[SPEAKER_00]: This episode of True's Table is brought to you by our NAACP Image Award-nominated book, True's Table, Black Women's Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Brothers, y'all all right?
[SPEAKER_02]: If this is your first time at Truth's Table, welcome to the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you've been sitting at the table with us all these years.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Now pull up a chair and have a seat at the table with us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey y'all, welcome to True Table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Midwives and Culture for Race and Truth.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a community and I'm Christina.
[SPEAKER_02]: This table is built by black woman and four black women.
[SPEAKER_02]: So welcome to the table, see how you're doing, girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing okay today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a good day.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the kind of day where, you know, you sit down on your comfy sofa and you pull out a good book, a good novel.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and you learn something.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the kind of day it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: How kind of day is it for you, a company?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: You are absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the kind of day that you go, you get on your couch and you pull up a lovely novel, specifically entitled.
[SPEAKER_02]: our sister's keeper by Jasmine Holmes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, my name is Dave.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a behind the book episode y'all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jasmine Holmes is here at the tip with her debut novel, debut y'all, our sister's keeper.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jasmine Holmes is an educator, historian, and the author of several non-fiction books.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our sister's keeper is her debut novel.
[SPEAKER_02]: She holds an MA in history and serves as director of Museum Education at the two Mississippi Museums.
[SPEAKER_02]: She lives in Jackson, Mississippi with her husband, their three sons, and two adorable cats.
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the table, Jasmine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's a blessing to have you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Congratulations on the launch of our sister's keeper in to the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, first of all, can we get into the cover?
[SPEAKER_02]: It is beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're listening to this via podcast and you go on and run yourself or you place it where you purchase books and you can go see that cover.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is gorgeous, the depth, the huge, I mean, first of all, who did the cover?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who did the cover?
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I could remember the artist name.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can look it up for you though.
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of my publisher, we were having a lot of conversations about the cover.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was working with somebody who enjoyed the book, but somebody who was coming at it from
[SPEAKER_01]: a different feminist perspective than the one that I have.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for her, it was like, we need to do like a picket sense, but the picket sense is like a jail and like domesticities, like a present and I was like, that's like, oh, that's the way we're working with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: amazing artist and like immediately her first sketch.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, yes, this is it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_02]: It really is.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, Jasmine, I have been I'm captivated by this book and I have just been like, oh my goodness, like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Fascinated, with like, how did she do this?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I mean, I'm always impressed by people that could write fiction and like novels.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, because my mind doesn't work that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I was like, these names, the characters, the dialogue, I was like, I didn't have loved, I loved the historical import.
[SPEAKER_02]: It even just, the song choices, the hair products being used.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, what?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm able to track all of that, you know, which is always an educator.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, so I was like, wow, how did you do this?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, how did the concept of this book come along?
[SPEAKER_02]: What was the method?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, as your debut novel, walk us through the process.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm fascinated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it really started in the, I think the end of 2021, I was doing more work on Instagram because I was a really seen other nonfiction book and I mentioned one of my favorite books by an author named Bethany C. Maro and Bethany is one of my favorite writers, she writes speculative
[SPEAKER_01]: fiction and she reached out to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, hey, I've seen you mention a couple of times that you would like to write fiction like what, you know, would you like?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to talk to me about it?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was so excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had our whole like date and I sent her so much stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I can't wait to talk to her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we get on the zoom call.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she says, I read your stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, what do you think?
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, it is bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and she said more than that, I'm like, the thing, but that was, but that was your fundamental take away.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember I was swinging in a conversation and I was like, okay, don't cry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if you cry, she won't want to work with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, just everything she says just be like, okay, and I see you, and I get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll never forget, at the end of the conversation, she was like, I, this, you are fundamentally a good writer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not going to fluck you up and tell you what you've written right here is good, because it's not as good as you can think.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that you have another story in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I was teaching at top middle school for 10 years, and we always did a short story by Ursula Liguin called The One's That Walk Away from the El Laus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's all about this town that's in Utopia.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the only way that it can maintain its utopia status is there is a child who is in a basement somewhere, who is neglected, who is not taken care of.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the people that see that child have the choice of, do I look away and go back up and live in my beautiful town or do I then leave this place because I can't be a part of the abuse of this child.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've always been fascinated by that story and for me in that story that black woman are the child, but we were the ones in the basement and we were paying the cost for whatever utopia society kind of thinks about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of started from there and I sent the idea, the first colonel I sent to Bethany and she was like, this is what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, stop playing with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so over the next four years I worked on it and
[SPEAKER_01]: and amazing mentors through the entire experience and my agent is actually her agent.
