Belonging by Design: How a Choir Became a Home

In this powerful episode of Our True Colors, Dr. Shawna Gann is joined by Cindy Ogasawara and Kara De Maine, leaders in the Resounding Love Interfaith Gospel Choir—a multiracial, interfaith, LGBTQ+ embracing choir grounded in African American musical traditions and active anti-racism practice.

Together, they explore:

• The complexities of racial identity, especially for those with mixed or ambiguous backgrounds
• What it means to be part of a community that doesn’t just sing together—but heals together
• How they’ve created a choir that holds joy and accountability side by side
• The connection between leadership, cultural humility, and inclusion

You’ll also hear how Resounding Love continues to hold space for marginalized voices in a time when Pride celebrations are shrinking and DEI efforts are under attack.

🎶 All of the music featured in this episode is performed by Resounding Love Interfaith Gospel Choir.

More Stuff to Check Out:

• These Words are Disappearing in the New Trump Administration
• From Free Speech to Fear Speech: When Language Becomes a Liability
• Sinners (2025) – A dramatic film that weaves blues and gospel influences into a story of justice, family, and faith.
• Resounding Love Songs Featured in this Episode:
  • Spiritual Medley
  • Waymaker
  • It is Well
  • Wonderful Is Your Name
  • How Excellent

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Continue the conversation on Instagram and find Season 5 episodes on YouTube.

Our True Colors is powered by True Culture Coaching & Consulting. Head to our website to find out how True Culture Coaching and Consulting can support you and your organization, and subscribe to our LinkedIn Newsletter, The Culture Clinic, for more great content. You can find us at truecultureconsulting.com where you can also contact us to schedule a free consultation.

Transcript

Intro  0:06  
Welcome to Our True Colors, hosted by Shawna Gann. Join her as she explores the challenges of being a racial riddle, an ethnic enigma and a cultural conundrum. Let's dive in.

Shawna  0:22  
Hey friends, welcome back to Our True Colors. I'm your host, Dr. Shawna Gann, I'm so glad you're here with me today, because this episode is a special one. I had the absolute joy of sitting down with two remarkable women, Cindy Ogasawara and Kara De Maine. Cindy and I first met over a virtual coffee chat, and I have to tell you, I instantly fell in love with her energy, her heart, and just how grounded and real she is. She's thoughtful, creative and someone you just want more people to know. And the more I learned about her life, her story, and especially her role as co founder and CO-CEO of resounding love Center for the Arts, which she co leads with artistic director Marshawn Moultrie, the more I knew she had to be on the show. Cindy's path has taken her through the Peace Corps in Mongolia, the US Antarctic Program and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Today, she works for herself as a consultant focused on organizational culture and dei she and her husband Mike are raising two adopted children, and her lens as a transracial adoptive mom deeply shapes the way she moves through the world. Through Cindy, I was introduced to Kara, and I'm so grateful. Kara is a social worker by training and the founder of a consulting firm that focuses on learning and leadership development through a dei lens, she earned her BA from Smith College and her MSW from the University of Washington. Kara currently serves as the board chair for resounding love. I asked both of them to share a little bit about how they see themselves beyond job titles. Here's what Cindy said.

Cindy  2:05  
I identify as an introverted, spiritual, crafty, chicken, dog and cat owner who also likes to ride her bicycle and read non fiction.

Shawna  2:18  
And then Kara shared this about herself.

Kara  2:21  
I identify as a entrepreneur, single mom of young adult and old cat, and I love wandering in a new place that I'm traveling to and kind of getting lost. You can already tell this is going to be An episode with a lot of heart, right?

Unknown Speaker  2:57  
[MUSIC]

Shawna  3:10  
Their work with resounding love, a multi racial, interfaith LGBTQIA plus embracing choir rooted in African American musical traditions isn't just about singing, It's about building community, doing the deep work of anti racism, and creating spaces where people can show up fully as themselves. And as I sit down to record this intro for you, my thoughts turn to George Floyd and to the Black Lives Matter movement. It's been five years, five years since the world stopped to bear witness, five years since so many of us vowed to do better, and five years into a moment where that urgency is fading in the headlines, but the need has not gone away. Marginalized communities, especially black and brown communities, are still navigating injustice, still asking for equity, still fighting to be seen and heard. And as we head into Pride Month, we're also feeling the effects of fear and pushback. Events are being scaled back, language is being policed, visibility is being questioned. So this conversation could not be more timely. Resounding. Love isn't just a choir. It's a model of what joy and justice can look like when they're held together. It's a space where community care is intentional, where learning and accountability are ongoing, and where the music itself is a kind of activism. Every piece of music you'll hear in this episode from here on out, it's performed by the resounding love interfaith gospel choir. This isn't just background music or soundtrack. It's part of the message. So without further delay, let's get into it, bro.

