Luna Malbroux (00:02):
Grab you a cup of tea and get comfy, baby, because this is season two of the South has the answers. And this season your host, AJ Haynes and Eric Fleming will be speaking to reproductive justice leaders across the country, specifically those who are working in the deep south.
A.J. Haynes (00:22):
Welcome back to season two of the South has the answers. We are elated to have Tyler with us again. This is our second interview. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all you are and all you do. So before we get into our questions, just a quick little snapshot. Who are you for folks that are less familiar with you and your work, a bit of your background, what are some of the worlds you inhabit right now?
Tyler Barbarin (00:49):
So thank you. And this is always an awkward question for me because I never know where to start, but my name is Tyler. I am the director of grants and development for the Louisiana Abortion Fund. I am a sister, a td. I am a Philly born, now southern loving girl myself, and I'm very excited to be here today.
A.J. Haynes (01:18):
And also you have family from the south, right? This is where your roots are. So born in Philly and also Louisiana is a long home for you.
Tyler Barbarin (01:27):
Yeah, my dad is born and raised. New Orleans man will tell you, he went to St. OG probably within the first 10 minutes of meeting him. And my family traces back to 1806, I want to say, in the what is now known as Louisiana. So yeah, definitely feel like I am where I'm supposed to be and where my people are from.
A.J. Haynes (01:49):
Yes, I love that context. Okay, so the first question is, what is sustaining you through this fuckery? Woo.
Tyler Barbarin (02:00):
Starting off easy. Yeah, so I guess what sustains me most is definitely the next generation. I am a bonus care person for young ones myself. I also have two nephews that I love very deeply, and a lot of the people that I interact with on the daily have children. And I think seeing them get to inhabit little bits of the world that are more free and more accepting and more loving and more tender definitely keeps me going. I think, yeah, even when we lose in the polls or we lose at the ballot box, knowing that there are black kids growing up in softer, more tender existences and being freer at a younger age, it definitely sustains me and makes me feel like we're doing something right.
A.J. Haynes (02:54):
I love that. That just brought the biggest smile to my face. So thank you for that reminder of who we're doing this for. We've had conversations before about principled struggle and actually you're the first person that introduced me to that phrase, so I wanted to dig into that. So how do you define principled struggle?
Tyler Barbarin (03:16):
Yeah, I think for me, principled struggle could be a number of things, but most frequently, what I mean when I'm talking about it is we inhabit these movement spaces and there's people that are in it for various reasons. Some people are in it because it's a buzzword, especially when we're talking about reproduction justice. It's a buzzword. It's a term that is in the news a lot, and we're kind of in this moment where people are caring about our issues, social justice issues. But for me, principled struggle is people that really are trying to transform the world. They're not in it for selfish reasons, they're not, I mean, maybe a bit selfish because we all want to inhabit the world that we're co-creating together. But people that are really determined to see the world become a better, more loving place overall, I think that it's easy to get wrapped up in this premise that this is just a job or this is work to be done Monday through Friday. But I think that people are engaged in principled struggle view, social justice, reproductive justice, our movement spaces as sites for co-creating the world we hope to inhabit in the future. I hope that's a good definition.
A.J. Haynes (04:33):
Yeah, no, it feels really honest and hopeful, which is what I need right now. So thank you for providing that. So to expound on that, how do you personally move through principled struggle, especially as an organizer here in the context of the deep south south and especially in the microcosm of New Orleans where the culture is so relational, everything is so relational.
Tyler Barbarin (04:58):
I think that that's the unique part about the South for me, is we are really a community. I think here, unlike other places in the United States that I've lived, you need other people to survive. You need them in different ways, be it help with childcare or help with transportation or financial support, whatever it is, because our systems have strategically abandoned us. In the south, you just need people. And so I think being in principled struggle for me is a commitment to not only the good moments, not only the abundant, happy, joyous moments, but also some of the more difficult components of it all. Accountability, which doesn't always feel great, or as a trying to be reformed, people pleaser, asking for help, showing vulnerability. To me, those are sites of principled struggle because I want to really be in community with the folks around me, and I really want for New Orleans, the Gulf South, the region to become stronger. And part of that is holding my weight and holding the things that I say I'm responsible for, but also letting my community help me hold it, letting people be there for me, et cetera.
