Speaker 1: Come and knock on our door. We've been waiting for
Speaker 1: We've been waiting for you.
Speaker 2: We've been waiting for you.
Speaker 3: Where the kisses are hers and hers and hiss company to.
Speaker 1: Chris, I'm Christie in.
Speaker 4: The Come on Lake Trees Company.
Speaker 5: Praise the Lord Niggas and welcome back to the.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, praise the Lord blackest Niggas about nothing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: mashup episode. We have a fantastic guest today, and I
Speaker 1: how this mashup came to fruition was outside of my
Speaker 1: own general laziness. I was like, how can I make
Speaker 1: this work for me? So our guest today is a
Speaker 1: wonderful academic, a person of academia. He's a doctor. How
Speaker 1: am I supposed to say that?
Speaker 2: Sociologist? He's the sociologist.
Speaker 1: Thank you? Okay, wonderful. He's a sociologist. And he's also
Speaker 1: a black homosexual man. So I think reading a book
Speaker 1: that he wrote a whole book about being a black
Speaker 1: homosexual man. So we brought the world together. So so
Speaker 1: sorry getting grown audience, y'all are fine.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's what are you apologizing for. It's a good
Speaker 5: time and you know it's it's information for all.
Speaker 1: It is exactly. Oh, I don't mean the kitchen table.
Speaker 1: I just meant our Shannannikins.
Speaker 5: But it's oh well, in that case, then how was
Speaker 5: y'all's weeks? What's been happenings, the Tiaga, what's going on?
Speaker 1: Let's start with Tekia.
Speaker 2: I'm doing okay.
Speaker 6: I'm just you know, making my way when I can,
Speaker 6: keeping my head above water, making a way.
Speaker 1: When. How are you feeling in the season? I know
Speaker 1: this is a season.
Speaker 5: How are you feeling?
Speaker 6: I'm hanging in there, you know, I'm uh. I am
Speaker 6: thinking a lot about what's going on in the world
Speaker 6: and my family, just negotiating a lot of change and
Speaker 6: just trying to allow myself the space to sort of
Speaker 6: experience it in real time with gratitude, like you know.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's hard, it's heavy, but I'm still able
Speaker 6: to look around and express gratitude. You know, I think,
Speaker 6: I think, I think I shared with both of you,
Speaker 6: like you know, at this time, when I think about
Speaker 6: Brian Brian's passing, it is hard and I don't know
Speaker 6: that it will ever not be. But one thing that
Speaker 6: helps me negotiate that is to think about all of
Speaker 6: the ways in which you know, I have, like you know,
Speaker 6: God has given me people and relationships and you know, family.
Speaker 2: To help me through it.
Speaker 6: And you know, I see both of you as you know,
Speaker 6: expressions of that. So I'm grateful for all the ways
Speaker 6: that y'all have been holding me up for the last
Speaker 6: ten years, you know. And I'm going to miss my
Speaker 6: brother for the rest of my life, and uh, that's okay,
Speaker 6: I'm supposed to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And we love you know, we love you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanking your time as family here at the MESA. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm cool. It's in the years. That means these things
Speaker 1: are going to be home. But also like it's kind
Speaker 1: of nice that I won't have to wake up at
Speaker 1: six o'clock in the morning. But you know, lots of
Speaker 1: ind of your activities. Your girl was getting it yesterday.
Speaker 1: I saw stories hitting her ones in her toos.
Speaker 5: Was hitting my rain.
Speaker 1: Noah was up there killing the rest of the k
Speaker 1: and I know, I was like.
Speaker 5: It's not a white girl.
Speaker 2: She was trying to keep up. I was like, look
Speaker 2: at her.
Speaker 5: She was look she did she did her little stone
Speaker 5: call she did right. I've never seen an elevety road
Speaker 5: at the debrace my works. Don't call diva.
Speaker 1: She was a diva. I had to have to make sure,
Speaker 1: you know, as the mom with the best dancer, I
Speaker 1: had to be like, you did a fabulous job.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And that's the thing. But that's the problem why
Speaker 5: I don't have children, because now I got a lot
Speaker 5: of Yeah, don't be second, that's first last, absolutely not.
Speaker 5: We are winners, better.
Speaker 2: Come in, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: How are u x D outside of exactly?
Speaker 5: I am better? And I'm going to tell you why
Speaker 5: it is so. And it's so interesting that we have
Speaker 5: Doctor Wander on the show today because of years ago
Speaker 5: he told me invest in your rest because it is
Speaker 5: so important, restorative rest. It changes your heart, mind and
Speaker 5: and everyevity. Yeah. And so I've been struggling on my
Speaker 5: mattress for I talked about on the show for a while.
Speaker 5: But I made a big boy purchase this yes, and
Speaker 5: I was like, why does this get so expensive the
Speaker 5: whole time? And I bought myself a new mattress and
Speaker 5: with an adjustable frame of a particular and when I
Speaker 5: tell you, it came yesterday and I rested, like the yes,
Speaker 5: simply rest, That's what I did.
Speaker 1: And when.
Speaker 7: Rex, yeah, I haven't even had coffee today, and I
Speaker 7: am on, I'm on this.
Speaker 5: That's what. Yes, that's what happened. You get a good
Speaker 5: night sleep. I can't wait to go.
Speaker 4: To You're like, who was I?
Speaker 1: Who was I? All that time?
Speaker 5: A total bit.
Speaker 1: Be happening.
Speaker 2: Now you'd be like, oh wow, we were poor.
Speaker 1: I woke up.
Speaker 5: It was like Luther's version of can't you feel a
Speaker 5: brand new Days? Actually the best version because I don't
Speaker 5: believe the rapstros Diane, Jesus.
Speaker 1: Lord, please, you always talking about Green. I got other names,
Speaker 1: but I'll leave. I keep saying, I keep edging this conversation.
Speaker 5: All the way articulate. I don't think I don't know
Speaker 5: from beyond the gates. It's the same. It is what
Speaker 5: else happened this week? I went out side. It is
Speaker 5: funny because Terroll had his book thing yesterday, so I
Speaker 5: went and I always laughed because our friend Darnell, who
Speaker 5: wrote a book he talks about how like when gay
Speaker 5: is getting places, it always felt like cereal deaths. So
Speaker 5: so it was that Reparation Club, which is a wonderful
Speaker 5: black queer owned, woman owned book store. They have wonderful
Speaker 5: events in the West Alms neighborhood. Please go support the
Speaker 5: Lincoln the Yeah, but I had, but I laughed because
Speaker 5: I sat down and I was like.
Speaker 1: Now, is this is this across the all the letters?
Speaker 1: Is this joke?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, it's everybody's when when a group of of
Speaker 5: of a because yeah, there's some people in the in
Speaker 5: in in the alphabet that aren't that a little tart?
Speaker 5: You know what I mean? Historically? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Oh that was Sorry, I'm going to say this meme. No,
Speaker 1: I saw this beab and it was a non binary
Speaker 1: black person of the all party community. Yes, emo and such,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, type ship, you know, and
Speaker 1: you know, bang, yeah, they might have a natural in
Speaker 1: the back, but they flat on the bayang yeah, exactly, Wow,
Speaker 1: combat boots and they're going to dunks, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, with some glow sticks. But this person, it's
Speaker 1: that So it's that trend, Jesus, it's that trend where
Speaker 1: they like have the Kendrick like it is the fast
Speaker 1: way that goes. But I breathed, I bleed different. So
Speaker 1: they were like being free and black and going to
Speaker 1: a queer party and blah blah blah blah blah. Gets
Speaker 1: sad with the other part of the music. They were like,
Speaker 1: but they stink.
Speaker 5: Listen. I've been to plenty of pride, plenty of just
Speaker 5: functions with you know it just be rake, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean.
Speaker 1: You know some niggas be musty, you know, and that's
Speaker 1: just what it is, straight niggas.
Speaker 5: What I told that pride is in the summertime because
Speaker 5: it's hot.
Speaker 1: Min stink, yeah, real bad.
Speaker 8: Bad yeah.
Speaker 5: And I know there's some of you, some of you
Speaker 5: divas are into that.
Speaker 6: Butts nuts wash, you've got it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you gotta wash your nuts like we washed.
Speaker 6: Pys Geological differences when I think about, like with Brian.
Speaker 2: You know, Brian was a large man.
Speaker 6: When he was a teenager though those hormones, and Grandma
Speaker 6: used to tell him to leave that. He used to
Speaker 6: have to disrobe in the basement, leave them stinking close downstairs,
Speaker 6: put them directly in the washing machine, Like.
Speaker 1: Are you permeating all the walls of every room?
Speaker 6: Because quite literally, you cannot walk that must through my house.
Speaker 1: You must, you must not.
Speaker 6: You cannot have put him in directly into the washing
Speaker 6: machine downstairs, and then you can come upstairs and wash
Speaker 6: your behind, but you may not parade that stinky funk
Speaker 6: all throughout my house.
Speaker 2: That's not non negotiable.
Speaker 5: I laughed the other day because I was on the
Speaker 5: internet talking about like when I first got told to
Speaker 5: put on deodorant, we all think yeah, and it's always like,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? Do you think you get
Speaker 5: told it's been too late? It's been lingering for a while.
Speaker 5: And I had to be like, enough is enough. I
Speaker 5: remember I was on my way home and normally, you know,
Speaker 5: I would go to Carls Junior, right because that be
Speaker 5: my afternoon stack or whatever. Because on the way home
Speaker 5: and my grandmother was like, she went over to pn W,
Speaker 5: which is Pickley Wiggy, and she got me Mitcham and
Speaker 5: that's how I knew Mitcham. And you know all black
Speaker 5: people think Mitcham and it right, like it's so good
Speaker 5: you can skip a day? Yeah, but yeah, And when
Speaker 5: I tell you, she was like, don't you dare miss
Speaker 5: a day?
Speaker 9: Have you noticed that your sweet smelling baby has suddenly
Speaker 9: turned into a funky smelling teenager.
Speaker 1: A new study looks at why and why is it
Speaker 1: you have a couple.
Speaker 2: Of babies that still probably smell pretty sweet. I have
Speaker 2: eighteen eleven and ten. My eighteen year old, never never
Speaker 2: ever ever smells bad. The eleven and ten. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure what's gonna happen. In a couple of years.
Speaker 1: I had tousy, I had tussy, and then you know
Speaker 1: how I told you about the arrow with my parents.
Speaker 1: So then I got the crystal we were trying, or
Speaker 1: maybe we tried the crystal first, the one that knowed
Speaker 1: you wet it you really. Then it was like, oh
Speaker 1: that don't work, and then it was and then I
Speaker 1: think we jumped to not secret. What was the other
Speaker 1: one I have secret? Maybe it was Mitchell actually sure
Speaker 1: as Mitchell I used no, I never, I never was
Speaker 1: a sure.
Speaker 6: My mom my first was secret.
Speaker 2: And then I remember when degree came out. This was
Speaker 2: a thing.
Speaker 1: Degree, that was it.
Speaker 2: When degree came out, I remember wanting degree and my mom's.
Speaker 6: Saying something ridiculous like degree was for boys, and I
Speaker 6: was fight girl, like what you sound because it was
Speaker 6: he It was heavily marketing. So yeah, any powder degree,
Speaker 6: but that that was later. They came out with all
Speaker 6: sort of flavors a little later. But I remember, like
Speaker 6: the original degree before there was any sort of kind
Speaker 6: of different fragrant options. Yes, and I remember it coming
Speaker 6: out My mom was like, uh, you can get that
Speaker 6: for your brother, but you need to get secret.
Speaker 8: We asked some of the hardest guys in town to
Speaker 8: trade their deoderant for new degree deodorant activated.
Speaker 5: Let's give it a shot as your body heat rise.
Speaker 5: His only degree releases extra protection against odor. When I
Speaker 5: eat up deodor, it's going to kick in. It works
Speaker 5: far better than.
Speaker 6: The speech that kicked in for me, because I was like, girl, what,
Speaker 6: and then I said. My logic was, if it's strong
Speaker 6: enough for a man, it shouldn't matter.
Speaker 5: It shouldn't matter. That's why I were a secret today period. Listen. Branding,
Speaker 5: branding and commercials get me. This is why they need
Speaker 5: to go back to proper commercial advertising and jingles if
Speaker 5: they want me to.
Speaker 6: While we're talking about theme songs for your television programs
Speaker 6: as well, because I'm tired.
Speaker 5: Of because I'm tired of just exactly you know, like
Speaker 5: that's lazy.
Speaker 1: It is lazy. I mean, it gives you more show,
Speaker 1: I'll say that. But there was something they don't have.
Speaker 5: To do nothing else. They could add the extra two minutes, don't.
Speaker 6: I mean, they could just put it in and post
Speaker 6: like it's literally just you know, put it in at
Speaker 6: the start.
Speaker 5: They're using They're using AI to ruin everything else. You know,
Speaker 5: use it be effective, add the intro in the beginning
Speaker 5: of something.
Speaker 1: Wait, what kind of de order and do you use? Now? Kia,
Speaker 1: I still use degree? You still use the an xdu
Speaker 1: u secret still mm hmm.
Speaker 5: I don't use mentioned because it causes like like you
Speaker 5: know how it is, yeah strong.
Speaker 1: I think I wear an old Lady deorderant. I think
Speaker 1: what well? I wear two deorderance right? Because okay, first
Speaker 1: of all, I got off the natural train, so sorry
Speaker 1: to disappoint girls, miss, I use one. I use an
Speaker 1: arm and hammer lavender Roseberry.
Speaker 2: Situation is, yeah, I use that.
Speaker 1: It's summertime, so I don't have time to be playing around,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I'm not one of those
Speaker 1: girls that's like, I don't I don't stink very much.
Speaker 1: Like if I go to Yeah, if I go to
Speaker 1: sleep and don't put on deodorant, nigga, I might be musty.
Speaker 2: I never wanted to play those games.
Speaker 1: So as a as a college student, y'all know, I
Speaker 1: was born eighty, I used to go into Neiman Marcus
Speaker 1: to go get my deodorant.
Speaker 2: Oh, very classy.
Speaker 5: Well you are very old. Well Don.
Speaker 6: Missed, so then I got you off for a long
Speaker 6: did you wear? What the hell?
Speaker 8: Cash?
Speaker 5: I have boundaries.
