(bright electronic music) (energetic R&B music) - Happy New Year, everybody, and welcome to our January edition.

I'm Earl Arms, and we've got a packed show.

So let's get started.

Alexandria Mack profiles Milwaukee ceramicist and internet sensation, Lalese Stamps, founder of Lolly Lolly Ceramics.

James Causey and psychologist.

Dr. Kweku Ramel Smith discuss generational trauma and its impact on the African American community.

Everett Marshburn previews the Milwaukee Rep's production of "Toni Stone", the first woman to play professional baseball in the Negro Leagues.

And as usual, we begin with Milwaukee's annual commemoration of the Dr. Martin Luther King holiday.

- Did you know that Atlanta, Georgia, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin are the only cities to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr., for the past 35 years?

- Three years ago, Amillia Bell was the ninth grade winner in the MLK speech writing contest.

This year, she is the 11th-12th grade winner and joins us now with an excerpt from her speech.

- Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to mourn the death of our future.

Red roses, white lilies and carnations are thrown onto the casket as the funeral staff lower it six feet into the ground.

As we watch as a just barely teen is lowered into the grave, our eyes are filled with tears, but the faces of the staff remain passive, as if they'd seen this a thousand times, with ages ranging from 17 to as young as nine years old.

These incidents are all too familiar in our community, but this is not the first time you are hearing this.

Many families are facing trials and tribulations as teen gun violence and fatal teen high-speed chases remain at an all time high.

It is vital that we speak up and speak out, because although today as youth we are only learners and observers, tomorrow we will be your politicians, lawyers, and doctors leading this nation.

So after witnessing the death of our future, are you ready to speak up now?

Thank you.

- Thank you for sharing that powerful portion of your essay.

And you shared something interesting with me earlier today.

How many times have you won this contest?

- Well, I've won it since the second grade.

- An amazing achievement.

So what's next on the horizon for you?

- Well, I plan to go to an HBCU.

Since it's second semester of my senior year, right now I'm focusing on scholarships and just getting money for college.

But I plan to major in psychology, with the possibility of law school afterwards.

My ultimate goal is just to give back to youth, and just provide them with opportunities to reach success, because I know that they are gonna be our politicians, lawyers, and doctors tomorrow.

So it's important that we pour into their lives.

- And what was the theme for this year?

- [Amillia] We must speak up.

- And what was powerful about that, that drew you to it?

- Well, I looked at the speeches that I've done in the past, and I've realized that it's important to reflect on some of those old topics, as they're still prevalent today.

And that's why I discuss juvenile crimes.

And I think that we still see those negatively impacting our community.

- Well thank you for joining us today, Amillia.

It's been a pleasure.

- Thank you.

- Thank you so much, ladies.

And all of you can hear Amillia Bell's full speech at the Marcus Center's 38th MLK celebration on Monday, January 17th at 7:00 PM.

The ceremony will again be virtual this year, and is open to the public.

When Hank Aaron was called up from the Negro Leagues to play for the then Boston Braves, his position with the Indianapolis Clowns was filled by another pioneer, Toni Stone.

Her story is now on stage at the Milwaukee Rep. ("Take Me Out to the Ballgame") - I wanna tell you something about, ah, reach.

I'm telling you about reaching, and me.

That's why I'm speaking here, so I can tell you about me.

Because you may have heard, I am the first lady, woman, whoo, to ever play professional ball.

I don't know why it was me and not someone else.

I don't know even if history will think it matters, but you do, maybe.

Or you wouldn't be there, and I wouldn't be here.

- [Everett] This is the first rehearsal for the Milwaukee Rep's production of "Toni Stone".

Based on Martha Ackman's book, "Curveball", the play was written by Lydia R Diamond, and tells the story of the first Black woman to play professional baseball in the Negro Leagues.

Kendren Spencer has the title role.

- Toni's important because she represents, (sighing) goodness, she represents people, women, Black women who demanded more for themselves, in spite of what society dictated to them.

In spite of what people who loved even dictated to her.

You know, she was this fierce Black woman who knew what she was about, who knew what she was good at, and let the world know.

- [Everett] The play was considered one of the best of 2019, and it told a story that had largely gone unnoticed in the public eye.

- I knew that the Negro Leagues existed, but I certainly didn't know about Toni, or the other two women who played in the League.

But no, so when I first heard about the play and heard what it was about, I was like, "This is like perfect for me," even though I never really had a deep emotional connection with baseball.

