Speaker 1: I think sometimes we love to focus in and get
Speaker 1: mesmerized by the sorrow part of it. You know, we
Speaker 1: get mesmerized by the problem. We stay limited to what hurts.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you this, a hurting person wants to
Speaker 1: bond with other hurting people. But they also they're not
Speaker 1: going to stay in a movement that is only dealing
Speaker 1: with pain. They're going to stay in a movement that
Speaker 1: actually moves.
Speaker 2: This is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm
Speaker 2: your host, Meghan Devine. This week on the show, activist
Speaker 2: and writer Malkia Devich Cyril on grief, love, and book bands,
Speaker 2: among other things. This episode is stunning. It has gifts
Speaker 2: for everyone, whether you're grieving a personal loss or you're
Speaker 2: interested in what it really takes to create a safer, kinder,
Speaker 2: more beautiful world. Settle in, everybody, and grab your notebok
Speaker 2: or some other note taking device, because you will absolutely
Speaker 2: need it right after this first break before we get started.
Speaker 2: Two quick notes. One, this episode is an encore performance.
Speaker 2: I am on break working on a giant new project,
Speaker 2: so we're releasing a mix of our favorite episodes from
Speaker 2: the first three seasons of the show. Some of these
Speaker 2: conversations you might have missed in their original seasons, and
Speaker 2: some shows just truly deserve multiple listens so that you
Speaker 2: capture all of the goodness. Second note, while we cover
Speaker 2: a lot of emotional, relational territory and our time here together,
Speaker 2: this show is not a substitute for skilled support with
Speaker 2: a license mental health provider, or for professional supervision related
Speaker 2: to your work. Take what you learn here, take your
Speaker 2: thoughts and your reflections out into your world and talk
Speaker 2: about it. Hey friends, Okay, now I have said this
Speaker 2: a bunch of times already the season, but I'm saying
Speaker 2: it again. The guests on this show have brought so
Speaker 2: much magic and medicine into my life. I hope they're
Speaker 2: doing something special for you too. Now, whether you're interested
Speaker 2: in social justice or not, there is no denying the
Speaker 2: grief simmering beneath the surface of everyday life. It's in
Speaker 2: our personal lives, it's in the news, it's in our communities.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, we never really talk about it.
Speaker 2: We don't really talk about how much grief connects us.
Speaker 2: If we learn to lean into that grief together, we
Speaker 2: might just create the beautiful world we all long for.
Speaker 2: We literally cannot get to that world without talking about grief.
Speaker 2: I've said this for a long time, but it is
Speaker 2: actually true. Not talking about grief is killing us. I
Speaker 2: first met today's guests through their article titled Grief Belongs
Speaker 2: in Social Justice Movements. Malchia de Cyril is a poet
Speaker 2: and a media activist. They are the executive director of
Speaker 2: the Center for Media Justice and a co founder of
Speaker 2: the Media Action Grassroots Network. Their writings on media, race, justice,
Speaker 2: and grief frequently appear in national publications such as Politico,
Speaker 2: The Guardian, The Atlantic. We're going to link to some
Speaker 2: of those show notes. Their work was also in the
Speaker 2: Oscar nominated documentary film Thirteenth Now Malka Knows Grief from
Speaker 2: the Inside Out. They cared for their spouse, the comedian
Speaker 2: and editor Alana Debt Cyril, through their death from cancer
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen. We spent a lot of time in
Speaker 2: this episode talking about their relationship and their love. We
Speaker 2: actually get a well timed message from Alana herself during
Speaker 2: our conversation, so listen for that neat little drive by.
Speaker 2: Another relationship that figures heavily into our conversation today is
Speaker 2: Malchia's mother, Janet Cyril Janet was an activist in the
Speaker 2: Black Panther Party, So Malchia grew up surrounded by and
Speaker 2: immersed in justice and social action, but also grief. Some
Speaker 2: of that grief stemmed from the deaths in her community,
Speaker 2: but it was also ever present in her mother's chronic illness.
Speaker 2: You're going to hear about both of these women and
Speaker 2: their effect on Malchia's life right at the top of
Speaker 2: the show. I mean, we get into like really complex,
Speaker 2: nuanced issues in this episode, but we started, as all
Speaker 2: good stories do, talking about love friends. I am not
Speaker 2: exaggerating when I say that. Meeting Malchia, getting to spend
Speaker 2: time with them talking about grief and love and justice
Speaker 2: and the state of the world, it was one of
Speaker 2: the highlights of my life. We all have a part
Speaker 2: to play in this beautiful world, and I am so
Speaker 2: glad Mac is here playing theirs. I am really interested
Speaker 2: to hear what you think of this week's show, everybody.
Speaker 2: It was a truly magical experience for me, and I
Speaker 2: hope you love it too. Grief, love, action and belonging
Speaker 2: happening right now with Malchia Davitch Sira Okaiya. I am
Speaker 2: so happy to have you here with me today. I
Speaker 2: was just saying before we started rolling that we followed
Speaker 2: each other on Twitter for a long time. So I'm
Speaker 2: really glad to have you here with me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
Speaker 2: I'm psyched, Okay, So getting ready for our time here together.
Speaker 2: I was drawn into what people wrote and what you've
Speaker 2: said about your relationship with your wife, Aalana.
Speaker 3: There's so much that I want.
Speaker 2: To get into today about grief and justice and media
Speaker 2: and collective grief, but I would really like to start
Speaker 2: with love.
Speaker 1: Always a good place to start.
Speaker 4: Isn't it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know it's a good place to start
Speaker 2: because it chokes me up when I talk about it,
Speaker 2: like so much of what I read of you, and
Speaker 2: I promise everybody we're going to get into the background
Speaker 2: so you know what I'm talking about here. But so
Speaker 2: much of your writing is about grief and justice. One
Speaker 2: of my favorite things about you as a writer and
Speaker 2: you as a leader is that no matter how far
Speaker 2: you go, no matter what kind of rant you're writing
Speaker 2: or what you're trying to teach about grief and justice,
Speaker 2: you always come back to your wife.
