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

[00:00:22] Rita Burke: On SpeakUP! International, we traverse the world, finding people who we define as community builders. Today, however, we're back home in Canada, and we'll be having a conversation with Karen Carter, , who is the director and co founder of B.A.N.D. Karen has over 25 years of experience working and volunteering in a range of arts, culture, and heritage settings. She's also the former Executive Director of Heritage Toronto, the founding Executive Director of Museum of Toronto. Karen is the founder and president of Karen Carter and Associates Cultural Organization. Her most recent project is as the co founder of the BIPOC Fellowship to help support the development of a more diverse cultural landscape in Canada.

Karen is currently the Director of Museums and Heritage Services at the City of Toronto. And as we say on SpeakUP! International, we prefer if our guests tell their own stories. There's so much more I can say about Karen, but we'll give her that opportunity to tell her story. So welcome to SpeakUP! International, Ms. Karen Carter! 

[00:01:50] Karen Carter: Thank you very much for having me. Looking forward to the conversation. Thank you. 

[00:01:56] Ellington Brown: Thank you for coming on and having this conversation with us, Karen. How has the 25 years of experience shaped your work in arts, culture, and heritage settings? 

[00:02:12] Karen Carter: I would say that every opportunity is a 80-20 experience for me.

So I usually go in feeling 80 percent ready and excited about the 20 percent growth and learning that is going to be in that challenge. I think apart from a B.A.N.D., which stands for Black Artists Networks and Dialogue, which was a volunteer. Largely a volunteer project in the last couple of years, as we worked on the capital build, I was paid for a bit of my time, but the majority of its existence, it has been focused on volunteering.

And so that's one thing that I can say, I didn't know how I, there was no playbook for how to build the black culture organization in Canada. I had been around. When Ayanna Black and other cultural leaders in the 80s in Toronto had started C.A.N.B.A.I.A., Canadian Artists Network, Black Artists in Action.

So I had a sense of a need, but didn't really have a playbook for it. But yeah, I think my, each experience, you take what you learn to help the other experience. And I think band has this thread that runs through everything in that. As I was running Heritage Toronto, I was learning things that influenced some of the decisions of B.A.N.D.

But by the time I was taking the job to build MYXEOM, I remember asking a friend to help me prepare my resume for that, and he had said to me, move your work at B.A.N.D. To the top of the list, because the work you've done building that from scratch will influence their ability to determine you qualified to build this organization from scratch, because these folks had an idea of wanting something, but didn't have an established Entity and so it was making something happen out of nothing.

Yeah, I think the 25 years is always been about how does one thing give you the confidence to attempt the next and how does the relationships you build. Also help with that 80-20, because frankly, 100 percent of the 80 percent is about the relationships, because I think I am who I am, because I can call people to help me with the blind side.

And I think. Anyone who is a builder knows that you're only as good as the team you have with you. I'm only my, the smartest thing about me is that I know what I don't know. And so I'm always aware of one being grateful for the people who are willing to work with me. But also recognizing the need to always acknowledge them, because B.A.N.D. Exists because of a plethora of people in the community who've helped in small and large ways.

But my existence in this sector in Canada and internationally, the reputation that I have and the colleagues that I've met along the way, is really about those relationships that I'm super grateful for. 

[00:05:24] Rita Burke: I like that you said. That one good thing about it is you know what you don't know. And to me that's a heightened sense of awareness and self awareness that we're all striving to develop at this point in our lives.

That's truly wonderful. You are surrounded with art, literally and figuratively. You've been drawn to the art. Your life work revolves around the art. What brought you to the arts, Karen Carter? 

[00:05:55] Karen Carter: I grew up singing in church. So I think as a kid, as a young person in a Caribbean home, my parents are Jamaican.

There were two things that were consistent one, this sense of a spirit of volunteerism and giving back that's in the DNA of the Carter thread, the Carter family that, and for us, we mostly saw that modeled in church and volunteering, giving back, but because the family sings my father was soloing, my grandfather, my aunt and I grew up singing, so I initially came in my interest to the arts from the performing arts and wanting to, be in the music industry and then quite quickly when I started attempting that both in auditioning for the music program at York University and not getting in because of my theory was terrible and then in me doing gigging and having a jazz trio, which helped to pay for university.

And then having some opportunities to be in studio to record, like I recorded this house track way back when. And then having a bit of a experience of the industry and realizing I didn't like it. I didn't have an edit button. So if someone was inappropriate toward me, which unfortunately was happening too often, I would tell them about themselves.

And then I thought, you know what, this is really not for me. I need to pivot my brain. And I also am interested in black community, culture and history. And so I did my undergrad in history at York did the teaching degree because, it was a good Caribbean woman, a child of immigrants. I was the 1st to go to university for my immediate family.

And university wasn't an option, and a professional degree was not an option. It was pick one doctor, lawyer, teacher, accountant, engineer pick one, but you go do that. And so, I couldn't I remember even now my father, who's in Jamaica, 90 percent of the time when I go to visit, he'll say, tell them what you do, because I don't understand what you do for him.

