Episode 5 :: Aisha Nyandoro

Letting the real experts lead

Back to: The Green Room Podcast

(00:04):
Aisha: And that if we are truly going to shift values, we sometimes have to talk with folks that don’t always share the same ideologies that we share. And we’re going to have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and comfortable walking across the aisles and comfortable being in different spaces.

(00:22):
Courtney: Welcome to the Green Room, where we learned from some of the world’s most transformational advocates about how they flipped the script. I’m your host, Courtney Martin. Today we’re talking to Aisha Naan Doro, a woman who preaches the power of cash without restrictions to change the lives of people experiencing poverty. Aisha is the founder of Magnolia Mother’s Trust, the nation’s first guaranteed income pilot to focus on black mamas, whether on the TED stage or in the pages of an op-Ed, she’s crafting new narratives around deservedness wealth and what we all need to thrive. Take a listen. When did you first think of yourself as a thought leader? And maybe you don’t even like that term, which I don’t either, but when did you first think of yourself as someone who needed to be out in the world spreading a message?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Never. Or

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Even not now.

(01:18):
Aisha: No. I don’t think of myself as someone who needs to be out in the world spreading a message. I think of myself as someone who is very rooted in community, someone who is very grounded in the issues at hand, and I am just humbled that for whatever reason, I am the vessel in which I get to say the things that need to be heard in some capacity. But I’ve never thought of myself as someone who needs to be out in the world saying those things, and actually that still feels icky to me, which I’m working through and all those things.

(02:00):
Courtney: Will you say more about the vessel? When did you know you were a vessel? Because that’s an important moment too.

(02:09):
Aisha: Oh gosh. I think I’ve always, huh? These are such good deep questions for women to get myself centered.

(02:17):
Courtney: You know how I roll Aisha? You know how I roll.

(02:21):
Aisha: Okay, so when did I know I was a vessel? I’ve always known that. Let me take that back. I have always been someone who I felt to be very blessed to have a desire to work in purpose, and that comes directly from how I was brought up. I am from Jackson, Mississippi. I am homegrown goodness. I have a love, love, love, love, love relationship with this place. I am the granddaughter of a civil rights veteran. I am the daughter of a social worker and also a daughter of a pastor. So all of this upbringing of how you are supposed to situate yourself in community and how we are blessed to be a blessing was a part of my upbringing. So I have always known that the work that I would do would be community-based work, because I’ve always known that when you are blessed as my family was blessed and has been blessed that you give back.

(03:24):
Aisha: And so that being a vessel and having an opportunity to give back is what I’ve always known. When I went to undergrad and then I did graduate school, I remember my first year graduate school, I had this professor who’s problematic, a white woman. She was so problematic. We’re going around the table with my cohort members. There was six of us in this dual master’s PhD program, and everybody was talking about what they wanted to do. Why are you here? And everybody, these dreams of going into research, wanting to work at a tier one research institution and getting tenure, and I was like, I just want to go run a community nonprofit. And my professor said to me, oh, well, you don’t need a doctorate to run a nonprofit. You’re wasting your time. You just can go run a nonprofit. And I was like, oh, that is woefully wrong. I was like, yeah. I was like, no. And I remember telling her, I said, well, to run it the way that I plan on running it, I actually do need a doctorate, but thank you for your misinformation. But anyway, so I’ve just always been grounded and I always have been very clear about that would be the work, and that was the work that I was going to do. So yeah,

(04:33):
Courtney: I love that. And I love how you suffer no fools as you’re moving through the world, which is actually one of the things I want to ask you about because you can be so clear about that you are a vessel for your message, one of which I know one of your messages, which is you are radically resident driven. That’s a phrase you use all the time, and you listen to, in particular black moms tell you and your amazing team about what it is that they need to live their most amazing thriving lives, how they can build on all the strengths they have to do amazing things in the world. But you take that message out into these spaces, whether it’s a TED conference or op-ed pages, or a journalist covering your work, which obviously is the least control you have over how that message is portrayed. And you run into all these biases, all these imperfect places where you’re trying to be that vessel. So how do you think about protecting that message? How do you think about protecting the dignity of the moms that you serve when you run up against these places that are still such unfinished business in terms of racism, sexism, classism, et cetera?

