Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to okay F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet Your Girl Danielle Moody. Prerecording from the Home Bunker, Folks.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to bring to you part one of
Speaker 1: a two part conversation that I had with the very
Speaker 1: esteemed doctor Dina Simmons. Doctor Simmons did a TED talk
Speaker 1: on impostor syndrome that was published at her former job,
Speaker 1: Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and she talks about the
Speaker 1: toxic environment of academia, particularly for black women. And you know,
Speaker 1: doctor Simmons in her TED talk, which was about her
Speaker 1: own experience as a black woman in a very racist
Speaker 1: higher ed system. And this is not the first time
Speaker 1: that I've had these conversations before, as it pertains to
Speaker 1: other esteemed doctors that I know from higher ed institutions
Speaker 1: that have been denied tenure. Right, we all watched publicly
Speaker 1: as it happened to Nicole Haddon Jones, the author of
Speaker 1: the sixteen nineteen project. We watched as she was denied
Speaker 1: tenure at Duke University, which was her alma mater, and
Speaker 1: then we watched that play out where she sued them,
Speaker 1: received an undisclosed amount of money and then went over
Speaker 1: to take her brilliance and her project over to Howard University,
Speaker 1: historically black college and university. And so we know that
Speaker 1: these things happened, but it doesn't just happen in the
Speaker 1: field of academia. Toxic, racist, misogynist environments are alive and
Speaker 1: well in every industry. And I will talk to doctor
Speaker 1: Simmons in this first part of two parts robust conversation
Speaker 1: about what it means to own your power, what it
Speaker 1: means to take up space. I was asked recently for
Speaker 1: the best advice that I have ever given and received
Speaker 1: at the Lesbians Who Teach summit in San Francisco earlier
Speaker 1: in October, and I said this about the best advice
Speaker 1: that I've ever given. Take up fucking space. Oftentimes, in
Speaker 1: a lot of my career until probably the last you know,
Speaker 1: I would say, the last five to six years, I've
Speaker 1: been the only one in the room. And what do
Speaker 1: I mean by that? The only black person, the only
Speaker 1: child of immigrants, the only queer person, the only woman,
Speaker 1: not often the only woman, but the other three. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And that has been my path my entire life. As
Speaker 1: you all know who've listened to the show for a
Speaker 1: very long time, I grew up in a predominantly white
Speaker 1: suburb on eastern Long Island, and my public school education
Speaker 1: was in a ninety six percent white school and ninety
Speaker 1: six percent white community. And you know, by virtue of
Speaker 1: my parents and my family at large, I have never
Speaker 1: been one to shrink in a room where I do
Speaker 1: not see myself reflected for better or worse for many
Speaker 1: For many, many decades, I've seen myself as a need,
Speaker 1: the need to be an ambassador in those spaces. We
Speaker 1: will talk about the undue burden that that presents as well,
Speaker 1: the undue burden and stress, an additional labor that you
Speaker 1: are not being paid to do that happens when you
Speaker 1: are the only one in these spaces. And so what
Speaker 1: does it mean to reclaim rest? What does it mean to,
Speaker 1: as Auntie Maxine has said, Representative Maxine Waters, reclaim your
Speaker 1: time right. I'm currently reading If you guys follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram, I did post a story recently Tricia Hersey,
Speaker 1: who is the Bishop of the NAP Ministry on Instagram.
Speaker 1: I am reading her debut manifesto Rest is Resistance, and
Speaker 1: in there she talks about how capitalism and white supremacy
Speaker 1: has robbed us of our dream space has robbed Black
Speaker 1: people in particular, which she dives into, but all of
Speaker 1: us collectively that are wrapped into capitalism and this grind culture.
Speaker 1: That I am only as valuable as what I produce right,
Speaker 1: not by virtue of who I am. And I think
Speaker 1: that it is really important for us to continue to
Speaker 1: unpack these conversations that help us reset our programming, because
Speaker 1: don't be mistaken, we have all been preprogrammed from a
Speaker 1: young child. I'll give you this from Tricia Hersey's book
Speaker 1: Rest Is Resistance, which is available now. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: this little tidbit she writes in the book about how
Speaker 1: from elementary school we begin to program children to be workers.
