WEBVTT - Notes on Trap Feminism 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.440 Good morning, peeps in Welcome to Okay f Daily with 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:19.200 Meet Your Girl Danielle Moody, recording live ish from our 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:24.520 coaching studios and Times Square. You know, I am really 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:30.400 excited about today's interview with the author of a new book, 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:35.400 her very first memoir, Bad Fat Black Girl. Author Cecily 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:40.480 Bowen and I met roughly teny years ago. Funny enough, 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:45.000 it's it's so funny how you traverse different circles and 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:50.360 different places and then get to be a part of 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:56.040 seeing people's glow up right. And Cecily and I met 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:05.560 because she was working with a feminist women's organization that 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:10.320 was focused on abortion, that was particularly focused on abortions 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:14.280 and abortion rights for black and brown women who have 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:18.040 traditionally been left out of the conversations with regard to 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:22.880 feminism or have been erased from the history of first 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:28.600 second third wave feminism. And what she explores in her 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:35.600 memoir is her own acceptance and understanding of what it 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.440 means to be a trap feminist right, what it means 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.920 to decide that you were no longer going to bow 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:51.640 to the constraints that a white supremacists, misogynistic, patriarchal society 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:57.160 places on the bodies and the experiences and the movements 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:06.200 and the vocal tones of black women, And what this 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:11.440 book lifts up is the lived experiences of black girls 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:17.400 from the hood right whose stories are oftentimes told, if 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:23.600 told at all, particularly by Hollywood, with how downtrodden, how troubled, 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:27.200 how we should all feel empathy and sad as opposed 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:31.760 to lifting up the fullness of these people and their 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:39.120 joy and experiences and community and relationship building. So I'm 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:43.399 excited for you all to be a part of this conversation, 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:45.600 and I would love that when you have an opportunity 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:50.320 after listening, that you share your thoughts on what your 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:55.040 definition of feminism is. Are you a feminist? Coming up next, 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:59.640 dear friends, is my conversation with the author of Bad 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:04.000 Black Girl, Cecily Bowen. I hope that you enjoy this 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:09.400 conversation as much as I did, Folks, I am so 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.919 excited to welcome to ooka AffA Daily for the first time, 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.600 Cecily Bowen, who is the author. I love this title. 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:21.000 I love this title, Bad Fat Black Girl. Notes from 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:28.160 a Trap Feminist. Cecily, you are also the host of Purse. 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.840 The host of Purse, the first podcast about female and 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:37.680 queer rappers, which you know, according to mainstream hip hop, 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:39.880 you would think that we only have about one or 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.640 two female rappers right now, let alone any queer one. 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:47.120 So I appreciate that as well. And you were formerly 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.880 the senior entertainment writer at Refinery twenty nine, creating different 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:57.240 outlets and spaces in white pop culture for black female voices. 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.680 Talk to me about what it means to be a 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.720 trap feminist. Let's just start from the beginning so people 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.920 understand the distinction, because I think that right now we 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.880 are seeing a I don't even want to say a resurgence, 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.520 but a birth of a different type of feminism, a 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:22.440 different type of womanism. So talk to me about what 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.400 it means to be a trap feminist. And I'm so 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.960 glad that you brought that up, because while feminism was 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:33.280 something that I had initially started to like say out 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.440 loud and kind of ruminate on almost ten years ago. 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.480 Now the impetus for writing this book is because we're 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:44.600 having that that resurgence or you know, this kind of 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.520 popularization of a very specific kind of feminism that is 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:52.479 rooted in the experiences of essentially the hood, Black Girls 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.400 and the soundtrack to that. I'm glad you mentioned the 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:59.320 podcast perse first, because the soundtrack to this movement is 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.279 all of this amazing female route that we have right now. 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.680 So just for some contacts, I think that's super important. 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.280 But what it means to be a trap feminist is 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:13.200 to really look at and honor the experiences of Black women, 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.599 and specifically Black women who are from the hood, So 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:21.359 black women who come from that cultural space of blackness 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:26.520 that is so often commodified, that is so often appropriated, 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:31.120 and that it's so often vilified and talked about without 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:36.720 actually ever hearing from the Black women who live those experiences. 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:40.479 And it's very important to understand that trap feminism is 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:47.719 not about pathologizing or intervening in the lives of like 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:52.120 hood black women to like. What it actually does is 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.920 celebrate all of the ways in which those specific kinds 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.480 of black women have already been thriving and surviving and 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:06.520 living and being the blueprint and literally creating cultural exports 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.040 that people continuously exploit all the time and you know, 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.000 been popping while we was doing it, you know. And 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:17.560 so that that is what trap feminism does. And one 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.120 of the things that is so dope about it is 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.880 that it does look specifically at trap music and the 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.840 sight of trap music as a way to start interrogating 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.679 some of the themes regarding gender and sexuality and race 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.560 and capitalism and money and all of those kinds of things. 