Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by FX's Fleischman Is in Trouble,
Speaker 1: starring Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, Lizzie Kaplan, and Adam Brodie.
Speaker 1: The strama tells the story of recently divorced Toby Fleischmann,
Speaker 1: who dies into the world of at bass dating with
Speaker 1: the kind of success he never had in his youth.
Speaker 1: Then his ex wife disappears, leaving him with their two
Speaker 1: children and no hint of her return effectus. Fleischman Is
Speaker 1: in Trouble, streaming November seventeenth only on Hulu. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: peep Sin, Welcome to Okay after Daily with Me your Girl.
Speaker 1: Danielle Moody back recording live from our pod stream studios
Speaker 1: here in Times Square. Folks. It has been a long week,
Speaker 1: a long week, and I know that as we make
Speaker 1: it to every single Friday, find something today and every day,
Speaker 1: but find something at the end of this long week
Speaker 1: to give gratitude for. It could be something small, it
Speaker 1: could be something you know, major that happened, But I
Speaker 1: want to offer up what I'm giving gratitude for today,
Speaker 1: which is this. Earlier this week, if you follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram or Facebook, I posted about participating in an
Speaker 1: intergenerational women's literary storytelling event. The theme for the event
Speaker 1: was the Other Me and how they describe The theme
Speaker 1: was saying that you know, in the month of Halloween,
Speaker 1: that let's talk about and bring to life our shadow selves.
Speaker 1: That there are so many different facets of ourselves, that
Speaker 1: we reveal two different people in different situations and bring
Speaker 1: that person to life with a real experience that you
Speaker 1: have had. And you were given a maximum of twelve
Speaker 1: hundred words to write, and then you were then to
Speaker 1: perform that. And I decided for the first time ever
Speaker 1: outside of you know, casual mentions on woke AF, to
Speaker 1: talk about my divorce. Now, if you are a long
Speaker 1: time listener of woke AF, you have known all about
Speaker 1: my marriage, my ex wife, our advocacy work, all of
Speaker 1: those things very well documented. But it was the first
Speaker 1: time that I wanted to share, since it has been
Speaker 1: a year since my divorce, the feelings of that moment
Speaker 1: that I decided that I wanted, one that I needed,
Speaker 1: one that I needed to find a way to in
Speaker 1: fact say myself, my spirit and restore my light. And
Speaker 1: so I wrote my piece and I took to the
Speaker 1: stage earlier this week, and I have never been more
Speaker 1: proud of myself. And I find that we don't say
Speaker 1: those things enough, that we don't find moments and things
Speaker 1: each day as to why we are proud of ourselves
Speaker 1: and recognizing our growth and our desire to be better,
Speaker 1: to stretch, to move in different ways, to expand what
Speaker 1: it is who it is that we are. And this
Speaker 1: week I challenge myself. I challenge myself as a writer
Speaker 1: because I often only write about politics and the analysis
Speaker 1: of that or our current affairs. I never really share
Speaker 1: anything that is deeply personal right about my emotions around
Speaker 1: things other than rage. And so this was an opportunity
Speaker 1: not only to creatively write and stretch myself as a writer,
Speaker 1: but a storyteller and as a person, as a person
Speaker 1: that went through what more than half of the country
Speaker 1: goes through each and every year, being as how fifty
Speaker 1: percent of marriages end in divorce. And it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you're queer or not. And so I offer this
Speaker 1: to say that part of life is pain, right, is pain,
Speaker 1: and is tragedy. And I have moved myself into the
Speaker 1: belief that broken hearts are necessary because it allows us
Speaker 1: to build them back stronger, and it creates space for
Speaker 1: us to allow light to come in, and that we
Speaker 1: shouldn't run from that pain. We shouldn't run from tragedy.
Speaker 1: We should instead lean into it, not allowing it to
Speaker 1: consume us, right, but in allowing ourselves to feel it.
Speaker 1: And that's what I did this week, and I hope
Speaker 1: that we can challenge ourselves more to do that because
Speaker 1: what it does is not only does it help us
Speaker 1: with our emotional health and well being, but it allows
Speaker 1: us to have empathy for others. Folks. I am so
Speaker 1: excited to welcome to wikate F for the very first
Speaker 1: time Dante Stewart, the author of the new book Shouting
Speaker 1: in the Fire. It is a stirring meditation of being
Speaker 1: black and learning to love in a loveless, anti black world.
