An administrator, educator, and non-profit leader, Lydia K. Mercer is the textbook definition of a change agent.
With a Bachelor’s Degree in Education from the University of Kansas and a Master’s Degree in Cultural Education and Social Policy from Loyola Chicago, Lydia began her professional career as a social studies teacher. While also serving as the volleyball coach and traveling with her team, she noticed some glaring inequalities in the education system. She soon found herself challenged to design, reimagine, and change the systems she worked within, and thus, the (Un)Learning Space was born.
The (Un)Learning Space seeks to heal, transform, and work towards reimagining a world centered on healing and justice. Their process involves recognizing systems of oppression and actively resisting those systems. The collective works diligently to create experiences that help people acknowledge and (un)learn conditioned and socialized beliefs by recognizing and centering counternarratives, creating space for community, and collectively embarking on a liberatory journey.
N’DIGO recently sat down with Mercer to learn all about the (Un)Learning Space.
N’DIGO: In your own words, who is Lydia K. Mercer?
Lydia K. Mercer: The older I get, the more I realize and find power in the fact that I am complex. I am a beautiful contradiction – and maybe that’s just my definition of a human being. I am someone who believes in opposing truths – I find comfort in the gray. I am a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, an entrepreneur, a holistic coach, a mentor, and a friend, but those are just some of the things I do. I am also an empath – I feel all the feels always: kind, maybe too kind to others, not so much to myself (I’m working on it); I am a revolutionary who believes in a new possibility for humanity that centers love as an antidote to oppressive systems, I am a visionary, I am silly, I am unlearning, and I am healing.
Did you always know you wanted to work in education or did you at first dream of doing something else?
When I was really young, I wanted to be a veterinarian like my grandfather, but then I saw him deliver a calf….no thank you! As I grew, I knew I wanted to do something that allowed me to serve and show care for others. I fell into education because I was offered a Multicultural Education Scholarship to the University of Kansas’ School of Education.
How did your time at the University of Kansas’ School of Education help shape your present-day work?
My experience there allowed me to begin to critique systems as I saw the inequities in education for Black and Brown young people – especially those who were poor. As a social studies teacher, I found myself re-writing the curriculum because the narrative didn’t center on my kids or their lived experiences. It was written in Black and White, and most of the time my student’s ancestors were on the “wrong” side. As a volleyball coach, traveling to different schools really opened my eyes. How could there be computers for every student, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut in the lunch rooms, as well as clean and beautiful facilities in one school (in the same school district, too) and run down and dirty facilities in the next? I began to see trends – trends that showed disinvestment and care for Black and Brown people. It was because of this experience that I moved from Kansas to Chicago to study Educational Policy at Loyola University.
What is the (Un)Learning Space, and what was the initiative’s genesis?
In December of 2019, I delivered my first daughter and immediately went into severe postpartum anxiety and depression. I wondered if I was struggling with some anxiety before this, and it was confirmed in therapy soon after my baby was six weeks old. Also, I was working at a large non-profit around that time and discovered I would be laid off in the Spring of 2020. In this very dark moment, I asked myself who I wanted to BE. I had never done that before. I always asked myself, what do you want to do now?? In that small pivot, my answer shifted BIG. I wanted to be someone who was in love with myself and who could prioritize family and the things that really mattered. I wanted to be intentional about my life and not be caught up in the frenzy of productivity and urgency. I wanted to be valued for who I was/am and not what I did or delivered. So why not create the organization that I deserve and my daughter (now daughters) deserve?
As someone who always found themselves doing what most organizations call Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), I thought, why not do that – because I love it, and I have hope in the possibility of a different way of doing and being. As I have grown and learned more about the heart of this work, I have realized that it truly is healing and well-being work. It’s work that allows all folx to be free internally and externally from the harms of oppression. From the systems that we engage and navigate daily. The (Un)Learning Space is an organization that helps us do the work individually and collectively as we find and celebrate liberation. We support partners in transformative and participatory processes where they unlearn by doing mirror work, engaging in content to widen their knowledge, building relationships with us and each other, and connecting so as to center humanity rather than the systems they are so used to working in.
What are some affirmations you always try to abide by?
1) We believe things in our lives impact what we do and how we show up, so it requires us to offer each other compassion as people first.
2) To be whole and well requires an individual and a collective journey
3) Joy, love, and compassion are all forms of resistance to systems of oppression
4) Boundaries are an external affirmation of our inner affirmation. Setting boundaries centers our humanity.
Having to juggle your work and various projects and real life and everything else, how do you maintain your mental health and self-care?
This is SO hard..and imperative for the kind of work I/we do. I have to have the capacity for others, so I have to do all I can to be full, whole, and well. And this can be so hard because the society we live in is not set up for sabbaticals and rest etc. They are set up for efficiency and productivity and working until we bleed so we can pay these ills. So, as I jump off my soap box, I find time to love myself through therapy, through collective journaling and human check-ins with our team, and through play with my four-year-old and two-year-old. An through leaning on a partner that wants me to be healthy and happy more than anything in this world.
On top of that, I/we are designing an organization that doesn’t separate care for our mental health and self from the “work.” It’s all baked in – it’s how we operate. Instead of making decisions for a specific outcome only, we lean in (and it is still difficult) to the impact on the people. We ask ourselves and our partners different questions, we care about YOU in the process. We make collective decisions, make mistakes, laugh, cry, joke, witness each other, and have fun. All of these things support my own capacity to do this work and to take care of my mental health.
What’s something people would be surprised to know about you?
As someone who is a big ball of love, I think people would be surprised by my competitiveness! But only in silly things like Spades and Uno during game nights. I am seriously a Spade’s genius though! *Ha*
Can you name a book that changed or really impacted your life and give a sentence about why?
I can’t sing praises loud enough about The Four Pivots by Shawn Ginwright. This book has been the roadmap for our organization as we think about transforming systems from the inside out. We will be launching a podcast where our team gets into these pivots, so be on the lookout!
Best advice to young people?
My advice would be to speak and eventually believe your own counter-narrative because most of the things society tells you about yourself isn’t true. Oh, and if you don’t have a counter-narrative yet, use mine: Who you are is beautiful. Shine your light. You don’t need to be anything but everything you are. Who you are right now matters. It’s okay to make mistakes. You deserve love and joy. The world needs you.
Favorite quote?
“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” – Audre Lorde.
What’s next for Lydia K. Mercer and the (Un)Learning Space?
As a newer 501c3, we haven’t tapped into development or funding. So far, we have sustained and thrived in this work through relationships and fee-for-service. As we begin to create our strategic plans (beginning August 2024), we hope we can continue learning and unlearning ways to get funding while still staying true to our liberation journey. We have been dreaming about a brick-and-mortar building. My goal is to offer a space that allows our team to engage with our partners in workshops, coaching, meditations and meditations, healing circles, and narrative exchanges. It would be a place to engage with the community and offer healing and well-ness wrap-around services for partners and community members. We would collectively create an environment specifically designed to center healing, belonging, care, and love.
For more information on the (Un)Learning Space, please visit www.unlearningspace.org and feel free to connect on social media at @Unlearninglyd.