(05:55):
Aisha: Yeah, I think about that all the time. I think that another self is the work. How do you make sure that you are holding a mirror to the imperfections of individuals while also offering them grace that you can still allow them where you can still do the teaching and still do the narrative shifting? And it’s really hard, and I don’t always get it right. I remember I’ve become better at it the last few years, but I even still struggle with it because I feel like even when I’m doing a great job of being one message and making sure that I’m holding a narrative in a way that centers their dignity, centers our dignity and gets the work, gets the message across that I’m trying to get the message across. Sometimes I feel as if I’m being palatable and that I’m actually shrinking. So I still struggle with that.

(06:46):
But the piece of doing the work in a way of which I’m making sure that I hold onto the mom’s dignity and hold onto my dignity and make sure I get the message across for me for the last six years really has been the work. And I realized that that had to be the work because initially I would be so angry that I would immediately become defensive. And I realized that in the becoming defensive, I was shaming the other person in which I was talking to. And so I wasn’t creating opportunity for narrative ship and opportunity for change and opportunity for shared and understanding and an opportunity for them to reimagine their values and what it was that they believed. And so I really have had to shift the way that I approach the work and really approaching the work from narratives as it relates to stories and really just offering new framings for individuals to challenge some of their assumptions.

(07:50):
And I’ve also had to figure out how to do that with a lot of grace, which sometimes I don’t have. I am perfectly imperfect and I am radically impatient because I know what is on the line for the families that we work with. And so it is a very fine dance that I do often with, okay, how do I offer people grace when we’re talking about narratives? Because narratives are so entrenched in values and what it is that you fundamentally believe. And so when I am trying to offer you a new perspective on how you go about challenging your assumptions about how you view families that are experiencing poverty, I’m also asking you to challenge your values and what maybe you might’ve grown up believing. And that’s hard for a lot of people to do that work.

(08:36):
Courtney: There’s so much in that answer that I want to unpack. The first thing is can you give us a story of the before Aisha, the one who would grow defensive, what does that look like? And then will you give us an after story? What does the grace look like

(08:52):
Aisha: First year of doing the Magnolia Mother’s trust? But I remember I was at an event and I was talking about the work that we were trying to do about how you just go about trusting black mamas experiencing poverty with money and just knowing that they know better than anyone else what it’s that they need to do for themselves and their families. I remember having that conversation and this woman said to me, well, how are you sure they’re just not going to go use the money on drugs? And I said to her, well, what does that say about you? That the very first thing you think someone would do is use the money on drugs that actually says more about you than the mamas I work with Preach.

(09:34):
Courtney: How did that go?

(09:37):
Aisha: It went great for me. I was like, I’m like, you’re going to get this.

(09:49):
But she bristled. Of course she did. And I was furious. I was so angry that the rest of the event I was no good because I was just really, really on age and I was just really, really angry. So I just really should have went home afterwards because I was no good. I got nothing else accomplished the rest of that interaction. And so

(10:10):
Courtney: Now will you pause there for one second because I want to point out, this is so important, and I think what’s so important about what you just said is it doesn’t matter who this woman was. The real loss here was not that a particular woman in your audience was alienated because that might be strategically not great. But the most important thing is that you were unable to do the work you wanted to that day. I gave up my power.

(10:37):
Aisha: I gave up my power, and that’s definitely the part with all of this, my righteous anger was justified, and I will never tell anyone. You don’t get angry, but if you get angry, you be strategically angry. And in that moment, I was not strategically angry. I gave up my power and I was not able to accomplish any of the additional fundraising I needed to accomplish. So that was the part for me that made me so upset because yeah, I gave you never give away your power because then you are losing. And for me, it’s like I’m losing for the women in which I am in this space to serve. And I never want to do that because I truly understand what a gift it is to be in the spaces on behalf of them. So that is what thank

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Courtney: Thank you for explaining that. I feel like it’s so beautiful the way you put that. And then what’s an example of the new and improved?

(11:33):
Aisha: All of the good narrative work I’ve been doing, I’ve been working on myself. It’s all coming to pass. So the new and improved way, and I would answer that and I get an opportunity to do this all the time because I still get those questions. Believe it or not, the new and improved way that I go about answering that is, let me actually tell you the reality of the women that I work with. Let me tell you about Tia who used her guaranteed income to go visit her father for the first time in 12 years. Her kids had never had an opportunity to meet their grandfather, and they only had a relationship with him via FaceTime. She was able to use her money to go see him and to go build that bridge to family and community back, or let me tell you about Tamara to use her guaranteed income to get a better job.

