learning to listen, creating community, and living your truth with Joél Leon

meet joél.

he tells stories for black people. and maybe you, too, if you are willing to listen (which you should). i set out this month to talk to someone who, at first glance, was different from me in some way. and after reading joel’s bio, i knew i wanted to sit down and learn from him. he’s magic - passionate, heartfelt, honest, and kind - and he’s going to change the world, one word at a time.

Hi. So I initially found you through To Write Love on Her Arms, which shared a photo of you as part of their #WSPD19 campaign. So to start off, how do you make today better?

I have a layered answer, because I think it’s two-fold. I think that every day, the things that I do and how I engage with people, whether that’s friendships, through the creative work, family, love, whatever it may be… just trying to be grounded and intentional with that. Entering into spaces and being intentional and kind and timely, in regards to how I engage with and how I communicate with people. I think that for today, the present moment today, just trying to be as loving to myself as possible. The struggles we tend to encounter tend to be from us not really being present with whatever we are dealing with at the present moment. And I think we have to talk to ourselves more lovingly. Today, it’s about the practice of being gentler with myself, a little more loving with myself, and not being as hard on myself when it comes to the work that I am doing and the spaces I enter. 

I love your piece, “For Colored Boys Contemplating Suicide.” One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you was because you say you tell stories for black people, which is something I can’t relate to or even imagine what it’s like. Let’s talk about that. You say art saved you - do you find that typical gender norms prevent men from getting in to art? Because we can really get down into systemic forces and life chances and how the odds are stacked against you way more than me.

I think gender norms play a role in that. Part of that, too, is community-based. I was fortunate enough to grow up in the not-so-stereotypical Caribbean household. So, like, if you grew up in a Caribbean household, generally it’s like, you’re expected to pursue a certain kind of life. Like, are you going to be making money from the occupation that you choose? My mom was never really like that. My mom gave me the freedom to explore. I had the opportunity to pursue art. I don’t really know why I chose to be a writer, or storyteller, for lack of a better word, but part of that was because I had the freedom to do so. Granted, I do think there is something to be said for gender norms and how, you know, getting ahead and pursuing something that will give you more access to power, or more money, which is also kind of a capitalistic viewpoint. Part of my journey was trying to approach art in a way that felt true to me, as opposed to trying to speak for a specific community, which I know sounds like it creates tension when I say that. But I think when you look at Toni Morrison, she was writing for the black community and really, for black women. But the real point is trying to write in a way that speaks to the people that, to be frank, not only the people I grew up around, but [also] the people who look like me, who I relate more to. It’s a human condition.

So when we say, “we’re writing for black people,” it doesn’t exempt anyone else from enjoying the experience, of being a part of the experience, but I’m not going to water down the content in order to fit a narrative that feels more comfortable to you. That’s really what that means. I don’t want to be boxed into the art part of that as well.

When you are writing for the community and not watering down for others, that’s not to turn other people away, but sometimes people take it as a “do not disturb” sign. Do you think people need to seek that out and be uncomfortable in order to really learn about experiences that are different from their own?

Absolutely. I think the best thing that can happen is tension. Friction creates dialogue. I think one of the reasons America suffers so much is that American doesn’t do a really good job of dealing with friction. It’s about unfiltered, un-watered-down truth. I think when we talk about me writing for black people, it’s really writing in truth. There was a book I was working on and I was tempted to create a glossary of terms and phrases to better explain to an audience that might not be part of the community, but I think part of that is making people have to work. I think if you are a person of color, if you are a marginalized individual, you have to kind of bend to the whim of what it means to be American. You are forced to assimilate. And if you don’t assimilate, that’s very un-American. I feel like the work I am trying to create is the antithesis to that.

We need to be able to live in the discomfort in order to be able to actually recognize the things some of us maybe aren’t dealing with on a day-to-day basis.

To me, it really is about trying to create an avenue to communicate – where I’m not attacking people, but I am creating space for communication. Some people wish to go that route; some people don’t. I can’t control how people receive the message. That’s not really my job, and honestly, not really my concern. My job is just to create a space to have communication, and healthy communication at that. 