Shawna  5:00  
Oh, I am so glad that both of you are here. What my audience doesn't know if Cindy and I connected kind of accidentally. I think I was like, Hey, you're cool. Can we meet? And we did get on a call, and we totally hit it off. And I learned some really interesting things about her, which we're going to talk about that stuff later on in the show. But she also came to introduce me to Kara. So Kara, I'm glad that you're here too, and I just think this is going to be a really excellent conversation. It's, it's a little bit of a lot, right? Like a little bit of this, a little bit of little bit of that, and all these sorts of things that we bring with us that make who we are interesting. And listeners, I think you're just super gonna love this, because the show really focuses on racial ambiguity, ethnic ambiguity, and just being a person who doesn't really fit in those societal boxes that have been, you know, designed for us. It'd be really great for listeners to know who you are, at least in that space, even if you don't fit neatly in one of those boxes. So Kara, why don't we start with you? Could you just tell us a little bit about who you are in this space?

Kara  6:17  
I am happy to and I am one of those people growing up that always check the other box because I'm old enough that there weren't options to choose multiple races. So I identify as Filipina and white both, and I hold lots of other identities as well as a woman. I use sheher pronouns, cisgender. But it is really interesting, fitting in this place with multiple identities, especially racial identities, and growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood, but with a Filipina mom, and then having opportunities to visit the Philippines, where I didn't totally fit in there either. And it's interesting because Cindy is from Hawaii, and I remember the first time as a kid going to Hawaii and feeling like, oh, you know, I felt a kind of a sense of belonging there. So I've always been curious about different spaces and how to create spaces for people to feel a sense of belonging. And it's not an accident to me that I grew up to become a social worker and do this work in dei spaces. Yeah,

Shawna  7:28  
that sounds pretty appropriate. I'm gonna ask you later on about that space and how your identity fits in there, but it totally makes sense. I super appreciate what you're saying. Is very relatable to me. Yeah, Cindy, tell us a little bit about you.

Cindy  7:43  
Yeah. I'm Gen X. I'm a US born Japanese American. My mom was born and raised in Okinawa, and my dad was a Japanese American man born on the Big Island of Hawaii before it was a state. And I was born on the US mainland in Seattle, Washington, and lived my first sort of formative years, zero through seven in the Seattle area. And moved to Hawaii when I was seven, and that was a really culturally shocking experience for me. I went from a place where I sort of knew I was different, and I could kind of wrap my head around what the implications of that were for young me, and then I went to a place where, ostensibly, I held the same racial identity as the majority of the people, but I could not have been more culturally different from many of them, and that was the first time in my life that I actually was made To feel other by some of the other kids, and that was something that really affected me growing up. It lasted well into my adult years. It really messed with my sense of who I considered safe, who I considered kin, and I've really been unpacking that more recently, and what effect did that have on the affinities that I chose to have with other people who I chose to spend time with, yeah, and so, yeah, that's a little bit about my upbringing and heritage. And just speaking to my mom, who, as I mentioned, was born and raised in Okinawa, just being able to hear from her more recently in life, about how Japan is not a monolith either right? And there are cultural regional differences between mainland Japan and Okinawa that resulted in her being sort of regarded as this rough country bumpkin type of person, and just how she navigated spaces on the mainland of Japan that made her feel like she was less than made her feel like she did not belong. So there's so many layers of this in everyone's family, generations. Yeah.

Shawna  9:47  
I mean, I think that's true anybody, no matter what their identities could be, relate to that the layers that exist and that there is not a monolith, even think about the US so huge with all of these regions. And people hear one accent and make an assumption about a person versus another accent just just on the way you speak, let alone how you look. So know that all of that tracks. Would you say that your experiences growing up, and this is for either of you, or both of you, your experiences growing up in these places, or even moving from one place to another, have influenced how you see yourself. I know Cindy, you said you're still kind of going on that journey, and I mean, to be honest, a lot of this show has helped me with my own as I continue to go on this journey, too, but I'm just curious how it's shaped your perceptions in other parts of your life.

Cindy  10:38  
Yeah, I'm a transracial adoptive mom. So I'm married to a white man, and we have two white children by adoption, and I found myself as I, you know, ventured into that identity and that phase of my life, having to do a lot of explaining about adoption within my family of origin, in that culture, adoption is not a thing. Adopting outside of one's family is not a thing. And certainly trans racial adoptions are very, very rare. Adopting across racial lines, and especially when you're a person of the global majority or person of color adopting white children, there is sort of no mental model in our society for a mom of color with white adopted children right

Shawna  11:20  
now. It's so true. We we've seen a lot of examples in different ways, right, where there's white families adopting children of color from other places, exactly, and this is really important to hear.

