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Kenneth Murphy: Pose. Vogue. Pass it On.
57 Plays1 year ago
What does it take to remember and preserver stories of queer black joy? How can we love our roots while we move on from the parts that hold us back from wholeness?
Kenneth Murphy has chronicled the work of the New York ballroom scene, committing it to the archives of the New York Public Library.
Kenneth talks mentoring, black joy and flourishing, and honoring his roots — all while moving forward at the same time.
Kenneth’s own work in ballroom has been featured across New York City, including at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
CONTENT WARNING: trauma, queerphobia, white supremacy, poverty
Check out the New York Public Library’s Jerome Robbins Dance Division: https://www.nypl.org/locations/lpa/jerome-robbins-dance-division
This program is produced in south west philadelphia, in the unceded neighborhood of the black bottom community and on the ancestral land of the Lenape nation, who remain here in the era of the fourth crow and fight for official recognition by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to this day. You can find out more about the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania and how you can support the revitalization of their culture by going to https://lenape-nation.org.
Visit this episode’s sponsor, BVP Coffee, roasting high quality coffee that benefits HBCU students:
https://bvp.coffee/uncommongoodpod
we chat to ordinary people doing uncommon good in service of our common humanity.
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Transcript
Growing Up as the Middle Child
00:00:00
Speaker
You know, I so I bring it back to I'm the middle child, right? And I grew up in a single parent household. My mother is amazing, you know, she raised all of us and But I was the only man in the house, you know, so I really had to navigate those waters, you know, I Have become better Conversationalists because of it, you know, I have become a better
00:00:32
Speaker
I've been better at empathy because of its sympathy, but I also think overall I've become better at knowing what place I play in the world.
Introduction to 'Uncommon Good' and Kenneth Murphy
00:00:55
Speaker
It's Uncommon Good, the podcast where we chat to ordinary people doing uncommon good in service of our common humanity. My name is Paul E. Reese. Fam, today on the program, we got the incomparable Kenneth Murphy. If you do not know this name, you will. Kenneth is a legend in the New York ballroom scene and has had a hand in preserving its legacy in the New York public library system.
00:01:25
Speaker
Quick content warning right off the top, we do talk a lot about trauma, queerphobia, the impacts of white supremacy, and poverty. So as always, if these things are not right for you to listen to, please feel free to switch this one off and we'll catch you on the next one.
Exploring Black Masculinity and the Ballroom Scene
00:01:42
Speaker
Kenneth goes on to talk about black masculinity and queerness, what it was like to grow up in New York City, the importance of mentoring in the lives of black men, the history of the Manhattan ballroom scene, and the work of preserving that history in partnership with the New York Public Library. It was such an honor to get to chat to Kenneth and linger a little bit and hear from his wisdom. Please enjoy our conversation.
New York City AIDS Walk Experience
00:02:14
Speaker
So the question that I was thinking about since you mentioned that you mentioned that there was an AIDS walk in town today.
00:02:23
Speaker
Yes, there's an eight walk going on today in New York City. I expected to be a whole bunch of people there walking. I know a few friends that are walking today, and it's a beautiful day today. Yesterday, we had the really bad rain here. It was raining nonstop. Yeah. So today is a beautiful day outside. So it's a perfect day for a walk, you know, and just happened that, you know, it's going to bring so many people to the city.
00:02:49
Speaker
for a good cause. So yeah, it's a lot going on to the city. What is it there? A lot going on to the city, right? This is very true about New York, at least the tiny bits that I know of it, that there is always something happening. Right.
00:03:09
Speaker
Can you think of a time, I know you've spent so much
Relocating from New York to Georgia
00:03:12
Speaker
time there. You told me that you grew up in Staten Island, that you spent meaningful time in Brooklyn and up Island in Harlem. Can you think of a time across your life there that it wasn't busy and everything was just sort of like, there's nothing happening right now. You know, uh,
00:03:36
Speaker
So I was born in Long Island. I grew up in Westbury. Shout out to Nassau Medical County. Then I moved to Freeport and then officially went to elementary school in Hempstead. And then after that, I moved to Staten Island. And then after that, I moved to Brooklyn, Crown Heights, East New York.
00:04:01
Speaker
And then after that, I hung around in the city, little bit of Jersey. And then most recently during a pandemic, I was like, you know what? Why am I paying $1,000 for a room when I could just go down to Georgia and still get the outside outdoors that I love?
00:04:17
Speaker
But no, I think each pocket has always been busy. I think, well, you know, Long Island tends to be more suburbs. Sure. And then I think that's why I kind of gravitated towards Staten Island so much because both pockets, Long Island, they give you access to the chaos, right? But then also you get to kind of escape the chaos and go back to your noble,
00:04:43
Speaker
sides, you know, like your normal day-to-day, you know, oh, you know, taking out the trash on Thursday nights and Sundays.
Cultural Richness of NYC Neighborhoods
00:04:51
Speaker
That's right. Right. But no, I find that especially as closer you get to the city, you're always going to be in some type of, you know, mix or event or street festival or barbecue. Yes. Especially loud music playing, you know, which was so live, you know, so rich, you know, and depending on what street you're on, you know, you definitely get the mix, you know.
00:05:13
Speaker
I really appreciated my time in the Bronx though. There was a time when I was working at the Jerome Park Library and also later at the Performing Arts Library. Right, right. And I was living in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium. Go shout out to 161.
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, so I stayed there for a while and I tell you like I've learned so much there as far as culture, culture, foods, you know. The Spanish food I would like to tell you like I would use to take the train to Kingsbridge and right before work when I worked at the Jerome Park Library, there used to be a lady there and she had like her I think it was warm oatmeal and this big, big igloo and then she would also sell tamales.
00:05:55
Speaker
So I would have my breakfast at Ledge. It was just such a perfect price for everything. But yeah, I really, really enjoyed my time in the Bronx. Actually, every borough I've actually stayed in, I really enjoyed my time and has been so lively and so rich and helped me so much. Gone are the days of the $2 breakfast sandwich and the dollar slice.
00:06:20
Speaker
I know, remember you could get a butter roll and a cup of coffee for like a dollar. That's right. You can get a whole meal, you know, it didn't matter. And then during that time when McDonald's still had this dollar menu, you could have breakfast, lunch, and then dinner for an easy $20, you know? And I don't think those have the way going. You would have to have the same bodega sandwich every meal of the day. And you could have coffee like,
00:06:50
Speaker
two meals and there would there wouldn't be any room for a black and white or for like a bag of chips or anything nothing nothing i saw the saddest thing that like arizona iced tea tall boys went up to a dollar 29 in philly and i was like oh my god that is just heresy that is pure fucking heresy disrespectful right
00:07:17
Speaker
And I said, I'm a bodega kid, right? I'm a bodega kid. I love going with the head. So my mother used to, so my mother used to give us all change, right? We used to get change. And she was like, just go do something with it. So we would just go to the bodega, five cent candies. They used to have like these little inglue, inglue 25 cent juices that we used to drink. That's when Doritos are 25 cents a bag. I don't even think they're 25 cents anymore.
00:07:47
Speaker
Yeah, different time, right? Yes, a different time. And if you are only paying that much for like, for a juice or only paying that much these days for a sandwich, you might want to think twice about finishing that sandwich. Right, exactly. You know? Or make sure you open it up and take a look at both sides, right? Just right.
00:08:13
Speaker
So this is an important point that I'm not sure we've actually explored this with any of our New York five borough guests.
