Photo courtesy Brooks Griffin
Brooks Griffin - Milwaukee Bucks
Brooks Griffin
At only 28, Brooks Griffin is a motivational speaker and workshop leader, a youth organizer and father advocate. Raised in the troubled neighborhoods of Halyard Park and Harambee, Brooks knows the challenges of marginalized communities. He helps teachers, youth-serving professionals and families overcome stress and burnout to achieve success. He personally knows about stress, having grown up with mental health challenges.
President of his own company, the INSPIRED Network, he is also the corporate social responsibility coordinator for the Milwaukee Bucks, what he calls his dream job. When he talks, his energy becomes contagious. I asked Griffin about himself and his vision
Tell me about your background, your parents, neighborhood, what schools you attended and how you got involved in helping youth organizations.
I’m a Milwaukee native, grew up in zip code 53212, Fifth and North, the Garfield School area, mostly a Black community. There was criminal activity in that neighborhood, violence, drugs, domestic violence, but I was always community minded. I connected with leaders and stayed in safe environments.
For most of my early life, I lived with my grandparents. My granddad was with the Milwaukee Bucks 50 years ago. I graduated from Milwaukee School of Languages on 84th and Burleigh. I took Spanish from grade 6 to grade 12, and now I use Spanish in different ways in my life. I was on the high school basketball team, had a dream of playing in the NBA.
What happened to you after high school?
I started out at the University of Wisconsin Parkside, but I had a 1.7 GPA in high school, and I was dealing with depression and anxiety. I just didn’t have the skills to do the best that I could in college. So I moved to Dallas and attended a junior college to play basketball, Southwestern Christian College. Before the season started, I got a call from my girlfriend. She was pregnant. I came back to Milwaukee. I wanted to break the status quo of Black fathers not being in their child’s lives.
Did you get a job in Milwaukee?
I started driving buses for the COA Youth and Family Centers. When I was 18, before I left town, I’d been a team leader on the playgrounds, teaching kids. That got me started working in youth and family development as a community organizer.
When I got back to town from Dallas, I worked for MPS Recreational and for COA Youth & Family Centers, managing their Family Resource Center on 24th and Burleigh, and I was a group leader. I did that work for about four or five years. Then, I transitioned to the nonprofit Safe & Sound where I was the District 5 Youth Organizer, trying to improve police and community relations.
I understand that you grew up with mental health challenges, and that condition led to your being a youth organizer and father advocate—also an advocate for social and racial equity. What were the mental health challenges you faced?
I am diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I’ve had that problem since I was a child. A lot of my passions and values lie behind spirituality, religious studies, unity and community. I’ve dealt with pain, but I’ve learned how to combat stress in the day-to-day struggles. Everyone needs everyone, and it starts with the youth. As a coordinator, I work with families and first-time fathers.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that the childhood years of zero to five are very impactful to the future outlook of how a kid will grow into teenager and adult. I discovered that a lot of people deal with anxiety, depression and stress, and they need a community to help them find a safe space. You learn by giving, by being helpful, by helping others. Our young people need help because they are stressing out. I think about what can be done from the challenges of my own life. At heart, I am a program coordinator. I love motivational speaking. By helping others, I help myself.
Regarding your workshops, you are president of the nonprofit INSPIRED Network. Under that umbrella, you conduct workshops and training on youth success, overcoming adversity and mental health awareness. You said, and I quote, “I try to inspire each participant to tap into their ‘you,’ so that they can improve their engagement with children, youth and families from marginalized communities.”
Last year, I started my own motivational speaking company called the INSPIRED Networl. INSPIRED stands for Individuals Needing Spiritual Power in Real Everyday Dilemmas. We use spiritual health and wellness to combat abuse and collective stress. I speak to youth Professionals and direct service professionals, and I teach them to look at their inner selves, their own stress and anxiety. In order to understand a young person, you have to understand yourself. Basically, I talk about self care and wellness.
In the workshops, who are you speaking to? Adults? Teachers? Youth leaders?
We work with managers or leaders within an organization, those that interact with youth. For example, I was the father advocate for the African-American Breastfeeding Network. I worked with the University of Wisconsin Madison to do surveys and research to advance maternal health and the role of fathers. We try to teach parents be the best parents they can be.
What do the youth leaders and teachers tell you about their biggest problems in dealing with disadvantaged youth? Black children in the central city have significant problems, especially teenage boys.
A lot of the kids are growing up quicker than I did or you did. They are learning more about politics and civic engagement, violence, race issues, world problems. They need relief from these stressors. That means they need trusted mentors, caring adults to be the support, lend the listening ear.
From what I’ve seen, some of these teenage boys, mainly those who don’t have strong male role models, they get into trouble - drug dealing, car stealing, assault. Their world unravels and they eventually face a life without hope. Sadly, they can develop a negative, even cynical attitude.
Yes, and it’s real. As youth professionals, we need to take that attitude as a challenge, a call to action to say that these kids are asking for help. I believe you start by helping one child at a time. We need more open and bold conversations as to what makes us who we are.
You now work full-time for the Milwaukee Bucks as the Corporate Social Responsibility Coordinator. What are your job responsibilities on a day-to-day basis?
I’ve been with the Bucks since April. My job is two-fold. I help coordinate the entire Bucks organization to drive the community initiative. We bring different groups to the games, student organizations and the like. We work with our corporate partners, and we support small business initiatives with grants, and our players help through “get out the vote” initiatives. We help players get involved in the community, mentoring opportunities and STEM initiatives.
For example, kids love to play video games, but players might encourage them to invent games, be business owners. The second part of my job is to help run the Milwaukee Bucks Foundation, a 501C3 nonprofit. The foundation addresses social injustice and racial equity in local Milwaukee. We support small business initiatives with grants, and our players help through “get out the vote” initiatives
How do you accomplish these goals? Does the Milwaukee Bucks Foundation provide funds to outside groups?
Every year, the Bucks give out grants to our local non-profit partners. Our priority is youth organizations, but we focus on our five pillars—civic engagement, criminal justice reform, education, health and wellness, small business support, and individual empowerment. We might provide money to our partners at Feeding America or to a local grassroots organization, or an organization that focuses on accessing mental health resources, or STEM education, or youth groups. We might renovate a central city basketball court to provide a safe place for kids to play basketball. Then, we donate our time, our Bucks players and staff spending time with the kids. A lot of our own leaders sit on local nonprofit boards. I guess you could say I have a dream job.
Let me bring up the big controversy of these past few years, especially after George Floyd. I’m talking about racism. I occasionally give talks to white suburban civic groups on the topic of racism. I tell stories about central city Black residents who have suffered violence and also the Black street leaders and politicians who are helping. The problem for most of these white folks is how can they overcome racism when they rarely venture into the central city or engage with Milwaukee Black residents. You give talks and workshops to white groups. What is your take?
Yeah, that is the condition of the world we live in. These divisions have been systemically here for years and years. I think it’s good for whites to hear from Blacks who have real-life experiences. When I speak to those white groups, I just try to share my stories. My approach is to raise awareness.
At Safe & Sound, we once had a program called Face to Face. In one large community hall, we had a group of whites from Whitefish Bay and a group of Blacks from 53206. The conversation centered around stereotypes. Each group listed the stereotype characteristics they heard about the other race. We also had one on one dialogs. What I learned is that stereotypes are the barrier. Stereotypes close minds from thinking different. This is all the more reason to work with young people, get them to open their minds while they are moldable. Once our minds are whole, we can start treating people the way they deserve, with equity.
