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: one quick note. While we cover a lot of emotional
Speaker 2: relational territory in each and every episode, this show is
Speaker 2: not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed mental
Speaker 2: health provider or for professional supervision related to your work.
Speaker 2: Hey friends, Okay, I know I have said this a
Speaker 2: bunch of times already the season, but I'm saying it again.
Speaker 2: The guests on this show have brought so much magic
Speaker 2: and medicine into my life. I hope they're doing something
Speaker 2: special for you too. Now, whether you're interested in social
Speaker 2: justice or not, there is no denying the grief simmering
Speaker 2: beneath the surface of everyday life. It's in our personal lives,
Speaker 2: it's in the news, it's in our communities. But the
Speaker 2: thing is, we never really talk about it. We don't
Speaker 2: really talk about how much grief connects us. If we
Speaker 2: learn to lean into that grief together, we might just
Speaker 2: create the beautiful world we all long for. We literally
Speaker 2: cannot get to that world without talking about grief. I've
Speaker 2: said this for a long time, but it is actually true.
Speaker 2: Not talking about grief is killing us. I first met
Speaker 2: Today's guest through their article titled Grief Belongs in Social
Speaker 2: Justice Movements. Malka Devich Cyril is a poet and a
Speaker 2: media activist. They are the executive director of the Center
Speaker 2: for Media Justice and a co founder of the Media
Speaker 2: Action Grassroots Network. Their writings on media, race, justice, and
Speaker 2: grief frequently appear in national publications such as Politico, The Guardian,
Speaker 2: The Atlantic. We're going to link to some of those
Speaker 2: show notes. Their work was also in the Oscar nominated
Speaker 2: documentary film Thirteenth Now Malkia Knows Grief from the Inside Out.
Speaker 2: They cared for their spouse, the comedian and editor Alana
Speaker 2: Debit Cyril, through their death from cancer in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: We spent a lot of time in this episode talking
Speaker 2: about their relationship.
Speaker 3: And their love.
Speaker 2: We actually get a well timed message from Alana herself
Speaker 2: during 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.
Speaker 3: Akia.
Speaker 2: I am so happy to have you here with me today.
Speaker 2: I was just saying before we started rolling that we've
Speaker 2: followed each other on Twitter for a long time, so
Speaker 2: I'm 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, Alana. There's so
Speaker 2: much that I want to get into today about grief
Speaker 2: and justice, and media and collective grief.
Speaker 3: But I would really like to start with love.
Speaker 1: Always a good place to start.
Speaker 3: 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 your 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 angers in my life,
Speaker 1: and my greatest teacher is about grief. For sure.
Speaker 2: You kind of grew up with social justice with your
Speaker 2: mom and Black Panthers, Like there's so much grief involved
Speaker 2: in social justice. But was that grief evident to you
Speaker 2: 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 cans, 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 or separate from my experience as
Speaker 1: someone child. 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 our emotions, for what
Speaker 1: we're talking about is actions. And so, you know, she
Speaker 1: definitely taught me and my sister that sorrow and grief
Speaker 1: were not the same thing. That sorrow isn't an emotion.
Speaker 1: Grief is a set of activities and response to lass
Speaker 1: and one is something that you don't really control. You
Speaker 1: don't control your emotions, you have them. And the other
Speaker 1: is something you do have some agency around and you
Speaker 1: can have some choice in, which is how you respond
Speaker 1: to the losses in your life. So she definitely played
Speaker 1: a hand in helping me to understand what I think
Speaker 1: grief is, you know, helping me to have some agency
Speaker 1: and control. Because she was so focused on having agency
Speaker 1: and control, she had to live with anticipatory grief, as
Speaker 1: does anyone with a fatal illness. My wife, Alana, had
Speaker 1: to struggle with the same same thing. And so, speaking
Speaker 1: of Alana, my text messages are her voice saying I
Speaker 1: love you so sorry I turned that off.
Speaker 2: Now No, wait, did you just get a text message
Speaker 2: with Alana's voice saying I love you?
Speaker 1: I mean hear that?
Speaker 2: Okay, great, I couldn't hear it.
Speaker 3: But how beautiful is that?
Speaker 2: Right? When we're talking about grief and sorrow and agency
Speaker 2: and sovereignty and all of these things. And then we
Speaker 2: have your wife chiming in to.
Speaker 3: Say I love you.
