Long Live The Yard

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hella Black, Hello Queer, Hello Christian is a production of
iHeart podcast on the Outspoken Network, which seeks to amplify
LGBTQ voices in podcasting. Show me how good is going
to get today? God, dear Universe, you have permission to

(00:21):
amaze me today. I am a beautiful and blessed being
who deserves great things always. I love my life and
I am thankful for my life. I am safe and
I have everything I need. Something amazing is going to

(00:42):
happen for me today. Show me how good is going
to get today. God, dear Universe, you have permission to
amaze me today. I am a beautiful and blessed being
who deserves great things always. I love my life and
I am thankful for my life. I am safe and

(01:06):
I have everything I need. Something amazing is happening for
me today. Show me how good is going to get today? God,
dear Universe, you have permission to amaze me today. I
am a beautiful and blessed being who deserves great things always.

(01:27):
I love my life and I am thankful for my life.
I am safe and I have everything I need. Something
amazing is happening for me today. Show me how good
is going to get today. God, dear Universe, you have
permission to amaze me today. I am a beautiful and
blessed being who deserves great things always. I love my

(01:49):
life and I am thankful for my life. I am
safe and I have everything I need. Something amazing is
happening for me today. Hello, and thank you for joining

(02:18):
us for another episode of Hella Black, Hello Queer, Hello Christian.
A fully black, A fully queer, a fully human, a
fully divine podcast around society, culture and other fresh fried
nigga shit I feel like talking about with my dope
ass friends. Once again, I am your host, the creator

(02:39):
of this space, Joseph Reese. My pronouns are they them?
And I am so incredibly excited to have you all
here today for another episode. So don't have too much
as far as listeners praise reports for this week, but
I do want to remind you if you have a
praise report, if you want to shout us out, if

(03:01):
you are Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hello Christian, and you
belong to a local open and affirm and congregation and
you want to shout out your church, shout out your
pastor please feel free to hit me up at Joseph
Reeves at iHeartMedia dot com. You can also find me
on Instagram, you can find me on x you can
find me on threads at Joseph they them, So please

(03:24):
just reach out to me, let me know what's going on,
let me know how you're enjoying the show, how the
show is blessing you, and you just might get a
shout out on an upcoming episode. But you know, I
do want to give a little praise report for myself
because hella black, hella queer, Hello, Christian is officially international.
So was looking at the numbers, was looking at the analytics,

(03:47):
and you know, we in Singapore, we in Canada, we
in Thailand, don't know what them people even speak over there.
But let the Lord bless your honey. And then even
as far as the states, I mean, you know, shout
out to Texas, shout out to California, shout out to Georgia.

(04:09):
I think at one time my top state was California
and then my top city was Atlanta, So that tracks
very much. So you know, just be sure that you
like that, you comment, that you share, that you subscribe,
and just let the folks know what's going on over here.
If you think it's a good thing and if you

(04:31):
think it's something that's helping you. So with that being said,
I do see some visitors in the vestibules. So we
are going to invite our visitors to come off of
Mike and introduce themselves, share your pronouns, and just let

(04:51):
the people know who you are. And I believe we
can start with the good Reverend.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Hello.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
I am Brinon Brockton brock he the pronounce originally from Salem, Alabama,
and I currently reside in Washington, d C as a
PhD candidate in the English Department at Howard University, and
I also am the program specialist for the Center for Diversity,
Inclusion and Multicultural Affairs at the University of the District

(05:19):
of Columbia here in Washington, d C. I am super
excited to be here with you and to be sitting
in the visitors bestbule with you to enjoy a wonderful conversation.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Okay, and then on next guests.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
Hello, I'm Tamia Webster, tom a Monique Webster. I use
she her pronouns. I currently am at Howard University as
the Associate Director of Alumni Engagement in the Office of
Development and alumni relations. I before that, I was at
the University of Maryland for about eleven years in the
Office of Diversity and Inclusion. And before that, I was

(05:57):
in the University of Alaska Anchorage. My career is higher education.
I'm a daughter, a aunt, and those are really important
to me. I'm glad to be here today.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Okay, excellent, And then there is a guess that we've
been praying through because the devil is busy and the
storms have been ripping through the DMV area. But I
think we're good. I think we have them. Steve, if
you can turn on your mic and just introduce yourself,
we would really love to have you.

Speaker 5 (06:29):
Good evening, everybody. I am Steve D. Mobley, Junior, and
I am Associate Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs
and the program director for their hiring program at Morgan
State University.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
He had pronounced, actually, thank you so very much. The
devil was busy, child, but the devil has been defeated.

Speaker 6 (06:54):
So so I'm just going to start off with an
ice raker because we are talking about HBCUs for this episode.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
When was the soul Food Day at your HBCU and
what was your go to dish?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
So for undergraduate.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
For my undergraduate studies, I attended and graduated from Stillman
College in Tuscos, Alabama, on the west end of Tuscoos
to Alabama. And our soul food Sunday was Thursday and
every Thursday, and it was the same meal for everyone.
Fried chicken Thursday. Now fried chicken, Yeah, fried chicken and

(07:36):
baked chicken on Thursdays.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
So that was our soul food.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
So it was two size macaroni and cheese and collar
greens I think. But every Thursday we knew we were
having fried chicken, these big leg quarters.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
It was all different, variouss of chicken.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
But it came in handy, So every Thursday you knew,
and we had to dress up as well. So you
had to dress up in a blazer or a shirt
and a tie or you could not enter the cafeteria.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Wow. Yeah, that was every Thursday.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
I love it, but that's exactly what it is, you know.

Speaker 5 (08:17):
I think it was really similar. But there was a
bit of a two for at Howard. So I graduated
from Howard University for undergrad the mecca of Black intelligency
all that, and we had SoCal Thursday. But I wouldn't
eat in the cast with my peers. I would go

(08:39):
to the faculty lounge clock in the Blackburn Center clocket
because I wanted a bit more access. But it was
fried chicken, ribs, macaroni, and cheese greens. That was a
salad bar. I would get everything and pay double. I
don't like a combo, so I wanted my my fried

(08:59):
chicken and my ribs, right. But we also had like
chicken wing Wednesday, so there were always like fried chicken
wings in the area and Blackburn on Wednesday, so you know,
all that was great, but I really didn't become aware of,
you know, so for Thursdays and the faculty lounge until

(09:20):
like my sophomore year, my freshman I was really relegated
to the calf as a freshman, so I really don't
knew about like fried chicken Wednesday with through our the wings.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
But yeah, that was that was our thing.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
And then to me, I know, you went to a
p W. I you know, like what what what was
your experience around Like was there just a certain time
or a certain day where you know, y'all would make
sure that y'all got that y'all needed.

Speaker 5 (09:48):
So it was me and a group of my homegirls.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
It was like literally four of us, four black young
women in our dorm, and on Sundays we would go
down to the shared kitchen and we would we would
create what our moms and grandma's did. And so I
was the one who knew how to cook. And I
will never forget one of my college roommates, Devin VC.
She was in charge of the gravy one time and
she was like putting stuff in it. I was like,

(10:12):
that ain't I didn't say much because she was in
charge of it, but Devin was like, oh, your gravy
looked like my mama's grave. And so I actually ended
up teaching because a lot of my collegs roommates how
to cook. But we made our own thing very black
with us four. I didn't know there was a soul
food day until my sister went away to Morgan. I
was like, oh, y'all have dedicated days where y'all eat

(10:33):
soul food. So I love it.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
But and I mean, I also think that's important because
I guess because a lot of people kind of like
outside of the HBCU experience, just think we eating hamhocks
and net bones every day. But that's that's not it.
And then you know, I too, am an alum of Howard,
so I remember soul Food Thursday, but much like Steve,

(10:58):
I remember I did soul Food Thursday in the calf
a couple of times and it really ain't hit. Loves
to det so, but it really ain't hit. And then
even when you talk about kind of like that faculty lounge,
I just I think it is a shame and abomination

(11:22):
before God that they that Howard turned that faculty lounge
into a Chick fil A. Yeah, sure enough, half we
we we we strayed so far from his bracing, from
his mercy.

Speaker 5 (11:38):
I think that you know, you you were being you know,
contrarian and saying, you know, we don't eat ham hoops
every day. But the HBC is in the South are
having like I look at this kid, Southern boils. They
are They're like, I wish that you know, Howard had that,
you know, when I was there. But I think that

(11:59):
even when I go on like a speaking engagement at
the HBC, I'm always like I need to be there
on Frogick and Wednesday, like plan my trip around that Wednesday.
But I think the kids are eating quite I think
I think they are eating those things. Maybe not every day,
but they are very excited about the things, and they
are tiktoking about it and they are happy.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
And I even think that like that's like a resistance
against kind of like the respectability politics that exists in
a lot of our hbc us because even with what
Brenton shared around how on the designated soucial day, like
you had to come in your Sunday's best or you
would not be allowed entrench into the cafeteria or you know,

(12:45):
I'm this is veering a little bit, but I'm even
thinking about when I came to Howard, and I originally
was a student of the School of C. So the
john N. S. Johnson on School of Communications, and like
there was for our school has like a way of
like demonstrating like school spirit and school solidarity for all

(13:05):
particular school, all particular college been in the university, there
was like this thing of like professional Tuesdays to where
if you were like a School of C student, you
couldn't wear anything less than business casual.

