Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: LaTosha Brown & Chanceé Lundy Talk National Mentorship Month, Reclaiming Girlhood, Healing + More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: LaTosha Brown & Chanceé Lundy Talk National Mentorship Month, Reclaiming Girlhood, Healing + More · The Breakfast Club

0:01
Speaker 1: Every breakfast club. Y'all done warning everybody's d j n V.
0:09
Speaker 2: Just hilarious. Charlamagne, the gud we are the breakfast club
0:12
Speaker 2: Law and the ruses here as well. Special guest in
0:15
Speaker 2: the building. Now, January is National Mentorship Month.
0:19
Speaker 1: They got a month for everything that is right.
0:22
Speaker 2: We have Latasha Brown and Shawn C. Lundy. Did I
0:25
Speaker 2: say your name right? They was telling me it's a
0:28
Speaker 2: chance at first because it's spelled chance, but it's Shawn.
0:31
Speaker 3: You had an accent mark, and then I had to
0:33
Speaker 3: make sure that you wasn't LaTosha. I just want to
0:39
Speaker 3: make sure.
0:40
Speaker 1: Feeling good, good, real good.
0:43
Speaker 4: What's the importance of national mentorship?
0:46
Speaker 3: You want? Sorry? Started off?
0:47
Speaker 5: Okay, So mentorship just is important in general because we
0:52
Speaker 5: all need guidance and somebody to look up to. Like
0:55
Speaker 5: you said, we have a month for everything, but mentorship
0:58
Speaker 5: is important to me because sitting here is Latasha, who
1:02
Speaker 5: I've known since I was fourteen years old, so before
1:05
Speaker 5: there was an organization, there was anything, and before we
1:07
Speaker 5: y'all even had the term mentor. She is someone that
1:10
Speaker 5: I found as a safe space, like when I was
1:12
Speaker 5: in high school and I grew up in the nineties
1:15
Speaker 5: and you know, that's when a lot of people were
1:17
Speaker 5: getting in trouble. Drugs were out, Like a lot of
1:19
Speaker 5: things are happening within my household. She was running a
1:22
Speaker 5: girls group and we met with her every week and
1:25
Speaker 5: she talking to us about leadership, about empowerment, and it
1:27
Speaker 5: became my place to go so that I didn't get
1:30
Speaker 5: in trouble, like you know, So it just and so
1:34
Speaker 5: it's always I've always seen it. It's something important to
1:36
Speaker 5: pay it for it. So when there's no terminology, I
1:38
Speaker 5: never called her my mentor until maybe ten years ago,
1:41
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, I guess that's what it was.
1:43
Speaker 5: But it was like somebody who was looking out for me,
1:46
Speaker 5: looking out for other girls, using her own resources to
1:48
Speaker 5: take care of us and us being a part of
1:50
Speaker 5: organizations is just making sure that we had something to do,
1:52
Speaker 5: Like it's that guidance that you're not getting necessarily at
1:55
Speaker 5: home and having somebody else to talk to, somebody that
1:58
Speaker 5: helped guide you along the way and to bounce ideas
2:01
Speaker 5: off of, because you know, we can get inside our heads,
2:03
Speaker 5: especially when you're a teenager about what you think is
2:05
Speaker 5: right and you have somebody like, no, that's not right,
2:08
Speaker 5: and you know you don't listen to your mama all
2:09
Speaker 5: the time, so that somebody's like that kind of reinforces
2:13
Speaker 5: those things that you know, maybe you should take make
2:16
Speaker 5: different decisions.
2:17
Speaker 2: What did y'all mean?
2:18
Speaker 4: We were?
2:19
Speaker 6: This was in the early nineties. I was twenty four
2:21
Speaker 6: years old and't know what I was doing. What I
2:23
Speaker 6: knew from Selma, Alabama, Alabama. In Selma, Alabama, and it
2:29
Speaker 6: was the first I met her as really interesting. When
2:32
Speaker 6: I met her, I immediately knew it was something special
2:34
Speaker 6: in her. She lived in a local house and public
2:37
Speaker 6: housing community not too far from my where I was.
2:40
Speaker 6: And while I didn't really know all the things to do,
2:44
Speaker 6: I knew that I had something to offer and I
2:46
Speaker 6: knew she had something to offer me. And so even
2:48
Speaker 6: when I'm thinking about mentorship, like all of us, I'm
2:51
Speaker 6: hoping that not only we mentoring somebody, but somebody's mentoring
2:54
Speaker 6: us too, because I don't think that mentorship is just
2:56
Speaker 6: based on you being a young person. I think that
2:59
Speaker 6: that's one phase of it, right, But every single generation
3:02
Speaker 6: is depositing wisdom and information or should be in each other.
3:06
Speaker 6: When we get to the point that we don't listen
3:08
Speaker 6: to anybody else, like like the older sisters are mentoring me,
3:12
Speaker 6: right that from my relationship to move with my money
3:15
Speaker 6: to how moving with myself. And so I say that
3:18
Speaker 6: because you can't even find a you can't find a
3:20
Speaker 6: great person. I think about Oprah. She always talks about
3:23
Speaker 6: how Maya Andrew was her mentor. Right, So each of
3:25
Speaker 6: us we need somebody pouring And if there's any time
3:29
Speaker 6: that we need to build community, it's in this moment.
3:31
Speaker 1: We yeah, I'll go ask you with who is your mentor?
3:34
Speaker 4: Because you everybody's.
3:38
Speaker 6: So you know, there's a couple of sisters that have
3:40
Speaker 6: been in my life. There's one in particularly that's coming up.
3:42
Speaker 6: This is a sister named Barbara Perkins, Doctor Barbara Perkins.
3:46
Speaker 6: Who is She's really like a spiritual I just I
3:49
Speaker 6: like everything I can. In some ways she's like a
3:53
Speaker 6: sister friend. In some ways she's a mentor. But she's
3:55
Speaker 6: about ten years older than I am, and she's been
3:58
Speaker 6: such a blessing in my life because sometimes you can't
4:00
Speaker 6: see yourself. You need other people to help you see
4:03
Speaker 6: you right and be able to be corrected. Be corrected
4:07
Speaker 6: because oftentimes we don't think love.
4:09
Speaker 1: We think love is somebody just making you feel good.
4:12
Speaker 6: Love is actually somebody correcting you, right, even if you're
4:15
Speaker 6: thinking about your parents. But it was some sisters that
4:18
Speaker 6: might say back in the day, because you know, back
4:20
Speaker 6: in the day we were showing it all. It might
4:22
Speaker 6: be that sister saying, maybe you might not need to
4:24
Speaker 6: go on the meeting, you know, with this skirt on,
4:27
Speaker 6: and on some level at the time, I may have
4:30
Speaker 6: felt something around it, right, but I understood the wisdom.
4:33
Speaker 6: As I've gotten old, I've understood the wisdom in that.
4:36
Speaker 6: And so she's one. There's a sister down in Selling, Alabama,
4:39
Speaker 6: fire Year Roads to Ray who's an activist who actually
4:43
Speaker 6: was a mentor to me and has been and continue
4:45
Speaker 6: to be a mentor and inspiration for me.
4:47
Speaker 1: And then my family. I got some bad sisters from
4:50
Speaker 1: the South.
4:51
Speaker 6: When I think of my ninety two year old aunt
4:53
Speaker 6: who raised me, Lama so elevate and all of these sisters.
4:58
Speaker 6: Sometimes it's not just the ones that are just pouring
5:01
Speaker 6: into you directly. Sometimes it's that sister at the church
5:04
Speaker 6: that said something to you that day that shifted your life.
5:07
Speaker 6: I know that there's this woman named Barbara Pitts who
5:10
Speaker 6: is a sister who is in a twenty first century
5:13
Speaker 6: and one day we were doing this event and.
5:15
Speaker 1: She kept saying, y'all got to work hard, smarter, now harder.
5:18
Speaker 6: It hurt my feeling so bad. I was like, with
5:20
Speaker 6: ms Pits, we are working, we working. It's years later
5:23
Speaker 6: to this day, Like that's my mantra, Like I get it.
5:27
Speaker 6: And so I'm hoping even the people that are listening
5:30
Speaker 6: now you need to snatch. We can't just be so
5:33
Speaker 6: selfish that it's about you pouring into just your child.
5:37
Speaker 6: You're responsible for your child, but we're responsible our community.
5:41
Speaker 6: If our community is gonna flourish, like we've got to
5:43
Speaker 6: really be able to pour into other folks.