Speaker 1: We force young kids, and she'll tell an anecdote in
Speaker 1: the book to betray their bodies. This is her language,
Speaker 1: betray their bodies and conform to the time constraints that
Speaker 1: a teacher allows them to be able to use the bathroom.
Speaker 1: A child could be squirming in their seat, unable to
Speaker 1: hold their bladder, and a teacher will say to them, well,
Speaker 1: you can't use the restroom until twelve thirty. Well it's
Speaker 1: eleven forty five and my body is telling me I
Speaker 1: need to go now, and what do we do Well,
Speaker 1: we have kids have accidents quote unquote that demoralize them,
Speaker 1: that embarrass them all because they won't conform their bodies,
Speaker 1: won't conform to the productivity schedule that we begin to
Speaker 1: put them on as young as in kindergarten. Well, now
Speaker 1: look at your own routines. How we design our work calendars,
Speaker 1: or rather, how our work days are designed, that we
Speaker 1: are forming too. I can't tell you how many zoom
Speaker 1: meetings I jump on where folks tell me, Hey, Danielle,
Speaker 1: can you give me, you know, just three minutes. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, but I've been in back to backs all
Speaker 1: day and I haven't been able to use the bathroom.
Speaker 1: What can you just give me, you know, four minutes
Speaker 1: to go heat up a cup of coffee? Or do
Speaker 1: you mind if I eat on this call because I
Speaker 1: just haven't had any time. Because we have been programmed
Speaker 1: to believe that we are undeserving of that time, that
Speaker 1: we will seem lazy, we will seem like we are
Speaker 1: not dedicated to the work. If what I listen to
Speaker 1: the needs of my body, that I am not a
Speaker 1: machine that I actually do need to physically recharge and
Speaker 1: relieve myself and eat and breathe fresh air and get
Speaker 1: some sunlight and the conversation, the first part of this
Speaker 1: two part conversation that I have with doctor Dina Simmons,
Speaker 1: begins to unpack all of the systems that are at
Speaker 1: play that tell us that we are unworthy, and particularly
Speaker 1: those that have played on repeat for black people and
Speaker 1: black women throughout the course of time. So coming up next,
Speaker 1: dear friends, the first part of a two part conversation
Speaker 1: with my new friend, doctor Dina Simmons. Hey there, I
Speaker 1: want to tell you about another podcast I think you'll love.
Speaker 1: The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics, hosted by a Shanty Gohler,
Speaker 1: the president of Emerge BGG, is the one stop shop
Speaker 1: for women of color who want to hear and talk
Speaker 1: about the world of politics. Join a Shanty this season
Speaker 1: as she talks to incredible women of color who are
Speaker 1: changing the face of politics and tackling some of the
Speaker 1: most important issues basing the United States, from reproductive justice,
Speaker 1: to rights, to climate change and more. Tune in every
Speaker 1: Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts, Folks, I am very
Speaker 1: excited to welcome to woka f Daily for the very
Speaker 1: first time, Doctor Dena Simmons, activist, educator, Ted Talker, and
Speaker 1: the founder of Liberate Ed. She's also the upcoming the
Speaker 1: author of the upcoming book White Rules for Black People.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Woke f So I want to jump in
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about your upcoming book, and
Speaker 1: then we will talk about all the ways in which
Speaker 1: you have found yourself and other highly esteemed black academics,
Speaker 1: black women academics disrespected in your professional field and industry.
Speaker 1: But I want to dig into your upcoming book because
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted, as I know that you must be right.
