In this episode of From Chains to Links, Kelly Burton and Ifeoma Ike sit down with Katrina Gamble, a political and movement strategist and social scientist, to explore what research reveals about how Black people view the state of our political systems. We explore what Black voters want and need, how to keep political momentum going after elections, and the critical importance of investing in movements beyond just “get out the vote” efforts. It’s a powerful conversation about the future of Black political power and strategy that you absolutely don’t want to miss.
Welcome back to From Chains To Links. I am Kelly Burton, your cohost. I am here with the amazing Ifeoma Ike. How are you?
I’m good.
We are here with a mutual friend. I love when this happens but I’m also nervous a little bit as we might go deep into the sister-girl territory because we have history. That’s good though.
Sister-girl is great. It’s the era of the political sister.
Katrina Gamble is here with us. She is the CEO of Sojourn Strategies and she is my good friend. You know when you go through things with a person. Katrina and I went to graduate school together.
Emory University back in the day, and we made it.
It’s so good to be here with you. You go back a little bit too.
We do. Similar space. We were on the ground during the movement in Ferguson and that’s where we first met, getting shot at. When everybody was like, “What is our next move to do something?” Katrina and I were the lone ones in the corner who were like, “We need a civic engagement strategy,” and everybody said no, but then we became friends. We did a lot of projects together.
Kelly helped me build my business. I always like to give you that shout-out when you did the Founders of Color cohort and you helped me get my life together. Thank you. I appreciate you.
That work was so life-affirming in so many ways, but Founders of Color preceded Black Innovation Alliance and that is the work that we are trying to scale at this moment.
That’s where I met you. I met you when you were doing Founders of Color.
Full circle in a lot of ways, but we are talking about the future of Black politics and it’s a good time to be having that conversation. This is a moment.
It is a moment, but we are trying to turn it into a movement.
You are talking our language. That is our love language at Black Innovation Alliance. Let’s talk about it because one of my pet peeves is we love to say, “Black people are not a monolith.” I’m like, “Yes, we are individuals and all of the ways, but there are some ways that we need to be a monolith. There are some ways where everybody needs to get information and we need to be on the same page. In the hymnal, I need you to be on Amazing Grace.” You know what I’m saying? Can we all get on the same page? That is my question to you, and this is going to be the frame for our conversation. When do we need to stand in our individuality and when do we need to get on the same page? That’s the high level. Come on. Get me together. Tell me where I need to do better.
I agree with you that there are moments when we need to come together as a community, but the reality is we are all different people. Not all of us are on the same page and not all of us have the same values. When we are thinking about that way forward, that’s why you think people go back to the side of that. Not all Black people are a monolith because if you are trying to build a movement with people, you have to understand who your people are, and not all Black people are going to be trying to build towards the same movement. It’s the reality.
In your work, you talked a good bit about that segmentation. You say a little bit more about the nuances of the Black community especially when it comes to showing up politically. What are some things that we are missing?
We launched some research called the Black Values Survey because of this very thing. Typically, in the political industry, people think that Black people are all the same. They treat us as all the same, which means they show up right about now in September. I use the same message for all Black people to turn out to vote, and we know that we are not.
We did a pretty deep dive where we talked to Black registered and unregistered voters, and we asked them questions that had nothing to do with party or ID. We asked them about how they want to show up for their ancestors, the things that they value, what they see as their power and our democracy. When you do that, you find out that not all Black people are the same.
What surprised you the most?
I don’t know if this surprised me but it affirmed. There’s one segment that we found that we call secular progressives. They are highly educated, mostly Black women. They have questions about the system, but they show up anyway. It was not a surprise but it was affirming to see Black women that we often see out doing the work for our people. There were clear measures that identified them in the Black electorate. That was cool.
It reminds me of a good friend of ours, Dr. Brittany Cooper. She talks a lot about how you should get into these conversations about what is working and what is not working. You should also think about who is going to help us get the most for the most of us. In that research that you were seeing and then the values, were you seeing polarization between individuals that have these almost individual mindsets versus this collective mindset as to what we all deserve?
