Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeart Radio in
Speaker 1: partnership with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 1: This is a mini pod and we're off the freaking
Speaker 1: rails because Andrew wants to blow his nose in the
Speaker 1: mic and then tells us that he can't wait to
Speaker 1: get around us to fart, So welcome.
Speaker 3: Home, literally, ma'am. Context nasty right now is out of context.
Speaker 4: I can't wait to get around you in fart.
Speaker 3: Dinner table.
Speaker 4: I'm at the dinner table now.
Speaker 1: I just can't give up being recorded, save up in
Speaker 1: a damn podcast.
Speaker 4: Just for you. But you know what, we're gonna get
Speaker 4: back to. We're gonna get car and we are.
Speaker 1: On purpose and we still have the resident trollers. That's
Speaker 1: his name is Andrew Gillim. Y'all don't know that because
Speaker 1: he gets to be caught.
Speaker 3: How are you you know? And whatever else he does.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, this is the real Andrew Gillim trying to wait
Speaker 1: to fart.
Speaker 5: What I'm saying the questions the record, I was supporting
Speaker 5: my brother's no question, Please, what's up?
Speaker 2: Native Land powd is BJ Brunius from New Orleans, Louisiana
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna tell you I was triggered by this conversation.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you why, because I don't know
Speaker 2: no black people who identify as gay before they identify
Speaker 2: as black, not one. Straight people are the ones who
Speaker 2: make a big deal out of who we go to
Speaker 2: bed with. So the idea that we would identify first
Speaker 2: with who we sleeping with when who were sleeping with
Speaker 2: is is how y'all high the lens through with y'all
Speaker 2: view us, not the lens through what we view ourselves.
Speaker 2: So we always black first. I got a problem with
Speaker 2: black people taking on the views of white folk. White
Speaker 2: folk view marginalized communities gaining aspects of equality as a
Speaker 2: zero sum game, meaning that they got to lose something
Speaker 2: in order for other people to gain. How did we
Speaker 2: get to a place where black people feel the exact
Speaker 2: same way about gay people, like for gay people to
Speaker 2: gain rights means that black people lost something. Andrew, make
Speaker 2: that make sense to me because I don't get it
Speaker 2: as a black man.
Speaker 6: You first, Yeah, I don't know why he name checked me,
Speaker 6: because I definitely am not of that opinion. In fact,
Speaker 6: I pointed that out in our show, which was the
Speaker 6: reason why it's easy to talk about the immigrant or
Speaker 6: the LGBTQ identified person or the black person is the
Speaker 6: other rising is the blaming. It is because of this
Speaker 6: zero sum belief that that white folks tend to. Frankly,
Speaker 6: that belief system is penetrated. I think society period. In
Speaker 6: order for you, for you to gain, I have to lose.
Speaker 6: And the way I spoke about it was it's the
Speaker 6: same way I.
Speaker 4: Believe power works.
Speaker 6: The more power you share, the more you get that
Speaker 6: it is not a limited resource, that it's an unlimited resource.
Speaker 4: But this idea.
Speaker 7: Of of of of seeing any other group as a
Speaker 7: as equivalent to my loss of something, their existence being
Speaker 7: a loss of something, you know, taking away from me.
Speaker 6: I don't operate that way. I don't believe that way
Speaker 6: and I but I do know that it is a
Speaker 6: powerful instrument and politics when you can blame somebody else
Speaker 6: for whatever misery you may be experiencing. If it's joblessness,
Speaker 6: if it is a lack of access to resource, no
Speaker 6: no or low education or no access to educational opportunities,
Speaker 6: the other blame the other guy, Blame that woman, blame this.
Speaker 6: Even in the Congress this week, them deciding that they
Speaker 6: didn't want to extend the right of franchise for for
Speaker 6: proxy voting, largely for women. Right, it's going to be
Speaker 6: the coupling and the crumbling of the entire establishment, the
Speaker 6: fact that women can take a few weeks after giving
Speaker 6: birth and vote remotely. So it is a backwards way
Speaker 6: of thinking. It is, however, a very powerful instrument and
Speaker 6: politics and in society to otherise and to blame others
Speaker 6: when you find yourself in.
Speaker 4: A tight spot. I I'm sorry, please, Yeah, you got.
Speaker 3: It A sorry bad.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, really quick, I am
Speaker 1: so sorry. I have been calling him Brunius. His name
Speaker 1: is BJ Brunius. I got it right now, BJ Brunius.
