103: “I needed to understand – why do you believe these things?” (ft. Jada Hebra)

Speaker 1: But we also should make space for other stories too, and other people to share their stories at the same time. And that takes a lot of vulnerability, making space for people who somewhat argue have always had the space. That's not easy. How to make love. Now, is that from recipe or from scratch?

Speaker 2: This is how to make love. Wow. Oh gosh. Oh my God. Yeah. A little to the left. And faster. A show that tests the edges of what love is. Worthiness, empathy, beauty, sex, positive, the borders. It can cross how we do integrity in all of our relationships. And it's hidden costs and shadows.

Speaker 2: In a world where we other people, where we build walls, we just tear down walls, fuck finding it or falling into it. Our future depends on making it. Hey everybody, welcome back to How To Make Love. A podcast designed to grow your courage, love, and liberation muscles. I'm Lara and I'm super glad you are here. And to say that today's guest is remarkable and that the conversation is timely and poignant is an understatement. I am so humbled to bring you this conversation with guest Jada Lynn Key. Hera By day, Jada is the Chief Diversity and inclusion Officer at Southern New Hampshire University. And by the rest of her life, Jada is a human living. The practice of how to cross divides with people we love and with people with whom we really, really, really disagree. Jada gave a Ted talk on the topic and it's linked in the show notes where she shares her very personal story of being a black woman married to and at the time, Trump supporter, and how she and her partner did the daily work of trying to forge a ladder to one another.

Speaker 2: The TED Talk is deeply moving and so is this interview with Jada. Our conversation tackles race. It tackles intimacy, it tackles vulnerability, it tackles the election, but ultimately it centers on how we choose humanity, how and why we must make that choice even when choosing humanity can feel like and sometimes even be an affront to our own humanness. I recommend listening to this episode and then re-listening again with loved ones and then re-listening again through the lens of the election and see what courage Jada invites you to display as you interact with people you may vehemently disagree with, especially when there are people you love. All right everyone. Welcome to a conversation about laddering. Welcome to a conversation about making love by crossing divides. Hi Jada. Hi Laura, how are you? I'm great. I'm so glad to be here.

Speaker 1: Me too.

Speaker 2: And I have a sense of who you are because I met you through your TED Talk and then we got to connect. But for folks who've never met you, dunno what you look like haven't interacted with you in the world. Could you introduce yourself and share some of your identity markers?

Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Jada. My full name is Jada Key Hera, and I use she her pronouns. I am a cshe black American woman, but often when we are doing visual markers for people who are low vision, I describe myself as somebody who has brown skin and brown hair with a gray streak at the top of my head sometimes I say I look like the bride of Frankenstein and I am a mother. I have three children, three adult children. I am married to someone who I fell in love with in high school. Actually, no, I met him in high school. I didn't fall in love with him until I was older in my late mid twenties. I am the daughter of two amazing people who are still alive. One is 92, 1 is 88. My dad grew up in Jim Crow, south Birmingham, Alabama. And that has had a big impact on me as a young woman, young black woman, his stories, his journey, his struggles, his outlook on life.

Speaker 1: And a mother who was from Youngstown, Ohio, they met in Ohio, and so two different regions of the country, but they produced three children who kind of inhabit both of their histories and stories and identities. And I carry those with me all the time. I stand on very big shoulders and I want to honor their legacy. So that's who I am in my personal life and in my professional life. I am in my fifties, so I'm an older person now and wiser. I love the fact that I'm in my fifties actually, all that comes with it. Gravity, hormones, hot flashes, these are all lessons. And even as women, particularly unfortunately in this society, tend to grieve the loss of their youth as they age, I have managed to fight that as hard as I can and beat it back and celebrate it. So that's me. That's perfect. Thank you.

Speaker 2: Thank you for all the generous identity markers. I noticed that you introduced yourself with your first name and then paused and then gave your full name. What does your name mean to you?

