December 1, 2021 • 30 mins
In the first episode of “In the Deep: Stories that Shape Us,” host Zach Stafford sits with author and activist Frederick Joseph to talk about the power of stories, both told and untold. As a young man growing up between the northeast and the South, Frederick isn’t a stranger to heartbreak, sharing how stigmas and traumas couldn’t define his life’s trajectory. And, despite these moments of deep sadness, he lives a life where he’s actively choosing love - which he calls the adversary to trauma. Frederick walks us through his journey, filled with the stories that defined his life - and others that he didn’t allow to shape the outcome of his personal and professional road to happiness and health.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Sometimes life can be complicated and messy, and inner society,
made up of so many rules and expectations, being yourself
can be seen as an act of rebellion or bravery. Hi,
I'm Zach Stafford, and this is in the deep stories
that shape us. Join me as our guests black and
Latin X men unraveled the complexities and struggles they face
(00:24):
in a place that doesn't always see them, all of
them for who they really are. I sit down with
the people, the athletes, community and thought leaders that have
struggled with the traditional ideals of masculinity, religion, and family
the society often imposes upon them. Each episode, we explore
the fears that make up the Black and Latin X
male psyche, understanding the effects of stigma and masculinity on
(00:46):
self identity. We'll talk about how these common themes of discrimination, culture,
and economics factor into the struggle, and yet how these
hardships aren't enough to stop these men on the road
to health and healing. I want to start off our
very first episode by talking about something I'm incredibly passionate about. Stories.
(01:10):
Stories we are told by family members, stories we tell
ourselves to make sense of the world around us. And
even the stories we tell ourselves to stay alive. I'm
so passionate about storytelling, not just because of my background
as a journalist, but because I always say that the
one thing we all do besides eat and drink each
day is tell each other. Stories. Is how we all communicate.
(01:30):
But what we rarely talk about is how these stories
shape our entire lives, maybe more than anything else, especially
when it comes to understanding the good and the bad
that happens to each of us. Today's guest, Frederick Joseph,
is special because he teaches us how to take our
own stories and swap trauma for love in a really
beautiful and expansive way. He's a New York Times bestselling author,
(01:54):
activists and philanthropists who isn't a stranger to heartbreak, and
I think his own stories of love and loss or
something we can all relate to, especially when some of
his own stories weren't always the truth as he now
knows it. But before we get to the heavier stuff,
I want to hear from Frederick. Where did his story begin? Frederick,
(02:14):
it's so great to have you today, and I'd love
to begin our conversation for the listeners just to like
locate who you are and where you come from. So
tell us where did you grow up, what was your family,
like all those good details about your past. Yeah, so
I grew up in Yonkers, New York. And for those
who aren't familiar with Yonkers, all of us like to say, well,
that's where like Mary J. Blodge is from, and that's
(02:36):
where DMX is from. So Yonkers is interesting. And I,
you know, frankly, I grew up in the projects right,
raised by a single black mother, and I had a
ton of family in two places which also helped shape me,
in Philadelphia and in Columbia, South Carolina. So I spent
you know, weeks at a time in South Carolina every
(02:58):
few months, and then just kind of a being the
Philly and things like that. So those all are just
ingrained in my DNA, you could say, Yeah, and I
had a like the inverse of that, I grew up
in Tennessee, but would go to the north, to Baltimore,
to Iowa, to Chicago to see family. And you know,
people don't like to think of us as black men,
as particularly mobile people in the world that we have
(03:18):
families all around. But it's a big part about being
black in America because due to the great migration, our
families are all over. What was it like for you
to go back and forth between these two places that
I know, personally, blackness the masculinity animates itself very differently
in these places sometimes, you know, I think that's an
excellent way of putting it. The manifestations of of patriarchy,
(03:40):
quite frankly, are different in all places. So like in
New York, you know, there's this culture of art. I
would say, men and boys, especially black men and black boys,
can practice art, but specific types of art. If you're
going to be in music, it had to be hip
hop or wrap or maybe like extremely you know, for
(04:00):
lack of better term, like swagged out R and B
or whatever. Right, um. But then in the South it
was very sports and labor intensive. I would go down
to South Carolina and that's actually where I learned to
play football, you know, just like yeah, like I learned
to play football in the South, which is kind of
like why I did so well in the norm. So
I think that the way masculinity and then patriarchy kind
(04:20):
of manifest in the South. For me, we're just like,
why are you doing anything pertaining in music? Why do
you care about anything pertaining art? Why are you not
more physical? Why are you not you know, kind of
like more aggressive. It was very very interesting how that
played out. You know, a word that would come up
really easily for us to say is code switching, you know,
cud switching, the very academic word where we usually refer
(04:41):
to that in like white versus Black spaces, Like you
go to your corporate job as a black man and
you act certain ways. You go back to your community,
you act one way. But we never talked about an
intra community about how our masculinity is changing. Do you
relate to that? Did you find yourself changing between black communities.
