Welcome to "Across Generations," I'm your host, Tiffany D. Cross. In today’s episode, we're diving deep into the heart of interracial friendships, asking the question: Can women from different ethnicities be best or bosom friends? I'm thrilled to have two incredible guests with me—Carla Hall, the acclaimed chef and TV personality, and Christina Brown, a renowned diversity advocate and influencer.
Carla and Christina share their unique journeys of cultivating and nurturing friendships across racial lines. Carla opens up about her experience growing up in Nashville and how her early friendships shaped her worldview. Christina talks about her work in diversity and inclusion, and how her personal relationships have influenced her view on having friendships outside of race.
We explore the joys and sometimes awkward moments of mixed friendships, the cultural exchanges, and the deep bonds that form despite societal challenges. Our conversation touches on the importance of open dialogue, empathy, and the willingness to understand and celebrate our differences.
Join us as we unpack the complexities and beauty of interracial friendships and discover how these relationships can bridge divides or broaden them. Don’t miss this enlightening and heartwarming episode of "Across Generations."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, everybody at Tiffany Cross. I'm your host of Across Generations,
and I want to thank all of you who have
so far tuned into Across Generations every single week, And
if you don't mind, I'm coming to you with a favor.
I am asking everyone who listens to this show every
week to please rate the show and leave us a
review on Apple Podcasts. When you do that, it really
(00:28):
helps grow our platform. So I would be forever in
debt to you if you did that for me. And
we're always looking for guests. As you know, each week
it's me an elder and a younger, and so we
look at these reviews sometimes hoping that somebody will have
a compelling enough story that we can pull you in
and have you be a guest on the show. I
believe black women are oracles, We are healers, and we
(00:50):
have so much wisdom. You don't have to be a
celebrity to share wisdom. We want to hear from everyday
people just like we are. So be sure to rate
and review the show, and you never know, you might
be getting a call from one of my bookers. Until then,
keep tuning in every week to Across Generations New episodes
drop every Tuesday. You can find us wherever you get
your podcast again. I'm Tiffany Cross, your host of a
(01:14):
Cross Generations. Welcome to a Cross Generations where the voices
of black women unite. I'm your host, Tiffany Cross, Tiffany Frosty.
We gather a season elder myself as the middle generation,
and a vibrant young soul for engaging intergenerational conversations. Prepare
to engage or hear perspects that no one else is having.
(01:36):
You know how we do. We create magic, creates magic. Hi, everybody,
Welcome to another episode of Across Generations. And I'm super
super excited to talk about this. No matter where you
stand on this issue, you're gonna want to tune in.
I'm just gonna say it. I have no white friends.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Now.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I have white people who I know and who I've
shared sporadic time with, but in the true nature of
the word friendship, like who I'm calling my girl Zilch now.
I always maintain intellectual curiosity, of course, about my fellow countrymen.
So I made it my business to work within and
across communities of color. Everyone from the Asian American Pacific
Islander community, the Indigenous, the Latino community, Muslims, et cetera.
(02:20):
But pretty much all of my friends, my friend's friends,
my crew, they're black. But I do notice with a
lot of younger people there's a lot more intermingling. And
I find it curious because I remember after the election
of President Obama, a lot of culturally incompetent people in
the media began to coin the phrase post racial. What
the hell does that even mean? But the idiocy of
(02:42):
that saying aside, I do think younger people don't carry
the same weight that older generations might when it comes
to the trauma of racism that extends to so many
parts of our social engagement, and I think some of
that represents progress. But at the same time, I do
think losing our inter community in truck community sanctity is
(03:02):
something that I'd like to protect. So am I out
of touch with the way the country is going? Or
do I have an understanding that most of these divides
will almost always inevitably surface. So let's get into this conversation.
I want to bring in my fellow guests. We have
Carla Hall, who is turning sixty this year. She's a
(03:24):
professional chef, a television host from the DMV and she's
currently the host of Chasing Flavor on Max. You may
have seen her as a judge on Bravo's Top Chef
or The Chew, and she's fabulous and has all the
things to say, so you'll want to hear from her.
On the other side, our younger panel is joining us
is Christina Brown. She's a twenty eight year old digital
content creator and writer from Long Beach, California. She currently
(03:47):
resides in New York City and on her platform, she
discusses intersectionality and social issues within the black community. So
surely we have a lot to talk about. I'm going
to start with you. I think surprisingly this is an
(04:08):
area where you and I might be on opposite side
of this divide. I don't have and look, people use
that term friend very loosely. So yes, I have white
people who say, oh, yeah, Tiffany and I are friends.
But I'm talking about like my sister, you know, like
people who I'm calling to say, girl, let me tell
you what this guy did, or I'm calling to say,
come help me bury the body, like those are all
(04:30):
people who look like me. I just I don't have
friendships outside true in the true meaning of the word friendships.
I don't have friendships outside the community.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
You do, I think I do. I mean, I have
friends in every walk of life.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I do.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I have white friends. I have a lot of black friends.
I mean, I grew up in a black community, went
to a black, all black school, living ag well, even
grade school. I mean I was in a black neighborhood,
went to an all Black Catholic school. I never went
to school with white people until high school, and then
(05:06):
I went to Howard. I went to an HBCU.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So everywhere across the country, people watching this are going hu,
I yes.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
So, But I think I'm fluid in that because I
allow people to be who they are.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
That doesn't mean that I don't hold some biases, because
I know I do, because that's just being human. But
I do have a host of friends.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
And friends in the true sense of the word.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
My best friend at thirteen was white.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Okay, okay, my best friend at thirteen, okay, I had
a white best friend. People today, No, I mean, yes, people.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I talked to today. I consider my assistant of ten years,
who is white, a friend. I will call it. It
works for you, I know. But even if she didn't
work for me even if she did not work for me.
I like her. I like her. I call her just
to chet, just to tell a girl, let me tell
you what happened today. Yeah, I like her. I employed
(06:12):
people I want to be around. I don't have people
who work with me that I don't like. Okay, yeah,
I've had white employees. But I don't say I mean
she's a partner.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I don't. I know.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, outside of people who you pay and outside of
your thirteen year old self, do you have white friends
who you intermingle with in an intimate way?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Why are you trying to break down my argement?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Like the new one's point is like again, like I say,
there are definitely white people who say, yeah, we're friends,
But the truth is, like, I'm not inviting you to
the cookout. And I mean that in the literal and
also the abstracts.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yeah, I mean there are people I would invite to
the cookout.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Absolutely. Okay, well I would invite her to the cookout.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Okay, we're gonna right now. Then you have white friends?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
No, why I find friendships to be important in my community?
Like I'm building community, and that's friendships. That's platonic romantic familial, sexual,
whatever the relationship is. I need people that I feel
like kind of like we can feed into each other,
(07:27):
like we can pour into each other. And I I
mean I used to. I actually had the opt opposite.
I grew up in a really diverse long did you're
super diverse? I mean you've got white people, someone people,
Asian people, black people, white people. So I went to
school having friends of like multiple different races and cultures.
And so I went to a p w I for
college and that's when it was like, so at a
(07:50):
predominantly white institution, you your idea and ideology around friendship change.
I was, I was friends. It was my proximity. It
was like, if I'm gonna have community there, I'm gonna
have to befriend these white people. And for a minute,
it was cool. And then Trump got elected senior year,
and that shifted. It was already shifted a little bit
(08:13):
because I was started. I became the only black person
in the classroom and like hearing weird fetishizing comments like
what I've never been with a black girl, right, and
the like oh my god, you know your hair doesn't
feel dirty when you don't watch it every day, and
like stuff just comments like that, and I was like,
what are they talking about? Like these people have not
(08:33):
been around black people. And then Trump got elected and
it was like, oh my god, you you you voted
for Trump. You voted for Trump and it and from
that point it shifted my like I don't know if
I could tru Like, can I trust you? Because how
is it that you've been in community with me for
three years and then and and you hear what this
(08:54):
person is saying about my community?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Right, and then I find out after he wins you
was with him the time.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So what would you say to black people who voted
for Trump? I'm not friends with them? Are you sure
if I know that they are? If I know that
they are true, right, because the family so can be like,
but if I know that they are, this goes into
book my black friends, So my friends we all black? Yeah,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I mean, I know that there are people who you
know here on screen and black for Trunk. You know,
I think those people are holograms.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I don't personally know I.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Agree, but I'm just saying.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I mean, you know, it never fails when you're talking
to your black friends or anybody really like you know,
they were Trump, You're like, what I mean, and you
kind of unfriend that person. Yeah, you kind of distance
yourself from that person because so much of your being
and who you are just cannot relate and you relate
(09:52):
to your friends, and so it becomes a thing. And
we are really different, you know, fundamentally we're different.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I mean I can have friendships where there is a
diferent ideology. I can have friendships where there is a
different ideology that is rooted in the dehumanization of my
people in my community. So when you say you have
white friends that you would bring to the cookout, to me,
the cookout is a sacred space metaphorically and also literally.
If you're bringing white friends to the cookout, I need
(10:19):
a heads up. Do you feel like you when you're
going into predominantly black spaces, do you feel like you
have to say, Hey, just FYI, I have some white
folks with me.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And I would ask you, do you know me? Do
you trust me? Do you think that I would bring
somebody that I didn't think would fit into this situation?
Speaker 1 (10:38):
What I sound like you're not giving me a heads up,
so they don't because I need a heads up.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I do.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Like you have to tell I don't try so to me,
there is like the three of us are sitting here
talking right, We're in community with each other, and we
arrive at this space with a basic commonality, a basic understanding.
