SEL in EDU

055: Nurturing Empathy and Inclusivity with Kelisa Wing

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Discover what it means to harness the transformative power of social and emotional learning (SEL) in personal well-being and racial equity in education. Our conversation with Kelisa Wing, a trailblazer in advocating for justice and inclusion, unpacks the redefined competencies of SEL laid out by CASEL. Together, we navigate the intricate connections between hope, resilience, and empathy, especially amidst the challenges that people of color face in leadership roles. Kelisa, inspired by Dr. Cornel West, sheds light on the philosophy of being a 'prisoner of hope,' a poignant reflection as we examine the landscape of educational well-being and the influence of adult SEL on future generations.

We delve into self-love, authenticity, and nurturing deep connections with others, even in passing encounters, and how these moments can lead to unity and understanding. We confront the complexities of gender and racial biases, particularly in the scrutiny placed on leaders and scholars. The discussions pave the way for contemplating marginalized individuals' pressures in authoritative positions and the imperative of fostering an equitable environment for all.

In the final stretch of our episode, we grapple with the current state of higher education and the mounting battles against DEI initiatives. We stand in solidarity with those at the front lines, defending the principles of free thought and empathy against legislative onslaughts. Reflecting on the historical contexts of resistance and empowerment, we rekindle the flame of hope and the potential for positive change. As we close this chapter of our dialogue with Kelisa, we invite our listeners to embrace joy in the minutiae, stand firm in the face of adversity, and take away from our discussion an enriched sense of purpose and humanity.

Episode Resourcesces:
Connect with Kelisa via her website and Instagram
Read Kelisa’s books:


Speaker 2:

Welcome to SEL in EDU where we discuss all things social and emotional in education. I'm Krista, I'm Craig and we are your hosts on this journey.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back SEL and EDU family. We have another ASCD friend with us today and Craig and I are excited for this podcast episode. We were just offline talking about lifelong learning and schooling and continuing to learn and grow in new ways to challenge ourselves and to make a difference in the world. Craig, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing pretty well Just came from working out at the gym.

Speaker 2:

I made a post today on Facebook about being exhausted.

Speaker 2:

So woke up, exhausted and anxious and thinking about all the things and projects and weather and other stuff that's going on in life, and so I set up for an hour really trying to pull myself together.

Speaker 2:

And you know, I know I'm not the only person who has to drum up all of the energy of the world in order to get yourself to a place where you can say, all right, I can do this and then push through a workout because I have a commitment to myself, a workout because I have a commitment to myself and I know we're going to talk about you know, we're in this season of talking about adult well-being and self-care and wellness and adult SEL, and so for those who are listening and you know, may believe for some reason, like we are the magic mushrooms of the earth and we just naturally wake up like this. I didn't wake up like this, but I did come to slay, so I'm just letting y'all know that it is quite the journey. I'm excited, we have an incredible guest who I love and adore, and I think we're going to have a great conversation today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I agree with you and I appreciate that authenticity of like. We don't always just wake up like this, right. And so last night I was online because I've decided to take a couple more courses and I didn't get done some of the emails I wanted to. So my eyeballs popped wide open at five o'clock today and I could not fall back asleep. So I got up, I wrote out the emails and I went back to bed for 45 minutes. Yeah, so we all kind of navigate and find out the ways that work for us to keep thriving, and I know that, talking about ways of continuing to thrive and to make a difference in the world, why don't you introduce our guests? Let me back up and edit that part out. Why don't you take a moment to introduce our SEL&EDU family to our guest?

Speaker 3:

on the podcast today.

Speaker 2:

I have no problem, you know, introducing this wonderful guest. We have Kalisa Wang, who is the 2017 DoDEA State Teacher of the Year and was the first person of color to achieve that honor in their school system's 71-year history. I mean like breaking glass ceilings Huh, how amazing glass ceilings, how amazing. Kalisa is a 2016 ASCD Emergent Leader, 2017 University of Maryland University College, Edward Parnell Outstanding Alumnus of the Year. She has served on the Education Civil Rights Alliance Steering Committee and is a leading educator ambassador for equity with this wonderful alliance. Also a member a driving member of the National Network of State Teachers of the Year.

