The UPLift with Tzedek: Real Talk for Real Change
Welcome to The UPlift - Real Talk for Real Change! We're here to build authentic community relationships and help fuel social transformation in Asheville, NC, believing collective liberation is not only possible but probable as we share, listen, and learn together.
The Tzedek Social Justice Fund is a social justice philanthropy fund that redistributes money, resources, and power to support systems change and community healing in Asheville, North Carolina. Through adaptive, trust-based philanthropy, we resist oppressive systems and work to transform our collective home into a place where everyone flourishes. We fund mission-aligned work centering LGBTQ Justice, Racial Justice, and/or Dismantling Antisemitism; this means we give money to organizations and individuals invested in creating a more fair, equitable, and flourishing society.
We dream of a thriving Asheville where everyone's needs are abundantly met - where everyone is safe, respected, and celebrated. We believe that a community rooted in joy and love is possible - that is, if we can connect and build our shared vision on the value that liberation is for all.
Sound good to you? We hope so!
Let's be real. Let's go deep. Let's get liberated.
The UPLift with Tzedek: Real Talk for Real Change
UNBOXED: Power, Pleasure & Pride —Liberated AF
Tired of chasing freedom? In this episode, we get real about the intersections of Blackness, queerness, and what it means to honor both Pride and Juneteenth with intention, authenticity, and laughter. We're going all in on radical self-acceptance, joy, and vulnerability with our guests, Adonis Lewis II, Jékksyn Icaro, and Torre White-Garrison. Together, they're building spaces where showing up whole isn't just radical—it's the revolution.
About Adonis: Adonis Lewis II (he/him) is a radical Black/Mexican queer organizer, strategist, and liberator centered at the intersection of healing, justice, and structural disruption. With nearly two decades of frontline experience, Adonis has moved resources, built infrastructure, and co-created space for communities long excluded from power. He co-founded The Power-House Project, a CDC-funded safe space for queer and trans youth of color, and has stewarded over 25 grassroots movements through his leadership with Southern Vision Alliance. Currently based in Asheville, NC, his work spans disaster recovery, digital equity, restorative justice, and support for the unsheltered. Adonis leads with radical empathy, ancestral strength, and an unwavering commitment to collective freedom. Guided through his lived experience and anchored by the mantra "less ego, more impact," his leadership is not about spotlight—but about showing up, doing the work, and making space for others to rise.
About Jékksyn: Jékksyn Ícaro is a multi-hyphenated human. Some of which includes being a multi-racial, trans, nonbinary, neurodivergent, southern queer who has lived in WNC for almost 30 years. Above most labels, Jékksyn identifies as an artist. Be it giving expressive form to physical materials or helping to shape the society they navigate into a more liberated world, it is creativity, innovation, and imagination that nestle at the heart of who they are. Titles and accomplishments aside they are a compassionate soul who has dedicated thier life to The Work of liberation and equity since the age of 16. Jékksyn proudly works with Tranzmission, a non-profit here in Western North Carolina dedicated to making the lives of trans, nonbinary, intersex, and gender-diverse individuals happier, healthier, and safer through advocacy, education, and support.
About Torre: Torre White-Garrison is a proud Black woman from the mountains of Western North Carolina, raised in the hood by a single mother and shaped by the sharp edges and deep beauty of lived experience. A mother, cultural worker, and truth-teller, she shows up with fierce love for Black people and an unwavering commitment to justice. Torre will always fight for marginalized communities and the liberation of all, naming harm where it lives and calling out the systems that uphold it. Her voice is grounded, unapologetic, and clear: true liberation isn't given—it's taken, built, and defended by us all.
This conversation lays down a blueprint for moving past surface-level celebration and into true liberation—for ourselves and our communities.
Grab your headphones and hit play; let's blow the box wide open!
We'll see you same time, same place next month. Until then, peace.
We're profoundly, profoundly interconnected. We don't always live that way, we don't always acknowledge it, but if we're going to heal, we have to live it, experience it and create institutions that celebrate it. Can we create a we where no one's on the outside of it?
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Uplift with Zedek.
