[Applause] The history of black greek lettered sororities dates back to the early 1900s when alpha kappa alpha and delta sigma theta sororities were formed among a group of women that were the top of their class at howard university in washington d.c to create a support network for women during a time of segregation
And male dominance in our country i recently sat down with five prominent detroit businesswomen representing three different predominantly black sororities to talk about the history legacy and impact on communities past and present for these five women being in their sororities is an enormous sense of pride my name is jennifer fuller
And i’m a member of delta sigma theta sorority incorporated it’s wonderful to be a part of a sisterhood that has such an outstanding legacy and rich history i am tiffany douglas i’m also a member of the delta sigma theta for me it’s really about the legacy that
22 women started in 1913 when it was hard to be educated when it was difficult to go sit at a counter and and eat i am honored to continue the legacy and serve this community kim keaton williams i’m a proud member of alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated
The sense of pride starting when i was at michigan state and these women were role models to me wendy turner lewis and i am a proud member of alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated so many joyous horror movies that started in college and have this bond that continues
Service to the community is a huge mission of these organizations with just the akas and deltas combined there are over a half million members nationwide and over 2 thousand chapters there’s power in having hundreds of thousands of african-american women come together for a common bond of sisterhood of excellence
And service to the community so whether we’re you know standing at the capitol or whether we’re sending letters on behalf of what we think is important to our communities to elected officials you can imagine that being that large and that broad how where the impact of delta is felt is everywhere
What’s equally impactful the bond of friendship and sisterhood we still get together for dinner for drinks we get together for service projects i was inducted with 16 wonderful line sisters and so to this day we’re all very close this is a bond of people that will go on forever and always
On a lighter note i had to ask a couple burning questions is there any rivalry between sororities friendly friendly friendly friendly rivalry and what about the power in these colors i mean can deltas wear pink can akas wear red or is that it’s like no of course yes [Laughter]
The ladies went on to talk about what it means to represent their sororities in the community and to the next generation they talked about some of the myths associated with sororities and even their initiation experiences as well as more about what they are doing for people in need
In our community which is one of the most important things they talked about so we are posting the entire interview under the scene on for black history good evening everyone and thank you for joining us my name is jacqueline vito and we are here with the village in action team soon we’ll be
Introducing dr otley who you’re familiar with we’ve been doing this webinar series now going on two weeks and at the finale of the week one we had our chat blazing with action there was a student who needed some internet service and right there on the spot
People began to donate in the chat and it impacted that child so much that he went into his living room and was expressing to his mother who he was taking care of all of the things that were uh taking place on the chat so removing ourselves from that week we were very full
And now we push forward and the village in action is now going to take place continuously joining the meeting and we appreciate everyone who takes the time to log on now this evening we will take a wonderful deep dive with some fabulous ladies and i will begin to introduce them
I’m going to begin with the amazing dr millicent carmouche representing alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated she has a phd in special education and she is a graduate of georgia state university so welcome dr carmouch next i will be introducing dr kim morton who received her phd in management education from the university
Of hampton or excuse me hampton university let me get it correct and she is representing the fabulous delta sigma theta sorority incorporated next we have bridget l lawson she is has a degree in she’s an msw in social work and is a current doctoral student at syracuse university
She is representing the fabulous zeta phi beta sorority incorporated now last but definitely not least we have leslie the amazing vivens who is an actress it’s a retired 20 after 24 years of the department of corrections that alone is a feat she worked the death row unit she is currently a
Teacher in alternative education she has a special needs child or excuse me grandchild and we appreciate her membership in the amazing sigma gamma rho sorority incorporated and now what i will prepare you for this evening is that you will be impacted by the videos we will show you so i forewarn you
That what we are the discussion we’re going to engage in will touch your hearts will impact your minds and most of all at the closing of this session we i will come back to make sure that these conversations are not left in the worlds of webinars and virtual reality