I was a surrogate for Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign and
twenty and I would get sent to the South all
(05:03):
the time to meet with black people in various spaces,
whether that was barbershops or hair salons or churches. There's
like these recordings which my fiance laughs act She's like, oh,
whenever you go to the South, you become a Baptist
preacher whenever you're speaking publicly, And I'm just like, yeah,
you know, because I do code switch down there. Down there,
(05:23):
I get very I get very Jesus five in the North.
I'm like, oh, hey, do you have the Restaurant'm like, hey,
do you have any kale and grilled chicken down there?
I'm like, oh, you got you know, you've better green,
but you know, make sure the rings. I got too
much vinegar exactly. So there's definitely this code switching within blackness,
(05:46):
and I think that that speaks to the dynamism of
the black community, which is oftentimes a race through the
white lens that is the media, the white lens that
is entertainment and publishing in all these different spaces, as
if we're a monolith, but it's are from the truth.
Much of what Frederick talks about reminds me of this
idea I've heard before that a stereotype is just a
(06:08):
chapter in a book you haven't fully read. And as
a black man myself, I know the realities that come
with so many stereotypes constantly thrust upon us. So I
wanted to hear from Frederick what was that moment, that
aha moment that made him realize that blackness wasn't a
one size fits all. I had the privilege of going
(06:28):
to a performing arts elementary school in Yonkers, and you know.
I went to my first Broadway show when I was
about eight years old. I saw a Phantom of the
Opera I'll Never Forget. My grandmother and I went, and
I had to be quite frank. I don't even think
I had ever been to Manhattan, let alone to a
Broadway show. I see this play and I'm just like,
awe struck. I'm like, oh my god, like, what is
(06:50):
this right? Because the world that I come from, it's
just completely different. So what ends up taking place is
I'm walking out and there was this other play happening
at the exact same time it was Aida, and Aida
at the time was the star of Aida was Heather Headly, phenomenal,
phenomenal actress. And I had just came from seeing this
(07:10):
like brilliant show, like starring a cast of full white
people or whatever. But I'm like, there's a black show.
Black people don't have shows like like this, right, So
that moment switched something in me because one, I didn't
know that this world existed, and I didn't know that
black people, if this world exists, were allowed to exist
within that world that I didn't know existed, right, So
(07:31):
when I went home, it made me question all of
the constructs of blackness that were imposed upon me everywhere
I looked. Right, it was like, oh, black people have
to perform this, or have to sing this, or have
to sing that, or have to only get to do
these certain things. I'm like, well, what about Heather Heavily?
(07:51):
What about Heather? Yeah? What about Heather? You know, hearing
that story makes me better understand more than I did before.
Why you have a book coming out called Patriarchy Blues,
which explores as us a masculinity patriarchy from both a
personal and cultural standpoint. So why did you decide to
put this book out now? And how are your own
personal stories like the one you should before influencing that
(08:11):
book right now? So Patriarchy Blues is interesting because when
I my my personality is very much that like my
grandmother kind of built in me, this idea of as
long as you have the ability to use your hands
for good work, then use your hands for good work, right,
And Patriarchy Blue specifically is like aimed at myself to
(08:33):
a certain extent. Right, I think that a lot of
people do the easy thing of like pointing the finger
and wagging the finger at people and telling them how
they're wrong. But it takes something really special to be
vulnerable and courageous and calling yourself out about how you've
been wrong, right, And I think that that's the actual
work that people need to get to. So Patriarchy Blues
is me saying like, hey, you know, I was molested
(08:55):
by my babysitter from eight to ten years old, and
that put a chasm in my heart and actually made
me develop this anger towards women. And that anger ended
up evolving into becoming a womanizer in my teens and
in my twenties. That juxtaposed with living in this heteronormative,
(09:16):
patriarchal society, right, I was just like, oh yeah, like, oh,
I'm doing the right thing. Not only am I justified
in my pain, but I'm doing the right thing. Society
is telling me that. But what does it look like
to be in your thirties and actually say like, hey,
I've spent the last decade plus unpacking and trying to
be better than this. But I don't think that this
is just my work. This is our work, right, Like,
(09:38):
this is our work as a community. Um, I have
to ask you, you know, I was like a fellow,
a person that has moved to the world pretty similarly
in identity, When did you find this bravery to do
that work? What I have is my story, right, I
was like, if I have nothing else, I have my story,
my story of pain, my story of joy, my story
of agony, my story of desperate ration. And if I can,
(10:02):
in my words, use my pen to be vulnerable, combined
with my understanding of kind of how to market and
tell stories from that lens, then I think that you know,
my theory of changes, like people will grow? What lives
might that save? If I'm willing to do that, right,
what courage might that bring? And and I think it
just like honestly came from you know, when I was
(10:23):
about twenty four, I found out that I have multiples
gross is and you know a lot of things changed
at that moment where I I didn't spend all of
my late twenties drinking and party and I spent a
lot of my late twenties trying to develop the wisdom
of a man in his seventies. Right, Like, if I
was to look back on my life, if I was
to believe this earth tomorrow, what do you want your
(10:43):
legacy to be? And I want mine to be a
legacy of progress and healing. This road to healing reminds
me a lot about the power of truth. Often the
stories that are told to us are just as important
to the shaping of our lives as the stories we
create ourselves. I relate to this idea of truth stories because,
like Frederick, I've had an uncle pass from complications due
(11:03):
to HIV and was told it was cancer. I was
curious how that shaped his story, his community work, and
what his uncle represented in his life. Man, that is
that that's a nuanced story. So to tell that, I
have to first, you know, kind of talk about the
matriarch of my family, who was my grandmother, Thelma Forward.
