(00:00:00):
My husband expected me to have a hot meal for him every day when he got home from

(00:00:04):
work and wanted to return to an immaculate house.

(00:00:08):
The provider deserves to eat, he would always tell me.

(00:00:11):
What this worthless sack of flesh never considered is that I too was the provider

(00:00:16):
because I too had a good job.

(00:00:18):
Then we had kids and he wanted me to be a stay-at-home mother.

(00:00:22):
Sir, you cannot afford that.

(00:00:24):
So I asked him if he'd be funding my retirement,

(00:00:26):
splitting his earnings with me and ensuring I had access to independent resources.

(00:00:31):
I did the math and the money I was asking for was about 2% of the actual market

(00:00:36):
value of the labor he'd be getting in return.

(00:00:39):
This man called me a gold digger.

(00:00:42):
So I'm still working and he's still thumping his chest about being a provider,

(00:00:46):
all while doing fuck all at home and generally making life more miserable for all

(00:00:49):
of us.

(00:00:51):
Sometimes I channel the uppity negress when he starts talking about being a

(00:00:54):
traditional man,

(00:00:56):
because that's when I tell him,

(00:00:57):
fine,

(00:00:58):
be a traditional man and go die in a war already.

(00:01:06):
He has been a labor digger since day one, and I am so glad I now have the language to name it.

(00:01:12):
Hi,

(00:01:13):
I'm Zahn Valines,

(00:01:15):
and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast,

(00:01:17):
and that was an amazing story.

(00:01:20):
Before we get started,

(00:01:21):
just a reminder that you can support this podcast by heart reacting on Substack or

(00:01:25):
leaving a positive review.

(00:01:27):
Social media,

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sharing and commenting make a huge difference,

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So if you want this podcast to grow and continue, please continue engaging.

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Sign up at zon.substack.com.

(00:01:52):
Today,

(00:01:53):
we are talking about labor diggers,

(00:01:55):
and that wonderful voice you heard laughing is the legendary Kiki Bryant,

(00:02:00):
known on social media as the uppity negress.

(00:02:04):
Hi, Kiki.

(00:02:05):
hi i'm so happy to be here i'm so happy to have you here but i'm gonna read your

(00:02:11):
very brief bio and then we'll get started um kiki bryant known online as the uppity

(00:02:17):
negress is a mother writer and sociopolitical critic located in chicago illinois

(00:02:22):
and i just do have to add this it's not always true but it often is that the most

(00:02:28):
impressive people often have the shortest bios

(00:02:31):
because they see the work as much bigger than themselves and their own work speaks for itself.

(00:02:36):
That's definitely the case with Kiki.

(00:02:38):
It's such an incredible and astute writer and critic and thinker and just brain on stilts.

(00:02:46):
And she's just amazing.

(00:02:47):
And she's published books on decentering whiteness,

(00:02:49):
decentering men and setting boundaries,

(00:02:52):
all of which I will link to in the show notes.

(00:02:54):
She also has a sub stack.

(00:02:56):
She's all over social media.

(00:02:58):
And

(00:02:58):
Her social media page is just this great combination of like dopamine bursts and

(00:03:04):
education and meaningful activism.

(00:03:07):
So if you're not already following her, you are definitely missing out.

(00:03:11):
So we'll get started.

(00:03:13):
Kiki, I just love you and your work so much.

(00:03:16):
The way I found you was that a few years ago,

(00:03:19):
I made a post about kind of the topic we're talking about,

(00:03:22):
the irony of men calling women gold diggers when they were the ones treating their

(00:03:26):
partners as appliances.

(00:03:28):
And immediately,

(00:03:30):
I had five people who told me about you and your concept of labor diggers and

(00:03:35):
tagged you.

(00:03:36):
So I'm like, who is this person?

(00:03:38):
I have to go stalk her.

(00:03:40):
And then I was just immediately sold.

(00:03:44):
You know,

(00:03:44):
you were in the middle of some social media argument with somebody or other,

(00:03:48):
and I had no idea what was going on,

(00:03:50):
but I was immediately invested.

(00:03:51):
And I was just like, this woman is hilarious and just like so brilliant.

(00:03:59):
So tell me how you got started.

(00:04:02):
Like, who are you?

(00:04:03):
How did you get to be this way?

(00:04:05):
Yeah, so the short answer to that question is complex childhood trauma.

(00:04:14):
The long answer to that question is just, you know, a lot of life experience.

(00:04:19):
Grown up in Chicago, my mother, she was an addict.

(00:04:22):
And so I've kind of been hyper independent my whole life.

(00:04:26):
I married early and,

(00:04:29):
you know,

(00:04:30):
just kind of I won the lottery in a lot of ways is that I was given a jack of all

(00:04:36):
trades kind of litany of talents and just autistic pattern recognition.

(00:04:44):
And the combination of all of those things is why I am the way that I am.

(00:04:53):
What was the question again?

(00:04:54):
Can you repeat that?

(00:04:56):
Well,

(00:04:56):
like,

(00:04:57):
I guess,

(00:04:58):
you know,

(00:04:59):
I guess my question is how this like all started for you with being this like

(00:05:08):
astute critic of all of the things that so many of us see.

(00:05:13):
But,

(00:05:13):
you know,

(00:05:14):
the thing that I see when I read your work,

(00:05:17):
and I think the thing that makes a lot of us feel so connected to you,

(00:05:21):
is that it feels like you look at things and you just kind of immediately know what

(00:05:26):
they actually are.

(00:05:28):
And that's really a rare talent.

(00:05:30):
Yeah.

(00:05:31):
So I would say that the, so my social presence grew from my actual personal page.

(00:05:40):
And so on my personal page,

(00:05:41):
as you know,

(00:05:42):
current events were happening,

(00:05:44):
I would just kind of give my take on things.

(00:05:46):
And then back in the olden days, you know, your Facebook profile wasn't always kind of public.

(00:05:52):
And so when they made the ability to have your profile be public or your post be

(00:05:57):
public,

(00:05:58):
more people like,

(00:05:59):
hey,

(00:05:59):
can you make this public?

(00:06:00):
I want to share it.

(00:06:01):
Like, I think it's incredibly, you know, valuable or interesting or profound or whatever.

(00:06:08):
And over time,

(00:06:09):
you know,

(00:06:09):
me just being a mother,

(00:06:10):
first and foremost,

(00:06:11):
it felt kind of weird to have posts with my children alongside,

(00:06:16):
you know,

(00:06:17):
all of the very kind of controversial,

(00:06:20):
sometimes sociopolitical commentary and the types of traffic it would bring to my

(00:06:25):
page.

(00:06:26):
And so someone told me in 2017, so almost a decade ago, which...

(00:06:33):
um it's forever in internet years someone's like you need to make your own page

(00:06:38):
like a separate page like a business page and put all of these ideas there and I

(00:06:42):
was and they also told me to start a podcast so I'm like you know what maybe I'll

(00:06:46):
try that and so my partner at the time and I started a podcast and my page um is

(00:06:51):
still the page from that podcast and so over time we stopped doing the podcast just

(00:06:56):
because editing audio makes me want to shoot myself in the head

(00:06:59):
Um,

(00:07:00):
but just the,

(00:07:02):
the main thing is that community was being built around my post,

(00:07:06):
my ideas,

(00:07:07):
my engagement.

(00:07:08):
Um, and I've just kind of kept that going.

(00:07:10):
And,

(00:07:10):
you know,

(00:07:10):
ironically,

(00:07:11):
um,

(00:07:12):
when I first started kind of posting on my personal page,

(00:07:16):
my ex-husband was very,

(00:07:18):
very,

(00:07:18):
very unsupportive of that.

(00:07:21):
He was very unsupportive and there's a direct quote of him.

(00:07:24):
He told me

(00:07:25):
that I post too much Black stuff,

(00:07:29):
too much Black stuff,

(00:07:31):
and that I needed to just focus on being a wife and a mom,

(00:07:34):
because at the time I was a stay-at-home mom.

