Katherine Acey - Will the Elders Please Stand? | S1 E03
Katherine Acey, 65 years old, is a life-long radical social change activist who has stood up, with love, to fight intersecting injustices, whether they’re about gender, race, class or other fissures.
She was the Executive Director of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice for over 20 years. She’s been an unstoppable force for creating funding and attention for LGBTQ priorities for many decades and, most recently, was the Executive Director of the GRIOT Circle, a people of color LGBTQ elders organization.
Now, a senior research fellow at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, Katherine is exploring a new topic, “What’s Age Got to Do With It?”. Want to find out? Listen to our interview with Katherine now!
+ TRANSCRIPT
Idelisse Malavé and Joanne Sandler: Welcome to Two Old Bitches, I’m Idelisse Malavé, And I’m Joanne Sandler, and we are two old bitches! We are interviewing our women friends, and women who could be our friends. Listen as they share stories about how they reinvent themselves.
Idelisse: Hi, Joanne!
Joanne: Hi Idelisse!
Idelisse: Today we have the enormous pleasure of introducing you to Katherine Acey.
Joanne: Katherine is someone who we've both known for a really long time. In fact, the three of us were at the Beijing World Conference on Women together in 1995. Do you remember that far back, Ide?
Idelisse: I do, actually. My memory is still intact for that period.
Joanne: So Katherine was the executive director of the Australia Lesbian Foundation for Justice, and then left there after --had to be close to three decades.
Idelisse: And then went to work with the GRIOT Circle. She's also a senior research fellow now at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, and she's a lifelong activist.
Joanne: So it was a real surprise to me when we interviewed her. And you're going to hear this-- about how much she has been thinking about love. So why don't we listen?
What's the source of your power?
Katherine: Well, that's a tough question. The source of my power… I would say the people in my life, my relationships, um, my friendships, my collegial, my political relationships. Um, give me a source of power in a sense of self. I think the relationships are the most important things in my life, and I try to nurture and cherish those relationships and there's many of them.
Idelisse: What do you draw from those relationships?
Katherine: Well first I draw lots of love and caring. I've think about love and…I’ve done a few talks recently and I think about love is very revolutionary, and how important it is to talk about love much more than we do. And not just in the context of our family or our partners, if we have a partner, but just, you know, the love of justice- the love of other people who we don't know as well as those we’re so close to and those we have intimacy.
Joanne: So how did you come to that space of honoring love in the context of also standing up against injustice?
Katherine: It's not that I don't have anger and that I haven't had flashes of real, like almost close to hate, but I just feel like somebody loves that person. Like somebody hopes so—somebody loves Donald Trump. You know? So I think from an early age, I learned a lot about kindness in love growing up. Not that everything was perfect— because it wasn't. And I also feel that I, you know, I grew up Catholic, and I learned a lot through the nuns and some of the priests. I know it's a contradiction. It was only later on in life that I felt there was a certain hypocrisy among some of the folks with some of the teachings, but you know, the core value of love and faith… and I think of it as faith in yourself and faith in other people. So I think that's where some of that came from. And, you know, when you were fighting for justice and against so many things, and you're working side by side with people who may irritate you from time to time, but you have a lot— you have to have a lot of love and caring, um, just to sustain you. And also that you have to have joy. It's not that I don't have the capacity to get angry, but mostly I get sad about the injustices. And so that also moves me to this place of love. That's where I see it differently. And so it's almost like I have to fight harder with love. So that feels like an attitudinal or a different kind of consciousness.
Idelisse: I was thinking of you working—or worked on a project called “What’s Age Got to Do with It?” Am I right?
Katherine: Yeah. I, after leaving Australia, did some different projects. I also got quite ill, and I'm fine now. As I was healing, I was contacted by GRIOT Circle, an LGBT people of color elders group based here in Brooklyn, to see if I could come in and help. They were going through a transition, and could I come in temporarily as an interim director and help them out. I had no idea that I would end up being a more permanent director full-time for two and a half years. And actually I'm going on three years now that I'm still doing some advice with them. So I was pulled into this elders group. I mean, I knew it was age. Age didn't seem to be, you know, it wasn't a big issue for me. It was like, okay, I turned 60, I turned 62. Isn't this curious? (laughter) I would think of it more as a curiosity, you know? And now I'm working with this elders group.
Idelisse: So how well does one have to be, to be an elder?
Katherine: Well, I'll tell you my first encounter with being labeled, or categorized, as an elder happened actually in my early fifties.
Joanne: Okay, wait a minute. They said elders are 50? If elders are 50, what are we?
Katherine: Elderly! (laughter) I was at a Color of Violence conference. It was the big insight conference, several thousand women. I was sitting in the auditorium in Chicago and the Native American women came out to start with the ritual and the welcome and the blessing. And they said, we'd like to start by honoring our elders. I thought, well, isn't that nice? (laughter) And so they said would everyone who is 50 and older please stand. And I was like, you know, I was a little stunned. I was like, I was sitting on my chair and I kind of halfway got up and then, you know, like I'll just stand up. And it was just one of those...oh, you know, I laughed about it.
