The work we get to do here at The Darkest Horse is both complicated and rewarding – in many ways it’s a privilege, BUT it’s also intense labor that requires us to confront difficult truths. 

One of those truths is that our desire to boldly confront systemic racism challenges us to identify NEW ways of working + being, that protect us from further harming ourselves or each other. We strive to cultivate a community of care that makes plenty of space for rest. We consider rest to be a vital competency. It’s an ongoing practice we have to learn to do individually, communally and as a society.

Like last year, we are taking a pause at the end of the year; closing the office to create that space for our team to rest. Our last day will be Friday, December 16th.

Rest is a journey. We invite you to have a growth mindset about your own capacity to rest – not to achieve excellence at rest, but as a means to self-actualize and lean into what care, health, and well-being look/feel like FOR YOU. Remember, where each of us starts is and should be different because we all have different lived experiences that define work and rest.

We’ve curated the resources that follow as an invitation into our rest practice with us. And we would love if you shared your rest-inspiring content, practices, or reflections in the comments below, or by emailing hello@thedarkesthorse.com.

Happy Solstice, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays. Take care.

Reflection Questions

• How do you define rest or leisure? Is there a difference between the two?
• What are your favorite ways to practice rest or leisure? 
• How do you feel about your current rest practice? When you think about resting, what do you notice feeling in your body?
• What would be one small adjustment you could make to invite a little more rest into your life?

Resources

Rest:

• Listen: “A Word from the Nap Bishop” Interview with Tricia Hersey (Trymaine Lee)
• Read: What’s Next in the Culture of Care (Rest for Resistance)
• Practice: “Rest Life” Guided Meditation (Tricia Hersey)
• Practice: Somatic Centering (Sumitra Rajkumar)
• Practice: “Relaxing Back into Awareness” Meditation (Tara Brach)
• Listen: Sound Healing (Lucia Luminate)
• Listen: Lotus Sound Bath (Douglas Cardwell)
• Listen: Sound Baths for Relaxation (Alice Hu)

Joy + Pleasure: 

• Listen & Groove: The Darkest Horse Winter Solstice Playlist
• Listen: “The Body is Not An Apology” Poem (Sonya Renee Taylor)
• Read: “Pleasure Activism” by adrienne maree brown
• Journal: “Journal of Radical Permission A Daily Guide for Following Your Soul’s Calling” by adrienne maree brown and Sonya Renee Taylor

Holidays:

• Read: How to Navigate Difficult Conversations During the Holiday Season (Very Well Mind)
• Read: Go Where You Are Honored During the Holidays (Rest for Resistance)
• Read: How to Navigate Difficult Conversations with Family over the Holidays (Life by Design Therapy)

Hi. I am Zaiden Sowle and I am the Content Production Intern at The Darkest Horse. I am sharing my story of disability in recognition of National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). This article is Part 3 in a three-part series. In Part 1, I talked about how I move through the world. In Part 2, I shared how I am navigating my career. And in Part 3, I share what COVID-19 taught me about accessibility. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

PART 3: WHAT COVID-19 TAUGHT ME ABOUT ACCESSIBILITY

In the Spring of 2019, when the whole country made the sudden shift to remote work, learning, and life, I initially felt overwhelmed. I was nervous about how my professors would adapt their classes and syllabi to work better in a remote medium. I was eager to see if, and how, remote learning might afford me greater access to my classes. And, I was scared about what COVID-19 would mean for both my life and the world as a whole.

When my school shifted to remote learning, I hoped that I would find the experience more accessible than in-person classes, where I already relied heavily on technology for some of my various accessibility needs: hearing aids, electronic/online access to readings, and use of my laptop for note taking. I was so relieved that my hope was not misplaced. For the first time in my life, I could just turn up the volume on my classes to as loud as I needed/wanted, making it much, much easier to hear everyone than ever before. 

As that semester finished and a new, fully remote, semester began, I noticed many more changes that allowed me greater access to my classes and coursework. To name a few:

• My teachers enabled live captioning on all of my synchronous Zoom classes, allowing me to better follow and participate in discussions/lectures. 
• All course materials were fully available in an online/electronic format, eliminating the need to specifically ask my professors for this.
• All of the slides our professors used during the lectures were shared with the class ahead of time, so that we could see them better than we would over Zoom. I found this extraordinarily helpful, as I could zoom/adjust the slides as much as I needed/wanted, allowing for a much easier view of them, and greater access to them. 

As I have begun to reflect on my year-plus of remote learning, I notice a few lessons organizations could learn, to better support employees with disabilities. Three lessons that I have gleaned are: 

1. A hybrid workplace model, with some employees in the physical office and others working remotely, creates greater access to individuals with physical difficulties that make commuting to a physical office difficult. 
2. Make everything (documents, forms, resources) available in an online/electronic format, ideally screen reader accessible. 
3. Recognize that these lessons are only the first step towards creating a truly accessible workplace and creating the future of work. 

And these are only a few that stand out to me, based on my experience. I hope that all organizations are asking their employees to reflect and share what they’ve learned about their working styles and what works for them during this very different time, and how those styles and needs can be accommodated to make work more accessible for everyone.

