Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wokate F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl, Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. On a day this week,
Speaker 1: I woke up with sheer panic in my stomach and
Speaker 1: in my heart. I had had a series of nightmares
Speaker 1: about the now fifteen thousand plus people that have been murdered,
Speaker 1: majority of them children and women in Gaza. I had
Speaker 1: a nightmare that Donald Trump became president, the last president
Speaker 1: of the United States, that I was ripped apart from
Speaker 1: my family, from my friends, from my freedom, that LGBTQ
Speaker 1: people were forced into camps and or underground, that black
Speaker 1: people segregation was born and new, except more violent people
Speaker 1: were losing their jobs, their homes, being incarcerated at rates
Speaker 1: that we have never seen. And the Trump administration twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five was like a steamroller. Thankfully, I woke up
Speaker 1: and it was still twenty twenty three. However, folks, this week,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, in a pre taped interview with Sean Hannity
Speaker 1: in Iowa, when asked by Sean Hannity, will you weaponize
Speaker 1: your position if president again? Will you seek retribution on
Speaker 1: those that were against you? Donald Trump's response was, I'll
Speaker 1: only be a dictator on day one. To that response
Speaker 1: was rousing laughter and applause from the audience. Right after that, folks,
Speaker 1: which happened at the beginning of the week. It happened
Speaker 1: on Tuesday. I went on MSNBC that Wednesday morning with
Speaker 1: Anna Cabrera and she played the clips and it was
Speaker 1: like the same questions, Well, what do you think about this?
Speaker 1: Should we take this seriously? Blah blah. I cannot fucking
Speaker 1: express enough that we need to take Donald Trump very seriously.
Speaker 1: Do you think that, oh, Donald Trump will be a
Speaker 1: dictator on day one and then you know, he'll go
Speaker 1: back to following the Constitution, which his lawyers most recently
Speaker 1: said that he did not swear to protect the Constitution,
Speaker 1: to uphold the Constitution. I want to remind folks that
Speaker 1: everything that came out of Donald Trump's mouth that he
Speaker 1: said that he would do during his first administration, he did.
Speaker 1: He tested the fences. Now he knows where all of
Speaker 1: the weak spots are, he knows where all of the
Speaker 1: hidden doors are. He knows exactly what to expect, exactly
Speaker 1: who to install to finish the hit job on our democracy.
Speaker 1: So when I'm asked, should we take Donald Trump at
Speaker 1: his word? My response is yeah, apps fucking lutely, and
Speaker 1: so forevery one who is continuing to signal comfortably in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three that they're not going to vote for
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Look here, folks, I'm having nightmares about what
Speaker 1: is happening in Gaza, just like all of you. I
Speaker 1: am disgusted, dismayed, feel a sense of hopelessness that this
Speaker 1: could be happening in broad daylight with our fucking tax
Speaker 1: dollars and everyone's just okay with it. Then I remember
Speaker 1: they martyreed six million Jews and Gypsies and all different
Speaker 1: types of people that Hitler deemed unworthy before the United
Speaker 1: States would enter into World War II. We have an
Speaker 1: entire museum now dedicated to lynchings that took place in
Speaker 1: this country. We don't even know how many enslaved Black
Speaker 1: Africans were killed, murder, torture, beaten, raped, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about centuries, folks. This country's hands have never been cleaned,
Speaker 1: they have always been covered in blood. But the kind
Speaker 1: of rampage that Donald Trump will do in this country,
Speaker 1: I want you to remember the image from Lafayette Square
Speaker 1: where he had protesters cleared out forcefully. We're in Madison's book.
Speaker 1: General Madis's book, he said, Donald Trump asked them, can't
Speaker 1: we just shoot them in the leg or something. He said,
Speaker 1: absolutely fucking not. The next general that Trump would install
Speaker 1: wouldn't have sworn an oath to the Constitution. They would
Speaker 1: have sworn an oath to Donald Trump. He wants the
Speaker 1: ability to turn the military on citizens he deems as
Speaker 1: dissenters or enemies of the state, which would be anyone
Speaker 1: who is not white, who is not straight, who is
Speaker 1: not male, who is not Christian, and who is not MAGA. So,
Speaker 1: folks need to wake the fuck up. You need to
Speaker 1: start having conversations. Friends. Keep having those conversations with your family,
Speaker 1: your friends, your colleagues, your voting age kids, because what
Speaker 1: is at stake is our freedom. Coming up next my
Speaker 1: conversation with my friend Roquel Willis, who is an activist,
Speaker 1: a trans activist, author, writer, just all around badass. I
Speaker 1: interview her about her new book, The Risk It Takes
Speaker 1: to Bloom. Yeah, dear Friends, is coming up next, folks.
