Imara Jones: Hey fam, it’s Imara. Welcome to the TransLash podcast – our final podcast of the year. A show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives. We hear a lot about unmitigated happiness during the holiday season. You know, lights, stockings, jingling bells, eggnog. Hey, but the right rum, it’s amazing. All tied together with the love of friends and family. But despite these pop culture notions of togetherness, for trans people, this time of the year can be painful, reminding us of what we have lost and what it has cost for us to be ourselves. That’s why so many of us need a little extra love and support right now with an emphasis on self-care. However, much of the self-care advice where you receive relies on things that a lot of us just don’t have: extra money, extra time or access to specialized providers. And this notion of self-care treats feeling better as if it was a switch. That say, a pedicure could fix.
But there are more profound ways that we can look after ourselves and each other that are rooted in the deep wisdom of trans experience. That’s why we’re talking to, first today, Chase Strangio. You may know him from his work to fight against anti-trans hate with the ACLU. But he’s also a co-founder of Trans Santa – a project that helps get gifts to trans youth in need.
Chase Strangio: And even in the face of all of these relentless attacks, the reality is that we are in existence, we are here. They can’t undo [chuckles] our truth and so, no matter what they do, we will care for each other.
Imara: And then, we talked to Emanuel H. Brown about taking care of yourself during this complicated time of the year. He’s the executive director and founder of the Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom.
Emanuel Brown: So for folks who might be engaging with their families during this time of year to be like, are there things that you can just be like, “You know what? I’m not talking about this. I’m not going to talk about this. They have not actually earned the right.”
Imara: Before we get started though, you know what’s coming. Let’s celebrate some trans holiday joy.
Imara: Health and wellness mean a lot of different things. It’s not just about exercise and nutrition. Sometimes, it’s about making sure you have a coat to stay warm or connecting with community during hard times. And that’s why the work of CAKE Society Co is so important. They offer a variety of health and wellness based services to the trans and gender expansive in community in the Washington DC area. Here is the founder, Colton Gibbons to tell us more.
Colton Gibbons: We started with doing fitness classes. So providing free fitness classes, free Zumba classes to the trans and gender extensive community. And then as a winter approach, we had some people who moved here from El Salvador and other countries, some trans asylum-seekers and coming from another country and being in areas like DC or New York. The weather’s significantly different. So we’ve been providing clothing, jackets, wigs, binders. We’ve been providing interview close all the way to wakes just figuring out what are the needs of the community members. If they’re cold, you know, try to get them a jacket. They want hair, try to get them a wig, things like that. Like filling in the gaps in terms of what we like to call, Gender Affirming Essentials. So all the things that aren’t typically recognized or acknowledge by insurance or society.
Imara: Colton, you and CAKE Society Co are trans joy.
Imara: One thing lifting my spirits this year is Trans Santa. It’s a powerful and popular initiative where trans and non-binary youth send in a wish list during the holiday season and anyone can donate to help bring cheer to these youth in need. It’s an especially stressful time of year for trans youth, especially with trans rights under attack and the ongoing stresses of COVID. Many trans youth are houseless and foster care or unsafe housing conditions. Trans Santa is a wonderful way for us to remind these youngest members of our community that they’re valued and loved. Joining me today to talk about the Trans Santa project is Chase Strangio, you may know him as the deputy director for Transgender Justice with the ACLUs, LGBT and HIV project, but Chase is also a co-founder of Trans Santa. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Chase.
Chase: Thank you for having me. I’m always happy to be here.
Imara: Yay, balloon drop. So [chuckle] I’m wondering, can you talk about the origins of Trans Santa? I mean, for me, I think of it in the greatest tradition of mutual aid which is at the core of how our community organizes itself in response to crisis. What was the inspiration behind you and Indya creating this?
Chase: It was founded by me and Indya Moore and another one of our friends named Kyle Lasky. And it came out of in a lot of ways are, you know, sort of profound sadness and frustration in the wake of escalating attacks on trans people and particularly on trans youth and Indya and I were talking. I think right after the Tavistock decision came down last year in the UK and that was a court decision that’s thankfully been overturned but which had severely restricted access to healthcare for trans minors in the UK. And then, unfortunately, with imported into the United States and sort of as part of the momentum of anti-trans bills that we saw in 2021. But sort of contending with all of that rhetoric and all of these escalating anti-trans policies, Indya and I and then we moved in Kyle, were having this conversation about well, what can we do that’s tangible? There’s so many limitations to policy intervention and litigation as I am constantly dealing with. But sometimes, the best thing that we can do and as you mentioned something that’s a source of care and survival in our communities for so long is just looking out for each other and extralegal systems for survival.
