Black LIves Rising with Lola Small
TWO BLACK GIRLS TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING PODCAST: EPISODE 4
This episode not only talks about the importance of the movement Black Lives Matter but the next steps in creating opportunities and platforms for Black Lives to rise. Dianne and Dee talk to creator and founder of Black Lives Rising on her vision for the future of equity.
Show Notes
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Transcript
Lola (00:00):
Anti-racist work is an act of love. We do this and whatever way we can, however way we’re doing it because we love those who are affected. We love our humanity and we love the world that we live in.
Dianne (00:23):
Welcome to The Two Black Girls Talk About Everything podcast. I’m Dianne.
Dee (00:26):
And I’m Dee. We’re going to be talking about everything.
Dianne (00:30):
We’re going to be talking about yoga and fashion and just everything Black girls talk about. In this episode, we’ll be talking to the founder and creator of Black Lives Rising, Lola Small. Lola will talk to us about the importance of creating powerful platforms that help elevate the lives and the voices of Black people.
Dee (00:54):
Lola is a Taiwanese Canadian women’s empowerment coach, international best selling author, and a social activist. She has over 20 years of combined experience in teacher training, curriculum design, mind, body, fitness, education, athletic event management, and empowerment coaching. She is the founder of a new platform called Black Lives Rising to provide resources and support for the Black community, especially for emerging leaders, Black parents, and mixed families.
Dianne (01:28):
Welcome to the podcast.
Lola (01:30):
Thank you so much. Yes, that is me. Thank you for the intro.
Dee (01:33):
We’re so excited to have you, Lola.
Dianne (01:35):
We are. We are. We wanted to talk to you because we know since May or June of 2020, when we all saw George Floyd die in real-time, that Black Lives Matter has taken on a new kind of elevation. I’ve said this a lot on a lot of podcasts I’ve spoken on and in public that prior to George Floyd dying, when I used to put Black Lives Matter up on my Instagram page, I would have thousands of people just unfollow me. I’ve had arguments online with people that Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization. I run the gamut with Black Lives Matter, people’s reaction to it. Then we saw a quick pivot in the spring where we saw police brutality up close and in real-time, and then all of a sudden Black Lives Matter was trending and I was getting tens of thousands of new followers all the time. People were sharing their platforms and there was raising people’s voices.
Dianne (02:38):
I was taking over prominent Instagrammers platforms and sharing my life because people wanted to elevate Black voices. Then that was on the surge for a while and I knew it was going to level off. Then it leveled off and then people lost interest. Black Lives Matter stopped trending. I think I read some statistics somewhere, I’ll try to look them up and post them in the show notes, that we’ve had a big drop in the support for Black Lives Matter. Now, the Americans have a brand new administration who has actually named systemic racism and is trying really hard to push back or fight back against it with new policies with this new administration. I feel like there’s going to be a lot more pushback with the rise of Trumpism and all those things.
Dianne (03:29):
I remember talking to you about the importance of Black Lives Matter, and you saying something really key to me that just sticks in my mind every time I see Black Lives Rising. Black Lives Matter, you said, is the minimwe can do. That’s what you told me. It’s the minimwe can do. Tell me, what is your vision for Black Lives Rising? Tell me, what inspired it and what’s your vision going forward? I know. That’s a big question.
Lola (03:57):
It’s perfect because it’s exactly what it is. It’s a very big mountain that we are climbing. I think the word that you said at the beginning was perfect, elevation. Elevation. For me, just a little bit of a background info, I’m Asian and my husband is Black. Of course, our four-year-old son, even at his age, knows that he’s, Blasian. That he’s a mix of both. When all the events happened last summer, it was of course a no-brainer that we had to participate. We were here raising a future leader. That, of course, is very relevant to our family. When we went to a couple of the marches here in Hamilton and as well and in Windsor as well, it just didn’t make sense to me that I had to defend or prove that my husband and my son was just as worthy as your husband and your son.
Lola (04:53):
Does that not sound absurd that any person with any sort of IQ would of course cognitively know yes, that’s of course true that a Black person’s life mattered. Even those who oppress Black people know that fact. Really for me, the way I see it is I’m not here to argue with you that they matter. You know they matter. I cannot control how people treat my son or my husband but I can control how I help them to rise to their best so they can go out and claim what’s theirs.
Dee (05:27):
Wow.
