Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Get Me to the Gray, presented by COJA Services Inc., is a podcast about the conversations we’re told we shouldn’t have. Hosted by journalist and author Paula Lehman-Ewing, the show brings people with fundamentally different ways of seeing the world into honest dialogue—where we name what divides us and keep talking anyway.
COJA Services Inc. works with mission-driven organizations and brands that are clear on their values but struggle to translate that clarity into public-facing language. We help teams align internal narratives, reduce confusion before it becomes mistrust, and translate complexity into public understanding without relying on scripts, rhetoric, or generic AI language that strips voice and judgment.
If you're in the greater Denver metro area, register for our LIVE events at tinyurl.com/COJAEvents
GMG-Live-3_GRASP MAIN
Speaker: [00:00:00] Jason. Ev- Can everyone hear us okay, or me so far? Yes. Okay, fantastic. Um, so, so yeah. So this is super fun because we've done three live shows and GRASP has been at all of them and is now hosting the third. Um, so, and that's kind of h- like how the relationship started. They came, I knew they were, um, you know, doing really good work here based in the community and that's kind of my thing is, um, you know, I have a friend that says, "Those closest to the problem are closest to solution and farthest from resources to exact change."
And, um, so GRASP had that. And so, um, we invited them to the show. And then the second show we went out to dinner and got to know each other a little bit more. And then the, here we are at [00:01:00] the third show. But, um, you know, I wanted to start with... I know you guys know these guys really well, but I wanted to start with something that, um, might be an open secret.
I don't know. Johnny and Jenny, you had this sort of, um, different perspectives clash in the beginning. Can you... Let's have Johnny remember it first.
Speaker 2: How far back do you want me to begin? From the beginning. From the beginning. From
Speaker 3: the, yeah.
Speaker 2: From the beginning, I show up at my group and I see this white lady with cheesecake.
Speaker: Mm.
Speaker 2: I'm like, "Who is this white lady with cheesecake?" "And why is she bringing cheesecake to my kids, because I don't know her like that?" So I go in the group and I'm watching and she's interacting with the kids and the kids are loving her. And, um, it's like she's been there the whole time, but I never knew that she was there.
So I stood beside her and I said, "Who are you and why are you here?" And she said,
"Oh my God, this is not the way that I ever wanted to meet you." Um, so she can tell her part of the story. But it[00:02:00]
was that day that I saw her engage with our community in a way that felt genuine to me. Mm. And because it felt genuine to me, I was able to embrace it. Um, she can tell her part of the story and then I, I'll come back.
Speaker: Well, what... Before you go, Jenny. Before that, what was your hesitation on, on having kind of like someone who's not in the community come...
Like where does that tension come from for you?
Speaker 2: Um, so many times Good, bad, or indifferent, people that are not a part of our culture want to save our culture or it, it's out of guilt from what their ancestors done or, um, just, uh, to make themselves feel good so they can go home and, and sleep at night. I don't know what it is, but oftentimes I feel like they're doing things to us instead of with us, and I don't-- I have to protect my young people from that because goodwill people can come into the neighborhood with resources that are not sustainable, um, not, you know, something that they need in the moment, and it doesn't make any sense, and then they can walk away, and those resources can be dangerous, right?
So I just wanna [00:03:00] make sure that everything that happens in our organization is sustainable. We won't ever give your community something that we have to take back because someone is no longer there or that we have to explain because someone just dumped off something and it was not usable. We had that same thing this morning.
Someone brought resources here, and my first question was, "Can we use this?" Because if we can't, I'm gonna give it back to them and thank them for their effort, but it's not something that we can use. So that's my hesitation is whenever someone come into the community, I wanna make sure, one, it's, it's genuine, it's organic, and it's sustainable.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Okay. So, white savior. Let's, uh, let's talk about, like, how you came into that situation. Did you... Were you aware of, of that and, and did you... Well, Johnny said you didn't wanna introduce yourself that way. How did you imagine introducing yourself?
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I should start with how I realized that he actually didn't know who I was, because we were presenting on a panel on community engaged research at a conference, and we were sitting next to each other, and there were, [00:04:00] what, six of us in a row.
And this- 60
Speaker 2: people in the audience.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a room full of people. And he said, "And I didn't know who she was." And I looked at him and I was like, "Yes, you did." He's looking at the audience going, "I had no idea who she was." And I was like, "Well, that's super awkward," 'cause I'd been going for like four months to group, right?
Five months maybe at this point. And so I swore I wouldn't be the white lady with baked goods, right? I wouldn't walk in with baked goods. And lo and behold, the first day that I actually end up talking to Johnny, it wasn't that he just saw me with cheesecake. I was, like, trying to carry it all in from my car and, like, balancing it really crazy, and he helped me carry it in.
So it wasn't even like he just put it together. Like, he helped carry the baked goods in. So, but I swore I wouldn't be that person for months and months. And going back maybe further, I came out to Colorado in 2021 to pursue my doctoral degree in public health, and my specific focus was on firearm injury prevention and intervention.
And I was at Colorado [00:05:00] School of Public Health, and I came out here to, to, to get more embedded into the community, but also to pursue my studies. And I... When I was here, I had free time for the first time in a long time. My midlife crisis where I moved my family across the country for doctoral studies, I was like, "You know what?
I've been working in community for a very long time." And a lot of these things where we changed some things in my previous job where we had sustainability in place. People wouldn't leave a project after a period of time. And I thought, "You know what? This is a time where I can go in. I don't need anything."
I'm not asking the community if I can do a community needs assessment. I'm not asking if I can bring students to do a j- a project. I'm not asking for anything. But instead, I'm coming in and saying, "Hey, I, I might have something to offer," and you're doing the work with young people that I'm hoping to protect through my work and my previous experience of young people who need access to different resources and opportunities.
