething Colgate did for me, it was
(45:37):
connected me with Pascal CABMBA back inearly before I even started Colgate, and
so I went and visited him inthe Wall Street area. I think he
worked to work in the Wall Streetarea, or at least by Midtown.
And I walked into Pascal's office mahoganydesk, standing behind the desk in a
(45:57):
suit, and I remember I musthave been pretty fresher first year, and
I said to myself, well,if this is where I'm going to end
up, Colgate's going to do goodby me. And then his girlfriend,
Teresa Delgado was the ra in Andrews, and Pascal came up a lot that
first year, and so honestly,it's that kind of stuff that just made
(46:19):
me feel super comfortable that I wasgoing to get something good career wise out
of Colgate. So I'm really gratefulfor him. He was a sort of
secret mentor. And then Teresa wasthere in case anything went down. I
was like, Teresa, you canobviously call Pascal and he'll come and beat
anybody. So how long were youat that company and give us a little
(46:44):
bit about what how you moved there? Yeah, so I Jerry, I
actually hated it. I passed acouple of the exams, the exams weren't
that hard, but I literally feltmy soul leaving my body every time I
sat at the computer and just typeda bunch of auto data. One of
(47:07):
the things actuaries do is, forexample, figure out if red cars or
blue cars are going to get intomore accidents. But somebody has to enter
the data into the system so youcan tabulate all that data. And the
company I worked for summarized all theinsurance data from all the insurance companies,
and it just felt as if Iwas going to end up sucked into the
(47:31):
computer at some point, and soI said I need to go, and
I basically ran out of that buildingas if my hair was on fire.
So that's how that went. That'show that went down. And then how
long were you there before that occurred? Probably two years. I think I
lasted two years. And the otherthing that called me out of there is
(47:55):
I had taken last year Colgate,I took the fourth Jenet class. I
ended up taking a class called theFaust Legend, which is the story of
the man who sells his soul tothe devil. And it was done through
the opera, I know, dramatic. We did it through opera. We
(48:19):
did it through splicing cells. Sothere's a science component an opera component.
You know. Cheng was part ofthat and it changed my life that Jenet
class, because Jennifer Griffin and Iwould meet every year after that and go
did you sell your soul to thedevil? No? Literally, we asked
(48:42):
ourselves like, are you accepting cashin place of your evolution? And that
actually set the trajectory for my career. So I decided. The other thing
that happened is I became a HIVpositive and so I assumed that I only
had five years left to live becauseit just starting to figure out the protease
inhibitors. And so I made adecision, if I'm going to die,
(49:07):
I wanted to do what I'm puton the planet to do. So I
went to acting school and got mfaanActing awesome. And so how did you
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to hear about that.
So where'd you go to school?You know? What was that experience?
Yeah? Yeah, So I gota Masters in acting at Brooklyn College,
(49:30):
which was transformational because again I doprefer introversion and acting is about literally exposing
yourself on stage. And what Ilearned is how to speak my truth without
fear mm hmmm. And then Iended up at this point I was gonna
(49:53):
say where I graduated. Yeah,I graduated in nineteen ninety six from Brooklyn
College. Was a three year program. And then I ended up trying to
do the acting thing. But Ithink the gay thing was still a challenge
on screen and on stage. There'sa lot of if you're gay, they
(50:15):
think you're going to die from HIVanyway, so why cast you? And
so the world wasn't really ready forme at that point, and so I
ended up touring my one man lifestory called Innocence Lost, and I ended
up getting to tour it at PrincetonUniversity, and I ended up speaking at
Williams College on HIV. And itwas really cool because I got really fearless,
(50:43):
sort of that facing death down andbuilding a skill set that I thought
was incredible. The magic of theaters, it's pretty there's there's pretty much nothing
like it to me, because whatit is is you get to tell the
human story, which is what wedid as cave people. We would go
(51:05):
hunt, come back, get everybodyaround a fire, tell these stories and
carve things on the wall. Andit was we were telling stories to keep
the specie alive, and theater went'sdone really well calls at at that so
I was really excited to do theater. And I also then gave that up
(51:30):
and studied dance at the Merce CunninghamDance Studio. I mentioned that back in
my Coldgate days, I was inlove with the Merce Cunningham team, and
so I ended up studying with MerthCunningham for a little bit at the West
Beth Studio. It's on the eleventhfloor. It looks out on the Hudson
River in Manhattan, and that waschurch that Saturday morning class with the sun
(51:55):
coming up and shining in the studio, all white studio. It was literally
a heavenly experience because you're in yourbody, you're in the music, and
you're you're literally putting your soul outthere on the stage. And that was
so the combo was phenomenal for mefor my twenties. Loved it. Before
(52:22):
we get into how you you knowmore of the journey, I will say
I want to use the word fearlessbecause as someone who knew you at Colgate,
then you graduate and then of coursethings happen, and then you just
meet you kind of meet people again, right. I would say there was
(52:43):
a discernible difference in call, likethe call I met after graduation, after
Gate, after Gate, and Iwould say, I like the fearless.
