Transcript
WEBVTT
00:00:02.483 --> 00:00:06.131
All right, hello everyone, welcome back to the show.
00:00:06.131 --> 00:00:08.394
We have Dr Amy Alexander here.
00:00:08.394 --> 00:00:15.451
She is the founder and CEO of Legacy Consulting and, yeah, let's get this started.
00:00:15.451 --> 00:00:23.967
So can you give me a brief gist, or a brief summary of who you are, what you're about and what your message is overall?
00:00:24.888 --> 00:00:28.231
Yes, good morning and thank you so much for having me.
00:00:28.231 --> 00:00:32.656
So I am a veteran of public school.
00:00:32.656 --> 00:00:37.427
I worked in public education for about 30 years.
00:00:37.427 --> 00:00:40.432
I left that space last year.
00:00:40.432 --> 00:00:46.909
Around this time I was an eighth grade US history teacher for almost a decade.
00:00:46.909 --> 00:00:57.807
I was a elementary school counselor for a few years and I spent the majority of my time in that space as a high school counselor as well.
00:00:57.807 --> 00:01:00.573
I worked in mental health as a clinician.
00:01:00.573 --> 00:01:16.894
I worked with adjudicated minors doing individual and group therapy, psychoeducational groups with them, and also I worked at a local walk-in crisis center, which was very eye-opening.
00:01:16.894 --> 00:01:29.075
It gave me a very different perspective of the mental health world, how to access services and the obstacles that exist in getting people the help that they need.
00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:36.308
I've also worked a lot in the space of trauma.
00:01:36.308 --> 00:01:43.987
Kind of before everybody was a trauma expert In the last like I don't know seven to 10 years.
00:01:43.987 --> 00:01:57.343
I've been looking into trauma for the last probably 16, 18 years, particularly as it relates to communities of color and specifically to the Black population.
00:01:57.343 --> 00:02:22.033
When I started there was hardly any literature, any research on trauma in the Black community and we're talking about generational trauma, trauma that's passed on through family, through culture, collective trauma so that is the space in which I operate Some things around secondary trauma.
00:02:22.033 --> 00:02:44.770
There was a lot more literature on survivors second and third generation survivors of the Jewish Holocaust, as well as more information even in regards to the indigenous population, with the Holocaust on indigenous peoples and as well I used information on sexual assault survivors.
00:02:44.770 --> 00:03:00.759
There was information and research on that that I used to kind of piece together my research regarding trauma in the black community.
00:03:07.639 --> 00:03:16.655
I've since started my company Legacy, maybe about three years ago and I've been fortunate enough to be in spaces with educators, with nonprofit workers and staff, with business people post COVID-19.
00:03:16.655 --> 00:03:29.014
And it is just overwhelming I'm an energy person and the energy of these folks who are really suffering.
00:03:29.014 --> 00:03:50.096
I think COVID brought a lot of mental health issues that we were kind of ignoring and thinking we could just push through on our own to the surface and now a lot of folks don't know how to deal with this trauma, with the anxiety, with the depression that they're experiencing.
00:03:50.096 --> 00:04:18.285
So it's really moving and it's actually encouraging and gives me energy to be able to go into spaces and let people know that it's OK, that this is normal, that they're not defective right, that they're not, as some people say in past generations, crazy, that they are human and that these feelings that they're experiencing, these thoughts that they're having, are human things.
00:04:18.285 --> 00:04:28.966
So it is, you know, a blessing to be able to kind of provide people relief in that space, and I enjoy that.
00:04:32.043 --> 00:04:42.274
So what got you introduced to trauma and what got you here's a better way of phrasing it what got you first interested in learning about trauma.
00:04:42.274 --> 00:04:56.526
Interested in learning about trauma and kind of begin to develop approaches or begin to push in the direction of actually helping people who deal with trauma and to learn about generational trauma.
00:04:56.627 --> 00:05:20.666
Well, let me say this I saw a quote I'm very into mindfulness, you know, when I do workshops I have people just kind of settle into their space and kind of try to push away the stressors and the you know, the things of the day that we bring with us and I read a quote that said we're not human beings having a spiritual experience, we're spiritual beings having a human experience.
