(00:00:00):
I am biracial and present racially ambiguously,

(00:00:03):
but I do have brown skin and can be perceived as anything from Indian to Latina to

(00:00:08):
white with a tan to black.

(00:00:11):
When I was admitted to the hospital to be induced for the birth of my second child,

(00:00:14):
the white nurse was inputting my background information.

(00:00:18):
I believe she was perceiving me as black because when it came to the part to put in

(00:00:22):
information about my baby's father,

(00:00:24):
she goes,

(00:00:25):
same baby daddy as last time?

(00:00:28):
I was immediately offended by the term baby daddy and her lack of professionalism.

(00:00:32):
I told her that if her question was whether my husband was also the father of this

(00:00:36):
baby,

(00:00:37):
then yes.

(00:00:38):
When I made it a point to complain to more senior staff about the racial assumption

(00:00:42):
that I had a baby daddy because I was black,

(00:00:44):
I was dismissed and repeatedly told that the white nurse,

(00:00:47):
quote,

(00:00:48):
meant nothing by it and was just trying to be hip.

(00:00:51):
I also asked for a new nurse and was denied because the hospital was short-staffed.

(00:00:56):
She caused my whole labor to be distressing with her energy.

(00:01:00):
She also did a cervical check on me that was extremely painful and proceeded to say

(00:01:04):
that I wasn't as dilated as I actually was.

(00:01:07):
She made me so anxious that it was hard to concentrate on pushing.

(00:01:11):
I almost fatigued out and my OB was one step away from using the vacuum to assist delivery.

(00:01:16):
I fully believe my whole stressful stalled labor experience was because of this

(00:01:20):
racist ass nurse.

(00:01:22):
Hi.

(00:01:23):
I'm Zahn Valines, and this is the Liberating Motherhood Podcast.

(00:01:27):
Today, we are talking about white women in the fight for racial justice.

(00:01:32):
I'm here today with Desiree Stephens.

(00:01:34):
Hi, Desiree.

(00:01:34):
Hello, Zahn.

(00:01:37):
How are you?

(00:01:38):
I'm great.

(00:01:39):
I'm so glad you're here.

(00:01:40):
So Desiree is my IRL very good friend.

(00:01:45):
She is a friend of the show.

(00:01:46):
I highly recommend reading and subscribing to her Liberation Education Newsletter.

(00:01:52):
She is a racial justice advocate,

(00:01:54):
a decolonization counselor,

(00:01:56):
and founder of Makeshift Happen,

(00:01:58):
but she's also just sort of everything.

(00:02:00):
She is so insightful.

(00:02:03):
She has her hands in so many projects,

(00:02:05):
and she's a wonderful person who we can all just learn so much from.

(00:02:09):
She's been on the show before,

(00:02:10):
so I won't spend a ton of time on her bio,

(00:02:12):
and will instead urge you to follow her on Substack,

(00:02:16):
subscribe,

(00:02:16):
and know that I'll put all of her info in the show notes,

(00:02:19):
and you should definitely

(00:02:20):
stalk her to all of the places because she's awesome.

(00:02:23):
So thanks for being here, Desiree.

(00:02:26):
You are so wonderful.

(00:02:27):
Thank you for being who you are in real life and online.

(00:02:31):
I really value your friendship,

(00:02:33):
your thoughts,

(00:02:34):
and just the way you show up in this work in all of the ways that you do and being

(00:02:39):
so unafraid to put it all out there,

(00:02:43):
right?

(00:02:43):
Because

(00:02:45):
There is a perception of how this work should be done.

(00:02:48):
And I love that you seek to shock people.

(00:02:53):
So thank you.

(00:02:54):
I love the show.

(00:02:55):
I love you.

(00:02:56):
I love, I just love how you show up.

(00:02:59):
So thank you.

(00:03:00):
And thank you for having me yet again on the show.

(00:03:03):
Thank you.

(00:03:04):
It's just, you know, Desiree, you're just wonderful.

(00:03:06):
So before we get started, I want to do a little bit of an announcement.

(00:03:10):
If you're a regular listener, you know that I'm experimenting with a more frequent

(00:03:14):
case of podcasting.

(00:03:16):
So we're doing an episode a week, probably through the end of the year to see how that goes.

(00:03:21):
And I just want to kind of give everyone a reminder that if you like the podcast,

(00:03:26):
the best way to support it is engagement.

(00:03:29):
Algorithms look only at engagement.

(00:03:32):
They don't look at whether you like something.

(00:03:34):
They don't look at whether you post positively.

(00:03:36):
They look at whether it keeps you there, keeps you clicking, keeps you typing.

(00:03:41):
And so the best way that you can support

(00:03:44):
feminist,

(00:03:44):
anti-racist,

(00:03:46):
leftist creators is by commenting,

(00:03:49):
heart reacting,

(00:03:51):
sharing,

(00:03:51):
you know,

(00:03:52):
if you want to talk about something,

(00:03:53):
actually talk about it,

(00:03:54):
post a comment publicly so that people can engage with you.

(00:03:57):
And that goes for my work, that goes for Desiree's work.

(00:04:02):
You know, the best way that you can keep this work going is to engage.

(00:04:05):
And of course, you know, both of us have

(00:04:08):
paid newsletters, and we're able to do this work solely because of our paid subscribers.

(00:04:12):
So if you really like it and you can afford to, please become a paid subscriber.

(00:04:17):
So I'm going to give a little spiel about how Desiree and I ended up doing this episode.

(00:04:23):
We've been talking a lot lately about white women racial justice work,

(00:04:29):
converting white women,

(00:04:30):
pulling white women into the fold,

(00:04:33):
And we've thrown out lots of ideas.

(00:04:35):
And I finally said,

(00:04:36):
well,

(00:04:36):
I think that we should just have kind of an informal conversation about this on the

(00:04:41):
podcast.

(00:04:43):
In my line of work,

(00:04:44):
what I often find is that I can draw conservative women into the leftist fold by

(00:04:50):
helping them understand how feminism directly affects their lives and

(00:04:54):
I think Desiree has a somewhat similar experience,

(00:04:57):
but also something different happens with her,

(00:04:59):
which is that white women who may identify as feminists and who often self-identify

(00:05:04):
as allies often have behavior that undermines both of those identities and show

(00:05:09):
their whole asses in their interactions with her.

(00:05:12):
So we wanted to get together and talk about this group of women,

(00:05:16):
a group of women of which I am part,

(00:05:19):
because this group of women is unique.

(00:05:21):
They have a deep and rich capacity to change the world.

(00:05:24):
They are both victim and oppressor.

(00:05:27):
But so often white women align with their whiteness rather than with their

(00:05:31):
womanhood or their humanity,

(00:05:32):
because half of my people voted for Donald Trump.

(00:05:36):
So does why don't you talk about why we're talking about white women?

(00:05:42):
When are we not talking about white women?

(00:05:46):
Well, I'm going to turn around and say is that.

(00:05:51):
Trying to think about how to lead in with this.

(00:05:53):
is that white women are for social change whilst white men are systemic change, right?

(00:06:00):
So we are going to, we're going to be around each other more, right?

(00:06:05):
We're going to be in schools with each other, grocery stores with each other.

(00:06:09):
We're going to be doing, you know, mommy and me things more.

(00:06:12):
So there's more interaction between black women and femmes and moms with white

(00:06:19):
women opposed to white men.

(00:06:21):
So I think that that is why the topic

(00:06:25):
always feels so woman heavy.

(00:06:27):
And I know that that could be activating because it's,

(00:06:30):
especially for white feminists,

(00:06:32):
it gets activated because it's like,

(00:06:33):
well,

(00:06:34):
we're not responsible for men.

(00:06:35):
We're not, why is all the weight on women?

(00:06:37):
Why is, because it is like, because welcome to the world.

(00:06:40):
that we live in, right?

(00:06:41):
We are raising these children.

(00:06:43):
We are sleeping with these men.

(00:06:44):
So there is some level of responsibility as women, as a collective that we have to hold.

(00:06:51):
By all means,

(00:06:52):
you could stop birthing and sleeping with these people and a lot of these problems

(00:06:57):
would go away.

