WEBVTT - Pretty. Period. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.120 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woka F Daily with 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:20.599 Meet your Girl Danielle Moody. This week on woke a 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:24.000 F we are reflecting on the year of Hate and 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:29.080 I've selected some of our interviews over the years to 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:35.720 recap and one of my favorites was my conversation with 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.560 the author of One Drop, Shifting the lens on race, 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:44.320 doctor Yaba Blay. I have followed Yabba for many, many 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:53.000 years and her book One Drop really provided deep context 0:00:53.360 --> 0:01:01.560 to our core understanding of colorism. Now let me provide 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:09.399 you with the Oxford Dictionary definition of colorism prejudice or 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:14.880 discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:19.960 people of the same ethnic or racial group. This is 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:25.200 according to Wikipedia, discrimination based on skin color, also known 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:29.440 as colorism or shadism, is a form of prejudice and 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:34.280 or discrimination in which people who share similar ethnicity, traits, 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.880 or perceived race are treated differently based on the social 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:42.160 implications that come with the cultural meanings that are attached 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:51.360 to skin color. Colorism is a serious issue. It's one 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:57.600 that I have seen play out in this country in 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:04.080 other countries. In my family's home country of Jamaica, I 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:06.600 thought it was really interesting recently when I was kind 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:13.080 of going through photos of past prime ministers in Jamaica 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:15.760 in particular, and realizing that they all had a similar 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:21.160 look to them. Super fair skin, right, very very fair skin, 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:28.040 their hair texture would be very similar to those of 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:33.280 white people. And they've always been in charge of an 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:37.360 island that is largely filled with people whose skin tone 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:45.160 look like mine. And what does that say, right, how 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:49.120 do we absorb that? And what it is said is 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.720 that white supremacy is a hell of a fucking drug. 0:02:55.560 --> 0:03:02.440 That regardless of if you grew up right in a country, 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:08.080 in a place that there was an overwhelming presence of 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:13.640 darker skinned people, that sadly, you could not say that 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:19.560 you were unaffected by white supremacy. My sisters, she was 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:26.280 traveling around Asia, would tell me that she would never 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:31.920 pick up skincare products, whether it be something as simple 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:37.200 as a lotion or a body wash, and bring it 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:42.320 home that everything that she would use right when she 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:47.160 was living abroad would be from the United States. I'd say, 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:55.320 why because of the bleaching elements you see in many countries, 0:03:55.680 --> 0:04:02.600 including many on the continent of Africa. Bleaching is a 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:09.040 common practice where you either use different skincare products or 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:14.880 actually just dip yourself in pure fucking bleach so that 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:19.919 you can get lighter. Because the crime of white supremacy 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:24.640 has meant that the closer you are to whiteness, the 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.720 better you are. It doesn't matter if you are dipping 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:35.720 yourself in a toxin that could destroy your skin, cause cancer, blindness, 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:43.760 severe rashes, bleeding. That the desire to be fairer skin 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:50.920 outweighs the pain, the pain of what it would mean 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.400 to exist in a darker skinned body. Think about that. 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:04.520 My sister would tell me that, particularly in Asia in 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:10.360 the hotter temperature months, that you would see people completely covered, 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:18.240 wearing gloves, carrying parasols because the idea of your skin 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:32.440 not resembling that of porcelain was problematic. Why because of 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:37.760 the toxicity of white supremacy. Because of the export that 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:44.240 has been done from European nations and America that sends 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:53.440 images and videos of the blue, wide, blonde hair, fair skin, 0:05:54.920 --> 0:06:02.520 people who live these wonderful lives and are wealthy, and 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:08.520 are adored and are considered attractive, whose characteristics, whose physical 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:16.080 characteristics are used as yardsticks for the rest of the world, 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:21.080 which is majority people of color, to measure themselves against. 