(00:07:38):
And so it was just kind of my outlet for all the things going on in my inner world

(00:07:42):
while I stayed home with my baby.

(00:07:46):
Um,

(00:07:46):
and immediately I was like,

(00:07:48):
no,

(00:07:48):
like this makes me happy for whatever reason,

(00:07:50):
you know,

(00:07:51):
and it makes other people happy.

(00:07:52):
So why would I stop it?

(00:07:54):
Um, and you know, 10 years later ish, here we are.

(00:07:57):
I really felt like that might end within 10 years later.

(00:08:04):
He's dead because I murdered him.

(00:08:07):
He is not dead, but is he doing as well as I am?

(00:08:11):
No, that's fair.

(00:08:15):
OK,

(00:08:16):
so I want to before we get into labor diggers,

(00:08:19):
I have a question because I know that you you lost your Facebook page.

(00:08:23):
And I actually think that's an important thing to talk about,

(00:08:27):
because I think that's something that everybody who is like a writer or a creator

(00:08:32):
on Facebook knows about as a phenomenon.

(00:08:35):
But I think people kind of like in the general public who are perhaps less invested

(00:08:40):
in these things don't know about this.

(00:08:42):
And it's a really important speech and justice issue.

(00:08:45):
So can you talk about what happened?

(00:08:47):
I can talk about this for days on.

(00:08:51):
So lesser known fact about me.

(00:08:55):
is that I actually used to have my own social media platform and my platform was

(00:08:59):
called The Cookout.

(00:09:01):
And the reason that I started The Cookout is because just by nature of me being

(00:09:05):
black and woman and queer and all of the other progressive things and having

(00:09:10):
progressive ideas,

(00:09:11):
rather,

(00:09:12):
Facebook would shadow ban me like crazy.

(00:09:16):
Like there are times where my reach on a post would be one.

(00:09:21):
And I, you know, pattern recognition, just kind of put out a survey at one point.

(00:09:28):
And I was just like, hey, who is Facebook banning?

(00:09:31):
Why?

(00:09:32):
What types of things are they banning for?

(00:09:33):
Because I do have training as a user experience designer.

(00:09:37):
And it turns out if you are black and woman and queer,

(00:09:40):
you will get banned almost twice as much as somebody who is a white man.

(00:09:45):
And it goes up, like the more intersections you have, the more likely you are to be banned.

(00:09:51):
That was kind of what the takeaway was from that survey.

(00:09:55):
And right before the election in 2024, Facebook completely disappeared.

(00:10:04):
I deleted my old page and it broke my heart because, you know, I'm a writer.

(00:10:10):
And so that was eight years of just writing that I had put out into the world and

(00:10:16):
that people had loved and connected with.

(00:10:19):
And I'm not the only one.

(00:10:20):
They did it to a bunch of us.

(00:10:22):
And so I had to restart my page from scratch.

(00:10:25):
Now,

(00:10:26):
in retrospect,

(00:10:27):
I will say that them doing that was good for,

(00:10:32):
you know,

(00:10:32):
kind of the business of my writing because it made me hyper aware of the fact that

(00:10:37):
if I'm too reliant on a singular platform and that platform takes away for me,

(00:10:43):
then,

(00:10:43):
you know,

(00:10:45):
That loss is there.

(00:10:47):
And so that's what kind of pushed me to go on to Substack,

(00:10:49):
to get my writing on my website,

(00:10:51):
to make sure that I have a presence on more than one main platform.

(00:10:56):
And so,

(00:10:56):
you know,

(00:10:57):
in between threads and Facebook and Substack and my own website,

(00:11:03):
you know,

(00:11:03):
it just taught me to diversify myself and to just not be so reliant on a singular

(00:11:08):
platform.

(00:11:09):
But it is sucky because all things considered,

(00:11:13):
the only people keeping Facebook alive,

(00:11:16):
I feel,

(00:11:17):
are creators like you and I.

(00:11:19):
And then,

(00:11:19):
like...

(00:11:22):
The other side of that is like your 68 year old grandma who's sharing AI

(00:11:26):
conservative means,

(00:11:27):
which nobody likes those anyway.

(00:11:30):
And then, you know, like content creators who are completely apolitical.

(00:11:35):
And it's interesting to me that out of all of those,

(00:11:40):
creators like us are the ones that are the most silenced because AI slop,

(00:11:46):
nonsense,

(00:11:46):
conservative bullshit is,

(00:11:48):
Gets to go as far as it wants to with no consequence.

(00:11:52):
But there is a point in time on Facebook where you could not type the word men

(00:11:57):
without getting a ban.

(00:11:59):
Yeah, it's just so wild.

(00:12:02):
So there's this concept.

(00:12:04):
So my husband is a civil rights lawyer.

(00:12:06):
And so he does, well, now he does police shootings, but he used to do a lot of speech cases.

(00:12:12):
And there's this concept of like the traditional public square.

(00:12:18):
And that there are certain locations that have always been sites for speech and

(00:12:22):
that like the standard for limiting speech in those places,

(00:12:25):
it should be higher because those are sites of important speech.

(00:12:30):
And,

(00:12:30):
you know,

(00:12:31):
obviously that should exist,

(00:12:33):
but the world is evolving and it's now become that social media is a site for

(00:12:38):
important speech.

(00:12:40):
And there are no protections.

(00:12:42):
They can literally silence you and not just silence you,

(00:12:45):
but take away everything you have previously said.

(00:12:48):
It's so scary.

(00:12:49):
It's incredibly scary.

(00:12:52):
And that's the thing that makes me the saddest.

(00:12:55):
So I'm just coming up on a year of having to have like restarted my page from

(00:13:00):
Facebook,

(00:13:01):
deleting it.

(00:13:02):
And so I'm getting memories again.

(00:13:04):
And I kind of had some awareness of like how important it is to be able to kind of

(00:13:10):
call back to things you've written before or observed before.

(00:13:14):
And so much of my writing now is literally me just looking at old ideas of mine and

(00:13:20):
saying,

(00:13:21):
like,

(00:13:21):
with new eyes,

(00:13:22):
with new experience,

(00:13:23):
with new connections that I've made in my brain,

(00:13:26):
what does that look like now?

(00:13:28):
And the ability to do that is so powerful.

(00:13:32):
And I would say like that is the number one thing that has contributed to my

(00:13:37):
personal growth and you know my growth as a writer is that I'm always willing to

(00:13:41):
look back on something that I used to think or whatever and consider that I might

(00:13:46):
have been wrong or that I might have been young and dumb.

(00:13:49):
And that, you know, what does it look like now?

(00:13:54):
And it's great to be able to do that.

(00:13:57):
And that's the main thing that I feel like I lost when they took away,

(00:14:02):
you know,

(00:14:02):
all of those years of my writings.

(00:14:04):
And that's the thing that makes me really sad because I think there's also

(00:14:08):
something really valuable in the authenticity or in transparency to say like,

(00:14:13):
hey,

(00:14:14):
you see me now and you think that I'm this just like,

(00:14:18):
morally superior person but no it's it was it was a journey to get here too you

(00:14:25):
know and taking away kind of the evidence of that journey is kind of messed up but

(00:14:30):
you know zuckerberg and his reptilian leadership do what they do and we are all

(00:14:36):
just beholden to the whims of the facebook gods yeah you know while you're saying

(00:14:41):
this i'm thinking about we we have this idea that like social media has

(00:14:46):
created this renaissance of speech and in a lot of ways it has but i don't think

(00:14:50):
that there's ever been a time certainly not in recent history when you could not

(00:14:56):
just silence a person but eliminate all of the things they have previously said and

(00:15:02):
that's just like it's a digital equivalent of book burning yeah yeah it really is

(00:15:08):
it's just it's so it's so sad and so upsetting um

(00:15:12):
But let's talk about labor diggers on a happier note.

(00:15:17):
I hear so often from these shit ass, literally, men that they're providers and protectors.

(00:15:25):
All of this mythologization of just having a job as if that's not something people

(00:15:32):
have to have and that women do too.

