Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Maya podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 1: So the risk that I was taking was will I
Speaker 1: be betraying the black community? Will I be betraying women?
Speaker 1: Will I be betraying other left leaning people? Am I
Speaker 1: betraying my audience and friends and people that think they
Speaker 1: know me and my partner and whatever else? But also
Speaker 1: I was at such a point of the rage, if
Speaker 1: you will, because suddenly I couldn't unsee how many people
Speaker 1: were monetizing from people's shame. And the truth is, I
Speaker 1: was not afraid of cancelation. I was not afraid of
Speaker 1: the exile.
Speaker 2: Welcome to no filter from Mamma may I'm me afraidman,
Speaker 2: and I am afraid of being canceled every day in
Speaker 2: every way. But as you just heard, my guest today
Speaker 2: is not afraid, not anymore. Because in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: writer and activist Africa Brook wrote an open letter and
Speaker 2: posted it online. She called it why I'm Leaving the
Speaker 2: Cult of Wokeness, and it immediately went viral. She was
Speaker 2: twenty nine years old at the time, and that open
Speaker 2: letter changed her life but not in the way she
Speaker 2: expected it to. So what did she write in a
Speaker 2: letter and how did she become unafraid and also why
Speaker 2: she canceled. Africa believes that we are living right now
Speaker 2: in the age of intolerance. Hard agree. And she also
Speaker 2: believes that what the culture was demand of us is
Speaker 2: to pick aside and post loudly and incessantly about it
Speaker 2: on social media. And so for a long time, that's
Speaker 2: what she did until suddenly one day it made her
Speaker 2: feel sick. You're about to hear what happened that day,
Speaker 2: but before you learn what made her quit the so
Speaker 2: called cult of wokeness, you need to know how and
Speaker 2: why she joined in the first place. Africa's story actually
Speaker 2: begins back in twenty sixteen when she had a severe
Speaker 2: drinking problem. So I started by asking her how her
Speaker 2: alcohol addiction turned her into an activist.
Speaker 1: I was twenty four years old and I was trying
Speaker 1: to get sober. But I was struggling, struggling to let
Speaker 1: go of alcohol, and it was pretty bad. It wasn't
Speaker 1: sort of like a oh I take it a little
Speaker 1: bit too far. Sometimes it was alcoholism. So I was
Speaker 1: a blank out drinker, a bench drinker, very specifically, which
Speaker 1: I think the British and Australians understand that very well
Speaker 1: and know exactly what that is because it's embedded in
Speaker 1: our culture. I have always been a writer, I've always
Speaker 1: been in the creative world. So when I realized that
Speaker 1: this problem wasn't going to be going anywhere anytime soon,
Speaker 1: I started sharing online. I had relapsed seven times before that,
Speaker 1: and I really knew that if I don't find a
Speaker 1: way to get sober, going to be dead before I
Speaker 1: turned twenty five years old. So I started an Instagram account,
Speaker 1: which was anonymous at the time, still the same one
Speaker 1: that I have today, and I started sharing sharing as
Speaker 1: a way to keep myself sober, sharing as a way
Speaker 1: to see if my you know, cries for help would
Speaker 1: land with anyone out there. There was no plan to
Speaker 1: build any sort of platform in the way that I
Speaker 1: do now. None of that was part of the plan.
Speaker 1: I just needed to get well and I had no
Speaker 1: other space to do it offline. That was it. And
Speaker 1: then what happened is that my story got picked up
Speaker 1: pretty quickly by the UK media because of my age,
Speaker 1: because of the way that I spoke about it, but
Speaker 1: also it was just a sort of compelling story as well.
Speaker 1: And I was immediately. When I say immediately, I mean
Speaker 1: maybe six to eight months in, I was labeled as
Speaker 1: a sobriety advocate. And the thing is, when you become
Speaker 1: labeled as an advocate, you are also then labeled as
Speaker 1: an activist, you know. So that's an important piece of
Speaker 1: the story for me. Pretty early on into my recovery,
Speaker 1: me just sharing about recovery and my findings and you know,
Speaker 1: speaking in the way that I do now, but just
Speaker 1: in a very different way. It was very recovery specific
Speaker 1: at the time. I then became labeled an activist. And
Speaker 1: once you get labeled an activist, you're not only expected
Speaker 1: to speak about the specific thing you talk about. Now
Speaker 1: you have to activate for everything else. So now I
Speaker 1: can't just speak about recovery. I have to speak about
Speaker 1: recovery through the lens of being a black woman. And
Speaker 1: then after I do that, I have to speak about
Speaker 1: recovery through the lens of a black immigrant woman, and
Speaker 1: then so on and so on and so on. Right,
Speaker 1: But then it doesn't just stop with me. I have
Speaker 1: to start advocating for other people. And to be honest,
Speaker 1: I actually, how do I put this? Not even just
Speaker 1: on a credibility level, if I'm to be completely honest,
Speaker 1: I think on an egoic level, it felt quite good
Speaker 1: for people to think that I am someone that is
Speaker 1: worthy of taking up all of these causes. So I
Speaker 1: never really questioned it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's like, not all heroes wear capes. Some of them
Speaker 2: have a social media account, yeah, some of some of them.
Speaker 1: Post on Insta, they do, some of them make infographics,
Speaker 1: you know. So I think that part of the story
Speaker 1: is quite important because then twenty sixteen, especially with everything
Speaker 1: that happened in the US with Trump being elected, and
Speaker 1: then I would say that for me and actually most
Speaker 1: people that I speak to you, that's when we started
Speaker 1: to notice the sort of just how much our most
Speaker 1: intimate lives were being politicized. I don't remember before then
Speaker 1: people looking at every fucking thing through the lens of politics.
Speaker 1: I just don't, you know. Yeah, So twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, I started to go sort of deeper into
Speaker 1: social justice spaces, but I truly believed I still had
Speaker 1: my autonomy. I didn't believe that I was a social
Speaker 1: justice warrior or anything like that, but I supported anyone
Speaker 1: that was doing anything under social justice, because it's still
Speaker 1: a value that I hold closely to this day. It
Speaker 1: just looks very different to what I thinkt what it
Speaker 1: needed to look like. And I realized that even though
Speaker 1: I was a very confident, outspoken person and I'd been
Speaker 1: speaking publicly around very challenging things for a time, I
Speaker 1: just thought I'd feel very afraid in my own mind
Speaker 1: first to begin with. And I can realize it now
Speaker 1: more in retrospect, but I recognize what that feeling was.
Speaker 1: Where I felt that I couldn't ask questions was the
Speaker 1: first one, or that I couldn't point out any contradictions
Speaker 1: that would kind of poke holes in whatever the mission was,
Speaker 1: whether it was to do with race or gender, or
Speaker 1: sex or identity, anything that didn't quite make sense to me.
Speaker 1: I felt as if I just needed to keep it
Speaker 1: to myself. You know that I'm not allowed to talk
Speaker 1: about it because if I talk about it or ask
Speaker 1: the questions, I might seem as if, how do I
Speaker 1: put it, it felt like a betrayal. If I'm to
Speaker 1: put it very simply, It's not a logical thing. It
Speaker 1: just felt like I'm betraying black people if I ask
Speaker 1: these questions or point out these contradictions, or I'm betraying
Speaker 1: women if I say, actually, I don't think we should
Speaker 1: live in such a fearful way, or to believe that
Speaker 1: all men are just so many things that I just thought, okay,
Speaker 1: but how is this applicable? Is it applicable to every
Speaker 1: single situation? Just any critical thinking was sort of not
Speaker 1: allowed by myself but also by the environment around me.