(00:06:59):
So there's that, right?

(00:07:01):
That is why.

(00:07:03):
Also,

(00:07:03):
white women keep the tone of wanting to learn,

(00:07:06):
grow more,

(00:07:07):
the book clubs,

(00:07:08):
the coffee meetups.

(00:07:10):
When you're talking about white feminism and those intersections,

(00:07:13):
now you're talking about also financial access.

(00:07:16):
They have more time, they have more money.

(00:07:18):
So these are usually the people that come into anti-racism work,

(00:07:23):
social justice work,

(00:07:24):
just wanting to understand and be a part of something.

(00:07:28):
And they hit the wall

(00:07:31):
at their feminism because patriarchy is the greatest albatross to their freedom.

(00:07:37):
And why it doesn't cross over from my own experience and,

(00:07:41):
you know,

(00:07:42):
as a whole watching,

(00:07:43):
experiencing and understanding why that wall gets hit in that sort of way is

(00:07:50):
because the socialization between white men and white women have been so

(00:07:56):
exclusionary?

(00:07:59):
Is that a word?

(00:08:01):
It has been so isolating.

(00:08:02):
I'm like, there's a word here that I'm searching for.

(00:08:05):
It has been so isolating, right?

(00:08:07):
You guys have not been allowed to be socialized around anyone else.

(00:08:11):
So white feminism,

(00:08:12):
and I have this conversation often,

(00:08:16):
is about either becoming equal to white men

(00:08:21):
which then means you become the top tier oppressor of the globe.

(00:08:25):
And that is where that, no, but I want, and I'm like, yes, but it leaves everybody else behind.

(00:08:32):
What we need to be doing is dismantling the system that makes you the victim of it,

(00:08:38):
as well as the perpetrator.

(00:08:39):
So I hope that that kind of makes some sense.

(00:08:42):
Did that answer your question?

(00:08:44):
Yeah, that does.

(00:08:45):
One of the things that I appreciate you saying is I think,

(00:08:50):
I think white women often,

(00:08:51):
and I do not agree with this sentiment,

(00:08:54):
I want to be clear,

(00:08:54):
but I think white women often feel aggrieved in leftist and anti-racist spaces

(00:09:00):
because they have this thing of,

(00:09:02):
well,

(00:09:03):
why is everyone talking about how bad white women are when white men are

(00:09:07):
objectively worse?

(00:09:09):
And that part that white men are worse is true.

(00:09:13):
But the reason that we're talking about white women is that white women are the

(00:09:16):
ones who say they want to do better.

(00:09:19):
White women are the ones who have come some of the way,

(00:09:22):
at least as you mentioned,

(00:09:23):
into feminism.

(00:09:25):
And so I want people who are listening to this who might find themselves getting

(00:09:30):
their hackles up and saying,

(00:09:31):
well,

(00:09:31):
why are we going so hard on white women?

(00:09:33):
To remember that this is not going hard on white women.

(00:09:37):
This is talking about what we as white women need to do to do better and what all

(00:09:43):
of us committed to social justice need to do to help bring more white women

(00:09:47):
together

(00:09:48):
truly into the fold.

(00:09:50):
Something that I've seen a lot is there's a shame reaction to being told that you

(00:09:58):
are not behaving like an ally,

(00:10:01):
that you're being racist,

(00:10:02):
that you hurt someone's feelings.

(00:10:05):
And we have basically two ways of dealing with shame as human beings.

(00:10:09):
We can try to deflect that shame onto someone else and say,

(00:10:12):
oh,

(00:10:13):
no,

(00:10:13):
no,

(00:10:13):
you're bad for making me feel bad.

(00:10:16):
And that's rooted in the idea that we just deserve to feel good,

(00:10:19):
that we're entitled to not be told we're doing something wrong.

(00:10:24):
Or we can sit in that shame and we can think about what we're doing.

(00:10:29):
We can think about whether the criticism is fair and then we can change our behavior.

(00:10:33):
And this podcast is about that.

(00:10:35):
It's about sitting in the shame and looking at ways where we can change our

(00:10:39):
behavior and looking at ways where we can amplify our good behavior.

(00:10:46):
I like that.

(00:10:47):
I like that.

(00:10:47):
And I'm going, if they got their hackles up a moment ago, get ready, take a breath.

(00:10:54):
Because from whose lens are white men worse?

(00:10:58):
Yeah.

(00:10:59):
Right.

(00:11:00):
So when you're having that conversation, because, yes, I often get that.

(00:11:04):
And then I'm looking at them and I'm like, OK, but that's your perspective.

(00:11:09):
Right.

(00:11:09):
When we're talking about being intersectional and not simply from the from the term

(00:11:15):
that's been coined by Kimberly,

(00:11:17):
but like being intersectional in a deeper,

(00:11:21):
more intentional way,

(00:11:22):
who says that they are worse?

(00:11:24):
Because here's what it is on.

(00:11:26):
I'm not going to deal with Jeff at school.

(00:11:29):
Right?

(00:11:30):
I'm going to deal with you.

(00:11:32):
Jeff is not going to befriend me.

(00:11:34):
Jeff is not going to be the one inviting my children to birthday parties,

(00:11:38):
you know,

(00:11:39):
school functions.

(00:11:40):
Jeff is not on the PTA.

(00:11:42):
He is not at the Homosexual Owners Association.

(00:11:45):
He is not in my social sphere and life, and I don't have as much access, exposure to him.

(00:11:53):
Right?

(00:11:54):
So this is what I mean by white women are in charge of social change whilst white

(00:11:58):
men are in charge of systemic change in that sort of way.

(00:12:01):
So when white women say that to me, like white men are objectively worse.

(00:12:04):
I'm like, to you, I don't have the same proximity to them.

(00:12:08):
I'm not marrying them.

(00:12:09):
I'm not raising them.

(00:12:11):
I'm not even dating them, right?

(00:12:13):
So I don't have to deal with them in that sort of way.

(00:12:17):
Systemically, they are absolutely worse.

(00:12:20):
They have a systemic power over me and you.

(00:12:22):
And that is being...

(00:12:25):
intersectional in that sort of way, right?

(00:12:27):
So we do not experience them in our personal lives the same way that you guys do.

(00:12:32):
So that's one thing, right?

(00:12:35):
Why I'm saying like, no, we're coming to you.

(00:12:37):
We're having these conversations with you because I'm dealing with you on a day-to-day basis.

(00:12:42):
I'm not dealing with him collectively.

(00:12:45):
Second, when it comes to shame, I love to remind people that shame is not a real emotion.

(00:12:51):
That's a construct underneath colonial Christianity, right?

(00:12:55):
And shame keeps us stuck.

(00:12:58):
Well, I feel bad.

(00:12:58):
There's nothing I can do.

(00:13:00):
Woe is me.

(00:13:02):
And we stop right there and we go in this shame spiral.

(00:13:05):
Because I cannot accept change large enough, fast enough, or whatever that may be.

(00:13:11):
Shame is quite literally meant to keep us stuck.

(00:13:15):
And it's not real.

(00:13:16):
And we know shame is not real.

(00:13:18):
Because if you observe children, they haven't any.

(00:13:25):
Not a shred.

(00:13:26):
Not an iota of shame, right?

(00:13:28):
Like your toddler will get up and like go pee in the middle of like

(00:13:35):
Times Square with a million people watching them and be like, I did a good job, right?

(00:13:40):
And come back to you with no shame, right?

(00:13:43):
So that's something that's built in.

(00:13:44):
That's yet another construct.

(00:13:45):
So that's something that we could just like kind of, I'm feeling shame.

(00:13:51):
I can acknowledge it.

(00:13:53):
I don't need to fix anything.

(00:13:55):
I just need to acknowledge that it's there and it is a construct.

(00:13:58):
What can move me forward, right?

(00:14:01):
And then when we're talking about moving from allyship,

(00:14:04):
which is,

(00:14:05):
I love when you said that in the beginning,

(00:14:07):
right,

(00:14:07):
is usually a self-appointed term.

(00:14:09):
You cannot call yourself an ally.

