Senior Consultant & Strategist Krystle Birdsall discusses the path she took to co-founding The Pivotal Paradigm Project and what this work means to her.

January 2020 I’m pregnant, again.  Feet swollen. Can’t breathe. Iron so low I may need a blood transfusion for the second time in my life.  I should’ve been prepared because this is the third time I’m going through this.  Sitting in the hospital, hooked up to an IV, I think about how this world is trash and I’m so selfish that I’m bringing yet a third child into this world because I wanted kids.  I can’t even protect them, but I wanted them so here I am suffering again.

Being a realist and watching the world burn down before my eyes this year, I can better understand that it isn’t a problem with me.  I guess people just always hated Black people and womxn - since the beginning of time.  Knowing this, I can’t just sit around and be taken down peacefully. I need to fight back and claim this life that I’ve worked so hard to build.  This is what led me to this work.

“I guess people just always hated Black people and womxn - since the beginning of time.”

Back in high school, I wanted to build things with my hands. So you may be wondering how I became a teacher and made a solid career in education.  Well, because I knew I wanted to build but again, the world is trash for people who look like me (even more so for those who are even further marginalized than myself),  I decided to build up communities and build up the people who have been torn down for so long.  I figured education was the way.

So did you know that the education system in this country is trash too? After working in it for a few years at different levels, I found that there was just no way for me to make the significant difference I wanted to make from the classrooms, the schools, the districts, or the non-profit organizations that try to alleviate the educational inequities in this country.  This is what led me to co-creating The Pivotal Paradigm Project.  I had to put on my big girl panties and start my own thing to not only help marginalized communities find their place within society but also ensure that they would be safe and protected.  Although working for “the Man” has provided the opportunity for growth, stability, and the resources I needed to ensure my family was taken care of, I need to go out on my own.  I can no longer, in good conscience, continue pretending that I can make real change if I still play by the rules that were given to me.

I can’t leave things the same if I want to protect my kids and provide them with comparable, if not additional, opportunities the kids from two towns over have. You know, the ones who go to private schools and have the world bend over backward at their mediocrity. Waking up every morning, I look at Charles, Zora, and Amethyst and want them to stay innocent forever but the hopeful realist in me knows this world will harden them. It’s my job to add a little shea butter to the rough spots.