Speaker 1: Today's mini pod is a little bit of a return
Speaker 1: to last summer. Our very efficient reader, Tiffany has been
Speaker 1: bugging us about our reading and encouraging us to read
Speaker 1: a lot more sources if we could so as we
Speaker 1: hunkered down this hopefully winter break with a book, there
Speaker 1: are plenty of recommendations in this episode. You can find
Speaker 1: a list of all the books that we talk about
Speaker 1: in this episode in the description Happy holidays and happy reading, y'all.
Speaker 2: Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1: Home, everybody. This is Tiffany Cross, Angela Rye and a
Speaker 1: man you get them. And this is a mini pod,
Speaker 1: and we don't know what we're about to talk about.
Speaker 3: Yes, that was Angela's suggestion that we wait and figure
Speaker 3: out what we're going to talk about, and I record, yeah,
Speaker 3: we understand. Well, we've heard you guys in the audience
Speaker 3: ask us about what we're reading, what we like to read,
Speaker 3: and so I thought this might be a good opportunity
Speaker 3: for the co host to share some of their favorite
Speaker 3: books and we would recommend to you guys. I know
Speaker 3: I have a lot I, as I talked about, have
Speaker 3: read Charles Blow's book The Devil you know, so I
Speaker 3: would love for folks to read that we can have
Speaker 3: a conversation about it. I am reading The Color of Money,
Speaker 3: Wealth and Black Banks. I might have a subtitle wrong,
Speaker 3: but it's MRSA but Darenden. I think that's fair name.
Speaker 3: I had her on my show some years ago and
Speaker 3: started the book and embarrassingly so did not finish it.
Speaker 3: And I hate when folks when people do that, this
Speaker 3: is a question I'll ask you, guys, I might be
Speaker 3: a bit of a I don't think it's snobbery. I
Speaker 3: think it's just the art of reading. I do not
Speaker 3: think audio listen. When people say they listen to the audiobook,
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's reading. And I say that
Speaker 3: because like your brain literally processes it differently and for
Speaker 3: the right like when you read something, you're comprehended. It's
Speaker 3: the difference between listening to a podcast like y'all are
Speaker 3: doing now versus actually reading the words, like your brain
Speaker 3: literally processes it. And so you know when you have
Speaker 3: friends with kids and they're like, oh, I did the
Speaker 3: audiobook and the parents are like no.
Speaker 4: No, no, you need to read the book.
Speaker 3: I think if I had kids, i'd be one of
Speaker 3: those parents like, you have to strengthen that skill.
Speaker 4: You have to read. So do you all think that
Speaker 4: audiobooks counts as reading?
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you are an auditory learner, yeah, which some
Speaker 1: people are. Some people like I need to hear it
Speaker 1: out loud. In fact, when I'm actually reading, whether it's
Speaker 1: a report or a book or even an article, sometimes
Speaker 1: I will say out loud to myself a piece that
Speaker 1: is something I want to want to remember, a piece
Speaker 1: that I may want to go back to now.
Speaker 5: Love.
Speaker 1: I love physical books because I like writing in them.
Speaker 1: I got tabs for days. If you wanted to get
Speaker 1: me a you know, a gift and you don't know
Speaker 1: what I like, just get me some post its because
Speaker 1: they're going to end up in books and the flags. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of that. I love it, and mainly because I
Speaker 1: even commit you know, certain passages to memory when they're
Speaker 1: really you know, that thought provoking and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think audio books work just as fine.
Speaker 1: I tell my kids all the time because my son, Jackson, particularly,
Speaker 1: who's a really competitive reader, you know, wants me to
Speaker 1: know that he started the day at page twenty three
Speaker 1: and he ended at one hundred and twenty six I said, well,
Speaker 1: that's good, Jackson, but do you remember what you read?
