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Explore how the social construct of race and racial oppression operates at multiple levels with a rotating focus on different social systems. Connect with Austin-area justice movement organizers and everyday people with relevant lived experience to lay out historical context, current affairs, and creative possibilities for a liberated future.
Hello, and welcome to Racism on the Levels with your host, Stacey Fraser. The views expressed here are not necessarily the views of Co Op Radio, its board of directors, volunteers, staff, or underwriters.
Speaker 2:Visualize Hey y'all, it is Stacey Fraser here, your host with the most, with my cohost also with the most
Speaker 3:With the most.
Speaker 2:Shamiria Ann, who I am very excited today for this episode of Racism on the Levels because I have been hosting in the absence of a cohost since I started this thing, which was August 2022. So I never intended for this to be a solo venture because that's not even what I believe in. So here we go. Hey. Let's do this.
Speaker 2:You are tuned into the Austin Cooperative Radio Hour collective. Racism on the Levels is a semi monthly show and we explore and center our conversations around how the social construct of race and racism operates at various levels, the interpersonal, the personal, the cultural, the institutional, the systemic levels, with the focus on the greater Austin area, the interlocking systems that entrench racism and ways that we can creatively and effectively eradicate this from our society,
Speaker 3:period.
Speaker 2:So the views expressed here are not necessarily those of the co op board of directors, staff, volunteers, or underwriters. Welcome, Shamiria.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Welcome to co op still. You're you how long have you been here now and there?
Speaker 3:On the air for a month? At the end of this month?
Speaker 2:That's amazing. It's like you were you've been here all along, honestly. Right. I have a lot of gratitude. You apprentice on the other co op show that I've been running for a while which is Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour.
Speaker 2:And these two shows are complimentary as racism is violent by nature. And non violence as I see it is not only a philosophy but a practice to which we approach eradicating racism. So that's how those two shows and themes talk to each other and I weave that throughout my life in my practice as a Selma Center trainer. So I was this is also our first on air date for Racism on the Levels as co host. So this is a little bit of also it's time it's been a minute since I've shared some of my background with listeners and so I thought it would be good opportunity just to do it with you here on the air.
Speaker 3:I'll take it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was October 2022 that I went to Selma solo to become a Level one Kenyan Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation Trainer. Had during the pandemic, this was pandemic times right before that in 2021, I had taken an online Selma Center course that was a suggested Eventbrite event. Yeah. And I didn't even overthink it, just signed up for it and that's how my journey with Selma Center began. So that was into 2021, went to Selma 2022, and then 2023, I went back for Jubilee and was part of the training team to teach others coming in for the Bloody Sunday Bridge Crossing ceremony.
Speaker 2:And then 2024 again for Jubilee. Then October 2024, Jim Crosby, brother Jim Crosby, my co host on Nonviolent Awesome Radio Hour, he went out with me, the two of us, to spend the week out there with Selma Center to become Level two certified trainers. And then last March 2025, as inspired by Jose Pineda from ending incarceration up in New York, he had modeled for me that hey you can organize, pull together, garner support from the community and bring a group out here with you and make that a practice. And so I was inspired by Jose pulling that together with with his folks. And so I did that.
Speaker 2:So last March was the first group of us that came from Nonviolent Austin, which is the grassroots organization that we organize as out there. Came back with Brother Robert Tyrone Lilly and Rayna Gradford who is a restorative practices and restorative justice maven Crockett High School and Phil and Jill Henderson who created the Bakari Foundation after the tragic murder of their son Bakari. And they run annual healing retreats to Costa Rica for families who are grieving due to violent crimes fallen upon their family members themselves. So Jill and Phil got on the bus and now we're on the bus. So we're going back July, this July for Jill, Phil, Rayna and brother Rob to become level two certified also.
Speaker 3:I love it. And I've never been to the Southern Center.
Speaker 2:Well, next Jubilee Mhmm. Is planting the seed for you and anyone else who's listening who might be interested in exploring this Kingian nonviolence conflict reconciliation training. So it's the will and the skills that MLK developed over the course the the the short yet very very deep life work that he he did. And so Bernard Lafayette Bernard Lafayette is he was MLK's first appointed Poor People's Campaign lead in this country. Doc created the Selma Center in 2015, eleven years ago.
Speaker 2:And Doc created that from MLK's last directives to him saying, Hey I want you to carry on the work of institutionalizing and internationalizing Kenyan non violence. So that's how the Selma Center was born. So this is a direct movement lineage to Doc Lafayette, Sam L. Kay, Doc was roommates with John Lewis. Doc helped stage the the lunch counter sit ins in Nashville and Doc was the architect of the voting rights movement in Selma Alabama.
Speaker 2:And he used to say he he told stories and this is one of his most effective ways of transmitting this, right, and keeping this work going. He said, you know, white folks were too mean and black folks were too scared. And so they had in the overall campaign of the Deep South for the civil rights movement, they had put a big X over Selma and Dallas County. And they're like, no, we're not even going there. And Doc was like, I think I'm gonna try it.