She passed the breast cancer when I was eighteen, and
(11:25):
it was her second bout with breast cancer. The first
time she didn't tell anybody. The second time she said
she had a cold until she couldn't leave the hospital. Right,
there's this aspect I think, especially of certain generations of
black people, as she was from you know, once again,
she was from South Carolina, came up to the North.
She left the South because her first husband had been
lynched by the clan. That's the father of my uncle
(11:46):
who actually died of HIV. So just for some context,
real quick. She grew up in this hard, hard way,
like she came up hard. Right. So the way that
she has viewed not just masculinity, but the way she
viewed blackness is that it has to be as tough
as steel or else it will be bent, broken, melted down,
(12:08):
you know, and then turned into bullets that will probably
be aimed at up other black people. Right. So she
was a lovely person who also didn't spend any time
with the privilege that I have of navigating what it
means to just be and not navigating what it just
means to be. She of course to navigate other people's realities,
such as homosexuality, right, And there was just the propaganda
(12:32):
of homosexuality, which she surface level was like, okay, surface level,
this is what I know, this is what I understand,
and this is what I don't want because she's equating homosexuality.
I'd imagine with all the things that were the opposite
of what a black person needs to survive. Right. So, again,
when you have in the seventies, eighties, nineties, these things
(12:55):
that are happening in the community, from the epidemic of drugs,
the epidemic of violence, so on and so forth, you
get a major usage of heroin. So my my uncle,
he was a heroin user and ultimately passed by contracting
HIV from a needle. But with the propaganda, HIV can't
(13:20):
be contracted with a needle from drug use, right of
course not, because HIV can only be contracted during that
time and even now I'm not gonna even just put
on that time even now. Problematically, the view is that
HIV is solely contracted through same sex acts. So ultimately,
when he did have HIV, my grandmother refused to tell
(13:41):
people that, right, And it wasn't just about homosexuality, it
was about everything that came along with it, I'm sure right, Like, oh,
my uncle's name was Butch. This is Butch Jr. Butch Sr.
Was murdered by the ku Klux Klan fighting back being
a revolutionary in South Carolina in the sixties. There is
(14:04):
no way that Butch Senior son is anything but hard,
anything but tough anything. But you know, the only thing
that could put him down is cancer, because cancer. Everybody
understands that. So so I was lied to and everybody
was lied to it and I found out actually because
I have three uncles, my uncle Butch died when I
(14:26):
was a preteen. My uncle Randall died during COVID. He
passed of complications with COVID. So my last uncle Mark,
he and I were going up state to collect his
brother's things and I said to him, I was like,
you know, why is it that you know these things
happened to our family? You know, COVID cancer. He's like, oh,
(14:47):
who passed of cancer? Like Butch? Right? Like like Butch
passed of cancer? And he's like, he didn't pass of cancer,
he had HIV. Who told you that? Wow? Right? So
I'm dealing with having just lost an uncle of two
days before being in COVID, And now not only do
I have a reckoning of this lie in my family,
but I have to reckon with homophobia and my family
(15:08):
and unpacking it and just the devastating impact that had
generationally on my family, and how not navigating those waters
built systemic cultural, generational homophobia in my family that has
led you know, me and many instances to separate from
members of my family. To this day. I relate to
this so so much, and that you know, the stories
(15:29):
our families tell to protect us from each other and
from the world really that we have to sell these
certain versions of truth to better rationalize why something happened
to someone or how they aren't in the world and
why they are in the world. And and what I
really want to ask you about is like this idea
of lying. You know, I carried with me for many
years as a black gay guy that my family lied
to me by not telling me that my uncle died
(15:50):
from HIV he was gay, and I had a lot
of resentment, But lately I don't because I understand why,
being in like a more rural southern place, why they
couldn't say that word. So do you in your own
story and your own family, is calling it a lie
even useful to say because it sounds like they were
just trying to survive in this world. I think that
calling it a lie is useful because I believe in
(16:10):
what I call radical accountability, right, But I'm also a
restorative justice type of person. But you can't have restorative
justice without radical accountability. And radical accountability doesn't have to
be punitive, right. Radical accountability can simply be stepping towards
healing for both victims and abusers at times. Right. So
we don't come from a people you me black people globally,
(16:34):
Brown people globally, we don't come from cultures before colonialism
that were ingrained with such staunch homophobia or transphobia. History
shows that right. Actual research shows that it was capitalism
and white patriarchal constructs that did this. That's not lost me,
but you have to call it out and and the
(16:56):
reality is as assists head black man. What I also
dealt with as a kid, which played in part, I
think into this lie, was because I was molested. I
was never the kid who was like, I really like girls,
I'm really into girls. That wasn't me. I was very
like inwardly focused or I just wanted to hang out
with boys, and I was afraid of girls. So they
(17:17):
were like in my family until I was probably sixteen,
there were rumors, oh, he must be gay. So I
think that they did everything in their power to quote
unquote make sure I wasn't gay, and then problematically and toxically,
I counteracted that by being you know, if heteronormativity exists
on a spectrum of positive and toxic, I went as
(17:38):
toxic as possible, because that's typically equated with being like,
you know, in our society, as manly as possible, right,
So I went that direction and you're like, Okay, he's
a womanizer. No, he's good right, Like so yeah, so
that lie actually built the castle of all of my
pain and trauma and the traumas and pain that I
inflicted on a ton of other people. Uh. I love
(18:03):
that you're talking about, Like I love this kind of
complicated conversation about misogyny. For instance, that you know, due
to the own pain and violence you felt in your
own life, you overcompensated by hurting other people's I think,
you know, my angel Lou says, hurt people, hurt people,
and that's like the truest thing in the world, which
makes me think a lot about I think about that,
and then this idea of radical accountability and it makes
(18:23):
me think about little Boosey and the baby and little
nos X. So let's use that as an example for folks.
