Championing Queer Leadership and Inclusivity in Academia with Dr. Carla Stephens

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:05.988 --> 00:00:13.928
Teaching While Queer is a podcast for 2SLGBTQIA+ educational professionals to share their experiences in academia.

00:00:13.928 --> 00:00:24.000
Hi, I'm your host, Bryan Stanton, a theater pedagogue and educator in New York City, and my goal is to share stories from around the world from 2SLGBTQIA+ educators.

00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:27.030
I hope you enjoy Teaching While Queer.

00:00:27.030 --> 00:00:37.015
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Teaching While Queer.

00:00:37.015 --> 00:00:39.021
I am your host, brian Stanton.

00:00:39.021 --> 00:00:43.084
My pronouns are he/ they I'm so excited to have with me today.

00:00:43.084 --> 00:00:43.545
Dr Clar.

00:00:43.545 --> 00:00:43.545
.

00:00:45.106 --> 00:00:46.466
Dr Carla Stevens.

00:00:46.466 --> 00:00:48.308
I was going to call you Clara.

00:00:48.308 --> 00:00:49.130
That's wild.

00:00:49.130 --> 00:00:55.496
My apologies, but I'm so excited to have with me today Dr Carla Stevens.

00:00:55.496 --> 00:00:56.295
How are you doing?

00:01:01.064 --> 00:01:01.787
I am doing very well.

00:01:01.787 --> 00:01:04.358
Thank you very much, brian.

00:01:04.358 --> 00:01:15.644
I'm so happy, excited, to be here with you.

00:01:15.644 --> 00:01:26.798
I'm the director of the Bard Queer Leadership Project and you know, as we go through this podcast, you'll hear why this is such an amazing opportunity for me and a good fit for the podcast.

00:01:26.798 --> 00:01:47.213
Because the BQLP is really about LGBTQ plus youth and creating a wonderful educational experience in a nurturing environment, and it was designed in partnership with queer youth.

00:01:47.579 --> 00:02:25.580
So we're at Bard College in Simons Rock, which is in Great Barrington, massachusetts, and it's higher education, so a dual major BA program, so students can get a BA in whatever field is of their passion and then, while they're doing that, they can also have a leadership concentration and I teach some of the courses that are part of that leadership concentration.

00:02:25.580 --> 00:02:38.362
But our ultimate goal is to one day grow to be the first LGBTQ plus college within a college, and so that's that's really exciting.

00:02:38.362 --> 00:03:07.000
So, you know, in this climate where we all know that it's, you know, can be so difficult to be a queer student and, you know, to have an opportunity to have a place that's designed for queer young people, with the idea that we want to break the rainbow ceiling by flooding the world with queer leaders.

00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:14.195
That's, you know, that's what we're hoping to do I'm here for that.

00:03:14.896 --> 00:03:56.592
That just sounds so wonderful because I think, not only from a representation standpoint, but also, like for so many of us, when we were younger queer people, there wasn't this like future that was obtainable and I, when I did my undergraduate at San Diego State University, had the privilege of being one of the first people to minor in LGBTQ studies or LGBT studies at the time, studies at the time and I love that because I got to learn more about my culture and my history, which isn't taught, and so there's this whole lack of representation.

00:03:56.632 --> 00:04:27.416
And here I think that it's so wonderful that the focus is on leadership and getting people out into the world to really lead from within the queer community, because I think that outside of queer organizations people don't drop that they're a queer leader unless it's, you know, needed or if it's even tokenized, which sometimes it's like oh, look at us, good PR, wink, wink.

00:04:27.416 --> 00:04:33.050
But I love this focus on leadership.

00:04:33.050 --> 00:04:43.639
I actually recently found out about a podcast called Queer Success, I believe, and I've only listened to the first episode.

00:04:43.639 --> 00:05:23.086
But what I love about it is this person is just finding successful business people to interview who are part of the queer community and talking about like, how do you come, uh, overcome some of the things that I think we're missing as a queer culture is there is a lot of queer trauma represented in the world, but we need queer joy and we need queer success and we need queer leaders, and so I love, love, love that BART is doing that because that is so necessary.

00:05:23.107 --> 00:05:26.632
Doing that because that is so necessary it is.

00:05:26.632 --> 00:05:35.660
So I agree, we are working on our own podcast called Leading Queer.

00:05:35.660 --> 00:05:41.386
We haven't dropped it yet, but we're working on it and we've had four.

00:05:41.386 --> 00:06:02.444
We've had three so far BARD, queer Leadership Project, queer Leader Forums, and where we've brought in some amazing queer leaders to talk about their journeys, and so we're going to continue to do that.

00:06:02.444 --> 00:06:24.346
So, along with Queer Success, you're going to have another place where you'll be able to hear myself my provost is also queer have us, you know, in conversation with queer leaders in all kinds of different careers, so that's exciting.

00:06:24.346 --> 00:06:32.603
Kinds of different careers, so that's exciting.

00:06:32.603 --> 00:06:33.865
So you mentioned that.

00:06:33.865 --> 00:06:35.408
You know how important it is to kind of understand history.

00:06:35.408 --> 00:06:49.744
The four pillars of our program are actually, yes, leadership and theory and practice, but also queer history and culture, queer theory, along with career pathways.

00:06:49.744 --> 00:07:01.132
So we're trying to hit all of that for, you know, developing, or we agree that all of that is needed in developing queer leaders.

00:07:02.199 --> 00:07:03.322
Yeah, absolutely.

00:07:03.322 --> 00:07:07.630
That's wonderful Just on so many levels.

00:07:07.630 --> 00:07:09.923
So send all the queer podcasts to me people.

00:07:09.923 --> 00:07:10.747
I am here for it.

00:07:10.747 --> 00:07:18.771
I am all about amplifying queer voices and I haven't even told those folks that I'm going to talk about their podcasts because it's just brand new to me.

00:07:18.771 --> 00:07:25.574
But I love, I just love when there are positive queer voices out there spreading positivity.

00:07:25.574 --> 00:07:29.788
So, yeah, thanks for doing what you do.

00:07:29.788 --> 00:07:35.471
Yeah, so let's take a journey back in time, if you will.

00:07:35.471 --> 00:07:40.189
What was your experience like as a queer student?

00:07:41.192 --> 00:07:45.843
Okay, well, first it was, I didn't know that I was queer, so I'm old.

00:07:45.843 --> 00:07:48.504
Well, first it was, I didn't know that I was queer, so I'm old.

00:07:48.504 --> 00:07:53.327
Well, okay, I am an elder in a sense.

00:07:53.327 --> 00:08:15.127
I didn't come to my understanding of myself as queer because I grew up in a culture both you know the 60s and the you know in the time period, and because I grew up in the African American community.