Speaker 2:And he did, he went down there, he moved down there, did a ton of research, and then he further developed and refined the methodology that we learned that is now the curriculum of Selma Center's training. That is, I wanted to recap that. Don't I think I've ever actually done that to that level on this show, but now that I have some space to breathe and co create here with you.
Speaker 3:Because I was gonna ask, but you know, since you volunteered.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so that is my path to KINGIAN nonviolence. And then I also am the development director of Pace Bene Nonviolence Service. Pace Bene is p a c e e b e n e. And it's a Latin phrase that Saint Francis of Assisi quoted, which is peace all good. And so Saint Francis was a Franciscan and in the tradition of social justice Catholicism, which I am not Catholic.
Speaker 2:I'm just hanging out. And the Franciscan friars of California started Pace Vene in the late 80s to protest the Nevada nuclear testing sites. So that's the origin of the seed of of the organization that I'm the chief fundraiser for. Yeah. Is so the its roots are in anti war and anti militarization, which is another thread that this all weaves together as a tapestry because MLK was against militarization.
Speaker 2:It was really in the end of his life and I'm sure you you already know this, so I'm just recapping for whoever's listening about this and doesn't know this history, is you know it's really towards the end of his life which led to his government planned assassination which his family has had justice in the court about that. So it definitely was the United States government that killed MLK. There is no question about that, but it's really when he got when he really started pushing that lever, Of, hey, militarization is part of this interlocking problem that we have with racism and capitalism and getting really analytical about that became a threat to the status quo. Yeah. So anyway, so that's what I'm up to.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So how about you? How did you take this? Why'd you say yes to co hosting this show?
Speaker 3:So, I mean, a few things. I know we kinda talked about historically the Austin sort of climate, which is not my purview. I grew up in the Dallas area. But all the same racial constructs and systems are still in place. I grew up in Texas, of course, and they're still in place.
Speaker 3:And it's a system that we have to navigate to this day. And even having been a military person like I talked about in the last time that I sat with you and trying to get to a place where we can better understand this without the aggression around the topic is important for me, especially even for my kids. But teaching some of the the pieces that are not everybody's expertise, but are definitely mine, like social determinants of health and how that affects the state is something that I'm very well versed in, having been a wellness consultant that worked for an organization that serves Texas counties directly. So taking this on for me is another way of educating, not just around the racism, but the systems that are in place that make it worse. Some people just don't understand that that layer on the bottom of a lot of the things is still racism to this day.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Whether we're talking about health care, social determinants of health, we're talking about public education in the state of Texas. I was a school board trustee for six years. So two elected terms. And navigating that system as an African American woman was quite interesting.
Speaker 3:I mean, on any given conference, training, even on my board, I'm always, like, one of a few that are in the room. And in order to represent the children in the state of Texas, the boards in the state of Texas should look like the children it represents. And if your board is one race, it's not representative of any district in the state of Texas, and that is bothersome for me. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then my I have a legislative background as well. And so when you think about the trustees, you are an elected official in the state of Texas. You go through election. You're on the ballot, and they have representatives that are grassroots representatives that represent the whole state, but a smaller group of people. So the boards across the state, each region elects some representatives that are called grassroots, which I was elected as one of those.
Speaker 3:And then the grassroots are further dumbed down to four people, and they work directly with the legislature to change things. So I was also elected for that. So getting all the way to that level when I walk into a room, I'm like one of two in the whole room. And it's it's a lot. I mean, we need our representation and not just because we need people of color quote unquote in a room.
Speaker 3:We need people who understand the struggles across the state to be in the room. And if you are one race, usually you don't understand the issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You just don't. And that's you know, even furthermore, it's not coming to the true source of power. And that's why it's like, how is power being wielded? And racism is a way of social control and power.
Speaker 2:And so I imagine being, you know, performative acts of diversifying rooms are actually, it's more, it's actually more dangerous. Creating further harm versus intentionally bringing in the lived perspectives of people of the global majority.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Well, if you are just tuning in, you are listening to Racism on the Levels here on Co Op ninety one point seven FM streaming everywhere on koop.org. I appreciate you joining on to the show Shamiria and what we've spent the first you know moments of the show talking about is just sort of introing ourselves to each other and to our work in the movement and our backgrounds and what we bring.
Speaker 2:And you know, I appreciate you bringing in that and I appreciate the fact that you are our mother like I am and that brings a lived experience in and of itself. It does. And you know, that's another motivation for me is I think about Rumi and I think about, okay, I want to be the change and I think you mentioned that on our promo for the show but I want to be the change because the best way that I can contribute to the movement to end racism is to model and to change myself And then others will have an example of a white woman moving through and openly stumbling over my words and putting my foot in my mouth and making mistakes and being relentless about not letting that fear of embarrassment or shame or guilt Mhmm. Or lack of saying the right things stop me from talking about racism being a problem and needing to end.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's courageous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's part of why I'm doing this. Interested in I grew up in Texas too and I did not grow up in Austin either. Right. I grew up in South Texas, I grew up in Corpus Christi and I had a few black friends, but there were only a few black families
Speaker 3:Right, in because my different. Texas is interesting.
