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Hi, I'm Zahn Valines, a writer and feminist activist, and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

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And I am so excited because I am here today with my guest, Desiree Stevens.

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Desiree, I'm so happy to have you.

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Thank you so much, Zahn.

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I really appreciate the opportunity to be centered here in this moment.

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So Desiree is awesome, but don't panic.

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Jeff will be back next week.

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We haven't stuffed him in a closet.

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He's he's fine.

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but I'm going to tell you a little bit about the amazing Desiree.

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Desiree B. Stevens is a trauma-informed educator, counselor, and community builder.

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As the founder of Makeshift Happen,

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a B Corporation,

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Desiree is dedicated to liberation through decolonization and whole self-healing.

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Her work focuses on teaching individuals and communities how to build intentional,

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intersectional spaces of true belonging,

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dismantling oppressive systems along the way.

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Through her Liberation Education newsletter and the Liberation Education Academy,

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Desiree offers invaluable resources and tools for holistic DEIA work,

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including upcoming continuing education units and corporate training.

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She covers so much and her work is so deep and academic,

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but also really accessible that it's just you will get so much knowledge just

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reading her.

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So I hope you'll subscribe.

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I hope you'll learn about her.

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I hope you'll follow her.

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So today we're going to be talking about effective activism in a world that wants to demoralize us all.

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I think most people listening to this podcast want to make the world a better place,

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but we've all felt the guilt of not doing enough or of doing the wrong thing or of

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needing to make money in a capitalist world or of needing to take a break for our well-being.

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We're haunted by all that we're not doing, and that slows down our ability to do good.

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As I've argued before, authoritarianism depends on the demoralization of activists.

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And unfortunately, in activist circles, other activists will often do their best to demoralize us.

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So Desiree has an antidote to this,

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and she takes this notion of demoralizing supporting authoritarianism seriously.

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She argues that this kind of demoralization works.

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this perfectionism, this rush to do it all is a construct of white supremacy.

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So let's get into it.

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One of the things that you often talk about is how activists from marginalized communities,

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and especially Black women,

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I mean,

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what we're really talking about here is Black women,

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have always been good at rest,

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at self-care,

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and seeking pleasure,

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even as they are putting their bodies on the line,

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even as they are at the vanguard of social movements.

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And I think

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You know, this is new to a lot of white women.

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It's new to a lot of more privileged people,

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the idea that you have to rest,

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that you have a moral obligation to rest.

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So can you talk a little bit about that?

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Absolutely.

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Rest is revolutionary and it is without a doubt one of the greatest tools that we

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could use to fight against supremacy.

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I think that what happens with white-bodied people who have now been socialized and

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clocked as white is there was this construct that was created through supremacy

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culture of what is supposed to look like,

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right?

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How you're supposed to dress,

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walk,

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talk,

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act,

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especially,

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as you said,

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as you get up in those privileges,

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right?

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All of this system is really a replication of the monarchy, right?

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Because Britain is the motherland to America, right?

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So, you know, it's this idea of this performance of whiteness.

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So I should always be on, always be presentable.

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And when you're talking about Black women,

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for me,

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I would say that in our own ways,

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from our own ancestral learning and knowledge,

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you have to think about how these systems treated us.

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See, we were property.

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So when we were finally able to leave Mass's house and go over to our little cabin, we

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We could just do us.

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We could just be in community with us.

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We could just take a moment.

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And even though there was still more labor,

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still more children to take care of,

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still more food to cook,

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we were amongst our own.

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We were in community, even if it was for those few hours.

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And you have to rest.

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You cannot go and just keep going.

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And in doing that rest, you reset, right?

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Because you got to get up again.

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You got to do it.

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You got to toil.

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So it's like...

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Where's my balance?

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You know what I'm saying?

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You will burn out.

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And that happens so often in activism.

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You completely burn out.

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And then because it's not impacting you directly,

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very specifically if you are not Black,

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so it's inescapable for us,

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you stop.

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Just that simple.

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You stop and it's just like, oh, it's too much for me.

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I've done all I can, et cetera, et cetera.

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So you talk about the performance of whiteness.

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And I think...

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This is a bit of a tangent at first blush from what we're talking about,

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but I actually think it's kind of core to this.

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One of the questions you're always asking people is, who were you before you were white?

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Yes.

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And this is,

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you know,

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this is such a great question,

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and I think a lot of people don't understand it at first,

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but you talk about Black people having a long and rich cultural tradition,

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whereas whiteness is just a long and rich tradition of oppression.

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Pretty much.

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Yeah.

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But it's made from other cultures that also have their own long and rich cultural traditions.

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So why do you feel like connecting to that,

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connecting to rather than your white identity,

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say your Irish identity or your Italian identity or whatever your identity is,

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is so important?

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Oh, because what I've learned is white body people think they're new.

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Every generation.

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And I'm just like.

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you know,

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when you're doing this work and you're talking to white people and it's like,

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they're talking to you.

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Like most people,

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most white people who are doing activism now,

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like where there was such a huge push for DEIA work,

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literally just figured out racism in 2020.

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That's amazing that you're getting $10,000 to speak and I'm hustling a newsletter.

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And you just figured this out four years ago.

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And isn't it amazing that these people who just now figured it out also think

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they're authorities and never pause and ask,

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what else have I not figured out that's so obvious?

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Right.

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That's whiteness, right?

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So for me,

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because I want it to be clear,

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because it could be really activating when you hear,

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right,

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like white people.

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Right.

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Well, I'm born white.

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Yeah, nobody could blame how they're born.

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Whiteness for me is a system that unfortunately, that system leverages your white skin.

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That's why I say white bodied people against me, because for me, white supremacy is inescapable.

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In my work, what I focus on is supremacy culture.

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Right.

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So that's going to be all of the supremacies.

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Right.

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There's going to be financial supremacy,

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cis supremacy,

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Christian supremacy,

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parental supremacy,

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all of those different things and how they interact and interconnect.

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So you could really begin to dismantle it.

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White supremacy is something that impacts me as a black person.

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And for me, it's inescapable.

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So to kind of go all the way back to there.

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Wait, what the hell is the question?

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Oh, who were you before you were white?

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Okay.

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So why is it important to connect to that?

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I am multicultural.

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My mother is a first generation Irish American.

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My grandparents came over from Sligo, Ireland, not even, you know, not 1600s, not on the Mayflower.

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They were like still considered the scourge of the Irish when they came over, right?

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And that is right there in and of itself a reason why you should know.

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Because this idea of privilege, not saying that it doesn't exist, but I prefer to interchange that.

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Well, not even interchange, but to completely change it to leverage.

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You could leverage your whiteness,

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but there's no real privilege in not knowing who you are,

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where you came from,

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what your people have gone through.

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See, if you were an Irish American and proper Irish, not a plastic patty, you...

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would be angry because you would know that you were called the scourge,

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though they were a part of the destruction of your land,

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though they have been colonizing Ireland for the past 900 years.

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And it is still colonized.

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And the Irish are still fighting for their sovereignty and their land back.

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Indigenous is a global term.

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Land back is a global movement.

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So connecting to that goes back to your initial thing on rest.

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If you were connected to that, you're not going to keep fighting because I'm Black.

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You're going to take a breath and say, whew, at least I'm not Black.

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But if you were connected to that struggle and understanding that and who you

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became and what it took from you,

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there would be a personal motivation that says,

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yes,

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I need a rest,

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but I'm going to keep pushing.

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Yeah, I like this idea of whiteness as taking not just

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from non-white people, but from everybody.

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And I'm always like a bit skeptical of the, well, you know, sexism hurts men too.

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Racism hurts white people too kind of stuff.

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Cause then we get into this like reverse victim thing.

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But I think that white people can benefit from considering that whiteness has taken from them too.

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And that this is a system that is harming all of us and get mad.

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They would greatly benefit.

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Yeah.

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Because when you're watching, like these elections are coming up and you know,

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Black people and the indigenous of Turtle Island are looking at y'all like, what?

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Like, we've been telling you, right?

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This is not new.

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When I look at white activists,

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advocates,

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you know,

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social justice people,

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or just white people having a voice,

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right?

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Like,

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we're in a time and age where all you need is a phone,

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and everybody has a platform,

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so you have to really be mindful of that.

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But when I'm listening to so many of you guys,

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like,

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speak about what's going on with the genocide of Palestine,

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I'm like,

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you...

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are actively practicing settler colonialism and not seeing that,

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not seeing that this is actually a land grab from a system of whiteness.

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This is Christian supremacy.

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It's easy to blame Jews.

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That's not new.

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Hating Jews is a very American and normalized concept.

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So it kind of all goes into that, and that's how that interconnectedness is.

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Because it is harmful to you.

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It is,

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because it leaves you without community,

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consistently performing,

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mental health issues,

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not knowing who you are,

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right?

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Like, this huge feminist movement.

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Like, you're probably, like, the only feminist person that I...

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Don't say that.

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Follow.

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I mean, it's, she's right.

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I'm honest because white feminism,

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unfortunately,

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is not going to free you guys from the patriarchy because you guys have been

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socialized around white men for so long.

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You are your men to everybody else.

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And so in my work,

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I don't exclude the damage and the violence that patriarchy has brought to white

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femme bodies.

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That is a very real thing.

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But then to take it to the next step is like, yes, you do need to dismantle that.

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But then to be connected to the struggle,

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then you have to recognize that to everyone else,

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the global majority,

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white women are their men.

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Yeah.

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So I've actually...

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I hadn't planned to talk about this, but I think this is.

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No, no, no, no.

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No, I had not planned to talk about what I'm about to talk about.

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You talk about whatever you want.

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So I see this phenomenon a lot with white women who I counsel who are in abusive

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relationships where they've gotten to the point where they have the resources to

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leave and they're considering leaving.

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And what's really keeping them there is love, which is really more like white supremacist patriarchy.

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And here's how it manifests.

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It'll look like this.

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She's in a relationship with a guy who's abusive to her and to her children, but who's also racist.

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And it's easy in feminist circles to sympathize with, like, well, she's being abused.

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But she is also cozying up to the racist.

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And I think we often overlook that part of it because we're so focused on the abuse

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that we're not thinking about the ways in which she is complicit with other

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people's abuse.

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And we see this in generation after generation after generation of women where we

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cozy up to white male power and we leave the black women who should actually be our

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sisters in the dust.

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And we say, oh, but the men are abusing us, too.

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So we're like you.

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And it's like, well…

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We're getting abused, but we're also being abusers.

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And this is why I think it's so important even for women who are being oppressed in

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other ways across myriad identities to see how they are cozying up to their

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partner's racism and how

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Racism is never something you can overlook in a relationship ever, ever.

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And it's not only racism that they're cozying up to, right?

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Like the holy trifecta is going to be anti-Semitism, anti-Blackness and homophobia.

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Yeah.

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You're not going to find one without the other.

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And all of these things.

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you're not going to find without abuse.

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This person is going to abuse you, your children, your communities, the people in your life.

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Someone who is abusive in one of these domains is always going to be abusive in the other domains.

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And this thing where we separate them all out, where you can have 10 racist points,

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But maybe you only have one sexist point and like, that's OK.

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That's not how it works.

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No, it's not.

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And unfortunately, so that it still goes.

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It all kind of coincides and overlaps.

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And for me, when I think about supremacy culture, I look at it like a spiderweb.

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right?

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Some of us are closer to the spider.

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There's no doubt about that, right?

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But we're all here.

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We're all stuck in this web.

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So when you're talking about it from this way, because again, I recognize it's very activating, right?

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Especially my own mother was an abuse victim, like serious DV and a white woman.

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So like, I'm very well aware.

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But when we're talking about it from the perspective of what you're saying, like,

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you guys are here as feminists fighting for certain things.

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And we should just embrace you guys without the awareness that your existence, it's not personal.

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Your existence, we're sitting here right now.

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I consider you a friend.

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You know, like my child has been in your home.

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I've collected beautiful flowers from you.

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But if you call the police right now, the problem is they're going to believe you.

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Right.

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And that is what white privilege is,

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is basically you get the benefit of the doubt while I live on a binary that

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believes the worst of me.

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Yeah.

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And how this destroys relationships.

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I think that a lot of white women are able to understand how sexism destroys their

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relationships because they are sleeping with their oppressor.

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And even if he's not actively oppressing you,

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we all know deep down that that switch can flip and that he can choose to.

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Right.

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And it's not even the way these systems are set up.