Bodegas: Community Hubs in NYC
00:08:23
Speaker
Can you explain like how just how critical
00:08:29
Speaker
the bodega, the corner store that has a little bit of everything and the same guy always working like at the same shift and then the same night guy working to close you out. Can you explain just how important the bodega is to daily life in the five boroughs?
00:08:52
Speaker
So I would associate it for everybody that is actually kind of watching this podcast. I would associate what a bodega to me is, what a 7-Eleven might be, or a Wawa might be to some of everybody. It's like a staple. You go there, they have everything there. But what I love about the bodega is that particularly
00:09:15
Speaker
or now it's like an ox store. You can have a bodega or you can have the ox store where you get to chop cheese. So one hand, you know, chop cheese, big big cheese, you know, same thing, but you go to the Bronx, you go to more predominantly Hispanic culturally communities and you have the bodega. And same thing, but it's definitely a staple in communities. Definitely. I would also say it's a meeting point. It's a rendezvous point. Yes.
00:09:42
Speaker
I can't tell you how many times I've passed a bodega just by, just, you know, visiting an old part of area that I haven't seen in a while. And I remember seeing somebody I haven't seen in years and I was like, whoa, like, you know, so it's a meeting ground as well.
00:09:59
Speaker
There is cultural currency. There is the community informational piece. I was doing a community organizing thing for the Interfaith Council here in Philly, and it's the same in some of the neighborhoods that are further out from the ones that are really gentrified closer to Center City. You've spent some time in Philly, so you know a little bit of the history and a little bit of the geography. But the further you get out into South, up into North,
00:10:29
Speaker
out into west and southwest the bodegas are everything because otherwise you are actually talking about food deserts you're talking about places where you may not have reliable acceptance of newspaper or consistent access to broadband internet to be able to see the news on
00:10:53
Speaker
the internet and nowadays nobody watches tv uh for news actual like factual news or anyway so the the bodega is the one place where reliably there would be a tv it would almost always be on like a telenovela a court tv show or it would be on like the 24 hour news cycle and
00:11:20
Speaker
all of the old heads would be there. And so not only is all of the current knowledge and all of the current knowledge there, but all of the old wisdom and the old ways and the stories are there too. Right. Absolutely. And then to piggyback off of what you said, I've also equated the bodega to be the actual community, you know, shop right or stop and shop or, you know, because
00:11:47
Speaker
Also, interpretation can play a huge role in access to different produce, right? That's right. And how far you are from a supermarket or a big super store like a Costco or BJ's.
00:12:03
Speaker
So I think ultimately they provide access to a lot of, you know, things that communities need, whether it's eggs, milk, you know, that can't spend the time out to travel because they don't have access to adequate, you know, carring or, you know, public reputation, you know. So that is a meeting ground, which, you know, but culturally food and is a meeting ground where everybody kind of meets up because it's a necessity that everybody needs, you know. Yeah.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yes, and you learn so much instantly to your point.
00:12:42
Speaker
by you could just walk into a bodega and order the same thing, like your bacon, egg, and cheese with salt, pepper, ketchup. And the difference, you instantly learn something about that. Even if like the grill guy is having a bad day and you get like one tiny burnt to shit egg with a mountain of ketchup, like you still learn something. Maybe you learn more about that guy, but.
00:13:08
Speaker
Exactly, exactly, exactly. And they're great. So the thing is, they have been so... I've had some of my best conversations with people behind the counters, you know? Like, they're just in tune with everything, right? And then not to forget the neighborhood cat that's usually in there, you know, greeting you at the door. That's right. That's right. It's just a whole world in the bodega, you know, which was a small microcosm of a bigger world that just happened around it. Everybody just happens to meet there, you know? Yes.
00:13:36
Speaker
There is something to be said, a friend of mine who graduated seminary but decided not to like become a clergy person to go into the work full time.
00:13:49
Speaker
ended up becoming a bus driver in Silicon Valley, like a shuttle busser between the different campuses. And he says he does more like clergy work, like pass oral counseling as a bus driver because it's such a captive audience. And I don't know what it is about people whose job it is to watch, pay attention, listen,
00:14:16
Speaker
they see something about the world they gather so much wisdom in where they are positioned that we lose that we lose that when the bodega sends someone tries to to to make it a corporate thing like you don't get the bodega experience at a wawa
00:14:41
Speaker
No, you don't. Not even the same treatment, you know, because you're in and out, you know. You don't know the people in Wawa's. I mean, you might, but you don't know the people in Wawa's named, you know. You don't know the different smells, the scents, like the cats. You're not going to have, you're not going to have a cat inside of a Wawa. That's right. You know. Yeah, it's just, it's different, you know. And a lot of them, a lot of these bodegas and ox stores are family-run businesses from immigrants who have, you know,
00:15:10
Speaker
moved here. So even that, you know, access community on top of a sense of community, you know, which they have certain forms. I kind of experienced a lot where I've been to a bodega and they actually have the food stand where they have oros compoyo, they have, you know, um, you know, oros por y habituelas and beleed and a baked chicken and a pepper steak. And then the, you know, the plant tins and just, you know, just a world away from the typical
00:15:42
Speaker
They're so important and like the small sort of like, yeah, there might be a camera on the corner because they don't want to get knocked over. Not all of those cameras are real. They might just be like a Christmas light in a cardboard box. But these are also places where.
00:16:05
Speaker
I don't know if it's everyone, but there is this sense that what happens there is just meant for that community. This is not a place to be blowing up on TikTok. Unless your bodega sandwiches are that fucking good. And even then, that belongs to that community.
00:16:25
Speaker
Right. And which I have seen them more popping up. People are actually recording the making sandwiches, you know, interactions between the counter person and the people coming in, the customers. I mean, and it's just complete comedy. It's complete comedy, you know? And it's actually what happens. This is really just true life what happens, you know?
00:16:48
Speaker
We need somebody to go and do a thoughtful like humans of New York piece.
00:16:57
Speaker
and spend like five or six years just walking around neighborhoods talking to shop tenders and grill guys just about to gather the stories because this is certainly at least it's my experience like being located in Southwest Philly that
00:17:21
Speaker
our communities are being gentrified and redlined for so long. But I'm now of an age where I'm starting to pay more attention to the times when I have the privilege of hearing someone else's story. And I am of the persuasion increasingly that
00:17:46
Speaker
We have to slow down and we have to not even preserve because as soon as you preserve a story, it keeps, it still keeps changing anyway. But we need to at least find a way to listen so that even if they, even if those stories are recorded in a specific way, like on a cylinder or in the cloud, then at least we have some way of remembering.
Preserving Ballroom History
00:18:11
Speaker
Right.
00:18:11
Speaker
I agree, I agree, you know? And that kind of ties into why I gravitated towards the Jerome Robbins Dance Division when I was in the library, you know? Voking and coming into the Borum scene or the Borum community, there is no, there was no, for me, any type of
00:18:36
Speaker
This is the technique. We're going to go to classes. So a lot of that history of, for example, ballet or contemporary or modern dance or learning a technique from Bill T. Jones or Martha Graham. Alvin Ailey. Sorry, Alvin Ailey.
