Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Phill, occasionally, just so you know, I'm going to switch away from zoom to where I have my notes. You know what, give me a sec, I'm gonna … Andrew, can you keep recording, and maybe it will still serve as our little lock screen test. And I'm just going to print out this set of notes. And it will make the whole thing go a little more smoothly. I just have to watch the print picture and grab it, and come back again.

Andrew Lush:
Okay. Sounds good. All right, I'm going to blank your screen, Phil. That seems to have picked in the lock screen before, so maybe that will happen again. So ...

Mason Funk:
I'll be back in a minute.

Andrew Lush:
Sure. cool. So we're recording. Mason will be back.

Phill Wilson:
And is it, I have a question. So the sound is coming through your, the mic that you sent

Mason Funk:
It is, it's being picked up to the mic. Yeah, I checked on it. Yeah.

Phill Wilson:
I wonder. And the sound seems good to me. I wonder if this is on. Is this on?

Mason Funk:
I don't know. Can you,

Phill Wilson:
No, it's not on, so I'll take that off. So the phone, the image on the phone appears a little dark to me, although the image on the computer did not, I don't know why they're there,

Mason Funk:
Correct? Yeah, we weren't, we weren't worried about the phone. That's just for just so we can talk to you and not use them use your camera, your computer camera while we record on that. Yeah. And also, so that you don't have to look at that at the camera. That's recording. Okay. Yeah. No lock screen yet. We are recording. Well, we'll just get going.

Andrew Lush:
Did you want to also record the zoom Mason? Just as a backup?

Mason Funk:
Sure.

Andrew Lush:
Okay.

Mason Funk:
And Phil, you've probably done this drill before, but if you can try to incorporate my question into your answer. So if I ask about your parents say your parents ask about Chris, Bradley's take Brown and so on.

Phill Wilson:
Okay

Mason Funk:
And I've got probably too many questions written, which is something that happens fairly often. So I would say without being without simplifying or oversimplyfing too much, if you can keep your answers relatively short, that'll definitely help keep things a lot. And then if I have followups, of course, ask them.

Phill Wilson:
Okay, great.

Mason Funk:
Okay. Andrew just told me that I needed to hit the record button, which makes sense because I'm the host. So hold on for one second of that. Record to the cloud. All right. We are recording so we can get started.

Phill Wilson:
Great.

Keywords: Introductions

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
First of all thank you for working with us to make this happen. And I want to jump right in and talk about your parents. Set up a little bit, you know, where you were born and when. In fact let's get started, I should have not been so hasty, but start by having you state and spell your first and last names.

Phill Wilson:
Well, my name is Phill Wilson, P H I L L Wilson, W I L S O N. I was born in 1956, April 22nd, 1956 in Chicago, Illinois.

Mason Funk:
Okie dokie. I've read a fair amount about your parents, both posting in our prep interview and also some other interviews. It sounds like they were amazing, amazingly loving and supportive of you and your brothers and your sister. One thing. Well, let's talk about that briefly. Just give us an overview of your parents and the kind of love and support they gave to you growing up. Yeah.

Phill Wilson:
You know, it's funny often when I talk to other people about parental relationships, one of the things that I say is, you know, human beings are not born with owner's manuals and parents are rarely equipped to be parents. And so human beings, parents included, make mistakes. My parents were 20 years old when I was born. My mother migrated to Chicago from Mississippi and my father migrated to Chicago from Louisiana. And they're very, very young and very, very poor. And they found themselves the parents of a little boy in 1956 in Chicago, Illinois, one of the most balkanized cities in the country at the time. And some may argue even now, one of the most balkanized cities in the country. And they didn't have a lot of money, but somehow even as young as they were, they understood that there was one thing that they could give me their firstborn and eventually now all four of their children and that was unconditional love. And that turned out to be, in my opinion, the greatest gift that they could have given us.

Mason Funk:
Amazing. Amazing. You also said they made sure you had some internalized protection kind of like PrEP for racism. Can you expand on that idea and you might want to just in case the viewer doesn't know what PrEP refers to, you might want to just throw a brief definition of what PrEP refers to.

Phill Wilson:
Well, you know, one of the, one of the issues in our country, even today with race dynamics is that black parents have to prepare their children to face a racist world or a world where they are at some point in their lives, undoubtedly, going to encounter racism and in order to protect their children they have to come up with strategies and tools so that their children can survive that. And in some ways, you know, it's like, how do you prevent HIV infection? You know how this PrEP work, if you will preexposure prophylaxis and what are some of the preexposure prophylaxis for racism? And in my case, what my family and my parents always emphasized was that we are exactly who we're supposed to be, that we are the color we were supposed to be. Our hair is the texture that it's supposed to be, that our noses are the shapes that they're supposed to be, that we are, who we are supposed to be. And that really provided a pretty significant antidote to racism because obviously the fundamental tool of racism is to communicate to the other person that they are lesser than. And by the time I encountered that, and probably I was a full on adult the first time I understood that that's what I was encountering, which is an important distinction to make. But by then, you know, my parents had done their job. They had ingrained that sense of self. And so it was too late. Now I did have an experience as a fourth grader that may have been connected to race. I didn't, I did not connect it to race when I was in fourth grade, but I remember entering the first day of fourth grade. It was the first time I had a white teacher and I walked into the class and the teacher said that she didn't like me, which was an odd thing to say. Probably she said it not because of race, but because I probably had a reputation even by fourth grade of not being an easy student. And so I remember going home that day and my mother asking me, how did my day go? And I said, it went fine. That Mrs. Jones, that was the teacher's name said that she didn't like me and my mother was pretty alarmed. And she said, well, what do you mean? She didn't like you, what happened? I said, I don't know. I just know, walked in the class. And she said, she didn't like me. And the next thing I remember saying is, you know, I don't know why I don't know what's wrong with her. And I remember my mother smiling and kind of taking a breath and dropping it, just letting it go.

Mason Funk:
Hmm. Wow. And where do you think, I mean, for such young parents and for parents who have, you know, migrated North, where do you think they got that internal conviction that you and presumably they as well were exactly who they were meant to be?

Phill Wilson:
I don't know that I know the answer to that question. I've not really ever asked that question. There's some projections, you know that I make now, both of my parents come from very, very, very large families. My, each of them have 14 had, 14 siblings. Rural, they grew up on farms. And they were very independent because of that, that, you know, and I think that the interactions and understanding of self when you have the protections of a large family and their case may have contributed to that. And the support that I know my family have, which is very interesting. When you think about race dynamics in that I was born and raised in a housing project on the South side of Chicago, it was called all Gale garden and everybody there was black, you know, the mailman was black. You know, the teachers, you know, by and large were black, the neighbors were black. You know, everyone we encountered was black and that created a cocoon that I think also helped in that regard and provided again, some sort of preparation on how to maneuver in a world where there's often hostilities directed against people of color and black people in particular.

Keywords: Chicago, IL; Childhood; Dad; Education; Elementary School; Family; Father; Lower School; Mom; Mother; Parents; PrEP; Racial Discrimination; Racism

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Wonderful. you also said about your parents, that they forever affected what you were willing and not willing to accept in the way of homophobia. Is that more or less the same idea or was there something distinctive?

Phill Wilson:
Well, you know what, my parents didn't realize they were doing as they were figuring out a strategy to protect me against a racist world. They didn't realize that they were setting up a challenge for themselves. And so as they deliver the message that you're all right, just as you are, you are who you're supposed to be. When I discovered that I was a gay man, that there was a narrative that, that I had been taught on how to deal with that understanding. And so it didn't dawn on me, probably naively so, but it didn't dawn on me that there were exceptions to that.

Mason Funk:
Just back up, unless you ... Do you know what that was?

