B MERIKLE
Matrilineal Knowledge and the Magic of Liminal Space

In this episode, I’m talking to artist and activist B Merikle. In their “day job” they work as a non-profit executive director, challenging anti-Blackness everywhere that they hold space and lead groups. B’s heart-centered work is profoundly informed by the women that came before them. B intentionally seeds liberation in all that they do, with eyes focused on the coming harvest. B says that they believe deeply in the power of stark contrast — trauma and pleasure — to create new Black futures that free us all.

“Pardon my language, but it’s a literal goddamned miracle that most Black people in this country who are descendants of the Middle Passage actually even exist. And I wanted to show people [through my work] what that miracle meant, embodied, in real time.” —B Merikle

Our conversation happened during Lughnasa (harvest season) in 2021.

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GUEST INFO

B Merikle works in the non-profit sector as an executive director. They received their Master of Education in student development administration from Seattle University and their Bachelor of Science from Cornell University. Their life work has focused on correcting systems failing to provide opportunities for Black and Brown achievement; B has spent decades calling the question on racial justice and shifting power in ways that redefine and reclaim agency and power stripped away from communities like the border town of El Paso, TX where B was born. A joyful intersectionalist that always starts with race, they center creative play and pleasure in their work as a community leader, artist, and activist.

SHOW NOTES

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