Going off of that, do you have any comment or opinion on the idea of Twitter call-out culture, and how we are so quick to “cancel” people or exclude them off of one mistake or one wrong move? 

Cancel culture doesn’t create a platform for communication, and it also doesn’t really hold people accountable. It doesn’t give people a chance to redeem themselves, either. I think there’s a way to look at these things from a nuanced point of view. Not everything in life gets weighted the same, and when you’re on Twitter, everything gets weighted the same – every fight, every form of miscommunication gets weighted the same. And then there’s not enough due diligence when it comes to the context of the situation. You don’t really have enough time to do that on social media, whereas if you and I were having a conversation and we have a disagreement, there’s room for us to level-set it. We can use context to come back to, if not a mutual place of agreement, then at least an understanding of where each other is coming from. Social media doesn’t really allow you to do that, and then you are sitting with a comment, and responding, and then because of groupthink, I don’t think we are really allowed to dig deeper. Like when we look at the #MeToo movement, right? We can’t look at that in the same context as another situation. There are people who have been, for lack of a better word, canceled, and rightfully so, but we can’t treat that with the same merit and weight as another situation that maybe isn’t as extreme.

I think everything feels extreme when you’re on social media. Part of the work for me is, how do we take some of these conversations that happen on social, outside of social, so that we can have a healthier dialogue about the things that trouble us?

I think in some ways, people are starting to hide behind social media and getting a lot of their communication through social media, and maybe, I guess, our disconnect in America, especially politically, is that we are quick to point fingers on social media, but not shake hands in public.

Yeah, absolutely. Again, when we talk about truth and intention, social media allows you to hide. You can hide behind a profile pic, you can hide behind your comment and not really have to sit with what you’re doing. People can avoid accountability because you can log off. You can make a statement and not have to stand behind that statement. What I said earlier when I was talking about love of self and me loving myself… what that also allows me to do is not point the finger at other people. I get to hold the mirror up to myself and I get to do the work to evaluate what I have brought into a space, and what that looks like and what that means for how we engage with each other. I pause before I respond because it’s important to think, “What purpose does this conversation serve?” I think it would be cool for all of us to do more of that. Think, “Is me communicating this worth the energy? Is this more egocentric? Am I saying this to prove somebody wrong, or am I saying this because I am trying to move the needle forward and I’m trying to create a circumstance where we all feel like we can hold space and have a conversation about the things that matter?”

Of course. That makes a lot of sense, and that kind of reminds me of something you wrote, “A Thing About Finding Your ‘Purpose.’” You say, “We are the purpose- how [we] live our lives determines what the purpose may be for each of us.” Tying that into what we were just talking about, sometimes I get so weighed down by other people’s opinions, or even anxiety thinking about what someone might say. Because I don’t want to inadvertently offend someone, and it seems like it doesn’t take much to do that these days. All things considered, how do you stay true to yourself?

Part of that comes with age. I’m thirty-six years old. I think I’ve experienced enough in my life to where I’m comfortable walking into spaces being exactly who I am. The same thing you read in my bio is the same thing I say when I’m performing. I tell stories to black people. And I don’t mean to offend anyone by that, but I do that to level-set the energy so that people know I hope they enjoy what I am doing, and I hope we can have a conversation about what I am doing, but they can also recognize that I am not doing it for them.

I think a lot of what historically happens to marginalized communities is that the work we have done is created for white attention. I think the problem with a lot of that and those conversations is that people then tend to think that because we aren’t doing things for the white people, that we don’t like white people. Like, one of my best friends – and hey, this almost sounds like, “Hey, I have black friends, too,” – but my daughter’s godfather, Jon, is a white male. I love all people. I think it’s okay to love all people but also be able to call out people for behaviors that are not in favor of building community.

When we talk about living your purpose, part of that is knowing that living in your truth might alienate people, but it will free you. And your freedom is more important than their comfort.

