Tom: Do you want to introduce me? Should I introduce myself?
Ronda: gosh. You are the illustrious Tom Miller. magnificent producer and owner of Pretty Good Productions. My collaborator, my confidant.
Tom: Well, thank you. It's it. It's an honor to be here today. I'm joining Ronda today because last week Ronda took a walk in the woods. And we're going to talk about it, right, Ronda, you had some feelings and we're going to we're going to talk about your walk in the woods.
Ronda: We are.
Tom: Yeah, I think it was it was like January and the production team was meeting and we started to talk about Black History Month and what we maybe should cover. And I think you you felt a little itchiness about it, I think is the way you put it that right.
Ronda: That's right.
Tom: I did, it was I guess it was the beginning of the year is January. We were thinking about as a production team, like, what are we going to do for Black History Month was the question we had. And you were like, you know, I think I need to think about this, you all, so I'm going to I'm going to go to the woods and I'm going to reflect. And I'm going to go out there and then take my selfie stick and I'm going to talk and I'm going to reflect and we all thought, that's a great idea. We will get the the bird noises and the wind noises. And so kind of a real life exploration out there in nature and I think we you know, you did that and we came back and we were like, this is this is great. But it feels like like a Round One, there's more to be fleshed out. And so I think that's what we're going to try to do today. That's why I'm here.
So I'm going to play some selections from that walk for the audience. The audience is going to hear the wind and the trees and the birds and you thinking and processing out loud. Some of these some of these ideas about Black History Month and Rest and a bunch of other topics. So we're going to play those clips. And then, Rhonda, I'm going to ask you, you know, if you're still game for this to reflect, to watch yourself and then reflect, are you still up for it?
Ronda: I am here.
Tom: Okay. And it's going to be fun.
Ronda: Let's do that.
Tom: Let's let's hop in and let's watch the first clip of Ronda walking in the woods and then we'll talk about it.
Ronda: Hi, Everybody. I am your host Ronda Lee Chapman and this is People. Nature. Big ideas. It's just the beginning of February. I am here in one of my favorite city parks in Washington, D.C. Fort Circle Park. It's a National Park Service property and it's in southeast D.C. It's a beautiful day. I just wanted to invite you to go on a walk with me. This is going to be a different episode. This is going to be kind of some of my reflections being outside. It's February. It's Black History Month. So I want to share some of my thought about that, too. So let's go ahead and take a walk, shall we? All right. I got together with my production team at the start of the year so we could talk about what our visions were for 2024. It's a big year across the country, across the globe, certainly inside my organization at Trust for Public Land, maybe even on some personal levels. And as we were thinking about increasing our cadence for this year, we're going to have an episode released each month and it's going to take a lot of good organization, a lot of good planning. And when we got to February, we thought, what should we do for Black History Month? And I felt something inside of me a kind of get a little bit uncomfortable. And I realized that that discomfort around what I kind of perceive as the obligatory nod towards this one short, dedicated month to the history of Black Americans or African-Americans here in the United States. Man, I just thought, do I have to? Do we have to? And I was kind of grappling with a feeling of being stuck.
Tom: So I'm going to leave it there for now, Ronda. And talk to me a little bit about that uncomfortableness that that you were talking about when it comes to Black History Month, you know, as a thing, you know, what's what's going on for you there?
Ronda: So it seems that, gosh, you talked to any growth development or any psychologist or psychiatrist. They always ask us to go back to our childhood and our most formative years. And I think that since I was a kid, on the one hand, I was happy about Black History Month because it meant that I was special and affirmed that I was special no matter where I went. And I would have these images in my mind that when I would go out to places during the month of February, I was supposed to be I was supposed to shine right. Like people were going to supposed to be excited when they saw me because this was a month that was dedicated to me and my family and other people in my church and and the like. But I think there is a part of me that has a little bit of that tension that I that I expressed It's kind of rooted in growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood and school system in the D.C. Suburbs. And while it was, you know, one of the better performing school districts in the D.C. metropolitan are and certainly in the mid-Atlantic coast, I was one of very few youth of color. And so most of my teachers were white or certainly not Black and certainly not a person of color. And there was always this tension around kind of performance. There was this expectation that I was going to be like the Black leaders that we learned that history about. You know, we always had the the kind of watering down of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman and all of these people that I want to align my ancestry with. And there was always this thing about Blackness and what Blackness looks like, what it is. And was it what it is and how it was defined by people that weren't even of that racial makeup there was this experience around Tokenization. You know, there was this kind of an othering. So on the one hand, I was really happy that here was this month where I was supposed to be a superstar just by virtue of, you know, my my ancestry, my heritage, my Blackness. But then at the same time, that was also when I got pulled aside when it was all of a sudden, even it, you know, ten years old, I was supposed to be this expert on all things Black. And and then I would get really flustered because my retention for these historical figures and dates and timelines, I was so challenged by it and I would just freeze. I couldn't retain it, and then I would question myself, does that mean that I'm am I really as Black as I'm supposed to be? So I had a lot of like internalized oppression, frankly, that was happening at the hands of and through the experience of growing up in a community where I wasn't really able to be my full self in a way that was safe. And I think that is just something that has stuck with me and I've seen it in my adulthood too, where I've got some beautiful friends and colleagues that went to HBCUs. I did not go to a historically Black college or university. I went to what we call a PWI, a predominately white institution. And even in that conversation There is a level of judgment around Blackness. And so I think for me, the reason why I freeze is because I'm still working through, I guess, gosh, my own insecurities, for lack of a better term. I don't want to use the word trauma because I think that's a very delicate and important word that needs to be respected in a certain way. So I don't want to overuse that. But there are some unresolved issues that I have.
