May 27, 2025 • 29 mins
Power Week begins with Morgan leading a foremother meditation, honoring the legacy of abolitionist Sojourner Truth. Our homegirl Sandria then takes the reins for Teach-in Tuesday with a powerful interview featuring Kimberely Harris, a dedicated political worker from Chicago.
Vanessa follows with two essential life-saving skills: identifying personal political values and engaging in local civic action. Tune in for an episode filled with wisdom, strategy, and empowerment!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
We are. Sick and tired of being sick and
tired. The.
Disrespected person in America. Is the black woman?
But still like dust. All right.
Pretty girls in the VIP they came with drain.
(00:30):
They'll need ideas. The revolution will not be
televised, brother. You are like a new Joe John.
Even if you are not ready for the day, it cannot always be
night. Freedom, freedom, freedom.
(01:00):
Where are. You hello family, welcome to
self-care school. Hello, Vanessa, are you there?
I am. Hey fam.
Welcome to self-care School Vanessa.
Welcome to self-care school. Everybody around the planet
Earth, open your front door. We are going to walk out today
(01:21):
and we are going to inhale the fresh air.
We are going to feel the sun on our skin.
And we are the daughters of the one and the only Sojourner
Truth. I was thinking about this week
as power and I was like, listen,Sojourner Truth is the most
powerful person I can think of. And when I think of Sojourner
Truth, what's the what's the oneline you think of?
V ain't IA woman. Ain't IA woman.
(01:43):
And I was like, the fact that she had to say, ain't IA woman
is a power dynamic that we reject this generation as the
daughters of the one and only. So joiner truth as people are
moving out, getting their sneakers together, y'all
stretch, sit on your porch, drinks and lemonade.
Do what you got to do. Start your walk if you want to.
I want to just give a shout out to so Joiner Truth.
(02:04):
I learned so much about her. I know we did a Black history
boot camp episode on her, but I learned so much about her.
Just like preparing this for this.
First of all, she was the first black woman to bring a lawsuit
and to win against a white man in America.
Did you know that V? No, I did not.
She. Sued.
She sued to get her son back. Yeah, her son was sold down to
Alabama illegally and she sued the the trafficker and she got
(02:29):
her son back. Can you believe it?
So join the truth. You put it up.
Put it in your record. Yeah, put it in your record.
She also, her first language wasnot English.
Her first, her first language was Dutch.
And that's because the enslaverswere Dutch.
And so she and she lived in New York City, which was, you know,
a Dutch colony. I found that to be interesting.
She changed her name. Her her first name was her last
(02:52):
name was Bomfrey. And I think that was a slave
name. And she changed it to so join
her truth because she, because God told her she needed to get
on the road and tell the truth. Yes, I love that about her.
And I just thought we would do apowerful meditation this morning
about womanhood. Like every time I think about
her standing at the podium, likepumping her fist on the podium,
(03:15):
I think about like how sad it must be to have to assert your
womanhood. And the context of fighting for
power and living in a divine femininity is sometimes seen as
polar opposites. And I don't think that's true.
I don't think that's true. So I wanted to affirm that for
(03:35):
everyone out there, and I want it.
I want you to close your eyes. Stand somewhere safely, even if
you're out on your walk. Just pull over into the shade to
a shady tree if you're on your porch.
Hi y'all. Thank you for doing this porch
meditation with us. close your eyes or soften your gaze.
Inhale deeply through your nose,filling your belly as you inhale
(04:01):
and exhale well slowly through your mouth.
I hear you V feel your feet connecting with the earth.
I want you to gently roll your shoulders back and open your
chest. This affirmation is that I am
rooted in my sacred body and I am safe here now.
I want you to place your hands on your lower belly, one hand on
(04:24):
your lower belly, and one hand on your heart.
I want you to sway from side to side or in a small circle,
awakening your hips. I want you to breathe into your
womb, into the space, and I wantyou to feel the life force
(04:46):
there. We affirm that the wisdom of our
bodies has always been there, and we awaken our feminine
power. I want you to lift your chin
slightly, open your throat and your heart.
Let your arms rise and stretch in any way they feel expressive.
(05:08):
Up high, up to the side, down low in circles.
Let your arms rise and sway. We affirm that our presence is
radiant and that we embody graceand strength.
And finally, I want you to let your movement slow down, bring
(05:29):
your hands to your heart in prayer.
Feel warmth and softness and power pulsating through you.
I want to affirm that we are divine, we are women, and we are
whole and we are powerful. Take one final deep breath in
(05:52):
and exhale gently. Are y'all ready to study power
today? Let's do it.
Let's do power differently. All right, Vanessa, are you
there? I am here Morgan, thank you for
that. Thank you for that Sojourner
Truth. Thank you to everyone who has
showed up today. Y'all you.
It's just a reminder that you are welcome here and that you
are doing something radical before we you can step off now
(06:16):
of your porch and you can actually just start to walk.
We're going to do an audit in just a minute, but we're going
to do a little bit of a different audit.
And just as a reminder, you can walk 15 minutes out and then you
can walk 15 minutes back and youwill have learned something
really juicy and good by the endof this episode. 2 life saving
skills for us, Morgan in a week where we are talking about
(06:40):
power. Well, it's teaching Tuesday and
after opening up the week in a really powerful way, I wanted to
help people to identify how to identify and define their
personal political values. A lot of what we know about our
personal political values and our leanings could be inherited,
(07:02):
could be passed down, could be groupthink, could be guilt,
could be all sorts fear in termsof our choices.
And so I want to walk us throughan exercise where we can
actually really identify for ourselves what are our core
values and our personal political values in a week where
we're talking about power. And then I want to help people
(07:24):
become truly enfranchised and civically active this year today
in their communities more than they were just two seconds ago
before they started this call, before the end of this walk.