[SPEAKER_01]: She'd never shared one of her mentees work with her agent before.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just a big moment for me personally with spiritual growth because she's a sister in Christ as well, but she it would not have happened without her because I think I've always wanted to write fiction, but I was too scared and she called me on my scared.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it sounds really providential, you know, that she just happened to reach out to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that how she just happened to reach out with what?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is like god thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, one of her friends follows me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like, hey, she's talking about you.
[SPEAKER_01]: She likes your books a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, that was it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, I love, I love that, I think that's amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you said, first of all, you know, shared like a snippet, you know, or a sample or something, you know, when you first met with her and she's like, this is bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: It made me think you the fact that you were embracing yourself or trying to keep your tears in, to actually remind me of Mara and Clotil.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, uh, dynamic there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so with that said, I'm curious about,
[SPEAKER_02]: Where in the story or in the novel has maybe traces of your own experience, traces of your own social location, traces of your own history popped up into the novel because we are not robots.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and sometimes we can write ourselves into the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you in there somewhere?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I, so somebody had asked me to the day, um, my favorite character in the novel A's Mildred, and we can talk about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a very good argument for this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but they were like, oh, do you like her because he's like, is she like you?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, no, I'm like, is the main character like you know, because if I go to a downtown and I'm seeing ghosts all over the place, I'm not being quiet about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna be like, y'all in here that, y'all in here, you see, because I saw what looo, so, um, so we are very different.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I, I was like, no, I'm not really in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I listened to it for the first time, I went to therapy in the next day and I was like, chat, this song is about me, but I didn't...
[SPEAKER_01]: realize it until after it was already done written that it was kind of echoes of growing up in majority white evangelical contexts in kind of finding my way through that idea of womanhood and what that looks like and you know being this this job that I have right now is my first time kind of working in corporate america it's my first time being in charge of adults and like
[SPEAKER_01]: coalescing at the same time that the book was being written and I didn't even realize that so no no character is me But like the entire experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: I almost feel like I am the town and I'm like learning how to Give it to those feelings
[SPEAKER_00]: Mmm, I like it, it's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think I'm going to line with a committee in saying that just to switch your writing style, right, from the historical narrative work that you've done into this really creative.
[SPEAKER_00]: and conversationaly vibrance, dialogue, vibrant novel is just such a switch.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to go back to some of the mechanics and talk a little bit about your process of character development.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you just talk a little bit about, well, you know, I think I actually represent the town, but if you could.
[SPEAKER_00]: Introduce to us the process through that you went through in birthing, a couple of your signature characters in this book that the readers are going to be introduced to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, oh, I like that question.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I said, Melter is my favorite character and she is kind of an antagonist.
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband is from Homes County in Mississippi and Melter is from Homes County.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he just finished reading it and he was like, why did you put her right home?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, the way that I kind of went about developing mildered in particular, this, first of all, to back up the entire idea of having this perfect utopia of a town in the 1920s.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this idea that we would all like to think that if we looked at the child in the basement, that we would leave the town.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you add the complication of she has seven children and she has a husband and it's the Jim Crow South and she's trading one thing for another.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she has all of these layers of choice that she is making.
[SPEAKER_01]: consciously making.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so she was the realest one to me first.