You add one white woman to this dynamic, and the
entire conversation change, the spirit of the conversation, change the
mood and the root room change right exactly, and you adjust.
(11:12):
And so when people, because I have friends, I used
to give them a hard time that you know some
guys who were like dating white women and they would
bring them around. It's like, well, now I got to
watch my mouth. We on the space table, you know,
we say on the space table what I say is uncomfortable,
Like that is the sanctity of my community. The best
way I can say it, because it's not like I'm saying,
you know, something ugly about white people. But the best
(11:35):
way I can say it is it is if you
if a white person is at their family dinner, okay,
and everybody I think he was obviously white, white mom
with white daddy, whiteys, white brother, white kids, everything, And
somebody says, you know, mom, you get on my nerves.
(11:56):
You you always been raising them, say a salad. That's
your right to say that it's your family. Now, if
I say, as an outsider, your mom get on my nerves.
I wouldn't raise in the potato salad. Wha wo time
out like you way out of pocket. You don't get
to do that. And I think sometimes there is this
misrepresentation from white people who have been invited by Carla.
(12:19):
Oh my god, I gotta invite to the cookout. I mean,
I feel like they're overset.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Well, first of all, I would tell you if I'm
bringing anybody, I would tell you.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
But you say I'm bringing Susan. Do you say okay?
But to see you know Susan white? She real cool,
it's my girl. She wou wouldn't have thought.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I honestly wouldn't have thought to tell you.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
That I'm gonna tell you when you show up with Susan.
I'm giving one of those smiles that you will understand
that Susan won't.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Well, I wanted to say, but that said, I know you, Okay,
if I know you too, then I would probably tell
you because I know you.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Now that I know you, you said that I'm like girl,
I wouldn't bring any white people. I mean but I'm
just saying it's you have to trust me that I'm
bringing somebody that you can still speak freely. But now
what you all are saying is because their skin is white,
you wouldn't trust that you can speak freely because it
(13:14):
changes the it changes the dynamics.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, it's not a matter that I don't feel I
can speak freely. I feel it's out of pocket, like
there are things, the things that they're present. But to
say things like a conversation I would have it's just us.
It's very different with someone outside of the community. And
that is something that's very important to me. Now if
I know I'm going into an environment in mixed company,
(13:40):
the conversation is different, like they're just things that are different.
The example I always give y'all hear it a lot
on this podcast. But the example I always give that
I were to say to y'all, right, now, God is good?
You say that?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Is it? All the time? Time?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
All the time?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
God it's good.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
I'm pleasing to both y'all, black heart, just like you
say the all.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Time after yes, that's the all time. Sposed to that
out for y'all, but yes, all the time, Yes, we
said all the time I say that's the natural call
and response. That is something that is specific to our community.
There is something about that that we know that is inherently,
inherently true to us. I think there are so many
(14:31):
things like that. There's an understanding of things. It's like, yeah,
I understand that, Like there's a shorthand. There's a shorthand
to speaking because you don't safety is the most important.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
There's safety.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
There's a shorthand and I and admittedly sometimes I just
don't want to use as many words, but I feel
like that with women that sometimes with men I need
to use too many words.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I'm like, I don't want to use all those words.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I want to be able to talk to you in
five words and you know that you heard fifty exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I think that exists with us in a different way
than it does with other people. When other people are around,
there are all these adjustments, and everybody's a little tighter, everybody's.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
A little clenched, you know, because you're not sure if
you can. It's kind of like you're testing the waters.
Like if I say a certain thing or do this,
are you gonna overstep? Are you gonna feel too comfortable?
Are you gonna am I gonna have to explain myself or.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Who are you? Who are you?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Where?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
What do you represent? Because I don't it's a lot
of work to go through when I don't feel like it,
Like now this feels like work. Now it feels like
I'm at the office. Now it's the micro regard.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
The one you know, Like when I'm home, I want
to be able to rest. There's so much outside of
the world where I feel like I can't rest. I'm
on as a black woman all the time. It's like
I want to be able to sit and rest and
not explain my reality or not explain and to the
point about like men sometimes like I don't want to
do it, like I feel like it's always questioned or
(15:53):
or you say something that you might not think is
a microaggressive, but but it is. And now I kind
of got an edge.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You were a little bit and you might want to
be a caster.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah. I don't think all white people don't, mean will
I think a lot of them don't, but or.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
They're different, like there is a difference, Like it's interesting
that your your ideology shifted when Trump was elected. I
used to host a show on MSNBC. There were people
all throughout that building who don't look like us.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Who you know.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I'm looking at this play out. I know exactly what
it is because I've seen it before. Either the world
wants to say this is the first time we had
a white supremacist in the White House. Bullshit, Like we
have had several, Like they we can name more people
who work white supremacists one and before we could name fine, yeah,
right right, and it's not about party. Go ahead, Yeah,
(16:45):
I agree, listen, I completely agree. I think when that happened,
there were so many people around me who were making
such efforts to understand folks, and so a lot of
the white people would talk about, well, you know, my
uncle voted for Trump and he's, you know, not a
bad person. And my grandmother is like the sweetest person
and she loves Trump and she voted form me. She's
not a bad person. And I'm thinking, actually, both those
(17:07):
people are shitty people. And I'm sorry to be the
one to tell you, but they are voting for someone
whose interest lies in the and not seeing the humanity
of my people. Their interests lie in preserving a power
structure that serves you and denies me. But you are
so focused on seeing their humanity, you overlook the trauma
(17:30):
of what their interest has done to my people for
decades in our centuries and continues to do so. When
somebody comes in my presence to the sanctity and the
proverbial cookout, and now I got a question where you
stand how you feel it's too much effort for me.
I make that effort in too many other areas of life.
(17:52):
I want to preserve this space where I can relax,
be free, slam a card down on the space table,
and say whatever I want to after that without somebody
else feeling like they have license to participate in the
conversation where they really have no place.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I can understand that. I think though, if I am
bringing someone to the cookout because I too want to
feel that same freedom and sanctity, then it is somebody
that I have already been myself around and I am
not going to hold back. But that is also my personality.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I mean, even working for.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
The True I was the only black person and then
I would I was like, why don't we have more
black producers?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I mean I'm in the middle of the set that
do we have more black producers? They brought a black
girl in I'm like, oh my god, we have a
black producer. I am the one black person shouting. I
don't I don't pull back and not say what I
am thinking, because my thought is you can't hear what
I'm saying to you. Yeah, you know, I'm also the
(18:52):
black person who kind of wants to import my black
ass somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, I mean I want to go to our I
want to go to other places.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Think you know black people. Oh, you may not know
black people. But the thing is, when you know someone,
it's just like when you see somebody who you know,
somebody in the newspaper and they've been shooting up people
and all this stuff, and the mom was like, but
he's such a nice boy, because that story that you
read in the newspaper is two percent of what you
(19:19):
know about that person, and you take it for one
hundred percent, whereas the people who know him that that
story you know is two percent because they know him
so much more. So, of course, the people are going
to say, oh, she's really a nice person because she
is to them. Yeah, it doesn't make that person not nice.
Two things can be true at the same time.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
You know. That's what I'm saying yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
And I want to be clear, I'm never shy about
speaking up for something. I don't water myself down. Ain't
for everybody, you know, Like I got a whole testimony,
Google me, I got a whole testimony. I ain't never
been shy about standing up or holding the line for
my community. I just don't want to do that in
my social spaces. Like again, as why say it feels
like work? I think it's interesting about you, Christina. Is
(20:01):
you live outside the US? I have where were you friends?
Why were you?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
First time study broad, second time teaching English for a year,
and then my grad school program?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Okay, and you there you had friends outside of it?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I did? Yeah, yeah, I lived in multiple different cities.
So the first two were not a lot of black Paris.
There's a lot of people in African ask yeah, that
was loved it. But in the North, oh my god,
it was like thirty thousand people. I was the only
black person. So and I was going to ask this
question earlier about like, if you had to choose your community,
(20:38):
would you actively choose white people? Because in that scenario
it was twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, Again, I'm the only
or couple. You can count on a hand the black
people in this town. I need community, right, so I'm
not going to not have community. And I found it.
And I really enjoyed these people, right, Like I have
fond memories of them. We talked, like we connected and
(21:00):
they hold a very special place in my heart for
that time period. But it was also during that time
where just the com I realized that I want to
be able to come home and relax because why am
I having a conversation with you? Why you can't say
the word nigga and you're using the example, Oh well,
I'm not American. I don't know, you do know? Come on?
And like I and I had a conversation with one
(21:24):
white french Man and we're talking about this and he
was like, oh not now, right, Like I don't want
to have this conversation. I was like, oh, it's this
conversation too much for you? It was too difficult. No, No,
He's like, yeah, it's just so tiring. And I'm like,
this is you're tired of the conversation. This is my life.
I don't know if I can do like, I don't
know if I can be a white person. I don't
know if I could be like, have you in my
(21:46):
close circle if you're tired of the conversation, because I'm
always going on a conversation. Yeah. So it just became
like it wasn't a necessity, right. But as I get
back in communities where it's majority of black people, I
find myself and would be a limb. I just find
myself feeling more comfortable with black people.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, yeah, you look, I think that's right. Uh that
I understand that. You know, Okay, y'all already know the
streets are talking, talking talking. There's been a lot a
lot of people. I remember when Friends was on there
just probably before you were born, when you.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
Were when when Friends is around, Yeah, well a little
earlier in ninety five, but yeah, but people were mad,
you remember, people were big mad because ang yeah and
it ripped off.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yes, yeah right, yeah, yes, the job. And Quinton Brunson
has spoken out about this and like, why, you know,
why aren't there any black friends on Friends? I had
to say I might be the only person who wasn't mad,
because I don't know a black person who would hang
out with those. I want to feel forced, I.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Mean, exactly, why why do you want to interject yourself for.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Quote unquote equality when you knew you you wouldn't be
in that situation. I don't think that I've ever been
in a friend situation where I'm the only black person ever.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
I've never Yeah, yeah, well, how do you feel about
like what you're talking about, where you are that one,
like the token black friend, like and you're there by
yourself and nobody to make a face to you when
somebody says something crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, but but that makes me think of even when
I don't know if I've been only only one, but
maybe I've been like one of two in a group.