Cindy  11:32  
So that was one aspect that came up for me. And then the other one was, what is my responsibility as a mom who's also a dei practitioner in raising white children in this world, and how do I instill belief systems and values in these children? You know, I'm not going to be with them forever, but what is, what is my responsibility now? And how do I also just let them become who they're going to be? Kara, yeah,

Kara  11:55  
it's really interesting, because I think as a kid, I was really like, you know, just developmentally, I think this is true for just for for everyone, is when you're young, really the black and white thinking is there. And so there are times with my identity where I felt like I really had to choose, choose a side, am I Filipina and my white? And then traveling to the Philippines added a layer of awareness about my privilege, right? And I remember my cousins, who I spent a lot of time with, and they lived in in poverty, making a joke one day about how in the States, we probably had a machine that sucked up the dirt in our houses. And I just remember feeling the shame like, yeah, it's called a vacuum cleaner. But I wasn't about to say that. So there was just an awareness as I kind of traveled back and forth and then confusing my racial identity with kind of the socioeconomic privilege that I grew up with. So depending on the context, if it's getting into school or something, and I say I'm Filipina, am I taking away a slot from someone else. So there's never a time really when I haven't thought about race and then parenting multi racial kids who hold different identities than me. They have Colombian in the mix. So they're Colombian descent, Filipina and white, and they have two different skin tones. My daughter is much darker than my son, who's more kind of racially ambiguous. So there's never a time with them that we didn't talk about race. So it just feels very natural, and I forget sometimes that that isn't other people's experience

Shawna  13:34  
that is such a good point. I think for a lot of us, the conversations about race do tend to be more natural. It's just sort of there. I mean, it was definitely present in my growing up. In my growing up. I look completely different than the rest of my siblings. So siblings, you know that that's that other layer of complexity there.

Cindy  13:52  
It's reminding me of the fact that two people can look the same on paper, right? There might be another Japanese American woman who grew up in Hawaii, product of the 70s and 80s, just like me, but we could have wildly different experiences and perspectives, right? You're talking about how people in the same family of origin have different phenotypes, right? And different experiences based on that the world regards them differently. They present differently in the world. So, yeah, so much to think about there.

Shawna  14:25  
Yeah, it gets tricky. You

Shawna  15:22  
I want wanted to move us to the work that you've done and that you do is especially with diversity, equity, inclusion. To be honest, it's kind of a tricky time with dei right now. As individuals, organizations, people are trying to figure out how they want to navigate the DEI spaces, because we are a far cry from where we were five years ago, when not just the US, but the whole world was like, Wait a second, we need to be looking at what actually is going on here with marginalized folks. And there was a lot poured into it. And while you will never hear me say that there's not a space for dei I think there absolutely is, and it's such meaningful work, but it can bring a lot of fear. It can bring a lot of trepidation as people try to figure out what it means for them, what it means for their businesses, organizations, et cetera. I'd love to hear from you about the work that you've done in the past, if you're still doing work, and how your identity might contribute to that or inform the work that you do or that you've done.

Cindy  16:26  
Well, I'm happy to go first on this one. Kara, um, yeah, I fell into dei as a discipline, sort of by accident, even though there are no accidents. About 12 years ago, the team that I was on at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, at the time, was being dissolved, and I was offered the chance to step into this other role, helping the then nascent efforts of dei at the Gates Foundation sort of take root. And it took about 48 hours before I realized, Oh, this is the work that my whole life has been preparing me for. I had been longing in my bones for a way to give back to an organization where I felt really lucky to work, but where I was never going to be an expert in public health or in agricultural development or the US education system, where was there a place for me to be able to contribute across the whole organization help people do their jobs better, relate to each other better. And once I learned that was dei I never looked back. I don't know I look at my upbringing in places like Hawaii and places I've lived around the world, and the fact that I was called on many times to learn to code switch, to learn to find myself in many different settings relating to many different types of people, and really trying to take something that was so for some people, scary for some folks, anxiety producing right dei can be a fraught space in that people don't want to mess up, they don't want to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing or cause harm to anyone. And that can cause freezing, that can cause people to sort of stiffen up and not want to engage, and I found that I had a gift of being able to break things down in a way that was very relatable and not frightening, and to say things like, listen, we all, regardless of our identities, know what it feels like to be in a group where you feel like odd person out, last one chosen for the dodgeball game, right? The only one in your group who has divorced parents, or the only one in your group who has this experience or this identity, and to make it relatable to people at a very human level, and to take away that sort of trepidation and just say, Listen, this is something that's just unique to the human condition. We're all going through it, so maybe that was how some of my identities and experiences contributed to the work that I found so meaningful there. And we'll talk about how we navigate this in resounding love the choir as well. But I just want to say Kara was a huge inspiration and figure to me in those years at the Gates Foundation, as I was learning how to hold spaces of many different kinds. Kara's a masterful facilitator and teacher, and just being able to sort of learn how to approach these types of topics, and dear colleagues with sensitivity, with tenderness, with respect, all of that is what I learned from folks like Kara. So yeah, a big debt to her and other teachers in my life. I love that.