And so in that spirit, it was December last year, we decided to build out a project where we found ways to give directly to trans youth. And so we came up with the Trans Santa idea, the three of us, and used Instagram and it sort of took off. It was so beautiful and refreshing last year. And so, Kyle, especially spent a lot of time over the last year revamping our systems so that we could launch it again for 2021.
Imara: So explain the concept and how you came up with it because I thought it was really innovative because a lot of ways mutual aid works is, you put out a call, money goes to you and then the money is redistributed. But this is a model where the people who are actually in need get to communicate with those who want to help. So, can you talk a little bit about the model, how it works and how you came up with the idea?
Chase: Yeah. So the way it works is that young people can send an image of some kind and it does not have to be a personal image. It can be an image of a letter, it can be an image of a drawing, it can be an image of anything, but basically to occupy an Instagram post. Last year, we did it with Target and this year we’re doing it with Amazon and their constraints with the corporate aspects of both of those entities. So, we recognize that. But the benefit is that they have registry options and we wanted a way for young people to be able to tell the world something about them and to give that sort of discursive agency back to young people but also to maintain privacy.
I personally did not want anyone’s individual contact information. I did not want to be responsible for getting specific things to people. So, we connected people with registry sites so that they could find the safest shipping option for themselves and ask for directly what they need and want for the holidays. And then through the Instagram posts, it just links directly to their registry. So if you’re someone who’s like, “I really want to do something for trans young people,” you don’t need to orgs, but you want to have a more direct experience. You can look and read someone’s letter to Trans Santa that talks about what they want and who they are. Go on to their registry and see, “Oh, this person wants makeup or gender affirming clothes or cat food,” and then you can send it directly to them without ever having to know where they are or their address but there is that way that we’re connecting with each other, building community, building support and sharing love in the most tangible ways around the holidays which can be so incredibly depressing and alienating, particularly for trans young people who may be in the precariously housed or houseless, who may be in an unsafe living situation with their family of origin. And so this was a way to sort of give love but also meet people’s material needs while building connection and also maintaining privacy.
Imara: Do you know or happen to know how many people participated in Trans Santa last year?
Chase: We distributed about $400,000 worth of gifts to about 1500 people last year or maybe it was somewhere around 1200 people last year. And there’s already been almost 1900 submissions this year.
Imara: Is there a particular letter or request that you saw that stands out to you, either this year or last year?
Chase: I mean, they’re also- like there’s the little little kids that just, there’s like such a sweetness to it and seeing, you know, letters from 5, 6, 7 year-olds with the help and support of either parents or siblings. There’s so many that are just like cat food or dog food or a binder or some makeup and so much of what we see from what people are asking for is to care for themselves and their bodies through gender affirmation that may not be available to them either because of the environment they’re living or because of cost, and so those always really speak to me. But then, there’s also so much caretaking that goes on from the people who are submitting their letters, whether it’s a pets or siblings or parents, partners. It just feels like it’s a project that is built out of love for trans people, that expands love for trans people and that allows trans people to expand our love for the people and pets in our lives.
Imara: Yeah. It’s so fascinating because it seems to me that by it is very much a trans vision of the world. That is to say that one, it’s centered in love and affirmation, it’s centered on meeting people’s needs and it’s created in this really individual way in which people get to say what is best for them and have other people respond to that. And if you look at the history of the way in which trans organizations that have sprung up throughout history, but especially since the 1960s and 50s even before, this is the way they all work and it’s really fascinating that this is a gifts. This vision that you all have embodied in this, this is a part of our gift to the world about the way in which things could be different if we valued people and things and really honored every person.
Chase: Yeah. That’s such a beautiful way to put it as someone who works in a massive organization which predominantly assist people when I have the opportunity to do an all trans project, which is how this originated. It was three trans people talking about how to love trans people. We are calling upon that history of caretaking, of allowing people to claim and speak their truth and their needs and to find ways of working within and around the systems that we are stuck in to help each other survive. And that’s always the legacy that I want to be a part of. And so, this project is definitely a love letter to trans people with a material and sort of emotional undercurrent.