And there's that. What you do in the arts is its volunteer work. It's not work. So, he doesn't understand how I own property and the stuff that I'm doing in this realm. But yeah, it's. The interest in culture is, I think, started rooted in music, and then as I went through and sought volunteer opportunities in wanting to give back in community, the whole world of culture, museums, just that whole sector and the opportunities to work on the business side of it was opened up to me.

And sadly, they didn't give you that as an option when you're with a guidance counselor in school. Yeah, but for me, it's rooted in that familial interest in the arts through music. 

[00:08:51] Ellington Brown: Okay, Karen, you are part of the Black Artists Network and Dialogue, B.A.N.D. How does your role in this organization affect our community or communities?

[00:09:07] Karen Carter: B.A.N.D. was imagined by four black women, myself, Dr. Julie Crooks, who's curator at the AGO for Global Africa and the Diaspora Maxine Bailey, who was an executive at TIFF for many years and is now the executive and CEO for the Canadian Film Center. And Karen Terrell, who works in marketing in film.

And I think it's it's imagine it's imagining and it's manifestation is very much based on our collective identities of. Being locally rooted in Canada in Toronto but thinking and operating globally and so that necessity of understanding as you've so eloquently stated that we are black communities and our identities are plural.

And if you are black in a city like Toronto, you could hail from Europe. You could hail from the continent. You could hail from the Caribbean. You could hail from the Americas. And all of those identities are constantly mashing up against each other with each other as well as, frankly, the other, which is everyone else.

And the, we looked around based on the work we're doing and realize. We weren't as present in this country or on the global stage as we could be, and we couldn't necessarily change the situation for the artists who were already in mid or senior level career, but we could create something that would help early career.

And eventually we moved from the mandate, not just centering artists, but artists and cultural workers. And that was partly about, I think, about seven years in me, realizing I don't have found the itis and I didn't want to be a B.A.N.D. forever. So it was, how do you train the next level of leadership? So we had to look at how the work we did as an art, essentially, as an art services organizations that we're not just looking to support and serve the artists, but we're looking to support and serve the cultural workers, the curators, the arts administrators, the people who work behind the scenes to make the artists shine and to help get their work out there.

I listened to an interview earlier this year and I think it was Eleanor Wachtell on CBC talking to Richard Serra, who's now passed that great American artist. And she said, she asked him a question about his experience in Europe in the early 60s and 70s. And he talked about being back in New York and the benefiting from having witnesses and messengers who supported his work.

And he said, every artist needs a witness and a messenger. The witness comes to see your work. They're visiting, they're doing the studio visits, they're coming and having conversations with you during your process. and the messengers helping to push your work out in the world. And for me, you, the artist, cannot have witnesses and messengers if they do not have Great cultural workers, great curators, great arts administrators, great businesspeople who help them navigate both the museum and charitable side of the sector, as well as the for profit side, the dealers, the people who help with selling the work.

Yeah, so for me, that's the work we do is about an understanding of that broader cultural landscape. 

[00:12:39] Ellington Brown: Speaking of cultural. What is your mission and your associates of the Cultural Consulting? How does that support community centered cultural initiatives? 

[00:12:55] Karen Carter: I started the consulting company partly because I thought I was done with the quote unquote mainstream job.

So I had worked at Heritage Toronto. I'd worked prior at the City of Toronto as a museum administrator when they last attempt to build a museum for Toronto in the mid 2000s. And so I thought, I really want to focus on punching up black Canadian presence on the global stage. And I think for those of us who are interested in what's happening with black communities and our peers globally, we know that Africa is blowing up right now.

The biggest artists in the world are of African descent and continental African, not necessarily African American, because often when people hear African artists, they think African American artists, to be a part of the growth that hopefully results in some of the benefit of that within the cultural industry, feeding growth through the creative industries on the continent was really of interest to me.

The consulting company was about. Basic things, like, how can my knowledge help people around the build? So helping people who are in the early stages of whatever their work. For instance, an organization that's in the early stages of diversity, equity, access and inclusion work and really don't even know how to have those conversations.

And then, organizations are people who are looking to start things. Because I do like that hard kind of early building phase where the average executive director isn't necessarily that person. They need some structure; some form to walk into to drive things forward. So that a lot of the work that had been done, it's dormant now and probably will end up doing some restructuring of it because.

I did a thing, which I should have known better, which is in calling it by my name. I don't I didn't leave the flexibility that if I did, as I've now done taking a job with the city of Toronto. I can't really have that because a conflict of interest to act in that way. And even if it's having associates work, using my name to do some stuff.

Yeah, we're looking at how to restructure it, but it will likely be focused much more on global things on the continent and the Caribbean. And maybe even restructuring it to a social enterprise. But yeah, it was very much focused on how to help people do some work in the early stages of development, whatever that meant.

