The Joyous Justice Podcast

Ep 106: “Oh, the world (and Joyous Justice) is changing!”

September 15, 2022 April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker Episode 106
The Joyous Justice Podcast
Ep 106: “Oh, the world (and Joyous Justice) is changing!”
Show Notes Transcript

As April sings at the beginning of the episode, “Oh, the world (and Joyous Justice) is changing, and I am changing too.” This week, we’re getting a glimpse into April’s mind and spirit around the multi-year journey she’s been on to shape Joyous Justice as a bold, leading-edge organization in and for the Jewish community. Follow along as April describes how she’s now more fully equipped to step into a larger, broader vision for the scope and impact of her voice and the Joyous Justice team’s work, while remaining true to her and our rootedness in Jewish ways of being. To help manifest the healed and healing, joyously just future, and to reflect individually and collectively about where we are, we are hosting two “Lil’ Elul Conversations” this month. Join us at one or both!

Reflect with our Elul questions and sign up for our 9/20 or 9/22 event: https://joyousjustice.com/elul

Share your insights or ask us a question at https://joyousjustice.com/jews-talk-racial-justice-questions.

Join our mailing list at https://joyousjustice.com.  

Check out our offerings and join one of our programs! https://joyousjustice.com/courses

Find April’s TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aprilavivabaskin 

Follow us on Instagram (@joyous.justice), Twitter, (@JoyousJustice), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/joyousjustice365)

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice and join our mailing list: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Read more about the Grand Magal of Touba:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Magal_of_Touba


Discussion and reflection questions:

  1. What in this episode is new for you? What have you learned and how does it land?
  2. What is resonating? What is sticking with you and why?
  3. What feels hard? What is challenging or on the edge for you?
  4. What feelings and sensations are arising and where in your body do you feel them?
Tracie:

As we move through the Hebrew month of a rule and the High Holy Days in Tishrei, April is thinking about relationship, belonging, leadership, healing, and community. You can join the conversation through our reflection questions, and one of two live Community Conversations later this month. Find links in the show notes for more.

April Baskin:

This is Jews talk racial justice with April and Tracie,

Tracie:

a weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracy Guy Decker.

April Baskin:

in a complex world change takes courage,

Tracie:

wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable. Oh,

April Baskin:

