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Speaker 1: Hi everyone, it's Sophia and welcome back to Work in Progress.

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Speaker 1: Today's guest is a leader at the intersection of culture

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Speaker 1: and justice. She is an award winning educator, organizer, activist, writer,

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Speaker 1: news contributor, and a fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics.

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Speaker 1: She is Brittany Packnet Cunningham and I am over the

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Speaker 1: moon excited to have her with us on the show today.

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Speaker 1: You might know Brittany from her own news and justice podcast, Undistracted,

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Speaker 1: which I always listened to for her keen whip, smart

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Speaker 1: insight into politics and what's going on in current events.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe you've heard her as a co host of

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Speaker 1: the political podcast pod Save the People, which she worked

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Speaker 1: on for three years. Brittany is also an NBC News

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Speaker 1: and MSNBC contributor. She's graced magazine covers like the September

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Speaker 1: of British Vogue, in the April cover of Essence magazine,

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Speaker 1: and she was named one of Time magazines twelve New

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Speaker 1: Faces of Black Leadership. She was honored at ET Awards

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Speaker 1: as one of the fiercest activists of our time, and

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Speaker 1: President Barack Obama cited her as a leader whose voice

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Speaker 1: is going to be making a difference for years to come.

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Speaker 1: I'm so very honored today to sit down with such

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Speaker 1: a respected and sought after voice in the arenas of

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Speaker 1: social justice and empowerment, and who have had the opportunity

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Speaker 1: to ask her about the motivations behind her social justice work,

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Speaker 1: what it's like to organize protests, call for societal change

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Speaker 1: at the policy level, and also in our interpersonal relationships,

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Speaker 1: to ask her about the work that she does out

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Speaker 1: there in the world, and also on herself at home.

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Speaker 1: She joined me today to talk about politics and movements,

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Speaker 1: but also about her personal relationship to faith and how

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Speaker 1: much the lessons she learned growing up a minister's daughter

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Speaker 1: taught her about character and how character relates to activism today.

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Speaker 1: As always, it comes back to the central tenet of love,

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Speaker 1: and that is at the root of all the incredible

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Speaker 1: ways she's used her voice to lift the voices of others.

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this wonderful conversation with Brittany Packnet Cunningham.

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Speaker 1: All Right, we're on and popping, as as we used

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Speaker 1: to say when we were young, folks, I am no

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Speaker 1: longer one of the youths. This much is clear to me,

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Speaker 1: and I feel like I look like an adult now.

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Speaker 1: For so long, you know, we'd go to things and

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Speaker 1: you know, watch presidents speak and be in suits. But

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Speaker 1: I was like, we're just we're masqueraded, and now we're

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Speaker 1: pretending to be yes. And now we show up in

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Speaker 1: those spaces in our suits and I'm like, oh no,

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Speaker 1: we look like we run ship. This is different when

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Speaker 1: I was a fellow at Harvard GOSH back in eighteen,

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Speaker 1: so this is I still thought I was a youth then.

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Speaker 1: But some of the students came in and they were like,

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Speaker 1: would you like me to call you Miss Packnet? And

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Speaker 1: I was like, absolutely not. And we then started happening

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Speaker 1: so frequently. I was like, oh, okay, this is It's official.

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Speaker 1: I I'm old enough to be miss somebody and not

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Speaker 1: be teaching third graders like I used to be. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was That was the shift for me. That was

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Speaker 1: the moment, the mirror moment where I said, Okay, it's happening,

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Speaker 1: don't fight it. Except the wisdom and your thirties are fantastic.

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Speaker 1: It's like, you've got enough money to do a little something,

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Speaker 1: but not too much money to do something stupid. You

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Speaker 1: got you got enough wisdom to stop being stupid, but

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Speaker 1: you still got you know, JOI devive, So I'm just

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Speaker 1: gonna go with it. Yeah, we've still got energy to

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Speaker 1: be out here, but we do it smarter, which feels

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Speaker 1: good to me, especially because I consider us to be

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Speaker 1: in that very blessed age range where most of our

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Speaker 1: worst mistakes didn't happen on someone's Instagram story. Thank god,

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Speaker 1: thank god, thank god, because I could not imagine what

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Speaker 1: it would have been like for me to be even

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Speaker 1: remotely visible, even like just to like my parents or

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Speaker 1: my loved ones, or like people I went to school

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Speaker 1: with or whatever, when I was just out here being stupid.

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Speaker 1: I mean, like, I still make plenty of mistakes, but

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Speaker 1: when I was just abjectly idiotic because I was so young,

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Speaker 1: thank god there was I mean, I had to my

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Speaker 1: first camera phone. You had to carry the phone in

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Speaker 1: a the camera in a separate case and attach it

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Speaker 1: to the phone. So thank god, they're was no ready

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Speaker 1: kind of video evidence of you know, youthfulness is really

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Speaker 1: all it was. Yeah, I don't know how the kids

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Speaker 1: today do it. I am curious because you know, we

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Speaker 1: we joke about this sort of stage we're in. You know,

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Speaker 1: this this moment, this being in our you know, mid thirties,

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Speaker 1: and and really the way I think about it is

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Speaker 1: stepping into power. We'll talk about your Ted talk, which

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Speaker 1: is so much about stepping into confidence. And I think

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Speaker 1: it takes a long time, especially as women in the

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Speaker 1: world that treats us the way it treats us, to

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Speaker 1: to step into confidence. But I am curious about you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe not like right when we all got ideas and

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Speaker 1: got excited we could get into bars, you know, youth,

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Speaker 1: But I'm I'm curious about young Brittany because you know,

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Speaker 1: we've known each other for a long time, and for

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Speaker 1: a long time I have just been so in awe

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Speaker 1: of you and adored you, and and and I felt

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Speaker 1: honored to witness your your brilliance and your leadership and

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Speaker 1: and your and your fury and your fight and the

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Speaker 1: way that you love because that's the root of all

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Speaker 1: of it. And I'm really curious, Like I just I

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Speaker 1: wish little Sophia and little Brittany had been able to hang.

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Speaker 1: Who would have been a mess in all the best ways?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, But I'm like, who who were you at eight?

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Speaker 1: Were you were you always at the front of the

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Speaker 1: line with the idea and the thing to say, like

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Speaker 1: or did that evolve? Who were you as a little girl?

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Speaker 1: That is a good question. In so many ways. I

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Speaker 1: was constantly at the front of the line, and it

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Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily always invited. I was just raised that way.

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Speaker 1: So I am a daddy's girl through and through. And

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Speaker 1: my dad was. He was a pastor, and he was

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Speaker 1: in an activist, and uh a college professor. He was

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Speaker 1: a liberation theologian. So there are lots of ways that philosophic,

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Speaker 1: lee and spiritually, he and my mom raised both myself

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Speaker 1: and my brother Barrington to be really devoted to community

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Speaker 1: and really devoted to the activity of our faith through

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Speaker 1: community and service right that that those things were all

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Speaker 1: part and parcel with one another, and that devoting yourself

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Speaker 1: to the things that are bigger than you is always

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Speaker 1: the right call. And also my dad was like the

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Speaker 1: guy who would be at the front of the line,

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Speaker 1: and if you didn't want him at the front of

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Speaker 1: the line, he'd find his way up to the front

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Speaker 1: of the line. Anyway, I went and got in a

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Speaker 1: I went down a total rabbit hole of my dad's

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Speaker 1: press clippings, and you know, I remember the St. Louis

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Speaker 1: Post Dispatch writing about when he passed. Because I was

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Speaker 1: twelve years old when he passed, I remember kind of

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Speaker 1: all of these memories coming out of the woodworks for people.

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Speaker 1: But when I really started to dig even more, I

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Speaker 1: found stuff I had never seen before. I found reporting

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Speaker 1: on one of the first protests that I remember engaging

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Speaker 1: in him with to get black Santa's in the malls

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Speaker 1: in St. Louis, And there is this picture of our

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Speaker 1: family of four looking at like a plastic Santa somewhere,

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Speaker 1: and this was the picture that was on the front

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Speaker 1: of that section of the paper that day. I read

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Speaker 1: about all of this interfaith work that he had done

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Speaker 1: that I grew up witnessing but not realizing it was

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Speaker 1: kind of as big a deal regionally as it was.

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Speaker 1: And so these conversations and conferences that he and rabbis

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Speaker 1: would pull together to figure out what the faith answer

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Speaker 1: was to social stratification and injustice. Um I found those clippings.

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Speaker 1: I found stuff all the way back to Hartford, Connecticut,

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Speaker 1: where I was born. In Connecticut, he had graduated from

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Speaker 1: Yale Divinity School, was pastoring a small church out there

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Speaker 1: when he married my mom, and he is involved in

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Speaker 1: pushing some of the state and local agencies to actually

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Speaker 1: make a real commitment to a firm of action. And

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Speaker 1: this is like in the early to mid eighties. So like,

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Speaker 1: that's who raised me. And I'm reading all of this

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, everything makes so much worse sense now,

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Speaker 1: right because these are questions I can't ask him because

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Speaker 1: he's not here. But he left all of these breadcrumbs

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Speaker 1: for me, and you know, I got to discover them

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Speaker 1: at thirty six, at two in the morning, when I

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Speaker 1: should have been asleep. And so yeah, I was somebody

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Speaker 1: who learned to not be afraid of the sound of

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Speaker 1: my own voice, even if it's scared other people. I

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Speaker 1: was somebody who I think naturally had a lot of compassion,

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Speaker 1: but was also raised to have compassion. Like I would

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Speaker 1: cry about bad news and sad things in the news,

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Speaker 1: and I, you know, if I saw somebody who was

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Speaker 1: housing and secure, like I'd start crying, Like I was

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Speaker 1: that kid. It was. It was a little much sometimes.

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Speaker 1: And I also think that I was I had a

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Speaker 1: lot of joy, Like I just had such a blessed

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Speaker 1: and loving childhood. And I think it especially when I

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Speaker 1: look at old pictures of myself and watch old home movies. Um.

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Speaker 1: You that joy and the presence of that joy in

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Speaker 1: my life is clear because I just I'm radiating it

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Speaker 1: where like I'm happy and singing and laughing and dancing

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Speaker 1: and doing all of those kind of um imaginative things

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Speaker 1: that kids do before somebody tells them to stop. M M. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I love that and it does. It does give me

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Speaker 1: like a little giggle to know that, you know, are

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Speaker 1: like little b and little s. It's funny, That's what

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Speaker 1: my best friend always says. She'll she'll ask me something

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Speaker 1: and go, well, how how would little s feel about that?

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Speaker 1: Is that nicknamed all of our littles um to make

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Speaker 1: sure you check in, you know, with your internal selves.

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Speaker 1: But I think it gives like that little girl who's

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Speaker 1: still alive in me uch pleasure to know that when

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Speaker 1: I was coming home sobbing because I learned the Amazon

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Speaker 1: rainforest was in danger, that I could have called you.

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Speaker 1: We could have we could have called on the landline

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Speaker 1: with the cord to the stairwell. That chriscent plastic phone

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Speaker 1: there was like mov or avocado. It was never an

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Speaker 1: appeasing color. No, it was always like a slightly turned

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Speaker 1: color of food. But what I would give to have

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Speaker 1: an avocado phone now, So retro ours was like a

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Speaker 1: pale banana yellow. So you could have called me up,

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Speaker 1: but we could have we could have cried together, walked

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Speaker 1: around the kitchen dragging the cord everywhere. My mom used

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Speaker 1: to be like, you're going to stretch the cord. That's

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Speaker 1: always a thing. I find it not at all surprising

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Speaker 1: the way, you know, you talk about the energy of

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Speaker 1: service in your family, and the way that you talk

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Speaker 1: about the faith tradition you grew up in, and also

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Speaker 1: how inclusive it was of others. I grew up in

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Speaker 1: a blended family of multiple faiths, and it made me

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Speaker 1: more curious about other people and how they live. And

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Speaker 1: I wonder, how do you think you and this skips

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Speaker 1: ahead a bit from childhood, but how do you think

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Speaker 1: you reconcile the way, especially that we see now faith

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Speaker 1: being so weaponized for harm. I balk at the news

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Speaker 1: very often with you know, quote religious leaders who are

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Speaker 1: using faith as a as a battering ram or or

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Speaker 1: really bastardizing faith to do so and to harm communities

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Speaker 1: and to so division, and and I think about how

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Speaker 1: it happens now, and it's you know, early and you

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Speaker 1: talk about your dad in the eighties gathering with other

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Speaker 1: faith leaders, your your father standing at the front of protests,

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Speaker 1: talking about the validity and necessity of and for representation

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Speaker 1: for communities. Um be it in policy or in holiday displays.

