0:00:01.1 Darin Dorsey: Welcome to Resource on the Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center on understanding, responding to and preventing sexual violence and sexual assault. My name is Darin Dorsey. I'm an expert in sexual violence prevention and organizational equity and co-founder of Rooting Movements, which is a consulting firm that helps organizations ensure that their internal practices are consistent with the values that drive the change they intend to make in society. In this podcast series, I'm speaking with Black leaders, advocates and movement workers about their experiences in the movement to end gender-based violence. [music] 0:00:58.0 DD: Great. Tonya Lovelace, thank you so much for joining me today. We're here with this National Sexual Violence Resource Center hosted podcast on anti-blackness in the movement to end gender-based violence. To get started in this topic, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what your role in the movement to end gender-based violence is? 0:01:23.4 Tonya Lovelace: Sure, and thank you so much, Darin, for inviting me and I'm really deeply honored by this opportunity to talk with you today. And so my role in the movement and who I am. So I have been in this field for 27 years and the way I mark that is that my kid is 27, so that's how I know how [laughter] long I have been in this work. So I have been at every level of this field. I started off as what I like to call a baby advocate in 1995 when I was working at the DV shelter at a YWCA and from there... By then, I already had my master's in Black Studies and a Master's in women's studies, though I was coming straight from grad school and straight from having had a baby. So I was coming in for me to earn money and I saw this job announcement that seemed to be things that I could do, which was a special needs advocate, is what we called it at the time. And it was to work with survivors who had mental health or substance abuse issues or who were sort of dual diagnosed, which we'll come back to that, but that was the language we were using at the time, or triple diagnosed. And so that was sort of my lane and then I went from there to do training and coordinated community response was one of those first waivers who were funded under VAWA and so I was doing that work within court systems and criminal justice systems. I went from that to then going through Women of Color Network's first leadership academy in 2001. 0:03:22.4 TL: And by 2002, I was staff. And by 2004, I was moving to Harrisburg to run Women of Color Network under the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. And then I started to provide national technical assistance around reaching and surveying marginalized populations and addressing and supporting the leadership of women of color. So then we began to lead movements within movements. We started to talk about the patterns we were seeing of women of color being pushed out of their programs and so we began to lead movements around that in ally work, and from there, I did that work for several years. I was with Women of Color Network for 18 years and there we forged really the endangerment of the Women of Color advocate and the lifespan of the Women of Color advocate. And we really, I think, coined the term within the context of this field aspiring ally and so those were pieces that we were doing and were some of the... And we're doing reports around this and so we're able to actually get data because we were told that it wasn't enough to collect women and people's stories around this, so we were like, "Fine." 0:04:49.9 TL: So we got data around it. We did jagged justice where we were linking criminal justice to... We were basically linking state violence and community violence and domestic and sexual violence, and we're linking what was happening with George... Not George Floyd at the time, but with Mike Brown and others. We were linking that to what was happening in our field and why it all mattered. And then we're supporting people like Cyntoia Brown and others and Crystal Kaiser. So those were the movements within movements we were developing and now I am an independent consultant and I am running a consulting firm that addresses racial equity, diversity, inclusion and aspiring allyship within mainstream programs and providing training and coaching and capacity building for women of color in executive positions. I'm also a survivor of child abuse, of child sexual assault, of bullying, of teen dating violence and of domestic violence later in life. And so ultimately, the field that I work in, this domestic and sexual violence field, in this field that I poured my blood, sweat and tears into eventually saved my life. So that's kind of the full circle for me and I think even more full circle... 0:06:22.3 TL: Here's the last thing I will say is that my kid is now 27. So I started in this field at 27. I've been in this field for 27 years. My kid is now 27 and my kid works in this field now. So that is super full circle for me. 0:06:43.5 DD: I was actually just recently talking to someone who said that their child grew up in this movement. So it's nice to hear that there's multiple and I hope... My child currently, my son is 14 months old. So I hope that he can be a movement baby as well. 0:07:01.4 TL: He is a movement baby. 0:07:02.2 DD: He is. He already is. [overlapping conversation] 0:07:05.6 TL: You're in it. He's born, he's in it. 0:07:08.0 DD: One thing, I just wanna highlight how lucky folks are to hear from you on this topic because we're here to talk about addressing anti-blackness in the movement, in gender-based violence, and you have not only so many years of experience, decades of experience in this field, but you've run an organization that seems as though it was very much dedicated to addressing racism in this movement. And so one thing that I wanna ask about and that I think a lot of organizations will benefit from hearing is that in 2020, a lot of organizations... In the summer of 2020, a lot of organizations really reacted to that moment in society where we saw a very graphic depiction of George Floyd being killed by police in addition to other folks who have been killed by police over the last number of years, and not only by police, but anti-Black violence in the case of Trayvon Martin and others. 