E2: The Unthinkable

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

In January of 2020, Bloomberg CityLab published an article about a new study from Pittsburgh researchers, naming the best and worst cities for black women. Among cities with at least 100,000 black women, Cleveland came in dead last in terms of livability. In this city with a nearly 50% black population. This news drops like a bomb, and reactions were mixed.

[Music Playing]

Do you think Cleveland is really the worst for black women? And what do you say?

Female:

“I say-

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

It depends on the person they ask. When I dropped it in one of my black girl group chats, the emojis were just eye rolls.

Female:

“I’m not surprised. Not even a little.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

It’s heartbreaking and also embarrassing.

Female:

“Is it like this everywhere? Is it me?”

Female:

“This city will make or break you.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

We have a city of black women that are looking around at their outcomes, their future, their past and saying, “This city makes me anxious.”

Samaria Rice:

If anybody's out there listening in Cleveland, please get out.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

On Living For We, we talk to Cleveland's black women from all walks of life, from the CEO of one of our major healthcare systems to self-starting entrepreneurs, judges, lawyers, doctors, artists, students, and mothers who've experienced loss.

We share stories from these women as change makers and architects of their own futures, celebrating their victories, challenges, and personal growth along the way.

So, is it really true what they say? Is Cleveland deserving of the least livable title? And what can we do to make lasting improvements for black women in our city?

I'm Marlene Harris-Taylor, and this is Living For We, a project of connecting the dots between race and health, from Ideastream Public Media.

[Music Playing]

Welcome in everyone. On this episode of Living For We, we're going deep, but it's not an unfamiliar place.

As black women, what did we always hear our mothers say? They told us we had to work 10 times harder than white people. And when we get to positions of success, we can't afford to miss a step or they'll all get snatched away.

A content note though, before we get started today, this episode includes conversations about police violence, including recordings of 911 dispatcher and police communications.

What's Cleveland like for black women when they find themselves in the white-hot light of controversy and public scrutiny? How do they cope?

Sometimes black women who don't seek the spotlight are thrust into the public eye through some circumstance or tragedy. Like our first guest today, one of the most, most well-known women from Cleveland, Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice, who was just 12-years-old when he was killed by a police officer while playing with a toy gun in a Cleveland Park, in 2014.

On that day, dispatchers were told that Tamir's toy gun was a real pistol.

Female:

“I'm sitting in the park at West Boulevard, by the West Boulevard, rapid transit station, but he's like pointing it at everybody.”

Female:

“In the park by the Youth Center, there's a black male sitting on the swings, so he keeps pulling a gun out of his pants and pointing it at people.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Even after shots were fired, police were still convinced they were dealing with a grown man.

Male:

“Shots fired. Male down, black male, maybe 20.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Tamir's murder quickly became national news.

[Protest Chants]

Yet another infamous case of police brutality against a black citizen, taken to the furthest extreme.

Male:

“We are joined now by Tamir's mother, Samaria Rice. What would you like to see happen, right now?”

Samaria Rice:

“I'm looking for a conviction for both of the officers.”

Male:

“200 protestors are making a strong message to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor, Timothy McGinty, that they want action in Tamir Rice's case.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

And as these things often go, years after Tamir's murder, after fighting and pushing for prosecution of the officer who shot her son, Samaria learned that after losing him in such a tragic way, the police would go free without being indicted by local or federal authorities.

Female:

“Tamir's mother Samaria Rice says the family found out the case would be closed through reporting from the New York Times and the Washington Post.”

Male:

“Ms. Rice feels that it was blatantly disrespectful that she had to learn from the media that the Department of Justice had shut down the investigation.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Tamir would be 20-years-old now. Samaria says she's surviving and thriving because of her other children. She has a son, two daughters, and four grandchildren. She must be there for them, she says, and because she's fighting for Tamir's legacy.

Samaria Rice:

What I experienced was mental abuse that America has allowed to keep happening to black and brown people over the centuries. It's a lot to deal with. America has taken away from me what my son would look like as a teenager and a young man and even an old man. I don't know what my son going to never look like.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Samaria Rice joined me for a conversation about her experiences in the public eye in the city of Cleveland and on the national stage.

Samaria understandably does not feel that Cleveland is a good place for black women and black mothers, especially those raising black boys.