There's a certain type of even amongst the friend group
where it's like we're all friends, the two black people.
I feel it got a secret friendship within that friend group. Anyway,
there's a tear, there's a there's a tier of like yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
There's a tear, and there is a teer.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Like like very you think you're I'm your best friend,
but maybe in the fend group sheep right and my friend,
but like you don't even we click it away that
you'll never fully be able to click with. What are
you about to say?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Well, I do I went to a predominantly white middle
school in high school and at maryat To, Georgia, and
I remember this guy who I thought was my friend.
I still remember his name. I won't say it, but
he was a jobo. I already liked him. White guy,
tell me God, but like kind of a popular kid
in school. He was just, you know, known for being funny,
and we used always joke around with each other. And
(24:30):
I remember one day he told me, He's like, if
you are so beautiful for a black girl, and he
genuinely thought. This was in the early nineties. He genuinely
thought he was giving me a compliment, and I was mortified.
I was a well that felt sort of a compliment,
but he just had no clue. I'm not interested in
being yell, token, be a teacher, any of it. I
feel like I am forty five years old. I have
spent enough of my time. I used to spend a
(24:51):
lot of it. I used to do Fox News in
the day. I used to go and debate people. I
have earned the rights to live a comfortable and safe space.
And I think there has been true because there's a
historical context here, Carla that you well know and that
I will remember. I was weaned on that historical context,
and I think even you know, not to get to
(25:14):
policy oriented, but I'm not even a fan of brown
b board. I don't think that integrating our school systems
served us. We wanted separate but equal. And yeah, I
mean imagine and those times in the fifties taking the
innocent mind of a black child and putting it in
(25:37):
the hands of a white woman who did not see
you as human, who saw who gave you sub human treatment,
and what that did for a generation of black folks
and their aspirations, their dreams, how they viewed themselves. So
much about how we view ourselves as caught up in
how they view us. And so I just don't choose
to do that socially. Socially, I want to exhale. So
(25:58):
when I'm having the cookout and Carl Show with Sally,
you guys can play.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
And why is she black people want to play space?
What's up? We don't see?
Speaker 1 (26:20):
This is a whole other topic.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I'm sorry. Don't people watch to learn? Watch learn?
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Oh no, you know what to draw for me? What
exactly you know?
Speaker 3 (26:39):
It's I get all of that and and I think
that and and by the way, that like, uh, brown
versus the versus the Board of Education. That whole thing
didn't just happen to the States. I mean, it happened
in England, has happened, has happened everywhere. But I think
that for me spirit, I feel that. First of all,
(27:03):
I know this is kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I don't bring it up.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I believe in reincarnation. I also believe the black people.
Let the black people say, oh, I want you. I
believe in reincarnation. I also believe that I am born
into this black body, this black female body, at this
time for a reason. And for me, I am here
for every lesson it has to teach me. I will
(27:27):
accept every single lesson, just like I will accept every
single lesson that happens through my life. In this lifetime,
I am meant to be this person. So I move
into the world, I will be only in a job,
and I have had a really hard time being the
only in a job, and I will looking back those
(27:48):
lessons helped me. So if I have to stand in
front of a white person, I'm like, what is this
teaching me? Because I know I'm going to need it later,
I will accept it. And it's not just about being comfortable,
because yes, I'm comfortable in my skin, and yes, I
want to have that shorthand, but I also am accepting
the role that I have to play in this body
(28:12):
in this lifetime.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I've received that. I think my only pushback to that
for my own personal life is I have learned that
lesson time and again from white folks. It is I
still bear the bruises from those lessons I learned from
white folks spiritually and mentally, and I have been dehumanized
by white folks. Not all white people. I've had an
(28:37):
amazing white woman in my life. We're not friends and
we don't talk all the time, but she has constantly
reached out to me when I'm in the thick of it.
She has extended a healthy hand, presented opportunities to me,
and I'm grateful to her for that. That She's not
a safe space for me. She's not my friend. I
like her a great deal, but she's not the person
I'm calling it to in the morning to talk about
something I just don't It's not something at this point
(29:01):
in my life that I aspire to have, but I
certainly know how to conduct myself when you know I'm
in mixed company and a lot of people want me
to come, you know, add some spice to the dinner
and be at the table to feel more comfortable. But
it's just not something that I how I choose to
(29:22):
spend my time these days. To be quite honest, I
think it's harmful sometimes for me, for my spirit and
my mental take. You're younger, though, and I'm curious do
you think you'll change again? And are you open to
Because we're talking about diversity in terms of black and white,
there's also other communities, and I think those are more
(29:44):
nuanced differences. America has not been kind to any community
of color. So I feel like, when you know we're
talking about Latino Api indigenous groups, I think, yes, well,
you at least have some understanding. You might aspire to
align yourself elf with whiteness, but I see you and
there's something in you that we have in common. I
(30:05):
think outside of that, it's hard to explain what our
experience in this country has been changing your mind. Is
there another set of circumstances We say, you know what,
I met somebody, and I gotta say, wholest white person
I haven't met? And it is my best friend now
best friend or somebody in your sir, somebody you saying,
all right, you don't got to say to check out,
(30:25):
come on through.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I'm got a cool.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
White man the other guy, so wow, I hang out
with him.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Okay, so you're open.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Not my best friend.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
But what happened?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I mean, what what transpired? What made you so that one?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Well, first I gotta see more. I gotta see more.
That was the first you he passed the first threshold
of hanging out. Well, we were doing a comedy open mic,
so we were just talking about stuff, and like, I
don't know, I was talking about some of my experiences
how I got into comedy or got into content creation
as well, and how I got I got fired because
(31:02):
white supremacists, you know, docksed me and called my stuff,
you know, and he was like, oh my god, what
huh Now I'm like good answer, but like are you
at you know? That's what I was like, Okay, all right,
I wire because of white supremacy. White supremacists. Yeah, I
posted a video online and they found where I worked
and they called, really, what was the video? Sorry? It
wasn't even that deep. This is what I said. You know,
(31:24):
how when you when you're on the street and white
people kind of look at you like you're scary and
you're just existing. I made a video that was like
sometimes I want to jupe at them a little bit,
like a right, like just just to make them scared
for like reparations has happened.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Well, ah, it was a joke, you know, a little real.
But so I posted that it was for black people, okay,
for us to understand, right, and other people like you're
talking about other racist stuff to understand that. And prager
you founded, Ben Shapiro found it. Lib was a TikTok
found it. They posted a thousands that tens of thousands,
and they and the headline was teacher advocating for racial violence. MM.
(32:02):
So they found my resume and found where I worked,
and they called and said, I can't believe a teacher
who's you know? And I was like come on man.
So I got fired. This is almost two years ago,
and you.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I may have this around. My producer saw me, you
support segregation.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I made a video like hmmm, a little a little
like two weeks then maybe a week ago. I was
like thinking about my grandma, who would be saying like
desegregation was the worst thing to happen, you know, for
our community, and I grew up being like, Grandma, what
are you talking about now? But I was like, if
(32:42):
I could segregate something again, maybe separate, but equal, if
it was actually equal, wouldn't have been that bad. And
I came to that due to like in black space,
I guess, the cookouts in black spaces, black culture, black art,
going to musicums, and just being in the presence of
white people. And there I was at the African American
(33:04):
History Museum NBC.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
This a black Sonian. Hello, right, that's a National African
American UH African American History and Culture.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yes, yes, and that's a it goes deep, right. I
hear this white man next to me talking about I
don't want to I don't want to read all that,
and I'm like, you can't read a law. That's why
we were three fists. You know. I visited the Masonis
Club in Senegal that doing a return and there's white
French kids laughing, taking pictures behind the bars and there
(33:37):
and their parents and are lying to them about how
bad slavery is. And it's just like, I don't want
to be here with you.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Can we need to have our own commemorative moments where
it's just us some type of time frame. Yeah, I
don't think to exist. I can process the trauma spiritually,
not in your presence because you're not.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yeah, I you know, I think there is something to that.
I've been I affectionately call it the black Sonia, but
I've been there and it was kids, white kids walking
around with maga hats on. I felt incredibly offended. I
felt uncomfortable. I thought somebody should say something to them
and take your heads off, at least take those hats off.
Nobody did, I think because there's a lack of understanding
(34:18):
that you know, we're living at a time now, Carlo
where they're erasing or they're trying to rewrite history, like
there's some shame to it. So it's like, let's take
this away, because that is the guilt of white culture
and whiteness. And when I say white culture and whiteness,
I don't mean individual people. I mean but this country
was founded on whiteness. That that that manifested is violence
(34:42):
to us. And so I think when there's a lack
of understanding of that, it can be people become apathetic.