[Singing] Oh, the world is changing. And I am changing with it. Oh, the world is changing. And I am changing too. Oh, the world is changing, and I am changing with it. Now all the world is changing, and I am changing too. And Joyous Justice is changing too. Are you changing too? I am so excited to take a few moments to check in with y'all about some changes that are coming and in the air. As I started out this video, by singing the song, The world is changing and I am changing with it. And who is that ever the case I've been trying to allude to for about a year ish, or at least nine months or so now that I've been in a process of change. And it reached a culminating point recently, not only for me, but also specifically in my capacity to lead joyous justice. When I first created Joyous Justice a few years ago, when I first launched it, I had a really big bold vision that quite frankly, I wasn't fully ready to live into. Have you ever done something like this, but I really had this brilliant, wonderful vision of taking different wellness and mystical and spiritual elements that were contributing to me feeling great joy, and also weaving that and combining that with really powerful, socially accountable, work around social justice around power, belonging, and justice. And I wanted to do this in a broader context with different courageous folks who were committed to these themes with spiritual progressives, and obviously, with different members of communities of which I am a part of or aligned. So indigenous folks, Jewish folks, Black folks, as well as other people of the global majority, and anyone committed to justice and our well being. But that was like, a big mission, I want to swear but I, I made a decision if I'm going to be swearing yet, so I'll keep it clean. But that's like a big mission. And I didn't have a lot of momentum in that broader realm. I invested strategically, in really creating and cultivating social justice and healing interventions within explicitly the Jewish community. And so when I had this vision a few years ago, to branch out beyond that, and just work with souls in general who are aligned with doing really potent, holistic, sustainable work to make the world more compassionate, whole, just, and equitable and liberatory. That just seemed like too much to take on. And so I decided to continue to work mostly primarily with the Jewish community launched Joyce justice not explicitly named as a Jewish organization, but worked predominantly with my beloved Jewish people. And I don't know if it makes sense to do it right now. Recently, I really was able to crystallize why I have chosen to focus so much on my social change work within the Jewish community beyond the reasons that I've given in the past and public spaces that it was a strategic intervention for me, you might have heard me say you've seen me in other spaces, that I believe that Jews have not an exclusive but a distinctive and important role to play in advancing in contributing to our collective progress toward justice. And I still believe that to be true that for a relatively small group with the different roles we play in society in different ways, which is not controlling the economy or the media or any other anti semitic tropes, but just being really engaged in different elements of society, that this was a group of people who I Absolutely love and adore and with whom I could do deep courageous work, so that they could shift their and strengthen their justice work and hopefully well being to and advance justice in different spaces where they also have influence. And anyway, so there's like a separate piece there that might make may or may not make sense in this video. I wasn't planning on talking about that. And it recently occurred to me like why am I so specific? Or why am I so committed to advancing and pushing my fellow Jews advancing justice and pushing my fellow Jews to further embody justice, and I realized, I'm just gonna say it briefly, because I think it's interesting, I think you might find it interesting. And I realized, in part because I am someone who is regularly impressed in Jewish life, I think, while it's tough for me, I am in a number of ways, a safer person with a disproportionate amount of perspective for my fellow Jewish people, and also someone who is not in an oppressor role, as opposed to say, when I'm in the black community, where I often experience greater immediate belonging in certain ways, but I also have a lot more proximity to whiteness. So yes, while there are a variety of interventions, and healing and advocacy work that can be done internally, in the black community, I'm happy to be supportive of that. But as a lighter skinned black person, I don't think I'm the person who should be on the front lines of that work, I think it should be folks who are positioned with who experience greater oppression, racial oppression, so that even if we would say the exact same things, the messenger matters at times, but in the Jewish community, it's a bit different. And I don't have that similar sort of proximity to whiteness, quite the opposite. And so I think of myself in a number of ways, as in a certain respect, being a safer person and advocate for justice and an internal change within the Jewish community. So if you've ever been wondering about that, or you weren't, perhaps maybe you still find it interesting. So now I want to get start to get to the main point. If you haven't already seen my team is engaging in a really loving sweet process right now during Elul, where we are offering to facilitate some spiritual introspection and some connecting around what different people in our network who are Jewish or Jewish adjacent our processing and thinking about this a rule, what is a rule a rule is the Jewish month prior to Tishrei, the Jewish month, that is the first month of the Jewish year and the month that holds the Jewish High Holidays. Elul is the sacred, pensive spiritual time before the High Holidays begin. And it is a time for those who are interested in the ways that you might be interested, if at all, in being more intimately connected to the Divine, and our internal selves and doing some reflection about what is most important to us engaging in beginning some preliminary work around crush bone ha nefesh, of of reflecting and an accounting of our soul, and our ethics, in preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur War and the holidays. And so