Tom: And so in the production team is like, Hey, Ronda, let's let's do some about Black history. All these things are going through your head at once and the body.
Ronda: Yeah, totally. Like, am I going to get it right? If I am equitably, inevitably I'm going to miss somebody. I'm going to inevitably miss something. And that that pressure that I maybe I applied to myself, maybe nobody is responsible for that. To get it right feels challenging. And then there's also the frustration around Here we go is this annual event. and it's in some instances and particularly now at this stage in my life, it's it's sometimes offensive. So I think that's why I had the tension Tom.
Tom: Yeah, there's a lot going on there. so we're going to play another clip where you where you dig into this a little bit more and So let's go to that clip now and then let's talk a little bit more
Ronda: So I was stuck and I, I in talking with the producers… Thought, you know, I, I don't know where I feel or where I'm going to land with this. So let me just go ahead and do what I often do and take it outside. As the saying goes, and try to see what kind of clarity comes around it. And so it's I think today is February 5th or so, And I'm hoping that as we walk and talk and I think out loud with you, I can come to a position or maybe I won't. And one of the things I try to encourage groups and teams when I'm facilitating a process, whether it's around a project or if we're trying to facilitate some sort of learning, I try to remind everybody that we're not always going to come to closure and we need to find comfort with that. We have a itchiness, I think in our society, certainly within the culture of the environmental movement, to find a solution. We are, I think for the most part, many of us are fixers. We see a problem, we find a solution, we draw a conclusion and we move. But when I'm thinking about my identity and all my intersectional parts, it's just not that straightforward
Tom: So there's a lot I love in this clip. But what I think struck me first and this gets to the whole idea about the benefits of nature and being outside, I got to thinking, you know, nature doesn't discriminate, does it? it's kind of a safe place, intellectually, or it can be Would you agree with that?
Ronda: There's this idea that being out there in this safe place can give you time to process in a world that doesn't necessarily offer you that? It's so funny. My my thoughts are always roving. And I will say for me and many other people, yes, that is true. Nature is the place where I do feel safe and I can go, But maybe in this moment I'm also going I am going back in history and I am going back to my lineage and the broader African diaspora here in the United States where the woods were two places They were either a place of hiding or a place of hunting. So as you were trying to find your freedom, to get that clarity, to get out of this form of torture that we called slavery, running through the woods was your only escape, and you became reliant upon the rivers and the streams to break up your scent. As the dogs are chasing you and the people on horses and with guns. So on the one hand, some of those stories have been passed down in our DNA. And then generations of storytelling within Black families where going to the woods is actually not a place to be. It's a very dangerous place to be. You go out into the woods and anything can happen to you and nobody is going to know about it, Right? And even in my own family and this kind of reminds me of the conversation we had with Mickey Fearn in I think episode two, my family still today, not everybody in my family, certainly my mother. I'll just keep it to my mom and my dad and my siblings feel a little bit differently. They are always asking me, like, why would you sleep on the ground if you don't have to? Right. When we talk about camping, right. You know how hard we had to work to not sleep on the floor. Now you're doing it on purpose. Like, make it make sense, Ronda. Right. Right. You know, when you're going out into the woods, Ronda, the who knows that you're there. And how do you know there's not going to be somebody out there to harm you? So that's one that's one story of the woods for me. But then my own lived experience is quite the opposite. It is a place where you can feel the vibration and the energy from the trees. You can get messages in the wind. I get messages in the wind. I get messages from the birds as they're as they're flapping. And and so it is has a very calming effect on me. And it does allow my mind to to open as I'm moving my body in the stillness that is the woods. So it's just a very special place. But I always want to be careful about making broad statements about whether or not it's the because because it's not the experience for everyone.
