BOLD Leadership Lessons from LGBTQ Advocacy You Won't Learn Elsewhere

[0:00]  in today's episode of the heart and hustle podcast we sit down with the founder of the Ali for Center today's conversation is going to be about compassion love the importance of Leaning into other the challenges that we face in cities like New York City when it comes to supporting the homeless youth the impact that one individual had by saying my God loves me unconditionally and so much more today's an amazing episode as we sit down with Carl let's get into the episode after Ali was murdered you know it was horrible but Ali was one of the seven young people that was murdered in that 2-year period I just ended up feeling like this incredible determination to create safe housing where the LGBT youth would have somewhere to go where they wouldn't be harassed where they could be accepted and loved for who they were and I always felt like

[0:49]  Ali embodied everything that I wanted us to be you know I wanted us to accept and embrace and celebrate the young people for who they were and to give them a safe place where they could find that acceptance so that was why I decided to callip the Ali F Center and an amazing tribute to somebody whose unique genius right inspires other people to live in their truth so Carl when we met last time you shared

[1:37]  an experience that you had when you were a young child you said it was a experience full of love and compassion and you spent a lot of your life trying to figure out how you could I would say inject if you will that love and compassion into the work into the community that you serve can you tell everybody about that story a little bit sure Kenan um I wasn't a little child I was I was uh 15 years old but um one night uh my family had had dinner and I wanted to go out and buy myself some jelly beans and I was walking down a road heading towards a little candy store and um a goose flew like right by me and crashed into a car like right like like two feet from my head like it

[2:26]  just and uh the goose screamed and plunged into a river presumably dead and I was so upset it's like I'd never been near like some large creature dying before and I started running down this road and I stopped in front of a Convent like where nuns lived and they had this kind of tacky Mosaic of of the founder of their order she taught poor children I guess she was surrounded by her poor children um and I'd walked by that Mosaic like a hundred times and just thought it looked silly um you know nothing like what I was used to in in in affluent Suburban Connecticut where we were all very minimalists and whatever but um that

[3:15]  night something just went boom like inside my Consciousness uh I just stood in front of that Mosaic and I I don't know how to explain it it was like some kind of light opened up inside of my soul like I I I never even thought about my soul before that um and I just had this sense of like somehow the whole world all of it like me the grass I was standing on the sky the dead goose like we were all somehow just held in love um and it was a very profound EXP experience it was also very disorienting

[4:03]  because I I I didn't grow up with any kind of religious background and kind of thought of religion as as just people singing sappy songs on Sunday morning television and asking for money um so I I I didn't even like kind of relate that with what happened to me like it just felt like this explosion of Consciousness um but it it created this hunger deep inside of of me to figure out how to reconnect with that love like like what does this mean like how do I live this out uh how do I reconnect to this love and and and embody it in my life somehow and I would say that that in a lot of ways my whole life ever since has been that journey of trying to figure out how to

[4:52]  embody that love it seems like we need a little bit more of that love and that comp passion and that connectedness at the Forefront of our Consciousness as we kind of navigate the turbulence that we see in our society today you know we often don't talk about these Concepts on the podcast so much but these are strong Concepts that have the power to bring people together and help us see past the differences that we tell people are different from us and I feel like that in itself is a conversation that we need to have a lot more and I'm so glad that you can represent somebody who had that experience early in life where it kind of informed the work that you do and the pursuit of trying to create that connectedness in this community and society that you live in yeah and you know it's interesting that you speak about like difference

[5:41]  and that was so Central to the experience that I had that all of it was held in this love like nothing was outside of it um you know so sometimes I think that in political systems or in religious systems you know we want to have this demarcation between like you know who's saved and who's doomed and you know who's just and who's unjust and who's worthy and who's unworthy um that experience kind of shattered that for me like I I I don't see life like that and how has that informed the work that you know you've become so passionate about we're going to talk about the Ali for Center here in a little bit but before we got there you

[6:30]  know you talked about the things that you were doing in Time Square in New York City in advocating and bringing people together and creating safe spaces let's talk a little bit about those early days and if we can get into how influential Ali was in your life and the experiences that he created for you know the people who are around you I think that would be really powerful for the audience as well sure so can I step back a little bit of course even before before I started because you know I was like 30 years old by then so that's like you know got a lot of time to cover way down yeah so so I ended up converting to Catholicism about two years after I had that experience um and I was very attracted to uh this kind of radical Progressive woman that

[7:21]  had um started something called the Catholic Worker movement uh where where people really tried to live out the the sermon on the out you know loving your enemy sharing what you have with the poor uh so so we would live in community together with homeless people like you know we we would bring in homeless people to live with us and we would run soup kitchens and we would protest outside of nuclear weapons factories and um it was a very radical life um and I wanted to live a radical life like you know I felt like to live a life Guided by love meant that you had to really radically question sort of the the mainstream values of our society the the kind of

