A Note from Cece Suazo, creator of Black Trans Stories Matter

Before I was introduced to TMI Project I was torn, broken, and felt like damaged goods. To be completely honest, I just wanted to end it all. Today, I live with a greater sense of freedom because I learned how to tell my narrative and live in my truth. I was accepted and gained a new family through TMI Project. I feel whole again, stronger, and more confident in my ability to continue life’s journey. I also felt inspired to reach out to others in the TGNC community to let them know there’s so much out there for us.

I am thrilled to partner with TMI Project to help launch Black Trans Stories Matter, a true storytelling workshop that will culminate in a live virtual performance. In the workshop, the TGNC community will have the support they need to pick up the pieces, dust themselves off, and learn to tap into their power and share their truth. In the performance, we will educate the public about what Black trans people go through. 

We will let the world know that BLACK TRANS LIVES MATTER! We are human and deserve equality, yet we’re murdered at alarming rates daily. I know that, like me, many people in my community are afraid to go outside for fear of becoming a target of ignorant violence. But, we are warriors and will continue to fight for change, not only for ourselves but for all those who come after us in future generations. 

It is my sincere hope that Black Trans Stories Matter can help us pave the path for our survival; that by the end of the performance, people will have a different outlook on my community and will work with us to create a world in which we can live our truth with freedom and safety.

– Cece Suazo (She/Her)

Learn More About Black Stories Matter

New Podcast Season: “Black Stories Matter”

In alignment with the Black Lives Matter movement, season two of The TMI Project Story Hour will feature underrepresented stories of the Black experience in America

TMI Project is a nonprofit transmedia organization that believes in the power of changing the world one radically true story at a time. Recognizing the power audio has to amplify the stories that are often overlooked by mainstream media, TMI Project recently added a free quarterly podcast to its portfolio. On October 28, 2020, the organization will launch The TMI Project Podcast Season 2: Black Stories Matter.

Each episode of the 12-part season will feature a personal narrative from a TMI Project storyteller focused on the “too much information” parts of their story usually left out due to shame, embarrassment, fear or cultural expectation. In season two, we touch on themes of identity, racism, gentrification and homelessness, coming of age and self love, family and forgiveness, addiction and recovery, abuse, and the everythingness of Blackness. Black Stories Matter will be of particular interest to the growing Black Lives Matter movement to end systemic racism as activists and allies continue the work of amplifying Black voices. Listen to the trailer here.

FROM OUR HOSTS

“Writing and then sharing my story in my first TMI Project performance in 2017 allowed me to affirm and claim an important part of my life experience.  Performing with and now mentoring other groups of TMI Project workshop writers, I’ve found the family I always wanted: a family based on telling stories with truth, courage and compassion,” said Dara Lurie (she/her), TMI Project’s Black Stories Matter co-director and workshop leader.

“White America, by choice and by ignorance, has been denied our stories and is maybe now recognizing how unhealthy that dynamic has been. Supporting the development of our stories, our truths — there’s really nothing more important to me,” said Micah (he/him), TMI Project’s Black Stories Matter co-director and workshop leader.

The TMI Project Podcast is produced in partnership with Radio Kingston, a non-commercial platform dedicated to a vibrant, just, and healthy Kingston centered around community storytelling, artistic and musical expression, conversation and connection.

About TMI Project

TMI Project is a nonprofit transmedia organization that believes in the power of changing the world one radically true story at a time. Since 2010, TMI Project has led nearly 150 true storytelling workshops and staged live storytelling performances by more than 3,000 storytellers, which have been presented to audiences of over 250,000 people in schools, colleges, prisons, mental health clinics, theaters, community centers and the United Nations. The culminating content – written stories, live storytelling performances, videos, and now a podcast – is accessible to an all-inclusive audience.

In 2017, TMI Project responded to the outcry for racial justice by launching Black Stories Matter, a Black-led true storytelling program where Black folks can write about, share, and reflect upon their lived experiences without having to justify, explain, or defend their truth.