5:45
Speaker 1: So if God gave you a measure of wisdom.
5:47
Speaker 6: Whatever extra you got, that extra you got is because
5:50
Speaker 6: somebody out there needs. And so I hope that we
5:53
Speaker 6: really realize, I know I am not just because I
5:56
Speaker 6: had good parents or I had my family. There are
6:00
Speaker 6: so many sisters, some of them their names will take
6:03
Speaker 6: me all day to say the names. Some of their
6:05
Speaker 6: names I don't know right that have poured in and
6:07
Speaker 6: helped shape me. And so that's really important. That's what
6:10
Speaker 6: we try to do with Southern Black girls, is about
6:13
Speaker 6: how we shape in this generation like this whole idea
6:16
Speaker 6: of black women. Black women are the ones that are
6:18
Speaker 6: actually helping lead. But you don't just pop up one day,
6:21
Speaker 6: do you just and you're just a black woman. There
6:23
Speaker 6: was a process. You were a girl, right and you
6:26
Speaker 6: grew up and there were women along the way that
6:28
Speaker 6: when you were out of order or when there are
6:30
Speaker 6: things that you didn't know, that had to pour into you.
6:32
Speaker 6: And then sometimes we didn't have those, We didn't have
6:35
Speaker 6: those in our families. So it's other sisters that might
6:38
Speaker 6: pull you and pour into you. So we try to
6:40
Speaker 6: create that.
6:41
Speaker 1: I need to expound on something.
6:43
Speaker 2: I say thank you first, because the first thing you
6:45
Speaker 2: said when you walked in here was, you know, I
6:47
Speaker 2: prayed for your daughter. When I I did, I just
6:49
Speaker 2: want to say thank you. So many people have been
6:50
Speaker 2: coming up to me and saying they prayed for my daughter,
6:52
Speaker 2: and I just want to say thank you. A lot
6:54
Speaker 2: of time, we just you know, we don't say thank you.
6:55
Speaker 2: I just want to say thank you mount a lot
6:57
Speaker 2: and that love and that prayer was felt and and
7:00
Speaker 2: God put his hands over my baby girl. So I
7:01
Speaker 2: just want to say thank you.
7:02
Speaker 6: You are absolutely welcome, and we saw when she got
7:05
Speaker 6: ready to go to school. Baby, she was sharp, she
7:06
Speaker 6: was ready.
7:10
Speaker 4: I want to go back to something you said because
7:12
Speaker 4: I thought it was so powerful.
7:14
Speaker 7: Man.
7:14
Speaker 1: You said that love is correction. Love is correction.
7:18
Speaker 6: Yeah, we think of we've allowed these folks to feed
7:21
Speaker 6: us this space of this idea that love is the
7:25
Speaker 6: thing that makes you feel good, and love is the
7:27
Speaker 6: thing that supposed to align up all make you feel
7:31
Speaker 6: like like you're just cushion at the end of the day. Really,
7:35
Speaker 6: if you really think about love, love is the love
7:38
Speaker 6: is correction, it says in the scriptures. I'm a personal
7:42
Speaker 6: faith that God corrects those that he loved. And really
7:45
Speaker 6: the people who my best friends write, my friends, including
7:49
Speaker 6: this sister who she said that I'm her mentor. She
7:52
Speaker 6: now mentors me like really, like when I am out
7:54
Speaker 6: of order, when I am my mind, when I'm ready
7:57
Speaker 6: to go burn it down right, or even sometimes when
8:00
Speaker 6: I'm just wrong right, she actually brings She allows me
8:05
Speaker 6: to be able to see myself imparts of myself that
8:07
Speaker 6: I can't see.
8:08
Speaker 1: And so part of my.
8:09
Speaker 6: Growth and development is being able to be open for
8:12
Speaker 6: people to correct me, because that's an aspect of love.
8:15
Speaker 1: And so we got to see that as the people
8:17
Speaker 1: that love you tell you the truth.
8:19
Speaker 6: The people that love you will pull you to the
8:22
Speaker 6: side to keep you from hurting yourself or hurting others.
8:25
Speaker 6: The folks that really love you ain't gonna be down
8:27
Speaker 6: with your will bs right. The folks that love you,
8:30
Speaker 6: you really are the ones that are gonna help get
8:32
Speaker 6: you in alignment to the best. They want to see
8:34
Speaker 6: the best that you can be. And part of that,
8:37
Speaker 6: a key part of that is really around correction.
8:40
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you, no, I have two questions. Actually, one,
8:43
Speaker 2: how did your parents feel when you receive mentorship outside
8:47
Speaker 2: the house, because as a parent of first, I would
8:50
Speaker 2: think that they would be like, well, why do you
8:51
Speaker 2: need her to help you? You know, I mean, why
8:53
Speaker 2: not me? And the second question I wanted to ask
8:56
Speaker 2: is what's the difference between a mentor and a friend? Right?
8:59
Speaker 2: The reason I asked that is, let's say somebody like
9:02
Speaker 2: Charlamagne could give me an advice coming from a loving place.
9:05
Speaker 2: Is that considered a mentor? Is that considered a front?
9:07
Speaker 1: That's a great question.
9:08
Speaker 3: So I can talk about both of those.
9:09
Speaker 5: So, first of all, I grew up with my grandmother
9:11
Speaker 5: and it was at one point it was like thirteen
9:13
Speaker 5: of us in the house, so she probably just anybody there.
9:17
Speaker 6: For me.
9:17
Speaker 5: I grew up with a lot of boys. I was
9:19
Speaker 5: just looking outside and I was a person who went
9:21
Speaker 5: to church a lot. So it was Sunday night, Sunday,
9:24
Speaker 5: Monday prayer, to meeting, Wednesday Bible study.
9:26
Speaker 6: All that.
9:26
Speaker 5: I needed something else that was not that, and I
9:30
Speaker 5: was looking for. What I found myself doing was I
9:32
Speaker 5: was getting in trouble. Like I was still making good
9:34
Speaker 5: grades in school, but you know, I was hanging out
9:37
Speaker 5: later than when the street lights came on.
9:39
Speaker 3: I was starting to do that stuff. And my grandma
9:40
Speaker 3: was like, hold on, what's happening with her?
9:42
Speaker 4: You know?
9:43
Speaker 5: And she started talking like because I had a brother
9:45
Speaker 5: who was in juvenile detention, and I remember her I
9:48
Speaker 5: just over. I can remember overhearing a conversation like I
9:51
Speaker 5: got to do something about chan say.
9:54
Speaker 3: I was like, something bout me.
9:58
Speaker 5: Me, like I still get a's, you know, I was
10:00
Speaker 5: getting I was getting in trouble, like the student adjustment
10:02
Speaker 5: program at school.
10:03
Speaker 1: All of that.
10:06
Speaker 3: I was feeling myself. You know, you're fourteen. I'm like,
10:08
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a little grown whatever.
10:11
Speaker 5: But I had was wearing lipstick, but then what I
10:15
Speaker 5: noticed was I had like this one brother who was
10:17
Speaker 5: in juvenile detention. I had another brother who was skipping
10:20
Speaker 5: school getting in trouble, same way and something.
10:22
Speaker 3: It was like it was God.
10:23
Speaker 5: I like said, there's a thin line between success and failure,
10:26
Speaker 5: Like which way you're gonna go?
10:28
Speaker 3: Like are you gonna take this path that's going this way?
10:31
Speaker 5: Or do you want to be like the first person
10:32
Speaker 5: in your family to graduate from college, Like you can
10:34
Speaker 5: do something totally different in your family.
10:37
Speaker 3: So and I was like I got it in me.
10:39
Speaker 5: And so I started seeking And I remember seeing Natasha
10:42
Speaker 5: actually at a high school football game. She was recruiting
10:45
Speaker 5: kids to be a part of her youth group or whatever,
10:47
Speaker 5: and she used to wear these aracleb I do hair wraps,
10:50
Speaker 5: and I was like, it's something about that late. I
10:51
Speaker 5: want to see what she I want to see what
10:53
Speaker 5: she's talking about. And I remember you she was on
10:55
Speaker 5: Heraldo river.
10:59
Speaker 3: With a young kid about that.
11:01
Speaker 5: It was a program called do Something, And I was like,
11:03
Speaker 5: I want to learn more about this. This is sel
11:05
Speaker 5: self was small.
11:06
Speaker 3: So I started seeking out things, and so I became
11:09
Speaker 3: a party to do something.
