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The Grave Woman: Discussing Racism and “Good" Death
28 Plays3 years ago
It might seem surprising, but racism remains an issue within the funeral industry despite all the talks on gender equality in this modern society. Today’s episode on the Glam Reaper Podcast with the “Grave Woman”, Joél Simone Maldonado unveils the struggles that take place behind the scenes, and how the issue of racism has been a pushback for women and women of color in the funeral industry.
Joél is a licensed mortician, funeral director, embalmer and who calls herself, ‘The Sacred Greek Practitioner’. Nowadays, her focus is in the practice of educating people, funeral industry professionals and students about cultural competency, racial inclusion, regardless of faith, race, age, or status.
There were some technical difficulties during the recording of this episode but Jennifer thinks that there will be a sequel to the conversation; as Joél has a lot more to offer in the funeral industry.
LITTLE NUGGETS OF GOLD:
- Who is “The Grave Woman” and what does she do now as part of the funeral industry?
- How did she become "The Grave Woman"?
- What were the bizarre coincidences since childhood that led Joél to this industry?
- What are Joél’s thoughts in educating the funeral community and the diversity within it?
- As a woman of color, does she feel there is a ‘pushback’ for her each time she attends funeral conventions and conferences?
- Some people she would love to have on her Power Team
Connect with Joél Simone Maldonado:
Website - http://www.thegravewoman.com/
Podcast - Death & Grief Talk with The Grave Woman®
https://podcasts.apple.com/hu/podcast/death-grief-talk-with-the-grave-woman/id1544895995
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thegravewoman/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqGB5A2Q7Q1epYkFdJETeA
Connect with Jennifer/The Glam Reaper:
Facebook Page - Muldowney Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/MuldowneyMemorials/
Facebook Page - Rainbow Bridge Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/rainbowbridgememorialsdotcom
Instagram - @muldowneymemorials & @jennifermuldowney
Twitter - @TheGlamReaper
Email us here: glamreaperpodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Diversity in Funeral Community
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:00:03
Speaker
I'm your host Jennifer Muldowney aka the Glam Reaper herself.
00:00:08
Speaker
On today's episode I meet another fabulously named woman, the Grave Woman and as quiet in some ways as that name sounds, Joelle is anything...
00:00:23
Speaker
but quiet.
00:00:25
Speaker
And today we're talking diversity, culture within the funeral community and getting women seen on stage.
00:00:33
Speaker
Let's take it away.
Joelle's Prophetic Childhood Drawing
00:00:44
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:00:49
Speaker
I am very excited.
00:00:51
Speaker
I love when I get somebody on my podcast that has a kind of a nickname like I do.
00:00:55
Speaker
So while I'm known as the Glam Reaper, I have as my guest today, the Grave Woman.
00:01:02
Speaker
So now I have a question.
00:01:03
Speaker
Is it Joelle or Joel or tell me about your name.
00:01:07
Speaker
Tell me about yourself, but tell me about your name.
00:01:09
Speaker
It's Joelle.
00:01:10
Speaker
Thank you for asking.
00:01:11
Speaker
Joelle.
00:01:12
Speaker
Lovely.
00:01:13
Speaker
No problem.
00:01:13
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:01:14
Speaker
So, Joelle, you are the grave
Influences of Joelle's Career Path
00:01:16
Speaker
woman.
00:01:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:16
Speaker
Incredible.
00:01:17
Speaker
I want to know where you got your name and what do you do?
00:01:20
Speaker
Tell us about you and your fabulousness.
00:01:22
Speaker
OK, so I'll start with a story.
00:01:24
Speaker
The name is actually a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.
00:01:29
Speaker
I drew a picture when I was eight years old in this very house that I'm in right now, which is my grandmother's house.
00:01:35
Speaker
She and my grandfather built this house 50 years ago.
00:01:38
Speaker
And we used to have what we call nonny day camp.
00:01:41
Speaker
During the summer, you know, you're out of school, you go play, watch TV, sleep all day.
00:01:45
Speaker
Not us.
00:01:46
Speaker
We were in nonny day camp.
00:01:48
Speaker
My grandmother was an educator.
00:01:49
Speaker
So she believed in feeding our minds, even though we weren't in school.
00:01:53
Speaker
So we'd go outside and do art projects.
00:01:56
Speaker
And I love to draw.
00:01:57
Speaker
So I draw.
00:01:59
Speaker
And I drew a picture of myself standing in a cemetery in front of a microphone with these bold red lips.