00:08:15.127 --> 00:08:37.711
I grew up with one of the most important people in my life being my grandmother, who was very religious, and so I didn't even have an idea of what queerness was, let alone the fact that I was part of such a community.

00:08:37.711 --> 00:08:52.419
That took a long time, and yet I say that when I came out, all of these people kept telling me that they knew that I was queer long before I knew that I was queer.

00:08:52.419 --> 00:08:56.432
So it's really interesting.

00:08:56.840 --> 00:09:04.423
But you know, I had moments when I can remember being 14 years old and being a tomboy.

00:09:04.423 --> 00:09:37.350
I can remember being 14 years old and all of those guys, because you know, in their minds, the only reason why I'm hanging out with them and the only reason why the guys are hanging out with me is because I'm having sex with them.

00:09:37.350 --> 00:09:50.604
And then on the same day, I had someone call me a lesbian, and I didn't even know what that meant and I deny it vehemently, even though I didn't know what it meant.

00:09:50.604 --> 00:10:14.890
And so it's really interesting that both of those perceptions of me were negative, just because I was a girl who hung out with, with boys and and I was being, you know, attacked by girls from both ways.

00:10:14.890 --> 00:10:17.664
So interesting.

00:10:17.946 --> 00:10:19.410
It's like a lose lose situation.

00:10:20.120 --> 00:10:22.009
It is a lose lose situation.

00:10:22.009 --> 00:10:37.397
So what I have, as an adult, gotten out of that is the fact that, because those kinds of things were happening, it freed me to just be me, because I couldn't please anybody.

00:10:37.397 --> 00:10:45.331
You know, I tried figuring out what it meant to be a girl and I just wasn't good at it.

00:10:45.331 --> 00:10:47.354
Whatever that, was.

00:10:49.340 --> 00:10:59.681
And you know, eventually I was rejected by the boys because I wasn't a boy, and so you know.

00:10:59.681 --> 00:11:14.695
So you know I can say now that it was lonely, but it was so freeing because I didn't have a choice except to, you know, be myself, whatever it is, because I couldn't figure out.

00:11:14.695 --> 00:12:16.190
You know, gender didn't make sense to me, race, the way it was applied, didn't make sense to me, and so, you know, through this whole intersectionality that I was embodying, I just, you know, became myself and I once I before the job that I have now, I was first founding faculty and then the principal of a high school, early college in North New Jersey, and as the principal, you know, we had a PD and I did a session on memoir writing and one of the things that one of the exercises that we started with was writing a six word memoir, and my six word memoir was the box is not big enough.

00:12:16.190 --> 00:12:29.774
So there were no boxes that I fit, and it was really clear to me early on that that was true, and so I didn't blame myself, I blamed the box.

00:12:36.826 --> 00:12:40.009
Yes, absolutely Blame the box.

00:12:40.009 --> 00:12:53.489
Spend their lives trying to fit and failing and feeling like failures and being depressed and and hurting themselves and and it's not.

00:12:53.489 --> 00:12:55.591
It's not them, it's the box.

00:12:55.591 --> 00:13:02.946
So so I, you know, I will say it was a blessing.

00:13:02.946 --> 00:13:03.567
It was.

00:13:03.567 --> 00:13:25.654
You know, I feel very privileged to have a certain kind of intellect and a certain kind of temperament that allowed me to just kind of live my life and strive my goals as best I could, regardless of the noise.

00:13:25.674 --> 00:13:35.980
So I think that's wonderful, the thing well one if you're listening and you don't take anything away from this podcast.

00:13:35.980 --> 00:14:22.769
But the box isn't big enough and blame the box like that's gold Chef's kiss, like right there, because so many I and I remember trying to fit into all these boxes, like baseball player, which was not a good box for me, and then it was like, uh, star student, okay, fine, I can do that until you know chemistry, ap, and then I couldn't do that anymore as a performing arts kid but performing arts kid, I could fit into all of those boxes and maybe it's not a matter of like finding the box, but realizing there's multiple boxes that you could like dive into for different aspects of things.

00:14:22.970 --> 00:14:28.981
But if it doesn't fit, I love that it's not you, it's the box.

00:14:28.981 --> 00:14:33.253
The box isn't right for you, not you aren't right for the box.

00:14:33.253 --> 00:14:41.203
And I love that because I think there's so much shame that comes from, especially when you're younger and you're alone.

00:14:41.203 --> 00:14:44.529
There's so much shame spiraling that happens around.

00:14:44.529 --> 00:14:52.210
I don't fit in and I don't feel like I'm a part of this community or this community.

00:14:52.210 --> 00:14:57.402
I'm different, I'm strange, I'm wrong, and that there's so many.

00:14:57.402 --> 00:15:04.129
I am this thing, as opposed to the world, is different.

00:15:04.129 --> 00:15:06.754
The world is strange, the world is wrong.

00:15:06.754 --> 00:15:30.282
The box doesn't fit and I think that there's something to be said about blaming society, blaming the world and moving on from that that if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit for you and if there's something wrong with, uh, a specific box, it's it's the box and it's society's issue.

00:15:30.361 --> 00:15:39.985
It's not your problem no, just just know it's not your space and being weird is fine, yeah the best, the best.

00:15:39.985 --> 00:15:41.226
People are weird.

00:15:43.669 --> 00:16:02.596
So by the time I got to high school, I had a group and we called ourselves the Motley Crew, because we were all weird and we found ways of being in community together as outsiders.

00:16:02.596 --> 00:16:04.985
So that was the thing that held us together, the fact that we were outsiders.

00:16:04.985 --> 00:16:08.921
So that was, that was the thing that held us together, the fact that we were outsiders.

00:16:08.921 --> 00:16:10.705
Um, but, that worked.

00:16:12.729 --> 00:16:13.208
I love that.

00:16:13.208 --> 00:16:56.243
I think there's something about and it's it's so funny because I think introverted people do this a lot where you're like with a group of people who, um, you can tolerate enough, especially as an introverted person, right, like you can tolerate larger doses of these people and allow yourselves to be yourself, unconditionally and unquestioning, and then, like, you go break off and you go do your own thing, but then you come back to this core group of people and think that that is so necessary and, um, something that I hope that younger people still do find that group that you can go do your own thing and come back to.

00:16:56.243 --> 00:17:00.780
I also think that's huge, fantastic advice for like relationships in general.

00:17:00.780 --> 00:17:08.972
Like, if you're gonna be married, if you're gonna be in a long-term relationship, like you you do things together, yes, but you don't do everything together.

