Speaker 1: Native Lamme Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Well Come, well come, well come, well come, come, Welcome.
Speaker 3: Welcome home, guys, it is time for our first mini
Speaker 3: pod with our new co hosts Bacari Sellers and So
Speaker 3: if you listen to this week's episode, we got into something. Bacari,
Speaker 3: you were making the point that black men find it
Speaker 3: hard to breathe amidst Black girl magic. I don't want
Speaker 3: to misquote you. I'm gonna give you a chance. I
Speaker 3: want to give you a chance. But we want to
Speaker 3: hit that topic because I do want to offer you
Speaker 3: the chance for some clarity and have a quick discussion.
Speaker 3: But we're also going to get to another topic that
Speaker 3: touches on black conferences, black businesses and how we judge them,
Speaker 3: perhaps unfairly. But before we get into that conversation, I
Speaker 3: did want to revisit this idea that black men can't breathe.
Speaker 4: I think it's a you know, we were having a
Speaker 4: conversation about stephen A. Smith and the transition and how
Speaker 4: that relates to like the thought, and you know, one
Speaker 4: of the things we were saying is that, you know,
Speaker 4: we haven't had folesome wholesome conversations around black men from
Speaker 4: a policy perspective that requires listening to them. And the
Speaker 4: other thing is and something I hear often which I
Speaker 4: you know, in the spaces that I'm in, is in
Speaker 4: this era of black girl magic, is their space for
Speaker 4: black men to breathe and lead. And there is this
Speaker 4: theory that is pervasive. I think that and I know
Speaker 4: my friend Andrew probably will say it ain't rooted in nothing,
Speaker 4: and that also may have some validity. I just don't
Speaker 4: want to discount the thought that during this period where
Speaker 4: we've seen this attention and most of it is earned
Speaker 4: attention on black women, their success, their educational achievement, entrepreneurial success, etc.
Speaker 4: Black men are trying to figure out their place in
Speaker 4: our communities and once what once was a place of
Speaker 4: leading your household and leading your communities and being able
Speaker 4: to be that voice and be able to speak out.
Speaker 4: There are many people wondering if that role is still
Speaker 4: there or if their voice has to shrink during this
Speaker 4: era of uplift. Now. I know the quick response that
Speaker 4: people will say is, oh, well, they can coexist like
Speaker 4: there's no there's nobody pushing you out. And you know,
Speaker 4: I think that I think that the response would be
Speaker 4: that sometimes sometimes that it is so loud, not not
Speaker 4: literally loud, but it's so loud as we praise as
Speaker 4: we should that many times we feel as if our accomplishments,
Speaker 4: our successes, or even more importantly, our trials and tribulations
Speaker 4: go unnoticed, and that pushes us further in the back
Speaker 4: of our homes and further in the back of our communities.
Speaker 4: And I think that's reflective of some of the things
Speaker 4: you see.
Speaker 3: What what does it being noticed look like?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: What is the thing that we should do? Because I
Speaker 3: think a lot of us celebrate each other. Angela says
Speaker 3: often we've all kind of adopted it, but I think
Speaker 3: you were the first to say, like we all we got.
Speaker 3: Sometimes that means she definitely thinks I didn't agree that. Okay,
Speaker 3: Well I gave her.
Speaker 4: I gave that's like a bath, that's like a team thing,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: Okay, in the context of this conversation, I gave Angela
Speaker 3: credit for it, but it was a popular saying. But
Speaker 3: I think in the context that we've said it, sometimes
Speaker 3: it's amongst our you know, girl group of machetes. We
Speaker 3: all we got, And I've asked other people like, but
Speaker 3: we ain't all you got, like you have a wonderful,
Speaker 3: doting husband or wonderful partner. And the feedback I've gotten
Speaker 3: from women is yeah, but it's not like the love
Speaker 3: I experience with you guys, Like, yes, my husband is amazing,
Speaker 3: I love him. But if I step out with you all,
Speaker 3: y'all notice my shoes, my fit, my earrings, like from
Speaker 3: head to toe. The love we give each other is
Speaker 3: not a diss to black men, but it is something
Speaker 3: beautiful that we experience. I wonder why in that space
Speaker 3: would black men feel crowded out and and take that
Speaker 3: as though we don't need very much our counterparts, very much,
Speaker 3: our companions to be leaders, to be at our side
Speaker 3: and to help confront everything that we're going through.
Speaker 4: Now, people naturally ask the question, is that neat there?
Speaker 4: I mean we're still having Yes, I mean, but that
Speaker 4: mean I hear you and I respect that. That's why
Speaker 4: we're friends, right, we value that need, we hear those things.