Speaker 1: I am so excited anytime that I get to bring
Speaker 1: in some bad ass voices to wok F I am
Speaker 1: thrilled and newly minted author Roquel Willis is here with
Speaker 1: me today. She has authored the memoir The Risk It
Speaker 1: Takes to Bloom, which girl the title just bravo on
Speaker 1: life and liberation about her story, and it is just
Speaker 1: I mean, if you can tell by the plants in
Speaker 1: the back the cover, the entire breakdown into budding and
Speaker 1: blooming is right up my alley. But Raquel, let me
Speaker 1: start out by asking this question. You have been in
Speaker 1: media and journalism for years, right, you have founded the
Speaker 1: alarm on so much. You have been a person that
Speaker 1: has been the consciousness in a lot of places, and
Speaker 1: I want to ask you why now for your memoir?
Speaker 1: You know, what was it about this moment, this time?
Speaker 1: What was the deciding like, yes, it's this is this
Speaker 1: is the time for me to put out my full story.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much, Danielle. Well, I've been joking that,
Speaker 2: well this is when the publisher set it could come out,
Speaker 2: which is.
Speaker 3: Kind of true.
Speaker 2: But part of it, I mean, and let's be roll,
Speaker 2: some of it is that. Some of it is like
Speaker 2: it has taken me having a certain amount of access
Speaker 2: and a certain platform to be kind of co signed
Speaker 2: by the powers that be that my story can be
Speaker 2: told on this level and in this format, So that
Speaker 2: is also important to name. But the the seeds of
Speaker 2: this really started in college when I was at the
Speaker 2: University of Georgia back in twenty thirteen. I studied journalism
Speaker 2: and at that time, like it was just before Orang
Speaker 2: Just a New Black came out, it was almost the
Speaker 2: years before Janet release Janet Mock released Redefining Realness, So
Speaker 2: there weren't a lot of narratives out there about black
Speaker 2: trans women, much less people in general.
Speaker 3: So I knew that.
Speaker 2: I wanted to add something to the trans canon about
Speaker 2: my experience coming into my identity as a young black
Speaker 2: trans person in Georgia in the South, because we also
Speaker 2: don't really have a lot of Southern narratives about black
Speaker 2: trans experiences.
Speaker 1: I think that that is what is also really important
Speaker 1: about your story, and I want you to be able
Speaker 1: to explain more about that, is that there has been
Speaker 1: you know, when we have national conversations around the trans community,
Speaker 1: there is this assumption that it must be these liberals
Speaker 1: in these you know on the coasts right that there
Speaker 1: you know that uh, that trans people queer people don't
Speaker 1: exist in other places, let alone the South, let alone Georgia.
Speaker 1: So I want you just to be able to speak
Speaker 1: to why it is also important to be able to
Speaker 1: lift up geographical and regional narratives of queer stories and
Speaker 1: not just you know, queer stories in general.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean growing up in the South in the
Speaker 2: nineties and early two thousands, I mean everything in general
Speaker 2: was kind of situated elsewhere. I mean thinking about media
Speaker 2: and the TV shows, living Say Go Martin, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Everything was based somewhere else. It was based
Speaker 2: in New York, it was based in maybe Chicago, maybe
Speaker 2: San Francisco. So a lot of what I consumed as
Speaker 2: a young person was somewhere outside of the South. And
Speaker 2: then I think also coming into my identity as a
Speaker 2: queer person, the idea was like, oh well, my freedom
Speaker 2: for expression lived somewhere else and lived in these queer
Speaker 2: meccas New York and South San Francisco, which is not
Speaker 2: unlike I think generations before. And I grew up with
Speaker 2: these stories of black folks who left the South for
Speaker 2: a better life elsewhere, whether it was up north or
Speaker 2: out west where it was less restrictive for black folks
Speaker 2: or people on the margins, and so I kind of
Speaker 2: see that story of my grain for Liberation as a
Speaker 2: part of that kind of narrative I built within myself.