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:29.560 It's why during the Jim Crow error and time, we 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:34.120 had something in the United States called the brown paperbag test, 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:40.159 which is that if your skin was lighter than a 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:44.920 brown paper bag, then you were accepted, you were welcomed 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:50.960 in to certain places. If it was not, you might 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:55.559 as well be trash on a curb. It's why doctor 0:06:55.640 --> 0:07:00.160 Yaba Blay had started a social media campaign that spawned 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:04.920 into so much more called Pretty Period. And she asked 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:09.120 me many years ago if I would participate as a 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:14.960 darker skinned woman that we had always been told, and 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.920 it had been perceived to be a compliment that you 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:27.080 are pretty for a dark skinned girl, and her concept 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:35.080 of you are pretty period full stop was to be 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:41.040 a campaign that would empower darker skinned women and girls 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:53.720 throughout the diaspora. You know, it pains me sometimes when 0:07:53.720 --> 0:08:00.640 I recognize just how pervasive white supremacy is, just how 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:06.200 you know, you want to talk about a pandemic of 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:11.080 COVID nineteen and yet we don't talk about the pandemic 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.560 of white supremacy and how it has spread around the 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:19.960 world as a virus has infected every industry, every space, 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.080 every piece of policy and legislation that we have in 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:29.760 this country has been dictated by whether or not we 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:35.000 should give a damn, whether we should extend empathy is 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.520 based on people's skin. There is a meme that has 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:44.000 gone around for so long with the family guy and 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.400 you hold up the piece of paper that shows the 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.120 gradiations of whiteness, and then it moves into olive and 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.760 then finally darker skin tones, and it dictates to you, 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:58.920 based on the gradiation, whether or not you should be 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:03.640 considered a terrorist, store alone wolf, for somebody with mental illness. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:14.920 You see, those memes exist because it's reality. It's reality 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:17.160 when you walk down the street, when you go and 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:22.600 try and you know, go into a store. How you 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:28.319 are looked at, how you are perceived, doesn't matter how 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:35.960 clean you are or how pressed your clothes are. It 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.880 isn't the content of your character. It isn't the amount 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:49.120 of degrees. It's about the depths of your melanine. And 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.640 what's sad is that in every country that you go into, 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:59.840 you understand their relationship to colorism based on who's in charge, 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.760 who gets to pull the lovers of power. I remember 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:09.640 being in India, traveling in India so many years ago 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:20.240 and part of my family immigrated from Calcutta, India to Jamaica, 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:28.160 so I have lineage that is Indian and I had 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:36.760 never felt so different, so othered, and imagine this, I'm 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:41.280 from fucking America than when I was in India. It 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:47.200 was wild to me. People were staring and pointing, right 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:55.120 because I was so dark. But what was wild is 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.280 that there were people who were doing that that were 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:03.280 darker than me. Right. You see what we get exported 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:08.160 from India in Bollywood with regard to what it looks 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:12.199 like to be Indian is the you know, the Primillagia 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:20.600 Pauls right, the Prianka Chopras right, the fairer skinned, long 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:29.480 hair people, when in fact they have every color, every 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:36.640 depth of melanin that you can imagine. But based on 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.600 their cast system and based on their worthiness that if 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.599 you are a darker skinned person, you are just less desirable. 