(00:14:11):
The people that you are dealing with directly can, right?

(00:14:14):
I can say, I can name you an ally and I still can only name you an ally to me.

(00:14:20):
I could say Zonda is an amazing ally to me in this fight of social justice.

(00:14:24):
I cannot say that you are an ally to all Black people.

(00:14:27):
All Black people may not feel like that, right?

(00:14:30):
One of the most dangerous things of supremacy culture is the demand of a

(00:14:36):
monoculture,

(00:14:37):
the demand of monolithic behavior,

(00:14:39):
ideals.

(00:14:40):
And that just doesn't work, right?

(00:14:42):
So true solidarity comes from recognizing,

(00:14:44):
well,

(00:14:45):
hey,

(00:14:46):
this is where your intersectionality meets my wall,

(00:14:50):
right?

(00:14:51):
and how do we go forward, right?

(00:14:54):
I hear what you're saying.

(00:14:56):
I can absolutely admit that white men are absolutely your complete and utter

(00:15:01):
oppressor as they are mine,

(00:15:03):
but understand that y'all are a package deal and you are your men.

(00:15:06):
So you also oppress me.

(00:15:09):
You cannot cross your party line, let's think about it, right?

(00:15:13):
Like your protest line, come on over here and then go right back home to him

(00:15:19):
And we haven't done the work of sorting out what needs to happen between us

(00:15:25):
socially,

(00:15:25):
the awareness that needs to happen and the admitting and the clearing of that space

(00:15:30):
and the repair of that relationship collectively before we move forward into that

(00:15:37):
solidarity.

(00:15:38):
And then even then, as I often tell white women, I would like to see

(00:15:44):
White women offering the same grace that we as Black women offer to white women in

(00:15:49):
this work to white men.

(00:15:52):
And that, my friend, they stopped hearing me.

(00:15:56):
They're like, absolutely not.

(00:15:58):
Hell no.

(00:15:58):
I'm not doing it.

(00:15:59):
I've tried.

(00:16:00):
I've done all the things.

(00:16:02):
He doesn't listen.

(00:16:03):
And I'm sitting there like, so were you always this person?

(00:16:07):
Or how many generations did it take you to get here?

(00:16:11):
How many book clubs?

(00:16:12):
How many conversations?

(00:16:13):
How much system regulation did you need to even get to this point?

(00:16:19):
And I'm trying to get you to the next phase.

(00:16:21):
So there's so much there.

(00:16:22):
So much.

(00:16:24):
Yes.

(00:16:24):
Okay.

(00:16:25):
I mean, there's so much that you've just said.

(00:16:26):
Every time I talk to you,

(00:16:29):
and I'm including when we're folding laundry together on the phone,

(00:16:34):
I feel like I have to start taking notes so that I can go back and pull every

(00:16:40):
thread that you have thrown at me.

(00:16:44):
Well, to be fair, I did the same thing, right?

(00:16:46):
In order to answer you.

(00:16:47):
So I love our in-depth conversations, inclusive of our folding laundry and law and order chat.

(00:16:52):
Oh my God.

(00:16:54):
Okay.

(00:16:55):
Law and order.

(00:16:56):
I'm not going to go on law and order right now.

(00:16:58):
No, we'll do that later.

(00:16:59):
I haven't been caught up.

(00:17:00):
So, yes.

(00:17:01):
All right.

(00:17:01):
So,

(00:17:01):
but I want to circle back to this white man and grace thing,

(00:17:06):
because I think that's one of the harder things for people to swallow.

(00:17:10):
And I think people often misinterpret what you mean.

(00:17:13):
I'm not going to get to that yet, though.

(00:17:14):
I want to address something else.

(00:17:17):
The thing that I see,

(00:17:19):
and I felt this in myself,

(00:17:21):
and not even in just social justice situations,

(00:17:24):
but just in daily life,

(00:17:26):
is that we all have this

(00:17:28):
identity.

(00:17:29):
And we all want to hold our identities.

(00:17:31):
We want to see ourselves as good people, as smart people, as moral people.

(00:17:36):
And often our defense against wrongdoing is like, but I'm so good, but I'm an ally.

(00:17:43):
And as soon as we start leaning on that identity,

(00:17:47):
rather than looking at our behavior,

(00:17:48):
I think that's when we start to get in trouble.

(00:17:50):
So I appreciate you talking about

(00:17:53):
you can say this person is an ally to me or maybe even this person is an ally to me

(00:17:57):
in this context rather than just giving someone a permanent label because what that

(00:18:02):
ends up being is like a permanent dispensation.

(00:18:05):
It's like these feminist men who come into feminist groups and say all kinds of

(00:18:10):
offensive shit and they're like,

(00:18:11):
but I'm a feminist and you're alienating me.

(00:18:14):
So I hope that

(00:18:16):
White women listening to this will understand why we have to judge people's

(00:18:21):
behavior in the moment,

(00:18:22):
not on these identities.

(00:18:25):
But talking about like proximity and talking about how black women and white women

(00:18:31):
tend to have a lot more proximity to one another than say black women to white men,

(00:18:36):
as you mentioned.

(00:18:38):
I had someone leave a comment on one of my posts a couple of months ago,

(00:18:41):
and I've been thinking about it ever since.

(00:18:42):
And I'm going to try to do it justice because I think she has something here.

(00:18:47):
This is from a Black reader, I think, if I'm remembering it correctly.

(00:18:52):
And what she said is that white women are not just separated from Black women.

(00:18:59):
They're also separated from each other.

(00:19:01):
They're separated from womanhood.

(00:19:03):
They don't have community with one another because they are socialized their whole life.

(00:19:08):
to focus on men and specifically white men.

(00:19:12):
And so what that ends up meaning for white women is they actually have no idea what

(00:19:17):
other women's lives are like,

(00:19:18):
other white women's lives.

(00:19:21):
So they're not able to look at the circumstances of their lives and apply a political critique.

(00:19:27):
When parenting is hard for political reasons,

(00:19:29):
they think it's a personal or a moral failing because their friends,

(00:19:33):
if they have them,

(00:19:34):
aren't in community with them and aren't talking to them about

(00:19:38):
these realities and I I don't know something about that to me kind of aligns with

(00:19:46):
this notion that white women and black women are in closer physical proximity to

(00:19:52):
each other but may not be actually talking meaningfully in the same way that white

(00:19:57):
women are not meaningfully talking to other white women so I guess my question to

(00:20:01):
you is do you agree do you think this is a thing that's happening with white women

(00:20:04):
or is my my reader completely off base

(00:20:07):
Your reader was preaching such a good word.

(00:20:09):
I want you to find that reader.

(00:20:11):
I want you to find them.

(00:20:14):
I want you to inbox them.

(00:20:15):
I want you to have a conversation with them on your podcast.

(00:20:19):
Because yes, exactly that, right?

(00:20:22):
When we're talking about, right?

(00:20:23):
Because I do, like when I talk about it, I'm like, I pathologize the system of whiteness.

(00:20:29):
And I'm actually having some beef right now on Substack because there was a clip of

(00:20:34):
one of my conversations where I was like,

(00:20:36):
you are both Charlie and Tyler.

(00:20:39):
And I was saying, there are no good white people.

(00:20:41):
And that is activated.

(00:20:43):
So if you heard that now and you're activated, take a breath, drink some water.

(00:20:48):
It is not what you think.

(00:20:51):
What it is saying,

(00:20:52):
it is offering freedom because supremacy culture and colonial Christianity demands

(00:20:58):
good and evil,

(00:20:59):
right?

(00:20:59):
That's the whole premise.

(00:21:01):
So like to your point of the white man walking in there and to be fumbling around,

(00:21:06):
which is allowed when you're learning new paradigms,

(00:21:09):
new ways.

(00:21:10):
of existing.

(00:21:12):
And he's like, I am a feminist.

(00:21:13):
It is a label.

(00:21:15):
It is binary because you're either a feminist or you're not a feminist, right?

(00:21:19):
That's that either or thinking inside of those 15 pillars of supremacy culture.

(00:21:23):
You're either an ally or you are a racist.

