In this juicy, imaginative conversation, host A.J. Haynes sits down with Kwajeyln Jackson, the Executive Director of the Feminist Women's Health Center in Atlanta. The two drop gems of wisdom, imagination and wonder throughout the episode, and get into everything from some helpful practices for soothing and care (you'll never guess from what show - hint, it features a blue dog!) to reproductive justice practices in intimate relationships. Kwajelyn emphasizes the importance of self-determination and community care, drawing inspiration from her benevolent ancestors. As the executive director of Feminist Women's Health Center, she breaks down the center's comprehensive services, including abortion care, gynecological services, and outreach. A.J. & Kwajelyn both speak on the importance of play & humor in reproductive justice work. This episode's refreshing honesty of Kwajelyn brings about a real conversation about navigating and overcoming the risks of global solidarity with Palestine and other targeted communities, when funding for programs serving targeted communities is placed in jeopardy. Ultimately, Kwajelyn paints her vision for a future without capitalism, where individuals can pursue diverse interests without fear of starvation. Let's build it!
For follow up from this episode's conversation:
Combahee River Collective Statement
Telescoping Effect Pt. 1 By Rasheedah Phillips -
Feminist Women’s Health Center
Feminist Women's Health Center on Instagram
What would we do with our lives, with our time, with our energy, with our talents, with our ideas, if it was not tied to whether or not we eat, if we could actually eliminate this like capitalist idea that what we produce is how we survive this idea that like there is a cost of living, what are the things that we would try if our failure did not mean that we would starve?
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.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Greetings, world. We are here with a Kwajalein Jackson, so elated to be here. Thank you so much for for making time all this beautiful artwork and plants. What plants do you have in your background right now?
I have a giant overgrown aloe and a very healthy, fiddly fig. And then I got a snake plant back in the corner that just does its own thing and doesn't want to be bothered Absolutely. I have a Swiss cheese plant in the corner, and then I have like, a bromulus that is not really doing that great. But is is over here. It's out here.
And the magic of indoor plants I have not quite so anytime I see someone with indoor plants, I'm like, get it. I because I'm a feral girly, like, I just throw them seeds outside and we figure it out. So you are doing great as a plant. Mother.
Thank you.
So for for our folks who are just meeting you, I'd like you to introduce yourself. Who you is, where you at, what you doing?
Happy to I'm Kwajalein Jackson. I use she and her pronouns, but they them is fine. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and have for the past 26 years. But I'm originally from St Louis, Missouri, and I'm currently the Executive Director of feminist Women's Health Center, which is a reproductive health rights and justice organization
we live.
My next question is, what is giving you life these days? What is what is sparking joy for you?
To be perfectly honest with you, it's, it's tough sometimes to, like, grab and hold on to the joyous, like sweet parts. I have a couple of very special, you know, chat threads that are really helpful. I have a couple of people that I can just like, get encouragement and sweetness from when I'm feeling especially tender or wounded. One of the things I do when I feel like my blood pressure is high and I need something to sort of calm my nervous system is I watch bluey with
now? Yes, okay, listen, listen, Bluey, I
just got way too excited. Sorry for screaming fellow bluey like gives me whole life lessons on how to how to parent myself.
That's it. That's it. I feel like I can just feel my nervous system, my energy, just start to settle in my body. There is a sweetness, without it being overly saccharine or cheesy. There's just like a realness to messy family. I don't have any children in my home, but I, when I need it, I turn on bluey.
This resonates so much with
I find, yeah, I
find that we're all, especially those of us that are at the forefront of, you know, I mean, it's, it's all, it's all cycles. You know, there are times where at the forefront, there's times when in support, you know, it's, it's a, it's a ecosystem. But especially for those of us that have a lot of visibility, having a mothering practice, right? I think is so key to sustaining ourselves, right? So, yeah, I want to, I want, I want to off of, off of that topic, what does, what does mothering look like for you?