[8:08]  greed and desire for power and control um you know I wanted to live in a much more open and vulnerable way but I was also a gay man and I wasn't really dealing with that and in some ways I think like this this big religious Quest was a convenient way of not even you know like of having a distra ction from my sexual self and um one day I was it was I was in this Shrine to this uh Saint uh St terz of lizia and um I was praying for guidance like you know I felt like I was called to a certain kind of Holiness that I hadn't figured out how to how to embody you and I and suddenly while I was on my knees

[8:59]  praying I had this conviction that I couldn't follow God with integrity and I couldn't serve poor people with Integrity if I tried to hide the part of myself that was subject to oppression and persecution you know and that was my queerness and so I had this very strong sense that I had to figure out a way of integrating my queerness with my desire to to you know to be this loving person um so a year later I was at the Catholic Worker and and the community was really struggling uh it it had always been very uh shaped by this principle of radical Hospitality so you know we would welcome

[9:47]  homeless people to live with us we would care for people who are hungry and poor but there' always been a lot of closeted gay people at the Catholic Worker uh and and this was the 1980s the AIDS crisis was sort of devouring New York City and a lot of us started thinking maybe we need to figure out a way to like also show welcome and Hospitality to those people among us who are queer and that was a real problem uh you know sort of the Elders of the community thought that was you know utterly unacceptable and why was that well when you were having these type of conversations are these

[10:34]  Community leaders are these Elders of the community in which kind of you guys were you know representing what are we talking about here well the Catholic Worker movement is kind of an anarchist movement so we didn't have like a defined leadership structure uh but something that I've noticed in life is that when you don't have defined leadership structur is kind of the people with the strongest personalities just end up dominating everything so the community had some folks with some very strong personalities and um you know the people who were queer with the strong personalities and the people who didn't want queerness talked about with strong personalities just really buted heads and um you know I was like 20 years old I was like oh my God what's going on here it was it was it was a lot to deal

[11:23]  with but um most of us who were pushing for the community to be more accepting of of LGBT people kind of went out started working with people in the AIDS crisis a lot of us like you know cared for people as they were dying of AIDS and um you know it it just really pushed me harder to think you know I've got to figure out a way to integrate you know my my spiritual yearning to serve and love others you know with my you know with my queerness and so that really led me to where you asked the question about being in Time Square in the mid 90s uh in 1994

[12:13]  I became the director of a dropin center for homeless teenagers in Time Square called safe space and um about a third of the young people coming to us at that time were lgbtq and um I was astonished when I started working there at the conditions that that the young people were in not just the LGBT youth all of the youth uh I was used to this idea you know from working with homeless people in New York for about 10 years at that point that homeless people in New York had a right to to shelter uh there had been a law suit in the 80s that had determined that that New York City had an obligation to provide shelter but but I quickly learned that when I started working with

[13:00]  the teenagers that that did not apply to teenagers that most of the young people we were working with were just stranded out on the streets with nowhere to go and um but what I also saw very clearly was that the LGBT youth had at the worst like um there was one Youth Shelter in town run by a a Catholic organization that was very discriminatory at that time to to LGBT youth uh other kids would like beat up and and and harass the young people and and some of the staff would tell the LGBT that they were Sinners that they should repent uh that they should pray to be delivered of of their homosexuality you know or that they

[13:48]  should hide it you know that that would make it safer for them you know and that might have been well-meaning but but still it's an awful thing to tell somebody to lie about their truth um so in practice because LGBT youth couldn't go to this one shelter they were just stranded out in the streets uh mostly they survived through uh sex work uh prostitution you know or or drug dealing or a combination of the two uh New York City was in the throws of the AIDS crisis it was also kind of the tail end of the crack epidemic it was a time of a lot of violence in the city so being out in the streets you know in doing sex work and

[14:39]  and and drug dealing was very dangerous incredibly and uh one after another the young people that I was working with would get killed you know over like a two-year period seven young people that I worked with were were were murdered in the streets and what was really disturbing to me was that almost all of them were LGBT uh especially transgender women it was like you know overwhelmingly like transgender women who were doing sex work were being murdered uh and in the middle of that I met Ali for I I'm actually met Ali F the first day I started working at safe space and Ali was a black non-binary youth uh well I say non-binary we didn't really have that language back in those days you

[15:27]  know part of the day Ali would be dressed as a male part of the day Ali would dress as female Ali would use both pronouns uh you know male and female um and it was like a desperate time for these kids they were they were really in in uh just a lot of violence a lot of hardship kids getting arrested all the time kids getting beaten up all the time um Carl do you mind if I ask you a question sure you know ali um the impact that he's made on you the community and the Legacy that he's left is incredible now there are people who continue to Advocate through amazing systems like the Ali for Center what was it about ali if we could time travel and