And so that's how I showed up. But I'd been going to group for... We have a Thursday night healing circle is what Johnny's talking about. But I thought I would go, you know, every week, and I did. [00:06:00] And I think probably I'd been going for like five, five months, four months, five months. So anyway, that was, that was how it started.
And he kinda said, "Well, you know, what can... What, what are you interested in?" I was like, "Whatever comes up." Like, so when I started showing up, um, Michelle, who was interviewing volunteers, was like, "Well, what do you, what do you wanna do?" And I was like, "Honestly, just let me show up. We'll figure it out." And that did work out.
Speaker: Well, I think that there's a lot to be said about... 'Cause I don't know if all researchers would And you can speak better to this, would go into a like, "Well, if I'm really gonna do the research, I need to look at the people and not the numbers." Is that something that, like, has always guided the way that you approach research?
Speaker 4: Yes, for sure. And at that point it wasn't even research. Research wasn't the intention. I should explain the beeping that people are inevitably gonna hear. These are our trauma pagers, so when, um... We're on call 24/7 for five hospitals in the Denver Metro area, so when this pager goes off it's that someone is in need of attention.
And so just to- Sorry about
Speaker: that. [00:07:00] That's fine. If anyone needs to run, that is far more important than, than my little recording. So if you need to go, just- Yeah ... just go.
Speaker 4: No, just to explain. Um, I... My intention was never to do research. In fact what I said when I started was, um, if we can play this out down the road, was, "I don't need anything from this.
I'm literally here to see if I can help and be around." And not white savior type of help, but, like, just integrate. And if I'm gonna be studying this on the academic side and looking at gun violence and the effect it has on our communities, then why wouldn't I be, why wouldn't I be closer to see, like, who I could meet and who I could, like, to have the story, yes, but not for research, just to be a part of the community that's addressing the issues.
Speaker: Okay. So you used a word there that I wanted to, uh, bring up early. Um, so Erica, uh, kind of inspired me for the framework of this episode. So as, as much as she hesitated of being up here, I'm glad that she is. So, you know, one of the things that you [00:08:00] had mentioned in, in one of our previous conversations is this idea of research as protection.
And, um, I know in a lot of the communities I've worked in, first of all, protection takes on many different meanings depend- de- depending on what your perspective is. But also there is a sense that if someone comes you and, comes to you and says they're going to protect you with research, and you're living in an actual situation with actual violence, you're like, how is your research gonna- Give me real protection.
Is... So tell me a little bit about how you came to the research and to understanding it like that.
Speaker 3: Um, well, I love Jenny and her cheesecakes. She, she, she was, um, in my... Right next to me ever since. You know what I'm saying? So shout out to Jenny for popping up the group with the cheesecake. You know what I said?
The way to a woman's heart. Um, anyway, um, she came to our team, and she was like, you know, um, "What do you guys think about doing research?" And I was like, "Nope." You know what I'm saying? [00:09:00] Like, I just didn't understand what she was asking, right, and why she was asking us. Um, and just historically, in my mind, um, research has never benefited my community.
It has never protected us. It has never... There's nothing good that has ever came out of research where I have wanted to be a part of that. I'm like, "No, hell no. You won't get me, um, up behind something that's going to ultimately, um, hinder our young people and tell their stories and not protect them in the process," right?
Because when we're asking our youth and our families to relive these moments in their lives that are detrimental, that are life-changing, that they are still daily dealing with, right? We have to make sure that we are Letting them know that their stories are so, so very important to what we are doing, and that they can be rest assured and can li- um, sleep, [00:10:00] uh, in a way that they know that this isn't gonna be used to, um, get them in any more trouble or to open up any more doors that, um, is going to hinder them from that healing.
And so I wanna, uh... Jenny asked us, and I was like, "No, what's the point?" Because we've already done some stuff, and there was nothing that came out of it. Um, and I was just thinking about myself when I was doing some research, um, especially, like, when you come from the doctor or you get the emails and the calls, and I was just like, "Well, what you gonna do with it?"
You know what I'm saying? Like, I said all these things, um, and there's nothing that came out of it. I came to Jenny with that, and she was like, "That's the point." Like, we wanna change that. We wanna make sure that, uh, we're at the center of the questions that are being, um, given to our community, of what that looks like, and we control the narrative.
And I was like, "Sure." You know what I'm saying? Like, prove it. Yeah. Um, and she sat us down, and she deals with us every week when we are going back and forth like, [00:11:00] "Jenny, why? But, but why that question and why like that," right? What I love about Jenny is that she listens to us, and when we are telling her things about, like, the language and the research and, um, how we need to flip how we are asking these questions so that our community understands what is really being asked of them, uh, she makes sure that that happens, that we are, um, putting that in our research study and explaining why it's important that is the language is changed, um, around how we view research.
So, uh, she opened up my eyes as to, um, it's important that as community members we are doing the research, uh, because we see it firsthand. As you hear, our trauma pages are going off. Uh, we have a lot of connections in our communities, and we are very knowledgeable about what is happening, and we know what our community wants.
So how do we get that to the right people that need to hear it, whether they wanna hear it or not? It might hurt their feelings. Um, but, and what are [00:12:00] you gonna do with that information? So our first research study, we were able to change things in real time, and that was like, "Let's do it again." You know what I'm saying?
Who else wants to do some research? Right. Let's show you how to do it.
Speaker: For sure. Well, and I think that it's important 'cause it's... You know, you mentioned sort of the hesitancy of, you know, I'm putting all my stories out there, and I don't know where it's going, and I don't see anything coming back. But beyond that, there's also, like you said, a history of research actually hurting communities of color.
If we go back to Tuskegee or, or any of the other things that we can, that we can name where, like- The government has used communities of color as guinea pigs for certain things. And so, you know, it's not just attention and they like, "Well, are you... Like, what are you doing with my stuff?" But there's also a fear of actively harming communities.