Speaker 1: But Ellie, you have the floor. I'm gonna get to
Speaker 1: BJ my cousin from Louisiana clearly in a moment.
Speaker 5: So Andrew, I completely agree with you. I can completely
Speaker 5: agree with BJ Brunius. It's not a zero sum game.
Speaker 5: I am all about rising tie lifts all boats. But
Speaker 5: I wanted to stay on because I wanted to turn
Speaker 5: the question around on him a little bit. And I
Speaker 5: want to ask Brunius. I want to ask PJ. Why
Speaker 5: is it that everybody hates us because one of the
Speaker 5: things that I have learned painfully throughout my experience is,
Speaker 5: ain't nobody want to be black? Ain't nobody want to
Speaker 5: associate with us? Ain't nobody want to lock hands with
Speaker 5: us as we march forward? And you see it all
Speaker 5: the time that the minute this country grants non blackness
Speaker 5: to any other group, they take it. They take it
Speaker 5: with both hands. The minute you tell a Mexican or
Speaker 5: a Guatemalan, or a gay person or a trans person,
Speaker 5: then I guess what, you don't have to be treated
Speaker 5: like those black folks. They're like, oh, yes, please, I
Speaker 5: never was really that black anyway. They will abandon us
Speaker 5: at the drop of a hat, and it is painful.
Speaker 5: I've seen Egyptians. I've seen Egyptians be like, well, we
Speaker 5: ain't black. I don't see why you're calling us. That's
Speaker 5: just that's just wrong. We're not be associated with them negroes.
Speaker 5: And they don't say it as nice as I just did,
Speaker 5: right and and and it's hurtful to me because I
Speaker 5: feel like the thing in this country, the way that
Speaker 5: you prove that you're white in this country is to
Speaker 5: shit on black people. That is, that is always to
Speaker 5: use a video game term that is always the final boss.
Speaker 5: That is always the final challenge to prove that you
Speaker 5: get to that you deserve to be treated like a
Speaker 5: white man in this country crap on some black folks,
Speaker 5: and so I bring that up. I turn that question
Speaker 5: around just to say that while I completely agree with
Speaker 5: everything Andrew just said, I completely agree that it's not
Speaker 5: a zero sum game, that it's that is a trick
Speaker 5: done by the white man to try to keep everybody
Speaker 5: divided and divisive. I will also say that some of
Speaker 5: that I think feeling in the community that we have
Speaker 5: to look out for us and it is a zero
Speaker 5: sum game, is because we know that the minute the
Speaker 5: white man gives you the gives you the star, y'all
Speaker 5: are going to abandon us. And that is that is painful,
Speaker 5: and that is something that our community is always trying
Speaker 5: to work around and protect protect ourselves from the inevitable
Speaker 5: knife that is coming for our next No.
Speaker 1: I just I was gonna say, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that is so powerful to me here is
Speaker 1: him talking about this zero sum because I did hear
Speaker 1: a lot of that throughout the election.
Speaker 3: Season, and I love this and.
Speaker 1: Combining this with some of the things that David Johnson
Speaker 1: has shared, who's a good friend of ours who runs
Speaker 1: the National Black Justice Coalition. He's like, we have never
Speaker 1: said we're anything but black first, even with this data.
Speaker 1: They they've got a commission with Terrence who joined us
Speaker 1: last week. But I'm black first is a thing that
Speaker 1: I've always said, because people are like, well, aren't you
Speaker 1: one first? I'm like, I lead with my black I
Speaker 1: don't know how not to do that. I don't know
Speaker 1: a single black person tied to the culture, tied to
Speaker 1: our experience who doesn't. And so I really am My
Speaker 1: heart goes out to what BJ is saying, because I
Speaker 1: do think that we are telling people in our families,
Speaker 1: people in our friend circles, who are in the LGBTQIA community,
Speaker 1: that you have to choose your blackness first.
Speaker 3: In this moment.
Speaker 1: And they're like, we know we're doing that, so why
Speaker 1: are you saying that to me? And I wonder if
Speaker 1: there is a different approach that we could and should
Speaker 1: be using in this moment. I think my approach has
Speaker 1: been that for survival purposes, we don't need to be
Speaker 1: fragmenting off on micro agendas and various separatists agendas, particularly
Speaker 1: when we're not all. We're not all under the umbrella
Speaker 1: as it is, And I don't know a great way
Speaker 1: to put that other than it has to be an
Speaker 1: overall black agenda first, and I think, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, I hear BJ's pushback on that, which is
Speaker 1: an overall black agenda first should not.
