Musical Spaces for Transformation & Community Building - A Conversation with Eric Dozier

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

You know, when you talk about building community, which civilization starts with, you know, one community at a time, you know, one of the things that we always had in all of our gatherings was music because it does bring us into community quickly.

Hi everyone, thanks for joining me again for another episode of the podcast. My name is Tim Logan and the podcast is brought to you in partnership with Nuketosh. Any of you who know me will know that I'm a massive music fan— playing, listening, dancing, singing, all of it. So this week's conversation was such a joy to have with the amazing Eric Dozier. Eric is not only an incredible musician and, as he calls himself, itinerant blues preacher, but he's also a cultural activist and anti-racism educator. In this episode, we talk about the power of music as a social force that brings people together to learn, build community, and hold space for transformation. In particular, in Eric's critical work challenging white supremacy culture and racial injustice. Eric is the former musical director for the world-famous Harlem Gospel Choir and the award-winning Children's Theatre Company of New York City. He's also the co-founder and former national director of Arts and Education for One Human Family Music Workshops. Eric is also the co-founder of the Oneness Lab with Homer Tavengar, who's been a previous guest on the podcast. And most recently, he's the co-composer of the Henry Box Brown musical based on the true story of Henry Box Brown, an 1850s enslaved Virginia man who shipped himself to freedom in a box with the help of African American and white abolitionists. In this episode, you can hear Eric perform his stunning song Cotton and the Cross that he wrote with Ketch Sekor from the Old Crow Medicine Show.

All right. How you doing this morning?

I'm good. How are you?

Oh, I'm hanging in there.

Beautiful. So I'm so excited about this conversation because, so I've known about your work for quite a long time through Homer and through Will. And I'm also, I just love music. I love playing music myself and I just, I love the way that you are combining so many of these exciting things that need to be combined right now to bring into the education space some of the really important shifts that need to take place. Like, yes, but I think sometimes we, we approach it just from like smart talking and like, let's find the right words for the things, but actually there's some other ways to approach these important issues, which I feel like you are doing amazingly.

Thank you, man. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Well, no, it's a great pleasure to meet you.

Oh, well, it's, it's good to be here, man. It's good to be in these conversations. I think, like, one of the things that you said is there are other ways to get to where we need to get to. And oftentimes what I've seen is that we discount a lot of these other ways that communities, and particularly Black and Indigenous communities engage with their reality and transfer essential knowledge. And for me, my grandparents, my great-grandparents as well, 'cause I grew up on the planet with them too, transferred a lot of that information to me through music, right? And oftentimes we forget that those are also valid literacies, if you will. Yeah. Because music is documentary, music also helps generate in us an emotional state that I think breeds resilience in people. Yeah. And also when we came on and were kind of talking, you mentioned how much joy music brings you. And we oftentimes underestimate the power of joy in the work that we do. And there can be joy in the pursuit of justice and racial unity. There can be. And so one of the reasons I use music so extensively in my work is because We need some joyful energy because it is quite taxing to do this work.

No, definitely. But the other thing I think that has been coming up for me a lot recently in my conversations is the kind of embodied aspect of it as well, right? Like there's a tendency in education to make things very much about the intellectualizing and the cognitive and the brain-based. And, you know, we are embodied beings and there is something about involving our whole selves in the exchanges, like you say, yes, it's transferring sometimes cultural understandings or there is some knowledge there as well, right? But it's also, as you say, feelings and embodied togetherness and I don't know, all, all sorts of things that I think is also really important.

Yeah, I think the fact that music vibrates the body and the fact that we spend so much time in these particular literacies bound to words and books. And that really takes a very high station in Western culture in particular. We tend to devalue the body oftentimes. And we have to acknowledge that the body is connected to the mind. You know, that's number one. And that our physical state does impact our mental state. And so there's that aspect of the work as well. I was talking with a music therapist a couple of days ago about some of her work, and it's the same thing, is that when people feel energy in their bodies and music definitely does that, it makes you move, it makes you want to move, bop your head, pat your feet, clap your hands, all those different things. And she was telling me about how just integrating music in her therapeutic practice impacts patients that she's working with. And so we have to not demonize the physical and understand that the physical, like the mental, is also sacred. To me, it's sacred. And so we have to treat that because what we use the music for in African American traditions I feel we used it to metabolize a lot of pain.

Yeah.

And I think the world is hurting because of the conditions that we continue to allow to exist. And so we do have to work through some of the trauma that the civilization has heaped upon us. And I think singing definitely helps us to do that. I know that it has helped my particular community do that, and we've done it and almost mastered it to a science. You know, whether we're doing it in an African American church or whether we're doing it on stage, it's always therapeutic to get up there and name your pain, right? To name your pain in the music and to call society to a higher purpose.

Yeah. And it's amazing, isn't it? Because I had a great conversation with Jamila Pitts recently about healing and thinking about how do we think about educational practices that might bring some healing. Because, right, you know, clearly there is a lot of reasons why we need it, right? And it's interesting to me, particularly with music, because also there's this increasing awareness about systemic approaches and systems thinking and these kinds of things coming in as well, right?

Right.

And I'm kind of joining the dots and thinking, like, often we try to treat the problem, right? We try and go right for the, the problem with the solution, right? And in this very linear way. But actually what's happening as we increasingly, I think, acknowledge that we are interrelated systemic beings, that actually there's things that can come in sideways that can really help. Like, to your point about the therapeutic aspect of it, like, it comes in sideways from a totally different place. Nora Beckson called it abductive, right? It's like it's coming in from an unexpected place, but it's, it's helping us with the work that we want to be doing, which is the healing.