Is that something that you sort of s- feel like was an obstacle when you're talking about research among the community members?
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. I, I had to do some healing within myself, [00:13:00] um, to trust the process and to trust the team that I had around me, and Jenny, who was teaching us the importance of why we needed to be at the table.
Speaker: Well, what'd that w- look like for you? What did it
Speaker 3: look like? The healing work? Oh my God, trust is so hard, right? Breaking down those barriers, um, listening to the change in mindset that you have to have to be a researcher, and that is to take yourself out of it, right? Um, to really read, um, the transcripts in a way in which you are not, um, putting your own feelings into those words, but you are taking, you are, um, grabbing from, um, the context of which our community, you know, the, what they are saying, and using exactly those quotes, exactly those words, right?
Um, and building that code, but based upon the transcripts was really, really difficult. But within me, I had to start off with trust. I had to trust Jenny. I had to know that she wasn't just here trying to feed us cheesecake. You know what I'm saying? She wasn't trying to give me- [00:14:00] I said, "
Speaker 5: It's
Speaker 3: over" You know what I'm saying?
She wasn't trying to harm us in any way. She wasn't trying to use us for, um, her degree and things like that. It was beyond that. Mm-hmm. And that, that was something that I also had to get past too, 'cause I was like, "What's she doing here? She just need us for that master's, right?" But it's so much beyond that.
Um, Jenny has this heart where, um, she's just very caring about the community and educating, um, others on doing what she does, right? Um, and making sure that we feel comfortable with our own table that we brought to research, right? We, we're not sitting at the tables of the research, we are the table of the research now.
And, um, just knowing that we are so powerful, that we belong in this space, um, was part of the healing process as well. Um, as well as, uh, listening to my team because going back and forth, um, with the team every day and getting their perspective on what they view as what is important, [00:15:00] um, that others should know, and why they need to know it, uh, was also healing, I think, uh, as a group for our organization.
Uh, 'cause I don't think any of us ever thought of ourselves as researchers in any way, right? But we f- we are. And Johnny would put it like- When we're asking these questions, he would be like, "But y'all are already doing it in real time." When we meet with our clients at bedside, when we meet with our clients on the street, when there's a shooting, when we meet with our community at these community events, these things that we are learning and these questions that we are asking, they're already embedded in how we show up for the community.
So it was very easy to kinda just integrate.
Speaker: Yeah. And then so you sort of got to see the process. You, you-- There was an opportunity for buy-in, right? You saw how the research was working. Johnny, before that, before that case study existed, what, what did it take you to buy in? Did you have your own process of coming to understand the history of ver- research [00:16:00] versus this new kind of research that you could be a part of?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the buy-in again was the organic relationship. Um, Jenny, at some point when we were presenting, talked about my academic partnership, and I-- again, shocked to the death when I said I had no idea that I was a part of a
community academic partnership. Um, and I'm thankfully so because if someone would've came to me and said, "Hey, can we have a community academic partnership?" I'd have been like, "No, we're not doing that." Right? But because of the relationship that organically grew between us and the School of Public Health and, uh, the FIPP and the groups that we work with, um, that they're defining that as an academic community partnership.
And I said, "Okay, so if this is what it is," that was my aha moment because like Erica said, I trusted the people and not the process. And the people knew that I was gonna hold them accountable to the process. So that was the, the, the moment that kinda turned it around for me, um, is because I identify our research with the dissemination piece of it has to have an [00:17:00] implementation part of it.
Yes. Like, don't bring research into our community if we're not gonna do something about it in the end. Mm-hmm. And every project that we have worked on has been exactly that. Um, and when people come and ask us to use our community as subjects for their research, we tell them, "No, but we'll do the research for you.
Tell us what the questions are. We'll help you write the book, the code book. We'll help you develop the, the, the questions that need to be asked." And my first question is, "I don't wanna know the questions. Tell me what you wanna know, because the questions you're asking may not be what is gonna get you what you wanna know."
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right? So that is where I kinda, you know, probably... But you said something that was important, and I wanted to just- Yes, you- ...go, go back
Speaker 4: to that
Speaker 2: When you said, uh, about Tuskegee and, uh, research, a lot of times what we do in our research is we explain to community what research is. Because a lot of the people that are involved in Tuskegee didn't know, had no idea there was research, right?
And a lot of times when our community's the subject of research, they're given a stipend or [00:18:00] they're getting paid to try this drug or try this or do that or the other, and for them it's just, you know, another buck so they can make ends meet. Had no idea the harm that is gonna be done to them or the rest of the community because of what they've allowed themself to be involved upon.
So the, um, actual harm that is being done in that way, even when I talk to the IRB board, I want to bring up the fact
that, um, it, it should be immoral for me to pay someone $500 to do something that might be harmful to them or the rest of the community in the name of research. Right. Especially when I know that they're indigent and they need the money.
Speaker: Yeah. And, and you know, and you know, we're, we're talking a lot about Jenny, so I'm gonna bring you back in.
But you know, there's buy-in, which is kind of being an authentic person and engaging with people one-on-one, and then there's buy-in, which is literally buying people into the process. And when you're dealing with communities that [00:19:00] are suffering or that do have a financial need to make ends meet, that buy-in's a lot easier.
So how do you go about kind of reshaping that, that relationship between researchers and communities? Because if, like, like I said, it, it- I don't know if everyone knows the history, but I, and I know that people get frustrated. But if in the end, like, if someone says, you know, "If you wanna put dinner on the table for a family, then you can come and do this," I can see that as a hard thing to pass up.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think in, in my perspective, in our approach to research, very, like, hyper locally, it's never me repairing the relationship. I have a whole team of researchers who are much better at that than I am, and who are much better poised, and know the questions and the concerns, and know the answers. So it's never me.