When you were talking about those who are more educated, there is also this argument that those individuals are closer to the resources that they could make more individual decisions. We see Black women who also skew a little higher on being more educated. They are still voting in a very collective way even for individuals that are outside of their social demographic. Did you see some of that or is it genderized? Are there things that surprised you about that?
I love that you asked this question. We saw that and that was one of the several questions that we put into the survey. You typically wouldn’t see in a political survey questions about how much power you think the Black community has. We asked people about how much they identify as being Black, and how much they think what happens to other Black people relates to them. There are differences. There was one segment that we call the rightfully cynical that is one of the most interesting. That group has very low social trust. They also are less likely to think that as Black people come together, we can impact change.
I don’t say that they don’t identify as Black, but their Black identity is less strong. That’s also the segment that has lower levels of resources and lower levels of expectation. They are more likely to say that they have had negative encounters with police. The system has failed them, which is part of the reason why we call them rightfully cynical. They are looking for a home. They are looking for a place. They just haven’t found it. They are skeptical of most people, but if the right people talk to them, they could be brought into the community.
I’m smiling because that was the research we did on Black political homes. For those that don’t know, what is a Black political home? How would you define what a Black political home is, and why it’s so important at this moment?
It’s a little bit what Kelly was talking about at the beginning, when you are like, “We all need to get information together,” but it is that. It is a place where Black people can come together, especially those who have shared values. Not only take action. It’s not just about moving people to do something but also where we can build community and connection. When we think about it, it’s both about movement and it’s about elections. It is a combination of things. It’s a space where people can feel this strong sense of belonging with other Black folks to get stuff done.
How do we get that momentum? To your point, when you say people tend to show up around now, there’s a lot of money that’s invested in getting out the vote and there’s a lot of energy directed towards the Black electorate. November the 12th or the 9th of the 13th, there is no similar investment in ensuring that whatever was built in that time comes together in some form of political home versus a stop along the way or a pop-up tent. We all go up here together and then everybody disperses and then for 2 to 4 years, we all stay here together and some defections. How do we break that cycle?
I don’t think we can depend on the political industry to do that for us. That’s the reality. We have to build our spaces. There are groups all across the country that are doing that. That’s what it is. We have to create spaces for our people and whatever that looks like, like Black Innovation Alliance, so that we are not setting people up for that disappointment. What creates the cynicism is that people show up and they are like, “If you turn out and vote the world is going to change,” and then they disappear and then they see them again in two years. The reality is there needs to be this space where we are building community, where people can do things in the between times that keep people connected.
What does that look like? I remember in graduate school I would think, “There’s so much invested in the vote,” but being politically active is so much more than the vote. What are some other ways that folks can show up and do show up in the meantime in between times?
I will give you a good example. Inspired by the research that Ifeoma and I did around Black political homes, I did some research where I was talking to Black folks in Louisiana, and they are part of this organization called Vote which organizes formerly incarcerated people in Louisiana. If you don’t know that organization, they are a powerhouse. They get stuff done. When I was there talking to some of the members of that organization, one of the members said, “I’m going to be a member of this organization until the wheels fall off,” because they felt so connected.
The types of things that they do is they offer leadership development. They don’t only get people to vote. They teach them how to show up and testify. They organize and provide resources for people when they are returning home, and so they think of it as a family. There are lots of things that we can do besides voting. I know you all have your policy platform. In between elections, talk to your elected officials. Train people about how to do that so they can tell their stories. There are lots of things outside of elections that people can do to make a difference.
We are trying to be a little bit more spicy. I’m happy for anyone to push back or jump in. The experience that a lot of people feel is twofold. One is this external fight like, “The system has never worked for us.” There are also these subtle hints of Black people who have a little bit more education and resources and also don’t understand what I’m going through. Sometimes we don’t talk about how when people are saying they want a political home, they are also speaking about the times when they can be free to be more Black than political. Oftentimes, we are not always honest about the fact that when there’s a lot of action that needs to be done on the civic engagement front, a lot of times, people need some of that socio-emotional support that has nothing to do directly with politics but has everything to do with how people feel at home.
I want us to get a sense of how immensely frustrating the concept of home is for Black people throughout the diaspora especially here. Just highlighting that when you were talking about folks in New Orleans because there are a lot of different groups. Power Coalition is another group that comes to mind. They have times when they are coming to brunch to be with each other, helping mothers and helping trans women. Seeing them for who they are as Black and not necessarily talking all the time about the change we need to make does something to people’s nervous systems. I don’t know if you feel that way.
You’re always dropping the gems. I 100% agree. When I first started doing the research, I was talking about political homes and most people were like, “What is that?” They started talking. I shifted the focus to start talking about this idea of belonging because it is exactly that. People are looking for a place where they feel connected and safe. That comes up a lot where they feel seen. A lot of that is not necessarily about what they are doing. It’s about how they are feeling in space.
I do think one of the things that folks who work in the political industry don’t pay enough attention to is culture. If you want to get someone to do something, you have to engage them in a way that they feel connected. Things like these brunches demonstrate that you care about the people that you are organizing with. It seems obvious but to your point, that’s 100% correct. We say that that’s the starting place to build a political home. It is that you have to create a sense of learning.
I feel that sometimes we can cycle the same conversations over and over again. What do you think is a conversation we need to have more and we need to talk about more? What’s a conversation we need to put on the back burner that takes up way too much oxygen in our community?
It’s what Ifeoma said. The thing that we need to talk more about is how some of these class differences, and also what that translates into in terms of how people feel connected or disconnected, and what that means. To this point, if we are trying to build a movement or space where we can have an impact on things that affect our people, we have to be real about what that looks like when we show up in different spaces.
After we did some of this research and had some conversations with what we call Rightfully Cynical in Ohio, it was clear to me that you can’t try to gaslight people out of their cynicism and just say, “You need to have hope,” when their daily life is a struggle. There’s a bit of having some real conversations about how we acknowledge that, and what cynicism means for people before we try to pivot to try to make them do something like vote and show up in this way because it’s a reality for people.
That’s why the home piece is so important. If you think about work in general, people go to work and there are a lot of ways that it meets a lot of needs, but it’s not home. There’s a reason why coming home has a way of grounding rest and reminder. Sometimes while we all agree here that movement and politics, and trying to build a movement around politics is one of those things where it’s like, “That’s simple, but it’s not easy,” because both of those spaces and the organizers that do a lot of that work, often are struggling to find a home after they do that work. Oftentimes, those two sides are fighting with each other.
Politics looks at movements like, “What’s the point of this? You all aren’t doing anything.” Movement looks at politics like, “We have repeated evidence of this not necessarily getting us our civil rights.” There’s also this need for a middle ground at times to be mediators, That’s why it was so comforting to see something like you and Ferguson because we oftentimes see those two sides as being very separate. As we are moving forward and thinking about what the future of Black politics needs to look like, what some of the practices and agreements are, but also space for understanding for people. Some people are deep organizers and like those spaces. They see them politically as different. What are some ways that we can build a little bit of elasticity between the two?
Some people might say this is like middling, but I am always a believer in both. We do need that. Ultimately, we do need both because the right movement is what gives us a vision of possibility. Some of the practical organizing is what gives us the winds to sustain the movement toward the vision, so we need both. I agree with you. The one thing I would say is it’s fine to have your lane. That may be some of where we fail, like trying to drive. All people who were in the movement moved over to hardcore politics. The movement may be frustrated because people who do politics don’t get them. The reality is not everybody is going to fit in the middle.
The place that’s the middle is this idea of coming home. What does that look like? Places of care, places where we can connect in ways that aren’t necessarily about an ask of what we want people to do, but it’s like building relationships. I think ultimately, that is what will sustain us. As you said, the brunches, and places of gathering, how do we use music to build connection, how do we take care of people? That came up during the pandemic in a lot of the mutual aid work, but there are ways in which we can demonstrate care for people and create a community that isn’t always about what we are asking them to do. Once you build community, then it’s much easier to translate that into movement and action.
What areas of the work would you say require the deepest investment?
That part.
Which is the soft part, and it’s so hard to get folks. At least that has been our experience, to understand the soft aspects of it. We are on a journey even with our membership because this work is hard. The last year in this space has been beyond challenging and folks are dealing with all sorts of anxiety, angst, fear, and grief. To say, “We need X, Y, and Z for care and trauma remediation,” that is what I’m interested in. We are in the process of figuring out how to build the case for that because it’s so necessary, especially among the Black community.
This is my grad school rant. I get frustrated with the term soft because soft is genderized. I’m forgetting her name, but this wise professor of mine was like, “The things that people call soft or soft skills are the things that are called life and survivorship.” When you think about individuals and I will confess, the attorney who went into Wall Street and thought that I was going to be judged on my work, but was judged on how you socialize with everybody else, that was taught to me as a soft skill and therefore, their type-A masculine spaces, you need to show your work because that is a hard skill.
When the reality is those who have more privilege can maneuver in both. I love that you raise that though because I do think for a lot of us, the concept of these things is like soft versus it’s hard to maintain relationships. It’s hard to maintain relationships with people who were once strangers and now you are calling them family, comrades, or accomplices. When I think of how we have to move forward and may not be monolithic on every issue but monolithic like we are in this together.
A lot of that is like, “Where is the incubator? Where is the time to build that?” I do think we enter a lot of space where people are like, “We don’t have time for that,” and so we don’t invest in it, and then investors don’t invest in it. It feels like we need to shake that up a little bit and say, “We are not going to survive without community,” especially for people who inherited no land, especially people who inherited no full rights. What we created was culture because that was the thing we could manipulate, but that requires making the soft stuff hard, and it’s still hard. We get money but that’s not building power. Most of us are more rich than our parents but it’s not building power, then what is the thing that’s going to harden the connection?
When people say soft, it’s mostly because they feel like they can’t measure it. Not everything can be measured in numbers. We know this and that does not mean that it is not valuable, but I honestly think to help make the case to this point, it is those soft things in terms of community, creating those sense of belonging that is foundational. I say this to as many people who will listen to me and they might get tired of me saying it. It’s that those things are what allow us to sustain. One of the things at least from the political industry is people come into space for all kinds of reasons. There’s some big issue that’s happening. There was a protest. Somebody talked and their friend invited them. They come but then they leave.
What is the thing that makes them stay? The thing that makes them stay is a community. It is that sense of home. If you are trying to build something, do you want to be the person who’s like, “We bring our people in and we lose them?” That’s not efficient. If you want to bring people in, keep them and bring more people in. You have to invest in community building. That’s what you say to the people who are like, “Why are we doing this?” “Do you want us to have to re-recruit the same type of people every six months or do you want to keep those people and then build on those people?” The reason why people stay is because of the community, which is the truth. Community and getting stuff done. That’s my argument.
We are building on this concept of the right to innovate. Very quickly, we want to hear what comes to your mind when you hear the right to innovate, and when you think of maybe the sub-rights, the right to innovate means that we could do X. What would that mean? First, what comes to mind, and then what would we be able to do if we had the right to innovate? We are saying we do have the right to innovate. What does that mean in your practice or generally?
When I think of the right to innovate, the first thing that comes to mind for me is disruption. The right to do things differently because what we have been doing has not worked for our people. Most honestly, when it comes to work, I’m always trying to say, “We don’t know what we don’t know.” We don’t know a lot about our people because no one is invested in trying to understand us. When I think about the work that I do, I’m always thinking about disruption. How do we break up the status quo to better make space, innovate, and understand how we build Black political power? That means that we have to invest in understanding Black people and the Black community.
I love that. Thank you, Katrina.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me. This was great.
Thanks, everybody for joining us for another episode. I’m curious what you all think. We are excited about this conversation. We are going to continue it on social media and we will see you on the next episode. Thanks, everybody.