[00:15:32] Ellington Brown: So what is your feeling about the BIEOC, B.I.E.O.C. fellowship, and how does that support the development of a more diverse cultural landscape in Canada? 

[00:15:50] Karen Carter: The BIPOC fellowship came out of a phone call from a colleague and dear friend, Gaylord. Gail is the co founder of Lord Cultural Resources, which is the largest museum consulting firm in the world, and happens to be Canadian, and lives in Toronto.

And during the George Floyd circumstance the murder of that man in the U. S. and the global outcry because we were all at home on digital platforms on lock during lockdown and COVID she called saying what she was trying to do to help with diversifying leadership and museums and Lord has a really strong presence in the U. S. Museum frameworks as well as across Asia, Europe and other places. And when she called me, she was talking about not being able to get folks to buy into a particular model that I didn't think worked. And I suggested that what was necessary was really what I thought helped me in my career, which was, mentors and advisors, my co founder for band, Maxine Bailey calls it your kitchen table, which is the people you can call for advice when things are going pear shaped in your career, because even if the organization or institution has, in theory, a mechanism for support for onboarding, let's say, young talent who is being brought in because they want to diversify the team and they're not fully there. 

And so they're building in a mentorship process. I think corporations are very good at this. I hear all the time from friends who work. In banking, or in finance through insurance, or as lawyers that they'll have a mentor that's working with them to help them as for their leadership growth within the corporation.

I don't think we're very good at it in museums and across the culture sector more broadly. And so it was building that, as a pool of people that we could run what became a pilot to support BIPOC individuals in the Canadian cultural landscape. So we've just finished the pilot this summer and finished a report.

I actually finished reading it this week on Monday night, actually. And so we'll share some of those findings, but largely what it is an understanding that the institution is the institution. It will do what it has to do for it to remain legacy forming and frankly function the way it does. It wasn't built for us; it wasn't built for who they deem the other.

And so if we're going to be in those places, it really is essential that we have, networks and outlets that help us to navigate them. And I think we need to have a presence in those places. We need the B.A.N.D.s of the world, you need to build things that are different models outside of them that can work with them on your own terms of a position of strength, but we also need to.

Not give up on them and create opportunities for those of us who want to work in them to do so in safer ways and to carve out some kind of safe space. And in the worst-case scenario, at least. Have the machine know that there's a system of checks and balances that would defend and support an individual who otherwise is on their own trying to find their way in, in, in a maze.

I'll say one more thing there if it's okay. I'm sorry. Just one more thing before your question Rita, which is I think the BIPOC fellowship also presupposes. That we are qualified, it's that 80-20 I said to you, because often people try to say, oh, these BIPOC are racialized, these Black, Indigenous, and people of color are not qualified for these roles, we tried so hard to find the right fit, but we couldn't, what are we supposed to do?

Or we had to hire this unqualified person and look, they don't know what they're doing. For us, that's not accurate. We do know what we're doing. It's the structure is not necessarily open to the fact that we may come to our work in different ways. And I can say that even for me, with this job at the city of Toronto, I'm lucky that the person who's my boss, it's a friend and colleague who I have a lot of respect for but navigating.

A machine like the city of Toronto with all of its layers is not easy. So in the 1st, 6 months, it was for me, even reminding myself about, okay, what's this 80-20 and it's the policy side. I know how to build museums. I know how to operate them. I know what it means from the idea stage, right down to the delivery, the community engagement, the record keeping the need for dealing with collections. I know all of it but in the city of Toronto machine. 

My portfolio of museums and heritage services means I'm also dealing with the services and policy side. And so reminding myself, at 55 that. You're grown, you can navigate this, stop, breathe on the days when things are, you're looking around, you're like, what what just happened?

So that happens to all of us. And but if it happens to you and you are of a particular persuasion, i. e. European You're allowed to have that moment where sometimes for the rest of us, it's seen as a weakness. So having that ability to call somebody to have a conversation to talk through the frustration and maybe to get advice on how to navigate is, important to have both within an organization or institution, but also outside because I can say that my successes with my career have been 80 percent because of the network that's outside, not necessarily inside the organizations I've worked for.

[00:21:39] Rita Burke: Karen, you have been involved with Heritage Toronto. Talk to us a little bit about the mission of Heritage Toronto, please. 

[00:21:48] Karen Carter: The city of Toronto as, Rita was amalgamated into a mega city in. I think was it the 90s or the 2000s? I can't remember the date. Yeah, early 2000s. Yes. Our 1st mayor for the mega city was Mel Lastman.

And 1 of the things that came out of that was they had to then look around at the municipalities Scarborough, York, East York, Etobicoke. And amalgamate all of what was historic houses related to those particular geographies in the city under one umbrella. So the decision was made that the physical historic houses, which is what I oversee in my museum portfolio, and they include things like Fort York, Spadina House, Mackenzie House, Scarborough Museum, so the museums cover from Fort York to North York and Etobicoke to Scarborough, which would be the north and south edges and east and west edges of Toronto, but in doing that, they also determined, and I don't know if they were really thinking this way, but that there was a need for.

