We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kenisha Coon. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kenisha below.

Kenisha , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My name is Kenisha Coon and I have lived experience of trauma and resilience of the child welfare system, and a daily survivor of systemic racism. You will find me trying to dismantle the disparities of black and brown youth in the child welfare system and teach others lessons toward becoming anti-racist in everything that I do. A huge a majority of my professional life as been doing all that I can to lower the disparities of the black and brown children in the foster care system, while working on finding and developing my own racial identity, as well as helping others on their antiracism journey. I am a Biracial, activist, speaker, DEIB consultant, child welfare expert, and ally. My mission is to help others in their journey to Antiracism. I strive to create a courageous, inclusive, and welcoming space for all folx to feel they are able to be their authentic selves while being able to bring the vulnerability that comes with capacity building.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am currently a Policy and Legislation Analyst, as well as Antiracism and DEI work within the state, such as facilitating conversations, training, creating strategic plans, and consulting. I am a graduate of the Minority Professional Leadership Development Program and I have collaborated with AdoptUSKids, National Adoption Association , and NACAC to bring racial awareness and equitable training and education to the child welfare scene.

In my personal life, I run a DEI consulting Business, Kenisha Coon Consulting and a calligraphy business, Lettering by Kenisha. I volunteer in several communities where I focus on expanding and education of Race Equity and DEI learning to those who may not have had the space to be courageous.

You will find me trying to dismantle the disparities of black and brown youth in the child welfare system and teach others lessons toward becoming anti-racist in everything that I do.

At Kenisha Coon Consulting, my mission is to help others in their journey to Antiracism. I strive to create a courageous, inclusive, and welcoming space for all folx to feel they are able to be their authentic selves while being able to bring the vulnerability that comes with capacity building. I continue to be committed to working hard to build my own capacity, while I know that both implicit and explicit bias exists, and recognizing to make sure that it does not impact the work that I do. I am intentional about the work that I do to make sure policy, practices, and my direct work with folx is inclusive. I am committed to this work, being my authentic self, and continuing to build my capacity while fostering an inclusive space for all folx. I cannot wait to be on your journey with you.

I most recently wrote a book. And Then She Persisted, Is the story of overcoming generation trauma, abuse, and neglect. It is the story of standing up against racism. It’s a story of advocacy, passion, alliship, and surrendering to stepping into one’s purpose.

This book started as many blog journals, schooling, training, therapy, light night talks with my friends, channeling into my spirituality, and a plethora of other methods to work through compartmentalizing though the childhood trauma I endured, and finding myself on my journey to being Antiracst.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

In America, and as a biracial child, you get to experience bits and pieces of microaggressions, racism, and this convoluted sense of degradation by society and from people you know (or may not know) daily. This is the first formal appearance of these types of treatment by kids between the ages of seven to eleven, especially in schools, and the racist slurs or statements (be them intentional or unintentional) usually start to develop and become normalized at this stage of middle school and high school. In my case, I didn’t have it all bad, at least at that adolescence age, I did not think that it was that bad. My school was not extremely diverse, but in most cases, it was racially accepting despite it being quite populated by white folx and barely having a handful of people of color in attendance. I think now that I might just feel this way because I lacked the understanding of what microaggressions and racial slurs sounded like. Whenever I would hear these words and feel hurt, I never really understood why I felt that way on the inside. These people did to me with their active or passive statements most of the time because it questioned my identity and origin.
People would unapologetically call me “black on the outside and white on the inside”, and would pull my hair or stroke it without permission in a bid to touch it, or feel its texture and girth. Then there was the folk, who would tell me that I was the “whitest black girl they have ever met.”
The foundations of the American educational system were already deeply rooted and infested with systematic white supremacist values long before any of us were here. We would learn bits and pieces of history that always portrayed the Americans and their wandering origins in light, and would never do justice to the barbaric nature of their colonial efforts, and the oppression the Native Americans faced at the time.
Additionally, there was no expansion on any black historical figures whatsoever thus leading figures or study cases like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, or later, Barack Obama, as a single topic study and these would be hugely glossed over in such a controlled fashion that have children the impression that these names were just honorable mentions and nothing more.
When we did get taught something, it was either well-worked lies about Christopher Columbus and the real story of the genocide agenda or how he did certain things he didn’t do. These stories always glossed over the horrible things he did in the name of discovery and colonial efforts, and this still went on in school for a long period till the walls of systemic white supremacy and racism began to get hit and dismantled in recent times due to movements like the Black Lives Matter protests and these such movements been to pave the way for change, and look beyond a hate/racist infected society to one of tolerance, equity, and justice.
But before all of this, the change was seemingly impossible, unreachable, or worse still, unattainable. This might have been birthed from the fact that I had not one black teacher at this time and as I remember it from grade school until I graduated high school. It wasn’t till I got to junior college that I had my first black teacher, and this should speak volumes, she was the speech professor. It was not until I was well out of college that I got formal education on the level of systemic White supremacist values that were embedded in the roots of the United States and that had eaten so deep into it, they had made their way to the educational sector as well.
This racial oversight in my schooling days got to the way we were treated, the way we were grouped and thus affected the people who made friends with us because children can always see and feel the disconnect between cultures portrayed by the society, and they are never attended to imitate it as quickly as they could.

This is what I work to dismantle, I want better for the next generation, for my children, I want my children to know that they are biracial and embrace it, and be antiracist social justice warriors.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

There are so many books that have impacted the way that I run my business, and use resources and such. Anything written by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (Author of How to be antiracist, Stamped for kids etc.) these books have helped me on my racial identity journey to lead me in the direction of being able to lead in the work.

Being a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), women, in a leadership role is not something that we always come across. Its beacuse systems are built for the white cis man to suceed (the overall structure of Systemic racism)- I depend on my resources to help me on this journey.

Another mantra that I live by is the Mixed Heritage Bills of Rights, by Maria P Root.
Bill of Rights
forPeople of Mixed Heritage

I HAVE THE RIGHT…
Not to justify my existence in this world.
Not to keep the races separate within me.
Not to justify my ethnic legitimacy.
Not to be responsible for people’s discomfort with
my physical or ethnic ambiguity.

I HAVE THE RIGHT…
To identify myself differently than strangers
expect me to identify.
To identify myself differently than how my parents
identify me.
To identify myself differently than my brothers and
sisters.
To identify myself differently in different
situations.

I HAVE THE RIGHT…
To create a vocabulary to communicate about
being multiracial or multiethnic.
To change my identity over my lifetime–and more
than once.
To have loyalties and identification with more
than one group of people.
To freely choose whom I befriend and love.

This poem gives me the courage to speak at the tables, not have to code switch, be the leader that I want to be, and run the business that I know that I can .

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kcoonconsults.squarespace.com/about-us
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kcoon_consults/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenisha-coon-64846021/

Image Credits
the.jones.photo.co; Elliefrancesphotography