Phill Wilson:
No, but it went away. So.

Mason Funk:
Okay. Just back up and say, it didn't dawn on me.

Phill Wilson:
It didn't dawn on me that there were some possible exceptions. And so I immediately like, literally right after my own consciousness about my sexual orientation, I went to my mother and I came out and and shortly after that, I, I also came out to my father, if you want, we can get into that story at some point. But the bottom line is I went to them. I told them that I was gay and with a full expectation that they would say that that was fine. And while I didn't ever say, I have an expectation that you will say that I was fine. I didn't actually say, you've always said, I'm just as I'm supposed to be. I think they understood because they both said, you know, are you happy? Then that's all that matters. Now I have no idea what they said, what they were saying to themselves or what they said to each other. But what they said to me was consistent with what they had said my entire life. And then later on in life, when the topic came up, they always were very, very clear that, you know, I was their son and that's all that mattered. My dad was once asked in an interview, what was it like having a gay son? And my dad said that he didn't think of it that way at all that he had, he had a son, no full stop period. No. And there was no, he didn't have a hyphenated son. He had a son and that's all that mattered to him.

Mason Funk:
Wow. Sounds like your parents should have written some parenting manuals. It’s not too late for you, please. Just let me clarify. Is your dad still with us or? No,

Phill Wilson:
Both of my parents are my they're they're each, each 84, 84, 84, 85. They're each 85. They turn 85. No, that's not right. That's not right. Hello. They’re each 84, they'll turn 85 next month.

Keywords: Childhood; Coming Out; Family; Homophobia; Parents; Racism

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Okay. Wow. So briefly, also in your growing up years, you mentioned a high school counselor named Jane Simpson. And it sounds like she deserves a minute of our time. Can you talk about Jane Simpson?

Phill Wilson:
Mrs. Simpson was my house high school counselor, and she was pretty amazing. I remember when I first walked into her office, she had a poster from the movie South Pacific with the lyrics to the song. You have to be taught now. And for people familiar with the song, there's a song where I guess the, the, the lead is singing to the female lead that about how racism happens now, and that you have to be taught to hate and to be afraid of people who are different. And what have you. And mrs. Simpson's basically was that person that was not my parents who basically convinced me that there were no limitations, you know, and because she didn't believe that there were limitations and, you know, it helped me believe that there were no limitations and she actually was the first white person. No, that's not true. She was like the second white person who was a mentor in that way. And so that also meant a lot to me because it allowed me to kind of have a perspective on how to react to different people based on the way they reacted to me. And to not necessarily make assumptions about how I might be perceived by other people.

Mason Funk:
I lost your video, but I think, can you still hear me?

Phill Wilson:
I can.

Mason Funk:
Okay. All right. Then we can continue. I think your video will hopefully just come back at some point. Oh, you're back. Okay, good. Let me just see what Andrew texted me. Oh, okay. Andrew texted your screen, went down with your webcam. Looks good. So that's the most important that's, what's actually recording your, okay. So we can just carry on. It'll be a phone interview for a few minutes here. So fast forward a little bit you've said that you're coming out as a gay man was effectively all the way against the backdrop of AIDS. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Keywords: Childhood; Counselor; Education; High School; Jane Simpson

Partial Transcript: Phill Wilson:
My lived experience as a gay man has been against the backdrop of the HIV AIDS epidemic. I came out basically in 1980 and 1981. My partner at the time came home and after having a physical and he has swollen lymph nodes. And I said, well, I have swollen lymph nodes as well. And he said, there's this thing going around? And it has something to do with swollen lymph nodes. That thing that was going around would turn out to be grid. And we were a part of the no LGBTQ community, or I get to be honest, no the lesbian and gay community in Chicago at the time. And you know, friends started to get sick and kind of disappear more so than actually die. I think in the very, very early days when someone got sick often, if they could, they went home and that's where they ultimately died. So the first few cases were people who kind of disappeared shortly after that in 1982, Chris and I, Chris was my first partner. He and I moved to Los Angeles and by 1982, the epidemic was starting to really get going. And you know by 1982, Chris and I had been together for two years, we would end up being together until 1989 when he died.

Mason Funk:
Right. Is it, is it possible for you to explain what it was like for, you know, our target audience, so to speak is younger LGBTQ people today who don't necessarily understand where they came from, you know, the history of their movement and in your case, in this case, in relation to HIV AIDS, is it possible to describe to someone who's never lived in what it's like to come out against the backdrop of this, this sort of slow motion, disaster, tragedy. It just starts picking up speed and affects everything in your life.

Phill Wilson:
Well, you know, in my case, like I said, I came out in 1980 and it was really, really exciting, you know? And by 19 late, 1981, early 1982 we didn't really know what was going on, but we knew that, you know something was going on and it was still early and we thought, well, you know, they'll fix it. They'll find something. Very, very shortly we came to the realization that, that wasn't going to happen that no one was going to send the lifeboats for us that if we were going to survive, we were really on our own. And what that did. It, it made us realize, or, you know, I guess, speaking about my experience, you know, it, it, it may me realize that I had a responsibility, you know that it certainly made me grow up really, really, really quickly to be by then by 1982, I guess I'm 24, I guess by 1982. And watching my friends get sick literally every day and dying every day. And spending so much time in the hospitals with no answers, really no answers at all. It, it, and now it's, it's kind of hard to even imagine what it was like to be literally in a war zone, because we were having battles on with the government. We were taking care of each other. We were fearful of our own lives and it was never ending. And there would be days when you would start the day visiting someone at the hospital and then visiting a number of people at the hospitals. And then you would go to someone's house so that they weren't alone. No, literally as they die. And then you would be on the telephone. No. Or you'd be at a meeting no, trying to figure out strategies and tactics to influence the government to do something, anything. And you were then reading every single thing you could read about what was going on, kind of educate yourself. And then you would collapse and then the next morning it would start all over again, kind of in a Groundhog's kind of a way. And that went on for years, you know I remember in 1988, it was, this one day in particular where I had to drop Chris off at County hospital in Los Angeles for his therapy. Then I had to rush across town to Kaiser Permanente, where I got my therapy, my treatment, and then rush back across the County to pick him up when he finished and then to take him home and then go to on this particular day, go visit our friend Andrew, who was in the last days of his life and to, to help facilitate his transition so that he was not alone for that. And then come back to make sure that Chris was all okay that day. And then, you know, so, you know, there were so many days that were like that, where so much of the day you were in autopilot, because it was too scary and too debilitating to stop to think about what was going on. You just kept it moving.

Keywords: 1981-present The AIDS Epidemic; Death; Government; HIV/AIDS; Healthcare; Los Angeles, CA; Perseverance

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Wow. Well, thank you for that. Sure. It's not, not easy going back, but thank you for that very tangible description. You, yourself, I know that you were on the brink of death more than once, and there's one particular time I read it about in 1996. And it sounds like from what I read, like essentially protease inhibitors came in, like just literally at the last possible minute for you. What I want to ask about is kind of a link to link two questions. One is you've probably been asked before, what is it like what does someone who has essentially been that close to death, essentially looking down that right in the eyes, how does that change? How did that change you? And do you feel like looking death in the eyes when death was HIV AIDS, did that have a particular quality? I don't know if you've ever faced death from any other potential source. But can you say whether that encounter with death from HIV AIDS. Was it any way sort of specific that you can describe?

