We are the Dream: Spring Break Out Continued
As we wrap up our last round of panelist profiles, we are honored and grateful to have hosted this years' Spring Break Out virtually. This week long programming series, Let the Youth Lead, was done in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr to uplift the work of our community to youth across the world. The day we dedicate our lives to organizing for human rights, we are putting Dr. King’s dream into action. When we take action to make change in our communities, we are bringing that into fruition. We are the Dream.
Please stay tuned for our official Spring Break Out video recap. The five days of programming covered how to use your voice, what is mutual aid, promoting a rally, knowing your rights and art for social change.
These discussions were recorded live on our Youtube channel – please watch them here.
Jacinda Padilla, photo by Mika Martinez
Jacinda Padilla on ‘What is Mutual Aid?’ for #SpringBreakOut:
“There are SNAP benefits that are supposed to help people, but for someone like me when I first applied, I got $16 a month. How am I supposed to help myself and my partner who are unemployed right now? Mutual aid is a way to replace those systems that continue to let us down. I also think it's really important for our work to constantly be evolving by listening to the people around us. Putting our resources into things like #NotBlackFriday, which I was so appreciative to be part of. There are so many folks living far away and don’t have the same systems like we have in the city. These mutual aid programs can support us and improve our quality of life.
Mutual aid is extremely necessary to work outside of these systems, but I also think giving testimony is so important. We can bring this type of framework and demand change from our legislators. I was very privileged enough to speak directly to newly elected legislators last year in November and I told them: ‘I expect you to go further. You have made so many promises and that is incredible to see you trying to do that work but I need you to go further. You need to go past redirecting funds. You need to defund the Oregon State Police.’ We’ve shown how many folks raise money through GoFundMe but the reality is we shouldn’t have to do that for things like medical bills; for people to have basic necessities. And we need to work outside of the system with mutual aid programs because they actually work and people are benefitting so much more. We have a longer legislative lobbying session this year - it's time to go down to Salem, testify and demand better. Instead of ‘You have OHP, you need this’. No, I'm going to tell you what I need with my OHP.’”
Arieanna Morehead, photo by Mika Martinez
Arieanna Morehead on ‘How to Use Your Voice’ for #SpringBreakOut:
"As Miss Black Teen Oregon my platform is sexual misrepresentation and within that platform I talk about rape culture as well as stereotypes in the media. Not all Black women are ghetto or ratchet - a lot of Black women are successful and have their own businesses. There's just more to it than what you see on TV. I spread my knowledge on these stereotypes, where they come from and why people shouldn’t believe them. Women, specifically Black women, are so disrespected. The fact that non POC producers, writers and filmmakers keep telling our stories, it's not okay.
They keep putting these false narratives on Black women, women all over the world - and it isn’t fair to us. If you keep seeing a certain stereotype about someone, people will start to believe it and then it's all they will see you as. I use my voice to encourage women to be who they are, if you want to be a sex worker, go do it. If you want to be a lawyer, go be one. I just always encourage people to not let anybody stop them. That's really important to me because I was really insecure at some point and I know that I needed these affirmations to stay confident. There was a point where I did believe everything in the media about Black women. I see how hearing these things from other women changed me, so it encouraged me to help others build that confidence."
Cori Salter on ‘How to Use your Voice’ for #SpringBreakOut:
“I think being in a city like Chicago that is simultaneously very diverse and segregated, it's somewhere with so many voices, not all of them saying the right thing. Some of them may be a little too loud or too quiet. For me, it was important for me to focus my voice on something rather than adding onto what seems like a choir. In the past years I've focused on justice in terms of schooling and public education in Chicago, which has been historically inequitable and horrible for people in the south and west sides of the city. I've focused my voice on both amplifying younger people and looking at the student code of conduct and what's happening with police being called on students in school, police being in school and things like that.
It has been difficult but I also think when we focus on what we believe is something that can add to the solution or dismantle the problem, it's a lot more effective - at least for young people like me or in a big setting like Chicago. That's where I've been in the last year especially with using my art to get that message out there. Messages like capitalizing the B in Black or recognizing the difference between Black and African American - seem so simple but a lot of times people disconnect ‘Black Lives Matter’ and actual Black lives. I think to have those discussions about how you’re referring to people, how you’re referring to a movement; it makes people think a little bit harder than just reposting a graphic or putting something on their IG story and I think that was really important to me - to put something in there that wasn’t just like ‘Hey this is a picture I made’. I think I was grateful to have that opportunity and for it to have the spread that it did but at the same time made me realize, people really don’t know and don’t put in the effort to know.”