(00:15:35):
So what is a labor digger?

(00:15:37):
Talk to me.

(00:15:38):
Explain this to people who have not heard this term.

(00:15:40):
Yeah,

(00:15:41):
so labor digger is a term that I coined and not only coined but operationalized

(00:15:48):
where it describes a certain kind of dynamic that is primarily within the context

(00:15:54):
of heterosexual relationships where

(00:16:00):
The man has the job that he has.

(00:16:04):
And the women most likely also has a job.

(00:16:07):
But she is carrying 100% of all the other associated labor with maintaining their lives.

(00:16:15):
And I think that it has a lot to do with the fact that the role of women,

(00:16:19):
especially in the last,

(00:16:20):
you know,

(00:16:20):
60 years,

(00:16:22):
70 years has evolved so much but the role of men has remained largely the same um

(00:16:29):
and so the man is still going to work and then coming home and expecting dinner and

(00:16:34):
you know whiskey by the fireplace um but the woman is no longer just staying home

(00:16:42):
um taking care of the kids and everything and waiting for him to get home to do

(00:16:45):
that she has her own job her own friend she her own life and

(00:16:49):
And so essentially the woman ends up doing a bunch of jobs, whereas the man only has one.

(00:16:57):
And the economic impact of that on married working mothers is incredible.

(00:17:06):
Like that's why,

(00:17:07):
in my opinion,

(00:17:08):
I can't say for certain,

(00:17:11):
but in my opinion,

(00:17:13):
that is exactly why married women over the course of their lifetime are

(00:17:17):
make less than single women because they being the default parent is a big drain on

(00:17:27):
like women's ability to be present in the workplace.

(00:17:30):
And I think that the pandemic did a great job of exposing that where you are both

(00:17:34):
working from home,

(00:17:35):
but every time that the child needs something,

(00:17:38):
it's the woman who has to stop her work to go tend to them.

(00:17:42):
And there was a big rush over the pandemic of women who actually lost their jobs or

(00:17:47):
had to quit their jobs as a result of the dynamic.

(00:17:50):
And it's messed up.

(00:17:52):
And so,

(00:17:53):
you know,

(00:17:54):
me myself having experienced that,

(00:17:57):
I was a stay-at-home mom with my first child for the majority of her early

(00:18:01):
childhood.

(00:18:02):
But when I did start working...

(00:18:04):
I thought that it made sense that then my husband would be kicking in more around the house.

(00:18:12):
And that just didn't happen the way that I thought it would.

(00:18:16):
And it created a bunch of resentment in our relationship and probably was a big

(00:18:22):
factor in our divorce.

(00:18:23):
And I also noticed that me working outside the home did not automatically,

(00:18:28):
for example,

(00:18:30):
change the level of like,

(00:18:32):
who he felt should be making financial decisions, you know?

(00:18:37):
And so it's a big divide,

(00:18:42):
I think,

(00:18:42):
that a lot of women are dealing with and kind of trying to figure out because,

(00:18:47):
again,

(00:18:48):
the role of women has changed so much in recent history,

(00:18:53):
but the role of man hasn't.

(00:18:55):
And a lot of men don't want to evolve.

(00:18:58):
And so where does that leave the state of cis-heterosexual marriage?

(00:19:03):
It doesn't leave it in a very good place.

(00:19:06):
It doesn't.

(00:19:07):
That's why marriage rates are so low and divorce rates are so high because there's

(00:19:14):
a period of time where like maybe we were evolving more to like have more of our

(00:19:19):
own money but like maybe divorce was

(00:19:21):
more frowned upon or you know maybe women couldn't have their own bank account and

(00:19:26):
so they kind of had to stick around a little bit longer but now that we can have

(00:19:29):
our own money our own assets our own whatever it's like really what am i here for

(00:19:35):
and you know the studies also show that single mothers do less work around the

(00:19:42):
house they make more money than married mothers and so you know

(00:19:48):
It seems like the married singled mothers are worse off overall in terms of

(00:19:53):
lifetime happiness,

(00:19:54):
earning potential than the married singled mothers.

(00:19:58):
I'm sorry, than the regular single mothers.

(00:20:01):
Yeah.

(00:20:02):
I mean, you're, you're absolutely right.

(00:20:03):
I,

(00:20:04):
I mean,

(00:20:04):
I certainly see this in the women that I work with where they get divorced and

(00:20:09):
suddenly they have less work and they just can't believe it.

(00:20:12):
And it really, it, it,

(00:20:14):
It makes clear that this is not the small trivial issue that folks want to make it out to be.

(00:20:20):
And,

(00:20:21):
you know,

(00:20:21):
I mean,

(00:20:21):
you've seen them and you've written about them,

(00:20:24):
all these think pieces that.

(00:20:26):
you know, talk about this as if it's funny, as if it's a small thing, as if it's not critical.

(00:20:31):
And I've experienced that as well,

(00:20:33):
where after divorcing,

(00:20:37):
like just being amazed at how much less I had to do because I had removed my

(00:20:44):
biggest responsibility from the household.

(00:20:48):
And, you know, taking care of babies, kids is simple.

(00:20:53):
And,

(00:20:53):
you know,

(00:20:54):
the struggles with single motherhood aren't necessarily because of a lack of a man

(00:20:59):
in the home.

(00:21:00):
It's really mostly economic.

(00:21:03):
But if you're a single mother and you make enough to support your lifestyle and

(00:21:08):
your children,

(00:21:08):
of course,

(00:21:09):
a second income would be great.

(00:21:10):
But it's like, what is the trade-off?

(00:21:13):
What is your personal breaking point that makes it worthwhile?

(00:21:17):
For me, it's not really worthwhile at all.

(00:21:19):
Yeah.

(00:21:20):
I will just be honest with you.

(00:21:21):
I've chosen at this point to live my life kind of intentionally solo polyamorous.

(00:21:27):
I don't really desire to ever get married again or to cohabitate with a romantic

(00:21:32):
partner if the romantic partner is a cis man.

(00:21:35):
And that is an intentional decision that I've made for my life.

(00:21:39):
And I'm happy.

(00:21:41):
I am.

(00:21:42):
I'm very happy.

(00:21:44):
I have my own house.

(00:21:46):
I never have to feel like I'm cleaning up after an adult.

(00:21:50):
I only date other adults with their own homes who, you know, take care of it.

(00:21:55):
And that's what works for me.

(00:21:58):
And it's just good to be at a point in history where I could do that and I can make

(00:22:03):
those decisions and not really have to worry about,

(00:22:06):
you know,

(00:22:07):
what anybody has to say or not being really financially dependent.

(00:22:13):
on a man in a way that like our four mothers had to be.

(00:22:16):
Yeah, absolutely.

(00:22:18):
Well,

(00:22:18):
and you,

(00:22:19):
you say I'm happy almost like I can hear the delight in your voice,

(00:22:24):
but there's also like a little bit of surprise and it's,

(00:22:28):
It's not surprising.

(00:22:29):
And I think that it would be so good if we could shift our conversation toward,

(00:22:34):
and I think you've helped with this,

(00:22:37):
with the concept of labor diggers,

(00:22:38):
toward what is the cost of having a man in your home?

(00:22:41):
Because it's kind of like the best case scenario is he's extracting a bunch of labor.

(00:22:46):
And the worst case scenario is like almost unfathomable.

(00:22:51):
It's like a limitless amount of abuse, right?

(00:22:54):
Yeah.

(00:22:55):
So I'll, I'll, I'll push back.

(00:22:57):
I think that there are men who make, you know, partnering with them worthwhile.

(00:23:03):
I also think that those mans are exceedingly rare.

(00:23:07):
Yeah.

(00:23:08):
I mean, that's, that's true.

(00:23:09):
I mean,

(00:23:09):
I'm,

(00:23:10):
I'm in an equitable feminist marriage with like,

(00:23:13):
you know,

(00:23:13):
my husband brings immense value to the home that is like not a paycheck.