[SPEAKER_01]: It actually took me a while to make my way to the, I would say like Mildred was the first one who was super clear to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Clotilde was very clear to me as just somebody who, again,
[SPEAKER_01]: Has counted the cost and has decided that the cost that she's asking of these girls is worth it for the future that she thinks that she can have and again like I think both of them are kind of born out of this
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I had my past as somebody who was kind of raised to be a wife and a mother and raised to be a siano mom and raised to be, you know, a hair take care and raised to be, and so those voices are always in my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and so their voices were really easy to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, Fia was harder for me to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, because like I said, I go to a town, I see some ghosts.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm I'm still in the beans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and so kind of getting into her head as somebody who, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: She's very observant, like the entire town kind of happens through her eyes when she gets there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a writer, you always have this fear that you're going to have a character who is only a vehicle to move the story forward, but not a fully fledged character.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was really afraid of that with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but her...
[SPEAKER_01]: observation and her understanding and her processing, I think is a really important way for readers to kind of understand and be introduced into process the town.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the more that the town, the more I understood the town, the more that I understood the because she was constantly reacting to it, it felt like a dance.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was reading, I was thinking like, oh, I was thinking Thia and tell me if I'm wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's got a leading to my question.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thia, I'll see, is her full day, but is a composite of like, Ida B.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wells, Barnett,
[SPEAKER_02]: my favorite Nanny Helen Burroughs, where I wasn't playing with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so many others, it's kind of who I was thinking, you know, these kind of club, you know, Mary Church Tyrell, you know, these are the formidable, you know, she rose, you know, if you will.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you will, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I thought I thought of her as a composite.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm wondering about first of all, you could tell me from wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm curious.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got the, I got, I'm curious about who else, like who are some other, some of the characters in the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are they at composite, historical composite of, who are some of the people from history that are, that you're kind of calling for?
[SPEAKER_02]: in the book as well and can you set the setting to for the book?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think we've done that because you're the first person.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just realizing you're the first person that we had on the show that's done a fiction book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, Christina?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think we ever done that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had people who have done effective works like movies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, movies, but we never done actually without a novel or novel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so yeah, so this is different for us because usually we'll But you know, and then so talk about that he's the historical figures you're calling for it's kind of in the book and then Maybe set the scene, you know, in the context for the book over what they've been decided to build
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you are a hundred percent right, and can't many about the composite of the Navy Helen Barrows, the French is Ellen Wackenhart's Harper, the,
[SPEAKER_01]: Club women of that era, and then also just like the woman, I don't know, to be she's like the dream, like she's the dream early 20th century black woman who's like troubling and making a way forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they were definitely all part of who she was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kid was heavily inspired by William Monroe Trotter.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love William Leonard Trotter, kids not as fiery as him, but he definitely was a part of that character development, and then honestly Mr. Benson is inspired by Booker T. Washington, 2B, 100% of all of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the town, so the town is, it's 1927, when the story starts, it is an all black town in Mississippi.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, that kind of all black town inspired by, the idea that it was kind of for me inspired by now and by you here in Mississippi, except the way that this black town kind of flourishes is that the black men who enter the town are able to get rid of all of the burdens of being black men in America and in that way are able to thrive in this town.
[SPEAKER_01]: The underbelly or the underside of that is that there's a group of women who have to take on these burdens and kind of exist with them so that these men and these families who are not their families can thrive.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, you know, it reminds me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for setting that context for our audience.
[SPEAKER_02]: It reminds me of, I didn't know this was gonna come in the minds.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have the citation, but it reminds me of the conversation between,
[SPEAKER_02]: James Baldwin, oh my goodness, and oh my god, why am I blanking right now?
[SPEAKER_02]: Nicky Giovanni, yeah, Nicky Giovanni, what do you think?
[SPEAKER_02]: In this, I thought it had to be late this sixies, maybe early seventies somewhere, you know, and Nicky, I'll put the link if I can find it, I'll put the link in our show notes, in addition to the link for you to back, jazz and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in that conversation, Nikki is talking to Jay's ball.
[SPEAKER_02]: When talking about the dynamics, really a black love, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And what it means for black men and women to be in partnership with one another.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, fake it with me because when you go outside, you're faking it outside with all the white folk.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're carrying on like, it's all good for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Get your paycheck, but then when I come, when you come home, I feel the brunt of your rage.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel the brunt of your trauma.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm saying fake it with me is what she says.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I curious about the ways in which East Cobb and the Black women, as the, my goodness, the burden bearers, for the receptacles, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for Black male, for their, for their, the racial trauma and everything that they've been through, I'm curious about how that speaks into the dynamic, between Black men and Black women.
