WEBVTT - Internalized Oppression 0:00:01.400 --> 0:00:04.720 This episode is sponsored by FX's Fleischman Is in Trouble, 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:09.440 starring Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, Lizzie Kaplan, and Adam Brodie. 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:12.639 The strama tells the story of recently divorced Toby Fleischmann, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.320 who dies into the world of at bass dating with 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.360 the kind of success he never had in his youth. 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.280 Then his ex wife disappears, leaving him with their two 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:24.880 children and no hint of her return effectus. Fleischman Is 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:42.600 in Trouble, streaming November seventeenth only on Hulu. Good Morning, 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.280 peep Sin, Welcome to Okay after Daily with Me your Girl. 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.040 Danielle Moody back recording live from our pod stream studios 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:55.320 here in Times Square. Folks. It has been a long week, 0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:01.120 a long week, and I know that as we make 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:08.920 it to every single Friday, find something today and every day, 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:12.040 but find something at the end of this long week 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.720 to give gratitude for. It could be something small, it 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:20.319 could be something you know, major that happened, But I 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.679 want to offer up what I'm giving gratitude for today, 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.000 which is this. Earlier this week, if you follow me 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:36.040 on Instagram or Facebook, I posted about participating in an 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:43.160 intergenerational women's literary storytelling event. The theme for the event 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:47.360 was the Other Me and how they describe The theme 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.520 was saying that you know, in the month of Halloween, 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:55.800 that let's talk about and bring to life our shadow selves. 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.640 That there are so many different facets of ourselves, that 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:04.200 we reveal two different people in different situations and bring 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:09.080 that person to life with a real experience that you 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:13.480 have had. And you were given a maximum of twelve 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:17.920 hundred words to write, and then you were then to 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:24.280 perform that. And I decided for the first time ever 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.640 outside of you know, casual mentions on woke AF, to 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:31.080 talk about my divorce. Now, if you are a long 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.160 time listener of woke AF, you have known all about 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:40.560 my marriage, my ex wife, our advocacy work, all of 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.720 those things very well documented. But it was the first 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:48.000 time that I wanted to share, since it has been 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:53.000 a year since my divorce, the feelings of that moment 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.200 that I decided that I wanted, one that I needed, 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.080 one that I needed to find a way to in 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:05.360 fact say myself, my spirit and restore my light. And 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.680 so I wrote my piece and I took to the 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:13.200 stage earlier this week, and I have never been more 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.400 proud of myself. And I find that we don't say 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:20.600 those things enough, that we don't find moments and things 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.160 each day as to why we are proud of ourselves 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:29.040 and recognizing our growth and our desire to be better, 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.519 to stretch, to move in different ways, to expand what 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.880 it is who it is that we are. And this 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.360 week I challenge myself. I challenge myself as a writer 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:45.280 because I often only write about politics and the analysis 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.360 of that or our current affairs. I never really share 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:52.600 anything that is deeply personal right about my emotions around 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.640 things other than rage. And so this was an opportunity 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.280 not only to creatively write and stretch myself as a writer, 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.840 but a storyteller and as a person, as a person 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.960 that went through what more than half of the country 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.440 goes through each and every year, being as how fifty 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.160 percent of marriages end in divorce. And it doesn't matter 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:17.599 if you're queer or not. And so I offer this 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:23.200 to say that part of life is pain, right, is pain, 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:27.520 and is tragedy. And I have moved myself into the 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.560 belief that broken hearts are necessary because it allows us 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.760 to build them back stronger, and it creates space for 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.839 us to allow light to come in, and that we 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:43.000 shouldn't run from that pain. We shouldn't run from tragedy. 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.960 We should instead lean into it, not allowing it to 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:52.840 consume us, right, but in allowing ourselves to feel it. 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:55.599 And that's what I did this week, and I hope 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.120 that we can challenge ourselves more to do that because 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.000 what it does is not only does it help us 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.440 with our emotional health and well being, but it allows 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:10.880 us to have empathy for others. Folks. I am so 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.159 excited to welcome to wikate F for the very first 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:18.520 time Dante Stewart, the author of the new book Shouting 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.760 in the Fire. It is a stirring meditation of being 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.120 black and learning to love in a loveless, anti black world. 