Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ook F Daily with
Speaker 1: Me your Girl, daniel Moody recording pre recording from the
Speaker 1: home bunker, Folks, I am taking a few days away,
Speaker 1: but you know that I'm never too far away, so
Speaker 1: make sure that you are following me on social media
Speaker 1: at D two sense Danielle Moody underscore on TikTok, Folks,
Speaker 1: I am very excited to welcome to the show. Transgender
Speaker 1: rights activist Dominique Morgan. Dominique is the first transgender woman
Speaker 1: Black woman to have a street named after her in
Speaker 1: the entire country in Omaha, where she grew up. And
Speaker 1: in this conversation, we talk about you know what block
Speaker 1: black trans women face in this country. We talk about
Speaker 1: you know, her as a role model, and the work
Speaker 1: that is still needed to be done for trans people
Speaker 1: to be able to live free and safe in their bodies,
Speaker 1: and the horrendous laws that are being introduced to limit
Speaker 1: their humanity. And so this conversation was recorded prior to
Speaker 1: the seismic shift that we've had in our politics with
Speaker 1: a switch in candidates for the Democratic Party. But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: the issues and the stakes still remain the same. So
Speaker 1: coming up next, my conversation with transgender activists Dominique Morgan, Folks,
Speaker 1: I am so very happy to welcome to WOKF Daily,
Speaker 1: the director of Fund for Transgenerations, a activist, a warrior
Speaker 1: for justice in so many different ways, and I think
Speaker 1: still to this point, the first black trans woman to
Speaker 1: have a street named after them in the entirety of
Speaker 1: the United States. Dominique Morgan, talk to us about that honor.
Speaker 1: I mean, in all of the streets in all of
Speaker 1: the United States. In Almaha, Nebraska, there is a street
Speaker 1: that is named after you in a historically black neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Walk us through how we got there.
Speaker 2: You know, the short answer is black women. And the
Speaker 2: background of that is Miss Kathy Tyree, who has been
Speaker 2: in community back home for years, activists and an actress
Speaker 2: and a musician. And one day she was just like,
Speaker 2: do you think they would do this? And you know,
Speaker 2: she was like, I'm going to pick up the application,
Speaker 2: I'm going to put it in. And there were multiple
Speaker 2: black women who pushed this forward. The city council person.
Speaker 2: It needed to be a unanimous vote or they would
Speaker 2: have had to go door to door for people to
Speaker 2: say they wanted to happen. So Miss Jackson, I be
Speaker 2: Black Girl. It had to be sponsored by a nonprofit organization.
Speaker 2: So it was these multiple moments where black women were
Speaker 2: saying this was important. And as a street I grew
Speaker 2: up on in North Omaha, and Simone Sanders is a
Speaker 2: good friend of mine, I know, you know Samone. So
Speaker 2: Simone had gotten her street renaming earlier that year back
Speaker 2: in our hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, and it was just really,
Speaker 2: I don't have the words for to understand how it feels,
Speaker 2: because there are moments it just feels very surreal in
Speaker 2: regards to just what it means. That's the same street
Speaker 2: that I got arrested on when I was twelve years old,
Speaker 2: the first time that I had an interaction with the
Speaker 2: police system. And that day my juvenile judge, who is
Speaker 2: a person who sentenced me to juve, now, she was
Speaker 2: there at the street naming, and so that street for
Speaker 2: many reasons, both of my parents have passed on. But
Speaker 2: the house I grew up in is the house my
Speaker 2: grandmother owned. It was a beautiful not a period to
Speaker 2: the end of that sentence. But and I my brain
Speaker 2: is I'm with these journalism folks. Whatever the symbol is
Speaker 2: that tells you that there's more to the paragraph, but
Speaker 2: it makes it clear.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, ellipses the ellips yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 2: It was. It was very much that for a life
Speaker 2: that has already I've already been very privileged and blessed,
Speaker 2: but it was a clear it was ellipses for anyone
Speaker 2: who's been through the things that I've been through, that
Speaker 2: there's more.
