Defiance can be a good thing. When facing injustice, tyranny or oppression, we all need to stand up for ourselves. This episode was hosted by Kim Shine & Joel Dresang, edited by Sam Wood and includes four “Defiant” stories from Ben Turk, Xia Lowery, Alvin Flowers and Abbey Osborn.
Episode transcript below from Ex Fabula's Real Storie MKE series.
Joel Dresang: Welcome to Real Stories MKE, brought to you by Ex Fabula as part of its mission to connect Milwaukee through real stories. I'm Joel Dressing.
Kim Shine: And I am Kim Shine. Ex Fabula believes that everyone has personal stories worth sharing, so they conduct workshops for community members to build their storytelling skills and confidence. And Ex Fabula StorySlams where people share their true experiences on stage. Today, we're bringing you four of those impactful stories.
Joel Dresang: This season of Real Stories Mickey is presented by Christine Symchych and Jim McNulty, and the theme for this episode is “Defiance.”
Kim Shine: Defiance. I love it.
Joel Dresang: Yes. When we encounter inconvenience, misfortune, even injustice, it's easy to say it is what it is and shrug it off and just move on. But sometimes some of us are brave enough or bothered enough to do something about it. In this episode of Real Stories MKE, we'll hear from the storytellers who defied the obstacles they faced. So, Kim, we’re just talking a little bit about our own stories of defiance.
Kim Shine: Yeah.
Joel Dresang: You know, as journalists, that background, I mean, just the act of being a journalist. A lot of times, questioning authority is an act of defiance.
Kim Shine: Yeah. And I have to say, even if I pull it out of that, I think I'm just like that naturally. Like...
Joel Dresang: That’s good! It’s healthy.
Kim Shine: You got to tell me what is going on and where we're going, and maybe I can loosen up a little bit. But in terms of defiance, I had a little interaction with this when I was in high school.
Kim Shine: So, I was on the newspaper there and at my high school, we had a library, obviously, and we had some new librarians. The two ladies, they were trash.
Joel Dresang: Oh no! I love librarians.
Kim Shine: I love librarians. The library, my library. Get your library card, guys. Everybody go get one if you don't have one. But yeah, so they they were hired in and for whatever reason they just were really strict, really mean, made some rules that none of the students enjoyed. Like we couldn't actually enjoy the library because of what they, what their, their rules are.
Kim Shine: So, what I did, you know, I wrote...write, write your life. So I wrote about it in the paper, did a little op ed, and yeah, I gained some, I gained some enemies out of the librarians, but the students were vindicated. You know, I don't know if if maybe the staff didn't really understand how deeply we were feeling that, but some changes happened.
Joel Dresang: Yeah, I would not want to have librarians on my bad side.
Kim Shine: I know, evil librarians, that just...This doesn't sound good.
Joel Dresang: Well, the first story that we have on this episode is from Xia Lowery. Xia shares how a modest event for conservationism led to an unexpected consequence. Xia shared her story at the annual Green and Healthy Schools Conference in 2023 during an Ex Fabula StorySlam in partnership with the Milwaukee nonprofit, Reflo. Here's Xia.
Xia Lowery: So, my name is Xia and I'm currently an intern with Green and Healthy Schools. I also attend UW-Milwaukee studying conservation science. At UW-Milwaukee, I'm the Conservation Club President and one of our many, many events that we host are clothing swaps. Now, for those of you who don't know what a clothing swap it is, it is basically where you donate clothes, and you can pick out clothes for free and the whole thing is free.
And the main goal is to make sure that clothes stay out of landfills and out of incinerators, and really gives them a second chance at life. And people find amazing, great things that other people just didn't want anymore. And so, when I was hosting my first clothing swap of the semester, it was a mess. It was chaos. There are hangers and clothes everywhere.
It was the first time I'd ever done it and honestly, I felt defeated. I felt like the whole process was so overwhelming and that I couldn't ever do it again. And through the chaos, this woman, she was about 30 years old. She comes up to me and says, why are all these clothes free? And I was and I said, they're donations.