0:08:11.5 DD: And so in 2020, there was this sort of reckoning that anti-Black racism plays a significant role in our society, and we saw a lot of organizations come out and make a commitment to interrupting racism, to advocating for anti-racism, and moving in this direction. What do you think those organizations need to hear and understand? And before we hear your answer, one thing I also want to acknowledge is that between now, which is this March of 2022, and that moment in 2020, we've seen shifts in attitudes. So we saw that attention towards anti-blackness, towards racial violence and this desire to eliminate it and at the same time, if you look at public opinion on Black Lives Matter, if you look at public opinion against critical race theory and these other issues, we've also seen a backlash. So going back to the question, what do organizations who've made a commitment to interrupting racism, to advocating for anti-racism, what do they need to know? What do they need to understand? 0:09:29.0 TL: So I think they need to understand that they are not disconnected from those systems that we see this violence happening in, that we are all sort of swimming in White supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism, all of us are. It's important for non-profits, for our agencies and our programs and our movement and our movements, it's important for them to not see criminal justice systems and court systems and social services systems and so forth as being somehow separated from our movement systems and our movement agencies. I don't think we can. 0:10:13.1 TL: So I think that we can't see those things as being disconnected and I think in our movement, just like you said, there has been a lot of interest. There were initially a lot of energy and a lot of interest built into that. Like I said, Women of Color network, we were having those jagged justice conversations, and honestly, I think in a way, we helped to prime the movement so that once this happen... For some folks, it wasn't a big leap for them then to be able to make those connections and to connect those dots as my then WLCN colleague, but also now working for California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, Reverend Dr. Aleese Moore-Orbih. 0:11:00.1 TL: Her thing was always... This is connecting the dots between these issues and so we were doing that work and laying that foundation, and programs were then... I think many of them were poised and ready, and I know Move to End Violence had also been forging these conversations, or people who came out of Move to End Violence, my cohort colleagues because I also am a movement maker within that system, within that project. So to make a long story short, we are both seeing the... We saw sort of the ramp-up and then the sort of the coming down of that arc as well within our movement and so we've gone from folks who were very poised and ready to have that conversation to folks who are already back to things as normal and have sort of lost that energy and who don't have to live at the margins on a day-to-day basis, who don't have to do that. 0:12:05.4 TL: I'm gonna tell you now. I feel like I do have some thoughts about this and have a lot to say. So I wanna add to this and say that I think we have to... If we're gonna look at George Floyd and those circumstances from summer of 2020 to now, I think in our movement, we have to look way back at the beginning of our movement in the late '60s and '70s and look at how it really started off as grassroots with people helping. So with hurt people helping hurt people. So people who were survivors who were helping other survivors is kind of how that started and you had women of color and people of color, and you had LGBT folks, and you had people on the margins who are more visible in that work, and that was before money and structures came into place, right? 0:13:09.3 TL: But then over time as money came in and organizations and programs were formalized, we became more agencies helping clients, right? And these agencies, as they got more formalized within governmental and criminal justice guidance and under those structures, and when you have legislation that's tying these issues and we're helping and we're developing out VAWA and so forth, and systems that are tying criminal justice to these issues, these structures have their roots in White supremacy culture, have their roots in patriarchy and capitalism. And so even if movement agencies started off with the best of intentions, they began to replicate these master's tools, right? And so White supremacist patriarchal capitalism, which is what Bell Hooks called, all of these issues became forged and started to play out. And so the movement became more of a field, agencies became more professionalized, medicalized and participatory in criminalization, and that meant then that Brown and Black people and LGBT folks and so forth became more pushed out to the margins. 0:14:29.3 TL: And so it just became hurt people who hurt people, not hurt people who help hurt people. Not hurt people who help hurt people, but help people who hurt people. And anti-blackness has always been a core component of this. And this is a situation in which there can only be a few of us particularly in management and we can be relegated to certain roles which are more labor-based roles, right? And we can get held to higher standards and be wrangled and tagged and pegged and marked as resistant, right? And we can be targeted for neutralization and being tamed and sort of tone policing. And so Black people are often targeted within agencies for profiling. We are profiled in our own programs then. Policing is happening in our own programs and it is no different than what is happening for Black girls and boys, and gender non-binary and trans kids who are often branded and targeted and conditioned for suspension and expulsion and push out and arrest. In our programs, it's the same thing. We are under suspicion, under surveillance. We are accused and suspended and sanctioned and fired