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Like for me, it's like because there is.

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You may want to cut this part out.

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White women hate white men.

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Like, and it is the misandry inside of it is disturbing to me because I just can't hate my father.

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I can't hate the son that came out of my body.

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I don't hate my brother.

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That is a very, that is a very twisted thing.

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The both of you guys have such a violent relationship with each other that we'd

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like y'all to just keep that in there and leave us out of it is really what it

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comes down to.

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And so when I kind of put that container,

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that energetic container around,

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let's talk about systems of whiteness,

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who you were before you were white.

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It's so I can keep you safe.

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there, me on the outside, safer, and help you dismantle it.

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Because basically,

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if we look at the United States as one big home,

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speaking of DV and taking it from personal to systemic,

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We are all in a domestic violence situation,

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and white men and women are our parents,

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and we are the children who are dealing with the abuse and you two fighting amongst

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each other.

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And that is what strips,

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that's what systems of whiteness strips you from white women and white families,

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because you can't leave,

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even with the money.

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I understand that.

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Even with the money, even with the resources, even with all that.

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Because whiteness excommunicates.

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It has no community.

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It pushes you out.

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You got booted from your church.

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Your kids can't go to the same school, even if you have money for that private school.

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Now you're the scourge, back to that word, right?

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You're the scourge of the community.

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You're going to be blamed for this.

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He's going to be held and coddled and enabled to continue to do this.

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And he's going to find another you.

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And now you're sitting there and there's nothing fun about poverty because now

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you're broke because he snatched back all of those resources that you had because

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white womanhood is about marrying up and white manhood is about ownership.

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Yes.

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It's about the woman appliance.

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And I want to say something about this because every time I share your work or

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really any black womanist sort of work.

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I'll eventually get a comment that's like, well, black men are abusive to black women too.

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Desiree is literally falling off of her chair having a seizure right now.

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And it's – I think what people don't understand is that,

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yes,

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women in all kinds of relationship dynamics can be abused.

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But the abuse inflicted on black women from –

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white women and and as an extension of white men's abuse is a different kind of

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abuse and when Desiree talks about white women hating white men you know I I see

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this all the time where we would rather just hate men than talk about the dynamics

(00:17:40):
that turn men into monsters and like there's nothing wrong with deciding you hate

(00:17:44):
men there's nothing wrong with deciding you want to avoid them there's nothing

(00:17:47):
wrong with deciding like you don't want relationships with them

(00:17:50):
You know,

(00:17:51):
I think what Desiree is talking about is not seeing the interlocking systems and deciding,

(00:17:56):
well,

(00:17:56):
men are the monsters and if I avoid them,

(00:17:58):
everything will be fine.

(00:17:59):
But there are monsters everywhere in an oppressive system.

(00:18:03):
And there's also a monster lurking within in an oppressive system that you have to confront.

(00:18:08):
And so, yeah, like, hate men, divorce your husband, avoid them, stay safe, do whatever you need.

(00:18:14):
But don't for one second think that just community with women is going to be easy

(00:18:20):
and that you're not going to have to unpack anything in that.

(00:18:23):
Well, community with women is not going to be easy because of everything that you just stated.

(00:18:28):
It's the refusal to be accountable.

(00:18:30):
Mm-hmm.

(00:18:31):
Like, you can't fucking feed your oppressor and then wonder why you're being oppressed.

(00:18:36):
There's no way in hell my son is going to oppress me.

(00:18:39):
None.

(00:18:40):
Do you understand?

(00:18:41):
None.

(00:18:43):
None.

(00:18:43):
And, you know, it's again, these systems, right?

(00:18:47):
Like, yes, Black women, we deal with tons of abuse, right?

(00:18:50):
Because they're dealing with systemic abuse and it trickles down.

(00:18:53):
The only trickle down that works is violence, right?

(00:18:55):
Right.

(00:18:56):
So white men are being abused and oppressed at their work and through capitalism or

(00:19:03):
when you're talking about the other end of it,

(00:19:05):
poverty,

(00:19:06):
the inability to climb up that ladder.

(00:19:08):
So he feels like less of a man because he can't provide.

(00:19:11):
That's how systems of whiteness impact them.

(00:19:13):
What's he going to do?

(00:19:14):
Take that out on the person that's lesser than him.

(00:19:17):
That's his wife.

(00:19:18):
She's going to take that out on his on her kids.

(00:19:20):
Then y'all come outside and take it out on the globe.

(00:19:23):
So for me,

(00:19:25):
like when I'm talking with white women or white people in general with this work,

(00:19:28):
I ask white women to give white men the same grace we give y'all.

(00:19:35):
Because it's wild that you want to sit in community with us,

(00:19:39):
sit at our feet or sit beside us and feel some solidarity,

(00:19:44):
but refuse to give that same grace at home,

(00:19:47):
in your own house,

(00:19:48):
when you are just as violent to me as he is to you,

(00:19:54):
whether he wants to be or not.

(00:19:56):
Your husband is an amazing person.

(00:19:58):
He's still your oppressor.

(00:20:00):
Systemic and personal are not the same.

(00:20:03):
I think you're an amazing person.

(00:20:06):
Systemic and personal, not the same.

(00:20:08):
My mother was an amazing person.

(00:20:11):
Systemic, personal, not the same.

(00:20:14):
And we get that confused in DEIA work or anti-racism, right?

(00:20:18):
But I'm a good person.

(00:20:20):
But I do all of this work.

(00:20:21):
My best friend's Black.

(00:20:22):
My kids are Black.

(00:20:24):
Love that one.

(00:20:25):
I'm like, what?

(00:20:27):
Tell them what you say about that.

(00:20:28):
Black cock is not a ride out of racism.

(00:20:32):
Because and I explain it.

(00:20:33):
I use my mother as an example who happens to have been in a wheelchair.

(00:20:37):
And I'm like, so we're in New York City.

(00:20:40):
We're parked.

(00:20:41):
Obviously, I'm from New York, the Bronx.

(00:20:44):
We're parked.

(00:20:45):
I'm trying to get my mother into a car.

(00:20:46):
Right.

(00:20:47):
She falls.

(00:20:49):
I'm struggling to pick her up.

(00:20:51):
When you see this happening, whether you want to admit it or not, your bias is going to come out.

(00:20:58):
I'm harming this white woman.

(00:21:01):
Truth of the matter is I have spinal stenosis.

(00:21:03):
I'm struggling to get my own mother in the car who's now crying,

(00:21:07):
upset,

(00:21:08):
hates the fact that she is disabled,

(00:21:10):
has to depend on her child who's also disabled,

(00:21:13):
and here we are.

(00:21:14):
Now add my father into this situation who is unambiguously black because now we got

(00:21:18):
to talk about colorism.

(00:21:20):
He's a six-foot Black man.

(00:21:23):
You got a lot of thoughts going on.

(00:21:24):
And none of them are good.

(00:21:26):
Yeah.

(00:21:26):
Right?

(00:21:27):
None of them are good.

(00:21:28):
Now, let's say something was being harmed.

(00:21:30):
My mom was being harmed and I was a stranger.

(00:21:33):
That just confirms your bias.

(00:21:35):
But what happens is nobody's checking that initial bias.

(00:21:38):
Nobody has ever looked at me and said, I bet her daughter...

(00:21:41):
They've never thought I was their daughter.

(00:21:43):
This is why having Black kids is not the answer to racism.

(00:21:47):
And it's not about being a good person.

(00:21:49):
It's about recognizing there are systems at play that have indoctrinated us all

(00:21:53):
into a certain way of thinking and responding to those thoughts.

(00:21:58):
Period.

(00:21:58):
Just that simple.

(00:21:59):
Once we can get there, we can move to the healing.

(00:22:02):
We can kind of come into sister circles and say, hey, this is how you harm me.

(00:22:07):
Like those people that like black men abuse black women, too.

(00:22:11):
Sounds to me very right wing.

(00:22:14):
Cops kill white people.

(00:22:15):
And I'm like, cops aren't supposed to be fucking killing anybody.

(00:22:18):
Like you guys are become OK and apathetic.

(00:22:24):
with the violence as long as it's happening to yourself.

(00:22:29):
And that's not healthy.

(00:22:32):
And that's deeply concerning to me because I'm like, you just said cops kill your own people.

(00:22:40):
And you're not concerned about that.

(00:22:43):
So I fully do not expect white people to be invested in cops killing Black people

(00:22:47):
because you don't care that they're killing your own.

(00:22:49):
Right.

(00:22:49):
Right.

(00:22:51):
So, OK, so I want to there's there's so much here.

(00:22:53):
There's so many threads I could I could pull on.

(00:22:56):
This is this is what every conversation with Desiree is like.

(00:22:59):
She's got this box full of information that she just dumps on you.

(00:23:03):
And then you have to, like, swim through it and figure out which thing which I love.

(00:23:06):
It's it's amazing.

(00:23:08):
Again, please follow Desiree.

(00:23:09):
She's brilliant.

(00:23:10):
And you will become brilliant through osmosis.

(00:23:13):
So I want to follow up really quickly on the thing you said about.

(00:23:17):
giving men as much grace as Black women give white women.

(00:23:21):
And I think that a lot of white women hear that.

(00:23:24):
And what they hear is, oh, white women should let white men abuse them.

(00:23:27):
White women shouldn't push back on white men.

(00:23:31):
But it's not that.

(00:23:32):
It's a thought exercise.

(00:23:34):
It's asking us to consider how every relationship we enter into with a man is a risk to our lives.

(00:23:42):
And we know that on some level.

(00:23:43):
That's why when I say that you guys get like really excited because I'm

(00:23:47):
articulating what we all know deep down.

(00:23:49):
Well,

(00:23:49):
Desiree is articulating what all Black women know deep down,

(00:23:53):
which is that a white woman is a potential threat to your life.

(00:23:57):
And,

(00:23:58):
you know,

(00:23:59):
all of my Black readers and listeners know this,

(00:24:02):
but I'm not sure how many of my white ones do.

(00:24:04):
And I think that that analogy between sexism and racism and understanding that threat is

(00:24:11):
so critical for us to know,

(00:24:12):
especially if we're going to be in meaningful community with Black women,

(00:24:16):
which we should be because there's no excuse for not doing it.

(00:24:20):
We have to understand that even if, you know, I love Desiree.

(00:24:23):
I love Desiree's kids.

(00:24:25):
You know, I would do anything for Desiree.

(00:24:27):
But

(00:24:28):
If that switch gets flipped, she knows I could hurt her.

(00:24:32):
You know, she wants to believe it will never be flipped.

(00:24:36):
But the very fact that it could be and that I could then use that to hurt her

(00:24:40):
creates this like wall between us.

(00:24:43):
And I didn't create that.

(00:24:45):
You know, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy created it.

(00:24:49):
Correct.

(00:24:49):
And so we have we have a shared enemy.

(00:24:51):
We need to work on that wall together rather than me saying, oh, but I'm so nice, Desiree.

(00:24:56):
Yeah.

(00:24:57):
I gave you those plants.

(00:24:59):
I know lots of black people.

(00:25:02):
I like them.

(00:25:04):
Right.

(00:25:04):
It's all of those things.

(00:25:05):
Right.

(00:25:06):
And yeah, I would never I really hope.

(00:25:09):
And I recognize,

(00:25:10):
again,

(00:25:10):
I say this over and over again,

(00:25:11):
when I'm talking to people,

(00:25:12):
I'm like,

(00:25:12):
listen,

(00:25:13):
I'm going to say things that's going to activate you.

(00:25:15):
I need you to drink water.

(00:25:16):
I need you to move your body.

(00:25:17):
I need you to take breaths.

(00:25:19):
Because that defensiveness, right?

(00:25:21):
The foundation of my work are the 15 pillars of supremacy culture.

(00:25:24):
And that defensiveness comes up.

(00:25:26):
I would never tell anybody to stay in an abusive situation.

(00:25:29):
I myself, and I love my husband still today, but the alcoholism went too far.

(00:25:34):
And I'm like, okay, I'm going to figure out how to do this with three kids alone.

(00:25:37):
So I would never say that.

(00:25:39):
However, in my own situation, I will tell you what grace looks like.

(00:25:45):
I need you to stop.

(00:25:46):
This is too much.

(00:25:48):
You know what?

(00:25:48):
Actually, maybe you don't have a drinking problem.

(00:25:51):
But I am going to tell you,

(00:25:52):
it's activating my own childhood trauma from watching my father have a drinking problem.