You know, at best they're apathetic, At worst, they are
actively trying to say if this is the thing they
have on us, Let's take this out of the school,
Let's take this out of history. Let's destroy their institutions,
(35:05):
Let's remove you know, these DEI initiatives. You know, let's
get rid of all of it and come to a
more equitable playing field. And you know, I see these
things happening, and I even the conversations around Black Lives matter,
you know, and what happened in twenty twenty, And you
hear people say, well, I align with Black Lives Matter,
so now you owe me this. And it's like, this
(35:27):
is my problem with you. I can't trust you as
an ally because you're being transactive. How the f word
did you align with Black Lives Matter by putting a
poster in your window and wearing a T shirt. Let
me tell you something, my g you didn't align with
Black Lives Matter. It was a few things a thought
checker exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
So I think, and I'm probably going to butcher this.
There's a science of and there's a woman who does
who her name is Milagros Phillips, and she's done a
lot of work around racial healing blah blah blah blah.
And there's a science called axiology, which studies culture and
people and all of that. And I've gone back to
this thought frequently because it talks about Europeans and how
(36:09):
it's a culture's relationship to whatever. Europeans is their relationship
with the thing. So when you talk about transactional, it's
their relationship with the thing. They had only twelve months
to grow their food, so the three months to grow
their food, it has to last for twelve months, right,
So it's their relationship with the thing. People south of
the equator, people of color, it's their relationship with each other.
(36:31):
They could grow food all year around. You know, there
was no lack there. It's all about relationships. And so
that's like when the church sayd a man, hey, am
in talk back to me? When you go to a stage,
you're like hello, you know, good morning, and nobody says
like good I said good morning, right right, And so
then you have the indigenous people is their relationship with
the universe, and Asians their relationship.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
With the group.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
And so this study was done and you put all
those people in an office, and no one is any
more productive than another. It's just this is how they matriculate.
Can we learn something with someone else's view and perspective
of their thing. Yes, but we are always it's like
we we can't separate our perspective, and so we judge
(37:12):
people based on their perspective. And because in this country
sixty percent of the people are white, it is their
perspective transactional with the thing box checkers. Right now, as
you're talking, Christina, I'm thinking that, you know, segregation, I
do think that segregation affected our ability to want our
(37:36):
own thing. So what what a lot of black people
want is what white people have because they were told
they couldn't have it. And by wanting what white people have,
you're not focused on what you can do yourself. So that,
in that respect, you know, segregation did a disservice to us,
because now we want to win, we want to be
(37:57):
we want to play you, we want to play in your.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Same We were robbed of our imagination, right, Yeah, yeah,
I think that's so profound what you just said. I
think that is a key point. And I think, look,
my goal in life was to live in service to
black folks and to live in service deliberation of black folks.
And so when you think about that and what you
(38:19):
just said, I think that is a challenge. I would
ask our listeners and audience at home and for you
ladies to carry with you. Who are we if not
defined by white people? And that is a It sounds
easy to say, but when you start thinking about it,
Who would I be if not defined by white people?
(38:42):
If I was not taught that I was less than?
Who would I be if I was not taught European
standards of beauty? Who would I be? If we were
never colonized? Who would I be? I think those are
our deep questions and food for thought. I would offer
our since I bring this conversation to a close, that
(39:03):
it is nothing wrong with having intellectual curiosity about your
fellow countrymen. I think that is something we all have.
Is that how you refer to white people saying your
own bellow countrymen is people you are in the country with. Yeah, yeah,
by definition definitionally, but that includes white people. But I
feel like we've learned a lot from white folks already.
We still bear the bear the scars from it, but
(39:26):
that includes everyone who lives in this country. There is
is curiosity there. I think to both your points, You've
lived abroad, you've traveled all over for your upcoming show
chasing flavors, you've you've gone all over to explore culture,
and you learn things from people. For sure, I think
that is something I challenge everybody to do.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
But also to protect your space when you need to,
you know, and go in spaces where you feel at
home and comfortable. And by all means, if you have
a cookout and you invite chef Carla, ask her what
she bring in the born fulland who is she bringing?
Who does she bring in to the cookout, because that
is key and rules for black house salad, the raising exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Maybe we all had dinner all by white people to
a dinner, but a cookout.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Okay, okay, Well on that note, I think this is
a really important conversation to have. And look where three
black women having this conversation. I invite all people, for
you know, white people who may tune in and listen
to this. Look at your friendship circle and ask yourself
what are you learning? What do you mean why does
your friendship circle look like this? Then for all communities,
(40:39):
you know, what what are you learning from your inter
and intra circles in your social lives? Because not very
long from now, there will be no racial majority in
America and what does that look like? What does the
power structure look like? And how are we all getting
along and living alongside and relating to each other? Oh
(41:01):
my god, I have.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
So much to say, and we're about.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Saying let me get so we we we'll vote to
you while Carlo Gallifer thoughts, did you have closing thoughts?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
My frozen thoughts? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Okay, oh wait, you do start the only thing.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
That I'm thinking about. And it goes back to this
whole friends thing. If we're saying, you know, look, I
want I want all of my friends by in a
circle to be black, But yet we are criticizing friends
for not putting the black person in that in a circle.
It's double standards on both sides.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Not absolutely, And.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
It's not double standard. That's the kind of show you're
talking about, white folks. It's not a double standard because
we have done nothing but learn what white people are
and who white people are. We've had no choice. Every
single time we're the minority, every single time we show up.
How many times white people show up and they're the
only white person? How many how many spaces do white
(41:58):
folk show up and they're the only white employees? How
many times as a white person reporting exclusively to a
black person. How many times are white people being told, well,
you need to make yourself more accessible and make people
around you feel more comfortable. Go go to the basketball game,
go to the cookout, go play, go learn how to
play spades, the same way that we're saying go to
the hockey game. From So, I just don't believe it's
a double standard. It's like this entire country feeds us
(42:21):
whiteness twenty four to seven, from what we watch on TV,
to the way news is presented, to the way newspapers
are presented, to the way we gather information, to the
way we're entertained. We have to like, how many times
do we see all white movies? How many folks showed
up to see Coming to America? How many people can
quote a line from Boomerang? How many people can quote
a line from The Best Man? You know, classic films?
And where's even things that they say when they're like,
(42:43):
you know, quote a Seinfeld line, like yeah, I've watched
Segin Cald, I love Seinfeld. I can quote a Seinfeld
line and if I turn back to you, But if
I turn back to you and I'm quoting something from
Ice Cubes Friday. Right, then that's my American experience.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
The songs if you listen to as a child and
you don't know the rock songs, I can tell you
all the songs. I tend to invite people that you
would not invite to your cookout to my house to
be an only white person. No, I do it because
you need to be an only you need to come.
(43:17):
And yeah, I mean I do it as a social experiment.
It is not people that would normally be hanging out
with black people. It is somebody who needs to have
that experience of being a minority in a group.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
But for them, that is a that is like one
Saturday out of their life. But every yes, yes, but
they can undo it. I think that's my point. They
can do it. They can go back to their safe
space with a bunch of white folks and say, oh,
let me tell you about what the negros are doing
these days. You know, And for us that's our everyday experience.
We constantly have to be the only So I don't
(43:48):
equate those two things. But your cut y'all, I'm wrong,
but I do think it. I don't think it's anything wrong,
because look, this is my experience. You know, I think
if there are people who feel like, no, I have
something more to gain by sitting in community with white folks,
have at it, enjoy yourself, come back and report. I
(44:09):
typically know all the things you gonna come back and report.
I'll be like, told you so we already knew that.
But by all means, I'm not encouraging other people to
segregate themselves, but I'm saying, for me socially, that is
where I find my joy, my happiness being here in
conversation with you all. You're much younger and you have
a different perspective, but that's our difference. You know, it's
had a cultural difference, and you know, you and I
(44:32):
have a commonality. There are things we're HBCU folks like.
There are things that we understand about each other. It's
like when when Kamala Harris was the pool, Report was
following her and she's an akage, you know, and they
were saying, there were so much screeching here, and We're like, what,
you know, those are things that we're in a community
about that I think understand. So if we may bring
(44:52):
us to a club.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Mark I to the point of it being double standard,
even if it, I'll say it is. If the worst
thing you have to deal with is black people potentially
not trusting you as a friend, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
I have nothing for you.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
I'm not for you. You'd be all right, you know
what I'm saying. Yeah, you got it. You've got to
pass a couple tests and you still might not fully
pass it, and that's okay.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
But I feel like, will I ever change my mind?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Who knows? I might? You know, yeah, I'm young. I
might change my mind in twenty thirty years.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
The world might look different.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
The world might look different, right, And I I just
I kind of I don't know. I think I'm moving
to the question of, like, who are we without whiteness
and white peoples and white people. I'm finding, at least
right now in my life, it's really interesting to be
(45:48):
friend and be in community with black people because I'm
learning so much more about that I asked for and
actually how much diversity there is within blackness that I'm
way more interested right now and learning about that so
when and that being so vast and learning that by
traveling and living abroad and being like, wait a minute,
I've learned so about white people black people aren't even all.
(46:09):
You know, we really aren't a monolith. And I'm learning
so much about our cultures across the diaspora and how
we have similar these differences. That that is that in
my explosion of who are without white people whiteness, I realize, well, yeah,
I want to learn that. I want to I want
to explore that.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
So I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Maybe white people will have a place in my life.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
We'll see you reserve, you're young enough, you reserve a
right to change. This has been quite an interesting episode
of Across Generations. I want to hear from you guys, though,
so please drop a comment on our social media to
hear do you have friends who don't look like you?
And please I encourage you to have this conversation amongst
yourselves and amongst your group chats and friendship circles and
(46:49):
brunches and all the things that you do, because this
is a conversation that I think will help carry us
along and hopefully help for a better society. Society and
at least better understanding and how we feel on how
we came to these conclusions. So thank you so much
for joining us with this very important episode of Across Generations,
and we look forward to inviting you back again very soon.
