Ep. 4: Leading with Joy with Akaya Windwood
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*Special dedication episode to Nikishka’s grandfather, or her “Tha-Tha”*
This episode – dedicated to host Nikishka's newest ancestor (her grandfather who helped raise her) – offers glimpses into personal transformation, the power of intentional choices, and alternative approaches to accountability. Akaya Windwood shares her experience as a seasoned hospice worker, death doula, and the transformative power of bearing witness to the dying process. She recounts a story of compassion and transformation about a racist woman she took care of who gradually transformed her views over time, highlighting that it is not always the burden of marginalized individuals to be the bigger person, but it can be a conscious choice that can be empowering. The conversation also touches on the need for new methods of accountability and the invitation for others to join the journey on the road to repair without coercion or leaving anyone behind.
Highlights:
• A powerful story of transformation: a moving story of a hospice worker’s/death doula’s journey with a dying woman who initially held racist views, but then undergoes a transformation, challenging deeply ingrained beliefs and prejudices.
• The importance of choosing grace and compassion: Akaya discusses her experience of consciously choosing to respond with compassion instead of reacting from a place of anger or resentment
• Rethinking accountability and transformative justice: Akaya emphasizes the need to hold individuals accountable while still recognizing their humanity and invites listeners to question and reimagine existing systems of accountability.
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Akaya Windwood facilitates transformation. She advises, trains, and consults on how change happens individually, organizationally, and societally. She is on faculty for the Just Economy Institute, is Lead Advisor for Third Act, and is founder of the New Universal Wisdom and Leadership Institute, which centers human wisdom in the wisdom of brown womxn. She was President of Rockwood Leadership Institute for many years, and directs the Growing Roots Fund, which supports young womxn’s finance and philanthropic learning and leadership based in generosity and interconnectedness.
Akaya received the 2020 Vision Award from Middlebury College, was one of Conscious Company’s 30 World Changing Women of 2018, and has been a featured speaker at the Stanford Social Innovation Institute, the Aspen Institute, and the New Zealand Philanthropy Summit conferences. She is an Ella Award recipient from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and served on the Alameda County Human Rights Commission. Akaya is deeply committed to working for a fair and equitable global society while infusing a sense of purpose, delight, and wonder into everything we do. Akaya co-authored Leading with Joy: Practices for Uncertain Times, which was recently published in October 2022. She lives in Oakland, CA where she reads science fiction, makes sauerkraut, and relishes growing enormous squashes in her garden.
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Leading With Joy: Practices for Uncertain Times [Book]
Just Economy Institute (formerley known as the Integrated Capital Institute, formerly known as the RSF Fellowship) – Just Economy Insitute is our podcast’s first official sponsor!!
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Akaya Windwood 0:07
Well, here we are the pandemic George Floyd and many subsequent things to give us an opportunity to open our hearts even further, even as we had to deal with a lot of grief. Like grief, can break our hearts open and make us more resilient, make us more human. What we're going through is necessary and challenging and joyful. I think there's a level of sophistication now across generations where we're talking about No, this is about systemic change. This is about a change in the way we are as humans with one another and the planet. Back in the day movements were very separate. And now we can't think about racial justice without considering reconstructing class or gender or any of those things. There's nothing that is not connected now.
RTR Themed Intro 1:01
You ready, we get down to business investing in existence, shifting from a system steeped in extraction that steady sapping off peoples and planet to cash in slashing, widening gaps in our access to land wealth, piece satisfaction. Imagine basing relations on more than transactions. It's time for new pathways, and we need to shape them through our inner landscapes, our relations, our approach our dedication, we're on the road to repair as a commitment to transformation.
Welcome to the road to repair a podcast exploring our journey out of the business as usual economy toward our collective healing and liberation. We are your co hosts Andrew X.
RTR Themed Outro 1:45
Jessica Norwood,
Nikishka Iyengar 1:46
and I'm the Kiska ion gar
RTR Themed Intro 1:47
and we're very excited for this conversation.