[SPEAKER_02]: and how we have to be a people that see one another.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does it require of us?
[SPEAKER_02]: What does it mean to resist that and go the other way in partnership together?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think that a lot of what inspired the book is that conversation with Nikki Jailani and James Baldwin.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember watching that and I'm a big, my youngest son is actually named after James Baldwin because he is so important to both me and my husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and yeah, I remember the first time I watched it and she was like, faking with me and I was like, yes, he should, like he shouldn't give his best to the outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then also, when can he be real?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, where does it go?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we, it has to go somewhere, where is it going?
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't burn the world down.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he can't burn his home down, but he can't like, where does the anger, where does the hurt, where does the pain, where does all that go?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we as women know that we're not capable of truly handling that for the men in our lives, nor should we be expected to.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we're do they put it down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that question was kind of one of the main, one of the main
[SPEAKER_01]: drivers of this story, especially in regards to, you know, the Assistant Kid is not a bad guy, and I really resonated with her relationship with him because to her, she's like, okay, well, is it possible that we have found the way where we can look together and you can come home and you can just be happy with me because the world outside is not hurting you anymore?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that as I'm an oldest daughter, I'm a pastor's kid, I am the queen of I can take it like if anybody has to be uncomfortable I can be uncomfortable and I will be fine like I would rather be me than anybody you know what I'm saying and so again that too Is another driver of that thought that you're stronger than you actually are and that you can take things that other people can't take so that you will
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, that was, that was a huge inspiration as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's, there's so many thoughts that I think this book stirs up about the role of, of, of, of, within and the purpose of black women or how, how, how, how we see and how are given a purpose or an assignment.
[SPEAKER_00]: and proximity to pain of others.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to talk a little bit more about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that there is both a social and a theological conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we come right back from our short break,
[SPEAKER_00]: Our NAACP Image Award-nominated book, Truths Table, Black Women's Musings on Life Love in Liberation is making waves and shifting culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I close this book feeling like I had just partaken in a multi-course meal, filled with grace and the courage to carry on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe you'll finish this book feeling the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Morgan Harper Nichols, Artists in Poet.
[SPEAKER_00]: By Truths Table, Black
[SPEAKER_00]: our website or wherever books are sold.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are back at the table with our Dear Sister Jasmine Holmes who has wrote herself another book and this one is a novel and because we know she is a such a thinker in his story and you don't get a little sprinkle of that in this book as well and really get into some fascinating characters that I think serve as mirrors to all kinds of stories
[SPEAKER_00]: I know when we create something, we love to hear what other people think about it, but it's hard to not have our own desire.
[SPEAKER_00]: as well for like this what I want you out of feel about this book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I am curious as there are so many creative layers that speak to the dynamics of relationship in gender and culture and oppression and how people make do in those conditions and how it shapes them.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you want the reader to get out of this if this book serves as a means to refine them in some way.
[SPEAKER_00]: What would be the evidence of that?
[SPEAKER_01]: consider the emotional labor that they ask of other people, or that they offer other people without recommends.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's probably the number one thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like alternate kinds of people to read the book obviously, but especially black women to be able to read and see a story where our anger is not something that is bad or anger is actually gonna save us.
[SPEAKER_01]: That idea that,
[SPEAKER_01]: hiding it and holding it back and being respectable and being, you know, what, what the culture thinks that we should be, that's not actually what's going to get us where we need to go, that our feelings and our passion, that our emotions are important, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if a black woman writes this book, I feel seen, vindicated, I'm happy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, well done, because I definitely
[SPEAKER_02]: In that same vein, you know, I'm thinking about what was coming to my mind as well, what reading the book was, the seminal work, you know, of Barbara Smith and Co. You know, all of the women are white, all the men are black, but some of us are brave, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm sitting with the objectification of black women.