00:02:05
Speaker
And on the side, it said, I am the grave woman.
00:02:09
Speaker
No way.
00:02:10
Speaker
I have no recollection of drawing this picture,
Jennifer's Journey to the Funeral Industry
00:02:13
Speaker
none whatsoever.
00:02:14
Speaker
And it wasn't until I was about to graduate mortuary school in 2012 that my sister found a scrapbook that my grandmother had made for my high school graduation.
00:02:27
Speaker
And the second page was this picture of myself saying I'm the grave woman, but the craziest part is, Jennifer, I had started a blog in mortuary school as a way to vent.
00:02:39
Speaker
called the grave woman.
00:02:41
Speaker
No way.
00:02:42
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:42
Speaker
I need no recollection of this.
00:02:44
Speaker
I have no recollection.
00:02:45
Speaker
The picture's actually on my Instagram.
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's the freakiest thing.
00:02:50
Speaker
And it was dated September 11th, 1994, right?
00:02:55
Speaker
Prior to going to mortuary school, I worked in a cemetery and I started seeing the date 9-11 or the number 9-11.
00:03:03
Speaker
That was my first introduction to numerology.
00:03:07
Speaker
I started seeing 9-11.
00:03:09
Speaker
I started mortuary school in September 2011, which was 9-11.
00:03:12
Speaker
Oh, my gosh.
00:03:14
Speaker
The same number from the photo.
00:03:17
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:03:18
Speaker
And you know what?
00:03:19
Speaker
It's not nearly as clear of a fortune telling story.
00:03:25
Speaker
Like, that's amazing.
00:03:26
Speaker
Mine is, I mean, the glamour was totally given to me by the media, but I actually, I'm convinced I was destined for this my whole entire life because even as a child, when I used to practice my handwriting and then calligraphy and stuff, I practiced an epitaph.
00:03:43
Speaker
from a headstone.
00:03:44
Speaker
And I like I still remember to this day.
00:03:47
Speaker
It's like a beautiful little poem about.
00:03:49
Speaker
Well, actually, very tragically, like, I mean, I kind of wonder if it was about dead children.
00:03:56
Speaker
It's a beautiful piece.
00:03:57
Speaker
And obviously, it's very heartbreaking and sad.
00:03:59
Speaker
But yeah, that's what I used to practice.
00:04:01
Speaker
And and then even like and I joke about this so much, but like then even as a teenager, as most Irish people do, we went to work.
00:04:09
Speaker
You work quite young, I guess here, but like 14, 15 years old.
00:04:14
Speaker
And I went to work in a bar and the bar was called The Morgue.
Cultural Influence on Funeral Practices
00:04:20
Speaker
I know not quite the same but like when I started adding it all up I was like wait a second this is kind of adding up a little bit um so that's amazing and so what um if it wasn't that what drew you into this business definitely definitely so um
00:04:38
Speaker
I had an uncle that was a mortician and he would come home for holidays and I would go visit him in Florida for like spring breaks and the weekends and things like that.
00:04:49
Speaker
And he'd answer all my questions.
00:04:52
Speaker
I've always been morbidly curious.
00:04:54
Speaker
Like you, you probably get it.
00:04:55
Speaker
Like there is this energy that's in the death care arena that just draws me.
00:05:01
Speaker
My culture is very centered on death and ancestors and the connection that we have to the afterlife.
00:05:08
Speaker
But my uncle was really, really, really instrumental because he not only answered my questions, but he also took me into the funeral home, took me into the embalming room, took me into the arrangement conferences with him and let me basically shadow and learn from him.
00:05:22
Speaker
And my first...
00:05:26
Speaker
acquaintance with death was through my great grandmother.
00:05:29
Speaker
I would, I remember being a very little child and asking everyone around her or us, us at the funeral, why is she laying in this bed box?
00:05:40
Speaker
Who put her in there?
00:05:40
Speaker
Who did her makeup?
00:05:41
Speaker
Why are we watching her sleep?
00:05:43
Speaker
If she's asleep, why is she going to, why are we putting her in the ground?
00:05:46
Speaker
Why are we covering her with dirt?
00:05:47
Speaker
So I've always had that curiosity.
00:05:49
Speaker
And then tragically a friend, my first best friend died accidentally.
00:05:55
Speaker
And I,
00:05:58
Speaker
It's just always been fascinating to me.
00:06:01
Speaker
And so that curiosity and that fascination turned into research, turned into shadowing my uncle, that turned into, hey, I want to go to the funeral home.
