Speaker 1: I am Yamla, your host, your guide, a teacher for salm,
Speaker 1: and a soft place to fall for others. And I
Speaker 1: was a miserable failure in my relationships until I love
Speaker 1: myself enough to be able to share my love with
Speaker 1: other people. Welcome to the r Spot, a production of
Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. My guest today is
Speaker 1: a native of Jersey City. Grammy nominated author artist Kevin Powell.
Speaker 1: Kevin is a hip hop activist, meaning he understands, teachers
Speaker 1: and promotes the depth and value of hip hop culture,
Speaker 1: and that makes him a cultural activist. He's also a
Speaker 1: television and personality of writer an author. I first became
Speaker 1: aware of Kevin when I was still a resident of
Speaker 1: the Nation of Brooklyn. I think he was in college
Speaker 1: back then, but he wrote for the Black American newspaper,
Speaker 1: and he covered the story about the killing of Michael
Speaker 1: Griffin and Howard Beasts Howard Beach Queen's which was a
Speaker 1: huge story back then, akin to the Michael Brown story
Speaker 1: in Ferguson, except that Michael Griffin was killed by citizens,
Speaker 1: not by police. Kevin is the author of fourteen books,
Speaker 1: including My Favorite, The Education of Kevin Powell, A Boy's
Speaker 1: Journey into Manhood and my second favorite, which recently came out.
Speaker 1: Kevin also served for many years as a writer for
Speaker 1: one of my favorite magazines, Vibe Magazine, which was launched
Speaker 1: way back in the day in the nineties with the
Speaker 1: Blessing and the Guy guidance of Elder Statesman Quincy Jones.
Speaker 1: Now as a recent contribution to African Voices magazine, also
Speaker 1: from the Nation of Brooklyn. Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of
Speaker 1: hip hop, Kevin wrote an article that really is a
Speaker 1: love story and a historical treatise about hip hop. I'm
Speaker 1: not telling you this to impress you or to establish
Speaker 1: that Kevin is somebody special. I want you to understand
Speaker 1: that he has a long term commitment and history to
Speaker 1: the evolution of people and humanity based on the culture
Speaker 1: and contribution of people of color. However, He's not stuck
Speaker 1: in just people of color because Eve Ensler, the author
Speaker 1: of the Vagina Monologues, is one of his mentors, which
Speaker 1: Kevin speaks to in his album Grocery Shopping with My Mother.
Speaker 1: I love this man. I love him for his heart,
Speaker 1: for his commitment, for his voice. His latest offering to
Speaker 1: the world. Grocery shopping with my mother sent chills through
Speaker 1: my body. I didn't know if I should weep or
Speaker 1: do the Hallelujah dance. If you are wondering who you
Speaker 1: are or how to be as a mother, as a son,
Speaker 1: as a person living in the twenty first century. So
Speaker 1: it is my sheer, delight and honor to welcome this incredible,
Speaker 1: incredible activist and author and son as a mother. It
Speaker 1: is my honor to witness or his unfolding and to
Speaker 1: welcome him to the r spot. I want to start
Speaker 1: with this. I want you to hear this. Dear God, please.
Speaker 2: Do not take my mother from me anytime soon. I
Speaker 2: am not ready. God, I do not know.
Speaker 1: What I would be without her.
Speaker 2: She has been my mother and my father. So she
Speaker 2: pushed and pulled me through her earth the way a
Speaker 2: jagged little pill shoves its way around the mouth of history.
Speaker 2: I love my mother like I love breathing air, even
Speaker 2: when she bruises me with her words, with her rage.
Speaker 1: God, Mama has forever bruised.
Speaker 2: Me with her words, with her rage.
Speaker 1: And that was an offering from grocery shopping with my mother.
Speaker 1: All right, our spot has joined me and welcoming Kevin Powell. Hi, Kevin,
Speaker 1: welcome to the art spot.
Speaker 2: First of all, thank you so much, and I'm just
Speaker 2: humbled and grateful for everything you said. And you took
Speaker 2: me back when you mentioned the Michael Griffith peace and
Speaker 2: the Black American way back in the day. I actually
Speaker 2: was in college. That was my first check. I think
Speaker 2: I got twenty dollars for that article back in the
Speaker 2: day as a writer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I you know, I just want to say thank you
Speaker 2: for you and all that you've done. You know, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I just just thank you. I just need to say
Speaker 2: thank you. You know, we both have lost some folks
Speaker 2: in the last couple of years, and I don't take
Speaker 2: for granted being here and just thank you for all
Speaker 2: you've given to our communities. I just need to say
Speaker 2: that to you publicly. Thank you.
Speaker 1: You know. I lost my daughter this year. You sent
Speaker 1: me that lovely, lovely text and email. And in my
Speaker 1: healing process, one of the things that I was doing
Speaker 1: was just praying because I just I had to keep
Speaker 1: my mind and in my prayer one day Spirit said
Speaker 1: to me, or I heard the guidance. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't like to say Spirit said to me because then
Speaker 1: people think I'm crazy. I hear voices, so I just
Speaker 1: said I was guided and it said in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: you're going to do a lot of work with men,
Speaker 1: and I said, okay. So when I heard about grocery
Speaker 1: shopping with my mother, and you know, we've known each
Speaker 1: other forever. I remember it was in two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, Kevin, My daughter Jamia was still
Speaker 1: alive when you and I set up in the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Church and we did an audience of men. Do you
Speaker 1: remember that, God, Yes, we must have had about two
Speaker 1: hundred men in that church and that was It had
Speaker 1: to be two thousand and one because Jamia died in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three. So I know that she was
Speaker 1: still alive because she was there. So we've been connected
Speaker 1: for a long time. I've watched you evolve.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This for me is so powerful, grocery shopping with my
Speaker 1: mother because that relationship between the mother and the son
Speaker 1: is it's a challenging relationship, but it's a blessed relationship.
Speaker 1: And I always tell women when I speak to them
Speaker 1: and they're going through breakdown with their son, remember Mama,
Speaker 1: you are raising somebody's husband and somebody's father, Okay, And
Speaker 1: I also believe that a man is who is mother
Speaker 1: makes him. And so in this album, you talk about
Speaker 1: your mother, you talk about your father, but the beauty
Speaker 1: is you also talk about all that you learned and
Speaker 1: gathered and put together even in spite of or because
Speaker 1: of your relationship with your mother.