Speaker 5 (13:20):
So you know, let's see, I didn't experience that Howard.
Like the only dad that did that was school be
kids on Friday. I was in School of see I
wore whatever I wanted.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
But see, n see, I was gonna try. I was
gonna try. I was gonna try not to go there.
But let's go there. Since you brought up the school
to be, because like, even okay, with school to be,
there was kind of like this tradition of like okay,
your freshman year, your softman year, maybe even into your

(13:53):
junior year, or your first semester of your senior year,
if you had locks or natural hair, it was all right.
But once that second semester of your senior year hit
and and and there was some school to be students
that showed up on the yard to walk to walk
the long walk for graduation, and them dreads were cut

(14:16):
and that hair was permed.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
It was that there to get the job. I don't
think Howard said that.

Speaker 5 (14:24):
Around with this, right, because I think that Howard did
implement that. They said you couldn't have Howard ever saying don't.

Speaker 4 (14:36):
I think description they don't name it right, like if
there's not a policy. However, my experience talking to students
and even working their day in and day out is,
you know, I think as grown folks, we are more mature,
We are a little bit more resolved in who we
are to say, actually, I like my locks, I got

(14:58):
it right, But I don't know if the same for
a twenty some year old who is being on the
other side of their undergraduate career. Is this job and
that's their mindset, right, Like they have to get to
a place where they're like, I can go into these
job markets with my locks. I do believe in the
three years, only three years I've been working at Howard,

(15:19):
I think students are forcing the issue. Like at the
end of the day, the students are just refusing, right Like,
and so you can say put on this, put on that,
you can say, change your hair this way, but when
they fundamentally just refuse to do it, you're not going
to kick them out of the school or college. And
so what I am finding is students resisting in the
ways that they fundamentally know how to. And as Howard

(15:43):
is engaging and hiring professors like Steve Mobley, like some
of the younger professors coming through the door, who just
are just giving students a lot of options in front
of them. You know, I'm sure I talk to them,
I'm colleagues with them. Professors, faculty and staff who have
deep preferences on the good old days in which how

(16:06):
students stressed. Right, we have a lot of aunties on
that campus who cannot stand bond.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
It are.

Speaker 4 (16:14):
Offended because somebody's going to class in the bonnet. And
you know, we you know, I do my absolute best
just ask questions and I don't think.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Of it though. We have to ask.

Speaker 5 (16:26):
And let's not turn this into like a beating up
on Howard or other HBCUs. Right, is that are these
schools of businesses or other colleges training for black liberation
or white eurocentric acceptance?

Speaker 2 (16:38):
You know?

Speaker 5 (16:38):
And I'm not going to sit up here and act
like Howard School of Business was not doing the former
and not the ladder. Now, I think everybody was going
natural when they first got there, but I think if
they wanted a job and you know, finance on Wall Street,
they acquiesced to make some choices. They were like, I
may have to perm this for this interview and we're

(16:59):
going shops fall afterwards.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
You know, yeah, right, because because I mean, I think
we want to have honest discussion. But you know, this
episode is not to beat up on HBCUs even though
we even though we want to have those honest discussions.
So I do think the ice has been broken, so
I do think that we can get into kind of

(17:24):
like the meat of this discussion, kind of like the
word of this discussion, because if you have not yet
figured out we're gonna be talking about HBCUs today, we
are going back to the yard and we are proclaiming
long live the Yard, because, in case you didn't know,
there are some nefarious forces, there are some forces that

(17:47):
are doing political and spiritual wickedness and high places that
are trying to dismantle our HBCUs. And in this inaugural
season of Hella Black, Hello Queer, Hello Christian, I just
really felt that it was important during this time to
really have an episode celebrating HBCUs, advocating for and defending

(18:11):
our HBCUs, and also talking about the legacy of black
queer excellence within HBCUs and the help the the legacy
of Hella Black, Heller Queer, Hella Christian excellence within HBCUs,
because if it were not for those black queer folks,
those black queer folks of faith, HBCUs would not be

(18:36):
who and what and how we are today. We're gonna
pause for a second, but don't go too far more
of this conversation when we come back. So I'm just

(18:59):
gonna open up the discussion with this, if each of
my panels could just share briefly what do HBCUs mean
to you? And share a little bit about on what
your HBCU experience has been.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
I've been thinking about that questions all weekend. What does
HBCUs mean to me?

Speaker 3 (19:19):
I think for me, and given my experience both in
undergrad and now graduate school, it has been a.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Religious experience.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
It is a variation of a church experience of a
Black church that connects intelligencia with spirituality, the academic formation,
the discursive formation along with the spiritual formation to where
every classroom and my experience in the Deep South and

(19:53):
coming to DC, the classroom has been one where we
may not share, we may not all be Hello Christian,
but the rituals of the university, the religious encounters that
you have on campus in class where your English professor
could start preaching or your math professor will some kind

(20:15):
of way tie in an afrocentric lens to numbers, and
you have had a religious experience. And so for me,
I think a lot of my coming of age and
development took place both in undergrad and.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Really as a graduate student as well, where I'm like,
this is.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
Formative in ways that I didn't experience at Princeton when
I was in seminary, and so in a lot of
ways for me, HBCUs have meant a safe, segregated space
for spiritual formation. And I really wrestled with the term safe.
I try to say safer because safe kind of implies

(21:00):
a promisary note that no harm will happen. But I
have to also realize that my experience as a SIS
head presenting black men, there are some vulnerabilities I do
not have to navigate and negotiate. And so for me,
my experience that given us the question. My experience is
like it was deeply religious, deeply ritual, and it meant

(21:24):
and provided a development that I think we have to
continue to maintain the tradition.

Speaker 5 (21:32):
To me, with regard to my HBC experiences, HBCUs are everything.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
To me.

Speaker 5 (21:38):
I was very privileged. I used that word on purpose
to have grown up in the eighties and the nineties
and the two thousands when there was a Pan African
movement that it was occurring, So HBCUs were everywhere. I
remember being young, and you know, seeing school days. I
remember a differ world being on the air. I remember

(22:02):
watching Martin and living single, and I can go on
and on where you're getting these subliminal messages. Folks are
wearing sweatshirts, Folks are wearing T shirts. People have gone
to these schools, even in these fictional spaces where we
were surrounded by hbcs in their culture, and that is

(22:22):
ultimately what influenced me to even attend one for undergrad
you know, and reflecting on this question, I I'm currently
chairing my twentieth reunion from Howard. I'm chuppers of that committee,
and I'm just coming in contact with so many of
my classmates. And I remember applying to college around you know,

(22:46):
two thousand and I ended up attending two thousand and one.
But my classmates and I aren't talking because we're encountering
people that are our age and they're like, I wish
I would have gone to an HBCU, I asked my classmates,
because I knew what I was doing. I only applied
to HBCUs. I said, did you understand the choice you

(23:08):
were making? And and how audacious of a choice it
was to choose blackness?

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Back then?

Speaker 5 (23:16):
Because we were not encountering this hbc renaissance that we're
having now. A different world was long gone off the air.
And I remember my college counselor telling me, you know,
I can't believe you're wanting to be around, you know,
black folks for you know, the next four to five years.
Mind you, I'm from DC, born and raised when Mary
and Barry was mayor and was a crown capital of

(23:37):
the world. And this is a black woman telling me this,
Why are you going to an HBCU. So I'm very thanking.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Kind of like that whole conversation. I think we came
wrong during that conversation where the narrative was like, HBCUs
were going to limit you and not prepare you for
the quote unquote real world, right of course, of course.

Speaker 5 (23:57):
But my real world was all black. So I was
just like, what do you mean the real world? And
even when I graduated from Howard and then you know,
went to penn in Maryland, my world was still very black.
So I just did not understand that that whole died.
So I was just very lucky and I'm very happy.
Even Bean a professor of HBCU right now, I considered

(24:20):
the privilege, and I mean these schools. I mean I
joke with my friends, I said, you know, I am
going to be writing for the rest of my life
because there are so many stories and rich histories and
contemporary things happening with these schools that I'm never going
to run out of things to write about because I
can write about hbcs and their students, past president and future.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Steve, if you could speak to a little bit around
what your experience was around attending Howard as a quote
unquote local, say more, what would you like to know? Well, so,
so so so what I would like to know. It's
like I would like Steve to show up as Steve
and answer the answer the question at Steve. But I

(25:05):
will share what I experienced when I when I came
to Howard in two thousand and eight as someone who
was who was like an out of town student, and
I really do feel like there was a lot of
stigma and indoctrination particular, and it was particularly quoted around

(25:31):
like go go because I came to Howard, I came
to d C during the time where with DC radio
stations there was a certain time of night where all
you heard was go go, oh, yeah, and kind of
like here like the discussion and kind of like hear

(25:52):
like those discussions right of like, well, you know, go
go's cool, but I don't feel like hearing it all
the time. And I almost feel like I came to
Howard and DC in a time where you had like
these out of these students who were who weren't born

(26:12):
and raised in DC, right, And like they could tell
you about Japan, they could tell you about various countries
on the Mother Continent. They could tell you about Thailand
and Tokyo and all these other cities, but they don't
know how to get to Anacostiaa on the ninety bus.

