[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.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get it where all books are sold.
[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.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are so grateful that you have been listening to us through these years, and we are inviting you to partner with us and support our work at patreon.com slash Truth's Table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now pull up a chair and have a seat at the table with us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey y'all, what did you say to minimize the culture for Grace and Truth?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Camine and I'm Christina.
[SPEAKER_01]: This table is for 5 black women and 4 black women.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what did it take to see how you're doing, girl?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing this in the least.
[SPEAKER_01]: Decently today.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Me too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad to be you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey.
[SPEAKER_02]: wearing a brinja color.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's summer vibe, so this is the cool top.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good old shout out to a dune day in Philadelphia.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's festival's matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, oh, he's come up there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's my summer stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, yes, I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never been to fillies, but I grew up going to ask for him in Baltimore all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like there's probably some elaboracies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, get into the festival.
[SPEAKER_02]: Get into the festival.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know African Caribbean festival.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: My jam.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, if they were you around.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my goodness.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it only happened in summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Typically, Ravi outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: You probably could get two seasons if you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's just spring summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I guess mom, maybe fall, maybe three.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's reasonable.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been the way you are in the country, so.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyways, shout out to our African Caribbean.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's good, it's good to kind of be out and connect and to do things and live life a little and all, all day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Taking all the culture on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, speaking of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, affinity spaces.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this episode actually, we are, well, the title of it are these tentative black faces in white spaces and this is in light of the untimely death of Nolan Wells 18 year old he was about to turn 19.
[SPEAKER_02]: Community college student, you know, when your 18 is like, when I ask those of college, but at this point, you just transfer to or matriculated, I guess, you know, into a community college ocean springs there in Mississippi on July 4th, he went to Horn Island in Mississippi with a group of white friends he was the only
[SPEAKER_02]: black boy among the group and went to go celebrate and news came back that the friends came back but Nolan did not was not there anywhere to be found.
[SPEAKER_02]: The parent, the mom, I remember the mom, Christine was putting out, you know, hey anybody seen him like a search post, you know, as we typically see.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Sally, I believe it was on Monday because before the July was on Saturday, this year was on Monday that unfortunately, his lifeless body was recovered and we don't know what has happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, we have our suspicions or hunches where we don't know factually what has happened yet there is an independent autopsy that actually call in the cabinet.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's paying for that will take place or maybe it's taking place in Washington, D.C. That is as far as what I know that is not conspiratorial, because we know everybody's not there theories.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I mean, they're just trying to be as alone in a net.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're everybody's going to theories, they're investigators.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and we listen, we need our internet investigation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm not knocking it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm just trying to give you all the facts as they have come out of what I have, you know, been able to synthesize.
[SPEAKER_02]: What about you, Kristina?
[SPEAKER_02]: Am I missing anything?
[SPEAKER_02]: Would you add anything to that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's become another one of those litmus tests like the way that you look at this situation based on the information that we have and again, we, you know, I don't know all the things, but people's like knee jerk response, I think is revealing and telling, you know, yes, so you see that already bubbling up you see, you know, I think I think you see people who identify with that group of white kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Deeply, when they look at them and they see their sons, you see them saying, well, yeah, well, of course they didn't say the right thing right away because they're kids, the kids and then you see people who identify with and not deeply have fear about what it means to have a black son.
[SPEAKER_01]: responding in a way that shows that, and it also believes him to be a child who's a kid who should have made it back home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so again, like, where is the humanization is tied to, you know, our empathy is tied to our ability to humanize.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so whenever we have these like painful social moments, particularly when it is,
[SPEAKER_01]: when there's race always on with the table in America.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, our ability to humanize, you know, is definitely is deeply tied to our level of empathy that we show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, um, so yeah, so that that has that's really, really sad, but I think for us without knowing all those details, obviously we, you know, we are called to be brave and to be truthful and to pursue truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you know, no matter what it is, but I think what it has caused some people to think about is what is their own sense of safety and to reflect on their own childhood and the spaces that they grew up in and what that looked like in terms of race and in terms of experience and I thought we would we could enter into a conversation about about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And really thinking about honoring his young life, Nolan's life,
[SPEAKER_01]: But also as a kid, according to his parents, who found himself in space with all kinds of kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: As a credit to his desire to connect and to humanize others, that his friendship network was broad and diverse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, which is a beautiful thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so anyway, I thought we could talk a little bit about our own way of looking at our own childhood, our own experiences, and even now as adult women, how we think about our sense of safety emotionally physically, when we're in spaces in which we feel like a hyper minority.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think, and yeah, I think I'm fortunate, Nolan's case has surfaced that conversation for so many people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just bringing up all their stories and all the things more just like, you know, the choices they make for where they put their kids in school.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do they make their choices that they make?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do they go to the church they go to?
[SPEAKER_01]: as opposed to another, you know, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Different ones, all types of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you take the neighborhood you pick?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, black people's proximity, you know, to whiteness.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it's a better for me to put my kid in a majority-wise school.
[SPEAKER_02]: All these, all the things that are bubbling up, these are the conversations.
[SPEAKER_02]: So sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think, you know, I've shared, you know, here.
[SPEAKER_02]: that being from California is a dark skin black woman was a really difficult experience for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you know, I don't as California is not a place I'd ever want to live again in my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Visit short lived no.
[SPEAKER_02]: And not to mention it's very expensive.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm a than a suicide.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's all in Neil Horston.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel most colored when I'm thrown against a white.
[SPEAKER_02]: a sharp white wall.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think or something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that's a remix.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but it's, you know, that's, I think that, I think would, I think it's a good summary of what my childhood was like in some, into some degree growing up in the Bay Area, but Silicon Valley area of the Bay Area.