00:18:59
Speaker
There's the own story and there's also a lineage, right, of that. And there had been a lot of documentation, a lot of, you know, written materials. But when it came to the art of Vold in the Borm scene and being a part of it, there aren't that many stories out there that kind of shed light. And that's what I tried to do at the library. I tried to kind of preserve
00:19:25
Speaker
what the idea or what the ideas have been surrounding ballroom, but also highlight those people who have been actually documenting a lot of this information, you know, like the literature, when I would make book displays, I would make sure I incorporate like, you know, black authors or particularly black authors who have discussed and written about the ballroom community and those pivotal people who have been
00:19:51
Speaker
Walking constantly and also being advocates and advocating for the community in a different way. So I've been fortunate in that way.
00:20:01
Speaker
in a library where it would represent not only the community, because I'm a part of it, but also being a space where, no, I said this is the literature and this is right and this is wrong and we don't do it like this and this is how, you know. And yeah, because information is so key, you know, especially when, once certain people get their hand in the pot, it can kind of change the whole,
00:20:29
Speaker
way of doing things, right? Especially when something is underground is now blossoming into something so beautiful. That. Everybody wants to be a part of it, right? And to kind of keep the nuances of, you know, how we're supposed to be, the lineages, you know, how to just get started, the stories, and being, you know, typically like part of the community, you know? Or how certain people say one of the girls, right? You know?
00:20:57
Speaker
But no, it was imperative, you know, and I think that like certain communities, you know, they're so rich, you know, and particularly with dance. The world community is so rich with talent and just so much talent. You know, I have never seen that much talent in one place and people will just
00:21:17
Speaker
give it for free. Like that talent is just free. Yes. You know, it's free, you know, and it's off the top of your head and then something instantaneous, just spontaneous. It's not, you know, choreographed, you know, it's in the feeling, it's in the moment, it's being present, right?
00:21:36
Speaker
and me being a part of that and also witnessing a lot of my friends dancing and competing in their categories and preparing, you know, having that understanding, how could I do my part by showing recognition to people who have been
00:21:56
Speaker
doing for so long because I wasn't the first, you know, but I came from a long line of people who tried to try to make it so things have been documented. Like for example, Luna, which is a good friend of mine, he has been taking pictures and documenting and walking balls for years.
00:22:17
Speaker
And he has been doing exhibits and showing his artwork, showing his photographs for so many years. So I say that to say that I'm part of a long line of people who have gotten the opportunity to really highlight the community and really show the community a certain light and who was there and who wasn't there and what happened, what did that person wear?
00:22:40
Speaker
which is amazing in itself. So there's something that I want to tease out because you've raised a couple of things that speak to the nature of art and its capacity to express, provides some sort of wordless container for the human spirit, right? So the library,
00:23:07
Speaker
I know that you've mentioned that it's been a long journey to get to a point to find a position to find the right collaborators and funding to be able to start doing some of this work of collecting stories, preserving, documenting the history. Can you tell me more about the work that you do at the library? Yes.
00:23:34
Speaker
I was with the library for close to nine years. Yeah. So to piggyback, I have always been in education, whether I was a lieutenant lifeguard working for the cities, teaching swim classes to camps and pools, you know, gyms or recreational settings. I've always thought it was imperative to kind of like teach and, you know, be able to be shown to mind exactly what I've learned firsthand. And I that kind of I gravitated towards the library because it was
00:24:02
Speaker
it was a way for me to kind of teach autonomously, where I didn't have the administration from the DOE, I didn't have to kind of doctor up, conform, you know, a lesson plan, I didn't have to kind of fit a rubric, you know, I appreciate the library because it gave me the access to collaborate in a way that was creative, you know, I was an artist, ultimately I was an artist, you know,
00:24:27
Speaker
But I was able to collaborate with other educational artists in order to reach a common goal. So it took me about four different positions to get to the Performing Arts Library. And once I finally got to the Performing Arts Library, I was situated in Jerome Robin Stan's division. Linda Murray was the curator of the division. She is amazing. She's so sweet. She has taught me a lot about just dance in general.
00:24:55
Speaker
And I had a lot of collections background. I was in circulating collections. I managed a lot of the collections not only for, before I got into the dance division, I was handling a lot of the collections for the dance division, the music division, and also the theater division, and also tough.
00:25:13
Speaker
anything that kind of circulating, anything that was leaving in and outside the library was kind of controlling that because I was one of the managers. And then I said, you know what, I want to be more specialized. So I thought about, I thought about all three different divisions. I said, what matters to me most is dance, right? Because I have that ballroom community background. And I thought that, wow, this is a perfect time.
00:25:36
Speaker
for the born community to be recognized in this time period, you know, a lot more TV shows, a lot more books of being written, just certain things from the underground. You kind of hear the grapevine before things kind of come to fruition. And I knew that was happening, right? I've always been like in tune with the underground. It was in tune with the above ground. So I'm like, OK, now I'm in the middle. Like, how can we make this work, you know? But I found it fascinating because once I got into the Jerome Roberts Dance Division,
00:26:03
Speaker
My managers at the time, Linda Murray, Arlene Yu, and Phil Karg were really inspirational. At first, I was like anything new. I didn't know how to really grasp
00:26:19
Speaker
I didn't really know how to grasp that, right? Because they said, Kenneth, you're the go to guy. You know, we want you to, you know, they're like, here you go. Do all of this stuff like on day one.
00:26:35
Speaker
You're the guy, right? You're the guy. So I was like, oh, I'm the guy. So I'm just like, okay. So we started having meetings and more meetings and more meetings. And then I was tasked during the pandemic to handle a program called Dancer's Corner, where we would highlight different authors from, we would highlight different authors in our collection.
00:26:58
Speaker
and create like a program about it, which was really good because we had somebody come on and talk about Bob Fosse. We also had Arlene Yew at the time. Arlene Yew is actually the Lincoln Center collections director or manager. She kind of houses all the archives.
00:27:21
Speaker
collection stuff at Lincoln Center as a whole. That's incredible. Yeah, she is incredible, but she's also a world-class ballroom dancer, you know, kind of like, not my ballroom. Of course she is.
00:27:37
Speaker
Isn't that the thing that all of the most fucking brilliant people have the coolest side hustle? And you're just sort of like, how is all of this talent centralized in one person? Did you drink the right sort of slushy as a kid? Did you have the blue one instead of the red one? What is the deal?
00:27:59
Speaker
Right. Right. You know, she was on magazines. I think she was highlighted in one of the magazines, you know, but also Linda Murray, you know, she was a world class ballerina, you know, she's a child all around the world. I think she was also in the Royal Ballet, if I'm not mistaken. But she, you know, kind of, you know, worked her way around and she was the person to go to at the library. They also filled cards.
00:28:22
Speaker
He was also a dancer for many years when he came to New York, and he was actually featured in a lot of the collections, you know? So coming into the Jerome Roberts Dance Division, I was so inspired, I was so in awe. Like, my experiences in the Bourn community as equal to the trainings, to the techniques, to the experiences that they've had, because the resources I had for the Bourn community, the resources I
00:28:49
Speaker
have gotten over the years have been just because of experience being present versus the resources and the access that they had was so when they said, you're the guy, I said, OK, they must have seen something in me that I didn't see. Right. So in that in that aspect, I said, you know what, I have to give it a go and I want to give it my all. And, you know, all I can do is, you know,
Balancing Professional Life with Passion
00:29:12
Speaker
try my best. You know, I couldn't hide because at that moment, if you realize
00:29:16
Speaker
who the life I was living before that not many people knew, the world was separate. But here I was in a perfect spot where work is actually calling for my art, my art craft, my art to kind of be joined, right? And I have the support of work and also the community, the dance community, but also the support of the boring community because I know how things are run. And being the man of man, how are we going to make this work, right?
