(bright music) (upbeat music) (music continues) - Hello everyone and happy 2024.

Welcome to the January edition of "Black Nouveau".

I'm Earl Arms.

This month is Mental Wellness Month.

So, we'll talk to Dr. Kweku Ramel Smith about his new weekly mental wellness series on WNOV.

Looking for some physical activities to help keep you in shape during these cold winter months?

Well, we'll go into the "Black Nouveau" vault to check out the Ebony Ice Ski Club.

And, we'll meet Malik Johnson, a Milwaukee cellist currently working out of Chicago, who's unique sound has graced the records of musical greats like Kirk Franklin and John Legend.

January, also National Mentoring Month, and in case you're wondering why mentoring is so important... (upbeat music) - This looks good.

You don't need this little clip art over here.

So, let's take that out.

Incredible dancer.

I don't know if people are gonna believe you.

(upbeat music continues) - I see.

- You sure you wanna do that?

- Yeah, set me up.

- All right.

- Oh.

- First time I saw the White House was in 1984.

I just graduated from college.

I was working as a community organizer out of the Harlem campus of the City College of New York.

You gotta have your elbow in a little bit.

- Okay.

- All right.

Release.

Make sure it's on your fingertips.

- Maybe I should shoot lefty?

- You can try that.

- [Steph] I only got one shot at this.

Oh, yeah.

Oh!

- Oh!

Man.

- That's what I'm talking- - That's what I'm talking about.

- That's science.

- That's science right there.

I'm really proud of you, man.

(Steph laughs) So, that's a wonderful volcano.

- [Steph] Thank you very much.

- [Narrator] You don't need all the time in the world, or all the answers to be the mentor someone needs.

And you don't need to be an NBA star, or the President of the United States to be someone's hero.

(hands clap) - Support My Brother's Keeper.

- Be a mentor.

- That video was done in 2016 for My Brother's Keeper, President Obama's national push for mentors.

And speaking of mentors, we're joined now by LaNelle Ramey, Executive Director of Mentor Greater Milwaukee.

LaNelle, always good to see you, thanks for coming - Good to see you.

on to "Black Nouveau".

- Thanks for having me, thank you.

- Absolutely, so first off, just talk about the need for mentors.

How great is that need, especially here in our city and our area.

- Absolutely.

Well you know, data tells us, one in three young people right now do not have a mentor in their life.

But that also tells us, when a young person has a mentor in their life, they're more likely to succeed in high school.

They're more likely to apply to go to college.

They're more likely to become a mentor.

And one of my favorite data points, which is 130% more likely to be a leader in their peer group right now.

So we know when a young person is surrounded by mentors, they perform better because they have the confidence instilled in them from those adults who are supporting them.

- We'll talk about those benefits in just a little bit.

But I wanna talk now about what we have going on this month.

It's National Mentor Month, and you have the symposium going on.

Talk about that.

- Absolutely.

So, National Mentoring Month is an opportunity for us to celebrate mentoring as a whole.

But on January 18th, we're actually gonna be hosting a mentoring symposium.

We'll have 13 different workshops that will occurring from 8:30 to 2:30.

We're also gonna be hosting a mentoring luncheon award ceremony, where we're gonna be announcing Mentor of the Year, a Program Partner of the Year, and a Keith Carrington Mentoring Educator of the Year award.

So, it's a great opportunity for people to come learn about not only how to be involved, but how to become a better mentor overall.

- So how does someone become a better mentor?

Just talk about those benefits of being a mentor, but also a mentee, too.

Because the kids, the mentees, they get a lot out of it as well.

- Well you know, young people, we want them to be a vessel and be open to receiving that support.

To be a good mentor, we really say there's three simple qualities.

One, an adult needs to be open and vulnerable.

That's critical.

We gotta come in kinda willing to share our entire story.

Sometimes we as adults, we only talk about the one thing we used to do or the one thing we're doing now.

The young person needs to hear their whole story.

And then finally, really commitment to culture humility and cultural competence.

When you work with young people who are different from you, of course like I'm 51, so working with a 13-year-old, they may be doing things a little differently.

So I need to make sure that I understand who that young person is, and have a commitment to that.

So that's what we want adults to understand.

That's all it really takes to be a good mentor.

- Is there a specific need with males, females?

Just as there is more of a need in one space or the other?

Just kinda talk about that.

- You know what?

We have the simple philosophy.

"Every kid needs a mentor."

They may need a little longer mentoring, depending on where they're at.