11:09
Speaker 5: That transformed to when she left there, I went we
11:12
Speaker 5: was a part of this organization that was nationwide, nationwide
11:15
Speaker 5: called twenty first Century Youth Leadership Movement, and Tasha was
11:19
Speaker 5: over the chapter that was in Selma. And because of that,
11:23
Speaker 5: like my grandma was happy, like she picking you up.
11:25
Speaker 5: You're doing something positive. You know, that was something that
11:27
Speaker 5: she needed help. And I had aunts and stuff like that,
11:30
Speaker 5: but that was somebody that I could talk to. You know,
11:33
Speaker 5: you see her doing good stuff in the community, you
11:35
Speaker 5: want your child to be aligned with that. So I
11:37
Speaker 5: think my grandma, you know, if you talk to her,
11:38
Speaker 5: it was gonna lets Psalms twenty three unless you know,
11:41
Speaker 5: it's we're gonna read the Bible.
11:43
Speaker 1: You need to pray.
11:44
Speaker 5: But she you know, I'm gonna talk to Latasha and
11:46
Speaker 5: she gonna make it plain, you know, make it plain
11:48
Speaker 5: in different ways that I can understand. And like she said,
11:51
Speaker 5: like sometimes you need someone who can correct you, but
11:55
Speaker 5: with love, Like we can get in an argument right
11:56
Speaker 5: now and in the next five minutes we go whatever.
11:59
Speaker 3: But I'm like, nah, you're wrong.
12:01
Speaker 5: And so I think that my grandmother enjoyed having that
12:04
Speaker 5: and she saw her is that she saw opportunity.
12:06
Speaker 3: Like she took me on my first flight like we
12:08
Speaker 3: going to this.
12:09
Speaker 5: We were talking about immigration and immigration rights when I
12:12
Speaker 5: was a teenager, Like she was taking me to economic
12:14
Speaker 5: justice meetings for the Southeast Region.
12:16
Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about that, but she was like,
12:19
Speaker 3: I'm going to expose you.
12:20
Speaker 5: My first trip out of the country, she took me
12:22
Speaker 5: to Maley West Africas like she took me, exposed me
12:25
Speaker 5: to different things, and so that allowed me to expand
12:27
Speaker 5: my mind and say, this is what I want to do.
12:29
Speaker 3: And that's not just me.
12:30
Speaker 5: There are so many women that are doing is there
12:32
Speaker 5: are so many people who are pouring into folks like this.
12:35
Speaker 5: And you ask, what's the difference between a mentor and
12:37
Speaker 5: a friend. I think it costs for both. I think
12:39
Speaker 5: that there are formal mentorships that people have. Right you
12:43
Speaker 5: can be at your job and people tell you go
12:45
Speaker 5: find like this formal mentor. You meet with them twice
12:47
Speaker 5: a week, you go over some goals, you do kind
12:50
Speaker 5: of that stuff. But then there are just people that
12:52
Speaker 5: you're gonna pick up the phone and call and there's
12:54
Speaker 5: guidance you could just download. They're not necessarily a therapist,
12:57
Speaker 5: but they are your personal kind of therapists, and there
13:00
Speaker 5: develops this friendship between you. And then there are some
13:02
Speaker 5: that are like more like mother figures that are in
13:05
Speaker 5: your life who they are mentoring you, and they may
13:07
Speaker 5: have specific programming like we're talking about leadership this time,
13:10
Speaker 5: we're talking about etiquette, We're talking about you know, we
13:13
Speaker 5: might be talking about science, like all of the things,
13:15
Speaker 5: Like we have a program laid out, but you know
13:17
Speaker 5: that when something's going on in the home, when there's
13:19
Speaker 5: something going on at school, you can come to me.
13:21
Speaker 5: I'm going to advocate on your behalf. I'm going to
13:23
Speaker 5: make sure you have the tools and the resources that
13:25
Speaker 5: you need, but I also can be your friend. I
13:27
Speaker 5: think that that kind of grows. I feel like there
13:29
Speaker 5: are mentors that I've had within my life, not only Natasha,
13:32
Speaker 5: but even when I was in college as a first
13:33
Speaker 5: generation college student, I didn't have anybody else to call.
13:36
Speaker 5: So there was a woman named doctor Crystal Martin. I
13:39
Speaker 5: just want to lift her up. Who in college she
13:41
Speaker 5: would I met with her every week through a program
13:43
Speaker 5: called Student Support Services. Every single week I met with her.
13:46
Speaker 5: But she's now a friend, Like she's somebody I can
13:48
Speaker 5: call and kind of talk to. I send other people
13:50
Speaker 5: to her when they're looking for career services and all
13:52
Speaker 5: that stuff. So I think that it's the relationships transformed.
13:56
Speaker 5: Like even when you first meet somebody, it's not the
13:58
Speaker 5: same relationship that you may have five ten years down
14:01
Speaker 5: the line, And it takes nurturing to become more of
14:04
Speaker 5: that friendship dynamic too.
14:06
Speaker 8: How do you talk to the girls that you guys
14:08
Speaker 8: work with who were like, like y'all brought up a
14:12
Speaker 8: good point of it took you some time. Ye had
14:14
Speaker 8: to get to a certain point in your life where
14:15
Speaker 8: you were mature enough to understand that the mentorship like
14:17
Speaker 8: how to take it.
14:18
Speaker 3: And how to apply it to your life?
14:19
Speaker 8: Right? And I take it as like something you should
14:21
Speaker 8: go against when you're talking to these younger girls, how
14:24
Speaker 8: do you talk them through? No, this mentorship is something
14:27
Speaker 8: that you need. You should be receptive to it because
14:29
Speaker 8: sometimes you know, if you're in fight or flight mode,
14:31
Speaker 8: you don't.
14:32
Speaker 1: You know what's really interesting? Those the girls that I want,
14:35
Speaker 1: Those are the girls I always would like.
14:36
Speaker 6: The girl in the class that was cutting up, I like,
14:38
Speaker 6: that's my leader right there, That's the sister that I want, right,
14:41
Speaker 6: And so part of it is I don't know if
14:43
Speaker 6: I think that girls gonna wake up one day and
14:44
Speaker 6: say they want to mentor there are some that do
14:46
Speaker 6: that and I want them to do that. That's not
14:49
Speaker 6: necessarily how it played out a certain kind of way.
14:52
Speaker 6: I haven't met a child that don't want to be
14:54
Speaker 6: poured into. We got this whole idea that kids don't
14:57
Speaker 6: want to be listened to, girls, boys or whatever. I've
14:59
Speaker 6: not met a kid that don't want to be poured into.
15:01
Speaker 6: We just don't wanna take have the discipline and the
15:04
Speaker 6: courage to actually figure out the rhythm of it. If
15:06
Speaker 6: I come at you a certain kind of way, if
15:08
Speaker 6: I'm paying attention to you, I should know that if
15:10
Speaker 6: I come at you a certain kind of way, you
15:12
Speaker 6: ain't gonna listen to me.
15:13
Speaker 1: Right, So I'm gonna feed you what you eat.
15:15
Speaker 6: If you gonna come to me, And if there's a
15:17
Speaker 6: certain that I've seen that you want attention, then there
15:19
Speaker 6: might be a way that I give you some individual attension.
15:21
Speaker 6: I pulled this system to the side that's cutting up
15:23
Speaker 6: in the classroom and be like, what's going on? Just
15:26
Speaker 6: talk to her or listen to her. And so I
15:28
Speaker 6: think sometimes we so caught up into these structures of
15:31
Speaker 6: what they supposed to look like that we forget that
15:34
Speaker 6: these young people oftentimes when they're acting out, they're asking
15:39
Speaker 6: for help, they want some support, they want somebody to
15:41
Speaker 6: see them.
15:42
Speaker 1: And so I know I did.
15:44
Speaker 6: There are times that I cut up because I didn't
15:46
Speaker 6: know I didn't have no I was frustrated. I didn't
15:48
Speaker 6: know what else to do. Right, I might not have
15:50
Speaker 6: had anybody that I wanted to talk about at home.
15:52
Speaker 6: It may be something I was going to going through
15:54
Speaker 6: that I was embarrassed about. So I say that to
15:57
Speaker 6: say that, you know, I do think that young people,
16:00
Speaker 6: and particularly young women, and I'm hoping I'm for the kids,
16:03
Speaker 6: even young women. Every woman should have them a mentor.