00:29:44
Speaker
So for a long time, I dived deep into the collection. I dived really into the materials that we had. I really dived into what the collection was based around. And I also really looked at the collection and if I could see myself, right? Because after pandemic,
00:30:06
Speaker
And there was just kind of woke culture. People were starting to really be more sensitive and aware of surroundings, not only with surroundings, but also aware of certain things that had been set in stone for many years prior. So coming post-pandemic, I really looked at the collection from that angle and seeing where with the loopholes is, seeing what community need to be represented.
00:30:28
Speaker
Not only for my community, but also from the athletic community because also aerobics and gymnastics, you know, are part of dance, you know, but, you know, could be also sports, whereas dance is a sport, but it's just more of a, like, you know, like the category of sport, right, for that matter.
00:30:47
Speaker
So yeah, I was going through there and it was enlightening. I learned so much. I think that I really have to thank Phil Carr, Darlene Yu, and also Linda Murray for giving me the reigns. They basically said, come in, we trust you. We trust you to make a judgment. We trust you. And I had to grapple with that internally because who I was was the person with the worlds I've come from. Now I'm in an environment where it was okay.
00:31:18
Speaker
That's right. It was OK. You know, so I made it OK. I started doing programs. I started, you know, reaching out more to my, you know, friends. I've had an important community. How are you going to make this work? If they were to say, listen, you want to do this and here's a budget, how would that work? Right. There's there's something to be said about the empowerment that comes from
00:31:47
Speaker
a group of people believing in you, right? At the same time, at least in my experience, to take an art that has been underground for so long, that has been largely villainized, and dragged through the mud for so long,
00:32:12
Speaker
there's a lot of work that it takes to get to that space where, and there's been a lot of, there, as you say, folks like Arlene and Linda and others have done a lot of fighting to be able to get the space built to be able to have that conversation. So yes, a gratefulness to them indeed. I want to go back to something that you mentioned
00:32:42
Speaker
there is this sense of bringing the publicly visible. We haven't talked about respectability politics yet, and I'm sure we'll get there, because that's a piece of it. But you've talked about bringing the component of the library and the storytelling and the part that people can see. And then the way that ballroom has been depicted on TV, pose, at least from what I can see, not being an expert, was a watershed moment.
00:33:12
Speaker
Can you tell me a bit more about your experience of the underground, of the ball scene, to give us a fuller picture of the two sort of parts that you're bringing together in the library work? So on one aspect, you have a traditional institution where it has been created to provide education, but also provide education to, especially where I come,
00:33:41
Speaker
more research libraries, a reference library, kind of catered to more an elitist, an elitist academic field, versus a community library where it's set in the community, you know, the literature is kind of doctored towards, you know, the age range, the programs, the more doctors towards the community.
00:34:02
Speaker
Um, but ultimately it's educational institution. And, um, usually people who can afford that type of education, you know, um, don't hang around the world. Just to put it that like the worlds do not mix, you know, um, there's an element of class to this. There's an element of racial divide as well. There's an element of so many things, like all, all of the things that, the things that come with privilege and intergenerational wealth.
00:34:31
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:35:32
Speaker
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00:35:56
Speaker
Right. So, on the other hand, the Bournemouth community is... I wouldn't say the have-nots, but it's people or a community who have something they want to show the world. Yeah. And they just haven't had the opportunity.
00:36:17
Speaker
to show them in other forms. And I think the Warren community, especially for me, was an outlet. I wasn't shamed by a close family for wanting to dance in a certain form that was not typical. Because I mean, if you say voguing, now, mostly people will understand. But if you say voguing 10, 15 years ago, they're like, what? They're like, is that a form of contemporary modern?
00:36:46
Speaker
And then also, for me, I walked a beauty category. So, face, I think that each beauty category is individualized, pretending, you know, man, woman, transgender,
00:37:03
Speaker
So to walk a beauty category in that type of environment, I don't think a lot of people would understand back then. I think that's why it was kind of suppressed and it stayed underground. But also as I come back to say that, it was a lot of people who had talent, who had something they wanted to show the world, who had a Jones in their bones. They wanted to let it out. And that was their only outlet.
00:37:30
Speaker
or the space that they could do it in and actually become good enough where they were recognized for something outside of what they were experiencing in their daily life or the real world that wasn't underground, you know? The so-called real world. Right, you know?
00:37:51
Speaker
And there was no money to it. A lot of times, as you saw on Pose, you would steal an outfit. A lot of times, there's a lot of these events are happening at nighttime, way past normal hours. And then also to realize a lot of these events are happening in multiple different states around. Well, now the world is just so many different events going on.
00:38:12
Speaker
So it doesn't really leave room for a typical nine to five lifestyle, you know And then also you indulge in other stuff in order to keep up or keep up, you know Keep up or you know, keep in the mix, you know, just keep going, you know Yeah with the way you made money was different the way you spent money was different versus you know in that real world versus the born community so
00:38:37
Speaker
It was difficult to navigate at times, especially coming from both lifestyles because I came from a good family. And I was a swimmer. I swam D3 in my undergrad. I was a lieutenant lifeguard for 11 years for the city, but then I would go to balls and
00:38:57
Speaker
you know, do all those other stuff, you know, when I wasn't on the island or Long Island or Staten Island, I would venture off the island and be a Soho kid and be with that whole mixy set, you know? So I think that, yeah, the world's in the mix. And I, I kept, I, I subconsciously kept those worlds separate. And I think that's why it kind of hit me a little bit harder when I got to the Jerome Reimann dance division, because I was told to suppress it for so long, but now I'm here.
00:39:25
Speaker
They're like, we got you, we understand. Cause you go ahead and do your thing and just, well, if you got this far, he definitely knows what he's doing. You know, that type of, you know, that type of understanding that I didn't had not yet equated to, you know. Yes. There is the, at least in my experience when.
00:39:45
Speaker
suddenly, my experience was going to divinity school and showing up on the campus of Yale for the first day and thinking, I don't know what I'm doing here. There's that sort of imposter syndrome that you think, why do I belong here? Yeah.
00:40:15
Speaker
You talked about this question of the two halves of your overground life. That's not the right word. Above ground, safe for work life. And then the beauty, the gloriousness of the underground, of the ballroom scene, of all that doesn't have a home for expression from the hours of nine to five.
00:40:45
Speaker
talk with me more about the journey of the internal journey of how you came to start bringing those things together. Because how? How is that possible?
00:41:13
Speaker
I think that I've just gotten so good at realizing that in New York City, for example, where you know in Philadelphia that
00:41:23
Speaker
Let's just say you're in one community. It's not going to be the same from another community. So naturally, if you're coming from any of the tri-state areas, you have to be a chameleon. You have to be able to navigate, whether to drop your purse low or keep it close to you clutched. It's the same type of way of how to navigate.