(00:25:57):
So do you think you could do that for me?

(00:25:59):
So giving all of these options, and I gave two years of those options.

(00:26:04):
It wasn't like, here, fix this.

(00:26:06):
I read White Fragility, you bastard, and you're racist.

(00:26:10):
You better fix it.

(00:26:11):
It is being willing to give that space for that person to see it for themselves,

(00:26:17):
for that person to heal,

(00:26:18):
for that person to fuck up and be able to fix it.

(00:26:21):
There is a repair, a conflict repair cycle that happens in all relationships.

(00:26:27):
And when I say give grace, it's that.

(00:26:29):
You just figured it out.

(00:26:32):
And it's nice that you figured it out, but let's talk about privilege.

(00:26:35):
You've had time, book clubs, friends.

(00:26:40):
Maybe, especially if you're privileged, you're sitting at home.

(00:26:42):
Must be nice.

(00:26:44):
But he's busting his ass.

(00:26:45):
He's trying to survive capitalism, make sure you live the best in capitalism.

(00:26:49):
He don't have time to learn that, okay?

(00:26:51):
Because he's working.

(00:26:52):
So I know that that sounds like...

(00:26:54):
She's picking me and it's not.

(00:26:55):
It's just recognizing the systemic issues that are keeping a disconnect between us.

(00:27:02):
So when you get to come home, it's like, can we talk about something that I learned today?

(00:27:07):
What are your thoughts on that?

(00:27:09):
Those are ways of having grace and then really getting to know your partner because

(00:27:14):
you may find out they like the way they think,

(00:27:18):
they are stuck to their biases and you may want to get the hell out of there.

(00:27:22):
Well,

(00:27:22):
this is like really important because one thing that I see a lot with women,

(00:27:27):
and this isn't just white women,

(00:27:28):
this is all women in relationships with problematic men,

(00:27:31):
which is almost all men.

(00:27:32):
Yes.

(00:27:35):
They don't want to confront things directly.

(00:27:37):
They go in this like passive aggressive route.

(00:27:40):
So it's like instead of saying,

(00:27:42):
hey,

(00:27:42):
you agree that you're going to take the trash out every Monday,

(00:27:45):
they'll say something like,

(00:27:46):
well,

(00:27:46):
I see the trash is still sitting there again.

(00:27:48):
That's so aggravating.

(00:27:49):
And, you know, we all understand why people react that way.

(00:27:53):
We all understand that women engage in passive aggression because they're afraid of

(00:27:56):
being direct because men can be dangerous.

(00:27:59):
But if you can't be direct with him, that's the first red flag.

(00:28:03):
And being direct with him is the best way to get out

(00:28:06):
who he really is, what he really thinks, and to draw out, as Desiree said, those biases.

(00:28:12):
And so you sit down and you say, okay, maybe it's not your alcoholism.

(00:28:15):
Maybe it's not your neurodivergence.

(00:28:17):
What is it then?

(00:28:19):
Right.

(00:28:19):
And this is this is the approach that I'm constantly advocating for is whatever

(00:28:24):
wall of excuses he puts up against you rather than like arguing with all of those

(00:28:29):
excuses or debating,

(00:28:31):
well,

(00:28:31):
when do I call him an abuser?

(00:28:32):
When do I call him a racist?

(00:28:34):
Saying this is what I need.

(00:28:36):
Can you give that to me?

(00:28:37):
Are you going to give that to me?

(00:28:37):
Yeah.

(00:28:38):
You know, what can we do to get to that?

(00:28:41):
And that's much more productive than all of this like

(00:28:44):
therapy speak and like indirect and like playing games and treating men like loaded guns.

(00:28:49):
So.

(00:28:49):
I agree with that.

(00:28:50):
And also I think that there's a freedom in that for you as a woman too, right?

(00:28:55):
For me, the language I use with my partners, friends, children is we made an agreement.

(00:29:00):
Yeah.

(00:29:01):
For me, it's just that simple.

(00:29:02):
Did you agree to take this trash out on Monday?

(00:29:06):
When you don't honor your agreements, it makes me trust you a little less.

(00:29:10):
Here's the problem though.

(00:29:11):
Most women don't have agreements with their partners.

(00:29:13):
Oh yeah.

(00:29:13):
And that's

(00:29:14):
And so they default to patriarchy.

(00:29:17):
Most people are not taught that heterosexual relationships are typically just a vehicle for misogyny.

(00:29:24):
And so they don't make these agreements in advance.

(00:29:26):
And then they wake up 15 years later and they've gone to the default marriage, which is fucking terrible.

(00:29:31):
It is.

(00:29:31):
And so then they don't have the we had an agreement.

(00:29:34):
And so they have to go backwards and they have to start with these like stupid ass

(00:29:37):
fair play cards,

(00:29:38):
which never work.

(00:29:40):
Right.

(00:29:41):
No, they don't.

(00:29:42):
But this is exactly like why I really appreciate your work is because of how in-depth, right?

(00:29:49):
Like it's not riddled with misandry the way I see a lot of feminist writers.

(00:29:54):
I'm like, you're not dealing with the actual issues here.

(00:29:57):
You're not pulling back the veil.

(00:29:59):
You're not taking accountability, right?

(00:30:01):
For you, for me, your work is done with grace, right?

(00:30:05):
It is saying,

(00:30:05):
yes,

(00:30:06):
these people,

(00:30:07):
patriarchy,

(00:30:08):
and then those that subscribe to it are dangerous,

(00:30:11):
but also how are you playing into that system?

(00:30:14):
How can you empower yourself?

(00:30:16):
And that is why I actually like and respect your work,

(00:30:19):
because it comes more from an empowering place than a victim state.

(00:30:23):
And not that there's a problem with being a victim.

(00:30:25):
We're all victims of this violence and supremacy, but it's an empowering.

(00:30:30):
Like, no, let me tell you how this is going to happen.

(00:30:33):
Or here are these tips on how to do this.

(00:30:35):
And for me, that's how our work kind of overlaps.

(00:30:38):
Because everything you're saying about men, we feel about you guys as a unit.

(00:30:43):
White women and white men are a unit.

(00:30:44):
Because again, the who were you before you were white?

(00:30:47):
You came from clans.

(00:30:49):
You came from tribes.

(00:30:50):
You had matriarchal, you know, vehicles and ways of having community and being in community with people.

(00:30:58):
And patriarchy is a pyramid scheme where, you know, matriarchy is in a circle.

(00:31:04):
And it's wild because you see all this white witch three template Canva things on

(00:31:08):
how to be the divine feminine.

(00:31:10):
Yeah.

(00:31:13):
And I'm like, being a divine feminine is standing in my power, taking accountability.

(00:31:20):
I mold the future.

(00:31:23):
What I'm doing with my children,

(00:31:25):
this work that I'm doing now,

(00:31:28):
is for seven generations ahead to benefit from.

(00:31:31):
So the refusal of taking accountability as a white woman who has been at the helm

(00:31:36):
of their household,

(00:31:38):
raising their own oppressors,

(00:31:42):
is so disempowering that it hurts me, right?

(00:31:47):
And having come from a white-bodied person,

(00:31:49):
but who is very much Irish,

(00:31:51):
there is a saying,

(00:31:52):
there's no one stronger than an Irish man than an Irish woman.

(00:31:56):
So because I came from a community of very strong Irish women who took zero shit from

(00:32:05):
from men included,

(00:32:06):
and would leave you in a New York minute if you tried to pull any of that

(00:32:12):
patriarchal shit here.

(00:32:16):
It hurts me.

(00:32:16):
Like when I come to this work helping or trying to help white people because I'm like,

(00:32:22):
oh,

(00:32:22):
my God,

(00:32:23):
you're missing out on so much.

(00:32:25):
It was so beautiful having culture,

(00:32:29):
having traditions,

(00:32:30):
having community,

(00:32:32):
shared stories,

(00:32:34):
shared traditions,

(00:32:35):
shared food.

(00:32:36):
And you guys have emptiness.

(00:32:40):
And that bothers me.

(00:32:42):
Well,

(00:32:42):
and especially for heterosexual or heterosexual presenting white women,

(00:32:46):
what our culture ends up being because it's all that patriarchy feeds us all day

(00:32:51):
every day is I'm nothing without a man.

(00:32:55):
And I guarantee you,

(00:32:56):
you will not find any woman who will actually articulate that,

(00:32:59):
who will admit to believing that.

(00:33:02):
But their behavior suggests otherwise.

(00:33:04):
And in abusive and exploitative relationships,

(00:33:09):
eventually they reach a point where you really can't leave.

(00:33:11):
Or you can't leave without endangering your kids, your finances, your community, all of that.

(00:33:15):
But there is a point early on.

(00:33:18):
where you can and the point at that point what keeps people in these relationships

(00:33:23):
is this idea that women have to be with men and that's misogyny but it's also a

(00:33:29):
whole lot of white supremacy because wrapped up in white supremacy is this idea

(00:33:33):
that white women need to be bound to men

(00:33:35):
And judging of women who aren't with men, judging especially of black women who aren't with men.

(00:33:41):
You know,

(00:33:41):
we see this all the time when people are talking about single mothers,

(00:33:43):
what they're actually talking about is black single mothers.

(00:33:45):
And I'm like, but that's literally community.

(00:33:47):
Yeah.

(00:33:48):
Because, um, you may want to cut this out soon.

(00:33:51):
I appreciate the warning.

(00:33:54):
No problem.

(00:33:57):
White women are wild.

(00:33:59):
I see.

(00:34:01):
There's a dissonance that happens that whiteness as a system creates and manifests

(00:34:08):
in white women's bodies in this very wild way because of the refusal to dismantle

(00:34:15):
supremacy culture,

(00:34:16):
their own anti-Blackness,

(00:34:19):
and just kind of bowl it over into,

(00:34:22):
you know,

(00:34:22):
whatever new trend is happening.

(00:34:26):
The idea of looking at Black women and being like, shame, shame, shame.

(00:34:31):
And the truth of the matter is, is because you're not actually in community with us.

(00:34:34):
You know us.

(00:34:35):
You're not in community with us.

(00:34:37):
There is a difference.

(00:34:38):
Your PTA is not a community.

(00:34:40):
Your housing association is not a community.

(00:34:43):
Your job ain't no community.

(00:34:45):
You're not actually in community with Black women.

(00:34:47):
But you mean my job isn't my family?

(00:34:49):
No.

(00:34:49):
They said we're family though, Desiree.

(00:34:51):
They are exploiting you through capitalism.

(00:34:53):
They want you to work for the pittance so you could believe we're connected.

(00:34:57):
The PTA is in my family?

(00:34:58):
No.

(00:34:59):
It is more hierarchical structures to control tiny humans.

(00:35:04):
And don't even get me started on HOAs.

(00:35:06):
But...

(00:35:08):
The truth of the matter is, is what you're witnessing is the divesting from patriarchy.

(00:35:13):
When you see black single women, we're saying, fuck you.

(00:35:17):
You think you could be white men.

(00:35:19):
You think you're going to oppress me.

(00:35:20):
And I'm going to show you better than I could tell you.

(00:35:23):
And we leave.

(00:35:24):
We leave.

(00:35:25):
We take our kids.

(00:35:26):
We take whatever social implications come along with that.

(00:35:29):
And we find other women oppressed.

(00:35:32):
Black women who are going through the same thing.

(00:35:36):
And then we look at them and we admonish them.

(00:35:39):
And then you know what we do?

(00:35:40):
We go to the Black men who are actually doing the work of dismantling patriarchy.

(00:35:45):
And we be like, you need to talk to them, folks.

(00:35:48):
And what we're doing is, do you know how many Black women...

(00:35:51):
have bought lands and are making single women communes,

(00:35:57):
raising our children together,

(00:35:59):
raising our children liberated,

(00:36:01):
sovereign,

(00:36:02):
free and outside of these systems as much as possible,

(00:36:06):
a lot more than whiteness would like you to believe.

(00:36:09):
They want to show you that same like 80s idea trope, right?

(00:36:13):
The welfare queen, the ghetto baby mama, baby daddy drama.

(00:36:18):
And yeah, that's happening everywhere.

(00:36:19):
Go to your local projects or your local trailer.

(00:36:23):
You're going to see the same dynamic because nothing breeds violence like poverty.

(00:36:29):
That's a poverty issue, not a racial issue.