00:05:20.666 --> 00:05:40.494
I think, to answer your question, my interest in history and my years as a history teacher and my fascination with just kind of how people behave right in certain spaces and certain times brought me to the idea of trauma, in addition to my own personal experiences.
00:05:40.494 --> 00:05:43.442
I identify as a Black woman.
00:05:43.442 --> 00:05:47.064
I was raised by a white woman who is my mother.
00:05:47.064 --> 00:05:55.189
She's since passed, but I saw, I lived the experience.
00:05:55.189 --> 00:05:56.029
I'm 55.
00:05:56.029 --> 00:05:58.831
I'm going to be 56 next month.
00:05:59.211 --> 00:06:08.398
That happened in terms of race and discrimination are so far in the past, but they're really not.
00:06:08.398 --> 00:06:11.665
My mother was a white woman having a black child.
00:06:11.665 --> 00:06:32.387
In the 1960s she was spat on, prohibited from entering certain places and spaces like a local amusement park had a swimming pool and when the segregation laws, when they were forced to desegregate, they closed the pool, they just shut it down, put other rides there.
00:06:32.387 --> 00:06:40.994
My mother, in her defiant space as a probably 25-year-old woman, took her Black child, me, into that pool.
00:06:40.994 --> 00:06:57.805
So she said we're going in there and, as you can see, you know, some people might not see my Blackness, but things like that, things like people asking my mother and me did I get my job because of affirmative action?
00:06:57.805 --> 00:07:31.879
As if my qualifications and my abilities weren't enough to earn me a place in a professional space, things like being underestimated, things like seeing my students underestimated and not being encouraged to take the more rigorous academic courses, to not be permitted by some type of gatekeeping to challenge, you know, some type of gatekeeping to challenge themselves in those spaces where they were probably very capable but just not given the space and the encouragement to do so.
00:07:31.879 --> 00:07:39.500
I mean, there's so many things that cause trauma going into schools and this is one of the reasons why I had to leave.
00:07:40.641 --> 00:07:42.882
I do not agree with policing children.
00:07:42.882 --> 00:07:50.007
I do not agree with policing children in spaces that they are required by law to be in, such as school.
00:07:50.007 --> 00:08:01.894
When they come in, they're yelled at to you know, turn their phones over, take their hoods off, walking through metal detectors having their effects, their personal effects, searched as they enter this space.
00:08:01.894 --> 00:08:05.997
This is not education, this is indoctrination, this is control.
00:08:05.997 --> 00:08:21.213
And so all these things have kind of helped me to see that there's a connection when people say, well, why is everything about race?
00:08:21.213 --> 00:08:25.250
Or why can't you all you people, let go of the past?
00:08:25.420 --> 00:08:29.970
Like slavery was hundreds of years ago, but slavery, what happened then, has been passed on.
00:08:29.970 --> 00:09:05.688
Those reactions to what happened to so many of our ancestors the torture, the disrespect, the inhumanity, right of how they lived and existed has been passed on, of how they lived and existed has been passed on because the fears, the reactions to those things when women, black women, saw their men being mutilated and beaten and even murdered in some cases, that reaction to seeing that means we're now going to try to protect our men because we've seen the horrors of what can happen if we don't.
00:09:05.688 --> 00:09:08.041
And so that doesn't change that.
00:09:08.041 --> 00:09:29.566
In fact, when it's unaddressed and not even acknowledged, it becomes more a part of our culture, more embedded in who we are, so much so to the point that we think it's normal and it being the things that we, for instance, let's talk about a little bit risk and protective factors.
00:09:30.145 --> 00:09:37.011
A protective factor during the days of enslavement is keeping your mouth shut, not talking to people about.
00:09:37.011 --> 00:09:49.143
You know possible plans to escape, or what have you amongst black folks, or what have you amongst Black folks Today?
00:09:49.143 --> 00:09:58.613
We kind of are closed mouth about the things that we need to be expressing and we need to explore because now I'm good, I can handle it, I can take care of it, I don't need to share my business with a stranger who's paid to listen to my problems.
00:09:58.613 --> 00:10:11.131
So now it's a risk factor because we are not addressing the things that we need to address collectively, culturally, historically, in order to be able to start the healing process.