To learn more about this program, visit tmiproject.org/blackstoriesmatter

To learn more about season 2, visit https://tmiproject.org/podcast-press-kit-season-2

Contact:
Shantae Howell
shantae@tmiproject.org 

Sacred Black Space

TMI Project’s Black Stories Matter program is a sacred space. Sacred is the only word that comes close to describing how it feels to me. This is in part due to it being a space for people to be vulnerable, to share their truths and their stories. But, more than that, it is Sacred Black Space, of which there are too few.

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Benny Eichert

“Why do I still feel like a fraud? Like I don’t belong. Like I’m not black enough.“

Racism has been a big part of my life, I just never acknowledged it. I hate stuff like this. It makes me uncomfortable, as I’m sure it makes a lot of us. It’s easy to make excuses and look away. But something this morning is calling me to confront this feeling. Two more lives were lost. Another black man and another black woman to add to a huge list of those taken by people who are supposed to protect and serve us. There is something wrong with America.  And it’s not just COVID 19. Racism has been here for a lot longer.

A year ago, I did a DNA test.  I read it and was stunned. I’m 1/4 Portuguese and 1/4 Spanish.  I’m 27.1% African from Northern and Western Africa. Why do I still feel like a fraud? Like I don’t belong. Like I’m not black enough.  

I was adopted by two Caucasian people. I was told I was Hispanic and Italian. I don’t blame them for this misinformation.  It’s very possible that my biological mother, whom I never met, didn’t know who my father was. I had 6 other adoptive siblings. Five were African American.  I never felt I belonged.  But, we all dealt with a lot of racism early on.

I was called a Spic and nigger in first grade. 

I was told my real parents didn’t love me. 

I was targeted by teachers and classmates because of my white parents.  

I had a barber tell me that he didn’t have clippers for “my type of hair.”

I was looked at differently because of my color.   

I feel a pain in my heart. A chill in my skin. I can’t describe it. I reach down at my chest where my heart is and feel something wet and warm.  I raise my hand and see pain and hurt.  It is like a dark moonless night. I don’t know why I thought if I ignored it long enough eventually I would be okay.  

My art has called to me to create from this pain.  It is one place I cannot hide what I feel.  My art is real, honest and painful.  Sometimes I hate it for this reason. But, my art has led to such growth in my life. It’s an outlet where I can say I am sorry to the younger version of myself for not validating this pain. I am sorry for not acknowledging my place in this fight.  

I am a puzzle with a lot of different pieces.
I am Portuguese, I am Spanish and……
I am Black.

This story was received as an online submission. 

 

Want More Black Stories Matter Content?
Stories have the power to increase visibility, raise awareness, change people’s hearts and minds, and inspire people to take meaningful action. We are making every effort to ensure all of our Black Stories Matter content is easily accessible, widely consumed, and is accompanied by tools to deepen the impact.

Listen: The TMI Project Story Hour, Season Two: Black Stories Matter, launches this fall. Learn more and subscribe to our podcast HERE

Host: a Black Stories Matter viewing party and discussion from anywhere in the world. Click HERE to learn more and sign up.

Share: TMI Preoject’s mission with Black Stories Matter is to elevate the underrepresented stories of the Black experience in America – the full spectrum – the triumphs, humor, beauty, and resilience. Click HERE to submit your story to be featured on the TMI Project blog.

Learn: Resources for anti-racism activism

Jaggar Harris

“The American dream — the dream that makes you believe you can have equality and the same opportunity available to any American — is a nightmare for me because I’m Black.”

After watching the horrifying and brutal killing of George Floyd on national TV I cried. I was deeply sickened.  I wanted to do or say something that would help others understand what it’s like to be Black in America because racism not only exists in the police departments, the criminal justice systems and the government, it exists in the workplace too.

