Hello, and welcome to Racism on the Levels with your host, Stacey Fraser.

Greetings, y'all. Welcome to Racism on the Levels. I am the manifestor of this show. My name is Stacy Frazier. My pronouns are she and they, and I created this to explore on the air with people who are doing, justice organizing and dismantling of racism in the greater Austin area to keep talking about how racism is pervasive and how it operates on multiple levels, interpersonally, culturally, structurally, and how we can liberate ourselves and break this cycle to remove this toxin from that is, poisoning us all.

We have different locations to racism, and we're all in it, and we're all in the struggle, and we're all impacted. So I'm really excited to be friends with Cynthia Vasquez. I'm gonna let Cynthia introduce herself to y'all.

Yeah. Hey, y'all. Good afternoon. My name is Cynthia Vasquez. I am a 78702 East Austin Chicana Austinite, born and raised, in my paid life.

I work at Austin Public Health. Shout out to them. Today with you and the people of Austin, I'm here as your neighbor and community organizer.

There you go. And, you know, you're you're you are showing up, and many people who've been on this show see you every week. You're out there, and I really appreciate it. And so I'm really excited to gain, your perspective and your lived experience and your, organizing experience and learn from you, really. So, you mentioned being a lifelong East Austinite.

And what about the generation before? And how long has your familial roots been here in this geography?

Nineteen forties. So my family, my paternal side of my family is made up of eight aunts and eight uncles. So 16 aunts and uncles on my paternal side, who at one point, my family did own several houses. Each each sibling owned a house in the East Side. And so where I landed was on the three Santas.

If you're familiar with the East Side, you've definitely heard of Santa Rosa, Santa Maria, And Santa Rita Streets. Right next door to Santa Rita Court, Caddy Corner to Zavala Elementary between Pedernales and Robert D. Martinez. That's Mahood.

There you go. So what, where where what happened? Where where how many how many of these are still on the East Side?

What an excellent question when we talk about the evolution of gentrification. So right now, I don't wanna spill too many beans because there's still this perception and reality of real estate agents preying on families who are still in the East Side. So even when I go to council and some planning commissions, they ask for your address when they take comment. I'm not putting my address on anything. So right now, my family still owns property next door to Withia who's been able to preserve her right to age in place right now.

And we also own a property next door to a street on East 7th Street close to HB. Outside of that, I really couldn't tell you how many of my family members have sold their properties and moved out of East Austin. I have family in South Austin, family in San Antonio, some that bought a house in Round Rock over a decade ago. So I think we're down to less than five family members left in the East Side. From hundreds.

How has that how has that impacted your the the fabric of the family? Yeah.

There is not enough city support when families are forced into selling their properties, when families are preyed upon by real estate agents, we don't even pop the lid on the interpersonal dynamics that are disrupted within families. We don't. It personally within my family, the oldest child I don't know if this is just a Mexican thing. But in our family, the oldest one gets the property first, and then you work your way down. And so my oldest sister right now legally owns one of our properties.

And, yeah, let me just say, I'll limit myself today. If it piques your curiosity, we can continue it another time. But there is conflict within my family because when we talk about the East Side being better, better for who? Right? So there I do have family members who say, are you against change?

Do you not want things to be better? That's not it at all. I have a 73 year old mother. Convince her to go back to the neighborhood that she knew, and she'll tell you it's no longer for her. She'll tell you that her friends don't live around there anymore.

Our networks have disappeared.

I asked that question because your Liv story paints a more impactful picture than any intellectual explanation of gentrification and the economic detriment and the blah blah blah blah blah could ever do. So, you know, I I moved, I grew up in Corpus, but, got up here as soon as I could in '98. And then I left for twenty years and came back in 2021 and live East Side. I live, on, Ingo Valley and have been there since 2021. And the very first thing I did when I moved in was to pay respect to whoever has been there a long time.

