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Threats to Youth Wellness
29 Plays6 months ago
What are threats to youth wellness?
In episode 2, “Threats to Youth Wellness”, we hear from:
- Professor Kevin Nadal, Ph.D introducing the concept of microagressions and intersectional trauma to remind of the daily traumas that compromise youth wellness.
- A Q&A with Ashley Monterrosa, a youth activist thrust into activism after the killing of her brother Sean Monterrosa at the hands of the Vallejo Police Department.
- A reflection by Professor Kenjus T. Watson, on schooling, loss, and reclamation of self in community.
Drawing From the Well is hosted by Tiffani Marie and is produced by Jon Reyes.
Music by King Most.
DFTW is supported by Community Responsive Education, continue the conversation at wellnessmovement.co
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Transcript
Introduction to Circe in 'Song of Solomon'
00:00:02
Speaker
In Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison depicts Sursa as a black woman with good intentions. Within the novel, Sursa learns that siblings Pilate and Macon Jr.'s father have been killed as a consequence of black capitalism.
00:00:21
Speaker
His owning of land compromised the colonial structure of his town, and he was killed in front of his children. Shot off the fence while attempting to protect property he believed to be his own.
00:00:38
Speaker
Whiteness orphans the two children as their mother died in childbirth. and Sursa, a family friend, is able to find the children and hide them within the house in which she works and lives.
Evaluating Circe's Actions and Intentions
00:00:52
Speaker
In time, readers learn that Sursa works for and lives with the very people who killed the children's father, Macon Dead Senior.
00:01:06
Speaker
For some time, Circe's efforts were valorized. She responded to the immediate needs of the young people. They had experienced trauma and she responded by attempting to hide them to prevent their own deaths.
00:01:21
Speaker
I believe that Circe's actions resonated with me because I embodied similar pedagogical strategies as a classroom teacher. I used the structure from which I worked, and my mother would also suggest the structure in which I lived, to protect children from the traumas that compromised their daily existences.
00:01:44
Speaker
Sure, young people would leave a class and come to discuss the racisms enacted on them by white educators or violence enacted on them by deans who look just like them.
00:01:56
Speaker
And I would listen to their stories and send them back into those spaces. But I believe that I was protecting them by providing them with space to hide from external projects invested in their undoing.
00:02:09
Speaker
I was protecting them from the traumas that existed outside of schools while leaving unchecked the trauma that is schooling. I was hiding them from the violence of an anti-black society within the very house of the architects of anti-blackness.
Circe's Realization and Letting Go
00:02:28
Speaker
Within the novel, Circe eventually comes to terms with the violence of her pedagogies. And as well-intentioned as they were, she had to reconcile that healing and wholeness cannot be fully curated, let alone sustained in the manifestations of our oppressors.
00:02:48
Speaker
In years, Circe faces the house and decides to let it die.
00:02:56
Speaker
Much like our advances in the Academy in time, when the white violators died off, they relied upon Cerse to continue the project of her undoing.
00:03:07
Speaker
Seeing the project is now redemptive and potentially transformative because she was now responsible for its maintenance. Cerse refused these offerings of capture and instead committed to the facilitation of the house's rightful demise.
00:03:27
Speaker
In my imagination, I believe that Circe looked into the eyes of the muses within the French-inspired paintings and saw the wincing eyes of her ancestors' captors. That she even saw beyond the maze of the Scandinavian patterns within the rugs as nothing more than a massive attempt to mute the haunting voices emerging from the once living trees, or as we know them, wooden floors.
00:03:53
Speaker
I wonder what it takes for classroom teachers to see the structure of the classroom, of schools really, as outcomes of rape and the murder of living beings, including trees.
00:04:09
Speaker
There has been no ceremony to grieve the raping of trees, the use of their corpses as slave ships, as plantations, as the very architecture of schools.
00:04:23
Speaker
And as Circa came to remember that we cannot sustain life within these sites of death, so must we. Circa committed to allowing the space to be seen for what it is, to stop her own interventions of its maintenance and allow the death and the decay to overgrow.
00:04:46
Speaker
Her refusal to perform heroics uncovered what lay beneath the decorative.
00:04:54
Speaker
The death. And while we continue to breathe life into these dead spaces, my time watching dramatic emergency room based television shows have taught me that resuscitation is only as effective as the body's ability to exist on its own.
00:05:15
Speaker
I've seen that even once the body has taken its last breath and practitioners perform life-saving measures, the chest of the body will continue to rise.
00:05:27
Speaker
At some point, you must pronounce the body dead. I get that we're tired, but can we agree that it's because of how much time and energy it takes to attempt to resuscitate the dead?
00:05:42
Speaker
I get that we see life there, but at what point can we realize that the space is only moving because of the life that we breathe into it?
00:05:53
Speaker
Our ability to pronounce schools dead, to allow every single part of it to decay, provides us the space to go elsewhere and sustain life within our efforts rather than death.
Episode Introduction on Youth Wellness
00:06:14
Speaker
Welcome to Drawing from the Well. I'm your host, Tiffany Marie. This episode will focus on threats to youth wellness. For the next hour, we will hear from Professor Kevin Nadal, who will introduce us to the language of microaggressions and intersectional trauma as a way to better understand the daily reminders that compromise youth wellness.
00:06:38
Speaker
We'll learn from a 12-year-old youth expert who gives us a compelling narrative around the power of isms and their impact on his vitality. We'll hear from youth activist Ashley Monterosa, who has been propelled into activism after the death of her brother, Sean Monterosa, at the hands of the Leo police.
00:07:00
Speaker
Ashley guides us through the education and community that has been vital in holding her as she responds to societal threats to her wellness. And finally, we have Kenjess Watson, researcher and educator whose work centers the significance of indigeneity as a critical response to microaggressions and toxic stress.
00:07:23
Speaker
KINGES provides compelling reflections on schooling, loss, and reclamation of self and community.
Professor Nadal on Microaggressions and Youth Health
00:07:34
Speaker
My name is Kevin Nadal. I'm a professor. Wellness is the ability for someone to be at their most optimal self, whether that's psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, in terms of somebody feeling self-love, somebody feeling ah good about themselves, their health, physical health, mental health.
00:07:57
Speaker
ah Wellness is the ability for people to balance and strive and thrive in a society that oftentimes throws many obstacles and barriers towards them.
00:08:09
Speaker
When I think about youth wellness, I don't think that the definition of wellness changes, but that the manifestation of how that wellness looks and manifests might look different than it might for somebody who's ah older or even younger for older adults.
00:08:24
Speaker
And so for youth, there's the aspect of navigating their health and their livelihoods in a society that may be oppressive towards them, especially during a time when they're developing who they are and learning more about themselves and learning.
00:08:41
Speaker
understanding themselves through their identities. So youth wellness is an aspect of wellness, but it still is this idea of trying to achieve optimal mental, psychological, spiritual, physical health while a person is navigating life.
00:08:58
Speaker
Microaggressions are the everyday experiences that are oftentimes subtle, oftentimes unintentional, that convey biased messages towards people of historically oppressed groups. So microaggressions were first talked about through the lens of racism, so there's racial microaggressions.