Tom: That's really wonderful. And I love how you broke it up like that. The other thing that that occurred to me when I was listening to this clip is that, you know, you're you're talking and you went to the woods because you didn't have an answer. And for you and to be your true self, you needed to recognize that there was no clear answer for you. And that's part of the reason we were like, Guys, I need a moment. I'm going to go to the woods. I'm going to walk around them. And because these issues are nuanced and you're going to step back, you're going to confront that itchiness you're talking about. And you in this clip you talk about that, that itchiness, the you know, our desire to seek solutions and closure. And if we maybe can talk about TPL and the context of their work, you know, and then and you all devising solutions that are meaningful to the people you work with, you know, it might require that folks get a little bit itchy, right?
Ronda: That's certainly true. We do a lot of work around community forests. We do a lot of work around even urban forestry. We talk a lot about climate change impacts and our connection with nature in the trees as a as a solution. And when we go into communities, we have to really hear what their stories are so that we can just be really clear about what we're doing, why we're doing, who we're doing it for, and making sure that there are cultural dynamics of a designated location are taken into account when we are right excuse me, raising funds, when we're programing, when, where, you know, we're going to have an episode coming up that's really fresh on my mind where we're talking about accessibility in a different way. There's a park up in Cleveland, Ohio, that is currently a motorized ATV trail, which turns out to be kind of harmful for the environment and certainly disruptive for the neighborhood that surrounds it. So there's this this effort to transform that ATV trail, into a mountain biking trail and a walking trail where folks can actually access it safely, have more relationship and contact with that space. And so we're always looking for and the reason why that's happening is because the community has asked for it. So from from the community's cultural context, we want to be responsive to that. so there's like a myriad of ways. And then in other instances when where we'll have another episode on this too. And we're talking about community forestry on Indigenous lands and preserving those spaces for Indigenous economy and for cultural preservation and resilience in those spaces. So we are always interacting with with, with the trees, we're always interacting with these open spaces, but also in the in the urban context too. But we have to be really malleable and adaptable to whatever it is the community is asking for. So that reflects their collectivism.
Tom: I love that. So let's move on to our next clip, and this will get us back a little more to the topic of Black history and specifically.
Ronda: I previously had been thinking about the juxtaposition between recognition and erasure and the reality that you can't always depend on others to see you in your fullness if you're not there to present yourself, or in other words, like if you're not sitting at the table, or if you didn't build the table, if you didn't bring your own chair to sit at the table, it's very likely that somebody could kind of create their own narratives about you, about your family, or about your heritage. And so there's a responsibility, I think, sometimes that I feel that I have to make sure that I'm in all of these spaces so that I can bring my voice forward that might be resonant with some other folks who think like me and who look like me and feel like I do.
Tom: okay, so I'm going to stop there. And there's there's two things I'd like to pull out here.
The first is this idea of personal responsibility, and the other is around recognition and being at the table. These are two ideas you brought up. So dig in for me around what you think your responsibility is. And I'm going to assume at least part of it has to do with your role at Trust for Public Land.
Ronda: Yeah, for sure. So, you know, we are a national organization with a giant footprint, over 350 people in the organization. And I am our Associate Vice President for Equity and Belonging. Right. I identify as cis, hetero Black woman, Black American woman. And so there are layers of responsibility there. And what that looks like, you know, people are going to be looking to me to answer some unspoken questions. People are going to have a lot of assumptions that this type of activity. So, for example, doing something for Black History Month is kind of my responsibility as reshaping the culture of the organization and demonstrating how we are an equity centered, equity driven, you know, institute. And so, again, not unlike being a kid in a predominantly white school, people are looking to me to to fill a gap. People are looking to me to provide the guidance that they need or that they're looking for partially because they operate from a place of their own fear of saying or not saying something right or wrong for offending people, for, you know, a myriad of reasons. And so it becomes my responsibility by virtue of my title and the role inside the organization.
Tom; That's great. So let's let's jump to the second point, which is around recognition being at the table. You know, we've done a number of great podcasts episode three, I'm thinking about with Jeresneyka Rose and Chris Urias, Episode five and Naomi Davis, Anthony Seales Jr. who's now a board member at Trust for Public Land. You know, part of the idea for the show is like bringing people to the table who are involved in these projects, lifting up their stories, letting you know, giving them a platform to tell their stories. Creating that space. Can you talk about that for a bit for the audience?
