Speaker 1: If you're really interested in finding out who you are
Speaker 1: as a person, you have to know your history. And
Speaker 1: I'm not just talking about your family history. Mm hm.
Speaker 1: I felt that for me, as it pertains to generational traumas,
Speaker 1: the glazing over of such events. It's absolutely shipped to me. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm Cadine and we're the Ellises. You may know us
Speaker 1: from posting funny videos without boys and reading each other
Speaker 1: publicly as a form of therapy. Wait, I'll make you
Speaker 1: need therapy most days. Wow. And one more important thing
Speaker 1: to mention, we're married. We are. We created this podcast
Speaker 1: to open dialogue about some of life's most taboo topics,
Speaker 1: things most folks don't want to talk about through the
Speaker 1: lens of a millennium married couple. Then adds to the
Speaker 1: term that we say every day. So when we say
Speaker 1: dead ass, we're actually saying facts, the truth, the whole truth,
Speaker 1: and nothing but the truth. We're about to take pillows
Speaker 1: off to our whole new level. Dead ass starts right now.
Speaker 1: So I know typically to story time and it's funny,
Speaker 1: it's comedic, but for some reason, like I was not
Speaker 1: in the mood to be funny today, and I always
Speaker 1: try to find humor or just as a way for
Speaker 1: people to digest our topics. But in this particular case,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything funny about what we can discuss.
Speaker 1: So and speaking about generational traumas, I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about how my children, uh kind of shine a light
Speaker 1: on me to realize what I was doing and what
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing properly as a father. And it comes
Speaker 1: down to a time where you and I were walking
Speaker 1: down the street and Jack's and was I think he
Speaker 1: was about four. We're walking down New York Avenue. We
Speaker 1: were coming back on the train and Jackson had said
Speaker 1: something slick out of his mouth, and I had said,
Speaker 1: I had said to him, like, you know, you need
Speaker 1: to watch your mouth, and he said something slick again,
Speaker 1: and at that point I had already decided in my
Speaker 1: mind that he was gonna get his ass whooped. You remember,
Speaker 1: So I remember you looking at me, and I looked
Speaker 1: at you and I said, all right, today is the day.
Speaker 1: Because we typically don't um raise our kids with corporal
Speaker 1: punishment like that was something that we decided because we
Speaker 1: both grew up in UH Baptist Church. That's where we
Speaker 1: met when we were young, and we grew up with
Speaker 1: corporate punishment of school. We grew up in school that
Speaker 1: was a Baptist church school, Fling Baptis Academy, and they
Speaker 1: used corporal punishment to discipline kids. So you and I
Speaker 1: felt like we didn't want to deal with that because
Speaker 1: you know, we dealt with it and we remember how
Speaker 1: it felt. But in that moment, I felt Jackson was
Speaker 1: being disrespectful. He needed to be told a lesson. So
Speaker 1: I remember going upstairs and you know, he was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you do what you do, because you
Speaker 1: know you typically let me do that when it comes
Speaker 1: to Jackson, and this was our only child at the time,
Speaker 1: and I remember saying, you know, having a conversation with
Speaker 1: but I was gonna give you a spanking. And I
Speaker 1: remember hitting him with my hand two times on his
Speaker 1: butt and him just like looking at me, and he
Speaker 1: was almost five at the time, hitting at me because
Speaker 1: I know I was pulling back because I don't want
Speaker 1: to hurt him, but he was looking at me like
Speaker 1: he wasn't gonna cry. So then my first instant was
Speaker 1: to grab the belt because now I'm upset because I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do this without hurting you. But you're looking
Speaker 1: at me with this smug look on your face. So
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna go grab the belt. And when I
Speaker 1: went to go grab the belt, I remember the feeling
Speaker 1: I had when my father used to telling me to
Speaker 1: go grab the belt, and you know, you go into
Speaker 1: closet and you got to get the right belt because
Speaker 1: he makes you pick the belt. If you pick the small,
Speaker 1: skinny belt, he's gonna send you back and you're gonna
Speaker 1: get more licks. So I remember going to grab the
Speaker 1: belt and thinking to myself, like, this is just so wrong.
Speaker 1: And at that moment, I said, Jackson, go sit in
Speaker 1: your room, don't turn on the TV, keep the lights on,
Speaker 1: and just sitting here. And I remember sitting him sitting
Speaker 1: in the room and coming out to you and say,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do. I'm kind of lost.
Speaker 1: And then you're like what you mean, And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I hit him, but I don't want to hit him
Speaker 1: any harder. But I don't know what to do. And
Speaker 1: it was at that moment that I realized that whipping
Speaker 1: your kids as a generational curse, you know, like that's
Speaker 1: something that we don't have to do, but because that's
Speaker 1: what was done to me, that's the only way I
Speaker 1: knew how to parent, and I realized at that point
Speaker 1: I had to figure out another way to get through
Speaker 1: to Jackson. So family history, family curses, family secrets are
Speaker 1: all pretty much terms that describe generational trauma from having
Speaker 1: ancestors who were once enslaved or having a parent who
Speaker 1: survived physical abuse as a child, the effects of traumatic
Speaker 1: events that can be passed down from generation to generation
Speaker 1: through behaviors, through practices, and even, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: hormones passed from mother to baby during pregnancy and um.
Speaker 1: While we can't change our past, learning what experiences affected
Speaker 1: the way we operate within our family units and our
Speaker 1: communities on a more larger platform can certainly help us
Speaker 1: change the future. That's what we hope. UM. So, going
Speaker 1: back to your story time, it's funny because I do
Speaker 1: remember that situation. I do remember Jack and getting smart
Speaker 1: and being light man. This little boy is just as
Speaker 1: much as Sagittarius as he is an aries because the
Speaker 1: smart talk back. Those are definitely things that I did
Speaker 1: as a child, or I tempted to do all I
Speaker 1: didn't do it because my mother would not let me
Speaker 1: live to see you to day However, I do remember
Speaker 1: having those moments where I just wanted to just like
Speaker 1: talk back and just lash out. So seeing a little
Speaker 1: bit of that injection made me feel like, this is
Speaker 1: definitely the combination of you and I, you know, because
Speaker 1: I even think about how he did. Our debates and
Speaker 1: arguments get sometimes and how much we just want to
Speaker 1: side at each other. Um. But what struck me and
Speaker 1: that was you reverting back to what you knew or
Speaker 1: experienced as a child with your father when you said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I remember the feeling I felt when
Speaker 1: my father made me go get the belt, and then
Speaker 1: you going to get a belt for Jackson or having
Speaker 1: him thinking about too, Like, tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: more about what that felt like for you in that moment. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I remember speaking to my grandmother because I
Speaker 1: was a very smart, outlet type of kid, and I
Speaker 1: remember one time in particular, Um, we we used to pray,
Speaker 1: and my grandmother said, you know, she had this thing
Speaker 1: and it's a scripture. I don't remember the scripture, but
Speaker 1: it says when three or four enter into the Great,
Speaker 1: into the presence of God and ask for something through prayer,
Speaker 1: God will grant it. I remember her asking me too.
Speaker 1: She said, we need to do outside and clean the yard.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, since you said the three
Speaker 1: or four of us enter into prayer, that will happened,
Speaker 1: how can we can't just pray that the yard be
Speaker 1: cleaning and be cleaned. So right, being typical smartass, my
Speaker 1: grandmother picked up the fly swater pop hit me with
Speaker 1: the fly swater and told me to take my ass
Speaker 1: outside and clean the yard. So after a while, me
Speaker 1: and my my nana, she we had a very good relationship,
Speaker 1: Like we used to sit up and talk as I
Speaker 1: got to be a teenager, and I said, Nana, why
Speaker 1: you used to just hit us all the time, Like
Speaker 1: why why was it that your first inclination was to
Speaker 1: hit us? And he she said, you know, well, I
Speaker 1: grew up in the South, and you know, black boys
Speaker 1: were not allowed to speak to adults. Children would be
Speaker 1: seen and not heard. And I was just like, okay,
Speaker 1: I understand that, but why she said, well, I grew
Speaker 1: up during the time where if you were a little
Speaker 1: black girl boy a little black girl, but a little
Speaker 1: black boy in particular, and you got disrespectful, you could
Speaker 1: be either hanging from a tree or drag behind a
Speaker 1: truck so it was her responsibility because we were now
Speaker 1: growing up with her in Tennessee Mortown, Tennessee in the South,
Speaker 1: to make sure that my parents kids, My parents got
Speaker 1: their children back at the end of the summer. So
Speaker 1: the way you typically teach children back in the day
Speaker 1: was through pain. So she used to say to us,
Speaker 1: he who does not hear will feel that used to
Speaker 1: she used to say that all the time because you
Speaker 1: don't want to feel it. And she grew up. You know,
Speaker 1: her parents grew up with money, and she was one
Speaker 1: of the black people in the in the community who
Speaker 1: had money. Her father owned fields. Other black people pick
Speaker 1: cotton for her father. He drove a Cadillac back in
Speaker 1: the day. He that's where she came from. But she
Speaker 1: grew up during that time where even if you were
Speaker 1: predominant one of one of black people from influence, you
Speaker 1: still had to fear for your life. So they parented
Speaker 1: their children through fear. So it was I do not
Speaker 1: want you to die. So if you do anything outside
Speaker 1: of what I think is right as a child, you're
Speaker 1: donna get hit because if you get hit, then you'll
Speaker 1: straighten up, and that comes from post traumatic slave syndrome.
