Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Mapping Identity Through Black Girl Cartography: With Drs. Courtney Mauldin & Cierra Presberry
45 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of "Willing to Learn," host Dr. Ashley D. Domínguez speaks with Drs. Courtney Mauldin and Cierra Presberry. The focus of the conversation centers on their 2020 publication, 'The world is ours, mapping identity with Black Girl Cartography,' featured in the Journal of Education, Administration, and History. Dr. Mauldin draws upon her Memphis upbringing to highlight the transformative power of community and cultural heritage in education and Dr. Presberry highlights the anchoring role of family and community narratives in her scholarly endeavors. Together, they unpack the how vulnerability and authenticity is central to the research that led to 'The World is Ours,' offering invaluable insights into how it pushes the boundaries of conventional education discourse to center marginalized narratives.
Resources:
- Journal Article: The world is ours: mapping identity with Black Girl Cartography
- Bettina Love: Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal
- Bettina Love: We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom
- Susan L Taylor: In the Spirit: The Inspirational Writings
- Claudia Tate: Black Women Writers at Work
- Toni Morrison: The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
Follow:
- Twitter - Dr. Courtney Mauldin @DrCourt_Mauldin
- Twitter - Dr. Cierra Presberry @OGMommyJohnsom
- Instagram - The Breedlove Readers' @thebreedlovereaders
- Instagram - Dr. Cierra Presberry Instagram: @cbpressberry
- Instagram - Dr. Ashley D. Domínguez @ashddominguez
- Instagram - Willing To Learn @willingtolearnpodcast
Contact:
- [email protected]
- Produced by: Jeffrey Anthony
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Theme
00:00:06
Speaker
This is willing to
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Willing to Learn, where we believe that when we know more, we can do more. I'm your host, Dr.
Guest Introductions
00:00:29
Speaker
Ashley Lee Dominguez. Today's show, we have doctors Courtney Malden and Sierra Presbury. Today, we'll be discussing their 2020 publication, The World is Ours, Mapping Identity with Black Girl Cartography in the Journal of Education, Administration, and History.
00:00:44
Speaker
Dr. Courtney Malden is an assistant professor of educational leadership in the teaching and leadership department in Syracuse University School of Education. Her scholarly research focuses on amplifying the voices and leadership practices of youth, girls of color, with particular attention to how youth perspectives are central to the reimagining and transforming K-12 leadership schools and communities.
Background and Influences
00:01:06
Speaker
Dr. Malden also facilitates the Central New York Educators of Color Dialogue and runs the Teen Book Club, the Breed Love Readers, which she co-founded in Syracuse, New York in spring 2020. Over to Dr. Sierra Presbury, she's an assistant professor in the Department of Leadership and Counseling. Her philosophy of education centers notions of equity, care, and liberation, particularly among institutions that serve marginalized students.
00:01:31
Speaker
As a former special education teacher, she has served elementary and secondary school students in Detroit. Additionally, she has researched the use of restorative justice among Black students with disabilities, the role of empathy in the teaching of young Black men, and identity development and leadership within Black girlhood. Her work has been published in Urban Education and the Journal of Educational Administration in History.
00:01:53
Speaker
Please welcome to the show, hello and welcome to willing to learn doctors Courtney Malden and Sierra Pressbury. Thank you for coming to the show. Thank you for inviting us. Thank you. So today we're gonna be talking about a paper that you all publish. It is titled, The World is Ours, Mapping Identity with Black Girl Cartography. This was published in 2020 in the Journal of Educational Administration and History.
00:02:20
Speaker
But before we get to that, I would love to hear a little bit more about you all's individual trajectories and journeys. I love a good origin story of what brought you to this type of research and work. Dr. Courtney Mullen, would you like to start us off, please? Sure, sure. And this is the funny thing. Every time I have to introduce myself, I'm like, wait.
00:02:39
Speaker
I'm prepared for every other question always. There's so many. But I would say that I think what's important when I think about my origin story is naming where I'm from. So my name is Dr. Courtney Malden. I'm from South, but specifically Memphis, Tennessee, which is a city that I'm very proud to be from based off the arts, the cultural experiences, the sense of community, and also just the
00:03:02
Speaker
I think that learning and teaching experience from elders in the community there, which I think is just rich in history and so much. And so I like to name that I'm from Memphis, Tennessee, and that shapes so much of how I see the world. It shapes a lot of how I see education as well, because I was able to be fortunate enough to have majority black teachers throughout my K-12 education, which I realize is very rare for most people. And so I feel very fortunate in that regard. And having that level of education with
00:03:31
Speaker
educators who had a different lens and how they taught us also shaped all of my curiosities and interests that I now have as an adult alongside my mother and grandmother being teachers in my world as well. And so that's kind of what has led me to here in terms of how I think about what it means to make and create in community, what it means to center story, what it means to think about how our stories are not often centered, but how we move them more from the margin to the center
00:03:58
Speaker
and make them, I don't know the word I'm looking for after that, but yes, but we make them more visible and we make them.
00:04:04
Speaker
They are already inherently worthy, but making sure that others recognize their worth in different spaces, like cool spaces, but also out of school spaces. So that's what kind of led me to hear in the work that I do now. No, I love that. Especially I love how you said moving from the margins to the center, especially since we're going to be talking about mapping today. So it's an interesting visual to imagine for our conversation. Over to you, Dr. Pressberry, a little background, please.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think Courtney will ever be able to introduce ourselves without mentioning our grandmas. And that actually, in a job interview, was asked a similar question about my interest in education or something like that. And I always forget theories and scholars and things like that. I can't name them off the top of my head. I have to go back and look at my link review or whatever articles.
00:04:54
Speaker
But I mean, that's the one thing that sticks is like your grandmother, like you're not gonna forget that. And if
Collaboration and Graduate School Experiences
00:05:00
Speaker
I ever lose track of anything, I can always go back to like, well, my grandmother also worked in Detroit Public Schools, and she had to work at the school that my mom went to because my mom kept running away from school.
00:05:12
Speaker
And she just stayed there. She worked at the school for 30 years and a lot of my family members went there. I went to that school. I eventually worked at that school as my first job and people remembered her and like that's what inspired me to go into education in the first place. And my grandmother was a lot to some people.
00:05:32
Speaker
But at the end of the day, they remembered her, you know, and some people were really grateful for that. And I was especially grateful for it. So I started out teaching in Detroit, I was a special education teacher, before going back into the world of academia. But I think at the heart of things like you mentioned, Courtney, my grandmother is there and the stories from my family and community and things like that, like that's what
00:05:55
Speaker
centers me so whenever I start to drift away that's what brings me back to like the why in all of this. I appreciate that especially y'all both acknowledging your family your contacts of where you're coming from and how important that is to shaping who both of you are and your identities.
