In this titillating episode of The South Has the Answers, hosts AJ Haynes and Eric Fleming continue their exploration of reproductive justice leaders in the Deep South. They sit down with Yemi Combahee, a reproductive justice organizer, full-spectrum doula, and Constellation Hive organizer at Black Feminist Futures. Combahee discusses her journey into activism, the significance of black feminisms, and the role of reproductive justice in combating global fascism. She emphasizes the importance of creativity, community care, and global solidarity in the fight for bodily autonomy and self-determination. Combahee also shares personal stories and insights into her experiences as a black queer woman in the South.
Important notes:
This episode offers a powerful and insightful exploration of reproductive justice, intersectionality, and the ongoing struggle for human rights.
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grab you a cup of tea and get comfy baby, because this is Season Two of the South has the answers. And this season your host, AJ Haynes and Eric Fleming will be speaking to reproductive justice leaders across the country, specifically those who are working in the Deep South. Today we get to hear the brilliance and wisdom of Yemi con behi from black feminist futures
for all of these different places that I thought I wanted to be in that like, couldn't fully hold me, couldn't fully see me for everything that I was. And then I found the reproductive justice movement. And it really, I really found the reproductive justice movement through feminist Women's Health Center. First of all, I was just like, wandering to the Halls of Melbourne college. They had a table. I was like, Oh, this is cool. I'm pro choice. You know, went to the volunteer training and kind of started to form a relationship. But it wasn't until after college that I got my first job working in an abortion clinic in Georgia, which was wild, but that was really where I, for the first time, got introduced to, like, reproductive justice as a movement bigger than just working in that clinic. And really got introduced to just the beautiful, amazing people that make up this movement. And I felt so seen for the first time, and so held and realized like that there actually is a place where you can be black, queer, femme woman, all of these things in the south, and thrive and be politically active and work towards bodily autonomy and self determination. And it just kind of felt like, Oh, this is where I'm supposed to be. So I hope other people feel that way as well.
First of all, thank you so much for making the time to be here. I know that black feminist futures has been very, very active, especially in the past 24 hours, providing support. You know, I'm on, I'm on the constellation hive, and having that space y'all have provided has been so necessary for my mental health. So thank you for all that you're doing
Yes, okay, right off the bat, juicy question. Thank you all for thinking of me and for having me. I am very excited to be here. I'm very excited to be in conversation with you during a really wild time. I mean, what is the time? Not wild these days, but you know, things are happening, but like this is, this is where I'm supposed to be during moments like this. So thank you. Um, who am I? I'm Yemi Combahee. I am a reproductive justice organizer. I'm a full spectrum doula. I support folks through their reproductive journeys all the way from like fertility planning through birth, postpartum, everything in between abortion. I like to think of myself as not just an organizer, but somewhat of a liberation strategist. You know, I like to think of myself as somebody that practices Healing Justice, transformative justice. I try to practice abolition and black feminisms, black queer feminisms, everywhere I go and everything that I do, I am the constellation hive organizer at Black Feminist future. That's my day job. But yeah, I really do live, breathe and eat, sleep, reproductive justice, and I don't really know how I would have it any other way. Okay,
but my question was going to be black feminisms, which is listed several times in the website. I noticed that, can we talk a little bit about the significance and the choice to say black feminisms as opposed to black feminism and why that was important to have in the language.
