Speaker 1: Good morning, peep Sen. Welcome to bokay FP Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody. Recording from the Bunker, Folks.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about today's episode. Once again, we are
Speaker 1: celebrating Pride this month as we knock out the next
Speaker 1: couple of days of June that is left and today's episode,
Speaker 1: I am talking with the host of the podcast Edges,
Speaker 1: which is all about black hair and healing from my guests,
Speaker 1: Chantey Howell, and we are doing this kind of mash
Speaker 1: up crossover episode where you know, you may hear news
Speaker 1: stories about me as well as things that she asked
Speaker 1: that I shared with her and vice versa. So I
Speaker 1: hope that you will enjoy this episode as always, um
Speaker 1: side note, side note. If you want my hot takes
Speaker 1: on the latest installment of the one six commission the hearings,
Speaker 1: head over to Twitter at D two cents d E
Speaker 1: t woc E N T asked. Because I am there
Speaker 1: and I am live, you know what I will say
Speaker 1: about that. And then coming up next is this conversation
Speaker 1: with Sean Tay Howell. It is really disturbing to me
Speaker 1: to continue to listen to all the ways in which
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and everybody around him, all of his There
Speaker 1: was no fucking team normal and team not Normal. They
Speaker 1: were all on the same team, which was Team Trump
Speaker 1: and Trumpism, which is about destroying democracy, which is about
Speaker 1: creating fundamentalist Christian you know, state and authoritarianism. And so
Speaker 1: there were some people that were willing to break the
Speaker 1: law for it, and there were other people that were
Speaker 1: willing to bend the law. But the reality here is
Speaker 1: that I don't think that anything is really going to
Speaker 1: come up this. I think that sure the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice has asked for you know, all of the testimonies
Speaker 1: that they have seen, the thousands of pages of documents.
Speaker 1: You heard the commissions say that they will cooperate so
Speaker 1: as not to interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation. We
Speaker 1: all see that Donald Trump is going to throw John
Speaker 1: Eastman under the bus, but Donald Trump throws everybody under
Speaker 1: the bus but himself. We know the same thing is
Speaker 1: going to be true with Giuliani. But the clear mastermind
Speaker 1: behind this is Donald Trump. And do I think that
Speaker 1: white men in power are going to hold other white
Speaker 1: men in power accountable? Like I said on Twitter this week, No,
Speaker 1: the fuck I don't, right, because that's not how this
Speaker 1: legal system was created. The legal system was created for
Speaker 1: white men with power to hold that power and to
Speaker 1: preserve their property right, whether that be an actual fucking person,
Speaker 1: as was the concept when the Constitution was written, or
Speaker 1: be a fucking building. But I don't see how this
Speaker 1: is going to turn out to benefit really anyone. And
Speaker 1: what we continue to see as the Supreme Court makes
Speaker 1: decision after the decision, and as we get down to
Speaker 1: the Rugby Wade decision, is that they are willing to
Speaker 1: erode any separation we had between church and state, any
Speaker 1: autonomy that women and people with uteruses have been able
Speaker 1: to attain. That they are willing to gut the voting
Speaker 1: rights that they're willing to prescribe everyone in America within
Speaker 1: AAR fifteen. That that seems to be the only constitutional
Speaker 1: amendment that matters and the only thing that they are
Speaker 1: willing to hold up. So as we watch our country
Speaker 1: continue to just enter into its dismal demise, the America
Speaker 1: turns to the dark ages, as the rest of the
Speaker 1: world will begin to lap us in terms of creativity, innovation,
Speaker 1: and all of those things, because that doesn't come from oppression, right,
Speaker 1: Those things don't come from oppression, but they will learn
Speaker 1: that the hard way, as is with white fundamentalists radicalized America,
Speaker 1: that the only way that they do learn is the
Speaker 1: hard way. So if as you're listening to these Pride
Speaker 1: shows you're wondering what is Danielle thinking about X do
Speaker 1: check me out on Twitter and on TikTok. I took
Speaker 1: a brief respite from TikTok, but I will be back
Speaker 1: this week. And speaking of respites, I will make an
Speaker 1: announcement here and then tomorrow on Instagram. I am taking
Speaker 1: a break from Woke Wednesdays for the summer. I am
Speaker 1: putting my mental health on top, back where it belongs.