Speaker 1: I'm exhausted by the chosen ignorance of white people. I'm
Speaker 1: exhausted by the media chasing the desire and the likes
Speaker 1: of the Karens and the Chads in order to decide
Speaker 1: whether or not we're going to turn into a fascist country, right,
Speaker 1: whether or not they deemed that their gas bills are
Speaker 1: too high to give a damn about our democracy and
Speaker 1: just equity in general. So I want to get your
Speaker 1: your your thoughts based around your upcoming book. What prompted it?
Speaker 1: So you know, I think many of us, So I
Speaker 1: think before talking about my book, I think I need
Speaker 1: to talk about the journey, right, So my journey to
Speaker 1: right now, having this conversation, to the book, to the
Speaker 1: places that I end up and have been and whatever
Speaker 1: my future hold. Right. So I started born and raised
Speaker 1: in the Bronx, New York, my mother coming into this
Speaker 1: country as a you know, an immigrant from at cleaning
Speaker 1: white people's homes and saying to herself, one day, I
Speaker 1: want my children to go to school like these white folks, right,
Speaker 1: because we've already she can tell as an immigrant in
Speaker 1: this country that white folks got better stuff, right, And
Speaker 1: so she said, I want my kids to have that too.
Speaker 1: And so when she had the opportunity, and when we
Speaker 1: learned of the opportunity of boarding school, we went to
Speaker 1: boarding school. Now, what no one did is prepare me
Speaker 1: for what it was like to leave the Bronx with
Speaker 1: everyone looking like me and for those who can't see me,
Speaker 1: I am a light skinned black woman. I have my
Speaker 1: hair up up and it's it's natural, curly, big state
Speaker 1: and approach, and I'm here going into this place and
Speaker 1: it was so overwhelmingly white. And so as a fourteen
Speaker 1: year old, I'm like, yo, I'm not gonna make no
Speaker 1: friends here. That was the first response that I had
Speaker 1: to my boarding school and that I ain't gonna make
Speaker 1: no friends here is the response and the feeling I
Speaker 1: usually get when I walk into white spaces. And so
Speaker 1: what I learned in the process of going to boarding
Speaker 1: school and then to college in Vermont and then to
Speaker 1: that you just keep d a white place after white blazing,
Speaker 1: right Ivy League, is I've better learn how to perform here, right,
Speaker 1: And so what black folks are or we are great performers,
Speaker 1: we will, yes, ma'am, and yester you because that's what
Speaker 1: we learned, right. And so I learned the rules of whiteness,
Speaker 1: and so that's why I was like, I learned how
Speaker 1: to navigate white spaces up to the point that it
Speaker 1: made me sick, up to the point that I said,
Speaker 1: I couldn't do this no more because it's me or
Speaker 1: it's me doing this or death. And so it got
Speaker 1: to the point where I just could not follow the
Speaker 1: rules anymore. And you know, I wanted to no longer
Speaker 1: have these white rules oppress me, limit me, keep me
Speaker 1: from my excellence, keep me from my fullness, keep me
Speaker 1: full from freedom. And so I, you know, left my
Speaker 1: Ivy League university because it was the most toxic place
Speaker 1: I've worked and but yet at the same time, as
Speaker 1: a child, the lessons that our schools teach us is
Speaker 1: that you should aspire to end up in a place
Speaker 1: like that. So in many ways, our rule system begins,
Speaker 1: it becomes the beginning or the the place where young
Speaker 1: people learned that they must aspire to whiteness. Yep. And
Speaker 1: so so now it's like my entire journey and my
Speaker 1: book will be about with white journey whiteness. But let
Speaker 1: me tell you, I was very good, like I said
Speaker 1: in my TED talk, and I don't even know if
Speaker 1: it made it to the Ted Talks. So some of
Speaker 1: my TED talk was edited out. But one of the
Speaker 1: parts that I think I edited out was the sort
Speaker 1: of psychic homelessness that many black folks feel in white
Speaker 1: spaces because we are performing for white spaces, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, in that performance, sometimes that performance becomes
Speaker 1: who we are. We leave themselves and sort of the
Speaker 1: grief that goes with that, sort of the trauma of erasure,
Speaker 1: of self erasure that goes with that, but also the
Speaker 1: fact that we learn to perform these places and do
Speaker 1: it so well that sometimes when we go home, our
Speaker 1: home doesn't even recognize us, So we don't even recognize
Speaker 1: our home, and we go home and we don't want
Speaker 1: home because it's nicer over there. So no one talks
Speaker 1: about all of that loss and grief that goes with
Speaker 1: taking a young black child from the hood and to
Speaker 1: saying we're going to give you a better life. But
Speaker 1: no one talks about the loss and the grief. We
Speaker 1: just focus on this very narrow definition of success being
Speaker 1: how do you get as close to whiteness and how
Speaker 1: do you guys far from yourself? So, like I shared
Speaker 1: my book, and we'll see that title six right is
Speaker 1: essentially a homecoming. Right, how do I come back home
Speaker 1: to myself? How do I come back home to my community?