[SPEAKER_02]: So right now is the tech bubble before was gosh, what was it.
[SPEAKER_02]: software engineering chips, you know, micro chips kind of types stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to think about the industries that have come.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's it's morphed, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and some chips so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and so the schools that we went to like, for instance, a, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh, it was, was it wasn't the echo, one of the Apple executives went to like Kupatino Jr. high.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went to the first Apple, you know, Apple's headquarters literally down the street from my house, lowering him, had heard housing by the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: In Sunnyville.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, just to give people a picture of just like these.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, how two worlds, how host that can be together.
[SPEAKER_01]: How close and a major city, you know, those things can live right next door.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, you know, and jobs, but you know, kind of, I can't remember exactly where you went to.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, just in that world, you know, there were in the house, Steve Jobs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Steve Jobs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Steve Jobs was the, you know, that that whole Silicon Valley area that's, that's going to be them.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm an apple.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so being so close.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess to that kind of like, I mean, I don't know these people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, let me be clear about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know the kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: I go to school with the kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to be clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just telling them the ecosystem.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I'm trying to say?
[SPEAKER_02]: What that meant, yeah, and that contrast, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those schools that I went to elementary junior high school, those are all those schools typically
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I didn't, I didn't feel it was a good area for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, as a girl, I don't know, I don't know that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that that, I mean, and I guess I'll never know.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the, yeah, it's all about the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all about the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what the other side would have been.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know what the other side would have been.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just know that I was often dehumanized in those spaces with dealing with microaggressions.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, never feeling quite in,
[SPEAKER_02]: There was fear for what classmates or what not to come to our neighborhood, which was if you because it was low income housing, it was AKA the project.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you could, you know, you feel that and there were stereotypes, you know, of how we lived or what it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, what?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I remember those types of things, you know, and so I, and then not to mention the, ironically, the church upbringing too, that also didn't help too, you know, because it was a Lutheran conservative Lutheran church, you know, which I, you know, I got my fundamentals, but I, I, I despise being the only one, like, you know, and I just think that was a grave miscalculation on my parent's part period.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think, I was just like, you just do not raise your, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm fundamentally denomably the you raise your black children, um, as the only or close, yeah, you know, it, particularly in any space you have got to try as best as you can to have as much, um, representation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, unless you consciously know you're raising an integrator,
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I for me, I have a very very strong, like a version to that close of hell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now the only after I feel like my saving grace, as far as Jesus of course, is that I grew up with black folks.
[SPEAKER_02]: But those are, but that's because the race is so true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have the whole of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the red lining of it all.
[SPEAKER_02]: The red lining of it all, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's just, it's crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that, I mean, it's always that was the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: Christmas is that I had that affinity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So everybody for my neighbor, we all walked this good together.
[SPEAKER_02]: We all came home together.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were on the same cheered, cheered, leading team together, pop Warner.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we did all of those things, you know, together, and I'm grateful for that because if I didn't have that I think I would have grown up to be a completely different person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was all that so formative.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So formative.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not to mention all the trauma.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, in my history too, it's just too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, so I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I,
[SPEAKER_02]: I would want to, God willing, when I have children, I would really want to raise them as much as I can, you know, and as black and environment as I possibly can because we are in a,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're inside the racist country like it's just you have to they're going to get like all of the cultural cross cultural you know um yeah when you're in minority minority you're going to you will swim in that diversity you're going to experience that you know I mean it's just it's the air you breathe you know where as you will not always you know get your own cultural contact you when I get always your own social um cultural socialization unless your parents
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, and your family or intentional, I think, you know, about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when I could leave California, I left as quickly as I could, like, for college, I knew I wanted to go to Howard.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got me and we couldn't afford it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I knew you and many, many, many, we couldn't afford it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's common.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a common.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a pair of ears.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish it was, you know, a way to, I wish it was a lower barrier to entry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, this is on which HPC you two.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's about five to 10 that are like well known the other 80 or so people don't necessarily have a reader, but the most in the distance.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, all right, that time, I don't know how it works.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, out of state fees and be my California all the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd have to go on the way to the south and slide to the east, it has to be like, you know, then yeah, I want to come with I want to school with with wealthy black kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why when I went to PWI's and we're like, oh, who had like the internalized racism about HPC U kids?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, you don't know the kids, like, oh, the school with like, yeah, there's a range.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's to black memory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're like this and they're like, so I'm a status to where you're.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very upper middle class kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but they wouldn't have been there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then when you come from a bubble like me, like, oh, you don't see that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, from my end.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But see that, especially that part of the country, California doesn't, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just, well, despite a really tremendous civil rights history in California, I mean, that is legitimate strong civil rights history in California.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's a little bit different in terms of the south and the northeast where you have black major black institutions are built in the south.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, that, I mean, that's a little bit, you know, straight up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I, for me, I couldn't, I knew it couldn't afford to go to Howard.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I, for me, I had to go, I had to go to the closest thing I could get.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do an interview.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time, it was the somewhere there with the authorities.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was really important for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, the closest for me was Northridge.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cost 18 Northridge.
[SPEAKER_02]: At that point, I think it was 13%.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think about 13% black, which was a good chunk.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: There in California.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me, that was huge.
[SPEAKER_02]: I made a big difference.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: At least, you know, for me, was really, really helpful in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And of course, we're different sometime in that, the Lord.