Yeah, I mean, when I think about how we used music as I was growing up. You know, when you talk about building community, which civilization starts with, you know, one community at a time, you know, one of the things that we always had in all of our gatherings was music because it does bring us into community quickly. The shared repertoire helps a lot, but also the fact that it is a space where we could gather intergenerationally as well, with our grandparents and, as I said, great-grandparents and the babies and everybody else. And I always say that when you gather as a community like that, that's the moment when the community actually has an encounter with itself and realizes that the impact is magnified by the gathering, right? And that the individual contribution that someone comes in to make is amplified because it's amplified through the other bodies in the room. I gave a talk in Lithuania last year, and it was centered around how do we co-create a call and response culture. And, you know, when I started doing gospel workshops outside of African American communities, one of the things that I had to do is I had to reverse engineer the process because there are certain assumptions that you can take into an all African American gathering. That don't necessarily work in communities that don't have a touchstone to that culture. Right. And what I began to see was if I'm going to teach this music outside of the context of the Black church, I have to make sure that when we start the workshop that people are understanding the value system that sits underneath the culture that gave rise to these different artistic expressions.

Yeah.

So I started to look at call and response. I started to look at improvisation. I started to look at repetition and iteration and began to realize that it was not just a performance practice, but it was the flowering of a value system. And I talk a lot about call and response. And in order for anyone to participate in a call and response culture, they have to acknowledge the inestimable value of other people. You can't do it. You know, you can't do call and response by yourself. You know, you can't do it. You're just shouting into the void, right? But the other point here is that when you engage with other people, you know, call and response becomes not just a practice, but an environment. And I think about my role as a choir director. So my role as a choir director is to hold space for transformation. In my culture, the choir director is not necessarily telling the choir where to go. They know where to go.

Okay.

They give them cues, little cues. Okay, we're going to the chorus, we're going to this. But mainly what they are, they're the ones that hold the space for that transformation. Well, then you bring the band in. Right? The band is the rhythm. The band is the one that helps us keep time, to be consistent, to keep coming back to something over and over and work our way through it. And then you have the soloist who is trusting that the band and the director and the choir are on the same page. You know, the choir is there to support. So all these different elements I began to look at as individual values. And then you think about the congregation, the congregation is essential. That's where your feedback comes from. So think about Aretha Franklin. Now, when Aretha Franklin came out in public as Aretha Franklin, she had such a powerful way of being on stage. They immediately dropped the last name and it was just Aretha. And now if you say Aretha to anybody in the world, they're not going to— Aretha Williams? Aretha? No, they're going to say Aretha Franklin. Right. Well, if you don't know the history of her family and the church she grew up in—

Yeah.

—and the fact that, you know, she had a group of mothers that sat in that amen corner, she had sisters that sang with her, her father was a phenomenal singer and preacher, all of these things that were going on around her, you know, she learned to sing in a call and response environment. Well, I believe that you can apply that to the classroom. And one of the ways that we can do that is to make sure that everyone gets an opportunity to contribute, but then the response should be in the long run that everyone that's a part of that learning environment gets to see themselves in the environment as well. So you have to think all of those people saw themselves in Aretha Franklin every time she stood up on that stage. And if we can create an environment like that for our children in the classroom, they're able to recognize their own agency, they're able to feel that when they do make a contribution to that micro civilization that is that classroom. Yeah. That they are going to see their thoughts, their hopes, and their dreams reflected back at them. And so I've spent so much time in trying to create that environment, whether I'm doing choirs or whether I'm consulting for Accenture or talking to impact investors or working with teachers. And let them know is that these children are not just intellectual beings. They're not just cups for us to just fill up. They actually come to the table with value. You know, they may not be the teacher, but they do come into the space with value. And there's a lot that we can pull from them that will help us shape classrooms that are responsive to the kids that are there. And that is one of the problems I know in the States is that oftentimes these classrooms are not really responsive to children. And we wonder, you know, why are they bored? Why are they kind of checking out of these spaces? Well, they don't feel valued. They don't see themselves reflected in the learning process. We're treating them like they're just a chalkboard to write on. And so I think that we have to find ways to integrate those principles in the classroom. And, you know, and I, you know, I have a background in public policy with a focus on youth race and education and master's degree in theology. But so much of my learning took place, you know, before I got to college, before I got to Duke, before I got to my little private school in Chattanooga. It happened with my people. And it happened on Wednesday night at prayer meeting. It happened on Sunday morning at worship service, where I learned how to be with people and respect people's contribution that they were bringing to those experiences. That's amazing.

And I mean, what about if you took the idea of a teacher as someone holding space for transformation? Right. Like, I mean, as you're saying about the choir leader, that's a really powerful idea, I think, is that one would hope that is what teachers want to be doing, right? Mm-hmm. Is allowing or enabling the culture in that room with those young people to be in a way that, that really, yeah, that, that those values, those cultural values and those other ways of being with oneself and with other people somehow just kind of bubbles up and into them and around them. And then they are then enabled to do whatever work they need to be doing to kind of transform, you know, in the way that is right for them. And I think that's something, yeah, that's something really powerful about that idea.

Well, yeah, you gotta— and I always tell teachers, you know, what you're doing is you're looking or creating a space where an Aretha can emerge. Yeah. You know, she didn't come out of nowhere, and our kids are coming out of particular context, right? And it makes a difference how we see them. And then also, there's also an honesty. There was always an honesty on that Sunday morning, right? You could always listen to the congregation, to the preacher, to all these different entities that were in that space for feedback. And you knew certain things meant you're on the right path. Amen. Amen. You know, you hear that. Yeah. And if you were not on the right path, you might hear, mm, mm. You know, mm-mm, try that again. Come on, come on with it. You know, something, something that lets you know that you should try a different pathway and it's okay to try a different pathway. Because that was also a very innovative environment. I don't think I've ever sung the same song the same way twice. You know, there's always room for nuance there too. So even that element, thinking about what improvisation is, and as we know, improvisation is not random. There are things that inform that when you come into that space. But that was how my community identified me as a musician, as a speaker, is that everybody participated in that environment. And when they saw a gift, what they did is they nurtured that specific gift. Now, everybody didn't come out of that experience becoming a choir director or a scholar or whatnot, but that was never the expectation. The expectation was to find the gift. Gift in the community. Yeah. And then elevate whatever gift was in the children.