And so now i turn it over to dr jason otley our moderator jacqueline i appreciate you uh could not do this without you and uh could not do this without ivan ivan is in behind the scenes working the sound in the videos and so it’s just a pleasure to do this work
With you jacqueline and you ivan to our guest tonight certainly an honor and now listening to all of y’all’s wonderful bios uh wow you guys do some amazing things and so they’re all seated in different states as well so i’m really excited that tonight our discussion won’t just be uh in the
Eastern region i think the last couple of nights we’ve been in d.c maryland and virginia tonight we’re stretching out we’ve got some folks in the south and some folks uh in the deep deep deep dirty south as some songs uh talk about but it’s just a super
Uh simply a pleasure to have you i want to go ahead and dive into some of these questions though uh ladies of the panel tonight i do know that the time is almost 15 minutes after we do want to save some time at the end for those who are joining us tonight to
Also ask some questions our audience the chat box is open feel free to go in and share any comments or any resources that may come to mind also if you’re in the chat uh and you uh represent a black sorority tonight and you do have some comments we do want
To um your mic towards the end and have you share out what your organization is doing uh in the local region curious to know so this first question i think we’re going to have all of you answer if you ladies can just keep your uh first question response to maybe 90
Seconds or so and so we can move through some of these questions we do kind of have a packed agenda tonight uh and we’ll start with you millicent um who were representing alpha kappa alpha how has the death of brianna taylor how has her death affected you uh and your
Organization many times you know people look at blacks to do something when things impede their community and so interested in knowing if this death felt any different to you than some of the previous deaths and how it’s affecting you and your organization okay well um it’s affected me in a few
Different ways i’ll say i am a native kentuckian and brianna was murdered in kentucky um that makes it hit a little bit closer to home because um not that i don’t know that there’s racism and discrimination in kentucky i know that but when something like that happens
Um i didn’t grow up in louisville i grew up in in lexington but something like that happens in your home state it feels a little bit closer my mother and my sister still live in lexington um as a woman it sometimes feels like um the murder of black women by police can
Be kind of swept under the rug and that’s hurtful and i think that we all need to do better we need to raise their um we need to raise our voices for them um because there’s there’s no difference if a black man or a black woman murdered by
The police we all need to stand up um what i am proud to say is that my sorority has connected with um the other four sororities and other women’s organizations including the links to start to have discussions about police reform and um where we go from here just like these um so we
Um there was a conference pile the other i think yesterday i was in class and i didn’t get to make it on that conference call but i am glad to see the four sororities linking up with other organizations that work with black women to start to talk about
What we do now how we move forward to protect ourselves yeah i appreciate that military kim is interested listen brought up a great point and i’m curious uh if you felt the same suggested that the media just does not cover the deaths of black women have you also noticed this
Trend and then how did you respond to the death of brianna taylor so yeah so i agree with millicent i think that um the death black women sort of goes unnoticed um uh the death of black men sort of gets more you know more folks embalmed if you will
Um and i don’t know why that is i think now brianna obviously you know folks are really going out and protesting and things of that nature but i think that um you know we’ll talk about sandra bland later but all the deaths of these black women sort of get unnoticed right
Um there are so many they’re countless but we focus a lot on black men right and not to say that black men don’t don’t matter but we we matter too and so i think that it’s important that not only do we uh talk about black men
But let’s talk about black women as well um that the sorority is doing like millicent talked about i know uh the the sororities are getting together but npac as a whole they’re getting together to do some police reform some other things that we’re doing our political awareness involvement our gender equality and our
Racial profiling are some the we really um we sort of uh hone in on i know that locally our chapter uh helped uh or sort of didn’t sponsor but really got to march here in saint louis on sunday and i think it’s important that we protest
But let’s look at what the action is after so not only do we talk about protesting and things like that but let’s look at you know like police reform but let’s look at policies in our own neighborhood or in our own municipalities and our states and our national legislation and so
