Living For We
In 2020, cityLAB of Pittsburgh released a study that ranked Cleveland dead last in terms of livability for Black women. On Living For We, we talk to Cleveland's Black women about their experiences at work, at school, in the doctor's office, and in community with each other in an attempt to answer the question... is Cleveland really as bad as they say it is for Black women?
E3: Young Black Queens
| S:2 E:3The powerful girls of the QueenIAM program, run by 27-year-old founder and mother Dameyonna Willis, tell us all about their big dreams and hopes for their lives in Cleveland. While the Commission for Black Women and Girls– an entity conceived in those girls’ best interest– struggles to get off the ground at City Hall, these young women are building a future for themselves through self-love and sisterhood.
QueenIAM is working to empower young Black girls as some of them struggle with issues such as fear of violence, body image and thoughts of suicide. Founder Dameyonna Willis stepped into the gap to serve a need. At the same time, the city of Cleveland is struggling with its commitment to create a Commission for Black Women and Girls. A year after it was created, the body tasked with making Cleveland a more livable city for Black women, is still dormant and no members have been appointed.
Learn more about the QueenIAM program here.
Want to share your thoughts as a Black woman in Cleveland? Leave us a message at (216) 223-8312 and you may just hear yourself on the podcast.
Learn more about Living For We here.
Read our foundational research, Project Noir by Enlightened Solutions, here!
Where to Listen
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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 embarrassing.
Female:
“Is it like this everywhere? Is it me?”
Female:
“This city will make or break you.”
Female:
“A city of black women that are looking around at their outcomes, their future, their past and saying, ‘This city makes me anxious.’”
Female:
“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]
Enlightened Solutions’ Chichi Nkemere and Bethany Studenic are planning to make a public comment before Cleveland City Council about the perceived lack of urgency in appointing members to the city's promised commission on black women and girls.
An initiative directly inspired by the 2020 study that ranked Cleveland the worst city in America for black women, and by Chichi and Bethany's project noir research.
Chichi Nkemere:
When people think about moving to Cleveland, they hear that we are highly segregated and redlined. That black women and babies are dying at an incredible rate, and that we are the worst city in America for black women.
The reality is simple: Cleveland will never move on, we will never thrive until we confront our culture of exclusion.
Bethany Studenic:
Every Zoom meeting I am a part of, I am asked “What is taking so long, and who are the impediments?” We encourage you to allocate financial investment to this work along with moving it forward quickly. We're up against incredible odds. I believe in you, do you believe in black women?
[Applauds]
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, here we are recording this podcast on March 22nd, 2023, nearly a year later. And the community is asking, “Hey, whatever happened to the commission on black women and girls?”
While red tape at City Hall is slowing down the progress of the commission, there are real black women and girls who are suffering in Cleveland. And as we continually discover on this season of Living For We, the best solutions for black women tend to come from black women.
Girls:
“I am who I am. I'm a young queen who cares myself with respect, confidence, and integrity.”
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
We're in Garfield Heights at an afterschool program called Queen I Am, run by Dameyonna Willis.
Girls:
“I value sisterhood, I value individuality. You may make you know who I am, but I know who I am. I'm on the journey to discover who I am and who I want to be.”
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Dameyonna created the program out of a need she witnessed while working in an educational setting, a need for a positive environment, specifically catered toward black girls.
Dameyonna Willis:
I was working for an organization in a school that it was very few of us, and the girls that looked like me, the little girls would cling to me. So, they were come and “Oh, Ms. Dameyonna, Ms. Dameyonna …” and the girls, they were struggling. I'm like, “You don't really like who you are. Like you're struggling with your confidence and your self-esteem. You're trying to figure out who you are, not just as a young lady but who you are in your environment.” And it's only a few of y'all and it's only one of me.
And so, they would come up for lunch and the conversations, we'll talk about some of the things that they felt was going on or some of the differences they felt — they noticed they didn't fit in. So, three girls would come up, and then it was 13, and next thing I know the whole … six to eight black girls would come and be in my little cubie like in the school.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, they were seeking you out because they didn't see anybody else in the school who looked like them?
Dameyonna Willis:
Looked like them.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
And sounds like they didn't feel seen in this school environment.
Dameyonna Willis:
I said I want to make my own thing. And it could be academic, but I really want to focus on the idea of self-love and loving who you are. Looking up how to make a logo, how to make a website, made a flyer. And I did like a breaking news, like a new program that's in town.
And I did it at the library nearby my house and 45 girls showed up. So, I kept booking the library room. Every other Saturday I would come, bring pizza, bring supplies and we'll shut up shop — now like getting contracts in schools where we do this program.