Speaker 2: I mean, that could not have been I love this
Speaker 2: like this. That couldn't have been more beautifully timed.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Alana.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love this idea of the difference between sorrow
Speaker 2: and grief. I mean, I've been doing this work for
Speaker 2: ten years now, and 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 an eighties
Speaker 1: comedy shows like The Brady Bunch, Facts of Life, Cheers,
Speaker 1: and we sang those songs, we belted them out. See
Speaker 1: that's grief too, you know. And especially if we're thinking
Speaker 1: about grief in terms of its utility for social change,
Speaker 1: we have to I think it's incumbent upon us to
Speaker 1: understand as movement leaders that sorrow melancholia as actually it's
Speaker 1: an important emotion to understand, But it's the transformation to teams,
Speaker 1: engagement of that emotion and the acknowledgement that joy is
Speaker 1: also present in grief. That's what becomes a motive force,
Speaker 1: that's what becomes mobilizing energy. And so if we want,
Speaker 1: if we want people's grief to turn into action, if
Speaker 1: we wanted to transform into agency, we can't only engage
Speaker 1: with it as sorrow. That's not gonna work, right.
Speaker 2: And that's different from that like binary of you're all
Speaker 2: healed and everything is ducky and you find the gifts
Speaker 2: in what's happened to you versus like collapsed in a
Speaker 2: corner in despair. I think, especially if you've just lost
Speaker 2: somebody or you just received a devastating diagnosis, it could
Speaker 2: be easy to hear what you just said as don't
Speaker 2: stay in sorrow, don't stay sad, make something out of it,
Speaker 2: And that's actually not what I hear you.
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's to include joy,
Speaker 1: it's to include anger. It's to allow ourselves the full
Speaker 1: range of what acknowledging loss means. When I think of
Speaker 1: my mom, she lost her life at fifty nine years old.
Speaker 1: She was a brilliant, beautiful woman who has survived so much.
Speaker 1: And there's nothing sadder to me except another brilliant, beautiful woman,
Speaker 1: my wife, losing her life at forty two. And yet
Speaker 1: these were funny women, are women with strength and bigor
Speaker 1: and brilliance, And so I just want the whole story,
Speaker 1: that's all. And I think as a as a strategist
Speaker 1: and as a movement leader, and as the left, I
Speaker 1: think sometimes we love to focus in and get mesmerized
Speaker 1: by the sorrow part of it. You know, we get
Speaker 1: mesmerized by the problem, you know what I mean, We
Speaker 1: 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: what 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 funny,
Speaker 2: like some of my questions were about social justice and
Speaker 2: some of them were about personal loss, and I kind
Speaker 2: of knew coming into this that those are the same thing, right,
Speaker 2: But I love that in just a few short minutes
Speaker 2: you have erased many of my questions.
Speaker 1: That is.
Speaker 2: A sign of some brilliance there, and I so appreciate
Speaker 2: the ways that you include everything in the ways that
Speaker 2: you speak personal and collective. After your mom died, you
Speaker 2: wrote the incongruence between working daily to heal the world
Speaker 2: but being unable to save my mother's life was powered
Speaker 2: by the illusion of my control over life and death,
Speaker 2: an entire worldview centered on my failure. Yes, can you
Speaker 2: 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 why ching my wife Alana
Speaker 1: sick and die. You know, if I as an organizer,
Speaker 1: you 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 I tried so hard, you know
Speaker 1: that I that I did everything that I could to
Speaker 1: 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 way of thinking. I know it's not wholly true,
Speaker 1: but it is how it feels.
Speaker 2: This is something that's so common I think for people,
Speaker 2: this sense 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 framed 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 want to be
Speaker 1: talked out of my feelings period. And also it's it's respectful.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm intelligent, I'm very clear. It's a feeling
Speaker 1: and not a fact. I know that, but nevertheless, it's
Speaker 1: what's happening, you know, that's what's happening. And I prefer
Speaker 1: to be met, and I think most people prefer to
Speaker 1: be met in their greed then persuaded out of it.
Speaker 1: And like you said, it doesn't work to be persuaded anyway.
Speaker 3: It doesn't.
Speaker 2: It's just it makes people feel misunderstood, yes, right. And
Speaker 2: as a support person, as somebody who cares, that feels counterintuitive, right, Like,
Speaker 2: if you think that your job is to make somebody
Speaker 2: feel better, basically, then you were going to talk them
Speaker 2: out of their own truth and their own feelings. And
Speaker 2: that's ineffective.
Speaker 1: Think about that on a on a more global scale.