Nikishka Iyengar 1:54
Hey, y'all, it's Mukesh Gupta, and in this episode, I had the absolute privilege of interviewing a Kaya Winwood, a kya Wynwood facilitates transformation. She advises trains and consults on how change happens individually, organizationally and societally. So you know, everything we talked about on here, she is on faculty for the just economy Institute is lead advisor for third act and was president of Rockwood Leadership Institute for many years, a Kaya is deeply committed to working for a fair and equitable global society, while infusing a sense of purpose, delight and wonder into everything we do. A Kaya co authored the book leading with joy practices for uncertain times, which was recently published in October 2022. I first met UCLA in 2018, when I was adjust economy Institute fellow which back then was called The RSF social finance fellowship. And the best way to describe my experience with her was that you know, she created a container for us to collectively hold multiple truths at once. If you're engaged in this work of repair, you know how critical that is right how much of a skill it is to hold the level of nuance. This work of dismantling systems of oppression requires of us how to live in that boat and space, in this episode of Kaya and I talk about staying on purpose and a world in time where there are multiple intersecting crises unfolding around us and about remembering and re centering our humanity and leadership and just so much else. In this season of rotor repair, you will notice that we have a lot of conversations on capital and finance and you know, creating structures of repair that address the homes that money and institutional finance have created. And I will say it was good to momentarily take a break from being in a headspace and more into you know, walking into a heartspace something that a kya always encourages this conversation with a Kaya happened on Valentine's Day of this year of 2023, which was super super special. It also happened to be a few weeks before my grandfather passed away. My granddad my my daughter, as we called him, lived with us growing up and helped raise me. He was special for a lot of reasons, but most significantly, our relationship and the relationship I have with my grandma was formative in terms of informing the intergenerational relationships in my life and the value and priority I placed on seeking and nurturing them. I was really looking forward to having him listen to this interview with a kya because I know how much he would have enjoyed it. In my mind. I can actually envision the three of us him a kya and me sitting together and having this conversation. So I'd like to dedicate this episode to my thoughts. My name is ancestor. I'm so incredibly proud to be your granddaughter
Akaya Windwood 4:55
Okay,
Nikishka Iyengar 4:55
uh, kinda what an honor it is, first of all to spend Valentine's Day in conversation with you, it's so nice to see you. After so long, we'll jump right in. So just a little bit of background, you know, Jessica, Andrew and I came together at the start of the pandemic, at that point was just, you know, initially just in conversation and checking in with each other. And ultimately, it led to the creation of this podcast or to repair. And back then we were, I think all of us holding on to the words of own that they worry about the pandemic. But you know, Portal being the bridge, the gateway between the Old World and the New World. And then George Floyd was murdered and the world split open again. And in the wake of the righteous anger and grief and the largest protest in US history, there was some optimism to that the world had maybe finally woken up to the violence and injustice that black communities grapple with every single day, defund the police and abolition and refunding our communities became mainstream conversation. And I think, yeah, there was like some real hope in that moment that this was truly going to be an inflection point, a point of transformation and three years, and I don't know, I'm feeling all kinds of ways. But how are you feeling about this moment that we're in, you know, what are you seeing now? You bring a lot of optimism and wisdom to this moment, talk our listeners through all of that.
Akaya Windwood 6:24
First of all, let me say thank you for having you on this podcast and love what you're doing and Happy Valentine's Day, and we can't have too much love on the planet. So it's a perfect day for this conversation. You know, I believe that we're right on time. And got to said, this is a portal right. And before that, she said, I can hear the next girl breathing right around the corner. Well, here we are. We're it's not right around the corner. It's here. And it's now and yes, pandemic awkward a quarrel. You know, I think the George Floyd and subsequent, many subsequent things gave us an opportunity to open our hearts even further, even as we had to deal with a lot of grief. But grief can break our hearts open, right and make us more resilient, make us more human. So I think we are right on time. And what we're going through is necessary and challenging and joyful. So it's all here. As I say all the things. When I was a young woman, we used to you know, this is back in the 60s and 70s. All the social uprising were going on the Earth Day and farm worker rights and women's rights and queer rights and all that there was a lot of social shifting going on at that time that we thought, Oh, this is now we're going to be in a new time. And then the pendulum swung back, we went through the Reagan era, and all the people got jobs and made families and all of that I think the pendulum is swinging again. But it's swinging in a different context that we were very young and naive. And that was our gift, then I think there's a level of sophistication now cross generations where we're talking about No, this is about systemic change. This is about a change in the way we are as humans with one another and the planet. Back in the day, those movements were very separate. And now we can't think about racial justice without considering reconstructing class or gender or any of those things. There's nothing that is not connected now. And that's a change. So I've got my eye on you and your generation and taking great faith from what you all are thinking about and talking about ways that you my generation just didn't have the language. And now it's becoming universal language. In a moment, I can be despairing. And the next moment I have great,
Nikishka Iyengar 9:01
yeah, I feel like that's that's where I'm at my pet my internal pendulum kind of swings with the world, because it's so true. It feels like the further we get along to your point, unraveling and pulling out the layers and understanding that all of this is like interconnected, the harder the pendulum swings to the right in some ways. We're seeing a lot of the foundations and I'm not even talking about like right wing politics necessarily, but even sort of neoliberal foundation corporations all of this kind of stuff that made their big statements in 2020 and now it's like you know a pull back on all of that. But yeah, I appreciate the optimism you bring. I guess I've related question there's a piece in your in your new book, leading with joy practices for uncertain times. I think this is your story, but like just a little piece about the fig tree. Do you say something along the lines of the fig tree just knows what it knows or just to be a fig tree and it's about staying on? purpose even when things are thrown your way. And like for me as like all these various crises are unfolding and compounding around us. It can feel very hard. And I think a lot of our listeners share some of this, not just despair, but like maybe some like frenetic energy about like, where to focus. There's every day, there's something going on that is bringing so much grief and trauma and like, where's the best use of our time, energy one life on this planet? What would you say to our listeners that are having trouble staying on purpose?