REFLECTIONS + RESOURCES:

• What lessons has COVID-19 taught you about accessibility for mental and physical disabilities? 
• What have you learned about ways of working that do and don’t work for you?
• What is one thing you would like organizations to learn/takeaway from COVID-19 and remote work?
• Building Radical Inclusion in a Hybrid World
• Why coronavirus may make the world more accessible (BBC)
• What is Disability Justice? (Sins Invalid)
• Becoming a Map for Survival: Interview with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Guernica)

Hi. I am Zaiden Sowle and I am the Content Production Intern at The Darkest Horse. I am sharing my story of disability in recognition of National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). This article is Part 2 in a three-part series. In Part 1, I talked about how I move through the world. In Part 2, I share how I am navigating my career. And in Part 3, I share what COVID-19 taught me about accessibility. You can find Part 1 here. Part 3 of the series will be released on October 26th.

PART 2: NAVIGATING MY CAREER AS A DISABLED PERSON

Today, I am a fierce advocate for myself and I will advocate for myself as I enter the workforce. I learned to stand up for myself as a young child. 

Throughout my K-12 education I would, from time to time, encounter teachers who would not always honor my accommodation needs, despite having official accommodations approved by my schools. As a result, I had to learn how to advocate for my needs to these teachers from a fairly young age. Fortunately, this has served me well, as I have had a lot of practice being an advocate for myself in all aspects of my life, and at times an advocate for others.

And I’ll be bringing this compassion for myself to the workplace. I am now in my last semester of college and will graduate in December 2021. I have begun to question how I will disclose my disabilities and accessibility needs to future employers. But I find myself in a whirlwind of questions:

• What are the benefits/drawbacks of disclosing my disabilities during the interview phase? 
• What are the benefits/drawbacks to disclosing my disabilities once I get a job offer?
• What are the benefits/drawbacks to disclosing my disabilities after accepting a job offer? 

I am brought back to the first interview I had with Rada and Chanté (TDH Co-founders), which led to my wonderful and rewarding time as a TDH intern. My interview took place at a local restaurant. Although it wasn’t particularly crowded, the noise level of the restaurant was just loud enough where I needed to use a mini- microphone that connects to my hearing aids. As I began to take the microphone out of my purse, I explained: “I wear hearing aids and was wondering if it would be ok if I used this microphone.” They happily accommodated me and the interview proceeded. This small piece of conversation turned into a broader discussion around my accessibility needs. In this conversation, I mentioned the disabilities I have as a result of the brain tumor and a few of the ones I’ve had since birth. 

I felt fully welcomed, included, and supported at TDH even before my first day. In this interview, I have found the answers to many of my whirlwind questions. For me, it is better to disclose my disabilities during the interview phase.That way, I can see whether I might be comfortable working at the organization based on how they respond to my disclosure. Plus, it relieves the pressure to worry about disclosing at a later date. If I don’t get the job, I will be able to move on better, knowing that I was showing up to the interview as my whole self. 

I hope that I will end up at an organization that fully values every part of me, allowing me to be fully engaged and committed to the organization. However, I must stress that this decision is unique to me and that everyone needs to explore/determine what the right path for them is. 

REFLECTIONS + RESOURCES:

• Given this reframe of disability, where do you think the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) falls short or does not go far enough? I am asking you to ponder this question, with the hope that you and your organization will work to go (far) beyond the ADA, in terms of creating an inclusive and accessible workspace. 
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA.gov)
• 30 years after Americans with Disabilities Act, college students with disabilities say law is not enough (NBC News)
• The ADA is turning 30. It’s time that it included digital accessibility. (NBC News)

In the next article, I will share what COVID-19 taught me about accessibility. Talk to you soon.

Hi. I am Zaiden Sowle and I am the Content Production Intern at The Darkest Horse. I am sharing my story of disability in recognition of National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). This is Part 1 in a three-part series. In Part 1, I talk about how I move through the world. In Part 2, I share how I am navigating my career. And in Part 3, I share what COVID-19 taught me about accessibility. Part 2 of the series will be released on October 19th.

PART 1: HOW I MOVE THROUGH THE WORLD

Hi. My name is Zaiden Sowle, and I am disabled. Phew, I said it.

I didn’t eat, speak, or walk until I was about three years old. Yes, I was on a feeding tube until around my third birthday when I finally learned to eat. My early childhood experiences were different; American Sign Language was my first language, and in kindergarten, I was diagnosed with low vision – I have worn thick glasses ever since! A genetic mutation I have called Noonan Syndrome caused developmental delays — a combination of physical and cognitive — throughout my childhood. As time went on, I continued to struggle with additional  disabilities that were a result of living with Noonan: poor fine motor control, low vision and high astigmatism (requiring thick glasses ever since), and continuing cognitive delays; resulting in repeating preschool.

As the years went by, I learned creative ways to accommodate my various disabilities. However, there was always a part of me that felt alone in the world, isolated from everyone else in my life. Although I had a group of close friends and an extremely supportive and loving family (I love you mom and dad 😊❤️), a part of me was lonely. 

My feelings of isolation and loneliness had nothing to do with my friends or family. It was because until high school, I had been the only person I’ve ever known who has had the unique disabilities, difficulties, and experiences that I had. So, you could only imagine how excited I was to get to know other people with disabilities during  high school. For what seemed like the first time in my life, I wasn’t alone, isolated, or unique!!! 