Speaker 2:

Khaleesa's efforts have continued to be codified and mentoring teacher leaders through partnership with 100K in 10, which is interesting. 100k in 10, which is interesting. 100k in 10. She also serves on the advisory board for the Learner Variability Project and Digital Promise. She is an author and content advisor of 18 children's books yes, I said 18 children's books about racial justice, and she's authored three books about the school-to-prison pipeline, justice and other topics. She speaks internationally and nationally about all kinds of really important topics that are important to us in this education sphere, in many, many communities across the nation and globe, on discipline, reform, equity, student engagement and more. I and we are super excited to welcome Kalisa Wang. How is your heart? How are you doing?

Speaker 3:

Hi Craig, hi Krista, I'm doing really well. I I feel like you gave me a shannon sharp introduction. It was a great introduction. I was like who's that? Um, my head is very present and in here with you. Um, my heart is feeling very much at peace and my hope is I'm just never going to lose my hope. I think about the quote by Dr Cornel West who says, like hope and optimism are different, you know, optimism relies on the facts and the statistics, but hope recognizes that it doesn't look good and it's not looking good right now. But hope says like, I still get to keep my hope. And Dr Cornel West says I am a prisoner of hope and I will die a prisoner of hope. And I feel that from the top of my head all the way down to the soles of my feet right now.

Speaker 2:

All right, chris, what's brewing for you? I feel it like what's going on I have it.

Speaker 1:

I was gonna wait and see if you were gonna start off because I am so excited. I was so interested in your children's books because, as you know, there's been a lot of buzz around social emotional learning in the last couple of years, and in October of 2020, casel, collaborative for Academic, social and Emotional Learning, redefined the skills that fall under these five competencies and they made them more explicit. Under these five competencies and they made them more explicit. Before, in my mind, there were already themes around diversity and equity and inclusion, and they pulled them out and they made them more explicit and they called it transformational learning, and it seems like people just kind of like didn't understand it and got really upset, thinking that there was an agenda happening here, and so I just want to for our listening audience to review just a couple pieces, but I do want to link it back to some of the books that you wrote.

Speaker 1:

So, under self-awareness, castle talks about helping our students understand their cultural, social and linguistic assets and their strengths and what they're bringing to the table, and understanding identity, and then there's a part around understanding prejudice and bias, which we all have.

Speaker 1:

We all have biases, which are preferences for one thing over another, whether it's movies or sandwiches or the way we like to sleep, and we are all socialized because of our contexts to have these leanings based on where we grew up, who was in our lives, the experiences that we've had Under social awareness.

Speaker 1:

Castle talks about understanding the influences of organizations and systems on behavior, that what is happening in the world influences how we think and how we act and the decisions that we make and under relationship skills. It talks about demonstrating cultural competency and showing leadership in groups and standing up for the rights of others, and so this is what really grounds me in the work that you're doing is that we're hoping to bring an awareness to people that might have not had certain experiences or might not have had different perspectives, and so I would love to talk about. When we talk about, like, racial justice, when we talk about understanding the systems that are happening in the educational world. Could you talk to me about how, what has led you to want to write these books and of the 18 books, which one are you more attached to, do you hold closest to your heart and that you would recommend people start with?

Speaker 3:

So that was a lot of question.

Speaker 1:

to unpack, Krista Good morning I have a habit of bumping questions together.

Speaker 3:

It's all good, so I will. I'll unpack the first piece, which is you know how CASEL made the implicit explicit. And you're right, All of that was already there. It was already there, Certainly, in the other's awareness and the self-awareness. Understanding yourself means I understand how I'm showing up and other others. Awareness is I'm going to show up in a way that allows you to show up as and bring your full, authentic self to the space.

Speaker 3:

It's really interesting to me how SEL has somehow gotten pulled into the fray of the culture wars that are happening with diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, but it's not shocking to me either, Unfortunately. I mean, if you could go back in history all the way back to, even like, emancipation and reconstruction, a lot of times, when marginalized or underserved populations of people make progress, there is an extreme backlash that becomes codified, you know, it becomes law. It's done in a very systematic and strategic way and so, unfortunately I'm going to quote Cat Williams here all division divides, as he said, and understanding that when we can become unified and we can create cognitive, collective, cognitive empathy, it changes the dynamic of what we're doing. So I was doing a study a couple of weeks ago where, in 2014, there was this, I'm going to mess up the name of it, but there was this hotline in Israel where Palestinian parents who lost a child could call an Israeli parent who lost a child, and they were these empathy talks and they were able to kind of grow this understanding. And you know, this is like 10 years ago.