Speaker 1: That was just the reality of it. So this suppression
Speaker 1: of my voice and my inner thoughts especially, it just
Speaker 1: started to come to a head around twenty nineteen because
Speaker 1: I felt that I wasn't being in complete integrity with
Speaker 1: my work. My work is about understanding self sabotage. My
Speaker 1: work has always been around self expression and taking emotional
Speaker 1: conversational risks. It's always been about having the conversations that
Speaker 1: no one wants to have. But I realized that there
Speaker 1: was an ever growing list of things that I was
Speaker 1: not allowed to say, you know, because.
Speaker 2: It did go with the correct opinion on that topic
Speaker 2: according to activists. Absolutely yeah, right, So like if you
Speaker 2: questioned the idea that say all men a rapists, and
Speaker 2: you said, well, hang on, not all men, right, or
Speaker 2: if say you believed. I don't know if this is
Speaker 2: something you believe or not, but if you believed in
Speaker 2: abortion but didn't feel comfortable with late term abortions for
Speaker 2: non medical reasons, for example, but you couldn't say those
Speaker 2: things publicly because the activists on those issues insisted you
Speaker 2: or either with them or you were an enemy, and
Speaker 2: you had to choose. There was no room for nuance.
Speaker 1: There you go, there you go, one hundred percent. And
Speaker 1: I think that was in the defense of men without
Speaker 1: taking the nuance of well, when we talk about men,
Speaker 1: we're also talking about boys, So how is it for
Speaker 1: boys to be hearing us speaking of that? There was
Speaker 1: just you can't, you can't. It just is what it is.
Speaker 1: So for me, all of that over the course of
Speaker 1: two to three years felt like a huge integrity breach massively.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't keep up with it any more internally
Speaker 1: for myself. And by the time twenty twenty comes around
Speaker 1: and George Floyd is murdered in the States, like anyone else,
Speaker 1: I was absolutely horrified. I felt just a level of
Speaker 1: sickness I've never felt before around the situation like that,
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of it is to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that we were all online and we
Speaker 1: will never experience well I hope we'll never experience anything
Speaker 1: like that again. But it was just a very different time. Psychologically,
Speaker 1: we were all very different. But there was something about
Speaker 1: that specific case and the way that it sort of
Speaker 1: just exploded all over the world, and how regardless of
Speaker 1: where you were in the world, you were supposed to
Speaker 1: behave and speak and respond to it in a very
Speaker 1: specific way, very specific way. I even write about it
Speaker 1: in the book and I say that even if you
Speaker 1: were a shepherd in rural Guero, which is Zimbabwe, you
Speaker 1: were expected to speak about this and to post the
Speaker 1: square and to atone for your sins if you happen
Speaker 1: to be white. For me, in the beginning, I felt
Speaker 1: that sort of, I'm black, I'm supposed to respond to
Speaker 1: this immediately. I'm supposed to call other white people in,
Speaker 1: you know, this idea, which I think is so self righteous.
Speaker 1: You know that I have to call people in, you know,
Speaker 1: But that's what it was. That's what I felt like.
Speaker 2: Can you explain the difference between calling someone out and
Speaker 2: calling someone in and how those two things have sort
Speaker 2: of seen differently.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I personally don't think there's any difference.
Speaker 1: But the idea of calling someone out, for example, is
Speaker 1: that you notice a problematic action or some kind of wrongdoing,
Speaker 1: then you have a duty to name whatever the harm
Speaker 1: that's been done, and you have a duty to use
Speaker 1: pretty much any means necessary apart from let's say, extreme
Speaker 1: physical violence, to shame the other person and to make
Speaker 1: them see what they have done so that they decide
Speaker 1: that they will take accountability for whatever the harm is.
Speaker 1: And the idea is that calling someone in is supposed
Speaker 1: to be you might notice, even in the way that
Speaker 1: I said it, it's supposed to be a more gentle
Speaker 1: approach of highlighting the harm that someone might have done.
Speaker 1: But you're approaching it like a good faith They're supposed
Speaker 1: to be a good faith approach around it, right. You're
Speaker 1: not supposed to assume that the other person did this
Speaker 1: maliciously and consciously. You're supposed to assume that maybe they
Speaker 1: just didn't realize what they were doing, So yeah, call
Speaker 1: them in, And you're supposed to do it privately before
Speaker 1: you do it publicly, and if the person doesn't want
Speaker 1: to respond privately, then your hand has been forced, and
Speaker 1: then you can do it publicly. But even publicly, it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a little bit more gentle. But the
Speaker 1: reason why I say I don't think there's any difference
Speaker 1: because I don't think I've ever seen it executed in
Speaker 1: that way. Really, I just haven't seen that.
Speaker 2: And is that something that you did. Would you call
Speaker 2: people out and call them in and try to shame them.
Speaker 1: No, I never did anything like that. I never called
Speaker 1: anyone out or tried to call anyone in. I think
Speaker 1: I was just sort of sitting on the sidelines co
Speaker 1: signing that behavior. But I think I was co signing
Speaker 1: that behavior out of fear because if I have empathy
Speaker 1: for that person, then am I on the side of
Speaker 1: the harm doer? You know what I mean. That's the
Speaker 1: sort of sinister way all of these things work because
Speaker 1: it starts to act as almost cancelation by proximity. If
Speaker 1: I defend this person, I might get canceled too, So
Speaker 1: I just have to let it happen. So twenty twenty
Speaker 1: was very similar. In the beginning. I also was overwhelmed
Speaker 1: with emotion because a black man has been killed by
Speaker 1: the hands of the police. So it's a very specific Again,
Speaker 1: there's a truth, but there's a way that the truth
Speaker 1: is being put forward. That means that you all have
Speaker 1: to be in a state of fear. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like as if black people are being lynched type of
Speaker 1: thing without any any need to know what the details
Speaker 1: of it was. Because if you're curious about what the
Speaker 1: details are, that means you are siding with whatever the
Speaker 1: thing is. So in the beginning I pretty much joined
Speaker 1: the cause. I was horrified. I then was doing callouts,
Speaker 1: but not even specific people. It was mainly saying you
Speaker 1: need to be speaking up about this. It was a
Speaker 1: very silence is violence energy, That's how I would put it.
Speaker 1: It was very silence is violence. If you are not
Speaker 1: speaking out about this, then you are on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of history. Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, all
Speaker 1: the all the scripts that you can expect. Then I
Speaker 1: was applauded very loudly for it, very very loudly. It
Speaker 1: was like, how do I how do I put this?
Speaker 1: It was like you get a sort of rush off
Speaker 1: for adrenaline because it's also happening in an environment that
Speaker 1: is so abnormal. It's not actually normal for you to
Speaker 1: put out a thought and in me imediately it's co
Speaker 1: signed by thousands and thousands of people telling you that
Speaker 1: you've done a good job. The same thing can never
Speaker 1: happen offline. It just can't.