00:09:15
Speaker
But over the years, people have also identified and that there are gender microaggressions, heterosexist microaggressions, ableist microaggressions. all the other isms as well as intersectional microaggressions. So the types of microaggressions that affect people based on their multiple oppressed identities.
00:09:30
Speaker
These microaggressions might seem small in nature. so when I'm thinking about a youth, you know, I hear a lot of times that youth of color, especially black and Latino youth, will have teachers do things like not believe that they did their own work or accuse them of plagiarizing Or might tell them that they were surprised that they did well on this paper.
00:09:51
Speaker
Sending the message that they just don't think that these youth are good enough or that they're capable or that they actually are smart. And so while that might seem, you know, like an innocuous, small interaction, that if you're hearing these messages over and over and over again, then that takes a toll on your mental health and your psyche.
00:10:11
Speaker
And so some of the research on microaggressions over the past decade have found that the more microaggressions that people experience, particularly people of color, that it has negative impacts on things like mental health, depression specifically, anxiety, even trauma symptoms.
00:10:27
Speaker
And now there's even research that links microaggressions to things like physical health issues, sleeping, fatigue, and even things like eating disorders and alcohol use.
00:10:38
Speaker
And so we know that discrimination is harmful, but we know that also the many forms of discrimination are harmful too. So it's not just that that one microaggression is something that is going to negatively impact someone, but it's the accumulation.
00:10:55
Speaker
And the way that I think about microaggressions are that in many ways microaggressions are triggers to an overall trauma. So we know that there's a lot of research on racial trauma, a lot of research on historical trauma and collective trauma.
00:11:06
Speaker
And what microaggressions do is that they add to that overall experience of trauma. And so sometimes, you know, even if something seems so small, so somebody complimented a black person on their English or that they're articulate, or somebody called a Latina woman sassy, or they said something that might seem small, that's a trigger to the larger issue of trauma that not just that person has experienced, but their whole ah community and generations had experienced before them.
00:11:36
Speaker
Boys of color and girls of color both experience systemic racism, but maybe there are other gendered oppressions that um affect them differently. So for boys of color, they navigate toxic masculinity and um navigate restrictive gender roles that might prevent them from connecting to their emotions or from forming intimate relationships or from um really valuing themselves as gentle, sensitive human beings.
00:12:06
Speaker
And for girls, they experience systemic sexism, and especially girls of color, systemic sexism plus racism, so gendered racism, which then prevents them from you know thinking that they can be capable of doing things. And so a lot of times girls of color will experience what we call imposter phenomenon in a way that boys of color might face, but not in the same way because girls of color are dealing with these you know, intersectional oppressions.
00:12:30
Speaker
And so they're taught from very young age that they're not good enough, that they're not smart enough, that boys are better than them, that white people are better than them. And so it takes a toll on their psyche. And so as they grow up, might not feel worthy, or they might not recognize what they are capable of.
00:12:47
Speaker
And it's something that doesn't just affect you know academic or educational achievement, but also affects things like relationships. And so you know a lot of times people of color, when they're older especially, like they don't know what is possible with love because perhaps they didn't realize or ever learn that they were capable of that.
00:13:06
Speaker
Or they don't realize what self-esteem could be because they never saw that possibility because it was never encouraged in them.
Systemic Barriers to Youth Wellness
00:13:14
Speaker
This is why I think it's great for us to provide them with um the possibilities of what's out there. That's why I think it's very important for there to be people of color and especially women of color who change that narrative um and who encourage young people to know that even though there is still this systemic oppression that they face, that there are ways that people can be well and that we actually are stronger for being able to thrive in a world that tells us we're not supposed to.
00:13:43
Speaker
So youth wellness is definitely threatened by a lot of barriers, and particularly when you look at youth with various intersectional identities. So youth of color, especially black and brown youth, indigenous youth, um API youth, youth of LGBTQ experiences, and especially LGBTQ youth of color.
00:14:04
Speaker
There are a lot of systemic and institutional barriers and obstacles that they face. And so when you look at youth with these various intersectional lenses, they struggle with how to become their best selves, particularly while the world tells them that they're not supposed to be their best selves, or the world makes them question what the possibilities of becoming their best selves might look like.
00:14:33
Speaker
So for example, youth of color have to navigate a world in which They deal with systemic oppression and racism on a daily basis. And sometimes that manifests through policies and regulations and laws that affect them. And sometimes that manifests through the ways that people treat them on an everyday basis. So whether it's teachers or law enforcement officers or even just you know community members on the street.
00:14:56
Speaker
Having this critical awareness is so important when dealing with microaggressions or systemic racism and other oppressions in general, because when you don't have that critical awareness, then you're likely to internalize it, that there's something wrong that you did or that your group is bad or you yourself are bad. And so you somehow deserved these experiences of discrimination to occur.
00:15:18
Speaker
And so what I hope... not just we as educators can do, but all aspects of society, we need to disrupt this. We need to teach kids from a very early age that everyone is beautiful and that all of our features are beautiful and that, you know, we need to embrace, you know, all the ways that we are different and also really empower those who have historically been treated as not being positive or or being degraded.
00:15:43
Speaker
We need to really intentionally empower them to love themselves from an early age so that as they grow, they have that as a tool, as a strength, as a weapon that they can use to combat the systems that they're in.
00:16:01
Speaker
How do you define wellness? ah The way that I define wellness is like you're getting a chance to spread your emotions around others or maybe even yourself. And those emotions could be up or down. At least you get a chance to like spread them or um let others know how you feel.
00:16:20
Speaker
What do you see are threats to wellness? ah Some threats to wellness are probably... um Isms, like the isms, like the worst kinds, because those worst kinds, like those types of isms, they could probably um affect others and how they feel and like the mindset. Can you give me like a specific kind of ism?
00:16:45
Speaker
Like racism? um Probably because let's say like your skin color. People say that like ah black people, they make racial threats to them. But in reality, I think, I feel like there's nothing wrong with that.
00:17:02
Speaker
Just be yourself.
00:17:08
Speaker
Well, we are here with the one and only Ashley Monterosa, who's going to bless us with her wisdom, her experience. And we're just going to get into
Ashley Monterosa's Family and School Experience
00:17:19
Speaker
it.
00:17:19
Speaker
Ashley, thank you so much for being here with us today. Thank you for having me here. Of course. And so I know you. I know you pretty well spent a substantial amount of time with you, but our listeners don't.
00:17:32
Speaker
And so I'm just hoping with the first question you can tell us, you know, who you are and how you would define yourself. So I'm Ashley Monterrosa. I'm 20 years old. I'm born and raised in San Francisco.
00:17:44
Speaker
I'm a lot of things. It's kind of hard. I'm a Gemini. I'm a triple Gemini at that. So there's nothing I can't do. I'm a lot of things. I'm energetic. I can be lazy. i can be all over the place all at once.
00:17:56
Speaker
So that's me. this I appreciate that. appreciate that. I think what we're interested in the podcast overall and particularly this episode is really thinking about wellness.
00:18:09
Speaker
And i want you to think about when you were growing up, when did you feel the most well? And what do you think were the factors that contributed to that wellness?