Speaker 1: And I realize that how raw and how vulnerable and
Speaker 1: how angry I get on Woke Wednesdays. While it does
Speaker 1: provide other people with a place to share their own
Speaker 1: grief and their angst, and it is not healthy for me.
Speaker 1: And so I'm giving myself a little mini vacation. I'm
Speaker 1: not ending Woke Wednesdays forever, but I'm giving myself a
Speaker 1: summer vacation right now because I need it. It is
Speaker 1: a lot to record five shows every week, six if
Speaker 1: you count Democracy Issue, my other podcast, and so adding
Speaker 1: in a seventh, which is Woke Wednesday, half hour of
Speaker 1: just ranting. Something had to give and I'd rather not
Speaker 1: be my mental health and wellbeing, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to take away anything from Woke a f or from
Speaker 1: democracy ish, So I'm putting Woke Wednesday on the shelf.
Speaker 1: But know that I post all the time on all
Speaker 1: of social media, so I'm still there. I'm just giving
Speaker 1: myself a bit of a break, all right, friends. Coming
Speaker 1: up next my conversation with the host of Edges, another
Speaker 1: DCP entertainment podcast, Shante Howell. Hope you enjoy, folks. I
Speaker 1: am very excited to welcome to Woke f We are
Speaker 1: doing a cross over two podcasters, two black queer women
Speaker 1: during pride doing the most, trying to heal, trying to
Speaker 1: get ourselves together and keep ourselves sane. I am joined
Speaker 1: by my fellow podcasters Shante Howell, who is the host
Speaker 1: of Edges. Shanta, tell everyone, your folks are already know.
Speaker 1: We're introducing you to our will gayf audience. Tell us
Speaker 1: the premise of Edges because I just love it so
Speaker 1: much and I love your title. Oh, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: and thank you for having me. I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: be here, and yeah, so Edges basically was born out
Speaker 1: of all the things that I've dealt with with my hair.
Speaker 1: When I was sixteen, it caught on fire and I
Speaker 1: was like, I finally got to just like cut this
Speaker 1: shit off and come out. And things did not happen
Speaker 1: the way I intended it too, and it kind of
Speaker 1: unveiled into this whole story of how I came into
Speaker 1: myself and my understanding of who I am and what
Speaker 1: I want in the world kind of through this lens
Speaker 1: of my hair, and it being this kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: almost like a conduit for that happening in ways that
Speaker 1: I didn't expect. So told a little bit too much
Speaker 1: of my own business, told some things that I still
Speaker 1: haven't talked to my mom about, so we'll say when
Speaker 1: that happens, And then also got to talk to other
Speaker 1: folks who identify as square, who have had their own
Speaker 1: hair experiences and just had a ton of solidarity for
Speaker 1: the kind of shared love of the Rhanna pixie cut
Speaker 1: and all of the different things in between that kind
Speaker 1: of lead us to where we got. You know, it's
Speaker 1: so funny because my hair I've always considered as being
Speaker 1: really a part of my identity as a black woman,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily as a part of my queerness. I
Speaker 1: didn't cut my hair off, and I always understood even
Speaker 1: you know, white women who were queer that would come
Speaker 1: out and they would cut their hair off as like
Speaker 1: an affront to patriarchy, right is I mean I'm saying
Speaker 1: that that That's how I saw it, And I know
Speaker 1: a lot of queer women who have always been like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't need this hair. This is not
Speaker 1: my crown and kind of, you know, the pushback from
Speaker 1: the biblical understanding of what was femininity and what was womanness?