Um i think that it’s important that we not just focus on black men but we also focus the same as we focus on black men yeah i appreciate that bridget you’re a doctorate student um a doctoral student excuse me uh and i’m curious in your research maybe
Uh have you found any trends as to reasons why the media maybe portrays the death of african-american men to be more uh esteemed than the death of african-american women no i i have not um my research doesn’t specifically focus on that um but i think it has to do with how we
As a community come together um part of that is we have to be more vigilant about telling our black men to support um us black women and i think because black women are always on the forefront and um standing up for justice for our black youth
Um our black queer people um just in general our black men i think that is why a lot of times they look at us as if they’re strong um they don’t need as much attention but in reality we really do yeah absolutely yeah leslie you’ve worked um you retired i think i heard
You know correctional facility for uh 20 plus years and you may have uh worked with uh many american men i’m going to to assume based upon the numbers that we see uh in the media and then even in research talk about maybe some of the african-american women that you uh
May have worked with and just the prevalence of not discussing african-american women as much in the media i think a lot of times it’s assumed that when women do crimes it’s usually precipitated by a relationship to a man and the women themselves get pushed to the rear
So i think that when there are incidents of extreme violence against women it’s just not sexy enough for the news to pay attention to but i also would like to point out is that as women we’re so trained to worry about violence and harm outside so
While you know at this point in time i’m a big advocate of taking all of your rights that are afforded to us you know we all have the right to bear arms and while we’re all saying this is your right this is your constitution right when we’re in our home in your bed
Sleeping that’s the last place you’re looking for violence to come into your home we’re so busy worried about domestic violence that’s already there that when it’s coming from the outside we’re caught totally off guard so that when we cry out society is just not ready to hear us
And it just doesn’t happen enough not that we want it to happen more but it’s just not popular it’s not a hot button topic so that you know when it happens it’s just not as popular it’s not as prevalent because we’re not concerned we’re considered strong you know like the other ladies
Said oh they can handle it yeah everyone’s just used to us handling it and it speaks to the level of mental care that we just don’t have in our societies for us speaking about the uh the deaths the prominent deaths that we’ve seen uh go viral the deaths of african-american men
Millicent curious to know the uh the brutal death of george floyd uh when you listen to the video you do hear him calling out uh to his mother and for those who don’t know his mom had passed away uh how has that changed the way you either engage with your own children
Your nieces or even children in your organization’s program um well i’ll just talk about how it changes how i engage with i have a 19 year old daughter um i don’t get to hold her hand every minute anymore she’s um gone away to school and um
I feel almost feel like coveted has been a blessing because she’s been here with me having my hands on her all the time um i want the thing is that we know when we send our black children out into the world they’re not as safe as white children
Are when they go out into the world i remember almost having a meltdown when i went to go um renew our tags at the dmv and they told me they couldn’t find my insurance information and all i could think is what if a cop pulled my child over
And they can’t find her inherent information so the way that i talk to her based on george floyd hasn’t changed because i saw like a i saw a meme or something that said they think we’re crying tears over george floyd we still haven’t stopped crying the tears
Over emmett till we’re still crying we this doesn’t really change how we talk to our black children because we’ve always had to talk to them this way and no i mean me and my mom were talking about how she feels she still feels the trauma from learning about emmett till when she
Was a little girl now my daughter’s feeling those same traumas in 2020. i don’t know that it has changed anything about how i deal not only with my daughter but the students the young black women and men that i mentor because i’ve always had to talk to them the same way
We know that it’s dangerous for them a lot of times we feel defenseless to it right ken millicent mentioned just the notion of protecting her her daughter while she’s been home and coveted we all know that covet will end at some to go back we’re not going back to
Normal it’ll be a new normal right it’ll be something totally different we’ve never seen this before um what advice or counsel or what wisdom are you sharing with uh women in your organization young students at washington you right about how to protect themselves in the world that we live in
Yeah so um i think you know when i tell our students so i’m at a predominantly white institution and so i talk to our students as if the where we are at the institution is real world is the real world even though they think it’s a bubble