You know, if people donated them and there's no profits, there's no money involved. And she was really confused about the idea because, you know, not many people hand out things for free nowadays. And so, she goes and looks at the clothes and comes back to me about 2 or 3 pieces of clothing in her hand, and she takes my hands and she starts crying.
And she said that she hasn't been able to get her kids new clothes in over two years because her husband was going through cancer treatments, and that all of the money that they had to use were going towards his hospital bills. And she said that this was the most amazing and gracious event she's ever been to. And her kids were able to get some new clothes for their school year just coming to this event.
And although our goal was to save the environment and to, you know, protect our...protect our world, it was just really great that made such a local impact as well in this girl's life and for her kids and for her family. So, I just wanted to share that.
Joel Dresang: Thank you. That was Xia Lowery. When she told that story, she was an intern for the Green and Healthy Schools, which is a program of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Now she's a program manager for that organization. Also, she tells us that she is earning a master's degree in environmental conservation at UW Madison.
Kim Shine: Well, kudos to her. We got to put some claps in or something, Sam. [queue claps and cheers sound bite]
Our second story of defiance is from Alvin Flowers. Alvin is a survivor who has overcome poverty, violence, and disease and as you'll hear, he is determined to do more than survive. He's committed to making a difference. Here's Alvin.
Alvin Flowers: Good afternoon, everybody. I know that first speaker got away with some notes, so I got some. And then and then she had the short stories, so I know I'm cool on time. Okay. Just quickly, I want to talk with you about my prostate cancer survival journey. Prostate cancer survival journey. I am a prostate cancer survivor. I want to give you a little background, just so you can get an idea of who I am and how I got to where I am today.
I'm born in a far south suburb of Milwaukee—Chicago, the south side of Chicago, really. Born in a housing project called Wentworth Gardens, about four blocks from White Sox Park or Comiskey Park, whatever you want to call it. Comiskey Field. My father was a professional gambler. He used to tell us, yeah, when you go to school, tell him your father was a gambler.
And we was also proud of him. He was my dad, and my mother was a political operative. You may be familiar with the Daley machine and Chicago political machine. You may or may not know that. Maybe nobody here’s old enough to realize it. She was what’s called a precinct captain. That got us out of poverty because they gave her what's called a patronage job.
She worked at the Cook County Hospital in housekeeping, and that got us out of poverty. So, I remember my dad asking me and my little brother, what do you want to be when you grow up? And we both said, oh, we want to be farmers. And he said, why do you want to be a farmer? We said, cause the farmers controlled the food.
You know, we wanted food. We were being poor. And he said, well, farmers may control the food, but lawyers control the land. People that know the law. So of course, that changed my aspirations. I wanted to be an attorney. Let's go. Fast forward, you know, through high school, I graduate from high school, and I want to get off the streets of Chicago.
Cause it was kind of unfriendly out there. They tend to want to beat you up and take your stuff and and like I tell people, I've been cut, stabbed, shot, beat up all of that, no joke. All of that happened in Chicago and not Vietnam, which we're about to get to. So anyway, join the Marine Corps like that little blue uniforms.
Join that to try to get off the streets and thinking, okay, I'm going to be all right. I'm going to this will help me pay through college, the GI Bill. And it did. But I went in the Marines just thinking I got to get through. This is nothing, you know, I'm just going to get through my enlistment and come out and go to college.
But it didn't work out that way. Ended up going to Vietnam. The assigned me to Special Forces group called Marine Reconnaissance. We were doing out all kind of covert activities. I would call in airstrikes, naval gunfire, all kinds of stuff. So bottom line when I'm telling you, I killed people, I'm not proud of that. And I struggle with that a lot.
Okay. Just give you the background. I got this survivor's guilt from Vietnam. Me surviving, others didn't. I'm diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from doing all that stuff. And so just wanted to give you that. And it'll be important as we get through to the prostate cancer thing. Okay. So ah, worked many jobs. First job when I got back was the Chicago Police Department.
[Phone alarm bells chime] Oh. My time? Yeah.