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.839 The conversation that I had with Dante was so eye 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:35.000 opening because we went through his spiritual journey and unpacking 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.480 of a Christianity that would have him recognize that he 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:46.080 was anti black, that he was making excuses for white supremacy, 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:50.679 and that it was so nuanced in such a way 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:54.440 that he thought for so long until he was called 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.600 out by his friends and his family, that his attitude 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.919 about black people, about the lie of pulling yourself up 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.120 from the bootstraps, if only you would dress well and 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:11.480 respectability politics was part of the larger problem. And it 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:16.840 was an extraordinary conversation. And the book is in fact breathtaking, 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:20.120 as many will say. And Robert Jones Jr. Who we 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.560 also had on Woke a f who goes by son 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:27.280 of Baldwin and social media, said this about Dante's book. 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.120 Only once in a lifetime do we come across a 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:34.280 writer like Dante Stewart, so young and yet so masterful 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:36.920 with the pen. This work is a thing to make 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:42.680 dungeons shake and heart's thunder, And it really is. This 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:51.760 story Shouting in the Fire is Dante's reckoning and understanding 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:56.120 of the legacy of white supremacy and how his own 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:02.840 internalized anti blackness right seeped into all avenues of his life. 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:06.200 And our conversation is a reflection of this journey as 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:10.560 well as his book is. And I just think that man, 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:15.400 white supremacy is such a dangerous, dangerous drug. It is 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:20.680 a dangerous, dangerous virus like COVID that is so catching 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.240 that would have you hate the skin that you're in. 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.560 You know, the other day we had Daily Beast columnist 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:32.160 wajahat Ali on the show, and just recently he had 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:36.119 tweeted his own journey in teaching his little brown daughter 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.360 how to love her skin, because a few months ago 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.320 she came to both him and his wife and said 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.280 that she didn't like her skin, that she wanted it 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.760 to be lighter, that she was too dark. He said, 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:54.000 how do you learn this at five and six years old? 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.640 How does the grip of white supremacy reach you at 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.920 that age? And I'll say it starts younger. And so 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.240 he worked with her and his wife and you know, 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:07.840 with more books about girls of color and you know, 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:12.400 bravery and courage and beauty and you know, and reminding 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.600 her and showing her how beautiful she really is, and 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:20.200 so unprovoked months later she came and said, I love 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:26.800 my skin right. And that is a similar journey that 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:31.160 Dante Stewart is on in shouting in the fire and 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:36.080 in remembering, you know what it meant to take over 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.760 an all white church as a preacher, and you know 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:47.160 how he had this reckoning when George Floyd was murdered, 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:53.680 and how the silence within his church was what finally 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:58.640 began to stir him and had him asked the question 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:04.200 about his feelings, his understandings of blackness, and so his 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.000 journey began. And I will tell you that I really 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:12.640 really enjoyed this conversation. I think that you all will too. 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.160 Please DM me and let me know you know what 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.040 you thought about this and whether or not you have 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:23.240 your own stories of internalized depression. If you are a 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.960 person of color, was it about your skin color? If 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.120 you you know, if you are from a marginalized community, 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:36.400 what types of internalized oppression were you experiencing. Coming up 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:44.320 next is my conversation with author Dante Stewart. Folks, I 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:50.520 am so happy to welcome onto Woke Apidaily author Dante Stewart, 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:55.440 who has a new book coming out entitled Shouting in 0:09:55.600 --> 0:10:01.360 the Fire and American Eppstill, you refer to this as 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:05.440 a strong meditation of being black and learning to love 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.559 in a loveless anti black world. I can't tell you, Dante, 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:16.280 how much this book is needed in this moment um. 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.199 But before we get into the ills of the moment 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:23.200 that we are currently existing, and talk to me about 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.840 what made this How did this book birth itself? How 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.880 did you come to this place to to write Shouting 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:38.040 and shouting to the fire. Oh I can't hear him, 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.840 can you hear me? Yes? All right? Cool? Cool, cool. Well, 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:45.080 first of all, thank you so much for having me 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.280 on UM. You know, I think I think what really 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.920 birth this was you know, me trying to make sense 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.719 of so much, you know that I was experiencing as 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.640 a human being, as a person, um, but also what 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:03.559 I had experienced in the past, you know, whether it 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:07.360 be you know, traumatic events as a child, or going 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:11.959 through college or even post college, and writing for me 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:16.800 became a way, you know, to try and bring some 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.600 type of coherence and what I was experiencing, trying to 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.199 interpret those experiences and bring something life giving out of 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.800 those experiences while also being able to say that whatever 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.400 happened to me is not the only thing or the 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:35.320 most important thing about me. But there exists power within 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.480 my own type of storytelling to take back those stories 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:41.520 and rewrite it the way I want to write it. 