(47:11):
Tune in next week to an all new episode We'll
see you then. Across Generations is brought to you by
Will Packer and will Packer Media in partnership with iHeart
Podcast I'm Your Host and executive producer Tiffany d Cross
from Idea to Launch Productions Executive producer Carla wilmeris produced
by Mandy Be and Angel Forte, editing, sound design and
(47:32):
mixed by Gaza Forte. Original music by Epidemic Sound Video
editing by Kathon Alexander and Courtney Deane.
Hey, everybody at Tiffany Cross. I'm your host of Across Generations,
and I want to thank all of you who have
so far tuned into Across Generations every single week, And
if you don't mind, I'm coming to you with a favor.
I am asking everyone who listens to this show every
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review on Apple Podcasts. When you do that, it really
(00:28):
helps grow our platform. So I would be forever in
debt to you if you did that for me. And
we're always looking for guests. As you know, each week
it's me an elder and a younger, and so we
look at these reviews sometimes hoping that somebody will have
a compelling enough story that we can pull you in
and have you be a guest on the show. I
believe black women are oracles, We are healers, and we
(00:50):
have so much wisdom. You don't have to be a
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people just like we are. So be sure to rate
and review the show, and you never know, you might
be getting a call from one of my bookers. Until then,
keep tuning in every week to Across Generations New episodes
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(01:14):
Cross Generations. Welcome to a Cross Generations where the voices
of black women unite. I'm your host, Tiffany Cross, Tiffany Frosty.
We gather a season elder myself as the middle generation,
and a vibrant young soul for engaging intergenerational conversations. Prepare
to engage or hear perspects that no one else is having.
(01:36):
You know how we do. We create magic, creates magic. Hi, everybody,
Welcome to another episode of Across Generations. And I'm super
super excited to talk about this. No matter where you
stand on this issue, you're gonna want to tune in.
I'm just gonna say it. I have no white friends.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Now.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I have white people who I know and who I've
shared sporadic time with, but in the true nature of
the word friendship, like who I'm calling my girl Zilch now.
I always maintain intellectual curiosity, of course, about my fellow countrymen.
So I made it my business to work within and
across communities of color. Everyone from the Asian American Pacific
Islander community, the Indigenous, the Latino community, Muslims, et cetera.
(02:20):
But pretty much all of my friends, my friend's friends,
my crew, they're black. But I do notice with a
lot of younger people there's a lot more intermingling. And
I find it curious because I remember after the election
of President Obama, a lot of culturally incompetent people in
the media began to coin the phrase post racial. What
the hell does that even mean? But the idiocy of
(02:42):
that saying aside, I do think younger people don't carry
the same weight that older generations might when it comes
to the trauma of racism that extends to so many
parts of our social engagement, and I think some of
that represents progress. But at the same time, I do
think losing our inter community in truck community sanctity is
(03:02):
something that I'd like to protect. So am I out
of touch with the way the country is going? Or
do I have an understanding that most of these divides
will almost always inevitably surface. So let's get into this conversation.
I want to bring in my fellow guests. We have
Carla Hall, who is turning sixty this year. She's a
(03:24):
professional chef, a television host from the DMV and she's
currently the host of Chasing Flavor on Max. You may
have seen her as a judge on Bravo's Top Chef
or The Chew, and she's fabulous and has all the
things to say, so you'll want to hear from her.
On the other side, our younger panel is joining us
is Christina Brown. She's a twenty eight year old digital
content creator and writer from Long Beach, California. She currently
(03:47):
resides in New York City and on her platform, she
discusses intersectionality and social issues within the black community. So
surely we have a lot to talk about. I'm going
to start with you. I think surprisingly this is an
(04:08):
area where you and I might be on opposite side
of this divide. I don't have and look, people use
that term friend very loosely. So yes, I have white
people who say, oh, yeah, Tiffany and I are friends.
But I'm talking about like my sister, you know, like
people who I'm calling to say, girl, let me tell
you what this guy did, or I'm calling to say,
come help me bury the body, like those are all
(04:30):
people who look like me. I just I don't have
friendships outside true in the true meaning of the word friendships.
I don't have friendships outside the community.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
You do, I think I do. I mean, I have
friends in every walk of life.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I do.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I have white friends. I have a lot of black friends.
I mean, I grew up in a black community, went
to a black, all black school, living ag well, even
grade school. I mean I was in a black neighborhood,
went to an all Black Catholic school. I never went
to school with white people until high school, and then
(05:06):
I went to Howard. I went to an HBCU.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So everywhere across the country, people watching this are going hu,
I yes.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
So, But I think I'm fluid in that because I
allow people to be who they are.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
That doesn't mean that I don't hold some biases, because
I know I do, because that's just being human. But
I do have a host of friends.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
And friends in the true sense of the word.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
My best friend at thirteen was white.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Okay, okay, my best friend at thirteen, okay, I had
a white best friend. People today, No, I mean, yes, people.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I talked to today. I consider my assistant of ten years,
who is white, a friend. I will call it. It
works for you, I know. But even if she didn't
work for me even if she did not work for me.
I like her. I like her. I call her just
to chet, just to tell a girl, let me tell
you what happened today. Yeah, I like her. I employed
(06:12):
people I want to be around. I don't have people
who work with me that I don't like. Okay, yeah,
I've had white employees. But I don't say I mean
she's a partner.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
I don't. I know.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, outside of people who you pay and outside of
your thirteen year old self, do you have white friends
who you intermingle with in an intimate way?
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Why are you trying to break down my argement?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Like the new one's point is like again, like I say,
there are definitely white people who say, yeah, we're friends,
But the truth is, like, I'm not inviting you to
the cookout. And I mean that in the literal and
also the abstracts.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yeah, I mean there are people I would invite to
the cookout.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Absolutely. Okay, well I would invite her to the cookout.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Okay, we're gonna right now. Then you have white friends?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
No, why I find friendships to be important in my community?
Like I'm building community, and that's friendships. That's platonic romantic familial, sexual,
whatever the relationship is. I need people that I feel
like kind of like we can feed into each other,
(07:27):
like we can pour into each other. And I I
mean I used to. I actually had the opt opposite.
I grew up in a really diverse long did you're
super diverse? I mean you've got white people, someone people,
Asian people, black people, white people. So I went to
school having friends of like multiple different races and cultures.
And so I went to a p w I for
college and that's when it was like, so at a
(07:50):
predominantly white institution, you your idea and ideology around friendship change.
I was, I was friends. It was my proximity. It
was like, if I'm gonna have community there, I'm gonna
have to befriend these white people. And for a minute,
it was cool. And then Trump got elected senior year,
and that shifted. It was already shifted a little bit
(08:13):
because I was started. I became the only black person
in the classroom and like hearing weird fetishizing comments like
what I've never been with a black girl, right, and
the like oh my god, you know your hair doesn't
feel dirty when you don't watch it every day, and
like stuff just comments like that, and I was like,
what are they talking about? Like these people have not
(08:33):
been around black people. And then Trump got elected and
it was like, oh my god, you you you voted
for Trump. You voted for Trump and it and from
that point it shifted my like I don't know if
I could tru Like, can I trust you? Because how
is it that you've been in community with me for
three years and then and and you hear what this
(08:54):
person is saying about my community?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Right, and then I find out after he wins you
was with him the time.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So what would you say to black people who voted
for Trump? I'm not friends with them? Are you sure
if I know that they are? If I know that
they are true, right, because the family so can be like,
but if I know that they are, this goes into
book my black friends, So my friends we all black? Yeah,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I mean, I know that there are people who you
know here on screen and black for Trunk. You know,
I think those people are holograms.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I don't personally know I.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Agree, but I'm just saying.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I mean, you know, it never fails when you're talking
to your black friends or anybody really like you know,
they were Trump, You're like, what I mean, and you
kind of unfriend that person. Yeah, you kind of distance
yourself from that person because so much of your being
and who you are just cannot relate and you relate
(09:52):
to your friends, and so it becomes a thing. And
we are really different, you know, fundamentally we're different.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I mean I can have friendships where there is a
diferent ideology. I can have friendships where there is a
different ideology that is rooted in the dehumanization of my
people in my community. So when you say you have
white friends that you would bring to the cookout, to me,
the cookout is a sacred space metaphorically and also literally.
If you're bringing white friends to the cookout, I need
(10:19):
a heads up. Do you feel like you when you're
going into predominantly black spaces, do you feel like you
have to say, Hey, just FYI, I have some white
folks with me.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And I would ask you, do you know me? Do
you trust me? Do you think that I would bring
somebody that I didn't think would fit into this situation?
Speaker 1 (10:38):
What I sound like you're not giving me a heads up,
so they don't because I need a heads up.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I do.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Like you have to tell I don't try so to me,
there is like the three of us are sitting here
talking right, We're in community with each other, and we
arrive at this space with a basic commonality, a basic understanding.
You add one white woman to this dynamic, and the
entire conversation change, the spirit of the conversation, change the
mood and the root room change right exactly, and you adjust.
(11:12):
And so when people, because I have friends, I used
to give them a hard time that you know some
guys who were like dating white women and they would
bring them around. It's like, well, now I got to
watch my mouth. We on the space table, you know,
we say on the space table what I say is uncomfortable,
Like that is the sanctity of my community. The best
way I can say it, because it's not like I'm saying,
you know, something ugly about white people. But the best
(11:35):
way I can say it is it is if you
if a white person is at their family dinner, okay,
and everybody I think he was obviously white, white mom
with white daddy, whiteys, white brother, white kids, everything, And
somebody says, you know, mom, you get on my nerves.