Yeah, that's amazing because there's, there's something that has happened with music particularly that has, in certain, particularly Western cultures, where it's become very precious and it's become a kind of an individual sport and it's become like, it's become something you don't want to get wrong. And I think what you're talking about there is like a participatory culture in which it's not about you Right? It's not really, it's not about you getting the thing right, the performance right. It's about participating in something bigger than you and hearing the feedback and getting, you know, just responding to the environment, which is an incredibly powerful, I think, and important idea. Right. But when we put it all on the individual and about lots of deliberate practice and getting it right and then performing, you remove so much of the cultural value and power that's going on. There, right? It becomes, it becomes this perfectionist art, which, which then for many people is like, well, I, I'm not a musician, I can't improvise, I can't get involved in that because I'm not a musician. I've not been trained to do that expert thing that I'm seeing that person.

Oh yeah, no, there is an obsession with perfection, you know, and I think that that's what breeds a lot of anxiety and stress in our children, is that we expect them to be perfect. We run them around to death every day, which means that we run ourselves around every day. And if we are going to release potential in children, we have to create environments of exploration and improvisation and let them know that in that space, there really are no mistakes if you're on a learning journey. That's what you're doing. You're learning. You're not learning something that you already know. You're learning things that you did not have previous contact with. So there are going to be times where you fumble and where it may get messy. And there's a book by Frank Barrett called Yes to the Mess, and it's leadership lessons from jazz. And it's a fabulous, fabulous book. And when we're thinking about the mess, right, we should be willing to say yes to that because learning is messy and I think should be messy, right? Absolutely. Yeah, no, certainly.

I guess you just didn't want to be in Miles Davis's band when you were getting— making a mess, right? Yeah, you should be out the door.

Definitely. My, you know, my Miles was a little rough, but, you know, he was also brilliant. And I think that what, what we see, you know, as with most of these folks that we see on stage we see them very clearly, well-rehearsed, having sat and spent a lot of time with the music, all of these different things. We don't see those processes. Yeah. So the process to getting to that is, I think, the most important thing to think about. And how do we help our young people think about the process that leads us to the product, for lack of a better term. Yeah, I hate to use a commercial term to describe it, but I oftentimes have told my choirs, I've oftentimes told, you know, gatherings where I'm doing my racial justice work, we glean so much from the process of learning. And, you know, I think it was Zaretta Hammond in her book Culturally Responsive Teaching that talks about approaching the classroom with grace, you know, like go in there and, you know, find a way to nurture people as they're struggling to learn new things and approach it with some grace and some compassion so that we keep everybody in the conversation. And that's essentially what, what it's all about. You don't want the young people to check out. You want them to understand that struggle is a natural part of life. And that there are ways that we can get through it together. And, you know, because I work so much in the racial equity space, you have groups of people, ethnic groups, racial groups that have not been in conversation for centuries. And now we're throwing everybody in the same room and saying, okay, let's get unified. Well, how do you think that's going to work out? You know, that's going to be rough. And definitely in the beginning. And so one of the other elements of this particular model around this music is that you have to find ways for people to win early and to win often. So the first thing that I usually do is do something that brings them into community rapidly so that they understand a common point. Because— and I think James Baldwin said this, you know, he says that we don't know each other personally, but we know each other historically. Like, we've been in relationships. We're not out of relationship. The thing is, is that we've been in so many inequitable relationships. That's the problem. And so we're trying to reconfigure these relationships and not realizing that historically we've been interacting in some pretty harmful ways. Absolutely. And not just with people, but with the environment as well. Right? Yeah. We've learned to take particular postures with people. We've developed biases because of the culture around us. Yeah. That would not have necessarily existed if we had not been trained to be at odds.

So two things I just want to say. Yeah. Two things I love. One is Zaretta. I just, she's just amazing. I've had a beautiful conversation with her on the podcast and I'm going to have another one when her new book comes out and she's just amazing. Yes. The second thing I love is this idea of grace is also about something sacred as well. I think there's something, it kind of hints at, it gestures towards something which is bigger than all of us that we are participating in. Right. And I think that's important about that word, which I love. So, all right. You've kind of like begun to describe some of your work around in the racial justice space. And I, I would love to spend a bit of time if we can talking a bit more about that. 'Cause I, yeah, all of the things we've been discussing about music, It's great in all sorts of situations and it's great, you know, it's embodied in all of the brings people together, all of the great things we've been talking about, but we're also working in a context where there are some, as you say, some pretty fundamental systemic inequities that have been allowed to persist for a long, long time. Right. So it's not all kumbaya and let's all get, just gather around and sing a song. Right. There is also something really important politically, right. In terms of liberation and the politics of what's going on there, which is which I see you doing in incredibly powerful ways in your work with schools, but I'm, I'm sure with many organizations. And I loved your story about your grandfather and how he, what he told you about the music that you were learning. Maybe you could just tell that story briefly and then, and just, I'd love to just allow you a bit of space to just talk a bit about what, how does the work happen for you both in terms of those kinds of conceptual ideas that people need to grasp. And all of the embodied feeling affective domain as well, of course, and you can't separate them, but I think they're two slightly nuanced different things happening, I think.