00:18:22
Speaker
I think for me when I felt the most well was when I was probably in like elementary just because I had all my siblings at school with me. School was right on my block up the street. My mom was staying at home still because my mom wanted to stay at home until we kind of graduated from elementary. So I had a big sense of families growing up at first.
00:18:40
Speaker
I had my grandma down the block. And so I think I was the most well when I had all my family all together. I appreciate that. This intergenerational model. and school was kind of located in the community. It's powerful. I don't think I had a lot of experiences like that. I usually commute really far.
00:18:58
Speaker
i appreciate you starting with your experiences and then it related to school in some ways. And so i'm hoping that you can tell us a little bit more about your schooling experience. It's like, what were some of the most impactful classes that you had or the most impactful teachers that you had that you feel like contributed to your wellness and like, what did these teachers, these classes are these conditions do?
00:19:25
Speaker
And what do you think happened there that actually contributed to your wellness? So I think for me, I first transferred to Lincoln for high school, my first semester, but it was in the sunset. It was pretty far and it was just too big of a school for me so that I decided to transfer from my spring semester to leadership high school in San Francisco, where I met Mira, I met Tyrus, I met a lot of radical educators, and I had never been really exposed to that until then, where i really understood the importance of wellness too, just because, you know, we're black and brown BIPOC folks, you know, we're not trained to know, or just to figure out that we do need to heal, you know, we have generational trauma from our ancestors, and we don't know what they've endured, because we don't know their stories.
00:20:09
Speaker
And so there's a lot of things, you know, that we go through, but we also need to grow through. So, you know, just learning wellness and decolonizing your diet and a bunch of other factors that I'm grateful to have learned throughout my experience of being in high school.
00:20:22
Speaker
And it's unfortunate that I learned all these things later on, because these should be things that you should learn very early on in your age while you're growing and learning. But, you know, I'm grateful to know these things because there's people that are my age and even older that still don't understand the significance of healing and wellness.
00:20:37
Speaker
and And so you talk about healing, you talk about decolonizing diets, a really powerful notion. Are there any specific experiences or ideas that you think resonate with you that overall contributed to your wellness that came from schools or teachers?
00:20:54
Speaker
I think honestly, just being outdoors, going camping and going backpacking and just doing a lot more stuff outdoors and just not being on your phone all the time is something I kind of miss, especially right now in my situation, but I think that's what kind of impacted me too. Cause you know, it's time that we reclaim our space and our land and, you know, just expose ourselves to things that, you know, only white people are accustomed to do like ski or snowboarding, you know, those are things that it's okay for them to have access to, but for us it's frowned upon or, you know, like it's unheard of, but, you know, it's just one of those things that I really took that real close to me to like start going out more.
00:21:30
Speaker
And just enjoying being one with the earth and whatnot. So kind of a return to like indigenous ways of being and existing. Definitely. Yeah, I really value that reconnection to the earth.
00:21:42
Speaker
and So you go from these experiences in high school that are pushing you to decolonize your diet, to take out colonial. forms of ideas of food and you're being pushed to do actually a lot of what I'm hearing was outside of the school, even those folks who you met inside of the school and teachers that you met inside of the school, I'm hearing that a substantial amount of your wellness was really about you leaving that space and having educational experiences outside of schools.
00:22:09
Speaker
And so you go from this, from this smaller school community with folks who are giving you kind of this historical background and looking at indigeneity, but also looking at the impacts of colonization.
00:22:20
Speaker
and then you go to college right after that. Can you tell us what that was like and what are the factors that, you know, contributed to you being there? And then are you there now? And if so, you know, why not? What are you thinking?
Ashley's Transition to College and Cultural Challenges
00:22:34
Speaker
So after I graduated from leadership high school in 2018, I went to Holy Names University, which is a private college in Oakland in the Hills. Honestly, it was a huge culture shock because it was in Oakland, but it didn't feel like Oakland. And it was all the SoCal kids coming up to the Bay area, but you know, they're very conservative and, you know, just wasn't a good mix. I was like watering their oil. it It wasn't a good fit. The educators,
00:23:01
Speaker
weren't what I was used to at leadership. And, you know, I just wanted more like integrity and like, I just wanted teachers like I had at leadership at my college and I didn't have that. And I was staying on campus and I just was so used to being with my family all the time that it was kind of a shift too, that kind of like had me in a funk for a little bit. I didn't want to go to my classes, even though it was on campus, I was just in a funk and I was like, you know what, let me just remove myself from this because it's not going to go down a good path.
00:23:30
Speaker
And so I eventually just transferred out after my first semester. And I took a gap year from that break because I didn't know what I wanted to study anyways. And it's just one of the things like you graduate from high school and people say you should go to a trade or you should go to college. But there's not that much support when you go to college either. And, you know, it's kind of like your teachers kind of leave you from high school and they're like, all right, you're good to go and you're free and figure it out in college. But it's not like that. You need a lot more support even then, because, you know, you don't know anyone and all these people are coming from different areas.
00:24:00
Speaker
that I think youth outreach is more important when you're in college too, because it's not just a one and done after high school. And so I left and I took a gap year and I was working. I was just trying to save money for tuition because the tuition was expensive that I needed to pay back, that I eventually saved up as much as I could. And then I enrolled into City College.
00:24:20
Speaker
And I should have done that from the jump. At first I was like, no, I don't want to do that because everyone's going there. But honestly, I've been at Citi and it's fine. And I like my educators there. e You say something so powerful that I think is antithetical to what you talked about earlier around wellness. And so earlier when you were talking about your earliest experiences, it was grounded in family.
00:24:42
Speaker
It was in your community. And then I'm hearing some of your college experiences were the exact opposite where you're experiencing. a substantial amount of social isolation. You're separated from your family.
00:24:53
Speaker
There's a high cost of living. And then I'm also hearing what was really powerful to hear is this lack of integrity. Could you say a little bit more about that? Like, what do you mean by that? It was just like all these weird white teachers. And honestly, like I'm so used to having a real close relationship with my teachers. And it was just like, they're so traditional and like they're by the book and, you know, they don't have a relationship with their students that I'm so used to.
00:25:19
Speaker
And that's why I really liked going to charter schools, but you know, you don't have that relationship. And I guess the professor doesn't have time to, cause they're having so many other classes, but it just didn't feel.
00:25:30
Speaker
Genuine or anything. And I just didn't enjoy it. It was just literally me sitting out at my desk, doing a reading or listening to a boring lecture and then going to my dorm. And that was pretty much my routine for a semester. And I was like, this is boring. This is not it. I know I could be exposed to something a lot more meaningful.
00:25:48
Speaker
And that wasn't meaningful at all at the time. I really value that emphasis on relationships and the value of relationships, especially as it relates to education. Thank you so much for that.
00:25:59
Speaker
and so in that time and are in this space, your name, your family's name has become really popular around
Ashley's Activism Journey
00:26:08
Speaker
this nation. I know that Some of the leading activists in this nation have tweeted some of your work or following you at this point.