Speaker 1:Real talk for real change. Before we jump in, a quick reminder of why we're here and what we hope to achieve. We're here to build authentic community relationships and help fuel social transformation in Asheville, north Carolina. We believe collective liberation is not only possible but probable as we share, listen and learn together. We're here for the process. However, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
Speaker 3:Jexie and Tori Adonis welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for being here, hey y'all Thanks for having me. And Tori's over here. Everybody believe it. Yes, happy to be here Y'all. It's Pride Month. It's the month in which Juneteenth happens. So, for our audience, we just want to set some levels for them. What is Pride and what is Juneteenth, and why do we celebrate it? Rock paper scissors, shoot.
Speaker 5:Celebrate it. Rock paper, scissors shoot.
Speaker 4:For me, pride as a Black queer man, pride is personal.
Speaker 5:It's the moment I stopped running from myself and started walking with myself.
Speaker 4:Okay, it's every time I choose to live and love openly in a world that told me I shouldn't. I celebrate it because my existence is powerful, because joy for me is resistance, because even in the face of violence, rejection or silence, I continue to build family, community and home.
Speaker 5:I love it. That's beautiful, Jen. I just say ditto.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can yeah.
Speaker 5:No, that was beautiful. That was really beautiful. I resonate with that a lot. Yeah, pride for me is expression, community freedom, the ability to exist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. For me, when I think of pride, it really feels like that moment where people who typically the world, people, when it typically feels like the world, has said you must be silent or you must hide, or you must be afraid of who you are and piecemeal yourself together, depending on the people around. Like, for me, pride is the time to really be expressive and like this is me and I can be me and I can love me, and you either accept it or you don't. Some years ago, a really dear friend came out to me in June and it was like, I think, the first day of pride and he called me and was like I just want you to know something. And it was interesting because we used to date and so it was just like a full circle, but it was beautiful and the fact that he felt like I was a person that he could be safe with, and to see him now bloom and just live and who he is and just be the beautiful black man that he is, it's just absolutely amazing and so like, when I think of that in comparison or even in alignment with Juneteenth, it's really just all liberation. Interesting enough. Both being in June, I think, does highlight the notion that I'm seeing where the world has not seen me historically, specifically Black people Like Adonis and I were kind of having this conversation before we got here.
Speaker 2:For me, a lot of times when we talk about various movements, a lot of times the Black voice is left out of those movements. Even specifically, when we think about Pride in Asheville and you go downtown, you typically don't see black people. You don't see them. You know a lot. I'm always like how do we? How do we intersect those? And then how do? But how do we also intersect with acknowledging that both also deserve intention, right, instead of people like lumping it, like we're going to give you one day together and it's like well, how do we do this with intention? How do you celebrate?
Speaker 3:all the facets of yourself. Yeah, you know, when I think of Juneteenth specifically, I'm a Texas girl, I'm from Houston, galveston is where Juneteenth originated. It's a day not enslaved people were informed they had been free. And I think about that a lot, because you even now have to seize your liberation and I think a lot of the time we wait for permission.
Speaker 3:Of course, enslaved folks, right, very different situation they're in, very different situation they're in, but that final acknowledgement that they received allowed them to lay down everything that was them being held in bondage and forced to work, to labor, to done with that, been, done over, finished. And so is that continuous reminder of the permission that we all have, not that we really needed it, but the permission that we have to pursue our liberation, our freedom, our whole selves. So, in that same way, like pride, is also that permission, that demand to be able to be your whole self at from from how I see it, and so I think the two of them have so much in common because of that right, it's the celebration of the liberation that you um seek, that we all seek, and our whole selves. But having them independently allows you to celebrate each facet of yourself I think we have so many, many beautiful little parts of ourself that deserve to be celebrated.
Speaker 3:So, with that, what is your favorite Pride or Juneteenth celebratory moment that you felt was really, really authentic? Because I think I've seen some other celebrations. We all know the commercialization of Pride. Some of the Juneteenth celebrations I've seen have been really interesting, very booth-based, is what I'll say, a little different than what I've seen, what I grew up with. So what are what are those authentic celebrations that you've had for pride and Juneteenth, both either together or separate, for food or share whichever um, that you're like yeah, this is like this. Is it like?