Speaker 3: Be at the expense of what I need to survive.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And I'm.
Speaker 1: Trying to figure out how we thread that needle because
Speaker 1: I'm not asking that, at least not overtly, but I
Speaker 1: can see how the way that I'm framing it may
Speaker 1: seem that way.
Speaker 3: So that's not my intention. Yeah, I shall hear what
Speaker 3: your response is, No.
Speaker 4: I hear.
Speaker 6: So where you're getting at is so rich, and I
Speaker 6: feel that tension at a really deep level. And I
Speaker 6: also feel very much what the brother is saying, because
Speaker 6: he's saying, if not only do they get to see
Speaker 6: my blackness first, but then they see my identity as
Speaker 6: an LGBTQ person, and that makes if you get the flu,
Speaker 6: if we get in the flu as black folks, then
Speaker 6: what do I have? I got corona plus plus long
Speaker 6: syndrome plus plus plus. The threat is just that much greater,
Speaker 6: that much deeper. So I hear that as well. And
Speaker 6: what I would say in response to this, with the
Speaker 6: underlying assumption, which is is that LGBTQ folks who are
Speaker 6: black have separated themselves off jump by saying I'm gay,
Speaker 6: I'm by first, and then I'm black. That's not how
Speaker 6: it happened in the election. What happened in the election
Speaker 6: is political campaigns and political instruments decided to single out groups.
Speaker 6: Whether it was the Harris campaign saying this is what
Speaker 6: we're going to do for this group of people, or
Speaker 6: whether it was the Trump folks saying, these people are
Speaker 6: coming for our babies, our kids, our boys, and our
Speaker 6: girls in our sports. And so they created a constituency,
Speaker 6: this straw man constituency in some cases certainly on the right,
Speaker 6: that then became the ire of a lot of folks
Speaker 6: because they're saying, you know, times given.
Speaker 4: You a special agenda, but then what about us?
Speaker 6: And I'm so sick of all of these communities getting
Speaker 6: precedents over us, because there's best show and that isn't
Speaker 6: something that as I hear, you know, BJ he's saying
Speaker 6: I never did that, and he could be right, but
Speaker 6: society and the greater politic that billions of dollars went
Speaker 6: into absolutely created these constituencies, whether it was an affirmative
Speaker 6: agenda or a negative agenda, and it caused a lot
Speaker 6: of folks in our community to react by saying, I
Speaker 6: don't even know about this, but she wants.
Speaker 4: To give rights to this group in this group, in
Speaker 4: this Can.
Speaker 1: He be saying, Tiffy, I know I want to hear you,
Speaker 1: but answer this. Why you answering what you're gonna say?
Speaker 1: But can you do you think that he could be saying,
Speaker 1: even with an l g b t Q I A
Speaker 1: focused agenda, we still left out of that too.
Speaker 3: Could he be saying that.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's possible too, that's why we need to have
Speaker 6: come on the show invitation.
Speaker 8: Well, you know, I would say this first of all,
Speaker 8: was leading with blackness. We don't even have a choice.
Speaker 8: You know, when when you see me coming, you don't
Speaker 8: see a woman coming, you see a black woman coming.
Speaker 8: We particularly as black women, and I think for all
Speaker 8: you know, even people who are in the LGBTQ community,
Speaker 8: a lot of intersectionality in our community, we lead with
Speaker 8: our blackness. I think Gary said it so beautifully. Gary Chambers,
Speaker 8: activist and former politician out of uh, Louisiana. He said
Speaker 8: it so beautifully. Before my mom and daddy knew I
Speaker 8: was a boy, they knew I was black. And so
Speaker 8: I think it's really challenging to consider anything else. And
Speaker 8: so when we look at for these subgroups, the intersectionality
Speaker 8: of it, when we look at the space of feminism.
Speaker 8: You know, Betty fore Dan was was the face to society.
Speaker 8: Gloria Steinem was the face of society, not shirlea Chism,
Speaker 8: not Audrey Lord, not Bell Hooks, like not any of
Speaker 8: our leaders elevated because with feminism and whiteness, they will
Speaker 8: most likely choose race over gender, right, And so your point, Elie,
Speaker 8: even when you look into other communities. I've done organizing
Speaker 8: work with all communities of color, and there are anti
Speaker 8: black movements in every community of color, in the Asian American,
Speaker 8: Pacific Islander movement, in the Latino or community, in the
Speaker 8: Latino community, in the Indigenous community.