00:41:48
Speaker
um and my family life and friends life and what I was doing in school and you know the experiences I was sharing with other friends it could not be translatable to the lifestyle I was living in the city or in the born community or going from state to state um the conversations are not the same the interactions are not the same the the it was different right and then sometimes is um
00:42:16
Speaker
just couldn't say certain things because it was supposed to be talked about, right? There was just, there was just no room for that type of, you know, being a part of, right? But as I got older, I started to realize that I only had one life, right? And I didn't want to be
00:42:41
Speaker
I didn't want to have them separate anymore. You know, I didn't want to have this so-called double life. I didn't want to have this so-called, I can't be this way because I'm already being pegged out to be this way in this world and I can't be, you know, but then when you meet people outside, you know, just whether you're in the real world or the boring world, you just happen to walk past somebody because you're walking past in the city. What happens in that interaction with somebody who doesn't know, you know,
00:43:07
Speaker
And I experienced a lot of that, you know, where I didn't know and you know, well, you know, so as I got older, you know, that's why I'm so fortunate that I was able to
00:43:19
Speaker
kind of make the world to meet because I was able to really come out of the closet, as you can say. I can really say, listen, this is who I am and I'm proud of it. I think before, even though I was proud of it, I don't think that what was known about it prior to
00:43:46
Speaker
You know, I think now it's like more of a sense of endearment. Now you come from the boom scene. So now you're just like, you've been through stuff. You know how to move in this world. You are ready. Like we need you, you know? So I take that to say, I think that each world has given me what I needed to kind of like move forward, right? And experience life, you know, but also be challenged in life where you are going to
00:44:15
Speaker
be challenged whether you're competing or you're looking for something, probably making sense. It's such a dichotomy that I think back now that I was running from one lifestyle to be in one lifestyle, but then running from another lifestyle to be another lifestyle. So I was being split. Yeah, it was really...
00:44:41
Speaker
I'm getting better at it now. I must say I'm getting better at it now because, and I think that only comes with age, you know? I think that I've always tried to, as I've always tried to be a people pleaser, you know, not try to shed bad light onto my family name or my family because I grew up really religious, you know? And then I knew that,
00:45:08
Speaker
If the world was ever mixed in one part of that, my happy life would have been in shambles, right? And ultimately, you know, you don't want to have that bad reflection, you know? Yeah. Whereas now, I'm like, I appreciate that I had that opportunity because now not many people had that
00:45:27
Speaker
that upbringing, you know, that understanding that you have to go through the struggles, you have to, you know, what are you going to do? What are you going to do in that situation? How are you going to navigate, you know? And I think that only prepared me for a life and I'm able to, you know, have interviews now, be confident enough to speak about it, you know, even when I'm going to my real life speaking to my family, you know, I didn't know you were, you know, what are you doing now, you know, and you're hoping about it, you know, and really,
00:45:52
Speaker
letting them know that even though I made a decision whether I'm in a ballroom scene and it's working at nine to five, I am the same person. Right. You know, and the same person. There's a couple things that I hear in that one being the
00:46:15
Speaker
the person who has integrated all of these experiences, I suspect you've gotten very, very good at surviving.
00:46:27
Speaker
And we can lean into the details of that as much as you're comfortable or not. But from what we know, we can say, if you want to look, there are plenty of great documentaries on YouTube that are much more consistent to
00:46:49
Speaker
a realistic depiction of ballroom than the stylized look of Pose and its contemporaries. So you can see all of it. You can go and find all of it. But the underground scene and the fact of, yes, money has to be made. There are, when queerness is involved, when blackness or at least some
00:47:19
Speaker
non-whiteness. I think you can broadly say when non-whiteness is involved, there is the risk of all sorts of exploitations. So I get the sense that you have become an excellent survivalist, an urban survivalist. I'll add that qualification. We're not talking about naked and afraid. We're talking about concrete jungle here.
00:47:45
Speaker
You know, so I bring it back to, I'm the middle child, right? And I grew up in a single parent household. My mother is amazing. You know, she raised all of us. But I was the only man in the house, you know? So I really had to navigate those waters, you know?
00:48:06
Speaker
I have become better conversationalists because of it, you know, I have become a better
00:48:18
Speaker
I've been better at empathy because of its sympathy. But I also think overall, I've become better at knowing what place I play in the world. Because at that moment, you're not the first. You're not the last. You're the middle. And you're not a girl. You're a boy. So you figure it out. You have to figure it out.
00:48:44
Speaker
going through puberty you figured things out about you know you can't use summer's eve you have to use you know old spice you know so who's teaching that to me you know so just that little by little I've had to learn as I go right and I think that um it's made me a better person overall because
00:49:13
Speaker
I've had to be a huge observer. I think I observe, I feel, and I also take the time out to feel the energy around me. When I come into a space, what's the energy? How much of myself can I give versus how much less of myself can I give?
00:49:31
Speaker
And I think that learning that just for being the middle person and also thinking about being in situations, I've always tried to be the last person to speak because then you get an idea of what happens in the room, what the feeling in the room is, you know, everybody's what part everybody plays in the room. And then now you're here. What part do you play? Because you're not just here just because you fit. Well, sometimes you're here because you fit the, you know, the typical story, you know, but, you know, but then also on top of that, what else? Why else are you here?
00:49:59
Speaker
Why else are you asked to share this space? Just your friend space, just work. It could be anything. So I've always taken that into account, whoever I've come into a room or come into a space or just come into a community. What's already been set? Why am I here at this particular time and learning something from it so that I can take it to the next part of the journey?
00:50:24
Speaker
And it's always helped out the next part, if that makes sense. I feel like it's like pay it forward type of thing. You're not doing something for somebody, but you're understanding something so you can pay it forward the next time. I really am a big believer of
00:50:48
Speaker
being in it for the right reasons and observing it, you know, the energy has to be, you know, genuine, you know, has to be heartfelt, you know, and if you're just doing to get something out of it, then ultimately, it's going to fail, right? Because you're expecting something back. So I think that ultimately, when it comes to survival, I've always done stuff to survive, but I also knew that
00:51:08
Speaker
I wanted to be there. It was a choice. And any moment I can say I can stop it and walk away and move all of my life and figure something else out. So there's a piece in that that is just woven throughout this component of your story, the other bits that we've gotten to so far. It was one of the things that I wanted to hone in on specifically, and that is the issue of black masculinity.
00:51:37
Speaker
We talked about you having your gay father. I talk about having my disability big sib and my trans big sib like all the time.
00:51:52
Speaker
We've talked about, you mentioned that you were raised by a single mom, and there are fewer things that politicians love to talk about more than black masculinity when they're trying to seem progressive. For sure, when they want to seem the woke side of anything.
00:52:16
Speaker
help me understand as someone who sits who sits outside of that conversation but is trying to be a better ally is trying to be a better supporter of at least doing their part to to
00:52:40
Speaker
listen better to be helpful in building the spaces where these conversations can happen. Help me understand a little bit more what questions we should be asking and what conversations we should be having around black masculinity
Challenging Stereotypes of Black Masculinity
00:52:58
Speaker
versus the sort of stuff that makes
00:53:03
Speaker
prestige dramas at 9 p.m. on FX or makes the evening news or gets into talking points of mayoral and presidential debates. Wow, that's deep. So I'm gonna speak for myself right now. Absolutely. I've always been curious
00:53:34
Speaker
I've always needed to know something, right? And I say that to say that initially when I walk into a room
00:53:46
Speaker
I'm black, I'm a man, I'm a man and I'm black, right? So what I look like already proceeds, you know, what I have to say or what I am doing, what I, you know, at that moment, you know, when I walked around to say black guy, okay, what is it up to? What is he up to? What's going on with his story, you know?
00:54:11
Speaker
So I've always been able to walk into the room and then I'm also, I've also been kind of,
00:54:20
Speaker
in spaces where I'm the only one from a hundred to a 50 feet, just in a working environment, you see? So when my counterparts had ideas, able to speak about ideas and throw off different collaborative ideas, I was the only one in the room with my experience and my way of doing things and creativity.