How does radical accountability operate there? And how are you
seeing her people hurting people in that situation? Because that's
what I see who But you know, I have psychoanalyze
these men so many times to myself or or in
my household, right, like, like what happened to them in
(18:46):
their lives that might have been similar. There's certain things
that happened to me potentially that they did not have
the privilege of overcoming or navigating, right, or maybe nothing happening.
They were just black men in the South, and you know,
capitalism rewards toxic masculinity and misogyny. But you know, with
the three of them, I've been hurt, and I'm gonna
(19:08):
also add Dave Chappelle to that, because I have been
hurt by the things that I've seen from them as
a fellow black man. Because what they don't realize, especially
in them saying that they want to protect children and
be pro black, is that what they're doing is actually anything.
But they're actually harming children, and they are further degredating
the black community. Right. So it not only breaks my heart,
(19:30):
but it is the complete contradiction of all the work
that I'm trying to do. And then because of their
platforms versus let's say, my platform, it makes that work
that much harder. I'm gonna be really honest with you, Zack.
I wrote about Dave Chappelle years ago, So to see
him doubling down, I actually started crying. I was in
the shower, just like tearing up because I looked up
to him growing up, like he was actually like a
(19:51):
hero of mine, because I always said that he was
punching up against white supremacy and classism in many ways.
So then he's like started becoming, you know, more famous
and more wealthy, start punching laterally, and now he's just
punching down at the most like oppressed community in the
world right, black and brown trans people and specifically black
and brown trans women. So with that being said, the
(20:12):
thing that hurt the most though, is that there are
these moments of potential reclamation, as you said, or radical
accountability where the people have not said, hey, we want
to cancel you, Dave. Literally, I have watched transactivists, trans
organizations say hey, can we sit down and like explain
to you what you were doing because you're such a
powerful voice, and we know that you were such an intelligent, brilliant,
(20:35):
brilliant person when it comes to storytelling, when it comes
to getting into hearts and minds of people, and you
would be a monstrous, devastatingly powerful being to be on
the right side of things, and Dave, instead of leaning
into that, has leaned completely out of it, and that
that hurts. And when you see people doing the wrong
(20:59):
thing they don't have to. It hurts so so much
because you're like, wait, you don't have to do this.
You don't have to make that decision at all. And
that's what's so frustrating with like the Dave Chappelle's and
the baby. But I want to bring it back to
you because I think you have an example in your
life right now where maybe people are doing the right thing,
and that's with a cousin of yours, correct who is
HIV positive. Talk to me about this person and kind
(21:21):
of how his experience may be very different than what
your uncle went through. So I actually have two cousins
who are HIV positive and their experiences are completely different.
As a matter of fact, So one of my cousins
opened up to the family that she's HIV positive in
the early two thousands, and there was still this moment
(21:42):
of pure ignorance. But I think that at times when
people don't realize is that a lot of black people,
all we have is our family. And I don't mean
that hyperbolically. I mean like quite literally, for a lot
of black people, we have is our family, and in
that family you find hope. So in spite of all
of the victuals he was receiving for having HIV. You know,
she just kind of took it versus my cousin, who
(22:06):
is a bit younger than me. He is just a brilliant,
brilliant young man. He's just like, you know what, you
can't possibly love me in the ways in which I
need to be loved. So I'm going to step away
from all of you and only talk to those of
you who can love me for me and like the
things I'm going through. He's like, in spite of what
(22:28):
happened for uncle, I am gay and I did get
HIV practicing sex. He's like, and and that's not your business, right,
that is my business. You're either going to support me
or you're not. And what that forced our family to
do was this moment of radical accountability. Do you lose
your cousin, do you lose your nephew, Do you lose
your son? Or do you love them enough to break
(22:53):
the walls down of your ignorance? Do you have to choose?