Speaker 4: But I also think that it's just it's about we're
Speaker 4: still I mean, we really, we really are trying to
Speaker 4: have conversations and particularly much black men about defining masculinity.
Speaker 4: We're trying to make sure that we can define masculinity
Speaker 4: without one being toxic or two ushering a new era
Speaker 4: of patriarchy. Right. I mean that is a that's a
Speaker 4: real delicate, delicate interesting because you want to you want
Speaker 4: to say that, Look, I'm the head of my household, right,
Speaker 4: I lead my household. I am I want to be
Speaker 4: an example for my wife and my children in my household.
Speaker 4: But I'm also like, I'm not I'm not confined to
Speaker 4: these pre existing, antiquated you know, uh gender.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you want to answer examples of that. You all
Speaker 3: talked about doing drop off and pick up.
Speaker 4: With your kids, and right exactly, and I brush air
Speaker 4: real well, and so so uh you know, I think,
Speaker 4: but we're redefining those roles. And because we like to
Speaker 4: do drop off and pick up, and because I like
Speaker 4: the I like to say I do the really good
Speaker 4: shopping for my kids at H and M and you know,
Speaker 4: baby gap and all of that stuff. I like, I
Speaker 4: like sayy to look fly, and I you know, I
Speaker 4: don't want the mayor mismatch athletic brands and stuff like.
Speaker 4: I think that's like redefining masculinity. But we're having those
Speaker 4: serious discussions and I think that there are there are times,
Speaker 4: particularly over the past decade, where we've been so consumed
Speaker 4: with and I think Black girl Magic is cheapening it,
Speaker 4: but we've been so consumed with having conversations about a
Speaker 4: specific gender and their success in a particular arena that
Speaker 4: many times, many men, for whatever reason that may be,
Speaker 4: feel left out of that conversation. And I'm just saying,
Speaker 4: I'm saying it's there.
Speaker 5: I feel frustrated by that, and it's it's not because
Speaker 5: I don't think it's valid. I'm frustrated that it is
Speaker 5: a valid right, and I'm frustrated about the wedge issue
Speaker 5: it has become for our people. And so I actually
Speaker 5: don't feel like it's like it's a fake thing. It's
Speaker 5: not real. I've heard it so much, and I would
Speaker 5: say arguably it's not even just over the last decade,
Speaker 5: because I can. I can. I know like most of
Speaker 5: the men that I've dated have said that I'm intimidating,
Speaker 5: and it's like, what is intimidating about me? Or I've
Speaker 5: been told even by Andrew's best friend, that I was
Speaker 5: emasculating in some way, And for me, I grew up
Speaker 5: in the house.
Speaker 4: I don't want to numbers.
Speaker 5: Matt, but I feel like it's the thing I mean,
Speaker 5: not Andrew updated Andrew's best friend back in the day.
Speaker 5: But I think that the thing that is frustrating is
Speaker 5: I grew up in a space my dad is more
Speaker 5: feminist than me, So I grew up in a space
Speaker 5: where I was constantly celebrated, where I was urged to
Speaker 5: share my opinion. Tiff has heard how we talk in
Speaker 5: some ways has some discomfort with the way that I'll
Speaker 5: talk to my dad like a here now I get
Speaker 5: chin checked too. Sometimes he's like, I'm the father, okay,
Speaker 5: but I've never changed my tone to speak to a man.
Speaker 5: Maybe that wasn't the best teaching, but that is my truth.
Speaker 5: I have never thought that my thriving means that you
Speaker 5: have to suffer or that you can't win. I reject
Speaker 5: the scarcity mindset for the whole of our community, and
Speaker 5: I just am so frustrated that we can't all do
Speaker 5: that together.
Speaker 4: And I think that that is the biggest point that
Speaker 4: you've made, because I think the I think the sun
Speaker 4: is bright enough, and I think that I would never
Speaker 4: want any woman in my life to dim their lights
Speaker 4: by any stretch. I mean We've worked too hard to
Speaker 4: help uplift, to get it to this point, to brighten it,
Speaker 4: to shine it. Please God, never say to dim your life.
Speaker 4: I also think that there are certain men in our
Speaker 4: community who have been toiling in the vineyards. Who are
Speaker 4: the city workers, who are the drive the trucks, who
Speaker 4: you know, help our lives go. Who are the pas,
Speaker 4: who are the dental assistants, who are the teachers assistants.