(00:23:19):
And I think,

(00:23:21):
I think in some ways that has,

(00:23:23):
has made me more critical of heterosexual marriage because it's like,

(00:23:28):
Oh,

(00:23:28):
like they can do this and they can also do this and like still be happy.

(00:23:32):
And they're not doing it because they don't want to.

(00:23:35):
Yeah.

(00:23:38):
It's, it's, it's sucky.

(00:23:40):
Um,

(00:23:42):
So I think you hit the nail on the head a few comments ago when you talked about

(00:23:46):
how men don't want to evolve.

(00:23:49):
And like that's it.

(00:23:50):
But what I see is this kind of like mass gaslighting of like,

(00:23:55):
well,

(00:23:55):
you need to communicate better and you need to present things to him in the right

(00:23:58):
way.

(00:23:58):
Make a list.

(00:23:59):
Make a list.

(00:24:00):
Have you tried trying?

(00:24:02):
Yeah.

(00:24:03):
And I think that that is such bullshit.

(00:24:08):
And of course,

(00:24:08):
we all know that it's bullshit because you know that the dishes need to be washed.

(00:24:14):
You know, if you don't know how to wash dishes by now, it's not hard to figure out.

(00:24:18):
You know,

(00:24:18):
there are so many things that your father did not teach you to do or your mother

(00:24:22):
didn't teach you to do,

(00:24:22):
but you figure it out anyway because you want to.

(00:24:25):
They don't want to.

(00:24:26):
No little girl grows up like, oh my God, I cannot wait to...

(00:24:31):
wash four people's worth of dishes every day until I die like but girls are kind of

(00:24:37):
conditioned to do that um we don't condition boys to do that and even though I

(00:24:42):
raise my children with you know genderless expectations um a lot of people do and

(00:24:50):
um

(00:24:51):
I think that that's also part of the problem is that a lot of people,

(00:24:56):
unfortunately,

(00:24:57):
are raising their sons to believe that this is normal,

(00:25:00):
okay behavior.

(00:25:02):
And that certain domestic labor is for girls.

(00:25:07):
I was certainly raised that way.

(00:25:09):
In my house,

(00:25:09):
the girls were expected to do certain kinds of labor and the boys were expected to

(00:25:13):
do other kinds of labor.

(00:25:15):
And that was just the expectation.

(00:25:18):
And,

(00:25:18):
you know,

(00:25:18):
going back to something you said earlier about kind of the cost of having a man at

(00:25:25):
home,

(00:25:26):
I kind of come at that from a different perspective.

(00:25:29):
perspective being a black woman and being a black woman who was born kind of in the

(00:25:34):
age of the crack academic epidemic where a lot of men specifically were removed

(00:25:39):
from the home for you know selling drugs and you know mass incarceration so I grew

(00:25:45):
up feeling like you know a husband was going to be the answer to all of life's

(00:25:51):
problems

(00:25:53):
And that we were going to walk off into the sunset with our happy family and

(00:25:56):
everything was going to be great.

(00:25:58):
And I actually struggled for a long time with the concept of divorcing just because

(00:26:03):
that is not an uncommon thing to think in the Black community.

(00:26:07):
And sometimes if you look at Black social commentary now,

(00:26:11):
there's this big focus on you need to be married,

(00:26:14):
you need to be married,

(00:26:15):
you need to be married because of that trauma that happened to our entire

(00:26:19):
community.

(00:26:21):
And there's a direct kind of I don't know if it's a correlation or a causation,

(00:26:26):
but if you look at mass incarceration goes up,

(00:26:29):
there's a direct connection with that and black marriage rates going down because,

(00:26:34):
you know,

(00:26:34):
a man who is not physically out cannot be really family focused.

(00:26:39):
And, you know, that's that's part of the problem.

(00:26:43):
But.

(00:26:45):
as with a lot of traumas that have been afflicted on kind of the black community at

(00:26:50):
large,

(00:26:51):
if you're able to kind of look outside of the machinations of just race,

(00:26:58):
um,

(00:26:59):
and,

(00:26:59):
and look at kind of the,

(00:27:01):
the larger picture,

(00:27:02):
um,

(00:27:04):
the unique way that black manhood interacts with patriarchy is,

(00:27:10):
is,

(00:27:10):
is definitely distinct from obviously white manhood,

(00:27:14):
but there are a lot of commonalities,

(00:27:16):
unfortunately.

(00:27:17):
And honestly,

(00:27:17):
I think that there's a lot of commonalities with black manhood and white woman,

(00:27:22):
white womanhood.

(00:27:24):
And I I've written about that before,

(00:27:26):
and I might,

(00:27:27):
I might need to port that over to my sub stack.

(00:27:30):
But yeah,

(00:27:32):
In all of these things, women are usually below men and that is not

(00:27:41):
untrue for the black community there's a writer that I enjoy on Facebook her name

(00:27:47):
is Kathy Henry she has a quote that she posts every now and again she goes in the

(00:27:52):
black community dick is God and she's not wrong about that you know and I often say

(00:28:00):
that I feel like black men have been held accountable for things that they didn't

(00:28:04):
do so long that we have forgotten how to hold them accountable for things that they

(00:28:09):
have

(00:28:10):
And that's part of the problem, too.

(00:28:13):
And so with Black gender relations,

(00:28:16):
it is a very fine line between figuring out what is trauma and how you navigate

(00:28:24):
that and then figuring out what is actually just plain patriarchal bullshit.

(00:28:30):
um and a lot of people a lot of people in the black community struggle with that

(00:28:36):
and even sometimes if you're looking at my comments and you see me talking about

(00:28:40):
you know a women's right issue um sometimes people will come up and and kind of

(00:28:46):
parrot something that that spawns from that ideology of like well

(00:28:51):
Black men don't really get to be men in the same way white men do.

(00:28:55):
But like, why are we fighting for that to be the standard?

(00:29:01):
And you see that a lot with especially conversations on rape culture where it's

(00:29:07):
like,

(00:29:07):
well,

(00:29:07):
Epstein gets to that.

(00:29:09):
So why can't Diddy?

(00:29:10):
Why do we want Diddy to do that?

(00:29:14):
And I feel like I just went on a very long tangent of connecting a lot of ideas

(00:29:20):
that seem separate.

(00:29:24):
Well, you did, but I appreciate you doing this.

(00:29:26):
So,

(00:29:26):
like,

(00:29:26):
you know,

(00:29:27):
while you're talking,

(00:29:28):
I'm always thinking about,

(00:29:29):
like,

(00:29:29):
okay,

(00:29:30):
what can I follow up on?

(00:29:31):
But there's, like, so many threads in that to pull on.

(00:29:34):
I feel like each of them is a podcast.

(00:29:38):
So I'm just going to follow up on a few things, and you can go in whatever direction you want.

(00:29:42):
Yeah, for sure.

(00:29:44):
And if we need a part two, that's fine, too.

(00:29:46):
Oh,

(00:29:47):
I think,

(00:29:47):
I mean,

(00:29:48):
if you're committing to a part two right now,

(00:29:50):
like,

(00:29:50):
I'm going to put you on my calendar.

(00:29:51):
Yeah.

(00:29:54):
So,

(00:29:54):
yeah,

(00:29:56):
the bit about black men being taken from their families,

(00:29:59):
I want to focus on that a little bit because something that I see so much,

(00:30:06):
particularly in white feminism,

(00:30:09):
which has become kind of the dominant feminist narrative,

(00:30:12):
is this emphasis on carceral solutions to acts of violence against women.

(00:30:19):
And, you know, most people are never prosecuted, but those who are eventually get out.

(00:30:26):
And I think most people do not understand how profoundly abusive our prison system

(00:30:34):
is in the United States.

(00:30:35):
The amount of abuse people sustain in this system is abuse no one should ever

(00:30:40):
experience,

(00:30:41):
like ever,

(00:30:42):
no matter what they have done.

(00:30:43):
Um,

(00:30:44):
You know,

(00:30:44):
my biggest fear having familiarity with the prison system is going to prison

(00:30:48):
because it's horrific.