00:26:16
Speaker
And your name is associated with activism. And, you know, what's so interesting about activism is rarely do I know an activist that is not an activist because of something painful.
00:26:28
Speaker
And so sometimes we celebrate, we applaud these terms. But usually, from my understanding of activism, it's related to to pain and loss. and an attempt to to reclaim those things. Really, it's very much centered around responding to things that are threatening our wellness.
00:26:45
Speaker
And so I'm hoping that you can use some time right now to help us understand why your name is so popular and in what you've been up to. Yeah, so on June 2nd, just four months ago, my brother was shot and killed by officer Jarrett Ton of the Vallejo Police Department. My brother was on his knees with his hands up when officer Jarrett Ton arrived to the quote-unquote crime scene.
00:27:10
Speaker
Officer Jarrett Ton was in the backseat of the unmarked pickup truck while he lifted up his AR-15 and shot through the windshield five times, striking my brother in the neck and out of the head. And my brother was murdered instantly while my brother was lifeless. They kept him in handcuffs and it's just one of those things that, you know,
00:27:26
Speaker
these white cops are terrified of black and brown men even after they're lifeless. And, you know, it's just one of these constant battles, especially right now. It was just two weeks after George Floyd. You'd think that people would just be more careful with how they're using their guns or whatever. But, you know, history repeats itself. And it's one of those things that, you know, since my brother was murdered on June 2nd, which was the day before I turned 20, unfortunately, you know, June 2nd and June 3rd are always going to feel real different now. yeah.
00:27:54
Speaker
So yeah, so after that, after my brother's murdered a week after the Vallejo police union filed a restraining order to prevent the release of the name of the officer that murdered my brother. And then a week after that, we protested at the Solano County DA's office to have her recuse herself because she has a long history of justifying these officer involved shootings.
00:28:16
Speaker
So we went to go protest at her office and she recused herself a week after during that timeline. um In the month of June and July, the windshield in which the officer shot through to kill my brother was destroyed and tampered with.
00:28:30
Speaker
We don't have a way to figure out the bullet trajectory in which if my brother was indeed on his knees with his hands up, or if he was on his one knee and trying to get a non-existent gun like the police union is saying.
00:28:41
Speaker
And my sister and i have kind of taken the role to become these like quote unquote activists. And you know, life took a really hard left turn and It's crazy because a month before my brother passed away, I was telling my brother, i was i was working at the time and doing school. And i was like, you know what? This is the last time I've worked under someone.
00:28:58
Speaker
I was like, this the last time I'm going to be working for someone. I'm going to figure it out. And my brother was like, what are going to do? And I like, I don't know, but I got feeling I'll let you know. And then my brother passes away. And so life took a really hard left turn. I thought I wanted a major in biology. I switched my major in now the political sciences. So did my sister.
00:29:15
Speaker
And so my sister and I have taken the role of doing what we're doing and organizing and strategizing and traveling and meeting all these impacted families from all over the place. And which we've kind of left my parents to grieve and mourn the loss of their son.
00:29:29
Speaker
And it's kind of difficult for them too, because they're working and they're older too. I don't want to expose them to protesting and whatnot right now, especially under COVID. So Michelle and I are doing everything we can and Fast forward, here we are right now, Michelle and I just flew back from Wisconsin. We went to Wauwatosa in Milwaukee area to go stand with the families of Alvin Cole, Jay Anderson, and Antonio Gonzalez, who have all three been murdered by Officer Joseph Mensah.
00:29:55
Speaker
And it's just one of those things like Michelle and I and our family have our demands for our brother, Sean, in California, but these families have the same demands for their loved ones in their state. And it's just one of those things that we just need to push for federal legislation, because all these cases have the same demands to appoint a special prosecutor to do this and do that. And it's already the same, you know, it it doesn't matter whether we're in California, or Wisconsin, or Kentucky, it's the same fight. And it's just one of those things that Michelle and I are pushing for that black and brown unity too, because there's a lot of anti blackness in the Latino community.
00:30:28
Speaker
And a lot of Latino families will be like, Oh, That would never be my son. That would never be my daughter because I take care of my kids. But that doesn't matter. My parents took care of my brother and did everything they could.
00:30:38
Speaker
And an officer was still able to murder my brother. And a powerful message my brother la left to us 40 minutes before he was murdered was to sign the petition for George Floyd.
00:30:50
Speaker
He texted Michelle and I in a group message and he said, can you sign this petition for George Floyd? And it didn't even take a minute in which my sister and I sent him like a heart and Michelle said, just did it. and 40 minutes after he was murdered. So it's a powerful message of black and brown unity, but it's also a message like, look, justice for George Floyd, this is how I'm going to go out, pick up the torch and run with it. Because throughout my whole life, my brother laced me up with game and prepared us for everything he could. And here we are just running with the torch.
00:31:18
Speaker
It's a long fight and it's really hard, but honestly, everything we're doing is what's helping us and just staying busy and Just staying busy and doing everything we're doing is really helping and God giving us the strength because I don't know how I'm doing it. and my sister doesn't know how we're doing it. And we pray every day and we pray for God to give us the strength. And, you know, have we not been so anchored in our faith?
00:31:42
Speaker
I wouldn't know how we'd all be. in Shout out to God because God, God's blessing us and he's putting important people in our way. And we're meeting everyone we need to meet and organize with who we need to organize.
00:31:54
Speaker
because it's justice for Sean, but it's such a ah broader concept of justice. Justice would have been having my brother here still, but here we are fighting for those that could still be saved and fighting legislation and to be certified police because California is one of the five states that still doesn't decertify Wisconsin doesn't decertify. so we've been exposed to so much in the last four months that it feels like it's been a year or like three years and it's only been four months because we've been so busy and yeah.
00:32:24
Speaker
It's a lot. Yeah. o That was a lot. What you're experiencing is a lot. And it's an unfair torch that you and your family have had to take on. Yeah.
00:32:38
Speaker
yeah We're part of a club that no one wants to be a part of, unfortunately. But it's one of those things like our family made this commitment. And we made the commitment to fight for Sean and to fight for all the other people that are too scared to speak up for their loved ones. Because there's a lot of names and a lot of stories we still don't know.
00:32:53
Speaker
Yeah. You know, you just now gave me more education than most adults give me, particularly around these threats to wellness.
Challenges in Activism and Systemic Racism
00:33:03
Speaker
And I say it's so unfair because, you know, you know so much through something that you shouldn't have to know so much about.
00:33:10
Speaker
And in it, you're bringing awareness for me in such unique ways around threats to our wellness. And I just want to hear from you, though, in a more explicit way, if you feel you can. What do you think in this time has been some of the greatest threats to your wellness. Like, what does it look like?
00:33:30
Speaker
How do they function? I think when, like, for example, when Sean King or like these big activists, organizers post something or like when they were posting about my brother, i think one of those things where like, you shouldn't kind of always read through the comments because you see things that are going to upset you. And it's like one of those things where people say,
00:33:49
Speaker
Millennials say in 2020 like oh if you lurk you get hurt and you know that's one of those comments like people are saying my brother deserved to die and things like that and it's not my brother didn't deserve to die but you know it's just one of those things like little words are triggering and I don't like reading through comments all like that anymore but it's just little things like that from the last four months that have kind of been triggering and There was this one lady who mailed a letter to one of our attorneys at the time and she had said, like, I hope the Montarosa family never gets a dime and I hope they don't get justice and whatnot. And it's like, how are people like this, like this, you know? And it's like, people really just don't have a heart. And it's not until you're exposed to this environment that you realize how messed up people who are, you know?
