Folded Corners
The Four Corners block was created as an optical illusion of a piece of fabric with the corners folded in. It is a more complicated version of the traditional Nine Patch block.
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Raneem Salem
Community Activist
I was so excited to meet with Marlo because of their extensive community work around Price Hill. They have made their career in helping those around them, and have some fascinating things to say about community issues. We talked about their activism, the difficult side of the Cincy music scene, the pain of capitalism, and what we each owe to one another.
CW: oppression, discrimination, abuse
So now that we're recording why don't you tell me your name, your pronouns, and why you think I asked you to be here today.
My name is Marlo Salem my pronouns are they/them/theirs and did you say why I think I should be here today? I do a lot of community organizing and it's a big part of my identity and it's a lot of what I do in my life.
That's awesome! We are going to be making this pattern today. This is one of the samples that I did to get verification for my project. Do you have any sewing experience?
I do some really mediocre embroidery.
I love that. You're going to be great.
And I do partial hems and stuff. This is exciting.
So we are going to be making this pattern but the colors are going to be different. So the basics of sewing is you want right sides together- so this fabric does have a right side, it's got the lighter side in the darker. But this white fabric doesn't. So we're going to be doing a couple of seams. Do not feel that you have to sit here until it's done because you do not. As soon as you get bored or you need to be elsewhere you can trust that I will finish this by myself.
I've got till about 3 so we've got time.
Okay awesome. I'm going to get us each a little needle to get us started. Why is it so important to you to be a part of all of these community projects?
It's not just important it's the only thing that there is. This is really metal dramatic but I just can't see a way that I would want to be living and not have my life’s primary goal to be pouring into the community.
Why is that?
There’s a lot of existential questions there. Like what's the purpose of life? You know, it's kind of an age that we’re in where you just need to spend a lot of money to go to school to exploit your labor for someone. You still have to make a living, but what's the point of it all?
That's always been really important to me. I think I've come from a family that thinks family and community is really crucial to existence. It differs a lot from American independent values of ‘you're 18 you're out on your own’. And I think a lot of harm is done by that. It's just the most important thing in the world to me. I don't really feel like I'm really living if I'm not doing these things.
What did you think you were going to be doing when you were a kid? You probably didn't imagine this.
No, I didn't at all. There were so many things I wanted to do when I was a kid. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon. I want to be a lawyer. I wanted to be an animal rights activist. I wanted to- gosh there were so many things.
So when did that change for you?
It changed when I started doing choir in middle school. Then I wanted to be a music teacher. So music was kind of my thing and I ended up going to school for music education and vocal performance. But I dropped out after a year because like ‘I know that this is where I want to be but I don't think this is what I want to be doing’. I don't want to be a school teacher. I ended up finding my way back anyway.
So are you not a school teacher now?
I'm not. I'm the artistic programs coordinator at Price Hill Will. I do a lot with youth music programming. Price Hill Will runs MYCincinnati which was a free daily Youth Orchestra program. I work with them coordinate the Price Hill Creative Community Festival. That's also one of their artistic programs. And there's a couple other arts programs that are coming up this year that I also work on in addition to Girls Rock. I got a degree in professional writing because I have no idea what I was doing. I just knew that I would figure it out as I went, so might as well just find a skill set and get good at it- which was communications stuff. Then I found my way into these positions and never expected to be in my dream job after dropping out of music school.
What school did you go to?
I went to Miami. Yeah it wasn't the best.
So you would say you are doing a dream job now? Your adult dream job.
Absolutely. It's one that I never thought existed, so it found me and I found it. Happily ever after.
So you are going into the second summer of Girls Rock now? Tell me a little about that.
Yeah! So Girls Rock camps having been happening since 2001 in Portland. There's a national alliance of camps, we’re a pending member of the national alliance across the US. I got involved through Girls Rock Columbus and volunteered with them for a couple years and decided that I wanted to start one here because we really needed it. And so I did with the help of some really amazing friends and colleagues. We did our first camp last year in August. We had nine campers and about 50 volunteers. All of our money was raised through donations at events. We used the space at the school for MYCincinnati. It's a big old firehouse in Price Hill. So we got to use their space and put on this little tiny camp and had like 200 people come out to our final performance. It's just been growing ever since. We're on our second year now. Our organizing team has doubled. We are pending 501(c) nonprofit status. I just got notice that we are finalists for a mini grant through Xavier. I'm going to go present to win that next week. It accelerated really quickly. It's been great. It's another thing I never would have imagined I would find myself doing. I think I'm not giving myself enough credit. I've always known that I would want to do these things but it's a really pleasant surprise it's actually happening.
It's becoming real for you. You said being part of your community and contributing to that is one of the most important things to you. What would you define your community as? Is it a geographic community? Is it kind of a hobby or passion based thing?
Yeah so diaspora is a really important concept to me as a first-generation Arab American. I believe that especially in a very technologically connected time that we're in, I think that community is a lot broader than a physical location. I think Cincinnati is dear to me because I grew up here. But if you had asked me a year-and-a-half ago if I would still live here right now I would say no. Because I wasn't planning on staying.
So why did you decide to stay?
Something was pulling me. I didn't know what it was and I had actually taken the LSAT and applied for law school and visited schools and was getting ready to leave the city. And then the application period came and went and I just didn't. I couldn't figure out why. I've been the coordinator for the Price Hill Creative Community Festival for the last four years but it was a temporary summer job. I was in college at the time when I was doing it, so it wasn't a big deal that wasn’t permanent. I had graduated and didn't know what the fuck I was doing and needed a full-time job. I was really unhappy in social work and what I was doing at the time. I was just ready to leave. After this last festival over the summer I got offered a full-time position. Then it kind of clicked for me. This is why it all kind of worked out. But for that whole year I just had no idea why it was drawing me. But to answer your previous question I think it's less about the activity.
Talk a little bit about that.
I think there's a lot of dialogue on 'your friends shouldn't be your therapist'.
That's a phrase that has come up in a previous interview I've done actually.
If you say you're about abolition and you go through something with consent issues or somebody who has done shitty things in the scene it's the people around them. I'm not trying to put the onus on anyone who shouldn’t be doing undo labor. I think that line is really clear. You know if you're the person who shouldn't have to be doing it. If you're a victim of abuse you shouldn't have to be the one to tell your abuser what they're doing wrong. If you are the victim of racism as a person of color you shouldn't have to be telling racist off. But the people in those circles who have no otherwise connection to the trauma- it's their responsibility to call people in and hold each other accountable and to do the work. You have to preserve your community. Help each other out. I think I'm going off on a tangent but essentially we need to put in the work for each other. It's not an easy thing. It's much easier to just assume that people need to take care of themselves on their own. That's just not how we're built to survive.
No, that tangent is awesome. And funnily enough I've done it a couple of these interview so far and that type of idea comes up from the weirdest places. I was talking to someone about their store where they sell music the other day and they were telling me about really similar situations. Deciding what we owe to each other. What bosses owe to their employees. What neighbors owe to neighbors. And I think that's definitely something I would be interested in talking about if you want to say more than that.
Yeah! I think especially within newer social justice circles the instinct to say 'Google it I don't owe you my labor' is so funny how it's been like mangled from the original intent. Which was by activist of color who straight up don't know people their labor. When you're talking about extremely violent situations where there is explicit racism involved or oppression involved and the person directly at the bullseye- it is not their duty to educate other people. But then it got adopted by these white docile college leftists to say that 'I know more than you do and I don't owe you my labor. I don't owe what to you to teach you about it'. When you do. That's exactly what the point is. That's exactly who should be doing it.
Because otherwise where is anyone going to get that from?
Exactly. They're not going to get it from Googling. As much as people want to stay that they will. I had a I was a segment host on a radio talk show a while ago. I named it ‘Calling In’ for the same reasons. It's for the same reasons that it just becomes very easy for the people who absolutely should be doing the work to say ‘I don't owe that to you’. And I think about it a lot in our political climate.
Can you speak a little bit about how that idea relates to forgiveness?
Yeah. I think we have to have grace with each other. It's really easy to take things personally and in a certain respect you should. Right? I'll just preface the rest of this conversation with like if you know that you should not be having to do this work then you shouldn't.
But forgiveness is so important. It's the hardest thing that nobody wants to. Because it can become extremely personal when it feels like your identity is being attacked. So to conflate these political ideals with being an actual attack on individuals I think is a lot of what's happening. When we're overlooking the bigger picture. It's the systems that be that will continue to divide us. If we don't learn to have a little bit of grace and had a little bit of context and to forgive each other for what we don't know then how are you supposed to know if you don't know already? How are you supposed to do better if there was never anybody to teach you? In actuality leftist ideology is not accessible. A lot of the people who are invested in educating the masses aren't actually doing the work to reach the people they're not already reaching. So if you’re not actually putting forth the work to make it accessible and reach the people that you're disagreeing with in ways that you're meeting them where they're at, then you can't complain that these people are targeting you or voting against your well-being. There's just so little that can actually be done by forcing. And so many of our great black activists in our country have said time and time again that divisiveness is an intentional political act.
