Story & Lesson Highlights with Mx Carlos Kareem Windham of King, Portland

We recently had the chance to connect with Mx Carlos Kareem Windham and have shared our conversation below.

Good morning Carlos Kareem, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What are you being called to do now, that you may have been afraid of before?
Before we could fully understand what it meant to live under an openly hostile authoritarian occupation, I was really pretty frightened of what it might look like. I was concerned about how I might navigate these new waters, then I remembered that these waters aren’t new. This is exactly what Native and Black communities have been facing for generations. Women and Queers have been slowly invited into the privileges of consumerism, but only if they’re willing to wear white-face and compromise the values of community and intergenerational wisdom.

Therapy and parenthood taught me not to lose my balance, and also taught me not to give a fuck. I mean that so deeply. It’s hard to believe that this is the timeline in which we live, and I feel horribly for all of T&E’s victims. Even at that, I was asking myself how this could ever happen. It was then that I was tapped on the shoulder by the ghost of Sally Hemmings. These “men of power” have been abusing children as a matter of power and perversion since they claimed dominion over other living beings. It’s just gross because we can’t pretend that we can’t see his flabby ass and mushroom penis anymore. It’s very sad.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m a professional yapper. I’ve been studying human behavior, race, class, and gender for my entire life. As an Urbane Black Two-Spirit Pueblo raised in PWI’s, I came to understand the complexities and “culture” of whiteness pretty well. In all of my observations and lived experiences, the one thing that always disarmed the most dangerous and powerful of them, is laughter and dismissal. Seeing what’s ridiculous about giving power or decision making privilege to men is a matter of survival. Growing up, watching Black men reaching and striving for the shadow of power set forth by the progeny of dirty, drunk, colonizers and settlers is wild work.

There’s no power in abusing the most vulnerable. It’s just shows how weak and impotent our abusers are. They are so disinterested in us, in our humanity, and don’t have the emotional range to digest the reality that is our daily existence. Maybe they’ll heal – maybe they won’t. Either way, they’re going to keep doing stupid and hilarious shit trying to hold on to their weak ideas about the world and the people in it. Meanwhile, we’re going to keep telling on them and laughing at them.

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
Authenticity. I don’t care if it’s a lover, a comedian, a politician, a musician, a spiritual leader or a child; once authenticity is lost in the relationship, then trust is lost. Once trust is lost, it’s over. I’ve been working in restorative justice for decades and one thing is for certain; we cannot restore relationships that never existed.

I mean, all this talk across the nation since Charlie Kirk pulled a coffin out of his own neck … the truth is spilling out. Look who the MAGA crowd has been after. He was murdered by a white man, his age, at an all white campus in the whitest state in the U.S. and somehow, it’s to do with Obama, Trans women, and Black children at HBCUs. How is that not hilarious? (reaches around and points finger gun at their own glute) CLICK – BOOM, “why did you make be shoot myself in the ass? You’re a monster for not stopping me”!

If white & straight folks really want to see any healing in this world, their going to have to hold their ancestors to account Ever since Miss Celie told Titi Alice, it’s been true; until you do right by us, nothing good will come to you. Nothing.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Give up? Who the fuck would ever do that? Life is just a long escape room, and I want to enjoy everything in the room. Once you give up, it’s a wrap.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Whom do you admire for their character, not their power?
On the morning that we learned that Assata Shakur has returned to the cosmos, I have to say her. I mean, you asked about giving up. She was hunted, shot and shackled by this government. Because the nurses knew who she was, they helped her escape, and because she was part of a trusted community, she made her way to a safe and loving community in Cuba.

It wasn’t perfect, and Cuba is suffering under Trumplethinskin, but it’s real. It’s authentic. It’s a real life, and she lived the hell out of it.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. When have you had to bet the company?
Honestly, I’m all in and ten toes down right now. The day work with clients is how I invest in the night job telling jokes.
I spend my days building a hybrid community at strategyandsolidarity.org where we really are building an international community of folks working for justice and human rights.

The reality is that traveling internationally, building websites, photo sessions, stage clothes… this isn’t an inexpensive life. I wouldn’t trade it, but making the move from local, to national, to international isn’t without risks. Aside the financial investment, my message is my message and if I’m in Limassol or Lafayette, I’m advocating for the most impacted. That is not always a popular position to hold – even with the most impacted. Fear and Stockholm syndrome a real barriers to people stepping into their truth.

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