Speaker 2: And so I think there's also an intervention I wanted
Speaker 2: to make in my career and of course with this book,
Speaker 2: around how the South is kind of thrown away in
Speaker 2: discussions around societal progress. And so there's this idea that
Speaker 2: the South is a lost cause, interestingly enough situated in
Speaker 2: some of the ideas from the Civil War and the
Speaker 2: lost Cause, right, But this idea that, oh, well, the
Speaker 2: South will always be regressive because that's where the staunchest
Speaker 2: discrimination has happened historically and maybe still happens legislatively.
Speaker 3: But I think that's a lie.
Speaker 2: I think, especially as you go through the book and
Speaker 2: I talk about my experiences both in progressive regions quote unquote,
Speaker 2: these places like the Bay Area or New York, these
Speaker 2: blue coastal areas as we like to say, but also
Speaker 2: in so called progressive movements.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: No, there's still anti blackness and trans misogyny in the
Speaker 2: LGBTQ movement. There's still all of those things in feminism,
Speaker 2: and they're still trans misogyny and queerophobia and black liberation movement, yes, right,
Speaker 2: and so we also don't talk about those things enough
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Do you think that you know, when adding your memoir
Speaker 1: coming out at this time, right, which is and I
Speaker 1: you know, I will speak to it from my angle
Speaker 1: as a black queer woman. I think that this is
Speaker 1: probably one of the most troubling and toxic times for
Speaker 1: queer people that I've seen since I became you know,
Speaker 1: an advocate and an activist a decade plus ago. Right
Speaker 1: that I hadn't seen book banning. I hadn't seen you
Speaker 1: know this, These kinds of regressive policies that we are
Speaker 1: seeing originate in places like Florida, like Texas, you know,
Speaker 1: in these southern regions. And I wonder, as you are
Speaker 1: able to live now out loud, what does it mean
Speaker 1: to like, both be able to live out loud and
Speaker 1: be this model of possibility, but also recognize that young
Speaker 1: people coming behind you actually maybe in a worse situation
Speaker 1: than you were when you were looking for you know,
Speaker 1: looking for your own models, that while there may be
Speaker 1: more for them to see like that, the reach, the
Speaker 1: distance seems further.
Speaker 2: It's a mixed bag for show. I mean, some of
Speaker 2: it is, of course, there is a bit of freedom
Speaker 2: that comes from access, from having a platform, from having success,
Speaker 2: and in that the visibility that also kind of informs
Speaker 2: some of those things.
Speaker 3: And then, unfortunately, and I talk.
Speaker 2: About this dynamic as well, you know, passing is still
Speaker 2: a thing, right, this kind of conditional passing privilege. So
Speaker 2: in my day to day life outside of you know,
Speaker 2: my public life, I have ease, but so much of
Speaker 2: that comes from embodying a certain type of womanhood, a
Speaker 2: certain type of femininity, and so we still haven't moved
Speaker 2: far enough in.
Speaker 3: Terms of society around those things.
Speaker 2: Right, There's a real and some of this privilege is
Speaker 2: a lot of this privilege is a lot of the
Speaker 2: reason why people take notice or listen to what I
Speaker 2: have to say, right, And that's not even getting into
Speaker 2: you know, light skin.
Speaker 3: Privilege, social economic privilege, educational privilege, and on and on.
Speaker 2: And so it's a mixed bag, right, because my hope
Speaker 2: has been throughout my career that the next generations don't
Speaker 2: have to check off the same boxes that I did.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately, so much has not shifted. To your point, right,
Speaker 2: there is still a lot of walking on water that
Speaker 2: has to happen, you know, to get to a space
Speaker 2: like I'm at where I can share my story on
Speaker 2: this level.
Speaker 3: So that's difficult to hold. And it is.
Speaker 2: Difficult to think how difficult it is for young, particularly
Speaker 2: trans folks, to own their truths. I mean, I can't
Speaker 2: imagine what it would be like for me to come
Speaker 2: into my transidentity in college at a flagship institution in
Speaker 2: the South right now, where one of the benefits back
Speaker 2: then is not being legible, which is it's the weird
Speaker 2: double edged sword of visibility, right the not being seen,
Speaker 2: the not being visible and legible gave me a sense
Speaker 2: of freedom because there wasn't.
Speaker 3: All of this baggage, yeah, that was attached.
Speaker 2: To my experience, and I kind of just got to
Speaker 2: be myself, even if some people might have thought I
Speaker 2: was weird or whatever.