[SPEAKER_02]: have you leave out for it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, I've been in majority flexities.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the North.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I was like, oh, there's going to be a window like, uh, uh, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just have no desire to do that again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, um, because I have the choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's when your kid you don't get to juice and I think my parents did the best you know that they could, you know, they wanted to and I was a little less geeky kid so you know, so we have to be like no, so I mean they're making calculations.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, man, those hierarchies of needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean you have to all parents thinking about like what are the fundamental baseline needs for my child before you get into kind of, you know, self-concept.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's higher level needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like food and safety are your.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's your number one concentration.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, it's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then not to mention the fact that my parents are black immigrants.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a whole other layer than having come in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Learn.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Learn some things like, oh, I didn't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, and I know, you know, I would have made some different choices or you know, so that's a little bit, you know, of kind of my own, um, you know, my own background or the way I enter into these conversations.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand how that that
[SPEAKER_02]: That trip to Horn Island could have, wouldn't have happened or gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I myself have never been comfortable or have never found it to be a prize to be the only black person.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, I've never, and I'm not describing that to Nolan.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just saying that was never sure to me didn't look like a sister in area ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's so logically our differences between the way that black boys show up in white school spaces and black girls do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Expressions of acceptance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we see happening for black girls and black boys black boys can be kind of And again, it doesn't mean that there aren't black boys who experience extreme racism, micropressions, you name it But they can kind of be ingrated in of out of utility and out of coolness and out of stereotypes about
[SPEAKER_01]: athleticism and masculinity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Black girls tend to be the ones at least in my experience having counseled only that are they feel they're only.
[SPEAKER_01]: They see they see the white girls get picked over them every single day and then they also get they also feel the disclaimer even about their beauty.
[SPEAKER_01]: The beauty.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah they get the oh you're really pretty for A and so that's just a very
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, oh, they are very different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, and they get the experience of black boys who have earned internalized white female standards of beauty, picking white girls in the middle of the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it's a different, it's a different dynamic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think as a mother of two black girls, for me, this is like, my daughters have to be in affinity spaces, even if they don't request them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have kids that are like, what?
[UNKNOWN]: What?
[SPEAKER_01]: But I actually, that's my impression of privilege praise me to God that they would be like, what, why would I need to do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think it is a difference between for the experiences generally speaking for Black girls and Black boys in white spaces.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm well, so how do you, well, I guess maybe talk about a little bit of your own experience kind of coming up, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because in childhood, maybe, or like, I was a little doubtful about this because you're actually, yeah, because you were a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, for sure, and the schools that I went to in Baltimore, and my mother was an educator at one point, and I had family member who was a principal of schools.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, you know, I was in kind of an educational bubble, but I was always in for the most part, was that for one year, the most traumatic academic year of my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was always in predominately black school to black, yeah, principles and teachers and we had teachers who were not African-American, but it was majority African-American teachers and our teachers who were, you know, I think about Miss Abrams, my white Jewish teacher or Miss Sans, my white, second grade, I remember the people by name, they were white teachers who had made a commitment to educating
[SPEAKER_01]: and understanding black kids, which is different.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's been for my read of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't knows their heart, but for my read of them, it was not like this kind of paternalistic, let me save the black children.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what I felt in their class.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, it wasn't giving dangerous minds.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it wasn't giving danger.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they also had to submit those girls to the club.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but they had to submit themselves to the mentorship.
[SPEAKER_01]: of the old school black female teachers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's so that felt like girl submitting to like the grandmother's at the school.
[SPEAKER_01]: Say, I felt largely protected in the classrooms by my by the teachers for the most part.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a couple crazy moments where I was like, I'm a child and I know this ain't right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And and I grew up in, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, predominantly black neighborhoods.
[SPEAKER_01]: My perception, I've told you this before, my perception of white people was based on TV.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why I know this is why I have some degree of intellectual empathy for white Americans who do not who have and how the power of media is, why I think media is so important, who are like the only black people that they really know or people they see on TV.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I grew up in a world where the only white people I really knew like I thought that every old white woman was hilarious because of the Golden girl.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh my god, why was it our hoot?
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not realize that was a show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway that so that lets you know how black
[SPEAKER_00]: my world.
[SPEAKER_01]: My church is a historic black church.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, people like Jesse Jackson showed a little black, very black church.
[SPEAKER_01]: And neighborhoods were predominantly black.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had one year where we moved outside of the city of Baltimore into, at that time, what was a,
[SPEAKER_01]: integratively diverse suburb of Maryland and with it was known for it like so sociologically like this is this like this is what all of America could be and it was by far the most traumatizing academic experience of my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mother I think I'm I'm just glad she ain't not nobody out.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mother is a very sweet man but she really don't play and so I thought
[SPEAKER_00]: So that one year gives me a teeny snapshot of the experience of people I know who that is their entire academic journey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I've never felt particularly threatened at school.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the first year where I had a group of white boys chased taught me and chased me home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I may have been about seven or eight.
[SPEAKER_01]: But got kind of a kick out of it and I think the part that made it so scary is that I did had I had no confidence That the adults would put in a vina on my behalf, but that was like kids are you know, because it's alright, and there was things to get all their other plans because they empathize with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and they're just playing don't see you're just playing and not like it's really crazy for a group of boys chase a little girl, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, and then as I witnessed things happen in the classroom and the teachers on kindness or just, you know, a coldness, I think that was probably the main thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the experience was, I saw how the black girl,
[SPEAKER_01]: can be so invisible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: In that space.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what it would take to have visibility.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why you get this whole even now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, Oh, there's an angry or their voices so big or whatever, but like when you're at a space that really tries to erase you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes you invisible, then it makes sense that you kind of, you know, things get shaped in a way that they do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so that was just one year and that and it was and it was more than enough it was formative like I always tell the story about they decided of all plays to do to do Snow White.
