Transcripts For CSPAN2 Born Bright 20161009

Editorinchief of essence magazine for africanamerican women. The editor that are overseas the content addition of the magazine as well as essence. Com. Her influence extends beyond the various rain extensions, including event such as essence fest, black women hollywood luncheon of black women in music. Before we start the conversation, well have shown they come out and read a passage from masons memoir. Charlene is a Community Organizer and writer. She currently serves as National Director of the black Youth Project 100, also goes by the way p100. An activist member of that organization of black 18 to 35 with dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all black people. Over 10 years of experience and racial justice, feminists and Youth Leadership Development Movement work. Please welcome show lane. [applause] thank you. First i would like to thank c. Nicole mason for the moment to share with her. As you all should know, many of her achievements. Tonight i had the opportunity to read a number of passages. If you have not read it, you need to read a, byatt and i went or your friends, is to. The passages i chose a deeply resonate with me. As they share with nicole, i said wow that happened to me a moment while reading this book. So ill get started. I did the right thing. Im the beneficiary of many of the programs we are talking about here today. I attended had start. I was involved in afterschool programs. Im the first person in my family to graduate from high school, to attend college and to receive a phd. By now, i was shaking but i could not stop. I was having a public the private conversation i reserve for my firstgeneration black and latino colleagues who i dont do successfully navigated their way out of poverty and into the middle class and to have a deep understanding of the journey from there to here. These people in this room are strangers. I am only one person i continued. Growing up i knew many kids in my neighborhood who are smarter and more capable than me and they didnt make it out. Many have been killed, gone to prison, and living hand to mouth or otherwise on the margins of society. Should i blame them for this test and then allows only a few of life at a time to hate . The room was pregnant with silent. I couldnt take it back. I felt like an intruder and exposed in these types of oppression offsetting a personal ax. Since with hunger, poverty and at this article must often go undetected. It is assumed that i am just like everyone else, an advocate, a policy expert or an academic. Typically when a women is in my day to tell their story during these panels are meeting, if thats where a second time in like a performance. Her story has a perfect predictable arc. She was lost then found by one of the many social Service Agencies in the city. She changed her behavior, became a better mother and although she shall struggle to make ends meet, is on her way to Economic Press rarity. Hallelujah the end. Her story is meant to inspire, to whip up emotions and to make the people in the audience feel good about their work in themselves. It is not meant to challenge or change how we make policies were shipped out poor people in our communities or cities or Larger Society offers neat. There is also a clear separation between her and the experts on this page. Day, not she are deciding what should be done. Here i was blurring that line. I was both the subject and the authority on the matter. I have firsthand knowledge of the messiness of poverty and the feelings the poor internalize from both. Our very existence is a burden on society. The collapse of the boundary made me uncomfortable. I worked hard to disguise my beginning of my friend the decision to change my name during my first week of college to the effort of the racing words and phrases i cant been since the go. From my vocabulary. I had succeeded in creating the perfect impenetrable mental path mask. Mouth was soft. Now it was off. The next piece is from the chapter entitled free today. The mark of a Good Childhood is freedom. Freedom from worry, stress and birds coupled with the freedom to explore, but when word without consequence or incident. These freedoms are often denied to children living in poverty has nine seconds in daily without the survival and questions about their next meal, safety or housing. Concerned that they may never speak aloud. My grandfathers house was a welcome respite in the chaos and unpredictability in the heels of the duplex. There were no fights, rats are out of control women banging on our door at odd hours of the night. For the first time, my brother and i had the space to be children. We played jacks, marbles and barbies and listen to new addition. Michael jackson and Stevie Wonder on my grandfathers record player in our living room. Join the girl scouts as a brownie. Once a week a hippie looking woman with long blonde hair picked me up in a rusty flatbed truck and took me to the brownie meetings in an old church across town. Im not sure if it was my mothers idea for mine that i become a member, but it never quite understood what was going on or what we were supposed to be doing there. Collecting badges, making pledges, selling cookies. I just did not get it. I was one of two black rose and the large troops in felt out of place. To make matters worse him a while to play jump rope during one of the meetings, the other micropunched me, punch me out for not allowing her to have to turn in a row. It was my first bite and i have lost. I did not understand how she could be so angry with me when we were the only two there who vote like us. In my young mind i had dirty made peace with the way girls that wanted to play with me. I was different from them. My hair was spongy, not bond or stringy. I do not live in their neighborhood or listen to the same music. They were strange to me too. However, i could not figure her, the black ones out. Why did she want to be my friend . Why is hopped out of the side of the chart that are meeting i decided i had enough and with never going back. A couple weeks prior i suffered through a Slumber Party where no one talked to me. Ask me to brush their hair or offered to brush mine. This was not the type of sisterhood. My mother did not question my decision or ask why i decided to quit. The following week when the hippies honked their horns outside of our home for me to come out, my mother waved her off and told her that i would not be back. The last piece that i will read this from the chat entitled wedding day. I was fired she said quietly. Her neck crane out of the car door she pulled into our driveway. She had been employed from a few weeks enough work for a young white lawyer in los angeles. Why i asked puzzled why her announcement. He tried to hit on me and i told him i wasnt into that so i quit. The word swirled like a small tornado in my head. It did not make sense to me. Did she really quit because she refused to have with her boss. Bosses really do that . I believe trade body was a. Later i found out the worst ive had had called my mother made. I made. When she saw her vacuuming the office. She did not approve of his higherend, such an attractive aid and demanded she be fired and he complied. Telling me initially that he had on her was her way of hiding the humiliation of powerless miss sheep out for being fire so abrupt way. Even in her shame, she was said to have created a world that was uncomplicated at the messiness of racism, passes them and in this instance, sexism. After about six months of searching for work, my mother returned to the college where she received a paralegal certificate and demanded clarification on its value. She had taken up thousands of dollars with a student filed a needed them to pony up on their job guarantee. As reinforcement, she took along with anothers event he took along with her anothers dude who had also had a hard time finding a job. After being brushed off as several Different College officials committed to threaten to file file a complaint against the college with the Better Business hero or whomever else they could think of in