Speaker 1: The conversation that I had with Dante was so eye
Speaker 1: opening because we went through his spiritual journey and unpacking
Speaker 1: of a Christianity that would have him recognize that he
Speaker 1: was anti black, that he was making excuses for white supremacy,
Speaker 1: and that it was so nuanced in such a way
Speaker 1: that he thought for so long until he was called
Speaker 1: out by his friends and his family, that his attitude
Speaker 1: about black people, about the lie of pulling yourself up
Speaker 1: from the bootstraps, if only you would dress well and
Speaker 1: respectability politics was part of the larger problem. And it
Speaker 1: was an extraordinary conversation. And the book is in fact breathtaking,
Speaker 1: as many will say. And Robert Jones Jr. Who we
Speaker 1: also had on Woke a f who goes by son
Speaker 1: of Baldwin and social media, said this about Dante's book.
Speaker 1: Only once in a lifetime do we come across a
Speaker 1: writer like Dante Stewart, so young and yet so masterful
Speaker 1: with the pen. This work is a thing to make
Speaker 1: dungeons shake and heart's thunder, And it really is. This
Speaker 1: story Shouting in the Fire is Dante's reckoning and understanding
Speaker 1: of the legacy of white supremacy and how his own
Speaker 1: internalized anti blackness right seeped into all avenues of his life.
Speaker 1: And our conversation is a reflection of this journey as
Speaker 1: well as his book is. And I just think that man,
Speaker 1: white supremacy is such a dangerous, dangerous drug. It is
Speaker 1: a dangerous, dangerous virus like COVID that is so catching
Speaker 1: that would have you hate the skin that you're in.
Speaker 1: You know, the other day we had Daily Beast columnist
Speaker 1: wajahat Ali on the show, and just recently he had
Speaker 1: tweeted his own journey in teaching his little brown daughter
Speaker 1: how to love her skin, because a few months ago
Speaker 1: she came to both him and his wife and said
Speaker 1: that she didn't like her skin, that she wanted it
Speaker 1: to be lighter, that she was too dark. He said,
Speaker 1: how do you learn this at five and six years old?
Speaker 1: How does the grip of white supremacy reach you at
Speaker 1: that age? And I'll say it starts younger. And so
Speaker 1: he worked with her and his wife and you know,
Speaker 1: with more books about girls of color and you know,
Speaker 1: bravery and courage and beauty and you know, and reminding
Speaker 1: her and showing her how beautiful she really is, and
Speaker 1: so unprovoked months later she came and said, I love
Speaker 1: my skin right. And that is a similar journey that
Speaker 1: Dante Stewart is on in shouting in the fire and
Speaker 1: in remembering, you know what it meant to take over
Speaker 1: an all white church as a preacher, and you know
Speaker 1: how he had this reckoning when George Floyd was murdered,
Speaker 1: and how the silence within his church was what finally
Speaker 1: began to stir him and had him asked the question
Speaker 1: about his feelings, his understandings of blackness, and so his
Speaker 1: journey began. And I will tell you that I really
Speaker 1: really enjoyed this conversation. I think that you all will too.
Speaker 1: Please DM me and let me know you know what
Speaker 1: you thought about this and whether or not you have
Speaker 1: your own stories of internalized depression. If you are a
Speaker 1: person of color, was it about your skin color? If
Speaker 1: you you know, if you are from a marginalized community,
Speaker 1: what types of internalized oppression were you experiencing. Coming up
Speaker 1: next is my conversation with author Dante Stewart. Folks, I
Speaker 1: am so happy to welcome onto Woke Apidaily author Dante Stewart,
Speaker 1: who has a new book coming out entitled Shouting in
Speaker 1: the Fire and American Eppstill, you refer to this as
Speaker 1: a strong meditation of being black and learning to love
Speaker 1: in a loveless anti black world. I can't tell you, Dante,
Speaker 1: how much this book is needed in this moment um.
Speaker 1: But before we get into the ills of the moment
Speaker 1: that we are currently existing, and talk to me about
Speaker 1: what made this How did this book birth itself? How
Speaker 1: did you come to this place to to write Shouting
Speaker 1: and shouting to the fire. Oh I can't hear him,
Speaker 1: can you hear me? Yes? All right? Cool? Cool, cool. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, thank you so much for having me
Speaker 1: on UM. You know, I think I think what really
Speaker 1: birth this was you know, me trying to make sense
Speaker 1: of so much, you know that I was experiencing as
Speaker 1: a human being, as a person, um, but also what
Speaker 1: I had experienced in the past, you know, whether it
Speaker 1: be you know, traumatic events as a child, or going
Speaker 1: through college or even post college, and writing for me
Speaker 1: became a way, you know, to try and bring some
Speaker 1: type of coherence and what I was experiencing, trying to
Speaker 1: interpret those experiences and bring something life giving out of
Speaker 1: those experiences while also being able to say that whatever
Speaker 1: happened to me is not the only thing or the
Speaker 1: most important thing about me. But there exists power within
Speaker 1: my own type of storytelling to take back those stories
Speaker 1: and rewrite it the way I want to write it.