Speaker 1: And it's not leading me wrong. Elizabeth Odd and Red Door,
Speaker 1: you should. I felt especially old last night because I
Speaker 1: went to shout out to Mandy and Weezy. I went
Speaker 1: to the Horrible Decisions One night Only cool live show
Speaker 1: at Sony Music Hall. As you all listen to this,
Speaker 1: I believe this was last week. I went with Internet
Speaker 1: and Crystal Jean very nice, Jasmina and uh, would you
Speaker 1: all like to see what your Crystal Jene looked like
Speaker 1: at the show. So it was a fabulous show, wonderful production,
Speaker 1: very sex positive. Okay, it was great for the beginning
Speaker 1: of Pride. Okay. We had a burlesque, man, I've never
Speaker 1: had mel burles I had a nasty hill and got
Speaker 1: down to a corset. It was It was fabulous and
Speaker 1: the girls did a great job and it was entertaining,
Speaker 1: and your sister also was having the time of her life.
Speaker 6: I'm not surprised at nothing about that surprising to me.
Speaker 1: Very much.
Speaker 2: On a mask that is very much that's a brand.
Speaker 1: But it was a good time. But it was I
Speaker 1: was out on a Tuesday particular for you. It was
Speaker 1: candle wax.
Speaker 5: And paddles and was grown.
Speaker 1: I don't know who I thought I was actually grown
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, but we we have a fantastic
Speaker 1: kitchen table slash after the break conversation, yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So should we get to it?
Speaker 5: I think we should headed Clyde.
Speaker 1: After these messages. Will be right back.
Speaker 9: While I'm at it, I'll also cut my short and
Speaker 9: long rail pieces. Try my best to avoid the sidewood.
Speaker 9: I mean, I like soidewood on occasion, but I'm just
Speaker 9: not looking for a permanent relationship with it on this piece.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Welcome Blacks.
Speaker 6: I'm very excited at the kitchen table because we have
Speaker 6: expanded the kitchen table. You remember how your grandma used
Speaker 6: to have that flat where you can make the kitchen table.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I forgot about the flat.
Speaker 8: We have.
Speaker 6: Table the little you know, we've given the kitchen table
Speaker 6: a little bit more length, and we are joined some
Speaker 6: very special guests. Y'all know, friend to the show, our
Speaker 6: brother x D is here. But we're also very excited
Speaker 6: to welcome a special guest whom I will introduce right
Speaker 6: now I will read his bio. Terrell Ja Wender receives
Speaker 6: his PhD in sociology from UCLA, the University of California,
Speaker 6: Los Angeles, in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: He is an urban ethnographer.
Speaker 6: Whose research areas include race and ethnicity, sexuality and sexual health,
Speaker 6: qualitative and quantitative research methods, and education. His current research
Speaker 6: examines stigma response processes among stigmatized populations negotiating more than
Speaker 6: one stigma simultaneously. His research has been published in Qualitative Sociology, AIDS,
Speaker 6: Patient Care and STDs, the Journal of Racial and Ethnic
Speaker 6: Health Disparities, and the Journal of Medical Internet Research. His
Speaker 6: work is also on mobile applications as a health intervention,
Speaker 6: and he's been covered in the LA Times. He has
Speaker 6: he's here to talk about his life. This book, which
Speaker 6: is out to day. It is a book called Shameless,
Speaker 6: The Making of Black Gay Identities in LA. It's a
Speaker 6: multi method examination of anti gay stigma response among young
Speaker 6: black gay men in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Everybody, welcome, doctor.
Speaker 6: Doctor, well, doctor Winder, excuse me, doctor Winder to the
Speaker 6: kitchen table.
Speaker 2: Hey, Dr Winder, and welcome.
Speaker 8: Hello, thank you, thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, So this is a really interesting book and untimely,
Speaker 5: one being that it is pride. Yeah, but we're coming
Speaker 5: out an intersection of life where we're being attacked by
Speaker 5: a whole bunch of shit. Right, So talk to us
Speaker 5: a little bit about this book. We have questions. But
Speaker 5: you introduced and let us know about your baby. Yeah,
Speaker 5: happy to do so. You know, Shameless was a long
Speaker 5: working process. You know.
Speaker 10: I started data collection for the project probably in twenty
Speaker 10: twelve in Los Angeles, and you know, spent over four
Speaker 10: years kind of going and collecting data with a group
Speaker 10: of guys in LA and learning just how they were
Speaker 10: navigating what it meant to be black and gay in
Speaker 10: Los Angeles. And I kind of start off in the
Speaker 10: book saying, you know, I'm from Baltimore, so my orientation
Speaker 10: to what it means to be growing up as a
Speaker 10: black person is different than what has.
Speaker 8: Happening I thinking in LA.
Speaker 10: I think people sometimes think of LA as very black
Speaker 10: because we have these like you know, black movies, like
Speaker 10: you know, exactly it's set in LA, but it's actually
Speaker 10: been you know, the population of black people has been
Speaker 10: declining over time, and so I was very interested in, like,
Speaker 10: how are you all learning what it means to be black?
Speaker 10: What does it mean to be gay in a city,
Speaker 10: you know, the second largest city in our country, and
Speaker 10: that's very geographically different. And so the book is an
Speaker 10: opportunity for me to kind of tell their stories in
Speaker 10: connection with my own ballso of thinking about how do
Speaker 10: we respond back and reject some of those stigmas and
Speaker 10: negative experiences in everyday life.
Speaker 8: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 5: Vana. So even you talk about in the beginning about
Speaker 5: the geographic I don't want to say disparities, but how
Speaker 5: the geographical lay out of LA and how that, uh
Speaker 5: is indicative of how people established community. Can you talk
Speaker 5: about that in essense of like, you know, comparing it
Speaker 5: to Baltimore or like New York City or anything in
Speaker 5: places where you've lived, you know.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, I think, Uh.
Speaker 10: One thing that's true about l A, right is public
Speaker 10: transportation is not winning any awards and not.
Speaker 5: Right the campaign influenceds talking about.
Speaker 8: You know, but that's part of it, right that you know.
Speaker 5: LA.
Speaker 8: To me when I got here, I was like, why.
Speaker 10: Does it take an hour and I have to go
Speaker 10: ten miles? Like, you know, I can see where I
Speaker 10: need to be on the highway and so you know,
Speaker 10: understanding how people are navigating the physical space. I think
Speaker 10: helps to understand how people are setting up their identities
Speaker 10: and who they are, right like you know, who you encounter,
Speaker 10: who you don't encounter, or shaping how you see yourself.
Speaker 10: And so for me, it was interesting coming from Baltimore
Speaker 10: and New York City, where you know, it doesn't take
Speaker 10: an hour and a half to ten miles or you know,
Speaker 10: you can hop on the train and go where you
Speaker 10: need to go, and you know, seeing that play out
Speaker 10: in LA was very interesting to me. So I think,
Speaker 10: you know, at the core of it, what I'm saying
Speaker 10: is like geography matters, so like it's important for us
Speaker 10: to consider like where people are growing up and the
Speaker 10: context of the like the demographics of that place really
Speaker 10: matter for how we think about what is blackness? How
Speaker 10: does blackness show up? And what is queerness? What is gayness?
Speaker 10: How does that show up in space? And so that's
Speaker 10: kind of what I emphasize there, and I highlight kind
Speaker 10: of you know, people are traveling an hour or two hours,
Speaker 10: you know, wherever to get somewhere to meet people, to
Speaker 10: hang out with community, and I think it's important to
Speaker 10: you know, to highlight that even though we have so
Speaker 10: many resources in LA, it's not equally dispersed across the
Speaker 10: city in location.
Speaker 1: I have a question for you, actually, I guess pre book,
Speaker 1: because in order for you to write this, you had
Speaker 1: this was part of research and also just adaptation to
Speaker 1: a new space. I have a good friend out in LA.
Speaker 1: Her name is is Nia, and she put together the
Speaker 1: supper clubs specifically for lesbian and fems in black lesbian
Speaker 1: and films in LA because they feel like they have
Speaker 1: not had any spaces in those spaces have predominantly been
Speaker 1: for black gay men, I mean for gay men and
Speaker 1: specifically for white men, which well, I'm sure we're going
Speaker 1: to get to that. How did you go about with
Speaker 1: all of these challenges that you that you just spoke about,
Speaker 1: how did you go about really finding your community out there?
Speaker 10: You know, that's a great question and a great point.
Speaker 10: I think when you talk about the supper club and
Speaker 10: creating a space for lesbians and product, I think for women,
Speaker 10: we don't have as many organizations as target women.
Speaker 8: We don't have as many public.
Speaker 10: Spaces for women to do that, especially for black lesbian women.
Speaker 10: So one of my early mentors kind of did a
Speaker 10: similar thing. She used to host these parties that set
Speaker 10: up I think it would call chocolate and wine, and
Speaker 10: she and her wife used to That's how she.
Speaker 8: Would recruit people for her her work.
Speaker 10: And her book is Invisible Families, about Black lesbian mothers
Speaker 10: in Black lesbian motherhood. And so I think how gender
Speaker 10: plays a role in who can access what spaces is important.
Speaker 10: And so in my case, because I was looking at
Speaker 10: men and mostly since men, there are a lot of
Speaker 10: organizations in spaces targeting them, namely for HIV n STI prevention,
Speaker 10: care and treatment, and so you know, a lot of
Speaker 10: the organizational pieces of the work happened because of HIV.
Speaker 10: It was important for me to say that the book
Speaker 10: is not about HIV. And I've made that comment a
Speaker 10: lot that when I said I was working on a
Speaker 10: project about black men, people would often say, oh, so
Speaker 10: you're studying HIV, and I'll have to say, well, no,
Speaker 10: you know, and I resisted that for a long time,
Speaker 10: but I think it's important to acknowledge what are the
Speaker 10: kind of spillover effects from this kind of funding, you know,
Speaker 10: system that created these organizations where people are getting money
Speaker 10: to find people who are positive. Right, And so because
Speaker 10: black gay men and black pere men in particular have
Speaker 10: been such a target, both impacted by the epidemic but
Speaker 10: also being targeted now to be found through organizations. It
Speaker 10: made it some ways easier to locate physical spaces. There's
Speaker 10: also the gendered aspect, which is like most places are
Speaker 10: catering to men, even gay clubs, gay bars often are
Speaker 10: catering to men, and so it wasn't as hard to
Speaker 10: locate spaces physically where they would be. But I think
Speaker 10: that's a key point whence people ask me like, why
Speaker 10: are there no you know, why didn't I also include
Speaker 10: like queer women or that, And they really weren't there
Speaker 10: in the space as much because.
Speaker 1: Also you're not a queer woman, I'm not so.
Speaker 10: But if they were there, you know, I mean, I
Speaker 10: feel like it's you know, if they're in this physical space,
Speaker 10: you I would include them, right, But I think it's
Speaker 10: important to highlight like there are not as many resources
Speaker 10: that are targeting them. I think, you know, many of
Speaker 10: the women colleagues of mine, I know who are fighting
Speaker 10: to say no, black women need to learn about PREP.
Speaker 8: Black women need to know about PEP. They need to know.
Speaker 10: About these things that's coming much later. They're they're always
Speaker 10: being pushed as an afterthought, and I think it's important
Speaker 10: to highlight like part of the reason why I was
Speaker 10: able to do this is because there's so much of
Speaker 10: an emphasis one man in patriarchy that's a whole.
Speaker 5: Even as a personal note, I worked on a movie
Speaker 5: and a part of a part of the director's push
Speaker 5: and a part of like financial stuff was attached to
Speaker 5: the Black Aids Institute. And I've always it was always
Speaker 5: been this adage of like there's always money and aids,
Speaker 5: and I always think that it's so interesting how that
Speaker 5: money is funneled into other usage, you know, to create
Speaker 5: like third spaces that we all need, which we'll talk
Speaker 5: about in a little bit, but you know, I just
Speaker 5: find it interesting how everything is just relegated to this
Speaker 5: epidemic and not anything else that we're you know, have
Speaker 5: stuff going on, you know what I mean?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I wanted to I think to Meet the
Speaker 6: book is really I think it's really cool. I think
Speaker 6: it's a different sort of spin because I know there
Speaker 6: are lots of literature and.
Speaker 2: Sort of discourse.
Speaker 6: Around identity and how identity is shaped by communal spaces, right,
Speaker 6: and and you know what socialization, what role that plays
Speaker 6: in like our socialization and how we come to know identity.
Speaker 2: What I think is really interesting about Shameless is that.
Speaker 6: You talk about this through but but like through the
Speaker 6: lens of stigmatization. And I was wondering if before we
Speaker 6: sort of get into some of the deeper or more
Speaker 6: nuanced questions around some of your choices to do that,
Speaker 6: cause you sort of just explain like stigmatization like one
Speaker 6: on one, like for anyone who's coming in and wanted
Speaker 6: to understand. Uh, you know, we know that negative stigmas exist,
Speaker 6: but like you know, I think your book kind of
Speaker 6: lays out what are the things that informed them and
Speaker 6: sustain them, and you know, how we come to respond
Speaker 6: and interact with them. Just talk to us a little
Speaker 6: bit about about that, because I feel like that's sort
Speaker 6: of a core premise in the.
Speaker 8: Yeah, no, it's a great question. Let's see if I
Speaker 8: do it justice.
Speaker 10: But I'll say, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 10: was important for me in the book was, I think
Speaker 10: we use a lot of these terms interchangeably, so like stigma, stereotype, prejudice, discrimination, racism,
Speaker 10: even yep, and I in the book go all the
Speaker 10: way back to I think one of the best examples
Speaker 10: of stigmatization is probably the scarlet letter, right, the Hawthorn text,
Speaker 10: where it's like, Okay, here's someone who committed adult where
Speaker 10: you're putting this big letter on her. It's the mark, right,
Speaker 10: So what are these identities, these behaviors, these things that
Speaker 10: we do that leave us with a mark socially and
Speaker 10: then you know, differentiating that from discriminations, like when you're
Speaker 10: treated differently because of that mark. Right, So what does
Speaker 10: it mean to walk through life with this particular mark?
Speaker 10: And a lot of work I think focused on kind
Speaker 10: of people navigate one stigma, right, but what does it
Speaker 10: mean to live at the intersection of multiple stigmas and
Speaker 10: to be dealing with kind of intersectional stigmas. So the
Speaker 10: example I gave about HIV is I think the good
Speaker 10: one where it's like, you know, there are stereotypes about
Speaker 10: what it means to be black, there are stigmas associated
Speaker 10: with that. There are stereotypes and stigmas associated with what
Speaker 10: it means to be gett or queer. But the idea
Speaker 10: that everything that's going on in black gay or black
Speaker 10: peer men's lives is HIV related or like, you know,
Speaker 10: that's the primary focal point. I think it's a unique
Speaker 10: kind of intersectional example of how that's the label.
