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Becoming sustainably human at work isn't a small undertaking. It often means letting go of systems and behaviors that don't serve us individually or collectively.
So what do we do? As individuals, as groups of folks, as leaders? How do we carve out space for our humanity while making sure we're not the only ones? How do we thrive in the workplace while not imagining we must be superhuman? How do we cultivate spaces that are generative and healing, creative and extraordinary?
I don't have the answers to those questions. And, to be fair, I don't believe one human can EVER have all the answers to those questions. I'm working through those questions every day.
This podcast curates for you a set of folks with an opinion worth listening to and sharing. So join me as I ask people I admire to share their wisdom with you in accessible doses.
Join me on my quest to become sustainably human at work.
Welcome to What's Leadership?
I'm Liz Wiltsie.
The more I learn about leadership,
the more I'm convinced there's
not a one size fits all solution.
So I am on my own learning journey
and I invite you to join me.
EbonyJanice reminds me that being
open about my journey is important.
Each episode features someone I admire
with actionable insight to share.
So please join me as I
ask what's leadership?
All right today, I'm welcoming
EbonyJanice, and she is a Hip-Hop
Womanist, a professor, and also does a
lot of work around decolonizing authority.
Which is what I asked her here to
talk about, because I think it's
really important in the workplace.
So EbonyJanice, thank you
so much for being here.
Thank you for having me.
So talk to me about what decolonizing
authority means, particularly in a
work context, what it could mean.
I'm thinking about decolonizing
authority, several years ago
when I was in grad school.
I was just asking them the
question about authorization.
Just a very simple question who authorized
you for that, and I was asking it inside
of some personal questions for myself.
Just dealing with imposter syndrome,
just feeling like, am I credible?
What makes me credible
to be doing this work?
What makes me credible to be
having these conversations?
And I realized that a lot of my friends
and a lot of my colleagues, particularly
Black women were having a lot of the
same internal questions and dialogue.
Simultaneously, I was experiencing
the reality that so many Black
women were being excluded from
conversations that were about womanhood.
And even conversations
specifically about Black womanhood.
How there could be whole panels that
people would be discussing this Black
girl or Black woman experience, and there
would maybe be one Black woman there.
So that really started to expand
my question of like, who authorized
you know, what makes you credible
to be having this conversation?
So from two different
perspectives, am I credible?
And why am I questioning my credibility?
Also, who then is more credible or more
authorized to have a conversation about
XYZ subject, than XYZ individuals.
This is where I began to understand
authority as a very colonized reality.
Colonized in the sense of what
colonization means: it means to enter into
a space and decide this belongs to me.
And now not only does it belong to
me, I will create the systems, the
rules, the structures, everything
that makes this worthy or not.
I get to have a say so in it.
So then I just started to think about
very basic spaces of authority being
colonized, because we don't even need
to go all the way to academia or to
professional spaces to think about that.
I thought about the audacity of
colonizing, or colonized authority around
certification or licensure for doing hair.
So, when it comes to braiding Black
hair, in most states, it is against
the law and can be fined and jailed.
Fined up to like $7,500.
And some states, I've seen
it up to like $30,000.
But also in those same states,
particularly as it pertains to New
Jersey, there was a case several
years ago where these African
women were fined for braiding hair.
I feel like I don't even need to go
further than that, but these African
women were fined for braiding hair.
Their attorney basically did this
study of how many institutions,
cosmetology schools, in the state
of New Jersey actually had hair
braiding in their curriculum.
And it was like some like less than 4% of
the schools in the state of New Jersey.
So what you're saying to me is that you
want me to take the thing that I created
and go to a school that doesn't even
have the authority or the credibility or
the capacity, the very basic capacity,
to certify me to do the thing I made up.
And that just was, that was even,
that felt like the most easy way to
understand how authority is colonized.
How somebody can show up in the industry
or in a space that has absolutely nothing
to do with them and say, you have to pay
me money to tell you that you can do that.
What does that mean?
From both ends of the spectrum,
where I have been troubling for
myself, what makes me credible?
What I came to was my ancestors, my
lived experience and my education,
a combination of those things
make me credible and authorize me.