00:34:38
Speaker
we're fighting for something that should already be a given. But there's people that still believe that we should be living how we were in the 1800s. I'm sorry, you know, it's just one of those things where people are still so conservative. And elections are coming up soon. And I'm kind of scared, you know, California, all of a sudden is very conservative and very pro Trump. And I don't know how that's going to play down for my brother's case, or for anyone's case in terms of officer involved shootings, but we'll see how it goes. And I think there's just so much going on. There's just so many layers that are going around the world right now and in this country that are very triggering, like the elections and these weird people that are like putting these comments or sending mail to our lawyers, like hate mail and whatnot. And it's just one of those things like people just really don't have a heart.
00:35:25
Speaker
Some of our podcast interviews, we have this language of microaggressions where it's kind of like the daily reminders, but Your microaggressions are macro. So you have the daily reminders, but they're so intense and extreme. And I'm thinking and wondering, like, what in all of this intensity? I know that you and your sister literally just served more time through you were arrested.
00:35:50
Speaker
for protesting and attempting to hold your public representatives responsible. You and your sister served more time than the people who assassinated your brother. So I don't know if you want to talk about that, but what I'm also interested in is what is holding you and what is sustaining you in these really challenging times?
00:36:07
Speaker
I think right now what's holding me together is just being with my, I'm with my sister 24 seven, like we're attached by the hip now. And it's kind of those things like, If I'm away from her for like a few hours, I'm like, is she okay?
00:36:21
Speaker
It's just one of those things like you're not with your sibling and and you automatically assume something's wrong. and But I think just staying together with my sister and my parents is what's helping us all.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah, just because I don't like being alone anymore and neither do my parents. And I think just staying together is what's helping us and honestly, I don't want to get all religious on people, but honestly, just reading the Bible and just watching sermons on on Sundays, even because COVID, you know, anchoring ourselves in our faith even more to get the strength that we need because it's a long fight and it's a lot. But yeah, like I said, i we don't know how we're doing it because God giving us this strength and we have no idea how we're even getting up every day with the energy to do what we're doing, you know.
00:37:08
Speaker
But on October 2nd, on the four months marker of my brother's death, Michelle and I and our family could have easily been at the cemetery or being with our family at home. We actually went to the governor's mansion in Fair Oak, Sacramento area, and we protested in his driveway ah demanding that he give a public statement on our brother's murder, that he appoints a special prosecutor, that Jarrett Tom, the officer that murdered my brother, fire arrested and charged.
00:37:36
Speaker
And Lieutenant Michael Nicolini and Fabio Rodriguez are prosecuted and charged for destroying the evidence of the windshield. And for just Gavin Newsom to say a lot of things, because a lot of people want to say Gavin Newsom very progressive and liberal and X, Y, and Z. And he wants to say George Floyd and he wants to say Breonna Taylor and he wants to say Elijah McClain, but he doesn't want to say the names of the people that are being murdered by state sanctioned police violence here in California.
00:38:02
Speaker
And so we went to go protest and we were arrested by SWAT, CHP, and the Secret Service. They were all working together and 17 of us were arrested and we were held in Sacramento County Jail for 23 hours. They booked us in they had us in orange jumpsuits, those ugly Crocs and crusty socks and...
00:38:22
Speaker
It was a lot. And, you know, we got to see how they treat people inside, you know, especially during COVID. A lot of people, we had masks, but a lot of people weren't provided masks. There was one lady who was throwing up on the sink while another one was in the toilet having the runs and we were exposed to that.
00:38:37
Speaker
And, you know, we quarantined after we were out, but if we got to see how officers don't even want to wear masks inside. So I think everything happens for reason, unfortunately, but we got to see how the prison industrial complex is even more from a firsthand experience.
00:38:54
Speaker
And so, you know, we put our bodies on the line and like you said, Tiff, we've gotten more ah punishment than the officers that have murdered my brother and destroyed the evidence. And it just says a lot about our country or, and even our state too, you know, Gavin Newsom has yet to say a statement or have a sit down with our family.
00:39:11
Speaker
And it just says a lot about his character and what he actually wants to push for. And he can sign all these legislations and whatnot, but it's not performative activism. Like, what are you really doing? Impacted families deserve a seat at the table and best believe Michelle and I will have a seat at the table one day, you know, to speak for these impacted families. And we're doing everything we can for the families that don't have the opportunity to do so.
00:39:32
Speaker
So it's the wrong fight, but you know, Gavin Newsom really surprised me with that one, because I didn't think we were going to be held in county for that long. And they purposely made Michelle and I the last ones to get released. And i already knew that.
00:39:45
Speaker
I knew they were going to try to mess with us because they knew we were Sean's sisters. And in county jail, they already knew us as the sisters, the sisters, the sisters. And while we were getting booked in, getting processed, that the officers were talking to each other and that Gavin Newsom himself was requesting all of our mugshots and all our criminal records to be sent over to him like ASAP.
00:40:05
Speaker
But this is all of our first time getting arrested for myself and my sister and all the other 15 folks that were arrested. And, you know, it's just one of those things, like one of our charges was conspiring against the governor. Like we're not conspiring against you and we're not disturbing the peace. We're just disturbing your silence.
00:40:23
Speaker
That's how October 2nd went and, you know, November 2nd coming up on day of the dead and. We don't celebrate that in our family, but you know, a lot of people do. And I know people are going to have like altars and whatnot, trying to honor Sean and all the fallen martyrs.
00:40:36
Speaker
And that's going to be on the fifth month marker. or So we'll be feeling a lot of emotions on November 2nd.
00:40:44
Speaker
Yeah. And that week particularly is going to be very interesting for this country. Yeah, it's a lot. A lot. And I want to continue to thank you for the education that you have provided both today and you have historically and will continue to.
00:41:03
Speaker
And I want to, you know, one, honor your family. i want to honor Sean, who, you know, for some time was a student of ours as well. And I want to attempt to give you, of course, the last word around wellness and what that even means at this point.
00:41:23
Speaker
And so, while we are researchers and practitioners who are interested in identifying and curating sites of wellness, this and your experience are are some of the most important ones for us and what that even looks like and what that even means. And so as we close, I both want you to talk and really just share freely what you want from listeners and what you want them to hear and what you want to leave them with.
00:41:50
Speaker
But I'm hoping you can ground that in what it is that we can do as a nation, what it is that we can do as listeners to support you and your family in helping y'all regain your wellness.
00:42:02
Speaker
Yeah. So honestly, of those things where my sister and I have been pushing for is to tell communities and people, it's like, don't wait to join this fight until it's your loved one. You know, I've been protesting and traveling and doing a lot of community work for a long time now, but you know, it's different when it hits you and your family personally, but just don't wait until you lose your own loved one until you want to jump on, you know, the activist train or whatever, you know, and if you know, impacted families in your community that have lost a loved one to police violence, like bring them food or donate to their family. And if you contribute to families, however you can, then by all means do it.