I want to make sure that every single person becomes just one
inch more civically active this year.
So that's what we're going to talk about today when we talk
(07:44):
about power. We're not going to talk about
safety, Morgan, and decarceration until next week.
But I did want to acknowledge and just start off by saying
that over 5 million Americans can't vote due to felony
convictions and one in 19 black women in some states are
disenfranchised. And when we're talking about
(08:05):
power, there's just such dynamics even with the word and
even with understanding where weare all starting out on the
playing field. And I just wanted to acknowledge
that just to get us even startedoff.
And I, I thank you for that. And I think there's so much to
learn even about what those rules are, because so many
(08:25):
states, California being one of them, have worked really hard to
reverse those rules. And I remember I was in the
state of Connecticut and I was going door to door for a
presidential candidate. And I was like, and and we was
in the hood hood. I was just like, but you know, I
ain't coming from the hood. So I was just like knocking on
the door and the dude was like, what brother?
(08:45):
That's aggressive. I was just like, how you doing?
You know, I'm here for the campaign, You know, I just want
to make sure you registered to vote.
He like I got a felony. He's just.
Closed the door right, right, right, right the.
Door on my face. But listen, I got the divine
feminist. I just knocked back on a knock
again. I just blinked slow and smile,
and I was like, you know, that don't matter in this state.
(09:07):
And he just softened up. And it was just so beautiful.
And. But even the perception that he
didn't have any power means that, you know, whoever is is
fueling this kind of legislationhas already won unless we really
understand our right. Yeah.
Yeah, that's so right. And fueling is a good question.
(09:28):
Who's feeling the perception of what people feel?
Because I learned in preparationfor today that only 7.8% of
political leadership is black across the board, across the
country. When you go across all political
seats, only 7.8% of US politicalleadership is black.
(09:50):
I'm saying that only 1.9% of Congress, only 1% of statewide
elected executives. By the way, y'all.
So we are not represented very highly in numbers, and yet we've
talked about this a lot, Morgan.Black women participate in our
democracy at extraordinarily high numbers.
And in fact, in the last election, 9192, depending on
(10:15):
which poll, percent of black women voted Democratic in the
election, which is part of what we're going to talk about today,
because only one in five black women feel seen by elected
officials, according to research.
And so that gap between how how many black women actually feel
seen by any political party in this country, how what
(10:37):
percentage of our political leadership is actually
representative of us? And then how much of us
regardless are just making a choice that is like we think
like, well, this is our best choice.
It's for community, it's for thecollective, not sometimes
potentially even voting against our own best individual
interests when we're talking about maybe maybe it be
financial or maybe social issues, depending.
(10:59):
And we're going to talk about that in a second, social issues
and how those are down in our families.
But it's a good opportunity for us y'all on this conversation to
just get a little bit more conscious about our choices and
get a little bit more conscious about who's influencing those
choices so that we can call ourselves to real power.
Morgan, over these next couple of years.
(11:20):
We're going to start early in this call on Teaching Tuesday.
And we're going to bring in our home girl, Sandria Sodo.
Sandria from Chicago because Morgan, she did an interview
with a woman named Kimberly. She's a local politician out of
the South Side Chicago. And Kimberly talks about a
little bit of what I've been talking about around how we can
personally disenfranchise ourselves by not yielding our
(11:42):
power in particular ways. And she talks about the kind of
entry level steps before we evenget to running for office that
we can do. And so I just want to bring
Kimberly into the conversation right away.
And then I can go over some waysthat we can understand our
active calendar year round and how we can deeply get engaged.
And then we'll go into the values conversation from there.
(12:02):
So let's jump into Sandra's interview.
Hey y'all, it's your home girl host.
So dope. Sandra.
Chicago's very own and today we're being taught by Kimberly
Harris. She is the newly appointed
Digital Equity Co Chair Directorfor the South suburbs of
Chicago. She's also the owner of Harris
Case Solutions, where she specializes in providing
(12:23):
administrative support to libraries, municipalities, and
local park districts. Welcome to self-care school,
Kim. Thank you for having me, of
course. So you are very involved in your
local community, local politics,and I think sometimes people
feel that in order to be in politics you have to run for a
(12:45):
seat like the mayor or a senator.
But there's so much that can be done at the local level.
Talk to us about the importance and the opportunities for
everyday citizens to run for local office and make an impact.
The word that comes. To mind when I hear your
question is voice whether you are a protester, whether you are
(13:09):
a policy maker, whether you are an elected official?
You all have a voice. And it's important that we
understand there's a lot of spaces to exercise that voice.
Sometimes the voice is just representing yourself going into
the booth to vote. That is the most simplistic way
to exercise your voice. But we also exercise our voice
(13:31):
in a lot of different ways without actually knowing.
I'm always in the education space, voices a lot more than
just talking to your teacher. You know, you elect the board
who hires the Superintendent, Superintendent hires the
administration and the building.The building and administration
hires the teachers. So again that that vote is a
(13:56):
voice. I'm reminded that there are a
lot of boards that speak to various issues and sometimes you
can be appointed to the board oryou can just go to a meeting and
put on public record in a comment what your particular
issue. One of the things in one of my
(14:16):
school districts that I worked in was that the lunch ladies all
lived in the community and they weren't particularly fine of the
director that was hired. I told the lunch ladies, you
guys should get together and determine between one or two or
you or all of you and become theboard members.
(14:37):
And in one election cycle you can become your boss's boss.
This makes this whole dynamic a lot different.
And they were like, you know what, Miss Harris, you're
absolutely right. So within this last election
cycle, they have one board member on that is of their
group. Yeah.