(12:23):
She went from just surviving to actually thriving in working in the medical field, which was a dream of hers, or let me introduce you to Sequoia who was actually able to move into home ownership for the first time. We have all of these beautiful stories of what happens when we just give people money and allow ’em to bet on themselves. So that’s how I answer that Now. I never get into, yeah, I never get into the, well, actually people don’t go buy drugs. I don’t want to reinforce that narrative. I want to introduce a new narrative, so I just state what it is that I know to be true.

(12:58):
Courtney: It’s so easy to focus on accuracy in a situation like that too and just want to be like, this is bias. Let me explain all the research on exactly why you’re wrong. But as we both know, that’s not going to do anything for her. Or how do you think about comfort and discomfort when it comes to various audiences? Are you walking into a thought leadership experience thinking like, okay, today I’m talking to Ted Women, here’s what I know about who these women are in the audience. Here’s how much I am going to push into the radical part of what I’m saying. Or is it like you’re showing up, you’ve got your narrative strategy down, you’re not going to spend a lot of time thinking about audience and sort of contorting yourself?

(13:47):
Aisha:It truly does depend. So I never go into a room now not having a sense of who the audience is, because I think for me, that sets it up to the work that actually has to be done. So if I’m going into the room and I understand that it’s a group of economic justice advocates, I’m pretty sure that they are all pretty much familiar with the guaranteed income or cash without restrictions in some shape or form. So it is less about the narrative shifting and more about how do we make sure that we are doing our job to push the movement forward and not get complacent and what is all of our role as movement leaders? And I think that’s a piece that I’m always trying to make people understand that we’re all movement leaders if we are working in this capacity, in whatever that capacity may be, whether or not you are someone that has a local platform, national platform, regional platform, or you are the person who is actually working in communities still knocking on doors and helping at that level, we’re all a part of the movement.

(14:51):
And so we have a role to play. And so that’s what I’m trying to get across if I go into those very specific rooms. But if I’m going into a room where I’m like, okay, as individuals who may not know as much about the work, it is my job to make them uncomfortable, but it’s my job to make them uncomfortable without pushing them over the edge where they’re so uncomfortable that they shut down and they can no longer receive the message. And so I am always trying to think through that delicate balance. And sometimes I do, sometimes I do feel like, okay, oh, I was just way too soft on that group where I really didn’t push them hard enough to get to the place where they needed to get to and challenge some of their assumptions. And that has been probably more of my concern the last couple of years as we have become more and more outwardly divided as a country. I’m like, how much can you push people because you don’t know how much they can take before they just shut down because you don’t know how much they’ve already been introduced to.

(15:58):
Courtney: I’m trying to lean more into healthy conflict. When is it good to say the hard thing? I’ve had the same experience when I leave a conversation or something where I’ll be like, man, I really wish I had said that more clearly and boldly, do you attribute that to your southernness? Is it just who you are? Is it about race? I would love to hear more about what you think prevents you sometimes from leaning in as much as you would’ve liked to when you look back.

(16:28):
Aisha: No, it’s nothing about being southern or my race. It’s about the fact that I run an organization where I’m always conscious of the fact that I’m fundraising. And so I am always holding very tentatively the need to push with also the need to make sure that I am bringing alongside allies and advocates that can continue to support the efforts. Because if I am not doing that well, then I’m not serving the women in which I’m placed here to serve. And that’s the mamas that I directly work with, but other folks that are in the guaranteed income space that I am still an advocate for. On the larger level of the work and larger scale of the work,

(17:12):
Courtney: You have these two core audiences, one of which I know is your real core, which is your moms. How do they feel about what you’re saying and how you’re saying it? And then you have this other audience, which is profoundly important, the ones that give you the resources to serve your moms, which are donors, right?

(17:32):
Aisha: Yeah.

(17:32):
Courtney: So can you think of an example of a time when you’ve interacted with your moms about the way you message about them, that they’ve made you smarter, pushed back on something about how you talk about the work?