and pushed out as well. 0:16:01.5 TL: And so you have not just are we now engaged in criminalization within these systems, but then criminalized systems, but we are bringing criminalization within our actual programs. And so anti-blackness is so weaved in because it is so connected in criminalization and government systems and so we are so connected to anti-blackness. It's like it's all circular and there's no way to pull it out. And so at the end of the day, Black people can be both invisibilized and hyper-visibilized. I'm using, making up words, but at the same time, and we can be quickly sought after, hired, and then fired, taken down a path of disciplinary action and fired all at the same time. This can be happening all at the same time. And as long as you are non-Black... And I am going to say that with Women of Color network, we saw a lot of women of color across identity, experiencing these issues, but what we... And what I'm also gonna say is that I think that Black women like people, Black men and women, and Black trans and gender non-binary people find themselves most targeted in programs, most marginalized. As long as they are Black, they are gonna be at the margins of this issue. 0:17:33.0 TL: And I'm also gonna say that people who are non-Black, people of color also face a range of challenges and a range of issues that they're specifically held for them and I'm not saying that that's not true. I'm saying that those things are weaved in and used as a part of the takedown of people of color. And I'm also gonna say that at the same time, Black people are often, as we found in 2020, the most targeted within criminalized systems. So this is what... So to me, the transition I want folks to make in their minds is that criminalization is not separate from our program. We are doing it in our own programs. We're doing it every day. 0:18:18.0 DD: Yeah, and I love how you mentioned that piece around how folks of color are triangulated and sometimes involved in this violence to sort of advance the agenda of criminalization and ultimately White supremacy, and I think that's something that we need to be aware of that that does happen and these are sort of patterns that we're not necessarily immune from. We have to actively understand these dynamics and resist them and avoid them as well to not advance this harmful system. One piece that I really enjoyed that you highlighted there was around the fact that this movement did not start out this way. It started out with folks around the kitchen table, not necessarily an agency. It's not necessarily in employment and one thing that I often think about, a resource I use pretty often in my work, is the Santa Cruz Women Against Rape... 0:19:30.0 DD: Letter to the field to the anti-rape movement, which basically warns against moving down this path of criminalization. And I think of, what if we listen to them? Where would we be today? Where would this movement be today? How do we... We heard that and said, "Oh okay, we're getting too close to this. Let's step back and let's ensure that we stay grassroots, that we stay this way." There would be so many Black advocates, Black survivors, survivors of color, queer survivors, marginalized folks who would not have experienced harm in this movement. And so with that in mind, I wanna ask you that while organizations and individuals have made this commitment moving forward, there's also this history where people have been harmed in this movement to the point where folks have left this movement. How can organizations be accountable for that harm that's happened in the past? 0:20:31.0 TL: Well, first, let me be accountable. There's something I wanna also just very much emphasize is that Women of Color Network, myself and all of us were not coming up with these issues out of our sort of a vacuum either. So Insight was well before it was laying out this sort of analysis well before we were. Beth Richey had written her books, Compelled to Crime. So these things were already laid out before we began to sort of put our pedal to the metal too. And so at least before I put my pedal to the metal, so I will say that I can speak for me. So I wanna say that I think that, my legacy in this work and the legacies of those of us who have had this history of experiencing these issues and have written about it or talked about it or walked through this process, stand on shoulders of others before us. And I wanna say that that, those who want to be accountable have to be ready to lean into wellness. 0:21:44.3 TL: And I know that's a really odd place to go, but I think that again, hurt people hurt people. So as long as we have people who are living in their hurt specifically, as long as we have White women and men and White folks across gender binary and non-binary identities and trans identities, but who are showing up with whiteness sort of as their primary... As their identity. That if they are not really looking at the fact that... If they're not looking at White supremacy culture and if they're not looking at how it weaves into their own lives, they're gonna keep going and going and going and going. And then they will say, "Hey, I'm ready to be accountable. Let's have these meetings and these trainings." But are not carving real time for it and not carving real transition into the work, are not putting real resources behind it so that people have real time and they themselves are not pushing and forcing, they're pushing and forcing but they're not ensuring that their upper management are involved. And this work has to happen at all levels. They're not making sure their boards are involved in these conversations. 