Speaker 1: So for you, what is what? What was that kind
Speaker 1: of part and parcel outside of the tragedy of your
Speaker 1: hair catching on fire? Because good God, but like, what
Speaker 1: was how was your blackness and your queerness tied into
Speaker 1: your hair? Yeah? I think for me it was almost
Speaker 1: wanting for it to be something that was unspoken. I
Speaker 1: think that I grew up kind of having to explain
Speaker 1: a lot of different parts of myself. So my family's
Speaker 1: also Jamaican. In my younger years, I used to have
Speaker 1: an accent. Oh my gosh, I who kid in what
Speaker 1: part my family is from? Trelawney Okay, I grew I
Speaker 1: was born in the United States, but my parents were
Speaker 1: born in Jamaica, as my grandparents and everybody else, Okay, same.
Speaker 1: My family is in Saint Thomas where all the goats
Speaker 1: kind of where I'm like squirrels. So yeah, that's something
Speaker 1: that I'm doing, hair into it in my heart and
Speaker 1: then something that I had to explain a lot. And
Speaker 1: so I felt like at that point in time, with
Speaker 1: kind of the excuse of my hair caching on fire,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be myself without having to explain that.
Speaker 1: And I felt like, you know, it was a time
Speaker 1: in my life where if my hair was longer, if
Speaker 1: I did have my frow, it would be another thing
Speaker 1: that I would have to explain to people about myself.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't necessarily consciously thinking of like how do
Speaker 1: I feel my most self in general and as an
Speaker 1: artist and as someone who like to make things. So
Speaker 1: I think that's something that I've had to come to
Speaker 1: terms with, and the just regular process of coming out
Speaker 1: over and over again, like starting a new job and
Speaker 1: someone asking like, who is your husband and having to
Speaker 1: explain like I am not merely to a man, and
Speaker 1: having that conversation over and over again. You know, I
Speaker 1: can remember the conversation as clear as day. Both of
Speaker 1: my grandparents have since passed away, but I remember when
Speaker 1: when I was graduating from college, I had I had
Speaker 1: two strand twists that I was getting ready to um
Speaker 1: my stylist to turn into locks. You know, we were
Speaker 1: starting it from two strand twists. And my Jamaican grandparents
Speaker 1: were beside themselves that I would think that I'm getting
Speaker 1: ready to enter into professional society and this was the
Speaker 1: choice that I was making. My grandfather was like where
Speaker 1: are you going to work? Like where? Like who is
Speaker 1: going to accept you as like a professional if this
Speaker 1: is what you're doing? And I, because I was like
Speaker 1: their own, their only contextualization of locks at that time
Speaker 1: were Rastafarians, Like that was it? It was like the
Speaker 1: this counterculture you know, um understanding for them it was counterculture.
Speaker 1: It's not, but for them it was. And so they
Speaker 1: were just like this association like I just don't understand,
Speaker 1: like how you're going to go about that? Um? And
Speaker 1: so I remember growing up with there being a lot
Speaker 1: of judgment around hair, right, like the good hair than
Speaker 1: not good hair than this, and the that, um what
Speaker 1: was it? Was? It? The same for for you was
Speaker 1: that was was there were there fights? Uh? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't have some fights. Um. I would say I had
Speaker 1: more judgment on my mom when I got a weave
Speaker 1: and she called it horse hair. But I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the fights that we have were just around
Speaker 1: me wanting to express myself through hair. So I did braids,
Speaker 1: I did all the things, um, and I would often
Speaker 1: just like take my hair out and put it in affron.
Speaker 1: It was different than how she sent me to school.
Speaker 1: And I think that kind of form of just expressing
Speaker 1: myself in a different way through my hair. Like right now,
Speaker 1: the red twist, they're not as bright as they've been
Speaker 1: in the past. But you know, my family calls me
Speaker 1: a fire engine at times, and I think just the
Speaker 1: sense of wanting to see yourself as you see yourself
Speaker 1: within it's definitely something that can be a conflict with
Speaker 1: the ways that family see that. Yeah, And I'm curious
Speaker 1: to know, like, what what was your decision process like
Speaker 1: going into locks despite having that kind of societal impression
Speaker 1: from your grandparents. Well, I'm going to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: Initially it was laziness. I was just tired. I was
Speaker 1: tired of doing braids. I was tired of the perm.
