WEBVTT - Downward Spiral of Despair 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.560 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woke f Daily with 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.759 Meet your Girl Danielle Moody back in the Brooklyn Bunker. Folks, 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.279 what a fuck show of a week it has been, right, 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.279 Am I? Right? I mean I tell you this every week, 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:26.759 but by the time I get to Friday, I am 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:31.800 so just outdone. I'm outdone with Republicans fuckery. I just 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:34.280 I think about, well, what are the things that I 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.120 want to remember and cover for the week, And I 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.080 feel absolutely crazy, Like I feel like my head is 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:45.440 on some type of swivel because I can't remember from 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.040 what happened on Monday, because so much crap happens during 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:51.159 the week. It's like one big avalanche. But I'm going 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.560 to try and summarize just some of the things that 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:56.920 have happened. But I tell you that the guests that 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:01.520 I have for today's show is perfect because the title 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.600 of doctor Treva Lindsay's book is exactly how I feel 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:10.560 on any given fucking day, which is America, Goddamn violence, 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:14.240 Black women and the Struggle for Justice. And you know, 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:18.199 we will talk about the reasoning behind her title, which 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:22.399 is if you're familiar with Nina Simone, Nina Simone's song 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.959 Mississippi Goddamn was about the violence that black people the 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:31.560 black community were facing in Mississippi, and doctor Lindsay will 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.880 go into detail about the history behind that song and 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.360 why she wanted to attribute a part of her title 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:43.240 to Nina Simone. But Folks, when I take a look 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.600 at this week, when I think about more leaks of 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:54.360 Kevin McCarthy showing momentarily that he actually recognized how grave 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.200 of a moment in American history the insurrection was, but 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.640 only to make an about face, get on a plane, 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.200 fly down so that he can perfectly position his lips 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:09.600 on Donald Trump's ass. It's so disheartening. But what I 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:13.360 think that I'm finding about these moments and why I 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:18.160 get stuck sometime in this downward spiral of despair that 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.200 then I have to force myself to climb out of, 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.920 is because I believe that this current iteration of the 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:29.760 Republican Party, imagine if you actually had a fearless and 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.360 fierce Democratic party, So imagine them to be an entirely 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:38.480 different party altogether, one that wasn't afraid, one that was 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.760 filled with warriors that were about this battle. Republicans and 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:47.160 the fucking cartoons that they put out as their representatives 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:51.480 are literal gifts on a silver platter, But it's only 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:54.040 a gift to people that are willing to go toe 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:58.240 to toe with their bullshit and fuckery, like State Senator 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:02.200 McMorrow did in Michigan when she's like, no, I'm not 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:08.560 going to cower from the Republicans attacks and the audacity 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.560 and the despicable nature of them referring to her as 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:14.840 a groomer and as a pedophile, which is their new 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:19.280 fucking insult of choice, right to paint us all as 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.600 these pedophiles. Meanwhile, we can go through a list of 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:28.040 their sexual abusers and deviance and terribleness that they embrace. Right, 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:34.600 But what Senator McMorrow did in her fierce fucking pushback 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:39.320 was that she didn't run scared. She met toe to toe, 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:45.040 showed integrity, showed grace, but above all else, showed passion, 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:51.000 showed anger. Right, because I asked myself every single day, 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.760 where the fuck is the fire? Where is the energy 0:03:55.880 --> 0:04:00.280 from Democrats? At the audacity of Republicans to try and 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:05.680 destroy not even try, they are actively destroying our democracy 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:11.040 without any real fucking opposition. Michael Harriet, writer for The 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.640 Grio and a former guest on Woke app tweeted and said, 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:26.200 you have Republicans literally offering the most terrible policies right 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:34.200 and trying to rewrite school curriculum, trying to erase gay people, 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:40.760 black people, women right from curriculum, and Democrats want to 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.400 run on quote unquote kitchen table issues. If there's no 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.680 more of a kitchen table issue than your child's education, 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.000 I don't know what is, but as sure as fuck 