Speaker 2:And it's its own country in a is. But down in South Texas it was predominantly Mexican immigrants. Right. And you know what, I didn't even realize some of the same forces that are can be transferred to all forms of oppression. But anti black racism became a praxis of mine in my decade living in the Northeast.
Speaker 2:Yep. So New York and DC and Boston, that decade was fundamental in my understanding of anti black racism. And then when I came back to Austin in 2021 to raise Rumi here and with my husband who's from overseas, I had developed a lens that I did not have the first time I lived here. I was in Austin '98 to o '3 the first go round and I was just out of high school.
Speaker 3:Just you.
Speaker 2:Just children. Didn't, first of all, didn't have any mentors talking about racism to me. Didn't, I had the privilege of ignorance because I didn't, it wasn't overtly affecting me. And now I know that it actually is, has and will until it's ended. But I did not the first go round.
Speaker 2:So when I came back, was I like, all right, who's doing justice organizing? That is like, I Googled it. I was like, Co Op Radio was my first community that I joined when I came back. And then I was like, all right, who's doing the justice work? Who's doing cross racial organizing?
Speaker 2:And that's who I want to hang out with because I then, then and now this is not that long ago y'all, like in 2021 really understood what the master plan was for this city. Really learned for the first time the I-thirty 5 in the 60s and what that decision did and the deep and persistent geographic segregation of this city. And then and that gives me fuel too because I'm like, what in the beep is happening?
Speaker 3:Right. So and I wasn't And
Speaker 2:it has been.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Coming to to Central Texas is because, you know, I don't even live in Austin. I live on the outskirts closer to Fort Hood now that we've changed the name back. But But I
Speaker 2:don't even know that backstory. Is it worth talking about? No. Today? Okay.
Speaker 3:Honestly, no. No. Not today. Not today, Satan. So coming to this area, I didn't spend a lot of time in Austin until I started working in Austin.
Speaker 3:And I still didn't know about the segregation in this city until I joined my sorority. And when I joined my sorority, they're here on this side of the highway, and they're not far from some of the the historical libraries and centers for African American justice and stuff Yeah. Like They're they're, like, on the same street almost, but there's a house there for the sorority. And that's what I learned. Like, when I joined that sorority, a lot of those members are from the Austin area.
Speaker 3:And I was like like, what is what is this about? Like, how is this happening? Because, like, even in Dallas, there are some segregated areas where they do not look or feel like Austin looks and feels. It's quite interesting. And I don't know that I've ever been anywhere else that looks like this, to be honest.
Speaker 3:So I'm still learning a lot about how Austin is structured and why. I'm like, why? Why is it like that?
Speaker 2:And also, PS, you have traveled.
Speaker 3:A lot. So you've been to
Speaker 2:a lot of places like, I know. And so you saying that
Speaker 3:Other countries included. Like what
Speaker 2:is going on? Ditto, darling. And I'm like, yeah. It is real y'all. It is.
Speaker 2:This is palpable here in a way that I haven't seen a parallel. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:I have not.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you what, organizing the Deep South, which I've been deeply for the past five years, there is something really to say about being overt in your hate and And your that I can actually deal with better.
Speaker 3:At least can see it again. And I least. It I
Speaker 2:know where people's starting point is. Yeah, it's the hidden system And that here, bother me the not so much. There's been a lot of privilege for white folks everywhere, but there's been a lot of privilege here in Austin specifically afforded to white communities that I haven't experienced in other places.
Speaker 3:So
Speaker 2:that's why I want this show to keep piercing the veil of what is going on here and then ultimately in an act of and actions of cross racial bridging to then affect some of those systems that you mentioned in your background about policies, practices and create an alternative as soon as possible.
Speaker 3:Yes. Starting with things like healthcare and elections because it's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I have a question for you.
Speaker 3:What's up? I don't like that face you're making.
Speaker 2:This is my thinking face. Okay. This is my thinking face. Given your awareness of these interlocking systems we keep talking about, given this moment in time, given the barrage of information and misinformation that is a fire hose of information the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep if you have a phone.
Speaker 3:Social media.
Speaker 2:What are some of your, what's something that anchors you in the work? In the work of being on this radio show? Like, what what is something that you think is keeping you anchored?
Speaker 3:I would say that's a twofold kind of question. I have two answers, and they're equally important. And the first one is my kids. I have beautiful black boys that have to navigate this world. They're preteen and teenager right now, and I have to figure out a way to make Texas safer for my kids because it's it really gives you a lot of anxiety and worries that when they leave you, that anything and everything can happen in the worst ways because we live in a world that doesn't always see them the way that they should, which is just beautiful black boys trying to grow up and become the best man they can be.