Speaker 1: I was tired of figuring out what to do with
Speaker 1: my natural hair. And I had always loved locks and
Speaker 1: I'd seen you know, so many different iterations from micro's.
Speaker 1: And I don't even think at that time, because I'm older,
Speaker 1: that they had sister locks, so maybe they weren't called that,
Speaker 1: but UM, I just knew that I always thought that
Speaker 1: they were beautiful and that it was something that I
Speaker 1: remember my mother also saying, well, what are you going
Speaker 1: to do if you want to change your hair? And
Speaker 1: I was just like, I'll cut it like everybody, like
Speaker 1: everybody else does. Um. And so for me, it was
Speaker 1: just that feeling of I knew who I was becoming,
Speaker 1: and I knew what I wanted and what I didn't
Speaker 1: want to prescribe to anymore. But the reason why I
Speaker 1: had done two strand twists to grow you know, to
Speaker 1: grow out like what was left of a perm that
Speaker 1: I you know, that i'd had, and um kind of
Speaker 1: get away from the damage that also the braids had
Speaker 1: caused my hair. UM I wanted I didn't start my
Speaker 1: locks from like you know, little tiny tiny um uh twists.
Speaker 1: They were they were down to my chin. So I
Speaker 1: also think that that was like a different So when
Speaker 1: my grandparents and my family kind of started to see
Speaker 1: how the process was coming along, they're like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: still long, which again associates with this idea of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, she's still feminine, right, but you know me
Speaker 1: coming out as well. To my family, I have always
Speaker 1: been you know, feminine presenting. So for them it was
Speaker 1: never like, well, what is she going to look like now?
Speaker 1: It was just like, no, you still know me. This
Speaker 1: is what I look like. I just happened to like women,
Speaker 1: so yeah, yeah, And I think just the room for
Speaker 1: that to change as well as something that I'm contending
Speaker 1: with a lot, Like I think I get a lot
Speaker 1: of questions from my family about like as relationship things
Speaker 1: kind of progress through life, like oh are you are you? This?
Speaker 1: Are you that? How do you define yourself? And I
Speaker 1: think what I heard a lot too and having conversations
Speaker 1: with people is like, the hair decisions aren't necessarily always
Speaker 1: about identity. Oftentimes they're about convenience and ease of life
Speaker 1: and having other things that are priority and not wanting
Speaker 1: for hair to be something that is a burden, as
Speaker 1: our hair is beautiful and we want it to be
Speaker 1: something that reflects us, but it also can take time.
Speaker 1: And that's something that I just sense, like a weight
Speaker 1: off my shoulders in that acceptance of self of like
Speaker 1: not needing to put that much, like prescribe that much
Speaker 1: meaning to it, but also letting it mean that much
Speaker 1: to me and not being okay, it's no secret that
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Speaker 1: every Tuesday. Yeah. I think it's always so interesting because
Speaker 1: I have so many black women friends, some queer, some straight,
Speaker 1: some non binary, who all have different you know, understandings
Speaker 1: of their connection to their hair. Some have had the
Speaker 1: same hairstyle for twenty thirty years, others change it up
Speaker 1: literally every week, right, And I think that for black women, ultimately,
Speaker 1: it is about freedom. Right, It's about the choice to
Speaker 1: be able to present how I feel like presenting, whether
Speaker 1: I change that from Monday to Wednesday or it has
Speaker 1: been the same, um, you know, for for decades. I
Speaker 1: think that it is about the freedom of expression. And
Speaker 1: so like now that I'm thinking about it, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe there was like a deeper connectedness to you know,
Speaker 1: when I was coming out. I was also when I
Speaker 1: was coming out for like the last time. I always
Speaker 1: say the last time because it was I consider my
Speaker 1: parents the last people that I came out to. Like
Speaker 1: throughout life, I don't really care about recom you know,
Speaker 1: recoming out. But when I came out to them, I
Speaker 1: was twenty one, and that was the same time that
Speaker 1: I was going on this the beginnings of the Locke's Journey.