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:55.480 know that backing off from culture wars does not serve 0:04:55.640 --> 0:05:02.240 Democrats at all. Just look at Virginia and Governor Glen Youngan, right, 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:08.200 there was no pushback to his parental control right, which 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.679 in my piece for The Daily Beast that I wrote 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:15.479 this week on the case that is in Washington State 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:22.479 with regard to prayer in schools, there was no pushback too, yunkin, 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:26.720 That's how he won. Democrats were like, well, crt isn't 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.159 being taught, It's something that we only teach in blah 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.719 blah blah blah blah blah blah. As opposed to going 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.080 toe to toe with the junkins of the world and saying, 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:39.880 what scares you about Tony Morrison, Why don't you believe 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.200 that our children should learn and be able to contextualize 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:49.440 inside of a classroom the layered experience and history of America. 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:54.680 What is so scary about that if marginalized communities were 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:59.400 forced to face white domestic terrorism on a regular basis, 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:04.520 your ancestors, no less, Why can't children learn about that 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.960 and learn from the mistakes that we've made in the 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:12.520 past and be able to contextualize the progress that we've 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.320 had and still that there is more room to grow. 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:19.479 Of course, unless you don't believe that the progress that 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.279 has been made is good, and so then then you 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.120 are put on the defense to talk about why you 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.360 think that LGBTQ folks should be a push back into 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.520 the closet, to talk about why you believe that women 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.640 have no business in the workplace, to talk about why 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.920 black people shouldn't be able to vote, Because then, right 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:44.720 you would find democrats creating the parameters for the game 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.840 instead of running after fucking Lucy with the football, And 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:53.800 then you would see the media then respond and actually 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.919 ask the kind of fucking questions that they should be asking. 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:05.440 But instead we have a Republican white supremacist cult that 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.640 is rewriting all of the rules. I mean, I said 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.760 this this week on Democracy Ish, my other podcast with 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:16.239 my friend Jaha Ali, where we had on the author 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:21.000 of Jesus and John Wayne talking about white Evangelical Christians 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:26.280 and how they have remade Jesus into their warrior Christ, 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:31.920 their muscle bound, tanned warrior Christ and why this party 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:36.080 that was supposed to be about family values fell for 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.920 a deity that has been three times married and grabs 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:44.640 about brags about grabbing women by the pussy. Right. So 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:50.960 the Republican Party in its current incarnation is a fucking gift. 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:53.440 But it is only a gift if you have a 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:57.440 backbone in a spine, which we know the Democratic Party 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:02.160 doesn't have. My whole thing is that, folks, we got 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:08.200 three hundred federal judges that Trump appointed right in four 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.760 fucking years. Why is that? Because Democrats have no spine 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.480 and they didn't fight against Mitch McConnell. They didn't take 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.640 him on because they thought that, oh, well, maybe if 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.800 we don't fight him, he'll be our friend. Right. You 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.240 still got fucking Joe Biden on a regular basis referring 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.760 to these obstruction as motherfucker says his friends, right, because 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:33.160 they have not or they refuse to identify who the 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:39.880 villains are. Republicans have no fucking problem doing that. And 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.360 so yeah, at the end of each week I find 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.760 myself in a place of utter despair where I want 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:52.080 to say, on a regular basis, America got damned, like, 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.199 what the fuck is wrong with you? And So coming 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:02.199 up next, friends, my conversation with a Triva Lindsay, feminist 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:07.360 historian and author of America Goddamn Violence, Black Women and 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:11.160 the Struggle for Justice. I hope that you enjoy the conversation. 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.960 Please do let me know in the comments section what 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:20.840 you think, folks. I am super excited to welcome to 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:25.000 the show for the very first time doctor Treva Lindsay, 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:30.440 who is an feminist historian and author of the book America, 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:35.400 Goddamn Violence, Black Women and the Struggle for Justice. First 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:41.960 of all, Bravo, because the title is does not love 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:48.520 that Nina Simone song that just still till this day penetrate. 