Speaker 1: She and my mom are definitely the anchors in my life,
Speaker 1: and my greatest teacher is about grief.
Speaker 2: For sure, you kind of grew up with social justice
Speaker 2: with your mom and Black Panthers, Like, there's so much
Speaker 2: grief involved in social justice, But was that grief evident
Speaker 2: to you as you were growing up?
Speaker 1: You know, my mom besides being a founding member of
Speaker 1: the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party, my mom
Speaker 1: also had sickle cell anemia, which is a genetic and
Speaker 1: fatal disease. It did kill her at the age of
Speaker 1: fifty nine, but also, you know, it's something that you
Speaker 1: have from birth, so it's something that I knew about
Speaker 1: her having my entire life. So between the grief that
Speaker 1: is endemic to growing up black in America when mortality
Speaker 1: rates are so high and violence against black people is
Speaker 1: also so high, to the grief that comes with being
Speaker 1: a member of a movement that is targeted in response
Speaker 1: to those conditions, to the grief that comes from having
Speaker 1: a parent with a fatal illness that is absolutely going
Speaker 1: to kill them, there was no question about that, And
Speaker 1: the only question was when I think that I grew
Speaker 1: up with grief all around me, and so I don't
Speaker 1: see my experience with grief as separate from my experience
Speaker 1: as a black person, or separate from my experience as
Speaker 1: a movement leader, or separate from my experience as soone child.
Speaker 1: It's all kind of connected for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, was it directly spoken about when you were a child,
Speaker 2: all of those facets of grief.
Speaker 1: I don't know that the word grief was ever used.
Speaker 1: I think that my mom, for example, would say things like,
Speaker 1: it's up to you what kind of life you want
Speaker 1: to live. You know, these are emotions, but what we're
Speaker 1: talking about is actions, and so you know, she definitely
Speaker 1: taught me and my sister that sorrow and grief were
Speaker 1: not the same thing. That sorrow isn't an emotion. Grief
Speaker 1: is a set of activities and response to laws. And
Speaker 1: one is something that you don't really control. You don't
Speaker 1: control your emotions, you have them. And the other is
Speaker 1: something you do have some agency around and you can
Speaker 1: have some choice in, which is how you respond to
Speaker 1: the losses in your life. So she definitely played a
Speaker 1: hand in helping me to understand what I think grief
Speaker 1: is helping me to have some agency and control. Because
Speaker 1: she was so focused on having agency and control, she
Speaker 1: had to live with anticipatory grief, as does anyone with
Speaker 1: a fatal illness. My wife, Alana had struggle with the
Speaker 1: same same thing and so so. Speaking of Alana, my
Speaker 1: text messages are her voice saying I love you. So
Speaker 1: sorry I turned that off.
Speaker 2: Now, wait, did you just get a text message with
Speaker 2: Alana's voice saying I love you?
Speaker 1: I mean hear that? Okay, great, I couldn't hear it.
Speaker 2: But how beautiful is that? Right when we're talking about
Speaker 2: grief and sorrow and agency and sovereignty and all of
Speaker 2: these things, and then we have your wife chiming in
Speaker 2: to say I love you. I mean that could not
Speaker 2: have been I love this like this. That couldn't have
Speaker 2: been more beautifully timed. Thank you, Alana. Yes, I love
Speaker 2: this idea of the difference between and grief. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've been doing this work for ten years now, and
Speaker 2: I don't think I've heard that distinction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think for myself it was important
Speaker 1: for me to separate those things out because one, I
Speaker 1: think people believe that grief is sorrow, but in fact,
Speaker 1: you know, my wife was a comedian and when she
Speaker 1: was in hospice, I would say I spent the vast
Speaker 1: majority of the two years that my wife was aware
Speaker 1: of her metastatic cancer, trying to make her laugh, and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of fun times in that, you know.
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of laughter in that. I
Speaker 1: mean when she was in hospice, when we were trying
Speaker 1: to lift her on the hoyer lift to use the restroom,
Speaker 1: she requested that we sing theme songs from eighties comedy
Speaker 1: shows like The Brady Bunch, Facts of Life, Cheers, and
Speaker 1: we sang those songs, we belted them out. See that's
Speaker 1: grief too, you know. And especially if we're thinking about
Speaker 1: grief in terms of its utility for social change, we
Speaker 1: have to I think it's incumbent upon us to understand
Speaker 1: as movement leaders that sorrow melancholia is actually it's an
Speaker 1: important emotion to understand. But it's the transformation that's engagement
Speaker 1: of that emotion and the acknowledgment that joy is also
Speaker 1: present in grief. That's what becomes a motive force, that's
Speaker 1: what becomes mobilizing energy. And so if we want, if
Speaker 1: we want people's grief to turn into action, if we
Speaker 1: want it to transform into agency, we can't only engage
Speaker 1: with it at sorrow. That's not gonna work.
Speaker 2: Right, And that's different from that like binary of you're
Speaker 2: all healed and everything is ducky and you find the
Speaker 2: gifts in what's happened to you versus like collapsed in
Speaker 2: a corner in despair. I think, especially if you've just
Speaker 2: lost somebody or you just received a devastating diagnosis, it
Speaker 2: could be easy to hear what you just said as
Speaker 2: don't stay in sorrow, don't stay sad, make something out
Speaker 2: of it. And that's actually not what I hear you say.
Speaker 1: Say, not at all. In fact, I'm sad every day,
Speaker 1: you know, and I will be sad for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life. And I think that any black person
Speaker 1: in America is sad most days. I think that you
Speaker 1: can't be an immigrant in this country and not be sad.