16:06
Speaker 6: I don't care if you eighty years old. You need
16:08
Speaker 6: to have somebody. Each a knowledge base, like your institutional
16:12
Speaker 6: knowledge base is person after person, so every single human being.
16:16
Speaker 6: You should be thinking about who you are mentoring, and
16:19
Speaker 6: who is mentoring you, who's pouring into you, and who
16:21
Speaker 6: are you pouring into And so I'm with the girls
16:24
Speaker 6: that oftentimes it's just really the gathering, like the gathering
16:27
Speaker 6: and building relationship, like I'm not trying to put you
16:30
Speaker 6: in my mentor box. That's why some of them programs
16:32
Speaker 6: don't work. Because all they see in you is as
16:34
Speaker 6: a number. You just another number in my program, right
16:37
Speaker 6: instead of I actually see you as a person, and
16:42
Speaker 6: I am using a and I'm creating a space for
16:45
Speaker 6: you to understand that if you want to be in
16:46
Speaker 6: a relationship like we can be down. And so what
16:49
Speaker 6: we've seen is hundreds of girls like if y'all come
16:52
Speaker 6: to y'all got to come to our Black Girl our
16:56
Speaker 6: dream conference, like listen, they need it and they're actually
17:02
Speaker 6: open for it.
17:03
Speaker 1: We just in our minds we're talking about just saying
17:10
Speaker 1: what listen.
17:12
Speaker 7: So that's the girl that you was just describing, right,
17:15
Speaker 7: like the one that's cutting up in class, the one
17:17
Speaker 7: I was definitely hurt, you know. I I was funny,
17:20
Speaker 7: I was you know, just always making a mockery of everything.
17:24
Speaker 7: But I did my work and everything. So I resonate
17:27
Speaker 7: with that part of it because I'm a leader and
17:30
Speaker 7: I was told that by a lot of mentors in
17:32
Speaker 7: school and like nurses and teachers and.
17:35
Speaker 1: Things like that.
17:36
Speaker 3: But I want to know, is it ever do you
17:38
Speaker 3: ever have parents or moms that are like not receptive? Absolutely?
17:44
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
17:45
Speaker 6: Let me just say in my process, I don't know
17:48
Speaker 6: if I had I never was in a mentoring program.
17:50
Speaker 6: Necessarily like that, my mother was unable to keep me.
17:54
Speaker 6: I wasn't raised by my mother. I actually was raised
17:56
Speaker 6: partly by my grandmother, my grandparents. My mother lived with us,
18:00
Speaker 6: but she had an illness and then my then I
18:02
Speaker 6: wound up staying with my aunt as well, And so
18:05
Speaker 6: I didn't have the traditional and that was something in
18:07
Speaker 6: me that, even though I always was safe, I wanted the.
18:11
Speaker 1: Leave of the Beaver family. I wanted the mama to dad.
18:14
Speaker 6: You know what I mean. And I know some of
18:16
Speaker 6: y'all don't even know what I'm talking about, but you
18:18
Speaker 6: know what, But so I think part of it we're
18:24
Speaker 6: going to run. Let me give one example of something
18:27
Speaker 6: that happened with southern black girls we were doing.
18:30
Speaker 1: This is almost me.
18:31
Speaker 6: So when we were we were gathering before we started,
18:34
Speaker 6: we wound up doing focus groups all over the kind
18:36
Speaker 6: all thirteen states. We work at thirteen states, and so
18:38
Speaker 6: in one of the places we were in we were
18:40
Speaker 6: in New Orleans, and there was his sister about forty
18:42
Speaker 6: years old. That we were doing focus groups with the kids,
18:46
Speaker 6: with girls between the ages of like twelve and sixteen
18:48
Speaker 6: or something, and we were asking questions and one of
18:51
Speaker 6: the questions was what is a black girl's dream?
18:53
Speaker 1: What's your dream? Right?
18:55
Speaker 6: And so we're in this this space, were down in
18:57
Speaker 6: New Orleans and there's his sister in afforded. She keep
19:00
Speaker 6: jumping in, she keep jumping in, So there's uh, she
19:03
Speaker 6: just rupted the thing because it's for the kids.
19:05
Speaker 1: So I pulled her to the side. I pulled outside
19:07
Speaker 1: and said.
19:07
Speaker 6: Listen, sister, you know, we we're trying to get with
19:09
Speaker 6: the kids and we're trying to get their dreams.
19:11
Speaker 1: And when you jump in she said, I know, I know,
19:13
Speaker 1: I know.
19:13
Speaker 6: She said, I'm just so excited because I'm forty some
19:16
Speaker 6: years old and ain't nobody ever asked.
19:18
Speaker 1: Me my dream? And so I'm like, just think of that, right,
19:22
Speaker 1: Ain't nobody ever asked me that?
19:24
Speaker 6: And so I'm saying that because some of even the
19:27
Speaker 6: way I work, our work ain't just about the girls.
19:30
Speaker 6: Y'all will be surprised, I said, tell, you'll be surprised
19:33
Speaker 6: that when we're having our work, you will have sixty
19:36
Speaker 6: year olds, seventy year olds.
19:37
Speaker 1: We're telling black women reclaim your girlhood.
19:40
Speaker 6: Oftentimes many of us were our girlhood was taken, whether
19:44
Speaker 6: it's through sexual assault, whether it was you had to
19:46
Speaker 6: grow up too soon because from your mommy and dad,
19:49
Speaker 6: folks had to go to work, whether you had to
19:51
Speaker 6: defend or fight for your family, take care of the
19:53
Speaker 6: other kids. Your girlhood was taken from you, but it's
19:55
Speaker 6: still a part of you. So we're saying reclaim that.
19:58
Speaker 6: So while we're working with the girl girls, we're oftentimes
20:01
Speaker 6: working with we have of other activities for adults and parents,
20:05
Speaker 6: and sometimes it is it is that parent that may
20:08
Speaker 6: not want their kids. But I'm telling you, baby, they
20:11
Speaker 6: come up in the space we got them. You come
20:12
Speaker 6: up in the space we got you, right, not because
20:16
Speaker 6: because the other thing is not because we're trying to trick.
20:19
Speaker 6: It is because we see you too, and we see
20:22
Speaker 6: your little girl, and we affirm your little girl that's
20:24
Speaker 6: in you. Because all of us got a some brokenness.
20:27
Speaker 6: All of us got that that's the point in which
20:29
Speaker 6: we get broken as children.
20:31
Speaker 1: So that's all adult, that's all adult adult, and so
20:38
Speaker 1: our work is based on the inner child.
20:40
Speaker 5: I tell people all the time, you can talk to
20:41
Speaker 5: somebody that's eighty five years old and they'll start talking
20:43
Speaker 5: about what happen when he was fifteen. They're like fifteen
20:46
Speaker 5: I'm like, dang, but you don't live the whole like
20:48
Speaker 5: sixty years past that, you know, But that's it. And
20:50
Speaker 5: I think that one of the questions when you were
20:52
Speaker 5: asking about the parents. I think what it is sometimes
20:55
Speaker 5: is fear. It's fear in what they haven't been exposed
20:58
Speaker 5: to themselves. Like I I work with young people sometimes,
21:01
Speaker 5: like taking them on triops. I started something because I
21:03
Speaker 5: shook me on trip. I take girls on troops, and
21:05
Speaker 5: so the most resistance I get sometimes is from parents.
21:08
Speaker 5: I'm like, you don't want your child to do this,
21:10
Speaker 5: but it's because they haven't been they haven't seen, they
21:13
Speaker 5: haven't been exposed, and they're afraid.
21:15
Speaker 3: And I get that. But once they see, and.
21:17
Speaker 5: Like she said, once you experience something, then you know
21:20
Speaker 5: you want your child to be a part of it.
21:21
Speaker 5: But I think that a lot of times it's also
21:23
Speaker 5: just the fear and what are you gonna tell my
21:25
Speaker 5: child that I haven't yoah.
21:27
Speaker 7: And that's usually what it is because I always use
21:29
Speaker 7: the example from the movie Lean On Me. You know,
21:32
Speaker 7: remember there was a girl I think I evenish aniqu
21:34
Speaker 7: or whatever. It was a girl she had got pregnant
21:36
Speaker 7: or whatever. Remember when they went to the house. The
21:38
Speaker 7: mom wasn't receptive as them trying to help her and everything,
21:41
Speaker 7: and she was explaining to her mom, but this is
21:43
Speaker 7: going to help me, and then you know, but when
21:45
Speaker 7: you look at the mom at the end, everything calmed
21:48
Speaker 7: down and everything and she was able to receive the help.