00:17:08.972 --> 00:17:23.690
Go find your thing that you do by yourself and then come back, um, because you need that me time to be able to then be okay being around other people, right, even if you're extroverted.

00:17:24.009 --> 00:17:33.987
I know it might be hard to sit with yourself if you're extroverted, but, like, sometimes you just need to sit in a room by yourself and listen to the air conditioning, you know, or whatever.

00:17:33.987 --> 00:17:37.212
That sounds lovely, right, it would lull me to sleep.

00:17:37.212 --> 00:17:46.913
So you talk about these boxes that didn't quite fit and come in like discovering yourself later in life.

00:17:46.913 --> 00:17:51.207
What box did you create for yourself?

00:17:51.207 --> 00:17:58.519
How do you identify now as an adult Queer?

00:17:58.519 --> 00:17:59.480
Okay, great.

00:18:00.942 --> 00:18:11.346
So, yes, that's a really good question and that changes often.

00:18:11.346 --> 00:19:14.803
And I'm at a moment when it's really changing because, you know, for a while I identified as lesbian and then I was in a conference a few weeks ago and Robin Oaks, who talks about bisexuality, was doing her presentation on bisexuality and I'm like, okay, and then we have a queer book club that we've just started.

00:19:14.803 --> 00:19:24.150
So one of the speakers at our BQLP Vision Forum was Skylar Baylor, who is the first trans NCAA division one swimmer from Harvard who is also a speaker.

00:19:24.150 --> 00:19:28.653
And I have discovered an amazing writer, so he's written his newest book is he, she, they.

00:19:28.933 --> 00:19:53.792
And it talks about transness and I never really identified as trans or non-binary, but I already mentioned that I don't quite understand gender, so I'm like, well, maybe if that's a box that might describe me that might be a box that I fit in.

00:19:53.792 --> 00:20:06.099
So it's especially as the language changes and as the community understands itself better.

00:20:06.099 --> 00:20:08.946
You said you were at school.

00:20:08.946 --> 00:20:10.652
With what was it LGBT?

00:20:11.921 --> 00:20:14.748
T yeah, LGBT, and that was it.

00:20:14.988 --> 00:20:15.509
That was it.

00:20:15.509 --> 00:21:26.490
There was no plus, and so one of the superpowers a word that I hear often connected with the queer community and how we are world changers, culture changers, game changers is, you know, being out in the margins, creating new language, creating new ways for humanity to look at itself, creating the movement, possibly, towards non-binary thinking I'm so not good at that yet, because I've spent a long time being programmed in a particular way and I know that the brain works most simply in the binary but all of these things are contributions that we're making to a changing world, and I'm so excited about it.

00:21:26.490 --> 00:21:45.741
So the box is getting bigger, we're making the box bigger, and what I'm hoping is that, and something that I got out of your workshop when you were talking about.

00:21:45.741 --> 00:21:47.763
You know the importance of community.

00:21:47.763 --> 00:22:00.876
I hope that we're not stretching ourselves too thin, that we can still hold together cohesively as a community across difference.

00:22:00.876 --> 00:22:14.622
Difference.

00:22:14.622 --> 00:22:20.757
That's hard for humans to do, and so it'd be amazing if you know as we grow we can still remain woven together in community, absolutely.

00:22:20.777 --> 00:22:23.221
There's a lot of beautiful imagery that came out of what you just said.

00:22:23.221 --> 00:22:25.806
The woven together.

00:22:25.806 --> 00:22:32.296
I really love because it's interlocking pieces that are kind of like different pieces that are fitting together.

00:22:32.296 --> 00:22:37.672
I love that kind of textile imagery.

00:22:37.672 --> 00:22:55.512
And then you've got this rainbow flag behind you and, as you were talking about like, I learned about this and I learned about that, it got me thinking about watercolors and how, like our rainbow I mean, your journey isn't going to look like solid lines, like that beautiful flag behind you.

00:22:55.512 --> 00:23:02.473
It might be a watercolor where like a drop of this is happening here and things just kind of kind of morph together.

00:23:05.261 --> 00:23:07.083
You were talking and I was like this is beautiful.

00:23:07.083 --> 00:23:08.146
What's happening in my brain?

00:23:08.146 --> 00:23:19.571
But I don't know if I'm explaining it well enough for those of you who are listening, but I just love this imagery that came to me because it really does feel like that water cutler.

00:23:19.571 --> 00:23:33.880
You drop one drop and it's going to spread until it dries and then this is kind of how things are now and then you go learn something else and that's another little drop that happens and it spreads.

00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:41.753
Some other aspect and it might seem frustrating to folks that there's no like end point.

00:23:41.753 --> 00:23:51.029
But the whole thing about life is that you should be constantly growing and learning, and that includes constantly growing and learning about yourself.

00:23:51.759 --> 00:24:15.694
Absolutely, and you talked about introverts and extroverts, and I know this, understanding that I'm about to talk about somebody, some philosopher or somebody talked about before me, but when I think about you know other people being mirrors, and so you, you know you.

00:24:15.694 --> 00:24:33.487
When you're having those moments, when you're with people, you're seeing them reflecting aspects of you and as well as their own, you know whatever their own vibe is.

00:24:34.921 --> 00:24:49.093
And then when you say, you go off by yourself and you process that and you make decisions about what the mirrors are that you or who the mirrors are that you have around you.

00:24:49.093 --> 00:24:53.205
And you know I'm married, I chose my wife.

00:24:53.205 --> 00:25:19.015
She has a particular understanding of me, like I am now.

00:25:19.015 --> 00:25:30.806
We're going to stay this way forever and we're going to stay in this relationship forever, which is how relationships get broken, because people don't stop growing.

00:25:30.806 --> 00:25:55.794
So you know one of the I mean it sounds pretty self-centered to say, yes, I'm in love with my wife because she makes me look good, but part of the reason why she is good for me and the relationship is good for me because she's always challenging me to become my better self absolutely.

00:25:56.094 --> 00:26:11.151
I think, yes, we are here for the relationship advice today, folks, because I think that's that really is right on part, because so many of those relationships end with like you don't, you don't love me, you love the idea of me.

00:26:11.151 --> 00:26:17.307
Well, at some point, that idea was who this person believed that you were.

00:26:17.307 --> 00:26:30.224
And so, yes, people change and when you're in a relationship, it's going to be difficult, but you are going to have to change and adopt together.

00:26:30.224 --> 00:26:45.236
Because if you just stay the same person that you were when you got married oh gosh, heaven forbid, you got married at like 18 and you're going to stay that same person for how many every years, like there's no maturity, that happens.

00:26:45.276 --> 00:26:52.067
Your relationship, actually, I don't believe can get stronger if you don't adapt and change together.

