Mini-Episode: The Practice of Imagination

Prentis addresses the rolling back of the Voting Rights Act and the impacts on our hope and imagination. They remind us of the power and audacity of the visionary ancestors that dared to dream before us, and encourage us to practice recovering our imagination to envision what we want next for our future.

Join us on our new Youtube channel for the Imposing Beauty on Our Future Livestream - get your tickets here!

Listen to the Dunums - Casual Planes Album

Transcript

Hello everybody. Welcome back to Becoming the People. I'm Prentis Hemphill. I host this show and I'm grateful to be with you all yet another week. It's been a hell of a week as usual. Every week has been a hell of a week but I hope there's some light and beauty in your life. I hope that you're changing right before your own eyes. I wish that for everybody and yeah there's a lot going on in my life this week. I don't have... I'm not actually sure where this episode is gonna go if I'm perfectly honest with you. I'm have some like rough sketches. I have some notes but I'm not entirely clear how I'm gonna land the plane on this episode but I've had a little bit of a rough week. There's some illness in my family that I've been tending to and yeah just moments like that it just there's these moments of like big big events, big illness, these ruptures that come through our families, that come through our lives, really really shake things up or really are shaking things up for me. Some foundational stuff so I don't know I mean I have a feeling I'm not the only one there. I feel like we try to push illness and death off to the margins of our lives and not really bring them into the center but I my suspicion is that many of us are dealing with all sorts of life complexities in this moment so my compassion and my love my heart to everybody who is also navigating those complexities and all of us who will navigate those complexities and all of us that aren't at our absolute best because of how challenging life and grief can be. Yeah that's honestly where I'm at this week but I did want to connect because I'm finding that even in those moments of feeling kind of low and unsure and certainly feeling grief I'm getting so much out of still connecting with people and talking to my friends and sometimes going down into the deep dark well and sometimes just kicking and hanging out both are really serving me so I wanted to connect with you all even still even still in this moment because you know for some of us maybe this is one of the few moments where you feel connection in your week or feel consistency in the week so I I did want to jump on here I did want to connect with everybody today and there's some stuff that's like coming up that I'm feeling really excited about for those of you who follow me on Instagram you may have seen that on May 19th me Sonya Renee Taylor Alexis Pauline Gomes and Adrienne Marie Brown are doing an in-person event here in North Carolina in Siler City which is just outside of the I guess they called the research triangle we are all coming together for an event called imposing beauty on our futures and it's a salon style we're gonna be in conversation with each other in public conversation with each other we're going to be in conversation with our community and when we first did the event we thought it would be people you know in North Carolina that were coming but it's it is a lot of people from North Carolina but there's people flying in from all over for this event to hear what we have to say which is quite humbling and beautiful but May 19th we're doing that all the in-person tickets are sold out they went very very quickly and that's a beautiful thing but we are also live streaming this event so if you go to my page or any of their pages you can see oh we'll put it in the show notes to put in the show notes for this show so you can watch us you can be there with us virtually hang out with us for the imposing beauty on our futures salon which kind of goes with what I'm thinking about for this episode when I get there and I think that is a quote Alexis put us on that's a quote from Lorraine Hansberry and I think it's I don't want to I don't want to get this wrong I think it's on Lorraine Hansberry's birthday which is also Malcolm X's birthday which is also Yuri Kochiyama's birthday May 19th I hope I'm right about that I think I'm right about that it's one of their birthdays we're celebrating somebody's birthday I'm pretty sure it's Lorraine Hansberry but I also think it's Malcolm X and Yuri's birthday also so I mean that's a that's a high holiday some specials happen on that day so you should come hang out with us virtually if you're not able to come in person for that event I'm very excited about it it's kind of funny because that crew of people are my actual friends like not pretend friends not like social media friends like those are actually my friends and people that I spend time with and we kick it in each other's living rooms and we have game night so it is it's it's a it feels like a cosmic alignment like it's a beautiful thing for us to come together and it also feels beautifully ordinary to for us to be doing that but to be doing it with all of y'all would be really really exciting the other thing I wanted to tell you all is that this show is now on YouTube devon who works on this show produces a show Michael who works on this show they are they've gotten this this thing that I'm doing now with the camera where I'm sitting here talking some of you are listening through your ears so you can't see me but if you want to see me if you want to see me gesturing awkwardly you could go to YouTube and watch me do that you can go to YouTube and watch me talking to this camera and talking to you and you can see me with the guests and us in conversation on YouTube we're gonna put up all the episodes of this podcast on YouTube will also I think we're gonna eventually host the the main 19th event that I was talking about that's also gonna be in the YouTube so it's gonna be episodes of this podcast but also little goodies and extras special events and all of that will also live on the YouTube so you can come hang out with us over there it's all the same same same you can listen to us here you can head over there to becoming the people over on YouTube either way we're together either way we're doing this together so yeah check us out over there