21:50
Speaker 7: But the mom had never ever experienced somebody really trying
21:55
Speaker 7: to help them, always ever exposed to somebody trying to
21:58
Speaker 7: change their life, you know.
21:59
Speaker 3: And so a lot of times the parents can be.
22:02
Speaker 7: The downfall of the kid, like you know what I mean,
22:05
Speaker 7: Like I guess because they haven't lived out.
22:08
Speaker 3: Their childhood right and.
22:11
Speaker 5: Right its friends have been given to them like transaction.
22:14
Speaker 5: If somebody does this for me, then what are they
22:15
Speaker 5: gonna want? So I'm afraid to receive your help because
22:19
Speaker 5: you're gonna want something from me and I can't pay
22:21
Speaker 5: it back.
22:21
Speaker 1: Here or scared of the judgment or judgment or the judgment.
22:24
Speaker 2: Absolutely, let me ask you, ladies a question. Right, this
22:26
Speaker 2: is a full time job, right, I got about twelve,
22:29
Speaker 2: But I was going to ask, how do you make
22:31
Speaker 2: sure your needs are being met? You here because you
22:34
Speaker 2: got bills, you got a place to live, you got
22:36
Speaker 2: to drive somewhere so how do you make sure what
22:38
Speaker 2: you're doing all this work to help everybody else? How
22:40
Speaker 2: are people helping you?
22:42
Speaker 6: Well, I want to start, but I want to turn
22:44
Speaker 6: this over to chance Say, because I do want to
22:46
Speaker 6: lift her up.
22:47
Speaker 1: This young woman, Chancey is the bomb. Let me say something.
22:51
Speaker 1: I am so proud of it, and I'll do no
22:52
Speaker 1: other work in my life.
22:54
Speaker 3: Like I am so.
22:55
Speaker 6: Grateful to God for this sister, you know. And I'm
22:58
Speaker 6: saying this because she gave. When she gave, even I
23:03
Speaker 6: had this vision, created this organization. She had a business,
23:07
Speaker 6: she went to school, became an engineer, did all the
23:10
Speaker 6: things like just be all the barriers right, and created
23:14
Speaker 6: her business. And then I knew I couldn't really afford
23:17
Speaker 6: her at the time, but I'm like, can you just
23:19
Speaker 6: come over here and work with me a little bit? Right?
23:22
Speaker 1: And she came and fed.
23:24
Speaker 6: Into the organization. And now she leaves the organization. Literally
23:27
Speaker 6: i'd like to do what she did me to do
23:28
Speaker 6: and leaves the organization. But it's so much love, Like
23:33
Speaker 6: this is our life, like this work is an extension
23:35
Speaker 6: of our life, and so it's so much love. I
23:38
Speaker 6: think part of what keeps us moving is that we
23:41
Speaker 6: fundamentally believe that God, we really do. We believe that
23:44
Speaker 6: this is part of our mission, our calling. But I
23:47
Speaker 6: just let me just turn over you. I just want
23:49
Speaker 6: to to say how much that part of this is.
23:52
Speaker 6: You got to do work when you're working with people.
23:55
Speaker 6: To work with people, you need to love people. You
23:57
Speaker 6: don't need to be working with people you don't love people.
24:00
Speaker 5: So I'll say for me one, thank you, Latasha. But
24:04
Speaker 5: I always felt like it was my life's calling, like
24:06
Speaker 5: I was gonna end up back in this circle in
24:08
Speaker 5: some kind of way. I've always worked with girls, I've
24:11
Speaker 5: always done this, done this work in some form of fashion,
24:13
Speaker 5: but now to do it as a full time job.
24:16
Speaker 5: It was just time, right, it was time and for
24:18
Speaker 5: me to do this. And I get full by just
24:23
Speaker 5: being in community. Like see if you look at the
24:26
Speaker 5: organizations around our thirteen states who are doing work, when
24:29
Speaker 5: I see how they are transforming the lives of young
24:32
Speaker 5: people in those communities. This past weekend we had a
24:35
Speaker 5: youth Leadership Academy. We have young people that represent all
24:38
Speaker 5: of our thirteen states and they came together. They were
24:40
Speaker 5: putting on workshops themselves, like they had come up with
24:43
Speaker 5: stuff like when you see stuff like that, like you
24:45
Speaker 5: just like in awe, it doesn't feel like work. I
24:48
Speaker 5: mean do sometimes, but it doesn't feel like work.
24:53
Speaker 3: It's like the goodness, like when you see black.
24:55
Speaker 5: Women coming together, and like literally throughout the country there
24:59
Speaker 5: are women doing his work, particularly in the South, where
25:02
Speaker 5: folks are working with very little resources to do this work,
25:06
Speaker 5: often pulling out of their own pockets to do this work.
25:09
Speaker 3: But they know that it's necessary. Like it's like, how
25:11
Speaker 3: can you not go on?
25:12
Speaker 5: And I have a son, so you know, I don't
25:15
Speaker 5: get the girly all the stuff and the wearing, so
25:18
Speaker 5: like he you know, so this is my outlet, right,
25:21
Speaker 5: this is my outlet for that. But I also am
25:24
Speaker 5: making it better for him, because when you help some people,
25:26
Speaker 5: you help you. When you help black women, you helping everybody.
25:28
Speaker 5: We have black girls, You're helping the community. And so
25:31
Speaker 5: that's how I see it. It's just a continuation of
25:34
Speaker 5: just what was given to me. I don't even like
25:37
Speaker 5: to say that I'm paying it for it. I'm just
25:38
Speaker 5: doing what God called me to do.
25:40
Speaker 2: And what I really want to do is how can
25:41
Speaker 2: people donating help? Like I can't be on it and
25:49
Speaker 2: be a mentor.
25:49
Speaker 1: But let me, but they can't listen.
25:51
Speaker 6: There's a couple of ways people can be involved. Right,
25:54
Speaker 6: So we have the way that we do our money,
25:56
Speaker 6: like we started. I want folks to understand we had
25:58
Speaker 6: no money, Like I gave me a vision. I was
26:01
Speaker 6: in the shower, God gave me a vision.
26:03
Speaker 1: I moved on. We had no money. The vision is
26:06
Speaker 1: what we decided.
26:07
Speaker 6: In the last five years we've given away. How much
26:11
Speaker 6: eleven million dollars we've put on the ground. We just
26:15
Speaker 6: gave a million dollars. Let me show you how good
26:17
Speaker 6: God is. So I know this, ain't know what I'm
26:19
Speaker 6: gonna show y'all how good God is. So this year
26:22
Speaker 6: we thought last year because we didn't have we didn't
26:24
Speaker 6: Last year was a really hard time to raise money,
26:27
Speaker 6: especially because we got black. All my organisations got black
26:30
Speaker 6: in the name because I'm black.
26:31
Speaker 1: Black.
26:31
Speaker 6: But anyway, we had a hard time. At the end
26:35
Speaker 6: of the year, we thought we were gonna have to
26:37
Speaker 6: suspend our program y'all.
26:41
Speaker 1: All of that, and even the groups, the youth groups.
26:45
Speaker 6: I don't know why, but oftentimes when money get cut
26:48
Speaker 6: in state budgets and city budgets, the first programs they
26:51
Speaker 6: cut are young people are youth right. And so here
26:54
Speaker 6: we are in the states that are already many that
26:56
Speaker 6: we work in the hardest states right when you think
26:59
Speaker 6: of states like missus Zippi that ninety nine, I need
27:01
Speaker 6: folks to understand that nine percent of the kids in
27:04
Speaker 6: public schools, white and black in Mississippi are on free
27:06
Speaker 6: or reduced lunch like. So that's what our playground we
27:09
Speaker 6: gona wears hard right. And so the resources were not
27:13
Speaker 6: coming and we thought we were gonna have to suspend
27:15
Speaker 6: our program. Lads at that just in the nick of time,
27:19
Speaker 6: we had a donor, two donors to come in and
27:22
Speaker 6: be able to support and a year that was our toughest,
27:25
Speaker 6: we were able to have our largest grant cycle.
27:28
Speaker 1: So on in January.
27:29
Speaker 6: What did we do?
27:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we gave about one point four million dollars
27:33
Speaker 3: one point two million dollars.