Speaker 1: Because there has been that distance for so long. You
Speaker 1: have said so much that I want to I want
Speaker 1: to unpack for our audience who does not have the
Speaker 1: same experience. Right. I have often shared on this show
Speaker 1: my own experience of growing up in a ninety six
Speaker 1: percent white community, of going to a predominantly white institution,
Speaker 1: of being UM a child of immigrants. My family came
Speaker 1: from Jamaica, UM, so big up the Caribbean UM, and
Speaker 1: you know, and and the idea you know which my
Speaker 1: mother would learn later when my sister and I would
Speaker 1: go for our master's degrees, um, that She's like, I
Speaker 1: just chose the best school. I moved to the best
Speaker 1: school district that we could afford. Right that you know
Speaker 1: that that that we could afford to go to. And
Speaker 1: it didn't occur to me, right um, that there would
Speaker 1: be so many instances of assimilation and a razure that
Speaker 1: you would then unpack as adults and I and I
Speaker 1: didn't experience and I'll be honest, I didn't experience deep trauma.
Speaker 1: There are there are I have memories right that I
Speaker 1: have that I have unpacked over the over the years.
Speaker 1: But my experience allowed me to be able to navigate
Speaker 1: white spaces in a way that I have been able
Speaker 1: to utilize, right um. And again that white people don't
Speaker 1: ever have to do James Baldwin said, they never have
Speaker 1: to look at us, right, but we always have to
Speaker 1: look at them. And so for for for the audience,
Speaker 1: talk a little bit, if it's not too much about
Speaker 1: providing an example about the way that this performance works,
Speaker 1: what this performance actually looks like. And then the toll
Speaker 1: you know in this and I love the phrase in
Speaker 1: this psychic homelessness that happens. And I think that you know,
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, a lot of performers, Broadway performers, actresses,
Speaker 1: you're taking on and the way that you take on
Speaker 1: these characters, at times you lose yourself in right. But
Speaker 1: unlike a Broadway show or a film, it's not done
Speaker 1: after several months. This is a lifetime performance. So can
Speaker 1: you talk a bit about how that shows up and
Speaker 1: what that looks like. So you set assimilation earlier, and
Speaker 1: so sometimes that assimilation looks like code switching. And so
Speaker 1: for folks who don't know, it's like I'm from the Bronx.
Speaker 1: And so when I'm coming in this white space and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, what's up? Good? What's good? Folks? And
Speaker 1: someone corrects me and tells me that good is an
Speaker 1: adjective and that well is an adverb. And when someone
Speaker 1: asks me, as asks me how I'm doing, I should
Speaker 1: answer with an adverbs or should be well right, or
Speaker 1: when I'm corrected for saying acts as acts instead of ask.
Speaker 1: So these little ways right that we get chipped and corrected.
Speaker 1: And so after a while you're like, oh, I gotta
Speaker 1: learn to speak like them. I gotta learn to talk
Speaker 1: like them. I gotta learn to smile like them. So
Speaker 1: you shift and change, and it's like called shape shifting
Speaker 1: that you sent do so that you ensure white comfort.