Imara: I’m wondering in the context of this episode which is about taking care of yourself for the holidays, Trans Santa as a way that were taking care of other trans people through this or that you can meet the need of giving that you have that’s a way of taking care of ourselves. I’m wondering how you take care of yourself during the holidays. How do you find a way to balance out and recharge, go through the emotional nature of this time of the year especially since a large part of your job is facing off against hate during the rest of the year? So, how do you take care of yourself?
Chase: Oh, umm. That is always a good question. I mean, this project is one way. I am being with someone who struggles with the sleep and rest and I have found it really nourishing to go and read the letters and buy gifts for people and there is a way where connecting the transness is one of the ways that I care for myself because I spent a lot of time contending with so much anti-trans sentiment in a very cis-centered world and profession. And so, even the people who I work, the closest with in my day-to-day job are often cis people and amazing cis people, but cis people nonetheless. So connecting the transness has one way that I care for myself, whether that’s thinking about the people who were my guys and elders who have passed like Laudrina or Fawles and just sitting with that or connecting with young people, being available and being present, but also sort of quieting myself. I think one thing I’m looking forward to hopefully in the Christmas to New Year’s week is just really shutting off because there is a real overstimulation. All the engagement on our bodies and our minds is really exhausting. So I really hope to spend some time with my family and watch TV and eat food and just be a person who doesn’t have to think about these things every minute.
Imara: Yeah. Well, I know that we wish all of that for you like, hopefully all that will take place in the end, especially this idea of taking care of others as a survival strategy for ourselves is a really powerful one and is one I hadn’t heard articulated before, but I think is one we want to share with people. One of the things that you touched upon is how difficult a time this is for trans youth because of the nature of the hate going on and because of the pain that can come with the holidays. I’m wondering if you could communicate or share in words with those people or with young people who might be listening, how our community feels about them and what we want for them, what would you say?
Chase: Yeah. I mean, I look at trans young people at with just so much love and appreciation for how much insight and self-awareness and fortitude it takes to at a younger age. Have a sense of who you are even when the world is telling you that you shouldn’t or couldn’t be that person. And we’re all on our own journeys to self-discovery and self-actualization. But one of the amazing things about working with young people is seeing people just know who they are and claimed that whether it’s to their families or to their government or to their communities, however, those are defined. And I just want to world where trans people are held in that brilliance, that self-awareness, that fortitude instead of crushed. And I guessed, all the trans people who are coming into the version of themselves that feels most at home right now, I would say, you know, we’re going to keep fighting for that world. And even in the face of all of these relentless attacks, the reality is that we are in existence, we are here, they can’t undo our truth.
And so, no matter what they do, we will care for each other. And one really bleak moment in 2021 early in the legislative session, I was talking to Tourmaline whom I’ve known and worked with for over a decade in various capacities and I was just sort of saying, “Oh goddess, it’s so bad.” You know, they’re going to take away people’s health care and Tourmaline said, “You know, well, we’ll just find extra legal ways to care for each other as we always have.” And that’s just the truth of it all and that’s the truth of the Trans Santa project, that’s the truth of how I [chuckles] first got my health care through friends and through systems that we set up and we are just going to keep doing that. We’ll celebrate each other, we’ll create the conditions for not just our survival, but our magic. And of that, I am certain.
Imara: Well, thank you for that and thank you for joining us today to talk about the power and the love behind the Trans Santa project. I also hope that you will again find a way to take care of yourself during the holidays and for everyone listening to do the same because our community is still at the very, very, very beginning of a very long ongoing fight for our rights in the world. And the only way that we’re going to make it is by taking care of ourselves and taking care of each other. That’s a wisdom that you have, Chase. So I hope that you do that and that everyone who’s listening does that as well.
Chase: Thank you, Imara, and I hope the same for you.
Imara: That was Chase Strangio, deputy director for Transgender Justice at the ACLU and a co-founder of the Trans Santa project.