Speaker 2: Wow. I you know if I can say this because
Speaker 2: I have to pay homage always to our ancestors. I
Speaker 2: listened to a lot of Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Marvin
Speaker 2: Gay and putting that together, and obviously people like Nikki
Speaker 2: Giovanni and the Last Poets and you know, Sonya Sanchez
Speaker 2: and Varaka Mary Baraka and he rest in peace as well.
Speaker 2: But I just wanted to do something that was in
Speaker 2: the tradition of who we are as poets, as artists.
Speaker 2: And I just love music and I'm a house music head.
Speaker 2: I'm a dance head. I actually grew up. I was
Speaker 2: dancing hard when I was younger, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: the first track to be a party track, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to be in the spirit of bringing community together
Speaker 2: as you do, and that's where it came from. But
Speaker 2: you know, It's just I wanted to I wanted to
Speaker 2: take people on a journey musically because I just I
Speaker 2: listened to all kinds of stuff. I'm definitely a hip
Speaker 2: hophead for life. That's never going to change. But I've
Speaker 2: been blessed to be exposed to classical music, to jazz,
Speaker 2: to African rhythms to arrange this stuff, reggae. I'm a
Speaker 2: big fan of reggae, big big fan of Caribbean music,
Speaker 2: and so it's all there, and I just I'm still
Speaker 2: in shock if I can say this. You know, we
Speaker 2: we I got to shout out Tanisha Hill, got to
Speaker 2: shout out black women because black women hold it down.
Speaker 2: This album will not exist without tiny Sha Hill, who's
Speaker 2: an amazing singer, songwriter, vocal arranger. But you know, she
Speaker 2: and I started talking about I said, you need to
Speaker 2: be the producer with me on this album, so there'd
Speaker 2: be no Grammy nominations as much her Grammy nomination as
Speaker 2: mine because she we worked together for eight months in
Speaker 2: the studio putting this thing together through all kinds of
Speaker 2: stuff happening this year, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 2: I just got to acknowledge that that's important to.
Speaker 1: Me to say that, well, you know, I'm a music
Speaker 1: fanatic too, and all of those things. And it's important
Speaker 1: because I think some of the youngins today they don't
Speaker 1: know amer they don't know Nicki, they don't know some
Speaker 1: of the things that you grew up on some of
Speaker 1: my peers, who you know, I'm an elder now, I
Speaker 1: can't believe it, but you know, if it wasn't for
Speaker 1: Nicki and Amri and Hockey Matabooty and so many people
Speaker 1: that some of the youngins don't know. So for you
Speaker 1: to be influenced by them and bring it into the
Speaker 1: twenty first century with the hip hop vibe, that's how
Speaker 1: you do that. So let me ask you this question.
Speaker 1: Why grocery shopping with my mother? Why that?
Speaker 2: Well five years ago, so my mom got sick, as
Speaker 2: I talk about in the title poem song on the album.
Speaker 2: And I'm an only child. I was raised by my mother.
Speaker 2: I mean, she had me young, and you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, And I grew up on welfare, foods, Sam's government,
Speaker 2: She's poverty. I wouldn't wish on anybody. My mama had
Speaker 2: migrated from the South, from South Carolina up to Jersey
Speaker 2: City and she got sick, and she said she needed
Speaker 2: help going to the grocery store. That's how it started, Ayana.
Speaker 2: I had no intention of writing a poetry book, which
Speaker 2: came out last December with that title. No, we're doing
Speaker 2: an album. What I was doing was simply like walking
Speaker 2: behind my mother, helping her pick out stuff because she
Speaker 2: insisted on going to the grocery store herself. I said, mine,
Speaker 2: you know we can have grocery deliver. Oh no, I
Speaker 2: ain't gonna do that. She didn't. My mother just she
Speaker 2: got a cell phone, she got a flip phone. She
Speaker 2: got a flip phone. But there's no texting, there's no
Speaker 2: online banking, nothing. So she's like, I gotta go to
Speaker 2: the grocery store. So I had to take her to
Speaker 2: the grocery store every week for about a year or so,
Speaker 2: crying behind her, trying to get her to change her diet.
Speaker 2: You know, she would curse me out in that mama
Speaker 2: kind of way. Boy, you're trying to I raise you.
Speaker 2: You know how it is with our folks. I raised you.
Speaker 2: I'm older than you. I was here before you were here.
Speaker 2: I was like, Mom, but you can't, you can't get
Speaker 2: all that she oh for the cookies, you go for
Speaker 2: the ice cirl like, okay, mom, And you know, I
Speaker 2: started posting on social media, just doing it. This is
Speaker 2: what we do. I just said, you know, I'm out
Speaker 2: here at grocery stop my mother. I had no idea
Speaker 2: black folks, lat next folks, white folks, Indigenous folks, Asian folks,
Speaker 2: people of all different identities saying that's me, my mother
Speaker 2: saying black women especially saying you know, that's my mother,
Speaker 2: or that's me with my son or my daughter. People
Speaker 2: saying to me they had lost their mothers and that,
Speaker 2: you know, thank thank you for what you're doing. And
Speaker 2: it blew my mind, and out of it that came
Speaker 2: this long poem. And then I, you know, my wife
Speaker 2: stuck the photo that's the cover of the album and
Speaker 2: the book when we were at literally a grocery store
Speaker 2: and it was still you know, we were still wearing
Speaker 2: masks most of the time, and that how that's how
Speaker 2: we got the cover of My wife's a photographer, and
Speaker 2: it's just but it's it's it's and it's funny. When
Speaker 2: I showed my mother the book, she said, who's that
Speaker 2: want to cover with you? I said, man, that's you.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to write. It's something, you know. I
Speaker 2: thought a lot about Tupac Chakor's Dear Mama, rest in peace. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I didn't realize you were born on set Timber
Speaker 2: thirteenth or day to pop past. I didn't realize that. Wow,
Speaker 2: that blows my mind just to think about that. And
Speaker 2: I thought about all the songs we've had about mamas
Speaker 2: and black mothers through the years. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: and you know, and also the dear God part comes
Speaker 2: from the color purple. To be quite honest about it,
Speaker 2: I was always affected by how Seali would say Dear
Speaker 2: God in the book and you would hear her voice
Speaker 2: in the movie version, because my mother's very spiritual. I
Speaker 2: was raised up in the church. I've been Christian, I've
Speaker 2: been Muslim, I've been a few things at Yalla Vanzane.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, But what it always comes
Speaker 2: back to is that spiritual piece. And so I just
Speaker 2: I said, I wanted to write something that reflected the
Speaker 2: kind of black churches that we went to in New
Speaker 2: York and New Jersey when I was growing up, where
Speaker 2: my mother was constantly calling on God. Because I was
Speaker 2: calling God honestly with that poem, grocery shop with my mother,
Speaker 2: Like I I she's the only constant in my life.