(00:36:32):
If we're talking about Black single mothers,

(00:36:34):
more Black single mothers are divesting from patriarchy,

(00:36:38):
finding community within other Black women and other Black mothers.

(00:36:42):
We also don't see all of that thing with the white womanhood.

(00:36:47):
you're not less of a woman in Blackness if you don't have children.

(00:36:50):
Because we value aunties.

(00:36:52):
We value godmothers.

(00:36:54):
We value the input of simply having women around in a very real matriarchal sense.

(00:37:01):
We value our elders.

(00:37:03):
We value communing together.

(00:37:06):
And that needs to be dismantled inside of whiteness before you could even come into

(00:37:11):
community with anybody else or with yourselves.

(00:37:14):
Because you guys may start a commune,

(00:37:16):
but y'all about to argue because somebody doesn't have the newest baby wrap or

(00:37:22):
somebody doesn't have the coolest shoes.

(00:37:24):
Whiteness as a system, the culture is consumerism.

(00:37:28):
You see it.

(00:37:29):
I've seen it in all the breastfeeding mom groups, the baby.

(00:37:32):
How many baby wearing sashes do you need?

(00:37:34):
How many?

(00:37:35):
You need one good wrap to wrap one good baby.

(00:37:38):
Maybe two.

(00:37:39):
But you've turned it into a sport,

(00:37:41):
which shames the mom who can't or shames the mom who could only do two.

(00:37:46):
And so you could see how patriarchy and consumerism has manifested so deeply within

(00:37:51):
the white woman body that it shows even amongst yourselves.

(00:37:57):
So y'all are scary to be in community with,

(00:37:59):
not because of what you could do to me,

(00:38:01):
like to your other point.

(00:38:02):
I watch what y'all do to y'all.

(00:38:04):
And that's terrifying.

(00:38:06):
So we had this experience when I was a kid.

(00:38:08):
You don't even know about this.

(00:38:10):
So my mom was like a radical before it became so trendy to see that.

(00:38:16):
And but she also she went to church and,

(00:38:19):
you know,

(00:38:20):
our church every year would have the adopt a family for Christmas thing,

(00:38:24):
which is like a nice thing,

(00:38:25):
but also gets into like a very like white savior thing and kind of gets into like

(00:38:29):
charity is consumerism and charity is like winning an award.

(00:38:32):
So like we, of course, adopted a family.

(00:38:35):
But because my mom just loved everybody and had like an ability to be in community

(00:38:40):
with everybody,

(00:38:42):
this woman and her family that we adopted became like one of her best friends like

(00:38:46):
really quickly.

(00:38:47):
And then before we knew it, they were moving in with us.

(00:38:50):
And and and my mom said, you know, I just I can't have one of my best friends be living in.

(00:38:57):
a condition that is so inferior to my own.

(00:39:00):
And so they just like, they moved in with us.

(00:39:03):
And it was like super weird for a while because we hadn't had,

(00:39:06):
you know,

(00:39:06):
a random Black family move in with us.

(00:39:09):
Okay.

(00:39:11):
And I remember the first Christmas that they were there,

(00:39:14):
you know,

(00:39:14):
my mom's doing all the shopping for everybody.

(00:39:17):
And my brother was like,

(00:39:18):
well,

(00:39:19):
why are you buying as much for Stefan and Amanda as you are for Zahn and me?

(00:39:24):
And she said, because there are family now, you little shit.

(00:39:27):
Yeah, just that simple.

(00:39:28):
And and I just like always and they live with us for like a while.

(00:39:33):
And and and it was just a wonderful family community.

(00:39:36):
And I would love when when Ingrid,

(00:39:38):
their mother,

(00:39:39):
would drop me off at school and I'd say,

(00:39:40):
oh,

(00:39:40):
that's my other mom.

(00:39:42):
And all the kids at my Catholic school would be like, is this a lesbian situation?

(00:39:45):
Like, what's going on here?

(00:39:47):
Yeah.

(00:39:49):
And it was it was just like such a great early lesson in what community looks like.

(00:39:54):
But also the outside reaction to it showed me how we want to pretend like we're big

(00:40:00):
into charity and we want to pretend like we're big into helping people.

(00:40:04):
But we and I mean,

(00:40:05):
white women who are invested in white supremacy really are not yet ready to say,

(00:40:10):
I am going to give up as much as I can until I have brought you to my level.

(00:40:16):
And that's what I think we need to be prepared to do to like really divest of white supremacy.

(00:40:20):
And until we're doing that, like we're buying into the system.

(00:40:24):
And that's just that's the way it is.

(00:40:27):
It is.

(00:40:28):
It is.

(00:40:29):
And I think for me, the focus on my work is just about it is the healing aspect of it.

(00:40:34):
We do all this cerebral stuff.

(00:40:36):
Systems of whiteness demands us to think all the time and feel nothing.

(00:40:41):
Yeah.

(00:40:42):
I could think all the time and I could strategize.

(00:40:45):
But are you dealing with the grief?

(00:40:47):
Are you dealing with the trauma of the loss of your own culture?

(00:40:51):
I often think about how we try to like argue kids out of their anxiety.

(00:40:55):
Like we try to give them mantras and teach them about anxiety.

(00:40:58):
There's something wrong with that.

(00:41:00):
But then we don't give them any of the body stuff.

(00:41:03):
We don't give them any of the emotion stuff.

(00:41:04):
And then we're shocked that they just keep getting more and more anxious as the

(00:41:08):
mantras and the arguments don't work.

(00:41:10):
And we do like a similar kind of thing with

(00:41:12):
white supremacy, I think.

(00:41:14):
Desiree, do you know about women who run with the wolves?

(00:41:17):
I do.

(00:41:18):
Okay.

(00:41:18):
I actually keep about five copies on hand and gift them to people.

(00:41:23):
OK, so we can talk about this.

(00:41:24):
So there's this wild thing that happened in the 90s because I think that's when it

(00:41:28):
was first published,

(00:41:29):
like 1994,

(00:41:30):
1995 ish.

(00:41:32):
Readers, if you don't or listeners, if you haven't heard of this, we can't really do it justice.

(00:41:37):
You got to Google it.

(00:41:38):
It's like a whole thing.

(00:41:39):
It's a must because it evolves.

(00:41:41):
My mom gifted me the first one and I've literally just keep them like I gifted it

(00:41:45):
to my sister,

(00:41:46):
my friends,

(00:41:47):
my kid.

(00:41:48):
So, yeah.

(00:41:49):
So all these women who were kind of like getting into this like new agey woo shit

(00:41:55):
started reading this book because they just they just fell on it.

(00:41:58):
You know, it's like part of the new agey woo transformation.

(00:42:01):
OK, so they start reading it.

(00:42:04):
And my mom was like the first in her friend group to read it.

(00:42:07):
And then she, like you, starts gifting it to all of her friends.

(00:42:11):
they all start leaving their husbands.

(00:42:13):
And it's,

(00:42:14):
yeah,

(00:42:14):
if you are like a white woman who leaves women,

(00:42:17):
who reads women who run with the wolves,

(00:42:19):
there's like a 75% chance you're going to leave your husband within a year.

(00:42:24):
Yeah, it's it's it's totally a real thing.

(00:42:27):
And I think this is because it encourages women to reconnect to their original cultures,

(00:42:34):
to reconnect to the idea of matriarchy and to connect to their power,

(00:42:38):
not in the like bullshit polarity,

(00:42:41):
feminine energy crap that we have now,

(00:42:44):
but in a more meaningful way.

(00:42:54):
in the best case are bland and white bread and in the more realistic case are in

(00:42:57):
some way abusive they leave and it's it's such a it was so weird to me as a kid to

(00:43:03):
watch that like well she's reading the book I'm gonna leave soon

(00:43:08):
I love that.

(00:43:08):
But now, like, I completely get it.

(00:43:10):
And I think your framework for white supremacy really helps to add color and depth

(00:43:15):
to why that might actually be happening and why it's not just,

(00:43:19):
well,

(00:43:19):
they're having midlife crises.

(00:43:20):
Right.

(00:43:21):
And thank you, because, wow, what an amazing person and body of work to be compared to.

(00:43:27):
Yes, because you know what it is, is that.

(00:43:32):
We have the power because I don't have that same feeling about men.

(00:43:36):
And I recognize that that could be problematic.

(00:43:38):
It makes me a potential danger to someone, right?

(00:43:41):
Like, so I'm aware of that.

(00:43:42):
But my thing is more so, like, I have the power.

(00:43:47):
I can't change my husband.

(00:43:49):
Can't change my father.

(00:43:50):
That is the world they came up in.

(00:43:52):
That is that.

(00:43:53):
But I have this amazing privilege, right?

(00:43:56):
Right.

(00:43:56):
Like shift power to privilege to help guide my son into being the sort of man that I would hope to see.

(00:44:07):
And I do that by parenting the child in front of me, not the mythical man he may become.

(00:44:13):
Not the potential misogynist.

(00:44:14):
Not seeing him that way.

(00:44:15):
Right.

(00:44:16):
Not seeing him as my oppressor.

(00:44:18):
Right.

(00:44:19):
Well,

(00:44:19):
because I see this a lot with women who write to me wanting advice about their sons

(00:44:24):
and they'll tell me something completely developmentally normal that their kid did.

(00:44:27):
You know,

(00:44:27):
he got mad and he started hitting the wall or he won't clean up after himself or he's,

(00:44:31):
you know,

(00:44:32):
he screamed at me and they're like,

(00:44:33):
and this is just like what my husband does.

(00:44:35):
And I'm worried that he's going to be a misogynist.

(00:44:37):
And like, I get that worry.

(00:44:39):
But I think that as soon as women start projecting future misogynist onto their son, they're

(00:44:44):
rather than developmentally normal child behavior or not developmentally normal,

(00:44:48):
but like needs intervention,

(00:44:50):
you create a self-fulfilling prophecy because these are just kids.

(00:44:53):
There is nothing innate to masculinity, to manhood, to maleness.

(00:44:59):
that causes violence.

(00:45:00):
It is socialization.

(00:45:02):
Right.

(00:45:02):
And then on top of that, there's resentment.

(00:45:04):
Yeah.

(00:45:05):
You resent this child, right?

(00:45:07):
Like,

(00:45:07):
you know,

(00:45:08):
because if you are,

(00:45:09):
unfortunately,

(00:45:10):
in an abusive situation,

(00:45:11):
nine times out of 10,

(00:45:12):
you're not leaving because of that kid.

(00:45:13):
Right.

(00:45:14):
So now I have a little boy I'm raising who's an abuser.

(00:45:18):
That's how you've projected that thought onto them.

(00:45:20):
Yeah.

(00:45:21):
You resent the child.

(00:45:22):
You resent the man.

(00:45:24):
And you're like in this horrible turmoil constantly in your own home, right?

(00:45:30):
Where like with the woman who run with wolves or with like my own framework of it

(00:45:36):
is the idea of empowering yourself.

(00:45:38):
Like, first of all, these men,

(00:45:40):
Similar to men who cannot give you an orgasm because apparently 78% of women who

(00:45:45):
have sex with cis hetero men are not coming.

(00:45:49):
Yeah.

(00:45:49):
That alone would make me leave you.

(00:45:52):
Yeah.

(00:45:53):
Okay.

(00:45:54):
Yeah, this is, I mean, yeah.

(00:45:56):
They're not concerned about even your basic, both of you have a basic physiological need here.

(00:46:03):
If 78% of you are not having orgasms, that should be enough to leave.

(00:46:09):
So this podcast that you and I are doing is coming out right after Jeff's and my

(00:46:14):
podcast about men and sex.

(00:46:16):
I love that.

(00:46:16):
So listeners have already been primed heavily with this data and with how men are just not okay.

(00:46:23):
They're just not.

(00:46:24):
No.

(00:46:25):
So if you could just take that very basic need that both of us are having.

(00:46:29):
So this is meant to be something that's reciprocal, right?

(00:46:32):
So these,

(00:46:32):
like,

(00:46:32):
talking about your red flags or your early warnings,

(00:46:35):
if you have sex with a dude and he is not concerned...

(00:46:39):
with whether you came or enjoyed yourself, that should end the relationship right there.

(00:46:43):
And you start weeding these people out of the gene pool.

(00:46:47):
Also,

(00:46:47):
I just want to add that we have a word for men who think vaginas,

(00:46:51):
periods,

(00:46:53):
childbirth,

(00:46:54):
breastfeeding,

(00:46:55):
all of that is gross.

