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One of the exercises in CLP is about identifying and clarifying our own personal values. We identify our top 5 values, writing one each on 5 index cards. Then we have to drop one… and another… until we are forced to choose our number 1, top value. What is your current One right now and why?

Community. Building community has always been a core value of mine. It is more intentional than it used to be; today, it carries more meaning and purpose. For me, community is a place to belong. We all need a place to belong – so why not create that for others as well as embrace it for yourself? I often think about my role and responsibilities as a community member – am I doing my part? What can I do to make things better? Who do I need to connect to? And who needs to connect with me?

I think of community partly as neighborhood – New Haven and beyond. I live in Westville with my husband, Dozier, two of our four children, Chrystal, Shannon and Sharon (our twin girls) and Christopher, and our dog, Coco. It’s a nice neighborhood, diverse and friendly. I know my neighbors, and my neighbors know me. We walk our dog to Edgewood park regularly and do not feel threatened or harassed. This provides me with a sense of comfort and safety.

I work with communities in New Haven, Hamden, New London, Bridgeport, West Haven, and more. Everything I do is centered around social justice. I choose to stay in this lane because I’m good at it, but more importantly because I feel called to do so. It’s my passion and it is within my capacity to help. I provide outreach, connect people to resources, advocate for myself and others when needed, and bring awareness to issues that impact people of color and people in general. It’s important to me to give voice to communities and individuals who are not being heard, to fight for those who cannot defend themselves. Helping people find their voice really can make a difference in a person’s life.

What is one big, burning leadership question you are wrestling with these days?

I’m working on understanding my own power and what that means – embracing its value and importance. Trying not to be stifled or limited with my struggle of sometimes feeling less-than, which is often connected to my being Black, a woman, and passionate (side note: sometimes falsely translated as loud or angry – which pisses me off). I struggle with turning the negative volume down in my head – you know? That lingering doubt in the back of your mind that questions – I am good enough? Polished enough? Educated and articulate enough? Will people be open or care enough to want to hear and accept what it is that I have to say?

I am learning to fully embrace that my voice matters. That I have the necessary skill, knowledge, resources, and qualifications.

What inspires you, gives you hope these days?

What inspires me is being a part of something that’s greater than myself. Aiding someone who society has forgotten and abandoned and hearing that person say – wow, you want to help me? I hear it all the time, sadly, from the youth I work with. They lack opportunities, support, and resources that many of us often take for granted. They need people who love, support, and care for them, who are willing to invest time and energy into helping them tap into their potential.

As a care manager, what inspires me every day is when I am able to help a young person who comes into my office in need of support, guidance, or intervention. The main objective is to help them recognize their value and worth – who they are as individuals. If you can change the way you think and feel about yourself, you can change your world. I focus on helping them to help themselves, and together we work on meeting their needs. These can include finding employment, going back to school, finding shelter, getting mental health interventions – for me, that one is an added bonus.

My children and family keep me going, and motivate me to be better than I was the day before. I do what I do because of them. My hope comes from treating others as I would like to be treated. My intention is to always be present, aware, and accountable to who I say I be and what I create. I pay attention to the impact I am having on everything and everyone around me. I honor myself and others by never being afraid to fail, because that is where true learning comes from. I’m also never too proud to ask for help when I need it.

This work of transformational change is hard. Stepping in, stepping up, over time, can be draining – physically, intellectually, emotionally, psychically, spiritually. How do you recharge, restore, take care of yourself, rekindle your fire?

One, therapy. If head and heart is all messed up, then I am no good for anyone. Seeing a therapist does not mean you’re crazy – it means you desire balance. Sometimes I just need someone who can help me navigate through my emotions. Mental illness is so often hidden because it is something that people are still just too embarrassed to talk about. We need to deal so that we can heal. I recognize individuals struggling in crisis and experiencing trauma on a daily basis. I see it all around me – on a professional level and in my personal life. This has become overwhelming at times. Over the last few years, I have been fighting against the stigma associated with therapy, especially in the Black church. I was born within the church – as my grandmother would say, born on the pews. We were taught to look to Jesus for everything, sweep things under the rug. And look to him to come around and fix it. Some are sadly still waiting and suffering. I found that this teaching does not work when it comes to mental health issues, which plague my family and community. And I will not be silent, or rely on just one avenue to find relief. I have an amazing support system of people I go to who help me keep in check and balanced. I have a village that supports me.

Second is working out. I love to go to the gym. And I love to walk in my neighborhood and on the beach; we walk just to feel good. Healthy mind, healthy body.

Music is another outlet. We sing, I love dancing. R&B and gospel; salsa will be my next venture.

Back to my core value of connection, one thing I’ve been doing over this past year with my family is creating something we call Family Connections. We have a core group – Core Connections – similar to a board or committee, that organizes our events and gatherings. We do a family chat to say good morning and good night, we have a private Facebook group, we share what’s happening within the family and invite everyone to attend weddings and funerals, births, performances. We are very creative when it comes to rebuilding our connection within our family – this has really helped bring us together. We have a “bum rush breakfast” at the matriarch’s house once a month; someone brings eggs, someone else brings bacon, someone else brings orange juice, and so on, and we have breakfast. We have book clubs, other activities, small groups, large groups for whoever is available. We might create a group to talk about issues that impact our women and girls, or men and boys, in separate groups like we had during Beyond Diversity 101 – Race, where we broke into affinity groups of Black and White folks. It has been amazing, terrifying, chaotic – and worthwhile. We’re closer than we’ve ever been. Right now, we’re doing surveys to see what’s worked, what needs to continue, so we can make it better and encourage others to participate.

