Intersectionality, Identity, and Power's Role in Tackling Poverty
Poverty is a multifaceted issue, not merely defined by a lack of financial resources but deeply intertwined with a myriad of social, economic, and cultural factors. Understanding how race, gender, class, and other identities intersect to shape experiences of poverty is crucial in developing effective solutions. At the heart of this understanding lies the concept of intersectionality, which offers a lens through which we can better grasp the complexities of poverty and the power dynamics that perpetuate it.
Intersectionality is a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the late 1980s to describe how different forms of discrimination overlap and interact. This concept helps us see that experiences of poverty cannot be understood by looking at economic status alone; instead, we must consider how various aspects of identity—such as race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and class—intersect and influence one's experience.
Understanding power dynamics is essential to addressing poverty effectively. Power shapes the opportunities and resources available to individuals and communities, and it is often wielded unevenly. Those in positions of power—whether political, economic, or social—often have the capacity to influence policies and systems that affect the distribution of resources.
Notes
Casey Phillips: Welcome everybody to this Friday. It is nice to be joined by royalty. Dexter DJ Dexter Jackson, also known as the future, Mr. Knowles as we have an artist in the house. And one of my favorite things about the work that we do is watching artists. Enter into system spaces, right into the education system into city planning committees and being on the library boards. And we have some incredible guests today, but we have a few artists here, like Alexis and Dexter that take their art and actually go into the social change space and change systems. And that's one of my favorite things in the Walls Project, but I want to make sure and welcome everybody to the space and Tia, you have put together an incredible topic today and I am looking forward to learning just like everybody else. So Tia, take it away.
Tia Fields: All right. Peace and blessings to everybody on the call this morning lovely Friday. August is intersectionality month, and I thought it would just be appropriate to have some of the most dynamic brains on this call just to share a little bit about their experience as it relates to intersectionality, identifying with multiple marginalized groups, how it is that as leaders, we are making sure that there are spaces and systems created for those who are still going through the struggle. And I want to kick it off with T. C. You have your five minutes starts now.
TC Nash: All right. Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for being here. Bright and early on a Friday morning. My name is T. C. Nash. I use she/they pronouns. I am the founder and lead consultant at 24/19 LLC. We are an emerging communications consulting firm that supports mission driven organizations and people and telling their stories and mobilizing other people to act. I'm black, I'm queer, and I'm a cisgendered woman, and I will bring that and a couple of other pieces and elements of my identity to this conversation and I'm grateful to be here with you all this morning.
Tia: Thank you so much. Mr. Hill? Oh, I was supposed to go to Dexter, sorry. Mr. Hill?
Johnathan S. Hill: I leave all the time for Dexter because I know he has a wealth of introduction to share. Johnathan Hill. I'm happy to be here with you this morning. Thank you for the invitation. I serve as the practice lead for advisory service of Franklin associates, which is a local minority owned consulting firm here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We specialize in community engagement and strategic communications, but also governmental relations. I do a wealth of things in the community from serving on various boards, but also serve as the pastor of the Evergreen Baptist Church. I consider myself a strategist, scholar and servant leader. I'm looking forward to diving into this conversation this morning.
Tia: Welcome Mr. Hill, so grateful to have you. Mr. Jackson?
Dexter Jackson: Good morning and I'm gonna keep it short just out of spite today. My name is. Dexter Jackson. I am a director at Humanities Amped, which is a local educational focused nonprofit that aims to model and share transformative educational practices that result in people's power to change their world. I am also a local artist, educational advocate, community organizer and founder of the Yellow Door Arts Collective, which is a small arts collective that aims to give artists of color and queer artists the opportunity to reach new audiences and build their own professional networks. And so I am very happy to be here as well. I am a former employee of the Walls Project. So it's nice to be back in this capacity and see my friends, Casey, and also respect to TC Nash and Johnathan Hill and Kina who's here. And I look forward to this conversation this morning.
Tia: Awesome. And last and certainly not least is Ms. Kina Reed. You have five minutes to introduce yourself and share with everyone who, what it is that you do.
Joquina Reed: The other brilliant people didn't use five minutes, so I'm going to try not to use five minutes either. My name is Joaquina Reed And I'm a sag sun a scorpio moon of iris rising Just want to put that energy out there. TruthTeller and officially the founding suit of JRE Consulting, which is a professional wellness firm that is dedicated to helping organizations embody diversity, equity, and inclusion. But as always as black women, we do things differently. So there's a justice oriented approach to the work I do. I tell organizations that organizations shape community and community shape organization. And we can't do things outside of community. We can't eliminate poverty outside of community. We can't create justice outside of community. And so I try to bring a community focus to the work I do. I also want to just thank you so much Tia for being the baddest of the baddies out here in the streets for cultivating this conversation. Naming this as intersectionality month. And I also want to just let people know that this is also national black business month. There are several black businesses on the call TC is a black woman. I personally hired. Yes. Yes. Yes. We believe in paying black women over here. And also this is black August. And so if there was ever a time to celebrate the black radical tradition in terms of organizing mobilization, thinking, thought practice. It would be this month, so thank you for including me.
Tia: Absolutely, so we're just going to go ahead and jump right into the conversation of the day, which is intersectionality, identity, power, and how that shows up in poverty. Doesn't have to go in any order, but the first question that I have for you all is how do you feel that race, gender, class, or other identifying factors plays a role in the way people experience poverty?
Joquina: Okay. I want to go first just for this reason. Okay. Because we throw around the term intersectionality a lot. And it has become very trendy in a lot of ways, and that in itself isn't a bad thing, but I also think that it's really important for people to understand the foundation of the concept and the term. So that's the only reason why I was like, let me jump right in, right? When people talk about intersectionality, I think it's been diluted in a lot of ways, and so I think it's always good to bring back that foundational plate piece. We're talking about a theoretical framework that was created by Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, a black woman, right? It first gets featured in legal research, right? So what Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw does is she cites Three court cases, all right? Three specific court cases. I'm not going to bore you all with the details. I will add them to the chat if people want to do research later on. And all of these three court cases, at the heart of these three court cases are three Black women who are talking about their experiences in organizations, right? And what it means to be both black and women and how in those organizations they experience on wellness, on safety, harassment, I would say even racialized highlights racialized hazing because of the intersections of those identities.
And at the heart of intersectionality is a framework that is deeply rooted in black feminist thought and activism as a framework and invites us to consider the ways that oppressive systems interact with social location and identity and embodiment and lived experience, right? And then Dr. Crenshaw has told us that this concept has widely been misunderstood and because it's misunderstood, it's often misused in our public consciousness. All right to cite Dr. Crenshaw, the person who coined the term, it's not simple that there's a race problem here or a gender problem here or a class or LBGTQ problem there. Many times this framework erases what happens to people who are subject to all of these things. Some people look to intersectionality as a grand theory of everything, but that's not my intention. And then I'll leave this here with the friends of with the words of my dear friend, Ashley Noelle Matt, the contemporary and trending use of the term intersectionality is supposed to point us to right the ways in which oppression intersects identity, but oftentimes than not, we see it co opted and misappropriated particularly in whiteness, particularly in white feminism and wellness spaces. So I'm so excited about this conversation because I think it could give us grounding in both the historic, legal framework, but also understanding that intersectionality isn't something you just slept on something you slept on something and say, Oh, hey, my, I can't walk my dog at the dog park. I'm being oppressed. All right, then I just wanted to put that out there.