But every young person needs a mentor in their life.

And I tell the people, there's no difference between a 4.0 student who needs a mentor, and a 0.4 student.

Every student needs someone, i.e.

an adult, who's alongside of them to really help them navigate this thing that we call life.

So it's important for people to understand, there's a young person who needs support right now.

And we just need to fill those holes up.

- I'm glad you mentioned that.

The difference between the 4.0 student, and the 0.4 student, right?

Everyone needs a mentor.

- That's right.

Let's talk about the different needs in the space of someone who may be academically gifted or gifted in other areas, whereas someone who we may not look at as gifted.

But we know that there's something in them that could be brought up by the right mentor.

- Hey, when you think about a student you say is doing extremely well in school.

Sometimes there's pressure.

That excellence that they're trying to achieve requires a lot of, for lack of better terms, extra on themselves.

So sometimes they don't know where to go to.

They may not have the circle at home or the teacher's always expecting them to do a A+.

Well, sometimes they need that adult who can really talk them through even the social skills.

Because when they leave high school, and get into the real world, they gotta be able to balance all kinda people.

And we really believe that's what the mentor does.

Really gets to teach that young person, or help the young person truly find where their gaps are.

And then, how do they strengthen those gaps?

How do they get the confidence to go and say, "Okay, I'm the 4.0 student who wasn't good socially, but now I'm learning to be more confident."

We know those are great traits to have as they become adults.

Same thing with the 0.4 student.

How do we help surround them with people that says, "Hey man, your academics are just important as your social skills.

Here's some things that we wanna do."

And some kids have, I like to say, trauma from school.

So how do we help them get rid of that trauma?

That through support.

And showing them that, "This adult who's your mentor cares about who you are, and where you are right now."

- So someone like myself, say I wanna be a mentor, or say there's another adult out there that wants to be a mentor, how do they get involved with this, or how do they become a mentor?

- Very simply, they can go to milwaukeementor.com.

There's a section that says "Get involved."

"Become a mentor."

All the person has to do is put in some basic demographics and they get to select a program that meets their needs.

We always wanna match mentors up to their interests as well.

So going on that website makes it real easy for them to do that.

- We got a few more seconds.

Anything else you wanna share?

- I really wanna have people think about supporting young people by being a mentor.

And don't be afraid.

There's not a big time commitment.

There's programs that is less as an hour and a half to two hours a month.

There's programs that's an hour to two hours a week.

This is really about finding something where adults also feel comfortable, but comfortable enough to meet those young people where they are.

And I think that's what's critical.

- All right, LaNelle, thank you so much for joining us here on "Black Nouveau".

- Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) (contemporary cello music) - I would say the cello is, it's my favorite instrument.

Maybe I'm biased.

It has a lot of range.

It can go super-low, it can go super-high.

It's very versatile.

You can play classical music.

You can play jazz music.

You can play R&B.

You can play hip-hop.

You can literally do anything you want.

(music continues) (music continues) Prior to me knowing about the cello or learning classical music, I literally knew nothing about it.

I come from like a very gospel family.

And my mom is very heavily involved in the church.

And my dad is a super big hip-hop head.

Like he loves hip-hop and rap music.

So I, before getting introduced to the cello, I literally had no kind of like base to go off from about classical music.

I got started with the cello through an after-school program called MYSO, Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra.

They had a program for third and fourth grade inner-city students in Milwaukee.

The program was called the Progressions Program.

The significance of a program like Progressions, it just allows students to have access to resources, and to a wide array of musical education by top professionals in the City of Milwaukee, and also just all around the world.

So, if it weren't for them, I wouldn't have been able to have access to those things.

My Progressions Program teacher was actually my teacher from Progressions Program until I graduated from high school.

Ravenna Helson, she became like a second mom to me.

- Let's make sure it's really straight.

(cello scales music) One, two and three, four.

One, two and three, four.

I think every child should have an opportunity to see if they are musicians.

When Malik plays, from the very beginning he had a voice that was clear and authentic.

And so, with Malik it was really pulling him along to understand that the tools that he was learning were really gonna be helpful to him later on because he couldn't even dream about it when he was 8 or 9, or 10 or 11.

- She always just challenged me to be a better person, a better musician.

Just express myself in a way that I never have before and really try to connect with my audience, or whoever I'm playing for.

There was a lot of times where I wanted to quit, especially like playing cello so young, at a young age.

Especially as a Black kid, there wasn't a lot of people who looked like me playing a classical instrument.

