(bright music) (upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Earl Arms and welcome to "Black Nouveau."

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month.

Dr. Kweku Ramel Smith joins us to discuss some tips for practicing better mental health.

Ella Fitzgerald is remembered by Alexis J. Roston at the Milwaukee Rep. Everett Marshburn talks with the actress.

And James Causey interviews Dr.

Rob Smith about the George Floyd murder conviction.

But we begin with a profile of a kombucha brewery, Alesia Miller.

Alexandria Mack tells us how her health journey and love of music inspired her to create Soul Brew.

(soulful music) - Soul Brew was born pretty much out of me wanting to love myself and then wanting to love other people.

We specialize in diabetic friendly probiotic tea.

Our goal is to create culture for better health.

So, we wanna promote healthy living, healthy lifestyle and we wanna give you a delicious way to enjoy your life.

I found out that as a mom and as a teacher and as an entertainer, a lot of times we put ourselves last and I wasn't taking care of myself.

I have been teaching music for over 20 years and one visit to the doctor's office like really just changed my life.

I found out that I was prediabetic and I found out that my acid reflux was so, so bad that I would end up having to have surgery for nodules.

I boast that our SCOBYs are so and our kombucha is so healthy that even in its environment, it continues to just live.

I talked to my sister and she was telling me about this elixir that she was drinking and it smelt like feet and it was disgusting, but it was great for you.

And I tried it, I really was not a fan, but I was a fan of how it made me feel.

I saw my numbers change, I saw that my energy increased, I saw that the bout of depression really was like lifting over me because I started to feel a lot better.

And then that led me to really researching a lot more about the wonderful world of kombucha and how the microbiome is so important, gut health is so important, having a great digestive system is very, very important and I grew up hearing you are what you eat and it really didn't resonate until I really started looking into that.

And so, I started making my own batches.

Sometimes when we feed it at starter, we watch the bubbles and it just comes alive.

I am the only Black woman-owned kombucha company in the state of Wisconsin.

I went into a pitch one day and I was like, you know, kombucha, normally seen as the White hippie drink and they all fell out.

And they said, "Yeah, it is."

And I was just like, "But it's great for everybody."

For the new novices, I tell them that it's a bubbly probiotic or sparkling probiotic tea.

But really to go inside of it, you have this amazing culture called the SCOBY.

So, these are the SCOBYs, which stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast and these are now being introduced to some starter.

And the starter is our mixture of green and black teas, filtered waters and then sugar.

And the cool thing about this is, although we're so against sugar and sugar is the one thing that feeds the SCOBYs, they enjoy the sugar out of the tea.

And then what they do is spit out all of the antioxidants that's gonna be great for your digestive system, all of the different acids that are gonna go and help to...

I always say that it's like creates the good bacteria that fights the bad bacteria.

Soul Brew for me is a way to really get people to understand that there is something out there that can help.

So, one of the biggest pushes and campaigns that I wanna push is prevention over prescription.

A lot of times, instead of us really trying to get down to the bottom of why we are feeling the way we're feeling, whether it is emotionally, whether it is just our health in general, we go ahead and we take these medicines because that's going to fix it.

And again, I have to go back to we are what we eat.

And in this case, we are what we drink.

Yeah, one sugary drink a day puts you 26% higher at risk for developing diabetes.

And when I realized in my community alone, the numbers were astonishing how many people were walking around dealing with that.

I've definitely put in sweat equity with this company (laughs).

But I appreciate it and this has made life a lot easier.

We're all in one space, everything we need is right here.

I went from taking a sabbatical from teaching to going back part time.

Then the pandemic hit and my family thought I was crazy because I was just like, I'm not going back to teaching.

I believe in this, my faith is so strong and I wanna do this.

And I know people will hear what I wanna say and they'll taste this and they'll love it.

The consistency is key and just making sure the recipes were on point.

Outpost came, Beans & Barley, like all of these places were just like, "No, we need you on our shelves."

And then the greatest part about it is I had people that would meet me at The Tandem, which is where I started.