[16:14]  go back to that first time that you met him what would you think about ali like what was it about the character the you know the vibe of the individual that you knew that this was somebody who was special well I would say it you know honestly it probably took me a few months to realize how special Ali was uh the first time I met Ali was on my first day at work at safe space uh there was a transgender support group and uh it was in our basement and it was kind of in this room right next to where the kids had their lockers and would take showers so it was kind of damp and stinky and the the youth had me sit in a chair on one into the room and and they lined up on the other side of the room and

[17:01]  they all kind of walked like this imaginary Runway to to introduce to present themselves to me so one after another these transgender women just kind of walked down this Runway and struck a pose and told me their name and the last person was Ali Ali was not dressed as a female that at that moment but was wearing a wig I do remember that and uh so you know I was in awe of all those transgender kids I just felt like they dealt with so much persecution and harassment and I really admired them for being so true to themselves so you know as I got to know them I just had a tremendous admiration for their courage and their integrity um but as I got to know Ali some things started to stand

[17:49]  out uh I remember one day we did a lot of HIV prevention work like our kids were at very great risk of of HIV because of of their sex work um and uh so we had Outreach workers who would go out on the streets with with condoms and safe for sex information but we had this big pile of condoms in our lobby and I I remember watching Ali sticking up hundreds of condoms into into his napsack and you know I said to the staff like what would Ali do with all these condoms like who could do that much um and they were like oh Al famous for that Ali takes condoms out and gives them to all the the all of their friends doing sex work on the stroll um Ali would take food and and like you know give it to

[18:39]  kids who are hungry in the streets um there was just this sense of love and service that Ali embodied and it was in a time when these kids were treated like they were nothing like they had no human value and and Ali saw their value and and and saw that were worthy of love and and somehow you know was able to even though you know Ali was going through a lot of hardship themselves but but still Ali was able to to to be loving and to treat the young people like they had human value so that really struck me and then we would put on a talent show every year H you know kids would sing or lip syn or or you know dance and and and do

[19:31]  stuff like that and Ali I remember the first year closed the show uh sang Ali loved gospel music and Ali sang uh his eyes on the sparrow and then launched into this kind of free form preaching where you know Ali started going it doesn't matter if I if I wear a dress and a wig it doesn't matter how I walk it doesn't matter how I talk God loves me for who I am and um you know and God loves everyone for who they are and God has Mercy on all people and I I just felt like here's this kid who has experienced so much rejection and persecution and harassment

[20:20]  and brutality uh being able to hold on to this vision of of kind of divine love and mercy uh uh that Embraces everybody uh that that was really profound for me uh you know especially after what I'd gone through with my own Catholicism with seeing kind of homophobic stuff uh you know I felt kind of bitter about the homophobia that I'd experienced and and I saw this kid who was just so centered in love and and you know so it felt to me like Ali's example was calling me to be less bitter and more loving um at a time when when I'd kind of maybe hit a bump in my path uh and then after Ali was murdered you know it was horrible but Ali was one

[21:11]  of the seven young people that was murdered in that two-year period um I just ended up feeling like this incredible determination to create safe housing where the LGBT youth would have somewhere to go where they wouldn't be harassed where they could be accepted and loved for who they were and I always felt like Ali embodied everything that I wanted us to be you know I wanted us to accept and embrace and celebrate the young people for who they were and to give them a safe place where they could find that acceptance so that was why I decided to call it the Ali forent and an amazing tribute to somebody

[21:57]  who's unique genius right inspires other people to live in their truth and I feel like that's kind of an underlying current of this you know we come across people who are so comfortable showing up as they truly are that often it makes people recognize what a lie they've been living personally you know and I feel like there's few and far between of those spirits that we come across in life who Inspire us to do amazing work by other people yeah you know there's something weird about us human beings um we have a real capacity for a kind of blindness I think like we can just be blind to Injustice because of how things have always

[22:45]  been you know like during the time of slavery and Jim Crow like you know thousands of white people probably thought they were good and decent people while accepting and not fighting against something that was just so wrong and so evil and um when I started doing this work it was just accepted that the overwhelming majority of homeless kids in New York City had nowhere to stay like the city leaders didn't seem to have much of a problem with it you know the people running the nonprofit organizations didn't seem to have much of a problem with it and it was like that kind of blindness like you know that there's this terrible suffering you know born of