(14:58):
And again, that's going to change the dynamic of their
workplace. It's going to give them voice.
So there's a lot of spaces in a lot of ways, whether it's going
within your church or any institution that you work with.
And you say, hey, there is this crack in the road and everybody,
(15:23):
cars getting torn up. Asking the question, who is
responsible for this is exercising your voice because as
citizens, there's so much to know, but there's a lot that we
need to know and we should be proactive about putting that no
in our resource box. Where do we go for what?
(15:43):
Moving beyond just the Instagrampost, So the Facebook post of,
of your voice. There's there's actionable
things you can do every day. And something that I, I hear in
your comments is that pretty much start where you are.
So the things that are impactingyou.
So maybe it's that cracking the road or something at your church
(16:05):
or something that you're passionate about.
Thank you for showing us the power of local leadership and
thank you for being a guest on the Self-care School.
Thank you for having me. Thank you so much, Sandria.
Thank you so much, Kimberly. I loved that conversation.
I loved how Kimberly used the example of the lunch ladies and
Morgan, we're going to get into how to unionize.
(16:27):
I think a little bit late. We going in, y'all on this week.
I think we're going to get in how to unionize a little bit
later, y'all. But she told them lunch ladies
in one election cycle, you couldbe your boss's boss.
So let's figure out who is responsible for what and who is
leading what. I really loved the questions and
the very practical advice that she had there for.
But right now, Morgan, let's talk about who are the people in
(16:51):
power in your local neighborhoodand in your community, what
power they do have and how you can get tapped into that power.
So the first thing that I want people to understand, and I want
you to walk away by the end of this day, y'all, by the end of
maybe as soon as you get home, you can do it on your phone if
you need to. But I want you to go to
eithervote.org or I want you to go to ballotready.org and I want
(17:13):
you to find the date of your next local election.
If you go to ballotready.org andput your address in not, they're
going to give you an entire Civic Center that's personalized
for you, that's going to talk about how you could actually
even run for office, how you meet your representatives, how
you take action, how you find your polling place.
How do you find what's the actual next elections that are
(17:34):
coming up for you? Because we have to stop voting
just in the presidential election cycle.
So that's the first thing that Iwant you to do is find the date
of your next local election. The second thing that I want you
to do is find the date of your next town hall or City Council
meeting. And all you have to do is go to
(17:55):
Google and do City Council meeting and enter your city and,
and it will give you the time and date of either a town hall
depending on like if you're a county or Miss fatality or Lord
y'all can't even talk depending on if you are a town or if you
are a municipality or it might be a City Council meeting.
But I want you to find that out.And then the third thing I want
(18:18):
you to do is to figure out, I already figured it out for
myself in DC, it's DC statehood.But for you, I want you to
figure out one issue that you will track closely this year.
That is a local political issue.It could be book bans in your
local schools, it could be housing or zoning policies.
It could be police reform that'shappening at the local level.
(18:41):
But I want you to decide what isthe issue that you're going to
hang your hat on so that you canstart to get more engaged around
things locally? Because Morgan, that's one of
the things, and we're going to talk about this in a second,
even when we talk about our political values, is that I
think it's we're so burnt out there.
So it feels like there's so muchinjustice everywhere.
(19:02):
It's hard to understand or even make eye contact with or or even
grasp, I think where to start around a lot of stuff.
But a part of that, the functionof that, I think this is not me.
All this is pretty much Toni Morrison.
But the function of racism is distraction.
The function of all of that is to keep us so fatigued that we
can't pay attention. The ways in which Morgan people
(19:24):
are claiming power in neighborhoods and communities
starts in a couple of ways. And I just want to review those
for people. And the first I know you know a
lot about, it's the school board.
These are the people who decide what your kids learn.
They approve the curriculum, they vote on book bans, they
decide which schools get closed or which get funded.
You need to ask yourself and know before the end of today,
(19:46):
who's teaching the children in your community, who's deciding
what for them, who is on the local school board.
And if you don't get involved inthe school board, the next stop
for you, Morgan, has to be the City Council.
So these are the people who voteon your city's budget, police,
parks, potholes and housing. And for some reason I think it's
like television or pop culture has made me think like City
(20:09):
Council meeting is just some sort of like boondocks level
like skit. I cannot remember that man's
name, who he just recently passed.
I think he's from Detroit. Yes, he.
Literally is the most hilarious City Council member in the
history of the United States of America.
He was out of control. Yes, we got to find him.
(20:30):
He God rest his soul because that man was out there
constantly speaking truth to power, constantly organizing
people in really powerful ways and he did just really pass
away. So beyond the City Council
meetings, y'all? So you do have to get involved
in those and then you have to obviously know what's going on
with your mayor. And then the next couple of
positions are really kind of stealth, but they have a lot of
(20:52):
impact on our livelihood. It's our county commissioners.
These folks often get overlooked, but they're the ones
in charge of our jails. The county commissioner is in
charge of our health systems. The county commissioner is in
charge of our roads and our taxes, so they are taking our
actual money and deciding acrossthe public good how it is used.
(21:15):
And so whether or not you're going to have a free mobile
clinic in your community or whether or not you guys are
going to build a juvenile jail, a lot of that happens at the
county commissioner level. So understanding who they are,
that's where a lot of the power lies.
And then the last place the power really lies at the local
level. Morgan is the sheriff, the DA,
and the judges. I hope it's been helpful for you
(21:35):
all. I want you to build your civic
calendar. I want you to know the date of
your next election. I want you to know the date of
your town hall. And I want you to decide on the
issue that you are going to track.
