Lighting the Path to Justice: Michael Bowe on Embracing Inclusivity and Overcoming Systemic Oppression

[00:00:00] Elton Brown: Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown!

[00:00:14] Rita Burke: On SpeakUP! International, we've had the good fortune or privilege of having conversations with people from all over the world. When we're not in Mexico, we are in England, we're in South Africa, we're somewhere in the States. As a matter of fact, this morning we spoke to someone from North Carolina.

Today we're back home in Ontario, Canada. And we will be speaking with a senior leader in equity and inclusion, who has a history of working in a variety of sectors. He is a community engagement advocate. We're speaking to the one and only Mr. Michael Bowe. Help us to welcome Mr. Michael Bowe! 

[00:01:04] Michael Bowe: Thank you. So happy to be with you both. I can't wait to engage! 

[00:01:09] Elton Brown: I know that you are a senior leader in equity and inclusion and particularly for Achievements in transforming strategies such as the Simcoe Family Connection. Can you tell us a little bit about that organization? 

[00:01:26] Michael Bowe: Sure, um, I toil within the social services sector and I work alongside folks who engage in families who are most vulnerable and marginalized and I provide equity and inclusion, um, services.

Um, and also, uh, within, uh, the social services sector. So I join you primarily through my consultancy as opposed to, uh, any specific organization that I work for or with, and through that work, um, both provincially have done work that has been that is national as well. Through that work, I've done, um, Board of Governors, um, assessments, organizational assessments.

Um, created learning tools and deliver learning tools as well as look at staff engagement as well as community. So throughout the years, I've done quite a bit of work across various sectors towards supporting the work.

[00:02:34] Rita Burke: Do you know, Michael, we hear the term marginalized very often to me, it's a huge umbrella. Speak to us, to our listeners specifically, what does that mean when you talk about people who are marginalized? 

[00:02:50] Michael Bowe: Typically when we speak of people who are marginalized, we're talking about those who have been historically marginalized and are currently marginalized.

And in order to understand what that is, we have to understand the legacies of Canada in particular, because that's where we reside, and in the country that you reside in. Uh, to really, because marginality and marginalized folks exist all across the globe. So you have to really understand the legacies behind equity seeking and indigenous communities.

And how they got to being marginalized. So we have to understand the legacy, for example, of, uh, slavery, capitalism, merchantilism, patriarchy, um, what else, um, and other legacies and how it informs anti black racism that leads to the marginalization of black folk in order to understand antisemitism.

Islamophobia, you have to understand the Crusades and what happened there. Because that's the legacy that's tethered to how those isms are showing up. If you want to understand the marginalization of women, especially equity seeking women, you have to understand patriarchy and capitalism and how that functions to marginalize folks in the present.

So in order to understand how marginalization is showing up currently in the form of various forms of isms, you have to tether them back to their legacies.

[00:04:28] Elton Brown: How do we, or can we, address the needs of marginalized people, like more than one group, say, uh, black and indigenous. Can they be supported at the same time or must they be prioritized? 

[00:04:44] Michael Bowe: It's important to prioritize both black and indigenous folk and their communities because they are the ones that are largely caught up in our systems, whether it be policing, child welfare.

Um, uh, justice and other ways that systems, uh, work to foster and perpetuate the oppression of those two groups. So you have to focus on those two groups and all their intersecting identities, whether that be gender, sexual, uh, orientation, uh, gender expression, faith, and all those pieces. So you have to start there.

So you have to start with. Uh, addressing anti black racism and anti indigenous racism and drop into those intersectionalities because they're the ones doing the worst off in our systems and in our society as a whole. But it doesn't mean that you neglect other, uh, marginalized groups in their, uh, racial identities including poor white families, uh, that have other intersecting identities.

But what often happens is. Uh, we prioritize those who are racialized white and their marginalized identities, and we build services around them. So you have various, uh, um, social services saying, you know what? We have to hire, uh, uh, an equity and inclusion consultant because we can't all tap into black and indigenous community or brown communities in, in their intersectional identity.