Speaker 3: It just exists.
Speaker 8: And so I want to at least acknowledge what VJ
Speaker 8: is saying, because the truth is, we have to acknowledge, yes,
Speaker 8: we are not Like I never met no group of
Speaker 8: black folks who are organizing against the gay community, who
Speaker 8: are organizing against the trans community. That is something that
Speaker 8: exists within white people who have been manipulated by somebody
Speaker 8: who really they just want to seize power. But we
Speaker 8: do have to acknowledge, though we may not be a
Speaker 8: part of that organizing, there are people in our community
Speaker 8: who have spoken ill of gay people. There are people
Speaker 8: in our community with very big microphones who have spoken
Speaker 8: ill of the trans community, and they need to be
Speaker 8: called out. And because otherwise we're gaslighting this man by.
Speaker 3: Saying, what what do you mean?
Speaker 8: Like, No, of course there are people in our community.
Speaker 8: I've set in churches where the preacher is there and
Speaker 8: half the choir is gay, half my section is gay,
Speaker 8: and they're talking about, you know, blasphemy and you know,
Speaker 8: say that, you say you were born that way, be
Speaker 8: born again, things that are so incredibly disrespectful to people.
Speaker 8: And so I don't know how we get past that.
Speaker 8: But to me, that is moving. How colonizers move to
Speaker 8: his point, that is and I think we A larger
Speaker 8: question might be do we have that ability to move
Speaker 8: like they move? And I've seen us move that way.
Speaker 3: I think we can.
Speaker 8: I don't want to take away from the LGBT movement,
Speaker 8: but I have seen and I have been guilty of this.
Speaker 8: But like when you go to another country and the
Speaker 8: service ain't fast enough for you, and you're like, but
Speaker 8: I'm here and I need you to move faster. That
Speaker 8: is a colonizer move. Like you need to adjust to
Speaker 8: the culture here. When you go someplace outside of a
Speaker 8: marreor and I don't like the music being play. Everybody
Speaker 8: else is fine, I don't like the music me play.
Speaker 8: That is a colonizer move. You have to adjust to
Speaker 8: us here. And I think about those things in Ghana,
Speaker 8: where there are very anti LGBTQ laws on the books,
Speaker 8: It's like, can we actually be the gentrifiers? Can we
Speaker 8: be the colonizers?
Speaker 3: And I think in.
Speaker 8: All areas where we do that, we have to challenge
Speaker 8: ourselves to call it out within our community when we
Speaker 8: see it from friends or foes alike, and not embody
Speaker 8: those those characteristics ourselves, which I you know, I can certainly,
Speaker 8: you know, challenge myself to do those things better. Well.
Speaker 5: One of the things that I try to do in
Speaker 5: our community when I hear some of this anti LGBTQ pushback,
Speaker 5: when I hear some of this zero sum game pushback,
Speaker 5: is that I always ask people, if I'm in the
Speaker 5: shop or whatever, write me the law, right me, the
Speaker 5: law that you think that we can have that lifts
Speaker 5: us up but excludes them.
Speaker 4: Write it.
Speaker 5: I will tell you if that's going to work out
Speaker 5: for you. Right, The easiest, simple, and most forward thinking
Speaker 5: thing to do from a legal standpoint is equal protection
Speaker 5: under the law. And every time you deviate from that
Speaker 5: for whatever personal, parochial, religious conservative reasons, every time you
Speaker 5: deviate from equal protection under the law, black people get
Speaker 5: fucked every single time. So I don't care how much
Speaker 5: you might hate these people, or disagree with these people,
Speaker 5: or disagree with that lifestyle or whatever. But if you're
Speaker 5: giving me a law that you want past, and that
Speaker 5: law does not guarantee equal protection under it for all people,
Speaker 5: regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, gender at birth,
Speaker 5: or whatever the hell else you want to throw in there,
Speaker 5: if that law is not equally applied to everybody, I
Speaker 5: promise you that law will be used to hurt your heteronormative, heterosexual,
Speaker 5: gun totin red, blood eaten black man. I promise you.
Speaker 5: If it's not equal, it will be used against us
Speaker 5: in some way.
Speaker 9: And so that's one of my big ways. That's a
Speaker 9: norse star. I mean to think about what would the
Speaker 9: law be, and then we find ourselves where Tiffany was going,
Speaker 9: which is in this spirit of a colonizer, and I
Speaker 9: always talk about it in the spirit of power that
Speaker 9: you know, we were talking about black law enforcement officers.
