P3 Podcast Sexual & Reproductive Health with EBY Participants (DRAFT)

2:44PM Oct 19, 2023

Speakers:

Sue Watson

Robert Lee

Justin

Isis

Quincy

Keywords:

reproductive health

sexual health

quincy

youth

black

conversation

isis

community

systems

perspective

impacted

public health

justin

program

music

question

sexual

influence

open

joined

Welcome to a special edition of People.Power.Perspectives. The podcast where we're talking to youth who are overcoming system inequities to achieve just outcomes.

Hi, and welcome to this episode of People.Power.Perspectives. I'm Sue Watson with CA4Health. We're collaborating with the Empowering Black Youth program on a special series of podcasts. So we're excited to have Justin Boyle with us here today to lead the moderation of this session on sexual and reproductive health with some of the EBY participants. Justin is a student at the University of San Francisco and also an intern with EBY. Justin, take it away.

Yeah, so thank you for that introduction, Sue. Like you said, I'm Justin, I'm a first year business student at the University of San Francisco. And today, I'm joined by two of my fellow black youth, and we're going to have a conversation, a brief conversation about reproductive and sexual health. So yeah, I would like to turn it over to my two peers and let them introduce themselves.

Hi, I'm Isis. I'm a behavior technician. I'm 22 years old and I decided to join EBY as a way to like initiate more conversation. And just so that we have more to say, in our community, and we have more advocacy.

I am Quincy, Casey, I'm 21 years old. I'm a student as well, Business Marketing major started joined EBY because it seemed like a program where there can be some interconnectivity between black youth and I just enjoy being with my fellow Black people.

All right, cool. So for this first question, to kind of break the ice. We're going to ask you for Quincy actually who talked to you about reproductive health before the EBY program? Was this information that they sharee impactful or helpful in anyway?

Before the EBY program, the information that I received about reproductive health came from I would say, my friends, family and schooling, I would say for the schooling aspect, it did help in some ways, but most of the information that I received from friends and family, because it was more personal, it was able to impact me a bit more. And that was quite useful at the time.

I see and then ISIS. Did you have anything to add to that? If I can restate the question, just basically, who taught you about reproductive health before joining this embracing black youth program? And also was the information impactful or helpful anyway?

I agree with Quincy, for me, it was more like in schools and educational institutions where like, they would have someone from outside just come and talk about sexual health and like the do's and don'ts, but they never really go into depth about how to like, take care of yourself and like how to actually like advocate for your health, especially being black. And out here. Like there's a lot of like stereotypes against Black health, and just like how to actually advocate for yourself can be difficult. Learning more about that now is definitely a challenge, but it's definitely worth it.

Okay, great. And then to transition some more talking about like the social environment that you guys come from, how big of a role do like your social environment play in your understanding about sexual health?

I would say really, like my home environment, me and my parents like, we have like that open kind of relationship where we can have that discussion of what's consent, and like, how to take care of our bodies, yearly pap smears and diseases, infectious diseases, and like viruses to be aware of.

Okay and then Quincy, did you have anything to add to that question about your social environments and how they foster your understanding of sexual health?

I would say friendships, as well as the community here at the EBY Program. Even though that's later on in life, it definitely has brought that knowledge back to my forefront, you know, just being able to have a group of other black youth in order to continue to share and develop that information. It definitely gives you a good perspective. And it just fosters that atmosphere of knowledge and acceptance as well.

Alright and then to transition this to more of a conversation about society and pop culture. How has explicit music or any genre of music for that point influenced your perspective on sexual and reproductive health? And for this one, we can start with Quincy.

I would say that coming from my own community, when it comes to things like rap music or things like that. There can be a lot of negative connotations when it comes to safe sexual practices or otherwise, but personally, it hasn't had an influence on me but I see that on the community. It can have some negative aspects, but you know, we do have to look at things as entertainment and we have to ourselves be able to be differentiate, what things are healthy for us and what are not just because it's said in the song, or it's given to us in an entertaining manner doesn't mean that, you know, we have to take in all the information and say, this is how I'm going to dictate my life. I would definitely once again say that music has a big influence on people's mindsets when it comes to certain sexual and reproductive health systems and well is how they operate on a day to day basis.