(00:21:26):
You're either anti-racist or you are racist.

(00:21:29):
You're either MAGA or you're blue.

(00:21:31):
And it's like, it leaves no room for humility, for failure, for questioning.

(00:21:39):
right?

(00:21:40):
So they are, people are walking into these spaces and they are being admonished almost.

(00:21:46):
And I try to remind people when I'm doing this work, critique is not admonishment.

(00:21:51):
I am saying, hey, I need you to release this binary of good or bad, right?

(00:21:57):
I let it go.

(00:21:59):
You're going to fuck up.

(00:22:00):
You're going to be human.

(00:22:01):
You're going to show up in this space where I am at

(00:22:04):
I seek to curate brave spaces, right?

(00:22:07):
I got that terminology from Pam Iverson.

(00:22:10):
I'm in a girls growing group for years on Facebook.

(00:22:13):
And she calls her spaces brave spaces.

(00:22:15):
And they're safe, right?

(00:22:17):
Because you have to feel safe in order to be brave.

(00:22:20):
So you get to ask questions.

(00:22:22):
You get to show up human.

(00:22:23):
And whiteness as a system does not allow that.

(00:22:26):
It's a constant performance.

(00:22:29):
of being good, of being the better wife, the better mother, the prettier girl.

(00:22:34):
So to the point that your commenter made is exactly that.

(00:22:39):
So you don't even understand what it's like to show up in spaces together, right?

(00:22:46):
Like this competition against each other happens young, right?

(00:22:51):
That mean girl culture.

(00:22:53):
What you see, like the dog world in corporate

(00:22:57):
corporate like white man America transfers over into new culture of white womanhood.

(00:23:03):
And it does sever that relationship, that accessibility to each other.

(00:23:08):
You click up, right?

(00:23:10):
So here's the cool girls, here's not the fat girls, there goes this girls.

(00:23:14):
And it severs that community gathering, that ability to see each other as whole.

(00:23:21):
You're just not cool enough or you're not cute enough, you're not popular enough.

(00:23:24):
And that transfers even into your higher learning and education,

(00:23:28):
you know,

(00:23:29):
the myth of going to college to get your MRS.

(00:23:32):
So your whole life is raised around how cute,

(00:23:36):
how thin,

(00:23:37):
how well off,

(00:23:38):
hypergamy,

(00:23:39):
performing what you need to perform to move up inside of those hierarchies in

(00:23:43):
whiteness because classism impacts you guys the way racism impacts us.

(00:23:47):
And so you're so busy not seeing each other, you damn sure can't see us.

(00:23:51):
Basically, Black women move around white women's worlds like the help.

(00:23:56):
Like, you don't notice the people, right?

(00:23:59):
You don't notice the servers in the restaurant.

(00:24:01):
You don't know what's going on in the back end.

(00:24:04):
You know whether or not your food is good, right?

(00:24:06):
I had this conversation this morning on my live about,

(00:24:10):
there's been conversation about comparing the,

(00:24:14):
it's laughable,

(00:24:16):
comparing the No Kings March to the civil rights movement.

(00:24:19):
And I'm like, what?

(00:24:22):
What?

(00:24:22):
What?

(00:24:25):
It's happening right now.

(00:24:26):
And I just gave one example of the Montgomery bus boycott.

(00:24:31):
381 solid straight days.

(00:24:36):
381.

(00:24:37):
That's a year and some change every day.

(00:24:40):
Outside, every day.

(00:24:43):
You know what Black people did not do?

(00:24:44):
They didn't miss work.

(00:24:47):
kids still made it to school and that took a lot of concerted community effort

(00:24:53):
right for 381 days of sustained protesting so when we're fatiguing these things

(00:25:00):
when we're talking about community it's all of that right so all of a sudden here

(00:25:05):
goes white women and they're coming out you know and they're feminists and they're

(00:25:09):
fighting against patriarchy and they're like we're with you sister and i'm like

(00:25:12):
with who

(00:25:13):
You don't even like, I often remind white women, you don't like your own poor.

(00:25:18):
I can't trust you as long as you're still calling them white trash.

(00:25:23):
Can't.

(00:25:24):
Because you don't even understand how capitalism works and how it impacts them.

(00:25:29):
So you could definitely not understand how my womanhood,

(00:25:32):
my motherhood is political when you haven't understood how yours is.

(00:25:38):
So yes, absolutely.

(00:25:40):
Hell yes to that commenter.

(00:25:42):
It was amazing.

(00:25:43):
She did great.

(00:25:44):
Well, good for her.

(00:25:48):
I was thinking about the kind of like mean girl culture thing.

(00:25:51):
And you and I were talking about this a little bit before we started recording.

(00:25:54):
I've started.

(00:25:55):
Well, I won't say started.

(00:25:56):
I've done this for a long time.

(00:25:58):
I don't really know when I really started.

(00:26:00):
But I kind of lead with vulnerability in my interactions with new people and not in

(00:26:06):
a where I'm putting like trauma on them.

(00:26:09):
But, you know, I always acknowledge, like, things that are hard.

(00:26:13):
So,

(00:26:13):
like,

(00:26:13):
if I'm at my kid's school and,

(00:26:15):
you know,

(00:26:15):
I'm meeting a new mom and we're at,

(00:26:17):
like,

(00:26:17):
you know,

(00:26:17):
the Halloween whatever,

(00:26:20):
you know,

(00:26:20):
I might talk about,

(00:26:21):
like,

(00:26:21):
you know,

(00:26:22):
all this preparation that went into this.

(00:26:23):
Like, it sure is a lot of work.

(00:26:25):
And I noticed that there is a certain type of woman,

(00:26:29):
always,

(00:26:30):
always white,

(00:26:32):
who will rebuff that and say,

(00:26:34):
oh,

(00:26:34):
it wasn't hard for me.

(00:26:35):
It must just be you.

(00:26:39):
And that behavior,

(00:26:40):
that refusal to be vulnerable about things that we both know are objectively true,

(00:26:46):
just maps so neatly onto so many other antisocial behaviors.

(00:26:51):
So again, it's that refusal of community spirit that you're talking about.

(00:26:55):
And it's a denial of one's own humanity.

(00:26:59):
Yeah.

(00:26:59):
Yeah.

(00:27:01):
it demands a performance.

(00:27:03):
Like it's okay.

(00:27:04):
It was difficult, right?

(00:27:06):
I'm here on this podcast,

(00:27:08):
but in between just to get here to sit in this moment,

(00:27:12):
look at how many times you rescheduled that.

(00:27:14):
Life is difficult.

(00:27:15):
Life is difficult and that is okay.

(00:27:19):
And that is part of what I mean about like,

(00:27:21):
I need white women to touch their humanity,

(00:27:24):
their vulnerability.

(00:27:26):
Like it's okay.

(00:27:28):
And that,

(00:27:29):
to the other point of view is like that extension of that grace,

(00:27:33):
that's me extending grace,

(00:27:34):
right?

(00:27:35):
And when I'm asking you to do the same thing to white men,

(00:27:38):
it is saying,

(00:27:39):
hey,

(00:27:40):
Zahn,

(00:27:41):
I'm recognizing that even though you are cute,

(00:27:43):
adorable,

(00:27:44):
and blonde,

(00:27:46):
life is,

(00:27:47):
right?

(00:27:48):
Like you're a top tier white woman.

(00:27:51):
Like we could recognize that and still say life is difficult at your level.

(00:27:58):
You only think that because we have cameras off right now.

(00:28:01):
You should see what my hair looks like.

(00:28:04):
It's horrific.

(00:28:06):
Listen, I have a milkmaid bun going on on top of mine.

(00:28:09):
So when you said no cameras, I was like, fuck yeah, I appreciate this.

(00:28:14):
Well, what I'm saying is I could still recognize your humanity.

(00:28:18):
I could still recognize that even though you are those things, right?

(00:28:22):
Because whiteness relies on stereotypes.

(00:28:24):
And what white people do not recognize is it stereotypes you first, right?

(00:28:29):
It gives you the boxes first.

(00:28:31):
This is how supremacy culture impacts you first, right?

