This episode is the third installment in our cornerstone series. LANE (Leveraging a Network for Equity) uses the cornerstones to guide our work and operationalize the concept on equity. The four cornerstones are Emergence, Racial Justice/Cultural Equity, Popular Education and Design Justice.
Marquez Rhyne is founder and principal consultant at Inventive Interventions LLC. Marquez coaches leaders in arts, social justice, formal and popular education institutions by curating experiences and creating materials to improve their effectiveness. He is also program manager at The Narrative Initiative. He works at the Nexus of Art and Culture, Policies and Practices, Wellness and Transformation.
TACtile is the podcast for Leveraging a Network for Equity (LANE) a program of the National Performance Network. This podcast discusses practical tools and concepts designed to transform the field of Arts and Culture towards equity and justice. This podcast is produced by LANE Cohort members, Sage Crump and is edited by Jazz Franklin.
Sage Crump: Thank you for tuning into TACtile, a practical guide to transforming art and culture. This is the podcast of Leveraging a Network for Equity--LANE, a program of the National Performance Network. LANE supports arts organizations of color and rural organizations with time and resources needed to grow their infrastructure in ways that are culturally authentic and moves the field towards justice. I'm your host, Sage Crump, programs specialist for LANE.
Music Introduction: (sung) Keep on a walking. Keep on a talking. Marching up to freedom land. Ain't gonna let no jailhouse turn me around.
SC: Welcome to season two of TACtile. This is the first episode in our second season. If you haven't checked out the first episodes from our inaugural season, feel free to do so. There's some great, great content there where we learn from the LANE cohort members and other people in the world who are thinking about the way art and culture impacts change and what kind of values we wanna hold inside it. This first episode of the second season, we're picking up the thread of our cornerstones. These are the guiding principles of LANE, Leveraging a Network for Equity. And while they may not be specific to art and culture as a whole, as a field, they inform all types of ways people are organizing for change inside their communities. This episode in particular is gonna focus on the cornerstone, popular education. We have with us today one of my favorite people to talk to about pretty much anything, but in this case, it's popular education, Marquez Rhyne. Hi, Marquez, how are you today?
MR: I am so blessed and so grateful that I can hardly stand it. How are you?
SC: I'm doing really well. I am excited for this conversation in a way that feels very grounded. I'm excited for folks who haven't heard or aren't familiar with popular education to understand the way it can inform their work. (2:25) You and I have met in so many different ways and have so many different intersections in our lives. I'm going to just ask you to share with folks what you feel like what you want them to know about you, and do a quick introduction for yourself.
MR: Sure. Well, thank you, Sage. I'm really grateful to be here, talking about popular education, and specifically tied to Leveraging a Network For Equity, and all that it has meant for us. But people will sometimes confuse who I am because of the way I show up in spaces. So, as you said, my name is Marquez Rhyne, and my pronouns are they and them. Despite how I may perform in the world, that is how I see myself. And I am a soul that was born on the banks of the mighty, muddy Mississippi river. I was born in Memphis Tennessee, and I am an artist. And I am a creator, first and foremost. And so, if one understands that much about me, then everything else will kind of make better sense of how I show up in the space, even though I tend to show up as a popular educator. We'll unpack what that means shortly. Or if I show up as an organizer, another day, or I may show up as a consultant around organizational development, but I believe you and I ran into one another around 2004 or 2005--I can't remember which. It was a long time ago, and it was through Alternate ROOTS, and I was a board member on the executive committee for a number of years during that time. (4:12) And, yeah, so I just show up in different places where art intersects with social change and economic justice, and my goal is to be of service to this body, to this community, and to be accountable to those who are putting their lives on the line every day to create more just and equitable societies writ large.