Speaker 2: I was born the only Wow. Yeah, I only knew
Speaker 2: my father. I alays saw my father two or three
Speaker 2: times until I was eight years old. Then he was gone.
Speaker 2: The next time I saw my father was when he
Speaker 2: was in a gravesite in South Carolina when I found
Speaker 2: them years later with the help of a wonderful sister genealogist.
Speaker 2: But other than that, it's my mama, It's my mama.
Speaker 2: It's my mama. And that's the poem is a plea
Speaker 2: to God, you know, to give me more time, you know.
Speaker 2: And my mom is you know, she comes from the
Speaker 2: old world, as we say, you know, whether your family's
Speaker 2: from the South or the West Indies. You know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. It's like they have their ways, They're rooted
Speaker 2: in it, you know. So it's been a complicated relationship.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, I'm clear that
Speaker 2: I would not have sixteen books the life that I've
Speaker 2: had my mama. I mean, my mother has an eighth
Speaker 2: grade education in Yalla van Zane. She took me to
Speaker 2: the library when I was eight years old. We didn't
Speaker 2: have many books in the house. We had a Bible.
Speaker 2: That was it. She didn't know that, you know, she
Speaker 2: didn't know. She just was like, I got to make
Speaker 2: sure he gets an education. When I was three years old,
Speaker 2: three or four years old, she was telling me I
Speaker 2: was going to go to college. The only time my
Speaker 2: mother ever set foot on college campus is when she
Speaker 2: dropped me off at Rutg Universe I was eighteen years old,
Speaker 2: because my cousins had a car to drive us there
Speaker 2: and Central New Jersey. She had never been on a
Speaker 2: cough campus, you know. But this is someone, This is
Speaker 2: the power of black women. This is the power of
Speaker 2: black mothers, this remarkable vision against all odds, coming through slavery, colonization, segregation,
Speaker 2: all the craziness that y'all have had to deal with,
Speaker 2: and then having to raise this child by herself. And
Speaker 2: I was definitely a boy that gave her a lot
Speaker 2: of problems. But you know, I can see my mother
Speaker 2: all in me. The work ethic comes from her getting
Speaker 2: up early every morning, like there's still like I'm around
Speaker 2: roosters and chickens down south, you know, is a part
Speaker 2: of where I come from, you know, And I just
Speaker 2: you know, I would like her to be here as long.
Speaker 2: She's gotten better, thank god, you know, but she still
Speaker 2: walks slowly, and she's still you know, insisting in doing
Speaker 2: things her way. And I've suggested yoga to her, and
Speaker 2: you know, Ma, there ways to deal with all.
Speaker 1: Yoga.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was like yoga. No, oh no that
Speaker 2: you know, it's funny, you know, it's deep. I have
Speaker 2: referenced you probably a thousand times. I've said to so
Speaker 2: many people, people like my mom and them did not
Speaker 2: have an a Yalla van zandt or you know folks
Speaker 2: growing up, they didn't have y'all, you know, and so
Speaker 2: they now when you try to introduce this, they're like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm good, I just need the Lord, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's it. We'll talk more about it when
Speaker 1: we come back. Welcome back to the r spot. Let's
Speaker 1: pick up where we left off. After that beautiful testimony
Speaker 1: to your mother, she bruises me with her words and
Speaker 1: with her rage. I acknowledge the ways that I bruised
Speaker 1: my son more with my words than with the rage.
Speaker 2: But the words.
Speaker 1: Probably came from rage. Talk to me as a son,
Speaker 1: because I've got some mothers I want to bring on,
Speaker 1: but talk to me as a son, Hey, how did
Speaker 1: you recog nis you were bruised? And then what did
Speaker 1: you do about it?
Speaker 2: I recognize it as a child. I mean, listen, my
Speaker 2: mother is a beautiful, dark skinned black woman. And all
Speaker 2: black is beautiful. Everybody's beautiful, We're all beautiful. But she,
Speaker 2: my father was a high yellow Negro what they would
Speaker 2: call a red black, red, red, red bone, red bone
Speaker 2: back then. Yeah, and you know, my mother did not
Speaker 2: have the kind of educational background formerly that you have
Speaker 2: that I have, where she could understand the history of it,
Speaker 2: so she spoke from a lot of pain. Sometimes my
Speaker 2: mother would say to me when I was a child,
Speaker 2: you know, you're just like your father. And then she
Speaker 2: would say in the next breath, don't be like your daddy.
Speaker 2: Now you're eight nine years old. You don't have to
Speaker 2: process that. And I think what often happens, and I've
Speaker 2: said this in spaces with black women who have sons,
Speaker 2: you know, I understand the hurt that you all feel,
Speaker 2: particularly when black men have been so washed in sexism
Speaker 2: as men, thinking that we can abuse black women or
Speaker 2: women period anyway. We feel like and physically verbally, emotional,
Speaker 2: spiritually everything. And if you you know, and if you
Speaker 2: don't go to counseling, into therapy, the things, the work
Speaker 2: that you've been doing, you know, thank you for the
Speaker 2: work you've been doing to try to help people to heal.
Speaker 2: There was no healing space for my mother. There's not
Speaker 2: a healing space for a lot of our black mothers.
Speaker 2: They just have you all have to just suck it up,
Speaker 2: which is going all the way back as you know,
Speaker 2: Yalla Vanzanne. So those plantations, black women had to be everything.
Speaker 2: Black women had to be everything. And so I was
Speaker 2: hurt as a boy, not just the physical beatings, but
Speaker 2: the verbal beatings, the stuff that was set to me.
Speaker 2: I mean, if I could be honest about it, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, my mother would call me the names that
Speaker 2: Fred Sanford would call his son, lamont On Sanford and
Speaker 2: his son you know what those words were, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: and they were hurtful. Here, I am an a student
Speaker 2: because my mama demanded excellence out of me. I could
Speaker 2: not have a B or anything, nothing less than the A.
Speaker 2: But then being told that you're not even intelligent, it
Speaker 2: took me years. I was hurt. I was hurt. I
Speaker 2: was devastated. I got to college with no relationship skills.