How do we do it? Our organization serve. Um, say white folks, um, in, with a disability, if it's, uh, it's, if it's that particular service they provide, but we can't, we're struggling to engage black and indigenous folks in particular. So you have to go out and speak those communities and design services that, uh, really would get at the heart of, um, the trauma that they've experienced.

So it has to be trauma informed, healing centered. It has to be responsive to their needs and it has to be affirming and stay so that it's very important to, um, address those two, uh, particular groups, but pay attention to everyone else, including white folks in there. Equity seeking identities.

[00:07:07] Rita Burke: I know for a fact, and I guess your experience and your education tell will tell you that people don't operate in compartments or in silos that there's no question that are paths regardless of the equity we are seeking our paths cross and so I will say to you then how receptive are these organizations or these agencies when you approach them regarding their, their, their, their mindset or philosophy around equity seeking individuals?

How receptive are there? Is there a lot of pushback? 

[00:07:50] Michael Bowe: I think we have to reflect on. The moment that occurred on May 25th, 2020, when George Floyd was murdered, and from that there was a massive movement around Black Lives Matter, and lots of interest from various organizations, whether in the private sector or public sector, to address anti Black racism specifically, but also other forms of oppression.

So folks threw up their anti Black racism statement, for example, both corporate and public organizations and all that. So there was a great movement to address anti Black racism, as well as other forms of oppression. However, it's been a little over three and a half years. And things have shifted, uh, folks refer to it as, um, the great whitelash or backlash that is occurring, um, against the gains that have been made.

And, in fact, the gains are being erased as well as former, uh, gains from other generations before this generation that we're living in these times. So, essentially organizations are responding, and the first thing that goes is language. Why do we have to call it anti Black racism and anti oppression or anti racism and so forth?

Why do we have to use the word equity or diversity and inclusion? Why not belonging or mattering and so forth? It's so negative, those words and so forth. Perhaps we should go back to saying multiculturalism. It's softer, it's more palatable to the ears, especially of those who are in positions of power, so we are seeing the stripping back of language of gains of even histories, people's histories, including folks, um, were black.

Their histories are being stripped away and erased even here in Canada. I know that on the Perry's there are a number of black folk who are advocating for their history to be told in the history books and taught to young people. Children. And from the last time, the last update that I've received, uh, the boards over there said, okay, fine, we'll teach a bit of your history, but we'll start, uh, the lessons, I believe it's that great grade four.

Is it some upper grades, but you're teaching other Canadian history from, from the get go. Why do we have to start history so late? We're, we were there, we were, we were people So, essentially, it's not only the erasure of black history in the States, it's actually happened here and the challenge is, it's not in the books.

It's not even there to be erased, because it's not there in the first book, right? So I think, um, we're in a moment in time where folks, if they are not deeply rooted in the cause of equity and dismantling anti black racism and other forms of injustice. Um, are susceptible to erasing the gains that have been made over the last three, three and a half years, but it's to be said, we've seen this moment before, uh, I think the last moment of this was, uh, the Rodney King beating in 1992.

There was a big, um, upsurge of, we got to do something, we got to find jobs for black and indigenous youth and, and so forth and there was a lot of money spent in programs, uh, that were dispensed. But then after a little while, they said, well, how come these programs are only for black and indigenous youth?

What about all youth? And they started to, um, peer back and introduce all youth into various programs. And I remember I was working as an employment counselor and when they did that, what happened was, uh, youth, white youth tend to submit their resumes in March and so forth and get all the jobs and have sponsors to, um, pay for part of their, their Their wage, while black and indigenous youth start to apply later on in May.

So the jobs are all gone and all that, but they're back where one, but they're being marginalized. So we've seen this moment before, and here we are again.