SC: Thank you so much, and I know that to be true of you in so many ways. In addition to the years we've known each other through Alternate ROOTS, Carpetbag Theatre, I just wanna shout out that you have also graciously, for the last two years, been one of the consultants for Leveraging a Network for Equity, and in so many ways we get to have such a reciprocal relationship and, and learn from each other. And the work that you've done with the Coleman Center in York, Alabama; I wanna shout them out as one of our cohort members, and folks who have had a chance to really sit and learn from and with you. So, there's a first question that we ask at the beginning of every TACtile episode. And we ask folks, how do you believe change happens?
MR: (laughs) Yes.
SC: I know, it's just a softball, right? Just a little something to warm up.
MR: I knew this question was coming, and I knew that I would not have the answer for it because it's so spontaneous in some ways and so iterative in other ways, and our goal oftentimes as cultural strategists, cultural organizers, as social practice artists in particular, is to facilitate or to make easy the process by which change can happen. We help to set the conditions, we help people to reflect on the power and the agency that they were already born with. (6:12) To remember, to recall, to reflect on those things. And to draw from that their own power and their leadership and vision for a reality that's different from what they're experiencing and what their forebears had to pass on to them. So, another way that I would say that change happens is very slowly. And sometimes very quickly. The slowly--. It always is, right? I remember listening to the podcast you did with adrienne maree brown, and you all were talking about the pace of it, and the fact that it is always happening around us. But then there are those moments where we have disruptive change. Things happen--, these moments where change happens is very spontaneously, and many of us as individuals, as families, as communities, as nations, as a planet, are left in the wake of that, to navigate it. So, change happens in a lot of different ways, but our role in some ways is to help manage if not the thing of change, then how we will react to that which is always in flux and turning over.
SC: Thank you for that, thank you for that. I think it asks us to hold our relationship to the present and, and what the present can offer us while also keeping a long view of the world. I think that is the gift of cultural workers to movement work, is that it feels like we are supporting folks in the moment as they are, are experiencing either harm or just change in general, and also, we're able to say, you know, 20 years from now, here's something that--. Or 20 years ago, here's something that people held onto. (8:12) Maybe we should pick that back up again, you know. And then, 20 years from now, what are we offering that people can pick up for where they are? So I really--. This pace, timing, and change offering that you just gave us feels really resonant to me. Thank you for that.
MR: Thank you. I just wanna reflect back some--, another a-ha that you reminded me of in just that moment. And it is the value--. Sometimes, when we think about change, we think about what we want to happen in the future, but we don't oftentimes flip that paradigm on its head and recall all that which has happened before. It's kind of like the Sankofa, the mythological bird from the Akan tradition in West Africa that helps us to bring the past and to bring those lessons into the now. And even project and see that we are the future. We are living in the future from that perspective, and therefore to imagine a future is not farfetched. In fact, we are both in the future, we are the future, we are the past, we are dealing with the past, all of these kinds of convergences and divergences, I think, if we don't get too, too caught up in thee, the meta of it all, it cracks the possibilities for what can happen. It says that it doesn't have to be this way, and it hasn't always been this way. So thank you for that reminder.
SC: No, that's beautiful. Which leads me to our next, our overarching topic for this conversation, which is popular education. (10:00) As, in your intro, you describe yourself as a popular educator. Can you talk a little bit about what that means about how you interact with folks in the work that you do?