A.J. Haynes (06:21):
I love that. You can't hear this, but I'm just furiously shaking my head and making faces. Yes, exactly. The personal is political, right? Our relations are how we build worlds. Our relationships are how we world build. So let's move to, you've been in this movement work for a substantially long time. From your perspective, where are we now in the world of reproductive justice?
Tyler Barbarin (06:48):
So I think we're in a bit of a reckoning moment when it comes to reproductive justice. I think that justice, it's become really popularized. So many people care about abortion care, about maternal mortality in ways that they didn't previously. But I really want for people to hold onto the fact that reproductive justice is an organizing framework. It's a theoretical framework, it's theory as much as it is praxis, and what that looks like is not abandoning people in their weakest moments. It's not abandoning the south because it's super red and because abortion access is gone from here, it's not leaving movement spaces because the money is leaving or leaving whole swaths of the country alone because of who's in charge. And I think that we're in a moment where I love that there are a lot of people who are excited and want to tap in, but I also just want folks to do the research and learn the theory and commit themselves to acting in a way that's in alignment with this beautiful theoretical framework that we were gifted by the foremothers of reproductive justice. I think it will take people unlearning classism, unlearning anti southern sentiment, unlearning racism, even within the movement. Just because you're in the movement space does not mean you're free from some of these problems. And so yeah, I think I'm excited for critical mass. I'm excited for what so many people being activated means for our organizing power. But yeah, just want to see more doubling down on the blueprint that was laid out before us.
A.J. Haynes (08:28):
Yes. So there's something you said about critical mass and it brought to mind was it Grace Lee Boggs, and I think Adrian Marie Brown also talk about critical connection first and then building the critical mass. And from my experience, I see that happening in a really fruitful way in this region. So I would like you to speak more about what are you noticing about organizing in the South at large? What is unique? What is creative? What's adaptive about it?
Tyler Barbarin (08:57):
Yeah, I think the South is a really unique place to organize in because there's a lot of ills, there's a lot of symptoms of larger systems of oppression that you can't look away from in the south. You are not removed from them. When we talk about lack of educational opportunity, when we talk about economic disempowerment, when we talk about disenfranchisement, when you talk about unsafe housing or climate change, those things are in your face in the south in a way that other parts of the country might have themselves fooled and feel more removed from. And so to me, the south is where you need to organize. The south is where you need to figure out answers to questions about why should I care about reproductive justice? If my housing is insecure, why should I care about reproductive justice if every year I have to leave for a hurricane that rips apart my house, and then I have to think about rebuilding, why should I care about it when my kids aren't getting a quality education?
(10:04)
And once again, I think that that's the beauty of reproductive justice, the fact that it is an actual framework that has an answer as to why you should care and as to how reproductive justice will get us all free. And I feel like in the South is where we need to make the case, where we need to make good on promises to folks where we need to be really doing the bulk of our organizing work. I also think that because the south, the priorities are family, food, fun, and I was told recently to add football to that list. I think that right, right.
(10:42)
It's a beautiful thing. I think that that is something to be modeled by other parts of the country that people want to say that we don't have our priorities straight down here or we're backwards or we're country or whatever down in the deep south. But I actually think that's the way we need to all be moving. That's a template for freedom. I would rather be worried about family and fun than worried about a roof over my head or worried about some of these other, the rat race success at work, whatever it is. So yeah, I think that the South just has a beautiful example of what freedom looks like. It has a beautiful history of people succeeding even though our systems have truly abandoned us. And yeah, I think it's a great place to live and play and work and all of that.
A.J. Haynes (11:34):
I want to touch on this element of creativity that I'm kind of teasing that out of. Okay, what is it that keeps us able to move through these challenges and still center our humanity through things like our sense based, our need of belonging, our food, our culture, and our cultures that are always shifting. So how does your creativity and reproductive justice look like? How does it show up and how does your creativity show up in your organizing? What are some specific examples of the ways that you had to be creative here?