So every single day, I would go out into the yard and talk to Francis who had lived there for seventy years and she was my bestie and she told me stories, she told me what grew in the soil, she told me about the clay soil, she told me about the flooding, she told me about what what the place was that I was coming into. And she has passed, and her daughter is still my my next door neighbor. But I have firsthand in five years witnessed exactly what you have lived and your family has lived where, I've seen East Side elders be harassed endlessly by developers who are offering really low sums of money. And I've seen longtime East Side seniors leave because, to your point, it's not where they grew up anymore. It has changed.

And all of that is a tragedy. So where do we where do we where do we go in your opinion on this East Side development and change?

Engage. Show up and engage. It's if I could tell you how many how many families lived and died on their properties, again, rebirth themselves, became different people, and stayed, if we had more people engaging. Using the word civic engagement sounds a little scary, so I like to keep it plain language because I didn't know. Right?

I didn't know that we were becoming more politically charged as we were going through this trauma. I didn't know that we could show up at council. So it's it's about engagement. Right? Like, people can move through trauma, and this is one of the conversations that we have.

It lights my heart up. Mhmm. But the dichotomous way, the dichotomy of feeling this and that, Asking people to move through trauma to make things better is very personal, is very intimate. And let me tell you, if we didn't get connected to some community organizers, I don't imagine that I would be sitting here with you today. I really don't.

I worked with a lot of people in the public school system for eighteen years that said they cared about me, but it wasn't until I detoxed from the public school system I really started engaging with people who cared about my growth. Again, it was organizers. It was organizing. So engaging is important, and let's start there.

Let's start. Well, I mean, we met through this network. I I picture, we're a mycelial network. Right? We're we're mycelial beings together, and it is so tight, y'all.

And and it's you just show up. Here's the thing. It's not a closed society. This this the community organizers in Austin have been open, welcoming Mhmm. And, just show up just engage using your words.

Just engage. And so what were some of your earlier memories of of first engaging in community organizing? Do you remember I a memory?

I was nine. I was nine years old when my mama took me to a meeting. And she had to take me to this meeting because one, we didn't have childcare. And two, I'm learning to be more honest with my story about this. I come from a house of violence, and so finding other places to be, other safe places to be was very important for us.

And the school, Zavala Elementary, shout out to Zavala. Zavala Elementary played an essential role in the manifestation of after school programming and our magnet school programs. And my mother took me to a meeting a meeting that was hosted by Industrial Areas Foundations. And I was sitting in the back of a meeting, and they were doing what they call relational meeting training. How do you just have a conversation with somebody on a human level?

Tell me what it's like to be you. We're not gonna talk about the birds, the bees, the weather, your favorite color. I'm gonna ask what moves you. So I was nine years old, and a gentleman came up to me. Also, let let's throw in a little racialized lens in there.

This was only the second time I'd been in space with so many white people. The first time I'd seen or engaged with white people were my teachers at school. I had a second grade teacher. So now I'm nine sitting in the back of a meeting, and this adult male comes up to me, and he says, come over here.

White man? Yeah.

I was like, okay. I'm gonna do what he says because

Authority. Right? So

I go and I sit with him, and he's like, tell me about yourself. And we just started talking. And I was treated with dignity. I was treated like everybody else in the space. I didn't feel there was an authoritative position for anybody in that space.

I felt like everybody else. So then those meetings were no longer boring. I was cool with going to my mom to a meeting. I was cool if they were two and a half hours long because I was gonna get spoken to. I was gonna be included.

You were gonna be seen. Yes. How did your mom get involved in that? Like, how did she know to go to a meeting?

Thank you for asking. My mom is Tonya. Tonya Vasquez. I honor her. My mom and I asked for permission.

This is part of growing up. My mom's trauma is a part of our evolution. She experienced domestic violence as a wife, and this principal took her in at Zavala and was like, this was a time, y'all, where principals gave keys to the school to community members. There was a time this used to happen.

In our lifetime.

Yes. So he gave the keys over to my mom. Here, you can have your meetings whenever you need to have them. Keep me informed. He took her to all the meetings that he went to.

Just took her. I'm gonna be in this space. I want you to go and see what happens. I wanted you to hear how they talk about our community. I want you to hear the words that they use to describe the beautiful collective of children that we have at Zawala.