Imara: As we’ve discussed throughout today’s show, the holidays can be complicated and difficult. That’s why I’m thankful to be joined by Emanuel H. Brown right now for a conversation about how we can take care of ourselves while navigating hard family dynamics and feelings, which can overwhelm us. Emanuel, who is African-American and transmasculine brings deep insight and expertise to this conversation. He’s the executive director and founder of the Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom where he does healing work. The approach of that work is critical and deeply refreshing. It’s based on justice practices rooted in the wisdom of historically marginalized communities to help everyone unlock healing, wholeness and freedom. All of this is why Emanuel has gained the attention of numerous institutions and movement spaces such as Harvard Law School, Yale University, Auburn Seminary. Moved to end violence and facing race, Emanuel is a former senior fellow for the pop culture collaborative. Emanuel, I really appreciate you joining me today.
Emanuel: Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be in this conversation and to especially be in this conversation with you, somebody who I’ve just long time admired about lifting up the voices of our community. So, I’m happy to be here.
Imara: Thank you, thank you so much. I really appreciate that and to you the same. I want to start with you with this idea of wellness. I mean, we want to promote wellness for our community during the holidays that’s why we’re having this conversation. But the idea of wellness has in some ways become commodified or something that you buy or is an activity that you do. And I’m wondering for you as a practitioner and a person who’s devoted their life to wellness, what is wellness to you and what do you think are the healthiest ways to think of it?
Emanuel: Yeah. Thank you so much for asking that question. You know, I’ve been in practice in this work maybe five years or maybe 15 or maybe 150. Like, [chuckles] that’s what I say. I’m like either, this is like my intergenerational work. And for me, coming to this conversation around wellness has been really important like, what is wellness mean when it’s only in the hands of cis white women, right? Like, what is wellness mean when it is only something that you can buy or a pair of pants that you can put on, right? And for me, I really like to take the root of the word wellness and the thoughts around wellness, care, and healing.
And start with the beginning of saying, I come from a perspective around wholeness, like that our wholeness is already inherent in us and what we’re doing in wellness, in healing, in self-care, in community care is we’re peeling back the layers, that trauma and oppression. The habits that we’ve developed to survive those systems, we’re peeling them back so that we can just continue to be inside of our own wholeness. So, really coming from a place of wellness is about, you are already perfect like you are. Everything about you is good and great. You’re right on the right path and right track versus a type of wellness that I think we see in the commodification of it which is like, there’s something wrong with you that needs to be fixed, right? So many people approach therapy, physical wellness, spiritual wellness as this idea that something needs to be fixed versus the thing that’s broken is the systems that we engage with.
And then, the second place where I look at it is through my work and I say through the collective practice of Acorn Center, we use this as our definition of healing. So we say that healing is the process of building awareness of how harm has impacted you, activating practices to restore your wholeness and sustained possibility. When we are feeling into our own wholeness, we are our most creative, we are our most hopeful and we can live inside of our biggest possibility of who we can be both individually and collectively.
Imara: Yeah. I love that idea of starting with the idea of wholeness as the key ingredient to wellness. On this idea of healing, healing as well has also become an idea of a commodity or something that’s externalized. So, like I went to a retreat and I realized by trauma and I came back and I feel so much better. And whenever people do things like that, I often look at them with the side, I took them like in my head – hopefully in my head, hopefully they don’t see it.
Emanuel: [chuckles].
Imara: Because in my head, I’m like, when you’re actually healing, it kind of hurts. You know, you have to like move through some really difficult points and so I’m wondering what your perspective is about healing as well.
Emanuel: Yeah, I agree with you, right? Like, you know, you’re in practice, you [chuckles] know that, like when you’re healing something, there are some bumps and bruises along the way, like there’s some rough spots, there’s some pain that you got to get through. And then, you kind of can come up the other thing. Healing is an active process, right? So at Acorn, we want people to have sustained healing practices. That healing is a process and actually, healing and rest while they can go hand in hand rest to something else. So when you’re engaged in the active practice of healing, you are using energy. It’s not always going to feel comfortable. Most of the time, it doesn’t feel comfortable. It’s putting you at the edge of yourself all the time.