[23:34]  Injustice that that just isn't being seen and there are people who I think like give us like an antidote to that blindness like they they they they open our eyes and and for me Ali was that person like Ali's example showed me that it was not acceptable to to just live with the fact that these kids were stranded out in the street getting killed off one after another um so I'll always be very deeply grateful to to Ali you know something that I write about in my book you know I've written a memoir about me coming to know Ali and and how Ali's example uh created the Ali F Center or spur me on to create the Ali F Center something that was really

[24:22]  formative was um i' had mentioned that a number of the homeless transgender women were were murdered uh this was happening as mayor Giuliani was gentrifying Time Square and was doing a lot of brutal policing uh they would do these things called sweeps where in the middle of the night like police cars would just come swarming in from every direction and they would round up all the kids who were doing sex work and and drug dealing and then haul them off to jail and um that was what led to a lot of the deaths uh Time Square had been a neighborhood where where people kind of understood who a homeless transgender woman was and and didn't harass them

[25:10]  that much but they got pushed out of that neighborhood you know like that they were like I can't stay here because I'm getting arrested every night so they started going to other neighborhoods like Harlem or the South Bronx and and and and just after that one after another like the young people were getting murdered and um Ali would go to the police precincts where where these women were murdered and demand that they investigate the murders and you know not one homeless transgender woman that was murdered in New York City ever had their murders solved it was like the police couldn't be bothered it was like good riddance to bad rubbish and um

[25:59]  I thought it took so much courage for like a homeless black non-binary young person with an extensive arrest record themselves to storm into these police precincts and demand that they take the lives of these young people seriously um you know I I didn't hear this story until after I wrote the book but one of my co-workers at safe space uh one night realized that Ali was going to the local Precinct to you know get into it with the police about they not investigating one of the murders and you know he was scared for Ali like you know he was like this is a dangerous thing for for somebody like you to be doing so he went with him and this is what he said he said that Ali read the police to

[26:49]  filth uh you know which kind of like is in gay terminology is is you know you read somebody you're like you know just ter tearing them apart verbally and um you know my co-worker said that he learned so much from that about what it meant to be like a queer person and what it meant to like have the courage to stand up for your community um so I I um yeah Ali was one of the most remarkable people I've ever met I feel so fortunate to have spent three years of my life with Ali and and be able to to witness that capacity to love people to see through Injustice to kind of Pierce through that blindness and and treat people like

[27:38]  their lives matter um and so you know I I've really wanted every day of my life sense to somehow you know embody and reflect that uh you know you know when I was young I'm like okay I want to put love into practice and that can sound a little sappy you know but as you really do it as you fight the battles you realize there's nothing sappy about it it's it's hard work uh it calls for a lot of determination and a lot of Courage um and sometimes I think we could be lights for one another to help us see through the darkness and and Ali was one of those lights for me I had a guest on the podcast in the recent weeks he's a individual named Chris Nelson and I've shouted him out a couple times on the

[28:25]  podcast recently he's the uh CEO and founder of Freedom service dogs he trains dogs for veterans who need a four-legged battle buddy to overcome feelings of anxiety PTSD and in our conversation we had um a little bit of a segment where we talked about what it means to truly be Alpha in this world and he said you know when people think about Alpha social media the media in general talks about being big and tough and scary but the true definition of being Alpha is being compassionate is being empathetic is showing up for others when they need help and being that voice to inspire others to do what we truly know is right in situations of conflict or adversity and I feel like this is a conversation about what it truly means to be a great leader in today's world is

[29:13]  to be able to show up with compassion and love for other people and this is kind of a definition that I'm going to be doing a better job on the podcast of spreading a message because I'm inspired by people like Ali they really are the leaders the alphas of our society who are willing to put themselves in situation to lead from the front although they might be incredibly disadvantaged you know I used to think about this so much um you I'd go home at night on the subway after you know working with these homeless kids and um I remember so many times I would just look up and you would see these posters you know in the Subways for all the movies that were coming out and you know it would always be like some guy with a gun you know Shan Claud vanam with his gun uh Matt Damon with his gun uh Denzel Washington with his gun you know and

[30:04]  like we get told that that's what being strong and courageous is you know you're like this Fearless guy who goes around shooting the bad guys or something um you know and I would look at these homeless transgender women and at the courage that they would have to live their lives and it didn't look anything like that you know it didn't look anything like the Hollywood portrayal of of courage and bravery but it was so much more real and it was so much uh cooler than going around shooting people just the the authenticity of it though Carl do you know what I mean like when I made the statement a little earlier some people live in their truth and it shows other people what a lie they've been living you know what I mean

[30:51]  like that's a polarizing type of statement but when you can pick up on someone's authentic courage and trust and bravery in themselves and who they truly are I feel like we see such a an uproar in society because it is a subconscious example of maybe us not being brave enough to be who we truly are very transparently yeah yeah um I don't know I think like in some ways in our country we're dealing with like this disconnect um I don't know how to express this I think think I'm I'm I'm more thinking of like whiteness right now um but um I think there's something in the psychology of our country where we need