I have spent the last 12 summers in Martha's Vineyard in North Bluffs. I started last summer going to the senior center, which is across the park from us. It was two summers ago. My dear friend, Dorothy, who is now 101. So two years ago, she was saying, “Why don't you come to the senior center? You know, do the exercise class? On Thursday I'm going to go on my-I'm going to ride my bike.” I never went, I sometimes would pick her up or take her there, but didn't go into the senior center. And I was running essentially what was a senior organization. So last summer my back went out and I couldn't ride my bike when I got to the vineyard. So they said, why don't you come to the exercise class? And so I did, I did. And then I got hooked. So me and Dorothy and her daughter Linda would go to the exercise there, three times a week. And I just loved it. And I was not the youngest one in the class, but I wasn't the oldest. So there were men and women in their, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and then Dorothy, who is a hundred. And so I think of that, oh, wow! I had such empathy also for the director of the center. So I would go talk to her and it was like, “oh, you're running the center?” You know? But I loved those. I said, I can't wait… I'm going right across to the senior center three times a week. I can’t wait to get there.
Joanne: Embracing your new personhood!
Katherine: I didn't think about it again…as being an elder. I mean, I knew I was older. When I left Australia I was probably the oldest person there by about 14 years.
Joanne: Really?
Katherine: And I'd been very intentional and trying to really make sure that we were inclusive and diverse in many ways, but also age. But I didn't mean to exclude older people. (laughter) So that was also something I have to reflect on, you know? Being at GRIOT though, we'd be sitting, developing programs and I was meeting all of these predominantly older African-American women. I started to say, you know, I'm working with elders, of which I am one! (laughter) That would be like, no matter where I was, I would say that. I learned so much and still learning, you know, being, at GRIOT just made me more self-aware of issues around aging, who gets to age in a more comfortable way. Who's challenged. I learned a lot of facts, for example, for LGBT people. It's very different, particularly for those in their 60s 70s, 80s, 90s, who grew up in a time when there was such tremendous discrimination— and there still is—but different. Then if you are a person of color and a woman or trans, and so you had these double, triple discriminations, and so you were often hiding. When I first went to GRIOT, I also learned how, you know, older people had to be in a nursing home, had to go back into the closet. Then if there wasn't enough community around, so that whole isolation… and so I just learned a lot and it made me rethink how I was thinking aging.
Joanne: How have your identities changed over all that time?
Katherine: Oh my goodness. My identity has been changing my whole life. I mean, you know, there's some things that are pretty static, but I think as I've been doing some public speaking, I have talked about, you know, I came to my feminism very late. I was in my late twenties.
Idelisse: (Laughter) You consider that very late? That’s really cute!
Joanne: (Laughter) That’s funny!
Katherine: …because I was an activist from when I was like a teen—an adolescent— to come to my feminism so late, you know? But I attribute that partly to the fact that I was in an all-girls high school in college. My identity was really much more around class and race and peace and justice. You know, I grew up in a time when things were very black and white, so, you know, I am Arab American, Lebanese, and a touch Irish, shall we say? And, but I grew up in a time where, you know, there wasn't this term in this category of people of color, so I thought I was white. I thought I was different. I thought, I should say it was universal actually, but you know, when pushed. So my racial identity of my own and ethnic identity took lots of developing and evolving. So there is some shame in that I didn't claim it more, but I was actually an activist around racial justice, which was around anti-black racism. Now, as we're talking, and we're talking about, you know, old ladies, right? So figuring out who I am as this older person— and I don't feel like tormented or tortured. I do sometimes figure out… when they do the actuaries, like how much time do I have left? If I don't get hit by a car? I do! (laughter) I'm like, okay, you're 65, you're going to be 66 and you were a smoker. Maybe you have 15 years? Oh, maybe not. …I kind of laugh it off.
Joanne: When it comes to women's rights, when it comes to queer rights, there's been this huge leap forward that you've been a part of. Do you feel that you ever feel like I can kind of rest on my laurels now because so much has moved forward and I've been…privileged?
Katherine: Absolutely not.
Joanne: You don't feel that way?
Katherine: I did not feel that way.
Joanne: Ever?
Katherine: No.
Joanne: So what do you feel?
Katherine: I can sometimes feel pride. I feel tremendous pride that, like an organization like Astraea, (and) others have stuck to their values. Their core values are surviving. They're still speaking truth to justice, so I can feel pride. I don't feel anyone should be resting. …I feel like maybe, okay so I'll give you a difference. I'm going to go to a demonstration. I might not walk those 10 miles. I have to admit…I've been to many demonstrations, as we all have many in the past few years. We need to keep going out there. But you know, on one of those cold February nights I went to that demonstration and I was like, okay, I've been here an hour. I'm going home now to have dinner. It's eight o'clock, I'm going home. I've been to demonstrations in warmer weather, whereas like, I'm not doing that walk. I will stand on the sidelines or I'll walk for a few blocks and then I'll meet you, you know, take the train down.