[SPEAKER_01]: which again layers, but then they decided to cast me as dopey of all the characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, I mean, I mean, I was a kid, but I didn't read dopey, you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, but even on like a political correctness level,
[SPEAKER_01]: you would think that a white teacher would go like, that's not like the only black girl in the world, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, just when they broke, my mom was like, you know, yeah, I mean, I don't know all that happened behind the scene, John, but there is an educator, so I'm sure that they would some conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I never went back to that school again and you know, I mean, I think, you know, I think there's more we'll share more about kind of our own stories, but let's take a pause right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking our guests are probably that are listening in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or probably thinking about their own stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: And people at the table are like, I have a story too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So think about that and we will be back in just a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our NAACP image award nominated book, Truth's Table.
[SPEAKER_00]: Black women's musings on life love in liberation is making waves and shifting culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I closed 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 Truth's Table, Black women's musings on life love in liberation, at our website, or wherever books are sold.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are back at the table, and we've been talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Black faces and white spaces, you know, someone who has a great book by the title, Steve by the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brown faces.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brown faces.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, I, um, I was just mentioning kind of like, my experience going up in Baltimore, which is a chocolate city, very black city.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember the election of our school.
[SPEAKER_01]: Black mayor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: And our mayor now shout out to Mayor Brandon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um, but, but also, but I do have, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: I did have like actual white friends, and I don't mean like my white friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean like a friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's white.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know how people do that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, you know, people like, I have a black friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like a checking a box.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, I had legitimate friends who were outside of my racial or ethnic background.
[SPEAKER_01]: Despite being in a very chocolate black city, and those were always kids who were minorities
[SPEAKER_01]: in that space.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that would be didn't have their own bias, a bigotry issues in their family system and all that kind of stuff too, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But they tend to be people who are already immersed in a space where they knew what it felt like at least temporarily to be a minority in school and the classroom or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, so I did especially in, by the time I got to high school, I went to an all-girl school that was predominantly black, maybe 90, 85, 90% African-American,
[SPEAKER_01]: We certainly had students there that were Asian, we had Latinas, we had students who were just from different backgrounds than African-American, and so that allow for me to, again, have friends of different backgrounds outside of my core closest friends, which have always been black,
[SPEAKER_02]: opposite, you know, where you were.
[SPEAKER_02]: You definitely, I did have, you know, some white friends actually were quite a bit of an Armenian population.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, as much as you actually in LA, oh, interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a big, you know, Armenian population there, but one of my friends growing up was Armenian figure-up in our neighborhood too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's that and then they're Filipino.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean the Bayer is diverse.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to let me be clear about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's ethnically yeah diverse, but it's not At least especially now, it's but it's not black forward on diversity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right
[SPEAKER_02]: made up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we understand it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we're not going to say me.
[SPEAKER_02]: We should be tracking with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so I, I know you were, they were genuine friends, but I think you know, they're always funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was this, there was this invisible barrier.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: About where when it came to like, uh,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's in some places more with others, not necessarily with my Armenian friend, but some other friends that I can think of, yeah, I don't need to name their names, but just people, you know, where you sell you couldn't really quite always hang in there, how's there was this level of comfort you just didn't feel yeah, yeah, like just being like, yeah, just let loose and really be cool and chill in on my friends.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas my friends that I grew up with, you know, a shout out to Naima, and Shari, you know, we grew up like sisters.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we stayed in the South Translation.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were like, they were like, they were like, yeah, there was nothing really to translate.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Shari's mom used to do my hair Aunt Liz.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we did our hair braided by her, and we were next door neighbors.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I really want other.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there was a mess year, she was from Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're running.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to be clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was, there was much, well, even when you're describing people, I mean, you're describing them ethnically and not just racially, which also very unique because that's, you know, yeah, that's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you think there are social locations and things like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you did have that, but you always felt like not always, but there was always this.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, ah, there was still that other ring or just not always feeling like, okay, I could really just be And yeah, always have to feel like you had to be on guard to some degree sure and I even felt that even in seminary.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a good seminary for show.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was Devoted.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_02]: around about a while away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I mean, where you went to seminary, you're probably even why people who felt surrounded by the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell us what you could with.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I go on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was so many macroverages.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, trust me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, I could do me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would imagine probably much worse now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's not so increasing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Trumpism.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a terrible person nationalism, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was terrible that blew me clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I would imagine much worse now.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but I just remember little weird tabs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, just like weird.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just weird microaggressions statements just kind of like, what does I need to be like, if you're going to be here, you're going to have to be here, be in spite of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So people can't openly say, no, some people can only say, like, I don't want you here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can do other things that are so wickedly and hospitable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's huge attempt to push people out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my saying slavery wasn't so bad, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's, you know, context in which that statement should be made.
[SPEAKER_01]: But exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the one hand, let alone the only black student has to go up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, nope, come back that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, with the VP of the school, does that, yeah, that's what I had to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or just a little macro or aggressive stance, or it's just like it was weird like if it was just I like I was working in the counseling, uh, the admissions.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember some other, what are the other PhD students I think they're?
[SPEAKER_02]: kind.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even work it out office, but he was always around because he's a police student, so you're like a T.A.
[SPEAKER_02]: You look like a police officer.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're walking around, being ashamed of officers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember, I'm off the making comments just about, like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it was weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just like, you didn't make any sense either.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just like, oh, African-American.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it was African-American jeans.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, like, a, like, a, like, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just weird.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just like really very African-American jeans.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because I, yeah, I'm wearing the jeans and you're gonna, it's like, what?
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't make sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: You feel like, huh?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Just grand, buddy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just like grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just like to point out your blackness in some ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there some supposed shame in being black?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's based.