that moment. Fearing their country would be blown, the college regained their debt in exchange for this finding a nondisclosure agreement and just like that, my mother was unemployed, without a degree am back to square one. Thank you. [applause] now please welcome vanessa de luca and c. Nicole mason. [cheers and applause] good evening, everyone. Hello, hello. I am really happy to be here. Hey, charlie. I just wanted to say thank you to my aj, marie brown. I dont know where she is. The legendary marie brown for believing in me. There she is in the back and my research and my story from the very start and i just wanted to give a shout out to thank ms. Units who are here. I dont know where they are. Paris, john may come make your sin. They are here somewhere is still always this best and brightest women in the room. So i wanted to thank them before i got started. Thats wonderful. This is really truly stunning memoir and we are going to spend the next hour just kind of x or in a little bit more deeply and talking about basically what prompted you in from tel aviv to tell use tories. Well have a little time for q a and then you are going to treat us to your own breeding from the work. So lets jump right in. I have to tell you that this statistic that you put in the book literally stopped me in this book. That is 47 Million People in the United States live in poverty. Not surprisingly or maybe it should be but its not, highest among blacks, latinos and fema out of household. So when you introduce the book, use a the poor girl in me wants to explain why we dont all make it out. So i would love for you to talk about why did you want to write a book that exposes so much of kind of where you came from, how you begin because telling people that you grew up in poverty as you mentioned as the reading isnt easy. So why give you the courage to do it . Well, really want to tell a different story about poverty and a different story about my communities and the people who lived in them. I think there is a narrative to hear it all the time if you work hard enough to make it to the top. Barack obamas second speech he pretty much says that. Even when people say that, i feel really uncomfortable because i know thats not the true because only a small portion of people born into poverty ever make it to the middle class or to the top. So i really wanted to make an intervention and tell us tori that we are not only give life to what i know to be true, but also disrupt the damage a narrative that we see all the time circulating in the popular media and culture. Did you have any kind of fear or worries are concerned about kind of digging into your story and talking about your past . Guest so, there are two things that the first concern i had was with how the story would be interpreted. Even early on when i did a work in progress film, one of the other professors told me to this site instead you really need to be careful about this affect people, even though you may say about her but it through their own minds. Thats stuck with me when i was writing because i wanted to just be honest and tell the truth, they really cant defend about how the story would be interpreted as other people. You know, it has. You know, readers pick what they will send the story in some instances have had to push back on interviews when they interpret the story. You know, your poor growth from your mother was a teenage mother. They feel like theyve heard the story without even reading the book. So i think that is problematic. The second thing i worried about was my family and how they would read the book. I was very clear that i with my academic training could tell the story they couldnt. Even if they didnt agree with me, the possibility of them writing another book, the true book was pretty slim. So in the back of my head when i was writing the book, i had to think about what will my brothers say . What will my mother say . Is it something that will hurt them . Will they say its not true . So as i was writing, and i was cognizant of all those things. You also said he spent a lot of time interviewing people, kind of going back in talking to people from your past about what they remembered and how they remembered it and that kind of help you as you are shaping the memoir. Absolutely. So i interviewed my mom, my family members, my cousin, old veterans. I went to my Old Neighborhood when outsiders sold it and went and visited the apartment complex, the first one that i heard. It was really jarring. The stuff that i thought hadnt impacted me when i saw, for example, the first Apartment Building and clothing lines hanging from apartment to apartment. I said wow, this is my first home. I fell down the stairs on my tricycle. You know, those kinds of memories. Was it the way you remember it or you had a different vision in your head . You know, sometimes people dont believe me that i didnt know i was poor grow in a period that Apartment Building was amazing to me when i was growing up. Its where we lived. Thats where all my friends were. We had dance contest and it was very late. When i went back today i said wow, there is nothing here. There were no flowers. The paint was peeling. Like i said there was clotheslined. Now this is where poor people live. I think even having that land to be able to contextualize next year is growing up is one i dont think we get to hear when stories are told. Host did you encounter a lot of people still there but it had been years obviously here is that god i think the Old Neighborhood or at their neighborhood. Did you happen upon people . My neighborhood that i grew up in High School Like smoke to my friends still there so when i go home its like a homecoming. Im not cold. So we just sit down and play spades or do whatever record to do. When i went back to the first home, what happened and what i know to be true, i came there snapping pictures and people were looking at me like i was an alien, like they did not belong. I felt bad because that is what happens when you people you dont know coming to your neighborhood. I had to say ive lived here when i was five years old and it was too latina women so they started talking to each other and then i guess it was okay. You know, thats what happened. That kind of dynamic for a start snapping pictures of the people in the neighborhood dont feel empowered to say what are you doing here . I know now in other neighborhoods where they can somebody will say what are you doing here . If that makes sense. It does. But that your family. So you talk to your mom. Utah dear brothers. My father, my mother and father gave me the same story, different facts. Im going to have to take a middle ground here. Anything that is because everybody was using around that they were seeing their story like my brother when i interviewed him, i said why do you think it is that mom and i had a difficult relationship . I wanted to hear what he had to say. He said, you know, i think you thought you were smarter than her. And i was like thats not my interpretation of what i thought was a problem. You know, so some of this stuff is really hard to hear and internalize. When i was writing, i said okay heres how i see it that the information other people are giving me about the same story that i also need to include to have a more accurate telling of the story. He thought i was really outspoken so i imagine myself as really quite enormous big enough when necessary. You know how all of us imagine ourselves. To start when there wont be none, but if there is i will bring it. That is kind of i saw myself. With all of these when you tell the families worry, not just your war story, it must be hard to figure out what am i going to include, what am i not going to include and what makes sense and what doesnt make sense. They put all these pieces together. I actually sat down and started writing, it didnt take long. It took me about a year to even come to grips with always happening. When i first started out, it was a straight policy book because im a policy person. I was going to tell this very subject of hard facts, these are the things. The publisher saw one thing out why