Tia: You guys feel free to chime in. I'm still, we're still in a space of breaking down on how intersectionality identity power and other identities shape the experience of poverty. Thank you. Dexter, you're off mute.
Dexter: Yeah I didn't realize I was. I'm glad I didn't say anything. But so the first thing I do want to acknowledge is that poverty is not an indictment on anyone. Poverty is a problem of capitalism from pay rates to the access to housing, to the access to food, to all of those things. And so for the most part, your intersectionality does play a part in that, but somebody is making money off of people being poor and that's a serious thing in the country. One of Mr. Jetson's favorite quotes, “It's not that it's not working. It's not working for who it's working for”. So I want to start there for me in looking at from the educational standpoint, which is where I spend most of my time. I work in Tara high school back at Metro Morphosis and to a lesser extent at the walls project that was in and out of high schools, pretty much pretty high school, middle schools, pretty much all day, every day and getting to work with kids super duper closely. I think the thing that I see when it comes to the intersectionality of all of these identities is the mindset that it puts you in. And it's not necessarily a bad mindset. So I don't want to look. I want to look at it as an asset and not as a deficiency in this moment. However. When you talk to students and you hear about their experiences and you hear about the things that they go through and you look at the systems that they have to go through the identities that they hold are not often given the opportunity to be, spotlighted in their educational experiences, and that leads to a very myopic mindset in terms of what is achievable for me. So I'll give an example. If you tell a kid that they're going to be a football player their entire life and then they don't, and they don't become a football player, then, they feel lost. They don't know what the next step is because we have not taken the time to nurture them through the educational system that as Freire has put it has become this banking deposit system where you only deposit information as an educator into the student and then you expect them to regurgitate some money back out to you, in the terms of the information that you've given them. You have not used school as the place that it's supposed to be. School is supposed to be and I think we have to separate the idea of school. Education and learning schooling. School is the structure, right? There is a piece to know how to navigate a structure, how to move through something, how to follow rules, how to interact with authority on certain levels. There's a place for that. But where we lose students is the educational piece and the learning because we look at learning. We look at education. It's just the academics. That's not just what school is about nurturing all of those different identities and teaching students and people to challenge the ideas. Thoughtfully that they who they are, give them the opportunity to experience few things socially, relationship wise activity wise sports wise, all of those things so that they can find their spark that moves them through whatever the next phase of their life is. But we push college and we push, which isn't for everyone. We don't do the arts, which if I would have known that you can make great money. Mixing and mastering music. I would have done that straight out of school. I did not know that was a thing that you could do right. There are all these things that we miss in school that lead people to stay in the cycles that they're in and not identify the places in which they can grow and that they're good. That may be not traditional and allow them to move on out of poverty and do something different for their community. And the learning piece of that is applying that knowledge, right? And so we don't give students, we don't give our little people the opportunity to figure out who they are or apply the things that they are, that they should be learning to their real life experiences. And that keeps you in a mindset of survival and not what can be. And you see it all the time where I am always shocked. I see a kid who is, I'm a vocalist, not as good as Alexis Phillips, but I'm getting there. I see kids who are football players and wrestlers and all these things, and they'll be walking down the hallway just singing and I'm like, Oh, you got a nice little voice on you, right? Have you ever like. Try to do anything that will know I'm gonna be a football player. Okay what happens if you're not a football player, you're not a wrestler or you're not a baseball player, but they haven't had the opportunity to think about the other performances of possibility. So that's my thoughts when it comes to the educational piece, but I will yield some time because I'm talking a lot and I will give it to either Johnathan or TC whoever's up next.
Johnathan: Yeah. Thank you for that. And I appreciate you Dr. Reed for grounding us in that definition of intersectionality. And one of the things I thought about when I thought about this identity piece is, and for me, it's personally always being aware of the systems and structures that have helped shape my identity. And sometimes I think people are not aware that there are systems and structures around all of us that shaped who we are and identities that we take on. One of those is family. We don't often look at that your community. Dexter mentioned schooling. All of those things help shape that. And it's interesting as Dexter was breaking down schooling. I always thought about schooling as of late when we talk about the school to prison pipeline. Oftentimes schools just feel that way. The way they walk in order, the way they have to be uniform, all of those things. And so what identities are we trying to shape as we mold our young people? But also knowing how you have navigated the system yourself, but being mindful that you don't create and replicate those same systems for other people as they come behind you.
And I think so often we become a product of the system. And we don't necessarily understand how it was formed and how we design interventions to break that. So the same people who come behind us don't have to endure many of the things we did and that's even with poverty. And so that's just my initial thoughts around the identity piece, being aware of how system instruction shape us, but also how we can be aware of shaping system instructions to give people the opportunity to develop their own identity for the future.
TC: Yep. I'm also very grateful for Kina for the grounding. And so what it did for me was bring up how those identities that that are placed on us and or the identities that we decided to carry with us, because I think that there is, to some extent, things that you can take off. Because they were put on you, and you do not have to take ownership of everything that somebody has named and or called for you. But you think about the way that those things can compound, even in the ways that you do identify. I don't get to take off being Black. I don't plan on taking off the fact that I'm a cisgendered woman. I am a queer cisgendered woman, right? There are things about my identity that just make me up, and they are who I am. And because of that, there are going to be barriers, and there are going to be systems, there are going to be things that are in place that limit. Or attempt to limit my ability to access something and I come from a household of single mom black. She's educated got the master's degree got the jobs and did all the things But I recognize that may not always be the case for everyone and when in recognizing that you recognize that location access to opportunities access to mentorship access to Investment all of those things will ultimately impact In some way, how a person lands, right? And so the compound of coming from a family that is less accepting, also has a low socioeconomic status, also uneducated, also living in a rural and or an area that is not as wealthy. It plays a part in how a person sees the world, it's going to play a part in what it is that they believe that they have the ability to access, it's going to play a part in what role they take ultimately going to do and or be whatever it is that they think that they can do and or be. I think that when we look at that in relation to poverty, sometimes we want to pick the identities that we are the most and are the most comfortable with and think that by addressing the challenge that faces whatever piece of an identity that a person has, that we're going to somehow change the trajectory of their life. And so in other words, if the issue is that you come from a low socioeconomic background, then we just need to give them some money or they just need to find their way into some resources. If it is the neighborhood that they grow up doesn't have a lot of jobs or it doesn't have a lot of beautification, if we're going to make that change. This look nice. And then they're going to see that they can do this other thing. But if we don't address the, in my, and I come from a policy type background. And but we, if we don't address the policy and the system, then the processes that are legitimately skewing, moving people away from what it is that they actually need. To harness the ability to control the ability to own the ability to do what it is that they believe around their own identity. I don't think that we give them an opportunity to truly combat the systems and combat what we are just seeing the result of. Because poverty to me is the result of a bunch of other things. It's not just there was no money. It's not just there is no healthcare. It's like that is the result of a bunch of things happening to families, happening to individuals, and I think that until we address all of those things in a holistic manner, we will get the results that we get. I'm going to pause here because I feel like the follow up question, I haven't heard it yet, but I just know in my spirit that it might bring me to where I want to go next. Because I think that when we start moving into the power piece, recognizing that power is fluid, and so if you are not doing something with it, it's being acted upon so I know that we're going somewhere. So I'm going to chill.