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 and you know eventually I think I said this before eventually I'm gonna have some guests here I want people here with me I don't I don't want to just do this alone in the room so there'll be some of that too when I want to get that together but I also want to tell you there's probably something else I'm supposed to tell you but but I've forgotten what it is and so we'll have to wait until next week for me to remember and figure it out I did want to um I got I got some questions about what's behind me here again this is another reason to be on YouTube because then you can see me pointing to the shelf behind me obviously that's well I don't know if it's obvious but once upon a time I wrote a book called What It Takes to Heal and that's it right there it looks like that I'll bring it down at some point so you can see it but this album behind me this album behind me and I think I'll periodically change out the album I haven't yet but this album is one I wanted to mention and folks that asked about this is a Durham band that is I think conceptualized by a good friend of mine Sajal Nasrallah who started this band Dunham's D-U-N-U-M-S and yeah this album Casual Planes is incredible Sajal is a part of the Palestinian diaspora this album is like I don't know he's he's probably gonna like hate my description of what this music is but to me it's like dreamy rock with a with a real edge of rage and grief and sorrow and beauty and love and I find them to be absolutely brilliant I never go outside or go anywhere but I have seen them live and found it to be of like a portalling experience to go into all of that through their and a sort of sweeping music so that is that album Sajal has promised me that I'm gonna get the newest one so you might see that one up next but that is what that album is okay I feel like I've already been talking so long so I want to get into the to the meat the vegan meat I'm not a vegan of this of this episode but what a week gang what a week I mean there's only so much that I can speak on in this episode and I think I probably said this before but I'll say it again I don't only want to talk about politics but I think talking about politics is a way in and through for us to understand embodiment there's so much to understand about how we're showing up who we are all of that through understanding politics I do want to talk about politics I always want to talk about politics but I don't want to always talk about the politics of the day I don't want to be I've always resisted being a kind of current affairs sort of person because I think there's some really important evergreen content that we just don't get to because we get jerked around by the news however I don't know for the past several many years it's been like breaking news every single day and today is really no different I wasn't sure I wanted to talk about this because I actually felt so

[01:10:55:15 - 01:15:11:01]
 I don't know I felt kind of devastated in a way that I wanted to understand but I'm gonna talk a little bit about the Voting Rights Act and the Supreme Court's decision earlier this week to essentially essentially gut it make it essentially useless and I want to talk about that but first you know actually in a chapter my book when I talk about politics and why politics are actually not something separate from healing not something separate from semantics or embodiment work you can't separate the context from the body all our bodies are created in the context are responsive to the context and the context is shaped by the stories that we assign certain bodies the histories that follow and make certain bodies that we cannot escape our context and when we try to do healing work that is solely outside of decontextualized the historicized we miss out on understanding something about who we are and who we are to each other and we miss out on I think understanding what it might take for us to create something new in the world we get stunted we don't fully understand what our role could be what our actions could be so I talk about that a little bit in my book but one of the stories that I share is a story about my my grandmother my grandmother on my dad's side was a poll worker so when we had elections in our community I grew up in a I grew up for most of my childhood in a black community where my family members live where my cousins live where my grandmother's live but my grandmother was a poll worker and so on days on election days my family would go down to the elementary school and my grandmother and everybody's grandmother wasn't just my grandmother it'd be other people's grandmothers that I knew would be you know holding they'd be the election the poll workers so they give you your ballots they'd receive your your your ballots and the community I grew up in people always brought their kids in so there would be a kids section and sometimes we do kind of our own voting over there there were different activities we'd have but I remember seeing my grandmother as a poll worker and I didn't actually see my grandmother outside of the house very often except on election days on election days I would see her working the polls and when I was writing and I was doing the math I calculated that my grandmother must have been about 40 years old when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed close to 40 years old my grandmother was 40 years old when the Voting Rights Act passed that tried to ensure that there could be no racial discrimination and voting my grandmother is 40 years old now I'm I'm not I wasn't born yesterday I'm not a baby but my grandmother was 40 years old my mother was already born when the Voting Rights Act passed I'm saying this because I want us to understand how recent this is I want us to understand how fresh this is in some ways my mother was probably a preteen or maybe a little younger than a preteen when the Voting Rights Act passed I am in my family or me and my siblings are the first in our families to have been born before the Voting Rights Act was passed me I'm the first one in my family