[SPEAKER_02]: But almost like, no, you're a place.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, it's like a, I know you're a place aggression, just to like.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just very weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I don't know how else to.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't make sense of confusion.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, really, you don't feel like I'm just, I'm just hatred.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's really what it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's just really odd.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's stuff that just made you feel other that made you feel not like them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And also made you feel hyper invisible, but also invisible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very, so when you're talking about invisibility, oh my god, I felt that so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: So much through my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, for, for, for, I'm, at least until 18 minimal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what's what's interesting is that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's my term, but, but, um, the thing I think is that's, you know, it wasn't so much that the small minority group of white identifying people that I was around.
[SPEAKER_01]: were openly and hospitable, like what you are describing, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that I knew very early that I couldn't trust them with my safety.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even if they met well and they really loved me, like in a legitimate way, maybe.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just knew that they were not the best discerners.
[SPEAKER_01]: of danger, of my safety, of my wellness.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had this experience of that maybe you have told you this story too, where one of my really great friends and it's interesting because we know our white friends by their ethnicity.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she was Polish.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do with that so funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just realized it until.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, until I saw it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Baltimore has a little Italy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has a little predominantly Polish kind of immigrant.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been there for multiple generations now, neighborhoods, and communities or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: But she had a Polish background and was very proud.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how they're very academic sort of identity.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, this is what I'm like my dear friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she was delightful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And most of my friends, again, were either black or brown.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so she had invited me and my good friend over for like her birthday party sleep over.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, you know, I was raised by a black mind when we got all kinds of thoughts and feelings about sleepovers, who how she go over and all the rules that, you know, from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I was like, you know, I've known it for years and I was like, oh, mom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, mom, we're going to come over, we're going to go on over.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at you all, paranoia, you're in the civil rights generation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And anyway, because they know what they're talking about,
[SPEAKER_01]: And so anyway, so we go over and we have a delightful time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Her mom is incredibly sweet, very, very warm, like down, home, kind of, white, and sort of, I don't know how to describe, but just like, I'm on over, Viral, and know what ever had it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, but her kitchen room, I was like ours, it was like, you know, open food everywhere, and it's just warm, again, very ethnically identified.
[SPEAKER_01]: people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember, you know, me and my good buddy who were there, having a nice experience, we laugh, we cackled, and all things, and then the next week we're at school and I'm talking to my good friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she says to me kind of offhand that one of her cousin was going to stop by.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, like just, you know, he's male cousin probably late teens early 20s or so and she's like, yeah, it's gonna sad by and I was like She said she's like, he's so goofy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he thinks he's a skinhead right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and so I stopped and my good friend who was next to me was Latino.
[SPEAKER_01]: We both stopped and we're like
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, does he think he's a skin hit because he like shaved his head ball or did like supposed to be like And she's like, well, no, he just he thinks like he's in that group, and I was like, is he A skin hit and she's like, I mean, I think he would say he is so so part of it is that even the way she described him there was this protection
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so almost kind of like it's like if you have a family member who's incredibly racist and it's like, oh, he's just good The miscoided like he's goofy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, no, like he's a clan member like that's not goofy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's sinister, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so she so she was kind of socialized to see him as non-threatening even though he's a skin head and she was like, oh, he was gonna come by and I thought like see
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all are going to remind me I'm a cut-up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: It reminds me I was in a house with it again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where did that look?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, so I think that's a mention my day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, so, I mean, this had all, I mean, he didn't come by.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we never met him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think what I was trying to show is that I knew as much as, as much as it's like my dear friend, her sense of my safety and my other good friend safety.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, she just, she just did not get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: she did not get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't something about like the capacity to, it wasn't an intellectual sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: The, like, stuff delusions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like, yeah, just admit the white innocence.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: We buy into these myths.
[SPEAKER_02]: They really are, they delude our minds.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were not able to properly assess our own safety or own livelihood.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the livelihood of the
[SPEAKER_01]: those were in our own lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well admitting that she had a cousin or a family member who is affiliated with a hate, a legitimate group, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Admitting that then says something about her family system, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, but the problem is is because people would rather act like their family isn't who their family is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will put their friend in harm.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's, I mean, that would be the case with any, the ability to really be someone's friend is to say, this, this is not safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not safe for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it's not safe for you, why am I?
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean about the space that I am in as well, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so it required that type of maturity, that type of curry.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's more than like thinking that you're not racist to actually be a true friend to someone who has a black excuse in America.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd have to have the courage to put back, push back on white racism.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just think that the stakes are high, like the social, the familiar, the economic stakes are so high, that I think your average person who does not have courage.
[SPEAKER_01]: won't do it won't do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not going to be able to, you know, they don't have, they don't have what it takes.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have the internal fortitude that it takes to be able to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you'll end up lonely.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's you'll end up rejected, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that, I mean, that's what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it really does take a type, you know, King King's book, I'm okay, book, you know, the courage to love.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like love actually does take courage to love people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this big look at a whole host of social groups and talk about all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks courage to love people.
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, that was my experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think again, as we talked about deer Nolan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the way the pictures, that's not his only friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: And let me just say the troll in me, the Nolan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just Nolan.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Nolan's Nolan.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's unfortunately stands as, you know, now the exemplar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_02]: But now, you know, all the other stories are surfacing now, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, this just happened two weeks ago and here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or this almost happened to this kid who was stuck in the river and if that white family didn't intervene, he would be,
[SPEAKER_02]: So he unfortunately stands as an exemplar for so many of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think about a couple of things about what it means to assess the safety of others.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what it takes to be able to do that the courage to love.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think about a couple of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean that's an angry group too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's a group too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, let's be clear about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably 17 talks about, you know, how a friend loves it all times and brother is born for adversity, like, you know, what it means to actually walk with one another to bear one another's burden to really see like, no, no, no, like, your well-being is tied up with my own, you know, if you're not safe, I'm not safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, how can we don't see that?