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:46.120 You know, there's this quote, um, that Elizabeth Alexander has 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:50.880 and in one of my favorite books, The Black Interior, 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.360 and she says about writing. She says, you know, as 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.880 a writer, this was my story. These memories are mine, 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.319 and I let other people deal with it once I writing, 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.439 And so for me it was about, you know, trying 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.920 to write something that was honest and critical, reflective, imaginative 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:13.920 and creative, you know, while also being uniquely mine. So yeah, 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:15.960 that's probably that's probably kind of the way it was birth. 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:17.760 But then also it was birth out of reading too. 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:20.280 So I had read Key Essays book heavy, and I 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:25.600 read Jasmine Awards Men we read. And on top of that, 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:30.200 you know, I was reading Um Jason's book, Jason Reynold's book, 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.600 and then Sarah Brown joined the Yellow House UM. And 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.520 so I'm reading all these books. I'm reading reading this 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:39.480 and reading Bill Hooks, and I'm reading Alice Walker and 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.880 Tony Morrison, the Baldwin U and even James Cone and 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.480 Katie Cannon and the Emily Towns, just all these brilliant, 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:49.560 brilliant thinkers. And I felt inspired as a as a 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.080 person to take up that work as well, to be 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:57.200 a part of a noticeable tradition while also being uniquely 0:12:57.520 --> 0:12:59.920 uniquely me and telling the story in the way that 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:05.160 it needed to be told. Talk to me about your 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:12.800 experience in the church and you know, being that you 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:19.080 wanted to be and were were a part of a 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:28.400 what was it a largely white Episcopal church, right, Baptist 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.440 A Baptist church, excuse me, a Baptist church. But that 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:37.880 the what happened during the time during the the uprisings 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:43.120 right of twenty twenty what what? What? What shifted in 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.440 in your experience? Talk to us, because there was a 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.160 shifting that occurred. I mean there was a shifting. Obviously, 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.959 there was a techtonic shift that occurred with with with 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.000 all of us. But what happened with you specifically and 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.800 your relationship with your church and the parishioners um during 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:03.480 that time, Well, that that journey really started, you know way, 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.960 you know, in some sens years before then. And you know, 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.880 it really started in twenty sixteen with the shooting of 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:15.000 Alton Sterling and Philando cast Still. And then, of course, 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:19.480 like so many Christians in general, but particularly young black 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:24.160 Christians in particular, UM, the moment of Donald Trump following 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.560 those shootings, you know, and things has already happened since 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.120 treyvon Martin. Um, you had both white and black churches 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.520 wrestling with the question of what to do inside of 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:39.120 a society that, uh did not just was not just 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:43.120 apathetic to black life, but was hostile towards us. And 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.040 so we lived in a society that not only was hostile, 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:52.280 but oftentimes this hostility was justified by ideas of morality 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:56.280 or ideas of religious you know, purity. You know, whose 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.720 bodies were meant to be loved and whose bodies were 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.960 meant to be condemned? Uh and so and so this 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.480 is this kind of theological or religious justification is the 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:10.720 reason why so many people, even myself ashamedly blamed black 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:12.960 people for their death. So, like Mike Brown, I never forget. 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:15.200 And I was living in California. I was riding with 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.360 one of my dudes, a white brother over there in 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.560 his car, one of my dudes back then, um, riding 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.240 in his car and seeing what's happening in Ferguson. I 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:24.680 was the type of person that was like, you know, 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.960 you know, like what's wrong with black folks? You know 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:30.880 why we acting like? Oh, no, I was that guy. 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.760 I was that dude. Because I was about to say it, 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:36.960 I was like, wait, you are that guy? No, no, no, no, 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.680 I own that, you know, And Okay, And that's a 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:41.600 part that's a part of like why I felt like 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:43.520 I had to write it the way I did is 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:47.800 because like I'm not a hero of this story, Like 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:49.920 I'm not the hero of this book. Like I'm just 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.440 the person who tells it. I'm the person who experienced it. 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.640 And I'm trying to, you know, make sense of it 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:56.720 as possible as much as I possibly can. And I 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.640 think that, you know, especially you're talking about what shifted, 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.160 and I think even in my own life, it was 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.400 like being honest about who I was, about who I 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.680 was not, and who I was trying to be. You know, 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:09.800 I was trying to be that person who was accepted 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:15.160 um into white social and religious spaces, uh and who 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.640 rejected and and and and distanced myself from so many 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.000 black people that either I was raised about or that 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.280 came into my life, you know, going to being at Clemson. 