The Real Work We Rise Production

This is it, right here, this is the final episode.

And if you’re here right now, and you’ve been choosing to return to this work again and again, I want to say, thank you. Cuz If we want alternative means to responding to harm other than the systems on offer from the state, we are the ones who have to invest time, energy, labor into learning, healing, imagining, practicing, remembering, and organizing to get there. As Black feminist revolutionary writer June Jordan said, “we are the ones we have been waiting for.” Now is the time to generously bring forth our gifts and throw down for our collective liberation. So again, thank you for choosing to be here.

Let’s dream forward.

Episode transcript: bit.ly/TheRealWork-Episode-6

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust: sogoreate-landtrust.org

Save the West Berkeley Shellmound: shellmound.org

June Jordan: JuneJordan.com

The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities, ed. Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha: www.akpress.org/revolutionstartsathome.html

Democracy Now!, “Remembering Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015): ‘We Have to Change Ourselves in Order to Change the World’”: www.democracynow.org/2015/10/6/remembering_grace_lee_boggs_1915_2015

Kim Tran: www.KimTranPHD.com

Kyra Jones: www.KyraJones.me

Adrienne Skye Roberts: TherapyWithAdrienneSkye.com

Mia Mingus: www.soiltjp.org & leavingevidence.wordpress.com

Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective: batjc.wordpress.com

For additional resources, including this episode’s ASL video: WeRiseProduction.com/TheRealWork

zAnda of DiaspoRADiCAL: @diaspo.radical on Instagram & soundcloud.com/diasporadical

Connect with us at WeRiseProduction@ProtonMail.com, and follow us on Facebook & Instagram at @WeRiseProduction, & on Twitter at @WeRiseProducers.

This project is supported by an Investing in Artists Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation & the City of Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program, and was incubated with initial support from Cal Shakes.

Last episode, we focused on the accountability part of community accountability. We explored how changing our behavior to live accountably is lifelong work, is violence prevention, takes building skills until they become muscle memory. Fortunately for us, Mia gave us many opportunities to practice.

In this episode, we learn from this practice – and – we focus on the community part of community accountability. Mia emphasized that transformative justice is not about intervening in or saving someone else’s community – TJ is responding to harm, violence, and abuse in our OWN communities. So as we built up fundamental TJ skills, she guided us to envision the changes we’d like to see in Bay Area theater.

Episode transcript: bit.ly/TheRealWork-Episode-5

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust: sogoreate-landtrust.org

Save the West Berkeley Shellmound: shellmound.org

Story F.4. “Surviving and Doing Sexual Harm: A Story of Accountability and Healing” from Section 4.F: Taking Accountability in the Creative Interventions Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Stop Interpersonal Violence: https://www.creative-interventions.org/toolkit/

“What Is Accountability” panel recorded at Building Accountable Communities: A National Gathering on Transforming Harm on April 27, 2019 at Barnard College, NYC featuring Shannon Perez-Darby, Esteban Kelly, RJ Maccani, Mia Mingus, Sonya Shah, and Leah Todd, and moderated by Piper Anderson: bcrw.barnard.edu/videos/building-accountable-communities-what-is-accountability/

Theater-Specific Case Study #1 - Abusive Rehearsal Room

Theater-Specific Case Study #2 - Award-Winning Director + Sexual Violence

BATJC Case Studies: batjc.wordpress.com/resources/case-studies/

Mia Mingus: www.soiltjp.org & leavingevidence.wordpress.com

Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective: batjc.wordpress.com

For additional resources, including this episode’s ASL video: WeRiseProduction.com/TheRealWork

zAnda of DiaspoRADiCAL: @diaspo.radical on Instagram & soundcloud.com/diasporadical

Connect with us at WeRiseProduction@ProtonMail.com, and follow us on Facebook & Instagram at @WeRiseProduction, & on Twitter at @WeRiseProducers.

This project is supported by an Investing in Artists Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation & the City of Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program, and was incubated with initial support from Cal Shakes.

Greetings The Real Work listeners!

After 6 years of groundwork, We Rise Production – the production team behind The Real Work – is celebrating how far we’ve come & asking you – our community – for support. Donate to our first ever fundraiser! Your contribution supports queer, femme, Black Indigenous and People Of Color-centered multimedia productions, and directly supports the completion of this series, as well as ASL videos & transcripts.

We Rise collaborations, like The Real Work, uplift liberatory ideas & strategies and offer seedlings of possibilities & inspiration that will support us in the coming years – as we navigate climate emergencies, oppressive systems, & the ongoing effects of the pandemic – and as we seek ways to heal & take care of ourselves, our communities, and the coming generations. This is why we say our work is in service of "nourishing imaginations for our collective liberation."

Listen to Cat & Nic – We Rise co-founders & co-conspirators – reflect on past collaborations, and get sneak peak sound bites of what’s to come!

Donate now!

Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/werise
Donate on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/weriseproduction
Share our call for support with your community! https://www.weriseproduction.com/
Contact us at WeRiseProducers@gmail.com if you’d like to write a check - or - with questions or ideas.

As the cohort continued, we learned that building the capacity to practice transformative justice takes immense and consistent personal work. We’re talking the basics of being human, like self reflection, and how to communicate.

These personal inquiries into how we live our values, and how we respond to our inevitable mistakes, were like portals into the heart of TJ. Into what it would take to support ourselves and others in living accountably every day for everything we do, and fail to do.

Episode transcript: bit.ly/TheRealWork-Episode-4

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust: sogoreate-landtrust.org

Save the West Berkeley Shellmound: shellmound.org

Creative Interventions Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Stop Interpersonal Violence: www.creative-interventions.org/toolkit/

Aya de Leon, “Reconciling Rage and Compassion: The Unfolding #MeToo Moment for Junot Diaz”: transformharm.org/reconciling-rage-and-compassion-the-unfolding-metoo-moment-for-junot-diaz/

“Hollow Water,” directed by Bonnie Dickie: www.nfb.ca/film/hollow_water/

Mia Mingus, “The Four Parts of Accountability & How To Give A Genuine Apology“: leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2019/12/18/how-to-give-a-good-apology-part-1-the-four-parts-of-accountability/

Mia Mingus: www.soiltjp.org & leavingevidence.wordpress.com

Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective: batjc.wordpress.com

For additional resources, including this episode’s ASL video: WeRiseProduction.com/TheRealWork

zAnda of DiaspoRADiCAL: @diaspo.radical on Instagram & soundcloud.com/diasporadical

Connect with us at WeRiseProduction@ProtonMail.com, and follow us on Facebook & Instagram at @WeRiseProduction, & on Twitter at @WeRiseProducers.

This project is supported by an Investing in Artists Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation & the City of Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program, and was incubated with initial support from Cal Shakes.

Our facilitator, Mia Mingus, used the metaphor of a fist to explain how, unlike our current severely punitive carceral system, TJ creates conditions that support folks to step up and take accountability when they’ve caused harm. In this episode, we explore how these systems have shaped us, and ask, how else can we respond to violence, harm, & abuse?

Episode transcript: bit.ly/TheRealWork-Episode-3

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust: sogoreate-landtrust.org

Save the West Berkeley Shellmound: shellmound.org

Mariame Kaba - TransformHarm.org & mariamekaba.com

Readings & Media compiled by the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective: batjc.wordpress.com/resources/readings-media/

Transformative Justice Resources, compiled by Cory Lira of Critical Resistance Portland: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11D8HSm4q4LIMH_T8b3W8oFIZxMgvPYkUh0WhC5XlgCU/edit

Mia Mingus: www.soiltjp.org & leavingevidence.wordpress.com

Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective: batjc.wordpress.com

For additional resources, including this episode’s ASL video: WeRiseProduction.com/TheRealWork

zAnda of DiaspoRADiCAL: @diaspo.radical on Instagram & soundcloud.com/diasporadical

Connect with us at WeRiseProduction@ProtonMail.com, and follow us on Facebook & Instagram at @WeRiseProduction, & on Twitter at @WeRiseProducers.

This project is supported by an Investing in Artists Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation & the City of Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program, and was incubated with initial support from Cal Shakes.

On episode one, we got up to speed about the conditions that brought theater makers in the Bay Area to organize around TJ. This episode is dedicated to unpacking, at its core, what is TJ?

Episode transcript: bit.ly/TheRealWork-Episode-2

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust: sogoreate-landtrust.org

Save the West Berkeley Shellmound: shellmound.org

BATJC Pods & Pod Mapping Worksheet Instructions: batjc.wordpress.com/resources/pods-and-pod-mapping-worksheet/

BATJC Pod Mapping Worksheet:
batjc.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/batjc-pod-mapping-2016-updated.pdf

EdSource, “At this Oakland high school, restorative justice goes far beyond discipline”: edsource.org/2022/at-this-oakland-high-school-restorative-justice-goes-far-beyond-discipline/673453

Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth/RJOY: RJoyOakland.org

Mia Mingus: www.soiltjp.org & leavingevidence.wordpress.com

Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective: batjc.wordpress.com

Democracy Now!, “Remembering Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015): ‘We Have to Change Ourselves in Order to Change the World’”: www.democracynow.org/2015/10/6/remembering_grace_lee_boggs_1915_2015

For additional resources, including this episode’s ASL video: WeRiseProduction.com/TheRealWork

zAnda of DiaspoRADiCAL: @diaspo.radical on Instagram & soundcloud.com/diasporadical

Connect with us at WeRiseProduction@ProtonMail.com, and follow us on Facebook & Instagram at @WeRiseProduction, & on Twitter at @WeRiseProducers.

This project is supported by an Investing in Artists Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation & the City of Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program, and was incubated with initial support from Cal Shakes.