(00:30:49):
And we send people in and we just break them and then expect them to come out okay.

(00:30:56):
And it's not a coincidence that we've been.

(00:31:00):
taking black men from their families and then saying,

(00:31:04):
well,

(00:31:04):
look at how absent black men are when we've literally locked them in cages.

(00:31:09):
And then when we release them, they're just completely traumatized.

(00:31:12):
So of course they can't do it.

(00:31:15):
Yeah, absolutely.

(00:31:16):
That's, you know, something that I,

(00:31:21):
I feel like black women think about a lot because unfortunately the stats show

(00:31:26):
black women are the most likely to be victimized by a partner or,

(00:31:30):
you know,

(00:31:31):
a close acquaintance.

(00:31:33):
Most of the world is very segregated.

(00:31:35):
The people in your community most likely look like you.

(00:31:37):
And I, I personally have no have known maybe

(00:31:46):
one person that has ever gone all the way with seeking kind of carceral justice

(00:31:51):
against an abuser but almost every black woman that I know has been abused in some

(00:31:58):
way by a romantic partner and of course black women date out the least and so you

(00:32:04):
can draw your own inferences from there and there is this sort of prevailing

(00:32:09):
narrative of

(00:32:12):
you know, you don't go to the police because then you're putting this person's life in danger.

(00:32:18):
But then what do you do?

(00:32:20):
You know, I will say that I feel like

(00:32:26):
options to leave,

(00:32:30):
you know,

(00:32:30):
and have our own kind of jobs and stuff definitely helps with just the process of

(00:32:36):
getting away.

(00:32:37):
But we also know that the time that an abuser is most dangerous to your life is

(00:32:44):
right after you leave.

(00:32:45):
And so it is a very delicate balance that Black women in particular have to walk.

(00:32:52):
And I do on some levels understand the concept of just fuck it and let the police handle it.

(00:32:57):
But then, you know, there have been Black women that have been murdered for going that route.

(00:33:02):
And so it's kind of a lose-lose situation for Black women, unfortunately.

(00:33:07):
I personally...

(00:33:11):
am willing to shoot anybody who puts their hands on me in that way and um you know

(00:33:18):
because unfortunately when it comes down to it realistically the only people that

(00:33:23):
it seems really protect black women are other black women and that's a a harrowing

(00:33:29):
reality and yeah I don't have a pretty bow to end that one with oh well you don't

(00:33:35):
need to have a pretty bow um but even with the

(00:33:39):
even with the shooting part,

(00:33:41):
I have a,

(00:33:42):
I have a friend right now,

(00:33:43):
a black woman who was in an abusive relationship,

(00:33:47):
you know,

(00:33:47):
going through the exact same things that you're identifying had just left.

(00:33:52):
He was escalating,

(00:33:53):
you know,

(00:33:53):
threatening to harm the family and then tried to harm the family and she shot and

(00:33:59):
killed him in self-defense.

(00:34:01):
And now she's on trial for murder.

(00:34:04):
And I just, I do not believe that

(00:34:09):
You know, well, a blonde white lady like me would be less likely to be tried for murder.

(00:34:15):
But I mean,

(00:34:16):
everyone knows we prosecute women more harshly than men,

(00:34:18):
but we prosecute black women most harshly of all.

(00:34:22):
Most women in jail are there because of an abuser in some way.

(00:34:27):
Yes.

(00:34:28):
In my opinion.

(00:34:28):
Yeah.

(00:34:30):
I'm not sure I'm not sure what the exact stats are.

(00:34:33):
And so I can't say,

(00:34:34):
you know,

(00:34:34):
this percent or,

(00:34:36):
you know,

(00:34:36):
whatever,

(00:34:37):
but that it's my understanding that that's an objective fact that like most women

(00:34:42):
who are have like credible evidence of being abused by people.

(00:34:46):
person that they shot or you know were being coerced into committing a crime by

(00:34:52):
someone who was abusing them and that's a sucky reality yeah as well and so it's

(00:34:59):
really a lose-lose situation it's you're absolutely right i had our last podcast

(00:35:04):
episode was sabia wade who had who worked with the prison birth project or the

(00:35:09):
prison doula project i think is what it's called and um

(00:35:13):
You know,

(00:35:13):
she talked about how even the women who had been prosecuted and convicted of

(00:35:19):
seemingly terrible crimes,

(00:35:21):
they were really just their abusers accomplices.

(00:35:24):
They weren't the actual perpetrators.

(00:35:28):
And, you know, so many are there for survival crimes.

(00:35:31):
It's just awful.

(00:35:33):
And we now have research showing that in states that mandate an abuse or an abuse,

(00:35:39):
an arrest,

(00:35:40):
which is often an abuse in a domestic violence situation,

(00:35:43):
the woman who is the victim is more likely to be arrested than the man.

(00:35:53):
That's really the only response I have to that is just deep sigh.

(00:36:00):
It's so awful.

(00:36:01):
All right.

(00:36:01):
So I want to talk about your books that you've written because you've just been so

(00:36:05):
prolific this last year.

(00:36:07):
So one of the dynamics that I often see with women in my work and that I know that

(00:36:12):
you're seeing because you've written about it is that a man will hurt them.

(00:36:18):
And then they will seek validation from their abuser.

(00:36:21):
They're constantly trying to convince these men to see their labor,

(00:36:24):
to love them,

(00:36:25):
to acknowledge that they have been harmed.

(00:36:28):
And it's like they can't exit the situation until they get that validation that never comes.

(00:36:35):
And it never comes because your abuser and exploiter is never going to be the

(00:36:40):
person to heal you.

(00:36:42):
So this to me illustrates why it's so critical for women to decenter men,

(00:36:49):
whether or not they choose to have romantic relationships with them.

(00:36:53):
So can you talk to me about this concept and talk to me about your book on decentering men?

(00:36:58):
Yeah,

(00:36:59):
so literally all of my journals came about because of me just looking at this

(00:37:05):
course in my comments.

(00:37:07):
And a lot of people trauma dump in my comments because it feels like a safe space.

(00:37:12):
And that's a double-edged sword too.

(00:37:15):
And I've read so many comments where I'm like,

(00:37:18):
This is a journal thought.

(00:37:22):
Bring back journals.

(00:37:23):
And so I was like, okay, people think that I'm a safe space.

(00:37:27):
They like the way that I phrase things makes them think about stuff or feel safe to

(00:37:32):
express things that they don't feel safe to do.

(00:37:35):
anywhere else, what can I do with that?

(00:37:38):
And so that's where kind of my series of books came from.

(00:37:43):
And they are all reflection journals, although I am working on some novels.

(00:37:49):
The first one that I came out with was Boundaries,

(00:37:52):
because every time I'm talking about how I date or how I approach relationships,

(00:37:58):
even whether familial,

(00:37:59):
platonic,

(00:38:00):
whatever,

(00:38:00):
people are like,

(00:38:01):
you have such great boundaries.

(00:38:03):
I wish I could do that.

(00:38:05):
And I'm like, but you can.

(00:38:06):
And so, you know, this is the uppity-negris brand of boundaries.

(00:38:12):
And this is how you apply them.

(00:38:14):
And the response to that was just amazing.

(00:38:16):
Everybody's like, wow.

(00:38:17):
Like, I wish I read this years ago.

(00:38:19):
And I...

(00:38:23):
Anybody who's ever been a part of my online community knows that I'm a big believer

(00:38:28):
in people doing their own work and doing their own research.

(00:38:32):
And so instead of me just kind of publishing a book where I'm just kind of talking

(00:38:38):
at a person is what it feels like.

(00:38:40):
I was like,

(00:38:41):
no,

(00:38:42):
a journal feels more right for this because I want you to figure out how to do your

(00:38:46):
work in your own way.

(00:38:49):
And so after the first boundaries journal was a big hit and people were like, I love it.

(00:38:56):
The next was...

(00:38:58):
That was a stretching baby.

(00:39:01):
The next was Decentering Men.