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:39.000 You know, I I love this because, you know, one 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.440 of the things that I think too often happens is 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.479 in our request to be I don't even know. We 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.240 don't really use the term politically correct, because nothing is 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.719 politically correct anymore. But in our way to kind of 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:58.080 distance black people and blackness from the hood, right, there 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:03.800 has been this um, what can I say, sanitizing of 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:08.440 the black sanitizing of the black experience, and sanitizing of 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.000 the type of black women or black woman that is 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:16.200 okay to discuss. Right. So I would argue that, you know, 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:20.240 when we when we had Michelle Obama as our first lady, right, 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:23.880 even though Michelle Obama was very clear that she came 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.520 from the South Side of Chicago, even though she's very 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:30.600 clear about like the distinctions and of her upbringing, she 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:36.080 still came through Ivy. She still had to, um, I 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:40.920 would say, wash off some of the hood nature itself 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:45.360 in order for acceptance. So do you feel that in 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.840 this kind of space that we are in now, and 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.680 this cultural space that we are in, that we can 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:54.840 have conversations with about what it means to be from 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:59.239 the hood, about what it means to have this multifacetedness 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.200 as black people, as black women without having to sanitize 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:07.920 ourselves or make ourselves safe for mainstream consumption. Like we 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.160 don't have to run from it anymore. I think that, 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.040 you know, that's one of the revolutionary properties of social 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.200 media is that that's where black women are having those 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:23.320 conversations without watering down or sanitizing themselves. There's literally the 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:25.160 first I don't know why this is the first person 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.520 we came to online. There's this hairstylens I follow She 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.160 like does wig installations and her name is queenly Or. 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:35.839 She's based in Alabama, but like she does these voiceovers 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.240 of her doing her installation, and she speaks in her accent, 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.520 she cusses, she's very she's very clear just about who 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.280 she is, and she's getting all of these followers and 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:48.199 all of you know, these kinds of you know, now 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:49.720 she's starting to do like brand deals and stuff, and 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.400 she does that unapologetically for being who she is. And 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:54.720 I think it's interesting because you know, I feel like 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.160 for the first you know, for the twenty tens and 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.080 maybe like the early as, the only people we were 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.480 letting do that, actually men who were impersonating black women 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:05.520 like those were the only people that we were letting 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.040 show up in the hood like girls. And so now 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:08.880 I feel like we're actually letting black women do it. 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.160 But it's so interesting. I love that you brought that 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.600 up because you know, you mentioned some of the places 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.000 that I that I worked, and you know, essentially that 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:17.800 is what a lot of people would call women's media, 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.560 you know, main culture. And it was when I got 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:23.960 to that space. You know, obviously I'm from Chicago, but 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.720 then I've also lived in DC, I've lived in Atlanta. 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.040 I'm from these very like black these places with like 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:32.280 these you know, big black populations. But I think it 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.480 was when I started to work in media that I 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:41.280 started to see that the black people who were traditionally 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:46.760 occupying space in that specific industry were absolutely not from 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.400 the hood, and the ones that were were doing everything 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.720 they could to you know, not be from the hood. 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.400 And but but the thing about it was that because 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.120 I had a very non traditional path into journalism and 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.319 into media, like I ever went to journalism school or 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:05.240 any of that. My voice and my perspective as a 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:07.280 black girl from Ahood is actually what got me in 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:09.960 the door. It was, you know, we were in on 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.000 the advent of this. It was the era of the 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.240 personal narrative, and we were questioned. It was like where 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.520 pop culture and feminism were really having another kind of 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.000 merging together. Was when Scandal was on. Everybody wanted to 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.200 know if everything was feminist. And so my voice really 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.760 got me in the door. And I knew I could 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:32.080 not start to sacrifice who I was, you know, for 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.560 the work and for the space. And obviously, like you know, 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.640 I had to try to figure out how to navigate