We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joshua Caldwell a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Joshua, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

Whiteness as a construct has always provided a space for me to take risks.

With that in mind, I must always hold space for those not afforded the same protections.

The risk is not the same the closer to Blackness you approach.

So if someone reads this, do not feel judged or shamed if you need to participate in an oppressive system as a worker instead of a ‘business owner’

Especially if you carry the extra weight of being racialized under said system.

If you are Black, and take the risk of starting a Business in the United States, you have an 80% chance of failure.

The national average in the US is 20%.

So the ‘charity’ (I use quotes to question the stigma attached to that word) is rooted in the inverse of that risk. To create socialized services, directly address gate-kept services and knowledge to create support services for marginalized communities.

Furthermore, I believe that philanthropy under the typical capitalist modality is a majority, and majorly performative.

Now wealthy investors, please invest in this program that will directly challenge your power structure…

Joshua, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When were you first racialized, reader?

To those marginalized under an oppressive dynamic, the answer will be younger, much younger.

I grew up and was the ‘White Trash’ Family in the part of town that would be referred to as the ‘other side of the track’

So from 4 years old onwards; innately and overtly I was racialized. This racialization intersected with socioeconomic and ‘caste’ variables. These combined with a deep codification of colonization; as we resided in Plymouth, Massachusetts the ‘birthplace’ of what we now refer to as the U.S.A.

Decades later; my ADHD, CPTSD, Anxiety, and Depression were diagnosed and adjusted. Having knowledge and education gave me words and frameworks about the marginalization I experienced operating in a colonized capitalist dichotomy.

That in-there is the rub; Unless you are in the ownership class, we ALL suffer under whiteness. Even though I have insulation as a CIS-White-Het-Male, the oppressive modality still hurts and affects me and my family.

BUT it affects those not insulated by whiteness; Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities especially and specifically.

Which is WHY I do what I do…

The fact that I can opt out, having the innate protection of my whiteness, is a privilege.

To not use that to redress a system that oppresses: enforces oppression.

Rise Together Foundation, INC is about filling those gaps of equity starting in gentrifying communities. We are a certified Public (501c3) Charity that provides Operational / Managed IT services for any Black, Brown, or Indigenous organization.

TRAUMEDIA – This is my larger portfolio that supports projects addressing whiteness in all its forms and how we use Media to interpret, enforce, and redress either equitable or oppressive modalities.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

My LinkedIn account is the same age as a teenager.

When I started, it acted as a defacto resume. During my first sales job, it became a way for me to make a living.

So I used it in an extractive and mostly performative way.

I wrote articles about staffing, and tech dynamics, cause I was selling those things.

In the last two years, I’ve gone from 2000 connections too approaching 11,000

The biggest difference?

I started posting the truth.

I started networking and building community because I was interested in finding others working to address oppressive systems.

Not because I needed to sell them something to live, but because I could no longer LIVE just selling people shit.

So I speak the truth, and I use my brain and the weird ways it sees the world and I post about it openly and transparently.

White supremacy asks for perfection. So we are quick to see supremacy and the colonized reaction in spaces, and capitalism demands extraction so when you shift from selling to teaching/learning about your passion you connect.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

It might be quicker to list what I haven’t had to unlearn.

Grace is paramount when we are unlearning how we enforce oppressive dichotomies. Grace for others, and grace for yourself.

So to those racialized white specifically, let me address you for a second:

While we operate under an oppressive system, even if you are doing the work to address it, you are still representative of it.

Your ability to opt out and your ability to represent and enforce supremacy can inflict undue trauma.

Furthermore, our constant pavlovian conditioning of living in a colonized, supremacist society means we will ‘backslide’. It is important for you to have a space that allows you to be called in and to redress that harm, and not react in ways that enforce whiteness.

(Anyone can enforce whiteness, but our proximity to it ensures we can do the MOST harm)

–Understand that when you are called in & out, this will most likely be triggering to you. A brain responding to trauma will inflict further trauma. Our interpersonal trauma and how oppression affects us (Intersectionality) is never an excuse for the further perpetuation of harm, but covert harm will happen. Recognize it, be accountable, and move forward —

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rtfsolve.org
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/traumedia
• Youtube: @RiseTogetherFoundation
• Other: https://www.traumedia.co

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