Yeah, so that's actually really important, and I'm really glad that you've clocked that. So at Black Feminist future, we intentionally use the plural of black feminisms to describe the work that we do, because we really feel that it's important to honor, like, the multiplicity in how feminisms is practiced, right? So there's so many different types of feminisms that can fall under black feminisms, and there's also some that fall not under black feminisms, right? So like, I think, for example, when I think of, like, quote, unquote, third world feminisms, which was really popular a couple decades ago, we don't really use the term third world now, but like when folks are really reclaiming that term, and there were, you know, women and gender nonconforming people from like, throughout the global south that were coming together again. And imperialism and colonialism, like that was a very specific type of feminism, third world Feminisms. And so it's like honoring the fact that like that was a moment in time that was a movement that, like led us to this, and it falls under the umbrella of black Feminisms. But like it is, there's a lot of multiplicity, right? So another example, like, you know, it also is kind of a way to like, Buck the like waves of feminism, if you will. Like, you know, like a lot of white folks talk about like, first wave, second wave, third wave. But I think, like, a lot of black feminisms is like, actually, no, it's just like, feminism's plural, because throughout space, throughout time. We have been, you know, here before, during, after, all the waves that white women have experienced, and we're still here in like, all of these different iterations. And it also just like, captures the fact that like, there's so many like, there's so many multiplicities in like, people's gender identities, orientations, class like, there's different classes, there's different identities that, like, all fall under this big umbrella term. So that's my spiel. AJ, do you think I captured that? Well, in
a beautiful, beautiful nugget, a nugget that was a beautiful nugget. Yeah,
it was a really beautiful
nugget. Um, the world that I inhabit. I think, okay, I'll start by saying also, like, I guess how I got to where I am, because I think that that is really important. So many people and places have poured into me for me to inhabit this space at this time, I am a product of Spelman College, which, yeah, is an institution that really introduced me to black Feminisms. I had been experiencing what it means to be a black woman in this world. I had a black girlhood, but it wasn't until Spelman College that I was able to like, contextualize all my experiences and become a black feminist. So I'm definitely indebted to that institution, particularly the Women's Studies program there the comparative Women's Studies program. I also am a former bookseller at Charis Books and More, which is the South's oldest feminist bookstore. It turns 50 this year, so it definitely feels like, I don't know, feels like a Homecoming this year. And so that is another place that really like developed my political consciousness, not in just in theory, through book reading, but also through building queer community, building feminist community. And, oh, also, yeah, how Spelman, how Spelman influenced me. I can go back to that, going to an HBCU that's like an all women's HBCU was really beautiful and challenging in so many, so many ways. I look back with so much fondness now, but I think if you were to ask me this while I was in the thick of it at Spelman, I would have a lot a lot of different things to say. I was definitely a rabble rouser on campus. I was a I was always in the Dean's office for mouthing off about some issue that I cared about, about sexual violence, about police violence, about anything happening on campus that I thought was, you know, not right, not just, but, yeah, Spellman influenced me in a way that, like allowed me to for the first time. Read Audre Lorde allowed me to for the first time. Read Toni Morrison, I read the Combahee River collective statement for the first time my I think freshman year there, and was really transformed. So it gave me the like, the upset and the pissed offness that I needed to start being an organizer. But it also held me in a really special way by introducing me to these really radical concepts that I'm still used all the time today.
Yes, this is great, because you're already like thinking about your lineage. So I love how, I love how when Black feminisms converge. So is there? Are there any particular elders who have been influential in how you see yourself and how you view the world. So you mentioned Audra Lord, are there any elders that you're currently in community with, or or folks that you're thinking of? As I said, elders?
Yes. Um, I always mentioned my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, Dorothy Miller. Shout out to my my grandma, Dottie. Um, she really taught me what it meant to have a political life. She organized with the NAACP. She really believed in, yeah, like, you have a faith life, you have a home life, and you have a political life, and that's just a part of what it means to be a person, right? Like, there's always something that you can be doing to be involved in politics. Yeah, because, as she would say, like, even if you're not involved in politics, politics is involved in you. And so that really, yeah, I always grew up knowing that, like, that was a part of becoming an adult and is having a political life, having a political home, doing some type of community work. That was never really a question for me. I think what I had to explore on my own was what political movements did I align with? What did liberation actually look like for my generation? But yeah, she really planted that seed and that foundation, and so my mom is very much a staunch like Democrat political lady, don't say that. I won't say we share the same political ideals. But, like, she definitely also instilled in me that I have, yeah, a duty to be involved in something that's bigger than myself, and so, yeah, that really shaped me and who I am. The folks at charis, like, are huge mentors to me. I work. I started working there as a college student. It was the first place, kind of, outside of Spelman, where I grew roots and found queer community. And so, yeah, there's tons of elders that I can come in contact with working there. A lot of them, a lot of those interactions were the first time I had ever been around a queer person who was like, over the age of 50, and I was like, Whoa, this is an option. Like, y'all have just been out here, you know, living, loving, doing your community work and creating your own spaces. And so that was really mind blowing for me. Yeah. And of course, yeah, all of the, all of the members of the Combahee River collective, and Audre Lorde is a huge one.