But before we finish this walk, I actually want to do an
exercise that's gonna just to help us to assess some of the
choices that we are making and help us to understand how to
(21:57):
make different choices if we need to or to make brave choices
around our political ideology. So I want to do an exercise you
can pull over to the side of theroad or in the park or wherever
you are, or if you're at home, you can go ahead and just
participate from wherever you are.
Very similar to the self-care audit where we step forward or
step back in this exercise. I want you to step forward if
(22:20):
you really believe affirmatively, yes, in the
statement that I'm going to say I want you to to step
affirmatively forward if you like.
Yes, I definitely believe in that.
If you 100% disagree with what I'm going to say, I want you to
affirmatively step back like I disagree.
And if you are not sure and you're just like, I don't know,
I'm not moved by that. Just stay in the middle.
So step forward, stay back or stay in the middle.
(22:42):
Are you ready, Morgan? I'm ready.
All right, here's my first question.
The government should do more tocare for people in need.
You can step forward, you can step back, or you can stay
still. Second question, abortion should
be legal in all or most cases. You can step forward if you
(23:07):
strongly agree. You can step back if you
disagree. You can stay still if you're
just like I'm not sure. 3rd question, The police make me
feel safer. If you're like yeah no and the
police need to make a step forward.
If you disagree, step back. If you're not sure, stay still.
(23:27):
If you all stop with your bias, ask subtext I.
Know I'm trying to find myself. I can't find myself.
Let me stop. I'm gonna stop with the
subjects. Y'all OK?
Next question. No subtext.
Trans youth should have access to gender affirming care.
Next question People should be able to own a gun to protect
(23:50):
their family. Next question Black communities
deserve targeted reparations. Next question People should have
to work to receive government support.
Next question, Faith should shape personal life, but not
(24:12):
public policy. Next question, last two, the US
should welcome immigrants escaping danger.
And then the last question, I believe in second chances even
for people who've caused harm. All right, those are the
(24:35):
questions, y'all. Those questions were inspired,
Morgan, by a Pew Research exercise that helps people to
figure out where they fall on the political ideology.
I particularly curated and crafted these questions for our
audience because the statistics say that Black women are
(24:58):
spiritually conservative, religiously conservative, and
that impacts our voting when we talk about social issues.
What does that mean, though? What's spiritually conservative
and what's. Religious.
I meant religiously conservative, yeah.
And does that mean socially conservative?
I don't know what religiously conservative means.
(25:19):
Like if it says it in the Bible,they don't want people a black
woman. Yes, it means yes, the people
who believe that the Bible is law.
And then there's a lot of peoplewho in that 8th question I asked
when I said faith should be shaped, should shape personal
life, but not public policy. There are a lot of people,
especially a lot of black women who actually really do believe.
No, we need religion in schools.We need more God.
(25:40):
We need we need to say it more and and that sometimes.
What is the percentage? 70%.
Oh yeah, that's that tracks. It does.
It really does track. And so, yeah, just that we can
fall across the political spectrums.
Obviously we're not a monolith. But really what I wanted to do
is ask those questions so that we can interrogate for ourselves
(26:04):
where and depending. I don't know if it brought up
certain things for certain people, if certain, if the
questions felt easy to you or ifyou were just like, you know
what, I would be ashamed if I were doing this out publicly.
I wouldn't want somebody to knowif I step back or if I step
forward on a particular thing, right?
So I have 5 questions for peopleright now that I just want to
help them to reflect so that we can start to align around like
(26:26):
where are some of these inclinations coming from?
So my first question is for you,Morgan is, and I want, I'm
asking this to every woman who'sout there walking, What would
you risk a relationship for? Because this shows you you're
non negotiable. There's the beliefs that we say
out loud, but there's the that we say out loud, even if it
(26:46):
costs us something. Approval, comfort, community.
These are your deepest convictions, the ones that make
your voice shake when you speak them.
My second question, Morgan, for you and for all of the women out
there is where do we break from the people who raised us?
This reveals for us what we've chosen and not just what we have
inherited. So you can still carry.
(27:09):
This is a little bit to what you're saying, Morgan, like we
have our grandmother's prayers and all of the things, but we
don't necessarily have to have their politics or there could be
a distinction or a separation. And so ask yourself, what belief
do I hold now that would have shocked my younger self?
Because that shows your own evolution around your own
(27:29):
ability to decide for yourself what your values are.
So really explore what beliefs you hold now at this point in
your own life that you didn't hold when you were particularly
younger. This next question I think is
really important. It's a question about who we are
walking for, even if it doesn't benefit us directly.
(27:50):
The very last question I had forpeople to even reflect on was
what issue still confuses you orus?
And, and but you keep coming back to it.
And by that I mean, where is your wrestling ground, right?
Where are you still grappling and where are you still asking
questions? And I know a lot of women on the
call we're, you're, we're all walking this path together,
(28:10):
y'all. And I'm praying that you got
some clarity on this episode. Hopefully you got some tools to
help you evaluate your own values and the choices that
you're making your your personaland political values and the
choices that you're making and you can identify them now, you
can define them. And then I hope that you've
learned how you can become more enfranchised, more connected or
(28:33):
civically engaged in your community.
We've arrived at the end of thiswalk.
I was going to close out with the first lady, Michelle Obama.
She's given us really sage advice around when to go low,
when to go high, and mostly likethe kind of love and community
that we actually want to to build.
They're definitely words to liveby.
But I'm actually going to close this out with a little bit of
(28:55):
humor and a little bit of cantankerousness on this end of
this self-care school episode because we brought in our good
brother Eric Mays. And he literally was such a
freedom fighter. And he really, he was both
funny, but he was speaking truthto power and he was never
missing his words. So we're going to close out on
some Mr. Eric Mays today. When they go low, I go low.