And they would say before they left, "I'm telling my favorite store that I need this in my store."

Say, "Ah."

When I got in Beans & Barley, it was just me.

When I got in Willy Street, like it was just me and I worked tirelessly, 16 hour days, sometimes 24 hours just to make sure that I got it together.

So, being in this space now and being able to scale up, it means so much.

This is not easy.

Deciding to leave a comfortable job is not easy in the midst of a pandemic, but when you know that you've been called to do certain things, you have to follow that.

Have faith in yourself.

Trust your gut.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) - Now that former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, has been found guilty in the killing of George Floyd, what's next?

Dr.

Rob Smith, Marquette University professor and historian will talk about the aftermath of the trial of the century on racial justice.

Dr. Smith, thanks for joining us.

- James, it's always a pleasure.

Good meeting with you today.

- So, how shocked were you when you heard guilty, guilty, guilty on all three counts?

- You know, this is a very important case for us to think about and talk about.

I actually wasn't surprised by the guilty verdict based on the way that this was playing out and the public discourse around him being the bad apple of bad apples, right?

So, we had a conversation publicly stemming from, not only folks concerned about the case, but in fact law enforcement folks talking about him being the bad apple.

So, I wasn't surprised as much by the outcomes of the case.

We still have to think about and wait for sentencing 'cause that's very critical as well and we also don't wanna over-inflate this one particular case, right?

Because we know that there are so many other folks who did not find justice out very similar kinds of scenarios where police were responsible for killing somebody.

- Right, so that brings me to this question, why should this case or should this case convince Black America that things will change when it comes to cases of law enforcement and killing unarmed people of color?

- Oh, no, let me be really clear about this, James, we know better.

We absolutely know better.

Person after person who I spoke with 'cause you know, you do wanna take the temperature of folks in these circumstances, you wanna know how folks are thinking, what folks are thinking and how they're feeling.

And one person after another said, "Yeah, this is just one case.

There's so many other atrocities.

There's so many other families who didn't get justice.

There's so many other scenarios that we have recorded that didn't turn out this way.

This was (sound distortion drowns out dialogue) of an scenario of maybe we actually saw so many of those other shootings happen quickly, but this we saw play out, which made it very clearly an example of a person killing another individual, taking a human life.

So, this is a very particular and unique circumstance.

We also have to keep in mind, it's a 25 plus million people protesting, months and months and months of folks taking to the streets, over a decade or so of folks organizing at the grassroots level around these very clear issues and almost a decade of Black Lives Matter related organizing.

It took I don't know how many thousands of public discussions and forums that you and I have been a part of.

And so, there was a huge energy and a cost, a public cost, that went into this one case.

And we don't wanna overestimate its impact.

- And what this case also had was a lot of video.

I mean, the world saw this video and it was hard to argue against.

So, I'm worried that future cases may require just as much evidence to get a conviction.

Do you see it that way?

- Yeah, you know, I wanna be a little cautious on that.

The lawyers know this far better than I do, but what we do, and I think where you're headed, which is, I think, really on point, we have to be cautious and concerned about what sort of standard that this particular case sets.

We're not gonna always get nine and a half minutes or so of somebody murdering another individual.

We've seen things happen in a much shorter time frame than we all thought, many of us thought, should have led to a guilty verdict and conviction.

We have seen examples where we thought, my goodness, how can somebody get away with this?

And so, this particular scenario and situation was very egregious and it's in the prolong nature of watching someone die, right?

That's not what we typically had seen.

We hadn't ever seen that length of time of a video of recording a murder.

And so, we just really have to be cautious in the way that we think about the impact of this particular scenario.

- One thing that took place is Black Lives Matter became a major political force last year and even this year.

What's next for Black Lives Matter?

- Oh, you know, these folks across the country, the various ways that we see grassroots mobilization around Black Lives Matter, the movement for Black lives, we know that there are significant organizations that are continually calling for a very different approach to policing and incarceration.