(00:39:03):
And that I feel of all of the titles on my site,

(00:39:09):
that's the one that I feel is the most important one to women for reasons that you

(00:39:13):
just named.

(00:39:16):
Because so much of women's lives right now revolves around a man in some way.

(00:39:22):
And obviously,

(00:39:23):
I've arrived at a place where I feel like men are almost entirely decentered in my

(00:39:29):
life because,

(00:39:29):
you know,

(00:39:29):
the work never stops.

(00:39:31):
But so many women, like their whole life in some way revolves around men.

(00:39:37):
You know, you have the pick me girls, the not like other girls.

(00:39:43):
And I know that back when I thought that way, it didn't make me happy.

(00:39:50):
You know,

(00:39:50):
and it didn't lead me to the promise of the outcome that they say you're supposed

(00:39:55):
to get when you're that woman.

(00:39:57):
You know,

(00:39:57):
when you're the pick me girl,

(00:39:59):
you're supposed to get the fairytale wedding with the man who loves and is going to

(00:40:03):
take care of you.

(00:40:04):
But I also have the series.

(00:40:06):
These can't be the husbands you swear I want because so many of these husbands are not that man.

(00:40:12):
But those women are still with those husbands because they feel like they have to be.

(00:40:18):
And and that's sad, too.

(00:40:21):
Like and so decentering men.

(00:40:23):
To me, it's just about.

(00:40:28):
Living your life for you,

(00:40:30):
like what what do you actually want when you take away all of the outside noise of

(00:40:35):
the patriarchy?

(00:40:37):
Right.

(00:40:37):
Like I knew I've always wanted more children.

(00:40:41):
Right.

(00:40:42):
And the world that we operate in says you should only have children if you're married.

(00:40:48):
And, you know, like I said, I don't have any desire to get married.

(00:40:52):
I don't have any desire to cohabitate with a man.

(00:40:55):
I have a newborn, you know?

(00:40:59):
And so I decided kind of with open eyes to have my baby anyway and not care about

(00:41:05):
anything about that because I know that having children has always made me happier

(00:41:11):
than any man ever has,

(00:41:14):
than any cohabitation situation ever has,

(00:41:17):
than any you know marriage ever has and so one of the pages in my decentry men

(00:41:24):
journal it asks the user what are you not allowing yourself to have that you want

(00:41:30):
because you feel like you need a man to do it that thing for me was having more

(00:41:34):
children and obviously you kind of need a cis a cis man or you know a person who

(00:41:39):
produces sperm to to to physically have a baby but

(00:41:46):
I didn't feel like I needed to find the perfect man to have my baby.

(00:41:51):
And so,

(00:41:52):
you know,

(00:41:52):
my situation is non-traditional and I'm not going to really go into details on,

(00:41:57):
you know,

(00:41:58):
my relationship with my child's father,

(00:42:00):
but it works for us.

(00:42:04):
And I have what I wanted, which is my baby.

(00:42:07):
And I,

(00:42:09):
on social media,

(00:42:09):
when I'm talking about my family,

(00:42:11):
I refer to him as a jar opener because he,

(00:42:14):
in the grand scheme of this situation going on,

(00:42:17):
he's kind of a non-player character.

(00:42:21):
I'm the main character.

(00:42:22):
I'm the protagonist.

(00:42:23):
You know, you play the video game as me and he's just off over there somewhere.

(00:42:28):
And that's, I mean, I don't really think it could get more de-centered for men than that.

(00:42:35):
Yeah.

(00:42:38):
It's like funny that you say that because I think that's the reality of most women

(00:42:44):
who are with cis men is that he's like a non-player character.

(00:42:47):
He's just occasionally around, often making things worse.

(00:42:52):
Now I did choose one that makes it better.

(00:42:55):
Yeah.

(00:42:57):
But like just not really there that much.

(00:43:00):
And like, but women feel like they're not allowed to acknowledge that.

(00:43:03):
And so they have to pretend that he's a lot more than he is.

(00:43:06):
And I just...

(00:43:08):
I love it for you that you have found a positive situation where you are still

(00:43:14):
allowed to acknowledge,

(00:43:15):
like,

(00:43:15):
it's really me doing all of this.

(00:43:18):
Yeah.

(00:43:19):
And as someone who has been a married single mother, it felt like it's just me anyway.

(00:43:25):
And so if we live in a world where a woman is going to do the majority of the laborer,

(00:43:34):
for the household right is it really worth like I always said I didn't want to have

(00:43:41):
children past 35 and that's more of a financial decision because I want to live on

(00:43:46):
somebody's island with no children by a certain age and so as I'm approaching 35

(00:43:52):
and you know I know I want another child um

(00:43:57):
I know what I don't want.

(00:43:59):
Also, how do I give myself kind of the life that I wanted, you know?

(00:44:06):
And I found a man who was worthwhile to procreate with.

(00:44:14):
But even if I didn't find that man,

(00:44:16):
I would have been a single mother by choice and gone to a sperm bank and would have

(00:44:20):
told everybody to suck my dick if they had a problem with it or had negative things

(00:44:24):
to say about it because fuck you.

(00:44:26):
At the end of the day,

(00:44:28):
the woman is going to do most of the child rearing work,

(00:44:30):
especially in those first like one to three,

(00:44:32):
you know,

(00:44:33):
one to three years.

(00:44:34):
And that's just kind of the nature of how those early years work,

(00:44:39):
unfortunately,

(00:44:40):
especially me as an exclusive breastfeeding mother.

(00:44:42):
And so, you know,

(00:44:47):
My ex-husband would quote-unquote help when he got home from work.

(00:44:54):
And it was always nice when he helped.

(00:44:58):
But now I have my quote-unquote help.

(00:45:06):
And I just kind of feel like the trade-off for me of having a man around all the time.

(00:45:17):
is not worthwhile because I, I like having my baby most of the time, you know,

(00:45:26):
I really love that.

(00:45:27):
Like I'm really cherishing these moments and I've built a life where I can really

(00:45:32):
just focus on being a mommy.

(00:45:37):
I'm almost, you know, entirely self-employed at this point.

(00:45:41):
And when I think back on what I want my life to be,

(00:45:44):
I want the story of my life to be that I poured everything that I had into my

(00:45:49):
children first and foremost,

(00:45:51):
but then also all of these kooky ideas in my head out into the world.

(00:45:56):
And none of those things for me center a man and what he can do.

(00:46:01):
They're all about me and what I can do.

(00:46:03):
And some people might think that that's self-centered.

(00:46:06):
And I say, thanks.

(00:46:07):
Because also when I look back at my life, I wanted to have centered myself.

(00:46:15):
I think that's the least self-centered thing I can imagine is wanting to pour into

(00:46:19):
your children.

(00:46:20):
And I just...

(00:46:22):
I'm so happy for you that this is how it's happening.

(00:46:25):
It's just, it's just great.

(00:46:26):
It's like great to watch from a distance.

(00:46:28):
Um, I want to ask you about something I have been thinking about that.

(00:46:33):
I, I feel like you're the right person to help me kind of like untangle.

(00:46:36):
So you mentioned pick me girls.

(00:46:39):
Okay.

(00:46:39):
And, and, you know, we all know about them.

(00:46:43):
I'm noticing a different type lately.

(00:46:44):
Oh,

(00:46:46):
And this type is the I'm not like the other feminist girls.

(00:46:52):
And here's what I mean by that.

(00:46:54):
I mean women who read feminist or like leftist generally content.

(00:47:01):
And they post something that's like,

(00:47:03):
I'm the only woman I've ever known who's a real anti-racist,

(00:47:08):
who doesn't center men,

(00:47:10):
and who thinks for herself.

(00:47:13):
And all the other women are just thoughtless and obsessed with men and obsessed with society.

(00:47:18):
It's

(00:47:19):
It's like the same thought process of separating yourself from other women with

(00:47:24):
this like weird leftist bent that still has the same effect of denigrating women as

(00:47:31):
like stupid and trivial.

(00:47:34):
I know exactly what you're talking about.