So I've learned a lot, I'm continuing to learn about her and others like her.

'Cause there's so many trailblazers that we just don't know about.

- [Tinashe] We are living at a time where I am seeing so many Black female athletes being contained in a narrative that audiences and fans, and frankly society wants them to be in.

And I am thrilled and inspired by these athletes and activists that are pushing back on that.

- [Everett] Tinashe Kejese-Bolden is the play's director.

- And so from a contemporary place, that was an entry point for me, because I think that audiences can see in this beautiful way through history telling, that that has always been an undercurrent, especially with the Black athlete, and even more prominently with the Black female athlete.

And so a compelling entry point for me was really this notion of a Black woman who said, "You're not gonna end my, you're not gonna tell me what my story is.

I'm going to tell you what it is, and this is the way that I'm gonna go through my life."

- Baseball is as serious a sport as there is, but let's be honest, it's also entertainment.

Negro Leagues understands this.

I like show business, I like baseball and I like Negros.

- I hope that people of all ages who come to see us, but especially young Brown and Black children know that it's okay to be who you are, in spite of what everybody and everything around you tells you, in spite of that especially, you know, because of that.

Even the people who love you will tell you that something is not for you, but you just have to keep hearing that drum in your head, you know?

- [Everett] "Toni Stone" is a co-production between the Milwaukee Rep and Atlanta's Alliance Theater.

It will move to Atlanta in February, but continues at the Milwaukee Rep through January 30th.

(lively R&B music) (calm ethereal music) - Growing up, I didn't really see a lot of people who were like me, who owned their own businesses.

And it was just kind of a scary thing.

I think that I always kinda ran away from the idea of being a business owner.

And it's just kind of funny how life works that way, where it almost hits you in the face.

(laughing) And I woke up one day and I had like 7,000 new followers just overnight.

And I remember thinking like, "Is this a glitch?

Like, did something weird happen?"

And over the course of the day it just kept rising.

- [Alexandria] For Lolly Lolly Ceramics founder Lalese Stamps, a hobby she began in her basement willed her into confronting her fears almost overnight.

- Lolly Lolly Ceramics is a small-scale handmade ceramics brand.

We're based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin now, but we just moved here six months ago from Ohio.

(gentle ethereal music) - [Alexandria] Inspired by her high school nickname, the brand contrasts a playful moniker with more serious-toned pieces, much like how ceramics was once her lighthearted escape from her full-time world of computer screens and graphic design.

- I wasn't super formerly trained in ceramics.

It was always more of a fun thing for me.

So one day I just had the idea to have one of the same object, just create something different about it every day.

And the mug felt like the best fit for that.

And it really is one of the best things I think I've ever done for myself as a creative.

I would say that they are kinda funky.

That's kind of a word that I, the go-to word that I always use.

Really clean, simple lines, but also I kinda described them as like pushing the limit a little bit.

Anything that we ever do, I always wanna kinda push the limit of what that norm is, and all the handles on our mugs kind of are a testament to that.

- [Alexandria] Many of Lalese's ideas stem from the muses found in everyday life.

- Typically my style, I do a lot of like, kinda sitting down by myself, just sketching a lot.

It's really fun to like see other products that aren't ceramic and get inspiration from that.

Like even the plants that we have in this space sometimes, like there's so many different styles of leaves, that it's kinda cool to see a shape and be like, "Oh, that made me think of an idea for a ceramic piece."

We have this mug, it's 12 out of 100, and it's like the squiggle handle.

And I do think that one is kind of like the quintessential, go-to Lolly piece.

It's so simple, but it's so interesting.

And that was inspired by a bike rack that I saw, and I took a picture of.

It's just like such a testament, a mug testament to that, where we started, and seeing something out in the world and creating my own version of that.

(mellow jazzy acoustic guitar music) - [Alexandria] Little did Lalese know, that her 100-day spark of creative inspiration would ignite the entrepreneur path she once feared.

- It was a hard decision to kind of quit my full-time job, because I really loved being a graphic designer.

But ultimately I think the reason I decided to focus on my business full-time is because I saw, like the bigger opportunities within that.

I think I was getting so much attention on my work.

Like, just an insurmountable amount of eyes.

We were getting so much press last year and our audience just kept growing naturally.

And there was like one day, that I got like 20,000 new followers within like a matter of 24 hours.

- [Alexandria] The response to her work over the last year sometimes leaves Lalese's brain spinning, with pieces flying off the Lolly Lolly shelves faster than she and her small team can create them.

