Kohen Lucero uses his powers as an activator to promote books featuring diverse representation with Team End Racism. Let’s learn how you can join him in learning, growing, and changing the world.
Kohen Lucero uses his powers as an activator to promote books featuring diverse representation with Team End Racism. Let’s learn how you can join him in learning, growing, and changing the world.
You can find out more about Team End Racism by visiting https://www.teamendracism.org/!
The Activators
S1 EP05, Kohen Lucero and Team End Racism
[INTRODUCTION]
Leo: Welcome to The Activators!, A Kids Podcast About Activism. I’m your host, Leo Abelo Perry!
On this podcast, we want to celebrate and amplify kids who are activating social change by doing what they love to spread more love. Social change means providing opportunities for people and communities to recognize what’s wrong and do something about it, for the betterment of humanity.
And on today’s show we’re talking to Kohen Lucero, the founder and CEO of Team End Racism.
But first, how are you today? On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “things are rough” and 5 being “off-the-charts amazing,” I’d say I’m a 3 and a half. No matter how you’re feeling, it’s all okay. I’m glad that you’re here with me today. And doing a self-check can help you to understand how ready you are to learn new things or meet new people.
For now, you can just sit back, relax, and get ready to be inspired.
[MEET KOHEN LUCERO]
Leo: Today’s guest is Kohen Lucero, the 9-year-old founder and CEO of Team End Racism. Kohen’s working to get diverse books into schools and to spread a message of ending racism through the rules he created, including:
While you listen, think about if you’ve ever been thrown off by something a friend or classmate said about your appearance.
That’s where Kohen started, and he hasn’t stopped! I can’t wait for you to meet him!
Here’s my interview with Kohen Lucero.
[INTERVIEW]
Kohen: Hi. I am Kohen Lucero, founder and CEO of Team End Racism and I am 9 years old.
Leo: Hi, Kohen, how are you doing?
Kohen: I am doing very good.
Leo: So I have a couple of questions for you. So if you were to rank how you're feeling right now, one being the worst five being I'm great. And I feel amazing.
Kohen: I would go with a five, a perfect five. I am feeling free and feeling amazing. I'm feeling ready.
Leo: Cool. So what's one of your hobbies?
Kohen: One of my hobbies is watching videos about dinosaurs, Godzilla and Minecraft. I'm really interested.
Leo: That's very cool. So what are you doing to try to change the world and trying to spread a message? Trying to tell people that they can make a change in the world.
Kohen: I am donating diverse books to schools all around the world because diversity is very important.
I like donating diverse books, books that really have character in them like Black and Brown books about Black history.
Leo: When you learned about racism, how did you react?
Kohen: That's one of the Team End Racism facts that I have. So, uh, if you want to know the back story and how, uh, I did it...
So at school we were having a Valentine's party and I forgot what I was doing, probably like giving it out and one of the girls in my class, she told me her and her friends didn't want to hang out with me because of the color of my hair, the color of my skin.
And I saw mom watching protests and learned about George Floyd. So I knew I had to do something about it. So I started Team End Racism in June of 2020.
Leo: Yeah. How did it feel when you learned about George Floyd?
Kohen: Uh, it felt very sad and hurtful because a police officer…Like, why would an officer kill someone like that? They're innocent if they didn't do anything. That's just really sad.
Leo: Cool. Okay. I have another question for you. Can you tell our listeners what CEO means?
Kohen: Chief executive officer. Having to make sure, as a kid, everything is going smoothly.
My plan is working out. I'm like editing everything, making more rules.
Leo: Kohen has created a number of rules to guide others in the work to end racism. Check them out!
Kohen: So ONE is smile at everyone. TWO: Learn about Black history. THREE: Support Black businesses and authors. FOUR: Look around. Diversity is all around you. And FIVE: Do not bully.
Bullying can lead to racism. It could lead you to not like other colors, so you make fun of them. You might become racist towards other people.
Leo: How did you feel when you got over your goal of raising money?