that, 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.840 you know, while also like maintaining like you know, the 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:44.240 norms of like professionalism and things like that. But I 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.040 was very adamant that I did not want to sacrifice 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:51.040 who I was, and I was adamant that like as 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.480 much as we talked about, like, you know, the origins 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.320 of a certain hairstyle, I knew that that wasn't enough 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:00.439 in terms of actually reflecting the voices of those women 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.439 because I think on the very other side of that, 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:08.360 we have all of these moments happening on the political 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.400 side right where we have black trans women being killed 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.400 at super high rates. Most of those black trans women 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.120 who were being killed we're from the hood. You know. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.120 We have Brianna Taylor's death. You know, we have all 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.520 of these All of a sudden, black women are like martyrs, 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.200 and like we hear about them in death, and we 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.840 hear about them after they've been you know, experienced intimate 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.199 partner violence. We hear about them as statistics, you know, 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.440 in terms of you know, them contracting hid or what 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.080 the income gap is between them. There were all of these. 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:43.520 There are all these very material outcomes of what it 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:45.680 means to be black and from the hood and to 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.000 be female and black and from the hood that folks 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:50.960 like to talk about, and in that way, hood black 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:55.280 girls become ideas and they're not Actually we don't actually 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.520 ever hear from them though, we don't talk to them, 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.160 and it's not enough that we just say, oh, they 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.520 influenced this cultural trend. That that's not make up for 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:09.840 us not hearing those stories. And so you know that 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:15.360 it was really wanting to just make space for the 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.959 fact that we we can be spoken too, and we 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.440 should be allowed to speak instead of always being spoken about. 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.880 You know. What I also find interesting too is the 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:31.520 pushback that we see in the comments sections on some 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:38.240 black pages. Right so, you will have you know, various 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:43.280 various folks, various black women, right so, whether it's city girls, 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:48.360 whether it is you know, a lotto, whether it is 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.560 Michelle Obama, what have you. And there's always a set 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:57.080 of black people, black women in particular, who are embarrassed 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:01.959 by those said women or saying you know, uh, so 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.120 and so didn't die so that you could shake your 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:06.600 ass like this or so and so didn't What do 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:10.920 you say? You know, what? What? What? What? What? Is it? 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:15.360 Just the internalized like whiteness of it all, or like 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.360 don't let black don't let white folks, you know, don't 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.000 air out our dirty laundry type of thing. What do 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:25.480 you think is kind of this stem where? Where where 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.560 that internalized oppression is coming from? So I think it 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:33.000 has a lot to do with respectability and survival. I 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.720 think that we are, you know, it's it's hammered into 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:41.120 us from such, you know, from so many different angles 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:42.960 and from so many different places that in order to 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.080 make it in the world, that in order to be 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.880 an upstanding citizen. You are to deny a lot of 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.560 the things that really make you black and make ubliquity 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.920 black black, you know, not not just you know, your 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.400 ancestral roots or anything like that. And so, you know, 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.760 it was a conversation that was I remember the same 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:06.200 conversation happening with black men around sagging their pants, the 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.680 conversations that were had around black men wearing locks or 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:14.079 having braids, and institutions and institutions from the NFL and 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.160 the NBA to more House and so I think it's 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.360 really just a reflection of that. But I think the 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.440 issue with that is that, first of all, respectability politics 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.200 have never saved us, and they never will. And the 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:36.040 faster we accept that, the better off we will be. 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.840 Honestly and truly, that will not stop us from experiencing 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:44.880 the trickle down of systemic racism, gender based violence, sexism, 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.680 or any of that. However, I do think that some 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.400 of the tools of respectability they help lighten the load. 