(29:16):
Oh been so far to work and I'll be 64 in September.
If you want to play with a childor want to play then go to
Toys-R-Us. I'm not the one.
Thank you.
We are. Sick and tired of being sick and
tired. The.
Disrespected person in America. Is the black woman?
But still like dust. All right.
Pretty girls in the VIP they came with drain.
(00:30):
They'll need ideas. The revolution will not be
televised, brother. You are like a new Joe John.
Even if you are not ready for the day, it cannot always be
night. Freedom, freedom, freedom.
(01:00):
Where are. You hello family, welcome to
self-care school. Hello, Vanessa, are you there?
I am. Hey fam.
Welcome to self-care School Vanessa.
Welcome to self-care school. Everybody around the planet
Earth, open your front door. We are going to walk out today
(01:21):
and we are going to inhale the fresh air.
We are going to feel the sun on our skin.
And we are the daughters of the one and the only Sojourner
Truth. I was thinking about this week
as power and I was like, listen,Sojourner Truth is the most
powerful person I can think of. And when I think of Sojourner
Truth, what's the what's the oneline you think of?
V ain't IA woman. Ain't IA woman.
(01:43):
And I was like, the fact that she had to say, ain't IA woman
is a power dynamic that we reject this generation as the
daughters of the one and only. So joiner truth as people are
moving out, getting their sneakers together, y'all
stretch, sit on your porch, drinks and lemonade.
Do what you got to do. Start your walk if you want to.
I want to just give a shout out to so Joiner Truth.
(02:04):
I learned so much about her. I know we did a Black history
boot camp episode on her, but I learned so much about her.
Just like preparing this for this.
First of all, she was the first black woman to bring a lawsuit
and to win against a white man in America.
Did you know that V? No, I did not.
She. Sued.
She sued to get her son back. Yeah, her son was sold down to
Alabama illegally and she sued the the trafficker and she got
(02:29):
her son back. Can you believe it?
So join the truth. You put it up.
Put it in your record. Yeah, put it in your record.
She also, her first language wasnot English.
Her first, her first language was Dutch.
And that's because the enslaverswere Dutch.
And so she and she lived in New York City, which was, you know,
a Dutch colony. I found that to be interesting.
She changed her name. Her her first name was her last
(02:52):
name was Bomfrey. And I think that was a slave
name. And she changed it to so join
her truth because she, because God told her she needed to get
on the road and tell the truth. Yes, I love that about her.
And I just thought we would do apowerful meditation this morning
about womanhood. Like every time I think about
her standing at the podium, likepumping her fist on the podium,
(03:15):
I think about like how sad it must be to have to assert your
womanhood. And the context of fighting for
power and living in a divine femininity is sometimes seen as
polar opposites. And I don't think that's true.
I don't think that's true. So I wanted to affirm that for
(03:35):
everyone out there, and I want it.
I want you to close your eyes. Stand somewhere safely, even if
you're out on your walk. Just pull over into the shade to
a shady tree if you're on your porch.
Hi y'all. Thank you for doing this porch
meditation with us. close your eyes or soften your gaze.
Inhale deeply through your nose,filling your belly as you inhale
(04:01):
and exhale well slowly through your mouth.
I hear you V feel your feet connecting with the earth.
I want you to gently roll your shoulders back and open your
chest. This affirmation is that I am
rooted in my sacred body and I am safe here now.
I want you to place your hands on your lower belly, one hand on
(04:24):
your lower belly, and one hand on your heart.
I want you to sway from side to side or in a small circle,
awakening your hips. I want you to breathe into your
womb, into the space, and I wantyou to feel the life force
(04:46):
there. We affirm that the wisdom of our
bodies has always been there, and we awaken our feminine
power. I want you to lift your chin
slightly, open your throat and your heart.
Let your arms rise and stretch in any way they feel expressive.
(05:08):
Up high, up to the side, down low in circles.
Let your arms rise and sway. We affirm that our presence is
radiant and that we embody graceand strength.
And finally, I want you to let your movement slow down, bring
(05:29):
your hands to your heart in prayer.
Feel warmth and softness and power pulsating through you.
I want to affirm that we are divine, we are women, and we are
whole and we are powerful. Take one final deep breath in
(05:52):
and exhale gently. Are y'all ready to study power
today? Let's do it.
Let's do power differently. All right, Vanessa, are you
there? I am here Morgan, thank you for
that. Thank you for that Sojourner
Truth. Thank you to everyone who has
showed up today. Y'all you.
It's just a reminder that you are welcome here and that you
are doing something radical before we you can step off now
(06:16):
of your porch and you can actually just start to walk.
We're going to do an audit in just a minute, but we're going
to do a little bit of a different audit.
And just as a reminder, you can walk 15 minutes out and then you
can walk 15 minutes back and youwill have learned something
really juicy and good by the endof this episode. 2 life saving
skills for us, Morgan in a week where we are talking about
(06:40):
power. Well, it's teaching Tuesday and
after opening up the week in a really powerful way, I wanted to
help people to identify how to identify and define their
personal political values. A lot of what we know about our
personal political values and our leanings could be inherited,
(07:02):
could be passed down, could be groupthink, could be guilt,
could be all sorts fear in termsof our choices.
And so I want to walk us throughan exercise where we can
actually really identify for ourselves what are our core
values and our personal political values in a week where
we're talking about power. And then I want to help people
(07:24):
become truly enfranchised and civically active this year today
in their communities more than they were just two seconds ago
before they started this call, before the end of this walk.
I want to make sure that every single person becomes just one
inch more civically active this year.