(11:56):
You you always been raising them, say a salad. That's
your right to say that it's your family. Now, if
I say, as an outsider, your mom get on my nerves.
I wouldn't raise in the potato salad. Wha wo time
out like you way out of pocket. You don't get
to do that. And I think sometimes there is this
misrepresentation from white people who have been invited by Carla.
(12:19):
Oh my god, I gotta invite to the cookout. I mean,
I feel like they're overset.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Well, first of all, I would tell you if I'm
bringing anybody, I would tell you.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
But you say I'm bringing Susan. Do you say okay?
But to see you know Susan white? She real cool,
it's my girl. She wou wouldn't have thought.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
I honestly wouldn't have thought to tell you.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
That I'm gonna tell you when you show up with Susan.
I'm giving one of those smiles that you will understand
that Susan won't.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Well, I wanted to say, but that said, I know you, Okay,
if I know you too, then I would probably tell
you because I know you.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Now that I know you, you said that I'm like girl,
I wouldn't bring any white people. I mean but I'm
just saying it's you have to trust me that I'm
bringing somebody that you can still speak freely. But now
what you all are saying is because their skin is white,
you wouldn't trust that you can speak freely because it
(13:14):
changes the it changes the dynamics.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, it's not a matter that I don't feel I
can speak freely. I feel it's out of pocket, like
there are things, the things that they're present. But to
say things like a conversation I would have it's just us.
It's very different with someone outside of the community. And
that is something that's very important to me. Now if
I know I'm going into an environment in mixed company,
(13:40):
the conversation is different, like they're just things that are different.
The example I always give y'all hear it a lot
on this podcast. But the example I always give that
I were to say to y'all, right, now, God is good?
You say that?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Is it? All the time? Time?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
All the time?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
God it's good.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
I'm pleasing to both y'all, black heart, just like you
say the all.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Time after yes, that's the all time. Sposed to that
out for y'all, but yes, all the time, Yes, we
said all the time I say that's the natural call
and response. That is something that is specific to our community.
There is something about that that we know that is inherently,
inherently true to us. I think there are so many
(14:31):
things like that. There's an understanding of things. It's like, yeah,
I understand that, Like there's a shorthand. There's a shorthand
to speaking because you don't safety is the most important.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
There's safety.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
There's a shorthand and I and admittedly sometimes I just
don't want to use as many words, but I feel
like that with women that sometimes with men I need
to use too many words.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I'm like, I don't want to use all those words.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I want to be able to talk to you in
five words and you know that you heard fifty exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I think that exists with us in a different way
than it does with other people. When other people are around,
there are all these adjustments, and everybody's a little tighter, everybody's.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
A little clenched, you know, because you're not sure if
you can. It's kind of like you're testing the waters.
Like if I say a certain thing or do this,
are you gonna overstep? Are you gonna feel too comfortable?
Are you gonna am I gonna have to explain myself or.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Who are you? Who are you?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Where?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
What do you represent? Because I don't it's a lot
of work to go through when I don't feel like it,
Like now this feels like work. Now it feels like
I'm at the office. Now it's the micro regard.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
The one you know, Like when I'm home, I want
to be able to rest. There's so much outside of
the world where I feel like I can't rest. I'm
on as a black woman all the time. It's like
I want to be able to sit and rest and
not explain my reality or not explain and to the
point about like men sometimes like I don't want to
do it, like I feel like it's always questioned or
(15:53):
or you say something that you might not think is
a microaggressive, but but it is. And now I kind
of got an edge.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
You were a little bit and you might want to
be a caster.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah. I don't think all white people don't, mean will
I think a lot of them don't, but or.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
They're different, like there is a difference, Like it's interesting
that your your ideology shifted when Trump was elected. I
used to host a show on MSNBC. There were people
all throughout that building who don't look like us.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Who you know.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I'm looking at this play out. I know exactly what
it is because I've seen it before. Either the world
wants to say this is the first time we had
a white supremacist in the White House. Bullshit, Like we
have had several, Like they we can name more people
who work white supremacists one and before we could name fine, yeah,
right right, and it's not about party. Go ahead, Yeah,
(16:45):
I agree, listen, I completely agree. I think when that happened,
there were so many people around me who were making
such efforts to understand folks, and so a lot of
the white people would talk about, well, you know, my
uncle voted for Trump and he's, you know, not a
bad person. And my grandmother is like the sweetest person
and she loves Trump and she voted form me. She's
not a bad person. And I'm thinking, actually, both those
(17:07):
people are shitty people. And I'm sorry to be the
one to tell you, but they are voting for someone
whose interest lies in the and not seeing the humanity
of my people. Their interests lie in preserving a power
structure that serves you and denies me. But you are
so focused on seeing their humanity, you overlook the trauma
(17:30):
of what their interest has done to my people for
decades in our centuries and continues to do so. When
somebody comes in my presence to the sanctity and the
proverbial cookout, and now I got a question where you
stand how you feel it's too much effort for me.
I make that effort in too many other areas of life.
(17:52):
I want to preserve this space where I can relax,
be free, slam a card down on the space table,
and say whatever I want to after that without somebody
else feeling like they have license to participate in the
conversation where they really have no place.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I can understand that. I think though, if I am
bringing someone to the cookout because I too want to
feel that same freedom and sanctity, then it is somebody
that I have already been myself around and I am
not going to hold back. But that is also my personality.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I mean, even working for.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
The True I was the only black person and then
I would I was like, why don't we have more
black producers?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I mean I'm in the middle of the set that
do we have more black producers? They brought a black
girl in I'm like, oh my god, we have a
black producer. I am the one black person shouting. I
don't I don't pull back and not say what I
am thinking, because my thought is you can't hear what
I'm saying to you. Yeah, you know, I'm also the
(18:52):
black person who kind of wants to import my black
ass somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, I mean I want to go to our I
want to go to other places.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Think you know black people. Oh, you may not know
black people. But the thing is, when you know someone,
it's just like when you see somebody who you know,
somebody in the newspaper and they've been shooting up people
and all this stuff, and the mom was like, but
he's such a nice boy, because that story that you
read in the newspaper is two percent of what you
(19:19):
know about that person, and you take it for one
hundred percent, whereas the people who know him that that
story you know is two percent because they know him
so much more. So, of course, the people are going
to say, oh, she's really a nice person because she
is to them. Yeah, it doesn't make that person not nice.
Two things can be true at the same time.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
You know. That's what I'm saying yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
And I want to be clear, I'm never shy about
speaking up for something. I don't water myself down. Ain't
for everybody, you know, Like I got a whole testimony,
Google me, I got a whole testimony. I ain't never
been shy about standing up or holding the line for
my community. I just don't want to do that in
my social spaces. Like again, as why say it feels
like work? I think it's interesting about you, Christina. Is
(20:01):
you live outside the US? I have where were you friends?
Why were you?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
First time study broad, second time teaching English for a year,
and then my grad school program?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Okay, and you there you had friends outside of it?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I did? Yeah, yeah, I lived in multiple different cities.
So the first two were not a lot of black Paris.
There's a lot of people in African ask yeah, that
was loved it. But in the North, oh my god,
it was like thirty thousand people. I was the only
black person. So and I was going to ask this
question earlier about like, if you had to choose your community,
(20:38):
would you actively choose white people? Because in that scenario
it was twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, Again, I'm the only
or couple. You can count on a hand the black
people in this town. I need community, right, so I'm
not going to not have community. And I found it.
And I really enjoyed these people, right, Like I have
fond memories of them. We talked, like we connected and
(21:00):
they hold a very special place in my heart for
that time period. But it was also during that time
where just the com I realized that I want to
be able to come home and relax because why am
I having a conversation with you? Why you can't say
the word nigga and you're using the example, Oh well,
I'm not American. I don't know, you do know? Come on?
And like I and I had a conversation with one
(21:24):
white french Man and we're talking about this and he
was like, oh not now, right, Like I don't want
to have this conversation. I was like, oh, it's this
conversation too much for you? It was too difficult. No, No,
He's like, yeah, it's just so tiring. And I'm like,
this is you're tired of the conversation. This is my life.
I don't know if I can do like, I don't
know if I can be a white person. I don't
know if I could be like, have you in my
(21:46):
close circle if you're tired of the conversation, because I'm
always going on a conversation. Yeah. So it just became
like it wasn't a necessity, right. But as I get
back in communities where it's majority of black people, I
find myself and would be a limb. I just find
myself feeling more comfortable with black people.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah, yeah, you look, I think that's right. Uh that
I understand that. You know, Okay, y'all already know the
streets are talking, talking talking. There's been a lot a
lot of people. I remember when Friends was on there
just probably before you were born, when you.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
Were when when Friends is around, Yeah, well a little
earlier in ninety five, but yeah, but people were mad,
you remember, people were big mad because ang yeah and
it ripped off.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yes, yeah right, yeah, yes, the job. And Quinton Brunson
has spoken out about this and like, why, you know,
why aren't there any black friends on Friends? I had
to say I might be the only person who wasn't mad,
because I don't know a black person who would hang
out with those. I want to feel forced, I.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Mean, exactly, why why do you want to interject yourself for.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Quote unquote equality when you knew you you wouldn't be
in that situation. I don't think that I've ever been
in a friend situation where I'm the only black person ever.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
I've never Yeah, yeah, well, how do you feel about
like what you're talking about, where you are that one,
like the token black friend, like and you're there by
yourself and nobody to make a face to you when
somebody says something crazy.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, but but that makes me think of even when
I don't know if I've been only only one, but
maybe I've been like one of two in a group.