Phill Wilson:
You know, people ask me what it's like to face death now in 1996, literally my doctors called my mother and told her that I had less than 24 hours to live. I was in ICU unit at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Hollywood. And the thing about that time that I think is interesting for me is that that moment in time, and I would have another episode later on where they thought that I was gonna die. The setup for those moments and how to deal with them actually happened at the point of my diagnosis. And so when I found out that I was HIV positive, as opposed to assuming I was HIV positive, because quite frankly, many of us in the early, early days assumed that we’re HIV positive. And so finally the test came out and I got tested and I waited back then it was two weeks to get the results. I got the results. And the doctor said to me that I had about six months to live and that I should go home and get my affairs in order. And I like looked at him and I, I, I, I said to myself that I'm 26 years old. I don't have any affairs to get in order. And and so that kinda stuck with me and what I understood and what I understand today and what I understood at those points in my life, where I actually had to face death is the dying will take care of itself, that it doesn't need my assistance. It's the living that needs my assistance, you know? And so through all of that, and now kind of my thought about it is I can't control the dying part, but I have a role to play in the living part. Now I have a role to play in the quality of the life. I have a role to play in the contributions that I choose or don't choose, or I'm able, I'm unable to make. And that's what I focus on. And when in 1996, when my doctor said that, and at that point I couldn't communicate, but I could hear, I could hear what they were saying, you know, and I remember thinking that I wasn't going to focus on that. That if that was going to happen, it was going to happen, but that, you know, I would focus on breathing. I would focus on now getting it, getting through to the next hour and then getting through to the next 15 minutes and getting through the next five minutes and getting through the next minute. And back then, and in some ways now you know, that, that in a way is whether you have HIV or not, that's all you really got, you know, and you know, our job is to get through the minutes and the hours and the days, and those days turns, turn into weeks and months and years. And so now it's been 38 years since that doctor gave me six months to live.

Keywords: 1981-present The AIDS Epidemic; Dad; Death; Father; HIV Positive; HIV/AIDS; Healthcare; Los Angeles, CA; Mom; Mother; Parents

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Wow. That's great. Thanks. You, thank you for all that jumping sort of slightly forward and sideways. You talked in your prep interview about Pat Parker. Pat Parker is one of the people who I dearly dearly, dearly wish. I mean, we didn't even get close with Pat, but she and Audrey Lord, for example, just to name two examples of people we no longer have with us, but talk about her poem, ‘Where Will You Be’ and the effect that had on you?

Phill Wilson:
Well, you know, there have been so many moments in my life that have changed my life and meeting Pat Parker was one of them. Now, Pat Parker wrote this poem that really kind of speaks to, in my opinion, every moment, including this moment the poem, the poem is ‘Where Will You Be When They Come?’ And it's a challenge to the LGBTQ community around, you know, being counted, being held accountable, being there and understanding what's at stake and our responsibility to stand for our own survival now. And in the poem is where will you be when they come? And they will come and they will come into the churches and they will come into the bars and they will come into the businesses. Now, one of the phrases is that they will not wear Brown coats and swastika. The time for ruses is over. And they will come to subjugate and isn't that where we are today. And, and whether we're talking about sexual orientation or race or gender, isn't the time today to ask ourselves, where will you be when they come? Because, in fact, they have come. Another person that really changed my life was meeting Audrey Lorde. And Audrey Lord said, when we are afraid no, when we speak, we are afraid. Our words will not be heard nor welcome, but when we are silent, we're still afraid. So it's better to speak, remembering that we were never meant to survive. And now, and again, you know, I don't know Audrey wrote that when 1980 ish. And and again, it's, it, there are words that speak to this moment in time as well. And they're words that really, as a young person were so powerful for me and help me to be willing, to step out and to speak or to do whatever, even when I was really, really, really afraid.

Keywords: Audrey Lord; Pat Parker; Poem; Where Will You Be

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
You know you talked about how you learn to fight, which in speaking out as another form of fighting obviously, and that's what helped keep you alive. And when you listed some of the things you learned how to fight one of them with your own fears of inadequacy. Having heard everything you've said about your parents and this Simpson, they were incredible, but you, but you still had your own fears of inadequacy. And I find that for so many people, those fears are incredibly difficult to overcome oftentimes, cause we don't even know that we have them. They're out there operating inside of us, but we don't know that they're operating. So I wonder if you could expand on thought and, and, and where are those fears, lurked and how you learn to talk to them and overcome them.

Phill Wilson:
You know, I was asked the other day, what do I think are the misconceptions that people have about me? And one of the biggest misconceptions that I think that people have about me is that I am fearless. And that's just so not true. And but one of the ways that I deal with my fear is I don't have an expectation that I won't be afraid. I have an expectation that quite frankly, often I will be afraid, but that doesn't matter. And part of that, certainly the foundation of my parents and people who have been mentors in my life have been helpful to me, but a big part of that really is coming into your adulthood in the face of a plague. You know, there, there's not an option, I guess there is. I take that back. I didn't, I didn't feel that there was an option not to fight. That we didn't have a choice that this thing was coming at us and we had to fight back. And, you know, for me, I was lucky that there were these, this narrative in my head that I could call upon and at different points in my life while it was going on the powers that be chose to put new, new words in my head, like in the case of Pat Parker and Audrey Lord and others Essex Hemphill, you know for example, I forget the question. I'm sorry.

Mason Funk:
That's all right. That's good. And I think you answered it. It was about your own, your own inadequacy and it sounds like, I think you answered it by talking about you weren't fearless. You were courageous. Yeah. Okay. Kind of getting back to the timeline ...

Phill Wilson:
Oh, I know one thing that I think is important that I think that people feel inadequate because they are afraid of being wrong or they are afraid of not being enough. And I think the way you get over those inadequacy is that you acknowledge that you will often be wrong. That's also beside the point and sometimes it will not be enough, but the only thing that you have to give, whether it's enough or not, whether it's right or wrong is what you have to give. And so the obligation is to give that thing, whatever it is now. And that's the test. I think that, that for me, where I have found peace is not striving to be right. Although I want to be right. I actually often think that I am right, but that's beside the point, but to strive to do what I can do and to let that always be enough.

Keywords: Dad; Family; Father; Fear; Mom; Mother; Parents

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
That's great. That's great. Thank you for adding that. That's really powerful. You mentioned 87, you co-founded an organization called the National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum with Ruth Waters. Why was that organization in your mind needed at that time?

Phill Wilson:
Ruth and I founded the black and lesbian leadership forum, knowing that

Mason Funk:
Would you start by stating Ruth Waters

Phill Wilson:
Ruth Waters and I found it the black and lesbian leadership forum in 1987, because we didn't feel like there was a concentrated effort to respond to the AIDS epidemic in a black gay and lesbian context. And so initially the leadership forum was simply a conference. We really didn't have a vision to start an organization. We wanted to have a conference where black gays and lesbians came together to talk about how could we respond to the AIDS epidemic out of that conference? What we, what we got back out of that conference is that the best way for us to respond to the AIDS epidemic was for us to focus on the importance of the lives of black gay and lesbian folk. And and, and the leadership forum kind of grew out of that now. And the whole part about building voices and building leaders was a part of focusing and understanding that AIDS work was leadership work that AIDS work was support work, that if we could build a community now for black LGBT folks actually to be completely honest at the beginning, we were focused on black gays and lesbians. We were not progressive enough or have enough forethought to be expansive as ... I wish we had been, but we weren't. And so if we could build a community that community could not, could address HIV and AIDS, but address a whole host of other issues as well.

Mason Funk:
Gotcha. And do you feel like that organization ... I don't know what happened to it exactly. Did it exist for some years and then become part of another organization or did it serve its purpose?

Phill Wilson:
The black gay lesbian leadership forum lasted for a little over a decade. Ruth and I both were committed to new people getting involved. And so over time, I think, I don't remember we both decided to step down because we felt that it was important for no other folks to be in leadership position. I don't think that we completely understood how to do succession planning and succession building then. So those are lessons that I, for one studied and learn better after that. And the organization went on for a while, but I think that as happens new organizations spring up and eventually the organization closed a few years after Ruth and I walked away.