Tia: So I'm going to jump to the chat box real quick. Sherreta has made a comment about the face of poverty, how poverty often has an identity that drives or impacts the work that we do. But my question is, what does poverty look like? How do we identify it? Or people walking around and say, I'm in poverty. I'm poor.
Johnathan: I've been trying to figure that out to how we define it, what it looks like. T. C. mentioned coming from a low social economic background, right? And I probably could have tested that too, but that's only looking back. Because at that moment, I never felt that way. And when I hear people say that, I'm like, man, I never felt like I grew up poor. I always felt like I had everything I needed. Didn't want for much and so I'm still trying to wrestle what it looks like because I think so often we have attached a color to it, a race to it for so many people. But I don't know, and I'm quite sure there's some. What I want to say academic definition for or the government has defined it, but I also think those who we define are in poverty, maybe not even see themselves in poverty. And so I'm really interested to hear more about that. I know that wasn't answer to your question.
Tia: It was in a sense, because when I think about it to your point of you may have come from a lower socioeconomic background, but you didn't feel that way. Who was it that told you that you were living in poverty or that you were not living the best life or that there were better opportunities that were for you? So I'm just curious to know what system, what person, what entity determines what poverty looks like. And what should be better about the way that a person lives. And I'm getting some, I'm getting somewhere with it, with this. So if anybody wants to jump in and go right ahead.
Dexter: Yeah, I think that let me say for me, I thought that folks were who had ice makers on their refrigerator when I was growing up or like the richest people in the world. That was my level of richness. To me, when I look back on my childhood I had a very comfortable living, before I turned about six or seven I did not, I lived in Plaquemine, Louisiana and for anybody who's been to quote unquote, the black side of Plaquemine, Louisiana, we know that it has historically not been super great, but it didn't feel, it didn't feel that way, it really didn't. And When we talk about what it looks like to be in poverty, I think it is, I think it's seriously a mindset that you have, for example, a couple of years ago, I was struggling, I lost a job and whatnot. And I remember telling my mom being like, Oh no, I know how to be poor. It's not having money that I don't know how to do. I know how to make it from month to month. Being a broke person, I don't know what to do with an excess of money. And that was one of the moments where I was like, huh, I might have a poverty mindset going on in there. Or at least the experience of that. So when I look at the kids who show up every day, I believe Tara high is. One of the metrics they use is free lunch, free or reduced lunch. And I believe Tara High is like 99. It is over 99 point something percent free or reduced lunch. And by looking at folks, you can't tell right? You genuinely can't. It helps that they're in uniform, but also from the way they carry themselves.
Everyone has a nice cell phone at this point. Everyone has the freshest Jordans. I only wear Air Force ones, so I don't know that light. So I don't think that you can, I don't think you can necessarily pin it. I really do think it is a mindset that people have, because if you come from a strong community, Because yeah, we didn't have a lot of things, but I definitely had a Dixie cup lady, right? I definitely was able to go. I knew where my friends were by the bicycles that were on the front lawn, right? Like I knew all of those things. And as an adult, yeah, I can see my mama was struggling, but it didn't feel that way. So for me, it is the way that people think and maybe the yeah. Maybe the financial decisions that they make but also again, capitalism forces you to do things that may look irresponsible to someone from the outside looking in, but may not be, for example, pretty much everyone needs a cell phone right now. And the easiest cell phone to have is an iPhone. So you can't judge someone who's poor for having an iPhone because you genuinely need it. To survive in the country or to survive in this particular time. But I will yield as well back to TC or Kina.
Joquina: So I love the fact that Johnathan started us off with like our childhood. And I also want to bring to the discussion, something I heard. Johnathan Hill said a few weeks ago that will probably always stay with me when you were in a shared space and you talked about being wealthy, right? And it's not necessarily attached to tangible things. And I really appreciated that, Johnathan, and I'm going to hold that to my heart because to your point, growing up, I don't think I ever heard knowing what I know now, that I know that we were living at the poverty level, right? But I didn't know that as a kid. And it says something about the fact that because everyone around me was also poor and so because of that No one seemed different until you go to somebody's house and they have an ice maker, or they go, you go to somebody's house and they have this and this. I think part of how we understand poverty is it's marked difference, right? Denotatively there are things that measure it, like the federal poverty level. Like the poverty index like we have all of these things on the Department of Health creates a magic number that people have had to earn, right? That fluctuates. I think TC talked about it being fluid, right? So apparently if you were an individual in 2023 and you earned around 14,000, then you would consider technically poor. So I think there's both the poverty is seen as a marker of difference. I think poverty could also be understood as what are we talking about in terms of systems and institutions naming you as poverty? But I also think there is a certain amount of spiritual poverty that exists too. When you are divorced from a communal ethic, when you are divorced from integrity, when you are divorced from accountability, right? And so there are people who might. On a most tangible level we get dollars, but are spiritually bankrupt. And so I see that there are those three ways, difference, communal understandings, what the federal government says, but also what you are lacking in terms of moral character, all things I would use to describe someone as experiencing a certain kind of poverty.
Tia: So it sounds like we can agree that there are different types of poverty. In different levels to it. I think what I'm also hearing is that it can be some of a mindset thing versus I'm not aware that I am living a certain way that society says should be better or equitable, right? Because I've never been taught that there's more for me to desire or more for things for me to aspire to work towards. And then there's the flip side of it when it comes to the systems that have been in place that benefit off the backs of the poor on different levels, which leads me to my next question. What are some effective strategies you guys have seen or used to tackle sectionalities of poverty?