Speaker 1: Think about that in terms of strategy, in terms of
Speaker 1: narrative strategy. You know, if you, as a left narrative strategist,
Speaker 1: are saying, you know, instead of acknowledging the terror that
Speaker 1: folks are experiencing around gun violence, around crime, going to
Speaker 1: only talk about the systemic aspects of that, what you're
Speaker 1: really 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 it. Grief,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't understand it, and it messes with
Speaker 1: our strategy, It messes with our relationships, you know, and
Speaker 1: it messes with us our inside, you know.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: Okay, before we get back to my conversation with Nolkia,
Speaker 4: I want to talk to the therapists, social workers, nurses,
Speaker 4: and other people in the helping professions for a second.
Speaker 2: No matter what you focus on in your practice, you
Speaker 2: are going to encounter grief.
Speaker 3: Anywhere there are humans, there is grief.
Speaker 2: Now. The problem is that most people aren't really sure
Speaker 2: how to work with it when it shows up in
Speaker 2: the room. I mean, the state of grief education is lacking.
Speaker 2: Let's just say to be gentle about it. If you
Speaker 2: want to know how to be truly helpful to people
Speaker 2: grieving any kind of loss. Spots are still available in
Speaker 2: my six month Grief Care Intensive training. There's even a
Speaker 2: unit on grief and social change, which includes many of
Speaker 2: the topics we explored in this episode. Today, there's a
Speaker 2: unit on working in grief in special populations, including gun violence,
Speaker 2: hate crimes, and natural disasters.
Speaker 3: If you work with.
Speaker 2: Humans, grief is always in the room in some form,
Speaker 2: and these are the conditions that you need to learn
Speaker 2: how to address with skill. So come learn those skills
Speaker 2: that you need to work with grief. This six month
Speaker 2: training is designed for people in the helping professions, but
Speaker 2: you don't have to be a therapist to join. This
Speaker 2: training session begins on September fourth, twenty twenty three, So
Speaker 2: if you are listening to this episode later or you
Speaker 2: can't start with us in September, check back for it
Speaker 2: because we're planning to run this training once a year
Speaker 2: or so. All of the information about this six month
Speaker 2: grief care intensive training is at the registration link in
Speaker 2: the show notes to this episode, and you can also
Speaker 2: find the link in my Instagram bio at Refuge in Grief. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's get back to my conversation with activist Malkiya Devich. Cyril,
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.
Speaker 3: This issue are quick to jump on social media and.
Speaker 2: Be like, show the pictures, do this, do that? And
Speaker 2: like this is so important, we have to do something
Speaker 2: and make people understand. And I feel like another casualty
Speaker 2: in that are the people's whose kid was just shot,
Speaker 2: whose sister was just killed, Like yes, yes, we jump
Speaker 2: to justice, and how will we change this and make
Speaker 2: it stop? And I think we leapfrog over the intimate
Speaker 2: 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 and
Speaker 1: other people from what has happened to their child or
Speaker 1: their loved one. But there's a reason why they're not
Speaker 1: necessarily involved in an organized social movement because the movement
Speaker 1: is not prepared to pause and do the part that's
Speaker 1: about belonging, do the part that's about listening, and that's
Speaker 1: about building relationship and intimacy, that's about engaging in that
Speaker 1: collective grief process, or institutionalizing even a collective grief process
Speaker 1: into the organization. None of that is happening. What's happening
Speaker 1: is the policy fight, you know, and then you then
Speaker 1: you shrink, diminish, and in my view, disrespect a complex,
Speaker 1: painful experience. You shrink it into a spokesperson a sound bite,
Speaker 1: and that is not respectful and it's not appropriate. But
Speaker 1: also it's bad strategy. It's bad narrative strategy, it's bad
Speaker 1: organizing strategy. And I think we can do better, and
Speaker 1: we would do better if organizationally, we had new ways
Speaker 1: to embody grief as 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: I'm fascinated by this and I love you and your
Speaker 2: work so much and I don't know nearly enough about
Speaker 2: it what I hear you saying or the way that
Speaker 2: I understand that in my head, the image I have
Speaker 2: is like you're putting the wheels on the bus, right,
Speaker 2: Like we started out talking like I think in pictures,
Speaker 2: but this like, if we want the world that we
Speaker 2: long for to come into being, we have to find
Speaker 2: a way to grieve together strategically and humanly.