00:06:14
Speaker
is definitely also another theme that appears in this piece. So let's get to that. How did y'all meet? How did this? Take me back to where y'all met and maybe started to have discussions on the paper. Now that's a story that I don't mess up. Maybe we'll tell you who I am, although I know that.
00:06:34
Speaker
And I just go blank for this. I'm very good at telling. So I'm sure we have two different versions, but there's no relief. Sierra and I were in the same graduate school program, which is probably obvious from the paper, but I was in the leadership program and Sierra was in curriculum instruction, teaching and education. Yeah.
00:06:51
Speaker
And so I took a lot of classes over there because there were just lots of critical theories and exposure to faculty who did a lot of the work that I valued. And I also came from the classroom. So I was still drawn to pedagogy and cultural context of schools, all of that jazz. So Sierra and I
00:07:09
Speaker
We took a few classes together. I know we took a humanizing research course together. The course that's mentioned in the article from Dr. Tamara Butler. And then we also might have taken critical race theory together. Yeah, I think that was the first class we took together was CRT. Yeah. And so when we initially met there, but we didn't really develop a closeness, I would say that we now have until we both went to Cuba together and we were paired as roommates. And on that trip, we were actually reflecting on
00:07:38
Speaker
Lots of different like topics related to socio political climates in terms of like race gender sexuality All of those things were that was what the trips focus was and so we had I think an interesting experience being to black women on that trip But it was also what brought us together and
00:07:56
Speaker
And what made us just think about our work and think in new ways. And there was just a different closeness where I felt like we can collaborate together. And to be honest, I think for me, that trip is what allowed vulnerability to happen, which is how I actually was able to even write any of these things in this paper because I normally would not. And so that level of closeness and trust and vulnerability on that trip is what did it for me.
Motivations and Publishing Challenges
00:08:18
Speaker
So.
00:08:19
Speaker
So establishing the vulnerability with Sierra. You all form a personal relationship before you can start thinking intimately and writing about this topic. Absolutely. And I would agree with every version of your story, Courtney. And I have one detail, because it's so funny to me that we had a gala for grad students. And you came up to me and was like, this was after we knew we were going to Cuba. And we had been assigned roommates, I think, or maybe we were still thinking about being roommates. And he was like,
00:08:48
Speaker
When we go to Cuba, we're going to roam together and we're going to be friends. And I was like, OK, bye. And then people that know me know that I'm not super social. So I just, you know, I'm just here. And Courtney was very intentional about things. And I think that also helped me to be vulnerable, too, because I'm not readily vulnerable with a lot of people. But once I see people's intentions and understand where they're coming from, it makes it a lot easier.
00:09:16
Speaker
I like that. It actually reminds me a little bit of the movie Up where the little girl's so excited and she's like, we're going to be best friends, right? This is what it is. Yep. Yep. I think that was exactly how I came up. Okay. So y'all started to develop a friendship on a more personal level, obviously taking courses together.
00:09:37
Speaker
where did the idea for using Black Girl Cartography and this topic come to life? I mean, I think it was just through Dr. Butler's work. I think that was probably the last class that we took together. I don't know how we ended up in all these classes together, but the work in that class was unlike anything I had done in grad school, focusing specifically on Black women and their autobiographies.
00:10:04
Speaker
and looking at their different points of view, and that being the central text, not something related to a broader theme. And in that class, we were assigned the archival project.
00:10:18
Speaker
which sounded fun because we got to explore ourselves and it was very different from other research projects that we had to do where we were worried about IRB and trying to establish relationships with community. So it sounded fun, but then once we started the process of it, it was a lot of work.
00:10:36
Speaker
and it was very like personal and we also had to present this like to our peers in class and so I think that really like just being students in that class is how most of this work started and then you know the publication piece is I mean to be blunt most of it is just being at an R1 and trying to think of ways that we can get publications out and that's difficult for me because
00:11:03
Speaker
I am not with it. Like the whole point of being in education is like to support students, you know, to build that community. So like the publishing piece of it is always difficult for me. So as we were thinking about ways that we could do that, that were more authentic, I think this feel appropriate for us. I don't know if you want to elaborate on that, Corey.
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. I think it was tough to think about, OK, how do we take what we've done in this course? And thanks to Dr. Butler, I think she also introduced us to the idea of a living archive. And the fact that we could go back into a living archive and even analyze our own stories was something that I think was, like you said, new, unique, and nothing like what we had ever done coming out of the School of Education. And so Dr. Butler's class was situated in, I think it was English Ed. And that was in a totally different building.
00:11:54
Speaker
and department and having the opportunity to go back into our own archives and say, okay, we can actually pull some things from this. And there was the call from the Journal of Education, Educational Administration and History, which I was actually shocked that there was a focus on black women in this way coming from, you know, what some might consider more of a traditional journal.
00:12:14
Speaker
And so once I saw the call, I pitched it to Sierra and I was like, I really think we can do this. And she's right. It is hard for her to publish, but also same. I think we were just trying to figure out, are we doing this right? Like, how do we even do this? Because you're learning kind of boots on the ground, right? Of how to actually be an academic, which neither of us were bought into at that time.
00:12:34
Speaker
So I think it was just, it was definitely a learning curve, but it was a really great experience because it's a paper that I can now say I'm proud of. But even in rereading it, I was like, Oh my gosh, we're agreeing to talk about this paper. But I remember seeing an increase on my like academia.edu, that the paper was being read a lot. And so I was like, I don't
00:12:58
Speaker
I don't know that I want people to read all these images. What are we thinking? And now, as of today, literally today, I can say, okay, I'm really proud that we put this out in the world and I'm proud of what it required us to have to go inward and do. Right. Okay. So for those people who are unfamiliar with an archive or archive project, can you give us a little summation of what that looks like?
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, so in the course as Sierra as Dr. Sierra Presley I mentioned she said that we were centering the text of black women so autobiographies, memoirs, all of that which was again a first right you don't often encounter that in courses where black women are truly the center across the board.
00:13:39
Speaker
And we were introduced to Octavia Butler's archives. We were able to actually go into actual archives that exist in different libraries and such. I think Octavia Butler's is at the Huntington, I think. And so is that right? I think so.
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, and so we were able to go and visit that archive through a website, right? And to look at her working, the ways that she documented her life. And so then in the project of creating our archive, which was more focused on different stories and experiences that
Collaboration and Support Networks
00:14:10
Speaker
we've had and how we might chart those, we both just naturally kind of, I think we're drawn to these really big moments that have happened in our lives. And for Sierra,
00:14:19
Speaker
That was a few things, but definitely her son, Tommy. And so thinking about that mother-son relationship and how that really has shaped much of who she's become, that has to be documented in some way, right? And then for me, it was thinking about this intergenerational relationship with my mom, but also with my grandmother. And that experience, it was such an interesting time. I wrote on the article like Time Warp.
