In this interview episode, Podcast Producer Angela Johnson speaks with Toya Lillard, Executive Director of viBe Theater Experience. In November 2020, she gave a guest lecture for the College of Fine Arts and Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University on using an abolitionist framework within the arts and cultural sector.
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Angela: Hello, AMT Lab listeners and welcome to an interview episode brought to you by the Arts Management and Technology Lab. My name is Angela Johnson, and I'm the podcast producer. In this episode, I interviewed Toya Lillard. Toya is the executive director of viBe Theater Experience, and recently gave a guest lecture for the College of Fine Arts and Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University on using an abolitionist framework within the arts and cultural sector.
Toya, do you want to introduce yourself?
Toya: Sure, my name is Toya Lillard. I am the executive director of viBe Theater Experience. At viBe, we center the lived experiences, genius art, and everything of Black girls, young women, and gender expansive youth. We're here in New York City. I'm here in Brooklyn on the land of the Lenape people. I'm from Houston, Texas. I was raised there and grew up in a really artistic family and have been doing theater since I was a child. I'm really happy to be here. The topic of the guest lecture is really near and dear to my heart.
Angela: So about the topic of the guest lecture: I did want to talk a little bit about that. You're going to talk about using an abolitionist framework and I wanted to know if you wanted to talk about that, just to explain what that is to our listening audience.
Toya: So, when we think of abolition, firstly, before we even get to abolition, thinking about why there is even a need to think about abolition. So typically we associate abolition with, like, Harriet Tubman and enslavement, right? And abolitionism as the fight to end enslavement. More recently, we have been associating this term with the prison industrial complex and the desire to dismantle it, using what folks call an abolitionist framework. More recently, this framework has been applied to what some folks know as the nonprofit industrial complex, which brings me to why I am giving the lecture as someone who runs a nonprofit and someone who's deeply committed to the work of the field and who's spent my adult life working in the field. Really important at this moment in time, in history to apply what we know as an abolitionist framework to approaching and approaches to dismantling this nonprofit industrial complex that we're all in. And the same ways that we see the harms that the prison industrial complex has caused, the same ways that we have seen all of these systems that have been created to produce products and profit harm people. So all part and parcel of the same work: social justice work is no different than what we call using an abolitionist framework.
So what does it have to do with the arts? It has a lot to do with the arts because there are a lot of cultural organizations, entities who endeavor to do good, but in the ways that they show up causes harm. Moreover, what are these systems and organizations peopled by? They're peopled by people who have a lot of internal work to do—a lot of unlearning and learning to do—so that they can show up in a way that is less harmful, ideally not harmful at all. Applying that to our work within culture organizations, within the nonprofit industrial complex, because we're all in it, is really important at this moment in time when there's so much conversation about equity, when there's so much conversation about truth and reconciliation, and people are really searching for a new way to move forward. There's all this talk in philanthropy about “radical imagination” and “imagining forward,” a lot of beautiful language within a framework and structure that was created to support capitalist hierarchy. So, AWKWARD. So that's sort of what interests me as it applies to this work and as it applies to the need, the demand, for equity.
Angela: I think that's so great. I feel like we're all, kind of at this point, aware of all the systemic racism in our system, but it's systemic and we don't think about how pervasive it is in every industry, even in ones that are aiming to do good, like the nonprofit industry.
Toya: For example, right. Just to give the most recent example with the election. So we spent four years knowing, and really assuming that certain segments of the population would be on board with this idea of a new administration and a different way forward. Yet the exit poll showed us that 55% of White women voted for Donald Trump. Fifty-five percent. More than in 2016. In the midst of all these conversations about equity, diversity, and inclusion, and you know, some of those women hold jobs in equity, diversity, and inclusion. A lot of those women were at the Women's March with their pink hats. A lot of those women hold positions of power. And so a part and parcel of this desire to support equity is to have people hold themselves accountable for their own positional power, right? That it wasn't in some folks’ economic interest to vote otherwise, that it wasn't in some folks’ personal interest to vote otherwise that they voted against the interests of people that look like them because of capitalist hierarchies.