00:42:43
Speaker
For the first two months, we had a meal train. Luckily, you know, we didn't eat. We didn't have time to cook. We were mourning and trying to figure out what to do the first two months that, you know, the meal train and things like that and the donations really helped and they're still helping.
00:42:57
Speaker
And if you can ah follow the Justice for Sean page on Instagram, we have a link tree to find petitions and to donate to our family. The donations now are just to help out our family during this long fight.
00:43:09
Speaker
So we can afford going out and having wellness, you know, eventually right now for me, wellness is keeping myself busy and doing what I need to do for this fight. But I do understand that down the line, I need professional help and or I do need to talk to a healer and I do need to seek therapy, you know, but for right now and me in this moment, I need to put my energy into what I'm doing right now for this fight.
00:43:33
Speaker
And we are so grateful for the energy that you have been putting and we're so grateful for your spirit. ah love you. Thank you so much, Ashley, for just taking some time and talking with us today. Appreciate you so much.
00:43:47
Speaker
Of course. Well, thank you all.
00:43:55
Speaker
We extend our deepest condolences to the Monterrosa family and all other families who have lost their children to state violence. We stand with you in this fight, Ashley, and will continue to honor Sean in our advocacy of sustained health and wellness for all.
00:44:14
Speaker
Within Ashley's moving testimony, she shared the need to disturb the silence around the racialized microaggressions that compromise the vitality of our communities.
00:44:29
Speaker
Next up, Kenjis will discuss his journey, his processes of realization as an educator of what was needed to interrupt and disturb the silencing of the daily terrors, tortures, and disasters that his students and his community were experiencing.
Kenjess on Family Instability and Education
00:44:54
Speaker
I was seven years old when I first heard the word college. I'll never forget. It was college scholarship. My family, we had various instances in our life that were challenging on the deepest of levels, experienced various types of traumas. And in this particular moment, my dad was in handcuffs.
00:45:17
Speaker
Sisters were crying. Mom was angry. It was a another instance of domestic violence, another instance of financial and home insecurity.
00:45:31
Speaker
Although I was seven, I was going to this parochial school in my hometown. The school was the church and we went to church there.
00:45:43
Speaker
and my mom worked at the school. When I say worked, she essentially did anything and everything that she could imagine that folks would ask her to do. She drove the bus, she assistant coached the volleyball team, helped staff the basketball team. She would watch the classrooms of teachers. This always embarrassed me. She would watch the classrooms if the teachers like had to take a shit, you know, she would come into the classroom.
00:46:09
Speaker
because she couldn't be a substitute teacher, right? She wasn't allowed to be a substitute teacher. She never got like official credit for the job that she did. Eventually at that same school, my mom became and did the work of an assistant principal, advisor, all those things, never got the name to the job, the recognition as we would call it, because she didn't have, quote unquote, a college degree.
00:46:30
Speaker
But she did all of that, not because she was interested in any of those things, like, My mom coached volleyball and never played volleyball, you know, like she drove a bus and never really driven a bus. She did all these things, not because she loved it, but because it meant that me and only one of my sisters, because I have three sisters, but only two of us could go to the school at any given time. That's how much we could afford.
00:46:51
Speaker
They gave us a discount to the point of it's something like $20 a month per kid, which we eked by with my mom, essentially being the shadow of the entire school.
00:47:03
Speaker
Right. So I had seen the elite children in Riverside day after day after day. And i felt like they did not experience what I was experiencing in that moment as the sirens in our house, my dad is going through.
00:47:22
Speaker
Like, I think the whole incident kicked off because there's four of us, four children. We ran bathtub once, right? And I'm the last one to go.
00:47:33
Speaker
And i didn't want to get in the same bath water, or I was going to cheat a little bit and run some warm water. And times were tough that month, super tough with food and what have you. So that sets off my dad and sets off the various psychological and historical traumas that are going on for him.
00:47:50
Speaker
And we end up there. And I know, I feel like this is not happening to Sarah. This ain't happening to Michael. I don't think my friend Chad, I've been to Chad's house. Like, I don't think this is what's going on there.
00:48:01
Speaker
And i remember asking my mom, why, why does this happen? Why is this happening to us? but The us was a broader us. I was talking about my community there in Moreno Valley, where the crack epidemic had started to really mutate and transform our neighborhood.
00:48:18
Speaker
And Moreno Valley is not Riverside, which is where I went to school. So why was this happening to us here in Moreno Valley and not to the kids at Bethel? It was a relational question I was asking, a relative question I was asking without saying it Meaning what is this thing that we find ourselves in and why is it so drastically different seemingly from these other folks?
00:48:39
Speaker
And she told me that, you know, son, we're here because i didn't do all that I could have done. So she was already saying that this was on her.
00:48:53
Speaker
What I think is so interesting, like the hardest working, most kind, loving black woman I've ever met. is like taking responsibility accountability for the entirety of the beautifully complicated manifestations of anti-blackness she's saying is on her she says yeah this is on me i didn't finish school mom started college at age 17 to escape domestic violence in her own house right so for college was an escape and a viable one for a potentially different kind of life
00:49:24
Speaker
And she said, I didn't do what i was supposed to do. I didn't finish school. and you need to get straight A's and run as fast as you can. And they will, whoever they is, will give you a college scholarship.
00:49:37
Speaker
And I thought that was one word, college scholarship. They'll give you a college scholarship, and then you will essentially not experience what we're experiencing. And for me, that was the easiest call to action I'd ever heard.
00:49:52
Speaker
i didn't even know that the letters that came on the report cards meant anything. The standardized testing was really undeveloped there. I don't know that this private Christian, very conservative school went by the same standards as the other places. Like we would get, I remember scores back that were blue and red and green and you know what have you.
00:50:10
Speaker
I didn't know what any of that meant, but I knew from that moment that I should be paying attention to getting an A. you know and so from that moment i think i got one a minus in all of high school everything else was a from that point going forward and i ran as fast as i could right because that was another thing that she was i was running cross country and then football so i get to college and and think it was from that point that i really believed in the possibilities of education it was almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy that each a that i received my mom would like pay me you know to pay me for every a because in her mind
00:50:42
Speaker
it literally was a investment in the potential future. I got payment for A's and payment for touchdowns. And so for me, I was already succeeding, right? 10th grade, I was already successful in the schooling project and it made me double down on the possibilities of education in particular.
00:51:00
Speaker
But my education always was combined with athletics, that it was the viable thing to do. By the time I made it to 12th grade, I had essentially in my own mind and heart,
00:51:12
Speaker
won. Like I did it, you know, because I got a academic scholarship that allowed me to play football and go to Western Civilization College, Occidental College.
00:51:25
Speaker
And I thought that that meant that we were set, we were good, you know, yeah and my family. It dawned on me while I was at Oxy that The kinds of violences that I experienced in elementary school with our school had um corporal punishment. So you could either be suspended or get swats if you got in major trouble.