That is something that I’ve had to digest and live with. It’s important. Your freedom, Paige, is more important than others’ comfort surrounding it because people make you bend to their whim in order to make themselves more comfortable. And that’s not your job. Your job is not to make other people comfortable. Your job is to be able to live in your truth, willfully and as a whole human, to come into spaces with love and compassion and empathy. Your job is not to make people comfortable. And women, especially if you are a woman of color, you are told that your job or purpose, whether it’s told innately, through micro-aggressions, or subconsciously, your job is to make others more comfortable to be able to bear whatever they need to. And that’s not how it works. It’s taken me awhile to get there, for sure, and a lot of work. And even now, I’m a grown-ass man and there are times when I don’t follow through on that as much as I should. But I think that comes with the understanding that, listen, I’m still showing up as me, and there are people who love me for it and that’s the truth. There are some people who probably don’t, and I can’t concern myself with them. My purpose isn’t to satisfy their needs. My purpose is to live this life to the fullest and be purposeful with the work that I am doing, whether that’s creative work or loving work.

That rings true for me, thank you. Okay, you did just say that you’re thirty-six, and speaking of living different and similar lives, I’m currently twenty-five. What was being twenty-five like for you? 

At twenty-five, I had just started a very long-term relationship. Twenty-five was a lot of learning, and a lot of thinking I knew things. And not to say that I didn’t know things, but I can look back at my twenty-five-year-old self who thought he was very sure about what he was doing, what he was going to be going, and thirty-six-year-old me looks at it now and thinks, “Man, you were so far off.” And I was so clinging. Not clingy, but I was clinging to these things that I was supposed to have, this person I was supposed to be, these goals and these dreams that I thought I was supposed to be striving for, as opposed to where I’m at now, where there’s a lot more freedom and a lot more wiggle room for me to say, “Maybe if this doesn’t work for me, I can walk away from it.” I think there’s a very finite difference between being wishy-washy and not being settled, which millennials and Gen Z gets called out a lot for - for not dealing. But generations ago, people were just staying in situations that they shouldn’t have stayed in because they were supposed to. Now, millennials are asking questions, like, “Why? Why do we still have to eat this? Why do we still have to work this way? Why do we still need to pay for school?” We’re asking questions that generations before weren’t asking. At twenty-five, I wasn’t asking questions; I was scared to ask questions because we have kind of been guilted into the lives we were living, and you feel like, you thought you had choice but you were really just conforming to the path. Even when I look back, I was maybe doing things differently, but I was still very much clinging to a way of life that I thought was supposed to have. I was doing things that I thought I was supposed to do, as opposed to really just being open and honest and living my life for myself.

Wow. Yeah. What is the best advice you have been given, or just a piece of advice that you think is worth passing on to the next person?

Be honest with yourself. Being honest with yourself is the best thing you can do for yourself. And being honest with yourself means taking a really hard look at who you are and who you show up as and knowing that if it isn’t coming from a space of love, then it’s false.

That’s how it’s easy to determine whether the things you are doing, the work you’re creating, and how you’re engaging with people is centered around love and not around ego. Because a lot of times, a lot of the things we think we do are about love, but it’s more about ego. It’s more about self-serving. It’s more, “What do I get from this?” And that’s not a bad question to ask per-say, but when you are using that as a means to navigate the world, that doesn’t create much room for love. Honest love, genuine love, love that is actually sustainable… that creates more opportunity for authenticity. A lot of that is being honest and being more loving. The long-short of that is really more a question that we can ask ourselves: “How much more love can I add into this space?” Ask that question. If you are in a space and you feel like you’re giving love, ask, “How much more can I add?” Then see what happens.

Speaking about love, what is the best thing about being a parent?

Learning. I feel like Lilah is my best teacher. I learn more from Lilah than I have learned from anybody else. The more that I have been open to learning from her, the better my life has become. There is so much more I have learned about myself because I have had to be open. Lilah has taught me to be more open, and that’s probably my favorite part of everything. I didn’t think my heart could grow so much, and it has, and a lot of it has to do with her.

And what scares you about being a parent, and how do you push past it?

