I had the honor to interview Kim Hershman, a successful attorney and documentary producer. Though I may have found her through a family friend and though her job to pay the bills is not where her passion lies, she, without a doubt, is my perfect upstander. It may be hard to explain what Kim actually does , due to the question, “how much does she do and where does it end?'' the list would be infinite. I admire her work and determination and leadership skills that she carries like a top hat. She was always an activist even through her younger years and carried that to Yale, where she played an important role to preserve the Black Student Sanctuary; turning the place where the first black students met at Yale into a museum space. Also now being an active member of the Yale Black Alumni Association. She always found a way to help people. At college she saw herself as a role model and wanted to show that no matter a person's standing in society, giving help is the most important thing we as humans can do for each other. She quotes “there for the grace of God go I.” But her most memorable accomplishment was helping the homeless. She shares that homeless persons often spend long hours coordinating living spaces, money, healthcare, mental health, addiction care, a job and someday a new beginning. She is savvy enough to do her work through the influence of social media (mainly Facebook). Lastly her work in modern politics helped create a new future, she donated significantly and sponsored five fundraisers for her candidate of choice, Kamala Harris. In September of 2020 she produced a song to get people excited about voting and using their voice to make a change. The challenges- Interviewing her was not the hard part, scheduling a date and time was easy but the hard part was getting it all down. It seemed to be every minute she brought up something new that moved me. The interview started around four and ended when the sun was dropping down like an egg yolk. She is truly a very accomplished person. But the changes in her life were made clear ever since a little girl. Throughout her life she was discriminated against, undervalued, diminished, silenced and when non-favorable content came up such as racism she would ignore it. When she went to Yale she was one of the only black students in her class. She said “as a person of color you have to wear two faces”. For example a kind and innocent face and face that tries to survive and tries to make a change in a society that was built on systemic racism and in favor of those who have more power. Nevertheless she persisted.
Future paradise
Her work helping the homeless When she first approached Shawn Pleasants '89 B.A., a Yale grad living on the streets, homeless in Los Angeles Koreatown encampment in the summer of 2019, where he was surrounded by shopping carts and a blue tarp, he recognized her. “Somehow, he remembered me,” she said. They talked about Yale, a place where, according to conversations she’s had with other alumni, Pleasants was a “light, and a joy” to classmates. “He meant a lot to hundreds of Yalies,” Hershman said. Kim offered not only to help Pleasants get the substance abuse and mental health treatment he needed, as well as medical care for his glaucoma, but to support his efforts to use his experience to help others. “The day I found him, he said: ‘I had to have gone through this for a reason,’” Hershman said. Since then she has helped a number of people escape homelessness. Hershman arranged for Pleasants to attend detox and rehab, where she’s visited as often as allowed. She’s also helped Shawn’s partner, David, to get life-saving open heart surgery (he is now in recuperative care). And she’s been filming the process of Pleasants’ recovery in hopes of bringing attention to the stigma around mental health issues in the Black community in particular. Later she ended up finding him a home and got his beautiful life back on track. She still continues to help the homeless and bring her determined attitude towards life.
The lessons What she taught me this time was truly remarkable, it inspired me to and I hope now you will always be determined and when you see injustice you can not be a bystander. When someone is in need and you can; you must help, as an obligation to your brothers, your sisters, your community and yourself.
Thank you, good human. I hope you decide to bring good into your community <3
What is an upstander? A person who does good even when no one is watching? A person who changes the ideals of a nation? A person that carries a smile like a top hat. Or in my case a person who choses to do good, not just for themselves but for their brothers and sisters. Spread messages though any platform, and never give up their fists and their voice.
Her mottos and quotes
“Work is not lucrative, you have to do the work and make a change to be the change” “If not I, then who?’
My Upstander Visual Aspect
This project is made to mainly show the beauty of modern technology. We see modern tech as being bad or destructive. I tried to capture how beautiful technology and social media can e. Hershman was able to get a poor man off the streets and start his life over on a Facebook group. That's amazing! The silver paper origami crane represents Shawn Pleasants (the person whose life she changed) because he is now free to live as a beautiful shining holographic crane. Apps on the phone represents what she does with her help with black students at Yale, BLM, helping the homeless, a Facebook app (her main platform), and CNN where she was recognized for her beautiful work helping the homeless and spreading the word about helping our community. I added a widget and I put the music video she produced to help people get out and vote to make a change. The volume up button in the middle embodies her resilience and how she will never take “no!” for answer; always persisting. The phone as a whole is a clear mirror of our brave new society. To change our old ways that were built on misogyny and racism, seeing injustice and fixing it and work as a whole to cure this broken society.