MR: Indeed. So, another way of kind of understanding how I enter into the world and therefore my lens and my relationship to popular education as a conceptual model and a framework, is that I am largely an autodidact. Which is to say a self-learner, self-taught kind of person. And that's not to say that I haven't had formal education, which of course, you can probably tell that I have. But that kind of mining for ourselves, not just as individuals, but now in the aggregate, that we already have bodies of knowledge that we have collected over time, and that we have experienced, and it is out of the marrow of our experiences that we can be the experts of our own situation. And, and imagine forward a way that is more sustainable, more adaptable, more healing, more just, more equitable. So, in my estimation, in terms of popular education, it is a, it is often put in opposition to, or in conversation with formal styles of education. Which is to say, a banking education, where there is a teacher who has a body of knowledge and expertise that then they impart to students. Well, if we flip that paradigm, and think about ourselves not kind of in that relational power dynamic where the teacher is outside of and projecting within these empty vessels. In lieu of that, we are in as kind of a dialectical experience with one another. We remain in dialogue with one another, and we see one another as co-learners. So, my role is to have a strong point of view, because no one is neutral, and my point of view, just to unpack that, is around justice and equity and healing, righteousness and love and justice and peace. We could go on about all the beautiful things that I am for, and I stand grounded in those things, but my role is to facilitate or to make easy the discovery of those things for others, right? So, as a popular educator, I remind them that their lives are the texts from which they will read and project some kind of scaffolding to design, whether it's a policy or, or, a new way of being in the world. (12:44) So, popular education is just really where everyone is a teacher, everyone is a learner, and we are all learning together to co-create a new world, a new vision.
SC: Thank you for that, that's--that was such a beautiful exposition on, on popular education and, and I love the way you placed it in conversation with sort of formal learning, because it--, for--, we understand, particularly in western culture, that formal learning is white western culture. Right, like, this--. Formal learning, book learning, it's not--. Doesn't mean anything unless it's written down, and written down by someone with some letters after their name, and the way you're describing popular education, it sounds like a way for us to understand what we all can bring through our lived experience. And that doesn't remove folks with formal training, that's fine, if that's your lived experience, but that doesn't place you in a hierarchy of being more important than someone else's lived experience. Does that--? Am I on the right train? (14:00)
MR: You are so on the right train. You are in the conductor's seat, and you are helping us get down the track in record time. It is really about power. The performance of power, right? How will we be in relationship with one another? And if we're in the enterprise of creating more just, more equitable worlds, societies, communities, even if we take it to the relationship within our families or with our friends. This kind of idea of having power over is antithetical to being in right relationship with one another. Now, mind you, there are gonna be spaces and places where that is necessary, right? i certainly do not wanna be the one on the airplane during some kind of challenge guiding people, because goodness knows, it would be a situation, and that's why people get so--, such great training, and that's why I pay attention every time I get on a plane. It's because there are pope with those bodies of knowledge who know what to do in these specific moments to, to make sure that we all live, that we survive. But, outside of those hierarchies that are absolutely needed, when we're trying to be in right relationship with one another, I don't think that those sorts of power dynamics are serving us. Certainly white supremacy, the mythology thereof, right, there's a myth that patriarchy, that somehow being identified as male upon birth makes you somehow more important than any other human souls. Having--, being a person of means, all of these ways of creating hierarchies are then demonstrated in a kind of classroom setting or even in organizing setting. (16:01) And so, I love this experience that I have, whether as a facilitator or as a participant in a popular education experience. And the first time I ever came across that was at the Highlander Research and Education Center. and I say that--. I mean, it was intentional, that we were intentionally engaged in the breaking down of hierarchies and we were talking about co-creating with, with equity and being in right relationship with one another, and therefore the power dynamics between the facilitator and the participant were flattened. Now there are different responsibilities. Definitely kind of holding the space or participating in the space. But those hierarchies are flattened, and we know what our roles are. And my role as a participant in, in, in one of those spaces is to lean forward more. Again to, to use my life as the text, as it were. And not look to some expert outside of myself. And to even see those who are in relationship with me, beside me, to see them also as knowledgeable and having bodies of expertise that we can mine for, for our healing, for our salves, too. To just get right, you know?