Speaker 1: You know, there's this quote, um, that Elizabeth Alexander has
Speaker 1: and in one of my favorite books, The Black Interior,
Speaker 1: and she says about writing. She says, you know, as
Speaker 1: a writer, this was my story. These memories are mine,
Speaker 1: and I let other people deal with it once I writing,
Speaker 1: And so for me it was about, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to write something that was honest and critical, reflective, imaginative
Speaker 1: and creative, you know, while also being uniquely mine. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably that's probably kind of the way it was birth.
Speaker 1: But then also it was birth out of reading too.
Speaker 1: So I had read Key Essays book heavy, and I
Speaker 1: read Jasmine Awards Men we read. And on top of that,
Speaker 1: you know, I was reading Um Jason's book, Jason Reynold's book,
Speaker 1: and then Sarah Brown joined the Yellow House UM. And
Speaker 1: so I'm reading all these books. I'm reading reading this
Speaker 1: and reading Bill Hooks, and I'm reading Alice Walker and
Speaker 1: Tony Morrison, the Baldwin U and even James Cone and
Speaker 1: Katie Cannon and the Emily Towns, just all these brilliant,
Speaker 1: brilliant thinkers. And I felt inspired as a as a
Speaker 1: person to take up that work as well, to be
Speaker 1: a part of a noticeable tradition while also being uniquely
Speaker 1: uniquely me and telling the story in the way that
Speaker 1: it needed to be told. Talk to me about your
Speaker 1: experience in the church and you know, being that you
Speaker 1: wanted to be and were were a part of a
Speaker 1: what was it a largely white Episcopal church, right, Baptist
Speaker 1: A Baptist church, excuse me, a Baptist church. But that
Speaker 1: the what happened during the time during the the uprisings
Speaker 1: right of twenty twenty what what? What? What shifted in
Speaker 1: in your experience? Talk to us, because there was a
Speaker 1: shifting that occurred. I mean there was a shifting. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there was a techtonic shift that occurred with with with
Speaker 1: all of us. But what happened with you specifically and
Speaker 1: your relationship with your church and the parishioners um during
Speaker 1: that time, Well, that that journey really started, you know way,
Speaker 1: you know, in some sens years before then. And you know,
Speaker 1: it really started in twenty sixteen with the shooting of
Speaker 1: Alton Sterling and Philando cast Still. And then, of course,
Speaker 1: like so many Christians in general, but particularly young black
Speaker 1: Christians in particular, UM, the moment of Donald Trump following
Speaker 1: those shootings, you know, and things has already happened since
Speaker 1: treyvon Martin. Um, you had both white and black churches
Speaker 1: wrestling with the question of what to do inside of
Speaker 1: a society that, uh did not just was not just
Speaker 1: apathetic to black life, but was hostile towards us. And
Speaker 1: so we lived in a society that not only was hostile,
Speaker 1: but oftentimes this hostility was justified by ideas of morality
Speaker 1: or ideas of religious you know, purity. You know, whose
Speaker 1: bodies were meant to be loved and whose bodies were
Speaker 1: meant to be condemned? Uh and so and so this
Speaker 1: is this kind of theological or religious justification is the
Speaker 1: reason why so many people, even myself ashamedly blamed black
Speaker 1: people for their death. So, like Mike Brown, I never forget.
Speaker 1: And I was living in California. I was riding with
Speaker 1: one of my dudes, a white brother over there in
Speaker 1: his car, one of my dudes back then, um, riding
Speaker 1: in his car and seeing what's happening in Ferguson. I
Speaker 1: was the type of person that was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, like what's wrong with black folks? You know
Speaker 1: why we acting like? Oh, no, I was that guy.
Speaker 1: I was that dude. Because I was about to say it,
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, you are that guy? No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I own that, you know, And Okay, And that's a
Speaker 1: part that's a part of like why I felt like
Speaker 1: I had to write it the way I did is
Speaker 1: because like I'm not a hero of this story, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not the hero of this book. Like I'm just
Speaker 1: the person who tells it. I'm the person who experienced it.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to, you know, make sense of it
Speaker 1: as possible as much as I possibly can. And I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, especially you're talking about what shifted,
Speaker 1: and I think even in my own life, it was
Speaker 1: like being honest about who I was, about who I
Speaker 1: was not, and who I was trying to be. You know,
Speaker 1: I was trying to be that person who was accepted
Speaker 1: um into white social and religious spaces, uh and who
Speaker 1: rejected and and and and distanced myself from so many
Speaker 1: black people that either I was raised about or that
Speaker 1: came into my life, you know, going to being at Clemson.