(17:47):
Aisha: Yeah. I more and more conscious that I stay experiencing poverty or living in poverty rather than poor mamas and things such as that. So I’m very try to be very clear about that language. I no longer say single moms because we understand it’s an expensive way in which they define partnership, which is much more expansive than a narrow framing in which a lot of times we have. So that’s how I’ve become smarter specifically. But also, I want to say the other way in which I’ve become smarter is just the level of grace that they provide to me and how I show up in work, and quite frankly, the level of excitement that they have, period about the fact that someone sees them and sees the full depth and brilliance of who they are and that it’s not someone who sees them. So it’s that part of it, but it’s also that the way in which I have relationship and work with the women that we work with and seeing them is not a, oh, I see you and we have relationship because of the fact that we have a shared story, or it’s not that the fact that I just see them in their full humanity without trying to be like, oh, I identify with you because of X, Y, Z, they really appreciate, I love that.

(19:23):
Courtney: So it’s not transactional, it’s relational.

(19:27):
Aisha: And it reminds me of we all contain multitudes that you’re not talking about them as single black mom, blah, blah, blah. She loves this kind of creative pursuit. This is her favorite thing to do to relax. It’s a full textural story.

(19:45):
And also, it’s not that I’m trying to center myself in their story. It’s not as if I’m saying, oh, I see you and I identify with you because your story is my story. Like, oh, I am a black mama too in Mississippi. That’s why I identify. No, no, let’s not even play. We have the same narrative. And so it’s not my centering myself and it’s not me talking down to them or about them or their stories in a way, it is not a stripping down of their story in a way in which they don’t even see themselves. Okay.

(20:19):
Courtney: Now I have to ask you about one of my obsessions lately, which is time, because I’ve been thinking a lot about, for example, the TED Talk. The typical Ted used to be 12 minutes, I think now it’s like eight minutes and then it becomes four minutes. It just keeps shrinking. And I know people have very short attention spans, and there are all these real reasons that curators and editors are doing that. But what I think that also forces us to do is create reductive stories. It’s very hard to talk about your moms when you have four minutes to explain your mission and what you’re doing next and the big conceptual ideas, and also tell them about three amazing moms that you work with. Of course, sometimes that’s going to sound reductive. So how do you work with these time limits and make sure that you still represent the moms as fully as textually as you’d want to?

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Aisha: I have what we call what I call avatar moms, which are stories that represent fully a full multitude of the stories that I need to share, the limited amount of time. So I now have, I don’t want to say canned stories because they’re all very unique stories, but I have canned messaging and canned stories that I can pull at any particular moment based off the questions that I always get. If you have a question about how folks are using a guaranteed didn’t come around education, I have an avatar mom for that. Home ownership, have an avatar, mom, joy, avatar, mom. So I have all of these stories already in queue that I can pull at if necessary to make sure that I’m getting the point across. And the issue with that for me is that I feel like I’m always repeating myself is I’m like, oh my God, I’m sick of hearing myself.

(22:01):
Aisha: I’m saying the same thing over and over again. But the part that I always have to remind myself is that just because it’s old to me does not mean it is old to the audience. There’s always going to be someone in the audience that has not heard this story before. I was just in New York earlier this week, and I, I’ve been more intentional about trying to be in different audiences that’s not just the economic justice audience that we’re always in. I’m trying to get out of that bubble. And so I had all of these conversations with folks who had never heard of guaranteed income before, and I was like, get out of here. I was like, wow. And it was a great exercise and okay, yes, say the thing that needs to be said quickly, concisely on point and get out and don’t feel like you’re repeating yourself.

(22:45):
Aisha: And I remember at one of the lunch conversations I was having with someone afterwards just said, thank you so much for all that you’ve shared because I didn’t know any of it, but we get in our bubbles with the movement work that we’re doing and whatever that particular space is, and you are in your bubble and you’re with the same people, so you get lulled into this sense of calmness. We’re like, okay, we are winning, or we are doing this well, or we’re not doing that well. But I think it’s important to get outside of that bubble and make yourself have conversations with others.

(23:24):
Courtney: I love that that woman said to you, I really didn’t know about this because it indicates to me not just that the content of what you said was so important and you really helped her understand it, but you made her feel like she could admit to you that she hadn’t known before about that. And I think for a lot of our movement leaders and activists, it’s we end up alienating people. We make them feel like, how could you not know about guaranteed income? Which maybe some of us are thinking in the back of our head, that’s okay to wonder how does someone get this far in life without having ever heard of this, but to make people feel that way just shuts them down.