27:34
Speaker 5: Away to not just nonprofits, but to also also we
27:38
Speaker 5: supported twenty five businesses too. We had an entrepreneurship program,
27:41
Speaker 5: our Dream Investment Program last year where we had like
27:44
Speaker 5: training for early stage entrepreneurs those people who in three
27:47
Speaker 5: to five years, but also young people who had businesses
27:49
Speaker 5: as well. So we supported businesses, We supported our defense fund,
27:53
Speaker 5: we supported black women who were working for the protection
27:56
Speaker 5: of Black girls. And our Dream Fund, which is those
27:58
Speaker 5: critical intervention type of organizations where it's leadership, empowerment, stem.
28:02
Speaker 3: Arts and culture.
28:03
Speaker 5: We were able to support those organizations across the South
28:06
Speaker 5: who are doing that work. One of the things I
28:08
Speaker 5: want to lift up something that Latasha said, One of
28:10
Speaker 5: the things that we saw last year is that somebody
28:13
Speaker 5: in community who's doing this work, they may not have
28:16
Speaker 5: gotten federal money directly, but it may have trickled down
28:20
Speaker 5: through three four levels before it got to them. So
28:23
Speaker 5: it was a state of emergency last year, literally a
28:25
Speaker 5: state of emergency for our organizations.
28:27
Speaker 3: Organizations are collapsing.
28:29
Speaker 5: And I just want to lift up. Without those two donors,
28:31
Speaker 5: we would not have been able to. We gave money
28:34
Speaker 5: out to sixty two organizations last year, and that was
28:36
Speaker 5: just unheard of. That's not what people were doing. And
28:39
Speaker 5: the average, the average budget of our organizations is under
28:42
Speaker 5: two hundred thousand dollars. And so even that that thirty
28:44
Speaker 5: thousand dollars grant, forty thousand dollars grant, fifteen thousand dollars grant,
28:48
Speaker 5: people call us crime because of that money, because that's
28:50
Speaker 5: sustaining them now you can give to us by going
28:53
Speaker 5: to Southern Blackgirls dot org.
28:55
Speaker 4: I saw black girls. I want to ask them, how
28:57
Speaker 4: do you I love this Conversationause is so important for
29:01
Speaker 4: men and women.
29:01
Speaker 3: But how do you.
29:02
Speaker 4: Mentor without projecting your own path onto somebody?
29:06
Speaker 1: That's an excellent point. That's an excellent point. That's why
29:10
Speaker 1: you paid the big book. That's that's a great point.
29:13
Speaker 4: You know.
29:13
Speaker 6: I think that there is on some level we be
29:15
Speaker 6: real We all do that. So let's just say that
29:17
Speaker 6: let all of us do that on some level. But
29:20
Speaker 6: I think part of what I love the way that
29:22
Speaker 6: chan Say and her team have been setting things up,
29:25
Speaker 6: you know, is that we create space for there to
29:27
Speaker 6: be peer to peer mentorship as well, so it can't
29:30
Speaker 6: just be top down.
29:32
Speaker 1: It's also you got to create these other spaces. And
29:34
Speaker 1: you talk about the ambassadors.
29:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, even with our youth ambassadors, like they're leading and
29:39
Speaker 5: we give them space. So one, we give them space
29:41
Speaker 5: to make decisions. We have what we call a participatory
29:44
Speaker 5: grant making model. We do trust based Philanthroy. These are
29:46
Speaker 5: all the terms, but what it means is we build
29:48
Speaker 5: with community. So community is giving input into the decisions
29:52
Speaker 5: that we're making. And even with our young people, they
29:54
Speaker 5: actually tell us what they want. They tell us the path.
29:57
Speaker 5: Like we don't helicopter in and say we think that
29:59
Speaker 5: you young people need to see X, y Z. They
30:02
Speaker 5: tell us this is what's most important. Like for example,
30:04
Speaker 5: this past weekend, they told that, I don't think we
30:06
Speaker 5: talked about mental health like this like this in the
30:09
Speaker 5: late nineties.
30:09
Speaker 3: We weren't talking about mental health in this way.
30:11
Speaker 5: But the girls, all we were hearing was that we
30:13
Speaker 5: need more support from mental health. We need more support.
30:15
Speaker 5: So they guide that decision making. So even as a mentor,
30:19
Speaker 5: it means listening to what people are saying the needs are.
30:21
Speaker 3: Because I can't tell you to go down this path.
30:23
Speaker 5: I can might give you some these are some of
30:25
Speaker 5: the infrastructure you might need, but I'm listening to what
30:28
Speaker 5: you need and how I can support it. There are
30:30
Speaker 5: some young girls who are some of our youth ambassadors.
30:32
Speaker 5: They were talking about in Mississippi that girls really need
30:34
Speaker 5: mental health. They have set up now they were empowered
30:37
Speaker 5: to set up their own. We've supplied them with resources
30:40
Speaker 5: a group therapy, Like now that they're going to be
30:42
Speaker 5: having group therapy, they have been alive with therapist so
30:44
Speaker 5: that now they've set up their own Magnolia Circle, so
30:47
Speaker 5: they're not going to have mental health and wellness. They
30:49
Speaker 5: saw such a need for mental health, healing and in
30:52
Speaker 5: like different practices in Mississippi, MO speaking.
30:54
Speaker 1: Of mental health.
30:55
Speaker 6: And one of the things is what we're excited when
30:58
Speaker 6: I want to a highlight from us since we partnered
31:00
Speaker 6: with Megan thee Stallion.
31:01
Speaker 1: So we did. We partner with her. We've been working
31:05
Speaker 1: with her foundation for the last how.
31:08
Speaker 6: Many years, since since twenty twenty two, and we did
31:12
Speaker 6: a we have a what is called Black Girl Joy Challenge.
31:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, our Black Girl Joy Challenge is where we put
31:17
Speaker 5: money directly in the hands of girls. We give them
31:20
Speaker 5: five hundred and fifty dollars and say, how can you
31:22
Speaker 5: spread joy to ten of your family members, of friends
31:24
Speaker 5: in community. And these girls are doing some amazing work.
31:27
Speaker 5: And that's because we don't want them to see themselves
31:30
Speaker 5: as victims. Who want to see them as generators of solutions.
31:32
Speaker 5: So you come up with your own program what you
31:35
Speaker 5: want to do. We've seen girls who are working in
31:37
Speaker 5: period poverty. We've seen girls who like one girl put
31:40
Speaker 5: out to meet a teacher appreciation dinner, whoever just took
31:42
Speaker 5: their teachers out of them. You know, we've seen particularly
31:46
Speaker 5: a young lady who won award through Megan the Stallion's
31:48
Speaker 5: Pete and Thomas Foundation was Mila Henry. She came up
31:52
Speaker 5: with mental health boxes in major boxes that she passes
31:54
Speaker 5: out to other girls. Like we've seen girls come with
31:57
Speaker 5: affirmation boxes. They're doing some really amazing work. But it's yeah,
32:01
Speaker 5: we're actually doing another round. And the highlight of our
32:04
Speaker 5: Black Girl Joy Challenge is last year we reached a milestone.
32:07
Speaker 3: We gave out one thousand.
32:08
Speaker 5: It made us give it out over the past the
32:10
Speaker 5: past five years, we've given out a given a thousand girls.
32:14
Speaker 3: This Black Girl Joy Challenge.
32:15
Speaker 1: Y'all didn go down.
32:17
Speaker 5: You got it going on as that's a thousand girls
32:22
Speaker 5: in community who are transforming community. And some of these
32:24
Speaker 5: are full fledged organizations, like there are some young there
32:27
Speaker 5: are some twins from Montgomery, Alabama that started with us.
32:30
Speaker 3: They got our first Black Girl Joy Challenge in twenty twenty.
32:33
Speaker 5: They were actually nominated I think last year to be
32:34
Speaker 5: seeing the heroes because now Alabama's even pass legislation around
32:38
Speaker 5: in the period poverty and there's so much stigma around minsteration.
32:43
Speaker 3: I probably say that word right.
32:44
Speaker 5: But there's so much stigma around it. But they found
32:49
Speaker 5: out that one in five girls missed school because they
32:51
Speaker 5: don't have sanitary supplies, and so they started passing things
32:54
Speaker 5: out and then we actually gave them a bigger grant
32:57
Speaker 5: so they could do more in schools. And then the
32:59
Speaker 5: state set up a fun so that this is in Alabama,
33:01
Speaker 5: they set up a fund so that schools could apply
33:03
Speaker 5: to now have those supplies in school. So they're making
33:06
Speaker 5: a difference like mighty rivers a field drip by drip.