It’s only recently that I have begun to use the term, and identify as, “disabled” to describe the many difficulties I have while navigating the world. I had always shied away from using the term disabled, because I worried that other people with disabilities would think I’m not “really” or “actually” disabled and take offense to me adopting it for myself. However, a recent conversation with a friend changed my entire viewpoint on the issue, when we were talking about this a month or two ago. This friend helped me to realize that I am, in fact, disabled and that knowing that for myself is enough to use the term as a way to identify. 

According to the CDC, approximately 25.7% of adult Americans report living with at least one disability. In fact, most people will face some level of disability in their lifetime – temporary or permanent, mental or physical. Growing old comes with its own set of disabilities. That means you – yes, you, reader – are going to be disabled at some point in your life if you live long enough. 

Some people are born with disabilities, but anyone can develop a disability at any point in their life. I happen to be an example of both! Just as I was feeling confident in my ability to navigate the world as a disabled person, I developed a few more disabilities, as the result of a malignant brain tumor. This tumor, discovered in May 2017, caused me to take a year off from my college studies to recover and cope with these additional disabilities. During this time away from school: was in physical therapy to relearn how to walk, occupational therapy to relearn how to control my hands, and speech therapy to relearn how to help regain speech abilities. Although I did eventually relearn how to walk, use my hands, and speech abilities; there were other permanent disabilities that I inherited from the brain tumor: I have hearing loss in both ears (requiring hearing aids), left side fine motor control loss, and loss of peripheral vision in the left side of both eyes. 

Today, I’ve learned ways to accommodate all of my disabilities, new and old, and couldn’t be more proud to call myself disabled.

REFLECTIONS + RESOURCES:

• What is one thing you will take with you/that you learned after reading my story? How has my story changed your view on disabilities and disabled people? What are other thoughts/questions you have?
• Living, Learning, and Working with a Disability (National Association of Colleges and Employers)
• It’s Perfectly OK To Call A Disabled Person ‘Disabled,’ And Here’s Why (HuffPost)
• We Need To Rethink The Penalties And Rewards Of Identifying As “Disabled” (Forbes)

In the next article, I will share how I am navigating my career as a disabled person. Talk to you soon.

The Darkest Horse continues its monthly YouTube Livestream! Each month, TDH brings a timely topic to discuss, dissect, and engage with! In August, we hosted a discussion on “Inclusive Return-to-Work Strategies” with TDH Co-founder Rada Yovovich, TDH collaborator Maya Toussaint, and guest Suzi Lilley! Check out the recap if you missed it! 

For September, we hosted a conversation on “Designing With vs. Designing For:  Lessons in building DEIA futures.” In this session, we speak to your inner “designer,” whether you’re designing products, events, programs, or organizational ways of working! We explored the importance of “designing with” rather than “designing for,” participatory design, and designing through an equity and inclusion lens.

Check out the livestream recording here!

If you’re interested in looking at your work through an equity-centered design lens, reach out and ask about TDH’s “Designing for Inclusion” Workshop, or learn more about our “Design Experiences!”

What are the Characteristics of Designing With vs For? 

BB: “Designing with is foundational at my company, Trans Lifeline. We’re a peer support hotline for trans people where all of the operators are trans. In designing with, we’ll never contact the police if a caller is having suicidal thoughts so that person can actually have an honest conversation with us, peer to peer.” 

fp: “I’m a practitioner of human-centered design, which is rooted in empathy to solve a problem and offer a solution for a community. The limitation is the assumption that a designer has the power and privilege to design for a broader community.”

What Makes Designing-With Hard?

fp: “I was involved in a participatory design process for a county. In order to educate everyone, we had several town halls. It took much longer than a traditional delegatory process. In designing with, you have to move at the speed of trust rather than the speed of the market.” 

CT: “There should always be space for education in designing with. I can’t assume that you come to the table with the same information that I have.”

Why Does This Topic Matter Now? 

fp: “At TDH, we believe that outcomes shape processes. So far, the outcomes have been supremacist and racist. It’s time to reflect on our processes to promote change and design with. There’s a lot of power hoarding in designing for that needs to end.” 

BB: “This topic has always mattered, especially now as we as a society have come to question institutions like the police and government. Our system is reaching a breaking point, and it’s time for a radical shift. Let’s get to work.” 

Additional Resources 

• Participatory Design (Stanford)
• Participatory Design in Practice (UX Magazine)
• Co-Creating a More Equitable World: The Transformative Benefits of Participatory Design (MIT D-Lab)
• Asset-Based Community Development (Depaul)
• How Equity-Centered Design Supports Anti-Racism

The Darkest Horse continues its monthly YouTube Livestream! Each month, TDH brings a timely topic to discuss, dissect, and engage with! In July, the team hosted a discussion on “Nation, Citizenship, and Place” with TDH Co-founder Chanté Martinez Thurmond, TDH teammate fahad punjawni, and TDH collaborator Hanna Kim. 

For August, we hosted a conversation to explore “Inclusive Return to Work Strategies”, and how to make them inclusive in a mid-COVID reality. Alternatively, you can listen to the audio on our podcast, or read the transcript of our conversation!

If this topic resonates with you, and you’d like to create a DEI-minded return to work strategy, we invite you to reach out and learn more about TDH’s strategic road-mapping sessions! 