Speaker 2: I had never been hugged by my mother, you know,
Speaker 2: because she didn't know how to hug. There was no
Speaker 2: I love using any of the stuff. The stuff I
Speaker 2: say in the poem is very is very real. And
Speaker 2: it took me learning black history when I got to college,
Speaker 2: to Rutgers and understanding the devastating effects of slavery, all
Speaker 2: of it on us. But more importantly, Yana, it took
Speaker 2: me going to therapy to forgive my mother, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, and to begin to forgive like I
Speaker 2: understand it because I don't know what it's like to
Speaker 2: be a black woman who has to deal with racism
Speaker 2: and sexism, and if you're a poor black woman the
Speaker 2: way my mother was, the way you were at points
Speaker 2: in your life, the classism as well, I have no
Speaker 2: idea what that did to her, you know, And so
Speaker 2: she was just operating out of what she knew, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think that it's important what I say to
Speaker 2: mothers all the time. Now, it's just really important that
Speaker 2: the hurt that you have felt by the society racism, sexism, classism,
Speaker 2: and any of the isms and phobias that you, whatever
Speaker 2: your identity or identities are, you know, but also if
Speaker 2: it happens to be the father of that child, that
Speaker 2: you not take out that hurt on the child, because
Speaker 2: the child. It's the generational traumas. We didn't have the
Speaker 2: word trauma like we do now, but that's what I
Speaker 2: was carrying around and I ended up hurting a lot
Speaker 2: of people as a result of it. And I don't
Speaker 2: blame my mother. I simply was acting out what I learned.
Speaker 2: And then I realized when I got to college, well, hell,
Speaker 2: a lot of us are damage and were just acting
Speaker 2: out on each other right.
Speaker 1: Well, you know that's what brings up the beauty. Very shortly,
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to Courtney b Vans. He just
Speaker 1: wrote a book entitled The Invisible Ache. Wow, and my
Speaker 1: I'm on a mission. I want every man with two
Speaker 1: eyeballs just to identify his invisible ache. But what you
Speaker 1: say here is so critical that and in the album,
Speaker 1: what I recognized was based on what you were saying,
Speaker 1: you did something that is very important for men and
Speaker 1: building a healthy relationship with their mother. A. You learned
Speaker 1: her story, yes, because you talked about her being dark skinned,
Speaker 1: You talked about her being born in South Carolina. You
Speaker 1: talked about how her father they used to beat her,
Speaker 1: which probably established her relationship with men, her thoughts about men,
Speaker 1: and although I think your mother and I might be
Speaker 1: around the same age, believe it or not, I'm heading
Speaker 1: in that direction. But you talked about the impact of
Speaker 1: her history on her story and how her story impacted
Speaker 1: how she treated you. So many men don't take the
Speaker 1: time to learn their mother's story and they make it personal.
Speaker 1: She came after me personally. In fact, Kevin, I've got
Speaker 1: some mothers on the line, and I want you to
Speaker 1: talk to them as a son. Okay, greetings beloved, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the R Spot. My guest and I my guest,
Speaker 1: Kevin Powell, and I are talking to sons about their mothers,
Speaker 1: and mothers about their sons so that we can get
Speaker 1: some healing on the table. Are you in good relationship
Speaker 1: or breakdown? Which a son right now used.
Speaker 3: To be good? Now I'm in breakdown. He is a
Speaker 3: fifteen year old uh huh, and he's just we were
Speaker 3: very very close growing up, and over the past couple
Speaker 3: of years he has started to pull away and his
Speaker 3: grades are inconsistent up and down. He's smart, his work
Speaker 3: ethic is compromised. He's kind of isolating. I've had him.
Speaker 3: I've had him talk to somebody and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's a typical teenage boy. Don't even worry about it.
Speaker 3: But the controlling person and the fearful person in me
Speaker 3: is kind of confused on how is a mom do
Speaker 3: I step back and start parenting him like a fifteen
Speaker 3: year old a young adult male, and without not without
Speaker 3: like having him end up on Doctor philm someday. So
Speaker 3: I want to give him his space to grow and develop,
Speaker 3: and I put full trust in you know, my creator
Speaker 3: that he's handling everything. But as a mom, I get worried.
Speaker 3: I do I just you know, I want him to
Speaker 3: be happy and live his life for what makes him happy.
Speaker 3: He's not involved in anything. He's an incredible artist and poet.
Speaker 3: He doesn't do anything anymore. He basically just isolates.
Speaker 1: Wow, where's his dad? Where's his dad?
Speaker 2: Great question?
Speaker 3: His dad is in his life. The only thing is
Speaker 3: is I'm kind of the disciplinarian and dad's the fun guy.
Speaker 3: So you know, I'm always bearing that brunt. I grew
Speaker 3: up and you know, my dad was was addicted to
Speaker 3: heroin and it was a violent household. And so I'm
Speaker 3: trying to parent things differently. I'm a first gen college grad.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to kind of reshape things. And I think
Speaker 3: sometimes I'd a little bit of a helicopter because I'm
Speaker 3: concerned that he maybe go to he might go down
Speaker 3: the same path and struggles that I did, and I
Speaker 3: obviously want to shelter him from them. Different environment, but
Speaker 3: I still have my you know, my legacy issues from
Speaker 3: my ancestral issues from you know, growing up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to let you talk to a son. Yes, so, Kevin.
Speaker 1: You know, as a mom, I know what it's like
Speaker 1: to have a fifteen year old male. Aw blessing is
Speaker 1: she does have the father there. But as a son,
Speaker 1: what would you say to this mom?
Speaker 2: Wow, I think it's important to really have some conversations
Speaker 2: with him about where he is. I just had this
Speaker 2: conversation Madam Caller and Ayana with a parent of single mom,
Speaker 2: a mother of a thirteen year old, and I just said,
Speaker 2: it's important for a parent to evolve with their child,
Speaker 2: and I wish, you know, this is a conversation I
Speaker 2: could have with my Mother's clear to me that you
Speaker 2: can have this with your son. I think we can't operate.
Speaker 2: We can't parent from fear. We can't parent from For example,
Speaker 2: the way my mother parented me was, you know, don't
Speaker 2: get anyone pregnant, you know, as a teenager, don't get
Speaker 2: in trouble, you know, don't don't go outside. It was
Speaker 2: very fear based, and I think that is what is happening.