Speaker 1: You know. The sadness is a critical crucial part of
Speaker 1: acknowledging the reality of our conditions. So I believe in sorrow,
Speaker 1: I believe in the night. I am one hundred percent
Speaker 1: a fan of the truth. I think that the difference
Speaker 1: is that joy is also the truth, and there's you know,
Speaker 1: the point is not to exclude sorrow. It is to
Speaker 1: include joy, it's to include anger. It's to allow ourselves
Speaker 1: the full range of what acknowledging loss means. When I
Speaker 1: think of my mom, she lost her life at fifty
Speaker 1: nine years old. She was a brilliant, beautiful woman who
Speaker 1: has survived so much. And there's nothing sadder to me
Speaker 1: except another brilliant, beautiful woman, my wife, losing her life
Speaker 1: at forty two. And yet these were funny women. These
Speaker 1: are women with strength and bigger and brilliance, and so
Speaker 1: I just want the whole story, that's all. And I think,
Speaker 1: as a strategist and as a movement leader, and as
Speaker 1: the Left, I think sometimes we love to focus in
Speaker 1: and get mesmerized by the sorrow part of it. You know,
Speaker 1: we get mesmerized by the problem, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: We stay limited to what hurts. And I'll tell you this,
Speaker 1: a hurting person wants to bond with other hurting people.
Speaker 1: But they also they're not going to stay in a
Speaker 1: movement that is only dealing with pain. They're going to
Speaker 1: stay in a movement that actually moves. They need a
Speaker 1: movement that moves. And so that's kind of what I'm
Speaker 1: when I'm what I'm talking about is grief. That is
Speaker 1: the full range of our responses to lass and not
Speaker 1: just a limited singular, binary response.
Speaker 2: I want to get into a specific thing here. It's
Speaker 2: funny like some of my questions were about social justice
Speaker 2: and some of them were about personal loss, and I
Speaker 2: kind of knew coming into this that those are the
Speaker 2: same thing, right, But I love that in just a
Speaker 2: few short minutes you have erased many of my questions.
Speaker 2: That is that is a sign of some brilliance there.
Speaker 2: And I so appreciate the ways that you include everything
Speaker 2: in the ways that you speak personal and collective. After
Speaker 2: your mom died, you wrote the incongruence between working daily
Speaker 2: to heal the world but being unable to save my
Speaker 2: mother's life was powered by the illusion of my control
Speaker 2: over life and death, an entire worldview centered on my failure. Yes,
Speaker 2: can you tell me what you mean by that?
Speaker 1: You know, from my deeply personal experience both watching my
Speaker 1: mom sick and die and watching my wife Alana sick
Speaker 1: and die. You know if I as an organizer, you
Speaker 1: know you're trained to take action. You know, in fact,
Speaker 1: the whole point is mobilizing your agency and developing the
Speaker 1: agency of others because you believe that something can be done.
Speaker 1: That is the entire analysis behind the strategy of organizing
Speaker 1: something can be done to confront illness that is absolutely
Speaker 1: going to lead to death. Nothing can be done, Nothing
Speaker 1: can be done. That's the feeling anyway, It's actually not
Speaker 1: the total reality, but the feeling is death is the
Speaker 1: strongest boundary the world has to offer, you know, and
Speaker 1: it cannot be violated. It will not be violated. And
Speaker 1: so this feeling that that I tried so hard, you
Speaker 1: know that I that I did everything that I could
Speaker 1: to try to extend my mom's life. My sister did too.
Speaker 1: I did everything I could to try to extend my
Speaker 1: wife's life and I couldn't do it. Or then again,
Speaker 1: maybe I did do it. You know, we'll never know
Speaker 1: what the original what the real date was supposed to
Speaker 1: be or whatever. But that's the feeling, right that I
Speaker 1: tried and failed. And that's a perspective, you know, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a way of thinking. I know it's not
Speaker 1: wholly true, but it is how it feels.
Speaker 2: This is something that's so common I think for people,
Speaker 2: the say of failure, Yeah, right, that I did everything
Speaker 2: I could and it wasn't enough, and this is my fault, right,
Speaker 2: And I love I love how you frame that that
Speaker 2: this is a feeling and it's real and it's not
Speaker 2: the whole story. And I think what we tend to
Speaker 2: do when we hear somebody say I failed is talk
Speaker 2: them out of that failure.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I hate that it doesn't work. We talked
Speaker 1: out of my feelings period. And also it's disrespectful. It's like,
Speaker 1: I'm intelligent, I'm very clear, it's a feeling and not
Speaker 1: a fact. I know that, but nevertheless, it's what's happening.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what's happening. And I prefer to be met,
Speaker 1: and I think most people prefer to be met and
Speaker 1: agreed then persuaded out of it. And like you said,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work to be persuaded anyway.
Speaker 3: It doesn't.
Speaker 2: It's just it makes people feel misunderstood.
Speaker 1: Yes, right.
Speaker 2: And as a support person, as somebody who cares, that
Speaker 2: feels counterintuitive, right, Like, if you think that your job
Speaker 2: is to make somebody feel better, it basically then you
Speaker 2: were going to talk them out of their own truth
Speaker 2: and their own feelings. And that's ineffective.
Speaker 1: Think about that on a more global scale, Think about
Speaker 1: that in terms of strategy, in terms of narrative strategy.
Speaker 1: You know, if you as a left narrative strategist are saying,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of acknowledging the terror that folks are
Speaker 1: experiencing around gun violence, around crime, we're going to only
Speaker 1: talk about the systemic aspects of that. What you're really
Speaker 1: doing is trying to persuade people out of their grief,
Speaker 1: out of their fear, out of their out of their
Speaker 1: authentic emotions, and move them with that kind of persuasion.
Speaker 1: It doesn't, It doesn't. It's not effective, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not effective, and I think ultimately we just don't understand
Speaker 1: it grief, you know, we don't understand it, and it
Speaker 1: messes with our strategy. It messes with our relationships, you know,
Speaker 1: and it messes with us our inside. You know. Absolutely.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's get back to this honestly amazing conversation with
Speaker 4: Malchia da Vitch Cyrol.