Yeah, I'm gonna go off, yeah, off script a little bit. How has queerness influenced your relationship to reproductive justice and equity? Because you brought up your queerness like so many times, and I really relish in that, and it feels really yummy to me. So how has queerness influenced your relationship to reproductive justice and equity?
Oh, that's a really great question. I mean, I think coming into the reproductive justice movement was like, the first place that I taught, like it was the first space that I'd been in, really, where I was like, oh, a movement can actually hold all of my identities, and it actually is, was built to hold all of these identities, right? I think being at Spelman College, as much as it's a haven for black women, it has a ways to go in terms of queer acceptance, right? And I look at the students that are there now, and I marvel at all of the things that they have in the community that they're able to build because outside of, kind of, like, the one club that we had on campus, you know, being queer at Spelman wasn't really cool when I was there yet. And it was, it was difficult. And so it was that it was realizing that in a lot of black spaces, the misogyny was rampant. That was very clear. You know, being on morehouses campus, right? And then in a lot of like, the white feminist spaces, it was extremely racist. Like, one of my first internships as a baby feminist was at the MS Foundation, or the Feminist Majority Foundation, which is connected to the MS foundation for women. And that was, you know, a really whitewashed experience. And so there were all of these different places that I thought I wanted to be in that like, couldn't fully hold me, couldn't fully see me for everything that I was. And then I found the reproductive justice movement. And it really, I really found the reproductive justice movement through feminist Women's Health Center. First of all, I was just like, wandering the halls of Spelman College. They had a table. I was like, Oh, this is cool. I'm pro choice. You know, went to a volunteer training and kind of started to form a relationship. But it wasn't until after college that I got my first job, working in an abortion clinic in Georgia, which was wild, but that was really where I, for the first time, got introduced to, like reproductive justice as a movement bigger than just working in that clinic, and really got introduced to just the beautiful, amazing people that make up this movement. And I felt so seen for the first time, and so held and realized like that there actually is a place where you can be black, queer, femme, woman, all of these things in the south and thrive and be politically active and work towards bodily autonomy and self determination. And it just kind of felt like, Oh, this is where I'm supposed to be. So I hope other people feel that way as well.
That deeply resonates with me in my experience. So I'm like, over here just silently, like, yes, the faces, my face is very loud right now in enthusiastic agreement. So this podcast is called the South has the answers as a way to push back on anti southern sentiment. What answers do you see being curated in the south from your work?