(26:35):
And I really do feel like there was like this
fear that was instilled in us.

Speaker 5 (26:40):
Oh it was, it most definitely was. I think it
was coded. So I lived my life at Howard in
a very liminal space and I use that adjective on purpose, right,
So I was literally from down the street.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
I could go to the.

Speaker 5 (27:01):
In the School of Business and see the apartment where
I was raised in. So it was a very interesting
experience with regard to you know, hearing people refer to
people as locals, and you know, I would tell them
where I'm from here, you know, you're talking about you know,

(27:22):
my people, like I'm from this city. And it was
just very interesting because what I did notice in what
I did not like from my peers or classmates is
the way they treated I was he to support staff,
and I knew those are folks that were from DC.
I remember, like really at one point cursing out a

(27:43):
class member because they were just being rude to somebody
in the CAF that worked there. And I was like,
she's she hasn't worked for you. This is not your housekeeper,
it's not your maid, Like you don't know who this
woman is. She older than you, like, and she could
be your mom or your grandma or you know whatever.
But it was a very interesting space to be in
because most people didn't believe I was from you know,

(28:03):
d C. They were like, well, you don't have the
accident or you know, where did you go to high school?
And I'm like, well, where did you come from? I mean,
I'm from DC, went to these couple of schools, you
know all of that. But then it had the stereotype
of you know, well back then people in you know
new balances and you know, drop socks and you know,

(28:25):
madness with like puff paint gear, and I just I
was not that archetype. So it's very interesting here for
people talk about DC and the quote unquote locals. But
I blame that on freshman orientation, where you're told not
to go past a certain place, or you're told, you know,
guys are gonna talk to you on the corner, don't

(28:46):
talk to them. There was there was a fear that
wasn't listed. And I would tell friends all the time,
you know, your view of if your view of d
C is from Georgia Avenue to Pentagon City, that's a problem.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
You know, all you can do is go see them all.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
I'm thankful because even though like I did have challenges
and it did take me a little bit to kind
of like start to venture out because I'm coming from
New York. I'm specifically coming from New York City, right,
So I'm coming from an environment where subways run twenty
four to seven, yeah, to this environment where subways stopped running.

(29:31):
I mean, at that time on the weekend, at least
you could get a subway until three. But you can't
even get that now no more. So I was a
little scared. And then I always say, you know, I
would not eat Chinese food. I would not order from
a takeout in DC for my first for my first

(29:53):
full year at Howard because I'm coming from New York
and it's kind of like it was just strips kind
of like egg Fool, Young General South Chicken fried chicken
wings with French fries. And then I'm going into like
youms on Georgia Avenue like before Georgia Avenue turns into

(30:19):
Florida Avenue, and they in here selling new porch, they
in here selling subs, they in here selling heroes, and
I'm it was just kind of like like it was
just like a culture shot for me. So it took
me about a good year before I would even have
takeout from here because it was just such an anomaly
to me. But you know, shout out to China wonder

(30:42):
and because okay, if we're gonna talk about Howard so
many and then you know, I came to Howard, I
was older, so I was twenty three when I came
to Howard, so when so my first dorm was the Towels,
so I did not have that Drew Hole experience. So
I was and going that far up to get food

(31:04):
from Ho Chi I didn't have whole chi until I
was an alum, and you still don't eat it right
and and so for because China Wonder was right at
the end of the block, so I was gonna, I
was gonna walk, and then it was right by the
eye lab, so I was gonna walk my tail right
to China Wonder and get my fried chicken wings and
port fried rice.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
And then.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
The devil is busy, but he will not be defeated.
To me, are we glad that your back?

Speaker 2 (31:36):
And then fighting for our life?

Speaker 1 (31:38):
And then to me, if you could, if you could
just share, what do HBCUs mean for you? And what
has your HBC you experienced been? Because you do have
an HBC you experience I do.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
So I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. I was actually
born and raised in Acreage, Alaska. And so I also
was born in nineteen eighty one. So I grew up
during living single different world.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
The Cosby Show.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
And HBCUs were marketed all around Queen Latifah wearing her
hoodies that said Howard or Spellman or anything like that,
and so I was very curious. When it came down
to applying and going to schools, I ended up at
the University of Alaska Anchorage just because of I mean
University Alaska, Fairbanks, just because of affordability. But I always

(32:31):
knew that I would be leaving Alaska one day and
I would somehow be an HBCU like work graduate school.
Something just so happened. I ended up working at Howard
after living in the area for about ten years. I
was on my way out of the University of Maryland

(32:52):
and a former colleague, her name is Sharon Strange Lewis,
she was lead. When she left Maryland, she came back
to how and said, I need someone with your skills
and expertise to come to Howard and do some alumni
engagement work. What she was very clear about is that
Howard was leaving money on the table by not programming

(33:13):
for all of their alums, their queer alums, their fat alums,
they're disabled alums. And after, like during the interview process,
looking at the offerings of Howard programming, I did see
where the holes were right, and so I did see
that we weren't doing much work with our queer alums
outside of the lavender reception, which was for students.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
And so.

Speaker 4 (33:37):
Yeah, we can talk about that in a different thing.
But my experience at working at HBC has been actually
a dream come true. The smartest people I've met, the
most loving people, the most critical people.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
You know. I love black people, and so I'm having
a time where everybody.

Speaker 4 (33:55):
Is black culturally Christian, you know, even if their Muslim
were non religious, right, And I think those are things
that I fundamentally had to learn coming out of a
white space in a DEI office. And when people would
pray in the name of Jesus, I was like, oh
my gosh, but there's non Christians in this room. And
I think Howard was really gentle with me when they're like, baby,

(34:18):
we are black, we are culturally Christian. Even these people
know we are about to pray, and they don't got
to acknowledge this Jesus for this God, but we're going
to pray. So that was always really funny to me, right,
Like or the ways that someone in our office, Miss
Little who's been working there for fifty years, right, how

(34:39):
they love her and they love her in the way
that I would love my grandma. Like she's a DC
native and she walks to and from work, but she's
never walking alone. Sometimes she insists on walking in somebody
is driving right next to her, and so I know
that's something that.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Black people do.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
I know that when my dad died that I had
an experience when my dad died at at HBCU, and
I had experience when my grandma died at my PWI,
and they were very different experiences. The way that black
people loved me through the death of my father to
be ready to come back to work when I was
ready on my terms, I know that was way outside

(35:19):
of what the law says you should be doing for somebody.
University of Maryland said, Okay, five days you got to
be back from Alaska. Your grandma buried, grieved. That was
not what I experienced at Howard. And so no matter what,
I have a deep appreciation for the grace, the love,
the nurturing that Howard, this HBCU has afforded me.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
And then even with what you say about the elders,
I need to speak the name of ROBERTA. MacLeod, I
need as a chapel assistant. I need to speak the
name Joseph Harket, you know, as a particular generation of Howard.

(36:05):
I need to speak the name of mister Jimmy who
had a sandwich shop, and I mean it was it
was a truck and he would pull it up to
campus every day. And even if you did not get
that sandwich, you knew if you needed to break a
twenty dollar bill, you can go to mister Jimmy and

(36:25):
he makes some change for you.

Speaker 5 (36:27):
You know what's funny, Joe about that? My mother and
she rest in peace. She asked me like I hadn't
been a Howard a month. She was like, have you
gone to see Jimmy? Ed like he was there with
her in the seventies. So some of these things just
are like transcendental in a particular way where we all
are sharing and experience at all these hbcs. I think

(36:48):
we can name elders at all of these places where
they reside and where they work and their ties to
that surrounding community, and you know, all of that. It's
just wildt and that my mother, you know, went to
Howard between seventy five and you know, eighty eighty one,
and I was having the similar right because you know,

(37:11):
she would tease me and call me spoiled because she said,
you know, you need to imagine a Howard without a
blackburn or a ug l those buildings are like we're
breaking ground when she was a student, so I can't
imagine that, Like, you know, even now with these students,
I'm like, what do you mean You're not going to
have on a grill or a China Wonder or you know,

(37:32):
these staples, but that's gonna be there.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
What you mean there's a whole foods in the back
of the towers.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Let them have it.