Speaker 2: You bring up a really cool point here. You know,
Speaker 2: if we just focus on gun violence for a second,
Speaker 2: when a new public gun violence events very predictably irrupts,
Speaker 2: and you know, people who care about this issue are
Speaker 2: quick to jump on social media and be like, show
Speaker 2: the pictures, do this, do that, and like this is
Speaker 2: so important. We have to do something and make people understand.
Speaker 2: And I feel like another casualty in that are the
Speaker 2: people's whose kid was just shot, whose sister was just killed, Like, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: we jump to justice, and how will we change this
Speaker 2: and make it stop? I think we leapfrog over the
Speaker 2: intimate in those situations.
Speaker 1: What we're leapfrogging over is belonging, you know, And and
Speaker 1: the issue here is this, you know, honestly, there's a
Speaker 1: reason why in these moments, after the shooting of black
Speaker 1: folk in Buffalo at the supermarket, or you know, after
Speaker 1: after you know, the shooting in of Valde you know,
Speaker 1: of these beautiful children, or after the millions of people
Speaker 1: who died from COVID, you know that these very organic
Speaker 1: parent led or survivor led actions and organizations evolved. You know,
Speaker 1: you have these these parents now, you know, who are
Speaker 1: very vocal in social media, very vocal on the news,
Speaker 1: and yet there is a disconnect between them and social movements.
Speaker 1: We organize social movements, and I think the disconnect is
Speaker 1: a grief disconnect. You have these folks who are passionately responding,
Speaker 1: and some of them are very vocal about specific policy changes.
Speaker 1: They want to see something happen, you know, they want to,
Speaker 1: as part of their own healing, protect other children, other
Speaker 1: people from what has happened to their child or their
Speaker 1: loved one. But there's a reason why they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: involved in an organized social movement, because the movement is
Speaker 1: not prepared to pause and do the part that's about belonging,
Speaker 1: do the part that's about listening, and that's about building
Speaker 1: relationship and intimacy, that's about engaging in that collective grief process,
Speaker 1: or institutionalizing even a collective grief process into the organization.
Speaker 1: None of that is happening. What's happening is the policy fight,
Speaker 1: you know, and then then you shrink, diminish, and in
Speaker 1: my view, disrespect a complex, painful experience. You shrink it
Speaker 1: into a spokesperson a sound bite, and that is not
Speaker 1: respectful and it's not appropriate. But also it's bad strategy.
Speaker 1: It's bad narrative strategy, it's bad organizing strategy. And I
Speaker 1: think we can do better, and we would do better
Speaker 1: if organizationally, we had new ways to embody grief as
Speaker 1: leaders and as institutions.
Speaker 2: This is part of your your radical loss project. Right
Speaker 2: What you're talking about, what you're describing right now, is
Speaker 2: there's the project is about giving activists and movement organizations
Speaker 2: what we need to catalyze grief for change. That's the
Speaker 2: work that you're doing to mobilize what you just described, right,
Speaker 2: like bringing grief and belonging and finding new ways to
Speaker 2: acknowledge that grief as a way to power change instead
Speaker 2: of the leap to a spokesperson that we see.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Fascinated by this, and I love you and your work
Speaker 2: so much and I don't know nearly enough about it
Speaker 2: what I hear you saying or the way that I
Speaker 2: understand that. In my head, the image I have is
Speaker 2: like you're putting the wheels on the bus, right, Like
Speaker 2: we started out talking like I think in pictures, but this, like,
Speaker 2: if we want the world that we long for to
Speaker 2: come into being, we have to find a way to
Speaker 2: grieve together strategically and humanly.
Speaker 1: I think it boils down to this, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So either as a people we lean into the truth
Speaker 1: of our lost and we lean into grief together. Either
Speaker 1: we do that, and what we get from that is
Speaker 1: we get true citizenship, we get a new social contract,
Speaker 1: we get new ways of being a community, We get
Speaker 1: people who if you acknowledge loss, then You're going to
Speaker 1: think about the criminal justice system differently. If you acknowledge loss,
Speaker 1: you're going to think about the foster care system differently.
Speaker 1: If you acknowledge loss, well, you're going to actually think
Speaker 1: about the south and reparations differently. You know, like it
Speaker 1: changes your entire worldview to honestly and profoundly and authentically
Speaker 1: acknowledge loss and be in a grief process. Grief is
Speaker 1: a political process. Grief is inherently about our ability to
Speaker 1: govern ourselves. You know, we can only govern ourselves who
Speaker 1: we're rooted in reality, in the truth, and loss is
Speaker 1: the truth of the world. And so or or we
Speaker 1: can go a different direction. We can go the direction
Speaker 1: that the right has gone in this country, which is
Speaker 1: that we erect monuments to maintain a fixed focus on
Speaker 1: the past. We want to hold on to the way
Speaker 1: things used to be. We want to hold on to
Speaker 1: the status quo of power relations. Because we refuse to
Speaker 1: engage with loss, We reject loss as a part of life.
Speaker 1: We maintain privilege as a protection against loss, and our
Speaker 1: whole racial hierarchy and dynamic is a fight between producing
Speaker 1: loss for some and protecting from loss for others. And
Speaker 1: so I think that if we could actually understand grief differently,
Speaker 1: if we could learn to grieve differently. It's not just
Speaker 1: about our personal healing and well being. We're talking about
Speaker 1: the transformation and healing of a nation, of a world,
Speaker 1: the transition of power relations We're talking about new ways
Speaker 1: of understanding history. In fact, book bannings are all about
Speaker 1: ignoring grief. They're all about saying, I don't want you
Speaker 1: to I don't want to think about that. That's a
Speaker 1: denial of grief, is what that is. I don't want
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that I or any when in my ancestry
Speaker 1: participated in the taking of life, the destroying of life.
Speaker 1: There is a denial of grief. And so this is
Speaker 1: a more spiritual journey, but it is also a political journey.