Kohen: When I got over my goal of raising money. That's part of the backstory. My friend and actor, Mr. Sean Gunn, from a movie called Guardians Of The Galaxy, and his wife, Natasha, uh, spread the word with a cool video and they are board members on my non-profit. So we started a GoFundMe.
So together we raised over $17,000 for books and diverse school supplies.
So I felt very happy, proud, and I wanted to keep going.
Leo: That is so cool Kohen!
Leo: We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, Kohen talks about how he’s working with other kids to make ending racism a possibility.
[BREAK]
Leo: Welcome back to The Activators!
And my conversation with Team End Racism founder and CEO, Kohen Lucero. He’s 9 years old. He raised over $17,000 for diverse books. And he’s just getting started.
Leo: How are you using what you love to make other people happy?
Kohen: So, I am using my love of reading books into reading diverse books, because if diversity is really what matters in the world, I want to turn reading into learning about different races, Black authors, like Black authors, and I just want people to know that reading is a fun thing when it comes to diversity.
Leo: So what's your favorite diverse book?
Kohen: Oh, uh, I think I have one called Women of Black History or Science Black History. And I really like that one. And A Kid's Book About Racism. I love to read those books. They're very diverse.
Leo: What does it feel like to change the world?
Kohen: It feels like helping the world out. Helping people. Helping other races know that it's okay if you don't like color black, brown, if it don't like the color white.
But you shouldn't like other people because of the color that their skin is. Like, if you don't like that color, you just have to accept other people. Not tell them that you don't like that color. “I'm not going to hang out with you.” It feels like wrong.
So changing the world feels like we're superheroes, helping all the bad people to become good and help other people that are in need. And help others who were heroes fight against the bad guys and change them. That's what it kind of feels like.
Leo: How can we help kids make this future possible? Any suggestions?
Kohen: So my advice would be you can go around and teach about diversity and you can probably follow one of my rules also.
I'm going to explain it in a sentence. If you look around everywhere, like you can stop and see people of different races. You have to look around, see if you can make friends, um, probably.
You could teach them about diversity, if you don't know.
And kids, uh, they just say, “Oh, the color of my skin is brown.” Or “oh, it's white”, but we need to start teaching them that skin color is what matters because people often get teased about it. And that is very rude. And it's called racism when you make fun of someone because of their skin color.
So I'm also working on trying to do that. Yeah.
Leo: All right. So how do you picture the world in the future?
Kohen: I pictured the world in the future. I picture it as a world of like Black and white people getting together and like those people making friends with other people and like everybody being friends.
Leo: For all those listeners that no matter if you're already an Activator or you're just getting started now, do your superhero pose and on three.We're all going to give Kohen an Activators share. Okay. You ready? You in your superhero pose. Okay. Ready? Set. Activators!
Kohen: Activators!
[CONCLUSION]
Leo: It was so great to chat with Kohen. I learned so much from him!
Here are some things I’ve been thinking about since chatting with Kohen.
But something that helped us deal with this awful thing was—we both picked something that we love doing and used that to make a change.
I know after chatting with Kohen, I started to be more aware of the diversity around me, starting with the books I read. I actually found a great graphic novel called New Kid by Jerry Kraft and the main character is a 12 year old Black kid named Jordan. It’s hilarious yet intriguing.
Next time you’re in the library or book store, ask for help to find books with more diverse characters!
[CLOSING]
Leo: Thank you to Kohen Lucero for joining us today. You can find out more about Team End Racism by visiting https://www.teamendracism.org/!
The Activators! is written by me, Leo Abelo Perry (and a little help from my mom). Our show is edited and produced by Matthew Winner with help from Chad Michael Snavely and the team at Sound On Studios. Our executive producer is Jelani Memory. And this show was brought to you by A Kids Podcast About.
You can write to us at listen@akidspodcastabout.com. And check out other podcasts made for kids just like you by visiting akidsco.com.
See you again next week for another episode of The Activators!