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0:00:08.6 Jackie Strohm: Welcome to PA Centered, a podcast designed to help listeners be a part of the solution to end sexual harassment, abuse and assault. Each episode, we will take on a topic or current event to help spark conversation and break down barriers to building communities free from sexual violence.

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0:00:31.8 JS: Hi, I'm Jackie Strohm, the prevention and Resource Coordinator at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. I'll be your host today as we're joined by LaQuisha Anthony, who was a guest on the podcast last summer as well, and we encourage you to go back and listen if you haven't had a chance yet. For those that don't know, LaQuisha recently was a keynote speaker at PCAR State Conference, and she is also the recipient of the 2021 Visionary Voice Award in Pennsylvania. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center or NSVRC, offers the visionary voice awards each April to recognize the creativity and hard work of individuals across the country who have demonstrated outstanding work to end sexual violence. We were honored at PCAR to nominate LaQuisha to receive this award for her work as an education and training specialist at WOAR Philadelphia Center Against Sexual Violence, and for the work she does with survivors as the founder of VOICE, which is Victory Over Inconceivable Cowardly Experiences. Welcome, LaQuisha.

0:01:40.3 LaQuisha Anthony: Hi, thank you for having me.

0:01:42.7 JS: We're so excited to be able to chat again. And so before we dive in, can you share a bit about the work that you do at both WOAR and VOICE? 

0:01:53.4 LA: Well, ultimately, I am doing a bunch of work surrounding sexual violence education, prevention and advocacy. At WOAR I am a Senior Education and Training Specialist, where I am educating anyway, anyone from pre-K to professional level in prevention education, everything under the umbrella of sexual violence. And at VOICE I am the founder of a network of survivors, and what we do is primarily support survivors through their healing process, connect them to different resources and work with them to ultimately live their best lives after sexual violent experiences.

0:02:37.3 JS: Thank you. So at the PCAR State Conference, your keynote was titled, Letters from the Trenches: Surviving the War While Black, where you shared your personal experiences and research to examine how crucial it is that we all understand the intersection of ending sexual violence and the oppression of marginalized communities in America. And one of the things you shared during your keynote was, "We are currently at war against each other instead of fighting against the things that plague our society," and you asked us to think about whether or not the war was internal or external. So let's start there. Can you expand on what you mean by that? 

0:03:20.5 LA: So ultimately, when we think about this war as being someone who holds multiple identities, it becomes a war that is external because of the oppression that is placed upon us, but then it also becomes a war that's internal because of that same oppression that hinders how we show up in different spaces, if we're not careful. Ultimately, we are often faced with times where we can only come to the table with one identity and being able to forge forward to walk into your authentic self in those particular spaces, to show up with all of your identities, sometimes that's a challenge for individuals.

0:04:05.9 JS: And so one of the things I know you and I have talked about is that we are at war against White supremacy.

0:04:12.9 LA: Yeah. And I think that when we talk about at war with one another, that peace, that oftentimes people think that people of color are at war with Caucasian or White people, when in actuality, we are at war against White supremacy, bigotry and hatred, and those particular things that have been rooted and ingrained in specific cultures, and we wanna shift that opposed to it being at war with the actual individual or particular race.

0:04:50.8 JS: That makes sense. And I know you have a great way of being able to make this connection for folks who do this work, because we often work with survivors who have PTSD, so can you make that connection for folks about that external piece impacting them internally? 

0:05:08.4 LA: So ultimately, thinking about when someone who is a survivor that has PTSD, when someone has PTSD, that is... And they have a moment where they're triggered, in that moment where you're triggered, that you feel that you are in this particular space that you were formally in, and in all actuality you're not, but your body feels that way, your mind feels that way. It is the same thing for those who have different identities, that when you step into a particular space and you're not allowed to be able to show up as your authentic self when you're not allowed to be able to come into that space with your full identity and you have to choose on how you show up, sometimes it's that external piece as well as the internal piece that actually comes forward where it becomes kind of physical, where there might even be in a rise of anxiety, there might even be a rise of just very anxiousness, "How do I show up? Can I say this? Can I say that? How do I wear my hair? How do I wear my clothes? Am I allowed to say this or am I not allowed to say that?"