Angela: Definitely. I also think it's really important how that's portrayed in the media, because I feel like you never hear about all the White women who voted for Trump. You hear about how, “can you believe 10% of Black men voted for Trump?”
Toya: Eighteen percent, actually.
Angela: When 90% of Black men didn't vote for Trump. So many White women did, and obviously White men, just how that's the thing that we need to focus on.
Toya: Yeah. And also focusing on, we're barely talking in this selection about the 91% of Black women, Black women are the backbone of the democratic party yet, where's the representation, right? And so that is what we mean with an abolitionist framework. All of that stuff has to be talked about. All of it is part and parcel to supporting these systems and so what we do in this country is this nice choreographed dance with some theater, performative allyship, where people perform this outrage. And then, you know, in a park in the dark really are self-interested and do something else. We know this because the exit polls don't lie. They just don't. Fifty-five percent is a lot. Yeah, that means you can throw a rock and there's a White woman who voted for Donald Trump. It's just the truth. So unless we start talking about that, which so far, we do not want to talk about, we'd rather talk about how it's the fault of defund the police and AOC, it's her fault, right? We're not looking at the people who actually, and then the interesting thing to me is that there's all this talk about reaching across aisles and meeting people in some sort of middle. The middle of what? White supremacy? Because that’s why they voted for him! I'm supposed to reach across the aisle into racism? I'm not sure how I’d do that.
Angela: True, and it really goes into this idea of normalcy and assimilation, and assimilation is assimilating to what? And what culture are we assimilating to?
Toya: We say that we're against racism, but then we won't talk about the ways that it shows up because it benefits everyone who is not Black, everybody. It exists on a White/Black binary. That's it. Period. That's the tweet. So, everybody else benefits from it. So of course this is theater. Of course this is a nice, elaborate dance because ultimately nobody wants to be on the bottom and people don't want to give up what privilege they have.
Angela: And that's been true since America began.
Toya: Yeah, and that's what America is founded on actually: these hierarchies, these myths of meritocracy, these myths of, you know, Horatio Alger, that it's just hard work, right? The hard work myth, the John Henry, John Henry-ism that we all are socialized to perform, to prove to folks that we're just as good, kills us and only supports capitalism. This country is rich because of that, because we work, work, work, work, work, work, work until we die.
Angela: Well, on that note.
Toya: I know we got deep—oh, we got a little deep! This is about the arts!
Angela: So concerning viBe, how do you feel like that fits into the abolitionist framework, and how do you feel like that's helping to change things?
Toya: So my organization was founded 15 years ago by two women who were graduate students at Columbia. So talk about the nonprofit industrial complex: this is a classic story of how a nonprofit is started—graduate school at an elite institution, “Eureka! I want to work with youth!” And not to say that the co-founders, their intentions were great, and Dana Adell, one of the co-founders, is a great, good friend of mine. Intentions were pure, to serve Black girls, who they felt were not being listened to or believed, which is true. Now we know statistically, there's so many studies about Black girls and the conditions that they face. For example, here in New York City, Black girls are 11 times more likely to be suspended from school than their White counterparts. This is how systemic racism shows up at the intersections of race and gender, yeah? And it's all about dress coding and reading a girl's face, nothing that these girls are actually doing to harm another person. It's about them not fitting within the framework of respectability politics. Right? So this organization was started with good intentions, but within the ways that nonprofits run it in this city, and there are many studies that have been done, millions of millions of dollars [spent] studying the lack of diversity in leadership of cultural organizations.