Speaker 1: I think it boils down to this, right. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: either as a people we lean into the truth of
Speaker 1: our loss and we lean into grief together. Either we
Speaker 1: do that, and what we get from that is we
Speaker 1: get true citizenship, we get a new social contract, we
Speaker 1: get new ways of being a community. We get people
Speaker 1: who if you acknowledge loss, then you're going to think
Speaker 1: 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 anyone in my ancestry participated
Speaker 1: in the taking of life, the destroying of life. There
Speaker 1: is a denial of grief. And so this is a
Speaker 1: 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 change 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 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 interesting, like I'm preparing for another conversation later today
Speaker 2: and this idea that we're recording, this conversation during Pride
Speaker 2: Month and the hatred against the queer community and the
Speaker 2: trans community.
Speaker 3: Especially queer people of color. It's like you see yourself.
Speaker 2: Reflected in someone and you hate that reflection, and it
Speaker 2: causes emotions, It causes sensations, it causes feelings, And because
Speaker 2: we don't have a structure within which to be tender
Speaker 2: to ourselves, within which to listen to those swirling emotions,
Speaker 2: we otherize them.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: We destroy the thing that makes us feel discomfort in
Speaker 2: our own beings. And we're like so unaware of the
Speaker 2: mirror of the world and so ill equipped to greet
Speaker 2: our own stew of emotions with kindness and tenderness and
Speaker 2: curiosity that it's like the only option we've made available
Speaker 2: to us is to destroy that which makes us feel it.
Speaker 2: That's right, And we don't have those conversations, right. I
Speaker 2: think that sometimes we say, like, oh, you know, if
Speaker 2: you're so angry at this queer person, you're a closet
Speaker 2: queer person. Like, okay, that may be accurate, but it's
Speaker 2: also like assaultive language. How do we even begin to
Speaker 2: build collective structures for engaging with grief our own and
Speaker 2: the grief of the world in a way that furthers
Speaker 2: the world that we 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 when militsia 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 that I believe we find it
Speaker 1: difficult to do. You know, progressive movements have not always
Speaker 1: found that easy to do. But I think that's why
Speaker 1: doctor King went from city to city. Why you know
Speaker 1: when he was assassinated, he was going to be organizing
Speaker 1: with the garbage strike, because you go to organize at
Speaker 1: the point of pain and engage and build the meaning
Speaker 1: at that point, right, And that's why you know who
Speaker 1: wrote that book about the role of meaning and I
Speaker 1: don't remember who wrote that book. But yeah, about the
Speaker 1: role of meaning grief, and that to me is something
Speaker 1: that as an organizer I have to understand and we've
Speaker 1: done that to some degree. You know, every time a
Speaker 1: black person is killed by the police, there is a
Speaker 1: 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 and dissonance amongst
Speaker 1: believed peoples. I guess what I'm saying is the right
Speaker 1: knows full well that grief is a terrain for organizing,
Speaker 1: that grief is a terrain for strategy. The question is
Speaker 1: do we know it? Do we know it? Does everybody else?
Speaker 1: Because if we knew it, I think we could use
Speaker 1: what we know to even break down the partisan the
Speaker 1: partisan barriers. You know, everybody grieves, we all face lost.
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 here. You know, you know, you have to have
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 Sunday. It's called Pandemic Joy. It's like church, but
Speaker 1: it's not church, you know, it's a secular We sing,
Speaker 1: we meditate, We hear from people in the community, all
Speaker 1: at the intersection of loss and leadership, joint justice, you know,
Speaker 1: grief and gratitude. I do events. I just do them.
Speaker 1: I'm actually I don't get paid to do any of that,
Speaker 1: you know, 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: what's needed is what I needed, and so I figured
Speaker 1: it's 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 3: To feel it like that is the work.
Speaker 2: The work isn't about erasing grief or using your grief
Speaker 2: as fuel. It's how do we come to this both
Speaker 2: intimate and universal experience and honor it in ourselves and
Speaker 2: honor it in each other. And it's only from that
Speaker 2: respect and acknowledgment that we can go in certain directions
Speaker 2: it's true.
Speaker 1: I want to be clear. I think grief is fuel,
Speaker 1: whether you try to make it that or not. It
Speaker 1: is governing you right one way or another. It's organizing
Speaker 1: how you understand the world. It's organizing what choices you make.
Speaker 1: The difference is when somebody tries to make it your fuel,
Speaker 1: you know, when somebody tries to come in and direct
Speaker 1: it for you, you know, it's not helpful, it's not healing
Speaker 1: in the backfires. But but I'm really clear that every
Speaker 1: social movement known to man has been fueled by grief.