Speaker 3: I got to be an individual.
Speaker 2: And now, because of what these conservative politicians are doing
Speaker 2: and these ignorant celebrities are doing, because they are part
Speaker 2: of this misinformation mountain that we're up against, a lot
Speaker 2: of trans folks don't get to be anything outside of
Speaker 2: the these tropes and these narratives that they keep pushing.
Speaker 2: And that's unfortunate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I would imagine, you know, just like I
Speaker 1: always try and take a step back and kind of
Speaker 1: open up the aperture on my eyes, the lens you
Speaker 1: know that I come to things with. And you know what,
Speaker 1: I remember coming into the movement and being like, oh,
Speaker 1: so there's racism here too, Like, oh, I thought this
Speaker 1: was going to be liberal, you know, Like I remember
Speaker 1: going into you know, you and I have had it's funny,
Speaker 1: like similar kind of bios where I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I went to a women's organization and then I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh, you're a racist, right like, and and
Speaker 1: you're homophobic and you know, and it. You know again,
Speaker 1: that was like the early two thousands. But you think
Speaker 1: that they're these spaces allow for more expansiveness, and so
Speaker 1: I just want you to speak to like showing up
Speaker 1: in spaces where you're just like, oh, you're hearing this
Speaker 1: is about everybody's liberation, this about everybody's right, and then
Speaker 1: being met with yeah, no, right, Like, just speak to
Speaker 1: that a little bit of what it's like to be
Speaker 1: in these varied movement spaces, these varied newsrooms where you
Speaker 1: think that like space has been made that you can
Speaker 1: take up and then you're told yeah, no, too much.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean I think about the fact that we
Speaker 3: kind of give ourselves.
Speaker 2: Free passes because we're like, oh, we're on the margins
Speaker 2: in this way, and so we often just don't consider
Speaker 2: or it takes much more work to consider that, oh,
Speaker 2: just because I'm oppressed on this access doesn't mean I'm
Speaker 2: not oppressive on this other.
Speaker 3: And that's a hard thing. I mean.
Speaker 2: And we also love a binary honey across the board,
Speaker 2: not even just talking about But the truth is is
Speaker 2: that we all kind of live depending on positionality, depending
Speaker 2: on the environment, the space, on different parts of this
Speaker 2: larger grid of oppression and privilege, so to speak. And
Speaker 2: I think we all have a hard time grappling with that.
Speaker 2: So that's the thing. But then I think even in
Speaker 2: these spaces where so for instance, nonprofits or in these movements,
Speaker 2: where certain people become leaders for any myriad of reasons,
Speaker 2: that desire for validation, that desire for power, it's hard
Speaker 2: for people to check. It's hard for people to check
Speaker 2: that ego, and so folks often don't realize when they're
Speaker 2: being harmful to others because they're still in the space
Speaker 2: where they haven't healed around the validation that they've been
Speaker 2: seeking and the title that the nonprofit is not going
Speaker 2: to fill that void that.
Speaker 3: You have, Honey, come on right.
Speaker 2: The position you made a crew in community is not
Speaker 2: going to fill those wounds in that void that you have.
Speaker 2: From whatever reason, I know my voids came from, and
Speaker 2: I talk about in the book this idea that I
Speaker 2: felt like I had to create a life despite my
Speaker 2: queerness and transits, right, like I had to try and
Speaker 2: make my life as palatable as possible because those were
Speaker 2: already strikes against me. And that came from wounds from
Speaker 2: my relationship with my parents and particularly my father, of
Speaker 2: not living up to his ideals of black masculinity and
Speaker 2: society's ideals. And so this book gave me a chance
Speaker 2: to dig deeper into that work and to also just
Speaker 2: think about how expectations have plagued me at various points
Speaker 2: in my life. And I hope that that's something that
Speaker 2: everyone can latch onto from this book, beyond maybe even
Speaker 2: being black and trans.
Speaker 1: I mean yes, because those are like universal themes of
Speaker 1: us trying to meet somebody's expectations right in our lives.