Speaker 1: But I would not object to at you know, at
Speaker 1: some point when they get introduced to audio books to
Speaker 1: them listening as well, we're gonna get the fundamentals of
Speaker 1: reading down. We're gonna get the fundamentals of you know,
Speaker 1: you know, root words, because it's going to be important
Speaker 1: for you at some some point in time. But I
Speaker 1: will tell you I have I have I have a question.
Speaker 1: One does it make a difference to you listening versus
Speaker 1: reading yourself fiction nonfiction? Because I'll say this for me,
Speaker 1: I am I don't read fiction at all. In fact,
Speaker 1: my therapist has told me you've gotta you have got
Speaker 1: to read more fiction. It is where the imagination, Yes,
Speaker 1: you know it exists. And I'm so like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: But why would I waste my time on that one?
Speaker 1: I know if I read this, this is history, this
Speaker 1: is this, this is you know, these are things that
Speaker 1: I can put under my under my two bell. So
Speaker 1: I got to still make that adjustment. But I do
Speaker 1: wonder whether or not it would be different for me
Speaker 1: if I were listening to an audio book of a
Speaker 1: fiction story versus an audio book of a fact story,
Speaker 1: and I wonder if it makes a difference to either
Speaker 1: of you.
Speaker 6: I will say Lenard actually suggests reading the book and
Speaker 6: listening to it at the same time. He was telling
Speaker 6: me that it was a good experience, and he did
Speaker 6: it with Viola Davis's book, So I did that with
Speaker 6: Violet Davis's book, and I agree. So I think it depends.
Speaker 6: I definitely in somebody the way my mind moves. If
Speaker 6: I'm just listening to the audio book and I start
Speaker 6: looking at something else or like I'm texting at the
Speaker 6: same time, you can forget it.
Speaker 2: I basically have blocked everything out.
Speaker 6: But if I'm concentrating just on that book or closing
Speaker 6: my eyes and just listening to that book.
Speaker 2: It helps.
Speaker 6: But I did appreciate the experience of reading and listening
Speaker 6: at the same time.
Speaker 1: Plus fiction non fiction equal leaders.
Speaker 6: I'm not a I'm not a fiction person. I think
Speaker 6: that there was a time, like growing up, where I
Speaker 6: was more of a fiction person, but I think now
Speaker 6: there's so much going on. I feel like, if I'm
Speaker 6: going to be reading, I wanted to be historical based,
Speaker 6: strategy based, political base economics based, something with some solutions
Speaker 6: in there. So I do know like, the last fiction
Speaker 6: book that I was really into is Derek Beale Faces
Speaker 6: at the Bottom of the Well in Law School, And
Speaker 6: it was because I could see it.
Speaker 2: And here we are about to get shipped off to Hell.
Speaker 6: To Mars right now, So I mean, I understand it
Speaker 6: has a little tinge of accuracy.
Speaker 3: I go through about a book a week, and I
Speaker 3: try to go back and forth. If one week is fiction,
Speaker 3: the next week, I'll try to do nonfiction. But I
Speaker 3: really enjoy fiction. Angela, you talked about finding me Viola Davis.
Speaker 4: That book was therapy for me.
Speaker 3: I mean that book Viola Davis, just so I couldn't
Speaker 3: read or listen to that. I read that and I
Speaker 3: can't do audio at the same time as reading because
Speaker 3: our speeds are different. And I'll read something over, like
Speaker 3: if a paragraph or even a sentence it's just beautifully constructed,
Speaker 3: I will read that over and over and over and over.
Speaker 3: Tony Morrison said ones which I it is a torturous
Speaker 3: process to write. I don't believe in ghostwriters either, because
Speaker 3: not that ghostwriters can't have good books, but when people
Speaker 3: say I wrote a book, I'm like, well, did you
Speaker 3: write or did you have a ghostwriter? Because when you
Speaker 3: are writing. Tony Morrison, when I was fourteen, I was
Speaker 3: listening to a conversation with her and Oprah and she
Speaker 3: was saying that as a writer, you will take one
Speaker 3: cent tense and structure it in every possible way to
Speaker 3: make it the point that you want.