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty much when all of it started, with
Speaker 1: me being immersed in white, white Christian spaces and and
Speaker 1: that kind of catalytic shift that you as you're talking
Speaker 1: about the ground beneath me sinking and rumbling, happened in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. And then you know, I read James Baldwin
Speaker 1: and I and I and I like to tell people,
Speaker 1: you know, if you if if you're black and white spaces,
Speaker 1: and you read balding and critically. If you read Evalveing
Speaker 1: honestly and critically, there is no way possible to stay
Speaker 1: in white spaces and be okay with so much of
Speaker 1: what they think about black people and the way they
Speaker 1: treat us and the way they respond to us. And
Speaker 1: so during those moments of twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, you know,
Speaker 1: I used this metaphor in the book of Running. I
Speaker 1: stopped running and or at least I stopped running in
Speaker 1: the direction of white people that I ran toward us
Speaker 1: because I feel, as the black feminist theorist Terry On
Speaker 1: Williams said that that our world, the way we black
Speaker 1: people build worlds, is as much a starting point as
Speaker 1: any other place. And I started to take seriously the
Speaker 1: worlds that black people were creating through literature, through art,
Speaker 1: through dance, through through our religious experiences. And I knew that,
Speaker 1: you know, I could not, Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't shucking job for white people no more. You
Speaker 1: know what, be honest, what I really respect um your
Speaker 1: your your honesty, and the vulnerability with having to reconcile
Speaker 1: with the person that you were and the person that
Speaker 1: you are becoming right because I believe, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of in the in the sense that we were always
Speaker 1: in a state of becoming right, like we should always
Speaker 1: be in a state of becoming the next iteration of ourselves.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a largely white suburb here in
Speaker 1: New York on Long Island, where I went to school
Speaker 1: with ninety six percent white kids, right like, the school
Speaker 1: district was ninety six percent white. Went to college a
Speaker 1: predominantly white institution. It wasn't until I was in my
Speaker 1: twenties did I start to reconcile with the things that
Speaker 1: I had been fed and taught. It wasn't as if
Speaker 1: I had a self hatred, but it was like this
Speaker 1: just nonchalant acceptance of white people and whiteness. And so
Speaker 1: I want to press upon with you. You know, when
Speaker 1: you were having when these moments are happening in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen and twenty seventeen, you know, did you have like
Speaker 1: community around black community around you or how or were
Speaker 1: you doing this reconciliation essentially absent of community because the
Speaker 1: community that you created was largely white. Yeah, well then
Speaker 1: a great question, great question. You know, so so much
Speaker 1: of what was happening to do that during that moment,
Speaker 1: there were black people in that church. You know that
Speaker 1: so many of these churches, you know, so many of
Speaker 1: these spaces say we're trying to become diverse, we're trying
Speaker 1: to be mortiracial, we're trying to be multicultural, when in actuality,
Speaker 1: what that really means is that we're trying to do
Speaker 1: the bare minimum while including black people or non white
Speaker 1: people and get them maximum praise. So we're doing the
Speaker 1: most minimal work trying to get the maximum praise. And
Speaker 1: one of my one of my dudes said it said
Speaker 1: it best, Yes, they said it best. He says, you know,
Speaker 1: white people, you know, uh, he says something real fun
Speaker 1: He said, you know, white people would rather you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you lose and you lose and you get the blame
Speaker 1: rather than you win and they get the credit. And
Speaker 1: I thought, I thought, so, I thought that was a brilliant,
Speaker 1: brilliant way to understand these dynamics that like it was
Speaker 1: about us losing. It wasn't. No, it's like oh, you know,
Speaker 1: like hey, like you know, hey, here's a book you
Speaker 1: can read, here's a thing you can read, here's a
Speaker 1: documentary you can read. And so then it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're all losing in this little space, and we're taking
Speaker 1: the blame for it because it was black people in
Speaker 1: that space. You know, I'm married, so my wife was there.
Speaker 1: Then my best friend Mole and her husband was there.
Speaker 1: But then there was also all the black people there.
Speaker 1: And that's the dynamic, you know, that's the that's the
Speaker 1: interesting dynamic within those white spaces. Not every type of
Speaker 1: black personal blackness is accepted a lot of times. A
Speaker 1: lot of times, you know, there's this there's this colloquialism,
Speaker 1: especially you know, black people use it when we mostly
Speaker 1: many black people use it when we are in white spaces.
Speaker 1: It's that term black people are not a mono lift
Speaker 1: and we use it as a way to signal that
Speaker 1: I perform us of blackness in white space is legitimate.