Speaker 8: Right the moment where I say.
Speaker 10: You know, I'm studying in black gay men, they automatically
Speaker 10: think that that's what it's about, and I get to say, well, no,
Speaker 10: that's not the only thing that you know that's happening,
Speaker 10: and people are they're human, right, So it's allowing to
Speaker 10: you know, kind of craft full embodiments of who people are.
Speaker 10: And so to me, stigma is one of those kind
Speaker 10: of Cagy terms that I think people hear it all
Speaker 10: the time't really name what it is, But to me,
Speaker 10: I define it in the book as like the actual
Speaker 10: mark of what it is to have, you know, to
Speaker 10: hold an identity that is looked down upon, right society?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like costa, like how what it costs you socially?
Speaker 10: Yeah, And also draw on the du Boys like you
Speaker 10: know wd WB D Boys talks about like the burden
Speaker 10: of second sight, right, like, yeah, what does it mean
Speaker 10: to go through life with the burden of having to
Speaker 10: see yourself through the eyes of other people all the time?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exhausting. The double identity is what it is essentially,
Speaker 1: because you're existing and then you're like, let me see
Speaker 1: how other people perceive me, and you've got to carry
Speaker 1: that as well. That's so much responsibility, which speaking of
Speaker 1: responsibility on people that they don't deserve, I want you
Speaker 1: to go in to a little go it into the
Speaker 1: coming out what you were talking about with coming out
Speaker 1: and how coming out it's for other people as we're
Speaker 1: talking about stigmas.
Speaker 10: Yeah, you know, a lot of the research I think
Speaker 10: in literature about how people navigate stigma is trying to
Speaker 10: make other people comfortable, and I think coming out is
Speaker 10: often framed as this like revelatory moment where you finally
Speaker 10: you know.
Speaker 8: Accept yourself, but I don't.
Speaker 10: I actually think there's a step before that, and that's
Speaker 10: where I kind of position unspoiling because I think people
Speaker 10: sometimes come out and they don't like themselves, or they're
Speaker 10: outed and people know and they still haven't made, you know,
Speaker 10: the decision to come to terms with that identity themselves,
Speaker 10: and coming out I think for you know, kind of
Speaker 10: prioritizes other people and it's like I'm going to share
Speaker 10: this with you.
Speaker 8: I want you to know, and then people are upset
Speaker 8: you didn't tell them and all this other kind of stuff.
Speaker 10: You know, So for me, it was important to say, no,
Speaker 10: what I'm talking about in this book is not coming out.
Speaker 10: It's about how do I reformulate a relationship with the
Speaker 10: identities I've been told on my life are bad, right,
Speaker 10: and where you're getting messages about it being bad dipper
Speaker 10: along the line of race, class, gender, where you are
Speaker 10: in the world, right, And so it was important for
Speaker 10: me to highlight that. But I think differentiating it from
Speaker 10: coming out because sometimes people say, well, you know, we
Speaker 10: had all these campaigns like it gets better, you know those,
Speaker 10: and it's like for some people it doesn't like let's
Speaker 10: just be real exactly, like yeah, but you still need
Speaker 10: to focus on how you feel about you, and that
Speaker 10: to me is the priority, you know, like, how do
Speaker 10: I focus on feeling good about me?
Speaker 1: Just everybody? Because every niggas are not okay with themselves
Speaker 1: and then they spill their ship all over the place people,
Speaker 1: and it's frustrated with It's also an unfair burden I
Speaker 1: feel like on on the community because it's like, why
Speaker 1: do I have to why do I have to come
Speaker 1: tell you what my preference is? Again, as a as
Speaker 1: a as a hetero sexual, I never have to go
Speaker 1: and make an announcement about who I'm interested in or
Speaker 1: why I'm interested in them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's not a declaration, and so I find that I've
Speaker 1: always found it actually to be a bit of a
Speaker 1: weird concept. But I do understand where it comes from
Speaker 1: because there's so much homophobia rooted in our community as well.
Speaker 10: So and it's a continual thing, you know, I think
Speaker 10: historically we had thought about people talked about coming out.
Speaker 10: It's like when did you come out? Like people ask
Speaker 10: that question, when did you come out? You're coming out
Speaker 10: all the time, like every time you meet a new person,
Speaker 10: you have come like a continual thing throughout life, you know.
Speaker 10: I always joke about when the first time I came
Speaker 10: to California and there was some women I was hanging around,
Speaker 10: and I was very confused because I was like, do
Speaker 10: they know I'm gay?
Speaker 8: Like what's going on here?
Speaker 5: Like I don't.
Speaker 10: I was like, oh, it didn't translate from New York
Speaker 10: to California, like confusing, But it's like, oh, I have
Speaker 10: to come out again, like, you know, like constantly every
Speaker 10: time you meet new people, because you don't know how
Speaker 10: they are encountering you or like what they see in you.
Speaker 10: Sometimes and we take that for granted. If you you know,
Speaker 10: I think, I don't know, maybe I'm you know, an
Speaker 10: example of a gay person who's like, you know, I
Speaker 10: have no idea how people interpret what they think I
Speaker 10: do until they say it.
Speaker 5: That's such an interesting thought. I've never I guess I
Speaker 5: come from a place of privilege where I've lived my
Speaker 5: outness for the last twenty years on the internet, so
Speaker 5: people are already coming with the notion of of who
Speaker 5: I am and all that stuff. But I've never really
Speaker 5: had to, you know, have to reintroduce myself or have
Speaker 5: to come out again, like I haven't had to come
Speaker 5: out since I left home whatever coming out means, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean. So I think, yeah, I've never
Speaker 5: thought about this, this reintroduction like going on, you know,
Speaker 5: again and again and again. When whatever new person that
Speaker 5: you meet.
Speaker 10: Tell I think, like the barbershop, right, like yeah, you know,
Speaker 10: as a classic example, but like gave you were talking
Speaker 10: about the barbershop, and you know, when I first moved
Speaker 10: to LA I was going to a barbershop and one
Speaker 10: day he the barber at the time, asked me something
Speaker 10: like what I did, and I mentioned it, and then
Speaker 10: and then from then on, once he knew, he was like, Okay,
Speaker 10: every time I came in he had a list of
Speaker 10: gay questions. He was like, Okay, you here, I've been
Speaker 10: waiting to ask this. He's like an LGBT community.
Speaker 8: Am I saying that? Right?
Speaker 10: I was, So I had to appreciate. I appreciated his questions.
Speaker 10: But it became this same where it was like, oh
Speaker 10: what the first few months you had no idea. You
Speaker 10: just had no idea who I was, what I was doing.
Speaker 10: But then I had to come out and now I'm
Speaker 10: the authority on.
Speaker 8: The gay stuff. So he had his questions every few weeks.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was going to say, I think x ste though,
Speaker 6: I think what you're saying is an example of something
Speaker 6: that to me came through in the book, like the
Speaker 6: process of unspoiling like you, I think when you talk
Speaker 6: about like you know, ultimately, I guess you could argue
Speaker 6: that the way that you have presented yourself and your
Speaker 6: identity online is in largely a lot of way a
Speaker 6: rejection of the stigmatization that comes absolutely along with this.
Speaker 6: So I well, I think it's super dope about Shaneless
Speaker 6: is that it gives us some examples for like what
Speaker 6: the work of that unspoiling looks like in practice and
Speaker 6: what are the spaces and places and practices of actually
Speaker 6: actually doing that. I'm sorry, I thought you was going
Speaker 6: to say something XD.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I wanted to talk about you interviewed a
Speaker 5: lot of people, a lot of people, and through this,
Speaker 5: you know, you discovered, you know, how people identify and stuff.
Speaker 5: But what I found interesting was I was, yes, I
Speaker 5: was expecting the gay shit, but I didn't expect the
Speaker 5: racial identity portion when with the person who was like
Speaker 5: it was almost like, but I'm you know what I mean, like,
Speaker 5: I'm not black, I'm kind of thing with samo in person.
Speaker 5: Can you talk about that in this idea of when
Speaker 5: it comes to identities and race comes to play, How
Speaker 5: does race come into play, especially in your research.
Speaker 10: Yeah, No, definitely race essential to it. I think one
Speaker 10: of the key pieces is, like, we grow up often
Speaker 10: if you're raised in a black family, hearing a lot
Speaker 10: of messages about blackness that are more evenly tempered then
Speaker 10: you hear about sexuality. So you grow up maybe learning
Speaker 10: from your parents that being black comes with costs or
Speaker 10: social costs, or how to prepare yourself for an encountering
Speaker 10: the police or being better. But they also have messages
Speaker 10: like black is beautiful, your beauty, Like they often are
Speaker 10: pouring those things into you around race, not around sexuality.
Speaker 10: And for many people who I interviewed, race to them
Speaker 10: was immutable, right, even though we often talk about it
Speaker 10: as a social creation. It's tied to ancestry, it's tied
Speaker 10: to history, to who they know, and so you know,
Speaker 10: they felt like, I'm black and that's what I know,
Speaker 10: where sexuality felt more like a oh, like that has
Speaker 10: changed for them, right, Because in their minds, they're like, well,
Speaker 10: I've forced myself to live straight for some time or
Speaker 10: I didn't, you know, so like maybe it'll change. It
Speaker 10: seems changeable to them in a way that race doesn't.
Speaker 10: I think, in particular, the examples you gave are folks
Speaker 10: who are multi racial, right, and they talk about feeling
Speaker 10: like even within their families they were getting negative, k
Speaker 10: like messages about what it meant to be black, right,
Speaker 10: And I think it's a very conscious choice for them
Speaker 10: to participate in these black spaces where I'm doing my
Speaker 10: work right because and so that's partially why you know,
Speaker 10: it's important to me to name on the cover like
Speaker 10: this is about black gay identities to talk about their
Speaker 10: usage of the term that even if they said something
Speaker 10: like I'm biracial or multiracial, they were intentionally trying to
Speaker 10: put themselves in black space, right or black communities. They're like,
Speaker 10: I'm a member of the black community. And they understood
Speaker 10: that they were read in that way. And so I
Speaker 10: think race is at the forefront of that, and our
Speaker 10: understanding of what is sexuality is shaped by race and
Speaker 10: what is normal or considered normal for what racism what
Speaker 10: isn't And so they grew up with those massages buds.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because you often talk there's another part where you
Speaker 5: discuss somebody who was supposed to go away to college
Speaker 5: and you talk about that, Yes, I don't want to
Speaker 5: give the book away.
Speaker 8: Yes, no.
Speaker 10: So one of the examples is a young boy who
Speaker 10: was graduating from high school want to go away to college,
Speaker 10: and his mother basically was like, I'm not letting you
Speaker 10: go to college so you can go be gay. And
Speaker 10: you know, I was going to stop you, but I
Speaker 10: was like, what I say, Now, he's just pay in
Speaker 10: your house, right, So you know, it doesn't do anything.
Speaker 10: But I think it's important for us to acknowledge these
Speaker 10: things where it's like people are changing and shifting the
Speaker 10: trajectory of people's lives based on these identities and what
Speaker 10: people find acceptable and don't. And one of the other
Speaker 10: examples that I talk about in the book is a
Speaker 10: young boy I believe, I call him branded in.
Speaker 8: The book who.
Speaker 5: You Know.
Speaker 10: So much of the literature suggests that younger generations are
Speaker 10: more accepting and more welcoming around sexuality and that you know,
Speaker 10: actual gay people aren't being called fags in schools or
Speaker 10: like being you know, people are less homophobic than some way.
Speaker 10: And he's a great example because it's.
Speaker 1: Like, m.
Speaker 10: No, they still doing that, like they're still terrorizing the
Speaker 10: gay boys. And he's an example where he talks about
Speaker 10: one of the reasons he didn't go off to college
Speaker 10: is because he was afraid that it would be worse
Speaker 10: like that they were going to you know, now there
Speaker 10: are no you know, even more free to make fun
Speaker 10: of me or to or to you know, treat me
Speaker 10: for So these these encounters really do shift and move
Speaker 10: people's you know, life trajectories.
Speaker 8: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 5: Which is so interesting because oftentimes the black gay escape
Speaker 5: is through education, going to school that was mine you know,
Speaker 5: I didn't want to come out. You and I have
Speaker 5: a similar coming out experience where they we were asked
Speaker 5: by our parents and it was about a week or
Speaker 5: two before we both had to go to school. So
Speaker 5: the night before I was like, I'm going to New
Speaker 5: York City.
Speaker 6: Wow, do that? That's that's native Black moms.
Speaker 1: I mean what a know?
Speaker 5: I asked me. It was like the Lord brought a
Speaker 5: department to ask okay, order she wanted to know herself?
Speaker 1: Did she ever Lord? This is a this might be
Speaker 1: a problematic question.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 1: You can tell me it is what tiptoe off to
Speaker 1: even ask this in the first place, Like you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, what did like did she give you
Speaker 1: a like A.
Speaker 5: Well, she did for me, she did. She had like
Speaker 5: a dossier of things, and you know my mother speaks
Speaker 5: to me, Yeah she did, because you know, I was
Speaker 5: a young ho in two thousand and three. So I
Speaker 5: was like, that's what metro PCs had came out. So
Speaker 5: I was like, I don't need your singular nonsense and
Speaker 5: checking me. I'm gonna talk to the trade on my hotline. Okay.
Speaker 5: So she was like, you know, I hear you on
Speaker 5: the phone late at night, you know, you know, and
Speaker 5: I don't know who you're talking to. And I was
Speaker 5: you be on your computer. I'm like, girl, I listening too,
Speaker 5: Like I don't know what you want? Yeah what she
Speaker 5: and I was like, young girl. Then she sat down
Speaker 5: and she immediately went to AIDS and that's usually where
Speaker 5: it goes to sickness and had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 5: And then for her it was interesting because then after
Speaker 5: that she was like, well, I don't know how to
Speaker 5: I don't know how to provide you with a toolkit
Speaker 5: to prepare you for this. And later on we talked
Speaker 5: about this and she was like, you know, as a
Speaker 5: single mom, I did my best to prepare you. I
Speaker 5: know last night you talked about you know, breaking or
Speaker 5: being raised into our single mothers not being considered it
Speaker 5: being able to raise a man, that kind of thing.