Um and you know how you you know i guess talk to you know the police you know if they stop you uh i know that it’s even prevalent on our campus around our campus police and making sure that our black students are sort of known right so they’re either
Wearing a t-shirt or a bag or something to identify themselves um and um so i i i other things that i do uh as mentoring students i make sure that i’m i keep it real with them you know sort of get their understanding of what what they’ve experienced right have they been
Pulled over by the police what have they done um some of the tips they should do um when being stopped or something like that even not even by a campus police but police right off campus we have four different municipalities right around the campus so the city of st
Was university city and clayton and we did actually have an incident where students were stopped over the summer this past year they were first year students and they were stopped because they had gone to an ihop and somebody they had dash but it wasn’t them it was 10 students
It was and they and the people i said it was it wasn’t them so they got pulled over they got you know they didn’t get arrested but they uh they got walked back to the ihop because they didn’t want to get the cars of the police officers and then they had
To walk back to campus because they were walking to the train station to get back to campus then they had to walk three miles back to campus instead of just calling you know our police department to come get the students um and so it was a big huge traumatic
For our students um but those are the the small nuances that happen um to students when they you know come to college campuses and may or may not have experience you know with police so thank god nothing nothing happened to any of those students however it could have been a a bad day
Right um and so i think just instilling in them that they shouldn’t have fear but also sort of uh because the police are are fearful of them right so they shouldn’t be fearful because the police are fearful of them and they could they could not come home
So to sort of comply in a sense um and it’s scary it’s scary on both sides even as an adult you escape uh driving down the street and the police is behind you you know you tense up and hope that this isn’t your last day on earth so
I think it’s scary not only for uh students and and and our our children right um but it’s also scary for us as well as adults and so i think it’s traumatic all the way around and so i think that we need to have the conversation about
How police officers fear us right and how we also have a little bit of fear as well so how about let’s have a conversation a dialogue around so uh but i think the organization is is is really uh our sorority is really involved in um trying to help uh shape legislation
And so i think that that’s that’s the most powerful thing yeah bridget has your organization talked about um you know the fears now of uh you know the covet has brought on due to the number of african-americans who just are dying at larger numbers than than whites
But also about the brutal deaths of of african-americans uh have they talked in your organization about how to mobilize uh each other in order to provide better opportunities or um an opportunity for your organization to maybe move into school spaces and educate students like what conversations are happening in your organization
Surrounding all of this um i think in general nationally the conversations around it all um one is primarily how do you maintain your personal wellness your mental health during this time because that’s um a a huge um thing right now where you have to learn how to practice self-care have to learn how
To even de-escalate um how to talk to people because this is traumatizing reliving these things are very traumatizing um and then also we do have youth auxiliaries um for our organization and they are out there some of them particularly um in downstate new york are out there
On the front lines with their youth at the protest um they’re making videos to bring awareness to racism and people who have unfortunately been killed by police also in new york state particularly we are working to repeal laws regarding fair policing on the repeal of 50-a which acts to repeal section of the
Civil rights law pertaining to personnel records for police firefighters and correctional officers so there are a variety of things that we’re trying to do um regarding this issue yeah there’s always things to hear about leslie uh bridget mentioned um you know trauma and i want to kind of dive into that
In your brain for a minute you know your experience i i don’t think we give enough um conversation to discuss trauma it’s almost like when our when our white counterparts experience stress at work or trauma there’s all these counseling centers and opportunities for them to share the things that they go through
But our young black girls especially i’m hearing are holding in a lot of the pain that they’re experiencing uh have you all in your organization talked about that talked about how to help young black girls express some of their trauma yes so we have our auxiliary organizations for
Different age groups and we try to be very supportive and mindful of the things that are going on in their communities and we try to keep them involved and at the same time support around them so that they understand that yes this is the world