Timekeeper Volunteer
No, you got halfway!
Oh, I'm halfway? Cool! Let me get through this. Okay. I didn't last with the police department because I had this post-traumatic stress. I have a nightmare. Flashbacks, all kinds of stuff that we can't give him no gun, you know? And that's why I had a bunch of other little job. Worked at Pepsi-Cola.
The post office. Da da da. What brought me to Wisconsin was, I work for Illinois Bill, and I got a promotion to come up here as an account executive, 400 South Executive Drive. I was one of the first black account executives they had here in Wisconsin. I was doing okay. You know, God blessed me with a little intelligence.
I was okay with that. Okay. Work through all kinds of stuff. Didn't want to. I had a physical at the VA, an annual physical. And my doctor said, “Hey Al, we want to take another look at it. You want you have a prostate biopsy.” So, I had the first biopsy and then he asked me to to have another one.
I found out I had prostate cancer. So of course, I'm feeling...I don't know how to describe it. Just deflated. I felt like I was in brain fog. I didn't know no what to do about it. I'm scared to death, man. I've been healthy. So now I got this thing and that I don't know about and it’s inside of me.
And maybe growing and could kill me. So, my doctor, after I got through, I went to radiation treatment and got it all kind of under control. I hope I'm not going to close to the end of it. And my doctor recommended me for Dr. Stolley’s program, Men Moving Forward, for African American males because they have disparity and prostate cancer.
And I took advantage of a 16-week program. Probably the best thing I ever did. Things got better about health, about eating, that kind of thing. I got in touch with other people that had prostate cancer, so I didn't feel like I was alone. That was very encouraging. So, we got through all of that, and that was maybe 6 or 7 years ago when I had the prostate cancer diagnosis.
Now I'm getting close to closing with this. Let's see about three months ago, I call my doctor at the VA said, yeah, and I've been going through all this and taking my PSA test. Is there something else I can take that would cure me of the cancer and not have it metastasized? He went through my records and said, “You know, Al, we've been looking at all this and we've been watching your PSA levels.”
And his quote was “You’re very likely cured of the prostate cancer.” One more time? Very likely cured of the prostate cancer. Hey, and, honestly, I try to make a feel-good Dr. Stolley’s program. One minute. I'm cool. I didn't want to come up here, but here we are. So now what I did, honest to God, I survived Vietnam when others didn't.
When I probably shouldn't have. Men much better man in me died. And I don't want to horrify you with, you know, specifics. So. But now I've survived this. And what I want to do now is help other survivors, help people understand that there is hope. But I didn't know it was any, man. You know, I'm a college educated person.
I didn't...prostate cancer? I thought I was going to die, but here I am. And so, I want to help others direct them to Dr. Stolley’s program, other kind of support systems. We do, support groups at the VA, at the Veterans Administration. And so that's what I want to do now, in in respect to God, Jesus Christ, I'm trying to get to heaven. Stuff I did don't get you there, what I did in Vietnam.
I'm trying to make up for that. That's what I had.
Kim Shine: That was Alvin Flowers, and he shared his story as part of a 2024 Ex Fabula event in partnership with the Community and Cancer Science Network.
Joel Dresang: You know, Kim, these stories of defiance, are a little bit harsher than, what we told a couple of weeks ago on mischief. Yeah. And, and I wanted to use this occasion to clear the air. Yeah. You said the word mischievous, and I corrected you to say that's a mispronunciation.
Kim Shine: What did you find out?
Joel Dresang: I just want to clear the air. I was right, first of all.
Kim Shine: But but.
Joel Dresang: The word mischievous does exist. It's considered nonstandard English. So, you know...
Kim Shine: We're both right!
Joel Dresang: That made me correct. Yes. It's also considered, you know, just sort of a, a questionable variation of the word mischievous.
But it's been nonstandard English since at least the 16th century.
Kim Shine: What I'm saying.
Joel Dresang: So, okay.
Kim Shine: I'm always right, Joel.
Joel Dresang: So, it's a big language out there.