Akaya Windwood 10:30
I would say that's exactly the perfect question to ask. I have a little thing here, you're my computer whiz, it says, Let me only do what is mine to do. And there's a lot of assumptions packed into that for me, because I was I was kind of got my hair was on fire all the time, and I got my hair on fire all the time is not serving the world. It just doesn't. And it's not attractive. So if I understand what mine is what I'm here for, then I can trust that, oh, Nikita was here to do what she's here to do. And then I don't have to be worried about that piece. Because I don't need to micromanage you and all of the people that you know, and I can just be about what I am about and then trust. Okay, so here we are, at this moment, I've been using the metaphor of a show I woke up out of asleep several months ago. And I was kind of looking at this massive river from like an eagle you I could see a while and I could see that this massive River was coming to a fork and one fork was going off the cliff. And one fork was taking the path over. And I Oh, oh, that's us as humans. That's where we are in this transformative moment that there's so many of our structures are falling apart. Our economic structures, white supremacy, patriarchy, all the things are as I think anyone could say, that's all falling apart. It's scary because it's falling apart. And it isn't graceful. But I do believe that there's a critical mass of us now who can take that overland course and not go over the cliff. And it's necessary that these structures crumble, it's essential. But that's not my business. And there are those whose job it will be to do some hospice work. As the structures crumble, there's going to be the rescue workers. And there will be those who go over the cliff with the institutions. And that's all right. About a month after that, I got a tap on my spiritual shoulder and said, take a look now that there was Oh, it wasn't that moment of splitting isn't in the future. It's actually now like we're there. And if we look at the evidence, we can see it. And then about a week or so ago, I got another spiritual tap and said, take a look now and I looked and I was oh, that some of us are already on this new path, and are doing the work of creating new ways of being together, new ways of traveling, and the split is behind us. And it's still going to be loud. So gonna be noisy, because I find myself everyone's looking behind going, okay, what are y'all doing over there? That's your mess. And I realized, oh, wait, that's not my business. My business is to sit here with you and see an old friend and have a good conversation about what we're doing now. It's not what's coming, what we're doing now. And it's all unnecessary. So, you know, to our listeners, I would say what is yours to do, and yours uniquely, I believe that every human was born for a marvelous and important purpose. And even though I might not prefer a particular human, or what they're up to, I can trust that we need the megaphone. I can get very unhappy with the megaphone, rail against and gnash my teeth, or I can be about my business, which is not to say, so then we should all just collapse and not worry about it. That's not what I'm saying here. Because we do need the protesting. And we do need to set the setting of boundaries. And we do need to say no, we won't just go along. However, as a human species, I think we're being tested in terms of what are we going to be about and seek this one more step? That fig tree, which is still down the street, you're right, you know, it was accidental, some bird must have dropped a fig somewhere. And it grew and it's still growing and it knows that it's a big tree. It's not confused. It's not an orange tree. It's not a cat. It's not a human. And I look at it every you know, whenever I drive by and I go, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the reminder to be on purpose and only attend to that.
Nikishka Iyengar 14:48
Thank you for sharing that. I heard you say hospice working and or the role of a hospice worker and we talk about that a lot on this podcast, but just in like the the just Transition sort of framework of, you know, from Old World to new world, but you actually have had experience as a hospice worker. That's a unique skill set of how to be as a death doula hospice volunteer at our RSF fellowship, I've heard you tell the story, they end up I think it's in your book, too, about your time as a hospice volunteer. And I'm sure that experience was enlightening in a lot of different ways. But I'm struck by the bearing of witness, obviously, not just the person dying, but the maybe ideas and institutions and systems that you get to bear witness to the need to die as well. And there's a story that you have in the book, I still fit with that story. Gosh, okay, I cannot believe you held so much grace in that moment. So I don't know if you if you could just share that story and share kind of your lessons from that story.