Speaker 2: I believe with the boys, especially because unfortunately the way
Speaker 2: and I don't want to speak in the binary because
Speaker 2: I love all people in all identities, but if we're
Speaker 2: talking about you know, especially heterosexual boys for a second here,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of times we're not even encouraged
Speaker 2: to express ourselves. Now, you said your son is an artist,
Speaker 2: which you know, I don't even know his gender identity
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter, but the fact that he's just an
Speaker 2: artist means that he knows how to express himself. He's
Speaker 2: done it, and I think that there's something going on
Speaker 2: is causing him to shut down, and we've got to
Speaker 2: get to the root of that. And I think it's
Speaker 2: important to have some conversations with either you and him,
Speaker 2: or you and his father and him, just like, how
Speaker 2: are you feeling, you know, where are you at No
Speaker 2: pressure about college, no pressure what do you want to
Speaker 2: do with your life? No pressure of what I got,
Speaker 2: which is at eighteen, you're going to be an adult
Speaker 2: and you got to figure something out. And for me,
Speaker 2: it was like, you got to go to college, You're
Speaker 2: gonna go to military, you gotta get a job, you
Speaker 2: gotta do something. Just kind of because I think it's
Speaker 2: important to create a space where boys feel comfortable to
Speaker 2: talk because often in our society, we do not encourage
Speaker 2: boys to express themselves except through shutting down completely and
Speaker 2: making themselves invisible, or it comes out as rage in
Speaker 2: some sort of form, you know what I mean. We
Speaker 2: don't want that to happen, obviously, So I think it's
Speaker 2: about creating a safe space where they can say, you know,
Speaker 2: at fifteen, I want to talk about some things. You know,
Speaker 2: here's what I'm feeling, Here's what I'm thinking. And so
Speaker 2: I think that that's important and I just and I
Speaker 2: want to say this too. In our society, I feel
Speaker 2: like it doesn't matter that the boys are black, white,
Speaker 2: latinx Asian Indigenous. I think that, you know, there's a
Speaker 2: crisis in how we define manhood here where I see
Speaker 2: the same patterns happening boys, and Yalla, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. You know you want to ask I
Speaker 2: do one of your most famous interviews, conversations with DMX,
Speaker 2: I cite that a lot as here's what happens to
Speaker 2: us a lot of times as boys, and it ends
Speaker 2: up becoming self destructive behavior. And so for me at fifteen,
Speaker 2: ended up getting in trouble with the police. It ended
Speaker 2: up getting arrested a couple of times. You know, it
Speaker 2: ended up my mother ended up saying things to me like,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're going to make I don't
Speaker 2: know if you're going to actually make it. I did, thankfully,
Speaker 2: but she didn't have the the again, the full picture
Speaker 2: to be able to articulate or figure out what I needed.
Speaker 2: And I think what boys need is to say, then
Speaker 2: that we give to those who identify as girls. They
Speaker 2: need love, they need the spaces bit to express themselves.
Speaker 2: And you know, I just spoke to four hundred young
Speaker 2: boys Ayana and call her on Saturday in Seattle, and
Speaker 2: what I wasn't a speech because they were teenagers, they
Speaker 2: were your son's age, but they got up there and
Speaker 2: they said things like, you know, boys should be able
Speaker 2: to cry without judgment, you know what I mean? We
Speaker 2: should speak freely when everyone's saying that there's something wrong
Speaker 2: with us, and I think what we got to create
Speaker 2: that space for them? You know, This is what a
Speaker 2: Yalla's work has been about, you know. But there's very
Speaker 2: few spaces like hers where we say to boys, to males, hey,
Speaker 2: you know that you're hurting too. You got to say
Speaker 2: because if you don't do it, then think about the
Speaker 2: herd that. I'm not saying it's gonna happen with your son.
Speaker 2: But I was someone who grew up very in a
Speaker 2: violent world and I ended up being very violent. I
Speaker 2: talked about that openly because I didn't know there was
Speaker 2: other ways to express myself. And I'm a writer just
Speaker 2: like your son's a artists, you know. But even there,
Speaker 2: you know, is he in safe spaces where he can
Speaker 2: be free to express himself as an artist or is
Speaker 2: he being dissed? Is he being bullied? We don't know
Speaker 2: if we don't have those conversations with him.
Speaker 3: It's that balance and having those conversations, and I do
Speaker 3: have them. He's more resistant, but I know I can't
Speaker 3: give up, and I have to trust and how I've
Speaker 3: raised him. He has that freedom state. It is a
Speaker 3: little challenging because my husband can be a little bit
Speaker 3: like we'll call it neanderthali ish, like, oh, you can't
Speaker 3: do this, you can't do that. It's the pressures that
Speaker 3: these teenagers go through to be a certain way and
Speaker 3: do a certain thing. And and you know, it's that's
Speaker 3: the that's the problem. It's the peer pressures.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then we'll talk about that when we come back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the r spot. Let's get back to
Speaker 1: the conversation. Mama, this is mother to mother now Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: too many words, too much mind. Let me say something
Speaker 1: to you. And I'm saying this to you as a
Speaker 1: mother right now. You are not mothering him. You are
Speaker 1: fathering him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right, Yeah, I know my masculine energy. I'm
Speaker 3: not leaning into my feminine I know.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes. What is your son's love language? Words of
Speaker 1: affirmation as a love language, quality time is a love language,
Speaker 1: acts of service. This what I'm saying is how does
Speaker 1: he receive love? How does he recognize love? And it
Speaker 1: sounds to me like you're giving direction and you're trying
Speaker 1: to be there, but you're doing it from a headspace
Speaker 1: not a hard space. The fact that you doubt him
Speaker 1: or that you don't trust him, that you are highlighting
Speaker 1: what could be wrong. See, he is fifteen, so he's
Speaker 1: in the stage of identity versus identity crisis. He's trying
Speaker 1: to figure out who he is, and his mother doubting
Speaker 1: him is devastating. I hear you say he's an artist,
Speaker 1: but you are dealing with him as though he is
Speaker 1: an engineer. Find out his love language, sometimes his love
Speaker 1: if his love language is affection, or if his love
Speaker 1: language is quality time. I didn't know my son's love language,
Speaker 1: which were words of affirmation, so I never affirmed him.
Speaker 1: I corrected him, I guided him, I directed him. I
Speaker 1: told him what to do, and I never said you're fine,
Speaker 1: you okay. And my son raised by a single mom,
Speaker 1: when he turned eighteen, he went out in the street
Speaker 1: and did everything I told him not to do, everything
Speaker 1: that he couldn't do under my roof. He did it
Speaker 1: between eighteen and twenty one and ended up with a
Speaker 1: sentence in prison. He should have got could have got
Speaker 1: seven and a half to fifteen, but with prayer, he
Speaker 1: got three and a half to seven. And all of
Speaker 1: that time he was in there three and a half years.
Speaker 1: All I did was pray because by then I knew
Speaker 1: his love language. By then I knew that I had
Speaker 1: never affirmed him. Oh baby, you're sitting in your room
Speaker 1: by yourself. I hope you getting good ideas. You need
Speaker 1: some tea, He asked not to be freaked out because
Speaker 1: he's in the room by hisself. And if you fill
Speaker 1: the space with an energy of worry and doubt and heat, Ma,
Speaker 1: he lived in your body. He heard your heart beat.