Speaker 1: I love that and you know the fact that you
Speaker 1: ended that with with there's more, right, Because what I
Speaker 1: find is when we are talking about the lgbt Q
Speaker 1: plus community, but when we're talking specifically about black queer people,
Speaker 1: black trans folks, it is almost as if everything is
Speaker 1: a period and not an ellipses, that there isn't more
Speaker 1: behind the stats, behind the stereotypes, behind the trauma. So
Speaker 1: can you talk about what it even means to say
Speaker 1: that you've had so many points of privilege in a
Speaker 1: community that we don't normally equate with having any privilege
Speaker 1: at all, and what that means to you to be
Speaker 1: able to say that in comparison and in conjunction with
Speaker 1: other people's experience inside of the community.
Speaker 2: It's so important for me to inventory one if I
Speaker 2: focus on the pieces of my identity that are marginalized
Speaker 2: and the way they're marginalized, and I don't look at
Speaker 2: my access. It just internally doesn't allow me to acknowledge
Speaker 2: my journey and what I've done and what I've accomplished
Speaker 2: and what I really have. I think it doesn't allow
Speaker 2: me to be thoughtful and weaponize what I have in
Speaker 2: the best way. Right. And then on the other side,
Speaker 2: I never have a fear around calling people into their
Speaker 2: privilege and access because I'm doing the same work and
Speaker 2: I know if I can do that work when I'm
Speaker 2: looking at a white man and asking him to do
Speaker 2: that work, when I am sitting in a room with
Speaker 2: a white woman and they start crying. It's like, if
Speaker 2: I can look at my journey from prison, ten years
Speaker 2: in prison, eighteen months in solitary confinement, literally six months
Speaker 2: being housed on death row, and I can talk about
Speaker 2: where I am now, what that means. It means that
Speaker 2: I don't want any sort of excuses from anyone else.
Speaker 2: More importantly, it is important as a black trans woman
Speaker 2: for me to figure out how I disenter myself in
Speaker 2: opportunities that come to black trans women because so many
Speaker 2: folks talk about divesting from scarcity. If your cup is full,
Speaker 2: if you know your cup is full, even if you
Speaker 2: want more poured into it, it just that's a rule.
Speaker 2: And so if I am not thinking about what level
Speaker 2: my cup is a naturally I'm gonna want more and
Speaker 2: more and more. But if I'm thinking about it, I
Speaker 2: can have all I need and I can be thoughtful
Speaker 2: about making sure that my siblings have what they need,
Speaker 2: and not by me sacrificing. Like being thoughtful means I
Speaker 2: don't have to do the work from sacrifice. I can
Speaker 2: do the work because I'm like, oh, you're good, and
Speaker 2: we can make sure that other people are good.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I love that by saying that
Speaker 1: we don't have to do the work from sacrifice, because
Speaker 1: there has in many ways. I feel that a lot
Speaker 1: of people inside of movement, particularly the LGBTQ movement, though,
Speaker 1: believe that in order for there to be any achievements
Speaker 1: that there must be suffering attached to that. Can you
Speaker 1: speak to that point about how one can embody activism
Speaker 1: center justice. Let's just say whole justice, whole life justice,
Speaker 1: this and it not come from a trauma lens that
Speaker 1: I don't need to suffer in order to be able
Speaker 1: to be in solidarity that there can be again more
Speaker 1: than the period at the end of the sentence. Can
Speaker 1: you speak to that.
Speaker 2: I tell people often that a lot of the skills
Speaker 2: and ways of knowing that I have that allow me
Speaker 2: to navigate spaces and still kind of be grounded come
Speaker 2: from my incarceration. And I say that because one it's
Speaker 2: not I'm not saying that the walls and the institutions
Speaker 2: gave me those moments. It's the people. It was me
Speaker 2: having access to these people that people have said have
Speaker 2: nothing to offer, that taught me some of the most
Speaker 2: powerful moments. And I used to sit with this Arch Kirby.
Speaker 2: My prison number was five six eight ninety two and
Speaker 2: that was issued to me in like two thousand and one.