[00:12:34] Elton Brown: Well, you know, the thing that I find most interesting is, it seems like there always has to be a tragedy. In order to raise awareness, and then once it's lifted, then all of a sudden, all of these programs come into play, and then they fade away.

I sometimes think it's not necessarily the forces that be, but I also think that for black people. Sometimes they, there's a fatigue sets in because, you know, they're fighting every day they're, they're, they're fighting and I think sometimes they get tired. And I think that's one of the things that the forces that we look for is.

fatigue. And then once they see, oh, well, they're tired now, you know, we, you know, they, all the fight is out of them. They then begin to claw back all of the services and financial support that they were giving to that cause. It's been, it's been pushed away. But the other thing that I think that happens is the fact that a lot of the individuals are not And when I say individuals, I'm talking about black and brown people are not educated, they don't fully understand the gravity of what's actually happening, which brings me to you, Michael.

 Not too long ago received your master's. I think that was what in 2000. And so how did that change your life once you were able to reach that educational plateau?

[00:14:15] Michael Bowe: Well, achieving my master's and I was encouraged to work on a PhD, but I chose not to really didn't educate me about life itself. And the Individual, interpersonal, systemic, and structural ways in which oppression unfolds. I learned that after my education. I learned about my history after I received my formal education.

So, what higher education did, though, was provide me the transferable tools and the interest in research, in gaining knowledge. In reading and so forth in analyzing things, but the content of the learning that I received did not prepare me for the experiences that I've had and the experience of my community and my identities, it did not prepare me for that.

I had to do that learning on my own. So education. Yes, it provides me with with transferable skills that I used to do My actual learning after, uh, my formal education. So, I think that's really important, uh, to understand that, uh, if we're relying on institutional ways of learning, uh, it's not enough. But you can use the transferable ways that you were taught to actually do your learning.

So, I have a library of maybe I don't know, 400, 500 books, uh, to actually, um, unlearn and relearn, uh, what I need to know. And I'd speak a touch on what we call the weathering, you know, uh, black folk and other marginalized folks are, are weathered that stripping that you're tired, you're exhausted. Uh, the, the consistent.

Just feeling of being traumatized repeatedly. Uh, so it's, uh, it's, we call it weathering. Um, we have been calling weathering for a number of, um, over the last couple of years, uh, prior to that, uh, we speak of soul murder, murder, you know, the murdering of your spirit, your soul constantly and so on. So a lot of folks, my age, um, is saying, you know, what.

I'm tired of working in mainstream institutions, trying my best to change them, and we might change a little bit and you might lose a champion in the CEO because they went and retire or went to another organization and then the work that you've gained over the last three or four years is stripped back in a matter of months.

Folks are tired. They're weathered. There's feeling that spirit, uh, diminishing process to the point where they're like, I want to turn my energies. And my time and my toil internal to the community, I want to develop services for the community. So I think a lot of folks in my age group is now thinking that way, and is depending on folks coming up behind us to actually replace us in various institutions.

So we're doing a lot of succession thinking and planning. Because a lot of us are like, perhaps, 5, 7 years out from retirement, so we do understand, we do need to replace ourselves, because you do need folks internal to institutions, working with folks who are advocating external, and because you do need community to inform your work when you're working inside an institution, or you're working outside a consultant, informing institutions.

Because the, the, the, what needs to be done needs to be informed by community and community needs to hold our feet by the fire, especially if you're employed internally as an equity lead, uh, you know, you're wearing the golden handcuffs, right? They pay your, your pension, your salary, your benefits. So you can only, um, you're limited in terms of what you can do.

But you need community pushing from external to ensure that they keep you honest, as well as the organization honest, 

[00:18:39] Rita Burke: But it was strong and stronger and more resistance to people who were fighting against being enslaved. So we're accustomed to that kind of thing, aren't we? They will always be resistant. To people fighting, I don't want to use the word fighting, advocating for positive change so they would no longer be marginalized. And something you said about holding, about soul murder. I think what I've observed in my few years on this earth is, we are a people who are are like the Canada geese, when those at the front become tired and weary, there are always some from the back that will come forward and take over the leadership.