SC: Yeah. yeah, I-I sometimes hear it, the, the phrase, like, you have the solution, like, people already have the solution to their, to whatever it is, their challenge or issue, their question, and that part of what a framework around popular education is, it helps folks get to that. And, and find that for them--. Understand that for themselves, right? And I, I offer that because my next question to you is, Because we are living and breathing in, in, inculcated with, with a culture that says that hierarchies are natural, necessary, this is the way, the best practice, all of these phrases that concertize white supremacy as a natural practice. (18:33) How do you, as a popular educator, show up in ways for yourself that demonstrate what popular education can look like, the embodiment of it, and what does that mean around the people that you wind up working with, and how, especially if you're walking into a space as someone who would be considered more important, you know, that people will look to you, like, as a consultant or a facilitator, these words, even in their own practice, like, they will try and create the hierarchy, because that is what is most comfortable, that is what we are used to. Like, so, what are some ways that you have found to show up in a way that helps people move through the hierarchy in order to practice popular education with them?
MR: Sure. You're asking all the good questions. So, one of the ways that I do my work is to do my work before I ever come into the room. And what I mean by that is understanding the bodies of power that reside within my vessel. And these are things that I just walk into with, with relative privilege. And first reconciling that that was un-unmerited. And that it is unjust, and that it is violent, and that it keeps not only those who are oppressed by those kinds of, by those kinds of violent hierarchies, but it also prevents me as well from being human. (20:15) And so, there's this kind of breakdown that happens, and my goal is to restore that humanity and that dignity to first get my heart space, my mind space, my body space right before I ever walk into a room. So that's the first thing that I do. And it doesn't mean that I'm, I'm altogether righteous, ad alway solving and always have a smile on my face. That is my aspiration, but what I am is in the active process of doing that work before I ever show up. And being in community with enough people who will tell me, with love, to my face, when I fall short of even the aspirational goals that I espouse. And they will call me into a deeper relationship and to healing, so that I can then do the work that we set out to do. So that's--that's the preamble, right? But when we get into the space with one another, oftentimes the ways that I hold space are by following the popular education spiral. So, if others may not know that, it's a pretty easy google, you'll get the images and they will all look very similar. It's a spiral that just goes around, and it starts, the first step of it, starting with the participants' experiences. And one of the ways that I've been doing that for the last 15 or some odd years is through the story circle methodology, or the story circle process, that I learned through Carpetbag Theater, by way of Junebug Productions, John O'Neal, by way of Free Southern Theater, and all of those who were there, helping to form and inform this process. And so that inheritance then allows me to immediately shift the dynamics just by getting people to tell stories. (22:21) And it is by thinking through, with them oftentimes, what is the right body of stories for us to kind of draw from? What are the prompts that we need in order to just get the subject in the room. That subject could be service workers who work in the schools in New Orleans, right. And I'm not an expert on that experience, and I'm not whatsoever. So, I can tell maybe an adjacent story, just out of respect and honor, and, and vulnerability, but we allow those people who have experienced these things to share, and it is by them going one after the other, that they begin to understand the value and the richness of their experience. So that's one of the ways that I perform this. That's a very specific process, technique and way of being that we start with the stories of the participants. And then ask of them, Where are the patterns that you--. What are the patterns that you see? What are the gaps that you see? What other information do we need to add? Because we may need to bring in specialized knowledge. That may need to be the moment at which we need to get, say, a policy person to come in and read what has been written in the last contract, right? It may be that we need to bring in some other types of expertise to help move this process forward, but my goal is to get them to say it. Even if I may know what it is, it's not really useful for me to articulate that because then I own the process, rather than the community that is most directly affected owning that process for themselves. (24:20). And also, the last thing I'll say, just in this bit, is to work myself out of a job, every single time. And what I mean by that: it sounds cute in some circles, and it sounds curious in others. What I mean is, turning over and being transparent about what it is that I'm doing. So that there's someone or several someone's in our community who can do that same work that I've been doing. And they can hold that and build the knowledge, the expertise in, in their own communities. So that's, that's largely the way that I show up initially. There are a whole set of other practices that I go through. Ritual practices, cultural organizing, frameworks that inform how I am in the space. But I just really think you gotta do your work before, you have to do it during, and you have to have a plan for after.