I think that's something people get really caught up in. And nobody is immune to propaganda. I say these things very freely but I don't talk about them publicly too often because I feel like I would be hung at the stake or something. Because you're not supposed to have any forgiveness. You're not supposed to.
Is that something you worry about for yourself?
Not as much as I should probably. I used to be really a lot more invested in it when I was doing a lot of things with factors that I couldn't control. I used to book shows at my house when I was living in Oxford. I didn't always get to know the bands who were coming through. I didn't ever get a chance to know all the people who are coming through my house. A lot of things happened. Things that I took responsibility for because it was under my roof. That was really stressful and even now whenever I book shows for my own music projects I play out very rarely because I need to make sure that the people that I associate with are aligning with my values. And so with girls rock it's really easy to do because we have a pretty rigorous screening for volunteers and organizers.
What does that look like?
On our organizers app we ask if they align with our mission and values. We ask them to pick maybe one or two talking points from it to answer a question about. Those questions are a lot about primarily racial equity. That's one of things where as soon as somebody answers a question about that I know where they stand. I know whether or not they align with our organization. So for our organizers we started with 3 people last year and we added on three others to our leadership team this year. For their interview process we asked them to write about what their commitment to racial equity looks like. We asked how the work they will be doing in their position with Girls Rock will actually enact that in specifics. So the things that I'm weeding out for is transphobia and white saviorship mentality.
We also go through a four-hour volunteer staff training before camp starts. We do two hours of the four that are dedicated to a safety training on confronting privilege and racial equity and identifying the difference between microaggression and macroaggressions over racism etc. We do conversation starters. It's really getting them to think about where they stand on how they talk about these issues because it's one thing to have these ideals and visions and values and it's another thing to actually be able to talk about ‘I have a hard time talking about racism because I'm white and grew up in an affluent area and I have a hard time talking about transmisogyny because I'm a cis white woman or I have a hard time talking about class because I grew up with a lot of financial privilege’. Getting people to actually vocalize that is really crucial and really interesting. I have such a thorough process because I have been burned many times by making assumptions that people are on the same page as me in terms of politics and values.
In your work with girls rock or just generally?
Just generally more so with musical alliances. I'll team up with people on things and think that we're on the same page and we're definitely not.
So you definitely do not have to give an example but what do you do when you realize that you've hurt someone or you weren't as kind as you could have been or didn't know something that would have allowed you to be kinder?
In those situations I definitely try to take myself out of it a little bit because I definitely have the tendency to just take it really personally. Because how could you not, right? Especially when it's something that's so dear to you. I'm trying to think of an example. I've been, I don't want to say lucky enough, but I haven't been involved in too many major conflicts like that. I try to take myself out of it a little bit and just be extremely non-defensive. I want to take the time to learn where people are willing to educate me. I want to take a lot of time to learn for myself and whatever space it was involved in I will usually back out of it for a little while just to make sure that I'm not going to be taking up space where I shouldn't. That can be really difficult. It can be really really difficult. It's definitely not a perfect science. It never feels good. You never want to be in a position where people are calling your character into question.
I think it's how you deal with that situation that matters though. A big problem with the way that I used to, especially when I was younger and in high school, call people out was that I would essentially be cancelling someone. ‘You have done a shitty thing. Now because of this thing you’ve done you are a bad person. Any moves you make to fix that will be pandering.’ I think that's so sad because when you're doing that I feel like what I'm doing is adding to the count of decidedly bad stuff in the world and preventing that person from maybe improving themselves and learning and talking to me and having a better conversation. That's just no way to live.
I will say I can probably speak more to having been the person who has called others out. More than I've been called out. I think the way that I've handle that is arguably equally as bad. It's very much just putting people on blast and not in the interest of actually helping the community. It's just in the interest of getting vindication. Me needing to see that person suffer in the public eye. You know, it would be situations where I would know what happened but the other person didn't necessarily know how I felt about it. I didn't feel like it was my responsibility to tell them. I suppose it wasn't. But I don't think that it was effective. What are you trying to get out of it? Is it just to see somebody suffer? Do you just want vindication for that? Or is it to actually hope that they don't do those things to other people again. One or the other they have very different results. They have extremely different ways of approaching them.
I think that's very true. And it's always important to just consider that every situation is different and every person is different. Recently I had my own situation where I was abused by my partner and almost immediately moved to forgiveness and to talking about understanding what happened and understanding why feelings got hurt. That was a way for me to deal with it. But if a friend of mine who’d been through a similar situation saw the way that I was handling that was like ‘man I feel so guilty. I just canceled my abuser. I didn't even try to forgive anybody’. That doesn’t work. I don't think that method is good for everybody. You can't compare situations like that.
No you really can't. It's all based on context. It's really all contextual. [talking about sewing] This is so much fun.
Do you like it? I'm glad. some people get weirded out when I ask them to sew with me.
I wasn't expecting it but this is a nice craft. Yeah I just went through something really similarly and I kind of did both ends of that. My first reaction was to cancel them and call them out and get them ostracized from every group that they're part of. And then I took a step back and went through my mental checklist of ‘were they harmful to me or are they actually a danger to society?’ If I don't want them to commit interpersonal violence again with one of their partners and if that's what I care about more than getting my revenge then what are the steps that need to be taken? So like a year-and-a-half later I had a conversation with her. I said that ‘I don't think you understand the gravity of what you did with in our relationship. I need you to know these things so that you don't do them to other people’.
Yeah that's fucked up! Yeah I wasn't expecting to talk about all of that but I guess it's all connected.
It is! Because what you do is so about your values.
Yeah. Exactly.
Why don't you tell us a little bit more about the other Price Hill projects that you are part of.
Yeah I'd love to talk about it. So MYCincinnati is a free daily youth orchestra that's been going on for ten years now. They started with 11 students with borrowed instruments in a school library. Now they’re in their old facility that they own in a big old firehouse with 130 students that come daily after school. It’s remarkable. I can't take any credit for what they do in that organization. I only have the privilege to work with them sometimes. It's a program of Price Hill Will which is the nonprofit that I work for. In Price Hill Will there are four other major art programs happening. So the Price Hill Community Festival is one. I've been the coordinator of that for the last four years but now that I am full-time it's just part of the many things that I do. We are working on a historic district called the Warsaw Avenue Creative Campus. They purchased like 8 buildings including the firehouse that will be activated into an all-ages, year-round arts program for the community. Which is going to be really sick. So that should be opening once renovations are done in the building- probably done by next year sometime. We're working with elements like Artworks and organizations like that who are going to be renting out. Girls Rock will probably be renting one of the spaces. And then there's the 10-million-dollar grant to renovate an old masonic lodge. This masonic lodge is going to be a community arts and event space. I'm going to just go ahead and call it the title we've been working on that's been highly contested in all of the circles. Which is ARCO. Which is a portmanteau for Arts and Community, but it also means ‘with the bow’ when you're talking in classical musical terms. And it also means arch. So there's a lot of meaning behind it. It's going to be a beautiful space. We are very excited about it and so with that we are running a community curatorial collective who is going to be programming the first season of performances at ARCO. So that's going to be a group of Price Hill neighborhood residents that we're still accepting nominations for right now. We're going to engage in a lot of different kinds of training. Professional development. Stuff like that to be able to carry the season of performances for 2021.
That's so exciting.
It's extremely exciting. All of this is brand-new. And it's really great. I think that's it. And then MYCincinnati is pretty self-sustaining at this point. I don't do a lot with them anymore. I do play in their adult orchestra. I started learning viola this year. I've been wanting to do it forever but because I was just working part-time in Price Hill I wasn't really allowed to. But now that I'm full-time if you live or work in Price Hill you get to participate.
So you just started to learn and now you're in an orchestra? That's incredible. Oh my God.
Yeah it's a beginner's orchestra for adults. And it's free just like MYCincinnati. We have a concert coming up on Thursday. We're playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Ode to Joy.
That is beautiful.
It’s awesome. I'm having a great time with it.
Is it a lot of just beginners? Is everyone there new?
Yes and there's an intermediate orchestra for people who have been there for a couple of years.
So how is that coming? Are you getting good yet?
I'm having a great time with this too though which is all that matters.
I'm glad to hear that. Yeah one thing that a lot of more experienced quilters will say is that it's important that all your corners meet up or that it's important that all your stitches are even. But this project is all about the experience of this right here. This is the point. The rest is collateral. It's awesome that we're getting this thing that's aesthetically pleasing. But I really want to focus on meeting new people, which is not something I like to do. I'm forming new relationships. And also these interviews are publishing ideas that people wouldn't hear unless they knew you. We're getting words out to larger audiences.