- I feel like sometimes I don't really have the space to really process everything that has gone on.

One of our recent drops, we sold out within like 13 seconds.

And for that, we had like a couple hundred mugs online.

(mellow cheerful music) (sighing) This makes me emotional because again, going back to that thing where it's like, it's just so cool.

Like the fact that we know, it's a good problem to have.

You know, it's not a bad thing to know that we can put product online and it just sells out.

It's hard because we spend so much time working on those pieces that they're kind of just like, gone like that, but it feels really cool and really special.

- [Alexandria] As her brand continues to gain popularity with national partnerships like American Express, and wholesale accounts with the Museum of Modern art, her mission has become more than unique mugs.

- This was more than just about me, you know?

I wanna be able to use this business to open up opportunities for other young Black creatives who didn't know that they could take their craft or their skill and actually do something with it.

- [Alexandria] And although the pieces are almost certain to sell out, Lalese says there will soon be enough Lolly love to go around.

- It's not even about the money either.

It's just about knowing that we did that.

Like we created that, and people were excited about it and it gets us motivated to do more.

The quality of the product speaks for itself.

The uniqueness of the product kinda speaks for itself.

(hand slapping) And that's kind of the thing about authenticity.

It's almost like you don't have to do much because you're genuinely being who you are.

It goes back to that little glimmer of joy that we kind of offer to people.

I mean, these pieces are things that people use daily in their lives.

They're just a really nice thing to have.

(laughing) (gentle upbeat music) (lively R&B music) - Many things get passed down through families.

Wealth can get passed down, distinctive looks, personality, and in some cases, trauma.

Generational trauma is still a relatively new field of study, but this is what we know.

African Americans in the United States suffer at much higher rates than their White counterparts.

Domestic violence, sexual assault, abuse, hate crimes, racism, and even witnessing trauma can lead to generational trauma.

Here to talk about the impact of generational trauma on African Americans is Dr. Kweku Akyirefi, formerly known as Dr. Ramel Smith.

Thanks for joining us.

- Hey, thanks for having me on this very important conversation, James.

- It is a deep conversation, and one that we need to have.

So let's start by talking about, how is generational trauma passed down from generation to generation?

- Yeah, so it's a couple of ways.

So when you talk about it, you know, we've gotta think about, we get 23 chromosomes from both our parents.

So we have a biological component.

So you know, most of the time you hear about something about nurture.

That's the nature, excuse me, of it.

But then there's a nurture component.

That's the sociological learning that we go through.

That's the things we experience, the things we see.

So whenever you start talking about, how is anything passed down, it's about what are the things that's given to us from a genetic standpoint, but also what are the things that we've experienced that just pass over, and what we also talk about, an epigenetic.

That's above the genetics that goes into our system that, although it's not biological, because we experienced it so much on a social realm, it's embedded within our DNA.

- How is it diagnosed?

You know, so you hear about it, and we're hearing more about it, but is it diagnosed by a physician, a doctor, or how does that take place?

And why are African Americans so much impacted by this?

- Yeah, so that's a great question.

It can't be legally diagnosed.

So from the diagnostic statistical manual, the fifth edition from the APA, American Psychological Association, you're not gonna find generational historical trauma inside of there.

You will have PTSD, which is post-traumatic stress disorder, and they'll talk about it.

But the reason why they're not going to talk about it is because then it's almost like talking about CRT.

It puts a miracle on the hook for a lot of the travesties, a lot of the devastation, that is happening for a country that can't even pay reparations for people who've been abused.

Well, then we can't give you a diagnosis that then, what makes this consistent, that makes this legitimate.

Well how do we know that it happens?

We do it by a thorough interview.

So we do a interview with the person.

So we see, what are those current historical traumas, things that happened to your mom, things that happened to your dad, things that happened to you when you were young?

But then also from a lovely standpoint, we look at life.

And so we know by your cultural standpoint, your ethnicity, what are some of the things that your people historically, that looks like you from a pigmentation standpoint of going through?

So we put all of those things together to be able to do an informal diagnosis of a generational trauma.

- So are you saying, for example, a father was abused by his or her parents.

This, then he later abuses, say his wife and his son, and then his son participates in say, a horrific act, and end up incarcerated.

So what needs to happen to like, break this cycle?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

And so what you have to recognize is this.

What was traumatizing to one person might not be traumatizing to another.

That's why you can go inside that same family and have one person who's incarcerated, but then you have another person, look at Eric Michael Dyson.