Samaria Rice:

At this point, the system is broken. It's really nothing that I can think about. It is that it's white supremacy work, white supremacy at its best. I'm speaking truth and I'm speaking facts. I didn't ask them people to put my son name on the face over there in Jordan and over there in Saudi Arabia and march down the street. I didn't ask them to do that.

There's nothing I can do with that. They have to deal with God with that. That's why I can be political. I know I have the power that I have. I don't use it to my advantage. I'm trying to be chill, until it's that time. I'm not trying to end up like Malcolm. I ain't trying to end up like Martin. You know what I'm saying? I'm not trying to end up like them people.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

You not trying to be a martyr.

Samaria Rice:

My thing is, I'm trying to build up the black woman and the black man to get their mind strong enough that listen, these white people not going to play with us. Okay? Look at what's going on.

And when you talk about reparations, they can just give us the land and whatever money is there. Because they got old rich white money. They ain't going to never run out of money. You understand?

Take me to the grand wizard. I'm going to have a conversation with him and ask him, can he get his white-

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Who is the grand wizard? Who is that?

Samaria Rice:

I don't know who it is. Whoever the one is walking around here with these hats on or whatever. He got on and letting the white supremacist ruin the world. How about that?

Wherever he is, I need to have a conversation with him to let him know that could you get your white people under control? Could you get them under control?

[Music Playing]

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

At the end of the day, Samaria has experienced immeasurable amounts of trauma and the trauma of losing a child to a random act of violence, it's all too common in Cleveland.

So, what would you like other black mothers who have lost their sons to gun violence, what would you like them to know? Is there anything you can share with them?

Samaria Rice:

You can be right there in poverty and you can still come out as a flower. Look at me. Look what happened to me.

But it did take something tragic to happen to me. But they don't have to wait till the tragic happen. They can get with support groups if it's some out there, they can check in with they mental wellness, making sure that you get the right fix.

Don't get with nobody that think they going to tell you how to live or how to think. Now they do give you suggestions. You have to be willing to listen and take what you want to take from that. You know what I'm saying? There is professional help out there.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Samaria, born and raised in Cleveland, has moved on from the city as a home base. The city of Cleveland eventually agreed to a financial settlement with her family.

But Samaria says it doesn't change what happened, and it doesn't make Cleveland any more comfortable for her.

But that doesn't mean she's given up on the future of Cleveland for black women and families. She still has family in Cleveland and the Tamir Rice Foundation and Afrocentric Cultural Center, which she's very proud of, is in Cleveland.

But when asked about the study ranking Cleveland as the least livable city for black women in America, she didn't hold back.

Samaria Rice:

If anybody's out there listening in Cleveland, please get out. Please, if you can, please get out.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

You have the advantage of being away from Cleveland now and looking back, have a broader view. So, what in your estimation could really make real change for black women in Cleveland?

Samaria Rice:

Well, if Cleveland will stop being a crab in the bucket, number one, and start supporting one another in the way that they should support. Stabbing each other in the back, trying to get ahead, trying to not help the next sister up, it's just a shame.

And what also makes it so bad as a black woman in Cleveland, there's no standup man. Where are the men at? Like guarding us and watching us patrolling our streets and stuff like that, watching our children. Where are y'all?

We got some gangs around. They riding around on they dirt bikes. Nobody wants to see that. Nobody does that. There's no real men that teach them. They done took the mentors off the streets trying to change the dynamics. Put ideas in people head. When you don't see it, how can you change, how can you think? You know what I'm saying?

They don't have a lot of guidance out there, and they need more positive guidance to show them more positivity out there.

I think if we come together and we stand as one, we may be able to get some results out in Cleveland. It's a lot of families that has experienced gun violence with police and community violence, and we need to help each other out, and they need to speak up.

A lot of families is not speaking up. They're silent and they don't have to be, you don't have to be silent about your child being murdered, period.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

The Cleveland Police Department has been involved in several high profile use of force incidents over the last decade, including the infamous 137 shots case that led to the deaths of two unarmed motorists, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, in 2012. Their murders moved state and local officials to ask the U.S. Department of Justice, also known as the DOJ, to launch an investigation into the local police department.

Male:

“Looked at hundreds of cases that included gun toting, rogue officers, inflaming routine situations, slanting their after-action reports, or not writing them at all. Attorney General Holder says Cleveland is one of 20 police departments across the country undergoing a Justice Department review.”