[31:38]  to think we're the good guys all the time uh and and we kind of need to be blind to the bad that has gotten us where we are sometimes um you know we're a country built on the genocide of of the Native populations were a country built on the sweat of enslaved people um and I think it's really scary for us to uh see the wrong that we've done but I don't think you can be authentic if you can't be honest about about who you are and where you come from and and how those things tie together the other thing about that stuff Carl is you know I'm a black man my father's black my mom is white my uh

[32:27]  great grandfather was a sharecropper in Arkansas traded his livelihood for a place in a piece of land that he could work to have a safe place for his family to live right and the examples that I often share is we have to remember how long ago those things were not we're talking two generations of men separate me from that experience of life and I feel like in this world of distraction right we often are very quick to say that was so long ago that doesn't influence any of the things that we experience here today in society but they definitely do yeah you know something I'll never forget the first Catholic Worker community that I joined when I was 18 like I actually left home the day I turned 18 and and and went to to live in this community in Washington

[33:17]  DC and this was in 1983 and um most of the people in our neighborhood uh were from North Carolina uh were black folks from North Carolina who had kind of come up in the 50s and 60s during the kind of Great Migration from the south to to the northern cities um I was 18 years old right and there were these guys that would live with us you know like homeless men that we'd welcome to live with us who were like in their 50s and 60s and they would all call me Mr Carl and I I remember like saying to my cooworker like I'm 18 years old why are they calling me Mr Carl and and they were like oh that's because of Jim Crowe

[34:06]  you know like they they were told that if they weren't you know subservient In Their Manners to to white folks that you know that their lives would be at risk you know I would beg them I when I realized that I was like this is awful I was like please don't call me Mr Carl and they they just you know it was so ingrained Tred in them you know so so I feel like that's in my you know that somehow entered in the DNA of my own lived experience like just seeing like what people went through with Jim Crow and um you know I mean Al's family was one of the families that kind of came from from the south like I think in the in the 1950s and 60s um you know and I I can't really

[34:55]  disconnect like the brutality that these young people faced and and the kind of governmental negligence that was willing to leave all these homeless kids in the street with the reality that most of them were black and brown you know and I think that that that was a in a way like me seeing like an unresolved remnant of of that kind of um devaluation Carl I think it's really important we've talked about the impact of Ali and we've talked about his lived experience we' talked about the tragedy of him passing too early talked a little bit about his legacy I want to talk about some of the the macro changes that we've seen in Inspiration because of

[35:42]  this now I know that by coming together you guys have also been able to influence policy as well and there was a huge amount of money that came in funding to be able to house homeless youth so let's talk a little bit about the macro impact and the change that's happened because of incidences like this sure so as I said when I started doing this work in in the mid 9s uh there was only one Youth Shelter it had you know about maybe 150 beds that were supported by the city and uh we would see about 3,000 kids a year at our Drop in Center um most of whom just had no access to shelter and then in 2002 I started the

[36:31]  Ali F Center but when I started it there was like no funding available for like a homeless LGBT Youth Shelter uh you know I at first I had to just Cobble together things with individual donations and some money that my grandmother had left me um and then in our early years it was still this reality that most of the young people worked with would wait for months to get into our beds and would just be stranded out in the streets and it was so scary for me like have having lived through these these murders you know of these kids who died in the streets Without Shelter you know I I just I found it terrifying you know like every day I would be scared that that

[37:20]  you know the next Ali would happen you know that that that one of these precious young people would get killed in the streets and um I really tried to push the city to um ramp up its its response to to homeless youth but uh it was a weird time it was like uh Mayor Bloomberg had had replaced Giuliani as as the mayor of New York and he just really had no interest in homeless kids and uh in fact every year he would do this budget proposal where he would propose cutting the funding in half uh at that point you know there were maybe 250 beds but there were thousands of kids in the street so you know he would propose cutting those 250

[38:09]  beds in half and the New York City Council would fight him on it and not let him cut but we needed so many more beds and I was really racking my brain trying to figure out a way to do this and change the dynamic now it was interesting because the LGBT community at that point was very focused on marriage equality uh that was sort of like it kind of was the galvanizing issue like we want to have our right to be married uh recognized and um there was a big fight going on to to make marriage equality the the law of New York State and both Mayor Bloomberg and the newly inaugurated Governor Cuomo around 2010 2011 really positioned themselves