The future. There’s not a lot that I can control, but there’s also a freedom in that. I can either be scared by the fact that there’s not a lot that is under my control and let it govern how I parent, or I can say, “There’s not a lot that I can control, so I just need to be open. I need to allow for more openness in this experience with my child.” I need to give her that freedom. There is so much that is scary in the world, but allowing that to dictate how I function has never been the way for me. 

You’ve said your creative process starts with listening. How do you stay alert to your surroundings without succumbing to them? 

Balance comes from trying to be present. And by present, actively respond and engage with people. It comes naturally. That’s why I love acting so much, and I didn’t know it at the time, but when you are really present on stage, it affords you the opportunity to respond in a way that is most organic. For me, it means being in the moment as much as possible.

You act, you write, you perform… what is your favorite medium of art?  

It depends on the season. There are days when I feel like acting is my favorite; there are days when I feel like poetry is it. Acting satisfies a certain purpose for me the same way that making music does. They all have their own separate space in my spirit. Sometimes it’s writing essays; sometimes it’s writing poems. And some days it’s just being on stage.

What does it mean to be a storyteller?

For me, it means that I have the ability to create a world for an audience, to create a world for myself. Being a storyteller means that I get to also communicate for community, which is one of my favorite things; I’m not speaking for a whole community, or a specific community, but storytelling allows me the opportunity to speak for my point of reference and knowing and recognizing that it’s relatable because it’s part of the human experience. That’s something that I enjoy immensely.

Going off of community and human experience… As you know, I found you through a mental health campaign, and I can’t speak for that group of people, because I haven’t necessarily lived that experience, but at the same time, I have come to learn that inaction is still a form of action. And that, especially today, we have to be doing something. I cannot speak for anyone else, especially when I don’t share that experience, but you have to advocate for others in some way when you can, right? So, how can I express solidarity and support for someone else, or another community, like yours? How can we show up and be there for each other?

Listening. And not being defensive. A lot of the struggles that people have are like, when you talk about white privilege, and someone says, “Oh, I don’t benefit from white privilege,” … but you do. And you wouldn’t understand that because you’re white, and you’re being defensive. Male privilege is another example of that. I have to own and recognize that it is different for me to walk into a space and be my most honest, true, and vulnerable self; I have privilege. Even as a black man, I still have the privilege of being a male. If a black woman comes to me, or if any woman comes to me, and says, “You benefit from having your ideas heard more because you’re a male,” if I am compassionate and empathetic and I care, then I’m not going to say, “No.” It’s not about being defensive; it’s about listening. If you treat every relationship with love, and something we struggle with now is that we are treating people like strangers instead of a connected community… the way that I would talk to my brother, or my daughter, is no different than the way I would talk to anybody else I love. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love them as much; I love them all differently. But it’s still love. And if you treat people with love, there’s a certain way that you communicate with them. Like, if I’m in a relationship with you, and we get into an argument, loving communication is not, “Well, what about what you did?” That’s not open communication. Loving communication is, “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sorry I hurt you. What can I do to right this situation?” That’s how that works.

When you are dealing with community and people you love, we don’t treat each other like that because we’re so different and our experiences are different… and that’s bullshit. People don’t want to do the work. People don’t have the energy, they say, but it’s choices. Like you said, inactivity is still a choice. Inertia is still a choice. If you aren’t doing anything, that’s still a choice. We have to be more accountable and more honest. We have to be more empathetic, and we have to communicate better.

I agree. Do you think we could ever bring community back to where it should be? Do you think by 2020 we can get there, or will it take a lot more time?

It’s going to take a lot more time. I think when you look at the history of America, America is still relatively young. When you look at the founding fathers and the agents of society that have been built over centuries… America is still very young. Black folks didn’t have the actual right to vote until 1964. That wasn’t that long ago. Japanese internment camps weren’t that long ago. It’s going to take work. It isn’t going to happen in 2020; it’s not going to happen in 2060, I don’t think. What I’m hoping is that it will happen within my daughter’s generation. There’s a lot of healing that’s required and to be frank, until America is honest about the healing that is required, it won’t happen. America is not really honest. We have freedoms and things here that other places don’t, and that’s something that could be taken for granted, but while we are being honest, we cannot compare our situation and our country to another situation in a different country. We have to be honest about the work that needs to be done. When people don’t want to have conversations about reparations, or police brutality, or patriarchy and white supremacy, it makes it very difficult. Like if we are in a relationship and you’re lying about the relationship, there’s no trust. And you can’t have a relationship without trust. And right now, there’s no trust.  