Speaker 1: That's really what you got to do when you go
Speaker 1: to white spaces and you ain't white, because you got
Speaker 1: to ensure that white folks say comfortable. So and so
Speaker 1: you always got to be aware that when you show
Speaker 1: up in this space, is that you are the work
Speaker 1: that you're doing to one perform and then the other
Speaker 1: work that you're doing to pay attention and to read,
Speaker 1: to read white white response to you is essentially the
Speaker 1: work of performance, right, because you're reading the room, so
Speaker 1: you read the room and as a young show, so
Speaker 1: sometimes change. It's changing the way you're dressing. It's changed
Speaker 1: in the way you walk. It's changing your hair, because
Speaker 1: we all know both. You know, when we wear our
Speaker 1: hair and the way it naturally grows out our head,
Speaker 1: it's considered unprofessional and right, I always say to folks
Speaker 1: who defines professionalism, why can't my natural state of being
Speaker 1: be professional? And those are ways in which we're raised,
Speaker 1: and that's the ways we learn to perform. So let
Speaker 1: me straighten my hair, let me perform. So then I
Speaker 1: don't come across as as too black for these folks,
Speaker 1: are too militant for these folks, right, And so those
Speaker 1: are the ways in which that we perform. But black
Speaker 1: folks have always been performing right when our enslaved ancestors
Speaker 1: were in working in you know, the enslaver's house, best
Speaker 1: believed they were smiling through their rage. Best believe, best
Speaker 1: believe that a bunch of black folks in institutions, whether
Speaker 1: it be corporate, academic, not for profit, are smiling through
Speaker 1: pain or smiling through comfort. Because again, what we learn,
Speaker 1: one of the rules we learn is to ensure that
Speaker 1: white folks maintain their comfort. And so I would say
Speaker 1: it's the shape shifting. It's the shifting and leaving some
Speaker 1: of yourself at home and taking out the yoe at
Speaker 1: the end of the sentence, you know. And folks and
Speaker 1: teachers often say, but that's the correct way to speak.
Speaker 1: You should be thankful to the teachers that corrected the
Speaker 1: way you speak. And I often say, in that correction,
Speaker 1: there's also a triggering. There's also and when I say triggering,
Speaker 1: I mean like the fact that there's a message that
Speaker 1: the way I am is wrong. So there's a way
Speaker 1: to honor what I bring naturally to a space, what
Speaker 1: I bring indigenously to a space. And I could be
Speaker 1: bilingual or multilingual, learn a new language instead of saying
Speaker 1: a race that because that that ain't right, and so
Speaker 1: I think too often an education that's what we do.
Speaker 1: We say a race, who you are and get it
Speaker 1: come correct if you want to be successful, because we
Speaker 1: have a very narrow definition of success, a very narrow
Speaker 1: definition of what professional is, and a very narrow definition
Speaker 1: of what it means to thrive. And in many ways,
Speaker 1: the definition of success or thrive does not have a
Speaker 1: natural black woman's face on it, and we got to
Speaker 1: shift that neither doesn't have rest or relaxation, or joy
Speaker 1: or laughter. And as a result, what do we learn
Speaker 1: as black folks? And what did I learn was that
Speaker 1: I had to show my worth by how much I
Speaker 1: produced I do and how many of us are sick
Speaker 1: and dying because we are still working our tailed up.
Speaker 1: It's no secret that the news is horsepill hard to swallow. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: there's the Bituation Room podcast hosted by comedian and commentator
Speaker 1: Francesca free Or and Tini for a lighter take on
Speaker 1: the heavy staff. Each week The Bituation Room brings you
Speaker 1: progressive comedians, experts, and activists to break down the issues
Speaker 1: in a way that won't just leave you crying under
Speaker 1: a weighted blanket. Get the Bituation Room on Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher,
Speaker 1: and streaming on YouTube and Twitch. There was a just
Speaker 1: and I saw that too in my book as well.