[38:58]  as champions of marriage equality but both of them like were trying to cut the budgets for homeless kids you know and I was like how can you say that you're a champion for LGBT people if like you know half the homeless kids in New York are LGBT and you're you're like going to leave them in the streets so I ended up pulling together a group of of LGBT activists service providers and homeless kids themselves who joined with our efforts and we called ourselves the campaign for Youth Shelter and we started saying like you could not be supportive of the LGBT community as a political leader if you were going to

[39:44]  leave homeless kids out in the streets to suffer and die and um we really tried to pull in like all the power players in the LGBT community to to um fight for this and especially after marriage equality passed and became the law in New York state in 2011 a lot of the activists who had been fighting for that started fighting with us and it took a couple of years but we were demanding that they add a 100 beds to the Youth Shelter portfolio every year until such time as there were no longer waiting lists at the youth shelters and um we were able to get all of the LGBT political clubs uh the progressive

[40:33]  political clubs of New York City the LGBT newspaper they all made it part of their endorsement criteria you know that if if you wanted their endorsement as an elected official you had to say you were going to do this and by the time Mayor DeBlasio was elected in 2014 he had promised that he would do this and in fact uh he brought us over like the course of his mayoralty we went from having 250 beds to about 850 beds and those additional beds were transformative I mean you know whereas in before that like our kids would all be waiting for months to get a shelter bed uh you know by the time these beds were implemented like most of

[41:23]  the younger most of our youth would be able to get those beds within a day or two um you know so they wouldn't be stranded out in the streets and um you know we had all these rallies we would go and testify in the city hall we would sign petitions we would get all these churches to like call the politicians and say this is unacceptable to leave the kids out in the street it was this big push it took several years but um you know we ended up getting over $30 million a year invested in these kids you know who had been treated like crap like you know like like they like they were totally worthless can I read you something for my book where I just kind of reflect on what we did please Carl yes

[42:11]  absolutely okay and I'm a bad preparer because I meant to like set the page but I forgot so oh here it is all right so what I'm kind of doing here is is this is the very end of where I talk about this whole fight and I'm sort of reflecting on the difference but also on the spiritual aspect of it um and and I want to just before I do that you know the Stonewall riots that kind of set the LGBT movement in in in place uh you know it was a Stonewall Uprising it happened in August of 1969 and a lot of the foot soldiers in that

[43:00]  Riot were the homeless kids who lived out you know on the streets in in the West Village of New York City at the time um I met several of them and they told me how it was like the street kids who had fought the hardest and they were the ones who had nothing to lose uh and one of these kids you know well he's not a kid anymore he's like in his 70s now but but at the time he was like a street kid you know like a 19-year-old Street kid he was very religious and he told me that like when the the homeless kids kind of they uprooted a a parking meter and and they used it as a battering ram to break down the doors of the Stonewall Inn when the police had retreated inside after the uprising started he told me that when he saw them

[43:48]  tear down the doors it was like seeing the tomb of Christ breaking open on the morning of the Resurrection so that just kind of sets in motion something that this ends with so I wanted to say that story just so that what I'm about to read will make a little bit more sense beautiful our Victory transformed the landscape for all of New York City's homeless youth not just the LGBT ones because we got all these beds for everybody think of it our queer Community was able to compel a radical Reformation of the city's care of its most impoverished youths I was so proud I generally believe it's wise to be humble about one's identities both personal and Collective no group of people is without flaws just as no individual is perfect

[44:38]  but here as a queer person I feel able to boast wholeheartedly along with the courage of the Stonewall riers and the Ferocious determination and compassion with which our community responded to the needs of those with AIDS those months when I watched us come together and fight to protect our kids demonstrated what was best and strongest and most beautiful about our LGBT community we are a community attacked and vilified by Many religious leaders we are called groomers we are slandered as being somehow inherently harmful to Children yet how can anyone with a shred of spiritual awareness not see the sacredness of what we accomplished in the eyes of the world

[45:26]  the happenings in the lives of the Rich and powerful and glamorous are considered of utmost importance their whims their clothes their sex lives their conflicts their lifestyle blogs and social media Brands even the decor of their kitchens and bathrooms devour public attention I believe that what matters to God could not be more different those who are poor Outcast regarded with contempt they are the ones who are the most beloved in God's eyes for decades the queer youths of our city were treated as The Wretched of the earth beaten bullied scorned harassed persecuted left outside to die in the

[46:15]  streets by fighting to protect them our LGBT community became a vehicle of justice and love and as I see it an instrument of divine will together we broke broke through the door that separated our young people from the collective concern and brought them inside it was like seeing Christ's tomb breaking open Carl that is incredibly powerful well you know that's something I'm very proud that we were able to do and and it it gave me a lot of um hope and encouragement as a queer person to see so many queer people kind of come together and stand up for for these abandoned kids um I feel like I'm really lucky that I got to to be part of that and got to see that and I feel