There's a certain type of even amongst the friend group
where it's like we're all friends, the two black people.
I feel it got a secret friendship within that friend group. Anyway,
there's a tear, there's a there's a tier of like yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
There's a tear, and there is a teer.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Like like very you think you're I'm your best friend,
but maybe in the fend group sheep right and my friend,
but like you don't even we click it away that
you'll never fully be able to click with. What are
you about to say?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Well, I do I went to a predominantly white middle
school in high school and at maryat To, Georgia, and
I remember this guy who I thought was my friend.
I still remember his name. I won't say it, but
he was a jobo. I already liked him. White guy,
tell me God, but like kind of a popular kid
in school. He was just, you know, known for being funny,
and we used always joke around with each other. And
(24:30):
I remember one day he told me, He's like, if
you are so beautiful for a black girl, and he
genuinely thought. This was in the early nineties. He genuinely
thought he was giving me a compliment, and I was mortified.
I was a well that felt sort of a compliment,
but he just had no clue. I'm not interested in
being yell, token, be a teacher, any of it. I
feel like I am forty five years old. I have
spent enough of my time. I used to spend a
(24:51):
lot of it. I used to do Fox News in
the day. I used to go and debate people. I
have earned the rights to live a comfortable and safe space.
And I think there has been true because there's a
historical context here, Carla that you well know and that
I will remember. I was weaned on that historical context,
and I think even you know, not to get to
(25:14):
policy oriented, but I'm not even a fan of brown
b board. I don't think that integrating our school systems
served us. We wanted separate but equal. And yeah, I
mean imagine and those times in the fifties taking the
innocent mind of a black child and putting it in
(25:37):
the hands of a white woman who did not see
you as human, who saw who gave you sub human treatment,
and what that did for a generation of black folks
and their aspirations, their dreams, how they viewed themselves. So
much about how we view ourselves as caught up in
how they view us. And so I just don't choose
to do that socially. Socially, I want to exhale. So
(25:58):
when I'm having the cookout and Carl Show with Sally,
you guys can play.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
And why is she black people want to play space?
What's up? We don't see?
Speaker 1 (26:20):
This is a whole other topic.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I'm sorry. Don't people watch to learn? Watch learn?
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Oh no, you know what to draw for me? What
exactly you know?
Speaker 3 (26:39):
It's I get all of that and and I think
that and and by the way, that like, uh, brown
versus the versus the Board of Education. That whole thing
didn't just happen to the States. I mean, it happened
in England, has happened, has happened everywhere. But I think
that for me spirit, I feel that. First of all,
(27:03):
I know this is kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I don't bring it up.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I believe in reincarnation. I also believe the black people.
Let the black people say, oh, I want you. I
believe in reincarnation. I also believe that I am born
into this black body, this black female body, at this
time for a reason. And for me, I am here
for every lesson it has to teach me. I will
(27:27):
accept every single lesson, just like I will accept every
single lesson that happens through my life. In this lifetime,
I am meant to be this person. So I move
into the world, I will be only in a job,
and I have had a really hard time being the
only in a job, and I will looking back those
(27:48):
lessons helped me. So if I have to stand in
front of a white person, I'm like, what is this
teaching me? Because I know I'm going to need it later,
I will accept it. And it's not just about being comfortable,
because yes, I'm comfortable in my skin, and yes, I
want to have that shorthand, but I also am accepting
the role that I have to play in this body
(28:12):
in this lifetime.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I've received that. I think my only pushback to that
for my own personal life is I have learned that
lesson time and again from white folks. It is I
still bear the bruises from those lessons I learned from
white folks spiritually and mentally, and I have been dehumanized
by white folks. Not all white people. I've had an
(28:37):
amazing white woman in my life. We're not friends and
we don't talk all the time, but she has constantly
reached out to me when I'm in the thick of it.
She has extended a healthy hand, presented opportunities to me,
and I'm grateful to her for that. That She's not
a safe space for me. She's not my friend. I
like her a great deal, but she's not the person
I'm calling it to in the morning to talk about
something I just don't It's not something at this point
(29:01):
in my life that I aspire to have, but I
certainly know how to conduct myself when you know I'm
in mixed company and a lot of people want me
to come, you know, add some spice to the dinner
and be at the table to feel more comfortable. But
it's just not something that I how I choose to
(29:22):
spend my time these days. To be quite honest, I
think it's harmful sometimes for me, for my spirit and
my mental take. You're younger, though, and I'm curious do
you think you'll change again? And are you open to
Because we're talking about diversity in terms of black and white,
there's also other communities, and I think those are more
(29:44):
nuanced differences. America has not been kind to any community
of color. So I feel like, when you know we're
talking about Latino Api indigenous groups, I think, yes, well,
you at least have some understanding. You might aspire to
align yourself elf with whiteness, but I see you and
there's something in you that we have in common. I
(30:05):
think outside of that, it's hard to explain what our
experience in this country has been changing your mind. Is
there another set of circumstances We say, you know what,
I met somebody, and I gotta say, wholest white person
I haven't met? And it is my best friend now
best friend or somebody in your sir, somebody you saying,
all right, you don't got to say to check out,
(30:25):
come on through.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I'm got a cool.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
White man the other guy, so wow, I hang out
with him.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Okay, so you're open.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Not my best friend.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
But what happened?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I mean, what what transpired? What made you so that one?
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Well, first I gotta see more. I gotta see more.
That was the first you he passed the first threshold
of hanging out. Well, we were doing a comedy open mic,
so we were just talking about stuff, and like, I
don't know, I was talking about some of my experiences
how I got into comedy or got into content creation
as well, and how I got I got fired because
(31:02):
white supremacists, you know, docksed me and called my stuff,
you know, and he was like, oh my god, what
huh Now I'm like good answer, but like are you
at you know? That's what I was like, Okay, all right,
I wire because of white supremacy. White supremacists. Yeah, I
posted a video online and they found where I worked
and they called, really, what was the video? Sorry? It
wasn't even that deep. This is what I said. You know,
(31:24):
how when you when you're on the street and white
people kind of look at you like you're scary and
you're just existing. I made a video that was like
sometimes I want to jupe at them a little bit,
like a right, like just just to make them scared
for like reparations has happened.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Well, ah, it was a joke, you know, a little real.
But so I posted that it was for black people, okay,
for us to understand, right, and other people like you're
talking about other racist stuff to understand that. And prager
you founded, Ben Shapiro found it. Lib was a TikTok
found it. They posted a thousands that tens of thousands,
and they and the headline was teacher advocating for racial violence. MM.
(32:02):
So they found my resume and found where I worked,
and they called and said, I can't believe a teacher
who's you know? And I was like come on man.
So I got fired. This is almost two years ago,
and you.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
I may have this around. My producer saw me, you
support segregation.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I made a video like hmmm, a little a little
like two weeks then maybe a week ago. I was
like thinking about my grandma, who would be saying like
desegregation was the worst thing to happen, you know, for
our community, and I grew up being like, Grandma, what
are you talking about now? But I was like, if
(32:42):
I could segregate something again, maybe separate, but equal, if
it was actually equal, wouldn't have been that bad. And
I came to that due to like in black space,
I guess, the cookouts in black spaces, black culture, black art,
going to musicums, and just being in the presence of
white people. And there I was at the African American
(33:04):
History Museum NBC.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
This a black Sonian. Hello, right, that's a National African
American UH African American History and Culture.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yes, yes, and that's a it goes deep, right. I
hear this white man next to me talking about I
don't want to I don't want to read all that,
and I'm like, you can't read a law. That's why
we were three fists. You know. I visited the Masonis
Club in Senegal that doing a return and there's white
French kids laughing, taking pictures behind the bars and there
(33:37):
and their parents and are lying to them about how
bad slavery is. And it's just like, I don't want
to be here with you.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Can we need to have our own commemorative moments where
it's just us some type of time frame. Yeah, I
don't think to exist. I can process the trauma spiritually,
not in your presence because you're not.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yeah, I you know, I think there is something to that.
I've been I affectionately call it the black Sonia, but
I've been there and it was kids, white kids walking
around with maga hats on. I felt incredibly offended. I
felt uncomfortable. I thought somebody should say something to them
and take your heads off, at least take those hats off.
Nobody did, I think because there's a lack of understanding
(34:18):
that you know, we're living at a time now, Carlo
where they're erasing or they're trying to rewrite history, like
there's some shame to it. So it's like, let's take
this away, because that is the guilt of white culture
and whiteness. And when I say white culture and whiteness,
I don't mean individual people. I mean but this country
was founded on whiteness. That that that manifested is violence
(34:42):
to us. And so I think when there's a lack
of understanding of that, it can be people become apathetic.
You know, at best they're apathetic, At worst, they are
actively trying to say if this is the thing they
have on us, Let's take this out of the school,
Let's take this out of history. Let's destroy their institutions,
(35:05):
Let's remove you know, these DEI initiatives. You know, let's
get rid of all of it and come to a
more equitable playing field. And you know, I see these
things happening, and I even the conversations around Black Lives matter,
you know, and what happened in twenty twenty, And you
hear people say, well, I align with Black Lives Matter,
so now you owe me this. And it's like, this
(35:27):
is my problem with you. I can't trust you as
an ally because you're being transactive. How the f word
did you align with Black Lives Matter by putting a
poster in your window and wearing a T shirt. Let
me tell you something, my g you didn't align with
Black Lives Matter. It was a few things a thought
checker exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
So I think, and I'm probably going to butcher this.
There's a science of and there's a woman who does
who her name is Milagros Phillips, and she's done a
lot of work around racial healing blah blah blah blah.