00:14:42
Speaker
because it was definitely that because you're simultaneously experiencing this like incoming loss that you don't know, but you do know is coming. And so it was a very interesting thing to pursue and write about. But again, we document those things. And sometimes our documentation in the archive is a bird certificate, a death certificate, right? When we think about like our own archives, but we live so much more life in between that. And so it was an opportunity for us to really capture that. Now you describe that you saw the call.
00:15:12
Speaker
Now, and y'all both were graduate students at the time. So I would like to hear more about, one, had you all published yet? Had you published before? And if so, or if not, what gave you the confidence as graduate students to be like, oh, I'm going to find this call and we're going to jump and take the opportunity.
00:15:35
Speaker
Yeah, so I had not published at that time, but the call was actually shared with me through, I want to say like the network through CEA, actually through Dr. Terry Watson, who was authoring the special issue. And, you know, depending on who you're connected to in that network, she had been my Jackson scholar mentor. And so receiving that call and reading it, I felt like.
00:15:56
Speaker
I mean, maybe I don't feel confident enough to do it by myself, but I feel like this is something we can do together. And so that's what made me say yes. I don't know, Sierra, you might have published by that point.
00:16:06
Speaker
I think the publications, the other ones came around that time and later, because I think this was the very first one. And the only thing I'll add is that because we were both at Michigan State University at the time, that was the norm. And honestly, there was just a lot of pressure to publish, like to leave your program with more than one publication.
00:16:28
Speaker
But since it was the norm, it also felt like we could do it. So sharing that with our advisors and other professors we were working with, even when we were talking to Dr. Butler about taking up some of her work to inform our own work, she wasn't, I mean, she was helpful, but it wasn't like she treated us as if we were doing something very ambitious, like that was expected of us really.
00:16:53
Speaker
And so having those expectations but then also that support from the different professors we worked with was simultaneously stressful and helpful.
00:17:03
Speaker
I agree. So it sounds like being in the Fellows Program, the Jackson Scholar Program, and then also being in a course and having that mentorship and guidance help push all its fortune, as well as attending an institution, Michigan State, where obviously really encourages
Research Framework and Methodology
00:17:19
Speaker
publication and research for all motivating factors.
00:17:23
Speaker
What advice would you offer to graduate students who are perhaps an R1 institution or not, who are thinking, I want to start publishing, but I don't know where to start, or how to make these collaborations and relationships like the two of you were able to do in a class. What advice would you offer?
00:17:40
Speaker
I mean, you don't have to do anything alone. I think grad school is a very isolating process, like by design, but you don't have to operate within that because all the publications that I did have when I was in grad school were with other people. So with my advisor, with Courtney, with another professor that I was doing research with.
00:18:01
Speaker
and they all had similar approaches to working in all my publication center black students and they all had similar approaches to working with black students so that's what we had in common and these were people that I had either taken classes with or
00:18:17
Speaker
have been assigned to work with. So some of it was just because of honesty, because of proximity, but it was also because of the values that we held, because I don't want my name honestly on just anything. And so I was just really fortunate to be in a space where there were so many people doing really good work around me. So if you're thinking about getting started with publishing, just know that you don't have to publish by yourself. And there are more people that are willing to work with you than you think.
00:18:47
Speaker
I couldn't have said it better. I agree. All of those things. I think writing in community is huge. Even to this day, Sierra and I still write together like we have a weekly writing date. Even if we're not working on the same piece, we have the time set aside with another colleague friend of ours, Dr. Davina Jackson. And so it just makes it
00:19:04
Speaker
It's a it's an expectation like even I think that culture that they kind of socialize the sin has like carried on so even when Sierra and I feel like I don't feel like writing I need to grade I need to prep for class like even having our other colleague friends say but we're writing today or what are you all working on or she's working on a piece and it implies us to remember we need to reset and refocus on writing right and to do it in community just feels
00:19:28
Speaker
like you're actually able, like you feel encouraged and you feel like you have what it takes to do it. Because what I have to remind myself of is that even if I'm not invested in the publishing world of academia at times, I want to do justice to the work that I've done. And I think that our ideas, especially as black women deserve to see the light of day. And so that's the thing that carries me to complete a paper most of the time. No, I appreciate you all both saying that, especially because I know in the paper who
00:19:57
Speaker
there is this tension that you're exploring through individualism and collectivism. And so it's nice to see that y'all have been able to occupy collectivism as a strength and as a force and be in community to propel you not only to get through just one project, but to get through life, to get through future writing, future projects, and that you don't have to do it alone. So I love that you're able to take that lesson that you wrote about in the paper, but also apply it to your own writing practices in life. So I think that's wonderful.
00:20:26
Speaker
Okay. So you got the call. You said, all right, I found this. Let's go. Everyone's on board. Where do we start? I think we did what we were taught to do. I think in many ways, which was, you know, about the ideas, you began to outline what that looks like. And again, I think I said, you're not really taught how to publish. They get the pieces, right? And then you have to learn how to put them together in some ways.
00:20:56
Speaker
The beautiful thing that we had that I don't know if everyone is always fortunate to have is as Sierra mentioned, we had professors who were happy to look at the work and to help us. And even if we were timid to ask because we know how busy their schedules are, they still were like, we'll take a look. Let's take a look. Let's iron this out.
00:21:15
Speaker
So we knew to meet, we knew to outline, and then we started the writing process really just from there. Luckily, I think tied to the archive project, we had to do some writing as well for the course. And so we were also able to pull from that and really speak to the call that was, that we targeted. Were y'all working on the archive project while you're also writing and planning for the paper? No, this was shortly after. It was not a long time span after, but it was shortly after.
00:21:44
Speaker
Right. Okay. So take me to one of y'all's preliminary meetings and you're like, okay, how are we planning this? What's our ideas?
00:21:52
Speaker
What, how are you, you know, trying to think about how do we put this together? This is a blur. It's such a blur for me. But I do feel like, Courtney, we were just around each other like all the time anyway. So I don't even know if we were really setting up like preliminary meetings as much as we were just in each other's space anyway, and reminding each other about
00:22:14
Speaker
the article. We didn't live like close to each other at the time because I didn't live on campus while we were in grad school. I stayed back closer to metro Detroit because I co-parent. So I think we was just trying to make it work. Like if I was on campus or if you were in the city, we did a lot of stuff online, had our little Google folders and everything where we were putting comments and
00:22:36
Speaker
I think the most of it was us trying to figure out who would take what part of the article and like how seamless we had to make things because we do have different like we had we share ideals and
Personal Growth and Healing through Research
00:22:49
Speaker
values but we obviously also have different writing styles so making sure that somebody could read the paper and unless it was us specifically sharing part of our actual archive we wanted it to look like
00:23:02
Speaker
But it was really a group effort. So you wouldn't be able to be like, oh, yeah, I look like Sierra wrote the intro and Courtney wrote this part. So we did take some time like deliberately looking through the paper to make sure that it flowed, even though we knew we were working on our own separate pieces of the paper. Yeah.