Joquina: T. C. hinted at this earlier, so I'm sure T. C. has some thoughts, but I'm not sure about Dexter, but I also want to like name that most of us on this panel are ULDI fellows. And so we are used to, I think, or we've been the brilliant brains that lead that project have asked us to think about things from an adaptive versus technical place, right? We're talking about adaptive versus technical challenges. So someone goes into a seven, what is it? 70805. And says, Oh, in this neighborhood, all they need is more funds, right? Then they're thinking about poverty as a technical challenge. When really we're talking about something that's adaptive, right? To TC's point about that fluid, things change, right? Needs change. According to, again, the department of human health services, even poverty, who's at the poverty level changes. So in terms of how we create solutions. Part of what I would say is recognizing that poverty is structural violence. And because it's structural violence and it is embedded in so many systems and ideologies, we have to look at it as an adaptive challenge, right? It's not simply add money and stir, right? So part of that sovereignty has to be recognizing as an ever growing and adaptive thing that we have to work through. Again, I would say in community. It is always the people who are closest to a problem who have the solutions. I don't think that's news to anyone on this call, but oftentimes in that, what I think we often see is a gatekeeping. So we're going to give this a group of people funds to do this. And that's the worst for the people who are the most impacted. And that's a big problem for me. I don't want to say more before I start acting out. Okay, that's that.
Dexter: Yeah, I want to piggyback off of what Kina said. I love that, that not love it, but that phrase structural violence is so appropriate because politics plays a huge role in it. When we look at. Where interstates are built, where landfills are built, where in infrastructural investments are made where certain large, second largest oil refineries in the countries are allowed to not pay taxes and bring down property values with their their emissions. And what does that mean for the educational systems around that area? And what does that mean for the people? What does that mean for the people who live in that area health wise, right? All of those things are. Factors in tackling the problem of poverty. Again, it's not just about the money and the people. It is about the decisions that are being made on behalf of those people. Many times by those who were elected through not very representative ways to represent. And we have to be, we have to be cognizant of that. Now, with that said, I think what we've all just pulled out of our conversation is the fact that, yeah, none of us grew up Bill Gates or anything. But we had a good village. And one of the things that I learned at Metro Morphosis was, we know it takes a village, a healthy village to raise a child, but what does it make, you What does it mean to have a healthy village? And the fact that a lot of times the negative effects are mitigated by the community that you are surrounded with when it comes to poverty, whether that's your aunties, your play cousins, whatever it may be. And the way that your community comes together to rally for each other. For example, I'll never forget when I was about seven years old. My neighbor's lights got cut off. They couldn't pay. And so they moved in with us for a week while they figured it out, and I'll never forget because I was an only child. This is the only reason I won't forget this. I remember very vividly having people in the house. And my grandfather was a major, Influence in Plaquemine and the way people would come to his house. And I would have to sit there and take notes about what people needed. And he would take that and go to the powers that be and have conversations with them to try and fix these things. For me, you need that collective voice, you need that healthy village. And you need to understand that poverty is not an Indictment on a person's character. You cannot multiple minimum wage your job. Minimum wage job yourself out of poverty ain't gonna happen. It is just not going to happen. And because someone is in poverty whether they show it or not does not mean that they're a bad parent. In fact, the idea that they take kids from people for being too poor to have Children and give them to other people and then give those people money to take care of that child. It's just a wild a wild thing to even consider. And so we have demonized the idea of being poor and being poor is expensive. And you have to be so lucky, right? Nothing can go wrong. There was a study done a while ago. I cannot remember where I read it, but that in order to pull yourself out of poverty, you need 20 years of nothing going wrong, right? That means. No, no kids popping up. That means you can't lose your job. You can't get in trouble with the law. And the truth is everybody deserves to make a mistake. Like we all make mistakes. However, the lower you fall on that socioeconomic pole, that totem pole the worst those mistakes are for the rest of your life. Yeah, and it's harder to work your way out of that. So the effective strategies are really a systemic issue, a political issue and an organizing issue and not necessarily an individual issue. You can't individually take you out. Thank you, Manny for that. Thank you so much. You can't work your way out of a system that is meant to be. To oppress you and meant to make money off of you. And the last thing I'll say about it is that capitalism is for the poor. Socialism is for the rich. If you look at the way that those two different demographics live their lives, you will see very quickly that poor people pay for everything. Rich people don't pay for very much actually. And with that said, I will yield to Johnathan and my little sister TC.
TC: Yeah, so I took a step back after question one. I told you all these people were absolutely brilliant, and I never get tired of listening to them talk, right? A lot of what I think that I have come to know and get really hooked on looking into is because I've heard them say something, right? And Dexter brought in an outside document research study, and I want to bring one in too, right? Especially since we brought up the word politics. And in Scotland, they basically came to the conclusion that a large part of why poverty was rampant in some areas is due to two things, really. And it was policymaking coherence and the policymaker competence, their inability to see people beyond, again, the identities or the things that have been placed on them. And so even in Scotland and other places outside the U. S. Black and brown people, particularly black people, are being harmed and placed into these, and have been placed under these systems that don't allow them the free range opportunity and access to what it is they need to be able to beat what we have defined as poverty, right? And Kina rightfully mentioned technical versus adaptive. For me, because policy, I think that including the intersectional lens to the way that we talk about policy making, electing officials, and the way that those conversations take place, the way that we figure out the voices that are going to influence the voices that are gonna carry the narrative forward about what it is that people are actually experiencing. What changes it is that they would actually like to see what investments actually need to be made, what structures actually need to go, that is. All going to be very important work. It's going to be very tedious and time consuming work, but ultimately it's supposed to get us to one place. But I think that what we know about power is that it can concentrate. And if you are in a group where you feel like you don't have the power necessary to impact the decision makers are impacted. the decision makers and the people with influence, the people with wealth, the people with what you think power is, you oftentimes just hand it over, right? It is the, I don't have the desire to organize because I have to go and work work, and I have to run this rat race. I have to do this other thing. You can't make the sacrifice sometimes to, Step away from work for two to three days to go to a capital and tell these people about what you got going on when you know they're going to change the schedule because they found out that you're coming. It is a game that we, to some extent, just cannot afford to play because our livelihood is at stake. Like our existence is on the line in some of these cases. In most of these cases. And so when I look at the policymaking that's going on up at the Capitol, the refusal to pay teachers what it is that we actually know that they are worth the refusal and the inability, so they claim to fund around maternal health to Fund the Medicaid to do the different things. You are literally watching them tell people, Hey, we know you're struggling already and we can't do nothing for you. We're not going to do nothing for you. You need to go figure it out. Those are the type of decisions that ultimately lead. I won't say ultimately, but that contributes to what it is that we see people experiencing. And so I don't think that there is a catch all solution to addressing poverty. I think that attempting to try and blanket. Our way out of it by passing some sweeping laws or some different things like that is just going to set us up in a way for some processes that don't work because they couldn't be tested properly, some barriers in accessing those new programming because the people aren't trained and not equipped, they don't know how to deal with what it is that they're going to be experiencing and facing. And so I don't think that there's like this sweeping solution, but I think that we have identified policy as it is. As a challenge. But we've also identified community as an opportunity in this conversation. And so I think that on the organizing front, we always talk about who is at the table versus who's not at the table, who needs to pull up a chair and is that in the third, but I think that there's an intentionality behind, behind going to get the people. Who actually need to be present versus waiting on them to raise that, raise their hand and say they want buy in or that they want to be a part of it. I think that is a disservice to the folks who don't typically have the time who don't typically have the resources who may not have. We've come to know as a formal education, but have all the lived experience and expertise and can do things that I can't do because I never had to. And so we spend a lot of time in spaces period, just talking amongst ourselves. And I think that the groups on this call do a really good job at in, in placing themselves in community, but I am not necessarily sure all the time. Because stuff be staying the same, or at least it looked like staying the same how much progress or how we track in a progress around those conversations and what people are actually doing and how we're implementing the solutions that are given to us by the folks with the lived experience. I think we get the information, but I'm not necessarily sure. What people always do with it. Somebody else might speak to that, but I'm not sure. But again, no blanket approach. We talked about power. They're just different things here. I'm gonna give it back to Johnathan
Tia: Real quick. You said a mouthful. I've always questioned what will it take for the community?
