As Black people in America,
it's like, you're walking into a church
and you smell like weed.
Everybody's looking at you.
And you wasn't even smoking the weed.
You just kind of like walked past somebody's car,
and you just brought the odor in with you.
Being Black in America is like an assumption of guilt.
[Elisa] When it's really the other way around.
Yeah.
[Elisa] In reality. [Leon] In reality.
[Elisa] So can you just talk
a little bit about how you feel right now?
I feel a strong sense of purpose.
I feel connected.
Part of that comes from the fact
that I haven't been on social media.
And the other is because I've been doing
the self-work that has prepared me to face
people who were once triggers.
And they're no longer triggers for me.
[Elisa] So you can take off your mask.
What does your style say about you?
My style says that I'm simple.
I'm laid back.
[Lily] Are you simple and laid back
as a person?
Yes.
I mean, I feel like when I was younger,
I was louder.
After I got shot, had to redefine what manhood was.
I was shot when I was 19 years old.
My manhood was really based on external power,
my ability to make more money than somebody,
my ability to beat somebody up,
my ability to date more women.
I got shot and those things didn't matter anymore.
I learned that I didn't have to be loud
to be powerful.
I could just be myself.
I could lead with love.
[Lily] Can you talk about the assumptions
that people make about you based on how you look?
Yeah.
I think people assume that I need help.
Sometimes they assume that I don't need help.
Like for instance, when I came in this room,
there may or may not have been an assumption
that my cousin drove me here.
But he slept the whole ride. (laughs)
I actually drove the entire way
from Pittsburgh, here to New York.
I used to be self-conscious to tell people I was shot
because I kind of felt like there was this assumption
that I was shot.
Whereas, a white counterpart,
there may be an assumption that they were in a car accident,
you know?
And then don't let me tell somebody
I was shot by a police officer.
It immediately goes to, "What did you do?"
Whenever I enter a predominately white space,
I can feel me adapting to kind of disarm them.
[Elisa] What kind of things do you do?
Smile, talk about things
that they would be interested in.
I would have a different tone in my voice.
But now it's like, yo, I'm me.
And I'm going to show up as me.
And I know I'm worthy.
Before, I just felt like I had so much to prove.
[Lily] So can you paint the picture
a little bit of like what was going on in your life
when you were 19,
and then what happened?
I was the average 19-year-old.
I was a year out of high school.
I had applied to go to this community college,
going to a bunch of college parties and just turning up.
It was a Sunday that I got shot.
I was driving down the street.
It was a one-way and the police officers
were coming up the wrong way.
And I was kind of looking, like, I told you-
[Elisa] They were coming up the wrong way
and you were going the right way?
I was going the right way
and they didn't have their sirens on or anything.
I told you I was real confident.
So I'm like, "Yo, what are you all doing?"
I'm looking directly into their car
which is like, bro, when you're Black,
you're just not supposed to do that.
And so when I made eye contact with them,
I knew, in that moment,
that they were going to pull me over.
And so what I did was, I drove to the stop sign.
And as soon as I made the left
and I knew they couldn't see me,
I just sped all the way up to the next stop sign.
I kind of hit two cuts
and I knew that they weren't going to catch up to me
unless they was really trying to get to me.
Even though I didn't break any laws.
And so, I'm driving over this bridge
and I'm looking in my rear view mirror.
Lights come on.
Here we go.
And so, officer comes to the window.
And I kind of cracked it and gave him my information.
And he snatched it off of me.
So I kind of knew, like, man,
this is about to be weird.
I knew I didn't have any warrants or anything.
I'm either going to get a ticket or not.
So yeah, they came back to the car.
Then they start asking me about this guy named Lamont Ford.
And I'm like, "Bruh, I don't know Lamont Ford."
After awhile, they start insisting
that I was Lamont Ford.
I'm like, "Bruh, I'm Leon Ford."
I knew they wanted to get in my car,
but they didn't really have a reason to.