And from the other end of the
spectrum where other people are
intending to come in with their
rules and regulations and systems.
The intention is to trouble that, to
start asking, just to start asking
brands or to start asking organizations,
or to start asking businesses.
To begin to think through how they
have colonized authority, even as
it pertains to various levels of,
professionalism within their workplace.
What does that look like to understand
that the way you understand this as
credible may not even necessarily be
your place to say, this is credible.
Or not.
And it feels like it gets us in
terms of the research that we look
at, where we're constantly going.
Okay.
But what book said that
before, and it's like, why?
Absolutely.
When I was teaching, when I
was first teaching grad school.
I created a syllabus of completely
Black women across the diaspora
to have this conversation.
And I did so, this is in theology.
This is in seminary school, you
know, so this is a theology, a
class that's censoring theology.
And most seminaries would have
white men as the dominant text on
anything pertaining to religion and
spiritualality and that's just period.
And when I say most seminaries, I almost
want to say like, this is an arbitrary,
I'm making this statistic up, but it
doesn't feel arbitrary honestly, to
suggest that about 99% of seminaries
would actually be like the white
men are in charge of this language.
That as it pertains to Christianity,
which is an Eastern religion.
That is as it pertains to Islam.
Which is an Eastern religion.
That's as it pertains to Buddhism,
which is an Eastern religion.
Right.
So how are white men in charge
of dictating what is credible
or what the experience is?
And as an anthropologist, particularly
from a cultural anthropological
perspective, I'm also understanding how,
even as people go in to other cultures
or other cultural experiences and study
them and research them, there is still
a level of inaccessibility that you will
have as someone from outside that culture.
Even if you are doing participant
observation, there is still something
that you are not privy to because
this is not your lived experience.
Right.
And so.
Let's say you are a white man that has
studied, you know, Eastern religions
for the past 50 years of your life.
If this is not your practice, if you
have never experienced trans possession,
you can only regurgitate information
based on the way that you understand
it, but you still don't have a full
understanding of trans possession.
Therefore you are not the
most credible person to be
talking about trans possession.
And so what happens then when
we start to bring in, credible.
It becomes the politics of citation.
We bring in credible sources.
They may not be, even, published in
a peer reviewed journal, but I asked
the question or give a better example.
I have a girlfriend.
Her name is Kashema Hutchinson.
Kashema is a Hip Hop historian.
I've just never seen anybody
experienced anybody's mind as
profound as hers, as it pertains to
hip hop specifically and sociology.
So Kashema is recently asking the question
is Meek Mill a critical race theorist?
The rapper, Meek Mill.
Then Kashema took Meek Mill's interviews,
lyrics, and this is something that
she's continuing to break down,
and she compared him to DuBois.
She compared his theory
to his lyrics to Maslow.
She's comparing to all of these well
known, well accepted well-respected,
critical race theorists and sociologists.
And she's saying if Meek Mill is not more
credible, to be talking about critical
race theory based on his proximity and
his experience inside of the criminal
justice system, inside of growing up
in Philadelphia during, inside of,
the justice system relic, like all
of these spaces where he enters in,
and then you add on his education and
then you add on his lived experience.
And then you add on,
ancestral affirmation.
And so what makes Maslow more credible, to
talk about this hierarchy, than Meek Mill,
who's actually lived this experience?
That isn't to say that these other
theorists, their theory is not credible.
That's to suggest that Meek Mill then
must be considered equally as credible.
And so my work as a Hip Hop Womanist,
it's really just doing that decolonizing
authority work as well, because it's
asking us, around hip hop lyrics, as it
pertains to spirituality and religion,
what makes this more credible than this?
When they're saying the same thing,
but on top of it saying the same
thing, this person has lived,
the thing that they're saying.
Versus this person has studied it.
I need us to be able to deal with
the ethics of excluding certain
people from being authority,
being in charge, being credible.
Right.
So what do you think, is a sort
of small step in a workplace
environment that someone could take?
To be thinking about that, be working
on it in a kind of tangible way?
Number one, it very easy.