Yeah, well, I think that, you know, when we talk about racial equity and how I've taken music and brought it into that space, and that's no matter where I'm presenting, doesn't matter, I'm always going to bring that element in, is because music also has a way in assisting us to consolidate knowledge. Right? So there is a lot to be said. And I'll use a song as an example. Very simple. I'm sure you know it. Here we go.

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. This little light of mine, <LYRICS>I'm gonna let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine.

Let it shine.</LYRICS> So you take that song, right? Very simple, whatever, right? And most of the time we've taken that song and we've kind of relegated it to the realm of children's music. Yeah. So let's contextualize the song, right? It's an African American spiritual that keeps coming back to us. It came back to us in the civil rights movement, in the freedom songs. You hear it on commercials, you hear it everywhere. Everybody has used that song for something. Now, if you take that song out of context, it's just, oh, it's a little ditty. It's nice. Yeah. But when you take that song and immerse it or re-immerse it in its original context, you have a group of people who were told that because their skin color is dark, they have no light in them. They have no soul. Their sole purpose is to work themselves to death for nothing. And even though they're doing all of this work, they're still being called lazy. They're still being called worthless, all these different things. And it's illegal for most of them to learn how to read. So the thing is, is that how are people going to convey to their children, to all of the people that are around them, that they have worth? They're going to find a way to reinforce force and teach their young children about nobility. So what are you saying? This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. I've got a light inside of me, I'm gonna let it shine. And so it was these moments that we engaged in what I refer to as creative cultural reconstitution. We were remaking ourselves over and over and over and over and over again in an environment that says, because you're Black, you have no worth. Yeah. So when you take that song and put it back in that context, it becomes not only inspiration, but it also becomes strategy. Yeah. Like, I don't sing just for inspiration. I sing and then I dissect this music for strategy. What are they saying to do? Right? What are they saying that your talk about yourself should be, no matter what the environment around you is? Right? So that's just one little example of how I would use that to help people consolidate that knowledge. Now, also, there's a history lesson in there. Of course. Right? Yeah. You know, so the music opens a doorway for me to go in and dive deeper into the history, you know, because one of the things that we do is we have negated that music as an essential source of knowledge. Mm-hmm. And so if we are going to build equitable spaces, we have to interrogate our knowledge systems and be able to uncover the bias that exists in them. So why would you call certain books classics but not look at the lyrics of these spirituals and move them into the realm of the classics as well? Yeah, right. So, so that's one way that I think that we use the music to get ourselves to these essential interrogations about the environment that we're in. The other thing is that it allows you to tell a different side of the story, right? Yeah. So storytelling, the storytelling aspect of it is essential because people remember stories. And you asked me about the story about my grandfather. You know, one of the things that I really pin a lot of my work on was something that he told me. And I was having a conversation with him one day. I had come back from Vancouver. I was doing a workshop. We videotaped the workshop., and I was playing the video for him. And it's funny because for us, music was never a job, right? Right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Because everybody did it, so can't be a job. And so he looks at this choir, he looks at me in front of this choir, looks at me on the piano, and I'm doing these songs that he taught me when I was growing up that I learned in that environment. And he He kind of chuckled. He said, "Son, is that what you've been doing for a living?" And I was like, "Yes, sir. Yep, that's my job." But then he got serious, and I could see the level of gravitas come up in the room. And he said, "Son, I want to tell you that's a good thing that you're doing." And I asked him, I said, "Well, why do you feel that way?" And he said, "Because that music was never meant to be just for us." And so in my research, I've run across this quote where Dr. Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois, says that the methods that we have learned, you know, in our environment as Black people for resisting slavery and combating oppression have not just been learned for our own benefit, but also for the benefit of others, right? Yeah. We have developed essential tools through our cultural and creative output that can assist other communities that have been outside of that environment in moving towards justice. Like, think about the role— and I'm speaking out of an American context— but think about the role that Black people have had to play for this country, for the United States, is that we've played the role of conscious. You know, we, we have consistently called this country to be what it says it wants to be. Mm-hmm. And that was when we were enslaved. That was during Jim Crow. That was watching all of the extrajudicial killings that have happened in the world. And we still move forward calling this country to grow up and become what it says it wants to be. And we've always maintained a vision and held that vision for this country. Yeah. And so if we are discounting folks that have developed expert-level knowledge in dealing with this issue, then we are going to lose. We're going to lose. Same thing with indigenous populations. You know, when you think about the indigenous population and how— and I think it was 80% of global biodiversity is under the stewardship of Indigenous people on the planet, right? So when you marginalize, kill, ostracize Indigenous populations, what you're doing is you are exterminating tens of thousands of years of knowledge about how to deal with environments. So you're not just killing people, you're killing knowledge systems that can literally save all of our lives. So that's the harm.

Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. But it's interesting because it's it's not seen as knowledge by the purveyors of power, right? Like, as you said earlier, it's like allowing that music to be a way of knowing, a way of being, a way of knowing the world. Because I think sometimes, particularly with music in the white supremacy culture, right? It's pulled into a commodity, right? Aretha is taken as her value is a commodity value, right? Because she's on the TV, she's selling records, she's et cetera, et cetera. But that's not what's going on, right? As you've described, there's something much deeper and broader going on in terms of ways of knowing, but it's not seen as that by the kind of Western Eurocentric culture that is defined, or the capitalist culture that is framing what knowledge is and what is of value. And it's the same with the indigenous wisdom, right? It's not seen as knowledge in this, in the way that is validated by the mainstream system. Well, yeah.