Speaker 3:

When we can have collective cognitive empathy, we can get enslaved people to tell their stories and document them and have these slave narratives and we can have abolitionist movements and we can grow and get a really horrific moment in time of our history wiped out by law, by law. When we can have collective cognitive empathy, we can get a president like Lyndon Johnson to sign into law affirmative action and the civil rights movement. I remember one of the most amazing quotes that Lyndon Johnson said was you do not take a man who has been shackled in chains for years. Take the chains off and put them at the starting line of a race and tell them you're now free to compete. He understood that there were barriers that needed to be kind of leveled and so the fear of collective cognitive empathy.

Speaker 3:

And when I can heal my hurt, then I can help others to heal their hurt, Then I can show up, healed and whole to a situation. Then I can create an ecosystem and an environment where people are allowed to hurt and heal and grow, where I can normalize the fact that harm will happen and what are we going to do to address the harm. Then I create a world or a space in which we become more united. I start to underscore the unity and community and that is a fear of people who wish to remain in power that we would actually be smart enough to see past the rhetoric and embrace a culture of unity, embrace social and emotional wellness, embrace social and emotional equity, have an emotional investment into the success of everyone, Understanding that if Craig gets something, it doesn't take anything away from me, If Krista gets something, it doesn't take anything away from me.

Speaker 3:

And even when we look at places like Germany, who were willing to have the Nuremberg trials and talk about and put out the things that were wrong and even changed their national anthem and all of these things in order to reconcile and face the things that were wrong and admit them and then move on to something better and something greater, that is a fear. And so I think you asked me about the work. The work brings. It brings challenges, it brings adversity. I look at what's happening right now and I know we're not, but because people have conflated this, I'll go ahead and conflate it too. We're looking at people trying to come for people's positions and jobs and titles and people who are doing the work, and I almost view it as a new form of assassination, just character character assassination and this witch hunt of I hate to use that word but people who are viewed as bringing people together and trying to unite people and trying to get people to understand the importance and the value of social emotional wellness and the value of caring about someone outside of myself, the value of really investing and caring about public education and about children period, whether they're private, public or charter schools, our future. And so my favorite books I love all of them.

Speaker 3:

I think my favorite books are the last series that came out, which was?

Speaker 3:

It was the ones about achievement, Because the story of all peoples who came to these United States, whether they were brought or whether they came willingly, or whether they found it already belonging to our indigenous brothers and sisters, is that the story is not just a story of trauma and pain, but there were many successes and many accomplishments and many achievements that were made by people to make this country what it is, and I stated to someone the other day that you know I've had the opportunity to live in other countries and travel to many countries and I will say that, regardless of what we have going on and we've got a lot going on there's no other place that I would want to be.

Speaker 3:

I am a proud American who served my country and if I had to do it all over again, I would do it again. Do we have things that we absolutely need to work on? Absolutely, but I'm hoping that we come out of this period of organized separation to understanding that we're better than this, we can be better than this and we've got to continue to push forward on that. I hope I answered your question.

Speaker 1:

Oh gosh, yes and thank you. I realized as I kept going I was just stacking the questions for you and so I appreciate that and I know Craig's got some questions and I just want to kind of I loved I wrote down a couple notes that I know I want to go back into around collective cognitive empathy and I love that you said underscore the unity and community and having an emotional investment in the success of everyone, and so just thank you for those because they really help center me and are giving me some things to continue to think on. Craig, I'll turn it over to you.