And now, I have a real curriculum, and it just moved so fast. And then we've been blessed with our space. We have an actual space girls come to and you ask them like, “Well, why did you come to Queen IAM?” “This is my safe space. This helps me escape (some girls said) like my jungle. I feel I could be myself here.”
And those are all the things that I want them to be. They're learning how to sew. We do girl scouts, yoga, cooking, hip-hop dance, STEM, financial literacy. So, we focus on four core areas. College and career readiness, financial literacy, the health and wellness and service learning.
Females (chatter):
You heard it.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
On the day we're visiting, the girls are having their weekly pizza party, and we had some incredible conversations.
Zamir:
Zamir, I'm 12 years.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
And the younger sister?
Diana:
Diana.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
How old are you?
Diana:
10. The thing that is fun here is just to learn how to do new things and how to learn how to be a queen.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
And what does that mean to be a queen?
Diana:
Be positive, be nice, and just pick up your crowd where you don't feel good. When you don't got positive, like pick up your crown.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, even if you're not feeling good that day, you pick it up anyway?
Diana:
Mm-Hmm (affirmative).
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
That's pretty cool. Are you able to do that because I know it's hard.
Diana:
Mm-Hmm (affirmative).
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Do you think Cleveland is a good place for black girls?
Zamir:
I don’t, actually.
Diana:
I want to say maybe, but like kind of not because it’s different people that's like trying to kill people and stuff. Like different people just act weird around white black people and white people.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Do you worry about that? About people getting killed and stuff like that? Do you worry about that?
Diana:
Kind of.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Why do you worry about it?
Diana:
Because you never know if it’ll happen to you or your family members.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
That's so true. Do you know anybody that's happened to you? You do?
Diana:
Mm-Hmm (affirmative).
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
I’m so sorry.
Diana:
One of my aunties and my papa.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
They got shot?
Diana:
Mm-Hmm (affirmative).
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Oh wow. Sorry to hear that. So, that can be scary. It makes you worry a little bit.
Zamir:
Especially when you get older because you never know like you can get pulled over by a cop and they just ask you to grab like your license or something, and they could just shoot you automatically. Even if it's like it could be your skin color or not. But it could depend on like the way you carry yourself if you do grab it.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, what could Cleveland do? Like when you guys grow up, what would you like to be here for you to make Cleveland a great place for you?
Zamir:
I just want more like equality.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
You have to figure out what you want to study.
Zamir:
Probably biology.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Biology, that's good.
Zamir:
Because my first thing that I really wanted to be like my dad was so focused on this one, I wanted to be a scientist. Like he got me like this like … it was like a skeleton with the hearts with the inside and stuff. All of that stuff.
Diana:
I want to be a veterinarian when I grow up. That's who I want to be — a vet.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
You like animals?
Diana:
I love animals.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
You do? What do you have? Dog, cat?
Diana:
I’ve got a dog, hamster, and a leopard gecko. And I run track.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Are you fast?
Diana:
Yeah, I won a medal, a trophy. And I also want to have a bracelet business. I do got a bracelet-
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Already? Be a little entrepreneur.
Diana:
We made a hundred dollars this month. Yeah, probably this month.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, do you guys think that one day when you grow up that you want to stay here in Cleveland, or you think you might want to move somewhere else?
Zamir:
I would want to stay in Cleveland. Probably would like get a vacation house over somewhere where I could just visit anytime just to go around because I have a lot of family in Cleveland.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Girl, that's my dream. I’m trying to get a vacation house in The Bahamas and stuff. And then just come back every now and then and when the snow is gone, yeah.
Diana:
Oh, maybe if my family don't move with me, I'm still come back and visit my family because I don't want to stay too long and then miss my family and get homesick. So, I'm going to visit, yeah.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, what is it that you have learned through the affirmations or what is it you like about yourself?
Zamir:
I love my hair. I actually used to hate my hair because it was so curly and thick until my steward taught me like thick and curly hair is basically representing your culture and it's basically saying like you should love this about yourself and stuff like that.
She said thick and curly hair is actually really good hair because it stays long, and it grows very fast. And she wasn’t lying.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Well, that's fantastic.
Zamir:
Okay. Something that I like about myself is sometimes my body, because sometimes I think I was fat because not a lot of people … but different people like in school and stuff would say I'm fat. But now, since I’m like a girl, I think my body cute and my mom, my family's told me that I was cute, and looked like my dad because I'm chunky.
[Music Playing]
Kylee:
My name is Kylee, and how you spell my name K-Y-L-E-E.
Noella:
My name is Noella. My name is spelt N-O-E-L-L-A, I'm in second grade but I read as a fifth grader and I’m doing multiplication and division. As a second grader so smart.