Oh, okay, I first of all, I love that I get to be on this is because I'm just now like feeling like I've been in the south long enough to, like, claim a southern identity. Ish, and I love it. It's beautiful, I think so. I grew up in New Jersey, and then I also grew up a little bit in Washington, DC. And, you know, I came down for school, for Spelman, and I just, I never left. And I think there was kind of this sense from, like, my folks back home, like, why is this girl like staying in Georgia? Like, there's these preconceived notions that I could tell people had when they thought of what it meant to be in the South. They understood, like, okay, yeah, Atlanta seems cool, but like, you're also still a black person in Georgia. Like, why are you choosing this and then coming out as queer? They were like, you're black and queer in Georgia. Like, why are you still there? And I even moved to Tennessee for a year, which was a wild year, and came back and they still were like, Why are you still staying down there? And so much of the work that I've done with like my family and friends back up north, has really been like, deconditioning them from all of the preconceived notions that they have about what it means to be a Southerner, and as much oppression there is in the south, and as much like, just like bullshit and like Neo fascism and homophobia and all of the isms that there is here wherever, yeah, and it's everywhere. But like, as much as it, you know, can some, in some ways, thrive in the South, in mainstream culture, like wherever that is, there are deep, deep, deep communities of resistance and radicalism, and so wherever the oppression is, like hits the worst, that's where there's the most radical change and the most innovative ideas and the most creativity and just the Most badassery happening, and I just feel like, why wouldn't I want to be where people are fighting back the hardest? And so I think that's been the case. I've been just shown that so many times, time and time again, living in the South, and it never gets old, and it I just feel so much inspiration coming out of those communities. Yeah, particularly, you know, dealing with like abortion bans, dealing with police violence, all of these things that plague our communities. People are fighting back in really big ways here, and I want to be a part of it, so I think the South has the answers, because there's a very long legacy of doing that. Yeah,
and the south and need an abortion, give laugh a call at 844, 44 abort that's 844-442-2678, laugh provides compassionate, affirming support that honors and affirms the dignity of people seeking abortion
care. Oh, that was so rich. So you'd mentioned your creativity. I heard the word creativity, and I was like, Oh, this, this little, this little nugget. So what does your creativity in this RJ inequity work look like? What does it feel like? Even? What does it feel like? What does it look like?
Well, first of all, I think our opposition is so lacks creativity like and they return to this, like these traditional values and mindsets that are so old and they're so stale and they're so like, the same of what we've seen for centuries and centuries and decades and decades, and there's always this sense of like, returning to, like, the good old days that weren't really good for anyone, but, you know, straight, white, rich men. And so I think just based off of fact that like, that is our opposition, we like, we have to be creative. Like, our skills, our tactics, our vision for the future, has to be creative, because they're not bringing that right. And it's like, you, you know, you can't use master's tools to burn down the master's house. So it's like, hey, so I think creativity is really important for what we do. I also think it's deeply it's deeply it's like a muscle. It's like working a muscle in the gym. When you start to be more creative and you start to think outside the box about what the world can be, it gets easier and easier and easier. And I think the more oppression starts to like dig its heels in with us, the harder it becomes for us to actually think outside the box and be creative and think of new ways of being. And I actually think that that's super, super important when we're thinking about the world we want to live in, because we have never seen it yet they know the world that they want to live in because it already existed, however many. Two decades ago, hundreds of years ago, they just want to return to that we have not seen. What we want to build yet, and I think that that actually requires a lot of like, determination, discipline and creativity, because it should be exciting, and it should be an opportunity for us to think of things we haven't seen yet, and not just like, fall back over and over and over again into, like, the same stuff that we've seen. So for me, creativity feels like, I think it feels like not writing things off, because it seems like a little too out there, right? Like, I think a lot of ideas that we embrace now as, like, brilliant, right? Originally, someone was like, That's fringe, that's weird, that's out there, right? When I think about, like, abolition, you know, someone had to, someone had to say, hey, what if there was no police. The same way, someone had to say, hey, what if we just didn't have slavery, right? And so, you know, I like to listen to the folks that say the wild thing a little sometimes. And you know, if you keep asking more questions and you keep, like, mulling that over, it's like, is it really wild, or is this like, fitting in our our vision for what we want to see, and it's just uncomfortable because we haven't experienced it yet. So,
yeah, I love that I said in my brain, like, say, the wild thing. Okay, I need to take a little note of that. So you know, you're talking about building future in real time, right? So what are, what are the, what are some, like, specific ways that you've been saying and doing the wild thing, some of the solutions that have been that you yourself or that black feminist future, if you could give maybe one example of that or one to two examples, yeah,