SC: No, thank you for that. I love the beginning of that spiral, and what it means to understand the ways that your individual person impacts how you show up or how others will relate to you before you get in the room so you have a way to navigate, and, and support a body moving through an experience that will want to center you; it will, and will try to. One of the things, I feel like, sometimes I'm asking you questions that I might know a little bit about the answer to, but I'm still enjoying your, your conversation so deeply. So, this one may seem like a softball, but I think it's, it’s a good one. (26:06) And I want to hear you talk about the relationship between popular education, equity, and justice. Like, why is popular education a valuable modality or lens, if you are talking about justice and equity. Right, like, what is, what does popular education bring to that conversation that isn't there without it?
MR: It's so simple in some ways that it can be confounding. The performance of, and the, the ritual of the embodiment of the processes, the techniques and the tools of popular education are about, in many ways, negotiating power, and ensuring that communities in particular that have been historically disenfranchised, and individuals within those communities who have been intentionally marginalized even further, are put in a different relationship with one another, right? And so, it is that we are practicing the, the very thing that we want to see in the world. We are performing it in the now, even as imperfect as it may be. So, justice or being--, making sure that we have fair ways of being and of doing, and access for all people. We are performing that in the process of popular education, and with regards to equity, it's not everything--. It's not gonna be one size fits all for everyone, right. So, what may be fair for one person may not be as fair or needed for another human soul. And so what we have to do is really start interrogating, as I was saying before, it's not just important for me to do my internal work, Aahhhh, I'm so wonderful--, before I walk into a space, right? (28:11) Now that I go into a space understanding this privilege, that might mean I need to be quiet for an extended period of time so that softer voices, quieter voices, marginalized voices, oppressed voices can have the space to speak. It may mean that the traditional roles that have been relegated to others in terms of service, that I then take on the mantle of serving so that they can be in the center of this discussion. And so popular education, this process, this way of being, allows us to practice what we want to perform, and to use this as the laboratory for what is possible within the wider world. So that's--. Those are the ways that I see it tied to justice and equity. I used those words, but it's something entirely different you, when you experience it. It's entirely different. I was just thinking about, earlier about this project I worked on at the University of Chicago with a group of young people, adolescents, teenagers from the South and West sides of Chicago, and how for the first few days, they were looking at me like, Uh, aren't you gonna give us the answer? And I'm like, Uh, no. I'm not giving you the answer. But what I will do is show you how I would go about finding the answers for myself, right? And so, the team and I will help them go into the archives, and we would help them really unpack these heady concepts that they would then define for themselves, so that then they would own those, those concepts. They could own that language, they could own the process, and they would need us less and less and less And that is the goal, right? So, some people might say teaching someone to fish rather than giving them the fish, and I'm like, Sometimes you just need to give them the fish. (30:20) Do both of them.
SC: Okay. I'm hungry.
MR: Feed them, and also show them how to fish. We can do both. It's not binary, right?
SC: Yes. Yes, I love that. I love that. And listening to you, it sounds like you are walking in the door with a level of trust and respect, without ever having met the room you might be engaged in, right? And I'm thinking for folks who are, are listening to this, like, there--. I wanna name that there feels like, listening to you, like, a core value around--. I think you said earlier, around, like, inherent value of humanity and like how, Where did you find that? How do you keep it? In times when sometimes you look around at humanity and you're going, I'm not sure I even wanna be a part of this species. Like, how do you hold that? And--, cause I think there is a way that the what you're describing centers not only your own humanity, which is what you referenced before, but a certain dignity and trust and respect for people. Period.