I really appreciate that. I love doing something that will kind of memorialize this conversation together. It's really cool. It's really cool work.
What other concepts, ideas, events would you like the people who don't have access to your beautiful face everyday to hear about?
Do you try to get most of the campers' tuitions covered?
If our campers can't pay then they don't pay. If they're able to then they do.
So if someone wants to go to camp?
Then they go to camp. If they can't get access to transportation we will arrange for a budget for rideshares or for Metro passes or for carpooling with other parents. Accessibility is extremely important to us. Though I will say that our venue isn't physically/ mobility wise accessible. It's in a 3 floor historic firehouse. That's something that's really bothering me. But we do what we can. I would rather have camp and at least start it so we can start to build up that foundation to be able to get bigger grants to get our own facility than not do it. I want it to be as inclusive as possible.
Has that been a big hurdle so far?
Accessibility? No because it’s built into what we do. It's not something we have to account for but something that we know that we're doing. I've made that pretty clear from the start. We are not here to siphon tuition money out of families. We got asked to present an award at the Cincy Entertainment Awards a couple months ago. The band who received the award that we presented got up on the stage and said some of the most vulgar bullshit that I have heard ever.
What were they talking about?
He was just drunk and being an ass and saying a bunch of shit about like starting his speech with ‘Epstein didn't kill himself’.
So he was just memeing?
Yeah. And then he ended it with ‘fuck her in the pussy’. While we had just given this really heartfelt ‘this is who we are, thanks for having us here’. I messaged their band later because I was infuriated. I was like ‘these are the ways you can directly help us right now to make up for that’. The singer responded with like ‘we weren't there, we’ve been a band for 10 years, he's only been drumming with us for a couple months’ or something. Just excuses. He sent us an apology after and was like ‘I'm just a drunk man child. I can't do anything but apologize right now’. I was like ‘what you can do is here is our venmo. Send $150 to Girls Rock Cincinnati right now. Support a camper because you are precisely the reason why we are doing this’.
Did they do that?
No. But I was hopeful.
That must have felt so awful. So you didn't know who you were presenting the award to at all?
No. I mean we got the card right before we went on stage, but I didn't know who they were.
And that's an opportunity that you were taking to get the word out to people who may not know about this entity before. To say your values. To give a speech. And then it turned into this other thing.
It perfectly encapsulated in 30 seconds exactly what the Cincy music scene is. But yeah I would say support young people. Don't take things so personally. Educate yourself first and foremost. Pour into your communities. When you walk through a door bring five more with you. These are all values that I've picked up on from incredible black and brown and native scholars and activists- who I am doing a really poor job at remembering their names right now. But know that these are not just me. They're not just my ideals. These are definitely taken from people who have done it better than us. And they continue to do it better than us. But just being good to each other is so important.
What else do we have?
Nothing. Truly nothing.
Do you want to speak a little bit on what your feelings are about the Cincy music scene? You're actually not the first person to bring that up with me.
Well god. What can I say? It's riddled with rapists, abusers, white apologists, and just shitty people. The people that get ahead are getting ahead for nepotism.
Yeah that's a big part of it too. Do you think that's the Cincy music scene or is it just the general culture?
Oh I think it's the general culture but Cincinnati, weirdly enough, is more insidious than most scenes that I've been in for whatever reason. I think it is because we are at that size where we're not quite huge. We're not quite small. So there are opportunities but the big opportunities go to the same five people. It's fucked up. All of our venues- the people who booked our biggest venues- are all abusers. And they're all white dudes. And the DIY spaces don't exist because we don't really have a system in place to make them sustainable. Which is really unfortunate. Which is also why
And then when you do see more diverse bills- in heavy quotes- it's the same three people who are being exploited by the same three people. So I'd be really curious what others have to say about it.
I think the nepotism thing is something that comes up a lot. Because that is so true. Both in the Cincy music and Cincy the art scene. It's a lot of the same people who know a lot of the same people and that's how things get ahead and that's how things get funding and attention, etc. etc.
Yeah exactly. And if you're not one of those 5 people you're fucked.
What do you do to deal with that or to circumvent that?
That's a good question. I think just putting in the work to carve out spaces on your own- which you shouldn't have to be doing. But if the work has to be done and I'm able to then I'll do it. But it's fucking exhausting.
It is exhausting and it's taking a lot of your time and your enjoyment of your day.
Exactly and the shitty thing is most of the time it results in me just not engaging. Which shouldn’t have to happen. Yeah it sucks that the result is… the ideal would A. be that white men aren't in charge of everything. B. If do have to be in charge of everything at least notice that were struggling. Make space for us. Or if not make space for us then take space away from yourself so that we can fill it. But what ends up happening is that we struggle and struggle and struggle and struggle. Everybody at the top is just like ‘oh that's cute… sorry. I can get you a Thursday night slot four months from now’. And then you just end up not doing it. There have been so many times when I had shows booked at these bigger venues. They've double-booked us. It doesn't happen to anybody else. Because it's really telling who they care about and who they don't. It's really messed up.
It is really messed up. Yeah. Sorry I didn't mean to upset you in this interview.
No, I complain about these things all the time. It's really nothing new to me. Are there under things you were interested in talking about?
Yes. I definitely wanted to hear about your volunteer work and one thing that is being hit on really hard right now in my life is like- you have to make money. You must go out and get a job work for some illustrious company and make Mom and Dad proud. And stuff like that. And I think that I've been learning as I'm growing and becoming my own person that making money and just doesn't speak to me. It's not the most important thing in my day. It's not the most important part of my life.
Yeah that's the struggle. It's damn near impossible to do all the things that you want to and still be able to survive. I think that I got extremely lucky to get paid for what I love to do. I don't get paid for Girls Rock. That is exclusively volunteer work. But I think because I already had those built-in resources with my job that pays that I'm able to do what I do. I don't think that if I worked a 9 to 5 at any other place that I would be able to have the time, the capacity, the help, and the resources to pull off such a giant volunteer project. Which breaks my heart because I can’t say that this would exist outside of me doing it. I can't say that I would have time to volunteer for it. It really blows. But I think the answer is that I don't make time. There's really very little. I think I just got extremely lucky that I got a job in what I love to do.
Yeah that's amazing. It's so rare too.
It's extremely rare. I don't know how it happened. I'm still kind of in shock. I got this job in August [interview recorded in March]. It still hasn't hit me yet.
Do you think there's maybe an alternate universe where you did end up being a surgeon and you did end up doing all these things you imagined you might do or was this the path? Is this what you are supposed to be doing?
I think I knew that being a doctor, being a lawyer, doing the thing that would make my parents proud wasn't the best choice for me. So I waited. And it paid off. But I just knew that I didn't want to do those things. I knew that I couldn't leave yet. And then I found it. And I think if I hadn't then I definitely would have been gone right now. But yeah you make the choice that feels best at the time with the information that you have.
It sounds like you made some really awesome choices. You're doing what you want to do.
Yeah if you would ask me a year ago if I thought that I would be here right now there's no way. There is absolutely no way.
It's very reassuring to hear you say that.
How old are you?
23.
Okay, yeah, I don't know what I was doing at 23. I'm about to be 25 and I still mostly don't know what I'm doing. But it gets easier. I think what was really reassuring and also terrifying was that nobody really knows what they're doing. At every age.
That's what I'm finding out. I think one thing I was talking about with someone the other day was being in your 30s or older and feeling like you're not an adult yet. And one reason this person was telling me they were feeling that way is because of heteronormativity. When you're 35 you have a partner. You have kids. You have a house. And for so many people that's never what their life is going to look like.
I think that's funny because when I was coming into my queerness and my polyamory and knew that those things were never going to be my life is what I was able to let go of a lot of the stress of what I should be doing. Because you very much craft what you need. You create the life that you need and want. And it's a lot more freeing than feeling like you are failing at every turn to match up with what's expected. Also, in terms of making time for volunteer stuff, this is another aspect where community support really comes in. A lot more people would be able to volunteer if we distributed the home care across the board. If we provided food and childcare so many people would show up. If we helped out with transportation. If we meet at times when people could come then you would have so much more support. And people want to get involved. So why deny it to them because you're putting it in at a really inaccessible place or time and they have nowhere for their kids to be. I do think that if you want to volunteer don't grandstand and just do the most showy position. See if anybody needs childcare so that they get to show up. That’s something I think about a lot. I think that my family has given me a really wonderful example of what showing up looks like. My parents were born in a really small rural town in Jordan. We have a really big community here of Arab immigrants. So my aunt's been in the hospital all week. She just had open heart surgery.
I'm sorry to hear that.
She's doing okay though. So it's fine but I appreciate it. And the ways that everyone was able to help. It's just really intuitive how they shift off labor. Household labor. In order to be there and show up for each other. If I can't personally be at the hospital then I'll go bring food to my family who are there. Or I can go babysit so that my aunt can be there with her sister. Then that's what you do. That's just how it's always been. I really appreciate that and admire that example.