0:06:25.0 LA: All of these particular experiences are gathered collectively together within an individual, and it oftentimes encompasses what that external war has done, and it's showing forth externally, but it's also happening internally as well, if that makes...

0:06:43.7 JS: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. So in terms of ending the war or stopping the war, what is your advice for how we can do that? 

0:06:57.0 LA: So ultimately, there are specific pieces that I gave within my keynote that I will give you again today that were specific steps to help stop this war, ultimately is to recognize how oppressive structures impact how people show up in the world. Also realizing that it doesn't mean that we're attacking someone, but ultimately that we're just acknowledging the structures that exist in society and that hinders and impacts individuals in different ways. Also accepting the narrative of individuals, you can't change who you are in a person's story. And oftentimes, we wanna change that dynamic of who we are, what people see us as in their particular story, but if it's their story then they can interpret it or have the perception that they have on their own, and we have to accept where we fall in the narrative, and to help navigate where we fall in the narrative later opposed to where we fell in the narrative prior.

0:08:06.6 LA: So ultimately not getting upset about so much truth, it's their truth, and I think when we honor that and we honor the dignity of someone's truth, that we honor them. I also think that we have to ultimately recognize how access to privilege shows up and how that impacts different individuals. I think we have to acknowledge our proximity to individuals and how we might not be able to see certain things because of the proximity that we have or don't have, and that was something that I brought up in... Just really thinking about that, that if an event that you are someone who is operating in your own silo, you're unlikely to find those connections or unlikely to be able to see those areas that are blind spots for you. And if an event that you have a blind spot in that nature, nine times out of 10 speaks to the privilege that you possess, because if you had the liberty to walk in the blind spot, then that's the privilege right there, if you had the liberty not to see things, if you had the liberty to be chosen, to not have to speak up, not have to deal with some of the issues that we deal with daily, then that alone is a privilege 'cause you have an option.

0:09:39.2 LA: Also seeing rape culture and sexual violence as a whole intersectional issue, I think that we need to realize that we can't do this work without an intersectional lens. And when we service individuals at our centers and in the work of sexual violence prevention and education and counseling, that people show up with multiple identities, people show up with multiple forms of trauma, people show up with multiple forms of oppression, and those collectively impact how they actually unpack their particular sexual violent experience. And if an event that we're not dealing with the whole individual, we're lacking, and we're doing a disservice to individuals because we're not helping them to become whole individuals, and that's all we really want to do.

0:10:33.8 LA: Unfortunately, they've already endured something that is hurtful and harmful and that has kind of altered their lives in some way, that if an event that oppressive structures show themselves again in their healing process, that can be damaging and detrimental to their healing. So a quote that reminds me of this is, "Never in the history of humanity has violence been initiated by the oppressed." This quote by Paolo Freire. It's something that I came across while studying at Harvard, and it really made me think about how individuals were responding to oppression, and if an event that responds to the oppression, which many might categorize as violence, it misses the point that oppression itself is violence. So who is actually initiating the violence that we're talking about, if oppression is violence as well? So I think that we have to recognize and begin to look and view oppression as violence. It is violence against individuals who are actually being harmed by various forms of oppression.

0:11:49.6 JS: Right. Just based on their identity or their perceived identity.

0:11:53.9 LA: Exactly, and how can we be individuals who are serving individuals to help them heal from some form of violence, but yet initiate violence against them through oppressive structures that we allow to operate in, that we operate in and that we perpetuate within our work, within our centers, within our structural systems that we adhere to deal...

0:12:27.7 JS: Such a great quote, and I hope many of our listeners take some time to reflect on it and think about what it means for our work. So during the keynote, you also spoke a bit about the work that you've done on the statue of limitations changes in Pennsylvania, and there was actually someone in the chat that said, "The power of story, especially as testimony to change laws is staying with me and how we support one another in that process," can you share more about what that experience has been like and what you see the impact of storytelling? 