Well, and that's because people's value is measured based on their proximity to that system. Exactly right. The more that you kind of fade into that system and become the archetype of, of the particular individual that rules that system, you know, the closer you get to that, the more your value is increased. Yeah. And so it's that principle of kill the Indian in the child. Right? You straighten out your hair or you change your name to fit in so that your name doesn't sound strange. All these things that immigrant populations have done. Right. So there's a process that really assimilates you into that culture if you want to succeed, per se. And so we even have to bring in and question, what does it mean to succeed? What does it mean to be in this culture and to and to flourish in this particular culture.

Exactly. But I would also say to your point earlier about the harm we're also doing to the planet, we all need to question what does success mean in this extractive capitalist culture that has taken us to the brink. And that's why I hope, I think there is more and more understanding of the value of all of the different cultural traditions and ways of knowing, ways of being that have been excluded and marginalized. Not in an instrumental way because they now have value, but because there is a recognition that the thing that we've been doing, the thing that the white supremacy culture has been doing, is not working, is clearly not working, right? It's hitting some pretty serious limits to its continued growth.

Yeah, no, I mean, exactly. And I think that we have to name it like you're doing, right? And we do know that when we talk about racism, when we talk about white supremacy, I am a— as a songwriter, I have to be a wordsmith, right? And I feel like we can't use euphemisms for these things, and we have to be very specific in what we are calling it. And we do live in a global system that has allowed certain populations to accrue the benefits of the civilization based on skin color. Yeah. And— And we have to say it and we have to know that that has happened. I mean, there is plenty of data. That's why I'm so oftentimes so worn out when I think about how much time Black people and other scholars have had to spend collecting data and the same data over and over and over and over again just to justify their existence on the planet, or the fact that they are entitled to justice, whether that be in the form of acknowledgment or reparations or whatever means that we get to that. But to realize that— and you brought up the term extractive— the fact that there has been so much cultural and monetary worth extracted out of these communities to build this civilization. And no one— well, I won't say no one, but most people are not willing to acknowledge that. Yeah. And to create systems that feed back into these communities. Because if we are going to rectify these issues, you know, it's not just, oh, I like you now. You know, and I'm not racist or I'm not this. It really is about restoring balance. Yeah. And really learning that humanity has a collective wisdom that we have been taught to ignore, that has bled over into our systems. And now, you know, it's like thinking about racism without racists. I think there's a book by that title. I can't remember. The author of that book. But these systems are now doing what the people— Exactly. Yeah. You know, what came out of the minds of these folks that started this white supremacist system. And so now, like you said, we have to think of how we're going to address it as a system, as a cultural system that has a particular set of values and ways of being. How are we going to create something to counter that if we're not thinking about it from the perspective of building a new civilization? Because that's what we really need to do.

Yeah, and it's, I mean, as you say, it's kind of invisibly embedded in all the institutions that are managing and structuring the majority of the cultures, you know, the cities and countries around the world. I mean, it's, it's in the schools, right? It's in the infrastructure of the schools that some of that logic. And so, I mean, one of the things I'm really interested in is how, what is the educational role given that we're working in those kinds of institutions, which are potentially have this embedded within their operational logic. What's the role of the educators and what's the role of, of education generally, right? To build something new, to do something different. How do we shift that given that we're all currently sending our kids to those institutions, right? Right. Yeah.

I mean, and I think that that's the question, and I don't have a specific answer, but I know that if we are going to do it, we have to first of all realize that there are communities that have always had to think about building systems to counteract this. Yeah. You know, the march of white supremacy. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, from my background, I realized, particularly when I left that environment to go to college, that I realized that what my grandparents, my mom, my dad, all these folks had given to me was a cultural structure. In the words of Cornel West, a cultural structure designed to beat back the demons of meaninglessness, hopelessness, and lovelessness. Right? Yeah. And so when we equip our young people, we need to find ways to equip them with a cultural structure that lives with them after they leave the classroom. Yeah. And not just say, okay, I'm teaching them math, I got to get them to this test, and, and if they score well on the test, then I get good marks as a teacher. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's, that's why I think I would come back to those sideways moves that I I referred to earlier and music being one of them, right? Right. These different ways of approaching. It's like if we are just in this linear logic of, right, just teach the maths to do the thing, to get the success, to do the thing. It's like you're right back. You're just staying in that lane. It's like, what are the, the other ways of approaching being together, knowing and being, you know, however you wanna describe it. But, and that's why I think music is such an important one of those. There are many, But music's one.

Well, and I also think, you know, like when you talk about, you know, these sideways, I think that what we also have to do is to look at these arts. You know, for instance, you talk about music. Well, you can also talk about sartorial arts, the way people dress, what they do with fabric. Think about how folks have woven histories into fabric. Yeah, that's true. Think about how people teach essential cultural knowledge through gardening. You know, I remember gardening as a child and walking behind my grandfather's tractor. And we did this as a family. He would get on the tractor, he would drive, and he would, you know, till the soil and the potatoes would come up. We'd pick the potatoes or we'd go out and pick green beans or we would, you know, we grew strawberries and watermelon and corn and all these different things.. And when it was time to harvest that food, we would go out together as a family to get that food. Right? And then we would watch our grandmothers can the things. We had a smokehouse, we had pigs, we had all of these different things. And so you think about what you learn about rhythm when you're engaging with nature. Right? And what you learn about patience and processes Think about the science that you learn. I have a dear friend, Kamimila Locke, and she runs a school, a Lakota school. And I was having a conversation with her about education and the school she started. And she told me, she said, the knowledge is in the protocols, in what people do on the day to day. And so her— the school that they started, you know, the way that they teach say biology is that, you know, at certain periods throughout the year, they have to dress a buffalo and they have to use everything, all, you know, all of the things that come from that animal as part of community building. They consider the animal to be sacred, right? And so that's how they teach biology and science. You know, she tells me that they, they go down to the water every morning and they have, you know, quiet moments of meditation and reflection you know, in this context of nature. So there are protocols that a lot of communities have developed that we don't look at as educational tools. And if we are serious about doing the work of the oneness of humanity, then we're going to have to understand that there are different ways of being, different knowledge systems that are quite viable. Yeah. In bringing forward the things that we need to help us to become human again? And that's a tough question, because that, you know, you're starting to get into existential matters.