Speaker 2: Artist number was like two three zero zero zero something,
Speaker 2: So that's how long he was incarcerated. He was doing life,
Speaker 2: and he worked in the laundry room, and he did
Speaker 2: the same things every day, and he should be like, Arch,
Speaker 2: aren't you tired? And he used to be like, I
Speaker 2: can choose to be tired, or I can choose to
Speaker 2: figure out how to find joy in what's in front
Speaker 2: of me. And I think in activism. We are given
Speaker 2: these kind of cars that we're dealt. Right, it's like
Speaker 2: planning spades. Sometimes you don't get a hand and you
Speaker 2: might not have no spades at all.
Speaker 1: Baby, we still got to get well.
Speaker 2: And if you've really been in it, you can't even
Speaker 2: if you're defeated, you can't act like you're defeating. Right,
Speaker 2: How to make you think this to a diamonds is
Speaker 2: aasu spade? Come on? And I think that culture, I
Speaker 2: think that mentality. The riches already have the riches because
Speaker 2: I get to do this with my people. If you've
Speaker 2: ever been an activist for yourself alone, which is what
Speaker 2: incarceration is for a lot of people, there's a loneliness
Speaker 2: to it. When I learned that there was something called abolition,
Speaker 2: when I became the executive director of SO I can
Speaker 2: pink and realize ten fifty people will get into a
Speaker 2: room and move, I'm like, that's dope. Just the people
Speaker 2: coming together is the gift. And I think an outcome
Speaker 2: of white supremacy is putting us in that mindset of scarcity,
Speaker 2: and not just scarcity from access to things, but scarcity
Speaker 2: in the belief that we didn't accomplish what we wanted
Speaker 2: to accomplish, and a lot of that is because they
Speaker 2: position us to try to set goals like end world hunger.
Speaker 2: I ain't got that, baby. My grace quotient can't hold that.
Speaker 2: I can feed the block, though, And if I focus
Speaker 2: on attainable goals, I more times than not get to
Speaker 2: sit in the abundance of accomplishing the thing. I think
Speaker 2: when you look at philanthropy and we look at dollar investment,
Speaker 2: and I said this today, so we were talking to
Speaker 2: some philanthropists. We will fund somebody for one year to
Speaker 2: address the issue that's been happening for thirty years with
Speaker 2: a staff that couldn't even handle the issue on that block.
Speaker 2: And so how are we distributing dollars? How are we
Speaker 2: being in community as philanthropists in a way that support
Speaker 2: people in success and saying, you know what, job well
Speaker 2: done funding them multiple years for that anxiety, so that stress,
Speaker 2: The idea that someone can innovate while being stressed about
Speaker 2: where the next dollar is coming from is ridiculous. And
Speaker 2: last when not least, what we can name that they're
Speaker 2: the experts and mean it. Those are the things that
Speaker 2: as an executive director and even in this role, that
Speaker 2: I've been in for about two years that have given
Speaker 2: me abundance even in the time of scarcity. I know
Speaker 2: what I'm talking about. I do the work well, and
Speaker 2: I have a proven track record holding on to those
Speaker 2: things even when I'm in a time where my god,
Speaker 2: where's this funding gonna come for next year? Right? I
Speaker 2: raise every dollar I give out. It lets me know
Speaker 2: the room I have to grow, But it never makes
Speaker 2: me feel like the room is empty. If that makes.
Speaker 1: What are the ways in which you think that philanthropy
Speaker 1: needs to be disrupted in order to really serve and
Speaker 1: be of service? Because you know, I sit on the
Speaker 1: board of the Misfoundation for Women which I have been
Speaker 1: a part of for several years now.
Speaker 2: Shout out to.
Speaker 1: Shout yes, yes, And I will say that Teresa's mindset
Speaker 1: has been about disrupting this idea of, you know, a
Speaker 1: philanthropy which is pretty much built on white people feeling
Speaker 1: very good about what has been stolen and giving back
Speaker 1: what has been stolen from community, right like with the
Speaker 1: name of grant in increments and in the name of grants.