Speaker 4:this is not just filling my cup, but, like all of us, I can see us all together for me, there's one that comes in mind and it was um in New Orleans and it was just black and brown, like queer trans, like old folks and it would just happen to be on Juneteenth and there was no floats, there was no corporate sponsorship, it was just like an empty lot in between, like two row houses in like the magazine district, and we were just out there dancing, talking a lot about kind of the intersectionality of blackness and queerness, but it was just celebration.
Speaker 4:There was a second line that went by and that was kind of like our little parade.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I remember for me, like I was very quiet then it was some years back and I grew up very like conservative, my folks are like pastors and I would not have been in that position, like in the city where I was, where I was living at the time, or from like I was with some friends and I just was like I'm just going to go over here and like do it, and I was nervous the whole time but I felt liberated.
Speaker 4:It was the first time that I remember just kind of letting you know, letting my freak flag fly, whatever you want to say, letting my hair down, even though I'm bald, and I just it was so powerful for me. But you know, at the time I probably would have been a little bit averse to like a parade and flags. I was just afraid to be myself. I didn't feel allowed to love myself at that time, literally the way I grew up, like it's you're given into sin if you do that, and so I still had some of those narratives that I was working through and so just being there in a lot like basically a backyard, that being elders made me feel safe and made me feel grounded in their wisdom and in their struggle and their triumphs as they were talking.
Speaker 4:Being in a different city than I lived in made me feel safe to like not feel the shame or stigma or whatever like narratives were existing in my head and we just were eating, you know, drinking a little bit and just enjoying each other.
Speaker 4:That was my first like kind of like real experience with um, kind of being in community. I must have been like maybe like I probably was 20 or 21, maybe like 20 years ago, and I was in my first real time in community with people who were trans and openly trans. And I remember like having this war with myself like a quick one, like internally, where I was like kind of afraid or like uncomfortable then I didn't know why, but immediately it brought me this freedom to see people and understand people and I've carried that like with me forever. And this person is like has been like a queer mother figure to me, even still today, because she kind of just snatched me up and she was, she could see the like discomfort in my face. Yeah, instead of, you know, magnifying that, she just embraced me instead.
Speaker 4:That was like my first pride event, because there was like a lot of stuff going on in the city. There were like parades and there were like things going on, but we were like just away from it and that's kind of just what I needed. I was just at Philly Pride this past weekend. There were all kinds of parades and festivals and everything and I was right out in the middle of it and there were all kinds of parades and festivals and everything and I was right out in the middle of it. So just to see that like journey for me personally from that first one that I had, that was like kind of what I needed in quiet to like today. It just kind of shows me my own growth, my own freedom journey. That's been beautiful and traumatic and all the things, but like it's got me here to where I am today.
Speaker 3:I think that's really key actually, that that piece that this is a space that you kind of stumbled on, that was intergenerational is your people Right, and it wasn't something that needed to be frilly or sponsored sponsored performative. And and then it's not to say that all the time. You know, of course pride celebrations are not performative, but they have gotten to be.
Speaker 1:Some of them are. There's a lot of pomp and circumstance.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, which is really hard to access, especially when you're just kind of taking that first step towards your own personal liberation, like you're just starting out. To go from zero to a hundred is really, really hard. So I think that's really powerful to have these other opportunities, where these smaller things are happening and people are just celebrating themselves for themselves.
Speaker 2:And just full honesty. I don't think there's ever been a moment that I can recall right now, like off the top of my head, that there's been like a beautiful Juneteenth celebration for me. I have not seen or experienced where that has been taken serious. I think we have like the performative things or the people who would throw up a couple of cute little decorations, but nothing that really leans into the truth and the pain behind Juneteenth. I don't know like I asked myself how do I create that? How do I celebrate that? How do I lean into that more? How do I lean into that more, Even when I think about the fact that a lot of companies and organizations don't even recognize Juneteenth, despite it being a federal holiday. Right, it's not one that is highly recognized, not one that people will take off, and I'm like at least I ought to bled people off, you know, for real.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's just like I think about that. But when it comes to pride, what I can say, I remember when I was working for the federal government Shout out Carrie, my friend Carrie. We share the same birthday. She lives in DC now, but anyway, carrie is a white, older lesbian woman.