Speaker 1: Isn't that you're so intuitive? Yes. I kind of struggle with my name because my married name is Hera. I took that name, but I added it to the three names that I already had. So my full name is on my passport and on my driver's license is Jada Lynn Key Hera. And there's a story behind each one. So Hera, my husband is a Cuban refugee. He came over with his family from Havana when he was five, and there's pride in that. And so I took on that name, my maiden name is Key, and my dad made it up because he didn't know who his father was. And so he made up a name and it's KEY, but then he added an E to it. So that's my maiden name. And then Jada Lynn, I was born in Ohio in Akron, Ohio. And in those days, even in Ohio, there were segregated maternal wards or certainly uneven and disparate care for black women in maternity wards.

Speaker 1: And so my mom, I being the third, knew this. And so went to the hospital expecting perhaps that she would not get all of the help that she needed. And sure enough, the doctor kind of said, oh, I'm going to lunch and I'll come back. And she said, I've been given, I've been induced, and I'm not a rookie at this. I know that I'm probably going to have a baby pretty soon. And sure enough, he left and she had the baby by herself and that was me. And there was a woman, a Chinese woman in our neighborhood or our community who I believe had provided midwifery services, not to my mom, but in the community, probably four people of color and low income or poverty impacted women who didn't have great prenatal care. And my grandma came in and said, that baby looks just like Jada May Li, who is this Chinese woman? And my mom said, well, that's her name and named me Jada Lynn after Jada May Limb. So that's my name, Jada Lynn Key Hera kind of like collision of stories I guess. And so I have this long name, but when I'm asked what my name is, I sort of want to abbreviate it because I don't want to complicate it or I don't know. Well, thank you for giving

Speaker 2: Us the real gift, the full gift, though I know. I'm sure there are hour long stories behind each of the names as well. And thank you for the gift of Truth and Wholeness. Well, thanks for asking. Yeah. I'm going to link your Ted Talk of course in this podcast so that everyone gets to listen. But what was the title? How did you choose the title? What was the title? How'd you choose it, and how did you come to feel pulled to tell that story?

Speaker 1: So I was nominated to give a Ted Talk and a TEDx talk at my workplace. And the theme was Transformation. Jen. And I was racking my brain and I was talking to my husband about it, and he said, our relationship underwent some serious transformation a couple years ago. And he said, when I voted for Trump, and I said, Hmm, that's very personal. He's a very private person. I said, that's very personal. You really want me to go there? And he said, that's kind of a really important story. And I think that that was significant trend. So it was his idea to talk about this moment. And then when I started thinking about what I would say and what I would include, I recalled this documentary that I had seen, I don't know, Smithsonian or the History Channel about climbing mount ever since. I was fascinated by the concept of laddering across these huge crevasses in the iceberg. And watching these people bind these ladders together, lay them across these deep, deep ravines and crawl across them, treacherous people fall in them, they die. And I just remember thinking, wow, that's brave, that's courage. This is what it was like laddering a across ass like treacherous, icy, dangerous. Why am I doing this? This is really dumb. Let me just go back to safety. I don't like cold weather, all of the things, I just thought, this is what it feels like. And that image just stuck in my head.

Speaker 2: And for folks listening who haven't yet had a chance to hear your Ted X but will certainly get to hear it, when this finishes, what was the cavas you crossed?

Speaker 1: It was a really bottomless divide between our worldviews and there was just no, there still is. We still have very different worldviews, very different. That divide is still there, but that was it. I just thought, I will never see the world the way he sees it, and he will never see the world the way I see it. No matter how many conversations we have, no matter how much logic or statistics or anything that I throw around, he is just on the other side of a very deep divide. And that divide is our fundamental worldview, the way we make sense of the world, the way we see the world.