Speaker 5 (37:39):
That's the that's their experience. That's what I resolved that
even here at Morgan, you know, we began with you know,
to me of speaking about the changes that made you know,
when I was applying to school, you know, over twenty
years ago, how I mean Morgan, where I now you know,
Work and Thrive was a safety school now as a

(38:01):
school on track to become Research one status and has
a waiting list, Like we couldn't have dreamed this, you know,
over twenty years ago, when things are happening. So I
think that in this time, in this space and this renaissance,
it's very fascinating to me the ways in which our
experience is all transcend in a very particular way.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, thank you so much. I think it is a
maintenance of ritual.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
There's a maintenance of rituals, a maintenance of tradition, religious experience,
and it's fascinating to see how what angle of them
Steve's is really talking about. As an undergraduate experience at
Howard and you too, Joseph. I'm a graduate student Howard
and to see to me as a professional at Howard,
but to see how that religiosity, if you will, transcends

(38:50):
across those different cultures is very fascinating. Particularly for me
coming from a small HBCU in the South, the culture
was deeply Christian and a lot of us and I
would say this because I'm in Joseph's house or congregation.

(39:13):
I was very resistant to becoming a Bison because of
my love for steel Man and because of my undergraduate experience.
I was just like, you know, I'm wearing my Steelman
stuff around campus, and oh.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
I still do. But I just had to realize shout.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Out to Kenyada Hopson, who was also an a Lumba Stealman.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
Yes, yes, yes, so I but in matriculating through Howard
as a graduate student, I just was like, this is
the mecca. Like there's so many experiences, so much diversity
around the campus, the community, the faculty, the staff, the students,

(39:55):
the graduate students, and it just made me realize, like,
no matter how much diversity we have, we're still navigating
those rituals of humanization.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
And whether you're working there, whether you're a graduate student.
You know, I'm like, those the creative ways we try
to create.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Distinctions, I'm stealing, I'm stealing, But just to be in
community with your own culture, I'm like, it was fascinating
here all three of you, all stories, so that is
something to like thread together.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
And there's someone who's professional career is now at HBC.
What I'm very clear at this moment, clearer than I
think I've ever been in my whole entire life. I
was supporting. I was a chief of staff to the
Vice president for the Diversity Inclusion Office at the University
of Maryland, and now I'm at Howard. I am very

(40:47):
clear that HBCUs are the last institution standing holding into
anything around intellectual property, intellectual thought with black folks. That's
holding the spaces growing queer community. Thank for Steve and
so many other people's work, because seriously, when I have
to make the case why we need to spend money

(41:08):
on queer students or queer alumni and specific programming at HBCU,
because you still come in contact with people like why
are you trying to separate us?

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Right?

Speaker 4 (41:19):
And I still have to make the case and still
have to say, oh, I'm not at all. I'm making
a space so that they feel welcome to then come
into this space. Is I am very clear that in
the queer Black community. And I can only speak to Howard,
but I've been in relationship with all my other colleagues
from HBC's Jackson State, now TSU, Spellman Morehouse, Tuskegee. Is

(41:46):
that we are all talking and looking to our queer
Black alum to lead us in real through some tumultuous waters.
Some of us can say it a little bit more
vocally than others, but I fundamentally know that the names
that are going up to the Border Trustees, the names
that we are trying to put on board of visitors
are literally queer Black alums. Why because their experiences, the

(42:10):
places where they are that they are residing in work.
The way that they're able to galvanize each other in
community to say hey, another one of us needs something
is very different in this moment. Then I would say
my straight families, and I think I don't know if
there is any literature on why and how this looks,

(42:32):
but it feels sometimes like a full blown underground railroad
that is happening within HBCU or with queer people who
are saying this is how we're going to move this
forward in ways that is just not happening in a
larger scale that I've seen.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
And to me, I really do want to appreciate you
for the way that you have been, the way you
have said with your whole chest. Howard University is the
gay HBCU because we have all, because we have because
we have a whole We have a whole college on

(43:12):
the yard of Howard University that is named after a
black gay man. I can't during a time where there
was a dorm named after a black lesbian woman, and
that black lesbian woman was one of the founders of

(43:36):
the first African American sorority within this nation. Shout out
to you, Lucy Dick. Slow. But with that being said,
let us move because the next question I want to
ask is what would you all say? And we've kind

(43:56):
of already started to get there, but we're gonna flesh
it out a little bit what do What would you
say queer folks bring to the HBC you experience and
if you all could particularly speak to how you all
have seen queer folks move within the religious life of HBCUs.
I greatly appreciate that I.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Have three different experiences. In undergrad I.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Was not out, so but I was also a religion
and theology major, and so for me, I was also
anti coming out narratives At the time. I felt as
if it was centering straight people and hetero folks, and
I was just like, I don't have to do this.
I'm not going to send you all in that I'm young,

(44:47):
I'm not in a committed relationship. Who bring We don't
bring everyone home to me mama. So I'm not announcing
every time I'm in a relationship. That was just my personality.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
And so.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
The religious life, I was a theology and religion major
and we had to do senior we had to do sermons,
so that Thursday of Soul Food Sunday was also Chapel Thursday,
so everyone had to go to Chapel every class was
classes were not even during that time. So stillent is
a Black Presbyterian in college. So we were definitely connecting

(45:22):
religious life is connected into our curriculum.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Every student has to take four religious courses to graduate.
Everyone has to do a thesis and defend your thesis orally,
so those things.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
That's how it's integrated into the Black campus life is
through curriculum, through the cultural lands, social, social and student affairs.
In ways that I saw students who we knew each
other is kind of intuitive intuition, you know, where we.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Could see each other, but we understood the stakes of
being visible.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
You have some radical queer folk. I think the term
queer captures that. But if you in the south and
the west end of TuS Schools, Talabama, we're not saying queer.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
It's more just.

Speaker 3 (46:10):
LGBTQ, but still just black people. And because of that
Christian ethic and the Christian culture, it's like you're black,
You're we're all in the cafe the other we're all
cheating off somebody paper together, like it doesn't matter. It
just wasn't a big thing, but it was a huge thing,
you know. So I don't want to romanticize it. But
I would see the model truth and the route of

(46:35):
audacity of doing fashion. I would see as in but
also in like science, and econ, you know, lobbying for
different professors or protesting against professors. Those things happen, and
so in a lot of ways they were the four
We were the forerunners of our majors and trying to
get curriculum reform because you got to take an old

(46:58):
Testament and a new Testament, which how they are taught
are contingent upon the professor's interpretation of the tics, and
so that was a lot of things. My experience at
Howard my first year which was in fallve twenty nineteen
as a graduate student. It was the first year they
had the Black Bear Politics course, and so still a

(47:19):
connection with curriculum, but that course was revolutionary because the
Robby Perry as the department chair of Political Science, an
out black, positive gay professor and department chair coming in
I'm walking in lock Hall, and my experience of how
It is this short black man who is loud and
rambunctious and funny and critical of everything. But he has

(47:41):
to rainbow flag in the middle of his office so
everyone can see, and he always has his door open,
and so his presence there and students outside his class
and me just going to his class like I'm not
in these class but I'm just going to his office
in class just.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
To sit in.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
That curriculum reform definitely performs a I think to me,
you said earlier, refusal to center or not even center,
because we still know agencies are still hetero patriarchal and heteronormative.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
But the curriculum reform and the curriculum.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Refusals that took place both at the student level as
well as the faculty level, because I have some undergraduate friends,
well some friends who were younger than me, who would say,
this is not all the professors. The students were definitely,
you know, lobbying for the curriculum reform. And so I
think students who are queer or how we would categorize

(48:36):
them as queer, definitely in my experience both as a student, undergraduate, graduate,
and now professional at UDC, I see undergraduate students who
are queer. At UDC, there's an organization called TAGS, the
Alliance Group, and so it's a student it's student organization
for students who identify as the LGBTQ, but students who

(48:58):
are in alliance with students who may not be gay
or queer, but they're in solidarity with them, and they
start radical movements on campus, off campus, in the communities,
you know, critiquing professors coming to us to create and
be strategic in our co curricular programming so that there
can be a post around campus and hopefully a climate change,

(49:22):
because you still have professors who are saying, I'm not
recognizing you by your gender pronouns, I'm going to recall
you by yours signed gender at birth.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
And things of that nature.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
So we still at I would say UDC is still
working towards creating policies and procedures and protocols for these.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Realities on campus.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
But for me, the synopsis of that would say, students
are definitely refusing the silence the erature of themselves and
practicing their own religious experiences, creating their own congregations such.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
As tags or at Howard.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
I think the Lavender Fund scholarships I was a recipient
of that. I know Steve is a major donor of
that project as well. To say, lift as you climb,
just creating different sylums and pockets of sanctuary spaces so
that students can be and exist.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
And just not to jump out of order, but I
just also want to improve my point on this call.
I have to Howard alumni, who both are donors to
the Lavender Fund. So in their even in their giving
back to Howard in various different ways time treasure money,
they choose to give to queer students. And so that's

(50:51):
what I'm saying is black queer people at Howard find
ways to love and support each other and for sure
give back in very specific ways to make sure students
don't have.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
To go manout and and and thank you for jumping
in with that to Miya, because I even remember a
time where it's Cascade now, but when I came, it
was called Lagosa. So the bisexual, lesbian, ally and gay