[01:15:12:01 - 01:24:28:03]
 to have been born before the Voting Rights Act was passed just to give you some context just to help you understand what we're talking about that's the world so we may look at black and white photos we may see people marching we may see Martin Luther King we may see other organizers that are you know fighting for legislation we may look at them and go oh it's a long time ago but I am the first I'm the first one in my family my sister really technically we're the first ones to have been born after the legislation had already passed we are still very much living in the world in the embodiment of the world that preceded the Voting Rights Act and we're feeling that right now there's a there's continuity a lot of these people are still alive a lot of the people that saw the Voting Rights Act are still alive and there's a lot of people that have been fighting for years to overturn it have been planning and plotting for years to overturn it not because they felt like oh everybody has equal access but exactly because they felt aggrieved by the idea that everyone would have access to voting I am NOT I mean I think it's just important to say politically I'm not the kind of person that thinks everything happens through our vote and certainly not the votes that we do every four years I think voting has always been a part of what I do but I think and as I say in the book that what mattered to me most when my grandmother was working the poll was seeing the participation of my grandmother and the other grandmothers of the people in my community and when I got older I came to understand that it wasn't for them just about voting on that day but it was about the community participation in the decision-making as it pertained to their lives and their communities and they didn't have an abstract idea about when that wasn't possible it wasn't an abstract understanding they had a very real reference point for when they did not have power in that domain to shape what was happening to their communities they had a very very real reference point so to me politics in that moment became not just about voting but it became about the participation it became about the organizing that it took actually to secure the Voting Rights Act to secure any legislation that protected our rights became about that organizing about community coming together about community responding to community needs that to me became the essence of political a lot of people think political is synonymous with partisan what party don't make it political don't make it partisan political to me are all these acts that community engages in to govern themselves the choices the sometimes the candidates sometimes the protest all the moves that community makes to ensure the community has what it needs and that's the lesson that I learned from my grandmother from all the grandmothers that day I think the other thing that I'm I'm well I will say what partly what I'm sitting with is like and Eddie Glaude said this I think I reposted this video where Eddie Glaude his brilliant scholar writer was talking about basically the disrespect to towards our dead my assumption was the the black people the black organizers that were fighting for freedom all the organizers that were fighting for freedom so-called equity so-called equality in the system that when we when we see the Supreme Court take moves to gut such critical legislation it feels like a slap in the face I think he said to those who fought who gave their lives who organized tirelessly who imagined who built it's a slap in the face towards the people who in my opinion actually cared deeply about the practice of democracy that fought deeply for the shared experience of democracy here it's a slap in the face and it's a it's a move towards this the continuation of this lie that this place would call itself a democracy while undermining the rights well undermining the access for so so so many in so many different ways this legislation but also in so many ways that we've seen and what that's really I think some of the despair that I felt this week if I'm honest was I've always been so inspired by just the audacity of their imagination I feel that way when I look at all the the the black freedom movement across time I feel so I have always felt since I was a child so inspired so honored by the audacity of that willingness to imagine something that everything told you was impossible abolition rights what what a lineage what a gift what a compass that's always always inspired me and last week I felt this moment where I was like I'm losing my own connection to that kind of imagination and I'm saying that I'm trying to be transparent about that because I have these moments where I feel like I can't say that to people or so many people can't say that I've I've felt that this week and I was sitting with over the last several days like how do I stay in touch with my own imagination or with our imagination how do I be in imagination with other people so that I don't only stand despair I visit despair I have a lot of people ask me often like how do you stay hopeful and all the time I say I do I do not I do not stay hopeful but I say in the practice which is a kind of expression of a faith or faithfulness so even when I feel despair I stay in the question of how even now can I recover my imagination how even now can I look for a path can I wait on light can I wait on clarity can I wait on the message how even now can I listen for what I haven't heard before how even now and so that's the question I've been sitting with is how even now can I do that and I started to think about how trauma how moments where we are completely overwhelmed by our circumstances of the stresses that we're experiencing how that can kind of condition us to have a into hyper vigilance which I think a lot of us know but into a shortened sense of what the future can be it's hard to imagine ourselves into the future if we are scanning at all moments

[01:24:30:05 - 01:24:37:16]
 this moment we're scanning everywhere we can for threat it's hard to imagine ourselves in the future

[01:24:40:00 - 01:26:49:03]
 and that's something that you know in trauma work people talk about and practice around and there's so many different modalities and approaches to how do I create a sense of continuity that allows for a future how do I support people to to recover their imagination to think about something on the other side and I was just thinking about how important this practice is especially in this moment where it feels like that is inaccessible to us and I think we can say that's that's by design someone wants to remove that capacity from us and it's still our work to figure out how do I stay in relationship with my imagination when when I look at what my ancestors imagined my elders even imagined and watch that get rolled back to me it's not enough to go I'm gonna keep imagining the same thing okay the thing has changed that is what they imagined they did a brilliant thing by imagining that and they changed a lot by imagining that and there were other forces counter forces that have imagined something else and it's stacked stacked the game so that they can roll back or undo the really courageous imaginings of the people that came before us so what what do we imagine now and what is our practice of imagining not just the defensive stance not just the hyper visual and not just noticing what gets rolled back feeling real grief for that where we need to feeling despair even but letting your imagination expand around what was what now what could be what could we focus on what could we build what is already being built