Write this down.
If you're listening.
Number one, I don't know everything.
That's it.
I mean, it feels very easy for me.
It's like, I always use the example,
particularly when I'm talking
about race, but I feel like this
is a good example here as well.
I have a girlfriend who does work around
disability and chronic illness, justice.
Her name is Jade Perry and there are a
lot of things that I do understand and
just inherently know about disability
because I live in a world with
disabled and chronically ill people.
So I'm not ignorant,
like, I never knew this!
I'm here.
But also, I don't know everything there
is to know about what it is like to
live with disability or chronic illness.
So as a result of that, even with
as much education as I enter that
conversation with, I still enter
that conversation saying, I don't
know everything about everything.
So therefore it serves me.
And, Liz, I know you've heard me cite Dr.
Su'ad Khabeer Abdul on a regular
basis where she says you don't
have to be a voice for the
voiceless, just pass the mic.
It's like, what does it look like for us
to walk in the room and honor the voices
that we are least likely to hear from?
And so I feel like in the
workplace that happens, I mean,
the workplace is microcosmic of our
realities outside of the workplace.
Very often you're at work, there are
certain groups of people or certain
kinds of people that tend to be centered.
And what would it look like for us to
go to work on a daily basis and just
even in leadership roles consider,
even though I'm in this position, I
don't know everything about everything?
And it hurts no one and it
helps and supports and benefits
everyone for me to consider other
ways of thinking about this.
And that's just, it, I may have a very
brilliant way to go about doing a thing
and it still may not be the best way.
And how easeful does it make it
for all of us, if I'm willing
to say, I don't know everything.
I think that in fact,
makes me a better leader.
To be willing to say, there are
people on my team that could
do this much better than me.
That could run circles
around me doing this.
I have someone well, I hate
calling her, my assistant.
I like to call her the CEO of
EbonyJanice Enterprises, because I
don't know how we survive without her.
But, I can do digital creation.
Do my own, you know, content creation.
I can make flyers.
I can make, I could do it.
I really can.
And, and I could do pretty good job of it.
I do a lot of my own stuff anyways.
If she is working on something else
for me, that's just more pressing,
I just don't ask her to stop doing,
major stuff to be like, girl, can
you make this little thing for me?
Cause me and Thea goin live later
we need a, girl go make it yourself.
And I wouldn't mind if she told me that.
But that's to say, even though I can
do a great job of it, hers would be
27 and a half times better than mine.
And so even though I'm the leader, I'm
doing quote fingers for people that can't
see, even though I'm the leader of this
work that we're doing together, there
are things inside of this work that I am
not the best at, and it doesn't benefit.
It doesn't benefit anybody on my team.
And it doesn't benefit the people who
benefit from the work that it goes
out for me to be sitting up here,
like, no, I'm gonna do everything.
I don't even understand
why we hold on to that.
You know?
So.
I can do things that doesn't mean that
I'm the best person to do it, and I can
know things, but that doesn't mean that I
know everything there is to know about it.
And it benefits all of us for us,
at the very least, to be willing
to pass the microphone, to the
people who we usually don't hear.
Cause the gag is, and we can
bring it to race very quick.
And then I'm done with this sermon.
When you think about living in a cis
heterosexual patriarchal white supremacist
society, Black trans women femme, are
existing having an experience that we
know pretty much, as a dominant culture,
know nothing, close to nothing about.
Think about the revelation of ballroom
culture, for so many of us in the
last, maybe, you know, three, four
years as a result of the show Pose.
There's a whole underworld of
living happening and I hate the
language of underworld, but you
know, for lack of better language.
Unknown world.
A whole unknown world, for so
many people that's happening.
Whole cultures and subcultures being
created by people who are existing
inside marginalized identities.
And to show up and be like, I'm in charge.
Meanwhile, there are people over
here that know your language.
And have created whole other
languages and experiences in
order to be able to survive.
It benefits us to center them.
It benefits us to learn from
them because they know something
that we don't even know.
We haven't even begun to scratch the
surface of thinking about the things
that people in marginalized identities
have had to think about in order to
survive and thrive in this reality.