Kara  19:24  
Thank you, friend, and I'm learning from you every day, and I have the privilege of working with Cindy on a lot of different projects, which is just so fulfilling. So in my work life, I started out as a social worker in clinical practice, and again, I think there was something in my growing up and being so curious about people and identity and definitely social justice, that that was where I started, and those skills in social work really inform my work today. I do a lot of work within organizations, really around. On team effectiveness, how people can work together well, and leadership development. And I work across sectors like government, philanthropy, nonprofit and some for profit as well. It's interesting, because the subject matter really, I'm kind of agnostic about it. It's really about how you get the groups of humans to work together. Well, whether it's a city council or whether it's a faculty group or a group of nonprofit folks, and I think there is something about my racial identities and just being acutely aware as you walk into a room about how you're being perceived, really noticing who is there, noticing what the space feels like. That led me to this curiosity about, how do you move people together, even people who hold wildly different political views, how can you get them into a conversation with some good prevention and groundwork and and all the things and the solid facilitation, and help them move forward together into pursuit of a similar kind of goal, and so I don't walk into an organization or sell myself as a dei consultant, per se, but it's woven absolutely in everything that I do. And I don't actually separate leadership development skills from Dei. Because I think when you look at the core of what those capabilities are, it's being able to see systems, to be curious and to have humility, to create a sense of belonging, to know how to share power. So I think it's you can talk about the work that way. That is, it's like sneaky Dei, but this is what we're going to do as a team, and if you want to be an effective leader, these are the things you need to do.

Shawna  21:40  
All of that tracks with what both of you said. I mean, that's how I approach things, too. As true culture, dei has gotten to be scary either because, like you said, Cindy, people are afraid of making a mistake. You know, I'll include in the show notes. There was a recent article from the New York Times that actually listed words that people are avoiding using. I wrote an article about it. Y'all, you're gonna have to read it. A couple of years ago, I had a potential client reach out to me and say, hey, you know, I know you do trainings. Could you come in and, you know, facilitate a training for us? What it came down to is, he basically wanted me to come in and say, Here's the list of words thou shalt not say, and here are the replacement words thou shalt use. And I was like, Whoa, time out. That's that's not what I do. Number one, even if that were what I did. Like language changes all the time. It's always evolving. Number two, I know that the idea here is you want to stay out of hot water, but if we can learn to see humans as humans, you don't have to worry about the words we're using. Because, like you said, COVID said, Kara, showing up with the spirit of curiosity is going to help, because you're going to be interested in making those connections and learning about people as who they are, not just a list of identities or words that you need to be careful and tiptoe around. So I so agree with you, and I especially love how you connected leadership development to this. And you used humility, which is one of my favorite things to say, like, if we can just come in with intellectual humility, cultural humility. Ain't nobody on this earth know everything. There is to know about everything and everybody. And also, I love to work with emerging leaders who think they're supposed to know everything, right? And they're terrified. They're terrified, because they're like, someone's gonna find out, someone's gonna find out that I don't know everything. And when I can say, hey, I today, give you permission to not know everything. And also it's so much cooler when you don't, because then you can have that shared leadership. And also you can, you can develop others too, by letting them take the wheel a little bit like actually, I don't know that. Can you help us out with that? And to me, it provides such a greater opportunity for connection and team building anyway, to come with that. So thanks you both for sharing those perspectives, especially right now, where people are so skittish with Dei, they don't even want to say Dei. And I've said, I don't know, I think I said it at least six times. Y'all said it a few times. So

Kara  24:06  
we're gonna be flying here somewhere.

Cindy  24:07  
No lightning bolt yet. Not yet. Not yet. Come

Shawna  24:30  
on. Oh boy. So Cindy, tell us what resounding love is before I like, give it away in

Cindy  24:53  
my silly excitement. Yes, you're in a person to solve, and that's okay.