00:10:13.741 --> 00:10:19.582
Yeah, you're so right about that, you know, because I see this all the time, a lot in the academic environments too.
00:10:19.582 --> 00:10:36.167
You know, I usually am one of the only black people there that asks for extra help from the professors and the teachers and opens up about problems and I always wondered why other people didn't do it and your explanation it definitely helps.
00:10:36.167 --> 00:10:52.485
To emphasize it's sad and you know it definitely needs to change, to kind of move this forward how do you think generational trauma has maybe influenced your life or your legacy?
00:10:52.485 --> 00:10:56.974
And again, mind you, if you have a family or anything else kids, I'm not sure.
00:11:00.841 --> 00:11:01.780
Wow, that's powerful.
00:11:01.780 --> 00:11:03.062
That's a powerful question.
00:11:03.062 --> 00:11:32.866
I think it's hopefully made me more sensitive to other people's experiences, even the ones that I haven't had academic piece but everyday work of hearing, and I call my students, my babies, hearing my babies' stories, the things that they've endured, the things that they've overcome.
00:11:32.866 --> 00:11:46.167
You know parents working through addiction, parents who are incarcerated, walking through violence, you know, to get to school, to get home.
00:11:46.167 --> 00:11:48.844
I've had students who were shot on their way to school.
00:11:48.844 --> 00:11:54.614
I've had, or you know how they come back from.
00:11:54.614 --> 00:11:56.841
That moves me.
00:11:56.841 --> 00:12:08.975
It makes me wonder how the human spirit, how people, especially Black folks, spirit, how people, especially black folks, have such power to overcome.
00:12:08.975 --> 00:12:32.001
And I've had, you know, students who are, you know, living in poverty, of all races white, black, who are living with addicted parents, who are living with you know, just situations and circumstances that I do not know how they have managed to get to the place where they're at.
00:12:32.001 --> 00:12:48.515
And that has moved me Seeing my mom struggle, seeing my mom rejected from spaces when I was a little child because she opted to have a Black child and to stand, stand firm on that.
00:12:48.515 --> 00:13:00.323
Even when her family members rejected her, they said you can come, but don't bring that Black baby and my mother, you know, to family events and things like that.
00:13:00.323 --> 00:13:07.434
She said, no, you know, if I can't bring my child, then I'm not going to be in those spaces.
00:13:07.434 --> 00:13:14.312
I think there's such a myriad of things, even my own life as a student.
00:13:14.312 --> 00:13:17.403
All the way from I was so happy and proud.
00:13:17.443 --> 00:13:21.863
I remember being in fourth grade and I read to the level to be in the highest reading group.
00:13:21.863 --> 00:13:30.100
Now, when I look back at that as an adult, yeah, that was great for me.
00:13:30.100 --> 00:13:31.423
But what about the other students?
00:13:31.423 --> 00:13:31.924
What about that?
00:13:31.924 --> 00:13:34.309
There could have been preconceived ideas about their abilities.
00:13:34.309 --> 00:13:35.552
Why are you in the low reading group?
00:13:35.552 --> 00:13:37.445
Why are there even distinctions in that?
00:13:37.524 --> 00:13:50.793
And that's something that bothers me about public education, the division, the kind of tracking like you're good enough to be here and you're not, and that followed me even through my doctoral studies.
00:13:50.793 --> 00:13:55.566
I was looking around, thinking you know that imposter syndrome like why am I here?
00:13:55.566 --> 00:13:59.092
I'm not smart like these other people and I am.
00:13:59.092 --> 00:14:03.687
And it turns out that I might actually be more intelligent.
00:14:03.687 --> 00:14:18.749
And to have my students kind of walk with me through that journey and see the parallels right of what they're experiencing in high school and what I'm experiencing as a doctoral student, as a Black woman.
00:14:20.392 --> 00:14:32.855
Those things stay with me and they make me want to be better and they make me want to try to understand why education, why the systems in this country are not willing to change.
00:14:32.855 --> 00:14:33.942
And I understand that.