Speaker 5: My mother has always been like, I've raised you to
Speaker 5: be a good person, not to be a good man
Speaker 5: or anything. So I was like, well that's an a plus,
Speaker 5: but b you know, once she got over the idea
Speaker 5: of this envision of her son that she had thought
Speaker 5: or whatever the fuck she got, she got over it
Speaker 5: real quick and then was like Okay, well how can
Speaker 5: I be supportive? You know, so it took some It
Speaker 5: took a little while, but you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: it wasn't immediate, but you know it. I know that
Speaker 5: again privileged place and I and I understand that's not
Speaker 5: the case for everybody, especially for a lot of people
Speaker 5: in this book, but you know, I.
Speaker 1: What about you, Torell.
Speaker 10: I feel like it was probably a bunch of things
Speaker 10: over time, the same things like you want to computer,
Speaker 10: you're on the phone, you're doing this, who is that?
Speaker 10: One example, though, six out in my mind is a
Speaker 10: restaurant we were at when I was a teenager, like
Speaker 10: Bennegan's or something said I don't think it, but.
Speaker 1: Come and get up Monte Cristo.
Speaker 5: Restaurant.
Speaker 10: And it's like, clearly this is a gay waiter something
Speaker 10: and we're you know, I'm there with my whole family,
Speaker 10: and you know, he's looking at me and I'm like whatever.
Speaker 10: And then my mother is like to my dad like
Speaker 10: why is he looking at my son like this?
Speaker 8: Like it?
Speaker 10: And I'm like embarrassing or like whatever. But it's one
Speaker 10: of those moments where it was like, Okay, there's just
Speaker 10: like an amalgamation of like different things happening, and so
Speaker 10: I feel like she just was like, I'm going to
Speaker 10: ask because if I'm not going to wait for you
Speaker 10: to tell me, okay, tell me today before you go
Speaker 10: to college.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So I think you know this.
Speaker 6: I appreciate y'all sharing that, Yeah, because I think you know.
Speaker 6: One thing that I thought was cool read it through
Speaker 6: the book was I feel like I was wondering I
Speaker 6: should say, I feel like you're very explicit around like
Speaker 6: racial identity, sexual identity, but I think like embedded within
Speaker 6: like gay as a sexual identity, is this idea of gender, manhood, masculinity.
Speaker 6: It was, and I know that that comes out in
Speaker 6: some of the stories and some of like you know,
Speaker 6: as you're talking about the people that you were working
Speaker 6: with specifically, But curious as to whether that was like
Speaker 6: a choice, Like were you intentional around like maintaining the
Speaker 6: focus on like racial and sexual identity versus like explicitly
Speaker 6: exploring like concepts of masculinity and manhood as another layer.
Speaker 10: That's such a great question and I struggled with how
Speaker 10: to address it very much. So one of the questions
Speaker 10: I asked people in the interview was, like, what are
Speaker 10: some of the positive things about being a man.
Speaker 8: Or whatever gender they use.
Speaker 10: Yes, but they all had answer love to hear it,
Speaker 10: but the answers were always things that they didn't have
Speaker 10: to go through because they're not women. So it wasn't
Speaker 10: like there was anything inherently good about being a man.
Speaker 10: It was like we get I get paid more than
Speaker 10: women do, or I don't have to have a period,
Speaker 10: you know, like those, and so I.
Speaker 1: Real manage that ships.
Speaker 5: A lot.
Speaker 10: But I don't even know if they even framed it
Speaker 10: as like this is male privilege, you know, it's like
Speaker 10: one of those things like No, it was more like, well,
Speaker 10: thank god, I don't have to go through that, and
Speaker 10: you know I could have done more and probably should
Speaker 10: have done more with gender like explicitly in the world.
Speaker 1: No, No, you just give yourself a pathway.
Speaker 8: I think it is another another.
Speaker 2: To do another, you know, like or how you the
Speaker 2: work of implication.
Speaker 6: I think that that would be exactly dope, because I'm
Speaker 6: not I don't think it was. I'm not qualifying the choice.
Speaker 6: I think you know what you know, but I agree
Speaker 6: with you.
Speaker 10: That's the question I asked myself to So don't know
Speaker 10: if the critique is all so from within right with
Speaker 10: this question of like how do I deal with, you know,
Speaker 10: not framing the conversation about manhood as explicitly as I
Speaker 10: could have, I think, And it was always challenging because
Speaker 10: I think it does come out in the narratives and
Speaker 10: in the stories of what it means to be.
Speaker 8: A man yea, or how they learn.
Speaker 10: But yeah, it was a hard question. It was a
Speaker 10: deep question for them. And I still struggle with, Okay,
Speaker 10: how best do you present that the thing that men
Speaker 10: are excited about being men is rooted in like misogyny
Speaker 10: or something like, you know, like this male privileged thing.
Speaker 10: And so I don't delve into that as much. And
Speaker 10: partially also one of the reasons why I don't delve
Speaker 10: into that is that race and sexuality presented as such
Speaker 10: clearly salient things that you know, there's been a much
Speaker 10: larger discourse around uh, you know, who gets to be black?
Speaker 8: Who doesn't get to be black?
Speaker 10: And I feel like that's changing right over, like this
Speaker 10: new generation of like you got four black grandmothers, you know,
Speaker 10: like who's there who can be And so it was
Speaker 10: important for me to address the racial piece. Yeah, and
Speaker 10: I think I try to point out that to me
Speaker 10: the gender piece. Isn't the privilege like when we first
Speaker 10: started about this, which is like that there are even
Speaker 10: spaces where they can go, yeah, and that are women. Yeah,
Speaker 10: those places don't exist in the same way.
Speaker 6: And I mean, I'm only you know, like you said,
Speaker 6: you started your data collection in twenty twelve, and so
Speaker 6: you know, the thing about research is that it's like
Speaker 6: contextually specific, right, So I'm just thinking about it now
Speaker 6: through the lens of you know, this age where we're
Speaker 6: in the Mano sphere and what you know, what that
Speaker 6: lens would add to this conversation.
Speaker 2: So that's why I asked them.
Speaker 6: I think it's really fascinating because I'm learning a lot
Speaker 6: about even you know, even the work that we've done
Speaker 6: before since around just thinking about intersectionality and all the
Speaker 6: ways that likely race and our gender identity, also class
Speaker 6: identity also like you know, you know, all of these things.
Speaker 6: You know, it was fascinating to think about it through
Speaker 6: this lens. That also adding the layer of what it
Speaker 6: means for stigmas and how we collectively, individually and collectively
Speaker 6: position ourselves.
Speaker 2: To reject them.
Speaker 6: I just feel like, you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 6: that's a lot of there's a lot of good work,
Speaker 6: and so would be curious to know, like, now that
Speaker 6: this is out and into the world, are you already
Speaker 6: thinking because you know the way you know how you
Speaker 6: know academic our you know, they don't let us finish
Speaker 6: one thing before they be asking which.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna have another baby? Going to be?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 10: So I definitely have a bunch of other projects, but
Speaker 10: I think the one that probably comes to mind right
Speaker 10: now that's related to this is, you know, in the
Speaker 10: in the book, I talk a lot about religion as well,
Speaker 10: because as a source of some of those stigmas and
Speaker 10: how those go and so because people say, well, why
Speaker 10: do people keep going to these churches and places if
Speaker 10: this if they're having these negative experiences, so highlighting you know,
Speaker 10: but you know, the spirituality and having a spiritual practice
Speaker 10: really does matter, and community matters, and so for many
Speaker 10: people it's hard to leave. But I started to question,
Speaker 10: like what about the people who do leave and say.
Speaker 8: I'm not Christian anymore.
Speaker 10: I don't know if I want to do that in
Speaker 10: that way, And so I had I have a project
Speaker 10: on you know, black spiritual Black spirituality that's rooted in
Speaker 10: things like who do who do working conjure and then
Speaker 10: African traditional or diasporic fates like if those things. And
Speaker 10: so we interviewed like one hundred and nine black folks
Speaker 10: across the US who are practicing different African diasporic fates
Speaker 10: in some way, and that will most be the next book.
Speaker 10: And I will say that one thing is the majority
Speaker 10: of them in that project identify as women, sis, women
Speaker 10: or a gender and something non binary. And you know,
Speaker 10: it's been an interesting counter to this project or like
Speaker 10: the build off, like an offshoot, because sexuality also becomes
Speaker 10: like a clear reason why that's happened, and that gender
Speaker 10: is definitely a big key reason why, you know, women,
Speaker 10: I cannot go to this church. I got to find
Speaker 10: something else. And so it's race, gender, and sexuality come
Speaker 10: together very clearly in that to say, no, I have
Speaker 10: to find a practice that fits better with me. And
Speaker 10: you know, I have a paper from this project that
Speaker 10: just came out and the quote is, you know, a
Speaker 10: person's God should look like them, And that was one
Speaker 10: of the things that one of the respondents said in
Speaker 10: the interview. You know, she said, I'm very clear on
Speaker 10: my on that fact, like a person's God should look
Speaker 10: like them. And that also means including women and and
Speaker 10: many of the religions were brought up in it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're there, there's there there, I think.
Speaker 6: I think, uh, there's a lot of spaces, and I think,
Speaker 6: you know, millennials are in such a space right, and
Speaker 6: there's a lot of reckoning and reckoning and and sort
Speaker 6: of like recalibration, you know, growing up as a church baby.
Speaker 6: There's there's ways in which I am interrogating and problematizing,
Speaker 6: you know, some of the.
Speaker 2: Things that were very normal and core.
Speaker 6: To my own sort of upbringing and identity development, but
Speaker 6: you know, experiencing the dissonance of sort of what you
Speaker 6: were taught and what you were raised in and what
Speaker 6: your experiences and thinking about that through the lens of
Speaker 6: like power and patriarchy and all the things.
Speaker 2: And so, uh, that's dope.
Speaker 6: I think, you know, just just naming that, you know,
Speaker 6: this is work that should continue on because there's a
Speaker 6: lot for us to talk about as it relates to
Speaker 6: sort of identities and stigmas and all the.
Speaker 8: Yes.
Speaker 1: Very much so every single day as you were just speaking,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about just running my rolodex in my
Speaker 1: head of many folks I know who. I guess for
Speaker 1: all you know, for lack of a better have left
Speaker 1: the church to explore other faiths, right, and how demonized
Speaker 1: that also is as well, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: if they're not respected as faiths and so that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's a very interesting intersection when you add queerness
Speaker 1: mixed in with that as well. I'm very excited for
Speaker 1: that upcoming project, but I won't continue to ask you
Speaker 1: about it because that's annoying worry.
Speaker 5: Okay, Yeah, I even with the add on Kia saying
Speaker 5: I would love for you to expand I know this
Speaker 5: is just a wishless but class and because in the book,
Speaker 5: I used to work for a gay nonprofit and I'm
Speaker 5: gonna tell you the rich gays don't show up there
Speaker 5: unless they work there or they're on the board. Right,
Speaker 5: So I want to talk. I want this disparity between
Speaker 5: uh for crass terminology, rich gays and poor ga I
Speaker 5: often think about that in the terms of the dating pool,
Speaker 5: because oftentimes people complain about like, oh it's sour, it's
Speaker 5: a cesspool of But that's because you're not crossing the
Speaker 5: ten right, or you're not or you're not going to
Speaker 5: the Bronx or you not you know, doing going to
Speaker 5: the South Side Chicago. You know what I mean, Like
Speaker 5: there are there there class disparities impact so much other
Speaker 5: stuff in our community. And also why I think all
Speaker 5: gays hate each other. But that's another sociological nor.
Speaker 10: When you were saying that, Joe, maybe think of like
Speaker 10: you know, when you talk about dating and crossing, I'm like,
Speaker 10: I'm thinking of what a millionaire matchmaker with like Patty
Speaker 10: Staner and go to the bar across from the hospital.
Speaker 10: Like that's what y'all needed. You can't go down to
Speaker 10: the local bar to find you know, if you're mixing,
Speaker 10: you got to go by the law firms downtown to
Speaker 10: find you a partner.
Speaker 1: You also find you a man who likes to peel
Speaker 1: on you immediately on the first night.
Speaker 5: Because yeah, all in all seriousness, I want to talk
Speaker 5: about the fact that you took very lofty work and
Speaker 5: made it palatable for folks to read.
Speaker 8: I tried, you.
Speaker 5: Know what I meaning, Like you made like this is
Speaker 5: an academic ship, Yeah, but you made this exactly. You
Speaker 5: made this for for regular deglar folks. Yeah, to get
Speaker 5: the ship that they need, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: And I thank you for that I appreciate, but I'm
Speaker 5: sure that.
Speaker 10: Was an it was I think, you know, for me,
Speaker 10: it was It's always important to me to try to
Speaker 10: write things in a way that the people who are
Speaker 10: part of the project can see themselves in it and
Speaker 10: also understand what I'm saying right, And so the ideas
Speaker 10: in the book I presented to the people in my project,
Speaker 10: they read different versions of it at different points in time.
Speaker 10: They knew what I was talking about, and so I
Speaker 10: always felt like I didn't want to come out with
Speaker 10: something that they would say, no, that doesn't sound like me,
Speaker 10: or that doesn't sound like what my experience was, or no,
Speaker 10: I don't agree with that part of it, and I
Speaker 10: think there is there's space to disagree about my interpretation
Speaker 10: of things. But I also wanted them to be able
Speaker 10: to see themselves. So like some of them, some of
Speaker 10: the guys who I interviewed, like were texting me earlier today.
Speaker 8: Like I saw this on that page, I think that's me.
Speaker 10: Or whatever, you know, like like identifying quotes that they
Speaker 10: think are them and I love that. And sometimes they're
Speaker 10: right and sometimes they're wrong, and I love that they
Speaker 10: can be wrong about it because I think it just
Speaker 10: highlights that, Yeah, your experience was not just you. You're
Speaker 10: not the only local told that who held that way exactly.
Speaker 1: How being that you worked on this, you started this
Speaker 1: project fourteen years ago, you know, first of all, was
Speaker 1: this what what what came to full fruition? Was this
Speaker 1: at your original plan and thought process? Or how like
Speaker 1: what was the evolution of that? Because you're not the
Speaker 1: same person you were fourteen years.
Speaker 8: Ago, No, which is why it's so hard.