Speaker 1: If you want to keep people in check. You keep
Speaker 1: them in check through fear and through pain, which was
Speaker 1: a trauma that was passed down from generation to generation
Speaker 1: to generation. And here it is now, the ninety nineties
Speaker 1: and my grandmother is explaining to me the reason why
Speaker 1: she was the way she was because that's what was
Speaker 1: passed down to her from her parents. And that's when
Speaker 1: I realized, like, so, we don't have to hit our
Speaker 1: kids to teach them how to listen. We choose to
Speaker 1: because that's all we know. She didn't know any other way.
Speaker 1: So that's what she did to her kids and my father,
Speaker 1: And I'm not gonna lie. My parents were probably the
Speaker 1: first in our family to start moving away from corporal punishment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say it was it's safe to say the
Speaker 1: same thing with my same thing. Right when she got
Speaker 1: to the eighties and the nineties, it was like a
Speaker 1: renaissance of black intellect, and it was like we became
Speaker 1: more cultured and we tried different things in different ways
Speaker 1: to get things through to our children. So there are
Speaker 1: still a lot of people who believe in spirit of
Speaker 1: the rod and spoil the child. So I've heard that
Speaker 1: it's also like a parenting strategy that may still be
Speaker 1: you know, in use for some people. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: it also depends on your ability to make mistakes. Right.
Speaker 1: So for example, if you're a young white man in America,
Speaker 1: you make a mistake is slap only it's not that
Speaker 1: big a deal. You're a young black man in America,
Speaker 1: you make a mistake, gas can be locked up or
Speaker 1: you can be dead. So you figured a couple that
Speaker 1: with the fact that the majority of people who I'm
Speaker 1: discussing my family grew up either in poverty or right
Speaker 1: above poverty. Socio economic conditions give you even more trauma
Speaker 1: because now you're dealing with the militarization of the police
Speaker 1: force in your neighborhoods. So now that that fear of
Speaker 1: being taken to jail a murder is now tenfold because
Speaker 1: before it was my grandparents should tell me you worried
Speaker 1: about the KKK, You worried about the white boys coming
Speaker 1: down and you know, coming down and grabbing one of
Speaker 1: your kids. But now legally the police can come to
Speaker 1: your neighborhood and just take your kids, take you to jail,
Speaker 1: beat you, shoot you, ask questions later. Absolutely, and these
Speaker 1: are traumas that traumas that we as black people have
Speaker 1: to deal with and have dealt with since the dawn
Speaker 1: of time. Right, so even with the evolution of time,
Speaker 1: is clear that there are certain things that still remain.
Speaker 1: It might have been the KKK then, but now some
Speaker 1: people are feeling like it's the police that we're contending
Speaker 1: with and black people being more susceptible to these issues
Speaker 1: because of economic issues, because of systemic and systematic um
Speaker 1: racism and oppression and all that. Um. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's crazy because trauma kind of shows itself in so
Speaker 1: many different forms and I almost feel like an episode
Speaker 1: like today's episode can touch on certain parts of trauma,
Speaker 1: but there are other ones that we can dive into. Um.
Speaker 1: But let's just talk about trauma in general, right. UM. Sadly,
Speaker 1: most people, even some mental health therapists, struggle to understand,
Speaker 1: you know, what is emotional and psychological trauma? Like what
Speaker 1: is it? Because it affects about of the United States,
Speaker 1: which is pretty pretty big when you think about it.
Speaker 1: That's a quarter of the entire population, um, and that's
Speaker 1: a child population and about six of adults. So UM.
Speaker 1: Some of the causes of trauma can be you know,
Speaker 1: losing a loved one, it can be a natural disaster,
Speaker 1: living with a parent or partner that misuses substances. UM.
Speaker 1: What else do we have severe illnesses? And there's so
Speaker 1: many different things witnessing acts of violence. So when we
Speaker 1: experience any kind of trauma, we have both, you know,
Speaker 1: an emotional reaction, some people are physical, sometimes both UM.
Speaker 1: And this can be looked at as like anxiety, trouble sleeping,
Speaker 1: feeling disconnected, UM, feeling confused, having intrusive thoughts, or just
Speaker 1: worthdrawing from others. It can kind of rare itself in
Speaker 1: different forms. UM. And in children, this can look like
Speaker 1: attempting to avoid school. UM, stomach aches. You know, you
Speaker 1: have that child that's always sick, not feeling well. UM,
Speaker 1: that's probably a sign to dive deeper into what their
Speaker 1: home life is like. UM problem sleeping, eating, anger, you know,
Speaker 1: showing out UM, attention seeking behaviors. UM. So transitioning back
Speaker 1: to post traumatic slave syndrome. And what exactly is intergenerational
Speaker 1: trauma because that's very specific to the Black community. UM
Speaker 1: into generational trauma is more of a psychological term that
Speaker 1: argues that trauma can be transferred from generations to generations
Speaker 1: or between generations. Um, much like what you said with
Speaker 1: the story of your grandmother passing that down to your
Speaker 1: dad and then to you, and then slowly us kind
Speaker 1: of gravitating away from that. So after our first generation
Speaker 1: of survivors experienced the trauma, they're often able to transfer
Speaker 1: to their children, other generations, other offspring. And it's also
Speaker 1: maladaptive behaviors and patterns that are passed down from children,
Speaker 1: or rather from parents to children and then passed to
Speaker 1: the children's children. So so I think it's important for
Speaker 1: people to understand why everything you just said is so important. Right,
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna give you some historical context. Um, after
Speaker 1: the Great Depression, the New Deal was created, right, and
Speaker 1: so was f h f H was created with the
Speaker 1: Fair Housing Act so that we can create more homes
Speaker 1: because there weren't enough homes for people. But you know,
Speaker 1: the f h A also made it so that they
Speaker 1: created redlining, which means they gave contractors huge subsidies and
Speaker 1: discounts for creating great rural, white suburban neighborhoods. But while
Speaker 1: they gave them these subsidies, the one catch was you
Speaker 1: cannot sell these homes two black families. So think about
Speaker 1: what I'm saying the government created the f h A.
Speaker 1: This is after the new deal, all this money is
Speaker 1: going to subcut to contractors to create homes, so you
Speaker 1: can create beautiful homes, beautiful communities. We're gonna push all
Speaker 1: of the white people, the middle class white people into
Speaker 1: these homes so that we can help boost the economy. Right,
Speaker 1: all of the black people were going to push them
Speaker 1: into the ghettos. Right, this is what red lining is, right,
Speaker 1: and what are the ghettos? The ghettos typically mean you
Speaker 1: may have some homes. But what the fh A also
Speaker 1: did was said we're not going to ensure the mortgages
Speaker 1: on the homes of black families, which means you can
Speaker 1: go buy a home, you can own a home. If
Speaker 1: you lose your home, we won't ensure it. If things
Speaker 1: happen in your community, we're not going to ensure those mortgages.
Speaker 1: So if your homes, homes get burned down, which a
Speaker 1: lot of times think about Tulsa, Oklahoma. They were burned
Speaker 1: down because sometimes mobs came in and burned down whole neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: So and the reason why I say that because people
Speaker 1: need to understand once you've created redlining and you pushed
Speaker 1: all of these black people who were freed from slavery,
Speaker 1: made it through reconstruction, were able to pull themselves up
Speaker 1: by the bootstraps, get jobs, and create families. Now you
Speaker 1: push them into the ghettos. In those ghettos, you militarize
Speaker 1: the police, you have poor health care, you have poor everything.
Speaker 1: You put all these black people in this area and
Speaker 1: then you say, oh, y'all a poor, uneducated people. Do
Speaker 1: you know what kind of trauma comes from living in
Speaker 1: that type of environment where you fear what's outside of
Speaker 1: that neighborhood, but then have to survive within that neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Because also with with everything that happened with redlining, there
Speaker 1: were laws created to villainize and criminalize black people. So
Speaker 1: they were finding reasons to lock people up and use
Speaker 1: black people for convict leasing. If you look up what
Speaker 1: convict leasing is. Convict leasing was the new form of
Speaker 1: slavery pretty much. They used a Vagrancy Act of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty six. They used a Vagrancy Act to say, you
Speaker 1: know what, anybody who was homeless, couldn't read, couldn't write,
Speaker 1: or didn't own property was a vagrant. So after slavery,
Speaker 1: so after was that black people people free. So now
Speaker 1: you lock these people up and now they have to
Speaker 1: work for free because they leased them out to private
Speaker 1: companies to do the same labor they were doing their slaves.
