Waiting for the Next Disaster

I've gotten a lot of tweets from people. I posted a video on both Instagram and TikTok yesterday about what it means to take care of yourself during these times. And I know that a lot of us right by virtue of working and you know, having families and taking care of whether it's children or elderly people. Just continue to power through, continue to power through in a way that does not acknowledge the feelings of overwhelm, that does not acknowledge and allow ourselves to sit with the fear

that many of us are living with. There is a lot of fear, and rightfully so, because this world, this society that we are living in, is incredibly unpredictable. Now people will say, look, life is unpredictable. You know, you many of us have lost people that we cared about unexpectedly,

through accidents, through disease. We know that life is unpredictable, but what it feels like right now is that we are just sitting ducks, literally, just sitting ducks, just waiting for the next mass shooting, waiting for the next disaster, waiting for the next insurrection, waiting for the next you know, historic storm, waiting for the next derailment, waiting for the next announcement of a town that doesn't have clean water.

And so what I say to all of you is the same thing that I say to myself and the same thing that I've been saying all week. You know,

turn it off. That doesn't mean to ignore what is happening, but it's to understand when you've reached your limits, when it is okay to tap out and make sure that you are getting outside and going walking that you or running, that you are, you know, moving your body that you are able to you know, sit, whether it is in prayer or in meditation or just taking some nice, slow deep breaths, you know, if it is going and sitting in nature, or focusing on a houseplant that you may have,

or taking a care of a pet. But folks, it is really really critical that each and every day, a few times a day, that you allow yourself to just pause. Now, I gave examples of things to do that is not a way to neglect how you're feeling, but it's a way to balance your feelings, you know. I find and as many people therapists and doctors have said, crying is cathartic, right, Like it's okay to cry, It's okay to have moments

of breakdown. Right. It's when we start wallowing and marinating in despair and in hopelessness that we need to be concerned. But we should be having conversations with each other about how we are feeling. Asking yourself as well as your friends and family, are you okay? You know, how has all of this news, How has it been hitting you? What you know, mechanisms for processing have you been using. I have told many of you that I have been in therapy over the last five years. It is the

best money that I could ever spend. You know, I had the privilege during the pandemic to begin a meditation practice that I continued to this day. You know, on Monday, after the news broke, and I'm on social media and I'm furious and the rage, you know, began to subside. The grief set in, and I got off of my couch and I turned off my television. I put my phone on do not disturb. I took out a book. I did a long meditation and some breathing, and I cried.

I for the families. I cried for the children. I cried for those I cried for the children that were taken, that were killed, the administrators, the custodian that were taken that were killed. But I cried for all of the children and the administrators, the teachers, the families, the community that would now have to join a club that nobody

wants to be a part of. Because while we sit and we grieve for those that are lost, we're not really understanding the trauma that these kids are now going to live with and grow into adulthood with, right as well as those teachers and those administrators. Like, look, we can tell ourselves logically like, oh, this will never happen again, or but it's not true. It may not happen in that particular school again, but we know it's going to

happen again. And so with each shooting, our anxiety, our grief, our fear go through the roof and we take that on in a very physical and real way. You know, I spoke about this on the Mary Trump Show that I've gone to the dentist recently to find out that I pretty much ground my back molars flat. They said, are you under a lot of stress? They and I literally laughed at the dentist. I am, I under a

lot of stress? Yeah, just a little bit, right. But if we don't find purposeful, therapeutic and healthy ways to release the pain, emotional and physical pain that we are in, it will turn into disease ease. So it is not about becoming ostriches and ignoring our feelings. It is about processing those feelings, building community to process those feelings, finding healthy habits to help us process these feelings. Because the overwhelm is real, and it is okay, dear friends, to

not be okay all the time. So you know, I really hope that you really do heed this and take this advice that I offer, because it's something that I literally tell myself every day in the mirror, which is why walking has become my salvation in a lot of ways. Okay, Coming up next, dear friends, my interview with Don L. Brown from the Empower Her Institute to talk about something good that is happening in schools with young women of color. And I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope that

you all do too. Folks. I am very excited to welcome to woka F Daily Don L. Brown, who is the President and CEO of Empower Her Institute. Don you come to woke F at a good time and also a bad time, a time when we are recognizing that there is a pandemic that we are not talking about in this country, which is that of the mental and

emotional health and well being of our nation's youth. And a CDC report had come out that stated that from twenty eleven until twenty two one, this ten year spanning report says that suicidal thoughts and behaviors of young people had increased at an alarming rate and disproportionately affects girls of color. Can you tell us some more about this crisis that we don't seem to see in the news

or in the headlines in the way that we should. Yeah, So, what the CDC report essentially said is exactly what you just mentioned. That we are seeing an increase over the past ten years with a significant increase over the past three to five years of a suicidal ideation with girls of color. And you know, often in our country, when we were talking about girls of color, it isn't something that makes the news right, and so it's not shocking