00:14:33.942 --> 00:14:47.313
I understand that, that the majority wants to hold on to power, that people don't want to change, people want things to be status quo and and that holds a great percentage of people in this nation back.
00:14:47.313 --> 00:15:02.470
And, yes, we can point to people like you, we can point to people like me, we can point to people like President Obama and Henry Louis Gates and all these successful Black folks, but those were pretty much outliers, because the system was not set up for us to succeed.
00:15:02.470 --> 00:15:05.575
The system was set up for us to be in the background.
00:15:08.341 --> 00:15:33.341
And I aim honestly to change that, because I've been wounded and I've seen other people who have been wounded and who might not reach their potential because no one is there to tell them that they don't have to live in that space, they don't have to live down to the expectations of others, and I just think that's important.
00:15:33.341 --> 00:15:48.655
I think all those things can be traumatic and that's the insidious nature of trauma right Is I can go through something, a similar or same situation that somebody else goes through, and I can be traumatized by that, and the other person might not be.
00:15:48.655 --> 00:16:04.652
It depends on our lived experiences, on our systems of support right On our character, on how we see ourselves, those protective factors that we employ to kind of help us work through trauma.
00:16:04.652 --> 00:16:08.927
So I think there's just so many things to learn about it.
00:16:08.927 --> 00:16:16.480
It's fascinating to me, humanity is fascinating to me, and history plays a part in that as well.
00:16:16.620 --> 00:16:23.573
So you know you raise a lot of good points.
00:16:23.573 --> 00:16:26.326
You know you raised a lot of good points.
00:16:26.326 --> 00:16:29.052
I think this is when we begin to talk about you.
00:16:29.052 --> 00:16:40.991
So what was your life like when you first got into college, when you were pursuing your education?
00:16:40.991 --> 00:16:43.499
What was your goal regarding internships?
00:16:43.499 --> 00:16:47.721
What was the game plan when you came out?
00:16:47.721 --> 00:16:58.885
What was the attack plan on finally going against this generational trauma and beginning to create better access and availability to the majority of Blacks in America?
00:17:01.610 --> 00:17:05.060
Well, I think it started way before I was conscious of it.
00:17:05.060 --> 00:17:20.602
All the things that I've just mentioned to you and there's myriad examples I can give you being disinvited to birthday parties when people's families found out I was Black, not being able to participate in certain things, being shunned.
00:17:20.602 --> 00:17:34.588
I was being prepared, I think unbeknownst to me, for those moments I had the power, in certain spaces, to speak up for others, to speak up for my students.
00:17:34.588 --> 00:17:38.539
So I don't know that there was a moment.
00:17:38.539 --> 00:17:45.170
I don't know that there was one thing, an event right that set me in that space.
00:17:45.170 --> 00:17:54.271
But a life of living got me to that point of observing, of being curious.
00:17:54.271 --> 00:18:11.788
And I remember saying to my dissertation chair, a great woman, a great scholar in trauma, dr Lisa Lopez-Lievers, that I'm just, I don't think I'm as smart, I'm not, you know, as these other folks here.
00:18:11.788 --> 00:18:19.152
And she said Amy, you're curious and that is a level of intellectual capacity.
00:18:19.152 --> 00:18:21.276
You know that you want to know.
00:18:21.276 --> 00:18:25.888
And I discovered that when I got into my doctoral program.
00:18:25.888 --> 00:18:28.865
I was like research, who likes to do that?
00:18:28.865 --> 00:18:41.200
In my head it was like sitting alone in a space by yourself just walking through different results of statistical evidence and data and things like that.
00:18:41.200 --> 00:18:43.282
But research is fascinating.
00:18:43.282 --> 00:18:46.646
That's how I find out things, that's how I come to understand myself.
00:18:48.750 --> 00:18:57.666
I think when I got to be a counselor, even as a classroom teacher, I saw disparities.
00:18:57.666 --> 00:19:06.484
I saw who was able to get into the early language, you know, world language courses, and language was tied to math and math was tied to English.
00:19:06.484 --> 00:19:11.724
Like if you could get into this class, then you could be in honors English and you could be in advanced geometry and you could be.
00:19:11.724 --> 00:19:13.970
And so what were?