Kim Shine: It is. Thank you. I accept that. And um, I think we're even now.
Joel Dresang: Okay. Our third storyteller is Abbey Osborn. Abbey's story shows us how sometimes standing up for yourself is an act of defiance that has farther reaching benefits for others, especially when you share your story afterward. Here's Abbey from a 2025 StorySlam with the theme “Found Family.”
Abbey Osborn: All right, I was a little apprehensive about getting up here, but I guess I will tell you the story about how my first job really sucked and how I found a job that didn’t. So, I graduated from college for teaching in 2020. In the midst of the pandemic. And the only job I could find was in rural Illinois.
I want to say there were maybe 180 kids total at this school. My class sizes were wonderfully small, though. But the community I was in was not accepting of a person like myself, who is out and queer and use they/them pronouns at work and insisted that their students use it. And I received a fair amount of backlash for trying to talk about things like people being queer in my classroom, and so it wasn't really a surprise to me at the end of the year when they said, we're not going to renew your contract.
And I said, okay, that's fine. Clearly, I don't belong here, and I didn't want to be there, so I left. I moved to Milwaukee; I started teaching on the northwest side in Milwaukee Public Schools. But then I kept running into the same problems. I kept running into administrators that weren't willing to use my pronouns. I kept running into students who would get into fights with me about it.
And then when I would go to an administrator for backup, the administrator would be like, well, they're entitled to their opinion. And I was like, it's not an opinion if it's actively hurting me. So I knew after about a year at that school that I had to leave. Unfortunately, there wasn't really anything open elsewhere. It just wasn't a big year for hiring English teachers.
So, I stayed another year. And then I heard through the grapevine of teachers that the school that I really liked, that I had heard had a really good community, was hiring. And I was like, great, I'll apply. The only problem was they were hiring for a bilingual teacher. And so when I put my application and there's like three rounds, whatever the first one is for like teachers who are fully licensed.
And I was like, great, I have an English license, I got a minor in Spanish, so I can probably speak that still. I'm going to apply. And so I did and I had an interview and it was wonderful. I love the school. I love the people on my interview committee. I was like, this is really great. I had another interview with another school.
I was like, this is also really great. And then the way it works is they email you and they're like, hey, these schools wanted to offer you a position, and both schools wanted to offer me a position, and I was like, you know what? I just need to get out of the school that I am at. I need to find a place where I feel like I fit in, where I feel like I belong.
So, I called people that worked at both schools. I talked to my friends, I said I don't know what to pick, and they were like, yeah, but you keep talking about this one school and not so much this other school. And I was like, well, yeah, but if I go to this school, then I'm going to have to learn my Spanish again.
I'm going to have to do things that I haven't done before. I've never taught kids that only speak, that speak more than one language. I've only taught kids that speak one language. And finally, I emailed and I said, okay, I would like this position at this school. And I said, I'm going to accept the bilingual position. And HR emailed me back and they said, JK, you can't do that because you don't have a bilingual license.
And I said, I can speak Spanish. And they said, you were supposed to wait to apply in the other cycle. And so then then I said, you know what? I do really want to be at this school. I really am going to fight for it. So, I sent them a very nicely worded but still rather harsh email, which I said, it is not my fault that you gave me both offers and did not communicate to me that I could only accept one of those offers and the other one I was not, in fact, even eligible for.
You gave me the offer. I would like to take it. And eventually, they relented. I, to this day, I'm not sure if the principal at the school I work at helped me out on my behalf. I suspect that he might have, but I ended up working at the school in the bilingual position. So now I do use my Spanish every day.
I can speak it, por lo menos, pretty sure. But it's great. Now I get to work with the GSA. Every like two weeks, I get to hang out with all the kids, and talk about the things that are on their mind. I have immigrant and refugee students, and I get to create a space and a community for them to feel safe.
My coworkers respect my pronouns. My administration respects my pronouns. I'm friends with my coworkers, which is not a thing that ever happened at that first school. I was never going out to drinks with them. That was not happening.