0:23:02.5 TL: Everybody has to do it and they have to do it with clear mind and openness. The only way you can really have that kind of conversation is to really do a clearing, to be able to move into spaces and do breath work and clearing work that then transitions you into these real conversations around how racial equity and wellness are linked, and that... And then gets into the rudimentary discussions and making sure that everybody knows and has the same language and really can tackle these issues all the way from understanding things like, unconscious bias and really looking at micro-aggressions and all of those pieces and how all of those are laid out. I think that they can't be mindful then of what they're doing. We can't... We're not giving time to bring in somebody for a half day training once a year is not gonna get at these issues. And so to me, they have to be willing to have set aside time for real training, real work, individual and group work. 0:24:14.3 TL: They have to really set aside actual time for wellness and they need to demonstrate that they are willing to sit and do that and to bring their minds clear and set things aside and take a step off of the sort of the hamster wheel of capitalism for these conversations and to sort of decolonize time so that people can actually have time to spend on this. And I know I'm asking for a lot, but it's like these are things people need to do and they need to be willing to have true evaluation, a real and then real interest in changing policies and procedures and practices so that the master's tools really, truly are dismantled. And we're working in the master's houses. We just are, whether we intended for that to be the case or not. 0:25:02.3 DD: Yeah, I think one thing that I think connects to this that I think about often is that if we just at a very basic level admit that the history that we're taught in our schools is not authentic and is anti-Black, so it doesn't talk about enslavement in any accurate way. It doesn't talk about Jim Crow and the atrocities against Black people and people of color in this country in an authentic way. I often talk about the fact that most people went through 16 to 18 years of that, at least. And so if we went through 16 to 18 years of that indoctrination, then we really can't expect a three-hour training to do it. 0:25:52.5 TL: Nor can we talk about and even for me. So when I started doing a support group for Black women called RISE Support Group, I knew that I couldn't sit with survivors and talk about violence as if it was just happening just now for them in their current circumstances today. I had to talk about racism throughout their lifespan, and then I had to talk about racism. I had to talk about the history of slavery and sexual assault and domestic violence being rooted in those in that context. So for our conversations, we weren't talking about the here and now, we actually had to go back throughout time. So for us to talk in this movement as if... Really the movement only started in the '60s and '70s, and I know I started off that way. But those were the times in which these systems started to get formed the way that they are. But we really have to talk about and trace domestic violence and sexual assault from centuries before now. 0:26:57.5 TL: And really, if we're not talking about it that way and we're not talking about the transatlantic slave trade, if we're not talking about the Trail of Tears and we're not talking about the Chinese Exclusion Act, and we're not talking about all of these different acts, if we're not reading Andrea Ritchie, who's really laying these things out and we're not doing this kind of work, then we're really not getting at the real roots of how these things happen, how we come together, what our relationships look like, and how we're replicating those same kinds of relationships. And I have been looking quite a bit at how slavery weaves into... Is really weaved into the very fabric of our programs. And I have this piece of work that I've been working on for a long time now that is Agency is Plantation. But I have been doing that for a long since I started because I told you I came straight from grad school into this work. 0:28:00.6 TL: And so then six months, I already had this thing called Agency is Plantation was already presenting on it. Been and have been developing that out and working on it and return to it after I left Women of Color Network and have really gotten into deeply into it. But really having to talk about how those plantation relationships are replicated in our programs today. It's actually happening. And so as I've mentioned already, how systems, how criminalization is replicated in our program. So I think we have to have that historical context and have to also understand that we've just been mis-educated. 0:28:41.8 DD: Right. And to your point, if we don't understand these systems, if we don't understand the plantation and how it genuinely worked and how just how egregious that violence and that control was, then we're not gonna be able to recognize that when it shows up in our programs. I wanna talk a little bit about your experiences navigating this. You've worked with a number of organizations, as you mentioned at the start here from all different levels. As a Black woman in this movement, I'm curious what has stayed the same for you as you've navigated different roles and different organizations? 0:29:19.8 TL: So interesting. So I tried to really sit still with it. There are many things I could say, but I think the thing that has held true until now has been that whiteness sets the tone for all of our work and how Black people and people of color are always judged against it and placed within the context of it, and how we are almost always underappreciated, under-supported, under-recognized, under-promoted, under-resourced, we are always those things and yet we are over-surveilled, over-identified, and the list goes over-corrected and all of the list goes on. And so, I just think those things are just fundamental, fundamental in our programs that has never changed. But also I came into this movement with that... With again, a Master's in Black Studies and Master's and Women's Studies. Those things are ways I kind of came in with that. I wrote my senior thesis on an undergrad on these issues. So I guess I was always sort of attuned to it, but it's kind of like I haven't been able to unsee it ever since, and it's just kind of always there for me. 0:30:43.7 TL: And here's what I will say. I will say that also I too was not immune to replicating and being a part of systems that did harm and did harm myself and have had harm done to me, and have seen that happen among people of color, and have done that and participated in that among people of color. So it is not we are all swimming in White supremacy everyday that just hasn't ever gone away. I see it all the time and I feel like... And so I feel like I guess at the end of the day, my work is to try to dismantle that and to see myself as a primary subject in that. That's what I try to do. [chuckle] 0:31:33.4 DD: Yeah, definitely. I appreciate that. That perspective and just that acknowledgement that we have participated in these systems and it's extremely hard not to. But that recognition is often the start of dismantling them. 0:31:52.0 DD: And one thing that I appreciate about your work and your perspective, we serve on the North American MenEngage Alliance... Did I get that right? 