Speaker 1: And so I just that's kind of like my work
Speaker 1: is about understanding that relationship. It's about then transitioning that
Speaker 1: understanding into new ways of organizing, new forms of organization,
Speaker 1: new strategies. As we confront what is a growing emerging
Speaker 1: fascism here in the United States and around the world,
Speaker 1: we are set for extreme loss of life. We are
Speaker 1: going to see extreme loss of life if we don't
Speaker 1: understand grief as a part of our changed strategy. We
Speaker 1: will not be ready. We will not be ready. And
Speaker 1: the kind of governing systems that emerge during extreme loss
Speaker 1: of life can either be radically focused on living. There
Speaker 1: will be living, after all, or they can be radically
Speaker 1: focused on denying that living and denying that grief, and
Speaker 1: that is fascism. So those are our choices, and grief
Speaker 1: is right at the is the pivot point.
Speaker 2: I need a second because I don't know if you
Speaker 2: noticed it, and certainly in the recording no one can tell.
Speaker 2: But this is life saving to me. That the way
Speaker 2: that I view the world is like grief is that
Speaker 2: pivot point. Right, Grief is that Rosetta stone that unlocks
Speaker 2: the beautiful world and the just worlds, and refusing to
Speaker 2: feel with each other creates the violent, disconnected world. And
Speaker 2: it's it's interesting, like I'm preparing for another conversation later
Speaker 2: today and this idea that we're recording, this conversation during
Speaker 2: Pride Month, and the hatred against the queer community and
Speaker 2: the trans community, especially queer people of color. It's like
Speaker 2: you see yourself reflected in someone and you hate that
Speaker 2: reflection and it causes emotions. It causes sensations, it causes feelings,
Speaker 2: and because we don't have a structure within which to
Speaker 2: be tender to ourselves, within which to listen to those
Speaker 2: swirling emotions, we otherize them. Right. We destroy the thing
Speaker 2: that makes us feel discomfort in our own beings, and
Speaker 2: we're like so unaware of the mirror of the world
Speaker 2: and so ill equipped to greet our our own stew
Speaker 2: of emotions with kindness and tenderness and curiosity that it's
Speaker 2: like the only option we've made available to us is
Speaker 2: to destroy that which makes us feel it. That's right,
Speaker 2: And we don't have those conversations, right. I think that
Speaker 2: sometimes we say, like, oh, you know, if you're so
Speaker 2: angry at this queer person, you're a closet queer person. Like, okay,
Speaker 2: that may be accurate, but it's also like assaultive language.
Speaker 3: How do we even begin to build collective structures for
Speaker 3: engaging with grief our own and the grief of the
Speaker 3: world in a way that furthers the world that we
Speaker 3: long for?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think ultimately the organizing strategy is about
Speaker 1: engaging with people at the point of pain, and many
Speaker 1: people who believe in justice and who seek a more
Speaker 1: just future tend to engage more at the point of
Speaker 1: promise and like, this is what could be and we
Speaker 1: believe in that vision. And that's beautiful and I love that,
Speaker 1: you know, and people do need alternatives and we do
Speaker 1: need to offer new ways of seeing the world. But
Speaker 1: you know, people go to church, they go to the doctor,
Speaker 1: they go to these opioid clinics, they go to twelve
Speaker 1: step programs. People go to places certain places because they
Speaker 1: are in pain, and it is at those places that
Speaker 1: the right shows up. In fact, after a natural disaster,
Speaker 1: you know, there are many cities and towns across this
Speaker 1: country when people are reeling from tremendous loss of life.
Speaker 1: They have no water, they have no electricity. It is
Speaker 1: right wing militias that are driving around in trucks to
Speaker 1: deliver gas, to deliver water. Because there is something that
Speaker 1: is understood about strategy, which is, you know, in these
Speaker 1: moments of breakdown, this is when you can reorganize the world.
Speaker 1: And grief loss, I'll say, is a moment of breakdown
Speaker 1: when you lose someone, when your reality breaks because someone
Speaker 1: who was in your life no longer is, they're not
Speaker 1: in the world, they're gone. Reality breaks. There's a somatic
Speaker 1: meltdown almost right that you go through you are ripe
Speaker 1: or human reorganization, yes, and either you can be reorganized
Speaker 1: by your own hopes, your own dreams. You can be
Speaker 1: reorganized by meaning that comes from a movement that is
Speaker 1: about your greatest good you know, that is about belonging,
Speaker 1: that is about your safety, that is about your dignity.
Speaker 1: Or you can be reorganized by profit. You can be
Speaker 1: reorganized by privilege, You can be reorganized by rage. Organizing
Speaker 1: at the point of pain means that you are going
Speaker 1: to be standing in the suffering and being part of
Speaker 1: the reorganization whatever that looks like. You know, for me,
Speaker 1: that is something that I that I believe we find
Speaker 1: it difficult to do. You know, progressive movements have not
Speaker 1: always found that easy to do. But I think that's
Speaker 1: why doctor King went from city to city. Why you
Speaker 1: know when he was assassinated, he was going to be
Speaker 1: organizing with the garbage strike, because you go to organize
Speaker 1: at the point of pain and engage and build the
Speaker 1: meaning at that point, right, And and that's why you know,
Speaker 1: who wrote that book about the role of meaning, I
Speaker 1: don't remember who wrote that book, but about yeah, about
Speaker 1: the role of meaning grief, and that to me is
Speaker 1: something that as an organizer I have to understand and
Speaker 1: we've done that to some degree. You know, every time
Speaker 1: a black person is killed by the police, there is
Speaker 1: a set of people that goes to that city, you know,
Speaker 1: that sits with those parents, that engages you know. But
Speaker 1: have we built a movement of grief parents. No, we haven't,
Speaker 1: And there's consequences to that. We've seen those parents picked
Speaker 1: off move to the right. We've seen how influx of
Speaker 1: resources can you know, create harm and dissonance amongst bereeved peoples.