Speaker 1  24:58  
Oh, I might. I might. I know you're kind of okay,

Cindy  25:01  
queen, well, resounding, love is another place in our lives where Kara and I are sort of joined at the hip. We're both involved with this organization, and it is a social justice organization in the form of a choir. But we're not just any choir. We are an explicitly and intentionally multiracial, interfaith, LGBTQIA, embracing choir that sings music from the African American musical traditions. So spirituals, gospel, RnB, soul, social movement and protest songs. And because we are a multiracial, multicultural choir, there are certain things that we make required in our choir, and one of them is we all engage collectively in anti racism practice to make sure that we're singing this music with integrity and honoring it appropriately, particularly those of us who are not black or African American,

Shawna  25:58  
yeah, oh My gosh. I just I love this so much. I would love also for you to explain to listeners who might not be so familiar with anti racist practices and who might also be like, hold on a second, if I'm not black, if I'm not African American, and I wanted to be in something like this, how in the heck could I do it without getting in trouble? Because isn't that cultural appropriation,

Cindy  26:22  
such good questions. I'll chime in and Kara definitely want your perspective in here as well. Kara's the board chair and a singing member of the choir as well. So you know, when I say an anti racism practice, what I mean is changing your behaviors, changing your outlook, changing the way that you think, to be aware of the dynamics in our society, the privileges and the power that we all hold, however those land on our the different axes of our beings, and just pledging to yourself and to your Fellow choir members that you will do what you can to create a more equitable and inclusive world. What that looks like in the choir is we come together in various permutations, one of them being racial caucusing. That's a practice that we engage in probably about once a month, where we will actually sit in groups according to our racial identities and go to different areas of the house, because we practice at my co CEOs home. And those who identify as Black or African American will sit together. The white folks will sit together. Those who are European American, right? And then there are there's a group for those of us who identify as Asian or Asian American, and we now have a nascent Latino, Hispanic, Mexican origin, small group. And for those who aren't familiar with the practice of racial caucusing, it really is each group having the safety and the privacy to do their own work away from the gaze of the others, and to do the work that's incumbent on that racial group. So for our white siblings, it's really about examining the way that they show up in a choir that centers the African American traditions and experiences. And what does that mean about taking up space? What does that mean about grabbing for lots of air time? What does that mean about subsuming your own ways of learning and singing music in order to sing the way that the music demands to be sung, which is really new and sometimes anxiety producing for some of our white members, for our black folks, it can be about healing together, about looking for ways to support each other in wellness practices or even grappling with tough topics like colorism. And how does that show up, even within our choir or within black folks in society? And then, for those of us who are people of color that are not black, what does it mean for us to be in a choir that is based on African American musical traditions, not our own. How do we lean into learning cultural humility while also holding that we have, at times, lots of privilege and power from being white adjacent white passing and all kinds of things like that car. What would you add?

Kara  29:16  
Yeah, I think Cindy and Marshawn, her co CEO, have done a really wonderful job of kind of creating the container around the organization with a really clear vision and mission and values. And when folks are coming into the choir, there is kind of a vetting and an onboarding, like, yes, there's the musical audition. But actually what's more important is, are you aligned with our values, and then we work really hard around accountability, and Cindy and Marshawn also do an amazing job of modeling that and actually pointing out when they make mistakes. And I will say we all inquire. It's very normal that we are making mistakes and talking about it, or having kind of. Of awkward moments, or we're noticing power dynamics, and we're blessed to have many therapists in the group as well. I don't know if that's part of the magic, but we're not afraid to call a timeout and say, what's happening right now? You know, wow, this thing happened, or there's this conflict here, and do we need repair? And so it is joyful, and there's a lot of laughter and a lot of hugging and radical welcome. But it's also a place where humility is required, where you do need to put in the work. So if there is a kind of a acclimation process, I think, for folks that are joining because the bar is really high. To have the privilege of singing this music, you can't just do it from the head up, and you need To put your heart into it in many ways, wonderful.

Shawna  31:00  
Now I'd love to know a little bit more about this acclimation period, because I can imagine it could be a shock when you're like, oh my gosh, I freaking love gospel music. I love spirituals. This is gonna be amazing. I'm totally gonna audition. This is gonna be so cool. And then you show up, you're like, Yeah, I totally am down with all of your values. Like, that's me too. Yes, I can't wait. I'm gonna do it. And then you dive in there. And then there's one of those pause moments, like, hey, let's examine what's going on. I wonder what it might be like for a person as they're like, oh, wait, this is what this means. This is what the work is. I'm doing. Air quotes. What is this work? Can you share a little bit more about this acclimation period and what you've witnessed or how you've worked through some of this with some of your folks,