So, she definitely just inspired me to just keep going and she knew I had a talent.

And it was something that I had to share with the world.

(contemporary cello music) Some people know me as 99 The Producer.

So yeah, I guess I got tied to him.

(laughing) So yeah, 99's my alter ego, I guess, my performance name.

Part of my mission growing up was like I wanted to kinda do something different with the cello.

I wanted to expand the boundaries of what people had already seen with the cello.

So I do find myself playing a lot of contemporary pieces and more like modern kinda songs.

(contemporary cello music) I've been blessed, I really have been blessed.

I was able to travel to Europe with MYSO when I was 14, 15...

I think 15 years old.

Definitely, a lot of stuff with the Matt Jones Orchestra.

I've been able to work with Kirk Franklin.

We were on his Grammy-award winning album, "A Long Lived Love", which also led me to be on Tiny Desk with P.J.

Morton, through NPR.

Recorded with John Legend on his Christmas album in 2018.

I've been able to produce for Masego.

I produced on his last album, "Studying Abroad", which got nominated for a Grammy.

What else?

(chuckling) I remember people used to ask me like, "Malik, would you ever teach one day?"

And I was like "No."

(chuckling) But, teaching is so beneficial.

It's so helpful, it's so transformative.

(orchestra scales) I teach through the Wisconsin Conservatory and I'm placed at the Woodlands School, here in Milwaukee.

I'm happy that I can share this gift with others and inspire kids to play the cello or violin or viola or whatever they wanna play.

I hope my presence demonstrates that you can do anything that you wanna do.

(contemporary cello music) I got started with the cello through classical music, but I found myself being able to take my classical training and transform that into something very special.

(music continues) I hope my story represents passion.

I hope it represents the fact that if you put your mind to anything, you can do it.

And you can succeed and be great at it.

(music continues) (music continues) (gentle music) (indistinct chatter) - [Instructor] There you go.

(indistinct chatter) - My teacher taught me in a half an hour and I just perfected this hill now and I'm going down again.

I mean, I love this place.

- [Liddie] And this place is Cascade Mountain located in Portage, Wisconsin.

The Ebony Ice Ski Club from the Milwaukee area brought people here to learn and have fun outside.

The ski club promotes winter sports, skiing, snowboarding and hiking.

The club functions all year round.

- We actually started doing snow tubing.

We do have a couple of members who do cross-country skiing.

In the summertime, we do Saturday morning bike rides.

We do camping, we meet at Jazz in the Park.

- [Liddie] But skiing is their main love.

- [Eunice] We live in Wisconsin.

This is the perfect sport to do.

I mean, we got ski hills in our back yard.

Why not be a tourist in your own backyard, and love it all year around.

- [Liddie] Sheila Payton started skiing 30 years ago with a Black ski myth that is still prevalent today.

- A former coworker of mine suggested I come skiing with her one day and I thought "Black people don't ski."

(chuckling) But she said it's a lot of fun.

I was in my 20s at the time.

She said, "The parties are great, you should come."

And once I realized that it was gonna cost a little money to go, I said, "Well, I might as learn how to ski."

It keeps you in shape.

You enjoy the outdoors.

It gives you something to do in the winter, especially in a place like Milwaukee.

I mean, you could either sit around and wait for the snow to go away, or you can do things that are enjoyable.

And so, it gives you an opportunity to get out, to enjoy the outdoors, to be with people that you like, and to just have a good time.

- [Liddie] I saw you skiing.

Are you new to it or not?

- [Dominique] Yeah, this is my first time.

- [Liddie] Are you kidding me?

Well, you look good.

- [Dominique] My first time, and I'm having so much fun.

(laughing) - [Liddie] Why are you doing it?

- 'Cause my school, well I go to Concordia and the group that I belong to, MSG, we came with the ski club.

I just wanted the experience, get the experience of it.

Just to try it and now I really like it, so I'm gonna try it again.

(laughing) - You make it look so easy.

(Dominique laughing) - It's fun, it's scary when you're coming down real fast, 'cause I can't stop.

- I'm really excited to see younger people doing this, because I think one of the things that keeps life interesting is expanding your horizons, and thinking about things that you can do that are out of the box.

All right, you guys ready?

- [Liddie] The ski club has a learn-to-ski program.

Each year, they have people from throughout the Milwaukee area participate in a four-week program that teaches them how to ski.

On this day, I was one of those people learning how.