Speaker 1: We use it as a signal. It's not so much
Speaker 1: as a celebration of the different iterations of blackness and
Speaker 1: the expressions of our beauty or like Hanife Rights in
Speaker 1: his book Lived Devi in America, these kind of iterations
Speaker 1: of black performance. It's not a celebration of that, but
Speaker 1: it's a signal U to try and legitimize our form
Speaker 1: of blackness without realizing that the form of blackness that
Speaker 1: we are actually having is all the same. We might
Speaker 1: be black and might be different from one another, have
Speaker 1: different experiences, but the certain type of blackness that's accepted
Speaker 1: in those spaces, whether we're in church, it's the same.
Speaker 1: Whether we're in church, whether we're in school, whether we
Speaker 1: whether you're whether it's the same and so and so, Yes,
Speaker 1: black community was there. But also, and this is the
Speaker 1: thing we need to talk about, a lot of us
Speaker 1: need to talk about, is the ways in which our
Speaker 1: black maleness, uh tech and empower a certain type of
Speaker 1: whiteness in that space. So we black men even though
Speaker 1: I was I was leading a group, you know, and
Speaker 1: things like that on this book raised by white dude,
Speaker 1: I was leaving the group and I ain't even read
Speaker 1: nothing on race. And this is like in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, I'm leaving this book group. I ain't read nothing,
Speaker 1: gonna raise this this white man leading this white man
Speaker 1: book we're reading and things like that. And I'm this
Speaker 1: black dude who's charismatic, raised Pentecostal, went to white university.
Speaker 1: I know how to maneuver in spaces or whatnot. And
Speaker 1: so then my type of me as a symbol becomes
Speaker 1: very relevant to what white people want to protect. And
Speaker 1: it's a certain type of innocence that they have, you know,
Speaker 1: an evasion of racism, of white supremacy, while paradistically looking
Speaker 1: like they celebrating us, when in actuality, they're celebrating a
Speaker 1: certain type of ignorance, which is pretty much what we
Speaker 1: black men were performing in that space. And then the
Speaker 1: only only, the main reason why I change was my wife,
Speaker 1: and the book was crazy. It's like I was honest
Speaker 1: about this too. Like they're gonna be moments. They could
Speaker 1: be moments where people read this book and they're gonna
Speaker 1: be like they're gonna be like, oh my business, Like
Speaker 1: like we're grateful for you, we're proud of you, but
Speaker 1: like there are moments where like, you know, I took
Speaker 1: my wife through things in that space that I never
Speaker 1: should have. And if it had not been for my wife,
Speaker 1: you know, and the other black women who were like
Speaker 1: getting me together, if it wasn't for my wife and
Speaker 1: for my friend Mole and for my friend and Kayla,
Speaker 1: if it wasn't for them, you know, there would be
Speaker 1: no this right now. There would be no change, I
Speaker 1: would still be there preaching the same way, thinking the
Speaker 1: same way, act the same way. But if it had
Speaker 1: my moth for them, how did they? How did they?
Speaker 1: What are some ways in which without you divulging to
Speaker 1: and what are some ways that they challenged your your
Speaker 1: your way of thinking that was challenging this this growth
Speaker 1: that was happening. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Okay. So
Speaker 1: one one thing in particularly that I bring that that
Speaker 1: I that I show in the book, you know, particularly
Speaker 1: with my wife. I talk about my wife and I
Speaker 1: talk about michaela uh particularly so like you know, the
Speaker 1: the further I got into white spaces because you know,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I want to go on ministry.
Speaker 1: I want to go in ministry, you know, and things
Speaker 1: like that. It's like black it's like black people who
Speaker 1: you say, you know, we gotta make it, we gotta
Speaker 1: make it, you know. And and the crazy part is
Speaker 1: the way we grow up, you know, they tell us.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the message, that's the story that we
Speaker 1: inherit is that in order for you to make it,
Speaker 1: you have to get closer to white people. In order
Speaker 1: for you to be closer to God, you know, you
Speaker 1: got to be closer to white people. In order for
Speaker 1: you to be closer to Jesus, you gotta be closer
Speaker 1: to white people. In order you got to be closer
Speaker 1: to financial liberation and literacy, I gotta be closer to
Speaker 1: white people. You gotta be like white people. And so
Speaker 1: we inherit these messages that to be closer to them
Speaker 1: is to be closer to the things that will make
Speaker 1: us feel worthy and love. And so the further I
Speaker 1: got into those spaces, you know, in ministry and writing
Speaker 1: and friendship and community, et ceteras, etcetera, the more of
Speaker 1: my wife is like sending me messages like through like
Speaker 1: like like you know, like the unspoken message, you know
Speaker 1: that that that that that so many times we received
Speaker 1: like yo, you're out of line, Like you're out of line.
Speaker 1: And I'll never forget when MICHAELA one of my co workers,
Speaker 1: I was at work and we were talking about the election.