Speaker 3:And so that's one of them. And the second one is obviously Christ for me. And I say obviously because if they know who I am and they know about my show, that's what centers me. And so taking that approach, not just praying, because a lot of people talk about prayer, but, like, my actual living out what I understand the bible to represent the kind of person I should be, a caring person, an empathetic person, a person that sees the the good in people, a person that wants to be the change that they wanna see. Those principles of being a Christian is really what anchors.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I brought a book. Now I feel like Jim Crosby. Every time I coach
Speaker 3:Jim Crosby- He
Speaker 2:does always. Jim Crosby brings a stack of books. Always. Jim Crosby was a theology teacher his whole career at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that. Yeah, so he can't take the teacher out of the classroom ever, guess. But anyway, I brought a book because Jim's not here right now. And this has been so important to me to understand. I was raised Lutheran.
Speaker 2:I was raised in a Protestant church of elders who were that wave of German Texan immigrants who ended up in South Texas. And I, so you know, I went to Sunday school, I went to vacation bible school. Mhmm. I went to church camp. I was confirmed.
Speaker 2:I was an altar guild with the fancy robe and I the don't know nothing about robe and the candle. Wow. Mhmm. Okay. Describe it with I describe it with humor.
Speaker 2:It was Catholic light. Okay. Yeah. Like Catholic is is bud and and Lutheran is bud light. It was like Catholic light.
Speaker 2:And I left. I was like I gotta go. Like this is not working and I saw a lot of hypocrisy and I saw a lot of structure. I saw a lot of abuses. I saw a lot of patriarchy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you know here I was this feminist art kid and I had to go. So I came up to UT in '98 and the universe is funny this way and this is my healing journey with organized religion because I've really come around in a way that I never would have anticipated that I would about looking at religions. I was like one of those bumper sticker people is like, people don't discriminate, organized religion does that. Like I was really politically like, no white churches.
Speaker 2:So I was paired with a Hindu roommate my freshman year at UT. And I didn't know squat about Hinduism. Never exposed whatsoever to Hinduism. And that really I've always been curious. So my curiosity led me into being like, all right what's this all about?
Speaker 2:That's interesting and you have some really beautiful rich traditions. And so I think that that was an important lived experience to have. And then I ended up studying sociology and the world religions course at the University of Texas was hands down my favorite course that I ever took. Mhmm. So then that really blew the lid off on a lot of different faith traditions and also started my non violence journey because Lester Kurtz was the professor.
Speaker 2:He's now Texas but I'm reconnected with him through Pache Benet. Nice. His bananas. So Lester was teaching non violence to me in the late 90s and I didn't even connect those dots. But I ended up really starting to heal from the model of Christianity that I grew up in, by many in many ways with my Selma Center family and community because then I started learning about the history of the Black church in this country.
Speaker 2:And then I started learning about the Friends, the Society of Friends and the Quakers. And you know, Doc Lafayette worked for the Society of Friends for many years. He went up there and worked for the Quakers. And so I have just been on this really beautiful reframing neural pathway, getting rid of the old ones and building new neural pathways around what faith and faith communities can do for us. A lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yes, a lot. So when we come back from the break, I'm gonna find this quote that I brought this this book about. So we're gonna take some station announcements right now and we'll be right back.
Speaker 4:Sometimes, the best path to take is the path of least resistance. Take that extra car of yours. You could try to sell it, but it's easier to donate it. With prices for used cars still strong, more support will go to Co Op Radio. Visit koop.org to get started.
Speaker 5:That's Co Op's own Kim Simpson playing an original tune in this promo for you, and it's a recording from the singer and the song. Join me, your host, Rush Evans, as singer songwriters of all genres come perform live for you each week for an hour on The Singer and the Song, Saturdays at 3PM. We welcome the musicians of Austin, of Texas, and those from far away just traveling through our great live music city. It's your weekly house concert. The singer and the song, Saturdays at 3PM right here on Co Op.
Speaker 2:You are tuned in to Co Op Community Radio, koop.org. We stream all of our shows everywhere and we keep them up on the site for two weeks to archive. If you are inspired to share this conversation with a friend who might be interested in learning more and taking this learning journey and active journey to dismantle racism through Racism on the Levels. And I am really excited that Shamiria Ann, a programmer here at Co Op and a creator of Fervent Hearts, which I want you to tell folks what that, you know, what your show is about and welcome to the the air with that show. Has agreed to co host this show.
Speaker 2:I never intended for this to be a solo venture because I do think that community is the only way we get there. It's the only way that we are able to organize to make changes. And also spiritual community that we were just talking about and how having that connectedness to something bigger certainly in my experience has been critical. So I'm reading, I have read and I brought today Brothers in the Beloved Community, which is a book about the friendship of Thich Nhat Hanh and Martin Luther King Jr. And Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who really got vocal and and and moved and successfully organized and against the Vietnam War lived through the Vietnam War.