00:19:13.970 --> 00:19:16.903
I might be good in English and I might not be good at math.
00:19:16.903 --> 00:19:26.953
Why can't I be in the advanced English and you know, and kind of hone my strengths, rather than being penalized for not being good in everything?
00:19:27.881 --> 00:19:40.352
Considering that Black folks started from behind the finish line, I mean behind the start line, right, progress is different for different groups and individuals.
00:19:40.352 --> 00:19:49.653
We can't expect people who started, you know, on third base to advance at the same pace as somebody who started on first base.
00:19:49.653 --> 00:19:54.551
Somebody who gets to second base and maybe started on first base is making advances.
00:19:54.551 --> 00:20:00.532
Right, they might not be on third base like the person that they're you know in that space with.
00:20:00.532 --> 00:20:13.701
And I think we judge folks in that way, like if I get a C on a trigonometry test, that's good for me.
00:20:13.701 --> 00:20:22.903
I'm not good in trigonometry, I know people that are, and so they get an A minus and they're disappointed in that.
00:20:22.903 --> 00:20:32.902
But I think a lot of folks of color, a lot of folks that come from poverty, regardless of race, are not given those opportunities and I don't think that's fair.
00:20:33.383 --> 00:20:48.404
I think that that's not what America projects itself to be, what it's declared itself to be, and I think we just sit in systems that were developed hundreds of years ago because it's comfortable, because it gives the same people the power.
00:20:48.404 --> 00:20:52.888
And most systems don we want to know about trauma engaged.
00:20:52.888 --> 00:21:06.401
You know interventions and pedagogy and things like that.
00:21:06.401 --> 00:21:10.695
But maybe they just want to fulfill a mandate by a system.
00:21:10.695 --> 00:21:12.340
You know that's regulating them.
00:21:12.742 --> 00:21:14.429
I don't know that there's sincere change.
00:21:14.429 --> 00:21:15.914
You know desire to change.
00:21:15.914 --> 00:21:22.729
I have a sincere desire to change systems and so I do that, the ways that I am capable of.
00:21:22.729 --> 00:21:48.820
And again, going back to I know I'm long winded, I'm sorry Going back to your question, I think I've been preparing for a lifetime to move into the space, to build my own kind of courage and determination and my recognition of my own power, that I can speak up for myself and for other people.
00:21:50.184 --> 00:21:58.244
So I think honestly, too, the doctorate that doctor in front of my name gives me more credit, if you will, in some circles.
00:21:58.244 --> 00:22:05.988
So I have the space to be able to say this is wrong and we're thinking in wrong terms.
00:22:05.988 --> 00:22:13.227
Yelling and screaming at students, wanting them to not explore their creativity and their individuality, is not education, it's indoctrination.
00:22:13.227 --> 00:22:34.154
We're not doing them any favors and, again, that's why I could no longer stay in that space, because I saw a system that was harmful to the people that I desire to help and I feel like I can do different things outside of that system in order to advance those ways of thinking than I could inside of it.
00:22:34.675 --> 00:22:47.380
To be honest, I have now is where do you think that deep curiosity within you came from?
00:22:47.380 --> 00:22:55.217
Were there any things you did as a child that may have helped to foster that curiosity?
00:22:55.217 --> 00:22:57.365
Did your mother ever do anything with you?
00:22:57.365 --> 00:23:02.210
Do you remember doing anything ever to foster that?
00:23:04.340 --> 00:23:06.990
Yes, wow, you're really great at this.
00:23:06.990 --> 00:23:09.683
You're making me dig deep.
00:23:09.683 --> 00:23:10.826
My mother did.
00:23:10.826 --> 00:23:12.489
She was 21.
00:23:12.489 --> 00:23:14.773
Well, she was 20 when she had me.
00:23:14.773 --> 00:23:17.143
I was born in April, but she turned 21 in May.
00:23:17.482 --> 00:23:27.276
So a young woman right An adult, yes, but still young in that space, and for that I think she did amazing things.
00:23:27.276 --> 00:23:32.029
She took me to museums, she read to me, she took me to the library.
00:23:32.029 --> 00:23:33.961
I remember getting my first library card.