33:08
Speaker 7: John can give somebody five hundred and fifty dollars and
33:10
Speaker 7: they'd be like, I ain't got no family.
33:13
Speaker 1: No, you know, the girls are coming like it.
33:15
Speaker 6: It's been game changes because part of what happens is
33:18
Speaker 6: y'all really really how things happen. It's not based on money.
33:21
Speaker 6: It's based on belief. If you're really honest, it's really
33:24
Speaker 6: based on belief. And so when you start feeding and seeding,
33:27
Speaker 6: just think about it. Think about it might be something
33:30
Speaker 6: real small, but think about the first person that's seeded
33:32
Speaker 6: into your vision, Like there's something about that that gave
33:35
Speaker 6: you an affirmation of what you could do. And so
33:37
Speaker 6: part for our work, our work is we really are
33:40
Speaker 6: we trying we building, We try to build nations.
33:42
Speaker 1: We building, We got nation buildings. Were thinking about this
33:45
Speaker 1: thing differently.
33:45
Speaker 6: If black women are gonna be on the forefront, then
33:48
Speaker 6: how are we seeding and feeding and investing in them?
33:52
Speaker 6: You know, I got a phone call one day out
33:54
Speaker 6: of sky Blue from Oprah Winfrey had found out about
33:58
Speaker 6: the work, and she called and said she just wanted
34:00
Speaker 6: to know. She's like, tell me about your vision, and
34:03
Speaker 6: she said it reminded her of what she did with
34:05
Speaker 6: the sisters in South Africa. We've had the Vice president
34:08
Speaker 6: to call us about the work. It was not them,
34:24
Speaker 6: It's not it wasn't them, It wasn't.
34:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
34:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, I also think and I think that there's a
34:32
Speaker 6: I'm glad you raise that because it does open up
34:34
Speaker 6: another space black folks.
34:36
Speaker 1: We got to take care of black institutions. Now we
34:38
Speaker 1: just gonna have to. We're gonna have to step up
34:40
Speaker 1: in this moment. Are we not seeing it? We shouldn't
34:42
Speaker 1: be depending on no federal funding. People don't like we
34:44
Speaker 1: know what's going on, like we should.
34:46
Speaker 6: Our kids should not be subject to the benevolence of
34:49
Speaker 6: white folks that ultimately even a duck got enough sense
34:52
Speaker 6: to take care of his ducklings. So ultimately, we're giving
34:56
Speaker 6: money to Lou and all those other folks. And I
34:58
Speaker 6: get it because I like the stuff. I like stuff
35:00
Speaker 6: like everybody else likes stuff, right, But we're supporting them
35:03
Speaker 6: to support their children, right, and we're not supporting our
35:06
Speaker 6: own stuff.
35:07
Speaker 1: Our institutions got to be supported by us.
35:10
Speaker 6: So we love when we get them twenty five dollars kids,
35:14
Speaker 6: those one hundred dollars hids those Yes, you can go
35:17
Speaker 6: and drop a million shark's man, but.
35:21
Speaker 1: Right, the big bucks. That's why you're making big bucks.
35:25
Speaker 5: I know he does.
35:26
Speaker 2: He does.
35:27
Speaker 1: That's my brother, that's my bride, that's my brother. And
35:30
Speaker 1: I love his love for community.
35:31
Speaker 6: And we appreciate you because this platform is important, and
35:34
Speaker 6: so I think it's really important for us to lift
35:37
Speaker 6: up y'all.
35:38
Speaker 1: We got to get it together. We can't be the same.
35:41
Speaker 1: If other folks are shifting, then that means we got
35:43
Speaker 1: to do a paradigm shift.
35:45
Speaker 6: And so if they're trying to build a nation that
35:47
Speaker 6: is rooted in racism, that ain't gonna be rooted in
35:51
Speaker 6: white supremacy, we can't be down with that. You got
35:53
Speaker 6: a nation, Bill we're a nation within a nation, and
35:56
Speaker 6: part of even what black folks did just nine years
35:58
Speaker 6: after slavery. We founded hundreds of cities, we had built schools.
36:03
Speaker 6: All these are people who have formerly been enslaved. So
36:06
Speaker 6: why are we not doing that at this level? Because
36:08
Speaker 6: we are actually now directing our resources in a way
36:11
Speaker 6: that's just consumerism.
36:12
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying this as a judgment.
36:14
Speaker 6: I'm saying this as a wake up call if you
36:17
Speaker 6: see folk like, because I want somebody to come and
36:19
Speaker 6: say that I know the work we're doing. It's life
36:22
Speaker 6: changing in thirteen states. I know the work that we're doing.
36:25
Speaker 6: It's changing lives, it's changing my life, it's changing her life.
36:29
Speaker 6: So at the end of the day, put your money
36:31
Speaker 6: in some good ground and you're gonna yield a good harvest.
36:35
Speaker 1: And we're a good harvest.
36:36
Speaker 8: How do you mentor intergenerationally right?
36:38
Speaker 2: Like?
36:39
Speaker 8: Because you talked about peer period, you talked about how
36:40
Speaker 8: the older women. Right One of the conversations I have
36:43
Speaker 8: a lot with other Black women right now is about
36:46
Speaker 8: how when we have these older women in our lives,
36:49
Speaker 8: sometimes the nurturing through love isn't the best experience. And
36:53
Speaker 8: then it kind of turns you off from accepting certain
36:55
Speaker 8: things or you know, it's just it's not like almost
36:57
Speaker 8: like a hazing something. So how are you guys correcting that?
37:00
Speaker 8: Because I think that goes back to investing in your
37:02
Speaker 8: people when you feel like from generation up the people
37:05
Speaker 8: got you.
37:06
Speaker 1: Listen, I was forty years old, they were still put
37:07
Speaker 1: me in the US group. So I understand. So it
37:12
Speaker 1: is that we have all of that in our community.
37:15
Speaker 6: It's nuanced, and it's complicated, and it's beautiful and it's
37:18
Speaker 6: terrible in all the things right, and so part of
37:20
Speaker 6: it is the more that we bring people in community
37:23
Speaker 6: and give folks opportunities. There's some things that even in
37:26
Speaker 6: our work, while it's black girls, that we have created
37:29
Speaker 6: spaces for other sisters, sisters sixty seventy fifty to actually
37:34
Speaker 6: reclaim that girlhood by serving in ways.
37:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:38
Speaker 5: So we have a Wisdom Council, and our wisdom council
37:40
Speaker 5: those are you can be twelve to one hundred and
37:42
Speaker 5: twelve on a wisdom council, And those are people who
37:45
Speaker 5: are making decisions about our grantees.
37:47
Speaker 3: Those are people who are putting workshops together.
37:49
Speaker 5: But not only that, we have women organizations too, So
37:53
Speaker 5: all of our organizations are not girl focused.
37:55
Speaker 3: Some of them are also focusing on women.
37:57
Speaker 5: But from your intergenerational conversation, I think that sometimes we
38:00
Speaker 5: just have to know that everybody is not our person.
38:02
Speaker 5: Like even from a girls standpoint, we're talking about mentorship,
38:05
Speaker 5: everybody is.
38:06
Speaker 1: Not our person.
38:06
Speaker 5: I'm not sending you anywhere to behave And I will
38:09
Speaker 5: say that even when we come into community. Sometimes people
38:12
Speaker 5: people come into community with their preconceived it gotta we
38:15
Speaker 5: gotta walk, we gotta hut to a certain kind of way.
38:18
Speaker 5: But when you get in community with us and you
38:20
Speaker 5: see that we have to pull you to the side. No,
38:21
Speaker 5: we're not telling them that we come in here with love,
38:24
Speaker 5: Like so you're gonna have to get on the love
38:26
Speaker 5: train or you can watch and observe.
38:28
Speaker 4: You know, now you said that about mentees because you
38:30
Speaker 4: do have those older women that Lauren is talking about,
38:32
Speaker 4: but then you have some of these young folks that
38:34
Speaker 4: don't like correction.
38:36
Speaker 1: So is it okay to ever outgrow a mentor absolutely?
38:41
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
38:42
Speaker 5: I think that there are times our relationships, there are
38:45
Speaker 5: relationships can be outgrown and sometimes and I always go
38:48
Speaker 5: with this, like, what's the phrase like you to meet
38:51
Speaker 5: and throw away the bones.
38:52
Speaker 3: Like you know, there are some things.