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Speaker 1: It all matters, you know, to us and for us.

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Speaker 1: And I just wonder, as a person of faith yourself,

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Speaker 1: how do you make sure that the space is that

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Speaker 1: you know you show up in and you worship in

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Speaker 1: a are leaning into the the honesty of it, the

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Speaker 1: light of it. What do you say for the people

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Speaker 1: who are not you know, you grow up in an

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Speaker 1: institution like the Black Church, because we both recognize the

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Speaker 1: Black Church as a place of faithfulness but also a

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Speaker 1: place of fortitude that institutionally birth leaders, housed, movements, protected organizers.

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Speaker 1: When you grow up in that institution, it is easy

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Speaker 1: to think of the function of faith purely socially. But

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Speaker 1: the other thing that happens when you grow up in

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Speaker 1: this tradition is that you sit with a lot of

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Speaker 1: your elders. There's a time in the Baptist Church that

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Speaker 1: I grew up in where you would before service would

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Speaker 1: actually begin, there was a time of devotion. So devotional

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Speaker 1: service was like it was all the elders, because you know,

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Speaker 1: it would be super early, so they were up out.

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Speaker 1: You know, the young folks were dragon, but they'd be

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Speaker 1: up and they would sing some of these old hymns.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes they'd even pull out a spiritual and they would

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Speaker 1: have testimony service. So testimonies you get on the mic

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Speaker 1: and you're talking about just how good God has been.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things I used to hear, one

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Speaker 1: of the refrains I out here so often throughout my

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Speaker 1: church experience, but especially in devotional service, was that you've

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Speaker 1: got to know God for yourself, that you got to

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Speaker 1: know Jesus for yourself. Then when it comes to that,

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Speaker 1: as our people say that great getting up morning, when

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Speaker 1: you are standing at the pearly gates, no one can

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Speaker 1: answer for you but you. So if you do not

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Speaker 1: have a personal relationship, then you can do all the

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Speaker 1: right things out in the world and engage in all

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Speaker 1: of the justice work, but without the relationship, you're lost.

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Speaker 1: And because that is true to my faith tradition, and

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Speaker 1: because my parents were just as committed to making sure

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Speaker 1: we practiced our faith out in the world as much

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Speaker 1: as we did in that personal relationship, forcing myself to

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Speaker 1: truly read the book the Instruction Manual to actually no

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Speaker 1: scripture for myself to have a prayer life of my

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Speaker 1: own too, not be somebody who just has an unquestioning faith,

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Speaker 1: but rather somebody who wants to dig into all of

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Speaker 1: the history and the etymology and what is the original

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Speaker 1: Hebrew say, What does the Greek say? Like I want

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Speaker 1: to know where this came from? What was the context

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Speaker 1: of the time. Is the modern translation of this correct?

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Speaker 1: Or we totally misunderstanding this thing when we talk about

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Speaker 1: everything from what's an abomination to what's not, to how

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Speaker 1: husbands and wives should and all of that stuff. How

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Speaker 1: much of that stuff has been put through hundreds of

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Speaker 1: years of other people's filters. If I go back to

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Speaker 1: it myself and engage in the relational conversation of saying,

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Speaker 1: what does this mean? And what does this mean for

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Speaker 1: my life? If I go back to the Instruction Manual

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Speaker 1: and the example of the main character of Jesus Christ,

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Speaker 1: not just the central person in the story, but the

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Speaker 1: character of Christ. The character of Christ is love, the

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Speaker 1: character of Christ is justice. The character of Christ is

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Speaker 1: actually questioning and opposing oppressive state practices. That is why

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Speaker 1: the state killed him. Right. The character of Christ is redemption.

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Speaker 1: The character of Christ is is not a false hope

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Speaker 1: or unity, but hoping unity that is grounded in real equity.

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Speaker 1: The character of Christ is justice. So when you get

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Speaker 1: back to the instruction manual and the main character's main character,

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Speaker 1: it is impossible to operate the way that so many,

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Speaker 1: shall we say, Christian conservatives are if you're actually honest

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Speaker 1: with yourself about what is on paper in front of

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Speaker 1: you and the relationship that you are led to have.

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Speaker 1: This is not a capitalist, it's not a white guy.

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Speaker 1: It's not somebody who hated immigrants. It's not somebody who

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Speaker 1: hated LGBTQ folks. It's not somebody who hated women. It's

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Speaker 1: not somebody who hated brown and black people. It is

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Speaker 1: somebody who actually spent almost all of his time with

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Speaker 1: those folks exclusively. And so when I marry that with

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Speaker 1: kind of the the the scholarly and academic underpinning that

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Speaker 1: I was raised with, you know, you read somebody like

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Speaker 1: James Cone, who was the creator of Black liberation theology.

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Speaker 1: He recognizes that modern times are not at all the

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Speaker 1: first time that faith has been weaponized. You can go

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Speaker 1: back to ancient times all the way through today. You

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Speaker 1: can go from the Crusades to to the clan um,

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Speaker 1: to the invention of the anti choice movement. Um that

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Speaker 1: you can go to the ways in which enslavers withheld

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Speaker 1: certain books of the Bible from the enslaved because they

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Speaker 1: knew it would inspire revolution. You can go back to

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Speaker 1: all of that and decide to reject the man made

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Speaker 1: creation of God out of hand, because it does not match,

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Speaker 1: It does not jive with any creation story throughout history,

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Speaker 1: not the Christian Went, not the Judeo Christian Wan, not

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Speaker 1: any of them. And so when you're raised with somebody

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Speaker 1: with books of James Cone and you're you know, in

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Speaker 1: your your dad's bookshelf, you come quickly to realize that

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Speaker 1: liberation is not just for Heaven, it's for earth too.

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Speaker 1: And so for those folks who seem to be sorely mistaken,

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Speaker 1: the question is always when is the last time you

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Speaker 1: read the instruction manual? And when is the last time

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Speaker 1: you asked the main character about his character? Because it

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Speaker 1: can have been recent, otherwise you were talking to yourself

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Speaker 1: and you told us it was God. Mm hmmm, speak

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Speaker 1: on it. It makes me excited when we talk about

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Speaker 1: truth because that's what I think about here. And and

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Speaker 1: for me, a kid who you know, grew up with

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Speaker 1: Catholic family and Jewish family, needing to understand, to your point,

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Speaker 1: the root of these ideas. These are different faith traditions,

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Speaker 1: but they share root ideas. And then studying both of

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Speaker 1: those deeply made me then go and study Islam and

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Speaker 1: study Eastern philosophy, and I really I wanted to understand

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Speaker 1: what everybody believes. And when you talk about the core

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Speaker 1: of character, the root of all things being loved, that's

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Speaker 1: true whatever book he's reading. And the thing I'm always

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Speaker 1: so struck by is the propensity for man who had

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Speaker 1: You know, we all have like a little bit of

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Speaker 1: that lizard brain that's like rooted in scarcity and scared

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Speaker 1: we're not going to eat tonight. And like I think

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Speaker 1: about it like a little squirrel, like where's the next

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Speaker 1: acorn coming from? Kind of thing, because they just seem

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Speaker 1: so desperate and anxious all the time, those little animals.

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Speaker 1: And we step into those pitfall zones where we say, okay,

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Speaker 1: but we could serve this idea and maybe also make

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Speaker 1: this rule, maybe create a guarantee. And it's it's that,

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Speaker 1: it's those things that have over and over again, in

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Speaker 1: my estimation anyhow, been used to do harm. And and

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Speaker 1: I think that I'm sure you get this because there's

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Speaker 1: there's always the angry black woman trope, and there is

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Speaker 1: such a angry woman, you know, they use the word

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Speaker 1: social justice warrior like it's an insult. Why are you

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Speaker 1: so angry all the time? I think about it for

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Speaker 1: us as that kind of sacred rage that we've spoken about,

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Speaker 1: because rage is the response when truth is assaulted. Rage

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Speaker 1: is the response when someone or something someplace is harmed

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Speaker 1: for greed. And I think about it as an actual

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Speaker 1: manifestation of love. And so I'm curious, how do you

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Speaker 1: hold the ferocity of your fire for defense and justice

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Speaker 1: and truth and character, yeah, in the midst of what

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Speaker 1: can often come your way, because I would imagine that

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Speaker 1: when you become like a leader on black Twitter, you

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Speaker 1: also become a target of anger for some of the

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Speaker 1: people who don't want black women to not only seek

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Speaker 1: but realize the empowerment that they deserve. Like how do

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Speaker 1: you balance your your desire to defend the world with

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Speaker 1: what comes back your way as you do? So, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's so interesting, Brittany Cooper, my name's sake. Dr Brittney

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Speaker 1: Cooper would call it eloquent rage. Right. That is the

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Speaker 1: title of her incredible book. And I think it's interesting because,

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Speaker 1: especially in this current iteration of my life, the level

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Speaker 1: of visibility I have is not something I thought or chose. Right,

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Speaker 1: So I didn't desire to be I don't like the

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Speaker 1: word file or is but seen regularly by as many

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Speaker 1: people as I am now. But I don't want to

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Speaker 1: reject what God does, right, So the question is always

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Speaker 1: what do I do with it? How do I ensure

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Speaker 1: that the platform, the space, the exposure remains committed to

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Speaker 1: something bigger than me? Right? This is the constant theme,

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Speaker 1: And so it means being humble enough to recognize when

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Speaker 1: I'm actually not the voice that people need to hear,

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Speaker 1: and then actually what I need to be doing is

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Speaker 1: spotlighting somebody else's voice or backing out of the situation

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Speaker 1: or conversation completely so that I'm not a distraction, so

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Speaker 1: that I don't cannibalize the space and stuck up all

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Speaker 1: the air. And sometimes it is about letting the rage

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Speaker 1: breathe so that people are reminded that that is part

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Speaker 1: of the freedom struggle, because this life that flattens so

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Speaker 1: many of us into a single meme or platform or

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Speaker 1: quote or book or speech or viral clip. It is

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Speaker 1: intensely flattening for the people who have already been seen

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Speaker 1: and marginalized as one dimensional. Right, So black women were

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Speaker 1: already not allowed to express all of the dimensions of

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Speaker 1: ourselves lest we be a threat. Through that less our

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Speaker 1: confidence be threatening, our rage be threatening, our truth be threatening,

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Speaker 1: our joy be threatening um to a world order that

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Speaker 1: was never built to protect us. So some of it

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Speaker 1: is about letting the rage have oxygen, and like letting

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Speaker 1: that fire burn, to give other people permission to let

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Speaker 1: theirs burn, and to decide once and for all that

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Speaker 1: both the thing that I am saying is important and

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Speaker 1: worth being heard, and also the way that I will

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Speaker 1: naturally and innately say it matters too, that I don't

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Speaker 1: actually have to contort myself to fit into somebody's box

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Speaker 1: of what acceptable communication of this emotion will be. The

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Speaker 1: other thing, though, is that on on the complete other

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Speaker 1: side of that, is this the very razor thin line

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Speaker 1: between sacred and righteous rage and bitterness, because the latter

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Speaker 1: is enough to just make you quit entirely right, which

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Speaker 1: is like not and it's not when you you know this,

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Speaker 1: when you stand up and you say right things, true things,

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Speaker 1: whether it's in front of two people or two million people,

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Speaker 1: you know that there will be backlash, especially if you're

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Speaker 1: a woman, especially if you're a black woman, etcetera, etcetera. Um,

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Speaker 1: And so that that's one side of it. But there's

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Speaker 1: also this bitterness that says, I am I have something

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Speaker 1: to be enraged about all the time, that if I

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Speaker 1: read enough books and watch enough films and listen to

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Speaker 1: enough of my elders, there is something to be rageful

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Speaker 1: about every second of the day. And you know, we

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Speaker 1: we often quote James Baldwin when he talks about, you know,

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Speaker 1: to be a negro in this country is to be

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Speaker 1: in a rage and to be relatively conscious, to be

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Speaker 1: in a rage all the time, nearly all the time.

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Speaker 1: But people leave off the second half of that, and

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Speaker 1: he talks about the fact that living as a Negro

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Speaker 1: in this country, as a black person in this country,

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Speaker 1: is to learn how to not let that consume you,

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Speaker 1: because then it will convince you that it is the

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Speaker 1: not only the default position, but the only acceptable position.