[SPEAKER_01]: It really wears me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you, again, that's that humanization.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we have to see each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ask me rooted in your mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, in the image of God, if you do not see me as your brother, as your sister, as your equal, and that again, that could be in group two.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, just as we, that could be in group two.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because there have been stories about that too.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, let me, let me, be clear, I'm not trying to diminish or minimize.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what's happening on me?
[SPEAKER_01]: You heard my story.
[SPEAKER_01]: by my narrative.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's not where I'm from.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if we don't see one another and we are left one and there's not rooted in our humanity and our intrinsic work and value that that is God given, then we will not count the cost of what it means to care for the livelihoods of the safety and the wellbeing and the personhood of those in whom we are in connection to and in
[SPEAKER_02]: our own lack of love for self because if we don't love ourselves then we cannot love our neighbor well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, and so there is some sleep time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there there's a void, you know, a deficit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me see, you know, somewhere, you know, in our love.
[SPEAKER_02]: And which is leading to death for so many.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, lovelessness leads to death.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no there's no other way to say lovelessness leads to death.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I don't, you know, it's just
[SPEAKER_02]: You know I obviously you have to take
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, we have to see the humanity of F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of, you know, and I think we have to, and because of that, we have to make all of these, all of these modifications and calculations about that we don't want to do their taxing and that, that cost us our health.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's just like, you know how the weathering.
[SPEAKER_02]: right on the body of having to figure out, where am I going to put my kid in school?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, even before we wrap it, you know, as a mother, like how do you make these calculations?
[SPEAKER_02]: About rummopol-marked children in school.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where I'm gonna worship, where am I, you know, what does that look like from, I'm curious from a vantage point of a mother's vantage point since I'm not your one.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, what is that, you know, that type of calculation, because I just was having this conversation with another mother and the weight of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this mother was rooted with base in California.
[SPEAKER_02]: Y'all were here, you know, well, here's our conversation coming up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, but she's based in California.
[SPEAKER_02]: So she's in the belly in some ways of the beast.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I mean by that, she's not in Mississippi.
[SPEAKER_02]: But she is, you know, it's surrounded and like one of only, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And kind of the context that I.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, from.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm curious from your own vantage point.
[SPEAKER_02]: How you make that calculation?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you decide?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, one of the things I will say about the self, is that in the deep self or whatever the language is different parts of the self, is that the self tends not to be as in denial.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I mean, obviously racial bias abounds in the South, but I don't think so when I was in the Midwest and I lived in upstate New York, those are actually two of the most overtly races I've ever lived in the country living in the Midwest and living in upstate New York and these are people who I think saw themselves as like
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, the whole weather progresses.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, but I think the thing about the South is that the history is a bit undeniable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if I drive a week, you can drive five minutes we'll hit a plantation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think, I mean, I'm in a part of a place kind of named after Andrew Jackson.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to talk about Captain racism?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Captain genocide.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, I think, but I think the benefit of that
[SPEAKER_01]: people who have not been in the self have been raised in the self, there's I think there's less gas lighting about racism.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they're going to change it or do right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh no, but it is less gas lighting.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are other parts of the country where it's just like, what here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Never.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: So you kind of get that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like so in a place like Maine.
[SPEAKER_01]: or in Rhode Island, or in California.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get people who feel like, oh, we're kind of above.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we're above this, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do appreciate that there is a bit more sobriety, less gaslighting in this part of country we're happy to look right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say that as a parent making decisions, you know, we have,
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's like intersectional wisdom that is required.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our children are certainly, we think about their racial identity and how people will treat them in the role of racism in our country.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not the only factor that I have to, that I put on the table when I think about my black daughters and how they're uniquely made and what their interests are and their gifts are, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think every parent is weighing all kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: that help them to make sense out of and also the options that are available to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they can actually pursue you, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if you're thinking about it, if you're a parent and all your options are public education related.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like most people in the country.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what you're dealing with.
[SPEAKER_01]: And let's say they're zone schools, but let's say there's also magnet schools, but let's say your child has to be tracked with a certain academic performance for that I mean it is really hard to navigate those decisions most parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that's one of the most stressful elements of their parenthood is figuring out where to place their children because they know that three, three years in the wrong place.
[SPEAKER_01]: can can have what would feel like permanent damage for a child's development, educational trajectory, all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's heavy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, I mean, there are decisions that I wish I could take back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I only knew what I had in front of me to make those decisions.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we do a lot to try to, by God's grace, I do believe in redemption and repair, so that even if a decision is not like, oh, this is not what I thought it was going to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: we do a lot of work trying to restore and to repair it from what we could not control.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get the parent, like we think about your parents right where they had you, and I get the parent who's like, you know, what's the best school?
[SPEAKER_01]: What they think best is, what's the best option for my child?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: That wouldn't be surprising me if you would track your kid in the space that would be predominantly white because it's more likely, not exclusively, different parts of white America, that's for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it probably would have some different resources.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might not be thinking about what this kid will feel like in this class and by themselves, or how the teacher might treat them, or make them invisible, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so again, you have people who, uh, blood and had their lives threaten and lost their lives for there to be integrated.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the schools, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the goal was not the goal for Black America was not, oh my gosh, we're missing out on the opportunity.
[SPEAKER_01]: wasn't like a cross-cultural understanding opportunity.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, oh, we're missing out on the opportunity to have my kids next to this kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: They wanted the same resource.
[SPEAKER_01]: They quite frankly, if Black America would have been able to have the same resources that their taxes should have afforded them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They probably would have stayed in schools that were much more homogenous, where they would have had more black teachers integration.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the immediate consequences of
[SPEAKER_01]: That's hugely detrimental, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, so there are people who was still pontificate now about like, was, was this worth?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it worth?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I think, what I think about my kids, I mean, okay, was like, you know, is it worth it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, it's a great deal for any house, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I think about my kiddos, and you mentioned the question earlier, like, what does it mean like to be the only one in a space?