Kylee:
At my school, I get treated differently and I'm like probably almost the only black girl there. We barely have black girls. We have more black boys, but we have more mixed and other type of skinned people in our school. So, it's barely black kids at our school.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
But you're the only black girl in the first grade? Yeah, so how does that make you feel?
Kylee:
Different.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, what do you think about Cleveland? Do you think Cleveland's a good city for black girls?
Noella:
It's okay. It depends like the school you go to, what job you go to. Like if you go to like a school like a lot of black people and barely any white kids, then you might have like an easier time there. But if you go to a school like Kylee does, well, like mostly white people, it's kind of hard.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
What about for you personally?
Noella:
I go to a black school, so it's not really hard for me. I get treated the same. And I have a black teacher, I have a bunch of black friends. I go to a black school.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, how is Cleveland overall for you personally?
Noella:
It's fine because I haven't really experienced a lot of life yet. I really wouldn't know. I've only been here like eight years, so-
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
True.
Noella:
I'm like a walking convenience store. I sell candy and snacks. I sell candy, I sell chips. I sell that stuff. And I've been making a lot of money from it, but when I get older, I don't really want to do that. I kind of just want to on my own modeling agency, I can make a lot of money for that. I can have like a really good life if I'm able to keep that dream I have.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, what do you think Kylee?
Kylee:
When I grow up, I want to be an artist. So, I'm going to use crowns or I'm going to use oil pastels because I'm not really that good with paint. Paint is messy. Sometimes it's like really watery. But I might use paint in my future of painting.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, when you guys grew up, what do you think could make Cleveland a better place for all of us? For black girls, black women. What do you think can make Cleveland even better for us?
Noella:
What I think will make Cleveland better for us is if we can get the same equal pay as white people. I think it should just be a better place for black people, black women, black girls, just black people in period. Black men, just black people. I think it should just be a better place for us.
Kylee:
My favorite thing about myself is that I'm different because imagine everybody was the same, nobody would do anything differently. We would just do the same move, same move every day. Everybody do the same move.
Noella:
My favorite is I love myself. Because if you don't love yourself, you can do some seriously, like really bad things to yourself. Like you can commit suicide to yourself, you might not treat yourself right. It just might be hard if you don't love yourself, you might just have a hard life if you don't love yourself.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So true. What about you Kylee? What's your favorite affirmation?
Kylee:
My favorite one, I love my hair because your hair is natural. So, it goes like poofy, it's natural.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
That’s beautiful that you guys love your hair, love yourselves. That's fantastic. So, what do you think when you grow up? Do you think that you want to go to college?
Kylee:
Yeah, I'm going to go to college because I'm going to live my best life.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Alright. I know that's right.
Noella:
I don't know. I'm still thinking about it. I'm eight, I ain't even in middle school yet.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Good point.
Dameyonna Willis:
People are not aware of how younger the lack of self-confidence and the lack of feeling like if they are enough is getting. It's no longer the big girls no more or the older girls, it's young people talking about … yesterday they had a self-love painting. And the girls, I said, “What is a way that you can show yourself you don't have self-love, or you don't love yourself?”
And a third grader said, “Deciding if I want to be here or not.” And she not talking about the space, she's talking about her life. Like deciding if I'm worthy enough to keep living this life I'm living. And that's a third grader.
And I'm like it ain't no longer the big girls, it’s the little girls that are looking in the mirror and my daughter's six-years-old, she's a little chunkier and she says stuff like, “Well, if I was thinner or if I looked like her, I could do a cartwheel.”
And so, that's why we branched. We started at eight, we took our programmer down the sixth because the little girls are having conversations about their hair, their skin color, their body shape — is that enough to make them who they are?
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
It feels so scary.
Dameyonna Willis:
It is. And like I said, if a third grade can say that out the mouth, I know it's happening. And it's conversations around these challenges they see on social media. Social media, TikTok is telling them how to dress, how to walk, how to talk. This is an accepted look. This is a look that you're supposed to look like.
I tell them if you wear blue pants … when I was in high school, I tell them all the time; when I first went to my high school, I came from a predominantly white school and I wore my colorful clothes and my loud clothes, and they would look at me like “She dressed too loud. Like she's over the top, she's extra.”
I was so worried about what they were going to say, even though that was my style. And I tell the girls all the time, I end up wearing best dressing as a senior. I say, “If you want to wear blue pants and red shoes, you got to have the confidence to rock them blue pants in them red shoes.”
And that's just with anything. If you want to do this and go down this path, you got to be strong enough and have the confidence to go down that path. And the girls that I had at the school I was at, they're in Platoon Cookman, they're in college now. They're beautiful.
I wanted to not just teach academic, but like tell my students like you could be that girl.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett welcome back.
Angela Neal-Barnett:
Glad to be back, Marlene.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, we spoke to these little girls, they're so cute. And hearing about their hopes and their dreams for the future, like what did you pick up from listening to them?