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Speaker 1: And if that's the only acceptable position, then I am

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Speaker 1: limiting myself from experience and joy. I am limiting myself

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Speaker 1: from experiencing love and from showing love. Um, are there

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Speaker 1: things that trigger that limitation? Absolutely, most of those things exists,

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Speaker 1: exists outside of myself. But I owe it to my

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Speaker 1: ancestors to insistently make the choice to live in abundance

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Speaker 1: in all of the ways that they could not access

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Speaker 1: or that they had to do in secret and in hiding.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that it's it's a test every day.

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Speaker 1: It's a trial every day because there's, like I said,

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Speaker 1: always something to be enraged about, and if you are

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Speaker 1: paying attention at all, there is plenty that should be

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Speaker 1: making you angry. And I think that that staying on

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Speaker 1: the right side of the line between bitterness and sacred

432
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:37,439
Speaker 1: rage is making sure that I turned the rage into fuel.

433
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,159
Speaker 1: When I let it fester, it becomes bitterness. When I

434
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: use it to fuel something else, you know, it turns

435
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:46,880
Speaker 1: into energy. I love the visual that gives me when

436
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,439
Speaker 1: you say that that idea that if you can take

437
00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: what is a sane, an emotional, and very right reaction

438
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,399
Speaker 1: to the injustice that you witness and let it fuel

439
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: your act shin for better rather than just sit in

440
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: you and then essentially you know, poison you from the

441
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: inside out. I must say that one of my favorite

442
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: things about watching the way you move through the world

443
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: because I think about a lot of us who have

444
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 1: this little friend network that you know, bops around and

445
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 1: works on things together. We're very rarely in the same place,

446
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: and we have, you know, the sort of luxury now

447
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: of technology. Thank god, we didn't have it when we

448
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:30,680
Speaker 1: were twenty one and stupid, but we have it now

449
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 1: and and you know, we get to we get to

450
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: witness each other and and something that I love witnessing you, know,

451
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: as as your friend is your joy, I love that you,

452
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: as you lead you also offer these windows in I

453
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 1: am like the number one Nielsen viewer of newlywed and

454
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 1: quarantined You and Reggie, just like you send me the

455
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 1: two of you with the suns and the laughing, and

456
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: like you remind me that leaning into the loving relationships

457
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 1: in our lives and leaning into the joy is so

458
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 1: immensely important even in the face of whatever is happening

459
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: in the world. Um, because joy and love are acts

460
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: of resistance. And especially so you know, again this is

461
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: in my witnessing, not in my experience, but I feel

462
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: like I need to broken record this a little bit

463
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: for the from my fellow white people who are listening,

464
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: Like black joy is an act of resistance in a

465
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: world that is treating black people the way it does

466
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: and has treated black people for the way it has

467
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: for so long. And it's not lost on me when

468
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: I giggle and laugh and I'm like, oh, this is

469
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: a cute moment watching the two of you online, like

470
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,719
Speaker 1: singing a song. Are you like making fun of him

471
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 1: because he made some weird thing for dinner. I think

472
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: about like the root of of your love and the

473
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: obvious depth of it, and you know, I think about

474
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 1: you guys meeting at a protest, and I'm like, well,

475
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 1: of course you did, sure did. Can you give can

476
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 1: you give the listeners a little bit of the inside

477
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: baseball there? Because there I just loved the story and

478
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: I feel like everyone else should know the story of

479
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, my boot. You know, so Reggie and I,

480
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: like you said, met at a protest and the backdrop

481
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: is as enraging as so many of the other things

482
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: we've been talking about. So August Ferguson Police Department killed

483
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: Michael Brown Jr. For the next next six months there

484
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: was a police St. Louis Police department that killed another

485
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 1: black person six months straight. One of them was Von

486
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: Derrett Myers. Von Derrett Myers was killed in October, and

487
00:30:57,120 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: he was killed about half hour south of where Michael

488
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 1: Brown was. So I grew up in North St. Louis County,

489
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: which was near Ferguson. Reggie grew up in South City

490
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:10,520
Speaker 1: in St. Louis, which was near where vonder At Myers

491
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 1: was killed. So I was I was driving from work

492
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: to the new location of the protest because honestly, organizing

493
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: is at its best, is very mobile. So the protests

494
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: were just essentially moving from place to place. So I

495
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 1: didn't know the intersection where we were meeting where um

496
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 1: Von Darrett had been killed. And so I called up

497
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who's already over there. I'm like, hey,

498
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,120
Speaker 1: where am I coming? My friend is not from St. Louis,

499
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: I just know he's there. So he goes hold on

500
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: one second, passes the phone to a complete and total stranger.

501
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: The stranger goes hello, and I'm like, Hi, this is Brittany,

502
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: and I have no ideas a stranger, so I'm just

503
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 1: saying where am I supposed to go, and he's like, okay,

504
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: well we're at the corner of Sean Clem. There should

505
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 1: be parking on Shaw or Clem, the cross street where

506
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 1: you know. So he gives me a description. He says, well,

507
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: you know, I'll hold on the phone while you park.

508
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: Just really nice. So he holds on the phone and

509
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: I start waving at park and I start waving to

510
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: this complete stranger who's waving back at me, and so

511
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: he introduces himself. He's like, Hi, I'm Reggie. He walks

512
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 1: me down to where everybody is. We get back and

513
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:29,719
Speaker 1: I realized he does not know my friend. I was like,

514
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: so you were just the kind stranger that didn't take

515
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: the phone, the brand new iPhone and walk away. We

516
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 1: think you like waited for me, and blah blah blah.

517
00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: We get down there and realize that we have a

518
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: bunch of people in common, and so a bunch of

519
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: my friends that I'm down there to meet. He's also

520
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 1: come to meet up with them. And what formed was

521
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: this kind of family of us who were together every

522
00:32:54,440 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: single day for months, practically years. Our friend Leon was

523
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:02,880
Speaker 1: a part of that family. He was in the wedding.

524
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: Our friend Kayla is a part of the family. She

525
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 1: was at the wedding, and so we were. We were

526
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: friends for like two years, and then ultimately, when we

527
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 1: were both single at the time, decided to start dating

528
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: because a good friend of ours got in our business.

529
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 1: We were sitting on our couch and she she was

530
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: with her husband and their new baby at the time,

531
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: and she goes, she looks at us and goes, well,

532
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: why are you to not dating? So a couple of

533
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: months passed by, and I will tell the true story

534
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: because he always laughed at me when I don't. I

535
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 1: sent up a test balloon, and I sent up a

536
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 1: floor takes text message to see like how he would

537
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 1: respond and the rest. As they say in this three

538
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:46,720
Speaker 1: but we um it's God is funny because and the

539
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: more we started to get to know each other, the

540
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: more we realized how many people in places we had

541
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 1: in common. I grew up in church with his godparents.

542
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 1: The girl he dated all throughout high school was a

543
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: friend of mine. We have so we were we realized

544
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 1: we were at certain events at the same time and

545
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: had never met until it was time for us to

546
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: meet and to build this friendship of you know, joy

547
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:15,320
Speaker 1: and love and black power and beauty, and I am

548
00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: so grateful, and I just I say all the time,

549
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: I really hope everyone has the opportunity to be loved

550
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: like this, like whether it comes from a parent or

551
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 1: a friend, or a romantic partner or a community. The

552
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:36,239
Speaker 1: kind of love that you get to um grow in

553
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 1: instead of falling, and the kind of love that allows

554
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 1: you allows you to be your full self while also

555
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 1: pushing you to be your best self and never judges

556
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: you no matter which one you are that day. That

557
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:53,759
Speaker 1: is what everybody deserves. And the kind of revolution that

558
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: black love is, to your point, is um not something

559
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 1: that's ever lost in US. So we got married at

560
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 1: a place called Studio B in New Orleans, which is

561
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: our favorite city, and our friend B Mike is an

562
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:07,319
Speaker 1: artist who converted this massive warehouse into this space full

563
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: of black art. So we got married between these two

564
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: I mean like twenty foot paintings of Martin Luther King

565
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 1: and Karata Scott King that say love Supreme. We got

566
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: married a block over from where Homer Plessy was arrested

567
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:26,239
Speaker 1: for trying to integrate that train car that led to

568
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 1: the Separate but Equal doctrine in this country. So we

569
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 1: second lined past the place of our greatest oppression, you know,

570
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 1: full of like black tradition and hope and power and

571
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 1: joy and like, you know, I think of the fact

572
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 1: that our enslave ancestors had to get married, you know,

573
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: sometimes in the dead of night, that that they would

574
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: find themselves sold off from one another and the families

575
00:35:55,400 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 1: that they built that um, the kind of economic oppression

576
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: that has occurred in this country was in part executed

577
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,840
Speaker 1: by discouraging black women from having men in the homes.

578
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:11,840
Speaker 1: Um by the kind of separation that we've seen in

579
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 1: our communities. Because so many of our people have been

580
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: incarcerated or um, you know, taken out by the state.

581
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:25,880
Speaker 1: There is a resistance present and black love always in America,

582
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 1: because it literally wasn't supposed to exist. It's the thing

583
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: that fuels us. The joy of it makes like makes

584
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 1: my heart feel full. And I think about, you know,

585
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: the backdrop of it, the the it was meant to

586
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 1: be energy of it, right and and we can recognize that.

587
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:50,359
Speaker 1: I think in some of our you know, closest friendships,

588
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 1: the bridges we build as activists, the love when we're

589
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: lucky to find in those moments, and I think about

590
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 1: this backdrop of of your relationship literally as the city,

591
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: you know, being in St. Louis, as the uprising as

592
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: it was called in Ferguson. And when you talk about

593
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: the months of protests, and when you mentioned organizing, I

594
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,359
Speaker 1: would love for you to tell the listeners who may

595
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 1: not know the specifics of your background, a little bit

596
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:30,240
Speaker 1: about what that means being an organizer. You you helped

597
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 1: lead those protests for months, You helped inform the world

598
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: for months about what was really happening. And we are

599
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 1: in a moment now, you know, six seven years later,

600
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:50,440
Speaker 1: when the world is interrogating itself, where we are having

601
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 1: frank conversations about state sanctioned violence and oppression, and and

602
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: it has been time, it's far overdue for this, but

603
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: I'm I'm curious because of what's happening now if you

604
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:10,279
Speaker 1: can give people some of the backstory, because a lot

605
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: of people don't know what it's taken to get us here.

606
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:21,800
Speaker 1: I mean, the backstory begins in community. And I always

607
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: lead that way because we know that human nature is

608
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:31,240
Speaker 1: to attach everything to a certain name or a certain

609
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:34,719
Speaker 1: group of names, um and to narrow the scope of

610
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 1: who did what. And I think it is always important

611
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 1: two stay upfront and stay out loud, that there are

612
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,719
Speaker 1: thousands of people in this seat with me right, and

613
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: that there are thousands of people who could have been

614
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 1: in this seat instead of me, and who still should be.

615
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: Because so much of that was organic, and so much

616
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: of it was also deeply disciplined and informed. What was

617
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 1: organic was again this kind of sacred rage that spread

618
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: very quickly among groups of people who previously were not

619
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:14,240
Speaker 1: necessarily connected, but we found our way to one another.