Cindy  32:30  
yeah, well, for sure, I think you know, the portrayal of gospel music in our society has been mostly through the lens of things like Sister Act Two, right? Where people say that and they're like, oh, Whoopi Goldberg in robes and clapping, that looks like a lot of fun. And I think just the natural segregation of our society means a lot of people who are not African American don't have avenues to see that music in its natural environment. And so it can be that people enter into it with a limited understanding. This was certainly true for me, when I encountered gospel music for the first time, when I was in college and singing this music on one level, I would say for a lot of people, the struggle is fully embodying the music. And by that, what I mean is people who might have grown up in a church or even singing choral music are used to, like Carl said, singing from the neck up or right, singing from the head up, and not moving their bodies, or not fully letting the music move through their entire body. And there's an abandon that singing these styles of music requires of the singer that can be very hard to find if you don't come from cultures or environments where that was okay and that was encouraged, and that was something that I certainly struggled with when I was starting out as a singer. But I do think, yeah, just coming to our orientation sessions or our open enrollment info sessions and hearing that, yes, we're a choir, but more than that, we're a community, and we really, really care about each other, and that requires us to do the work with a capital W and car mentioned. You know, we don't just brush things under the rug. We call out those dynamics, we call out those ouch moments. We name them because the safety of each and every one of us, particularly those who have multiple marginalized identities in our society, that is of the utmost importance, and that is something that we hold so sacred, that we are willing to have those uncomfortable conversations, always grounded in love, always grounded in we see the best and highest form of you, and we honor that, and we want you to honor that as well. And this is where you're falling short. Yeah,

Shawna  34:38  
yeah, no, I respect that. So y'all, I was called out once by Yeah, this is, this is kind of a tough story to tell, but I think I'm ready to tell it. I shared it with Cindy once, and I don't share this like people don't get to hear this, but I think it's really important for people to know that even when. You are a person in this space, and by the space, I mean diversity, equity, inclusion, if you are a leader of some kind, a thought leader, if you are helping guide people a certain way that just as we said earlier, you know you don't have to know everything, and certainly you're susceptible to making mistakes. And I did this. So here we go. Some years ago, I was living in Korea, and I was classroom teacher then, and some of my friends wanted to take a Bella dancing class, and they needed an extra person because the class couldn't be held unless it met a minimum number of participants. And they were like, come on, Shawna, you gotta get I was like, there is no way. There is no kind of way I'm gonna do this, because in my head, I have a picture of what belly dancing is, right? And eventually they talked me into it, because it was only gonna be like four classes, and I didn't wanna be the one person that kept them from doing this. Turns out I loved this. I fell in love with it so much that my other friends who were the ones like, Come on, we need you to be the one so that we can do the class, because she's not going to hold the class. They went on about their life, and I signed up for the next class and the next class, the next class. Well, there was a point where our teacher started to prepare us for performances, but before we could even dance, we had to sit on the floor, listen to the drums, understand what each one of those beats meant. We were doing finger cymbals. We had to learn how that worked, why this worked. We learned about costuming, why people who did Egyptian belly dance dress differently from those in other countries or other cultures. And so it was very intentional, the way she taught us. Well, I got so like, Look at me. I'm belly dancing. Look I got my costume, and I started to get really into what was called tribal fusion. And it was so cool in my mind. I loved it. It was different than what's called the oriental style. It has got this tribal feel to it, but it's fusion, where you are putting it with maybe pop music, in a way, it's, it's really super cool, but it was crossing that line of what is actually authentic and what is not. And I also was kind of feeling myself. Y'all didn't know, but my body shape was a little different in those days. You know? I was like, okay, and one of the ladies in my troop, she and I got this great idea that we were gonna hold our own hofla. And so we, we did. We made the arrangements, and what it came down to was this, we just wanted to perform because we, we were having fun. We thought, why wouldn't other people think it's fun. It's so neat and different, you know? So my teacher got a hold of this and reamed us. Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are? What is it that you think you know? You get a couple of lessons and you think you know everything. And here's the fun part. She's a white woman from Australia, but for her, she is like, I've lived in these places. I have grown in these places. I don't even just randomly decide to do a thing. You've gotta have respect. It is okay for you to do this, but you need to do this in the right way, and what you did was not the right way. And I was just like, oh my god, so ashamed, so ashamed. And it really made me rethink my approach. Why was I doing this dancing? Was I doing it just because it was fun? Was I doing it just because I got to wear costumes or because I got to make other people entertained? I was not in a position where I should have taken that upon myself, and it was a hard lesson to learn, but I learned that, and I understand when people go to a country and they get their hair braided and they get beads because they think it's really cool, and I think there's a fine line between cultural sharing and cultural appropriation, which is why I asked, How do you help people sort of get beyond, like, first of all, is it okay for me to do this? And second, where's that line of appreciation and sharing versus taking on separation? Isn't your stone?