00:06:12
Speaker
Where I grew up, Beaufort, South Carolina, where I live now, my family spent a lot of time
00:06:19
Speaker
in the church, right?
00:06:21
Speaker
And a big part of the mission service that my mother and my grandmothers and aunts did was taking care of people when they were passing away, basically doulaship.
00:06:29
Speaker
But there wasn't, they didn't call it that and taking care of their families.
00:06:33
Speaker
So, I mean, it's just been all around me my entire life.
00:06:37
Speaker
My dad used to take us to the graveyard to spend time, like have picnics with our ancestors that it passed on.
00:06:44
Speaker
So it's like, I don't know
00:06:48
Speaker
if it's a draw or if it's just a level of existence.
00:06:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:53
Speaker
It definitely, you, you, you hit the nail on the head or the nail in the coffin.
00:06:58
Speaker
And as they say that in death care, it is, there is kind of something just innate in us.
00:07:03
Speaker
And what, what,
00:07:06
Speaker
don't want to say irritates me, but what does irritate me a little bit is this idea that we're all goths or that we're all sort of, you know, wear black all the time.
00:07:14
Speaker
And we're this kind of, you know, and yeah, sure.
00:07:19
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:07:19
Speaker
There are some of us that are morbid, curious
The Need for Diversity in Funeral Education
00:07:23
Speaker
in that way.
00:07:23
Speaker
And that's, you know, we wear it and that's our identity and stuff like that.
00:07:28
Speaker
But there's also, as you know, I met you at the NFDA and
00:07:32
Speaker
There's also those of us in pink suits and red lips and, you know, and bright colors and we're just different.
00:07:39
Speaker
And it's one of the things I get, I absolutely know from meeting you that you get it, is that people kind of look at you and go, but you're not sad and morbid all the time.
00:07:48
Speaker
You don't whisper.
00:07:49
Speaker
What's going on here?
00:07:51
Speaker
And so, yeah, it is.
00:07:53
Speaker
There's definitely there is that draw within all of us, but we are all so different.
00:07:57
Speaker
And I kind of I want to shed more light like I've infamously on my Instagram picture of.
00:08:05
Speaker
lurch from the Adams family I think it is and me in a red dress roaring laughing you know and it's just the difference you know because that's the lurch in the Adams family and oh god there's a new series now I think I call Wednesday or whatever but the Adams family are back and cool but like that's what people historically sort of think of when they think of anybody from the funeral community now what is it that you do and what does the grave woman you know do you do and you know your business what is it that you provide to people
00:08:35
Speaker
Definitely.
00:08:36
Speaker
So I am a licensed mortician, funeral director, and bomber, all of those things.
00:08:40
Speaker
But my practice now is more so on education.
00:08:44
Speaker
I create continuing education courses for funeral directors.
00:08:48
Speaker
I create what I call grief alchemy sessions and courses and workshops for the public.
00:08:54
Speaker
And my mission is really to have open and honest conversation about death and grief.
00:08:59
Speaker
And I refer to myself as a sacred grief practitioner.
00:09:03
Speaker
So it's twofold.
00:09:04
Speaker
I educate the death care community about inclusion, diversity, the spiritual aspect of the work that we do and about cultural competence.
00:09:14
Speaker
But on the other side, for the families, for the general public, for those that are experiencing loss or just curious about life and death and how to navigate grief in between, I help alchemize loss and grief and turn it into purpose.
00:09:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:30
Speaker
And and you've I you know, on your website, you've so many courses and resources, ebooks and things like that, that people should definitely check it out.
00:09:37
Speaker
Thegravewoman.com.
00:09:39
Speaker
I think.
00:09:40
Speaker
Right.
00:09:40
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:41
Speaker
I always have to double check.
00:09:42
Speaker
My memory is terrible.
Challenges of Being a Black Woman in the Industry
00:09:45
Speaker
And yeah, there's lots of really great resources on there.
00:09:47
Speaker
But talk to me a little bit more.
00:09:50
Speaker
Obviously, as a female anyway, it's fascinating and was fascinating coming into this industry, I call it funeral community, whatever.
00:10:00
Speaker
How do you feel like diversity wise?
00:10:03
Speaker
Like, what's your experience?
00:10:04
Speaker
I'm obviously from Ireland, so I'm fresh if ish to it in the United States.
00:10:10
Speaker
But what are your thoughts and what?
00:10:12
Speaker
teachings do you have to kind of bring to educate people on on the funeral community and diversity within us because it is typically antiquated white male.