00:23:19
Speaker
And I think we might have been done with coursework again it's a little bit of a blur so forgive us because what is time since 2020 but acting. I was, I remember we hit like a hiccup and I may be jumping ahead but we hit a hiccup in the paper where there was something we needed to be able to name, and I remember I had been reading.
00:23:36
Speaker
something at that time and I was like oh I think this is like intergenerationality or something like that's what's happening here and so then we had a name for it right and we had a way to better define the contours of what we were trying to describe and so I remember that happening we also presented at AERA so being able to present on the word and talk about it in certain ways which it was a full house so intimidating Sierra was very relaxed and as she is now and I was just very like we have to practice we have to
00:24:05
Speaker
I don't remember that. I was like, I guess not. Yeah. Yeah. You were chased by me. But also the beauty of a loving relationship where we know each other and how we are. And so I learned, I think, from her too. It's OK. Sometimes you just have to speak to what you've done. And that's essentially what we were able to do, I think, in the writing of it, but also the presenting of it too.
00:24:27
Speaker
Okay, nice. Any other strategies that were helpful? I know you said it was very important for you to try to create a unified voice and having Zoom meetings, being around each other. Were there any other strategies that helped you write and think about the paper? Honestly, I think the best thing that we did in my opinion is that we pulled
00:24:49
Speaker
the vulnerable parts from our archive, we pull to the creative parts. I would never share my poetry with academia, let alone with friends or on social media. That's a private part of myself. But to say, let's pull these parts in because they actually held a lot of power and they held a lot of passion behind them and so it felt
00:25:11
Speaker
It felt good, I think, to pull those things in and to force ourselves to challenge ourselves to really analyze that and to see what will come up, not just for us, but how it might actually help other women and girls. That was the beautiful kind of full circle part of it.
00:25:25
Speaker
So initially when you're creating the archive project, you're not thinking necessarily these aspects may have an audience feature. You're not thinking that you're going to share any of these writings, these poetry. No, not at all. So how is that decision to decide what to include and what to exclude? How do you navigate?
00:25:45
Speaker
I mean, I think Courtney talked about this a little bit in the beginning of the interview, like these really big moments in our lives and like the people we've been impacted by. So for me, it's been motherhood. So that's a really big part of my identity and like, it's shaped the way I think about a lot of things now. And honestly, I think that the poetry that I was writing in grad school was just like, I gotta do something else.
00:26:10
Speaker
Like, we have to read all of these articles and figure out APA format and all these different things. And the one reprieve I had, which sounds wild today, because it's also the hardest thing, is being among, you know, my son.
00:26:25
Speaker
cares about me but he was too when I started grad school so really wasn't thinking about what I had to do for class or my scholarship but in those moments I think that I was able to be more authentic with him and I think that made its way into the work that I was doing.
00:26:43
Speaker
So in choosing what to include, I think I was just trying to think of what was most important to me. And I was also thinking about what we had read in the class with Dr. Butler. And these women were choosing very specific things to include in their own archives.
00:27:00
Speaker
thinking about like if somebody were to pick this up without knowing who I am or my background, what would I want them to take away from it? And again, the most important part of my life is being a mom. So I think that's how I honed in on what to focus on in my archive.
00:27:19
Speaker
Wonderful. Let's now take a look at the method of black girl cartography. You wrote, quote, black girl cartographers provide the opportunity to explicate the depth of what it means to map our own stories through the lenses we possess and social identities we occupy. Drawing on Butler 2018 framework of black girl cartography. How did, for those who are unfamiliar with this, could you give us a few words on what the method is and how someone might approach their interested in using it in their own words?
00:27:49
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll do a little and out like we can ping pong here Sierra put so the black girl photography framework It's a framework. Great. I don't know but it was meant to be used in the way that
00:27:58
Speaker
we did but I also think that the way like I definitely recommend that people actually go read the Black Girl Cartography paper because
Family Influences and Identity
00:28:05
Speaker
it is the one paper and I tell Dr. Butler this all the time, thank you for this paper. It gave me permission to write differently, it gave me permission to see that we could center our stories and it also just gave language for the things that we were experiencing but didn't necessarily have language for at the time. And so the framework, the way that we took it up was
00:28:26
Speaker
It gave us the opportunity to name ourselves as black girl researchers, but to also reckon with the black girl within. And if anyone is familiar with black girlhood studies, they also know that between black feminism and black girlhood studies, there's this like really complicated in between.
00:28:44
Speaker
And we're always trying to find the language for that. I think the framework gives us that. It allows you the habit freedom to explore. And so we chose to use it alongside the auto ethnography because it just made sense. And it also was an opportunity to map out the story.
00:29:02
Speaker
And she writes about this in the paper, too, where we think about mapping in the sense of geospatial location. And so I think that also mattered, which makes me now think about why do I introduce myself and where I'm from. It's like, again, giving language to the things that we naturally do. And so that's how we took up the framework.
00:29:21
Speaker
and felt that it was a perfect complement, I think, to this autoethnographic approach that we initially questioned, is it valuable? I remember raising that to you, Sierra, like, I don't know if people like value autoethnography. Are they going to see this as worthy? But I think the framework itself gave us permission to put it alongside this method of autoethnography and also archive, right? And to put those things together in a way that made sense for what we've been revealed in the findings and the conclusion.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think that in education, as we ask students to examine their identities, they often have to do like some type of identity mapping, which I feel like is very two dimensional. Like I'm just picturing like the graphic organizer that we often give students and they don't have like something in the center and then these lines poking out where they name like their favorite film or like their favorite TV show or where they're from and things like that.
00:30:16
Speaker
And I feel like Black Girl Cartography is more like 3D, but I think that's just because of my brain and me making sense of things. But I feel like it's way deeper than the traditional identity mapping, because we're not just looking at things like your favorite this, or maybe where you live. But also, like you mentioned, the archival aspect of it, Courtney, thinking about geospatial location, thinking about, and we wrote about this in an article,
00:30:44
Speaker
time and temporality and like thinking about these things in ways that are not traditional. So like things, you know, in terms of we wrote about like intergenerationality and thinking about like time and space in ways that are not the same as everybody
00:31:00
Speaker
putting things like on a chronological timeline. Like I feel like black girl cartography transcends that in some ways where we can look at how these things are intertwined and how they're happening. I think with a lot more depth and in ways that really center and uphold like the identities and the values of black girls.
00:31:24
Speaker
Yeah, I see here in the paper, you ask certain questions of yourself as you revisit the archives. They were, what are the most relevant parts of our archives that speak to our identities? What parts of our archives align most closely with the aims of black girl cartography? And how do these aspects of our archives influence our work for and black girls? How was it using those questions as guidelines and posts to help you navigate, reflect on your individual archives?