Speaker 1: So all of this trauma is happening to black people
Speaker 1: underneath the the government, the gods of the government, freedom,
Speaker 1: the gods of freedom, right, and they disguised it as freedom.
Speaker 1: They disguised it as freedom. This is where they pushed
Speaker 1: the black people. Right now. You have all of this
Speaker 1: going on, a lot of trauma happens because socio economically,
Speaker 1: when you're poor, you make poor decisions. Absolutely. You know,
Speaker 1: it's so funny when people, um particularly white people who
Speaker 1: don't understand history, say that racism doesn't exist, none of
Speaker 1: this is happening. What do they mean everybody has the
Speaker 1: opportunity to work. That's probably the most seen thing I've
Speaker 1: seen from some of my some of my Facebook I
Speaker 1: don't even want to say Facebook friends anymore, because it's
Speaker 1: just literally people who have known throughout my life that
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh my goodness, I knew you as
Speaker 1: a child to be like a really nice white person,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I'm like, that's how you're
Speaker 1: really thinking now, but saying that everyone has just go
Speaker 1: get a job, and it's just that simple to get
Speaker 1: a job, not really understanding the history behind it. Remember
Speaker 1: you said you have a conversation recently with another white counterparty.
Speaker 1: It literally did not know the of Abraham Lincoln and
Speaker 1: the Civil War. It was a white friend of mine
Speaker 1: who did not know that the Revolutionary War and the
Speaker 1: Civil War with two different things. Did not understand what
Speaker 1: the Confederate army was the flags. Had no clue When
Speaker 1: I explained to him that the Confederacy wanted to separate
Speaker 1: from the Union because they wanted to continue slavery, he
Speaker 1: had no clue. And after having this conversation, he said, wow,
Speaker 1: because he never really paid attention and it wasn't taught
Speaker 1: intensively in schools. So think about it when people aren't
Speaker 1: taught this history and then we call it history like
Speaker 1: slavery or slavery was so long ago. People came to Jamestown.
Speaker 1: The slaves came to Jamestown in sixteen nineteen. That was
Speaker 1: four hundred years ago, right. The Vagrancy Act was eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty six. Oh, that was over a hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: years ago. The Fairhousing Act did after the Great Depression
Speaker 1: that was the n a long time ago. Redlining still
Speaker 1: exists today. If you and I were to go try
Speaker 1: to buy a home in Long Island, New York, we
Speaker 1: will be pushed to certain neighborhoods today. People don't understand
Speaker 1: that in the neighborhoods we will be pushed through Today,
Speaker 1: the taxes will be lower, the school systems will be worse,
Speaker 1: the groceries will be worse. Everything will be worse, which
Speaker 1: creates trauma for our families. Also, when you move into
Speaker 1: neighborhoods where poverty exists, crime happens. It's inevitable, it's inevitable,
Speaker 1: and crime brings trauma. I mean. Research indicates that I
Speaker 1: mean families living in urban you know, poverty stricken um areas,
Speaker 1: they associate a lot of the hardship of depleted resources,
Speaker 1: like you said, burdens of like high stress, um incivilities,
Speaker 1: and exposure to multiple traumas because ethnic groups are over represented.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense, doesn't it Though it does, It
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense because if socio economics really defined where
Speaker 1: we are as people, right, and you hear people say, uh,
Speaker 1: one percent of the population control of the world's wealth,
Speaker 1: that means there are a vast amount of people in
Speaker 1: the world who are not happy with their place in life.
Speaker 1: So but even with those people, you push a certain
Speaker 1: you marginalize a certain group of people, typically black people
Speaker 1: or people of color, because not all people of color
Speaker 1: are created equal, but black people in particular. Then you
Speaker 1: wonder why there's so much trauma and so much post
Speaker 1: traumatic slave trauma in our families. It's because of these issues,
Speaker 1: and it's important for we as black people to understand
Speaker 1: our true history, to understand why we are the way
Speaker 1: we are, because we say we were our hardest. We're
Speaker 1: hardest on each other. You hear you hear black men
Speaker 1: say all the time, black women are hard to deal with.
Speaker 1: You hear black women say all the time. Black men
Speaker 1: don't love us, they don't protect us. If we understood
Speaker 1: history and how we got to this place with so
Speaker 1: much trauma, we would understand how to give each other
Speaker 1: some grace. You understand what I'm saying, No, I understand.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what came to mind when when you mentioned that, Um,
Speaker 1: it's literally not just the fight that black people have
Speaker 1: against everyone else, but the fight that we have within
Speaker 1: our own communities. That's black man against black man, black
Speaker 1: woman against black women, black man against black woman. You know,
Speaker 1: there's there's that deep rooted um trauma that's now spilling
Speaker 1: over into it. And it really makes me think about
Speaker 1: how much truth there is to the fact that people
Speaker 1: are stating now that black women don't feel protected by
Speaker 1: black men. And I know you don't feel that that's
Speaker 1: necessarily true. I couldn't say that I feel that way
Speaker 1: based off of my own experiences, but I know that
Speaker 1: you recently have had some ideas about you know why
Speaker 1: that maybe can you share a little bit of that. Well,
Speaker 1: this is what I've also learned, is that I learned
Speaker 1: that we do not shrow mass media. We don't control
Speaker 1: the things we consume. We are fed the things that
Speaker 1: we consume. Right, for example, UM shout out to Trouble
Speaker 1: because I was about to say last season you had
Speaker 1: a discussion with I had a discussion with the three
Speaker 1: gentlemen and I asked them a question. I said, how
Speaker 1: many black men do you think marry black women? Right?
Speaker 1: And most of them said about fifty fifty right, And
Speaker 1: thanks to Trouble Um, statistics show that over of black
Speaker 1: men marry black women, regardless of socio economic status, which
Speaker 1: means it didn't matter if they were poor or if
Speaker 1: they were rich. Over eight of black men marry black women,
Speaker 1: which makes you wonder why are we being told through
Speaker 1: the media that black men do not marry or love
Speaker 1: black women, Because then you have the question what you're
Speaker 1: consuming if this is what you're seeing? Right, So, we
Speaker 1: see on Twitter all these repost these reposts that black
Speaker 1: men don't love us, black men don't love us. But
Speaker 1: studies show and statists stick show that of black men
Speaker 1: are marrying black women. That means that that is a lie. Well,
Speaker 1: we already know what these algorithms be looking like. You
Speaker 1: see what I'm saying, what exactly is being banned, what
Speaker 1: exactly is being You have to take it with a
Speaker 1: grain of salt, because I think people now look at
Speaker 1: social media as there is no media really anymore at
Speaker 1: this point. It's just people putting out information. Anybody with
Speaker 1: a set of thumbs or a voice note can set
Speaker 1: out a post and just say anything. True journalism does
Speaker 1: not exist anymore. It's all about clickbait. It doesn't no one, no,
Speaker 1: you don't have to do anything in order to be
Speaker 1: considered a true journalists. All you have to do is
Speaker 1: put up the best sound bite or the best picture
Speaker 1: and get people to click it so the advertisers can
Speaker 1: go to it. But I think that we as black
Speaker 1: people need to start understanding where we are the same
Speaker 1: thing for black women, right, studies start to come out
Speaker 1: black women are the most least Black women are the
Speaker 1: least desirable of all in America. Remember, and they told
Speaker 1: black women the more education you receive, the least desirable
Speaker 1: you become. Because black women earned college degrees to the
Speaker 1: one over black men. So then that became a big thing.
Speaker 1: Oh twice as many black men are earning college degrees
Speaker 1: and black black women are earning college degrees and black men. Well,
Speaker 1: let's really look at the statistics, because the statistics show
Speaker 1: that white women earned college degrees that to the one
Speaker 1: in white men, right, so that makes them less design
Speaker 1: these statistics is really the ultimate question. Because we actually
Speaker 1: did have somebody write a listener letter. I forget what
Speaker 1: it was, what episode, but she felt like her degrees
Speaker 1: were just intimidating to black men. And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: but why would that be? Who exactly is saying that?
Speaker 1: You know, and people may have their experiences with it.