Akaya Windwood 15:50
So the story was, I was volunteering, respite care. So these are people who are dying at home and their relatives or whomever would were taking care of them. And so as a respite, volunteer, I would go in for four hours a week, and just give the caregivers a break, so that they could go to laundry, take a nap. And so I got to journey with a number of folks on their final journey. And there was a woman from Norfolk, West Virginia, and so knocked on the door for the first time my daughter met me. And she said, she's white, this white woman from Norfolk, and she met me at the door and her eyes widen. And she said, Hello. And I said, I'm in hospital volunteer, and she said, Come on in. So I come in, and she's giving me kind of a strange vibe, but welcome. So I come in, and she said, Well, let me take you over to my mother who was in an extra. And I walk in, and this old white lady looks at me, like, Oh, who's in my house, and I went, Oh, I see how this is gonna go. So we were like, already this, this is not gonna work. But I was there, the daughter left. And there, I sat with this woman, and we're both looking at each other. Like, we started to talk. And over the next several months, as she, you know, I stayed with her and she stayed with me. We started to talk about race and all of the things and at one point, she said to me, Well, you know, calf, you know, how I was raised with white people and black people, we didn't ever talk to one another. And she says, now I can see that you and I have become friends. So I can see that I was wrong. But I still don't think that God intended for black people and black people to marry and have children. And I said, Well, if that's true, then I have nieces and nephews who shouldn't be here because they are mixed, as well. I just can't see how that's gonna go. But she said, you know, could be the people who feel like I do. It's time for us to that. And I didn't say I didn't say it. Fast forward. It's her last week. And she said, Well, okay, you know, I know that's coming down to the end. And I have she collected clouds of all kinds figurines, all the Chucky all clowns. She's a put aside a little present. Cory wants you to have some to remember. It's just as in the kitchen gonna get so I walked in, and here was this. He was trivet of a clown in blackface on his knee with his balloon going up here, his hand over his heart in Miami was all mammy, right. And I had a moment and I had to make a choice, because I couldn't make a choice to respond from my racial justice, social justice, you know, political, very strong point of view here, particularly as it pertains to white people in blackface. Or I could meet this as a gift from a woman who is dying, and who's actually doing a good job of dying gracefully. I chose the latter. So I picked it up. And I brought it in. And I said, Oh, I'm so touched. She said, Do you like it? I said, I will always treasure and she said, you know, my daughter, she didn't think you might like it. But I said, I think this is just right for a car. And I said, you know, I'm gonna keep this for the rest of my days. And that was the last conversation that we had. And I still have that tribute. It is hacked away. It will never come to light. But it is still with me and I will keep my word to her. Because I saw in a matter of months, a woman go from deep racism to well, it may be tough for those of us who feel the way I do to die. That's an amazing amount of transformation in a very short amount of time. So if she and do it
Nikishka Iyengar 20:01
the capacity for love. I feel like it's very, it's very big and very unique because, well, maybe not unique. But you know, just it's big. And the reason I said like we you know, I still struggle with that story and I'm sure you've you've got this from other folks is like the burden of being the graceful person and revealing of our humanity, as you know, black folks, indigenous folks, people of color, it's always on the person of color in a scenario, right to be that bigger person and white folks getting to learn at the expense of us. That's where I'm at with it still, like for the folks that are not a chi cow? How do you build that capacity? I don't know if there's anything there in terms of the burden that's based on there's one more there's, there was a paragraph in your book about, I'll just read it, it is a leadership imperative to continuously work on making ourselves whole, we can find much joy and forgiveness and redemption, not only because they're right, but also because without them the conditions for joyful exploration, collaboration, and experimentation simply cannot be created. So I see the value for leaders of color to embrace forgiveness and redemption. And I also understand that the burden has always unduly sort of placed whether in a racial context on people of color in a gender context, you know, women, trans non binary, folks,
Akaya Windwood 21:23