Speaker 10: You know, think about the book where I'm like, yeah
Speaker 10: and I talk about this, and I'm like, did I
Speaker 10: take that out of there? Like, you know all the time,
Speaker 10: because it's been a work in progress. When I started out,
Speaker 10: I really thought the project was going to be about
Speaker 10: a younger population, because the organization I was focused on
Speaker 10: advertised themselves that way as the.
Speaker 1: Nigga you was younger, you were fourteen years I was.
Speaker 10: I was, I was like twenty one, like you know exactly,
Speaker 10: you know, if I'm like, okay.
Speaker 8: They're gonna be like fourteen to twenty kind of.
Speaker 10: And then I got there and it was like eighteen
Speaker 10: or thirty, and I was like smack in the middle
Speaker 10: of the age range. And you know, I started off
Speaker 10: graduate school thinking about I was trained as an elementary educator,
Speaker 10: and so I was interested in what do people do
Speaker 10: in out of school time? And so I thought this
Speaker 10: was like an after school, out of school time place
Speaker 10: because of the way they were talking about the population.
Speaker 10: And then when I got there, I was like, no,
Speaker 10: they're all graduated, you know, like they're all basically adults.
Speaker 10: And so it shifted, and it was important to me
Speaker 10: to kind of just follow the direction of what was happening.
Speaker 10: And so that's kind of how across the book I
Speaker 10: end up starting in the organizational space and then turning
Speaker 10: to media and then turning to these family configurations because
Speaker 10: I was following what seemed to be important to them
Speaker 10: as it was going and progressing. I think I've in
Speaker 10: some ways there's more of me in the book and
Speaker 10: would have been in the book if I had written
Speaker 10: it exactly a while ago. Like I got pressed on
Speaker 10: that a lot, and I try to make it clear
Speaker 10: it's like I'm telling other people's story and my experience
Speaker 10: of encountering now, this is not my story.
Speaker 8: I didn't grow up.
Speaker 10: There was no organization like Uplifted La in the book
Speaker 10: that I talk about in Baltimore like I was, and
Speaker 10: I wasn't going to community space with other black, gay
Speaker 10: and queer folks as a team that was And so
Speaker 10: it's not my story, but I'm I use how I
Speaker 10: grew up as a kind of a lens to to
Speaker 10: intergrogate what they were going through.
Speaker 8: Mm hmmm hm.
Speaker 5: So you do talk and you do pivot, like you said,
Speaker 5: to media and stuff like that through Noah's Ark. I
Speaker 5: know that's a staple in here, and there's I know
Speaker 5: there's not a lot of black gay media, right, we
Speaker 5: have Pose and Tangerine and a couple of other things.
Speaker 5: But you talk about Noah's Ark being like a possibility model.
Speaker 5: I know you have a different term analogy for it,
Speaker 5: but can you expound on that. I think it's important
Speaker 5: because a lot of times, or whatever gender expression or
Speaker 5: sexuality orientation you identify as a lot of times the
Speaker 5: first time you encounter something is through television. Like everybody's
Speaker 5: first drag queen is Reupaul, right, she came on the
Speaker 5: scene in nineteen ninety, So it's kind of.
Speaker 10: Like yeah, yeah, crazy, yeah, yeah, no, that's true. Media
Speaker 10: does play that role. Like I was joking, say, you
Speaker 10: know when I was a teenager. I remember Queer's Folk
Speaker 10: coming up, and I remember watching well, I remember watching
Speaker 10: Queer's Folks start and I was like, what is going
Speaker 10: on in this club? And is darkroom doing this sexual
Speaker 10: stuff in public? I said, this is gay?
Speaker 8: If this is gay, I don't think I'm that it.
Speaker 10: So, you know, when Noah's Ark came out, it was,
Speaker 10: you know, a moment for me to go, wait a minute, now, okay,
Speaker 10: now wait a bit day.
Speaker 1: Feel like as.
Speaker 10: I can get with okay one point, that's exactly it.
Speaker 10: And so that's how I felt, right. And so I
Speaker 10: think media, I know its Oar in particular, is such
Speaker 10: a foundational frame of reference because it was the first
Speaker 10: scripted TV show on Logo Logo of course being that
Speaker 10: first gay dedicated channel, and to have a show that's
Speaker 10: centered on the lives of black gay men, a group
Speaker 10: of them, not just one, meant that it expanded our
Speaker 10: understandings of who are black queer characters? And black queer
Speaker 10: characters have always played a big role I think in film,
Speaker 10: but they're often one exactly. So I think of my
Speaker 10: favorite like Wayman in a low down, dirty shame, or
Speaker 10: like you know these like these characters that are often caricatures.
Speaker 8: And they're the only one.
Speaker 10: And Noah's Ark gave an opportunity to say, we don't
Speaker 10: have to put all of the stereotypes and challenges on
Speaker 10: issues on one body. Right now, we can see a
Speaker 10: group of them. They're masculine, some are masculine, some are feminine,
Speaker 10: more feminine. Some of them are navigating what it means to.
Speaker 8: Build a family, to not have a family.
Speaker 10: They're getting married on Noah's Ark before gay marriage is legalized,
Speaker 10: right sore, showing us possibility.
Speaker 8: I'm important, Storm and your shields, and when time comes
Speaker 8: to go to the laws home of the Ancestors, I
Speaker 8: will answer.
Speaker 10: And the show had been critiqued a lot for being
Speaker 10: maybe too fantastical, not dealing with the real challenge and
Speaker 10: issues that were happening. But you know, I argue in
Speaker 10: the book that that's what I call it dream capacity
Speaker 10: building in the book because I say, it's important for
Speaker 10: you to be able to envision a life without the
Speaker 10: burden of those sigmas. And like, what is a gay wedding?
Speaker 10: You know, what do I want a gay wedding to be?
Speaker 10: That gave us a model of it. Now, it was
Speaker 10: very based on like what we understand the traditional weddings
Speaker 10: in some way, but if you've never seen one, how
Speaker 10: do you know, or if you don't have an example
Speaker 10: of what that life to be like, how do you
Speaker 10: expand your mind around that? And so I thought it
Speaker 10: was important to highlight that through the critique of the show.
Speaker 10: Even though it was like unrealistic in some ways, it
Speaker 10: really did shape people's growing up and their life experiences.
Speaker 10: One of the boys in the book says, I moved
Speaker 10: to la because of Noazar. That's when he saw and
Speaker 10: he believed it. It wasn't true, but it changed his
Speaker 10: life trajectory.
Speaker 5: No, it's true. It happened to me. Yeah, like I
Speaker 5: you know, I was a young gay watching Noah's ark.
Speaker 5: This is great and then fast forward he the director
Speaker 5: that I end up working together. But I it is important.
Speaker 5: You know, we always talk about how representation matters, right,
Speaker 5: and and I think this is one of those things.
Speaker 5: Logo was a white network in general, I'll take the
Speaker 5: gay out of it. Is you having the first black
Speaker 5: show on this white progressive network? Yeah, yeah, No, it
Speaker 5: is fighting fighting against all odds through advertising and ship
Speaker 5: like that, displaying this this world that is a possibility
Speaker 5: that a lot of people in early os didn't think
Speaker 5: that we can expand our minds to to even get
Speaker 5: to that point. You know, you're still living in the struggle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to that point and your point to Rell
Speaker 1: as well, you know where you said people felt like
Speaker 1: the show was to fantasticalize. Is that what you said?
Speaker 8: Yeahized?
Speaker 1: Right? White holes get to have whimsy all the fucking time. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they go good a job as an intern and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they are fashion iea and going
Speaker 1: to Paris or they're turning Paris down. I don't know,
Speaker 1: white people get to do whatever. Would exit maybe watch that,
Speaker 1: But why can't some things be sensationalized? Like what's the
Speaker 1: problem with that? If we're watching Monster in Law, where
Speaker 1: you know, they get to go and they're living on
Speaker 1: a ranch and then they're gonna have this wedding and
Speaker 1: then these are the things that went wrong. But they
Speaker 1: I hate the term first world problems because it's problematic,
Speaker 1: but they are like very privileged problems. You know, why
Speaker 1: can't why can't that also be represented as well? That's
Speaker 1: a flood. I feel like that's.
Speaker 10: Flood that would like the you know, who do we
Speaker 10: have enough room yet to have representation in that way,
Speaker 10: and so I talked about that a little bit, which
Speaker 10: is like the guy struggled with this question of can
Speaker 10: we show negative things like you know, you know today
Speaker 10: we have shows that have been created with it's like here's.
Speaker 8: A group of black a men and they are drum
Speaker 8: dealers or they're like criminal, you know.
Speaker 10: I was like, it's you know, I interviewed a creator
Speaker 10: of a web series who was like, I wanted to
Speaker 10: do like a black gay the wire, like all the characters,
Speaker 10: you know, that kind of thing. And in some ways
Speaker 10: people bought with that, right. They were like, I don't
Speaker 10: think we have enough. There's not enough good representation out
Speaker 10: there yet to be trying to say people could be
Speaker 10: bad too kind of.
Speaker 8: Thing, and I think I don't think we're there, and
Speaker 8: people struggle with that.
Speaker 5: I struggle with.
Speaker 6: That, you know, I think, I don't know, I just uh,
Speaker 6: this takes me think, right. So I think there's a
Speaker 6: lot of that, A lot going on I know, in
Speaker 6: like education research, a lot going on around this idea
Speaker 6: of imagination sort of being the bad rock of resistance
Speaker 6: and progress, y'all know.
Speaker 2: Friendto the show, doctor Charles H. F.
Speaker 6: Davis and you know, our friend Candice Hall are doing
Speaker 6: a project I'll call imagine Futures, right, and so it's challenging,
Speaker 6: you know, black academics to imagine a future, right, and
Speaker 6: so like you know, it's pushing back on this idea
Speaker 6: that we have to sort of stay in reality. And
Speaker 6: like Jay said, like what would it look like for
Speaker 6: us to imagine the future that we want in the academy,
Speaker 6: in the world, et cetera, et cetera. I want I
Speaker 6: say that to say one of the things that I
Speaker 6: think is a key feature of your book that I
Speaker 6: want to make sure in the spirit of, you know,
Speaker 6: helping people understand it as a as a choice, like
Speaker 6: you know, in the talk about I think your work
Speaker 6: as an ethnographer and why that's so important for a
Speaker 6: book like this.
Speaker 10: Yeah, no, I you know, ethnography, I always say, I
Speaker 10: teach the ethnography class at the university in our department,
Speaker 10: and so I was, you know, ethnography means writing culture,
Speaker 10: and I think ethnography and observing how people are living
Speaker 10: their real, everyday lives is such a key way to
Speaker 10: understand what's happening. And you know, I write a bit
Speaker 10: in the methods, and I also use this in my classes,
Speaker 10: which is, you know, I think if I hadn't done ethnography,
Speaker 10: I wouldn't have as accurate data about what people were
Speaker 10: really doing and how they were navigating things if I
Speaker 10: wasn't there to observe them. And so one quick example
Speaker 10: of this was I sat down to do these interviews
Speaker 10: and was asking people to early on, I was doing
Speaker 10: like time you surveys in the interview, where I was
Speaker 10: asking people to walk me through an entire day in
Speaker 10: their life. And I sat down with some guys and
Speaker 10: they were telling me, oh, we got up this morning
Speaker 10: and then we prayed, and then we went and got breakfast,
Speaker 10: and then we went back outside again and we prayed again.
Speaker 10: And I'm listening to them, and now it's like two
Speaker 10: o'clock on their day, and they prayed like five times.
Speaker 10: And I had been hanging around them at this point
Speaker 10: for over a year and I had never seen them
Speaker 10: pray at all ever, and so I was like.
Speaker 8: It's prayer euphimism for smoking weed.
Speaker 10: And they laughed and then they were like, well, we
Speaker 10: didn't want to say it on the tape.
Speaker 8: We didn't want you to get in trouble and I
Speaker 8: was like, you know, like, you know, if you.
Speaker 1: Look, I was over I was over here. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: were they Muslim?
Speaker 8: I'm like, I've never seen pray like.
Speaker 1: A little talk with Jesus.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 10: That's like, so I think it was interesting because it's
Speaker 10: an example of like, if I hadn't been an ethnographer
Speaker 10: and like hanging with them and actually seen them, I
Speaker 10: would have walked away from that being like some of
Speaker 10: the most religious people.
Speaker 1: You're like, I've met a faith I've never seen before.
Speaker 1: It was other busted exactly, I've never.
Speaker 10: But because of ethnography, it made it possible for me
Speaker 10: to ask the right question at the right time.
Speaker 8: It also meant that.
Speaker 10: I am betted myself in a way that people knew
Speaker 10: I wasn't just collecting data and trying to lead. So
Speaker 10: I still talk to several people from the project every week.
Speaker 8: You know, I'm like, you're.
Speaker 10: Black and gay, I'm black gay, Like they reach out
Speaker 10: to me out each other them, you know. So I
Speaker 10: didn't want them to feel like it was fully extractive
Speaker 10: because I think I I'm privileged with the opportunity to
Speaker 10: tell some of their stories in the book, and I
Speaker 10: feel like my name rides with the book, so all
Speaker 10: of the fault can lie on me and their stories
Speaker 10: and their narratives, but also so does the like if
Speaker 10: people enjoy it or they learn something from it, it
Speaker 10: also comes from that. But I wanted to be clear
Speaker 10: that my goal was to use this as an opportunity
Speaker 10: for them to argue, or for all of us to
Speaker 10: argue for more spaces and places that help people who
Speaker 10: need it. Right, So this is you all are showing
Speaker 10: us why we need community organizations like this, why people
Speaker 10: need gay family, white people, we need more media representation.
Speaker 10: And I wanted to be able to do that and
Speaker 10: let them know that my interests are tied to theirs,
Speaker 10: Like you know, it's not extractive in that way for me,
Speaker 10: and so ethnography it was true to me to be like,
Speaker 10: let me embed myself so I can actually truly understand
Speaker 10: what's happening here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 8: I love that.
Speaker 1: That's very black too.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I know we're running we're running out of time here.
Speaker 5: And I have one more question for you, and it
Speaker 5: regards around family. In the book, there is you. You
Speaker 5: talk about family a lot. It's a cornerstone here and
Speaker 5: and so it seemed as though people are coming to
Speaker 5: at your community site that you were at to find family,
Speaker 5: and family has kind of changed in terms of what
Speaker 5: that is. So can you talk about your journey in
Speaker 5: discovering family through this lens?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 10: You know, I think in the literature I was saying,
Speaker 10: you know, when I was growing up, people would say
Speaker 10: gay family, and they would make that would mean you
Speaker 10: have a gay mother, a gay father, or you pick
Speaker 10: someone to be your family.