Speaker 2:We met at work and this was the when the government was finally like, hey, we're going to recognize Pride Month. We were like, ok, what can we do? Like we just were like, what can we do together? Because that's that's my thing. I'm always like, ok, if people haven't been seen, how do we make sure they can feel seen? And so we created a program. How federal government of you? Yeah, we created a program to really like showcase that there are people here. And so one of the things that I have to tell you the pain in it, first our flyers and stuff would get ripped down, all of those things. Because, again, this was like the first time the government was publicly saying you could do anything at your place of employment and people were still in a phase of like, ah.
Speaker 2:But one of the things I thought was beautiful was we had a all staff meeting and there was this black man who was one of the supervisors and it was all these people complaining like this pride stuff, said all the negative names and you know calling it, all these different things. And I do think it's important to point out that these are people who, in today's society, would probably be upset that we're even in here having this conversation. So I just want you to know the type of people we're working with. And he said all this stuff to this man, not knowing that when that man went home, he had a male spouse. They were friends, they were all these things right. He respected him, but he was saying all this hateful stuff towards him, not knowing who he was talking about was his friend.
Speaker 2:And so he let him say all that stuff in this meeting and he said well, what if I told you that my partner is a man? He was like man, stop playing, like I'm trying to be serious, this needs to be started. He was like no, I'm being serious with you. For me and her, it was the thing of, and that's why we do this. We do it so people can understand. Just because you don't know every part of a person when you say negative things or when you say harmful things, just because you don't agree. You don't know who you may be negatively impacting and what relationships you may be ruining because you don't know that whole person. They haven't felt safe enough to be their whole person with you. Him being able to step into that as someone who had been there way longer than I have Step into it and start bringing his partner around, was like beautiful.
Speaker 5:As vulnerable as hell yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was just like for me, like that was like, oh my gosh, like a moment that felt like really good, even though it wasn't my moment to see that happen and to see someone take that weight off of having to like hide their personal life in their work life, like having to show up as one thing out of fear that it may negatively impact me by being whole me. And then times that I've like just had I love pride in dc. I've been to um I guess it's the performative marches the parade I have a.
Speaker 2:I have a good friend who does drag and so like I would love when he would perform and everything in dc. And I have a ball like I'm going to all the drag shows. We out there dancing beyonce out there. And I have a ball Like I'm going to all the drag shows. We out there dancing Beyonce out there, like we just having a ball, I don't know. Like I just haven't felt that with a Juneteenth event yet. I haven't experienced that thus far.
Speaker 3:Juneteenth. My experience with Juneteenth growing up was like very much. I think you could compare it to Fourth of July celebrations, except 4th of July celebrations Except, like, the only people who were doing it were black. So it was like for us, the reminder of you can be your whole self. This is you and this is ours, and we're going to eat and we're going to eat.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we're having a good time. We're going to, you know, pull out a splash pad, throw the hose around. You know, have a good time in the background there were some celebrations you could go to, but there it was a lot of like family centered stuff. It was a lot of spending time with your community.
Speaker 3:It was community. And so I will say, my most favorite Juneteenth recently was actually last year a big group of friends of mine majority most of us, all of us black, with the exception, you know, we have some white people who are allowed in they can come, it's fine, and they were a good time.
Speaker 3:That was a good time. It was a good time, but we were. We went to a lake. Everybody had a day off. They weren't celebrating juneteenth, they just got the day off. But for us, we showed up in mass to a lake nearby, all these black folks getting out of the car, setting up, grilling, doing our thing. We're just splashing in the water, having a good time going out like swimming?
Speaker 4:were they getting their hair wet?
Speaker 3:yes that's actually did total freedom. Everybody had to wash it in the next day, but that's okay. Hair wet, splish, splashing, and I think for me it was really, truly. It really did encompass this feeling of like. I felt so loved. I felt so like we're just like, I'm hanging out. Literally, we are like back to our kids. I was splish, flashing in water.
Speaker 5:You know that's when you're like truly free, when you can be a kid again.
Speaker 3:Yes, right, giggling, we're sitting there on floaties. You know, got a little drink. That's a floatie, chatting, opening up about stuff, like you know, really saying the things, talking, getting into it. It was like. It was almost like you know, when you're a kid you go have a little sleepover or something. Everybody's telling their secrets, all that kind of stuff. It was beautiful, it was really beautiful and I think that's that kind of gets put in if it's done even to that level, if it's not just heavily commercialized.