0:13:10.6 LA: I believe that storytelling is a very valuable and powerful tool to creating change. Ultimately, we think about statistics as we do our work and research, but ultimately when we're delivering different content and we're sharing different things about how we educate people around sexual violence, sexual harassment, the whole umbrella of what we do daily, ultimately, it is not the statistics or the research that sticks with individuals; it is the stories that hit the heart that ultimately impact the major change. And that get people to really thinking about this issue in this dynamic that we're fighting against in a different way. It humanizes it, it allows for people to understand it in a different way than what they did before. And it also gives them insight into the experiences of what a survivor might actually go through, what they might feel, what might have been going on in their mind and also understanding some of the technical or biological responses that happen through particular people's experiences, so storytelling is a powerful tool. I think that it's a powerful tool for change in general across the board, but in our field of work that it's something that it is very, very powerful and we can be proud that survivors have allowed their voices to be heard in this particular way, and that if we all could continue to encourage survivors to utilize their stories to impact change, that we are moving in the right direction.

0:15:00.0 JS: And you were able to share some of your story during the testimony that you gave. So what was that experience like? 

0:15:09.7 LA: It was an amazing experience. It was one that I never dreamed that I thought I would ever have access to. Particularly because oppressive structures and because I am a Black woman from the inner city of Philadelphia, and knowing the history of what my people have been through, my ancestors in reference to sexual assault and rape, and then also just that knowing that my voice made a major difference. I don't think that I ever imagined that it would make a difference on that level, that a senator could hear my voice, hear my story, and actually create a full amendment and then for it to be a unanimous, unanimous vote in reference to where both sides actually agreed that this is something that needed to be implemented. For me, it was mind-blowing, and I was just really grateful to God for the opportunity to allow my voice to be heard in this capacity, and not just for me to share, but for me sharing to actually create the change.

0:16:20.7 LA: And to hear my name mentioned on the Senate floor was something that I took with me where I took every person of color, specifically every Black woman that have endured any form of sexual violence from slavery on, to that floor with me, because it spoke that their stories mattered, that I'm speaking from the experience of a Black woman, and granted, I can't speak for every Black woman, but there was representation, and for me, that meant so much to me to show up in that capacity and to represent in that way where you got to hear a Black woman's story, and that because I was the first doesn't mean that I'm gonna be the last.

0:17:14.6 JS: And so you said that there was a unanimous vote after your testimony, can you share with our listeners what the outcome was? 

0:17:24.9 LA: Yeah, so it was a unanimous vote to change the stature limitations for 18 to 23-year-olds to give them access to be able to come forward civilly and criminally, one changed to 30 years and then the other changed to 12 years after their assault, which were both significant numbers within my story, I didn't come forward to one of my experience until I was 30, and then also I waited 12 years. As people might know, I suffered in silence for 12 years before I spoke up about and revealing my sexual assault in the first place, so those numbers were significant, and they took those numbers and actually created and change and shift the law in reference to it.

0:18:17.6 LA: It was a powerful experience, but it also was an experience that reminded me of the oppression that was still present as well. While being there with a group who I loved dearly and I called my family, I was able to see that even in those moments that privilege showed its way forward. Unfortunately, everything that we wanted as a collective did not move forward or pass in that moment, but... And many of them were not happy about that response, and that rendered a little bit further into how we showed up later, when it came to signing the particular bill into action, when the governor was signing.

0:19:09.0 LA: Because they did not agree, they had the option to not show up. For me, I was faced with that option, well though, do I show up and celebrate the victory that my name and my story was associated with, or do I stand with the rest of the survivors, and not show up because there was a piece that still did not occur? So could I celebrate the progress? And unfortunately, I had to celebrate that progress on my own. None of them were able to show up with me. And I think that being able to have a choice, a true choice, of whether you can show up or not speaks to the privilege that you possess. And my situation, I don't feel like I really had a choice. If I chose not to show up, then that chose for me not to celebrate the victory, and all that I just spoke with you in reference to that came along with that victory. And that also gave me the option to not be heard or seen, when in all actuality, when would I ever have that other opportunity to be heard and seen, because Black women's stories are not heard or seen. And if they are, they're ultimately not taken serious. We know the statistics that Black women and girls when they share, that ultimately they're not believed.