Speaker 8: And that, of course, with all this social progress.
Speaker 10: Of like we can get married now, gays can get together,
Speaker 10: have kids, you know, all that now gay families means that,
Speaker 10: like too, a couple has come together and started a family.
Speaker 10: And in the literature, I thought it was important to
Speaker 10: highlight that one, gay families had always existed before that
Speaker 10: in these types of configurations. Yeah, two, they only are
Speaker 10: not it's not just subscribed to ballroom or circumscribe to ballroom.
Speaker 8: Right, that.
Speaker 10: People had gay mothers and gay fathers and gay siblings
Speaker 10: and all that outside of the house ballroom community, or
Speaker 10: even that cuts across the house ballroom community. So your
Speaker 10: gay father, gay mother could be in a different house
Speaker 10: than you, and that is I don't think that's the
Speaker 10: way that we think about it. And I think when
Speaker 10: you were talk talking about like Poe's earlier, I think
Speaker 10: that's an example of life. You know, it does give
Speaker 10: you this impression that like, that's what a gay family gets.
Speaker 10: Think is important because family is the primary socialization agent
Speaker 10: of your life.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 8: The family you're born into authenticates how you understand your race,
Speaker 8: how you understand your sexuality, your gender, are, your class,
Speaker 8: your religion. It's often all passed on to you in
Speaker 8: that way.
Speaker 10: And so when you don't have a family that is
Speaker 10: supportive or that you feel like you can learn from, well,
Speaker 10: you know, I think of that Peppola Basa quote Imparison's brother,
Speaker 10: which is like you go out there and you search, Right,
Speaker 10: you don't have a family, You're going to go out
Speaker 10: look for it with.
Speaker 1: The young kids who are just on the streets at
Speaker 1: thirteen and yeah and whatnot.
Speaker 8: You have to find it.
Speaker 10: And in the work, I think early on I was
Speaker 10: maybe not as it wasn't as clear to me why
Speaker 10: people were joining gay families or doing things. I always
Speaker 10: say in the preface of the book, I talk about
Speaker 10: when it was first brought up to me to join
Speaker 10: a gay house or have a gay family, and they
Speaker 10: were like, you didn't get a gay mother some yeah,
Speaker 10: I won't say, you know, because I was like, I'm
Speaker 10: not going to these balls? What are you talking about?
Speaker 10: And then when I was like, bro, you're not going
Speaker 10: to get this right if you're not going.
Speaker 1: To go, and I said no, I had to go.
Speaker 8: I have to go. That's the ethnography. And so I
Speaker 8: say two things.
Speaker 10: One which is when I was in high school and
Speaker 10: they presented to me what I like, a gay mother
Speaker 10: and gay father.
Speaker 11: They're like, you need a gay mother and a gay father.
Speaker 11: And I was like, oh what because they can tell
Speaker 11: you what to do, you know, and how did it?
Speaker 11: I was like, I have a mother and father and
Speaker 11: I don't need anybody else trying to tell me what
Speaker 11: to do. So I was like, not going to work
Speaker 11: for me, And so I avoided it right. I was like,
Speaker 11: that's not my thing.
Speaker 8: But I think learning with some good prodding, you know,
Speaker 8: you need to go understand this. I did.
Speaker 10: I had a fundamentally skewed perception of even how scoring
Speaker 10: and things worked at ballroom or like what was happening,
Speaker 10: but these families in that way until I went and
Speaker 10: I learned what it meant, and then meeting people who
Speaker 10: were like, I'm not in ballroom, but my dad is involved,
Speaker 10: or my gay dad in the morment and I don't.
Speaker 10: I'm not in his house, but he's my gay dad, right,
Speaker 10: And so understanding why it was important to create family
Speaker 10: and that it's not just like chosen kinship network or
Speaker 10: like a group of friends, right, because you can call
Speaker 10: anyone your group of friends like that. These they're creating
Speaker 10: family relationships, in complex relationships where they see them stronger
Speaker 10: even than their biological families.
Speaker 8: Sometimes.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like there's like accountability, there's accountabilities in those relationships.
Speaker 5: Yeah, a house is a gang or a clique, a
Speaker 5: group of people, but basically a house is like a
Speaker 5: family union. You have your mother or your father, the
Speaker 5: children of princess, if you're in a house family.
Speaker 1: If we're gonna use media, I know we've mentioned pos
Speaker 1: many times, and I do agree with you that it's
Speaker 1: like it doesn't give, like it doesn't get to give
Speaker 1: the full onion, right, it doesn't get to dig deep
Speaker 1: into and understand them. It's for media that white man
Speaker 1: wrote it all for all. There's all kinds of things,
Speaker 1: right or direct, whatever you want to call it, anyway,
Speaker 1: I think if I think about a relationship in there
Speaker 1: that might represent what you're saying, it would be what's
Speaker 1: her name? It's Elektra and uh, oh, my girl, MJ.
Speaker 1: What was MJ's character's name? Where? Uh what was her name?
Speaker 1: What was her name? In the Bianca thank you so
Speaker 1: how no matter whether they were in the same house
Speaker 1: or not, like you said, they would expand out, there
Speaker 1: would be fights, niggas was getting killed, they had to
Speaker 1: cover up murders, you know, all kinds of things like that.
Speaker 1: It was and then also an accountability, right because Electra
Speaker 1: had issues and Bianca was like, hey, let me, let
Speaker 1: me your She would hold her accountable. She would hold
Speaker 1: a mirta face whether she wanted to see it or not.
Speaker 1: And so I feel like that's giving us a media representation,
Speaker 1: kind of surface level representation what you're saying.
Speaker 10: It's a great example, right, and I think for a
Speaker 10: better version of pose. I think it was like a
Speaker 10: really good dramatization of Paris is burning and does a
Speaker 10: really good job of expanding the store, giving us a
Speaker 10: little bit more, you know, bringing in to life in
Speaker 10: a different way a little bit, you know, and does
Speaker 10: a great job at doing that, and you know, actually
Speaker 10: employs these wonderful trans actors and actresses who can be
Speaker 10: on this, you know, on the scene in a way
Speaker 10: that the folks who were in Paris Is Burning originally
Speaker 10: were not able, Like, they didn't reap the same benefits
Speaker 10: in that same way. So it is transformative. But and
Speaker 10: I and it also is another example of there's more
Speaker 10: than one trans woman in this show. Yes, all of
Speaker 10: the stereotypes about what it means to be a trans
Speaker 10: woman aren't on this one person, right, Like or what
Speaker 10: it means to be gay. There are multiple versions of
Speaker 10: what it means to be a gay person in the show.
Speaker 10: So you could just see that, And I think that's
Speaker 10: what I'm always pushing for, which is, let's we have
Speaker 10: to diversify the representations so that you know it's not
Speaker 10: just oh, you see a show and you think that
Speaker 10: is the only way to be queer and gay, that's
Speaker 10: the only way.
Speaker 8: You meet up.
Speaker 10: And that's why I use the Queerest Folk example where
Speaker 10: I say, look, I saw it and I was like,
Speaker 10: oh no, if this is gay, I gotta find me
Speaker 10: a new thing. But then you know, no, as Oar
Speaker 10: comes along and you're like, oh, Okay, yeah, to do this,
Speaker 10: you know, like that aligns that like they're black, They're
Speaker 10: like talking about things that I know. There's music here
Speaker 10: that I know, artists I know, and you know what
Speaker 10: that looks like. And so I think it's important to
Speaker 10: highlight that. But like family, I couldn't write about this
Speaker 10: without addressing family, and I think it does kind of
Speaker 10: booking the work, right, which is I'm talking first in
Speaker 10: the beginning really about biologically and how people are brought
Speaker 10: up and what they're learning often at home, and then
Speaker 10: for by the end we're turning to you know, these
Speaker 10: chosen gay families people. I was like, I am choosing
Speaker 10: to be in relationship with you in family.
Speaker 8: You are my gay mother. I'm going to rely on you.
Speaker 8: And to take people on as children is a big calling.
Speaker 10: Right, Like they talk about like I'm paying you know,
Speaker 10: I'm paying the way for my kids or you know,
Speaker 10: I'm showing up when something's wrong or if they're sick,
Speaker 10: or those sayings, and they're they're stepping up to the
Speaker 10: plate and doing that, and I think it's important to
Speaker 10: have that, especially in a city like LA we have
Speaker 10: a lot of transplants and people who like picked up
Speaker 10: their stuff and were like, I picked up everything I
Speaker 10: had in Alabama and I moved to LA to make.
Speaker 8: New York to you know, you need a family.
Speaker 1: I used to hold boys thanksgivings xt he knows he
Speaker 1: was one of the Lost Boys, and I was Windy,
Speaker 1: and I would cook for all these niggas whose family
Speaker 1: who didn't have families, or they were transplants to the
Speaker 1: city or whatever the you know. And it was necessary.
Speaker 1: And that's how we've been able to expand and kind
Speaker 1: of build our familial community in this way. And so
Speaker 1: when you add an additional life experience to that, such
Speaker 1: as being gay, where you've experiences that I haven't even variance,
Speaker 1: then you can see why it's so important, because it's
Speaker 1: important for everybody. Everybody needs that energy, humans across the gambit.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate your perspective very very much.
Speaker 5: Any parting words, parting words, do I have party words?
Speaker 9: You know?
Speaker 8: But just before we go pray, everyone go pray.
Speaker 10: Yeah, you know, I just hope that you know it's uh,
Speaker 10: you know that the book is even though it's about
Speaker 10: black gay men, that I think it. You know, my
Speaker 10: goal was to make something that was portable for people
Speaker 10: who are navigating stigmas no matter what they are, and
Speaker 10: what unspoiledly looks like for different groups may be different things.
Speaker 10: There may be different pathways. I talk about these three
Speaker 10: in the book, the community or organization, the media, and
Speaker 10: the family as like primary pathways in the book. There
Speaker 10: could be others depending on where you are and what
Speaker 10: stigmas you're navigating in the go. But it was important
Speaker 10: for me to highlight this concept, which is that you know,
Speaker 10: I think we talk a lot about trying to destigmatize,
Speaker 10: and much of the work that's being done is put
Speaker 10: on the people who are living through the trauma of
Speaker 10: the stigma, you know, going to these communitizations, going to
Speaker 10: places you're teaching me how to deal with the stigma.
Speaker 10: That's not going to be stigmatize the people who need
Speaker 10: the intervention of the people who have created this stigma
Speaker 10: around who I am. And until we get to that point,
Speaker 10: we won't see destigmatization. So for me, spoiling became this
Speaker 10: term to really go and to say, it's about reformulating
Speaker 10: the relationship you have with yourself and if by chance
Speaker 10: you come to a better understanding here, accepting yourself and
Speaker 10: maybe other people feel okay about it afterwards. That's a
Speaker 10: good after effect, a good spillover effect. But to me,
Speaker 10: it was more important to say, no, we need to
Speaker 10: rework how we feel about what it means to be
Speaker 10: who we are living in these bodies with these types
Speaker 10: of identities.
Speaker 1: Today beautiful, Thank you the winder. Tell the people where
Speaker 1: they can find the book, where they can find you,
Speaker 1: and check out all that you're doing.
Speaker 8: Please.
Speaker 10: Plus yeah, my social media is be More Torell because
Speaker 10: I'm from Baltimore girl.
Speaker 1: You know, with it with zero Baltimore say two two,
Speaker 1: See I don't. I don't have to.
Speaker 8: I don't have the accent, but I don't have the death.
Speaker 5: It's a whole thing.
Speaker 10: I didn't even realize what it was an accent until
Speaker 10: I went to college and we watched a video and
Speaker 10: people like you under a sound like that, and I
Speaker 10: was like, that was English, so you know the whole thing.
Speaker 10: But yes, no, I be More Torell on social media platforms.
Speaker 10: And the book is available at Amazon, rep Club and
Speaker 10: why you Press you can get it anywhere right now,
Speaker 10: is yeah, and why you press If you use Pride forty.
Speaker 8: When you buy, you get forty percent off of the book.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 8: Discount Yes, find me on all all platforms. Thank you
Speaker 8: for being thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 5: And stay tuned for the next segment after these messages,
Speaker 5: will be right back all right.
Speaker 6: Drug crazed rodents rating your child's medicine cabinet rat's on
Speaker 6: riddling next on sixth head World, shout out to doctor Winder. Okay,
Speaker 6: was that not an awesome conversation? You make sure you
Speaker 6: will go purchase the book as well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, are gay or not?
Speaker 5: I feel like we've learn some ship.
Speaker 1: Got conversation for everybody.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, you need to connect.
Speaker 5: Leave Love Island alone for a night or two. I
Speaker 5: know it's no, it's hardy.
Speaker 2: Are you watching this season XD?
Speaker 5: No, I'm not. I'm gonna and I'm gonna tell you why.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna tell you why because I hey, you know,
Speaker 5: I struggle with reality shows where love is the main price.
Speaker 1: Which is why I was so surprised at how quickly
Speaker 1: you got PROPAGANDASH watched you get. I watched you well
Speaker 1: I know why.
Speaker 5: You see, they do win money however, or yeah, they
Speaker 5: do with money, but it's not enough for me to
Speaker 5: be like, okay, right, but I also realized like they
Speaker 5: this show is just not for me. I think they
Speaker 5: are young.
Speaker 8: They're young people, young people with like.
Speaker 5: I don't know twenty two. I don't have anybody in
Speaker 5: my family that's twenty too, Like right now, I don't
Speaker 5: really know.
Speaker 2: I struggle to relate to Yeah, well, yes, and.
Speaker 5: I don't want to, you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 5: I don't And it's not that I don't want to,
Speaker 5: but I don't want to.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it's fun because they don't need to know me,
Speaker 5: they don't need to know us, and it's the mutual
Speaker 5: disrespect mutual I'm going to watch Big Brother as as per. Yes,
Speaker 5: that's because I'm we we've been doing it at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's what we do.
Speaker 1: Have to do it.
Speaker 5: Plus it's easy to it's easier to navigate, and plus
Speaker 5: there's it's.
Speaker 2: Less a commitment. It's just once a week as opposed
Speaker 2: to every.