00:23:33.961 --> 00:23:45.092
In fact I even saved my daughters I have two daughters and they're adults but their library cards when they get to write their own name on the little library card.
00:23:45.092 --> 00:23:55.667
My mom told me Amy, you can know anything that anybody else in this world knows if you have a library card and you can access those things.
00:23:55.667 --> 00:23:58.473
This was way before computers and things like that.
00:23:58.473 --> 00:24:01.340
So she did those things.
00:24:01.340 --> 00:24:33.599
She also I remember her telling me because I said nobody likes me and everybody hates me, and you know, I'm like I don't know, six or seven years old, and my mom saying that, amy, that is a cognitive distortion, um, but just, you know, saying all and every and no one and nothing, um, really are not accurate, um.
00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:38.849
So I think she had a lot to do with my level of curiosity and my just way of thinking um about people and humans.
00:24:38.869 --> 00:24:41.255
I was born um, I guess what people would call today an empath.
00:24:41.255 --> 00:24:42.304
I remember.
00:24:42.304 --> 00:24:47.282
So we were poor, right, but I was always trying to help other people.
00:24:47.282 --> 00:24:55.249
I remember seeing people walking, you know, like in the rain or snow or at night, and I, you know, asked my mom to stop and pick them up.
00:24:55.249 --> 00:25:22.664
And she's like you know, I have an obligation to protect you and us, so I cannot just pick up strangers and things, but just having that empathy for other human beings, which I remember also being told that might hurt me in some ways, because people are not always good and don't always have good intentions and don't always receive love and kindness the ways that we hope they would, with graciousness and appreciation.
00:25:22.664 --> 00:25:28.141
Sometimes they use that against you and manipulate and things like that.
00:25:28.221 --> 00:25:46.244
But she did try to give me a rounded experience and I remember saying to her when I got older that you know, you never really taught me about my Black heritage or you know where I come from, and she accepted that.
00:25:46.244 --> 00:25:55.667
She said Amy, you're right, I never did, not intentionally or consciously, I put you in spaces where there were Black women.
00:25:55.667 --> 00:26:01.645
But she said I also never taught you about your Irish history or any of that either.
00:26:01.645 --> 00:26:14.442
So there was that she didn't do that for any of my background and I think that too, just having to kind of navigate people asking me, well what are you?
00:26:14.442 --> 00:26:20.961
And that was a question that I had my entire life and as a child I didn't even understand what people were saying.
00:26:20.961 --> 00:26:23.807
So that made me curious, like, what are you talking about?
00:26:23.807 --> 00:26:24.147
What am I?
00:26:24.147 --> 00:26:28.996
I'm human and I discovered that my mom wanted me.
00:26:28.996 --> 00:26:31.881
She would say Amy, you're just you, you're a human being.
00:26:32.221 --> 00:26:46.532
But that's not the way the world saw me, that's not the way the world categorized me, and I had to come to terms with that and I had to try to help her understand that, that I can't move like just Amy, because that's not going to be accepted in this world.
00:26:46.532 --> 00:26:59.809
That's really based on color and gender and a whole bunch of other things like spiritual beliefs and ethnicity and sexual orientation and gender identity.
00:26:59.809 --> 00:27:03.942
I had to be a Black woman and I love being that.
00:27:03.942 --> 00:27:06.509
I wouldn't want to be anything else.
00:27:06.509 --> 00:27:21.795
But I think having to move and navigate those spaces that other people created and not being also not being limited to their idea of who I should be, moved me and made me think differently.
00:27:21.795 --> 00:27:28.213
I know I think differently than a lot of people my age regarding social issues and things like that.
00:27:28.273 --> 00:27:45.920
I would say I'm extremely liberal according to people, but I interpret that as being kind of in love with humanity wherever I find people, wherever they're at, because I want that grace and I'm still growing.
00:27:45.920 --> 00:28:10.428
At almost 56 years old In fact, I'm able for the first time to kind of look at who I am because I had my daughter so young I say I went from being my mother's daughter to being my daughter's mother, with no room in between, at 21 years of age, to kind of see who I was and explore really what I thought outside of being in those roles.
00:28:10.428 --> 00:28:13.594
Right, my mother was at the time.