(00:28:34):
It has told you what womanhood is, right?

(00:28:37):
It's told you that your highest purpose is to achieve marriage, children,

(00:28:43):
a home.

(00:28:45):
And then feminism came in and was like,

(00:28:47):
you need to maintain all of those things and have a career.

(00:28:51):
And it's like, golly.

(00:28:52):
So that gets passed on to all of us, right?

(00:28:56):
Because you guys are the curators of this culture that we're living in.

(00:29:01):
So womanhood has always been defined by white womanhood.

(00:29:04):
Manhood has been as well.

(00:29:06):
And so when I'm saying extend that grace is I could say, hey,

(00:29:09):
You know what, Zahn?

(00:29:10):
Your life may be easier in one aspect of supremacy culture and difficult in this one.

(00:29:16):
And what does that look like?

(00:29:18):
Me saying, hey, I could see that this is difficult for you.

(00:29:21):
And me then saying, can you extend that to Jeff?

(00:29:24):
Can you see that though he may be successful in X,

(00:29:27):
Y,

(00:29:28):
and Z,

(00:29:29):
that this is tough to maintain for him,

(00:29:31):
that he has to show up and perform manhood the same way you have to perform

(00:29:38):
womanhood and wifeness and

(00:29:41):
motherhood and you do not ever get to drop the fucking ball neither does he and

(00:29:46):
that is the grace that we consistently have extended to white women like listen

(00:29:51):
you're gonna drop the ball you're gonna screw this up you're not always going to be

(00:29:55):
anti-racist you're damn sure not going to be always anti-black and we're still

(00:29:59):
saying show up we will teach you we will guide you but white women too often meet

(00:30:03):
us with defensiveness like no because i'm an ally i'm like okay bye

(00:30:10):
So,

(00:30:11):
okay,

(00:30:12):
you've talked a lot lately about the punitive nature of whiteness,

(00:30:16):
and you've talked about this in the context of the way people react to your work.

(00:30:21):
And this is something that also exists in male supremacy.

(00:30:24):
But often white women who notice this punitive authoritarianism in male supremacy,

(00:30:29):
who,

(00:30:29):
for example,

(00:30:30):
see how punitive their partners are with their kids,

(00:30:32):
they're

(00:30:34):
still take that punitive culture into their anti-racism and other activism work.

(00:30:38):
And I want to give an example from your work that I actually just revisited this

(00:30:43):
morning because I'm still mad about it.

(00:30:46):
You wrote an article entitled, Jesus's Lord is a Battle Cry Against Empire.

(00:30:51):
This was not an article really about Christianity or about how people should be Christian.

(00:30:56):
It wasn't propaganda.

(00:30:58):
But here comes this little white woman into your comments.

(00:31:01):
And throwing a tantrum,

(00:31:03):
accusing you of propaganda based solely on the headline for the article that she

(00:31:07):
did not read.

(00:31:08):
And then she loudly announced that she would be unsubscribing.

(00:31:12):
And a couple of people liked this comment.

(00:31:13):
And I have to start with an apology because she was my subscriber first and I sent her to you.

(00:31:18):
So, oops.

(00:31:21):
I do not blame you.

(00:31:23):
I appreciate you sending people and I recognize that they're going to have difficulty.

(00:31:28):
I don't talk about easy topics.

(00:31:30):
Carry on.

(00:31:31):
So interestingly, I corrected her in the comments pretty gently.

(00:31:36):
It's like two sentence correction.

(00:31:39):
And she continued to subscribe to me even after she angrily unsubscribed to you,

(00:31:44):
which I think that's an interesting just data point.

(00:31:48):
But then...

(00:31:49):
Weeks, months, sometime later, she ran her mouth on my page too.

(00:31:55):
And I gently corrected her on my page and she did the same thing to me.

(00:31:58):
Well, I'm unsubscribing now.

(00:32:01):
And so this person has obviously bought into the notion that she should punish

(00:32:06):
people for their ideas.

(00:32:08):
And she should punish people with the only currency that matters in capitalism, which is money.

(00:32:12):
And, you know, people can subscribe to whoever they want.

(00:32:15):
We're not entitled to anybody's affection or loyalty or money or subscription.

(00:32:21):
But,

(00:32:22):
you know,

(00:32:22):
throwing these public tantrums about I don't like your headline or I don't like it

(00:32:27):
that you disagreed with me.

(00:32:28):
So I'm going to make a big deal about how mad I am about it.

(00:32:32):
That's what you've argued is related to white supremacy.

(00:32:36):
So can we talk a little bit about this punitive policing aspect of white supremacy

(00:32:42):
and how we just end up like eating our own tails with it?

(00:32:45):
Oh, God, yes, absolutely.

(00:32:48):
And like you said, like you tied it into, let me try to wrap this up in a bun.

(00:32:54):
White women will always see that as part of patriarchy, right?

(00:32:57):
But patriarchy is merely a branch of the tree of supremacy culture, right?

(00:33:03):
Similar to racism, classism.

(00:33:06):
And we are trying to dig up the root and just

(00:33:10):
replant something different.

(00:33:12):
So it comes from that colonial Christian view, right?

(00:33:15):
Like I said, again, of that binary, of that good and evil, heaven or hell, punishment or bliss.

(00:33:22):
And instead of,

(00:33:23):
it's very interesting to me because the white women that do this on a regular basis

(00:33:28):
will inevitably claim themselves to be allies,

(00:33:34):
gentle parents,

(00:33:36):
all of these really cool buzzwords,

(00:33:39):
all of the woke leftist language will be thrown around and I'm like,

(00:33:45):
So do you punish your children?

(00:33:46):
I mean,

(00:33:47):
like you said,

(00:33:47):
I do agree that I'm not entitled to anybody's money,

(00:33:52):
anybody's space,

(00:33:53):
anybody listening to you.

(00:33:54):
Do what you need to do for you.

(00:33:56):
I remind people to choose themselves all the time.

(00:33:59):
Do what you need to do.

(00:34:00):
At least make it an informed decision.

(00:34:01):
I know that you didn't read that article and come to that conclusion.

(00:34:04):
But alas, that punitive nature is something that gets passed down, right?

(00:34:10):
Whiteness as a system is a cycle of abuse, right?

(00:34:14):
husband smacks wife, wife smacks kids, kids kick dogs, like shit rolls downhill.

(00:34:19):
So this idea of,

(00:34:22):
you know,

(00:34:22):
you can only have this if you're making me feel good is always around us in all of

(00:34:30):
the ways.

(00:34:31):
where she could have got curious in this very specific thing and said,

(00:34:36):
okay,

(00:34:37):
I am,

(00:34:37):
you know,

(00:34:38):
one reader who I absolutely loved was like,

(00:34:41):
so I was activated by this and I didn't read it.

(00:34:46):
I was like, good job, basically.

(00:34:47):
That was the gist of it.

(00:34:50):
And I may revisit it, but I don't want to right now.

(00:34:55):
But I'm going to sit with it and get curious.

(00:34:57):
And that's what I ask for people to do.

(00:34:59):
And that's how you move away from the punishment.

(00:35:03):
Is $8 a month killing you?

(00:35:05):
If you like 10 of my other articles and you didn't like this one,

(00:35:11):
it's like the baby with the bathwater sort of thing.

(00:35:15):
And

(00:35:15):
What it does is it demands another performance, right?

(00:35:18):
Because whiteness, like I said, demands performance.

(00:35:21):
What I was supposed to do was say,

(00:35:23):
oh no,

(00:35:24):
how could I make this better for you and be comfortable?

(00:35:28):
Now,

(00:35:28):
when you add in a racial dynamic,

(00:35:31):
what it feels like for me and my body is you want me to tap dance for you?

(00:35:35):
Oh no, master, I shows, we'll fix that right on up for you, missy.

(00:35:40):
No, like carry on, by all means, block me.

(00:35:44):
do yourself the favor because you're going to be consistently uncomfortable.

(00:35:50):
So when people come up to that, I just ask them to get curious.

(00:35:54):
Like, what do you, why?

(00:35:56):
Why do you want to harm someone?