ROnda: Sure. I mean, there's a significant value and need in having Inclusive representative processes and dialog. Right. And people don't know what they don't know until you put the information in front of them. When we don't provide people access to resources and tools and models such as all the folks that you just named in previous episodes, we take a risk of creating a void that allows people to craft their own narrative. And that narrative inevitably, Particularly if it's not based on somebody's lived experience, is going to be flawed. It could actually be more than flawed. It could be dangerously wrong, dangerously inaccurate. And so because we have so much to share and we have so much to celebrate, we also have a lot to teach and it's important in most instances to, you know, have these folks sitting in the room to share their stories. And I think about collectivism all the time. I think about ecosystems. We are all part of a grand ecosystem. And you can you can go into this portal where the ecosystem can just be about nature and then we can expand out and then we think about the humans involved in that and that natural ecosystem, and then we can expand in zone in. So there's this breathing kind of opportunity where we're all connected, we're all interconnected.
But once you break that link or once you break that connection, the system no longer functions. And so that means that we need to bring folks who are intentionally and politically overlooked, under-resourced, underinvested in so that that link can be mended or that we can secure that link and prevent it from being broken. And so having this platform with the podcast is an attempt to kind of ensure that that link stay strong and that we can all, you know, build on that ecosystem. We can all have an a mindset of collectivism and recognize the dependance that we have on one another.
Tom: I love that. I love that. And I'd like to point people to episode five, especially with Naomi and Anton talking about that collectivism and how TPL is supporting that as well. So let's, let's go over to Clip four And I know this next one is especially important for you.
Ronda: So I was thinking about nature as I often do, but I was thinking about the genesis for this podcast, this People. Nature. Big ideas. And it started about a year ago. and I think in this instance I want to say the big idea. It's actually not my idea alone, but it's the promotion of rest. So I'm going to start there.
Tom: It's a it's a short clip. Rest, Ronda, speak on it.
Yeah, well, it's funny. The idea behind this podcast, which, you know, kind of happened and a conversation with our other co-producer, Vanessa Martin, who's with TPL. It was partially conceived of as a place of rest for me.
We in our organization work so, so incredibly hard and there are moving parts all the time. And we we really need to show up with our our fullness. And for me, the podcast offered a different space in my brain. It was an idea to bring inspiration and the opportunity to lean into the brilliance and the dedication of other people. And when I'm having these podcast conversations or even just, you know, thinking about our plans moving forward for future episodes, I get to sit in the passenger seat and I get to let the other folks I get to let the guests take me and all of our listeners on a journey.
And that feels like a place of rest. That is a place of, as I said, like true inspiration. And it's also collectivism, right? It doesn't matter what my title is, It doesn't matter, you know, the the power and the reach that our organization has. It's really, again, about that ecosystem and that collectivism, that ecosystem, that village mentality and mindset is very much a part of my heritage. And it's this notion that it's actually not even a notion. It's a believe that when we all make our contributions and we pitch in together, doing so gives us an opportunity to actually rest and alleviate some of the pressures and the stresses and the exhaustion. And that's better for everybody. Right. It's giving ourselves a timeout. I'm going to put myself on a timeout and know that there is no threat to my security, my safety, my job, my community. And if are able to kind of have that as more of a practice, you know, we're observing a really interesting movement that's been happening since the pandemic began. We started out with quiet quitting. Right now, we're seeing a huge momentum, particularly and I think European countries around the four day workweek and the 32 hour work week we're seeing, particularly in the nonprofit sector, people are moving away from vacation and sick leave and just having unlimited vacation because they trust that their staff is going to do what's right for the good of the organization as well as what's right for themselves. So that level of trust that is included in those types of behaviors is really essential to me. When you're building collectivism and ecosystems and community, it is about trust. And with trust comes rest. And so yeah, that's really what it means to me. If we could just all give each other a little bit of a break to restore, to rejuvenate, we'd be surprised what happens for our our collective well-being. I know I'm using that term a lot, but it's really heavy on my mind right now.
Tom: So we're coming up on the end here, and this is the last clip that I'm going to ask you to reflect on and I think appropriately, we're we're circling back to the topic of Black History Month. So let's give a listen.