00:28:13.594 --> 00:28:30.746
She grew to be a conservative person, coming from a very liberal space in her youth, so I had to navigate those things and really try to figure out what I truly believe, and my daughters have also helped me with that.
00:28:30.746 --> 00:28:38.792
People think that I'm very kind of sister soldier, you know very, you know just supporting causes that I believe in.
00:28:38.792 --> 00:28:53.468
But my daughters are probably even more so that and then they teach me a lot, and so listening to people also that we might not believe have anything to teach us.
00:28:54.369 --> 00:28:57.565
I don't think there's a human being in this world that doesn't have something to teach me.
00:28:57.565 --> 00:28:59.832
I don't think that I'm always the teacher.
00:28:59.832 --> 00:29:17.856
I'm willing to learn from anyone, and I think sometimes that gets lost in kind of the hierarchy of society and of education that well, you're just a freshman, or you're just an undergraduate, or you're just a high school student or you're just a person who doesn't have a degree.
00:29:17.856 --> 00:29:22.898
No, you're equal to me in humanity.
00:29:22.898 --> 00:29:23.200
Right.
00:29:23.500 --> 00:29:40.142
When I'm in the school system, lot on like bus drivers, particularly in the elementary space, I relied on food service workers and custodians and security officers because they were in the hallways and spaces that I wasn't in and they would share.
00:29:40.142 --> 00:29:48.627
Oh, I saw so-and-so going into the bathroom with somebody else, or I saw so-and-so you know in the corner, you know crying or whatever, and these.
00:29:48.627 --> 00:29:52.806
So they were equally as significant in that space as I was.
00:29:52.806 --> 00:30:03.538
Though, when people walked in, they saw school counselor Dr Alexander and think that, you know, I'm somehow better than these other folks or more significant to the system, and I wasn't and I'm not.
00:30:03.538 --> 00:30:22.996
So I think that's something that I hope to never lose, that I can get knowledge and I can learn from anyone, and I think that moves me also in these spaces of curiosity, because everybody has a story to tell and we just have to be willing to listen.
00:30:23.296 --> 00:30:28.282
Really, so let's sort of move on to legacy consulting.
00:30:28.282 --> 00:30:34.310
What story do you think legacy consulting has to tell?
00:30:34.994 --> 00:30:38.805
Well, I really didn't think of myself as a businesswoman, to be honest.
00:30:38.805 --> 00:31:17.718
I was in a system and here in the north in the northeast I guess, because I know educators in the south and other areas other regions are not as fortunate as I am to have been in a union, very strong union culture here I'm in Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, so union is like life here and being in that system where I was kind of collectively protected in some ways didn't afford me the opportunity or the need to kind of think outside of the system until again my last few years.
00:31:17.718 --> 00:31:32.969
So legacy comes from a, first of all, the title of my dissertation, which is long but it starts out with examining the legacy of transgenerational trauma and I was looking for a name for my company.
00:31:32.969 --> 00:31:41.487
I thought legacy, legacy, what do I want to leave in this world when I'm gone, when I'm no longer here?
00:31:41.487 --> 00:31:42.568
And that is a legacy.
00:31:43.174 --> 00:31:48.800
The double A, because I have two capital A's in the middle of legacy and that's the difference of, I guess, my company.
00:31:48.800 --> 00:31:56.685
Like the name came from one of my former students who I had my first year as a history teacher LaShawn Renee Murray.
00:31:56.685 --> 00:31:58.758
She said I like the double like.
00:31:58.758 --> 00:32:01.455
Why don't you make it two double A's in the middle to make it kind of distinct.
00:32:02.096 --> 00:32:22.070
And so that's where that came from, but also just what I've gotten from the people that I've encountered, the women there was a lot of single women in my neighborhood growing up, just seeing how they struggled, how they managed, how they were disrespected and disregarded in a lot of ways.
00:32:22.070 --> 00:32:55.714
And for my daughters and for my students, to make the world a better place and I know that sounds trite, but my space in this world, whether I touch millions of people or tens of people, I want to leave them better, or maybe more self-sufficient and more self-aware more self-sufficient and more self-aware let me put it that way than when I entered their space.