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that I've often said, my, you know, I've said, like,
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, I honor and respect the legacy of Rosa Parks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want my child to have to be Rosa Parks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And 2026, I don't want my kids to have to be Rosa.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want them to have to be the first and only.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should not have first in 2026.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or we have like a return to being the first, like reestablishing something.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've tried to work hard to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and a developmentally appropriate way because we can end up scarring our kids, you know, with Asta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Too much, too much, too much, too, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what I've worked about my way through.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I, I wonder for you, as you think about that, as you think about caring for your future children, as you think about what it means to be a black woman in the world, how do you think about even out as a grown-up?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I make decisions, where we work, where we speak, yeah, how do you how do you discern that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, do you know, I think I think right now, since I'm self-employed, like, you know, my world is pretty black.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't really, I don't, I'm not having to deal with that as much as when I had maybe 10 years ago, earlier, right, just outside of seminary, you know, and in the circles that we were in, and just moved, there's changed so much, you know, being in a black practice church or, of course, we stopped, you know, choose table and the foundation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, you know, Marilyn, you know, Marilyn such a whole different completely different world.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a little blah, blah, blah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, it's kind of like, you know, you know, yeah, a place, you know, yeah, I know about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So exactly, okay, you, you recommended it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's always, so I haven't really had to, I don't feel like I've had to navigate it too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, honestly, you know, which for me is with a blessing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's been one thing I've just been able to come off my plate.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I think about my nieces, I love that they're having the childhood that I didn't have.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a good childhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, it was a hard one.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a hard not-life.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got to be a definitely a school of the hard knocks, but I'm grateful that there you have a lot of the access privileges I did not have.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're growing up in a black, much black world where their wife friends are actually my, you know, where you're kind of growing up, you know, in their little, in their, my little club, I've told you about their little kind of daycare club.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well they like two sweet white girls in their in their group among these other black kids and because they're merely kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I feel like some white kids in Maryland that are growing up.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're having that experience that you talk about like their white minorities are like in Baltimore.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just different.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a different socialization.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: when you're waking, growing up in like, let's see, the major attraction centers, let me say in Maryland, because there are some parts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there are some parts.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it is the cell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a different socialization, you know, so I think it's really cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love seeing that they, even when they color, I see them color, their default is the color, their the characters on their sheets brown, like them, wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, like I didn't have that,
[SPEAKER_01]: One, then they have the crayons, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it, well, it's gonna tell you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We also didn't have those crayons, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's some crayons now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have brown.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, now they got all the shades, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and all the shades.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or peach, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I just maybe left it blank as a kid.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember, I don't remember, but I just think that, I was like, wow, that's really cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, those give me a little ante.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this picture really, I'm a whole thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, wow, like, yeah, that's just to see their development.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're growing up in a different world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they have more books.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm just saying think about the world has changed a bit more, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Black magic wasn't a thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we had a lot of black shows.
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, whereas they don't have that, you know, it's so, you know, it's just, um, I'd like to say that they can access, you know, some representation of ways that I don't think we always could, you know, um, as kids, and so that's cool to see that for them, and so I don't have the same fears for them, and yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I don't know because of what I experienced because they're not in the same environment.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and think of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it matters.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it matters.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will be afraid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say it matters what triggers your racial identity journey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, people who don't have an established, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: Identity Formation, narrative that starts from pride, enjoy, and creativity, and love.
[SPEAKER_01]: But their awareness of identity is triggered by a catastrophic incident or painful incident.
[SPEAKER_01]: You think about folks, I remember over the last decade or so, there were folks that talked to you that were like, I didn't ever thought about race until Michael Brown died or until George, I'm like, is that where I was?
[SPEAKER_01]: But that sends you on a different kind of developmental trajectory when it's trauma related and you haven't had enough foundation of joy, creativity, accurate history to kind of gird you to shape you as your foundation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's just critically important, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think to whatever extent we can introduce kids to culture and ethnicity that is not in response.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: To hatred, first, how quickly we can do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we know that black kids probably around developmentally around the age of three, have an awareness of race in America, as young as three.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this is much older for white kids, but that is because they are very much early getting the messages and being sent messages about their value, their humanity, or either they don't have the language to understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: until three, to set a tone about like, yeah, that you're fearfully and wonderfully made.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that your skin is exactly as it should be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that it is a reflection of God's creative genius that we look different, we shouldn't look the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it takes all the work to do that from zero to three because at around three is when they start getting hit with this is better, this is what you should be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's what I think parents
[SPEAKER_00]: are thinking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that never stops for any of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That child and all of us who still needs to hear, you are good as you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: That regardless of your race or effort, background, you need to hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: That child is yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the core longing for humans.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are loved and you are enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once that is you are satisfied.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we grow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're right that I did any I remember like I mean, I I did have my first black teacher and took college.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's wild.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the truth though.
[SPEAKER_01]: My first black teacher was in kindergarten.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was good friends with my mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although, there was one of my most traumatic questions experiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, because back in the day, let me tell you, I'm a young Jen Xer, back in the day they could public, they could spank you in class.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold, or anti-teachers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I remember that class very well, because I remember
[SPEAKER_01]: someone getting a spanking in the front of the glass and I was like, they are BUS!
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, you know where are they will never do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I was like, get us out of here!
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the best!
[SPEAKER_01]: That was my first black teacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she was tough!
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't play where her, because she was well done.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was well done.
[SPEAKER_01]: She had very sick.