Speaker 1: And I wonder, you know, through putting together you know,
Speaker 1: your intricately woven story, what did you learn from your
Speaker 1: process of going through this, like about you and where
Speaker 1: you know, how far you've come, and like where you
Speaker 1: are now, Like what was that? How has that journey
Speaker 1: been for you?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll go back to talking about that voice and
Speaker 2: that need for validation, because that colors every part of
Speaker 2: your life. And one of the revelations that I had
Speaker 2: as I was going through the revision process in particular,
Speaker 2: was that I needed to reconsider my relationships even with
Speaker 2: my family.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So, I know in the book, you know, we talk
Speaker 2: about the evolution of my relationship with my mom and
Speaker 2: my sister and my brother, an extended family, and also
Speaker 2: I realized, like, oh, there's an intimacy gap and a
Speaker 2: lot of it. I mean, and I'm talking from my perspective,
Speaker 2: Like for me, it has been that shield of like
Speaker 2: trying to again make my life palatable enough to just
Speaker 2: get a baseline feeling of adequacy to my family's expectations.
Speaker 3: But I think on different levels, like.
Speaker 2: The sis straight people in my family also did that, right,
Speaker 2: And so our baggage is like sitting side by side
Speaker 2: and it's a barrier between us really just like engaging,
Speaker 2: Like I want to be able to share my insecurities,
Speaker 2: my anxieties, my fears, et cetera, et cetera. I don't
Speaker 2: want to have to put on this pristine image for you,
Speaker 2: at the very least not my family. So that is
Speaker 2: a thing, and I think that that probably resonates with
Speaker 2: a lot of particularly black folks, brown folks, folks from
Speaker 2: immigrant experiences. Right Yeah, there's a way that we have
Speaker 2: to comport ourselves to be seen even within our own
Speaker 2: families and communities.
Speaker 3: So that's the thing.
Speaker 2: But I also think about, I guess, in our communities
Speaker 2: and in our movements, how we continue to carry a
Speaker 2: lot of these fissures from the past that were never
Speaker 2: like really acknowledged, or when they were, those efforts were squashed.
Speaker 2: And so I think about, for instance, terfism.
Speaker 1: Right in the feminists speak on it tell people what
Speaker 1: to tell people what it? You know, because while I
Speaker 1: may talk about tell people what that is so that
Speaker 1: they understand. I mean, we've talked about Chappelle, We've talked
Speaker 1: about headline moments when that kind of shit comes up.
Speaker 2: But please, yeah, I mean what I think about particularly
Speaker 2: feminist movements, right, Like, we've had some conversations around anti
Speaker 2: blackness and how feminisms of color were marginalized, and feminists
Speaker 2: of color and marginalized lesbians and queer fem were marginalized
Speaker 2: within the larger feminist movement, of.
Speaker 3: Course, all of the attacks on sex workers.
Speaker 2: And on and on, but also alongside that trans women,
Speaker 2: the marginalization of us within feminisms, its roots go back far.
Speaker 2: I mean at least to the seventies right, and I
Speaker 2: talk about Janis Raymond and some of these high profile
Speaker 2: trans exclusionary radical feminists before we really had the term,
Speaker 2: and how they planted these fissures and it was never
Speaker 2: really addressed then. And so now we see the conservative
Speaker 2: right taking advantage of those fissures and pulling them farther right.
Speaker 2: That's why the Turfs are working with the Christian conservative right.
Speaker 2: But when I also think about black liberation movements, you know,
Speaker 2: I talk about the Movement for Black Lives and what
Speaker 2: the experience was like in this movement that is on
Speaker 2: the same line, of course of previous black liberation movements.
Speaker 2: So think about the Black Panther Party. I mean, I
Speaker 2: mentioned Elaine Brown and the experiences that she had around
Speaker 2: massage noir in the Black Panther Party right, and while
Speaker 2: there were overt discussions, particularly from someone like Huey P.
Speaker 2: Newton around the intertwined destinies of gay and lesbian folks.
Speaker 3: And the fight for black liberation.
Speaker 2: I still to this day don't know any openly queer
Speaker 2: and trans folks who were within the Black Panther Party.
Speaker 2: I may be missing them. And I know, you know,
Speaker 2: we know a lot more about the experiences, for instance,
Speaker 2: of like Angela Davis, right, but I don't know that
Speaker 2: we've ever.
Speaker 3: Even on a public level, discussed well.