Male:

“I think we certainly see patterns where you see inadequate training, where you see resource deficiencies, where you see cultural problems that exist within police departments.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

That multi-year investigation was already underway when Tamir was killed. The DOJ's final scathing report was ironically released just 12 days after the fatal shooting of Tamir. It chastised the department for repeated “unreasonable and unnecessary use of force.”

Okay, we're about to talk about this thing called a consent decree, and I know it's very confusing. I was confused too when I first moved here to Cleveland, and I started hearing about it.

And what I eventually figured out is that the consent decree is about the Cleveland Police Department, the fact that they had been involved in so many use of force incidents.

So, the Department of Justice wanted to make sure that there were changes. So, they put a judge in charge to make sure that there's real reform in the Cleveland Police Department.

That effort to reform the police started in June 2015, and it's ongoing to this day. The consent decree created a need for a monitoring team to evaluate the police department's positive progress.

Our next guest, Ayesha Bell Hardaway, is a law professor at Case Western Reserve University Law School, and the director of Social Justice Law Center. She was appointed to the monitoring team in 2015 and then promoted to Deputy Monitor in 2019.

But things took a turn in May of 2021, when Ayesha joined a panel on Ideastream Public Media's morning show the Sound of Ideas. She shared her opinion about the murder conviction of the police officer who killed George Floyd.

Male:

“Ayesha Bell Hardaway. Would you agree this trial was framed though as a case against Derek Chauvin, not a case against police in general?”

Ayesha Bell:

Yes, absolutely. The state's attorneys made that a point, especially in their closing argument, that this is about one man and not about policing generally. This is not an anti-police case, one of the assistant prosecutors mentioned.

And that just goes to show how much we don't trust the general American public to have an honest and frank conversation and reckoning with the violence and the harm that continues to be inflicted against black communities, through law enforcement, through what's being called law enforcement in these moments.

And that's problematic. That's why I think this case was really just low hanging fruit. And when we talk about, hopefully this is a turning point, I believe we've heard so many leaders say that, including the president.

When folks have made it a point to cabin this case off as an outlier, it really doesn't give me a lot of confidence that we are prepared and willing to ensure that the Daunte Wrights and the Ma’Khia Bryants don't continue to happen.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

That response that might sound measured to some, stirred up an unbelievable amount of trouble for Ayesha. Cleveland's police monitor at the time, Hassan Aden, and many other folks involved in the consent decree monitoring process began to question Ayesha's qualifications as a member of the monitoring team.

Aden attempted to move her into a different position, one that would strip her of her monitoring duties, and ultimately that's what forced her to resign.

Ayesha Bell:

I think the word that they used was like that I wasn't objective. I can't even begin to pretend to understand it. But I do know that every day I wake and interact in this world, I am seen, and I am a black woman. And that can mean something good to some people and it can mean something bad to some-

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

But do you think it played into that particular set of circumstances that happened?

Ayesha Bell:

Of course.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

In what way?

Ayesha Bell:

There were some things about both my background and my racial demographic, my gender, that made folks feel very much like, how dare she, how dare she?

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

To your point of not being objective and saying things that revealed that you weren't objective and that must have been hurtful.

Ayesha Bell:

And using it for their own political gain. And just weird stuff, the way that that happens. Yeah. And I had to really just stay focused on why I was involved in the first place and the community spoke very, very loudly.

For me, there wasn't a question of what people wanted. Even where I was kind of like, I don't have to be there, if folks really feel like I'm a problem, fine, I'll go. But I'm not going to just sit here and be relegated to a face on your website or a name that you get to tout when you want to. And community spoke really clearly, so-

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Yes, they did.

Female:

“Of the Norman S. Minor Bar Association, Cleveland branches of NAACP and Black Lives Matter are calling for Bell Hardaway to be reinstated immediately.”

Male:

“The Monitor was not put in place to be a friend of the Cleveland Police Department.”

Female:

“Professor Hardaway is the only person that has been a continuous expert relative to the Cleveland Police.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

There was an immediate and loud community outcry upon the news of Ayesha's forced resignation. Without her on the team, there was not a single local black person responsible for monitoring the police department.

And yet, through all the chaos, all the backlash and all of the blatant disrespect, Ayesha kept an immaculate demeanor as many black women are expected to do.

We're human. We could be some petty individuals as human beings and it's hard not to get caught up in our feelings, you know?

