© Tim’m T. West

MATURITY INC

THE BRAVE EDUCATOR

THE MAVERICK TIM’M T. WEST

There are some people in this world that will just knock your socks off in everyway. Intellect, service, courage, strength, talent and good old fashioned integrity. Tim’m West has been blazing trails and making a way for others throughout his career. I first encountered Tim’m on stage in Atlanta Ga, wowing the audience with his talent. I quickly rushed to buy his book Red Dirt Revival: A Poetic Memoir in 6 Breaths.

© Tim’m T. West & Indirah Ambrose

Pushing through tears, I quickly read the book and was an instant fan. We did a few shows and lectures together and life went on. Since that time, Tim’m has gone on continue to write books, release more music and champion causes to create equal rights and opportunities for LGBTQIA+ and marginalized communities throughout the United States. Let’s take a moment to get to know “The Brave Educator”.

© Tim’m T. West

Tim’m T. West is an educator, poet, youth advocate, and hip-hop artist who has spent decades traveling the nation, speaking about issues at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and social justice. A graduate of Duke University (BA), The New School for Social Research (MA), and Stanford University (MA), he is the author of several books and hip-hop projects and is widely anthologized. He has also appeared in multiple documentaries at the intersection of hip hop and black masculinity. A seasoned educator, Tim’m served as inaugural faculty at Oakland School for the Arts, impacted educational outcomes as an English teacher and basketball coach at Cesar Chavez Public Charter High School for Public Policy, taught at Humboldt State University and Houston Community College, and also served as Director of Youth Services at Chicago’s Center on Halsted. A board member of the LGBTQ Institute located at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta where he is now a DEI consultant, Tim’m was named one of 31 icons during LGBT History Month in October of 2015. Tim’m principally leads Teach For America’s national LGBTQ+ community initiative, advancing safer and braver classrooms for LGBTQ educators and students in grades PreK-12. An Upward Bound alum and former admissions officer, he continues to work as an expert in the selective admissions landscape while supportive of many college access and equity programs. In Cincinnati, Tim’m is very active as a graduate of School Board School where he serves on their board, a board member for Wordplay-Cincy, chair of Chase Elementary LSDMC, founder and board member of Cincinnati Black Pride, and on the board of the Buckeye Flame.

© Tim’m T. West

I had an opportunity to converse with Tim’m, here is a portion of our interview:

(Interviewer Indirah Ambrose): Can you tell us about your journey as an educator, poet, and hip-hop artist at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and social justice?

(Tim T. West): My journey into the various pathways for addressing social justice are rooted in coming up Black, queer, and poor in Arkansas and being painfully disturbed by the inequity I was seeing. While children may not have a language for understanding the patriarchy, heteronormativity, or classism, they absolutely know what these things are. Influenced greatly by writers like James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Essex Hemphill, writing became the preferred medium for speaking truth to power. Sometimes that emerges as a poem, other times a song, other times a philosophical inquiry or academic paper. Writing is absolutely a tool for liberation.

© Tim’m T. West

(Interviewer Indirah Ambrose): How did your educational background at Duke University, The New School for Social Research, and Stanford University influence your work in arts and activism?

(Tim T. West): My experience at Howard was as influential as any of these institutions because it was among the first times in my young adult life that I didn’t question my worthiness. During my time on exchange at Howard, I had excellent and memorable Black professors who applauded my successes, but who also pushed me. One of the burdens of Affirmative Action is internalizing that you have something to prove to white colleagues, when it’s their implicit bias that’s problematic to begin with if they are assuming you didn’t earn your place there. Going to institutions like Duke, The New School, and Stanford certainly offer me authenticating entry points to circles of whiteness that some don’t get access to, but it’s my job to use that key to open doors from people who are deserving and who attended our HBCUs, public universities, community colleges, or maybe even no college at all. The benefit of going to certain elite Historically White Colleges is having access to networks that have proximity to systematic or institutional power, which isn’t to negate Black institutions. Still, if my proximity to that power enables me to share it with more Black people and other marginalized folx so that we lead our own institutions, then I’m all for it. I just hope we learn not to be our oppressors and commit to getting people free and enabling joy!