Speaker 2:And my spiritual practice today as it has evolved and where I am in this moment in time is I'm a lay person within the order of interbeing, which is the sangha locally plum blossom, shout out to my friends over there, are how I practice in community my spiritual beliefs. So Thich Nhat Hanh, I'm just going to read a little passage out of this book. True What of desire is true of overflowing love, Agape. King could feel this most enduring powerful force at work within himself as well as in the world around him. Inside King, the beloved community was being born, and we can believe he observed its advent there.
Speaker 2:The present presence of overflowing love in King and in Nath Han is a protecting and transforming power. In a recent conversation I had this is the author, Mark Andress in a recent conversation with veteran civil rights activist Ruby Sales, she said that she has come to believe that learning to love ourselves is key to not only individual health, but to the health of communities and even nations. If we have vacated our souls or deadened ourselves to our inner lives and do not know them to be bursting with agape love, then we can be manipulated, and we will act on the orders of others. Why would you let yourself be a foot soldier in someone else's war? Ruby asked and then gave her own answer.
Speaker 2:Because by not loving ourselves, we have committed soul murder. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:That's pretty deep. Yeah. But very true.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna say that the work I do internally on myself to try to forgive, to try to address my shadows, to befriend my shadows and even thank them as part of how I show up and empathize and relate to others is as much of the work and effort that I put into this movement as anything externally you're gonna see like this show and otherwise. So I think this is a shared area that you and I are interested in and so what is your what are your two cents about the role of love and internal work in the movement?
Speaker 3:I would say a lot of us are disconnected from self. We just kinda move in I think it's just like almost like autopilot. Like, we're just doing stuff. Like a lot of people, even when you talk to them about voting, they're just kinda apathetic and they're just kinda do like, they're just in survival mode almost. But for me, I need to know myself better than I know anyone else for me to actually know other people at the levels that they're at.
Speaker 3:And I'm one of those people that wants to know every part of me. And if I have a reaction to something, I wanna know why. Why did I react like that? Like in the minute that whatever my biases may be, because everybody has them from their environments naturally, I wanna know if I looked at a person a certain way or if I don't like something that I see, I wanna know why I don't like it. I'm trying to figure out where is that coming from and why do you have it?
Speaker 3:Because especially if it doesn't make any sense because we all have that. And I think that's just me practicing agape love in action. I'm just trying to figure out I think there's a a bible scripture that says, above all else, peace. If possible, seek peace with everyone. How can I build community with everyone if I'm not figuring out what is causing me to have certain behaviors or biases to a person?
Speaker 3:And I just act on those instead of actually figuring out, okay, wait. Why do I feel like that? And should I feel like that? And if I feel in a way that I feel I shouldn't, then I need to figure out how to fix it. Because you'll have, you know, moments where stuff is happening and it's heavy.
Speaker 3:And instead of turning to anger or whatever it might be that's so strong, we don't even stop ourselves to ask, why am I acting like this? Or why do I feel like that? And I think about all the craziness that we see in a world where people are showing up places with guns to shoot people because they look different. Because that's what it is at the end of the day because on the inside, we're all the same. It's it's all the same blood systems flowing.
Speaker 3:Same biology within each body, male or female or whatever gender that a person is assigned. So not to offend anyone, but we're all the same in that sense. So your actual issue is an external issue of what someone looks like and that's craziness.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, there also the when I learned the concept of internalized oppression, that made a lot of sense to me. Right? As a woman, I have internalized self hatred about how I look. I have I have internalized so many messages.
Speaker 2:Bossy because I'm confident and direct. Like so many things. And I had I have to examine that and and flip that script that I didn't write.
Speaker 3:And those social constructs have been in place for a while because we're back to the everybody needs to be thin time frame. But then there was a period of time where they wanted woman to be thicker. It's like, what you can't make up your mind about what you want. Can we just be whoever we are? What is going on?
Speaker 2:Well, I also appreciate that because this morning, I was looking up I it was a Substack, and I'm sorry. I don't remember who wrote it, but someone shared it with me. I think it was Jenna St. David who shared it with me. Jenna, hello if you're listening, Jenna just released a book called The Nonviolent Brain.
Speaker 2:Like just released so yeah called The Nonviolent Brain. And so anyway this Substack not written by Jenna but I think came through Jenna was talking about Frida Kahlo and surfacing the concept of neoliberalism because yeah now you know you can buy a candle with Frida Kahlo on it at HomeGoods and put it on your mantle and I love Frida Kahlo. So this is all also like oh okay yeah I get all perspectives on this. I'm guilty. And what they said is with neoliberalism as an example, and this affects racism in the upcoming elections and everything we're swimming in right now, is that they don't put in Stella Hoagoods, Frida Kahlo painting a communist sickle on her body cast and being a lifetime communist and member of, you know, fight and and and fighter to find a new economic system for us that is not capitalism.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And she is on all the throw pillows, all the blankets, all the candles. Wow. It's like everywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's what the phenomenon is that is happening right now. So if that idea, it it it strips away that whole person and then sells that person Mhmm. As a certain way. Mhmm. So it's mind games.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Mind games. That's what's happening, shenanigans. So when we talk about body I
Speaker 3:don't use that word in
Speaker 2:a Shenanigans. Of So when we talk about body image in women, that's shenanigans.