One of the things that brings up for me last year, and I'm trying to continue it, but last year, I really. Really tried to bring more romance into my life. And when I say romance, it's not about necessarily, like partnership or things like that, but just bringing special awe, perhaps into the very small things and almost approaching these like tiny moments with kind of a childlike wonder, just allowing myself to be awestruck by what might otherwise feel like the mundane. And so I think that that's one of the things that I've been trying to, like, cultivate a practice around is just like, How can I be in touch enough with my inner child where I can feel amazed and feel delighted, where my cynical, you know, angry adult self might suppress that instinct. How can I instead lean more into that awe when it's available to me and then just like, remember the feeling and hold it so that I can tap into it when I need it. At other times, when blue is not available, I need to be able to, like, have some reservoir that I can go to that will help to help me to feel more optimistic and hopeful about the world, because I feel like that those like special, awestruck Moments help me to feel more connected to possibility,
a sermon, yes,
you know, and I feel like there's
the folks that I draw a lot of inspiration from, and what I I think of, I think of reproductive justice as like a practice and a promise of hope. You know, a conjuring, if you will, to like this is going to happen within our lifetime. So I'm curious, like, how does you're talking about this reservoir of of joy? And I'm here, I'm sensing the term play, this playfulness. So how do you what are the what are the challenges in integrating like play into your reproductive justice practice? If it's a practice for you,
I think that because of my role within the organization, um, and this maybe speaks back to your mothering question. I assume a lot of responsibility for my team, for my colleagues, for my organization, for our role in the community, and so it can be challenging to sort of hold this. People are counting on me people, the decisions that I make have tremendous impact and consequence for many other people, and so trying to take that seriously and use integrity and my values to do that in a way that feels like it is beneficial to other folks, sometimes feels like it could be in conflict with a lightness and a play, and so I have to be able to create some boundaries so that I can insert and like inject humor and fun into the things that might otherwise feel very heavy when there are changes in the law that we have to comply with, when trying to adapt our services so that we can continue to see patients. When I'm looking at our financial statements and trying to make sure that we can pay all the bills and we can make payroll, like, those things feel really heavy. So like, what are the things I can do to like, approach those with the necessary gravitas, but also have some lightness and humor that are working alongside it. That's the challenge.
Absolutely And for folks that aren't familiar with the work that you do in the services that the center provides, would you mind explaining what those are.
I would love to eminence Women's Health Center has been providing comprehensive, comprehensive reproductive health care in Georgia since 1976 including both medication and procedural abortion care, which in Georgia means we can only provide it up to the point at which fetal cardiac activity is detectable via ultrasound, which is around six weeks, with some limited exceptions. We also do gynecological care, gender affirming care, contraceptive services, and we're working to add Perinatal Services so. Hopefully we'll be able to have prenatal and postpartum visits. We're working to incorporate maternal mental health. Hopefully all those things are just on the horizon, and then outside of our clinical services, we do outreach, advocacy education, leadership development, civic engagement, public policy and movement building across the southeast. So we are really at this crux of reproductive health, reproductive rights and reproductive justice, working in tandem to try to get us all free,
listen, not trying, doing it, okay,
doing what we can do.
I know try. It sounds like y'all do it a whole lot. Yeah, I just it's so beautiful, how multifaceted the work that you're doing is and and honoring all of the elements of our humanity, right, and all the different stages, which to me so deeply connects with like, ancestral wisdom. Of like, how do we? How do we approach things holistically? So I wanted to ask you, who are some benevolent ancestors? What do you think of as, like, your reproductive justice lineage?
Yeah, well, for my like direct lineage, I think about my both maternal and paternal grandmothers a lot. My maternal grandmother was also a first black woman, so she was the first black principal of the High School in Macon, Georgia, where she taught. And it was a high school complex where they took four high schools and combined them together. And my mother integrated that school system while my grandmother was a teacher there. And so this idea of, you know, bringing your full black womanhood, all of the complexities they're in, into spaces that might have otherwise not been prepared for you, not been designed for you, but also not compromising those parts of yourself that might not fit. I think that that is a big part of my lineage that I carry with me and that I that I return to. My paternal grandmother was a first grade teacher. And
would you mind saying their
names? I love calling their names into the space. I love that
I would be happy to so yes, my maternal grandmother is Gloria Bibb Washington, who transcended in 1998 at age 70. My paternal grandmother, Anna Pitt Jackson, is still living and will be 97 in September of this year. But she was an elementary school teacher, and one of the things, one of the ways that she practiced reproductive justice that I think about all the time is she said that when, when children would come in with a hole in their dress, she would stitch it. When children would come in with, you know, dirt in their hair, she would wash their hair before they went home. Like there were ways that like caregiving, and especially the caregiving of young black children was just a part of community, and it was not seen as an extra. It was not seen as a burden. It was seen as all of these children are a part of me and a part of my life and a part of my community, and so loving on and caring for, especially in the ways that might fill in a gap for somebody for whom, you know, parenting might be a challenge, there might be financial instability, etc, that the judgment does not come just doing what we can to contribute to everybody being okay. So those things like have stayed with me, and I think certainly contribute to who I try to be, who I aspire to be. And then, of course, I have lots of black feminist heroes that you know through their scholarship and contributions to theory are certainly my touchstones. Dr Dorothy Roberts, I I tell everyone who will listen that reading killing the black body, as difficult as it is to like confront that history, it is such a critical text to understand where we are today. And so there's that's certainly one of the things that I, I return to often, and I've had opportunity to meet her a couple of times and just, you know, build community with her. Um. And so being able to have those touchstones of folks who were coming, we're bringing these ideas to the fore. We're grappling with them, with other black folks in real time. We're able to sort of document and archive their ideas and then be so prescient in 2024 and beyond. Um, I'm grateful to, you know, be a part of that, to be in the constellation with folks like that.