0:20:37.5 LA: They are not... So ultimately, we get the notion from this Georgetown study, that Black girls need less nurturing and less protection, that Black girls are less supported and less comforted, and are deemed to be more independent and know more about sex and know more about adult topics. And these things follow us into adulthood. It's not something that actually disappears, but upon us becoming adult. So it was just very significant and important for me to be able to show up and to actually share my story in the way, in the fashion, that I did.

0:21:22.0 JS: While you were telling us about your experience, it was making me think, what you shared earlier, about some people have that privilege of not showing up, while others have to choose between their identities when they make a choice to show up. And so I know we wanted to talk a little bit more about how privilege shows up in the work that we do.

0:21:45.8 LA: Yeah, I think that idea that you're always heard, and the idea that you're always believed, or that you are valued, it's something that everybody does not have access to. And granted, I know that as survivors of sexual assault, that that's something that's common across the board, but think about it being another layer added to that, that's a barrier to being seen, being heard, being felt. All of these things which are human needs. So if we add an extra barrier to what the barrier already is, in reference to the response to someone who's endured some shit storm of sexual violent experience, and then you add the oppression over on top of that. And then not just one form of oppression, but multiple layers of oppression that are collectively formed together that creates this tapestry over top of that individual from receiving their necessities. Imagine how that impacts an individual. Imagine how that individual is able to show up in the world. Imagine the internal war that happens because of the limited things that they have access to. That even if an event that I decide that I wanna show up in a particular way, society says that I can't.

0:23:25.9 LA: White supremacy says that I can't. Oppression says that I can't. Racism says that I can't. Ageism says that I can't. All of the isms that we can think of that are multiple forms of oppression, all of these things say I can't show up and be all of them.

0:23:49.3 JS: Yeah, and some people have the privilege to not even think about that.

0:23:54.8 LA: Exactly.

0:23:57.6 JS: Yeah, it's reminding me of just that quote you were saying earlier, and the idea about like, when we do have privilege, that it's easier for some people to push back because there's gonna be less consequences for them, because of how they are perceived and how they show up in the world. But we exist within that system that it can be harder for people who have multiple forms of oppression that they're fighting every single day, to be able to show up because the consequences might be more dire.

0:24:35.8 LA: Definitely. So I think about this, and to put it in a practical way, we all go to work everyday. If there are different forms of hierarchy in reference to our jobs, if an event that there is something happening amongst leadership, by you being an employee under that leadership, how often do you feel confident enough to speak out, and out against the leadership, and the structures that are confined in your particular job? And if an event that you do speak of, how are you impacted when you do? So if you can't understand it from a race concept, understand it from a hierarchy concept when it comes to specific structures within your workplace. That if you don't feel comfortable in speaking up in those spaces, imagine with someone who has multiple identities who are being oppressed in multiple facets, how can they speak up? How can we show up? How can we create change? 

0:25:46.5 LA: And if you see the collective actions that have been happening across our country over the last year and a half, it's because many people are collectively coming together, and those voices are making the difference; it's not just one voice, but it's a whole community that is banding together to be heard. And even in that process, we're still misunderstood, we're still not heard, we still are fighting for, ultimately, equality, equity, fairness, humanity, to be able to walk down the street, to go into a store, to sleep in our beds. Ultimately, to live a free life, and to think that we have come from a people who were not free, and yet we're still fighting to be free. Many people might hear or see the news or the messages that says free-ish, like the show Blackish.