00:31:53
Speaker
I think that's what made us have to do the hard thing, right? Like I mentioned earlier, to challenge ourselves to go to the stuff that we knew, like, I really don't want to include this, but I'm going to because of those questions, right? Of how is this going to help black women and girls who may be picking this article up in what I thought was just like a grad school classroom.
00:32:14
Speaker
Maybe we'll get four readers. Typically, our work is shared just amongst each other, which is not always the greatest thing. But to now see that I've even gotten emails from current black girl researchers who are looking for something to attach to that helps them make sense of what they're doing, even
00:32:31
Speaker
one of my own program assistant students who's a Black girl who looks into archive but also looks at making practices, thinking about how she's able to look at this work and also look at Butler's work and to see our work in conversation with what she's doing. That was the point of it all, right? On top of recognizing that there's a lot of healing I think that happened through the writing of the paper.
00:32:55
Speaker
Nice. So now if we take it to the findings section, one of the first findings is embodied vulnerability, which instantly I'm now taken back to y'all's first experience in Cuba and choosing to be vulnerable and choosing to be friends. So how did it show up this concept and embody vulnerability as y'all started to sort through and analyze your archives?
00:33:17
Speaker
I mean, I think that the whole autolographic process to me is vulnerable. I think it's very easy when you're in academia to rely on what people think are unbiased, empirical pieces of data in order to get at whatever research question you're trying to answer.
00:33:36
Speaker
So to include my own poetry, my own reflections, that was the vulnerability right there. So just the practice of including this and this being the data in the paper. And like you said, Courtney, still having those doubts about this form of writing and this form of research where we're just relying on ourselves to prove the value of that girl cartography. I think that was the vulnerability because in other papers,
00:34:04
Speaker
You can rely on, again, like other people's frameworks and other people's writings and other people's experiences, interviews with people from different communities. And you can really hide behind that. But in this paper, it was just us. And I think that was the most vulnerable part of it is just work writing about these things that were very personal and very important to us.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yeah,
Ethical Dilemmas in Sharing Personal Stories
00:34:26
Speaker
I was just gonna add at Sierra there was a conference I don't know if you remember that you had like a conflict you might have had another conference and I was presenting on this paper like once it was out and I Thought assumed the audience would be those who were black girls and women based off the topic and it was not
00:34:45
Speaker
And I remember thinking like I had like what I can now name is like anxiety. Like I felt it in my chest of I'm not comfortable disclosing our stories to an audience who may not get it, right? Or who may take this and interpret it as simply like a trauma narrative or whatever, right? I did not feel comfortable with it. And so I remember feeling so uncomfortable trying to share the work and also reading pieces of our experiences. It just felt different.
00:35:13
Speaker
And so I think the embodied vulnerability is something that we can understand from Dominique Hill as a way to reveal all of our parts, right? And we have to think about the stories that we make up. She talks about assumptions in that work. But I also had to think about lived reality that I had experienced and what it meant to share these really
00:35:31
Speaker
personal parts of ourselves in front of a large audience that did not look like the majority of women on that panel. That was tough. And so having to actually live out that vulnerability in real time, again, that was one of the hardest things I think I had to do in grad school. Like if I have to draw an experience that that was really tough.
00:35:51
Speaker
Were there parts of you in that conference room that were wanting to immediately conceal or hide or minimize the experiences that you had? Almost feeling, I don't want to say unworthy, but it's like, how can I trust that you can receive this story and this experience in the way that I felt it in my body?
00:36:13
Speaker
Right so I feel like what I ended up leaning on was I just read parts directly from the paper which forced me to have to focus in on the word and then the next word and the next word and the next word when I was sharing the personal parts of the archive to talk about the you know the theoretical and all of that stuff was easy but it was it was harder to read our snippets and to see the faces and the emotion the all of that and
00:36:38
Speaker
just being like oh my gosh I don't know what you're thinking but I have to wrap this up. That was how I felt in that moment but I remember getting compliments after of people being thankful that we shared or that and that I shared these parts of our work because they were very curious right about how one goes about ethnography in this way. So it was a learning experience too in that way and it helped someone so.
00:37:01
Speaker
Both of you discussed in the paper these connections to motherhood or other mothers, Sierra being a mom. And then I know, Courtney, you talked about your own relationship with your mom, both with grandmas and so forth. Did you have discussions with moms and grandmoms and sons about sharing and writing about these pieces? And how did they feel about it?
00:37:26
Speaker
what tensions or ethical dilemmas might you have faced in deciding sharing this and then knowing that some of it is very personal and it's not just about you it's been about the relationships you have with these important people in your life. I think so for my archive and that's why this class was again amazing I interviewed my mom because there was also like they were very specific criteria to the project that I don't recall in this moment
00:37:52
Speaker
But I know that in interviewing a person who could speak to a younger you, right, was really important. And so for me, because of my mom and our relationship, I was like, this is actually a good opportunity to kind of get her view of who I was and who I've become and how she sees me.
00:38:10
Speaker
and
Vision for Nurturing Leadership
00:38:11
Speaker
so taking like doing that was actually very interesting because I talk about meditating on the silences in our conversation in the interview which again I think deeply personal work and we both probably have shared this kind of sentiment that the academy doesn't deserve everything especially these parts I'm like no absolutely not but
00:38:33
Speaker
I think that it was a really good thing to have to do because when else would I have done that? When else would I have had documented audio of the ways that my mom experienced me and what it was like for her to be a mom and what it was like for her to parent or mother a little girl when you also needed mothering yourself another way. So that was interesting. I also did a lot of reflection, which led to some of the poetry that I include in the piece because my grandmother at that time was
00:39:03
Speaker
supposed to be recovering from a stroke, but then she was on hospice, but it was unclear. And I was like, what's going on? It was just all very difficult. And I was reading at the time, I think this is important. I don't think it's documented, but now I want to write about this later. I was reading Tracy.
00:39:20
Speaker
Kay Smith's book, Ordinary Light, I think that's the title. And it's a memoir-ish type of book as well, which was inspired by, we were already working, we were already reading all this stuff in Dr. Butler's class, but I was inspired because I wanted to continue reading memoirs. And I remember in her book, she was also having a very similar experience with her mom. And so it was something about her releasing that through writing.
00:39:43
Speaker
I don't even know if I'm answering the question anymore but her releasing that through writing that led me to these like this being in my archive because it was happening to me in real time and I wanted to document. Now I forgot the question but as far as like for instance did you share the paper with mom? Yes so I shared so I don't know but I shared it. I know that she knew or found it and I don't know how and she asked me a little bit about it later like well
00:40:11
Speaker
You know, and I had some hesitation because I didn't share it directly because I didn't want her to be offended by what I was writing, although it wasn't, you know, like an expose and anything like that. But I just felt, you know, I felt hesitant, like the things that she might have still been healing within herself.
