It’s been two years since Voyager Magazine interviewed our CEO, Khea Pollard.
Get up to speed with this re-up. New location = new energy
Today we’d like to introduce you to Khea Pollard.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Khea. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’ve been in San Diego all my life. Born and raised here, went to college here, getting a Master’s Degree locally. My mother’s side of the family is local and my father’s side of the family is in Pennsylvania.
When I was about 10 years old, I moved from Kearney Mesa to Valencia Park in Southeast San Diego- the neighborhoods my grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins lived in. Prior to that, my family moved around quite a bit. I remember stabilizing in the “hood” after a property manager in Kearney Mesa called my father a N*****. Now, if anyone reading this knows my dad, you know that didn’t end well. Before I knew it, we were on Logan Avenue in Southeast. Hah! From Logan to Klauber (Encanto), Meadowbrook, back down to Alderley Street – I spent my formative years moving around the area.
Even before I lived in these communities, I was being bused to school at Oak Park Elementary, went to Nubia Leadership Academy, and Community Preparatory School. I’m giving all this detail because I’m not who I am, and this business doesn’t exist without the journey, these relationships and my family. My parents are proud (and smart) people. They chose to send me to schools and environments where I would be taught and nurtured by people like me. Where I could be creative, lead and feel a sense of belonging. That doesn’t happen by accident.
My parents adamant that I know my history and understand where I come from, way before I went to college at the University of San Diego. Thank goodness. They planted seeds that led me to my major(s) in Ethnic Studies and English developed my interest in public policy, working within community spaces I grew up in.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It’s been smooth enough. We’ve been supported in so many ways, especially during the most difficult times. This project has gone through so many iterations. There have been crisis situations and breakthroughs along the way, not only for the business but for me personally. Every time we have been faced with a crisis, it elevated us to a better space both physically and mentally.
We’ve had partners that were AMAZING and partners that were NOT. We’ve moved locations twice. I’ve seen the greed of property owners, the lack of resources and support in my own neighborhood, the cliquishness of community, and the overall negativity (externally and internally) that reveals itself anytime you’re serious about doing something new and doing it well. That is inevitable.
The positivity far outweighs those realities though – and actually, there is a lot of GOOD inside those seemingly negative experiences. People we know, and people we’ve just met, have contributed to us greatly. For every crisis, there was a landing space around the corner, and the opportunity to learn and meet people who are in alignment with what we are building.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We are a cooperative business with an advocacy mindset. It is a homegrown coffee shop cooperative dedicated to advancing communal wealth building in a natural and respectful way. In less abstract terms, it is a cooperative coffee shop that has established a mutually beneficial network with partnering organizations to make a positive change in our community. We chose to do business with mutual respect between owners, interns and partners to maximize the freedom of our member-owners, improve community wellness, and keep money flowing within our community network. I want people to feel proud and vulnerable when they visit Café X. We host health, exercise and diabetes workshops, writers’ circles, organizing meetings, open mics, fundraisers and more to build community in many different sectors. What sets us apart is the fact that we have a sustainable model for growth and expansion. We also have a community stakeholder group called the Xperts that advise us on all aspects of the business, and we have interns from partner organizations who we are training to become entrepreneurs of their own business, baristas, and/or owners of Café X one day if they so choose. Overall, we want people to feel wholeness, authenticity and assurance – like you are proud of the skin you are in – when they come to our space. If we can get a little bit of that with our coffee, it’ll make a brighter day.
I was inspired by the life and legacy of Malcolm X. It’s like he lived two lives because of his incredible spiritual journey in leadership. The phrase “By Any Means Necessary” was used in a play by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called Les mains sales, or Dirty Hands, first performed in 1948. It’s an existential, political drama about a faction fighting for a classless society against a Fascist regime around the World War II era; and it’s all told through the memory of an assassin. It’s so complex and brilliant. This play used that phrase within the context of eliminating class by any means necessary. Malcolm X later used this refrain in his speech to the Organization of African American Unity. I think it’s important to understand that in both contexts, that phrase embodies the idea that full recognition, participation, and rights as a human being can and will be achieved through institutional change. I like placing these two thought leaders side-by-side and seeing what happens. There is a bit of politics, history, and potent humanity in those words that I really connect to. I spend a lot of time assessing policy and services, enough to know that it isn’t the only thing that matters. The cultural context and the leverage are all critical to structural change.
Café X is a legacy project. It didn’t start out that way for me because I kept trying to give it away. But the more it kept coming back into conversation, the more I knew somebody had to create it. It’s difficult enough to open a business and generate revenue. But opening a business with economic development, community partnership and generational wealth-building in mind makes it exponentially more difficult! There are many ways to talk. But for a multitude of historical and present-day inequities, people of color – Black people in particular – have some difficulty talking collectively with our money and our investments. Café X embraces economic development with a value system that is built to benefit the surrounding community. All these details I mentioned make us a bit different.
What were you like growing up?
I like this question a lot. I think I was a kind of serious kid. My mom tells me I looked as though I’ve been here before. I had the ancient baby, ancestral look.
I grew up running track, dancing, singing, and reading a lot. I still enjoy all those activities except track and field. Now, I just watch that on tv.
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