But if I can support that effort, I will, of course, right? It's very important to me that it happen, but the face of that is not me. It's Johnny, it's Erica, it's [00:20:00] Lawrence, it's Shamia. It's anyone on our team who sees the need for that, and we, in our team, we're always deciding who the best person is for the conversation in the moment, given the context.
If, if it's in English or Spanish or culturally, what those considerations are. And so im- immediately, it's what needs to be done, why, how, and who should do it.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4: Over time, it's more of the question of people are leery of research because they're also having negative or challenging healthcare experiences.
And then that's healthcare as a system, and guess what? There are a lot of other systems that people are having challenging experiences with. Mm-hmm. And so I think what I would say, and, and you guys can weigh in, of course, but the reason we have a research team is because there are unheard voices and unheard narratives that people come in and often extract.
But our research team comes in, has the conversation, and knows what to do next. Like Erica said, we implement real time. Like Johnny said, "Don't do research that doesn't have action atta- attached to it." You said it better than I than I just did. But if you're not going to do [00:21:00] something with it, don't do it.
So repairing the relationship with research starts very, very, very locally, and I think there's a world of possibility, but it takes its own natural path, and it has to 'cause it's driven by the concerns of the community. Right.
Speaker 2: And, and I'll just have to add, like, our, our research team, because we are wraparound services, if we know someone is in need- Mm-hmm
we're gonna take care of that need first, whether they do the research or not, so that we eliminate that-
Speaker 4: Yeah ...
Speaker 2: as being s- uh, something that's attractive to them to do the research for the, the, the, the resources. So we, we take care of their resources, whether they do it or not, in that way, and we would explain to them what the project is about, um, and how it can help, and that we do have...
our dissemination has implementation.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, and what I would say too is incentives to participate in research Try to bridge the gap between why would I want to even do that? And so it's preying on people in the worst case scenario. It's positively motivating in the best case scenario. Right. We often don't have to pay people to talk to us.[00:22:00]
Mm-hmm. We talk to people all the time. Yeah. Because people care and we care, and there's that union of, of effort together- Mm-hmm ... that moves forward. And pay is a piece of it, but it's never the central piece of it. Mm-hmm. So we don't always have to pay for research. Mm-hmm. And actually, it sounds kinda weird, but I think that's part of the way we start to repair the relationship is that the buy-in is more than the gift card.
Mm-hmm. The buy-in is that we are in this together, and by talking with you, you're part of this collective mission. Mm-hmm. And you will see something from it- Right ... that is more than a gift card.
Speaker 3: And not only that, um, the education behind it to the community as to the why, right? Um, because there's such a negative, um, idea or history of research, not only do we have to heal our minds and change our mindset, we also have to tell our community as to why they have to heal and change their mindset, and why it's important that their stories, um, go beyond just our, um, relationship that we have built, right?
Mm-hmm. Their stories are so [00:23:00] powerful that they can change, um, you know, how we view gun violence, how we view safety, how we view who gets what information in what way, right, how it's disseminated, um, and why they need to be at the table, too, and why we need to be the ones that do the research to disseminate it to those who love the numbers and the words, right?
And so healing our community in that way so that they are also, uh, learning as we are learning in disseminating their stories, um, is very important to the relationship building and why- Mm-hmm ... um, they have the buy-in to do this as well.
Speaker: Okay. So I, I wanna get into a little bit about the, some specifics, because I think that's great.
I think the education part is great, and I think that the participation and... not just the participation, but the empowerment of being involved in, um, research that will To find things around you. Um, I think that that all is [00:24:00] very powerful. My question then becomes how do you make research something that's not an abstract future promise and something that's actually going to protect people who really are buying in because they want to feel safer, because they have an investment in their community, and because they see this problem and they're like, "Okay, well, we're gonna...
We'll do it." How does that become something from a, you know, a database to, um, to an actual implementation, as Johnny was saying, that makes people feel safer? I mean, I think there's, I think there's lots of stuff that we as a society are aware of. I don't think that stops me from, like, drinking that bottle of Coca-Cola just 'cause, like, it melted that foil off of the can one day.
Like, I've... I think about it. My teeth fall out. But, but, like, I, um, it happened in the car. Uh, but, you know, how do you actually shift from [00:25:00] awareness to a real result that people can say, "Okay, it's worth, it's worth... It's, we're not just talking about it"?
Speaker 2: So, so
one of our first research projects, one of our, um, our partners wanted to know why are youth carrying guns? And I said, "I don't understand." They said, "Why are you carrying?" I said, "Because they're scared. What do you s- what do you mean why are they carrying guns?" I said, "Do you wanna know the story behind how they got to a point to where they were scared enough to carry a gun?
That's a different question." Right? And, and so how do you change it to make it important is their stories are important. We start with the stories, and then we go with the numbers. Like, uh, so if I say Little Johnny carries a gun because... Or he was walking home from school one day and, and three, you know, people jumped him and beat him up and, and he went home and he was all bloody and no one helped him.
And, and that day he looked in the mirror and said, "This is never gonna happen to me again." And he went and got his older brother's gun, and he put it in his backpack, and when he walked out the door, he was like, "Now I'm gonna protect myself." That's why he's carrying the gun. How many other young [00:26:00] Johnnys that's out there that got jumped and want to protect themselves are picking up guns just so they can make sure they make it from one place to the next place, right?
So the story is first and then the numbers. So then how do I make Little Johnny feel safe enough to
not carry that gun anymore? Because the more Little Johnnys that's out there carrying guns, the percentage rises as to how something is gonna, you know, pop off. Because if I'm scared enough to carry a gun, and I'm running into someone else who's scary enough to carry a gun, and we both have our guns, and we don't have articulation skills, we don't have coping mechanisms, we don't have ways to deescalate the problem, the gun is gonna solve it for one of us or both of us.