But I feel so grateful and so happy to have finally found a space where I feel like I can be my true self, where I feel like I can fulfill my love of teaching. Thank you.
Joel Dresang: That was Abbey Osborn. Abbey referred to working with the student group at GSA, which stands for Genders and Sexualities Alliance.
Kim Shine: I like that is I mean, we had different, different, entry points, but defying school officials, when you feel like you need to stand up for something, sometimes you got to do it.
Joel Dresang: Yes. Kim, let's do some UltraShorts.
Kim Shine: Yeah, I am excited to do some. And if you guys don't know what they are, if you don't want to get on stage at an event, you can still be part of the storytelling event by writing something on a little piece of paper.
Joel Dresang: Two or three sentences. Yeah. Make it make it legible because somebody else will be reading it.
Kim Shine: That is a great point.
Joel Dresang: I've got one right here. It's from anonymous. “I got so much good trouble as a child that my bottom's still sore from the spanking.”
Kim Shine: Ooh, I am that person. I am anonymous, okay? I used to get chased around the house.
Joel Dresang: That's how you got so fast.
Kim Shine: Right? This one is from Yoko. “When I was a kid, I was a fat little Asian. There was a little boy who bullied me, and he teased me because I was so chubby, and I didn't look like all the other kids. It pissed me off. Every day. He had a new insult that hit close to home. I couldn't do anything about it.
Kim Shine: He always laughed at me and knew that I wouldn't hit him because we had a scary principal. But then, I threw caution to the wind and socked him right in the gut. Yeah, I got in trouble and was sent to the principal's office, but it was pretty much the most satisfying childhood memory I have.” Our final defiance story comes from Ben Turk.
Kim Shine: Ben told his story at an Ex Fabula StorySlam in 2019 at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee. The theme was Untold Stories of Resistance. Here's Ben.
Ben Turk: Okay, so the flier for this event said Untold Stories of Resistance. And when I think about resistance, some of the most inspired and dramatic, and high risk, acts of resistance going on today are occurring in the prisons in the US. And they are definitely untold. Prison is designed to be a space that hides people from the rest of us, and separates and, you know, it's fences and walls and divisions, and it allows all of us to not recognize or realize the amount of violence and control that goes into our capitalist society.
And those stories are going to remain untold. I've only spent one night in jail, and, I'm not going to be able to tell one of those stories of resistance, because people who who do resist in that way, inside that setting, end up with additional charges, and they spend more time in prison, in solitary confinement and further separated from us.
So, those stories are probably never going to make it to this kind of stage, which is really unfortunate. So instead, I'm going to tell my story of resistance, which has been in solidarity with people who are resisting on the inside. And, and this is really hard to do because most of that work in is just writing letters and reading letters and writing press releases that the media completely ignores.
And just like, struggling in front of a computer, but so I, I've struggled a lot with how to do this because so much of what it is, is telling other people's stories, and that's not what Ex Fabula is about. So I guess the part that I'm going to be able to tell is where I got started in this. In January of 2011, three prisoners, I was living in Ohio and three prisoners at the supermax there went on a hunger strike.
Their names were Jason Robb, Keith Lamar and Siddique Abdullah Hasan, And they went for 13 days without eating because they'd been in solitary confinement for 19 years. At that time, they were all on death row. And because they were scapegoated and blamed and framed after the Lucasville uprising in 1993. They're still on death row, still in solitary confinement at that supermax today.
So, we we heard that there was going to be a solidarity demo with that hunger strike. And I had just toured the country with, an anarchist theater troupe that I founded here in Milwaukee, and then moved to Ohio. And when we were on tour, we were doing a play about, globalization and kidnaping delegates to the G20 and these all these questions of political violence and, the boundaries and the limits and militancy and all of these kinds of things.
And in the discussions after those shows, prison kept coming up, and I was an anarchist and an organizer and all of these things, but I had never really thought about prison in my, you know, white life, especially here in Milwaukee, where it's so segregated and so separated and not part of your, normal experience. And so, but doing that play, prison kept coming up in the discussions, and I realized that the reason that the violence of global capitalism and allows to continue to exist is prison, and that the role that that plays in maintaining our social order.