(00:46:57):
It's not heterosexual.

(00:46:58):
It's not.

(00:46:59):
Heterosexual men are not repulsed by women's bodies and normal bodily functions.

(00:47:05):
No, they're not.

(00:47:06):
And so when you're thinking about it from that, even at that very base level...

(00:47:12):
it shows very little concern for who you are.

(00:47:15):
Yeah.

(00:47:15):
Right?

(00:47:16):
So,

(00:47:16):
similarly,

(00:47:17):
like,

(00:47:17):
right,

(00:47:18):
like,

(00:47:18):
I try to,

(00:47:18):
like,

(00:47:18):
show,

(00:47:19):
like,

(00:47:19):
those correlations when we're talking about DEIA work and why it's difficult to be

(00:47:24):
in relationships sometimes with white women.

(00:47:27):
Opposed to white men.

(00:47:28):
Because you will find that.

(00:47:29):
Because I get a lot of pushback.

(00:47:31):
That's where white women, like, what?

(00:47:35):
And I'm like, yeah, because here's what they don't do.

(00:47:38):
If they don't like you, they won't befriend you.

(00:47:40):
Yeah.

(00:47:41):
So I already know if a white man is like he's not he can't use me for any social

(00:47:45):
clout because I'm a woman.

(00:47:47):
And you're not a fuckable object to him.

(00:47:48):
I'm not necessarily fuckable because, yeah, they'll fuck us.

(00:47:51):
They may not marry us.

(00:47:52):
They'll fuck us.

(00:47:53):
But like you, I have no social clout for him.

(00:47:56):
Right.

(00:47:57):
If he's in a relationship with me,

(00:47:59):
it's going to bring him more opposition than the cute,

(00:48:03):
blonde,

(00:48:04):
blue eyed,

(00:48:04):
thin white woman.

(00:48:06):
So there's a lot of different,

(00:48:07):
you know,

(00:48:08):
dynamics that are happening there when you see friendships or dating relationships.

(00:48:13):
Right.

(00:48:13):
Yeah.

(00:48:14):
Yeah.

(00:48:16):
when you even see like white women with black men.

(00:48:18):
Well, why are you guys so okay with that?

(00:48:19):
Well, because white women's tears have literally killed black men.

(00:48:23):
I mourn when I see that,

(00:48:24):
even as a product of that,

(00:48:26):
because I know at any given time,

(00:48:29):
even if it's true,

(00:48:31):
even if you are a white woman and being abused by a black man,

(00:48:35):
Should it be a death penalty?

(00:48:36):
I don't know.

(00:48:37):
I'm not the person to do that.

(00:48:39):
But it is that fear that comes up.

(00:48:41):
So there are just like so many interconnections.

(00:48:44):
That's what I want people to think about when it's like this episode is going to be a lot.

(00:48:48):
And some people are not going to like me.

(00:48:49):
They're definitely going to write about you.

(00:48:53):
There's a lot of stuff I say that people don't like.

(00:48:56):
But,

(00:48:56):
you know,

(00:48:56):
when you're thinking about all of those things and thinking about yourself and

(00:49:00):
thinking about that divine feminine,

(00:49:02):
because that's where this all came from,

(00:49:04):
is it is empowering and your work is empowering women to step into that true

(00:49:09):
matriarchal divine power,

(00:49:11):
right?

(00:49:11):
That rooted, that from head to root energy, planted feet and be like, no, absolutely not.

(00:49:20):
I'm going to offer you this grace.

(00:49:23):
You don't want it.

(00:49:24):
You can go.

(00:49:26):
No, that's not how we're running this household.

(00:49:28):
Because you do run your households.

(00:49:30):
You really do.

(00:49:31):
Yes, he may be the earner if that is your dynamic, but you are rearing your children.

(00:49:37):
No, that's not how this is going to go.

(00:49:39):
And like, let's be honest that in, what do you think, 97% of households, that is the dynamic.

(00:49:44):
The woman's rearing the children.

(00:49:45):
You're rearing the children.

(00:49:47):
So where we are today is 100% that's

(00:49:53):
And that is a hard one to hear.

(00:49:55):
So this is where I say drink water, move your body, get a journal.

(00:49:59):
Because when white women hear that,

(00:50:01):
they hear it from the lens of patriarchy,

(00:50:03):
where white men blame white women all the time for all of their problems,

(00:50:07):
right?

(00:50:08):
But then you have to admit that there's some dysfunction there that needs to be

(00:50:10):
worked out that I don't even want to get into on this podcast.

(00:50:14):
All right.

(00:50:14):
So I have a question for you about the white women and black women relationships.

(00:50:19):
And this is something where I really don't know what's going on.

(00:50:21):
So I'm asking you to teach me.

(00:50:23):
OK, teach me about white women, because this is a question about white women.

(00:50:26):
And I know that black women are keen observers of white women.

(00:50:29):
So I have this dynamic that will happen a lot where I will post something to

(00:50:34):
Facebook or to my sub stack that is something that affects both black women and

(00:50:39):
white women.

(00:50:40):
The thing that most readily comes to mind is maternal mortality.

(00:50:44):
And, you know, that's one of my like big issues that I write about.

(00:50:46):
And,

(00:50:47):
you know,

(00:50:47):
I'll post a long detailed thing about,

(00:50:48):
you know,

(00:50:49):
maternal mortality for all women is at a crisis point.

(00:50:52):
And for black women,

(00:50:53):
it's four to eight to 12 times worse,

(00:50:55):
depending on,

(00:50:55):
you know,

(00:50:56):
which statistic you believe.

(00:50:57):
So I'll post this and,

(00:50:59):
you know,

(00:50:59):
there'll be a part about racism and then we'll go back to the main issue and all of that.

(00:51:03):
And then I will get always five to 10 white women who respond with a comment.

(00:51:08):
And like, I bet you know what the comment is.

(00:51:11):
The comment is, and for black women, it's so much worse.

(00:51:14):
There's this weird like white women pseudo social justice dynamic where every time

(00:51:19):
they see a white woman posting something,

(00:51:21):
they add on this and for black women thing.

(00:51:24):
Yes.

(00:51:25):
What what is help me understand what's happening here and how I should respond to it.

(00:51:29):
So this is you may want to cut this out.

(00:51:34):
Like, am I wrong to think that's weird?

(00:51:36):
No, because I do read your stuff, right?

(00:51:40):
And I'm critical of anybody.

(00:51:41):
I have no problem if somebody is my friend to call out like, no, you missed the mark there.

(00:51:47):
So I see how inclusive you are, right?

(00:51:50):
But I'm not looking for you to tell me I'm inclusive.

(00:51:52):
I'm just trying to understand this.

(00:51:53):
I know that.

(00:51:53):
I know.

(00:51:54):
But I see how inclusive you are, even when it's activating to me.

(00:51:58):
Because even in my own head, I want to be like, well, let's talk about black women.

(00:52:01):
But I recognize their audience is white women and bringing that awareness to white women.

(00:52:04):
And that is important.

(00:52:06):
And you are inclusive in your stats.

(00:52:08):
The reason for those social justice warriors down there and their political

(00:52:12):
correctness is because,

(00:52:13):
again,

(00:52:14):
Lack of community.

(00:52:15):
Yes.

(00:52:16):
You guys are identified by the things you do.

(00:52:21):
There's no real community, right?

(00:52:23):
So I'm a breastfeeding mom.

(00:52:24):
I'm a hiking mom.

(00:52:25):
I'm a social justice warrior mom.

(00:52:27):
So now everywhere you see it and whiteness is cannibalistic.

(00:52:32):
Yes.

(00:52:33):
It eats its own.

(00:52:34):
So instead of sitting down,

(00:52:36):
listening to this really good and fully fleshed out,

(00:52:39):
you know,

(00:52:40):
you're not just spewing stuff.

(00:52:41):
You come with like actual facts, you know, links to other things.

(00:52:45):
It's deeply resourceful.

(00:52:47):
It's easier to.

(00:52:48):
Oh, I did my social justice warrior for the thing.

(00:52:50):
Look at this white woman.

(00:52:52):
She didn't even mention black women.

(00:52:53):
You didn't even read.

(00:52:55):
is what happened.

(00:52:55):
And it's in a way to censor themselves, right?

(00:52:59):
Because they're going to say,

(00:53:01):
and also Black women,

(00:53:02):
and Black women are going to come and they're going to clap for them because you

(00:53:06):
also didn't read.

(00:53:08):
Other social justice warrior women are going to come and come underneath there and

(00:53:11):
say that five more times.

(00:53:13):
And nothing's really happening.

(00:53:16):
No real work is happening.

(00:53:16):
It does feel like a distraction.

(00:53:18):
It is.

(00:53:19):
It's like, why?

(00:53:19):
Okay, so...

(00:53:20):
Okay, so yeah, it's disproportionately Black women.

(00:53:24):
Everything is going to be disproportionate.

(00:53:25):
That's how racism works.

(00:53:26):
But what about the mortality?

(00:53:29):
Okay, so we've all had our five comments about that.

(00:53:32):
Can we go back to the mortality?

(00:53:34):
No, because it's superficial, right?

(00:53:36):
So they're not looking for solutions to it.

(00:53:38):
They're talking about speaking points instead of, well, maybe we should be empowering more midwifery.

(00:53:45):
maybe we should be getting more women into this field, right?

(00:53:49):
Because midwifery, like, and then for me, everything comes down to racism.

(00:53:53):
Oh, boy, you say midwifery on here.

(00:53:55):
As I learned from my last podcast, you're going to see a bunch of heads explode.

(00:53:58):
Oh, really?

(00:53:58):
It is so triggering to so many people.

(00:54:00):
Oh, I hate that for them.

(00:54:01):
But back to racism.

(00:54:06):
Male doctors took prominence when they realized that

(00:54:11):
Black women were birthing babies.

(00:54:14):
We were good to birth babies when it was in enslavement and when we were still property.

(00:54:20):
But then it became profitable.

(00:54:22):
But when it became a profitable market.

(00:54:25):
Because everything comes down to capitalism and how to exploit that.

(00:54:29):
So they pretty much made midwifery illegal.

(00:54:33):
So white men can take over this profession.

(00:54:37):
And now we're here with these low maternal,

(00:54:40):
these high maternal rates and all of these other issues because it is now been for

(00:54:46):
profit opposed to for the care of the birthing person.

(00:54:49):
All right.

(00:54:50):
So I think this is maybe related.

(00:54:54):
To the thing where white women, you're allowed to eat.

(00:54:56):
Oh, I was scared.

(00:54:58):
We both got chips and she's worried about somehow destroying the podcast with her chip punching.

(00:55:02):
I don't know.

(00:55:03):
So I just want to warn people.

(00:55:05):
We are both actually human.

(00:55:06):
We both actually eat.

(00:55:07):
I know it may be upsetting.

(00:55:08):
This is true.

(00:55:09):
Yeah.

(00:55:10):
OK.

(00:55:11):
I lost my train of thought.

(00:55:12):
Oh, one thing I wanted to say, just like in the interest of like disclosure.

(00:55:16):
So my audience, when I look at my demographics, is about 25 percent black.

(00:55:20):
And we can interpret that data in a lot of ways.

(00:55:23):
We can say that's really bad because I live in Atlanta, which is like 50 percent black.

(00:55:27):
We can say that's really good because I live in the United States, which is like 13 percent black.

(00:55:30):
You know,

(00:55:31):
I don't really know what to make of that data,

(00:55:32):
but that's it's been about consistently 25 percent black basically since I started

(00:55:37):
doing that.

(00:55:38):
doing this so you know if you're a black listener like you're not alone like you're

(00:55:41):
not listening to like the white woman podcast but you're also not the majority so i

(00:55:45):
just want people to know kind of that's that's where the numbers are right um one

(00:55:49):
thing i've been dying to talk to you about is this concept of like the issue of the

(00:55:54):
day let me give you an example all right so last week

(00:55:59):
And by the time you guys hear this, it won't be last week.

(00:56:01):
It'll be like two months ago.

(00:56:03):
So recently I released a podcast on the nightmare of childbirth and a racist,

(00:56:08):
sexist,

(00:56:08):
capitalist patriarchy.

(00:56:10):
And it was really touching to see how this affected people.

(00:56:15):
But also there's an outpouring of anger.

(00:56:18):
And then something super weird began to happen.