Speaker 1: He knows what you're saying, even when you don't say it.
Speaker 1: He feels you. Stop giving him words, give him your heart,
Speaker 1: find out his love language.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I absolutely will and I do. When he
Speaker 3: said school, by the way, I do go in his
Speaker 3: room and pray, and I think prayers as I walk around.
Speaker 1: His room, but he ain't in the room over him.
Speaker 3: Yes, I will absolutely do that for sure.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Kevin.
Speaker 2: You know my self esteem was shot as a boy
Speaker 2: growing up.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Break that down? Tell her what
Speaker 1: that means.
Speaker 2: I was confused about who I was because I was
Speaker 2: given a lot of orders by my mom and never
Speaker 2: the affirmation that word did you just said to Yana,
Speaker 2: there were no affirmations at all. And I'm not saying
Speaker 2: that we need to baby boys, and some people like
Speaker 2: to call it quote unquote. I definitely don't want to
Speaker 2: enable boys to be irresponsible, you know. But I do
Speaker 2: think we take for granted, you know, when we participate
Speaker 2: in this this notion that that you know, girls can
Speaker 2: be nurtured but boys can't be nurtured. I think we
Speaker 2: do the boys of the service, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And I don't think we actually develop as whole human
Speaker 2: beings in a way that people who are girls or
Speaker 2: women do and are in touch in a different way
Speaker 2: with their emotions, to Yanna's point. And so I was
Speaker 2: very all over the place. I just I didn't even
Speaker 2: know how to function outside of like, let me, let
Speaker 2: me go to school, let me do what my mom
Speaker 2: tells me to do, and that's it. And when I
Speaker 2: got to college, honestly, my college year is other than
Speaker 2: my activism, and discovering I was a writer for real
Speaker 2: was really a disaster because I know who I was
Speaker 2: and now I'm out in the world on my own,
Speaker 2: and I had no relation. Like I said a moment ago,
Speaker 2: I had no love skills, relationship skills, friendship, skills, I
Speaker 2: was socially awkward, all those kinds of things, and I
Speaker 2: just think, you know, to y'alla's point, I do feel
Speaker 2: there needs to be a shift, you know, and how
Speaker 2: we relate to our sons. I really believe that because
Speaker 2: I end up what ends up happening a lot of
Speaker 2: times is people like me are asked to have conversations
Speaker 2: with people's sons all the time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And I'm not just talking about the mother's. Oftentimes it's
Speaker 2: father's as well, you know, because people are trying to
Speaker 2: raise them in a way that they think they're supposed to.
Speaker 2: And I think it's important to be honest. And y'all
Speaker 2: please tell me because you are a mother, you've been
Speaker 2: a mother, I mean, haven't you had to reinvent the
Speaker 2: book along the way a few times?
Speaker 1: Oh hell yeah, not reinvent the rule book, but throw
Speaker 1: the rule book out. And here here's the other thing.
Speaker 1: And my son told me this on a collect call
Speaker 1: from prison. Wow, okay, he said, the fears you had
Speaker 1: for me were not the fears I had for myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing he said to me was you gave
Speaker 1: me enough rope to hang myself. And then when I
Speaker 1: did you beat me up about it? Yeah, my son
Speaker 1: said that to me. Yeah, sound familiar, Mama.
Speaker 3: That just resonated because that is exactly what I feel.
Speaker 3: It's almost like you spoke his words like I don't
Speaker 3: have these, guess and I'm confident. Why are you doubting me?
Speaker 3: And I'm putting that energy back to him that he's absorbing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 3: Making him out himself and kind of say, will screw it? Yeah,
Speaker 3: And she doesn't believe this, and no one I might
Speaker 3: as well do it.
Speaker 1: That's devastating. Listen and listen to this. Mama. First, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say this to you again. Stop fathering him, back down,
Speaker 1: pump your brakes, stop trying to change him, and just
Speaker 1: give him space to unfold and become who he is.
Speaker 1: And as Kevin said, you cannot parent from fear.
Speaker 2: No, no, no.
Speaker 1: You cannot. That is so destructive. And so many mothers
Speaker 1: do that for their sons and their daughters, but it's
Speaker 1: devastating for the sons. Stop fathering him, mother him, and
Speaker 1: give him your heart. Too many words, too much mind,
Speaker 1: I'm a shut up.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Thank you that I have been so incredibly helpful. I'm
Speaker 3: truly truly grateful for you both, and thank you so
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm all right, mama, thank you, good luck, thanks alrighty,
Speaker 1: thank you bye.
Speaker 3: Grateful for you both.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Kevin. That is so so important. Wow, when
Speaker 1: you hear these things and you think about this offering,
Speaker 1: because even your offering on your album to your father, Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you say I forgive you, Yeah, what what comes
Speaker 1: up for you? When you hear these things from these mothers?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: It's profound? Is that.
Speaker 1: I I.
Speaker 2: Text my wife as I was listening, you know, I
Speaker 2: just said, Wow, A lots so many of us are
Speaker 2: hurting out here. Even a love song, the first love
Speaker 2: song on my album for you, because my wife and
Speaker 2: I talked very honestly about our dysfunctions that we were
Speaker 2: bringing to the table, our traumas, and I think we said,
Speaker 2: I say in that song that we don't want to
Speaker 2: be married to destruction, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just think that we have to The word is healing.
Speaker 2: The word is healing. The word is healing. The word
Speaker 2: is healing. And you know, but we can't get to
Speaker 2: the healing if we're not willing to be honest about everything.
Speaker 2: And as you've been saying throughout this show and thank
Speaker 2: you for it, is what are you willing to take
Speaker 2: responsibility for? You know what I mean? Man? You know
Speaker 2: I heard my mother's hurt as I was listening to
Speaker 2: the last caller. I understand it, you know, I really do.
