Root to Rise: Ty Hobson-Powell on Activism, Wellness, & Radical Love
This interview is part of the Root to Rise conversation series hosted by Jacy Cunningham in February 2021, which explores the role wellness plays in activists’ lives as they work to uplift their communities and make history. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity, but you can watch the full conversation below on YouTube.
Jacy
I think it's important during this month to pay attention to how we see things, how we say things, and what we believe. I want to open up the space within this community to invite and celebrate all things wellness. Today, we have a conversation with Ty Hobson Powell. He's a D.C. activist, he's a friend of mine who also went to Howard University, the same university I went to. We're going to discuss everything when it comes to wellness and his activism.
How does he sustain his success? Because I think that's something that we often don't hear from people. We see their rise, we see their success, we see what they're doing in the world, and we often don't get that beautiful insight as to how they sustain it. Today, we're taking the opportunity to help us all understand how we need to sustain success. Because success sometimes isn't always sustainable in the ways in which we've been pushed to do them.
This conversation is about us reactivating a deeper understanding of where we need to be as a part of humanity. I think we've lost our way a little bit in certain forms, just based upon division and separation, which I understand. But in your work as an activist, you bring things together and that's a beautiful thing. You don't try to create the division and separation. You see it and you're like, wait a minute, where's the love in this? Where's the peace in this and how can we bring that in?
When we think about brilliance, we think about February being a month to celebrate brilliance and celebrate Black accomplishment and achievement. I think that you represent that so well. You've done the things that people didn't think you could do. You've done the things that the world said, "Hey, he'll never do that. He'll never accomplish it. They'll never be a Black person to do that." You did that and more. I applaud you on one hand for being just a beautiful brother doing beautiful things in the world. On the other hand, I will ask you to just introduce yourself — who is Ty Hobson Powell?
“I think that right now the world looks as careless as it does because we care less about each other than we should.”
Ty
Just a concerned citizen, literally. To your point, when I think about my revolution, I don't think that it's about radical politics as much as it is about radical love. I think that right now the world looks as careless as it does because we care less about each other than we should. We look at all of these lines of division — whether it's race, class, religion, whatever the case may be — and we don't really always see how it's holding us back from our higher purpose as one humanity.
Ants survive hurricanes because when they see that there is water about to rush, there's ants that make a level at the bottom that is like a ramp to allow the other ants to float. They said if you encounter a floating patch of ants not to come across it. These acts sacrifice for each other to keep themselves afloat amidst a hurricane that destroys humanity, even with all of these bricks they have built out. They maintain their existence on the lowest level.
We often think as humans that there are so many other animals that are lesser species than we are, but I argue that they're higher species. Because they figured out that their best chance of survival on this planet is oneness and sticking together in packs and in herds and building out based on their commonality. One ant would take forever to build an ant hill, but together they build a quick ant hill and it's really big. One ant can only carry so much; together they can carry things a million times their weight, right? So what would humanity's collective ant hill be if we put aside the division and just started putting our hands on something to work?
“I want us to be able to really embrace the idea that we are each other’s business.”
Space travel, curing cancer — all of this potential is limitless because we have so many great minds on earth right now that aren't even allowed to dream properly. That's who I am; I'm really just kind of like a dream activator in that sense. I want us to be able to really embrace the idea that we are each other's business. To encourage each other to be great, to be the best versions of ourselves, whatever that looks like. And then use that collective greatness to build some collective wins for all of us.
To your point, I went to school early. I graduated high school at 13, got my bachelor's at 15. I went to one of the most conservative universities in America — I went to Liberty University. The reason that I went is because one of my mentors told me if you're trying to separate a divide, go read your enemy's favorite book, because that'll tell you how to come and talk peace. How to come and talk negotiation. How to find the middle ground. I embedded myself in a hotbed of conservative activism because being on the other side of it, I said, "Okay, maybe there is or isn't a middle ground, but I'll never know unless I explore it." Right? And we sometimes have that fearlessness about being able to explore each other and being able to get to each other as friends, instead of as enemies, because that's ultimately what will allow us to move past a hateful past, move past our hateful history and into a brighter future.
This past summer in conjunction with so many amazing activists here in DC, I started a group called Concerned Citizens DC, which is leading the charge for a new social contract that is more inclusive of all the identities in the world, that is more accepting of all of the lived realities and truths in the world. And that's me at a glance. Oh yeah, and I'm about to be a dad.
Jacy
Congratulations, brother! Congratulations. That's dope.
One of the things that I've been focusing on in this month is really understanding history. I think that we deal with much more mystery than we believe, that history is like this beautiful representation of all the things that have come about to make us or to give us the space to be where we are today. And it's so beautiful to see someone that is so entrenched in the story right now, in the active story of history right now. I think we all contribute in our own way, but to see the new idea of that come out and — I'm 32 years old, you are what, 25?
