TIME'S UP X SISTA BRUNCH LIMITED SERIES - Stephanie Odiase & Kady Kamakaté: Caring for Black Women

Episode Description:

In the fourth installment of our series with TIME'S UP, Senior Manager of Research and Partnerships Stephanie Odiase and producer Kady Kamakaté talk with co-hosts Fanshen Cox and Anya Adams about employment challenges, healthcare access, and survival for Black women and WOC during the global pandemic—and what it will take for us to thrive when it ends.

Transcript:

Fanshen Cox (00:12):

Welcome back to the Sista Brunch with me, Fanshen Cox...

Anya Adams (00:15):

And me, Anya Adams. We're back and talking to you about black women plus working in media, entertainment and the arts. This marks our fourth episode of our Time's Up series on safety, equity, and power in Hollywood. On today's show, we're talking about COVID-19's impact on the industry, and most importantly, the disproportionately negative health and economic effects on women of color. For women that were caregivers and working outside of the home, the pressure was and still is enormous and debilitating. Today, we are asking the question, who was looking after us then, and who will look after us now that the world is starting to open up again?

Fanshen Cox (00:57):

We've got two amazing guests with us today. One is a return guest and we're so glad. She's definitely one of our most popular episodes. And our Time's Up guest today is senior manager of research and partnerships, Stephanie Odiase. And yes. And we've also got Kady Kamakate joining us again. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to tell you a little bit about Stephanie first. She is passionate about using evidence-based research and policy to improve equitable outcomes. Now, she's overseeing the Time's Up, Measure Up initiative. Y'all, if you have any... Literally just go Google this right now or wait until the end and we're going to tell you how to see this. It's some mind blowing shit. It's so beautifully done, and it's all about data, and it's all about us seeing the numbers in front of us.

Fanshen Cox (01:49):

So Time's Up, Measure Up initiative explores the economic impact of COVID-19 on marginalized women in society. And we'll be talking to her lots more about that on the show. She also has a background in management consulting, policy research and education advocacy.

Fanshen Cox (02:06):

And our love, Kady Kamakate is an award winning producer. She's the 2018 Sundance alumni. She has experience in narrative, documentary and branded content. In collaboration with Homegrown Pictures and MACRO Ventures, she co-created the series, Leimert Park, which is now airing on BET Plus. So be sure to go check out that beautiful show.

Anya Adams (02:30):

We are so glad to have you guys today to be talking about this topic because it's so important.

Fanshen Cox (02:36):

Can we start with... Because we've had Kady on the show before, so we've gotten to kind of hear her trajectory into what she's doing now. So Stephanie, I wonder if we could start with you. Walk us through how you ended up in this position with Time's Up, wherever you want to start.

Stephanie Odiase (02:54):

Before I jump in, I want to thank you both for having me on the show and making the space for black women to be black women. This is just so important for us to have an opportunity to speak our truth and set right the incorrect narratives about what we do and who we are in society.

Stephanie Odiase (03:11):

But yes, what brought me to Time's Up. I'll give you the polished answer and then I'll give you the real answer. So the polished answer is, as you know, my background is in evidence-based research. I'm a social scientist by trade. I cut my teeth in formal training at Oxford and I had the great opportunity of working... doing research with the World Bank, with other organizations, with EdTech startups as head of policy research at local civics. And I really wanted a job that was the nexus of research, and not just doing research for research's sake, but research to actually have an impact and social equity with a focus on gender, and socioeconomic, and race equity. Those things are very important to me. And basically, all I studied in graduate school.

Stephanie Odiase (03:59):

So when it was time for me to make the shift out of management consulting, I was looking around for a job that would fit me. I came across this role at Time's Up and I said, "This is perfect for me. This is everything I kind of wanted to do and more." Having been a researcher on the other side of things, I kind of know how the research grant making process works on the receiving end, but never had been on the funder side. So it was a great opportunity to really kind of understand the full picture.

Stephanie Odiase (04:29):

Now the unpolished of the true version of it is, unfortunately, my father passed away from COVID about a week after my birthday.

Fanshen Cox (04:38):

Stephanie, oh my goodness.

Anya Adams (04:40):

So sorry.

Stephanie Odiase (04:41):

Not a fun time, to put it very lightly. And that really rocked my world. It rocked my family's world. And I went through the mechanics of what it's like to take paid leave, what it's like to be the only black woman in a company, what it's like to try to care for yourself and also care for others, right? And like those lopsided care burdens that we experienced. And I was getting to the end of my mental tether, to be quite frank, in the role that I was in and feeling very unappreciated, feeling very unlooked after, given the theme of our conversation today. And this role opened up and I said, "This organization is doing everything that I'm currently experiencing. This organization is trying to combat the issues of my lived experience. I'd be a fool not to apply." So I threw my hat in the ring and look how it turned out now.

Anya Adams (05:30):

There you are.

Fanshen Cox (05:32):

Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry for what you experienced.

Stephanie Odiase (05:36):

Thank you.

Fanshen Cox (05:37):

And Kady, we've had a few times to get to speak about what it has been like for you on your end as kind of a freelance producer, navigating that world. Do you want to talk about kind of some of the things that you had to do also that you were facing during COVID as this freelance producer?

Kady Kamakaté (05:55):

Yeah. I quit my full-time, very well-paying job in January 2020. And timing wise, I always think about it if I could have changed it, would I have? And I think, no, because the fear of being in a job that was not serving me and then feeling trapped because of a pandemic, would have been worse than navigating the unforeseen circumstances of... Because everybody was, right? Everybody was in the same boat of just like, "We don't know what's going on or whatnot." It was twofold. It was one, experiencing the uncertainty at the same time that everybody else was, and being in a position where I didn't need to have the answers, which oddly, was nice. It's hard to have nice moments in the context of a global pandemic and so much heartache and loss as Stephanie already kind of shared. So that was also, I think, complex because you're having these moments of repose and of frankly, downtime after six years of being non-stop that I didn't even know I needed until I realized I could be on my couch for a year and still wouldn't be rested enough.

Kady Kamakaté (07:01):

So there was that, that I was navigating. And then they came to a time where the industry clearly just did not want to sit still. Nobody wanted to sit still, right? So the noise and the whispers of productions are picking back up and how are we going to do it? And that flurry of what certifications are needed, what steps are needed, documents flying left and right, panels happening left and right about educating ourselves to do safely started going on. And I kind of came to a point of, I was only going to do it if I felt that I could limit the exposure of anybody on my productions. So I only ended up shooting about two times. They were challenging.

Anya Adams (07:44):

What was challenging about it for you?

Kady Kamakaté (07:44):

In the middle year that I usually work in, which is productions that are usually under a 100K, that became unsustainable with the added layers of PPE, of testing, logistical requirements needed by a production now. So what you could get for 70K, you needed 120K. And there was a level of resistance from companies of wanting to do that. And it ultimately came down to how comfortable do you feel with risk? And I had to literally threaten to walk off on one shoot because I was like, we're not getting anything that makes sense. And fortunately, they came to it and they provided all the gear, but it's challenging. At the end of the day, you just want to worry that the footage got to your editor. Not that like, "I hope my crew makes it."

Fanshen Cox (08:33):

This is Sista Brunch with Fanshen Cox and Anya Adams. Stay tune for more of our conversation with Kady Kamakate and Stephanie Odiase.

Anya Adams (08:58):

Welcome back to Sista Brunch. I'm Anya. Let's get back to our conversation with Stephanie Odiase and Kady Kamakate.

Fanshen Cox (09:06):

The Time's Up, Measure Up initiative has stated that we're living through one of the starkest periods of inequality in our history. Right? And so you have what that means in terms of narrative and storytelling. And then you also have what that means, just in terms of black women's lives. How it is that we're just living every day. So how do we navigate the fact that we were working during this period of inequality. All of us doing work that would have an impact in that sense, but do you have any feelings of survivor's remorse and how do you deal with that? And if you're not feeling it, what keeps you from kind of realizing that's not effective or helpful for you.

Stephanie Odiase (09:50):

I think that that's such a multifaceted question and such an important one to ask. And when it comes to survivor's remorse, I mean, I feel that in multiple ways, right? Quite literally, and in the more kind of metaphoric sense of like, "Yes, I am privileged enough to have a great job and an organization where I can work from home where I'm safe." But as I'm sure we all know, and as the research says, so many frontline workers working in the care industry, working in the service industry, the food industry, et cetera, et cetera, are usually, mostly women of color. Right?

Stephanie Odiase (10:26):

And within that, of course, there are a lot of black women. So you're sitting at home comfortable when you have black women, a lot of whom are low paid, a lot of whom do not have the resource that they need. They don't get the PPE, they don't get their hazard pay. They don't get a lot of the things that would make their work more tenable, more safe. And there's this almost like cognitive dissonance that's going on in society, even besides what I'm feeling. Right? Of like, "It's okay if they do that. I don't need to do that. I'm at home chilling." Right?

Stephanie Odiase (10:56):

And those are the women that are still employed and forced to go to work, right? Put themselves at risk, put themselves in perhaps other unsafe situations as well with employer power. "You have to come in when I tell you to. You have to do this, you have to do that," but those are them who are employed. And there are a number of women that aren't employed. We still have about 2 million women out of the workforce as of today's BLS jobs data, right? And black women unemployment rate is stagnant like 8, 9%. It's super high.

Stephanie Odiase (11:29):

So you sit back and you think, "Okay, I'm sitting in this place of privilege. I'm comfortable where I am, but there are women who aren't comfortable, essential workers who are risking their lives. There are women who remain unemployed or have fallen out of the labor market entirely." And then you see the stats about essential workers of color who are living paycheck to paycheck, who have risk food insecurity, who have risk housing insecurity, and it's just like, "Damn, this is grim." So it's a lot.

Anya Adams (12:01):

It reminds of thoughts and prayers, right? There's this whole thing that's happening where everyone's thanking the frontline workers. It's like, "Thoughts and prayers about the shooting," but there's not an active movement.

Stephanie Odiase (12:13):

Right. And that's the cognitive dissonance I'm exactly referring to. Right? You can distance yourself. You can clap for essential workers at 7:00 PM every night during the summer...

Anya Adams (12:20):

And feel good about yourself.

Stephanie Odiase (12:20):

Right. But what are you doing to actually help them.

Kady Kamakaté (12:20):

And then go to a party.

Stephanie Odiase (12:24):

Exactly. Go to a party, get COVID, and then go visit them.

Fanshen Cox (12:27):

Then they'd have to take the risk of taking care of you. I think, Stephanie, that's why your work is so important in data collection and analysis, is because it's normalized for us to go about our days and not necessarily have exposure to that. And you've got these numbers saying, "This shit is still going down and it's at emergency levels, and what do we do about it?" So Kady, I'm wondering if you've seen a difference in the storytelling that you're doing, that you're producing, based on kind of us knowing this data, like understanding where things are, or even in the projects that you choose to support them.

Kady Kamakaté (13:05):

Yeah. I mean, kind of to your earlier question about the guilt associated with not necessarily being kind of on the front line. One of the things that happened is I had the opportunity to pivot. Because I was struggling with what my risk to my crew and exposure to myself being, I had the opportunity to join a podcast company that was going to be completely remote. And it literally felt like a golden ticket landed in my lap. And regardless of what ideas I had about my career and those plans, it was kind of like, I get an opportunity to work in my home and still story tell. So I felt very, again, privileged in that moment and understanding that's so many people, including friends that just did not have that opportunity and had to face going back to set all the time.

Kady Kamakaté (13:51):

So you do kind of navigate the guilt and also, just understanding the risk and understanding to not purposely going out, and socializing, and doing reckless behavior that you know will impact the community that you know. I have the privilege to stay inside. So I'm going to, or if I'm going to take certain risks, these are certain precautions that I'm going to do to make sure the people that I come in contact with or the grocery store... Whatever the case may be, I'm as protected as possible. So I think those are kind of the things that I was navigating with. So in the sense of how my storytelling and whatnot has changed, it's audio. It's audio focused now. The medium itself has completely changed. But I'm navigating, kind of back on another production that Fanshen, you know a little bit about, a little bit about.

Fanshen Cox (14:36):

I'm eating on this [crosstalk 00:14:39]. Yes.

Kady Kamakaté (14:40):

So just thinking about... approaching a narrative script that has quite a bit of physical contact that takes place in a single location, indoors, in the midst of a pandemic. There's a lot of responsibility in that. And when you care, that's a differentiation I also want to make. There's a lot of people that are in the industry that don't care about the impact of the craft to other people. So I think when you care, you're thinking about testing, how do you separate? And especially, when you care and you don't have the budget.

Kady Kamakaté (15:07):

A lot of these studios were putting out these amazing and very detailed lists. And I'm like, "Well, this 75K I got, am I going to do anything?" So am I choosing to do art, but then at the detriment of people's health and what's that conversation? Is this inequality only going to show certain stories because they have the money for it? And that's another weird space, right? Because studios do have the money and maybe certain commercials or branded products, they can do it. But when you're thinking of a short film that could, they don't. So navigating that, it's going to be a challenge, but the team is dedicated and excited for it. But yeah, it might mean we can't do certain things.

Fanshen Cox (15:52):

Hey, it's Fanshen and you're listening to Sista Brunch. We'll be right back. And by the way, if you have not already followed us, go to Twitter right now and do that. We are on Twitter @SistaBrunch.

Fanshen Cox (16:09):

Welcome back to Sista Brunch. I'm Fanshen, and let's get back into this conversation with Stephanie Odiase and Kady Kamakate.

Anya Adams (16:19):

Are there any things that have happened because of this pandemic that you would like to keep?

Kady Kamakaté (16:25):

Remote working, I think is beautiful.

Stephanie Odiase (16:29):

Absolutely.

Anya Adams (16:30):

Remote working, Stephanie, for you?

Stephanie Odiase (16:31):

Yes. So listen, I can get in the soap box and talk about the beauties of remote working and flexible work hours.

Kady Kamakaté (16:39):

As you should, as you should.

Stephanie Odiase (16:43):

And it's so important, right? Because back in BC before COVID, when we had to go into the office, it was all about face time, and productivity, and showing up. And in my opinion, it's very like neo-liberal, patriarchal capitalistic ways of being a good performer. When honestly, I can sit at home in my head wrap, I can sit at home in my leggings and I can very much so get my job done. And as a black woman, it was expected that you do that four times more just to get a quarter of what the white cis-head counterparts were getting. So, no, I need to be working from home. I need to be comfortable. I need to hold on to the space that I created for myself. And guess what? My work has only gotten better. Me, being a happier person, increases my productivity and my productivity isn't the only thing of value to you.

Fanshen Cox (17:35):

Right. So not only do we generally, once we're in the office, have to work three times as hard, which we have to do from home anyway, but also we don't have to deal with your bucked up microaggressions in our faces either. We don't have to have the data that we're constantly making in our heads of looking around and not seeing anybody else that looks like us and our families. Right? I kind of appreciate that.

Anya Adams (17:58):

I feel like as COVID starts to wane, is that old white patriarchal way of being, I think people are going to push that because I think there is a certain degree of energy suck power play that these men that are running these companies are missing.

Kady Kamakaté (18:17):

Oh yeah. They're the ones pushing to get back in the office.

Anya Adams (18:20):

Yes. There's a huge push to get back in the office that's so interesting, but...

Kady Kamakaté (18:24):

It's mostly from cis-hetero men. They don't want family care, they don't want to share responsibilities in the house...

Anya Adams (18:29):

They don't care about that shit.

Kady Kamakaté (18:30):

They don't want to do anything like that. Yeah.

Stephanie Odiase (18:32):

And it's funny that you say that Anya, because... So we did this great project with a behavioral research firm called, "Ideas42." Basically, kind of dismantling the notion around the ideal employee. So showing up, giving your pound of flesh, never taking vacation, not taking any sick days, and what of the behavioral levers around shifting it away from the ideal employee to the ideal employer. Right? So we're trying to really dismantle employer monopsony and...

Fanshen Cox (19:02):

Wait, wait, wait. Monopsony, what is that?

Stephanie Odiase (19:05):

Employer monopsony power is basically the lopsided power dynamics between an employer and an employee. So because the market behooves them, there are a lot of people who needed a job, they can kind of get away with murder, right? So they can do the toxic things that serve them and protect their P&L, at your expense.

Kady Kamakaté (19:26):

I thought that was capitalism.

Stephanie Odiase (19:26):

Speak on it. It is capitalism. It really is. So in this research, some of the behavioral interventions they've pushed forward is flexible working hours, being able to have conversations with management about, "This is what I need. I'm a new mom. Can you please work with me instead of policies and resources that supports me as a family." So as we go into phase two of that research and try to implement and see real world impact within organizations, we hope to push back on exactly that. The white men who are just like, "Come back and be under my shoe." We're not doing that anymore.

Fanshen Cox (20:00):

And that's because you can take that research, flip it back to them and say, "This is how it works. You think you're productive by doing this, but that's not productive."

Anya Adams (20:10):

And I think it translates to our production world, where I just came off a very big budget show and the priority was 10 hour days.

Fanshen Cox (20:18):

10 hour days is [crosstalk 00:20:20]. By the way, she's saying that's a good thing, Stephanie. Believe or to not, she's saying that's a good thing.

Anya Adams (20:27):

10 hour days with an hour lunch, and they had to mandatory mask breaks of 15 minutes where you had to leave set and take your mask off. The mask speaks. They do like curtailed momentum and you need momentum on set. And sometimes that was a problem. But in general, it allowed you to breathe and move through your day and know, "I'm going to have this. This is due to me three hours after call." So I hope that that stays in the upper echelon world of big money filmmaking, is that they prioritize that and shorten the days now that they've seen. We can be productive, still do it and do it in less time.

Fanshen Cox (21:06):

We've talked a lot about kind of the practical and physical production. And I'm curious if one for you, Stephanie, how qualitative research enters into your work, and then for Anya and Kady, are you seeing those differences in the storytelling itself?

Stephanie Odiase (21:25):

I think that that's a great question. And when people think of data, they usually just think of quantitative data. And I feel like we need to take a bit of a step back from that because when you think of quantitative data, it's so centrist, right? It regresses to the mean. It focuses on the average. But when your society regresses to the mean of whiteness, you're losing so many narratives, you're losing so many people. You're not talking about trans people, non-binary people, disabled people, all communities of color, the list goes on, right?

Stephanie Odiase (21:54):

So in our work, we very much so try to uplift the quantitative data with qualitative data. And there's so much importance in deference that can be given to someone sharing your lived experience. And we see that, specifically in our work around the data dashboard. Congrats to my amazing teammate, Anwesha Majumder, that was her child. She brought that to life in such an amazing way. So to compliment the data dashboard, we have this interactive platform where you can go through the lived experience of someone, specifically a woman, who is trying to navigate the time that we find ourselves in. Right?

Stephanie Odiase (22:30):

So you might be going through the story of someone who is a domestic abuse survivor, the story of a single mom with increased care burdens and really seeing what this time is doing to them. Right? So when we go back to the policy and the practice, you're not just abstracting away someone's lived experience. When you look at the average in the datas, you really get to see what someone's truly been through. And outside of that, we also have our own history project, which we're getting off the ground soon. And that's where we're going to really dig into more of those qualitative stories around women and non-binary people, because again, they are very lost in the data and really see how this time, and over time... We're going to track this over time, has really had an impact on them, not just in terms of them being a worker, but then being a person.

Anya Adams (23:19):

That's exciting,

Fanshen Cox (23:20):

Kady and Anya, I'm curious for you. These shows are starting to speak language that I feel like we've been pushing for them to say, even just begging for you to just speak some truth in these stories. And now I find myself questioning it.

Anya Adams (23:35):

All I'm saying is, there was a show written by First Nations people, which I was so excited about.

Fanshen Cox (23:41):

It's problematic. It's not good.

Kady Kamakaté (23:43):

No, we still have to have taste. I'm really actually not [teeing 00:23:47]. Just because it's for the cause, it has to be good. I think that diminishes our tastes, and our skills, and our expertise, and our craft to co-sign in something that we don't think is good. If I don't like it, I don't like it. If it's bad, it's bad. It doesn't matter if it was full black, all women, all everything. I'm like, it didn't work out but...

Fanshen Cox (24:08):

I'm just careful with acknowledging that it's my perspective is that it's bad. Obviously, the lighting needs to be good, the audio needs to be good. You know what I'm saying? And trust me...

Kady Kamakaté (24:19):

I can forego all of that if the story is right, but if the story falls short...

Fanshen Cox (24:25):

Haven't we learned what good storytelling is from whiteness also. You know what I'm saying? And not to say that that's the only way, but that we have been told what makes a good story. And so I just think... I mean, we've talked about Tyler Perry, right?

Kady Kamakaté (24:40):

He's got some great stories.

Stephanie Odiase (24:42):

And that's the thing. Tyler Perry started out with Madea. He started out with, "Things were a little lowbrow." I'll put it like that.

Kady Kamakaté (24:53):

But there's a face for it.

Fanshen Cox (24:53):

But folks loved it and I identified with it.

Stephanie Odiase (24:54):

But folks loved it and they ate it up. Right? And I feel like they're still important, even if we don't love it. Listen, all skin folk ain't kinfolk. Right? I don't co-sign every single thing because someone fall in the melanin spectrum. I'm not going to, but I still think that there's importance to even putting that story out there in the first place. Right? Because if the counterfactual is not existing at all, then that's... Right. That's another story that just not stand.

Fanshen Cox (25:22):

And the way I think about it, Anya, of this show that I'm assuming you're referring to, is that then at the very least, kids or emerging storytellers, at least now get to say, "Oh, that's something that I can do." Hopefully, they're also saying, "I'm going to do it even better." You know what saying?

Anya Adams (25:39):

It's a motivator, it's a motivator.

Fanshen Cox (25:40):

It's a motivator. Yeah. We're going to take it for that.

Anya Adams (25:41):

Okay, I'll take it, I'll take it. All right.

Kady Kamakaté (25:47):

There's something too about the normalizing effect. As we see all these images, as we see all these things, we start seeing that that's part of our worldview and that shapes it. And I think to the earlier point, what I've seen is just like a heightened level of sensitivity. I feel like a lot of people that I think normally would have not had second thoughts, second guesses, second glances about certain materials, certain strips are having pause, which is amazing and are looking at it, "Hey, does this truly depict this community? Does this character feel as rounded for this scenario? Is it odd? Is it whatever," and having questions. We can watch shows from even five or six years ago, and we're like, "Wow, they said that and they felt comfortable about it, and now there's pause." And I think that pause is what is the most amazing thing in this process, is that we are all of us.

Kady Kamakaté (26:36):

Because we all have blind spots. I definitely have blind spots in certain communities that I'm not part of. And therefore I know, "Okay, this needs another look of this." Even with our short, right? We lose a black woman, I'm a black woman, where you have a really strong true line about Korean-Americans in there, and we have a consulting producer who is Korean-American. We're bringing in Korean-American filmmakers on this process because we are not going to be from a position that we are an authority on this. Right? And I think that those types of conversations are happening more. And that to me, is super important.

Fanshen Cox (27:14):

We're going to have to wrap up fairly soon. I know, I know, but what would you love to see in the future for black women in the workforce, both in Hollywood and...

Anya Adams (27:27):

Beyond.

Fanshen Cox (27:27):

Yeah, Hollywood and beyond. What would each of you love to see?

Kady Kamakaté (27:32):

I would really love for black women to release it in the sense of pleasure and what makes us happy and what really brings us joy. Because I think that is not part of these conversations, because there is so much work to do, because the struggle is non-stop. It's in all directions. It's now laden on top of a pandemic. So it's even heightened. But for me, I'm censoring myself and I would challenge everybody else. And when I say everybody, every black woman in the world, to really sit and identify what pleases them. And at a core, and start shifting their lives to be inclusive of that.

Kady Kamakaté (28:12):

And if that means, "Hey, I need to work remote because I can actually afford housing in another state and that's going to bring me pleasure and give me security," then advocate for that. If it means pushing for that promotion, then great. If it means quitting that job, then do it. If it means leaving that partner, then do it. If it means saying, "Actually, I don't want to have children," let's do that. If it just means living in your truth, even if it's just like, "Actually, you know what, I really don't like oat milk. I just want full fat. No cow's milk, then do it."

Fanshen Cox (28:44):

I'm literally envisioning myself smoking a nice sativa pre-rolled right after [inaudible 00:28:52], right when we hang up.

Kady Kamakaté (28:56):

I just think so much of our day-to-day life isn't broiled in fighting for our existence for air as often we found in this pandemic, that just sitting in pleasure is very not part of our conversation in day-to-day life. And I think there's so much strength in that, and there's so much renewable energy in that. And there's so much autonomy in that. People are really frightened when you're sitting in that space. That's my wish.

Fanshen Cox (29:22):

Thank you, Kady. Thank you.

Stephanie Odiase (29:24):

I love that. And to almost be the compliment to Kady's answer, the way I think about it when I think of what's my goal for black women? What do I want for them? Of course, me, being a research and data and analysis nerd, it's very structural and very comprehensive in its application, right? When I think about it, I want better solutions and better narratives for black women. What that looks like in the public sector, right? We have a lot of great things coming out of the Biden administration with this giant build back better plan, but we need to make sure that that sticks. We're so close to having federally mandated paid leave, and that's going to help mothers, that's going to help caregivers, that's going to help so many women who have taken on so many burdens, and a lot of those women are black women. Right?

Stephanie Odiase (30:11):

In the private sector. I want us, as I've mentioned at the top, I want us to shift away from this ideal employee model and go to the ideal employee year end model. I want us to have jobs that fill in this wealth gap that is just insane. And there's no reason why black women should be earning 63 cents on the dollar compared to white men, which over time means, a million dollars loss in wealth because of this gap. I want that to be closed.

Stephanie Odiase (30:41):

I want culture change for us as well, right? Until we actually stick the narratives about the value of black women, about our contribution, about what we have done for this country since the days of slavery. To our good sis, Stacey Abrams, saving this country from itself in the last election, we're not going to change anything. And ultimately, all of that to me, comes from research. We need better research. We need more timely research. We need more comprehensive research because until we actually center everything that we do around black women, our society itself as a whole, is not going to heal. As they say, "Rising tides, lift all ships," we need to make sure that black women especially, are at the center of the data that goes into the policy and the practice that really very much dictates our society.

Fanshen Cox (31:33):

Beautiful. Yes. Thank you both. Yes, to all of that. You can definitely check out Stephanie's work on Time's Up and the Measure Up initiative. It's powerful. It's important. It will teach you so much. And Kady is just blowing up in the best of ways. We're lucky we had her when we had her on. And so we get to follow this beautiful path. Watch Leimert Park on BET Plus, keep an eye out for Kady.

Anya Adams (31:59):

Thank you for listening to Sista Brunch with me, Anya Adams and Fanshen Cox. That was our conversation with Stephanie Odiase and Kady Kamakate. Visit sistabrunch.com to find out more about them and their projects. Don't forget to visit timesupfoundation.org to find out about their work and how to follow them on social. And follow us on Instagram at Sista Brunch podcast. We're also on Twitter @SistaBruch and on Facebook at facebook.com/sistabrunchpodcast. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review our show after the show ends. This episode was created in partnership with the Time's Up foundation, our show producer, Brittany Turner, our executive producer, Christabel Nsiah-Buadi. We acknowledged that the land we record our podcast on is the original land of the Tongva for those of us in Los Angeles, and the Coast Salish for Anya who's in Vancouver. Can't wait to see you next time. Take care.