0:32:04.2 TL: North American MenEngage Network, which is under... 0:32:07.9 DD: There we go. 0:32:08.2 TL: Global MenEngage Alliance. Yes. 0:32:10.7 DD: So yeah, we both serve on the board of that organization, so I've gotten the chance to see your expertise and that in action, and one thing that I've recognized is that you very much prioritize taking an intersectional approach. And this is a term that I think many of us in the movement hear often these days, but I feel like it's often misunderstood. What do you think people need to know if they want their work to truly be intersectional? 0:32:40.5 TL: Well, first, I have a lot of respect and a lot of kudos to your perspective on intersectionality. It's quite an honor to sit at the table with you and to bounce back and forth on these, so I do appreciate it. I appreciate you as well. And... 0:32:55.3 DD: Thank you. 0:32:58.0 TL: You know, and I think that Kimberle Crenshaw, who I like to think of my personal friend but she's not my personal friend, but I just think, you know... We are friends on Facebook, so that makes me feel special. 0:33:07.7 DD: Y'all would be friends. 0:33:09.6 TL: We would be friends. Like if I was like in her community somehow, I'd like to think that we'd be girlfriends and hanging out. I've been following her since, and going to presentations she was giving, since the mid-90s, so I feel like I've been hearing about her stuff for a long time. And I've heard it replicated, talked about, in many different spaces, and I do think that people need to know that she says, in her own words, that "intersectionality is a lens, a prism, for seeing the ways in which various forms of inequity... " Or, I'm sorry, "inequality often operate together and exacerbate one another. We tend to talk about race inequality as separate from inequality based on gender, class, sexuality or immigrant status. What's often missing is how some people are subject to all of these, and the experience is not just the sum of its parts." 0:34:17.0 TL: So what I get from that is, she wrote her quintessential paper in 1989 that centered on three legal cases that involve Black women, and that the concept that she was really bringing forth was that the court system and these legal cases only saw Black women, and only saw people... Or only allowed the issues of racism or sexism. These Black women were not allowed to bring both forward simultaneously, and they were not perceived simultaneously. So they were limited by the courts' single issue analysis. And so if we think about that for our programs, that our programs are very much based on single issue analysis, and a single issue prism. And it's most often based on gender, and not sort of across gender identity. I don't mean that... [chuckle] I mean as in gender which is very binary concept, which is male, female, and very much seen from that perspective, and as based on the needs of White women. Of women, specifically White women. And they are not based on the intersections of race and gender, and then sexuality orientation and general identity and immigration status, as Kimberle Crenshaw stated. 0:35:46.5 TL: Or even sovereignty. Right? And so this is why we are not talking enough about the fact that Black women are murdered by men at the rate of 2.5 times that of White women. Which is consistent, and that number has been consistent for a couple of decades, right? Or that the murder rate of native women, indigenous women, are 10 times that of the national average. And we are not looking at the fact that 2020, at the time, was the deadliest year for trans women, at 44 being killed. But that by November 2020... Excuse me. By November 2021, that number was already exceeded at 47. 0:36:28.4 TL: I don't know, and I tried to do my research, and so I don't know the final number that we landed on, but I know that it was 47 people, trans people, who had died by November. And that Black women had the highest rate within that context. And we wouldn't even... And we would talk more about the fact that undocumented immigrants are routinely sexually harassed in detention centers, and that undocumented transgender and gender non-conforming individuals are disproportionately targeted within that. Like we would be having these kind of conversations more, but our programs are aimed at single issue. And they carve people up, and the more we do that and the more that we are not reading people's true whole needs, then we are really complicit in these numbers. We're complicit in them. If we are not looking at them. Whether we're funders or whether we're programs funded by funders. 0:37:28.2 DD: Right. And I love that language that you used, that folks are carved up. Because I think one thing that I see is that folks will sort of be exposed to this language around intersectionality, they'll understand that it's a value to apply, but instead of recognizing what Kimberle Crenshaw was trying to say, which was that these different experiences of oppression create a unique experience, what I often see is folks trying to take factors that women, generally White women, experience because of sexism, add those up with factors that Black people, generally Black men, experience, add those up maybe with factors that queer folks experience, but what they don't recognize or give space to is that this creates an absolutely unique experience that we can't just theorize about. We need to hear these stories. We need to hear from the folks that are impacted by these multiple forms of oppression. 