So, understanding that a White woman was at the helm of the organization for the first 10 years, until I came on, resulted in us losing most of our funding and me gut-renovating the organization from scratch pretty much. Why? Because within the nonprofit industrial complex, when the leader of the organization, that is me, a Black woman, mirrors the constituency that closely, there's distrust and disbelief in the leadership, right? I look too much like the folks that we serve. Moreover, at that time, there weren't very many Black women leading arts organizations. Now there are more, but at that time, it was unheard of. So just really understanding that in New York City, this Mecca, this melting pot, these capitalists hierarchies showed up in a way that there was a dearth of Black leadership within the nonprofit industrial complex. I mean, you know, that's how it works. How do nonprofits get started? At elite institutions by White people who have generational wealth and unpaid internships at art galleries because these kids don't need a day job. They have someone paying that. That is the way that it works. If you didn't go to NYU or Columbia, good luck. You can be a sort of deputy, you can be teaching artists, but in terms of the leadership, it's locked down. It's a cult and you can look it up, do the research. It all goes back to NYU and Columbia. Even myself. I went to NYU. I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't. That's what we're talking about needs to be dismantled and it needs to be stopped.
So viBe, me having built the organization from the ground up again, learning a lot along the way. And along the way, talking about how unfair it is that Black led organizations are underfunded and under supported, that Black women as leaders are not trusted and believed, that it is thought that we can't raise money. When in fact, the truth is that your average nonprofit leader has generational wealth and has gone to an institution where they can call the homie up and that person can write a check for six figures or raise that amount of money. Without that, understanding there's a wage gap and a wealth gap. And at the intersection of that, expecting a Black woman to come in and raise $2 million for your organization is unrealistic, right? So that a lot of the work of viBe has been about really being mission driven. It is for, by, and about Black girls, young women, and gender expansive youth. So having our board represent that, having our staff represent that. There is a trend that has been devolving over the last few years, because of shenanigans of nonprofits being led by White folks, and then, you know, the sort of foot soldiers and deputies and teaching artists are people of color, and then those are the people who are the first laid off. We saw that during Covid-19: these well-meaning, mid-size to large nonprofits that took out PPP loans to save the jobs of their Black and Brown employees. As soon as January 1 hit, those folks got laid off, the people at the top took a 10% pay cut, but they kept their jobs and that's wrong. And that's the tweet. So viBe staff is all Black, women-identified folk, everyone, except for me, under the age of 30. Our board is all, except for one, person of color and women. And we, at every turn, try to replicate that, that is, to look at the population that we serve and make sure that we're truly connected to those communities and not afraid of them, not speaking on their behalf, not sort of replicating the saviorism that we see within our field that is also mirroring, sort of, social work, right? Whereby we're comfortable with White people at the helm, speaking on behalf of communities of color, because we assume that those communities don't have the resources or capacity to speak up for themselves. We know that's not true. We know that that thinking only supports capitalist hierarchies. We understand that it only fuels this nonprofit industrial complex that causes harm and under-resources the organizations that are really doing impact.
Angela: So, viBe, on the website it says 100% of students who go through viBe graduate from high school, and obviously the arts have huge value outside of educational impact and how they do in other subjects, but where do you think viBe fits into that?
Toya: I think we fit into it in the schools that we partner with. I think it's for us, we hold in school residencies and then we also partner with the schools in other ways. There are some schools that we partner with just to recruit participants. But I think it's a combination of the schools that we partner with, the girls that are attracted to our programs, and the impact that them having the opportunity to create their own art and be seen and heard in a way that they want to, right? So we've done a lot of research and metrics around social and emotional learning with our young women. And it's true that most of the, over 80% of our participants see gains in what is called "social and emotional learning." And I'm putting it in air quotes because there's a lot of issues that people have with the ways that, you know, this whole social and emotional learning focus can be harmful and can be, again, only replicating the systems that we say we want to dismantle. But for us, it was important for us to show that for our girls, it's really about them. Girls Leadership just came out with this study: 78% of Black girls, which is the highest of any racial groups, see themselves as leaders. They see themselves as leaders, and then they show up to school and they get treated like a problem. They show up to school as leaders because that's how they see themselves, and they're speaking up and out and they're told to be quiet. They're told that they're being disruptive. They're told that they're being distracting to boys. So eventually that takes its toll and girls either drop out, there's a huge school push-out problem, or they just shrink. So for us, our girls not shrinking, first of all, and understanding that their voice is amplified, that their voice is supported. They, you know, not doing away with this whole idea that they don't have a voice, which really pisses them off too, that people think that they're not fully realized human beings. Like, every human is born with a voice and that these well-meaning organizations are describing them in ways, they're like, “Wait a minute, that's not me! I have a voice, y'all just told me I was lying! You, you sent me to detention." “These young women, they have no voice." How are you going to send somebody to detention and suspend them and then say they had no [voice] for using a voice and then saying they had no [voice]—that's the shenanigans. For us, I think a lot of those academic gains are because our girls are feeling better about themselves. They're feeling heard, they're being seen, and that when they look in the mirror and see themselves as leaders, there's somebody that's like, “I see that too.”