00:54:44
Speaker
Um, there was nobody else to bounce, bounce ideas off being, you know, as to go back to go to being curious, I've always wanted to know what makes everything work with the conversation. You know, you have this, it goes here, it goes here, it goes here, you know, um, excelling in certain things. You have to practice, you dedicate time.
00:55:05
Speaker
How are you going to get there? That's with everything. When I was in sports, whether I was in education, whether I was dancing, I wanted to completely dive in deep. I think there are so many different biases as being a Black man that you can't experience those because it's not this stereotypical. For example, I speak really proper.
00:55:35
Speaker
me and now I think me in urban communities, I think that I even still, I mean, I still get it. Certain people, you know, would date me before that won't date me, you know, like I've gotten that I speak to
00:55:49
Speaker
too good. I don't, not the typical, you know, what box do I cut a cookie cutter? Yes. And I think the idea of the black masculine body or the black being black and masculine, just now in a general topic that there is particularly no box, right? Yeah. We shouldn't be fit into a box, you know? Yes. I think that the
00:56:12
Speaker
the black masculinity should be explored into the full authentic self, if that makes sense. Where it's not, if you do this, you are gay. If you do this, you are bi. If you do this, you are less than of a man. Because I think that they expect the black masculine body or the black masculinity to be at the top. So it's a type of being stoic and being masculine and being
00:56:40
Speaker
you know rough and being sometimes angry sometimes being feared sometimes being you know manipulated because words for fetishes or whether because it's a piece or whether because it's hot for the time. Yes. So
00:56:59
Speaker
All of that is the black masculine body, but I say that to say that for my counterparts, who might be Caucasian or who might be Asian. For a prime example, I went to South Korea, which was beautiful. My sister Elizabeth was teaching abroad for about four or five years.
00:57:20
Speaker
And I went over there, you know, I went to go visit her because she was kind of being homesick. You know, it was, you know, I was like, why not go to South Korea? So I took this 16 hour flight to go visit her in South Korea. And I noticed that it was completely different there. You know, it was so different that
00:57:38
Speaker
women were like friends who were who are women they were dressing alike girls were dressing alike they would see each other's laps no problem and men would do the same thing they would be really playful they would see each other's laps they would hold hands they would dress alike it was similar right yes there was no it was no blurred lines and no one called them a gay lesbian nobody called them queer it was just the way of society right the way of society right i go to different communities where um
00:58:07
Speaker
uh my Caucasian friends you know you know they're allowed to explore themselves or try to uh oh i'm gonna do this i want to try it and then be praised because they're trying something new they're being praised because they are they're um exploring the outsides of the of the world they get praised for experimentation and failure yes
00:58:30
Speaker
versus the black masculinity there is no, I mean there's praise but then when you fail you're being vilified and then you're being dragged through the mud and then any anything you do is a slippery slope, right? Anything you say is a slippery slope.
00:58:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I experienced. And that's what I've also seen. So it can be really, really hard. I think that also not only just looking out of the community, but also inside the community as well. I think we hold ourselves to a standard of
00:59:04
Speaker
you know how can you be you know one way yeah yeah yeah but also yeah hands with a guy just doesn't mix right because yeah that's like the epitome of being masculine being you know or masculinity or you know or being you know just yeah just the training of a man and you know that type of
00:59:21
Speaker
you know, ego-driven, you know, alpha male. And there's nothing wrong with all of that. There's nothing wrong with all of that, but there's also KDB both, right? Why does one thing equate to another, especially when there's a preference, right? Just because what I like in the bedroom, or what I like as far as what I'm attracted to, shouldn't equate to what my personality is. It just doesn't equate, you know? The inside doesn't necessarily
00:59:48
Speaker
have to match what I'm doing outside because, you know, the outside is an ever-changing world. I mean, we go through the season, so the trees change. You can call that, you know, black. Yes. You know, so, yeah, I think that it's a contrast. I think ultimately in the community, we have to do a better job of supporting our black men and the black masculinity and letting us explore our black masculine sides, you know, and what that looks like to us, you know.
01:00:18
Speaker
And then also in the public, too. Is it just fetishized? Is it just hot for the moment? Or is this a lifestyle? Because it's a lifestyle for me, and it's a lifestyle to be black and masculine for a lot of my counterparts. Yes. Yes. And as you've identified, there needs to be room to try things.
01:00:42
Speaker
This is one of the keys, one of the key pieces that I think you've identified about white masculinity that that is
01:00:59
Speaker
It's just blatantly a point of racism. Let's talk about white supremacy. It is just white supremacy that there is no room for failure or no room for experimentation is what I think I hear you saying. So this is the question that I'm constantly
01:01:21
Speaker
living into us as someone who's as someone who's sense of feminine identity like in thinking about my experience of gender is based in is based in forms so much in white feminism that
01:01:37
Speaker
there is a certain just evil profoundly insidious and just rotten baked in component that there are parts of our cultures that define our success
01:01:55
Speaker
internally, not even talking about when we are working with the culture of whiteness and white folks, broadly speaking, that we are defining our level of successfulness by our proximity to whiteness.
01:02:16
Speaker
Is there a way for us to tease out what it means to be successful that is not benchmarking itself by whiteness? Wow. I think there is room. I think with anything great, especially when it has to do with, you know,
01:02:45
Speaker
equality is going to take time because I think that
01:02:55
Speaker
Things are in play, and I think that things are written, and I think that also not that things have been written and makes it law, and now that law happens, it has to be followed, and now it's not followed, then you're the black sheep, and not your, what do we do with black sheeps? What do we do with people who don't follow the normal pro quo, right? And why is the phrase the black sheep?
01:03:23
Speaker
No pun intended. So, you know, so I just think that we're going up against a lot of things that have been written and a lot of things that have been filed for so many years and so generations. Then it becomes just initially in our blood, right? It's in the way we talk. It's in the way we interact with each other. So ultimately it's a learned behavior, right?
01:03:53
Speaker
So until we can kind of get rid of everybody's learned behavior by switching the laws, switching the interactions. Yes. And kind of make it universal, right? Because like I said, I had experience in South Korea, which was mind blowing, but also appreciated it. Like I was just so in awe. I was like, wow, I want to go back to the States and hold my, hold my cousin's hand. Who's a guy? Like, you know, like, because we're cousins. Right. And have that be okay.
01:04:20
Speaker
But ultimately, I definitely do think that certain systems have been in place because there was a mentality that it should happen and it needs to happen this way. And I don't think until those ideologies kind of dissipate and say that that's not okay for just overall humanity.
01:04:43
Speaker
I don't think there's gonna be any type of girl but I do think there is space and I do think that we are living in the space where we're getting closer to a space I think this is probably like you know like before we were living in the space like it was so much happening boom boom boom after all but now we're actually living in a place where people are starting to discuss.
01:05:02
Speaker
what they can do better, you know, as just a human being, right? What they, how can they treat somebody better, you know? And I think I'm looking outside of it, of just religion, because God says it a certain way, treat unto others as you would want to treat it. But just because you're my brother or you're my sister, you know? Like, you know, like, did you eat today? You know, how are you feeling? You know, how was work?