Ty
25, yep.
Jacy
25. So to see the newer ideas of your generation, that is so radical. I call it that Burning Man type of love. Having gone to Burning Man as an experience, I never knew that love like that existed. I was like, “Oh my goodness, there is so much love that can exist around all these humans, thousands of people?” I think to your point, bringing people together and encouraging them to unite and to understand different perspectives and not to hate each other based upon the differences, but actually to hate nothing and to love all because that's what we really deserve. This month for me has been about digging into history to find more peace and clarity, to understand where we need to go. Because for me, it's all about keeping myself well.
In this conversation, what we really wanted to discuss was the wellness practices that help us all sustain our success, or help us all sustain our peace, or help us sustain anything at all. And so when it comes to your activism and it comes to what you do in the world, how do you sustain that energy? How do you sustain the get-up-and-go, to go out in the world and to say things and be things that a lot of people don't want to be and don't want to say?
Ty
First thing, take your damn vitamins. Okay? Vitamins. All the time on my IG story, I believe just as a child of parents that have been in health care that you have to be able to take care of yourself so that you may be positioned to pour from a full cup into the half empty cups of others. Wellness is diet, wellness is proper sleep, because this is work that is always going, right? The work of sort of fixing this road and bringing about this radical love is a non-stop job.
For me, I have a regular meditation routine that I do. Morning mindfulness, where before I even get into any level of work at the beginning of the day, I kind of just steal some time away to myself to get into a vacuum and think about goal setting. Think about the things that I want to accomplish for the day. Think about the things that I'm grateful for. That is kind of the initial boost to get me started throughout my day.
I think people don't often associate it with wellness, but your circle is part of your wellness. The people that you keep around you are part of your wellness. Because they ultimately add value or detract value to the things that you're doing. And so for me, I keep accountability partners, people that aren't afraid to tell me about myself.
So that's some of my wellness. I love naps these days. I love stealing naps in this world of telework, you know what I'm saying?
Jacy
Well, I'll tell you this, you better get ready for less naps now that you've got a child on the way.
Ty
Oh yeah.
Jacy
I'll share something that I do as part of my wellness practice that I think I would have hoped people try to invite into their lives. I do a morning marriage technique, or a practice where I write vows to myself. I think we're always so fast to show up for the world and we have no idea about how we're showing up for ourselves, or in what many ways we can show up for ourselves. So that morning love letter, that morning dump of love that I just throw onto the page, it invites me to this loving relationship with myself. Then I can go and give as much love as I want to the world. Then I can jump on Instagram and dance and do all these things because I've already filled up my own cup with my own love for myself.
At the end of the day, I think until all of us are well, none of us are well. Because I wake up to a concern for the world because we're always shown that things of the world that are so bad and so terrible.
What is it like to be in the streets doing this activism? What types of resistance are you met with and how do you transmit that existence into more radical love, into more radical inclusion — what are your techniques?
Ty
I mean, first, the March on Washington was amazing. To think that decades prior, that this is somewhere that Martin Luther King would speak, it was inspiring, right? Because it kind of reminded me of my purpose. And that I was doing well in that purpose. Now, what do I encounter when I do the work that I do? I think largely a lot of ignorance. When I think about why the world looks the way that it does, I think it's not so much the bad actors as much as it is the scourge of misinformation and ignorance that allows bad actors to sustain their positions and continue to advance certain things as truth. For me, part of my radical love is radical education. Let me help you fill in the gaps for you because I can't fault you for operating on an understanding that lacks effects. We put them in there for you and see if your analysis of the issues is the same. That's just one thing that I try to do. My father was a principal at a special-ed school here in Washington, D.C., and so growing up, I just saw him constantly retooling his approach to try to educate. Constantly just trying to find an in, because once you can meet people where they're at, you can radically change their minds and their hearts.
A large part of the work that I do is just the education side informing people to the issues. And then I think regardless of how you feel once you get that education, the next part of my charge is — okay, well all the time it's our own opinion, so you can have your opinion — but now that I've given you these facts, it's important that you respect that on the other side of it, there's somebody else who's going to take a different perspective with these facts. And that's perfectly fine. But that shouldn't be the reason why you hate each other. It shouldn't be the reason why you want to fight each other. We should never diminish each other's humanity because we have different opinions.