(00:56:21):
All of a sudden, the week that I released this was the week that people suddenly discovered Project 2025.

(00:56:25):
Oh, dear God.

(00:56:26):
Yeah.

(00:56:27):
So a bunch of male social justice warriors started coming onto my post.

(00:56:32):
I assume because they saw it had a large audience and wanted to increase their own audience.

(00:56:37):
and started talking about Project 2025.

(00:56:39):
And it was always structured something like this.

(00:56:42):
What you really need to be talking about is Project 2025,

(00:56:47):
because if you don't address that,

(00:56:48):
none of this will matter.

(00:56:50):
And then inevitably, you know, they would become so sexist and often so racist to women in the comments.

(00:56:57):
It's just appalling.

(00:56:58):
And so we saw that.

(00:57:00):
And then a couple of months ago, I saw the same thing with Palestine and Gaza.

(00:57:04):
And I've talked a lot about Palestine and Gaza.

(00:57:06):
But people started coming onto my page and saying none of this matters when there's genocide in Gaza.

(00:57:10):
And you should be talking about that 24-7.

(00:57:13):
And there's this kind of like issue of the day where we'll focus for about a month on a single issue.

(00:57:18):
And focusing seems to be just talking about it,

(00:57:21):
just yelling about it,

(00:57:22):
just doom scrolling,

(00:57:23):
not volunteering,

(00:57:24):
not donating money,

(00:57:26):
not doing the long,

(00:57:27):
hard work.

(00:57:28):
that the right has been doing, by the way.

(00:57:30):
Yes.

(00:57:30):
Just suddenly deciding this is the thing everybody has to talk about.

(00:57:35):
Now,

(00:57:35):
from my perspective,

(00:57:38):
this is really harmful to social justice movements because what it does is it robs

(00:57:43):
expertise from movements.

(00:57:45):
So if you're an expert on maternal mortality and people start saying you need to

(00:57:48):
talk about Project 2025 and nothing else.

(00:57:51):
You either do that and comply,

(00:57:53):
in which case your expertise is taken away from maternal mortality,

(00:57:56):
or you don't and you get in trouble with the people who are focusing on the issue

(00:58:00):
of the day.

(00:58:02):
I've seen cycles and cycles and cycles of this in social justice movements,

(00:58:05):
and I've been thinking about it a lot lately because it seems like this cycle of

(00:58:08):
outrage is like accelerating.

(00:58:10):
Like we only have like two months of Gaza instead of like two years.

(00:58:15):
This feels to me like what you talk about with a sense of urgency and perfectionism.

(00:58:20):
with white supremacy culture.

(00:58:22):
What do you think of this?

(00:58:23):
Like, what's going on?

(00:58:25):
You named it, right?

(00:58:26):
Like, those pillars of supremacy are really real because, speaking of...

(00:58:34):
When you said, like, the right has been working on this, right?

(00:58:37):
Because I don't... For me, it's not just right and left, right?

(00:58:40):
Because I go pyramid scheme, okay?

(00:58:43):
So... And I do, like, three tiers of this pyramid scheme.

(00:58:47):
And at the top is the ruling class, because it's been modeled, again, after the monarchy.

(00:58:52):
So, you know, right, left, same bird for me.

(00:58:55):
Like...

(00:58:58):
They knew there was no way in hell Biden is going to go against Trump and actually win.

(00:59:03):
You knew that four years ago.

(00:59:05):
You should have put forth a better Democratic person.

(00:59:08):
And not doing so means you weren't listening to the majority of people anyway.

(00:59:13):
So you get those same things, right?

(00:59:15):
Like as in this is your expertise, right?

(00:59:18):
Feminism, maternal situations, birth rates, etc.,

(00:59:23):
Mine is supremacy culture.

(00:59:24):
And I get people all the time like, you need to talk about, you know, Palestine and Gaza.

(00:59:29):
And I'm like, you want me to talk about it like it's a fucking football team.

(00:59:33):
Like I'm pro-Palestine, anti-Israel.

(00:59:38):
And you're superimposing race ideas from America over to the Middle East.

(00:59:46):
That's what it is, isn't it?

(00:59:47):
It's turning it into a sport.

(00:59:48):
It is because you're turning it into a sport and you're putting what you just

(00:59:51):
figured out four fucking years ago about racism on people that have been going

(00:59:57):
through these things for thousands of years.

(00:59:59):
So I have also written extensively about this on my sub-sack.

(01:00:03):
I've written about conditional whiteness on white Jewish people,

(01:00:07):
how white Jewish people have been exploited by white supremacy,

(01:00:11):
how we don't understand what it is to be Jewish and we only have...

(01:00:15):
information from white supremacy.

(01:00:18):
I've explained how this is really a Christian Zionism issue because that is my expertise.

(01:00:24):
You want me, like you said, to rob the movement

(01:00:29):
of people who really understand the things that are going on there in a much more

(01:00:33):
intricate and intimate level than to speak on what I know.

(01:00:38):
And we don't give space for all of the voices.

(01:00:42):
So similar,

(01:00:43):
going back to that right idea or my pyramid,

(01:00:46):
that top ruling class,

(01:00:47):
there is a war room,

(01:00:48):
okay?

(01:00:50):
If anybody's ever been in the military, have a military spouse, played D&D, anything, there's a war room.

(01:00:59):
And in a war room, you need more thoughts than one.

(01:01:04):
You need, I need to know about maternal race.

(01:01:07):
I need to know about Christian Zionism.

(01:01:10):
I need to know about cultural history.

(01:01:12):
I need to understand what it is to actually be this, that, and the other thing.

(01:01:17):
And I need all voices at a round table so we can have real strategies to dismantle oppressive systems.

(01:01:26):
If everybody is talking about Palestine and Gaza from the perspective that the

(01:01:33):
ruling class wants us to,

(01:01:35):
it is no mistake that it is given to us as teams,

(01:01:39):
as pro-Palestine,

(01:01:41):
anti-Israel.

(01:01:42):
And I will name it, it is 100% a genocide.

(01:01:46):
This is not me denying that.

(01:01:47):
Oh, yeah.

(01:01:48):
To be clear, we are 100%.

(01:01:50):
This is a genocide.

(01:01:52):
It's appalling.

(01:01:52):
You know, both Desiree and I are donating money and doing all of that, but

(01:01:58):
But for me, I want to get to the root of it because that's my expertise.

(01:02:02):
And it's not to say that somebody else's vision, version, or information is false.

(01:02:08):
It is just more information in the war room.

(01:02:11):
For me, it is a land clearing.

(01:02:14):
Because again,

(01:02:15):
when I'm talking to white people,

(01:02:16):
I'm like,

(01:02:17):
focus on you and how you perpetuate these systems,

(01:02:21):
right?

(01:02:22):
You are literally, if we're going to do pro and anti, you are Israel, white people of America.

(01:02:33):
You came over to this land,

(01:02:36):
and even if it's not you,

(01:02:37):
because back to the beginning,

(01:02:39):
white people think they're new every generation.

(01:02:41):
The people of Palestine,

(01:02:44):
from the perspective of pro and anti,

(01:02:47):
the people of Palestine,

(01:02:48):
10 generations from now,

(01:02:51):
We'll always blame the Israelis.

(01:02:54):
How do you think the indigenous of Turtle Island feel?

(01:02:57):
I don't care that you're 10 generations away.

(01:02:59):
You then were Israel.

(01:03:02):
You were then the conquering power.

(01:03:04):
You cleared the land with disease and violence.

(01:03:07):
And you are practicing settler colonialism here.

(01:03:10):
But you want to not do the work...

(01:03:13):
And you want to take and superimpose what you just learned four years ago over to

(01:03:18):
somewhere else instead of dealing with the root cause of supremacy culture.

(01:03:23):
This is a land clearing.

(01:03:25):
This is Christian Zionism.

(01:03:26):
America is a business.

(01:03:28):
It is a business that is a Christian nation.

(01:03:31):
That Christian nation has an investment in the Holy Land of Israel.

(01:03:35):
It'll be the Palestinians.

(01:03:36):
It will be the Muslims.

(01:03:38):
It will be the Jews next because the Christian Zionists believe that they,

(01:03:43):
are the new chosen people and as your great white hope Biden said if there wasn't

(01:03:48):
an Israel we would create it so for me that's the problem is the refusal to deal

(01:03:54):
with how do you as white Americans who oppress the globe dismantle it instead of

(01:04:05):
worrying about those small things give your money have your talking points do the

(01:04:09):
fucking work at home

(01:04:11):
I mean,

(01:04:11):
this is the thing that I go back to with people over and over again who say,

(01:04:14):
you know,

(01:04:14):
I don't know what to do.

(01:04:15):
There's so much harm in the world.

(01:04:16):
Everything's so awful.

(01:04:18):
Do what you can.

(01:04:19):
Do what you're good at.

(01:04:20):
You know, I've cared about Palestine since I was a child and learned about this issue.

(01:04:26):
But the truth is,

(01:04:28):
I'm not an expert.

(01:04:29):
I have very little power.

(01:04:31):
I don't have a lot I can contribute other than my platform and my money.

(01:04:35):
And I do that.

(01:04:36):
But there are other areas where I can actually make a meaningful difference.

(01:04:39):
And so those are the ones where I choose to bring my talents and skills.

(01:04:43):
And I think a good rule for people to use is that whenever someone is saying,

(01:04:48):
how can you care about blank when blank is happening?

(01:04:52):
They're abandoning intersectionality.

(01:04:54):
How can you care about household labor inequality when voting rights are being dismantled?

(01:04:59):
How can you care about microaggressions when there's a genocide?

(01:05:04):
Well, these things are all connected.

(01:05:06):
And they all lead up to.

(01:05:08):
Right.

(01:05:08):
Like that interconnection is necessary.

(01:05:11):
Also,

(01:05:12):
it is very much it's an indictment on the American educational system that people

(01:05:17):
cannot walk and chew gum.

(01:05:20):
It's an indoctrination.

(01:05:21):
Like you should have these critical intersectional conversations because one thing

(01:05:26):
always impacts another.

(01:05:28):
Right.

(01:05:29):
So microaggression is.

(01:05:31):
is going to impact larger racism or larger sexism or larger classism, all of the isms.

(01:05:40):
These smaller things lead up to them, right?

(01:05:43):
And what we think we're dismissing or sweeping underneath the rug

(01:05:46):
is why we cannot keep dismantling.

(01:05:49):
So, like, in the situation with Palestine, I tell people, you're not going to stop this.

(01:05:55):
I hope you know that.

(01:05:56):
Like, there's nothing that we could do to stop this, right?

(01:06:00):
And then people feel so hopeless.

(01:06:02):
Like, oh, God, what are we going to do?

(01:06:04):
You focus on the solution.

(01:06:06):
How are we supporting the survivors of this genocide?

(01:06:09):
What are we going to do to help them rebuild?

(01:06:12):
What are we going to do to dismantle supremacy culture that got us to thinking this was OK?

(01:06:19):
Yeah.

(01:06:20):
Yeah.

(01:06:21):
Those are the actionable steps.

(01:06:24):
It's the aftermath because, again, everybody thinks they're a new generation.

(01:06:29):
And generations from now, these people will still be impacted.

(01:06:33):
What work are you doing?

(01:06:35):
What healing work?

(01:06:36):
What activism work?

(01:06:37):
What self-work are you doing to make sure that we see them and that when they come here,

(01:06:43):
they're not treated like dirty brown refugees?

(01:06:46):
You know,

(01:06:47):
while you were saying this,

(01:06:47):
I thought about my oldest daughter has gotten really interested in refugees and how

(01:06:52):
she can help them.

(01:06:53):
And, you know, she's got all kinds of big ideas like you would expect, you know, a young child to have.

(01:06:58):
And we were driving the other day through an encampment of unhoused people that

(01:07:03):
we've all seen because we're just destroying lives here.

(01:07:07):
And she said, do you think any of them are refugees?

(01:07:11):
Yes.

(01:07:13):
And and it's like, yeah, probably or their parents.

(01:07:17):
But it was just such an astute observation and such a profound example of a very

(01:07:22):
young child actually understanding what intersectionality means.

(01:07:26):
Like, here's this thing I'm learning about.

(01:07:28):
It seems like it's happening over there, but it's actually coming here.

(01:07:32):
And here are the people in front of me that I could actually do something about

(01:07:37):
rather than just like doom scrolling and looking at horrific images that just

(01:07:41):
demoralize you and make you less effective.