Ayesha Bell:

Yeah.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

So, just even being able to rise above that, I think that's incredible. But I think it's also something that black women have had to do in so many spaces, you know?

Ayesha Bell:

Absolutely, absolutely. Listen, I think that's healthy.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Michelle Obama, “When they go low, we go high.”

Ayesha Bell:

Yeah. I don't even think about it that way. Yes, I think that it's important to put those sort of parameters or make those analogies. All of that's helpful in crystallizing the point.

But the reality of this for me is that your opinion and your attempts to move me, your attempts to discredit me, don't really get to occupy that space. I'm not giving you that power. It's not necessarily like, oh, I think I'm better than or I'm more spiritual than, or whatever. This just needs to be put in its proper place.

[Music Playing]

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

And let's just say sometimes justice has a way of working itself out, even if that's a rare occasion for black women.

Hassan Aden, the one responsible for pushing Ayesha out, was forced to ask her to return to the monitoring team, following the community's dismay at her departure. She rejoined and Hassan has since stepped down as police monitor. And guess who is in his role now? Ms. Ayesha Bell Hardaway.

Ayesha Bell:

Yeah. I just think, the way things work out, yeah — okay.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Life is interesting, the way it works out, right?

Ayesha Bell:

It can be interesting. I still regret that it was a thing that happened at all, especially when we care so much about the work. These sideshows are tough. They're distractions, they're opportunities for the work not to be moving forward. And I never ever want to be at the center of anything that's costing us the right progress.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

That's the thing with both Ayesha and Samaria's stories. While obviously not the same, they're both painful public affairs. But each of them found their own way to cope Samaria through spending time with her family, working to build Tamir's legacy and Ayesha through focusing on the bigger picture of her work and just how important police reform is in the city of Cleveland. And to her personally.

The need for police reform in Cleveland is dire. And at the same time, community gun violence is also ripping families apart. Ayesha shared a story about a case unrelated to her work on the police monitoring team. She worked tirelessly to help a young man charged with domestic violence get out of prison.

Ayesha Bell:

We worked like the Dickens. Got him released, and I got a telephone call that he was shot by the girl. And I will never forget the screams I heard from his mother as I pulled up to Metro and was running from the parking garage into that ER. I will never forget that.

And that experience, I was proximate to it, but he wasn't my child. Even though I handled the case like I would want somebody to handle the case for my child. That broke something in me for quite some time, for quite some time. And I'm working hard to get to recover from it. But losing him felt like something I had never experienced as a lawyer.

And in doing what I could to support his family, his wonderful siblings, and of course he has two children, doing what I could to support them never was enough. Because nothing is going to be enough.

And so, yes there is a lot of loss that happens and it’s not just the type of loss that Ms. Rice, the unthinkable loss that Ms. Rice has suffered. But nonetheless, it's unthinkable for those who are experiencing it.

And heartbreaking and devastating about so much of what's being taken away from the families that are impacted by this violence from the children who won't get to have their fathers, or their mothers.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

I think about, how many black mothers are walking around in Cleveland with this trauma, living with this trauma, trying to survive with this trauma.

Ayesha Bell:

They're surviving. But I know it's not easy. Being in close communication at times with my client's mother, it is the unthinkable, it is the unthinkable. And having other children that you have to go on for, and also trying to be good to you, and thinking about yourself too. It is profoundly devastating.

[Music Playing]

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Unsurprisingly, trauma is a word that's going to come up time and time again throughout this season of Living For We. Black women are expected to overachieve, overperform and live their lives gracefully, while simultaneously carrying deep trauma, consciously and unconsciously through explicit and subtle acts of aggression.

And while caring for family, often fractured by violence, disadvantage, years of discrimination, and of course preexisting generational trauma. Countless black women's lives are shaped by the adversities they face. And that's why we're calling in the expert.

So, Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett, welcome to Living For We.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

I'm so happy to be here, Marlene.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

We're so excited to have you as a regular on the podcast because one thing we've heard from black women is they want some help dealing with these issues. They want some real tactics, some real strategies to help them cope with all this mental stress we have.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

And ways to cope that are specific to black women.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett will be our resident psychologist throughout this season of Living For We.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

I am a licensed clinical psychologist, and I tend to do group interventions. One of the things that is important to understand is that racism in all of its forms is a stressor, and it is a chronic stressor. And what happens then, when we have so many other things that have happened in this country, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Atatiana Jefferson, Jayland Walker.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Tamir Rice.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Tamir Rice. Absolutely. That those things for us switch racism from a chronic stressor to trauma. And it is that chronic stress, plus the traumatic stress leads to toxic stress.