Definitely. And then ISIS, did you have anything to add to that?

I look at music kind of like TV, it can be unrealistic, it can be relatable, sometimes. It really depends on like, what kind of music you listen to, I listen to like hip hop, rap, r&b, pop music, and a lot of the music that I listen to can objectify women, but then there's also conscious rap. And that can talk about your community and like, how it's been affecting kind of like how Tupac was able to, like adjust drugs and gangs and like how being an American citizen at that time, has been very impactful on his life, when you look back on our music, like how it affects our community and our environment.

Okay cool and then we'll come into the end of it. This is our second to last question. But thinking about like your city, the cities that you either come from or SF right now, how have the public health systems impacted your life, specifically before you got into the EBY program, so things like the health department's of whatever city you you came from, or what they taught you in schools and things like that. So just prior to the EBY program can you give us a little bit of perspective, from like a systematic standpoint, how have you seen any impacts from those systems? And Isis you can start us off.

Well for me, it's been more like EBY has definitely impacted my perspective on like, how to, like, adjust public health, like how to advocate for myself and for others, and just like how to like, also protect how, I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought.

Oh no its all good. Okay, thanks. Actually, I'll re-ask the question, we can maybe start with Quincy. And then if he says anything that inspires you, we can go back from there. So I'm gonna restart the question. How have public health systems impacted your life before the EBY program, public health systems, thinking about things like your city's health department, education in public school systems and things like that?

Well, I came from Atlanta. So there aren't many public health systems there are that are readily accessible. But for the ones that were available, they were easy to use, at least were those that needed to do so. But I wish that they did have more of a focus on black youth and information as well. Yeah, before the EBY program, I just say that they weren't really specifically targeting black youth, which I feel like they could have done a better job at.

Yeah, and ISIS, I'm gonna open the floor to you if you have anything to add about how public health systems have impacted you before your involvement with the EBY program.

Umm having women health groups, as well as like being open to like visiting clinics and just learn more about how you can like protect yourself and have an open conversation about sexual reproductive health, and how to be aware was really just how public health systems impacted me.

Definitely. And then to take us into our last question, thinking from a more solution oriented aspect with us being the black youth and you know, eventually we're going to become the leaders of our communities. So what do you guys think the first step is that should be taken in properly educating specifically the black community on sexual and reproductive health, we can start off with ISIS.

I feel like a good step would be being more open, like inviting more people to like more social events. That definitely makes an influence. I grew up on Treasure Island. So like out there, just like no sort of the resources like that you had to come out to the city for it. We host a lot of social events. We had to actually like make that effort and like go out your way, making that application that you had to go out your way to advocate for you. I think that's very important.

Definitely. I totally agree with that. And then to transition into Quincy to finish us off.

Yeah, so I definitely agree with ISIS there while you guys are saying in regards to an open dialogue. I also believe that there needs to be an area of destigmatization of the conversation around STDs and STIs in the black community as a whole. And just you know, how we speak to each other about these things in order to create a sense of comfortability amongst each other to be able to move forward without that, you know, we're not going to be able to progress if everyones uncomfortable with certain topics, or they feel like they're being judged for wanting to be healthy or attempting to get treatment for certain things. And it needs to be able to be conversed about from the youth to the elderly smoothly and appropriately, you know, without judgment.

Yeah, I couldn't have said it any better myself. Just wanted to take this opportunity to thank ISIS and Quincy for joining us on this conversation about sexual and reproductive health in the black community. I also want to thank our friends at the Public Health Institute for giving us this platform to speak and express our minds from the black youth perspective. And I'd like to hand it over to Sue to take us out.

Justin, thanks to you and Quincy and ISIS. It's been really great hearing your perspectives today. We are excited for this collaboration with EBY on the series of podcasts and grateful that you all took the time to share such valuable insights. Thank you and thank everyone else for listening to another episode from CA4Health's People.Power.Perspectives Podcast.