Speaker 2:

And, admittedly, I'm taking a breath for so many across the globe who are living with anger and hurt and confusion, and you know you highlighted so much Kalisa in raising this. So I'll start with what's going on in Palestine and Israel, and you raise this, you know illustration hey, we have two parents, caregivers, who have lost their children and are making a conscious choice to come together and have a conversation, to be in space, to actually share a sense of empathy or active listening and engage with someone when the world wants them to be at odds. I personally would love for folks, I would love to just see a ceasefire, in my opinion, because it's human lives on the line, regardless of what your politics are, children, women, men, elders are being murdered. And when I think about what's happening in our sphere now, this is January, early January, and we saw the Harvard president, gay, who resigned, and it hit me so hard because Claudine Gay represents for me and I put this in a post somewhere. Like the Obamas, we've always wanted to see this happen. We've lauded this moment because it represents so much in regards to having an incredible woman of color, a Black woman, who is leading a story institution, and we saw how that played out and it's hard to reconcile and tap into a level of compassion and solve that will help us to find peace within our spirit.

Speaker 2:

I know that for me. I am actually disturbed and parts of me are raging. I am actually disturbed and parts of me are raging, and so there's two things that I think about with this. You made me think about Malcolm X, who talked about you know, a gem in the crown of America, and it's just tough because they're constantly disrespected. And I think about you know so many things that I'm wrestling with, but I want to center on two things. One, as I'm navigating for the listeners who are hearing some of my attention, there are two things that I think about, and I'm going back to the word you started with, which was hope.

Speaker 2:

I understand that, like Princess Temptill talks about, the kind of change we are after is cellular as well as institutional, it's personal and intimate, it's collective and cultural. We are making love synonymous with justice. People have to be brave enough to step out and actually decree the madness, the gaslighting, the historical behaviors that are causing so much pain and destruction to lives of those who happen to be most marginalized, most oppressed, and this happens to be people of color in many spaces, and I know some folks will feel a way because, like, oh my God, hopefully you stay know with this podcast and also just our journey. But I also think about Resmaa, who did Quaking of America for Claudine Gay, for Coretta Scott, for Elijah McClain's mom and so many other mothers who are holding their heart and continue to be charitable, deeply empathetic, continue to be loving beyond words, regardless of how the world has shown up and not had their back and protected them, protected you, protected both of you, right.

Speaker 2:

But I I want to lean into what resmaa talks about, which is like healing is going for more than mere repair. It's about connecting to something deeper in the energies around us, but it has to be built in the structure of our bodies, our planet, our cosmos. And so I'm curious for you, kalisa, as you continue to engage with folks across the entire globe. You're having these very deep and rich and layered conversations with folks who come to you in conversation with a whole lot of their own thinking, their own beliefs, their own you know their own hurts, their own rage, their you know their hope and optimism. But the work is still happening and it's on the ground and it's impacting our children. It's impacting who are going to be the benefactors of our world.

Speaker 2:

I'm curious how are you tapping into some of the tools and strategies you have for yourself in regards to your own wellbeing and wellness journey? How are you supporting others and developing others around their adult SEL in the different spheres of work that you do? And I'm just kind of curious about you know your experience and your example, as well as what that may look like for those who are looking to you and looking to Krista and looking to others you know who are trying to figure out. Okay, what do we do in the midst of this madness?

Speaker 3:

So I did find what the name of that is. It's called the parent circle. If anyone wants to look into it, it's the parents, the parent circle and they shared stories about the loss of their children and I think, like in studying this, it was when we can create the collective empathy that I talked about, we can create mass change and we can create revolutions, and then again that's the fear, like keeping us divided and not united. I even think back to and then I'll move off of this what was so. It was beautiful, but in other people's eyes it was dangerous. But in other people's eyes it was dangerous. You know Fred Hampton, who is the original leader of the Rainbow Coalition, who brought together people who were that they had a lot of power in this ability to raise the collective empathy of the masses, and so you know that that was viewed as dangerous. You talk about. I think. I got called by a few, a lot, a lot of people who wanted to know my opinion about Dr Gay, and I stated that that's not personal. The things I've experienced in the service of creating a more just and equitable world was not personal. We need to pay attention was not personal. We need to pay attention. This is just a prelude to the beginning of a story that is still being written and unfolded, and there will be more If we're not paying attention to the fact that I'm quite sure that there's probably some people who have a list of all of your favorite universities, professors and scholars and are combing through their doctorates I'm sorry, combing through their dissertations and any pieces of writing that they may have published, or any recording that they may have done, or any blogging that they've done or anything. So I'll go back to we talk about backlash. I'll go back to the 1960s. What happened in the South when the South, for the first time, voted a certain way that they'd never voted before? Well, they couldn't come out and say you know, this group of people are bad or whatever, but they could come out and redline, rezone, redistrict to make sure that it never happened again. And so history always tells us a story, which is why people are fighting so hard to keep history out of our children's schools, because if we want to know where we're going, we can look back to the past to see. And all of this is just a regurgitation of the things that have always happened when progress is made these elite universities and whatnot Also. I'll say this and then I'll move into what you asked me about.