Speaker 1: So maybe there was correlation that I actually have an
Speaker 1: unpacked um to that sense from me of independence, independence
Speaker 1: from who I was, who you thought I was, and
Speaker 1: now I'm defining myself in these different physical iterations as
Speaker 1: well as like identity wise about who I am. So
Speaker 1: maybe there was a reclamation and that I never thought
Speaker 1: about that. Shane so much beyond that too, Like at
Speaker 1: some point in time, I dyed my hair red and
Speaker 1: that was a huge career trans transition for me too.
Speaker 1: And I think there's so many ways in which it's
Speaker 1: like we have the conversation about the big chop or
Speaker 1: locks or whatever have you, and all of these little
Speaker 1: decisions that we make with our hair actually means so
Speaker 1: much more than we could ever realize. And that kind
Speaker 1: of makes me curious about where you've gone since the Bob,
Speaker 1: because he started with the bomb. Yeah, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you so this is so funny because I don't
Speaker 1: think that I've ever talked about this on the show,
Speaker 1: so my locks used to be. For the longest time,
Speaker 1: I'd never cut them. From when I started growing them
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one until twenty nineteen, I never
Speaker 1: cut my hair. So my locks were literally and I
Speaker 1: used to wear them curly, so they were you know,
Speaker 1: I used to do the flexy rods and you look
Speaker 1: at older pitches of me, it looks like they're past
Speaker 1: my shoulders, but my hair was actually down to my butt.
Speaker 1: And what ended up happening is, you know, as folks
Speaker 1: do know, UM, I got a divorce two years ago,
Speaker 1: and a part of that divorce, UM, going through that
Speaker 1: separation process, I cut twelve inches of my hair off.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm like looking at my hair right now,
Speaker 1: and I'm imagine I'm like, I cut twelve inches of
Speaker 1: my hair off. I remember my stylus and I we
Speaker 1: did it in like two sessions, right, because I didn't
Speaker 1: want like the shock, right, So we did like six inches,
Speaker 1: and then I came back and we did another six inches.
Speaker 1: And then I've cut it since. You know, I've cut
Speaker 1: it again since, but more so to like even things out,
Speaker 1: and I stopped doing it curly. So it was like
Speaker 1: for me, that was the kind of the death of
Speaker 1: that version of me, um of that of that person
Speaker 1: that was married. Of what what the preconceived notions were,
Speaker 1: what all of that weight? Because I do believe and
Speaker 1: this is something that again didn't come to me as
Speaker 1: a young person when I was starting the journey. But
Speaker 1: you know how you would always hear how your hair
Speaker 1: holds energy, and how in certain cultures they wrap their
Speaker 1: hair and all of these different things because of you know,
Speaker 1: because of the energy that it holds. And that was
Speaker 1: very true as I was going through my divorce. It
Speaker 1: was a shedding that really need that I really needed
Speaker 1: to have of this other version of myself. And I
Speaker 1: referred to her actually in a short creative writing piece
Speaker 1: that I did last year with this group called Generation Women,
Speaker 1: I referred to her as all to D and so
Speaker 1: the alternative Danielle, the alternative D. And yeah, I just
Speaker 1: it was time to put her to rest. And that's
Speaker 1: what it and that's what it looked like to me.
Speaker 1: It looked like changing, you know, this outward appearance that
Speaker 1: had become a signifier. People would recognize me, you know,
Speaker 1: from TV, from whatever because of the curly locks and
Speaker 1: you know, in the long, big hair, and I was,
Speaker 1: and I was done with that. I wanted I wanted
Speaker 1: to reinvent. Yeah, you're like, I am I am not
Speaker 1: just I am not my ye, but I'm not my hair. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yet it's such a big like I am, I
Speaker 1: feel very much the opposite where I'm like, if you
Speaker 1: see me in these streets, if you see my red twist,
Speaker 1: you know it's me. Um. So it's just interesting to
Speaker 1: think about that like spectrum of yeah, just relating to
Speaker 1: what it means and what you want it to mean
Speaker 1: to you and if it's okay for me to ask,
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know, like, what are the parts of
Speaker 1: you that you shed when you cut those twelve inches?