0:38:37.0 TL: I think the term has become co-opted, like many other things and has been watered down. And so it doesn't mean what I think people think it means. And sometimes I try to also not try to say what it means either fully. I leave a little window open because I feel like I still have to get one of those moments where I get a chance to meet with Kimberly to hear more about what exactly does she wanna do. And what I love is that she has sort of left a little room there for people to try to figure this out. But what I know is that there's no coincidence and no... And there is all the reason why her work has been aimed the way it has been. And she's continued to work at looking at the ways Black and Brown people experience various issues across this nation is because she's looking at intersectionality at the deepest of the margins, and she's not saying that it is identity Grokall. That is not what she's intending to do, nor is she intending to use that language to try to prioritize privileges. That's not... It is not an opportunity to say, my privilege is here, here, here, therefore I'm intersectional. That's not how that works. 0:39:57.6 DD: Exactly. And just so that folks who are listening to this now, Kimberley Crenshaw, is continuing this work and I believe it's the African-American Policy Forum. Did I get that correct? 0:40:13.0 TL: Absolutely. 0:40:13.9 DD: AAPF. 0:40:14.4 TL: Absolutely. 0:40:14.9 DD: They do a lot of free talks and workshops and they'll bring in a number of different voices. And so definitely encourage people who are listening to this and wanna learn more to check out that work. Follow AAPF on social media and check out their website and learn more directly from the source. So going back to kind of talking a little bit about this movement from a historical perspective, funders and government institutions influence over this movement, over how resources are allocated has grown very quickly, particularly when you look at this movement as centuries old or even I think some people see it as as decades old and point back to the '60s and '70s. Even from that lens, this is all pretty recent. What's the impact of this change from grassroots change making to these agencies that we have and these structures and institutions that we've created? And how can funders work to ensure that community based organizations are the ones that lead this work? 0:41:29.8 TL: Right. And so, the impact of shifting the work that we've done to being more funded, which, again, is sort of the difference between the various waves before and where we landed now. One of the impacts is that, again, we've got these agencies where you've got hurt people who are hurting people. And what it has done is it has created these single issue, siloed approaches that do not serve whole people. And where survivors who receive services are receiving them in a way that doesn't meet their whole needs. And so I do think that funders can really work at increasing funding and resources to grassroots, community based, culturally specific organizations that are working at the margins and at the intersection of identity or doing that seamlessly and doing that because they've created organizations that are by and for those populations, right? 0:42:41.3 TL: And really those are the most under-resourced programs and yet they are doing the lion's share of the work in communities and have the least resources to do it. And so we need to fund those programs. If we really care about the data I just read, then we need to aim the money towards those who are experiencing these issues at a greater rate because those who seek to do harm do it at the deepest of the margins. And we also know that those who are at the deepest of the margins also experience harm. And so it would make sense then that the violence that maybe when you cross over class and so forth, that there would be high rates, especially of the most severe violence or would sort of escalate. We would not be coming into systems until they escalate at a much higher rate. And so Black women, for example, may be less likely to come until it's happening at such a rate that they can't do... They really are at their wits end. 0:43:52.7 TL: And so by then it's escalated to a degree that either we're seeing them at the very end of that arc of escalation, or we're seeing them in body bags, excuse me. And so, it is important to have those programs that can address those communities and address those issues before it gets to those points. And we have to be... We need to follow the data so that those programs who are working at the data, at the point of data, we support them. I mean, real data. Like real data that's showing that this is happening. And we also need to resource population specific programs, which... And when I say that, I'm the chair of the Underserved Committee for the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence. And that committee and I've been working and I've been a part of that committee since 2004. But that committee has been around since the beginning of VAWA. They may not have been calling themselves that, but it was this formation of folks who came together to really assist and make sure VAWA landed. And then each iteration of VAWA and now I've worked on... This was my third reauthorization. 