Speaker 2: And you know you said something earlier like what helped
Speaker 2: me as a male I identify persons when I began
Speaker 2: to read women writers like yourself back in the nineties
Speaker 2: and Order Lord and Belle Hooks and you know, Tony
Speaker 2: Morris and Alse Well, just a range of sisters. Because
Speaker 2: I realized I was hearing my mother's stories in you
Speaker 2: all's words, you know, yes, and so it gave me
Speaker 2: compassion and empathy that I didn't have before. I gotta
Speaker 2: be brilli honest with you. I was angry at my
Speaker 2: mother for years. We had a terrible relationship, and in
Speaker 2: my twenties she changed the locks on her door. She
Speaker 2: didn't want me to come back. She's like, you can't
Speaker 2: come back here, disrespect I was disrespectful to her because
Speaker 2: I didn't have anywhere to put that rage, that anger
Speaker 2: that I felt because of racism, systemic racism, because of
Speaker 2: the whole that you you know you talked about with
Speaker 2: my father not being there, and then there was no
Speaker 2: forward motional with my mother. I had to be the
Speaker 2: one to evolve the relationship my mother. She still in
Speaker 2: many ways relates to me as if I'm a child,
Speaker 2: you know, because she's not able to she hasn't been
Speaker 2: able to grow, you know, she's she's still hurt from
Speaker 2: all the things that's happened to her. But I said,
Speaker 2: I gotta I can't change my mother, But what I
Speaker 2: can change is how I relate to my mother.
Speaker 1: You know, yes, right there, say it again, Say it again,
Speaker 1: say it again.
Speaker 2: I can't change my mother, though, yeah, it can change
Speaker 2: how I relate to my mother. Yes, And I made
Speaker 2: a constant decision that it needs to be with love.
Speaker 2: But I had to learn to love myself, a Yallabanzane.
Speaker 2: I had to learn to love myself and as you know,
Speaker 2: love self, love is a journey is never ending. But
Speaker 2: I was like, I got to figure this out, and now
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie to you my word. There are
Speaker 2: times my mother's words still hurt me. There's this still
Speaker 2: you know, things that are said to me or about me.
Speaker 1: Was there anything that your mother could have done differently
Speaker 1: that would have changed who you are and your response
Speaker 1: to her. What could she have done differently?
Speaker 2: This is getting very deep, mister y.
Speaker 1: We grocery shopper. That's all.
Speaker 2: I wish that my mother could have known what the
Speaker 2: physical beatings, including when I was asleep, which are the
Speaker 2: same things that happened to her when she was a
Speaker 2: girl by her father, and the verbal beatings, the damage
Speaker 2: that it did to me as a boy, as a child.
Speaker 2: I wish she would have known or could have known
Speaker 2: the confusion I felt when she said, don't be like
Speaker 2: your father, but you look like your father. You're just
Speaker 2: like that No good goddamn quote unquote, I'm going to
Speaker 2: say his name. It was all taken I'm an only child,
Speaker 2: so it was all taken out on me. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I wish that my mother could have known that
Speaker 2: a hug, a kiss, I love you, the affirmations that
Speaker 2: you talked about earlier, the difference could have made.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It literally took me into my fifties. I'm in the
Speaker 2: same generation as your son, y'all, van Zan, I'm finally
Speaker 2: in a healthy, loving relationship my second marriage because I
Speaker 2: felt like I spent my entire adult life, through my twenties, thirties, forties,
Speaker 2: into my fifties trying to figure it, to undo all
Speaker 2: the damage that I experienced, not just for my mother,
Speaker 2: my father, my family, the society, all of it, because
Speaker 2: I simply did not have the tools emotionally and spiritually
Speaker 2: to be a man Kevin power.
Speaker 1: Before I let you go, I want to ask you
Speaker 1: about this, but what.
Speaker 2: She got sick? Lord, really sick. A few years back,
Speaker 2: I was terrified a loose to my mother. I had
Speaker 2: her speed dial to the hospital there in Jersey, has
Speaker 2: sprinted me as fast as I could to be with us.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you this, Help me understand this.
Speaker 1: Terrified of losing her and angry at her at the
Speaker 1: same time. How do you wear that? How do you
Speaker 1: hold that? Because I think a lot of men are
Speaker 1: in that place. A lot of sons have this breakdown,
Speaker 1: upset with their mom, but at the same time terrified
Speaker 1: of losing her.
Speaker 2: As much as I've talked about my mother in my
Speaker 2: life and my writings and my speeches everywhere, it wasn't
Speaker 2: until this show today with you You've said it a
Speaker 2: few times, reminding us that we were inside our mother's
Speaker 2: and heard the heartbeat. Felt the heartbeat was our heartbeat.
Speaker 2: I never heard it put like that, Terrified of losing
Speaker 2: her now, twenty years from now, whenever it is, because
Speaker 2: that's the first sign of life I ever had, reconciling anger,
Speaker 2: because she still has that way of speaking to me
Speaker 2: that forces me at times to get off the phone
Speaker 2: really quickly, or even when I go over for things
Speaker 2: like Thanksgiving, I have an internal clock like I can
Speaker 2: only be here for a certain amount of time because
Speaker 2: I just don't want to feel like I have felt
Speaker 2: throughout my life because of her pain. It's attention that
Speaker 2: is unexplainable. You know, you love your mother, but you
Speaker 2: also wish that your mother could evolve with you. You
Speaker 2: love your parent you wish they can grow as you've
Speaker 2: been growing. But you also have to accept that not
Speaker 2: all of them will, including maybe yours, and the best
Speaker 2: you can do is just be there for them. And
Speaker 2: that's why I was at that grocery store for my mother.
Speaker 2: She calls me, she knows she's got me. I got
Speaker 2: a whole system at Yalla Vanzete Place for my mother
Speaker 2: in my hometown in Jersey City. Anything my mother ever needs,
Speaker 2: because at the end of the day. As I try
Speaker 2: to say in this poem on this album, Grocery shopping
Speaker 2: with my mother, It's a kind of love that is
Speaker 2: it can't even be defined. You know, I love my
Speaker 2: wife deeply. My wife is the most important person to
Speaker 2: me in my life. But my mother gave me life,
Speaker 2: and I've had to figure out, through years of therapy
Speaker 2: and spiritual work and all the things that I do,
Speaker 2: how to forgive her and love her unconditionally even when
Speaker 2: she still hurts me. To this day. It is hard
Speaker 2: at Yalla van zandt. It is hard when I'm cursed at,
Speaker 2: when I'm called a name, to this day, when I'm
Speaker 2: ridiculed for decisions, when it's assumed that I, a grown man,
Speaker 2: don't know what I'm doing and saying it is hard.
Speaker 2: But what helps me to get through it is I
Speaker 2: can't imagine what it's like to be born in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty three in this country and label colored or negro,
Speaker 2: to be a victim of racism, sexism, and classicism, to
Speaker 2: be a darskined black woman and told that she's not
Speaker 2: beautiful her entire life and not half in a Yalla
Speaker 2: van Zant or an Oprah Winfrey or any of the
Speaker 2: folks who have come along like you all have created
Speaker 2: healing spaces. That is how I'm able to love my mother.