Speaker 3:I think we forget that freedom part, the liberation part, joy, the joy. And it's the fact that we have the ability, we have the right to have that joy, to feel it and to be in a place of true and deep joy. For me, that's what I seek out, for. Juneteenth is like my own community celebration. I think we are in a place. I think, tori, what you're saying is right is that it's, even though it's recognized federally now, like it's not really given the respect that it deserves, and so to expect public entities or groups to do something respectfully and fully To understand what it is.
Speaker 2:To understand what it is is an expectation that I don't think can be mad at this time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, that's not happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like stop giving me juneteenth. Like I don't know if y'all see the juneteenth uh shirts and everything, but it's like white people and I'm like, wait a minute pause. Like y'all couldn't find one black person, like at all it's like black and white, it's like grayscale or something.
Speaker 3:So they take away the melanin.
Speaker 2:Well, it's just like it'll be like, literally, a white person wearing a shirt. And I'm just like talk about, like not reading the room.
Speaker 3:Oh, you mean like in the advertisement?
Speaker 2:I do not understand
Speaker 5:the assignment at all.
Speaker 4:I haven't seen that At the basic level, like you couldn't have gotten up.
Speaker 3:I was just a little tan, like nothing, or at least like a little array of people, you know, like we all wear in the shirt. That's fine too, there should be black people there should be black people.
Speaker 4:I think that it's true. I mean, the expectation is I mean, we just got to where folks are and it's kind of trendy for a lot of corporations and companies and you know, to give the day off, but that's like we did that. That's as far as we're going. We're not going to take the time to be educated about what's really cool. You know what it is. We're not going to offer any kind of programming. It's like you know, on June 20th, it's we're done.
Speaker 4:It's branding, it's branding, it's branding for your company, your organization, your whatever, to make sure that we did this. That's it. There's no education, there's no history.
Speaker 5:I don't think white people should get off for Juneteenth. I don't think that's no. That's your time to realize you still Look. You should be working. I'm not going to disagree with you.
Speaker 2:White people should be working. Yes, you doing the work. Look, we was working for free.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't disagree at all. I think that's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and stop thinking that it means Juneteenth. You're going to do something at work and you got fried chicken and watermelon.
Speaker 5:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:That is not the fried chicken, watermelon and some cupcakes with a pride flag. That does not give us the recognition like that.
Speaker 4:That is not the baseline, but I do appreciate what you said, tara, about the joy piece, because a lot of times what I think of Juneteenth I mean it's like the first things are like every freedom, everything we've got, was like so hard fought. I think that, centering in the joy and like the black joy piece of it, more of us should like maybe try to try to do that, because that's where, like the power comes in really being able to celebrate like what Juneteenth represents it is. I think for myself personally, what I'll take away is like I haven't I've always thought of it in that like more educational historic piece. It's like important for me, it's sacred and I just like felt this duty to keep that and like to educate folks on that. But like the point of it today is joy, like that's what it was fought for, that's what was, that's what we're here for my ancestors went through all of this.
Speaker 5:So I can be happy, so I can have this joy, so I can be leisurely and like yeah.
Speaker 4:And I think that message will be powerful to put out Like today no, we choose joy.
Speaker 3:So, like we're going make this a tradition.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, let's do it. I'm itching, it's really really fun.
Speaker 2:That sounded cute. You're gonna get your hair wet. Oh, I don't mind get my hair, I'm natural, I'm ready, um. But you know, I one of the things that I think is interesting this year. I think we will see a change and how june 10th is celebrated because black people have been like our resistance, have been joy all this year. We, baby, we at the trail, rise, we dancing, we, we not marching, we not giving all our blood, sweat and tears anymore to a country that could give to, wants to see us bleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's yeah, because where I was going was going to have to get bleeped out, but like we really have been. They're like how y'all sitting back just dancing and singing and everything, so mad yeah and it's like because maybe we've been doing this since our existence in america just because you're like scared.
Speaker 5:Now you want us to. I have, literally we've been doing this.