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm saying is the right knows full
Speaker 1: well that grief is a terrain for organizing, that grief
Speaker 1: is a terrain for strategy. The question is do we
Speaker 1: know it? Do we know it? Does everybody else? Because
Speaker 1: if we knew it, I think we could use what
Speaker 1: we know to even break down the partisan the part
Speaker 1: of and barriers. You know, everybody grieves, we all face loss.
Speaker 1: The question is what is our organized response to it.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to figure out. A lot of
Speaker 1: my work is experimentation, some of it is responsive. I
Speaker 1: run a grief group for activists, but it's relationship based,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. It's not just like anybody come
Speaker 1: in there, you know, you know, you have to ask
Speaker 1: some love, love, security so that people can be have
Speaker 1: their full range of emotions. You know. I run something
Speaker 1: on Sundays called Pandemic Joy. It's like church, but it's
Speaker 1: not church, you know, it's a secular We sing, we meditate,
Speaker 1: We hear from people in the community, all at the
Speaker 1: intersection of loss and leadership, joint justice, you know, grief
Speaker 1: and gratitude. I do events. I just do them. I'm
Speaker 1: actually I don't get paid to do any of that.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm starting to build resources for some future work,
Speaker 1: you know, some research and writing a book. But you know,
Speaker 1: up until this point, it's just odd just being I
Speaker 1: just do what I want to do because I think
Speaker 1: was needed is what I needed, and so I figured
Speaker 1: it is what somebody else needed to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's that human at the core. Right as I'm
Speaker 2: listening to you, I'm thinking, like this all sounds powerful
Speaker 2: and amazing and necessary, and it is sort of looping
Speaker 2: back to where we began our conversation. For me, it's
Speaker 2: like we can't do any of that until we learn
Speaker 2: to acknowledge the truth of somebody's grief without trying to
Speaker 2: cheer them up or take it away from them. So
Speaker 2: we go back to like acknowledgment as the core for me,
Speaker 2: and that like that tender little spot at the moment
Speaker 2: of dissolution, if you are not met with somebody or
Speaker 2: met with the skills to acknowledge the truth of your
Speaker 2: own experience without being cheered up or talked out of
Speaker 2: it or weaponized weaponizes maybe the wrong word here, but
Speaker 2: like weaponized in service of the movement, Like there are
Speaker 2: so many ways that that moment of loss and dissolution
Speaker 2: can be influenced, and if we can't start from the
Speaker 2: ground of everyone is sovereign in their own experience, and
Speaker 2: our role is not to make them stop feeling it,
Speaker 2: but to help them feel safe enough.
Speaker 1: To feel it.
Speaker 2: Like that is the work. The work isn't about erasing
Speaker 2: grief or using your grief as fuel. It's how do
Speaker 2: we come to this both intimate and universal experience and
Speaker 2: honor it in ourselves and honor it in each other.
Speaker 2: And it's only from that respect and acknowledgment that we
Speaker 2: can go in certain directions.
Speaker 1: It's true, but I want to be clear. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: grief is fuel, whether you try to make it that
Speaker 1: or not. It is governing you right one way or another.
Speaker 1: It's organizing how you understand the world. It's organizing what
Speaker 1: choices you make. The difference is when somebody tries to
Speaker 1: make it your fuel, you know, when somebody tries to
Speaker 1: come in and direct it for you, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not helpful, it's not healing in the backfires. But I'm
Speaker 1: really clear that every social movement known to man has
Speaker 1: been fueled by grief. You know, every social movement is
Speaker 1: a response to loss of some kind, whether it's on
Speaker 1: the side of justice or on the side of the
Speaker 1: status quo, and you know, profit and privilege, it is
Speaker 1: still a reaction to some kind of loss, realor pacy.
Speaker 1: And so we I think for us understanding that, understanding
Speaker 1: the role that that grief plays. To me, it's like this,
Speaker 1: either we move toward agency and action or we move
Speaker 1: toward alienation and apathy. But in any way you think
Speaker 1: about it, we definitely move. Grief moves us.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. That's a good clarification that all
Speaker 2: that grief is fuel in and of itself. And the
Speaker 2: difference is do other people tell you what to do
Speaker 2: with it, that's right. I mean this is like do
Speaker 2: other people tell you what to do with your body?
Speaker 2: Do other people tell you what to do with you
Speaker 2: that like nah manjo own damn business. But yeah, that
Speaker 2: that you know from the outside, especially you know in
Speaker 2: these sort of I'm going to use the word sensationalized
Speaker 2: death and that's not really the word that I want,
Speaker 2: but we'll roll with it. Like these very public deaths,
Speaker 2: let's put it that way, high profile, high profile. Thank
Speaker 2: you for that phrase. That's more accurate. Like that, those
Speaker 2: high profile deaths, like the way that we greet that is,
Speaker 2: make meaning out of it, do something about it, Start
Speaker 2: a movement, do a foundation, which you know, if you
Speaker 2: if your person was killed by a drunk driver, and
Speaker 2: a lot of the support you're going to get back
Speaker 2: is like join mothers against drunk driving, like advocate for this.
Speaker 2: And you're like, I can't manage to bathe myself. Can
Speaker 2: we talk about that instead of like, right, push me
Speaker 2: to jump to a movement. I think jumping to you
Speaker 2: a quote unquote movement is one of the ways that
Speaker 2: we bypass grief.
Speaker 1: Well, let me say this, this is how I think
Speaker 1: about it. But movements should actually be a place that
Speaker 1: comes to your house and cleans your house. You know.
Speaker 1: It should be a place that brings you some food.
Speaker 1: You know, it should be a place that tastes come
Speaker 1: take care of your kids when you are too broken
Speaker 1: to move about. It's not about not jumping to a movement.
Speaker 1: Is that movement should be different, you know, movement, movement.
Speaker 1: All the movement is is a community. All it is
Speaker 1: if you're doing it right, right, it's about belonging plus
Speaker 1: meaning that's it, you know, and then you move into action.