That you are in right now and this is the norm of the world but everyone in this world is not against you and we are here for you and you feel it too and you have to understand that as you are going through it and growing
We’re going through it at the same time for example i was at a protest the other day and it was it was kind of a unique protest because it was in a predominantly white neighborhood and they actually read the names of all the police shooting victims and they
Read they read the name and then they read their last words that they said and i was standing next to a very young person and i just looked at him and i just started crying because every time they i hear it you know i see it
It was really hard it was really really hard and you know and you know you just reach out and you just want to hold their hand because you know that could be them right but you know you can’t shelter them and they feel it too yeah yeah
Melissa what’s the root i think of um you know the suppression of such uh traumatic experience now in my mind i’m assuming and and this could be a wrong assumption i mean you’re you’ve got a doctor degree so you shut down this uh in your area but i’m i’m
Just assuming that we’ve just been through this for so long that people just think that we know how to get through this that resilience is is put into our dna as a black community right but um we hurt just like everybody else hurts right and so if you could talk about maybe
Uh the root of why we don’t have spaces to discuss this trauma maybe we can start changing where our young girls can start coming out and talking about the trauma right i um one thing and i think kim will tell you we’ve been social media friends for some years i am a self-labeled
Mental health advocate um and i i feel like the biggest thing is that black people need to learn how to talk about it we need to make sure it’s not a secret um our mental health is just like if i told um somebody that my niece had bipolar disorder
It should be just like i said my niece has cancer it doesn’t mean that that’s something that needs to be swept under the rug we need to start talking about the trauma that we face and one of the targets one of the five targets for um national targets for alpha kappa alpha
Is mental um of one i’m sorry women’s health and wellness and that’s one thing about and i just think a part of that and i know that we focus a lot on mental health but i think we all every every black person should feel like going to therapy is okay talking about
Your mental health is okay because like we have so many traumas that we’ll never get out i mean we’ll never get over if we’re not talking about it and it just gets mushed down mush down mush down i remember rodney king when i was a little girl and every
Time something like that happens it’s just another one on top of the next on top of the next and if we’re not dealing with that trauma we you know like i said like i said me and my mom who’s also a member of alpha kappa alpha we’re having a conversation the other
Day about this trauma is uh maybe the reason that my mom has screaming nightmares every night since i was a little girl i remember being a little girl having to go wake her up like mommy wake up you’re screaming again i mean it might
That could be a part of it like we are just seeing trauma after trauma after trauma and that’s why i’m glad that our sorority is embracing um health and wellness for um in black women that that’s a big part of what we need to start taking care of yeah at all costs
Yeah and and i want to uh piggyback on what milson said all of our sororities are doing it actually um uh our presidents were on a call a few weeks ago around uh physical and mental health awareness and um it was very powerful to see all four of them there are national presidents
Uh talking about how we need to work together uh as women right to get ourselves together and um and i and i think you know we you know everybody’s sort of talking about trauma informed being trauma-informed but we also need to take care of ourselves right
We can take care of the students we can take care of our children we could take care of you know our mentor our mentees but we need to take care of ourselves right because most times busy women are the women who are mentoring other people right
We need to take care of ourselves and i think that it’s so important that we figure out what works for us right uh what that self-care looks like uh is going to aspire maybe it’s going to a movie or maybe it’s just shutting out social media you know so
What does that self-care look like i think not only do we need to go to therapy and milkshake we really need to dig deep right we we are thought of as we like like leslie and bridget and millicent have said we’re so strong we got it right we take care of everything
You know we have the kids we you know we take care of the bills you know we also go to work full-time you know we do all of these things but it feels like we don’t have time for ourselves to take care of ourselves and let me ask you a question really quick
So my mother’s on a call you know she’s a member of alpha kappa alpha sorority corporate yes so you know she often times get on her about taking care of herself first you know fine here and there to go see all the grands you know she’s working this project and that project