I’ve been really clear about like, ooh yeah! This healing thing [chuckles], you know, I thought I was going to be done like when I started this journey when I was 25 like, oh I want to be a better person in the world. I was like, okay by 30, I’m going to be done [chuckles] and that’ll be good. And as we all know, that is not the way a healing practice goes like, you just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper and uncovering more and more. And I think, especially as somebody who’s like multiply marginalized in the world, my healing journey has allowed me to see and become more sensitive about the ways that trauma and oppression tried to get me to forget that I’m already a whole person, right? So, I can see it clearer and quicker now so that I can put my practices in place quicker so that I don’t wind up having long-term trauma or something that happens now at this point in my healing journey, I can be like – you know I have an interaction with somebody at the store or out in the world or one of my friends or beloved’s – and I can be like, oh this moment could be a moment that could have lingered here for another ten years or I can go and meditate or I can go and pray to my ancestors or I can do these other things to disrupt that process.
Chase: Yeah. I think those are all really important. For so many people in our community, all of the things that you said about oppression and the way it takes us away from our wholeness are so present, whether or not that be loneliness experience around the holidays of things that weren’t that you wish to were. How when you’re in those really difficult spaces like some people might enter around this time can you feel whole? Like, what are some of the strategies that you suggest to people at this time?
Emanuel: It’s so interesting as I was coming into this conversation, I was just sort of like, “Whoo, Imara must know that this is [laughs] this like my edge of practice right now is what do I do about my feelings about the holidays.” You know, having the legacy within my own family where it didn’t all feel quite copacetic. Like everybody thinks everything is fine [chuckles] but they have no idea what they’re up to or what I have to do in order to be in group family space. And so, that carries with it its own story. And so, I’ll first start off with just the things that I do during this time of year. I really try to find like what is something, what is a practice, what is a day, what is something that I can hold onto to be my very own?
For me, for example, New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve are my hinge pins points, right? They are my holiday. I love a New Year. I’m like, I get to be fresh, I get to be renewed. So, I encourage other people to like, find one of the days that you can make special for you no matter where you are and who you’re with, whether you’re alone, whether you’re disenfranchised in some way, without a home. Like I’ve seen people do all kinds of celebratory things despite whatever their conditions is. And I think that’s the key is like, you still get to have whatever kind of celebration makes sense for you.
And then, the second thing for me is music. Music is a big comfort to me. It brings me so much joy. It allows me to emote when I want to emote. So if I’m feeling angry or sad, I got songs for those. And if I’m feeling joyful, no I’m not into Christmas music that much, but if that’s your thing, go ahead. Turn on those Christmas records. But whatever music that you can find, because music can be with you at all times, you know. It can be something that can comfort you even when you have to engage with family and then come out of it. When I was first thinking about re-engaging with my family in a collective type of way a few years ago, I would just like take a break and go listen to some songs [chuckles] that made me feel good about myself and then I would come back feeling more resource, right?
And then, I think the last thing that I would say is I also just determined. There are certain people I’m not having conversations with no matter how much they ask, right? So, in my family structure, I just wasn’t going to have conversations with my auntie’s and my uncle’s about my gender because one, they have not earned the right to be in that conversation with me and two, it would be so much more stressful, intense like it’s going to create this whole thing for very little pay off in the end for me.
So for folks who might be engaging with their families during this time of year, to be like are there things that you can just be like, “You know what? I’m not talking about this. I’m not going to talk about this. They have not actually earned the right.”
Imara: Yeah. Thank you for that. I think that all of those strategies are really important and give people different entry points into ways to try to stay grounded and feel whole. A lot of people are going to be totally devastated and maybe have thrown their headphones off and stomped on them when they heard that you don’t like Christmas music, like Mariah Carey.
Emanuel: [laughs].
Imara: Like all I- You know, all I want for Christmas is you. But, you know, I don’t know. I’m sorry. So but what [giggles]- But beyond that, one of the things that people can combat around this time is hopelessness. Those emotional wounds that we can have as being just black holes because they can become so aggravated around this time of the year where they’re emphasizing love and magic and joy and connection and, you know, the Christmas miracle where everything turns out right. And I’m wondering if you can tell us some of your strategies like you did for ways of being whole. How can people combat hopelessness?
Emanuel: [deeply inhales] whoo. I mean, that is the question of the day, right?
Imara: [laughs].