Did you ever truly love this person or was it
all a facade within the constructs of what makes you comfortable? Yeah? Wow, wow,
wow wow? Did you ever pose that to them, Did
you ever say those words to them? So I said
all those words. I literally like convened everybody at my
house and I was like, this is it. And if
he feels like he has to walk away, I'm walking
(23:15):
away because what we don't want to do, Like I
very much preach from the book of accomplices and co
conspirators versus allies, right, and allies Somebody who wants the
world to be better in the complice and co conspirator
there in the trenches. So if I want the world
to be better for the lgbt Q plus community, I
gotta make myself uncomfortable, right, And that for me means like, oh, hey, Darren,
I'm sorry that this has happened. No, no, forget that.
(23:36):
If Darren steps away, I'm stepping away. This Darren's not
by himself. So that's exactly what happened. I want to
talk to you about all this work you do to
give back, and like, something I read about recently was
you sending a lot of kids. I think Sissy Black
Panther a few years ago, So like, tell me about
that story, and like, why is it that like love
(23:56):
and joy at the end of the day, it seems
to be your driving kind of motive here. Actually have
the word love tattooed on my back. And that's a
funny story. When my grandmother was passing, she told my
cousins and I like, all all of us, what like,
the one thing we need to focus on was when
she was going, when she was in hospice, and for me,
it was love. And I'm like, what do you what
do you mean? She's like, you know, you give a
(24:17):
lot of love, but you'll really be able to love
when you let people love you. And in all my pain,
you're talking about being a black kid in the eighties nineties,
without a father, growing up in poverty. My family is
decimated by the crack epidemic, decimated by the heroine epidemic.
My mother had me at eighteen. I've been molested by
(24:39):
my babysitter. I've watched, you know how life works in
an over police neighborhood. I didn't have a lot of
trust in being loved, right, And when I started receiving love,
allowing myself to receive love, I'm like, oh, this changes everything.
And what I want for people is for people who
I don't even know to receive love. Right. If a
stranger can do something for you. It doesn't just have
(25:02):
to be like, hey, if a kid lives in you know, poverty,
let's give them pencils and book bags and stuff to
have the baseline fundamental things. If I can also say,
like I want you to enjoy your life, that could
be a game change, right, Like this person I didn't
know at all wanted me to enjoy my life and
loved me despite not even knowing me. And that's kind
(25:22):
of like where all my philanthropy comes from. Loving people
radically even if you don't know them, right, just having
a love for society and mankind, loving people enough to
love themselves. How has that changed how you move to
the world, having that radical love for just strangers. Do
you see yourself walking down the street differently these days?
You know? It's interesting because I think that like both
(25:44):
things are juxtaposed, right, the radical love and the radical accountability.
You know, So if you do something, for example, that's
like oppressive, racist, homophobic, whatever it is, I'm gonna hold
you accountable. And it's through that accountability, like in my opinion,
like you know, where I grew up. You know, people
just get punched in your face with some nonsense. Right,
(26:05):
So so if I hold you accountable through like systems
of being like, hey, like you did this wrong, here's
the consequence for doing this wrong. Now. Also, you're still here, right,
You're still with us, And a lot of black people,
a lot of people who are trans especially don't get
the privilege of growth because they're not still here with us.
(26:26):
So you still being here is even a privilege within
our system. So now that you are still here, you've
been held accountable. Now how are you going to grow?
And what are you gonna do with the rest of
your time? So that period is where the radical love
comes in. I can bunk you on your head with
the accountability, and then I can like hand you the
olive branch of love and be like, you know, these
two things combined will help you change the world. I
(26:50):
love that. I love that. So before I let you go,
I want to see if you'd be up for giving,
you know, the audience of advice, because I think our
audience is very much people like us and and people
that like are in our community, but are definitely not
having these conversations all the time, which is a big
part of this and something you said earlier about you know, like,
trusting and letting other people love you is a big
part of loving others. What advice you have for folks
(27:13):
listening on the best way for them to begin that
trust fall for love? Mm hmmm. I would say that
the advices to unpack the realities of your trauma. Right,
I think that all of us living in these constructs,
I don't really I don't care what aspect of it
you live in, right, Like, whether it's able, is um capitalism, well,
(27:37):
whatever is um it is or obia whatever, whatever it is,
you are traumatized. And trauma is the direct adversary of love.
So as you are unpacking, unlearning, thinking about the traumas
that you not only have face with the traumas of
just being in your body when you step out of
(27:58):
your home or you go on Instagram, when you go
on Twitter, or when you see the news, Unpacking that
and taking it out of your suitcase allows you to
put love in that suitcase, you know what I'm saying.
And and and that's been an important work for me.