So now they're threatening me.
"If you're lying, we're going to kick your ass,"
and all this stuff.
Now I'm like, "Man, this is really getting weird."
So I'm in my head like, "I'm pulling off."
And so they open up the door
and they're standing in the door,
where they're trying to grab me.
And I hurry up and put the car in drive
and try to drive off.
What I didn't realize is they called backup
and there was officer on the passenger side.
So as soon as I pulled off,
the officer that was on the passenger side
jumped inside my vehicle,
and he just immediately starts firing.
[Elisa] How many times?
Five times.
[Lily] He's in the passenger seat?
Yeah, he's in the passenger seat.
The gun is on my chest.
Like, I can feel the steel.
It was so close, I thought he was tasing me.
Immediately after I crashed,
I get yanked out the car.
They slammed me on the ground.
I still was thinking that I got tased.
But I start, you know, having the blood coming out my mouth
and I could feel a lot of blood under me.
And so they were going through the trunk.
You know, "Where's the drugs?
Where's the guns?"
I'm like, "Bruh, I don't have no drugs or no guns."
One of the officers kneeled right next to my head.
And he was like, "Yeah, I hope you fucking die."
And I was just telling myself,
"Bruh, I cannot die.
I do not want to die right here, like this."
And I just remember an ambulance come.
I tried to keep talking.
I gave them my grandma's name,
my dad's name, my mom's name,
grandma's phone number, my dad's phone number,
my mom's phone number, until I just kind of went out.
And then I woke up in the hospital.
I was on a 24-hour guard.
My family, they weren't able to see me for like two weeks
because I was under arrest.
I remember a doctor coming into my room.
And he was like, "We got good news and we got bad news.
Good news is you're going to survive.
Bad news is you're not going to be able to walk again."
[Elisa] What happened to the police officer?
He's actually a detective now.
[Elisa] Nothing happened?
No, nothing happened.
I was charged.
That's really kind of sparked my activism.
I didn't have a lot of support
from traditional leaders, and so I had to kind of build
and create my own movement.
I didn't get a lot of support
because I didn't die.
We live in a society that only respects death.
You know, you have to die to get your flowers.
When I went to civil trial,
like the courtroom is empty.
And this was during the same time
when Colin Kaepernick was protesting.
[Lily] Can you talk a little bit about
the emotions that you remember feeling
from when you became conscious again after,
and then getting home, and all of that?
I felt a bunch of anger.
[Lily] When did that kick in, right away?
Yeah, I hated all white people.
A teacher, her name is Ms. Shank.
She was my sixth grade teacher
and she just always kept up with me.
And she just gave me so much love.
And so when she came to visit me,
I was just like, "Well I hate all white people but her."
(laughs)
And then I was like, "Naw, I don't hate all white people,
I hate all police officers."
But then I had some relatives who were police officers.
So I was, "Yeah, I don't hate them.
I hate all the white cops."
I don't know when the shift happened.
Maybe it was one of my professors.
Dr. Kanti trains police officers,
and he always invited me into these spaces
to share my story with new recruits.
It was hard because I would get triggered all the time.
Police officer would say, "Well, your shooting,
it wasn't justified, but this other shooting over here
was definitely justified."
I feel like, from the moment I got shot,
November 11th, 2012, to when started therapy last year,
it all, it feels like one day.
Kind of like a emotional coma
where I didn't allow myself to feel certain emotions.
And whenever I did feel those emotions,
it's because they were very intense.
[Lily] 'Cause you were triggered?
Exactly.
And I just would be triggered by a lot of different things.
Sometimes just seeing a police officer.
I would be triggered when I would hear
other cases of police brutality.
I would be triggered when,
whenever I just, you know, look at my wheelchair.
I'd be like, 'Yo, I wasn't born like this.
Somebody put me here.'
'Somebody took my ability to walk.'