Lola (05:28):
The way I see it, the word critical mass kept coming to me because we have this little seesaw right now where obviously our current world and our current system is all, White centered, right? The only way for us to pivot and shift that seesaw is when we have a critical mass big enough rising on this side while we do the deconstructing and the dismantling. Those things have to happen at the same time. For me, I choose to be on this side where I’m helping the rising. For those who feel called to dismantle and destroy and deconstruct so that we can rebuild, we then get to meet in the middle and create something new and beautiful and better for every person involved.
Dee (06:22):
I love that. I love that.
Dianne (06:26):
I got chills. I just think it’s a brilliant concept. A brilliant concept. That idea of critical mass, I like the analogy that you make that example of being on a Seesawthat. That right now it’s really heavy with that White-centered world and that we need to build up the other side so we run into the middle. I’m just hoping against all hopes that the momentaround Black Lives Matter. Doesn’t bottom out all together and that we grow bigger moment around Black lives rising. Because what I saw with the world as it’s evolving is the rise of hate groups, right? There’s a lot of pushback, I think because there’s a lot of fear within White communities. This is just an observation.
Dianne (07:15):
Honestly, this is my thought, that because we’ve been oppressed as a people for so long BiPAC, Black Indigenous People of Color have been oppressed for so long, that as the demographics in the world start shifting, a nd when I mean the world,I mostly mean North America, because in the world, people of color hold the majority of the population. But in North America, currently right now, White holds the majority of the population which is why everything is always so White-centered. Colonization and the genocide of indigenous people. We all know the history, right? I feel like as the population is beginning to shift, and I believe it’s either 2040, or 2050, people of color will represent the majority of the population.
Dianne (07:58):
I feel this rise in White supremacist groups and this rise and vitriol and hate is a direct reaction to that idea that they may lose power or that people who have been oppressed by White supremacywill now act the way our oppressors have acted towards us. The oppressed will become the oppressor. There’s this weird idea that that’s going to happen. As far as I can tell, and I’ve been to all the meetings — that’s my joke — Black folks and people of color are not interested in impressing White folks at all. We’re interested in the same opportunities and the same access to opportunities as White folks have currently. We want to acknowledge our contributions to the history and to the building of this country, and that’s all we’re asking for. I don’t know why that is so hard for the dominant culture to understand.
Lola (08:53):
This idea of the fear behind the, “Oh my gosh, if this group rises, that would mean that’s less for us.” It’s not that kind of pie. The abundance of this universe, there is more than enough for everybody. This is just not just a race thing. It also is in the concept of money, t’s in the concept of worth and respect and love, that there is more than enough. Race is just one representation of it. I get really tired of trying to defend and teach and teaching them the things that it’s just a fact of life in the universe. I’d rather conserve my energy and pour it all into how I can empower my son to be the person who will create the world that we want to see.
Dianne (10:00):
Absolutely.
Dee (10:01):
Lola, how are you explaining these things to your son? Like you were saying you guys were going out to marches and I know seeing on your social media, you guys, supporting this cause what is the conversation like with him?
Lola (10:16):
I love that question because I think that’s another really important point when it comes to critical mass is that most people think, “Oh my gosh, we live in Canada. It has nothing to do with us,” or, “Oh, well, I don’t have Black people in my family so what am I supposed to do?” Some people, some people are more invested than other people but yet it influences all of us. All of us have our own peace and our own contribution to this whole picture. For me, and those with kids, our kids especially, this generation, they’re amazing beyond words. They are wise in a way that we don’t even know.
Lola (10:55):
With all this stuff happening, there is a way to sit to talk to them about it in a way they understand because it comes down to the very basic concepts of fear, and hate, and respect, and love, and all those basic human emotions. We do our best to include him in the conversation using language and examples that he understands and include him in activities. Definitely the marches, the things that we are able to find on YouTube or Netflix. There are so many resources now. Books of course, are a huge resource because he is the answer. He is part of the solution soo it would be silly to not include him even at age four. Hopefully, through this conversation, whoever’s listening, for those who have kids, regardless of what age and regardless of what race you are, you have a part and you can do something in this grand scheme of things.
Dee (11:59):
My question also is, four years ago, when you had your son, was this something that you thought would be a fight? That would be a thing?