well, I'll speak for myself and say that, like, I think the wild thing that I am gonna do forever is Just continue to get people abortions. Like, no matter what period on period, yes, and I think, like as much as I myself, and we all like hem and haw and are filled with anxiety and anger, and you know, we're human, right? We experience all of these emotions in the face of our abortion access being stripped away time and time again, and it's a very scary landscape, but I also think that the abortions will keep happening, and I feel like, yeah, my role is to just keep getting people what they need. I make it known to anybody that meets me that I am like that abortion girl. You can call me your friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. Can text me and like, we'll figure it out. And so I think for me, that's what I want to see going forward in terms of, like a community care plan, like we need more of those folks. And so that's also some of the work that I do at Black Feminist future. AJ, you know that we run our AB plug training, and that literally teaches black women, girls and gender expansive people all over the country how to be the abortion plug in their communities, right? So it's like, if you can have a plug for some weed, if you can have a plug for some hair, for nails, whatever, like we as black folk have, we already have that muscle built of creating underground communities of resistance to get each other what we need, right? You know that, like in your community, on your block, you know your friend of a friend can, like, get you what you need. Like, we should do that for abortions also, right? And so that's a lot of the training work that I do, and it's really exciting to develop to you know, keep developing that training out. And I've gotten a lot of really great feedback from folks who just are not just looking for, like, Okay, here's how you can, like, call someone to, you know, call an abortion fund. But like, How can I actually have the hard skills to support somebody who's going through a medical abortion? Or, like, how can I actually, like, get this delivered to me? What are the risks? Who do I call if one of the risks is, like, coming up, like, creating a care plan, all of those things. So that's what we go through. So to me, that's like, the wild thing, because I think a lot of times people want us to just be sad, and I refuse. I refuse. I can be sad and also, like, we're gonna get people abortions, and that's really just bad on that about that. Okay,
what a word.
All right, so next question, it's not lost on us that there's a connection between what's happening here with the attacks on reproductive rights and freedoms and the rise of global fascism, that part what, what is the wisdom present in the RJ movement, and how can we apply that to combating fascism at large,
with it? All the answers, but I do have some thoughts. Okay, I really do think number one, I think there what the RJ movement means to rise to the occasion on, in my opinion, is really having, like a global anti Imperial frame, like growing to be a global anti Imperial framework, and to like combat colonialism and to really see our work as like us, RJ practitioners, in conversation with and in solidarity with folks who have been fighting for this same exact thing all over the globe, mostly folks of the Global South, mostly folks who are also black, queer, oppressed in some type of way, right? And so I really think we need to just kind of like, broaden our movement and be in a larger solidarity with those folks. And I think the reason be why we need to do that is because fascism, like you said, is so global, is so rampant, and we know that one of the tenants of fascism, like is like stripping folks of their bodily autonomy. And you know, patriarchy is a tool of fascism, of imperialism, of colonialism, right? And so, like, the patriarchy is what is stripping away our bodily autonomy. And it's not just about whether or not we have access to abortions. It's about whether or not people as caretakers are respected. Right? It's whether or not people have access to bodily autonomy in, you know, gender affirming hormones and surgeries, and whether or not trans people have the ability to exist in public. Right? It's about children's rights, like, right, like, it's all of these things wrapped up in this, under this umbrella of bodily autonomy and under reproductive justice. And so I really do think that our biggest tool is solidarity. I think our biggest asset is the expansion of the RJ framework. I think sometimes we we get fearful that if RJ means everything, that doesn't mean anything, which I get, but I also think that there's really something to seeing a lot of the global atrocities that we're witnessing through the RJ framework. When we look at the folks that are going through the genocide in Gaza, which is just like horrible to witness, I do think we have to see that like genocide is reproductive oppression. If you are not allowing a people to further their existence, to have self determination in in birthing safely and raising their children in safe and sustainable communities, that is an RJ issue, right? And I think the more we draw those connections, and the more that we can feel like that is important to us, the more we can fight fascism, because at the end of the day, there are folks, those are the folks that are already living under the fascist regime, regime that we say we are afraid of happening here, right? So we can't turn our heads away and say that we are, you know, scared of project 2025 when project 2025 has been practiced over and over, and is in other places, and is being lived out in other places, right? So let's, like, learn from folks who are resisting under those conditions, and not be so like American about it. I think that's like, I really do see that as kind of like, the next iteration of the reproductive justice framework. Or at least, I hope so. I hope the next 30 years of RJ is kind of marked by like this, ever expanding global reach.