00:32:55.714 --> 00:33:19.381
So legacy is a journey for me, an attempt to help comfort people in their spaces, but also in that comfort and in that knowledge, in that comfort and in that knowledge, help to move them forward, to be able to fulfill their purpose and to help and educate others while doing that.
00:33:20.174 --> 00:33:41.365
To face kind of a love and a motivation to be greater, yeah, and to bring others with us as we move in that space, because no one can do it alone.
00:33:41.365 --> 00:33:46.221
I don't care how smart you are, how wealthy you are, how much power you have.
00:33:46.221 --> 00:34:06.021
We all need each other and I think sometimes the American spirit of you know that individual ruggedness and pushing on and that kind of sometimes gets in the way of us understanding that we all need help and accepting other people's help.
00:34:06.021 --> 00:34:08.686
We want to go all of us.
00:34:08.686 --> 00:34:11.023
It's not like just me, it's not just you, it's not just somebody else, it's all of us.
00:34:11.043 --> 00:34:30.623
It's not like just me, it's not just you, it's not just somebody else, it's all of us pushing forward together well, that's true, you know, and you know, um, I I would say too, that it's that aspect of working together that really leads to the success of a lot of people.
00:34:30.623 --> 00:34:37.427
That term standing on the shoulders of giants, that doesn't come from, you know, just doing things on your own.
00:34:37.427 --> 00:34:45.768
So, you know, I, um, completely agree with that, and, again, forgive me if this might be a bit of a.
00:34:45.768 --> 00:34:51.547
There's probably an odd question I'm going to ask, though, but I noticed you have some tattoos.
00:34:51.547 --> 00:34:59.759
I like the tattoos quite a bit, and what significance do you think those tattoos have on your life and what you know?
00:34:59.759 --> 00:35:02.847
What meanings do you think were the most important ones?
00:35:05.356 --> 00:35:10.188
Well, I have on my hip a tattoo of Africa, the continent.
00:35:10.188 --> 00:35:12.916
I did do this DNA thing.
00:35:12.916 --> 00:35:43.125
I know some spaces of where my ancestors came from on the continent, but that's obviously significant to me because of the kind of disregard in terms of the greater society and history of the African diaspora and how Black folks got here, where we come from, our language, our cultures, our tribes that our ancestors were in.
00:35:43.125 --> 00:35:45.163
That's really significant and important to me.
00:35:45.163 --> 00:35:53.210
I also have and you can't see it, but I have a tree kind of on my chest and it's a woman.
00:35:53.210 --> 00:35:55.943
The tree trunk is a woman, which represents me.
00:35:56.454 --> 00:36:45.005
The leaves coming out from the top have my daughter's names in them and then I went back and got the roots and they're on my stomach names of the people that, the women that are significant to me in my life that have passed, including my mother and my aunt Both of them died of breast cancer a number of years ago my grandmother, obviously, and then other women, sojourner Truth, fannie Lou Hamer, truth, fannie Lou Hamer, forgive me if I Coretta Scott King, maya Angelou, I mean so many women I wish Shirley Chisholm I'm trying to think of, did I?
00:36:45.005 --> 00:36:56.431
I said Fannie Lou Hamer, I can't think of the woman now, of course, harriet Tubman, phyllis Wheatley the lynching woman that's terrible.
00:36:56.431 --> 00:37:01.496
Ida B Wells Barnett, and I can't even think of all.
00:37:01.496 --> 00:37:17.340
But the roots are those women because, dr Betty Shabazz, I've never met them, any of them, but they have had some influence in my space because of the hard work that they did, because of the hard work that they did, of their willingness to share their journey and their knowledge.
00:37:17.340 --> 00:37:19.403
So I'd say those are extremely significant.
00:37:19.525 --> 00:37:26.936
I have a tattoo here on my hand that's Aries.
00:37:26.936 --> 00:37:27.518
I think I've grown to.
00:37:27.518 --> 00:37:29.146
I was raised like, oh, don't do that, that's the devil's.
00:37:29.146 --> 00:37:30.855
You know that's of the devil and I'm talking about astrology.
00:37:30.855 --> 00:37:32.704
Do that, that's the devil's.