(01:07:44):
Yeah.

(01:07:44):
Just.

(01:07:46):
Yeah.

(01:07:46):
No.

(01:07:47):
Wow.

(01:07:47):
That.

(01:07:48):
Yes.

(01:07:48):
Because yes.

(01:07:49):
And if we, you know, that can go into childism again, like all of these supremacy cultures, right?

(01:07:54):
Usually what we do is we hush them, right?

(01:07:56):
Yeah.

(01:07:57):
Yeah.

(01:07:58):
Or, you know, my kids would be like, is he homeless?

(01:08:02):
Why he ain't got no car?

(01:08:03):
And I'm like, oh, Jesus.

(01:08:07):
Well, you know, this is why.

(01:08:08):
I'm just trying to drive.

(01:08:09):
I just want to, you know, or we're walking somewhere.

(01:08:12):
Does he have a house?

(01:08:13):
No, most likely not.

(01:08:15):
Can I give him my lunch?

(01:08:16):
Yes.

(01:08:17):
Instead of trying to shut them down, right?

(01:08:18):
Like, oh, that's rude because we have this idea of polite behavior.

(01:08:22):
That unhoused person knows they're unhoused, fam.

(01:08:24):
I don't know what to tell you.

(01:08:27):
It's okay that your child knows that as well, right?

(01:08:29):
And then you get to solutions, right?

(01:08:32):
Like me and my kids,

(01:08:33):
for years,

(01:08:33):
since my first child,

(01:08:35):
on Sunday we would go and we made up our own little thing from our table to yours.

(01:08:40):
And we'd get maybe like 20 of those to-go things, make some food and go to an encampment.

(01:08:44):
I love that.

(01:08:45):
And that's just it.

(01:08:46):
It's just that simple.

(01:08:47):
And that is how you do it, right?

(01:08:49):
But for those who are like, you know, how are you talking about maternal rates but not Gaza?

(01:08:54):
How are you not worried about the rocks underneath bridges?

(01:08:58):
Like, why?

(01:08:58):
Yeah.

(01:08:59):
Not seeing how colonization plays into that.

(01:09:03):
Like, we're actually literally supposed to be living like that.

(01:09:06):
Free, sovereign, off the land.

(01:09:10):
Like,

(01:09:11):
you know,

(01:09:12):
in homes that actually work with the world that we live in,

(01:09:18):
with the land and indigenous style housing.

(01:09:20):
And you guys are willing to let the government pay billions of dollars for unhoused

(01:09:25):
people to become more unhoused.

(01:09:28):
Focus on that.

(01:09:30):
My thing is this, think globally, act locally.

(01:09:33):
So you could look at Palestine,

(01:09:35):
you could look at Gaza,

(01:09:36):
you could look at the Congo,

(01:09:37):
you could look at all that.

(01:09:39):
And then how the hell is that being perpetrated right here in my own five mile radius?

(01:09:46):
Because it is.

(01:09:47):
Correct.

(01:09:48):
Because it's a system.

(01:09:50):
So when we get out of the personal feelings of I'm a good person or that's a bad

(01:09:54):
person or he's a racist and I'm not a racist,

(01:09:57):
we don't quantify racism.

(01:09:59):
It's wild to me when white people do this.

(01:10:02):
wild.

(01:10:03):
I love this because this is like wild and violent and disgusting and angering,

(01:10:11):
right,

(01:10:11):
with the Trump Biden.

(01:10:12):
But Trump is a racist and Biden is a what?

(01:10:17):
Yeah.

(01:10:17):
He has 50 years of racist policies.

(01:10:19):
There are more Black families tore up behind his policies than most.

(01:10:27):
Yeah.

(01:10:27):
You know, when they put forth Hillary Clinton, why are Black women...

(01:10:33):
I wish y'all could see Desiree's face.

(01:10:35):
She said my son and my husband were a super predator.

(01:10:39):
She said a black man in clothing, a hoodie is clothing, is a super predator.

(01:10:47):
And backed her husband,

(01:10:49):
backed the white women and their patriarchy and white men,

(01:10:53):
backed her husband and Biden.

(01:10:56):
On that fucking 96 crime bill.

(01:10:57):
Yeah.

(01:10:58):
Fuck your great white hope.

(01:10:59):
Well, and we want to act like this is, well, she said the wrong word or my favorite.

(01:11:04):
Well, we're all on a journey.

(01:11:06):
Well, journey, yo.

(01:11:08):
Cut that out.

(01:11:10):
We need to consider that, yeah, you know, we all do better when we know better.

(01:11:15):
That's true.

(01:11:15):
I do.

(01:11:16):
But also.

(01:11:16):
But also, when you hold that much power.

(01:11:18):
So here goes where the problem with that is.

(01:11:20):
White people need to recognize their racial identity.

(01:11:22):
Mm-hmm.

(01:11:23):
White people think race was created for us.

(01:11:27):
And that is a huge misnomer, okay?

(01:11:31):
Let me explain why.

(01:11:33):
When you guys came here, you were immigrant refugees.

(01:11:37):
Is this thing on?

(01:11:38):
Immigrant refugees, okay?

(01:11:42):
You came to a land of brown people.

(01:11:46):
The people of Turtle Island were brown.

(01:11:50):
You stole and trafficked Black people from Africa.

(01:11:56):
Mind you, the people in Turtle Island are a multitude of tribes who all had culture.

(01:12:03):
Culture is defined as language, music, tradition, spiritual practices, foods, those sorts of things.

(01:12:09):
You stole people that also had that.

(01:12:13):
Guess we didn't have that in this land.

(01:12:16):
That would be the white-skinned immigrant refugees.

(01:12:20):
So, on the banks of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, when race was created, it was created for y'all.

(01:12:29):
Yeah.

(01:12:30):
To separate you from those with culture.

(01:12:33):
And whiteness is simply a socioeconomic political stance.

(01:12:37):
It was created to say who could vote and who could make money.

(01:12:40):
Even white men couldn't vote in this country without owning property.

(01:12:45):
That's capitalism.

(01:12:47):
That's the slave economy.

(01:12:49):
And that is what we're still living in.

(01:12:50):
People are crying and complaining.

(01:12:53):
We're going to have to work.

(01:12:54):
Project 2025 is taking away our social security.

(01:12:56):
And I'm like, so when are you going to wake up that you're still in indentured servitude, sweetie?

(01:13:00):
Yeah.

(01:13:01):
These are still those holdovers and the refusal to go back there, right?

(01:13:06):
So when it kind of comes,

(01:13:07):
that goes back to all of that,

(01:13:08):
like getting in touch with your roots,

(01:13:10):
your ancestral culture,

(01:13:11):
learning who your people are,

(01:13:13):
who were you before you were white,

(01:13:14):
what your people went through to become white.

(01:13:18):
You had to become white.

(01:13:20):
And that means you had to let go of everything you knew.

(01:13:23):
You see that.

(01:13:24):
Why that's important is you see that now in classism.

(01:13:27):
Classism impacts white bodies the way racism impacts black bodies.

(01:13:32):
Y'all call your own trash.

(01:13:34):
I don't believe you.

(01:13:35):
I don't believe you care about black people.

(01:13:38):
If you could skip over poor white women and meth issues to skip over to black

(01:13:43):
children dealing with the crack issues,

(01:13:46):
you're a savior,

(01:13:47):
not an activist.

(01:13:50):
Because if you can't take care of your own in your own community, why are you over here?

(01:13:54):
Yeah.

(01:13:54):
I mean, we see this a lot with like missionary tourism.

(01:13:57):
Right.

(01:13:58):
Mission your ass to South Georgia.

(01:14:01):
They still have dirt floors in Georgia.

(01:14:06):
And the lack of caring for that community,

(01:14:08):
that intracommunal care,

(01:14:11):
actually emboldens your right that you guys complain about so much.

(01:14:15):
Because if I'm sitting here in poverty,

(01:14:17):
right,

(01:14:17):
because that access,

(01:14:19):
again,

(01:14:20):
there comes a certain point in capitalism where the only color that matters is green.

(01:14:25):
So if you're going to skip over your own intracommunal care,

(01:14:28):
You can't worry about Black women's maternal rates,

(01:14:31):
and you're not worried about the white woman who has no access to a doctor either.

(01:14:36):
Because that is poverty and racism, and that is intersectionality.

(01:14:41):
So that also answers your question on why you can't think about one or the other.

(01:14:46):
When you're thinking about racism,

(01:14:47):
I want white women to task themselves to think about classism at the same time.

(01:14:52):
You could do it.

(01:14:53):
I believe in you.

(01:14:55):
Because what is impacting us, it's simply inescapable because we're Black.

(01:14:59):
But then those issues are still impacting poor white women.

(01:15:02):
And when you see that and you skip over it, imagine being the poor white person.

(01:15:06):
Imagine being the person who didn't get out of poverty,

(01:15:09):
who wasn't able to leverage their whiteness up those hierarchies of whiteness in

(01:15:13):
the pyramid scheme of whiteness.

(01:15:15):
But they're watching you advocate for

(01:15:17):
for people across the fucking world.

(01:15:20):
They're watching you advocate for people in the inner city.

(01:15:23):
Put your own cousins.

(01:15:25):
And then we don't believe you.

(01:15:27):
Because your activism has to be from the hood to the holler.

(01:15:31):
I'm from the hood.

(01:15:33):
You got to care about all poor people and you should be taking care of your community first.

(01:15:37):
Because I care about everybody.

(01:15:38):
But I give this example.

(01:15:40):
Like,

(01:15:40):
if we're sitting here and there's a spread out and you come and your kids are hungry,

(01:15:44):
I won't take from my kids to feed yours.

(01:15:45):
Right.

(01:15:46):
Ain't no way.

(01:15:47):
None.

(01:15:48):
None.

(01:15:49):
You could pretend.

(01:15:50):
You could say you're altruistic all you want.

(01:15:51):
I'm not leaving my kids hungry to feed your kids.

(01:15:54):
That's insane.

(01:15:55):
I will share their food, though.

(01:15:57):
We may eat a little less.

(01:15:58):
Yeah.

(01:15:59):
Well, I think for me, what is at the core of a lot of this is a complete deficit of empathy.

(01:16:08):
You know,

(01:16:10):
my experience as a white lady is that even in anti-racism,

(01:16:15):
I want to put that in scare quotes,

(01:16:17):
anti-racism circles,

(01:16:18):
white identities are centered.

(01:16:20):
And what I mean by that is white women talk about their anti-racism journey.

(01:16:26):
They don't talk about the people they have hurt along the way.

(01:16:30):
And the reason that we don't do that is because all of these systems of oppression rob us of empathy.

(01:16:36):
So we're thinking about how,

(01:16:38):
oh,

(01:16:38):
I'm really trying to do better,

(01:16:39):
and I'm really trying to be a good person,

(01:16:41):
and I'm really trying to learn all I can,

(01:16:43):
rather than like –

(01:16:45):
Oh, there's my friend in front of me who needs an abortion.

(01:16:48):
Maybe I could take her.

(01:16:49):
Because we're just robbed of empathy by this focus on ourselves.

(01:16:53):
So I want to conclude with kind of a big topic.

(01:16:57):
And it's something I've been wanting to talk about, but I think you're the person to talk to about this.

(01:17:03):
I see a lot where...

(01:17:05):
I will have a minor disagreement with someone about something where I think we

(01:17:09):
actually at the core agree,

(01:17:12):
but they don't like a word I use or they don't like the way I approached it.

(01:17:16):
Desiree's rolling her eyes.

(01:17:17):
And we see this like cannibalism in activism circles.

(01:17:21):
And I will get messages all the time from people saying,

(01:17:24):
Who are like, you said this thing and I can never trust you again.

(01:17:27):
And it's never like, oh, you said something terribly racist or you were justifying genocide.

(01:17:32):
It's like, well, you talked about midwives and I knew a bad midwife once.

(01:17:36):
Or you talked about how the medical system is broken and that means you're anti-medicine.

(01:17:40):
So I just can't trust you.

(01:17:42):
And, you know, this dynamic I think is like objectively harmful.

(01:17:47):
And I think that our inability to sit with someone who disagrees with us and talk

(01:17:53):
through it and figure it out.

(01:17:54):
prevents us from learning.

(01:17:56):
Desiree says all kinds of things that I disagree with.