you know, I don't see it as a burden. Here's the truth. One of the things I learned from hospice is people die, how they live, it's very consistent. If the crankiest resistant, irritating person is going to it's gonna be hard dying. Um, for those who can lean into the new process, it's something I mean, didn't think I was going to be in right now. But here I am. And this is the new normal, and I love my people, and they love me, and we'll go through this together to have very graceful deaths. So that was a time where I said, Okay, well how the Sharla because it will indicate to me how I will die. And I saw my mother dying, she died early. And she did it very gracefully, and I have a model for it. So, you know, to bring grace as often as I can, is not a burden, because I get to grow every time. So it's not about my folks. I took the responsible, I chose, I chose I literally chose because I could have walked in there going, you know what I have had it, I can't tell you how much I have had it with this bullshit, I use my language of you know, black folks and all the oppression. And here you are, I absolutely had that available to me. And on some level, it would have been tremendously satisfying. But I reached for my compassion and my capacity for grace on purpose. And it ceased to be a burden because I chose. And I think that's the key, what can we choose in every moment, and there are never only two options. And there's nothing wrong with saying, You know what, right now, I'm not here to help you all struggle with racism. I'm not here for that, very clear about that. So if I'm in a group of white folks, and somebody's being less than skillful, I can opt out of that. That's where my power lies. I also can choose to stay in the conversation and whatever engage it. But I'm also very aware of, you know, the grace of people have given to me what I have been writing, and I haven't, right, I'm remember, I grew up a lesbian feminist. And there were men, and there were women. And we knew who the enemies were. And we were radical and all of the things right. And also, I'm there folks who say yes, so we're not either, or, there's room for us to express our gender identities in many, many ways. And I had to change, I had to really shift my commitment to lesbian separatist feminism, and to step into, oh, I can't, that's not going to serve the world who need to hold on to those old ideas. And as like any shift, it was not always graceful. And yet, I was offered a lot of grace in moments where somebody could have opted out. And I'm grateful for some days, I'm up for it. Sometimes I'm not. So I think it's important for us to be mindful of our choices in every moment, as to what we want to bring to that moment, and not get caught up in the oh, I'm supposed to collapse as a woman and make him more comfortable. Or as a black person. I'm just gonna shut up and let them say what they're going to say. That's an option, but not the only option. Yeah,
Nikishka Iyengar 24:43
I mean, I think that like what you said even earlier around, like, what's your work to do? I think that like there are some people were like, it might not be their work to hold the white person's hand and, you know, yeah, and there's a lot of white people that are now I think, stepping into that role of holding other white folks hands as they go through this. Yeah. And I mean, is there a role for, you know, as a practitioner, but like a student of abolition and transformative justice, I think there's also there was a story in the book about an incident in Kenya, where one of you are working and the principal or somebody that was like embezzling funds from the school and how that whole situation was handled, as opposed to it being sort of like, inflammatory and like coming at him and accusatory, there was a container built for real accountability for him to grapple with his actions and how it impacted the community. And, yeah, I think there's two things. One, I would love for you to share a little bit more about that story and what was resonant and what the learning there was, but then to the reverse split that you were talking about, that might be that the folks on the other side, is there, is there a duty that we have to bring everybody along? Or do we just leave some people behind? Three?
Akaya Windwood 25:57
Yeah, great questions. So the story in Kenya was actually Roger Spinney, we decided not to say, here's her story, here's my story, just cuz, right. But what I love about that story is that they've never lost track of everybody's humanity, that we have the capacity to remember that. And if we remember that, then what we do when people make choices that are not in alignment with what we all want, we have a number of options. Here, the US is often binary, you're right, you're wrong. And if you're wrong, and they're here, the consequences and the judicial system is set up for that. And we have precedent and an Off you go to whatever it is, in this case, and, you know, having the skill to sit patiently and ask the question, what's best for all concern here, because we want to keep the community whole, who want to have this person have accountability, again, the remembering, oh, this is a human like me, this human has a heart like me, this human has made a mistake, like I have. So that intimate, inter relationship through remembering that is crucial, and we have to come up with, with new ways of holding each other accountable. It's not even about leaving behind, right? Because then if I feel like, Oh, I'm leaving them behind, then there's something wrong in my choice, we can all choose to come along. And there are those who will not choose to. So you're talking about you're out here at this podcast, this whole thing saying Let's all think together here, right? I'm over here saying let's bring some joy along. And you're You're welcome. Come on, y'all, let's go. That Come on, y'all, let's go then creates an invitation for folks to come along. If somebody says I don't want to come, then I'm not leaving them behind. They're choosing not to. That's why I have no interest in dragging anybody along the does not want to come, right, that's coercion. And I'm done with that. So I can have compassion, and they can fall off the cliff and I can go, your choice. And here we go. And I'm not being Cavalier here at all. Now, there's the other trick, right? There are those who are going to come along that we might not prefer, which is why the how we do this isn't as important as the what we do and where we go. Because we don't want to bring the O in crowd out crowd right people, wrong people, good people, bad people, holy people,