Speaker 5: Day and if you choose to and if you choose
Speaker 5: to engage in live fees and that's different. But it's
Speaker 5: you really need to watch one episode of the week.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Oh wait, hold on before you do your
Speaker 1: petty peeve as you all are bringing up TV.
Speaker 5: So you should do you should do Big brother with
Speaker 5: us this year, keep trying to rope.
Speaker 6: Me into I think I think, you know, just just
Speaker 6: give it, consider it, just give it us, think about it,
Speaker 6: think about it.
Speaker 5: Listen. I just think we're coming up on the thousandth episode.
Speaker 5: You have a month, you have thirty days from today
Speaker 5: or yesterday. You know it's gonna be a good time.
Speaker 5: I won't even make you watch the live feeds, Yeah,
Speaker 5: because I won't.
Speaker 6: First of all, it is weird, though I never that,
Speaker 6: but it's like I'm waking up and watching other people
Speaker 6: like I'm literally checking these feeds.
Speaker 1: Like I am literally essentially another bitches business.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, it's like watching live tribal like all the time.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 5: That's why when Serie was on, it was magical. She
Speaker 5: was we was locked in.
Speaker 1: Know how I feel, but you know how I feel
Speaker 1: about to Refields though, you know how I feel about it.
Speaker 5: I even encourage you to watch her season that she
Speaker 5: was on, just a couple of episodes, just so you
Speaker 5: could be Like, it's like the games. The games are corny.
Speaker 5: They're not like there is real gameplay though, like there
Speaker 5: is some shady ship that does go down and and
Speaker 5: people do be off the wall. They say racist shit
Speaker 5: all the time. Well they get kicked out, but it's fun.
Speaker 6: I mean for the for the blatantly racist ship, but
Speaker 6: there's also just you know, the standard.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And you know, I feel like black women on Big
Speaker 6: Brother is always a wild ride, right, because there's a
Speaker 6: certain way that people engage and perceive a black women
Speaker 6: in that space, and all of their prejudice and bias
Speaker 6: falls out very quickly, even when they try to conceal it,
Speaker 6: especially among the.
Speaker 2: Progressive girls, right and the game you see I'm.
Speaker 6: Like, oh, your racism fell right out, girl. You was
Speaker 6: trying to hold it, but I see it, look at it,
Speaker 6: it's right there.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that's always that's always an interesting angle.
Speaker 6: And to me, it's just something that it's kind of become,
Speaker 6: strangely become a part of the summertime.
Speaker 2: For me, it's just kind of like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 5: It's escape because I don't have to think about anything else.
Speaker 5: They tell you nine hundred times what.
Speaker 6: Happened, Yeah, and you can escape the reality of this
Speaker 6: world back going over there into this closed social experiment
Speaker 6: and just like I'm not even dealing with what y'all
Speaker 6: are talking about.
Speaker 2: I'm going to see what these people are doing. So
Speaker 2: that's been helpful. But yeah, just think of God consider it.
Speaker 5: I will.
Speaker 1: I will consider that, Takia.
Speaker 6: Yes, I'm ready, my petty Peeve. I talked about this
Speaker 6: a little bit. Oh, were you gonna ask me something else?
Speaker 2: It was what go ahead?
Speaker 1: XD and I already had our conversation. You can go
Speaker 1: find it on Patrion. Okay, next to Patrioch. We would
Speaker 1: like to know your thoughts drag Race, the last final
Speaker 1: episode of the second bracket of drag Race. Your thoughts. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know where to begin.
Speaker 2: I feel like Silky is doing what I know Silky
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 6: In terms of how you know the gameplay and the
Speaker 6: points and how that all worked out. I mean it
Speaker 6: was kind of even though I was like, oh, I
Speaker 6: was kind of like kind of genius the way that
Speaker 6: it just she engineered that in a way that was
Speaker 6: most favorable for her, which in all the ways that
Speaker 6: I struggle, you know, with my sister Silky and the
Speaker 6: ways that she gets on my nerves, it's like it's
Speaker 6: masterful gameplay.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's masterful gameplay. It's masterful gameplay.
Speaker 5: I could I was.
Speaker 2: I did at least feel better that she was worried
Speaker 2: that if my sister Crystal Crystal meth uh Chris, if.
Speaker 6: Crystal didn't get that last point, I was at least
Speaker 6: encouraged that Zukie was feeling bad, like like you know,
Speaker 6: she was over there stress like if they don't give
Speaker 6: Crystal this point, if Crystal is not in the top two.
Speaker 6: After I did all of this nigga rigging, I would
Speaker 6: it was nigga rigging for sure. I didn't feel I
Speaker 6: felt better about that. I'm trying to think because I
Speaker 6: watched it a little while ago.
Speaker 5: How did you feel about uh Selena's reaction?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Selena gets on my nerves and I'm just trying
Speaker 6: to I don't know if Selena's reaction, I wonder why
Speaker 6: Selena feels so it titled.
Speaker 8: To me.
Speaker 2: I feel like there's like an entitlement there and.
Speaker 6: She's like she sister just didn't have the points, she
Speaker 6: didn't have the wins, she didn't have the points.
Speaker 2: She got a win, right, if I'm remembering correctly.
Speaker 6: I'm getting a little confused because I also, I told
Speaker 6: you that I went back to watch. I'm now like
Speaker 6: watching season twelve because I went back and watched.
Speaker 2: I went back and watched all.
Speaker 6: The Silky's original and then then I'm in season twelve,
Speaker 6: so I feel like all this drag races is coming
Speaker 6: together in my mind.
Speaker 1: That's jayas yes.
Speaker 5: I think, and the Queen we don't talk about.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh Sherry Fye.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she wasn't talk about Sherryffy.
Speaker 6: It was oh wow though, but yeah, So I feel
Speaker 6: like I have a lot of drag race in my mind.
Speaker 6: I'm trying to keep track of this most recent one.
Speaker 6: So I feel like I don't remember, okay, Selena. Selena
Speaker 6: felt like, oh Selena, okay, yes, because she was looking
Speaker 6: for the Transla Jays to to back her up, and
Speaker 6: all of them left my sister out there by herself.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, yes, now I remember, now, I remember now,
Speaker 2: I remember.
Speaker 12: And Aura and Aura she she was also really oh yeah,
Speaker 12: and I didn't think Aura had it inner And I
Speaker 12: felt like it was interesting that Aura, because I mean,
Speaker 12: Ora didn't get nothing out the equation, like.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying, Like all of the ways
Speaker 6: that Aura was moving to me, it did not benefit
Speaker 6: her directly. So I think if you juxtapost that against
Speaker 6: the way that Silky was moving, like, it was very
Speaker 6: intentional gameplay that benefited Silky directly.
Speaker 2: Where I felt like she wasn't going was just she wasn't.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And that's why I thought it was interesting that
Speaker 6: she didn't that she left uh Selena out there. I
Speaker 6: was most annoyed because Selena kept saying peck peck. It
Speaker 6: was like, girl girl, one more time, she's listening to
Speaker 6: you girls, stop saying it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But no, what did y'all think?
Speaker 6: I mean, I think it was wild to see her reaction,
Speaker 6: Like she blew up in a way that I thought
Speaker 6: that she would.
Speaker 1: But like, what did y'all think we had a bit
Speaker 1: of a disagreement to We did, Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: it's and I recognized this is me playing survivor.
Speaker 5: Okay, because I did not. I think I think Aura
Speaker 5: in April see.
Speaker 1: I want and look and I'm playing who the fuck
Speaker 1: are you talking to? And I was like, how you
Speaker 1: gonna make all these alliances and then black on me
Speaker 1: for not voting for you, bench like after I've been peeping,
Speaker 1: be shady in this workroom, but I'm not giving you ship.
Speaker 5: And that's why I conceded and I said, fine with Aura.
Speaker 5: I still don't like the half of but it's fine.
Speaker 5: But April, who was just there for like STDs, carried
Speaker 5: her like that's true through these last three episodes and
Speaker 5: like and.
Speaker 1: Then Ski booster her ego with that one little point.
Speaker 7: But it was so.
Speaker 2: Interesting though that.
Speaker 5: I couldn't break anybody's name down. That's what that gave
Speaker 5: to me.
Speaker 6: I feel like it was interesting because April and Silki
Speaker 6: had been sort of like giving each other a lot,
Speaker 6: and so it was interesting to see how quickly. But yeah,
Speaker 6: so it was interesting to see how quickly, Like I
Speaker 6: felt like, ALLSOK had to do was ask April for
Speaker 6: her point and she.
Speaker 2: Gave it like it was not there was no objection,
Speaker 2: which I was just like, what is that about?
Speaker 5: Over in nearing the game, Yeah, because I called it
Speaker 5: from the first episode, I was like, oh, Silky and
Speaker 5: Crystal are going.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 5: I was like, if any or if Silky's not, it's
Speaker 5: as Cities.
Speaker 1: Well, I thought, I.
Speaker 2: Thought because of the ron come, I thought, No, I didn't.
Speaker 2: I thought Celena was because of.
Speaker 1: The the redemption of the lip sync with a Carria.
Speaker 1: That's what That's what I was thinking about.
Speaker 5: Yes, But I also was thinking like, well, out of
Speaker 5: this crop of queens, who has been like most improved.
Speaker 5: And this goes to what you were talking about, Kia,
Speaker 5: about like the entitlement as titties have. And I can
Speaker 5: see how this happens to a lot of queens. When
Speaker 5: they come on All Stars, they jam, they took, they
Speaker 5: took all the critique.
Speaker 6: Now Jam was season twelve. I'm watching Jan's first season.
Speaker 5: Now she worked mine, You're about to be Where's But
Speaker 5: then when she gets to All Stars it's like damn.
Speaker 1: But yeah All Stars it was very much like damn,
Speaker 1: they just don't like you. That's pretty sad.
Speaker 6: She's very talented, but the personality is just not there.
Speaker 6: She's irritating. I don't think I would like her neither.
Speaker 1: Because I mean thirsty.
Speaker 5: I like her now she's too thirsty.
Speaker 1: But I need to watch on drag Race.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I didn't watch her All Stars. I need to
Speaker 6: watch her All Star season. But I'm just watched her
Speaker 6: original like drag Race.
Speaker 1: Prepared to be sad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she had a really sad especially the Madonna episode.
Speaker 6: It's the Madonna episode. They just did the Madonna rusical
Speaker 6: in season twelve.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was so bad. That was episode.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Crystal.
Speaker 5: Became Madonna. Oh yeah, the.
Speaker 6: Transformed into Madonna because the rehearsal was given, like g
Speaker 6: G girl, what's having it?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, baby baby, dear baby. Yeah, it was given.
Speaker 6: Or but then she showed out at the at the rusical,
Speaker 6: which was like, okay, I didn't see that coming.
Speaker 1: Presenting our very own girly show.
Speaker 5: It's the world premiere of Madonna the unauthorized rusical.
Speaker 6: Legohnna asked, lover, I think I got the episode where
Speaker 6: Widow guys sent home?
Speaker 5: Oh was that Stash game?
Speaker 6: No, she got sent home after the debates. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: they did this snatch did they do? Yes, they did
Speaker 6: snatch game? Because what's the name?
Speaker 2: Uh uh, what's it? The one she was Cardi Beach,
Speaker 2: what's her name? I'm thinking about the little one.
Speaker 1: I gotta rewatch.
Speaker 5: I gotta rewatch Pandemic season.
Speaker 2: I think after Black Widow went home, it's when they
Speaker 2: had to go.
Speaker 5: That is that Tina Berner season? No, No, that's it's
Speaker 5: Jackie Jackie Cock.
Speaker 2: HEIDII finally landed.
Speaker 1: How do you I think? How do you do?
Speaker 5: I think?
Speaker 1: How do you go home?
Speaker 5: Next?
Speaker 2: I don't know where is Heidi? How you came to
Speaker 2: All Stars?
Speaker 7: She did?
Speaker 2: She did have an All Stars wasn't she But I.
Speaker 1: Feel like she's been quiet.
Speaker 5: There's a new show, so it's on our TV. It's
Speaker 5: with s titties, Heidi, Marsha, Marcia and Marsha. They're all
Speaker 5: living in a house and being queens. You know what
Speaker 5: is doing now is a woman in Paris.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, she left the country.
Speaker 5: She's she is a woman in Paris. Literally I wanted
Speaker 5: her to do us get a salon, but hey, people have.
Speaker 1: Different because that bitch with want some hair, that bitch
Speaker 1: the fact that please yeah did amonaire? But sorry, that
Speaker 1: was a very long long wave before.
Speaker 2: But yes, I will, yeah, we should reconnect.
Speaker 6: I'm interested to see what this week's episode is going
Speaker 6: to give because this isn't it the third Brad and discuss.
Speaker 2: I will I sure wear bracket. I will I love that?
Speaker 6: Okay, Petty Peas, here's what I want to say. Why
Speaker 6: what gets on my nerves?
Speaker 2: Okay? What really jams my clock? Particularly in work settings?
Speaker 6: And this is something that I feel like I've only
Speaker 6: experienced in communicating with men, white men specifically, but men, uh,
Speaker 6: when we're having a conversation and there is a gap
Speaker 6: in understanding or like you know what I'm saying is
Speaker 6: not something that.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: It's gonna take some work for us to get to
Speaker 6: a place of share understanding. There's always this assumption if
Speaker 6: they don't understand that I'm confused.
Speaker 2: So a lot of when you're talking, it's like, no,
Speaker 2: I think you're confusing.
Speaker 6: It's like, hold on a minute, Nathan, I'm not confused,
Speaker 6: you're confused.
Speaker 2: I'm very clear you're confused, and I communicator.
Speaker 5: I have stopped.
Speaker 2: I have had to stop.
Speaker 6: Several people in their tracks at work because it's like,
Speaker 6: if I'm explaining something, you can say that what I'm
Speaker 6: saying is confusing. You can say that the way that
Speaker 6: I'm explaining it is not making it clear to you.
Speaker 6: You can you can own that, but you have to
Speaker 6: own that the confusion is yours. You can't project the
Speaker 6: fact that you're confused on everybody else that you're talking to.
Speaker 6: And I'm saying that because when I experience well I've
Speaker 6: never heard a man say that to another man, but
Speaker 6: there's a way that when a man is speaking to
Speaker 6: a woman, and not just me, I've also observed it
Speaker 6: happening between interactions that don't involve me directly. But when
Speaker 6: a man is speaking to a woman and he doesn't
Speaker 6: know what's happening. He will say like, oh, I think
Speaker 6: you're misunderstanding. No, Paul, you're missing understanding. You can say
Speaker 6: I don't know. You can say can you explain that
Speaker 6: to me? You can say I'm confused by what you're saying,
Speaker 6: but you can't assume that because you don't understand.