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:50.000 And why is that? Oh? Well, because the British ruled 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:56.280 them for so goddamn long. You know, I often wonder 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.760 and if I was like a you know, like a 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:06.959 director or a screenwriter, I still want to see a 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:14.000 genre of sci fi that would tackle what the world 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:21.000 would look like if white supremacy hadn't grabbed it and 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:27.200 strangled it and had hold over the globe for so 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:33.040 many years, thousands of years, Right, I wonder what we 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.520 would look like, how we would be, how we would tolerate, 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:39.800 accept love people, or if we would then, because of 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:43.520 human nature, just look for another way to other people 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:50.120 to isolate them. But this conversation that I have with 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:58.040 doctor Yaba Blay about colorism really delves into the depths 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:03.359 of what still needs to be unpacked about white supremacy 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:08.240 and about racism and how it is internalized. Right, you know, 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:13.160 you have people these quote unquote black Republicans are Latin 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.880 extra Republicans that believe that their proximity to whiteness, even 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:22.040 if they actually look like me, their proximity to whiteness 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:27.560 will somehow save them. And the reality is is that 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.320 in a crowd, in a mob, they gonna look the 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:37.320 same as me. So it's wild to believe that either 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:42.760 the physical shifting of your skin or your ideology will 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:47.320 allow you to access something that the white world has 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:53.960 never wanted you to access, which is true liberty and freedom, 0:13:56.120 --> 0:14:01.000 which is to break outside of our global cast system 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:09.080 that is designed by the depth of your melanin. What 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:13.440 would it mean to live outside of that box, to 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:20.240 live outside of that distortion, to have not contracted the 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:29.040 virus of white supremacy and internalized colorism. The conversation coming 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:33.040 up next with doctor Yaba Blay will help to provide 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:38.440 some perspective and insight into how we deal with, how 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:47.440 we talk about, and how we deconstruct colorism. Folks, I'm 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.960 always so excited and honored when I get to bring 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:56.320 some folks that I follow, friends, colleagues back to woke 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.200 f And if you've been following me for a long time, 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.240 you've heard me have the pleasure of speaking with doctor 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.520 Yaba Blay. You know her as an academic, the founder 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.400 of Professional Black Girl on Instagram, the author of the 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:14.280 award winning book One Drop of Putting a Lens on Race, 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.880 A doctor that covers colorism, white supremacy, anti blackness, and 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:23.200 basically everything that upsets our souls as black people. Doctor 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.520 Yaba Blay, Welcome back to woke f Daily. Thank you 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:31.120 doing good to be here this month. The world seems 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:36.160 shocked once again with the understanding that white supremacy exists 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.880 and as a thing, and it doesn't matter if you 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:42.960 are a princess. If you are the greatest athlete of 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.000 all time, I'm talking about Serena Williams. It doesn't matter 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.960 if you're a Beyonce, it doesn't matter what heights you 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:54.320 have achieved. White supremacy will find its way to try 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:59.120 and pull you down. I wanted to get your initial 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:05.000 reaction to the media's response to the Meghan Markle and 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:09.880 Oprah Winfrey and Harry interview and the understanding that someone 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:15.840 right in the royal family was commenting on her unborn 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.960 child Archie at the time, wondering how dark he was 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.040 going to be, and all of the things that happened 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:27.440 following that, the loss of security, literal protection for her, 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:33.200 for her child, for herself, and essentially being thrown to 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.400 the wolves in the UK. What were your reactions to 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:42.880 that story. I had quite a few reactions. I'm constantly 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:49.160 trying to reground myself and with whole judgment and annoyance 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.840 with the rest of the world, because I continually remind 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:57.960 myself that these aren't average conversations that everybody has all 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:01.160 the time, and so I'm privileged in that surrounded by 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.920 some very dope and brilliant folks. You know, we have 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:08.879 challenging conversations regularly, but the average person does not. I 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:14.000 watched that interview with my seventy eight year old gunny 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:18.880 and mother, who has long been fascinated by the magical 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:22.600 world of the royals. So Princess Diana was her girl, 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.400 you know, and I know she was front and center 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:30.960 watching Harry and Megan's wedding, as was much of the world, 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:33.560 and so we watched the interview together. Of course, she 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:37.520 wasn't gonna miss that. And so there's that moment when 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:42.840 Megan reveals that there were questions about Archie's complexion, and 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.560 you know what's now been meaned over and over again. 