those dichotomies are those binaries, who don't want to bring those along, and it's gonna be really tempting to. So I expect that there will be folks on this journey with us that I'm going to let you know. And there was, Oh, that's my preference, that I don't prefer that person. And that's only says something about me. Yeah, I appreciate that. Because we can't talk about transformative justice and abolition is like these abstract concepts, because that Kenya example was so you know, when people asked like, well, if you want to defund the police and you know, get rid of the police, well, who are you going to call when somebody steals from you? And well, that was a great example of how we can address and hold people accountable when they do cause harm, but still make sure everybody walks out of that hole, including,
you know, the folks that have been impacted by it and folks that were like the perpetrator. So I appreciate you framing it like that. Imagine a world where stealing isn't necessarily one of the things I think we're going to have to grapple with is capitalism is falling apart. It is. And so, you know, people are talking about mutual aid societies and universal basic income. And you know, what, if every child had a full belly when they went to sleep at night, everybody who chose to live in a house had a house and there was good work, or ways to contribute for everyone independent on what your income might be, or might not be that So do we have societies that teach us that that's so doable? So I would imagine there could come a time and hopefully in our lifetime, mine probably got enough 30 years. So you may see the glimmers of it, you'll probably live it there your kids will, where there's no need to steal. So the notion of transgression will shift. And that says it should be. That's what I'm leading toward.
Nikishka Iyengar 30:24
How about you? Yeah, absolutely. Since learning more about abolition in the last four or five years, when something happens, you know, it could be like the killing of another, like, in the example of Carrie Nichols, which is so many countless examples like that, you know, people ask me, well, don't you want this person to be brought to justice? Now, friends that maybe aren't all the way or haven't taken the time necessarily yet to learn about it? And I think, well, justice doesn't look like the prison industrial complex, becoming stronger. Justice has to look different and includes also to your point, addressing structural violence and addressing the root causes. So I appreciate that. So that's something we try to keep bringing back on this podcast is when we talk about violence, we don't see you know, a kid going to sleep on an empty belly as violence. But that's, that's structural. Yeah, especially in a world where that is totally unnecessary.
Akaya Windwood 31:20
I haven't been using the word justice lately, because I'm not sure what it means anymore. It's always been an abstract kind of the moral arc of the universities toward justice. And we have been a social justice activist for my whole life. But I'm not sure what it means anymore, because it feels like it has devolved a bit into a revenge, like justice is revenge, right? And I'm uncomfortable with that, if we're going to use the word justice ammonius. Unpack it, what do you mean by it? Because you may, I'm guessing you have a different definition. And I think we're using that particular word with very different frames. And yet, they say, Well, we're here for justice.
And you know, then we look at some of the ways that we're trying to get outside of the carceral system, we have to define justice more carefully, to your point around people's humanity being intact. We know we're fighting the carceral system. And also, sometimes we just in the ways that we like have internalized capitalism, we've internalized harsh reality. And I think that's all of our work to do, if we wanted.
And I also then want to remind us that we're not wrong for carrying those patterns. Yeah, those patterns were here before any of us were poor. And so they got written into our psychic dna, and not our fault. That said, it is our responsibility to remember our humanity and each other's and go, Oh, that's my pattern thinking. And I have choices about it. Now. What about it? Do I want to keep what might I want to shift? I want my I want to go up as an adult human, that takes it out of the oh, she's stuck in whatever politics she is in. And I'm so tired of that. And I'm so tired of people in our social movements, picking each other up picking each other apart, because our politics aren't pure enough, or they don't have the right perspective. And that kind of oh, I can show how smart I am by being the one who is always criticizing that pattern has to stop. Because if I can say, Oh, so this is how I understand the world. This person who actually tried to build the kind of world I'm hoping for sees it very differently. And I can be curious, as opposed to judgmental, because I can choose curiosity, and we can, and we can differ and then the microaggressions will happen. Oh my god, it's, it's a micro aggression. Well, yeah, that's gonna happen. Because it will, it's gonna be, there's nothing wrong with that it means that we're actually in active engagement with each other. And we're not going to set up contexts where there's no aggression or micro aggression. That's, that's not where we're headed. Because we're humans, and we're going to differ so let's get more graceful and skilled in how we differ so that no one gets kicked out of the circle because they don't believe the same thing I believe. Because we knew this all Yeah.