wrote a couple lines were thats more interesting and it will be easier because its your story. He was actually super hard and i cried literally every day writing the story. Sundays i couldnt write because the memory was so hard if that makes sense. To go back and reckoned with what i need to be true, what happens to me, what happens to my mother and just to share. She was a think the hardest person to write about. My mother was the hardest person to write about because we had a complicated relationship. Very quickly when i first started writing the book, i sent my editor the first chap your end it was really harsh on my mother. She sent it out and she said no, maam. You are not going to do this to her. I was like what, its a good chapter. It pulls people in. Its juicy. But she said no, you are not at her. Shes that you need to look for intelligent for his story. It prompted me to go back and think about my mother in her life in a different way so when you read the book you get to see my mother is a very complicated multidimensional person. So im assuming shes read the book. Your whole family has read the book. Well, let me just say, you know, i was intent on not letting them read it before it got to where there could be no changes. What should be included, that did not happen. I didnt want their voices in my head when i was writing. Finally i gave her to my mom to breathe. I was stunned. I was stunned that the first draft for after a few drafts. She started reading it and she said, you know, i laughed and i cried. She said but its ultimately your story to tell. I may not agree with your eyes and how you see things but its your story to tell. I call her back she had a few pages left in the book and i said to she finished the book . She said no. My mother is really fiery and feisty. I said well why . Because youre a liar. So a guy named to this tussle over the phone. But i could tell she is just like what she doesnt think sitting in the garage talking. So we got into this thing about my truth versus nurture it and shes like i i dont agree with this. So it was a really hard conversation. And so i think she took upnow, like it is not yours or its a towel. And so, weve still been in conversation about it and my brother has a copy and my father has read it and my grandmother. But i actually have to say that i have been relied to phone home because they have read that, you know. They are seeing themselves. So im sure they have a little beef. Youll just work through that. Im going to work through it. Lets talk about the title of the book, born bright. You are claiming that. You are owning that you were born bright. Well, yes. Select the title when i came up when i was thinking about the title, i wanted something that i believe to be true and the fact that i believe we are all born bright. If the things that happened to us along the way that kind of dimmer light. Some of us burn to reignite ourselves in so ive really wanted that to be true and have a conversation about what makes people go dark. What makes young girls go dark and then got a lot of pushback about who do you think you are because it was literal. Who do you think you are to say you were born bright. I was like you know, give me a break, whatever. What was the issue . That is added air again . Yeah, i think thats it. Some people think like this is a bootstrap story. When people pick it up they think this is another one of those stories weve seen that has a lot of currency today around if you work hard enough, you can make it. When you read the book, that is not what this book is about. This is about a very complicated story of a community of people of my life, of microhood. So it is not that story. I think that story has a lot more current to the end values than the story does. Also i think what is true here as the protagonist are all black women. We dont see that it even if we see a story, its likely that the protagonists, the savior is not a person of color are not a black woman. One thing i think thats really enters and is this is a story that is centered in the black community and around the black experience. Okay. You also mention when we talk earlier that there were people who even had an issue, a friend of yours who had an issue with you even writing this story because it wasnt really true. There are some things people find hard to believe. Ive never been to a middleclass neighborhood until college. People are like how is that possible . I said well i never have seen like middleclass people until i got to howard. People are like how is that possible . It is easy. If you live in l. A. Or wherever u. S. A. , geographic isolation is real. The people in your neighborhood or who use it. It is possible to not see a middleclass black person. The only way people use here the way way teachers in your classroom. Or when you go to girl scouts or Something Like that. Pushing back on, you know, even as a black middleclass person today, pushing back on those narratives about who gets to be black and what does it look like and what do you. Is. So there are also these early moments of joy where Community Come true where people are proud of you and they are rooting for you and want you to be successful, so we hold that at the same time even in the went on about family, so families up place of love, but it can also be a place that is not safe and how do we talk about those things simultaneously nitrate to do that in the book without passing judgment and telling you how to see and interpret and whats happening . Host you mentioned earlier that you like everyone is born bright. It is something that is possible for everyone, but i do think it reading the book that you feel the sense of resilience that you have to whatever messages were being thrown at you like, you know, all kinds of outside influences that made you say, okay yeah, you can think that, but im not really going to internalize that. On going to keep moving. There is something about the way that you took in what was, you know, the life that didnt wasnt trying to say you didnt take in the negative. You just kept going. Do you know what, i mean . Guest again, i think is one of those things you kind of hold, so i did internalize it. You cant help internalize all the messages youre getting from everywhere that says you are black, you know, you grew up in la with a teenage mom and its hard to not take those things in and absorb them, but the thing is, well, what i do that . So, if you like i have always been a difficult child, so this is kind of an extension of like im going to do what i want to do anyway and i think one of the things that we except for kids that grow up in poverty is to read this grits. I dont know if you guys are into this great conversation, so we expect everything to fail around kids and what they have this enormous grit to overcome and i say what we have black and brown poor people and expected from these kids and no other kids and wanting to push back on that narrative because i think that there was some greedy kid to did not make it in so to say if you grit and per civilians and you are resilient, you will make it out, i think to tell black and brown kids thats what they need is a mistake. Host lets shift gears a bit because you, you know, in the book, one of the driving games is this tension between the community and the systems put in place to supposedly help. Theres unconscious bias that shows itself in different ways. Talk about that a bit more to kind of some of the incidences in your life where you have experienced or seen or witnessed that unconscious bias and how it made you feel. Guest i think that i think in the book i say like in poor peoples lives three systems are always present, the criminal lives kernel system, educational system and social efforts and premuch they all cause more harm than good and poor peoples eyes. So, what that means is that the systems work that are supposed to help and protect her doing the exact opposite and so early on i learned, for example, not to trust the police. I mean, you know, if you are bad police will come get you, you know crazy stuff that you should not tell kids. So, when