Speaker 1: Like how did that look in your day to day
Speaker 1: life and your spirit? You know, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: really vulnerable and honest, it looked like a lot of
Speaker 1: letting go of pretend. I had a very a very
Speaker 1: public marriage. We were my ex wife and I were
Speaker 1: one of the first couples to be married. We were
Speaker 1: on the front lines for marriage equality. We were national
Speaker 1: spokespeople for marriage equality, and so, you know, part of
Speaker 1: the beauty of having the privilege and the opportunity to
Speaker 1: move in these spaces to be able to present another
Speaker 1: idea of what it means to be queer, what it
Speaker 1: means to be a part of the LGBTQ community. Well
Speaker 1: that's the upside. The downside is that all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you start to become hashtag couple goals and hashtag black
Speaker 1: couple goals and hashtag this, that and the other thing,
Speaker 1: and you become you are then a prisoner of the
Speaker 1: success that you've been able to create for yourself. So
Speaker 1: for me, the shedding was just like I'm going to
Speaker 1: stop pretending like shit is not always instagramable, everything isn't
Speaker 1: always great. I'm not going to watch what I say
Speaker 1: in politics when I'm upset because I'm chasing this deal
Speaker 1: or that deal, Like if either you want me as
Speaker 1: who I am or you don't. And I think that
Speaker 1: I have finally arrived. And also I'm in my forties now,
Speaker 1: I think that I've finally arrived though through this process
Speaker 1: over the last two to three years of you know,
Speaker 1: so much happening in the world, but happening you know,
Speaker 1: in my own family, happening with myself, that it's just
Speaker 1: like either take me or leave me, right, But recognizing
Speaker 1: that I no longer have to pretend to be somebody
Speaker 1: else's version of me, right, And you know, and I
Speaker 1: think that that was true in my marriage, it was
Speaker 1: true in the movement work that I was doing. It
Speaker 1: was true in a lot of spaces. So the letting
Speaker 1: go of that hair was was the energy but the weight, right,
Speaker 1: because all of that hair was also really heavy, right,
Speaker 1: So I'm carrying all of you know, all of this around,
Speaker 1: and I think that the letting go allowed me to
Speaker 1: really figure out, well, who am I now? How do
Speaker 1: I even like to look right? How do I even feel?
Speaker 1: You know? And so yeah, it was it was a
Speaker 1: lot of that. There was a lot of that. It's
Speaker 1: so interesting to me because we met at what is
Speaker 1: a transitional space in my relationship life, and it was
Speaker 1: so powerful for you to share that with me because
Speaker 1: I feel so much of that and that when you
Speaker 1: are in certain kind of formats of relationships, what success
Speaker 1: looks like to other people and what is worth setting
Speaker 1: a boundary for to other people is very different. And
Speaker 1: folks like to say things like, oh, you are this
Speaker 1: beautiful X Y Z couple, like you're such a puller
Speaker 1: of the community, and I see you and I see
Speaker 1: you know a couple that works on X Y Z,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you don't know what it's like to
Speaker 1: live in the everyday life. You don't understand what these
Speaker 1: little cuts do to take you down every day. And
Speaker 1: I think to allow yourself to decide to be happy
Speaker 1: and to decide one is enough and what is enough
Speaker 1: and not care who thinks it's enough or doesn't is
Speaker 1: really it's really powerful. So thank you for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to for you too, Like you know,
Speaker 1: in your coming out and you said this at the top,
Speaker 1: that you've you know, you come out all the time,
Speaker 1: and I think that particularly if you are feminine presenting,
Speaker 1: that is just you know, that is that they're there
Speaker 1: because people still even in the in this day and
Speaker 1: age in twenty twenty two, still have this idea of
Speaker 1: what gay is, right like what it looks like, and
Speaker 1: it's still wrapped in stereotypes. And so I wonder for you,
Speaker 1: like how how your journey in this You know what
Speaker 1: I always say, it means to live to occupy these
Speaker 1: dualities right which for us we embody it so it
Speaker 1: isn't but the world does not see us as that.