It's true, but we can't avoid them right now.

Yeah, we can't avoid them. And I know a lot of schools, particularly Western schools, are not equipped to address those questions. Exactly. You know, because they have turned human beings into machines. And we're not machines. We are thinking, feeling, spiritual, you know, I dare say, beings on this planet. There is something that is in us, but it's also beyond us that connects us to the rest of humanity. And oftentimes I feel like the most important question that I always put forward to my folks that I work with is not necessarily about who we are, but what we are. Who we are is personality, right? And who we are is always going to be different. But there is something essential that can be uncovered when we ask the question of what we are. What are we in this whole ecosystem that we call Mother Earth? And what is it about us that distinguishes us from other things on the planet, like animals or plants or minerals? And what is it about us that makes us the same as those things? Yeah. Right. And those are hard questions that don't come with concise answer. Pick A, pick B, pick C. You know, they don't come like that. You know, they require for us to engage with literature, with art, with music, with people at a very, very deep level and put ourselves and then allow ourselves the time to reflect on all of those interactions. And then come back to that community, share what we learned, and then go back and do it again and again and again until what we want to see begins to emerge in the world. And it's happening. You know, it's happening in some spaces. Yeah. And we have to learn to look for the light. And when we see it, we need to grab it and find these people that are looking for that light. Exactly. And lock arms with them and let's get this work done. Beautiful.

Exactly. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. No, amazing. And it makes me actually think of Highlander, right? So because I think to your point about looking, there is a role for seeing what other people have done and learning from what other people have done. And that, that whole situation at Highlander Folk Center and just the role that that had in with the freedom songs and in the civil rights movement. And it was collaborative and it was, there was solidarity there between the African Americans and the white Americans who wanted to be part of the same struggle. I think there's something important to learn from those kinds of— and for me, that's interesting because there's an educational institution at the heart of that, right? Doing educational work. Right. And I think there's something, yeah, really interesting there to learn.

Well, and that's such a— that is a phenomenal example where you see cultural arts, social action, and spirituality, you know, being married and merged into a curriculum that begat a lot of social progress. Right? So it was a school. There was a curriculum. There was singing. There was, you know, deep thought. There was strategy. You know, all of these things were combined in that institution. And I think that we have to find ways to create institutions like that. You know, it was— of course, you know, it was an intergenerational environment. You know, we don't need to dismiss our older folks, one of which I'm quickly becoming. So I have a little bit of self-interest working there. We don't want to dismiss our older folks because they carry a lot of wisdom for us. And we also don't want to treat our younger folks like they don't have knowledge about this civilization. Yeah, exactly. Because they do. Like, because they're growing up in it. There's so much that they know about what's going on in the world because they have channels to find out. So they don't have to get secondhand information about how people are being treated in the world. Yeah, they can literally get on a Zoom call or a FaceTime or WhatsApp and talk to somebody in that part of the world, right? Yeah, direct knowledge. Exactly. And so how are we going to leverage that technology in the classroom? Yeah, you know, why, why are our kids just talking to kids in their own country? They should be talking to children all over the world, to youth all over the world. They should be connected into this worldwide web of mutuality. And we have tools to do that. Yeah. And oftentimes kids have cell phones and different things that they bring into the schools. And I hear teachers telling them, "Oh, put that thing away. Get rid of—" You know what? If they're bringing those things, then pull them out and have them use them to fortify their education and to shore up a thirst for exploration in these young people. Show them how to use these things to build themselves up and not just to be something that numbs them from thinking about their world. And, you know, part of that, the model of co-creating the call and response classroom is, first of all, don't devalue young people's emotions. You know, I feel like, and this is one of the biggest issues that are facing our young people, is anxiety, which has caused the rate of suicide and self-harm to just skyrocket with children across the planet. And it's because these kids are feeling the disequilibrium in the world. But when they're young, they don't have a language to express it, but they feel it. Because their intuition is very, very strong and they haven't been jaded as some of us have. And so when we value what they're feeling and help them uncover the root causes of that anxiety and then teach them tools that they can move through those things with, then we're going to become better human beings. They're going to become more stable and better human beings on the planet. Going forward. But oftentimes, oh, you know, you shouldn't feel that way. Well, why not?

Yeah, right, exactly.

You know, they know the world is crazy. I mean, it's so obvious, you know, it's so obvious. And they have so much more access to information than we did when we were growing up. And the other thing that we shouldn't do is simplify their reality. Don't simplify their reality. Teach them how to read it. Yeah. You know, teach them how to read their reality, to bring deep analysis to it, and then strategize about their creative capacity to create a new reality. Yeah, absolutely. That's what school should be about. Like, if I went to a school like that where I was treated like that, I mean, I would be excited to go there every day.

Because it's about your development as a whole, right? As a whole person. Right. And I was talking to Vanessa Andriotti last night about it for an upcoming episode. And she talks about it, not about teaching them to read it, but teaching them to digest it. And she's got all these amazing embodied metaphors that she's using and about basically this probiotic education where we're enabling young people to digest this. And it's, it's great. It's really, really good. I love that.