(00:35:57):
Because that's what it is.

(00:35:59):
You have to see that as a violent act.

(00:36:02):
Like you said, no, we're not entitled to anybody's money.

(00:36:04):
But if you have been receiving information that has been good for you all of this

(00:36:09):
time,

(00:36:10):
and something has activated in you,

(00:36:12):
something got your heart goes up,

(00:36:13):
something

(00:36:16):
you need to take a breath with and lean into why not get more curious why question

(00:36:21):
your own self why do you want to punish this person why do you want to bring harm

(00:36:25):
to them right a follow-up to that was um when I had spoke about uh Charlie and

(00:36:34):
Tyler being both inside of whiteness right um

(00:36:38):
I lost so many people.

(00:36:40):
I was like, here's my offering right now.

(00:36:44):
I'll give you 31% off, prices are going up.

(00:36:47):
I'm not doing this with you guys.

(00:36:49):
I say something that you don't like, I lose 10, 15 people.

(00:36:51):
People unsubscribe all the time.

(00:36:53):
That is not sustainable.

(00:36:55):
Why do you want to punish people?

(00:36:57):
That is the question that you have to ask, why?

(00:36:59):
Why do you wanna be harmful?

(00:37:01):
And then you want those same people

(00:37:05):
to understand how patriarchy is punitive and punishing you,

(00:37:10):
yet you will pass along that violence.

(00:37:15):
Go ahead.

(00:37:15):
Get curious.

(00:37:16):
Yeah.

(00:37:17):
Yes.

(00:37:19):
That's all I know to say.

(00:37:20):
Yeah.

(00:37:22):
No, I don't even know if I answered you fully, but those are the words that came up.

(00:37:26):
OK, good.

(00:37:26):
But I have kind of like a reciprocal question to this.

(00:37:33):
I'm really interested,

(00:37:34):
and I actually had a piece come out today when we're recording this,

(00:37:37):
it'll be old news by the time this recording comes out,

(00:37:40):
about converting white women,

(00:37:42):
bringing them into leftist politics.

(00:37:44):
And I've had some pretty good luck doing this.

(00:37:47):
And when I say pretty good luck, I mean I fail 99% of the time because it's so fucking hard.

(00:37:53):
But I'm thinking about this punitive spirit that often happens and the defensive spirit.

(00:37:59):
And if we're gonna convert people, we have to be mindful

(00:38:03):
that this is what comes out.

(00:38:05):
So my question is,

(00:38:06):
do you have any insight on what white women like me who are working with other

(00:38:11):
white women can do to not activate that punitive spirit and to instead get to the

(00:38:17):
person behind it?

(00:38:19):
I would say that you have to know that you're going to activate that, right?

(00:38:23):
It's kind of like when I'm talking to people about white supremacy,

(00:38:27):
anti-racism work,

(00:38:29):
I'm like,

(00:38:29):
you guys keep looking for the shark,

(00:38:31):
right?

(00:38:32):
Oh, there it is, there it is.

(00:38:34):
And I'm like, no, supremacy culture is the water that we swim in, right?

(00:38:38):
So everybody's in it.

(00:38:39):
The shark, the coral reef, the anemones, you know, tiny fish, big fish, little fish, the sand.

(00:38:47):
We're all in it.

(00:38:48):
We're just all in it and it's all around.

(00:38:51):
So I would say prepare that it's coming, right?

(00:38:55):
Here's what it is.

(00:38:56):
I am never shocked by it.

(00:39:00):
I think why I have such sustainability in this work

(00:39:03):
is because I fully expect it.

(00:39:05):
Chris Rock had a joke a thousand years ago,

(00:39:08):
and I'm going to botch it,

(00:39:09):
but he basically,

(00:39:12):
the premise of it was,

(00:39:13):
he's like,

(00:39:13):
if I am sitting next to a white person and they took a pencil and stabbed me in my

(00:39:19):
neck,

(00:39:20):
I would say,

(00:39:21):
my bad,

(00:39:22):
I shouldn't have had my neck out.

(00:39:26):
because you anticipate it, right?

(00:39:29):
Like, it's going to happen.

(00:39:31):
It's going to happen sooner or later.

(00:39:32):
It's going to be uncomfortable.

(00:39:34):
So for me, when I have those spaces, I just know that that's going to happen.

(00:39:40):
And this is exhausting.

(00:39:41):
This is why there are Black-only spaces.

(00:39:44):
The same way there are women-only gym spaces,

(00:39:47):
women-only dating spaces, is because you want to be outside of the male gaze, right?

(00:39:54):
I don't want to go to the gym and be hit on.

(00:39:56):
I don't even want to go to the gym and have the possibility of being hit on.

(00:40:00):
This is why Black-only spaces exist.

(00:40:03):
I don't want the white gaze.

(00:40:06):
Because you're going to have to anticipate it.

(00:40:08):
That's my whole point.

(00:40:09):
The whole point of that is

(00:40:10):
You have to anticipate that if you are in the spaces with these people,

(00:40:14):
you are going to be harmed,

(00:40:16):
right?

(00:40:17):
If you are in a relationship with an abuser, you're going to be abused.

(00:40:22):
And white women have an issue with taking on the role of recognizing that they are

(00:40:29):
an abuser in this system of supremacy culture.

(00:40:32):
So if you're going to have proximity to an abuser, you have to anticipate being abused.

(00:40:37):
That's what it is.

(00:40:38):
You go into it knowing I'm probably going to get my teeth kicked.

(00:40:42):
How do I avoid that?

(00:40:43):
It's an ugly reality.

(00:40:46):
Right.

(00:40:47):
It's unfortunate.

(00:40:48):
I'm sorry.

(00:40:48):
Take a breath.

(00:40:49):
But that's the truth, right?

(00:40:51):
I love you.

(00:40:51):
I will not be surprised if something you do and or say would be harmful.

(00:40:59):
Where the repair,

(00:40:59):
though,

(00:41:00):
because I want to offer that really quickly before we go into anything else,

(00:41:03):
where the repair is,

(00:41:04):
right,

(00:41:04):
where that problem,

(00:41:05):
that tension that exists is I fully expect,

(00:41:09):
as a white woman,

(00:41:11):
you are going to say something that is going to aggress me,

(00:41:14):
harm me,

(00:41:14):
be anti-Black.

(00:41:16):
All of the things where the restoration and repair is between you and I is me being

(00:41:21):
able to say,

(00:41:22):
hey,

(00:41:22):
Zahn,

(00:41:23):
when you said that,

(00:41:24):
this is what it activated in me.

(00:41:25):
And I'm able to explain why the pedagogy behind it,

(00:41:30):
the suppression,

(00:41:31):
the cultural,

(00:41:32):
the systemic issues.

(00:41:33):
And I need you to receive that.

(00:41:36):
That's what makes you safe.

(00:41:38):
Not that you'll never fuck up.

(00:41:40):
It's that you're willing to do the repair.

(00:41:41):
You're willing to sit with it.

(00:41:42):
Even if you can't hear it in that moment, Des, you know what?

(00:41:46):
I don't know about that.

(00:41:47):
I need to sit with that.

(00:41:48):
Great.

(00:41:49):
Please reflect.

(00:41:50):
Come back to me.

(00:41:51):
It's the restoration and the repair where white women mess up in that.

(00:41:57):
intersectional relationship is me saying that to you.

(00:42:01):
And you say, absolutely not Desiree.

(00:42:03):
I have five other Negroes that would say different.

(00:42:06):
And I'm like, well, go be friends with that.

(00:42:09):
Yeah.

(00:42:12):
Yeah.

(00:42:13):
Well, my friend said, and I don't give a shit what your friend said, I'm telling you something.

(00:42:18):
And that's super important.

(00:42:20):
So there you go.

(00:42:21):
That's where I land on that.

(00:42:22):
This is this is completely unrelated to what you just said,

(00:42:25):
but it just reminded me of this story.

(00:42:27):
And I do talk about dating.

(00:42:28):
So I'm going to I'm going to share it anyway.

(00:42:30):
And you can you can share your horror.