So that's what we're going to talk about today when we talk
(07:44):
about power. We're not going to talk about
safety, Morgan, and decarceration until next week.
But I did want to acknowledge and just start off by saying
that over 5 million Americans can't vote due to felony
convictions and one in 19 black women in some states are
disenfranchised. And when we're talking about
(08:05):
power, there's just such dynamics even with the word and
even with understanding where weare all starting out on the
playing field. And I just wanted to acknowledge
that just to get us even startedoff.
And I, I thank you for that. And I think there's so much to
learn even about what those rules are, because so many
(08:25):
states, California being one of them, have worked really hard to
reverse those rules. And I remember I was in the
state of Connecticut and I was going door to door for a
presidential candidate. And I was like, and and we was
in the hood hood. I was just like, but you know, I
ain't coming from the hood. So I was just like knocking on
the door and the dude was like, what brother?
(08:45):
That's aggressive. I was just like, how you doing?
You know, I'm here for the campaign, You know, I just want
to make sure you registered to vote.
He like I got a felony. He's just.
Closed the door right, right, right, right the.
Door on my face. But listen, I got the divine
feminist. I just knocked back on a knock
again. I just blinked slow and smile,
and I was like, you know, that don't matter in this state.
(09:07):
And he just softened up. And it was just so beautiful.
And. But even the perception that he
didn't have any power means that, you know, whoever is is
fueling this kind of legislationhas already won unless we really
understand our right. Yeah.
Yeah, that's so right. And fueling is a good question.
(09:28):
Who's feeling the perception of what people feel?
Because I learned in preparationfor today that only 7.8% of
political leadership is black across the board, across the
country. When you go across all political
seats, only 7.8% of US politicalleadership is black.
(09:50):
I'm saying that only 1.9% of Congress, only 1% of statewide
elected executives. By the way, y'all.
So we are not represented very highly in numbers, and yet we've
talked about this a lot, Morgan.Black women participate in our
democracy at extraordinarily high numbers.
And in fact, in the last election, 9192, depending on
(10:15):
which poll, percent of black women voted Democratic in the
election, which is part of what we're going to talk about today,
because only one in five black women feel seen by elected
officials, according to research.
And so that gap between how how many black women actually feel
seen by any political party in this country, how what
(10:37):
percentage of our political leadership is actually
representative of us? And then how much of us
regardless are just making a choice that is like we think
like, well, this is our best choice.
It's for community, it's for thecollective, not sometimes
potentially even voting against our own best individual
interests when we're talking about maybe maybe it be
financial or maybe social issues, depending.
(10:59):
And we're going to talk about that in a second, social issues
and how those are down in our families.
But it's a good opportunity for us y'all on this conversation to
just get a little bit more conscious about our choices and
get a little bit more conscious about who's influencing those
choices so that we can call ourselves to real power.
Morgan, over these next couple of years.
(11:20):
We're going to start early in this call on Teaching Tuesday.
And we're going to bring in our home girl, Sandria Sodo.
Sandria from Chicago because Morgan, she did an interview
with a woman named Kimberly. She's a local politician out of
the South Side Chicago. And Kimberly talks about a
little bit of what I've been talking about around how we can
personally disenfranchise ourselves by not yielding our
(11:42):
power in particular ways. And she talks about the kind of
entry level steps before we evenget to running for office that
we can do. And so I just want to bring
Kimberly into the conversation right away.
And then I can go over some waysthat we can understand our
active calendar year round and how we can deeply get engaged.
And then we'll go into the values conversation from there.
(12:02):
So let's jump into Sandra's interview.
Hey y'all, it's your home girl host.
So dope. Sandra.
Chicago's very own and today we're being taught by Kimberly
Harris. She is the newly appointed
Digital Equity Co Chair Directorfor the South suburbs of
Chicago. She's also the owner of Harris
Case Solutions, where she specializes in providing
(12:23):
administrative support to libraries, municipalities, and
local park districts. Welcome to self-care school,
Kim. Thank you for having me, of
course. So you are very involved in your
local community, local politics,and I think sometimes people
feel that in order to be in politics you have to run for a
(12:45):
seat like the mayor or a senator.
But there's so much that can be done at the local level.
Talk to us about the importance and the opportunities for
everyday citizens to run for local office and make an impact.
The word that comes. To mind when I hear your
question is voice whether you are a protester, whether you are
(13:09):
a policy maker, whether you are an elected official?
You all have a voice. And it's important that we
understand there's a lot of spaces to exercise that voice.
Sometimes the voice is just representing yourself going into
the booth to vote. That is the most simplistic way
to exercise your voice. But we also exercise our voice
(13:31):
in a lot of different ways without actually knowing.
I'm always in the education space, voices a lot more than
just talking to your teacher. You know, you elect the board
who hires the Superintendent, Superintendent hires the
administration and the building.The building and administration
hires the teachers. So again that that vote is a
(13:56):
voice. I'm reminded that there are a
lot of boards that speak to various issues and sometimes you
can be appointed to the board oryou can just go to a meeting and
put on public record in a comment what your particular
issue. One of the things in one of my
(14:16):
school districts that I worked in was that the lunch ladies all
lived in the community and they weren't particularly fine of the
director that was hired. I told the lunch ladies, you
guys should get together and determine between one or two or
you or all of you and become theboard members.
(14:37):
And in one election cycle you can become your boss's boss.
This makes this whole dynamic a lot different.
And they were like, you know what, Miss Harris, you're
absolutely right. So within this last election
cycle, they have one board member on that is of their
group. Yeah.
(14:58):
And again, that's going to change the dynamic of their
workplace. It's going to give them voice.
So there's a lot of spaces in a lot of ways, whether it's going
within your church or any institution that you work with.