00:10:23
Speaker
It's definitely antiquated white male.
00:10:25
Speaker
I mean, it is what it is.
00:10:26
Speaker
In mortuary school here, we don't learn anything but how to care for white people that
00:10:31
Speaker
celebrate life and funeralize and memorialize their loved ones in a very Eurocentric way.
00:10:38
Speaker
So for me as a black woman coming into this industry, I didn't really have a lot of people to look up to online that look like me.
00:10:49
Speaker
Right.
00:10:50
Speaker
And so believe it or not, Caitlin was actually the one that encouraged me to make my YouTube channel, turn my blog into a YouTube channel.
00:10:58
Speaker
And I did that and I realized that there were more people like me.
00:11:03
Speaker
And what I also realized going to mortuary school is that they don't talk about us.
00:11:08
Speaker
They don't talk about our culture.
00:11:09
Speaker
And when I say us, I don't want to place
00:11:13
Speaker
BIPOC individuals into one box because we're so individual.
00:11:16
Speaker
We're so nuanced.
00:11:17
Speaker
There's so many caveats to who we are as people, right?
00:11:21
Speaker
But there's no care, no educational care for our hair, our makeup, our culture at the end of life.
00:11:29
Speaker
And that's what I bring to the table.
00:11:31
Speaker
I don't know everything, but because of the experience I've had working in the industry for almost 15 years and because of
00:11:39
Speaker
My experience as a Black woman, I feel like I have the right to speak on those things and shed light on the lack of diversity in the industry.
00:11:47
Speaker
Also, as a woman, it's let's just take being a Black woman out of it.
00:11:52
Speaker
Being a woman in this industry was a total culture shock for me.
00:11:59
Speaker
Because remember, I used to go to the funeral home with my uncle, who was a protector, who loved me, who cared about me.
00:12:05
Speaker
Experiencing things like sexism, sexual advances, unwanted sexual advances from men, or just being told that I couldn't perform this job because I was a woman was, it pissed me off.
00:12:21
Speaker
Frankly.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:24
Speaker
I know that fire.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah.
Women in the Funeral Industry
00:12:27
Speaker
It's yeah.
00:12:28
Speaker
It's wild to me.
00:12:29
Speaker
And it's wild on so many levels.
00:12:33
Speaker
You know, I can only speak from like we all can only speak from our own experiences and our own cultural.
00:12:39
Speaker
But it's fascinating to me because originally, originally women were the caretakers of the dead.
00:12:44
Speaker
You know, and that's so fascinating, but it's like money came into it and suddenly we were shimmied back to the kitchen stove and business.
00:12:54
Speaker
And now from what I'm hearing, we're taking it back.
00:12:58
Speaker
I believe 70 percent of more Tereskill students are women winning.
00:13:03
Speaker
But even like to your to your point, like.
00:13:10
Speaker
it's mind boggling that in 2022, that in mortuary school, like medical school, like it's still a part of medicine.
00:13:19
Speaker
As far as I'm concerned, it's just the final part.
00:13:21
Speaker
Um, that, that care and that cultural, exactly as you said, hair alone.
00:13:26
Speaker
Um, I have, you know, uh, uh,
00:13:30
Speaker
it's makeup like most funeral homes that I have visited.
00:13:37
Speaker
You know, I know that they only have the white, ridiculously pale, pasty makeup.
00:13:43
Speaker
And I mean, oh, it's just it should never have been the case, to be honest.
00:13:48
Speaker
It should never have been that this is all that we have because
00:13:52
Speaker
you know, the world is and it always fascinates me in America because it's so it's so made up of immigrants that it's it has honed into this sort of white male very so
00:14:09
Speaker
And it, you know, I am learning of I've never gone through mortuary school because I'm not a funeral director, I'm not a licensed funeral director, nor do I want to be.
00:14:19
Speaker
And even though I've had people say, oh, you know, you should do it to try and understand or.
00:14:23
Speaker
And I'm like, no, that's that's.
00:14:24
Speaker
thank you but no that's not my forte and that's not where I see my skills or whatever um so I've never been through it um I've obviously read all the books and done all that but I've never had to sit down and do somebody's makeup and do somebody's hair and exactly that I mean it's just it's crazy to me so um I'm delighted that you're standing up and that so many others are standing up um
00:14:49
Speaker
Because even, you know, and we kind of touched on it, but like even sexuality in the workplace, homosexuality, I mean, of all types.