And there's a science called axiology, which studies culture and
people and all of that. And I've gone back to
this thought frequently because it talks about Europeans and how
(36:09):
it's a culture's relationship to whatever. Europeans is their relationship
with the thing. So when you talk about transactional, it's
their relationship with the thing. They had only twelve months
to grow their food, so the three months to grow
their food, it has to last for twelve months, right,
So it's their relationship with the thing. People south of
the equator, people of color, it's their relationship with each other.
(36:31):
They could grow food all year around. You know, there
was no lack there. It's all about relationships. And so
that's like when the church sayd a man, hey, am
in talk back to me? When you go to a stage,
you're like hello, you know, good morning, and nobody says
like good I said good morning, right right, And so
then you have the indigenous people is their relationship with
the universe, and Asians their relationship.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
With the group.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
And so this study was done and you put all
those people in an office, and no one is any
more productive than another. It's just this is how they matriculate.
Can we learn something with someone else's view and perspective
of their thing. Yes, but we are always it's like
we we can't separate our perspective, and so we judge
(37:12):
people based on their perspective. And because in this country
sixty percent of the people are white, it is their
perspective transactional with the thing box checkers. Right now, as
you're talking, Christina, I'm thinking that, you know, segregation, I
do think that segregation affected our ability to want our
(37:36):
own thing. So what what a lot of black people
want is what white people have because they were told
they couldn't have it. And by wanting what white people have,
you're not focused on what you can do yourself. So that,
in that respect, you know, segregation did a disservice to us,
because now we want to win, we want to be
(37:57):
we want to play you, we want to play in your.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Same We were robbed of our imagination, right, Yeah, yeah,
I think that's so profound what you just said. I
think that is a key point. And I think, look,
my goal in life was to live in service to
black folks and to live in service deliberation of black folks.
And so when you think about that and what you
(38:19):
just said, I think that is a challenge. I would
ask our listeners and audience at home and for you
ladies to carry with you. Who are we if not
defined by white people? And that is a It sounds
easy to say, but when you start thinking about it,
Who would I be if not defined by white people?
(38:42):
If I was not taught that I was less than?
Who would I be if I was not taught European
standards of beauty? Who would I be? If we were
never colonized? Who would I be? I think those are
our deep questions and food for thought. I would offer
our since I bring this conversation to a close, that
(39:03):
it is nothing wrong with having intellectual curiosity about your
fellow countrymen. I think that is something we all have.
Is that how you refer to white people saying your
own bellow countrymen is people you are in the country with. Yeah, yeah,
by definition definitionally, but that includes white people. But I
feel like we've learned a lot from white folks already.
We still bear the bear the scars from it, but
(39:26):
that includes everyone who lives in this country. There is
is curiosity there. I think to both your points, You've
lived abroad, you've traveled all over for your upcoming show
chasing flavors, you've you've gone all over to explore culture,
and you learn things from people. For sure, I think
that is something I challenge everybody to do.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
But also to protect your space when you need to,
you know, and go in spaces where you feel at
home and comfortable. And by all means, if you have
a cookout and you invite chef Carla, ask her what
she bring in the born fulland who is she bringing?
Who does she bring in to the cookout, because that
is key and rules for black house salad, the raising exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Maybe we all had dinner all by white people to
a dinner, but a cookout.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Okay, okay, Well on that note, I think this is
a really important conversation to have. And look where three
black women having this conversation. I invite all people, for
you know, white people who may tune in and listen
to this. Look at your friendship circle and ask yourself
what are you learning? What do you mean why does
your friendship circle look like this? Then for all communities,
(40:39):
you know, what what are you learning from your inter
and intra circles in your social lives? Because not very
long from now, there will be no racial majority in
America and what does that look like? What does the
power structure look like? And how are we all getting
along and living alongside and relating to each other? Oh
(41:01):
my god, I have.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
So much to say, and we're about.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Saying let me get so we we we'll vote to
you while Carlo Gallifer thoughts, did you have closing thoughts?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
My frozen thoughts? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (41:14):
Okay, oh wait, you do start the only thing.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
That I'm thinking about. And it goes back to this
whole friends thing. If we're saying, you know, look, I
want I want all of my friends by in a
circle to be black, But yet we are criticizing friends
for not putting the black person in that in a circle.
It's double standards on both sides.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Not absolutely, And.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
It's not double standard. That's the kind of show you're
talking about, white folks. It's not a double standard because
we have done nothing but learn what white people are
and who white people are. We've had no choice. Every
single time we're the minority, every single time we show up.
How many times white people show up and they're the
only white person? How many how many spaces do white
(41:58):
folk show up and they're the only white employees? How
many times as a white person reporting exclusively to a
black person. How many times are white people being told, well,
you need to make yourself more accessible and make people
around you feel more comfortable. Go go to the basketball game,
go to the cookout, go play, go learn how to
play spades, the same way that we're saying go to
the hockey game. From So, I just don't believe it's
a double standard. It's like this entire country feeds us
(42:21):
whiteness twenty four to seven, from what we watch on TV,
to the way news is presented, to the way newspapers
are presented, to the way we gather information, to the
way we're entertained. We have to like, how many times
do we see all white movies? How many folks showed
up to see Coming to America? How many people can
quote a line from Boomerang? How many people can quote
a line from The Best Man? You know, classic films?
And where's even things that they say when they're like,
(42:43):
you know, quote a Seinfeld line, like yeah, I've watched
Segin Cald, I love Seinfeld. I can quote a Seinfeld
line and if I turn back to you, But if
I turn back to you and I'm quoting something from
Ice Cubes Friday. Right, then that's my American experience.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
The songs if you listen to as a child and
you don't know the rock songs, I can tell you
all the songs. I tend to invite people that you
would not invite to your cookout to my house to
be an only white person. No, I do it because
you need to be an only you need to come.
(43:17):
And yeah, I mean I do it as a social experiment.
It is not people that would normally be hanging out
with black people. It is somebody who needs to have
that experience of being a minority in a group.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
But for them, that is a that is like one
Saturday out of their life. But every yes, yes, but
they can undo it. I think that's my point. They
can do it. They can go back to their safe
space with a bunch of white folks and say, oh,
let me tell you about what the negros are doing
these days. You know, And for us that's our everyday experience.
We constantly have to be the only So I don't
(43:48):
equate those two things. But your cut y'all, I'm wrong,
but I do think it. I don't think it's anything wrong,
because look, this is my experience. You know, I think
if there are people who feel like, no, I have
something more to gain by sitting in community with white folks,
have at it, enjoy yourself, come back and report. I
(44:09):
typically know all the things you gonna come back and report.
I'll be like, told you so we already knew that.
But by all means, I'm not encouraging other people to
segregate themselves, but I'm saying, for me socially, that is
where I find my joy, my happiness being here in
conversation with you all. You're much younger and you have
a different perspective, but that's our difference. You know, it's
had a cultural difference, and you know, you and I
(44:32):
have a commonality. There are things we're HBCU folks like.
There are things that we understand about each other. It's
like when when Kamala Harris was the pool, Report was
following her and she's an akage, you know, and they
were saying, there were so much screeching here, and We're like, what,
you know, those are things that we're in a community
about that I think understand. So if we may bring
(44:52):
us to a club.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Mark I to the point of it being double standard,
even if it, I'll say it is. If the worst
thing you have to deal with is black people potentially
not trusting you as a friend, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
I have nothing for you.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
I'm not for you. You'd be all right, you know
what I'm saying. Yeah, you got it. You've got to
pass a couple tests and you still might not fully
pass it, and that's okay.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
But I feel like, will I ever change my mind?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Who knows? I might? You know, yeah, I'm young. I
might change my mind in twenty thirty years.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
The world might look different.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
The world might look different, right, And I I just
I kind of I don't know. I think I'm moving
to the question of, like, who are we without whiteness
and white peoples and white people. I'm finding, at least
right now in my life, it's really interesting to be
(45:48):
friend and be in community with black people because I'm
learning so much more about that I asked for and
actually how much diversity there is within blackness that I'm
way more interested right now and learning about that so
when and that being so vast and learning that by
traveling and living abroad and being like, wait a minute,
I've learned so about white people black people aren't even all.
(46:09):
You know, we really aren't a monolith. And I'm learning
so much about our cultures across the diaspora and how
we have similar these differences. That that is that in
my explosion of who are without white people whiteness, I realize, well, yeah,
I want to learn that. I want to I want
to explore that.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
So I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Maybe white people will have a place in my life.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
We'll see you reserve, you're young enough, you reserve a
right to change. This has been quite an interesting episode
of Across Generations. I want to hear from you guys, though,
so please drop a comment on our social media to
hear do you have friends who don't look like you?
And please I encourage you to have this conversation amongst
yourselves and amongst your group chats and friendship circles and
(46:49):
brunches and all the things that you do, because this
is a conversation that I think will help carry us
along and hopefully help for a better society. Society and
at least better understanding and how we feel on how
we came to these conclusions. So thank you so much
for joining us with this very important episode of Across Generations,
and we look forward to inviting you back again very soon.
(47:11):
Tune in next week to an all new episode We'll
see you then. Across Generations is brought to you by
Will Packer and will Packer Media in partnership with iHeart
Podcast I'm Your Host and executive producer Tiffany d Cross
from Idea to Launch Productions Executive producer Carla wilmeris produced
by Mandy Be and Angel Forte, editing, sound design and
(47:32):
mixed by Gaza Forte. Original music by Epidemic Sound Video
editing by Kathon Alexander and Courtney Deane.
Host
Tiffany Cross
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