Speaker 1: But then we get to control how you're going to
Speaker 1: use the money that was stolen, right, And so I
Speaker 1: feel like in many ways philanthropy has experience and has
Speaker 1: experienced a disruption. But in a moment when we are
Speaker 1: seeing that these two political parties, one wants to eviscerate
Speaker 1: any social safety, that wants to eviscerate all things that
Speaker 1: government should provide to its citizens, philanthropy will have a
Speaker 1: bigger role. Do you think one that this kind of
Speaker 1: legacy space can be disruptive and are they prepared do
Speaker 1: you think for the role that is going to be needed.
Speaker 2: It's so funny you say this. We were talking about
Speaker 2: this at lunch a little bit one of our colleagues
Speaker 2: where we were talking about the pandemic and we were
Speaker 2: looking at my workbook and it's called Discovering Your Power,
Speaker 2: and they were like, you know, they tapped into their power.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I don't think they tapped into
Speaker 2: their power. I think I think of the Titanic, the
Speaker 2: things that no one could have access to that live
Speaker 2: below board, No one cared about it because the ship
Speaker 2: was sinking. And I feel like philanthropy moved that way
Speaker 2: in the pandemic. We didn't know if we were going
Speaker 2: to what was going to happen, so people were, oh
Speaker 2: my god, I get to be radical, I get to
Speaker 2: be excited. I think there was a rush to it.
Speaker 2: I think it was a way for them to feel
Speaker 2: valid and to be a part of things. People enjoy
Speaker 2: oppression who have never had to be oppressed more than
Speaker 2: people talk about. It is a kink. It is a kink,
Speaker 2: and I'm not here yucking anybody's young, come on, but
Speaker 2: it is a kink. And so I say that to
Speaker 2: say we've done it because in the pandemic we did
Speaker 2: disrupt it. The reporting processes changed. You would just get
Speaker 2: a phone call, we got one hundred thousand, we got
Speaker 2: a extra this, all those things happened. And I said,
Speaker 2: I don't want a lot of people to have to
Speaker 2: be dying for us to figure out how to show up.
Speaker 2: And I think what we can be thoughtful of going
Speaker 2: forward is one, let's be reflective about the pandemic, not
Speaker 2: in a let's create a strategy to where we don't
Speaker 2: get back there. But let's not throw away everything. And
Speaker 2: that's the same mentality I talk about my incarceration a lot,
Speaker 2: because that was almost ten years of my life. If
Speaker 2: I threw away everything that happened there, I would be
Speaker 2: throwing away some of the pieces that allow me to
Speaker 2: go into a room and ask four million dollars with
Speaker 2: my chestyle. Right, it's the same thing that made me
Speaker 2: go Boston when I didn't really have it in my
Speaker 2: hand and still get it. You understand me, And so
Speaker 2: we can disrupt it because we've done it. People have
Speaker 2: to be excited to not be essential anymore in philanthropy,
Speaker 2: and that is as someone who joined the ranks of philanthropy.
Speaker 2: I would be lying if I said a piece of
Speaker 2: the privilege of the cachet wasn't a part of Like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm tired. I want to be in
Speaker 2: this space and have some of that. But when I
Speaker 2: got over here, I realized the more of that I had,
Speaker 2: it meant the further our way I was from my people.
Speaker 2: So to think of how gagged I am to be
Speaker 2: in philanthropy and be as tired as I was when
Speaker 2: I was running bell support programs every day is interesting.
Speaker 2: But we know how to do it. And so Danielle,
Speaker 2: what I'm saying is we can. We have to lock in.
Speaker 2: And the last thing is get rid of the language
Speaker 2: that tricks people into thinking that we're doing something we're not.