Speaker 1: You know, every social movement is a response to loss
Speaker 1: of some kind, whether it's on the side of justice
Speaker 1: or on the side of the status quo. And you know,
Speaker 1: profit and privilege is still a reaction to some kind
Speaker 1: of loss, real epacy. And so we I think for
Speaker 1: us understanding that, understanding the role that that grief plays.
Speaker 1: To me, it's like this, either we move toward agency
Speaker 1: and action, or we move toward alienation and apathy. But
Speaker 1: in any way you think about it, we definitely move.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 3: You what to do with it?
Speaker 1: That's right?
Speaker 3: I mean this is like do other people tell you
Speaker 3: what to do with your body? Do other people tell
Speaker 3: you what to do with your that.
Speaker 2: Like nah, manjo own damn business. But yeah, that that
Speaker 2: you know from the outside, especially you know in these
Speaker 2: sort of I'm going to use the word sensationalized death
Speaker 2: and that's not really the word that I want, but
Speaker 2: we'll roll with it.
Speaker 3: Like these very public.
Speaker 2: Deaths, let's put it that way, high profile, high profile.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that phrase. That's more accurate like that
Speaker 2: those high profile deaths, like the way that we greet
Speaker 2: that is make meaning out of it, do something about it,
Speaker 2: Start a movement, do a foundation, which you know, if
Speaker 2: you if your person was killed by a drunk ever,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the support you're going to get
Speaker 2: back is like join Mothers against drunk driving, like advocate
Speaker 2: for this. And you're like, I can't manage to bathe myself.
Speaker 3: Can we talk about.
Speaker 2: That instead of like, right, push me to jump to
Speaker 2: a movement. I think jumping to a quote unquote movement
Speaker 2: is one of the ways that 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 too
Speaker 1: broken to move about. It's not about not jumping to
Speaker 1: a movement. 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 meaning.
Speaker 1: 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 a 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 emotion of sorrow,
Speaker 1: authentic experience and breed folks, who are are you in
Speaker 1: the healing justice movement, you know, have been offering us,
Speaker 1: you know, various ways of engaging with embodied grief, but
Speaker 1: it still remains very individualized, you know. And how do
Speaker 1: we move that into collective process? How do we move
Speaker 1: from individual laws to individual grief, from individual grief to
Speaker 1: collective grief, from collective grief to public mourning, from public
Speaker 1: mourning to movement action. This is the process to me,
Speaker 1: you know, But we missed the whole first part, you know,
Speaker 1: we missed that. And that's what I hear you talked about.
Speaker 1: That bypass is moving past the emotions, the strong emotions,
Speaker 1: to the action. That doesn't work, But ignoring the action
Speaker 1: also doesn't work. Right, We need both. We need both
Speaker 1: in order for us to survive as a people. We
Speaker 1: need both. I healed, I continue to heal, and I
Speaker 1: don't even honestly believe in healing. Let me not use
Speaker 1: that word. I move toward living. Every time I run
Speaker 1: a group, every act of service for me helps me
Speaker 1: move toward living. But in those acts of service, I
Speaker 1: have to bring my wife with me. I have to
Speaker 1: bring my mom with me. You know. I spent a
Speaker 1: year after my wife died caring for my friend Siya,
Speaker 1: who is also suffering from metastatic cancer. She died one
Speaker 1: year after my wife. Did you know I spent the
Speaker 1: months directly following my wife's death with partnering with my
Speaker 1: sister and her friends to care for our god sister,
Speaker 1: who also died just a few months after my wife died.
Speaker 1: All of these are young black women, and in that
Speaker 1: time frame, I mean, we lost so many people. None
Speaker 1: of them to COVID or very few of them to COVID,
Speaker 1: but we lost so many people. And the only way
Speaker 1: to survive that is to be in community. The only
Speaker 1: way to survive that is to do something, to feel
Speaker 1: like you can do something about it, to transform the
Speaker 1: conditions I produced it. So basically, I'm saying yes and yes,
Speaker 1: we need to be in that space of authentic emotion.
Speaker 1: We need to let people go through their process. We
Speaker 1: need to meet people where they at. We need to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: be sad, be everything that you are, and we need
Speaker 1: to meet them with an opportunity for them to move
Speaker 1: because stagnation that don't work either. You know that don't
Speaker 1: work either. So figuring out what we can offer folks
Speaker 1: that gives them a chance to connect to meaning as
Speaker 1: well as a chance to connect to authentic emotion. That's
Speaker 1: kind of 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 because it's specific through your whole
Speaker 2: life and through the inheritance of your mom and 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.