(00:42:32):
So early in Jeff's and my relationship,

(00:42:36):
like three months in,

(00:42:38):
we went out with his sister and we both drank too much.

(00:42:43):
And we got in a dumb fight, like not an abusive fight, just a really stupid fight.

(00:42:48):
We're like,

(00:42:49):
whatever the central thing was that we were fighting about,

(00:42:52):
like was something that didn't even exist.

(00:42:55):
Like people do.

(00:42:57):
And so he went back to his apartment for like the night and I went back to my place

(00:43:04):
and I was,

(00:43:04):
I was devastated.

(00:43:05):
I was convinced we were going to break up and you know,

(00:43:08):
it was,

(00:43:08):
it was a horror and it was just the end and I just could not cope.

(00:43:12):
So I contacted like five of my friends and I got them to write statements about me,

(00:43:19):
countering what we were fighting about to prove him wrong.

(00:43:25):
And I emailed him along with like, you know, a statement of facts.

(00:43:30):
And like, I called it like my motion for summary judgment on our relationship.

(00:43:34):
Yeah.

(00:43:35):
it remains one of the most like banana crackers things I have ever done,

(00:43:40):
but it was also really effective.

(00:43:41):
So, um, I promise I will not do that to you.

(00:43:45):
Um, that is wild.

(00:43:48):
Please don't ever do that to me.

(00:43:50):
And I think that what,

(00:43:51):
what that shows is just the monolithic demand of supremacy culture,

(00:43:57):
right?

(00:43:57):
Like I, um,

(00:44:00):
white womanhood is so violent to white women and femmes underneath

(00:44:07):
this is hetero Christian white male patriarchy, right?

(00:44:11):
It demands for you to never be wrong, never falter, always be pretty, always be performing.

(00:44:16):
It's exhausting.

(00:44:18):
I would never want to be a white woman.

(00:44:21):
Just not, right?

(00:44:22):
And it's like,

(00:44:23):
because that competition is built in,

(00:44:24):
it's like,

(00:44:25):
oh no,

(00:44:25):
there's going to be somebody that's more agreeable to him that wouldn't argue with

(00:44:29):
these things.

(00:44:31):
All of that comes into play.

(00:44:33):
And that fear,

(00:44:35):
because now you've found someone,

(00:44:36):
because also supremacy culture disconnects us from self,

(00:44:41):
the land and community.

(00:44:43):
And this person is the one person you should be cleaving to because he's my man and

(00:44:48):
I'm a stand by my man.

(00:44:52):
And this is also the reason why community is so important.

(00:44:55):
Because yes,

(00:44:56):
I'm very much a my man,

(00:44:57):
my man,

(00:44:58):
my man girly,

(00:44:59):
but my friends,

(00:45:01):
my family,

(00:45:02):
my children and myself,

(00:45:05):
And that is the full breadth of humanity.

(00:45:08):
All of those things exist at the same time.

(00:45:10):
And whiteness as a system demands fealty.

(00:45:17):
to a concept, to a person, to this one way of being.

(00:45:22):
Again,

(00:45:23):
if people do nothing else,

(00:45:25):
please go and download my very pay what you can 15 pillars of supremacy culture,

(00:45:31):
understanding them and how to dismantle them.

(00:45:33):
Because you will recognize how they play in your life.

(00:45:37):
And it is a foundational work.

(00:45:40):
to dismantling oppressive systems.

(00:45:41):
It is a necessity to recognize what comes up there is that only one right way, right?

(00:45:48):
There's only one way of being a person,

(00:45:50):
only one way of being a woman,

(00:45:51):
only one way of being a friend,

(00:45:53):
and it constantly demands performance.

(00:45:56):
And then that defensiveness comes up, right?

(00:45:58):
Des, no, because when I said that to so-and-so, that's not how they received it.

(00:46:03):
And that's not real.

(00:46:05):
That's fine.

(00:46:06):
But they don't have those lived experiences that I have.

(00:46:09):
I'm going to come to this situation with mine the way I anticipate you coming with yours.

(00:46:14):
And we are having an individual interpersonal relationship.

(00:46:18):
It is not your relationship with all Black women.

(00:46:20):
It is your relationship with me in front of you.

(00:46:24):
And as long as that repair work is there,

(00:46:26):
right,

(00:46:27):
that willingness to show up in your humanity,

(00:46:29):
and that is really what anti-oppression work is about,

(00:46:33):
is offering people a path back to their own humanity and releasing these

(00:46:37):
constructs.

(00:46:38):
So yeah, there you go.

(00:46:40):
I love that.

(00:46:41):
That's beautiful.

(00:46:42):
And I just want to echo, please do download the Pillars of White Supremacy.

(00:46:47):
It has helped me understand so many of the interactions that I have with people,

(00:46:53):
especially in the work I do.

(00:46:56):
You and I actually talked about this a year ago,

(00:46:58):
I think,

(00:47:00):
where like every time I do an AMA,

(00:47:02):
I'll get all kinds of interesting questions,

(00:47:04):
but I will also get people asking me,

(00:47:07):
about these kind of like trivial side issues or about topics that are just like not

(00:47:13):
my topics,

(00:47:13):
not things that I know a lot about.

(00:47:16):
And it's very clear based on the way those questions are framed that what they're

(00:47:21):
doing is testing me to see if I'm the right kind of feminist,

(00:47:26):
to see if I have the right opinion on lipstick.

(00:47:29):
That's one that comes up all the time.

(00:47:32):
And on lipstick, I can't.

(00:47:34):
Oh, my God.

(00:47:35):
Of all the things I write about,

(00:47:37):
the two things that make people unsubscribe the most are beauty and diet culture

(00:47:44):
and sex work.

(00:47:47):
Any opinion that differs on those issues and people want you dead.

(00:47:53):
They just do.

(00:47:53):
And it's this it's this purity culture.

(00:47:57):
And I don't mean purity in the sexual purity.

(00:48:00):
I mean,

(00:48:00):
this idea that you have to be the one true feminist,

(00:48:03):
the one true activist who gets everything right.

(00:48:06):
according to this one person's weird definition of what...

(00:48:10):
All of that right there is built into what I'm saying is that monoculture.

(00:48:15):
Exactly.

(00:48:15):
That colonial Christianity because like how could you stand by...

(00:48:19):
And talk about and say sex work is work because I'm saying it's a job.

(00:48:24):
Yeah.

(00:48:24):
Because I said it.

(00:48:25):
That's how.

(00:48:27):
How is that?

(00:48:28):
I mean,

(00:48:29):
even if you like regardless of how you feel about sex work,

(00:48:33):
like it's obviously a job because you're getting paid for it.

(00:48:37):
Like this should not be controversial.

(00:48:39):
But oh, Lord, is it controversial?

(00:48:41):
It just really upsets people.

(00:48:44):
So understanding the perfectionism.

(00:48:47):
of white supremacy has really helped me understand that behavior.

(00:48:51):
And of course, the policing actions that go with it.

(00:48:55):
So thank you.

(00:48:57):
It's a wonderful contribution.

(00:48:59):
Everything you write is a wonderful contribution.

(00:49:01):
So I think we're probably going to wrap it up here, except I have one final question for you.

(00:49:10):
And that is...

(00:49:13):
I think the thing that we're gonna focus more sharply on,

(00:49:16):
but we end up talking about all this other stuff.

(00:49:19):
How do we bring the right wing white women over?

(00:49:23):
What do we do?

(00:49:24):
Oh my God, what a wonderful question.

(00:49:27):
And I think it's gonna touch on what we were talking about before,

(00:49:31):
kind of like the deserving,

(00:49:33):
like the right kind.

(00:49:37):
It goes back to Grace Zahn, right?

(00:49:42):
None of us were here.

(00:49:43):
Right.

(00:49:44):
I am a completely different person than I was 10 years ago, 20 years ago.

(00:49:50):
Right.

(00:49:51):
I remind people that,

(00:49:52):
you know,

(00:49:53):
when I was sitting in my sociology class at 18 years old,

(00:49:57):
I was a white Republican woman.

(00:50:01):
I swear to God, I swear to God, I swear to God.

(00:50:04):
I had all of the talking points, right?