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.040 I mean, I can say, even for myself, the fact 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.840 that I am college educated, the fact that I the 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.360 fact that I have the gift of literacy itself, the 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.560 fact that I can read and write period. You know, 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.960 has it helps me to have the platform to even 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:08.960 be able to talk about to be able to talk 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.840 about tripe feminism. But I think where we mess up 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:18.440 is that we cannot participate in that while also promoting 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.120 the eradication of the things that just make us black, 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:22.800 you know. And I learned that from a lot of 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:26.800 different people. You know, one of my mentors, friends, one 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.160 of my professors and college was doctor who was Nicole Brown, 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.120 who started this program called Soul High, Saving our Lives, 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.160 Hearing our Truths. And the basic principle of this program 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:37.560 was that you know, us as college students and college professors, 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:39.320 we would go to work with black girls and like 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.880 local schools off campus, you know, people who were just 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:47.320 from that neighborhood, and you know, we were not going 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.680 into those schools. Were like an interventionist approach. A lot 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:52.640 of the programs that have been catered to working with 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.800 black girls were about like you know, polishing them up, 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:00.960 teaching them about we have to teach them about hygiene, 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.120 we have to teach them to be ladies, we have 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:05.920 to teach them to thrive. Because like the idea was 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.560 that there was something inherent about black girlhood or about 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:11.560 being black girls from the hood that they just didn't 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.880 know about like how to be like women of the world. 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:16.880 And we were like, no, actually, we want to go 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:18.560 in there and like do art and like let them 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:20.520 tell their own stories, and we want them to roll 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:22.840 their necks and pop their lips, and we want them 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.000 to just ruvel in the beauty that is black girlhood. 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:29.520 And then we can make them that we can make 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:31.200 the meaning of that, and they can make the meaning 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.400 of their own lives. But like, let's have them tell us, actually, 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.200 you know, what the what their lives are, like, what 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:39.400 they need and what they need to experience. And so 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:42.440 that is a practice that is very much so embedded 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:44.560 in the heart of tripe feminism and in terms of 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:46.840 how I work. But I think that's also my response 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:49.760 to a lot of the fear, going back to your question, 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:51.680 to a lot of the fear and a lot of 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:55.280 the respective respectability pushback that we see online, especially from 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.280 other black folks, that like, if we you know, no 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:01.440 one died from to be able to for me to 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:03.560 shake my ass on the internet, But they also didn't 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.280 die for me to be ashamed of shaking my ass 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.480 on the internet. Even that wasn't that wasn't the end all, 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:11.480 be y'all, Like, let's beat Like when we talk about 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:13.040 why you know, if we you know, Martin Luther King 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:14.919 is usually who late who they use as the example. 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:16.400 But like if we want to talk about what Martin 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.800 Luther King died for, like Martin Luther King died as 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.400 at the hands of white supremacy, and then an attempt 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.320 at end white supremacy, like it ain't had nothing to 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:24.879 do it. Who was shaking the ass or who was not? 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:29.480 You know, because in an ideal world, you know, if 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.600 we really eradicated white supremacy, me shaking my ass would 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:36.400 not be a sign of inferiority or unproductivity or failure 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:38.880 in a way that you think it is, because oh god, 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.680 I love it, Like yes, yes, I'm not. I'm not 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:44.560 gonna turn into no white woman for y'all. I'm sorry, 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.160 I'm just not gonna do it, Okay, like y'all we are, 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.920 we are not of elitism is not gonna save us respectability. 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.000 It's not gonna save it us. And and honestly, like 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.439 we've been doing fun, I think that's also the issue 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.960 that like the damn is that you think is being 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.280 caused by black girl shaking her ass on the internet 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.160 just doesn't exist in the way as you think it does. 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.000 But what does is like misogyny. I was going to 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:15.000 say her, yeah, because because what the product that the 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:19.320 issue is not about whether or not or how or 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.240 when to shake your ass, right like, that is actually 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:25.919 not the thing. It's about being free or being or 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.600 living in a perceived free society that there is not 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:35.240 going to be repercussions for doing so. Repercussion being like, oh, 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.800 well that's why she got raped or that's why she 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.320 got beat or that's why this happened. And it's just like, well, 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:42.880 wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute, that 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:46.280 didn't come from that action. That came from what we 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:50.320 have decided in our society is normal and acceptable. Right, 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.800 that misogyny is okay, that patriarchy is okay, that abuse 0:18:55.359 --> 0:19:01.920 of women is okay. You know, it was earlier. It 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:08.360 was supposed to be the seventeen seventeenth birthday of Michaia, 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:14.600 who was gunned down last year in front of her 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.320 foster care home by police who rolled up in the 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:26.080 midst of a fight. And and you know, and Makaiah 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:31.800 did not receive the type of wall to wall coverage 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.840 campaign and all of these things, and a part of 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.720 me believes, and I want to ask you, this, is 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.239 it because she was not the perfect martyr? Is it 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:46.840 because she wasn't thin? Is it because her background wasn't 