Actually, both of us. Right. 'Cause if whoever gets shot, the other one's going to jail. We just ended two lives because we don't
Speaker: know how to communicate. Right. So then is the... Is it a... Then is it truly just a matter of, like, language redefinition? Because right now, like you said, the fear is real, the threat is real, and it's...
And the fear is shared with enough people that it's going to... That, that those, those people are [00:27:00] gonna meet. And so how do you advance Johnny's story from a here's what we know from this kid, and it's probably, like, espoused by a number of people in the community. How do you go from that to, "Okay, so you know now.
Now what?" Because he still has to go out, and if he gets jumped, he gets jumped, and if he doesn't, you know, it's, it... They still have to go out. And so I know it's not-- there's no kind of Silver bullet. Terrible analogy. Um, but, um, but there's, you know, there's, there's something to be said for, like, the collection of stories, and then I don't know if Johnny feels safer for telling it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So let me... I'll, I'll, I'll just say and then I'll let the-- my partners say anything. But the, the first thing about it is this is where my problem with research forth in the first place. We ask stupid... We got young people in here. We ask stupid questions, right? So my thing [00:28:00] was, we already know. Most of the time when questions are asked about research, we already know the answers.
We know people carry guns because they're afraid, right? So that was never the question. It was like, what can we do to make them feel more safe, right? So that-- I think that's where the work has to happen. Mm-hmm. Stop asking stupid questions and try to figure out from the last set of stupid questions that were asked, what have we done, how have we grown, and how can we implement that, you know, implementation from that?
And, and we always talk about validate, educate, and motivate. Mm-hmm. Let's start with what we know. We know that young people are carrying guns because they're afraid. Let's start with that, right? Let's educate. What makes young people afraid? How can we fix them being afraid? And then let's motivate a change, whether it be from the political standpoint, the educational standpoint, the family, uh, community, uh, standpoint, or individually, because you can start individually.
If we start with the young people individually and make them feel safe enough to where they don't have to carry a gun, then the, the, the overall machine becomes null and void, right? So that-- I think that that's where we need to start the work [00:29:00]
Speaker: And does that, like, ring true for all three of you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, in a sense, but I look at it as, you know Teaching our young people a different avenue on how they can use their voice in this type of way, um, can also empower them to make better decisions and get out of certain situations, you know? Mm-hmm. What young person looks at themselves and says, "I'm a researcher"?
None of them, right? But if we treat them like, you know what I'm saying, put them on the pedestal that they need to be on because their story needs to be heard and this is the stories that we need to tell, um, also empowers them to continue to, uh, maybe live a certain life or move in different circles now- Mm-hmm
um, that they know that they are powerful and their voices matter, and that they get to voice that in, in moments and in, um, safe [00:30:00] spaces to where they can heal in a different way. But when it comes to research, like, this is another bad analogy, but we'll bust the caps if somebody do something to our kids.
You know what I'm saying? Like, we, we, we protect our kids no matter what. You know what I'm saying? And so, um, when it comes to, you know, them telling their story and being afraid to go out into the community, we're not asking them any questions about what they did with the gun.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
We're not, we're not asking you what happened on the weekend and, um, how many times have you shot the gun. You know what I'm saying? We're asking you literally what's up in your community, what's up in your family, what culturally did you learn about guns and gun safety, and, um, you know, maybe who did you lose?
Mm-hmm. Who do you wanna honor, uh, by telling this story, right? Uh, flipping the script on how we are telling them why they need to be doing this and changing their lives, uh, motivating them. Educate, validate, motivate. It's very important. Yeah.
Speaker: So Jenny, I'm, I'm wondering, 'cause that is much [00:31:00] different than... I mean, you met the, you met GRASP through your pursuit of a master's, so academic research is, th- that is not that language.
You know, they, they want those data points. So is there any point for you where you've pushed for something like that? Or where you see where kind of the traditional approach of academia goes wrong?
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think the traditional approach of academia is always extractive. And so when you say why do kids carry guns, we know the answer.
We know they're scared. But the, the story behind it and who gets that story and how and then what happens with it changes based on the team. And so I, I was lucky to study with a group of academics who were supportive of the idea and became more supportive over time when they saw that it actually worked, 'cause I think there was a little...
You know, there are things like community-engaged research or community-based participatory research, participatory action research. There are models that engage the community, but there aren't models that [00:32:00] involve the community from the beginning to the end. Mm-hmm. And especially the analysis piece. Like writing a code book, I mean, my heart leapt with joy one day when someone pulled their code book out for something else and was like, "I'm looking for the way we phrased it in the code b-" book, and I was like, "Oh, my heart be still."
Because it meant not that I had succeeded as a researcher, but that the language we were using in our research mattered and landed, and that was all that I cared about, was that it was relevant to the community. Because if it stops being relevant, uh, we stop doing it. Uh, we don't need to do it to do it, right?
But I think that the, the important piece is really to say, this can change not just what we learn through research, but how we do research. It's the methods, it's not the outcome. And I think that, you know, what led us to this place of doing research was when I said to Johnny, like, "Hey, can we... Yeah, I said I would never ask anything of you, but I think the stories of the team and the stories of our clients can change the landscape of community violence intervention because the...
you [00:33:00] do it every day." Like Erica said, like, this is what we do every day. Like motivational interviewing, but really deep interviewing that is data collection inherently. And Johnny was like, "No, we're not doing research." Nothing ever came of it. So then I thought about it for a while after I was mortified for even asking.
And I came back and I was like, "What if we are the researchers? What if the team is the researcher?" And he was like, "Yeah, okay, let's figure that out. Like, let's, let's work with that piece." And so we don't change... Uh, um, basically what I say, like all the time is I'll ask a young person like, "Oh, hey, how are you doing?"
Like, "Are you carrying a gun? Why are you carrying a gun?" They'll tell me what they think I need to hear. Yeah. Johnny asks them, Erica asks them, Lawrence asks them. Somebody else who they can relate to better than they can relate to me asks them, you can get a real answer. And the real answer matters more than me asking the question and feeling like I asked the question.