During my eighteen-year career in higher education, which spanned from 2001 to 2019, I was the victim of racial discrimination four different times by three different employers in four different cities in the states of Colorado and California. The American dream — the dream that makes you believe you can have equality and the same opportunity available to any American — is a nightmare for me because I’m Black.

The first time I was discriminated against was in 2001. I was terrified and didn’t know what to do.  My friends said, “Don’t fight. You’re just one person and nothing you do will make a difference.”  My family said, “Don’t fight because if you make waves you’ll lose your job.”  

But after years of being harassed, humiliated, and stripped of all dignity, confidence, and strength over and over again, I stopped hearing everyone around me and started listening to God.  God inspired me to speak my truth no matter how painful it was and to do my best to prevent others from experiencing the devastation to their lives and careers that I had painfully endured. 

I fought back against the first employer and each subsequent employer. When they realized that I had documentation that could prove the severity and frequency of the discrimination I endured, each one paid me hush money to buy my silence and hide the racism in their organizations.  They also blackballed me from the industry that I loved, in the city that I worked, so I was forced to relocate and start over.  Each time, I moved to a different city hoping to get hired by a company that was free of racism and, sadly, I found that in America no such place exists.

I’m tired.  My battles against racism in the workplace that I have been forced to fight for the last eighteen years have left me broken, traumatized, and emotionally spent. At 52 years old, I’m getting too old to keep starting over.  Even worse, I’m witnessing my children, who are now all grown up with careers of their own, suffer the same fate and it’s heartbreaking.  It’s heartbreaking.

I share my story about fighting back, not only to help me deal with the trauma of racial discrimination, but also in hopes that it will make a difference, for my children and others.

This story was received as an online submission. 

Want More Black Stories Matter Content?
Stories have the power to increase visibility, raise awareness, change people’s hearts and minds, and inspire people to take meaningful action. We are making every effort to ensure all of our Black Stories Matter content is easily accessible, widely consumed, and is accompanied by tools to deepen the impact.

Listen: The TMI Project Story Hour, Season Two: Black Stories Matter, launches this fall. Learn more and subscribe to our podcast HERE

Host: a Black Stories Matter viewing party and discussion from anywhere in the world. Click HERE to learn more and sign up.

Share: TMI Preoject’s mission with Black Stories Matter is to elevate the underrepresented stories of the Black experience in America – the full spectrum – the triumphs, humor, beauty, and resilience. Click HERE to submit your story to be featured on the TMI Project blog.

Learn: Resources for anti-racism activism

You are Freedom Walker.

– Freedom Walker (she/her)

As the turbulent feelings ebb and flow during Freedom Walker’s (TinaLynn Dickerson) night in a former slave cellar, she drifts off to sleep, only to awake to the voice of an unknown entity who awards her a new name and helps her see the current state of racism in America.

#blacklivesmatter #blackstoriesmatter #defendblacklives

“The name is announced to me again: ‘You are Freedom Walker. You are Freedom Walker.”

Want More Black Stories Matter Content?
Stories have the power to increase visibility, raise awareness, change people’s hearts and minds, and inspire people to take meaningful action. We are making every effort to ensure all of our Black Stories Matter content is easily accessible, widely consumed, and is accompanied by tools to deepen the impact.

Listen: The TMI Project Story Hour, Season Two: Black Stories Matter, launches this fall. Learn more and subscribe to our podcast HERE

Host: a Black Stories Matter viewing party and discussion from anywhere in the world. Click HERE to learn more and sign up.

Share: TMI Preoject’s mission with Black Stories Matter is to elevate the underrepresented stories of the Black experience in America – the full spectrum – the triumphs, humor, beauty, and resilience. Click HERE to submit your story to be featured on the TMI Project blog.

Learn: Resources for anti-racism activism

…it will be at least 150 years before a Negro will be elected President.

In 1954, Odell (he/him) told his third grade teacher that he wanted to be the President of the United States; she told him it would be at least 150 years until that happened. Today, Odell is the Executive Director of the Library at the A.J. Williams-Myers African Roots Center in Kingston, NY, and he reflects on his childhood through adulthood to find him standing strong and feeling like the leader he always dreamed of being.