Speaker 3: Completely

Speaker 1: Different perspectives. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Your talk was so beautiful. I mean, it called to me for so many different reasons. It also spoke to me personally as a human who comes from a family deeply situated in proud republicanism, proud support of Trump,

Speaker 2: A complicated and very rooted self-assured poor lineage of the south. And I think I said to you one time when we were hanging out, and I've said it before sometimes, sometimes the work of justice is just staying at the dinner table with my parents, with my father in particular. And so your talk gave me hope. It gave me connection in the grief and the confusion of loving people that you can't. You can easily articulate a list of why you shouldn't love them or don't love them or can't love them, but there's also love. And it was affirming, it was challenging, it was inspiring. It was many, many, many, many things. I have questions about the chasm or the CVAs as you call it. What's the verb? Have you all crossed it? I don't know if there's the chasm. What are you all doing? What's the verb?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we go, we travel back and forth across the ladder. The ladders still there. We've built a ladder to go back and forth. But I think going over to his side of the CVA or the chasm, I just needed to see from his point of view, I needed to understand why do you believe these things, why I don't understand? And rather than try to justify or figure it out, I just listened. And so I think that we continue to ladder, we go back and forth. He comes over to my side too, and he has a much deeper understanding of why I feel the way I do and see the things that I do see the world the way I do. So it's mostly perspective taking and understanding, just literally sitting on somebody sitting next to somebody or standing in their shoes or however and saying, I think I get it. I think I understand why this is your vantage point. Share it. But I understand it. And I think that has allowed us to continue to be together. I learned things about him and what he's afraid of. And I think that's what I say in my talk is that at the bottom of all of this anger and ranker and just nastiness is fear.

Speaker 1: And I really do believe that. And I learned things about what he's afraid of and why he's afraid of the things he's afraid of that I didn't know before. And I've known this person for a long time. I know he's a good person. And the people that you see on TV or the people you don't know who have different beliefs, you don't know them as people, so you don't know that they're good people. You just assume they're not. Somebody thinks they're a good person. I know he's a good person, and so I could abide and I could tolerate standing and trying to understand

Speaker 1: His worldview better. And we have since come much closer together in terms of our own beliefs. He has definitely pulled in my stuff into his mind and his worldview into his conversations. I've overheard him talking to people using things that I've said. I'm like, what? And it's not even like, oh, I changed his mind or I converted him. It's just he gets it. And so he can share it out as like, Hey, I understand this thing about why folks on that side see this way, I'm going to share it with you. So it's just a constant exchange, I guess, of. Yeah. And sharing and trust.

Speaker 2: Did you all consciously choose to build a ladder? Was there a moment where you all realized that was necessary or you made the choice or did it just kind of get stitched together through

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I made the choice because I was the one who saw the chasm and was like, I'm out. I was the one who was pulling away. I was the one saying, I am not sure I could stay in this relationship. And he was the one who was trying to mend, trying to. And so I had to make the conscious decision to say, if I'm going to stay in this relationship, I cannot continue to be absent, passive, distant, unavailable to this person. That's not fair. If I'm going to do that, then I should leave or tell him this. And I had to make the choice to engage. And so I started engaging. I made the choice to engage and have the conversations. He would try to have conversations with me about these things and I'd say, Nope, don't want to talk about it. Walk out, leave got something else to do. I mean, there's so many ways you can be unavailable to somebody and shut them out. And that's what I was doing. I decided to stop doing that.

Speaker 2: Now looking back, what's the ladder made of if you had to replicate it or rebuild it or teach others to build it?

Speaker 1: That's a great question. I think it's made out of, literally made out of pieces of your body. I think it is not a kind of a material found outside of yourself, outside of your soul. It's not wood, it's not metal. It's literally bone marrow, muscle you tendon. It's literally made out of your whole being. Sometimes for people, I'm a mother, I'm a parent. Not everybody has children or whether they were biological or not, but when you literally have something living outside of you that you love so much, but it's of your body, but it's not of your body anymore, that's where my brain goes to. It's like you create something from yourself that takes a lot out of you and you're never the same. Something has been taken from you, but it's in the service of something bigger than you. So yeah, I would say my first thought is bone, because that's strong, but it's got to be bound together with your tendons and your muscle and your soul. The fiber of your soul literally binds that thing together because in the real ladders, they literally, it's not one ladder, it's like two ladders or three ladders, depending on how wide the car bass is that is bound together with rope. It's not solid, it's vulnerable. But I think the kreb asked that I'm talking about and your beautiful question. Yeah, I think it's made out of