Speaker 2: It would be like getting a standing ovation, like going
Speaker 2: out into the street and saying something and having everyone
Speaker 2: just stop what they're doing and just turn to you
Speaker 2: and applaud.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly what it was, And I could see
Speaker 1: just how easy it is to get drunk on that
Speaker 1: level of validation and affirmation. But again, I use the
Speaker 1: language of integrity breach, and that's very specific language that
Speaker 1: I use for myself because my sobriety forced me to
Speaker 1: really think deeply about what my values actually are, to
Speaker 1: think about the kind of person that I am, So
Speaker 1: it's very easy for me to notice when I'm operating
Speaker 1: completely out of integrity, so that in that moment, I
Speaker 1: think it was about a couple of hours or something
Speaker 1: like that, all of this was happening in so I
Speaker 1: didn't sort of lean into this silence as violence energy
Speaker 1: for a prolonged amount of time, but for me was
Speaker 1: long enough because I had never really participated in anything
Speaker 1: like that before, So it was very sort of shocking
Speaker 1: to the system to see myself behave in this.
Speaker 2: Way, and there was a particular twenty four hour period
Speaker 2: during that time in twenty twenty when Black Lives Matter
Speaker 2: content completely dominated social media and where it seemed like
Speaker 2: the whole world was posting a black square in solidarity
Speaker 2: with the BLM movement, and also because people were scared
Speaker 2: of being canceled if they didn't post one, and then
Speaker 2: the active is canceled everyone anyway, because the black squares
Speaker 2: were apparently flooding feeds, and they said that it was
Speaker 2: preventing people from getting information from black creators about the
Speaker 2: movement Africa. Did you post the black Square?
Speaker 1: No? I didn't. I didn't. I was very close to
Speaker 1: posting the black square because even I, as a black person,
Speaker 1: felt pressure to post it. Because again, I really want
Speaker 1: to make it clear that there's so much nuance in
Speaker 1: what we're speaking about. So many conversations that were happening
Speaker 1: at the time were really necessary, and I think they
Speaker 1: have really transformed the way people understand race in a
Speaker 1: useful way. However, it then started to go to an extreme,
Speaker 1: to an extreme that I believe had this sort of
Speaker 1: religious undertone to it, the idea that if you are
Speaker 1: a white person, then you are pretty much born with
Speaker 1: original sin that is white supremacy, so you have to
Speaker 1: spend the rest of your life atoning for it through
Speaker 1: an anti racism course. You might notice that also in
Speaker 1: that year, all books to do with anti racism absolutely exploded, exploded,
Speaker 1: They did so so well. Other people got book deals
Speaker 1: because of that because they did something that went viral.
Speaker 1: So to me, there is an anti racism industrial complex.
Speaker 1: But that's a completely different conversation. But this is just
Speaker 1: the thing that I started to notice. But I had
Speaker 1: more questions because I started to think, well, how is
Speaker 1: a let's say, a young black girl who was adopted
Speaker 1: by white pairs supposed to feel about everything that we're
Speaker 1: saying right now? Is she supposed to start questioning her parents?
Speaker 1: Like I just didn't understand how a lot of what
Speaker 1: was being said is applicable into real life and the
Speaker 1: damage that it actually causes when we start interrogating every
Speaker 1: white person we've ever interacted with to see if any
Speaker 1: of maybe the conflicts that we had or disagreements were
Speaker 1: because of some kind of racial intent. There were things
Speaker 1: that I just didn't feel comfortable with over time, so
Speaker 1: I didn't post the Black Square because also I didn't
Speaker 1: understand the origin of it. I was hearing that it
Speaker 1: had come from the music industry and it was specifically
Speaker 1: for musicians, but then also so many black squares, it's
Speaker 1: actually blocking out the information for people to meet up
Speaker 1: and organize. So again, logically it just didn't make sense.
Speaker 1: But I did keep the mob away, if you will,
Speaker 1: by calling people out in a different way. So, if
Speaker 1: I'm to be honest, it's as if I found another
Speaker 1: way to be like, Okay, I'm not going to do
Speaker 1: that thing, but I'll do this instead. I'll use my
Speaker 1: platform to call everyone else out. So that's what I did.
Speaker 2: There was a man that slid into your DMS to
Speaker 2: question quite politely, I believe, what did he say to you?
Speaker 2: And what did you do in response?
Speaker 1: So this is when I was choosing my plan B
Speaker 1: of not posting the Black Square and then kind of
Speaker 1: just going hard and saying that everyone needs to be
Speaker 1: posting gosh. And you know what, even when I think
Speaker 1: about it, I'm like, oh my god, really really?
Speaker 2: So then you had a surreal situation where all these
Speaker 2: white people who were trying to be allies to the
Speaker 2: black community started panicking because they didn't know whether the
Speaker 2: best way to do that was to post the black
Speaker 2: square or delete the one that already posted. And suddenly
Speaker 2: it wasn't even about George Floyd anymore or fighting racism,
Speaker 2: but it suddenly became about cancelation by this group of
Speaker 2: vigilantes who were policing what everyone was doing.
Speaker 1: You just named it, That's exactly it. It stopped becoming
Speaker 1: about the thing. The intent just became very different. It
Speaker 1: just became very different. So that's what I was doing.
Speaker 1: Everyone should be talking about this. Why is no one talking?
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah? And then this man sends me a DM,
Speaker 1: which it was really polite. He was just curious about
Speaker 1: my approach. He had been someone that had been following
Speaker 1: my work for a while, so I think the way
Speaker 1: in which I was approaching this conversation was just very
Speaker 1: different from what he would have expected of me, understandably so,
Speaker 1: so he was pretty much just asking, do I really
Speaker 1: think this is the right way to be going about this.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that I want people to come together, people
Speaker 1: to be talking about this, So do I think that
Speaker 1: this is the right approach for it? And I didn't
Speaker 1: even respond to him. I screenshotted the DM. The conversation
Speaker 1: posted it onto my Instagram feed, and then again immediately
Speaker 1: because already I was getting cheers and validation from the
Speaker 1: calling out people calling in every self righteous action possible.
Speaker 1: You know, I was getting applauded for it. And when
Speaker 1: I posted that screenshot immediately again because you have to
Speaker 1: think back to the time, everyone is on their phones, yes,
Speaker 1: and everything would explode at that time, and that's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened with this post. And I think it was
Speaker 1: up for all of twenty minutes, but it had tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of likes and comments and well done. And
Speaker 1: he shouldn't be speaking to you in this way, you know,
Speaker 1: all of those ego stroking things, no one asked for
Speaker 1: any context. Actually, I think there were some people that
Speaker 1: were commenting saying that is a valuable thing to ask,
Speaker 1: you know, but I didn't. I didn't want to see
Speaker 1: any of that. I didn't want to see anything that
Speaker 1: would sort of break me out of this chance.
Speaker 2: Did it feel good those twenty minutes?
Speaker 1: Oh? Absolutely, are you kidding me? It feels like the
Speaker 1: thing that I was saying before. It's exhilarating, you feel powerful.
Speaker 1: It's like an arousal of all of the senses because
Speaker 1: you're getting an insanely abnormal amount of validation and affirmation
Speaker 1: from all corners of the globe. At the same time.
Speaker 1: You know, you can see actually how people easily become
Speaker 1: caricatures of themselves based on a moment in time. You
Speaker 1: see it. You see it because they want to repeat
Speaker 1: that same thing again and again and again. It's almost
Speaker 1: like taking drugs for the first time.
Speaker 2: And that becomes their identity exactly.