people worry about or ask where the mic mistrust of Law Enforcement by bat black people, it comes at it very early age because at least for poor people because people are not there to protect her and help you, but now or even, you know, so and so when people wonder about when why people dont understand for example why black people are free to police, its because they dont have that kind of historic relationship with police , so again in the book i try to complicate an answer these questions about why. I talk about, for example, where there is a woman who is raped in the police, and instead of arresting the perpetrator they just hold his hand, he beats her up and they go their separate ways. Stunning. I mean, host how does it feel to be on the receiving end of systems that really dont give you agencies in determining your own place, way of being . Guest while, i mean, i think that in the beginning i talk about the fact that i was a twin , so i have a twin sister, but because my mother was poor and black they never went to the doctors appointment and never and no one told us she was having twins and after she had the baby one died and they did not even tell us anything about what happened i mean there was no conversation its just hear your one baby, good for you. You cant take good care of this one, so we dont even care and it wasnt until i started writing the book i had to go back and ask her about this story because i had gotten bits and pieces and she was still torn up about it, but you have to think like what if she had not been poor. What if she had Quality Insurance or what if the people did not see her as a young teenage, poor, black girl . You know . So you have to think about those things. Im thinking about those things when i was writing. Host you know, you talk about toys theme of the book you talk about going to college and how you realized there were a lot of things that you had missed out on kind of early on leading up to your time going to college that to you felt like you were prepared, but then as soon kind of came realization that they be you are not issue that you are and so did you have a feeling of disappointment, anger, indignation, when she realized i didnt get what everyone else seemed to have gotten, how did that make you feel . Guest well, so there is a chapter called seen with only these eyes. I really grappled with this idea that i can only see what i can see and thats true for everyone, so my experience i did not know, for example, that schools across town had more money, resources, the worst preparing kids for harvard and columbia, you know . I had no idea, and then when i go to howard and i see and find out that actually theres a whole parallel system at work and you are not supposed to be here. Frankly, you are not supposed to see this. That made me really angry because i knew that we were being set up like our schools were never supposed to succeed coming out of those schools. Its a lie. Like you are lying to us that was really painful and so when i say that poor girl wants to tell the story about like why we dont make it out, that is it. I want to say like you are lying. You need to be held accountable and we need to really talk about whats going on and that inequities in whats happening to girls like me. Host do you worry at all about the fact that, you know, in telling these real truths about the experience that those folks you used it to talk in front of at the very beginning of the book and you basically kind of came out and said well i am the people that i am in person, do you worry that now those audiences wont be as receptive now that you are really telling the truth of your experience . Guest you know, i think its very complicated. So, the one hand when im in these rooms and its mostly white men a few white women and i have been in plenty of roundtables recently where they will talk about poor black women, really and i dont know where the get these stories from because its like, i dont understand how they make it. She would have to work like they have these grand fantasies and i like who are you talking about and i think it makes them uncomfortable and immediately they go to their training. Well, i was here. I was there. I did this and i say no, no, no, no, youre not used to having someone here who says thats not okay, thats not accurate. Host you mean like Training Field worker research . Guest well coming out well, someone from tampa did this study, so you know, it must be right, like that, you know . I dont care if jesus did this study, its not accurate. No. So, that makes people uncomfortable because you are disrupting their narratives. Sometimes youre hurting their funding, so all these things come into play. Host yet the story, you still see two i continue to tell the story because its my truth and i think its easy to sort of push the can down the road and one of the things i wanted to do was say im not willing to push the can down this road anymore and so i will tell the story, but i want to say even when i tell this different story people come back to the original story they know and try to tell that story. Host okay, give me an example. Guest i cant give you real example because [inaudible] guest hypothetically there was a review that came out and the review they sent it to me and said another good review and i started to read these things carefully because sometimes stuff makes sense, so host they who . Who sent it to you . Guest publisher, set another great review, so lets file this away, so i said except for they called my brother a petty thieving gang banger and thats not in the book at all. Host never used that language is. Guest never used that language, but its the imagination going wild and as though she said yeah, i saw that. I was like why didnt you Say Something and so host why didnt she Say Something. Guest she didnt see the kid. You know, im going to talk to them. So, they made the correction, but if i had not pushed along there wouldve been this perception of my brother as this thing that i never even said, not even close to it, so there are things like that. Host of course. You know, i went to go back to talking about usa family storyteller. As you were writing and thinking about come i want to get to kind of like the emotion of grappling with telling a story that people might not agree with, but then you have got to tell it anyway, like how did you push bash past those moments. You said you cried a lot , like how did you get through that . Theres a lot of people who would love to tell her story, you know, love to do you did, but it always stops people is that you know, the emotion of it all and so there mustve been a certain point where you were able to just get past that. Headed you do it . Guest i really didnt get past it. I just kept writing, so even if i needed to take a break for a day or two because sometimes it was a week and i had a deadline and i would say i cant write because this memory is swirling around in my head and its too heavy, so i need to sit down for a little while and that was true. Then, i i had some really good friends who read the book as i was writing and i would leave out something and they would say you cant leave that out. You have two tell this because if you dont say this then they want to understand why this happened. Host they to accountable. Guest they kept me accountable, but even when i pushed back, they said you had to tell this for me and then say whatever or, you know, you just said someone had i would have go back and dig deeper into my own well and, you know, try to tell its more fully and i think that was probably the most difficult thing and again, trying to say nonjudgmental and again particularly with the writing of my mother and our relationship. Host that takes a lot of guts to talk about your mom, i mean, we tended not to challenge or, you know, we want everyone to think the best of our mom i mean, you know. Moms law mom. We love mom, so guest i mean, i dont know what white mom coming i dont know how taboo it is over there, but like black moms are like here in everyone elses kind of here. Host yes. Guest so, like you dont