(01:17:59):
But what I know is that if I pulled the thread on any one of those things,

(01:18:04):
that she and I could talk it out,

(01:18:05):
99% chance we would come to agreement.

(01:18:09):
It's that she used a word that meant something different to me or her tone or it's triggering.

(01:18:15):
But we don't do this.

(01:18:16):
We don't say, well, what do you mean by that?

(01:18:19):
Or surely you don't mean this.

(01:18:21):
Can you just clarify?

(01:18:22):
And

(01:18:23):
What is this about?

(01:18:24):
What do you think of that?

(01:18:26):
And part of the reason I'm asking this is because I know I'm going to get people

(01:18:31):
who say things like,

(01:18:32):
well,

(01:18:33):
she said that we should give men grace and that means she's supporting abuse or whatever.

(01:18:36):
And it's not true.

(01:18:39):
I get this.

(01:18:39):
But even if it were,

(01:18:42):
even if it were,

(01:18:43):
it's worth listening to what someone who you disagree with,

(01:18:47):
who's not,

(01:18:48):
you know,

(01:18:48):
an oppressive far-right asshole says,

(01:18:52):
because we can learn.

(01:18:53):
So what is this?

(01:18:55):
Why is this happening?

(01:18:56):
And how do we fix it?

(01:18:58):
I'm going to tell you what.

(01:18:58):
I would listen to an oppressive far-right asshole because I want to hear their thoughts.

(01:19:03):
I need to know how you came to this conclusion, right?

(01:19:06):
So for me, I tell people, get curious.

(01:19:09):
It's just that simple.

(01:19:10):
Because there's a reason why you thought that.

(01:19:13):
And we have to be realistic.

(01:19:16):
2024, some people have never seen a Black person in real life.

(01:19:20):
That's, yeah.

(01:19:21):
Like, it's very wild how people do not understand.

(01:19:25):
What is it, like 60% of America is still rural.

(01:19:28):
Yeah.

(01:19:29):
They've not seen a trans person.

(01:19:31):
They've not needed an abortion,

(01:19:33):
at least not as openly as we've spoken about it,

(01:19:36):
because they live in an ultra conservative Christian town.

(01:19:40):
And you could just have 10, 12 kids and live on the farm.

(01:19:43):
So these things don't seem real to them.

(01:19:45):
And that goes back to your empathy, right?

(01:19:48):
Is we get this.

(01:19:52):
America is a business.

(01:19:53):
In a business, you need to always be selling.

(01:19:56):
In order to sell, you must market.

(01:19:59):
What do we market?

(01:20:01):
We will market dangerous Black people.

(01:20:03):
We will market salacious women who need abortions.

(01:20:08):
We will market the wealthy white family, middle class.

(01:20:15):
And when you do that, you leave out a bunch of other people.

(01:20:18):
You left out all the poor white people.

(01:20:21):
You left out all the Black people who are not violent.

(01:20:23):
You left out the fact that poverty breeds violence.

(01:20:26):
So that's across the board, no matter what you are.

(01:20:29):
You left out the person who needs abortion for medical reasons or personal reasons.

(01:20:35):
I should be able to not have a child.

(01:20:38):
Period.

(01:20:38):
Blank, blank, full stop.

(01:20:41):
So that empathy, that lack thereof, comes from those systems of whiteness, right?

(01:20:46):
This is what I mean, right?

(01:20:47):
When you're taught everything is moral.

(01:20:49):
When Christian supremacy is your God.

(01:20:53):
And that is your nation's foundation.

(01:20:56):
And these are the ways it should go.

(01:20:59):
And not recognizing that that Christianity in and of itself was co-opted from Judaism,

(01:21:04):
but that's another time.

(01:21:04):
Yeah.

(01:21:07):
When you are not allowed to think,

(01:21:10):
when you're not given the space,

(01:21:12):
right,

(01:21:12):
when you have that childism,

(01:21:14):
when you have that cis,

(01:21:16):
white,

(01:21:17):
hetero,

(01:21:18):
Christian patriarchy as your foundation,

(01:21:21):
and you should be shut up,

(01:21:22):
woman.

(01:21:23):
Listen to what I say.

(01:21:24):
You learn to be small.

(01:21:26):
Mm-hmm.

(01:21:28):
It's survival.

(01:21:29):
And then you teach your child that, right?

(01:21:32):
And that's part of those pillars of supremacy.

(01:21:35):
That's that either or thinking.

(01:21:36):
That's that defensiveness.

(01:21:38):
That is your conflict avoidance, right?

(01:21:40):
So now you teach your child, shh, because we don't want to upset dad.

(01:21:48):
And then we never talk about it or we have these secrets.

(01:21:51):
So you learn this.

(01:21:52):
This is learned and taught behavior through the generations of not having empathy,

(01:21:57):
not having open conversations,

(01:21:59):
and more importantly,

(01:22:01):
not having conflicting views.

(01:22:03):
Yeah.

(01:22:04):
that is what happens yeah right because whiteness the the wildness is whiteness

(01:22:11):
birth canal is the alt-right so when white people like those alt-right white ass

(01:22:15):
and I'm like you do know that's how we see all of you because the birth canal of

(01:22:20):
whiteness it's a non-consensual system no one asked you if you wanted to be white

(01:22:25):
no one asked you if you wanted to be a woman no one asked you if you wanted to be

(01:22:28):
Christian like I literally saw somebody on one of my things that were like I was

(01:22:32):
born a Christian I was like were you

(01:22:35):
Like, is that a thing that's assigned to you?

(01:22:38):
Like, your sex?

(01:22:40):
So when you have a system that is non-consensual at the foundation...

(01:22:46):
The birth canal is that.

(01:22:49):
Yeah.

(01:22:50):
So stepping away from that, it's very uncomfortable.

(01:22:53):
It's very uncomfortable.

(01:22:54):
And the solution for me is just to get curious.

(01:22:57):
Yeah.

(01:22:58):
Why do they think that?

(01:22:59):
What are their life experiences that brought them to that conclusion?

(01:23:03):
And when I say the give grace,

(01:23:04):
because I want to make sure that I clear that up,

(01:23:07):
I mean,

(01:23:08):
give grace to yourself too.

(01:23:09):
Yeah.

(01:23:09):
Because it's wild that all of a sudden you become the authority on something,

(01:23:12):
but five years ago,

(01:23:13):
you didn't know it.

(01:23:14):
Mm-hmm.

(01:23:15):
So give yourself that grace and then extend that to anybody else.

(01:23:19):
If hearing me saying give it to a man is too activating and I understand that,

(01:23:24):
give it to yourself and to anybody else.

(01:23:27):
Why do you think that?

(01:23:29):
Yeah.

(01:23:29):
I like to think a lot about all the things I've been wrong about when I'm interacting with someone else.

(01:23:35):
and think maybe they're just wrong because they don't know something or maybe

(01:23:38):
they're not wrong and i am or maybe neither of us is wrong and they just used a

(01:23:42):
word that i interpret to mean something else but one of the things that i learned

(01:23:46):
from you desiree that like once i learned this it helped me understand so much and

(01:23:51):
it seems so simple at first is that a pillar of white supremacy is a sense of

(01:23:56):
urgency and i'm going to give an example of a way this manifests um

(01:24:01):
You know, abortion should be a right for everyone, shouldn't have to justify it.

(01:24:05):
Women don't typically regret their abortions, blah, blah, blah.

(01:24:07):
We know all of this.

(01:24:08):
I'm not going to get into this.

(01:24:09):
Something else is true.

(01:24:11):
A lot of women have traumatic abortion experiences,

(01:24:15):
and a lot of abortion clinics do not treat their patients well and do not provide

(01:24:19):
comprehensive trauma-informed care.

(01:24:22):
Both things can be true.

(01:24:23):
Yes.

(01:24:24):
But if you talk about the second thing,

(01:24:26):
a lot of people on the left will say,

(01:24:28):
well,

(01:24:28):
right now we have to focus on keeping abortion legal.

(01:24:31):
We can't talk about that.

(01:24:32):
But there are people being actively harmed by that second thing.

(01:24:35):
Right.

(01:24:36):
And that's the sense of urgency of,

(01:24:37):
well,

(01:24:38):
we'll get to that later because right now we have an emergency and there's always

(01:24:42):
an emergency.

(01:24:43):
Right.

(01:24:43):
And so we've got to focus on all of the emergencies because they all matter because

(01:24:48):
they're real humans under them.

(01:24:49):
What I want to say is that

(01:24:53):
It's only an emergency because you're white.

(01:24:57):
It only seems new because you're white.

(01:24:59):
That's it, right?

(01:25:00):
If you're doing this work and you de-censor whiteness, and that doesn't mean not care about yourself.

(01:25:05):
That means to de-censor whiteness as a system.

(01:25:09):
access to healthy births,

(01:25:11):
access to safe abortion,

(01:25:14):
access to trauma-informed care has always been an issue since the inception of this country.

(01:25:21):
And if you want to go beyond the borders of it,

(01:25:25):
from your own homeland of feudalist England, right?

(01:25:29):
Like, you had pregnant women on pikes.

(01:25:32):
So, like, it only feels urgent, and I need white people to truthfully sit with that truth.

(01:25:41):
It only feels urgent because it's impacting you.

(01:25:44):
And because it's new to you, I think.

(01:25:46):
I think that's a big part of it.

(01:25:47):
It's not new because we've been talking about it.

(01:25:50):
Black women, indigenous women of this land have been talking about it.

(01:25:55):
These are not new concepts.

(01:25:57):
We have been marching and screaming since we were drug here or y'all landed on them.

(01:26:05):
It is only urgent because white women are impacted by it, right?

(01:26:11):
Like I made a post that a lot of white people were upset about.

(01:26:14):
And I was like, here's your handmade tails outfit.

(01:26:17):
It's the blue one.

(01:26:19):
It's not the red, fam.

(01:26:21):
I need you to focus.

(01:26:22):
You know what I'm saying?

(01:26:24):
And that is a difficult reality.

(01:26:26):
But when you de-censor whiteness, when you get curious, you want to know.

(01:26:31):
Because it's an entire system that has formed your opinions.

(01:26:36):
You've not had your own opinions.

(01:26:38):
I hate to let people know that.

(01:26:39):
Most of us have not.

(01:26:41):
We have not had the space.

(01:26:42):
Capitalism alone...

(01:26:45):
keeps its foot on our neck so long and for so many generations,

(01:26:51):
you don't have time to breathe,

(01:26:53):
let alone think critically,

(01:26:54):
let alone experience other people or sit down and deeply connect.

(01:26:59):
So you must be intentional about, I want to hear why you think that.

(01:27:03):
And you could still be wrong to you,

(01:27:07):
but multiple truths exist because our truths are going to come from our experiences.

(01:27:12):
And,

(01:27:12):
like,

(01:27:12):
to your point about the—no,

(01:27:13):
it is important that we talk about it because if we're going to keep abortion legal,

(01:27:17):
we damn sure better keep it safe.

(01:27:19):
And we damn sure better do better with the care that they're receiving.

(01:27:22):
Yeah, none of this assembly line stuff.

(01:27:23):
So, yeah, that sense of urgency prevents us from thinking, and it prevents us from being effective.

(01:27:29):
It prevents me from saying, yeah, okay, what do you mean?

(01:27:32):
How can we come together?

(01:27:33):
How can we build the long-term plan that we know our enemies have?

(01:27:38):
How can we—

(01:27:39):
How can we make it work?

(01:27:40):
So the thing I would like to ask people to do to show that you have actually

(01:27:44):
listened and learned something here is that if you disagree with something you hear

(01:27:49):
here or you think it's outrageous or whatever,

(01:27:52):
ask a question.

(01:27:53):
Like, what do you mean by that?

(01:27:55):
Just get curious.

(01:27:57):
For, like, this podcast, I would love to see people doing that.

(01:27:59):
Can you clarify?

(01:28:00):
Because Desiree will clarify.

(01:28:02):
You know, Desiree and I are talking all the time.

(01:28:05):
Sure.

(01:28:06):
So yeah, as always, I'd like you guys to share, like, comment, review.

(01:28:11):
I'm going to put all of Desiree's information in the show notes.

(01:28:15):
She has just a massive body of work that goes so deep.

(01:28:20):
It's so interesting.

(01:28:22):
She's an amazing writer.

(01:28:24):
You should read her.

(01:28:25):
And we will be back in two weeks.

(01:28:26):
Thank you, guys.