Lola (12:13):
Oh my God, no. It’s crazy. There are so many layers to this question and this answer. I’ve had people ask me, “Oh my God. How do your parents feel about you marrying a Black man?” Conversations like that. You know that it was it was going to be a thing at some point. Obviously, never would I have imagined that all of a sudden — My life’s work has been on girls empowerment and women’s empowerment but last year and this year, I’m now shifting and pivoting, and pivoting like everybody else, to now this being my main work.
Lola (12:47):
I cannot think of a better legacy for me to leave than to do work that will directly benefit my child and my husband, of course. He gets a little jealous because I always talk about just our son, but of course it’s for him. I read somewhere that was so good. Anti-racist work is an act of love. We do this in whatever we can, however way we’re doing it because we love those who are affected, we love our humanity, and we love the world that we live in so we do what we can to try to elevate that.
Dee (13:25):
I love that because I spend a lot of time on social media and I recently saw an infographic, I think if you scroll through my feed, of the wellness community. We know that the wellness community is very White-centered. A lot of White women wellness stuff going on out there. Somebody had re-imagined the wellness community to involve activism and anti-racist work. Just to clarify, anti-racist work is when you actually are doing something to dismantle racism. Non-racist is like, “Well, I’ve never said the N word and my family never owned slaves.” There’s no action behind it and I feel like the intention is, I’m going to put in quotes “well-meaning” but not engaged. Whereas anti-racism work is I’m going out there and doing something to change the state of the world and to actively deconstruct something.
Dee (14:26):
Not saying the N word and not seeing color and pretending to be an ally that way, or being performative in your allyship I think aligns more with non-racist ideology as opposed to anti-racist ideology. I love the comedian social commentary, pop culture critic, Amanda SealEs. She’s got a book called I Be Knowin’ and she makes an analogy. There are people out in the world who are White people, and then there are people in the world who happened to be White. The people in the world who happen to be White understand the humanity of people who are also BiPAC. People who are White have no kind of self-awareness around where they are on the social structure and how they continue to contribute to the oppression of marginalized groups. I think that’s very interesting.
Dee (15:23):
Another thing I wanted to touch on that came up a lot for me is the idea of anti-Blackness in the Asian community. I follow a lot of Asian creators on TiKToK and South Asian creators because anti-Black racism happens globally and I cannot figure out what we did as a people that would make the world hate us, all of us, because of the amount of melanin our Malana sites in our skin make. What has been your reaction? Because you did touch on this with, “Oh, how do your family feel about you marrying a Black man?” What is your interaction or experience with anti-Black racism within the Asian community?
Lola (16:10):
It’s so interesting because I was born in Taiwan, my family and I moved to Oregon when I was 11. Oregon is a pretty White state.
Dee (16:20):
I was just going to say.
Lola (16:20):
Not very diverse. That was my first exposure to White people because growing up in Taiwan, all I’ve seen is Taiwanese people. Then my family and I moved to South Carolina when I was 13 and that was my first exposure to Black people. You can imagine, as a child, going from this is all I know to now all of a sudden that expanding and then expanding. There’s a big reckoning that has to happen. Then it’s like, “Okay, what am I knowing about all of this?” My answer to your question is it’s all media, right? It’s all media. Meaning before I met a Black person, I had no idea, I had no clue anything about what a Black person — Whatever. All the connotations that came with that.
Lola (17:12):
I remember a boy, his name was Michael and he’s Black, and him saying to me, “You go back to where you’re from.” I didn’t know what to say so the only thing I knew how to say was, “You go back to where you’re from.” What does that even mean? Most Asian people in Asia, all they know about Black people and Black culture is from television. From movies, from music, from the mainstream, pop, everything. Whatever is portrayed in the dominant media is what their understanding of Black people are. Just like if here in North America, that’s the exposure you’re getting so of course, you’re going to have the same attitudes and discriminatory views on what you’re seeing. In all of this change, the media has to change. It plays such a huge role because it’s what we now globally, especially with social media on our phones, those are the things that people are observing.
Dee (18:18):
I had a very similar experience as you Lola. My mother is Portuguese and my dad is African Canadian. I remember getting to a certain age and not really knowing the difference, not knowing anything. I guess in my head, I thought I have one parent that when I look back, one was one shade, one with the other, and I just thought every child had had parents like that. I remember a boy at school, my dad dropped me off, seeing my dad and he was saying, “Your dad’s Black?” and I was like, “Yes, so?” but walking away and thinking, “What? What does that even mean?” It’s the coming to just that realization. Go ahead, Dianne.