00:14:57
Speaker
But, you know, I'm just going to speak on that because I have experience with friends in that.
00:15:03
Speaker
You know, we've got cultural differences and we've got sexual preferences and stuff.
00:15:06
Speaker
And it's just.
00:15:09
Speaker
I need to nearly start saying it's such an antiquated white male, white straight male business, because that's really what it is.
Advocating for Inclusive Education
00:15:17
Speaker
And everyone else is sort of made to feel like you're on the periphery and you don't get to vote.
00:15:20
Speaker
You don't get a say.
00:15:22
Speaker
So I think absolutely, you know, the community needs more voices like you.
00:15:28
Speaker
Now on that, do you find you?
00:15:31
Speaker
in sort of the national conventions where we met and, you know, the very those various different conventions and the annual conventions.
00:15:38
Speaker
Do you get a stage and do you find your your your they're open to that or are they still pushing back on things?
00:15:45
Speaker
You know, what's interesting, this was actually the first year that I attended any conventions.
00:15:50
Speaker
I've been licensed since 2018 in the funeral industry since 2010.
00:15:54
Speaker
But
00:15:58
Speaker
This was my first year attending convention and I actually attended a workshop, I guess, an open mic session that was hosted by the American Board of Funeral Service Education and the conference exam, which is the exam we have to take here in the States in order to be recognized as a licensee, right?
00:16:17
Speaker
We have to take and pass.
00:16:18
Speaker
And I brought up the fact that their curriculum is basically failing students and failing families.
00:16:24
Speaker
because it's non-inclusive of culture, race, diversity of any kind.
00:16:29
Speaker
Even Melissa, the modern mortician, spoke up about there not being any green education in mortuary schools.
00:16:36
Speaker
And we were literally shrugged off by both the American Board of Funeral Service Education and the conference exam.
00:16:43
Speaker
We were shrugged off, literally shrugged off.
00:16:48
Speaker
So do I receive recognition or a stage of
00:16:53
Speaker
There, no.
00:16:55
Speaker
However, professionals, students, the online community, that's who cares about this message and that's who this message is impacting.
00:17:07
Speaker
And to me, that's really all I care about.
Challenges and Grassroots Support
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:11
Speaker
To be honest, because the students want more.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's great.
00:17:17
Speaker
It does sadden me.
00:17:20
Speaker
As in, it's great that you're getting those words anyway, but it saddened me that these national associations aren't kind of giving the stage to people.
00:17:31
Speaker
I don't want to be like, because I actually hate these words that are coming out of my mouth, but like the people that look like you.
00:17:36
Speaker
I hate even saying that, like I kind of want to vomit, but like, it's just like, to me, like, I don't want to...
00:17:45
Speaker
I try and kind of keep diplomacy whenever I'm talking to guests, but I do get a bit annoyed.
00:17:51
Speaker
And I've spoken to several attendees at the conventions and stuff where I'm like, it just needs to be a bit more diverse.
00:17:58
Speaker
Like there needs to be younger people up there, younger people with more energy.
00:18:02
Speaker
Like I've gone to so many workshops where I'm half falling asleep because it's
00:18:07
Speaker
you know, not to again using, and I really do, I'm allergic to kind of any of these boxing types, but like the Karens, like, you know, up on stage and I'm just like, oh my God, Snoresville, like, boss, there's nothing new with what you're saying.
00:18:21
Speaker
I'm going to sleep.
00:18:22
Speaker
Or the guy who's like profusely sweating and, you know, just should not be up there at all.
Conclusion and Call for Engagement
00:18:29
Speaker
Really frustrating when there's new people and, you know, like,
00:18:35
Speaker
yeah i don't want to name kind of names to to drag them into this conversation because it's not their you know they're not saying words i've literally been sitting beside people where i know who have hello podcasts and i'm just we're all like what there's nothing new in what you're saying here this is not revolutionary there's nothing changing so um that kind of angers me i have to say um
00:19:07
Speaker
That was a great, if not be it short, episode of the Glamoury podcast.
00:19:12
Speaker
We ran into a few technical difficulties, but we are definitely hoping to get the Grave Woman on again and maybe even in person.
00:19:19
Speaker
We would love to see her on stage.
00:19:21
Speaker
I definitely think diversity is a huge issue within the funeral community.
00:19:26
Speaker
as it is worldwide as we know and we are here for it we are here to support and do what we can uh we would love to hear any thoughts and comments you have in the box below or just generally contact us or joelle on social media we'll leave all the links below we'll talk to you next time