[47:05]  like you know nothing is going to make the pain of Ali's getting killed on that home you know Ali was shot point blank in the head on a cold December sidewalk uh died homeless in the streets I mean nothing makes the pain of that go away but I'm grateful that I was able to go on a journey where I was able to have this beautiful outcome of of of so many young people being given safe housing to you know to come out of that horror what this is a a real example of is the underlying Humanity of people coming together and advocating for people who often don't have a voice you know we talk about the different labels

[47:53]  of people and everything like that but this is a true story about love and compassion like we started with our conversation and solidarity yeah yeah you know it's like if we can see our connectedness to each other if we can see that that we belong together if we can see you know if we're not so preoccupied with just fighting to protect ourselves and to enrich ourselves the beauty in humanity is our capacity to stand with one another and and I'm glad that I was able to to to see that beauty and and to be kind of entwined in the middle of of of a struggle like that it feels so good to sit across the table from somebody who's impacted so many lives so many voices who don't have the ability to stand up for themselves so many people who feel

[48:41]  compartmentalized in society separate from others like they aren't seen but you're somebody who sees through all of those challenges and gives a voice to the people very similar to Alli you know he was the Catalyst for the unification that you've created in the community the policies that you've change the funding that's come and the shelter that you've given to so many people in need well that that's very kind of you to say um I feel really lucky I mean you know I I feel like um it was a real blessing in my life that I got to know Ali and and got to kind of see Ali's goodness but I've also gotten to see thousands of other good people you know who kind of came like if thousands of people hadn't joined me if if there hadn't been so

[49:30]  many donors willing to to to fund our work if there hadn't been so many compassionate thoughtful generous people willing to share their lives with these young people like working with us you know if we hadn't had so many volunteers uh you know fight with us and and and and be with our young people I mean yeah I feel like I'm a a really lucky person that I've got to to be part of all this uh but you know it would be a false narrative to somehow put out that I did this like a lot of people did this um a lot of people came together uh you know I I might have been kind of a catalyst but but if if if thousands of others hadn't joined in none of this would have happened you

[50:19]  know it's a weird thing I feel like I've seen some of the worst of humanity you know when when these young people tell me like about you know their parents telling them that they're Abominations that they're you know sinful before God and that they throw them out in the streets that's awful you know it's like it's awful to see these kids who've had their lives torn apart by that kind of hatred and rejection um so I feel like that's some of the worst but then you know the the care and the love and the generosity that that people have come to try together to try to protect those kids has been you know some of the best so so yeah I I I mean you know when I say that I'm lucky I don't feel that I'm lucky

[51:07]  that I've had to hear these kids tell these stories um that's been really hard um you know I've listened to kids tell me about their suicide attempts you know I've listened to kids tell me what it's like to sleep out in the street and be you know scared to death and um you know some of that stuff is going to haunt I think until the day I die uh but I'm I'm just grateful that I have the you know like the love that so many people have shown is like the anchor that keeps me from drowning and all of that or the life raft that keeps me from drowning and all of that the justice that we can do by those people whose stories have been trusted in you who you create a safe enough space for people to be vulnerable about their experience the best thing that we can do is continue to

[51:55]  tell this story you know so even just you showing up here for this short hour of time is incredibly valuable because we don't know how this story is going to inspire and impact people who come across this someday yeah well that's why I decided to write my book I mean I felt like I've been in the middle of this incredible love story you know that that started with Ali and that kind of branched out into so many people that touched so many people you know I felt like it was an incredible story and and I I felt like you know I I really wanted to tell it so I I thank you Keenan for giving me the opportunity to talk about that here let's talk a little bit about how we can continue to support the Ali for Center how we can find your book so everybody can have an intimate relationship with

[52:43]  the story that you've shared and the experience the love story if you will that you've been in over all these years how can we find more you know I I hope that on your you'll have like a page for this podcast right so hopefully you you put like a link to the Ali for centers down in the description everybody y exactly uh it's www. alif center.org um you know I'll be real taking housing people in New York City costs a lot of money and we need to raise a lot of money every year and it's it's a lot of pressure and a lot of stress uh so if people are moved by this to to want to contribute to to our young people this is the time of year where we're trying to raise a lot of money to give you know you know over 15 young people live with us now uh you know in sight scattered around the city we we we don't like

[53:31]  doing like the big Warehouse shelter thing so we we rent and buy like many different little sites where we've got between like six eight young people living you know with staff supervision but we put a lot of time you know like the holidays are just a really depressing time for a lot of a lot of homeless kids it's like that's when you feel the the the pain of being rejected by your family the hardest so we put a lot of effort into trying to to give them as joyful and abundant a holiday you know both for Thanksgiving and Christmas as possible so this is a time of year we're doing a lot of fundraising so you know people want to support us that way you can also see on our website like different ways that people can volunteer you can I know that your podcast doesn't just get broadcast