© Tim’m T. West

(Interviewer Indirah Ambrose): How has your work as a poet and hip-hop artist contributed to raising awareness about issues such as racism, gender equality, LGBT rights, poverty, and HIV/AIDS?

(Tim T. West): Sometimes managing trauma and oppression is what philosopher Lyotard considered a “differend” — that space where words and sometimes logic fail because a song, a humm, a wail, or even silence say it better. I always think of poetry as a bit queer. Trees can sing. The wind can dance. Curiosity can be a hunger. So it’s in that space of poetry that we not only get to name the unspeakable, but take ownership of it, make it playful, make it sing! I think Nina Simone did that as much between her words, banging on keys and humming, as she did with poignant lyrics.

(Interviewer Indirah Ambrose): Can you elaborate on your involvement with Teach for America’s National LGBTQ+ Community Initiative and how you have advanced safer and braver classrooms for LGBTQ educators and students?

(Tim T. West): After teaching in classrooms for more than 15 years, TFA enabled me an opportunity to address systemic issues in education with respect to LGBTQ Youth that have repeatedly been addressed as band-aids on gashes. When I was Director of Youth Services at Center on Halsted, I was constantly managing trauma of Black and Brown queer and trans (often unhoused) youth. I was reasonably effective as holding space for tears, helping young people redirect righteous anger, and planting seeds for hope, but if I’m sending these same kiddos back to a world that’s simply going to retraumatize them again, what have I done. The opportunity to be a leader in front of thousands of educators over my years at TFA (2014–2022) created an opportunity to inspire networks to address systems. It’s horrifying, in the wake of my leaving, that the right has become even more antagonistic towards LGBTQ students — often vilifying them and the adults (parents and teachers) who support them. I naturally continue my work at an even different latitude, shifting from my leadership as a board member of the LGBTQ Institute located at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, to serving as its Executive Director. I’m the right person for the work at a most critical time, and all of the experiences teaching, mentoring, coaching, and organizing have prepared me for this moment. At the LGBTQ Institute, I’m embarking on a task to activate leaders and organizations who are often reactively responding to harm, rather than anticipating harm and getting ahead of it with systems and coalitions better prepared to fight those who don’t see LGBTQ rights as human and civil rights. I’m deeply connected to the work because it’s what I’d be doing if I didn’t have a career in it. I feel fortunate to be entrusted to lead in this way.

(Interviewer Indirah Ambrose): Can you share some examples of how you have used your creative genius to optimize organizational objectives in your previous roles?

(Tim T. West): I’m a country boy at heart and a poet. Innovation is about mapping ways where pathways haven’t been made. When you talk about a resilient people who’ve managed to survive some of the most daunting circumstances, there’ll always be creativity there. I bring that ingenuity and innovation to organizations, generally leaving systems and rituals behind that remain a part of the organizational DNA. I think the College Summit (which is now Peer Forward), the Center on Halsted’s Expect More programming model, and YOU(th) Belong at the LGBTQ Institute are just a few examples of this drive to bring a poetic sensibility to organizations. It’s a lens and orientation to the work that many wouldn’t see but a kind of genius common among many creatives.

(Interviewer Indirah Ambrose): In what ways have you integrated your experience in HIV/AIDS education and prevention into your work as an educator and non-profit manager?

(Tim T. West): Testing positive for HIV at age 26 radically shifted my trajectory. I probably would have been some stress out philosophy professor, hopping from university to university trying to find what I found when I left academia ABD (all but dissertation) to write my first book, start Deep Dickollective, and teach 9th and 10th graders. Inspired by the Black Gay Arts Renaissance of the late 1980s, I’d experienced so many of my heroes die of AIDS, but not before allowing a short lease on life to fuel their documentaries, writings, films, etc… Because I was fortunate enough to avoid HIV infection until there were protease inhibitors, which allow HIV to be a manageable disease. What would you do to create a life worth living presuming your death is certain? This question shook me up; and while I’ve made some mistakes along the way striving too passionately to snatch a measure of joy equal to my pain, I wouldn’t change a thing about my journey. All of the gifts I enjoy now spring from wanting to make an impact before dying… I just didn’t expect to be talking about it nearly 25 years later in my 50s.