620
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: What was also deeply organic was a sense of family

621
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 1: that when you grow up in the Midwest, especially when

622
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,799
Speaker 1: most of your people migrated from the South, there is

623
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 1: a commitment that we make to one another. There is

624
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: a sense of hospitality in everything that we do. We

625
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 1: I think a place like St. Louis, and especially the

626
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:43,839
Speaker 1: activism and organizing community within St. Louis, is a place

627
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: that really exemplifies that. Gwendoline Bond poem when she talks

628
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 1: about us being each other's magnitude and bond that we

629
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 1: are for each other because we are each other, and

630
00:39:55,719 --> 00:40:01,759
Speaker 1: there was an instant understanding of connectivity um even when

631
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: we didn't get it all right, even when we made mistakes,

632
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:09,880
Speaker 1: even when we made mistakes that hurt one another. For me,

633
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 1: I always experienced a return to what we owe one

634
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 1: another and I and and there. To do that across hundreds,

635
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:24,040
Speaker 1: if not thousands of people for months is no small task,

636
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 1: which brings me to the discipline of it all. The

637
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 1: good news is that in a place like St. Louis,

638
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:32,399
Speaker 1: you had people who have been You have people who

639
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:36,760
Speaker 1: have been doing organizing work for decades, people like Jamala Rodgers,

640
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 1: people like Percy Green, who is very famous for scaling

641
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 1: the St. Louis Arch when it was being built and

642
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,759
Speaker 1: chaining himself up there to protest the lack of black

643
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 1: construction workers and suppliers and contractors that were being hired

644
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: for that, I mean, the most massive job on that

645
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:58,759
Speaker 1: side of the Mississippi at that time. So um, you know,

646
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:03,760
Speaker 1: you got this kind very storied legacy of freedom fighters

647
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 1: and people who were still around to help show us

648
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: some of the blueprint. And then you also had, you know,

649
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 1: kind of the leaders of the New School tef PO

650
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:16,839
Speaker 1: Kayla Dereka Parnell whose book on prison abolition is coming

651
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 1: out soon, people who had been doing lots of work

652
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:24,280
Speaker 1: in lots of different spaces. And then we all found

653
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 1: ourselves at one ground zero, and so folks got in

654
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,759
Speaker 1: where they fit in, right. Kayla is one of the

655
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: most creative organizers I've ever met, and when she took

656
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 1: a chance that we used on the ground, we used

657
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:41,719
Speaker 1: to say to the police, they think it's a game,

658
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:44,919
Speaker 1: they think it's a joke. And she sent everybody out

659
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 1: to literally come back with games, jump rope, sidewalk chalk

660
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 1: uh you know, um jack's like all of it. And

661
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: there was a street shutdown, but when you looked at

662
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: the street being shut down, everybody was playing games. So

663
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 1: they're the images of these like black teenagers teaching this

664
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 1: white grandmother double Dutch, and they're all engaging in this

665
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 1: beautiful act of creative resistance. The police were completely dumbfounded,

666
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:12,320
Speaker 1: especially because they thought the protest was going to be

667
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: somewhere else, which is a whole another story, but like,

668
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 1: that's the kind of brilliance that comes from people like

669
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:18,879
Speaker 1: Kayla and the folks in St. Louis. When I think

670
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:22,320
Speaker 1: about Cat Daniels, who is a chef and an organizer

671
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 1: in her own right, she runs the organization Pop Bangers

672
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 1: in St. Louis, which supports housing insecure folks and gives

673
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 1: them skill and resources. Mama Cat was our our chef,

674
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: our family chef. So like the holiday meals and the

675
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 1: food that everybody ate when it was two am and

676
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,720
Speaker 1: we people were still outside of the police department like that,

677
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: that was Mama Cat getting and where she fit in.

678
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: And she was not just giving people sustenance, but she

679
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 1: was giving people love that sustained all of us, right,

680
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 1: And so those early days were a lot of that.

681
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: And it was when I say those early days, I'm

682
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: literally talking about over four hundred consecutive days of discipline

683
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: direct action, which makes the Ferguson Uprising the longest direct

684
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 1: social action campaign in this country's history. It's longer than

685
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:16,759
Speaker 1: the Montgomery bus boycott. But because it was being reported

686
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 1: like we were nothing but shiftless thugs who were looting

687
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:26,799
Speaker 1: whatever and writing this, and people took that story as

688
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 1: truth instead of remembering that we should question everything. And

689
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 1: so there were times that I was leading from the front,

690
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: and I helped make sure that activists and organizer voice

691
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:43,879
Speaker 1: was in places like the Ferguson Commission. Um. There there

692
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 1: were times that I was leading from the back because

693
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:49,239
Speaker 1: I was the one bailing people out of jail. Um

694
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 1: or you know, running the meetings or writing what we

695
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: were calling these Ferguson open letters from from protesters that

696
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 1: we would published worldwide. I was kind of the ghostwriter

697
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:00,839
Speaker 1: on these, or I'd get thought from people and put

698
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 1: them all together and we would put these these letters

699
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 1: out to make sure that the story was being told

700
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: from the ground with accuracy and with care. And so

701
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: I stand is one of like I said, thousands of

702
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: people who made the world pay attention to Michael Brown Jr.

703
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:21,359
Speaker 1: To Ferguson, to fly over country where plenty of black

704
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:27,400
Speaker 1: folks living get forgotten about, but also to the expectation

705
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 1: of democracy that if we give you authority in governance

706
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:38,720
Speaker 1: and public service, than what you owe us in return

707
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: is justice. And if there's no justice, there will be

708
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 1: no peace. So we would not have been where we

709
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:51,440
Speaker 1: are right now. We would not have been where we

710
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: were last summer with George Floyd and Brianna Taylor protests.

711
00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 1: We would not be more expansively talking about how police

712
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 1: violence impacts black women and disabled people and LGBTQ people

713
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 1: and Muslims. We would not be in a place where

714
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 1: you can hear voices like mine regularly on a podcast

715
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 1: or on a News channel instead of us tuning in

716
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 1: to watching everybody report the story wrong. We would not

717
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: be at the point where people are buying books about

718
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:25,400
Speaker 1: abolition written by the folks who are helping, you know,

719
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: lead the new school on it, who were on the

720
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:31,279
Speaker 1: ground in Ferguson, like Derrika, We would not be at

721
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 1: that point had courageous, brave young people done with my

722
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 1: friend Steph and Bradley says in saving American democracy once

723
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 1: again and reminding this country of her responsibility to all

724
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 1: of us. Because let's be clear, there was a lull.

725
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: There was a time when lots of us were fighting,

726
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 1: but we were we were doing work in silos, we

727
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:54,799
Speaker 1: were not deeply connected, and where some of us had

728
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:56,520
Speaker 1: gotten a little comfortable because we were like, there's a

729
00:45:56,520 --> 00:45:59,759
Speaker 1: black guy in the White House, you know. We we

730
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:02,319
Speaker 1: we got some good things passed when the Democrats were

731
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: still in control of Congress, and so all is well

732
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 1: in the world. No, all is not well in the world.

733
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 1: And I think that Ferguson not only woke a lot

734
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,879
Speaker 1: of people up who are deeper in the fight now

735
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:18,160
Speaker 1: than they would have been without Without it, there is

736
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 1: also a language and an imagination that we are willing

737
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 1: to access now because that work has been put in

738
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 1: for the last several decades, but especially the last several years. Yeah,

739
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:35,839
Speaker 1: I think connecting those histories, looking as you mentioned, at

740
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: the generations of work that got us here, and then

741
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 1: looking at the work happening within our own generation that

742
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,960
Speaker 1: has shifted this present time forward. It did get easy

743
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: to think, oh, that bill was passed, Oh we got

744
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: this person elected. Oh look at the progress. We can relax.

745
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 1: But what what the last decade has taught me is

746
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 1: that progress can only happen and at the very minimum

747
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 1: be maintained when we are vigilant about continuing to hold

748
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 1: the line. Yeah, and that that just feels like a

749
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 1: a level of a new operating procedure for us as

750
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: a collective, as you mentioned, to understand and then to

751
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: move forward from. And I'm curious, you know you you

752
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: mentioned coverage, and I remember just you want to talk

753
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 1: about It wasn't even sacred rage. This was like bitter rage.

754
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:35,280
Speaker 1: This was not cute getting home getting home from days

755
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:40,240
Speaker 1: of protest here in l a Um this summer when

756
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: you know, not only in America but around the world,

757
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 1: people took to the streets because of George Floyd because

758
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:52,760
Speaker 1: of Brianna Taylor, and it was such a beautiful moment

759
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 1: to witness. And I came home from a beautiful day

760
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: of protesting and I watched the news that made the

761
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 1: protest I was at look like a war zone, and

762
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 1: I was like, what is this? And they were like

763
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:10,480
Speaker 1: the same three shots and they just kept showing the

764
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:12,480
Speaker 1: same three shots, and they didn't talk about the fact

765
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:15,440
Speaker 1: that people were in the street like chanting and singing.

766
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 1: There was just like a car that got set on

767
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:20,319
Speaker 1: fire on a corner and that's all that was on

768
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:24,799
Speaker 1: TV all night. And I'm flipping through the channels, and

769
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 1: you know, here's here's me being a human sort of

770
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:29,440
Speaker 1: having a version of an expectation because I know what

771
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 1: Fox is going to show. But I'm watching CNN do

772
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 1: the same thing. And I'm like saying, like screaming at

773
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: the TV. I'm like, where's Anderson Cooper. He's not on,

774
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 1: you know, but I just was like, what is how

775
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:45,919
Speaker 1: could you? You know, I'm so upset. And I think

776
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 1: about the many arenas in which you are an expert

777
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:53,720
Speaker 1: as an organizer on the ground in movements in real time.

778
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 1: You mentioned, you know, being a fellow at Harvard's Institute

779
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:02,760
Speaker 1: of Politics, Politics and journalism, and the coverage of movements,

780
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:07,320
Speaker 1: those things are all so intertwined. How do you think

781
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:11,719
Speaker 1: as a consultant, as someone who has advised students and

782
00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: who has worked on institutional strategy and social change and

783
00:49:15,120 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: policy with them with a president and when we talk

784
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 1: about our forever forty four you know, definitely not definitely, No.

785
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 1: Forty five wouldn't have let either of us anywhere near

786
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: the building. It's great. I didn't want to go anyway.

787
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:32,400
Speaker 1: I was full Megan Rapino in those years. I was like,

788
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 1: I'm not going on the um. But I'm really curious,

789
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:43,840
Speaker 1: how do you think we, as a group of constituents

790
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: could or might change the way coverage exists? Because the

791
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:54,320
Speaker 1: coverage made Ferguson look like a riot and it wasn't.

792
00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:59,839
Speaker 1: The coverage made the Fairfax protest look like a war

793
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: zone and it wasn't. I'm like, I have photos and

794
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:05,799
Speaker 1: videos to prove it in my own phone, as you

795
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: do in your own phone of Ferguson. So what what

796
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 1: do you see as an opportunity for us to call

797
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: for or demand more honest coverage in terms of these

798
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:25,399
Speaker 1: social structures that need examining how do we examine them

799
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:28,320
Speaker 1: if our if our protesting, if are asking for better

800
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:32,319
Speaker 1: is constantly demonized. I think that's some of it is

801
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:35,080
Speaker 1: to do exactly what we're doing right now, right to

802
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 1: seize the opportunity of an increasingly democratized airwave, not completely,

803
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 1: but increasingly with social media, with new media like podcasts,

804
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:55,840
Speaker 1: with platforms that allow us to operate unfiltered. Because here's

805
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:59,319
Speaker 1: the thing, people who met us harm are definitely using

806
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:03,920
Speaker 1: those spaces, right, Like people are definitely getting radicalized on

807
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,759
Speaker 1: YouTube people I have. I have an activist friend right

808
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: now who's getting attacked because of a video somebody made

809
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:11,399
Speaker 1: of her on YouTube, right, and we're trying to get

810
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:16,280
Speaker 1: that handled. You know, people are definitely being radicalized and

811
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:22,279
Speaker 1: and or suppressed over social media. Right. We watched all

812
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:28,279
Speaker 1: of that happen in both and again in so we

813
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 1: have to recognize the power of the tool and be

814
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:32,640
Speaker 1: determined to be the ones who use it for good

815
00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 1: and not for evil, which means having a higher standard

816
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 1: than the platform will make will force us to have. Right,

817
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:44,799
Speaker 1: we have to have a higher standard than any podcast

818
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:48,879
Speaker 1: platform would require. Because if Ben Shapiro can have a show,

819
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:52,840
Speaker 1: the bar is not that high, right. We we have

820
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 1: to have a higher standard for what we tweat, for

821
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:57,799
Speaker 1: what we post, for what we share, for what we disseminate,

822
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 1: and hold ourselves to that to that standard, hold one

823
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: another lovingly to that standard. So that's the first thing.

824
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:07,200
Speaker 1: The second thing, though, I think, is to be increasingly

825
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:12,359
Speaker 1: creative about how we build our own tables. So I

826
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: am glad that I get to get on MSNBC and

827
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 1: help people make sense of what is happening in the world,

828
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:26,320
Speaker 1: because I know in seven years ago I did not

829
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:28,759
Speaker 1: not only did I barely see anybody who looked like

830
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:31,720
Speaker 1: me on those airwaves, I certainly was not seeing most

831
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:35,880
Speaker 1: people with my lived experience, right, not mostly not people

832
00:52:35,880 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 1: who had ever committed any time to being in the

833
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: streets with people, not people who you know. For months

834
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:45,440
Speaker 1: and years, this was all we did. And so even

835
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:50,319
Speaker 1: recognizing that some of my own work has changed, right, So, yes,

836
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:51,920
Speaker 1: I have been on the ground and done all of

837
00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 1: these things, and sometimes I am in the background doing

838
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:56,080
Speaker 1: that stuff, but more often than not, I am actually

839
00:52:56,160 --> 00:52:58,919
Speaker 1: the amplifier of those folks. I am the people making

840
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:00,880
Speaker 1: I'm the person making sure that those people stories are

841
00:53:00,880 --> 00:53:04,399
Speaker 1: getting told and how important is it to make sure

842
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:08,319
Speaker 1: that people with that lived experience and that perspective are

843
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:12,040
Speaker 1: not just on the streets, but they're hosting shows, and

844
00:53:12,080 --> 00:53:16,120
Speaker 1: they're building production companies, and they are advising writer's rooms,

845
00:53:16,200 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 1: and they are throwing elbows and all of these places

846
00:53:19,640 --> 00:53:22,680
Speaker 1: where people want to put on the same five activists

847
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:25,439
Speaker 1: for any issue every single time and saying, actually, don't

848
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:27,879
Speaker 1: put me on air, put this person on here, right.

849
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 1: I want folks like that in the streets and behind

850
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:36,200
Speaker 1: the scenes, literally everywhere there is to be And the

851
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:40,320
Speaker 1: more we can build those tables for ourselves, the better.

852
00:53:40,719 --> 00:53:42,440
Speaker 1: So I look at what you're doing. I look at

853
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:44,759
Speaker 1: whatsa Ray is doing. I mean, I look at what

854
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:48,839
Speaker 1: Robin Feedie is doing. It just there's a there's so

855
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 1: much power in deciding to say the stories have to

856
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:55,799
Speaker 1: be told, and not only will we be the ones

857
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:58,520
Speaker 1: to tell them, but we will make sure that we

858
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 1: run the whole thing so that we can always check

859
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:03,400
Speaker 1: that the story is right, no matter who's telling you.

860
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:05,120
Speaker 1: We can always make sure that people are getting paid

861
00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:07,239
Speaker 1: the way that they should be getting paid, fairly and

862
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:10,320
Speaker 1: equitably um, and that the kind of ownership that we

863
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,440
Speaker 1: should all experience over our stories is real, and that

864
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 1: we haven't just given them away to this publisher, to

865
00:54:16,120 --> 00:54:19,920
Speaker 1: that company, or to that platform, because there's not gonna

866
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:24,520
Speaker 1: be a time when our messages are ever fully comfortable

867
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:28,960
Speaker 1: for everyone. That is the nature of choosing to go

868
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:33,040
Speaker 1: against the grain. So we should disavow ourselves with the

869
00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:36,440
Speaker 1: notion that we are ever going to be fully accepted

870
00:54:37,040 --> 00:54:39,680
Speaker 1: in all those spaces. And when you get over that,

871
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to say, oh no, I'm just

872
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 1: gonna go build my own I'm gonna stop trying to

873
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:47,839
Speaker 1: claw at this thing that does not want me. I'm

874
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 1: going to go build my own space and make the

875
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:53,440
Speaker 1: other folks who felt unwanted feel wanted. I think the

876
00:54:53,560 --> 00:54:56,240
Speaker 1: idea of building new spaces makes me feel so excited,

877
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:59,280
Speaker 1: and the idea of democratizing the spaces that, to your point,

878
00:54:59,800 --> 00:55:03,759
Speaker 1: we often find ourselves in feels so important. And you

879
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:06,960
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that you now are a regular

880
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:10,320
Speaker 1: commentator on MSNBC. Love to see it, and we know

881
00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:13,240
Speaker 1: that I'm like turned on, like there she is, and

882
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 1: I'm always so thrilled to hear what you have to say,

883
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 1: and at the frequency with which you suggest other people's

884
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:24,200
Speaker 1: knowledge and resources. I mean, even on this podcast, I'm

885
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:27,279
Speaker 1: already seeing the Instagram story for the episode with all

886
00:55:27,320 --> 00:55:28,920
Speaker 1: the swipe ups to all the books and all the

887
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:32,600
Speaker 1: articles you mentioned, and I'm stoked about it. And and

888
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 1: I wonder, you know, when you think about your own

889
00:55:35,080 --> 00:55:38,879
Speaker 1: through line, starting as a teacher, you know, being part

890
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:43,480
Speaker 1: of t f A, coming to leading at the Institute

891
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 1: of Politics at Harvard, teaching students there, giving a TED talk.

892
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:54,759
Speaker 1: You have taken up space and given people simply by

893
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:58,360
Speaker 1: existing the inspiration to do the same. You have reminded

894
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:01,520
Speaker 1: other women that they can do the same. And you know,

895
00:56:01,920 --> 00:56:04,640
Speaker 1: I got to come visit you when you were at Harvard.

896
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:09,600
Speaker 1: That was still one of the most attended Institute of

897
00:56:09,680 --> 00:56:14,200
Speaker 1: Politics study groups of all time. People were standing on

898
00:56:14,239 --> 00:56:16,320
Speaker 1: the walls. Do you remember. It was so great? It

899
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 1: was such a great day. It was you and Simone Sanders,

900
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:20,960
Speaker 1: and my mom was there, and my god, it was

901
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:26,040
Speaker 1: just a great day, so so great, And honestly, I

902
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:28,840
Speaker 1: had this weird, sort of not weird, I had this

903
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:32,959
Speaker 1: really emotional kind of um dual experience that day because

904
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 1: I was so honored that you'd asked me to come

905
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 1: and you know, speak with you to your class, and

906
00:56:37,040 --> 00:56:39,640
Speaker 1: I was like sitting there feeling like a cheerleader, be like,

907
00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 1: look at my friend running Harvard. It was like, so

908
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:46,640
Speaker 1: it was so amazing. You know when you talk about

909
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:48,799
Speaker 1: like everything makes you cry, I'm like a misty eyed

910
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:54,799
Speaker 1: about it. How how have you made your way into

911
00:56:54,880 --> 00:57:00,040
Speaker 1: those spaces? What intention did you carry into Harvard with you?

912
00:56:59,840 --> 00:57:02,239
Speaker 1: You know, you you are a person who I know

913
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:08,800
Speaker 1: thinks about your impact and your legacy. And I wonder

914
00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:12,759
Speaker 1: what was happening in your mind as you took up

915
00:57:12,960 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 1: your fellowship at Harvard. What was happening in your mind

916
00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:18,880
Speaker 1: as you walked onto the Ted stage? You know? How

917
00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 1: how has that? I don't even know what my question is.

918
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:26,360
Speaker 1: I'm honestly just so, I'm like, I'm awe struck about it,

919
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:27,920
Speaker 1: and I just want to know what was going on

920
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 1: in your head? And it's kind of wild. What was

921
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:35,040
Speaker 1: going through my head when I first stept on campus

922
00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:39,080
Speaker 1: at Harvard? Was I got rejected from Harvard when I applied.

923
00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:44,880
Speaker 1: I went in two thousand two. When I graduated from

924
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:47,080
Speaker 1: high school. Harvard was one of the few schools I

925
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:50,520
Speaker 1: did knock get into. And you know, I'm standing there

926
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:53,320
Speaker 1: on my thirties thinking well, God does all things well, right,

927
00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 1: because the plan was not for me to go here.

928
00:57:55,360 --> 00:57:57,880
Speaker 1: The plan was for me to help teach here, which

929
00:57:57,960 --> 00:58:00,800
Speaker 1: is just I mean, I gotta stay ble on my

930
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:03,440
Speaker 1: mind and I love it keeping my my God feel

931
00:58:03,440 --> 00:58:08,360
Speaker 1: free anytime. But I also, you know, I go through

932
00:58:08,400 --> 00:58:13,560
Speaker 1: those moments of severe self doubt and worry if if

933
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:16,040
Speaker 1: I will be enough. You talk about walking out of

934
00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:19,520
Speaker 1: the TED stage. My rehearsal the day before was terrible.

935
00:58:19,920 --> 00:58:22,560
Speaker 1: I could not remember anything I was supposed to say.

936
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 1: And I don't know if we've talked about this. I

937
00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:27,600
Speaker 1: grew up doing theater, so the idea of memorizing lines

938
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:29,880
Speaker 1: was not actually intimidating to me, but I hadn't done

939
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:32,800
Speaker 1: it in so long. And they have these rehearsal spaces

940
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:35,520
Speaker 1: at TED where they have the red dot in the

941
00:58:35,600 --> 00:58:38,479
Speaker 1: room because they know that that actual carpet can freak

942
00:58:38,560 --> 00:58:40,480
Speaker 1: people out. So like, if you rehearse it and get

943
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 1: comfortable with the space will be easier when you go

944
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:46,000
Speaker 1: out on stage. So you do address rehearsal out on

945
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:49,000
Speaker 1: the stage, and like three fourths of the way into

946
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:51,320
Speaker 1: my speech, I completely blinked. So then I go into

947
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:53,160
Speaker 1: one of these rehearsal rooms with the big road dot

948
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:55,800
Speaker 1: on the floor with my speaker coach, and I'm still

949
00:58:55,880 --> 00:58:58,600
Speaker 1: just bombing it left and right. Like I was like,

950
00:58:58,640 --> 00:59:03,440
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous, But I just I had to re

951
00:59:03,680 --> 00:59:09,920
Speaker 1: center myself on purpose, right. I like to think. I

952
00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 1: like to remind myself all the time that we all

953
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:14,800
Speaker 1: have had a purpose before anyone had an opinion. And

954
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 1: then if I am here, it is for a reason.

955
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 1: And if I firmly believe, as I do, that that

956
00:59:20,560 --> 00:59:23,720
Speaker 1: reason is bigger than me, then it's not about being

957
00:59:23,800 --> 00:59:27,640
Speaker 1: intimidated because I'm too small for the moment. It's actually

958
00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:30,960
Speaker 1: about about being excited to be useful in this moment.

959
00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:33,640
Speaker 1: That I'm excited to be a vessel to communicate a

960
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:36,640
Speaker 1: message that maybe somebody can only get from me on

961
00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:38,560
Speaker 1: this day, at this time when they choose to press

962
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:41,360
Speaker 1: play on this ted talk right, that maybe this is

963
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:44,200
Speaker 1: something that you can only get from this class on

964
00:59:44,280 --> 00:59:47,440
Speaker 1: this day with this guest Sophia Bush, and that that's

965
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:48,920
Speaker 1: the way that you're going to get it. So let

966
00:59:48,920 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 1: me facilitate that space and be a vessel. Um. And

967
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:55,880
Speaker 1: when I really center myself, and I mean literally like

968
00:59:56,000 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 1: silence everything else, like I did. I barely left my

969
00:59:58,600 --> 01:00:00,200
Speaker 1: room the next day because I was just like, I

970
01:00:00,200 --> 01:00:02,880
Speaker 1: don't want too many outside inputs. I don't want to

971
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:04,880
Speaker 1: walk around beautiful Vancouver. I don't want to see all

972
01:00:04,880 --> 01:00:06,680
Speaker 1: my friends who were also here at the tech conference.

973
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:08,720
Speaker 1: I'll see them after the speech, but right now, I

974
01:00:08,760 --> 01:00:10,439
Speaker 1: just want to stay focused on what I am here

975
01:00:10,520 --> 01:00:13,480
Speaker 1: to do and how I am here to be helpful.

976
01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:16,120
Speaker 1: And then the last thing I think is I think

977
01:00:16,360 --> 01:00:19,960
Speaker 1: I think of our ancestors often. I can't talk about

978
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:22,480
Speaker 1: what I learned yet, but you know, I did an

979
01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:26,480
Speaker 1: episode of Finding Your Roots with Henry Lewis Gates Jr.

980
01:00:26,640 --> 01:00:29,040
Speaker 1: Which I'm already fan girling because it's skipped, and then

981
01:00:29,720 --> 01:00:32,200
Speaker 1: you know, we're like kicking about all of these things

982
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:34,480
Speaker 1: we have in common. And then he liked gives me

983
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:36,960
Speaker 1: all these revelations about my family that I could never

984
01:00:37,000 --> 01:00:39,840
Speaker 1: have found out any other way. So I can't tell

985
01:00:39,880 --> 01:00:41,720
Speaker 1: you exactly what I found out yet because the episode

986
01:00:41,720 --> 01:00:44,320
Speaker 1: doesn't air for a while, but I will tell you

987
01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 1: that I am more abundantly clear than ever about what

988
01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 1: I owe, about how much was sacrificed so that there

989
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:55,640
Speaker 1: could be blood running through my veins. And then I

990
01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:57,960
Speaker 1: could get the choice to be a vessel for something.

991
01:00:59,120 --> 01:01:02,640
Speaker 1: How many general rations of faithfulness existed so that I

992
01:01:02,680 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 1: can sit here and have a revelatory conversation with you

993
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 1: about the character of God right and how that translates

994
01:01:10,240 --> 01:01:13,400
Speaker 1: into justice movements. When you first go to Harvard as

995
01:01:13,400 --> 01:01:16,480
Speaker 1: a fellow, you spend a ton of time meeting with

996
01:01:17,080 --> 01:01:21,480
Speaker 1: every dignitary at the university and touring the university. And

997
01:01:21,560 --> 01:01:24,760
Speaker 1: the place that I really wanted to go was this

998
01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:27,800
Speaker 1: old yellow house right on the edge of main campus.

999
01:01:28,560 --> 01:01:32,960
Speaker 1: It is where university presidents used to live. It is now, Um,

1000
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:35,200
Speaker 1: I can't remember whose office is in there, but now

1001
01:01:35,240 --> 01:01:37,600
Speaker 1: one of the kind of top leaders at the university,

1002
01:01:37,680 --> 01:01:40,480
Speaker 1: their office is there. And I had been doing my

1003
01:01:40,560 --> 01:01:42,479
Speaker 1: research before I said guess to Harvard, because I wanted

1004
01:01:42,520 --> 01:01:44,520
Speaker 1: to make sure that they had at least started reckoning

1005
01:01:44,560 --> 01:01:48,760
Speaker 1: with their own entanglements with enslavement, right, and they're they're

1006
01:01:48,920 --> 01:01:53,960
Speaker 1: the benefits that they had received from that system before

1007
01:01:53,960 --> 01:01:55,840
Speaker 1: I said yes. And so one of the things that

1008
01:01:55,880 --> 01:01:57,800
Speaker 1: discovered in that was they had been reckoning with that.

1009
01:01:57,880 --> 01:01:59,840
Speaker 1: And one of the things they had realized was at

1010
01:01:59,840 --> 01:02:01,760
Speaker 1: the house where the university of presidents used to live

1011
01:02:01,800 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 1: and also where George Washington lived for part of the

1012
01:02:04,160 --> 01:02:07,720
Speaker 1: time when he was actually planning the war. The two

1013
01:02:07,760 --> 01:02:11,920
Speaker 1: of those university presidents had enslaved people there that worked

1014
01:02:11,920 --> 01:02:14,360
Speaker 1: for them, And so there's a plaque on the outside

1015
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:17,200
Speaker 1: of that building that has all four of their names

1016
01:02:17,200 --> 01:02:21,400
Speaker 1: on it. And I'm the only black fellow my year.

1017
01:02:22,040 --> 01:02:24,240
Speaker 1: I'm actually I was the only fellow of color my year.

1018
01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:29,160
Speaker 1: I saw him walking into this, into this space, and

1019
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:32,480
Speaker 1: I so for you want to say, I was completely overcome.

1020
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:36,720
Speaker 1: I barely said anything in this meeting. And I'm a talker,

1021
01:02:36,760 --> 01:02:39,000
Speaker 1: as you are already know, I barely said anything in

1022
01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:43,440
Speaker 1: this meeting because I could literally not just feel their presence.

1023
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:45,760
Speaker 1: I felt like I could actually see them passing through

1024
01:02:45,800 --> 01:02:48,560
Speaker 1: the rooms. And I was too overcome to I know

1025
01:02:48,600 --> 01:02:53,000
Speaker 1: it sounds wild, but I was legitimately too overcome to

1026
01:02:53,640 --> 01:02:57,560
Speaker 1: say much of anything that had anything to do remotely

1027
01:02:57,600 --> 01:03:00,240
Speaker 1: with the Fellowship or you know, Harvard or whatever. I

1028
01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:04,240
Speaker 1: was just sitting there, completely overcome, and for the rest

1029
01:03:04,280 --> 01:03:07,360
Speaker 1: of the day, every time I saw a black student

1030
01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:11,680
Speaker 1: on campus, every time I saw a black person working there,

1031
01:03:11,880 --> 01:03:14,040
Speaker 1: every time I saw a black person leading a classroom,

1032
01:03:14,080 --> 01:03:15,680
Speaker 1: every time I sat down to my own desk and

1033
01:03:15,720 --> 01:03:19,760
Speaker 1: thought about what I wanted to craft my semester's worth

1034
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 1: of study groups around. I was overcome with the thought

1035
01:03:24,880 --> 01:03:28,800
Speaker 1: of what I owe. And you really don't get to

1036
01:03:28,800 --> 01:03:32,280
Speaker 1: shrink and be small in their presence. You really do

1037
01:03:32,400 --> 01:03:37,560
Speaker 1: not get to minimize yourself when they stood tall under

1038
01:03:37,640 --> 01:03:43,240
Speaker 1: the most inhumane circumstances so that bloodlines would survive, let

1039
01:03:43,240 --> 01:03:47,680
Speaker 1: alone thrive. Like I, I can't do that. I can't

1040
01:03:47,720 --> 01:03:53,600
Speaker 1: do that. So um yeah, I try to walk around

1041
01:03:53,600 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 1: with with the thought of what I owe and what

1042
01:03:57,440 --> 01:04:01,240
Speaker 1: I am privileged to be a vessel to do a day.

1043
01:04:01,520 --> 01:04:06,720
Speaker 1: Do you think that that sense of purpose gives you

1044
01:04:06,760 --> 01:04:09,880
Speaker 1: a well for confidence? Because that is what your TED

1045
01:04:09,920 --> 01:04:11,840
Speaker 1: talk is about. And it strikes me that when you

1046
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:14,400
Speaker 1: talk about getting on the TED stage, you know, all

1047
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:17,040
Speaker 1: laughter aside that the rehearsal on the talk on confidence

1048
01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:21,480
Speaker 1: was a mess because it was because it's perfect, but truly,

1049
01:04:21,520 --> 01:04:24,640
Speaker 1: you know, like I have chills listening to you tell

1050
01:04:24,680 --> 01:04:26,600
Speaker 1: that story about being in that yellow house on the

1051
01:04:26,600 --> 01:04:31,680
Speaker 1: Harvard campus, and I think about the deep like pulse.

1052
01:04:31,840 --> 01:04:35,240
Speaker 1: There's a vibration to the kind of purpose you're talking about.

1053
01:04:36,120 --> 01:04:40,200
Speaker 1: And and do you find that that clarity of purpose

1054
01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:49,240
Speaker 1: informs your confidence. Yeah, um, yes is the answer. But

1055
01:04:50,280 --> 01:04:53,440
Speaker 1: I still have to go back and find it right

1056
01:04:53,480 --> 01:04:56,400
Speaker 1: like it is, there's an active pursuit to do the

1057
01:04:56,480 --> 01:04:59,760
Speaker 1: kind of self talk that centers me in purpose. That

1058
01:04:59,840 --> 01:05:02,360
Speaker 1: were reminds me that guy's not gonna play me. That

1059
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:04,480
Speaker 1: reminds me, Okay, I did this hard thing. Before I

1060
01:05:04,480 --> 01:05:07,080
Speaker 1: can do this, I can do another hard thing. I

1061
01:05:07,160 --> 01:05:09,480
Speaker 1: actually have to go back and have that conversation with

1062
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:11,439
Speaker 1: myself again. I want to get to the point where

1063
01:05:11,480 --> 01:05:14,160
Speaker 1: it is innate, where it is habitual, where it flows

1064
01:05:14,240 --> 01:05:16,439
Speaker 1: through me so easily, I don't have to go through

1065
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:18,200
Speaker 1: the steps. But I'm still in a place where I

1066
01:05:18,240 --> 01:05:20,800
Speaker 1: have to go through the steps. And my my journey

1067
01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:24,240
Speaker 1: of confidence is not unlike a lot of marginalized people's

1068
01:05:24,280 --> 01:05:27,640
Speaker 1: journeys of confidence, especially because I was being educated and

1069
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:31,520
Speaker 1: predominantly white institutions. My parents, my mom in particular, had

1070
01:05:31,560 --> 01:05:35,040
Speaker 1: to make a you know the really I don't even

1071
01:05:35,080 --> 01:05:38,560
Speaker 1: want to say unfair choice because it's not really a choice,

1072
01:05:38,600 --> 01:05:42,280
Speaker 1: but she had to decide to send myself and my

1073
01:05:42,320 --> 01:05:44,760
Speaker 1: brother to schools that would educate us extremely well, but

1074
01:05:44,800 --> 01:05:48,240
Speaker 1: that she knew I would have the propensity to teach

1075
01:05:48,280 --> 01:05:51,680
Speaker 1: us to hate ourselves, and that this this false choice

1076
01:05:51,760 --> 01:05:55,400
Speaker 1: between sending a black child to a school where they

1077
01:05:55,440 --> 01:05:57,680
Speaker 1: may learn but not be loved, or sending them to

1078
01:05:57,680 --> 01:05:59,800
Speaker 1: a school where they'll be loved but they might not learn.

1079
01:06:00,760 --> 01:06:04,200
Speaker 1: That is the position that we put black parents, marginalized

1080
01:06:04,240 --> 01:06:07,640
Speaker 1: parents in every single day in this country. So between

1081
01:06:07,680 --> 01:06:11,520
Speaker 1: the scholarship money and you know, her her salary from

1082
01:06:11,560 --> 01:06:14,680
Speaker 1: the good job she had, the good jobs she had,

1083
01:06:15,320 --> 01:06:18,200
Speaker 1: we we went to private school, which meant fit this

1084
01:06:18,400 --> 01:06:22,000
Speaker 1: comparison that all adolescent young people do because you just

1085
01:06:22,040 --> 01:06:23,640
Speaker 1: want to fit in. That's all you want to do

1086
01:06:23,680 --> 01:06:26,960
Speaker 1: when you're thirteen is just fit in. While I'm looking

1087
01:06:27,000 --> 01:06:29,640
Speaker 1: around and my hormones are telling me to fit in,

1088
01:06:29,720 --> 01:06:31,440
Speaker 1: my brain is telling me to fit in, the media

1089
01:06:31,520 --> 01:06:33,320
Speaker 1: is telling me to fit in. Everything I'm consuming, You're

1090
01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:36,200
Speaker 1: telling me to fit in, and I don't. My hair

1091
01:06:36,320 --> 01:06:39,920
Speaker 1: is kinky, my hair is braided most of the time.

1092
01:06:40,720 --> 01:06:43,040
Speaker 1: You you know, the white boys don't want to take

1093
01:06:43,040 --> 01:06:46,360
Speaker 1: me home to meet their families. The black guys think

1094
01:06:47,280 --> 01:06:51,439
Speaker 1: act white like. Make this makes sense, right, um, And

1095
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:53,960
Speaker 1: so it did a number on me for a very

1096
01:06:54,000 --> 01:06:57,960
Speaker 1: long time. UM. As to be very clear, cultures and

1097
01:06:58,040 --> 01:07:01,400
Speaker 1: systems of white supremacy are designed to do. They're designed

1098
01:07:01,400 --> 01:07:06,080
Speaker 1: to make us doubt our innate abilities and to think

1099
01:07:06,160 --> 01:07:08,880
Speaker 1: that we are less than we are right that it

1100
01:07:09,240 --> 01:07:11,360
Speaker 1: was doing exactly what it was designed to do. And

1101
01:07:11,440 --> 01:07:14,600
Speaker 1: I um through a lot of therapy and a lot

1102
01:07:14,600 --> 01:07:16,920
Speaker 1: of prayer and a lot of that kind of self

1103
01:07:17,000 --> 01:07:20,360
Speaker 1: talk to remind myself of what the point is, what

1104
01:07:20,480 --> 01:07:23,160
Speaker 1: the purpose is. That's what helps get me back to

1105
01:07:23,240 --> 01:07:25,440
Speaker 1: a place of confidence. And then there are plenty of times,

1106
01:07:25,800 --> 01:07:27,720
Speaker 1: and be honest, where I fake it till I make it.

1107
01:07:27,800 --> 01:07:32,120
Speaker 1: And that's fine too. We get there, We get there eventually. Well,

1108
01:07:32,160 --> 01:07:35,760
Speaker 1: And I think that's something so important because and you

1109
01:07:35,840 --> 01:07:37,480
Speaker 1: and I talked about this a lot, and we we

1110
01:07:37,560 --> 01:07:41,920
Speaker 1: just talked about this on an episode of your podcast Undistracted,

1111
01:07:42,040 --> 01:07:46,120
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite podcasts, and I loved

1112
01:07:46,200 --> 01:07:49,600
Speaker 1: coming and joining you on it, and we had a

1113
01:07:49,640 --> 01:07:56,640
Speaker 1: conversation about privilege and about society and about why a

1114
01:07:56,680 --> 01:08:01,120
Speaker 1: lot of white people have a hard time interrogating white privilege.

1115
01:08:01,280 --> 01:08:04,760
Speaker 1: And what I'm struck by in this moment is we've

1116
01:08:04,840 --> 01:08:09,200
Speaker 1: never actually talked about what exists in our friendship and

1117
01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:11,120
Speaker 1: I and I think in a lot of the friendships

1118
01:08:11,160 --> 01:08:14,200
Speaker 1: in our community, and then are are sort of overlapping communities,

1119
01:08:14,240 --> 01:08:17,840
Speaker 1: which is we can sit and talk about society and

1120
01:08:17,880 --> 01:08:20,880
Speaker 1: talk about feeling not enough and talk about what it

1121
01:08:20,920 --> 01:08:25,640
Speaker 1: means to even as successful women with public facing platforms,

1122
01:08:26,200 --> 01:08:28,960
Speaker 1: who you know, outsiders might look at you or me

1123
01:08:29,000 --> 01:08:31,120
Speaker 1: and say, well, she's got it figured out. She feels

1124
01:08:31,120 --> 01:08:33,920
Speaker 1: like she's enough, and you and I are vulnerable enough

1125
01:08:33,960 --> 01:08:36,760
Speaker 1: people to say like, oh no, I constantly think I'm

1126
01:08:36,760 --> 01:08:40,240
Speaker 1: not enough, and and for me, I'm like, I'm either

1127
01:08:40,320 --> 01:08:41,840
Speaker 1: not enough or I'm way too much, and what is it?

1128
01:08:41,880 --> 01:08:44,360
Speaker 1: In either way, I'm wrong. This is like the daily

1129
01:08:44,439 --> 01:08:48,559
Speaker 1: thing that I'm working on, you know, rewriting my my

1130
01:08:48,640 --> 01:08:54,840
Speaker 1: permission slips, recalibrating my relationship to confidence, so we can

1131
01:08:55,760 --> 01:08:59,720
Speaker 1: as friends meet there in that God, I'm tired and

1132
01:08:59,760 --> 01:09:06,280
Speaker 1: I'm scared I'm not enough space, and I cherish that you,

1133
01:09:07,680 --> 01:09:11,320
Speaker 1: in communion with me, speak to me about your experience

1134
01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:17,120
Speaker 1: as a black woman, because your experience, your intersectional experience,

1135
01:09:17,360 --> 01:09:23,360
Speaker 1: is different obviously than mine. I can bye bye that

1136
01:09:23,600 --> 01:09:28,760
Speaker 1: proximal experience of knowing how society, how bad society makes

1137
01:09:28,760 --> 01:09:32,120
Speaker 1: me feel. I'm like, well, I don't have to combat

1138
01:09:32,240 --> 01:09:36,559
Speaker 1: I combat sexism and gender based judgment and pay gaps

1139
01:09:36,560 --> 01:09:38,679
Speaker 1: and all these things. But I don't combat those things

1140
01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:42,320
Speaker 1: at the same time that I combat racism. And I

1141
01:09:42,320 --> 01:09:45,160
Speaker 1: am spelling all of this out for folks at home listening,

1142
01:09:45,720 --> 01:09:49,439
Speaker 1: really because in this moment, I'm going, ah, how do

1143
01:09:49,680 --> 01:09:53,639
Speaker 1: you want to encourage people listening who may not have

1144
01:09:54,520 --> 01:09:57,040
Speaker 1: a friendship like ours, or a friendship like mine with

1145
01:09:57,040 --> 01:10:01,400
Speaker 1: with my best friend Nia, or conversations like this in

1146
01:10:01,439 --> 01:10:06,080
Speaker 1: their life? How do you want to encourage people to

1147
01:10:06,120 --> 01:10:08,840
Speaker 1: hold on to whatever their experience might be, but also

1148
01:10:08,960 --> 01:10:12,400
Speaker 1: make a little more room for the experiences of their neighbors,

1149
01:10:13,320 --> 01:10:16,400
Speaker 1: offer a little more space for the reality of their

1150
01:10:16,439 --> 01:10:22,839
Speaker 1: neighboring communities. I want people to first consider that making

1151
01:10:23,520 --> 01:10:27,160
Speaker 1: a little or a lot of room for people whose

1152
01:10:27,240 --> 01:10:35,640
Speaker 1: intersectional experiences not only differ from yours, but present challenges

1153
01:10:35,680 --> 01:10:39,639
Speaker 1: that you have not faced. I want everyone to consider

1154
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:44,320
Speaker 1: that making room for those will actually lead us to better,

1155
01:10:44,640 --> 01:10:54,040
Speaker 1: more sufficient solutions. So, if your goal is genuinely justice, liberation, freedom, equity,

1156
01:10:54,160 --> 01:10:57,519
Speaker 1: if it is genuinely that, I think you should be

1157
01:10:57,560 --> 01:11:01,639
Speaker 1: excited about opening up that space, because what it means

1158
01:11:01,880 --> 01:11:04,519
Speaker 1: is that your solution will be better informed instead of

1159
01:11:04,680 --> 01:11:07,800
Speaker 1: having to return to the drawing board over and over

1160
01:11:07,920 --> 01:11:09,840
Speaker 1: end because this one only included the white women. Oh,

1161
01:11:09,840 --> 01:11:12,200
Speaker 1: this one only included the able bodied women. Oh wait,

1162
01:11:12,280 --> 01:11:14,720
Speaker 1: this one only included the English speaking women. Hold up,

1163
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:18,599
Speaker 1: this one only included the white collar women. I want

1164
01:11:18,600 --> 01:11:20,360
Speaker 1: to be I want to be done with this. I

1165
01:11:20,360 --> 01:11:22,360
Speaker 1: don't want to be fighting the same stuff in in

1166
01:11:22,439 --> 01:11:26,880
Speaker 1: ten years, right. I want us to be having new conversations.

1167
01:11:28,080 --> 01:11:30,839
Speaker 1: In order to do that, I have to be willing

1168
01:11:30,920 --> 01:11:34,960
Speaker 1: to consider that the experiences of a black trans woman

1169
01:11:36,439 --> 01:11:41,520
Speaker 1: will not only inform my humanity to be more expansive,

1170
01:11:42,040 --> 01:11:45,400
Speaker 1: but inform my solution building to be more expansive, so

1171
01:11:45,439 --> 01:11:48,559
Speaker 1: that I'll make my podcast more expansive and therefore more

1172
01:11:48,680 --> 01:11:51,080
Speaker 1: educational and therefore more helpful. It might lead somebody to

1173
01:11:51,120 --> 01:11:54,280
Speaker 1: go build a solution that they wouldn't have otherwise that

1174
01:11:54,320 --> 01:11:56,680
Speaker 1: will actually consider the experiences of people who are not

1175
01:11:56,760 --> 01:12:00,799
Speaker 1: just me, and then hopefully we can actually make progress

1176
01:12:00,960 --> 01:12:03,920
Speaker 1: instead of just make noise. So I actually I think

1177
01:12:03,960 --> 01:12:07,960
Speaker 1: that's so. Yes, go read Kimberly Crenshaw, who created the

1178
01:12:08,080 --> 01:12:13,360
Speaker 1: concept of intersectionality. Yes, have you know conversations with the

1179
01:12:13,360 --> 01:12:15,519
Speaker 1: people that you need to have them with. Yes, make

1180
01:12:15,560 --> 01:12:17,120
Speaker 1: sure that you are doing your own learning and that

1181
01:12:17,160 --> 01:12:18,680
Speaker 1: you are not putting that on the backs of your

1182
01:12:18,720 --> 01:12:24,479
Speaker 1: marginalized friends. And also begin at the place where you

1183
01:12:24,880 --> 01:12:29,439
Speaker 1: have a conversation with yourself about what your mindsets are,

1184
01:12:29,800 --> 01:12:33,639
Speaker 1: because if you can shift your paradigm from a place

1185
01:12:33,800 --> 01:12:40,080
Speaker 1: of annoyance with the expansiveness that intersectionality requires, to a

1186
01:12:40,120 --> 01:12:46,880
Speaker 1: place of excitement, then you'll approach everything thereafter differently. I know,

1187
01:12:47,040 --> 01:12:51,519
Speaker 1: for me being able to do the learning that I've

1188
01:12:51,520 --> 01:12:53,200
Speaker 1: done and that I will do for the rest of

1189
01:12:53,200 --> 01:12:56,160
Speaker 1: my life. In spaces that you know, you and I

1190
01:12:56,280 --> 01:13:03,240
Speaker 1: frequent together a lot, I feel like a deeper and

1191
01:13:03,320 --> 01:13:09,960
Speaker 1: bigger person seeing the connections and understanding the overlaps and

1192
01:13:10,040 --> 01:13:12,720
Speaker 1: just learning, learning and learning and learning. It's like the

1193
01:13:12,800 --> 01:13:16,280
Speaker 1: encyclopedia that is you in your relation to the world

1194
01:13:16,439 --> 01:13:21,280
Speaker 1: gets to grow continually, and I think that it's a

1195
01:13:21,280 --> 01:13:25,760
Speaker 1: beautiful way to consider. The more you know about the

1196
01:13:25,840 --> 01:13:28,519
Speaker 1: more people in the world around you to your point,

1197
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:33,479
Speaker 1: the more intelligent your solutions can be. Because the you

1198
01:13:33,479 --> 01:13:36,679
Speaker 1: know the drumbeat for so long, which is the truth

1199
01:13:36,760 --> 01:13:39,040
Speaker 1: to all of this, is that none of us are free.

1200
01:13:39,080 --> 01:13:42,799
Speaker 1: Until all of us are free. Everyone's liberation is bound together.

1201
01:13:42,840 --> 01:13:45,760
Speaker 1: A rising tide lifts all ships. So even if you

1202
01:13:45,840 --> 01:13:49,280
Speaker 1: have the most privileged, if everyone who doesn't gets more free,

1203
01:13:50,120 --> 01:13:54,920
Speaker 1: you will get more freedom. And that that's something I hope,

1204
01:13:55,120 --> 01:14:00,720
Speaker 1: you know, inspires people to study. Yeah, and and you

1205
01:14:00,760 --> 01:14:04,200
Speaker 1: know these are these are lofty topics and and lofty goals,

1206
01:14:04,240 --> 01:14:07,160
Speaker 1: you know, changing society so that in forty years we

1207
01:14:07,200 --> 01:14:10,200
Speaker 1: can be having conversations that are like mostly sassy and

1208
01:14:10,240 --> 01:14:12,320
Speaker 1: not as much of our purpose. Maybe I don't know,

1209
01:14:12,720 --> 01:14:16,200
Speaker 1: it feels exciting, but I'm I'm curious. You know, that's

1210
01:14:16,240 --> 01:14:20,759
Speaker 1: a macro goal, right what what for you in your life?

1211
01:14:21,080 --> 01:14:24,439
Speaker 1: You know, as a woman and an author and a

1212
01:14:24,520 --> 01:14:28,960
Speaker 1: leader and an educator and a spouse and and and

1213
01:14:28,960 --> 01:14:31,320
Speaker 1: and and and like, what is your big personal goal

1214
01:14:32,160 --> 01:14:37,479
Speaker 1: right now? My big personal goal in this moment is

1215
01:14:38,360 --> 01:14:40,920
Speaker 1: to speak and teach truth and moves people to action.

1216
01:14:42,000 --> 01:14:45,799
Speaker 1: And I think that the the mountain is so big,

1217
01:14:46,960 --> 01:14:53,200
Speaker 1: the more people we can have scaling it with agility

1218
01:14:53,320 --> 01:14:59,880
Speaker 1: and heft and creativity and thoughtfulness and care, the better.

1219
01:15:01,320 --> 01:15:04,720
Speaker 1: Like I want this to be the biggest choir for

1220
01:15:04,800 --> 01:15:07,400
Speaker 1: justice ever and for it to resound so loudly that

1221
01:15:07,520 --> 01:15:13,439
Speaker 1: it shakes entire systems down and some people will go

1222
01:15:13,640 --> 01:15:17,240
Speaker 1: and start an organization to make that happen. Some people

1223
01:15:17,479 --> 01:15:20,360
Speaker 1: will lead protests to make that happen. Some folks will

1224
01:15:20,400 --> 01:15:22,519
Speaker 1: write books to make that happen. Some people will create

1225
01:15:22,640 --> 01:15:25,320
Speaker 1: art to make that happen. I want to make sure

1226
01:15:25,439 --> 01:15:28,040
Speaker 1: that if you ever hear me speaking, or if you

1227
01:15:28,080 --> 01:15:30,679
Speaker 1: ever hear somebody speaking on a stage, I helped build

1228
01:15:31,640 --> 01:15:33,719
Speaker 1: that they are people, and that I am a person

1229
01:15:33,800 --> 01:15:37,200
Speaker 1: who activates you and organizes you to do the things

1230
01:15:37,240 --> 01:15:42,519
Speaker 1: that you uniquely have to be called to do. Um

1231
01:15:42,760 --> 01:15:45,040
Speaker 1: Tupac said, I don't know if I'll change the world,

1232
01:15:45,120 --> 01:15:48,160
Speaker 1: but I know I'll spark the mine who will I'm

1233
01:15:48,160 --> 01:15:51,559
Speaker 1: not Tupac by any stretch of the imagination, but I

1234
01:15:51,600 --> 01:15:53,400
Speaker 1: do hope that I that I spark minds, it will

1235
01:15:53,479 --> 01:15:57,639
Speaker 1: change the world. I love that. Okay, I'm gonna ask

1236
01:15:57,680 --> 01:15:59,439
Speaker 1: you my favorite thing to ask everyone who comes on

1237
01:15:59,479 --> 01:16:02,599
Speaker 1: the show. Okay, And it can be you know, whether

1238
01:16:02,640 --> 01:16:05,920
Speaker 1: it's personal or professional or political. The answer might be

1239
01:16:06,120 --> 01:16:07,639
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm going to do a shameless plug

1240
01:16:07,640 --> 01:16:09,760
Speaker 1: here because I'm really excited about it. The answer might

1241
01:16:09,800 --> 01:16:12,360
Speaker 1: be about your new book, We Are Like Those Who Dream,

1242
01:16:12,600 --> 01:16:16,040
Speaker 1: which is coming soon this year. This is my encouragement

1243
01:16:16,080 --> 01:16:20,040
Speaker 1: audience to preorder the book. Um, but whether it is

1244
01:16:20,080 --> 01:16:23,080
Speaker 1: any of those things or something completely different, what feels

1245
01:16:23,120 --> 01:16:24,920
Speaker 1: like a work in progress in your life right now?

1246
01:16:26,320 --> 01:16:32,559
Speaker 1: That book it is like, you know what I realized

1247
01:16:32,600 --> 01:16:35,000
Speaker 1: today It wasn't actually I actually wrote this. It's like

1248
01:16:35,200 --> 01:16:39,360
Speaker 1: ninety five done. It's like, but it's been in that

1249
01:16:39,439 --> 01:16:42,040
Speaker 1: stage for a little minute now. Not because my editor

1250
01:16:42,080 --> 01:16:44,120
Speaker 1: has not been encouraging and supportive. If she has been,

1251
01:16:44,160 --> 01:16:50,360
Speaker 1: the cold Counts is incredible, but because I have had

1252
01:16:50,439 --> 01:16:54,720
Speaker 1: so much fear around it. And I realized today that

1253
01:16:54,840 --> 01:16:57,000
Speaker 1: it had to do with the fact that in the

1254
01:16:57,360 --> 01:16:59,760
Speaker 1: I felt like a completely different person when I sold

1255
01:16:59,800 --> 01:17:07,680
Speaker 1: this book. I finished that book. Uh, that book proposal

1256
01:17:08,560 --> 01:17:13,800
Speaker 1: met with all the publishers. Ain't a deal in when

1257
01:17:13,800 --> 01:17:15,880
Speaker 1: I was at Harvard. Actually, that was a very wild

1258
01:17:15,960 --> 01:17:18,040
Speaker 1: semester in my life. I was at Harvard, I got

1259
01:17:18,080 --> 01:17:20,960
Speaker 1: a book deal, I got engaged. You get There's so

1260
01:17:21,040 --> 01:17:23,679
Speaker 1: much that happened that year. It was a big six months.

1261
01:17:24,160 --> 01:17:27,960
Speaker 1: I was a different person in My politics were different,

1262
01:17:28,600 --> 01:17:32,840
Speaker 1: my life was different. The love that I was had

1263
01:17:32,880 --> 01:17:37,680
Speaker 1: experienced and knew how to give was as magical it was.

1264
01:17:37,720 --> 01:17:40,559
Speaker 1: It was even less magical than it is now. I

1265
01:17:40,680 --> 01:17:45,599
Speaker 1: have known a different level of loss, I have known

1266
01:17:45,680 --> 01:17:48,759
Speaker 1: a different level of triumph. I have known a different

1267
01:17:48,840 --> 01:17:52,519
Speaker 1: level of worry. And we all have been through a

1268
01:17:52,560 --> 01:17:56,439
Speaker 1: pandemic since then. So I was so scared that I

1269
01:17:56,439 --> 01:17:59,519
Speaker 1: was going to put something out in the world that

1270
01:17:59,600 --> 01:18:02,800
Speaker 1: created did a fixed image of me that was no

1271
01:18:02,840 --> 01:18:06,639
Speaker 1: longer true. And it's interesting because the book is actually

1272
01:18:06,720 --> 01:18:08,920
Speaker 1: a collection of essays for me, but it's also these

1273
01:18:08,920 --> 01:18:12,320
Speaker 1: speeches from black women over time, So from like Maria

1274
01:18:12,520 --> 01:18:14,559
Speaker 1: w Stared at the end of the at the end

1275
01:18:14,560 --> 01:18:16,800
Speaker 1: of the eight hundreds, all the way to too much

1276
01:18:16,800 --> 01:18:19,960
Speaker 1: more modern ones, and I'm like, well, they could have

1277
01:18:20,000 --> 01:18:23,080
Speaker 1: had the same fear right walking up to that podium,

1278
01:18:23,200 --> 01:18:25,599
Speaker 1: walking up to the microphone and saying that when history

1279
01:18:25,640 --> 01:18:29,559
Speaker 1: records this one talk, that they're going that I am

1280
01:18:29,600 --> 01:18:32,479
Speaker 1: forever going to be a fixed in this one place

1281
01:18:32,479 --> 01:18:36,960
Speaker 1: in history, irrespective of the context, irrespective of how I've

1282
01:18:37,000 --> 01:18:39,320
Speaker 1: evolved over my life, irrespective of what happens to me,

1283
01:18:39,360 --> 01:18:42,519
Speaker 1: what I do after this, that everything will be about

1284
01:18:42,560 --> 01:18:44,479
Speaker 1: what I did up to now and what I did now.

1285
01:18:45,920 --> 01:18:49,280
Speaker 1: And so here I am memorializing their words in a

1286
01:18:49,320 --> 01:18:53,200
Speaker 1: new way because I think that they are instructive for

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01:18:53,520 --> 01:18:57,040
Speaker 1: future generations, because I want this to be a bible

1288
01:18:57,280 --> 01:19:00,639
Speaker 1: of black women's wisdom that people We've is it again

1289
01:19:00,680 --> 01:19:04,200
Speaker 1: and again and again, because black women always know what

1290
01:19:04,360 --> 01:19:06,599
Speaker 1: to do in the tough times, even when we don't.

1291
01:19:07,920 --> 01:19:11,680
Speaker 1: And so there's a I realized like they could have

1292
01:19:11,760 --> 01:19:15,479
Speaker 1: had the exact same fear when they wrote and said

1293
01:19:15,520 --> 01:19:18,200
Speaker 1: the words that I just put in the book that

1294
01:19:18,200 --> 01:19:22,479
Speaker 1: I'm writing right now, and they did it anyway, because

1295
01:19:23,800 --> 01:19:28,640
Speaker 1: these are the blueprints that history needs mhm right, and

1296
01:19:28,720 --> 01:19:32,760
Speaker 1: we have to give it out to the world, hoping, praying, believing,

1297
01:19:33,200 --> 01:19:37,760
Speaker 1: trusting that people are capable to put the contours and

1298
01:19:37,800 --> 01:19:41,680
Speaker 1: the context around it, and to know that I'm going

1299
01:19:41,720 --> 01:19:43,800
Speaker 1: to live regardless of whether or not I agree with

1300
01:19:43,840 --> 01:19:45,840
Speaker 1: everything that I put on page seventeen at one point

1301
01:19:45,840 --> 01:19:50,519
Speaker 1: in time. So, yeah, that's my work in progress, but

1302
01:19:50,560 --> 01:19:54,400
Speaker 1: it's close to being done. I love that. And what

1303
01:19:54,560 --> 01:19:57,400
Speaker 1: strikes me when you're talking about what that might mean,

1304
01:19:57,560 --> 01:20:00,479
Speaker 1: you know, this thing being memorialized in this moment, I'm like,

1305
01:20:00,640 --> 01:20:05,200
Speaker 1: this is only My brain immediately goes into like cheerleading

1306
01:20:05,240 --> 01:20:09,880
Speaker 1: mode and like, this is only your first book. Come on,

1307
01:20:11,040 --> 01:20:12,880
Speaker 1: They're so hard to write. I'm like, I don't know

1308
01:20:12,920 --> 01:20:14,320
Speaker 1: if I can write a second, we'll see how the

1309
01:20:14,320 --> 01:20:19,639
Speaker 1: person goes. I I can't imagine, but I also can't

1310
01:20:19,640 --> 01:20:23,519
Speaker 1: wait to read it, and I'm I'm so excited for

1311
01:20:23,520 --> 01:20:24,960
Speaker 1: it to be out there in the world and for

1312
01:20:25,000 --> 01:20:29,320
Speaker 1: more and more people to spend time wrapped up in

1313
01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:33,800
Speaker 1: your brilliance because every every time, you know, we hang,

1314
01:20:34,080 --> 01:20:37,200
Speaker 1: whether it's for something or you know, in a hallway,

1315
01:20:37,479 --> 01:20:41,800
Speaker 1: giggling when we're not supposed to be just that is

1316
01:20:41,840 --> 01:20:46,680
Speaker 1: a story that is on Brittany's podcast on Undistracted, on

1317
01:20:46,760 --> 01:20:48,360
Speaker 1: my episodes, So if you want to know what I'm

1318
01:20:48,400 --> 01:20:51,439
Speaker 1: talking about, you go find it. But you know, no

1319
01:20:51,479 --> 01:20:57,840
Speaker 1: matter what, I leave feeling wiser and full and grateful,

1320
01:20:57,960 --> 01:21:01,759
Speaker 1: and I just I'm a excited, you know. I can't

1321
01:21:01,800 --> 01:21:04,040
Speaker 1: imagine how scary it is to put the pages out

1322
01:21:04,200 --> 01:21:06,120
Speaker 1: because they really are kind of set in stone. But

1323
01:21:06,160 --> 01:21:07,960
Speaker 1: I'm excited for them to be out there in the

1324
01:21:08,000 --> 01:21:11,040
Speaker 1: world so other people can hold them too. Thank you,

1325
01:21:11,479 --> 01:21:14,080
Speaker 1: Thank you, and you know I have nothing but love

1326
01:21:14,120 --> 01:21:16,800
Speaker 1: for you. Every time we get together. It is a

1327
01:21:16,920 --> 01:21:21,120
Speaker 1: joy for me, and joy is um joy is in

1328
01:21:21,280 --> 01:21:25,040
Speaker 1: short supply these days, so I appreciate it and I

1329
01:21:25,080 --> 01:21:27,000
Speaker 1: appreciate you, thanks for coming on the show.