Speaker 3:

As far as centering and grounding ourselves, if we're not paying attention to what we're experiencing as a country is a direct backlash of the eight years of the 44th president. We're not paying attention. The vitriol and the hate and the anger and all of that the same thing that drives hope and love are the same emotions that are that have us where we are right now. And so how do we, how do we, continue to show up and feel okay with this? I think number one is the quote I started out with you have to hold onto your hope. Number two you have to pay attention and say this is not new, this is not foreign. Why am I surprised? This is what always has happened in the history of this nation, and until we actually face head on what we've been going through, what our story has been since the beginning, we're going to continue to experience these things.

Speaker 3:

I mean, you think about South Africa and apartheid and how they were able to move on from that. They actually sat down and they actually admitted and talked about the things that had happened and reconciliation was able to happen in all of these places that we're talking about, and if that doesn't happen, you talk about repair. You have to be able to confront when harm happens. That's the only way to repair. If I'm in a marriage or I'm in a relationship or I'm in a friendship and I have harmed my friend, and I never acknowledge that and I just keep moving forward as if nothing ever happened. Time doesn't heal that wound. It continues to hurt and hurt, and hurt and hurt until eventually the relationship is broken. And that's how you end up with irreconcilable differences and things of that nature and dissolutions of relationships because an inability to face and admit and then talk about.

Speaker 3:

Well, what are we going to do moving forward? I think about my children, and when they do something wrong, I'm like we're going to sit down and we're going to talk about this. How do you have a relationship with anyone without actually acknowledging, admitting and then coming up with a plan? What are we going to do to make sure we never do this again? What are we going to do to make sure that we get to move forward? How do we dispel the lies and lean into the truth? And without the truth, I mean, we don't have anything.

Speaker 3:

Another thing you said was that I think you, and even I'm going back to when you first came on and you talked about how you woke up and everything else. I think as humans, we spend so much time projecting into a future that we're not even guaranteed to be a part of. It causes us anxiety. It causes us anxiety, it causes us stress, it causes us worry and a lot of times, the stories that we concoct in our brain, once we get to that thing that we've been so anxious about, it's not even anything like what we've told ourselves it's going to be, and then we've spent all of this time worried and anxious and nervous over nothing.

Speaker 3:

I think for me, um, you talked about the, the tools that I've been able to use. I, since probably 2021, have really been on a journey of healing, um, and deep inquiry into myself and understanding what are my buttons, so that I can figure out what they are and then remove them, so that it's very difficult for someone to touch those buttons. I engage in the world, understanding that the world, including myself, is full of very sick people who come with trauma and hurt and harm and all of these things, some mitigated, some unmitigated. Some have worked on it, some have not. Some folks have diagnoses, some people are undiagnosed, and so we're all existing in this ecosystem. And so when I show up, I'm like I think there's like four norms, and I applied this to the work, to my work of being more equitable.

Speaker 3:

Number one was to embrace people and assume positive intent, like I'm going to show up and just show up in love. You don't get to dictate my love. Your inability to do that does not control me. Number two is to assume a positive intent and to kind of to reflect on the why, like to basically ask myself why, why do you feel like that? Why did that make you question how you felt and why did that make you believe that? Or if I'm watching something, or I'm watching the news and I can feel it, because you talk about Resmaa Minicamp, who talks about like our lizard brain and our body responds to trauma first, before our mind even processes it. So as soon as I know, mine shows up in my stomach. So as soon as I feel it, it's like oh, where'd that come from? Why do I feel like that? Let me interrogate myself, let me ask myself why I believe that, because I don't want anything that's happening to me to create this bias inside of me.