38:53
Speaker 5: There's knowledge you can get from a lot of different spaces,
38:56
Speaker 5: and then there are sometimes you can tell that people
38:58
Speaker 5: are giving you information that's kind of basing, that they're
39:00
Speaker 5: projecting their own what happened to them, their own hurt
39:04
Speaker 5: that whatever is. You Like, sometimes I can be listening
39:06
Speaker 5: to somebody and I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna take that
39:08
Speaker 5: that not that, take that that that not that, and
39:10
Speaker 5: then I know, like that's not you know, and then
39:13
Speaker 5: sometimes I know when a season has ended, right, so
39:16
Speaker 5: it may be time for that season to end, and you.
39:18
Speaker 3: Don't get that good feeling.
39:19
Speaker 5: So you know, if you keep forcing yourself into a
39:21
Speaker 5: relationship just because somebody says you got to be in
39:23
Speaker 5: this relationship, like why are you there?
39:25
Speaker 3: You can find somebody else.
39:27
Speaker 5: And I think that sometimes that you usually comes from
39:28
Speaker 5: that formal structure or even organization. Sometimes, like I'm not
39:32
Speaker 5: sending you anywhere to be hurt, right, you know, you
39:34
Speaker 5: shouldn't go talk to anybody that you know is hurting you,
39:36
Speaker 5: Like if someone is not giving you the best advice,
39:38
Speaker 5: if they're not looking out for you, and like you said,
39:41
Speaker 5: even in our conversations, although I saw Natasha as this mentor,
39:44
Speaker 5: it's like really as a big sister, because I said,
39:46
Speaker 5: we didn't have that language like it's a big sister.
39:48
Speaker 5: There were times like Natasha's telling me stuff and I'm
39:50
Speaker 5: telling her, you know, like you need to do this, this,
39:53
Speaker 5: this and this.
39:53
Speaker 3: You know, this is what I think.
39:55
Speaker 5: How you gonna what you're gonna do about it, you know,
39:56
Speaker 5: or just turning that mirror, you know sometimes and so
39:59
Speaker 5: it's a two ways street even with older people, Like
40:01
Speaker 5: I've always been able to have that conversation, you know,
40:04
Speaker 5: even when my grandma used to do stuff. Now you know,
40:06
Speaker 5: you can't really tell your grandma too much, but I try,
40:09
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. Then there's some things I
40:11
Speaker 5: used to be like, you know, I'm just let hoocky
40:12
Speaker 5: right now.
40:13
Speaker 3: Check to them. People Like I told.
40:16
Speaker 5: My grandma passed, we found all kinds of charity she
40:19
Speaker 5: was given to. I was like, I told her to
40:20
Speaker 5: stop doing that, Like they're not gonna listen. But you know,
40:22
Speaker 5: there's that intergenerational aspect that you have, like people there
40:25
Speaker 5: are people in family. So I think that we have
40:27
Speaker 5: people in family that we're mentors to and we may
40:29
Speaker 5: not be going anywhere from that. And then there are
40:31
Speaker 5: people who just in community like that we can like, hey,
40:34
Speaker 5: we're gonna part ways, I'm gonna talk to somebody, And.
40:36
Speaker 1: There are people like at the end of the day.
40:37
Speaker 6: What I'm real concerned about in this moment is the
40:40
Speaker 6: new flavor of today is being mean, like like everything is.
40:45
Speaker 1: About a clickbait, everything is about let me be mean
40:48
Speaker 1: in some way.
40:49
Speaker 6: That that's that that means that I'm stronger, I'm dominant
40:52
Speaker 6: that at the end of at the end of the day,
40:54
Speaker 6: people are people.
40:55
Speaker 1: You either love people or you don't. And so there
40:57
Speaker 1: are sisters, sisters as brothers.
41:00
Speaker 6: They're just some mean ass people, right And at the
41:02
Speaker 6: end of the day, when you see that, you have
41:04
Speaker 6: to separate. Even in our space. Listen, if we're in
41:07
Speaker 6: the space and she's saying it, you know, if there
41:09
Speaker 6: is an adult talking to the kids a certain kind
41:11
Speaker 6: of way, what did I say earlier?
41:13
Speaker 1: Love corrected, We gonna correct you. You can't come in our.
41:16
Speaker 6: Space and be abusive to those girls, not in front
41:20
Speaker 6: of us, not what we see. And we actually create
41:22
Speaker 6: safe spaces for the kids so that they can actually
41:26
Speaker 6: they got their own rhythm, they got their own language.
41:28
Speaker 6: They got their own thing that they do, and we're
41:30
Speaker 6: also pouring into adults that work with them as well,
41:32
Speaker 6: because they got their own space and we want to
41:35
Speaker 6: want them to really be able to grab home and
41:38
Speaker 6: reclaim their own girlhood. But at the end of the day,
41:40
Speaker 6: all of us in this moment, I'm hoping that we understand,
41:44
Speaker 6: you know, and I ain't come on here to be political,
41:46
Speaker 6: but let me say this, I hope we understand that
41:48
Speaker 6: this moment ain't about Trump. Now all that we can
41:51
Speaker 6: sit there and think that this moment is about Trump
41:53
Speaker 6: and Republicans load aint this moment really is. In my opinion,
41:57
Speaker 6: this moment is really a hard reset for us to
41:59
Speaker 6: lot look at ourselves.
42:01
Speaker 1: What are we doing? Like we created Trump.
42:04
Speaker 6: Every time you actually thought that you were better than
42:07
Speaker 6: somebody else, that fed into that kind of energy. Every
42:10
Speaker 6: time you stepped over that homeless person, that fed into
42:13
Speaker 6: that energy. Every time you believe that some people deserve
42:16
Speaker 6: food and other folks didn't, you fed.
42:18
Speaker 1: Into that injury.
42:19
Speaker 6: We created and fed this monster, this monster of meanness
42:23
Speaker 6: and madness in this country right that would do anything
42:26
Speaker 6: for attention, that would do anything to get money, that
42:29
Speaker 6: would do anything to make himself be dominant. That lives
42:32
Speaker 6: in us too, and so part of if we want
42:34
Speaker 6: to see something different, then we gonna have to be different.
42:37
Speaker 6: So in this space as we deal with our kids,
42:39
Speaker 6: like I'll here folks and they'll say something, Yeah, but
42:42
Speaker 6: these boys, now that these boys do the same thing
42:44
Speaker 6: that boys did fitty years old. These girls and girls
42:50
Speaker 6: were the same amn thing that you did.
42:52
Speaker 1: The bottom line, youre talking met the girl getting pregnant.
42:53
Speaker 6: Half y'all you just didn't get caught like at the
42:56
Speaker 6: end of the day, don't add like y'all want to
42:57
Speaker 6: having sex, right, So I'm saying that because there's a
43:00
Speaker 6: particular kind of way that we judge others to make
43:05
Speaker 6: ourselves feel bigger, and that a ain't that's.
43:08
Speaker 1: What's happening right now, that kind of consciousness.
43:10
Speaker 6: So I'm just hoping that with us we actually bring
43:13
Speaker 6: love and power to the space and we create. We
43:16
Speaker 6: ain't got it perfect, we ain't got it all figured
43:18
Speaker 6: out right. But what I do know is I do
43:21
Speaker 6: know that if we're coming to a process, if we're
43:23
Speaker 6: trying to create even mentorship, we'll call them membership. But
43:27
Speaker 6: we hear this phrase that that it takes a village
43:29
Speaker 6: to raise a child. That's just pure truth, right.
43:33
Speaker 1: We just a village.
43:34
Speaker 6: We are another village. We provide resources, is money, message
43:38
Speaker 6: and movement building.
43:39
Speaker 2: That's what we do. We appreciate you for joining us.
43:43
Speaker 2: Tell us how they can donate one more time if they.
43:45
Speaker 5: Listen, you can go to Southern Black Girls dot o
43:49
Speaker 5: RG Southern Blackgirls dot org.
43:51
Speaker 2: That's right. Well, January is National Mentorship Mother and thank
43:53
Speaker 2: you women for joining us.
43:54
Speaker 1: Appreciate this.
43:58
Speaker 6: Y'all know.
44:00
Speaker 2: Latasha's on the ground, Shawn Say, Linday Shay.
44:04
Speaker 1: And LaTosha. You know it was the breakfast Club.
44:10
Speaker 2: Good morning.
44:13
Speaker 1: Every day. A weak clicks up the Breakfast Club.
44:17
Speaker 3: Y'all done,