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:51.160 Oprah's response that right. My mom had a very similar reaction, 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:53.720 and I just looked at her and I'm like, Mom, 0:17:53.760 --> 0:18:00.440 like who colonised Ghanna? Right? And like you are you right? 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.159 You're right, same people and they don't have to change. 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.119 And so for me, the kind of frustration, I almost 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:10.520 feel like, are we gaslighting ourselves? You know? And so 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.119 there are a couple things perhaps that are happening. I 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:17.280 think from an American perspective, right, the idea that we 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:22.359 are surprised may be connected to our limited vantage vantage 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:26.520 point on what the UK is or who the UK 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.960 is for folks who haven't had the opportunity to travel, 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.200 or don't know folks who live there or whatever. Right, 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:36.520 whatever we know about the UK is what the media 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:40.600 has given us. And I think for many Americans, we have, 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:45.400 like my mother been, you know, swept off of our 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.679 feet by the whole idea of a royal family and 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:52.040 a crown and all of those kinds of like magical 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:56.880 images that we get, and not as much familiarity with 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.760 what it means to be black in that space, right, 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:06.240 experience of blackness in that space. Um, And so the surprise, 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.200 I don't know, in general, I wonder why we're surprised, 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:13.479 Like are we gaslighting ourselves? Right? Why would we? I'm 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.200 I was surprised a that Harry was allowed to marry 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.600 her in the first place. That was that was that 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:23.560 was my initial shock. So maybe that's that's why folks 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.639 are surprised. Maybe they assumed that if he was allowed 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.119 and I'm using that language very deliberately, if he was 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:33.199 allowed to marry Meg and Marco, that perhaps, um, the 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.000 royal family or the UK was more liberal than they 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:40.720 actually are. Maybe that's where the surprise comes. From But 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:44.080 I tried to stay offline a little bit the next 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.919 day because I already knew it was gonna be, you know, 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.160 a ship show in terms of all of the conversations 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:53.959 around it. But I think it's that surprised the shock 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:58.159 um that was most annoying to me, because again, in 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.080 the same way that I asked my mom, it's like, 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.000 what is it that we know about the UK? Like, 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.160 I'm not a historian, but I'm so very very aware 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:12.560 of how important history is to my work, to providing 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.480 contexts to the work that I do and the work 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.359 that so many people do and want to do around 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:22.520 anti racism. If you attempt to have a conversation about 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:26.880 anti racism that starts with George Floyd's murder, that starts 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:33.800 in twenty twenty, problem, right, Yeah, that history to ground 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.320 you right to have an understanding of how we got 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:39.600 here in the first place. So what is it that 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:44.640 you need to know about global history to understand what 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:49.119 that crown represents? Right? Where does the jewels and the 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.800 crown come from? M to see what I'm saying, Like, 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.440 if you're clear about that history, you should absolutely not 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:02.000 be surprised that there are conversations about this child's complexion, 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.280 because as far as their concerned, Megan Markle and I 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:09.479 are the same complexion, you know. It was one of 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:13.760 the one tweet that I saw that said and it 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:16.080 was a it was a it was a black woman 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.639 who who tweeted it, and I would say that she's 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:23.680 in the realm of you know, of darker chocolate, right, 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.919 and she was like, if Megan looked like me, we 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:31.160 wouldn't even be having this conversation. So when you talk 