Speaker 2: You. So if folks are listening and they're like, they're me, disconnected from a parent or from a spouse or from an important friendship we've lost, or these things that we assume we must lose to difference and to divide, and let's say people choose to lean in and create the ladder, what are the rungs made of? How do people face a divide together?

Speaker 1: I think it starts with being really vulnerable and going to the person and saying, I miss you. I miss talking to you. I miss your friendship. I miss your company. I'm really scared at losing you totally. Even though I hate you at times, even though I hate you at times, even though I can't stand you, I'm so mad at you and I miss you. Once upon a time, you had a relationship with this person. Once upon a time there was love, there was care, there was tenderness

Speaker 1: That didn't go away. It's just not as present. So if you can dig down and tap into that and say, what did that feel like? What did it feel like when my mother cared for me, loved me, showed me tenderness, supported me, protected me or my father or my uncle or my sister or whoever. There are moments in your life, then again, I should say maybe there aren't moments like that. And if you don't have any tender moments or if you really don't miss the person, well, I think that's a different story. That's a different approach. I would not recommend laddering to someone who has traumatized you, has hurt you, has abandoned you, has never been there for you, that you have never missed. That's a different healing. That's a different kind. But for folks who have had those relationships that are loving, caring, mutual, and you do really miss them, that there's something that you're grieving that is missing in your life, you got nothing to lose by just saying, I actually do miss you.

Speaker 1: I remember the times that we were close. I remember the times that you cared about me and that I felt that, and I'm scared of losing that. And I would really love to talk to you and listen to you. Most importantly, I mean, I think the listening piece is so hard, but it's so important to say, I want to listen to you. I want to hear what's going on with you. Why do you feel this way? Here's the thing that's between us. Here's the creve. I really want to understand why do you feel that way? What happened in your life to make you feel this way? I want to understand. So I think starting with that, can you be vulnerable with them? And can you say, honestly, I do miss you and I want to connect, and can you truly listen to them and try to understand their story? Thank

Speaker 2: You. Jada, do you think it's possible for us to ladder as a society?

Speaker 1: I do. I really do. I really, really do. I think it takes one person at a time. It's like knitting or crocheting, like anything like a web. You do it little bit by little bit, but if you're intentional about it, and I still believe, and there are moments of when I have not believed this, but I do believe that there are more people who want to ladder the crevasse or there are more people who want to understand than there are who are not. I think the people who are just hateful, and I don't think that's the majority. I think they get a lot of air airtime. They're big mouths and they're smash mouths, and that gets attention. That's what the algorithms respond to. But I think in the day to day and when you go to communities, you go out, people are loving. I do believe that. And so I think if we can find a way to do this, then I do think we can.

Speaker 2: What do you think it'll take? I hear you saying this is going to be made individual by individual, and maybe that's the answer, but what are some of the chasms that you think we have to really look at and confront and order for us to find a way back to one another?

Speaker 1: I think people come to these conversations already wounded and hurt and harmed in some significant way. And it's hard to get past that harm because it hurts. And I think the chasms around whatever, and you asked me in the beginning, what are your different social identities? There are a lot of different social identities and they're connected to significant harm, generational harm. And so how do you get past that and not abandon it or not forget about it, but to be able to say, I'm going to try to understand someone else's harm, different social identity, completely different lived experience than I have had, and perhaps they inhabit a social identity that has historically harmed aspects of my identity. But how do you say that story is still worth listening to? I still need to understand. So race, for example, I still need to understand how do white people feel harmed?