Speaker 3:

I've been on this journey I know it's going to sound a little, a little wild, but probably since last year to be radically inclusive, like talking to certain people who I normally would not engage with because I'm. I've been conditioned myself to show up in the world the way I do, to assume that someone automatically is going to like be out for me because of how I look or or what I, what I say or how I feel. And I've been intentional about talking to those groups of people and giving them the love that I would give to the people who maybe I'm, because we're sometimes we are affinity biased. You know we're looking for those who think like us, dress like us, love like us, believe like us, feel like us. So it's like okay, let me go on this radical inclusion journey of talking to men.

Speaker 3:

One of the things I find is so weird is people will respond back. It's almost like a mirror. I've had no one that I've intentionally tried to talk to whether I'm sitting on a plane or waiting for a plane or typically isn't traveled has not reciprocated back the conversation to me. I remember running into a man that was that had spent the entire weekend at a. It was a convention for a political convention and and I'm sure that there weren't very many people at that convention who looked like me, but we engaged in like a deep, wonderful conversation, just about on a humanistic level for about a half an hour in the airport, and I did not care and I think I connected with him because he had on like he was a veteran or something like that. He had a hat on and we shared that If we look for the things that unite us, we can find them way more than the lies that someone told us that we need to be divided about.

Speaker 3:

And so I think, understanding myself, building up this ability to actually like love myself and I will challenge the listeners, like, if you don't, or you've never been radically in love with yourself, like, start to look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself I love you. I had people do that exercise who couldn't even get the words out and they were in tears and because we don't actually really deeply, fully, unapologetically, unfettered, love ourselves, and we should, because if we did, then out of our abundance, we would want to give that to the people who come into our space. We would want them people who love themselves, and I mean really love themselves. Not people who love power, but people who actually love themselves, who have a deep appreciation for themselves, who've done the work to understand themselves. They want other people to have that too, and so you would want to like replicate that. People who drive division and hate. That's how they feel about themselves.

Speaker 3:

So I think there is a lot going on in the world, but as so, I will just say like, as long as I stay in the day, because tomorrow's not promised Yesterday is gone I have right now, at 10 am or whatever I have this time. So at this time I just need to embrace and be fully present in this moment, and then I'll deal with the next moment. There's nothing wrong with planning, but we have to be careful not to be projecting, and I don't have to take on that hurt or that pain. I just get to be informed in it. And I'll end with this there is a huge difference between being in something and being in relation to something. I can be in the in relation to the world, but I don't have to be in it, because when I'm in it, it's in me and it consumes me.

Speaker 3:

I remember I like to cruise and people always say you're afraid. Are you afraid of the boat sinking? And the boat will never sink unless the water gets inside of it. And so us, as people like we have to know okay, there might be all this stuff is happening that we have zero control of, but we have the. Our biggest flex is we get to control how we respond to it. I'm still going to show up who I am, regardless of what they do to the president of Harvard or this person or that person. You don't get to take my joy. You don't get to take my love. That's the most radical, revolutionary thing that I have that, even though you tried to kill all of the good stuff inside of me, I still get to have it. You don't get to take that away from me.

Speaker 1:

I hope that was helpful. Yes, very, and I have. So one of the things that Craig and I talked about with season three is that we wanted to have authentic conversations around some wonderings that we've had, and we've been talking about Dr Klondike and I need some help and I need some insight, and I'm going to put myself out here and say I'm struggling a little tiny bit. I feel that in my limited understanding of what transpired with these congressional hearings, I find it intriguing that not everybody showed up and that two of the people who did show up were women, and I'm thinking that people who, like the prep that happens for people going into the congressional hearings I've been reading, like the prep wasn't what it could have been, because there's a pause in how they responded to questions around what was happening on their campuses and I'm not sure that that response would have happened and I'm saying this as a female, as a woman, I'm not sure that that response would have happened had they been men of universities on this panel, and I'm also not sure that the follow-up and digging in to people's research would have happened had it been men or had it been somebody who was white.