Ronda: when I think about Black History Month and we have these beautiful history. Stories, some of us have heard them countless times every year, at least for me. There are two news stories that I hadn't heard as we continue to unearth the incredible impact and influence and power that Black Americans and African Americans have had since we touched this, the soil of this of this country. Black history is also this moment. We don't always have to be in the rearview mirror. We need to honor it. We need to respect it. We need to pay our homage to all of the greats and all of the lesser knowns. but I also don't want us to forget about the future when we think about honoring those who came before us on the shoulders excuse me, that we stand on and all that good stuff. But as we're facing climate change and all of those devastating impacts of heat and flooding and the way that they continue to displace and and dislocate a lot of our communities as a result, we need to be thinking about many generations ahead. And so as I'm saying this, I think Relegating Black History Month to just history feels too limiting. And I'm not very limited in my thinking too often, at least I don't think so. I know that I've got some areas that I need to work on. I know I've got some stubborn points for sure, but I think that when we talk about radical imaginations and we talk about radical innovations, that also means that we need to open our minds and not get so stuck in the past.
Tom: so I'm going to stop there. there's a lot going on and there's a lot of ideas. I love the ideas about Black Futures as being part of Black history and Black past. There's a nice continuum going on there for me. But but what's resonating resonating for you as you listen back again?
Ronda: Gosh, a couple of things. One was a little bit of guilt. I was thinking, well, I hope that in listening to this, nobody thinks that we need to stop reflecting on the past. I know that I said we need to honor and respect it. And I stand totally I stand firm on that. So I just want to underscore that for anybody who has, you know, Black history is important.
Tom: You’re definitively coming out in favor of Black history.
Ronda: 100 %. 100%. But I think when we think about the future, there is a part of me at least, that comes alive when I allow myself to imagine another world where, Black communities in particular, since we're talking about Black History Month, are thriving in their fullness and are no longer being tied to those those politics of the past. Right. The extractive capitalism that founded this nation. Imagine a time where that's no longer going to be in the water, if you will. And sometimes when I think about hope, which I will just quick sidebar. You know, hope is one of our values that TPL, it's a really important value to me and many others because it inspires action. It's not something that you can just sit back with wistfully and do nothing. When you have hope, it drives you forward. It propels you to new insights and new visions. And so if I think about my 26 grand nieces and nephews in my one family, right, the Chapman family is growing, thank goodness for my my nephews and my niece and all of the amazing humans that they've brought into this world. When I think about the youngest one who is just not even a year yet, I want her to be in a place where she is fully embraced and all of her greatness. I already know that she's great and I know that she deserves a world that has clean air and clean water right. And I want her I'm going to be her ancestor, right? I'm going to be guiding her through these things. And I don't want to have to apologize for something that I didn't do. And so as we think about the fact that we're all right now, some future ancestor, it's like, my gosh. I love that. Yeah, we got it. I got I got to take action. So I have to use her as some of my motivation sometimes. And all of her cousins and all of the other children that I have have yet to be born and that I certainly will never know
Tom: You are the future of Black history.
Ronda: I am the future Black history. Future Black History.
Tom: I love it. So I think that's a great place to leave our conversation. I think I'd like to take us out and go back to your walk to wrap us up and the audience will get to hear a little bit more about an upcoming TPL event that is focused exclusively on Black History Month. So, Ronda, this has been really fun. Thank you for letting me sit a bit in the driver's seat in Black History Month. And it's been a lot of fun.
Ronda: Thank you, Tom. I'm really glad that you're here and that we're having this conversation. I feel really fortunate to have the support of my team at TPL. To even have this podcast because it doesn't come free. And the guests that we have had so far and the guests that are to come, all have valuable insights to share with each of us. And I'm so grateful for that. So I think this is probably going to be it for people. Nature. Big ideas for the month of February. But what I will share is for those of you who are really interested in a dialog, I'm honored that TPL has its Park Bench Chat and in February we will have one that is dedicated to Black history and I think specifically this Park Bench Chat experience that's coming up will be on February 27th, I believe it's at noon Pacific Time, 3:00 Eastern time. It's going to be moderated by Dr. Jocelyn Imani, who is our senior director for Black History and Culture. And it's going to feature three guests and it's going to talk about the cultural components of the Black experience around art and music and the like. So I think it's going to be a fun conversation. I think it's going to be about the present. I think it's going to be about the future. And of course it's going to talk about the past. So I hope you tune in and you find some inspiring moments. But for me I just wanted to take some rest and I wanted to honor this beautiful space, this nature. I want to extend my gratitude to all of the folks who have listened thus far. And I don't know, I think I'm also interested in hearing some of your reflections, particularly if you are somebody who is a member of the African diaspora and how you show up for yourselves and for your community or your family. On this February Black History Month that we have dedicated here in the United States. Thanks for going on this. Walk with me. thanks for being a good listener and a subscriber and supporter. People. Nature. Big Ideas. I wish you the best. Ciao.