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.400 So I want to start out with that question first, 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.120 Doctor Lindsay, which is why that title? Yeah, you know, 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.720 and and what what was what was the spirit behind 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.520 that that selection? Well, first and foremost, thank you for 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.640 having me here. I'm so excited to be in conversation 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.280 with you and to be in conversation with your audience, 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:14.760 especially about this book. So I love Nina Simone, right, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.120 So that's first and foremost. I just love me and Simone. 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.480 Whatever I can incorporate her in some way into a title, 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.720 a concept, I'm there for it. But this had such 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.880 a particular meaning, so one I wanted to ground this 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.280 in me because this book is both a history and 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:33.320 also a collection of personal accounts of my experiences with 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:37.120 violence that really help the reader the audience to understand 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:41.360 the stakes of addressing the pervasiveness of violence against black 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.000 women and girls and my families from North Carolina. So 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.719 there's that Nina Simone connection that comes in there. But 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.680 Missus Sippi Got Damn is a song that Nina writes 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.720 in response to the assassination of Mega Evers and the 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.280 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in nineteen sixty 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.319 three that killed four little girls. It's how they're often 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.800 remembered by history. But their names were Addie, Carol, Cynthia, 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.720 and Denise. And I was really interested in the idea 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.120 that we don't actually say their names, we refer to 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.440 them as the four little girls, and we don't know 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.720 a lot about them before that moment of the spectacular 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:22.439 encounter of white domestic terrorism. We don't know who they are. 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.960 We don't know that they were brownies, and they love 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.160 to play the clarinet and music. And that was Na 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:31.640 Simone's first protest song. And I know, we tend to 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.160 think about Nina Simone, who has always being politically active 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.600 with her music and engaged in that way, but she 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:41.040 was always against kind of anthem music up until that 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.120 point because she was like, how do you fit all 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.240 that black people endure into three and a half minutes? 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.480 How would one begin to do that? But these two 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.600 incidents propelled her to figure out a way to do that, 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.439 and so she writes this song that is both indicting 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.240 of the ongoing struggles of African Americans and people of 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:06.440 African descent in the United States by pointing out different 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.480 states and homes in or Mississippi, but she's talking about 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:14.000 everywhere that it is everywhere. And so my riff on 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:18.200 this was saying in twenty twenty two, we're still saying America, 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:22.040 God damn, the levels of violence, the level of harm, 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:27.000 the level of dispossession, exploitation and marginalization that you're still 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:31.199 conscripting Black men, women and girls to endure is unfathomable, 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:33.560 and so I wanted to return to a song that 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.760 conveyed that urgency. Who was also written with that same 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.640 spirit of telling the truth about America and also telling 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.319 the truth about the resistance that black people were mounting 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.880 against it. You know, doctor Linda, you make so many 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.199 good points, and a couple of that I want to 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:56.920 circle back to, so first being the reality that just 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.720 hit me one. I didn't know of the four little 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.320 black girls names, not off of the top of my head. 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:14.040 And what kind of erasure does that signify? Because you know, 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:18.760 when I think about the people's names and why the 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.360 hashtags with regard to the Black Lives Matter movement are 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:26.240 so important, and why the say her Name movement has 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:30.960 been so important, it has been because of this erasure 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:35.359 of black people and violent, the violence that has consistently 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:40.400 and has been unrelenting we visited upon our community since 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:45.199 the beginning of time. And so when you say those 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:52.000 names and we think about that, as you said, spectacular 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:59.120 moment of white domestic violence, of white terrorism, what is 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:03.120 it you think that we could have done, even if 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:05.840 even you know, with our hindsight being twenty twenty, but 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:13.280 even contextualizing that spectacular moment with let's say the shooting 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:17.920 at Mother Emmanuel in South Carolina, but you know a 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:21.760 handful of years ago, and the idea that we talk 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:25.800 about the nine parishioners that were murdered, but we don't 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:29.200 say their names, right. I mean, I'm I'm certain their 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.320 community says their names. I'm saying that their church still 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.000 lifts up their names. We know the name of the 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:39.400 shooter right, right, right, and so's so that so I'm like, 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:44.479 what is it about us in our society that allows 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.680 us to elevate those that do us harm and then 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:52.960 at the same time forget or erase those that have 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:57.160 been harmed? Yes, and it's it's it's a couple of 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.560 things that I think are happening there. So my insistence 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.920 on saying their names and getting their names right is 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:08.960 also about accessing these stories from a life affirming point 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.360 of view. What happened to them was death dealing. What 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:14.440 happened to them is how we come to know them. 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.560 But that's not how their communities knew them. Their communities 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.560 knew them as people. These girls who were moving through 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.440 the neighborhood and part of this community that we're there 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.240 on an early Sunday morning. There's the fifth girl who 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:30.080 survives the bombing, who we're still living right, Sarah, who's 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.280 the sister of Addie. All of that is why I 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:35.760 want to say their names, because then that compels me, 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.440 and I'm hoping folks who care and compelling folks to 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.960 care to actually learn about their lives prior to that moment, 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.760 what life was snuffed out in terms of doing that, 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.960 But even when we get to moments where we are 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:53.560 saying names, but not necessarily the names of those victimized, terrorrized, assailed, 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:58.480 or harm oftentimes we're trying to name, and I understand 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:00.800 we're trying to name the horror. We're trying to make 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.120 sure that there is a record and a documentation of 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.040 the ways that white supremacy operates, of the ways that 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:12.240 patriarchy operates. I understand that impulse. I also want to 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.280 ensure while we're holding that, while we're naming, that, while 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:20.320 we're rendering that ever legible, that we don't then participate 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:24.240 in the erasure of the life that these individuals live. 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:28.440 What happens before the injury, what happens before the killing 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.280 who or worse, what happens is we do name certain people, 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:37.040 but then we use it implicitly that criminalizes. So we 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.920 often say the Rodney King trial. Rodney King wasn't on trial. 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.000 And if we ask people who the four officers were, 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:46.840 we don't know, don't know, right, we say the Trayvon 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.520 Martin Kays will say the Mike Brown case, And implicitly 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:55.360 it does a recriminalization of individuals who are being who 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.680 have been victimized, who have been killed and or harmed, 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.520 And we don't offer to do that in trials. Usually 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.679 a trial is named after, right, the person who is 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.480 accused of having done harror. But when it comes to 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:12.520 black people, so often because I think our attempts to navigate, 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:17.439 to name, to categorize, and to identify this relentless harm, 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.639 that oftentimes we still imbibe the same logics, and we 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.640 imbibe the same rhetoric and then spewed that back out 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.560 as we attempt to remember, as we attempt to recollect, 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:33.159 as we attempt to mobilize. Oh my goodness, you know, 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:39.399 when I think about how many black women, right, and 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.359 this is the point of your of your personal stories. 