Speaker 4: To see what works.
Speaker 3: And I tried to had a discipline to do that,
Speaker 3: and it is a tortuous process and so, but it's
Speaker 3: also a beautiful process when you're all done. So I
Speaker 3: like the way that fiction doesn't constrict you to the
Speaker 3: realms of reality that you know. It can still you
Speaker 3: can learn from it. It can still based in history,
Speaker 3: but it's beautiful writing that you know deeply explores. And
Speaker 3: with fiction, they're more than likely is not a ghostwriter.
Speaker 3: With nonfiction sometimes I think it's particularly with biographies, people will,
Speaker 3: you know, hire somebody. I know a lot of people
Speaker 3: who are like hired ghostwriters who offer They're like, hey,
Speaker 3: I can write this chapter for you, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: as if I would never you know, I want to
Speaker 3: construct this myself. But this leaves me I have some
Speaker 3: sound that I want us to listen to from a
Speaker 3: writer that I thought was so amazing. She since passed away.
Speaker 3: But I'm sure many of you have read Octavia Butler.
Speaker 3: Probably not you, Andrew digit or are you Angel I
Speaker 3: guess since you guys don't read fiction. But her work
Speaker 3: it speaks to so much that's happening right now. And
Speaker 3: she actually made a good point I think, around just
Speaker 3: the process of writing, but also how she bases it
Speaker 3: in what's happening in society. And she was so far
Speaker 3: ahead of her time, So take a listen.
Speaker 5: I got the idea for it when I heard someone
Speaker 5: answer a political question with a political slogan, and he
Speaker 5: didn't seem to realize that he was quoting somebody. He
Speaker 5: seemed to have thought that he had a creative thought there,
Speaker 5: and I wrote this verse. Beware, all too often we
Speaker 5: say what we hear others say, we think what we
Speaker 5: are told that we think, we see what we are
Speaker 5: permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told
Speaker 5: that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this.
Speaker 5: To see and to hear even an obvious lie again
Speaker 5: and again and again may be to say it almost
Speaker 5: by reflex, then to defend it because we have said it,
Speaker 5: and at last to embrace it because we've defended it.
Speaker 5: And because we cannot admit that we've embraced and defended
Speaker 5: an obvious lie. Thus, without thought, without intent, we make
Speaker 5: mere echoes of ourselves, and we say what we hear
Speaker 5: others say.
Speaker 4: This is a work of fiction.
Speaker 3: But that beautifully constructed paragraph I think speaks to so
Speaker 3: much of what's happening in society about how we will
Speaker 3: regurgitate a lie. And I don't mean maga Republicans will
Speaker 3: you know, obviously that happens, but I even mean amongst
Speaker 3: ourselves because something existed, or because you know, we will
Speaker 3: take We talked about this in parody. You know, Fox
Speaker 3: News will run a piece and then the Shade Room
Speaker 3: will post it.
Speaker 4: You know, it's it is something.
Speaker 3: Where it dulls our intellect and it declines our reasoned thinking.
Speaker 3: And so I don't know, I think there are some
Speaker 3: lessons to learn in fiction. But when she talked about that,
Speaker 3: I just thought, Wow, that's true. I see that happening
Speaker 3: a lot from some things that took place in the
Speaker 3: Black Church that I, you know, don't agree with in adulthood.
Speaker 3: But people, you know, it's it's orthodoxy, you know, it's culture.
Speaker 3: These axioms become principal after a while, and if we
Speaker 3: just imagine, but what if this is not the case.
Speaker 3: What if this man saying this to me is wrong?
Speaker 3: What if this leader projecting this to me is incorrect?