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:35.600 about the allowed, right, the you know, being allowed, it 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:37.879 was it was somebody who wrote and I'm so upset 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:41.080 that I can't remember. They're like, colorism is what allowed 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:45.280 Megan Markle to marry into that family, and colorism is 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:49.040 what had her flee the country. And so I want 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:53.200 you for for for for the audience to unpack that 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:56.719 sentiment of what that means, because it hit me and 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.320 I was just like, you're absolutely goddamn right. I think 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:02.560 that was something to the except that, yes, colorism is 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:04.760 what allowed her to marry in white supremacy as well 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:10.000 kicked out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in speaking of colorism, right, 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.960 we were talking about the hierarchical perceptions of and the 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:18.000 value associated with skin color and what's important to me. 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:21.520 Oftentimes when people talk about colorism, we talk about it 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.280 like it is an what am I trying to say? 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:28.280 An internal issue, like this is what we black people 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.119 and so called people of color due to ourselves. I 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:36.440 don't ever want to just connect colorism from white supremacy. 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:42.200 Colorism is symptom of white supremacy. Right. Colorism is how 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:47.240 we internalize white supremacy. If white supremacy is an ideology, 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:52.119 is an institution, is a way of of you know, 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:55.480 a lens on the world, if you will, that situates 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:59.360 whiteness as I mean, the language says supremacy. Again, when 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:01.920 I say white premacy, people get uncomfortable because they are 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:05.720 conflating white supremacy with white supremacists, meaning you're only thinking 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:08.720 of a clan, your only thing, right, frederate flags Right. 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:11.760 I'm talking about white supremacy as a historical ideology and 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:17.200 institution that gives us valuations of human value, and those 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:21.320 valuations are based on a hierarchy that puts supreme value, 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.959 ultimate value, highest value in white bodies, in white histories, 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:31.040 in white experience, in whiteness. Right. Much of the history 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:35.800 of the world operated from this space. Why is it 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:41.320 then that it was European countries that colonized African countries 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:43.560 and the rest of the world. Why is it now 0:23:43.840 --> 0:23:48.680 that Europe still has colonies? Language is important? Why should 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:56.800 Europe be in power? Why should Africa be controlled by 0:23:56.920 --> 0:24:04.399 external sources? External nations? Right? This ideology again that puts 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:11.320 highest value a whiteness, colorism because I am a visual person. 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:16.560 So imagine a hierarchy with whiteness at the top, blackness 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:19.960 at the bottom, various we got, we got a spectrum 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:24.200 in between. Colorism essentially says that, Okay, if we're dealing 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:29.399 with people of color, those who are closest to whiteness 0:24:30.320 --> 0:24:35.560 have more value. Ye, Right, So colorism. To say that 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:39.639 colorism is what got her into the palace is to 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:44.600 say that her complexion her physical appearance. Right, the average 0:24:44.680 --> 0:24:48.520 non discerning person, had we not seen her mother, had 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:52.680 we not known her background, she could quote unquote pass 0:24:52.680 --> 0:24:59.840 as meaning very easily. Could she have been mistaken for white? 0:25:00.440 --> 0:25:04.600 Think about when you think about whiteness as an identity. 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:11.200 Those gates have opened differently over time, meaning that Jews, 0:25:11.240 --> 0:25:17.280 for example, weren't always considered white. Italians weren't always considered white. 0:25:17.920 --> 0:25:21.359 Irish weren't always considered white. In the work that I 0:25:21.440 --> 0:25:24.639 do on hair politics, I know that it wasn't a 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:27.920 black woman who invented the straightening comb. It was a 0:25:28.000 --> 0:25:34.280 Jewish man. Why because that investment in a particular embodiment 0:25:34.359 --> 0:25:38.040 of whiteness that says blond hair, blue eyes, dare we say, 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:41.600 or at the very least right, white skin and straight hair. 0:25:43.119 --> 0:25:48.320 People use pejorative language like jew fro right folks from 0:25:48.320 --> 0:25:51.280 certain regions in the world having a different texture hair 0:25:51.359 --> 0:25:55.240 that doesn't look like your average you know, quote unquote 0:25:55.320 --> 0:26:01.840 normal white straight hair. There's an investment similarly to performing whiteness. 0:26:01.880 --> 0:26:04.200 I need you to receive me and see me and 0:26:04.240 --> 0:26:06.840 bestow upon me the value that you do to whiteness. 