What was previously the Toronto historical board to be rebranded as Heritage Toronto and that was a marketing slash advocacy support arm with a charitable number so that they could support the diverse range of cultural organizations in the city. There's a diverse cultural community association for every cultural group in Toronto.

And so those, the plethora of those required a place for connecting in but also some people, because of the history of the historical board, saw a heritage Toronto as a necessity for advocacy around Toronto's historic properties. I remember in my early years at the city of Toronto when Dr. Carl Ben was there.

He's now head of history at Ryerson now, Toronto Metropolitan University, TMU, then Ryerson University, the Toronto Indicated that the majority of them, beautiful, the most beautiful historic properties that aren't even lost. And so, heritage Toronto's presence was to really support an understanding of the importance of the built heritage.

But in my time there, I also in understanding the history of how it was formed. Really punched up the natural and cultural heritage, leaning particularly into the cultural heritage, because I've thought that really gave you a sense of how those small community cultural associations could be supported through this city agency to tell more diverse stories of the city.

[00:24:36] Rita Burke: There's something that you said way back when we started having this conversation that. Resonates with me, resonates with me and sounds so much as if you grew up in our household because you said that post secondary university wasn't an option. You were going. We sat our son down when he was about 13, 14 and said, even though we had gone, both my husband and I, it wasn't an option for a kid.

You were going to university. Yeah, and I think that happens or that has happened in several in many of our households. The kids didn't have that option going or not going to university. So that left a mark on my mind. Now, you are a consultant. Talk to us about that, please. 

[00:25:27] Karen Carter: For me, the consultancy was twofold. One it was about how to just very practically look at changing the way I work to have more flexibility to travel because I think my brain is very much in global mode and, I think that global mode has influenced some of the best things that I've been lucky enough to be engaged in my career, that global mode, frankly, is the reason B.A.N.D. exists the way it did so in building it, taking time to travel to talk to cultural workers.

I always, and this came up recently in a conversation with colleagues at the city where there were, there was a group of us talking about whether or not we would recommend the city as an employer. And I said, as, challenging as some of the things can be there, I would, for me, in this sector and in the lane that I am in, because I find it to be a privilege to do the work that I do.

I'm lucky enough to do work I would do for free. And if I won a million dollars. Tomorrow and didn't need to work. I would still do this work. And so, the consultancy was partly about trying to now think about how you build the future and the existence you want. I think sometimes we have this idea of hoping someone else is going to come fix it or save us. And I'm not an elk. I think you have to save yourself and you make you the builder in me is about how do you build and create the existence that you want. In working over the years and building B.A.N.D. and knowing that I didn't have founder, and I didn't want to stay there forever.

I wanted to build it so that it was sustainable, and the next generation could take over the leadership and I could assist and support. And what that support looked like for me was a more global place. It was being able to spend more time in Caribbean and on the continent to connect those networks and lean into the network’s component.

The consultancy was about that global existence, because, as I took up a consulting job during COVID and was traveling. In 2001, back and forth from the Southern U. S. to Jackson, Mississippi, to work on a marketing outreach strategy for the Mississippi Museum of Art for a project and that came from the work I was doing with Myseum and going to global conferences to talk about this idea of building a museum without walls rooted in community cultural practice.

So there are people who, know about that work, even though I don't know them because of speaking at conferences and having those videos, then circulate. This gentleman found me through LinkedIn and some other referral and said, hey, someone's asked me to do this, but I'm in. I think Leeds or Bristol somewhere in the UK, because I'm not going to be traveling with COVID to the southern us, but you're in Toronto.

Are you interested in this opportunity? Which I was completely interested in. Yeah, for me, the consultancy is about. It's and that's why I was saying earlier to Elton the thing that we, I did was I made it my name, but it really may or may not make sense to have that continue going forward. Because now that I'm working at the city, that consultancy could still function globally.

But, yeah, it's an interest in building the future that I want for myself, which is to continue to do things locally, nationally and internationally and to particularly lean into the international because I think black cultural workers and artists have to be global right now. You can't focus on the local. If you're not tapped into the global world, you're not going to have the fulsome career that you're watching others have. Yeah, that was the reasoning. 

[00:29:23] Rita Burke: Before Elton comes back, you talked about the international connections. When I spoke with you about maybe two months ago, you were heading to the continent to work on a project. Talk to us about that and what it felt like for you. 

[00:29:42] Karen Carter: I am, I'm lucky to have been introduced to Chef Ko Devo through a dear friend who is a chef here in Toronto. Chef . He's a co-owner of a restaurant, Lata, which is in the west end of the city. It's one of my, watering holes, as they say, one of my favorite spots to eat.

It's really great food. And I have these spots that people know me like the hole in the walls. One of them is one of them and the bar turns the other. But because of his French African, it opened up conversations about what is happening in West Africa. And it's interesting. I said this to people I found it odd because I always thought my first steps and the continent would have been an English country.