Speaker 1: I particularly haven't necessarily seen it in my eyes, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, But just across the board, that
Speaker 1: seems to be the narrative that's pute. That's why when
Speaker 1: we were on the show Black Love a couple of
Speaker 1: seasons ago, it was so important for us to be
Speaker 1: able to share our story. It's another reason why we
Speaker 1: continue here. Our story about seeing is believing. We already
Speaker 1: know that. If you're not, if we're not combating these
Speaker 1: sayings and these myths and these you know, statistics that
Speaker 1: we don't know where the sources really come from. If
Speaker 1: we're not combating that by pushing out more content that's
Speaker 1: around the black family unit, that's around black love, then
Speaker 1: it's only going to continue to get worse. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: another hashtag came out that said black love is revolutionary
Speaker 1: because we haven't seen it purposefully, we haven't seen it.
Speaker 1: And I want people to think about this. Why are
Speaker 1: we so hard on each other? Right? And we talked
Speaker 1: about trauma. How is well how are these traumas being
Speaker 1: passed through generations? So just for a minute, I want
Speaker 1: you to close your eyes, if you're listening, close your
Speaker 1: eyes and think about what happens. This is the nineteen sixties. Right,
Speaker 1: you have a strong black man who's out there every
Speaker 1: single day, going out there to feed his family. He
Speaker 1: decides that he wants to speak out for his rights,
Speaker 1: he wants to speak up for his humanity. Right, strong
Speaker 1: black man, strong black women at home, taking care of
Speaker 1: the family, making sure that everything is due properly. You
Speaker 1: have a family unit here, right, the strong black man
Speaker 1: is now ripped out of the family unit, either incarcerated
Speaker 1: for trump up charges or murdered at the hands of
Speaker 1: state sponsored execution by police or even by the KKK.
Speaker 1: So now that family grows up without a dad, no income.
Speaker 1: You know that mom struggles. Right now, that mom is
Speaker 1: left there to fear because remember, in the sixties, we
Speaker 1: lost a ton of leaders, a ton of black male leaders.
Speaker 1: We lost in the sixties through assassination, through death, through incarceration.
Speaker 1: Right now, you have a generation of young kids who
Speaker 1: grew up without male leaders. Right. You have young women,
Speaker 1: young young women who had to raise families on their own.
Speaker 1: So now you took the male leaders out of these neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: and you have these black women who you're constantly feeding
Speaker 1: to them. You don't have any fathers because you're not worthy.
Speaker 1: Black men don't love you. That's why you're not here.
Speaker 1: Forget the fact that our leaders were assassinated and killed.
Speaker 1: The reason why you don't have fathers in the homes
Speaker 1: because they didn't want to, because they didn't want to
Speaker 1: be there. You weren't worthy, You aren't worthy, You don't
Speaker 1: deserve So those women through anger who have the right.
Speaker 1: And I will be the first to say this, black
Speaker 1: women are angry and have a right to be angry.
Speaker 1: If you knew our history as a black woman, you
Speaker 1: would be angry too, because I had I had a
Speaker 1: woman say to me one time and I heard you
Speaker 1: say black women are angry. I said, yes, they are.
Speaker 1: She said, what if I said black men are angry?
Speaker 1: I said, I am black, I'm a man, and I'm angry.
Speaker 1: I'm angry. I think it had a negative connotation around
Speaker 1: the whole black women being angry thing, though, yes, you know,
Speaker 1: because you think about women how they compare to a
Speaker 1: white woman or there there are other counterparts going into
Speaker 1: an environment where they may be super yeah, super assertive,
Speaker 1: or they're passionate about the way they feel um and
Speaker 1: that's always translated as anger. I get it, and it's
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily angry, but if it is, she has
Speaker 1: a reason to be. Let me tell you something. If
Speaker 1: you are black in America and you know your history
Speaker 1: and you're not angry, something is wrong with you. Something
Speaker 1: is wrong with you. So imagine these women in the
Speaker 1: sixties growing up angry, having to raise these children on
Speaker 1: their room. Not only do you have to raise these children,
Speaker 1: I have to go out and get a job to
Speaker 1: be able to support because you took the other source
Speaker 1: of income out of my home. Those kids grow up
Speaker 1: without fathers. There's gonna be trauma involved when you raise
Speaker 1: a household without a father. Those kids grow up to
Speaker 1: become parents. They grew up without seeing the nuclear family.
Speaker 1: You know what, that trauma becomes the next generation of
Speaker 1: people who are going to feed whatever trauma they had,
Speaker 1: whether it was from poverty, whether it was from being
Speaker 1: beaten because their mom has so much anger, whether it's
Speaker 1: free from an absentee father, whether he was locked up,
Speaker 1: or whether he was murdered. Like, these are the things
Speaker 1: that black people have had to deal with overtime. And
Speaker 1: then that mom, though, those kids grow up to become
Speaker 1: moms and dads. So now that young man never seen
Speaker 1: what a father is like because his father was taken
Speaker 1: from his home, he doesn't even know how to be
Speaker 1: a dad. And imagine you grow up through that time,
Speaker 1: and if if you're a young woman who was angry,
Speaker 1: because if everything is happening and you don't understand what's
Speaker 1: happening to you. Because remember when I did UH Prototype
Speaker 1: for the ten years in Brooklyn, I was around a
Speaker 1: lot of single moms. Prototype is the mentorship mentorship program
Speaker 1: we did in Brooklyn. I was around a lot of
Speaker 1: single moms, and I remember hearing a lot of single
Speaker 1: black moms telling their sons, you ain't never gonna be
Speaker 1: shipped just like your father, and not understanding where this
Speaker 1: trauma is coming from. Because those young men are gonna
Speaker 1: grow up and start to treat black women like ship
Speaker 1: the same way their moms treated them like ship, And
Speaker 1: that trauma gets passed down through generation generation, and we
Speaker 1: don't understand that it's coming from a place that was
Speaker 1: designed to create trauma for us to do that to
Speaker 1: each other, you know what I'm saying. So it's not
Speaker 1: even a thing. Well, who's to blame because that's what
Speaker 1: happens in the black community too. Well, who's to blame?
Speaker 1: Is it the single black mom who talks down to
Speaker 1: the kids and she's to blame? Or is it the
Speaker 1: father who left? Is he used to blame? Um? And
Speaker 1: to be perfectly honest, it goes back to slavery. Really here,
Speaker 1: at what point you have that will we have as
Speaker 1: a people. I think it's kind of happening now, but
Speaker 1: kind of having that lightbulb moment where it's like, aha,
Speaker 1: we have been set up, we have been pinned against
Speaker 1: each other. Um, are we going to be having these
Speaker 1: conversations openly so we can now begin to heal and repair.
Speaker 1: You know, I've said before that I feel like we
Speaker 1: are a generation where we are now no longer dealing
Speaker 1: with or feeling like we have to deal with those
Speaker 1: dramas that have been passed down that we're addressing them
Speaker 1: now that we're calling people out, We're just like, yo,
Speaker 1: own your ship. This is what happens, and let's have
Speaker 1: a discussion about it so we can begin to heal
Speaker 1: from it. And you know, there's so many symptoms of
Speaker 1: intergenerational trauma that rears its ugly head within the family unit.
Speaker 1: You think about a family who might seem just kind
Speaker 1: of emotionally numb, or they have the sense of being strong,
Speaker 1: but is that a facade? You know, you have the
Speaker 1: families who feel like discussing this is a sign of weakness.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm I'm now peeling off layers of my
Speaker 1: skin for you to see what's really at the core.
Speaker 1: And now that's me being labeled weak. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's a generational trauma that's been passed down from
Speaker 1: black man to black man, because black men have been
Speaker 1: taught from the dawn of time that we can't be
Speaker 1: emotional because we can't show weakness. You know, even my grandfather.
Speaker 1: One of the greatest stories my father talked to my
Speaker 1: grandfather is how he was making a candy yams for
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and it's spilled and the holes and you know
Speaker 1: how hot candys gets spilled on his hand. He had burns.
Speaker 1: My grandfather tied the thing up, sat down, cut the turkey,
Speaker 1: had dinner with them, never shed a tear, and then
Speaker 1: went to the hospital because he just felt like he
Speaker 1: couldn't show anything, he couldn't be vulnerable in that moment.
Speaker 1: And that's when he's like, my father is tough. You know,
Speaker 1: my father is tough, and that's a sign of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't cry, I didn't show any weakness. Black men
Speaker 1: are taught from real young that you can't show weakness
Speaker 1: out here because if you grow up in a place
Speaker 1: where there's poverty, right, you're always gonna have to fight
Speaker 1: for everything that you get and you'll be prayed on.
Speaker 1: And that comes from trauma, that comes from having to
Speaker 1: from redlining, having to me put in a situation where
Speaker 1: you can't thrive because there's not enough resources for everybody.
Speaker 1: So it's only the strong survive, which means I have
Speaker 1: to I have to elbow you and kick you down
Speaker 1: in order for me to get there. There's only one
Speaker 1: play the food. There's seven of us. Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: funny too because even just like growing up in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: you see that tough kid walking down the street, and
Speaker 1: I know de value you've had sometimes where you've walked
Speaker 1: down the street and you see this kid coming at you,
Speaker 1: and if you stare him back in his eye the
Speaker 1: same way he's kind of trying to stare at you,
Speaker 1: you notice he'll look away because he's not really tough,
Speaker 1: like a lot of it is. Everyone's trying to play tough,
Speaker 1: but just because you're forced to play tough, and you're
Speaker 1: forced to be tough within the confines of what is
Speaker 1: the area you live in, you know. And there's also
Speaker 1: I mean going back to just the symptoms of the
Speaker 1: generational trauma that's been passed down. You know, family might
Speaker 1: have trust issues with outsiders, and that can cause conflict,
Speaker 1: you know, having to not tell your business or not
Speaker 1: tell people what's been happening, a lot of keeping things
Speaker 1: hush hush. You talk about that in your family all
Speaker 1: the time, all the time. It's literally a thing. And
Speaker 1: you know, generational trauma has reared its ugly head in
Speaker 1: my family. Um, not my immediate family per se, but
Speaker 1: you know, cousins, an extended family who has had to
Speaker 1: deal with so many different forms of abuse, and there's
Speaker 1: this um protection around the person who is the abuser.
Speaker 1: We can talk about that, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just protection around the abuser. There's this um everybody
Speaker 1: looked the other way, you know, and that might have
Speaker 1: been okay for prior generations, but you know, I have
Speaker 1: family members who are around my age range that are
Speaker 1: just like, no, this is what happened to me, and
Speaker 1: it happened at the hands of this other family member
Speaker 1: and what I'm not going to do is be quiet
Speaker 1: about it. And then you can see people kind of
Speaker 1: being like, well that was so long ago though, which
Speaker 1: is probably yeah, that was just so long ago, or
Speaker 1: I thought we were past this, or you know, getting
Speaker 1: those kind of responses. Imagine what that feels like to
Speaker 1: the person who was abused. See, the funny thing is
Speaker 1: when you're a kid and you're being abused, your heart
Speaker 1: from young that you have no voice anyway, so you
Speaker 1: can't say anything. So you go your whole childhood being abused,
Speaker 1: and then when you become an adult and you want
Speaker 1: to say something, then they tell you what it happened
Speaker 1: so long ago because you really have no fear instill
Speaker 1: in you when you are abused as a child that
Speaker 1: you can't say anything. If you are to say anything,
Speaker 1: it's going to cause you know, an uproar in the family,
Speaker 1: and you have to keep your mouth shut. And or
Speaker 1: if they're making it seem like as if it's something
Speaker 1: that's okay and something that's acceptable, when deep down you
Speaker 1: know it isn't, and then you come to find out
Speaker 1: as an adult that it wasn't. But once again, that
Speaker 1: comes from generational trauma. The fact that we as black
Speaker 1: people have talk. And this is not just a Black thing,
Speaker 1: because abuse, especially sexual abuse to young boys and young girls,
Speaker 1: happens in every culture. But it also starts from UM
Speaker 1: society's patriarchal way of feeling like men have control over
Speaker 1: everything and we can do whatever we want to anybody,
Speaker 1: and you can't say anything without repercussions exactly. And that's
Speaker 1: and that that goes beyond race. That's happened in every culture.
Speaker 1: And what happens is is we start controlling people by
Speaker 1: contro holding the youth and telling them at a young age,
Speaker 1: you have no voice, no one will believe you anyway.
Speaker 1: And what we can stop, do what we can do
Speaker 1: to stop UM because I want to get to how
Speaker 1: do we cure some of these generational traumas right? The
Speaker 1: first way we can cure some of these generational traumas
Speaker 1: is by educating our people. Right, educating our people. I
Speaker 1: think one of the worst things that happened to the
Speaker 1: black community was desegregation. And I'm going to explain to
Speaker 1: you why my mom and I'm proud of this, I
Speaker 1: said some of my mom was the first class to
Speaker 1: desegregate Brooklyn and one of the first black students to
Speaker 1: attend James Madison High School. Proud of that because of
Speaker 1: what it stood for. But I'm also a little smarter
Speaker 1: now and knowing that the fact that we put our
Speaker 1: black kids in the school with all white teachers means
Speaker 1: that they control what our black kids learned, which means
Speaker 1: they control what we learned about our history, the American history.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying, which is why I was
Speaker 1: taught from a young age that Christopher Columbus was a
Speaker 1: hero and didn't find out until my twenties that Chris
Speaker 1: of Columbus is the Hitler version. Is Hitler to Native
Speaker 1: Americans or the Indigenous people? I wanted to say, Native
Speaker 1: Americans to the Indigenous people, You see what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And it's because they controlled what we learned. So by
Speaker 1: educating our children is the first way that we can
Speaker 1: eliminate generational curses. The second way is to give children
Speaker 1: their voices back. Stop telling kids to shut up and
Speaker 1: hush and allow them to say what's on their mind
Speaker 1: and how they feel, giving them safe spaces to be
Speaker 1: able to say how they feel, of course within context
Speaker 1: and within the realms of being respectful, but they have
Speaker 1: to feel comfortable being able to speak with their parents.
Speaker 1: If it's not a parent, whoever is a trusted adult.
Speaker 1: It maybe an or uncle, It may be a school professional,
Speaker 1: somebody that they can feel comfortable letting, letting, letting go with.
Speaker 1: So I think about children and how impressionable they are,
Speaker 1: of course with their family and with their parents for particularly,
Speaker 1: and how that generational trauma goes from the parent to
Speaker 1: the child, and then you can see the child now
Speaker 1: exhibiting behaviors i e. Your grandmother having the trauma of
Speaker 1: knowing what it was like to raise children post um,
Speaker 1: not post slavery, but Jim Crow south right exactly, and
Speaker 1: then how that was then passed to your father and
Speaker 1: then to you, and just really honing in on how
Speaker 1: children of survivors of abusers of abusers within family members,
Speaker 1: realms and just um, how how is it that Sorry
Speaker 1: I lost my train of thought. What was that saying?
Speaker 1: How is it the traumas passed down even if the
Speaker 1: trauma doesn't exist? Yes, okay, so even though the trauma
Speaker 1: may not exist for the children, how our behaviors then
Speaker 1: passed down? And how does that affect children? It's very
Speaker 1: simple and the way I related relate to it is, um,
Speaker 1: you haven't watched the movie enough with j Lo. Yes,
Speaker 1: And she was beat by the by her husband. She
Speaker 1: was beat by her husband, so she never felt safe.
Speaker 1: So whenever she grabbed her daughter, every couple of months,
Speaker 1: her and her daughter left, every couple of months, her
Speaker 1: and her daughter cut her hair, died her hair, right,
Speaker 1: every time they were out some where, they were always
Speaker 1: looking at the exits, always looking at the windows. She's
Speaker 1: creating a trauma to her daughter that never existed because
Speaker 1: she her daughter was never abused. The mom was abused.
Speaker 1: So that behavior that she's exhibited has continued, has passed
Speaker 1: that down to now her daughter. So now her daughter's
Speaker 1: going to grow up. Right, every couple of months, And
Speaker 1: I know it was a movie, but I've seen this
Speaker 1: in real life every couple of months, changes her hair,
Speaker 1: whenever she gets somewhere, she sits with her back against
Speaker 1: the wall and looks for the exit. But this is
Speaker 1: normal behavior to her because this is, for example, how
Speaker 1: many black kids have probably never had any issues with cops.
Speaker 1: The cops pull up while you're at the light, what
Speaker 1: do black children do? They get nervous? Oh, my goodness,
Speaker 1: do you think about the video that went viral of
Speaker 1: the young boy who was playing basketball in his yard. Yes,
Speaker 1: then the cop car was driving past and he went
Speaker 1: and hid behind the car because well, I mean that
Speaker 1: was probably different just because now there's so much going on.
Speaker 1: It wasn't different at all. But I'm just saying that's
Speaker 1: something happening now. But yes, it is something that has
Speaker 1: happened for years where you're already coming along and you're
Speaker 1: not doing anything. You're in actually basketball, perfect example. And
Speaker 1: because that trauma has his parents felt, dealing with police
Speaker 1: has automatically been passed down to this child. And what
Speaker 1: happens is white people don't understand. Sometimes it's just like,
Speaker 1: I don't know why you're afraid of cops, because I've
Speaker 1: never had an issue with cops. But until you sat
Speaker 1: in the car with your parents and watch a police
Speaker 1: officer come to the window when your parents get quiet
Speaker 1: and they tightened up, and you're sitting in the back
Speaker 1: like what's going on. Until you've sat there and that
Speaker 1: happened repeatedly, will you understand why that fear comes? You know,
Speaker 1: and it comes from every source of When my mom
Speaker 1: was pregnant with my sister, she might have been about
Speaker 1: six months pregnant, and I remember actually was probably a
Speaker 1: little less than that. But anyway, we were driving through
Speaker 1: Meal Basin in Brooklyn, which is a predominant the white neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Um I was ten years old at the time, and
Speaker 1: it was around Christmas time, so they would normally put
Speaker 1: up all of these bright lights, and the houses were
Speaker 1: a little bit nicer than where we lived on our
Speaker 1: side of town. So my mom is like, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's just drive past there one night after you know,
Speaker 1: she picked us up from our activities, so we can
Speaker 1: just see the lights, you know, because Christmas is our
Speaker 1: favorite time right here. And then I remember we got
Speaker 1: into a car accident. Somebody had made a turn, like
Speaker 1: ran the stop sign, turned into my mom's car, and
Speaker 1: instantly I was just nervous because I know she's pregnant.
Speaker 1: I don't want to lose the baby. So I was
Speaker 1: remember being very, very very upset in that moment. But
Speaker 1: I do remember the guy, a white male, actually two
Speaker 1: of them, they were in a car together, approached my
Speaker 1: mom in the vehicle and we were in the back seat,
Speaker 1: my brother and I and they were like, didn't you
Speaker 1: see us coming? Why are you even in this part
Speaker 1: of the town anyway, like what are you doing over here? Anyway?
Speaker 1: What are you supposed to be doing? And I remember
Speaker 1: my mom being like, how dare you? Like, I'm a
Speaker 1: nurse will probably one day save your mom's life, like
Speaker 1: should be more or less, But you know, she had
Speaker 1: a few other choice words because she closed the door.
Speaker 1: But then I remember that feeling of being like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, like now I can't even be in this
Speaker 1: part of town. So I had a friend who I
Speaker 1: met in school, um in high school, and I remember
Speaker 1: asking like, oh, where do you live and she was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I live in Mill Basin. I remember instantly going back
Speaker 1: to that time and feel like I'm probably not going
Speaker 1: to be welcome in your house. You may be nice,
Speaker 1: but your parents might not want me being dropped off
Speaker 1: into your home in that part of town. And then
Speaker 1: after that, it was just always like the idea of
Speaker 1: like oh my god, seeing how scared my mom was
Speaker 1: over there, not wanting to go back to that part
Speaker 1: of town because I'm like, oh my god, like my
Speaker 1: mom clearly was like disrespected. And now we have boys
Speaker 1: if they say they go into their friend's house in
Speaker 1: Mill Basin and we bok, what's the first are you
Speaker 1: going to say, right, don't go see So you're passing
Speaker 1: down the trauma that happened to you to your boys
Speaker 1: when they've never experienced it, absolutely and being a mom
Speaker 1: being crazy, but I'm like, no, you can kind of
Speaker 1: foresee those things and it could potentially affect them as well. Parents.
Speaker 1: Parents do that to their children all the time, And
Speaker 1: I don't want to call it seeing ghosts because typically
Speaker 1: parents do that in fear because they do not want
Speaker 1: their children to ever have to experience that and be
Speaker 1: caught off guard. So I don't want to call it
Speaker 1: seeing ghosts. But realistically, when you exhibit that type of
Speaker 1: behavior consistently to your children, they in turn, you know,
Speaker 1: become almost like shell shocked. Like that's when you get
Speaker 1: that post traumatic slave syndrome where everything scares you and
Speaker 1: you're worried about everything and you can't exist and function
Speaker 1: in a world where you're afraid of everything, and you
Speaker 1: have to do in your children too, because we even
Speaker 1: know how Jackson, for example, is just a total empeth
Speaker 1: like he completely is always thinking about other people. He's
Speaker 1: genuinely concerned about the welfare for others all the time,
Speaker 1: and we know how much our children can handle. So
Speaker 1: imagine us unloading our fears onto someone with Jackson's kind
Speaker 1: of personality that can be so overwhelming for a child.
Speaker 1: That is exactly why I was very deliberate when he
Speaker 1: started asking me about George Floyd and Almand Aubrey and
Speaker 1: Brianna Taylor. I was very a little bit about how
Speaker 1: I was going to approach the racism topic with him
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to unload all my fear and
Speaker 1: anger on him because I know he'll take that and
Speaker 1: I don't want him to exist in a world where
Speaker 1: he thinks he has to fear everything. And that's what
Speaker 1: led us to writing the children's books. So shout out
Speaker 1: to our publish I'm not gonna releasing it because the
Speaker 1: book hasn't been released yet, but mcbraun. But by the
Speaker 1: time you guys hear this, maybe he got with us
Speaker 1: and we created this children. That's why. That's why with
Speaker 1: this conversation, I really wanted you to kind of lead
Speaker 1: this conversation because you were doing so much research recently
Speaker 1: about history and about um everything that kind of got
Speaker 1: us to this point, which is very necessary I think
Speaker 1: for our children to be aware of and to know
Speaker 1: so that way moving forward, they understand at least where
Speaker 1: we've come from and know how we can move accordingly
Speaker 1: within our family units and of course as individuals. So
Speaker 1: when it came to Jackson asking me about you know,
Speaker 1: Aman Aubrey, Brianna Taylor, George Floyd, I decided I was
Speaker 1: going to be very deliberate about how I gave him
Speaker 1: this information because I didn't want to create an intergenerational trauma,
Speaker 1: right and for those I'm gonna read off some bullet
Speaker 1: points of what intergenerational traumas are. So, for example, unresolved
Speaker 1: emotions and thoughts about a traumatic event are negative, repeated
Speaker 1: patterns of behavior, including beliefs about parenting, untreated or poorly treated,
Speaker 1: untreated or poorly treated, substance abuse or severe mental illness,
Speaker 1: poor parent child relationships, and emotional attachment, complicated personality traits
Speaker 1: or personality disorders, content attitude um no content attitude with
Speaker 1: the ways things are within the family. So part of
Speaker 1: the reason why I was very deliberate about the delivering
Speaker 1: that information to him was because of all these things. So,
Speaker 1: for example, unresolved emotions and thoughts about a traumatic event
Speaker 1: we talk about things happen in the families all the time, right,
Speaker 1: so I we you know, we had the situation where
Speaker 1: I was gonna spank Jackson. Right, he's gonna ask me
Speaker 1: at some point I spanked him. If I say I
Speaker 1: spanked you because I spanked you, leave me alone, get
Speaker 1: out of my face. That's unresolved. You know what he's
Speaker 1: gonna do. Say. You know what, my parents were pretty
Speaker 1: good parents. My father spanked me. I'm gonna spank my
Speaker 1: kids without even knowing why. You see what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: it's just unresolved. And then and that that behavior becomes acceptable,
Speaker 1: which brings me to the other point, which acceptable behaviors
Speaker 1: and beliefs that exists within the family because it's unresolved,
Speaker 1: which leads us back to something I hate talking about this,
Speaker 1: but it's the truth, sexual abuse. I had a young man.
Speaker 1: I had a young man in prototype who I found
Speaker 1: out he used to respond poorly to male authority figures.
Speaker 1: He alway used to shrivel up, and at first I
Speaker 1: thought that he was just a little soft. So I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, let me just see if I
Speaker 1: can poke him, getting his face and see if he
Speaker 1: can man up a little bit. Then I was gonna
Speaker 1: my plan was to applaud him for standing up and
Speaker 1: then get everybody to roll around him. And you know, understand,
Speaker 1: but this was I was in my twenties. I didn't
Speaker 1: understand generational traumas. The more I screamed to him, the
Speaker 1: smaller he got, The smaller he got, the smaller he
Speaker 1: got till he stopped coming. Then I found out from
Speaker 1: one of his mom's friends, because the mom never said anything,
Speaker 1: that the young man had experienced traumas with the mom's boyfriend,
Speaker 1: and the mom's boyfriend was sexually abusive to him, and
Speaker 1: she sat the monster to me. The reason why she
Speaker 1: allowed it was because she was sexually abused by her
Speaker 1: mom's boyfriend, and I was just like, so she just
Speaker 1: let she just let him do it because it happened
Speaker 1: to her, and she said, this is my home girl.
Speaker 1: We tried to talk about it, we went to therapy,
Speaker 1: but she felt like as a woman in the house,
Speaker 1: she didn't have the authority to tell the man she
Speaker 1: was dating what too and what not to do with
Speaker 1: her child, the same way her mom didn't tell him
Speaker 1: what to do with her. And at that point I
Speaker 1: had to realize, like, wow, here I am not understanding
Speaker 1: the nuance within each family and each child, and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to just assert this male dominance and sorry, it's
Speaker 1: hard in that circumstance then not to pass judgment or
Speaker 1: to say like you're a grown woman now, like regardless
Speaker 1: of what transpired in your childhood, then having this transpire
Speaker 1: with your child, it's like, at what point do you say, like,
Speaker 1: I know that this is not supposed to occur, And
Speaker 1: it's me not passing judgment because I just don't know
Speaker 1: how it affects m psychologically, right, and how that that
Speaker 1: mindset is, which is why therapy is so important and
Speaker 1: actually addressing these things. You know, it's I would have
Speaker 1: never guessed that would have been the outcome, the reason
Speaker 1: as to why, you know, she was allowing this to happen.
Speaker 1: So so now I'm going to explain to you how
Speaker 1: that trauma and experiencing that trauma leads us back to
Speaker 1: today and Jackson, right, that young man at thirteen. Once
Speaker 1: we were able to break it down and I was
Speaker 1: able to speak to him, I finally got him to
Speaker 1: open up about what he was going through. When he
Speaker 1: told me the thing that was the hardest for me
Speaker 1: to deal with was him saying it's not that big
Speaker 1: a deal. It's cool. I'll deal with it. So him
Speaker 1: normalizing not feeling made me feel like if he grows up,
Speaker 1: is he going to then feel like it's okay, it's normal.
Speaker 1: I can do that to someone else's child, or do
Speaker 1: that to my child because it was done to me.
Speaker 1: It was done to my mom, that's normal. That leads
Speaker 1: me to Jackson dealing with Brianna Taylor, dealing with armand Aubrey.
Speaker 1: I remember feeling when I watched the George Floyd incident, right.
Speaker 1: I remember looking at the TV. I got mad for
Speaker 1: a minute, and then I said, this is just part
Speaker 1: for the course. It's not that big a deal. I
Speaker 1: might as well go back to doing what I do
Speaker 1: because this is never going to change. So it became
Speaker 1: so normal to me that we as a people then
Speaker 1: allow it, like like the Brianna Taylor um verdict. I
Speaker 1: remember watching the Rodney King verdict, and they will all
Speaker 1: acquit it and they rioted in l a riot towre
Speaker 1: that place apart. Right, Brianna Taylor, it's a black woman,
Speaker 1: No one's everyone's acquitted. Well, this is part for the course.
Speaker 1: We've become so desensitized to these drawing, these traumas, these
Speaker 1: generational traumas that happened at the hands of the government,
Speaker 1: that we're just letting it happen to us as a
Speaker 1: people over and over again. And the worst thing about
Speaker 1: it is they're constantly showing it on social media and
Speaker 1: TV so that we continue to become traumatized. So every
Speaker 1: time they show a black person get murdered by police
Speaker 1: and nothing happens, you know what, we start to do
Speaker 1: another day. And that's why I was very deliberate about
Speaker 1: giving Jackson the history of our country so that he
Speaker 1: knows that it's not okay, but also showing him that
Speaker 1: every time these things happened and we complained about it,
Speaker 1: a little bit of change happened, even if it wasn't
Speaker 1: a great big change, Okay, but Emmett till everybody wasn't arrested,
Speaker 1: everybody didn't go to jail, right, but they were laws
Speaker 1: passed that didn't allow for it, and the same thing
Speaker 1: to happen next week to another child. Brianna Taylor. I
Speaker 1: know everyone is up set and everyone is piste off.
Speaker 1: But the one thing that we can at least hang
Speaker 1: our hat on right Prior to Brianna Taylor being murdered,
Speaker 1: no knock warrants were considered legal even though they're unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: This case and this child created the Brianna Taylor Law,
Speaker 1: which means that no knock warrants are no longer legal
Speaker 1: in black and brown communities because no knock warrants were
Speaker 1: happening in a disproportionate rate in black and brown communities
Speaker 1: then white communities. And people don't like to hear it,
Speaker 1: but here is the fact. Before crack cocaine became an
Speaker 1: issue in the United States, cocaine, powder cocaine was an
Speaker 1: epidemic in this country. They did not militarize the police.
Speaker 1: It's the it's the truth. It's the truth. It was
Speaker 1: an epidemic in this country. Richard Nixon created the War
Speaker 1: on Drugs based on powdered cocaine, powdered cocaine, not crack cocaine.
Speaker 1: He created the War on Drugs on powder cocaine. But
Speaker 1: they utilized the law to militarize the police on crack
Speaker 1: cocaine because it happened in the black communities. And that's
Speaker 1: what and that's what this all comes down to. We
Speaker 1: as a people need to understand how traumatic situations and
Speaker 1: generational traumas are being passed down in our community and
Speaker 1: it's being pushed through the government. Like these things that
Speaker 1: are happening or not just happening in your family and
Speaker 1: my family, it's happening in all about communities because of
Speaker 1: what we're going through in the laws and legislation that's
Speaker 1: allowing it to happen. If we educate ourselves, our history,
Speaker 1: who we are as a people, we can stop it.
Speaker 1: But we have to educate ourselves. And I think fighting
Speaker 1: the great fight, meaning fighting against government or community within
Speaker 1: our communities. I think ultimately it goes back down to
Speaker 1: even the family units. Healing what's going on in your
Speaker 1: family unit, in your household first, and then being better
Speaker 1: equipped to then now with a clear head, figure out
Speaker 1: and strategize how to now approach these bigger systemic issues.
Speaker 1: That's the key that right there is the key. You
Speaker 1: have to take care of your home first. We realize
Speaker 1: that there are issues, but if I realized that they're
Speaker 1: they're generational traumas in my family, I gotta correct that first,
Speaker 1: and I got to educate the ones underneath me so
Speaker 1: that we can move forward to awareness is key when
Speaker 1: it comes to healing. UM. I mean without recognizing that
Speaker 1: there is something in your family happening in your family system,
Speaker 1: then you can't change it. So a couple of tips
Speaker 1: for helping with healing generational trauma. You know, first seeing
Speaker 1: the patterns, knowing that they're existing. UM. Some are more
Speaker 1: obvious than others. There's domestic violence, abuse, anxiety, gender roles,
Speaker 1: among others. UM. Second step is to building the awareness
Speaker 1: around what triggers you to step into these established patterns.
Speaker 1: Is it yelling? Is it disrespect? Are you feeling devalued,
Speaker 1: physical aggression, watching people being bullied? I mean, the lists
Speaker 1: really could go on and on. And then once you're
Speaker 1: aware of your triggers, the fourth step is becoming aware
Speaker 1: of how you react to these triggers, so there's never
Speaker 1: different ways to react to it. Are you gonna shut down?
Speaker 1: Are you're gonna be angry, violent, yell? And um. Learning
Speaker 1: to put roadblocks on those patterns. So setting up a
Speaker 1: trigger word or a phrase that helps you recognize when
Speaker 1: you're going down a pattern. Setting up a support network
Speaker 1: as well that can help to hold you accountable. But
Speaker 1: what's the key to the first step is seeing the patterns.
Speaker 1: You can't see the patterns if you don't know how
Speaker 1: the patterns got here exactly right, or you may know
Speaker 1: how the patterns got here, but you don't see them,
Speaker 1: so you can go either way, um, you know, and
Speaker 1: then finally give yourself grace. I mean, these patterns have
Speaker 1: literally been embedded in our DNA, in our makeup for
Speaker 1: for a long period of time, and not hell overnight.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of time. So asking for help
Speaker 1: from a professional sometimes it's a great option to supplement
Speaker 1: these steps. Um. Sometimes the trauma that you encounter um
Speaker 1: can be so ingrained that it may require a little
Speaker 1: extra work. But give yourself grace. It's stored up, and
Speaker 1: it's in the body and it's in the brain, and
Speaker 1: we need to release ourselves absolutely well. Listen, We're gonna
Speaker 1: take some time, give you guys a brain. This is
Speaker 1: a heavy episode. We gotta pay some bills, all right now,
Speaker 1: we're gonna come back try to tackle these listener letters.
Speaker 1: Like I said, and um, everything we're talking about today,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be fun. But this is something
Speaker 1: very very needed for our culture, our people, and for
Speaker 1: us just to heal one day at a time. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna get to these listener letters you may. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get to these as first and then come back
Speaker 1: to some listening letters. All right, and now we're back
Speaker 1: with listener letters. I would like to say that this
Speaker 1: is a majority of folks favorite time in the show. Um,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna dive right in. I'm gonna read this
Speaker 1: one for you, baby, and let's see what what two
Speaker 1: cents we have today. So I've been in and off
Speaker 1: again on again relationship with the father of my children
Speaker 1: for ten years. We have two kids, and we both
Speaker 1: realize that we're getting older. We're making plans together for
Speaker 1: the future. How Ever, our relationship hasn't or wasn't always
Speaker 1: the best. He was at one point mentally, physically and
Speaker 1: emotionally abusive. We haven't had that problem in a very
Speaker 1: long time. However, I do not think I'm over some
Speaker 1: of the things that has happened. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: still holding onto resentment towards him, and I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do. He's a great father and has made
Speaker 1: so many changes to become a better man. I don't
Speaker 1: want to let the past stop my family from being together,
Speaker 1: but I also don't know if it's a good idea
Speaker 1: to move forward with marriage when I'm still holding resentment,
Speaker 1: I honestly just don't know what to do. Wow. Well, Um,
Speaker 1: the one thing I can say is that she didn't
Speaker 1: mention going to see help. She didn't go get therapy because. UM.
Speaker 1: What I also realized with with traumas is that sometimes
Speaker 1: the traumas you have are within and it's really not
Speaker 1: the person that you're with. You could be having some
Speaker 1: own some of your own inhibitions, you know, as a mom,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't help the fact that he was abusive before.
Speaker 1: So if she hasn't dealt with whatever is broken inside her,
Speaker 1: she'll never be able to forgive him, you know, because
Speaker 1: she hasn't dealt with that. So I think maybe she
Speaker 1: should find out why she can't forgive what's going on
Speaker 1: with her first, and then once she figures out why
Speaker 1: she can't forgive, if she still can't forgive. If she's
Speaker 1: figured that out, then she shouldn't forgive. But if she
Speaker 1: can figure that out and then say, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's worth working on my marriage, then I say she
Speaker 1: can move forward. But it's not an easy fix. UM.
Speaker 1: It's not just a yes or no. This is something
Speaker 1: you have to put work in. Um. There's two phases.
Speaker 1: There's a part where she has to work on herself
Speaker 1: first to figure out what the best thing for her,
Speaker 1: then have to work on what's the best thing for
Speaker 1: her marriage. Yeah, I'm wondering this resentment that she's holding,
Speaker 1: Is it uh something that she's discussed with him too?
Speaker 1: Does he know that she's still harboring these feelings of resentment?
Speaker 1: Has every an open dialogue between her and her significant other,
Speaker 1: so he knows how much this has affected her and
Speaker 1: still affects her to this day. Because if they're making
Speaker 1: plans for the future, she says that we are making
Speaker 1: plans for the future, then I would assume that he
Speaker 1: is in a space where he's, you know, ready to
Speaker 1: move on to the next phase. But if she's being
Speaker 1: with hell, I think therapy is a great way to
Speaker 1: tom to kind of get down to the root of
Speaker 1: the problem and the root of the resentment. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: some people may not recover from right, some people the
Speaker 1: most physical and emotional abuse, and that's fine, and that's
Speaker 1: that's fine. If if there's something that you're not willing
Speaker 1: to deal with or try to get over, that's perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: The problem is, though, is that they have two children.
Speaker 1: And I know people talk about the degenerational trauma that
Speaker 1: happens through divorce, but there are generational traumas that happened
Speaker 1: excuse me, through staying today because children. Yes, it's literally
Speaker 1: like a pylon at that. Children know when Codeine and
Speaker 1: I are arguing or not even arguing, when Condeine and
Speaker 1: I wake up upset at each other because we were
Speaker 1: having an argument the night before, and Jackson, all the
Speaker 1: boys come in the room. They come in the room
Speaker 1: completely different, as if there was a note on the
Speaker 1: door saying mom and Dad just arguing, you know, like
Speaker 1: they walk in there quiet, they walk over, don't say
Speaker 1: nothing to me, They work over here, Mommy, you okay?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, how they why do they go over
Speaker 1: to her first? Of course, the boys will always check
Speaker 1: on Mama first, which is the way. This is the
Speaker 1: way I want them to be, which is the way
Speaker 1: I raised them. So I appreciate that Jacks and Kyrae cas,
Speaker 1: but sometimes staying together for the kids is the worst
Speaker 1: thing you can do for the kids. So I would
Speaker 1: say try to you know, try to get some help
Speaker 1: um work on yourself internally, then work on your marriage
Speaker 1: and to your children too. And see if they haven't
Speaker 1: affected any in any circumstance or any way by this circumstance,
Speaker 1: because depending on their ages, they probably know if they
Speaker 1: robust four year old like Cairo, they know exactly what
Speaker 1: time it is. That is you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So I would say it starts with healing yourself first,
Speaker 1: finding out, you know, is this resentment something that you
Speaker 1: can get past and seeing the effects that it has
Speaker 1: on your child Absolutely would definitely be a great place
Speaker 1: to start. I'm right. Well, if you'd like to be
Speaker 1: featured as one of our listeners letters, be sure to
Speaker 1: email us at dead s Advice at gmail dot com. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's d e A d A d v I c E.
Speaker 1: You sure you left out the s. Think about as
Speaker 1: I was think about giving dead advice. I want to
Speaker 1: give advice to people want bade want to That's d
Speaker 1: e A d A S S A d V I
Speaker 1: c E at gmail dot com. All right, on to
Speaker 1: the moment of truth. Let me tell you were great
Speaker 1: this episode. I want to say I almost felt like
Speaker 1: I was like interviewing you, But like I said earlier
Speaker 1: in the show, it was necessary because I know you've
Speaker 1: been doing a lot of research lately about this. Um
Speaker 1: as we get this children's book out, which has been great. Um,
Speaker 1: that's the name of the book project, the name of
Speaker 1: the book, the Ellis Is and the time Machine. Why
Speaker 1: do we say black lives matter facts? So in doing that,
Speaker 1: you've had a ton of research that I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm still learning more and more, which is amazing because
Speaker 1: I grew up in America as a child that went
Speaker 1: through an entire school system that still has to educate
Speaker 1: my own self on some of my history and the
Speaker 1: things that really matter for sure, for sure. So I
Speaker 1: think my moment of truth today Normally I'll give pitch
Speaker 1: to you, but I'll just get in my not the
Speaker 1: way because you had a lot of things that you
Speaker 1: had to say today, which we're amazing. Um. But I
Speaker 1: think my moment of truth is, you know, there's not
Speaker 1: going to be a way for us to actively and
Speaker 1: effectively fight the bigger fight if we're not healing the
Speaker 1: generational traumas within the nuclear family, the nuclear and extended.
Speaker 1: I should say, so healing the house first. We will
Speaker 1: then be in a better I feel, mental space, emotional
Speaker 1: space to then tackle the world because we are existing
Speaker 1: in a space in a world where we're up against
Speaker 1: so many different, so many different obstacles. So if you
Speaker 1: can create that peace at home by having those discussions
Speaker 1: that may be difficult, you know, calling out Uncle so
Speaker 1: and soul for something, or pulling out Auntie so and
Speaker 1: Soul or grandma or grandpa or Auntie whoever it is,
Speaker 1: calling them out early and trying to get past that
Speaker 1: and then knowing that we're not going to have to
Speaker 1: trickle down effect of those generational traumas to future generations. Absolutely, um,
Speaker 1: I think you you hit it right on the head. Um.
Speaker 1: The only thing I would add to that, my moment
Speaker 1: of truth for today is that the best way to
Speaker 1: cure generational traumas is understanding your history. And it's not
Speaker 1: good enough for you to just know your family history.
Speaker 1: You have to know your culture's history because if you
Speaker 1: can understand why your family is in the situation is in,
Speaker 1: you better understand who your family is. You know, because
Speaker 1: when you start with family, you can't just start with
Speaker 1: the one uncle. You can't start with your grandfather. You
Speaker 1: gotta understand how their ancestors got to where we are
Speaker 1: so that you can have empathy and give them grace
Speaker 1: to then fix what they were creating because to be honest,
Speaker 1: everybody at that point was doing what they thought was
Speaker 1: the best for them and their children at that time.
Speaker 1: We can always sit back and judge, look at the
Speaker 1: past and say, y'all shouldn't have did this, But that's
Speaker 1: unfair because our kids and our kids kids are gonna
Speaker 1: look back on us and say, mom and dad, you
Speaker 1: should have never done that. While we're trying to do
Speaker 1: that and we're trying to do the best we can
Speaker 1: with what we have, but why are you doing better? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The best way to your generational to traumas is to
Speaker 1: understand your history period all right now, So if you
Speaker 1: follow us on social media, you should be at this point.
Speaker 1: Please thank you. Be sure to find us on social
Speaker 1: media at dead Ass the Podcast and of course I'm Cadeine,
Speaker 1: I am and I am Devouring. If you're listening on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate, review and subscribe. Dead
Speaker 1: As dead Ass is a production of I Heart Media
Speaker 1: podcast Network and is produced by the Norapinia and Triple
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