I agree. It seems like in some ways, divisions are healthy and appropriate because there is solidarity within community – you shared a post where you listed different communities – but it also seems like we need to realign them and redefine their purpose, in a way. Do you ever think we are so focused on certain similarities that we create divisions with others? Or are those divisions healthy and appropriate?

Yeah, I think that’s an excellent point. Even in the black community… homophobia, transphobia… it’s a problem. It’s a natural inclination of us as human beings to find the differences in each other. My daughter recently, when Lilah would get mad, she would say, “Daddy, you’re bald.” She said that as a slight. I don’t know where she learned from, but she noticed that I was different from her, and I think when we talk about how racism is taught, it’s the idea that we can control the narrative. These narratives that are taking shape within our communities are creating barriers to true growth, conversation, and love.

Part of that is us having to redefine what it means to be a community. It’s okay to have communities that have labels on them, but I think the problem we’re encountering now is that we are letting these labels create this certain type of tension that doesn’t need to be there. Tension in general is fine; it’s the hatred and inability to understand the community that creates problems. When we talk about segregation… segregation was created because, “You look different. I don’t understand you.” There’s a power dynamic involved and being frightened by that as opposed to being inquisitive. That switch changes everything. How do we get there? We have to have conversations with people and not be defensive in those spaces.

Definitely. I am learning so much from this and from you. I want to make sure that I really get your story, or at least the part of your story I am sharing, right. I know about your art, and your role as a father, but is there more about you that you want me to share, or things that people might not know?

Art. Art matters. A lot of the work I do surrounding mental health and creativity is trying to talk to people about how important it is to give people room to be creative and embrace art. Art has been a constant throughout my life. I want people to be open to the different ways we can use art as a means of activism. More art and more love, that’s what comes through.

Also, what is one thing that everyone should know how to do?

Listen. I think I’ve been saying that a lot, but listening is such a cool thing to do, man. Listen to people, and really listen to them. Don’t just wait for your turn to communicate. Listen so that people feel heard. It all comes back to proper communication.

Lastly, what does a typical day look like for you?

Depends on the day. On a Monday, I’m going to work, where I’m a copywriter by day. During that time, I might also be looking for other creative things to do that will help my poetry. After I leave work, I pick up my daughter from pre-K. I’m spending time with her; we are playing puzzles and doing homework. I give her a bath and feed her dinner, put her to bed. Then I’m headed to Brooklyn. I head home to my partner and try to do some more work, maybe I try to read or listen to music. I send emails, make some calls about other projects I might be working on. And then I do it all over again, basically. A lot of tweeting, a lot of Instagram posts. That type of stuff.

seven questions with joél leon:

I can’t go a day without… water.

Everyone should listen to… D’Angelo’s Voodoo album.

Life is better with a little… more consensual hugging. Don’t hug people that don’t want to be hugged, but embracing people is important.

Everyone in their 20s should… date as many people as possible. You’ll learn what you love, what you like, what you don’t like. Embrace that.

One insider thing to do in New York… go to the Bronx. Hit the Bronx zoo up, go to the Botanical Gardens, catch a Yankee game. Visit the Bronx. It’s the forgotten borough because it’s not as cute, but there’s so much beauty still.

What the world needs right now is… more love. There’s nothing passive about love at all; it’s an active ingredient in activism. What Dr. King did, it’s love. We need more love.

One way to spread love is… being open to an opinion that is different from yours. Don’t confuse an opinion with hate speech; that kind of happens now. People say something hateful and then say, “Oh, that’s my opinion.” No, that is them being hateful towards another community. An opinion is healthy. Differences in opinions are normal.

You can follow Joel on Instagram and Twitter, and you can check out his work here.

All photos by Ben Russell.