In fact, our lived experience is almost going to guarantee that we're going to have different experiences. We should be on finding the common ground around the basic humanity issues, making sure that people are okay, making sure that people are well to your point. I like that phrasing of it, because until we are all well, none of us are well. This wellness thing, it trickles down into education, it trickles down into diet and access. It trickles down into the way that communities experience encounters with law enforcement. It's all of these different moving pieces, right? But I think really starting with the education piece is our best bet. Because there's a lot of unlearning and relearning that we all have to do. I'm always challenging myself to go and to interrogate the things that I thought were truth growing up and to find a higher truth, to continue to build on that understanding to get to the best one.
That's something that I challenge everybody that I come across to do, is to just keep searching. Learning is a lifelong process that exists outside of the parameters of a schoolhouse, outside of the calling voice of a lecturer. There's things that we can do on our own, especially in this technological world that we live in where we have a world at our fingertips. So many ways to educate yourself. So I just implore people to do that. That's what we need right now, just truth and facts.
Jacy
It's interesting you say that, because I've been utilizing this phrase recently: facts, not feelings. When you don't have facts, you have feelings, and your feelings can create so much dysfunction in you as a human being and keep you from ever being truly well. I think history is so rich with facts. Honestly, there are even versions of history that we have to learn because there's multiple versions of history. I think utilizing the spaces that we have, the internet, the mediums such as social media, people can contact you, people can contact me, but finding ways in which we can kind of educate one another. Utilize collective consciousness. Until we have that re-consciousness shift, until we all see that what you're doing impacts what I'm doing and what I'm going to do impacts what you're doing, that's just how it all works. As you said with the anthill, we all are together intricately, but because we don't wake up to that fact, this world looks the way that it does. We are all ants in this world, connected, but we don't see the connections because we're so big now. We have our home, we have our phones, we have our spouse, we have our own lives. Whereas ants, their whole entire life is to deal with being an ant and to allow for everything as an ant to flourish.
As humans, that's still our job. Our job is to make sure that every human being is being accounted for. That every human being is still being loved because that's something that I find, especially doing months like this, that we focus on a lot of things that keep us away from the love, when we can actually utilize history as a framework to love. Because they gave us so much struggle to bring it to this place of actually being able to instill and understand what peace means.
To your point, when people understand history, we know the truth, it's easier to bring them together. Because when they're all divided upon their opinions and upon things that they believed in, it's so hard to bring people together because their egos of opinion will come up first. That's why conversations like this are so important. That's why I even applaud Alo Moves as a platform for giving the space for this conversation. Because wellness, even as an industry, is still unaccessible to a certain degree by certain people of certain hue.
There are so many people who laid ground for us to be here and to do the work that we do now. So it's very important that we learn the history to give reverence to where we are now. We have to learn the history because it actually helps us understand where we are. So it's really beautiful that you do this, because I think the world of what you do. I always will, because I think I have a little activist in me, but I'm not going on the streets and I'm not doing that.
For someone who is once again doing this work and being such a light for so many people, do you ever experience darkness? Are there ever low moments, and how do you deal with those low moments? Because as we always focus on the highlights, that's what society tells you to.
Ty
I want to give you this quote as the context of what I'm about to say next. The quote is a prayer from a friend. Her name is Asia Bianca, I met her in Atlanta. She's a singer, very free spirited, loves the world. This quote was, "God help us be the light that we are, so we may shine like the stars in the sky that ask for nothing in return. Stars shine in the darkest nights. May the high spirits within us guide us to continue this journey and be grateful for the dark night that teaches us to shine."
The story of my life is a story of resilience, a story of dark nights that have taught me to shine. I've lost friends, lost money. I've lost love, I've lost housing, I've lost cars. I've lost anything you could think of losing in this life, but I haven't lost myself. It was because I always understood that those dark nights were really encouraging me to shine, to find a higher version of myself, to deliver myself out of whatever that was.
I'm somebody who doesn't get caught up too intentionally in the highs or lows, because if you're too caught up in the highs, you're just on this egoistical wave, you don't need to do anything else. You're done contributing to humanity right there because you're kissing your own eyes. You get stuck in the lows, you never get motivated to dig yourself back up out of those trenches and to really be available for what your power is for the world.
Depression, anxiety, it happens all the time. I'm going right now into an experience that I have no context for. I'm about to be a dad for the first time. So many things that I'm anxious about just in wanting to prepare a world for my baby girl is going to be 100% dependent on me, right? Sometimes I get anxious about it just because I want to do it right. But I understand that that darkness that I feel in that space is encouraging me to bring out the light, to be the best version of myself that I can't be, so I can be a partner, so I can be a great father.
I say all that to say, we all go through these ups and these downs. I've always tried to wear mine on my sleeve and let people know, like no matter where you get... Elon Musk is somewhere with billions of dollars, anxious and depressed every now and then about something. Bill Gates, it's always like, there is no material deliveries out of the human experience.