#blacklivesmatter #blackstoriesmatter #defendblacklives

“Ms. Kaufman says it will be at least 150 years before a Negro will be elected President.”

Want More Black Stories Matter Content?
Stories have the power to increase visibility, raise awareness, change people’s hearts and minds, and inspire people to take meaningful action. We are making every effort to ensure all of our Black Stories Matter content is easily accessible, widely consumed, and is accompanied by tools to deepen the impact.

Listen: The TMI Project Story Hour, Season Two: Black Stories Matter, launches this fall. Learn more and subscribe to our podcast HERE

Host: a Black Stories Matter viewing party and discussion from anywhere in the world. Click HERE to learn more and sign up.

Share: TMI Preoject’s mission with Black Stories Matter is to elevate the underrepresented stories of the Black experience in America – the full spectrum – the triumphs, humor, beauty, and resilience. Click HERE to submit your story to be featured on the TMI Project blog.

Learn: Resources for anti-racism activism

I am the Sunday dinner after church.

– Shawaine (she/her)

Shawaine started in a place where she was in the majority; but now, she lives in a place where she’s the minority. At 7, she left Jamaica and moved to the USA, where she quickly learned that racism, ignorance, and fear are synonymous words.

#blacklivesmatter #blackstoriesmatter #defendblacklives

“I am the Sunday dinner after church. I am the whoopings given for disrespect. I am the curry goat and chicken. I am the ‘sit still, or I’m a whoop you.’ I am the ‘girl, you better not test me.’ I am the fried chicken and watermelon. I am the Saturday cookouts; the loud shouts, lip smacking, feet stomping, head shaking, hand clapping black girl you make me out to be.”

Want More Black Stories Matter Content?
Stories have the power to increase visibility, raise awareness, change people’s hearts and minds, and inspire people to take meaningful action. We are making every effort to ensure all of our Black Stories Matter content is easily accessible, widely consumed, and is accompanied by tools to deepen the impact.

Listen: The TMI Project Story Hour, Season Two: Black Stories Matter, launches this fall. Learn more and subscribe to our podcast HERE

Host: a Black Stories Matter viewing party and discussion from anywhere in the world. Click HERE to learn more and sign up.

Share: TMI Preoject’s mission with Black Stories Matter is to elevate the underrepresented stories of the Black experience in America – the full spectrum – the triumphs, humor, beauty, and resilience. Click HERE to submit your story to be featured on the TMI Project blog.

Learn: Resources for anti-racism activism

I am a miracle.

– Alex (she/her)

“Who will be there for me?” Rejected by her mother, 16 year old Alex carries that question with her everywhere she goes. When she is shot while taking a group of kids home from the community center, she wonders, “Who will be there for me?”

#blacklivesmatter #blackstoriesmatter #defendblacklives

“I am a miracle. I am that black girl who got shot who called his name and shouted out to the top of my lungs Psalms 121:1-2: ‘I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? The Lord, the Maker of the Heavens and Earth!'”

Want More Black Stories Matter Content?
Stories have the power to increase visibility, raise awareness, change people’s hearts and minds, and inspire people to take meaningful action. We are making every effort to ensure all of our Black Stories Matter content is easily accessible, widely consumed, and is accompanied by tools to deepen the impact.

Listen: The TMI Project Story Hour, Season Two: Black Stories Matter, launches this fall. Learn more and subscribe to our podcast HERE

Host: a Black Stories Matter viewing party and discussion from anywhere in the world. Click HERE to learn more and sign up.

Share: TMI Project’s mission with Black Stories Matter is to elevate the underrepresented stories of the Black experience in America – the full spectrum – the triumphs, humor, beauty, and resilience. Click HERE to submit your story to be featured on the TMI Project blog.

Learn: Resources for anti-racism activism