(24:00):
Aisha: I was open and kind and had great stories. I was like, oh, well, let me tell you about it. That was one of my favorite things to talk about. And for me it was such a good conversation because it helped remind me that it is absolutely one of my favorite things to talk about, and I am such an advocate for cash without restrictions, and it is my jam and this is why. And so it helped me be reminded of that as well.

Courtney: (24:28):
That’s beautiful. You said you have recently decided that you want to be in more rooms with people like this who don’t know about guaranteed income already. How did you decide that? Is it just been a growing realization that you’re in a lot of the same rooms,

(24:43):
Aisha: The same people? Yeah, we to win? Yeah. No, it started when we lost the child tax credit a couple of years ago, made me really begin to connect the dots between narrative and values. And that if we are truly going to shift values, we sometimes have to talk with folks that don’t always share the same ideologies that we share, and we’re going to have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and comfortable walking across the aisles and comfortable being in different spaces. And so for me, it has been that it’s like really, what does it look like to get to a win on cash without restrictions? How do we bring more people in to this fight? And then bringing people into the fight means that, okay, sometimes I have to actually take the fight to them and go to them and be where they are and be willing to be uncomfortable because you walk into a room, you’re like, okay, I thought I’m feeling in myself, and I walk into this room and oh my God, I dunno anybody, none of my people are here. Well, okay, how do you go about finding some of your people

(25:52):
Courtney: And how do you go about making these people your people?

(25:56):
It’s interesting too because especially with a guaranteed income conversation, I have heard so many different advocates within the space reference how bipartisan it is in a sense that Nixon talked about this and Martin Luther King talked about this, and people are constantly referencing the ways in which it transcends bubbles. But the actual conferences and things like that, it seems like it is most of the same people.

(26:21):
Aisha: It is the same people, it’s the same folks that are, we are doing a great job advocating to each other that it is, that it’s bipartisan, partisan, and good across the house. So we’ve all sold each other on the idea.

(26:37):
Courtney: I want to get back to the moms because one of the things I also so admire about you is the way in which have consistently brought your moms into thought leadership opportunities. You yourself have done a TED Talk and a million podcast interviews and written beautiful things, but you’re also always interested in creating writing opportunities for your mom, speaking opportunities for your moms. Tell me about that. Where does that passion for you come from and what have been the highs and lows of that experience?

(27:11):
Aisha: The passion for that comes from really how do we go about shifting narratives? And in order to do that, you have to change the narrator. And so the individuals who are most impacted by the work that you’re doing have to be the individuals who are front and center talking about the work. And it’s like community organizing, community change 1 0 1 for me, and I’ve said this before and I’ll continue to say it, I love my partners that are in the guaranteed income movement as the folks that are arm in arm with me in this work. But I also think it’s very problematic that if we were to get a federal guaranteed income pass tomorrow, that none of us that are the movement leaders would be individuals who would benefit from guaranteed income. So that’s not okay. We have to make space for those who would be impacted by the work to be the actual leaders within the work.

(28:03):
So much shifted after we did not get the child tax credit expanded. For me, for me, when we first started the work, it really was about, okay, we have to make sure that people have a more expansive understanding of what it looks like to live in poverty. And so if we do that well enough, get that out to enough people, eventually we’ll get to that shifting of policy and systems change that we need. But over the last few years, the shift for me and how I think about the work is really making sure that my moms shift in how they see themselves and that they are able to see the full beauty and brilliance of themselves. And so when we give them opportunities to share their story, it validates them in a way in which they’ve never been validated before. It allows them to show and be like, you know what? I am brilliant and I am out here working really, really hard and parenting with all of these odds stacked up against me that you know what? I am winning and I feel pretty damn good about myself, and I’m not going to let anyone tell me otherwise. And so that’s really why we do it. I want to, whenever I have an opportunity to hold up a mirror and let them see themselves, I’m going to give them the mirror because they are brilliant and beautiful, and I need them to know that

(29:20):
Courtney: I love that. So it’s an internal and an external strategy. So it’s an internal strategy in the sense that your moms have been pickled in this same shitty culture all the rest of us have, so they have ways of internalizing their own shame. Right. So you’re shifting that, but you’re also, it’s not just a mirror pointing inward, it’s also outward so that they can become the leaders of this movement and people. Exactly. Right. That’s beautiful. Okay, so are there any moments you think of on your journey, I know you’re not loving this thought leadership phrase, but let’s say as a vessel, are there particular moments where you’re like, that was breakthrough? Are there particular moments you think of?