That's being mostly impacted. To move past just having a motion of being tired of being sick and tired and taking action for themselves. One thing I've never really understood. Is it that certain when we talk about organizations and individuals who are getting the grant funding that are getting the resources and somewhat gatekeeping them from the community, they're still profiting off of the struggle of other people. And that's a really deep question that I want to dive into when it comes to What is it that we're doing as individuals in organizations that are actually leveraging equitable opportunities for all? That is one of the main characteristics of One Rouge of amplifying the voices of all the organizations that we see and have tangible proof that they are making system changes for real. So I'm going to pose the question. Thanks to T. C. For bringing me to this. How is it that of individuals and organizations can leverage their own power to advocate for more equitable solutions?
TC: I think they give the power away.
Tia: The individual or the organization?
TC: I think that even in the framing of that question to some regard, like there is this, the organization, how do they, how does the organization leverage their power, or get the people to leverage their power? And I think that Oftentimes organizations stand in a position where their goal, they see their job as amplifying, right? But I think that there is something about calling the power that a person in a group, in a community innately has. Give it back to them. Like it's not up for, I don't think it's necessarily our job to go and get the information and then go and blast it to the masses or go take what they sold us to the Capitol or go do whatever. That is their work. And I think that the ULDI and me is also getting ready to start coming out, but we are oftentimes picking up the work of the communities that need to be moving and mobilizing and taking action for themselves. Leadership is not that right waking up folks, getting them to recognize the problem that they are already talking about. You see it all over Facebook. I know I do. You see it, all over Instagram is you scroll on tick tock. Everybody has a think piece about what it is that's happening. But the think pieces stop the moment that they hit post sometimes. That's not for everybody. There are people who I watch and I get to see and I get to see them strategizing and organizing and pulling people in, but you have to give that power away. It's not for us to consolidate organizations and people in a place like, yes, we need to be. In community, we need to have a place where we can come, where we can organize, where we can strategize, where we can work together, but recognizing that even as organizations, in some way, if we take ownership of what needs to be done, we basically help the people who we are saying should not, got to get past being tired. We are stopping them in a way. Because we're like, just bring us all your concerns and we're going to do it. We are going to work on this. And it's a partnership, it's a collaboration. It's not meant to be us taking gatekeeping as Kina just dropped in the chat. Because that's ultimately what it becomes. Because people start to look at these organizations and these coalitions and these groups as saviors. And as the people that's going to get it done. And then you're just waiting on time. And it's just this repetitive act. And so for me, that is, that, that's a challenge, right? And it's an adaptive one, because at the end of the day, the organizations need the funding to do the work, but the people need the resources, they need the money, and they need you to let them do what they need to do in order to get to where they want to go. And so it's a very what came first, the chicken or the egg type of kind of question, in my opinion. But I think you give the power back to the people. Whose work it is, which I think is in some way the whole premise of metamorphosis. I think it's what OneRouge is attempting to do. Maybe I'm thinking that the approaches are there, right? I think that the execution and the implementation of how these things actually work take time. And it's a game, especially when you are talking about People. And when you talk about people with intersecting identities that are impacting them from every which way, all the different struggles that come along with those identities, like you just, it is so much to navigate and there is no one way to do it. And so I think, as we are all constantly learning, is being able to share those learning back, adjust. And so what is it? Observation, intervention, and then we go back and do it again. It's a cycle. I missed the third word, y'all. I'm sorry. Please don't revoke my pen. But, it's a cycle. And I think that when we get comfortable recognizing that versus just trying to think that like the first time we intervene or the first thing that we do is gonna be the win. Will be better off, but it's a process. It's an iterative process. And so I guess I'll stop there because I start to ramble
Tia: Again. The question that's on the table is how can individuals and organizations leverage their own power to advocate for more equitable solutions? And I want to keep the frame line of how is it that we intersect when we first started to call TC opened up with, your pronouns, how you self identify. And I want to, bring this to the rest. To the panelists. How is it that the power that you hold in the identities that you carry for yourself? How is it that you're able to leverage equitable solutions for the communities and populations that you're trying to reach?
Dexter: I think the 1st thing is that when you consider your identities and I'm going to speak specifically about working with young people when you consider your identities, you need to be compassionate in the way that you approach the work. You need to understand that everyone is. First of all, no one knows what they're doing, right? We are all taking guesses about life and trying to figure it out. And it's working out for some, and it's not working out for others. But the main thing for me is when we work with kids at Humanities Amped, that we've taken a big push this year to put them in spaces with career professionals who can serve as their mentors, because a lot of luck comes from connection. That's genuinely what it is for every person that did not that did not invest in Uber, Kevin Hart, right? There are dozens who did. And so figuring out how you put people in places where their skills, their experience, their experiences are recognized and their skills are built and leveraged to help them move forward. But Morgan put in the chat, something that I think is just so appropriate, but also something that a lot of people won't do, which is sometimes you got to get out the way. Sometimes you have to look at the work that you're doing and try and figure out if you are helping or if you are stopping things from happening. Are you being a bottleneck? A gatekeeper? Are you or and this is a question that a lot of people don't want to do. The work that you started 10 years ago may not be the thing that now is necessary. And you have to look at that and pivot the work or realize that, Hey, I'm just sucking up resources from somebody else who could be more impactful in this work. Let me look for ways to be a partner. Let me look for other ways to impact this work. But the truth is you may just need to get out of the way. And we see that now in, in I don't want to bring it to politics, but we see that in like Congress and we see that in the Senate and why I commend Joe Biden so much for stepping out of the way, a lot of people do not see themselves, they see their intrinsic value of I'm doing this work and it is my identity and I want to do this. You can't care about that. If your true goal is to improve the lives of the people around you, your ego has to go away. And so really considering. The idea that you are no longer useful in this space is okay, right? It doesn't mean that you have not done great work. Even Kobe Bryant had to retire. My favorite basketball player of all time. You had to retire and get out of the way, right? And so just thinking about it from that level on the individual level, looking for ways that your skills impact others. In a way that brings you joy. And also lifts up your community. That's where my arts advocacy comes in. That's where my performing comes in. That's where my writing and making space for artists comes in. That is my, I know that I am good at that thing and I want to make space for other people. And so when we do yellow door work, It's out of pocket, right? I know Tia has been to some, I don't know if anybody else has been to the yellow door session concerts, but we make space for artists. It comes out of our pocket. We don't ask artists to pay. We record everything for them for free so that they can have highly and mix and master so they can have highly high quality things to bring out into the world to push their music forward. So you have to know how you fit in. You have to know when it's time to go. And you have to put that ego aside and say, I hold two eternal truths in both my hands that are in complete diametric opposition to each other. Everything that I'm doing is true and righteous and it'll work out fine and I'm going to change the world and everyone's lives will be better. And in the other hand, I could be completely wrong and you have to live with those. Two things and understand when it is time to let it go and use the voice of the people to inform your work. Not what you think is what you think the best way to go is. And with that, I yield.