His brother's incarcerated, but here he is, you know, a lauded pastor, preacher, professor working at Vanderbilt.

And you say, two same people from the same household, but different manifestations of what they do.

So you say, "Well, how do we stop it?"

Well, first it starts from an individual standpoint where a person that's going through some type of a miraculous epiphany where they say, "You know what?

I've seen what's been happening to my family.

I don't wanna do it, and so I move myself into a different type of standpoint.

I do some extra reading, I do a big thing on knowledge of self, and try to learn about it.

I put myself around people who have been doing great things."

but it has to start from an individual standpoint.

But then it also has to have a societal structure, because if a person wants to do great but the things around the society creates a bloom situation, you're always gonna get the worst out of an individual than the best of that person.

- So let me get this straight.

So is this a part of a person's internal strength?

Or is this beyond something like that?

Like you've mentioned this, two people could live in the same house, and one person not experience generational trauma and the other person experienced it.

What causes that?

Is it based on a person's inner strength or what?

- It's a combination of all of the things we said before.

So resiliency, so you think about if you're an only child, you only see things in one way.

But if you're a child of five, where if you're that fourth child growing up, you've gotten the chance to see some things.

You've also had some protective barriers in older children.

I can tell you specifically from my family, we've had some people to go to some other way.

When they saw me coming up, they said, "You know what?

We're not gonna let you do this.

You can't participate in this."

I had barriers they didn't have.

So even the people who sometimes like, you're looked upon in society as they're not doing right, they had the sense and the courage to lead the people below them.

So sometimes it could be something as birth order.

Sometimes it could be just a matter of luck.

Sometimes, you know we say, "If I was caught doing the worst thing I was doing, maybe I'm on a completely different trajectory."

So it's a lot of different things that go into this combination of you say, why a person does or does not end up in certain situations.

- You know, educator Dr. Howard Fuller once said, "If we mistreat our youth at three, four or five years old, we don't wanna see them at 13, 14, and 15."

And we all can attest to that.

We know that, people are seeing it every day.

But if that's the case, what's the solution?

- Yeah, you know what?

And I love the comment by Dr. Fuller, but I'll even take it a step further.

If we misuse, abuse them at one and at two, even in utero, you still see it because there's a wonderful book called, "The Body Keeps Score", this is by Bessel van der Kolk.

And what he talks about is hey, you know what?

Sometimes we can't articulate the things that hurt us, but our body, most importantly, our brain keeps the score.

And when our brain keeps the score, guess what?

It's things we can articulate why we're hurt, and why it manifests.

You said, "But what can we do?"

Well, that goes into that same thing.

Sometimes people say, "You know what?

This is enough."

Or sometimes, guess what?

We're blessed with other features.

I know I had the ability to do things from an athletic standpoint, so I was blessed with some wonderful coaches who became surrogate fathers, who helped lead me in a different direction.

But those men couldn't have did what they did, if it wasn't for a guy like James Beckham, who started the Beckham Stapleton league that gave the avenue for those other people to do it.

So sometimes you say, "Well, what can we do for those individuals so they don't go that way?"

Well, that's the societal standpoint.

We had to create structures that allow people a chance, if they wanna do well, to be able to do well.

And more importantly, if that person is incarcerated, what we have to say is once they're incarcerated, we can't lock them up and throw them away.

They can't be prisons, they have to be correctional institutions.

So if we had to sit a person down, what are we doing to make sure that when they come out, they do not re-offend, they do not recidivate, but they can really reenter society and be great citizens.

So that's the big thing.

It's like, what are the protective features we have, if they do go awry, if they do go astray?

- That's very interesting, especially when you consider, we spent over $2 billion on incarceration every year in Wisconsin.

So if you're caught up in this generational cycle of trauma, how would someone like me get out of it?

What do I have to do?

Do I talk to someone?

Do I just say, it stops at me?

I what's the steps to getting out of it?

- Yeah, yeah, all of the above.

You know, what it first has to do, you go to Alcoholic Anonymous, what they say, "First, I have to admit that there is a problem."

So many of us don't even wanna admit there is a problem.

So if you don't admit that there's a problem, well you're not even looking for a solution.

And sometimes you get content with where you're at.

You say, "Ain't nothing wrong with me.

I'm good at with how I am."

But once a person has said, when they say, when enough is enough, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."

When a person reaches their personal nadir, nadir meaning that lowest point.

People say, "I hit rock bottom."