(gentle music continues) Being a newbie, I had to learn some things.

Eunice Thomas, President of the Ebony Ice Ski Club showed me how to pick a ski boot.

How to put it on.

- Is the toe right at the top?

- Yes, my toe's right there.

This thing is (indistinct) so loose it can go over the teeth.

- [Eunice] Right.

- [Liddie] I had to learn how to walk in the boot.

Step forward, like I'm leaning forward.

- [Eunice] Right.

- [Liddie] Pick a helmet.

Is that the way it's supposed to go on?

- [Eunice] Very good.

Pop it.

Okay.

- [Liddie] Pick skis.

- It's usually on your shoulder.

- [Liddie] And learn how to carry them.

- So you don't hit anybody in the head.

(gentle music continues) - (indistinct) On your shoulders.

- On my shoulder.

- Skis facing up.

(indistinct chattering) There.

Got it?

- Got it.

- Okay.

- We usually find a lot of our members and the learn-to-ski people by word of mouth, and friends and family.

Once they're into skiing and they realize how much fun it is, it's like they found another niche.

- [Liddie] Skiing can be expensive.

Eunice gave suggestions on ways to cut down on the cost.

And one way, bring your lunch.

- [Eunice] If you need some ski pants, a ski jacket, Goodwill, Value Village, second-hand stores always have abundance of ski apparel.

We all have hats, we all have gloves.

We just need a nice pair of long johns, and a long pair of wool socks.

- [Liddie] And then onto the lessons.

- Okay with tortures?

We torture you for a little bit.

Then we give you something easy.

To the right, turn the right foot, right edges.

Good, stop where you're at.

Can you guys do this?

- What's that called?

- I call that the snowplow.

(gentle music continues) - I can't tick.

It's not ticking.

Then voila.

Me coming down a slope on skis.

(Liddie crashes) Even though I fell because I could not stop, it was fun.

And the surroundings, pretty.

- It's pretty and it's a high that you can't buy with anything else.

You can't buy this high.

- [Liddie] This high that's gotten from skiing down a hill, keep people joining Ebony Ice Ski Club.

- We actually have a lot of members who actually, they raised their kids, and they did the proper thing, get the kids out the house.

Now they're back, and they wanna do something that they wanna do in the winter.

And they've actually came and learned how to ski with the club.

(gentle music fades) - From time to time, Dr. Kweku Ramel Smith has given us great advice on practicing better mental wellness.

He's doing that now weekly on WNOV 860 AM / 106.5 FM, discussing mental health and ways to manage our stress levels better.

Every Wednesday from 11 to noon, the show provides tips on reducing stress, clearing our minds and negative thoughts and making better sense of the world.

Dr. Smith joins us now.

Thanks for joining us.

- And thanks for having me.

It's always a pleasure to be on "Black Nouveau".

- What's the name of the show and how did the show come about?

- The name of the show is called "Nyumba Upendo" and that translates from Kiswahili to House of Love.

And what we thought that the show, that the community needed was just some love, some place where we could get information specifically on mental health, but not how usually mental health looks.

It's not always about anxiety, depression, and trauma, but it's also those proactive strategies and those other things in life that create stress that raises our illness and things of that nature.

But we say, "What can we do to give people the love that they need to just give them that emotional equilibrium that we're missing."

- How has the response been so far?

- Well, so far so good.

It's still new and it's like I have so much respect for people who do hosting shows because it's a different animal when you're being the interviewer from the interviewee.

So, but no, right now it's going really good.

What we're just hoping to do is to be able to bring in audiences from a national level and a local level to be able to give, like I said again, those tidbits of information that's gonna help people in a way in which they never thought about with mental illness and mental wellness.

- So I saw this statistic that really troubled me.

It said that Blacks represent 13.4% of the US population.

Last year, 16% of us reported having a mental illness in the past year.

That would be around 7 million people or the entire population of Chicago, Houston, and Philadelphia combined.

Why are so many African Americans suffering from mental health issues?

- Think of James Baldwin.

He said, "To be Black and relatively conscious in America, is to be in a rage of all of the time."

When we look at the level of stress that we go through on a regular day...

I'm talking about historical stress, historical trauma, current trauma, just the daily life of what's bills going on.

But then the anticipatory trauma, like, "Am I next?"

"Is my son next?"

"Is my mother next?"

Like, "What's gonna happen to me that I know it's not just a part of regular life?"

So when you put all of those things together, I would say that number, it's really overly low, because I would say that 100% of us deal with some type of issues when we talk about complex trauma.

