Living Your Truth (VOA Connect Episode 195)

VOA – CONNECT EPISODE # 195  AIR DATE: 10 08 2021   TRANSCRIPT OPEN ((VO/NAT)) ((Banner)) Remembering Breonna ((SOT)) ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  We see Breonna. We see there's people leaving messages. And then there was a point where I was like, “But you're going to record. You're going to let these people hear and tell your side of the story about who your sister was.”   ((NATS)) ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  When she first got on as an EMT [Emergency Medical Technician], she was super excited. ((Animation Transition)) ((Banner)) Exploring the FBI ((SOT)) ((Melissa Giller, Spokesperson, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library))  J. Edgar Hoover, when he was hired, he decided that a woman should not be an FBI agent. He fired every single woman that worked for the bureau. And it wasn't until his death in 1972, that women were brought back into the bureau. ((Animation Transition)) ((Banner)) Connecting with Kassie ((SOT)) ((Kassie Culbertson, Subway Worker)) Oh, everybody knows everybody here, and if they don't know you, they know your grandma because they've been drinking coffee with her for 20 years. Yes, the community is very, very tight. Everybody knows everybody. ((Open Animation))   BLOCK A ((PKG)) BREONNA’S GARDEN  ((TRT: 05:44)) ((Topic Banner: Breonna’s Garden)) ((Reporter/Camera: Genia Dulot)) ((Adapted by: Philip Alexiou)) ((Map: Los Angeles, California))   ((Main character: 1 female)) ((Sub characters: 1 female; 1 male)) ((Text on screen: Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American medical technician, was tragically killed during a police raid on her Louisville, Kentucky home in March 2020. Her death fueled nation-wide protests.))  ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  I think my favorite memory overall would probably be living together. She didn't want me to be her roommate because she told me I was too messy for her and she had real bad OCD [Obsessive Compulsive Disorder] but it's probably going to be living with her is the best memory.   ((Lady PheOnix, Creator of “Breonna’s Garden”))  What would she cook? What was she good at?    ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  She can’t cook.  ((Lady PheOnix, Creator of “Breonna’s Garden”))  Really?  ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  No.   ((Lady PheOnix, Creator of “Breonna’s Garden”))  She looks like she…  ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  We had, we ate the same seven meals. Me, her and Kenny.  When she was an EMT [Emergency Medical Technician], she would go in at like seven at night and come home like 10, 11 in the morning.   ((Lady PheOnix, Creator of “Breonna’s Garden”))  Wow.  ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  See, that’s what really made her quit. She was making like 13, I think she was making like 13 [dollars an hour], working 18 hours, four days a week. So, she was like, yeah. She had cried to Mom. It was like, “Mom, I can’t do this. I just can’t.” Some people used to be like, “Yeah, we get your sister passed. But you still don’t get to see the troubles that people go through every day.” I’m like, “No, I’m going through way more than you guys think.” So, I started posting like I’m getting threats every day, like different types of threats. It didn’t matter who, what, where, when, why. Just different ones.   ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Lady PheOnix, Creator of “Breonna’s Garden”))  Breonna’s Garden, which is an augmented reality experience, and the idea behind it was sparked by Ju’Niyah getting death threats in her social media and saying like, okay, clearly if the online space isn't safe, right, for someone, then I'm going to create a container for her where she can be safe and never worry about anybody threatening her or saying some ugly thing or, you know, coming and lying to her about who her sister is and was. So, when you go, you see flowers springing up all around you. As you, kind of like walk around, you'll see a lot of butterflies and orbs of light and Breonna’s there.  ((Stuart “Sutu” Campbell, Producer of “Breonna’s Garden”))  People will be able to walk around in a real garden. And then from the real garden, these artificial flowers will also start growing.  We made a decision early on to create Breonna as a 3D model. We were deliberately, you know, creating a sculpture, a monument for Breonna. We will integrate the flowers into this augmented reality activation.   ((Lady PheOnix, Creator of “Breonna’s Garden”))  Both of them are in the garden and we're going to volumetrically capture Ju’Niyah and place her in the garden next to Breonna.  ((NATS)) ((Stuart “Sutu” Campbell, Producer of “Breonna’s Garden”))  In order to recreate Ju’Niyah as a hologram, we had to go to the Metastage here in Los Angeles. They have a green screen room set up, with hundreds of cameras at different elevations, filming a subject in the center of the room. Microsoft are processing all that data and stitching it together. The outcome will be this 3D hologram.  ((NATS)) ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  Okay, look. Don't talk about my hair because I already seen it coming. If you see it, it’s 3D. Mama, we're not talking about the hair. The most part I think I'm excited about is the actual me being in the same 3D, being in the same scenery with my sister all over again. When they do the edit part, I'll be actually next to her.  ((Lady PheOnix, Creator of “Breonna’s Garden”))  Not only as a gift for Ju’Niyah to be able to go into a safe container to be with her sister and hear all those memories from like her aunt and her mom and her uncle and her friends, but then also to have that as a capsule for 20 years, 25 years from now. If Ju’Niyah decides to have children one day, her children can actually look back on this capsule, it's a gift for the family, and understand who her aunt really was.   ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  We see Breonna. We see there's people leaving messages. And then there was a point where I was like, “But you're going to record. You're going to let these people hear and tell your side of the story about who your sister was.”   ((NATS)) ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  When she first got on as an EMT, she was super excited. She invited almost the whole family to her graduation just to see her graduate from being an EMT. The Garden is important to me because it's my way of being able to show that Breonna is caring and loving and not what the media portrayed her as to be.    ((NATS)) ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  People are still figuring, as they still feel like it's my sister's boyfriend’s fault, and it's absolutely not. So, they will say things like, “It's your sister's boyfriend’s fault she's dead. Your sister shouldn't be a drug dealer.” And then like when my mom had got this settlement from the city, a lot of people were like, “You are posting something about donations. Don't your mom got so much money? She should be able to help you help her.” ((Ju’Niyah Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Sister))  The ones that bothered me the most was when people called my sister a drug dealer. She’s not. She didn’t do drugs.    ((Stuart “Sutu” Campbell, Producer of “Breonna’s Garden”))  Breonna has become this enormous figure now and has come to represent a political movement. But before that, she was this girl's sister. And I think this brings us all down to earth as to what it actually feels like just to lose your sister, your best friend. In many cases, like you know, Breonna shared the role of bringing Ju’Niyah up with the mother. So, you know, there was a really close family there that's now been broken up. When you go into the garden, you can hear Ju’Niyah’s story. And then you have the opportunity, if you feel comfortable, you can record your message and it will grow as a flower in the garden. And it can be, you know, just a short message for someone that you miss. It could be a poem. It could be a message of support for Breonna Taylor’s family. I think the purpose of the garden in that sense is just to create a safe social space that's curated because we're going to listen to the messages and only post appropriate ones and make sure only appropriate ones grow in the garden. And by doing that, we're just creating an environment that reinforces the nurturing that's needed right now.  ((NATS/MUSIC))  TEASE ((VO/NAT)) Coming up ((Banner)) FBI Uncovered ((SOT)) ((Melissa Giller, Spokesperson, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library))  So, this exhibition, which just opens and runs through January of 2022, tells the entire history of the FBI, [Federal Bureau of Investigation] from inception to its modern-day fight against domestic terrorism in the United States. And we use some of the biggest cases in American history to tell those stories.   BREAK ONE                                                                   BUMP IN ((ANIM))                           BLOCK B  ((PKG)) FBI HISTORY EXHIBIT  ((TRT: 05:48)) ((Topic Banner: FBI: Behind the Scenes)) ((Reporter/Camera: Genia Dulot)) ((Adapted by: Philip Alexiou)) ((Map: Simi Valley, California))   ((Main character: 1 female)) ((Sub characters: 1 female; 2 male)) ((NATS))  It belongs to you. FBI: Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity. ((Melissa Giller, Spokesperson, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library))  So, this exhibition, which just opens and runs through January of 2022, tells the entire history of the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], from inception to its modern-day fight against domestic terrorism in the United States. And we use some of the biggest cases in American history to tell those stories. ((NATS/MUSIC))  ((Melissa Giller, Spokesperson, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library))  The exhibition is called, FBI: From Al Capone to Al-Qaeda. And then our first gallery, we have an autographed photograph of Al Capone, who was a famous mobster. And then we have an actual piece of the jet engine from United Airlines Flight 175 that crashed into the World Trade Center South Tower. And that ties in the Al Capone to Al-Qaeda timeline of this exhibition. As you walk through the galleries, we want you to feel like you're in the FBI building. So, we sort of walk through some FBI rooms. Everything in these doors are actual items that came from the FBI: fingerprinting equipment, interrogation equipment, polygraph machines, actual desk typewriters, computers. This office is all the equipment used in the 1940s and 1950s. And then, in our next room, it's all the equipment used from the 1980s and 1990s that