And you say, hey, there is this crack in the road and everybody,
(15:23):
cars getting torn up. Asking the question, who is
responsible for this is exercising your voice because as
citizens, there's so much to know, but there's a lot that we
need to know and we should be proactive about putting that no
in our resource box. Where do we go for what?
(15:43):
Moving beyond just the Instagrampost, So the Facebook post of,
of your voice. There's there's actionable
things you can do every day. And something that I, I hear in
your comments is that pretty much start where you are.
So the things that are impactingyou.
So maybe it's that cracking the road or something at your church
(16:05):
or something that you're passionate about.
Thank you for showing us the power of local leadership and
thank you for being a guest on the Self-care School.
Thank you for having me. Thank you so much, Sandria.
Thank you so much, Kimberly. I loved that conversation.
I loved how Kimberly used the example of the lunch ladies and
Morgan, we're going to get into how to unionize.
(16:27):
I think a little bit late. We going in, y'all on this week.
I think we're going to get in how to unionize a little bit
later, y'all. But she told them lunch ladies
in one election cycle, you couldbe your boss's boss.
So let's figure out who is responsible for what and who is
leading what. I really loved the questions and
the very practical advice that she had there for.
But right now, Morgan, let's talk about who are the people in
(16:51):
power in your local neighborhoodand in your community, what
power they do have and how you can get tapped into that power.
So the first thing that I want people to understand, and I want
you to walk away by the end of this day, y'all, by the end of
maybe as soon as you get home, you can do it on your phone if
you need to. But I want you to go to
eithervote.org or I want you to go to ballotready.org and I want
(17:13):
you to find the date of your next local election.
If you go to ballotready.org andput your address in not, they're
going to give you an entire Civic Center that's personalized
for you, that's going to talk about how you could actually
even run for office, how you meet your representatives, how
you take action, how you find your polling place.
How do you find what's the actual next elections that are
(17:34):
coming up for you? Because we have to stop voting
just in the presidential election cycle.
So that's the first thing that Iwant you to do is find the date
of your next local election. The second thing that I want you
to do is find the date of your next town hall or City Council
meeting. And all you have to do is go to
(17:55):
Google and do City Council meeting and enter your city and,
and it will give you the time and date of either a town hall
depending on like if you're a county or Miss fatality or Lord
y'all can't even talk depending on if you are a town or if you
are a municipality or it might be a City Council meeting.
But I want you to find that out.And then the third thing I want
(18:18):
you to do is to figure out, I already figured it out for
myself in DC, it's DC statehood.But for you, I want you to
figure out one issue that you will track closely this year.
That is a local political issue.It could be book bans in your
local schools, it could be housing or zoning policies.
It could be police reform that'shappening at the local level.
(18:41):
But I want you to decide what isthe issue that you're going to
hang your hat on so that you canstart to get more engaged around
things locally? Because Morgan, that's one of
the things, and we're going to talk about this in a second,
even when we talk about our political values, is that I
think it's we're so burnt out there.
So it feels like there's so muchinjustice everywhere.
(19:02):
It's hard to understand or even make eye contact with or or even
grasp, I think where to start around a lot of stuff.
But a part of that, the functionof that, I think this is not me.
All this is pretty much Toni Morrison.
But the function of racism is distraction.
The function of all of that is to keep us so fatigued that we
can't pay attention. The ways in which Morgan people
(19:24):
are claiming power in neighborhoods and communities
starts in a couple of ways. And I just want to review those
for people. And the first I know you know a
lot about, it's the school board.
These are the people who decide what your kids learn.
They approve the curriculum, they vote on book bans, they
decide which schools get closed or which get funded.
You need to ask yourself and know before the end of today,
(19:46):
who's teaching the children in your community, who's deciding
what for them, who is on the local school board.
And if you don't get involved inthe school board, the next stop
for you, Morgan, has to be the City Council.
So these are the people who voteon your city's budget, police,
parks, potholes and housing. And for some reason I think it's
like television or pop culture has made me think like City
(20:09):
Council meeting is just some sort of like boondocks level
like skit. I cannot remember that man's
name, who he just recently passed.
I think he's from Detroit. Yes, he.
Literally is the most hilarious City Council member in the
history of the United States of America.
He was out of control. Yes, we got to find him.
(20:30):
He God rest his soul because that man was out there
constantly speaking truth to power, constantly organizing
people in really powerful ways and he did just really pass
away. So beyond the City Council
meetings, y'all? So you do have to get involved
in those and then you have to obviously know what's going on
with your mayor. And then the next couple of
positions are really kind of stealth, but they have a lot of
(20:52):
impact on our livelihood. It's our county commissioners.
These folks often get overlooked, but they're the ones
in charge of our jails. The county commissioner is in
charge of our health systems. The county commissioner is in
charge of our roads and our taxes, so they are taking our
actual money and deciding acrossthe public good how it is used.
(21:15):
And so whether or not you're going to have a free mobile
clinic in your community or whether or not you guys are
going to build a juvenile jail, a lot of that happens at the
county commissioner level. So understanding who they are,
that's where a lot of the power lies.
And then the last place the power really lies at the local
level. Morgan is the sheriff, the DA,
and the judges. I hope it's been helpful for you
(21:35):
all. I want you to build your civic
calendar. I want you to know the date of
your next election. I want you to know the date of
your town hall. And I want you to decide on the
issue that you are going to track.
But before we finish this walk, I actually want to do an
exercise that's gonna just to help us to assess some of the
choices that we are making and help us to understand how to
(21:57):
make different choices if we need to or to make brave choices
around our political ideology. So I want to do an exercise you
can pull over to the side of theroad or in the park or wherever
you are, or if you're at home, you can go ahead and just
participate from wherever you are.