(51:23):
organizational students at Howard and we would meet over in
Room one forty fifty. And to even attend those meetings
on Friday night was a work of courage because we
were meeting at the same time as the Caribbean Students Association,

(51:45):
and we were both in that same space together, right.
But I remember there was a young lady and there
were many students would come in and say I was
I'm recently diagnosed as positive and I don't know how

(52:09):
I'm gonna get my meds. And I go to sleep
every night and I don't know if I'm gonna wake
up tomorrow. There were students that would come in and
would say, it's the end of the semester. It's the

(52:30):
end of the year, and I can't go home because
somebody saw me while I was here living in my
truth and they told my parents back home, and now
I can't go back home. So for me, that's why

(52:53):
I give. And I may not be able to do
kind of like the big ticket items that some other
folks can give, But if I got it and God
tell me to do it, I'm gonna do it because
you know, it may just be a mustard seed, but
it's something that can be done so that these babies

(53:18):
can have some type of safeguard for themselves. And since
I'm already talking, I'm gonna step out of line now
because for those that really know me, during my time
at Howard, while I was definitely out and I was
definitely older, and because I was older by undergraduate standards

(53:42):
and I had kind of come with a little bit
of lived experience, I was able to do it in
a way that I may not have been able to
do it if I was coming just straight out of
high school. But really, for me, and that's why I
really wanted to lift up the religious life experience, because really,
most people know me for being a chapel assistant. They

(54:05):
knew me for being out, they knew me for being gay,
but they knew me for being Joseph the chapel assistant.
And I think I was able to do that at
Howard in a way that I would not have been
able to do that at another HBCU or another school.

(54:26):
And I always say it's the gay folk and the
religious life organizations that know where all the bodies are buried,
and we're the ones that hold all the secrets. So
I'm coming to Howard two thousand and eight, so I'm

(54:47):
coming into a religious life experience where TI trivit is
like people's God. So I mean we're sold out and
and you know, come out of poverty, come out of homosexuality,
come out of lesbian So there was like a lot
of that Christian nationalist homophobia even back then, right, And

(55:11):
I mean even as a chapel assistant. And I thank
God and I honor how far the chapel has come.
But I remember times where I had to sit as
a chapel assistant who made no secret about who I was,

(55:34):
and have speakers come to chapel and say wild shit
about gay people from the pulpit and it be applauded,
or at the very least it was not challenged. But
you know, I say all that to say not just

(55:54):
to name my specific experience, but I really when I
think about what queer people bring to HBCUs and what
we have brought to the religious life of HBCUs as
queer people of faith, it's really a microcosm of what
you see queer people do in houses of faith as

(56:16):
quote unquote adults, to where if it weren't for us,
this shit wouldn't be.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
We built it.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
We built the church. And let me be very clear
when I say we built the church, I'm not just
talking about the choir and I'm not just talking about
black gay men being choir directors, because while that is
a truth, I also feel like that is a way
that some people use to discount the experiences of LGBTQ people. Yes,

(56:54):
we're the choir directors, but we're also the e moms.
We're also the rabbis, we're also the deacons, We're also
the elders. We also sit on the trust deeboard. We're
also the treasurers. We're also the bishops and the apostles
and the reverend doctors. And if it were not for us,

(57:16):
this ship would not fly. And if we decided to
walk out and close our check and close our pocketbooks
up and close our checkbooks and put our pens away,
the Black Church would be us in a sad state
of affairs. Thanks for sticking with Hella Black, Hella Queer,

(57:58):
Hello Christian. But now that I've done, got all my
soapbox and I got out what I needed to get out, Steve,
if you had something you needed to share, I forgot
the question. Okay, so what do you think queer people
have brought to HBCUs And if you if you could

(58:21):
speak specifically to how you saw queer people operate within
the religious life of HBCUs.

Speaker 5 (58:29):
Okay, okay, okay, okay. That recentors me in a way.
The deep research that I have been doing, and it's
definitely ongoing, is that you cannot name an arena or
a field where a you know, black, queer or trans

(58:52):
person has not affected HBCU spaces. You know, I had
a young person tell me recently. You know, if you
ever had funding, you should do a Black Queer LGBT
HBCU tour. And what he meant by that is that
he was like, you talk about all these touch points

(59:16):
and the impact that has been made at these schools
by black career and trans people. So probably like, what
does he mean? I'm thinking about an Andre Leon Talley
from kind of Central State University. Right. I was very
forlorn when he died because I have a research study
in my head where I really want to get across

(59:38):
generations and have it in a generational conversation about what
it was like during your time period. And his central
story died with him. If you read his book or
watch his documentary, you think his life started at Brown. No,
we taught you French. You were on a chipling circuit
at Everitty Fashion Fair. Those stories are done, you know.

(59:59):
I'm thinking about and the phenomenal actress who played Electra
Abundance when tour.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
On POS.

Speaker 5 (01:00:10):
She began transitioning at Fayevo State in Morgan State University
and goes back to those places you know and talks about,
you know, her journey. We can speak about the usual
suspects like a Bayard Rustin, a Langston Hughes, a Lucy
Digg Slow right. You know, you can go through our
generations from like Silent to Boomer, to Gen X to Millennial, now.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Even Gen Z.

Speaker 5 (01:00:37):
Of the contributions that have been made on all of
these campuses. I'm thinking about the fact that, you know,
the phenomenal designer who was taking us from us too soon,
Patrick Kelly, his archives are at Jackson State, right, that
white partner has some sense to bequeath those things to

(01:00:57):
you know, Jackson State. I'm thinking about, you know, we
love us some Cardi b Her stylist is another Jackson
State alone.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:01:04):
We create culture. We do all these things within these schools,
and it always has and you know will be with
regard to our contributions, and you know, even the ways
in which we give back, you know thereafter with regard
to the I think any of these conversations, I think

(01:01:26):
they should be nuanced because what Boomers went through in
the seventies and the sixties is very different from Gen
X in the eighties and the nineties, is very different
from me and the two thousands, very different from you know,
Gen Z. And now we're creeping into Gen Alpha, where
I think that you know, I could not have imagined

(01:01:48):
that Howard having a pride night in a basketball game.
But these kids see it, right, So I like to
celebrate like in the now and how things are lifting,
I would say lifting and shifting, HBCUs, how things are
lifting and shifting, you know, in these spaces. I do

(01:02:09):
think that with regard to religiosity on our campuses and
what does they even look like, it's always going to
be a very interesting subject because while every HBCU is
not faith or church based, like Howard is not a
nominational like you know, other schools are as well because

(01:02:29):
they are black art border state, not the nominational. Right,
it's a public HBCU, but it's still a church space, right,
Like black spaces are still church in a very particular
way that I don't think we always discuss openly, Like

(01:02:50):
nobody flinches an eye at graduation when acchoirre up there
yelling and screaming and squalling, and you know there's a benediction,
or you know, like no one flinches an eye because
you know you're in a black space and you're going
to be enjoying this experience whether you do or you don't,
but it's going to happen. I think that we just

(01:03:11):
need to think about. I'm not even to say what
inclusivity looks like, but I think there should be an
expectation if you're coming into this very Oh so it's
very very clear too. It's a black space, but it's
also an African American space in a particular way. Where
these schools were founded for and by the descendants of

(01:03:31):
slaves in America. So while they are even diasporic, there's
still African American in a particular way. Y'all get what
I'm trying to put down, right, even with its own
it's own kind of and thing that you're going to
have to really unpack and explore. But I'm always like,

(01:03:53):
if you want to know anything about HBC, using who
creates the culture, you're always going to You're gotting light
will all always be towards a black, queer transperson. I
wake up sometimes and I am very shocked, similar to Brent,
and what fucks the people up is that I too
was not out when I was at Howard. I've always
been Steve, but I was not out. But I made

(01:04:15):
a very deliberate choice because I wanted to ascend a
certain social hierarchy in a wrung on that social hierarchy.
I could not be in Blagosa because you know, they
were the pariahs in a particular way to them when
it was time to fight, or I think about critical
incidents with my classmate, you know, Daryl Payton was bashed

(01:04:35):
by the band. We went to find arts into you know,
Blagosa for help. But otherwise it really wasn't like that.
I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be in charge.
So me being out wanted the pledge, right, I wanted
all these things, and that was not gonna be an
option for me being an out black, you know, gay

(01:04:56):
or queer man. Like I look at some of these
kids now in Marvel with you being out before you
made line right, like that was unheard of. And I
mean I mean across HBC, you know sectors. I had
one little fry brother and not only did he cross undergrad,
he was SGA president, you know, right, not saying he

(01:05:20):
had an easy road, he did not. But now I'm like,
it's my research kind of null and void, like because
there are now babies that are like flying in the
face of what I'm saying in my work. But then
what I learned is that It isn't easy. You know,
you have to be twice as twice as good, like
I know one guy was like automobile. I made that

(01:05:41):
line because I was SGA president. I had a four
point on GPA haw. To not have that shit, I
probably would not have gotten on that line.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:05:47):
So there's still this notion of exceptionalism even with black
for people that that has exist, even with an HBCU space.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Does it make sense to y'all, Absolutely, and we have
to talk about that. That's in my notes from the
questions that were provided.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Yeah, and I'm going to say, you know, your scholarship
is not null and void because while the road that
these babies walk may still be a little muddy, and
they may still be some potholes, and it may still

(01:06:26):
be a little unclear. Before you did what you did,
there was just a whole bunch of weeds and growth
to where you could not even see your role. So
you came through with the shears and you cleared up,
and you cleared away. You cleared enough of a way,

(01:06:47):
You cleared enough of a path to where other people
could come and do the next steps and pave and
maybe be able to lay some cement and things of that.
But Brenton, you said you had some notes.