MR: You know, it's--. It's that part of me that I actively struggle to be fully present at all times. Now, if you know me, you think, Oh, you're not struggling. No, actually I am deeply struggling to, to be vulnerable always. (32:09) To show the soft belly always. To open my heart, always. To live with love always. And the world has taught me that those ways of being and embodying are risky and dangerous and sometimes unwelcome, right? So, I have to engage in an active resistance against that. I'm not saying that other people should, but I'm offering that this is a way to counteract the kind of hegemonic violence that we are always perpetually invited into. Be hard. Shut off. Shut down, you know. From the head, never the heart. Those sorts of things. But it is that that I think continues to bring me in right relationship, but I have to go back to home, actually. From Memphis, Tennessee, in places where people don't always speak with subject verb agreement, but they have more knowledge in their pinky finger than many of the people I've worked with in institutions of higher learning. In their pinky finger. The means by which some of the most vulnerable have been able to survive and to thrive in a system that has been hellbent on our complete and utter annihilation suggests to me that there is a beauty, a wisdom and a dignity somewhere in there, and my goal is to be present and attentive to that, right? So by--. It's just by extension. It is a grace that is extended because, even though I've not met this community, this group, this human soul, this one individual human soul, I hold space that they too, have experienced some level of expression. That they may not yet have been heard today. And that is one of the things that I lead with and, and, you know, part of the reason why sometimes, even though I have a lot to say, I don't say much, it's because, you know, other people have things that they need to get off of their chests. And so, how do I hold that space for their humanity? (34:37) For their dignity to snow up. So that's one of the ways. I also think that it's the world that I want to live in. I want to co create spaces where love is the way that we lead. And where healing is the order of the day. And when we get into some of these campaigns for justice and for equity, particularly once you get into the higher stratosphere of those things, and what i'm talking about is on the national level, on the state level, on the international level, on the multinational level, the more rarified the air, it seems the more that we forget our humanity and our dignity. So my goal has always been to bring both. I can bring my head, that's gonna always be there. But I want to bring the heart. And what I have found is that most people, when they lean into it, find it to be a, a space of, of benefit, so, that's how it is that I, that I come to it, but I don't think that I'm special. I learned that from grandmas.
SC: Yes.
MR: Like, Black women taught me this. First and foremost, and so, I lean into that space of, of, of Black womanhood and honoring that and say, How can I be more like this? (36:10) Right? That is, that is the, that's the example for me, the kind of matriarchal energy that I want to embody in this, in this lifetime.
SC: Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Thank you for sharing your experiences like that. And I, and I appreciate your grace and your generosity. Cause you said, like, This may not be the way for everyone, but I feel like, I would like to say, if you are intentionally wanting to practice popular education, vulnerability and humility is something you have to practice. Right, like, I don't know how you do popular education as, as, and with folks, without being, without being vulnerable yourself, right? And without, without being honest or transparent or, certainly humble. And if those are places that, or words that, if you are listening to this podcast, that make you feel uncomfortable, before you think about jumping into a pedagogy or a practice of popular education, that that is a space of work. And, and I--. I love that you named it as work, you know, that phrase, It's hard to make it look this easy, you know? When you said people look at you and they're like, is this hard? It's hard to make it look this easy, right? Even in, I-, I joke all the time that Leveraging a Network for Equity, in my imagination, six years ago, doesn't look completely like what it is right now, and that's because Popular Education was one of our cornerstones, and so we, we had to let it evolve in relationship to the cohort members, to the consultants, to the context, even the conjuncture in which we were doing this work created great shifts in what we thought our outcome were going to be, and it's not that we thought there was anything wrong with--. They're not--. Like you said, there's no binary. (38:18) There wasn't like, Oh this way, and it failed. It's like, Oh, all this other learning has happened that we can harvest, right? And I think popular education reminds us to come for the harvest.
