Quiet No More

Overcoming Oppression Through Advocacy

August 25, 2024 • Carmen Cauthen

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Have you ever been silenced by societal norms or workplace policies? 

This episode of "Quiet, No More" with Carmen Coffin will challenge you to speak out and make a difference. 

Through her own experiences of facing unfair dress codes and racial discrimination, Carmen passionately argues that silence only perpetuates injustice. She calls on all of us to find the courage to challenge these oppressive systems and advocate for ourselves and our communities. Whether it's about the restrictive head wraps in the office or the subtle biases encountered in daily life, Carmen's stories offer a compelling reminder that our voices have the power to drive change.

What kind of impact can your voice really have? By sharing historical examples like the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case, Carmen underscores the profound influence that speaking up can achieve. This episode explores the fears and risks associated with advocacy, from potential job loss to unexpected public attention. Despite these challenges, Carmen insists that the potential for significant societal impact makes it all worthwhile. 

Listen as we reflect on the transformative power of both individual and collective voices, and learn how you can harness this power to create meaningful change in your own community.

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Carmen Wimberley Cauthen is an author, speaker, and lover of history, Black history in particular. As a truth teller, she delights in finding the hidden truths about the lives of people who made a difference - whether they were unknown icons or regular everyday people.

To Learn more of Carmen:
www.carmencauthen.com
www.researchandresource.com

Speaker 1:

unseen, unheard. We've lived like that far too long. I'm carmen coffin and this is quiet, no more. Do you know how to use your voice? Do you know you have a voice? What good does it do you to be silent? I mean, if you have a physical ailment that keeps you from speaking, that's one thing, but really I mean there's stuff you need to speak out on. There is stuff about you you need to speak out on. There is stuff about your family, there is stuff about the people in your neighborhood, there's stuff about the people in your city. It doesn't do you any good to be silent. I've been silent, I'm not doing that anymore. Sometimes, when we're silent because we think somebody else is going to say something or somebody else is going to do something, and we're all in the neighborhood looking around at each other, you know, or we talk about it in our at the kitchen table, or you know we're hanging out with our girls and and we talk about it and nobody does anything. We just talk about it amongst ourselves. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't change anything for you and it doesn't change anything for anybody else. Somebody's got to say something, so say it. If that means you got to say it. If you still got kids at school, say it.

Speaker 1:

I had someone come just last week and tell me that they had worn a head wrap at work and they decided to ask if that was okay. And I was like why would you have to ask if you can wear a head wrap in your office while you're working? Well, evidently, unless it's for religious purposes, she couldn't wear the head wrap, so she can't do it anymore. I was like that is baloney. So I was like so who did you go? She said I went and asked my supervisor and my supervisor went and checked and there's a policy Really there's a policy that you cannot wear a head wrap unless it's a burqa. Well, she said, and I started wondering, well, what if? What if they had cancer and they lost their hair? What you know? What if I had a bad hair day and I just want to wrap my head? I was like somebody needs to challenge that. That's just ridiculous. Like you don't have anything else to do but tell somebody what they can put on their head.

Speaker 1:

I can't be silent about stupid stuff and that's stupid, you know. I mean I've kind of gotten away from. Men can't wear caps in public. I don't like to sit behind somebody at a concert. Who's got a hat on that's so tall I can't see over it. But why would they tell you you can't wear a head wrap? What good does being silent about things do? Does it accomplish anything for you? It's never accomplished anything for me and I've always liked to talk, so it's not a hard, hard jump for me to go from just talking to not being silent.

Speaker 1:

I have figured out going in a store. I went in at Cabela's last year and I was going to ask for something for a fundraiser. I just wanted one thing and when I walked in I saw these cute little toys that they were giving away. And it was a Children's Earth Day event that I was working on and I said I'd like to speak to the manager. And I had been in other stores and the manager or assistant manager, whoever was in charge, always came to me and talked, even if they couldn't give me anything, if they couldn't do what I wanted. Because my other thing is the answers always know if you don't ask the question. My other thing is the. The answer is always no if you don't ask the question. So I don't mind asking a question. You can tell me no, but I'm not going to take a no for an answer if I never asked you.

Speaker 1:

So the managers from the other stores came. So I walked in, asked the young man at the counter if I could speak to the manager, and he said, okay, he asked and he called, and the manager asked the call, answered the call and said well, what's it about? And so the young man looked at me and he asked me what was it about? Now, mind you store is literally empty, literally empty. And so I told the young man what I was looking for and I said, oh, and I showed him the little toy that was a giveaway. I said, and I'm interested in finding out if you all would be willing to donate some of these for an event we're doing.

Speaker 1:

And so he goes back and he tells the manager what I'm interested in, and another young man comes who is working there, and these, you know, these are guys at the front desk. And he says, oh well, well, the managers, both the managers are sitting upstairs in the office. And I'm like, and and I'm like they're in a meeting. He said, no, they're just up there just sitting around, but they can't come downstairs and talk to me. You know, they got a camera on the front register so they know I'm in there but it's Cabela's. Is it because I'm black? Surely it's not, because I'm a woman. So the only other reason that they might not have come down is because I'm black, because obviously, if they're and they're asking the questions, they should be able to come downstairs and greet me. I'm a customer. They don't know what the hell I'm going to buy. So finally, they say they don't have any of the little things. And the young men are. You can tell they're embarrassed because they know what's going on, they know that I am able to be seen.