So, what happens is that the cortisol, which is a stress hormone, protects us. But if you're facing this day in, day out, at some point it becomes depleted. It can no longer protect us. We're just out there vulnerable and just absorbing in that toxic stress. The issue is not race. The issue is racism.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

One of the themes that we're talking about in today's episode is that sometimes as black women we're thrust into the spotlight. Sometimes we're not seeking that spotlight, but it's thrust upon us.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Yeah.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

And we spoke with Samaria Rice. It's unimaginable to me the trauma that she has gone through.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Yes. And yet she has taken that and made it her life's work to bring about change.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

If you were talking to Samaria, if you were her therapist, or when you have people in the chair that you're talking to who have gone through a major loss like that, is that something that you advise them to do, to find another purpose?

Angela Neal-Barnett:

One of the things that we know in grief counseling is that it is important to find purpose.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Unfortunately, in Cleveland, there's many, many black women dealing with loss.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Yes, yes.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Who are grieving. They're grieving the loss of a child. Maybe not to at the hands of the police, but maybe at the hands of someone else from their community.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

One of the things that we hear all the time, particularly from people who have multiple loss, is that, “You mean this has a name? Grief, trauma, stress. I just thought this was the way it was supposed to be.”

When you can name it, when you can educate, when you can make interventions available, that gives people hope.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

It gives them some hope that there can be something different.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Hope that there’s something like that. There can be something different. Hope is the key to healing.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

How do you start, though, to get somebody to that place when they come to you and maybe it's fresh. Or maybe it's been a year or two. Where do you start?

Angela Neal-Barnett:

So, you start by listening. What happened? How are you feeling? When they say, “I'm not getting over. I just can't get over this.” Then you don't say things like, “Oh, well you should, let me help you.” You're saying things like, “Tell me about it. Where are you getting stuck? What's going on?”

It's just about what we call active listening, which is that you don't talk about yourself, and you don't-

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

And you don't try to say, “Well, you know what, I understand what you're going through because I went through something similar.” And then talk about your story.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Yeah. Talk about your story. And that doesn't help anybody. Rarely have people been able to tell their story from beginning to end.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Like what Samaria went through and she's experiencing this same grief, this same out-of-body experience, but yet there's all this attention.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

And she's supposed to then somehow get up in front of cameras. Because she talks about that. “They expect me to give — and they didn't want me to be angry, because …

All these kinds of things. And so, what they were saying is, don't go out there looking like you're a grieving mother and how can you not? We have these expectations of people, we're going to be the noble parent, be above this and talk about hope and healing when we have just lost our baby.

If you listen, particularly if you listen to mothers, this grief is always — it may not be as intense as in your face as it was in the beginning, but it's always there. It's just always there.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

And I can imagine that. As a mother, I have not lost a child in that way, but I have a young black man that I'm raising. Well, he's almost a grown up now. He'll be 21 soon.

But as a black mother with a young black son, there's this angst and anxiety that's always under the surface. And he may be going out for just a fun night with his friends. But in the back of my mind, I know all mothers experience this to a certain extent, being worried about your child. But there's this other level.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

There's a reason why we see those boys, those men call out for their mamas. And when they do, there's a reason that every black mother in this country hears her name.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Oh, my God. You're so right. You're so right. It's almost too much for me to even listen to them calling for their mother. Because I can hear my son's voice.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

That's why we say to people don't watch, don't watch.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

We do unfortunately get confronted with these things over and over again, and on a loop.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Over and over. And that's trauma. That's trauma. And that's depleting us. That's why we had what people refer to as a racial reckoning with George Floyd, because we didn't know to avoid the video. So, there it was in our face and collectively as black Americans, we all fell apart or went off or both.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

We did. We really did. That's a good way of describe it. We fell apart.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

And when people didn't give us a beat, we went off even more. We were like, “Do you know what happened? No, I'm not sending you that memo. No, I'm not going out there and covering the story. No, I'm not defending your client and no, I'm not teaching class.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

So, let's talk about our other guest, Ayesha Bell Hardaway, another woman who was thrust into the spotlight.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Black women don't get second chances. You'll hear us say, we have to be twice as good to go half as far, and we don't get second chances.