Dianne (19:13):
I was just going to say that that’s your, that’s your only point of reference. I think it’s really important to highlight how much the media has shaped, what we believe about each other, right? Because the Asian stereotype is the model minority. They’re smart, they’re hardworking, they’re great at math, they’re not lazy. It’s just the stereotype. If you’ve never interacted with an Asian person before, that is what you would believe because that’s what the media portrays. On the flip side of that, the African-American, the Canadian American, the Caribbean and the Black stereotype is like, “They’re lazy, and they’re on welfare, and they’re not very smart.”
Dianne (19:55):
As a little Black girl growing up in a very White community, my brother, sister and I were the only Black kids in our grade school I think until about the seventh grade. Then when other schools that only went up to the sixth grade, we had other kids bused in, that was the first time I was exposed to other Black people in my class. That’s so hard because all of your identity is fed to you by the media and the majority of the stories that are being told about people who are marginalized or are part of the BIPAC community, all those stories are told by White folks at this point, for the most part.
Dianne (20:35):
I would say it’s only been in the past 10 years or maybe 20 years even, or maybe even 30 years even, where Black creators get to tell our stories. That Black people get to tell their own stories and Asian people get to tell their own stories. Even when I look at the Asian community, I went and saw the movie crazy rich Asians and prior to seeing that movie, the movie before that, that I can remember that was so focused on Asian culture would have been the cartoon variation of Mulan which was maybe 20 years prior to that. Then the Joy Luck Club and then is it Hidden Dragon Crouching Tiger? Four Asian movies, some of them in mythology, some of them kind of true stories like Joy Luck Club.
Dianne (21:24):
Before that, what exposure would I have ever had to Asian people? Only the stereotype. And for the most part, I find the stereotype of Asian people by White culture tends to be positive. The model minority. Look at them. They’ve managed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Why can’t Black folks? Black folks stopped being valuable to White folks after slavery ended. They were no longer interested in our health outcomes, they were no longer interested in equality, and they’re always telling Black folks to pull yourself up from the bootstraps when they’re holding the boots, right? You have to have boots to pull yourself up.
Dianne (22:02):
I think it’s really unfortunate that people don’t understand that, right? The playing field hasn’t been level for a long time. You’ve had hundreds of years of a headstart. If we have to have policies in place, if we have to have hiring policies in place, it’s part of that pivot you said. It’s part of the Seesaw in creating that equality. We have to load the other side to bring it to even, and if your feelings are hurt that people of color or Black folks are getting what you deem a leg up, or what you deem taking your space, then you’re buying into White supremacy. The White supremacist aspect of that is that you think you have a space that’s being taken from you. I think that’s the delusion of White supremacy.
Lola (22:48):
Yes. With Black History Month being next week-
Dianne (22:52):
Right now, yeah.
Lola (22:52):
Right now. Yes, we need to know the history. We need to learn, what’s happened up to this point. We’ve been doing Black history for a long time, right? Mainstream media and internet and all this stuff, and schools, whatever has been doing Black History Month for many months now. It’s okay, yes, let’s learn, but now let’s create new history. I’m interested in creating new history. Every person right now has the choice to be on the right side of history and create something new. I really hope to see more of the conversation and more of the actions being focused on this side of the curtain.
Dianne (23:40):
Agreed. It’s time. it’s time. And we always tell a Black history from the place of slavery, right? Or enslavement. That’s where Black history starts in North America for a lot of people. I would really love to know who we were prior to that, and we don’t have that. We don’t get to learn who we were prior to that because that’s the stories that everybody always wants to tell. I find it very hard living here in Canada, to get a clear vision of what Black history looks like and our place in culture because in Canada, we don’t really talk about Black history. I think I’ve learned more about the roots of Black history from Dee and her telling her stories. You worked at the Black history museum from high school so you had to learn it yourself as well.
Dianne (24:31):
We don’t teach it in school as a platform or as a positive place to pivot to the other side of the curtain. That we were powerful people before and we can draw on that power. We created so many wonderful things. We contributed so much to this country that we don’t get to learn about. I think if you have that understanding of how powerful you are, as opposed to like you’re this you’re that or whatever the stereotype is, I think it gives you more of a springboard to do bigger things on the other side of that curtain.