Speaker 3: What if this leader really wants to rule and not
Speaker 3: lead and just to question everything around me? So finktion,
Speaker 3: I would say, can invite that kind of Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well that was beautiful. And what I loved about it
Speaker 1: is she said, missus butler h the obvious lie, right,
Speaker 1: is obviously not the truth. So we're not debating with
Speaker 1: another this is true false. We all are looking at
Speaker 1: the thing and saying it's not true, and then we
Speaker 1: keep listening, and then we start to repeat, and then
Speaker 1: the repeating becomes the you know, the our foundation of defense,
Speaker 1: and we fight over it, and then we've gotten so
Speaker 1: deep in we cannot even acknowledge that we all knew
Speaker 1: it was a lie, and I just kept running with it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what I love?
Speaker 1: So I think, Tiffany, your appreciation is well learned. You're
Speaker 1: a writer, and so you love words. You love the
Speaker 1: written word, not as you know, maybe not even the
Speaker 1: spoken words so much as you love the written Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: Michael Harriett is one of those people who I have underlined,
Speaker 1: double underline, circled because he is. It feels like, while
Speaker 1: it comes off so easy as a person who likes
Speaker 1: to see subtexts, I imagine a person who has, as
Speaker 1: you described earlier, written a sentence so many different ways
Speaker 1: that he wants it to stick. He wants it to land,
Speaker 1: and he wants it to land on first impact. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you know, the written word as well, obviously more
Speaker 1: more more fact than fiction, But I do want to
Speaker 1: reprioritize and reorient myself a little bit here because I
Speaker 1: do think there's some truth in this sort of imaginative,
Speaker 1: imaginative space where for a lot of my life I've
Speaker 1: sort of had to live and deal in what is present,
Speaker 1: what I know to be the case, either what has
Speaker 1: happened or forecast to occur, And I do think it
Speaker 1: robs us a little bit of the what's outside the box,
Speaker 1: what's not on the page each what isn't being said?
Speaker 1: Where are the possibilities for this to go? And I
Speaker 1: think writers, particularly those who are skilled at it, have
Speaker 1: a beautiful way of lifting us off of it. So
Speaker 1: I appreciate that about good writers, but I appreciate them
Speaker 1: an equal measure I think both written and spoken.
Speaker 3: What would you recommend to our audience that they pick
Speaker 3: up and maybe even to me? Maybe I haven't read
Speaker 3: some of the books you have.
Speaker 6: So this is when I'm using this one because this
Speaker 6: is a quote from the Congressional Black Caucus that we
Speaker 6: say often it was no permanent friends, permanent enemies, just
Speaker 6: permanent interests. And this book is from William Lacey Clay.
Speaker 6: This is Congress from Lacy Clay's father. William Lacy Clay
Speaker 6: was one of the CBC founders, and he talks about
Speaker 6: the journey of Black Americans in Congress from eighteen seventy
Speaker 6: to nineteen.
Speaker 2: This book is called Critical Race Theory and it is.
Speaker 6: A collection of essays. It's a text that I used
Speaker 6: in law school. This actually talks about this is It
Speaker 6: includes Kimberly Crenshaw as well as many many other scholars.
Speaker 6: This book is important because it will actually tell you
Speaker 6: about what critical race theory actually is and not the
Speaker 6: nonsense they tell you. So the foreword is by Corno West.
Speaker 6: It's edited by Kimberly Crenshaw, Neil Gatanda, Gary Peller, and
Speaker 6: Kendall Thomas. Medical apartheidr I'm bringing this up because this woman,
Speaker 6: doctor Harriet Washington, talks about why black folks don't or
Speaker 6: why the system, the healthcare system, the medical system has
Speaker 6: not proven itself trustworthy to black people, which is a
Speaker 6: slight modification on what we normally talk about. Very good
Speaker 6: texts Ron Brown. In addition to Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ron
Speaker 6: Brown's picture was on our mantle in the house. My
Speaker 6: dad was in a diehard Democrat, but what he loved
Speaker 6: about Ron Brown was his way of advocating for black people.
Speaker 6: He was the DNC chair and also was the Department
Speaker 6: of Commerce Secretary under Bill Clinton.
Speaker 2: This is his.