Speaker 1:

As a researcher, I'm struggling a little bit, because they did find some things around unquoted sources. That has always been consistent in the academic community, and so and I'm not I'm also thinking that with technology nowadays it's so easy to find that, and why are other people not being investigated in the same way? Why are other people not being investigated in the same way? And so I'm wondering, and I feel like the weight that she must be feeling, and the Penn president as well, with taking on so much of people's stuff and like going after them for things but then an accountability piece around okay, there were some misquotes or things that weren't cited now what? That doesn't lead to them having to feel they needed to resign, because I don't think it would have happened had it been a white man who was in that position. And so I'm struggling because I see the pressure.

Speaker 3:

I understand what you're saying. I think that it's deeper than that. This is just my opinion. I think it's deeper than that. I think that anyone who is seen as, for whatever reason, higher education is under attack, whether it's a public institution or a private institution, because higher education has always represented a desire to create free thinkers, a desire to increase awareness of all types of theories, hypotheses, action, research, things that are going to increase the knowledge of a young person who's going to now go out into the world and spread that. And so, for whatever reason, higher education has now become the focus, especially around things that seem to represent DEIA. We saw it with the elimination of affirmative action.

Speaker 3:

On January 1st, the state of Texas made all DEI offices in public universities illegal. Back in December, the governor of Colorado I'm sorry, not Colorado, I think it was or Oklahoma, made DEI illegal in all like public institutions and anywhere that receives any federal money. So you've got to look at the total landscape. If those were three men and they were representing these very liberal universities that promote this free thinking and this ability to become cognitively empathetic, I'm sorry they would have faced the same thing. I think we have to look beyond what it looks like in one person and understand and I'll say as a person who has faced a very interesting couple of years because of the, you know, because of the cultural wars when you're in that situation and I will tell you I don't know why, but when you start to become attacked in that way, it's not just what people see on the public facing that's hard. It's the people who start to mail letters to your house and tell you the ways in which they're going to kill you. It's the people who send letters to your place of employment. It's the people who swarm your inbox and call you all types of things except for a child of God. It's that it's having to freeze your credit because people will mess with your finances. I mean, there are things that happen that would blow your mind, that are beyond what a person will read in a comment section. There are groups of people who will be relentless at trying to force a person to really get to a very low and a dark place. To really get to a very low and a dark place. That's very unhealthy in a social and emotional way. And so at the end of the day, you have to decide am I going to stay here and fight, Because the thing is, when the powers that be decide they want to eliminate whoever or whatever they feel is a threat you talked about, you know why did they?

Speaker 3:

Why did they select this person? Why did they select Rosewood? Why did they burn down Tulsa? Why not this other? And it's. I just feel that it's. There's a lot bigger things that are at play here and we we have to.

Speaker 3:

I think the smartest thing to do is just to be very aware of what's happening and not be surprised by it and not be um. People want you to think it's about um, it's about black, it's about white, it's about this, it's about it's about power, it's about about maintenance of that power and control and making sure that certain groups that have always been in certain places remain there. Unfortunately, when people see people like these women, who actually the group of people who benefited the most from affirmative action have been women and statistically white women so when they see these women, sometimes they think it's a DEI hire or it's a diversity hire. It can't possibly be that this person is better suited or more qualified, but that's the case and it's very sad that we're still in this place where we look at people and we make assumptions based on our biases and our prejudices. So, again, I think, and I try to keep reminding people like you've got to maintain your hope, you've gotta keep your love, you've got to keep your joy, you got to keep showing up and know that doing the right thing it still matters, even if everybody else is not. Your role in all of this is to continue to show up, is to continue to show up, and I really believe the pendulum always swings very far one way and very far another way.

Speaker 3:

I believe that it's not always going to be like this. I really believe that I really hope to quote is it Abraham Lincoln that our better angels show up eventually. I really do hope enough people will get outside of themselves, will start to care about themselves in a way in which they nurture themselves and love themselves enough to heal themselves, and then that they will want to help other people along that journey as well. I really, I really hope that that's where we go and I can't lose my hope and I can't get so frustrated that I we go and I can't lose my hope and I can't get so frustrated that I start to get sucked in to the system rather than continue to stand on the side of it and study it. I love history and I love going back and recounting and thinking about all the things. A book that really helped me along these last couple of years is a book by I think it's Richard Rothstein, the Color of Law, and digging into that and again understanding. There's another book by Mia Birdsong, called how we Show Up, which talks about the notion of community and the power.