(00:47:36):
And I've also noticed that behavior.

(00:47:38):
And I've also noticed a similar behavior in leftists with racism as well that I've

(00:47:44):
been untangling.

(00:47:44):
And I don't have the language for it just yet either,

(00:47:47):
but I know exactly what you're talking about.

(00:47:50):
Um, and I've been trying to figure out how to describe those people as well.

(00:47:55):
Like, and it is very annoying.

(00:47:57):
Um, and it, it kind of is similar to like competitive parenting.

(00:48:02):
Yeah.

(00:48:02):
Like this is, this is, this is competitive feminist thing.

(00:48:06):
Like we are, I am more feminist than you.

(00:48:08):
And that means that I am better than you and you need to, to feminist the way that I feminist.

(00:48:14):
And it's silly.

(00:48:16):
Um, especially when you recognize that like,

(00:48:21):
A lot of those women that I have interacted with, they're not very much feminist at all.

(00:48:28):
You know what I think that they are?

(00:48:31):
They're temporarily disenchanted pick me's.

(00:48:34):
And the temporarily disenchanted pick me is a woman who at her core,

(00:48:40):
she is a pick me,

(00:48:41):
but maybe she had a recently bad experience with a man that has made her go like to

(00:48:47):
the far extreme.

(00:48:49):
But the second that the right man is showing her the right amount of attention or

(00:48:53):
the right kind of attention,

(00:48:54):
she's going to revert.

(00:48:57):
i think so i think we're witnessing in real time you've you've come up with the

(00:49:00):
term like that's it that's what they are you did it like right here so temporarily

(00:49:08):
disenchanted pick me is something that i've noticed before where um and and i have

(00:49:14):
a specific example of a person who i'm not gonna name but after we go off live i'm

(00:49:19):
gonna ask you if you know the person because she

(00:49:22):
is kind of popular in feminist thoughts oh I'm excited I'm really excited but yeah

(00:49:28):
temporarily disenchanted it blah blah blah blah blah blah temporarily disenchanted

(00:49:33):
pygmies are very very common where they think that their personal trauma or like

(00:49:38):
personal grief is a substitute for praxis but of course it is not which is why it's

(00:49:43):
never lasting

(00:49:45):
Yes.

(00:49:46):
Oh, that's, yeah.

(00:49:47):
Okay.

(00:49:48):
I'm eager to see you writing and talking more about this.

(00:49:51):
So I hope that you will.

(00:49:54):
So speaking of competitive parenting,

(00:49:57):
you just published a piece on Substack on breastfeeding while Black.

(00:50:01):
I urge everyone to go read it right now because it's really well-written and

(00:50:05):
entertaining,

(00:50:05):
but it's also so dense with information.

(00:50:08):
Like every sentence is so quotable.

(00:50:12):
But in it,

(00:50:12):
you say,

(00:50:14):
what I resent is the way white women seem constitutionally incapable of engaging in

(00:50:18):
a practice without turning it into a competition that

(00:50:21):
Or locating their sense of purpose in feeling superior to someone else.

(00:50:26):
I mean, that's like a whole sermon.

(00:50:28):
Yeah.

(00:50:31):
Can you talk about that?

(00:50:34):
Yeah.

(00:50:36):
So, I... Okay.

(00:50:42):
I am very popular online.

(00:50:45):
And most people in America are white.

(00:50:48):
But, you know, the primary...

(00:50:50):
demographic of my pages,

(00:50:53):
it centers Black womanhood just because I feel like it's important to have a space

(00:50:57):
that does.

(00:50:59):
And sometimes it gets so frustrating where I'm talking about something that is like

(00:51:04):
cultural or communal and

(00:51:08):
white women will pop up to correct me about it.

(00:51:13):
And they get really defensive when I tell them like,

(00:51:17):
hey,

(00:51:17):
you kind of don't know what you're talking about.

(00:51:19):
It's like no one has ever told Susan that she was uninformed and that she needed to

(00:51:25):
shut the fuck up.

(00:51:26):
And you can tell.

(00:51:27):
And I just posted a video about that,

(00:51:29):
how some people just need to be told to shut the fuck up because it's clear nobody

(00:51:33):
has ever told them to shut the fuck up and they really need to.

(00:51:37):
And it is kind of competitive.

(00:51:40):
And on a different Substack article,

(00:51:42):
I wrote something along these lines of like,

(00:51:45):
you're...

(00:51:46):
interactions with Black women will improve if you accept these things.

(00:51:50):
And one of those is that you're not always a fucking authority because a lot of

(00:51:57):
white women seem to really struggle with that.

(00:51:59):
And I call,

(00:52:00):
there's a certain kind of white woman that I call a member of the digital HOA

(00:52:05):
because they feel like it's their whole job to patrol the digital neighborhood and

(00:52:09):
issue permits and citations for behaviors that

(00:52:13):
They feel, you know, aren't allowable or permissible.

(00:52:16):
But I don't live in your neighborhoods, you know, Karen.

(00:52:20):
So you cannot give me a citation.

(00:52:23):
You can't find me.

(00:52:25):
Um, and it, it all comes back to like control and competitiveness.

(00:52:33):
And both of those things,

(00:52:34):
white women are used to being controlling of black women because in different

(00:52:40):
times,

(00:52:41):
you know,

(00:52:42):
and I said this in my article in different times,

(00:52:45):
you would be the expert on how to breastfeed children because I wouldn't be over

(00:52:48):
here minding my business,

(00:52:49):
breastfeeding my own baby.

(00:52:51):
I'd be in your house, breastfeeding yours.

(00:52:54):
Yeah.

(00:52:54):
Yeah.

(00:52:55):
But that's not that's not the world we live in anymore.

(00:52:59):
And there's also a certain white woman who is struggling to,

(00:53:03):
I feel,

(00:53:04):
evolve from that dynamic of.

(00:53:08):
being an actual community with racialized women and not just viewing us as lesser

(00:53:15):
beings in some way.

(00:53:16):
And most, I feel, aren't even aware of the fact that that's what they're doing.

(00:53:20):
I think before we really started recording,

(00:53:23):
we talked about unsolicited advice and how it's either them assuming you're a

(00:53:26):
stupid piece of shit or them being incredibly kind of off the wall.

(00:53:32):
And so much of my interaction with white women,

(00:53:35):
unfortunately,

(00:53:36):
is me telling them like,

(00:53:37):
hey,

(00:53:38):
I'm not actually stupid.

(00:53:40):
I'm a very capable being.

(00:53:41):
And I'd appreciate if you just not assume that.

(00:53:46):
And especially when you're not even aware that that's the assumption that you're making.

(00:53:50):
The lack of self-awareness is incredibly frustrating sometimes.

(00:53:54):
And part of me making my journals was just so...

(00:53:58):
I can have those people interrogate themselves instead of me having to constantly

(00:54:04):
interrogate them in my comments.

(00:54:08):
Yeah, I'm not sure if I answered the actual question.

(00:54:10):
No, that's a great answer.

(00:54:12):
So we talked about your other two books,

(00:54:14):
but I want to talk about your Decentering Whiteness journal because I think it's,

(00:54:20):
I love how you talk about how like,

(00:54:23):
Supremacy culture is often the same across different axes of oppression.

(00:54:27):
And I think that is something that is often really difficult for white left leaning

(00:54:32):
women to see that the kind of oppression they experience has no war,

(00:54:37):
but class war,

(00:54:38):
you know?

(00:54:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(00:54:41):
Thank you.

(00:54:42):
Thank you.

(00:54:43):
But,

(00:54:44):
you know,

(00:54:44):
it's like similar dynamics and that they are often behaving in the very same

(00:54:49):
behaviors.

(00:54:50):
And I say they, but I mean, we and myself included.

(00:54:53):
And I have to continuously be mindful of this,

(00:54:57):
you know,

(00:54:57):
engaging in these same behaviors that we have been taught harm us,

(00:55:01):
but that we've also been taught to do to harm other people.

(00:55:05):
So I think your book is a really good antidote to this.