Speaker 6: Memoir, Ron Brown, An Uncommon Life. Asada obviously an autobiography,
Speaker 6: very important. This is written by Asada Shakur. She is,
Speaker 6: I believe, the only woman on the FBI's most Wanted list.
Speaker 2: She should not be there. Free Asada all right.
Speaker 6: And finally, my good brother, Resma Menechem has a book
Speaker 6: called My Grandmother's Hands. It's a New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 6: It helps deepen us into what ancestral trauma looks like,
Speaker 6: what it means to regulate and corregulate our nervous systems,
Speaker 6: and how to ensure that we heal from racialized trauma
Speaker 6: in the body. It's a somatic therapy book that teaches
Speaker 6: us different for modalities to call upon to heal ourselves
Speaker 6: and to heal the communities that we.
Speaker 2: Are a part of.
Speaker 4: But I did we meet him? Did we have dinner
Speaker 4: with him somewhere?
Speaker 3: I remember you talking about this book that you just loved,
Speaker 3: and it was maybe it was definitely.
Speaker 6: I definitely had been breaking bread with Resmuk. Maybe you
Speaker 6: were there, Tip, I'm sure, if not there in spirit.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, he was there panel for me.
Speaker 4: That was years ago. I remember when you said.
Speaker 2: That for the centennial.
Speaker 4: Yep, what you got, Andrew oh Man.
Speaker 1: I felt, for one, your book is all the way
Speaker 1: at the top, as is my friend Kenisha doctsha Oh Grant.
Speaker 1: So I didn't get to pull them down.
Speaker 6: Saying you can't reach it. I didn't get my tip
Speaker 6: book let me grant.
Speaker 1: They're up at the top, but some that were closer
Speaker 1: down obviously out there.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I feel like that was okay, Thank you guys. I
Speaker 3: feel like that was my first book and I've turned
Speaker 3: in a rough draft and they published it. Because now
Speaker 3: when I read it, I'm like I would I never
Speaker 3: wrote like that but thank you.
Speaker 1: Hey, you got a book out there for him? All right?
Speaker 1: Another one coming, So four hundred souls, My fellow rattler
Speaker 1: Iram Kendy and Keisha Blaine, and I especially, especially especially enjoy.
Speaker 1: I told you about my tabs and stuff and books,
Speaker 1: just just proof that I put tabs in books when
Speaker 1: I read them. My favorite essayist contributor, of course, would
Speaker 1: be none other than Michael Harriot.
Speaker 4: Harriot Harriott and I just have let it go.
Speaker 1: But I don't know why, Michael, forgive me. I like
Speaker 1: pronouncing it that way, but I'm gonna do it with you.
Speaker 1: Harriet Harriet Harriott, who is our grit? Can? I say?
Speaker 5: Griott?
Speaker 4: Sure, Michael Harriott, are agree?
Speaker 2: Got?
Speaker 1: Okay? There it is? But I love The hero of
Speaker 1: this drama is black people. All black people, the free blacks,
Speaker 1: the uncloaked maroons, the black elite, the preachers, the reverends,
Speaker 1: the doormen and doctors, the sharecroppers and soldiers. They are
Speaker 1: all protagonists in our epic adventure. Spoiler alert, the hero
Speaker 1: of this story does not die ever. This hero is
Speaker 1: long suffering, but unkillable, bloody, and unbowed. In this story
Speaker 1: and in all the subsequent sequels now and forever. This
Speaker 1: hero almost never wins, but we still get to be
Speaker 1: the heroes of the true American stories simply because we
Speaker 1: are undestructible. Try as they might, we will never be
Speaker 1: extinguished ever.
Speaker 2: Trying to figure out why you got to read excerpt.
Speaker 1: That's that's the only one I read because he's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite and of course Heaven McGhee the Some
Speaker 1: of Us again evidence I do books, wrote wrote really
Speaker 1: beautifully and I think accessively about why black, brown, working
Speaker 1: class white folks should be in common cause with each other.