Keywords: 1981-present The AIDS Epidemic; AIDS; Activism; Black Community; Community Activism; HIV; Ruth Waters; The National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Gotcha. Gotcha. That's interesting actually, in light of the succession that took place with Black AIDS, which looked like a beautifully planned succession. So we'll talk about that a little bit. So then in 1999, you formed an organization. I think it was formed under a different name, but it became Black AIDS, Black AIDS. So what was that decision about? What, what, what, where did that spring from

Phill Wilson:
In 1999, I founded the African American AIDS policy and training Institute say that five times backwards and from someone who thinks of himself as a marketing guy that, that organization we eventually the name to something that people actually could remember and could say, Oh, that was closer to what we're trying to do. The Black AIDS Institute and the Black AIDS Institute came out of the experience I had in 1996 when I got really sick. And the doctors had given me less than 24 hours to live. I can't, obviously, I came out of that. I worked for another year and then by 1997, my doctor had a come to Jesus conversation with me and said, you just can't do this any longer. And so I stopped working in 1997 all the while, you know, the Proteus inhibitors are happening now, in fact that my, my, my, my Lazarus experience in 1996 was actually because I, I think the proteus inhibitors had just come out and I went on the cocktails and got better by 1999. I felt like it was time to get back to work. And when I began to look around at what was going on, there had been lots of work that had been, that had been done between 1997 and 1999, but it didn't feel like there was enough attention to bringing the science to black communities because by 1999, it was very, very clear that the tip of the spear to fighting the AIDS epidemic was the science and that we needed to understand the science and that when people understood the science, they're better able to protect themselves. They're more likely to seek treatment and therapy. They're more likely to adhere to treatment. Once they went on treatment, they were better positioned to influence policy and to be stronger advocates and activists. And so the idea was to bring the science and to use the science, to expand the advocacy bodies and black communities to engage black communities across all sectors of black communities. And that was the foundation of the Black AIDS Institute. And I wanted at that time to kind of bring everything I learned up to that point in time, and to focus on black communities in an unapologetic way.

Mason Funk:
That was one of the things that I read about your philosophy or the underlying philosophy of Black AIDS, which you said that it engaged in this work from an unapologetically black point of view.

Phill Wilson:
Right?

Mason Funk:
What does that mean for me?

Phill Wilson:
For me, being unapologetically black means that we attempt to center everything we do from the perspective and lived experience of black people, particularly in this country, but across the diaspora. And to understand that our experience has value And that the work any any effort to end the AIDS epidemic among black people have to engage black people and that we were not going to step away from that. And that's the work that the Institute did under my leadership. I'm really, really, really excited that that's the work that the black AIDS Institute is doing under Naranja Copeland's leadership. Ranya Copeland is the new president and CEO of the Institute that we lead with being black. And so everything goes through that lens so that people understand, that people not only understand, but people embrace the lived experience of black people and value that experience.

Keywords: 1981-present The AIDS Epidemic; AIDS; Activism; Black Community; Community Activism; HIV; Healthcare; Science; The Black Aids Institute

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Awesome. That's great. I know that you also, side stepping for a second, I guess, you've also, you also were involved at various points along the way with efforts to reform LAPD. And it's a big question because it's very current and also because it's just very complex, involved the incarceration of black men at the height of the epidemic. It involved trying to get Daryl Gates fired and so on. If that's the question, I don't quite know how to frame it, but maybe it would be what efforts have you, what do you remember of the specific efforts that you've made to reform police departments and specifically the way they interacted? Excuse me, one second. I'm sorry. When my phone rings, it throws me off, sorry. Reforming police departments is specifically their relationships or their practices of violence against black lives. And how have you seen that evolve to today and perhaps does it feel to you, like, in some ways we're still at square one? I know that's a huge question [inaudible].

Phill Wilson:
When I look at what was going on today around police violence. It's, it's interesting to me because so many people think about it as if it is a new thing. And very few people kind of are talking about the, the historic nature of police violence against black people. I was a special assistant to mayor Bradley during the Rodney King days. And it's, it's kind of mind boggling. I'm not going to remember the actual year of the Rodney King uprising in Los Angeles or the year that the videotape of Rodney King actually happened, but it was, it has to have been 25, 30 years ago. And that's going on still. And, you know, and the lessons, even, you know, I remember being in Los Angeles when the Rodney King video happened. And I remember talking to black people saying that now that they see meaning white people, they will understand now what we've been saying all this time, because there was a belief that the reason why police brutality went on was because people didn't understand. And here's why I believe the uprising happened in Los Angeles when the verdict came down and the police officers were acquitted, was that black people in Los Angeles realized that it wasn't, that they didn't understand it was that they didn't care and that maybe they always understood and didn't care. And that was the nature of the rage that happened in Los Angeles as a result of Rodney King, fast forward to George Floyd. And we look, that video looked at that police officer's eyes. And it wasn't that he didn't understand what he was doing. It was that he didn't care and he was doing it because he could, and that to his mind that there could be no repercussions. And that was that I think is the nature of the rage today as well, that we have known for a long time and have been trying to say to ourselves that if they only understood if they only understood. And I think that today there is clarity that the problem is not understanding, you know, there is clarity that when people say that the system, the police system is broken, that we need to fix it. What we as black people understand is that the system is not broken. It is operating exactly as it was designed to operate. It is doing what the designers of it wanted it to do. So we don't want to fix that, that system. Now, what we're saying is that that is the wrong system. Now that we need a system that is in fact rooted in justice and not rooted in policing because police policing is inherently connected to suppression and submission now. And that notion is one that we reject. And you know, I think about now the years with the police chief Gates in Los Angeles and all of those years, and the amount of power he had and the efforts to kind of hold him accountable. And to say that we're not going back and feeling like over the overall of these years, that the progress that we have may in many ways has been illusionary. If you will, you know, it's not been real progress. And so the test that we have today is how do we make the change real? How do we make it? So it's not just pretend

Mason Funk:
I've sat on, you know, the topic has come up say, in my all-white book club, and when someone mentions, you know, the defund the police movement, you know, people kind of clock a little bit. I'm like, well, that's not going to happen. That's not the solution. They don't seem to realize that there's a fundamental rewriting. We are addicted to the narratives, especially we white people, of course, to the narrative, the more police equals better, more police equals good, more police equals better. And I think it's an incredible, I mean, it was just a comment really. It's just going to be that whole narrative has to be rewritten, but we have grown up with it. It's in our DNA. Do you, do you, I mean, we're going to go backwards in time again, but do you feel any fundamental sense of optimism that something may be shifting now, which hasn't shifted in the, that may have lasting effects?

Phill Wilson:
I'm always optimistic now in the darkest of hours, I'm optimistic. And in some ways I actually don't think that this moment in time is one of those darkest hours. I think that real progress happens when a critical mass of folk understand that justice is about them, that it's not being, justice is not about being nice to other people. It’s not other people's problem that it's fighting for the quality of your life. Even if your lived experience has not brought you into contact with injustice, that negatively impacts your personal life. And I think that when you look at the people that are out protesting for many of them, without regard to color, or, or gender or age or sexual orientation that they're out there fighting for themselves, they're chanting black lives matter. And I think they sincerely are chanting black lives matter, but I feel like they have skin in the game that they understand that if black lives don't matter, then their lives are diminished as well. And that makes me hopeful, you know because, you know, charity has limitations. Maybe this is cynical on my part, but I think that fundamentally as human beings, you know our biggest driver is our self-interest. And I think that this whole issue has expanded beyond the folks who suffer the most at the hands of police violence. Now, I think from people who may have never had a personal negative encounter to police violence, to understand that police violence, is violence against me, you know that, you know, people are figuring out ways to emotionally integrate into their own DNA. You know, what Martin Luther King says that no injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And that makes me optimum.

Mason Funk:
Great. we're about an hour in, we can keep going, or if you'd like we could take maybe like a five minute break does that work for you?

Phill Wilson:
I’m good.

Mason Funk:
Okay. Let's just stretch, do whatever you need to do? And we'll we'll and, and Andrew, we can just keep recording. And we'll just come back to her in like five minutes or so.

Phill Wilson:
I'll get a glass of water and then we'll come back.

Mason Funk:
Okey dokey. Great.. Hey, Andrew.

Andrew Lush:
Hi

Mason Funk:
Hey how's it looking?

Andrew Lush:
Good? We never went to a lock screen this time, so I dunno why it did before. Maybe he pushed a button or something. That's that one time it happened? I don't know. Maybe since we're taking a break, I should stop the recording and start a new one. It's unlike quick time. It doesn't need to save it. It's so I'm just going to do that.

Mason Funk:
Okay.

Andrew Lush:
We're recording.

Mason Funk:
Okay. And it was a hard, like a hard out when needed to be done.

Phill Wilson:
Not such a hard out there, things that are starting to happen that are going to increasingly interrupt us, but I don't have a hard heart out. So we'll see how bad that gets.

Keywords: Activism; Black Lives Matter; Charity; George Floyd; LAPD; Los Angeles, CA; Philanthropy; Police; Police Brutality; Police Violence; Police/Race Relations; Racial Injustice; Rodney King

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Okie dokie. I would imagine we'll go about an hour more if that works for you. Okay. So I think I want to jump up to kind of a broad view question, which is with regard to the black communities relationship to HIV AIDS, you know, the issues you've been addressing through your work for decades. Where would you feel that how has progress gone? What would you maybe put down as some of the notable successes and where would you say some of the challenges still lie? Just a little question like that.

Phill Wilson:
So give me your list one more time.

Mason Funk:
I'm just talking about the black community's relationship with HIV AIDS. Where, what would you count as like, as a success or two, where has progress been made and where, what are some of the challenges that are still there

Phill Wilson:
As I prepare to retire from the Black AIDS Institute in 2018, or so I thought a lot about how far we've come in, the fight against HIV and AIDS in black communities, and kind of began to think about, you know, what were, what have been some of our successes, where are we now, and what are our challenges? On the success front, I think like lots of the world, we've made tremendous advances in the science of HIV and the treatment of HIV and the prevention of HIV. And while black communities haven't benefited by those scientific advances to the same degree as other racial, ethnic communities. We have benefited by them. You know, that fewer of us are getting infected. Fewer of us are getting sick, or those of us who, who get infected are living longer, healthier lives. Even though there continues to be great disparities, I would say the one success that we have had that I am most proud of is that at one point or another, almost all black institutions got involved in the fight against HIV and AIDS, that we were able to establish that part of your job as a black identified black-led organization as an organization that is about the lives of black people, was to include fighting HIV and AIDS as a part of that agenda. And a more expansive way that health was a part of that agenda. Whether you are a civil rights organization or fraternity organization, didn't really matter that HIV and AIDS was impacting us to such a degree, no matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter what the nature of your charter was, this had to be a part of your work. And I'm very proud of that. Now, the black media responded, black fraternities responded, black sororities responded, Black civil rights organizations, black elected officials, policy makers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think that when I think about the challenge. Again, you know, this moment in time is so true for so many things, you know, literally today we're talking about whether or not the COVID-19 pandemic is over while the States are out across the country are opening up and bars and restaurants, and now are opening up. And yet, there are States that are having a 50% jump in new cases on a daily basis, you know, and the infection rates continue to go up almost across the country. And yet we're having a debate about whether or not COVID-19 is over. Similarly, the reality is that the AIDS epidemic is not over in black communities. No, at all. We are certainly in a better place than we were a decade ago, but we're nowhere close to having, solve this problem. We still don't have a cure. People continue getting infected. People continue to get sick and people continue to die at slower rates than before, but nevertheless it continues to happen and against a scary time where people think that it's over. And so the challenge that we have around HIV and AIDS is really how to acknowledge the progress we've made and how to keep a community focused on getting us to the finish line against new challenges, particularly challenges around attention and time. One of the ways that I deal with it. And one of the ways I think about it is that the fight against HIV and AIDS was never a fight against HIV and AIDS. It was a fight for black lives. You know, that was my fight, you know and so today, when we talk about black lives mattering, it can't be just the lives of black people who have been murdered by police mattering. You know, it can't be, you know, black lives matters when a policeman puts a knee on your neck or shoots you in the back and then kills you. It has to be black lives matter when we talk about education and employment and health, you know, and all of those issues in our lives. Otherwise we're not really talking about black life, we're talking about black death. And so I see this moment in time, you know, literally, you know, that black lives matter is not just a slogan, that it really has to be a literal understanding. And if it's a literal understanding, then we need to be focusing on all of these issues. And we have the bandwidth and the capacity to do that. I think that there are those who would have us believe that we don't, but in fact, we do

Keywords: 1981-present The AIDS Epidemic; AIDS; Activism; Black Community; COVID-19; HIV; Science; The Black AIDS Institute

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
That leads me to my next question regarding succession within the movement for these kinds of understandings and recognition. When you wrote the farewell letter you wrote, when you left Black AIDS, I'm quoting “A movement that does not prepare, embrace and insist on young leadership is destined to fail an organization that does not prepare for succession as a hobby, a leader who assumes he or she is irreplaceable as a fraud.” That's on my mind always as the founder of OUTWORDS because I definitely want to hand this organization off and not have it live or die with me, but as said, but also in this moment, we are looking at a new generation of leaders stepping up. How do you see those leaders? I read one article that was sort of like trying to pit them against the older generation of black leaders, which is of course silly and ridiculous. It was just a silly newspaper tape, but how do you see this, these new young leaders, they have the founders of black lives matters and so many other organizations, and what are they bringing and how are they building? How are they standing on the shoulders of those who came before them, but how about so much are they also stepping off those shoulders?

Phill Wilson:
Well, you know, here's the funny thing about this generational debate that tickles me and makes me chuckle is I was 26, I think when I founded the black and lesbian leadership forum, 26. I had no experience in anything. And I started this national organization. And so now, you know, I'm 64 and it seems to me that I had, or maybe I didn't, but it seems to me, I had enough lived experience in 26 to start an organization. And so why wouldn't I think that a 26 year old today wouldn't be just as capable now as I was, or at least I thought I was when I was 26. So I think I always start there. And so what I think that young leaders bring to the table black or otherwise, they bring, as we did, they bring their lived experience. They bring a responsibility that they are going to have to live in a world of their creation, much longer than I'm going to have to live in a world of their creation. And so since they're going to have to live in that world, they should have some say in how that world is shaped, regardless of what kind of capacity I may or may not think that they have. And so I don't think that this is a debate now, or I don't think that this is an either or, or a binary, no paradigm. I think that older leaders have a responsibility to support and to get out of the way, but not to abdicate. And what I mean by that is that if someone feels like there is a role for me to play that I am more happy, more than happy to contribute in the way that I can, if I have a thought about how things are going, and I can bring a critical eye to that, I have an obligation to do that. And so, and I have a lived experience that provides a historical context that might be helpful, but I know that regardless of your age, that we all have lived experiences and, and, and things to contribute. And it goes back to something I said earlier, that it’s our job to offer the gifts and the talents we have, whatever those gifts and talents might be. And so I'm optimistic about young leadership. You know, I think that, you know, the young people who are leading a lot of this movement and work is really appropriate. I think that whether they know it or not, of course, they're standing on the shoulders of people who came before them, but, you know, isn't that the point or wasn't that the point of some of the work that we were doing, to create a platform and a foundation for whoever was going to take the ball forward to be able to take it ball from that point of view.

Keywords: Activism; Community Activism; Generational Competition; Political Activism

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Great. Along the way, as you look back over all the work you've done, all the efforts, all the struggles you've engaged in, are there any disappointments that come to mind that, you know, that still kind of pierce you a little bit? And if so, how did you rebound? How did you fold those in to your, and keep going?

Phill Wilson:
My life is, has been, my life has been full of disappointments. I don't know how it could not have been. And also it's complicated. It, there's lots of disappointments. And at the same time, you know, I could say no regrets as well. I mean, it's weird that both of those realities can exist in one lived experience, but they can, you know, that the world is not yet the world that I had hoped it would be. And that's a disappointment, you know, there are, there have certainly been times in my life that I have not been able to be as whole of a person that I would have liked to have been that. I've had a tunnel vision now at times, maybe too often. And so I think about that, you know I think that no, at this point in my life, and maybe this is common, you know, if I were to say, you know, if someone were to pin me down and said, you have to answer this question, you can't dodge the question, like I'm doing it at the moment. I would say, well, I don't have any regrets around the work. Because I feel like I consistently contributed What I had to offer and for me, that's my bar, you know, I do wish, you know, that I have been able quite frankly, and I'm having these conversations now with my friends, I had been able to have been a better friend now that I had been a person that I had been a more rounded person in my interpersonal relationships. I'm not talking about romantic relationships, but just in general now that, I mean, it was difficult doing the worst years of the plague to do that. And I feel like, you know we lost so many people and there are so many moments that I feel like I didn't get a chance to be in the moment, you know? And that's probably the thing that haunts me the most that keeps me up the most, that there are all these moments that I was so busy preparing for the next moment that I didn't get a chance to be in the moment.

Mason Funk:
That makes sense. Was there some sense that, I mean, I know you mentioned that after Chris died, that you, you clearly felt you could not go into the hole of despair and grief, that was awaiting you, you had to fight, you had to work. Was there some sense that you think in an overall way that you had to keep working and in a way to not let yourself be in a way, not like yourself be in the moment in order to keep working?

Phill Wilson:
I think in for ... I think there are a lot of us that were involved in the AIDS movement that suffered, are suffering from PTSD syndrome. And there's so much grieving that we didn't get to do. And I don't know if the, if a, if the human beings actually can avoid grieving; that you can suppress it, you can delay it, but I know if we have the capacity to actually avoid it, and that's frightening, you know, because there is so much grieving that I didn't get to do. And so when is that shoe going to drop? You know, and I worry about that, you know or I don't know. I mean, I'm probably not making sense at the moment, but how do you deal when the grief is so big and it's accumulated, and it is Epic and how long has been going on, how do you deal with that? You know? And also if you don't deal with the grieving on an individual level you know, how do you, I wonder this'll be interesting to see how you edit this, but Chris Brownlie die at sunrise on November 28th. And he was the most important person in my life. And by 10:30 that morning, I was in my office. So what does that say? These are thoughts in my head, you know, what does that say about how important he was? Didn't he at least deserve a day, you know? No, and there's a whole telephone book of names for whom that was true just in my life, you know, and I think that when people who weren't there think about the AIDS epidemic I don't think that they can comprehend the magnitude of that experience. And what does it, what that does for a human being, you know, it's not normal for 20 year olds and 30 year olds to literally in some cases, in my case, to lose hundreds of people. No, that's not normal. And I don't know if you ever recover from that. You certainly go on, but I don't know if you ever recover.

Mason Funk:
We interviewed a man in Newark named James Credle.

Phill Wilson:
I know James well, very well, very, very, very well.

Mason Funk:
That's a wonderful man. And we interviewed him summer of 16. He was 75 and he had just retired and he'd gone into therapy. And he said that his therapist said you've been taking care of people for 50 years. Now, we're going to take care of you. That was very moving.

Phill Wilson:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. James and I were in BMW, BWMT together.

Mason Funk:
Yeah.

Phill Wilson:
Had a lot of common friends.

Keywords: 1981-present The AIDS Epidemic; AIDS; Death; Duality; Grief; HIV; Mourning; PTSD

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Yeah. Well, we'll get back to him when we're not in the middle of your interview. I'm glad to know that you have a connection to him. It makes me smile. Speaking of elders from our past. You did mention also Bayard Rustin meeting him. And I wonder if you could speak about Bayard a little bit.

Phill Wilson:
I met Bayard Rustin at a Black and White Men Together convention in Los Angeles. And it was, I read about Bayard Rustin and and about his story. And, I understood it. And he was well, I think everybody knows Bayard’s story, but he was such a gracious and humble person. And I don't know what to say. You know, the one thing that Bayard talked about so much, with a different generational language, you know, we talk a lot about intersectionality today and that, that know that those aren't the words that he used, but that's what he talked about. There's a phrase that justice can not mean just us, that if you are fighting for justice, it really has to be a fight against injustice wherever you find it, whether it personally impacts you or not. Otherwise you're not a justice warrior. And he talked about his fight with Strom Thurman on the Eve of the poor people's March on Washington. And he talked about being used as a threat against Dr. Martin Luther King jr. And how people came to his support because he had been there. He had been with the Quakers, he had been in the peace movement. He had been in the antiwar movement. He had been a justice warrior because justice mattered period, full stop, no qualifications needed. And that for him, his civil rights work was about the continuation of it. And while it was personal, it was not personal. And that's what justice work is. And I found that to be helpful and continue to be helpful to me as I kind of maneuver through this maze of things. And I always think about that, no matter what the issue is. I always think about justice. You know, I always think about the cloth of oppression and how the threads of the cloth are woven throughout the cloth and how you can't cut out the part of the cloth that offends you and then wrap yourself in the rest of the cloth and call yourself just, you know, you can't, you know, cut out homophobia and then wrap yourself in that cloth because the threads of racism and sexism and misogyny and all of those isms are still in that cloth, you know that the cloth now that you have to attack the whole cloth if you really want to fight for justice.

Keywords: Activism; Bayard Rustin; Civil Rights; Intersectionality; Justice; Political Activism

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
On the topic of homophobia specifically, you, when you were asked in your pre-interview what to, what single thing you would, you would attribute most importantly, our progress the queer communities progress over the past 50 or so years. You said, you know, you can talk about marriage equality, you can talk about representation in the media, but I think you said that you felt the single most important thing was reducing internalized homophobia.

Phill Wilson:
Right.

Mason Funk:
Can you talk about that?

Phill Wilson:
I think that the queer community, the LGBTQI community, you know, the progress that we've made towards equality began when a critical mass of us decided that we were equal, you know, decided that, you know we deserve to be treated fairly part of that was aided by the notion of coming out for sure. You know I actually was in the room when national coming out day was first conceptualized. And the understanding that, you know our families cannot love us if they don't know us, we're asking for people to, we were asking for people to love us. But we weren't willing to let them know us. No, because we didn't believe that we were lovable. And once we understood that we were lovable And we stopped asking people to love us because we understood that we were lovable. You know, I think that basically was the seed that makes everything after that happens now, with that comes national coming out day with that comes, that we have a right and a responsibility to serve in the military with that comes an understanding that our relationships, you know really need to be respected and honored like every other relationship. All of those things with that comes demanding that our institutions respond to a global health crisis that is perceived to disproportionately impact us. You know, all of those things boil down to a critical mass of us saying, you know, I'm I'm good. I'm okay. You know, I'm not asking to be affirmed in that way.

Mason Funk:
It strikes me also, you know, it's always been a kind of a thing that when people pick up on our spy, a little remaining pocket of internalized homophobia in one of us, they kind of like, you've got internalize phobia, but that's also part of learning to love ourselves is, is understanding that we can have these pockets. And it doesn't mean we don't deserve to feel loved, to be loved, to love ourselves.

Phill Wilson:
That’s right That's absolutely right, absolutely right. That this is a different subject, but I think that, you know, to be treated fairly and equally does not require perfection, you know that it doesn't actually quite frankly require anything. It is a birthright, you know, in my opinion, and that's true whether the battle is against homophobia or racism or sexism or antisemitism or ageism or ableism or any of those things, you know you don't, you don't have to do anything, you know it is a birthright and, and we need to understand that for ourselves. And we need to understand that when we think about other people, you know, you don't have to act right. You know, and what have you there's yeah. I said, it's, the birth is not contingent on how you behave one way or another.

Keywords: Coming Out; Equality; Homophobia; Internalized Homophobia

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
I want to leave time. We're actually doing good for time remarkably enough. When we asked you in the pre-interview, what you thought of as your greatest accomplishments you listed as being a parent, as well as being a good son. Right. And in my research, I couldn't find anything about your life as a parent. Can you tell us about that?

Phill Wilson:
Oh, really. Okay. So I adopted my nephews when they were tweens and raised them. And it was probably not probably, it was the most rewarding experience of my life to have, to be able to share my life with someone, to be able to guide someone in that fashion, to care about someone in that fashion. And it put it, put my work in a context, being a parent, put my work into a context, what I was actually fighting for in ways that I didn't completely understand when I was 24, 25, 26, and started to do this work. And I think that it made me it also, I was not necessarily At the front edge of marriage equality, you know I mean, I, of course I wasn't opposed to marriage equality, but I wasn't necessarily one of the people that were spearheading that effort. I, my issue on marriage equality is that I didn't feel like our government should be in the business of discriminating one way or the other on that front, that was my friend that people, if people wanted to get married, they should get married. But I was not necessarily one of those then, or now who was saying that every relationship should be one where the two people get married? No, I think that that's an individual choice, but that's a, but I digress, but what being a parent did, is it made me understand the importance of the security of families. And that was, that resonated with me a lot, you know, to make sure that, you know, the people that, the two people that I was raising, that they felt safe and secure in every aspect of their lives.

Mason Funk:
Was that difficult? I don't know what kind of background your, your, your nephews came from, but did you have to overcome some periods in their lives where they had not felt safe? And if so, like, how did you do that?

Phill Wilson:
It's very interesting that the lessons that I learned from my parents were the lessons I applied to be a parent. And that was really about being present now and always being present and communicating that they were safe and that they were who they needed to be, and that they didn't need to compete or fight for my affection. You know, they had to compete and fight for whether I liked them or not, but that didn't have to compete on the question of whether or not they were loved. To that degree parenting was not so difficult. I will tell you what was difficult to be a parent, to be the parent of two black boys, to deal with the racism of low expectations to deal with the fear associated with having teenage boys who would leave home and having this nagging voice in the back of your head, were they going to make it back at night? And when they were really young, I was pretty obsessive about that. And it took me a while to kind of relax and trust that they were going to be safe. And I think that that speaks to these times as well. And that, you know, often people who are not black don't understand how exhausting it is and how much time you spend worrying about your children. I think that all parents worry about their children. But I think that the difference is that for white parents, you don't worry that the people who are charged with taking care of your children are the very same people who might do your children harm. And that fight was surprising and exhausting. You know, that I think that if you're a white parent and your child is in trouble, you tell your child, look for a police officer. You know, if you're a black parent, maybe not so much, you know, if you're a white parent, maybe you, you think that teachers are an ally, if you're a black parent, sometimes you discover that teachers have such low expectations of your child or just negative expectations of your child, or they have implicit biases that do harm to your child. And so there's this mind field of institutions that make it more difficult to parent when you're a black parent, and if you're parenting black children, and I would argue, particularly if you're parenting black boys. And I'll give you, I'll give you an example that you may or may not decide to use. So my youngest, his name is Corey. And at the end of one semester, we had a rule in our house that there was zero tolerance for not doing your homework, that I can understand that you didn't pass a test or a quiz or something like that, but there's no excuse for not doing your homework. So at the end, no, it wasn't in end semester in the midterms. So at the end of midterms, Corey was going over his records with one teacher before parent teacher day. And the teacher had recorded that he had missed a number of homework assignments, and Corey was insistent that he had done and turned in those homeworks assignments. Now between you and me, I think that he probably had missed some homework assignments, but he didn't want to get busted. And so as this conversation was going on, he was getting more and more and more irritated as the teacher was saying, no, you didn't do these homework assignments. And then at some point the teacher said, Corey, it’s just midterms. It's not that big of a deal, you know? And Corey said that you don't understand that if you tell my uncle that I miss these homework assignments, he's gonna kill me. And the teacher called children protective services. So I had a good friend who was a judge in family court and she calls me and she said, we just got a call about Corey. And I think that you need to go down to the school. And so I went down to the school and the teacher, I met with a teacher and she told me what Corey had said. And so I said, does he look like a kid that's being mistreated to you? And I said, I'm here at every single parent teacher meeting. I'm here at every football game. I’m here all the time. And you don't think that maybe you should've called me. And so she says, well, mr. Wilson, I think that you might be too hard on him. And so I said, listen, you assign the homework assignments. I just make sure that he does them. If you don't think the homework assignments are important, then don't assign them. You know, don't be wasting his time or my time, if you don't think they're important. And I said, number two, until you start raising a black boy, you don't tell me about being too hard, because for you, as long as he doesn't bring a gun to school, you think it’s good. It's not good. He can do better. And I expect him to do better. And I expect you to expect him to do better. Yeah. And, you know, that challenge is something that we face every day. And so the achievement gap is exacerbated by teachers who contribute to the achievement gap, by their implicit biases and by their racism of low expectations.

Keywords: Children; Family; Marriage; Marriage Equality; Parents; Racial Discrimination; Racism

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Wow. Wow. That story has so many layers [inaudible] but that's a great story. Shocking and disappointing, but, and frustrating for you as all hell I would imagine, but great story. Okay. We're on the home stretch. You wrote you published an essay on the interview, your 60th birthday, and you wrote about the word sankofa, and you said, it means we must remember our past in order to protect our future, which could be the motto of OUTWORDS. That's why we're here today. Right. But I wonder what that means to you.

Phill Wilson:
Well, I mean, what sankofa means to me, and the reason why I think it's important to understand your past in order to protect your future is that we entered it.

Mason Funk:
Sorry, can you start again a little more slowly and maybe tell us what, tell us about this word sankofa and what it means, and then go into kind of your larger vision if you could.

Phill Wilson:
So, sankofa is an important concept to me. And Sankofa means to me that we have to understand our past in order to protect our future. And the reason why that is important is because we come into this world and a context, and if you don't know the context, then you don't know where you are. And if you don't know where you are, you can't figure out where you’re going. And so that's why understanding the past is so important to me and why I think it is so critical as we think, not just about the future, but just even maneuvering in the present. And one of the, one of the contexts of that, and kind of one of the generational tensions is that as we think about actions today, it is helpful to understand if not even critical to understand if those tactics, strategies, actions have been attempted in the past and what was the outcome of those efforts. And so is the, are these tactics strategies, actions worthy of attempting again, just because they've happened in the past, doesn't mean they shouldn't happen again, just because they may have failed in the past. Doesn't mean they shouldn't happen again. But if the goal is to move forward and to not simply have a Groundhog's day experience, understanding that context is critical. And that's why, you know, I write about sankofa in that way because I think that helps facilitate our forward movement.

Mason Funk:
If you apply that to the broader queer community or the LGBTQI community, what strategies and tactics and choices of the past do you feel are potentially most helpful now? This is such a big question. I promise it'll be the last huge question like this. And which, which of those, what do you think we can use from our past most effectively right now? And what do you think we have to discard from our past?

Phill Wilson:
I think when I think about things from our past that are the most useful to us today I would say the lessons around responsibility and accountability for ourselves and for each other. I think we were able to make progress in the AIDS epidemic because we learned that we had to care about each other in a way that quite frankly, in this country, I don't think that people are required to learn that, you know, Essex Hemphill wrote that my well, when my brother fell I had to pick up his sword or spear. I think it was, I had to pick up his spear. And that notion that I am taking care of my brother or my sister and in doing so, I am making progress in securing my own life. And if we understand our interconnectedness, you know, I think that lesson, that tool from past that tactic, that strategy, whatever it is, I think that, that there's a room for that, no matter what we're doing.

Keywords: Future; History; OUTWORDS; Past; Sankofa

Partial Transcript: Mason Funk:
Great. Alright, we have five, we always finished with the same four questions to each of our subjects. And the first one of them is if you could tell your 13 year old self, 13 year old PhillWilson, one thing, what would it be?

Phill Wilson:
I would tell my 13 year old self. I think the most important thing I would tell my 13 year old self is that life is long or life can be long. And that every part of it is rich and important.

Mason Funk:
Okay. What do you have a sense, not everybody does, of kind of a quality of LGBTQI or queer people that kind of defines us, not like a single or maybe a couple of qualities that, that are in a way uniquely us.

Phill Wilson:
I don't know if there's a quality that is uniquely us, but I think that there's a quality that is us. And that is, I think that queer folks have an ability to find home and to build home on the outside. And I think that that has served us well.

Mason Funk:
Great. Why is it important to you to tell your story, which is a way of saying, why did you agree to this interview?

Phill Wilson:
Hm. Who would have thought that would be a difficult question? I think that ... I feel like it's important to tell my story because I think that it can add to the context in which other, in which it may add to the context in which young people find themselves. That there may be things in my lived experience that can help someone understand what's happening in their lives. Yeah. I also think that probably the most important reason why I want to tell my story is because by telling my story, people get introduced to the stories of all of my friends and loved ones that didn't get a chance to tell their stories, or quite frankly, didn't get a chance to live their whole authentic lives. And that their stories deserve to be told, that they deserve to be remembered, their stories people should be introduced to them.

Mason Funk:
Great. And lastly, OUTWORDS to being a project, to collect stories. Unfortunately we can only collect the stories of people who are still alive, which is just one of the poignant things about this project. But what do you see as the value? You know, we try we've been 26 States so far, we're now switching to an online model where, where if I wouldn't be able to get to a lot more people more quickly in random, out of the way, places, mostly people in their sixties and older from some part of the queer community. What do you see is the value of doing that? And if you can mention OUTWORDS in your answers, that’d be great.

Phill Wilson:
I think that the work that OUTWORDS is doing is important because If we don't know where we've been, there's no way to know where we are, and there's no way to figure out where we're going and chronicling. Our lived experience is really the only way to know where we've been, you know knowing who's come before us knowing what our history is, knowing who our ancestors were is a way of figuring out who we are and a way of understanding our own value. And that gives us strength to stand up when, when there are those who would suggest that we don't have value.

Mason Funk:
I have one tag to that question. I was talking to the executive director of an LGBT center. I think in Bakersfield a couple of months ago. We were trying to do a little project with them, and I think their program director there said that one thing she experiences with with the young people they serve is that they think they're making this up. They think they're going through this for the first time. They think they're creating something that never existed before. And I think it's always, that's what every young person has to think, you know? But how, how do you see, as someone who raised, for example, how do you see these interviews being most valuable to the next say a couple of generations. Do you have any insights into that, I know you're not of that generation, but do you have any thoughts on that?

Phill Wilson:
I think that the work of chronicling our history in the way that OUTWORDS does is important. I think that the value to young people is that it can be extremely helpful to figure out how to prioritize what you're doing. It is a way to be, it is a tool to help you be so much more efficient, you know, in the work that you do, my entire adult life, I've spent lots and lots of time in reading and studying what other people did. Because there's so many that it is so, so rich. Now there's so much information and so many tips and so many cues to help enhance what, what I have wanted to do. And I think that that's what capturing what's happened in the past that what, that's, what it does, you know, it, it helps you to decide what to do and it helps you decide what not do. And it helps you to decide how to do things and how not to do things. And I think that that only enhances the progress that you can make.

Mason Funk:
Great. Is there anything that you feel like I haven't asked you that you want to talk about?

Phill Wilson:
No, not really. I think that we've covered a lot of ground. I'm not so familiar with the OUTWORDSplatform. So I can imagine this two hour interview ends up somewhere. So what actually does happen.

Mason Funk:
So really we're building this platform, which is a fancy name for our website. And it has this portion where literally at this point we have 33 people's interviews, fully uploaded. In other words, I don't want to be editing anything really, essentially that's like the work that is well, it's just editing. So you're making choices about what stays in. And once again, it gets cut out. So we are sharing our interviews, full length video with full transcripts on our platform. And when we finally catch up every interview we shoot will live there and it's searchable. So you can go in and you can type in a word or a phrase. And as we continue to improve it and refine it, that will function like a really sophisticated search engine. So people should be able to find the content that means the most to them, or they can just watch entire interviews. And then we do short, like three to four minute edited pieces that are easy to watch one after the other, you know, while you're eating a sandwich or whatever.

Phill Wilson:
Okay

Mason Funk:
Yeah. It's intended to be like a library or an archive that you can walk into virtually and spend as much time as you want.

Phill Wilson:
Okay. Okay

Mason Funk:
That's where you will live, eventually.

Phill Wilson:
Okay.

Mason Funk:
A couple of steps. I think we probably mentioned this to you. We will, we're going to go through a process of collecting personal photos from you. We will also eventually send you a transcript of your interview for you to review and make corrections. And also any deletions you might want to make. That takes a while. Cause we're, you know, we have a small team, but that will happen eventually. And then we also talked about having you take some portraits of yourself, either you or a person you're, you know, nearby that ideally they would be taken like I would say today or within a day or so of today. Cause I like to believe these portraits are recorded essentially on the day of your interview.

Phill Wilson:
Well, we took a number of portraits while I was doing the interview.

Mason Funk:
Okay. But can we take some also where you're in a totally different setting?

Phill Wilson:
Oh, sure.

Mason Funk:
You know, like outside. This is the first interview we’ve recorded in the Florida keys. So it's always nice to see where the person was when he or she was interviewed.

Phill Wilson:
Okay

Mason Funk:
And that doesn't have to happen today. Can happen tomorrow.

Phill Wilson:
Okay, cool.

Mason Funk:
So that's basically it, there's just one other thing I wanted to mention. Let me see, Andrew just sent me a quick note, please make sure to leave the meeting going for Philland I, when you finish. Oh right. Last time when we finished the interview, I ended it for everybody, but I, I need to leave it up for you and Andrew using housekeeping. The panel discussion that’s in conjunction with Microsoft, as you know is happening next Wednesday, and I sent you an email. Andrew, by the way, you can stop recording if you want to, if you haven't already.

Keywords: Advice; Future; History; Hopes; Next Generation; Past