Because I'm not fluent in French, I can fake my way through little bits here and there, but I'm not fluent at all. But the 1st visit I made to the continent years ago was the Senegal to Dakar for the Dakar Biennale, which is Africa's answer to Venice. And thereafter for my 50th birthday, I did a bucket list trip to Zanzibar because I was always interested in seeing East Africa and sticking my foot in the Indian Ocean, which was an amazing trip.

If you've never been, everybody should go to Zanzibar. Everybody should walk the streets of stone town, especially. African people of African descent in the West, because what happens on that side of the world is you realize the stories we've been told about slavery are so half. It's so there's this whole other narrative that is there that we're completely unaware of that has influenced the way the continent and frankly, the globe has been shaped. So going to Cote d'Ivoire for the first time was because of that connection to him. And then the opportunity came up through meeting other Ivorians here to start to look at opportunities to work on projects in an area called Grandma Sam, which is a coastal community with strong historic roots. 

It was a capital, and it sits right on the Atlantic Ocean and has a lot of beautiful old French colonial properties that are in disarray. So, it reminded me like I had the fortunate opportunity to be in, to be in Berlin after the wall came down on the East as a part of a strategy, the city of Toronto did to build their cultural creative economy strategy after this author, Richard Florida wrote about the shift globally from manufacturing to culture based.

Creative economic outputs and how idea economies were going to be the wave of the future because the kind of manufacturing, as we know, moved to Asia and China and other parts of the world outside of the West. And I remember being in Berlin and it was weird because of the amount of bullet holes and just things in the buildings that the how the physical and we know this about architecture, right?

The physical presence of a place. Carries memory and weight. And so that's why we want to visit parts of the continent, because the memory and weight of the transfer of those of us who are descendants from those who were forced to migrate to this part of the world is present there. But Bassam has this different energy because it has this sense of, commerce community it has a sense of Africa engaging with the other, but not necessarily from a position of harm. Like those buildings are holding memory that I find really fascinating. So one of the owners of a property is looking at just wanting to get some support to transfer it into an art hotel and being in Toronto and having Christina Zeidler is a dear friend, or the Gladstone Hotel, I think, was one of the early art hotel models, where it's literally you have this hotel and you have literally space is made for artists to gather and convene and it's part of what makes their experience of staying in the hotel that much better.

So this is something we're looking at doing in a property there. Yeah, I. I'm excited to be assisting with something like that, because I think it again is going to create opportunities for exchanges. For black artists here to go there from Canada and vice versa. Yeah it's always great. I love that place.

I feel at home there. 

[00:34:14] Ellington Brown: I can understand why. There's lots and lots of history when we talk about the Gladstone Hotel. I remember when I first arrived here and living in the West End and people talking about the history and the challenges that the hotel has gone through over the last 30, 20, 30 years.

But it's absolutely amazing. And out of all of that, the hotel is still standing. I love the fact that your vision sometimes expands to include everyone globally. And so you're trying to work with black artists all over the world, specifically Africa right now, where you feel that there is importance in getting these people names out there to the universe so that they can excel at what they do.

In other words, you're trying to take the shackles off of them so that way they can just let it all hang out and just give us everything that they desire. Which brings us again back to home and so you have all these wonderful projects going on and consulting work. How does this address the needs of marginalized communities in the arts and cultural fields?

[00:35:48] Karen Carter: So, two things there, I'll say the work on the continent for me is more about how we go there so that they get to do what they do at home. And then that way, the benefit comes back into home. And it's the same thing in the Caribbean that I think we're talking about the continent, and it is that it's a continent so huge and the diversity of places and countries is extremely diverse.

Yeah, I think my interest in being there is about how to drive growth, wealth. That is about that those places and those people being able to be at home but have careers that connect them to the broader global economy. And I think, frankly, that's already happening. And we just. In the West in places like Toronto need to tap into that to get some lessons of our own about how to do things better and how to have some stronger exchanges.

The the piece of that is connected to the work that is happening here in Toronto for me is about just that understanding that we're human being’s 1st. You wake up as a human being and then you're othered when you go out in the world. And I think that's what, how I navigate space is that I wake up as a person and as a person who's of Jamaican heritage, who's interested in culture, who likes jazz and classic reggae, who, loves a good meal, who is lucky to live in a city that can tour the globe with that, with my palate, who enjoys, hosting little dinner parties at my place.

All of these. Elements that make up who I am when I get up in the morning, I don't feel like I'm black Karen. I feel like Karen and so when I go out in the world, you then have to deal with this otherness and that for me, the root of that connected tissue of working both in community and quote, unquote, outside of community, because I also find that whole notion of being in and out of us as weird because I think we're everywhere.

We're part of the mainstream and confidently navigating spaces where I'm not necessarily seeing a lot of other people who look like me. It's part of how I do that because I just think I belong where I belong because I'm a human being. And if you have a problem or an idea about me, not belonging there because of the color of my skin or my nappy head, that's your problem, not mine.