Speaker 1: And then this is my political scientist in me, because
Speaker 1: I think these are very important for anyone who is
Speaker 1: interested in strategy around politics, the Art of war. Of
Speaker 1: course Sunsu the Well which one Tachi ching is also
Speaker 1: a must read, and the Analects of Confucius, and I
Speaker 1: just think these are important philosophical documents. And in the
Speaker 1: Art of War, I think it is really tactical and strategic,
Speaker 1: and it is revived centuries, uh, and it's still highly
Speaker 1: regarded by I think political scientists around strategies, strategies to win.
Speaker 1: And then just a just a slight favorite. Uh. The
Speaker 1: obstacle is the Way. I said, I think during our
Speaker 1: New Year's show that the only way is through. You know,
Speaker 1: you try to feel like Lee, It's just there's too much,
Speaker 1: you know, I just want to blink out, numb out,
Speaker 1: and so The Obstacles the Way is one of those
Speaker 1: books that just sort of helps to encourage you to
Speaker 1: push through. Well, have I got a lot of favorites.
Speaker 3: I've not read any of the books that you guys reference,
Speaker 3: so yeah, but this is great because now, yes, exactly
Speaker 3: what black A f history, of course, but the other
Speaker 3: books I had in all the books, Angela read your
Speaker 3: home book. I've read my own book, but the Assada Chaqueur,
Speaker 3: I'd really like to read that one. In the conversations
Speaker 3: I've had with the elders lately, her name has come
Speaker 3: up a lot, so I think I'm gonna put that
Speaker 3: next on my list, So thank you, guys. Mine is
Speaker 3: How to Say Babylon by Sophia Sinclair. And this was
Speaker 3: recommended to me by Van Newkirk, who also recommended that
Speaker 3: I write a book. I write my second book, but
Speaker 3: it's so beautifully written. I mean, just somebody I didn't know,
Speaker 3: and you might think, well, why do I want to
Speaker 3: read a memoir someone I didn't know, but it was
Speaker 3: so beautifully written and so captivating.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: I'm about to order it.
Speaker 4: And who has already.
Speaker 3: Talked about black a f history, but Michael Harritt Harriet
Speaker 3: Harry ots Michael Harriet is such a gift and his
Speaker 3: book was so popular. It was on the New York
Speaker 3: Times bestseller list forever fell off and then inexplicably just
Speaker 3: bounced back on there because I think people were like, oh,
Speaker 3: I know it was a dope, but there are still
Speaker 3: have so many yes. And I have so many highlights
Speaker 3: of this book. Another one, the Love Songs of W. E. B. D.
Speaker 4: Boys.
Speaker 3: This is fiction, but it is beautifully beautifully written and
Speaker 3: takes you through generations and time. I have others that
Speaker 3: I don't have pictures of, but The Poison What Bible
Speaker 3: is probably my all time favorite book by Barbara Kingsolver.
Speaker 3: I give that book away, and Michael Harriet's book away.
Speaker 3: And another book, Ghana Must Go, And I'm embarrassed to
Speaker 3: not remember the writer's name. She's a woman, but it's
Speaker 3: just an amazing book about three siblings who are Ghanaian
Speaker 3: and it goes back and forth with them from Ghana
Speaker 3: to America.
Speaker 4: So that's my book.
Speaker 3: So if you guys are looking for something to read,
Speaker 3: that's your NLP, this summer reading list or autumn reading
Speaker 3: list or whenever you get to your read Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm reading something from this now.