(29:59):
Aisha: For us, the breakthrough in our work was that Washington Post article that we had in 2019 when it was a front page article about our work in Jackson, Mississippi around a guaranteed income.

(30:13):
Courtney: And how did that come about?

(30:16):
Oh, I don’t even remember how they found us, but it was so new. And so we had done our pilot with our 20 mamas and we got so much press off that 20 mamas, it was amazing how much press we got. And somebody from the Washington Post reached out and he was like, I want to follow some of your moms and write a story at the end of the year. And I was like, okay, the Washington Post, that sounds fascinating enough. And so I know a lot of people probably like, oh, that’s the breakthrough as it relates to narrative and publicity and all of those pieces. That wasn’t the breakthrough. The breakthrough was prior to that, I was still in fundraising trying to get from the pilot to the actual implementation. How do we move from pilot to scaling this work? How do we get to the next cohort of mamas?

(31:07):
Aisha: I was naive enough to believe that in 2018 that if we just had this proof, proof of concept, that financial resources would just come and it didn’t happen. So in 2018, I was charting here, there everywhere, still trying to raise the money to go from pilot to full scale implementation. The Washington Post article comes out, it’s not my favorite article about our work. I remember talking to you about it. I was not happy with the work. I was trying to get stuff for traffic because the journalists that had gotten significant pieces of our model wrong, but somebody that I had never met read the article and she sent an email first she sent an email to her office and one of my team members was like, I don’t know, this sounds a little, but I feel like you need to talk to this person. And so we scheduled a meeting and she was like, how are you doing?

Are you still fundraising? I was like, yeah, I’m tired. And I was just real honest with her. I ain’t know I had nothing to lose. I was like, I’m really, really tired. I was like, I’m still trying to fundraise. And she was like, well, what’s your fundraising gap? And I was like, I probably got $600,000 to raise still. Who knows? I was like, I’m not going to get there. There’s no path. Dunno this person. So I’m honest, being brutally honest with this person. And she was like, I think you need to have a seat. And I was like, well, I’m sitting down, we’re on the phone. And she was like, I can give you the $600,000 that you need as well as anything else that you feel like you may need. And I started crying. I started crying and I was just like, oh my God. And I love her now dearly At the time I didn’t know I love her now dearly so much.

(32:54):
Courtney: This was your first ever phone call…

(32:57):
Aisha: First ever. So this, I’m about to tell you, this is the breakthrough on so many different reasons. It helped me realize that fundraising happens when people are ready to liberate their capital, and it does not have to be as hard as we make it out to be, and foundations need to do better. It also made me recognize that the amount of money that we were talking about and the thing that we were trying to do actually was possible. It wasn’t a significant amount of money. Someone that did not know me had read a story and for whatever reason connected to the story, called me out the blue and said, I can give you this as well as whatever else you need. It reoriented how I looked at fundraising, and it also reoriented how I looked at the power of press and how I always was making sure that whatever story we were lifting up to the press was the story that we wanted to tell.

(33:49):
I am so diligent and how we talk with reporters, how I deal with reporters. I am also so very diligent about how I show up in these various spaces because I now recognize that there are always fundraising opportunities and fundraising spaces. And so there are so many people who are like, oh, I’ll opportunities are good opportunities you to say yes, yes, yes, yes. I don’t look at it that way. If I can’t show up in my full authentic on fire self, it is a no because I never know who is going to hear me or see me that day that may connect with the work that we’re doing and can help me continue to do the work that we’re doing for the women that I work with. So I’m always making sure that I show up in a way that is authentic to myself and authentic to the work. And sometime a joyful note is the way to go if I don’t think that I can show up and do that job.

(34:41):
Courtney: One of the things I love about this is the Washington Post piece wasn’t perfect, right? The Washington Post piece was not what you wanted it to be, and it still led to a transformational moment for your moms.