Lola (25:06):
It’s funny because growing up in Oregon, in the States, I remember you hear muticulturalism and that here and there. I think for the current education system, the fact that it’s so White. Not even the education system institutionally within the families and on an individual level, White culture, White people, White, everything needs more to learn more real self-love because when you can do that and when you can, you can have that. You can then really appreciate what multiculturalism has to bring, right? You can’t really respect and really, truly believe that multiculturalism is beautiful until you’ve learned to accept that I too am beautiful and worth loving. Then you can love all these others that are different from you on the outside, but on the inside, we’re skins and bones, and hearts, and brain, and fear, and love. We’re all the same. S H I T if I may say that on here.
Dianne (26:13):
You can swear. It’s cool.
Lola (26:13):
You know what I mean? I don’t know how many different ways we can say this but we’re all the same on the inside. The quicker we can realize that, the quicker we can get to constructive things.
Dianne (26:28):
Agreed.
Dee (26:28):
That’s right. That’s right.
Dianne (26:32):
It has been such a struggleto constantly be educating people about our shared humanity and I’m hoping in the future, I’m hoping with next generation that because they’re growing up in a much more, day I say, multicultural landscape, that they can move beyond that. That they can see the similarities in each other and they can empathize with each other. Nathan, my son, and if you’re looking at all of the Black Lives Rising memes and stuff, our kids are in it. If you didn’t figure out, Lola’s my sister-in-law. My son had a media arts project and him and his best friend Dante, who is Italian and French, did a podcast. That was their media arts project. They called it the Mediocre podcast which I thought was hilarious. They interviewed like five people for the podcast.
Dianne (27:31):
They interviewed me around what Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter versus Blue Lives Matter. What does structural racism look like? All the questions. Nathan’s best friend Dante was really engaged in this conversation and he interviewed me. He came with a list of really well thought out questions for a 15-year old. He even said, “I’ve been to the mall with Nathan and I see the different reactions that store owners have toward me when I’m in a store touching something and they have towards him.” He goes, “I can see it firsthand.” I am so grateful for that so I need us to figure out more ways to integrate with each other. Figure out more ways in your friend circles why you don’t have friends that don’t look different from you.
Dianne (28:18):
When you’re scrolling through your social media feeds, why aren’t there more people of color in your social media feeds? Because the minute you interact with somebody, you’re going to say just what you said, Lola, that we all want the same things. We want to be heard. We want to be seen. We want to be loved. We want to have opportunities the same. We want the same opportunities as everybody else. If you’ve only surrounded yourself with people who look like you and have the same lived experiences as you, you’re never going to have the empathy or the understanding of someone else. That’s a sad and sorry life in my opinion.
Dee (28:50):
I think it’s difficult too for every culture because to absorb this understanding of what pivoting is because they’re stuck in this space where they’re always fighting to either defend themselves or fighting for a space. I think Lola nailed it when she said, “Once we can learn to accept and love ourselves,” and that also comes with forgiveness, right? Forgiveness, then we can maybe eventually come together.
Lola (29:32):
Yes, there is hope. There is always hope. I think this isreally more so well in the States where traveling and experiencing other cultures by traveling, getting out of your own bubble, is so important. Not traveling like, “Let’s go somewhere and just go to an all-inclusive and never seen the actual country that you’re visiting.” I didn’t appreciate it when I was younger but now, looking back, I’m so grateful that I had the chance to grow up in Taiwan, and the growing up in the States, different parts of the States, going back to Taiwan, coming to Canada for university. Who knows where we will be next? This is something that’s very important to my husband and I is “Okay, how are we going to raise Jordi, our son, so that he can experience the world?”So he’s not stuck in one little White suburb for the rest of his life.” Because that is detrimental.
Dianne (30:31):
Yeah. It’s detrimental to your identity, your self identity, all of the things, that you need to have a broader understanding of the world. I really love the idea of Black Lives Rising. You talked about Black Lives Rising offering opportunities for education. How will Black Lives Rising do that? What’s your vision around educating people on how to get out of their own circle or under their own bubble?
Lola (30:58):
This whole movement or initiative or whatever you want to call it, of course, started very organically. it started from a pure place of love for my son where I have to do something. Me, as a mom, I have to do something. I’m going to cry when I say that because I always do. You need to figure it out something you can do that makes sense. The more we do and the more we put into this work, the less struggle he will have to deal with. It organically grew from just my passion for that and doing things the only way I know how, which is grassroots. Which is connecting with other people and starting from the community. People think that change has to happen in huge ways from the top down.