(00:50:07):
Slavery ended hundreds to 300 years ago.

(00:50:10):
Like, what are you doing?

(00:50:11):
Nobody's stopping you.

(00:50:12):
All of the indoctrination that comes with American exceptionalism and the pseudo

(00:50:18):
educational system that we talk about,

(00:50:20):
right?

(00:50:20):
At 20 something years old, I didn't even know what redlining is.

(00:50:24):
And now look at me, all militantly black and educating, right?

(00:50:28):
So

(00:50:30):
It's about creating those brave spaces and those safe spaces and releasing the binary.

(00:50:35):
What I tell people is for decolonization work,

(00:50:37):
your very first step is releasing that binary because there's no safe space.

(00:50:42):
And I look at whiteness as a system as in IPV, right?

(00:50:47):
Like that in-partner violence or domestic violence in my day, it was called.

(00:50:53):
And it takes on average seven times to escape that.

(00:50:56):
Right.

(00:50:57):
But in order for people to leave DV situations,

(00:51:00):
there has to be safety nets inside of society and in community.

(00:51:07):
Right.

(00:51:07):
Like, where are they going?

(00:51:09):
How are they going to eat?

(00:51:10):
How are they going to survive?

(00:51:12):
What white people,

(00:51:14):
leftist white people,

(00:51:15):
woke white people forget,

(00:51:17):
you know,

(00:51:17):
well,

(00:51:17):
they're voting against their best interests.

(00:51:19):
No, no.

(00:51:22):
It's worked.

(00:51:22):
It's been working for thousands of years to side with patriarchy,

(00:51:28):
to side with the regime that we're currently seeing.

(00:51:33):
It has worked for them.

(00:51:34):
It is survival.

(00:51:36):
They have learned

(00:51:37):
the very bare ability to survive this very violent system.

(00:51:42):
So if you're asking people to leave those spaces,

(00:51:45):
you have to create spaces where they can land,

(00:51:48):
where they can ask questions,

(00:51:50):
where they can be wrong,

(00:51:52):
where we can turn around and say,

(00:51:54):
holy shit,

(00:51:55):
I'm agreeing with Marjorie Taylor Greene,

(00:51:56):
shoot me,

(00:51:57):
but she's right.

(00:51:59):
Right.

(00:52:00):
And giving her giving her her kudos on that.

(00:52:02):
Giving her her giving.

(00:52:03):
Yeah.

(00:52:04):
Give her her flowers.

(00:52:05):
She's right on what she said.

(00:52:06):
Oh, well, she's only right because it's about to be midterms.

(00:52:09):
I don't give a shit why she's right.

(00:52:11):
I don't care what motivated her.

(00:52:13):
Right.

(00:52:14):
How do you make a safe place to keep to move her?

(00:52:17):
Yeah.

(00:52:17):
Let's bring her in.

(00:52:18):
Like, let's say, okay, well, okay, let's go.

(00:52:20):
Let's take that one step further, Marjorie.

(00:52:23):
You notice that.

(00:52:24):
Can you notice something else?

(00:52:26):
Can you see how this works with that?

(00:52:30):
And she may say, uh-huh.

(00:52:31):
She may say no.

(00:52:33):
But that's the grace.

(00:52:35):
Because you were once Marjorie Taylor Greene, too.

(00:52:37):
The birth canal of whiteness is the alt-right.

(00:52:41):
Right?

(00:52:41):
Like, some white people that think that they're leftists are centrists at best.

(00:52:47):
At best.

(00:52:48):
compared to others that have been doing this work generationally at best, right?

(00:52:54):
When I see people like when it was,

(00:52:57):
you know,

(00:52:57):
the Biden versus Trump,

(00:52:58):
I was like,

(00:52:59):
y'all are the same to me.

(00:53:01):
You talking about Biden with 50 years of racist policy.

(00:53:05):
Trump is an idiot.

(00:53:07):
You know what I'm saying?

(00:53:08):
We can't quantify harm.

(00:53:10):
You can't quantify racism.

(00:53:12):
You can't quantify antisemitism.

(00:53:15):
You just simply have to say it shouldn't exist.

(00:53:17):
And what are we going to do to dismantle it?

(00:53:19):
And that's going to take a lot of grace.

(00:53:21):
That's going to take a lot of humility.

(00:53:23):
That's going to take a lot of work generationally.

(00:53:26):
And you have to make space for people to be wrong.

(00:53:30):
You have to allow them in.

(00:53:31):
And you have to say, everyone is worthy, right?

(00:53:37):
Every person is worthy of that.

(00:53:39):
No, not every person is deserving.

(00:53:41):
I will land it right here.

(00:53:44):
Worth is inherent.

(00:53:45):
We are all born worthy of being free from oppression.

(00:53:49):
Not everybody is deserving of being in the spaces that you are curating, right?

(00:53:56):
You have to, like where I said, you know,

(00:53:59):
If you aggrieve me, which will happen because we're human, right?

(00:54:03):
But if I bring it to you and you're not willing to do the repair work,

(00:54:06):
you don't deserve my presence.

(00:54:09):
It's that simple.

(00:54:10):
You do not deserve access to me because you're harmful to me,

(00:54:14):
not because you're less than me,

(00:54:15):
not because you're unworthy,

(00:54:17):
not because I think you trash,

(00:54:19):
but you're not willing to do the repair work with me.

(00:54:22):
So therefore you do not deserve access to me.

(00:54:25):
That has to be earned.

(00:54:26):
You're worth it.

(00:54:28):
But you don't you haven't done the work to have access.

(00:54:32):
So that is how I would say,

(00:54:33):
you know,

(00:54:33):
use your discernment when you're offering grace to people is,

(00:54:37):
you know,

(00:54:37):
anticipate that you're going to be harmed in this work.

(00:54:40):
If you are doing this work of any type of anti-racism,

(00:54:44):
pro-humanity,

(00:54:45):
anti-oppression,

(00:54:46):
if you're doing this work with your husbands,

(00:54:47):
with your friends,

(00:54:48):
anticipate being harmed.

(00:54:50):
because these systems have been going for thousands of years.

(00:54:53):
So anticipate that,

(00:54:54):
but offer the grace,

(00:54:56):
and the grace says,

(00:54:57):
do this restoration and repair work with me.

(00:55:00):
If they are not willing to do it, cut them off.

(00:55:03):
They are harmful to you,

(00:55:04):
and they have no desire to actually be in true community with you,

(00:55:09):
and they will just continue to do harm to you.

(00:55:12):
You could leave an access point, but that's about it.

(00:55:16):
I think that's amazing advice.

(00:55:17):
I love that.

(00:55:18):
And I love encouraging us all to reflect on our own wrongness,

(00:55:22):
the times that we have been wrong,

(00:55:24):
the ways that we have evolved,

(00:55:26):
because it's so easy for us to judge other people.

(00:55:29):
And it's often very difficult for us to judge ourselves.

(00:55:34):
Yes, very much so.

(00:55:37):
There's a whole...

(00:55:39):
whole idea, a whole psychological pedagogy in regards to how we perceive ourselves.

(00:55:46):
I would love to pretend I have always been this person, this evolved, this calm, this woke.

(00:55:54):
And that's just not true.

(00:55:56):
And to negate that truth is to deny my own humanity and to deny my growth.

(00:56:02):
A lot of you guys have done some heavy hitting movements.

(00:56:07):
and really evolve to this space and to pretend that you've always been there really

(00:56:13):
cuts you off from your own self and really just doesn't even allow your humanity in

(00:56:19):
that.

(00:56:19):
I love sharing those stories.

(00:56:22):
I love being aware of how wrong I was in the past because it reminds me of how

(00:56:26):
human I am and how evolutionary I am and how much we can grow when we are so

(00:56:33):
willing to show up as our true selves.

(00:56:36):
That's beautiful and perfect.

(00:56:38):
And I just, I love you as always.

(00:56:41):
I'm so glad that I got to have you on again.

(00:56:43):
Thank you for coming.

(00:56:45):
And we'll be back next week with our next episode.

(00:56:49):
So thank you for listening.