Now we're gonna bring race in in one second here, but I will let you know if you are just joining us. We are sitting in conversation on racism on the levels here on Co op Community Radio, ninety one point seven FM, co k o o p dot o r g. And we have friends joining from anywhere on Turtle Island and beyond. So that's pretty cool. Cynthia Vasquez is my guest today.

We have, so far talked about, Rudy, our conversation in Cynthia's long multigenerational background here in East Austin, which we are sitting and recording from right now. So, we're the through line so far has been the importance of engaging, the importance of community organizing, civic engagement, and your mom laying the foundation for you to see what it being in community and organizing can can do. So to bring race into that story where we just went, was the principal Latino, white, black? And was there any race racial dynamic looking back at that story going on?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So if you looked at Al Mendez Melton, he looked white. But Al Mendez Melton was a Latino, bilingual. So he had this capacity to kinda weave in, in and out of systemic conversations from the hood to HQ.

And so what I've learned about organizing as well, anti racist organizing, is to take people with you. How do you work against racism? How do you work in an anti racist way? You show up with people that the issue is directly affecting. And so my mother and her uncomfortability as a five foot victim of domestic violence, overworked mother.

She also my mother fell out of a tree when she was a preteenager, so she walks with a a limp and sometimes has to use crutches or a cane. And so her walking into a space with all these intersectionalities didn't feel good for her, but she learned, and she had the principal there in support of her. So that turned into Al, the the principal at the time, allowing industrial areas foundations to come and organize with the PTA and to really learn what issues were affecting our children outside of the school. There was a high absenteeism, especially with our young boys, And so he made space for that partnership to happen. He opened up the school early, closed the school late, made it available for community on the weekends.

And IEF at the time was the right tool that community needed. I didn't know the racialized context of what these mothers were doing at that time. What I knew about racism was limited to the superficial name calling, the bigotry. I didn't really know the radical gatherings was the most anti racist thing that that principle could have done in that moment.

Just creating the space for people to connect. Because when the people connect, you can't stop that power.

That's, of

course, beyond any anything else besides love.

That's right. And my old one of my oldest mentors, hopefully, have time to get into it. Shout out to Ron Chisholm, one of the cofounders of the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. He took the time to detox with me during the pandemic. I was having community meetings two times a week during the pandemic.

And this man would stay on the phone with me sometimes till 01:00 in the morning, and he would say, I don't know why you're doing that Mickey Mouse BS. Why do you keep showing up to those spaces alone? Like, jeez. You're right. You're right.

I'm gonna stop going. And when I have a little squad of people that this is affecting, that's when I'm gonna go back. So this concept that my mom had given me of taking people with you seems to be one of the roots of anti racist work. Stop showing up alone, y'all. Stop showing up alone.

Create that multicultural squad of people to go to these places with you. And my mom had a little squad after some of that work.

This is something that happens by design within racism, which is to isolate people and to Mhmm. Reinforce the false notion of individualism. Mhmm. Isolated individualism. I have been fed that.

And it also so so it takes bravery and courage to show up if you don't know anybody because it's so deeply instilled that we are alone

Mhmm.

When we're not. That's right.

So yeah. We're still still alive and well in the system. I said I didn't want to talk about city work. I could I'll speak from an outside perspective. The individualism, people are still rewarded for working alone.

And what I often hear is we're working in silos. Yeah. That's systemic. That's ex when we say that's how the system works, that is a clear description. People are rewarded for working alone.

When we ask for cross collaboration, cross coordination, even within teams of the same race, there are challenges. You would think that a bunch of Mexicans could get along. Right? But even getting us together, we have to understand how racism has affected us, all of us. And how do we take care of each other knowing the traumas that we've been through and moving from showing up in spaces to engaging in those spaces?

We need people with relationships to be able to walk in and say, oh, I do know you. I feel okay to say something because I can have a room full of people show up for me in numbers. We hear strength in numbers. Right? Yeah.