that it has. What we're seeing as young people are experiencing significant trauma, and that increase comes from everything from the social social media. There's been an increase of bullying as a result of social media. You know, we're making commons, children are making comments to one another like kill yourself, things that we even when we were bullying each other back in the day, we were saying those kinds of things, but it becomes a joke that feels like so much

more for them. We're seeing, you know, young girls are experiencing. What we're not talking about is that black and brown girls specifically are experience and massage in law. They are experiencing high increases of that which we are not having conversations about, and they think that there's something wrong with them. There is normal teenage angst that's happening, but the conversations aren't happening to support them through what is happening in

their bodies. What's happening in their emotions and their feelings. Everyone thinks, we're looking at social media, everyone's life looks perfect, and so they think something is wrong with them, that their life doesn't feel that way. UM. And the conversations that are happening amongst one another when we talk, when they talk about UH supporting one another is more around UH discussions of UM harm and UM and supporting one another in group decisions around harm. So we are that,

you know, this is what's happening in the world right now. UM. Black and brown girls are experiencing racism and sexism and gender you know challenges UM in ways that and and there's there's challenges and questions around sexual identity UM that are now openly being discussed and yet still hushed in

our community. UM. And so I think all of those things sort of poal on UM in addition to just the the the weight of what it looks like when we are when young people are, you know, dealing with school, we always want to say, hey, that's not a big deal,

you know. I mean, though I got to work every day, but you know, having to go through tests and the anxiety that comes with that and having you know, multiple responsibilities and expectations on them and then being dismissed around that really those weights are heavy, and they do calls

additional trauma and a silencing of their voices. I think that a part of this, in a large way, one goes to the fact, and you tell me if I'm wrong, that we have never created the type of mental health infrastructure in our schools, right, correct, in our public schools to deal with the varying emotions, hormones, but very live and real trauma. You know, while while a parent could say, you know, as you mentioned in your example, say well you know, I have to work every day. All you

have to do is go to school. Well, this is a generation of children that do active shooter drills the way that we used to do fire drills. You know, we grew up. I would like to think that those of us who are adults of a certain age grew up at a time when school was seen as a safe place, right, like the worst thing that could happen was a fire, right that you were prepared for, and you saw the fire doors, and you did those drills.

But now we send kids to school all over this country and we can't tell them for certain that they're coming back. That's just one instance of daily lived trauma. So can you speak to how that which has become regular headlines and a regular part of the American experience, also plays a part in what children are experiencing nowadays. Absolutely, there is no real discussion around social emotional learning. That is not happening, That is not a part of the curriculum.

I know that there has now been discussions around schools and a school districts now that are beginning to introduce social emotional learning but as part of the curriculum and a required part of the curriculum. But for ten years even more, that wasn't happening. So no, there was They've taken health classes out, so they're not having conversations. I

remember when I went to school. I remember not wanting us sit in there on those classes, but then loving them afterwards because we had we got to talk about what was happening in our bodies and what was happening in our emotions, and they separated us male and female,

and they had those conversations. That's been taken out of the schools because of budget cuts, right, and so even something as simple as pe in many cases has been taken out of schools because of budget cuts, and we think about the stress reduction that comes with that physical activity. And then when you as you mentioned, when it comes to like psychology and having school therapists in public schools, when we look at the budget cuts, they got to focus on the specifics of the education the abc D,

you know, requirements. And so when you look at somewhere like La County, which is where I am based, when you look at LAUSD and other public schools that are in the area that we work with, a school psychologist gets five schools. So there's one school psychologist to five schools. When you think about that, they have one day at each school. Sometimes they don't even have a full day. And that's your average. And so we have I work with a thousand girls a year and we see them

on a weekly basis. Most of them have no idea that there is a school psychologist because they have never seen that person, or if they do see them, they're like, oh, we see them like once every other week, like and nobody goes there because she's always booked, you know. And so when you're when we're dealing with those kinds of economical challenges and yet in the same situation as you mentioned.

They're going through active shooting courses, right, they are learning drills who so that I never had to learn, you know, we've never had to learn those things. And you know, even just talking without girls, one of the projects that our girls do is a social justice Seemed project and they get to decide on a social justice issue they want to explore. And you'd be surprised how many of

them wanted to have conversations. They either want to explore an issue around race or they want to explore an issue around shooting and gun you know, and gun control. And you know, one of the things that you know has been said is but nobody cares because there hasn't been a change in the policies and the laws. And people don't think that our young people are having those conversations or having those thoughts, but they are. They're very aware.