But, yeah, it's, it is rooted in this idea of, and I say this to colleagues and friends all the time that. One of the great things about being in Toronto is, for instance, Africans who are now in the West, who have chosen, because we exist in this place out of choice of migration and forced migration, I'm descendant from those who were forced to migrate here.

But those who choose to migrate here come with that sense of their humanity first, not their race. And then they come here and they're told, Oh, no, your race is the leading factor. And how we manage that is why it's important for, the work of those of us in culture who help people make sense of that and help to create safe spaces like this for these types of conversations to happen.

So that we question some of the things that we may take for granted about how we construct race and identity because race is a social construct. It, we have to almost always remind ourselves that as we navigate space and determine. How it is we move through the world to do what I hope, at least I know for me, it's a driver's like, how do you pass this way, leaving things a bit better than you got them?

That's my responsibility that's the thing that I think shapes me is I'm going to do the best I can. With what I pour into this place and hope that the next generation then pours more and makes things a bit better. But yeah, that understanding of not buying into the otherness. Understanding it managing it because not my father used to always say you don't move things forward for our people by not understanding what the other things you can't fight your enemy.

If you don't know your enemy, so you have to understand that broader frame in order to be able to look at how. The work of dismantling systemic racism is a really complex thing, and that requires those of us inside systems and outside to navigate in ways to unpack it bit by bit, brick by brick, 

[00:40:31] Rita Burke: And that navigation has to be with confidence.

There's no question about that. And I like what your father said, you can't do anything about the enemy if you don't know who the enemy is. And I also like something that you said is you wake up in the mornings and you wake up as a human being. You don't even think the other thing until maybe somebody throws it in your face.

Talking about that, I lived and worked in Peterborough at the college for over 10 years. And I was the other, but I didn't wake up every day thinking to myself, poor me, I had to find strategies and way of navigating that space and the most confidently, or else if you don't do that, this as they say, cat will eat your dinner.

And I wasn't prepared to allow any cat. Take my dinner. No way. So, Karen, could you think of a time when you had to say enough?

[00:41:27] Karen Carter: I think I'll say this happened to me in my early career when I was working in a place that will go unnamed that wasn't very safe. And I was having some medical issues. I had uterine fibroids, which plagues a lot of women, black women, and was dealing with some medical issues. And my boss at the time, instead of having some empathy, basically.

Came at me attacking me when I got really sick and had to stop working on a project and frankly, just stop to make sure I was okay. And I hit the enough button because I sat through recognizing as a young person in this role that I had to sit through a bit of the berating, recognizing that this person was taking no responsibility for their role.

But the enough was less about me even calling them on their inappropriate response to my crisis. The lack of empathy and the lack of responsibility for the role they played, but the enough for me is often my brain just says I'm done and then I shift and I'm gone and I shift and I move and often those moments happen and I move to another level where you're saying, Oh, actually, this moment is reminding you that you can do more and be more.

And this bad moment is about your not underestimating your strength and your power and that you, as the, raised by Christian parents, you're told you're the head and not the tail. So, you just have to, you just got to move instead of arguing with people and bothering to get in the back and forth, because then you meet them in the gutter.

And I was raised by people who also said we meet no one in the gutter. And that's another level of. Michelle Obama’s, they go low we go high. Our thing was you don't meet people in the gutter. Let them stay in the gutter. You navigate around them, and you move away from them because your blessing will be compromised.

If you enter the gutter. Yes. Yeah, my enough is usually Amen. , . My enough is usually Jesus, take the wheel. How do I get away from this? Because there has to be more. And I can say, honestly, I've been super lucky and blessed that if something, as they say, if one door closes, another one opens. Yeah. 

[00:43:47] Ellington Brown: On a lighter note, you talked a little bit about this House Track that you were part of. I want to know a little bit more about this house track because I know you can sing. You come from a generation of singers. And at one point I was a disc jockey, very well known, and I played a lot of house music. That was me.

thing was house music. And I would love to know what was that experience like and without getting you or anyone in any kind of trouble. 

[00:44:29] Karen Carter: So I can't honestly remember this brother's name, but he was from Detroit. I don't even remember how I met him, but I met him, just through Someone said something to me once that during the quote unquote year of the gun, I remember sitting in my living room and then determining as I watched a video of a preacher at the time who brought another preacher up from Boston to do this whole thing around some of the ways.

The faith community could better support and assist youth at risk. And I think in the U. S., there's a much longer history of this than there is in Canada. I think in Canada, our faith communities, especially Black churches, are very middle class focused. We were very good at the showing up, looking perfect, putting some money in the plate.

And the closest we get to the crisis of community is through a benevolent fund. That's where it ends. We don't go out and do the direct connection. Whereas in the US, there's much more of a, you're the preachers are in the quote unquote hood with the kids. But I think this was a similar thing where I was aware that music was happening because of the jazz trio that I was in and was connected with this person and they had a track, and I still had thoughts that maybe I could do music on the side.

