Leteria Bailey is a motivated Jamaican-American professional with a passion for serving and advocating for youth and people of color (POC). Through her work serving 5 NGOs in Montgomery County, Maryland, Leteria has researched and developed digital platforms, coordinated public facing organization events, and supported the distribution of over 1.3 million dollars to fund countywide youth development programs. She is currently working with Amgen in Senior Associate Business Communications on their Salesforce Platform.  In 2016 Leteria founded Young Black and Aware to bring national awareness to police brutality and racism in communities of color. Young Black and Aware has garnered international recognition by highlighting social justice issues on a daily basis. As of January 2021, online engagement surpasses 350,000 persons monthly. Notable supporters of Young Black and Aware include American Filmmaker Ava DuVernay, Activist Brittany Packnett-Cunningham, and Artist Bisa Butler. 

What You Will Hear:

• Leteria’s background and how identifying as a Jamaican-American woman informs who she is.
• DACA
• The experience of the  black immigrant 
• Young, Black and Aware inception and growth
• Developing a language and validation for processing racial trauma
• Building community through Young, Black and Aware
• White people’s responsibility in the  deconstruction of white supremacy

Quotes:

“ if I was motivated by number of followers or number of likes. I would've stopped doing this years ago.”

“I can atleast show and speak out about stuff that's going on, if one person is affected, then I've done what I needed to do.”

“It's not that young people don't care. It's not that older, black people don't care. It's that not everybody has the emotional bandwidth to take in the impact of that which we deal with on a daily basis. Most of our community is not taught how to process racial trauma.”

“ I don't watch black men or women being shot and killed and I'm not gonna share it either. That's just something I can't do anymore. Personally, it's too much.”

“ White people are not allies in this struggle.  It is their war and you can't be an ally in a war that you created. The war against white supremacy is their war. This deconstruction has to happen at their hands.”

“You love me or you know me and we have relationships with each other, but you see people like me being killed and you don't say anything?”

Mentioned

Young Black and Aware Instagram facebook  tik tok

Ava Duvernay

13th

When They See Us