Speaker 1: It's still either you're gay over here, or you're black
Speaker 1: over here and you're a woman over here. It is
Speaker 1: you know, it is this part and parcel. So how
Speaker 1: have you been able to like bring those identities together
Speaker 1: for your for yourself and what and how has that
Speaker 1: been part of the process of the continuation of the
Speaker 1: coming out. Oh gosh, it is still a part of
Speaker 1: the process, I will say, Like for me it what
Speaker 1: has been particularly hard is that my most serious queer
Speaker 1: relationship was interracial and there was a lot of things
Speaker 1: that happened in that relationship that I had to challenge
Speaker 1: as a black person, and so that made it very
Speaker 1: difficult for me in the conversations I was having with
Speaker 1: my family about my identity and what my careerness meant
Speaker 1: to me, and then also have to have conversations at
Speaker 1: work all the time about you know, what microaggressions I'm
Speaker 1: dealing with, and then after logging off, have to have
Speaker 1: those conversations about how I might be dealing with that
Speaker 1: with extended family. So I think I am still coming
Speaker 1: into that and I see myself becoming more myself still
Speaker 1: more and more each day in the ways that I'm
Speaker 1: not having to be considerate of folks feelings for the
Speaker 1: sake of a relationship yet, because if you know, my
Speaker 1: being honest with you definitely so respectful. But if I'm
Speaker 1: being honest with you, that is an act of love,
Speaker 1: and if you can't receive that as such, then I
Speaker 1: don't know what we're doing. And so that's I'm getting
Speaker 1: to that place. I think more and more each day.
Speaker 1: That has allowed me to be more myself and I'm very,
Speaker 1: very excited for the next chapter of things. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that they're coming into yourself. For me really
Speaker 1: came through the pandemic. I don't know how you experience
Speaker 1: the beginning of COVID, because you know, we're still in COVID,
Speaker 1: But for me, it was even though I was with
Speaker 1: my family in the beginning, it was a lot of solitude.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of like reflection. It was a
Speaker 1: lot of walking, you know, going out on you know,
Speaker 1: on long walks on my own and just really kind
Speaker 1: of digging into my why of things, not how or
Speaker 1: why did this happen to me, but like why am
Speaker 1: I being given this opportunity to reinvent why? You know,
Speaker 1: Like what is it that I want out of this,
Speaker 1: out of these next chapters or if this is it, right,
Speaker 1: because at this time, you know this is the beginning
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. We didn't know what the hell was
Speaker 1: going to happen, right, So if this is it, then like,
Speaker 1: how do i want my life to be of meaning
Speaker 1: and a value? And can it be of meaning and
Speaker 1: a value if I'm hiding behind an avatar that I've
Speaker 1: created for myself that isn't actually me? So how did
Speaker 1: you deal with Like were there any revelations or are
Speaker 1: you continuing to have revelations because I feel like I
Speaker 1: have them every day of you know, of what you've
Speaker 1: learned about yourself during these like really pivotal and consequential
Speaker 1: times that we're living in. Yeah, honestly, I think the
Speaker 1: starting of EDGES was that for me, having conversations with
Speaker 1: folks who had very different experiences than me but also
Speaker 1: shared some like similar pinpoints in their journey was really helpful.
Speaker 1: And I think that sense of self came from And
Speaker 1: I'm someone who is like a pisses. I'm Jamaican, so
Speaker 1: I'm like very passive, aggressive, I'll joke everything away, but
Speaker 1: I will do my best to let stuff go and
Speaker 1: it will fester. And I think going back and reflecting
Speaker 1: on moments and really seeing the times that I was
Speaker 1: hurt and the ways that I did not allow myself
Speaker 1: to repair was so crucial to that coming into self.
Speaker 1: And then honestly, like being at a point in time
Speaker 1: where I was so depressed and so stressed and so
Speaker 1: on myself that my hair was falling out was something
Speaker 1: that made me look inside of myself and say, your
Speaker 1: body literally needs to fall apart for you to see yourself.