mean their Something Like you dont talk about her mother like in a negative way, so its all like sunday dinners and like the good times in all of these things and so to say lets me pull back the layering tell you about the comp are kidded relationship with a black mother, where she is flawed and beautiful at the same time, scrappy, abusive, you know, all of these things and then some time splashes of love, but you are still yearning and wanting the love and how do you tell that story about the black mother and not be vilified and so i try to do my best in telling, writing the story that my mother to say i want you to understand her, also. I think people kind of walk away with like, damn, but i know her and thats what i wanted. Host now, since you have become a mom, hasnt been easier to understand some of the ways that your mom contracted with you, some of the decisions she made that, you know, have to make . Do you look at it differently . Do you have a different perspective on motherhood now that you are a mom . Guest well, i think children i have a set of 6year old twins, charlie and parker. Hey. All right, calmed down, calm down. I think that i spent most of my life been estranged, so one i am from la. I left la and 94 to come to howard and i was like im never going back and so i have had a very, you know, when i go home its for short periods of time and i can go a year without going home or whatever, but when i have the kids i had to try to think about like my mother is a mother and i had to think of my father as a father and i remember calling him one time and saying, Something Like how could you leave us because now i know what its like to have two kids who are looking for you for love and care that he really didnt have any answer. So, really trying to grapple with my childhood hurt and wounds and trying to raise kids that are healthy and whole, you know, israel is real. Host we talked about this at earlier and i really want you to give the answer that you gave me earlier and that is, do you feel that the adults in your life should have been held for more countable or should be held accountable for some of the things that happened to you or did not happen, some opportunities you did not get to have . Like im thinking about the example of, you wanted to participate in something. It wasnt the drill team , it was Something Else and your mom said no. Guest know, sometimes its arbitrary, you know, yes or no. Like i just think that at the time it would be really hard for me to say that i felt like they should have been held accountable because then theres nothing to be held accountable to. It was just our life, if that makes sense, so the choices she was making i can understand them as wrong or right because she was my mother, so whatever she said was right was right. Years later, today, you know i can say those are different choices than i would have made, but im not my mother. She is making these constrained choices that thankfully i dont have to make and had two children to feed and so i try not to think in terms of accountability or what theyll me and rather i try to think about how tough it must have been to be 16 and 17 with limited education and have two mouths to feed and want a party. Might father is still a partier. Like i see your whole narrative, you just want to have fun and that is true for him today, so i imagine it was true for him when he was 16 with two kids or 17 with two kids and i think about myself at 16 or 17. About enormous response ability see one i think its so interesting how you are able to and that comes through clearly in the book never once is their judgment forced upon any of the characters in the story. Its just kind of like this is how it was and its up to you as the reader to interpret it however you see it. That was intentional. Guest i mean, again i tried to write the angry book first. But, i really in the and decided i wanted to tell this whole story of the people in my life including mail it my aunt who is an amazing woman, very complex and a strong women and not judge them and not place my academic intellectual what i know to be true now and try to insert that into that narrative then. Because it wasnt true then, so like when my mom even when i interviewed her or even when she found out when she did not like the book that much issue started running around the family because this is what people do saying she is calling us poor. [laughter] guest and i was like but, we were poor and shes like no, no, no, we were not and im like maam, but its true i didnt think we were poor then and she still doesnt think shes poor today and so thats really hard, but its also the truth. Host what are the things you hope people take away from reading the book . Guest one of the things i have been really grateful about in terms of the book is the reception like people see themselves in the story and even when i talk about myself i dont you know, on the protagonist, but also not without my own flaws and i think thats a good thing. Im not separate from my family or community. Im in the midst of it as well and experiencing in alongside them and so when black women and black girls in particular say i see myself or ac like thats funny or we all know or Something Like that, and it makes me feel good, so what i hope is that for black women and black girls and black communities that we see ourselves in the book at the National Level with the people i deal with in terms of my work, i want them to stop telling lies about us. Thats really what i want. A want them to not lie about my family my community and so im hoping that it shifts the narrative little bit host i think now would be a good time to open up for some questions from the audience. There are microphones in the back. You are welcome to come to the microphone. Share your thoughts with us. Host should we start to the right here and go back . Yes . Hey, nicole. Guest hello. First of all, thank you so much. I have finished the book and it has uncanny similarity. I feel like we had the same childhood. Guest see. Its crazy. In fact, today like i dont even know what that means. You have read my life with someone elses story. I dont think ive ever felt that, but i wanted to say thank you, but i dont know what that means, but we can process later. The question i have for you is related to your last point, which i totally feel you and feel the tension in trying to tell a story about what was true the time and the coping stories that people telling a family about the exact same situation in a very different ways and that when you circulate a story that feels more true comprehensive, fuller, complex that they might reject it and get at the same time you are trying to correct a story on another level that is often related to funding and therefore highly motivated to also disagree with you, so what is it like to be squeezed onto sides by those who have an investment in telling a different story and what do you now feel is the value or need to tell a story that doesnt do either of those two things, either that kind of coping strategy story or the funding story, if that works as a question , but i feel the squeeze personally and i wonder if you have some insight now that the book is out about what you think the story is doing. Even though some may push back against it and maybe people like me where thats part of the answer that a lot of people come out of the woodwork to affirm it, but even thats a comment, but thank you. Guest thank you. So, with my family can, thats why i have not called home is that they are having conversations between them about the book and i want them to have those conversations without me feeling like i had to defend what i wrote on page whatever. Host do you think at a certain point they will work through whatever that is before you get to talk to them or do you think you will still have to guest im going to have to defend it. Im just not ready yet and i know that to be true. My father keeps calling and i keep pressing send i feel like at some point im going to have to reckon with this because they have their own versions of the story, so part i feel there will try