Speaker 1: Where does it hurt for white people? I can't say I don't care about that story because I'm black. I want to tell 'em, I want to talk to you about how I'm harmed, but I do need to listen to why you feel harmed too. And a lot of people will be like, well, no, they're the dominant group. They've had their stories told all along. We don't need to hear those stories. And I disagree. I think we have, in terms of overcoming the chasm, I think again, you have to be willing to go back and forth. It can't just be about you. It just can't because everybody wants to just talk about themselves in the end. So if you're not willing to talk and inhabit somebody else's lived experience or learn about it, it's not going to happen. So this whole, right now we're in a moment of, and I don't disagree. There are untold stories, there are alternative narratives. There are things that we didn't even know about our own history because we've not been taught, we've not been told. It's horrific. It's unfair. And we shouldn't stop trying to tell those stories. But we also should make space for other stories too and other people to share their stories at the same time. And that takes, that takes a lot of vulnerability.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1: Making space for people who some would argue have always had the space that's not easy making space for Cshe folks when they've always had the space. People have always had the space. Why should we make space for them? Well, because they're individuals. They're human beings who feel some kind of way, they feel harmed for whatever reason, and they deserve to be able to tell their story too to you if you're willing to hear it. That

Speaker 2: Has certainly been true for me in my life and not just the making space for other people whose stories were hard for me to hear. I grew up in a place where I saw confederate flags, but that was also personal. I had family members who flew confederate flags, and I remember at a very, very young age, I think I was in fourth grade, I had a crush on a black boy in my class named Walter. And I remember coming home from school and a family member sitting me down and saying, it's great that you and Walter are friends, but can't, he can't ever be your boyfriend. The Bible says that white people need to be with white people and black people need to be with black people and all kinds of things that were true for my family member because of fear, because of misunderstanding and miseducation and confusion.

Speaker 2: And I think for that family member, I think confusion for her was the answer. And the fallback was some sense of, it must be, there's no reason that this is, it must be because God defined it or something like that. I don't know. I can't relate. But so all that to say, my continual unfolding of whiteness and my willingness and eventual skills to be able to unlearn and unfold, I wish I could tell you that I could have done it if someone hadn't held space for me to just be a bumbling mess of utter confusion and things that I know as they poured out, were a complete affront to the people listening and choosing to hold that space and believe more for me. But I don't know how I would, we can read, we can educate ourselves, but I don't believe we can read enough books to get out of race to unlearn all of this stuff, not a head thing.

Speaker 2: It's a being thing. It's wholeness thing. It's a mini thing. And so I can relate and find a lot of wisdom in what you're sharing, Jada, because I can also think about sitting down with other people to have these conversations or holding space for other white people. And I don't think they could have gotten to some of the places that they got to without saying, I choose to understand you and I choose to listen right now, but I'll just for myself and my own continual learning, it has required that. And it takes a lot of work, I think, to recall that in the moment that we feel the sword impale our heart and our body, and I can't, as a white bodied person with a tremendous amount of privilege, I can relate to that in my queerness or in different aspects of me even I feel the pain and I can't even imagine the pain. But I think we have to choose to recall in those moments that we don't have to endure it. We don't have to confront it. But as you were saying earlier, if the relationship is one, we hope to salvage, for me that notion of vulnerability, and I think the root of the word vulnerability is like VUL or something. I recall that it means to be

Speaker 3: Wounded,

Speaker 2: And I think that there's this moment of can we choose that? But I don't know how that lands for you.

Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think maybe beyond, because I think you're right. It's not a head thing, it's a heart thing. It's it's a being thing and it's not going to be one conversation, one workshop or something like that. And suddenly people are like, oh, yes, I understand it's a lifetime of undoing. But I do think that it's also proximity. We have been segregated, and I'm talking about race specifically, and in some ways gender and sexual identity. I mean, we have been separated from people and isolated and right now more than ever, certainly on social media, we are separated. So if you just take race and redlining and all the things that by loss separated us, there is no proximity. There's no opportunity to get know someone as a human being.