[54:19]  in New York it gets everywhere we're actually working with groups around the country and even around the world who are uh developing and providing housing for homeless LGBT youth so you can even by visiting our our website you can find like the groups that we're working with around the country and around the world if you're looking to to support groups that are closer to your local community and and I would you know encourage people to do that I think you know people need the the to to look in their local communities and see where the need is most urgent um you know and then I here's my book making room three decades of fighting for beds belonging in a safe place for lgbtq youth it's quite a mouthful um but you could just you know maybe you put a

[55:11]  link to that too K that would be nice um but yeah you know like I tell the story in a much deeper and more intense way than I can possibly do in a you know in a 45 minute podcast but I I think it's a good read so I I encourage folks to read well I know that you know you have brought so much value to this conversation today you've been able to show the passion that you have for this work the lived experience those moments of Enlightenment that we talked about as a 15-year-old coming across the experience having a goose fly right past your head right and then having that moment of almost connection and ecstasy which informed the work that you do you know continuing to this day in the work that you will continue to do man you know I would say that there is a there is a burden that you have been blessed with to continue to tell this story and

[55:59]  I'm glad that you know the podcast could be a part of amplifying that voice and amplifying that story for you man well thank you Kenan and you know it seems to me that you have a very thoughtful and open and compassionate spirit and it's been a pleasure to to to discuss this with you you know one of the traditions we have here on the podcast Carl is we end by having our previous guest ask you a blind question now the previous guest wanted to know out of all of the experiences that you've had in overcoming adversity as you sit here today what does courage mean to you when I started working at safe space there was this woman named Sherry ham uh she was uh a black a straight black woman in her

[56:49]  mid-30s and there was something very childlike and very vulnerable about her as a matter of fact the first time I met her she kind of dragged me into the room that was going to become my office and started crying in my arms and I was like what's going on here and uh she started saying Pedro died Pedro died and and I was like who's Pedro and it was Pedro zamura who was like an HIV positive person on the real world back in the mid 90s that that MTV show uh turned out that Sher was HIV positive and you know she was so uh scared of her own death and she was um you know so so Pedro's death just you know really impacted

[57:37]  her and throughout my time with her she she and I worked together for maybe a year a year and a half uh when things would overwhelm her she would come into my office and cry and um she got sick and uh she had to resign you know she she did she was slowly getting sicker and sicker these were the days before there were viable treatments for AIDS so you know it was pretty much a death sentence and um she hadn't told many of her co-workers that that she had had AIDS like she was afraid that they would judge her or look down on her which was silly I mean we were a very accepting Community but that was just a fear that she had and on her last last day she

[58:27]  decided that she was going to you know tell everybody in our all staff meeting and the when the meeting was supposed to start two of my co-workers grabbed me and they were like you know Sherry's up in the kitchen crying like she's hysterical and she needs to talk to you so you know I went up to the kitchen and she was just weeping in my arms and saying she so scared she can't do this she can't tell them that she has AIDS she's just so scared and um you know I told her look Sher you don't have to tell them anything you could just leave or you know you you you don't even have to come to the meeting or you could just say that you know you're sick without telling them what you know it's just totally up to you and and and she's like no I have to tell them I can't just die

[59:14]  and have them not know and never have me told them so you know I had to go start the meeting and then like 5 minutes later she walks in totally poised you know sits there just calmly tells everybody that that she has AIDS and that she's getting sick and she's going to die soon and you know a lot of her co-workers started crying and she was like comforting them I'm sorry that I'm telling you such a long story Kanan but what I've learned from Sher and from so many others is that courage is not about being Fearless sometimes courage is about being scared to [ __ ] death and you still do what you think is right you know it's like and and I had so many times like I do these Ries and the

[1:00:06]  politicians would threaten to take my funding away and I'd be scared to death um you know and I realize that courage is not being Fearless courage is like you you cling to what your heart tells you is right it no matter how scared you are uh courage to me often feels like being scared to death um but you just you do what you think is right and I I apologize again for telling such a long story no stop stop apologizing Carl you know you've been you've been sharing some incredibly inite insightful stories that we can all connect with you know when I think of Courage I think you're exactly right with that definition being scared shitless and taking action anyway because you know it's the right thing to

[1:00:53]  do and I think that that's an imp important place for us to kind of put a pin in the episode today and once again man your ability to show up as you are share your story talk about the impact the experiences the Heartbreak the challenges that you've overcome I know is inspiring everybody who's tuning in watching and listening to this episode so I just want to say for everybody who's tuning in man thank you so much for being who you are oh thank you K and that's a wrap