to tell me their story to correct me and convince me that my story is not that correct to story. I think for my father, in particular, who has spent a lot of time talking about when your mother did this and i was like sir, do you know yourself, i mean, like who do you think you were in this story. Host more focused on her. Guest shes going to hate this and he had a lot of feelings about how she was going to feel and i think he had not thought about what i was going to write about him. [laughter] guest so come i feel like because he never gave me any space when we would try to ask him questions about like where were you what was going on he would just shut the conversation down and so with that the book he cannot shut the conversation down. He has to see himself and i think that may be hard for you know a lot of people in the book except my grandmother, who i love. [laughter] host the other part of the question was how you kind of guest the funding people . Host yeah, this narrative does not agree with the common conventional. Guest i think whats disheartening for me is that there is a way of silencing this and these voices because we know it, we talk about it and say it, but it does not fit with the narrative there is a way up black folly, closing the door that happens to us and so being prepared for that and then there is theres been many who have said we need this or this helps us tell a different story, but those people who were already on the right path anyway like they were pretty progressive and they have progressive politics. We are talking about the mega institutions and think tanks they really control the narrative and have investments in the way that we are portrayed. Host question here to make good afternoon, nicole. On to say thank you first of all for sharing your story. Im also from Southern California and grew up in the poverty line and so many aspects of your story resonate with. s i want to say thank you. Currently im working with a Nonprofit Organization that hosts leadership academies for young black girls and people come from all of the United States and they are able to get into these spaces where they can talk about a lot of the traumas and silencing that happens in our communities and i just want to know what type of advice would you give to the young black girl then, you know, students at the university. Constantly being silenced about our experiences growing up in poverty and so what advice would you give to young black girls who are used to being silent about these issues and how do we push back against these structures both outside of our homes, but also in our Community Spaces where even where you can have a dialogue with mother or an uncle or someone and you want to hold them accountable, but they want to say that you did not experience what you experience or they want to say that, you know, perhaps it did not happen that way. Had a young black girls find that voice for themselves to push back . Guest well, it reminds me when toni Ravel Morrison im not going to get it right this moment, but i did that the function of racism is that they tell you guys, you know, your head it looks like this so you set out to prove that your head does not look like a sore and i think, you know, there is always some rationale about why your story is not the right story and so he set about trying to prove this is the right story and what i have decided for myself is that i dont have anything to prove. I dont have to prove my humanity or prove my story is true. It just is and i think that is a breach that we carry in terms of defending and trying to reassert our humanity to people who dont see us as humans. Just refusing to do that anymore. I dont know if thats helpful, but in terms of working with little girls, the same thing. Having them see who they are. Host you can give yourself permission to make that decision , that you dont have to feed into whatever, anyones narrative if it doesnt agree with your own. Guest yeah, i mean, dont tell me how to interpret my experiences. Hello. To be honest with you, i have not read the book. I just strolled in today and i was like whats going on, okay. And im like so happy and thankful that i came in today because im still going through it and like i have really been searching for a story like this in my experience in terms of like how ive been silenced, i was assigned female at birth, like im like gender fluid and whatnot, but if silva resonates with me about like what you spoke about in terms of like the mask that you are because i feel like i have been on my own from like a early age, so ive always had to deal with being the youngest person and the only black person in a workplace because im specifically doing like art and Museum Studies and things like that, but one thing you touched on that i wanted to i was hoping you could expand on is when you had mentioned about why youd titled your book born bright and i was hoping you could talk more about how you found the ability to like love and nurture the little black girl inside of you in a society and i guess neighborhood like everything around where like black little girls are not cared for, not shown love, respect or anything like that. How were you able to do that into adulthood and what advice do you have for little black girls like little poor black girls going through it and people who have had that experience of the race as a poor little black girl cracks how they can . Have a from themselves and even when their family does not affirm that c2 guest what do i want to say to that . I feel like its just work. I mean, i cant say anything else, you know. People say black women like all black women have like high selfesteem, we love our bodies, we know love our hair. Host the studies. Guest the only thing i want to say is like how can we without doing work, how can that be true given all of the images that we are bombarded with that tell us we are not beautiful both within our community and outside of our community and its only by the with the love of other black women that we are affirmed like so for me the people who affirmed me and which i think is true in the book are all black women and so this idea, the narrative that is circulating that black women dont love other black women are when i hear black women say i dont have female friends because. First about when they say female i know they are in trouble. You know what, i mean . Female. You know. Female be tripping, you know. I just push back and say thats not true. It is the love of black women that we are all sustained, other black women, you know. To say first that you are so beautiful in person. When you walked out on stage i was like wow and you are so funny, also. Think youre very funny. Guest see. Isnt she funny . So, i have had the opportunity to read some of your book and i have really been enjoying it and enjoying the way you insert some of the factual information along with your factual personal information and i was thinking about selfdirected girls, strongwilled girls and it sounds like maybe you are kind of strongwilled and how that might have impacted the relationship you have with your mom and i was wondering if you have thought about that since your children that you are raising and more generally how society deals with girls and particularly black girls who are selfdirected or strongwilled who, you know, for white boys who grow up at a marker of leadership, but when black girls are strongwilled or selfdirected we try to squash that and confine it and i was wondering if you have any thoughts about that . Guest well, sometimes i think we squash and other times people try to squash it or kill it in as. Guest i think i just feel like if i were not strongwilled i would not be here today. If i will did not push back and asked to go to the library am asked to write my skateboard, five my brother i mean like all of those things that little girls are not supposed to do i would not be here today in and i i believe it is a formula that works for me and so with my daughter, my own daughter i try to allow her to not distinguish that in her. Like be strong. She doesnt have to be a fighter