0:45:09.4 TL: And so being a part of this reauthorization really meant as the chair of underserved group to create... We worked to create a underserved grant program, and that underserved grant program that is in VAWA and was authorized in 2013. And we were also the committee that ensure that LGBT, that sexual orientation and gender identity is in the underserved definition, and then of course, LGBT communities came and we really advocated for them to be able to... For LGBT specific groups to come and to do their due diligence and advocacy to now what we have is an LGBT grant that just got authorized. So it's amazing progress, but I'm saying this to say that the underserved grant provides funding for population-specific organizations that are across disability, LGBT populations, immigrant status, language barriers. That's what it's for and there needs to be so much more funding than that little tiny pot. There needs to be a lot of funding for these groups, and then there needs to be cross-training opportunities for those groups to be able to be sure that they're doing that at the intersections as well, right? And then their needs... And more coordination among them. 0:46:38.6 TL: And then there needs to be funding for mainstream groups and the funding that is... Meaning, there is funding for mainstream groups, but the funding that is going to mainstream groups needs to prioritize certain services and approaches that meet the needs of those who are at the deepest of the margins so that their work... Because so many folks who are living at the margins are... The accessible program that they have is the mainstream group in their community, right? That might be where they're going to land, and if that's where they're gonna land, there needs to be services that are better shaped to support them. And so I think everybody needs to follow the data and I think that once we're doing that, then the services can be reshaped to meet those who are experiencing violence at the deepest of the margins because then everybody's being taken care of if you're doing that, right? As Anna Julia Cooper said, when and where I enter. It's like when and where these individuals are best served, then you know all other communities who have privilege within those identities are also going to be served. 0:47:52.3 DD: Yeah, one follow-up question that I have is when you're talking about following the data, I'm curious what you mean by that because I know I've found in this movement that some of the data that we do follow by default is not good or it's not... Sometimes it's good, but it's not flushed out or there's more detail. I remember at one point we were talking about what populations to prioritize in a state that I used to work in, and they went to, I think the Healthy Youth Survey, which is provided to all students, and what it found is that Black folks were quite low at this young age in terms of stating that they had experienced sexual violence, and I remember sitting around that table and saying, "That doesn't mean what you think it means." There are some cultural factors or considerations going on here. We can't just take the highest number here and say we're going to fund these groups without considering that context. So I just wanna give you a moment to talk a little bit about that as well. 0:49:04.3 TL: I think that's awesome and thank you, Darin, because... So for example, I'll give you an example there is that... And now I'm going off the top of my head, I will say that, but I know that, for example, the NISVS data, the National Intimate something Violence Survey that goes o ut that happens like every chunk of years that it was redone in 2010, but the data, for example, shows that API, the Asian Pacific Islander communities or populations were experiencing... Their numbers among people of color were still high numbers, but not as high as other populations of color, and certainly not as high, and in comparison to White people may not have been quite at a large rate, and yet if you then looked at the survey and the data in the work that API Institute on gender-based violence did, what they were finding was that 41 to 60% of women that they had talked to had experienced intimate partner violence and sexual assault in their lifetime, right? And so the number went initially from something like 6.9% to 41% to 60% and I think that it's not just any data that you should find. You should be finding the data that comes out of programs that are specifically geared towards those populations and how do you get there? 0:50:46.9 TL: Well, you also then try to not do things from a single issue approach. So if you're not thinking of things from a single issue approach A. B, you then begin to seek data from those community organizations or those national groups that are in those institutes that are doing that research and gathering that data, and then you're able to then see from that context what is the real information. It doesn't mean that you don't use the national data that is or the federalized data that's... Or the government-based data that's there, the CDC and other groups do. I'm not saying throw that data out, but I'm saying see that as one part of the story, and then go get additional information from other groups that can say, well, it's probably they weren't talking to the CDC or it could be that they were not... Or it could be that the places that they're gathering that data from are not counting specific populations and so certain whole populations often get left out. I know that indigenous folks, for example, often they will have whole surveys and they say, "Oh, but we didn't do this community. We didn't do... We didn't include indigenous people because their numbers were marginal or whatever the term is. 0:52:02.3 DD: Negligible. 0:52:03.9 TL: And so they were... Or negligible and just terms that they use. So, you're right. Thank you so much for saying that. And that's why this partnership thing work with us, Darin, right? [laughter] 0:52:13.1 TL: So for you to say, I'm gonna say it very politely, "Yeah, is that really how this is?" I'm gonna give you my example, and that's perfect, because we should not look at just one track of data. We need to look at the broad range of data and then follow that and understand. And following that means then that you're not aiming your... Not just your services and your resources, but you're not even aiming then your mission and your priorities only at one population. I'm speaking more about mainstream groups at this point. 0:52:47.2 DD: Right, right. And I know there are... There's a lot of folks who are working on sort of expanding our understanding of how to do evaluation and data gathering in a way that's not extractive or exploitative of communities. 0:53:02.1 TL: Absolutely. 0:53:02.4 DD: Not necessarily my expertise, but I know it's out there. So I just wanna mention that to folks that if they are looking to collect data or analyze data, that those resources are out there. 