Um and is it is it a sense kim of guilt that maybe black women have been feeling to self-care and to pamper themselves talk about that so i think it’s guilt i think it’s also time right um and feeling like okay so if i do go
Somewhere where do i where do i take the kids or where you know where do i get that time to fit it in um i think people with children on the call could talk more to that i don’t have kids so it’s all about me all the time anyway but
Um but but um i’m just keeping it real um and all my friends though uh but uh i think that but we just really need to find some time to take care of each other right but that’s hey girl let’s go let’s go do something together
Right grab a friend right um but i think it’s really important to take care of ourselves because not only do we have all of these deaths right and all of this trauma around this desk we also have covet so we’ve been stuck in a house
You know not going out afraid to go out because we are black people and it’s you know it’s affecting black people more than any anybody else and especially if you know people who have died from it you’re really not going outside and so um you know that’s traumatic i’ve had
Somebody sisters who died from kovacs and you know it is a traumatic experience to know that i’ll never see them again because of this this disease this pandemic right um but i just think that we just need to grab a friend grab a cousin you know you know uh go pamper you know
Go to the nail shop go get a drink whatever you whatever you do just to take some time to get away and to to um to also meditation is great meditation praying um all of these things that we can do um to make sure that we we’re taking care
Of ourselves and mama ali you need to take care of yourself oh i tell all the time you know she she’s getting a whole lot better she really is um mom is getting a whole lot better talking about trauma i do want to uh have ivan cue up
Uh one of our videos tonight i do want to dive into this question about trauma a little bit more so i’ll go ahead and cue that video the first black woman to serve as american university’s student government president is suing a white supremacist who orchestrated an online harassment campaign against her
Taylor dumpston is seeking more than one and a half million dollars in damages from the daily stormer founder andrew anglin plus a follower of his for harassment that happened last spring england is also facing a similar suit filed by a muslim american radio host uh this question uh bridget i want to
Kind of just start it off with you that taylor thompson um she remembered alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated she was the first black woman student body president at american university she won a case recently for 725 thousand dollars and in 2017 when she was brought in as student body president bananas were found
Hanging on nooses around campus bananas had messages sprawled on them one referred to taylor and her sorority uh as harambee bates a reference to the guerrilla killed in the cincinnati zoo in 2016 uh talking about trauma um how how would you counsel or embrace an african-american woman who has just gone through that
I think first off i would definitely have a conversation about how intergenerational trauma um manifests when things happen particularly instances as such and i would just really process with them to see how they’re feeling give them resources that they can go to on campus if it wasn’t an incident that happened
On campus or in the community and also connect them to a network of women or men who will be able to just affirm their lives affirm their experiences um and just really give them the support that they need yeah i’m glad you mentioned resources bridget what uh university are you at
At syracuse university syracuse okay that’s interesting i mean i didn’t know that until just this very moment but i think syracuse just experienced something in 2019 that was in 2020 um um there’s been a lot happening on our campus with racial incidents um there were incidents where students
A student was pissed away um at an off-campus apartment which was relatively close in the response from the administration um was very kind of like brush it under the rug there were incidents where students were protesting because of racial episodes that were sprawled across walls and the bathrooms
In the library and the incidents just kept happening um and up until spring break this past spring break students were protesting they took over the administration building they had a list of the means that they that they had put out and honestly i believe that
If it had not been for covet 19 um things would have gotten worse um the response to my institution was honestly it was horrible they did not do due diligence and making our students feel safe on campus um they didn’t do their due diligence and protecting our students
So i think overall the institution has a lot of work to do we don’t have a lot of black faculty and staff and the black faculty and staff that we do have they try to put limitations on our involvement with the students and the protests which honestly i felt like it hurt
It hurt us as it hurt me as a black um staff person but it also ultimately hurt students because they felt like they didn’t have anybody to turn to yeah i’m glad you mentioned those incidents bridget you know even at american university uh where i am now prior to me coming we