Yeah, I love that. Well, and you know, that's, that's one of the reasons why I use music is because it helps us to metabolize those things. Yeah. Because you can metabolize those things, turn them into creative energy, and then offer a creative response to oppression that tears down that old disjointed inequitable world and brings a new world into play at the same time. Absolutely. Exactly. And that breaks us out of that, you know, that strict linear pathway, right? Because if we say, okay, we're gonna tear down this whole thing, and then we're gonna build something after we tear everything down, oh my gosh, that's gonna take forever. And it does not have to take forever. I don't believe that it has to take an extremely long time. I believe that what it takes is catalytic and transformative and inspiring education and tools that allow us to address a multiplicity of issues simultaneously. And you do that with culture and a value system. You know, you establish some norms at the level of meaning and, you know, say those norms and values are justice and equity and acknowledging the oneness of humanity. Then what happens if you start to cultivate that on the inside? You know, resilience, all these things that we talk about, then what will begin to emerge will be institutions that embody those values. You know, and I think you alluded to this earlier, is that we spend so much time putting out fires, you know, trying to solve things at the level of manifestation or problem instead of solving things at the level of meaning. And values that what happens is, yeah, we solve a problem, but it's gonna come up again for sure. Every time it's gonna pop up again. Exactly. So we have to find ways to drill down to the roots of these things.

But also to your point earlier, and a lot of this conversation, it's not like this stuff isn't happening already in all these different pockets, right? It's been happening all the way along without many people even seeing that it's happening, right? 'Cause it's an act of resistance or it's like a, it's a way of keeping this thing thing alive that is deeply important and sacred, right? And so it's not like even we're starting from a blank sheet of paper and we now need to do our— now to create our 500-point plan for the new civilization, right? It's like, oh no, shit, we've just fallen into that whole linear trap again.

It's like it's another committee meeting.

Exactly. Like, damn it. KPIs all the way. Right. But it's already that. It's already being like, I don't even want to say built, like it's growing everywhere in all these different— it is— pockets, right? And I think that's really important to acknowledge and then say, okay, how do we allow that to continue to thrive?

Right. Well, and if you think about it, you know, what we're told, and if I go through 12 years of schooling in the United States and all I learn about myself is that, okay, your people were slaves. Then civil rights movement happened here. And, you know, President Obama, that's what I was like, what the— you know, and we didn't have President Obama when— right, exactly. Right. Yeah. But, you know, that's what our kids are getting. And still you have people saying that we need to take that out of the schools. Right. But you grow up and that's what you read as curriculum. And it will make you think that the folks have not been doing anything except whatever they were doing in relation to the system of white supremacy, right? And the bottom line is, is that these things have been going on for centuries. You know, when I think it was— was it Paul Coofey in Boston? He started a school there when they would not allow Black children to go to the local school. He started a school because he was very wealthy. He was indigenous and African, and he started this school and invited all of the children to come to the school, not just Black and indigenous children, but all of the children. Right. So that was a way of saying that, listen, just because you built an exclusive school, my value system will not allow me to shut any children out. And I will make sure that all of the kids are allowed to come to this school. Yeah. And so you have examples like that. So we're not building on nothing. There is a foundation. It's like what I mentioned about what Dr. Du Bois said, is that those methods, those methodologies that we have evolved have been in play for a long time. You know, the people that were kidnapped, they were warriors. You know, they were teachers, they were mothers, they were tacticians, they were mathematicians, they were all of these different things. You know, they were, they were not nothing. They came with skills. You don't kidnap people and then say, come and raise my children and teach me agriculture and all of these different things. Like, you're not going to kidnap people that have no skills and then have them come and build a civilization for you. Yeah. You're going to kidnap civilization builders, bring them to this space, and then make everybody else think that they're nothing. And that they were nothing until they came in contact with you. And that is just entirely not true. And so we have to, you know, we have to realize is that as we're looking around, these systems are generations and generations in the making. And there are certain processes that have literally been perfected that we have to embrace. Now, when you're told that these people are not worth anything, what is the likelihood that you're going to go to that reservoir of knowledge and spirituality and culture and say, teach me something. I think that that's the hardest thing that white folks have to deal with on this planet, is the fact that all of that knowledge lies in groups of people that they have been taught to despise. But if white people want to get free, they're going to have to submit to that knowledge. And that's hard when you've been told that because of your skin color, you're superior. So you don't go to your inferiors and ask for help. But that's where we are right now, because that's where the essential life-giving, life-saving knowledge is. It's in those communities, and they can teach us how to get along, how to be together, you know, how to save the planet.

Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, yeah, there's just a deep disposition of like deep humility and curiosity and openness, just all of that, right? Like, it, it's what we all need. No, 100%. I don't want to finish before just giving you an opportunity just to talk a little bit about the Oneness Lab. You mentioned the word a couple of times, and I know you're doing this amazing work with Homer and I had Homer on the podcast recently, but I just briefly, maybe there's something important there just to say about the work that you are doing. Not only, this is also something I'm curious about. It's not only in the US, but also in these international contexts where these kinds of things show up different, right? They don't show up in exactly the same way with the same dynamics. Exactly. US is a particular context. Right. And then, you know, other countries will have their own struggles and their own ways that these kinds of of hierarchies and racial disparities and inequities show up. And so I think I get the sense that it's informed somewhat by your faith as well and your spirituality, the idea of this Oneness Lab. So yeah, yeah, powerful work.