00:26:52.067 --> 00:26:58.040
So, yes, I'm here for all the relationship advice.

00:26:58.040 --> 00:27:17.617
So how do you see aside, you run this like queer leadership program, but when you were working in the Newark school, how did you see your queerness like showing up with working with students?

00:27:17.617 --> 00:27:22.211
Were you already at that point in your journey or did that come afterwards?

00:27:22.599 --> 00:27:24.865
So I have a story to tell.

00:27:24.865 --> 00:27:37.784
Well, so, if you don't mind me, I have two stories to tell.

00:27:37.784 --> 00:27:39.685
If you don't mind, we love stories, okay, so.

00:27:39.685 --> 00:27:53.257
So the first story is the fact that in part because of life know I, I got my PhD and I I had huge anxiety about getting a job.

00:27:53.257 --> 00:28:05.736
I thought I'm too old, I'm too black, I'm too female, I'm too queer, I am never going to get a job is where I was.

00:28:05.736 --> 00:28:11.609
The too old part was the highest One of those things that I thought was going to be a barrier.

00:28:12.960 --> 00:28:22.548
And before I graduated, before I defended my dissertation, my wife found a job for me.

00:28:22.548 --> 00:28:36.061
She found she, she saw a job ad for a school that didn't exist yet and she said this is your job.

00:28:36.061 --> 00:28:40.586
And I said, okay, maybe you're right.

00:28:40.586 --> 00:29:02.965
And so when I had my first phone interview, I was really blessed that the person I was talking to, I had the sense of this being queer family, and I'm like, oh, that might not be a barrier for me I don't know about all the rest, but but that one might not be a barrier for me.

00:29:02.965 --> 00:29:32.306
But that one might not be a barrier for me, and clearly none of it was because I got the job and then I was a teacher in a high school in Newark, new Jersey.

00:29:32.306 --> 00:29:37.236
85% of our student body was Black and then most of the rest were Latinx and I wasn't worried about the students.

00:29:37.256 --> 00:29:46.973
I was worried about the parents and so I'm laughing because it was just so ridiculous.

00:29:46.973 --> 00:29:52.846
So on the first on back to school night I said you know what I'm going to wear a pink shirt.

00:29:54.519 --> 00:30:08.493
Somehow or another, that pink shirt was going to make me look less queer the kind of nonsense that we have to wrestle with.

00:30:08.493 --> 00:30:15.873
You know, there were students who suspected that I was queer.

00:30:15.873 --> 00:30:19.170
There were students who had no clue.

00:30:19.170 --> 00:30:22.387
Even when I came out, they had no idea.

00:30:22.387 --> 00:30:24.472
They were surprised.

00:30:24.472 --> 00:30:54.179
Mostly the boys were surprised because I have kind of a maternal vibe, and so I stopped worrying about the parents and by the spring semester, and by the spring semester, I decided I'm just going to be my full self, I'm going to put on a tie and see what happens.

00:30:54.179 --> 00:30:56.929
And it was absolutely fine.

00:30:57.380 --> 00:31:05.275
I had, you know, a homophobic student who came to talk to me and we had conversations.

00:31:05.275 --> 00:31:06.861
Did I make him less homophobic?

00:31:06.861 --> 00:31:12.130
I don't think so, but we had a really good conversation.

00:31:12.130 --> 00:31:19.384
So the question that he asked because one of the ways that I came out to my students was to talk about my family.

00:31:19.384 --> 00:31:26.893
So I have a birth daughter, and so that twisted some other kids head.

00:31:26.893 --> 00:31:30.777
Like you had sex with a man, what?

00:31:30.777 --> 00:31:39.028
And I was like, yes, because I didn't understand myself to be queer at the time.

00:31:39.028 --> 00:31:46.797
And you know, I and I wanted to be normal and I wanted to be a mom.

00:31:46.797 --> 00:31:50.028
And so this is how that happened.

00:31:50.028 --> 00:32:01.516
And so the homophobic students asked me like so what was better, you know, having sex with a man or having sex with a woman?

00:32:01.516 --> 00:32:05.728
And I said let's have a conversation man or having sex with a woman?

00:32:05.728 --> 00:32:07.816
And I said let's have a conversation.

00:32:07.816 --> 00:32:14.318
And so it was good to feel free and to be able to have that that kind of conversation.

00:32:14.318 --> 00:32:17.871
So that's story number one that you know.

00:32:18.099 --> 00:32:51.923
Those are some of the ways that I came out, just talking about my, my family, the clothes that I wore and really trying to not no longer worry about the parents at that point are you okay if we take a pause before story number two, because there's there's one thing I want to point out is one that I don't think specifically white people realize the hierarchy of like intersectionality that other people deal with.

00:32:51.923 --> 00:33:10.141
You went through a list of like I'm too old, I'm too black, I'm too queer, I'm a woman, like all of these things that intersect in your identity, and they all caused some sort of negative impact on your perception of being able to get a job.

00:33:10.141 --> 00:33:26.515
And I feel like more people need to understand identity fully, that it's not just I'm a man, I'm a woman, I'm black, I'm white, I'm asian, I'm uh, I'm Asian, I'm gay, I'm straight.

00:33:26.515 --> 00:33:32.613
It's like all the things, all the things that you are, make up your identity.

00:33:32.613 --> 00:34:03.343
So it's really interesting to me, because one of the like many things that I've taught at various conferences like we met at a conference conference and one of the things that I taught in October at a different conference is like, how do you show up with your like your full identity in a classroom setting when people are like, well, you can't be your full self and I'm like, okay, great, well, tell me which part I'm supposed to take away, because if I take away husband and I take away dad, because you want me to take away queer.

00:34:03.343 --> 00:34:04.588
That's three things of my identity I have to take away.

00:34:04.588 --> 00:34:07.019
So if I take away dad because you want me to take away queer, that's three things of my identity I have to take away.

00:34:07.019 --> 00:34:14.431
So if I take away queer, then I also have to take away this, this and that, and so it's the intersectionality of identity.

00:34:14.519 --> 00:34:23.449
I think a lot of people toss identity into something that's really easy and manageable, into a nice box that fits.

00:34:23.449 --> 00:34:27.050
The problem is the box is wrong.

00:34:27.050 --> 00:34:32.668
It's not actually a box, it's an octagon or whatever it is Like it's.

00:34:32.668 --> 00:34:36.684
It's multifaceted and like.

00:34:36.684 --> 00:34:42.028
The first thing that popped in my head was like oh gosh, look at all of those hurdles that she talked about.

00:34:42.028 --> 00:34:45.572
Like you're literally defending a dissertation, which is hard enough, it is hard enough.