01:05:27
Speaker
or just something outside of the norm where you just take out the colorism because you realize a lot of this is colorism and classism and where you come from, what do you do, who do you hang out with and now the whole event of social media is only making it even worse because now it's about
01:05:46
Speaker
who you know and you know it's not that genuine genuine feel of his call. And what you can communicate in 60 seconds. Right, right. You know, click baits, click baits. So I definitely do think that the spaces are being created. But I think that with anything great, it's going to need time. Yeah, I also think that also I think that
01:06:09
Speaker
that old way of thinking has to completely, you know, kind of be done with, you know, and I think it's happening, you know, I'm looking around the world, I think that the pandemic really closed a lot of doors for people who weren't really who were holding the door closed, nobody can walk through, right, when he can get through.
01:06:26
Speaker
But I also think that there's a lot more work that needs to be done. And conversations like this that are happening, and not only just with us, but seeing around just a certain type of people are like, I don't want that to happen. And why isn't anybody talking about this? Or did you notice that? But yeah, I think that needs to happen more, being aware. Yes.
01:06:56
Speaker
you hit on a couple of things again just to tease it out like it is in our blood that over the generations of people who have
01:07:13
Speaker
experienced whatever sort of oppression it is, for whatever part of who they are, it is that trauma is something that lives in us. We don't get the choice to not inherit it
01:07:31
Speaker
When, when we are born and we have, thankfully the, we have, we have the privilege of being able to ask the question, how am I going to, how am I going to deal with that? Can I break the cycle of trauma? Can I.
01:07:59
Speaker
How can I find the healing that I need? Who can be a part of my healing journey? At least that's the experience that it's been for me in trying to recover what it means to be Korean but be adopted, what it means to be
01:08:19
Speaker
to be in a gender bendy sort of space and not have met my trans and disabled big sibs until I was well over the age of 30. I'm not sure that I have another question, but just want to mark the point that
01:08:45
Speaker
We get to choose to live differently. Yes, it takes a lot of work and usually some sort of help from the community or professionals who have gone before us, but we get to live differently in spite of what our politicians and our media tell us.
01:09:08
Speaker
right, especially from what our parents lived, you know, their lifestyle, you know, what they experienced, you know, what they had to go through, you know, you know, whether it was, you know, living in communities, what they had to experience, you know, not having the resources, not having the organizations now that they have now, you know, that was supporting them and helping them from eviction or their, you know,
01:09:33
Speaker
support, whether it's food or rent or getting a light shut off, you know, transportation, you know, and then go back even further is the grandparents, what they had to do with, especially the race issues, you know, what they had to experience and
01:09:47
Speaker
How did they survive? So whenever I speak, I always remember that I come from a lineage, right? And the work that I'm doing now is because my forefathers or my people that I know, wherever community I'm in, have the chance to
Supporting LGBTQ+ Youth
01:10:03
Speaker
do that work. And I'm just picking up where they left off because I'm a younger body, I have a little more energy, and this is how you train the next generation for the fight or the struggle that they might, the things that they might face.
01:10:17
Speaker
to go back into like a lot of the organizations, you know, especially for the LGBTQ plus community. Yeah, but a lot of different organizations that kind of care to the youth and provide them with resources and housing and shelter, you know, which is like you don't realize how much that
01:10:35
Speaker
that helps. Versus when I was young, 16, 17, growing up and I saw a lot of my friends who were homeless because they got kicked out, you know, what were they doing for money? You know, now there's places and things set in place, you know, that can help them, you know. Even still, I can remember a time when
01:10:53
Speaker
For the library, I wanted to do something different while I was at the library. This was before I was at the Performing Arts Library. I was at the Jerome Park Library in the Bronx when I was living out there. And I speak to my manager, and she was just so inspiring. And also another thing, I had some great leaders in my lifetime. I've had some amazing leaders in my lifetime.
01:11:20
Speaker
being around leaders who are leaders and they've had to have the struggles, when you see someone who is a leader themselves and they're still trying to navigate who they are and what they want to do, you're helping mold that kind of
01:11:37
Speaker
way of being how you're going to rise to the occasion. So I say that to say I said I went to my boss one day and I realized that the library goes to Rikers Island once you know once every month you know they was visited through the Rikers Island I said well my parents go to the
01:11:53
Speaker
Library, the jail? I've heard about Ryker's. I was so scared. I was like, wow. But I was so scared, but I was also intrigued. I was like, what is going on? Why wasn't I worried about it? Why am I not there helping? Why am I not there helping my brothers? So I said, hey, Nicola, do you mind if I apply to be this part-time librarian at Ryker's Island? And she was like, yeah, just give me the details, and what days you need. We'll first figure something out.
01:12:24
Speaker
So I was like, um, okay. So, but at that, at that moment you have to realize I was about maybe a six months to a year in.
01:12:36
Speaker
And I think they were just retaining their whole staff. I wasn't in a librarian at that time, but I was already an assistant to the children's department who had a librarian. They would do programs, book talks, all of this. Then there wasn't a young adult librarian. So I accepted the role as a young adult librarian, handling the collection and the program for young adults. And then she needed somebody to be second in charge when she wasn't there. So here I was already a year and a half in being all this about everybody else.
01:13:05
Speaker
So I was kind of go-to. So we had a rapport where she can come to me. She'd know my work ethic. So anything I knew I was going to get involved in, she was like, absolutely, why not? I think it would be great for you. That's the next step of your journey.
01:13:17
Speaker
I started going to, I reached out to someone in the corrections facilities for the libraries, particularly department. And then I said, come to a training. They talked about the training and what you should do, what you should not do. And I said, wow, this is getting real, this is getting intense. So first day, we had to meet in Long Island City next to Delhi.
01:13:39
Speaker
And we had to be like nine, nine o'clock. And then we had to take a bus from Long Island City over to Rikers Island. And you're on a bus with everybody else. Because you have to take a bus, MTA bus, and then you get another bus that goes around the whole campus. We go, it's about four or five of us, we go on the bus with everybody else, and then we're lined up in a circle. And then they have the door come around, they sniff you out.
01:14:05
Speaker
then you show your badges, you go through one checkpoint, you go to another checkpoint, you show your badges, then you go to another checkpoint, you walk through to gymnasium and you just see this big open gymnasium and the only thing that's separating you
01:14:20
Speaker
Anybody else is just like a row of crates, all the materials, periodicals, magazines, books, literature. We had some biographies. We had some urban novels.
01:14:38
Speaker
So anything that was like kind of being donated was said to the edge of people can actually check them out. And then also we had a clipboard would write down the person's ID number. We also, you know, write down. I mean, too, they were checking out. But in that aspect,
01:14:56
Speaker
I was in a different community, right? But I also knew that being a black man, I could have made one choice. I could have made a choice to be somewhere else and chose to be there and ended up at any moment in my life there. Or someone could have made a choice to you. Right, right. Less we forget. Right, exactly.
01:15:25
Speaker
I was so in awe. I was so inspired again, not because of the position I played, just because of their spirit. I'm a great person. I'm a great communicator. And I think that whenever I get a chance to communicate on a deeper level with somebody, then
01:15:52
Speaker
That just ultimately makes me feel a lot better because there's nothing behind it. There's nothing contrived. There's nothing false. There's nothing unnatural or unreal about it.
01:16:08
Speaker
So I learned so much because I was realizing just, you know, the conversations, you would have these conversations. I was more worried about what would you read? What do you read? Like, what do you like to read, right? What do you find? You know, there were some of the patrons would
01:16:27
Speaker
Oh, I need the second series. If you have the second series, can you make sure you bring it to me? Or I need the new magazine for this month. Can you make sure you bring some next time that just takes them out the system. It was inspirational because I got to learn about
01:16:45
Speaker
materials more in a different way. Like I'm always learning, right? I've always tried to make sure that even though I'm an educator, how can I also learn so I can be better at educating, right? And I think with education, it's with education, it should be free, right? Education should be free because that knowledge, it can be passed on.