Speaker 2: I've had to come to an understanding. I realized she
Speaker 2: is silly in the color purple. She is those characters
Speaker 2: in those twenty Morrison novels. She is the journey of
Speaker 2: black women in this world where you all have to
Speaker 2: be everything for everyone, and then you wake up and
Speaker 2: there's nothing left for you. And I decided I have
Speaker 2: to give my mother something she deserved that eightieth the
Speaker 2: party I gave her. She deserves to be able to
Speaker 2: be in a car service. She deserves to be able
Speaker 2: to have some things that she never thought she could
Speaker 2: have in her life because the son that she raised,
Speaker 2: that she gave an imagination to by taking to the library,
Speaker 2: has been blessed to better show my mother thinks she
Speaker 2: could even imagine.
Speaker 1: But your sharing speaks to the importance of a son
Speaker 1: knowing his mother's story as a woman. I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: take you here, Kevin, but you are healing hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of sons today, So I'm gonna take it. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna use you till I use your up.
Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am, let's just take the card.
Speaker 1: Says it helps her back. MA is afraid to fall.
Speaker 2: MA ain't gonna fall in front of no strangers.
Speaker 1: My mother's power is in the steering of the shopping car.
Speaker 1: She pushes it forward the way a truck driver enters
Speaker 1: their tractor through bumper from bumper traffic.
Speaker 2: Wobbles slowly from the car when she spots an items
Speaker 2: she needs lord gree peaches, full red apples, five bananas,
Speaker 2: a package of chocolate chip cookies, a bunch of collar greens,
Speaker 2: a carton of orange juice.
Speaker 1: That clip led into your speaking to when she fell
Speaker 1: in your house and you and her ended up looking
Speaker 1: eye to eye, and you said, here I am with
Speaker 1: a woman who never hugged me, never kissed me, never
Speaker 1: told me she loved me. And then I hear you
Speaker 1: speak to sending a car service for her and giving
Speaker 1: the birthday party for her, how you walk behind her
Speaker 1: in the supermarket, watching her pick those things up. And
Speaker 1: what comes to mind for me, Kevin, is somehow maybe
Speaker 1: you didn't even know that you you were doing this.
Speaker 1: You separated your heart and love from your mother, from
Speaker 1: her behavior that bruised and wounded you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you.
Speaker 1: Know how you did that or are you aware that
Speaker 1: that's what you did? That? You put the behavior over here,
Speaker 1: but you allowed the love to remain over here. Do
Speaker 1: you know how you did that?
Speaker 2: Therapy? Years of things?
Speaker 1: Okay? Okay?
Speaker 2: And how can I say I love black people if
Speaker 2: I can't forgive black people? How can I say we
Speaker 2: love We should love black people unconditionally. But I put
Speaker 2: conditions on my love for my mother.
Speaker 1: M put conditions on your love for your mother. How
Speaker 1: many sons do that? They want their mother to be
Speaker 1: this way or that way? And what I'm hearing you
Speaker 1: say is that you accepted her exactly as you are
Speaker 1: and created boundaries to protect yourself. Get off the phone,
Speaker 1: only stay this amount of time. Don't take it personally.
Speaker 1: When she goes off, eighty years old, grown up with
Speaker 1: no affirmation in a racist society. You put that over there,
Speaker 1: and wow, she is blessed to have you.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm blessed that she gave birth to me.
Speaker 2: And you know, as I was listening to you, counsel,
Speaker 2: I wish i'd put my mom on the phone with you.
Speaker 1: No, she would cuss me out. I know that kind
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, baby, and you know what she says, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna plead the blood of Jesus over.
Speaker 2: You, and then I could say nothing.
Speaker 1: Kevin Paull grocery shopping with my mother. I'm going to
Speaker 1: speak into existence that you need to start writing your
Speaker 1: acceptance speech for that Grammy right now. But I want
Speaker 1: to also ask you, what is your message to mothers.
Speaker 2: To all mothers? Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm
Speaker 2: one man who has learned by listening through the years,
Speaker 2: and I continue to listen and learn from Mayana van Zan,
Speaker 2: from my mama, from my wife. My gosh, I can't
Speaker 2: even imagine what it's like to be a woman and
Speaker 2: too black women. You know what Malcolm X says when
Speaker 2: Beyonce sampled Malcolm X talking about how black women are
Speaker 2: the most disrespected people, you know, on her Elimonade album
Speaker 2: a few years ago. I mean, I say, to black women,
Speaker 2: there's no world without y'all. There's no world without black women.
Speaker 2: There's no world without black mothers. There's nothing without black mothers.
Speaker 2: You know, not only have you had to raise your
Speaker 2: own children, but you have to help raise other people's children.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 2: and I apologize, just like you said apologies earlier. I apologize,
Speaker 2: and I'm doing my best now as a black man
Speaker 2: to help other black males understand that. You know, no
Speaker 2: matter what we go through, we cannot, cannot, cannot take
Speaker 2: it out on black women.
Speaker 1: And what would your message be to sons today? What
Speaker 1: would your message be to sons?
Speaker 2: Heil, heil, don't be afraid men, boys out there, sons
Speaker 2: expressing how you feel. It's okay to be vulnerable. It's
Speaker 2: okay to cry, It's okay to say your hurting, is
Speaker 2: okay to say you're depressed. Don't sabotage yourself as I
Speaker 2: have done many times. You know, no judgment, no judgment,
Speaker 2: no judgment. But we got to learn how to love
Speaker 2: ourselves so we can bring love into this world.
Speaker 1: Kevin Powell, cultural activist, author of the Grammy nominated album
Speaker 1: Grocery Shopping with My Mother.
Speaker 2: Thank you, I love you, I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Thank you our spotters. I hope you've heard something here
Speaker 1: today that will heal your relationship with your son. If
Speaker 1: you're a mother with your mother, if you're a son,
Speaker 1: I hope that you go out and get this spoken word.
Speaker 1: The album and the book, and I hope that you
Speaker 1: find in this conversation exactly what it is that you
Speaker 1: need to support your healing. I am so grateful for
Speaker 1: this conversation. What do you think, Kevin? Should we take
Speaker 1: a few more callers and see how we can help
Speaker 1: them on their healing journey?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I say let's do it. Kevin and I will be
Speaker 1: back next week with a deep dive with two new callers,
Speaker 1: so we'll see you then. In the meantime, stay in
Speaker 1: peace and not in pieces.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: The R Spot is a production of Shondaland Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.