Speaker 1: You need to stop and do some reflection and care
Speaker 1: for yourself and not think about what it means to
Speaker 1: be a good sister or a good wife or a
Speaker 1: good daughter and have that be at the risk of yourself.
Speaker 1: Because that's where I find myself a lot. So I
Speaker 1: think that has been my why, and I'm still kind
Speaker 1: of searching for additional wise what I'm curious to know
Speaker 1: what yours is, because I need some inspiration what my wife,
Speaker 1: you know? The For me, I just want to be
Speaker 1: of service. And I think that like just by virtue
Speaker 1: of the work that I do, Like what is my why?
Speaker 1: Like I just my life is about being an educator,
Speaker 1: right And you know, I had started off my career
Speaker 1: as an education lobbyist, as a classroom teacher all of
Speaker 1: these things and how I understand education now has evolved, right,
Speaker 1: Like I use media as a way to educate and
Speaker 1: enlighten people. But I will say that, like you know
Speaker 1: again that why that allowed me to reflect during the
Speaker 1: pandemic was like, am I doing this to like Chase likes?
Speaker 1: Am I doing this to Chase a contributorship on Cape News?
Speaker 1: Am I doing this like for the fame of the thing?
Speaker 1: Or is there something that's deeper there? And that's what
Speaker 1: I mean when I say on wokaf all the time
Speaker 1: about self interrogation, right, like we're never if we're not
Speaker 1: asking ourselves like the why of things like when we're
Speaker 1: having mood swings or you know, our energy is shifting
Speaker 1: or things are coming up, it isn't the first emotion
Speaker 1: isn't coming out of nowhere, right, So if we're not asking,
Speaker 1: like where is this feeling coming from? For ourselves, like
Speaker 1: the why? And keep going until you hit right the core,
Speaker 1: until you hit that foundation. And that comes from years
Speaker 1: of therapy that I went through in order to get
Speaker 1: to the place where I felt strong enough to get
Speaker 1: my divorce. But also just like really understanding that we
Speaker 1: all have our compass the thing that guides us, and
Speaker 1: it is for us. It's up to us to tap
Speaker 1: into that guide and and for me, for so long,
Speaker 1: it was other people that were tapping in and kind
Speaker 1: of charting my path and me not you know, and
Speaker 1: me just kind of following in the direction that they
Speaker 1: turned me and then recognizing that no, this is this
Speaker 1: is actually the same way I want to be. This
Speaker 1: is this, ain't it right? And so I think that
Speaker 1: it's really important to have self interrogation. It is really
Speaker 1: important even when we say to ourselves, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know, it's just like do you
Speaker 1: really not know? Or does it just seem scary to
Speaker 1: unpack it? Yeah? Right, And so I'd rather be scared
Speaker 1: in the unpacking than in the ignorance of it. Yeah. Absolutely, Well,
Speaker 1: this has been an absolute delight. This is the woke
Speaker 1: f meets Edges mashup that we have been working so
Speaker 1: hard to make happen and finally has. And so I
Speaker 1: just want to say, Chantey, I appreciate you. And and folks,
Speaker 1: if you have not checked out Edges Chante, tell people
Speaker 1: how they can check out the first season of your show.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, just search Edges or wherever you get your podcast,
Speaker 1: it's the one with the black woman with the red hair,
Speaker 1: so you can't miss it. Love it. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much and I hope that you'll come back again soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. Dap you fry,
Speaker 1: Happy black Fire Coming, Happy Blackway. Hey, I'm David. Plots
Speaker 1: of Slights, Political gab Fest. As another election season accelerates,
Speaker 1: it can be tricky to sort through all the noise
Speaker 1: and the news. Each week on The gap Fest, John Dickerson,
Speaker 1: Emily Bathlon and I decipher the headlines, break down the races,
Speaker 1: and tell you what issues really matter. We do not
Speaker 1: always agree, We definitely do not always agree, but we
Speaker 1: always deliver thoughtful debate and we always have a good time.
Speaker 1: So subscribe to Slate's Political Gapfest, new episodes every Thursday.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends, Here on
Speaker 1: Woke a f as always. Power to the people and
Speaker 1: to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke
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