Speaker 1: And you're chasing that same feeling, so you're reading the
Speaker 1: same thing, and in that moment, it's about twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: I had this experience where I sort of zoomed out
Speaker 1: of myself. You could call it dissociation or whatever, but
Speaker 1: I think I had just hit my max of trying
Speaker 1: to of wearing the mask, if you will, of wearing
Speaker 1: the mask when actually had all of these questions. I
Speaker 1: somewhat agreed with this man, and I knew that he
Speaker 1: was saying was valuable, but the cognitive dissonance was so intense. Hence,
Speaker 1: and to be honest, I think it was shame. I
Speaker 1: felt ashamed because he was right. I felt ashamed because
Speaker 1: everything that I was doing in this moment in time
Speaker 1: was so directly opposing the work that I'd been doing
Speaker 1: for the past five to six years. I was ashamed
Speaker 1: because I had been called out. To be honest, I
Speaker 1: would say what this man did with the truly calling in,
Speaker 1: calling someone in saying hey, coming into me privately and
Speaker 1: saying hey, I've been following your work for a while
Speaker 1: and I respect what you do. So I just wanted
Speaker 1: to know, do you genuinely believe that this is the
Speaker 1: right approach? You know? So it's almost as if that's
Speaker 1: what it was, cognitive dissonance, which was wrapped in shame
Speaker 1: and embarrassment and having to look at myself, you know,
Speaker 1: so instead of taking the time to respond to him,
Speaker 1: I was going to publicly shame him instead.
Speaker 2: You know, why did you take it down?
Speaker 1: I took it down because I had that experience of
Speaker 1: seeing myself behaving in this way, and I felt sick.
Speaker 1: I don't I have many moments in my life where
Speaker 1: something has happened psychologically that has actually made me feel
Speaker 1: so sick, and that was one of those moments. And
Speaker 1: I immediately deleted the post and I logged out off
Speaker 1: Instagram I think for a day or a couple of days,
Speaker 1: and in that time I just started journaling. I just
Speaker 1: started writing everything, everything that I had felt afraid to say,
Speaker 1: everything that I had seen in myself, everything that I
Speaker 1: had been writing over the past couple of years, because
Speaker 1: I've always journaled, so all of those moments that I
Speaker 1: felt I needed to speak and think and behave in
Speaker 1: a specific way, because I'm Black, because I'm supposedly left leaning,
Speaker 1: because of all of these identity things. I wrote it down,
Speaker 1: and that is what inspired the open letter that I
Speaker 1: would then write in early twenty twenty one, which was
Speaker 1: called why I'm leaving the Cult of Wokeness. So that
Speaker 1: open letter didn't just sort of happen. I wrote it
Speaker 1: in two hours. It was four thousand words. I wrote
Speaker 1: it in a couple of hours, but it was a
Speaker 1: build up from twenty eighteen. As I was saying to you,
Speaker 1: of just suddenly realizing that I have been betraying myself
Speaker 1: without even realizing, I have been self editing and monitoring
Speaker 1: my language and replacing my language with scripts and things
Speaker 1: that I don't actually believe in, because I thought if
Speaker 1: I truly say what I think, or I truly just
Speaker 1: generally express curiosity in a way that is not so
Speaker 1: called allowed, that I'm going to be canceled, that I'm
Speaker 1: going to be punished for it, that I'm going to
Speaker 1: be exiled by my community, That i will lose my audience,
Speaker 1: that I will lose my clients, that I will lose opportunities.
Speaker 1: All of these things. I associated speaking the truth with loss.
Speaker 1: There was no other way around it. It was just like,
Speaker 1: if I ask questions, if I speak the truth, if
Speaker 1: I point out contradictions, there will be loss. There was
Speaker 1: no you know what I referred to as the third perspective.
Speaker 1: There was no kind of nuance, There was no grade.
Speaker 1: There was no well, I'm lose these people, but what
Speaker 1: if I gain all of that, or actually I don't
Speaker 1: need an audience that expects me to perform a very
Speaker 1: specific version of myself. There was just no option of
Speaker 1: any other way to be apart from compliance. So twenty
Speaker 1: twenty was really big because of that. And then shortly after,
Speaker 1: you know, the racial uprising then became the are you
Speaker 1: vaccinated or not vaccinated conversation, which then became another whole thing.
Speaker 1: So all of that is for me what inspired me
Speaker 1: to write that open letter and to just make the
Speaker 1: declaration that whatever, whatever this thing is, whatever this game
Speaker 1: is I just refuse to do it. I won't do
Speaker 1: it anymore.
Speaker 2: After this shortbreak. What happened after Africa shared her views
Speaker 2: with the world was she canceled? Did you regret it? Africa?
Speaker 2: You begin your open life with the words, if there's
Speaker 2: one thing I'm not afraid of, it's being canceled. If
Speaker 2: being canceled means me living in integrity as a human
Speaker 2: being who thinks for themselves, cancel me today. I repeat,
Speaker 2: I am not afraid. Were you really not afraid? Because
Speaker 2: I think everyone today, whether or not they're a public figure,
Speaker 2: is pretty afraid of being canceled, right because it can
Speaker 2: feel like we're all one misstep away from cancelation. And
Speaker 2: we've seen it happen to enough people now to know
Speaker 2: how brutal it looks. So how did you become unafraid
Speaker 2: of that?
Speaker 1: You know? What I think, if there's anything that I've learned,
Speaker 1: is that fear never absolutely goes away. It's just a
Speaker 1: different quality of fear. I think. So for me, I
Speaker 1: did have that undercurrent of fear, which is absolutely normal,
Speaker 1: because I was doing something that was so high risk
Speaker 1: for a lot of reasons, for a lot of reasons,
Speaker 1: because I felt that me pressing published was again, all
Speaker 1: of it was based on identity, because we're in such
Speaker 1: an identity obsessed world, and when you are a racialized
Speaker 1: person that has been labeled an activist and all of
Speaker 1: these other things, there are expectations off you. So the
Speaker 1: risk that I was taking was will I be betraying
Speaker 1: the black community, Will I be betraying women? Will I
Speaker 1: be betraying other left leaning people? Am I betraying my
Speaker 1: audience and friends and people that think they know me
Speaker 1: and my partner and whatever else? But also I was
Speaker 1: at such a point of almost like a rage, if
Speaker 1: you will, because suddenly I couldn't unsee how many people
Speaker 1: were monetizing from people's shame. I couldn't unsee how many
Speaker 1: people were actually making this a business. They didn't want
Speaker 1: racism to go away, you know, because then they're out
Speaker 1: of pocket. They're out of a book deal, they're out
Speaker 1: of a brand deal, they're out of all of these things.
Speaker 1: So they're constantly creating problems. I couldn't unsee the people
Speaker 1: or the activists that are constantly keeping women so afraid,
Speaker 1: you know, never making women feel empowered about the realities
Speaker 1: of the world. But there was just so much fear
Speaker 1: that was being sold as progress and empowerment, and that
Speaker 1: enraged me to the point of actually not allowing what
Speaker 1: of a fear that I felt to consume me because
Speaker 1: I had realized that I had been such a coward.
Speaker 1: I had been a coward and I didn't even know,
Speaker 1: and I had so much compassion and empathy for that coward.