So, yeah, just shut up and pass the mic.
Perfect.
We could drop the mic there.
Yeah.
They're expensive, so we don't drop
them, but, so I really want to talk about
your Dreaming Yourself Free program.
So talk to me about that and
also why it's important for
it to be free for Black women.
Yes.
So basically Dream Yourself Free came
from, I have been doing, really public
scholarship, education work on racism,
anti-racism work and, unintentionally,
I mean, I'm a Black woman, so it just
kind of is what you do, even if you don't
call yourself that's what you're doing.
On a daily basis.
And I was reading, I know I've
told this story before, but I don't
mind telling it again and again,
cause I think it's important.
I was reading Patrisse Khan-Cullors
book, When They Call You a Terrorist,
Patrisse Khan-Cullors is one of the
founders of Black Lives Matter movement.
And, I was having the revelation that she
is an artist, like a celebrated artist.
I didn't know that.
All I knew about her
was Black Lives Matter.
And that bothered me, that
this whole beautiful existence.
And I had only been able to
conceive her in this container.
So I said I was reading it.
I was listening to it on audio book.
The first time I consumed it.
And so I was listening to an audio book,
I'm walking down the street and it gets
to this part where she starts talking
about this program, this kind of official
unofficial program that they created
for her brother to be able to integrate.
Back into society, anytime he would
come out of, her brother's bipolar
schizophrenic, and anytime he would come
back home, you know, from either being on
a 72 hour hold or locked up in some kind
of institution and/or possibly in jail.
They had this community, kind
of, program that helped them to
reintegrate into society safely.
And I was thinking about my two
middle nephews, at the time, were
seven and nine, seven and nine.
And I was thinking I should create
something like that for them, because they
were in this predominantly white school
system at the time that was harming them.
Wasn't serving them at all.
It was harmful to them.
I should create something
like this for my nephews.
And I'm walking down the street listening
to this book on audio book and I have this
thought and I stopped in the middle of,
like 5th and 130th, I think in Harlem.
And I say I don't have time for this.
Of all the things that I really want to
get to and do in my life, the fact that
resistance work has become such a central
part of the way that I exist in a way that
so many Black and people of color exist.
It's like, it's exhausting.
And this was really a revelation for me
that I was about to create yet another
program just to help my nephews survive.
And that is.
That is, that feels violent to my soul
because they're the nephews or the aunties
of the little white kids at that school
are not at home right now, thinking
about how they can create a program to
be able to support their nephews, their
white nephews, in having easy access
to, or equal access to everything.
And it's like, I
shouldn't have to do this.
And they shouldn't, and they
shouldn't need this to exist.
Right.
So that's where Dream
Yourself Free came from.
I started thinking like, what if I
could just really do what I want to do?
What the F do I want to do?
Is this what I want to do?
I mean, I've been on
this path for so long.
My mother will tell you.
And it's funny because this variety,
acknowledgement recently, like being
an anti-racism account to follow
it's it's like many ways that I look
at that because I don't want to be
known as an anti-racism platform.
It's it is what I'm doing, but that's
not what I want to be known for.
I want to be known for like being
funny and, you know, and I want to be
known for, supporting Black women of
color to like access ease and dreaming
and play and, you know, and joy.
That feels more important to me
than people thinking, oh, I'm going
to go learn something from her.
You, I can tell you this joke.
You can learn stuff from this
joke, but I don't necessarily.
So, so thinking about that, but I was
bringing it, bringing my mother into
this because when I was a little girl,
my mom, people would ask me, like, what
are you going to be when you grow up?
I want to be a Civil Rights Activist.
So here I am, you know, self fulfilling
prophecy, I done, apparently become
a Civil Rights activist and it's
the, it's been my life work, but is
this really all like, all that my
life will be is fighting for justice.
I want to take a nap.
Honestly.
I want to take a nap.
I want to hula-hoop.
I want to jump rope.
I want to fall in love
with a beautiful Black man.
I want to go for walks.
I want to play, I want to post twerk
videos on my Instagram page, right?
Like they're like the frivolous
things that I want to be a
frivolous things that I want to do.