(Interviewer Indirah Ambrose): Can you discuss your involvement with various boards and organizations, such as Cincinnati Black Pride, the Buckeye Flame, and Wordplay-Cincy, and the impact you have made in those roles?

(Tim T. West): I was put on this earth to serve others. While I can’t be a part of all of the organizations that I believe are doing good work, I can lend my perspective, insights, resources to help organizations get off the ground. Board leadership enables that; and it’s healthy to get out of the way and make space for others after a bit. Each of these organizations I’ve touched, particularly in Cincinnati, are a bit braver for my push; and hopefully working in better integrity with community. A non-profit should always believe so strongly in their vision that they can imagine being out of a job because things got better.

(Interviewer Indirah Ambrose): Could you share any examples of your activism and motivational speaking engagements and the impact they have had on audiences?

(Tim T. West): The best examples of this has been the presence and impact I’ve left at Cal Poly Humboldt, which I’ve been connected to for over 15 years. My books are a regular part of the curriculum there; and I’m reminded how good it can feel to know that someone values your legacy-in-the-making enough to continue to echo your name. At CPH, I get to be the scholar, philosopher, activist, emcee, etc… so I don’t have to be at war with myself in an effort to be whole. I taught “Hip Hop and the Black Experience” there in a way few others have broached, looking at the queer and trans margins of HipHop as a mirror to better understand the mainstream. I also got to freestyle on zooms, play so my favorite DeLa videos, and so much more. I think leaning into that full self is contagious, so the impact I have, at it’s best, is to encourage others to way to step into their own joy and fullness. If I can do that, it’s an immense gift. More than a few times, someone I barely or vaguely remember has stopped me to say the album “Blakkboy Blue(s)” or my book “pre|dispositions” had a profound impact on them or “I’m a writer now because you inspired me.” That was Marlon Riggs and Essex Hemphill for me so to pay it forward is a responsibility I take seriously.

© Tim’m T. West

(Interviewer Indirah Ambrose): How do you approach the intersectionality of different social justice issues in your advocacy work? How do you prioritize and address multiple issues simultaneously?

(Tim T. West): I don’t know if I’m prioritizing multiple issues any more than I’m insisting that you can’t free the Black part of me an oppress the queer part. How can a brotha be a half-assed whole? Make that make sense!

(Interviewer Indirah Ambrose): What drew you to senior management positions in education administration, higher education, secondary school leadership, and non-profit work related to public health?

(Tim T. West): I kept passing up opportunities because it was never about the money or success for me. Then I realize that work we are called to that we ignore is going to be done by someone else who may not share our passion, the experiences that shape our actions, who may not share as expansive a skill set. The confidently rational part of me is thinking “anything they can do, I can do better.” And if love my people the way I say I do, why would I left someone collect a paycheck and leadership position who isn’t going to be as committed to marginalized people as I would. I started telling myself: “You can do that better.” I’m honored that I’m entrusted to try. Nine months into my first executive director role, I’m shaking things up in some good ways. Proud of that, but there’s much more to do to ensure Black and Brown queer babies grow up knowing they are enormously empowered and excited about their futures with the capacity and joy to build better futures for those who’ll follow them.

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In conclusion, Tim’m T. West, a multifaceted force of intellect, service, and creativity, has left an indelible mark on the world through his unwavering dedication to social justice, education, and the arts. From his early days as a poet and hip-hop artist captivating audiences in Atlanta to his extensive academic journey, Tim’m’s life has been a testament to the power of using one’s talents to speak truth to power and create lasting change. I adore him and I think you will too.

ALWAYS WITH ❤

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