Speaker 1: The thing is when we missed the belonging part. And
Speaker 1: I hate when people talk about belonging because people be onesome, like, oh,
Speaker 1: we just all need to be love each other and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And I know that belonging is also
Speaker 1: about power. I don't want to get that twisted. But
Speaker 1: when you are trying to build power, you're trying to
Speaker 1: build power to prevent future loss, you know, mechanized loss.
Speaker 1: Loss that is the product of inequality, right, that is
Speaker 1: the point. That's what movements are for. They are to
Speaker 1: protect against and to prevent the kind of mass loss
Speaker 1: that comes from inequality. They are to build something that
Speaker 1: allows for that not to happen, and so they're necessary
Speaker 1: in the grieving process. It's necessary, but it's not first.
Speaker 1: The first thing is to be met with community. The
Speaker 1: first thing should be, you know, I think, to be
Speaker 1: held in whatever place you're in, and that is where
Speaker 1: we don't have infrastructure. Movements should have support groups where
Speaker 1: they are, you know. In fact, that's part of the
Speaker 1: difference between the Mother's Against Drunk Driving and you know
Speaker 1: a lot of the community organizing group says you join
Speaker 1: Mothers against Drunk Driving, you will get a support group.
Speaker 1: You join the you know, a lot of the fights
Speaker 1: against gun violence, you're not going to see that. And
Speaker 1: so like there's some interesting infrastructure that's just totally missing,
Speaker 1: you know, like I have not seen another specific support group.
Speaker 1: I've seen very few rather support groups for activists, you know,
Speaker 1: and I've seen very few places where activists can go
Speaker 1: and engage with their grief. There are some places where
Speaker 1: we are doing embodiment, which in some ways is about
Speaker 1: being connecting in with authentic emotion, of authentic emotional sorrow,
Speaker 1: authentic experience and breed. Folks who are in the Healing
Speaker 1: Justice movement, you know, have been offering us, you know,
Speaker 1: various ways of engaging embodied grief, but it still remains
Speaker 1: very individualized, you know. And how do we move that
Speaker 1: into collective process? How do we move from individual loss
Speaker 1: to individual grief, from individual grief to collective grief, from
Speaker 1: collective grief to public mourning, from public mourning to movement action.
Speaker 1: This is the process to me, you know, But we
Speaker 1: missed the whole first part, you know, we missed that.
Speaker 1: And that's what I hear you talked about that bypass
Speaker 1: is moving past the emotions, the strong emotions, to the
Speaker 1: action that doesn't work, But ignoring the action also doesn't work. Right,
Speaker 1: We need both. We need both in order for us
Speaker 1: to survive as a people. We need both. I healed,
Speaker 1: I continue to heal, and I don't even honestly believe
Speaker 1: in healing. Let me not use that word. I move
Speaker 1: toward living. Every time I run a group, every act
Speaker 1: of service for me helps me move toward living. But
Speaker 1: in those acts of service, I have to bring my
Speaker 1: wife with me. I have to bring my mom with me.
Speaker 1: You know. I spent a year after my wife died
Speaker 1: caring for my friend Siya, who is also suffering from
Speaker 1: metastatic cancer. And she died one year after my wife.
Speaker 1: Did you know I spent the months directly following my
Speaker 1: wife's death with partnering with my sister and her friends
Speaker 1: to care for our god sister, who also died just
Speaker 1: a few months after my wife died. All of these
Speaker 1: are young black women, and in that time frame, I mean,
Speaker 1: we lost so many people, none of them to COVID
Speaker 1: or very few of them to COVID, but we lost
Speaker 1: so many people. And the only way to survive that
Speaker 1: is to be in community. The only way to survive
Speaker 1: that is to do something, to feel like you can
Speaker 1: do something about it, to transform the conditions that produced it.
Speaker 1: So basically, I'm saying yes and yes, we need to
Speaker 1: be in that space of authentic emotion. We need to
Speaker 1: let people go through their process. We need to meet
Speaker 1: people where they at. We need to say, yeah, be sad,
Speaker 1: be everything that you are, and we need to meet
Speaker 1: them with an opportunity for them to move because stagnation
Speaker 1: that don't work either, You know that don't work either.
Speaker 1: So figuring out what we can offer folk that gives
Speaker 1: them a chance to connect to meaning as well as
Speaker 1: a chance to connect to authentic emotion. That's kind of
Speaker 1: how I engage with with that.
Speaker 2: I have so many things I want to talk about
Speaker 2: with you, but I also want to be conscious of
Speaker 2: our time. And you've kind of answered my closing question
Speaker 2: in the course of our entire time together. But I'm
Speaker 2: going to ask you anyway because it's specific through your
Speaker 2: whole life and through the inheritance of your mom and
Speaker 2: everything that you've been through, Like you keep your eyes
Speaker 2: and your heart open to things that, as we've talked
Speaker 2: about in our time together, a lot of people like
Speaker 2: to pretend don't exist, right because it hurts too much.
Speaker 2: Knowing what you know and living what you live the
Speaker 2: things that you keep your eyes and your heart and
Speaker 2: your hands in. What does hope look like for you?
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's funny because you know, my mom
Speaker 1: named to be Malkiya Amala and that means queen of Hope.
Speaker 1: Now I always say she got the gender wrong, but
Speaker 1: she got the hope part right for me. You know,
Speaker 1: we started this conversation about guilt, about this feeling that
Speaker 1: nothing can be done. Hope for me is the understanding
Speaker 1: that not only can something always be done, something is
Speaker 1: always being done. It is always being done. And I
Speaker 1: just recently shared with folks that I love to look
Speaker 1: at the moon. And my wife loved the moon. She
Speaker 1: love to walk in the moon and bathe in the
Speaker 1: moon light. And when I look at the moon, and
Speaker 1: I go out to the ocean every full moon with
Speaker 1: some of my friends and we drum and we sing.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons that I do that is
Speaker 1: because the moon reminds me that life outlives me. And
Speaker 1: that is what hope. Feels like that the understanding that
Speaker 1: life will outlive me, and that feels good. Actually, you know,
Speaker 1: it feels good to know both that what I do
Speaker 1: in this time is significant and also insignificant both, and
Speaker 1: that feels good to me. That feels like it's not
Speaker 1: so important that I can, you know, destroy anything, but
Speaker 1: it's important enough that I can't create something. I can
Speaker 1: leave a mark, and so can we all. My mom
Speaker 1: always used to tell us like something about believing in
Speaker 1: the people. When you ask her what her religion was,
Speaker 1: she was saying, my religion is the people. For a
Speaker 1: long time, I didn't understand what that meant, but now
Speaker 1: I do. You know, I don't care necessarily where I live,
Speaker 1: and I don't care what issue I work on I
Speaker 1: care about the people. That's where my hope lives is.