Strength in numbers is step one. Step two is how many of us are ready to get up there and run our mouth. Right? Because that's engagement. When we talk about bravery, oh oh, I have to remind my mama that I'm an evolution to her.

Right? Because she's 74. She'd be a little calm right now and quiet, but nope. In her thirties, she would stand up in that school board meeting and shut things down. Like, hey, mom.

Don't forget. So, yeah, showing up and people who are ready to engage, I didn't have that much support until I learned to ask people. Hey. I need you to show up and say this. I'm gonna say this.

You got my back? Right. Because I need you to finish that.

That's that's the preorganizing organizing, which so that's the that's the other thing. Like, there is a role in, you know, in my livelihood. I'm a nonviolence trainer. I'm a fundraiser for the National Nonviolence Movement. Well, actually, in my practice, in and out of livelihood, I am.

I'm just a nonviolentist as my friend Gina St. David, describes and taught me that term. Just as organized as the opposing the opposition, whatever that that that is, we're seeing a lot of it right now because there's a lot of closing of the space. There is a retraction of progress that we've made societally, and we need to be as organized as those folks are organized. That's So let's talk about People's Institute just a little more since you brought it up, and I'm a major fangirl.

So how did so how did you get into PSAP? Like, how did you find? Who connected you?

I don't know what to tell you. I love PSAP. It ain't the only way. Right? I'm reminded it ain't the only way, but it was a way for me.

Mhmm. They gave me the keys. That's how I like to describe keys that I never had before. And I wanna share the keys. I want more people to ride.

Yeah. So I got introduced to P Sab. Man, I'm a be throwing out all kinds of names. Y'all get your pen and your pad out. Carmen Yanez at GABA.

Go Austin Vamos Austin. I left AISD public school system after eighteen years to go work at Go Austin Vamos Austin. And Carmen made it part of my onboarding. I was one of the first two organizers, so she had an organizer hired. I was the second one, I think.

And it was part it was part of our onboarding. I didn't know what the heck I was walking into. I really didn't.

And if you don't have any heads up well, maybe it's better if you don't have a heads up. I don't know. But you didn't know what you're walking into. So then what what was your experience of that?

I'm gonna drop some gems, and we're not really supposed to talk about this. Right? Because PSAP is real old school. Word-of-mouth. How you get into those is an invitation, and you're expected to answer the question, do they know the power they have?

Do they know that they're an organizer? Man, the first day, y'all, the first day, it closes out it closes out with all white people are racist and black people could never be. This was after a moment that and y'all need to meet me where I'm at in this conversation. I had heard another black woman in the space say something that I thought was pretty inappropriate, judgmental. And my initial response was like, well, isn't that racist?

And I it went unaddressed, and then they close out with that statement, the expectation is you go home and reflect. Don't talk to anybody about this because we've taken the time to do some foundational learning together. I was I was pissed. I was angry. I didn't understand, and I sure was the first person to raise my hand in the morning the next day because they open up with, okay.

Who has any reactions or reflections from yesterday's conversation? And as scared as I was, I wanted the I wanted the answer. I came to learn. Yeah. And I didn't want to put the other person on the spot.

However, I would consider now, right, years later. But in that moment, I was like, but she said yesterday. And so the facilitator turns to her and says, well, what did you say? And she says, well, I don't wanna repeat it because it wasn't in good taste. Woah.

Cool. But she repeats it, and he says, no. That's not racist. It could she could be a jerk. That's about it, but that's not a racist comment.

My mind was blown. My mind was blown. That was just the first day, y'all. We had another day and a half of this unearthing. Right?

Like, this unlearning. Like, anything that my family had taught me without the door. The second and the third day, y'all, was traumatic for me to cope with the complacency and complicity that I not only, repeated the history of oppression in my work as a parent support specialist in Austin ISD. And then how much harm I had caused?

Been there many, many, many, many times. Still find myself there.

Yeah.

Alright. So we're gonna pause for, some station announcements, and we'll be right back. You are tuned in to racism on the levels here on Co op Community Radio, k o o p dot o r g. Streaming everywhere. Ninety one point seven FM here in Austin, Texas.