Speaker 1: But I needed this version of Africa to step forward
Speaker 1: and to say this is what we're doing now. So
Speaker 1: I was not The truth is I was not afraid
Speaker 1: of cancelation. I was not afraid of the exile. I
Speaker 1: was afraid of the uncertainty because there's so much unknown
Speaker 1: once you liberate yourself, there is so much that is unknown.
Speaker 1: But in writing those words, even when I read them
Speaker 1: back now or someone reads them back to me, I
Speaker 1: feel a sense of so much power. That's exactly how
Speaker 1: I felt in that moment. I didn't feel consumed by
Speaker 1: fear at all. I didn't, But I think it's because
Speaker 1: being consumed by fear was just no longer a choice
Speaker 1: at that time.
Speaker 2: Your open letter went viral. It's currently been read by
Speaker 2: I think around twenty million people. Were you canceled?
Speaker 1: No what happened quite the opposite. Actually my letter, I
Speaker 1: realized here's the thing. By the way, can I ask
Speaker 1: you a question, how do you define cancelation?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question, isn't it. I mean, I've
Speaker 2: been canceled so many times, over so many years before
Speaker 2: it was even called that. It used to be called
Speaker 2: a pylon or backlash or outrage culture. But I think
Speaker 2: a pylon is probably the best description of what it
Speaker 2: feels like when it happens to you. And it's very
Speaker 2: different to criticism. I always try to explain that to
Speaker 2: people that can be constructive. Criticism can always be helpful
Speaker 2: and well meaning. But cancelation is such a horrible word
Speaker 2: because it's so dehumanizing. It's so dehumanizing, like you cancel
Speaker 2: a flight or you cancel a meeting. You don't cancel
Speaker 2: a human being, And yet people try to because the
Speaker 2: thing is that you can reschedule a flight or a meeting,
Speaker 2: but there's no formal process for being uncanceled, and that's
Speaker 2: kind of the point to it, to delete you as
Speaker 2: a person, which is just so awful. And the other
Speaker 2: thing about that word is how it's applied to such
Speaker 2: a wide range of people, for such a wide range
Speaker 2: of things. So like everyone from Harvey Weinstein, who was
Speaker 2: actually a serial rapist who went to jail for his crimes,
Speaker 2: to someone who used a word that maybe they didn't
Speaker 2: realize was no longer acceptable because I don't know, they're
Speaker 2: seventy years old, or maybe they just don't mix in kind.
Speaker 1: Of woke circles. So I guess with.
Speaker 2: Cancelation, the big difference to me, besides the fact that
Speaker 2: Harvey Weinstein committed actual crime, is that he didn't do
Speaker 2: them by accident, and the person who used the wrong
Speaker 2: word probably wasn't trying to cause harm. You know. I
Speaker 2: know this is general, but in most cases when someone's canceled,
Speaker 2: they didn't intend to be offensive or cause harm. And
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that they didn't offend people and they
Speaker 2: didn't cause harm. But cancelation is the total flattening of
Speaker 2: intention and effect. So that's kind of how I've come
Speaker 2: to understand it. How do you think of cancelation?
Speaker 1: I love that so much, I think, and I'll just
Speaker 1: say this as well, even when you think of Harvey Weinstein, right,
Speaker 1: he still received due process. Right, he did still receive
Speaker 1: due process. So I asked that question, and it's a
Speaker 1: question that I now ask a lot of people because
Speaker 1: I genuinely believe that a lot of the posarization that
Speaker 1: we continued to experience and just never getting anywhere in
Speaker 1: conversation is because we have definition issues. If I think
Speaker 1: cancelation is simply accountability and allowing for people to see
Speaker 1: the harm that they've done so they can take responsibility
Speaker 1: for their actions, sure I would be on board with
Speaker 1: that too if that was actually true. But if another person,
Speaker 1: and I'm the other person in this case, if another
Speaker 1: person believes that cancelation is a combination of public shaming, pylons,
Speaker 1: virtual stoning, that it's doxing, that it's anti social behavior,
Speaker 1: it's cyberbullying, then we're working with completely different definitions, so
Speaker 1: we'll never agree on what it is. So I always
Speaker 1: like to ask people how they do define it after
Speaker 1: having studied this for the past five to six years
Speaker 1: and really understanding the nature of cancel culture, which I
Speaker 1: prefer to call it collective sabotage. And the reason I
Speaker 1: do that is because I've been studying self sabotage for
Speaker 1: the past eight years. Self sabotage being and this is
Speaker 1: how I describe it in the book. When you are
Speaker 1: the one poking holes in your own ship when what
Speaker 1: it is that you say you want is in direct
Speaker 1: conflict with your behavior. You're saying you want progress, but
Speaker 1: you're using extremely regressive methods to get there, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're pulling the plug on your own cause. So
Speaker 1: when you have individuals that are already in a state
Speaker 1: of self sabotage and then we come together as a collective,
Speaker 1: we're quite literally acting against our own best interest. Because
Speaker 1: if you are part of a mob and you get
Speaker 1: your exhilaration and fire and charge from that, you better
Speaker 1: believe that same mob is going to come after you
Speaker 1: the moment you get any step out of line, and
Speaker 1: the same thing will happen to you. But we don't
Speaker 1: think that far. We have very sort of short term
Speaker 1: thinking in this mindset. So for me, I haven't been canceled,
Speaker 1: whether it's in my open less or my work from then. Sure,
Speaker 1: I've had people. I remember someone at and I thought
Speaker 1: this was so hilarious. I think it's when I wrote
Speaker 1: my open letter, and then this woman sent me. She
Speaker 1: was a black American woman. She sent me this long
Speaker 1: email about how she's been following my work for such
Speaker 1: a long time, and she's so disappointed that I have
Speaker 1: decided to become a bed wench for the white man.
Speaker 2: And I wow, a bed wench for the white man. Wow,
Speaker 2: what an insult. It's very creative.
Speaker 1: It's seen how much I was laughing. I could not
Speaker 1: stop cracking up. I was like, that takes time to
Speaker 1: write an email, and it was very well listened to. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I've never received any sort of trolling or any cancelation,
Speaker 1: or any call outs or anything like that. And I
Speaker 1: think it's because when you actually read my open letter,
Speaker 1: it's very easy to see the word wokeness on the
Speaker 1: title and to make so many assumptions about what will
Speaker 1: be in there. But I think I'm quite fair, so
Speaker 1: I've never experienced cancelation. And I think it's because this
Speaker 1: kind of like a mindset thing. And it might sound
Speaker 1: really abstract, but I think there's something about it. Even
Speaker 1: happens with bullies in the playground, right. If you show fear,
Speaker 1: you become more attractive. That's just how it works. If
Speaker 1: you don't allow for your convictions to be shown. And
Speaker 1: I'm very good at being convicted, but I'm still open,
Speaker 1: I'm still very warm. I'm not cynical. I am able
Speaker 1: to look at things differently if someone offers me new
Speaker 1: information that I wasn't aware of. So I think my
Speaker 1: open letter served as a point of just relief for
Speaker 1: so many people, especially other racialized people, who didn't know
Speaker 1: that they could or who had forgotten rather that they
Speaker 1: could ask questions that they can say I don't agree
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 2: Or I agree with parts of it, but there are
Speaker 2: other parts I'm not willing to sign up for.
Speaker 1: That's exactly it, to say this works for me, but
Speaker 1: this doesn't quite work for me, you know.