What one of the things I love about this movement is how we get to witness our our heroes as their messy selves. You know what I mean? Like they're not they're, they're still with us, and they are complicated, right? Like they're, they're on this pedestal, far away, and they're not reachable. It's like, No, we might not agree on
we were not gonna
we might butt heads on some things. So I wanted to ask you, like, what are your What are your loving criticisms of feminism, and what are your loving criticisms of like, black feminism, even
this is great. This is great. I mean, one of the, one of my favorite parts of the Combahee River collective statement is like, we reject pedestals and queendom and 10 steps behind that, that humanity is enough. I I do think that there's a way in which, because of how many people, many marginalized people, but black women in particular are diminished in leadership, in, you know, thought leadership, in all of these different ways. We see examples of it all the time where there's brilliance, but it is undermined, or it is, you know, pushed to the side. But I think what that also contributes to is this way that, in like a desire to be seen and heard and and recognize that that the competition to be a star can can certainly emerge of like I have something to say, and I Want to make sure that my voice is is centered, and I think that that is like a healthy and necessary need for us. But I know that sometimes it will fuel a competitive nature, as if there's not enough space, because of the ways that white supremacy says there can only be one, there can only be one, and so everybody else has to, like, step aside, and so I just really reject this idea that there can only be one. I think there's a lot of space for a chorus of voices, even if they are not all saying the exact same thing, but that they are all components of things that will take us closer to this liberated future that we all keep talking about. I love to be perfectly honest. I love the friction i My friends will hear me often talk about the iron sharpens iron. I think that that grappling, that that push and pull, that that friction, is what sharpens our analysis. It makes us better. It makes us stronger. Another analogy I think about all the time is like, you know, you throw the stones in a in a rock polisher with a little water and a little grit, and you tumble that thing around. And it takes that. It takes that. So I really hope that there are ways that we will not let ego or a desire to like overcompensate for the ways that we have been silenced in the past, contribute to division and a like buying into this idea that there can only be one, I think that that's One of the things that comes up for me. And just like, I don't know, I'm tired of letting White folks be the arbiters of who is worth listening to, who is worthy of platform, who is like the shiny object in the room, like we are not objects. We all have, like, a different component to contribute, and I just want us to have space, spaciousness for all of it, even the messy parts.
Absolutely, I feel like so much of the scarcity comes from just me, just organizational infrastructure, right? Who's funding our organizations? Absolutely, you know. And I'm seeing so many parallels between who's funding organizations and who's also funding
genocide.
Talk about it. I want to say what it
is. You know, and so something I really appreciate about looking at your interviews and your presence is how you are unapologetically in solidarity with the Palestinian people, with with Congo, with Sudan, with gray, with all of all of us in the Global South, dealing, grappling with and in so many ways, becoming victorious against, yeah, against this colonial violence and oppression. So I wanted to ask you, like, how have you navigated because I know you got to push back. I know you had people be like, sis. Well, we might lose this money and you're like, but this is what I got to stay in on business. So how have you navigated that tension?