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:09.280 So yes, I might have white skin, but my hair 0:26:09.400 --> 0:26:12.439 is a different texture. So I too, am invested in 0:26:12.600 --> 0:26:18.320 straightening that hair so that I can be received similarly. Right, 0:26:19.800 --> 0:26:24.359 everyone on that spectrum is attempting to climb the ladder 0:26:24.440 --> 0:26:28.119 if you were wow ye, to get access to the 0:26:28.200 --> 0:26:32.639 privileges that come in white bodies. So colorism got her in, 0:26:33.040 --> 0:26:38.280 meaning she was light enough. Right, we've never seen her 0:26:38.400 --> 0:26:44.960 natural early kinky by racial hair. If that's such a thing. Right. 0:26:45.000 --> 0:26:46.880 We've seen pictures of what her hair looked like when 0:26:46.880 --> 0:26:50.280 she was a child. We've never seen that little coil since. 0:26:51.119 --> 0:26:54.080 So the investment in keeping that hair straight is also 0:26:54.200 --> 0:27:00.199 poor part and parcel of how she's going to be received. So, okay, Harry, 0:27:00.840 --> 0:27:03.800 you want to marry, you know, someone of color, You've 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:07.600 fallen in love with someone of color. She just enough. 0:27:08.200 --> 0:27:11.840 We can stomach this because her physicality is not a 0:27:11.920 --> 0:27:15.359 constant reminder to us that she is not white in 0:27:15.400 --> 0:27:19.040 the ways that mine would be. Can't run away from 0:27:19.040 --> 0:27:21.560 mine hers. You can make a choice about whether or 0:27:21.560 --> 0:27:24.640 not you see it or not. Possibly, but for some 0:27:24.680 --> 0:27:29.040 white people it's still as glaring, right, It's still as 0:27:29.080 --> 0:27:33.480 glaring in their face as if she were my complexion. 0:27:33.520 --> 0:27:36.760 So colorism got her aunt meaning she was light enough, right, 0:27:36.880 --> 0:27:39.640 she was white embodied enough. You know, people call her 0:27:39.640 --> 0:27:45.120 white passing. I would say white presenting only works if 0:27:45.200 --> 0:27:50.800 nobody knows, right, some of us can still see it, right, 0:27:51.400 --> 0:27:55.840 So white presenting, white supremacy, however, says that we don't 0:27:55.840 --> 0:28:00.840 care how light you are. We saw your mama, right, 0:28:01.560 --> 0:28:04.080 I mean the UK headlined straight out of Compton, All 0:28:04.119 --> 0:28:07.720 of these passive, aggressive little jabs, calling her exotic and 0:28:07.760 --> 0:28:12.520 all of these things. Her blackness is glaring to them 0:28:12.600 --> 0:28:16.720 if the comput is a European whiteness. So when it 0:28:16.760 --> 0:28:19.719 came down to when it came down to it, oh no, 0:28:20.440 --> 0:28:22.560 we know that you're black, so you're not gonna get 0:28:22.600 --> 0:28:27.760 the same treatment, the same privileges, the same protection that 0:28:27.920 --> 0:28:31.680 you would have had you been quote unquote purely right. 0:28:33.119 --> 0:28:38.160 It's so, what is so, I guess disturbing but not 0:28:39.280 --> 0:28:43.600 doesn't catch me off guard. But it's disturbing is how 0:28:43.720 --> 0:28:47.600 normalized we've allowed this to be right, It is not 0:28:47.680 --> 0:28:51.320 a shock of what the UK would write and their 0:28:51.360 --> 0:28:56.000 tabloids do. They have been doing this for decades. I 0:28:56.040 --> 0:29:01.360 spoke with an author from the UK, Georgina Lawson, who 0:29:01.360 --> 0:29:05.920 wrote the book Raceless, about her own experience um coming 0:29:05.960 --> 0:29:09.800 into coming into her blackness after her family fairly much 0:29:09.880 --> 0:29:12.880 gaslighted her into believing that it was an accident, that 0:29:13.000 --> 0:29:16.320 she was like she was some genetic phenom uh in 0:29:16.360 --> 0:29:19.200 some way, that she that she looked different from everybody 0:29:19.200 --> 0:29:24.320 else in the family. And she said that her experience 0:29:24.840 --> 0:29:31.640 is that in the UK they ignore race. There's no conversation, 0:29:31.800 --> 0:29:37.360 there's no she's like there's no readily um forced conversation 0:29:37.600 --> 0:29:42.560 around anti blackness, around white supremacy, around these terms that 0:29:42.640 --> 0:29:46.680 people are still learning and wrapping their their minds around. 0:29:47.120 --> 0:29:50.719 But here in the United States it's something that is 0:29:51.000 --> 0:29:53.920 more in your face. I want to know your experience 0:29:54.520 --> 0:29:57.360 as you know, as a as a as an academic 0:29:57.400 --> 0:30:02.520 and a professor that travels that studies this, how anti 0:30:02.600 --> 0:30:07.040 blackness or the silence around it differs between what we 0:30:07.080 --> 0:30:10.360 experience in the United States and what we are what 0:30:10.400 --> 0:30:14.080 we are seeing or learning show up in the UK 0:30:14.240 --> 0:30:17.360 as somebody from the outside looking in, Well, I haven't 0:30:17.400 --> 0:30:19.720 spent a lot of time in the UK. I haven't 0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:24.200 spent a lot of time in Europe in general, so 0:30:24.240 --> 0:30:27.000 I can really only speak from what I see projected, 0:30:27.240 --> 0:30:32.360 you know, European experiences. And again, in the same way 0:30:32.400 --> 0:30:35.320 that history is political, the media is political. And for 0:30:35.360 --> 0:30:39.040 those folks, you know, Americans, as as resourced as we are, 0:30:39.080 --> 0:30:41.720 as privileged as we are, I would argue that the 0:30:41.720 --> 0:30:45.080 average American does not leave this country, and if they do, 0:30:45.160 --> 0:30:48.960 they're going to you know, the Caribbean or Mexico or 0:30:49.000 --> 0:30:53.640 some vacation a spot. But like in terms of going 0:30:53.680 --> 0:30:56.120 to see how the rest of the world lives. I 0:30:56.160 --> 0:30:59.280 think we rely heavily on the media to show us 0:31:00.120 --> 0:31:02.280 the world, right, it's part of the access that we 0:31:02.400 --> 0:31:05.160 have through the media. And so think about it. How 0:31:05.280 --> 0:31:10.760 much black lived experiences have you seen from Europe. This 0:31:10.800 --> 0:31:14.280 is why people were completely fascinated by Michael la Cole. 0:31:16.920 --> 0:31:20.520 That's why we're fascinated when we hear Idris speak naturally 0:31:22.480 --> 0:31:27.480 because he spent so much time performing a black American accent. Right, Yes, 0:31:27.640 --> 0:31:31.400 he too has an accent. I went to Spain a 0:31:31.400 --> 0:31:35.840 couple of summers ago, and I was absolutely clear that 0:31:35.880 --> 0:31:38.960 I was black. People were staring at you, and it 0:31:39.000 --> 0:31:42.360 could have absolutely been where I traveled to. But you're 0:31:42.440 --> 0:31:47.480 very aware that you're not white in that space. Now, 0:31:48.280 --> 0:31:51.280 whether or not the conversations are happening in those spaces 0:31:52.120 --> 0:31:56.240 likely has to do with maybe the history of resistance 0:31:56.280 --> 0:31:58.920 in those spaces. Like we can't take for granted what 0:31:58.960 --> 0:32:01.520 the Civil rights did for our voice, the civil rights 0:32:01.560 --> 0:32:05.120 movement in America, right, the United Stay did for our 0:32:05.200 --> 0:32:11.920