They're very aware of what's happening in the world. They're very aware of the fact that, you know, there are no change in laws and policies. They understand that their government has said, hey, you know, we know that this is happening, and we're just gonna keep praying for you, right, and so you know, those those are conversations that the girls are having, that they are having with us, that they say to us. And so we're not introducing these thoughts,

they're introducing them to us. Right, So yeah, that does that plays a big role in this. And we we can't, you know, we can't negate the fact that you know, I remember going to school and we learned about officer friendly in elementary school and there was an officer who would come and I would grew up in DC and

you know, they talked to us. And then by the time we got to middle school in high school, were a little you know, side out of an officer friendly because we had had our experiences at that point, right, But we also still under you know, but there was still this idea that even beyond that, there was still this general idea that if it got down to it, I could go I could call the police some you know,

someone would you know, I could go to someone. Well that has that idea is gone, right, And so our girls, now, our young people now in general, absolutely if they are young people of color, male, female, they are young people of color. And then on top of that you add black and brown in and then you add on top of that social economic challenges. Then absolutely they there's no

idea of Office of Friendly at all anymore. There's no thought in them that that didn't come and it wasn't introduced in elementary school, and it hasn't and it won't won't be introduced because what they're seeing visually every day on social media looks very different. What they're experiencing in

their communities looks very different. You know. I teach a class with my girls around the juvenile justice system, and every school class that I go to, I ask them who has been impacted either themselves or someone in their families by the justice system, and every hand goes up in every class. Wow, right, And so that that says something about where they where. The idea of who could protect them can't and won't. So I have to fear the people who have been put into the world that

are supposed to protect me. I have to fear them. I don't have somewhere to go in school, and that is my safe space, and you know, but yet I don't have somewhere to go to to process my feelings. And then on top of that, you know, when I come home and I talk to my parents, there while they want to be supportive. They have their own traumas

around socio economic challenges that's happening. You know, more children in the household that they're trying to balance, and they're just trying to figure it all out because there's such a big difference in the generational divide, right, that wasn't necessarily there before, But there is a big difference. Again, we're not having we didn't have actors school shooting. I'm not that much older than I the girls that I served, but we don't have that. We didn't have that, So

how do you have those conversations? Yeah, it's like how do you facilitate than conversations on issues that you don't have truly an experience or advantage point on, right, Like I talk about on willkaf all the time, we talk about the night shootings, We talk about actors shooting drills. I've never experienced one, so I honestly I don't even know what that entails, right, But I think about it as this disruption or this bell or whatever sounds you know,

go off. You don't know in that moment whether this is practice or it's actually happening. You go through this and then you're supposed to sit back down and learn exactly so that to me is already like you've created this experience that induces anxiety, then you don't have anything that brings that level of anxiety back down. And we're just supposed to ask these young people who are still learning how to regulate their emotions as their aging to then be able to just go right back to functioning.

What number were we on? Like? What problem was I trying to solve? So I think about the ways in which the people Dawn who are creating education policy, which is something that I went to work on Capitol Hill to do, us to try and create education policy from the vantage point of an actual teacher, which I was, and recognize that the people who are doing this haven't been in a classroom in fifty years. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, they have not been in a

classroom in fifty years. And you don't have to have an education degree in order to make policy around education. Let's not forget that party. And you don't have to have a child development degree, which is absolutely wild. But how do you with empower her? How do you deal with a society a government that really does not put any emphasis on anything other than teaching kids their ABC's.

And yet we know that schools in many ways should be the community focal point, right and a place of safety and healing and learning not only for the child but of their caregivers and their parents, and we do the exact opposite. Yeah, And I think one of the things that I want to also just quickly say is that often, you know, as adults, we expect that we're going to have the answers, but we don't in this situation when now young people come to us and ask

these questions, we don't have answers. And that's some part of why there's a fear to even have those conversations with them, because you have these conversations and then where do we go. I don't have an answer for you. I don't have a solution, and so there's a fear

to even have those conversations. And what we're seeing in policymakers now is because there's such a fear of that that they're saying, we just don't talk about it, don't talk about all these things that young people want to explore because we don't know how to, you know, we're uncomfortable with them, right, And so you know what we do and empower her Institute. We are a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles County. We serve a thousand girls

a year. We start with them from seventh grade through twelfth grade, and we are actually the only gender responsive non organization in LA that provides a social emotional learning course during the school day. We are fully integrated into the school day. We work with Title one schools, which for those who don't know, our schools that are that have at least sixty percent of the young people who attend are qualified for free or reduced lunch. When we

only work with bipop girls. And so we do a social emotional learning and a skills based learning course that happens. And then in addition to that, part of the course is mentoring and so they actually get monthly mentoring in addition to that by adult women. And our whole goal is to help them deal with the muck of being a team and processing all of that in order to

support them to become career in college ready. See, we go to college, we go to school, and we say this is all about career in college readiness, right, But we miss the social emotional component. We miss the trauma that young people are experiencing that make it difficult for them to even concentrate on anything that has to do with career or college or anything else. And so what we do is we look at it from that perspective.