Johnathan: Yeah, so I want to add to what TC, you really challenged me with that. Sometimes organizations have to get out the way, right? And Dexter, you amplified it. Sometimes you have to get out the way as the person, but I think the other part of that is. Yeah. The community has to let them go, right? Because what I often find is sometimes the people are trying to get out the way, but because, but they become such a staple or such a system in the community to where the community is not ready for that disruption and they don't want to let them go. And so I think as a community, we have to be ready for that to say, all this season has come and gone, and we're okay with letting them go and trying something new and different to see what change that would bring about. You mentioned about showing up with compassion to do the work. I think that is real. But I also think sometimes we got to show up to be controversial, right? There's some moments or some rooms you walk in. That I know I want to stir some controversy to make sure that can be an equitable approach to what we are trying to do and not just always being nice and lovely or we will see what happens, but really push the issue to try to get to the change. We're trying to see
Joquina: Speaking of controversy. I'll say this because I think I'm responding to his question. And I'm going to stay on brand. I think that as a black woman, I am very aware of how I am oppressed. And simultaneously, because this is the kicker, right? As a cisgender black woman, I am not experiencing the same violence as black trans women. As a black woman who is a U. S. citizen, I am not experiencing the same violence as black women who are immigrants. As Afro Palestinians, because shocker, black people are everywhere. I don't know if y'all didn't get that. You could be black and Indian. You can be black and Palestinian, like all of these things. The diaspora is diverse. There are places where I also can see where I have social leverage, where I have social support and resources. So I think one, we have to recognize that oppression that is systemic is also going to land differently. What is, what it means to be Baton Rouge black is different than what it means to be Atlanta black. And we have to be able to contextualize things. But as a black woman who both experiences oppression and has the ability to oppress people I bring myself to the understanding that I'm always going to be thinking through humanity differently. Valuing humanity is so important. Everyone's humanity in the United States. I am really fascinated with the FDR administration and what was able to happen in that administration. And I have a couple of theories about why Social security comes out of that. I have like, why does out of that administration, we have child labor laws that get created, right? Out of that administration, all of these different social well being programs get created. And I think at the heart of that is because that was the last time in the United States, people believed that people deserved good things, right? If you believe that people are like you and have your same values, you want your neighbors to have the things you want, right? When we talk about places on this planet where the highest life expectancy, expectation, expectancy weights exist, are places where there are lots of white people who believe all the other white people deserve good stuff, right? Sweden. Norway, all the places, right? That's because there's this understanding we're a homogenous society, and we're all the same. And so because we're all the same, we all deserve the things. But then when you bring, but that can't happen here, because difference is ramped up so much. And so until we can start seeing our common humanity, until we start feeling like, Even if someone isn't the same as me, they're still deserving of humanity, then we're going to keep hitting a wall, right? So we have to establish that difference doesn't necessarily mean that someone has different values or should be a detriment to where somebody lives. And then lastly, Dexter, blame this on Dexter because he's the one who said the big C word, capitalism. Listen, It is very hard to create a society that is healing its way out of poverty when at the heart of our economic system is something that was built on literally dehumanizing African people. And so until we can have real conversations about that. We're still not going to be able to address these adaptive concerns.
Tia: And I thank you all. I just want to 1st, take the time to say thank you to all of my panelists for leaning in and sharing with us some wisdom and knowledge on how it is that we can be impactful and cognizant of the work that we do who we are as a people. Knowing when to get up and leave a leave space for other people to, come in. I am going to yield this time to Casey. He does have some input that he would like to chime in with y'all. And then after that we'll go into community announcements. I'm just trying to be respectful to everybody's time.
Casey: Okay. Hey, greetings everyone. And I wanna echo what Tia just said is thank you every thank you for all the knowledge that the panel just shared. And just said with that, I don't actually have input. I actually have questions that I would like to circle back around TC brought up. Really speak more about the implementation and the execution of giving power back to the people. And use this opportunity for the next 15 minutes. We don't always do this. But let's like actually like talk about what this looks like in reality and let's use my logo. Our organization's logo the Walls like just openly in like a 15 minute lab about how our organization could give up power I'll speak in a second about how we've tried to do that in our own way. But as we've had conversations with Kina and several of you on the phone, our organization has a long way to go. We have a long way to go. We have in order to truly be as effective as we can be. And this is an uncomfortable space. It's how can the Walls get the hell out the way? So let's play the game and let's do it. So in the past we started as an organization, 2012, because there were no mural visual artists were getting taken advantage of for all practical purposes. And that's just the pain art for free or in exchange for a food tab. Fast forward later and 5 million later that we've been able to actually put onto the ground in the creative community. We have now taken a stand where with our mural program, we don't really accept, we don't really touch anything that's under 25,000, right? We just refer it directly to artists and we just lean out of that space because we felt like we built up that that scaffolding of the mural arts program and the mural arts in the city, Morgan's developed the artist skill. There's so many artists. They can just step in and do things they don't need us. We don't need to be in that space. And so we just refer it. It's a 0 percent referral. Dean T is on our coding team for the Futures Fund. Luke St. John was with the 1st program coordinator. Dexter was a program coordinator in the Futures Fund. And we started as a coding program, right? Because back in 2013 and 2014, there was no computer science, hardly. I think it's Scotlandville and Baton Rouge High was like two of the only programs in schools, and that was really our niche, and plus digital photography. But 10 years later, you have computer science in every single classroom, right? We don't need to be in that space anymore. So we, Through a series of creative destruction, we rebirthed the Futures Fund to get out of the way and let other organizations that really had been developed and do that. So we've done a little bit of this work, but those are like just programming steps. How can an organization like the Walls what does the implementation and execution of giving power back to the community in making it sustainable and growing, how does, what would that look like? And I open it to the floor to any of y'all.