And that's why I tell everybody go to therapy, because
that's where you do a lot of that unpacking. Like, hey,
take some of this out right, like and patriarch people
(28:21):
that said to my babysitter, who Lestlian, I wrote her
a letter and I told her, I wrote, I'm writing
this letter so that I can let my fiance in
more right, I literally said that to her. I'm like
this because you don't own me, So I'm releasing you
of this space that you think that you occupy. I
am not confined. You were not confined. We are not
confined to this moment in time because I'm building other moments.
(28:42):
But I can't build those moments unless I make room
for them. Uh. I love that. I'm gonna take that
with me forever. I think that was like a an aha,
thank you for that. And you know, a lot of
what you're saying right there, and what makes that possible
is due to another thing you said is that we
are all still here and you're alife and you can
make a lot of choice is moving forward. So Frederick,
thank you so much for being here today. This has
(29:03):
been an incredible, incredible pleasure. You are just brilliant. I
knew it was going to be brilliant, and it was brilliant.
So thank you for showing up for this. Zach. I
really appreciate you taking the time and making the space.
This has been phenomenal, and this is it's just been
something for me going into the holiday season over the
next few months that I'm just gonna it's gonna make
my heart full. So thank you. Our lives are collection
(29:27):
of stories, some that we tell often, some that we
are still learning, and others that stay hidden for good reason.
But as Frederick shows us, we are the narrator of
our lives, and no matter what chapter you are on today,
you still have the power to control the unwritten. All right,
until next time, remember to breathe, stay hydrated, and I'm
positive we can all live a healthier and happier life.
(29:53):
This has been in the deep stories that shape us.
Find this episode and others on the Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget
to share, rate and review if you enjoyed this conversation.
This show is produced by Vane Chien and mastered by
James Foster. Our show researcher is John and Raggio and
our writer is Yvette Lopez. A special shout out to
our guest Predrick Joseph. I'm your host, Zach Stafford
Sometimes life can be complicated and messy, and inner society,
made up of so many rules and expectations, being yourself
can be seen as an act of rebellion or bravery. Hi,
I'm Zach Stafford, and this is in the deep stories
that shape us. Join me as our guests black and
Latin X men unraveled the complexities and struggles they face
(00:24):
in a place that doesn't always see them, all of
them for who they really are. I sit down with
the people, the athletes, community and thought leaders that have
struggled with the traditional ideals of masculinity, religion, and family
the society often imposes upon them. Each episode, we explore
the fears that make up the Black and Latin X
male psyche, understanding the effects of stigma and masculinity on
(00:46):
self identity. We'll talk about how these common themes of discrimination, culture,
and economics factor into the struggle, and yet how these
hardships aren't enough to stop these men on the road
to health and healing. I want to start off our
very first episode by talking about something I'm incredibly passionate about. Stories.
(01:10):
Stories we are told by family members, stories we tell
ourselves to make sense of the world around us. And
even the stories we tell ourselves to stay alive. I'm
so passionate about storytelling, not just because of my background
as a journalist, but because I always say that the
one thing we all do besides eat and drink each
day is tell each other. Stories. Is how we all communicate.
(01:30):
But what we rarely talk about is how these stories
shape our entire lives, maybe more than anything else, especially
when it comes to understanding the good and the bad
that happens to each of us. Today's guest, Frederick Joseph,
is special because he teaches us how to take our
own stories and swap trauma for love in a really
beautiful and expansive way. He's a New York Times bestselling author,
(01:54):
activists and philanthropists who isn't a stranger to heartbreak, and
I think his own stories of love and loss or
something we can all relate to, especially when some of
his own stories weren't always the truth as he now
knows it. But before we get to the heavier stuff,
I want to hear from Frederick. Where did his story begin? Frederick,
(02:14):
it's so great to have you today, and I'd love
to begin our conversation for the listeners just to like
locate who you are and where you come from. So
tell us where did you grow up, what was your family,
like all those good details about your past. Yeah, so
I grew up in Yonkers, New York. And for those
who aren't familiar with Yonkers, all of us like to say, well,
that's where like Mary J. Blodge is from, and that's
(02:36):
where DMX is from. So Yonkers is interesting. And I,
you know, frankly, I grew up in the projects right,
raised by a single black mother, and I had a
ton of family in two places which also helped shape me,
in Philadelphia and in Columbia, South Carolina. So I spent
you know, weeks at a time in South Carolina every
(02:58):
few months, and then just kind of a being the
Philly and things like that. So those all are just
ingrained in my DNA, you could say, Yeah, and I
had a like the inverse of that, I grew up
in Tennessee, but would go to the north, to Baltimore,
to Iowa, to Chicago to see family. And you know,
people don't like to think of us as black men,
as particularly mobile people in the world that we have
(03:18):
families all around. But it's a big part about being
black in America because due to the great migration, our
families are all over. What was it like for you
to go back and forth between these two places that
I know, personally, blackness the masculinity animates itself very differently
in these places sometimes, you know, I think that's an
excellent way of putting it. The manifestations of of patriarchy,
(03:40):
quite frankly, are different in all places. So like in
New York, you know, there's this culture of art. I
would say, men and boys, especially black men and black boys,
can practice art, but specific types of art. If you're
going to be in music, it had to be hip
hop or wrap or maybe like extremely you know, for
(04:00):
lack of better term, like swagged out R and B
or whatever. Right, um. But then in the South it
was very sports and labor intensive. I would go down
to South Carolina and that's actually where I learned to
play football, you know, just like yeah, like I learned
to play football in the South, which is kind of
like why I did so well in the norm. So
I think that the way masculinity and then patriarchy kind
(04:20):
of manifest in the South. For me, we're just like,
why are you doing anything pertaining in music? Why do
you care about anything pertaining art? Why are you not
more physical? Why are you not you know, kind of
like more aggressive. It was very very interesting how that
played out. You know, a word that would come up
really easily for us to say is code switching, you know,
cud switching, the very academic word where we usually refer
(04:41):
to that in like white versus Black spaces, Like you
go to your corporate job as a black man and
you act certain ways. You go back to your community,
you act one way. But we never talked about an
intra community about how our masculinity is changing. Do you
relate to that? Did you find yourself changing between black communities.