Speaker 3 (01:07:02):
You wanted to share, Yes, because I do think that
when I was reflecting on the question of the role
that queer students play on campus, I think there has
to be a distinction between the gay and the Laisvian

(01:07:22):
students and the queer students and the trans students. So
I think we often collapse LGBTQIA, But there are some
different strategic performances that students participate in that are technologies
of survival because of the religious experiences, which include the

(01:07:42):
religious oppressions that's connected to and through the policies that
are practiced at historically black colleges and universities across the
entire gambit, understanding the consequence of a gender expression for
a black man, for example, to be too feminine, or

(01:08:03):
the financial struggles that Billy Porter is experiencing right now
because of his gender performance and personality. I think about
that because you have the black gay male student who
is a Republican who is against the queer students and

(01:08:27):
the gender non conformance students, but they're black. So these
different multiculturalisms that happen in classroom discussions. I taught at
Howard a few years ago. I would always be a
contrariant because I could see this black gay male student
in solidarity with patriarchy rather than instolidarity with the gender

(01:08:49):
non conformant or even by black you know, female students.
And to see that kind of intersectional clashing camp on campus,
in class, in real time, it really makes me, you know,
fascinated with our culture and how we you know, our
different mindsets. But I had to in my own life

(01:09:12):
start to wear a rainbow flag on my backpack because
it's not a parent that I'm a black gay man,
nor is it a parent that I'm in solidarity with
my queer students. Because I just watched a TikTok today
for a young black trans graduate of Columbia. She just

(01:09:32):
graduated in May, and she's like, I'm tired. We need
to put the gays out of LGBTQ. Like somebody needs
to hold the gay the GE's accountable. I'm going to
go to my last pride and I'm gonna leave for lgbtqs.
But that kind of cultural clashing, it's for me, I think,
Steve hits. It introduces a conversation where when I was

(01:09:55):
coming of age, masculinity was the technology of survival, and
for me, I didn't center sexuality because I'm like everybody's
having sex. I just know I want to pledge. I
want to go live a nice life. And at that time,
I desired black respectability. I wanted to be the gay

(01:10:15):
rich uncle, you know, like living in DC. That those
were my dreams. But it was my queer students at
Howard who really radicalized me in a way that introduced
me to how I can be in solidarity with forward
movement and recognize the Hey, these experiences are diverse, so

(01:10:37):
I wouldn't in a lot of ways too because of
how I show up in the world. I don't identify
as queer, but I can recognize how queer students on
campus are in just in every moment. I think I
wrapped this up. But when I first met Joseph, I
was overwhelmed at his audacity and I would just be

(01:10:59):
like like walk up to him and say, hey, I'm
just so you have courage man.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
To exist and live.

Speaker 3 (01:11:09):
And I'm working on research right now between Richard Wright
and James Baldwin because I do think that that is
the dilemma between them two. Whereas like volven Is like,
I'm out, I'm from Harlem, I'm from poverty.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
This is who I am. This is my expressions.

Speaker 3 (01:11:22):
And Richard's like, hey, we have to continue to write
stories about Native Son and that life continue that trope
and queer students do something to tab it different, not
a tab it extremely different from just those who are
practicing same gender sex or same gender love, but are

(01:11:45):
still lifting the banner of heteropatriarchy in all this various forms.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
And so when we think about queerness, I.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
Wrote down in my notes that queerness queer students for me,
you ask what we bring, and we bring intelligence. Even
if we are the question like how do we wrestle
with sexuality or how do we wrestle with black queer folks,
it forces contradiction, It forces interrogation, and I think that

(01:12:20):
is something that we don't think about because we get
to hide in the closet of masculinity. And I am,
even in my own voice, having to come out in
ways that I got comfortable being able to just sit
in the room cosplay as a black straight man, and
I didn't recognize that it was that until I just was.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
Like, I like going to church. I like going to
the barbershop.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
I love my fraternity, and I'm like, I'm not getting
beat up, and I'm like, hmm, I wonder why, you know?
And then I had to come to term and say, yeah,
I'm a black man, a black gay man who's in
solidarity with my queer folks, and I think that more
brothers like me need to doticipate in that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
Hey man, thank you so much for sharing and thank
you for your kind words to me, not just on
this podcast, but consistently through the time that we've known
each other. So this this is, this has been a
rich conversation, and I want to move to like our
rapid fire benediction. So I'm gonna ask just let's see one, two, three, four, five,

(01:13:26):
there's gonna be eight quick questions. We're gonna go in
the same order that we've been going, So Brenton, we
can start with you, then we can move to Steve.
Then I'll actually hop it and they we'll close it
out with Tamya, and I'm gonna ask the question, whatever
comes to your mind, is whatever needs to come out,

(01:13:46):
don't think about it too hard.

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
What are you looking forward to finishing my dissertation in
this moment in time?

Speaker 5 (01:13:59):
I would say my twentieth reunion and making our goal.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
Amen. I'm looking forward to summer ending because this Pepco
bill is ridiculous and heinous. And then I'm also reaching
the part of someone where it's kind of like I've
gotten a little bit too far off the rails and

(01:14:26):
kind of like August September, when school starts to open
back up, it kind of sentence me and kind of
like gets me back to my course. So I'm looking
forward to that.

Speaker 4 (01:14:40):
I am looking forward to I had a lot to
look forward to. My nieces were coming. They just left,
and I was really looking forward to that. So I
was looking forward to that. That's over. I was looking
forward to Beyonce. That's sober. So I'm just looking forward
to school starting and getting ready for the students to
come back on campus.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
Okay, what is one thing you like about yourself?

Speaker 3 (01:15:04):
I'm very dramatic, and I love my personality. For so
many years, I think the crucifixion of black masculinity kind
of maybe like high behind the drama because the drama
can be perceived is gay.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
But I'm very dramatic and I absolutely am learning to
like laugh and love that.

Speaker 5 (01:15:26):
One thing you said I love about myself. Big Speed
gave me two things. He gave me his name and
the six foot one inch scams, and I love being
able to show those off in the summertime with my
five inch shorts. I think that I am the aier
and arbiter of the I hate the whole hotey anything,

(01:15:49):
but I'm I've been doing this for like fifteen years now.
So here we are.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
Now, why do you hate Hoochi daddies.

Speaker 5 (01:15:55):
I don't like the terminology. The straits are fucked it up.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 5 (01:16:01):
Much like with a lot of what they do, they
and they steal and they don't do it correctly, which
is why.

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
This clocket they need to stop saying.

Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
Take the word take the world out of my mouth,
bran all of it.

Speaker 5 (01:16:15):
They steal and they but it's straight so overall, like
you know, hold of the conversation. Yes, I love my legs.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
I really like kind of like just kind of like
looking at myself on this podcast. I've really been getting
into my teeth and into my smile. The coldgate is coldgated,
and we're thankful.

Speaker 4 (01:16:39):
And we thank God, We thank God.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
What do I like about myself?

Speaker 4 (01:16:44):
I like that I'm a big woman. I like that
I am five elevens and that it and if it
gets strange, I know what's to do.

Speaker 1 (01:16:57):
No question, Where are you ay from today?

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
To be honest, I do not know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:07):
Okay, this is the first time in my life that
I this has been a dream of mine for the
past ten years, and I do not know. I mean,
last year looks it was turbulent, and this year too
has come in like a wrecking ball. And I know
it has been a As a man of faith, I

(01:17:27):
know it is a consequence of me refusing to surrender
to what I hear the Lord asking me to write about.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
And I think it's just oh, so you Jonah in
the whale very much.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
So that was actually my first sermon was about Jonah
and the Whale, and I did a summer series on
that last summer. But yeah, I'm just now saying, you
know what, I'm paying my vow. So I'm just with faith.
To be honest, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:17:58):
I am a yeah, growner, Steve. I welcome every birthday,
every year of growth. You know, the phenomenal Zorail Hurston said,
You know there are years that ask us questions and
there are years that have answered. I'm looking very forward

(01:18:19):
to some more answers, so much more growing up, much
more embodying growth, and a more growner steve.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
A year from now, I'm reaping the harvest. A year
from now, my life is materially better than what it
is right now. I'm getting ready to walk into forty.
I turned forty this Sunday, and I will talk about

(01:18:48):
it at length because I am a black gay boy
that grew up into a black gay man that is
now a black queer person who is turning in an
America and in a world where so many of my
elders and my ancestors did not live to see forty.