Joquina: So I, I'll just say this. I think people need to have some intellectual humility. And by that, get curious about who is at the table, who isn't at the table. I think I need organizations to start paying attention because I think it's this, and I, and some of this is unconscious, right? You say, these are the four organizations we've been working with, and pay attention to how long you've been working with them. And are there other people that you could potentially bring to the conversation? But I think it's human nature to a certain extent to be like we've always given money to X or Y, to who, da. And I think it's just easy to copycat those things. So I think there has to be some curiosity about the patterns that organizations have, right? If you are a funder, And you need to look and see in our award cycles, are these the same 10 groups, right? And I'm not saying take those 10 groups out the mix, but just pay attention, right? Have some curiosity Oh, are there other organizations that aren't at the table or who are benefiting from something we have access to because we're stuck in a loop of well, we've always worked with these groups. So that's something I think is helpful. Looking at the organization pattern, the organizational patterns of giving supporting and who you're activating.
Johnathan: Yeah, I would also add and I don't know, but when opportunities come to you, are you passing on them? Are you accepting everything that comes? And I don't know the nuances of the Walls, right? To say this is not our fit, but maybe you ought to try this or consider this group.
Casey: Yeah. Yeah. And that's a real, that's a real thing, by the way, that's not a hypothetical. We just did it in Dallas, right? We were positioned for a United Way funding and we step back and let the urban arts center. We actually made the introduction to the urban arts center. And they just got awarded last week and it's going to be transformational money because they were talking about funding work in arts in South Dallas, where this organization had already been doing that for over a decade. Just nobody knew who they were. I'm not worried about it. Like we're working with them in a different way. There's other opportunities and it's a real thing. If you think about abundance and not scarcity. So I want to lift that up because I think it's a really important thing that orgs don't do. Dex?
Dexter: Yeah, I think While y'all were talking, the words that came up to me, or is it, are you increasing your impact or your capacity, which are two completely separate things? Are you, is your work becoming more impactful or are you just able to spread yourself out more thin to do more work and get your name out in front of the right people or whatever? But I think the over the underlying point here, everybody's hinted on it is who is already doing this work? That may we may be overshadowing that does have the ability to do to have a deeper impact and not just expand capacity. And you want to for me, and I'm speaking as the executive director now, for me I look at folks who are quasi in the education space. I'm not going to drop any names or anything, but I watch somebody get a multimillion dollar grant. And then was awarded like 5,000 from someone else that we were denied for. And I was like, bro, you just got a couple million dollars. Like, why are you applying to these 5,000 grants that those of us on the ground truly need to be able to continue our impact for work. But I think more importantly, when the larger organizations like yourself are having talking and having these conversations and asking these questions, Casey, that is the major part of the work, because that shows, like Kina said, the humility. And the lack of ego, but also when you step aside and take the opportunity to either actively or passively invest in someone or an organization that's doing the work, what you're doing is grooming the next generation of people doing the work. And we talked earlier about the need for that community. To be ready for whoever's doing the work to be to step aside that starts a decade 15 years in the future in the past, right? And so thinking about how you see people working in the city, how long, you're going to be around. And with the understanding that, like you said computer sciences. Computer science has become a regular piece of the educational process. And so that could be true for any part of our work at any moment. The universe can change coaching leadership model. I see you, Morgan. But I would add to the kind of pot here of the idea that when you step back and when you allow others to come to the forefront, you are protecting your organization's legacy. While also allowing folks who need the opportunity to learn and grow to build that capacity and increase their impact simultaneously. And that only works if, folks like the Walls Project and bigger organizations step back and really look at how they are balancing their impact versus just simply building their capacity.
Casey: Thank you, Dex. TC coming back to you, where it originated, right?
TC: Yeah, I started this myth. And I was looking over the websites and the nine drivers of poverty to start figuring out what I wanted to be able to contribute to this conversation. And I was looking at the different coalitions that were active, the ones that were launching soon and whatnot, and something that I could not readily tell us who was a part of these coalitions that we were building. I think a little earlier, I alluded to the number of organizations that were present, but organizations like anything else are made up of people, and so I'm starting to think of who are the people outside of the organizations who are, fixing plates at their home that might be trying to help out with the food insecurity in their area. Who are the people that typically don't belong to this larger group? Or this larger entity that are not being asked to come and advise this thing and whether or not that is something that is being done. It wasn't something that I could readily see. And so when we have those opportunities to invest and to build on the people who are doing that sort of grassroots on the ground type work and give them the ability to say, Hey, I know you're already doing this. So not only do we want to invest in what you're doing, but give them the opportunity to potentially lead in what it is that we think that we are going to be doing. That is me. That is an opportunity or a way, a method into giving that power away, letting them decide what the coalition is going to do versus all of these people with these years of experience in this space. That may be overlooking something that is happening, allowing them to be the co chairs or the heads that are making the decisions around what is happening versus the funder who wants to be abreast to everything that is taking place. I think that there are opportunities in the way that we position people for leadership in the work that we are doing that also allow us to give that power away. It's not necessarily about what it is that we Learned from the data points and have come to the conclusion our solutions and then just going forward, but letting those people tweak our processes along the way those things that we are comfortable with just doing and understand that, this is best practices. This is how it should be. But if best practices aren't getting us where we are they really that? And for me, those are opportunities or ways in which that could be done. But I typically think it involves most more times than not taking somebody who is currently not. Who is the closest to the problem but not closest to the decision making and putting them in that spot. That, that is, I think, where I, the vein in which I was approaching that from. The storyteller in me is also thinking about letting them also get to say Speak, share, share their insights on the narrative around it because we could even be positioning it wrong in the way that we talk about it or doing harm to them by talking about it the way that we talk about it. I don't have an example at the top of my mind, but there are ways in which people like to be referred to, and there are things that they don't like to be referred to, referred as. And I think that sometimes just because it's the language of, it's the language that we speak, we get caught up sometimes in just Pushing that information out, not always cognizant about where that sits with the people we are saying we are working to impact their lives for the better. And so those are the two veins, that I'm coming from, coming at this from. And I hope that was clear. I could clarify if it was not.