We're looking at it from a lens of we've got to support you in the trauma in addition to supporting you with developing those skills and those resources and the access so that you can become a college and career ready. Our ultimate goal is to break generational cycles of poverty, and we understand what that means. We understand that we

take a social justice lens to this work. We are, you know, we take a where we're constantly looking at gender and race and the sort of levels of that in working with our girls, and so we don't just have conversations about how to go how to prepare a resume, and how to behave in your first day of work, but we have conversations in addition to that about microaggressions and man splaining in the workplace right and in the school, and how to negotiate those situations and how to navigate

those situations. So those are the kinds of conversations that we have when we talk about a budget, we're not just doing financial literacy from a universal perspective, but we talk about what does it sound like in your household when you talk about money, when parents, when you hear your parents talk about it, what does it sound like?

Because it sounds very different in a household that's financially is challenged and struggling than it does in one that has a lot of money, right, And so we have those conversations and as we continue with them, we have conversations about how to prepare what financial wealth looks like, and how what generational wealth looks like. And they start learning about investments and things of that sort, and they actually get money to buy their first piece of stock

by the time there in the twelfth thirteen. So that's the kind of way that we do it. So we really are talking about how to handle your emotions, how to deal with the muck of that. We talk about that, we talk about sex, we talk about just the fact that as you get older, from seven through twelfth grade, it's a whole bunch of stuff that comes with that.

People forget that post traumatic stress. There have been studies that have shown that young people who live in violent communities have the same response level, chemical response level, and emotional response level as those who have gone to war, And so we forget that post traumatic stress is something that is not just for war heroes, but it's also something that young people who live in violent communities experience

every day and they are they continue to experience. It's a trauma and so we have to have those conversations with them as well. And so that's who we are. That's what we do with our girls. And because we do it on a weekly basis, it's an hour course for our middle schoolers, and then when our high schoolers they take an hour course twice a week. Middle schoolers taken it once a week for the entire school year. And then in addition to that, they are getting social

justice esteem support. And we're the only ones in the country that are combining that together to do that kind of work and to do these really cool, cool and awesome like summer camps that no one else is doing with our girls where they train as marine biologists. And you know, I got these are middle schoolers that are training as marine biologists and their training and getting a scuba diving certifications and things of that sort. Middle schoolers

black and brown girls. And again that goes back to also the social emotional learning component because they get to be in a space where they're jumping in the water and everybody's hair looks the same yea, So nobody's questioning that it and thinking about that, right, And so we create those immersive experiences for them as well. And you know, with that, it allows us to really help our girls

address the challenges that our schools aren't able to. It's not that our school principles don't want to, they don't have its budgets to do so, they don't have the resources. Yeah, Dawn, every bit of your institute sounds like something that I would love to see nationalize. I'd love to see it in every single school district across the country with a

significant BIPOC student body that needs this right. You know, at a time, particularly when we hear about black curriculum being banned, and black sororities and fraternities being banned, and you know, anything that is considered inclusive and equitable being banned in states, it is really heartening to hear that an organization like yours exists and is doing the work to create you know, a powerful healed generation of young

BIPOC women. Before I let you go, please do tell the woke f audience how they could learn more and get involved with empower her. Yes, definitely. Let me say that one hundred percent of the girls that we work with actually in the middle schools matriculate into high school and one hundred percent about high schoolers if they continue with us through the twelfth grade, graduate and are accepted

in the college. An eighty nine percent of the girls who we work with report having an increase of self confidence and a decrease is significant decrease in trauma and and suicidal ideation in our program. So the program and it works, right, Yeah, And I think that's important before we say, you know, get involved, like I want to show and say that we have statistics that show that our work works. You know. The best way to get involved. We are a nonprofit organization and so all of what

we do we have to fundraise for. And so you can always make a donation to the organization. If you're not in the lam even if you are in LA please make a donation. But if you are in the LA County and would like to volunteer as a mentor, we're looking for women who are twenty one and over who are interested in becoming volunteering as a mentor. It's two hours of your time once a month. You go to a school and you get a group of girls who you talk with and you get to explain your

exp is. They ask questions of you, and you ask questions of them, and you learn from one another. And then there's also ways to get involved. And we are always looking for companies who want to take on a high school girl to actually work with them for the summer so that they can make money and take these

skills and apply them. And so it's a four week program and you pay them and we actually pay our kids above minimal wage to go and work for four weeks in the summer so they can get those experiences. We teach them the skills, but then we want them to apply those skills. And so those are some key ways to get involved with our organization. John Brown, thank you so much for the work that you are doing for bringing a little bit of light to will get

off on a little bit of hopefulness. With organizations like yours, we will see some significant change. So I really appreciate you. And folks check out empower her institute. Thank you so much, thank you. That is it for me today. Dear friends on Woke a f as always power to the people and to all the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.