I would have used the word bold, but there was this spirit about you
that I kind of remember, like, damn, this it's called, but
(53:07):
it's not call like and those thosefirst Now you've been that person since then,
but I can easily remember, likethe first kind of coming back and
meet and call again. It's likehm hmm, that's him. But you
said it's just a little different.And bold, I think is a great
fearless. I think that's a greatadjective to describe the post Colgate call that
(53:31):
I kind of re met as weare now alums and just kind of like,
all right, I like this call. I mean I like the other
call. Yeah, No, that'sspot on, Alvin. I think I
was terrified at Colgate and it wasfearless afterwards. Bold is nice too.
And I remember at one reunion,because I went to every five year reunion,
(53:55):
I remember one reunion one of thefraternity guys came up to me and
he said, it must have beenhard for you at Colgate and it was
one you know, I told Iwould tell my younger self stay for the
miracle, Stay for the miracle,because literally when he said that to me,
(54:15):
I went A, I feel soseen, and b thank you for
saying that out loud, like I'vebeen waiting quietly for you to say that.
But I was also grateful that Ihad done the work, that I
had done the work, not waitingfor the reparation, that I had done
(54:37):
the reparation. Internally, you knowthat childish gambi, you know, a
black man, get your money likeI had gone and taken care of it,
and whatever came after that was gravy. But here's the real kicker.
I think the gravy came because Imade the meal. Wow listen, Yeah,
(55:00):
you might want to replay that,but there's a lot of deepness in
that statement right there. The gravycame because he made the meal. So
okay, talk to us about then, to keep walking us through your journey.
How did you get to be thischorl Well, so, a lot
of therapy, twenty plus years therapyand a lot of self acceptance, really
(55:24):
dismantling the internal racism and the internalhomophobia. I'm still working on all of
it and embracing my Jamaican heritage.You know, it's interesting to get ahead.
Sometimes parents tell you things. Iloved when Kim said I defied my
(55:45):
high school counselor and it became thisalmost torch that lit her path going forward.
And my mom worked hard to tellus about our Jamaican accent and how
she wanted us to use a moreclean American accent to move forward in our
(56:08):
lives. And now we learn aboutcode switching. And it's not a skill
set, it's a tax. Wepay this black tax. We pay this
black tax, and we step outsideour door even in Brooklyn, New York,
much less in Utica and Syracuse andHamilton, New York. We pay
(56:30):
a tax and it costs, andit's expensive to be black besides the housing
stuff that happens and the pay disparitystuff. That's all plus plus, and
that it's important to know it,to acknowledge it, so that you know
(56:53):
that when you feel as if you'recarrying sixty to seventy pounds extra. What
I also learned is this exceptionalism thingis garbage, as in this idea that
my mom would say, sometimes blackpeople have to work twice as hard to
get what the white person does.I've really dismantled and let that go.
(57:16):
I don't need to work any harderthan anybody else. I need to know
that though. I need to knowthat if I do a fair day's labor,
I deserve to be paid fully forthat labor. I need to know
it in my DNA. It's nota fight. I'm not fighting you for
(57:40):
it. I'm just telling you Ideserve to be paid fairly for my labor,
that's all. And until I believethat internally, it's hard to say
it out loud because it is goingto be a struggle and I am going
to act as if I need towork to is hard because I'm buying into
(58:02):
a story that I'm being fed.So a lot of the work is internal.
I discovered a lot of the callsare coming from inside the house,
you know. When I walked intothe HRC space and I walked into a
we funk space, a lot ofthe homophobia was inside my head and not
(58:22):
necessarily reflected at others. And onsome level, we're still animal and so
if I was flinching before you evenhit me, there's an equal reaction on
the other side, like fixing fora fight, putting your dukes up and
getting ready to hit somebody. Yeah, they're going to put up their dukes
(58:43):
to flinching, creating the negative vacuumto say come hit me. Basically,
it's going to also trigger people topull out their defense as well. And
so I had to learn that.And that's a lot of work because a
lot of this is Pavlovian almost codedand programmed internally. That was the work.