Had racial incidents that i had read about prior to arriving on campus so i kind of knew what i was getting myself into um but was hoping that um in the time that i’ve been there that you know we can make make some gradual change but like you mentioned when you’re one
Of a few right and you mentioned covet similar similar instances we had an instant and maybe had it not been for cover things may have shifted a little bit differently so you know with the villain in that in action for a reason there’s got to be opportunities for us to have these conversations
But also then when we leave the call what are we doing about those things right and so i think it’s important anyone who’s listening on the call today if you uh have a connection with syracuse love for you to connect with bridget and our team after
Our or any of the universities that may be on the call it is so important that our voice is heard and so sometimes we’re just uh stronger in numbers um leslie thank you so much can um we have a so i started faculty and staff cabinet at our at our university
And i’ll give you some information about how you can maybe start organizing so that you guys can have a safe space yeah we have something similar on our campus um but honestly it’s some people are just afraid to take action because they’re worried about their jobs and i get it yeah
Yeah that’s a real thing so we do we have something similar but i definitely would like um to hear your ideas that maybe we’re going to brave but yeah we’ll connect thank you yeah very very similar we and i think that’s and i think that’s the fear kim
As you chimed in that’s the fear that we all have um as black people in predominantly white spaces that if i say too much then does that mean that my job is at risk right and so i think if we don’t say enough then we damage ourselves and our community even more so
It’s this fine rope that we have to kind of walk and i think that we’re at a place now as a community we’re just tired sick and tired of having to walk this fine rope uh and so i think that you know coming together like this
Allows us to be able to express these feelings we have but then also develop some action behind it leslie i’m curious you have been in you’re in an alternative high school right and i used to teach special needs students um k-12 years and years and years ago before i got into higher education
And there were some of my students who uh would get kicked out of the school and then have to go to an alternative high school right talk a little bit about maybe the the trauma that even exists um with the students that you serve who are african-american
Well i honestly i feel like um as bridget was saying earlier in terms of multi-generational and there’s a lot of epigenetic dna harm that a lot of us don’t realize that we’re still processing especially in terms of women that’s why we carry so much weight because we’ve been taught that we had to
And that’s why i think so many of our young boys are so angry all the time is because they don’t even realize why they’re angry there’s so much trauma in their backgrounds that they act out there’s not enough fathers in their lives for whatever reason and that’s a holdover from slavery too
And then they’re faced with all these microaggressions every day you wake up you wake up black you step outside you step outside black and you’re looking around you don’t know why you’re on guard but you know you should be you know you know you you feel afraid you feel
Tense and that’s hard on your body it’s hard on your mind so how can you go to school and feel at ease enough to learn and do the things you’re supposed to do when you’re trying to be three different people all at the same time you don’t really have enough space in
One human body to practice all these things you need to do in order to succeed it’s hard yeah yeah and it’s starting even younger right you know speaking about being on guard and having to protect oneself i can go ahead and cue up the second video panelists please pay close attention to
This next video i do have a question about how do we protect women who do have to hold on to this notion of always being on guard Get out of the car now why am i being apprehended you trying to give me a ticket for your failures out of the car why am i being apprehended you just opened my car door you just opened my car door so you going you threatened to drag me
Out of my own car get out of the car and then i will light you up get out wow now wow get out of the car what failure to signal you’re doing all of this for yourself over there right yeah yeah let’s take this to court let’s do it
For a failure to signal yeah for a failure to signal my school i’m not on the phone i have a right to record this is my property this is my problem sir put your phone down right now Wow oh you seem very irritated i am i really am because i feel like this is what i’m getting for i was getting out of your way you were speeding up telling me so i move over and you stop me so yeah i am a little irritated but
That doesn’t stop you from giving me a ticket you mind putting out your cigarette please No you don’t have Put your phone down Sandra bland was a member of sigma gamma rho was 28 year old black woman was found hanging in a jail cell in walnut county texas 2015 and this was three days after being arrested during a pre-textual traffic stop and then our death was ruled a suicide each time i watched this video millicent