Nikishka Iyengar 34:42
For those of us who are going to come along, right, yeah, yeah, that's been a learning for me in movement spaces over the last few years around like even just like looking at conflict as a thing that is not just inevitable but can be generative and to your point, like leaning in with curiosity rather than like this unitive binary, you're wrong. You're right.
Akaya Windwood 35:03
It is a lot of of the work that I think our movements are actively grappling with right now. And I was able to see that conflict is necessary. It's essential. We're gonna be just one homogenous soup. How boring is that? That's not the path I'm on. It's how do we disagree? Well, with grace and skill, and each other some slack. Yeah,
Nikishka Iyengar 35:28
there's a level of like, I have noticed this in myself of hyper vigilance, because you're so afraid to make a mistake to say the wrong thing to do whatever. Because I will mean, you were cut out, right? And I might have inadvertently done that to somebody and I'm hyper vigilant about myself to make sure I'm showing up perfectly in all these spaces. And also, the irony there is like that perfectionism.
Akaya Windwood 35:54
Right, go right back to white supremacy, right? Yeah, and nobody's perfect. And we're all gonna make mistakes. And there's a huge cost to hyper vigilance because it means I can't relax and just be among my people. So if I'm always looking for Okay, who's saying the wrong thing, or am I saying the wrong thing? Or oh my gosh, they said the wrong thing. And and the risk then is, is censure or abandon? And I've seen, you know, I've been to zoos work for a while you get banned for life. Sometimes. I'm thinking about oh, Rachel Dolezal and wondering, you know, what's your life like now? Right? She made a very miscalculated mistake. But so you see that as a mistake, rather than like,
Nikishka Iyengar 36:40
I mean, I hear you, and also just like, Okay, what do we do with a Rachel dollars? Oh, maybe that's not even our worker. That would be an interesting restorative justice conversation. Wouldn't
Akaya Windwood 36:50
it be? Yeah. banishment. I mean, the woman was impersonating a black person, but she was in freakin white Landia trying to run NAACP so that the black folks had some space. Now had she done that as a white woman, we would all be gone. Look at her. She's such a strong ally. She chose to impersonate a black person. That's not what I would choose. But I'm sitting there going? Is that what we're going to know her for for the rest of your life? What if she's grown? What if she has, you know, come to understand what she was trying to do and make peace with that and make restoration in the world? Is there space for that? And maybe there's space for it. But it doesn't that space doesn't have to be a platform? Exactly, exactly. Or it could be a platform for this is what happens when we make a big freakin mistake. And this is how we redeem ourselves. And this is how the main deck could be an interesting platform. We're not ready for that. I think people are still so appalled that How dare Well, you know, blackface is an old tradition. It just hasn't come with power.
Nikishka Iyengar 38:04
Right? That's the that's the difference here.
Akaya Windwood 38:06
What can we learn from this? Absolutely. Do I need to spend the rest of my days getting my blood pressure up? The minute I hear that words, Rachel doles out? No, no, that's not a good use of me. I hope she's doing all right. I really do. That's an honest, I hope Rachel is doing all right. Because I have my work to do and it's not monitoring her. Yeah. Well, speaking of your work to do,
Nikishka Iyengar 38:28
I'm so excited. I read your New York Times Op Ed, I saw everything that's coming up with the third act. I have as a millennial have probably used the words Okay, Boomer before, usually directed at white men, but you are now with you know, an environmentalist, but a boomer white man, tell us about the third act. Tell us what it's about how and why it came to be and where you're headed with that?