That is so important. And we imagine work as being this very clear thing. It's when you go to a job when you clock in and you're doing this purposeful work for a man. For another person. And so often that's not what it looks like.
No not at all. Yeah I think that care labor and household labor is really under spoken.
What else is on your mind that you would like to share?
Huh. That's a good question. I don't know. I think I've talked about a lot of the things that I've been thinking about lately. I think talking about burnout is really important. I do a lot of things and it's not at no cost. I'm getting ready to go out of town just for a day and a half with my partner to a random Airbnb in Kentucky with a hot tub because I am going to collapse.
Yeah. And you deserve to focus on yourself sometimes.
Yeah and so I think that everything that I've said so far really indicates my extremely self-sacrificial nature. I do not encourage other people to be running at the pace that I'm running at.
It's one of the hardest lessons I've ever had to learn and I'm still not doing a great job at it. Yeah don't scab on your volunteers. Let people help you. That's something that I've always had a really hard time doing.
I'm glad to hear you say that. Because you do so much. Hearing you talk about how much you're doing is astonishing. I can't imagine doing that many things.
Every single minute of my life is accounted for. My schedule is booked out through August.
Do you just enjoy being busy?
It's really masochistic. I don't think that I necessarily enjoy it but I need it. And I think that's just a symptom of anxiety. And not knowing what to do with myself if I'm not doing something.
That makes sense.
Or feeling like I'm not doing enough if I'm resting. But rest is really revolutionary. It's extremely important. I don't do enough of it. And I don't think I set a very good example. I don't think I set a very good example for people who want to do a lot of things. I do not take the time for myself. I'm in three different bands. An orchestra. I have a full-time job. I run Girls Rock on top of my full-time job. I have multiple partners. I have my family that I see. I have a dog. There's no time left. For anything.
I'm so glad to hear that you're going away. Thank God.
I know. It's been really necessary.
What do you most looking forward to about your trip?
Just being in a hot tub with my partner and not having any looming deadlines for the next 24 hours. Turning off my email notifications. Guess how many notifications I get in a day. Take a stab.
300.
That's close its like 250. I'm so excited to turn my notifications off. But I'm also supposed to be going to Seattle on a work trip. But it's like the hotbed of coronavirus right now. I'm probably still going to go. But that'll be next week. I am excited. I'm excited to get out of town and break up my monotony for a second. It's funny that I do so many things and it still feels all the same.
It feels like you're in monotony? I would think that it would feel so very crazy.
It's pretty chaotic. It feels like I'm on the highway with no exit ramp. Just going. So I'd love to tell people to not do what I'm doing. Get involved where you can. But don't make the mistake of sacrificing yourself for the things you feel like you need to be doing.
Are you ever going to take your own advice?
I'm trying. I like the fact that I have a team of organizers that I'm not just doing Girls Rock by myself. I might take my own advice someday. We'll see.
At least for a weekend.
At least for a weekend. But it changed my mind on it a lot when my roommate said that thing about not scabbing on your volunteers. Because also when you try to do it all yourself, you're not living the values. For me at least I'm not living the values that I speak of which is giving other people opportunities. If I'm doing everything with then where do other people get to fit in? Where do they get to find community? If I'm denying them that.
Do you do outreach? For volunteers. Or do you find that a lot of people already now?
No honestly we do. A lot of our friends volunteer, yes. But a lot of our volunteers I had never met them in my life. One of our volunteers who we found through CCM is now one of the double bass instructors at MYCincinnati. She found out about the job after volunteering at camp. But no, it's a lot of random people that have come together. Which is really beautiful. But we definitely try to diversify our volunteer pool.
Are you interested in talking at all about your personal relationships?
Sure. I'm always open to talk about it. I'm non-binary and queer. I identify as a dyke for a really long time. But I got scared away from the politics of having some imposter syndrome stuff going on. But otherwise, yes, I very much identify as a dyke and non-binary. I've been polyamorous for a number of years. Probably since I started dating. So when I was like 19. Didn't do it well at the beginning. Did not do it well.
That's what I hear most of the time.
But it’s a learning process. I think most of my education and my values within relationship anarchy very much inform my values in my community stuff. You know the concepts of non-scarcity and communication and consent. And building things the way that you need them to be built. With others in mind.
And you pretty consciously apply that to your personal life?
Yeah it's really intentional.
Is it? So you don't just think that comes instinctively?
No. I don't think so at all. It's not stuff that we’re used to. We're not taught how to do these things. There's no example.
So now that we're recording why don't you tell me your name, your pronouns, and why you think I asked you to be here today.
My name is Marlo Salem my pronouns are they/them/theirs and did you say why I think I should be here today? I do a lot of community organizing and it's a big part of my identity and it's a lot of what I do in my life.
That's awesome! We are going to be making this pattern today. This is one of the samples that I did to get verification for my project. Do you have any sewing experience?
I do some really mediocre embroidery.
I love that. You're going to be great.
And I do partial hems and stuff. This is exciting.
So we are going to be making this pattern but the colors are going to be different. So the basics of sewing is you want right sides together- so this fabric does have a right side, it's got the lighter side in the darker. But this white fabric doesn't. So we're going to be doing a couple of seams. Do not feel that you have to sit here until it's done because you do not. As soon as you get bored or you need to be elsewhere you can trust that I will finish this by myself.
I've got till about 3 so we've got time.
Okay awesome. I'm going to get us each a little needle to get us started. Why is it so important to you to be a part of all of these community projects?
It's not just important it's the only thing that there is. This is really metal dramatic but I just can't see a way that I would want to be living and not have my life’s primary goal to be pouring into the community.
Why is that?
There’s a lot of existential questions there. Like what's the purpose of life? You know, it's kind of an age that we’re in where you just need to spend a lot of money to go to school to exploit your labor for someone. You still have to make a living, but what's the point of it all?
FOR ME THE POINT OF HUMANITY AND WHY WE'RE ALL HERE IS TO SUPPORT AND UPLIFT EACH OTHER. SO IF I'M ABLE TO, THEN I WILL.
That's always been really important to me. I think I've come from a family that thinks family and community is really crucial to existence. It differs a lot from American independent values of ‘you're 18 you're out on your own’. And I think a lot of harm is done by that. It's just the most important thing in the world to me. I don't really feel like I'm really living if I'm not doing these things.
What did you think you were going to be doing when you were a kid? You probably didn't imagine this.
No, I didn't at all. There were so many things I wanted to do when I was a kid. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon. I want to be a lawyer. I wanted to be an animal rights activist. I wanted to- gosh there were so many things.
So when did that change for you?
It changed when I started doing choir in middle school. Then I wanted to be a music teacher. So music was kind of my thing and I ended up going to school for music education and vocal performance. But I dropped out after a year because like ‘I know that this is where I want to be but I don't think this is what I want to be doing’. I don't want to be a school teacher. I ended up finding my way back anyway.
So are you not a school teacher now?
I'm not. I'm the artistic programs coordinator at Price Hill Will. I do a lot with youth music programming. Price Hill Will runs MYCincinnati which was a free daily Youth Orchestra program. I work with them coordinate the Price Hill Creative Community Festival. That's also one of their artistic programs. And there's a couple other arts programs that are coming up this year that I also work on in addition to Girls Rock. I got a degree in professional writing because I have no idea what I was doing. I just knew that I would figure it out as I went, so might as well just find a skill set and get good at it- which was communications stuff. Then I found my way into these positions and never expected to be in my dream job after dropping out of music school.
What school did you go to?
I went to Miami. Yeah it wasn't the best.
So you would say you are doing a dream job now? Your adult dream job.
Absolutely. It's one that I never thought existed, so it found me and I found it. Happily ever after.
So you are going into the second summer of Girls Rock now? Tell me a little about that.
Yeah! So Girls Rock camps having been happening since 2001 in Portland. There's a national alliance of camps, we’re a pending member of the national alliance across the US. I got involved through Girls Rock Columbus and volunteered with them for a couple years and decided that I wanted to start one here because we really needed it. And so I did with the help of some really amazing friends and colleagues. We did our first camp last year in August. We had nine campers and about 50 volunteers. All of our money was raised through donations at events. We used the space at the school for MYCincinnati. It's a big old firehouse in Price Hill. So we got to use their space and put on this little tiny camp and had like 200 people come out to our final performance. It's just been growing ever since. We're on our second year now. Our organizing team has doubled. We are pending 501(c) nonprofit status. I just got notice that we are finalists for a mini grant through Xavier. I'm going to go present to win that next week. It accelerated really quickly. It's been great. It's another thing I never would have imagined I would find myself doing. I think I'm not giving myself enough credit. I've always known that I would want to do these things but it's a really pleasant surprise it's actually happening.
