#BlackGirlMagic: Working with Radical Monarchs

My name is Taylor Waits. I am completing my first year within the English Critical Studies PhD program. Currently, I am spending my summer compiling a reading list, developing my project proposal, and finalizing my chosen audience and sample size for my dissertation project. Additionally, I have been co-running my own movement #ChangeRapeCulture for the past two years, doing things as small as cooking dinner for folks to raising upward of $20,000. It is rare to find a fellowship that validates the experience of someone who is a community-engaged academic and simultaneously an artist and organizer, and it is even more rare to see an email advertising such a fellowship pop into your inbox, almost if by magic. Almost immediately after receiving the announcement about the Humanities Engage program, I reached out to the Radical Monarchs to discuss the possibility of them hosting me. Radical Monarchs centers Black and Brown Radical Pedagogy and Ideology within programs meant for and created with children of color in the Oakland, California area. I really wanted to gain mentorship from the executive director of the organization Marilyn Hollinquest, a fellow co-founder, academic, activist, educator. I was excited about the opportunity to work with someone who could see and understand the full scope of what I want to accomplish, gain a network resource, and form a relationship. Her perspective on co-running an organization centered on young girls of color was paramount to me. Additionally, I was looking forward to gaining advice from her on how I can use the experience I am gaining from organizing and my program to expand my skill set beyond mainstream academic institutions.

My work this summer has primarily centered on data entry, as I have been updating the organization’s grant tracker and grant prospect list, planning strategy for future grant applications, and website maintenance.  In addition to this, however, I have been learning about the administration and facilitation of in-person and digital programming for young girls of color, which has helped me develop the theoretical framework of my project. Specifically, I have been learning about how Radical Monarchs uses counter storytelling to promote sisterhood, collective power, and brilliance to their supporters via social media as well as through in-person (turned digital) sessions. I have learned digital compilation methods for producing personal narratives that are powerfully honest while also exuding vibrance. This comes at a time when authenticity within my academic work and those of the pieces that I cite has become my number one priority. This program has accelerated my thinking about my academic work from an idea to an outline, which is something I have not been physically able to do in months. This has been one of the many unexpected outcomes of my Humanities Engage work.

I am excited and empowered by the work that Radical Monarchs has given me to complete this summer. As an up and coming non-profit co-founder, as well as a lover of organizing work and empowering children, I am learning more about ways to enhance administrative efficiency, and I believe that my knowledge of working with Black girls; doing work in service of queer, Black sexual violence survivors and sex workers; creating digital representations of pertinent information, data, and art; and belief in  Black joy as a liberation and healing praxis has allowed me to help strengthen Radical Monarch’s initiatives. This has been a truly collaborative and enjoyable experience, and as Marilyn always reminds me, the revolution will not begin in the institution - but we can use it to help us understand how to get there!

Taylor Waits
English
July 28, 2020
 

For my reflections post-immersive, please see Black Joy as a Liberation and Healing Praxis.

Learn about all the Summer 2020 Immersive Fellows and their experiences with their host organizations.