Akaya Windwood 38:53
Well, as a boomer, I'm saying it's okay. Right. We're going to work and come back. So I made reference to what we were doing in our my young, young days, right, and the 60s and 70s. All that social upheaval and questioning and marching in the streets and singing and all the things for many of us, older than 5060 that we then, you know, hit the Reagan era and the AIDS pandemic and all the things and so we just kind of put our heads down, went to work, raise our families, did the thing and are now at a time in our lives where generationally. We have a lot of time and generationally. We have a lot of resources. 70% of the resources in this country are controlled by people over 60. That's a lot of money. And that's not to say everybody over 60s wealthy at all. There's still but as a generation, so it's time it's time for us to you know, get back in the game in a different way. Because many of us who grew up in that time I've stayed in the work, many of us. And then there were a lot who didn't? Who what we're finding and amazing ways is that people are saying, Yeah, I want to contribute. I don't know how. So we went from zero. You know, we've certainly been a year, year and a third, right since we started, we went from zero to almost 50,000 people in a very short amount of time. There's huge interest. Of course, staff, they're trying to keep up with it. Right. I'm glad I'm not on staff. But Bill McKibben, my partner in crime and the SR, Cara, who's our president. Yeah, I'm having a bit of a falling in love with old white guys, again, not across the board. It's also very interesting coming from where I come from, because I've never organized white folks before. My focus has been on people color women, you know, all of that. So, hey, here's this demographic of people that are now my people. And we're up for it. So I have been hosting a series or will be hosting my first one of what I'm calling cross generation conversations, particularly on eldering. As elders, we can begin to elder Well, are we good elders, but we're going to need information from your generations so that we don't just do that Boomer thing, which is we know everything, because we don't know everything. So I'm loving that work. It's volunteer, and being able to say, yeah, yeah, that's all boomers and older, because there's still the silent generation ahead of us, we've got to sort of step up in a new way. And let's do that, and not think that we have to be in charge of everything, and really support your generations leadership. So you know, I talk about the importance of older folks stepping beside you, and supporting you, as opposed to stepping away, right, lean on us, help tell us how we can be useful to you, because you're the ones who are going to lead us into the future, I can only think 30 years ahead. You can think at least three times or twice that many ahead. I want to make sure you have what you need, so that this new world comes into real being I trusted. That's amazing. Yeah, you mentioned the stat around the wealth of resources that are held is there like a push for some kind of like redistribution or something like that, because I was thinking about our RSS fellowship, where I met you. And that was my first entry point to have any sort of connection with like, crazy wealthy folks,
Nikishka Iyengar 42:36
I had just never ever been in the same room like that with people that would even know those people. That was my first introduction to him. And I became aware through the fellowship and through you holding space for us all in building that container that that well porting that had happened involved, or one of the impacts of that was also like the loss of humanity for the world, Porter. And how might we or how might they let go of some of that to usher in this new world,
Akaya Windwood 43:03
it's emerging. So we started with the primary work is around climate and the political arena around race and class and gender and that kind of thing, right? Racial Justice, those are our major focuses now, and there's a lot of overlap, as you might imagine, part of what I'm bringing is just that piece around, look, we're gonna have a huge transfer of wealth soon, because one thing is sure that we're dying, that's going to happen. So we can get a whole bunch of new members and assume we're gonna have attrition, and let's call it that. So there's going to be this huge wealth transfer, I'm wanting to really talk about how that can happen in a way that that interrupts the let me just hand it to my particular sons and daughters and children and their children. So it gets more consolidated. And we hoard more, I'm wanting us to be thinking, how can we be generous as we have these resources along? What can that look like? How can we interrupt capitalist pattern enough to be able to say, let's make sure every child goes to the worker full belly, that's our collective
Nikishka Iyengar 44:09
responsibility. Thank you. I'm so sad. We're like right at time. But this has just been a great conversation. It's so nice to catch up with you. You have your like a model for becoming an elder in this movement, above and beyond the work of like being an ancestor and training and like, what do you want to leave behind for the next generations. And it's really nice to have an example that you can be in relationship with and kind of witness and think about now even in my early 30s, where I want my life to go. So I really appreciate you modeling that for us.
Akaya Windwood 44:42
I'm grateful that you invited me into this conversation. I think these cross generation conversations are so important that we can go Oh, I see it very differently than you and so how can we then together bring a lot more wisdom than any one of us can bring ourselves? Thank you for being Brilliant, thank you for bringing in the next generation after you, thank you for all that you're trying to make happen. I know it will happen. I have no doubt in my heart at all my mind can doubt now and again, I have no doubt that we are right on
Nikishka Iyengar 45:14
time, and right on. Thank you so, so much. If there's any way that I can support you, with all the work you're doing to please,
Akaya Windwood 45:27
what I need you to do is do exactly what you hear. That's the best way to support
Nikishka Iyengar 45:36
you. Thank you so much.
RTR Themed Outro 45:43
Thank you for joining us on the road to repair. Our greatest hope is that this show will have a transformative impact for those of you tuning in the road to repair podcast is produced by Andrew X. Nick Kiska I in Garland and Jessica Norwood with amazing post production support from Andrew X. Music for the show was produced by Andrew x in close collaboration with artists and sound designer Zachary Seth Green in the luscious vocals and original poetics of nyeem of Panama. She shout out to Sophia hood. For all the amazing artwork, you can check out more of their great work on our website, you can find the link at the road to repair.com We always love the social media shout outs and you can help this message ripple out to those who might really benefit from it by rating this show and leaving your review on Apple podcast. And if you feel so called you can make a donation to support the show at WWW dot rho to repair.com. Thanks again for tuning in and stay tuned for our next episode.
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