Angela: It seems like such a cool program. I wish I had that when I was in high school.
Toya: Me too.
Angela: My last question. So, what would you recommend to people who want to support girls, young women, and non-binary youth of color in their communities? What's the first step?
Toya: So in New York City, I miss the subway because, you know, we've been in quarantine and I haven't been on the subway since March. And one of the things that bothered me about the subway, besides it being crowded and dirty, was whenever a group of teenagers would come on, Black and Brown teenagers would come on. And Black and Brown teenagers in New York City tend to be amplified and to be demonstrative, that subway is really their stage. And people would get up and move and leave and shake their heads and not understand why these kids were being hyper-visible, particularly the girls. That there is an aversion that people have [toward] the teenagers, a disbelief that they have in young people, that young people can feel. And they internalize, and we remember. I remember being a young person not being believed or trusted.
In the lecture, I'm going to talk about how I saw myself as the Oprah. Like I was like, that's me. Oh my God. Oprah. And I was obsessed with Oprah because I saw myself and I was like, “Hello. Obvs!” I dressed like Oprah in my sophomore school pictures, you know, sort of like, dressed like Oprah, and then I go to school and it was “Shhh! Shhh! Shhh!” and I'd always get a C in conduct. Straight A's and a C in conduct. Holding space for young people to be their fully human selves, to show their full range of human emotion. That includes Black boys. That the full range of humanity that young people are deserving of, we rob Black children of. There's this adultification problem as it applies to Black kids of all genders, and then there is a perception problem, especially as it relates to Black girls, and this perception that Black girls are not in need of protection, that they are more knowledgeable than they are in actuality. And all this money, thank you, Georgetown University for doing the Black girlhood study that gave all these statistics, but in addition to those studies, how about changing the conditions? How about changing our perceptions? How about people doing the personal work so that they show up for kids in a way that is not harmful, interrogating your own relationship with young people. Do you trust them? Are you afraid of them? Are you working with kids, with Black kids, and you're afraid of them? That means you have to do work, not them. Burdening our children with showing up for you in a way that makes you comfortable is harmful. So I think the best thing adults can do is figure out how they can show up better for young people and do the work, take the time, and hold the space to do the work and challenge your perceptions, change them, and I think things will get better. Raising our children as whole human beings, able to express their full range of emotions, able to express their full humanity, is the greatest gift we can give our humanity and the world, I think.
Angela: All right. Well, we're just about out of time. Thank you so much for talking to me. This was amazing.
Toya: Thank you for your great questions and the opportunity to talk. Follow us @vibetheater on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and all of that. Thank you so much.
Angela: Thank you.
Thanks for listening to the AMT Lab podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and to leave a comment. If you would like to learn more, go to amt-lab.org that is AMT dash L a b .org. Or you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. Also, you can follow us on Twitter @techinthearts or on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn at Arts Management and Technology Lab. You can find a link to Toya’s guest lecture in the description (or here). Thanks for listening. See you next time.
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