MR: Mm-hmm. Indeed. Indeed. It's captured in the conversation between Miles Horton and Paolo Freire, two of the exemplars that are often lifted up around popular education. The former, one of the founders of the Highlander Folk School, later the Highlander Research and Education Center, and the latter from South America with the Pedagogy of the Oppressed. And they were having a conversation at the Highlander Center. It's captured in this book called, We Make the Road By Walking. And Miles Horton says it, I believe it's in, like, chapter four, Miles talks about that there are at least five to six good ways of moving forward and five to six bad ways of moving forward, and as long as they're not the bad ways of moving forward, he actually doesn't care which pathway that the community takes. That that, that kind of choice, that agency that that community has is really his work is to steward that, to facilitate, to be present for them making those choices for themselves, right? And so, what are the multiplicity of ways that people can create those paths, and how can we just be attendant to it, rather than trying to always control and manipulate and constrain. Because frankly, sometimes I don't even know what I should be wearing today, and I can't--, I can barely tell you what I had for dinner tonight, much less to be able to say what another human soul, what another community, what another unit of human souls should be doing at any given time. But again, that popular education kind of praxis, not just a way of being, but a way of, of, doing just reminds me to be humble in that way. (40:59) To show up and just acknowledge that I don't have all the answers, but I will be responsive and accountable, and I will be attendant, and I will hold space, and I will bear witness, and I will have a point of view, and that point of view will always come back for me, the benchline is around justice and equity, and healing and transformation. That's what it all comes back to for me. Yeah, so, it--. And Miles also goes on to talk about that, like, he and Paolo talk about love as one of the primary motivating factors for why one would even engage in such a radical educational process. And you know, I didn't say it, they said it.
SC: (laughs) And you're, and you're bringing it back up, bringing it into our, our context. And I swear it's almost like you read my mind. Because you went down the road that--. I'm just gonna--, I'm gonna ask the question, but it feels like you just went down this road, and so I'm just sort of underlining ]it, but when you quoted Miles Horton and the different roads that a community could take, and that it didn't matter which one, it felt like what is important, the road itself isn't important, but what is important, it seems, are the values that--
MR: Yes.
SC: --guide the decisions that are being made. (42:25) Sometimes it feels--sometimes values are things that, that folks, you know, either, I find, particularly in organizational development, folks have a vision and a mission, and maybe in the last ten years or so, folks are coming back to having value statements that are really important. (MR laughs) I know. It used to be my drum for a minute, like, Do we have--. Are you clear on the values? (MR laughs). As a popular educator working with a community, it--. It--. I imagine that part of the, the work is also understanding the values of the folks who are working with and holding your own. I wanna really highlight this. There's something about this that isn't just about a service. Like, it's not like you are, you are just a tool, because that, that takes away your humanity in the space as well, right? Can you talk a little bit about that? A little bit more?
MR: Sure. Ooh. That's not the softball, that's the juicy part. So, I mentioned in passing the cultural organizing kind of concept. And for those who don't know, that is, the ways that I understand it, the ways that I am informed by it are informed largely by one of my best friends, Tufara Waller Muhammad, and the ways that she conceives of it, and that is, art and culture. Which is, you know, part and parcel of why we are even talking about LANE, is art and culture organizations, right? (44:14) So, art and culture. And then we have policy and practice. And then, beneath all of that, we have healing and transformation. And so, as I use that rubric, and enter into a community, the first thing that I do is engage in deep listening. Understanding that there is already work that has likely taken place before I ever showed up. So I take an assessment, I listen, and I don't listen from kind of like a, like a clinical or with a scientific distance or research distance. I'm in it with them, and in conversation, but I'm also listening more than I'm speaking. And I engage in sweat equity. And that's equitable before I begin any kind of work of any substance, and that can be really frustrating for people who say, Uh, just give us the answer, just tell us what to do. And it would be irresponsible, it would be malpractice of me to come in and run roughshod over the humanity and dignity of this community. It would be disrespectful of me when I know better when I know that you probably have the answers in this community for me to just, just road bump over that. And so, it's not just a practice. There are values. To your point, values that undergird the very means by which I show up, but those values that I espouse, that I hold that I practice, are going to meet the values of that community, so, it goes back to this deep listening kind of positionality. So this deep listening allows me to hear and to bear witness to how their values how up in the world. Sometimes we don't necessarily have a values statement, but we are performing our values statement. (46:22) And I, after that point of, of transitioning before we go into the, the more depthful work, I want to reflect back to them what I think that I'm hearing. It's for a fidelity check, right?
