Sun Seed Community Podcast
Sun Seed Community Podcast
S5E1 An Organizer's Take of Star Trek
I am beyond stoked to share this convo with you! In the first episode of the SSC Podcast season 5, I nerd out with my dear friend and colleague on all things Star Trek, and what we've learned about organizing, building community, and conflict through the generations of Starfleet and stories.
***Please Note: This show contains spoilers of almost every generation of Star Trek. You've been warned, hommie.***
GUEST BIO
Lolan B. Sevilla, MPA, is an organizer and cultural worker who roots their work in community, study, and practice. Currently, the Principal Strategist at Artful Praxis Consulting, they have a passion for organizing across the public, private, nonprofit, and education sectors, as well as developing cross-sectoral leadership programs that specialize in crisis care, program strategy, and collaborative governance that is grounded in an anti-oppression framework. They have co-led organizing initiatives incorporating strategies of coalition & base-building, narrative shift, and collective care through their movement lineage at organizations like Funders for Justice, The NYC Anti-Violence Project, CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, and the Audre Lorde Project. A member of the National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981), Lolan has co-edited the anthology “Walang Hiya: Literature Taking Risks Towards Liberatory Practice,” as well as co-authored the report, "Speak Up About It: Community Experiences, and Actions to Reduce the Impact of Anti-TGNC Discrimination in the Workplace.
CONTACT GUEST
https://www.artfulpraxisconsulting.org/
PRODUCED BY: Goddess
MUSIC: 22,000 by Spirit Paris McIntyre
SUPPORT SSC
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/GoddessSowerOfSeeds
FOLLOW SSC
Sunseedcommunity.com
FB/IG: @Sunseedcommunity
Subscribe to SSC here
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SPEAKER_03:Hello fellow weird and wild ones. It has been a minute. So much has evolved and changed about your lovely host and me, Goddess, and Sunseed community since season four of the podcast. And I am stoked to share some of the dopest folks I've met, and some of the been in community with, and have learned from along the way in season five of the SSC podcast. So grab your drink, get your snacky snacks, and gather your homies for the end times. End of what? I'm really not sure, but I really hope it's fascism. But I digress, different conversation. Let's get on with the show.
SPEAKER_02:You are inspiring. You are inspiring. You are inspiring at least 22,000 times a day. So inspiring. He's so inspiring.
SPEAKER_03:Lolan Sevilla is a strategist with Sauce. They are culture tender, power weaver, cosmic level consultants. They move through nonprofits and philanthropic spaces like a conductor guiding a freedom symphony. Equal parts theory, vibe check, and accountability, Lowland builds political homes the way architects dream of utopias, rooted in practice, raised with care, and resistant to harm. I love this so much. Lowland doesn't just write MOUs. They remix them with values, vision, and velvet gloves. Their leadership, decolonial, dexterous, and deeply principled. They're the kind of person who quotes Gramsci and brings snacks to the study group. Their analysis is sharp enough to cut through the red tape, yet soft enough to hold a room tenderly while people unlearn in real time. Basically, if bell hooks and RuPaul ever learned, teamed up to run a movement incubator, they'd call Lolan for strategic advising. Lolan, I love this bio a little less than I love you, but I love it a lot. It speaks to you so well. Thank you for being on the podcast. I am so excited for this episode to be in community with a fam, deep fam member. Thank you so much for being here. If you don't mind, could you share your pronouns and who you are bringing into the space with you today?
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, Goddess, for inviting me. to be here to really talk about one of my favorite things in the world, Star Trek, my love of Star Trek and the application of Star Trek to my work. And so I really believe that this is probably at this point the highlight of my career. So just know that you were responsible for that. My pronouns are they, them, their. And who am I bringing into this space with me today? In the spirit of this show, which is centering Star Trek and leadership lessons, I'm bringing the mentors and comrades whose leadership and example have helped guide me throughout my path to where I am today. Rosario Martinez, Pat Troxell, Felicia Gustin, Dr. Connie One, Stacey Haynes, Chris Hayashi, Colette Carter, Sharon Stapel, Shelby Chestnut, Beverly Tillery, Audacia Ray, Kathy Dang, and Helena Wong, who really pushed my analysis, who really pushed my practice to align those with my actions and my intentions. So bringing them in. I also would be remiss to not mention my partner and her sister, bringing them into this space, who are the biggest Star Trek nerds of all time in the entire eight years that I have been a part of their family. There's never once been a time, a gathering where we have been together and we have not gone into some deep philosophical Star Trek conversation or some, you know, long riff of deep cut trivia. So I definitely consulted them for this conversation. And I'm kind of sweating to make sure that like I come correct with it. And with that, I bring in the Star Trek fandom. By no means do I claim to be an expert, but I always love when my path gets to cross with folks, regardless of if they identify as a Trekkie or a Trekker, right? That's a big controversy there. And who helped deepen my knowledge of the universe, especially in sharing what they love about the franchise like really helps me deepen my understanding and gives me breadcrumbs for doing research, rewatching an episode. And, you know, I always inevitably get hit with some nugget that I'm able to apply. I
SPEAKER_03:love this so much. Big shout out to all the folks that you are bringing in with this. Yeah. Yeah. pronouns, they, them, for me as well. And I think who I'm bringing into this space with me is the amazing woman who introduced me to Star Trek, my mom. I remember being little and I slept with my mom for like the longest time when I was little and I'd fall asleep to like the sound of like Deep Space Nine and next generation and also Voyager and like getting my hair braided as I'm seeing all these like alien creatures and beings like navigating relatable social, political, relational challenges that I would later find in life. And so, yeah, I'm definitely carrying my mom in with me to this conversation. So a bit about the context. we actually came out of a job together. We were both working at and figuring out what we wanted to do next. Um, and what we truly desired in the liberated workspace. And you made the connection between the very star check crews, um, and healthy collaboration. And I was like, ah, like, yes, like plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. Um, and we should also do a podcast episode. So that's a little bit of background about like how we got here. But I think for the rest of the Star Trek fans who are listening to this, I think you'll be able to deeply relate to what we're going to talk about and relate to the characters across the Star Trek universe that we're going to be bringing up too. So I'm excited for this. So the first question, time honored. What is your favorite Star Trek generation and why.
SPEAKER_01:This was the hardest question. Let me say question one out the bat and my neuro spiciness was firing on all axes. So I need to share a little bit of my Star Trek lineage. So as a child, I watched reruns of the original series. They would play it on channel eight every Saturday and Sunday from two to three. 2 to 5 p.m., so it was back-to-back episodes, and as a child of a single parent who was often left to my own devices as my parents worked, I, you know, the original series was my babysitter was oftentimes playing in the background, and I'll be honest, I really didn't understand what was happening. I was under, I was, you know, between the ages of like five and eight, but I loved I loved the color saturation. I was trying to decipher what was always happening. But I can't say that I had any other understanding of Star Trek beyond that. It was my babysitter. And then as I got older and the next generation came out, I remember family nights in our family rooms, putting out the blankets on the floor, lying on the ground with my parents. and my sister and watching TNG. And so those two things like really served as a foundation for in my childhood. But where I fell in love with the Star Trek universe was during Discovery. In all its iterations of Star Trek, from the live action to the animated series to every movie in both the Prime and Kelvin timelines, we've been gifted with possibility models for how we can work collaboratively towards civil societies. We see Gene Roddenberry's vision beautifully laid out in the original series, and in particular, the the Vulcan philosophy, infinite diversity and infinite combinations, which represents a belief that beauty, growth and progress all result from a union of the unlike. So, you know, people, species from all walks of life being able to come together and being able to make something beautiful in the work. We've seen this across the canon, right? Women in leadership, disability and neurodivergence as valued skill sets on teams, the representation of queerness and poly relationships, and consent around the labor of those in the sex trades on pleasure planets, the representation of genders beyond the binary. It was always visible from the start. And so what helped me understand Star Trek Discovery's impact, not only in my life, but I think broadly, is remembering the context of the political moment that we were in when Discovery first launched in 2017 and it ran until 2024, right? So from 2017 to 2020, we were in the first Trump administration. So we were We're seeing then the rise of authoritarianism and democratic backsliding. The Trump administration drove deep polarization, rolled back civil rights protections, and withdrew from international agreements. We were seeing far-right populism surging globally. And so you had Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duarte in the Philippines, Brexit in the UK, increased repression of dissent. So seeing protesters criminalized any kind of dissent against any administration, we were seeing very quick crackdowns globally. And so, you know, then you layer that with pandemic pandemic politics and global reckonings that came out of the COVID pandemic, right? That it reshaped political priorities. It exposed even further inequities in health systems. We saw labor protections and governance. At that point, we're into the Biden administration and he's having to clean up a lot of what the first Trump administration had left of the country. We're also seeing global uprisings, racial uprising sparked by the murder of George Floyd and the amplifying demands for systemic change by people across the globe. We're seeing supply chain issues, vaccine inequity, and the rise of infodemic disinformation fueled by mistrust in institutions. And then lastly, what we're seeing now is the ongoing climate emergency. And we're in a poly crisis era. And so, you know, at the time of in, discoveries tenure, you know, Russia invaded Ukraine. We saw escalating conflicts in Sudan, Ethiopia, in Gaza and Myanmar, reflecting intensifying global instability and then climate disasters. So wildfires, floods, extreme heat and increasing in frequency and severity. So driving displacement and political unrest. It, all of this dovetailed to make the arrival of the USS Discovery and in particular the plight of, at the time, Commander Michael Burnham. Just, it really hit on so many different levels for myself and also, I would say, broadly for, you know, Black, Indigenous, API, South, like, you know, folks of color who were struggling broadly with these issues, I think found themselves gravitating towards Star Trek. And you saw folks who were newer to the franchise who had never, who had, you know, never given Star Trek a thought. And we're now actually seeing, uh, this possibility modeling. We saw this, um, uh, visioning of a future that was, um, really beautiful. And I think, um, one of the, one of the things that perfectly contextualizes, um, uh, discovery, uh, comes from, um, I the future is disabled prophecies, love notes, and morning songs by Leah Lakshmi. And so in her forward actually writes about discovery and writes in particular, the type of salve that it is for so many people and for her or for them at this moment. And so this quote, disco helped seeing a future where things were really fucked up, but a bunch of neurodivergent multiracial nerds with Black feminist leadership saved the galaxy and revived the Federation through queer chosen family. It helped. Seeing a future where queer characters came back from death to their lovers helped. There were some really dire Trumpian days that I got through by pretending I was on the USS Discovery in my head. And so, end quote. Where Discovery pushes the canon is is that it understands when to be explicit rather than implicit. When we need the narratives of our storytelling to be more than just a platform for moral and political allegories, but an actual mirror. And so I would say that previous iterations of Star Trek had always showed representation I mentioned earlier, we saw queerness, we saw gender beyond the binary, we saw interspecies relationships, we saw the children of interspecies relationships. And with Discovery, though, we had folks actually speaking about it. So, you know, Ensign Adira, I think it was in season three, actually chooses their pronouns and lets their superior at the time, Paul Stamets, Dr. Stamets, that they go by they, them now and that she never, she as a pronoun never really resonated. And the scene, you know, Dr. Stamets is like, okay, that's cool. Moving on. And so you see how in practice, you just see in practice a lot of things that I have talked about in the organizations I've been part of and that we've crafted policy and we've talked about how to honor people's pronouns. But what you see in discovery are actual naming of why these things are important. That. you're not just talking about, oh, I feel challenged by the prime directive, but they're actually going into deep discussions about what it means to interfere into autonomous planets. What is the role of technology and advancement if we're interfering with the way a planet and a culture needs to evolve? in what makes sense for their people and their society at the time without outside interference. And so, it moves beyond a colonial practice that we've seen of people discovering new worlds and trying to conquer and trying to eradicate the indigenous life there. And with discovery, you see people like reckoning, vocally and actually naming harms and naming the types of care and the solutions towards harm that need to happen in order to move forward. So I love discovery because it was an anchor as we were moving through a portal. And I didn't know, none of us knew what was gonna be on the other side. And I would argue we're still in that portal and to see that mirrored was anchoring for me.
SPEAKER_03:You just Joe read it. This episode is going to be so good. It's already so juicy with what you've covered so far. I agree with you. I think that Discovery brought in a lot of new viewers to Star Trek. Folks that maybe weren't raised on it or didn't like, you know, come in on the original series or a lot of folks came in during Next Generation. I think it just brought in a lot of new viewers and a lot of younger viewers. Like I'm in my 30s. I'm talking like, you know, 25 and younger into the show. And I think it was for the reasons that you just said around like explicitly naming a lot of these complex and yet very like visceral experiences that we are going through currently over like the past, what, 10, a lot of years, a lot of freaking years. Yeah. Okay, I want to jump right into this next question. I will say mine was DS9. Like, that is my favorite generation. But I want to get into this next question because it relates so well to what you were just talking about. So if you could be a yeoman on any starship, who would you want your captain and first commander to be? Oh,
SPEAKER_01:such a good question. Okay, so I would have loved... being an ensign on the USS Enterprise, NCC 1701, serving under Captain Christopher Pike. He is the type, Christopher Pike, we saw him in season two of Discovery, and then he got his own show with Strange New Worlds. And so He is the type of cis white man leader that I can get behind. I fucks with some Captain Christopher Pike. He's collaborative, but with boundaries. You know, he wants to hear from his team. He, you know, will often brainstorm, troubleshoot around a meal, right? Apparently he's an amazing cook. And so in Strange New Worlds, you see him cooking looking for his crew and I just want to be there. I want, I want that. Um, he's also accountable when he makes mistakes. Um, and, and you've seen how like he makes a call and, uh, you know, someone, um, uh, uh, under him in his chain of command will counter with something different. He's like, no. And it turns out that he was incorrect and he'll actually come back to it and like name it and, and be accountable. And that builds trust that builds trust as a leader. He, you know, believes his role as captain is supporting his crew to grow into their leadership at their own pace. So he'll push but never push in a way that, that you know, turns it the other way where, you know, someone is running from their responsibility. He really, I believe, sits and thinks about how to help support everyone on his crew, not just on the bridge, but, you know, ensures that people are feeling supported and able to rise up in their leadership, whatever that needs to look like. I think also it, it just goes, I have a lot of hair envy for captain Christopher Pike. His hair is amazing. And so, um, yeah, it really, um, I sat with this a lot because, you know, while discovery is my jam and I am all down for, um, um, Michael Burnham as captain. She eventually gets the captaincy that I don't know that I wanted in my ensign years to like have to travel 930 years into the future. It
SPEAKER_03:wasn't on your bucket list.
SPEAKER_01:There was a lot of trauma happening on the USS Discovery. And, you know, a lot of, you know, there was the, you know, the battle of binary stars, which a lot of the crew who survived are, I'll get into this in a minute, but who I would love to serve as an answer and it'd be the USS Discovery under Captain Pike.
SPEAKER_03:I'm wondering if when they were writing Captain Pike's, like as a character if they were looking back at the enterprise that generation and being like how can we fix this how can we enterprise is like the throwaway generation
SPEAKER_01:like
SPEAKER_03:yes With the generation, not the Starship Enterprise, but the Generation Enterprise is... I feel like they made that specifically for white cis hetero men. And like, we want you back. We just want you back on the team. This is for the good old boys. So I wonder when they were writing... captain pike they're like yeah we fucked up we fucked up and let's let's fix this um yeah i i really like your assessment and appreciate the hair envy um for captain pike i think mine would okay it's a mixture so i think i would want to have Chakotay as my captain oh I could look at that man all day so Chakotay as my captain and seven of nine a second in command I think they're a nice about Chakotay is really rooted in not only what it takes like I would say like logically to be like a leader of like a large fleet, like a large group of people and make hard decisions, but also just like emotionally, I feel like he's very. attuned to what his his crews are going through and Seven of Nine I think would help to balance that with just like her logical and like very matter of fact nature or I would want Seven of Nine as captain and counselor Deanna Troy as second in command because I'm here and all of them leadership team like please yes I think those would be my my two go-to. Okay. We're actually going to go. Oh, wait, no, no, go, go ahead. Go
SPEAKER_01:ahead. Can I ask a follow-up question?
SPEAKER_03:I'm scared, but yes.
SPEAKER_01:No. So for Chakotay, like captain of Voyager or captain of the Maquis? Oh
SPEAKER_03:my gosh. Well, I think I was thinking of like a brand new ship. Like they've already lived like through being, you know, captain of the maquis and then also second in command of voyager but this is like a brand new ship so maybe there's other folks from um that crew that are also on this crew um so he's had like years under his belt of like they
SPEAKER_01:made it through the delta quadrant yeah they
SPEAKER_03:made it through the delta con yeah like we are we are back home they're like we need you to go back out and he's like ah but i gotta do it
SPEAKER_01:I love that. I love that.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so we're actually going to go into our first break. I know that commercial breaks are usually a time where you skip through. I do that. But I encourage you to actually listen to these commercials because they are from local and national organizations that I feel you should be supporting. So please enjoy this commercial break.
SPEAKER_02:Peace, y'all. I'm Spirit Pierce McIntyre, Spirit, they, them, pronouns, and I'm really thrilled to have my piece 22,000 be the musical feature for Sunseed Community Podcasts Season 5. In addition to being a composer, I'm also a musician, cellist, lyricist, vocalist. I am an artist coach, as well as a garment constructor. So if you want to find out more about me, you can check out my website, spiritpiercemcintyre.com, and I'll see you next time. You can also email me directly if you want to work together. McIntyreSpirit at gmail.com. M-C-I-N-T-Y-R-E-S-P-I-R-I-T at gmail.com. And you can stay up with me on IG at McIntyre Spirit. Peace, y'all.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome back. All right, next question, Lillian. What aspects of how Star Trek portrays leadership and teamwork really resonates with you? And I think you've covered this a little bit, but yeah, please dive deeper. And what also does not resonate with you?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so let me start with what resonates for me. So the first thing, this comes from the last season of Discovery when they're on... what feels like the most amazing treasure hunt. And, you know, they're having to get clues to get from one place to the next, puzzles, all kinds of death defying tasks in order to basically get to the progenitors, you know, the origin of all sentient life and what their lessons are. And so there was a particular scene. It was a lot of chaos. And the phrase problem now, science later was uttered. And this was on season five, episode nine, Lag Range Point. And so For me, it emphasizes a lot of trust and accountability that has been built into the relationships of crew members. And so on one end of the spectrum, because they're all STEM nerds, you see folks get super excited about some amazing science that's playing out right in front of them. Cool, but we're in the middle of a crisis, so maybe not the most appropriate time to bust out in the step by step science and mechanics of what is happening. So problem now, science later. And then on the other side of that coin, what happens when there's a disagreement that happens within the chain of command during a vital moment? Maybe there's a conflict, but that specific moment is not the time to process. But we will get to address the issue once we're past the initial crisis, Because we've seen that good leaders understand that to leave conflict unaddressed means it will absolutely come back to bite you in the ass. Like in the middle of a high stakes mission, we're in a nebula. It's about to collapse on itself and develop and envelop a neighboring planet. I don't need to know the steps. Just do it. Or, you know, like if there's conflict, it's like we can't process this right now. Problem now, science later, we promise to get to it, but now is not the time. And so I have been in many situations in organizations, in the middle of a campaign, in the middle of an action where something like that has happened. And, you know, there's a, I feel like sometimes in nonprofit organizations, organizations especially, there becomes a tendency to want to just dive in. We need to adjust this right now or else we can't move forward. And sometimes that might be the case in a lower stakes situation, but sometimes we just need to focus and finish what we're actually here to do. So problem now, science later. That's one. Something that also are these next set of things that resonate for me actually come from the unification episode series. And so there are three in total. Unification three happens in season three of Discovery and unification one and two happens during season five of The Next Generation. And it's basically about Spock's work of reuniting the Vulcans and the Romulans. And so it's tenuous work. They've been at war, mortal enemies for decades. centuries, a lot of violence, a lot of mistrust and Spock's life work, his life's work is about reuniting his people. And so you see Spock doing his organizing on the TNG episodes and then where we pick up on Discovery is where Michael Burnham, they're in the future now, they're 930 years into the future. The Federation is a shell of its former self. There's a lot of distrust of the Federation. Vulcan, which is now Navarre, the combined, the reunited Romulan and Vulcan planet has left the Federation. like a hundred years ago. And so there's in that episode, just chock full of really beautiful lessons around leadership that really resonate for me. So the first is that leadership development is critical. You see it in the various ways that crew members are mentored and not just by their immediate supervisors, right? We see, you know, Michael, Burnham was her first mentor was Philippa Georgiou who passed away. We see Tilly, Ensign Tilly being mentored by Michael Burnham. We see Saru and Michael Burnham's relationship and their collaboration around supporting one another's leadership. And so it is baked into every single role, I believe, on on starships and that Yeah, it's critical, it's important, and you see that throughout the entire franchise. The next is, and this is where I'd love to hear from you, is conflict care strategies. So we see examples on the individual, the interpersonal, and the institutional level of how conflict care strategies are embedded within this particular episode of Unification 3. So one, the impact of Michael Burnham making decisions on behalf of others without their consent. And so that both Tilly and Saru have established enough trust with Michael Burnham to share the impact of her actions, making decisions on their behalf without their consent, that that happens, those really vital conversations happen because they can impede trust. And then On the other end of that, you see Michael Burnham holding all that and sitting with it, sitting with her impact and what she thought was absolutely the right decision to make. That wasn't necessarily the case. And so she repairs. She repairs that with both Saru and Tilly. And then The second is that Navarre establishes the Coat Milat, a group of Romulan, warrior nuns whose primary teachings were about the way of absolute candor. And so to support the Vulcans and Romulans regaining trust after centuries of brutality on both sides, the Coat Milat were used as advocates in different types of settings where they were having to debate uh, scientific merits of, you know, X, Y, and Z. Uh, sometimes, uh, if a, uh, crime was committed that you, or, uh, what is it? Uh, the co the co-op and a lot are assigned to the lost causes of, uh, Navarre. And so, um, uh, that there is a body established to handle the conflict of centuries of conflict and help build trust. So that's at the institutional level. And then we also see Starfleet being accountable to Navarre for the harm that it caused in pushing then Vulcan to conduct experiments that everyone widely believed to be the cause of the burn. And so Vulcan removed itself from the Federation after having been a founding member of it. That first contact was done with the Vulcans and to have them to learn that they left Starfleet meant that Starfleet, and so USS Discovery now having to bear the responsibility of what atonement for Starfleet could look like. So Yeah, that's, I'm going to, I'm going to pause there to see if maybe you have any thoughts. I
SPEAKER_03:think my, thank you for what you shared thus far, because this spot on, I think, is a good way of like kind of looking at like the bigger picture. picture of like the socio-political um ways uh that conflict is kind of like shows up um in Star Trek but then also on like a like internally within the starships how it shows up and I think that is more so what I think about when I when I'm thinking about conflict care of how the different characters I'm thinking specifically of um Alana Torres. Love Alana Torres. And Tom Paris. And how their characters... They were never asked to check part of themselves at the door. Alana Torres is a firecracker and will speak her mind. She shows when she's angry, when she's disappointed. Tom Paris is the quote-unquote cool guy and does not follow rules. That has consequences, but it's never... Like, they're never shamed or asked to... remove parts of themselves but they're just asked to grow and like find their place in in in the collective like of the crew um and i see that with all the characters of like there are so many different personalities there are people that i wouldn't necessarily want to be friends with or work with but they still show up like o'brien probably would not want to hang with him but he shows up for the crew and part of how he shows up and part of his, like what he has to offer is parts of his personality that are quite like, like brass, or I would say like rough around the edges, but that like leads to him making an amazing leader as a part of, like as a leader of the engineering crew. So when it comes to conflict, I see that everyone is, accepted for who they are kind of like in like you know in a family like you accept people for who they are but you still have boundaries with them and they still are asked to be held accountable for when they don't make the greatest of decisions um i think that's one thing and also around the different ways that folks can address conflict like you have like you know the the ready room where we can have a private conversation or we can have it like have it out on um the the main deck or conversations being had in like the the mess hall um Um, and the cooks, the, um, will be Goldberg's character. And I always forget her name. Oh, I'm so sorry. But like, uh, yes, yes. Like there are different people who like folks are going to, to, um, as like refuge as ways of like kind of getting out, like what's been frustrating about the mission or someone on the team. They have all these different people who they can go to, to help them as they're trying to figure out how to solve really complex relationship dynamics and like complex like like like internship like ship like issues as well so i think that that's really important and i love when they started having a therapist on the crew like um torres like counselor torres um I think she added the component that I was deeply craving in other like older generations of having someone who acknowledges that you don't have to be so strong. You don't have to be perfect. And how does kind of accepting the different emotions, the different challenges that you're going to go through, how does actually feeling into them work? like affect the quality of your work um i'm gonna pause there too because i'm gonna pause there i want to go like go back to you because i know you had more to say so please please share
SPEAKER_01:I love that. I love that. And, um, I feel like we could have a whole separate episode just on Guinan alone. So, um, maybe there's a part two at some point, but, um, thank you for sharing that. I, um, yeah, that like, um, the growth trajectory of, um, leaders like B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris, like, um, that conflict care strategies help, uh, help support people's development as leaders, uh, And I think that's something that people don't necessarily make the connection to, that conflict care is seen as just strictly as mediation when there's conflict, as opposed to, it's not just when conflict happens that we have to institute solutions to solve that particular issue. issue, but how do we switch steps way before that build in connections and supports so that we can actually minimize the amount of conflict mediation that needs to happen. And so I love your the examples that you shared. And so going back to like what resonates and situating back into the unification episodes in unification one on Picard and Spock are interacting and Picard's trying to understand why, you know, Spock, like, left for Romulus, is under radar, under cloak, no one knows. People in the Federation are thinking that he's a turncoat, has become a spy, has went to the side of the Romulans. And so Spock is explaining that actually his work of unifying the Vulcans and Romulans. He actually needs to be on the ground and building relationships, making connections. He he's organizing really is what it is. And that he, he has to live in the place of where he's trying to organize so that he can build trust with, um, folks, uh, in order to support, um, you know, the idea of reunification. Cause you can't just like go and be like reunifying that, like there has to be a lot of groundwork that happens. And so Picard says to Spock, um, he's like this, that sounds like cowboy diplomacy. And so cowboy diplomacy, um, really stuck with me, um, because I I'm like, oh, it's, It's organizing in space. It's organizing in space on Star Trek. And it is about, it's the on the ground work you do to build trust and connection. So it's not just about the first contact. It's second contact, third contact. It's about how we are continuing to build the relationship towards trust. And then the next is that we see models for collaborative governance. So ultimately the story stands as a testament to a leadership style that uplifts long-term relationships reconciliation, the bridging of social capital, daring innovation, and the deeply personal sacrifices sometimes needed for a lasting peace. And so, yeah, those are the things that really resonate with me in Star Trek personified by the unification episodes. So what doesn't resonate? How about it took 930 years for Michael Burnham to get a promotion to captain, okay? All right. Or how about like, I was talking, I was talking to him, man, like she was demoted twice. I mean, whatever we, I get into this a little bit later, but that, yeah. Like can a, can a, can a, can a black woman actually be compensated and be recognized for her leadership and not have take almost a century? um so yeah
SPEAKER_03:apparently not in the future or that
SPEAKER_01:no no so um so there's that uh and then there's there's also like you know if you look at the context of the the women captains that that we've seen um across franchises so like um janeway captain janeway and voyager um uh captain friedman in lower decks who is um uh the second black woman uh captain although animated But, um, uh, that, you know, when we finally get to see women in leadership, it's always these really extreme ass situations. Like what was it? Voyager was a 90 year voyage, right? So it's like, okay. Yeah. You handle this mess. Okay. You know, Michael Burnham, we're now in the future. We need to rebuild all of this. You can be a captain now. So, so it's just, you see a lot of replication of, you know, like you, anti-blackness and misogynoir that we see in nonprofit organizations. We do see that. Being like set up to fail. Like you handle the
SPEAKER_03:board.
SPEAKER_01:You know, so that's something that apparently we still have to fight for in our institutions. Yeah. And then where also it doesn't resonate for me is when hierarchy and the chain of command limits the team's ability to remain flexible and pivot when necessary. And that it potentially limits the ability more abundant solutions. We see this time and again in Discovery. We especially see it in Lower Decks, where I would argue is, you know, Lower Decks is able to push the canon further because of the freedom that comes with animation. So those are, that's the, there
SPEAKER_03:you go. I mean, like I was here for it. Yeah. Okay. I have follow-up questions, but we're running out of time. Okay, so let's get into this next one, because I think there's still room to kind of dive deeper into what you were just talking about. So in Star Trek, some challenges the crew experience are episodic, but others span the course of the entire show and are deeply rooted in historic trauma. So how is this also portrayed in work and collaborative settings in Star This world, the real world, or so we call it.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I think I read that question incorrectly.
SPEAKER_03:what you interpreted of.
SPEAKER_01:I was talking, so I took it as to talk about trauma within the context of the show, right? And so how that long arc happens. And so in the first episode of Discovery, you know, we see Michael Burnham and Captain Philippa Georgiou aboard the USS Shenzhou, which, you know, by the end of that um so the episode is is it introduces michael burnham as the first officer um that we see um first uh our first contact with klingons in almost a century right and that um uh now we're in escalating, we're seeing escalating tensions with the Klingons. And so Michael Burnham decides to, she argues for a preemptive strike referencing the Vulcan Klingon history and that Vulcans, earned Klingon respect through displays of strength. And so the episode was called Vulcan Hello, and it was a strategy of showing strength in order to engage with the Klingons in a peer-like way. Because if they saw you as weak, then that was a no-go. They weren't going to engage. And so Michael Burnham was really, really just on this. And Philippa Georgiou was like, no. That's not what we're going to do. We're going to follow protocol and Michael Burnham decides to do it anyway and instigates the Battle of Binary Stars, which ends up getting 8,186 crew members of the USS Shenzhou murdered. And so those who survived moved to the USS Discovery. And so we see Michael Burnham, by the end of that episode, she's been demoted, she's been labeled a mutineer, she's been imprisoned, and she's lost everything. And so when we move into you know, the first season and really through the whole arc of discovery, Michael Burnham, that grief, that guilt, that need to atone is the driver for how she moves throughout the rest of her career, right? So yeah, that atonement has not just around being, you know getting back to her rank that she, you know, she was at, but it was also like the interpersonal relationships. People died, that the survivors who were now on USS Discovery with her have, you know, are now, are disabled and are having to use accessible devices to, you know, to now live. And so she's needing to make amends on the interpersonal level with her various shipmates she's having to rebuild trust within the federation of her leadership and she does that like she's you know does that from the like just from the ground up and is given a lot of shit and some of it is absolutely like it's called for, right? Because the impact of her actions caused harm, regardless of what her intentions were, regardless of the fact that she is an exemplary, like she's good at her job. And so we see how the trauma follows not just Michael Burnham, but the whole crew as they are having to navigate and do work, still work and still do these impossible tasks that They're having to figure out a way to rebuild trust with one another as their circumstances change, as Burnham puts herself on the line in order to hopefully atone. And so we see that. And that resonated for me a lot in my own leadership journey. Yeah. And I think the... why it's important to address, I think is, or one of the other outlying sort of things that I could pull, lessons that I can pull from this. Spock in season three, a young Spock who is a foster brother to Michael Burnham says to her, you're a responsibility hoarder. And so- Basically, as a result of her guilt and her need for atonement, sometimes very unnecessarily just carries the weight of the world on her shoulder. The survival of sentient life is on her shoulders to have to solve and fix. And when any leader sort of operates from that frame of mind or that mindset, it is it's it's ultimately destructive. Right. It places it doesn't place trust in your team members because you're holding all of the responsibility and you're not allowing folks to grow. You're not bringing folks in. Yeah, and so absolutely, while Burnham comes at this from a place of guilt and desire to atone that, and there's also some imposter syndrome in there, in the mix, I believe. But I also understand that this framing can be a setup. also for black women leaders in particular, right? Who are oftentimes promoted to leadership positions when shit hits the fan and they're needing someone to clean up the mess that somebody else made. So, you know, Michael Burnham and the trauma of the USS Discovery and the Shinzo and the crew members you see play out. And it's, again, that thing that Discovery does really well in that it's not new. Other starships have experienced masterpieces forms of trauma, but that it's a through line. It's almost its own character, really, in discovery, and that it comes up in a variety of ways, real life ways.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's a good point. I think with other times where there's been that much where whole crews have been decimated, usually the captain also dies and so there's no body that we see kind of carrying the weight of that kind of trauma that they have caused like we don't see that through line and see how they um they navigate the trauma while also trying to like redeem themselves um in the way that we see that um with um Michael Burnham. I'm curious what your take is also when talking about how Michael Burnham is kind of navigating this around the difference between how Tilly and Michael build a relationship versus how Saru and Michael build their or rebuild their relationship because I think Saru holds Michael accountable in a different kind of way or is quite honest with Michael about like how he feels about her and her past actions and current actions and you see him changing his mind over time but still holding true to certain things that like I think act as a mirror to Michael and I think Tilly's relationship with Michael is coming from a different vantage point. First of all, Tilly's younger and, like, almost comes in as, like, holds the trauma of, like, maybe her parents experiencing the burn or, like, was very young when it happened versus Saru, who, like, was there. It's
SPEAKER_01:different,
SPEAKER_03:yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, it's different. And, you know, Tilly also is, like... Saru and Michael Burnham are peers, right? And because Tilly is an ensign, you know, she, they, and, you know, when they become roommates, when Michael Burnham is brought onto the Discovery as part of a work release program, I guess that's, it was a work release program, essentially. Gone awry
SPEAKER_03:or something? I don't know.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Work releases already arrived. But anyway, let me stop.
SPEAKER_01:But essentially that's what, that's what it is. Right. And so she's brought on as a specialist, but she's still, you know, it's still her freedom is contingent on her ability to do this work. And if she doesn't want to, if she don't, you know, she gets put back in prison. So by all accounts, it's, it's a, it's a work release program. And when she, you know, her and Tilly become roommates and Tilly gets over her initial, like the only Michael, Michael, I know girl, Michael, I know is, the mutineer, um, that, uh, we see also, uh, there's a generational shift of perspective of like willingness to like hear about Michael's experience and to still see Michael as a full human being and to engage in the build that friendship and still sees, understand, um, still values, um, Michael's leadership and, uh, experience within the Federation. And, and, and so it was like, oh no, will you be my mentor? Um, and so that is, um, beautiful on a whole, on a lot of different levels about like, you know, re-entry and, you know, the respect that, um, you know, folks who are re-entering society, um, you know, the, the, um, the respect that, uh, I think folks deserve as they do their work in these types of programs. And so anyways, there's that, but also, you know, and that, episode, the unification episode where, where Tilly is actually, you know, when she's talking to Saru and Saru's like asks Tilly, essentially Michael has been demoted from his number one. And he asks Tilly to to be acting number one in Michael Burnham's place. Tilly identifies that Michael put him in a situation that was wrong and that it limited his options, his choice. And that she's like, I love Michael. Michael is like, she's the person I love most in this world. She's my mentor. I respect her. And she did something wrong. She did something incorrect that had impact. And these are the consequences. And I feel like that is, I mean, I feel like like i can make a lot of correlations um to that experience with my working with you know like um millennial or gen z like um folks uh in non-profits where um you know the the attitudes of the old guard are you see it crumbling you see like the uh ways that you know we had thought about punishment, you know, like being tweaked on its head that people can come back for that. And that, you know, in any other sort of iteration of Star Trek, maybe, you know, like, no one would have given Michael Burnham another chance Michael Burnham would just be left in prison. And so, yeah, I think that that. those two examples of like Saru and Tilly's approach to how they see Michael and work with Michael are two different perspectives, but two also really valuable and dope views of relationship.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Okay, I'm gonna try to like consolidate this question. Because I definitely want to get to what you're up to outside of the Star Trek universe. So Star Trek writers create really good character arcs. You talked a bit about this already. We see people grow into their fullest selves throughout the show. So In the past, what have been some of your character arcs and what do you foresee or are seeing in your current character arcs?
SPEAKER_01:I love this question. So my own character arcs, figuring out my own relationship to leadership, I believe is a lifelong process. The type of leader I thought I should be as a young person has thankfully transitioned into something a lot more thoughtful in middle age because I had a lot of people who were willing to struggle through hard conversations to tell me about myself or have me tell them about themselves. And part of why Michael Burnham leadership arc resonated with me is because we get to see a leader make a lot of mistakes and have the time and space to think through what atonement looks like um you know having honesty with yourself in order to understand your intentions and whether or not your words are aligning with your actions and uh their resulting impact um and um yeah that i think uh Something that also I carry with me a lot is something that Saru said to Dr. Culber. during the episode Choose to Live, and you see various characters are making the choice to live beyond the trauma or beyond some trauma. And so he says, sometimes the most important thing we can do is to reach for one another. And I think that this period of time, reaching out to those folks who get what you're doing, who are cheerleading you, who can provide, be a good sounding board because you know that your best intentions around how you want to grow is where they're coming from. And so, yeah, that I hope that I continue to find the connections with folks in the movement, folks in the communities I am part of, that help build healthy connection, that help build tangible solutions to the problems we find ourselves with. And that really at the end of the day, it's how we bridge our social capital.
SPEAKER_03:That's so beautiful. Can you share a bit more about who are these folks who are supporting you as your story unfolds?
SPEAKER_01:I feel like that's a perfect setup because you are one of those people.
SPEAKER_03:Right back at ya.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I mean, I think, you know, you mentioned, you know, the job that we were at, where we first met, and that you always from, you know, you first land, the time you first landed there, were always so willing to collaborate. And I think that, that for me, that's, that's, that's number one, like, willingness to, or just understanding that no individual can, can, can be the only solution. I find it suspect, you know, leaders who are just leaders of their own, like prop up their own leadership and they're not giving props to like actually the team of folks who are supporting them to be able to do what they do in the world. And for me, that collaborative governance is something that I'm really excited about and that when I see people people who are mirrored who are mirroring the same thing I gravitate towards them so there's you Dr. Connie when I mentioned her as one of my comrades at the beginning at AAPI Women Lead what she is doing with AAPI women in the Bay Area in particular and building a political home and doing the work of addressing gender-based violence has been really inspiring. And she's been someone that I've collaborated with since we were young little organizers running the streets as a hot mess. Or I speak for myself. Let me speak for myself. And, you know, like so many good organizations, like people, there are a lot of folks. There's always Audrey Lorde Project in New York, CAB, Organizing Asian Communities, also in New York. right to the city. These folks and the folks who inevitably end up working at these organizations are the folks that ultimately are folks that I choose to flex with.
SPEAKER_03:I love that. Yes. Discernment and who you fucks with. Yes. And right back at you as well. I think over the time we've met, like since we've met, I've really appreciated how, even in like preparing, like so side note to the folks who were not a part of the background of creating this, like Lola was sending me text messages of like, Like the mind map of how they wanted to answer the questions and all the background research they were doing. And that like, that deep diving into things that you're passionate about and how you show up in other collaborations and in our collaborations of like, I really want to get this done. I need to go deep so that I understand. And so I'm not just like talking from the surface level about things. Like, I really appreciate that. And also just like the kindness that you show to the space and you bring to the space, a sense of play, a sense of joy. a sense of gentleness, I feel like is a reminder, no matter like what we're doing, either we're hanging out or we're collaborating on some work together of like, there needs to be actual right relationship in this. And I appreciate that. And I think for my character arc, It's interesting that you said that about not doing things alone, because that is something I constantly have. And why I try to bring it into spaces is because I've had to learn over time that I cannot be of an island on my own trying to do things. And that that is a part of the gift of collaboration is... learning how to go through hard conversations and having disagreement, even in like small things about like how things should go. That is a part of what makes something better. It can't just come from one person. And I've had to like learn that and learn that like, yes, it's difficult working with other people, but you can't play by yourself. You can, but it's just, it's not the, it hits different. It hits different. And, and, And I think another thing in my character arc is learning that you don't have to go, like you don't have to remove parts of yourself. I think I deeply resonate with Seven of Nine, Data, and Spock across the generations because they had to learn how to socialize with humans Even though they didn't feel human, weren't human, or had an experience as a human outside of the context of human socialization. And so it's a reminder to me of, like, accepting my own neurodivergence and not in a way of, like, how do I... acclimate to what's socially acceptable, but how do I take who I am and not like put that aside while also learning how to engage with folks who think like their brain just functions different, differently than me. Like, where is that? So I think that's a character arc that is huge, huge in my life right now. Yeah. There's so much more I wanted to cover with you. I wanted to cover like the Dominion War and like Nog being injured as a freaking child. Like there was just so much I wanted to cover with you and we can't do it in one episode. So I want to bring us to your current work. So can you please tell us about your current offerings and work that you are doing and how can we contact you?
SPEAKER_01:Oh yes, I'd love this, thank you. So I am currently the principal strategist behind Artful Praxis Consulting, where I support movement formations, nonprofits, leaders, and funders who are stuck in the middle of complexity. Figure out how to move with more clarity, care, and political grounding, whether it's navigating conflict, shifting power dynamics, or re-imagining strategy. I come in as a thought partner who gets the nuance. A lot of my work is about tending to the relationships and structures that hold our work, especially when they're under pressure. I run strategy labs, lead political education and skills building trainings, like the one you and I are going to be co-leading on conflict care and embodied grant making. I also support organizations through leadership transitions and governance shifts. At the end of the day, I'm just really invested in building political home not just better spreadsheets. I'm here to help folks practice the future and not just plan for it. So if you are interested in talking more with me, learning more about Artful Praxis Consulting, you can visit our website at www.artfulpraxisconsulting.org. And then we also have pages on LinkedIn and Instagram with the handle at Artful Praxis Consulting. Thank
SPEAKER_03:you so much, Lola. Oh, please continue.
SPEAKER_01:Thank, no, I was just going to thank you. I was just going to thank
SPEAKER_00:you.
SPEAKER_01:Most fun assignment ever. I feel like if I can advocate for a part two at some point, there's still a lot for us to talk about. Thank you so much for the invitation and for, yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, thank you. This has been a journey in and of itself, and I'm like, maybe we should just have our own podcast where we just commentate on, like, go through all the gender and comment. I think folks would, I would eat that up. I don't know if other folks would, but I would eat that up. I love this. And I also want us to have a friendship photo shoot in, like, the ready room.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I'm all for that. I feel like we can do, like, a Our own version of Mystery Science Theater 3000. And we're just commenting on all things pop culture and their political relevance.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, please. Yes, yes, yes, please. So coming up, y'all. Okay, so thank you again so much. Thank you so much, Lolan. Oh, my words. Anyway. Last question. What is your heart carrying with you into this great big wide world as we close our conversation? What
SPEAKER_01:is my heart carrying? I feel it feels full. It feels full in the best way when, you know, I can be creative and also, you know, do my life's work. I'm thinking about organizing and strategic development for organizations, like to be able to apply that to, you know, this other love I have just, yeah, it makes me feel engaged and ready for more. So thank you. Yeah,
SPEAKER_03:absolutely. I think what my heart's carrying with me is just appreciation for our friendship. I think that this is just one facet of the ways that we nerd out together. And it means, like, I'm so giddy inside that, like, other folks got to experience. And your weaving of all things organizing and Star Trek.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. Thank you, friends.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for watching this episode. I love you so much. I'm kissing. I'm kissing consensually. If you want that, I will ask you before kissing you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast. I encourage you to meander on down to the description link below to share this episode, tip the guests, and follow all the magical folks that made this podcast possible. Deep gratitude to all of you. Even patting my myself a little bit on the back right now labor of love labor of love later gator and may you walk with the ancestors peace
SPEAKER_02:out 22,000 times a day 22,000 times a day