And, yes, I still listen to the radio. I listen to the dial. I have one big announcement to mention. If you have not already heard about it, Co op Radio's thirty first birthday bash is happening at Antone's Nightclub, Friday, January 30. Doors open at seven.

More info at antone'snightclub.com. I rarely go out in the evening. I am firmly on my way to bath and bedtime with my son, but this one I don't miss. So, come hang out with me at Antone's on January 30. Cynthia Vasquez is my guest today, and we're having a real conversation about stuff that matters, and that is community.

It is organizing. It is, dismantling racism. It is healing.

It's a different kind of care. And it's a different kind of care that I found with community. People who said they cared about me and put it into action.

Yeah. Not just lip service. So you shared a story earlier about being nine years old, going to IAF. When did you then give me an example of where you turned the corner and then you're like, okay. I'm I'm gonna organize something.

Like, I'm gonna I'm gonna do this. You you are under your Tonya mama Tonya's wing and learning and absorbing. And so then how what were some of your earlier organizing efforts?

Oh, thank you for asking that. I have found I have found that creating spaces of joy have been I used to look at those spaces like, why are we just having a party kind of thing? But when I started working for AISD and hearing the stories of the families, miss Vasquez, I've never gotten a certificate before. Miss Vasquez, I've never been asked to lead a medium before. And so one of the things that I did when I took a position with with Austin ISD back in 02/2000, jeez, 2001, is I started organizing families to create these spaces of joy, spaces to connect through theater was one of them.

I had a group of family, a group of mamas who would show up on Friday nights in a portable that I used to have, And I would

At Zavala?

Or No. This was at Lucy Reed pre k. This is in my last eight years somewhere in Austin ISD. And I had the fortunosity of working at an all pre k school. All the little babies I know.

And the the parents would love to come together. And so some of the strategies even I made at Zavala because I got hired to work at my at my neighborhood school. That's also a pivotal moment. I skipped completely over that to go back into the campus that historically has served my family. My my oldest uncle is close to 80.

His little footprints are out on the sidewalk when the cement was wet in front of Zavala Elementary. My dad is almost I think my dad is 70 now. We're estranged, but he planted one a tree out in Zavala that still lives there. So I went back into that campus and organized leaders. East Austin historically has been very challenging to fill executive board positions for parent teacher associations to this day.

And so I found that we were missing out on opportunities, because on paper, it might have looked like we had a full board, but in reality, we didn't have relationships with people to tell the stories of our children. So I made it a point to provide ongoing training, give them the tools they needed to be ready to step up into a leader, a positional power. Also, as a native Spanish speaking family, oh, I thought it was fire to show up with some Spanish speaking families, to show up with black, brown, everybody together, ready to take a position with an executive board. So I felt like that was one of the pivotal things that I did was developing leaders to serve not only at our campuses, but as their children moved on to middle schools and high schools, that has been a part of my work. So I'll say that continues to be the legacy as always developing leaders, to show up and engage.

And that's where I'm at. Still there. I served on our Austin Council of PTAs as their they called it a DEI person. Let's talk about racism.

Let's talk about, performativism, tokenism, any of those any of those areas. We we have to keep talking about this.

Yeah. Yeah. We can talk about how people like you to to a certain point. People want you to show up, but not that much. I have been told, try not to be too East Side.

Why do you keep saying native? What does that mean? I hear so many people throw that word around. What does it mean to actually be from Austin? Sorry.

I changed my voice there on purpose. When we talk about performative, I don't know how we we we share with people to make that observation because I hear a lot of representation matters. Cool. But for what with no power? What decision making do I get to participate in, or do y'all just like me with my dark lips and my big hoop earrings?

Y'all like my slang, but y'all don't implement my solutions. You don't take my recommendations. I gotta say it ten, fifty million, thousand times for somebody who's more credentialed percept prospectively. Right? They're more credentialed.

They only have to say thing want things once to be heard. I didn't know that. And I also learned that through modeling. Like, saw my mom take this role of engaging and put into positions of power. I saw my mom I saw people count on her.