this is a very reflective time, it's often thought of as an individual time, I really appreciated teaching that I once heard from Rabbi art Israel in a text study training or in a text study, while I was on his staff at Maryland's Hillel when I was a Schusterman fellow. But it's interesting because a lot of the liturgy for the Jewish High Holidays is very individual. And though the holiday itself and the nature of the holiday is that it's actually the birthday of the world. And so there's this interesting juxtaposition of individual themes, while also holding the collective. And from our perspective at Joyce justice, we'd like to in advance of the High Holidays where there are a range of resources through a variety of wonderful Jewish communities to engage and participate in high holiday customs. As a thank you to the members of our community, we created a set of reflection questions for folks to take some time and think about so that and to share them with us. As a way to engage in some individual reflection and either including your name or not, you can also do it anonymously. Know that a team that is really loving and thoughtful and mindful will also review everything you said. And look at it as it compares to other responses we're receiving, integrate it and process it a bit. And later this month, I believe on the 20th and 22nd of this month, but check the links, we're going to have a couple a little conversations, that's a little bit of my cheesiness, a little like a little, a little conversation, we will take about an hour each at two different times to invite those who participated or those who didn't participate in the reflection process, but want to hear what others are reflecting can hear what's going on and other folks minds, right. And so why are we doing this? One is a thank you to our community, Joyce, Justice has had a really wonderful arc and journey in its first three years of our existence. And a large part of that has to do with our community, showing up for us during difficult times, participating in our programs, giving feedback, responding to our emails with personal responses, just showing up in a number of different ways supporting us on social media amplifying our messages. When I launched the juice of color count campaign, that was what really launched a number of things for joyous justice. And a number of us sent that letter out that I co authored with a number of folks and a number of the bits of the social media, mini social media campaign we did and we reached 1000s of people and we're able to engage 1000s of, of Jews in that conversation. We've had a wonderful run with our podcast use talk racial justice. And we recently surpassed our 100th episode, and I don't know where the downloads are now, I think they're maybe around 30,000. And we did a racial justice campaign when I was inundated during the summer of 2020. Y'all have been there. And as a thank you, we wanted to offer this service to people in our community. And I shared a number of these things in the email. And now I just wanted to take a little bit of time to explain a couple other reasons why we are doing this so that there's more context, and perhaps a little bit more inspiration to participate or just greater understanding between us. So we're doing this as a thank you. And also we're doing it because, you know, what does it now like 17 ish years ago, now, I wrote a thesis about the experiences and identities of Jewish young adults of color and American Judaism. I wasn't sure like I had some hypothesis of what would come from the qualitative survey that I did. And then the more quantitative but partially qualitative, a little bit qualitative and quantitative survey, and then the in depth interviews that I did with Jews of color. And I didn't know it at the time. But very quickly, that became the launchpad for the next 15 plus years of by public leadership in the Jewish community and beyond. I think people's perspectives and narratives are sacred. And they're even more sacred when there starts to be a trend and a pattern among multiple people and a clear set of messages and calls to take calls to action that come through in people's personal shares that usually they think are individual individual. But when taken together, you start to notice patterns. That as we often say, as I often say, in my Joyce, Justice trainings aren't, are useful, aren't universal, but are useful trends. And with that spirit in mind, I also wanted to invite people to engage in this reflection process for that reason, because we want to hear I personally, am in the midst of a lot of change. I have been for a couple years, but it's really started to culminate and crystallize. And I'm showing up in the world in new ways. And my team and I are gearing up for Joyous Justice, to show up in new ways in the world. And while it might not be exactly how it's playing out, for me, in my work or for Joyous Justice, my feeling is is that I'm not alone in this and that there are likely a range of people who are either sitting with really big, heavy, significant questions In light of all the swirling change and trauma, and just all the activity that's happening, and that's happened in the past few years in the world, it has been intense, intense. And we obviously are not static beings. And so as I'm gearing up to change, I don't want to be so selfish as to think that I am the only one who is going through substantial change. And so I wanted to check in with my people, because I'm noticing different patterns and different things coming up. But in my experience, as someone who studied sociology in school and qualitative data, research, I really like to hear it from the horse's mouth, I really want to have an opportunity for people in my community to get some loving attention, get loved up on and get some loving attention from this Afro indigenous Jewish woman and her badass team, to say, yes, we are each going through our own soul journey, and you don't have to be fully alone in it. And we will be happy to listen to you as you share your responses to some of these big questions. And if you want, we are happy to facilitate a couple conversations, where we come together and keeping people's identities anonymous, share out some of the themes and trends and things that people are going through right now and have a chance for us to be in conversation about how those are landing with us. And what we're thinking about and ways that