Kara  39:16  
Well, just thank you so much for sharing that I so appreciate it, because I think the really the world needs more sharing of our mistakes as a way to just learn that there's no way to do the work without screwing up regularly. And I like to joke that, you know, I have adult children that are pretty smart and pretty with it, and I get called out a lot by them in my mouth about this thing this week, and so it's developing kind of the tough skin. Yeah,

Cindy  39:49  
when you brought up the appropriation thing, and I know I didn't answer this earlier, but yeah, want to echo cars thanks in your vulnerability and courage to share that because playing the cultural. Fool stories is common to all of us who have really done this enough to step in it, right? You stepped in it, and that's everyone who's really trying is going to step in it. And you know, we just need to normalize that it's not the end of your life when that happens, and it's an opportunity to learn and grow. And so I just want to appreciate you again. But when I think about appropriation, the phrase that always comes to my mind, and I wish I could claim this someone else spoke, it is follow the money. And if you are buying something because you think it's beautiful, and that money goes to a native artist or an artisan who comes from a culture where that is something that is part of their traditions, and you are feeding into their economy, and you're supporting their livelihood with your appreciation. To me, I would rather that you do that than to not do it. And I know others have different points of view about this. When I think about our choir, and I think about the fact that there are those of us in this choir who are not black or African American, and no, this is not our art form from our cultural heritage, but we are doing our damnedest to appreciate it, to sing it with honor and integrity. And we are also doing the work of anti racism, of interrogating our own biases, of interrogating our own ways of thinking and behaving in this world and the dues that we pay all of us go to support the black and people of color leadership of this choir, right? So when I say, follow the money, I say, your dues, the dues that I pay, right? That all of us pay into this choir are going, not only to pay the salaries of our part time staff, all of whom are people of color, people of the global majority. But they also enable our operations as a choir. They enable us to go and sing in places in our community where people are the most forgotten. They're the furthest from entertainment, they're the furthest from care, they're the furthest from resources. We make it a point every year to go to sing to people who are experiencing homelessness, to incarcerated populations, immigrants and refugees, right? And that is just part of the DNA of our choir, because we know there, but for the grace of God, go all of us. And so I guess my long answer to the appropriation versus appreciation question is, when you support something like resounding love, either by being a dues paying member or being someone who comes to one of our concerts and makes a donation or supports us as a volunteer or someone some other fashion, you're really channeling those resources through us, into the community and to our members. So that would be my perspective on that.

Kara  42:41  
And what I would add is we're really a black led organization in many ways, with dispersed leadership. So although Cindy and Marshawn are co CEOs, and Marshawn identifies as African American as the choir director, we have an assistant choir director and a whole team of section leaders that identify mostly as African American, who are truly the heart of the organization, and I think, keep us honest about singing with integrity, calling out when we're not singing with integrity, or telling us we need to do better and really helping us understand the meaning of the music. I think if we didn't have that, it would be appropriation, honestly. So it it has to have that leadership piece

Cindy  43:31  
100% and Marchand is so masterful and has a laser focus, I would call it on making sure that we understand to the extent possible, the lyrics of the songs that we are singing, and they're about the full range of the human experience, right? There's suffering and there's trauma and there's joy and there's uplift and there's triumph, and to honor that fullness of the experience is to embody the music. Is to let it go through you. Is to give yourself over to being in a collective, to being in a community that's singing all of these things together. And so yeah, I just have to say, even though he's not here on this podcast, I would not be here without Marshawn guidance and hand of wisdom, I would not be where I am as a practitioner, where I am as a human. So I really just want to give credit where credit is due that this was co created by the two of us, but his artistic and sort of heart stamp is all over this organization from the very beginning,

Shawna  44:39  
I truly appreciate this idea of the collective being part of a group, not, you know, standing out in one way, but understanding that this truly is a community. You.

Shawna  45:12  
Could either of you, or both of you, just say a little bit about the intersectional aspect of your choir? I'd love for you to share about that a bit.

Kara  45:23  
Yeah, the choir really is the chosen family for a lot of folks. We have a number of folks in the choir that identify as LGBTQ or trans, and they have been rejected from their faith communities. And, you know, may have some desire to sing gospel, but haven't found a place. So it's both the music and this kind of radical community. I mean, I get more hugs on Saturday rehearsals than I do the whole rest of the week. It's just this place where people are excited to see you. There is this sense that, like people miss you if you're not there, they're curious about what you're up to. There is caring for members that are experiencing hardship, who have lost someone in their family, or maybe not getting their social social security check this month, or whatever it is, and we help each other out

Cindy  46:20  
and all of this, I think, just ladders up to the fact that we are not your typical choir. Marchand could have been leading any choir in the world and taking them to Carnegie Hall. You know, that's how artistically accomplished he is. He's opera trained. Has all sorts of degrees, so much experience, but this is a community that happens to sing as well. And, you know, the other thing that I'll mention is this was another piece of my learning. You know, when I started out calling it a gospel choir, and in many circles that I moved in, I would describe it as a gospel choir. And Marshawn and I had a series of conversations where he helped me see that even the term gospel, which was, you know, something that I felt comfortable using. I grew up in the church, and I felt comfortable calling resounding love that he said, Even that can be a really triggering and harmful term for people who have been ostracized, people who have been demonized and sent out into the world by quote, unquote, gospel environments. And so, you know, my learning continues apace in the squire, thanks to Marchand and others who are so generous with with helping me learn. And again, just examine my own ways of being, my default ways of being. So, yeah, just very, very grateful. It's an incubator. Y'all,

