[Arielle Rochelin] Morning. And so, Miss Erika Washington, thank you so much for joining us today for the Black Reproductive Justice Archive. And I know you do a lot. You are involved in committees. You are an activist activist, but I thought that it would be really important to start just by asking you to give us a just an overview, right, of your credentials. So name, where are you working at? What are your credentials? What are you involved in?

[Erika Washington] Sure. So, sure. My name is Erika Washington. I am the executive director of Make It Work, Nevada, and Make It Work Nevada Education Fund. We are a forward facing C4 reproductive justice organization. We are state based in the state of Nevada with the hopes of branching out past the borders of of the desert. But I am also a mother. I have three children. They aren’t really children anymore. There are tax paying voters, two of them anyway. And the other will graduate from high school next year. And I think that that’s my biggest credential right there is is is being a mother and being a Black woman walking through this world. So everything that I have learned, everything that I have done is really based upon how I have been able to view life.

[Erika Washington] But I’ll say I am also on various boards. I am, and I probably should have looked at it because I’ll probably forget something, because I also just don’t know how to say no when people ask me to join, boards and committees. I am, I was appointed by the governor, and I’m, and I’m on the Nevada State Maternal Mortality Review Committee. I am also on… appointed by the governor to be on the state… the state’s, Medicaid Reimbursement, Committee I am the board chair for family values at work, which is a national organization and network. I am the… the board chair of Mothering Justice, which is based out of Detroit, Michigan. I am a board member – think I’m just a board member, I might be more than that – of Nine to Five Work for Working Women, national organization, they’re gonna come back and be like, you know, your board chair of that too. And then there is the was appointed by the City Council… by City Councilmen, years ago for the city of Las Vegas for the community development committee, which is basically giving out, grants to different, smaller, nonprofit organizations and there’s probably something missing, but I think that’s it. So those are my my credentials of sorts. And I’m the host of two podcasts.

[Arielle Rochelin] I’m I’m I definitely wanna get into that because I saw that, and I think that’s so dope. But thank you for sharing that. And thank you for also for positioning in that way too. I especially appreciated when you said that your biggest credential is that your mom and that you are a Black woman navigating this world because that is a credential that ultimately unto itself, affords a particular experience and perspective that is invaluable. And so from that perspective, but also just given all your expertise, we just wanted to ask what brought you to Make It Work, Nevada. I know you have a background in journalism. You are doing so many things. And so I guess the question is really asking about your journey to Make It Work, Nevada, but also I guess asking a little bit about, like, how did it sort of, like, coalesce around that organization given all your history and all your expertise?

[Erika Washington] Those are a fun story. A little bit. I think… so like you said, my background is journalism, but I’ve also done a plethora of other things. I’ve lived multiple, multiple, multi… multifaceted life, I’ve been a flight attendant. I’ve been a journalist. I have been a waitress. I have been a cook in a restaurant. I have… then a comms person, a development person, and then State Director, Maek It Work, and then executive director. And so all of those things together, I think, are how, you know, I have been able to function and do this work.

[Erika Washington] And my my road to make it work particularly, I had just left being the, Director of Development with communications at the Las Vegas Urban League. And I started there.

[Erika Washington] Well I should I back up just a little bit more. So when I moved to Las Vegas in 2008, I had, wanted to right full time. I had never actually written full time because it’s a scary career. It does not pay well, and people don’t read the way that they used to. Like, I wanted to do long form journalism. I wanted to do, like, you know, seven, eight, nine page articles that people used to see in, like, Rolling Stone or even like a Playboy magazine or New York magazine, that sort of thing. And people don’t weren’t really reading, you know, that way. The internet has our our attention spans are lot shorter than they used to be. Right?

[Erika Washington] So and, so I have been doing some of anything. Right? I had been a flight attendant and, a waitress. I was really just trying to make ends meet. I had children I had to feed. And I ran… I read an article. This was I was still living in Michigan at the time, and I read an article in a regular old like, pickup at the grocery store type of magazine, the freestand And I read the articles about roller skating. And I looked at the byline, and I recognized the name. This was a friend of mine. This was a girl I went to elementary school with, like fifth grade. And I was like, oh my goodness. I know this person, right? So I call the magazine and say, “Hey, you know, I’m looking for this person….” Obviously, they’re not gonna give me her information, and they’re like, oh, well, she’s freelance and, you know, and no one was really getting back to me. So I sent an email, I think, or something. And they said, well, we can’t give out her information, but we can send yours to hers. And I said that by. Just let her know that Erika Washington is looking for her, and then she calls me. And she was my best friend in elementary school and then, you know, parts of junior high. And so we were catching up. And the first thing she said to me is, “So what are you writing?” And “You said when you grow up, you’re gonna be a writer”. And I was like, “yeah, I did say that, didn’t I?” Like, this person, after this span of years, came back, and the first thing she asked me was about something that she knew brought so much towards me, and I was not doing it at all.

[Erika Washington] And so fast forward to a few months, I’m moving to Las Vegas just because, you know, that’s what we felt like doing at that moment. And I’m like, I’m really earnestly searching for jobs where I can write. And so, there’s a Black newspaper, the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice. Las Vegas Sentinal Voice is the only Black newspaper in the entire state of Nevada. And when I moved to Las Vegas from Detroit, I cannot find the Black people. I’m like, where are they? Where’s everybody at? It’s so it’s not a Black town by any stretch of the imagination. The state of Nevada is eight percent Black, I think, the entire state. So, you know, I’m searching. My abuse supply store. House of Black people. And I’m like, I am getting closer. Where are my people? And then I see pick up this newspaper, and that’s how I find out about the newspaper.

[Erika Washington] And so I’m trying to get a hold of this person. I want to write for them. Right? And I’m not getting any I’m not hearing anything back. So I lied, what I did I lied. And I, reached out to a PR firm because Je’Caryous Johnson who does plays. Kinda like Nadia sorta plays was coming to Las Vegas and doing a play on the strip. And that normally never happens. You don’t see, like, those type of Black plays on the strip in Las Vegas. And Brian McKnight was starring, Vivica Fox, the girl Charlemagne from Cosby Show – I can’t remember what her name is, some other folks – and so I pitch this PR person, “Hey, I would love to do a story on this show coming.” And she’s like, “yeah, who you write for?” I was like “the Las Vegas Sentinel Voice”. I hadn’t talked to them yet. And so she was like, okay.

[Erika Washington] I called up a friend of mine who had a really nice camera, like when those big with the long lenses, somebody know how to use Nikon sort of thing. And I slept with that camera in my bed because I was nervous my children would touch it, and then I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay her back because they gonna break my camera because they think it’s a toy. Right? So I go down there to Planet Hollywood, and I, interview everybody. I’m there all day. Like, this is not journalist, like a real journalist wouldn’t be there that long. I’m there talking to everybody as much as possible. I have pictures with Vivica, pictures with Brian McKnight, which I would not have anything to do with at this point in life, but, you know, all of that. And I write the story. I took the pictures. I took myself down to the sentinel voice newspaper building when I’ve I found it on just like a little house type thing and knocked on a door and opened the door, Ramon Savoy, who was a publisher of the paper answers the door. And I said, “My name is Erika Washington. I wrote you a story. You should read it. You should publish it and you should pay me.” And he said, “Who are you?” And I said it again. And he was like, okay, come in. So he came in, and honestly, the rest of his history, he’s one of my favorite people in the world, and that’s how I got that job. Like, that is how I started working for the Sentinel and working for the Sentinel got me in the door of meeting the Black people in Nevada and in Las Vegas. So that’s how I understood what was going on.

[Erika Washington] I understood the history, the economic, infrastructure, you know, meeting politicians, the Black folks who were the first to do a lot of things because Las Vegas is still a pretty new town as compared to a Detroit or Chicago or New York or wherever. So the first Black senator, the first Black congressman, they were all still around. Right? Like, first Black congressman, he was just elected in two thousand and, I think, twelve ish ten, somewhere around there. And the first Black senator who has since passed away was elected like the late seventies, early eighties. So this is not, you know, all these things most really happened recently. Did that work and wasn’t really enjoying it, but did did not pay well at all. And I was able to then do some work for the new CEO that came into the Las Vegas Urban League. And I ended up working there full time because the paper was closing. And as soon as the paper closed, I went to the Urban League. And I thought I was gonna really be making a difference because I’m like, oh, they work with folks who can’t afford to pay their rent. They… you know, they help folks with utilities and what have you and not really understanding that nonprofit world at all, but this is what I’m coming into was like we’re raising money so that we can help the community. But it really felt more like we were raising money to put Band Aid on gashing wounds that were profusely bleeding. And I’m like, this isn’t really the work, right? This isn’t what I’m actually trying to do. And so I left there, you know, thinking that I was going I went to a union for a hot second, and I was really like and that wasn’t it for me either.

[Erika Washington] And then I got to a car accident. On my way to work and a guy runs red light, He’s he hits me and the car next to he’s me and the car next to me, and I’ve been around a couple times, hip, telephone pole. And the firemen had to come and pull me out of the car. It was a whole thing. Right? And so then I was off, and I was at home, like, you know, on that good medication, and that good medication had me dreaming about all the work I could be doing. I’m watching Ted Talks, you know, I am inspired. Like, I am and I wrote out a list of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. And, I manifested it, I think, you know, because I thought and I thought I was creating my own org at that time, and I didn’t know how to do that. But then not long after that, a colleague said to me, Hey, there’s this campaign that’s coming into town and you’re looking for a state director, and you might be the right person for it. And they’re like, “I’m like, what campaign?” They’re like, the Make It Work campaign. And I’m like, “What is that?” And they explained it to me, and I go online, I look at it, and I read the job description. I was like, oh, yeah. That the job for me. Right?

[Erika Washington] And so I meet the person that was interviewing people. She had come into Nevada. And I told her, I said, “You don’t need to interview anybody else. This is my job. This is for me”. And she was like, okay, girl. Here. Tell me about this, tell me about that, and I didn’t know shit about shit. I’m telling you, I didn’t know anything about what it was to run be a state director or do this nonprofit work from a political policy standpoint. I just knew what I wanted to do, and I needed to figure out I need a vehicle to help me get to where I was going and wanting to help solve problems and and move Black people into a better space. And so they hired me. That was in twenty fifteen, and then in twenty seventeen, the campaign was sunsetting because it was only meant to be a three year campaign with an eye towards policy to change federal work with a different president than the one we got in twenty sixteen. That did not happen. And so, they asked if I wanted to continue doing the work in the state as a state based organization. And I said, yes. Again, not knowing what yes meant, and saying that I wanted to be the Executive Director, not knowing all with that entail, but Here we are now, six plus years later, as as me being the executive director of Make It Work, Nevada. So that’s the long story of how I got to be where I am right now, but In the end, I think the takeaway from that is, you know, I told somebody what I wanted to do, and then I make them believe me.

[Arielle Rochelin] I’m, like, inspired hearing it because I’m, like, that’s the Erika Energy I need in my life to go to somebody and say, listen – you don’t need to interview other people. Like, don’t don’t waste your time. I love that because I think, you know, we tend… I don’t wanna speak for all the Black women, but I will discount myself so quick. So I just I appreciate that kind of incisive sort of knowing and you pursuing that. I wanna, like, I guess it is a wonderful follow-up, but it’s a question unto itself, actually, because you talked about all of the wonderful connections you were making, like, through your work in journalism, you really got the heartbeat of, like, Nevada’s Black community. And so I wanted to ask you at that time, but also now What were you noticing in terms of the landscape of Black reproductive justice? What did it look like? What were you picking up on? Boots on the ground, what were you hearing that made you go –okay we… I gotta do something about this?

[Erika Washington] I think for me, what I was seeing was lack. We are, and still are to this day, currently the only re actual reproductive justice organization in the state of Nevada. By actual, like, definition of it. There’s obviously planned parenthood, and a, nay route. But you know, and when we talk about the pillars of reproductive justice founded by Blackland in nineteen ninety four, you know, that’s what I found our mission and vision upon. But I’ve said before, and sometimes I worry because it can sound a little offensive, and I’m not and and that’s not ever the not ever the intent. But moving from Detroit, which is eighty percent Black and growing up mostly there around Black people, there are Black people who are in management, Black people who own things. The cable company was a Black man, started the cable company in Detroit in the eighties. Barden Cable Vision. To moving to a space where there weren’t as many Black people, and there weren’t any really very many Black people in any positions of power or even, like, management. Like, if you go on the strip and you go to a hotel, you don’t, the you asked for the manager, a Black man is probably not coming out. A Black woman is not coming out. You know, they’re not president of x, y, and z. You know, and so it felt out of place to me. I felt out of place, in a lot of ways. And I couldn’t put my finger on why. I really couldn’t figure it out. For the longest time. And then I realized I was like, we are we are being treated and we are acting accordingly as a minority, and I had never in my life felt like a minority. I felt like a Black person who could be discriminated against who could be, there could be bigotry, there could be a lot of things you know, I know what I look like, and I know how I sound. But I have never thought of myself as a minority, and I still don’t. I’m not minor. And, my community is not minor.

[Erika Washington] But I was having this feeling that so many people felt like they had been relegated to spaces, and that’s where they were supposed to be, and that’s where they stayed. And I feel as though there is so much more. And so when we talk about like crabs in a barrel or we talk about you know, there’s a Black seat, you know, the Black, congressional seat or the Black, city council seat, and, you know, it’s usually only one. Right? It’s one seat over here, one seat for this, or what have you. And then if more than one person runs for it, oh, you’re splitting the vote. “Don’t do that. You don’t do this because there’s already a Black person doing that.” That don’t make no sense to me, you know, like, First of all, there’s sometimes more qualified Black people that you can do the job or a qualified person that can do a job. We can’t just hold this one space. There are six other seats on this board, why can’t you want run for one of those? Like, are we saying that we’re segregating ourselves? I’m like, but that’s the Black seat. This is not. Black people live over here too. You know, they’re not all in this one particular district or you know, whatever. They’re not all there. So if we’re spread out in that way, then we can run at any seat. Or we can, and we can live anywhere we want to. But it didn’t really feel like people people would say that, but they wouldn’t actively do those things. So I felt as though when it came to this work, specifically around reproductive justice and having, thinking about economic stability and thinking about environmental impacts and that sort of thing. There wasn’t anybody advocating for it in a way that was specifically about enhancing the lives of Black people, certainly not Black women and not centering them in the way that they needed to be centered. And even now, a lot of times, people will say, oh, you just work with Black people.

[Erika Washington] Well, I work with anybody. I work with everybody who wants to get on this on this yellow brick road to freedom. But if you don’t, then I can’t I can’t do nothing about that. But if we’re centering Black women, that doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t helped. Everyone else doesn’t get a piece of the, a piece of the dream. We’re all on our road to our version of the american dream, whatever that looks like. I am just riding with and standing next to and advocating alongside Black women, so it’s not forgotten. Not people of color, not bipod, not whatever, Black, Black, Black, Black, Black, all day, Black women, Black. However, you can see yourself Black, whatever shade of Black, whatever type of hair color, or, you know, four c three c one a, whatever, Black. That’s what I’m here for. And so and I want them to know that. And I want them to be okay with saying that out loud. You know, on any given Sunday and not have to, you know, say, oh, well, not just, you know, this little bit of this, a little bit of that. Mhmm. Black. And everybody else can come too. And so that’s how I’ve tried to stand in the work. Which is, you know, taken… how it’s taken sometimes, which is not always taken in a way of, like, open arms or, with It’s it’s not taken as, I think, the way that I’m actually, like, trying to present it. Because no one likes that much audacity, honestly.

[Erika Washington] So… so it’s… so it’s been a difficult role, but there’s still there’s so much work to be done. Like I said, both in Nevada and outside of Nevada. Like, it’s it’s bigger than, you know, any one particular place, but you know, reproductive justice to me looks like home. It looks like freedom. It looks like liberation. It looks like peace. Because home is a resting place. And if we are on our way home, we should be rested. We should not be fighting all the time. We should not have to be advocating our time, but this job should not exist. When all is said and done, because ain’t nothing for me to be advocating for because we have abundance and we have resource is available to us for whatever it is that we need readily available available to us in, you know, a close proximity around us. I’ve said before that the pursuit of hapiness shouldn’t take a highway. You should be able to get to it in your neighborhood.

[Arielle Rochelin] Oh, so many just wonderful statements. That reproductive justice looks like home. It looks like liberation. It’s freedom. I wanna delve into that a little bit more because you also talked about in your, response how y’all were one of the few people really talking also about environmental justice, economic justice. I know on your side, you talk about equal pay. Right? We talk about childcare. And so how do all of those things to you fit into your vision of reproductive justice? Why do they matter?

[Erika Washington] Because you can’t have one without the other. We could, as an organization, who, you know, works on policy specifically, at the state federal local level. Right? So we worked on paid sick days, in particular, starting in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, brought it to our state legislature in twenty seventeen, and then got it all went to the governor’s desk, and then it was vetoed. And it was vetoed because of other politics around other issues that had nothing to do with anything that we were doing. But it was it it was made like a pawn, like a piece. And so then in twenty nineteen because Nevada has a biannual, legislative session. So we do not come to session every year. It’s only every other year. Which is silly and of itself. Right? So if you don’t get a chance to do something in twenty seventeen, okay, bring it back in twenty nineteen or bring it back in twenty twenty one. Or right. And it just goes on from there. Right? So we brought it back in twenty nineteen, and we were able to pass something. And it was not the greatest policy. Like, it was watered down after you finished fighting and trying to be negotiating and all the ickiness of the politics side of things and negotiating, it still left out a lot of people from having to pay sick days if they needed. And what I realized after winning and using excellent air quotations, I didn’t feel like we actually did anything. Like, I didn’t feel I feel like all that work. Like, the amount of work I spent and amount of time I spent away from my children in Carson City, because Carson City, the capital of Nevada, is about an eight hour drive from Las Vegas. In Northern Nevada. And so, you know, it’s a forty five minute plane ride, hour plane ride, but eight hour drive. And so if you go up there, you’re up there for however many days, then you come home. And I was back and forth every week for the course of the session. Oh, I can’t hear you.

[Arielle Rochelin] So sorry. I was just saying you froze for a second, but then it came right.

[Erika Washington] So Okay. Yeah. You froze too. You didn’t freeze though, but you okay. Okay. So… so yeah. So you spend… I spent a lot of time away from my children trying to work on a policy that did not even help everybody that it needed to help. And I don’t even know how many Black folks had helped. Honestly, you know, I don’t we don’t have a a mechanism to be able to track it in that way. But what I realized is even if everybody got pay sick days, if everybody got you know, what we originally wanted was ten. The bill was five. But everybody got ten pay sick days. You know, that they aren’t through working or what have you, to take care of themselves, when they’re sick or what have you, that still doesn’t really help the big picture if you also are making a low wage. It does not help the picture the bigger picture if you can’t afford your rent. You know, or you can’t find a place… a stable place to live. It doesn’t help the picture if your kids are going to a school that is rated with one star, you know, and and it’s full of teachers who aren’t engaged enough to really give a crap about what’s going on with with your Black child, you know, and and pushing them out. It doesn’t help if you don’t have adequate transportation. It doesn’t help if you can’t if you can’t heat or cool your house. At some point in the summer, I have paid upwards to seven hundred dollars for an electricity bill. The temperature can get to a hundred and twenty easy in Las Vegas. It can be a hundred and twenty degrees. It will be over a hundred degrees, sometimes for three months straight starting around, June ish. June to August into September, it can stay over a hundred. You know, on the low, and at night, it’ll be ninety something. Right?

[Erika Washington] And so imagine if you’re living in a house that doesn’t have… is not well insulated. You know, and a lot of more insulated by like cinder blocks if you go into some of the, older, communities. That are predominantly, you know, not white. So imagine trying to keep that cool. Imagine some of these old schools that do not have adequate air conditioning and a lot of these schools, a lot of the areas are outside. Most of the kids lockers are outside, and not inside. And so, and the air conditions don’t work as well, and they’ll go back to school in early August. So pay sick days on the grand scheme of things, yes, it’s important because people need to be able to take time off. But how does that fix anything else? And do you feel any weight off of you? Because, woo, thank goodness. I got a couple paid sick days, so now I can go up here and and deal with this teacher who has been racially profiling my kid, you know, and my kid who is acting out because, you know, you know, they are having some mental health issues. And then I’m having some mental health issues because, what’s happening to me at work in my relationships, and I don’t know how to handle it. So I might be taking it out on my kid some, or my kid is just saying it because I am so frustrated and I am so scared because I don’t know how I’m actually going to feed my kid, let alone figure out how to pay for the after school sports, or whatever else that they wanna do. So now I’m feeling like an inadequate parent, and I don’t know what to do with those feelings. So they come out as anger, and they come out as frustration. And maybe I’m drinking too much because you know how easy it is for me to go and get something to drink? That liquor store is right there. It’s right there on the corner. Oops, and there’s another right over here on that corner right there. So I can go and I can grab me something to trade, which is supposed to make me feel better. Right? I’m feeling better. I’m trying to relax. But I’m not fixing anything because we’re not getting to the crux of what the problems are.

[Erika Washington] And for me, that is what reproductive justice is. It’s the root… it’s the root of being able to raise a family in an environment where you have the resources that you need in order to thrive. Not to survive, not put band aids on… on gushing wounds, but to actually heal and fix things. And that requires so many different policies being, passed and implemented at the same time. Things that need to… we can’t do one and then come back two years later and do something else. And even if we were winning every two years, even if we’re winning every two years, How long will it take before somebody is like, I am living a good life. I’m living a whole good life. Like, yeah, problems exist. I get headaches, but guess what? I can go to the doctor and that doctor don’t think I’m faking it. That doctor don’t take my pain less seriously because of what I look like. Like, how do we get to that point? And that to me is what reproductive justice, what the goal and what home looks like to me.

[Arielle Rochelin] Profound. Could I ask you about your podcast?

[Erika Washington] Oh, yeah.

[Arielle Rochelin] Because it it just gosh. I’m… I’m blanking on it. I haven’t note noted somewhere here. It’s called Sticky Notes Conversations, which I just think is just such a great name for it. And so yeah, could you tell us a little bit about, like, why did you start that podcast? And what do you think? What kind of work do you think it’s doing, for sort of like the local, dynamics around Black reproductive health?

[Erika Washington] Well, you know, I love sticky notes. They are everywhere, like, literally. I am sticky notes. Don’t let… Don’t judge me. They have some order to them at some point, but this is where my notes are. Right? And, you know, I bought The new little Remarkable where you can write everything down or whatever. It’s cute. It’s fine. I probably wasted a little money. Because I’m like, I come back to my sticky notes. And I’m like, I like a sticky note, like, and then I throw it away when I’m done, like, I accomplished. This shows what I had accomplished yet. But I do get rid of them and it makes me feel accomplished that I got something done. So that’s how the name came to be, thinking of conversations because I… what I really wanted to do was I think I went back to that original question that my friend asked me, well, why aren’t you writing? And I hadn’t really written much of anything because I had grant proposals and things that’s the paper closed. And I missed it. I love journalism. Like, this right here is weird because I wanna ask a question. I wanna talk to y’all. I wanna know what’s going on at Cornell. I want to know what it’s like to be there. I wanna know you know, what does a Black woman walking around Cornell look like? What do you want to do with your lives? Where do you wanna go? I wanna know all the thing. Right? Like, that’s my curiosity and also partially my introvertedness that I like the spotlight to be turned that way.

[Erika Washington] And so I was trying to figure out a way to marry these loves, my love of journalism, my love of talking to people, and my love of this reproductive justice movement work, because also as I was doing more and being The boss in charge, the executive director, you know, all of that, I’m not really talking to people. Like, organizers are talking to people. Dear, they’re doing the events. I might be able to do some events here and there, but otherwise, I’m sitting in front of this computer. I’m out here hustling for dollars, doing the thunder, shimmy shake, try to get people to want to, you know, invest in our organization and, you know, spending time telling folks what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. That I’m not actually talking to nobody anymore. I’m… I don’t even know the folks no more. You know, I feel like… Oprah Winfrey in Color Purple? I don’t know y’all no more. That’s hot. Feel sometimes. And I’m and I missed it, you know. So I was trying to figure out a way for me to find my happiness again, because I do love this work. Like, the fact that I do this is amazing. I didn’t know this was a job. I didn’t know this was a career. Nobody told me advocate for Black women and get paid for it. Like, that is not a major anywhere. And that’s what I want a degree in. And that’s what I guess I think I’m earning my degree in is Blackwoman advocacy. Right?

[Erika Washington] And I also love the written word, and I also love interviewing people. So once I had that aha moment, then I need to figure out how to do it. And then I remember, oh, yeah, Erika, you’re in charge. You do whatever you wanna do. So let’s figure out what it is that you wanna do. And so, I created two podcasts, the first podcast was American Dreams Reproductive Justice. And that’s documentary style because I love a good documentary and I also wanted to do things differently. I didn’t wanna just get on and have a podcast microphone and, you know, tell everybody how I feel about everything and my opinions and whatever. That’s not what I was trying to do. So that podcast, which is the first season, which came out last year, kinda talks about the journey through reproductive justice. I interview Doctor Tony Vaughn and Loretta Ross. And we talk about Eugenics. We talk about, Marion Simms. We talk about birth stories. My birth story is in one of the episodes. One of the birth stories of, my middle daughter and how traumatic it was and how because that that story in itself was a reckoning for me. In once I really retold it enough times, so I had her when I was twenty three, but it wasn’t until many, many, many years later of telling that story that I realized, that wasn’t fucked up shit. Like…

[Erika Washington] But we tell these birth stories, like, they’re war stories, like, “yeah, this happened to me, and then this happened to me, and the doctor said this, and then they rushed me off here, and the baby’s heartbeat dropped, and this happened.” It was so traumatic and it’s not supposed to be. And we are kinda almost taught that birth is supposed to be traumatic. It’s supposed to be awful. It’s supposed to be painful. That’s how they show it in movies. Like, everything is so whatever. And it’s not supposed to be that way. It’s not… it’s not not painful. But there are ways to do it. And what you are bringing life into the world, you are… this is a whole transition of you as yourself as a person, as this person, is coming out of you. Like, this is, like, this is sacred, this is so many things, and you are having doctors yelling at you. You are having doctors not being truthful with you. You have doctors who are ignoring you. None of that is okay. So I wanted a podcast that spotlighted that. So that’s the first one. And then we’re gonna do a second season with some different, different storyline if I can never get my stuff together.

[Erika Washington] Sticky Notes Conversations is more one on one conversation style like this, but lets me talking more somebody else talking. And I really just asked them questions about their life. Like, I really just wanna know, like, how do you see yourself? I interview my children. Like, two of my kids have done the podcast. First episode is my middle daughter and my, oldest is couple episodes ago. And it’s her, it’s their first year as a teacher. So we talked about, they graduated from University of Nevada last year. And, is a preschool teacher, three year old and loves it, like, best thing in the world. Like, and I I knew years ago. You’re That is the most naturally maternal person in the whole entire world. You love kids. You love talking to them. You love coming up with more creative ideas on ways. To help them learn all that. He’s interested in the politics of teaching out to and and not loving it. Right? And so we talk a little bit about that. We talked about how they see the world, democracy, voting, that sort of thing.

[Erika Washington] And so it all comes back to like civic engagement and democracy, But I wanna do it in a way that’s not like, this is political podcast talking about the politeness of the political and how political, and this is the most important election of our life. And if we don’t vote now, the whole world’s gonna end, you know, and scare, scare, scare. That’s not ever my intention. I don’t wanna scare Black people at all. We got enough things to be scared about. And so… But I do want to have mostly faceted conversations with people of different age groups. And so that’s what we do. And I talked to some Black men about some Black men who thinking about vote for Trump and why. And not being flippant about it because people have their opinions and their reasons why. And we need to listen and hear to figure out how we then move along through the the course of life. But it’s really just about people being able to tell their story. It’s about creating a narrative. I think the same way that this is about creating a narrative because we need to own our narrative. And we have had… I have had the experience in doing this work over the past however, however many years it’s been, almost shoot, almost nine years, I guess, technically. So I started with Make It Work at 2015. Crazy. You know, I’m just in here actually doing math for the first time. But, yeah, that just took me way off course. I’m like, oh my god. Let me stop for a minute and think about that. Almost nine years trying to make it work. And I told him this was my job, and I did not. And here I am. This is I was obviously right about that. Going to say. You have to edit that out because I haven’t lost my whole train of thought. I got flabbergasted. Well, hello!

[Arielle Rochelin] Time will do that.

[Erika Washington] I’m sorry.

[Arielle Rochelin] No, but no worries. Listen. If if the thought comes back, you can always bring it back that was that was great from my end in terms of giving us the history of your podcast and the work that you’re doing. Yeah. And how all of it has this sort of like pro lit thread of political engagement, which is really powerful.

[Erika Washington] I remember.

[Arielle Rochelin] You remember. Go for it!

[Erika Washington] We did an event as Make It Work – Politics of Black Women. And I had, like, really dope women on it, right? And Doctor Ruby Duncan, who was the founder of Operation Life who helped bring wick offices and snap into the state of Nevada in the 1970s, and she stormed Caesar’s Palace. You haven’t read the book Storming Caesar’s Palace, read the book Storming Caesar’s Palace. There’s also a documentary on PBS called Storming Caesar’s Palace about her. Great woman. Really, she’s still alive. She’s in her eighties, feisty as ever. And we had this event right at the press. Afterwards, we got some press in the paper. The headline was something to the effects of Black women getting engaged in politics or finally getting engaged in some something like that. And this is a Black journalist, and I was so mad because I was like, what do you mean? Like, we just started or something. Like, all of a sudden, we pick up a book for the first time and was like, oh, politics. We should get involved. That’s the way it felt. And I was so pissed. And I was like, we have to do our own stuff. This whole vying for media attention and will the media show up? Can we get the channel new channel four news out here? Can we get people out here to see what we’re doing? If you could put it on your station so everybody can know. I am done begging y’all to see me. So, podcast. See us in our raw form of who we are and who we wanna talk to and how and the things that they wanna say, and as many walks of life as possible within the state of Nevada and out. Like, I’ve interviewed people who are currently doing work in Michigan, and work nationally, people who live in Atlanta, whatever. Like, all across, like, I wanna get some folks who are outside of the country as well because we are not a monolith, and we also need to not be siloed either because all of this… all the effects of the work here and elsewhere ripple back and forth. Right? So… So, yeah, I think it’s just really important that we create and then hold on to our narrative as tight as we can and not allow other people to change a word here or a word here to change the meaning in the context of our story.

[Arielle Rochelin] That’s so great. That’s so great. Alianna, should I switch over to you? Wait.

[Alianna Wray] Is it fine now?

[Arielle Rochelin] Perfect.

[Alianna Wray] Yep. This is so irritating, y’all, but I’m sorry.

[Alianna Wray] Yes. So I really loved what you said because I’m resonating with quite a few points. One, I love podcasts. I am, like, I’m a podcast head. I’ve been dying to find a podcast about reproductive justice, but I could I couldn’t find any good ones. And if I did, I wouldn’t know if it was, you know, like, really informative. So I will we’ll be tuning into both of them.

[Erika Washington] Yay. And give me your feedback. I do want feedback.

[Alianna Wray] Oh, absolutely. I… it’ll probably be be very well because everything you’re saying here is is amazing so far. And, also, I really love the how you said creating our own narrative because I think for a Black reproductive justice, the entire point, is to give Black… Black women specifically the voice and the area and the space to actually, you know, voice their experiences and creating art or storytelling, our own stories because we know that they have been told from other people, like, you know, who aren’t caring about us. So I think that’s also amazing that you say that. And so our next question is, how has the job decision which, overturned the right to an abortion affected the work that you do for Black women and families, or has it impacted the work that you do for Black women and families, if so, in what way?

[Erika Washington] I will say that I don’t think it has affected our work. I will say that… say yes and no. I’ll say, in the way that it affected our work is now I spend more time in more meetings and conversations with white women about abortion. And how we can reach Black ladies to talk about abortion. Abortion has never been, like, one of our top priorities. Now Nevada is not a state that was on the line specifically for, like some of the really bad laws that were being put into effect, like in, Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, that sort of thing. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. And there is a ballot initiative, that will be on the ballot this November that will help codify the current laws that we have in our constitution to make things stronger. I think the biggest issue in Nevada is not whether or not people can get an abortion. It’s whether or not people can actually actively go find somebody to perform the abortion. There aren’t very many abortion doctors, and that’s really the problem that no one is really talking about because they’re also like, oh, well, you know, the way… like, someone actually brought this up as a point at in a meeting and saying, the way Las Vegas is a tourist town, and people come here for the things that people come to Vegas for. That it also could be a hub where people come and get their abortions. And I’m like, well, who gonna do them? Because from what I understand, there’s not actually that many doctors who perform them, for whatever that reason is, which I’m not exactly sure. So I don’t find enough people wanting to talk about that. So that’s something that I’m interested in trying to figure out what the what the issue is with that. But even saying that it still was not our main concern.