Joanne: A lot of the people we worked with, you know, they weren't building big 401k plans. No, we were working. We were doing social justice work. When did you start thinking about how that group of people was going to age, and what we could do together to change? Yeah.
Katherine: So I think it was always just kind of fleeting thought, oh, we've got to, you know, we're in our forties, we're in our fifties, we're not going to be able to retire. Oh, okay. Well think about it. (Laughter) It's like, okay, okay.
Idelisse: (Laughter) Okay, alright, we’re not going to retire! Let’s go to work tomorrow.
Joanne: (Laughter) We’re having a good time anyway. Okay.
Katherine: Better take out that $2,000 IRA…see if we can get the board to put in a pension plan now. At Astraea we did put in a pension plan, but it was once there were more staff, and I was thinking, oh, I mean, I was already well into my forties. All right. And you know, now I advise young people and I encourage nonprofits, everyone, even the smallest ones to put in, even the smallest pension plan, smallest, and, you know, and to young people who may not be making very much money to put $25 in a month. Don't go to that…or whatever it is, you know, to do that. I mean, I do have that mantra. So it's not that we didn't think about it. We didn't focus on it though. …It was like, oh yeah, we need to do that. And it'd be like, okay, it's kind of like what I said earlier, oh, we need to plan. Now where are we going to live? Are a group of us going to sit down and figure out how we're going to maybe get a building together or—
Joanne: Right. Or build a community…
Katherine: one of these different…
Idelisse: Co-housing.
Katherine: …Like, oh yeah, we got to do that. And it, you know, you go to the demonstration, you go to the job…and it's like, oh dear. So I don't know what, you know, holds us back from planning how to live out these longer lives we have with what resources are needed, who we want to do that with, and then what's there available, but there's no models. So how do we break through? How do we start creating some of our own models and talking to each other about what they are? Not just talking about what we're going to do, or, oh, woe is me, but let's do it. I mean, we're activists, you know, many of us are activists. Okay. So let's do it. This is about us now.
Joanne: Let’s act. Right? Let's create something that doesn’t already exist. Because probably what exists isn't going to serve us.
Katherine: Yeah. So I'm, I'm kind of figuring…I'm in process around this aging thing I realize. It goes into my own self-interest, but in my community of friends and family, to figure out this aging in how we're going to take care of each other in ourselves. Right? So that would be something.
Idelisse: It's interesting that Katherine says that because you and I, Joanne, were with her in the apartment. Not only was her sister living in this building, but remember? It turned out a few other friends…and they had all gotten together when this building had been rehabbed and they were just opening it. And they bought in together. So not quite owning a building, but they started experimenting their way into creating some kind of co-housing.
Joanne: Kind of utopian and really unusual for New York City.
Idelisse: It really is. It really is. And I have to say, it's also beautiful.
Joanne: Very. Let's hear more from Katherine.
Idelisse: So sometimes we ask, right, these silly, slightly silly, questions. So imagine they're making a movie out of the incredible Katherine Acey saga. Who would play you?
Katherine: Who would play (me)? Ah God… well, they’d have to be short, I guess, right? They'd have to have really curly hair.
Joanne: Could you tell us what the final scene would be?
Katherine: When you said that I, you know what flashed in my mind? I'm just going to say what flashed in my mind…people standing around the cemetery, but I don't even want to be buried. I want to be cremated. Um, what would the final scene be? A dance party.
Joanne: Where? Outside, inside?
Katherine: Well, that’s a great idea. I didn't think about that. Yeah. It could be outside under a tent.
Joanne: Outside under a tent. Dance party.
Katherine: Martha's vineyard.
Joanne: Nice. At the senior center.
Katherine: No, on the lawn…on the big lawn where they do the fireworks in Oak Bluffs. Yep. Right. Looking out at the ocean.
Joanne: Okay, so it's the final scene.
Katherine: …With grilling on the side.
Joanne: There's a huge dance party.
Katherine: There are hot dogs.
Joanne: There are hot dogs.
Katherine: …veggie burgers too ‘cause, you know.
Joanne: There's joy. There's joy in love. You're dancing, I assume.
Katherine: Yeah. Yeah.
Joanne: What are you dancing to? What's the music that's playing?
Katherine: Big Lovely, Toshi Reagon. Lovely.
Joanne: Aw the big lovely. Thank you, Katherine.
Katherine: Thank you.
Idelisse: For information about Catherine, please visit our website to twooldbitches.com.
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Idelisse: And don't forget.
Joanne and Idelisse: Nurture your bitchy self!