Speaker 4:I have read yeah, yeah we have been I do try to lead with love. I just do honestly, as much as I can. But I have literally read more than a few people over these past few months here in Asheville, and not in an angry way, but in a very raw and true way of like your tears, save them, wipe them, because they're not getting anything out of me Like this is not. I felt no more safe. I felt no more safe when Obama was in office, as much as I loved him than you know, than I do now.
Speaker 4:Like my brother was killed by the police way before people cared about black lives and all that and, like you know, the existence that we have is. This is not new, like you're like you didn't cry.
Speaker 5:You weren't crying last year, just a taste, just crying now, and why? And now people are like we gotta leave the country and I'm like you're not even trans.
Speaker 4:I have friends who are like you're not even like, whatever you're, not even you're crying for whom you're not affected.
Speaker 3:You're leaving the country because it's not what you thought. And then the privilege in being able to leave the country.
Speaker 2:We're not even going to lean until you have the privilege to just jump and leave, like when we were at APFI. The gentleman that was up there when it was the queer panel and he and I hate that I can't think of his name right now David Johns, black man, david Johns. That should have been a whole session. I'm like I wish it was recorded so everybody could hear it. But the way that man got up there and stood as a black queer man was like using cuss words and all, but basically F y'all for thinking that I can just pack my black gay tail up and move to another country.
Speaker 5:That still don't like my black gay tail Right, like it's not gonna be the exact same thing over there, but over there I have to learn, like the microaggressions that are there and like all of the racism that shows up differently there the language, the politics, like I'm not going to fucking do it. My friends, literally, are like come with us. And I'm like it's why, why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he was like and why should I have to leave the country that you brought me here?
Speaker 4:to. And then now you're telling me I got to leave so you can be comfortable, and then you're be comfortable.
Speaker 2:And then you tell him save your tears, and he's like no To me, that's the liberation, Like I feel like I'm in a place of not chasing freedom. There is no, my personal opinion, there is no freedom that we reach in this country, Like even when we think of freedom of speech. You can have it, but it comes with a consequence, right. But liberation is the ability to be who I am and stand in it and know that even in the consequence, I get to still be who I am. Even when I wake up every single day and I go out here, I can make a decision to put the sign up or take the sign down, right, and it's just like no, I get to make the decision to keep it up and know that I might have people that come to me and say crazy stuff, I might have people that try to approach me, and in that I'm still going to be who I am and you can catch these hands.
Speaker 3:Open wide.
Speaker 2:It's been like I get to come here and I get to, to really be who I am and not code switch because it makes you comfortable.
Speaker 5:I'm going to be comfortable now, like I don't care about you being uncomfortable, stand in it, I've been uncomfortable all my life, Because your tolerance for discomfort is not going to go up if you don't sit in it so like be uncomfortable.
Speaker 3:So, with that, jexy, I want to ask you because I hear what you're saying, tori, about liberation. I love that idea of like I'm not chasing freedom, liberating myself by just being who I am, regardless of anyone else's comfort or preference or opinion. I think that's really powerful and I think that's exactly like when I think of these celebrations. That's exactly what I think is like. That's why the celebrations are here, because we're owning the fact that we are who we are, regardless of what you say or what you want, and that's what liberation is. Well, I'll say that for me. What about for you? Or, if you agree, how are you seeking liberation?
Speaker 5:yeah, I would say the same thing, like I've as a younger person, when we talked about liberation, I'm like, okay, it's a goal. Like I got to get there and we got to do a, b and c to get to this goal. But now that I'm like going to be 35 this year, I understand that. Like that liberation is inside of me and you can't take that away. You can lock me in a cell, but you can't take away the liberation that I have inside of me. Can't do that. My freedom. You can't take it away from me. You could chain my body up, but my freedom is inside of me.
Speaker 5:And, living in this country, people expect liberation and freedom to be external and, granted, there are some things that I would like to be a little more liberated and a little more free, but I understand the reality of the country that we live in and the world is never going to. This world is not going to change in the way that I need it to. Quick enough for me to have quote unquote liberation from these systems. Like I'm always going to be a black and brown trans person living in this country who grew up poor and housing unstable. Like that's always going to be my reality and people are going to treat me that way no matter what. So liberation again, like it's not something, it's something that you have to do for yourself. It's a lot of work, right, like that's why I go to therapy.
Speaker 2:Like my therapist helps me get to that.
Speaker 5:Shout out to Elizabeth. Thank you, and Lakota, both of us have two different therapists, because you know it'd be hard out here. Yeah, that's you have to find your own liberation in yourself before you can help break the chains of anybody else. Amen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that and recognizing even with yes, there are parts of your story, but that's not your whole story. I think a lot of times we go through life where people try to define us based off our intersections of oppression. Yeah, and it's like now, I'm real transparent in telling people yeah, I've done all these things and probably a little bit more. Thank God, cameras wasn't a big thing, because I've done a lot.
Speaker 2:There is a part bit more, thank God cameras wasn't a big thing, because I've done a lot. There is a part of me right, but it's not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it's not all of me.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, those are parts of me. You might want to define me, but I don't have to define myself. I don't have to be restricted mentally and emotionally that you want me to be in. I'm out here blowing this box out, you know.
Speaker 4:Take that to being. I'm out here blowing this box out, you know, take that out. Now that I think about it, does that be part of your intro? I love that.
Speaker 5:I think liberation comes in like examining the systems of oppression that oppress you on the outside and seeing how they affect you on the inside and dismantling those within yourself, like what white supremacy am I holding up? What ableism am I holding up? What transphobia, what homophobia, what am I? What ism is inside of me? That is persisting. Why? Why is it still there?
Speaker 5:get curious about that figure out why it still exists honestly, what part of it is protecting you? Complying to these systems is a form of protection, like it's how. It's why people survived. Yeah, do it, yeah, it's how you survive and people survived to do it. Yeah, it's how you survive and you got to unlearn all of those survival mechanisms so you can be free, I love that, wow, you answered.
Speaker 3:you answered this question that I had about how individuals and organizations can move beyond performative celebrations and honor. That you know, and I think you just named it. Like, you can do your own self work.
Speaker 4:Interrogate your biases. Stop working as like an organization.
Speaker 5:Do it individually. Self-worth, interrogate your biases, stop working as like an organization. Do it individually. If you are not decolonizing yourself, your organization is not decolonized. If you are not taking these structures of power out of yourself, there's no way you can take them out of the organization in which you work in. It's just not going to happen. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Got to shift that line Shift the narratives Absolutely 100.
Speaker 2:And start making your definition others and start making your definition others In all of this. Just to like circle it back to Pride and Juneteenth. I think a lot of times we put a definition or status quo on what it is to be black or what it is to identify with the LGBTQIA plus community. Like we look a certain way you must be this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like and recognize that. No, it's going to show up in different ways. It's not on you to define it based off how you define yourself. It's me to define who I am, the way I show up, and I can show up in that way and you not try to take my identity away from me because it's not matching the way you identify. I say that for the back for some of us who haven't haven't done this.
Speaker 3:I'm in the middle of this unlearning yeah because, because that's, that's the truth I appreciate that yeah, when we talk about liberation, seeking it for ourselves, like the folks who you're seeking liberation with sometimes can be the ones who are also trying to what is it, what is it all? And that, but that's the why, right, like that's the why they're also clinging to these, as you put it, jexy.
Speaker 2:I love how you put that yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that you have to unlearn your coping mechanism. You have to learn these things that have made you, that you are holding internally that are actually those oppressions right, you interrogate your own biases.
Speaker 4:you know what's, what's that within you? That's what I was speaking to earlier like, and I had so many of those like you have to literally unlearn an entire lifetime worth of narratives and doctrine, and and you can't not have those living in this society like fat.
Speaker 5:Phobia is so ingrained in who we are. Oh, hyper masculinity and all these things for you.
Speaker 4:There's all these things, yeah but they can be unlearned, they can be shifted they can be uncomfortable and hard absolutely but, like you can do it so hard I, and uncomfortable because I'll speak for myself anyway.
Speaker 3:Even seeking my own personal liberation has been something people don't talk about, like on the other side of it.
Speaker 5:Yes, joyful all these things, but in the meantime painful painful, uncomfortable, so painful uncomfortable, deeply, just like traumatic traumatic embarrassing embarrassing, the guilt, the way that you move, and you're like, oh, that's not in alignment, absolutely yes like lonely, because you're like, then what they're now?
Speaker 3:what right now, once you find it and you find yourself in a place now that cannot hold you anymore. Yeah, after you've shifted, you change. You look around. I think that goes to what you said earlier, adonis, that I thought was actually really so key to to this liberation that we often see, both within the LGBTQ plus community but also within black community, the difficulty of liberating yourself and then finding yourself in a place that cannot hold you. You found that when you were removed from the town that you grew up in. That's when you were able to first experiment with even discovering liberation.
Speaker 4:I needed to out, grew the box. I needed that.
Speaker 3:Right, you outgrow that box, as Tori said earlier blow out the box.
Speaker 4:Blow out that box, no but it really which can be powerful, yeah. Sexual liberation.
Speaker 1:And liberating.
Speaker 2:But no, but it really like I tell people all the time I had these conversations. It's people that I grew up with that now are just like strangers, like it's like I don't even know who you are and you don't know me, but it's because they needed me to remain in that box. They needed me to be in a place of internal suffering and bondage in order to fit their idea of who I should be. And the moment that I said no, I can actually be beyond this. I can be all these things. I can have all these various identities and these ways that I show up in space. I can be the black girl who loves to horseback ride.
Speaker 1:You know, I can be that black girl and I can be the black girl that can go to the hood and get with.
Speaker 2:You know like I can be all these pieces, and it doesn't have to be the way you're defining yourself, Right?
Speaker 3:And say that again, the way you're defining yourself, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's right. I think that is the piece that when you say lonely, like you know the idea of when you make it to the top, the top is the loneliest place, but when you make it to the part, of liberation and that where you won't tolerate the other bullshit and you're learning boundaries and you're learning, really, that healing journey. It gets lonely and it makes you want to revert back. Dang, is it worth it?
Speaker 5:like choosing yourself over and over again is such a hard thing to do.
Speaker 2:It's so hard and it's the one thing. We're not tall, we're not tall, and it's like in order to get to these places that we feel like we can celebrate it, even when these other places are not. It takes practice.
Speaker 4:It takes practice. It's a lot. For me it's been a lifelong journey, but what I will say is that there is not a single mother bleep that out thing. That's going to bring me back to that place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you can't hold me back in that box. There's no way I hold zero space alleviate people's discomfort or appease.
Speaker 4:I hold zero space for that today, and it took me way too long, like 40 years almost, to get to this place and like almost dying, yeah, literally, literally literally look, just got a tattoo with my semicolon.
Speaker 2:I saw that, like I've been in there survived.
Speaker 4:Yeah, deep, deep trauma, conversion therapy, all the things, and there's no space to go back to that and I'll never give up and never forget, across my chest from like yeah, yeah, I refuse unapologetically black queer, all the things survivor you said you would never experience like a proper juneteenth um me either.
Speaker 5:I grew up here in ashford right. That's the hard part. If you can't tell I have a white mama, please say that you can't didn't, couldn't even shut up in a white mama, please say that you can't. I couldn't even Shut up, I know.
Speaker 4:I thought you might have been Latinx, like me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, well, I found out recently, when I was 30, I took the Ancestry we were talking about Ancestrycom. I took that because I needed to know who I was outside of my mother, because I have a difficult relationship with my mom and getting to find out concretely, this is who I am, these are my ancestors, this is where I come from. And finally, now I'm not just am I Mexican? Am I Dominican? Am?
Speaker 3:I.
Speaker 5:Because I'm pretty racially ambiguous. Depending on where I am, people are like are you native, are you so, whatever? But I've never had the Juneteenth experience and it wasn't actually until I went to BTAC where I was able to be surrounded by so many black folks. In my life I don't think I've ever been surrounded by that many Black folks, never mind trans Black folks. So shout out to BTAC for existing that's the. Black Trans Advocacy Coalition. Yeah, I want to go to the. Let's do it.
Speaker 3:And, on that note, I want to encourage you, dear audience, to seek your joy, your liberation, and to, absolutely no matter who you are, do a lot of that introspection that we talked about earlier. Seek your liberation and stand in it and do not try and bring others back to what you think they should be doing based off of how you think you are.
Speaker 1:And with that, adonis, tori, jessian, thank you so much for spending time with me. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we should do it again Bow, bow, bow.
Speaker 2:Pew.
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