Speaker 2: Or I'm unclear about that. I see it in a
Speaker 2: more nuanced war exactly.
Speaker 1: And also for people that have been racialized as white,
Speaker 1: that were made to believe that they have this original
Speaker 1: sin that they need to I just don't believe in
Speaker 1: any of that. I just won't stand for it. And
Speaker 1: I think it just offered as a point of relief
Speaker 1: for people. And I think because of my genuine curiosity,
Speaker 1: but also my expertise as a developmental coach, as a researcher,
Speaker 1: as a consultant, as a writer, it's allowed me to
Speaker 1: continue exploring the conversation in a way that isn't sensationalized.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not doing this so I can be
Speaker 1: a talking head, So I can kind of, as we
Speaker 1: were saying before, hone in on just one thing. So
Speaker 1: I'm not anti woke, for example. I haven't made anti
Speaker 1: woke my identity and sort of become like a caricature
Speaker 1: of myself. That's not what I'm doing. So I think
Speaker 1: my work is easily received by people because they can
Speaker 1: feel that it's not some kind of what's the term.
Speaker 2: For this, Well, you're not scolding people. It's not about scolding.
Speaker 2: It's about it's about refusing to be part of a
Speaker 2: polarized system who insists that you pledge complete allegiance to
Speaker 2: a particular team. Yes, after this break, I'm going to
Speaker 2: ask Africa about this current moment in the news and
Speaker 2: how it's playing out on social media. And I'll be honest,
Speaker 2: this is the part of the conversation I'm most nervous
Speaker 2: about Africa. Since October seventh last year, we've seen a
Speaker 2: similar situation play out on social media as we saw
Speaker 2: after George Floyd's death, in that the world's been really
Speaker 2: shocked and really distressed by truly horrific news and images
Speaker 2: of the war in the Middle East, and there has
Speaker 2: been a similar attempt by some people to kind of
Speaker 2: police what isn't isn't being posted about the war, just
Speaker 2: as the black square turned out to be, I guess,
Speaker 2: an imperfect expression of solidarity with Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 1: We saw a.
Speaker 2: Similar phenomenon a couple of months ago where in a
Speaker 2: twenty four hour period, millions of people on social media
Speaker 2: all around the world posted that image with the words
Speaker 2: all eyes on RAFA to show their support for Palestinian civilians.
Speaker 2: And at the time there was a lot of surveillance
Speaker 2: around who had and who hadn't posted it, and then
Speaker 2: it emerged that the image had been generated by AI,
Speaker 2: So then people started yelling about that. And meanwhile the
Speaker 2: war continues and Palestinian people are still being killed and
Speaker 2: the hostages are still being held. And then some people
Speaker 2: believe if you don't post about those things, then that
Speaker 2: means that you don't care, so they start questioning other
Speaker 2: people's humanity. Right, how did you read that moment when
Speaker 2: everyone was posting and then deleting that tile about raffa.
Speaker 1: Gosh, and thank you for bringing that up. I can
Speaker 1: imagine that so many people listening will resonate with that.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about this is that even if someone
Speaker 1: is listening to this in six months time or a
Speaker 1: year or two years, three years, there's going to be something.
Speaker 1: It's going to be something that is happening culturally that
Speaker 1: will be very reminiscent of this. Always something, And that's
Speaker 1: what I like to keep in mind, by the way,
Speaker 1: and I would invite anyone listening to this or watching
Speaker 1: to keep that in mind too, that there's always going
Speaker 1: to be something. Try and notice the patterns in terms
Speaker 1: of how you're expected to respond and the time in
Speaker 1: which you're expected to respond. So for me, when I
Speaker 1: saw that, exactly as you said, it was like immediate flashbacks.
Speaker 1: It was the same mechanics, same mechanics. This thing comes out,
Speaker 1: no one asks where it's from in terms of its origin. Again,
Speaker 1: we do need urgently actually more media literacy for people
Speaker 1: wondering where things are actually coming from and who are
Speaker 1: they coming from, because again, things just come out and
Speaker 1: we see, we tend to see a number Okay, twan
Speaker 1: and people have shared this. Ten thousand people have shared this,
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand people have shared that means
Speaker 1: I should also be sharing because there is that thing
Speaker 1: where it's contagious. We don't ask any questions. We just
Speaker 1: trust that the data being higher means that it's the
Speaker 1: right thing that we need to be sharing. And for
Speaker 1: many reasons it could have been because exactly as you said,
Speaker 1: it makes people aware of what is going on. So
Speaker 1: I understand that awareness peace offered in terms of that
Speaker 1: being an objective. But within twenty four hours, actually people
Speaker 1: were already being shamed for posting it exact same as
Speaker 1: the black square, the exact same thing. To a t
Speaker 1: it is uncanny, right, And then now people are feeling
Speaker 1: ashamed of being like, do I delete it? But if
Speaker 1: I delete it, people might see that I've deleted it
Speaker 1: becomes a whole thing. But then for me, the biggest
Speaker 1: thing is and this is why I remember recording a
Speaker 1: specific podcast episode on this maybe three four years ago,
Speaker 1: on why you don't have to speak up on every
Speaker 1: social issue, and it all rings true today. This idea
Speaker 1: that every single thing people are doing or thinking they
Speaker 1: are putting online is something that we need to realize
Speaker 1: is very, very very limiting. In many ways, someone could
Speaker 1: have been marching for the past ten months, you know,
Speaker 1: in their hometown or sending letters to their local MP
Speaker 1: or donating hundreds, maybe even thousands, maybe even more. Some
Speaker 1: people are having real world conversations. Some people are actually
Speaker 1: holding people who are being harmed by this every single day.
Speaker 1: Some people are seeing what they can do in their community.
Speaker 1: Some people are making phone calls. Some people are dealing
Speaker 1: with another war happening in their country, another reality we
Speaker 1: have to accept. And again this is just opening up
Speaker 1: the nuance in the grave for people to understand that
Speaker 1: things are not as simple as oh, if this person posts,
Speaker 1: then that shows that they care. That shows that they're
Speaker 1: doing something. Because I could post an infographic from bed
Speaker 1: and not even really care, but just post it to
Speaker 1: say that I've done something. I think it's such a shame.
Speaker 1: It's such a shame that we have come to this
Speaker 1: point where we believe that if someone doesn't post something
Speaker 1: quite literally by the way, that something could be anything.
Speaker 1: There's never any detail on what it could be. It
Speaker 1: could be anything doesn't even have to actually be a
Speaker 1: link that sends maybe something more tangible to where the
Speaker 1: conflict is happening. It could be anything. It could be
Speaker 1: a photo, it could be a slide, it could be
Speaker 1: just one word. People prefer the performance more than whether
Speaker 1: something is actually changing fundamentally, because I think where in
Speaker 1: such a trance when we're online that we don't even
Speaker 1: think that people could be doing something else that isn't posting.
Speaker 2: You know, what's the reason for that, Because it's not everybody,
Speaker 2: but the people who speak loudest online often around these
Speaker 2: things have become like vigilantes. It's like there's self appointed
Speaker 2: shareefs of the internet surveiling what everyone else is posting
Speaker 2: and calling out people that they think are posting not
Speaker 2: in the right amount or not in the right way.
Speaker 2: Isn't narcissism?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess they.
Speaker 2: Think they're doing the right thing. Do they actually think
Speaker 2: that what they're doing by centering themselves and shouting at
Speaker 2: everybody else is helping or is it just that they
Speaker 2: get sort of addicted to the attention or the head rush?
Speaker 2: I mean back in the day when I used to
Speaker 2: be a lot more outraged online, there is a bit
Speaker 2: of a head rush, as you spoke about before, about
Speaker 2: when everyone agrees with you and you get lots of
Speaker 2: likes and you go girl kinds of comments. Is that
Speaker 2: why there's just this intolerance for nuance because being extreme
Speaker 2: gets more collapse. To me.
Speaker 1: I don't have one answer, but I think it can
Speaker 1: be a combination of different things. I find that a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, when we find it so difficult
Speaker 1: to hold our own contradictions, we just won't be able
Speaker 1: to hold other people's. That's just that's actually just the
Speaker 1: reality of it. Because if I can't see myself as
Speaker 1: both good and bad, as both manipulative but also very thoughtful,
Speaker 1: but also very kind, but I can also be very rageful,
Speaker 1: I can also be very impatient, but I can also
Speaker 1: be very sweet, and I can also be ground. If
Speaker 1: I can't see all of those things about myself, and
Speaker 1: especially be able to name the shadowy parts of myself,
Speaker 1: I will never be able to do that about someone else.
Speaker 1: I just won't. And even worse, if I then encounter
Speaker 1: someone who's able to hold those truths about themselves, they
Speaker 1: will always be a trigger for me. So something that
Speaker 1: I always think about it in the context of self
Speaker 1: censorship is that when you become very well trained at
Speaker 1: censoring yourself, you will find people that are not just
Speaker 1: uncensored to the extreme, but people that allow themselves to
Speaker 1: actually speak their minds, or to ask questions or say
Speaker 1: I don't know agree with that, or to say I
Speaker 1: know everyone agrees with this, but this is what I
Speaker 1: think you will feel. That it's actually a threat to
Speaker 1: your sense of self and it's very illogical, but it's
Speaker 1: people feeling like your worldview isn't actually just yours. It's
Speaker 1: now a threat on my sense of self. So I
Speaker 1: have to do everything I can to take it down
Speaker 1: and to somehow give you mine so then I'm safe.
Speaker 2: You're right. So when I was a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: I was diagnosed with ADHD and I wrote about it,
Speaker 2: and I wrote about how there was nothing good about
Speaker 2: it for me, like it had only made my life harder.
Speaker 2: And there was huge pushback from the neurodivergent community saying,
Speaker 2: you can't say, how very dare you say that? You're
Speaker 2: not allowed to say that. You've got to be a
Speaker 2: role model for young people. And of course there were
Speaker 2: other people saying, oh, thank god, I'm so glad you've
Speaker 2: said it, because I said, I don't feel like it's
Speaker 2: my superpower. Maybe some people feel like it's their superpower.
Speaker 2: I don't feel like it's my superpower, Like it's made
Speaker 2: my life harder. I wish I could give it back.
Speaker 2: But I had strayed from the party line and this
Speaker 2: orthodoxy of no, you can only.
Speaker 1: Be positive about it, right.
Speaker 2: And I was I agree. I just went, well, no,
Speaker 2: forget it, like I'm not interested in that.
Speaker 1: That's that's exactly it. It's like it's group think essentially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this idea that we only have safety if we all
Speaker 1: think the same way, and anything that gets in that
Speaker 1: opposes that is a threat and we have to get
Speaker 1: rid of it.
Speaker 2: It feels like a threat, right, because what people, I
Speaker 2: think often miss is that the people who are most
Speaker 2: likely to cancel you, or who are most likely to
Speaker 2: call you out or pile on you or whatever, are
Speaker 2: people who you are ideologically very similar with. They're part
Speaker 2: of the people that you agree with most things. Yes,
Speaker 2: Whereas I once spoke to someone who is like a
Speaker 2: very right wing commentator and I was asking her, oh,
Speaker 2: do you get a whole lot of shit from these
Speaker 2: particular people on the left who like to cancel me,
Speaker 2: And she's like, oh, no, they completely ignore me. I
Speaker 2: get it from the right. So she got canceled from
Speaker 2: the right, and the right leaves me alone. I get
Speaker 2: canceled from the left. Gosh, why is that, why do
Speaker 2: we cancel people that are more likely to cancel people
Speaker 2: that are most like us.
Speaker 1: It's like, to me, that's just tribalism. I always laugh
Speaker 1: at how we think. Because we wear clothes now and
Speaker 1: we have all of this technology whatever, we can override
Speaker 1: our primal nature, but it's never going to go anywhere,
Speaker 1: and we are tribal creatures. There was definitely a point
Speaker 1: in time where if you stray from the tribe, whether
Speaker 1: it's through actual action or thought, there's danger. There's danger
Speaker 1: if you are cast out by the tribe, you will
Speaker 1: be dead, you know, within a few hours. So I
Speaker 1: think we still have that biological wiring, and I write
Speaker 1: about it in the third perspective. We need to understand
Speaker 1: our biology and our human nature so we can see
Speaker 1: it at place because we will always have that thing
Speaker 1: where our safety is determined by the people around us.
Speaker 1: And that also means intellectual safety. Right. I can't feel
Speaker 1: that safe if I don't know where to place you.
Speaker 1: That's why I think identity has its uses, because it's
Speaker 1: not about getting rid of identity completely. It just allows
Speaker 1: us for us to understand each other. Even someone saying
Speaker 1: I'm British, I'm Zimbabwe, I'm Australian, I'm this, and that
Speaker 1: it gives you an idea, and that gives you a
Speaker 1: bit of safety. Whereas when you don't know someone's name,
Speaker 1: or their age, or where they're from or who they
Speaker 1: actually are, How can I trust you when I don't
Speaker 1: actually know you? So we take that a step further
Speaker 1: with ideology, How can I trust you when you don't
Speaker 1: think and feel exactly like me? So where I have
Speaker 1: a lot of empathy and compassion actually for all of
Speaker 1: this is that asking people to face their discomfort when
Speaker 1: they're confronted with a different worldview, etc. It's a very unnatural.
Speaker 1: It's a very unnatural thing to ask someone to hold
Speaker 1: that contradiction and for it to not feel completely threatening.
Speaker 1: But that is our work to do as people, to
Speaker 1: surround ourselves not to an extreme, because this is why
Speaker 1: people have to say, well, so what I should just
Speaker 1: be friends with biggots and white supremacy? Why do we
Speaker 1: have to go to those extremes. There are many things
Speaker 1: in which you disagree with someone else on, but we're
Speaker 1: building such a level of intolerance where even with the
Speaker 1: most basic things people can't deal with it anymore. You know,
Speaker 1: that's so true.
Speaker 2: Just finally, Africa, your wonderful book. The third perspective, the
Speaker 2: subtitle is Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance. I
Speaker 2: want to ask you about intolerance and why you think
Speaker 2: we've become so intolerant, because I've worked in media for
Speaker 2: thirty years and it used to be just understood that
Speaker 2: you could disagree with someone, right, I don't agree with
Speaker 2: your opinion. I don't agree with that story you published.
Speaker 2: Now people have become so intolerant. It's I disagree with
Speaker 2: your opinion. I'm unfollowing you, I am blocking you, or
Speaker 2: I don't like that story. You need to take it down.