Emanuel: I think people are looking at this COVID situation. I was just at the dry cleaner today and they’re like, when is it going to be over? I was like, oh my goodness, the end of the year has come so fast and the you know, the cash register person was just sort of like, I just can’t believe. It’s not over. It’s never going to be over [chuckles] like, you know, we’re always gonna have to wear masks and I was like, wow, okay. The place of hopelessness that people have come to just over COVID, I think the, you know, mounting and surmounting deaths give people this sense of dread and hopelessness as well. I live in the south so, you know, there was a moment where I was like, the new presidents were installed and then they were like, attack Blitz on the south [laughs] with like the most conservative legislation that we can think of for, you know, 17 States all at once. And I was like, what? What is happening, right?
So, not even being able to rest in whatever political winds we might see ourselves in. And so, hopelessness is tricky to me. And I think one of the places why it’s tricky to me because hope to me feels like a spiritual practice. It doesn’t feel like an intellectual pursuit, right? It doesn’t feel like you can think yourself into hope because as many facts around hope that you can come into is as many facts around hopelessness that you could come into, especially right now, right? And so, hope as a spiritual practice for me really is about what were my ancestors believing in that I’m actually living out today. That they had never seen in their lives, right? My ancestors were definitely enslaved Africans in the Caribbean.
And so, there was some part of them that imagine that one day, that chattel slavery would not exist for their people even though they didn’t think that they were ever going to see it. The spiritual practice of connecting with my ancestors helps me to feel hope because I don’t know what is to come. When I think about my great nephew who’s three, what I think about when he’s 30 and he has more access to his joy, his pleasure, his blackness, whatever his gender expression is going to be, then I could even imagine could I bring some of that energy back to my own heart now?
For folks who resonate in a spiritual way figuring out like what is the thing that’s going to help me open? Is it going to be connecting to my ancestors? Is it going to be connecting to nature and land? Nature gives me a lot of hope. I live on 8 acres of land. It’s given me this framework and frame of reference that’s completely different [chuckles] than people, [coughs] right? I can build my hope when I connect to nature. And if there are other spiritual practices, whether it be a meditation practice, of prayer practice and alter practice, something that allows you to connect beyond yourself whether you call that thing God, whether you call that thing Universe, I think that’s where hope lives especially in these times.
Imara: As you said, right now, you are sitting on 8 acres. You lead a wellness center that’s focused on all of the issues we’ve been talking about. It is the manifestation of a dream. It is the manifestation of hope. Can you talk about one of the darkest and scariest times of your life? You don’t have to recount the details, but how you felt and how, what you did in that moment to get through it ultimately set you up for where you are right now.
Emanuel: Mmm [inhales] whoo. Um yeah, I can. So my father passed away in 2016 and my mom then passed away in 2018 and I had a very, very complicated relationship with my mother and a much more benign easeful relationship with my father. But when she died, there was a deep untethering for me. I didn’t know what was happening, and it just felt like I had no more connection in this realm. I didn’t realize that that was going to be the case. And so, my grief was overwhelming. It took me into a pretty intense silencing period where I just could not speak to others. I began to then be like, well then, let me doubt everything. [chuckles] Maybe I don’t need to be doing this work. You know, I’m about three years in. Maybe I don’t need to be dreaming of these dreams. Maybe I just need to go work in Corporate America somewhere and be a DEI executive [laughs] like, that all feels like it could happen to and I just couldn’t locate myself. I couldn’t locate my heart. I couldn’t locate my body.
One of the things that helped me to pull out of that space was telling my community that I needed help. I just started telling people like, I actually can’t find myself. I can’t locate myself. I feel untethered. And I just kept saying it over and over again. I think for a period of about a month or two months, I feel like that’s the only thing I would talk about with my friends. They’d be like, how are you? I’d be like, I feel untethered. They be like, okay [chuckles] like, did you watch that show the other day? I don’t know because I feel untethered. The urgency of it made me talk to community about it in a way that I hadn’t ever done that before. Like I’m- I could be incredibly private about when I’m going through pain, but I became incredibly public about it. And I just kept saying it and I just kept saying it and I just kept saying it.
And what started to happen as I kept saying it is that my friends started to activate their own curiosity around it. They started to share their practices with me about how they stay grounded, right? How they stayed tethered. At that time, I didn’t have a connection to land. I’m actually a city kid. I’m from Queens, New York. So this idea of land was extremely foreign to me. But I started working with stones, probably the most intensely that I ever had.
Imara: You mean like healing stones and stuff.