So, it's not going to be easy for them to just dismiss us and say, okay, let's change the language, let's murder this one. But we are much like Canada geese, I believe myself in that. They fly in formation. They fly as a group. They're, they're united. And so, as I said before, when those of the front are tired and weary and, and need to take a rest, those from behind will come forward and do the leading.

And that's what I've seen consistently in our community, and that's what I hope to continue seeing. So thanks for what you said there. Thank you very much. 

[00:20:03] Michael Bowe: Absolutely and that's a season that we're in where folks like myself, as I noted, Um, are looking to retire in a few years, and we're counting on those that are coming up, um, behind us to take on the mantle, not that we're dropping it or passing it on fully, but to assume their place, because there's a lot to be done, and if you take your eyes off the prize, things will be peeled back.

[00:20:27] Elton Brown: I think this is one of the reasons why it's, it's important that we are educated and I think you brought up an excellent point when you talked about education, and when you're in these universities, that is one form of education, but then when you come out, you have to more or less re educate because what they're teaching at the university is great, but now you need to go to the hard school of Knox reality, and what's appropriate for your, your community so that you're able to move them forward along with the information that you you.

Uh, back from, uh, university, you are a man of many hats, and I noticed that you have been a columnist, at the Pride News Magazine back in the 90s. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

[00:21:22] Michael Bowe: Absolutely. Yeah. Back in the 90s, I used to write for Pride News Magazine prior to, um, I guess my first job.

In a mainstream organization, and I could write about anything I wanted to so as a columnist and I wrote about everything from transnational corporations to, um, child soldiers in Sierra Leone and their connections to, um, Peruvian diamonds, which are basically diamonds that are found just on the grounds of you don't have to dig for the diamond.

They're right there. And you just pick them up and so forth and making the connection between those child soldiers and say countries like Sierra Leone and others with diamonds and them being a symbol of love and devotion in Canada. So how could diamonds in one place in one country be a symbol of love ?

Of, uh, child soldiers hands being chopped off, of death and destruction and chaos, and then in another country, in countries like Canada, be a symbol of love and devotion and dedication. So yeah, I wrote columns on various, um, issues, and they were hard hitting. I had a large following. And, um, then when I got into, uh, a mainstream organization it become became more difficult to write in a way that was just open and free.

So I decided to just, um, back off it. But now I write on LinkedIn. I take my writings on LinkedIn and I bring that sort of energy. So I do write, um, what I can, I probably weekly, sometimes biweekly, uh, poignant, uh, post on issues that are current. And, uh, I have a big following, well, a good sized following, over 10, 000 people.

And it's just great. So, I didn't necessarily give up that particular love, but I just took it to LinkedIn. 

[00:23:27] Elton Brown: Can you give us that LinkedIn site ,where you are issuing your, your thoughts, um, I'm assuming they're unshackled. Which is the type of information that I'm looking for, and I'm sure our audience is as well, so if you could give us the link, if that's okay with you, that would be great!

[00:23:48] Michael Bowe: Absolutely! If someone searches for Michael Bowe, M I C H A E L B O W E, my LinkedIn profile will pop up, and then they'll see all my writings.

[00:24:03] Rita Burke: So, my hearing then, Mr. Michael Bowe, that when you were involved with mainstream news or whatever chronicle it was, that you couldn't be your authentic self? 

[00:24:19] Michael Bowe: Well, uh I think no one really shows up in institutions as their authentic selves, including those who are racialized white. None of us.

Uh, basically, um, whiteness create a space that white folks can't even show up in their authentic self. And whiteness is just not, uh, the pigmentation of your skin. It's actually a process. It's, uh, something that we live and breathe in, that we swim in, uh, that we can't see, and it informs how we show up in different spaces.

So what I wear and how I talk and, um, what I eat even I don't do so when I show up in the workplace, and I actually did a linkedin column on that or a few of them linkedin post, I should say, to be accurate around that. I have to shed many parts of me to show up in a way in my organization that, um, I could garner the respect of my colleagues and those who I work with.

So I can't speak Patois, um, in the workplace. People look at me or perhaps giggle and think it's sort of a cute thing to do. I try not to bring the cargo to the big oxtail, um, in the lunchroom. Um, cause I've, Experience someone's, what's that smell? What's big? Some, you know, sort of thing. So I have to present myself and show up in a way that is palatable to others.

[00:25:55] Elton Brown: I agree with you on that. I think, uh, when you work for, or I should say, yeah, when you work for Fortune 500 companies, there is, I call it, a period of draining where a lot of you basically have to allow it to be extracted.

In order to be in a position to communicate with others comfortably, because as soon as you begin to be authentic, they find that repulsive, or they don't know what to do with that. And if you don't watch it, you could be easily alienated. And, and deemed not a, not a team player. So I, I, I get it. I know exactly what you, what you mean.

And I can tell you that I remember many days after, uh, working at a Fortune 500 company. And I needed to play James Brown for about 10 minutes just in order to get myself back in step so that I can say, Oh, I'm back. It's okay. And so, and I think a lot of people, they may not want to admit that, but it's true.

And that, and that's just not for black people. I think brown people, any marginalized group. That moves into that area. will go through a period of draining where they'll learn how to leave all of these little things home and then, you know, just come in with what they can basically handle. I know one time I mentioned the fact that I was, I was going to have, uh, uh, pig intestines, chitlins, and the white lady, she looked at me in horror.

She says, you eat those things? And after I explained to her what they are, and I said, well, yeah, and she says, oh, but you know, it passes through them. I said, well, yeah, but, you know, you make sure that they're really, really clean. Oh, my God. I mean, for a long time, she did not even want to sit next to me when she found, after she found out that I was eating those types of things.

So, yes, it is a matter of rationale. I think that. Has that is we are subjugated to and it's not even our own. So in 2008, uh, you were involved with the founding of the Film Development Council in York region, and I guess you were addressing diversity and community engagement. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:28:42] Michael Bowe: Yeah, when I started working for an organization in York region, they asked me, how would you engage diverse communities and identities? So off the top of my head, I said, you know, I'll pull together a multimedia film festival where folks could tell their stories, whether it be identity based or community based.

So what is it like? You know, flying into Canada as a refugee or immigrant landed in Richmond Hill. What has been your experience? Uh, so essentially, um, when I was hired on, uh, my director said, hey, what about that idea? So I was kind of blown away that, uh, I was given the opportunity to use the arts to engage folks in, um, the human services sector, right?

So I ran off and brought together, uh, Um, large institutions, midsize organizations and grassroots agencies and say, Hey, I want to build this particular initiative within community. They agreed. And I crafted the various entry points for photo essays and films and so forth, launched it to community met with all the mayors across your region.

And there are, I guess, eight municipalities nine. Being the regional government. They gave me all their facilities for free and staffing and so on in all nine municipalities, all their theaters and all that. And we did a massive festival. People said, uh, did submissions from all communities. And then we had, um.

Uh, shows or viewings across the region over a two week period and we had an awards gala and all that and, um, you know, we got quite a bit of money. The last grant we had was half a million dollars and, um, and yeah, we did it. We did great. The thing, though, is sustainability. When I stepped away from it, it, um, it didn't survive me leaving, which is, um, unfortunate, but that's the way sometimes things go.

And that is often this challenge within the black community. How do you sustain organizations when the folks who create that entity retires or step away from it? Oftentimes that entity dissolves with them leaving. Or, what they do, uh, the folks who create stuff, they get older, they don't have the energy to maintain it, so they turn it into a social group.

Instead of handing it down to the next generation or they get so clingy to what they've created. This is mine. I did it. I founded this and they don't do succession planning and their idea actually fails. They don't realize that they have to give it up, they have to give it away to the next generation to nurture and build bigger and better. They hang on to it and it dissolves. 

[00:31:47] Elton Brown: Well, you know that sometimes the reason why they hang on to it so tightly is because that becomes part of their identity, and they wonder whether or not, you know, if I let this go, then who am I? So they will rather just, you know, go down, they would rather go to the Roman Coliseum.

They would rather go battle it out in order to hold on to their identity, which is. Not even real, but that's what they hold on to most. 

[00:32:22] Michael Bowe: That's a trauma response to historical trauma that's trapped in the body and in the body's memory. Uh, that's a trauma, uh, trauma response, whether we, we acknowledge or not, or know it, it is. Sorry, I interrupted you. 

[00:32:39] Elton Brown: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is a, this is a conversation, and that's what we do in conversations. We interrupt one another and take over the, the, the conversation for a bit and then hand the wheel to somebody else. You've been in the, the Bahamas to Jamaica and Jane and Finch. Uh, community in Toronto. So how have these diverse experience, uh, shaped your perspectives on equity and inclusion? 

[00:33:09] Michael Bowe: Wow, that's a very powerful and deep question you're asking. Um, I'll try to give you the high level answer to that. Uh, okay. Where to begin? Born in Bahamas. Uh, my mom left the Bahamas when I was two and moved to Jamaica, uh, because, um, my sperm donor, um, basically decided to latch on to someone else, uh, even though he Um, Was slated to marry my mom, so she, uh, took my sister and I back to Jamaica, and then I immigrated to Canada when I was nine, and, um, with my parents, my mom coming and marrying someone, my dad, because I see him as my dad, not my stepdad, uh, so I came and met him here in Canada, and Got relocated at nine and my sister was 10, which happened to hundreds, if not thousands of us at that time, where parents had to leave us behind with aunts and uncles and so forth.

Grandparents established themselves here and then sent for us and that created a lot of anger and, um, upset among a number of us because we didn't understand why our parents had to do that. So a lot of resentment and so forth, uh, occurred and so on. So, yeah, so then I landed in the Janet Finch community, seeing snow for the first time at nine, saying what is this, and then driving up to this massive building, um, which I then discovered was an apartment building, thinking that, oh, we're living in this amazing building, what is this, and then ushered into apartment 506, you know, kind of thing, and then years later when I was at York University, I met this chap from the Bahamas, and And, uh, to be able to study here overseas from the Bahamas, you need a lot of money.

So I discovered that he was, his father was knighted by the queen and he was quite wealthy and well off in the Bahamas and I told him my story, um, and he said, Michael, when you're ready to come back to the Bahamas to discover who you are from that end, just give me a call. Uh, one summer I was cleaning up my room, found his number and called him.

And I went. And I was on a tour de France in terms of discovering who I am. Uh, and that's a, another story. Um, my family there gave me a picture of the person who enslaved my foreparents, my great, great, great, great. I don't know how much back grandmother who is actually from East Africa. And he had my line with her, but he also had.

Another 100 kids, but he recognized my great great great great grandmother's line and on the island of Exuma, but there's a lot of Bowes there. That's where we originated from. He had a plot of land and gave the enslaved Africans who he owned. Uh, little boss that they could work, but he acknowledged my great, great, great grandmother as his wife, I guess.

Um, so it's discovering that parts of me and seeing pictures of him and seeing the picture of the, the blackest East African women, uh, my ancestor. I've never, I didn't even know and seeing people who look like me, I remember attending their version of, um, Carabana and it occurs at nighttime, like two in the morning, which I wasn't expecting.

And then there was a woman on the grandstand way up, it's like a parade and the grandstands, um, line the street. And this woman called me and I said, who knows me, I'm here, I don't know anyone. So I climbed and went and she said, you're a Bowe, aren't you? And I said, yeah. And she said, you are such and such son, aren't you?