We received a lot of feedback through Facebook and our communities that other families are now creating similar events. We may not always like or agree with the individuals in our family – but it does not lesson the value or the importance of family in our lives. We need our family and it is vitally important that we find ways to connect with them, rebuild the bridge. My family is directly linked to who I am – it is my job as a family member to do whatever it takes to preserve it.

Introduce us to someone you are/were close with personally (e.g., family, teacher, friend, mentor), who shaped (or shapes) you and how you view leadership and possibility for a better community/world?

My sister-mother-friend, Lisa Anderson, is definitely one. Lisa and I were in CLP together; she was my first White friend. I was raised in a very strict religious community. Everything was done in isolation, only with family and other people within our congregation. We were not encouraged to make extended friendships outside of the church. We were taught not to trust White folk.

I always thought, there has to be something more. My grandmother was a trailblazer, a leader in a time when there were very few women leaders. She broke those myths and barriers. My mother as well; in her case, she broke from religion – and was then labeled as the black sheep. So, for myself too, I wanted to expand experiences through my friendships.

Sometimes being a leader means standing alone, being courageous, launching yourself out there and taking a chance, doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable, learning from others. Lisa helped to hold the space for me – without heat or judgement. I always felt safe, comforted, supported, and loved. She always had my back and has proven to be a true friend.

That decision to go beyond my comfort zone and expand myself was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Lisa’s knowledge, understanding and support has been so helpful in expanding my view of what leadership is and my role in it. Seeing the other side of what leadership looks like from someone who does not look like me, helped me learn. And, don’t get it twisted – we learned from each other.

When I started CLP, the concepts and content were new to me; I was intimidated and afraid to ask questions. I had never heard the language before. Lisa was a great sounding board, our honest and courageous conversations allowed me to fully understand and own what I was learning. Lisa never treated me like I felt around so many other White folks – ignorant or stupid. With Lisa, I never felt afraid to fail or falter. Together we created a safe, judgement-free zone. Lisa challenges me to use another lens to look at things. While I offered cultural insight from a different point of view. We just work.

What do you recommend to us, in each of these categories:
  • Reading – I would encourage anyone and everyone to read Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, by Dr. De Gruy. An amazing book. It is still helping me to understand how slavery has impacted generations, and not just Blacks. It is eye-opening, offers a way to bring back the human part of our society. It gives in-depth insight on who we are, why we are and where we need to be.
  • Listening – A very important skill that I am still learning to do well. I’m very reflective, but I don’t always listen as well as I need to. One of things I love about CLP is that Notice, Support and Stretch (NSS) is a great reminder to listen to others, and also to be in tune to yourself. My desire is to continue to evolve, and not be distracted by the noise – internally or externally.
  • Eating – Another area I’m still working on! To not eat emotionally. A part of being healthy and whole, what you put into your body will either serve you or harm you. I really want to learn more about how to eat better and grow my own food. As a Black person – whose ancestors (some, not all) were slaves – I really question, what happened to my green thumb, how is it that I am killing plants? This really pisses me off. I have more than 303 cousins, and none of us are farmers. We should know about turning the ground. My family left farming shortly after slavery. They came to Connecticut from North Carolina for better opportunities. And they left all they learned about the benefits of working with their hands, about farming and connecting with nature, in North Carolina. We gained a lot by them moving here, but we lost a lot too. I feel regret that they felt the need to discard all of it. We lost how to plant, when to harvest, what to eat that is actually good for the body. It is no surprise that now, everyone has diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol – we’re not eating in a way that will sustain our life. We’re eating in a way that destroys life.
  • Watching – When I think about watching, I think about watching what’s happening within these United States. Watching what’s happening within government, within our society, with our youth who are black and brown, and how are we going to intervene for them. Watching what resources are drying up, what resources are still available, and how to access them. Watching the epidemic of mental health imploding within the Black community – how we are still fighting the stigma instead of coming together to bring awareness and interventions so that our community is encouraged to get help outside of religious or spiritual rituals? What are we not watching – handwriting on the wall? I think about being courageous to know when and what to cry out for, what to speak out against, what to fight for, what to maintain. And watching my own health, being present to where I am in any given moment, so that I can bring help and not harm to myself or to others in this quest for justice. Everything else is trivial to me.
  • Laughing – Oh, do a whole lot more of that. Laughing is good for the soul. And I have not been doing enough of it. But I want to.
  • Wildcard – I recommend more affinity groups. Black folks really need a place to come together, speak to where we are and find supports. Whether it’s how to deal with systemic racism in the workforce, how to talk to our children about who they are in a way that builds their self-worth, give them identity and resolve within the trauma that plagues their lives, their minds, spirits, and bodies. A safe haven to express, explode, rejoice, celebrate, dance, provide the richness of power, perfection and chaos within our community. And a safe place for people who look like us, who can accept all of us. I need it; I don’t know where to go to talk about what directly impacts me as a Black woman, with a group of other Black women, and also pour my knowledge and support to those who may need me as a Black woman. Too many hearts are breaking because of what we don’t know. How do you advance in the workforce under scrutiny, fire, and stereotypical labels? What do you do in situations where you are the token? How do you not lose yourself, or sell yourself trying to advance? How do you hold true to your integrity? When is it time to take a step back? How do you do that? How can you be both angry and productive and still be okay? There’s a desperate cry for answers. I’m working towards creating my own small pods of healing circles within my family, with the youth community I’m working with, and even with my colleagues at work. I would like to create a place to go to understand who we say we be? How we show up, and how that impacts everyone around us and spills into all our relationships. I need a place where my learning can be ongoing. I want to create it for myself and for others who ask the same question: Is there a place for me?

To get in touch with Tyree directly: tyree.dickey@gmail.com

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