0:53:14.4 TL: Yes. 0:53:15.6 DD: So I have two quick questions for you before we run out of time here. The first being that you're a consultant who works with organizations around racial equity and other issues related to equity, inclusion and justice. And one thing that we understand as consultants is that not every organization that approaches us is really ready to dive into that work. What can organizations do to get to a place where someone like you can be effective in helping them be a more equitable organization? 0:53:49.6 TL: Well, I think that my experience now, and I saw it before, but it's crystal clear to me now that the work has to be that executive directors and CEOs of their programs have to be willing to allow comprehensive evaluation and be willing to be coached and to be trained, and then they have to be willing to set aside resources for their entire management and line staff to be coached and trained and participate as well. It just doesn't work for me to just come in and do trainings, and it doesn't work for me to, also, if I'm coming in, to only target specific slices of the organization. It has to be everyone and has to be a need or an interest in overall... An organizational overhaul really for real comprehensive work to... Or change to occur. Otherwise, it's just lip service. It just really is. Yeah. 0:55:00.8 DD: So a comprehensive approach of the entire organization, one part that I really hear is evaluating the whole organization. I've worked with organizations who hesitate when I say, "Hey, I wanna do interviews with your staff." And it's like, "Oh, of that's where you're hesitating, then I'm not sure if you're ready for this because you might not wanna hear from everybody." 0:55:27.6 TL: And there's one group that I'm working with right now, and they're non-specific... They're non-DV or SA specific. That's actually a disabilities group, but I'm working with them and they have... And I am set to... When I told them I need to interview at least 90% of their staff, and they have 150 staff, they supported the resources for that. And when I said I need to be with all of your teams, they said, "Okay, fine," and they dedicated time for me to meet every single week with all of their management every week, and they've dedicated their executive meetings for my training with them every other week. And so they only do their check-ins very briefly. 0:56:10.2 TL: All the rest of the time is my time to do training. We are on dialogue eight, and I anticipate we'll have total of about 15. They're allowing me to do that, to take over their time. And when I say allowing me to do that, I mean that they are making the room for it, and I mean that they are truly dedicated to change, and we have... We're doing a racial equity task force, and within that, we are absolutely developing policy and making change and training. Agency-wide training is gonna happen several months in a row. It's pretty exciting, and that's the kind of work that needs to happen. And they're doing that in the middle of a pandemic while they're doing direct care staff and direct services, and I think that it's... I think it's doable. It's not easy, but it's doable. 0:57:02.6 DD: Right. I think going back to the beginning of this conversation, if we expect to take the plantation out of our organization, take criminalization out of our organization, which has been a built up over decades, then we gotta do something pretty substantial here. We can't still train here too. [laughter] 0:57:24.8 TL: Yeah, 100%. 0:57:26.7 DD: Alright. So thank you so much for your time, Tonya. Before we close out here, can you tell people how to find you? How can they reach you? How can they connect with you? 0:57:37.9 TL: Well, something real cute and took me a while to figure out is that my group, my consulting firm is Lovelace Consulting Services Inc, which really is Lovelace CSI. So that is my website. So my website lovelacecsi, and so people can find me there. They can go to my email, which is info@lovelacecsi.org... Dot com, whoa, dot com now, dot com. 'Cause I'm not a non-profit anymore. So it is... Or not with a non-profit anymore. So it is lovelacecsi... Lovelace... It is info@lovelacecsi.com. They can also find me on LinkedIn. For people who, I will just say who are already friends with me on Facebook, people hit me up all the time on Facebook through Messenger. I can be reached everywhere. And then you can... I can be reached by phone at 443-963-9405. And back to the Facebook thing, even if, for example, we are not friends, you can still request to message me. And in your message, if you say that you heard me speaking and you're interested in hearing more about that, anything that I've stated, or would like to talk about consulting, you can just reach out to me that way and I'll review it, and I'm sure that I would accept your request to message. 0:59:16.6 DD: Awesome. So multiple pathways to reach Tonya there. So if y'all are looking to address these issues in your organization, definitely recommend working with Tonya on this stuff. Tonya, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. I'm really excited for folks to have the chance to hear your brilliance and learn from it. Alright. Well, that does it for today's podcast. Thank you for joining us for this conversation on the Anti-Blackness in the Movement to End Gender-Based Violence. We encourage you to reflect deeply on what you've heard, what you've learned today, and think about how you can implement that in your communities and your organizations. We also welcome you to reach out to some of the guests in this series of podcasts for organizational technical assistance, consulting, training and other services. If you haven't already, please do check out the rest of the podcast in this series. This series of podcasts on Anti-Blackness in the Movement to End Gender-Based Violence includes five conversations that are five different perspectives in this movement, five different experiences. I think what you'll find is that sometimes they overlap, and sometimes they don't. There's something to gather from each and every single one of them. And again, we encourage you to listen to the entire series of this podcast.