Shane Goldsmith - Liberty Hill Foundation
Building power in communities impacted by systemic injustice
Listen to an audio clip from Shane’s story:
My parents owned a little store called Fridges and Stoves on Lincoln Boulevard, in Santa Monica. They would acquire used appliances, repair them and then sell them. My dad did all the repair; my mom did the business side. I don’t know exactly what our financial situation was. It was humble but functioning. Then my mom got sick with cancer when I was 8 and she was 38. We didn’t have health insurance, so my dad had to drop everything, get rid of the store and take care of her and us as best he could. She passed away a year later, when I was 9, and everything went downhill.
My dad had all these euphemisms. He told me that we were living off his investments. Technically it was true, because we were living off social security. I can’t imagine how he supported two kids on that. He was in his early fifties then, and I think he had mental health issues. He had no money, no job and no wife. She was his queen, his everything.
We became very poor. I don’t have a lot of memories from my childhood, which I understand is common, given the trauma we experienced. I just remember worshiping my dad and thinking, okay, Mom is gone, I’m grown up now, it’s my job now to take care of my dad and my brother.
My dad used to make these great videos for my mom’s parents in Oklahoma. I remember one he made right after she died, where I was saying my I’m really sad my mom died but I hope this experience will make me a more compassionate person which will help me make the world better for others. I was just a little 9-year-old girl who had the weight of the world on her shoulders. I built this shell around myself so as not to be vulnerable, so that people couldn’t hurt me. I was playing the role that I thought I had been assigned, to take care of my father and brother. It’s only recently I’ve realized that little girl still needs to heal and grow up so I can be a whole person.
Somehow, we survived. I got through high school and I was going to be an actor. My dad really wanted me to be a radio or TV show host. He had been a news anchor and news director for radio. He got me this show on Santa Monica public access TV. It was called Shane’s Seventh Grade Perspective, and then it was Shane’s Eighth Grade Perspective, and then Ninth. We would go a studio and I’d interview elected officials and civic leaders. I learned how to do the interviewing and all the technical stuff, both on the camera and editing side. Now, as an adult, I have a podcast, and I feel like I’ve finally gotten to fulfill this dream that my dad had for me.
I went into college still thinking I was going to be an actor. Then I started studying sociology and social movements, and that’s where I found out that the experiences we’d had as a family were in a much larger context. My dad had planted those seeds. He was very, very left. He had marched with Martin Luther King Jr., as he often liked to share, and was a hippie. He and my mom were both lefties. They met at an anti-police-brutality protest. So he had set me up to understand the social justice context of our experience, and that relieved some of the shame.
In college, I was finding out that organizing was something we could all do together, that it was a way to fight back and to channel my rage. At Liberty Hill, we talk about change, not charity. We had experienced charity as a family when I was a kid, with the government cheese lines and all that stuff. My dad hated it. He felt humiliated and became distrustful of outsiders. So the idea of fighting for change came naturally to me.
My dad died when I was 19, and very shortly after, whatever thin thread that was holding my beloved brother together fell apart. He became a homeless orphan at 16. He stayed with me in my dorm for a while, but when he was 17 he was arrested and had to go to court. I had the opportunity to advocate for him in front of a judge, who had to decide whether to try him as an adult. I told my brother’s story and pleaded for his life, basically -- that he was homeless, poor, had lost his parents. I said, please, consider the mitigating circumstances.
The judge looked right through me. He charged my brother as an adult and sent him to jail. I remember how freezing it felt in the courtroom, and how gigantic the judge seemed on the dais. I felt powerless in the face of the justice system. Nothing about my brother’s or our experience mattered.
So many of us have had similar experiences. I came to love organizing because, in coming together, we have power. Later in my career, I got to be on the police commission, where I was the one sitting at the dais. I was able to take back my power and commit to never feel powerless again.
I’ve learned in organizing that people have wisdom, talent and leadership within them. They need to understand their problems and to work together to solve them. I am passionate about community organizing, and I love the heck out of every single organizer in LA. But I’ve realized that organizing itself is probably not my best contribution to the movement. There are others who are way better at it than me. I’m good at strategy, management, and leading an organization. So I have devoted my career to supporting organizers in those ways.
Everything I’ve learned about youth development and the youth justice system is that unconditional love is everything. For years, I carried fear and trauma with me in my backpack. I needed to let go of that and find another way I could move on. I was very twisted as a kid, feeling weak and scared and talented and powerful all at once, but I built a shell around those feelings. I thought if I could just work hard enough, then I would be worthy and I would be safe. That’s a very stressful way to live because sadly, it’s not true. In fact, it just makes everything scarier.
Whatever your childhood experience may have been, you don’t need to feel like an imposter. There’s likely an element of your experience that others share. I learned that if I choose to be brave in the face of my fear, the more empowered I feel. And that feels so much better than being afraid. Being brave doesn’t necessarily make me safe, but at least it makes me feel strong, and that allows me to be fully present in the work I do, which is to support organizers and social movements in Los Angeles.
I’ve gone through a ton of work on myself and with my team at Liberty Hill to learn that I can let myself be a whole person. Letting go of the shell was liberating. I realized that sharing my vulnerability, my weaknesses, mistakes and fears allows me to have more authentic connections with others. People are going to find out I’m imperfect because I’m telling them! And it turns out they already knew I wasn’t perfect, anyway. So my extreme efforts to hide my imperfections were failing. It’s been liberating, not running around terrified anymore.
I’ve never thought that if we just work hard, we’ll be able to achieve social, racial and economic utopia, but I make sure I’m fighting for it every single day, and that I’m bringing others to fight for it, too. What gives me hope is that we’ve built a powerful movement. There are people doing incredible things right here in Los Angeles. Inspiring people to find and exercise the power they hold inside themselves – my focus is on that. This work has nothing to do with terror. It’s about joy and beauty.
Shane Goldsmith is the President and CEO of the Liberty Hill Foundation, a laboratory for social change philanthropy. The foundation leverages the power of community organizers, donor activists, and allies to advance social justice through strategic investment in grants, leadership training, and campaigns. She is the former executive director of Path Ventures, and has served on multiple boards and commissions, including the Los Angeles Police Commission. She is the creator and host of Liberty Hill’s award-winning podcast, Conversations from the Frontlines, which she describes as her passion project.
When she is not working, or even while she is, Shane is a maniacal doodler. She says it helps her stay focused during conversations and planning meetings. The results are visually striking summaries of her thought process. She has also become a master craftsmaker of crocheted animals, known as Woobles. If anyone had asked me in high school who would become the most prolific producer of artful doodles and Woobles, I’d never have guessed Shane. But she is! She is also an incredibly powerful public speaker.
This whole series is lovely -- something to look forward at the end of the week -- but Shane's story really got me. Keep it up!