00:34:45.572 --> 00:34:53.902
All those hurdles that she talked about like you're literally defending a dissertation, which is hard enough, it is hard enough, and you are worried about all of these things are going to impact your ability to get a job.

00:34:53.902 --> 00:35:07.748
So wild and not not wild in the sense that, like I'm not trying to make light of it I mean more people need to realize how this intersectionality plays into life for a lot of people.

00:35:08.451 --> 00:35:14.731
Yes, yes, I was going to go on a tangent, but I want to get back to the story.

00:35:14.911 --> 00:35:16.175
Do it, let's go, let's go.

00:35:16.215 --> 00:35:40.217
Story number two yes, Story number two because because I was again fortunate enough to have to be a good teacher and to love my students and create relationships and and and have.

00:35:41.338 --> 00:35:57.329
It was a very hard job creating a school, but growing the school with the students, creating the culture with the students that that made it possibly a little bit easier.

00:35:59.172 --> 00:36:14.458
And having a boss who was queered, so he was fellow faculty and then he became my principal and then, when he left for another position, I became the principal of the school.

00:36:14.458 --> 00:36:18.534
And that was another thing.

00:36:18.534 --> 00:36:55.193
Because now I have to deal with a district and I'm not thinking that I'm too old or too black, because I've told you, it's a, it's a district in a, it's an urban district and so being black was an asset, being female was an asset, being queer asset, being female was an asset, being queer I had no idea where that fit, and even though my former principal was queer, he was not.

00:36:55.193 --> 00:37:27.793
I won't say he wasn't out because he was himself, but I won't say he wasn't out because he was himself, but he is a queer white male who went to Harvard in this urban district in Newark, so he had a whole nother set of equally struggles, of equally struggles, Like he was one of maybe two or three white principal you know school leaders in this school district and he just didn't want to add.

00:37:30.076 --> 00:37:39.373
You know being out and loud, so he was kind of out, but he was definitely not loud, he was quiet.

00:37:39.373 --> 00:37:40.815
So he was kind of out but he was definitely not loud, he was quiet.

00:37:40.835 --> 00:38:11.148
Yeah, my husband and I used to use the phrase palatable gay, like we're the palatable gays, because at a faraway glance we could look straight and we're white and before I kind of identified as queer, I was a gay male and so because I was a gay male, I was white and male and from a distance I looked like I'm straight and so you kind of have like this shield and I refer to it as, like the palatable gay people they're okay because they look like they're normal.

00:38:11.148 --> 00:38:12.871
Quote-unquote right.

00:38:14.373 --> 00:38:18.838
Well, I don't, and I wasn't trying to.

00:38:18.838 --> 00:38:23.648
So well, I won't say I wasn't trying to.

00:38:23.648 --> 00:38:27.440
I actually wore a woman's pantsuit when I went to my interview.

00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:36.452
Again, camouflaged Didn't really work, but it made me feel better, it made me feel safer.

00:38:37.304 --> 00:38:37.527
Safer.

00:38:37.527 --> 00:38:38.360
Yes, Right, or felt made me feel safer.

00:38:38.521 --> 00:38:38.643
Safer.

00:38:38.643 --> 00:38:49.733
Yes, right, and you know that camouflage helped me to feel more confident than I would have if I had.

00:38:49.733 --> 00:39:26.686
I'm not wearing a tie today, but I usually do, and so once I got the job at least in the district in my understanding I was the only out loud queer principal and it seemed to be fine.

00:39:26.686 --> 00:39:37.021
I still was concerned again about parents, because it's a magnet school and I'm thinking, omg, I'm going myself is going to have an impact on our ability to attract students.

00:39:37.021 --> 00:39:39.896
Our ability to attract students and that's all me.

00:39:39.896 --> 00:40:07.409
I know I'm owning up to the fact that these are all my fears and there's reasons for the fear, but I wasn't confident and actually like right before I left.

00:40:07.409 --> 00:40:10.210
So I was principal there for six years.

00:40:10.210 --> 00:40:24.518
You know I was out in my school and you know my students understood and my parents understood, because I am always authentic.

00:40:24.518 --> 00:40:36.043
But I wasn't, you know I, and I was going to say I let me finish the story.

00:40:39.344 --> 00:40:41.547
So one of my students got into a fight.

00:40:41.547 --> 00:41:09.737
Her mother came to the school, was in the office, I was trying to deal with the aftermath, the investigation of the fight, and her mother was a little inebriated and very angry and screaming in my main office and one of the things she was screaming is I want to talk to your gay ass principal.

00:41:09.737 --> 00:41:16.172
And so you know, someone reported to me.

00:41:16.172 --> 00:41:32.699
You know this parent called you the gay ass principal and I said really that's awesome and they're like Dr Stevens, that's disrespectful.

00:41:32.699 --> 00:41:38.697
He said her daughter is in my school.

00:41:38.697 --> 00:41:40.289
Her daughter is in my school.

00:41:40.289 --> 00:41:52.456
So whatever she thinks about my gayness number one, she's acknowledging that she knows that I'm gay and she has entrusted her daughter to me.

00:41:52.456 --> 00:41:58.617
So she may have been trying to insult me.

00:41:58.617 --> 00:42:10.030
I don't feel insulted because I am gay and I am the principal, so that isn't insulting to me, that's just true.

00:42:10.030 --> 00:42:21.590
But the good thing is she entrusted her daughter to me at the school, knowing that that's a good thing.

00:42:24.186 --> 00:42:31.438
So I actually had a workshop with students.

00:42:31.438 --> 00:42:35.954
Well, we call it a chat and chew, so we had a chat and chew.

00:42:35.954 --> 00:42:44.764
I had a chat and chew, a chat and chew.

00:42:44.764 --> 00:42:49.148
I had a chat and chew and the title of the chat and chew we sit around like a brown bag lunch.

00:42:49.148 --> 00:43:39.867
We sit around and then we snack and talk about things and the was becoming the GAP right and so you know, really having conversation, mostly queer students showed up, but we had, you know, we had this conversation and again they're like Dr Stevens.

00:43:39.887 --> 00:43:44.840
That's disrespectful and I just wanted to give them that point of view so that they can understand that you don't let other people define who you are and you don't let other people define how you value.

00:43:44.840 --> 00:43:45.443
That Yours is not their value.

00:43:45.443 --> 00:43:46.184
Whatever their value is, they have it.

00:43:46.184 --> 00:43:47.106
It doesn't.

00:43:47.106 --> 00:44:03.269
It doesn't, it shouldn't impinge upon my understanding of my value or my selfness because somebody else thinks that calling me a gay ass principal is an insult.

00:44:04.474 --> 00:44:04.914
Right.

00:44:04.914 --> 00:44:23.351
I think like every classroom needs that conversation, because so many things are taken Like the world is so angry all the time right now, and sometimes I just wish people would take a breath and realize like that person can say what they want about you.

00:44:23.351 --> 00:44:24.572
Why does it matter?

00:44:24.572 --> 00:44:31.414
Brene Brown talks about this in several of her books, but she talks about like giving the cheap seats.

00:44:31.434 --> 00:44:47.021
Like if you're in a big stadium, like a baseball stadium, and the person who's yelling gay ass, principal, or, in my case, like when I was younger people you know fag across the, they're yelling it across the baseball field.

00:44:47.021 --> 00:44:58.693
Like why am I going to give that person who's way up in the nosebleed section all of the air in the room when there's a whole bunch of people around me who are there supporting me?

00:44:58.693 --> 00:45:17.228
And so I'm a huge proponent of that, because I think that we do need to have this kind of emotional intelligence to be able to know when it's okay to be like I started responding to people who yelled fag at me with like yes, can I help you?

00:45:17.228 --> 00:45:25.090
Um, because, like you said, it's a truth, so why am I gonna get offended by it?

00:45:25.090 --> 00:45:36.114
They want to be offensive, and if I'm not offended by it, then they just didn't get what they wanted exactly they don't have power over you.

00:45:36.795 --> 00:45:49.838
And so again, talk to my students about the buttons and because when they get into fights it's like you know, dr Stevens, they said this about me or they posted this about me.

00:45:49.838 --> 00:45:53.335
I said, ok, why did they post that about you?

00:45:53.335 --> 00:45:55.612
Probably because they wanted to make you mad.

00:45:55.612 --> 00:45:57.409
Did they want to?

00:45:57.409 --> 00:45:59.378
Did they succeed in making you mad?

00:45:59.378 --> 00:46:05.978
Then they have power over you and they're going to keep having power over you as long as that bothers you.

00:46:05.978 --> 00:46:11.376
So if you hide your buttons, that doesn't mean you don't have them.

00:46:11.376 --> 00:46:12.644
That doesn't mean that you don't.

00:46:12.644 --> 00:46:25.295
You're not hurt by this stuff, because you are, because you're human, but you don't want to give other people power over you by showing your buttons so that they can push you yeah, absolutely.

00:46:25.514 --> 00:46:25.614
I.

00:46:25.614 --> 00:46:41.766
I got the imagery of like those uh little plastic covers that kind of like fold over buttons like my button's still there and you can see it but there's this plastic layer that you cannot push that button right and only you have control over that.

00:46:41.766 --> 00:47:05.873
And I think that a lot of especially young people, I'm sure it is harder and feels more difficult, especially after isolation and quarantine, to be able to kind of get back into the world and just let things, you know, dust right off or water off a duck's back or whatever that phrase is.

00:47:05.873 --> 00:47:16.722
Um, but that is one thing with regard to emotional intelligence that I just feel like is so necessary for people to learn.

00:47:16.722 --> 00:47:29.900
So hopefully some people get little tidbits from this conversation because, honestly, this conversation is pretty fantastic with practical advice for life.

00:47:32.666 --> 00:47:37.793
We're winning at this podcasting today, thank you.

00:47:37.793 --> 00:47:40.958
So I'm talking about how it's a little bit turbulent.

00:47:40.958 --> 00:47:47.856
You've had experiences where there's some turbulence happening and you had your own approach to how do you handle that.

00:47:47.856 --> 00:48:04.753
If you have a new teacher coming into a school situation and they're like you, they're maybe battling multiple intersectionalities and they're unsure how to show up authentically at school, what kind of advice would you give them?

00:48:07.626 --> 00:48:14.795
So I can't be in everybody's head and so the answer is kind of different for different people.

00:48:14.795 --> 00:48:26.130
As I said early on, I was blessed to have a particular kind of temperament, so you know.

00:48:26.130 --> 00:48:37.634
So I can just plow, you know I I just had the anxiety kind of camouflage myself for a moment.

00:48:37.634 --> 00:48:39.958
Look at the playing field.

00:48:39.958 --> 00:48:41.128
So this can be advice.

00:48:41.128 --> 00:48:59.481
You definitely need to check out the playing field and then In the back of your head you always know that being your most authentic self is is where your power lies.

00:48:59.481 --> 00:49:06.838
So if you're going to be a great teacher, you're going to be your best teacher when you are your authentic self.

00:49:06.838 --> 00:49:15.088
How you do that may depend on the landscape, right, right?

00:49:15.088 --> 00:49:39.478
And so how you come out, when you come out, the way that you come out, the way that you are in relationship, who you're in relationship you might be in relationship with the queer GSA advisor.

00:49:39.478 --> 00:49:52.202
You might talk about your family, as I said I did, and you talk about doing it, and it's not right now.

00:49:52.202 --> 00:49:56.065
I'm going to be my authentic self and I'm going to talk about my family.

00:49:56.065 --> 00:50:18.518
It just you're talking about family within whatever the context is of your teaching or of your relationship, and it's natural you watch the response and then you respond to the response.

00:50:18.518 --> 00:50:21.213
So, as I told you, I had a homophobic kid.

00:50:21.213 --> 00:50:45.644
I am guessing and I don't know that this is true, but I am guessing that he was actually questioning and he was a Latino and his family and his community probably wasn't going to accept him as a queer male.

00:50:45.644 --> 00:50:50.128
So he was trying to figure out all of the reasons why he couldn't be queer.

00:50:50.128 --> 00:50:53.396
I'm sorry for that.

00:50:53.396 --> 00:50:56.041
I kept giving him reasons why he could be.

00:50:56.041 --> 00:51:11.670
So showing up can be different for all different people.

00:51:11.670 --> 00:51:19.764
You know, my wife was in a school where her boss told her she needed to be discreet.

00:51:19.764 --> 00:51:30.405
And so you know, I know how to be discreet, but I also love my wife.

00:51:30.405 --> 00:51:38.364
So, like when I came to the school to pick her up or deliver something, I am who I am.

00:51:38.364 --> 00:51:44.039
We didn't have to say hi, this is Carla, my wife, you know.

00:51:44.039 --> 00:51:48.405
But we weren't hiding.

00:51:48.405 --> 00:52:08.443
People who chose to see who we were could see People who chose not to, didn't or wouldn't, and she eventually got really resentful of being discreet and we got another job.

00:52:08.443 --> 00:52:37.396
So making those kinds of decisions really comes from caring about yourself, understanding yourself and understanding the landscape that you're in?

00:52:37.396 --> 00:52:41.862
Why did you choose to be in the school that you chose to be in?

00:52:41.862 --> 00:52:45.693
What are you trying to get out of the experience?

00:52:45.693 --> 00:52:48.702
What do you want your students to get out of the experience?

00:52:48.702 --> 00:52:58.105
I told you I was in a school where that was 98% underrepresented kids.

00:52:58.105 --> 00:53:19.878
I work in a college that is majority queer, also predominantly white institution, and again making the decision to change, I was feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm abandoning these.

00:53:19.878 --> 00:53:24.364
You know the BIPOC kids.

00:53:24.364 --> 00:53:51.041
And then I said, yeah, also, what I have to share as a BIPOC leader is important for white kids to see and to experience.

00:53:51.443 --> 00:53:53.550
I teach a Cold War civil rights class.

00:53:53.550 --> 00:53:57.753
We're having race conversations in the Cold War civil rights.

00:53:57.753 --> 00:54:08.039
Before you know, we talked about the civil rights movement up to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

00:54:08.039 --> 00:54:19.527
And then we get to Black Power and, you know, white folks get kicked out of organizations like SNCC and there's the you know, black nationalism.

00:54:19.527 --> 00:54:21.657
That's the moment where we are right now.

00:54:21.657 --> 00:54:33.505
So in class we have to talk about race so we can figure out what happened, if it was important that it happened or not, how helpful it was.

00:54:33.505 --> 00:54:36.175
That's where we are now.

00:54:36.175 --> 00:54:43.036
I get to do that and that's important.

00:54:43.036 --> 00:54:51.572
So, yeah, I'm also teaching an afrofuturism class, which is also that sounds cool and important.

00:54:52.074 --> 00:54:54.998
Ah, and in my cold war civil Rights class.

00:54:54.998 --> 00:55:01.885
So the school has a Bard Academy, which is a ninth and tenth grade that feeds into the college.

00:55:01.885 --> 00:55:06.181
So I'm teaching, I'm still teaching in high school because I like it.

00:55:06.181 --> 00:55:22.275
But so my Cold War Civil Rights class that I'm talking about now, that's ninth and tenth graders that we're having that conversation, ninth and 10th graders that were having that conversation.

00:55:22.275 --> 00:55:24.617
My college Cold War civil rights course is queered.

00:55:24.617 --> 00:55:25.219
I queered the course.

00:55:25.219 --> 00:55:46.980
So you know queer leaders like Bayard Rustin, pauli Murray, lorraine Hansberry, james Baldwin, those are kind of central folks that we're going to be talking about at the college level and reading about them at the college level.

00:55:46.980 --> 00:56:03.257
My Afrofuturism class, it is Afrofuturism, and also Octavia Butler, samuel Delaney, janelle Monae, so we've got queer authors that we're.

00:56:03.257 --> 00:56:09.016
You know, jemisin, I get to do that.

00:56:10.833 --> 00:56:11.675
That sounds fun.

00:56:12.972 --> 00:56:15.735
It is a lot of fun, as fun as your death.

00:56:21.369 --> 00:56:21.871
I'm sorry, yeah, I.

00:56:21.891 --> 00:56:32.960
I feel like we have been told for so long and by we I mean like I can speak from my perspective that I was told we shouldn't talk about race, we shouldn't talk about religion, we shouldn't talk about money and like.

00:56:33.041 --> 00:56:46.891
Those are the things that are like taboo, and the problem is now those of us who are having conversations about race are like sparking fires because people get so angry about it because it's taboo and we should not talk about it.

00:56:46.891 --> 00:57:33.952
Um, I was defending myself on social media regarding like the use of slang and how slang and colloquial language can actually help students to understand content and that when you take slang and colloquialism away, period not able to use it in the classroom and you expect academic English, you are actually building a wall that says that that student's identity isn't important to our classroom because the words that they use and how they speak outside of the classroom aren't important and they're not allowed, so that child's going to shut down.

00:57:33.952 --> 00:57:49.505
It's a hindrance, it's a hurdle that they have to get over and had so many self-proclaimed liberal people coming at me about it because I boiled it down to the invention of quote unquote.

00:57:49.525 --> 00:59:03.492
Standard English and academic English is literally about classism and race is literally about classism and race, and if you are going to fight so fervently saying that it's not, there's some introspection that needs to happen and you need to go into understanding, like the history of it, and I think what you're doing is so important because, either at the high school level or at the college level, these conversations about race need to happen, so that future conversations about race can happen that are not heated right that are just exploring together and that's what we're doing and and you know I waited until the middle of this semester hopefully created a safe enough space to have the conversation, am as relaxed as I possibly can be when we're having the conversation, can be when we're having the conversation.

00:59:03.512 --> 00:59:08.639
So some of the pushback against critical race theory is that it makes white kids feel guilty.

00:59:08.639 --> 00:59:18.579
I think that when I'm speaking with my students, I think that they are having a hard time.

00:59:18.579 --> 00:59:20.677
My white students are having a hard time.

00:59:20.677 --> 00:59:23.858
I can see it in their face.

00:59:23.858 --> 00:59:39.224
I can see it in their reluctance to speak, some of them because they're wrestling with understanding privilege.

00:59:41.311 --> 01:00:02.005
So one of the first things that I asked them to do was to free write about the first time in their lives that they, you know, understood race or thought that they understood race.

01:00:02.005 --> 01:00:13.065
And you know, most of my white students said I didn't have that kind of a moment.

01:00:13.065 --> 01:00:22.914
I see, have that kind of a moment.

01:00:22.914 --> 01:00:28.501
I see you know my BIPOC, you know friends struggling with it, but I didn't have much.

01:00:28.501 --> 01:00:32.588
So my experience is just largely a reflection of theirs.

01:00:32.588 --> 01:00:40.860
I had one white student who said I understand that part of my white privilege is that I don't have to think about race so I never really thought about it.

01:00:40.860 --> 01:00:59.244
And then I had my BIPOC students who were telling some of them are clearly trying to protect their white friends by just saying I was in a school and I you know, and some bad things happened.

01:00:59.244 --> 01:01:08.050
You know they don't even want to use the word white or right.

01:01:08.050 --> 01:01:09.673
I have a mixed race student and that's a whole nother.

01:01:09.673 --> 01:01:13.202
Kettle of fish about boxes and not fitting.

01:01:14.170 --> 01:01:16.878
Yeah, there's that intersectionality again.

01:01:17.420 --> 01:01:19.173
Yeah, well, she has a.

01:01:19.173 --> 01:01:21.721
I'm probably going to get this wrong.

01:01:21.721 --> 01:01:33.215
She has a black mom and a white dad and when she went to school she told the teacher that I think she was like eight, and the teacher said that that was nonsense, that she looked Hispanic.

01:01:33.215 --> 01:01:37.820
So in the school on her record, it says that she's.

01:01:37.880 --> 01:01:38.702
Hispanic.

01:01:38.702 --> 01:01:43.681
What the heck School has done weird things.

01:01:43.681 --> 01:01:50.072
My younger son was registered as only speaking Spanish, but like doesn't know any Spanish.

01:01:50.072 --> 01:01:53.153
And I'm like, where did you get this from?

01:01:53.153 --> 01:02:00.300
Because like, yes, he's Mexican, but like he doesn't know any Spanish.

01:02:00.300 --> 01:02:10.907
And so it took a long time for me to get that off, Because when you're labeled as an English language learner, it is near impossible to get out of it without testing out of the program.

01:02:30.889 --> 01:02:31.630
Correct you called me Clara.

01:02:31.630 --> 01:02:33.134
At the beginning, in third grade, I was Clara Stevens.

01:02:33.134 --> 01:02:35.456
It was on my records that my name was Clara Stevens, so for a whole year I was Clara Stevens.

01:02:35.456 --> 01:02:35.518
Uh.

01:02:35.518 --> 01:02:45.731
So it's so funny to me when, like, typos become reality, cause I've had things like oh, your son's birthday is entered wrong in the system, or you know, that's not the birthday that's in the system.

01:02:45.731 --> 01:02:48.300
And I was like, well, that's not his birthday that you're trying to use.

01:02:48.300 --> 01:02:52.456
So, like, someone fixed the typo and they're like here's 17 pages of paperwork.

01:02:52.456 --> 01:02:57.224
Um, but that's a whole other story for another time.

01:02:57.224 --> 01:02:59.246
Yeah, we're talking about systems in school.

01:02:59.246 --> 01:03:00.875
Let's round this out.

01:03:01.657 --> 01:03:01.838
Yes.

01:03:03.552 --> 01:03:13.713
What do you think that the school community can do this is parents, teachers, students can do to better support 2SLGBTQIA plus people.

01:03:14.516 --> 01:03:28.061
So not necessarily call anybody gay as principal, but acknowledging that part of their identity is the beginning.

01:03:29.143 --> 01:03:29.625
Yeah.

01:03:33.650 --> 01:03:40.264
And feeling seen and acknowledged in that way makes a whole lot of difference.

01:03:40.264 --> 01:03:45.054
It's kind of sad that it would make so much difference.

01:03:45.054 --> 01:04:12.940
Or you've been harassed about that part of your identity, or your community has been so small because limited, because of that part of your identity.

01:04:12.940 --> 01:04:23.291
Having a larger community just acknowledge that thing just makes a world of difference.

01:04:23.291 --> 01:05:24.378
And so you know, having students that you know again, not having to say, oh, that's my gay teacher, that's not what I mean than their lives, than just having that accepted and be again woven into conversations and like organically I'm not talking about forcing anything, I'm just talking about acknowledging, you know, some part of a person's humanity in an authentic way.

01:05:24.378 --> 01:05:32.715
I don't know what people are going to say oh, you're a lesbian and I know three other lesbians.

01:05:32.715 --> 01:05:34.057
You know that's not.

01:05:34.679 --> 01:05:35.581
Do you know each other?

01:05:35.581 --> 01:05:37.644
I know three other lesbians.

01:05:37.644 --> 01:05:38.766
You know that's not.

01:05:38.766 --> 01:05:39.367
Do you know each other?

01:05:39.367 --> 01:05:40.289
Do you know my lesbian friend?

01:05:40.690 --> 01:05:42.996
We all know each other Exactly.

01:05:42.996 --> 01:05:45.543
That's not what I mean.

01:05:45.543 --> 01:05:55.909
It's the same thing about what you said about not talking about religion, not talking about money and not talking about race.

01:05:55.909 --> 01:06:06.438
Money and not talking about race, race, class and religion are huge parts of people's lives, how do you not?

01:06:06.438 --> 01:06:29.333
And I know, again, that it can be a cause for conflict, but that's what we want it to be is a cause for conversation, for growing together, for getting to know each other, for, as I said, understanding each other and becoming community despite difference, across difference.

01:06:29.333 --> 01:06:58.666
So you know so, just so, again I said that sounds like a really small thing, that I think is a really big thing when there's pushback and things go badly, you know, being upstanders instead of bystanders.

01:06:58.666 --> 01:07:06.416
That's, that's simple and important.

01:07:06.416 --> 01:07:30.190
And and maybe not so simple because we talked about intersectionality Everybody has intersectionality and everybody has groups that they belong to and has to make decisions about how defending this, you know, group is going to have an impact on my, you know, connection with this other group.

01:07:30.190 --> 01:07:45.226
One needs to think about that and make good, conscious decisions about what you're doing and what it means.

01:07:46.771 --> 01:08:13.617
So we had, in largely Massachusetts, largely liberal, largely liberal, and in the local middle school we had a GSA advisor who had genderqueer as a resource for her GSA students and a parent saw it and went ballistic and called the police.

01:08:13.617 --> 01:08:25.890
Called the police and a plainclothes policeman went into the school to look for this book Crazy.

01:08:25.890 --> 01:09:28.324
But what I was really, what I really felt was positive, is that I sat in on some of the school district commission meetings about the incident and there were a lot of parents who defended the GSA advisor, you know, who tried to help the people who were upset to understand that Maya Kobe is a whole human and that this isn't a graphic novel, it's a graphic memoir, it's about somebody's life and it is educational because young people need to understand other people's lives.

01:09:28.324 --> 01:09:45.202
And so, okay, there's like three or four you know frames that have drawn body parts and talk about sex in a particular kind of way.

01:09:45.202 --> 01:10:01.313
There are also a lot of frames where Maya Koubeb talks about how excited it was that Aaron learned how to read, like in fifth or sixth grade, and became a bibliophile.

01:10:02.296 --> 01:10:07.369
Don't you want your kids to read about somebody having that kind of experience?

01:10:07.369 --> 01:10:18.082
So how are you taking somebody's life apart because of these things that you're afraid of, right?

01:10:18.082 --> 01:10:22.411
So, even if one has those kinds of fears.

01:10:22.411 --> 01:10:27.496
Figure out how to be in conversation, kind of.

01:10:27.496 --> 01:10:41.315
You know, talk to people about the fears before you go, because that parent has control over what their child is reading.

01:10:41.315 --> 01:10:50.895
If you don't want your kid to read the book, then you can say the kid can't read the book, but you can't say that nobody else can either.

01:10:50.895 --> 01:10:56.140

Championing Queer Leadership and Inclusivity in Academia with Dr. Carla Stephens

Listen On

Recent Episodes