It's becoming real for you. You said being part of your community and contributing to that is one of the most important things to you. What would you define your community as? Is it a geographic community? Is it kind of a hobby or passion based thing?
Yeah so diaspora is a really important concept to me as a first-generation Arab American. I believe that especially in a very technologically connected time that we're in, I think that community is a lot broader than a physical location. I think Cincinnati is dear to me because I grew up here. But if you had asked me a year-and-a-half ago if I would still live here right now I would say no. Because I wasn't planning on staying.
So why did you decide to stay?
Something was pulling me. I didn't know what it was and I had actually taken the LSAT and applied for law school and visited schools and was getting ready to leave the city. And then the application period came and went and I just didn't. I couldn't figure out why. I've been the coordinator for the Price Hill Creative Community Festival for the last four years but it was a temporary summer job. I was in college at the time when I was doing it, so it wasn't a big deal that wasn’t permanent. I had graduated and didn't know what the fuck I was doing and needed a full-time job. I was really unhappy in social work and what I was doing at the time. I was just ready to leave. After this last festival over the summer I got offered a full-time position. Then it kind of clicked for me. This is why it all kind of worked out. But for that whole year I just had no idea why it was drawing me. But to answer your previous question I think it's less about the activity.
IT'S LESS ABOUT BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER THROUGH MUSIC THAN IT IS ABOUT JUST BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER. AND PROVIDING A SPACE. AND THAT INTERPERSONAL SUPPORT THAT'S NECESSARY FOR SURVIVAL IN THIS CAPITALIST HELLSCAPE.
Talk a little bit about that.
WE ARE NOT BUILT TO SURVIVE ALONE. I THINK SOMETHING THAT I'VE NOTICED IN AMERICAN CULTURE IS THAT YOU TURN 18 AND YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN. YOU GO FIGURE IT OUT. PULL YOURSELF UP BY THE BOOTSTRAPS. BUT THAT'S JUST NOT HOW IT WORKS. WE NEED EACH OTHER. NOW MORE THAN EVER YOU FISCALLY CAN'T SURVIVE ON YOUR OWN. LET ALONE EMOTIONALLY YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO EITHER.
I think there's a lot of dialogue on 'your friends shouldn't be your therapist'.
That's a phrase that has come up in a previous interview I've done actually.
WE OWE EACH OTHER EMOTIONAL LABOR. WE OWE EACH OTHER SUPPORT. WE OWE IT TO OURSELVES AND TO OUR COMMUNITIES TO PUT IN THE WORK. I THINK IT'S REALLY POPULAR RIGHT NOW TO NOT WANT TO DO THAT. ESPECIALLY WITHIN THE MOVEMENT OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICE. IT'S OBJECTIVELY SO MUCH EASIER TO TELL SOMEONE TO FUCK OFF THAN IT IS TO PUT IN THE WORK AND TO PROJECT THE VALUES THAT YOU SAY YOU'RE ABOUT.
If you say you're about abolition and you go through something with consent issues or somebody who has done shitty things in the scene it's the people around them. I'm not trying to put the onus on anyone who shouldn’t be doing undo labor. I think that line is really clear. You know if you're the person who shouldn't have to be doing it. If you're a victim of abuse you shouldn't have to be the one to tell your abuser what they're doing wrong. If you are the victim of racism as a person of color you shouldn't have to be telling racist off. But the people in those circles who have no otherwise connection to the trauma- it's their responsibility to call people in and hold each other accountable and to do the work. You have to preserve your community. Help each other out. I think I'm going off on a tangent but essentially we need to put in the work for each other. It's not an easy thing. It's much easier to just assume that people need to take care of themselves on their own. That's just not how we're built to survive.
No, that tangent is awesome. And funnily enough I've done it a couple of these interview so far and that type of idea comes up from the weirdest places. I was talking to someone about their store where they sell music the other day and they were telling me about really similar situations. Deciding what we owe to each other. What bosses owe to their employees. What neighbors owe to neighbors. And I think that's definitely something I would be interested in talking about if you want to say more than that.
Yeah! I think especially within newer social justice circles the instinct to say 'Google it I don't owe you my labor' is so funny how it's been like mangled from the original intent. Which was by activist of color who straight up don't know people their labor. When you're talking about extremely violent situations where there is explicit racism involved or oppression involved and the person directly at the bullseye- it is not their duty to educate other people. But then it got adopted by these white docile college leftists to say that 'I know more than you do and I don't owe you my labor. I don't owe what to you to teach you about it'. When you do. That's exactly what the point is. That's exactly who should be doing it.
IF YOU ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT THESE PROGRESSIVE IDEALS OR RESTORATIVE JUSTICE AND COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND ENGAGEMENT YOU ABSOLUTELY OWE IT TO THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU TO PUT IN THE WORK. IF YOU'RE ABLE TO YOU SHOULD. IT'S AN OBLIGATION IN MY OPINION.
Because otherwise where is anyone going to get that from?
Exactly. They're not going to get it from Googling. As much as people want to stay that they will. I had a I was a segment host on a radio talk show a while ago. I named it ‘Calling In’ for the same reasons. It's for the same reasons that it just becomes very easy for the people who absolutely should be doing the work to say ‘I don't owe that to you’. And I think about it a lot in our political climate.
I VERY MUCH HAVE A HARD TIME BLAMING PEOPLE FOR THEIR POLITICAL OPINIONS. IT’S MORE THAN ANYTHING A MATTER OF LIVED CONTEXT AND COMING FROM WHERE YOU'RE AT AND WHAT YOU’VE KNOWN. SO TO BLAME PEOPLE FOR NOT KNOWING BETTER WHEN YOU'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING TO ACTUALLY REACH THEM WHERE THEY'RE AT IS SO COUNTER-INTUITIVE. IT'S SO DUMB.
Can you speak a little bit about how that idea relates to forgiveness?
Yeah. I think we have to have grace with each other. It's really easy to take things personally and in a certain respect you should. Right? I'll just preface the rest of this conversation with like if you know that you should not be having to do this work then you shouldn't.
IF YOU KNOW THAT YOU'RE THE VICTIM OF A TRAUMA AND THAT THE BULLSEYE OF OPPRESSION IS ON YOU THEN IT'S NOT YOUR DUTY. I'M REALLY TALKING ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE CALLING OUT OTHER WHITE PEOPLE. NON-BLACK PEOPLE OF COLOR CALLING OUT OTHER NON-BLACK PEOPLE OF COLOR. MEN CALLING OUT EACH OTHER BECAUSE IT'S THEIR DUTY TO WITHIN THEIR GROUPS.
But forgiveness is so important. It's the hardest thing that nobody wants to. Because it can become extremely personal when it feels like your identity is being attacked. So to conflate these political ideals with being an actual attack on individuals I think is a lot of what's happening. When we're overlooking the bigger picture. It's the systems that be that will continue to divide us. If we don't learn to have a little bit of grace and had a little bit of context and to forgive each other for what we don't know then how are you supposed to know if you don't know already? How are you supposed to do better if there was never anybody to teach you? In actuality leftist ideology is not accessible. A lot of the people who are invested in educating the masses aren't actually doing the work to reach the people they're not already reaching. So if you’re not actually putting forth the work to make it accessible and reach the people that you're disagreeing with in ways that you're meeting them where they're at, then you can't complain that these people are targeting you or voting against your well-being. There's just so little that can actually be done by forcing. And so many of our great black activists in our country have said time and time again that divisiveness is an intentional political act.
DIVIDING PEOPLE ACROSS CLASS LINES AND ACROSS PARTY LINES AND ACROSS RACE LINES HAS ALWAYS BEEN DONE BECAUSE WHEN THE PEOPLE ARE UNITED THE STRUCTURE WILL FALL. BUT WHILE WE ARE DIVIDED WE GET NOTHING DONE.
I think that's something people get really caught up in. And nobody is immune to propaganda. I say these things very freely but I don't talk about them publicly too often because I feel like I would be hung at the stake or something. Because you're not supposed to have any forgiveness. You're not supposed to.
Is that something you worry about for yourself?
Not as much as I should probably. I used to be really a lot more invested in it when I was doing a lot of things with factors that I couldn't control. I used to book shows at my house when I was living in Oxford. I didn't always get to know the bands who were coming through. I didn't ever get a chance to know all the people who are coming through my house. A lot of things happened. Things that I took responsibility for because it was under my roof. That was really stressful and even now whenever I book shows for my own music projects I play out very rarely because I need to make sure that the people that I associate with are aligning with my values. And so with girls rock it's really easy to do because we have a pretty rigorous screening for volunteers and organizers.
What does that look like?
On our organizers app we ask if they align with our mission and values. We ask them to pick maybe one or two talking points from it to answer a question about. Those questions are a lot about primarily racial equity. That's one of things where as soon as somebody answers a question about that I know where they stand. I know whether or not they align with our organization. So for our organizers we started with 3 people last year and we added on three others to our leadership team this year. For their interview process we asked them to write about what their commitment to racial equity looks like. We asked how the work they will be doing in their position with Girls Rock will actually enact that in specifics. So the things that I'm weeding out for is transphobia and white saviorship mentality.
BECAUSE OUR CAMPUS IS IN PRICE HILL WHICH IS THE MOST ETHNICALLY, RACIALLY, SOCIO-ECONOMICALLY DIVERSE NEIGHBORHOOD IN CINCINNATI. IF OUR VOLUNTEERS AREN'T DOWN WITH THAT THEN THERE'S JUST NO ROOM FOR THEM THERE.
We also go through a four-hour volunteer staff training before camp starts. We do two hours of the four that are dedicated to a safety training on confronting privilege and racial equity and identifying the difference between microaggression and macroaggressions over racism etc. We do conversation starters. It's really getting them to think about where they stand on how they talk about these issues because it's one thing to have these ideals and visions and values and it's another thing to actually be able to talk about ‘I have a hard time talking about racism because I'm white and grew up in an affluent area and I have a hard time talking about transmisogyny because I'm a cis white woman or I have a hard time talking about class because I grew up with a lot of financial privilege’. Getting people to actually vocalize that is really crucial and really interesting. I have such a thorough process because I have been burned many times by making assumptions that people are on the same page as me in terms of politics and values.
In your work with girls rock or just generally?
Just generally more so with musical alliances. I'll team up with people on things and think that we're on the same page and we're definitely not.
I THINK THAT I'VE DONE A LOT OF TALKING BUT I HAVEN'T NOTED YET THAT I AM NOT IMMUNE TO HAVING DONE SHITTY THINGS. NOBODY IS. I JUST WANT TO MAKE THAT REALLY CLEAR THAT NOBODY IS IMMUNE TO BEING SHITTY. I SAY ALL THESE THINGS FROM A PLACE OF A LOT OF INTENSIVE LEARNING AND WILL CONSTANTLY BE LEARNING HOW TO DO BETTER. UNTIL WE CAN GET OVER OURSELVES ENOUGH TO REALIZE THAT WE DON'T HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS AND WE'RE NEVER GOING TO BE DOING PERFECTLY AND YOU ARE INEVITABLY GOING TO BE HURTING PEOPLE BECAUSE THE SYSTEMS THAT WE LIVE UNDER ARE MADE TO HURT PEOPLE AND WE ARE ALL CULPABLE IN THAT, THEN WE’RE NEVER GOING TO GET ANYWHERE.
So you definitely do not have to give an example but what do you do when you realize that you've hurt someone or you weren't as kind as you could have been or didn't know something that would have allowed you to be kinder?
I LOVE BEING CALLED OUT. I LOVE BEING TOLD WHEN I'M WRONG. I WOULD SO MUCH RATHER KNOW AND HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT THAN JUST NOT KNOW OR PRETEND THAT I'VE DONE NOTHING.
In those situations I definitely try to take myself out of it a little bit because I definitely have the tendency to just take it really personally. Because how could you not, right? Especially when it's something that's so dear to you. I'm trying to think of an example. I've been, I don't want to say lucky enough, but I haven't been involved in too many major conflicts like that. I try to take myself out of it a little bit and just be extremely non-defensive. I want to take the time to learn where people are willing to educate me. I want to take a lot of time to learn for myself and whatever space it was involved in I will usually back out of it for a little while just to make sure that I'm not going to be taking up space where I shouldn't. That can be really difficult. It can be really really difficult. It's definitely not a perfect science. It never feels good. You never want to be in a position where people are calling your character into question.
I think it's how you deal with that situation that matters though. A big problem with the way that I used to, especially when I was younger and in high school, call people out was that I would essentially be cancelling someone. ‘You have done a shitty thing. Now because of this thing you’ve done you are a bad person. Any moves you make to fix that will be pandering.’ I think that's so sad because when you're doing that I feel like what I'm doing is adding to the count of decidedly bad stuff in the world and preventing that person from maybe improving themselves and learning and talking to me and having a better conversation. That's just no way to live.
I will say I can probably speak more to having been the person who has called others out. More than I've been called out. I think the way that I've handle that is arguably equally as bad. It's very much just putting people on blast and not in the interest of actually helping the community. It's just in the interest of getting vindication. Me needing to see that person suffer in the public eye. You know, it would be situations where I would know what happened but the other person didn't necessarily know how I felt about it. I didn't feel like it was my responsibility to tell them. I suppose it wasn't. But I don't think that it was effective. What are you trying to get out of it? Is it just to see somebody suffer? Do you just want vindication for that? Or is it to actually hope that they don't do those things to other people again. One or the other they have very different results. They have extremely different ways of approaching them.
I think that's very true. And it's always important to just consider that every situation is different and every person is different. Recently I had my own situation where I was abused by my partner and almost immediately moved to forgiveness and to talking about understanding what happened and understanding why feelings got hurt. That was a way for me to deal with it. But if a friend of mine who’d been through a similar situation saw the way that I was handling that was like ‘man I feel so guilty. I just canceled my abuser. I didn't even try to forgive anybody’. That doesn’t work. I don't think that method is good for everybody. You can't compare situations like that.
No you really can't. It's all based on context. It's really all contextual. [talking about sewing] This is so much fun.
Do you like it? I'm glad. some people get weirded out when I ask them to sew with me.
I wasn't expecting it but this is a nice craft. Yeah I just went through something really similarly and I kind of did both ends of that. My first reaction was to cancel them and call them out and get them ostracized from every group that they're part of. And then I took a step back and went through my mental checklist of ‘were they harmful to me or are they actually a danger to society?’ If I don't want them to commit interpersonal violence again with one of their partners and if that's what I care about more than getting my revenge then what are the steps that need to be taken? So like a year-and-a-half later I had a conversation with her. I said that ‘I don't think you understand the gravity of what you did with in our relationship. I need you to know these things so that you don't do them to other people’.
THAT'S ONE THING THAT OFTEN TIMES CANCEL CULTURE DOESN'T AFFORD. I HAVE MANY MUTUAL FRIENDS WITH MY ABUSER. I DO NOT BY ANY MEANS WANT THEM TO BE EXCLUDED FROM THOSE GROUPS BECAUSE IF THEY AREN'T WITH THOSE PEOPLE, AND IF THEY'RE IN THEIR OWN ECHO CHAMBER WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE ONLY AFFIRMING THEM THEN THEY'RE NEVER GOING TO GROW. THEY'RE NEVER GOING TO IMPROVE THEMSELVES.
Yeah that's fucked up! Yeah I wasn't expecting to talk about all of that but I guess it's all connected.
It is! Because what you do is so about your values.
Yeah. Exactly.
Why don't you tell us a little bit more about the other Price Hill projects that you are part of.
Yeah I'd love to talk about it. So MYCincinnati is a free daily youth orchestra that's been going on for ten years now. They started with 11 students with borrowed instruments in a school library. Now they’re in their old facility that they own in a big old firehouse with 130 students that come daily after school. It’s remarkable. I can't take any credit for what they do in that organization. I only have the privilege to work with them sometimes. It's a program of Price Hill Will which is the nonprofit that I work for. In Price Hill Will there are four other major art programs happening. So the Price Hill Community Festival is one. I've been the coordinator of that for the last four years but now that I am full-time it's just part of the many things that I do. We are working on a historic district called the Warsaw Avenue Creative Campus. They purchased like 8 buildings including the firehouse that will be activated into an all-ages, year-round arts program for the community. Which is going to be really sick. So that should be opening once renovations are done in the building- probably done by next year sometime. We're working with elements like Artworks and organizations like that who are going to be renting out. Girls Rock will probably be renting one of the spaces. And then there's the 10-million-dollar grant to renovate an old masonic lodge. This masonic lodge is going to be a community arts and event space. I'm going to just go ahead and call it the title we've been working on that's been highly contested in all of the circles. Which is ARCO. Which is a portmanteau for Arts and Community, but it also means ‘with the bow’ when you're talking in classical musical terms. And it also means arch. So there's a lot of meaning behind it. It's going to be a beautiful space. We are very excited about it and so with that we are running a community curatorial collective who is going to be programming the first season of performances at ARCO. So that's going to be a group of Price Hill neighborhood residents that we're still accepting nominations for right now. We're going to engage in a lot of different kinds of training. Professional development. Stuff like that to be able to carry the season of performances for 2021.
That's so exciting.
It's extremely exciting. All of this is brand-new. And it's really great. I think that's it. And then MYCincinnati is pretty self-sustaining at this point. I don't do a lot with them anymore. I do play in their adult orchestra. I started learning viola this year. I've been wanting to do it forever but because I was just working part-time in Price Hill I wasn't really allowed to. But now that I'm full-time if you live or work in Price Hill you get to participate.