Speaker 3:Because guess
Speaker 2:what? The system, which is made up of people, but it is a system. Mhmm. If the system can figure out how to make money, have profit off of bodies being robust and beautiful in that way, then it's going to say this is the fashion right now. And then when that dries up monetarily, then it goes to something else.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then this is what you should look like if you're a girl or a woman, like this is your body. So this is that other stuff that's operating that I want, I encourage us to face and explore and get curious about. And then when we get angry, not let the anger cause self destruction, But moving on it and changing it. Well, hello emotional intelligence.
Speaker 2:That's called self regulation. Mhmm. Yeah. Okay. So you're going to start a doctoral program.
Speaker 2:Am. In the fall, right?
Speaker 3:No, next week. No, week.
Speaker 2:Week, okay, woo.
Speaker 3:Next week.
Speaker 2:Alright, what are you studying?
Speaker 3:I will be a nurse practitioner when I finish.
Speaker 2:And so a lot of this is gonna tie in. And I asked you, I think it was early in the week whenever we were talking about how does the topic of racism, which the show centers around, how can we frame your interests and pursuits into the service of the purpose of the show? And so you came up with an idea.
Speaker 3:Which is the social determinants of health. And I like to talk about those because they're intertwined in pretty much every system. People hear social determinants of health and they automatically only think about healthcare, but they don't ever think about racism, which is at the root of that sort of system. But the social determinants of health talk about pretty much everything about a person, where you live, how you grew up, what you have access to, what you don't have access to, what kind of jobs you could get, what kind of jobs you can't get. And a lot of the root of that, again, is there's still a lot of systems of racism stemmed in there.
Speaker 3:If I even talk about where someone goes to school, what are the demographics for getting into that school? And are they actually gonna be able to get into that school? And they wanna pursue that. And what is the best school for certain careers? And can I get into that school?
Speaker 3:And so if I look like me, I have to concern myself with whether or not I get in that school. That's a system.
Speaker 2:And then when you're in that school, are you gonna get the support of peer and community and mentors that you need to actually succeed in that school?
Speaker 3:Right. Well, am I going to face biases with my professors? And are my grades gonna be done fairly like everyone else's? And you have to worry about all those things. And that is still part of the social determinants of health because what I do for a living is going to determine where I live and how I live.
Speaker 3:And that is going to determine what health conditions I may or may not get while I'm already predisposed to some. As African American, we pre we're predisposed to health heart issues and diabetes. So if I don't have a great paying job, I'm underpaid, then I live in an area that may be scarce for food. So I have food insecurity issues, which comes back to the social determinants of health.
Speaker 2:So what are the social determinants of health that the frame and and are there different frameworks? I think there was an
Speaker 3:expansion in recent years. But We used to land
Speaker 2:on one to run with. So yeah. I wanted to see if you could pull up those pillars.
Speaker 3:I like the traditional framework, which is there's five. Education, access, and quality, which is what I was just talking about. Economic stability, which I also was just talking about because where do I work and how much money do I make and what can I afford? Social and community context. So what resources are available to me and what kind of community do I live in?
Speaker 3:Do I live in a community that can help? Is there a PTA? Is there not a PTA for the kids in the school that can supplement kinds of things. Right?
Speaker 2:Is there a why in your neighborhood? Is there a why? What are the churches and other Yeah. The things. Special and community.
Speaker 3:Yeah. How how are they there to support you? Because, know, in some communities there's food banks, rec centers for for kids to exercise or things for them to do. And so we can go crazy.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh. Okay.
Speaker 3:So Then health care access and quality. So and I when I think about this one, I think about hospital systems. Some hospitals take insurance from everyone. Some hospitals don't. Some hospitals will delay the waiting room according to some constructs that are craziness where the blonde haired, blue eyed white person is seen before the black woman and they assume there's an insurance issue when in in fact, it could be flipped.
Speaker 3:And the white haired, blue eyed person doesn't have insurance and the black person has a job with no co pay insurance. You know what I mean? So it's just it's crazy.
Speaker 2:A black maternal and fetal health determinants. I mean, outcomes like Yes. There we go.
Speaker 3:Those are those are so extreme. I could talk about those for for years and years. And then neighborhood and built environment.