That doesn't matter. The, the question asked in a way that we get the response that's true, that leads action, that, that completes the circle of research, and that's where my research lives.
Speaker: Okay. So I think that that [00:34:00] makes a lot of sense in terms of like I'm, I'm more likely to, to talk to someone who's been through my, my situation and trust them about their answer.
Um, but where is there... I mean, your research team is, is robust and diverse, and it has everyone from academics and the people who ask stupid questions like myself to, um, to the people who, who are living in the community, um, people who have been impacted by gun violence. And so- Does everyone just sit around and, and hold hands and sing Kumbaya?
Or is like there... Are you still having... What... Tell me about some of the, the things that are coming up that are not external research, but some things that you're learning internally about each other.
Speaker 2: Uh, uh, I was... I'm gonna f-f- I'm gonna do one, one thing first because Jenny used to be the white lady with cheesecake, but now she's a part of our family, so I have to say this.
She was not going for her master's, she was going for her doctorate. Oh, she be. This is Doctor- [00:35:00] Woo ... Dr. Jenny McCarthy. But, um-
Speaker: Hey, Dr.
Speaker 2: McCarthy ... uh, the, the thing about it is that, like, even in our research, um, trainings, we have to have a communication amongst each others. I remember one of our most robust conversations was Lawrence, uh, was in their, uh, room, and the question was, "Did your parents expect you to do well in school?"
We had a whole conversation around that, because from his experience, him just showing up at school and not hurting somebody was doing well in school. In someone else's experience, that means getting As and Bs in school, what meant doing well in school. And others, like, just showing up at school and staying awake was doing well in school.
It's like, what does doing well in school mean for our team? So we had to come to a common understanding as to what does this particular question mean. Or back to what I, what I said before, what are you trying to un-understand? What is it that you wanna know by asking this question? Because then we can answer that.
Did, did, did your parents know if you had good grades? Did your parents wanna know, did you go to school? [00:36:00] That's different from doing well, because doing well is such a broad question to ask. So even in those meetings, we have to be on the same page with our own lived experiences as to what the question means and how our community will receive it.
Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. And things like phrasing those questions. You know, we talk about open-ended questioning, not yes or no, but if we know what we're trying to learn about, we can still keep the question open, but less open so we get the answer that we need. And understanding, you know, I think the best practices in scientific research, we've had this opportunity to redefine them based on sticking with the b-best practices and the evidence, building the evidence base with scientific rigor, but also saying, "If we're going to do that, it has to look a certain way, or else we actually just make it worse.
We make it more confusing." And so being able to be direct enough but still open has really guided a lot of our work
Speaker 3: Uh- Give it ... listen, I'ma keep it [00:37:00] 100. Our, our meetings be crazy as hell sometimes. Okay? Um, it is not easy. Okay? It is not easy to be a researcher when you are not trained to be in research, and we was going back and forth.
Okay? Because first of all, why? You know what I'm saying? You gotta go back to the why. Like, who, who? Okay. Like, when we were doing for the city, they wanted to know this, these gun questions. We was like, "For what?" You know what I'm saying? Like, we talked to the, to the mayor. We done went to all these meetings.
We even did his research and told him what we want, and nothing has came from it. So no. You know what I'm saying? But then we go back to the team. We look at each other, and now we go get some food. You know what I'm saying? That, that, you know, being angry never works for our team. Um, but we come together, but it's the back and forth I think that makes it organic, right?
That makes it, um, so robust and so, um, filled with the best intentions, right? Is when the whole team [00:38:00] has come together to really fight this out, right? And really, really get to the nitty-gritty of what do we really need to know. The hardest thing for me was the transcripts. I don't know about the team, but for me, it was reading them dang transcripts and taking myself out of the transcripts, right?
That's hard, because you could read something and be like, "What he meant was, um..." He don't like this and he don't like that, but that's not what he said, right? And so Jenny would always be like, "But what he said was this, this, this. Is this an important quote? Is this something that people need to hear? Do we take this out?
Do we leave it?" Um, I think that part is what takes the longest for us, is reading through the 24 pages, 34 pages, 15 pages, whatever how many pages, right, um, that it took, uh, for us to interview our community and our people. Uh, what do we get from that? How do we narrow all of this down into a paper, right, [00:39:00] that people can understand?
And then beyond that, how do we make this, uh, readable to our community though, right? Because we wanna disseminate this back into our community, so we need to use the right language. There was something in a, a paper a couple weeks ago that made me so mad, and I interrupted the whole meeting. It was like, um...
What, what did it say? Informants. It used the word informants as far as like, um, the people that were being interview- uh, interviewed were info- suspect and informant. I was like, "Mm-mm. Nope, Jenny, take that right on out." And she was like, "But what they mean..." I said, "But no, what our community is going to hear is that they're snitches," right?
Mm-hmm. And we, we, we, we not doing that today, right? Because they're not snitches. They are telling their story. They are the research. They are the story. They're not, they're not telling on nothing. You know what I'm saying? And so, um, making sure that whatever we gather, right, can be disseminated not only to, [00:40:00] um, the academics, but back to our community and our young people so that they know that, "You know what?
This was written about me."
Speaker 4: Mm. "
Speaker 3: I had a say so in this," right? Um, and we wanna make sure that they're safe, comfortable, and heard in that way, and so that's the most important part to me. The question part is easy. We can get anything out of our community, right, to make them feel safe, heard, right? Um, with our lived experiences, we know how to repeat it, repeat it in different ways, um, but disseminating it is, I think, was the, was the hardest.
And we, we go back and forth. It takes days. Raise your hand, team, if I, if I ain't telling the truth. Um, but it's all love. You know what I'm saying? And, and again, this is what makes it so organic and so important that we do it, um, because nobody else is gonna fight for our community like we are.
Speaker: Well, speaking of, um, community and dialogue, I want to invite, uh, the audience for, in for kind of a Q&A section.
So if you have a question, you can come to the front. Jamie has a [00:41:00] microphone for you. Um, but okay, so ground rules. Um, so please no speeches, um, and you can direct questions, uh, to a person, but at their ideas, not at them specifically. Just keep it nice and civil. Let's keep questions questions, and, um, yeah, so if anyone has a question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't bring the smoke up in here.
Speaker: Mm, do it. You can be harsh, just nice about it.
Speaker 5: Hi, Bianca Emerson, um, president of Colorado Black Men for Political Action. Thank you, Julie, for, um, the invite to come yesterday. I wanna know, how often do you all have your research turn into policy change? And who are you working with on a local level, on the state level, maybe even on a federal level, to bring that research to bring policy change?
Thank you.
Speaker 2: I love that question. Oh, you do? Okay, great. So that's an excellent question. Um, and we've, [00:42:00] uh, twice been asked to do that and have re- refused to do that because we didn't know exactly how that policy change was going to affect our community. They didn't give me enough information to do so. So we're actually now, because they keep asking us, looking to see who we best partner with that could be, um, advocates.
I mean, there was one thing where they put me down as a... What, what is it? What do you call those people that- Sleep
Speaker 4: and expert?
Speaker 2: No, um, the political guys that-
Speaker 4: Oh, lobbyists.
Speaker 2: Lobbyists. They put me down as a lobbyist. I said, "You better, you better stop that. You better shut your mouth." I said, "I am not a lobbyist," right?
Um, so just who can we partner with that will work on the policy side? Because I know how to stay in my lane. I've never been a politician. I, I've never been able to work in that area because of how I move, so I wanna be... You know? And I do align with some great politicians, and some of them are my good friends.
And, uh, but I let them handle their part, and I handle the community part. I have not yet aligned with someone that, um, organically wants to move this move-- the work that we, [00:43:00] uh, want to do the way that we wanna do it. So if you have any ideas, we're open to it.
Speaker: Well, it raises another question, though, in terms of, you know, how you understood an academic partner, how, how Erica understood research.
There's sort of a how people understand change. I mean, I know that, like, is there, is there a idea that change isn't going to come from policy, it's gonna come from this intercommunity relationships?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I definitely think change can come from policy. Um, and we have stood up to policies before, but from a community.
Like, we show up down there with signs and five hundred people, and we're like, "You change that shit or else." Right? Uh, that's how, that's how we do policy change, right? But through research, um, I've not seen yet where the question is connected to the policy in a way that's directly going to make a change.
Right. And that's where, that's, that's where the gap is for me. Um, because research, they... A lot of the time they claim that research is gonna change the policy, but once they got the data, the data doesn't go where it needs to go, and that's where [00:44:00] it, you know, and there's no accountability. Who do I hold accountable for that?
Because usually the people that are doing the research are not the actual politicians that promise to change the policy. Right. Right. And that's where my disconnect is, and that's where I wanna get a strong, organic, sustainable connection around that, that we could trust.
Speaker: Okay. So John is looking for a good politician.
Don't, don't call us good. He got high hopes. He got
Speaker 2: a thing. Don't call us good.
Speaker 6: A thing. I know there's some good politicians
Speaker 4: out there. Let's all search for the stranger.
Speaker: I call, I call this audience good. Anyone else have a question?
Speaker 4: Paula, can I ask a question, actually? Sure. I wanna ask a question of our other researchers who are here, because a lot of our team is in the audience.
And if we could put back to you, how has research changed for you? What have you... What do you appreciate about research? What would you change about the process? Like, I would love for the other team members present to share their experiences as well.
Speaker: Dirty laundry welcome. Sure.
Speaker 4: Oh, now we're shy.
Speaker 2: Come on, y'all. We're right here. Ryan raised his hand. I saw it. Ryan
Speaker 4: did? All right.
Speaker 2: Ryan, [00:45:00] let's go. Ryan raised his hand. We got it. Ryan back there. We got it.
Speaker 7: So what's the question again? What
Speaker 4: do we-- What, what, what's up? Tell us about research, Ryan.
Speaker 7: I-I mean, well, all right. Uh, m- good afternoon, everybody. I'm Ryan McNeil, part of the AIM team. Um, research for me is very frustrating, um, because I appreciate the process of going through transcripts, um, analyzing what people think or, or their experiences.
But many times, as the team knows, um, I'm always asking, "Where is it going? Like, who's gonna read this? If this is about our communities, will our communities have access to it?" You know what I'm saying? And I, and I recognize that, um, the space itself isn't necessarily, um, made for the people who come from the communities themselves.
The information itself is, but we're normally doing these things for academics. You know, we're doing this for academia. We're doing for this for the people who are in the upper levels of our country and [00:46:00] society that can, you know, really bring about policy change, and yet the people that it's about never get the chance to see what we say or, or what researchers are saying about them specifically in their communities.
And so it's frustrating in the fact that as much as I enjoy the process, I'm always worried about whether or not the people that we're doing this about will get a chance to see what we're saying about them. Yeah. So I just appreciate the process. I appreciate, you know, our team being recognized for what we do, but at the same time, I actually want there to be a real change behind what we're doing.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, and it, and it's... Uh, thank you for that, Ryan. And that, and I also-- I think that gets to kind of where I started in the beginning with Glenn Martin saying that people who are closest to the problem are closest to the solution and farthest from the resources to exact them. And so GRASP has this, you know, inching toward that, okay, we have the people closest to the problem telling us the information that we need for a solution, but in the end, the solution is still in the hands of someone [00:47:00] outside of the community.
So how do you rectify that? How do you bridge that?
Speaker 3: Some of these changes we can make real time. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying? Within our organization, which, which I said earlier we have, uh, with our hospital partners especially, um, listening to them in our first research study that we did. Um, changing some, uh, problematic things that we have, um, that our youth told us we needed to change within our organization, we did it in real time.
Um, as far as it going higher than that, like city-wise and, um, you know, changing policy, we haven't yet did that. But it is very, uh, refreshing, I think, and very beneficial for us to do that so that we can show that research can, um, change things really fast. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't need to take someone to read through all of this, and it takes five years for them to come up with a policy and a plan and a, and then, you know, get some people to, you know, [00:48:00] buy into it.
It's like, "This is what community said needs to change. We need to change that today. Let's do that." Right? And we can do that by changing our hours or changing how we pull up to the hospital or changing how, um, we provide services to our communities and how often we change our cohorts and things like that.
So I think even the little steps that we've made have been very, very beneficial for this community and our organization. Um, but I think in a bigger scale, as we get bigger and grow more and, um, you know, fill our swag out a little bit more, yeah, we will be changing policies, um, especially when it comes to this community, for sure.
Speaker: Well- Well, that makes sense if you're starting with constituents.
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Right. The change is gonna start there. The buy-in is gonna start there, and you're gonna have a lot more people passionate about pushing legislation forward, and a lot more legislators listening to that. So I think that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. And I just have two quick things. One is that Jenny didn't tell you guys that when that... She asked me what can she do, I said, "I need a grant writer." So she's helping me writing grants. [00:49:00] So what we do now is not only are we published because of Jenny, so all of our work is published. Not all of it, but most of our work is published.
Um, but then we write it into a grant. Once we get the data, we write it into a grant, 'cause a lot of grants wants data points. So we say, "Not only do we have the data, but we c- we gathered the data. We are the researchers of the data." So we write it into a grant for that implementation of, of the, the dis- dissemination of the information becomes our project that we're working on
Speaker 4: When I say back to Ryan's point too, you know, we are always mindful, and Erica mentioned this as well, we're mindful of when our research can do harm, when statistics can do harm.
So that influences, I think, a lot of when we would choose to lobby or when we wouldn't, or advocate for policy change. Because when we show up and say... If we don't have something new to say and something positive to say that ignites a fire for positive change, then it just kind of perpetuates harm. So when we stand up in front of people and say, "Communities of color are bearing the, the heaviest weight of gun violence," [00:50:00] everyone already knows that, and so what does it do?
It just highlights that communities of color are struggling with this, but doesn't say why, and doesn't say what to do about it. So really, it just highlights the problem. It doesn't highlight the solution
Speaker 3: Any other team wanna say how they feel about research? All bets- Ooh, y'all getting
Speaker 6: called out.
Speaker 5: I thought I
Speaker 6: talked to the mic. Yeah. Hi, everybody. How you doing? I'm Shamira, part of the AM team, part of the qualitative research team. Um, research for me, when she first brought that to us, I was like, "Research me?
Girl, no, you are crazy. That's not, that's not my life," right? Um, but once we got into it and I was really able to see, um, how research works, what goes into it, um, the information that we're able to obtain, um, how we obtain that information, um, it kinda changed for me because now [00:51:00] I think it's interesting.
And it is crazy to say I am a researcher. Y'all better stop. But, um, it's just good to know that, um, there are real hearts that go into finding solutions and such for our communities, and how we're gonna be able to, um, help that, and how we're gonna be able to put forth the efforts to change what, you know, the problems are, right?
Um, and because of how much work we're putting into it, the things that we're asking, the, uh, research projects that we get to be a part of, um, it's interesting to me, um, because now I feel like... I don't- I can't speak for the rest of the team, but for myself, um, I'm in a position to build real bonds, real relationships with people who can make real change, um- Yeah
and that can really make things matter. Um, and like, um, Johnny said, we can start build... We're in a place now to start really building relationships with those [00:52:00] people who can be change makers- Mm-hmm ... um, and build organic relationships. Not forced relationships, not relationships where it's just like, "Oh, yeah, we got this.
We did this, so, you know, hey, cool points for us," right? Um, it's really relationships that we can, um, hop into to really figure out solutions for our community because before, you know- I'm so sorry. Bless you. Hit the microphone. Right, because before, you know, the research was being done, the projects were being offered, but change wasn't being made, right?
Yeah. What solutions do we have? We're still looking at the same problems that are essentially sometimes getting worse. Um, so I just think it's cool that I can be a part of a project, a group- Oh my gosh ... Bless you I'm so sorry ... a situation, um, that can really make change. Um, because we see how things have changed in our community.
We see how things are escalating. We see what's happening. We see the harm that's being done, right? And it's just [00:53:00] exciting to know that we can be the people that can actually turn that around, and that can actually come back to the community and let 'em know, "Hey, this is what you said. This is what we learned.
This is what we found out, and this is what's gonna happen. This is what we're gonna work to do to make things better for all of us," right? Yeah. Like, I mean, we're not- I tell people all the time we're heroes without the capes. Um, and I, I honestly do feel like that's what we are because of what we do and how we do it, and how much we care about what we have going on.
Um, I mean, but we're the community, right? We wanna see the change made just like everybody else does, and I think that it's cool that I get to be a part of, um, a group that gets to do that. Because in the beginning- Yeah ... ain't no way. I would've never thought. But now- Man, what? Show us what the business is and we gonna make sure some things happen and we gonna get it done right, right?
Right.
Speaker 3: Excellent.
Speaker: All right. Um, well thank you everyone for coming and for engaging, and for the research team that is [00:54:00] not mic'd up the whole time. Um, and obviously thank you to Johnny, Jenny, and Erica for kind of engaging in this work. Uh, not just the work of being at the table with me and answering my stupid questions, but, um, for the work that you do out in the community.
So I'm gonna turn it back over to Jason to close us out, but thank you so much for, for being here.