So you just started to learn and now you're in an orchestra? That's incredible. Oh my God.
Yeah it's a beginner's orchestra for adults. And it's free just like MYCincinnati. We have a concert coming up on Thursday. We're playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Ode to Joy.
That is beautiful.
It’s awesome. I'm having a great time with it.
Is it a lot of just beginners? Is everyone there new?
Yes and there's an intermediate orchestra for people who have been there for a couple of years.
So how is that coming? Are you getting good yet?
I'm having a great time with this too though which is all that matters.
I'm glad to hear that. Yeah one thing that a lot of more experienced quilters will say is that it's important that all your corners meet up or that it's important that all your stitches are even. But this project is all about the experience of this right here. This is the point. The rest is collateral. It's awesome that we're getting this thing that's aesthetically pleasing. But I really want to focus on meeting new people, which is not something I like to do. I'm forming new relationships. And also these interviews are publishing ideas that people wouldn't hear unless they knew you. We're getting words out to larger audiences.
I really appreciate that. I love doing something that will kind of memorialize this conversation together. It's really cool. It's really cool work.
What other concepts, ideas, events would you like the people who don't have access to your beautiful face everyday to hear about?
DONATE. DONATE. DONATE. WHERE YOU CAN. THE NON-PROFIT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX DOES NOT ALLOW US TO DO THE THINGS THAT WE REALLY NEED TO BE DOING. IF YOU DONATE TO THE THINGS THAT YOU BELIEVE IN THEN YOU ARE ACTIVELY SUPPORTING THEM. I 100% OF THE TIME WILL ALWAYS SAY THAT IT'S ALWAYS BETTER TO DONATE LOCAL BECAUSE YOUR DOLLAR GOES FURTHER AND IT'S IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. BETTER THAN TO WORRY ABOUT THESE BIG BUCK ORGANIZATIONS WHO REALLY DON'T NEED YOUR MONEY. $150 SUPPORTS ONE OF OUR CAMPERS FOR THE WHOLE WEEK. THAT'S TUITION. THAT'S FOOD. THAT’S INSTRUMENTS. IT'S NOT THAT MUCH.
Do you try to get most of the campers' tuitions covered?
If our campers can't pay then they don't pay. If they're able to then they do.
So if someone wants to go to camp?
Then they go to camp. If they can't get access to transportation we will arrange for a budget for rideshares or for Metro passes or for carpooling with other parents. Accessibility is extremely important to us. Though I will say that our venue isn't physically/ mobility wise accessible. It's in a 3 floor historic firehouse. That's something that's really bothering me. But we do what we can. I would rather have camp and at least start it so we can start to build up that foundation to be able to get bigger grants to get our own facility than not do it. I want it to be as inclusive as possible.
Has that been a big hurdle so far?
Accessibility? No because it’s built into what we do. It's not something we have to account for but something that we know that we're doing. I've made that pretty clear from the start. We are not here to siphon tuition money out of families. We got asked to present an award at the Cincy Entertainment Awards a couple months ago. The band who received the award that we presented got up on the stage and said some of the most vulgar bullshit that I have heard ever.
What were they talking about?
He was just drunk and being an ass and saying a bunch of shit about like starting his speech with ‘Epstein didn't kill himself’.
So he was just memeing?
Yeah. And then he ended it with ‘fuck her in the pussy’. While we had just given this really heartfelt ‘this is who we are, thanks for having us here’. I messaged their band later because I was infuriated. I was like ‘these are the ways you can directly help us right now to make up for that’. The singer responded with like ‘we weren't there, we’ve been a band for 10 years, he's only been drumming with us for a couple months’ or something. Just excuses. He sent us an apology after and was like ‘I'm just a drunk man child. I can't do anything but apologize right now’. I was like ‘what you can do is here is our venmo. Send $150 to Girls Rock Cincinnati right now. Support a camper because you are precisely the reason why we are doing this’.
Did they do that?
No. But I was hopeful.
That must have felt so awful. So you didn't know who you were presenting the award to at all?
No. I mean we got the card right before we went on stage, but I didn't know who they were.
And that's an opportunity that you were taking to get the word out to people who may not know about this entity before. To say your values. To give a speech. And then it turned into this other thing.
It perfectly encapsulated in 30 seconds exactly what the Cincy music scene is. But yeah I would say support young people. Don't take things so personally. Educate yourself first and foremost. Pour into your communities. When you walk through a door bring five more with you. These are all values that I've picked up on from incredible black and brown and native scholars and activists- who I am doing a really poor job at remembering their names right now. But know that these are not just me. They're not just my ideals. These are definitely taken from people who have done it better than us. And they continue to do it better than us. But just being good to each other is so important.
What else do we have?
Nothing. Truly nothing.
Do you want to speak a little bit on what your feelings are about the Cincy music scene? You're actually not the first person to bring that up with me.
Well god. What can I say? It's riddled with rapists, abusers, white apologists, and just shitty people. The people that get ahead are getting ahead for nepotism.
Yeah that's a big part of it too. Do you think that's the Cincy music scene or is it just the general culture?
Oh I think it's the general culture but Cincinnati, weirdly enough, is more insidious than most scenes that I've been in for whatever reason. I think it is because we are at that size where we're not quite huge. We're not quite small. So there are opportunities but the big opportunities go to the same five people. It's fucked up. All of our venues- the people who booked our biggest venues- are all abusers. And they're all white dudes. And the DIY spaces don't exist because we don't really have a system in place to make them sustainable. Which is really unfortunate. Which is also why
THE HOPES OF GIRLS ROCK IS THAT GIRLS BEING INVOLVED WITH A CREATIVE CAMPUS IS SO THAT WE CAN HAVE A DIY SPACE THAT WILL AMPLIFY AND UPLIFT OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. OUR PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT BE HEARD OTHERWISE.
And then when you do see more diverse bills- in heavy quotes- it's the same three people who are being exploited by the same three people. So I'd be really curious what others have to say about it.
I think the nepotism thing is something that comes up a lot. Because that is so true. Both in the Cincy music and Cincy the art scene. It's a lot of the same people who know a lot of the same people and that's how things get ahead and that's how things get funding and attention, etc. etc.
Yeah exactly. And if you're not one of those 5 people you're fucked.
What do you do to deal with that or to circumvent that?
That's a good question. I think just putting in the work to carve out spaces on your own- which you shouldn't have to be doing. But if the work has to be done and I'm able to then I'll do it. But it's fucking exhausting.
It is exhausting and it's taking a lot of your time and your enjoyment of your day.
Exactly and the shitty thing is most of the time it results in me just not engaging. Which shouldn’t have to happen. Yeah it sucks that the result is… the ideal would A. be that white men aren't in charge of everything. B. If do have to be in charge of everything at least notice that were struggling. Make space for us. Or if not make space for us then take space away from yourself so that we can fill it. But what ends up happening is that we struggle and struggle and struggle and struggle. Everybody at the top is just like ‘oh that's cute… sorry. I can get you a Thursday night slot four months from now’. And then you just end up not doing it. There have been so many times when I had shows booked at these bigger venues. They've double-booked us. It doesn't happen to anybody else. Because it's really telling who they care about and who they don't. It's really messed up.
It is really messed up. Yeah. Sorry I didn't mean to upset you in this interview.
No, I complain about these things all the time. It's really nothing new to me. Are there under things you were interested in talking about?
Yes. I definitely wanted to hear about your volunteer work and one thing that is being hit on really hard right now in my life is like- you have to make money. You must go out and get a job work for some illustrious company and make Mom and Dad proud. And stuff like that. And I think that I've been learning as I'm growing and becoming my own person that making money and just doesn't speak to me. It's not the most important thing in my day. It's not the most important part of my life.
Yeah that's the struggle. It's damn near impossible to do all the things that you want to and still be able to survive. I think that I got extremely lucky to get paid for what I love to do. I don't get paid for Girls Rock. That is exclusively volunteer work. But I think because I already had those built-in resources with my job that pays that I'm able to do what I do. I don't think that if I worked a 9 to 5 at any other place that I would be able to have the time, the capacity, the help, and the resources to pull off such a giant volunteer project. Which breaks my heart because I can’t say that this would exist outside of me doing it. I can't say that I would have time to volunteer for it. It really blows. But I think the answer is that I don't make time. There's really very little. I think I just got extremely lucky that I got a job in what I love to do.
Yeah that's amazing. It's so rare too.
It's extremely rare. I don't know how it happened. I'm still kind of in shock. I got this job in August [interview recorded in March]. It still hasn't hit me yet.
Do you think there's maybe an alternate universe where you did end up being a surgeon and you did end up doing all these things you imagined you might do or was this the path? Is this what you are supposed to be doing?