Speaker 2: Stop saying trust base we don't trust people. Stop saying right, right,
Speaker 2: that's right now, But it's true. Right. A lot of
Speaker 2: the disappointment of community is predicated on we've given them
Speaker 2: a false sense of how we move, and then we
Speaker 2: don't move in that way, and then they're hurt, and
Speaker 2: then we don't want to be held accountable. And that's
Speaker 2: the last thing. Unless philanthropy has a system for us
Speaker 2: to be held accountable, power will never it will never
Speaker 2: be any sort of flat power, power dynamic. As long
Speaker 2: as we're in touchable. As long as we can do
Speaker 2: what we want to do and not have to answer
Speaker 2: to anyone, things will stay the same. And I don't
Speaker 2: want to live a life where I can mess up
Speaker 2: and someone can't tell me I messed up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Another question for you. You know, as time marches
Speaker 1: on to this upcoming election, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people that I talk to who are losing faith, right,
Speaker 1: They're losing faith in possibility, faith in the possibility that
Speaker 1: we can because we have made things better. What has
Speaker 1: your time both being incarcerated and outside of the system,
Speaker 1: How has it grown your faith, challenged your faith? And
Speaker 1: what kind of advice can you provide to others who
Speaker 1: haven't even experienced those types of lows or moments, but
Speaker 1: they find themselves in a place of struggle.
Speaker 2: It is heartbreaking and will often move me to tears
Speaker 2: to know that people have tricked us as black folks
Speaker 2: into not realizing that we are literally superhuman in regards
Speaker 2: to We are brilliant. We love each other in ways
Speaker 2: that people wish they could right these love stories that
Speaker 2: we see are taken from We have so much in us,
Speaker 2: and then we'll have these moments when it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't know how we will get to the other side.
Speaker 2: And in my lived experience, in my faith, in my existence.
Speaker 2: I'm a forty two year old black trans woman with
Speaker 2: I'm still a year from being able to get a
Speaker 2: part in almost fifteen years post release, with eight felonies
Speaker 2: on her record, that lives in Atlanta in the Perimeter
Speaker 2: in a three bedroom house with two baths, has two
Speaker 2: paid cars cars. There are savings. I can call my
Speaker 2: aunt and she will use the pronouns that are affirming
Speaker 2: to me. I can call my cousin who live in
Speaker 2: the hood, and he's gonna ask me about I saw
Speaker 2: Laverne Cox on TV today. My nephews and nieces call
Speaker 2: me and they know that I'm still here and they
Speaker 2: want me to come to their events. That I walk
Speaker 2: in rooms with black people and they embrace me. I'm
Speaker 2: taking my black ass to the White House tomorrow, and
Speaker 2: it's not about who's in the White House. It's about
Speaker 2: the journey from there. I walk down a street named
Speaker 2: after me, and so in my story, like that's those
Speaker 2: are nuggets, right. You look at a miss Major. If
Speaker 2: you lean into the brilliance and the pageantry of blackness
Speaker 2: in a real way, it is everywhere. It's in the
Speaker 2: bus driver, it's in the person who brings your mail,
Speaker 2: it's in your child. I think a lot of the
Speaker 2: struggle that I see black folks have is that they
Speaker 2: really don't love their blackness as much as they say
Speaker 2: they do. Because the love that I've had to work
Speaker 2: for in my blackness amplified whatever my trans experience brought
Speaker 2: to me. Being trans is cute, being trans in black.
Speaker 2: The girls can't quantify it, right, And I know this
Speaker 2: seems like someone who's listening, like, oh my god, this
Speaker 2: seems us out there. This is really what my rooting
Speaker 2: is about. Every day I look at my people and
Speaker 2: I'm just like well, there's no way we're not gonna
Speaker 2: be okay. And if I'm really honest, those systems have
Speaker 2: never saved us or benefited us. Have they been less
Speaker 2: harmful at times? But I I was really thinking about
Speaker 2: who was gonna help me pay my bills. I would
Speaker 2: not be looking for a stimulus. I would be like, hey, Angelica,
Speaker 2: since let me get alone. And it seems common sense.