And so I was, excited to hear that there was a, hunger strike and a demonstration. We went and it was set up by Staughton and Alice Lynd, who are old school Quakers who were part of the civil rights movement back in the day, and it was in this parking lot of this church near the prison. And by near the prison, I mean, about a half a mile away.
The prison was across the field and a rampart, and this little church parking lot, we were there marching back and forth. No media came out. There was a country road. There was no traffic. Nobody was seeing us other than ourselves. And after going back and forth a couple times, this woman from Cleveland, whose son was in the prison, he wasn't one of the hunger strikers, but she knew him.
She tromped out into the field and shook her fist and turned around and came back, and she kind of apologized and said, I'm sorry. I just had to act the fool. And I was like, what? There's nothing foolish about. I mean, look at what we're doing right now. We're walking back and forth in this parking lot and nobody can see us.
That's that's foolish. And so we talked with her a little bit, and we decided to go and try to march up to the prison. So, we tromped through the snow with our banners and our signs and, and the windows in the supermax with these, like, thin little things. And you're just hoping that people can maybe see you. But before we even got to the parking lot, the perimeter guards came through and said they had already called the police to arrest us if we didn't leave immediately.
So, we did. Nobody got arrested that day. But we went back, and we got visitor forms filled out. We started corresponding with Keith and Jason and Hassan, and, for a few years when I was living in Ohio, we would go every month to the supermax. And it's such a strange experience going to those visiting rooms.
One of the things that they had won on that hunger strike. And it's really rare that anybody wins anything on a hunger strike. They had one, partial contact visits, which means that after 19 years of the only human contact they had being guards, putting shackles on their wrists or ankles, they were able to reach through this little window that was cut like a like a ticket booth, and you could hold their hand and we could share food with them.
And so we got vending machine food like, the kind of thing that you get at a gas station, those rubbery hamburgers and that you put in a microwave. And they, they were they said that is the best food they've had for 19 years. And so we would go there, drive three hours, spend three hours in the visiting room with one, and then three hours with a different guy, and then drive three hours back home.
And just tell our stories and hear their stories. And it opened my eyes. And I've been a prison abolitionist, an organizer and fighter ever since. I've supported, prison strikes on a national level in 2016 and 2018. There were some guys who went on a hunger strike here in Wisconsin. When I moved back to Wisconsin, I realized that Wisconsin is like the worst.
The conditions in prisons here are torturous. It's much more racially targeted than most places. And, I mean, we all know the incarceration rates are incredibly high here, so I just want to encourage everybody to be aware that there is a lot of resistance that is going on every single day, that is hidden from all of us, especially here.
Thank you.
Kim Shine: That was Ben Turk, and he gave us this update. Since telling the story, conditions in Wisconsin prisons are worse than ever. He says it is a truly desperate, horrifying, and very invisible situation. And personally, he says he's stepped back from direct correspondence and advocacy work to a full-time job and donates money to Forum for Understanding Prisons and other organizations working towards systemic change.
Joel Dresang: Well, Kim, that's all the time we have for this episode of Real Stories MKE, but Ex Fabula has more stories to share. It has been hosting StorySlams since 2009, and it has audio and video stories at exfabula.org.
Kim Shine: And more stories are on the way, guys. The Ex Fabula website lists upcoming storytelling workshops and StorySlams, so you can even join in on the storytelling. You can also connect with Ex Fabula on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. And of course, make sure you subscribe to Real Stories MKE, this podcast right here, wherever you get your podcasts.
Joel Dresang: Thanks to everyone who makes this program possible, including Ex Fabula staff, the storytellers, our producer Jordan Terry, audio engineer Sam Woods, and also thanks to the organizations that have partnered with Ex Fabula on customized StorySlams. More information about that is on exfabula.org/collaborate.
Kim Shine: For Real Stories MKE, I’m Kim Shine.
Joel Dresang: And I’m Joel Dresang. Remember, everybody has stories worth sharing. Think of telling yours.