I THINK THIS IS WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. I DON'T REALLY BELIEVE IN FREE WILL. I THINK THAT YOU MAKE THE CHOICE THAT'S BEST INFORMED AT THE TIME. IF YOU'RE MAKING WHAT FEELS LIKE THE BEST CHOICE THEN THERE'S ONLY ONE. SO DOES CHOICE REALLY EXIST?
I think I knew that being a doctor, being a lawyer, doing the thing that would make my parents proud wasn't the best choice for me. So I waited. And it paid off. But I just knew that I didn't want to do those things. I knew that I couldn't leave yet. And then I found it. And I think if I hadn't then I definitely would have been gone right now. But yeah you make the choice that feels best at the time with the information that you have.
It sounds like you made some really awesome choices. You're doing what you want to do.
Yeah if you would ask me a year ago if I thought that I would be here right now there's no way. There is absolutely no way.
It's very reassuring to hear you say that.
How old are you?
23.
Okay, yeah, I don't know what I was doing at 23. I'm about to be 25 and I still mostly don't know what I'm doing. But it gets easier. I think what was really reassuring and also terrifying was that nobody really knows what they're doing. At every age.
That's what I'm finding out. I think one thing I was talking about with someone the other day was being in your 30s or older and feeling like you're not an adult yet. And one reason this person was telling me they were feeling that way is because of heteronormativity. When you're 35 you have a partner. You have kids. You have a house. And for so many people that's never what their life is going to look like.
I think that's funny because when I was coming into my queerness and my polyamory and knew that those things were never going to be my life is what I was able to let go of a lot of the stress of what I should be doing. Because you very much craft what you need. You create the life that you need and want. And it's a lot more freeing than feeling like you are failing at every turn to match up with what's expected. Also, in terms of making time for volunteer stuff, this is another aspect where community support really comes in. A lot more people would be able to volunteer if we distributed the home care across the board. If we provided food and childcare so many people would show up. If we helped out with transportation. If we meet at times when people could come then you would have so much more support. And people want to get involved. So why deny it to them because you're putting it in at a really inaccessible place or time and they have nowhere for their kids to be. I do think that if you want to volunteer don't grandstand and just do the most showy position. See if anybody needs childcare so that they get to show up. That’s something I think about a lot. I think that my family has given me a really wonderful example of what showing up looks like. My parents were born in a really small rural town in Jordan. We have a really big community here of Arab immigrants. So my aunt's been in the hospital all week. She just had open heart surgery.
I'm sorry to hear that.
She's doing okay though. So it's fine but I appreciate it. And the ways that everyone was able to help. It's just really intuitive how they shift off labor. Household labor. In order to be there and show up for each other. If I can't personally be at the hospital then I'll go bring food to my family who are there. Or I can go babysit so that my aunt can be there with her sister. Then that's what you do. That's just how it's always been. I really appreciate that and admire that example.
That is so important. And we imagine work as being this very clear thing. It's when you go to a job when you clock in and you're doing this purposeful work for a man. For another person. And so often that's not what it looks like.
No not at all. Yeah I think that care labor and household labor is really under spoken.
What else is on your mind that you would like to share?
Huh. That's a good question. I don't know. I think I've talked about a lot of the things that I've been thinking about lately. I think talking about burnout is really important. I do a lot of things and it's not at no cost. I'm getting ready to go out of town just for a day and a half with my partner to a random Airbnb in Kentucky with a hot tub because I am going to collapse.
Yeah. And you deserve to focus on yourself sometimes.
Yeah and so I think that everything that I've said so far really indicates my extremely self-sacrificial nature. I do not encourage other people to be running at the pace that I'm running at.
MY ROOMMATE TOLD ME A COUPLE WEEKS AGO BECAUSE I WAS JUST RUNNING AND RUNNING AND RUNNING AND I HAD SO MANY THINGS TO DO AND I WASN'T LETTING ANYBODY HELP ME. AND SHE SAID ‘DON'T SCAB ON YOUR VOLUNTEERS’. AND I WAS LIKE ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN? DON'T SCAB ON MY VOLUNTEERS? WE'RE NOT AT A PICKET LINE’. AND SHE WAS LIKE ‘SAY YOU'RE WORKING ON THE FLOOR OF A LAUNDRY CLEANING SERVICE OR WHATEVER. YOU GET $0.35 PER SHEET THAT YOU WASH. ON AVERAGE PEOPLE ARE ABLE TO WATCH 8 TO 10 SHEETS IN HOWEVER LONG. AND YOU GET IN THERE AND YOU ARE WASHING 11, 12, 15 SHEETS IN THE TIME THAT IT'S TAKING OTHER PEOPLE TO WASH 8 TO 10. AND SO THE FOREMAN COMES DOWN AND SAYS ‘OKAY SO SINCE THESE ARE DONE GETTING DONE QUICKER YOU'RE GETTING $0.25 A SHEET NOW’. AND THIS IS YOUR QUOTA THAT YOU HAVE TO MEET FOR THE DAILY AMOUNT’. AND JUST LIKE SOMETHING UP THAT AVERAGE FOR OTHER PEOPLE WANT TO START NECESSARY. AND LEARNING HOW TO ASK FOR AND ACCEPT HELP FROM OTHERS. AND KNOWING THAT YOU CAN'T BE DOING AT ALL.
It's one of the hardest lessons I've ever had to learn and I'm still not doing a great job at it. Yeah don't scab on your volunteers. Let people help you. That's something that I've always had a really hard time doing.
I'm glad to hear you say that. Because you do so much. Hearing you talk about how much you're doing is astonishing. I can't imagine doing that many things.
Every single minute of my life is accounted for. My schedule is booked out through August.
Do you just enjoy being busy?
It's really masochistic. I don't think that I necessarily enjoy it but I need it. And I think that's just a symptom of anxiety. And not knowing what to do with myself if I'm not doing something.
That makes sense.
Or feeling like I'm not doing enough if I'm resting. But rest is really revolutionary. It's extremely important. I don't do enough of it. And I don't think I set a very good example. I don't think I set a very good example for people who want to do a lot of things. I do not take the time for myself. I'm in three different bands. An orchestra. I have a full-time job. I run Girls Rock on top of my full-time job. I have multiple partners. I have my family that I see. I have a dog. There's no time left. For anything.
I'm so glad to hear that you're going away. Thank God.
I know. It's been really necessary.
What do you most looking forward to about your trip?
Just being in a hot tub with my partner and not having any looming deadlines for the next 24 hours. Turning off my email notifications. Guess how many notifications I get in a day. Take a stab.
300.
That's close its like 250. I'm so excited to turn my notifications off. But I'm also supposed to be going to Seattle on a work trip. But it's like the hotbed of coronavirus right now. I'm probably still going to go. But that'll be next week. I am excited. I'm excited to get out of town and break up my monotony for a second. It's funny that I do so many things and it still feels all the same.
It feels like you're in monotony? I would think that it would feel so very crazy.
It's pretty chaotic. It feels like I'm on the highway with no exit ramp. Just going. So I'd love to tell people to not do what I'm doing. Get involved where you can. But don't make the mistake of sacrificing yourself for the things you feel like you need to be doing.
Are you ever going to take your own advice?
I'm trying. I like the fact that I have a team of organizers that I'm not just doing Girls Rock by myself. I might take my own advice someday. We'll see.
At least for a weekend.
At least for a weekend. But it changed my mind on it a lot when my roommate said that thing about not scabbing on your volunteers. Because also when you try to do it all yourself, you're not living the values. For me at least I'm not living the values that I speak of which is giving other people opportunities. If I'm doing everything with then where do other people get to fit in? Where do they get to find community? If I'm denying them that.
Do you do outreach? For volunteers. Or do you find that a lot of people already now?
No honestly we do. A lot of our friends volunteer, yes. But a lot of our volunteers I had never met them in my life. One of our volunteers who we found through CCM is now one of the double bass instructors at MYCincinnati. She found out about the job after volunteering at camp. But no, it's a lot of random people that have come together. Which is really beautiful. But we definitely try to diversify our volunteer pool.
Are you interested in talking at all about your personal relationships?
Sure. I'm always open to talk about it. I'm non-binary and queer. I identify as a dyke for a really long time. But I got scared away from the politics of having some imposter syndrome stuff going on. But otherwise, yes, I very much identify as a dyke and non-binary. I've been polyamorous for a number of years. Probably since I started dating. So when I was like 19. Didn't do it well at the beginning. Did not do it well.
That's what I hear most of the time.
But it’s a learning process. I think most of my education and my values within relationship anarchy very much inform my values in my community stuff. You know the concepts of non-scarcity and communication and consent. And building things the way that you need them to be built. With others in mind.
And you pretty consciously apply that to your personal life?
Yeah it's really intentional.
Is it? So you don't just think that comes instinctively?
No. I don't think so at all. It's not stuff that we’re used to. We're not taught how to do these things. There's no example.