Very similar to the self-care audit where we step forward or
step back in this exercise. I want you to step forward if
(22:20):
you really believe affirmatively, yes, in the
statement that I'm going to say I want you to to step
affirmatively forward if you like.
Yes, I definitely believe in that.
If you 100% disagree with what I'm going to say, I want you to
affirmatively step back like I disagree.
And if you are not sure and you're just like, I don't know,
I'm not moved by that. Just stay in the middle.
So step forward, stay back or stay in the middle.
(22:42):
Are you ready, Morgan? I'm ready.
All right, here's my first question.
The government should do more tocare for people in need.
You can step forward, you can step back, or you can stay
still. Second question, abortion should
be legal in all or most cases. You can step forward if you
(23:07):
strongly agree. You can step back if you
disagree. You can stay still if you're
just like I'm not sure. 3rd question, The police make me
feel safer. If you're like yeah no and the
police need to make a step forward.
If you disagree, step back. If you're not sure, stay still.
(23:27):
If you all stop with your bias, ask subtext I.
Know I'm trying to find myself. I can't find myself.
Let me stop. I'm gonna stop with the
subjects. Y'all OK?
Next question. No subtext.
Trans youth should have access to gender affirming care.
Next question People should be able to own a gun to protect
(23:50):
their family. Next question Black communities
deserve targeted reparations. Next question People should have
to work to receive government support.
Next question, Faith should shape personal life, but not
(24:12):
public policy. Next question, last two, the US
should welcome immigrants escaping danger.
And then the last question, I believe in second chances even
for people who've caused harm. All right, those are the
(24:35):
questions, y'all. Those questions were inspired,
Morgan, by a Pew Research exercise that helps people to
figure out where they fall on the political ideology.
I particularly curated and crafted these questions for our
audience because the statistics say that Black women are
(24:58):
spiritually conservative, religiously conservative, and
that impacts our voting when we talk about social issues.
What does that mean, though? What's spiritually conservative
and what's. Religious.
I meant religiously conservative, yeah.
And does that mean socially conservative?
I don't know what religiously conservative means.
(25:19):
Like if it says it in the Bible,they don't want people a black
woman. Yes, it means yes, the people
who believe that the Bible is law.
And then there's a lot of peoplewho in that 8th question I asked
when I said faith should be shaped, should shape personal
life, but not public policy. There are a lot of people,
especially a lot of black women who actually really do believe.
No, we need religion in schools.We need more God.
(25:40):
We need we need to say it more and and that sometimes.
What is the percentage? 70%.
Oh yeah, that's that tracks. It does.
It really does track. And so, yeah, just that we can
fall across the political spectrums.
Obviously we're not a monolith. But really what I wanted to do
is ask those questions so that we can interrogate for ourselves
(26:04):
where and depending. I don't know if it brought up
certain things for certain people, if certain, if the
questions felt easy to you or ifyou were just like, you know
what, I would be ashamed if I were doing this out publicly.
I wouldn't want somebody to knowif I step back or if I step
forward on a particular thing, right?
So I have 5 questions for peopleright now that I just want to
help them to reflect so that we can start to align around like
(26:26):
where are some of these inclinations coming from?
So my first question is for you,Morgan is, and I want, I'm
asking this to every woman who'sout there walking, What would
you risk a relationship for? Because this shows you you're
non negotiable. There's the beliefs that we say
out loud, but there's the that we say out loud, even if it
(26:46):
costs us something. Approval, comfort, community.
These are your deepest convictions, the ones that make
your voice shake when you speak them.
My second question, Morgan, for you and for all of the women out
there is where do we break from the people who raised us?
This reveals for us what we've chosen and not just what we have
inherited. So you can still carry.
(27:09):
This is a little bit to what you're saying, Morgan, like we
have our grandmother's prayers and all of the things, but we
don't necessarily have to have their politics or there could be
a distinction or a separation. And so ask yourself, what belief
do I hold now that would have shocked my younger self?
Because that shows your own evolution around your own
(27:29):
ability to decide for yourself what your values are.
So really explore what beliefs you hold now at this point in
your own life that you didn't hold when you were particularly
younger. This next question I think is
really important. It's a question about who we are
walking for, even if it doesn't benefit us directly.
(27:50):
The very last question I had forpeople to even reflect on was
what issue still confuses you orus?
And, and but you keep coming back to it.
And by that I mean, where is your wrestling ground, right?
Where are you still grappling and where are you still asking
questions? And I know a lot of women on the
call we're, you're, we're all walking this path together,
(28:10):
y'all. And I'm praying that you got
some clarity on this episode. Hopefully you got some tools to
help you evaluate your own values and the choices that
you're making your your personaland political values and the
choices that you're making and you can identify them now, you
can define them. And then I hope that you've
learned how you can become more enfranchised, more connected or
(28:33):
civically engaged in your community.
We've arrived at the end of thiswalk.
I was going to close out with the first lady, Michelle Obama.
She's given us really sage advice around when to go low,
when to go high, and mostly likethe kind of love and community
that we actually want to to build.
They're definitely words to liveby.
But I'm actually going to close this out with a little bit of
(28:55):
humor and a little bit of cantankerousness on this end of
this self-care school episode because we brought in our good
brother Eric Mays. And he literally was such a
freedom fighter. And he really, he was both
funny, but he was speaking truthto power and he was never
missing his words. So we're going to close out on
some Mr. Eric Mays today. When they go low, I go low.
(29:16):
Oh been so far to work and I'll be 64 in September.
If you want to play with a childor want to play then go to
Toys-R-Us. I'm not the one.
Thank you.
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