we can support ourselves and each other, either specifically or just in general as we navigate this holiday season in the wake of tremendous and ongoing loss, and also growth and also new life and potential. And speaking of which, I also wanted to say another reason, or another part of the backstory and future story of why we are taking time to do to invite people into reflection with us around Elul. And also conversation is because joy Joyce, justice is in a phase of growth. And I've gone through enough change, and healing and learning intensive intensively around all all three of those pieces, healing, learning, and change and shift that I feel finally ready to step into and lead joyous justice and equipped to lead it in equipped to lead us justice in a way that it can. And we can be true to my original intention with it, which was to be a really bold leading edge organization. That is for everyone who is interested and who adequately aligns with our values, values and has similar aligned goals around wanting to advance justice and love in this world. And we are going to start doing that this fall. We're gearing up for that now, and are gearing up. And so what does that mean practically so and what I mean by that is we will not mostly exclusively just be serving the Jewish community anymore. And the Jewish community is incredibly important to me and my whole team. And I continue to plan to lead and teach, being rooted in and teaching from my Jewish values, as I work with clients from a variety of backgrounds. But especially in the past six months or a year or so there have been a lot of folks who have wanted to work with us. But we didn't have offerings that didn't that were designed to serve folks beyond our scope. And so for a variety of different reasons. If you have specific questions, I'm happy to answer more. We are now going to continue into our next stage of growth and broaden our scope. And while we do that, I want to ensure that we are weaving our existing community into our future and bringing folks along. And these conversations and process of reflection around a rule are not only a gift that we are endeavoring to offer to our people in our community, but it is also an active demonstration of my and my team's commitment to continue to be in relationship up with our fellow Jews, as we also branch out and work with other Spiritual Progressives, people who aren't religious or spiritual, but are really into the values that joyous justice is here to joyously and justly advance in this world collaboratively with other folks. They want to do that. So. So yeah, so that's a little bit of the backstory and like what's happening behind the scenes. And it recently occurred to me a few days ago, that this is my plan and my team's plan. And we are off giving these offerings as a thank you and a way to weave that ongoing thread as we move into another exciting period. And I thought I should let y'all know that too. So that it doesn't come as a surprise, either during the conversations, or in the days and weeks that follow. And I hope to be more transparent and open in the future, for a variety of different reasons. Before I was much more which might surprise some of you, some of you might be like, relate you, you held back. But yeah, I did it a number of, of ways, in terms of parts of my afro indigenous, and Jewish spirituality in terms of just a variety of themes, just different things that I'm, I'm so not worried about it now that I honestly have a hard time remembering what I was worried about before. But I guess we'll find out as I start looking back to different prompts that might help me figure out what to say and how to leave moving forward. And notice that now, there aren't as many barriers for me to speak. And I'm hoping that through this work, that we will deal with Joyce justice during this period of Elul, with our Jewish and Jewish adjacent folks. And moving out more broadly, to different folks who are aligned with our mission, I hope that joyous justice can be can be not only a beacon of inspiration and learning and support, but that also we can serve as a bit of a shield and a bit of an amplifier of a number of our collective goals and take some of the heat so that our members and fans don't have to but can start to see what it looks like to model that in the world and start to figure out for yourselves, how you want to be showing up. What are the ways that you want to advance justice, unexpected and unexpected ways and mainstream ways and in super creative ways that work for you. In the moment of life that you are in, I find again and again as I lead trainings and multiple spaces that people think that justice work is just marching in the streets and don't realize all of the different ways that it can take shape. So yeah, if you have any questions about anything I shared or anything else, really, as much as I can be, I really want to be an open book. So please feel free to ask me and I look forward to ubabeing in touch. I am going on a on my third Sufi Muslim pilgrimage to the holy city of Touba, with my beloved partner Assane and his family. And a whole separate thing. I'm gonna make TikToks back that Do you know making TikToks I'm making TikToks at@aprilavivabaskin on TikTok and I want to do a TikTok about this. But uh, this year, we're leaving early, we're leaving when the elders are leaving, which is very wise and smart, so that we don't end up in a 12 hour, two accident, car dying once for an hour journey to Touba and instead, it'll just be two hours. Yeah, and hopefully we'll bring enough water. So much love. Thanks for tuning in. And I'm really excited. And I hope that with the different options and things we'll be creating on I forgot to mention too, we're going to be coming out with some offerings that are pretty phenomenal and hopefully doing them with great joy, working across lines of difference with a range of different folks and helping to facilitate more courageous, bold conversations and greater resilience and healing and visionary leadership in our world. All right, much love. Take good care. Bye. Thanks for tuning in our shows theme music was composed by Elliott Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram at @elliotthammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation visit us at jewstalkracialjustice.com where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team to Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.