Speaker 1: And you get to know them as these one dimensional, two dimensional stereotypes that are really fear-based, right? The other is always described as somebody you really need to be afraid of. And so yeah, it's not going to take one conversation or one, it's going to take proximity. So how do you create, so you have multiple interactions or multiple conversations, or you just end up being with a person in a way that you see their humanity in a way that no Bible is going to can undo. You can say, okay, the Bible says so. But I actually know from my own experience, my own lived experience that that's not entirely true. But how do you drive proximity in a segregated world, in a segregated society? And that's a real challenge. I mean, you can start with the conversations with the workshops, with breaking bread, being at the table, but that's not where it ends. I think that's the beginning, sort of the tip of the spear. You begin and you see hope in communities like that where there is a lot of diversity layered, multi intersectional diversity, and we need more of those communities. And how do you build them? How do you sustain them? I think that is a real challenge. That is a real challenge. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: What's your next Ted talk going to be about?

Speaker 1: Maybe that That's a good one. How do we build intersectional community and sustain it? How do we get over our love affair with beautiful neighborhoods and Amazon and the easy luxuries of life, especially if you grew up without much and then you have stuff all of a sudden and you're more comfortable than you ever were. How do you get people to say, okay, well, equity and justice requires sacrifice. It does require that you have to give up something. It doesn't mean you have to give up everything, but you have to give of yourself. You have to compromise. And what does that look like to be in community with people who are different than you and learn to love them and have them love you in all of your difference? I think those kinds of communities could be the seeds of change because, and you kind of see it with these younger generations. You see them speaking differently, valuing different things, pushing back on older generations saying, you got it wrong. And I know that diversity is a beautiful thing, and so maybe it's generational. Maybe that's how it will happen, but that could be a good next talk. We could do it together.

Speaker 2: It would be an amazing next talk. And I don't know about together, but you let me know when and where with the posters and the parade, it'd be an amazing talk. I think the sustainability piece is so important too. We know how to build, a lot of us know how to build things, but we have very few models for things that stick around and things that are set in bones of liberation and mutuality.

Speaker 1: I also think I wonder about hope, the whole concept of hope. I don't know who said it, but somebody said, hope is not a strategy. And yet that's what I hear from my parents, from people saying that was the only thing that got us through that. It was a strategy. You never lost hope. You always had faith. You always, always believed that you could overcome, and that's how they overcame. And maybe that's another talk is like, is hope a feudal strategy? Is hope, Pollyanna is hope? Or is it really all you have at the end of the day when you look around and there's so many things that are not going well, is that the only thing that you have to hold onto? And if so, what does that mean? And is that something that can sustain us hope? I do worry about being Pollyanna simplistic, but if you don't have some optimism, you run the risk of just really, you really falling down into a really deep pit of despair that is no fun.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of gave up on hope a few years ago, and I felt a tremendous amount of relief from it

Speaker 2: Because, and I'm not saying I recommend taking this stance. I think I live in a deep down pit of despair a lot of the times, and it's not fun. But as I'm listening and taking everything in, I keep remembering the word that you intentionally added to a sentence a few minutes ago when you said, and sustainable. And for me, I found when I gave up hope, it was like I could kind of sink into some relief. Like, oh, I still choose to do the work even though I don't feel hopeful about. And so where does that come from? And it felt more soothing to me, and I felt a burden of carrying hope when I didn't believe in it. Actually. There was relief in being like, oh, I can just feel the despair now. And I don't think it's sustainable. It has not been sustainable for me. It's been, was really helpful for a time. I think it was really honest for a time, I think it was where I was at for a time, and I still don't know how I feel about hope, but I don't think the work is sustainable without some relationship with hope.

Speaker 1: That's interesting. Somebody I was talking to recently said that they were a joyful pessimist, that he believed that it's really not going to work out in my lifetime, that it's going to take multiple generations or lifetimes to get to where we need to be. And so joyful in that I believe that someday we will overcome these ridiculous social constructs, but it just won't happen in my lifetime. And I think King said that too. I'm not going to see it happen, but we're moving in that direction, and I believe that. So maybe that's one way to say it's going to happen. It's just not going to happen very soon.