But I say, "No, there's no such thing as rock bottom.

That's a bottomless pit."

But when you've got as low as you want to, that's why sometimes, when people are shy, sometimes people go to prison, in our prisons.

Sometimes when people lose a family member, when sometimes people have something tragic happen in their life, that's the eye-opening factor that says, "Hey, you know what?

Something's got to change, I don't wanna live like this.

I don't wanna be this person."

And then what happens, we start to go out.

We try to get self knowledge.

We get books, we get videos, we talk to different people.

So whether it's walking with a person like me in a pure clinical sense, or going to a church, or going to a community center, or going around a group of people who wanna do great things, what it starts with is a mindset, a shift to say, "You know what?

Something's not right.

Let me see what I can do to make things better, and then understand that I'm not gonna do it overnight."

Have a patience, have a perseverance and say, "I'm gonna keep going until I get to where I want to.

And if I don't, I'm gonna keep trying until I die."

- So what's the role of the Black practitioner like yourself when it comes to generational trauma?

I mean you, do you need to speak out more?

Or do you, how do we educate people about it?

- Well you know, that's a hard question because as it relates to Black practitioners, I think about myself.

I went through the generational trauma, I went through the hurt.

So you hear the saying, that most people who hurt people are hurt people?

Well also, hurt people wanna heal people.

So once you've been hurt, you wanna be a helper.

You wanna be a healer, but unless you can really heal those wounds inside of you, you become an ineffective healer.

So for all of the Black practitioners, first thing, what we have to do is to recognize, hey, a lot of the things we've been taught is indoctrinated in a Eurocentric opinion kind of base.

So if we use all of those things fully, we're never gonna get to the point where we need to get to.

So you have to say, "What are some of the things that I need to really learn, to understand how to work with my people?"

Second, "Then how do I start to work with myself?"

After I've done those two things now, "How do I go out and help people?"

Because this is the hardest part, James.

Once we try to help individuals, sometimes we become the biggest, like accomplices to our own oppression.

So we tell you what to do.

We give you the advice, we give you the things to read.

We give you the suggestions.

"I ain't doing that."

And so what we say is this.

Well, we have to recognize is that sometimes we're gonna get information that's not comfortable.

Sometimes we're gonna get information that takes us against all of the things that we've been taught before.

And what we have to be willing to do is to sit down and say, "Hey, do I like where I'm at?

Do I believe the situation that I'm in can ever get better if I don't do anything drastically?"

And so we have to recognize this, is now we do these things individually, but this is the main thing.

It can't just be one person.

That individual nature has to then turn to a collective nature.

Malcolm X is very famous for saying, "Even when I is replaced a with we, illness becomes wellness."

The group, the power of our community has always been in our collective unity.

That's when we reach our highest mindset.

And we're on a highest mindset, we're vibing as one.

That's when your mama can tell me what to do, and my mama don't come yell at you because the community is back.

That's when I see somebody who's hurt, I'm not afraid to put this little girl in my car because I'm gonna take her home and her daddy ain't afraid, 'cause he's thinking I'm gonna take her, and then get her on a road to shake something that her mama gave her.

So what we have to do is get back into a community mindset.

But if we keep assimilating more and more into what we consider to be traditional American society, we then what, become accomplices in our own oppression.

The society, Audrey Lorde most famously said that the master's tool will never destroy the master's house.

We have to understand that we came here in an oppressive society, and that we'll never have really equal citizenship in a way in which we wanted.

When you are looked at as the descendants of slaves, that's how they see you.

So until you have a mindset where they understand and respect you as your own, guess what's gonna happen?

They're gonna teach you to what?

To not love yourself, to not like yourself.

Even though we have the books, we have the reading, all of those things still teach us self-hate.

So what we have to do is to have a true independence, a true knowledge of self.

And once we have that knowledge of self and we connect with each other, that's when we have the power to break generational cycles.

That's when we have a power to be able to maximize ourselves.

And that's when we had the power of being a magnanimous people, that's to say, we're not gonna take this power and rule it and lord it over people, we're gonna take this and spread the love and make the whole world a better place.

- Well thank you, this was a deep conversation and one we will continue to have.

- Thanks.

- My brother.

- And that's our program for this month.

We invite you to join us online for some more information on some of the stories we've covered, and some stories you will only see on milwaukeepbs.org, like the newest members of the Milwaukee Fellows.

For "Black Nouveau" I'm Earl Arms.

Have a good evening and a great year.