I was a surrogate for Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign and
twenty and I would get sent to the South all
(05:03):
the time to meet with black people in various spaces,
whether that was barbershops or hair salons or churches. There's
like these recordings which my fiance laughs act She's like, oh,
whenever you go to the South, you become a Baptist
preacher whenever you're speaking publicly, And I'm just like, yeah,
you know, because I do code switch down there. Down there,
(05:23):
I get very I get very Jesus five in the North.
I'm like, oh, hey, do you have the Restaurant'm like, hey,
do you have any kale and grilled chicken down there?
I'm like, oh, you got you know, you've better green,
but you know, make sure the rings. I got too
much vinegar exactly. So there's definitely this code switching within blackness,
(05:46):
and I think that that speaks to the dynamism of
the black community, which is oftentimes a race through the
white lens that is the media, the white lens that
is entertainment and publishing in all these different spaces, as
if we're a monolith, but it's are from the truth.
Much of what Frederick talks about reminds me of this
idea I've heard before that a stereotype is just a
(06:08):
chapter in a book you haven't fully read. And as
a black man myself, I know the realities that come
with so many stereotypes constantly thrust upon us. So I
wanted to hear from Frederick what was that moment, that
aha moment that made him realize that blackness wasn't a
one size fits all. I had the privilege of going
(06:28):
to a performing arts elementary school in Yonkers, and you know.
I went to my first Broadway show when I was
about eight years old. I saw a Phantom of the
Opera I'll Never Forget. My grandmother and I went, and
I had to be quite frank. I don't even think
I had ever been to Manhattan, let alone to a
Broadway show. I see this play and I'm just like,
awe struck. I'm like, oh my god, like, what is
(06:50):
this right? Because the world that I come from, it's
just completely different. So what ends up taking place is
I'm walking out and there was this other play happening
at the exact same time it was Aida, and Aida
at the time was the star of Aida was Heather Headly, phenomenal,
phenomenal actress. And I had just came from seeing this
(07:10):
like brilliant show, like starring a cast of full white
people or whatever. But I'm like, there's a black show.
Black people don't have shows like like this, right, So
that moment switched something in me because one, I didn't
know that this world existed, and I didn't know that
black people, if this world exists, were allowed to exist
within that world that I didn't know existed, right, So
(07:31):
when I went home, it made me question all of
the constructs of blackness that were imposed upon me everywhere
I looked. Right, it was like, oh, black people have
to perform this, or have to sing this, or have
to sing that, or have to only get to do
these certain things. I'm like, well, what about Heather Heavily?
(07:51):
What about Heather? Yeah? What about Heather? You know, hearing
that story makes me better understand more than I did before.