00:40:27
Speaker
what this might do. So she found it again on her own, did not necessarily offer it, which is not necessarily the ethical practice for all graduate students listening. Typically, you want to share, right? But I didn't share it. And when she found it, she had questions about it and pulled some pieces out. But then later, months later, after we kind of dialogued about it, she thanked me that I was able to release and that she was happy that I had that space to heal.
00:40:52
Speaker
through that. And so I think, you know, she's also one who is an avid reader in journals and writes all the time. So I think she was starting to make these connections of like, this was good for her to be able to do. But it doesn't mean that it was like a very small, initial reading of the paper.
00:41:09
Speaker
There's a piece you say here in the paper, quote, sharing this portion of my archive was difficult, particularly in the classroom space. The norms of schooling
Advice for Future Scholars
00:41:18
Speaker
in classroom spaces are not traditionally structured for Black girls or women to find outlet for loss, grief, and the ability to process those emotions. And then skipping forward, while this practice was one of embodied vulnerability, it also cultivated a space for healing. Yeah.
00:41:36
Speaker
it did that and we shared aloud with our class like the whole archive and it was that was deeply personal because these are people that we would continue to take classes with and continue to see but I was like this is like a bear all kind of situation and now they know these parts of us right that they wouldn't have known just from the day to day so yeah. I think it's interesting though also because it sounds like there was healing that the project and the method was able to offer you not only
00:42:04
Speaker
in the course, but then also through your relationships with mothers and mothers in your life. What about you, Sierra?
00:42:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think that I mostly focused on my role as a mom and as a newer mom at that point, because my son was younger. So there was nothing to share. Like, even if I had told him, Hey, son, I mentioned you in this article, he'll be like, What are you talking about? He's older now he's 10. So and I actually haven't thought about sharing this with him because I have like quotes from him in the article about being from outer space and asking me questions about life and stuff.
00:42:39
Speaker
So I think he'll be amused by it now because he does love being like the center of attention but also at that time I was also like a newly single parent and it was taking a lot of time to figure out like what that meant for me and to deal with like
00:42:56
Speaker
Just things that I hadn't taken the time to think about in terms of my own identity and things that I had suppressed just for the sake of being a good partner or being whoever people expected to need to be in terms of just a good woman. Being a single mom, I think, takes a lot of that away because I don't have time to focus on upholding all these different notions of what people expect of me. I really need to take care of my son.
00:43:24
Speaker
And so just being with him and only him in a lot of different spaces has really changed my mind about what it means to be almost everything that I already am. So when we talk about healing, I think in that sense, it was very healing for me to just really focus on how motherhood has shaped my identity and how I move forward.
00:43:44
Speaker
For listeners, there's a sweet moment in the paper where Dr. Presbury says that her son had been searching for a spaceship and that it crash-landed here on Earth. And then you wrote, quote, My son's insistence on ignoring the bounds of time and space for the sake of crafting his own origin story may seem naive, but it actually connects to a more courageous practice of disrupting the ways that we often rely on dominant ideal.
00:44:07
Speaker
to construct our own identities. Skipping forward, he wrote, his authenticity comes from a solid sense of belonging and assurance that he will always be kept. Yeah. And that's, you know, it's wild to me because I'm that community. It starts with me because he is my son. And then just thinking about like, well, technically that is me. So if he's able to do these things,
00:44:31
Speaker
then so am I. So all these things that I'm relearning from somebody that, you know, is learning from me, it's like,
00:44:39
Speaker
All of this is in me already. And sometimes I don't see it. But because my son is out here doing these things that I'm often afraid to do, it just reminds me of how capable I am. So it's always just amazing to me. I know. I think it is really beautiful. You tie this all back towards the end of the paper. What does all this mean for leadership for Black girls? What do we want? What do we want to see? What do we envision futures for Black girls being in leadership, in school leadership?
00:45:09
Speaker
What are our dreams? What are your dreams? What you want to see for a platforming girl in the future? So one, just thinking about that, when you brought this all together to that point, I'm very proud of this. You know, best papers make so much sense now. And on a personal note, I will say that as I was rereading it,
00:45:31
Speaker
I was in, I'm in the 30 review, you know, phase of all of the academic world. And I'm like, this is it. Now all of my work makes sense to me again. And as you mentioned earlier, Sierra, like sometimes we get lost, right? And we get kind of disengaged and honestly just like over labored in the academy. But
00:45:50
Speaker
rereading this paper and now just kind of seeing in my trajectory since we wrote this paper in terms of my investments in black girlhood and how I see black girls and literacy and
Fun Segment and Final Thoughts
00:46:00
Speaker
how I see art space spaces of healing for girls and women being this really transformational thing. It all just makes so much sense and I did not connect it in those ways into a rereading this paper. So I'm really fortunate that we had the opportunity to do it one and that I could see the full kind of life of it which and I think there's still more to come.
00:46:20
Speaker
However, I think that for me, at least when I think about Black girls and leadership, what was very clear to me during this paper and when I was a kid and even now is that Black girls are always already leading in school. And so when given the space to lead and when given the space to be the dominant voices, the ones to name the realities of what's happening around them and within them,
00:46:43
Speaker
They do that often, but because they are often penalized for it or altogether ignored, we're not really upholding them as the leaders that they naturally are. When I think about being in the classroom or even just occupying school spaces and you look at how black girls care for others because they automatically feel like that is their role, when you look at how they take up space, which other scholars have written about too, unapologetically,
00:47:09
Speaker
That is what we would call good leadership. Those are the things that we teach on this side of the world when we think about leadership. And I'm saying this side, meaning like my other hat that I wear, where I let me talk about the charisma, the courageous leader, transformation, social justice. Black girls embody this all the time, but it is not read the same way. So my hope is that
00:47:30
Speaker
Schools are able to create space and design learning environments that allow Black girls to be unapologetically who they are. Because when they're able to do that and they're affirmed and empowered in what they're already doing, there are no limits. There are no bounds. But our schools don't often do that. And the adults in the building don't often know how to do that. And I think that is the larger problem.
00:47:51
Speaker
Right, and they need the space to be able to examine their identities like in the ways that we did with our archive and going through this auto-ethnographic process because I think a lot of times black girls are receiving messages about who they are constantly. And like I just talked about how I had to take time to undo a lot of the things I had taken in about who people told me I was. I think black girls are experiencing the same thing at schools
00:48:18
Speaker
with no way to refute any of it, with no way to process things, with no way to really affirm who they truly are. And hopefully this work in this framework is taken up in ways that one, already showcase the ways that like you say, Courtney, black girls are constantly leading, but also helping people to understand like what that looks like, and that black girls understanding who they are,
00:48:41
Speaker
One, that's part of their leadership is the ways that they talk and the ways that they interact with people, but just giving them the space just to be and to understand who they are and to articulate that. I think it's really important in K-12 schools, we don't do enough of it.
00:48:57
Speaker
We do it, I think, sometimes in ways where we overgeneralize, so we talk about things like Black Girl Magic, which is great. I would much rather be known as a magical Black girl than any other thing that I've been called in negative ways. But I think that it also takes away from who these girls are individually and what their strengths are. So we have to have space for them to examine their own identities in order to move forward.