And I said, yeah. And then she's telling a complete stranger, which turned out to be my aunt, was telling me about me. And so I discovered so much about myself that I had no idea even existed. So yeah, it was quite a journey. Um, yeah. 

[00:37:26] Rita Burke: We're speaking with a fascinating man, Mr. Michael Bowe, who is enlightening and educating and inspiring us on SpeakUP! International with his story.

The one you just told, I think is, for me, it's very soul nourishing about this person who called out to you and who could identify you. Now, I need to know from you, or I want you to share with our listeners, who would you say or what is responsible for the person that you have become today?

Who or what is responsible for the person that Michael Bowe is today? 

[00:38:07] Michael Bowe: I think first and foremost is my mom. She is strong, she's powerful, she's resilient. For her to come to Canada and establish herself, send back monies to care for my sister and I, to think about us, and then send for us to marry the person that my father is, so he's the next person, my father, and Him having the wherewithal to take on two kids at our age and him not having any kids at all and assume us as his own and never treated us as being separate and apart from him.

Was incredible. So those two really form the foundation of who I am today and how I parent our two boys, both in university. One is going actually in university. Yeah, it was pre accepted into York based on his grade 11 marks. But he's going into, um, what do you say? Chemical engineering. That's what he wants to do, but he got accepted in the engineering program and the others studying urban planning.

If it were not for my parents and standing on their shoulders. My boys couldn't stand on mine and my partner, who is Somali, so I have to give it to my parents, and for my mom in particular, and my mom and dad in general.

[00:39:29] Elton Brown: All I can say, uh, Michael, is that you've had a full life, and so far, it's been ever changing nonstop. You are the senior leader in equity and inclusion, and that right there in itself covers a huge, huge amount of individuals, uh, people, organizations that all work to give individuals who are marginalized an opportunity to. Be leveled up with other, uh, groups and not be left behind.

You also have a, a background in social work. You received a Master's, which is a great, no one can, no one can take that away from you by the way you are, or a columnist at the Pride News Magazine. So, uh, obviously you have excellent writing skills. That's one thing that everyone needs to be able to write well.

And then on top of it, you were, at the Film Development Council in York Region. You have given us so much information. I think your presentation, you are a inspiration to so many individuals out there, both black and brown individuals that if you can do it, they can do it, too. And this is something that we try to emphasize at SpeakUP! International with everyone that we talk to is to come away with an inspirational message that people can take away and use to energize their dreams.

And for that, I thank you so much. 

[00:41:25] Michael Bowe: Well, I thank you both for having me. I really enjoyed the time spent. And I hope to, uh, visit your podcast site and listen to, uh, the other, uh, folks that have been interviewed. And, uh, I really, really appreciate the work that you're doing. Thank you both. Thank you, thank you, 

[00:41:45] Elton Brown: Thank you. Rita? No, we can't hear you. 

[00:41:49] Michael Bowe: Your mic is silenced. Is 

[00:41:51] Rita Burke: there anything that you want to share with our listeners that we haven't asked you? 

[00:41:59] Michael Bowe: Well, I just want to impart words of encouragement, support, in the sense that, you know, don't, I don't want folks to feel defeated and that the task ahead of us is hopeless.

Even in this season that we're in, where things are being stripped away, including our history and the legacy of our ancestors, to be encouraged by the work that they have done and that lives on in us. And that the work that we have done that is currently being challenged will live on. So don't be, um, you know, feeling that, uh, things are going backwards and will remain that way.

It won't. We are a people that is resilient. We are justice fighters and we will continue to, to keep on.

[00:42:56] Rita Burke: Thank you so much. It's been a privilege to listen to a part of your story and the work you have done and you continue to do. Thank you. 

[00:43:11] Elton Brown: Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International. If you wish to contact Michael Bowe. Please leave your name, your email address and the reason why you wish to contact Mr. Bowe via LinkedIn. 

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