Speaker 2: What do you know for sure about

Speaker 1: Transformation? I know about transformation. You've got the best questions, by the way. Thanks. What do I know about? Well, I guess what I believe and know about transformation is that it is kind of like evolution, or not even evolution, but sort of in the physical world and ecology. When an organism undergoes stress or whatever and has to transform and adapt to a new environment or whatever, I think, I believe it's better in some ways that despite having to change and as hard as change is, and as hard as transformation is, because in transformation, you leave pieces of yourself behind, you're not the same. You change into something different.

Speaker 1: And I think that that different thing is ultimately better because you've gone through some stuff, you've gone through a trial, you've got some scars, you've worked hard, you've sacrificed things. And so I think transformation, even if you transform into something that isn't as beautiful, perhaps as it was before or as whatever as it was before, somehow it's better. It's moving in a direction of growth and positive change. And I think a caveat or you always have to qualify with, there are some types of transformation that are quite evil and terrible and bad. So not all transformation necessarily results in growth and something that's better, but I think in my case it did. Thank

Speaker 2: You. Jada, how do you define love?

Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: Today,

Speaker 1: I think love is generosity of spirit. It's something that gives without an ulterior motive, right? It's just generative. It's generous. And ultimately it is something that feeds you. So the more you give it, the bigger and more full and beautiful you become. It's generative outward, but it kind of comes right back because it is so generous. And I think when you allow yourself to love, because it is not easy to love, it is not easy to give, especially in times of scarcity, especially in times when you are feeling stressed and strapped and harmed and afraid, it's very hard to give anything. In fact, it's counterintuitive, but when you do, it's very healing and it's very restorative. It just comes right back. It's a free flowing, unselfish outpouring of care, support, concern. Yeah. Thank you.

Speaker 2: What do you really wish I had asked you? What's the elephant in the room or what else is left for us to touch and pick up?

Speaker 1: I guess in this moment? I guess in this moment right now, I have to be honest, I am not feeling great. And we talked about this the last time we hung out, but I'm worried. I'm really, really worried. Really, really worried. And so your question about can this work in society, can we ladder in society? I mean, yes, I do believe that, but I really am worried right now, and I don't think I've ever been this afraid in my whole life, and I don't know what's going to happen in November. And it's not just about the presidential election. I mean, that's a big piece of it. But before Trump, this stuff, this stuff was around, he didn't invent it. He just excavated it and amplified it. And now it's much more bold. And I feel like we are in a moment where we have been before in our history, and it's a really dark and scary moment.

Speaker 1: So I guess I just wanted to say that on the one hand, you watch the TEDx talk and yes, my husband voted for Trump in 2016. He did not vote for him again and continues to really not support him pretty actively. But still, what happened in 2016 and why so many people voted for him, I get it. I get it on some levels, I have a better understanding of why. But boy, that did a lot of damage and we're still living it. And I don't know how to process that, I guess in a way that you could talk about, oh, you can meditate or do all these different things to take care of yourself and to protect your mental health, but this is significant. And so I guess to your listeners and to you specifically, it's like, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen, and I don't know if we have the tools or the will frankly, or the energy to do what we need to do. So I'm thinking about that a lot. And I'm thinking about what happens after the election if it happens, and if he becomes president again. I think about that all the time, and I think a lot of people are too.