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.240 polished right that we couldn't say that, oh, she was 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.920 asleep in her bed or oh she was doing X 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.240 like that she was in the action of defending herself 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.520 and her body, and we don't like to see black 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.040 women doing that, Like what do you why do you 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.320 think you know? And because I want to honor that, 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:11.560 like honor the truth about why her name will most 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.479 likely be lost as years go on and not a 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.639 part of the broader array of hashtags that we know 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.720 and stories that we can conjure because of the contact 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:27.119 of it. That is so and you literally hit the 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:35.000 nail on the head. People are not rallying around the 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:39.600 death of that fifteen year old girl because let's be like, 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.080 she was a fifteen year old child who had already 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:49.080 been disserviced and not receiving things that she deserved as 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.240 an innocent child just by way of being in a 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:57.040 problematic foster care system in the birthplace. But it literally 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:02.320 is because she was in the active mode of fighting 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:07.560 back and defending herself from she saw as a threat 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:14.120 that people have not run to like defend her name 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:15.680 in the same way that they did a black woman 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.280 who literally wasn't doing anything except sleeping. And I think 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:23.719 that that and also so much comes with that, the 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:27.360 fact that she was a bigger black girl. People did 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:29.359 not see her as a victim who even needed to 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.480 defend herself in the first place. Yeah, they thought that 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.000 she should just have been in a situation. She must 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:39.399 have been the aggressive, she must have been the person 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:44.320 who calls all of this chaos. And even the fact 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:49.640 that the police's response to seeing her with a knife 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.040 was to shoot has everything to do with the fact 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:55.680 that she was a big black woman, Because then, yell, 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:58.880 how many videos have you seen a white people wielding 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:04.160 swords hitting the girl come on, hitting the police using 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.960 their martial arts, spitting in their faces, slapping the person 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.919 them out, And those officers don't even think to reach 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:13.960 for a weapon, not a taste or not a baton, 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:18.320 not a handcuff. And so we have to be honest 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:25.840 about how black girl bodies are literally read as more 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:31.440 dangerous and also less valuable. Yes, because the decision that's 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:35.040 being made is whose life am I here to save 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.800 and who can and who can go in my efforts 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:42.600 to save those lives. And Makaya's life ended up at 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.199 the bottom, and that has everything to do with the 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:47.160 fact that she was a fat black girl, and people 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:51.000 who refuse to acknowledge that are being intentionally obtuse. At 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:54.760 this point, do you think that because you know, even 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:58.080 in the title of your book, right, you use the 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:02.240 word fat? Yeah? Right? And if do you use it, 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:06.800 I'll just ask why do you use the term why 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.400 do you use the term fat? Yeah? So I think 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:14.520 it's really interesting because I think that, first of all, 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.320 I use the term because I am fat. That's that's 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:19.600 what I am. That is a descriptor of my body, 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:21.959 that is that is how I look. And I do 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:24.520 understand that the word fat is very loaded, and I 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:26.199 think for a lot of people, right, it comes with 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:28.840 a negative connotation. And we've developed all of these other 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:32.560 words like plus size or thick or voluptuous or what 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:34.840 you know whatever, all these quote unquote likes you from 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:41.359 those amisms to describe fat that are supposed to that 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:44.520 are supposed to imply that we don't mean harm when 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:46.439 we say them, and so I actually think that I 0:23:46.480 --> 0:23:50.160 intentionally use the word fat because I want people to 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:54.600 actually come back to that place of discomfort, Like I 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:57.040 want you to come back to that place where you 0:23:57.040 --> 0:24:01.120 are thinking of fat as an inherently negative word, so 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:04.359 that then you can like hear everything else that I 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:07.160 have to say and then hopefully question that, like why 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:09.359 why the word fat was bad in the first place, 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:12.000 And so that is that is why I use that word. 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:14.800 I've always gone by you know, bad Fat Black Girl 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:17.600 on the internet. That's that was my social media handle. Honestly, 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:20.600 you know, I wanted to title the book just notes 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:23.639 from a trip Feminist period, Like I wanted that to 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:26.240 be the title. Um as we were kind of workshopping 0:24:26.400 --> 0:24:29.160 some other titles that just because they thought folks would 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:32.680 know My publisher UM and my editor and my agent. 0:24:32.720 --> 0:24:34.199 They were like, Okay, we're not sure that people are 0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:37.159 immediately gonna know what trap feminist trip feminism is, so 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:40.639 we might need another title that's like that kind of 0:24:40.640 --> 0:24:42.360 brings people into by the book. And so I get 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:45.240