Speaker 4: Even a young man right now at Claflin or FAM
Speaker 4: who are in call me mister or Clemson, you know
Speaker 4: who are toiling in this vineyard, or the engineers at
Speaker 4: FAM or North Carolina ante, whatever it may be. That
Speaker 4: while we're saying don't dim your light, we're also saying
Speaker 4: that there must be a concerted effort. There has to
Speaker 4: be a concerted effort to at least listen or uplift
Speaker 4: black men as well.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: Good contribution.
Speaker 3: I think this conversation is ongoing because I definitely think
Speaker 3: there's a lot of men who are feeling pain right now,
Speaker 3: and sometimes their pain comes off as hatred towards us
Speaker 3: as black women. And I find that hurtful, and I
Speaker 3: find it in ways that it has crossed over into
Speaker 3: our politics.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like I'm gonna penalize all of us because
Speaker 5: I'm mad at you and we don't even know what
Speaker 5: where the anger is stemming. Yeah, Like you know, Andrew,
Speaker 5: I hate that you're silent in this conversation because it is.
Speaker 2: I could direct listeners back to episodes we've had it.
Speaker 4: Well, I knew here, so you should have it.
Speaker 3: So so I think people have turned.
Speaker 2: Was.
Speaker 5: I hate that you're silent in this conversation because I
Speaker 5: think that people could end up watching this back and saying, see,
Speaker 5: this is exactly what I mean. There's a conversation about
Speaker 5: how black men fill in the ethos, and a black
Speaker 5: man was silenced on a platform and that I just
Speaker 5: want to be clear that that's not.
Speaker 2: It's the conversation is. I think it's exhausting, and I
Speaker 2: also think it is self fulfilling.
Speaker 3: You said that, so transparency for our viewers. Andrew did
Speaker 3: not want to talk about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't mind that's talking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the three of us like proceeded with the conversation.
Speaker 3: But I didn't understand what you were saying. When you
Speaker 3: were saying self fulfilling, what that means.
Speaker 2: I think for some reason it is said enough from
Speaker 2: black women.
Speaker 1: Some that.
Speaker 2: Either out of jealousy or that a man is reacting
Speaker 2: the way he's reacting in response to the black woman,
Speaker 2: And sometimes a man is reacting the way he's acting
Speaker 2: with no consideration for the black women, and that their
Speaker 2: feelings can be justified, can be real, can be hard
Speaker 2: come by without them being in contrast to your celebration.
Speaker 1: I don't experience that.
Speaker 2: I just personally do not experience a rejection of any
Speaker 2: black woman in my life because of her success. The
Speaker 2: men in my life don't measure whether or not they're
Speaker 2: worth anything by whether or not their woman is exalted
Speaker 2: more mm hmmm. I think it is more complex and
Speaker 2: more nuanced. And although it may make them feel good
Speaker 2: to believe that there's an army of men who are
Speaker 2: organized exclusively against black women, I don't. I don't find
Speaker 2: that to be the case.
Speaker 3: What am I so?
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't want to offend men, and I.
Speaker 4: Don't know we're saying the same thing.
Speaker 3: In some ways. In some ways you are. But I
Speaker 3: do think there is a slither of black men who
Speaker 3: are the opposite of you, Andrew, and.
Speaker 4: There's going to be that. I mean We're not a monolith,
Speaker 4: so there is going to be that in the infant
Speaker 4: But I think, piggybacking on Andrew's point slightly, I think
Speaker 4: that that when sometimes the response that we have two
Speaker 4: black women is not because of black women, and I
Speaker 4: think that I think that one of the things that
Speaker 4: you said, Tiffany was I think that, you know, black
Speaker 4: men take it out on us because of and I
Speaker 4: think what Andrew and I are saying is that sometimes
Speaker 4: it's just hard and maybe we're maybe we're not equipped
Speaker 4: enough at that particular moment to manage expectation, emotion, all
Speaker 4: of those things, and the brunt of that is taken
Speaker 4: out on our partner we live in highly segregated communities
Speaker 4: or the people we interact with on a daily basis, however.
Speaker 2: Which is probably true in white households, we might conclude,
Speaker 2: and the story emanating from that isn't that white men
Speaker 2: hate white women, correct or that they respond this way
Speaker 2: because they're jealous of their white wives.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 2: But any reaction that we might have that is not
Speaker 2: the one that is expected by the black woman on
Speaker 2: the opposing on the opposite you, literally opposite you, is
Speaker 2: that we're that way because they're winning.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's my point is that I don't. I don't,
Speaker 4: I don't care not, I don't care. I uplift your winning.
Speaker 4: I appreciate your winning, but I also there also has
Speaker 4: to be space for me.