Speaker 1:

And it just ticked me off because every other business I had been in that had expensive stuff had been willing to the manager had been willing to come and talk to me. So for me to be silent about that means that somebody else is going to have that same treatment and that pisses me off. So I went online and I found the president of Cabela's and I found some email addresses and I typed up a letter and I sent it off Because I don't have time to be silent. Do you have time to be silent? No, you don't. I had an event and it turns out, cabela's is trying to raise awareness or gain new customers, who are minority. Well, that was not the way to do it and I let them know.

Speaker 1:

I was using my voice and I'm always going to use my voice, and I use it for good, because if you do something to me, that means you're doing it to somebody else too, and that was one of the other lessons the history lessons for my mama. If you're going to help somebody, or if you've got an issue, you're not the only person. So if you're helping yourself, you're helping somebody else in the process. Is there a reason for my voice to exist? Well, if it's for no other reason than to help me and somebody else, that's a good enough reason for me. Is using my voice part of who I've always been? Yeah, I guess it is. That's because I was trained that way and you know, with training you have to practice. So just doing it one time is not going to. It might work that one time, but that's probably not the only time you need to use your voice.

Speaker 1:

I use my voice for other people all the time. I use it for my kids, I've used it for my husband, I used it for my parents and my mother-in-law. I've used it for cousins and nieces and nephews. I have used it for my brother. I've used it for people I don't know, sometimes, because I'll see something going on that shouldn't and I'll go speak up. Do you use your voice? Are you afraid to use your voice? You shouldn't be. It's yours, it was given to you, it wasn't given to somebody else and if you didn't need it, you wouldn't have it. Think about it.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes, when I use my voice, it is not just for the greater good of the kids at school or the people in the workplace or the people at the grocery store. Sometimes it's for the city, because sometimes we get so busy watching all the other things that happen in the city that we live in that we don't realize the changes that are taking place. I believe that the people who have been supporting the city for all these years need to be taken care of by the city, need to be taken care of by the city. You don't get a pass, just because you're a new elected official and you haven't been there and you don't know about the things that have gone on in the past, to ignore the past and to ignore what happened to people who live there, so I know that in my city, flooding has been an issue where the black people live for a long time. Well, now that gentrification is occurring and white people are moving in, suddenly there is a rush to take care of flooding. I'm not about to sit and be quiet and let that happen. And I started fussing about it when a development was going through the rezoning process and I kept telling people all across the city this is not just going to affect this one area, it's going to affect downstream, it's going to affect our property taxes. It's going to affect our property taxes. And people eventually began to listen.

Speaker 1:

But it was important for me to speak because nobody else was. People were just looking at things from their one point of view, and sometimes that one point of view is not the only way to look at it. We can't always be selfish. So I learned to use my voice and I learned to use it for the good of all. And sometimes all doesn't mean people who just look like one color. Sometimes it means all, like everybody in the radius. So are you using your voice?

Speaker 1:

The other piece is sometimes, when you use your voice, people think oh, you think you're somebody. Well, I don't necessarily think I'm somebody, but I am me. Think I'm somebody, but I am me. I have always used my voice for other people because you know, we always want to look out for the other guy. But I'm starting to use my voice for me. I'm starting to say you can't talk about me like that or you can't think about me like that, but you certainly can't say it. I'm going to say something different. One of the things that I am doing that's different is when I get my divorce, I'm paying for it. I left, I'm paying for it. I don't want anybody to think that my spouse left me because that's not what happened and so if I let him pay for it, he gets to tell that story. He gets to use his voice to take over my story. I'm not having that either. I'm paying for this and some people don't understand that, but the truth is what needs to be told and I am the holder of this truth and I am going to carry it through.

Speaker 1:

When you use your voice, it can make you feel different ways. Sometimes it makes you happy You're happy that you accomplished what you set out to say, or you accomplished what you intended to do. Sometimes it makes you sad because you had to use it and maybe it was the situation where you didn't want to use it. You didn't think you should even have to have addressed the issue. Sometimes it makes you sound loud Because sometimes people don't hear you when you just use your regular quiet voice, your regular you know what we call the indoor voice. Sometimes you've got to use your outdoor voice so that you can be heard above all the other noise, all the distractions that are going on.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes it makes you scared because you don't know what's going to happen when you speak out. That would be the case sometimes when I would say something at work or I would do something at work. I would be scared because if I lost my job behind what I said, my job behind what I said, then we lost health insurance benefits, we lost ability to pay mortgage, we lost ability to buy food. I was worried, but sometimes it's too important to bite your tongue. There are families who have put their whole families on the line to speak out about things that are wrong in terms of health issues, how health care is done. What about families who were part of the 1954 Board of Education Brown versus board of education court case? I know that there are people who were youth after that occurred and they were fighting to go to other schools and their family used their voice and they were threatened. Their lives were threatened, their jobs were threatened. There were threats of people children being kidnapped from families because they were fighting for a better education.

Speaker 1:

You never know exactly what using your voice is going to cause, but it's important to use it. Have you never thought about what your voice would do, or what your voice could do? It will surprise you. You've probably used it at some point and didn't even realize you were doing it. But it's important to be aware. Know what your voice can do. Know what your voice can do. Know what your voice can do.

Speaker 1:

By itself, it can be loud enough to make a difference in a whole city. Know what your voice can do when it's combined with other voices. It can cause change at home, in the city, in the state, in the nation. Know the other things that can happen with your voice. Strangely enough, now I have celebrity status because I have used my voice, I have gotten my point across, I have had people to pay attention to what I had to say, and sometimes that scares other people who are around you and so I've been told I have celebrity status by someone who didn't like me having it. Oh well, i'm'm gonna be quiet no more. You've been listening to Quiet no More where I share my journey, so you can be quiet.