Speaker 2: I never knew that, even though I knew Angela Davis's work,
Speaker 2: I didn't know that until the last few years, right,
Speaker 2: that she was queer. And so how those kind of
Speaker 2: hidden stories are there. And then, of course in the
Speaker 2: LGBTQ plus movement, right, there is a forgotten understanding that
Speaker 2: some of the initial gay lobbying for political rights in
Speaker 2: the seventies was adamantly opposed to the inclusion of trans
Speaker 2: folks and the inclusion of what they considered to be freaks,
Speaker 2: you know, the drag queens and on and on, because
Speaker 2: you know, they weren't palatable enough not to mention the
Speaker 2: sidelining of queer women and lesbians in early gay lobbying
Speaker 2: and leadership as well, so these exist.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember, in my limited time and experience
Speaker 1: being told that you need to put you know, you
Speaker 1: kind of need to choose which identity you want to
Speaker 1: fight for liberation for. It's why we have conversations around intersectionality.
Speaker 1: That has been used and said at nauseum without really
Speaker 1: understanding the context around that, but the fact being that
Speaker 1: you're always asked when you're a person that embodies multiple identities,
Speaker 1: which many of us do live at the intersection of.
Speaker 1: Many are told, well, we need to fight for the
Speaker 1: most marginalized part of you first, so you're either black first,
Speaker 1: queer first, trans you know, or what happy when you're like,
Speaker 1: that's not how I exist, And I have always found
Speaker 1: that extraordinarily troubling. So it's not surprising that in our
Speaker 1: history of understanding, like the Panthers and what have you,
Speaker 1: that we have not necessarily unearthed in a mainstream type
Speaker 1: of way those queer people who were there. Right, But
Speaker 1: we're probably told or maybe felt, now, we gotta focus on,
Speaker 1: you know, what is seen readily first before we do anything.
Speaker 3: Else, right, Yeah, I mean I think to that point.
Speaker 2: You know, I often think about this quote that we
Speaker 2: hear a lot from James Baldwin, of course, particularly when
Speaker 2: he's talking about to be a Negro in this country
Speaker 2: and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state.
Speaker 1: Of state average almost all of.
Speaker 2: The time and in one's work. And I feel that
Speaker 2: way right as a black trans woman who is to
Speaker 2: someone relatively conscious, like I don't just carry the personal
Speaker 2: harms that I've experienced in my life, but as someone
Speaker 2: who has to connect to trancestors and queer ancestors, often
Speaker 2: through the work that they left behind, I'm carrying the
Speaker 2: historic harm as well. I'm carrying the pain of Marsha P.
Speaker 2: Johnson dying unceremoniously right and potentially being murdered, but we
Speaker 2: don't know, because it was her death was not regarded
Speaker 2: with the seriousness that it deserves, or thinking about Sylvia
Speaker 2: Rivera's railing against these national and of course New York
Speaker 2: state wide nonprofits that ignored trans folks for so long
Speaker 2: in a time where they could right because we weren't
Speaker 2: visible and so there wasn't any real accountability there. But
Speaker 2: those dynamics still exist today, and I often find it
Speaker 2: infuriating that people in particularly our institutions are unwilling to
Speaker 2: engage with those historical harms because we're carrying that, you know,
Speaker 2: like it doesn't just go away. We have to acknowledge
Speaker 2: it at some point to move forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think, I mean, I think that that's right.
Speaker 1: I think that the work that you do, not only
Speaker 1: you know, authoring this memoir, that will be a guide
Speaker 1: for so you know, for so many people. The work
Speaker 1: that you do just in elevating media and telling stories, right,
Speaker 1: you know, of those stories that go untold or have
Speaker 1: been silenced or cut short, I think is really really extraordinary.
Speaker 1: And Folks, I owe a continued debt of gratitude to
Speaker 1: Raquel because if not for her, the stories and the
Speaker 1: conversations that I have here on iHeart with WOKF daily
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened without you. And so I just you know,
Speaker 1: I appreciate how dedicated you are to diverse queer voices,
Speaker 1: to diverse black queer voices and making space for them,
Speaker 1: because I just think it's it's extraordinary and it's deeply
Speaker 1: appreciated and deeply needed. So thank you, my friend. Congratulation
Speaker 1: on your book. Folks. It is called the risk it
Speaker 1: takes to Bloom on Life and Liberation. Pick it up,
Speaker 1: by a copy for yourself, by a copy for your friends.
Speaker 1: It is that giving and holiday season time, so give
Speaker 1: this gift. I appreciate you, my friend.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today on woke a app as
Speaker 1: always power to the people and to all the people power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.