I am grateful that our organization has not had any significant threats that have caused us to have to compromise our principles. So I feel I understand that there's that one more again I do significant. There has been some small we absolutely have gotten some. You know, people have opinions and they feel comfortable sharing them, um, but not significant enough to cause us to stumble or question where we stand and as an organization. So it's not just like my opinions, we as an organization have internally grappled with and talked about, what are the things that we want to do, that we feel called to do, that we think are important and aligned with the culture of our organization, the values we espouse and the ways that they show up inside and out. We did a lot of work to try to get on one accord, to say, like, these are our theory of change. These these are our cultural practices. These are the things that inform our decision making, our willingness to slow down and reconsider, and, you know, all of those things. So I just want to make it clear that it's not just because I think it's right. It's because, like many people within our organization have come have aligned around this is where we want to be and who we want to be in the world. And I also it doesn't feel hard to it doesn't feel it doesn't feel difficult. It doesn't feel complex to stand on the side of marginalized people, to to say that people have an inherent right to dignity and safety and care, and that the intentional destruction of people, of of you know, cultural artifacts, of of people's like physical well being, of of like the ability to, like, be alive and be able to sleep in a warm bed without the sounds of bombs waking you up in the middle of the Night, like that. Those things are deserved across the globe, and that I don't have to, I don't have to work very hard to see my connection and and like solidarity and like the it does not the people, the people of Palestine, the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the people of Haiti and Hawaii and Puerto Rico and Sudan and Bangladesh, like none of them feel separate from me. They all feel like they are a part of me and who I am. And so it doesn't feel complicated to stand on the on the side of right. And so part of my analysis is to say one of the ways that we contribute to our collective liberation is making sure that the people in Georgia and the people across the southeast who need reproductive health care can get it, and that that is also not disconnected from fighting for the liberation of people groups all across the global South, that those things are in strictly linked, and that it's not a compromise of either to focus on the thing that we have the skills and the Praxis and the expertise to do, While also platforming the people who are doing their part to contribute to our collective liberation. So that's kind of how I feel. But the other thing I just think it's important to say is that I also know, again, as an executive director, how hard it might be to say I am willing to let this entire program get shut down, because I'm going to say no to this funding that has fueled good work in the field. I understand how hard it might be to say I'm willing to lay off seven people who are being funded by this grant that that causes us to have to silence ourselves like I wouldn't be I don't know. What I would do in those situations. I think that there are a lot of people who are trying to figure out how to do what they know in their heart is is right and prudent, and feeling like the consequences of every action might feel overwhelming, but at the end of the day, there's no, there's no compromise to genocide, like there just isn't. And so I just can't there's no there's no compromise. I There's no other way to say it. There's no other way to slice it. There may be a lot of things that we have to give up in the short term in order to protect people in the long term. That's probably sad enough.
I mean, I'm just, I am shook it. I just want to, like, I can't wait to get the transcript back on this, because I'm gonna be like, All right. And kwaja List said, maybe quoting you like,
I'm gonna stand beside it whatever I said. I meant it
on it. Yeah? This
brings to mind, you know, there's, there's a way that we just time travel, right? There's this, this, I'm a big fan of black quantum futurism, which is a framework created by two amazing black feminist artists, creatives, but like having the long vision to see both the long future and the long past. Yes, and I really, when I first was introduced to a lot of Audra Lords and the color into this space, you know, I really grappled with a lot of her poetry because it was so non linear. It was just it's so vast in her understanding of time. Yes, and what you're saying was break, what you're saying is bringing to mind the poem power. And it's the difference between poetry and ready rhetoric is being, is being? Let me run that back. The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children. I was just like, I heard that, and I was like, Hold on, wait, wait a minute, right? And the way that you've explained this is in such a loving way and helps me understand that poem now. So I'm just having all kinds of time travel experiences in this moment, but really being able to see where we're really, really, really trying to go. It's that visionary power of like a Harriet Tubman, yes,
I'll tell you there was, there's a practice that I got from, I think I got it from, like the Op Ed project, if I'm not mistaken, but it was like telescoping vision, is what they called it. And they basically tell you to, like, imagine 100 years from now, like your most audacious, radical, huge vision of what is possible, and just go hard and then say, okay, in order for that 100 year vision to be possible, what needs to happen in 50 years, and then, like, from that like, what needs to happen in 20 years, in order for that 100 year vision, what needs to happen in seven years, in five years, in two years, this year, this Week today, and being able to say, like, Okay, if I take a nap this afternoon in 100 years no police, and to believe that that is like true, that it is true that because of the decisions I make today, because of the things I do or don't do, the people I talk to, the people I connect with, the people that I create boundaries with, what the decisions I make, the email I respond to or don't respond to, all of those things can contribute towards making that vision possible, making it real and tangible. But like, I try to do that practice on a regular basis of just like, okay, 100 year vision. What do I need to do right now? And just like, keeping that 100 year vision close, I'm not gonna be here in 100 years. But I wanted to like, I want to be able to, like, conjure it when I need to to say, like, okay, in 100 years, everything could be different. It's all new people. Everything could be different. And like, believing that it's true that not like this, like, I mean, it's incremental, but it's also hugely transformative
I have chills, so I'm going to send you this book. I'm going to send you this book called telescoping effect by Rashida Phillips, who of black black quantum futurism. Anyway, so we'll have all these links in the. In the show notes, yeah, nerding out, yeah. So I wanted, I want to wrap up here our lot. My last question is, yeah, what is, what is one of the key points, what is one of the things that you envision in this 100 year telescoping practice?