Emanuel: Healing stones, any stones. Actually, I wouldn’t even just say like the official crystals. I actually just started gathering rocks from the places that I was being and living and I think that that really set me on this trajectory to really connect with land in a way that allowed me to be my full self, to be in grief and also to allow the land to kind of pull me up out of that space into what possibility could be. That was a snowball effect. Around the same time, I started to get curious about ancestral lands on my father’s side in the Bahamas and so through the trajectory of like working towards getting Acorn, I also was able to go walk the lands that my great-grandmother had purchased that my family still owns in the Bahamas. So that gave me another boost about like with the possibility of this land journey. That it wasn’t just because my parents didn’t do it and just because my grandparents didn’t do it that I didn’t have no memory of doing something this huge.
And from that place, from the place of community pulling me forward, from the place of land actually teaching me how to pull forward, I was able to start to articulate this dream, this possibility of Acorn. This place that I would create where by POC folks, queer and trans folks could actually reconnect and engage with land in ways that they had never thought about before, right? That we could actually start to build this community of practice that is both virtual and live, that is both international and national and regional, that is all of this in one space as the land as our anchor. And that’s where I got to Acorn. A lot of people ask me about the story of Acorn and I’m like, listen, it’s a story of conjure and ancestors and manifestations and luck and making really huge moves when I didn’t know what was going to come next. And so that by October of 2019, I was opening the door to this place.
Imara: Yeah. I mean, I love the idea and the metaphor that you were in a dark place that you couldn’t articulate. And then, you started touching, being around stones which ultimately helped lead you to the land that would be your work and you’re offering to our community. I think that’s really powerful and it’s really powerful note for us to conclude this interview on and for us to stretch out with that idea and energy at this moment that even if you are in dark places, there might be small things around you that you can hold onto which will ultimately pull you into the amazing space and fullness where you are supposed to be, and as you said, which already exists inside of you. Emanuel, thank you so much for joining us.
Emanuel: Thank you so much for having me and I just wish everyone a peaceful holiday and that you might find your own wholeness, even more brilliantly and bright in the New Year.
Imara: Absolutely. That was Emanuel H. Brown who’s the executive director and founder of the Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom. Thank you for joining me on the TransLash podcast. Now listen all the way through to the end of the show for something extra. If you like what you heard, please go to Apple podcast to rate and review us. You can listen to the TransLash podcast. Wherever you get your podcast, check us out on the web at translash.org to sign up for our weekly newsletter. It can be your gift for yourself or your friends or your family. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at TransLash Media. Like us on Facebook and of course, tell everybody.
The TransLash podcast is produced by TransLash Media. The TransLash team includes Oliver Ash Klein, Callie Rites, Jay McAuliffe, Montana Thomas and Yannick Eike Mirko. Our intern is Marana Munson Burke, Alexander Charles Adams. Does the sound editing for our show, our digital strategy is handled by Daniela Capistrano. The music heard was composed by Ben Draghi, and also courtesy of ZZK records. The TransLash podcast is made possible by the support of the Heising-Simons Foundation.
Imara: All right TransLash fam, I am looking forward to silence. I am planning on going away by myself for several days to Upstate, New York and I think it’s so important for us to listen. So many times, our idea of downtime is distraction and I know that if I stay in my apartment, I’m going to find a very easy way to do just that because there’s always stuff to do, right? There’s always stuff that you don’t get done. And that when you have space, our inclination often can be to fill the space with something. And if I stay in my house, there’s going to be something either from cleaning to reorganizing to like catching up on emails people I hadn’t spoken to, you know, all these stuff lets in.
So what I’m going to do is to try to give myself the gift of silence and space so I can actually hear. Sadly, 2022 is going to be rough and I’m trying to prepare myself for that. I’m trying to get my mind ready to deal with that and to continue to also try to do the really important work against that backdrop. So, I really hope that you all provide yourself the gift of silence. Have fun. Be careful with Omicron, it’s serious. But in addition to noise and drinking and fun and laughter and surrounding yourself with the love, that’s also really important to have this time of the year. I hope that you’re able to give yourself as well, the gift of silence.
And please know that in 2021, we here at the TransLash podcast and the broader TransLash family will be waiting for you on the other side of 2022 with new episodes of our podcasts and everything else we have to offer. And on behalf of our entire team, we’re wishing you a safe, happy, full of self-care holiday season.
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