People would applaud me because like, yo,
he's a hard worker, he's ambitious,
he's doing this, he's doing that.
Oh my God, Leon is amazing.
But that was really how I decided to cope.
As soon as I got to rehab,
I never was sitting still.
I learned how to drive before I knew
how to get in and out of the bed by myself.
My dad had to carry me, like lift me up,
put me in my chair, lift me up
and put me in the car.
I would be in the car all day until
I could call my dad.
And he would leave from wherever he was at
to come help me out.
I have hell of a parents.
That love created
in me this tenacity
to just like, to push through, this resilience.
I meet people, right,
and would they look at me, like getting shot
as this huge hurdle.
But then I look at them and I see their insecurities,
their lack of self-worth,
their issues with their parents.
And I'm like, for me, that adversity
is tougher than getting shot
because I was raised around so much love.
Getting shot was just like, all right,
cool, how do I adapt?
[Lily] And so you were saying that,
like at some point, the business,
you hit like a wall with it
where you felt weren't healing?
Yeah, so I settled my case.
And so I decided to run for city council.
However, in the middle of my race,
I got invited to a meditation retreat in Mexico.
And it was during that retreat were I realized
that yo, I don't really want to run for city council.
I flew back from Mexico.
I decided to see a therapist.
The day after my session with my therapist,
I dropped out of the race for city council.
I broke the lease to my apartment
and flew to LA.
And then from LA, I went to Montreal, Canada.
Then I went to Philly.
And then I went to Europe.
And I believe because of that experience,
between leaving America,
going to therapy and practicing meditation,
my life completely change.
[Lily] When do you feel the most vulnerable?
I feel the most vulnerable when I'm trying
to suppress my vulnerability.
[Lily] Such as?
There have been police shootings
where I told myself that, "Oh, it's okay.
I'm fine. I'm not bother by it."
And this is before going to therapy.
So I suppressed those feelings.
And they end up surfacing another way.
What is different now is that I'm able to say
I do care.
I am hurt.
I am sad.
I am frustrated. I am angry.
You know, once I acknowledge those emotions,
I can let them go.
Which it's liberating for me, right?
Because I don't beat myself up.
Healing is acknowledging that I do have love in me,
but I also fuck the police in me,
I have a little bit of a lot of things
that I don't like.
And we all do, right?
So whenever I do see a police shooting,
or I am frustrated, and I do say to myself,
"Man, fuck these people,"
I don't beat myself up for it
and say, "Yo, now I'm a bad person.
Now I'm not authentic."
Because being authentic
is allowing yourself to go through
all these different emotions.
[Lily] How has that been with intimacy and dating?
Has that been like a journey?
My perspective of love has changed.
I thought love was to provide, protect, and possess.
But now, I understand love as the will
to nurture one's own and another's spiritual growth.
I haven't found that person yet.
And people say, you shouldn't have a list.
My list is someone who has a strong sense of self,
a self-actualized human being
who is connected to purpose
and has the will to share her truth,
her light, and her love with not just me, but the world.
[Elisa] Why in your body,
why in your skin, why in your journey?
Why is it a good place to be?
To be me?
(laughs)
I love me.
I don't know.
It's just like I'm here for a reason, and I know it.
I'm just embracing my nature.
And my nature is to love.
My nature is to be present.
And my nature is to give and share myself
with the world around me.
I believe that all of my life experiences
have molded me to be exactly who I am,
to be where I am.
There's a reason why my name's Leon, right?
There's a reason why I grew up in Pittsburgh.
There's a reason why I was shot.
Before I transition from this body,
I hope that that reason is revealed to the world.
And that's why I'm grateful to be here in my skin.
[Elisa] Okay, that was so, so, so beautiful.
And thank you so much.
That was absolutely amazing.
[Leon] Thank you.
Hi, we're Elisa and Lily, the mother
and daughter creators of StyleLikeU.
You can get the extended version of this interview
in the "What's Underneath" podcast
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