- When you do your show, what kinda calls are you getting?

What kinda advice are you giving?

- Well, one of the things what we try to do is we try to talk about mental health in a way that's not mental health, 'cause we know mental health is so taboo.

So what we try to do is talk about, "Hey, how do we go about knowing that laughter's good for the soul?"

So we'll have a comedian on the show.

We'll have a person on, Nurse Miley on talking about water, about what do we need to bring into our body?

But then we'll also talk about, "You know what?"

"How do we do the art of forgiveness?

How do we learn to forgive, understanding how that lowers our blood pressure, how that decreases our stress, how that gives us a greater output on life."

'Cause a lot of times we're looking for these definitions from a DSM code, that's the diagnostic statistical manual that psychologists use.

But what we say is, what's common sense?

What's hurting?

How do we get better?

- The topic of racism plays into mental health.

- That's why I said 100% of us have it.

- How do you address racism and how do we deal with that as a form of mental health and mental wellness?

- Well, that's a great point that you put, because back in 2020, the APA, that's the American Psychological Association did a great apology to Black people and all BIPOC people, 'cause they say, "Not only did we not help other people when it deals with racism, we were complicit in it."

So think the very organization that's supposed to help you with your mental health was complicit in a lot of the things that was racist.

So when we see disproportionate numbers in suspensions and detentions in school, it's the same thing when we talk about diagnosis and then psychotropic diagnosis with the people.

So they look and see how it can be.

So, racism is embedded within our society.

So we have to look and see how we as Black people complicit in our own oppression.

And then we have to look at what are those ways in which we don't look at ourselves as victims, but we look at the resilience factor, the perseverance factor that we see in our ancestors that got us from 1619 all the way to 2023.

And then you embold yourself by saying, "What can I do for our posterity?"

So in 2123, they're looking at something better than what we have.

- So we deal with this quite a bit, with the stigma, and finding someone to talk to who looks like you and looks like me.

It's hard to find those type of people out there.

What are we supposed to do?

- Well, and I'm glad you said that, 'cause one of the things we're trying to do with the show too, is we're bringing that.

We have a lot of Black clinicians of color inside of the city.

Many that people don't know of.

Some that they do know of and letting 'em know.

But also what we're trying to do is generate enthusiasm and excitement.

The show based on the Mary Ellen Strong Foundation, which was a way to get new social workers and clinicians in the City of Milwaukee through a fellowship and scholarship through UW Milwaukee.

The same people who did that scholarship and funding are the same people that's allowing us to have the show "Nyumba Upendo" on WNOV.

- Well, that's fantastic.

Last question for you.

This is a stressful time of the year, Christmas time.

You know, people going through the holidays.

What quick tips would you give for people trying to deal with the stress right now?

- Yeah, this is the first thing.

One, bite into that.

What I mean by bite into it, understand the pain, let it go.

Sometimes we try to ignore the pain like that's not there.

Admit that that pain is there.

But then two, what we wanna do is remember those beautiful times.

We're usually sad because we're losing something.

So I say, "Remember those times that made you happy?"

And then three and finally, try to create some more beautiful times, either by yourself or with a collective group, either as a whole of us being together as family, or us going and sharing our gifts with others who are in need.

- Fantastic.

Well, we will tune into your show.

Thanks a lot.

- Thank you.

- Before we close tonight, our producer, Alexandria Mack has an important story she wants to share with you.

- Thanks Earl.

Next week I invite you all to tune into our sister program, 1036, for a compelling story with Congresswoman Gwen Moore, as she shares with us her personal story of overcoming domestic violence.

As the city of Milwaukee has seen an increase in domestic and intimate partner violence related deaths, my colleague Scottie Lee Meyers and I have spent months hearing from advocates, law enforcement and survivors on how we got here, and what is being done to save lives and restore peace.

Tune in to 1036 next week for this powerful story and look out for our Milwaukee PBS podcast, "Speaking of...", The Missing Piece, where we share stories from those closest to the crisis and the solution.

(upbeat music) - And that's our program for this month.

Next month, we'll be joined by our very own Joanne Williams, who will discuss her documentary, "The Exchange in America, Kaukauna & King".

It will air during Black History Month right here on Milwaukee PBS.

And as always, be sure to catch us online for additional information about our stories and upcoming events.

From all of us here at "Black Nouveau", I'm Earl Arms.

Have a great evening.

(upbeat music continues)