[01:26:52:10 - 01:27:38:21]
 where could we where could the where's the paradigm asking to shift where even the old understandings that kind of undergird this rolling back where are those changing where can we look for the opening where can we look for the the the change the difference I feel inspired by bio come a lot of the kind of strangeness the edges what where are we looking in between where we imagining in those cracks that he talks about I think sometimes we want to go straight to strategy which is important I'm so grateful for the strategists that are on the ground and thinking about how to stay protected

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 I also really want to support room for the people that imagine and I'll shout out to all the people that have been pointing to science fiction for so long the people that are exercising that part of their thinking that is not just you know tip for tat but the people that are actually able to take the whole world the whole structure everything that we thought was solid and tip it a little bit to the side

[01:28:11:00 - 01:28:26:09]
 Shake it a little bit to see what falls out. See where the where there are places that aren't as sturdy see where see where there are spots that they could give see where there are contradictions.

[01:28:27:18 - 01:28:47:18]
 See where there are patterns see where there there's confluence people that can look at everything the world as it is and find those that is the practice now people to dream to imagine not everybody not everybody has to do that but some people some people I think need to do that.

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 Right now some people need to the dream right now some people need to strategize some people need to defend and some people need to imagine some people need to walk on the edges of things so.

[01:29:07:08 - 01:29:47:21]
 That's what I hope I am that's what I want to spend a lot of my time. But I think that's that's that's really what I'm I'm holding right now. And maybe that's some of you maybe that's somebody that's listening right now maybe that's what you do maybe you you can think about the next you can think about the future you can hold the future open for the rest of us that may have moments where we feel disconnected or we can't find it or we can't feel it you can hold that space. Open for us you can play on that edge you can say oh but look I just look at this look at this thing you never could have imagined.

[01:29:49:18 - 01:29:53:05]
 Look how this thing is changing look how nothing is static.

[01:29:55:09 - 01:29:57:18]
 I want that I think we need that I don't want to be stuck in this.

[01:29:59:01 - 01:30:00:21]
 I don't want to be stuck in this.

[01:30:03:18 - 01:30:11:21]
 I don't want to be stuck in this world that feels like it just wants to roll everything back to another time I don't think it's possible.

[01:30:13:14 - 01:30:15:17]
 And I don't want to only play on that plane.

[01:30:18:01 - 01:30:22:18]
 So really I'm coming to you this week with no clear answers just the pondering.

[01:30:23:18 - 01:30:27:20]
 Just the place that I'm reaching for honestly.

[01:30:29:17 - 01:30:40:06]
 A longing for a paradigm shift and I know that there are people out there that are longing for the same thing. Maybe some people that are already on that edge.

[01:30:41:15 - 01:30:45:18]
 This is just us reaching for each other in these moments of despair and overwhelm.

[01:30:46:18 - 01:30:54:18]
 I hope that we find each other hope that you find each other. I hope that we keep reaching for each other in public.

[01:30:56:18 - 01:31:00:05]
 Yeah I think that's what I got this week.

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 If you are interested in continuing this conversation please join us on the Patreon. There's more and more people over there each week and I'm so grateful for the support. As many of you know this podcast is really funded by the folks on Patreon and me together.

[01:31:23:12 - 01:31:28:15]
 So any support that you offer over there is deeply deeply appreciated.

[01:31:29:20 - 01:31:39:18]
 It really helps make it possible for us to keep doing this in the future. Because there have been moments where we're like we're not sure we can do this but it's really our community over there that has made it possible.

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 Join us over there for conversation to support the podcast.

[01:31:45:20 - 01:32:02:04]
 We will be back next week with a very exciting guest interview. We've been recording nonstop so there's some amazing interviews coming out that I'm like I wish I could talk about but I can't. But we will be back next week with a guest interview.

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 Until

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 Becoming the People is produced by devon de Leña, sound engineered and edited by Michael Maine. Our theme song was created by Mayyadda. And if you're enjoying these conversations, please subscribe, rate, and especially, especially leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. And if you haven't already, please join us over at the Patreon, Prentis Hemphill. We are having a great time over there building community, learning together. Come join us. And as always, thank you for listening to Becoming the People.

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