So Rich, yes. So final question, and then we can freewheel as we do. Okay, how do you see yourself in connection with the global struggle for human rights, coming back to this expansion of the RJ framework,
yeah. I mean, I think it's hard not to think of myself in like, the context of history, right? I mean, I am black, I'm queer, I'm my dad was a Caribbean immigrant. So I think I see myself as like, a part of this larger diaspora of, like black folks. I see myself as a part of a black feminist like lineage and consciousness. And so I think all of that really matters to like, how I see myself in the world right now, as scary as things are, also, I think I have to look at history to be like, okay, my people have survived a lot worse. And not just survive, but they've created the conditions for, like, what it looked like to actually thrive. And so what am I going to do to do the same? So I think, yeah, I see the work that I do as like number one. I see it as harm reduction, right? I see a lot of the work that I do as a way to reduce harm and suffering before we really win and get to like. Actually have what we want and be as living all of the abundance that we want to live in. And then I also see how I do my work as a way to practice what our world will look like when we've eradicated fascism, right? So I think it's not just about can I get this person the abortion, or can I get this person what they need? Or can we win this political campaign? But like, how did we run the campaign? Or how did I care for this person that needed this abortion? And like that, to me, is how I'm actually practicing, like, community care and all of the like things that we say we want to see when you know, when we have a new world, and so I feel like, the the chances that I get to, like, actually practice that really matter to me. So it's everything from like, how do I facilitate this, like, hard conversation with, like, a black feminist future, or, like, within this group, right? Like, am I facilitating in a values aligned way, all the way to like, you know, am I being present? Am I giving this person, like, the quality of care as a birthing person, you know that they deserve, and the way that I speak to them, and like, what I pour into them is how I expect someone to to pour into to me, right? And like, really having that, like, interdependency between folks. So yeah, I hope that. I hope that that answers your question.
It more than answers the question. Yes, I do want to, as we're talking about care and how we're doing things, I want to give a reminder that, like, you've given so much of yourself in this moment and so much of your genius, and so I want to take a beat and like, just honor you, and yeah, care for you, and yeah, just a reminder. Let's take another breath together. How about that?
Like, cracking right now? Yeah, I
was like, I felt something needs to be released. I don't know what it was. I felt it through the screen. Child, I did. We gotta release something?
Wait while we Harlem Shaking or I have a question? Yes, after you finish, honor,
that's it. I just needed to throw a little ass. That's all okay.
All right. Um, for anyone new who's like, Who's this? Voice producer, Eric here, hi, hello. So Yemi, we were talking about solidarity, right? And I think solidarity, for me, has become this buzzword, and it could be like, rather amorphous and like, does it people say so much that it doesn't mean anything. So I'm wondering if you could talk about how you define solidarity, or even maybe talk about how you've seen specific examples of solidarity in the South, in particular, how we can make this more of or translate an idea to people, so that it becomes something more active, as opposed to just an idea or buzzword. What the hell do we do with solidarity? Hell
yeah, okay, actually, I do have a great example of like Southern solidarity that always comes to mind when people ask me this question. So, um, during the 2020 like uprisings, racial uprisings, I hear people say, 2020 uprisings. So I'm just like, we've been uprising forever anyway, during that moment in 2020 when white people realized that racism was happening. Um, and black people were in the streets, as we always are, right? And there was, like, just, you know, in Atlanta there were, and, you know, in many places across the country, like folks were getting their asses beat in the streets by police. The militarization was crazy. There was the tear gas, like all of this stuff. And it was really horrible. We were out there. It was really dangerous. So when that was all happening, I don't know if y'all saw or know, but like, there were a lot of Palestinian activists who were tweeting from Gaza words of like, not just support and solidarity, like for folks who were in Atlanta getting tear gas. But like, they were actually sending instructions on how to like, get the tear gas out of your eyes, the fact that you need to use, like, milk or, and like, you know, milk is better than water, or like, these are