Speaker 9: So we have encountered who move and operate, you know,
Speaker 9: in very violent ways toward.
Speaker 6: People in our community. And I'm saying, power does that.
Speaker 6: When you adopt, you know, what you believe is the
Speaker 6: is the the tools of the people in power. Then
Speaker 6: you stop moving like we move, and you start moving
Speaker 6: more adjacent to how they move because you think that's
Speaker 6: how you keep maintaining and then grow and build power.
Speaker 5: It was like, that's a black cop, Daddy. I was like, no,
Speaker 5: those could be the worst.
Speaker 6: Hello, Hello, And I don't want to pick on cops,
Speaker 6: but but really it is across the board, this mentality. Mentality,
Speaker 6: whether it's going to a different country, a different type
Speaker 6: of establishment, a different side of town, where you show
Speaker 6: up and you think, because of your presence, it's supposed
Speaker 6: to necessitate a different level of treatment, where something is
Speaker 6: wrong with this space. The space is wrong because it
Speaker 6: isn't catering to what my need is. When we began
Speaker 6: this conversation, I wasn't trying. I wasn't speaking at what
Speaker 6: the greater larger society is as it relates to how
Speaker 6: black folks treat other lgbt QIA folks. My perspective was
Speaker 6: just from the podcast we did last week in the
Speaker 6: political terms, in which we were speaking around this whether
Speaker 6: I lead versus as gay or if I lead versus black.
Speaker 6: I know that's not what we were trying to go
Speaker 6: in the direction of, but I will tell you this much,
Speaker 6: I have stopped really caring about other people's opinions of me,
Speaker 6: by and large, because most people's opinions of others is
Speaker 6: really fueled by their own an individual and discrete experiences
Speaker 6: that you're just a foil for. And so it's clear
Speaker 6: that other people's allowance and acceptance and you know, the
Speaker 6: subscription to me or what I believe or how I
Speaker 6: move in the world is none of my business.
Speaker 4: That's between them and their situations. And what we could.
Speaker 6: All do is I think we're Elliott really you know,
Speaker 6: into his point, which was we ought to be all
Speaker 6: fighting for a legal system, a societal system where we
Speaker 6: are not discriminating against people based off of these you know,
Speaker 6: uh factors that if you were, if you were being
Speaker 6: your most generous self to your directed at your your
Speaker 6: opposite self, treat me like you want to treat that
Speaker 6: that person with that generous spirit, and how you want
Speaker 6: to be treated on the opposite end. And unfortunately, too
Speaker 6: many of us divorce ourselves from that level of generosity
Speaker 6: and humanity because we stop seeing the humanity and the
Speaker 6: other person.
Speaker 4: That sucks. And but I think that's what we are
Speaker 4: as a greater society.
Speaker 6: But this brother, really, I think I love for us
Speaker 6: to be able to engage with him at some point
Speaker 6: because I think there is some stuff there and and
Speaker 6: the anti piece is huge. I've left churches, I've left
Speaker 6: barbers I've left friends over slip comments that that get
Speaker 6: at a deeper part of the meaning of that person
Speaker 6: that is anti me.
Speaker 4: And I hope that all of us exercise that right.
Speaker 4: It's right have.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's always it's always only politics to people
Speaker 5: who ain't directed that right. When it's hell, it's directed
Speaker 5: that you. It's not politics, it is it is literally personal.
Speaker 5: You are literally impinging on my right to exist and
Speaker 5: move about the world as a fair, full and equal
Speaker 5: person and that that that goes beyond politics.
Speaker 1: And on that, especially because it looks like we've lost
Speaker 1: our sister to we also have a right to end
Speaker 1: this show.
Speaker 3: Ellie has a right to sell them right.
Speaker 1: And yes, it is our it is our it is
Speaker 1: our highest pulling and so we would like once again
Speaker 1: to welcome you home.
Speaker 3: We thank you for listening and for watching.
Speaker 1: Y'all remember the rate review, Subscribe and tune in to
Speaker 1: our regular episode on Thursdays. This of course is our
Speaker 1: mini pod with our very special guest and our brother,
Speaker 1: Elie Messalu is invited back anytime, even as a call host.
Speaker 3: We love to have it. I'm to come home, always
Speaker 3: a problem.
Speaker 4: Welcome Home.
Speaker 1: Native Lampod is a production of iHeart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
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