Shawna  47:38  
I want to join this choir so bad

Speaker 1  47:41  
I'm all the way across the country. I would love to be part of this community. I

Shawna  47:45  
don't even know if I'd make the audition. Listen, Kara, I do sing all the time. I didn't say I do well, but I did grow up in the choir. I was in three choirs my senior year, yeah, my senior year was so I people are like, in high school, I'm like, I freaking loved it. I was in African dance for my PE credit. I was playing cello. Because why not? I was like, I just want to learn. So I learned how to play cello. I accompanied two choirs, sang in the swing choir, and then I had Spanish, wow. Just because, well, I mean, I had to have my credit so, you know, I got that. But I just love the whole concept of what it is that you all are doing. I love the community aspect of it. I love that you're a community that happens to sing. I think it's just, it's truly beautiful. So it's just an honor, really, for me to have you both on here talking about this, especially because there are folks right now who need to hear this, that there are communities even even if they don't live where you are, maybe there's an opportunity for other folks to come together, and even if it's not singing, maybe there's some other sort of aspect of art that people can come together and welcome one another, provide a sense of belonging where there has been none, or where there has been very little, and belonging is my jam, that like that's the thing above all else, because I know what it is to not belong, that it hurts me when people don't. So I love you all for what you're doing. I think it's amazing. Thank you so much.

Shawna  49:16  
You I guess the last thing I would ask is, what advice would you give to folks who really are in the betwixt, right? We don't fit here. We don't fit there. Some folks just feel like, which racial caucus Do I go to? Which group can I join? How can I be accepted into a place? What would you say to folks who don't fit neatly into one given space? Yeah? Yeah, what comes

Kara  50:00  
to mind is, you're not alone. There are many of us, and I feel like more every day, that don't fit neatly in any kind of box. And fitting in a box is not the point. The other thing I'd say is, even in my 50s, after a lot of self reflection and work and thinking about these things a lot, I still get that feeling like, should I go to an Asian caucus? Am I going to fit in? Are people going to look at me and that's really human, and so I would just kind of normalize that maybe we're never going to get over those kind of awkward feelings, and it's okay to take a chance and to step in whatever that baby step is, we're probably feeling it a lot more than other people. Often you're not alone, yeah,

Shawna  50:50  
I think human nature makes us want to feel like we have to be in a certain space, or things have to be defined exactly. But when you're living the life where there is no clear definition, there's not that binary, so to speak.

Kara  51:07  
And I think there are gifts in it, you you have a kind of superpower, because I think you can see and perceive more than a lot of other people, because you're so constantly attuned to it. So also, find your superpower.

Shawna  51:22  
Find your superpower. Young, there you go.

Shawna  51:37  
Well, thank you so much. I would love for listeners to know a little bit more about resounding love. Where can they find information? Just so they could check you guys out and see what you're doing. Fine. If people want

Kara  51:48  
to find me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn would be great. I'm trying to move away from meta.

Cindy  51:54  
Oh, but you have a website? Well, if you want to

Kara  51:56  
put in the bio or however, it's Heartwood collective.net, is where you can find me. Yeah, come find us. Thank you so much for this opportunity. This was a lot of fun. Thank you,

Speaker 1  52:10  
Shawna, thank you too. I really appreciate you both. You

Shawna  52:27  
Cindy, Kara, thank you both so much for sharing your wisdom, your vulnerability and your voices with us and for listeners. If this conversation moved you, I hope that you'll take a moment to learn more about the resounding love interfaith Gospel Choir, you can visit resounding love center for the arts.org, or find them on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. I want to give special recognition to Marshawn Moultrie, co founder and artistic director of resounding love. His musical leadership, spiritual grounding and deep commitment to anti racism are central to everything this community represents. You'll find links to the featured songs in the show notes. As I was in the process of editing this particular episode, I went to go see the movie sinners, which weaves blues music into its storytelling in such a visceral way, it stayed with me. It was masterful and artful the way the film leans into the blues reminded me of something deeper. Black Music is the foundation from spirituals to gospel to blues and onward to jazz, soul, rock, hip hop. Black Music has always carried the weight and beauty of lived experience. It transcends time and genre, yet it remains rooted in the ancestral and emotional power of black expression. It holds space for grief, protest, celebration and praise all at once, and that's what you've heard in this episode, too. Music as memory, music as movement, music as community. Until next time, stay curious, stay connected and keep embracing your true colors. Spread the Love y'all. I'll talk to you soon.

Intro  54:16  
You've been listening to our true colors. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai