Speaker 1: Mmmm, this is.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to good mom's bad choices. I'm Erica and
Speaker 2: I'm Meela.
Speaker 3: And it's Wednesday, bitches.
Speaker 4: Happy mother fucking hump Day, Happy hump Day.
Speaker 3: How are you.
Speaker 4: I'm great, I feel good.
Speaker 5: I'm feeling like powered up for the for the first
Speaker 5: of the month, the last of this year. I'm ready to,
Speaker 5: you know, close this out strong and start again even stronger.
Speaker 4: And uh.
Speaker 2: In honor of this month, this month's theme is Power
Speaker 2: Moves December, because we are going into January feeling powerful
Speaker 2: because this year has been you know, it's done its thing,
Speaker 2: it's been great, it's been high, it's been low. But
Speaker 2: we always like to enter into the new year feeling activated.
Speaker 2: And I thought, what better way to start this month
Speaker 2: than with the guest we have here who I am
Speaker 2: so excited.
Speaker 3: I'm so fucking excited to have her.
Speaker 2: She came all the way out to our little studio,
Speaker 2: deep deep in the valley, and shit, she's on a
Speaker 2: press tour for her incredible book.
Speaker 6: We have, Jamel Hill.
Speaker 4: Thank you, ladies.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you having me here. I just feel slightly nervous.
Speaker 3: I'm so nervous. If I told my mom, you're coming.
Speaker 3: She's like, Jamel, She's like, I might need a swing by.
Speaker 4: I was on record.
Speaker 3: I was like, Mom, don't fucking ring the doorbell.
Speaker 5: Okay, I know it's really rare that I like tell
Speaker 5: my family what's going on in my work because nobody cares.
Speaker 5: But I'm like this morning, nine am, Hey guys, just
Speaker 5: hi everyone, Hey grandma, I hey grandma, I'm interviewing Jammel
Speaker 5: Hill today.
Speaker 4: Decided to let you go us know that I can't bite.
Speaker 3: No, I'm nervous just because I listened to you guys
Speaker 3: all the time. You have a fantastic podcast, and you're
Speaker 3: just like so lit and you're so interesting and you
Speaker 3: just made me feel sown boring.
Speaker 2: So that's all just like, ain't nothing boring about you.
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, I'm gonna come on there, and uh,
Speaker 3: you know, compared to the lives they live and the
Speaker 3: things they talk about, I was like, my whole lame
Speaker 3: score at us, Like this is about you are a trailblazer, right, okay,
Speaker 3: three you saying that, but no, I like your your freeness,
Speaker 3: your boldness, like these things are all attributes that very
Speaker 3: much inspired me. So I'm I'm very excited to be
Speaker 3: here and slightly nervous.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, don't be nervous.
Speaker 3: We don't bite well unless somebody ask you to.
Speaker 6: This is just a light bite.
Speaker 3: Well, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: We usually start off our show with an affirmation, so
Speaker 2: I wanted to see if maybe you had when you
Speaker 2: wanted to share with our peoples.
Speaker 3: I do so the mention that I wanted to share,
Speaker 3: which is is kind of central to me, and that
Speaker 3: is to and obviously it coincides with my podcast is
Speaker 3: named it is to stay unbothered. And a lot of
Speaker 3: people when I say the word unbothered, they think that
Speaker 3: that means like not to give a fuck, But that's
Speaker 3: not what it means. It means to stop giving a
Speaker 3: fuck about the wrong things right about the wrong energy,
Speaker 3: about the people who have tried to sabotaze you, the
Speaker 3: people who a gonna always talk shit about you, the
Speaker 3: people who are going to interrupt your flow with their
Speaker 3: negative energy. And so you have to stay in a
Speaker 3: space of being unbothered in order for you to really
Speaker 3: be your best self. You know, it's kind of like
Speaker 3: that old adage you have to dance like nobody's watching,
Speaker 3: And so that's sort of the mentality I try to
Speaker 3: use when when approaching life, because if you start doing
Speaker 3: things based off how you feel people will react, you'll
Speaker 3: undermine yourself every time. So everybody out there, stay unbothered.
Speaker 4: Stay unbothered.
Speaker 5: When I think if I'm bothered, I think of like
Speaker 5: the emoji of the fingernail skinning painted, Like that's what
Speaker 5: I think. I'm like, sorry, I mean, how have you
Speaker 5: like that? That's a huge statement and it seems small,
Speaker 5: but like even for you, I know you've come from
Speaker 5: like a very corporate background. You've done a lot of
Speaker 5: journal like journalism, it's a very male dominated, white dominated
Speaker 5: industry in space, and like I'm sure you've had to
Speaker 5: I know you've had to bite your tongue a lot
Speaker 5: and like stay in this space and probably put up
Speaker 5: with a lot of opinions of people you didn't give
Speaker 5: a fuck about, yep, and bite tongues. And I think
Speaker 5: that is really like that is a huge, a huge testimony,
Speaker 5: because a bitch like me, I'd be like, listen, I
Speaker 5: got some shit to say, like you're fired.
Speaker 3: Fuck well, I think when you get into corporate America,
Speaker 3: especially corporate journalism, you kind of know what you are
Speaker 3: signing up for that. It is something you have to wager, like, Okay,
Speaker 3: on one end, there is this truth that needs to
Speaker 3: be told. On the other end, I'm dealing with the
Speaker 3: same white power structure that everybody else in every sector
Speaker 3: of corporate America that's black is dealing with. And so
Speaker 3: you just kind of have to decide that what you're
Speaker 3: there to do is worth more than the people sometimes
Speaker 3: that try to suppress what you're trying to do. So
Speaker 3: you fight a lot of battles. Some of them you
Speaker 3: in and some of them you lose. But the whole
Speaker 3: point is that you're there to provide a certain amount
Speaker 3: of resistance. So even though I came from very traditional media,
Speaker 3: it was very instructive. It helped me develop and too,
Speaker 3: I think, to be the best journalist that I've ever been.
Speaker 3: And now that I'm in the season of really being
Speaker 3: in the business of my own brand of being an entrepreneur,
Speaker 3: everything that I was able to take and learn, the lessons,
Speaker 3: the obstacles, I've taken all of that and now I've
Speaker 3: amusing that as you know, sort of the foundational training
Speaker 3: as I proceed with this season of me. If you will.
Speaker 5: Tell us about that, like tell us about your journey,
Speaker 5: your journey. I know you're Detroit, and I know you've
Speaker 5: done journalism live in Connecticut, Like how did you end
Speaker 5: up here in this space with your own network?
Speaker 4: And like you've come so far?
Speaker 3: Man, this is not at all what was in the
Speaker 3: career plan when I first started in journalism. And my
Speaker 3: old ass has almost been in this business for thirty years,
Speaker 3: which is frightening to think about. But I started when
Speaker 3: I was two, so you know, it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3: But I was very lucky to be one of those
Speaker 3: people who knew really early and really quickly what I
Speaker 3: wanted to do the rest of my life. So I
Speaker 3: knew in tenth grade that I wanted to be a
Speaker 3: sports journalist. And that's a very unusual dream to have
Speaker 3: for somebody who grew up in Detroit, in the real hood,
Speaker 3: not the rap hood. So because of that, you know,
Speaker 3: it just I would never have imagined that somebody in
Speaker 3: my position would have the thoughts of doing this. But
Speaker 3: it was a couple of things. It was one I
Speaker 3: love to write. I was a voracious reader. I love sports,
Speaker 3: and back then, to keep up with your sports teams,
Speaker 3: you had to the newspaper, So reading the newspaper. It
Speaker 3: clicked in my mind, like, oh, people actually write about
Speaker 3: this shit for a living. Okay. So I joined my
Speaker 3: high school journalism staff and started writing for that. And
Speaker 3: the professional paper in Detroit would publish the high school newspapers,
Speaker 3: so you had to go to a professional newsroom to
Speaker 3: get your newspaper published. So the first time I stepped
Speaker 3: into a professional newsroom, I was like, Oh, I could
Speaker 3: do this shit, Like I really like the energy, the vibe,
Speaker 3: you know. It was just a lot of electricity in
Speaker 3: the newsroom. And so ever since then, this is literally
Speaker 3: all I've ever done. I've had only two jobs that
Speaker 3: were not journalism related, and they were more like seasonal shit.
Speaker 3: I delivered phone books. I know most of your audience
Speaker 3: listening is like, what the fuck is the phone book?
Speaker 3: Remember the Yellow Pages or the Yellow Pages?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: That shit is not easy to carry, okay, But I
Speaker 3: was broke and I was in college, and what it was,
Speaker 3: they paid me seventy cents per book delivered, So I
Speaker 3: had to deliver a whole lot of fucking books just
Speaker 3: to eat, you know what I'm saying. And I was
Speaker 3: slinging them shits everywhere too, like that that damn Yellow Pages,
Speaker 3: might you know, wind up on your roof fucking around
Speaker 3: with me? So so yeah, like I did that. And
Speaker 3: then I worked at a snack counter at the W
Speaker 3: at the Y m c A. Which I don't know
Speaker 3: why anybody ever put me in charge of anything that
Speaker 3: involved math, and also me minding the store because when
Speaker 3: my friends came in, I just gave them all the
Speaker 3: shit did I mean they got the hook up? I
Speaker 3: was like, why didn't the person who owned the next store,
Speaker 3: why didn't it ever dawn on them that it was
Speaker 3: six dollars in the drawer, but all the cheetos are gone?
Speaker 3: And like, what this ain't adding up. So I've been
Speaker 3: very fortunate to always have pretty much been a page
Speaker 3: roll list my whole life. And you know, the original
Speaker 3: dream I saw for myself was writing for Sports Illustrated
Speaker 3: because I was a writer and that was the preeminent
Speaker 3: place for a sports writer to write for Sports Illustrated.
Speaker 3: And I was like, if I can just make fifty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars a year, I would have made it. And
Speaker 3: so my second job out of college, when I was
Speaker 3: making forty seven, I was like, oh shit, And that
Speaker 3: taught me a lesson, which was it's not that our
Speaker 3: dreams and goals are too high, it's that they're too low.
Speaker 3: To think that that was just it, and I thought like, oh,
Speaker 3: I can retire after that is kind of crazy to
Speaker 3: me now looking at the life I lead. So being
Speaker 3: at ESPN was never on the vision board. Creating a
Speaker 3: podcast network for black women was never on the vision board.
Speaker 3: Being a podcaster, or even do a television none of that.
Speaker 3: All of those were things that happened based off adaptability.
Speaker 3: None of that was anything that I planned. But I
Speaker 3: think that's okay, because you know, some of your greatest
Speaker 3: surprises come from when you make these kind of spur
Speaker 3: of the moment decisions that you have no idea that
Speaker 3: are about to be life changing. So thankfully I made
Speaker 3: some good ones because otherwise, you know, this could have
Speaker 3: gone in a totally different direction. But yeah, that was
Speaker 3: sort of my pathway, I guess to this point. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I worked in Detroit, Raleigh, Orlando, you know,
Speaker 3: lived in Bristol, Connecticut, where ESPN is headquartered for four
Speaker 3: and a half years, spent twelve years there and being
Speaker 3: in LA I got here just because I wanted to
Speaker 3: get more into film and TV production. I was obviously podcasting.
Speaker 3: It's the first place. It's the first time I've ever
Speaker 3: picked where I wanted to live since I became a professional.
Speaker 3: So I didn't want to fuck with anymore snow. I
Speaker 3: wanted to be in a big city and I wanted
Speaker 3: to be able to throw a rock and hit a
Speaker 3: black person. That's all I needed.
Speaker 5: And I was like, I'm good, all right, because I'm
Speaker 5: sure in Connecticut it was few and far between.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they had a strong, believe it or not,
Speaker 3: had a very strong West India community, not in Bristol,
Speaker 3: in Hartford. So I lived in Hartford because you know,
Speaker 3: living in Bristol, it's like why, but yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: it's just it just feels very white. And me and
Speaker 3: a friend of mine, my girl, Carrie Champion, who also
Speaker 3: is an on air personality, She were not laugh about
Speaker 3: the shit all the time. And she was like, you
Speaker 3: know when we hit rock bottom when we were in Bristol,
Speaker 3: and I was like, when when we went in that
Speaker 3: bar and they had carpet, we.
Speaker 4: Got to get out of here.
Speaker 3: She was like, she was like, they got carpet And
Speaker 3: I was like, girl, girl, we used to I mean,
Speaker 3: no lot like Bristol. It's hard to explain like ESPN's
Speaker 3: in Bristol because it's sheep land. They get amazing tax breaks.
Speaker 3: And the founder of ESPN was from Hartford, which is
Speaker 3: twenty minutes from Bristol. So if you want to be
Speaker 3: on air every day, more than likely you have to
Speaker 3: live in Bristol, Connecticut and you're in a profession where
Speaker 3: you go where the work is the problem that it's
Speaker 3: just it just kills your spirit, not your pair, but
Speaker 3: just living there. And we laugh about this all the
Speaker 3: time because Carrie and I were there at the same time,
Speaker 3: although I did a longer be it because we call
Speaker 3: her a bed like I did a four and a
Speaker 3: half year stretch. And you know we up in Ruby
Speaker 3: Tuesdays like eat I mean shit Conega. I would never
Speaker 3: eat elsewhere, right, No, no shame, no, just if you
Speaker 3: with Ruby Tuesdays because why you're playing that black and
Speaker 3: Tilapia is kind of everybody, right.
Speaker 2: You cann't listen, right, No tilapia, no anti girl.
Speaker 3: That ain't no real fish. That's a farm rais this fine? Okay?
Speaker 3: Well that fish is and that needs to be.
Speaker 5: They're farm raising that fish, making tilapias on you their farm.
Speaker 4: Raising out there. They're doing some kind of genetically don't trust.
Speaker 2: I did like tilapia for a long time until I
Speaker 2: learned the things about that.
Speaker 3: That's why I don't educate myself abuse.
Speaker 2: That's why I don't do it because I know for
Speaker 2: a feracious reader on certain ships, I don't have a ship.
Speaker 3: You want to know, right, food is out the US.
Speaker 4: Don't ruin it for me, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: It's like something gonna kill me, black head to be
Speaker 3: some delicious black and tidy black and trying to kill
Speaker 3: us with the tilapia. That's the first Okay.
Speaker 4: It's working. They've succeeded.
Speaker 3: We had that go through some wood Bridge shark and
Speaker 3: thought we were like, I do like what but but
Speaker 3: to a select But no, that was life in Bristol.
Speaker 3: It's like a bunch of chains, not a whole lot
Speaker 3: of flavor, very white, very cold. And you know that
Speaker 3: was my life for four and a half years. So
Speaker 3: when I say I finally got a chance to I
Speaker 3: was like, I can be in a city that has us,
Speaker 3: that is thriving and all this. I was like, I'll
Speaker 3: take these fucked up state income taxes is all good?
Speaker 4: How long have you been in LA.
Speaker 3: Since twenty eighteen?
Speaker 1: Me?
Speaker 3: He wasn't my husband then, but because we were, we
Speaker 3: were dating seriously and we were long distance, so we
Speaker 3: this LA is the first time we lived together. You're
Speaker 3: in the same city, right, he lived. He was in
Speaker 3: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Oh wow, And then you were
Speaker 3: and I was in Connecticut.
Speaker 4: I both moved here, and then you guys moved in together.
Speaker 3: When we moved in together, and he proposed two months later,
Speaker 3: which was really shocking.
Speaker 4: You guys dating before we.
Speaker 3: Had been We met in twenty fourteen and got serious
Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen, so we had been dating about three years.
Speaker 4: Why were you surprised? Why was it shocking?
Speaker 3: Well, we had talked about marriage. We had had a
Speaker 3: ton of those, like you know, if we get married
Speaker 3: or when we get married. We had a lot of those.
Speaker 3: But just move into a new city, across country, move
Speaker 3: for both of us. Thought we might need some time
Speaker 3: to just settle in and then just see how we
Speaker 3: felt about like living together. Like we had traveled so
Speaker 3: much together that I certainly didn't anticipate like, oh, if
Speaker 3: he leaves the cap off the toothpaste, I'm a fire.
Speaker 3: On his ass, like I didn't like, I didn't think
Speaker 3: we were gonna have those kind of moments. But it's
Speaker 3: an adjustment, right, and so you know, I again I was,
Speaker 3: I was really he got me, he was. I was
Speaker 3: very stunned. So he proposed the day after Christmas.
Speaker 4: Is marriage something you saw for your future? Like, were
Speaker 4: you like one of those little girls like one day,
Speaker 4: I don't know, get married.
Speaker 3: No, not at all, not with the marriages that were
Speaker 3: in my family, you know, like my my mother, my
Speaker 3: great aunt, and my grandmother. My great aunt and grandmother
Speaker 3: are no longer living, but between the three of them
Speaker 3: they were married eight times. So yeah, now they was
Speaker 3: in them streets. So a r ip grandma and great aunt Gene.
Speaker 3: I know, y'all was out there, but now they just
Speaker 3: and I saw a lot of disaster in terms of relationships,
Speaker 3: and my mother had very difficult, painful relationships with men,
Speaker 3: and I just did not want to make myself vulnerable
Speaker 3: in that way with another person. I mean, I certainly
Speaker 3: had serious relationships, but I was never the little girl
Speaker 3: thinking about the big wedding, thinking about prince charming or whatever.
Speaker 3: If I never got married, I would have been totally fine.
Speaker 3: So once I, you know, kind of got to a
Speaker 3: certain point, I actually was thinking like, oh, yeah, this
Speaker 3: will probably be it, and that's that's cool. You know,
Speaker 3: when I met my husband, I think he was kind
Speaker 3: of actually on the same tip. But men always are
Speaker 3: like they never you know, they maybe think about getting married,
Speaker 3: but it's never a central desire for them. So we
Speaker 3: kind of had the same mentality, and you know, we
Speaker 3: enjoyed each other's company. We had a great time, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure somewhere God was like, well I got something
Speaker 3: for y'all to motherfuckers right here, and then you know,
Speaker 3: next thing, you know, a great love was born.
Speaker 6: That's beautiful.
Speaker 2: I was listening to your episode with Angela Rye and
Speaker 2: she was talking about how out of the friend group
Speaker 2: like You're like, she's she's really proud of you because
Speaker 2: you're not always the most vulnerable. And then this book
Speaker 2: that you have Uphill, which congratulations a Ques book.
Speaker 3: Y'all make sure you go check out Jamal's new book.
Speaker 2: You really kind of get vulnerable and you get really
Speaker 2: open in a way that no one's really ever been
Speaker 2: able to experience, and dig into your childhood and really
Speaker 2: people get to understand why maybe it is.
Speaker 3: You don't have that idea of marriage and all.
Speaker 2: Those things, and even that your husband kind of kind
Speaker 2: of pushed you in ways to be more vulnerable, which
Speaker 2: I think is which I think is often it's so
Speaker 2: unique because I think women, we are usually the ones
Speaker 2: that are like, go to therapy, like talk to me,
Speaker 2: why don't you cry? You know, And so to have
Speaker 2: a partner that's been able to do that and and
Speaker 2: just and support you through this this journey of from
Speaker 2: from being a little girl till now, I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: he didn't know you then, but I'm curious to know, like,
Speaker 2: aside from you know, you've had this amazing career and
Speaker 2: I'm sure maybe you've been offered book deals in the past.
Speaker 2: Why now, like, why what propelled you to want to
Speaker 2: write this book and really and really get deep the money?
Speaker 3: Honestly, that was I didn't want to write a memoir.
Speaker 3: I did see myself as an author. I want to
Speaker 3: be a fiction writer. That was it's safer. Yeah, you're right,
Speaker 3: I mean, and maybe that's part of my not being
Speaker 3: able to be vulnerable. It's like, oh, I can create
Speaker 3: a world, and some of that world might be drawn
Speaker 3: off my own personal experiences, but nobody will ever know
Speaker 3: what that is, and so I'm not exposing myself in
Speaker 3: the same way. And you know, essentially, my literary agent
Speaker 3: told me that there was tremendous interest in hearing my
Speaker 3: story and that was kind of shocking to me. And
Speaker 3: I know people are like, why would that be shocking, Well,
Speaker 3: you know, just because people may know me for being
Speaker 3: at ESPN or know me for what I said about
Speaker 3: Donald Trump or or whatever, that doesn't mean they want
Speaker 3: to know the full story. But he's like, no, there's
Speaker 3: going to be a lot of interest in there was,
Speaker 3: and he once the book went to auction, that's when
Speaker 3: several publishers bid on the rights to your book. He said, listen,
Speaker 3: this is a good way for you to accomplish that
Speaker 3: other dream you want to do, which is to be
Speaker 3: a fiction writer. Like, get this book out there that
Speaker 3: people you know hear from you, know your story, they'll
Speaker 3: be invested in who you are, and it'll be that
Speaker 3: much easier for you to take that next jump. And
Speaker 3: once I decided that, okay, yeah, this is a good
Speaker 3: pathway and the money's good, so why not. I'm not
Speaker 3: the type of person I don't jumping shit halfway. So
Speaker 3: I'm like, listen, I'm looking at this as like a
Speaker 3: one shot deal in terms of writing a memoir, so
Speaker 3: I gotta lay it all out there. And I know
Speaker 3: that sometimes when people read celebrity memoirs, they feel like
Speaker 3: they pull up their punches or they feel like I
Speaker 3: don't think they were being totally true, like yeah, that
Speaker 3: they're just maybe trying to make themselves look good and
Speaker 3: all of this, and then I'm willing to expose certain
Speaker 3: things that have happened to them or to be honest.
Speaker 3: And I was like, now, I'm not gonna do that
Speaker 3: to people, you know, because certainly as a journalist, transparency, truth,
Speaker 3: those are things that are core principles of what I do.
Speaker 3: So I just decided here's what it is. And what's
Speaker 3: funny is I'm not good in terms of vulnerability person
Speaker 3: in person getting better work in progress, but writing. Being
Speaker 3: vulnerabile in writing has never been hard. And I don't
Speaker 3: know why that is something to ask my therapist. Shout
Speaker 3: out to you, doctor Streeter, but yeah, just from the
Speaker 3: you know, I write a lot about how I kept
Speaker 3: journals as a kid, and maybe it's because it was
Speaker 3: my first original Safe space is being able to write
Speaker 3: down how I felt, no matter you know, how fucked
Speaker 3: up it was or you know, whatever it may be,
Speaker 3: knowing that it was a space of no judgment. Writing
Speaker 3: that's what it is, and so it wasn't actually that
Speaker 3: hard for me to reveal some of the things that
Speaker 3: I did. Now if you sat me down in an interview,
Speaker 3: it might be different, or if you're one of my friends.
Speaker 3: Because my friends were reading this book and they didn't
Speaker 3: know a lot of shit that was in here, and
Speaker 3: they're like, bitch, you lived a whole nother life. I
Speaker 3: was like, I did. I did so, so yeah, so
Speaker 3: I think you know it. Just it wasn't as tough
Speaker 3: from that standpoint. The toughest part about writing this was
Speaker 3: all the conversations I had with my mom, because you know,
Speaker 3: we have she has her own personal trauma, which then
Speaker 3: became shared trauma, you know, as somebody who's was molested
Speaker 3: as a child then suffered a very horrific rape. Sharing
Speaker 3: some of those things, or asking her about asking her
Speaker 3: about those things, that was the tough part, because you know,
Speaker 3: with her addiction and everything, I'm literally asking her about
Speaker 3: the worst moments of her life, right and having to
Speaker 3: put them into print, and so that part was tough.
Speaker 3: But actually the decision to share and open up in
Speaker 3: this way, it wasn't as hard as as people might think.
Speaker 2: I was just curious about I'm curious about that too,
Speaker 2: because me and me La, we just turned in our
Speaker 2: book a few months ago that's coming out next year,
Speaker 2: and you know, feeling like, you know, you're talking about
Speaker 2: other people too, and you're sharing your truth about situations
Speaker 2: that maybe are not their truths. And even with your mother,
Speaker 2: I mean interviewing her and really and her having to
Speaker 2: be a core part of the story line because she
Speaker 2: is like, was she open to that? Was she was
Speaker 2: she scared to share? Or was she ready to share?
Speaker 3: And she was ready. She was very ready to share
Speaker 3: because she really felt like her testimony, our shared testimony,
Speaker 3: could help somebody. And these are a lot of the
Speaker 3: things that I discussed in the book and the incidents,
Speaker 3: those are things that, you know, most of which we
Speaker 3: have talked about throughout, you know, our relationship. But there
Speaker 3: were a lot of things I did not know, you know,
Speaker 3: at all. And because some of the things happened when
Speaker 3: I was in college, you know, I did not know,
Speaker 3: for example, that my mother first tried heroin when she
Speaker 3: was eleven. I had no idea until I talked to
Speaker 3: her about it. This for this book, which you know,
Speaker 3: kind of one of the takeaways that I want people
Speaker 3: to have is that you need to have these conversations
Speaker 3: with your people, with your parents, you know, like asked
Speaker 3: them about their shit. They have lived entire lives before you,
Speaker 3: before you came into the picture. They've had this appointments, fears,
Speaker 3: failures that you don't even know about. And I think
Speaker 3: it helps you give them grace and it helps you
Speaker 3: see them as a full person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it humanizes them, and they humanizes them so much
Speaker 2: because if not, I mean especially like if your parent
Speaker 2: has been a drug user your entire life, you might
Speaker 2: look at them as like, you didn't show up for
Speaker 2: me in this way, I hate you. You didn't do this,
Speaker 2: You didn't do that when you really understand why it is.
Speaker 2: And for your mother, if you don't mind me sharing
Speaker 2: me a good book, but I know that she was
Speaker 2: molested by her uncle for many, many years and her
Speaker 2: mother didn't believe her yep, or chose not to believe her,
Speaker 2: and then moved him in to live with them. And
Speaker 2: that's what and that's when she ran away from home,
Speaker 2: and that's when she tried heroin. So it's like then
Speaker 2: you start to see how the dots connect, Like, Okay,
Speaker 2: so you were you were a survivor.
Speaker 3: You suffer. One of the worst betrayals that a daughter
Speaker 3: or a child could suffer is it when their parent,
Speaker 3: in the worst moment of their life, doesn't take their side,
Speaker 3: doesn't support them, and even worse, tells the rest of
Speaker 3: the family she's a liar, and then it just set
Speaker 3: into motion their relationship being complicated and turbulent. The love
Speaker 3: was definitely there, but that betrayal is one that never healed,
Speaker 3: you know, never did even up until my grandmother's last breath.
Speaker 3: It never never healed. And so once I understood that
Speaker 3: part of it, I knew about the uncle, I knew
Speaker 3: about what my grandmother did did not know, as I said,
Speaker 3: about when she first, you know, experimented with hard drugs.
Speaker 3: And then once she told me that, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: now I see what the through line was is that
Speaker 3: you've been self medicating for a long time because that
Speaker 3: was your only refuge and it just as much as
Speaker 3: I'd forgiven my mother years ago, and that wasn't a
Speaker 3: whole lot to forgive because the one thing that I
Speaker 3: admire about my mother is that she's always been accountable
Speaker 3: about it and even at the height of her you know,
Speaker 3: usage if she was she was gonna do some shit,
Speaker 3: she would tell me she was doing it right. And
Speaker 3: so there was never any surprises, so to speak. And
Speaker 3: because of that, that is what made that capacity for
Speaker 3: forgiveness to be as broad as it was, because I
Speaker 3: think most people, what really keeps that resentment going, especially
Speaker 3: toward a parent, is when they don't own their shit,
Speaker 3: when they're not accountable, that just that sets the that
Speaker 3: sets the conversation and the relationship off in a different manner.
Speaker 3: And so because my grandmother was never accountable, that is
Speaker 3: why their relationship was as fractured as it was. Even
Speaker 3: though my mother, you know, she never abandoned my grandmother.
Speaker 3: She was her caretaker, especially when her health got really bad,
Speaker 3: and only maybe once in her life does she live
Speaker 3: more than fifteen minutes away from my grandmother. But there
Speaker 3: was you know, but when they fought, they thought, and
Speaker 3: it was bad, and I was caught in the middle
Speaker 3: sometimes and so that would be a tough position for
Speaker 3: me to be in. But you know. This is why
Speaker 3: such a powerful theme in my memoirs is just about
Speaker 3: how that generational trauma just can just really eat up
Speaker 3: the inside of a family.
Speaker 5: Shout out to your mom for like having the bravery
Speaker 5: and the wherewithal to not only be accountable, but then
Speaker 5: be like, yeah, actually you can't.
Speaker 4: You should write about it.
Speaker 5: I think it's time to write about it because, like
Speaker 5: I think, especially as black people, we come from long
Speaker 5: lines of secrets, and that's our business.
Speaker 4: You don't. You don't go out and tell our business.
Speaker 3: That's right, what happens in this house.
Speaker 5: And you know, growing up under the under that like scope,
Speaker 5: it's it's just it's subconsciously built in you and you
Speaker 5: and you literally feel guilt about telling the truth and
Speaker 5: until and even in adulthood, it's it takes a lot
Speaker 5: to undo that that not that curse, but it is
Speaker 5: a curse. But you also have to think about like
Speaker 5: how deeply it's seated and like where it comes from,
Speaker 5: and just like having parent a parent to be like
Speaker 5: and you should write it and I'm going to sit
Speaker 5: down with you and tell and tell you about it.
Speaker 5: From my perspective, is so powerful and I think like
Speaker 5: even for Erica and I I didn't realize how powerful
Speaker 5: it was for me to just like come talk about shit,
Speaker 5: you know. Like we've had a four years of like
Speaker 5: vocal journal, you know, and it's been so therapeutic talking
Speaker 5: about it and talking about it. And then same like
Speaker 5: even this book that we're really like writing, like writing
Speaker 5: it and releasing it and like letting it go, and
Speaker 5: it really does. It really does like heal generational curses.
Speaker 5: It's really like putting shit into the light and letting
Speaker 5: people learn and be like, oh damn, I'm not the
Speaker 5: only one. Like oh my mom also didn't believe me,
Speaker 5: or this happened to me and my family, and like,
Speaker 5: and I think I was going to ask you, like
Speaker 5: it's one thing to write about something and then you know,
Speaker 5: walk away from it. But how do you how did
Speaker 5: you think you're going to feel once it was published
Speaker 5: versus how do you feel now that it's published? Because
Speaker 5: I think even though you know what powerful moves you're making,
Speaker 5: I think sometimes it's like even for me, my BO
Speaker 5: doesn't even come out yet, and sometimes I'm like at night.
Speaker 3: Like like it's coming out.
Speaker 5: There's something I could do, you know, But like because
Speaker 5: I think there is like embarrassment, you know, like damn, Like,
Speaker 5: people are gonna know my life.
Speaker 4: People are gonna know where I came from.
Speaker 5: People are gonna know the dark secrets of when in
Speaker 5: reality it's human shit. People are going through shit, and
Speaker 5: you're like the woman you are as like powerful as
Speaker 5: you are because you've been through these things and you've
Speaker 5: had these experiences. But I think sometimes we shy away
Speaker 5: from that and just want to show people like the
Speaker 5: product and not all that's happened up until that point,
Speaker 5: you know, So like, how has it felt now that
Speaker 5: it's out people can purchase it and read your words.
Speaker 4: So intimately, yeah.
Speaker 3: It's a it's still a little unsettling because depending on
Speaker 3: I guess what people knew me for and at what
Speaker 3: phase in my life. Like I was used to at
Speaker 3: ESPN people coming up and asking me sports questions, right
Speaker 3: because that's they saw me on ESPN so naturally, and
Speaker 3: then even after all the controversy with Donald Trump happened,
Speaker 3: I was used to people coming up to me like,
Speaker 3: let's talk about this racism. I was like, yep, let's
Speaker 3: talk about it, and this white privilege. Okay, let's go.
Speaker 3: So but those are things that there's a level of
Speaker 3: cognitive dissonance for me because that's not about my real life.
Speaker 3: It's just like, I'm just yeah, it's not personal. I'm
Speaker 3: just pontificating on some shit. Yup the jets, yep, yep
Speaker 3: ye racism. Can you believe these white people? I guess
Speaker 3: I like, those are different. But now, and I remember,
Speaker 3: Gabrielle Union is a friend of mine. She told me
Speaker 3: this when she wrote her first memoir because she had,
Speaker 3: you know, has shared the fact that she suffered a
Speaker 3: traumatic rape. All these women knew Reddit were coming up
Speaker 3: constantly sharing their rape stories, and I was like, girl, like,
Speaker 3: how did you? That's so heavy, right, and you want
Speaker 3: a comfort, But at the same time, you have to
Speaker 3: protect your own mental space. And so that's the part
Speaker 3: that I'm still kind of bracing myself for. Because I'm
Speaker 3: happy that people who know people in their lives who
Speaker 3: had to suffer with addictions, and even if they had
Speaker 3: to navigate around somebody else's abuse, or even haven't been
Speaker 3: sexually abused, all of those things, I'm glad you can
Speaker 3: relate to the material. At the same time, I'm concerned
Speaker 3: at the end of this of if people are doing
Speaker 3: the same thing, like what mental impact will that have
Speaker 3: on me? So far, it hasn't been that. Most people
Speaker 3: have been like, oh, I was really inspired, you know,
Speaker 3: they say a few words, but and then just being
Speaker 3: embracing yourself for being asked about it, because again, it's
Speaker 3: one thing to write it, another thing to talk about it.
Speaker 3: And so I just guess to answer your question, I
Speaker 3: still don't know. I feel fine today, but I got
Speaker 3: three more cities.
Speaker 2: To go down, three more cities, and the lifelong it's
Speaker 2: always imputed. Yeah, books and people coming to you, And
Speaker 2: I mean it is because then and they will, they
Speaker 2: will come, and they will they will want to share,
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 3: Will have to protect yourself in ways.
Speaker 2: And I know even for us sometimes like people share,
Speaker 2: so we're always sharing, and then people come to us
Speaker 2: and share such intimate parts of their lives.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, am I giving good advice to you?
Speaker 3: Am I supporting you? Like what happens after this? Are
Speaker 3: you okay?
Speaker 4: After this?
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about them like later on in my day, like.
Speaker 2: Gosh, okay, I don't even know her.
Speaker 3: No, that's a real thing. Yeah, because and even not
Speaker 3: just about my reaction. You know, my mother and I
Speaker 3: we did red table talk, and it was overwhelmingly a
Speaker 3: positive reaction for sure. But you know, I just hope
Speaker 3: as she because she lives in Michigan still, and I
Speaker 3: just hope when she's just going about her daily life
Speaker 3: that people aren't rolling up to her and being like, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, tell me about that time you diocrats like yeah,
Speaker 3: because they're not. Because sometimes people, when they see you
Speaker 3: out there in the public eye, they feel like it
Speaker 3: gives them license to say certain things to you. Like
Speaker 3: I'm used to being in a public guye. She you know,
Speaker 3: Denise is not you know what I'm saying. So I
Speaker 3: don't know, you know, how she's going to handle some
Speaker 3: of that or even you know, being more in the
Speaker 3: limelight and having such a very complex story being told
Speaker 3: and absorbed right in in the public. So we're just
Speaker 3: learning as we go. So this is definitely a very
Speaker 3: different sort of chapter than what I'm used to in
Speaker 3: terms of being in the public eye in this way.
Speaker 2: Well, I think, gosh, your mom, it sounds like an
Speaker 2: incredible human. I mean, she's gone through a lot, ye
Speaker 2: through a lot, and she's she's here and look what
Speaker 2: she's birth, you know, and she's giving you this gift too,
Speaker 2: of like transparency and honesty that like you said, so
Speaker 2: many people they don't they do not get and you know,
Speaker 2: I think that that's there's something to that, there's something
Speaker 2: really magical to that. And even being able to now
Speaker 2: speak it out loud, I would be interested to know
Speaker 2: how you feel in like six months, I would too.
Speaker 3: All the talking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really, I really believe and advocate for I think
Speaker 2: speaking and you know in therapy too, like speaking really
Speaker 2: is healing. And the more you have to talk about something,
Speaker 2: the more you are able to release it. And I
Speaker 2: know you've already forgiven your mother, but there's probably other
Speaker 2: things in this book that you maybe still are like
Speaker 2: working through and in a lot of ways definitely.
Speaker 3: You know, in six months you might be like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm cool now I'm doing with that well.
Speaker 3: And then you know, realize that not everybody got to
Speaker 3: see this book, and it's you know, before it was finalized.
Speaker 3: My mother she read it, my husband read it, my
Speaker 3: pother says read it, and some of us, some very
Speaker 3: select friends. But like my dad just got it, like
Speaker 3: he didn't get until after it was can you read it?
Speaker 3: He did, and does you have opinions? He did which
Speaker 3: he shared on Facebook.
Speaker 4: Facebook, and they.
Speaker 3: That's their diary and we have not had a conversation
Speaker 3: about it, so.
Speaker 4: That that's what you just saw it on Facebook.
Speaker 3: And he never heard about it on Facebook because my
Speaker 3: my mother let me know one and she was not
Speaker 3: happy about And I don't I don't even I never
Speaker 3: read what he posted. So I have no clue. I
Speaker 3: don't know what how he feels about it. But however
Speaker 3: he feels about it, and he should have called me,
Speaker 3: and so I'm very curious as to how that phone
Speaker 3: call is going to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, should people have you know, you have
Speaker 2: to meet people where their at, you know, and and or.
Speaker 3: Not meet them at all. That's a word, that is
Speaker 3: a word.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I didn't feel obligated to, you know, call every single
Speaker 3: person that was mentioned and say hey, just so you know, uh,
Speaker 3: the people who because and I know you guys probably
Speaker 3: went through the same thing. Is that because you're sharing
Speaker 3: your story, you wind up sharing other people's story too.
Speaker 3: So I was very sensitive to the fact that I
Speaker 3: wasn't trying to tell anybody else's story, right, So you know,
Speaker 3: that's why when I uh talked about having an abortion
Speaker 3: in the book, I didn't give the real name of
Speaker 3: the guy that it was because I don't know if
Speaker 3: he's actually told that story to anybody. And you know,
Speaker 3: to me, even though we have not spoken in probably
Speaker 3: more than a decade, it would be you know, kind
Speaker 3: of grimy of me to just like throw his name
Speaker 3: out there and there, Yeah, you know what I'm saying
Speaker 3: and be like, by the way, you know it's not
Speaker 3: don't worry about it, right, It's like, that's not his
Speaker 3: same you ain't even close. Don't be worried about it.
Speaker 3: So you know, I was just being sensitive to that.
Speaker 3: And while yeah, there are other ex's in the book
Speaker 3: who I use their full name, but like, nothing outside
Speaker 3: of regular relationship happened. Regular relationship should happened between us,
Speaker 3: So I didn't feel like, oh, I got to tell
Speaker 3: him about that time you aske didn't put the milk up,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Like I didn't have to
Speaker 3: do that, but you you do have to be, you know,
Speaker 3: really careful about that with relationships you actually want to
Speaker 3: maintain and have. You know, some of the people mentioned like,
Speaker 3: I don't give a fuck, So it really didn't matter.
Speaker 2: Right, honestly, I mean, honestly, to be honest, I didn't
Speaker 2: check it with really anybody, but I have been. I
Speaker 2: was mindful about, like making sure that this was my
Speaker 2: my testimony, and I'm not over sharing things that don't
Speaker 2: really have any relevance too, and I had my editor
Speaker 2: was like, okay, so I think you need to scale back.
Speaker 2: This is not important.
Speaker 3: Oh really, I was like, this is my dark this motherfucker,
Speaker 3: but at least look my first draft was four hundred pages.
Speaker 5: I don't even know I was capable of writing this
Speaker 5: many pages. I was like, how many pages?
Speaker 3: And I was like, you need to eliminate one hundred pages.
Speaker 4: I was like, how's my life, bitch?
Speaker 3: But I think that's good that you you put everything
Speaker 3: in the kitchen sake, like that's what you do. You
Speaker 3: put everything in, and then that's how the story starts
Speaker 3: to form. I put it all in, and then as
Speaker 3: I got some notes back, they didn't tell me one
Speaker 3: hundred pages. They were like, this could be, you know,
Speaker 3: just more cohesive, and I was like, okay, but I
Speaker 3: started to see the story. I started to see the beginning, middle, end.
Speaker 3: So but you, to me, you only get there is
Speaker 3: if you put everything in, and then you can start
Speaker 3: to arrange the puzzle pieces so that this all fits
Speaker 3: into something that again is very cohesive. So I think
Speaker 3: it's perfectly fine to overwrite. Sorry, book editors out there,
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 5: I was listening to your story about how your mom
Speaker 5: went throughout your journal and I had I had a
Speaker 5: very similar situations. I journaled all the time. It was
Speaker 5: like my my safe space journaling journally. I have like
Speaker 5: fifty fucking journals from my child. I don't know what
Speaker 5: the fuck I was talking about.
Speaker 3: You still have them, yes, okay.
Speaker 5: Lots of hate speech charts my parents. But I had
Speaker 5: more than one occasion when they read my shit, and
Speaker 5: I remember it being so fucking like I felt so violated,
Speaker 5: and it really fucked up my relationship with writing. Like
Speaker 5: there was a point where I literally created a language
Speaker 5: that I still remember, like literally I have a code,
Speaker 5: like I can write in this language because I was
Speaker 5: that paranoid about people reading my shit, because I was
Speaker 5: writing so like personally, and there's a time where I
Speaker 5: stopped writing. So I felt like when we got this
Speaker 5: opportunity to write this book, you know, like time constraints,
Speaker 5: checks are being written, They're like.
Speaker 4: You guys need a ghostwriter and I was like, no,
Speaker 4: I must hurt my own story.
Speaker 5: But I realized, like if there was a block, you know,
Speaker 5: like from being violated that way from my parents.
Speaker 4: Like that that that avenue.
Speaker 5: Of like therapy that I had, you know, invested so
Speaker 5: much in as a child, I felt like I couldn't
Speaker 5: trust it anymore. And it was like writing this book
Speaker 5: was like a way of getting past that and like
Speaker 5: getting personal again, because there was a time where I
Speaker 5: felt like, bitch, don't be too honest in this shit.
Speaker 3: Now it what happened last time? Bitch, you can't did
Speaker 3: they once they read it? I assume they confronted you
Speaker 3: with the information?
Speaker 5: Oh girl, girl, I was writing about like my lesbian lifestyle.
Speaker 5: I was like, I want to be a lesbian now
Speaker 5: I w in eighth grade and they're like, you're not
Speaker 5: a lesbian, You're not a lesbian. I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 5: a lesbian.
Speaker 3: I was thinking.
Speaker 5: At one point, I was like a like a Christian school,
Speaker 5: my mom must have kicked me and I wrote about
Speaker 5: it and child the Christians un took my journal.
Speaker 4: They called child services to the house.
Speaker 5: What yes, the child services came and I was.
Speaker 4: Like, she didn't kick me alive? I was like, bitch,
Speaker 4: you kicked me.
Speaker 5: I know you remember, They're like, you better, you want
Speaker 5: to go to you want to go to adoption services.
Speaker 4: I was like, no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: It was very traumatic, you know, but I don't think
Speaker 3: parents realize like what a mark that leaves, because I
Speaker 3: had it happened to me twice once my mother when
Speaker 3: she read it, and I'd say in the book what
Speaker 3: happened as a result. And then I had an ex
Speaker 3: that did that, that read it. I had an X too,
Speaker 3: and that shit hurt. That was something else. And the
Speaker 3: thing that really pissed me off about it was the
Speaker 3: ex reddit didn't tell me he it, but used everything
Speaker 3: in there to sort of weaponize the situation. Oh like
Speaker 3: like because he then had insight, because he had insight,
Speaker 3: and he also you know, there was some information in
Speaker 3: there about you know, somebody at one point that I
Speaker 3: had messed around with, and I never told him about
Speaker 3: it because you know, some man.
Speaker 4: They get a little at your goddamn business.
Speaker 3: There's that part insecure, they get insecure. That's why I
Speaker 3: didn't tell him. And I was just like, I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna tell him because me and the dude, we were
Speaker 3: just just friends, right, and you know, it just happened
Speaker 3: one night, and uh, we were because we were still friends.
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't want to make this weird
Speaker 3: because if I tell him he attu attitude. I just
Speaker 3: don't really feel like going through all that. And but
Speaker 3: and I think his position would have been you got
Speaker 3: to in the friendship, right, And so I was like,
Speaker 3: I didn't even try to go through all that. So
Speaker 3: I was like, I just won't say anything. And so
Speaker 3: he knew it, and he kept pressing me constantly because
Speaker 3: I had written about him. He wanted me to be honest,
Speaker 3: and I was like, why does.
Speaker 4: He why does he kill?
Speaker 3: And then he and then he finally told me that
Speaker 3: he knew like he was on some just super secretive,
Speaker 3: not super secret of some like extra manipultive, narcissistic shit.
Speaker 3: So he knew he knew I had he I had
Speaker 3: supp with this dude, and he kept asking me about it,
Speaker 3: knowing I wasn't gonna tell the truth about it, right,
Speaker 3: so he already he's already setting me up. Then then
Speaker 3: he goes, this is how I know you're lying, And
Speaker 3: then he said because he said the guy that I
Speaker 3: slept with have been telling people, and that's how and
Speaker 3: it got back there and everybody knows he completely lied
Speaker 3: about how he found it out. And then you admitted, well,
Speaker 3: then I did. But then I called the guy and
Speaker 3: went in him. I was like, he was like, and
Speaker 3: he told me. Then he was like, I just want
Speaker 3: to let you. He's like, fine, we don't. We don't
Speaker 3: ever have to talk again. It's all good, you know, whatever, whatever,
Speaker 3: But I just want you to know your man is
Speaker 3: lying to you. I never said a word to anybody.
Speaker 3: He's lying. And I was like, because I couldn't think
Speaker 3: of how else he would have known. And I was like, no,
Speaker 3: you probably lie. So we totally fell out about it
Speaker 3: or whatever. And then finally one day we were having
Speaker 3: a conversation and you know, he said, he said something like,
Speaker 3: you know, tell me something I don't know about you
Speaker 3: or whatever, or tell me something you've been wanting to
Speaker 3: tell me. Like we're just having a conversation. I don't
Speaker 3: even remember what I told him. And I asked turn
Speaker 3: a question on him and he was like, I read
Speaker 3: your dirty and I.
Speaker 4: Was like, motherfucker.
Speaker 3: I was like what, And I'm thinking he gonna tell me, like,
Speaker 3: you know, I snuck a cinnamon roll and I told
Speaker 3: you I wasn't like something trivial. I was like, what,
Speaker 3: And so he tells me this and then it's like
Speaker 3: a beautiful mine where he's at the chalkboard and all
Speaker 3: the shit starts clicking together, and I'm like, ain't this
Speaker 3: a bitch? And when I tell you I was, he did.
Speaker 3: I was so angry because I was like, okay, so
Speaker 3: not only did you violate my privacy, you then weaponize
Speaker 3: the information and manipulated this situation just to get me
Speaker 3: to stop being friends with this dude who's free, Like
Speaker 3: I just I blew up to rule a relationship, right, like,
Speaker 3: and you were live from the beginning because you'll, you know, right,
Speaker 3: because you were insecure. And I'm not saying that I
Speaker 3: was right for lying to beg to begin with, Like
Speaker 3: I should have just told him the truth and then
Speaker 3: if he would have said, like, oh, you have to
Speaker 3: stop being friends with this guy, then we just would
Speaker 3: have had to just deal with that, which would have
Speaker 3: been a no. But we just would have had to
Speaker 3: deal with it, right, So okay whatever, But for you
Speaker 3: to just create and concoct the situation, I was like,
Speaker 3: I blew up at him and it's the only time
Speaker 3: that I've ever been in a relationship. Why I swung
Speaker 3: on the dude the only time, and because because of that,
Speaker 3: so I have very traumatic experiences because you.
Speaker 4: Know what, it's like, it's bigger than that, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean.
Speaker 5: I realized, like it's it's like a physical safe space,
Speaker 5: but really it is, like it symbolizes feeling safe because like, no,
Speaker 5: you didn't have to tell him you slept with your friend.
Speaker 3: It's not you.
Speaker 5: It's like now you know, so now I feel bad
Speaker 5: to tell you. But my therapist told me something because
Speaker 5: she said that her husband like call himself reader her
Speaker 5: diary because I was telling her about this childhood experience
Speaker 5: that fuck me up. And she was like, I told
Speaker 5: my husband the version of me that you get is
Speaker 5: this version because I get to write that stuff down.
Speaker 4: Now if you look at it and you go look
Speaker 4: at that version of me that's on you. I was like,
Speaker 4: write this down.
Speaker 3: Damn, that's good.
Speaker 5: Now if you get that ugly version that's on you,
Speaker 5: because this is I write that down so I can
Speaker 5: get the this version of your wife. And I was like, whoa,
Speaker 5: you can you have to write the ship down to
Speaker 5: get it out and that could be ugly and dark
Speaker 5: and all these things and the secrets that no one's
Speaker 5: supposed to know. But I realize is that, like it's
Speaker 5: like a it's like a symbolism. Like as black women,
Speaker 5: you like, think of the relationships you've been in.
Speaker 4: You didn't tell him because you knew he was insecure.
Speaker 5: You didn't tell him because you knew he couldn't under
Speaker 5: he couldn't take that truth. And then still honor and
Speaker 5: love you and support you. And a lot of times
Speaker 5: we feel we we we and we feel that energy,
Speaker 5: and so we lie and we hide ourselves and and
Speaker 5: then we don't feel like we can express ourselves. And
Speaker 5: then we're not vulnerable because we don't feel safe enough
Speaker 5: to do that because we haven't been put in scenarios
Speaker 5: in households, in families that have supported us in ways
Speaker 5: that say you could be dark and ugly over there.
Speaker 5: That's okay, that's a part of the experience, and get
Speaker 5: it out and write it down and in fact, it's
Speaker 5: like that didn't happen. I'm not apologizing, So that shit away.
Speaker 5: Don't don't talk about it, don't think about it, don't
Speaker 5: speak about it, don't write about it.
Speaker 4: And then you're just stuck with all.
Speaker 5: Of these feelings of ain not feeling safe, not even
Speaker 5: in yourself that like damn, why am I doing this?
Speaker 4: Why did I ho out like that? Why do I
Speaker 4: have these feelings?
Speaker 5: And you don't feel safe expressing them and getting them off?
Speaker 5: And like I think that's the like the play of
Speaker 5: like a lot of black girls growing up, Like you
Speaker 5: don't feel safe anywhere, not in your family, not in
Speaker 5: your household, not in your relationships.
Speaker 4: And I didn't.
Speaker 5: Realize how like once you can feel like, okay, mom,
Speaker 5: I'm okay here. Oh you're not gonna You're not gonna
Speaker 5: leave me, You're not gonna beat me.
Speaker 4: You know right? You still wanna be my mama, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Like, then you can finally like deal with all of
Speaker 5: the all of the child childhood shit, all of the darkness,
Speaker 5: all the things like damn, am I like this? Or
Speaker 5: am I like this because my mom was like this
Speaker 5: to me? And is she like this because her mom
Speaker 5: was like this to her? And why is her mom
Speaker 5: like this to her? And you can sit with all
Speaker 5: those feelings and sort them out, But it's not until
Speaker 5: we're like we really feel safe enough in our own
Speaker 5: bodies and our own selves and our own families and
Speaker 5: support systems to do that that things become clear and
Speaker 5: then we can become this version of ourselves to have
Speaker 5: platforms and be like, wait, ithould be five years to
Speaker 5: get this shit out, to be like I'm working on myself,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? Like Eric and I have
Speaker 5: friendship is like has really grown in our podcast because
Speaker 5: this is like my first friend and we both grew
Speaker 5: up in the valley and the majority of my friends
Speaker 5: here are white, And as I got older, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 5: we're having differences. Oh you don't see this the same
Speaker 5: way as me, because you.
Speaker 4: Don't get it, bitch.
Speaker 5: Oh you have a daughter and you have and now
Speaker 5: you're a single mom and you feel like a baby mama.
Speaker 5: And like I felt safe enough to be honest about
Speaker 5: where I was at and how I was feeling, and like,
Speaker 5: have this friendship that has really made me feel safe
Speaker 5: enough to show up as I am like, yeah, you
Speaker 5: might not like it, but fuck it. I have a
Speaker 5: friend who supports me, and I feel safe here, so
Speaker 5: I'm allowed to speak my truth and even though it's scary, still,
Speaker 5: I'm allowed to be vulnerable. It's given me strength to
Speaker 5: be vulnerable and to be like imperfect. So it's just
Speaker 5: like sorry, like went down.
Speaker 3: No, no, I mean appreciate.
Speaker 1: You Know.
Speaker 2: What I think about when I'm listening to this and
Speaker 2: both of you is like, how vulnerability although it can
Speaker 2: be truly uncomfortable, and you know, I think in ways
Speaker 2: I'm still working through my own level of being totally
Speaker 2: vulnerable as well, but it becomes a superpower. It really
Speaker 2: is a superpower. And it's how we all kind of
Speaker 2: connect to one another. It's how we even understand our boundaries,
Speaker 2: even like you don't really know your boundaries until you
Speaker 2: kind of are honest about shit and honest about what
Speaker 2: you need to do, and like, you know, people don't
Speaker 2: like boundaries.
Speaker 5: And also when you look back on how the opposite
Speaker 5: like festers in your families, when you look back on
Speaker 5: your family history, and I look back at my mom,
Speaker 5: who who's done crazy shit?
Speaker 4: But she's like, you know, we don't tell nobody.
Speaker 5: I'm like, bitch, this is the problem, right, you know,
Speaker 5: Like when you see how it festers and how it
Speaker 5: manifests in our parents and their parents and how angry
Speaker 5: like my grandma is, I'm like, what the fuck is
Speaker 5: so I angry about but like all these things because
Speaker 5: you haven't felt safe enough to express yourself and be
Speaker 5: vulnerable and be soft, and like, I'm just thankful as
Speaker 5: like black women, you know, especially with like your network,
Speaker 5: I'm bothered network, you are literally creating a space for
Speaker 5: black women to unapologetically show up and be like this
Speaker 5: is a safe space for you. And how powerful it
Speaker 5: is when you put yourself other black women in the
Speaker 5: position for other black women to hear it and be like, oh,
Speaker 5: I can do that too, I can relate. It is
Speaker 5: some powerful shit that's that's taking place because that hasn't
Speaker 5: been the privilege of most of our lives. It's taken
Speaker 5: these like weird turns, you know, like speaking your truth
Speaker 5: and then like like no, bitch, corporate's not for you,
Speaker 5: this is for you, right and making this making the
Speaker 5: spaces for you, and like it's just it's so interesting
Speaker 5: how even when fucked up things happen to us, when
Speaker 5: you can tap into the vulnerability and tap into your truth,
Speaker 5: how pivotal it could be because, like you said, I'm sure
Speaker 5: you didn't expect to be podcasting and like writing a
Speaker 5: book based on your personal memoir and you're like very
Speaker 5: happy in fucking you know journalism where it's surfaced and
Speaker 5: it's not personal at all, but how transformative it's been
Speaker 5: when you're able to dig deeper and like be honest
Speaker 5: and show all the layers of you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm being exposed is actually a good thing. And
Speaker 3: I've said this before about marriage, or at least about
Speaker 3: my marriage. I obviously can't speak for everybody else's. Is that.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons it was like the best thing
Speaker 3: I've ever done, is because it did force me to
Speaker 3: expose myself. And I've been in so many relationships where
Speaker 3: I only had to show versions. This was the first
Speaker 3: relationship I was in where I had to show everything
Speaker 3: and it was very frightening it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how did he challenge you in that way?
Speaker 3: Well, because I think the way that he is, like
Speaker 3: he's a very like direct person. If something is bothering him,
Speaker 3: he just he said what it is. He over communicates
Speaker 3: and so he's he's very and he likes that because
Speaker 3: he's he he's the type of person that if he
Speaker 3: doesn't handle something a certain way, he cannot rest. You know,
Speaker 3: it's a Bertha, He's a Leo August six. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: you know, you know that Leo here, they got to
Speaker 3: get it off that chess right there. I was like,
Speaker 3: you don't have to do it every time. It's okay
Speaker 3: to save something later. And I'm the opposite where something
Speaker 3: will happen. It might it'll bother me. And I was like,
Speaker 3: let me think about this for a second, like I'm
Speaker 3: strategizing how I want to approach something, or I decide
Speaker 3: maybe it's not really worth mentioning at all. And by
Speaker 3: him being as out front as he was, I have
Speaker 3: to at least meet him halfway. So he's demanding something
Speaker 3: of me emotionally, and to be honest, most of the
Speaker 3: men I had been with had never put a demand
Speaker 3: on me. I was largely in control of those relationships,
Speaker 3: and so this one was the first one where there
Speaker 3: was a level I had to actually step to step
Speaker 3: up to. And I was like, oh shit, this just different, right,
Speaker 3: I kind of gotta bring like my agay, okay, I
Speaker 3: can't just be you know, kind of uh, just turning
Speaker 3: in an average performance. Here. I got to like really
Speaker 3: do something. I gotta dig deep. And and he's somebody
Speaker 3: he asked a lot of questions, you know, because he's
Speaker 3: curious and he wanted to, and that for me was
Speaker 3: always a turn on because I'm sure you guys have
Speaker 3: been on dates before. They won't ask you about your
Speaker 3: life at all. They will tell you everything about theirs
Speaker 3: and won't ask you nothing.
Speaker 4: I'm dope as fuck. Don't you want to know? Right?
Speaker 3: Aren't you curious? You know? And that, just to me
Speaker 3: gives a red flag of you really aren't You really
Speaker 3: don't even care to know me as as a person,
Speaker 3: regardless of how this turns out. I mean, it could
Speaker 3: just be a relationship, it could just be a flirt,
Speaker 3: it could be something else, just something physical, but that
Speaker 3: means that you really don't. Honestly, it was about knowing
Speaker 3: anything about me. But he was never that way and
Speaker 3: so because of that, uh, it just forced me to
Speaker 3: be much more transparent than I was used to being.
Speaker 3: Plus he's like very secure in who he is. Also
Speaker 3: wasn't totally used to that either, and it took a
Speaker 3: little bit, even after we got married for me to
Speaker 3: to trust that security. I mean, I saw it, but
Speaker 3: when you're going through situations where it hasn't been there.
Speaker 3: He was like, dude, I really let me try, Let
Speaker 3: me let me throw, let me see, let me just
Speaker 3: little degrees. Uh, but yeah, but no, it just marriage
Speaker 3: really exposes, uh exposes you because that person is getting
Speaker 3: to know you on a totally different level than anybody else.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're you know, you're living it together, doing
Speaker 3: everything together, and you know it was a pandemic where
Speaker 3: we locked down or is a pandemic, but during lockdown,
Speaker 3: like we are up under each other and getting to
Speaker 3: to get to the core of some stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it can be pretty frightening at times for me because
Speaker 3: I'm just like, oh, I'm not used to to doing this,
Speaker 3: and I think one day he had like said something
Speaker 3: that he just meant as an off hand comment, but
Speaker 3: it bothered me. Now, normally I would have just kind
Speaker 3: of blown it off or just thought about it for
Speaker 3: a while, like when do I want to bring this
Speaker 3: up or how? But I took a step out of
Speaker 3: the room because I had to do something in another room,
Speaker 3: and then I thought about it, and then I just
Speaker 3: reversed course and went back and be like, hey, when
Speaker 3: you just said that, like that.
Speaker 4: Really hurt feeling.
Speaker 3: It hurt my feelings. That bothered me. What were you
Speaker 3: what did you mean by that? And then he told
Speaker 3: me and I was like, oh, okay, I misread that,
Speaker 3: and he was like, see that's the value. Then you
Speaker 3: want to turn into a teachable moment. I was like,
Speaker 3: am I to ask you all that? He's like, but
Speaker 3: that is why he's like, I want you to share
Speaker 3: with me so that if you do have a misunderstanding
Speaker 3: or something, or just to open you know, kind of
Speaker 3: the lines of committed. Because I'm an internalized yea.
Speaker 4: I will like shut down. I'm like, I don't want
Speaker 4: to talk anymore.
Speaker 3: I won't necessarily shut down, but I'll internalize and be
Speaker 3: thinking about it without communicating, without communicating it and without
Speaker 3: really dealing with it, so it would be in some
Speaker 3: lock box somewhere deep in my soul, bothering being. But
Speaker 3: then you know it's it's also bad because if that
Speaker 3: person who may have done something that I didn't like
Speaker 3: or I should have addressed, then when they do some
Speaker 3: you know, small like forget to hold the door open
Speaker 3: for me or something, and when I lose my ship,
Speaker 3: that's like, where did this come from? Because I hadn't
Speaker 3: two years ago when you said I remember that time, like,
Speaker 3: I don't say exactly, No, I don't. I don't. I
Speaker 3: don't remember that. So I have tried to get out
Speaker 3: of the habit of doing that, because that's how you
Speaker 3: wind up totally disintegrating relationships because I'm like, if I
Speaker 3: give a shit about working on the relationship, that means
Speaker 3: I have to be able to share these things.
Speaker 4: And not let shit like fester and grow like resentful.
Speaker 5: I think also for you, like like like being in corporate,
Speaker 5: being around a lot of white males, and like probably
Speaker 5: navigating very powerfully in your in your career. You know,
Speaker 5: it is like it's interesting how you can like navigate
Speaker 5: so powerful in your career and all these other things,
Speaker 5: and then when it comes to a relationship, the struggle
Speaker 5: is vulnerable bit and you're like, I.
Speaker 3: Can do everything, but those are It's so costly for
Speaker 3: black people to do that. And I think because we
Speaker 3: do often have to be in spaces where we have
Speaker 3: to code switch, where we have to minimize, where we
Speaker 3: have to shrink, that we would be naive to think
Speaker 3: that did not carry over into our real personal relationships
Speaker 3: and our real relationships, Like, of course it does, because
Speaker 3: we're forced to be in that mode probably eighteen hours
Speaker 3: a day, you know, most of us, So it becomes
Speaker 3: like such a terrible habit to try to break.
Speaker 4: And it irritates me too.
Speaker 5: So many people are like I hear on the internets,
Speaker 5: like you know, black women are so masculine, you know,
Speaker 5: like you know the reason you're in this position because
Speaker 5: you so you masculine. You want to be the man
Speaker 5: and the woman. It's like, no, nigga, I've had to, right,
Speaker 5: I survive, like we're right, niggas.
Speaker 4: A lot of you didn't show up.
Speaker 3: I wish I could wear my flowy dress in the garden, right.
Speaker 4: I being a delicated woman, you know, like this whole
Speaker 4: like this.
Speaker 5: We had an episode with Daphnie called the Return of
Speaker 5: the Soft Woman, and like, you know, and I feel
Speaker 5: soft ways, but sometimes I like, girl, it's not it
Speaker 5: all work that way, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 5: like even having to reprogram myself, like you know, like
Speaker 5: you do deserve marriage, you do deserve to have like
Speaker 5: a supportive partner.
Speaker 4: You do deserve to show up delicate and soft and shit, you.
Speaker 5: Know, because like I find myself even with my daughter,
Speaker 5: like I am like a sweet mom, but sometimes I'm
Speaker 5: like girl, no, I'm like.
Speaker 4: Get the fuck up, stop, Like and she's seven.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, bitch, this is your mother, and I'm
Speaker 5: like and your grandmother, But this is what I'm conditioned to. Like,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm not like bitch, but like girl, I'm
Speaker 5: not with all the bullshit. I'll talk to her like that,
Speaker 5: like I'm not don't play with me with the bullshit.
Speaker 3: Get up, let's go.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, and I've been around some of my
Speaker 4: white friends.
Speaker 6: And they're like, you can't say that.
Speaker 5: I'm like, yes, I can, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: But like having to remind myself to be soft with myself,
Speaker 5: to be gentle even with my boyfriend.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 5: Please get me some soda, like they could give me
Speaker 5: some soda.
Speaker 3: But it's hard, though, to break that because you know,
Speaker 3: I think for so long it is one of the
Speaker 3: byproducts of everything is let's go back to slavery. Slavery
Speaker 3: and just of the trauma we've suffered as a people.
Speaker 3: We have often parented our kids for a harsh world
Speaker 3: by being harsher than the world.
Speaker 4: Protect and ways to protect them.
Speaker 3: Let me get you'll get this here, let me get
Speaker 3: you know, let me do this.
Speaker 4: And on the field, this is might be punishable by death.
Speaker 4: Cort ever see you.
Speaker 3: So it is so it's like we get really, really harsh.
Speaker 3: And you know, my mother, like one of the of
Speaker 3: the many things she apologized for was some of you know,
Speaker 3: some of the beatings she gave me because it would
Speaker 3: be over a lot of times, it would be over
Speaker 3: little shit losing a barett or you know, kinship kinshit
Speaker 3: like ship that kids normally would do, like not being
Speaker 3: quiet or being restless. That's what kids typically do. And
Speaker 3: you know, there's a generation of pairs that will fuck
Speaker 3: you up over.
Speaker 5: There, and that's the beginning of losing your voice, that's
Speaker 5: the beginning of thinking I can't I can't express myself.
Speaker 4: Don't cry, boys, don't cry, but keep a sup what
Speaker 4: you crying phone?
Speaker 3: Because girls get to that shit too.
Speaker 5: Like you literally can't cry because it's not a good
Speaker 5: enough reason. And I think being black, there's like there's
Speaker 5: so much survival that that's required that a lot of
Speaker 5: times it's like, yeah, suck those fucking tears up. But
Speaker 5: when you're a child, that's not like that doesn't sustain
Speaker 5: a safety space, and so you're going into the world
Speaker 5: not feeling safe and you get those like that innocence
Speaker 5: taken away from you.
Speaker 4: You're not using your voice you're shutting.
Speaker 5: Down, you're not using your feelings, and then you become
Speaker 5: grown ass women who can navigate in the workspace. But
Speaker 5: it's hard to have a husband who want you, want
Speaker 5: to get married and love you, and you're like, ugh, relax,
Speaker 5: relax with the love, babe.
Speaker 4: It's a bit much.
Speaker 3: That loss of agency, though, is something really important, because
Speaker 3: I think that was you know, for me as as
Speaker 3: a child, that was the emotion that was difficult, is
Speaker 3: that it just the law. I just didn't have any agency,
Speaker 3: and so I hated that feeling. And of the many
Speaker 3: wonderful things I discovered in therapy, because I start the
Speaker 3: book saying that how and it is a true story
Speaker 3: how I started going to therapy on a dare because
Speaker 3: my mother kept telling me I was angry, which only
Speaker 3: made me angry because I'm like, I ain't angry, all right,
Speaker 3: But it wasn't that. But once I started going to therapy,
Speaker 3: what I discovered was that I was a control freak.
Speaker 3: And I did not know this about myself. But then
Speaker 3: I just started to unpack it a little bit. And
Speaker 3: what happened was because of that sense of not having
Speaker 3: any agency, I went out of my way to overcorrect
Speaker 3: that as I grew into adulthood and beyond, And that's
Speaker 3: why my career has been such a primary focus for
Speaker 3: me and making sure I did the right things, got
Speaker 3: the right internships, followed a certain path. I was very
Speaker 3: regimented about what I did because I wanted to be
Speaker 3: sure if I can't control shit else, I'm gonna be
Speaker 3: able to control this. Know if that if I put
Speaker 3: this particular you know, effort into it, I know what
Speaker 3: the result will be. I can count on that. I
Speaker 3: can't count on people out here, but I can count
Speaker 3: on this giving me you know what I need. And
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't discover that toil like four years ago.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, Dawn, I've been fucked up this. I'm
Speaker 3: been trying to control all the shit because I'm not
Speaker 3: that really that way with like personal relationships, but definitely
Speaker 3: about my professional life. Like I can I can just
Speaker 3: get very anxiety feeled and very like, oh, I got
Speaker 3: to know, like how is this going to pan out?
Speaker 3: Like just which is not really uh, not really cohesive
Speaker 3: with kind of the lay back spirit I generally have.
Speaker 5: I think it's probably like it's funny how shit happens
Speaker 5: for a reason. And like how when you are looking
Speaker 5: to heal and to grow, like God will put things
Speaker 5: in your way and it's like, no, bet, you got
Speaker 5: to examine this.
Speaker 4: You can't just keep functioning in this way. And I
Speaker 4: can even imagine.
Speaker 5: For you, like having this very successful career as a
Speaker 5: sports journal working at ESPN and then saying something that
Speaker 5: you feel like is within your full freedom of speech.
Speaker 5: You're like, no, this is my job, bitch, And then
Speaker 5: they're like, Nope, too comfortable, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: and feeling like even feeling triggered by that in ways
Speaker 5: because you have you've done everything, You've done all the things,
Speaker 5: and you've worked your way up and you and you
Speaker 5: and you are and you're like an amazing sports journalist
Speaker 5: and you've done all the things. And then they're like nope,
Speaker 5: and they're like what the fuck, bitch, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean? And I can only imagine how that can
Speaker 5: shake up this little girl who's who's put all these
Speaker 5: things in place and controlled all these things and gotten
Speaker 5: to this point. And now you're like, what do you mean.
Speaker 5: It's still not it's still not solid. There are still
Speaker 5: ways and ways you can like shake up my whole
Speaker 5: ship and take things away from under my feet and
Speaker 5: I and I like, I'm sure now you're in ways
Speaker 5: grateful for that shift.
Speaker 3: Definitely. I mean, as you said, is that you know,
Speaker 3: God does put things in front of you that he
Speaker 3: wants you to dig deeper on. And it was what
Speaker 3: I realized after all the fallout from the Trump stuff
Speaker 3: is that I had gotten complacent in my career to
Speaker 3: some degree. I programmed it to such a degree, but
Speaker 3: I'd gotten complacent in it at the same time. Because
Speaker 3: once you're a place like ESPN, it's a destination place.
Speaker 3: You know, people want to end their careers there and
Speaker 3: say I've been there. Yeah, I've been there fifteen as
Speaker 3: a woman's huge, Like you know, it's it's the equivalent
Speaker 3: of when you hear black folks say, got that good
Speaker 3: government job. It was like, literally, you got benefits, you
Speaker 3: got right, all of that. And you know, I had
Speaker 3: other dreams for myself, other things I wanted to accomplish,
Speaker 3: but I was content with just you know, running out
Speaker 3: my contract and just like, oh, I'll just wait to
Speaker 3: this whole ESPN thing is over and then I'll get
Speaker 3: to some of the things I really want to do.
Speaker 3: And that's such a dangerous mindset if you get comfortable.
Speaker 3: Because you get comfortable and you're making the presumption of time,
Speaker 3: which if enters anything, we know you cannot make that
Speaker 3: presumption at all. And once all of that happened and
Speaker 3: I realized, after you know, I got suspended for a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks, that my relationship with ESPN was untenable.
Speaker 3: At that point, I started to plot my steps on
Speaker 3: out of there because I was like, yeah, we we
Speaker 3: I think even in a personal relationship, sometimes you reach
Speaker 3: a point where you know, you you know, when the
Speaker 3: last straw has has happened, y'all might even still wind
Speaker 3: up being together for a couple extra months. But you know,
Speaker 3: just like that story I told you about my ex
Speaker 3: reading my my diary, I was just like, oh, I
Speaker 3: knew it was after that, I was like, oh, this
Speaker 3: ship is done. And it was just like, okay, I
Speaker 3: know this is the end, but yet how is I
Speaker 3: got to applot out how we do end, or like
Speaker 3: how it ends?
Speaker 2: And that's that and that and that and that again,
Speaker 2: well that is a testimony.
Speaker 6: To that that that.
Speaker 2: Way of thinking of way how you plan things out
Speaker 2: even even out of that and that's and that's amazing
Speaker 2: that you were able to do that. And I think
Speaker 2: now that you haven't bothered the unbothered network and you
Speaker 2: don't have to tip toe around shit because I think
Speaker 2: as women, we have to tiptoe in relationships.
Speaker 3: We tiptoe around.
Speaker 2: Even we know, like this is over, I'm a tiptoe
Speaker 2: around the Shiit same with like in corporate America, tiptoeing
Speaker 2: around and in the space that you're in and the
Speaker 2: beauty of podcasting and it's and I think podcasting is
Speaker 2: getting more corporate now we have frands, wallships, all this.
Speaker 3: There's a level.
Speaker 2: Of tiptoeing, but there's still a real level of freedom,
Speaker 2: absolutely that I'm sure that you've probably never really experienced.
Speaker 4: In your works.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is it was. It's kind of a
Speaker 3: weird position. But looking at say Spotify with the Joe
Speaker 3: Rogan situation, right, I don't fuck with Joe Rogan, Like
Speaker 3: I don't even know Joe Rogan, Right, I don't fuck
Speaker 3: with him. It's based off what I do know, Right,
Speaker 3: But all that being said, the same rules that apply
Speaker 3: to him apply to me. We're on the same platform.
Speaker 3: We're both exclusives a Spotify, and they have never once
Speaker 3: called me and said, hey, don't say that, like that's
Speaker 3: never happened, right, And So as much as I detest
Speaker 3: some of the things that Joe Rogan says, how I
Speaker 3: do think his platform is so big and he's such
Speaker 3: such stupid things, like that's what that's for him to
Speaker 3: worry about. But because he has the license to say
Speaker 3: stupid things, so do I. Right, And so you're it's
Speaker 3: sort of what what works. It works for both of
Speaker 3: us in a in a weird way, And it does
Speaker 3: feel good to not have to feel like I have
Speaker 3: to be so you know, corporate or so you know,
Speaker 3: kind of buttoned up.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: For a lot of a lot of people that listen
Speaker 3: to my podcast, they had never heard me cursing like
Speaker 3: that before. And I was like, oh, no, I I
Speaker 3: get it in you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So and I think also in like in spaces like
Speaker 2: in corporate, like black women have opinions, are always talking.
Speaker 2: They always label us as outspoken, right, yes, no, it's
Speaker 2: the out supposed to And it's like, I'm just honest,
Speaker 2: why does it have to be outspoken?
Speaker 3: Because the word implies that you're doing something extra, Yeah,
Speaker 3: like they are why you're a little reckless. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's it's it's teetering, it's giving that a.
Speaker 2: Little bit intense with what I said, and actually I
Speaker 2: meant everything I said in that tweet.
Speaker 3: Yes, we had hit it with the per my last
Speaker 3: fail what I had said, and so yeah, you're I mean,
Speaker 3: you're you're so right about that is we often get that,
Speaker 3: you know, label of outspoken or and we.
Speaker 2: Ourselves as that. And I've been thinking about that. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't even know if it says that anymore. I
Speaker 2: think I took it off.
Speaker 3: But like why, like because I said, because you're being
Speaker 3: you're just being honest.
Speaker 2: I'm speaking at all because I'm I will say that
Speaker 2: men on some there's some men that are out there
Speaker 2: that get labeled that way, but I think it's generally
Speaker 2: women it is, and especially if you're black or brown,
Speaker 2: like for sure, outspoken, a little reckless, wild.
Speaker 3: Risque, saucy, like it's just yeah, it doesn't. I know
Speaker 3: they mean it as a compliment, but sometimes it comes
Speaker 3: off like they you know, they feel like we're just
Speaker 3: being extra. You know, I'm just unbothered. I'm just.
Speaker 2: And speaking of unbothered, I just want to say, I'm
Speaker 2: so I'm so excited you have our girls.
Speaker 3: Yes they are Brittany in Germany, Brittany and Germany. They
Speaker 3: are amazing and yeah, you you all. What appealed to
Speaker 3: me about both of you all podcasts is like you
Speaker 3: have that homegirl energy, but that realness and with a
Speaker 3: with a with a tinge of wratchet, just a little
Speaker 3: sprinkle of it. I'm like, okay, you know, and so
Speaker 3: it's yeah, like they're they're going to be great. I'm
Speaker 3: so happy that they are now being exposed to an
Speaker 3: entirely new audience. And you know, there are their first
Speaker 3: podcasts that appeared on the network and our second winner,
Speaker 3: our first original is Sanctified, which think of you know,
Speaker 3: all the that same, those same qualities and characteristics, but
Speaker 3: talking about ship that happens in the church, right, It's
Speaker 3: like that's necessary. Oh, It's very necessary. So they're I mean,
Speaker 3: how black women worship in this time is really interesting
Speaker 3: because because I think there's a generation of us. Maybe
Speaker 3: it's you know, I am older than you guys, but
Speaker 3: maybe it's like our twin generations of not really feeling
Speaker 3: like you have a place in the church because look,
Speaker 3: you're looking at a church body that's usually dominated by women.
Speaker 3: All the leadership is men. That's why they still talking
Speaker 3: about that purity and chastity shit. Yeah, you know. And
Speaker 3: so they're meeting stuff like that like head on about
Speaker 3: where black women fit, about how we're choosing to define
Speaker 3: our relationship with God for ourselves. So it's really really dope,
Speaker 3: and I'm just happy. You know, these are the kinds
Speaker 3: of products I wanted to put out on the network
Speaker 3: that gave black women a sense of belonging and a
Speaker 3: sense of place regardless of where you are, whatever station
Speaker 3: that you are are in life. And I'm not saying
Speaker 3: I know one hundred percent down who black women are,
Speaker 3: because we're evolving and we're complicated. But this to me
Speaker 3: is at least a step in giving us a you know,
Speaker 3: an opportunity to explore ourselves beyond the whole savior trope,
Speaker 3: mule trope like those kind of things. It's like, we
Speaker 3: this whole idea that we got to run into the
Speaker 3: burning building for everybody else, that's like fuck that sometimes
Speaker 3: we gotta let the bitch burn downers one right, I'm
Speaker 3: Karen Hell, I don't know, I don't know I can
Speaker 3: be here, but I'll tell you what, My black as
Speaker 3: ain't running up in there. So I wanted us to
Speaker 3: feel comfortable doing that, comfortable putting ourselves first. And that's
Speaker 3: kind of what this network is supposed to represent.
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you, thank you for being you know, the
Speaker 5: change that we need to see. We appreciate that, like
Speaker 5: we do need more spaces to be as versatile as
Speaker 5: we want to and and kind of give permission to
Speaker 5: black women that you don't have to just fit into
Speaker 5: this box. It can look like this, and it can
Speaker 5: look like this like Jamel or Erica or Brittany and Germany,
Speaker 5: and like you can take a teaspoon of all of
Speaker 5: it and mix that. Shut up, and we can come
Speaker 5: together even in our difference and even in our growth
Speaker 5: and our dissection of ourselves and are like our liberation
Speaker 5: on ways, because I feel like like the veil is
Speaker 5: being removed for us and when we're like, oh, look
Speaker 5: at her, she's Oh she's over there doing that, let
Speaker 5: me see what that looks like, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: And like just having different versions of black women and
Speaker 5: having a platform like that is really dope.
Speaker 3: So well, thank you. So you know, I'm dying to
Speaker 3: know what the hell does this card Okay?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm ready to tell you, are you.
Speaker 3: Because I've just been staring at it like trying to decipher.
Speaker 3: With the picture at the top of the show, Jamielle
Speaker 3: pulled the World card.
Speaker 5: Yes, shout out to Mahogany Taro are black cards that
Speaker 5: we live.
Speaker 3: If it says some shit like you got twenty four
Speaker 3: hours to leave, you.
Speaker 4: Can just be dead.
Speaker 5: No, don't be talking like that. It's it's like an interpretation.
Speaker 5: But I think I think you're going to fuck with
Speaker 5: this one. It means upright, It means completion, integration, accomplishment, travel.
Speaker 5: When the World card appears in a tarot reading, you
Speaker 5: are glowing with a sense of wholeness, achievement, fulfillment, and completion.
Speaker 5: A long term project, period of study, relationship, or career
Speaker 5: has come to full circle that is scary, and you
Speaker 5: are now reveling in the sense of closure and accomplishment.
Speaker 5: This card could represent graduation, a marriage, the birth of
Speaker 5: a child that's also a birth of a child, or
Speaker 5: achieving a long term dream or aspiration. You have finally
Speaker 5: accomplished your goal or purpose. Everything has come together and
Speaker 5: you are in the right place, doing the right thing.
Speaker 5: Achieving what you have envisioned, you feel whole and complete.
Speaker 5: The card invites you to reflect on your journey, honor
Speaker 5: your achievements, and tune into your spiritual lessons. Celebrate your success,
Speaker 5: and bask in the joy of having brought your goals
Speaker 5: to fruition. All the triumphs and tribulations along your path
Speaker 5: have made you into a strong, wise, more experienced person.
Speaker 5: You are now express gratitude for what you have created
Speaker 5: and harvested. Finally, make sure you don't rush into the
Speaker 5: next big project. Celebrating your journey will set you up
Speaker 5: for success when you are ready for the next challenge.
Speaker 3: I had gusbops for you, girl.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Okay, seriously, that's a good word, because I definitely tend
Speaker 3: to jump from one thing to another. So maybe I'll
Speaker 3: try to take a beat as much as a book
Speaker 3: allows you to take a beat. I will take that
Speaker 3: under advisement. But what a what a word? Man? Okay,
Speaker 3: all right, the world, I see you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I know you're ending your book tour
Speaker 2: in Detroit, so make sure you have a good fun
Speaker 2: old time there Strip Club maybe Detroit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that is, you know, a therapeutic place
Speaker 3: for me. I love going to the strip.
Speaker 4: We should all go one day.
Speaker 3: There's no one here, we're gonna have to go out.
Speaker 3: I see, I thought that was just me. I don't
Speaker 3: want to diss l a strip clubs. Glad. I'm glad
Speaker 3: it's not just me. The ones in Detroit find each
Speaker 3: other in a city where strip clubs are possibly. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe I'm Magic City. I've had a blast of a
Speaker 3: Magic city before. So wings come on, And yet I
Speaker 3: have never had the wings. I have not had the wings.
Speaker 3: I've been there to of course put some love young
Speaker 3: women through college, yes, but I have never actually had
Speaker 3: the wings. So I think the last time I was
Speaker 3: in there might have been New Year's Eve a few
Speaker 3: years ago. So me and my husband went and had
Speaker 3: a good time.
Speaker 4: It's time, it's I think it's that time again.
Speaker 3: A couple that can go to the strip club together
Speaker 3: stays together.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 3: That's my marital advice. Go to the strip club with.
Speaker 4: Your husband like that. Write that down.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, honestly, though, if I gave some advice
Speaker 3: for uh and I have figured this out. You have
Speaker 3: to design the marriage that's that's best for you. You
Speaker 3: cannot You may admire the happiness another couple have, but
Speaker 3: you have no idea the kind of diagram they had
Speaker 3: to in blueprint they had to create for themselves to
Speaker 3: have that success. There's like no one size fits all,
Speaker 3: like you know there. I mean, you guys have had
Speaker 3: talked about this on on your your podcast before about
Speaker 3: you know, people engage in like open marriages. That might
Speaker 3: be what works for them. It keeps them together and happy.
Speaker 3: It doesn't necessarily work for me, But I understand that
Speaker 3: everybody has to custom their marriage to what works. And
Speaker 3: I become I think when I was, you know, sort
Speaker 3: of single, I was way more judgmental about how people's
Speaker 3: marriages operated because.
Speaker 4: You saw you had an idea for that's supposed to Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I think we all go into it how
Speaker 3: we think it might work. And then once you get
Speaker 3: inside your own, and to be honest, once a lot
Speaker 3: of my married friends start opening up more about their marriage.
Speaker 3: Once I got in the club, you know, so we
Speaker 3: had a little secret medius. It was like, oh, what
Speaker 3: y'all do that?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 3: All right, and so yeah, just don't go into it
Speaker 3: thinking that it has to be custom designed a certain way,
Speaker 3: because something there there in every marriage is something truly
Speaker 3: unique that works for works for them, that would never
Speaker 3: work for somebody else. So yeah, and also keep you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, I know, we spent a lot of this
Speaker 3: time talking about how it can be destructive the whole.
Speaker 3: Everything that happens in this house stays this house. But
Speaker 3: everything that happens in your marriage let us stay in there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: for sure, because everyone will have an opinion. They will
Speaker 3: have an opinion. And not only that is that you
Speaker 3: want to provide a layer of protection around around your marriage,
Speaker 3: so you can't let everybody into what's happening into your
Speaker 3: house for sure.
Speaker 4: Too many opinions can cloud the mind. Yeah, like some
Speaker 4: shit don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this don't even need to be There's that. And
Speaker 3: also there is this level of sacredness.
Speaker 2: Is the special beautiful thing that only you guys share
Speaker 2: that no one else has. It's not even about whether
Speaker 2: someone's going to ruin it. It's almost just about how
Speaker 2: beautiful that is. Yeah, and I love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 5: Okay, So before we leave, wait, no, speaking of relations
Speaker 5: I know, I'm okay, I'm getting into it.
Speaker 2: Without this because I thought we were going to bypass this,
Speaker 2: but then she said she was ready for this.
Speaker 3: I was ready for this, she came prepared, but then
Speaker 3: you guys were you guys have ruined it because then
Speaker 3: you started. Don't even worry about that. Don't wry about it.
Speaker 3: I'm like the threshold. It's like, what's the last porn scenario?
Speaker 3: Let me just elevator? And it got stuck right every
Speaker 3: one time this Maleman.
Speaker 4: People delivered.
Speaker 3: So now it's time for my favorite segment tour story.
Speaker 4: This is Jamail hire.
Speaker 3: Who stories. I mean, by the way, brilliant segment idea,
Speaker 3: one of those I was like, god, what did I
Speaker 3: think about that? So as right now my publicists watching
Speaker 3: over there in a look of slight horror, like where
Speaker 3: are you about? She can't wait?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: A couple of disclaimers, all right, One, this is when
Speaker 3: I was single, long, long, long, long time ago. Right,
Speaker 3: this is probably at least a good stories, is it? Yes?
Speaker 3: I think it's over twenty years old? Twenty ish, I
Speaker 3: should I should say that. So when I was leaving
Speaker 3: a job, some of my coworkers decided to throw me
Speaker 3: this amazing party and I was like, ooh, this is
Speaker 3: my last hurrah. This party is going to be everything.
Speaker 3: YadA YadA, YadA, So one of my girls that I
Speaker 3: was working with, she had been messing around with this
Speaker 3: dude like off and On, who, to be honest, was
Speaker 3: kind of community and y'all know what I mean about
Speaker 3: like community, community, community. He was kind of community. And
Speaker 3: even though she did she she started to develop feelings
Speaker 3: for community and develop feeling for a community. Right. But
Speaker 3: so she throws me this out some party at her
Speaker 3: house or whatever, and I mean it's like big, It's
Speaker 3: like a good old fashioned house party, being in there drinking,
Speaker 3: we have the good old time. So I see community
Speaker 3: and me a community with flirt, right, So you do
Speaker 3: that's what you do because it's community.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So at the same party, I had invited like another
Speaker 3: dude that I like liked, and you know, he worked
Speaker 3: at like a local bank. He was cool. He was
Speaker 3: like a couple of years younger than me. I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, I'm just like in my early twenties.
Speaker 3: So it's just like whatever. So he's just like, you
Speaker 3: know what, you got up later for the night or whatever.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, we had a party, but you know, shit,
Speaker 3: we can get into something after this. So I gave
Speaker 3: him the key to my apartment and told him to
Speaker 3: go wait. Ha ha, right, I just it's for real.
Speaker 3: So he goes to my apartment where he is waiting.
Speaker 3: So I was like, ooh, got a situation at home
Speaker 3: already waiting or whatever. Meanwhile, me and Community are like vibing,
Speaker 3: and I'm just like this is so surprising, you know whatever.
Speaker 3: So Community and I have a rendezvous at the party
Speaker 3: and I completely forgot but I don't wait in my
Speaker 3: apartment or whatever, because me and me and Community went
Speaker 3: in the bathroom and the party and you know, did what.
Speaker 4: Community, what you do with community anything?
Speaker 3: Did community things and you know, I'm having a good
Speaker 3: old time or whatever. And it was this other dude
Speaker 3: who was a friend of mine who uh you know,
Speaker 3: we were We had like just been a little We
Speaker 3: had been off and on, like very casual, no no commitments.
Speaker 3: I actually went home with him and left the other
Speaker 3: dude at the house.
Speaker 2: But you left the other dude at the house, community
Speaker 2: had fun in the bathroom, and then you went home
Speaker 2: with casual dude.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's what I'm done. The job is over.
Speaker 5: Comp I was tiring all that ass that I'm out.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was like, I just then they at
Speaker 3: the house I said, where do you go? Did you
Speaker 3: go home? And he was sleeping your bed? Like no,
Speaker 3: he eventually left. He waited on me for like four hours.
Speaker 3: Did you not coming? I just completely forgot to tell
Speaker 3: you tell him where I was. I was just like,
Speaker 3: oh my bag, I just the party got too good,
Speaker 3: Like I.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, your team was forgettable.
Speaker 3: I forgot to come home. We had never even that,
Speaker 3: nothing had ever happened between them was forgettable. It was just,
Speaker 3: you know, I guess I just there was a development.
Speaker 5: He left the vibe, righty things when they're president, like
Speaker 5: this is more exciting.
Speaker 4: He left the vibe.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean, and it was. It was my
Speaker 3: last night in this place. I was hopping on the
Speaker 3: play literally the next day, going to blow it up
Speaker 3: with a bang, so I say. And then for a
Speaker 3: while I used to joke with a friend of mine
Speaker 3: like I can't show my face around there for like
Speaker 3: a good girl, no.
Speaker 5: Problem showing their face. They have no problem. They show
Speaker 5: right up everybody in the party, no problem.
Speaker 3: So that was that, you know, probably top three most
Speaker 3: trifling things I've probably ever done. That was pretty good.
Speaker 4: It was three, you know, So there's.
Speaker 5: Like I do love that makes me want to like,
Speaker 5: send somebody to my house. I'll be right there maybe.
Speaker 3: To do yeah, Like it felt like, okay, this is
Speaker 3: cool to do. And I had the intention because you know,
Speaker 3: he and I had been flirting for a while, and
Speaker 3: then it just I was like, oh crap, I forgot
Speaker 3: about him.
Speaker 5: I feel like something that's something niggas do often. Yeah,
Speaker 5: go wait to the house, baby. I had to run
Speaker 5: some errands.
Speaker 3: Although you know, dudes are very very particular about leaving
Speaker 3: you in their crib, like if they don't know, you know,
Speaker 3: because I know some people are thinking, like you would
Speaker 3: left the random dude up at your house.
Speaker 2: I don't want to go into a dude's house alone.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: That's dirty, Like did you wash your sheets? Like yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just more more questions.
Speaker 2: I didn't make sure you've been there before, made prepared
Speaker 2: for me to enter, right.
Speaker 3: I was like, I was staying in a little, you know,
Speaker 3: crappy apartment that with some because it came furnished. It
Speaker 3: was okay. Still the TV they gave me, I don't
Speaker 3: about it right, So I'm good.
Speaker 2: So anyway, oh my god, Well, thank you for sharing,
Speaker 2: thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy you came.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: This was This was a lot of fun. And again,
Speaker 3: y'all just keep doing your thing. Not that I have
Speaker 3: to tell y'all how to do that. And I can't
Speaker 3: wait to read you all's book. Can you devoce the
Speaker 3: title or no?
Speaker 2: A Good Mom's Guide to making bad Choices perfect Perfect.
Speaker 3: We're going to tell you all the ways in which
Speaker 3: you can do that safely, feel free and safely amazing.
Speaker 3: Where can everyone find your book?
Speaker 4: Everywhere?
Speaker 3: Everywhere books are so yes, there is the audiobook recording,
Speaker 3: and of course I'm encouraging people to order from black bookstores.
Speaker 3: A lot of them were very hard in the pandemic
Speaker 3: and just in general, I think bookstores are just essential
Speaker 3: to community. Right bookstores and libraries, those are essential community
Speaker 3: pillars for me. So yeah, yes, it is available on
Speaker 3: Amazon and all that good stuff. But if you can,
Speaker 3: you know, hit up Mahogany Books or Uncle Bobby's or
Speaker 3: even if you have a local black bookstore near you,
Speaker 3: you can probably order online as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love that, And make sure you check Jamel's
Speaker 2: podcast out on Spotify.
Speaker 3: Make sure you check out the Black Girl Bravado. Shout
Speaker 3: out to our Girls.
Speaker 2: Who are now exclusively on the Unbothered Network on Spotify.
Speaker 2: Anything else I'm missing.
Speaker 3: And also Sanctified, which is Sanctified and which is hosted
Speaker 3: by Deborah Joy Whinings and woman is Pastor Levon Briggs.
Speaker 3: Nice and you know where to find us or if
Speaker 3: you don't, make sure you're watching us on YouTube.
Speaker 2: You can actually watch this episode on YouTube. If you
Speaker 2: click the link in this episode description, you can watch
Speaker 2: the full episode on YouTube. Check out our Patreon for
Speaker 2: bonus content. We're going to Costa Rica, y'all?
Speaker 4: Are you coming? Did you get your fucking passport?
Speaker 2: We're taking months away, so we better hurry the fuck up.
Speaker 2: Make sure you go follow at the Good Vibe Retreat.
Speaker 2: Come to Costa Rica. You deserve a five day, all inclusive, amazing,
Speaker 2: incredible vacation. I promise you will not regret this shit
Speaker 2: and we'll see you guys next week.
Speaker 6: Bye bye.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what this is gonna?
Speaker 5: Ellena j Solo Baa Record, The Lollos and Elas