We know that there are folks demanding abolition and full scale divestment from policing to turn over these important public safety questions to local communities.

We're gonna see more of that.

I think we're gonna see more people engaging in the political process.

I think you're gonna see more and more elected officials held accountable.

I think if there is one outcome that we should anticipate, and it's not necessarily related to this particular case, it's certainly inspired by the love that we all feel to our folks who who lose their lives because of state violence.

This one case is critical, but there are so many of them.

The full collection of folks and families who've suffered under the weight of state violence will continue to mobilize and embolden folks.

But, you know, there is no reason for us to assume that the energy we saw from last summer is going to abate anytime in the near future.

This is gonna continue, I think, for several years, or until there's substantive change.

- Right, so I'm hearing a lot of conservatives argue that this conviction will further erode the relationship between police officers and people of color.

What do you say to that?

- You know, (laughs) I don't know how much more strained the relationship between police officers and the Black community can get (laughs).

Any conservative, so-called, elected official or Republican, whatever, who doesn't already know that, I gotta question that person's expertise or knowledge of the circumstances.

The relationship between the Black community and police broadly has been fractured for decades, for quite honestly, well over a century.

If we go back to the immediate post, (distortion drowns out dialogue) abolition moment that this is a long standing set of social political realities that have to be addressed.

(upbeat music) - You know, folks, there's all kinds of music and I like good music, no matter what it is.

Hey!

♪ It don't mean a thing ♪ ♪ If you ain't got that swing ♪ ♪ Doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah ♪ ♪ Doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah ♪ ♪ It don't mean a thing ♪ ♪ All you gotta do is sing ♪ ♪ Doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah ♪ ♪ Doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah ♪ - [Everett] Alexis J. Roston swings and sings at her tribute to the late Ella Fitzgerald.

It's currently on stage at the Milwaukee Rep through May 23rd.

- No one did it better than her (laughs).

I mean, when you think about the way she was able to deliver a tone, as far as her tonality and her intonation and just her improv skills, I don't know anybody like that.

She always sung so brightly and clearly and yeah, she just did it as best it could be done.

- [Everett] Ella Jane Fitzgerald had a musical career that started in the 1930s and lasted for more than half a century.

Dubbed the First Lady of Song, she sold over 40 million albums and won 13 Grammy Awards.

She was the most popular jazz singer in the United States for more than 50 years.

- She started in '34 as a troublesome young woman and incarcerated, but she found her own path and own way.

Traveled throughout the entire world performing, or some sort of performing, everywhere.

Jazz was her way of life.

She sang the songs when she could and she scattered when she could just to give people a sense of imagination that musicians were all around her.

♪ I've got rhythm ♪ ♪ I've got music ♪ - [Everett] Roston doesn't try to imitate Fitzgerald, but rather captures her essence.

♪ Beep, beep, vo-ya dup ♪ ♪ Boop, boop, vo-ya-boop ♪ ♪ Bap, ba-ba-bu-bu, ba-ba-bu-bu-wee-ah ♪ ♪ Beep, da-ba-ba-wa-bah-bo-be ♪ ♪ Bo-de-bo-de, ba-ba-da-ba-de-de ♪ ♪ I've got rhythm ♪ ♪ I've got music ♪ - My dad played trumpet when he was in the Air Force and I guess that kinda fused him with jazz music.

And when I was growing up, that's all we listened to, was jazz on jazz on jazz.

So, I was introduced to Ella as a kid, as a baby.

And I would just be around the house singing, not just Ella of course, but all kinds of jazz.

I guess jazz leaks, whether I knew the lyrics or not.

(slow jazz music) ♪ It's very clear ♪ ♪ Our love is here to stay ♪ ♪ Not for a year ♪ ♪ But ever and a day ♪ - [Everett] She hopes the concert eases the pain of the challenges of the past year.

- I want the audience to just be happy.

We have had a heck of a year, plus, and I want the audience to be able to suspend it all for an hour and a half and sit in a space full of love, life and liberty and be pleased and walk away smiling and blessed.

♪ One of these mornings ♪ ♪ You're gonna rise up singing ♪ ♪ Then you'll spread your wings ♪ ♪ And you'll take the sky ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ 'Til that morning ♪ ♪ Nothing can harm you ♪ ♪ With Daddy and Mommy standing by ♪ Summertime and the living is easy.

- May is National Mental Health Awareness Month and we're so privileged to be joined by Psychologist Dr. Kweku Ramel Smith to give us some tips for practicing good mental health.

Now, Dr. Smith, good to see you.

What are some of the challenges that you've seen with mental health, specifically dealing with COVID this day and age?

- Yeah, it's a tough one because when we look at mental health, we see everything is on the rise.

So, whether it's depression, whether it's anxiety.

And then, what you say is when you add on something like a pandemic specifically.

With COVID now, these things are exacerbated.

So, we saw that suicide was on a rise already from 1999 to 2019.

The ironic part is in 2019, it was a slight decrease.

But when the pandemic came, boom, those numbers went up.

And sometimes, you don't even see something as drastic as suicide, but we see it in the subtle things as depression, we see it in the subtle things of anxiety, we see it manifested in people's everyday behavior.

I tell people, if you believe that COVID has not affected your life, then that's part of the problem because we all have had our lives change upside down.

So, to think we're gonna be exactly the same as we are is a mistake.

- What about some of the problems you've seen specifically within the Black community as it deals with COVID and as it really deals with mental health specifically?

- Yeah, well, you know, all of the things that we just stated, again, it's exacerbated on a higher level for our community.

We understand that when there's depression overall, it's exacerbated for the Black community.

- So, you say what are the other things we're seeing?

Because mental health is still so taboo, is still so undiagnosed.

We look at mental health in ways in which is not normally categorized.

So we say, how does it manifest?

An aberrant behavior within our community.

So, when we see like the Herculean effort done by OVP and you see a sharp decrease in violence and homicides for the previous three years and then in 2020 and even the current numbers in 2021, we see increase in violence and homicides and gun shooting, these are the ways that mental health is manifesting itself in an undiagnosed way.

- You mentioned the homicides, we see the news, not a lot of good news happening.

Is there a healthy way to process this or what are some ways that we can take in this information while maintaining our mental health?

- Yeah, you know, to ask yourself is there a healthy way to do that is saying like, is there a healthy way to hit my head against the wall?

And answer is absolutely no because what happens is, if you hit your head against the wall, we can know that, aye, that's gonna cause a concussion.

But when you start to get these emotional hits, bad news after bad news, this kind of vicarious trauma, this community trauma, it creates what we call an emotional concussion.

And once you have multiple emotional concussions, what it does is it then takes away our behavior and just as you see a person with early onset dementia, within the football community, we talk about CTE, we see like some of the behavior, violent behavior, behavior that's out of their characteristics, we see the same thing within our community.

So, you say, what's the main thing we can do to help?

We have to try to remove ourselves from that something and put ourselves into positive situations, which is also going simultaneously on in the community.

- May be easier for adults, but what about children that may be dealing with some mental health issues or challenges?

How do you talk to them or how do they get through some of the challenges that may come with some of the mental health issues that we see?

- Yeah.

The best thing for the children is gonna be their environment.

So, we start to look at whether it's in school, whether it's in the community or whether it's at home.

But what they had to have is an abundance of love and abundance of explanation, abundance of patience, for people to understand that these children don't understand exactly what's going on, the things that we can say, "Oh, wow, this is a change in our world."

This is their new norm.

And so, when you have a child doing that, they have to have somebody explain to them what can we do, what can't we do and what we have to do to be prepared to reteach them some of the things that we thought that they already knew.

- When it comes to children and when it comes to adults, how do you keep your ground or keep a level head, so to speak, when trying to deal with mental health or some of the issues that we've seen?

- Yeah, so real quickly, anxiety is when you have like a fear of the present, excuse me, of the future.