0:27:18.0 LA: It's actually an accurate description, because we're free-ish. We're still fighting for freedoms to be able to be exactly who we were designed to be. And granted when we do show up in who we are, that there are specific structures that try to tear that apart or take away from it, whether it's cultural appropriation, whether it is racism, whether it is us being gunned down in the streets, whether it is us not being believed and our voices not being heard when it comes to sexual violent experiences, whether it is fighting for a national holiday with Juneteenth just becoming a national holiday. When in all actuality, we just wanna be free. We just wanna have the same opportunities that others have.

0:28:21.2 JS: Yeah. I'm hearing you say be able to show up and experience life as your full self.

0:28:29.1 LA: Yeah, and I think people don't recognize that there's a hindrance in how we have to be conscious of how we show up. As though we're constantly challenged, from what we wear, how we wear our hair, how we speak, and then not including those particular oppressive structures that impact the way that we obtain care, whether that is through counseling services, whether it's through Black maternal health, whether it is through mental health services, all of these services that many people have access to, that we don't necessarily always have access to because of different oppressive structures that are set. And I think that by us all working in a field that is supposed to be a helping field, that we have to be conscious of the intersectional identities of other individuals, in order for us to be able to grow into and to end the war that is happening. It reminds me of the James Baldwin quote that I mentioned in my keynote, that precisely when you begin to develop a conscious, you must find yourself at war with society. It is your responsibility to change society if you think yourself as educated. If we're educated individuals who are coming forward to educate, to support...

0:30:22.5 LA: To help survivors, then it is our responsibility to shift and to change society as we know it, to challenge the status quo, to become change agents, to recognize privilege, to move and operate in creating change, and to allow people to show up as their authentic selves. And to give space and to give voice to those experiences that are not like your own.

0:30:58.0 JS: What you're sharing now is exactly why you were the recipient of the Visionary Voice Award, because everything that you just shared are things that I know you do in your daily life, whether that's at work or outside of work. And one of the things I know I wanted to highlight is the survivor advocate program that you've been working on, to help other people use their voices in this way. So could you tell us more about that? 

0:31:28.8 LA: Yeah, so that is my proud baby. It is a new program that we've started at WOAR in April, Sexual Assault Awareness month, it is a pilot program, where we decided to highlight survivors, mentor survivors, and also support survivors through telling their stories to advocate for change. And that can be in any capacity, and what we recognize is that, like I said before, the story-telling is a powerful agent of change, is a powerful tool for change. So because of that, we wanted to empower survivors and give them access to be able to have the tools, but also to utilize what they possess, which is their best tool, is their voice.

0:32:26.5 LA: And we've been working with them, we do a five-week program where we educate them on what it means to be a public survivor and what that looks like, what it means to be an advocate. We give them insight into better self-care practices and different avenues and how you operate and move through telling your story, and different ways and methods that you can utilize in telling your story, and how they can actually create change with their particular stories. And then we have a full-year mentorship portion of the program, where we are with them for the entire year, developing them, going, preparing them for different opportunities that they might reach out and find, or that might come across our desk, that we see that they might be beneficial in lending their voices to. And realizing that we need survivors driving the force of change when it comes to sexual violence work.

0:33:34.5 LA: I remember there was a time where being a survivor and working at an agency wasn't something that we talked enough about, or that we valued, but ultimately how do we create change is by honoring the voices of survivors and the experiences of survivors in order to create better methods, in order to create better avenues and access to care, as well as better ways that we are missing the gap. We can't serve a group that we're not listening to. So we can make a ton of decisions around what we think survivors need, but if we're not listening to survivors to figure out what they actually need, then we're doing a disservice. So this is another way where we can fill the gap, where we're finding out what survivors need from survivors, as well as empowering survivors to be in a life-long relationship with our agency. We're as though, after you've done the counseling, after you've done specific things, here's another way that you can engage with this agency and we can support you to another level of healing. And that, granted, being a public survivor is not something for everyone, it's not... Everybody doesn't wanna be an advocate, everybody doesn't wanna share their story, and that is quite okay.

0:34:58.1 LA: But there are people who feel like they wanna do something, that their voices have power, that they feel like, if I could actually just help another individual, then that might make me feel better about what I experienced. If I can give insight into what it looks like in this industry or that industry. If I can uncover things that... An experience that another survivor might not think that anyone else has, here's an opportunity for me to do that. And many of the survivors that we're working with feel exactly that way, where they're ecstatic about being able to share their stories, because they believe that they're creating change, and it's not just big change, it is even change that is collectively happening amongst one another.

0:35:48.5 LA: For example, we have a gentleman in our group, and in that group, he's the only one that identifies as a man. He's a man, and everyone else identifies as a woman. Or as she or her. And he thought coming into this particular group that he would not fit in because his experiences was not common with the experiences of a woman. And while we honor his differences, he found out that he actually does fit, that we all share some commonality. And that's what I wanted people to understand in reference to the keynote, in reference to all that we've been talking about. That we all share some type of commonality, and that we just need to begin to honor the differences of individuals. There's dignity in difference. And then also finding those threads and those commonalities, those things that are alike within us, and building upon those things to build a better future. And I think we can do that.

0:37:04.4 JS: I think so too. So just to kind of wrap up our conversation. You had closed your keynote with a call to action, and I'm wondering if you could go over those again for our listeners.

0:37:20.7 LA: Sure. I mentioned a few earlier, but I definitely will mention again. One I would say is to trust those with marginalized identities to lead the way. Trust those with intersectional experiences to lead the way, and to become a true partner with them in this fight, in this war for change. I would also say that having lack of awareness of intersections perpetuates oppression, and being in community helps with the resilience that we would like to see. That when you have privilege, you can choose not to be seen, heard or felt, and that's essential to the human existence, and we wanna make sure that everybody is seen, heard or felt. I also wanna highlight the point that even advocates are marginalized. Because we think when we get to a certain level, that being marginalized, or oppression being present, doesn't exist. But unfortunately it truly does.

0:38:39.9 LA: Then I would also say for us to step out of our silos and to find unlikely connections. Making sure that proximity is something that you adhere to and recognize. Because we can create change, like I said before, in our silos, but is it really impacting those who it needs to impact the most? Sometimes throwing money at a situation is not the answer, sometimes it's about proximity. And when we get to a place of proximity where we're building relationships and we're seeing, and we're gaining insight with one another, then we can see where the real change is needed. The other thing I would say is also to see rape culture and sexual violence as a whole intersectional issue. Anti-oppression work is sexual violence work, period.

0:39:49.0 LA: And we need to put that in bold letters and capitalize it. Sexual violence work is anti-oppression work. We can't do one without the other. The other thing I would say is to know yourself. Join together and expand beyond your own cultural awareness. The more you know you, the more secure you are with you, the more that you can expand and to learn about someone else's cultural awareness. And also don't force people to have to teach you about your privilege. Do the work. Study. Figure it out. And also, I'll say, and I'll challenge you with this last thing. Will you close the gap? Will you adjust so someone else can have access to freedom? Does it mean that you're losing something, because you give someone else access to the same liberty that you possess? No. It does not. You can be a difference maker if you choose to be. And if you work in this field, it is definitely your duty to be a difference maker. To be a change maker. To be a change agent. I say that you can end the war.

0:41:35.7 JS: Laquisha, thank you so much for joining us again on the podcast today.

0:41:43.1 LA: You are welcome, Jackie. It was definitely a pleasure to speak with you and to share the things that I was able to share today. And I hope that having this conversation alone begins to create some change.

0:41:58.9 JS: That's all the time we have today. But thank you all for listening to this episode of PA-Centered. You can learn more about VOICE and WOAR in the episode description.

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0:42:17.1 JS: If you or a loved one needs help, a local Sexual Assault Center is available, 24-7. Call 1888-772-7227 for more information, or find your local center online at pcar.org. Together we can end sexual violence. Any views or opinions expressed on PA-Centered by staff or their guests are solely their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of PCAR or PCAR's funders.