Speaker 2: There does have to be space for you. And by
Speaker 2: the way that you would, you would expect there to
Speaker 2: be space for you even if she wasn't uplifted and
Speaker 2: in celebration moment, just as she would expect that business
Speaker 2: be space for her. I was running for governor, I
Speaker 2: was being mayor, I was you know, I.
Speaker 4: Did not mean me individually.
Speaker 1: What you're saying.
Speaker 2: Is is that I'm doing all of those things and
Speaker 2: I'm not coming home with the expectation that you're going
Speaker 2: to lift me up on every leaning side and make
Speaker 2: me feel like I'm the star and I hung it too.
Speaker 2: Relationships are complex, There's a lot that goes into them.
Speaker 2: People as individuals are complex, and I just wish that
Speaker 2: we could respect the complexity, the complexity of the individual
Speaker 2: without making it a monolith for the community. Remember that, yeah,
Speaker 2: and that we can be set in those expectations because
Speaker 2: we're human. As a human being, I want to be
Speaker 2: lifted up as a human being. I want to be
Speaker 2: the thing that my children aspire towards. I want I
Speaker 2: want them to think I hung the sun in the moment,
Speaker 2: but I want them to think they're Mama hung it too.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's so good, Andrew. I'm really happy that you
Speaker 3: gave that context because I think the people I'm focusing
Speaker 3: on maybe don't even deserve this level of attention we're
Speaker 3: giving them because what you're saying is no, like, my
Speaker 3: existence is not in response to you. It's I just
Speaker 3: I fully.
Speaker 2: Get also acknowledgement of a human need. Yes, that is
Speaker 2: very individual. Yeah, but we understand it as the collective.
Speaker 4: To those people that you're talking about, we don't need
Speaker 4: to give breath to or space to. I mean, I
Speaker 4: hear them, but they have an audience because we haven't
Speaker 4: listened to the people that Andrew and I maybe imperfectly
Speaker 4: are trying to describe.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I also think that there's something in there in terms
Speaker 5: of accountability for black women, because part of what I
Speaker 5: heard from Andrew is why does it even have to
Speaker 5: be set up that way that it's a versus right
Speaker 5: that I'm because you are being celebrated in your winning,
Speaker 5: it doesn't mean that I'm hating on you because I'm
Speaker 5: at a low point or because I have some human needs,
Speaker 5: you know. So I also think there is some accountability
Speaker 5: for us to in denying the existence of the story,
Speaker 5: not amplifying the story, not amplifying like that's not what
Speaker 5: it is, industry.
Speaker 2: Self fulfilling. Keep putting that out there. There are gonna
Speaker 2: be women who experience toxic men in their lives and
Speaker 2: may choose this as a cheap way to explain their behavior.
Speaker 2: It's an off ramp, and I just think it's more
Speaker 2: complicated than that. It requires more of us than that,
Speaker 2: And I almost feel victimized by it. Not victimized, but
Speaker 2: I feel like we're the ire of the folks who
Speaker 2: who want that narrative to be the most pejorative narrative
Speaker 2: within our community. They want the whole last election with
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris as our nominee. We know that they have
Speaker 2: these China and foreign agents, have Russian agents. They are
Speaker 2: studying us, They are looking at us. They want to
Speaker 2: know what creates ciphers within our community. And I'm not saying,
Speaker 2: please know, I'm not saying it's being generated by them
Speaker 2: and that it doesn't exist. No, what they take is
Speaker 2: what's real and exacerbate, They magnify it, they make it,
Speaker 2: they make it the experience of all of us, even
Speaker 2: if it's ten percent of us or so. I'm not
Speaker 2: to say there are toxic people out there. I believe Steven,
Speaker 2: if it's one of them, I believe he probably has
Speaker 2: an abject rejection of white black women's being being successful,
Speaker 2: being raised as successful.
Speaker 1: I don't know the man.
Speaker 2: I can only read what I can read from him,
Speaker 2: which is why you got so much heat for us?
Speaker 2: And I don't ever see you have heat for any But.
Speaker 4: Why is the weird part about that is I don't
Speaker 4: see you anywhere. I don't see you in I don't
Speaker 4: see you trying to trying to meet the need of
Speaker 4: people that you are very quick to.
Speaker 2: Castigate, vilified, whatever that is.
Speaker 4: Like, you ain't in the streets, right and you.
Speaker 2: Don't have to be in the streets to do it.
Speaker 2: You could be just just loving God, Daddy, this, this,
Speaker 2: that and a third or another, or just be you
Speaker 2: know what, proud to see us represented.