(59:08):
Who are you now? What areyou doing? My brother? Yeah?
I'm helping other people unlock it andfigure out what blocks them and creates
this internal friction. So I focuson helping senior after latinas lead their teams
as badasses and go home and bepresent with their families at the end of
(59:31):
the day, have enough bandwidth.A lot of people spend it all at
the office, leave it all onthe field, and that's no boy.
No. I think it's important forpeople to know that their whole lives.
We learned that during COVID. Wegot to see that people had children and
partners. And I don't think onceyou let that genie out of the bottle
(59:54):
that you should put it back.And this whole return to office we know
was disproportionately discriminatory, and a lotof big companies still pushed it forward,
and people have to stand up andask for what they deserve. So I
hope people to just sit down andask these questions internally of themselves and then
(01:00:17):
show up for themselves and for theteams that they lead, and for their
families, because we need people strongto get through the next couple of years,
because it's going to get ugly,ugly error. Alvin says, sir,
it's it's already ugly. If you'rea business looking to get your brand
(01:00:39):
in front of a loyal, supportive, successful market, you need to become
a sponsor of Aftergate. Our networkrecognizes the opportunity to work with co Gates,
a lum of color, to leveragethe reach of the show to increase
awareness and profitability for your business.Reach out to the Defile Life podcast network
and we will work with you throughoutthe entire process. We have special packages
(01:01:01):
to get you started. Contact usat info at godfirelife dot com. Every
week, professionals of color ranging frompoliticians to educators, to judges, to
entrepreneurs, to lawyers, corporate leaders, and even retirees aftergate reaches in a
rate of successful bipod listeners. Contactus to learn more about how we can
(01:01:24):
benefit you as as you reflect onsort of the journey, the post Kogate
journey and even you know, thejourney through Kogate and pre Kogate. You
when you reflect on call at seventeeneighteen entering Kolgate, what might be the
words of wisdom that you would tella younger call knowing what you're doing now,
(01:01:50):
And what would also be the adviceyou were to give called exiting Kogate,
going into the world based on yourexperiences and understanding them life now.
Yeah. I really enjoyed listening tothe Kim and the Dan and Wendy podcasts
(01:02:12):
earlier because I really loved some ofthe themes that came out of them.
I think the kids are going tobe all right. I get to talk
to a lot of them, andthey're muddling through and figuring it out the
same way I was. I wouldput my headphones on my walkman m nine
(01:02:38):
eight nine pm. I would putPrince the Eurythmics chardet and walk around campus
while it was really quiet. Everythinghad gotten really quiet, and that was
one of the smartest things I couldhave done. I would walk up past
(01:02:58):
the cemetery. I would walk onthe ski hill all the way up into
the woods and get really quiet andlook up at the stars and just walden
pond Man, think about think aboutthe meaning of the universe, and notice
(01:03:22):
the Earth's spin. And in thosequiet moments, it was a Bob Marley
moment. It was Everything's going tobe all right. It was no woman
to cry. It was that stuffis real. And honestly, that's one
of the reasons why I'm so gratefulI went there, because I do that
(01:03:44):
now in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden onSunday every Sunday, and so I have
that experience continues with me, andthere is an eternal wisdom I personally believe
and we I think it's important totap into that in whatever way that works
for you. If it's swimming,if it's running, if it's playing football,
(01:04:08):
I guess if it's doing Nautilus inthe gym. I also am grateful
to Colgate for teaching me to goto the gym because it's saving my ass.
It's saved my ass after the surgeryto be in physically good shape,
and then the thing that I don'tknow if I was intentionally doing it as
a kid at Coldgate, that Iwould tell myself is the resilience. The
(01:04:32):
mental rigor of academics is one thingthat's a one way to exercise your brain.