00:51:45
Speaker
And by virtue of my beingness, like I was in the office every day, so was literally being beaten by the principal, you know, in in elementary school on a weekly basis. I realized by the time I get to Oxy that that was a metaphor and an act of seasoning preparing me for college.
00:52:02
Speaker
that in school, in college, the kinds of beatings that I received literally in elementary school became psychological. They transformed into psychological beatings.
00:52:14
Speaker
And so I spent much of my freshman year crying because for the first time in life, I got something less than an A you know in my science classes and was being told that I had an extra tendon and that's why I was able to run fast by my peers and had you know had Other faculty in labs essentially telling me that either I should be able to afford the lab equipment that we needed, like the goggles, which it was a hard get to pay 50 bucks to rent some goggles.
00:52:44
Speaker
Either afford that or you can't do well in this class. you know So I had all these everyday sort of reminders that Oxy was literally not built from us. And no lie, the administration building is called Coons.
00:52:55
Speaker
you know It's literally not built for me. Yet it was there that I got exposed to critical pedagogy, to this possible social justice education, we called it, intergroup dialogue work, where the function of those spaces was to promote social justice alliances, the ability to take action for equity, to work across difference.
00:53:19
Speaker
right? All this content, reading Freddie and all the people that we know are infused into this curriculum. And I realized that my job clearly, and I got paid for that as well, right? My job was to fix Occidental, right?
00:53:31
Speaker
And I took on the same project, right? Like, oh, bet. So not only does college fix your life, it also enables you to fix the thing that is causing life to be hard for other people.
00:53:44
Speaker
That was my calling. And because I felt like I was being healed, even though the healing was really just watered down and I say watered down like more difficult to understand and less to the point the lessons that my mom told me about what this world is actually about I felt like getting $35,000 in debt for this whole overall thing meant that I was now certified to go out into the world and do the thing and so I wanted to help black students and I wanted to help other students of color have the same realizations that I did. The world is racist and we know that because college, you know, and college tells us how to fight it and come to college. I have a friend named Kayee Small who was at Oxy with me and we joke because we're both in education now. and what we see actually is with our professors who themselves were depressed and these people of color, sad,
00:54:37
Speaker
angry, upset, beaten down. Like I learned to fight Oxy from the mentors that I had, you know, like we're here to fight Oxy, you know? So ironically, I am an adjunct there. And so is Kai. And we both say you get this T-shirt that we want to give to our students, which is basically saying, Hey, come die with us, right?
00:54:55
Speaker
Come to this place and come fight and die with us. And that's what I imagined I was doing. And it expands out and I started doing some research, getting to a PhD program and it's all these little monuments, you know, never really having the security. Meanwhile, my family's life does not improve.
00:55:14
Speaker
Like the major impetus for doing this thing never changes, still got financial food. home insecurity, still on the run from various forms of violence, still Moreno Valley has now gotten the moniker, the murder.
00:55:29
Speaker
Like that happened after me, Ken just went to college and did the thing i was supposed to do. So it's not gotten better holistically around me, within my family and to myself.
00:55:41
Speaker
So what I learned was that it wasn't entirely true, but ah working towards the PhD and realized that It's not just school that's harming us, but it's the thing that the school is inside, this larger reality of anti-Blackness that buttressed and under you know supported by these everyday forms of terror, torture, and disaster, according to Chester Pierce and one of my mentors, Daniel Solorsenot.
00:56:09
Speaker
So was working in the Black Male Institute with Tyrone Howard, and we wanted to look further into these everyday realities for black men at a time when Trayvon Martin was murdered and Tamir Rice and Jamal Crawford and you know Sandra Bland and and Eric Garner and Mike Brown, all that same summer.
00:56:28
Speaker
And at the same time that was going on, my uncle's, my mom's three brothers developed form of prostate cancer. lost other family all within my first year of my PhD program. So the goal was to try to like, I think still do the project, right? Like let's let's save folks, let's save people from this thing. And so I find out about this possibility of engaging or researching tilomeres, which are the protective caps at the ends of our chromosomes.
00:56:54
Speaker
And they deteriorate as we get older, normally. They're kind of a biomarker of aging. And that if you're older, you have shorter tilomeres. If you're dealing with some kind of disease or stressor, you have shorter telomeres.
00:57:08
Speaker
we found that these black men at UCLA had telomer lengths. These were guys, you know, average age around 22. These guys are in this study. Had telomer lengths that were as short as women two times their age who had survived breast cancer. and that to me was a wake up call if there ever was one.
00:57:30
Speaker
These are guys that were on the same trajectory as me. I identify with them. I was trying to help them do the same thing I was doing, right? Like you got into college. Now we realize that the environment, the society itself is anti-black and set up against us.
00:57:44
Speaker
Let's use this work that we're doing here to undermine the whole thing. And these are the folks who are going to help us get there. And they themselves are seemingly eroding right before our eyes.
00:57:57
Speaker
So that come die with us refrain is not actually in any way an exaggeration. And while we're doing the research, I myself am going through depression and we're losing other folks to suicide.
00:58:09
Speaker
I have my own feelings of not wanting to exist in this world. And i think it was at that point that i realized that it's not going into the apparatus of schooling, which has been set up against black wellness.
00:58:25
Speaker
for the entirety of its existence that's going to be our salvation. That's not going to be it. In fact, according to what we saw in the research, it was the folks who were more engaged, more deeply rooted in the schooling process that tended to have the shorter telomeres or were seemingly having a harder time.
00:58:43
Speaker
And the people who were less connected and basically disdainful of the entire educational system that seemed to be doing better. And so I think that was the moment that I realized that what I'd been doing, or one of the moments I realized what I've been doing wasn't gonna work out.
00:59:01
Speaker
Tiffany and I were doing similar research around the same time, and I'm learning from her as my study was wrapping up, that there was this other option that schooling, educational access, success, achievement, as we like to call it, it's just all schooling, that that wasn't the only thing to do for and with and around the possibilities of black life and i learned from her study that black students who were exposed to the unschooling practice ones that
00:59:38
Speaker
really enabled us these educational practices that brought us back to the root of our being.
The Need for Alternative Education Models
00:59:44
Speaker
Radical means root, right? So that brings us in a radically way back to these ways of being that we had been, the kinds of lessons that I got from my mom that had to be stripped away as I went through the schooling process, the memories that we inherit as our birthright.
01:00:01
Speaker
from the people who we descend from, those ways of being, another friend of ours, Anthony Trochas would say, are really earthed, right? They're grounded in movement and alignment with the earth.
01:00:11
Speaker
That when we engage that, the violence of this place begins to lose some of its effectiveness. And those telomeres in the study that TIF did, they started to grow.
01:00:24
Speaker
I've had folks who we work with who are doing similar practices and we're seeing similar outcomes. And so I've heard in this space as other educators were reflecting that we can't be inside schools doing anti-schooling work. That doesn't make sense. You got to choose.
01:00:41
Speaker
And so we're doing all this work and I'm at Occidental and I'm telling students about the work. Like, this is what's going on. Basically, we got to get out of here. I have a student of mine who tells me within her first couple of months, you know, feel like Oxy's killing me.