Speaker 1: This is this idea as well. There was just released
Speaker 1: in terms of the straightening of straightening of our hair.
Speaker 1: H the report that just came out that said, guess
Speaker 1: what causes cancer? Uterine cancer? At that hair? Relax right right?
Speaker 1: How many mamma's relax their hair? Ye? And you know,
Speaker 1: I thought about it in when when that news broke
Speaker 1: because I I went natural in early two thousand, I
Speaker 1: had grown out, I had started growing out my my
Speaker 1: perm in the nineties. Uh when I and then you know,
Speaker 1: and then went into the process of having locks, which
Speaker 1: I've had now for for a very very long time.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's just this idea that white society
Speaker 1: will tell you how you need to look and then
Speaker 1: provide and then the product that we used to look
Speaker 1: that way will kill us. It is I mean, it
Speaker 1: is just like you know, you there there's no there's
Speaker 1: no other way to look at that, right than for
Speaker 1: than for what it is um And you know the
Speaker 1: ideas like these, Your your message and so beautifully stated,
Speaker 1: is about what it seems to me, the relearning of
Speaker 1: our worth. And how do how you know and how
Speaker 1: do we relearn our worth as black people? Right now
Speaker 1: at a time when literally you have the governor of Florida,
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, who literally wrote legislation about white comfort. You
Speaker 1: have a sitting member of Congress, regardless of how crazy
Speaker 1: we know that she is, Marjorie Taylor Green, talking about
Speaker 1: schools teaching anti whiteness. So how do you articulate or
Speaker 1: express how we understand and learn our worth and navigate
Speaker 1: through this imposter syndrome and through this contortion that we
Speaker 1: have been doing our entire lives when literal policies are
Speaker 1: being created to deny us that very avenue, that very pathway.
Speaker 1: It's again white limitations, right, So like we and we've
Speaker 1: seen this. So I just finished I just watched Till
Speaker 1: the movie, and I was just I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: tild story, Emmett tild story. And for those of you
Speaker 1: who don't know, Emma Till was a black a teenager
Speaker 1: who went to visit his family in the South from
Speaker 1: Chicago and did not make it past the entire time
Speaker 1: because he was killed for you know, speaking, you know,
Speaker 1: having some interaction with a white woman who did who
Speaker 1: displeased the white woman, and obviously she you know, Caroline,
Speaker 1: I believe kind of exaggerated the details. And because what
Speaker 1: happens and with black folks is that one we're adultified
Speaker 1: as children would become adults. He was seen as a
Speaker 1: man even though he was a child, and he was killed.
Speaker 1: And and so what I was thinking about was this,
Speaker 1: you know, this idea of you said, we have to
Speaker 1: contort ourselves into these spaces. And now we have legislation
Speaker 1: that says you beuys, stay, you beust stay contorting yourself
Speaker 1: because we like, we're not uncomfortable. And so Till goes
Speaker 1: down to the South and doesn't know the rule right
Speaker 1: because at that time it was a little bit more
Speaker 1: liberal in the North than it was in the South.
Speaker 1: And we have a whole we have a whole conversation
Speaker 1: because I think white supremacy is universal. I just think
Speaker 1: it looks different dependent on where you are, right and
Speaker 1: so so so I think that the tension that we
Speaker 1: have as black folks is how do we raise our
Speaker 1: children so that they can be free ants live to
Speaker 1: see the next day. And that is a real tension
Speaker 1: that that white parents don't have to worry about, Like
Speaker 1: when a there's a point in the movie and I
Speaker 1: actually didn't even need to see the movie to know
Speaker 1: this where you know the kids, the black boys are
Speaker 1: out and the uncle and the aunt are up watching TV.
Speaker 1: You know they want to be sleeping, but you know
Speaker 1: they can't sleep because their kids that are not home.
Speaker 1: Black families still worry about their children because you never
Speaker 1: know if you're going to read about them be yup
Speaker 1: on the newspaper and so that, and so now we
Speaker 1: have legislation that said, how dare we make white folks uncomfortable?