I'm doing quote fingers, the
frivolous things that I want to do.
I don't want them to take away
from the work that I am also doing.
And when people get this understanding
of you as one thing, then it
feels like, wait, can you be a
Civil Rights Activist and twerk?
I think you won't survive if you don't.
Yeah.
I think if you ain't twerked today
and you're doing this justice work,
you will not survive if you don't.
And so, I'm essentially asking the
question, of the participants of
Dream Yourself Free, in your wildest
imagination, would you be doing the
work that you're currently doing?
Pretty much most people, when I was
just doing the workshop version of this,
most people were saying absolutely, no.
Some, many of them saying, hell no.
And then, now that we understand that this
isn't really what we want to be doing.
You know, in our highest imaginations
of ourselves, let's start thinking
about what it would really look like?
And so we do some backtracking
into childhood and I guess a lot of
healing work and really considering
what would feel good to me?
How can I continue to honor
the work of my ancestors and my
elders on this freedom journey?
While simultaneously living a life
and being in, and emboding enjoy in a
way that makes me feel good and alive.
And it felt important for me to
make this six month intensive
that we're launching this month.
It felt important for us
to make it free because.
I speak in us's and we's,
because I'm a Womanist.
But it felt important for me to make it
free because, what happened was, when I
originally launched it, the first three
people to register were three white women.
Which was fine.
I had opened it up to all women, but
it just started to the register back to
back, ease of just paying that money.
And it felt like, ooh, I'm not going
to reach my target demographic, if
we don't figure out a way to make
sure that this is really accessible.
And on top of that, a funny thing is
some of my favorite accounts to follow.
I don't particularly follow
them, but I watch them.
It's like white women influencers.
I love watching white women influencers'
pages, because it just teaches me so
much, very often, about what not having to
worry about a god dang thing looks like.
Like they just look so happy.
They're just enjoying their lives.
They had the best blueberry
muffins in the morning.
They wear the best leggings.
And I am just, like, amazed at
the level of ease that white
women influencers experience.
And I mean that not even jokingly, even
though it is funny, I'm so serious.
I have a couple pages that I just go
to every now and then it'd be like,
let me see what she over here doing.
Nothing.
And I'm saying that in comparison,
you know, contrasting to like, think
about some of my closest friends.
Yeah.
And some of my closest Black
girlfriends and the conversations
that we're having, you know, on
social media, on a daily basis.
And if you compare the two, right, like
this person has 787,000 followers on
social media and she's just posting
about her, you know, new ankle bracelet.
And then this person over here only
has 6,000 followers and she's over
here trying to figure out how to
get every person on the planet free.
And it feels like, this extreme
inequity and how do we balance, white
women contributing and doing their
part, to make sure that we get free?
And Black women coming into the
balance of being able to do this
justice work and laugh and play and
experience ease and joy and dreaming
and, in lavish ways, you know.
The way that this other end of
the spectrum experiences it.
And so yeah, making it free for
Black women and for women of
color, particularly, felt like
this is my reasonable service.
I use this, you know, very Christian
language around ministry and, you
know, serving, but it feels like this
is my reasonable at the very least
I could do is figure out a way to
make this free, because I conceived
this as a gift to Black women,
specifically and to women of color.
And so now I need to make sure that the
gift doesn't become a burden to them.
And it felt like that was
what was about to happen.
Well, it was interesting cause
I saw it when you launched it.
And I saw it when you came out and said,
yo, this is what we're going to do.
And yeah.
And it was really consistent
with what I've seen from you.
And I know we've had that conversation
before about who are endlessly consistent.
Because, one of the things I've always
seen from you is that whenever you do
programs, there's always an option to fund
a Black woman's ticket to whatever it is.
Right.
So when I saw it, I was like,
Oh yeah, well, that makes sense.
That's what EbonyJanice does.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Sure.
If it's, because what I understand
is that there are a lot of non-Black
women, white women specifically, that
do want to, do their part in learning,
but also not taking up too much space.
And the very beautiful thing that
happened was the first three women
that enrolled with ease were like, take
this $1,700 and there was no tension.