What does “Returning to Work” bring up for you, and how do you feel about the topic? 

MT: “My organization is absolutely not going back to an office. As an extrovert, it’s a huge deal to lose those in-person moments, and it’s creating a lot of feelings. I need to fill my energy tank with human interaction, and I haven’t been able to do that. It’s been difficult.”

What are you seeing in your organization as you’re thinking about the next phase? What emotions are you experiencing?  

SL: “As much as I want that human interaction back, what if I’m putting myself and others at risk by returning to the office? Evaluating what normal looks like again is a new level of uncertainty.”

MT: “My company is looking to hire 2,000 engineers in 2021. The benefit of a 100% remote company is that we can hire anywhere in the world; in fact, we just hired someone from Africa. It’s beautiful to see how we can open up pipelines for diversity through remote work.” 

What kinds of “Return To Work” solutions are you evaluating?

RY: “Instead of designing a solution for the majority, I would argue we should operate through an equity lens. We should figure out who needs the most resources and what’s the best way to get it to them.” 

What does support look like when everyone is so exhausted? 

SL: “It’s been tricky. By inviting work into our home space (which wasn’t by choice), we’ve all experienced a heightened sense of anxiety. As a member of our people team, it’s my duty to check in on our workers. We err on the side of over-checking rather than giving too much space. People have appreciated the extra care.”

RY: “It’s critical for me to have at least one meeting where I have a moment of pause where I notice how my body feels. Especially with creative projects, it helps my team understand which pace to move at.” 

What’s one “Return To Work” Strategy That’s Been Successful or Unsuccessful. 

MT: “Rigidity doesn’t work in this climate. Company policies,  schedules, or even expectations of your friends can’t be rigid because we’re all handling this pandemic differently.” 

Going Forward 

This Livestream is a great companion to our blog post on The Future of Work! Contact the TDH team if you’d like to revolutionize your company’s mindset with emerging technologies and institute strategies that maximize human potential!

Additional Resources 

• PwC’s U.S. Remote Work Survey 
• The Hybrid Work Model: A New Challenge for DEI 
• Why The Return to Work is a Diversity Issue 
• FlexJobs 2019 Annual Survey: Flexible Work Plays Big Role in Job Choices 
• Coping With Stress (CDC) 
• COVID-19 anxiety syndrome: A pandemic phenomenon? 

The Darkest Horse continues our monthly YouTube Livestream! Each month, we bring a timely topic that we’re getting repeatedly asked about, thinking about, or that’s a growth edge for us. We’re very excited to bring you content in a new format and hope you are too!

Our July Livestream event was held on July 29th, titled “Nation, Citizenship and Place” hosted by our Co-founder, Chanté Martinez Thurmond, TDH teammate fahad punjawni and new TDH collaborator, Hanna Kim. The trio explored the impacts of nationality, citizenship, place (and belonging) on the shaping of identities and lived experience, at work and in our greater communities.

We believe that intersectional identities with respect to nationality, citizenship and place all impact one’s ability to be included and feel that they belong in their workplace and community. As we design an equitable future, we know that these aspects of our true selves must be normalized, celebrated, and invited into conversations and spaces with our friends, family, coworkers and greater community. Please take a moment to join us in beginning a broader conversation on Nation, Citizenship, and Place and how all of these things influence our experience in the workplace and the world. 

IIn case you missed it, you can catch a recording of the July event on our YouTube page, listen to the audio on our podcast, or read the transcript from the conversation!

Important questions explored in this conversation include:

1. How are you showing up/arriving in this space?
2. How have you developed a sense of belonging with respect to place?
3. Why does this topic matter and why now?

Below are just a few highlights from the conversation, some remarks on questions from the live audience, and a few additional resources if you’re interested in learning more about the topic!!

Conversation Highlights

Q1: How are You Showing up?

Our speakers shared about how their identities and where they’ve been inform how they move through the world, how they are in community, and how they experience where they are today.

Hanna Kim:

• Identifies as a 30 year old woman who uses she/her pronouns 
• Her family immigrated to the U.S in 2005 and, currently, holds a South Korean passport and a U.S permanent residency card (green card).
• Her parents’ spiritual and musical journey/experiences have strongly influenced her journey and how she showed up to the conversation. 
• She shows up to her friends, community, and workplace with a soulful existential buzz
• She is an artist/designer and is specifically interested in the intersection of design and policy, finding joy in exploring how art/design can heal the complex (often broken) systems that we live in. 

fahad punjwani:

• Identifies as a male presenting person in their 30s, who uses he/him and they/them pronouns interchangeably 
• He showed up as a queer person on an H-1B Visa and trying to make sense of the pandemic 
• They have been on a quest of trying to find and claim belonging
• He grew up in Pakistan and came to the U.S to study and has been living in the U.S for thirteen years 
• They are currently holding the privilege and restrictions of having an H-1B visa, allowing him to live and work in the U.S, while limiting their ability to travel outside the country and what jobs/employment opportunities he can take. 

Chanté Martinez Thurmond:

• Identifies as a mixed-race, multicultural, Afro-Latina, able-bodied, millennial woman who is cisgender and uses she/her/ella pronouns 
• She showed up to the conversation with ambivalence, holding space for complex familial stories/histories 
  • She is grateful for her maternal family, who made the conscious decision to leave Mexico and come to the U.S in search of the ‘American dream.’
  • She is humbled by the experiences of her brilliant enslaved paternal African ancestors. Their resistance is her resilience 

Q2: How have you developed a sense of belonging with respect to place?

Our speakers share a complex understanding of belonging broadly, how it relates to their physical space and place, and the ways it continues to evolve and emerge in relationship with their identities.

fp:

• As a queer person who didn’t want to fit into any gender or sexual orientation buckets, he had a tough time growing up, leading them to leave Karachi and move to the Houston, TX.
• Later, in Boston, he was clinically depressed and didn’t want to work. One of his best friends, Elena, said: “Just come stay with me [in Houston, TX] and you can figure it out.” 
• Now, in Houston, he is using place as a way to build community and community as a way of belonging, while recognizing that belonging is truly internal and inherent. 
  • Quote from Maya Angelou: “You only are free when you realize  you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”

HK:

• “I’ve always had this feeling of disorientation with everywhere I went” 
  • “I’ve moved a few times in my life and each of the time I’ve moved, you know, from Austria to Korea, to Korea to the US, it was like a complete uprooting. You know, I was just kind of tagging along with my parents and I had really no say [in] why or where I was going.”
  • “I had to really adjust to new cultures and languages and landscapes, and I have to build relationships from the ground up… and I think that’s why I can so easily tap back into the feeling of disorientation.” 
• “when I really experienced that feeling of both being so free from judgment, and also being embraced for my uniqueness. And I think that’s when I really kind of would put my flag down and say this is when I felt belonged in a place.”
  • “You can totally feel like an outsider in a place that  you are supposed to fit right in.” And I know that this story resonates with many people because we all have experiences of being welcomed in unlikely places and also unfortunately being casted out by the very people that are supposed to accept us and protect us as our kin. And aren’t we all our kin in some sense!”
• “I think that sense of place doesn’t really seem to exist in real physical world. And what helps me what grounds me like what grounded Fahad with the Maya Angelou quote is one of my favorite Bible verses from the book of Philippians, where Paul talks about how our citizenship is in heaven, and it doesn’t exist in this world. And I think this helps me sort of identify myself with some place somewhere beyond myself, which helps me sort of transcend the visible outlines of where I should Crossroads should not and helps me be in community with all people.”
  • Book of Philippians 3

CT:

• “I went through a deep spiritual evolution, as I got a little older and started to mature, I…just started to question a lot of things around me. I came to the realization that belongingness, or my sense of self, and being grounded in relation to a space or a place was actually through a transpersonal, spiritual, embodied experience. I started to realize, yes, my race and my ethnicity in my cultural upbringing does influence me. But, I’m literally a spirit having a human, embodied experience.”
  • “I want to see more people hone in on that emotional intelligence, that spiritual intelligence and have those embodied experiences alone, but also together in community because I think that’s how we’re going to change the future.”

Q3: Why does this topic matter and why now?

Our country, our world, and our workforce has a great richness of lived experience with respect to citizenship and place. Our individual and collective healing, growth, and innovation depend on our ability to expand our notion of who belongs and how we support individuals across identities.

fp:

• “One of the best gifts of being queer is that…you have to define yourself outside of the system of heteropatriarchy, and then you have to define yourself again, and then you have to define yourself again. Ans, that’s what being an immigrant is as well.  You’re really intentionally defining and choosing place and the role of nationality and citizenship and not taking it as it is given to you.”

HK:

• “When will this topic not matter?” 
• “I am currently working with stateless people and helping them to pass the Stateless Protection Act. I am dreaming of the time when…they will have their safe pathway to become protected people in this country.”

CT:

• “As a leader, as a proud business owner, as a parent, as a community partner, I think it is my responsibility to be more than a global citizen, to be a universal citizen…I have  obligation to try to make sure the future we’re building that we consider this [issue] when we’re hiring new people, looking for new vendors or for global partners… because if I don’t do it, who will?”

Audience Q&A 

Below are a few of the questions that members of the audience shared during our Livestream event. Please feel free to send yours to hello@thedarkesthorse.com!

Do you identify as “American”? What does that mean to you?

• fp: Legally, I can’t identify as “American”. Some days I do feel “American” it though. I’ve lived here for 13 years – studying, working, building community, paying taxes, celebrating American holidays.
• HK: I identify as American in a sense that many Americans have been, are, and will be wrestling with this very question. I think America, a country of immigrants, is a unique context where asking this question is part of its national identity. The real question is, will America ever see me as one of its members?

Given so many identities here, curious to all panelists, how do you define home? Where is home? Is it a place? A feeling?

• CT: Home is a place and feeling. It’s where I feel welcome, loved, supported, seen and invited to stay as myself. 
• fp: Home is within me, my body, my spiritual, creative, and love practice. And I transform my physical space with that practice… and then that physical space also becomes home.
• HK: To me, home is where you ultimately belong. Sure, home is my street address where I can rest and build community around. But I consider my time on earth as a journey, a temporary residence. I firmly believe that I will reach my ultimate home when I return to my Creator. So yes, it is a place, a feeling, but for me, it’s a sense of orientation.

What are things that people in your community (neighbors, coworkers, friends, etc) can do to support these complex identities?

• CT: Be curious and invite storytelling. Listen for the unique difference I bring to the workplace or neighborhood and invite me to share the parts of my story that have shaped me thus far. 
• fp: I echo what Chanté says – curiosity! & along with curiosity comes being open to being moved by the other’s truth. Believe me when I talk about the complexity of my identity. And believe me tomorrow when I change my stance, grow and evolve. Catch yourself when you sense doubt. 
  AND bring this compassionate, empowering curiosity to ALL your community with complex identities — not just the ones who you think are exceptional. Love the undocumented mother who may not speak fluent Spanish. Love the recent migrant with their unique accent, refusing to blend into the American accent. Love the person who had to break the law to survive. Love the person breaking your rules to thrive.
• HK: Treating me as their equal and worthy of belonging. We are all humans, who can choose to welcome or shun. I would feel supported if I could see that people are choosing to accept me. My response would be to do the same and extend my welcome.

How do you feel about trans-national adoption? 

• CT: It’s complex — there are pros and cons that come with this practice that need to be discussed openly. There needs to be an on-going dialogue, especially with children (adoptees) who feel resourced enough to share the complexities and nuances of their own lived experience. Blindly supporting transnational adoption can be harmful as it tends to perpetuate a “savior-mentality” that is deeply rooted in white imperialism. 
• HK: When I think of trans-national adoption, I think of many orphaned Korean children who were adopted to the U.S. after the Korean war. I think it’s an issue that requires utmost caution, sensibility, responsibility, and wisdom.

Additional Resources 

1. Shapeless Shapes: A graphic narrative that explains statelessness and what we can do about it. Also available in Arabic!
2. Watch the Shapeless Shapes video again
3. United Stateless
4. Hanna Kim’s portfolio
5. Refugee Matters: Stateless People Highlight (Facebook Live featuring Hanna Kim)
6. “Merciless Savages”: July 4th, Mt. Rushmore, and the Theft of Native Lands
7. Could the Blackfoot Wisdom that Inspired Maslow Guide Us Now?

We kicked off a new content series: our monthly YouTube Livestream! Each month, we’ll bring a timely topic that we’re getting repeatedly asked about, thinking about, or that’s a growth edge for us. We’re very excited to bring you content in a new format and hope you are too!

Our first Livestream was on June 17th, and was titled “Authentic Solidarity: Celebrating Juneteenth + Pride,” and in it we talked about these two June holidays and how we can show up as allies for both causes in respectful and affirming ways.

In case you missed it, you can catch a recording of the June event on our YouTube page, or listen to the audio on our podcast – click here. 

Below are some highlights from the event, some additional thoughts and resources, and some follow-up from audience comments and questions!

We hope you’ll join our July livestream “Nation, Citizenship, and Place” on July 29th at 12pm CT. Register here! 

Terms and definitions

• Authentic Solidarity: Taking action to support liberation for historically oppressed populations with identities that you, yourself, may not hold.
  • Authenticity is about showing up for yourself — seeing, naming, and moving from a place of integrated truth, rather than performative behavior or pretense.
  • Solidarity is about showing up for others — honoring others and our interdependence, recognizing that nobody is free unless everyone is free.
• Juneteenth: Celebrates the anniversary of one of the earliest liberation moments for Black Americans; “the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States” (juneteenth.com)
• Pride: Celebrates the LGBTQIA+ liberation movement by commemorating the Stonewall Riots; “celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan” (Library of Congress)

History

Juneteenth

• President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation  September 22, 1862. It became effective on January 1, 1863, declaring that all enslaved persons in the Confederate States of America in rebellion and not in Union hands were freed.
• December 6, 1865, ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished chattel slavery nationwide
• More isolated geographically, planters and other slaveholders had migrated into Texas from eastern states to escape the fighting, and many brought enslaved people with them, increasing by the thousands the enslaved population in the state at the end of the Civil War. Although most lived in rural areas, more than 1,000 resided in both Galveston and Houston by 1860, with several hundred in other large towns. By 1865, there were an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas. 
• On the morning of Monday, June 19, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived on the island of Galveston, Texas, to take command of the more than 2,000 federal troops recently landed in the department of Texas to enforce the emancipation of its slaves and oversee a peaceful transition of power, additionally nullifying all laws passed within Texas during the war by Confederate lawmakers.
• “The celebration of June 19th was coined ‘Juneteenth’ and grew with more participation from descendants. The Juneteenth celebration was a time for reassuring each other, for praying and for gathering remaining family members. Juneteenth continued to be highly revered in Texas decades later, with many former enslaved people and descendants making an annual pilgrimage back to Galveston on this date” (juneteenth.com)
• Today, Juneteenth is starting to become a corporate holiday, offering PTO to employees and Congress, on June 16,  passed a bill recognizing Juneteenth as a federal holiday

Pride

• Although not the FIRST time that LGBTQIA+ folks fought back, The Stonewall Riots were a very big turning point for LGBTQIA+ people and the community. 
• In the predawn hours of June 28, 1969, hundreds of people from the LGBTQIA+ community fought back against police who would , a phenomenon recurrent throughout the U.S at that time. They threw everything from pennies to bottles and bricks, and they kept the protests going for 6 days. 
• A month later, a “Gay Power” demonstration took place in Washington Square Park
• The first pride march was held a year later on the last Sunday of June 1970 and commemorated the one year anniversary of the stonewall uprising as the birth of the gay liberation movement. Almost three to five thousand people marched.
• Today, “The purpose of the commemorative month is to recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally… Celebrations include pride parades, picnics, parties, workshops, symposia and concerts, and LGBTQ Pride Month events attract millions of participants around the world” (Library of Congress). 

Observing the Holidays

Why celebrate them together? Intersectionality!

• They are not mutually exclusive. In fact, it’s MORE powerful if we observe these two in concert. This is solidarity!
• Reframing away from zero-sum toward mutuality.
• Civil rights movement and gay liberation movement were happening right along side each other; it’s not a coincidence. Furthermore, Stonewall was, in many ways, started and led by queer and trans people of color
• These recognitions and celebrations are stronger when celebrated together. 

Juneteenth traps to avoid:

• Requiring Black employees to work (not recognizing it as a holiday)
  • Or worst yet, giving as a holiday without any meaningful acknowledgment of structural/institutional racism that is causing harm to your Black employees or stakeholders 
  • Ironically, more white and privileged people had Juneteenth off this year than Black and essential workers did! 
• Tokenize Black employees or expecting that they will do the labor/speaking on behalf of all Black people.
• Spotlighting Juneteenth as extraction, and not protection.

Pride traps to avoid:

• Rainbow washing!

How to do it right

• In any situation: ask yourself, “Why am I doing anything? What does Juneteenth/Pride mean to me and my community?” this is the key to authenticity.
• Commit year round, not just in June
• Lift up the voices of historically marginalized community members

Juneteenth

• Now that Juneteenth is a federal holiday, we hope to see the private sector and nonprofit organizations follow suit. If you cannot honor the holiday, we recommend providing a floating holiday (an extra day of PTO to be used when your employee chooses) and/or to pay overtime to your employees who are required to work that day.
  • Explore what it means to have corporate reparations!!
• Release a statement recognizing/honoring the day, history, and members of your community 
• Think about/discuss/analyze how your organization supports racial equity, both in employee population and the broader ecosystem (customers/clients/audience/users, vendors, partners, etc).

Pride

• Most, if not all, proceeds from LGBTQ+/rainbow themed products should go to LGBTQ+ centered non profits.
• Workplace rights, protections, support, and policies for LGBTQIA+ at your organization.
• Supporting political candidates/office holders who support LGBTQIA+ rights, identities, and people
  • Long term policy/advocacy for rights, protections and resources for LGBTQIA+ people/identities/communities

Livestream Audience Q&A 

Here are a few of the questions that members of the audience shared during our event. Please feel free to send yours to hello@thedarkesthorse.com!

What is your favorite Juneteenth / Pride memory?

Rada: This year was the first year that Evanston (where I grew up and home to The Darkest Horse, just north of Chicago) had a Pride celebration, and I was on the organizing committee. We had a youth car parade, to avoid crowds and potential COVID exposure, and at the end we gathered in a large outdoor circle and invited folx to share what they’re “Proud To Be,” and hearing all the youth nervously and bravely say out loud things like “I’m proud to be a nonbinary lesbian” or “I’m proud to be a Black trans man” and have the whole crowd cheer and clap was really wonderful. I was proud to contribute to a space where youth can proudly express their authentic identities!

Chanté: I remember learning all about Juneteenth (aka Jubilee Day) back when I was a young teenager. In fact, I was a student at The Academy for Scholastic and Personal Success for many summers back in Iowa where we discussed Juneteenth every year. It struck me that none of my white friends or community members knew anything about this historical event and that I never learned about it in my advanced history classes (at my predominantly white high school). Fast forward to 2021, it’s a federal holiday and everyone knows about it! 

It’s a reminder to me that what’s right isn’t always popular. I’m also immensely grateful to the elders of my community who have paved the way and have continued our tradition of cross-generational dialogue (and annual mid-year celebration). Without them, we wouldn’t be here! And while we’ve made great progress, we have so much more learning and unlearning to do, but it’s time to do it together! 

I struggle how to ‘show’ authenticity without being perceived as appropriating. I authentically ‘feel’ it, but don’t know how to show that support

We hear you! Here are a few thoughts:

1. Do you need to show it? Why? Answering what matters to you about showing it can help guide you toward an authentic way of expressing that solidarity. And, there’s a lot of power in the unconscious ways that you do show your solidarity — even down to the non-verbal messages that your nervous system communicates to the people around you. Truly feeling it is the most important part!
2. A great way to show support is by supporting and getting out of the way. Is there an opportunity to speak, present, join a team, attend an event, etc that you have access to, but where you could transfer your access to someone with an identity that you seek to be in solidarity with? What can you do to leverage your privilege to lift someone else up?
3. You can volunteer to play a behind-the-scenes supporting role in an event! For example, Rada volunteered at a Juneteenth celebration by doing things like serving food, cleaning up, and helping at a craft table, so that Black community members could just have a good time. You could volunteer in similar ways for Pride celebrations!

In any instance, the best solidarity is intentional, authentic, and totally comfortable without any recognition or fanfare for the support.

You mentioned that there’s conversations about cops and kink community at pride. If you’re comfortable answering, what are your thoughts on this/what are other opinions being expressed about it

Great question! We wrote an article on this, you can read it here.

Additional Resources 

1. https://www.loc.gov/lgbt-pride-month/about/
2. Juneteenth (National Museum of African American History + Culture) https://nmaahc.si.edu/events/juneteenth
3. https://www.juneteenth.com 
4. Book: Transgender History by Susan Stryker
5. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/what-is-juneteenth/ 
6. Juneteenth: An Overview, Celebrations and Resources https://www.csd.org/stories/juneteenth-an-overview-celebrations-and-resources/
7. 24 Ways to Celebrate Pride Month (remotely) at Work https://teambuilding.com/blog/virtual-pride-month-ideas
8. Juneteenth at Work https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/exreq/pages/details.aspx?erid=1704
9. GLSEN with Pride https://www.glsen.org/glsen-with-pride

Every year, as Pride Month rolls around in June, a debate erupts about whom Pride is for, and this year is no exception. Whether cities are holding their commemorative marches in a few weeks or a few months, cities across the country are debating the many ways Pride is policed and as a result, who feels safe, welcome, and included at Pride. 

The Pride banner flies over a wide spectrum of identities — the acronym itself is long and ever-growing. At The Darkest Horse (TDH), we most often use LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, and beyond) which includes folx across spectrums of gender identity, orientation, and biological sex, all in one group! These different communities may seem to come together in a beautiful rainbow of solidarity, but there are continue to be hotly-debated questions like: who counts as part of the family? Who is allowed to celebrate Pride? Who can be in LGBTQIA+ spaces?

Hot Debate #1: Police at Pride

Debates on Police officers’ presence at Pride, both in terms of marching in Pride and overseeing security, have been present throughout Pride’s history. The debate on police presence at Pride centers around LGBTQIA+ interactions, relations, and history with police. 

If we start with a historical lens, we’re brought back to the Stonewall Riots that started on June 28, 1969, which marked a major turning point in the Gay Liberation movement and is the event that the first Pride parade, one year later, commemorated. The Stonewall Riots  were an uprising against NYC police who would frequently raid gay bars, harassing patrons, issueing abuse and arrests. The origin of Pride marches was to resist in an era when cross-dressing and sodomy laws existed, which criminalized queerness and transness. As a result, LGBTQIA+ people were frequently targeted, harassed, surveilled, and discriminated against by police, both at the Stonewall Inn and the country at large. 

As we look at more recent events, the rates of brutality and violence against Black and Brown citizens has caused a great deal of distrust and fear of the police. LGBTQIA+ identities run across race lines, and as such Pride communities seek to foster safety and protection for our BIPOC community members. If police have a presence at Pride, many LGBTQIA+ people (particularly Black and Brown members of the community) may not feel safe to attend the march. 

This year, Several cities across the U.S (and the world) have officially banned on-duty/uniformed cops from attending Pride. Most notable of these cities is New York, the birthplace of Pride. Other cities include Denver, San Francisco, and Toronto. In their announcement, NYC Pride stated that they are “unwilling to contribute in any way to creating an atmosphere of fear or harm for members of the community.” In these instances, non-police private security is being leveraged to keep the event safe.

Hot Debate #2: The Kink Community

Debates often arise on whether or not kink should be allowed space at Pride. “The discourse itself revolves around whether kink apparel and paraphernalia render the space unsafe for minors or nonconsensually involve observers. But it’s also rooted in respectability politics — and a push for LGBTQ people to be seen as ‘acceptable,’ or even ‘normal,’ in a heteronormative society” (Haasch & López, 2021). Those that think kink should not be part of or included in Pride have two primary arguments: (1) allowing kink at Pride makes the space unsafe, uninclusive, and inappropriate for children, and (2) allowing kink at Pride nonconsensually sexualizes the event/forces spectators to participate in the marcher’s kink. Meanwhile, those who support a kink inclusive pride argue that kink plays a large role in Pride’s history (and the broader LGBTQIA+ movement), and that dressing in kink (leather, rope, puppy) does not “force” others to participate in their kink. The question of what it means to be dressed “too sexually” comes to life and is highly contested.

We believe that kink has a place in Pride, in part in recognition of the role the kink community has played, and continues to play, in Pride and the LGBTQIA+ movement more broadly. What we currently call “kink” represents the kind of boundary-expansion that Pride is all about, and as long as it is expressed safely and consensually, it is of the very fabric of LGBTQIA+ liberation. Historically, we look to two trans women who are counted as originators of Pride: “Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, had cross-dressing charges on their records and were considered ‘kinky’ by the definition of the time” (Haasch & López, 2021). Rather than continuing to stigmatize this expression and liberation, TDH supports making space for these members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Hot Debate #3: Allies

To our straight allies roaming the rainbow aisles at Target, you are welcome at our Pride events, even if you’re not in the LGBTQIA+ fam, if you are an active supporter and advocate of LGBTQIA+ rights and equity. Remember: the TDH definition of an “ally” is not a title but a practice of active advocacy based in awareness of the community, its history, and its culture. So yes, support our joy and our visibility! But remember that you’re a guest in queer spaces, and always be sure that you’re making space, rather than taking space.

In the end, Pride is for anybody who is a true supporter of safety and equity for the full spectrum of LGBTQIA+ identities, including intersectionally across race, ethnicity, class, ability, neurodiversity, age, and all other aspects of human experience. We hope you all have a safe and joyful Pride Month!