Speaker 2:Neighborhood and built so is that like what like transportation infrastructure? All
Speaker 3:those things. It could talk about whether or not your soil in your yard is good for gardening. So if I can't afford to buy all my fresh produce, can I grow it? I can't. If my if your yard looks like mine in Copper's Cove, it's rocks.
Speaker 3:So you gotta build on top of it because we're in hill country.
Speaker 2:If your if your yard looks like mine, it was the buried pollutants from a tank farm in East Austin.
Speaker 3:So now your food is contaminated. So you can't grow it there either. And so then do I do a raised bed? Do I do a hydroponic garden? Like, can I and hydroponics are expensive?
Speaker 3:So then we go back to economic stability. Can I afford it? Yeah. So
Speaker 2:you're tuned in to Racism on the Levels Co Op Community Radio ninety one seven FM KOOP dot org streaming. And I am the creator of Racism on the Levels. My name is Stacie Fraser and I have a cohost. Hey. Shamiria Ann from this point forward for this programming year.
Speaker 2:And so we've spent this show getting to know each other while you get to know us, coming together and gelling and converging our streams And so we can jam together and co creating. The social determinants of health that you just mentioned, are five. And there is so racism is wild and rampant in all of these. I also think there are a lot of frameworks to try to understand racism. And I wanna encourage us to moment to moment periodically to think out of the intellectualizing of it a bit because I think that's been part of the problem.
Speaker 2:Like I Mhmm. Timna Oaken's characteristics of white supremacy culture is one of my, has had a big influence on me. And, worship of the written word, other ways of how we talk about and how sometimes we just discuss without just being real concrete and in a way that everybody understands what we're talking about. So I'm putting that out there equally for myself, my own self to say like, yeah, there are ways but intellectualizing racism and these systems alone is not enough to get somewhere different.
Speaker 3:It takes hard work to get somewhere different because like a person can hear me saying the blonde hair blue eyed woman versus the black woman and they think that I automatically have a problem because I've described a person. But I've described a system that has elevated that appearance of a person. Not that I have a problem with it. My niece is a black girl with blue eyes. I have an issue with your features.
Speaker 3:It's just that's the system that we're living in. Just like when you think about a small woman versus a heavier set woman, systems value them at any point. And you mentioned earlier how money at this point is ruling the world. And it always takes me back to scripture because the love of money is the root of evil, and that's the truth. So if everything comes back to money so in the health care situation, you assume that the white haired, blue eyed person has insurance that can pay the bill even if there's a copay or coinsurance.
Speaker 3:And you assume that the black person cannot, so you see them first. And the system could be flipped because appearance doesn't tell you anything about a person other than appearance. You don't know anything about their financial situation based on how they look.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So they you got that, you got the inner, the just flat out biases that are implicit. And then you have the, this work is tiring and there's truthfully, I really hope I'm wrong. But I don't, I think you know Martin Luther King said the the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. So as an arc bender in my life, I don't know if I'm gonna see it all the way through.
Speaker 2:Right? And and and I would likely won't if history repeats itself, like just So being there must be something else driving me through this work and this effort and and that is love. And so, you know there's a lot of there is a lot of fear and sadness and hatred and negative motivation going on everywhere I turn about their even even the concept of hope, right? Like some people have said, and some indigenous voices that I listen to and care about say like, you know, their hope, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if hope is there or not because the work's still there and we're gonna do it.
Speaker 2:So that even expanded my thought about it because I was like, hope has to be there. And you know what? Love has to be there. Right. Really, that's the one ingredient that I personally think has to be there.
Speaker 3:I feel like hope and love for me are equal. I feel like if you have one, then you'll have the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because it's based on that. The reason you hope is because you want better because you love Yeah. The people who are suffering and you don't want them to suffer anymore. So you hope you're like, it has to be something.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But the root of
Speaker 3:it is love. So you can't really have one without the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And maybe hate mobilizes folks fast, it doesn't us all the way there. Because it's hollow. Because the means are the end. Yes.
Speaker 2:In in non violence at least. Like how you do it is is it. Yeah. Like how we are acting right now in this second, in this moment in time is beloved community.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that's another important frame that I view the lens in
Speaker 3:our work ahead through. Yeah. Hate is hollow. Hate is hollow. It is hollow.
Speaker 3:Honestly, a lot of people, if you ask them people who hate things, if you ask them why you hate them, half the time they don't have a reason. But if you ask me why I love someone, could give you a list. Hate is hollow.
Speaker 2:What's the role of anger?
Speaker 3:Anger can be good and bad. Anger can anger is a stage of grief, and it comes before the better stages. Anger is necessary in some cases, but self regulation is how you manage anger. So I can become upset, but that doesn't mean I go and act a fool because I'm upset. It means I do something with it.
Speaker 3:I let it fuel me to a positive direction. I could hate that I got a bad grade in class. It's not gonna change the grade. Mhmm. So So now I gotta be like, hey, I gotta do better.