Speaker 3: 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. My wife loved the moon. She love
Speaker 1: to walk in the moon and bathe in the moonlight.
Speaker 1: And when I look at the moon, and I go
Speaker 1: out to the ocean every full moon with some of
Speaker 1: my friends that we drum and we sing. And one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that I do that is because the
Speaker 1: moon reminds me that life outlives me. And that is
Speaker 1: what hope. Feels like that the understanding that life will
Speaker 1: outlive me, and that feels good. Actually, you know, it
Speaker 1: feels good to know both that what I do in
Speaker 1: this time is significant and also insignificant both, and that
Speaker 1: feels good to me. That feels like it's not so
Speaker 1: important that I can, you know, destroy anything, but it's
Speaker 1: important enough that I can't create something. I can leave
Speaker 1: a mark and we all. My mom always used to
Speaker 1: tell us like something about believing in the people. When
Speaker 1: you ask her what her religion was, she would say,
Speaker 1: my religion is the people. For a long time, I
Speaker 1: didn't understand what that meant, but now I do. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't care necessarily where I live, and I don't
Speaker 1: care what issue I work on. I care about the people.
Speaker 1: That's where my hope lives is in the is in
Speaker 1: the ongoing nature of humanity. And I understand I'm a humanist,
Speaker 1: but I also understand right. Power is real, privilege is real,
Speaker 1: hierarchy is real, and we suffer under those conditions. But
Speaker 1: at the end of it, or at the beginning of it,
Speaker 1: however you want to think about it, I believe in people,
Speaker 1: and that's where my hope lives. And that's what I
Speaker 1: think about in terms of in terms of hope, believing
Speaker 1: in each other, believing that that we have some thing
Speaker 1: unique and beautiful to offer that death can't take away.
Speaker 1: You know, our love survives us, and that's what I
Speaker 1: 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 every couple of weeks, like
Speaker 2: when's your pubdate?
Speaker 3: When can I get it? Can I get an advant
Speaker 3: reader copy?
Speaker 2: When is it coming?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, yeah.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me such a play thrilled?
Speaker 2: All right, everybody, stay tune 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 graving a
Speaker 2: personal loss, were you as moved by Max's 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.
Speaker 3: How about you?
Speaker 2: What stuck with you in this conversation. Everybody's going to
Speaker 2: take something different from today's show, but I do hope
Speaker 2: you've found something.
Speaker 3: To hold on too.
Speaker 2: If you want to tell me how today's show felt
Speaker 2: for you, or you have thoughts on what we covered,
Speaker 2: let me know. Tag at Refuge and Grief on all
Speaker 2: the social platforms so I can hear how this conversation
Speaker 2: affected you. You can also leave a review for a
Speaker 2: show That is a fantastic way to share your thoughts
Speaker 2: with me and to encourage others to listen. So reviews
Speaker 2: a win win for everybody. Follow the show at It's
Speaker 2: Okaypod on TikTok and Refuge and Grief everywhere else. To
Speaker 2: see video clips from the show, use the hashtag It's
Speaker 2: Okay pod on all the platforms, so not only I
Speaker 2: can find you, but others can too. None of us
Speaker 2: are entirely okay, and it's time we start talking about
Speaker 2: that together. Yeah, it's okay that you're not okay. You're
Speaker 2: in good company. That's it for this week. Remember to
Speaker 2: subscribe to the show, leave a review for the show please,
Speaker 2: and share the show with everybody you know. Coming up
Speaker 2: next week. Gina Rossero, author of Horse Barbie, follow It's
Speaker 2: Okay that You're Not Okay on all of your favorite
Speaker 2: podcast platforms so you do not miss an episode. Want
Speaker 2: more on these topics, Look, grief is everywhere. As my
Speaker 2: dad says, daily life is full of everyday grief that
Speaker 2: we don't call grief. Learning how to talk about all
Speaker 2: that without cliches or platitudes or simplistic dismissive statements is
Speaker 2: an important skill for everyone. Whether you're trying to support
Speaker 2: a friend going through a hard time, or you work
Speaker 2: in the helping per 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 Fozzio, Logistical and social media support from Micah,
Speaker 2: Post production and editing by the ever patient Houston Tilly.
Speaker 2: Our intern this season is Hannah Goldman. Music provided by
Speaker 2: Wave Crush and background noise provided by the perfectly timed
Speaker 2: recycling truck