Speaker 2: But the common sense is telling us that we will
Speaker 2: always be our own liberators. And due to that mindset,
Speaker 2: I won't let them capture me with fear going into
Speaker 2: this fall. That's not me saying I'm divesting. It's not
Speaker 2: me saying that I'm not aware. It's saying that if
Speaker 2: we're if we're focused on fear, we don't get to
Speaker 2: be strategic. And focusing on my blackness always ensures that
Speaker 2: I get to be strategic.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something. I will go to whatever
Speaker 1: church you preach out. I will go. I will I
Speaker 1: will walk down whatever path because I am a said
Speaker 1: person that loses faith on a regular basis. I am
Speaker 1: said person who is just like, this whole place is
Speaker 1: fucked up, you know, But you reminding us that you
Speaker 1: know what these systems that are indeed fucked up. Were
Speaker 1: never created for our safety, for our resilience, for our audaciousness.
Speaker 1: Everything about these systems were created to keep us small,
Speaker 1: and to keep our dreams dark, and to keep our
Speaker 1: spirits low. And so I just you know, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you. I want to thank you for the
Speaker 1: work that you do, for the life that you continue
Speaker 1: to live and share with so many people, and just
Speaker 1: for the spirit and the passion that you bring to
Speaker 1: everything that you do, because it is just such, it
Speaker 1: is such a gorgeous reminder of the magic that we have.
Speaker 1: And I just I greatly appreciate you making the time
Speaker 1: for us today.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And I want to say I met you
Speaker 2: the first time. It was twenty nineteen. It was right
Speaker 2: before I was starting my transition. No one knew this,
Speaker 2: and it was a dinner for the tenth in d C.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. And so I have loved you since.
Speaker 2: And I watch a show and I follow you and
Speaker 2: when they they said, oh this was a thing. I'm
Speaker 2: big on full circle moment. I'm a piscey. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: I was just like, oh, this is this is beautiful
Speaker 2: because I just I love the conversations you bring. But
Speaker 2: I remember being in that very quiet space of knowing
Speaker 2: something bigger was coming from me, but not knowing how
Speaker 2: to tell the world. And that was the last you know,
Speaker 2: a small house in DC, having a dinner. That was
Speaker 2: the last time we saw each other. So I'm excited
Speaker 2: to see you tomorrow. Oh my God, for this opportunity.
Speaker 1: Oh I love thank you so much for that, for
Speaker 1: that reminder that dinner was so special. Yeah, was was
Speaker 1: so special. Oh beautiful, wonderful. Well, tell people how they
Speaker 1: can be involved, how they can continue to show up
Speaker 1: in the ways in what you do.
Speaker 2: Yes, one piece, we're launching this huge cultural capital project
Speaker 2: with TS Madison where she's given us her mansion and
Speaker 2: we're bringing in ten black trans women who lead organizations
Speaker 2: across the country to build this housing project in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: the TS Madison Starter House. So please go to Instagram,
Speaker 2: to Madison's instagram, to mind to name them in aesm
Speaker 2: inc in Atlanta and you can get information there. Please
Speaker 2: follow us at Borealis And most importantly, I know y'all
Speaker 2: are thinking will Dominique, where do I get some coins?
Speaker 2: The Fund for Transgenerations. Our open way that we move
Speaker 2: dollars is through our rapid response, We move dollars monthly.
Speaker 2: If you go to Borealis Philanthropy dot org and you
Speaker 2: look for the Fund for Transgenerations page, it will tell
Speaker 2: you how to apply the other. Great thing for you
Speaker 2: leaders who are like, we're talking about blackness, what about
Speaker 2: black folks who are not trans We have eight other
Speaker 2: sibling funds, the Black Movement Fund, Communities Transforming Police saying
Speaker 2: there are dollars there. We move sixty six million dollars
Speaker 2: a year. Every director at Borealis is currently a black
Speaker 2: woman that is raising that money, that is moving that money,
Speaker 2: and so I'll be dogging if it don't go to
Speaker 2: black people. So please lock in with us and let's
Speaker 2: focus on how we can get each other free and
Speaker 2: stop waiting for permission from our presses.
Speaker 1: Amen to that, Thank you, thank you, appreciate you so
Speaker 1: very much. That is it for me today, Dear friends
Speaker 1: on wokef as always power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck.