..... s >> the woman of color policy network of university robert and graduate school of public service she was one of the youngest scholars to lead a think tank. her commentitary and writing it be featured in the nation, progressive, essence magazine,

cnn, npr, nbc and other affiliates. as the brand editorial leader she oversees essence.com and her influence extends beyond including events like essence fest, black women in hollywood luncheon and black women in music. we will have charlene cruz come out and read from the memoir. charlene serves as the vice president of an organization of 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating freedom and justice for all black people.

please welcome charlene. [applause] >> thank you. first, i would like to thank mason for this student to share this moment with her. born bright is one of many of her achievements. tonight i have the opportunity to read a number of passages from "born bright". the passages i chose resonate with me and as i share with nicole i say so many "that happened to me moments" while reading the book. i will get started. i did the right thing. i am the beneficiary of many of the programs we are talking about here today.

i attended head start, i was involved in after school programs, i am the first person in my family to graduate from high school, to attend college and to receive a ph d. my voice was shaking by now but i could not stop. i was having in public the private conversation i reserved for my first generation black and latino colleagues who had successfully navigated their way of out of poverty and deep into middle class and have a deep understanding from the journey of here to there. these people in this room are strangers but i am only one person i continue. growing up, i knew many kids in my neighborhood who were smarter and more capable than me and they didn't make it out. many have been killed, gone to prison, are living hand to mouth or otherwise on the margins of society. should i blame them?

or the system that allowed only a few of us at a time to escape? the room was pregnant with silence. i couldn't take it back. i felt like an intruder and exposed and these types of professional settings my personal experiences with hunger, poverty and episodic homelessness often go undetected. it is assumed i am just like everyone else. an advocate, a policy expert or academic. typically when a woman is invited to tell her story during the channels and meetings it feel slimy like a performance. her story has a perfect, predictable ark. she was lost and found by one of the many social service agencies in the city, she changed her behavior, became a better mother and struggles to make ends meet but is on her way to economic

prosperity. al her story is meant to inspire, whip up emotion and make the people in the audience feel good about their work and themselves. it is not meant to challenge how we make policy or shift how poor people in our communities, cities and larger society are perceived. there is a clear separation from her and experts on the stage. they not see are deciding what should be done. here i was being the subject and there authority on the matter blurring the line. i had first hand knowledge of the messiness of poverty and the feelings the poor internalize from birth. the collapse of this boundary made be feel uncomfortable.

i worked hard to disguise my beginning in life from the decision to change my name to the effort of releasing phrases like can't. from my vocabulary i succeeded in creating the perfect middle class mask and now it was off. the next piece is from the chapter entitled "free today". the mark of a good childhood is freedom. the freedom from worry, stress and burdens coupled with the freedom to explore, grow, and learn without consequence or incident. these freedoms are often denied to children living in poverty whose minds are consumed with thoughts of survival and

questions about their next meals, safety or housing and concerns they may never speak aloud. my grandfather's house was a welcome respite from the chaos in the lewis duplex. no fights, arrest or out of control women banging on the doors at odd hours of the night. for the first time my brother and i had the space to be children playing jacks, marbles, and barbies and listened to nee addition, michael jackson and stevie wonder on my grandfather's record player. i joined the girlscouts as a brownie even. once a week, a hippy looking women with long brown hair picked me up in a rusty flatbed truck and took me to the brownie meetings held in a old church. i never quite understood what was going on or what we were

supposed to be doing there. collecting badges, making pledges, selling cookies, i just did not get it. i was one of two black girls in the large troop and felt out of place. to make matters worse, while we played jump rope during one of the meetings the other black girl punched me out for not allowing her to have two turns in a row. it was my first fight and i had lost. i did not understand how she could be so angry with me when were he the only two there that looked like us. in my young mind i made peace with the white girls not wanting to play with me. i was different from them. my hair was spongy. not blond or stringy. i did not live in their neighborhoods or listen to the same music. they were strange to me, too. however, i could not figure her, the black one, out. why didn't see want to be my

friend? when i hopped out of the side of the truck after the meeting i decided i had had enough and was never going back. a couple weeks prior i had suffered through a slumber party where no one talked to me, asked me to brush their hair or offered to brush mine. this was not my type of sisterhood. my mother didn't question my decision or ask why i decided to quit. the following week when the hippy honked her horn for me to come out my mother waved her off and told her i would not be back. and the last piece i will read is from the chapter entitled "wedding day". i was fired she said quietly. her neck craned out of the car door as she pulled into our

driveway. she had been employed for a few weeks working with young white lawyer in los angeles. why i asked? he tried to hit on me and i told him i wasn't into that so i quit. the words swelled like a small tornado in my head. it did not make sense. did she really quit because she refused to have sex with her boss? did bosses really do that? i believed her and thought she was a preverervert. later i found out and learned the wife demanded she was fire after seeing her vacuuming the office and her lawyer complied. even in her shame, she was

adept. after about six months of searching for work my mother returned to the college where she received the paralegal certificate and demanded clarification on the value. she had taken out thousands in student loans and needed them to pony up on the job guarantee. as reinforcement she took along another student who had a hard time finding a job. after being brushed off, the two threatened to file a complaint with the college with the better business bureau or whoever else they could think of in that moment. fearing their cover would be blown the college forgave their debt in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement and just like that my mother was unemploy

unemployed, out of a job, and back to square one. thank you. [applause] >> now please welcome vanessa and nicole mason. >> good evening, everyone. hello, hello. i am really happy to be here. hi, charley. i just wanted to say thank you to my agent, marie brown, i don't know where she is for

believing in me and my research and story from the very start. breeze and christine are here somewhere and i want to thank them before getting started. nicole, this is really truly a stunning memoir and we will spend the next hour talking about it deeply and what prompted you to tell your story. we will have time for q&a and then you will treat us to your own reading from the work. let's jump right in. i have to tell you this

statistic you put in the book literally stopped me in my tracks and that was that 47 million people in the united states live in poverty and not surprisingly, or maybe it should be, but it is not, highest black latino and female head of households. so -- when you introduce the book, you say the poor girl in me wants to explain why we don't all make it out. i would love for you to talk about why did you want to write a book that exposes so much of where you came from? how you began? because telling people that you grew up in poverty as you mentioned as the reading just showed it isn't easy. >> well, i really wanted to tell a different story about poverty and a different story about my communities and the people who lived in them and i think there

is a narrative and we hear it all of the time about if you work hard enough you will make it to the top. and barack obama's second inaugural speech he pretty much says that and even when people say that i feel really uncomfortable because i know that is not the truth. only a small portions of people born into poverty ever make it to the middle class or the top. i wanted to make an intervention and tell a story that would not only give life to what i know to be true but disrupt the damaging narrative we see circulating in poplar media and culture all the time. >> did you have any kind of fear? or you know, worries? or concerns about getting into your story and talking about

your past? >> so, the first concern that i had was about how the story would be interpreted. so even early on when i did a work in progress installment one of the professors pulled me to the side and said you need to be careful about the stereotypes and the stuff you say people will interpret it through their own lens. i wanted to be honest and tell the truth but aware of how the story would be interpreted by other people. it has, you know, readers take what they will from the story and instances i had to push back on interviews when they interpret the story. you are a poor girl, your mother was a teenager mother and they feel like they have heard the

story without reading the book. i think that is problematic. the second thing i worried about was my family and how they would read the book. i was very clear that i with my acad academic training could tell the story they couldn't. the possibility of them writing another book, an it ain't true book, was pretty slim so i really -- in the back of my head when writing the book i had to think about what will my brother say? what will my mother say? is it something that will hurt them? will they say it is not true? so as i was writing i was cognizant of those things. >> you also said you spent a lot of time interviewing people, going back and talking to people from your past about what they

remembered and how they remembered it and that kind of helped you as you were shaping the memoir. >> absolutely. i interviewed my mom, family members, cousins, old best friend. i went to visit the first apartment complex i remembered and it was really jarring. the stuff i thought you know impacted me when i saw for first the first apartment building and clothing lines hanging from apartment to apartment and i said wow, this is my first home. i fell down those stairs on my tricycle. it was those kinds of memories. >> was it the way you remembered it or did you have a different vision in your head? >> i say this, and i think sometimes people don't believe me, but i didn't know i was poor

growing up. so that apartment building was amazing to me when i was growing up. it is where we lived, it is where all my friends were, we had dance contests and it was where i lived. then when i went back today i said wow, there is nothing here. you know? there were no flowers. the paint was peeling and there were clothe lines and now i said this is where poor people live. having the lens to contextualize is not one we get to here. >> did you encounter a lot of people were still there? like obviously years had gone by since you lived in your old neighborhood or several other neighborhoods. did you happen upon people -- >> in my neighborhood i grew up

in my school most of nigh friends there are still there so when i go home it is like a homecoming. they are like hi, pumpkin. i am known as pumpkin there. we sit down and play spades or do whatever we are going to do. but when i went back to my first childhood home, i came there and was snapping pictures and people were look at me like i was an a alien and didn't belong and i felt that because that is what happens when people you don't know come into your neighborhood. i had to say i lived here when i was five years old and two latino women started talking to each other and it was okay because they smiled and are like go on ahead. and you know, that is what happens. i feel like even that kind of dynamic where i can go into a neighborhood i don't currently

live in and start snapping pictures and the people in the neighborhood don't feel empowered to say what are you doing here when i know in other neighborhoods where i lived somebody will say what are you doing here if that makes sense. >> it does. it does make sense. back to your family. >> my father and father will give me the same story different facts. i am going to take a middle ground here. >> and you think that is because everybody was using their own -- >> thwhen i interviewed my brotr i said why do you think it is that mom and i had a difficult relationship? i wanted to hear what he had to

say. he said, you know, because i think you thought you were smarter than her. and i was like that is not my interpretation of what i thought was the problem. and you know, some of the stuff was really hard to hear and internalize. when i was writing, i had to think the information that other people are giving me about the same story i also need to include to have a more accurate telling of the story. he thought i was outspoken so i imagined myself as quiet and only speaking up when necessary. you know how all of us imagine ourselves. don't start it and there won't be nothing but if there is i will string it. that is how i saw myself. >> when you are telling the family story, not just your

story, it must be hard to filter out what am i going to include, what am i not going to include, what makes sense and what doesn't and this was an undertaking. how long did take you to put the pieces together? >> it didn't take long but took about a year to come to grips with what was happening. when i first brought it out, it was a straight policy book because i am a policy person. i was going to tell this very objective, hard facts these are the things and then the publishers saw one vin yet where wrote about my family and he said that is more interesting and it will be easier because it is your story. it was actually very hard and i cried every day writing the story and some days i couldn't write because the memory was so hard if that makes sense. so to go back and reckon with

what happened to me, what happened to my mother, and just to share. she was, i think, the hardest person to write about. my mother was the hardest person to write about because we had a complicated relationship -- very quickly. when i first started writing the book i sent my editor the first chapter and it was really harsh on my mother. she sent it back and said no, ma'am, you are not going to do this to her. and i was like what? it is a good chapter and pulls people in and juicy. and she said no, you are not mad at her. you need to look for and tell a different story. and so, it prompted me to go back and think about my mother and her life in a different way. so when you read the book, you get to see my mother was a very complicated, multi dimensional person. >> and so, i am assuming she has

read the book? your whole family has read the book? >> let me just say... i was intent on not letting them read it before it got to where there could be no changes because everybody has interpretations on what should be included, that did not happen and so i didn't want their voices in my head when i was writing. so finally, though, i gave it to my mom to read when i was done with the first draft or after a few drafts. she started reading it and she said you know, i laughed and i cried and she said but it is ultimately your story to tell so i may not agree with your eyes and how you see things but it is your story to tell. i call her back, she has 50 pages left in the book, and i

said did you finish the book? and she said no and my mother is fiery and feisty and i said why? and she said because you a lie. you are a liar. so we got into this tussle over the phone, but i could tell she is like, sitting in the garage talking and we got into this thing about my truth versus her truth and she is like i don't agree with this. so it was a really hard conversation. so she didn't -- i think she took it back like it is not your story to tell. you know? it is not. and so we have still been in conversation about it. my brother has a copy and my father has read it and grandmother and so but i actually have to say that i have

been reluctant to phone home because they have read it. you know? you know, they have seen themselves and i am sure they have a little beef. so, you know... >> you will just work through that. let's talk about the title of the book, "born bright". you are owning you were born bright. >> when i was thinking about the title i wanted something i believed to be true and the fact is i believe we are all born bright and it is things that happen to us along the way that dim the lights and some of us learn to reignite ourselves. i wanted that to be true and have that conversation about what makes people go dark, what

makes young girls go dark. and then got a lot of pushback about who do you think you are -- because it was literally. who do you think you are to say you were born bright? and i was like give me a break? whatever. >> what was the issue? it sounded arrogant? ge >> yeah, i think that is it. this is a bootstrap story so when people pick up they think this is another story that has a lot of currency today around if you work hard enough you can make it and then when you read the book that is not what this book is about. this is about a very complicated story of a community of people of my life, of my girlhood. so it is not that story. and i think that story has a lot more currency and value than this story does.

i think what is true is the protagonist are all black women. we don't see that. even if you see a bootstrap story it is likely the protagonist is not a person of color or a black woman. this is a story that is centered in the black community and around the black experience. >> well, i mean, okay. you also mentioned that when we talked earlier that there were people who even had an issue with even writing this story because they felt like it wasn't really true. can you talk a little bit about that? >> there are some things people find hard to believe. like when i say i have never been to a middle class neighborhood until college. a solid middle class neighborhood.

people are like how is that possible? or i said well i never seen black middle class people until i got to howard and people are like how is that possible? it is easy. if you live in los angeles or you know, wherever usa, it is geographic isolation is real, the people in your neighborhood are who you see. it is possible to not see a middle class black person and the only white people you see are the white teachers in your classroom or when you go to girl scouts or something like that. so pushing back on, you know, even as the black middle class person today, pushing back on those narratives about who gets to be black, what it looks like and what the experience is. >> part of that narrative is that, you know, someone might think in communities that people were not -- there was a lot of

violence and this and that and you talk about this in the book where it really, in the way you described your growing up, it was the total opposite. >> there was a lot going on but one of the things i try to comp likate is it is that and this at the same time. poverty is harsh. i don't want to say that you know, we were, yai don't know wt we were doing. so i don't want to comp lcomplit but there are moments of joy and people are proud of you and rooting for you and want you to be successful. we hold that at the same time even the way i talk about family. so family is a place of love and rest but it can be a place that is not safe as well and how do we take about those things

simultaneously so i try to write about this. >> everybody is born bright you medicati mentioned so it is something possible for everyone but i do feel in reading the book you feel this sense of resilience you had to whatever messages were being thrown at you by all kinds of outside influences that made you say, okay, yeah, you can bat but i am not going to internalize that. i am going to keep moving. what do you think it is -- there is something about the way you took in what was, you know, your life that -- i guess i am trying to say you didn't take in the negative you just kept going. >> again, i think it is one of those things you kind of hold. i did internalize it because we

cannot help internalize those kinds of messages and you can not help internalize all the messages you are getting from everywhere that says you are black, you grew up in los angeles, you have a teenage mom. it is hard to not take them in and absorb them. but the thing is, well, what do i do with that. i feel like i have always been a difficult child so this is just an extension of i'm going to do what i am going to do anyway and i think one of the things we expect for kids who grew up in poverty is to just have grit. i don't know if you are into the grit conversation. we expect for everything to be failing around kids and they have a grip to overcome. and i said why do we expect black and brown and poor kids to have this grit but don't expect it from other kids? and wanting to push back on that

narrative because there were gritty kids who didn't make it. to say if you have grit and per perseverance and are resilient you will make it out and telling black and brown kids that is what they need is a mistake. >> let's shift gears just a little bit. you know, you -- in the book, one of the driving themes is this tension between the community and the systems that are put in place to help. this unconscious bias that shows itself in different ways. talk about the instances in your life where you experienced or witnessed that unconscious bias and how it made you feel. >> well i think in the book i

say in poor people's lives three systems are omni presence. the criminal system, education system and social welfare system and all of them cause more harm than good in poor people's lives. so, what that means is these systems who are supposed to help and protect are doing the exact opposite. so early on, i learned, for example not to trust the police. i mean, you know, you be bad the police are going to come get you. just crazy stuff you should not tell kids. so when people worry about the mistrust of law enforcement by black people it comes at a very early age, at least for poor people, because these people are not there to protect you and to help you. but now, or even -- you know, so

when people wonder about -- like when white people don't understand why black people are afraid of police, it is because they don't have that kind of relationship with the police. in the book, i try to comp lika and ask why and i tell about a man who raped a woman and they hold his hands, she beats him up and they go their separate ways. >> concerning. i mean, how does it feel to be on the receiving end of the systems that don't give you agency in your determining your own race, way of being?

>> i think in the beginning i talk about the fact that i was a twin. so i had a twin sister but because my mother was poor and black nobody ever told her she was having twins. after she had the babies, one died and they didn't tell her anything about what happened. there was no conversation. it was just here is your one baby, go ahead. you cannot take care of this one so we don't need tell you about it. it wasn't until i started writing the book i had to go back and ask her about this story and she was still torn up about it. but you have to think what if she had not been poor? what if she had had quality insurance? what if people didn't see her as a young, teenage, poor, black girl? you have to think about those things. or at least, i am thinking about those things when i was writing.

>> towards the end of the book you talk about going to college and how you realized there were a lot of things you missed out on early on leading up to your time going to college that you felt you were prepared but came to the realization maybe you were not as prepared as you thought you were. once you realized i didn't get what everyone else seems have to gotten how did that make you feel? >> well, i think -- so there is a chapter called seeing with only these eyes. i really grappled with the idea i can only see what i can see

and that is true for everyone. i didn't know, for example, that schools across town had more money, more resources, they were sending kids to harvard and columbia and i had no idea. when i go to howard and i see and find out actually, there is a whole parallel system at work and you were not supposed to be here. frankly, you were supposed to see this. and that made me really angry because i knew we were going setup. our schools -- we were never supposed to succeed coming out of those schools. and it is a lie. like you are lying to us. and that was really painful and so when i say the poor girl wants to tell the story about why we don't make it out that is it. i want to say you are lying?

you need to be held accountable and we need to really talk about what is going on with inequities and what is happening to girls like me. >> you write about the fact that in telling these real truths about the experience those folks who you talked in front of at the very beginning of the book and you say you kind of came out and said well i am the people -- i am that person. do you worry now those audiences won't be as receptive now that you are really telling the truth of your experience? >> you know, i think it is very complicated. on the one hand, when i am in these rooms, and it is mostly white men and a few white women, and i have been in round-tables where they are talking about

poor, black women and i don't know where they get the stories. it is like i don't understand how they are making it. she is a single mom and in order to survive she would have to work on wall street. they have grand fantasies and i am like who are you talking about? it makes them uncomfortable and they go to their training. i was here, i did this. and i said no, no, you are not used to having somebody here who says that is not okay, that is not accurate. >> their training like their field work or research? >> you know, well, someone from stanford did this study so you know it must be right. like that thinking. and to say, yeah, i don't care if jesus did this study. it is not accurate, you know? and so that makes people uncomfortable because you are disrupting their narrative, sometimes hurting their funding, so you know, all these things

come into play. so i just continue to tell the story because it is my truth. i think it is easy to sort of push the can down the road and one of the things i wanted to do was say i am not willing to push this can down the road anymore so i am going to tell this story but i want to say even when i tell this different story people come back it to the original story they know and try to tell that story. okay. i can't give you real examples because i know i won't be back on tv. no, but hypothetically there is a review that came out and the review, they sent it to me saying another good review. i started to read these things carefully because sometimes stuff sneaks in. so --

>> they who sent to you? the publisher? >> the publisher sent it saying another great review. let's file this away. i said except for the they called me brother a petty thief and gang banger, you know? and that is not in the book at all. >> you never used that language. >> i never used that language but that is the imagination going wild. she said i saw that and i was like why didn't you say something? yeah! >> why didn't she? >> she just didn't. she said i am going to talk to them. they made the correction but if i had pushed it along, you know, there would have been this perception of my brother that i never said. not even close to it.

so things like that happen. >> i want to go back to talking about you as the family storyteller. right? and as you were writing and thinking about i want to get to kind of just like the emotion of grappling with telling a story people may not agree with but you have to tell it anyway. like how did you push past the moments? you said you cried a lot in writing the book. how did you get through that? there is a lot of people who would love to tell their story, you know? they would love to do what you did but what always stops people is that you know the emotion of it all. so, there must have been a certain point where you were able to get past that. how did you do it? >> i really didn't get past it. i just kept writing if that

makes sense. even if i needed a take a break for a day or two and sometimes it was a week and i had a deadline and i would say i can't write because this memory is swirling around in my head and it is too heavy so i need to go sit down for a while. i had some really good friends who read the book as i was writing and i would leave something out and they would say you can't leave it out. you have to tell this because if you don't say this they won't understand why this happened. >> so they kept you accountable? >> they kept me accountable but when i pushed back they said you have to tell this for me and then say whatever. or you know, you just said that, you know, somebody had a -- but i don't feel the emotion. so i would have to back and dig deeper into my own well and try

to tell it more fully. i think that was the most difficult thing. trying to stay non-judgmental particular with the writing of my mother and our relationship. >> that takes a lot of guts to talk about your mom. i mean, we tend not to challenge or, you know, we want everyone to think the best of our mom. mom is mom and we love mom. so that is the hardest -- yes. >> i don't know how taboo it is over there but black moms are like here and everybody else is kind of here. so you don't talk about -- there is something like you don't talk about your mother in a negative

way so it is like funny dinners and good times and all these things. so to sort of say let me pull back the layer and tell you about a complicated relationship with a black mother where she is flawed and she is beautiful at the same time. she is scrappy. you know, she isbusive and a all -- she is abusive and all these things but you are wanting the love still. how do you tell that story and not be vilified? i try to write the story about my mother and saying i want you to understand her's too. i think people walk away like damn but i know her. >> since you became a mom has it been easier to understand some of the ways that your mom interacted with you? some of the decisions she made

that you may have to make? do you have a different perspective on motherhood now that you are a mom? >> well, i think children are -- so i have a set of six year old twins, charlie and parker. hey! all right. and i think that i spent most of my life being estranged. so i am from los angeles and left los angeles in '94 to come to howard and was like i am never going back. so i had a very -- i could go

years without going home but when i had my kids i had to think of my mother as a mother and my father as a father and i remember calling him one time and saying something like how could you leave us because i know what it is like to have two kids looking to you for love and care and he didn't have an answer. so trying to grapple with my childhood hurt and wounds and trying to raise kids that are healthy and whole you know is real. >> we talked about this and i want you to give the answer that you gave me earlier and that is do you feel that the adults in your life should have been held more accountable to some of the

things that did or didn't happen to you? some of the opportunities you didn't get to have. like i am thinking about the example of you wanted to participate in something. it wasn't the drill team. it was something else and your mom said no. >> well, yeah, sometimes it is arbitrary yes or no. you know, like, i just think at the time it would be hard for me to say i feel they should be held accountability because there was nothing to be held accountable to. it was just our life. the choices she was making i didn't understand them as wrong or right because she was my mother. so whatever she said was right was right. years later today, you know, i can say, you know, those are different choices than i would have made but i am not my mother.

she is making these constraints and choices that thankfully i don't have to make and have two children to feed. so i try not to think in terms of accountability or what they owe me and rather i try to think about how tough it must have been to be 16 and 17 with limited education and have two mouths to feed and want to party. you know? my father is still a partiepart person. i imagine it was true when he was 17 with two kids as well. and then i think about myself as 16 or 17. that is enormous responsibility. >> i think it is so interesting how you are able to, and that comes through clearly in the book, because never once is

there a judgment forced upon any of the characters in the story. it is just kind of like this is how it was and it is up to you as the leader to interpret it however you see it; right? and that was intentional. >> yeah, i mean, again, i tried to write the angry book first, you know? but i really in the end decided that i wanted to tell the full story of the people in my life including my aunt who was an amazing woman but very complex and these strong women and not judge them and not place my academic intel lelectual into t that narrative. when i interviewed my mom or found out she didn't like the

book much, she started running around the family because this is what people do, saying she is out here calling us poor. and i was like but we were poor. and she is like no, no, we were not. i didn't think we were poor too then and she still doesn't think she is poor today. so, that is really hard but it is also the truth. >> when what are the things you hope people take away from reading the book? >> one of the things i have been really grateful about in terms of the book is there reception. people see themselves in the story. even when i talk about myself i don't -- you know, i am the protagonist buts not without my own flaws either. i think that is a good thing. and i am not separate from my

family or community. i am in the midst of it as well and experiencing it alongside them. when black women, and black girls in particular say i see myself or i see like that is funny, or we all know a sunny or something like that it makes me feel good. what i hope is that for black women and black girls and black communities we see ourselves in the book. at the national level, with the people i deal with in terms of my work, i want them to stop telling lies about us. that is really what i want. i want them to not lie on me, you know, and my family and my community. i am hoping it shifts the narrative a little bit. >> i think now would be a good time to open up for some questions from the audience. there are microphones in the

back. you are welcome to come to the mike and share your thoughts with us. >> should we start to the right here and then go back and forth? >> first of all, thank you so much. now i finished the book, there is such uncanny similarity. i feel like we have had the same childhood. it is crazy. in fact, today i was thinking i don't know what that means to have read my life in somebody

else's story so i want to say thank you and i don't know what it means and we can process later. the question i had is related to your last point in that i feel you and feel the tension in trying to tell a story about what was true at the time and the coping stories people tell in the family about the exact same situation in very different ways and that when you circulate a story that feels more true comprehensive, fuller, complex, that they might reject it and yet at the same time you are trying to correct a story on another level that is often related to funding and therefore highly motivated to also disagree with you. so what does it feel like to be squeezed on two sides by those who have an investment in

telling a different story and what do you feel is the worth, value or need to tell a stories that doesn't do either of those two things? either the coping strategy story or the funding story. if that works as a question? i feel the squeeze because i feel it too personally and i wonder if you had insight now that the book is out about what you think the story is doing to your family even though some may push back and maybe people like me because that is part of the answer. there are a lot of people that come out of the woodwork to affirm that. >> the squeeze. so with my family, that is why i haven't called home. i know they are having conversations between them about the book and i want them to have that conversation without me

feeling like i have to defend what i wrote on page whatever. >> do you think they will work through whatever it is or will you have to defend it at a certain point? >> i will have to defend it. i am just not ready. my father keeps calling and i keep pressing send to, you know. i feel like i will have to reckon with them because they have their own version and part of it is they will try to tell me their stories to correct me, to convince me my story is not the right story. i think for my father in particular who hasn't -- he spent a lot of time talking about when your mother reads this and i was sir, do you know yourself? who do you think you were in this story -- more focused on

her. he had a lot of feelings about how she was going to feel and i think he had not thought about what i was going to write about him. he never gave space whether i asked about where he was he would just hut the conversation down and with a book he can't do that. he has to see himself and that may be hard for a lot lot of people in the book except my grandmother who i love. >> now the other part of the question was how do you kind of -- >> the funding people? >> yeah, this narrative does not agree with the common thinking.

>> what is disheartening is there is a ray of silencing these voices. we know our experiences. we talk about it. there is a way of black falling, closing the door, that happens to us. so being prepared for that and then there is what has been beautiful is there have been many institutions who said we needed this or this helps us tell another story. those people who were already on the right path anyway. they were pretty progressive and had progressive politics. we are talking about the mega institutions and think tank that really controls the narrative and has investment in the ways that we are portrayed. >> question here? >> good afternoon. nicole. i want to say thank you, first

of all, for sharing your story. i am also from southern california and grew up from the poverty line and so many aspects of your story i resonate with so again thank you. i am working with a non-profit organization right now that hosts leadership acadmies at princeton university and the girls are able to get into spaces where they talk about the traumas in silencing that happens in our communities. i just want to know what type of advice would you give to young, black girls and students at the university? i go to the university of california santa cruz and consta constantly being silenced about our experience of growing up in poverty. what advice would you give to young, black girls who are used to being silent and how do we push back against the structures outside of our homes and in community spaces?

you can have a dialogue with a mother or uncle or someone and you want to hold them accountable but they want to, you know, say you didn't experience what you experienced or they want to say that, you know, perhaps it didn't happen at the way it did. how do young black girls find that voice to push back and resist? >> well, i think -- it reminds me when tony morrison and i will not get right but the idea that the function of racism is they tell you that, you know, your head looks like this so you go set out to prove your head doesn't look like that. there is always rational about why your story isn't the right story until you set about trying to prove this is the right story. what i decided for myself is i don't have anything to prove. i don't have to prove my hum humanity or story is true. it just is.

i think that is a weight we carry in terms of defending and trying reassert our humanity to people who don't see us as humans and just refusing to do that anymore or any longer. i don't know if that is help but same in thing in terms of working with little girls. >> you don't have to into anyone's narrative if it doesn't fit in with yours. sfwl >> yeah, don't tell me how to interpret my experiences. >> to be honest with you i haven't read the book. i just strolled in today and was

like what is going on here today? okay. but i am like so happy and thankful i came in today because i am still going through and i have been searching for a story like this. my experience in terms of how i identify my gender is i was assigned female at birth but i am like gender fluid and whatnot. but it still resonates with me about -- what you spoke about in terms of the mask that you wear because i feel like i have been on my own from an early age so i always had to deal with being the youngest person and the only black person in a workplace because i am specifically doing like art and museum studies and

things like that. how are you able to do that in adulthood and what advice do you have for little poor black girls going through it and people who have had that experience of being raised as a poor, little black girl how they can privilege their blackness and affirm themselves when everybody

else, even sometimes their family, doesn't affirm that? >> um, what i don't to say to that? i feel like it is just work. i can't say anything else. you know? people say black women have like high self-esteem and love our bodies. the only thing i want to say is how can we, without doing work, how could that be true given all the images we have bombarded with that tell us we are not beautiful? folks within our community and outside of our community and it is only with the love of other black women that we have a affirmed. the people who affirm me are all

black women. so the idea that black women don't love other black women or i hear black women say i don't have female friends because -- first of all, i know when they say female we are in trouble. females be tripin', you know? and i push back and say that is not true. it is the love of black women that we sutain other black women. that is what i say. >> hi, i want to say first that you are so beautiful in person. when you walked out on stage i was like wow and you are so funny, too. isn't she funny? i had the opportunity to read some of your book and really

have been enjoying it and the way you insert the factual information along with our factual, personal information. i was thinking about self directed girls, the strongwil d strong-willed girls and it sounds like you were strong-willed and i wonder how that impacted your relationship with your mom and since you have children you are raising and how society deals with girls, particularly black girls, who are self-directed or strong-willed? who white boys it is a strong of leadership but when black girls are self-willed or strong directed we try to squash that or confine it. i wonder if you have thoughts about that. >> sometimes i think we squash

it and sometimes i think other times people try to squash it or kill it. >> yeah, i think, i just feel like my strong -- if i were not strong willed i would not be here today. if i did not pushback and ask to go to the library, ask to ride the skateboard, wrestle my brother, all things little girls are not supposed to do i would not be here today and i believe it is a form that worked for me. with my own daughter, i tried to allow her to not extinguish that in her. like be strong. she doesn't have to be a fighter in the way i was but she can assert herself and be powerful. you know? i just don't think there is a lot of space in the world for

strong willed black women but we are expected to be strong and take on a lot of everything. that is the stereotypes and that is rooted in truth. when people leave we are taking care of the family and juggling a lot. we are strong. but the idea that is used against us or when people -- we don't use it to benefit them, you know, that is when the problem comes in. >> yes, good evening. thank you so much. i am suffering from allergies please excuse my voice. i didn't read the book but certainly look forward to reading more. i am 62 years of age and coming

on the heels of the civil rights movement i wouldn't know where to begin to write a book because i would have so many chapters. one of the things i grew up with was -- first of all the extended family. there is so much generational stuff i see that is worthy of probably discussion at some point because we had people that lived with us, relatives from the south, we were the new york people. but now the younger generation, about a generation or two removed started the family union. it is interesting. i could relate to so much of what you were saying, ms. mason, but family reunions they talk about granddaddy and this is hat and my grandfather was a sharecropper so i say but my sister says, no, she is 14 months younger than me.

granddaddy owned his own land. so, there is a whole, and my cousin would say the same thing. so the way we see our family is really somewhat different. my brother doesn't really talk about it at all. then triaz -- i will just make one other comment. this is really touching to me. i am a speech language pathologist and retired from the department of education and still on occasion will do some work. when i was studying at nyu which is where i received my masters i was at my mother's house and my daughter was, you know, taking care of -- and my mother would come up at five in the morning and my father watching me studying for a test so hard and it took seven times to pass the

test. >> i am going to ask you to please ask the question. >> i am sorry. so she said, i just wanted to make the comment on what the doctor would say and she said that my mother said it is so -- you didn't go to the best of schools coming out of the city housing projects. so i wanted to make that point. it made me feel bad that my mother seemed to feel bad and i told my father don't feel bad it is not your fault. that was just something that touched me, you know? >> there are moments in the book when you say don't feel bad. where you say to your mom, don't feel bad, it is not your fault. it is not your fault. >> yeah. >> looks like there are three questions. if you could sustinct thank you.

>> i want to say hi, and thank you very much and it is refreshing to see such on honest frank discussion on this. my question to you is what do you think it takes to bring about real change in particular your role within the policy making arena and in particular in terms of moving progressive white middle class on this? in terms of the progressive part even for the most progressive people there is the next stage of enlightment and they default to the narrative and still people come to events like this, will be here and engage on an intellectual level but at the end of the day where we buy our houses and send our kids to school are different decisions. i would love to talk about the progressive segment and what you think it takes to bring about change.

i personally want to add i think it takes people from low economic backgrounds and ethnic backgrounds to be the decision maker in the arena because they bring the right perspective. >> i agree with you. i think it is about shifting and taini changing the narrative and changing who is in the room. i think there is a real investment in the stories. people's jobs are tied to this poverty narrative. we are seeing people like this and telling the same stories. so if the way you get paid is by perpetuating the stories and why jow a job you keep the narratives going. so until we disrupt systems that are built on the back of poor black people nothing is going to change.

it is easy for them to see not what is going on. >> i am going to ask the two questions to be asked one after the next and then you can answer. >> i want to thank you for your book. i wanted to thank you for empowering me to pass this on to my granddaughter. question, i want to reiterate something you said earlier. why do you think a publisher would sabotage the credibility of your book? >> a publisher? >> well, as i understood it was the comment -- >> it was a viewer of the -- >> it wasn't the publisher. >> it was -- i want to be clear.

a lot of the stuff that goes under the radar and i don't think the person who wrote it was being malicious. i think it was her imagination at work about black families. she is probably the only person who read the book and she is like okay. >> good evening, nicole. >> hi, rhetta. >> so excited to be here for you. i was delighted at the opening

reading. i am curious when you think about and see and our witnesses leaders like charlie and others across the country who are leading with an unapologetically black, queer lens and how do you see that interacting with your book and the work you are doing to shift narrative as well as how do you think that is playing out helping women and girls to see the life you were talking about in the title and pushback on these policies that are explicitly there to dim and crest the light and extinguish it? >> inviting charlene was intentional for me because i wanted to make the connection between the work i believe is so important with byt100 and the other activists happening.

the book in my story, and this is my contribution to that work, and it is my song and my intervention and i am hoping that it will be used as a way to shift this larger narrative and you know, i understand and i wrote this in an article that writing as a political act. you know, as a feminist, i know the power of words. so there is nothing that is not intenti intentional. when you talk about what stories were left out and what was included i was intentional about the stories included because i know the power of those stories and those words. >> thank you so much for your questions. [applause] >> do you have anything you want to add, vanessa? >> no, i thought about having

you read. >> okay. >> so as nicole comes to the podium to read a passage from her book i want to let you know we have the book for sale in our book shop and there will be a book signing afterwards. >> okay. so the chapter i am going to read from is the last chapter which is called i'll fly away. where to? howard university in washington, d.c. do you know where that is and how to get there? they turned toward the suitcases stacked by the curb. is this all you have? did he not hear he i wondered? do you know how to get there? i had never ridden in a cab and not sure if i trusted him. he said yeah, i do. it is about 45 minutes away.

he loaded my thinks in the trunk, slammed it shut and set the meter. i only had $200 and hoped the trip would not be too costly. where are you from? california. oh, yeah, what part? he seemed interested. i hesitated. where was i from? i suppose all over. i had lived so many different places and no place in particular for any length of time. i wanted to say englewood. that was the last place i felt at home and safe in my body. southern california, i responded. like where? los angeles? yeah. i have been there beautiful place but wouldn't want to live there. our eyes met in the rear view mirror. this guy was annoying me. i wanted to take in the new area with the signs and the license plates and people going by in their cars.

all around i replied hoping he would get the message. i had never seen trees so green and lush. the clouds in the sky draped over them. are you sure you are going in the right direction i asked as he made a right on to georgia avenue. the neighborhood was like mine back home. it didn't look like what i imagined. men hanging out on the corners, tiny carry out restaurants sprinkle along the block. i was accepting it to be fancy live the logo on the acceptance letter. this is it. not what you were expecting? he interrupted me around the campus is a little rough and the locals don't like the students. they think you are, you know, he

put his finger to his nose and smashed it up. a little snobby. what the hell was he talking about? how could black people be snobby or look down on other blacks? it did not make sense to me. i waved my hand dismissively in the air. i am going to bethune hall. 225 north fork street. i directed him from the brown paper sent by the university. it had miss the -- the cab driver made a left, a right and then another right. what is going on i asked? people are unloading, parents with their children. he waited patiently making his way to the front of the line. when he got close enough he parked the car and popped open the truck. he said this is heavy as he

pulled on the handle of the truck. he placed it on the curb next to my other suitcase. i handed him the money. good luck he said as he counted the money and he pulled off. wait, no help up the stairs? there was no way i could get the trunk inside my byself. i stood there plotting my next move. i noticed there were parents helping their daughters unload and climb the unstable stairs that led to the dorm. they were laughing, hugging and snapping pictures preparing were the final farewell. in that moment, my heart sank. i was alone. it never occurred parents did these kind of things with their children. and no one, not my mother or father, offered to come with me. perhaps i rationalized they didn't know they should be here or this was a milestone moment. it was my first trip on an

airplane and i never traveled so far away from home. i assured my mom we would be fine. i was assuming we would all come alone but i was wrong. they barely noticed me and when they did it was only to ask me to clear the way. okay. can i leave these here while i check-in i asked the girl standing at the foot of the stairs directing traffic and answering questions. sure, just don't be too long. i decided to leave my things on the curb andcheck and check in. i didn't like the way my name sound sounded. it was fine in my neighborhood because no one used except for teachers on the first day of school. about not here.

i hope she didn't repeat it. i needed a new name. pumpkin would not suffice either. where were you from she asked flipping through the pages to find my name. california. there is a club for people from california. you should join it. a club i suppose? she was making small talk and i treated it as such. i studied her head. she was bald intentionally it appeared. she had chopped her beauty off and didn't seem to care. her long eyelashes hit the back of her eyelids and her teeth were stained. maybe we could be friends. you on the 4th floor. here is your key and a copy of had rules. no boys allowed in your room until after the first couple weeks. why did she say that?

did i look like to the type to have boys in my dorm room? i was a good girl and still a virg virgin. these black people moved with authority and were well dressed. i wore my best outfit on the plane. a black and white jumper, white tights and mary janes. now i felt not good enough. all of the girls were beautiful, polished. at my old my school i was used to be one of the handful of attractive black girls and here i was lost at sea. everybody was beautiful, smart and well spoken. shit. my things on the curb were becoming a nuisance. excuse me, sir, can you help me

take my trunk up the stairs? he was somebody else's father. he looked happy to do it. yes, i can help you. is this all yours? he lifted his baseball hat a little so i could see his eyes. i nodded and hoped he would not change his mind. he was already sweating profusely and his white t-shirt clung to his chest. he grabbed the long trunk by the handles and carried it up the stack of stairs to the elevator and returned for my suitcase. thank you, i said and was grateful. i took the elevator up and went to my room. maybe we can put pictures up. my room was no different. it looked like it belonged an orphanage. it was tight with only room for a desk and a bed.

they were heading to the door of the common area with a bag full of trash. i repeated my new name i'm nicole, i'm from los angeles. they tried match e me with parents, they could not. after few more minutes of small talk i return to my room and began to unpack i'm maded bed first and suitcase and pom-poms from high school on my desk. before i left for the airport i had rummaged through old things at the my mother's house and decided to take them. everyone loved cheerleaders and i could hide behind what cheer leaders are supposed to be