00:49:23
Speaker
Sierra, that was so beautiful, but you just made me think of another thing that...
00:49:28
Speaker
I mean, I really, I don't know, you hit all the spot, but there's something about too, I think the resiliency piece and the fact that black girls do step up and care for and do all of these things. And when we talk about space and the ability to examine, which is where we have the opportunity to do is black women who are also inner black girls, right? I think that what you're saying here is that like they need the space to be able to even recognize why are you having to be so resilient and who are you when you're not fighting?
00:49:56
Speaker
right? But if they're given all the messages about who they are, they don't often get a chance to see what other parts of them exist beyond that. And I think that's important too when we think about leadership of Black girls. So just want to thank that. Beautiful, beautiful from both of you. I want to highlight this last point here before we move to our final segment that you discussed in the conclusion drawing on Paris 2017 about how settler colonialist mapping as acts that are hallmarked by theft and displacement
00:50:24
Speaker
However, there's another kind of mapping that has always been also about resistance and freedom, be it the north star of safe houses, coded language, signifying a mapping that sustains self. The stories we tell and retell, the stories by black, indigenous, and other people of color, I turn to and return to when I feel as if I've lost my way.
00:50:43
Speaker
Any advice for people who feel maybe that they have lost their way? Black girls and women who feel maybe they need some more reassurance. They need some more motivation. Any words of encouragement?
00:51:00
Speaker
It was very interesting to me to go back and read this article because I have, and I said it before the interview started, I have felt very overwhelmed with a lot of the things that I have going on for work. But rereading this and getting back to the essence of things, I think was very encouraging.
00:51:17
Speaker
And I don't know what types of spaces people already have to be able to express these things like we're looking back at like an article we published, but even something as simple as looking back over journals, or looking back at photo albums like we have archives, we don't always name them that way.
00:51:36
Speaker
An archive could be a text message thread between you and a loved one. It could be notes that somebody left behind. It could be books that someone gifted you. So I think going back to your own archive, whatever that looks like, I think is very grounding, in a really good and solid way. So I always imagine it as me floating off into space.
00:52:00
Speaker
I feel like this is how I'll be picturing it like, oh my gosh, I don't know where I'm going. I am lost. And then going back to pictures on my phone, going back to scriptures, going back to journals, going back to poetry, even if it's not my poetry, even if it's poetry that I read when I was in a good place or a poetry that I read when I was a kid. Just thinking about things that have anchored me and brought me back down has always been my way of
00:52:30
Speaker
being able to move forward. That was beautiful. I think you have to plan your Joanne's office like recently like we posted from Michelle Obama and she talked about like we planned for so many other things and I agree with Sierra like Monday through Thursday of this week. I have complained about all of the labor
00:52:48
Speaker
that is always on me and I think getting up each day um it shouldn't be hard like it's not hard but like it's hard to know what's in front of me that I have this much work in front of me all the time and not because I'm poorly planned not because none of that well organized strategic plan all the things but there is something to be said about all of the work that is always on us and also the invisible labor right that we shoulder that
00:53:12
Speaker
other colleagues may know nothing about. And so I think that experience alone is enough to feel lost. That experience alone is enough to feel like it's too much. And it is, to be clear. However, I think planning for my joy, whether that's like, I'm gonna FaceTime my fiance and we make jokes around and talk about things, or I'm going to play with my dog who's a doodle and he's fluffy like a walking teddy bear in the bed.
00:53:40
Speaker
You know, or even like I mentioned today, like, is this okay that I have on like a bandana and like dinner? Because I just felt more like a free artist in a romance novel. Like I'm romanticizing my life. I'm in a homeware movie today.
00:53:53
Speaker
That's what it feels like. And so I think those things, that's me planning for my joy, but also something that I encourage all black women to do all the time, and even girls too, is you have to take hold of a part of your day that is just for you and you always. So my mornings are that time. And I know it's harder when you have other responsibilities, but saying, I deserve 20 minutes, if not longer.
00:54:15
Speaker
to just enter the day the way that I want to, or to pause in the day the way that I want to, or to end the day the way that I want to. That feels like I'm taking my power back from all of the things that have been placed upon me by other people, and that is how I refine myself and reconnect each day. I do my best to do that because there's something to it. It works. I know it works. It's proving to me.
Resources and Further Information
00:54:38
Speaker
Thank you for both those words of encouragement. I think that will be helpful for a lot of listeners and especially not only black girls, but also black girls who are pursuing graduate studies or pursuing college and trying to think of the larger goal and the mission that they have ahead of them and how to sustain it.
00:54:53
Speaker
despite all of the labor, despite all of the pressures and all of the invisible micro moments that sometimes can feel so incredibly heavy. So thank you for those words. Let's move on to play a little game called In My Expert Opinion. Basically, I'm going to list off a few topics and you're going to give a hot take or initial reaction on the matter. And then you can briefly explain, y'all can obviously tag team and do this together. So the first one is black girls as leaders. First off,
00:55:24
Speaker
Yeah, just whatever thoughts you have on the matter. Black girls is leaders. And my first thought was like, always, right? Like, I think we can always learn from black girls and women. I think what often happens is that people feel like when you're centering one group that it just ignores all others. And that's not necessarily what we're doing. Black women taught us a long time ago, right? When we center our labs and experiences and our liberation, then everyone gets free, right? Like, and so there's really, you all win.
00:55:48
Speaker
And so I think that black girls and leaders always was what I thought. Like they naturally are that. How we continue to equip them and support them in being that is equally important. Is there anything?
00:56:02
Speaker
Oh, no, I agree. I mean, my thought was that it was just it's necessary. I think that some people think it's in terms of diversity. They think of black girls as leaders as something that's secondary. Like we have leaders that look a certain way and it would be nice if we could get another black woman or something like that. But it's necessary. It's not something that should be an afterthought.
00:56:26
Speaker
Okay, good. What about cartography when autoethnography is a method? People who are interested in it, would you recommend it? Any thoughts?
00:56:37
Speaker
I definitely would recommend it, but I will say that it is not a cop-out. I think that we're worried about people valuing our opinion. That was the first hurdle to get past was like, is this a legitimate matter? But then on top of that, now we have to do research on ourselves and we have to be vulnerable and we have to tell the truth and we have to think about how once we put this in writing, it is out there forever.
00:57:04
Speaker
And of course, as humans, we grow and we change and we evolve. So we have to be okay with whatever our truth is today being printed and being that one piece that people read and will take up and make their impression of us. So it's a very difficult process. I don't think it's as easy as people think. Well, they're not interviewing other people. They're just looking in their diary.