Um my heart just drops each and every time i watch this uh video um but also a little frustrated melissa i want you to answer this question for me i’m frustrated because um the comments that i’ve read around her death saying that all of that could have been avoided
Right that frustrates me hearing that uh a little bit about how you uh what what you got out of that video just watching it probably again um it’s always disturbing be especially when we know how it ended and we know that we will never know exactly what happened to that woman
Um i said before we we started um the discussion every time i look at it i think that could have been me because i my mom raised me to be free to be you know say what’s on my mind that back and forth could have been me
And a police officer the same one and she didn’t deserve to die for that um so it’s hard it’s hard to watch um just like and we were kind of going back to um the conversation about black women’s desks not getting the same kind of attention i
Remember and i can’t remember her last name now the young woman corinne was her name when police came into her house and she had a gun she was blamed for her death because they came into her house and she was trying to protect her child and they shot her with right there um
It it makes me sad when i hear people saying that well it didn’t have to happen all they had to do was comply no we don’t have to comply we don’t have to say everything the right way we don’t we have a right to make a mistake just
Like a white woman does because i know a white woman in that situation could have gotten out of that car and slap that police officer in the face and still live to tell the story and i think we all know that but you know it’s i don’t know and i
Think the only thing we can do you know i talk about i have a 19 year old daughter i think the only thing we can do and i’m never going to teach my child to walk around and just be afraid all the time because i’m not and i’m not i don’t
That’s not the kind of life i want her to live but somehow we have to i know when she first started driving i clipped all of her documents together registration um a copy of her license and her insurance clipped together right at the top of everything in her glove box
And you know told her how to ask for permission to get it and all those types of things we i just don’t know how we respond to this because we can’t walk around living in fear or bowing down to them for every little thing we still have a
Right to be free in this world and to be defended when we are when when wrong is done to us yeah and that’s okay not just by other black women either by black men by white women by everybody who sees wrong done to black women it shouldn’t be that didn’t have to happen
If she hadn’t been so hippie she would still be alive that’s not fair and it is yeah kim i’m thinking about an old lauren hill song i’m myself this is probably 1998 one of her songs she the verse was who do i have to be to get some reciprocity right
Kim i’m curious i mean damn who do who do black women how how how do they be themselves right out of context in that song in 98 with lord he’ll pin those words but she was talking about uh a lover but in this context today right who do you have to beat
That reciprocity yeah it’s hard to answer that right um i mean i think we have to be authentically who we are right um at all times and if we if we’re that then you know nobody that’s all i can be is authentic and so i you know we really it’s hard to live
In this in this in this system right we’re living in this system that uh and we talked about this earlier jay we we live in this system that is not for us right for us and you know do we dismantle the system do we you know start our own you know
What do we do because we’re living in their system and so until we um figure out how to live together um living there and their system doesn’t work it just doesn’t work so i i don’t know if i can really answer that question but being authentic and who you are and unfortunately
That may cost some lives you know um can i ask something yeah you should um when we say we don’t know where what to do now but i do i have felt so you know i’m i feel overwhelmed about the protests going on now because
You know it’s hard to look at them being run over by police cars but i feel so encouraged that these young people are not giving up this wasn’t just a day or two i think that this generation might be the one that forces them to make some changes because they’re really
Stopping and they’re not giving up and i think that’s what we have to do because like kim’s system wasn’t made for us we’re gonna have to make them rebuild this system at this point right yes yes like today or from that day when the protest started we are gonna make you rebuild
This system and we’re not gonna stop um and i’m i’m i’m old i’m 43 years old so i haven’t been out here he was not oh please do not say those words but i will say no i’m still afraid to call it i haven’t been out there i’ve been donating i’ve been signing
Petitions i’m so happy to be here to be able to talk about this you know posting on social media but i so i feel like we owe those young people so much [Applause] You
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