Question is, what are we going to do with it? It’s always on myself to really turn it into strength. To use that as a stepping stone to get to the next place that I needed to not only for myself, but for people that have needed me. That's what helps me — I bring myself out. Sometimes it's music that'll snap some depression or some anxiety. Sometimes I'm listening for the lyrics, sometimes I'm listening for the beat. Sometimes it's me walking up the street and I'll see somebody do a kind thing for somebody else and it'll restore my faith in humanity. It'll recharge my battery.
“That is what drives me, is understanding that no matter how tough it will ever get, that there is something beautiful that’s on the other side of that if you work for it.”
That light exists, even when you feel you're in your darkest space, right? It'll be going outside and just thinking something simple. Maybe a hummingbird, right? Maybe a snowfall. Something to remind you of all that is beautiful about life so that even when you are in the places that feel super ugly, you understand that beauty still exists. That is what drives me, is understanding that no matter how tough it will ever get, that there is something beautiful that's on the other side of that if you work for it.
Jacy
Oh, I want to cry man. Boy you took it to church. That was beautiful because that's so true. I think we all have this understanding of depression being this lonely experience or low moments being this lonely experience. But really there's so much of a community that deals with all of this.
I want to introduce your book. Tell us about your book, because I would love for people to get an opportunity to hear these words, but also read these words. What's your book about?
Ty
Oh, The New Social Contract. I guess if I had to categorize it, it's somewhat of a self-help book, but I guess in helping yourself by reading it, you'll help the world. The self-help books that I hate are the books that say, “Do this, do that, and then you're successful and life is perfect.” There's no easy way up, only an arduous way up. Everything that we want in this life will require some level of effort. It will require taking some steps. They won't always be the easiest. You'll have your anomalies where somebody who can just get catapulted into this place, but for the majority of the time, we are working on a calculated way up.
The New Social Contract is just kind of playing on these themes that we're talking about of re-imagining humanity, re-imagining community, tapping into this idea that we are each other's business and action, that radical love that I'm talking about. It gives some tips on how it can be done. The first edition that came out, I sold a couple of copies and it was cool, but I went back and I took it off Amazon because what I wanted to do was for the next version, and I have a recent post about it on my page, I'm releasing it for free.
I realized that a lot of barriers keep people from this information. So I don't want commerce to be one of the barriers. If my intended impact is for people to live life in a different way, I got to give them the tools. My words were free to put on the paper, let me give them to you for free in the hope that you do something that is of a material value as much more than the book costs. So this next edition is going to come out for free. I'll be doing an ebook version of it, that's the most convenient way to get it out to everybody. And then try to do some print versions for D.C. schools and local area schools, just to make sure that they have it as something in their toolkit, as they're imagining how they want to be a part of society. Right?
The New Social Contract is designed to be a brief read, under 60 pages for sure. The thing that you'll leave that book with is I think just a higher understanding of how you can be a better part of the community. I mean, how you can be a better partner in a relationship, right? There's so many people, for instance, in love in this generation that play love like chess. “I can't care too much about you.” Whatever the case may be, not wanting to overexpose themselves. How many of us are just striving to be worthy company? Just striving to be a good plus one instead of being the boss. My book plays on those themes. The idea that’s like, let's step out of this world of power dynamics and just step into our own power, then use that power to pull out the power in those around you. So New Social Contract, coming soon. I'm always adding to it.
Jacy
I used to host the podcast back in LA and I always used to end the conversation with a question. If you had 24 hours left to live, what would you do?
“If you look at life like a graph, when you’re born, it’s the least life you have. The second before you die, it is literally the most alive you’ve ever been.”
Ty
If I had 24 hours left to live, I would liquidate all my material wealth and dedicate it to causes, because you can't take cash with you. I have journals and things like that. Things that I write down in passing as I watch news, as I live life. I would publish those; I think that just sharing information is part of our power. You know what I'm saying? Even down to the trivialities of, “Oh, where'd you get your outfit from?” I used to not want to share where I got my outfits from, until I read what the pressure is to be fly and cool in society. And just like, okay, maybe if I shared this with you, you'll be empowered to do great things just because you have a cool shirt or cool shoes. Sharing, that's one thing that I would do.
Then I'm going to say that I would probably go out a lot. Again, trying to build community. Try to still use what I have as a platform to connect people. And then honestly, just getting ready for what's next. You know, if you look at life like a graph, when you're born, it's the least life you have. The second before you die, it is literally the most alive you've ever been. I’ll just be gearing up for what this next set of experiences would be. You know what I'm saying? If that's the spiritual realm or whatever the case, but just trying to give. I would want to leave the world giving.