I didn't know mamas could do that. I didn't know I didn't know mamas could lead meetings. I mean, they evolved from selling popcorn and cupcakes because, again, this is back in the gap, y'all, when people could

That's still happening, by the way.

Sell home How your kids? Old

Yeah. How old are your kids?

Oh. So I have a 28 year old. Mhmm. 25 year old. Mhmm.

And my little gummy bear who just turned 11 last week. So, yes, I

still have a job. Did it again.

So I

didn't to us all for that.

I didn't know that you could still sell baked goods made from your home

in school. Well, you you but, you know, some things have to go under the the the radar sometimes.

Yeah. So I I I've learned that there's a dislike, and I learned that through how much I truly wanted parents to advocate for themselves. I learned that the school system will only take you so far before liability pres what is it? Proceeds people. Oh, yeah.

Like that.

Supersedes people.

Yes. There you go.

And that that's another systemic thing that I wasn't aware of until PSAP. I only had the keys to a certain kind of interpretation of racism. Right. PSAP gave me a whole set Mhmm. To understand the system harm, the systemic harm.

Yeah. So showing up and, being an accountable gatekeeper as well.

King let's talk about gatekeepers for a moment. We all be gatekeepers. For someone who's never doesn't even know the context of what we're saying, what do you what is your understanding of a gatekeeper?

The flow of information. Information, resources, secrets. And so I feel anybody who's holding anything inside their brain is a gatekeeper. How are we controlling the flow of that information? Who are we giving access to and why?

Who who gets to tap into it? So What's the

role of gatekeepers in dismantling racism?

Transparency. And what I've learned in the context of racism, another level, another layer is that positional power and being accountable to the communities we serve. Like, who oh, I'm watching my language.

You're doing a great job. I just had a little more practice than you and not cussing about when we're talking about racism and oppression. It's really not easy. It's not easy.

So what I what I've learned about gatekeeping is there's accountable and unaccountable gatekeeping. And part of organizing taught me anti racist organizing is what are you doing with that information? What are you doing with what you're learning? And who cares enough to listen to you to want that information? How do you build that kind of care?

Because that's a trust too. Right? Who's counting on you for that reliable information? Who thinks you're reliable enough to even get information from? So how do we share those gems?

And introspectively, why aren't we sharing these gems? Who are we choosing to share information with, and who are we choosing not to share information with?

I will also invite us listening to think about which gates you keep in your life because, you know, I I think of a a gatekeeper in one of the bazillion nonprofits I've worked for. And the chief of staff of a CEO or an executive director, that's a big gatekeeper.

That's right.

They're they're they're putting they know who the head of the organization is meeting with. They know what's happening in their personal and professional lives. They know what decisions the board is about to make even in confidential meetings. So that's an example of a gatekeeper within an organization, but, you know, you could be the gatekeeper in your family. So this applies to a lot of different contexts in life and the role of a gatekeeper in being an agent of change.

Mhmm. That's powerful. That's power.

Yes. When I took this position that I'm in now, I came in with all of these questions about gatekeeping. And the number one thing that I tasked myself with was to figure out how much money we're getting, who we're receiving money on behalf of, and how are they showing up in our system? Oh.

Repeat those questions because that's that applies to a lot a lot of circumstances.

Follow the money.

Find out who is paying

How much we're getting. Who did we say we were receiving it on behalf of? And how is that community showing up in our decision making? When we talk about accountable gatekeeping, what I teach community is first to follow the money. Mhmm.

And if they're saying they're receiving money on behalf on behalf of BIPOC populations, black indigenous people of color, let's see it. Show me yours. I'm a show you mine. That's accountability. That's accountable to organizations and institutions saying things that my mentor again reminds me of.

If you ain't helping to change one black person's life. You need to find something else to do. Oh, that's my friend. My friends talk to me like that, and I appreciate it. That's another accountable gatekeeper.

He's holding me accountable. Right? He's giving me information and wondering how I'm gonna make a change.

Yeah.

That's what it was. I'm glad you talked about being a change agent.