[SPEAKER_02]: to be the bearers of everybody else's utility.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the utility, you know, the ways in which black women are expected, you know, to hold everybody else's trauma, to hold people's foolishness, the selfishness, you know, of this nation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm thinking about the 92% to be quite honest about, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: and how we're in the crosshair of this regime.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm curious if you could flesh out a little bit more about the ways in which black women are exploited, and used in that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: That the superwoman tropes, the mammalian sapphire,
[SPEAKER_02]: do what you do, sister.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just really curious about how that's also coming up in the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: It can't just be in my own imagination, but you can let me know if it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a scene in the book where one of the grownings at the SES is a nursing mother, and that is very intentional because the magnification of black women in the United States is adding all time high.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I mean by that is,
[SPEAKER_01]: this idea that black women are caretakers, this idea that black women are handholders, you know you mentioned the 92% and this idea that now we have to explain to people and now we have to leave people and now we have to hold people's hands while they come to realizations that we have known all along.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are all elements that are definitely in the book and like Kimmy you've known me for a long time so you've known me through a lot of different
[SPEAKER_01]: changes and iterations of myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would not agree and grow without black women, but and also the labor that black women are asked to do in order to kind of absolve the culture around us to make people around us feel better about what's going on and how things are going and I have this there's a person at work and they're always
[SPEAKER_01]: just they come to work every day and they're outraged at what is going on in, you know, in the culture, in the outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and now they'll just look at me after they finish writing and reading and I'll be like, but I know that you know about this all like, you know, yeah, this has been.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the party, we've been here for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that there's that balance of wanting to educate people and wanting to help people to understand clearly what's going on in the culture, but also be extremely fatigued.
[SPEAKER_01]: by constantly having to educate people and hold people's hands and hold them accountable and move them through this incredibly scary but also not surprising season that we're in as a country.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know I think I'm just so struck by even just the the foundational premise of a
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that is revealing about the relational dynamics between black men and black women throughout the history of the country with a bit of a mythology that says, if black men are good, we will be okay, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that's just built in so thoughtfully into the narrative.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not a specific Christian work.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a book that I think people who are in the faith and not in the faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyone could get on board with understanding and seeing the social implications of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm wondering how I'm wondering about your own faith talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: as you developed this piece of this particular work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, what it, what it revealed, what it showed about your own journey, your own theology, yeah, what bubbled up for you in this process.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of it was trusting that God has better for me
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think when we think about rage and to take it back, when I wrote that when I first started writing the book, it's gone through so many drafts and so many different iterations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I used to feel that as a believer, if I was going to write a book, then I needed to like, explicitly like Romans wrote it in this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we, we don't come to Jesus this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but the only time that Christianity is mentioned in the end,
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is the idea of rage and the idea of punishments for the wicked and the idea of justice in the idea of that impregnatory part of the Psalms.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for that to be kind of the entryway, God is not pleased.
[SPEAKER_01]: with the way that these black women in this town are being treated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And God is not pleased with the silence that is being forced on these women.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's really important to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he is not pleased because it means that he wants us to live like so fullness and wants us to live like so.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants us to be allowed to be soft and to be vulnerable and to be helped and to be rescued.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that to me was just like a constant robot as I was writing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm, very good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, God wants us to be well.
[SPEAKER_02]: God wants us to be well.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wants us to have life in life more abundantly.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's very real.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he wants that knowing for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wants that for black men too, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, I'm curious about the ways, I see so much potential for pathways of healing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, if someone reads this book,
[SPEAKER_02]: Picks it up and gets the point that you're trying to poke them with because you know sometimes people go read a whole book and miss the whole point, okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, but don't have a suit with every freak when they get up and they get the message.
[SPEAKER_02]: To pop them with then I think that there are pathways to healing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wonder if, if you have thought of that, what those potential pathways of healing can be between our dynamic, between black men and women, and then I'm talking about, you know, what's proliferate on social media?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we are teamed black level here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me be very clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are not Mercedes.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what are the pathways of healing?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are your hopes?
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess what I'm really getting it.
[SPEAKER_02]: For this book, because I can see the potential of this really being used as it can actually heal.