in the way i was a fighter, but she can assert herself in the powerful and, you know, i just dont think theres a lot of space in this world for strongwilled black women, but we are expected to be strong, so thats the rub. We are expected to be strong and take a lot of everything. Host thats the stereotype. Guest but, we do. Is a stereotype, but it is rooted in truth because we are the ones when people leave we are the ones taking care of the family and juggling a lot, so we are strong, but the idea that its used against us or when people if we dont use it to benefit them, you know, thats when the problem comes in. That evening. Thank you so much and good evening to you. I am suffering a little from the allergies. Please excuse my voice. I did not read the book yet, but i look forward to reading more. Im 62 years of age and coming on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement i would not even know where to begin to write a book because i would have so many chapters. One of the things i grew up with was first of all extended family, so there is so much generational stuff that i see thats worthy of probably discussion and, you know, at some point because we had people that lived with us, all the relatives from the south. We were at the new york people, but now the younger generation, about a generation to removed started a family reunion, so its interesting. I can relate so much of what you are saying ms. Mason because when we talk about our family because family reunions they tend to start to talk about granddaddy ended this and that, so my grandfather was a sharecropper, so thats what i say, but my sister says, shes 14 months younger than me, granddaddy owned his own land, and mike cousin claudine would say the same thing, so there is a way we see our family and thats really somewhat different. My brother doesnt really talk about it at all. Then, i will just make one other comment. This is really touching to me. Im a speech language pathologists. I retired from the department of education and a still on occasion will do work. When i was studying at nyu, which is where i received my masters in speech line which pathology i was at my mothers house because my daughter i went back to school later and she was like two years old and my daughter was, you know, she would take care of her and my mother would come up at 5 00 a. M. And my mother watched me study so hard for a test that i was trying to pass and it took me seven times to bash the National Exam host im going ask you to please thank you so much. Im sorry, so she said i just want to make a comment on what doctor mason was saying. She said my mother said its so, its you did not go to the best of schools coming out of, you know, the city out of the projects, so i wanted to make that point that it made me few bad that my mother seemed to feel bad, so i told my mother dont feel that its not your fault, so that was just something that touch me, you know about that. Guest there are moments in the book where you said your mom dont feel that its okay see to it its not your fault, you. Im going to ask of these next, it looks like there are three questions and if you could all be distinct. Thank you. I just want to say thank you very much. I think like a lotta people in the audience i share a similar background and its refreshing to see such a discussion on this. My question is, to what extent what do you think it takes to bring about real change in particular in your role within the policymaking arena and in particular in terms of using progressive white middleclass people on this because i think in terms of the progressive part, there is in and for the most progressive people there is a net next stage of enlightenment and still often people come to events like this and we leave here and engage on an intellectual level and talk about it, but at the end of the day where we send our kids to school is a different decision, so i would like to know that progressive segment in terms of your role work in the policy agreement. What you think it takes to bring about change . I think im just going to add in, i think it takes people from lower socio ethnic socioeconomic backgrounds to be in the arena because they bring on that perspective thank you. Guest id agree with you. I think its about shifting the narrative, changing the narrative, changing who is in the room. I think there is also a Real Investments in the stories, peoples jobs are tied to this poverty narrative. So, if your livelihood, the way you get paid is by perpetuating the story like that is why you have a job, then you keep those narratives moving. So, until we disrupt these systems that are predicated or built on the fact of poor black people than nothing will change and its easy to not to live in your neighborhood and live in isolation and not see whats going on. Its easy. Its easy. Im going to ask these last two questions to ask them one after the next and then you can answer both of them. Hello. Want to thank ms. Mason for her book. Also, want to thank you for empowering me to pass this on to my granddaughter her car was going to bring her here, but i was not sure. Question. I want to reiterate something you said earlier, why do you think a publisher would sabotage the credibility of your book . Guest a publisher . Well, i understood that there was a comment that was not true. Host see, this is how stuff gets started. Guest it was not the publisher. It was innocuous. I went to be very clear because a lot of this stuff goes under, you know, underneath the radar. I dont think the person who wrote it was being vicious, but her imagination at work about by people and black families. She is probably the only person who read the book in they were like okay. Host so, interpretation cannot be within the reader, but that person reviewing it can also have unintentionally filter, you know. Guest add a stuff. [laughter] good evening, nicole. Guest hey, read a. Im so excited to be here. I was also delighted that charlene opened reading and i was curious, how do you think when you think about and you see and are witnessing leaders like charlene and others across the country who are leading with unapologetically black, clear, feminists lamb, had easy see the interact with your book with the work that you are doing to shift the narratives as well as how do you think that is playing out in helping women and girls to see that light that you talked about when you are talking up the title and also touch on these policies that are explicitly there to dim the lights and extinguish it . Guest i was very inviting charlie was very intentional because i wanted to make that connection between the work that i believe is so important thats happening, but also all the other activists and organizers and the book in my story and this is my contribution to that work. It is my song. Is my intervention and hoping that it will be used as a way to shifts this larger narrative and i understand that i wrote this in an article with ayesha and writing this was a political act is a feminists i know the power of words, so there is nothing that is not intentional, so when you talk about what stories were left out what stories were included, i was very intentional about the stories i included, even the stories that were painful to write about because i know the power of those stores in those words. Host thank you so much for your questions. Do you have anything you want to add, vanessa . Host no. I thought we should read guest okay. Ethical comes to the podium to read a passage from her book i want to let you know that we do have the book for sale in a bookshop and there will be a book signing afterwards. Guest okay, so the chapter on going to read from is the last chapter, which is called i will fly away. Where to, Howard University washington dc do you know where that is and how to get their . She smirked and turned towards the large trunk stacked next to the curb is this all you have . Did she not hear me, i wondered and raise my voice, do you know how to get there. I had never ridden in a cab before and i was not sure i trusted him. Yeah, why do he finally answered. Its about 45 minutes away from here. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was almost there. Heat load my things into the trunk, slammed it shut and set the meter. I only had 20 and hope the trip would not be too costly. Its all i had. Where you from . California. What part. He seemed interested. I hesitated. I do not want to say. Where was i from . I suppose all over. I lived no place in particular for any length of time. A wanted to say inglewood. It was the last place i felt a home and safe in my body. Southern california, i responded. Like where, la . Yes. Our eyes met and the rearview mirror. This guy was beginning to annoy me. I just wanted to take him a new environment, the contour, wrote, names of the cities, the signs overhead, the license plates and the people zooming by their cars. All around, i replied savvy hoping he would get the hint. I turned towards the window. I had never seen trees so green and lush. They scraped the sick guy in the clouds. I was in amazement of this new city. Are you sure youre going to the right direction i asked as he made a right onto georgia avenue. It did not look like i imagine. The neighborhood was like my back home. Okay, we all know. [laughter] nondescript can be in stores, men hanging out on the corners, restaurants spread along the block. I was expecting it to be fancy like the weighted logo on the letterhead of the acceptance letter. Yes, this is it. Know what you are expecting . No, i just thought you know. He interrupted me, around the campus is a little rough, but locals dont like the students that much either, never have. They think you all are you know, he put a finger to his nose and smashed it upwards. A little snobby, he chuckled to dont worry about it. You will be fine. What the hell is he talking about, snobby . How can black people look down on other blacks . It to did not make sense to me. I waved my hand dismissively in the air. On going to the food hall, two to 54th street northwest. I directed him from the brown paper sent to me by the university and it also had ms. Bowmans home number scribbled on the bottom. The cab driver made a right and then a left and another right down a narrow street. Whats going on, i asked. People are unloading. Parents with their children. He waited patiently as he made his way to the front of the line. When he got close enough he parked the cabin popped open the trunk. I glanced at the meter and reached into my purse to pay him. This is heavy, he said as he pulled on the handle of the trunk. He placed it on the curb next to my other suitcase. I handed him the money. Good luck he said as he counted the money and gave me my change. Way, no help up the stairs but he was already gone. There was no way i could get the trunk and side myself. I stood there alongside myself plotting my next move and as i did id noticed something. There were parents, lots of them and they were helping their daughters on mode and climb the concrete stairs that led toward dormitory. They were laughing, hugging and snapping pictures as they prepared for their final farewell. In that moment i hearts. I was on. It never occurred to us and went to take the Cross Country flight with me or that parents did these things and knowing, not my mother or father offered to come with me. Perhaps they did not know they should have been here. This is my first trip on airplane and i have never traveled so far away from home. As my mother waved goodbye from the departure gate i assured her i would be fine and i assumed we were all coming alone. I was mistaken. I watched parents and daughters moved past me with boxes, lamps and various knickknacks. They barely noticed me and when they did it was only too asked me to clear the way. Can i leave these here while i check in asked the girls at the foot of the stairs directing traffic. Sure, just dont be too long. To give myspace to give myself space to think i decided to leave my things on the curb and check into the dorm. Whats your name . Chautauqua mason. Hello. Welcome to howard. I did not like the way she talked or sound. It was awkward. She talked quite a my neighborhood because no one ever used except for my teachers on the first day of school, but not here. I hope she did not repeat any other people standing at the table next to me had not overheard. I needed a new name and pumpkin with not suffice either. Where you from, she asked as shes flipped through the pages. California. There is a club for people from california. You should join. I suppose she was making small talk so i treated it as such. I study the top of her head it pointed down. She was bald, intentionally, it appeared to guy had never seen a woman with a close shaven head that was not ill, especially a black girl. She had chopped her beauty off and did not seem to care. When she looked back up at me her long eyelashes hit the back of her eyelids and her kid skin was creamy brown. Maybe we could be friends, i thought. You are on the fourth floor. Hears or can a copy of the house rules. No company or boys allowed in the room until after the first couple of weeks. Why did she say that . Did i look like the type to a boys in my dorm room. I was a good girl, still a virgin, much to my chagrin. Thank you as i said and walked back to the hallway and onto the streets. These black people at howard looked different than any i have ever seen. They moved with authority and were welldressed. I wore my best outfit on the plane, a black and white jumper, cream tights and jeans and now i felt not good enough almost as with i were wearing rags. All of the girls were beautiful, polished. At my Old High School i was used to being one of the only a handful of attractive smart girls and here i was lost at sea with everyone beautiful, smart and well smoking. Cars were honking and maneuvering to find a place to a mode. My things on the curb or becoming a nuisance. Excuse me, sir, can you help me take my trunk up the stairs. You was someone elses. I watched him has he unloaded his daughters luggage and took them upstairs. He looked happy to do it. Yes, i can help you. Is this all years yours . I nodded and hoped he would not change his mind. He was already sweating profusely and his white tshirt. He grabbed the long trunk by the handles on each of the sides and carried it up the stack of stairs to the elevator. He returned for my suitcase. Thank you, i said. I was grateful. I took the elevator to the fourth floor and was there i dragged my things out of the elevator down the hall to my room. There was a row of rooms on one side with a communal bathroom on the other. I peeked into the bathroom and it reminded me of a gym in the locker room at high school with the hazy mayors and brown towels. Maybe we can put some pictures up or something. My room was no different. It looked like it wanted an orphanage. It was tight with only room for a bed, desk and a chair or can switch on the air conditioner and made noise and began to hum. I moved my hand over the vet to make sure it was pushing out cold air. It was hot. Hearing voices i went into the hallway and poke my head into the room next to mine. The people in the room paused their conversation turned their attention to me. Hello, melanie and this is my dad mr. Jackson and my mom mrs. Jackson. The girl with the long hair said. Her accent was thick, southern. She reached her hand out and i shook it. My name is the code, i said im from los angeles california. I had a new name and an origin place. Becoming congested. Excuse me, can we get by . She said. Her she paused briefly to introduce herself. My name is jade. I live in the room at the end of the hall and this is my mother. They were heading to the door of a common area. Repeated my any newman. Im nicole, im from los angeles. I returned to my room began to unpack. Made the bed first and unloaded my suitcase, but my pompoms from high school on the desk. Before i left for the airport i rummaged through things at my mothers house and took them. Everybody loves cheerleaders. Theyre supposed to happy, pretty, pampered without worries. Nearly the exact opposite of my life to that point. I was done