[SPEAKER_02]: Could spank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is hilarious.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, no, that's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: The truth is, I didn't know how my first black teacher was.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, true.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, college is wild.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_01]: I not only had black male teachers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, my children was black, I black man in college in high school.
[SPEAKER_02]: Praise God.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're a competitive children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm team.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I did not, I'm literally, I was, I did not have a black.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my, my very first teachers, my mother really was a educator, but well, my very first teachers were were black black women and and the principal, but I remember I vividly remember principal my head was a black woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that matters.
[SPEAKER_01]: That matters.
[SPEAKER_02]: That really matters.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was miswomen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I still remember my favorite elementary school teacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a black woman who used to wear pearls every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Miss Kelly, she was so regal and very serious, a very, very serious, serious, my, I mean, she could have been like a college professor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when I think about it, I mean, college professors, they weren't as put together as Miss Kelly.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was like, she took us seriously.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the moral of the story, I think, with her.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, as she came, we were little kids, but she took us and took our education seriously.
[SPEAKER_01]: And black women.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, I'm really, really grateful, really grateful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that part of the way that you've been shaped and wired to give me that you have such a lens on being able to see people is that all of those things have probably actually shaped you into someone who can see.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I cut the whole box.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when you've been made invisible, you're like, I can see.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not paying attention to me exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so it took so much work.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, every day, something tried to kill me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, and that's where to lose seal, Clifton, that's the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, I was like, I mean, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope I am now, it's a miracle.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually, that I am playing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you're not surviving childhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's a thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because because the stuff that makes us kind of like, like, as adults,
[SPEAKER_01]: usually came, and so we spent our adulthood is the lineage of our repair for whatever happened in our childhood.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's that's all of us no matter where you grew up.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is true.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I you know I did a lot of I mean I remember just feeling like I remember reading the blues eye and yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's autobiography as a kid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I was like there's a deficit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there are no heavy books.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's actually books, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I would recommend this very serious kid.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's a deficit and I got to get some things from somewhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm missing a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you know, all right, I just knew myself estimation was off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: for very, I mean another, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I got it, and I had something to do myself up.
[SPEAKER_02]: It gave me, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all I was like, and that's what I was trying to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, I think the biggest gap is that even you share that story is when you talk about, not just the school, but like the role now in your life of the black church.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, huge.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the black, you know, and now you've been in the black church long enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but I think of like the childhood doctrine that I received as a kid and our progressive Baptist black church.
[SPEAKER_01]: without saying these words or space like God doesn't make junk, you know, if I didn't make a junk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like what somebody this, the thing that we have, personalism theology is so ingrained in most black turns.
[SPEAKER_01]: People, I know we on a rampage we're taking the black turns right now, that's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Time out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in most, across, across denomination, even the ones of you, like, all this oligolistic and I had to do this, they're still a theology of some bodyness, yes, like you're saying that church.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a world that says that you're not a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is core from the personal doctrine that builds you up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, yeah, I think that that was probably just as important.
[SPEAKER_00]: If not more important than my elementary and middle school experience, it was every Sunday being life being spoken into me by Black Christians.
[SPEAKER_01]: Huge difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every Sunday with an expectation of like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Expectation is like you're smart.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're capable.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're able.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're delightful.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, saying that song again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do that dance again Yeah, yeah, like he will make the kids entertain them, but yeah, but you know and do think yeah, you know, and kids are hilarious But but I think that was that was that is to me not the beauty of just the black church of our church and bodies that for black people in America and even non black people because I'm gonna tell you
[SPEAKER_01]: If you got self-esteem issues, you probably need to go to a black church, at least a little while.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless I might speak life into you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's so huge.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what it did for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Imagine having not having that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Deep death.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was working for deep deficits.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the truth.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you have the immigrant.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: People that were colonized.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're working with deficits on deficit.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's on deficit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so much work you have to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, to get to where you are.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, I was my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to fight.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a haul.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're Steve.
[SPEAKER_02]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So somebody who all that to say, I think it's up.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I hope this episode is helpful because I think, you know, it's just, it's on some major.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and the space is that we're a part of where the journey that we go through, and we can't control all of it, it's going to impact us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just go on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, nobody gets out of this without any scratches and some bruises and all the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there is, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: there's there are opportunities of a doubt of restoration.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where if we had to be in these spaces where we felt we were hyper minorities and you know, my trauma has in one year in your entire academic career.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: My whole adolescent, I mean, whole childhood.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was into, yeah, until I could be independent to make my own choices.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but, but, black, largely black neighbor.
[SPEAKER_02]: But black neighbor, that's a whole, yeah, yeah, yeah, hey, if I wasn't for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you have to, I mean, these spaces was not for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was really, it really matters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then as an adult, you, to whatever extent, you have the resources, you get to kind of create and shape them independently.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's power of
[SPEAKER_02]: the agency, you know, and just the redemption.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not surprising that true stable exists then.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello?
[SPEAKER_02]: And on that note, and on that note, thank y'all for taking the scene at the table with us this episode.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, our this, it is time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let us know your thoughts, come on, relax, face and white space and that's the topic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know y'all got some thoughts.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got some stories, you got some thoughts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So make sure you either comment on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, I mean, oh, I'm sorry, three, it's like a, you know, this is, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where I'm actually on thread.
[SPEAKER_02]: So whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where they, what you say, Belus.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because I'm trying to get up so soon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm tired.
[SPEAKER_01]: problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: But follow us down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, make sure you watch this episode on YouTube or on the Son on your favorite podcast, play our executive producers for a Tuesday, or on my self, the community, and Dr. Christina Emonson.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our video producers, our Dell Bradford, Patrick Anger, and our audio editor is Joshua Weith.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you soon on the next Tuesday,