Yeah. So we are, sitting here together, Cynthia Vasquez and and me and my my my silent comrade over here running the board, Michelle Manning Scott. This show would not happen the way it does without Michelle. So thank you, Michelle. Racism on the levels co op, Community Radio ninety one point seven FM, k o o p dot o r g.

And we have less than fifteen minutes left. We time flies, and this is an ocean ocean of a topic. I wanna come back unless there's somewhere you're burning to go to.

I'm a go where you

go. Okay. I'll try to I wanna go back to Carmen Yadez, my friend Carmen. But, so Gabba, you after AISD you went to Gabba. I did.

Right? I did. Fun fact, when I moved back to Austin, my friend Cindy Reed, who I don't

know if

you know Cindy Cindy and I were in a new moms group together in DC and then she moved back and then I moved back so she was she she said hey Stace so I was like Cindy who should I be in community with? I'm back! She's like you you need to know Gabba! So let's talk about I I I just want I just want to continue that story of, like, where you you know, that was your intro to PSAP, which is absolutely fundamental to our our shared passion here today, which is dismantling racism. And then where where did you go from there?

And, talk about community powered ATX.

Oh, thank you. So after I left GABA during the pandemic, what was unique about GABA and Carmen's approach to her infrastructure was she hired organizers who were directly impacted from the community. And what I had learned, what was different from IAF model was that IAF would hire organizers who didn't live in the cities they were contracted to work in. So that was back in the gap. I don't know how they how they operate now, but you go in, you support the community, and then you give them the power they need to be able to run themselves, and then you go somewhere else.

Carmen's approach was, we finna hire the people who are being affected by these issues. So I was hired as a school health equity organizer. Yeah. I was lit. So I gotta thank her for just going through the motions of detox with me in the pathology of racism.

Oh. And then after that, I I took a hiatus during the pandemic, exhausted all my savings, exhausted all my resources.

What are savings? Right. Right. But I digress. And then what?

And

then I took a position with Austin Public Health to work on community engagement and decision making opportunities for for community partners. And I'm there still doing that. Community powered ATX is a wonderful, vibrant, multicultural coalition of dope organizers from across the city. We're neighbors. Right?

We're all neighbors and volunteers and people who found each other.

Are there West Side folks?

There are West Side folks in there. Hey. When we talk about needing everybody, we need everybody.

Yes.

And we practice that. And, also, one of my growth points, y'all, is understanding that white people have also been harmed by racism. There is a deep conditioning that happens. It doesn't mean that we don't need people and other humans. We need everybody.

And so the general what I've seen from our other partners in the West Side is their deep devotion to preserving our natural resources.

Yeah. There's a bridge right there.

There is. Also, when we talk about gentrification, some people don't think about the trees that get uprooted in those neighborhoods. The shade that gets removed, the sun exposure you're now facing, climate justice, and climate issues are at the root of racism here in Austin. Water access. Oh wee.

I think some people like, I didn't learn about that. I didn't learn about it until later. So community powered ATX, we started I don't say we. I sit on the advisory council.

That's a we. Just saying.

And my role on community powered ATX is to support with onboarding. I think it's essential that people feel welcomed. I think it's essential to meet people where they're at and act like it. Right? I'm gonna meet you for a cup of coffee.

I'm gonna go sit on your curb with a taco. Maybe I'm gonna catch you after a meeting for ten minutes, and we're just gonna walk and talk real quick. So that's part of my role on community powered ATX. But one of the biggest things that brought us together was the initiative home. The home initiative was passed by our city council in December 2023.

I saw hundreds of people show up. I saw members of community powered show up with their whole hearts. We met with council members who walked out of rooms on us. We met with council members who who changed their mind, and that was a cool evolution to see. Right?

To go from walking out of a room to now seeking out the input from community powered ATX. I've seen the power grow from people not listening to now council members tapping into that coalition of people. We have architects. We have designers. We have climate professionals.