But there is a resilience that welearned through sports, which is why
the hockey and football games were somuch fun. Is this ability to bounce
back and pivot when things are goingoff or when you're almost going to lose,
(01:04:53):
but you still put your body intoit and get at it. There's
something visceral. Yeah, I mean, this is one of the reasons why
Colgate's average salaries so high is becausewe learn climbing up that hill, et
cetera. It teaches you a physicalresilience. I would tell my younger self
(01:05:18):
also think of it as building yourmental resilience. You know. There's a
guy named John Maida, and hewrote that the cadence of trauma in our
lives is increasing, whether it's schoolshootings, disease, war, political upheaval,
(01:05:43):
recessions, etc. The cadence andthe height and low of those traumas,
school shootings, the use of AIto bully people, these are just
increasing in our world. There wasa time when we need physical strengths,
need brawn to get through stuff.There was a time when it was muscle
(01:06:04):
and money. There was a timeand now it's how well do you bounce
back from trauma? How well doyou pivot when things change? That's the
muscle we need and a lot ofthat is mental. You see it with
you know Serena and some of ourother amazing players, Madison Keys, and
(01:06:28):
they are able to pivot on adime when things change on the court,
and we need to do that mentallyas well as we need to do that
physically. And that's that's my focus, is teaching people to change what they're
focusing on as their success. Loveit, Love it, Love it.
(01:06:54):
Last segment. Last question is justan opportunity for you to promote any initiative
website cause that you find extremely importantor something a way for people to reach
out to you in terms of yourcoaching, but a way for our listeners
(01:07:14):
to support the efforts of what's importantto you. What would you like to
plug? I love what I dofor a living, so work Well Groups
is my website. And yeah,if you know an Afro Latina leader in
(01:07:35):
design technology, education who's trying tofigure out how to lead their teams,
stay sustainable, show up for theirfamilies. I would love to support and
help them shine in their lives.And Wendy and I are friends, so
I do ally, I will.We have a very specific plan to ally
(01:07:59):
together. If you've listened to Wendy'spodcast, you should, it's really good.
But yeah, there are a bunchof US coaches in the Colgate community,
which is which is kind of cool, So please take advantage of coaching.
It's an incredible tool in your toolbelt for your leadership. Dope,
(01:08:24):
dope, dope. Any last words, my brother, I am incredibly grateful
to both of you personally. Thankyou for embracing me and proving my little
kid Carl that he wasn't gonna hewasn't in danger. And Alvin, you
(01:08:45):
have embraced me physically at reunions andit means a lot. It heals a
lot of the trauma that I experiencedinternally, not externally. That was probably
my own internal voice and I amgrateful for that. And tonight was really
meaningful, really meaningful, So thankyou appreciate that. Know that you are
(01:09:11):
and you know I don't I don'tsay this to all guests. You're one
of my favorite people, like youknow, in terms of my cogate experience
from the beginning. And I tryto look at myself as a decent judge
of realness and genuinely good people,right even though we might be doing different
things, but I still think Ican see in the people and pick out
(01:09:35):
that guy's a good guy, thatguy's a real person. And that's how
you've shown up to me since wewere eighteen nineteen twenty. So that has
been that connection because real recognize isreal, and so I've always tend to
connect with people that I'm just like, oh, you know again, we
(01:09:57):
have different interests down like I mean, honestly, if you were to check
the box, like, well helikes that, Yeah, I don't.
I like that. He don't Ilike this. You know, it's not
not a lot of what is football, what what where we do? A
line is in the sense of,yeah, that guy's a good cat.
And so I've always appreciated that andappreciated you. So appreciate you jumping on
(01:10:21):
after gate because we've been trying toget you a little while. So I
appreciate you honoring us with that,and so on that note, let's take
us out by saying that this hasbeen another episode of Aftergate season four.
Thank you to our guests, thankyou to our listeners. Because after Gate
(01:10:44):
is always powered by the the fireLife Network. So make sure you check
us out on all of your favoritepodcast streaming platforms because we have many more
dope episodes to follow. And rememberthat do the best you can and all
the ways you can, for allthe people you can, for as long
as you can, and that thecogate of your day is not the colgate
(01:11:08):
of today, and it's certainly notthe coviate of the future peace family.
You hear that, listen closer,that, my friend is the Defini sout
of focus. It drowns out allthe useless noise that can clutter. Not
only nay sayers, don't exist,haters, smaters, the peanut gallery.
(01:11:32):
Who's that When you're in your zone, all that noise and all that buzz
is just elevator music. So enjoyyour journey, focus on your goal and
basque in the choiet role that isprogressed, because when it's your time to
shoot that shot, spit that verse, or close that deal, the only
voice that matters. It's yours.The firelight
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