Speaker 4: I think that what I was attempting to say to
Speaker 4: kind of put a pin in it is that I
Speaker 4: think that for a long period of time. There are
Speaker 4: a lot of needs of black men that go unspoken
Speaker 4: because we're taught and condition to not speak them. And
Speaker 4: for better or worse, those needs go unspoken, they're not communicated,
Speaker 4: whether that directly or indirectly, and those things manifest and
Speaker 4: they permeate a trauma where they display a trauma, and
Speaker 4: that trauma's met with the stiff response, and nobody really
Speaker 4: ever asked the question what's wrong, A.
Speaker 2: Stiff response that oftentimes I think gets curated by this
Speaker 2: narrative and logic communities like oh you mad at me
Speaker 2: because I thought about that thing or whatever about it's that,
Speaker 2: you know what, We used to have connection when I
Speaker 2: came home, and if you could read that something was off,
Speaker 2: you kind of followed up.
Speaker 1: To figure it out.
Speaker 2: And I did the same because I know you that well.
Speaker 2: And now my need for your follow up is interpreted
Speaker 2: as my rejection of your good day, yes, rather than
Speaker 2: that's the fact that I'm some play. This is on
Speaker 2: a whole other plane and we used to be connected
Speaker 2: in that way, and so and.
Speaker 4: That's a community. Now, that's a community analysis, even as
Speaker 4: much as it could be.
Speaker 2: I mean it to be, yes, harbinger for what's happening.
Speaker 2: More broadly, how do we fix it? Yeah, stop perpetuating
Speaker 2: a negative, a narrative that doesn't represent all of us,
Speaker 2: and maybe interrogate the narrative more deeply. It's at a humor,
Speaker 2: at a more human level that I think in reflect.
Speaker 4: I think, I think the conversations that we're having amongst
Speaker 4: each other are okay, But the conversations you all have
Speaker 4: amongst yourselves and we have amongst us are even more
Speaker 4: important and more valuable.
Speaker 2: Agreed, which also means we have to throw off the
Speaker 2: yoke of some of that stuff.
Speaker 4: And we try. I mean, we have them, but their
Speaker 4: surface or they're quick, or they're non existent. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: we have to be willing to do that, just as
Speaker 4: much as you all have to be willing to go.
Speaker 2: And I believe that, by the way, I believe the
Speaker 2: narrative is as proliferative with black men as it is
Speaker 2: with black women. I think it's intended to be that way.
Speaker 2: I think there are factors in motion to keep that going,
Speaker 2: so that we decide where each other enemies. And if
Speaker 2: you were, if you were our opponents, what I wouldn't
Speaker 2: think of a better place to.
Speaker 3: Go than there to attack our loves.
Speaker 2: I could do a better place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, y'all, yes, I was going to ask you or
Speaker 3: do we want to say we should stop this one
Speaker 3: and go to another one? If okay, well let's I
Speaker 3: do want to quickly get to this because this is
Speaker 3: something Angela brought up. So do you want to frame this?
Speaker 5: We let's close this one.
Speaker 3: Oh never mind, then guys, yeah, we're going to close
Speaker 3: this out. But before we closed it out, I do
Speaker 3: just want to say thank you to Andrew and Bakari
Speaker 3: for your openness vulnerability. It was learning for me and
Speaker 3: humbling for both.
Speaker 2: The things goes both ways, right. The appreciation is that
Speaker 2: y'all can bring yourselves fully to the conversation through your
Speaker 2: own lived experience. You can even in the moment say
Speaker 2: you know what, I might be measuring this by a
Speaker 2: couple of bad experiences that might inflate the size of that.
Speaker 2: And we can also be honest enough to say, you
Speaker 2: ain't making it up. This exists. Let's just check how
Speaker 2: we think, how proliferated we think this.
Speaker 4: And also don't The compliment I have for you all
Speaker 4: is allowing me to make a comment like that, that's
Speaker 4: a big comment about a discussion that's not had often
Speaker 4: and allowing the space for it to breathe sure, and
Speaker 4: the new one A lot of people with the news
Speaker 4: because a lot of people like man and then you
Speaker 4: start fighting back at each other's which is where people
Speaker 4: want us to be.
Speaker 5: This show. Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 3: Thank you guys for tuning in, and remember you can
Speaker 3: catch our mini pods every Friday. Main episodes drop every Thursday.
Speaker 3: If you like what you thought, please share it, like,
Speaker 3: subscribe and tell it, tell a friend. I also would
Speaker 3: love to hear from our viewers to hear their thoughts
Speaker 3: on this conversation. You know what you learned, what your
Speaker 3: experiences are, and I'm sure there is something that will
Speaker 3: revisit in the future. So Welcome Home.
Speaker 1: Native Lampard is a production of iHeartRadio and partnership with
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