Speaker 1: I was talking about reconciliation with white people and things
Speaker 1: like that, and I'm like, white people changing, white people changing,
Speaker 1: white people changing, you know, and then I started spelling
Speaker 1: off the same kind of anti black rhetoric or whatnot.
Speaker 1: And I and I undershamingly, you know, back then in
Speaker 1: that moment, I was anti black, undershaming like I was
Speaker 1: anti black. I I literally my ideology was anti black.
Speaker 1: My view of black people was anti blackee. I learned
Speaker 1: from that. And when you when you say that, when
Speaker 1: you say that I was anti black, is it your
Speaker 1: understanding that you believed that the situations that black people
Speaker 1: would find themselves in, whether it be in poverty, whether
Speaker 1: it be in poor health, whether it be an incarceration,
Speaker 1: that that was a product of behavior as opposed to
Speaker 1: systemic racism. Oh oh, without question. Yeah, I was that guy.
Speaker 1: I was that person. I was that I know, I
Speaker 1: know that's the craziest thing, like like, but that's the real,
Speaker 1: that's the real though, that's the real, right I was.
Speaker 1: I was that person. I literally was that person that
Speaker 1: you know, and that was and literally that's what I
Speaker 1: It was that night. It was that night when I
Speaker 1: was talking to MICHAELA and I said something like to that,
Speaker 1: to that effect, you know, and that like you know,
Speaker 1: like white people changing and things like that, and we
Speaker 1: won't get better until we do better. And then MICHAELA,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget MICHAELA told me she looked me in
Speaker 1: my eye. I'll never forget this night he said, STU,
Speaker 1: you ain't got a damn thing to offer black people.
Speaker 1: And I'm this dude in this white church, like reading, writing, preaching, leading,
Speaker 1: and MICHAELA, you know, tells me you don't got a
Speaker 1: damn off for black people. I go home. I'm pissed off.
Speaker 1: I still. I started to go complain to my wife,
Speaker 1: and she tell me, see, you're always listening to everybody
Speaker 1: else when I've been telling you this whole time nothing
Speaker 1: and that thing when I say yo, then yeoh, when
Speaker 1: I say that was a dagger, like that was a dagger.
Speaker 1: And I had two choices in that moment, to two
Speaker 1: main choices. Either I can listen and get better and
Speaker 1: from my way into some type of wholeness. Or I
Speaker 1: could still be that person and remain the same and
Speaker 1: be a weapon that used against us and that protects
Speaker 1: white people. Come and for me and for me, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be a weapon anymore. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be loved. I didn't. I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: a weapon. You know. I think that it takes a lot.
Speaker 1: And and this is this is where it says, you
Speaker 1: know the problem that we're in right now in our
Speaker 1: society is in this very fixed state where you have
Speaker 1: one political party, aggressive rage filled white folks who are
Speaker 1: so fixed in their sense of self that there is
Speaker 1: no ability to growth, to grow and expand there's no nimbleness,
Speaker 1: there's no m desire to learn. There is just this
Speaker 1: belief that there is We come from the scarcity model
Speaker 1: that there is just not enough and so we must
Speaker 1: all hold on to everything that we have and there
Speaker 1: is no there is no wholeness, right, And I think
Speaker 1: that where this is where we are. We're in that
Speaker 1: space where it's just like we have a choice, like
Speaker 1: the two choices that you had in front of you.
Speaker 1: Either we can recognize how white supremacy has played a
Speaker 1: part in every single facet of our lives since the
Speaker 1: birth quote unquote birth of this nation, or and then
Speaker 1: reconcile with that truth, or we can just pretend that
Speaker 1: all is okay. Equities, it exists, and we're making and
Speaker 1: we're okay with incremental change every decade or so. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's like that's the moment that you had personally, it's
Speaker 1: a moment that I feel that we are in as
Speaker 1: a country. No, without question, Yeah, without question, that's that's real.
Speaker 1: That's real, and I think and I think that's the
Speaker 1: challenge too, though, is that oftentimes we characterize these moments
Speaker 1: still centering whiteness. So like so like Toronto Burke says
Speaker 1: it best, and I thought this thing shook me when
Speaker 1: I read it, Like when when in that book you
Speaker 1: are your best thing when a shame of vulnerability with
Speaker 1: Burnee Brown. It was a little obscure comment, but it
Speaker 1: was a powerful comment. You know, she was like yo
Speaker 1: in that opening conversation, She's like yo. Like in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: so many people was like, you know, they were talking
Speaker 1: about anti racism, but nobody really was talking about black
Speaker 1: humanity and what all this does to us? M like
Speaker 1: like and that's the thing, It's like, and that's the
Speaker 1: crazy part about Like, that's the crazy part about changes
Speaker 1: that like we can change, but like does who does
Speaker 1: our change benefit? That? That's the that's that's that's what
Speaker 1: that's the question I needed to rustle with. That's the question.
Speaker 1: You know, that that that that I was forced to
Speaker 1: reckon with is Okay, there is a thing called change.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll tell your butler, let's say, you know,
Speaker 1: all everything is everything, yeah Godge, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, you know, everything is changing. We
Speaker 1: change it, were constantly evolved, we're constantly moving, we're constantly shaking.
Speaker 1: Things are happening, and we're changing. And once we make
Speaker 1: that choice to change, the question then becomes and what
Speaker 1: direction does that change move us? And who does that
Speaker 1: change benefit? Because it's a way to change that's performative,
Speaker 1: and we see this, We saw it in we saw
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and right now, particularly when you're talking about
Speaker 1: corporations and the way that they are exploiting, you know,
Speaker 1: black people and our stories. It's like our country is
Speaker 1: incredible at exploiting black stories, but terrible at loving black people.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like this whole idea of you know,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like this whole idea of you know,
Speaker 1: we need to change, we need to move, we need
Speaker 1: to make things happen, and things like that. But then
Speaker 1: you look down six months, ten months, a year, or
Speaker 1: two years down the road and you realize, like, dang, bro,
Speaker 1: they ain't nothing asked for it. That's not what we
Speaker 1: ask for. That's not the type of change we ask for.
Speaker 1: And it's like, okay, everybody, like like people can can
Speaker 1: quote like certain books on whiteness and its fagility without
Speaker 1: me being too messy, you know or whatnot. But you know,
Speaker 1: people ain't really reading us. They ain't They ain't talking
Speaker 1: about the ways we build the world and make the
Speaker 1: world and shake the world, and so like, you know,
Speaker 1: that probably was the biggest thing about my change. And
Speaker 1: I think about this country, that that what I want.
Speaker 1: You know, so many people talk about, you know, what
Speaker 1: do you want for the country, And they always asking
Speaker 1: black people, you know, what do y'all want for the country?
Speaker 1: What do you want for the country. You know, we
Speaker 1: want to be human, we want to be protected. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, my answer, I just want to
Speaker 1: be free, free, not free ish. I like to just
Speaker 1: be free. Yeah, I want to be free. I want
Speaker 1: to I want in some sense, like for us to
Speaker 1: not have to be in performance or in pain or
Speaker 1: dead in order for us to be celebrated and protected.
Speaker 1: Like like like they should not have to We should
Speaker 1: not have to be perfect. No, like like when Makaya
Speaker 1: Bryant and everybody was like, you know, oh, well she
Speaker 1: had this, oh we she had that. Well, she should
Speaker 1: not have to be perfect in order for her to
Speaker 1: stay alive. Correct, correct, and it's like, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that black people are given obviously we know this
Speaker 1: given very few choices in this country. Right, It's either
Speaker 1: perfection or pain, right, Right, So either we want to
Speaker 1: see crying black mothers on TV because we believe in
Speaker 1: black trauma as our porn, or we want you to
Speaker 1: perform undeterred and like a robot and once like and
Speaker 1: I think I and I think about you know, Simone
Speaker 1: Biles in this moment, right, we're her stepping back and
Speaker 1: being like, I'm not performing for you, like this is like,
Speaker 1: this is about my emotion about my mental health, right
Speaker 1: and being able to and being able to own that
Speaker 1: right and take and take your power back. Um, don't
Speaker 1: take you know for this for this book? You know,
Speaker 1: what are your what are your hopes that people walk
Speaker 1: away with um it in you know, really digesting your word?
Speaker 1: What what what are you hoping that people take away? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I hope people first of all, you know, once they
Speaker 1: read it and finish it, I first hope they say, like, God,
Speaker 1: I leave that dude, right, Like that's it, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you know that's that's that's like because because
Speaker 1: I want to get better as a writer, I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm good at what I do. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm decent at what I do. But like, I
Speaker 1: really want people when they first walk away, when they
Speaker 1: get to that last page, you know, I want them
Speaker 1: to feel jas Award. I want them to feel down
Speaker 1: there more. I wanted to feel Disa Field y'all and
Speaker 1: Robert Jones and Kisa and Jason uh and Marries and
Speaker 1: just all these and Sarah and and Tony Kade and
Speaker 1: James Baldwin and Tony and and Tony Morrison and Alice Walker.
Speaker 1: I want them to be able to say, like, yo,
Speaker 1: like this is a this feels noticeable, this is a
Speaker 1: noticeable type of work of literature or whatnot. So I
Speaker 1: wanted the first and foremost say like yo, like hey,
Speaker 1: that was an experienced like like like that was that
Speaker 1: was really good. But also I want people to walk
Speaker 1: away saying like, damn, that book was black, Like that
Speaker 1: was such a black book, but like also that was
Speaker 1: such a beautifully meaningfully Christian book, like that's that's that's
Speaker 1: who I am as well. I'm a black Christian. And
Speaker 1: so I want people to like say, like I wash
Speaker 1: true to who I was as a person, as a preacher,
Speaker 1: as a lover, as a husband, as a father, like
Speaker 1: I wanted to walk away and realize that, Yo, you
Speaker 1: really loved us with this work, and you loved us
Speaker 1: because you were so vulnerable, you were so honest, and
Speaker 1: you took our black lives and our black worlds, and
Speaker 1: you you took us seriously, and you, by the end
Speaker 1: of the page, by the end of the book, you
Speaker 1: did something like June Jordan at the end of that poem,
Speaker 1: I am black, alive and looking back at you. So
Speaker 1: that's why I want. That's my whole is that is
Speaker 1: that they say, yo, like I feel more alive, I
Speaker 1: feel beautifully black. I don't have to be perfect. I'm
Speaker 1: not a hero. I'm worthy of love and liberation and
Speaker 1: the best that anybody in this country. That's the awful
Speaker 1: I love that. My last question for you is for
Speaker 1: other black folks that may find themselves struggling between worlds
Speaker 1: in the way that you found yourself and in the
Speaker 1: way many of us right have found ourselves at one
Speaker 1: point or another, vying for the acceptance but doing it
Speaker 1: in a way that is detrimental to the self. What
Speaker 1: advice do you offer to those people that may listen
Speaker 1: to this and don't even they may not even recognize
Speaker 1: that they're in the struggle, but they are. What advice
Speaker 1: do you give them? The same question that I constantly
Speaker 1: you know, I have had to ask myself who benefits
Speaker 1: from what I'm doing? Who benefits in the end, who centered?
Speaker 1: Who is centered in what I do? And in some sense,
Speaker 1: if what I did succeeded, who will be there to
Speaker 1: celebrate with me? That's a question. If what I did,
Speaker 1: whatever I'm doing, if it's succeeded, who will be there?
Speaker 1: Like Lucille Clifton, won't you come celebrate with me? Who's
Speaker 1: gonna be thold people around you to celebrate the type
Speaker 1: of life you created and out of that life that
Speaker 1: you created and the models, whether you had them or not,
Speaker 1: based on like what she said, who benefits from that?
Speaker 1: And who will celebrate with you? And that in some
Speaker 1: sense would tell you what you are prioritizing and whose
Speaker 1: world you're trying to make beautiful and better? And for me,
Speaker 1: I hope that the people that are being able to
Speaker 1: be celebrating with us are black people first and foremost,
Speaker 1: Like unashamedly, I won't black vocal part of that community.
Speaker 1: Who's celebrating. But I also know that as June Jordan
Speaker 1: and all these beautiful writers, and Tony Morrison and James Baldwin,
Speaker 1: I want a kaleidoscope of people who can who can
Speaker 1: be celebrated, whether they're gay or straight, whether the sisters
Speaker 1: or trans, whether they're immigrant or indigenous, whether they're rich
Speaker 1: or poor, whether they're there they're rule or in the city,
Speaker 1: whether they're young or whether they're old. I want a
Speaker 1: kaleidoscope of people to be able to look around and
Speaker 1: see themselves in our stories, in our stories, in our stories,
Speaker 1: in the stories we tell ourselves and realize that, Yo,
Speaker 1: whatever we are, it's enough, and it's enough to make
Speaker 1: us better than the world that we inherited. So that's
Speaker 1: probably mine. Yeah, that's all I got. I love it,
Speaker 1: and I love this conversation so much. Dante Stewart, the
Speaker 1: book is shouting in the fire and American Eppsol. Dante Stewart,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for making the time to join
Speaker 1: Woke F. I really appreciate you, and I wish you
Speaker 1: tremendous success with your with your book, and I hope
Speaker 1: that you will come back and join us again. Oh
Speaker 1: you know that, Daniel come on, I'm coming through. I'm
Speaker 1: in the building. I'm in the bud whenever you need me,
Speaker 1: and I'll make sure show up all time. I love it,
Speaker 1: I love it, I love it. I'm from the South.
Speaker 1: I'm from the South. So we got a fifteen minute,
Speaker 1: great period, that's true. That's true. That and you're black,
Speaker 1: so like you know, I'll even give you twenty minute.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, thank you so so so much, um
Speaker 1: and where I'm excited for you for show, for show,
Speaker 1: Thank you, sister, bless you. That is it for me today,
Speaker 1: dear friends, on this woke f I wish you a happy, healthy,
Speaker 1: recharged weekend and I will see you back here on Monday.
Speaker 1: As always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.