What Ayesha did was say, I'm going to be transparent and I'm going to say what happened. And I am not — because we don't get second chances, people think we'll just run under the bed and hide, or we will go back into academia and do whatever it is we were doing.

But she realized she had been chosen for a purpose and she was not going to run and hide. She was going to be transparent and stand up for what she was doing and the importance of what she was doing.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Taking back that sense of control.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Taking back the narrative, taking back control. Because in Northeast Ohio, in Cleveland, if we don't write our own narrative, other people will write it for us.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

We got to stop waiting for other people to pick up the mantle for us.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Right. Samaria, Ayesha, they stood up and said, I'm not going to let other people control the narrative or this just can't sit here. We have to tell the truth. We have to put our narrative out there, if there's going to be any kind of change in the lives of black women.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

It's so hard though.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

It is really hard.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

When you're in the middle of that storm.

Ayesha Bell:

Absolutely. Nobody wants to do that. Samaria says, “If I have to say one thing, it was to protect us, to protect black women.”

And often when we're out there like these women have been, it feels like we are unprotected. And that's why that circle of women who surround us are faith. And those people who are in the background, maybe not in the forefront defending us, but in the background defending us, become important.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Yes. Ayesha talked about how the support from the community, from the black community was fast.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Yes, yes.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

And it was steadfast eventually others came to support her as well. But the black community came first.

[Music Playing]

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Yes.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

And one of the other themes that we hear from so many of the guests is having that circle of black girlfriends is so important.

Angela Neal-Barnett:

Absolutely. Wonderful poem by Gloria Wade-Gayles called, And Women Gathered. Black women have always gathered around each other. And as long as we continue to do that, that's what allows you to stand.

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

Before we go, we wanted to share some words from you. Here's one of our listeners who called into our hotline.

Female:

“I am a 27-year-old black female who currently resides in the city of Cleveland. Cleveland is definitely hustle driven. It's definitely got to get it out the mud, got to grind to make it.

I currently work for a non-profit organization, which is funded by the state of Ohio. And my director, who I report to, his main goal and vision is to see Cleveland be the next Atlanta.

We have the potential, we have the business owners, we have the entrepreneurs, we have the creatives. We have the tenacity to become a black hub for everything: medicine, entrepreneurship. And I really want to see that happen.

And so, I told myself, me being 27, no kids, and just a wealth of information and knowledge, I told myself that I'm not going to leave Cleveland. I'm going to stay here and make it my mission and my goal to see Cleveland on top.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

If you're a black woman in Cleveland and want to share your thoughts with us directly, our hotline is open. Leave a voicemail at 2-1-6-2-2-3-8-3-1-2. That's 2-1-6-2-2-3-8-3-1-2. And you may just hear yourself on the podcast.

[Music Playing]

On our next episode, we get to work, literally. We begin our exploration into black women's experiences in the workforce in Cleveland, often as the only one of us in the room.

Female:

“The moment that you decide you want to speak out, you're combative, you're difficult, you're hard to work with, you're angry, you're emotional. This may not be the line of work for you.”

Female:

“And I wonder, like anyone else walking down the street dress nice, what they say to them.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

What do you do?

Female:

“No matter what letters you have behind your name, your education, people will still look at you as just a little black girl.”

Marlene Harris-Taylor:

That's next time on Living For We.

Thanks for joining us. You'll find more episodes of Living for We on ideastream.org, evergreenpodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcast.

Leave us a review on Apple Podcast, letting us know what you think about Cleveland and what you're interested in hearing us talk about on the show.

Living For We is part of the connecting the dots between race and health initiative from Ideastream Public Media, produced by Evergreen Podcasts and made possible by generous support from the Dr. Donald J. Goodman and Ruth Weber Goodman Philanthropic Fund of the Cleveland Foundation.

The Living For We Team includes myself, Marlene Harris-Taylor host and executive producer Hannah Rae Leach as our lead producer in Hey Fran Hay, as producer and creative director. ChiChi in camera and Bethany Studentic of Enlightened Solutions are our researchers, data analysts and community partners.

We get production help from Stephanie Czekalinski, original music, including our theme song is by Cleveland artist, Afi Scruggs. Our mix engineer is Sean Rule-Hoffman. We'll see you soon.

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