Speaker 1: The is in the ongoing nature of humanity, and I
Speaker 1: understand I'm a humanist, but I also understand right. Power
Speaker 1: is real, privilege is real, hierarchy is real, and we
Speaker 1: suffer under those conditions. But at the end of it,
Speaker 1: or at the beginning of it, however you want to
Speaker 1: think about it, I believe in people, and that's where
Speaker 1: my hope lives. And that's what I think about in
Speaker 1: terms of in terms of hope, believing in each other,
Speaker 1: believing that that we have something unique and beautiful to
Speaker 1: offer that death can't take away. You know, our love
Speaker 1: survives us, and that's what I believe in.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here. We didn't get
Speaker 2: to talk about the Media Justice Center, but we'll link
Speaker 2: to that in the show notes. Is there anywhere else
Speaker 2: people should look for you or anything else you want
Speaker 2: them to know about where to find you.
Speaker 1: You've mentioned Center for Media Justice, so you can find
Speaker 1: more about that work at Media Justice dot org. I
Speaker 1: am building a website eventually you'll find me at Radical
Speaker 1: Loss dot org. But I'm on Twitter everywhere on social media.
Speaker 1: I'm culture Jedi. You can find me. Find me there
Speaker 1: and look for my book, you know, look for my books.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait for your book. I will do my
Speaker 2: best to not pester you Everay couple of weeks like
Speaker 2: when's your pub date? When can I get it? Can
Speaker 2: I get an advest Reader copy? When is it coming?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yeah, thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: me such a play. I'm so thrilled.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody, stay tuned for your questions to carry
Speaker 2: with you. We'll be right back after this break and
Speaker 2: I spend more time talking with Makiya off camera.
Speaker 1: Be right back.
Speaker 2: Each week. I leave you with some questions to carry
Speaker 2: with you until we meet again. This episode, friends, I mean,
Speaker 2: what didn't I carry with me from this episode? Everything
Speaker 2: got to me. Everything was medicine. I wonder if it
Speaker 2: unlocked a lot of things for some of you too.
Speaker 2: You know, I always want to hear how you feel,
Speaker 2: what you think about every episode, but for this one
Speaker 2: in particular, I really want to know what your AHA
Speaker 2: moments were? Did you like fill an entire notebook? What
Speaker 2: happened for you during this conversation? I really want to know.
Speaker 2: And if you're involved in some kind of social change movement,
Speaker 2: would you let me know what it is and let
Speaker 2: me know what you took from the knowledge and the
Speaker 2: wisdom that Max shared with us. If you're grieving a
Speaker 2: personal loss, were you as moved by max love for
Speaker 2: their wife as I was? I mean, the entire conversation
Speaker 2: is something that I am going to carry with me
Speaker 2: for my whole life. How about you? What stuck with
Speaker 2: you in this conversation. Everybody's going to take something different
Speaker 2: from today's show, but I do hope you've found something
Speaker 2: to hold on too. If you want to tell me
Speaker 2: how today's show felt for you, or you have thoughts
Speaker 2: on what we covered, let me know. Tag at Refuge
Speaker 2: and Grief on all the social platforms so I can
Speaker 2: hear how this conversation affected you. You can also leave
Speaker 2: a review for a show That is a fantastic way
Speaker 2: to share your thoughts with me and to encourage others
Speaker 2: to listen. So reviews a win win for everybody. Follow
Speaker 2: the show at It's Okay Pod on TikTok and Refuge
Speaker 2: and Grief everywhere else. To see video clips from the show,
Speaker 2: use the hashtag It's Okay pod on all the platforms,
Speaker 2: so not only I can find you, but others can too.
Speaker 2: None of us are entirely okay, and it's time we
Speaker 2: start talking about that together. Yeah, it's okay that you're
Speaker 2: not okay. You're in good company. That's it for this week.
Speaker 2: Remember to subscribe to the show, leave a review for
Speaker 2: the show please, and share the show with everybody you know.
Speaker 2: Coming up next week. Gina Rossero, author of Horse Barbie,
Speaker 2: follow It's Okay that You're not Okay on all of
Speaker 2: your favorite podcast platforms so you do not miss an episode.
Speaker 2: Want more on these topics, Look, grief is everywhere. As
Speaker 2: my dad says, daily life is full of everyday grief
Speaker 2: that we don't call grief. Learning how to talk about
Speaker 2: all that without cliches or platitudes or simplistic dismissive statements
Speaker 2: is an important skill for everyone. Whether you're trying to
Speaker 2: support a friend going through a hard time, or you
Speaker 2: work in the helping professions, or you work in any
Speaker 2: kind of social change movement. Get help to have better
Speaker 2: conversations about grief with trainings, professional resources, and my best
Speaker 2: selling book, It's Okay that You're Not Okay, plus the
Speaker 2: Guided Journal for Grief at Megandivine dot Co. It's Okay
Speaker 2: that You're not Okay. The podcast is written and produced
Speaker 2: by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown, co
Speaker 2: produced by Elizabeth Fouzio, logistical and social media support from Micah,
Speaker 2: Post production and editing by the ever patient Houston Tilly.
Speaker 2: Music provided by Wave Crush and background noise provided by
Speaker 2: the perfectly timed recycling truck