01:17:08
Speaker
those experiences can be passed on, right? And I think that knowledge that I gained as far as helping the patrons, especially in that element, was even more than anything I've ever done, only because
01:17:28
Speaker
It hit home. These are my brothers. These were the same people I grew up with. These were the same people that
01:17:38
Speaker
might have made a bad decision, right, you know, or was in a wrong environment, right, you know, or they didn't have the resources, the same resources that I had, or wasn't given the same opportunities that I had, or wasn't curious the way I was curious to say I want to test this out or try this out, or it's okay if I fail, you know, because I didn't mind failing, you know, I didn't mind
01:18:01
Speaker
I didn't mind falling completely on my face, getting a bloody nose, scrapes and bruises. I have to be out of work for two, two or three weeks and then come back even stronger. Now I know I'm not going to fall, and if I do fall, I'm not going to fall as hard. So yeah, I just say that it's been many, many situations, but that one really sticks out to me because I've always been trying, I've always tried to volunteer and get back to the community, right? I've always tried to,
01:18:30
Speaker
but not only just give back to the community, be a part of the community. What sense are you here visiting community on special occasions where you're not really here every day to see what happens, what's happening or what's going on, right? So now you're just benefiting to say you did something.
01:18:47
Speaker
So I've always tried to make sure that if I'm going to be supporting a community, I have to make sure that I am with them in the community day on and day out. So I know what's going on. I know the stories. It's a personal level, you know? Yes. Yeah. There's an arc to your career, to your story that I'm just noticing. So you've done this work of
01:19:19
Speaker
of documenting the ballroom scene at the library. You did this work as well of bringing opportunities for reading and information and knowledge to the work of the prison system, to Rikers. You did the work of bringing these conversations into events at the Lincoln Center.
01:19:50
Speaker
There is this trend that I think that I'm noticing is that you have this gift of creating the frame, the space, the container, so that other people can have this opportunity to learn and experience and grow and to live. And there aren't a lot of people, I would say that
01:20:15
Speaker
that lead with that skill. And we've all had our times when we've been the creators on stage. And we all still do that as well. That's what keeps us being the artists that we are. But that skill of building the container, of crafting the space in which life and discovery can happen is
01:20:41
Speaker
so important. Yes, yeah, absolutely. And I've, I've been fortunate, you know, I think that I know that I've been fortunate. That's the thing, like, I'm so aware that I know that I'm fortunate, that I know that I was meant to be here, I was meant to be in this particular space, I was meant to be in this particular body, I was meant to have this particular mind frame, I was meant to go here or do this, or
01:21:10
Speaker
And then being aware of that, and then now that you're here and you're aware, what are the experiences you're going to have here? Because now then it's about the experiences.
01:21:21
Speaker
what do you bring to the experience now? Because now you're in the space and you're sharing the space. And you have to take yourself completely. The ego has to be completely out of it. There cannot be any ego. And I say that to say that I think in a lot of situations with education, you have to approach education in a form of you're an infant.
01:21:46
Speaker
You have to really explore the unknowns in education because if you come to education,
01:21:54
Speaker
knowing, thinking you're educated, you're gonna be, you know, mind blown by if you learn something else. But if you always know, if you always know that education is something continuous, is not a start and end time of education, whether you are in your personal life, you know, whether you are building relationships, right? Or whether you are, you know, building a professional life, you know, it's a, it's a,
01:22:19
Speaker
layer and layer and layer and layer of education that happens.
01:22:25
Speaker
And I think I've been able to grasp that understanding that I'm a student. I'm always going to be a student. And even when I become a parent, I'm going to be a student still because I'm going to have these little minds, right? Yeah. These little minds running. And I'm like, well, we have to figure it out together. What are we going to do? And even the next journey I take,
01:22:49
Speaker
new people have to, you know, new personalities, new examples, new challenges, right? So I know that that has helped me, you know, I think that
01:23:02
Speaker
I have always been able to go inside of a situation knowing that I'm not an all in all, you know, I don't want people to, because I come from a library, I've come to do this, I do that, I'm a know it all, I don't know
Embracing Lifelong Learning
01:23:14
Speaker
it all. And I've been around people who know it all and they just end up looking arrogant, right? You don't want to be around that person. Oh yeah, I was there, I just, you know, it just, you get it. It's just like, oh, you know, so,
01:23:32
Speaker
I'm always a student, you know? Yeah, I can teach, but I would rather be a student because, oh, wow, you know what? I've never heard it.
01:23:42
Speaker
Somebody put it like that. I never heard somebody explain it like that, right? Because you have that aha moment like, wow, the way you said that, you know, I've never heard it that way. I think that's a better way of saying it so you can learn. So yeah, I'm always fascinated. I'm always fascinated by learning something new or even just growing an environment because I mean that I stay long enough to learn. Yeah. That makes sense. Well, Kenneth, I am so grateful that you've spent
01:24:14
Speaker
these moments just sharing with us the stories and working on some of this really difficult shit. We have just one question left for you. That's the same question that we ask everyone as we're wrapping up our time together. And it has a little bit to do with impact and legacy. And that question is, what do you want the world to look like when you're done with it?
01:24:38
Speaker
I want the world to look like a place that is open to all. I want it to look like a place where it is accessible to everyone. I want the world to be a place where you are able to
01:25:07
Speaker
explore vicariously because it's a Tuesday. I want the world to be more forgiving. I think that it's OK to fall. I think that the world needs to be more forgiving and know that we are imperfect. And imperfections are what make us who we are. If we were perfect, we would be AI.
01:25:34
Speaker
if you don't want to be AI, right? Uh-oh. But no, I just think that in order for, I would love to see that, you know? I think that also comes in love and
01:25:49
Speaker
and also just being genuine, but I also want people to really realize that it's okay to be yourself. It's okay to explore. I want people to understand that it doesn't matter where you come from or where you're going or what experiences you had, whether they're positive or negative, that you're not defined by those
01:26:11
Speaker
Those experiences those situations because you're fortunate to live another day to try again I just want people just to understand that from the soul and Spiritual and just internally so that could be projected out Into the world so continue to pay for it, you know Thank you so much Kenneth Murphy for being on the program, thank you so much fully I
01:26:41
Speaker
My thanks to my guest Kenneth Murphy. You can find out more about him and his work at the links in the episode description. Thank you for tuning in to Uncommon Good with Paulie Reese. This program is produced in Southwest Philadelphia in the unceded neighborhood of the Black Bottom community.
01:26:57
Speaker
and on the ancestral land of the Lenape Nation, who remain here in the era of the Fourth Crow and fight for official recognition by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to this day. You can find out more about the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania and how you can support the revitalization of their culture by going to lenape-nation.org. Our associate producers are Willa Jaffe and Kia Watkins.
01:27:22
Speaker
If you enjoy listening to the show, please support us by leaving us a five-star review and a comment and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts. It really does help people find us. Uncommon Good is also available on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram at UncommonGoodPod. Follow us there for closed caption video content and more goodies. We love questions and feedback.
01:27:45
Speaker
You can send us a DM on social media or an email at uncommongoodpod at gmail.com. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, wishing you every uncommon good to do your uncommon good, to be the uncommon good.