01:00:54
Speaker
And I agree with her, right? I agree with her. But what I didn't do is take the next step and say, Well, how do we then actualize the possibility either through mutual aid networks or the kinds of practices that we were engaging with these other youth? What do we do next to make sure that your life, your food security, your housing security, your distance, your proximity from violence is not based upon you being in somehow relational connection to this place that also I felt had harmed me and continue to harm people that I know.
01:01:25
Speaker
Instead, what I did, is I think was what we're trained to do as educators, right? I did anger management. I did therapy by providing a safe haven and being somewhat of a lighthouse for students, right? As Horton Spillers would say, schools are weird places because they hire their enemies.
01:01:40
Speaker
And it clicked for me that I was there, even as an adjunct in this very you know disdainful role, I was there to catch these kids who a part of their spirit knows they shouldn't be there. and that student, she felt like Oxy was killing her, passed away a few months after that.
01:02:01
Speaker
at the age of 19. And a few weeks after that, we had another Black student take his own life right at Oxy. And Oxy didn't have the ability to give a single day off. But I think that that's the other thing that I got to keep remembering that Robin D.G. Kelly says, why would he expect places that are built up against us to ever do anything that feels like love towards us?
01:02:22
Speaker
And so our question as educators, and I'm wondering is, well, why do we continue to wrestle and toil on this project? And I think it's because we see that there's vulnerabilities, right? There's cracks in this structure.
01:02:33
Speaker
And we try to occupy those cracks and expand them out so that we can make more life here. But at some point, we got to just acknowledge that these places, these are dead as far as their possibilities of being something tied to our future, to our livability, to our wellness.
01:02:53
Speaker
They were born dead because they were born quite literally to undermine our wellness, to undermine black rebellion and white architects of black education. We see that these places were built because 4 million black people who had every right and every, if we were listening to our spirit guides had every rational reason to burn the entire us project down.
01:03:17
Speaker
right? They created schooling, black schooling because of that threat. So why would a project that's created to undermine our wildest imaginations or possibilities of fugitivity, rebellion, and livability in the future, why would that apparatus be something that we could sort of siphon out as helpful for us? And so I think that in our work,
01:03:38
Speaker
um As we think about what else besides this, because that's always the next question. I've noticed this too while in school and why I think we keep going back to school and keep going back to school because black folks, I realize, cannot say that the world as it is, is the problem and will always be the problem as long as the world exists.
01:03:58
Speaker
We can't say that without also offering a caveat for how we might make the world a different place. And I think that that's a part of the coercive sort of speech that we get from, again, our entry into this long deray, this drama that we're we're caught up in.
01:04:13
Speaker
Don't tell me, enslaved person, that the life I've built for you is not one that you want without offering me another way to make the life I've built for you be okay.
01:04:30
Speaker
You know, as we're talking about the alternatives we're not saying that there's a way to make this life okay. I want to be clear. We talk about apocalyptic education. It's not in a response to that silent, but still very much present course of speech that we get that says, Black people cannot say that the world is shit.
01:04:51
Speaker
Fuck the world and that's it. That's not what we're talking about with apocalyptic ed. What we're saying is that the world is shit is Thursday for us. And so the world is falling apart might be Friday.
01:05:05
Speaker
And then the rebuilt world, we'll get around to it on Monday. But what we need to remember throughout that whole process is that we have been sustained, not because we've tried to make this world a better place, but because of that true understanding that this world will never be what we need it to be.
01:05:20
Speaker
So we create and do the things that we need to do for our own livability, sustenance, fugitivity, maroonage, and that it's the forgetting of that that's so harmful.
01:05:32
Speaker
So we try to go back to remember, which is why another kind of controversial thing about apocalyptic ed is that we're not saying that black students need to be given anything.
01:05:42
Speaker
We have everything that we need. It's all literally within us. If you want to use Western terms, we call it epigenetics. If you want to use anthropological terms, we could say we're excavating our knowings and we're teaching or remembering that, those ways of being and doing.
01:06:00
Speaker
They're tied to our indigeneity as the original people of the earth. That's our framing of apocalyptic education that I learned was the only thing that I could legitimately do that feels even a tad bit ethical.
01:06:18
Speaker
It's a walking away. It's an undermining of. the thing, right? When we talk about abolition, you don't just abolish the thing, you abolish the very reality that allows that thing to come about. So whether that's prison or schooling.
01:06:33
Speaker
So for me, I'm thinking about how do I ah abolish the thing that made my mom ever think that she was the reason for our suffering. And for me, that feels something like saying no to school and yes to a very different kind of education.
01:06:51
Speaker
a very different kind of life and a very different kind of future.
01:06:56
Speaker
And that's kind of how I see this whole thing play out.
Conclusion: Centering Youth Wellness
01:07:04
Speaker
This episode reminds us of the ongoing threats to youth wellness. And as educators, we've tried so hard to confront the social toxins that impact our youth.
01:07:16
Speaker
But I believe today we're being called to reflect on the ways in which schools also function to reproduce threats to youth wellness. Schools function as a site for the norming and production of suffering.
01:07:31
Speaker
A factory, if you will, of social death. And Ken just reminds us that schools are the most impactful and longitudinal component of the enslavement and colonial project.
01:07:42
Speaker
Clans can no longer victimize black bodies in the same way. There are laws that prohibit such degradation. Ashley reminds us of the legal system.
01:07:54
Speaker
And even though it has the language of justice, fairness, and equality, it's laden with hypocrisy and exclusivity. And even it cannot access bodies with the same consistency.
01:08:10
Speaker
Schools, however, have become the primary institution across the longest span of time that norm the greatest forms of violence.
01:08:21
Speaker
Every day, schools and teachers as employees of the nation state enforce their institutional legitimacy to victimize our nation's most vulnerable population.
01:08:35
Speaker
Schools enforce the most vital facet in the death of a people. the norming of their dehumanization.
01:08:46
Speaker
And if we want society to stop killing our children, we must fundamentally change what is happening in schools.
01:08:57
Speaker
And the only way that society will change is if we impact the lives of youth differently. It has always been a generation of young people who have thought differently and in turn forced our society to think and operate differently.
01:09:14
Speaker
And any change we create has to be cultivated through a deep investment in young people. Whatever we produce here is what we will get for decades to come.
01:09:29
Speaker
And if schools continue to produce broken and passive youth, youth who are passive in their relationships with white people, passive with their relationships with power, then they will replicate this passivity for the next generation and their children will come to schools with the same expectations.
01:09:52
Speaker
We are raised today with an important ask. What will you center? Will you center youth wellness or will you center schooling?
01:10:06
Speaker
And from our interviews today, we understand that you cannot center both. We close today raising this critical question. What would it mean for us to allow schools to die?
01:10:24
Speaker
And if the very nature of our young people's wellness was contingent upon the death of schools, would we be willing to let them go?
01:10:48
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode of Drawing from the Well. I'm your host, Tiffany Marie. This podcast was produced by John Reyes. Join us as we continue the conversation youthwellness.com.