(00:55:09):
And would you like to talk a little about it?

(00:55:12):
Yeah, so my decentering whiteness is my second favorite.

(00:55:20):
After and I do have two editions of that because I have decentering whiteness for white people.

(00:55:24):
And then I also have it for black people because there's another a lot of

(00:55:27):
internalized anti blackness that black people need to work through.

(00:55:31):
And, you know,

(00:55:33):
That's a lot of work that I had to do with myself when I was younger,

(00:55:37):
decentering whiteness within myself,

(00:55:39):
the same way that I had to learn to decenter men.

(00:55:42):
Men, rather.

(00:55:44):
But decentering whiteness is just kind of a way for white people to interrogate people.

(00:55:51):
ideas that were taught about supremacy and the idea of whiteness as the default, right?

(00:55:59):
Because when you are the majority in any population,

(00:56:05):
and like I said,

(00:56:08):
most of America is in some way segregated.

(00:56:10):
Your community is most likely filled with other people like you.

(00:56:14):
And even if there are colorful faces, the chances of you being kind of really...

(00:56:19):
close to them in a way that you get to know kind of the intricacies and nuances of

(00:56:24):
their culture is rare now my best friend in the whole world is a white woman but we

(00:56:30):
met in group homes as teenagers and so she does have that level of kind of like

(00:56:35):
knowledge of intricacy and cultural nuance because we we literally grew up together

(00:56:41):
and lived together in very close

(00:56:43):
quarters, but most people don't have that experience.

(00:56:46):
And most people,

(00:56:47):
unfortunately,

(00:56:48):
over the course of their life,

(00:56:49):
don't cultivate that experience or,

(00:56:51):
you know,

(00:56:52):
that experience for whatever reason is,

(00:56:54):
you know,

(00:56:55):
impractical for some people based on where they live.

(00:56:59):
And so decentering whiteness was a way for me to

(00:57:05):
one not have to be a personal anti-racism tutor in my comment section every single

(00:57:14):
day look you want me to help you be less racist I made something for you to do that

(00:57:19):
you can go do it um and you can pay me for it so I'm not doing it for free

(00:57:26):
Um,

(00:57:28):
and just kind of to,

(00:57:30):
I know sometimes in like my comments online,

(00:57:33):
I can be very sort of brash and crude,

(00:57:37):
but that's because of the volume of comments that I get that are the exact same.

(00:57:42):
There's only so many times you can answer the same question before it's like, look, bitch.

(00:57:47):
But I purposely make the tone of my journals very kind of tender and vulnerable

(00:57:55):
because I do understand that that work needs to be done.

(00:57:59):
It needs to be done and you attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

(00:58:05):
And so it allows people to interrogate this idea of whiteness as the default in a

(00:58:15):
way that a lot of people say is really useful to them.

(00:58:18):
If you ever have a chance to check out the reviews on my site, people are like, wow, this is...

(00:58:25):
paradigm shifting for me um I actually am gonna look up one review in in particular

(00:58:34):
and actually read it because it really accomplished what I was hoping it would do

(00:58:40):
and so yeah while I do that yeah no people like really they love these books and

(00:58:47):
they're just so

(00:58:48):
Great.

(00:58:49):
I,

(00:58:49):
you know,

(00:58:50):
I was also thinking about,

(00:58:51):
so I live in Atlanta where,

(00:58:54):
you know,

(00:58:55):
if you're a white person who doesn't have a lot of Black friends living in Atlanta,

(00:58:58):
it's a sure sign that there's something wrong with you.

(00:59:02):
But, you know, there are lots of places in the country where there aren't a lot of Black people.

(00:59:06):
And I do kind of wonder if you have become a lot of these people's, like, Black friend.

(00:59:12):
Like, you're the best person they know.

(00:59:13):
I love the parasocial Black friend.

(00:59:15):
I think I have.

(00:59:15):
Yeah.

(00:59:16):
And,

(00:59:17):
you know,

(00:59:17):
that is a blessing and a curse because one,

(00:59:21):
yes,

(00:59:22):
the more exposure we know for a fact that the more exposure people have to people

(00:59:26):
that are not like them,

(00:59:27):
the less racist they'll be just by nature of understanding and building empathy for

(00:59:33):
people.

(00:59:34):
But also that is a lot of pressure because a lot of people,

(00:59:37):
when I cease to be the perfect little person,

(00:59:40):
Negro friend that they thought I would be in their mind.

(00:59:44):
They they want to attack me.

(00:59:45):
And I'm not ever going to be a perfect victim for an unprovoked attack.

(00:59:54):
And so, you know, there's there's a lot of that, too.

(00:59:57):
I did find the review.

(00:59:58):
All right, let's hear it.

(01:00:01):
I'm still working through the workbook,

(01:00:02):
but it is a fantastic tools for white folks who want to be better.

(01:00:05):
Most of us don't know how and we get caught up in our feelings of shame and end up

(01:00:09):
making it about us and our desire to be recognized as one of the good ones.

(01:00:14):
Instead of focusing on how we can mitigate harm that our society has done.

(01:00:18):
Often with our unintentional sometimes help to BIPOC.

(01:00:22):
This book deconstructs every way our society has taught us from childhood to center whiteness.

(01:00:27):
It's not about making anyone feel bad for stuff they did when they didn't know

(01:00:30):
better,

(01:00:31):
but rather about freeing us from the toxic mindset that causes us to harm and

(01:00:36):
alienate from our fellow from our fellow human.

(01:00:39):
Any actual good person should want that.

(01:00:42):
Thank you, Kiki, for putting this out in the world.

(01:00:44):
And I love that review because that is exactly what I wanted people to come away with.

(01:00:51):
Like you don't have to feel shame.

(01:00:52):
You don't need a special cookie for being an ally,

(01:00:55):
but you do need to work through the things that you were taught and unpack them.

(01:01:00):
And that's a very personal journey,

(01:01:02):
which is why,

(01:01:03):
you know,

(01:01:03):
the book asks very personal questions and allows you to work through them.

(01:01:07):
and that when I saw that review I immediately shared it everywhere because I was

(01:01:11):
like this this is what this is what I wanted and it's always as a writer the best

(01:01:18):
thing when you feel like people are coming away with exactly what you wanted them

(01:01:23):
to yeah yeah I think that's that's just a great review and you know I I mean I've

(01:01:30):
been actively trying to be anti-racist for a long time you never

(01:01:35):
fully achieve anti-racism,

(01:01:37):
just like you don't ever fully achieve anti-sexism or any,

(01:01:40):
you know,

(01:01:40):
this is this culture in which we live.

(01:01:42):
And I remember when I first started reading books about anti-racism,

(01:01:48):
like years ago,

(01:01:49):
they were mostly focused on getting you to recognize the problem.

(01:01:53):
You know, here's the statistics, here's how it affects people.

(01:01:56):
And that's really important.

(01:01:58):
But at a certain point,

(01:01:59):
recognizing the problem doesn't really excise the socialization from your brain.

(01:02:05):
Exactly.

(01:02:06):
And that's what my journals are at the crux, what I hope they do.

(01:02:11):
That you interrogate how you specifically have been socialized.

(01:02:17):
And that you unpack the way that that socialization affects the people around you.

(01:02:23):
Those grunting sounds in the background are the sounds of a newborn trying to poop.

(01:02:28):
you all are welcome for his vocal stylings I send him well wishes for a good poop

(01:02:38):
he's just precious all right well this has been wonderful I'm so so glad you came

(01:02:43):
on and I hope that you will come back to discuss more of this because you're just

(01:02:49):
amazing in every way and I hope everyone will buy your books because they really

(01:02:53):
offer something that I've not been able to find like anywhere else.

(01:02:58):
Yeah.

(01:02:59):
I appreciate that, Zon.

(01:03:00):
And this is a lovely conversation.

(01:03:02):
Thank you so much for having me.

(01:03:03):
Thank you so much for coming.

(01:03:04):
And listeners, we will be back next week.

(01:03:06):
So thank you so much for listening.