the ways that you like, don't rub your face. And like, they were giving people hard skills, like, over Twitter, of how to like, not, you know how to, like, stay vigilant and how to be safe, because the same chemical warfare that had been used against folks in Atlanta was what the Gaza and folks have been Palestinian folks have been experiencing that for decades, right? And they had already been skilled in how to combat that, right? So, like, that's what like solidarity even when you're not even the same room looks like to me. So that's like, one example. And then, like, to me, the way that solidarity is realized is like, when we saw what was happening in Gaza, like it was up to the organizers in Atlanta to, like, return the favor. Right, like, to make sure that we were amplifying, like, what was going on there, to make sure that we were not just going to be okay with our president sending billions of dollars over to Israel and calling out the fact that, like, you know, there was this, there's this corruption and complicity going on between, like, the Atlanta Police Department and the IDF, right? And so, like, all of those connections were drawn to me. THAT'S WHAT SOLIDARITY LOOKS LIKE, right? And like an RJ example, too, is like, yeah, like folks when Roe, when, like, the Dobbs decision came out, and folks were really, like, upset about the fall of Roe and stuff like, some solidarity that I saw between folks in the South and the North were like, you know, don't focus so much on, like, Planned Parenthood or like these big names, like franchise clinics and stuff that, like, are probably going to be okay anyway. And they also, quite frankly, have pulled out of a lot of the states that were going to lose access before the Dobbs decision. Anyway, right? I saw a lot of folks, you know, say, like, solidarity with the folks right now who are in these like states that are going to lose access. Looks like donating to local abortion funds, like Louisiana abortion fund, and, you know, donating to like networks that are actually going to get folks, like, practical support, right, whereas something that's like, not really solidarity, to me, was like, the response for folks that from, like, particularly like, wealthier white women in like, New England and like those type or California and those types of places who their response was Like, I don't know. Like, I'm never gonna go visit Georgia, like, I'll never spend my money in that state again. Or, I, you know, I don't know why people don't just move out of there. Or, you know, that type of thing. Like, that's not solidarity, because when you don't spend your money in Georgia, who does that affect? That affects the hotel workers that like, or the, you know, the tourism industry folks and like the working everyday people who are the ones that are going to need the abortion care who won't get it right. So sometimes it's about like, actually putting your dollars and your, you know, and your attention where the folks on the ground needed to go, rather than, like, being ready to abandon folks, right? Like, to me, that's just the difference between solidarity and like, whatever else. So I
want to bring attention to something that is in your email signature, but also on the black feminist features website that really ties all this together, from Sister Gwendolyn Brooks. We are each other's harvest. We are each other's business. We are each other's magnitude and bond. And I think that's exactly what you're talking
about, yeah, that we are and this, yeah, one of our kind of core pillars in our meridians that we call them at Black Feminist future is interdependency, right? So, like we need each other, we do not survive without each other, and it is our job to make sure that not just I'm free over here, but that you're free over there, because our freedom is really inextricably linked with each other. And so, yeah, Gwendolyn Brooks really reminded us of that.
Thank you, Yami,
thank you.
Yeah, I love that we ended with poetry big. I'm a big poetry nerd here. And yeah, I'm just I'm just ecstatic.
Yemi, Is there anywhere that people, if you would like, people to check in with you or your work, anything I would just
say, if you are a black woman, black girl, or black gender expansive person that is listening to this or watching this, and you are looking for a place that you can be a black feminist and a political hub and a place that you can learn and grow and just find some solace and community during this wild political time. My organization, black feminist future that I work for, is that place, and so even if you're just looking to like, learn like, what does she keep talking about? What is black feminism's go to black feminist future. I think, I think it's, it's a needed place, and I do the reproductive justice organizing there, so I am down to have a one on one with folks who can go to blackfeministuture.org to sign up and learn more and get into our
Thank you.
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