Speaker 2: We don't understand.
Speaker 1: Okay, I understand.
Speaker 2: You can say that you don't.
Speaker 6: Don't project your lack of understanding onto me. And that's
Speaker 6: my petty p because are you kidding?
Speaker 1: Russell? I will knock you out.
Speaker 5: Do you understand the worst that are coming over my mouth?
Speaker 2: Don't try me because I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: They also fake. They also fake. It's fake confusion oftentimes
Speaker 1: for me to get their way and what they want.
Speaker 1: Short story, When I was in college, I worked at
Speaker 1: Popitos and you had to slide your card to put
Speaker 1: in the people's order or whatever. Right, So we had
Speaker 1: different stations to go and put people's orders in. Yep,
Speaker 1: So I go to I go over to computer slide
Speaker 1: my card. I stopped putting my table's order, and this
Speaker 1: whiteboard comes over and hip bumps me and cancels me
Speaker 1: to slide his card, which automatically cancels my shit out.
Speaker 1: So at first I'm like, of course, I'm like there's
Speaker 1: no way he's that all day like you playing, but
Speaker 1: like I'm not with that right now, so can you stop?
Speaker 1: So I was like hey, and he was a big
Speaker 1: white boy. He's about your size XD but think about
Speaker 1: me and a nigga your size that's white. And so
Speaker 1: I was like, come on, start like cut the bullshit
Speaker 1: like and so I moved him out the way and
Speaker 1: I slide my card skad this nigga did this again,
Speaker 1: So I said, oh, you're not playing, like you're not
Speaker 1: kidding right now. I was like stop because we're going
Speaker 1: to have a problem and I'm gonna get fired, Like
Speaker 1: stop it now. And this nigga called me a bitch.
Speaker 1: Whoa huh call me a bitch?
Speaker 2: What's the issue that he like, go first? He should
Speaker 2: go first?
Speaker 1: Like what, like is there is no explanation as to
Speaker 1: why you bumped me out the way and then you're
Speaker 1: calling me there was nothing? So he calls me a
Speaker 1: bitch and I was like okay, and I knew what
Speaker 1: was getting ready to happen, and I was prepared to
Speaker 1: lose my job. And because he was a big white man,
Speaker 1: I got that right in the throat.
Speaker 8: Throat shint, and I was like, throat good.
Speaker 1: It was more like a throat fists bump. Okay, it
Speaker 1: wasn't quite a punch or I didn't snuff up. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a chop. It was more like a So he
Speaker 1: fell out because he's gasping, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: because there was a wind pipe and he was big,
Speaker 1: the bigger they are, and so he falls. The managers
Speaker 1: are freaking, oh my god, Oh my god, Jake, go
Speaker 1: back in the office. I was like, I gotta put
Speaker 1: their order in. They were like, on the witch table,
Speaker 1: We'll have somebody. I was like, they need it now.
Speaker 1: This is already too much bullshit. No, go back in
Speaker 1: the office right now, Jay, back in the off jail.
Speaker 2: I'm punched and went back to work against Sasin.
Speaker 1: I tried. They were like, no, they had somebody else.
Speaker 5: Like go back and take their order.
Speaker 1: Everybody saw what happened because it happened on the floor
Speaker 1: right The computers are on the outskirts of the floor,
Speaker 1: so it's not my table. Would have been confused as
Speaker 1: to why I go back in the office, I get
Speaker 1: every fucking manager in there. Okay, Now, when you work
Speaker 1: at POP you got a GM, you got a floor manager,
Speaker 1: you got the kitchen manager. Into everything. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it takes all of you. They were like, what were
Speaker 1: you thinking? I said, look at the cameras. He bumped
Speaker 1: me out the way multiple times as I'm putting my
Speaker 1: tables ordering. Now, how would you all like me to
Speaker 1: handle that? When I have asked him several times to
Speaker 1: stop doing it. You could have gone to another computer.
Speaker 1: I was like, you're putting this on me and I
Speaker 1: don't fuck with that. I said that white boy knocked
Speaker 1: me out of the way multiple times. Now, do you
Speaker 1: want to put that on the record, because I'm happy
Speaker 1: to talk about it. They didn't want that kind of smoke.
Speaker 1: So I got sent home for the day and not fired.
Speaker 1: But they never put me on a shift with this motherfucker.
Speaker 5: Good. See, that's why I operate off of them. I'll
Speaker 5: kill this all.
Speaker 1: Exactly like the US government. We all going together, you understand.
Speaker 2: You, it's up to you. We all going together. How
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: They're entitlement and they're entitled, even and even within conversation
Speaker 1: is infuriating, it's out of control.
Speaker 6: It's wold because it's very much like nah, and I
Speaker 6: just it's very clear, and it's like you wouldn't say
Speaker 6: that to anybody else exactly. So why do you feel comfortable?
Speaker 6: Oh no, I think you're misunderstanding. Oh no, I think
Speaker 6: you're misunderstanding. Like, let's be clear about that, so we
Speaker 6: can get to a place of clarity. I'm even happy
Speaker 6: to say, Okay, I can communicate that better or differently.
Speaker 6: That does not mean that I'm confused or ignorant. It
Speaker 6: means that you don't know, and we can get to
Speaker 6: a place. Yeah, it can get we can get to
Speaker 6: a place where we know. But I just think you
Speaker 6: have to be careful. You let people say that kind
Speaker 6: of stuff to you. That stuff follows you.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, then it's like.
Speaker 6: O Takiya doesn't communicate this, you know, that's like you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: So you gotta nip that in the butt and do
Speaker 6: it right away. But that's the pattern that I have noticed,
Speaker 6: particularly as a woman in the workplace, and it's very
Speaker 6: much like, let me help.
Speaker 2: You damn get get the hell out of here.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 1: That also lends to a larger conversation about how unqualified
Speaker 1: most of them are for the jobs they're in and
Speaker 1: they're only in those jobs because of who they are
Speaker 1: as people. And I'm not gonna have that now because
Speaker 1: we've gone off the rolls multiple times. But they're confused
Speaker 1: because they're dumb and unqualified.
Speaker 5: Mm hmmmm. They're embarrassed by it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and then they want to make the fact that,
Speaker 6: you know, they want to make you some sort of anomaly. Oh, Tikia,
Speaker 6: you have such a knack for this. It's like no, sis,
Speaker 6: I got a PhD. I went to school for many years.
Speaker 6: I went to school for many years. I know exactly
Speaker 6: how to do this because I trained to.
Speaker 1: Do it because unqualified.
Speaker 2: That's the difference between you and me.
Speaker 6: Okay, I trained, I trained, But that's a different conversation. Well,
Speaker 6: right when petty pet your oh, I just did mine.
Speaker 6: It's a white boy, and I think I think I'm irritated. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I just you know, sandwich it into your sink. I'm
Speaker 6: irritated because they never put me in another shift with
Speaker 6: him again. And you know, I play the long game
Speaker 6: with my enemies, and I have a very short but
Speaker 6: potent list, and so that white boys forever, it's up.
Speaker 1: It's stuck. Also, Dawn who used to work in a
Speaker 1: grill who lives off the Q train, bitch, I haven't
Speaker 1: forgot you. Thirteen years later.
Speaker 5: Thirty.
Speaker 1: Thirteen years please thirty years later, it's still stuck, all right? Oh, XD,
Speaker 1: what's your penny?
Speaker 5: I have been thinking about this for a while, So
Speaker 5: this this week I was blessed with the opportunity to
Speaker 5: go see a film called Scary Movie twenty twenty six. Oh,
Speaker 5: I've heard this.
Speaker 1: Isn't it like the Tail? It is, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: fast and furio. Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah we we Jada and I saw
Speaker 5: it and it was fine and all that stuff. But
Speaker 5: what really pissed me off is the after effect of
Speaker 5: the movie. Right, And it's kind of to your point
Speaker 5: to key in this idea of when and I guess
Speaker 5: to me is like working as a part time comedians,
Speaker 5: sometimes I hate when people like try to defend jokes
Speaker 5: or sometimes especially like like when the Kevin Kevin Hart
Speaker 5: roast thing came out, there was so many comedians going
Speaker 5: out to defend and extend their necks out for no
Speaker 5: fucking reason. It's okay to shut the fuck up. Sometimes.
Speaker 5: But AnyWho, so when it came so when it comes
Speaker 5: to this movie, you know, it's art. You people are
Speaker 5: able free to interpret the way they would like.
Speaker 1: Art is.
Speaker 5: You know, it's subjective. Some people call it art.
Speaker 2: It is a motion picture picture.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I think the movie. If I'm going to
Speaker 5: be complimentary, I would call it hot, garbage and cheese.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it's stunk. What do you mean?
Speaker 5: Like that is as far as uh compliments go for me?
Speaker 5: Like Cats, the movie was better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how deeply uncomfortable. We all felt looking.
Speaker 5: Uncomfortable, but that was interesting to watch. This was I
Speaker 5: could have been at home and saw this on the YouTube.
Speaker 5: But what irritated me is the fact that like, oh,
Speaker 5: you don't like X comedy or you don't find this comedy,
Speaker 5: you don't find this funny because X, Y and Z
Speaker 5: and I understand that comedy is subjective and stuff, but
Speaker 5: there are just some things that are categorically unfunny. But honestly,
Speaker 5: you should you got the money, right, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean? You don't have to beat down my throat
Speaker 5: about why I need to like this movie. I bought
Speaker 5: the ticket part and.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't have to like whatever the cases
Speaker 2: and movies like. It's okay, bro, I don't have to
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 1: I don't have to like it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I and I and I think that's what
Speaker 5: I get irritated about, Like just creators in general, how
Speaker 5: they feel embolden and entitled to your like because they
Speaker 5: think social media likes or real likes in real life,
Speaker 5: but people think that they're entitled to your favoritism, your
Speaker 5: uh what you find to deem as an escape mechanism, right,
Speaker 5: And it's like that's super dumb, right and selfish, right,
Speaker 5: Like I think because everybody's moving this this individualism, right,
Speaker 5: because I always talk about how the I the idea
Speaker 5: of the algorithm is going to kill us all psychologically
Speaker 5: because the fact that everybody thinks everything is around them
Speaker 5: they can critique it, make everything to their liking and
Speaker 5: not realizing that they're blocking out the world world.
Speaker 2: Or your opinions and preferences in that way.
Speaker 5: Yes, and it is.
Speaker 2: It's unrealistic.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's unrealistic for you to to move about the
Speaker 6: world thinking that you can always dissociate or remove yourself
Speaker 6: from uncomfortable things and people.
Speaker 2: That's not real life.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think My petty people ultimately is
Speaker 5: people who are afraid of friction.
Speaker 2: Conflicts, different conflict.
Speaker 5: Big difference because if I if I were to say,
Speaker 5: if everybody in the world would say, I like this
Speaker 5: fucking movie, then they're gonna keep making the same horror movie.
Speaker 2: Correct, correct, yeah, correct, you know.
Speaker 5: What I mean, Like I need there needs to be
Speaker 5: critique and honest critique about things and the way we
Speaker 5: live and have honest dialogue about things the way we
Speaker 5: get to a better understanding of who we are as
Speaker 5: the people to make a path forward to being better.
Speaker 6: Yes, And we can be critical without being harmful, without
Speaker 6: being dismissive or out, without being violent or negative or problematic.
Speaker 2: We can just simply say you know.
Speaker 6: Or we can push, we can interrogate, we should question,
Speaker 6: We could be curious like that's natural and normal and
Speaker 6: those are the things that keep our brain engage. I
Speaker 6: think this is super important now because all of this
Speaker 6: consensus and going along, it's really just helping the people
Speaker 6: not to use their brains in a way that is concerning.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, m And I love that idea of
Speaker 1: the algorithm because it's true. It's ruining everything.
Speaker 8: You see.
Speaker 1: Another component of white supremacy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, of course warn dust, but hey didn't They don't
Speaker 5: believe all their own ways and that's another conversation. They
Speaker 5: don't trust each other. But that's not me.
Speaker 2: We gotta pay. Yeah, we have to pay for the
Speaker 2: back that they don't trust each other and justifiably.
Speaker 1: I'll just maybe if you would just be better, you
Speaker 1: won't put so much effort into the things that just
Speaker 1: don't make things better. It's so crazy.
Speaker 5: They got to redefine better and ship like that.
Speaker 1: We don't have that kind of and they may not anyway.
Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for listening to both Jada
Speaker 1: and next D and getting grown, getting Jada NEXTD.
Speaker 2: Getting Jaden next D grown.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, thank you to doctor Winder yes and sharing
Speaker 1: such an important and necessary conversation. Once again. You all
Speaker 1: can find the links to the book in the in
Speaker 1: your various description boxes across the board. Uh and sister
Speaker 1: take them out and tell everyone what to do.
Speaker 6: Okay, I will, oh, you know, just say thanks and
Speaker 6: hay and to all of the Jaden XT audience.
Speaker 2: I love to hang out with you guys, so I
Speaker 2: just want to say hi.
Speaker 6: And also to everyone, y'all know how we do we
Speaker 6: want to make sure that you are moisturizing your mind.
Speaker 6: And you do that by minding your business, okay, not
Speaker 6: worried about what the other people are doing. You got
Speaker 6: to let them do them, and we got to worry
Speaker 6: about ourselves as a people. That feels very pertinent to
Speaker 6: stay algorithm.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 6: Secondly, you want to hydrate your body, right, That's how
Speaker 6: you keep your body moist and supple and growing and agile, especially.
Speaker 2: Around your joints.
Speaker 6: Okay, you because very poor and as we age, hello,
Speaker 6: so drink drinking your water as much water as your
Speaker 6: body can sustain every day.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's how you do that.
Speaker 1: Cocon Oil is also good for that, absolutely.
Speaker 6: And finally, speaking of coconut oil, you want to moisturize
Speaker 6: your skin, Okay, but not with coconut not because it's
Speaker 6: not comemotogenic.
Speaker 2: It will clock you. But yeah, so make sure
Speaker 6: That you are moisturizing your skin, which is your largest
Speaker 6: organ and that is foundational and fundamental to making sure
Speaker 6: that you're black does not crack, because it will if
Speaker 6: it's dry by eye way, yes, moving