(34:53):
Aisha: I have access to so many stories and so many lives. I think a lot of times I take for granted that the majority of America knows what it looks like to live in poverty in this country. And the reality is that most folks don’t. They don’t understand systems, they don’t understand policies. They don’t understand how all of those converge in order to create this very intentional strategic force to keep people living below their means. And so recognizing that that’s the reality for most Americans. Whenever I have an opportunity to share narratives and to share stories, it’s a win. But even that being a win, if I know that I am doing it in person or if I know if I am doing it via Zoom. And the reality is people fund leaders before they fund movements. They fund people sitting within the top layer of those institutions and those things. I am very conscious of the role that who I am plays and my ability to do this work well and to continue to usher in more efforts for our movement.

(36:04):
Courtney: What is your growing edge as a thought leader? What is next for you? What are you trying to get better at? What are you questions are you holding about your work right now in terms of how you get that message out in the world?

(36:16):
Aisha: Two things. So I guess my learning edge is I don’t call myself a thought leader. So that’s a learning edge, I guess, to get comfortable with that terminology.

(36:26):
Courtney: I don’t like it either, but maybe we invent new terminology, but I can’t figure out what it is.

(36:33):
Aisha: How do I get comfortable with the seat that I have within the space? I’m still working on that. I’m getting better. I’m still working at it. And the other piece that I am thinking about in my work goes back to what you and I were talking about last time we talked. It’s really the more expensive conversation about wealth and how we really take back the power or not take back. It was never our term to begin with, but how do we put power in that word in a way that actually serves the majority of us, not just a subset of us, especially for so many folks who are in the economic justice movement and talking about wealth. How do we make sure that we’re doing that in a way that centers the families that we work with rather than doing harm to the families that we work with?

(37:23):
So about a year or so ago, one of our moms who was ready to move into home ownership, she had done her thing, she was ready to move to home ownership, hooked her up with a real estate agent, and she was doing the things to look for a house. So she had two specific goals that she wanted with this house. She wanted a house with a garage because she wanted us in some privacy. She wanted to come in, nobody knew she was at home and she wanted a big backyard. She wanted a safe place for her kids to be able to play. That’s it. That’s all she asked for. She was very clear. Well, the real estate agent kept showing her houses that had patio garages, so there was no way to let it down. You could still see the car, all of those pieces and these houses with these little backyards.

(38:07):
And over time she was becoming deflated. She was becoming frustrated. So finally, since I knew the agent, I went today and I was like, what is the problem? I was just trying to get a sense of clarity too. I was like, this what she asked for not exist, what is going on? And the agent was like, well, I keep showing her houses where she can move in with equity. She really should be thinking about her equity. And I was like, did she ask you for that? And the agent had never thought about it. And I was like, she didn’t ask you for that. I was like, she actually bought a house out of the garage. She actually for a big backyard. That’s how she was defining well, and those were her needs. And so I think a lot of times we have really great intentions, but if we’re not listening, we can make people feel deflated. And what’s the harm in that when people began to feel like what it is that I’m asking for is not enough or there’s something wrong with what it is that I’m asking for

(39:01):
Courtney: And gets back to this core value of cash that you’ve always been talking about, which is let people decide for themselves their thriving life is

(39:10):
Aisha: Exactly and gets back to the core value of to just listen to people and trust that they know better than themselves, better than anyone, what it’s that they need for themselves and their families.

(39:19):
Courtney:  Yes. I love that. Aisha, you are my vessel. I won’t say my hero. I love you. I love you too. Thank you for doing this. I think we should talk like this once a week.

Aisha: I’m happy

Courtney:  Thanks to Aisha for sharing her vessel forward brilliance with us. I am so grateful to and bore her. You can follow Aisha’s work as a reluctant thought leader. Can we please, please find a better term at aisha nyandorospeaks.com. That’s aishanyandorospeaks.com.

If you learn something from listening to this episode, we want to hear about it. Send us an email at greenroom@freshspeakers.com. And if you like what you heard today, please give us a rating. I review and tell a friend. The Green Room is an independent production of fresh speakers produced by me, Courtney Martin, along with Vanessa Valenti, Casey Molina and Alison Koch. Learn more about our work@freshspeakers.com. Ali Bauman is our editor. The Green Room is possible. Thanks to the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, I’m Courtney Martin. Thanks for listening.