(01:19:10):
Essex Temple did not live to see forty. Joseph Bean
did not live to see forty. Scores and scores of
other unnamed, unknown black gay men did not live to
see forty. But I'm here, and a year from now
I will be walking into forty one, not just with

(01:19:32):
my life materially better, but with peace and stability in
my mind.

Speaker 4 (01:19:39):
What I'm looking forward to next year is I have
a My oldest niece is a queer baby who lives
in Texas, and she's had a rough time, and what
I'm most looking forward to is her graduation. That will
be I don't want to use the language a miracle,
but it will be a big accomplishment for her, and

(01:20:02):
so I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:06):
And she knows that.

Speaker 4 (01:20:07):
However it comes, Auntie is excited to join her at graduation.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
We clap in advance for her. What are you thankful for.

Speaker 3 (01:20:22):
Given the culture inclimate of this space. I am thankful
for my ability to hear the spirit and obey the spirit.
Like I am definitely thankful for my ability to hear
God to be honest.

Speaker 5 (01:20:44):
Amen, you know, as the elders would say, it's twofold
for me. I am thankful for being in my right
mind and having peace of mind, and there's a freedom
in that, even when the world is on fire.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
I am. I am thankful to be of myself and
in myself and to.

Speaker 5 (01:21:09):
Be able to close my door to this house and
have a peace of mind and no problems, don't worry,
no trouble that I can control. That's what I'm thankful for.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
I am thankful for the ways that grief turned into joy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
It's so deep.

Speaker 4 (01:21:25):
It's so deep that you said that, because I was
thinking about grief, and two years ago I lost my
dad and I kept remember thinking to myself, like, I
don't want people who know me to say I remember
to me before her dad died, and after her dad
died that was really important to me. And so even

(01:21:47):
through sadness, I'm very grateful that I still have a
grasp of who I am. And even on the other side,
I would never I don't know if I'll ever be
on the other side of grief, but on the other
side of deep sadness that he's gone, I hear his
voice so clearly.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:22:08):
I'm grateful that through his death it has grounded me
in a way with like ancestry, my ancestors, to poor libations,
to speak loudly when I need help. And the way
that he's still parents, this way that he still comes

(01:22:29):
is it feels like a gift, and so I'm grateful
for that.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
And then I've been having a lot of dreams about
my mother lately, and it's like she'll come to me,
but it's like she's still living. I had a dream
and I went to visit her, and she was living
with my grandmother who's also passed on, and she said, oh, well,

(01:22:59):
we found this other, you know, wonderful young lady and
she also lives with us, and I woke up and
I just I just started to think about there's this
old church song, I've got a new home over in
Glory and it's mine, And that just might have been

(01:23:20):
my vision of seeing my mother and my grandmother over
in their new home in Glory and them kind of
let me know it's not your time yet, but when
it is your time, we got a room here for
you too. And even when you kind of shared you
know how important it is for you to like not

(01:23:43):
have this narrative where people knew you before and after
your father died, but people do know you before and
after your father died, because I know for me Thursday
September the sixteenth, twenty twelve, one at nine am in
the morning, when I got that call from my sister

(01:24:06):
Laura and she said, Mommy stopped breathing. There was a
Joseph Reeves that died with her. But the Hallelujah moment
is that even with that hole that will always exist

(01:24:27):
until I go from this life to the next, because
of grace, because of mercy, and because of the providential
favor of the God that I know and that she
told me about. There's yet new life, and there's yet
a new Joseph that gets to grow around that hole.

(01:24:49):
And my mission and my charge and my task for
what's getting ready to before he has come this September
is to continue to believe that this new Joseph that
is coming into being is still worth it. I have

(01:25:10):
not seen my I still got some best days ahead
of me. I still got some joy ahead of me.
I still got some love ahead of me. So to me,
I I want to I want to thank you for
being vulnerable and and for sharing that. And then the
next question I want to ask.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
Is what are you proud of I am. I'm trying
not to cry, man, because I am very proud of myself.

Speaker 3 (01:25:41):
A lot of the performance of masculinity as a technology
of survival, I think so was intelligence like being quote
unquote smart, like performing smartness as a means to survive,
because the nerd is always safe, and so than black
classroom cultures, where it's like, you know, you can perform nerd,

(01:26:04):
perform smart. He's not gay, he's just smart. And so
in a lot of ways, I picked up the language
and the lingo on how to defend myself and navigate
and look good and put up.

Speaker 2 (01:26:13):
Perform respectability, you know. But being at Howard Ed a
graduate student, I had to really like learn so much.

Speaker 3 (01:26:25):
There was really a decolonization of my mind that I
knew was I was conjuring up prior to getting here,
but actually embodying it and not just being like practicing
mantrances say like Brenton, I am proud of you, Like
what would your fifteen year old say self say to
your thirty two year old self, like I'm proud of you,
like you are really a gay black scholar out loud,

(01:26:48):
Like it's one thing to be a black gay man
and a scholar of religion, but to be a black
gay man who was a black gay literary scholar like that,
that is that's that makes me And so I am
very much so saying like that you you waking up
another day and you got your faith in tag just

(01:27:10):
listen to this period and to know that like for
so many years religion has been so far removed from
the black gay experience and for me to intertinct like
black gay reserves like interested and create black gay resurrection.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
I'm like, I'm proud of me, for doing that. Thang
Man Steve.

Speaker 5 (01:27:34):
He said, we am I proud of I am proud
of black people. I am proud of Black people within
the world and in particular the American societal contexts, who
are continuing to transgress and simply show up in the

(01:27:57):
ways they know how to in the midst of this
current time period. I'm not going to use the words
tumultuous or I'm not going to use the words unprecedented,
because you know, Negroes are used to living in unprecidented times.
But seeing the ways in which people have been pursuing
of joy and triumph and just still being able to

(01:28:24):
be is a marvel. Black folks are a marvel, and
I am very proud of us and seeing us navigate
and simply just be if that means outn't gone to
the grocery store, or seeing the ways in which you know,
the NPHC are still having their you know, conventions and

(01:28:47):
you know Blaze and all these things. Seeing how you know,
HBC students are still hpcis is still holding orientation like
black folks are still not that it's a business as usual,
but as we're gonna do this shit in spite of
and that is very inspiring.

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
And we're gonna and we can, and we are not
gonna be robbed of ritual. Now, we're not gonna be
robbed of ritual. We're not gonna be robbed of ceremony.
We're gonna take what we got and we're gonna do
what we can. Indeed, and then speaking of ritual, I'm
proud of myself because I prayed this morning, and I

(01:29:25):
prayed last night before I went to bed.

Speaker 4 (01:29:32):
What you guys are think, I'm still very proud of me.
And in shock of my life. I've made a promise
to myself that I would not be living in my
home state by the time I was thirty years old.
And I picked up at twenty nine and left left

(01:29:52):
in the middle when the economy was in the tank,
came here without a job, and I did it right.
Like this life that I have built with friends and
family and ancestors and God like, I know that I
could do anything. And I'm very proud of myself with
that around.

Speaker 1 (01:30:13):
That, what is a thorn for you? What is something
that is just rubbing you the wrong way, burning your toast?
What's like what got your goat?

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
What's got your goat, So it is what has my
two things.

Speaker 3 (01:30:43):
Sometimes I get in my own way, so sometimes I
have my own goat, and I'm like having to critique myself.
But in that critique, it is a culture critique of
black sis men and how we navigate and negotiate society

(01:31:04):
and so like for me, and I would say black
sits hit me in, but also black gay men as well,
but just black folks generally. But I'm like definitely speaking
to the ways that hypocrisy navigates in our own community,
cultures and discourse. And every time I'm like trying to
get through, particularly in my own work, because I'm still

(01:31:28):
like that's I.

Speaker 2 (01:31:29):
Eat, live and breathing my work.

Speaker 3 (01:31:31):
I wish I had more black gay male mentors or
black gay or blushed black affirming people that I'm like,
no one has made this argument already, like wait, wait, wait, wait,
we're still talking about this or that, And I'm like

(01:31:52):
my own folks, I'm like, y'all we the Black church.
I'm like, I'm not, I'm not Robbie Perry shout out
to him and I like put him on panels and
have discussions where he'll get on the floor to critique
the black church and live and navigate to get access
into the pool pen in those ways, Like I don't
feel called to that, but that does piss me off,

(01:32:12):
Like for the way black boys in the South particularly
are being are experiencing domestic terrorisms because of their gender
expression and their sexual orientation, and to see it being
recorded and just to hear those stories, read those stories,
discover those stories, and even tell those stories that just

(01:32:32):
it gets my goal because I'm like, this is something
that happens within our own historically marginalized.

Speaker 2 (01:32:39):
Communities or segregated spaces.

Speaker 3 (01:32:41):
Where I'm like, come on, I like, come on, y'all
like that, just like why are we abusing six to
seven and twelve.