00:57:31
Speaker
a lot more complex than that. I think it has a lot of different pieces that we didn't really consider before we did it. And once we were in it, we were just in it. But I do think that, like I just mentioned a minute ago with grounding, like looking back on it, like even if my ideas about these things change, like
00:57:48
Speaker
At the time I was writing and I was talking about stuff my son said as a three-year-old and as a five-year-old, he's 10 now. Things are very different in our lives, but I'm still proud to have used this method because that was what was true for me at the time. It made me more vulnerable in expressing those things and being okay with the fact that if things change, that's just a part of me that existed at that time. I can always be whoever I want to be in the future.
00:58:16
Speaker
And I think that's how we have to look at the archive overall for anyone at that moment in time. Nice. Okay. And lastly, what are your thoughts on black girls and women being vulnerable with one another?
00:58:31
Speaker
It's also necessary, very necessary. I don't know if I have the capacity. This is something I struggle with in general. I'm not about to be vulnerable to everybody. I feel like everybody doesn't deserve it. I feel like everybody is not going to be empathetic. They're not going to see things from my point of view, but it's very necessary for me because I feel like Black women have been the main people
00:58:54
Speaker
in my life. I've gotten help elsewhere, of course, but Black women have been the main people to get me through like the toughest times. And they would not have been able to do that for me if I hadn't been vulnerable, because it's very easy for me to pretend like things are great. I'm not super social. So people just assume like if they don't see me that I'm doing okay. So it takes a certain level of vulnerability for me to be able to
00:59:19
Speaker
to contact people like to reach out for help or even to just tell people like, you know, I need you to check on me every now and then. I need you to hold me accountable for these things. So only through vulnerability am I able to like continue to build these communities that I have with Black women.
00:59:36
Speaker
Yeah, that takes the cake. I think it's healing. Yeah, I find it. I think it's healing and I agree with Sierra that we don't have to give our vulnerability to everyone like we get to choose, which is a beautiful thing and people sometimes have to earn that. But I think while we're in community with each other and we're able to say, like you said, Hey, like I need you to check on me or
00:59:55
Speaker
I think I voice noted you the other day like, Hey, I know I asked about you, but I should probably confess that like, I'm over all of his work. Like I'm over it, you know, just being able to have the space to do that. And I think for people who are gonna hold it and see it as tender and to know that like, I see you, I am you like I'm with you there like that matters so much because I think
01:00:17
Speaker
Like you feel held at the end of that. And we are the ones who I think we continuously, you know, there's lots of narratives out there about black women. And sometimes I should not go to the explore page because I feel like I'm shocked because I don't live in that world. Like, as you said, Sierra, like black women and women of color and others, but definitely black women.
01:00:37
Speaker
have held me up, like they have supported me. They have been the ones to make sure I'm okay and have gotten me through some of the darkest times. So yeah, like that's the real narrative. That's the dominant narrative that we don't get to see often. And so I think it's healing as black women feel hesitant to do it. We have to be reminded of the instances where it has been what it needed to be for us, even if there's been hurt along the way, which I don't want to discount for some. I think that's lovely too, to think that me checking on you is also a way of me checking on myself.
01:01:06
Speaker
I'm here for you, but girl, I need you too. Let's do this together and let's uplift one another through it all because it's not easy. Lastly, before I let you go, any resources you can recommend to listeners who are interested in your research topics. This could be books, it could be movies, it could be authors, any recommendations you have.
01:01:25
Speaker
Bettina Love has a new book and I mess up the title for everything, but she has a new book and I think it's called Punished for Dreaming. And then her previous book, We Want to Do More Than Survive. I think are really good works. I'm still needing to check out the new book, but we want to do more than survive. We have used it for multiple courses and we're reading it as a group in my college right now.
01:01:50
Speaker
And I think those are good for anyone in any aspect of the field of education or beyond. Anybody really that's just doesn't work with black children. Great. Courtney.
01:02:01
Speaker
I would say, in the spirit by Susan L. Taylor, I, speaking of archives, so when we wrote this, I think my grandmother was still living within his recently, I think, actually don't know time. That's what I mean, time war, like, really big moments can do that to you. People don't realize that about the brain, but I can't remember. But what I do now know is that I have all of her books.
01:02:24
Speaker
which is like the men's gift and is an archive in itself and so I have been looking for one of the last books that she was reading and that is the book and it has been changing in this season of life and so it's called In the Spirit and it's really Susan L. Taylor is the former beauty editor for Essen and so she would always have these columns about healing and spiritual teaching
01:02:45
Speaker
and it is just oh my god look i'm so glad that i found it and i found it when i wasn't looking when i stopped looking i found it so that is a book that i absolutely recommend and then this book is reprint because the black women writers at work has recently been reprinted and so i shyly recommend this book it has many of the great tony morris and my andrew ortony cape embarrassed definitely that and
01:03:10
Speaker
the source of self regard, Toni Morrison. That's my last one. Because so much goodness is in there. So much goodness. Oh my goodness. Thank you for those resources and thank you both. You all have been incredibly lovely and I really appreciate you coming on, sharing your wisdom, your knowledge, being vulnerable in a new space. And so I am truly grateful and looking forward to collaborating and visiting with you all hopefully in person soon. Before I let you go, can you tell the listeners where they can find you?
01:03:39
Speaker
That's a great question. So I am in this moment. I am still on Twitter. I don't know that I'm supposed to be. So please don't judge me. I have to find all the alternative spaces that people are going to. I don't know where. So please tell me, but I'm there. I'm on there at Dr.
01:03:55
Speaker
Court underscore Malden. If that's not right, I can tell it to you later. I think that's my handle. And I also run a YA book club for black girls, the middle and high school girls. And so I'd love to send people to that page. And that's at the Breed Lab, B-R-E-E-D-L-O-V, readers, R-E-A-D-E-R-S, at the Breed Lab readers and that's on Instagram. Wonderful. Thank you.
01:04:22
Speaker
You know how people send emails and they'd be like, I hope this email finds you well. And I'd be like, I am upset that you found me. So don't find me. I mean, I am on, I mean, I have a Twitter account. Have I opened it in a while? No, but I'd be willing to check it. So I'll give you the handle, which is a joke and I'm not changing it. Cause I think it's funny. It's O G mommy Johnson, like O G M O M M Y and the name Johnson. It's like O G Bobby Johnson from the movie.
01:04:52
Speaker
That's my now ex, I guess handle. And then I am on Instagram, not academically, but it is what it is. My Instagram handle is CB Pressberry. So my first two initials CB and my last name is Pressberry. Yeah, I will respond like to messages and things, but
01:05:10
Speaker
Academically, I'm out here in the academic streets trying to attend all the conferences. So I'll be at the Critical Race Studies and Education Association Conference. I'll try to make it to UCA and to AERA in the spring. So hopefully I can run into people in person.
01:05:31
Speaker
rather than behind the screen. So we'll see. Wonderful. Thank you both for joining and being on and willing to learn. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you for having us. It was wonderful. Yes.