the FBI actually had in storage they allowed us to use. So, we brought in authentic artifacts and case files. We’ve over 300 artifacts from all of these different stories. It’s the first time ever that all these artifacts have ever been brought together at the same time to really help people understand what the FBI does. ((NATS/MUSIC))  ((Melissa Giller, Spokesperson, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library))  Bonnie and Clyde were ruthless, 19 and 21 year old’s who wreaked havoc across multiple states. Bonnie and Clyde learned early on that if they stole Ford automobiles, they could always outrun the police because they learned that Ford automobiles were faster than the cars that police were driving. And, in fact, they even wrote a letter to Henry Ford thanking him for making the automobiles in such a fast way. They were ambushed by the Texas police and the car was hit 167 times. The coroner counted 17 bullets in Clyde and 21 bullets in Bonnie. So, this is the actual car that they were killed in. And the blue shirt is the shirt he was wearing on his time of death.   ((Maria, Visitor))  People don't realize sometimes when they label them, some put them so romantic, how real, in life, they are though, pretty evil people, did a lot of destruction, a lot of killing. I'm not very big in romanticizing all of that.    ((Melissa Giller, Spokesperson, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library))  The FBI was founded in 1908. President Roosevelt and his attorney general, Charles Bonaparte, agreed that they needed some sort of federal government agency to help fight corruption in the United States. In 1925 [1924], they hired J. Edgar Hoover to be the director of the FBI. ((NATS: J. Edgar Hoover)) We should all be concerned but with one goal: the eradication of crime. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is as close to you as your nearest telephone. ((Melissa Giller, Spokesperson, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library))  In this gallery and the one behind me, we talk about J. Edgar Hoover, some of the things he did for the FBI that was really great, some of the weird things that he did and some of the things that were not so great. For example, when he was hired, he decided that a woman should not be an FBI agent. He fired every single woman that worked for the bureau. And it wasn't until his death in 1972, that women were brought back into the bureau. ((Shell, Visitor))  There are some reasons why every president never replaced him until he was ready to step down. Legend and rumor has it, that he had dirt on everybody. So, nobody would cross J. Edgar Hoover.   ((Andre, Visitor))  I've actually visited the FBI building as well as Washington D.C., and it's really impressive to see how much work they do. And I think they get quite a bit of bad press for the failures because people don't really know their successes, the amount of work they do, preventing terrorism, preventing all this. ((Melissa Giller, Spokesperson, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library))  I think most people are familiar with Ted Kaczynski, otherwise known as the Unabomber.   Over the course of the history of the FBI tracking this gentleman, this criminal, they tracked two thousand, I think it's 417 individuals. He was 2416. So, only him and one other person was still on the list when he was found. And this is just a full-scale replica of the cabin he lived in, in Montana. When the FBI cleaned out his cabin, they found bombs that had not yet been mailed out or detonated. He actually made shoes that were a smaller footprint and a different tread than the shoe he wore, to put the scent of the detectives searching for him in a different track because they were looking for someone with a smaller shoe size. ((Melissa Giller, Spokesperson, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library))  9/11 was in September. So, in December of 2001, just a couple of months later, a guy by the name of Richard Reid decides he's going to go blow up an airline. He builds a bomb. He puts the bomb inside of the sole of his shoe. He gets on the plane and he goes and tries to detonate the bomb. And for whatever reasons, thank God, it didn't deploy. These are the actual shoes that Richard Reid was wearing. This is why we take our shoes off.   ((NATS))  Wow.  ((Melissa Giller, Spokesperson, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library))  Yeah. So, the final gallery in the FBI exhibition you see is the Wall of Honor. This is every single agent, man and woman of the FBI, who have lost their lives in the line of duty. What's remarkable is it's not that many people, and not only is it not that many people, but with the exception of these two, who died very recently in a shootout, about the last 10 to 12, all died in the past three or four years, because they were all part of the FBI evidence team in 9/11 and all worked the rubble of the World Trade Center for a long enough period of time that they've all died of cancer. And even though they died 15, 16, 17 years later, the FBI, rightfully so, calls it dying in the line of duty. ((NATS/MUSIC))    TEASE  ((VO/NAT)) Coming up ((Banner)) Clean Beauty ((SOT)) ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Skincare Company)) I told Mitch, I said, “I think I want to start a skincare company.” Just like that. And he's driving and he says, “Okay, sounds good. I think you should do it.” BREAK TWO                                                                  BUMP IN ((ANIM))                         BLOCK C ((PKG)) CLEAN BEAUTY  ((TRT: 06:36)) ((Topic Banner: Clean Beauty)) ((Reporter: Faiza Elmasry)) ((Camera/Editor: June Soh)) ((Map:  Leesburg, Virginia)) ((Main character: 1 female)) ((Sub character: 1 male)) ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((NATS: Natalie)) So, this is exfoliator. This is avocado and sea moss exfoliator. As you can see, we still do everything 100 percent by hand. And of course, everything's all organic. ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Company Skincare)) I'm Natalie Schulz White and I am the founder and CEO of Be Well Company Skincare. ((NATS/MUSIC)) We launched Be Well in 2017. ((NATS: Natalie)) Sea moss is a wonderful nutrient you can add to your smoothies. It's great, great for the skin. ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Company Skincare)) I had no idea I was going to start this company. So, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis [a disease of the central nervous system] on July 2nd in 2014, and also known as MS, the shorter version, which is much easier to say, especially when you slur words like me. That's one of my MS symptoms, is I slur words when I get really tired or my feet start to kind of drop or my speech starts to slur, my vision can go a little wonky. And these are all MS symptoms for me, but it can look like I'm drunk. So, if you don't know me, you would think, “Oh, she's been drinking.” But I can control these symptoms today through food. ((NATS)) ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Company Skincare)) So, as I began researching and I found a book by Dr. Terry Wahls. I consumed it within three days and it was very thick and very technical because she's a doctor who reversed her MS symptoms. ((NATS)) And I began implementing immediately all her ways of clean eating and clean living. But it was mainly clean eating I focused on. And so, we got rid of everything in the house that was, had preservatives or had sugar. And we just really focused on real, whole, organic foods. ((Text on screen: While there is no scientific proof of a “best diet” for treating MS, a healthful diet is likely to help overall well-being.  - National MS Society)) ((NATS: Taking the smoothie to Mitch)) Smoothie, babe. I made this and it’s good. My husband, Mitch, has been my greatest supporter from day one. From the moment I changed my diet, he jumped all in with me. ((NATS: Natalie making salad)) So, he changed his diet completely with me and he's been doing this with me. He lost 40 pounds [18 kg] immediately. His eyesight has improved. ((Courtesy: Be Well)) Having been a former pro-athlete, he had a lot of inflammation and joint damage in his body that began to heal itself and he began to feel better. ((NATS: Natalie and Mitch)) Natalie: Here, babe. You got to eat that. You think you can eat all that? Mitch: Oh, yeah. Natalie: Oh, yeah. Mitch: Absolutely. ((NATS: Mitch eating salad)) ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Company Skincare)) So, as I began feeding my body and flooding it with all the nutrients from plant based, anything that you can think of, I started looking at other things that I could do to improve my life and improve reversing my MS because I was feeling so good. So, I began using all the same ingredients I had in my kitchen and transferred them over into recipes and expanded on it for skin care. From the shampoo we use, to the lotions we use, to our makeup and to our skin care. Our bodies absorb 80 percent of everything that we put on them. ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Company Skincare)) I remember the day, and this is a really cute story. We were driving back from Virginia to Charleston, which we used to live in Charleston 10 months ago. I told Mitch, I said, “I think I want to start a skincare company.” Just like that. And he's driving and he says, “Okay, sounds good. I think you should do it.” And that was it. He was in. He supports me at every step of the way. ((NATS: Natalie)) We play ping-pong once or twice a week. ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Company Skincare)) Mitch and I play off of each other very well in every way in our personal life and our business life. So, for the first two years, he's behind the scenes. He's still working on his company, but he would come home and help me and kind of bounce ideas off of each other and help me structure it. But I ran the Be Well Company for the first two years by myself. And then, when Mitch, I invited him to come in and be my business partner and COO [Chief Operating Officer]. ((NATS: Natalie)) And you can always repurpose these bottles, too, which I think is amazing. And then Mitch will come in and give a “born on” date for these little babies that were just born today. And I always record how many I made and what it was. ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Company Skincare)) And he helps me make the products. He typically is the labeler. So, if you see a crooked label, email Mitch. ((NATS: Mitch labeling the bottles)) ((Mitch White, Partner and COO, Be Well Company Skincare)) My role in Be Well is basically make orderly all the stuff that Natalie creates, everything that she does, from creating products, to marketing, to putting the products out into the market space and sales. ((NATS: Mitch Making samples)) ((Mitch White, Partner and COO, Be Well Company Skincare)) Well, the demand on her products has been phenomenal. You know, she may have already shared with you, but she originally created them for herself. They were not something that she was looking to put out into the market necessarily. But they were so effective and having friends and family try them, that's when she decided to go ahead and move forward with it. And the company has doubled in revenue each year since starting four years ago. So, the demand is continuing or has continued to grow. This last year and a half, during the COVID lockdown, everybody was focused on selfcare. And it was really, it was actually quite a big growth for us because that was something people are looking for. ((NATS: Natalie)) ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Company Skincare)) This is a fun fact. I have a lot of shaking from my MS that can get, that can get kind of crazy sometimes. And this helps me work on my fine motor skills too. So, it's a win-win. I get to pour lots of love into the products and work on my MS shake. ((NATS)) ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Company Skincare)) How I feel about my MS diagnosis is the same as I felt a week after I had the diagnosis. I had started a website called My MS Battle on Facebook. And Mitch said, “No, no. MS saved your life.” ((Courtesy: Facebook)) And I immediately changed that Facebook page to MS Saved My Life. And I, to this day, feel very much the same. MS saved my life. ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Natalie Schultz White, Founder, Be Well Company Skincare)) I get so much joy out of sharing the products and inspiring people to open their eyes to understand that “Oh, natural can be this amazing!” ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((PKG)) CONNECT WITH KASSIE CULBERTSON  ((TRT: 2:44)) ((Topic Banner: Connect with Kassie Culbertson)) ((Reporter/Camera: Arturo Martínez)) ((Map: Jennings, Louisiana)) ((Main character: 1 female)) ((NATS/MUSIC)) ((Kassie Culbertson, Restaurant Worker)) My name is Kassie Culbertson. I live in southwest Louisiana and I work at a local Subway [fast food restaurant]. ((NATS)) ((Kassie Culbertson, Restaurant Worker)) Oh, everybody knows everybody here, and if they don't know you, they know your grandma because they've been drinking coffee with her for 20 years. Yes, the community is very, very tight. Everybody knows everybody. ((NATS)) ((Kassie Culbertson, Restaurant Worker)) We anticipate on getting hurricanes here, especially after last year when we had three hurricanes come back to back. Within a month, we got hit and then a horrible freeze had come in. It was just the most devastating thing I have ever seen in my life. ((NATS)) ((Kassie Culbertson, Restaurant Worker)) I lost my home. I lost my car. I had to leave for a little while because I had nowhere to go. And then after that, slowly starting to establish myself with no money, no means of money, no means of transportation. It was very, very difficult thing to have to crawl before you can walk, so to speak. ((NATS)) ((Kassie Culbertson, Restaurant Worker)) I lost a lot of family that year. I lost, I lost a lot that year. Both of my grandparents had died from COVID. My wife's mother had died. Her brother had died. And those were some of the most horrible things that I had to live through while we were going through these hurricanes, while we were going through COVID, while we were having ice storms and all kinds of things like that. And it really just took a big toll. But it took a big toll on a lot of people. ((NATS)) ((Kassie Culbertson, Restaurant Worker)) So, I hate leaving from here, but at the same time, the stress of having to worry about what's going to happen next, you know, it keeps me worried, makes me want to not be here, maybe just come for vacation. ((NATS)) ((Kassie Culbertson, Restaurant Worker)) I actually have plans of moving somewhere else. By the end of this year, I want to be up north. ((NATS/MUSIC)) CLOSING BUMPER ((ANIM)) voanews.com/connect NEXT WEEK / GOOD BYE ((VO/NAT))                            ((Banner)) In coming weeks….. Art of Conserving Nature ((SOT)) ((Divya Anantharaman, Gotham Taxidermy)) I got interested in taxidermy because I've always loved nature, I've always loved art and I've always loved science and taxidermy is a combination of all of that. This is a glossy starling and you can see it's a cleaned and preserved skin. Every time you get close to nature, you see something new. And taxidermy gives us this really special thing where it’s this amazing tool for conservation and through the art of taxidermy, I can tell a story about an animal. ((MUSIC))   CLOSING BUMPER ((ANIM)) voanews.com/connect   ((PKG))  FREE PRESS MATTERS  ((NATS/VIDEO/GFX)) ((Popup captions over B Roll)) Near the Turkish Embassy Washington, D.C. May 16, 2017 President Erdogan’s bodyguard attacks peaceful protesters “Those terrorists deserved to be beaten” “They should not be protesting our president” “They got what they asked for” While some people may turn away from the news We cover it reliably accurately objectively comprehensively wherever the news matters VOA A Free Press Matters     BREAK THREE                                                                      BUMP IN  ((ANIM))                         SHOW ENDS