We have regular degular community members that are eager to learn, which I also think is a critical a critical position in this circular motion of organizing. It has to remain a revolving door of entry, and community power does that. They've worked really hard to provide a structured way of onboarding people, meeting people where they're at. Also, y'all y'all need to learn the racial y'all don't need to do anything. But one of the things that is very valuable out of community powered is the foundational learning and understanding how our city has used legitimate ways to keep us separated.

Again, another one of the outcomes of systemic racism is to keep us apart. That's right. And one of the most anti racist things we can do is to bring them together. Yep. So community power does that, y'all.

And they don't we don't just be bringing people together for a transactional process, not just for your input. We have movies in the park. We have puppet making. There's theater moments. There's just this extra creativity that's woven in through the politics of organizing.

Well, you know, it's as simple as offer food to people and they'll show up to the meeting. Offer food, offer music, offer childcare, offer fun. That's right. I mean, we you know, we don't need to be martyrs That's right. To be movement makers.

Like, that no. What part of the revolution do you wanna be in that doesn't have joy in it? That's how we sustain our movement in my opinion. That's right.

Tapping into that joy that I told you during the pandemic, I was so resistant to you. You couldn't get me to be happy for nothing during the pandemic.

So what turned you around?

What Having my basic needs met, being able to pay my rent, my car payment, and everything on time, and still have a little change in my pocket. Improving the quality of life for the people that I was responsible for. Oh. And being able to find that balance of maintaining my household, but also still having friends that live in their cars. I was still so deeply connected to people.

I had a mama come to my house during the pandemic and have a drug overdose in my front yard. How am I supposed to be happy with that? But I did it because, again, Ron's words echo through my mind. People don't wanna mess with somebody who don't have nothing. And the most radical thing that I could do was love myself and make sure that I had what I needed and be okay with stating that I needed those things so I could show up for these mamas who didn't have what they needed.

So you brought up my favorite word, which is love. And we are kinda moving to final final final remarks for today. And so, you know,

we're gonna end on love.

Love can love love can hurt. Love can look like it hurts. People that are supposed to be the people that love you sometimes hurt you. And I'm just saying you by me. I have lived experience through this.

You know, I I also had a violent house growing up. And, I think my my superpower is reclaiming love because that that right there, if you if you learn to reject love because it hurt you, gotta unlearn that as quickly as possible because love is is is is the source.

How do you feel about that? I'm gonna cry first because their community gives you a kind of love. And it was oh, man. I'm gonna be super vulnerable right now. Only since 2018 have I truly started to love myself so much that I gotta love you.

I love my skin. I love my brown hair. I love my dark lips. I love my little Chicana accent that people tell me I have. I love myself so much that I it's insistent that I love you.

Because if I didn't if I didn't love myself, how could I possibly love you? Man, I feel good about saying that right

now. Mhmm.

I love myself. I love myself. I love my skin. I'm proud to walk in it. I'm proud to show up.

Representation matters. Correct?

Comma, and power And power. Matters. It does. And if you are if you are in a white body like I am and you're listening, you can love your white skin because whiteness is different than pigmentation. Whiteness is the construct.

That's right. Whiteness is the racism. So whatever body you're in, love your body. Mhmm. And then that love, it just it overflows, and then you just spread it.

It shows.

That's it. How you treat yourself, I can probably count on that's how you're treating your community. That's right.

Alright, Cynthia. We are we we we're done. This is always hard. We're done. We solved it all.

We're human beings, not human doings. I love that. I love you.

I love you too,

Stacy. And Can we can

we give just a quick shout out to why I'm here right now? Go for it. Shout out to brother Rob and the reentry work they're doing. I have a brother that is doing 99 years in prison, so I'm always weaving in and out of those conversations.

Yeah.

And so he was the person that brought us together today.

Shout out, brother Rob. Shout out. Brother Rob and I will be sitting behind these mics, on February 5, and we are going to keep this conversation going as long as we have to. So remember, love is the highest level. We'll see y'all next week, and, up next is democracy now.

Thanks, y'all.

Thank you.

I got a love song. I got a hit song. In this world, you only need one song. To live your life like you visualize a full land purpose. I take it nothing.