Speaker 6: Okay, this is from Resma and I and I think
Speaker 6: it goes back to I know this is an evergreen episode,
Speaker 6: so God only knows, but this goes back to our
Speaker 6: episode from today that we recorded prior. This is about
Speaker 6: when democracy falls? Is I guess the name of the episode,
Speaker 6: something like that. It says an African American elder said
Speaker 6: to me recently. There is a root to the trauma tree,
Speaker 6: and what we see now is the fruit that tree,
Speaker 6: which was planted roughly fifteen centuries ago, now casts a
Speaker 6: shadow across our entire nation. Today, many of us still
Speaker 6: feed each other. It's bitter, poisonous fruit. None of us
Speaker 6: ask for this trauma, none of us deserves it, yet
Speaker 6: none of us can avoid it. It is part of
Speaker 6: our personal and national histories. In many American bodies, the
Speaker 6: Civil War, or the American Revolution, or the Crusades rages on.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 6: We're head of reckoning. We Americans have an opportunity and
Speaker 6: an obligation to recognize the trauma embedded in our bodies,
Speaker 6: to accept and metabolize the clean pain of healing, and
Speaker 6: to move through and out of our trauma. This will
Speaker 6: enable us to mend our hearts and bodies and to
Speaker 6: grow up.
Speaker 3: That That is why I like reading, because I would
Speaker 3: read that over and over. It's beautiful to hear you
Speaker 3: read it. But I don't even know if I could.
Speaker 3: That was so poetic and literate. And yes, like.
Speaker 6: That's the thing that you'll like about this tip, really
Speaker 6: and I'm serious, like I'm not even saying this because
Speaker 6: of what you just said, and it didn't occur to
Speaker 6: me though right now. I think what you will appreciate
Speaker 6: about this book in particular right now because of what
Speaker 6: you're moving through, And honestly, I might challenge us all
Speaker 6: to I'll pick it back up, Andrew.
Speaker 2: I would read this with you too.
Speaker 6: There are somatic body based practices in this book at
Speaker 6: the end of each chapter to help you move through
Speaker 6: the trauma that you carry in your DNA and the
Speaker 6: trauma that you are currently experiencing by just living in
Speaker 6: this country. And so I think that it really is
Speaker 6: a good like I was going through it in twenty twenty. Yeah,
Speaker 6: but I think it's a great thing to just to
Speaker 6: have an embodied practice to you know, metabolize the history,
Speaker 6: to feel what you're feeling from a DNA and ancestral
Speaker 6: memory standpoint, to feel what you're experiencing as you carry
Speaker 6: what feels familiar even though we haven't lift it before.
Speaker 6: But like the breathwork of it all, like tapping into
Speaker 6: your nervous system, tapping into your survival instinct.
Speaker 2: No one want to tap out of it, humming.
Speaker 6: You know, the practices that are like tapping your foot,
Speaker 6: those are all things that our ancestors did, and part
Speaker 6: of that was helping them to move through their trauma.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I will read a quick excerpt because the
Speaker 3: only one sentence this is from Octavia Butler, parable of
Speaker 3: the Sewer, and I didn't mention this book, but I
Speaker 3: strongly encourage everyone to read that. It begins in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, but it was written in the eighties or
Speaker 3: maybe the seventies. And this speaks to something that we've
Speaker 3: talked about a few times on the podcast over the
Speaker 3: weeks and months about immigration and people being shipped off
Speaker 3: to offshore torture camps, and it's just one sentence. The
Speaker 3: main the protagonist is a young girl and she has
Speaker 3: a disorder some might say, I'm called hyper empathy, and
Speaker 3: it causes her to feel whatever the other person is feeling,
Speaker 3: So which is can be a good thing or it
Speaker 3: could be a bad thing. If you're having sex with somebody,
Speaker 3: you have your orgasm, you feel their orgasm.
Speaker 4: If someone has yes, yes, good point.
Speaker 3: If someone unfortunately, if someone is getting raped, you feel
Speaker 3: their pleasure, but you feel your own terror and pain.
Speaker 3: So the book goes through a lot of things as
Speaker 3: she navigates her own hyper empathy. So the one sentence
Speaker 3: I would just read is when she says, if everyone
Speaker 3: could feel everyone else's pain, who would torture amen? So
Speaker 3: maybe we can move with a little bit of empathy
Speaker 3: and imagine that we could feel everybody else.
Speaker 4: With pain.
Speaker 3: And Welcome home.
Speaker 4: Welcome Home.
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