Angela Neal-Barnett:
They do have a hope and a future. And through the program, they really see that. And that's what you want to hear from girls. We have to begin early pouring into their spirits, and the school system can wear them down.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
As parents, we send them to school hoping that they get educated and built up.
Angela Neal-Barnett:
But there's more to education than just reading, writing, and arithmetic. If we're in predominantly white schools, how will whites view us and how that, then, impacts how we view our ourselves. So, she recognized that.
She recognized we cannot wait because it's seeping into these girls' spirits. It's causing depression, it's causing anxiety. And I got a third grader who's trying to decide whether or not to end her life.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
And it broke my heart to hear one of the kids talk about when we asked, “What do you think about Cleveland? What do you think about black women in Cleveland? What do you think about Cleveland for you?” For one of the kids to say, “Well, you know what, I worry about violence. And I've seen violence impact my family.”
Angela Neal-Barnett:
My aunties, my siblings, I've seen this happen. And it changes things within the brain. So, when people say, well, black kids' brains look different than white kids' brains, it looks different because of the violence, because of all these adverse things that are going on, because of the racism.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
For parents who might be listening to this, what can they do to give their kids the affirmation?
Angela Neal-Barnett:
I've lived long enough to know that this is true: hope never disappoints. And so, the first step is to have hope and to give that hope to your child.
Secondly, how you start your morning impacts the rest of your day. I know how hectic mornings can be, but if you can carve out five minutes of your morning just centering yourself and your child. So, if it's just saying, “Okay, today starting the day by saying, today I am grateful for X, Y, Z …”
And just each child saying it, and then you saying, “Today I am grateful for …” That makes a huge difference: breathing. So, even just some simple breathing before everyone leaves the house and you only need five minutes.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
So, that's advice for the parents with children. What about advice for the grownups? We heard Chichi and Bethany talk about they're continuing to advocate for the Black Women and Girls Commission in Cleveland, but it has stalled.
And so, how do we as black women remain hopeful that this is really going to lead to some real change?
Angela Neal-Barnett:
We get a theme song just like we have a song for love. We need a theme song that allows us continue to advocate, continue to uplift one another as black women and girls.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Just like they did back in the sixties, the civil rights movement.
Angela Neal-Barnett:
Just like they did back in the sixties.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
I ain't going to let nobody turn me around.
Angela Neal-Barnett:
I'm not going to turn around and if you can't think of one, I'm going to give you mine so that you can borrow, and everybody can borrow. And it’s “I don't feel no waste tired.”
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
Oh, I love that one.
[Song Playing]
Angela Neal-Barnett:
Nobody told me that the road to see this commission would be easy. But I don't believe that I've come this far to leave. You mentioned the sixties, why did those people … they sang. They sang when they were in those jails, they sang when they were crossing those bridges, they sang when they faced the police and the dogs.
Because singing gives hope, singing calms fear, singing lets you know that there's a better day around the corner. In Cleveland, we are going to face roadblock after roadblock, after roadblock because it benefits someone to keep us as the worst city for black women and girls.
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
That's right.
Angela Neal-Barnett:
Who benefits does not want to see change. But they're up against a city of hopeful black women who understand what it is that we are doing impacts our generation, the next generation, and the next generation. And I mean, that's why we are living for we, we are living to make a difference.
[Music Playing]
Marlene Harris-Taylor:
And before we go, as always we want to share some words from you. Here's one of our listeners who called into our hotline.
Caller:
I'm a positive person and you're around so much negativity is kind of hard to show positivity to people. Especially in cases where you grew up and your best friend got shot at 12, your dad went to jail at two, and your brother died when you were like seven. Like that's just your reality.
It's really sad that we have to move out of the city because the city is not a bad city. It's just we have people that are stressed and it's like a dog eat dog city. We have to leave the city to even get a peace of mind.
Like I live around white people and like I don't hear sirens every day. I don't hear gunshots every day. But when I was at home on the east, that was an everyday thing. It's sad because it's stressful. Like we're fighting every day just to live because you don't know if you're going to get caught in a drive-by. You don’t know if you're going to get caught in some form of gun violence. It's sad.
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 216-223-8312. That's 216-223-8312. And you may just hear yourself on the podcast.
And don't forget, if you're a Cleveland resident and you want to help the Commission for Black Women and Girls get off the ground, we have the power. Contact your city leaders and let them know what you think by clicking the link in the show notes.
Thanks for joining us. You can find more episodes of Living For We on ideastream.org/livingforwe or wherever you get your podcast.
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, our lead producer, and Hey Fran Hey, as producer and creative director.
Chichi Nkemere and Bethany Studenic 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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