Speaker 1: And you know or anti whiteness? And to me, I
Speaker 1: think when you hear them their argument, they actually want
Speaker 1: to go back. A lot of the folks who are
Speaker 1: arguing for this, like who are on the anti curtive
Speaker 1: race theory train are really thinking are arguing like, but
Speaker 1: what about our country's values of equality and justice for all?
Speaker 1: What happened? And I'm like, where were you where I
Speaker 1: was being a race where were you? Every day when
Speaker 1: black and Latin eggs, and Indigenous and queer children and
Speaker 1: trans children are saying, we feel uncomfortable, we don't feel
Speaker 1: welcome to here. Where were you? So to me, the
Speaker 1: double standard and the arguments really don't make any sense
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, it is strictly
Speaker 1: about who as a nation we deside we decide deserves protection,
Speaker 1: and we have decided that only white little kids deserve
Speaker 1: protection in this country. White little kids who conform to
Speaker 1: a binary gender. Come on, now, you put this in
Speaker 1: a little white kid in their trainings? Oh, throw them out, yep.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we've decided very narrowly who as
Speaker 1: a country we decide to protect, and that is not
Speaker 1: going to be a future that is worth living for
Speaker 1: a lot of folks. And that's why we got to
Speaker 1: do the work anyway that we can. Like you know,
Speaker 1: the end of the month, I mean, and the end
Speaker 1: of November we have a holiday, you know, which I
Speaker 1: don't celebrate because I come from Antigua, but it is
Speaker 1: a It has indoctrinated this idea of thanksgiving. We know,
Speaker 1: it's a whole lie. You know, there was rapture, there
Speaker 1: was raping, there was killing. It wasn't as like beautiful
Speaker 1: and harmonious as we tell the story. But that's an
Speaker 1: opportunity because folks are gonna be sitting at the table
Speaker 1: for the white accomplices out there. I'm like, that's the
Speaker 1: time to talk to your racist uncle. Talk to your
Speaker 1: racist uncle, tell them you know how, you know, because
Speaker 1: also we got to be voting, and I know voting
Speaker 1: is coming up, and thinking about Georgia, I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: how close certain states are and I'm like, really, anyway,
Speaker 1: I've just been all over the place. But all that
Speaker 1: to say is that it's not I don't want to
Speaker 1: dooms believe, like believe that everything is doomed. I want
Speaker 1: to I believe that this can shift, and this is
Speaker 1: an opportunity for us and those of us who are
Speaker 1: about this like radical revolutionary life of collective liberation. I
Speaker 1: want to believe that that we can change something. And
Speaker 1: that's what honestly wakes me up every day. That's the
Speaker 1: work that I do at Liberate Ed is really trying
Speaker 1: to create a world where all children can live, learn
Speaker 1: and thrive in the comfort of their own skin. And
Speaker 1: I first said those words of twenty fifteen and my
Speaker 1: ted talk because at the end of the day, all
Speaker 1: black people want is to live comfort in peace. Just
Speaker 1: let us live in peace and let us die in peace.
Speaker 1: Like you don't have to contribute to either of it,
Speaker 1: just let us be. And I think that's at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. I do the work so that
Speaker 1: I can live in peace because every time I speak
Speaker 1: my truth truth. And I don't know about you, Danielle
Speaker 1: Is I got to worry about what death threats I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get, what email I'm gonna get. And all I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do is live in peace and ensure that
Speaker 1: every single child can live, learn, and thrive in the
Speaker 1: comfort of their skin. That's it for part one of
Speaker 1: my two part conversation with doctor Dina Simmons. Make sure
Speaker 1: to check back tomorrow for the rest of the conversation
Speaker 1: about how to wake people up to their power and
Speaker 1: how to take up space as always, dear friends, Power
Speaker 1: to the people and to all the people. Power, get
Speaker 1: woke and stay woke as fuck.