Speaker 3:And I could be mad at myself for a little while about whatever I achieved and say I could do better and then let it fuel me to not. And let whatever I felt in the anger be so great that I don't wanna feel it again. Mhmm. You can move past anger.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And anger could be a useful tool.
Speaker 3:Right? Very much.
Speaker 2:Lou, we're winding down on time here. But thinking from now until the end of this year, we have I think we did the tallies like six shows or seven shows something like
Speaker 3:six or seven shows. What or did the kids say? Six, seven?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I know what my seven year old is No. But it's gonna be a new order.
Speaker 3:Had an award ceremony yesterday and they were trying to get in the quiet and they were like, guess what I'm doing? And they did the little hands and all the kids yelled in unison six seven to get him to be quiet. I'm like, what is this craziness? No. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Know. I'm too old.
Speaker 2:I know that I can't possibly know. So we're coming back on July something or rather July 16. I was gonna say I know I got it wrote down. This ain't on top
Speaker 4:of my
Speaker 3:head. Yep.
Speaker 2:But thinking this might my one of my closing questions for you today
Speaker 6:and you could ask me a question too.
Speaker 2:Okay. Anytime all the time. A year from now what do you wanna look back and say like, oh, look at what we did on this show. Look at how we use this time. Like, what would feel
Speaker 3:honestly, we had talked about, like, when we do each of these social determinants of health and sort of dive into this content so people really know what it is. Because I could say emotional intelligence all day and people just like, oh, like, people are so simple these days and they're like, it's too much work to learn that. I'm like, actually, it's not. It's very simple, and it's already common sense. Social determinants of health are common sense.
Speaker 3:There are things that we see every single day, and we can't put a name to it because we don't even know that social determinants of health is the thing. But once you name it, you're like, oh, that's what they're talking about. So I really hope that people can say, here are the social determinants of health, not even by name, but by experience. Like, this thing happens and they're like, that's the social determinant of health. And that's one of the things that's trying to be changed by there's a project called twenty thirty, which is the United Nations have come up with lots of things.
Speaker 3:But there are a lot of tenants, and they tap on social determinants of health. Like, number one is to reduce poverty by 2030. Social determinants of health would help you with that because you're trying to figure out what these things are that are interfering with a person being able to have economic stability. Simple. There are a lot of communities.
Speaker 3:So the second thing I would say is giving people resources here from the station during the show. Bringing people on that can impact people and give them resources directly and they can have a name for it. Because sometimes you have a problem, but you have no idea where to go or that that service even exists especially in this city because it's segregated.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And you know something from the from the get go that I have wanted to do is to bring in voices and people who have already been doing the work to dismantle racism by showing up for each other in community to elevate those people's voices.
Speaker 3:And
Speaker 2:to to again maintain that layer of anti racism on these conversations and these social determinants of health as racism is undergirding every aspect of this frame. And so by knowing and by being aware, then we know what we're dealing with and then we know how to change it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So. There's a group that I associate with called Black Mama's Village. It's in Austin and they connect mothers with all kinds of resources. And it's not just for black mothers, but they connect them with all kinds of resources and they host events that are free, like a CPR certification class that they could never maybe even afford because they're like $100.
Speaker 3:But you're gonna be CPR certified through the American Heart Association, and the the woman who owns it is one of my sorority sisters. So I plan to bring her on and let her tell her whole thing. So shout out to LeDean. But stuff like that exists and people don't know, but they just need access.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And my commitment to this is also to bring in the lens and the awareness of what the work that white bodies specifically need to do in this equation because it's our work is adjoined and we need each other but it's slightly different. We've got to like, I want to make sure that anything we have is going to be a conversation that supports healing and not further harm. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yep. So if people could check defensiveness at the door, that would be really good. But I love having both of us here because you have two perspectives, whereas feedback for me for a white person is not gonna be received the way feedback from you is for a white person and vice versa.
Speaker 2:Well, until that fragility solved. Just
Speaker 6:saying. Oh, I think you can.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. It's gonna happen. Hope. Hope. Alright, y'all.
Speaker 2:Well, that wraps us up for today. Shout out to us. Shout out to y'all for listening and in community we're gonna go far and remember in all things, love is the highest level. Mhmm. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:Oh, democracy now is
Speaker 3:up next. Bye.
Speaker 7:The
Speaker 1:following is a nationally syndicated news program broadcast by licensing agreement with Co Op Radio. The views expressed are not necessarily the views of Co Op Radio or its Board of Directors, volunteers, staff, or underwriters.
Speaker 6:From New York, this is Democracy Now.
Speaker 7:It's a genocide that's taking place that you people don't wanna write about, but it's a terrible thing that's taking place, and farmers are being killed.
Speaker 6:A year after president Trump falsely claimed there's a white genocide in South Africa, the Trump administration has closed the door to all refugees around the world except for white South Africans. Since October, The US has resettled just over 6,000 refugees. All except three were from South Africa. We'll go to Johannesburg and also speak to the head of a refugee group