Casey: No, it's yeah, it's get out of our collective head TC because that's what I love about working on One Rouge. Sherreta I want to give you the space to, to come off mute but sometimes you just like to put stuff in the chat and I love that you get to do whatever you want to do. Working in one Rouge, I'm just like one, one human in the equation and when it was originally built, the idea would have a decentralized management. Style, and we would have just 1,000 a month retainers for people just to give them what they're already doing. And to actually be in the work and be, and then, as time allows, if time allows to be co chairs right in the actual working groups and raise more money that way, but I will just, cause I'm asking for transparent feedback on how to make the model better. I'll tell you that. The response we have not been able to get that work funded straight up. This has been collective impact work has been is very nebulous for individuals to understand. We've gotten great support, from the United Way coming out the gates. HAWF has been You know, heavily involved not necessarily just about the resources they've been like for 240 something weeks, they've been like in the middle of the work and it's more than just like observation, like they're contributing, Jan Ross and everybody. But at the end of the day, especially national foundations, which we don't have the juice to reach, it's just not really I got to go meet with a national foundation for the first time outside the city of Louisiana. Yeah. 48 hours ago, right? It's just not something that we really do. I say all that to say to get that funding in order to build this out so that power and money can be distributed is an important thing. And then the second one is the storytellers. The reason why we lifted off and I think Samantha is still here. No, Samantha Morgan's not here. But the reason why we started the podcast room and all the media stuff was that we wanted to outfit a van as a traveling TV studio and actually broadcast just the stories from the streets, like inside of the communities, right? And give a platform for that. And specifically, It was all going to be run by no men. It was, in that media side of One Rouge we felt could be really powerful, but again, I hate to get back to it again. It's not excuses. We're going to keep swinging and trying, but it wasn't something that we could ever ascertain funding for, and as a nonprofit. Our primary goal isn't to produce revenues, right? Which media companies, that's what they do, right? And it's why they win and why they have all the TV airtime. What I love about One Rouge is you don't have to have all the answers. You can bring everybody to the table and figure things out, with each other. But there's challenges with that. Sherreta, I can't, let's see here. Okay, sit back. Got it. So anyway, thank you all for that. I appreciate that. I hope that was like, at least interesting or relevant to the other organizations on the phone. Sometimes it's hard to lift the veil in your organization and be honest about, like, how it could be better and where you need to get out the way. And I'd encourage everybody to have those conversations internally. Kina and Dexter, I wanted to give you all space. If anything else came up for you. Before we move to community announcements. Okay. Tia, great job.
Joquina: I just wanted to say that we do need to expand our understanding. Morgan said this in the chat, that lived experience is knowledge, right? Lived experience is important. And as long as we still have these outdated understanding of whose voice matters, we'll always keep certain patterns going. We're gonna, Invite a Kina to the table because I have the aesthetic that may be an aesthetic that makes people feel comfortable, right? And so recognizing that there are people who should be in this conversation who aren't because of real systemic oppression, like time poverty. If you are working two jobs to make ends meet, and I love the fact that Dexter said you can't minimum wage your, however you said that expression, right? Then you don't have the disposable time to show up in mobilization, right? So let's just, I want to name the extreme privilege that I have to be a thought leader on these conversations and recognizing that there's privileges added to the fact that on a Friday morning, I could be on this call talking to you all about poverty. So again, we have to really recognize, expand our understandings of humanity, expand on the understanding that lived experience is valid and go to those places, be in those spaces, create a world in which the people who need to be in conversations. It makes, it's easier for it to be in those, yes. So changing who we think's voice matters is important.
Casey: Thank you, Kina.
Tia: Thank you for that, Kina. If we have no other comments or inputs, I'm going to go ahead and move into community announcements. Picking back on what Casey said, when One Rouge first started and some of the things that they were doing with the media, you can expect to see One Rouge out and about in the community more. So with videos media inputs, trying to input the voices of all of our leaders, all of our community members sometimes. People that we don't necessarily see at the table highlighting the work that they do. And as it relates to the nine drivers of poverty if you guys haven't noticed our Instagram is officially up and running. So it's our LinkedIn page. So make sure that you guys hit the and follow button. If you have anything that you would like to share to the larger network that we have access to, go ahead and send it to me via email or send us a message on the One Rouge Instagram page. And outside of that, if anyone is interested on going on video to talk about the work that they do and how it is directly reflected to any of the nine drivers of poverty, please let me know. And I will now open the space for anyone to share community announcements. Hey, Marcela.
Marcela Hernandez: Hi, friend. How are you? Good morning. Thank you so much for today's conversation. So meaningful. So tomorrow we're going to have our back to school event. I'm dropping the flyers in the chat so you can please share them with the community. We're going to be given HIV free HIV testings. We're going to be doing school supplies disaster preparedness kids. We're going to be doing a know your rights presentation. We're going to be given information about how to be prepared in terms of disasters. So the event is tomorrow at Independence Park at 3 p. m. registration starts at 2 p.m. And we'll be given the supplies while they last. We hope that you guys can come and join us and have some fun with us. We'll have a some a nice chicken and picnic style and in cultural as always. So just want to invite you if you want to come and join us. Thank you so much.
Tia: Hey, Miss summer, you could go ahead.
Summer Steib: Hey, everyone. I'm Summer Steib. I'm the director of the women's center and LGBTQ plus center at LSU and we will be hosting our 3rd annual pride mixer for welcome week. It's where we're inviting LGBTQ plus new students to meet 1 another network. And then interact and learn about campus and community organizations. So if your organization is interested in participating we have a registration form, I'll drop all of that in the chat and then I'll also drop my contact information for anyone who wants to learn more.
Tia: Thank you. Dr. Johnson?
Dr. Johnson: Good morning, everyone. I just wanted to announce the Scotlandville CDC back to school giveaway tomorrow over at the Scotlandville Plaza in, of course, Scotlandville in District two, and we'll be providing school supplies, of course book sacks and other essentials for the kids and starting out their upcoming school year. And also we'll be providing resources and there'll be snacks out there and a small entertainment and music and a lot of fun. We have a lot of vendors that, not vendors, but resources that are going to be out there. A couple of vendors that are going to be participating and we are open to any volunteers and anyone that would like To participate as a vendor, you can go on the Eventbrite site. I posted the information the flyer in the chat for anyone who'd be interested in attending or sharing that information with others to hopefully give us a great turnout and also there'll be a DJ there. Thank you everybody. Have a great weekend.
Tia: Thank you. Any other community announcements? Seeing none again. Thank you guys for taking this extended time to speak with us on this one route Friday. Next week. We'll have a conversation on fundraising and we look forward to seeing you all again next week. Same time.
Casey: Hey, and if anybody has had a long week in front of a laptop for too many hours this week come out to the farm at BREC Howell Park. Baton Roots's Sow Good Saturday is tomorrow. Even if you don't want to volunteer, you can just come and hang out. Just come hang out, take your shoes off, put your feet into the earth, and there'll be, yoga out there as well, and you can just hang out and eat really healthy food and just be outside, and it's really enough. So that before it gets hot. So if y'all want to come out to the farm tomorrow, it is one of the most serene and peaceful places on Winbourne Avenue. And we'd love to have you come and hang out with us tomorrow morning. It's a good Saturday. What time? Come out at between nine and ten. Really, yeah. Come out around then. And it usually starts to break down around eleven or twelve o'clock. So just come and spend your mid morning with us if you want some outdoorness. And it'll be good to share space. Thank you to our speakers today. Y'all were rad. Yeah. It was awesome. Yeah, great job. Thank you.
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