Speaker 2 (01:32:51):
Year old boys?

Speaker 3 (01:32:52):
Why are you know we're still I'm thinking about last
year where brother Carlos and Mississippi is physically alted by
his lover and chopped up with an axe in Jackson, Mississippi,
and his who would by who the lover seems is
a police officer and it takes the police department four
days to find him. But we don't rally around a

(01:33:13):
protest with that. But we'll give George Floyd four funerals.
And that's another critique of the civil rights modern day
civil rights movement, because I'm like, no, I'm not so
that's another conversation, but I'm thinking about those things. And
even after George Floyd is murdered a week later, Iana

(01:33:36):
Dior is physically a black trans woman, It's physically assaulted
in the same city at a gas station by what
seems to be twenty to thirty black seas head men,
and I'm like, y'all, come on, that's what really pisces
me off.

Speaker 2 (01:33:54):
There's my goal.

Speaker 1 (01:33:55):
Or even like a Tony McDade, who was like a
black friend who was also a victim of police state
violence doing that same George Floyd was state violence, and
nobody talks about Tony. So Steve, what is a thorn
for you? And I saw you give a cackle when

(01:34:15):
I when I introduced that question.

Speaker 5 (01:34:18):
Yeah, I'm gonna bring some levity. I may not go
as deep. I feel like Aretha figuring out what I'm
waiting for dinner, like just adult thing, you know, like
I'll be waking up sometimes I'm like, I gotta take
care of myself, like one am I like right now,
it was on my mind as it's wrapping up.

Speaker 2 (01:34:37):
I was like, what am I gonna do?

Speaker 5 (01:34:40):
But no, I mean, I think it's just that like
taking care of yourself and being mindful of that. Like
I really, I have lost too many family members for
sacrificing themselves. And what I mean by that is you're
taking care of everybody else, but you you're not caring

(01:35:04):
for your own well being. I need us as black
folks to go to the doctor. I need us to
seek out therapy. Your pastor is amazing, but you can
you consider that couch too?

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):
Just wait a minute. I was like, wait a minute.

Speaker 5 (01:35:23):
I know he was on the same page, but no,
take care of yourself and take care of also each other.
And what does that look like? When I see black
folks invoking anti blackness, which is also a direct byproduct
of white supremacy, that gets me going. I expect white

(01:35:45):
folks to be racist, it hits a little differently when
I see black folks being anti black to each other
in black spaces with your own people. Let's stop that shit.
So let's take care of our safe and each other.
And when that doesn't happen, I get I get quite irritated.

Speaker 1 (01:36:04):
My thorn so BT has given Tyler Perry yet another
series divorced sisters, and of course sisters are spelled S I, S,
T A S. And Devon Franklin, So ex husband of

(01:36:24):
Megan Good is one of the actors on the show,
and they've given him this DL storyline on where he's
like this closeted black pastor and it's about to and
it's it really is given just the recycling of like

(01:36:45):
the Olmary Hardwick Janet Jackson story from Tyler Perry's adaptation
for Colored Girls, and it's just like, girl, can we
please get something different because time and people are just people.
People are just way too willing to act like he

(01:37:08):
no longer has open allegations against him, and that that's
that's my thought. What has given you all joy?

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
I'm in love?

Speaker 3 (01:37:25):
So I I am definitely experiencing joy every day all
my life given and building love in ways that I
did not believe was possible as a.

Speaker 2 (01:37:41):
Realist and living in a capitalist environment. But I have
seen a variation of love that we don't see in media,
Joseph like because of the refusal to give us.

Speaker 3 (01:38:00):
Joy stories what I call them, like we have to
like have that radical faith to do it ourselves. But
I would say that is what has carried me throughout
this entire process, because the Howard process in my department
has been.

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
A deeply spiritual religious I.

Speaker 3 (01:38:19):
Mean, I'm like trying to get out of here in
all kind of way. Just give me any just give
me a good project, give me a good idea. But
it has been so I can't do that, and it
has been so encomplishing in my whole life to where
I'm like everything has been inspiring, but my relationship have
definitely been a joy story.

Speaker 2 (01:38:40):
What is bringing me joy these days?

Speaker 5 (01:38:45):
I think the ennticipation of the possibilities of you know,
just being a community in community my people, Like I
have some trips set up for the end of the summer.
I'm looking forward to seeing people and really just really
enjoying the summer. You know you are rushing it before,
but I don't need the school a better ringesse yet.

(01:39:06):
So I've really just been experiencing joy during my break
and doing like I just came back from vacationing on
office vineyard and I did not have a meeting the
entire week. I've never blocked off my calendar, So things
like that bring me joy, Like being able to set
those boundaries has been a super important to me to

(01:39:28):
maintain what I'm saying is Steve and how important to
others and continue to be. So I'm really looking forward
to and excited about, you know, continued community with my
people in my village.

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):
Seeing Queen Latifa get inducted into Delta Sigma THETAS Sorority
Incorporated is giving me joy. And to see the joy
that it's given so many other people, and then to
see the joy that this Clips Reunion album is giving
people specifically black men, you know, is giving me joy.

(01:40:17):
Thanks for sticking with Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hello Christian. Well,
this has been a wonderful episode, but this has definitely
been an episode where we have had to roll through
the rushes. But I definitely do want to thank Steve.

(01:40:41):
I want to thank Brenton. I want to thank Tamya
for joining us. I want to thank you all for
joining us tonight. And then as we're signing off, any
parting words that you all have and also what is
one action item that you would give people as far
as advocating for and defending our HBCUs.

Speaker 3 (01:41:04):
Well, I would say, first of all, thank you Joseph
for creating this space and inviting me into this space.

Speaker 2 (01:41:12):
I am very appreciative. It's always a.

Speaker 3 (01:41:17):
Being in community with you, and community with you always
reminds me, gives me courage and gives me, yeah, courage,
courage to be and so it just was refreshing always
and always tell you that, like I definitely my cup
has been filed up. So great to see you in
the email Steve as well, like, Okay, this is a

(01:41:39):
great coming coming together. So I want to say thank
you for that and just from the bottom of my heart,
like just to say like it is a truly blessing
and gives me the fire I need.

Speaker 2 (01:41:50):
To write to answer your question. I think my charge
to us would be too financially well.

Speaker 3 (01:41:59):
First primary, if you can't financially donate to historically black
HBCUs Like we need funding, Like if you have to
sacrifice your lunch on a Monday, give ten dollars whatever
you can. But if financial resources are not available human resources,
go to campus. Alums, go back to campus, get involved,
get invested what's going on campus. I know the idea

(01:42:21):
of well we didn't have that when we were in
school or we didn't know be notable alum, like go
home beyond just homecoming. But if so, go to homecoming,
get your class to donate. Stude we are we are
in need of alumni support. And that's all I Those

(01:42:43):
are those two.

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):
Teams for me.

Speaker 5 (01:42:47):
Again. Yeah, I agree with Brentson. Thank you for having me.
This has been amazing. I'm really just gonna echo with
regards to.

Speaker 2 (01:42:56):
Call to action.

Speaker 5 (01:42:59):
If you're a less and you're an HBC you, alum,
give back to your school. If you're a listener and
you did not even go to an HPC, you adopt
an HBCU. I give back to Howard and other HBCUs annually.
So you know I've given this filman, you know, thank
you so much. I have given this filman. You know

(01:43:23):
you have to give back across the sector. I think
that people think that our schools don't need it, but
they really do. Especially I mean during these times when
budgets are getting slashed, the things are getting cut, we
need to be given back to our institutions. And I
do believe in you know, doing that financially. Otherwise it

(01:43:44):
doesn't take much in every dollar desk.

Speaker 1 (01:43:47):
So that'll be my charge, Okay, And I was just
getting ready to say the same thing. If you can
give even if you're not an HBCU alum. If you're
an HBCU alum, give to your school and another hbc
if you can. If you're not an HBCU alum, find
an HBCU that's near you that you can adopt. Because,

(01:44:08):
specifically with the attacks on pel grants and put and specifically,
if you can look at the fact that so many
of our HBCUs are state schools that that rely on
government funding, we're really gonna have We're really gonna have
to lean in and start selling some fish dinners and

(01:44:29):
some chicken platters and and doing what we can to
keep all our institutions financially solvent to where they're not
having to go and beg Caesar for blood money. So
this has been another episode of Hella Black, Hellquier. Hello Christian,
thank you all so much for taking the time to

(01:44:49):
be with us today. As always, like, comment, share, subscribe,
and always be mindful to look into the sh because
you'll never know what goodies I have for you waiting there.
So until next time, take care of yourselves, take care
of each other, Know that I love you very very much,

(01:45:10):
and have a good one. Hella Black, Hello Queer, Hello,
Christian is a production of iHeartMedia on the Outspoken Slate,
which seeks to amplify LGBTQ voices in podcasting. I am
your host and executive creator producer Joseph Freese, along with
Gabrielle Collins, who also serves as executive producer. Dylan you

(01:45:34):
Are is a producer. Treble is our lead producer and editor.

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