I could. Finish the teaching degree because I was gigging with the jazz trio. Maybe I could do some other stuff. And so he had this track that he I don't know that he'd written all of the track at the time, but there was a studio somewhere around Bathurst area and someone's house is one of these kind of backyard garage things and we went and recorded it.

And I had, because this was still, you could repressing CDs type of thing and I had the CD and I remember doing that as well as doing a CD for the jazz trio with my collaborator who Mike Caddoe, who's a guitar player at the time it was in the education program with me Italian Canadian gentleman that lived in Thornhill.

And we did a CD of classics. So those are the two recordings that I had out in the world. I remember taking it to Jamaica and my uncle was so very proud, especially of the jazz classics, but the house track was like, it was this how did it go? This was a chorus or slash bridge because I don't remember.

What the actual other things of the lyrics was. But the retort was; because if you want it, you got it. I what you need, baby, come to me because you want, you got it. You got it What you need beautiful baby to me. So, I don't know how they did it. But you remember HMV, the big one that was at then Dundas Square.

Yeah. So, the, that big one on Yonge, they used to have performances in the like ground floor area, which I hadn't known about. So they said, Oh, we've got this gig. We booked, you can do the track. And then they were going to help sell the track. And that was where I realized this is not my jam because I sang this song and then this gentleman walked up to me and because of course my whole thing was, baby, I've got what you need was a door open to, And I was just like, what?

I just sang a song. This is totally inappropriate. And then, of course, the guy who was the producer was like, you have to be nicer to that. And I was like, no. 

[00:48:12] Rita Burke: But in those days people got away with all kinds of things. 

[00:48:15] Karen Carter: All kinds of inappropriate things. 

[00:48:18] Rita Burke: Anything you did or anything you said was calling it 

[00:48:20] Karen Carter: Could be read into some kind of innuendo for foolishness. Anyway, so just yeah, they, nah, no, 

[00:48:28] Rita Burke: I think we are blessed on SpeakUP! International because maybe we're the only ones right now that have got to recording, singing a song! This is a jam, Elton! I think this is beautiful, but something else. I think Elton sang in a group as well, and I did as well as a youngster, so I think we've got so much in common.

[00:48:50] Karen Carter: We've got our own trio! 

[00:48:52] Rita Burke: Okay, this is very funny. So let's keep it, let's keep it nice and light as well. I want to hear, I want you to tell our listeners something simple that puts a smile on Karen Carter's face. Please. 

[00:49:06] Karen Carter: Really great brunch on a Saturday or Sunday after church. And just the time to breathe and reflect.

I think when you're in the position I'm in where folks know you in a particular way, there's always things coming at you. So I would say that's it. So when I'm in Toronto, it's those moments where I'm in I don't know about or holding the wall and having brunch just on my own. I know people say that's weird and that they don't eat alone, but I completely I'm happy to do that.

Especially when I'm in public where you're in a big restaurant and it's busy and you could people watch and enjoy a great meal. And the other thing is travel. I rest when I travel, and people find that weird. But I would take the two days to get from the continent back because of course it's usually a day there and a day back and have like even four days there and feel rejuvenated.

And same thing to get into London or Paris. time in Jamaica starting to get more time to hop around the rest of the Caribbean and also spend more time across the continent. I love traveling. I really do think I've said to people because I don't have children of my own that what I've accumulated materially will be left partly as endowment for support for B.A.N.D.

And it would be for artists to travel because I think that just impacts and whoever you are, no matter who you are, and definitely for artists. You travel, you have experiences, it's always going to make you as a human being more open and better. And for my family, for my nieces and nephews, who their parents are doing great, they don't need my money for school or any of those basic material things.

But to give them the ability to travel, because I think our Black youth are not traveling as much as they should. And that's the one thing that if I could have gone back and chose not to leave my father's house at 18, it would have been so I could have traveled a bit out of high school before starting university.

Because I think the way you see the world and as a young person is not the same as the way you see it as a. As an established adult, but, yeah, I love traveling when I'm here. It's those quiet moments. But when I'm away walking, wandering the streets of cities, I love cities. I'm more likely to be puttering through a city than to choose a rural excursion for my experiences because I like the energy that they give you.

But yeah, my happy place is usually lost somewhere and, in the world, and just discovering how to get back to someplace and running into people meeting people just randomly.

[00:51:54] Rita Burke: Let's suppose that you are asked to do a keynote address for a graduating class of women artists. What three gems would you want to drop in their pockets, in their heads, in their psyche? 

[00:52:18] Karen Carter: The first would be what I was told in high school by a then drama teacher, which was to not leave their parents home and go directly into a partnership to have the time to live on their own, being on your own and getting to know yourself.

Having the option to wash up the dishes or not just that experience of self knowledge. And I think that self love is super important because I think we forget that great partnerships are because two people are coming whole and not requiring someone else to finish you. It's really important. On a personal level, I would say that.