Your depression is when you have a fear of what's happened in the past and those things come.

So, what we like to do is to try to live in the moment of now.

So, when we talk about grounding ourselves, there's no better word than love, to put yourself around love where you're feeling great, where you're feeling company.

What's a great way to do that that's cost effective is nature, to go outside to feel the air, to feel the breeze.

Put your feet down into the ground.

There's a real quick technique that we have called grounding that we have people do early in the morning called five, four, three, two, one.

And what you do is you wanna, first of all, look at five things that you see, four things, feel four things, then smell three things, touch two things and then taste one thing and that one thing should be water, why?

Because while you're doing that, you acclimate yourself that I have control over what I'm doing.

I'm regulating my body temperature and that goes into breathing.

So, if we have that healthy breathing, that healthy thing that we have some agency and control, that helps us to deal with some of the uncertainty of the world today.

- You mention the morning, what about throughout the day if we catch ourselves either being triggered or we see something that may have a negative effect on us or our mental health, what can we do throughout the day to address that?

- Now, that's beautiful because what you wanna do is say this has to be ongoing.

So, there's so many different tricks that we can do.

Some of the things is to reach out to somebody who we love, to talk to somebody and say, "I love you."

To do a good deed for someone, to then again, take a moment just to breathe.

I sometimes have people just to focus on somebody who they love and call them and let them know that I was thinking of you.

And that creates a reciprocal effect, not only for the person who reaches out, but the person who received that call out of the blue, to be reminded out of nowhere that they are thought about, they are cared about, they are loved.

- What about those who believe in that higher being, for our Christians, our Muslims, anyone out there that believes in something that's higher than them or a higher power?

How can they use that to better their mental health?

- Yeah, and this is the perfect time to reconnect to spirituality.

And like you said, there's so many ways in which God can manifest for different people.

But the root of spirituality is getting back to a knowledge of self.

If we understand God to be omnipresent, that means God is everywhere.

That means God is inside of ourselves.

So, we have to look for that power that's inside of us.

I tell people all the time, we go someplace looking for answers, but the answer is inside of ourselves.

What we have to do is to be still, we have to listen and to understand that I'm gonna witness that power of positive thinking, despite everything that's going on.

You say, "Well, how can I think this way, despite everything that's going on?"

I look back to our ancestors, I look what they had to think about on those ships, I think about what they had to think about on those plantations, but yet somehow they had a way to believe that there was a hope for something better that allowed us to live the way we do now.

So, not only do we look back for what they gave us, but we recognize the awesome responsibility and the path we must make for those who come after us.

- With about a minute left, what's the one thing you want people to know about mental health awareness month and how they can improve their mental health?

- Yeah, it's just the one which you just said, you can improve your mental health.

It's all about what do we believe.

So, if you need to go talk to someone, guess what?

It's okay to talk to somebody.

In fact, what you wanna do is to go out and look, there's many things if you look on the Mary Ellen Strong Foundation a list of Black clinicians within Milwaukee where you say, "Wow, somebody who looks like me, who talks like me."

But there's also those non-traditional things.

So you say, "Let me start to get a new hobby, it's starting to get warm."

So, let's build that garden.

So, not only am I working with my hands smelling these beautiful flowers, eating food that's healthy that's coming out of my garden, it gives me that control also.

But I tell people pick up a hobby.

Pick up a hobby, whether it's related to athletic ability to give us that serotonin release or if it's a hobby as far as creating things with our hands, so we can save money and also beautify the area we're in.

The thing is to do something, don't just wait for the magic to happen.

Understand you are the magician.

Abracadabra snap, you put the power in your hand.

- Before we close tonight, we have so much more information for you around practicing good mental health.

So, go to our website, milwaukeepbs.org, we have segments, programs and resources that you just might find helpful.

You'll also find a Black Nouveau web exclusive on two exhibits at the 5 Points Art Gallery and Studios that will continue through the month of May.

And that's our program for this month.

I'm Earl Arms, have a good evening.

(electric guitar music)