[SPEAKER_02]: If people can really pick up what you're conveying here, I think people can begin to change you get, begin to change your mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: and learn how to love, love, well, you know, some curious about your own hopes and what you see as a past ways of healing because of your book?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the book is dedicated to my husband and the one of the biggest reasons is the entire time I was writing and I'm writing about this town, I'm writing about these expectations and I'm writing about all these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like think,
[SPEAKER_01]: God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do not have a man who wants me to just silently suffer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that he can be great.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not okay if I'm not okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's not happy if I'm not happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he has been the biggest kind of the biggest proponent of
[SPEAKER_01]: everything that I am, like everything that I am doing or want to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, yes, that you should do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a great idea and you'll be great at it because you're great, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's just we've been married for this will be year 12.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he is such a huge support to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so to the point where I can't even imagine my husband existing in this town because
[SPEAKER_01]: even if I wasn't like, hey guys, hey look, this goes over here, he'd be like, you look, you look weird.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you good?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's, let's stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's check.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, like, even all the things that kid missed, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Has been with not miss.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who knows?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm good as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: laughing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's the standard.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I hope that people can even see that that is a standard that they can pursue in a real relationship that they can have.
[SPEAKER_01]: Really, it's the mirror for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of them and do not realize that they are carrying these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of them do not realize that they are functionally.
[SPEAKER_01]: I keep going back to this, but functionally that
[SPEAKER_01]: really being a martyr for a utopia that does not really serve them and ultimately does not serve their children, their husbands, their friends, their other relationships in their lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, one of the biggest pathways to healing that I hope happens here is that women read this book and they see themselves in these carriers and are like, oh,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't want to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to be, because ultimately, this is deadly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is not something to play around with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and so I would love, I would love math.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I would also just really like for people to, um, understand, you know, there's not a lot of like characters in this book because it's, it's a,
[SPEAKER_01]: people and we black love and we love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But white supremacy is a character in this book, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so also to see white supremacy kind of a different way.
[SPEAKER_01]: for I had a reviewer who reviewed the book and was like I really liked it but I can only give it three stars because in the end like everything is not better like so you just need to tell me that like black people can't just live happy like well adjusted life and they just are always going to have to suffer and they're always going to have to ask like again you hear me you see like
[SPEAKER_01]: You're getting there, we're on our way.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for her, it was like, oh, I need this to be tied up and me in timing both.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that knows that there can be a happy ending to this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the happy ending is like, it's beyond the burning down and the rebuilding and the re-tooling.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I hope that people are able to even read that into it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Of like, in the end, the answer,
[SPEAKER_01]: is and this is not a spoiler or secret I tell everybody this who's going to pick up the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like town's got to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's the only, this is the only solution is it's got to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm hoping that they see not a utopia.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm hoping that they see that the other things that have to go in order for us to truly thrive as a, as a people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, as a culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right, grief is necessary for what's next.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so something does have to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a great reminder.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, again, you did a plot twist on us, Jasmine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we went from knowing you as a historical writer to now a novelist.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I am curious about what is next.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you already got something cooking right now because it takes a long time to get a project out so long that you already started working on another project.
[SPEAKER_00]: So tell us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us what is what's happening in your world next.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I work in a novel, it's an interbellum novel, and it is a twist on a zombie novel, so speculative or again, but, yeah, wow, wow, a zombie novel, flashed a female genre, 3, 4, 3, 2, 3, 4,
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was walking dead, meets and to bellow himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, meets and to bellow.
[SPEAKER_01]: That kind of does.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, this is going to be good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, come on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need the people who are in a movie making that are listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come see you.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, I mean, this is this is amazing, Jasmine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've just, you know, as you mentioned, you know, we've known each other for a long time, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I just like, wow, it's just like the journey that the Lord has for folks, like you just don't know where God will take you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I was like, I'm on an adventure with God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm never, I'm like, I don't know what's going on next.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I can't live without that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dorothy Explore.
[SPEAKER_02]: You might listen, that's a story in my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and so, who I knew maybe like 10 years ago, I don't think could have written this book, you know, here.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but who you are now?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my goodness.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it just really, really is amazing to see all the depth, all the evolution, the unlearning, relearning, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Reclamation, really powerful.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a, I think you're a great example.