Speaker 3:

I don't think people understand the power that each one of us has inside of us to create this permission to bring our authentic selves, to become our best self, that we have so much power within our own spheres of influence, whether it's in our home, on our job, in the classroom. I don't need permission from anybody. You can take a title away from me, you can take a job away from me, whatever you can threaten me, you do not get to take away my ability to show up as I want to. You don't. And that's the real power.

Speaker 3:

Honestly, when we realize and tap into our own power within ourselves, our own ability to love, because love is absolutely a much more powerful thing than hate, is absolutely a much more powerful thing than hate. It really, really is, and so when we I think the most dangerous thing is to lose that hope and to grow so frustrated that we give up, but it's like, okay, I can't control this, I can't control that, I can't control him, I can't control. I get to control my response, and it's amazing what kind of response you get when you don't respond in the way that people thought you would, when you still show up with your chin up, your head up and your hope up.

Speaker 2:

Wow, this feels like this could be part one, part two, part three. There's so much because I feel like people will need to pause and do some level of reflection with everything that you've shared and so many great reads that you've shared as well. So I'm looking forward to us populating those as well as we get to a close, because we know that you know folks get busy and onward to greater things. What do you feel is your superpower at this time?

Speaker 3:

Oh, my superpower, my superpower right now is I am at such peace I have. You know, I asked God to, like it says in his word, not to understand. I don't need to understand anymore, I just need peace. So I'm at peace with a lot of even the things that we've talked about today. I am at peace with it and I also feel that my superpower is like understanding that I am just a part of something much greater than myself, and my role in it, again, is to show up, not overreact, and just be and just show up in love, show up in peace, and that is helpful to a lot of people, because we are in what is it?

Speaker 3:

A Chinese proverb which has been found that it really isn't a Chinese proverb, it's something somebody said a long time ago, but it says like may you never live in interesting times. We are living in interesting times right now, but the most powerful thing we can do is hold on to our peace, hold on to our love, not allow the exterior things to drive us or to have us worried or to. I think that's like my biggest flex right now is like I am so serene and just at peace, serene and and just at peace, like, and I also understanding, we're all here, um, universally, right now, at this time, for a reason, um, whatever that reason is, I don't know, but I think it's. I think it's kind of dope. Like you know, we survived, we're uh, survival is the highest form of biological achievement and we are alive, we are here. That's. That's pretty dope.

Speaker 2:

Where can folks connect with you who want to continue to learn from many of the gems that you've shared may want to connect with you because they want to partner and collaborate with you. They find you know you know a lot of what you shared compelling and would love to you know some way continue, continue their own journeys. What are the ways that folks can connect with you?

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, the best way to connect with me would be through my website, so it's wwwkaleesawingcom. Uh, leave a message and, uh, you know, as long as it's on some positivity, I'll certainly respond. Um, so, yeah, that's the best way to get me and I'm very responsive in that manner. You know, even if you just need a positive word or something you know, or book recommendations, anything, I think right now it's all about uplifting people and helping people understand just how to show up and how to honor themselves and love themselves in this crazy thing that we call life.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for your time and, like Craig said, you've dropped so many gems that are getting me just thinking and that I really need to continue to learn and to grow on, and so I'm deeply appreciative of your time and your willingness to share. Um, craig, you want to take it away with our closure in your smooth voice, please, sir.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness, SEL and EDU family, it is with a renewed heart and spirit that we came together today with a very meaningful conversation that I hope pushes and stretches you in all of your humanity but is all for the good and betterment of you and everyone around you. It has been an honor and a pleasure to have this conversation with Kalisa Wing, who is such a gift to our world. I'm going to I am just going to posit here that Things may be tough, there's a lot happening, but when you hold on to hope, you continue to look for the positivity in the small places and you get quiet, you may be surprised at the magic that continues to renew your spirit. We want you to hold yourself and others real tight and we really challenge you to continue to stand in a beautiful light, and that could be the SEL and EDU light Hot dog. We love you. Y'all take care.

People on this episode

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Craig Martin

Host
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Dr. Krista Leh

Host