So please, yeah. So that work, I mean, that work is very, very special to me. And, and Homa is a very dear sister. Uh, we oftentimes say that our kids are cousins because they are, you know. I come from this you know, as I mentioned earlier, this very traditional African American Southern Christian household. And Homa comes from Iran and grew up in the Baha'i faith. And so my faith definitely does inform that work because we do believe that the pivot around which everything evolves and this new work has to evolve is the oneness of humanity. Like just that basic acknowledgment that we are one. Now, we may not be acting like it right now, but there is evidence, plenty of scientific evidence that shows that we are one. We're all related. And so that principle has really inspired us around our work with Oneness Lab. And Oneness Lab really looks at all of these ancient traditions. We look at you know, data, we look at social justice work across time and help people think about how they can integrate these elements as they pursue knowledge that they need to transform their local environments as well as have an impact on the world. And, you know, we chose oneness because, you know, that's kind of our principal teaching. But we also chose lab because we know that it is experimental, right? Yeah. And we encourage people to use methodologies in addressing these things that can be drawn from the world of science. Like, don't be afraid to test your theories. Then if the experiment fails, figure out why. And so part of it is, you know, we share a lot of stories, different things like that. Not just for inspiration, but for gleaning strategy. So we combine the inspiration and the strategy into this Oneness Lab learning journey that we take groups of people on so that they can uncover the value and the resourcefulness that is in their local community. But also, down the road, what we want to work on is then how do we take these people that we've worked with and bring them into a space so that they can start to have cross-sector conversations. Because I tell you this, since COVID probably before COVID I've found myself in communities of impact investors, communities of teachers, families and children, university-level educators, independent and public schools. And my religious communities, as well as working with Christian churches and all of these folks, my desire is to get these people into a room together, some kind of way, a virtual room, anything like that. Get them in a room because every sector is learning different things about how this issue manifests itself. Sure. And so, you know, we start with kind of a micro lab with with, you know, say, an institutional focus. And, you know, my hope is that we now start to bring these communities together so that they can exchange strategies. Right. And learn, you know, I want to know what the impact investor learns about equity in the finance space, but that investor also needs to learn what that teacher is learning in the classroom space. And oftentimes our knowledge is siloed. So this whole concept of Oneness Lab is really about that, is that we work out and we keep expanding that circle because that's more akin to our reality. Like, I'm a musician, but I'm not with musicians all the time, 24 hours a day. When I go out, I'm going to a grocery store or I'm going to a meeting with my kids' teacher at their school, or I'm going to talk to a pastor. Like our lives are surrounded by diverse elements. And, you know, it also takes us back to that call and response principle of acknowledging the inestimable value of other people. Exactly.

You know, so that's what it kind of means to me. Amazing. And I just say that even the music itself isn't just that and nothing more, right? The music is the politics and it is the economics and it is all of these contexts that just kind of merging into the music as well. So yeah. No, I love it. And I mean, thank you for sharing about it. I really appreciate it.

And, oh brother, you're so welcome, man. Anytime. Love it. I love just conversations about this stuff.

Good, good. But let's not finish without some music, I reckon.

I tell you what I'll do. I'm going to share a song with you. And I have a— I actually have a show that is being prepped for Broadway. Wow. And it's called The Ballad of Henry Box Brown. And it's about a slave that— or an enslaved gentleman that convinced and conspired with a white minister and a white shopkeeper to put him in a box and mail him from Virginia to Philadelphia to abolitionists, to freedom. Right? And just speaking of classroom, we found out about his story because there's a children's book called Henry's Freedom Box. Oh, wow. That tells his story. We found out that he wrote his own narrative, and we translated it. Took that narrative, myself and Mare Mansouri, who we co-founded a children's theater in New York City years ago, over 20 years ago. And we put this musical together and took it to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and won a couple of awards and were asked if we wanted to see if it could make it on Broadway. So we're in the process of that. And I wrote a song for that musical. And this is one of the ones that I collaborated with my brother Ketch on, and it's called Cotton and the Cross. And it looks at the intersection of Christianity and commerce and, you know, looks at kind of the slave trade and how all of our blood is mingled together in this soil. And so I'll share that too.

Thank you so much.

Amazing. To kind of close out with. Yeah, it's, uh, you know, hopefully it will become a classic.

Beautiful. No doubt, no doubt.

You and me. And me and you together. Southern born and Southern bred, but still far apart. Bound in blood and sacred songs, still we don't see each other, 'cause we're living 'neath the shadow of Cotton and the Cross. Mansions high and cabins low and indigo. Scars and stripes, a paradise for some but not all. For God and faith, we separate. Seperate with our backs to the sun. 'Cause we're living 'neath the shadow of Cottonland across. Hard rain's coming, roll on Jordan. Wash away all our sins. Old world's dying, a new world's rising. One of these old days, these bones are gonna rise again. Oh ho! Oh oh! Don't mistake what I say as a judgment— In the purest sense, it represents my cry from the heart. We can't let fate steal our day. We all flow through each other. Though we're living 'neath the shadow. Don't be driven by the shadow. Get delivered from the shadow of Cotton and the Cross. Ooh-hoo.

Yes. Oh, man. Wow. Incredible. What a song, man. What a song. Oh, what? Old world's dying and a new world's rising. Yeah, right on, man.

Hope, hope, hope, hope. And it's not, you know, it's not a hope that is empty, man. Like, I've seen our people, all of our people find ways to survive and thrive in this world. And we need to unearth that knowledge, go back and get it, as the symbol Sankofa says, and give it to our young people and let them know that they are innovative, they're creative, and let them inspire us. Amen. Amen.

If I could say that to a Baha'i from an atheist.

Hey, bro. Hey, listen, we take them all, brother. It's going to take us all. There's plenty of atheists in our faith that came from that background. Some of them probably still are. Love it, man. And thank you so much for having me today.

This is beautiful. No, stunning. Thank you so much, Eric.

Uh, you're so welcome, man.

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