[SPEAKER_02]: you know of what it means to change into, yeah, and just go deep, dive deeper into your, in your calling, and into your purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just as you talked about, you know, in this book or lifted up in this conversation, you know, just being in white spaces initially, you know, and having to navigate that and what that means.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now your life just looks completely different.
[SPEAKER_02]: to God's power, you know, and your own humility to change, to think again, you know, about whatever, you know, all our different ideologies, political stances, all these things, you know, we all have to do that work, to think again, you know, to scrutinize our theology,
[SPEAKER_02]: in Jesus' name, because the book's not doing it apart from Jesus too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to commend you for that, I guess, because in some ways we see so many people deconstructing to the point that they're deconstructing themselves out of the faith, whereas I see you deeply anchored yet free, right, free and you're writing, free and
[SPEAKER_02]: in your PSU studies, free in your, in your work now, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Working in museums, like, just, I just see a freedom there that I just want to name that and lift that up in our conversation now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know that means so much to me having for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, Kimmy, I just got our first few conversations.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we started talking to each other and getting to know each other after 45.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, even like, yeah, my reaction and understanding knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, who said I posted those things?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm sure you're right, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it
[SPEAKER_01]: the freeness, I think, is something that I resonate with a lot too of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I sometimes have growth is scary, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we don't know where we're going to end up, and so following it is scary, because it's like, where are you taking it to?
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, trusting it to be there when we arrive is huge, and something that I have definitely been learned here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well,
[SPEAKER_00]: you've been learning and teaching along the way as you have been bringing forward these really awesome gifts that have consistently highlighted the the brilliance and the courage and the fortitude of black women, especially black Christian women, you have done this for years as you have become one of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're really, really grateful to feature this work and to benefit from all of these all of these books.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't even like scary through a lot of stuff, but I'm all this and I don't, but I'm really, I'm really, I'm really, I'm really, I'm really, I'm really, I'm really excited.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get an exception, Dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you get an exception.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really scared.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really scared.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just saying I'm still
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jasmine, where can they buy the book?
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on, I can make some work.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're work, tell them all the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, they can get the book wherever books are sold.
[SPEAKER_01]: It helps so much if you ask your local library for the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also, and a huge proponent of indie bookstores.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, you can get it at the Barnes & Noble.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, you can get it Amazon and accessibility is really important.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also it's really important to support your local bookstores.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would love
[SPEAKER_01]: bookstores, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm on, you know, I'm on Instagram sometimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to grad school and fell off the face of yours.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to climb back up eventually.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I do climb back up, my Instagram is just at all the holes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm there all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, grad school ain't no joke.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my goodness.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's his own special town.
[SPEAKER_02]: girl.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it really is.
[SPEAKER_02]: It absolutely is.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's on special time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jasmine homes.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are so grateful to have had you here at the table with your debut novel Our Sisters Keeper y'all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Make sure you get your copy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a captivating read.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's perfect for a book club personally.
[SPEAKER_02]: So get into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, get into it by a few copies pass them around and start reading this book together.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can check it out on audible as you go about doing your chores or driving.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can't find the moment to sit down on your sofa, although I hope you can.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, yes, and so we want to thank you all for taking a seat at the table with us this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's keep the conversation going.
[SPEAKER_02]: Share your thoughts about this behind the book episode our sister's keeper with Jasmine Holmes.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can share your thoughts on Instagram threads or Facebook at truth's table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or email us your thoughts at astrustable at gmail.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: Black women did y'all know truth's table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Has a black woman's discipleship group on Facebook?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, now you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Make sure you invite your home girls and make sure they answer all the entry questions so they can be admitted into the group.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we would love to grow with you in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't forget to rate and review the show on iTunes and subscribe on your favorite podcast player.
[SPEAKER_02]: Choose Table has a Patreon account.
[SPEAKER_02]: So y'all can send your love offerings to patreon.com slash choose table or you can bless us at our PayPal, which is PayPal.me slash choose table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Choose table's audio producer is Joshua Heath, our video producer is Darryl Bradford, and choose tables is equity producers and hosts our community, UN and Christina Edmundson.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you soon on the next choose table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bye y'all.