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.200 But when I think about how many Black women whose 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.320 lives have been stolen from them, right and by and 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:53.879 I don't just mean via murder, I mean via rape, 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:59.359 via emotional abuse. I mean just the violence that is 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:06.399 that is put upon Black women. And then yet to 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:10.560 your books point and to your point, and yet we 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:14.600 still find ourselves as the ones that are on the 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:21.080 front lines for justice, experiencing experiencing the abuse not only 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:26.840 from you know, outward white society, right, but then also 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:31.520 the erasure that we have experienced throughout history of being 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.840 on the front lines of civil rights movements and yet 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.880 told to be in the back right, being the one 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.080 that is the front in the pew and literally making 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:46.120 the church run. But you're not the pastor at the front, right, 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:50.560 And so what is it about you think the spirit 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.520 that is that is a part of that is innate 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:58.200 in Black women. And I hate this trope, but that 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.720 does give us the strength to both be able to 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:05.600 experience violence in all of its forms, but then still 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:10.280 find ourselves in these leadership positions to quote unquote do 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:15.760 the work. Oh. I mean that's a heavy one, Danielle, right, 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:20.200 and as a heavy one because I think we again internalize, 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:24.280 and imbibe in specializing in the holy impossible right. It's 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:28.480 the moniker from Nanny Helen Burroughs of what black women do. 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.320 Because there's a way that we know that the stakes 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.920 are so high. We know that the systems that we're 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:40.600 warring against, our systems that kill, rape, harm, demean and 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:45.000 devalue us. So we have a stake in continuing to 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.400 be on the front line. This is why you'll never 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.320 hear me say no one cares about black girls and women. 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.399 We care about black girls and women, and we are 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.840 certainly not no one. Come on, and because we have 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:02.600 that care practice, because we love with abundance, because we 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:07.000 know that our love, because our love sits at the 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.879 foot of all of these warring systems of oppression. It 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.760 sits at the foot of how white supremacy operates, how 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.120 patriarchy operates for many of us, how transphobia and queer 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:21.800 phobia operate, how ableism operates, how imperialism and colonialism operate. 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:27.000 That it demands for us to survive and thrive and 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:30.520 love on each other in accountable and just ways, to 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:33.440 be on the front line because we know we are 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:37.600 the front line being attacked, and we're being attacked from 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:42.399 all directions, and so that demands that we be vulnerable 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.400 with one another. We talk about our stories, even when 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:50.440 we're demonized for doing so. We can see that currently happening, 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:52.720 and it happens quite often when Black women do come 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.440 forward about particular forms of violence at their current especially 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:03.000 if it's intercommunal and interpersonal. And so I recognize that 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:06.359 as a strength. But the strength for me comes from 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:11.040 the willingness to have a full recognition, a particular kind 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:16.960 of multiple consciousness about how we want to imagine, we 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:19.560 want to be in the world, how we imagine ourselves 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.520 in the world. We are practicing a particular kind of 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:25.760 freedom as we move through this world. That it's telling 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:28.040 us that we are not worthy, we are not valuable, 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:31.440 that our communities aren't valuable to people we love are valuable, 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:35.800 that we're disposable, and our living, breathing existence is a 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:40.320 refutation of that politic of disposability. And I think that 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:44.440 propels us to keep showing up in spite of so 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:48.720 many factors warning against us, including those sometimes we're fighting alongside. 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:52.399 You know, one of the things that I notice, and 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.359 I want to ask if you notice this too, You know, 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:59.000 we've been living inside of this global health pandemic now 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.800 going on two years plus. And I have noticed that 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.560 through this time, at least in my in the feeds 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:10.320 of social media that I follow, that black women in 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:14.000 particular have and black women and let me say this, 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:17.480 black women that have the privilege and the ability to, 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.119 let's say, having worked from home, you know, having been remote, 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:26.520 but reassess their lives in a certain way where our 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:31.840 health and wellness and our own self care seems to 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.280 have seems to have reached a new stage where we 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:38.840 are really putting that that as a part of our 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:43.080 liberation right now, you know, by virtue of your work, 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:47.399 Audrew Lord and others way before us had talked about 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.760 self care as a revolutionary had talked about you know 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:54.560 that that that that our liberation is not just about 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:58.239 how much we produce right and our production, but it 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:03.120 is about our ability to sees our ease back right 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:06.480 that has was stolen from our ancestors. And so have 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.120 you not, like, in what ways do you have you 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:14.440 seen black women in this modern time as we are 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:20.840 moving through so many varied heavy moments, our shift, our 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:23.920 shift in self and I know I'm making an overgeneralization. 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:26.840 But I'm talking about what I have seen by virtue 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:29.840 of people that I'm following. But it's been like the 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:32.400 poets and the artists and all these things, and it's 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:38.359 been deeply about self care. Have you noticed this similar, Yes, 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:41.879 I have, and I noticed it one and this is 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:44.920 what this book has allowed me to see. It's interesting 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:47.479 when your book, in the work that you're doing, teaches 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:50.000 you and put you in conversation with other people you're 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:52.919 continuing to learn from. Is that I made a different 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:56.239 intentional commitment to rest and care. I had you to 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.440 write a book like this, right to sit with these stories, 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:02.240 to sit death, to sit with rape, to sit with 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:05.480 my own experiences with violence, to sit with stories from 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:10.600 my community, and the care became as important as any 0:24:10.600 --> 0:24:13.239 other practice that allows you to write a book. So 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:15.800 there was a care practice, and ethics practice, and editing 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:18.840 practice or writing practice, but the only one that had 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:22.800 to be intacted every step was the care and what 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:25.320 I was doing. And I noticed during a pandemic, which 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:29.000 in many ways became a great magnifier of all of 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:31.320 the disparities that we see. So who's going to be 0:24:31.320 --> 0:24:34.840 disparately impacted by COVID, Who's going to be disparately impacted 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:37.920 by what is the impending housing crisis, Who's going to 0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:41.840 be deeply impacted by food, insecurity, water, all of the issues. 0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:44.600 And we knew from the beginning. The very first article 0:24:44.640 --> 0:24:48.159 I wrote during the pandemic was about the disparate effect 0:24:48.240 --> 0:24:50.439 COVID was about to have on Black women and girls. 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:53.760 And this was April of twenty twenty. That was so foreseeable. 0:24:54.040 --> 0:24:57.920 And so to see Black women and tweens and teens 0:24:58.000 --> 0:25:05.960 via TikTok and other mechanisms prioritize care, care networks, care 0:25:06.000 --> 0:25:10.000 of self, thinking about places like the NAP Ministry. I'm 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:13.920 thinking about outlets of things, of thinking about the Black 0:25:13.920 --> 0:25:15.399 health and wellness in the work of someone like a 0:25:15.480 --> 0:25:19.040 Stephanie Evans who kind of collects this longer history. Think 0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:22.720 about black women practicing yoga, These amazing images of Rosa 0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:28.840 Parks practicing yoga amidst organizing and being this radical force 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:31.959 that she was. And I see so many people seeing 0:25:32.240 --> 0:25:37.840 the death, the grief and not having our typical ways 0:25:37.960 --> 0:25:41.359 of and being able to engage one another, that the 0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:45.200 ability to create care practices was a tool of survival. 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:49.480 It's a tool of resistance against an additional death dealing 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:53.160 force that is now disparately impacting us. And so I've 0:25:53.160 --> 0:25:57.080 been very heartened to see a number of Black women 0:25:57.320 --> 0:26:00.840 prioritizing that and cutting across kind of class that is 0:26:00.920 --> 0:26:04.680 lined to articulate what it means to rest, to care, 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:10.600 to create moments of breath for one another. And that 0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:13.960 to me, as I think about the things if we 0:26:14.119 --> 0:26:18.800 move to endemic from pandemic, that I hope we're bringing 0:26:18.840 --> 0:26:21.639 with us into that stage, that this is not simply 0:26:21.720 --> 0:26:26.119 reactionary to this global phenomenon that is COVID nineteen that 0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:30.240 has been so ravenous to our communities, but that we 0:26:30.359 --> 0:26:33.879 take that tool as it has manifested in this moment 0:26:34.240 --> 0:26:38.320 and recognize it as an ancestral inheritance and move it 0:26:38.359 --> 0:26:45.240 into our features. You know. One of the things too, 0:26:45.840 --> 0:26:54.240 And in thinking about how you wrote America, Goddamn, it's like, 0:26:54.359 --> 0:26:58.119 how do you how how did you go about doctor 0:26:58.160 --> 0:27:06.800 Lindsay being able to tell stories about violence while recognizing 0:27:06.880 --> 0:27:10.960 that that is really the lens that White America sees 0:27:11.040 --> 0:27:14.639 us through right like they It is trauma porn for 0:27:15.520 --> 0:27:21.640 Black mothers that have lost daughters and sons to police violence. Right, 0:27:21.920 --> 0:27:25.240