SC: Mm-hmm.
MR: This is what I witnessed. Is this what you intend? And it gives us an opportunity to now look and see, Am I showing up in a way that is different? Am I listening improperly? Are there some incongruities here? Are there some inconsistencies in the ways that we espouse, the way that we perform, and what we want to see happen later down the road? So again, it's not like, let's say if we're gonna change, again, some policy or some practice, that's not for the sweet by and by; it's not for 12 months, 18 months down the road: we are doing that seed work now. And inside that seed--, the seed, are the values, and the values are not something esoteric outside of us, it is how we do the what. It's the how of the what.
SC: Yeah. That's--, that's a mic drop, the how of the what. I think that gives people a lot to, to think about around what they need to hold as they engage groups of folks in thinking--, and this is anyone from a consultant and a cohort--. It is a program officer and grantees, if it is an ED and their staff, if it is an artist and the audience, you know, like, what is the, what is the, the relationship and the values and how do they meet each other? (48:12) Because circling back to where you got us started in the beginning, around transformation and its connection to relationship, that they have--, that they go hand in hand.
MR: They really do, yeah.
SC: Yeah. Well, I can't thank you enough for your time.
MR: Thank you. It's been a rich conversation for me, and it's gonna inform how I show up differently even as early as tomorrow, and so, I'm very grateful.
SC: Is there anything I haven't asked that you’re like, Um, I came to this conversation and I wanted to be sure I shared dot dot dot?
MR: Well. I would say this is an opportunity to just lift up the people whom I know. There are some people who I believe are exemplars of popular education and the way that it shows up in the world. I would highly encourage people to avail themselves to the Highlander Research and Education Center. I don't work there, I don't get kickbacks. It's just the place where I was politicized. It is a space of reflection, and it has a deep and storied history around labor rights, around civil rights, around environmental justice, and migration, and economics, and the next economy. All of these things are situated there, and if you have any opportunity ever to be able to sit with or attend a workshop or just have a meal with Tufara Waller Muhammad, I would highly encourage it, because I would say that not only has she been a sister and a friend, but she has been one of the living, kind of, tomes and texts, and what I mean by that is that she embodies the practice. (50:19) And so, if I were to do anything, I would point to institutions and people who are going to make some of these ideas come to life. That would, that would be where I sit. And if you are interested in seeing more about what this looks like in modern times, there's a whole bunch of things that you could find on the internet that I would encourage you to, again, go to the Highlander Center, look up the Zilphia Horton Cultural Organizing Project, because here are a host of materials there that help you unpack cultural organizing process, but the scaffolding if you look at the skeleton of it, it is popular education all day every day through and through.
SC: Mm. Thank you for that. I have--. I have said publicly before, I think I've wrote on facebook, and I've said to Tufara that when they write the history of this time of change in the world, her name will be lifted up like we lift up Ella Baker now. You know, I just feel like she has that--, that she has touched so many of us in that way.
MR: Yes. Yes.
SC: Thank you so much for your time. This is a great conversation. Now, I, I, I often feel like I'm cutting these a little short, cause I feel like I could stay and talk to you for a few hours but there's so much in here that I don't want folks to lose. I want them to get that concentrated dose.
MR: Yes.
SC: And thank you so much for the years that you have participated with LANE. It has been a joy to work with you and continue to be in community and conversation with you. You bring so much to everything you do. Specifically, too, as we think about this intersection of art, culture, spirit, justice; I consider you one of the people I talk about. (52:16) I keep you in my mouth. And so, I really appreciate you, and thank you for taking this time.
MR: Thank you for holding this space, and thank you for your love.
SC: Thank you for listening. Funding support for LANE is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. You can find more information about LANE, and the amazing organizations involved, on the NPN website, www.npnweb.org. This episode was co-edited by Amanda Bankston and Monica Tyran. jazz franklin is our podcast editor, and sound design by muthi reed.
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