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:26.600 That's that's pretty much when all of it started, with 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.960 me being immersed in white, white Christian spaces and and 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.320 that kind of catalytic shift that you as you're talking 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.440 about the ground beneath me sinking and rumbling, happened in 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:40.120 twenty sixteen. And then you know, I read James Baldwin 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:42.680 and I and I and I like to tell people, 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.040 you know, if you if if you're black and white spaces, 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:50.040 and you read balding and critically. If you read Evalveing 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:54.920 honestly and critically, there is no way possible to stay 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:59.120 in white spaces and be okay with so much of 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.400 what they think about black people and the way they 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:03.960 treat us and the way they respond to us. And 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:08.000 so during those moments of twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, you know, 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.159 I used this metaphor in the book of Running. I 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.399 stopped running and or at least I stopped running in 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:15.600 the direction of white people that I ran toward us 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.800 because I feel, as the black feminist theorist Terry On 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.520 Williams said that that our world, the way we black 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:25.240 people build worlds, is as much a starting point as 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.440 any other place. And I started to take seriously the 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.000 worlds that black people were creating through literature, through art, 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:36.480 through dance, through through our religious experiences. And I knew that, 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.119 you know, I could not, Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't. 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.639 I couldn't shucking job for white people no more. You 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:46.800 know what, be honest, what I really respect um your 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:52.160 your your honesty, and the vulnerability with having to reconcile 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:55.439 with the person that you were and the person that 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.320 you are becoming right because I believe, you know, kind 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:01.639 of in the in the sense that we were always 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.520 in a state of becoming right, like we should always 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.840 be in a state of becoming the next iteration of ourselves. 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:13.320 I grew up in a largely white suburb here in 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.840 New York on Long Island, where I went to school 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:21.879 with ninety six percent white kids, right like, the school 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.879 district was ninety six percent white. Went to college a 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:29.560 predominantly white institution. It wasn't until I was in my 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:34.080 twenties did I start to reconcile with the things that 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.360 I had been fed and taught. It wasn't as if 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.520 I had a self hatred, but it was like this 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:47.480 just nonchalant acceptance of white people and whiteness. And so 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.640 I want to press upon with you. You know, when 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.639 you were having when these moments are happening in twenty 0:18:54.680 --> 0:19:00.199 sixteen and twenty seventeen, you know, did you have like 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:05.640 community around black community around you or how or were 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:10.760 you doing this reconciliation essentially absent of community because the 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:15.399 community that you created was largely white. Yeah, well then 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.920 a great question, great question. You know, so so much 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:20.680 of what was happening to do that during that moment, 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:22.920 there were black people in that church. You know that 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.040 so many of these churches, you know, so many of 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:28.359 these spaces say we're trying to become diverse, we're trying 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.000 to be mortiracial, we're trying to be multicultural, when in actuality, 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:35.080 what that really means is that we're trying to do 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:39.240 the bare minimum while including black people or non white 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.320 people and get them maximum praise. So we're doing the 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:46.399 most minimal work trying to get the maximum praise. And 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.080 one of my one of my dudes said it said 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.600 it best, Yes, they said it best. He says, you know, 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.760 white people, you know, uh, he says something real fun 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.760 He said, you know, white people would rather you know, uh, 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.320 you lose and you lose and you get the blame 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.600 rather than you win and they get the credit. And 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.440 I thought, I thought, so, I thought that was a brilliant, 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:12.560 brilliant way to understand these dynamics that like it was 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.080 about us losing. It wasn't. No, it's like oh, you know, 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:17.399 like hey, like you know, hey, here's a book you 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.080 can read, here's a thing you can read, here's a 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:22.359 documentary you can read. And so then it's like, Okay, 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.920 we're all losing in this little space, and we're taking 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:26.720 the blame for it because it was black people in 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.160 that space. You know, I'm married, so my wife was there. 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:31.240 Then my best friend Mole and her husband was there. 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:32.959 But then there was also all the black people there. 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:34.919 And that's the dynamic, you know, that's the that's the 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:39.439 interesting dynamic within those white spaces. Not every type of 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:43.919 black personal blackness is accepted a lot of times. A 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.359 lot of times, you know, there's this there's this colloquialism, 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.600 especially you know, black people use it when we mostly 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:52.640 many black people use it when we are in white spaces. 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:55.440 It's that term black people are not a mono lift 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:59.120 and we use it as a way to signal that 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.920 I perform us of blackness in white space is legitimate. 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:06.480 We use it as a signal. It's not so much 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:10.240 as a celebration of the different iterations of blackness and 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:13.240 the expressions of our beauty or like Hanife Rights in 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.080 his book Lived Devi in America, these kind of iterations 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.159 of black performance. It's not a celebration of that, but 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.560 it's a signal U to try and legitimize our form 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:26.639 of blackness without realizing that the form of blackness that 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:31.280 we are actually having is all the same. We might 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:33.600 be black and might be different from one another, have 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.960 different experiences, but the certain type of blackness that's accepted 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.880 in those spaces, whether we're in church, it's the same. 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.600 Whether we're in church, whether we're in school, whether we 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:50.000 whether you're whether it's the same and so and so, Yes, 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:54.080 black community was there. But also, and this is the 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:55.719 thing we need to talk about, a lot of us 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:57.680 need to talk about, is the ways in which our 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:02.720 black maleness, uh tech and empower a certain type of 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:05.520 whiteness in that space. So we black men even though 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:07.800 I was I was leading a group, you know, and 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.639 things like that on this book raised by white dude, 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:13.360 I was leaving the group and I ain't even read 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:15.480 nothing on race. And this is like in twenty sixteen, 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:18.520 twenty seventeen, I'm leaving this book group. I ain't read nothing, 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:20.760 gonna raise this this white man leading this white man 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:24.080 book we're reading and things like that. And I'm this 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.840 black dude who's charismatic, raised Pentecostal, went to white university. 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:32.720 I know how to maneuver in spaces or whatnot. And 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:36.520 so then my type of me as a symbol becomes 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:40.160 very relevant to what white people want to protect. And 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:43.840 it's a certain type of innocence that they have, you know, 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:49.600 an evasion of racism, of white supremacy, while paradistically looking 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:52.760 like they celebrating us, when in actuality, they're celebrating a 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:56.040 certain type of ignorance, which is pretty much what we 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:58.720 black men were performing in that space. And then the 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:03.640 only only, the main reason why I change was my wife, 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.160 and the book was crazy. It's like I was honest 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:08.280 about this too. Like they're gonna be moments. They could 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:10.560 be moments where people read this book and they're gonna 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:12.679 be like they're gonna be like, oh my business, Like 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:14.919 like we're grateful for you, we're proud of you, but 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:17.120 like there are moments where like, you know, I took 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:18.960 my wife through things in that space that I never 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.280 should have. And if it had not been for my wife, 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:24.679 you know, and the other black women who were like 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:27.320 getting me together, if it wasn't for my wife and 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:29.520 for my friend Mole and for my friend and Kayla, 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:33.200 if it wasn't for them, you know, there would be 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:35.679 no this right now. There would be no change, I 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:39.159 would still be there preaching the same way, thinking the 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:41.760 same way, act the same way. But if it had 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:44.440 my moth for them, how did they? How did they? 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:47.840 What are some ways in which without you divulging to 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:52.520 and what are some ways that they challenged your your 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:55.959 your way of thinking that was challenging this this growth 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:59.440 that was happening. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Okay. So 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:02.000 one one thing in particularly that I bring that that 0:24:02.040 --> 0:24:04.440 I that I show in the book, you know, particularly 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:05.960 with my wife. I talk about my wife and I 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:10.240 talk about michaela uh particularly so like you know, the 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:14.520 the further I got into white spaces because you know, 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:16.240 I said, you know, I want to go on ministry. 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:18.240 I want to go in ministry, you know, and things 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:19.919 like that. It's like black it's like black people who 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:21.440 you say, you know, we gotta make it, we gotta 0:24:21.440 --> 0:24:23.320 make it, you know. And and the crazy part is 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:25.480 the way we grow up, you know, they tell us. 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:27.320 You know, that's the message, that's the story that we 0:24:27.440 --> 0:24:30.080 inherit is that in order for you to make it, 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:31.760 you have to get closer to white people. In order 0:24:31.800 --> 0:24:33.520 for you to be closer to God, you know, you 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:35.679 got to be closer to white people. In order for 0:24:35.720 --> 0:24:37.920 you to be closer to Jesus, you gotta be closer 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:39.679 to white people. In order you got to be closer 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:42.720 to financial liberation and literacy, I gotta be closer to 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:44.840 white people. You gotta be like white people. And so 0:24:45.119 --> 0:24:48.240 we inherit these messages that to be closer to them 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:50.000 is to be closer to the things that will make 0:24:50.080 --> 0:24:53.359 us feel worthy and love. And so the further I 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:56.399