Speaker 2: I think so too, and I appreciate your naming it, that the fear and the despair and the very real sense of survival for many, many, many people, and the threat to survival can live alongside the laddering and the hope and the love and the other things, and that we can have no idea how to exist in the tension,

Speaker 1: Right? Right. Yeah. I mean, I think when I told my story in the TEDx talk, it was retrospective. It had passed, and we had mended, and we were okay, and we're in a different moment now. I think we're in a different moment now, and I really hope, and I believe that, like I said before, I think more people are going to understand and see that this is not the way to go. This is not who we want to be or who we are. But if it happens again, it'll be really interesting for me to think about your question, what's your next TED talk? I don't know how to light this shit on fire. I don't know. How do you find the like-minded people because they're out there. How do you build that community? How do you fight? Because I think we're in a fight where we are in that moment that other civil rights leaders were in, and it was dangerous. It took a lot of bravery and a lot of courage for people to find each other, to stand up and say no, and people lost their lives. Is that where we are? Is that where we're headed?

Speaker 3: Yeah,

Speaker 1: Frankly, I think if we might have to make some choices about what's comfortable for us, whether or not you, like I said before, grew up with resources or no resources. If you grew up with no resources and now you have them and now you're comfortable and you've got stuff and real estate or money or wealth that you never had before, what is the compromise? What are you willing to sacrifice in order to save us? Because I think that's is actually the question that I'm asking myself every day. What am I willing to give up to save us? And it's a big question, but I think it's one that I am really thinking about a lot.

Speaker 2: Thank you for the question and putting it on our hearts and minds. I think we all have to have this conversations, and I think the conversation looks really different for marginalized people and people of color and people with disability and trans people, and it becomes so much more literal. But this question of how do we save us? We can't save us from an outcome. The outcome will be what it is, but how do we save us? How do we survive and how do we, I think is a set of conversations that I know lots of people have been having for hundreds of years, and I think this is a unique moment in time. So Jay, is there a way for people, I'm going to link your TED talk and any other resources you can think of, but if as folks are moved or learning and growing, are there other ways they can continue to learn and grow from you or ways they can learn more about what you're up to in the world?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that we didn't hit on and I didn't hit on it really is I talk a little bit about it in the talk is restorative practice. And I commend that to people to find, and I can send you resources afterwards just to learn about restorative practice because while it certainly helps you bridge to other people, at the end of the day, it actually restores you. You are healed in many ways because you kind of let stuff go you. So I just believe so strongly in restorative practice. It's how I approach my professional work

Speaker 1: Too, because I think it's, it's just mutually reinforcing and restorative for all parties involved. And I think that it is an act of self-care, and it is an act of putting yourself first by being restorative. So even though it might help other people, and you'll see from the literature. So that's one thing, that's one resource. But yeah, I mean, I think people can get ahold of me, I guess. I think if people go to the TED Talk, you can leave comments and can, you can reach out there and I can respond and connect with people that way. Beautiful. Most

Speaker 2: Generous,

Speaker 1: Beautiful.

Speaker 2: Thank you for laddering with me today and teaching me about laddering and for your names and your ancestors and family members that you shared and family members you didn't share, and stories and marriage and wisdom and energy, all the things that you so generously placed at the table for all of us today, Jada, thank you.

Speaker 1: Wow. Thank you for having me. I love talking to you. I love your questions. I love your heart and your soul, and it's been a real gift to be with you today. Thanks Jada.

Speaker 2: Okay, friends, thank you for tuning in. Thank you to Jada for her wisdom and profound generosity. You can watch Jada's TEDx talk by clicking the link in the show notes. And in fact, there's a few other goodies there too. You can click the website link to be taken to the transcript for today's conversation and some really powerful and helpful resources on restorative practice that Jada wanted to share with listeners. You can also click the SpeakPipe link in the show notes if you have questions, reactions about today's episode or you want to start a conversation with me. And of course, you can also click that link to become a Patreon of this podcast or leave a review on iTunes. One last resource I'll leave you with, I really recommend re-listening to episode 56 y'all, about self organizational and family care during election season. It's four years old, but highly relevant, and you can use it with your teams, your families, your organizations. So just a little reminder as we near election day, if you live in the land called the United States. Alright, goodies galore. Thank you again to Jada. I'll see you in a couple of weeks, my friends. And until then, may you ladder yourself as Jada says, to the people you love, even when and especially when the laddering may seem impossible. Bye for now.