So one of the the primary points of my vision for a liber liberated Future Is this, like this place that sits right in between self determination and community care, this way in which we understand our place in the world, how we contribute and how we are able to like, chart a path for what we want to be, but that we never separate that from our connection with and camaraderie with other people around us, that it like self determination does not equal individualism. It does not equal like isolation. It is like deeply embedded in community and connection that that is like such like a centerpiece of like, what I want for the world. And the other piece that I think about a lot that came also from a collective gathering that I attended, a dream retreat that I attended earlier this year, this idea that, like, what would we do with our lives, with our time, with our energy, with our talents, with our ideas, if it was not tied to Whether or not we eat, if we could actually eliminate this, like capitalist idea that what we produce is how we survive, this idea that, like, there is a cost of living, what are the things that we would try if our failure did not mean that We would starve? What are the things that we would explore? It doesn't mean there would be no doctors. It doesn't mean there'd be no engineers. Somebody still wants to build a chair because they just want to see if they can. There would be no sort of gatekeeping of knowledge. People would what I know you get to know. You know, somebody wants to learn how to do surgery, and somebody wants to learn how to paint landscapes that could be the same person, and it should be. So I think that, like when I imagine a world without capitalism, those are the things that I envision. It's like how we would learn and try and allow ourselves to not be great at things immediately, but to try a multitude of things and contribute to the ways that fill us up as individuals, but also help us create more connection with one another. Those are the things that I really sort of just meditate on when I think about that 100 year vision. I
thought I had a last question. I
got one more. Okay.
I was like, Oh, this
is too good. I can't let this go. You know, when you're talking about self determination and community care, you know, one of my favorite sayings from that I'm borrowing from,
from
emergent strategy is small is all right. And so I definitely stalked you on Instagram, because I was like, Who is this? He human and and I noticed, even just in your photos with you and your husband, like, there is such a there's, you know, as an intuitive I'm like, oh, there is care here. So how do, how do you live your RJ values and like, your most intimate relationship, you know, the one that you've committed to with another human for as long as y'all gonna be around and make it work? Yeah.
Um, I think
trying to really, truly communicate from a place of like vulnerability and intimacy. I think those are the things that I'm really trying to practice in my partnership right now. Being able to ask for and articulate what I need without any assumption that, because someone loves me, that means that they should read my mind. I think that there's a way that, like, you know, romantic comedies and things like that. Try to tell us that in order for somebody to prove they love you, they should know what you want without you ever having to say a word. And I just I want to be able to feel safe and whole enough to say what I need, even when that my partner might not be able to meet it, even when like. It may not be convenient, but I still feel safe enough to say what I what I want and need, and he still feels safe enough to say, here's what I can do if I can't do what you actually are asking for, and that we just meet ourselves there, that I just we have room to be whole people that we are not two parts of one whole. We are two wholes that are spending time together and, um, listening to each other. I just feel like communication and listening is just so central to how I want to be in relationship, not just with romantic partners, but with all of my, you know, familial and friendships. I want to be able to communicate honestly and clearly with the people who I love and who love me.
I feel like so much of all of this is interconnected. We try to, you know, I think the personal is political. We can't. It's all semantics at a certain point, right? But the but the energy is, is, is if, if one thing is messy here, that means something else is, is fucking over here, you know?
Yes, absolutely.
I just love the connection that this, the clear parallel and connection between, like, Oh, see how I'm moving as an executive director, and here are our community norms and like how we practice moving through the struggle together. I, too also mirror that in in my intimate spaces. So it's just so affirming to hear that is your experience and that is your practice. Well, I feel like we have covered so much ground. We have time traveled. We have telescoped. We have convened with the plants and podcast as
portal.
Listen, okay, that's gonna be the title podcast as portal. Listen, pod. Let me write that down. What again, I just wanted to thank you to tidy us up here. Where can people find out where you is on the internet? Yeah, and the work that you do. So
as a person, I am super qua on Instagram, and our organizational account is feminist center. I am not on really anything. I mean, I think I'm technically still on Twitter X but I don't go over there.
But yeah, as an organization, we are on all the platforms, but you can find out more about feminist Women's Health Center at feminist center.org I mentioned it briefly, but I'm also on the board of directors for the black mamas matter Alliance And for abortion care network, both are wonderful membership networks of providers and culture workers and activists who are working on this thing we call reproductive justice. And so you can find me in those places too. Yes,
in these RJ streets on the internet. Are you going to go to the ACN conference? I absolutely will. I'll see you there, friend. I'm performing
and the south and need an abortion. Give laugh a call at 844, 44 abort. That's 844422678, laugh provides compassionate, affirming support that honors and affirms the dignity of people seeking abortion care. This has been a joy channel production. Find out more about joy channel at Joy channel.org