Would be one of the recommendations on a prior in a public level. I would say confidence is not always about the loudest biggest energy in the room. Sometimes it's the quietest. And it's the patience to listen and wait and to be the last to speak because you surveyed the room and what you say then has an impact.

I remember Bev Salmon years ago when Kambaya was on the end of its life and was closing in. I was there and called her denim jolly and some others to help with what in retrospect was spare change for debt, but we didn't know better at the time and the circumstances were such that it resulted in the organization closing.

And I just remember she was the only one that in the end just asked the question that made me realize things wouldn't move forward, which was. What was the insurance like for the debt so that if they joined the board to help us restructure? What would the liability be? I was just like; I didn't say anything else.

It's just that change the conversation. Yeah, the power of listening silence and really listening. I feel like sometimes people are there and they'll say they're listening, but maybe it's hearing as you listen, because when you hear you register, you process. And then your response is, frankly, more likely appropriate for the circumstance.

And I think the last thing is very Caribbean old adage, which is you are known by the company you keep. So, to really think about who is around you who you count as your friends. I have a lot of colleagues. I know a lot of people, but my friends are very small, tight circle. And that the recognition that also changes as you grow, and you move, not everyone comes with you.

Yeah, those are the three things. And it doesn't mean they're bad people. It just means you're in a different place and, bless them, wish them well, but keep growing and moving. 

[00:55:00] Ellington Brown: I think that is a very wise thing to think about as we, move through life, and it's not a bad thing. In fact, it can be a good thing, not only for the individual that's moving forward, But there's lessons that the individuals that are quote unquote behind you to learn from your experience together and then to take that and then allow them to move in the path that's designed for them or they designed themselves to to move forward.

I want to thank you so much Karen Carter for being with us this morning, and we got an opportunity to talk a little bit about how your experience has shaped your work in arts, culture, and heritage. We discussed a little bit about the Black Artists Network and how that organization is helping communities basically around the world.

The Heritage Toronto, your leadership there and how it has a positive impact on local community your Caribbean Art Fair. I think we touched just a little bit about that, and I wish we had time to do more of that and your experience has influenced the style and approach to creating cultural initiatives and organizations.

We covered a lot, Karen, and I really do appreciate all of the time. That you gave us. I really do appreciate all of the work that you are doing for us in order to elevate the art and the individuals with so much talent that they actually have a voice. to use to let the world know what they're doing, just like the portraits that are behind you, that is an artist that is absolutely beautiful.

And she is an international figure, which I think is a tribute. And it's also your vision in terms of wanting to see more of us. Get that type of recognition. So, thank you so much. And we would love to have you back Karen, maybe a year from now. I'm sure you'll have another two hours worth of stories and enlightenments that you can share with our audience and motivation, which is something that we all need from time to time in order to collectively move forward as a people. So, thank you so much. Thank you for being with us. Rita, is there something that you'd like to say before we say goodbye? 

[00:58:11] Rita Burke: Yes, On SpeakUP! International, we seek to inspire, inform, and educate. And your story today, there's no question, has helped us to meet those goals. And something that I will always remember, thanks for reminding me, that we meet no one in the gutter.

Thank you for that reminder. Really appreciate that! 

[00:58:34] Karen Carter: Amen! Thank you. I gotta jump into an 11:30am appointment. Thank you so much for your time and for amazing conversation. Happy to come back at any point.

[00:58:42] Ellington Brown: Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International! If you wish to contact Ms. Karen Carter. Please be prepared to submit your name, your email address, and the reason why you wish to contact Ms. Karen Carter at info@speakuppodcast.ca. 

Ms. Carter has other social media accounts you can use to contact her that will be listed in the description section on Spotify and other social media platforms. 

Are you interested in the opportunity to be interviewed? And have your cause promoted by SpeakUP! International? We invite you to contact us by sending a message that includes your name, company or organization name, the valuable service you offer to your community, and your email address to info@speakuppodcast.ca. 

Worried about your confidence as an interviewee? Don't fret! SpeakUP! International can provide you with the necessary training, so you shine during an interview! To receive training information and a 10% discount about the SpeakUP! International's Podcast, Interviewee Trainee Program email us at info@speakuppodcast.ca. 

You can also reach us using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. 

To connect to our podcast, use Spotify or your favorite podcast platform and search for SpeakUP! International. You can also find our podcast using our web address, www.speakuppodcast.ca. 

Our logo has the woman with her finger pointing up, mouth open speaking UP! By joining Patreon, we can offer you an exclusive opportunity. To become an integral part of the continued success of our podcast. Your financial support will enable us to cover the costs associated with producing high quality content. Such as equipment upgrades, hosting fees, and professional editing services. 

As a member of our Patreon group. You will gain access to a range of exciting benefits. We are working on providing you early access to new episodes and the opportunity to suggest topics or guests for future episodes. Your contribution will not only sustain the continuity of the podcast, but also allow us to enhance the overall listening experience for all of our dedicated followers. Help us help you! https://www.patreon.com/speakupinternational. 

At SpeakUP! International, we aim to inspire to inform and to educate.