Speaker 2: I can't handle that it even exists in the world.
Speaker 1: What's that about?
Speaker 2: Why have we become so completely intolerant?
Speaker 1: Gosh? So I think that's a big question, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's a big answer to it. But again, I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of different things, but I like
Speaker 1: to kind of bring it back to the self, and
Speaker 1: it's what I do in the book as well, because
Speaker 1: I think these things can feel so big. Whether we're
Speaker 1: talking about cancel culture, identity, politics, the politicization of absolutely
Speaker 1: every single thing, even your food choices. It's political in
Speaker 1: some way, even what you wear on your body, it's political?
Speaker 1: Is it fast fashion? Is it you know, independent brands?
Speaker 1: Who has more money to everything is political? But I think,
Speaker 1: to me, the intolerance, there's kind of something and I
Speaker 1: wonder what you but there's something sort of childlike about
Speaker 1: it that everything is sort of me me, me. There's
Speaker 1: been like an infantilization of people. People treating themselves like
Speaker 1: sort of infants that need to be wrapped in cotton wool,
Speaker 1: you know, in case something rubs onto them. So I
Speaker 1: find that a way that I'm able to sort of
Speaker 1: deal with this without it feeling so big is to
Speaker 1: realize that I'm kind of dealing with sort of infants almost.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to let them run the show.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to let them tell me what I
Speaker 1: can say and not say. I'm not going to allow
Speaker 1: for them to say you need to behave in this
Speaker 1: way when a lot of the time it's people that
Speaker 1: are so out of control in their personal lives, but
Speaker 1: then they get this sense of control online. Now they
Speaker 1: tell everyone else what to do. When you can barely
Speaker 1: have a conversation with your own family, when you can
Speaker 1: barely have a conversation with your partner or your sibling.
Speaker 1: So I like to think of it in that way,
Speaker 1: that it's people trying to gain a sense of control
Speaker 1: they don't have in their own lives. So there's something
Speaker 1: quite childlike. It's like a toddle.
Speaker 2: That makes so much sense now I understand a couple
Speaker 2: of people so much better. It's like a toddler stamping their.
Speaker 1: Foot, absolutely absolutely, And I think you have to think
Speaker 1: about it in that way, as in, how would you
Speaker 1: respond to a toddler who is stamping their foot and
Speaker 1: saying post this and do that and share this. Why
Speaker 1: have you done that? It's insane.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't be scared of them, you wouldn't listen to them.
Speaker 1: So I think we need to sort of understand that
Speaker 1: we're dealing with something a little bit unnatural here in
Speaker 1: needing to lean in instead of leaning out of the
Speaker 1: discomfort of being confronted with a different worldview or a
Speaker 1: friend of yours changing their mind you know about something,
Speaker 1: or saying, you know what, I used to agree with this,
Speaker 1: but I don't actually agree with that so much anymore,
Speaker 1: And for you to feel like you can still love
Speaker 1: and appreciate that person and not apply so much meaning
Speaker 1: to it, so I think we've kind of lost this
Speaker 1: ability to be able to hold contradiction. But I do
Speaker 1: think it starts with our selves. Otherwise, I promise you,
Speaker 1: as much as you would like to think you'll be
Speaker 1: able to do it, you will never be able to
Speaker 1: hold contradiction in someone else if you can't do it
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: That makes so much sense, the idea of holding contradiction
Speaker 2: in yourself and being open to the idea of changing
Speaker 2: your mind or having nuanced views about things because most
Speaker 2: of our views aren't completely polarized, and listening to Africa's
Speaker 2: story and her wisdom, I can really understand how she's
Speaker 2: become unafraid of cancelation and the online mob, especially through
Speaker 2: that framework of someone behaving a bit like a toddler.
Speaker 2: And that's not to be trite, because I do believe
Speaker 2: that everybody thinks that they're doing the right thing. They
Speaker 2: honestly do believe. I have to think this right. I
Speaker 2: have to believe that they have good intentions if I
Speaker 2: want that same consideration given back to me every time
Speaker 2: I make a mistake or do something that people don't
Speaker 2: agree with. But I think what's important is to pause
Speaker 2: and ask yourself what do we actually owe the Internet?
Speaker 2: What do we owe social media? What do we owe
Speaker 2: to the strangers who follow us? Is it the only place,
Speaker 2: or even the right place to engage in really complex
Speaker 2: ideas and situations that require critical thinking and nuance and
Speaker 2: where we might change our mind. The truth is, you
Speaker 2: don't owe the Internet anything. What we do in our
Speaker 2: actual lives, what we stand for in our communities and homes,
Speaker 2: in our workplaces, and in our hearts, in our wider society,
Speaker 2: that is always going to matter more than what you
Speaker 2: do or don't post to the world. I don't post
Speaker 2: about my kids online. Do you think that means I
Speaker 2: don't care about them? And, as Africa says, in the
Speaker 2: eyes of the Internet, you'll never get it right. So
Speaker 2: maybe the best way to protect ourselves and each other
Speaker 2: is to live our core values more than we post
Speaker 2: about what we want people to think our core values
Speaker 2: are or what we feel that their core values and
Speaker 2: their posts should be. And look, I feel like I've
Speaker 2: said that a lot in this podcast. I'll be honest
Speaker 2: with you, there were moments I was really afraid to
Speaker 2: even have this conversation with Africa or share my own
Speaker 2: experiences and ask my own questions, because well, you know,
Speaker 2: I know what cancelation feels like, and it is life changing,
Speaker 2: not the good kind of life changing. And even saying that,
Speaker 2: I'm scared that people will try to weaponize those words
Speaker 2: to cancel me. But you know what, I can't let
Speaker 2: that fear run my life and I can't let it
Speaker 2: determine the kind of conversations that I want to bring
Speaker 2: you here on No Filter. I want No Filter to
Speaker 2: be a place where you can hear from people you
Speaker 2: might disagree with, or feel your own positions challenged a bit,
Speaker 2: and remember how to actually have conversations in a good
Speaker 2: faith way. And that's what this show is about. And
Speaker 2: as you heard, that is certainly what Africa is about.
Speaker 2: What strikes me most about her, I mean all the things,
Speaker 2: but it's her lack of righteousness. It is her openness,
Speaker 2: her ability to listen, and her willingness to embrace nuance,
Speaker 2: an uncertainty and contradiction. You probably want more of Africa.
Speaker 2: Who wouldn't Lucky for you. She's a consultant, a coach,
Speaker 2: a strategist, a speaker. She's magnificent on social media, and
Speaker 2: we will pop all the links that you need to
Speaker 2: become the Africa Brooks super fan that you should be,
Speaker 2: and like we all are here at No Filter, will
Speaker 2: pop them in the show notes. The executive producer of
Speaker 2: No Filter is Naima Brown. Give her a big, hard,
Speaker 2: thorny conversation any day over small talk. Our audio producer
Speaker 2: is Tom Lyon. He's learning how to meditate and will
Speaker 2: not engage in online drama. And I'm mea friedman. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have a big cup of tea and a very
Speaker 2: big lie down. I'm your host. Be kind to each other.
Speaker 2: I think twice before you jump into a pylon. There's
Speaker 2: a real person on the bottom of it. Cancel reservations
Speaker 2: and meetings, not.
Speaker 1: People love you.
Speaker 2: See you next week.