Tyler Barbarin (12:10):
So I think that it shows up through just how we bring people together. I think that we are very committed to centering joy, centering humanity, and also thinking about the whole person. Because going back to in the South, we need one another. We never host events that aren't like family whole, family friendly. We never host sessions that don't consider what are the kids going to do. We don't bring people together without food. We don't bring people together without lowering as many economic barriers to participation as humanly possible. And I think that that's a beautiful, that's both in the community organizing that we've been dipping our feet into, but also how we do the literal abortion funding of our work. We not only focus on clinic pledges, but we also are focused on what is the wraparound care that's needed to get people to their appointment dates. Once again, foundational component of reproductive justice, that's what separates us from reproductive health access organization and the reproductive justice organization. We are concerned with what is the reality that our people are facing? How can we be supportive and be real about what the needs of our folks are in order for them to get what's theirs in order for them to exercise bodily autonomy and decision making in their own health choices
A.J. Haynes (13:43):
To be real. So what are some more specifics? I know this because of working with Laugh before, but to give people a clearer understanding of what all care encompasses. What does that look like? I know that you provide travel stipends, food, and how has it shifted? Because I feel like y'all are just continuing to provide an even more cohesive wraparound care for our community.
Tyler Barbarin (14:09):
So yes, we do both pledging to lower the economic barriers to the actual healthcare access, but we also do childcare, wage reimbursement, travel, lodging, those types of things. I also want to shout out the AEA Center, another southern fund that views postpartum as 13 months because they found out through connection to community that people were oftentimes supported by systems and by programs for the first 12 months postpartum. But in the 13th month is when issues would arise and their people would feel left alone. And so that's a similar approach to the work that we hope to embody is not just helping people to get to the moment of care and get to their appointment dates, but also what does it mean when you come back home? And especially as Louisiana continues to double down on taking away people's rights and the chilling effect that some of these laws have had on providers and the certainty of being able to provide care for people who may be experiencing complications due to an abortion. We want to be sure that we are still supporting them, that we are still an educational resource, that we still are just there to be a consistent partner in all of this kind of confusion and chaos that exists in Louisiana. So yeah, I think that it is once again a uniquely southern thing to be thinking about people as a whole human beings, but also pushing the limits of these time constraints that we sometimes put on when we should care about people and saying, no, let's be more expansive, more all encompassing I guess
A.J. Haynes (16:00):
Yes to this. I'm just like furiously shaking my head up and down. Yes, yes. I see a lot of commonalities between the chilling effect, the use of disinformation, it's textbook fascist practice. So I'd like to draw a connection between what we're experiencing now and the rise of fascism globally. So the question is, it's not lost on us that there's a connection between what's happening here with attacks on repro rights and freedoms and the rise of global fascism. What is the wisdom in the RJ movement and how can we apply that to combating fascism at large? So moving away from just a US-centric perspective, but how we're in conversation as you were shouting out the Athea Center, right, thinking about how we're building more connectivity and how we in the south are part of that conversation.
Tyler Barbarin (17:00):
So this is another moment of big upping or referring back to reproductive justice as a framework. I think answering the call of reproductive justice means decentering ourselves as the center of the universe. I think that in America we have a really big issue with that. We think the sun rises and sets in our world and it doesn't. And so I think that the beauty of being in the RJ movement for me has been learning that there are other movements, there are other groups of people that just decided enough is enough. We are not going to be oppressed, we are not going to be told that we don't know what's best for ourselves and have organized themselves really beautifully to push for more rights, to push for a better system or more access. And so I think that when we stopped thinking that these issues are unique to the United States or that they are an issue because we recently have experienced it, I think we open ourselves up to a lot of history, a lot of organizing power, a lot of the answers that I think we're searching for. And so always would call on the Latin American countries, the green wave movement. There's in South America, there's organizers that have done great job teaching and leading the way pretty much across the globe. There's just movements of people that have done a great job in showing how do you resist? How do you take a government that is trying to oppress and take away rights and do awful fascist things? And how do you say no through people power and organization.
A.J. Haynes (18:56):
Yes. So kind of tying this back to anti southern sentiment and our connection in the global struggle to combat fascism, from your perspective, how does anti southern sentiment restrict resources that help us combat fascism?
Tyler Barbarin (19:12):
So I guess anti Southern sentiment to me is a denial of the brilliance and the capability of people operating under very restrictive contexts. And so anti southern sentiment is denying the fact that despite the conditions that we exist in, we are able to thrive, we're able to flourish, we're able to find a way to succeed, pass down knowledge to future generations and even push for a free or better world. And so I think that anti southern sentiment is robbing our movement spaces of truly listening to people who already have been coming up with creative answers and ways of thriving and surviving. And instead, it's like we're trying to start from step zero in finding some of these answers, but if we were to center the south and center people that have already been making a way out of no way, we would be on step four or five. And so yeah, I think that it's just belaboring the point and going to make us take longer to get to some reprieve from what other parts of the country are experiencing.
A.J. Haynes (20:28):
Yes, this is so rich. I'm just smiling ear to ear. I really feel like a student in this moment and also being able to witness just my friends and their brilliant. So I'm just teasing over here. So I know that a laugh has been leading workshops around anti southern sentiment for, I mean, it's been like a year, right? It's been a while in the making. You've been reflecting this workshop. What shifts have you noticed? What aha moments have you noticed? What has the impact been of the Southern Sentiment workshops you've been leading?
Tyler Barbarin (21:04):
Yeah, I think the most exciting part of the anti Southern Sentiment Workshops for me has been giving people an opportunity to write a love letter to the South. So once again, we want to center joy. We want to center basically walking people through an opportunity to hold the both. And we definitely talk about some of the struggles of the South. We talk about the reality, the context in which we operate, but then we also have a really beautiful moment for people to also share what the south has given them, be it personally, professionally, whatever. And we always have damn near tear-jerking moments of beauty and of people being deeply grateful for what the South has given them. And then after that, we take them to the, okay, so how are you going to commit to holding the both end? How are you going to commit to not being unrealistic or untruthful about what's happening in the South, but instead acknowledge that both things can exist because we do, we know that. We know that it's a really hard existence down here in a lot of ways. It's difficult, but yet in community and in spaces of radical love and connection, we're able to do some really beautiful things, make some beautiful things happen.
A.J. Haynes (22:31):
Yes, to the radical love to the connectivity. Yes. I have one or two more questions for you. My question is, what has the South given you?
Tyler Barbarin (22:42):
Yeah, I think the South has given me a lot. So I relocated back or down here to New Orleans after losing my mom in 2018. And I moved in with my dad and my stepmom, and she had also moved down here after a traumatic life experience. And she told me in one of my first days, new Orleans saved her. It was a city that just saved her. And so I had that beautiful like, okay, let me give this place a shot and had literally the same experience. I will always say that this city, the people, the food, the way of being, the pace of life definitely was a beautiful place to land after going through probably the worst experience of my whole life. And so yeah, I'll forever be grateful to New Orleans. I'll forever be grateful to Louisiana. And yeah, it's given me, I think just the chance to be free and the chance to be happy and the chance to feel like connection in my adult life that feels reminiscent of my nuclear family. Everyone I've met, my friends, my organizing family has just welcomed me and made me feel seen. I think I definitely was a perfectionist, and I want to claim that that's a past tense thing. But I also think in the south I've met some people that really have said it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to not have it all figured out or to be raggedy sometimes We still love you, and in a way that I've never experienced it elsewhere in the country.
A.J. Haynes (24:29):
I too have been learning that, Fran. Yeah, I love that here. It's actually encouraged to not have it all figured out, I feel like, and just to have that element of query, which I think about my queerness and being based here. So I have one more question if that's alright with you. So how has your queerness shaped how you navigate or relate to reproductive justice?
Tyler Barbarin (24:57):
I think that reproductive justice for me has always felt like a safe place to not be sure how I relate to all of the things I was trained up to believe. You're raised to believe that a woman is supposed to be soft and feminine and submissive, and I think reproductive justice has always been a space for me to not be okay or be questioning what I've been sold as who I should eventually grow into. And so I think that, yeah, for me it's just been a safe place to be like, well, maybe I don't actually identify with all of those things, or maybe identify 40% and the other 60 is something else. And also not having to nail that down either. I think that that's, once again, the south sometimes and reproductive justice have, let me just be Tyler and not really have to qualify or quantify anything else.
A.J. Haynes (26:02):
What I'm hearing is there's spaciousness, there's room to play, which feels great. And I think one of the most powerful forms of resistance is play and questioning. Well, my last for real, real question is to wrap us up. One, I just want to offer flowers, immense gratitude for all the work that you do and not just your work, but you and how you move through the world. It's just really, really inspiring.
Eric Fleming (26:31):
Okay. Actually, I do have a question. Hey, everybody, it's producer Eric. So last time I was in New Orleans, the three of us had a conversation about coalition building, particularly between East coast. You're truly included, hopefully I'm and folks from the south. And there was a lot in that conversation that was so delicious and juicy, but a lot of it with pieces of NC Southern sentiment, but also just the larger idea of folks of particular specific marginalized identities, realizing and seeing each other and passing the baton or holding hands through the region, so to speak. Can you say a little bit about the importance of coalition building and how the struggle of the south is no different from the struggle in the Northeast or in anywhere else? What do people need to see that perhaps we're not seeing?
Tyler Barbarin (27:22):
Yeah, yeah. So as somebody that grew up on the East Coast and always thought that the busyness of New York was going to be my destiny, I can understand how the indoctrination happens and how the south is where you go to retire, where you go to visit your cousins in the summer, and that's it. But I think that there needs to be more intentional partnership between folks who just have a different lifestyle, who have access to different things. I think that the Northeast in particular, and probably the West Coast to a certain extent, benefits from certain things that allow people who live there to feel like their struggle is not the same. For example, being in New York, you can be somebody of low economic means and still catch the train across the entire city for $2 and 75 cents no more.
Eric Fleming (28:21):
It's like 3 75 now.
Tyler Barbarin (28:24):
No, oh my gosh.
Eric Fleming (28:25):
Old three old baby. It's a lot.
Tyler Barbarin (28:27):
But still in New Orleans, if you don't have a car, you're kind of screwed. You're going to catch the RTA bus, no shade, but that's going to take you several hours to traverse the metropolitan area. And so although those struggles may feel different, the economic opportunity existing in wealthy pockets of the city and not where poor people or people who need economic opportunity reside is a shared struggle. Like the jobs being downtown and the poor people being able to afford houses across the whole metropolitan area is a shared struggle. So I think that sometimes we view ourselves as not fighting the same fight because it may look differently, but we truly are. They're all symptoms of the same types of systems. It's just that down here, the struggle is a little bit more intensified in some respects, I would say. And so I think that, yeah, once again, we're indoctrinated. We're told that the east coast is better than the south or the west coast is better than the East coast or whatever. But the regional differences are really, we're all struggling, we're all fighting a fight, and we would be actually in a better position if we centered folks who are fighting the hardest or have the hardest battle to fight. I think it would benefit all regions, all areas.
A.J. Haynes (29:54):
Incredible. Oh, I also to do want to highlight, I keep coming back to your definition of anti southern sentiment, and I'm constantly sharing it with people. I'm like my brilliant friend Tyler says by anti southern sentiment. So okay, I'm going to let you say it because these are your words, but I love your definition and I just want the people to know what it is that we're talking about. So what is your definition of southern sentiment?
Tyler Barbarin (30:18):
Yeah, so we believe that southern sentiment is kind of like the perfect storm of anti-blackness, very specifically and classism. We believe that this belief or this kind of judgment that comes from being anti-black and class is what is holding back this coalition building, which is, it's standing in the way of true understanding. And yeah, I think that sometimes that gives people pause, especially black people in other parts of the country, because it's hard sometimes for folks to recognize that they are being anti-black, that they have internalized some of the things that their values would hope to say otherwise.
A.J. Haynes (31:06):
Thank you. I just feel like that brought us full circle, beautiful circle. So to wrap up, how can the people find you on the internet? How do we tell people or how can people learn about your work? Where can they find you on the interwebs and who you work with?
Tyler Barbarin (31:22):
Yeah. Well, the Louisiana Abortion Funds website is Louisiana abortion fund.org. Lots of a's in there. So sometimes I'm a spell it and I'm on Instagram doula, right? Thing is my Instagram handle. Feel free to hit that follow button. I'm trying to get some sponsorships, and I think those are the best ways. Also, Louisiana Abortion Fund is on social media, on all platforms. We're trying to build up our TikTok. So if that's your thing, go ahead and follow us there. And we also have a newsletter, so I believe you can sign up for that via our website. It has some great stuff in it. Our communications consultant is one of my favorite people on Earth, so always want to shout out and support that work as well.
A.J. Haynes (32:13):
Yeah, thank you.