There was no hesitation
in those conversations.
And then since then, amongst the
ways to donate to the scholarship
fund, three other women have come in
just paid, you know, full through,
for somebodies registration, which
is with tax, you know, $1,700.
And that is so profound to me that people
are willing to invest and the wellness of
Black women, as a way to share privilege.
And as a way to, it feels
like an equalizer of sorts.
It feels like the reason why Jenny
with 782,000 followers on Instagram
is able to post pictures of her ankle
bracelet and her new dog, Scrumpit,
is because she has resources.
She has access to resources that makes
her not have to, you know, work two
jobs and still try to do this public
education around racism at the same time.
And so sharing those resources,
doesn't actually take anything away
from Jenny with the 782,000 followers.
I feel like I'm talking about
a very specific person and
I'm not, I really am not.
I'm really making up this, you know.
We're all going to project
onto a specific person.
I don't follow anyone
with a dog named Scrumpit.
Right.
it's not, I'm come kind of combining a
couple of combining a couple of people.
The avatar, basically.
Yeah, who is she?
You know what?
She looks like, you know exactly what
I'm talking about, you know, her, because
you have seen her page and possibly
had to unfollow her because come on,
Jenny, it's a lot going on in the world.
What else?
But yes, so, so, so it doesn't take
anything away from her actually
to say, I can support this.
And as a part of my ethic, as a part of
someone, particularly for women, white
women, considering themselves feminist, as
a part of my ethic, and my lived praxis.
Like the way that I show up is to make
sure that we are all free as a result
of Black women of color being free.
So yeah, making it free, and/or
always having that option to support
women of color, to make sure that
the work that I'm doing isn't
inaccessible to my target audience.
Cause what would have happened if
I left it as is and the 25 spots
ended up being 25 white women.
I would have canceled the whole
thing and refunded everybody's money.
Honestly, so I needed to stop it
before it got too far, because
it's like, it's not that I don't
want white women to do dream work.
And I, and that feels important to me as
well, but that is not my specific work.
And I would never, ever be in a, doing
work with a room full of white women
as my central work ever, not even ever.
And so I don't know what would happen
to me for that to be a reality.
Like my central work is talking
to white women every day.
I can't imagine it, especially when there
is all of this, you know, this other end
of the spectrum where Black women and
women of color are just trying to figure
out like, We go eat for dinner today?
You know, what are we doing?
We're recording this podcast interview
with me under a weighted blanket,
because the time that we're recording
this in it's in the midst of a
pandemic, in the middle of a revolution.
Right.
So, so what does it look like for me?
And it feels this, the blanket is
necessary because I've been walking
around for the past really two weeks
inside of, more than that because inside
of the issues of a pandemic, right, I've
been walking around for the past two
weeks with this thing, just sitting on
my chest since, you know, like, how do
you just go back to businesses as usual?
How do you just be regular in this time?
And, there's a, there's
this YouTube account.
It's a woman that had this YouTube
account that I love so much her
name's Evelyn from the internets.
She's hilarious.
I don't really say people are
funnier than me, but she might be
funnier than me, a little bit, maybe.
But Evelyn from the internets
actually has this video, which
went viral several years ago.
And it's so sad that it's the same
thing, called Calling in Black.
Where after a, you know, a police
murder, particularly one that's
caught on camera, we kind of all,
Black people kind of are collectively
like, are we really supposed to just
be on the same zoom calls tomorrow?
Are we really just supposed to be, you
know, sitting in our cubicles tomorrow?
Are we really just supposed to be
working at the grocery store tomorrow?
Are we really just supposed
to be being regular?
And the privilege of being able to
just still show up tomorrow and feel
maybe sad, but not feel the grief in
your body the way it feels to imagine.
Right?
Like that could have been my cousin, my
brother, my uncle, my dad, my sister.
My mother.
Yeah.
So I can't make dreaming
inaccessible to Black women when
dreaming has already historically
been inaccessible to Black women.
EbonyJanice we could talk forever.
And I'm very grateful for you.
And thank you for being
here with me today.
Thank you for having me.
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