Lola (31:45):
That would be great. If that could happen, that would be great. But at the same time, people forget that a lot of the major changes and shifts and transformations happening in society started from the ground up and we are the ground up, right? Me as a mom, you as a mom, you as a mom, whoever. All of us placing our stake in that and rising together. For me, I see this education, access is the big word. As a certified coach, whenever I coach women, people pay me money to be coached to get to their goals, but what if you don’t have that money? What if you don’t have access? That’s usually one of the biggest barriers to the marginalized communities rising is because they don’t have the same access as other people.
Lola (32:32):
I want to be able to, create something online, obviously, because we’re such a global village, and to be able to have BIPAPC voices, BIPAC expertise be the education pieces that they then can share to be absorbed by the Black community so that a Black mom, an emerging Black leader, or parents and kids, they can come to this central space to find the things that they need to empower themselves.
Dianne (32:58):
That’s fantastic.
Lola (32:58):
Access. Access is the core of it all. To have access to the things to help ourselves rise.
Dianne (33:11):
Yeah. Access is the key, right? That’s the thing that’s lacking for communities of color is access or in some cases, people call it the seat at the table. You’re creating the table, right?
Lola (33:21):
Oh yes. Yes. I love that. It’s not even like, “Okay, let’s bring a folding chair if there’s not chair for me at the table.” No. We’re just creating new tables and we’re creating new banquet halls and we’re inviting everybody who is into this cause which is equality for humanity and everybody and love, to join us. It’s a party.
Dianne (33:42):
It’s definitely a party. What I found in communities of color in particular is that we tend to want to serve our communities, right? We tend to want to uplift our communities and when we do that, everyone benefits. We can see a direct correlation of that with what’s going on in the United States with the rise of the new administration because communities of color banded together and said, “Okay, we’ve had enough with this White supremacist government. We’ve had enough with people out to get us. We need to do things for our community.” When we do things for our communities together, everyone benefits. It’s that old adage that an incoming tide raises all ships, right? It’s not the all or nothing mentality. That finite understanding of how if I give you a slice of my pie, that means there is less for me.
Dianne (34:35):
White supremacy teaches us, or the delusion of White supremacy teaches us in order for some of us to have more others have to have less and that’s not the case at all. Equal opportunity and equal access benefits all of us. I don’t know why people can’t understand that lesson. I don’t know why people are so afraid that they’re losing power when power is infinite. The more power we share, the more power we gain. You see it all the time. I don’t know what it takes. For me, I’ve been saying this to my husband for a long time. I’ve been saying that it is the defunding of education that has brought us to this place where people don’t understand these things.
Lola (35:16):
Really, it’s also the dismantling of the masculine energies of competition. Of fear of me having to step on your head in order to get ahead. That’s not the case. Power is everywhere but power is everywhere because it resides within us, right?
Dee (35:39):
Yeah, Lola, exactly. That’s what I was saying a few minutes ago was until we can all individually stop fighting for spaces, realize it is limitless, and work on our own self-love, like you said, just tearing down the teachings and those deep-rooted things that are there, maybe that’s when we’ll have a chance.
Lola (36:08):
Yes. Yes.
Dianne (36:10):
But the world has to want to change. People have to want to change. People have to want to be educated. People have to want to get out of their own way. For me, I’m at the point where I’m not really interested in reaching out to people who are White supremacists and who are interested in seeing my death, right? I’m not interested in bridging the divide or trying to educate them. That’s not energy for me that I want to do. My friend Amber says, “That’s not my ministry. That’s not my ministry.” I want to talk to the people who want to do change. I have to believe there’s more of those people than there are of the others but the other seem to have really loud voices.
Lola (36:50):
Yeah. It’s funny, I want to focus on, of course, the party, right? We focus on our rising so much, we come to our own power, we find our own power within, and when we do that, we help other people rise then we’re having a great old time over here. If you would like to join us, we welcome you too. You can come to that conclusion yourself. We’re not trying to convince you that this is a good thing because you will see that it is a good thing in your own time. It’s that FOMO, right? All I need to worry about is us doing our thing and that grand rising, and when you watch from afar, you’re going to be like, “You know what? I want to be there too.”
Dianne (37:31):
Yhis is my hope. This is my dream. Wonderful. Is there any final thoughts on this podcast as we come up on the hour? Is there anything else you, you want to share with us?
Lola (37:43):
Yeah. I think it would be so nice if for this Black History Month, for each person who’s listening or whose heart is being pulled in this direction of doing something, since all the Black square posts or blast square on your thing, or all this stuff happened since last summer ,really take an inventory. What have I actually done between last June to now, right? Take an inventory. From this point forward, what are three more things I can do this year that’s going to be constructive towards this rising together? Can you imagine the powe if each of us did three things, constructive, concrete, tangible things.
Lola (38:31):
That could be as simple as like going out to,find a book about Chinese New Year because Chinese new year is also coming up. Something that gets you out of your own little bubble if that’s where you are. For me, I would love to take some sort of certificate program or something to learn more about diversity inclusion work. I’m not trying to become a professional,but I want to learn more than what I’ve been doing just from the books. I want something that’s a little bit more in between. That’s one option I will be taking. Do an inventory of what you’ve done and list three things that you can tangibly do for the rest of 2021. We will all be in a more powerful place together come 2022. I can guarantee you that.
Dianne (39:17):
I love that. I love that. That gives me pause.
Dee (39:22):
So good. So good.
Dianne (39:22):
That’ gives me pause. That’s perfect. That’s aligns with what you do Dee, of setting an intention. Set some intentions to take action. I know we sit around and we talk a lot about this and in the yoga community, we would probably say, “We’re studying this and we’re meditating on this,” and all of that stuff. I think the time for all of that is now done. We’ve done enough talking and thinking about it. It’s now time to take action.
Dee (39:49):
We also can’t forget that those small things add up to great things. Knowing that the small steps that you make on a daily basis can serve us all.
Lola (40:03):
Absolutely. The critical mass includes any and every action because it’s energy, right? We all believe and know the power that we’re energy. Nobody’s asking you to go out and start a brand new movement or initiative or platform. No, you don’t have to do that. I’m very involved because my husband, my son, whatever, and that’s my space. You find your space in all of this, and our energies will add up. That’s it. It’s very simple.
Dianne (40:32):
To quote the Gita, “No effort is ever wasted.”
Dee (40:37):
Yeah, that’s right.
Dianne (40:38):
No effort is ever wasted. Where can people find your work and where can people buy Black Lives Rising merch? Whenever I wear my Black Lives Rising t-shirt — I have a link in my bio to buy your merch but where else can they find your merch?
Lola (40:51):
This all actually started with, “You know what? I’m just going to create a shirt.” I’m actually wearing the prototype that I did on Canva where you can just design something, and then it turned into what it is now. There goes the small action multiplying. weareblacklivesrising.com where you can get all the merch. It’s as simple as just adding to that energy. Adding to that positive rising collective. Of course on Instagram, Black Lives Rising, and then of course, we’re on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, all the wonderful social media spheres. But yes, toget a shirt or a hoodie or toque, the website is weareblacklivesrising.com.
Dianne (41:31):
Wonderful.
Dee (41:32):
Perfect.
Dianne (41:33):
Your merch really supports the movement so that can be your one of your three actionable steps, is to support people who are doing the work. If you’re out there and you’re like, “I don’t know what I should do.” After you’ve taken inventory, you can always support organizations that are already doing the work. You can support your local chapter of Black Lives Matter, you can start following and supporting the work of Black creators on social media, you can go to the We Are Black Lives Rising website and check out what’s going on with that. There’s lots of ways that you can take small ripple effects to make the world a better place for all of us. On behalf of Dee and I, we would like to thank Lola for being on the podcast today and for launching Black history month in such a positive and powerful way. Thank you, Lola, for your insights, your excellence, and your activism. We’re grateful to have you in our community.
Lola (42:28):
Thank you so much everybody for this time and space, and energy, and love. We are all in this together in love.
Dee (42:34):
Thank you, Lola. We appreciate you.
Dianne (42:42):
Thank you.
Dianne (42:42):
Hey everybody. Thank you so much for listening. We absolutely loved talking to Lola from Black Lives Rising and finding out how we can support and illuminate and create a platform for Black lives to rise. You can find Lola at weareblacklivesrising.com, and you can support the work by purchasing her merchandise at We Are Black Lives Rising. You can reach me @diannebondyyogaofficial on Instagram and on Facebook, and on Twitter, and on TiKToK, and you can reach Dee @yogidee on Instagram, as well @deevineintentions.com. Please subscribe to the podcast, leave a comment because it really, really helps. Thank you so much for being here and we’ll see you next time.
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