Why you have a book coming out called Patriarchy Blues,
which explores as us a masculinity patriarchy from both a
personal and cultural standpoint. So why did you decide to
put this book out now? And how are your own
personal stories like the one you should before influencing that
(08:11):
book right now? So Patriarchy Blues is interesting because when
I my my personality is very much that like my
grandmother kind of built in me, this idea of as
long as you have the ability to use your hands
for good work, then use your hands for good work, right,
And Patriarchy Blue specifically is like aimed at myself to
(08:33):
a certain extent. Right, I think that a lot of
people do the easy thing of like pointing the finger
and wagging the finger at people and telling them how
they're wrong. But it takes something really special to be
vulnerable and courageous and calling yourself out about how you've
been wrong, right, And I think that that's the actual
work that people need to get to. So Patriarchy Blues
is me saying like, hey, you know, I was molested
(08:55):
by my babysitter from eight to ten years old, and
that put a chasm in my heart and actually made
me develop this anger towards women. And that anger ended
up evolving into becoming a womanizer in my teens and
in my twenties. That juxtaposed with living in this heteronormative,
(09:16):
patriarchal society, right, I was just like, oh yeah, like, oh,
I'm doing the right thing. Not only am I justified
in my pain, but I'm doing the right thing. Society
is telling me that. But what does it look like
to be in your thirties and actually say like, hey,
I've spent the last decade plus unpacking and trying to
be better than this. But I don't think that this
is just my work. This is our work, right, Like,
(09:38):
this is our work as a community. Um, I have
to ask you, you know, I was like a fellow,
a person that has moved to the world pretty similarly
in identity, When did you find this bravery to do
that work? What I have is my story, right, I
was like, if I have nothing else, I have my story,
my story of pain, my story of joy, my story
of agony, my story of desperate ration. And if I can,
(10:02):
in my words, use my pen to be vulnerable, combined
with my understanding of kind of how to market and
tell stories from that lens, then I think that you know,
my theory of changes, like people will grow? What lives
might that save? If I'm willing to do that, right,
what courage might that bring? And and I think it
just like honestly came from you know, when I was
(10:23):
about twenty four, I found out that I have multiples
gross is and you know a lot of things changed
at that moment where I I didn't spend all of
my late twenties drinking and party and I spent a
lot of my late twenties trying to develop the wisdom
of a man in his seventies. Right, Like, if I
was to look back on my life, if I was
to believe this earth tomorrow, what do you want your
(10:43):
legacy to be? And I want mine to be a
legacy of progress and healing. This road to healing reminds
me a lot about the power of truth. Often the
stories that are told to us are just as important
to the shaping of our lives as the stories we
create ourselves. I relate to this idea of truth stories because,
like Frederick, I've had an uncle pass from complications due
(11:03):
to HIV and was told it was cancer. I was
curious how that shaped his story, his community work, and
what his uncle represented in his life. Man, that is
that that's a nuanced story. So to tell that, I
have to first, you know, kind of talk about the
matriarch of my family, who was my grandmother, Thelma Forward.
She passed the breast cancer when I was eighteen, and
(11:25):
it was her second bout with breast cancer. The first
time she didn't tell anybody. The second time she said
she had a cold until she couldn't leave the hospital. Right,
there's this aspect I think, especially of certain generations of
black people, as she was from you know, once again,
she was from South Carolina, came up to the North.
She left the South because her first husband had been
lynched by the clan. That's the father of my uncle
(11:46):
who actually died of HIV. So just for some context,
real quick. She grew up in this hard, hard way,
like she came up hard. Right. So the way that
she has viewed not just masculinity, but the way she
viewed blackness is that it has to be as tough
as steel or else it will be bent, broken, melted down,
(12:08):
you know, and then turned into bullets that will probably
be aimed at up other black people. Right. So she
was a lovely person who also didn't spend any time
with the privilege that I have of navigating what it
means to just be and not navigating what it just
means to be. She of course to navigate other people's realities,
such as homosexuality, right, And there was just the propaganda
(12:32):
of homosexuality, which she surface level was like, okay, surface level,
this is what I know, this is what I understand,
and this is what I don't want because she's equating homosexuality.
I'd imagine with all the things that were the opposite
of what a black person needs to survive. Right. So, again,
when you have in the seventies, eighties, nineties, these things
(12:55):
that are happening in the community, from the epidemic of drugs,
the epidemic of violence, so on and so forth, you
get a major usage of heroin. So my my uncle,
he was a heroin user and ultimately passed by contracting
HIV from a needle. But with the propaganda, HIV can't
(13:20):
be contracted with a needle from drug use, right of
course not, because HIV can only be contracted during that
time and even now I'm not gonna even just put
on that time even now. Problematically, the view is that
HIV is solely contracted through same sex acts. So ultimately,
when he did have HIV, my grandmother refused to tell
(13:41):
people that, right, And it wasn't just about homosexuality, it
was about everything that came along with it, I'm sure right, Like, oh,
my uncle's name was Butch. This is Butch Jr. Butch Sr.
Was murdered by the ku Klux Klan fighting back being
a revolutionary in South Carolina in the sixties. There is
(14:04):
no way that Butch Senior son is anything but hard,
anything but tough anything. But you know, the only thing
that could put him down is cancer, because cancer. Everybody
understands that. So so I was lied to and everybody
was lied to it and I found out actually because
I have three uncles, my uncle Butch died when I
(14:26):
was a preteen. My uncle Randall died during COVID. He
passed of complications with COVID. So my last uncle Mark,
he and I were going up state to collect his
brother's things and I said to him, I was like,
you know, why is it that you know these things
happened to our family? You know, COVID cancer. He's like, oh,
(14:47):
who passed of cancer? Like Butch? Right? Like like Butch
passed of cancer? And he's like, he didn't pass of cancer,
he had HIV. Who told you that? Wow? Right? So
I'm dealing with having just lost an uncle of two
days before being in COVID, And now not only do
I have a reckoning of this lie in my family,
but I have to reckon with homophobia and my family
(15:08):
and unpacking it and just the devastating impact that had
generationally on my family, and how not navigating those waters
built systemic cultural, generational homophobia in my family that has
led you know, me and many instances to separate from
members of my family. To this day. I relate to
this so so much, and that you know, the stories
(15:29):
our families tell to protect us from each other and
from the world really that we have to sell these
certain versions of truth to better rationalize why something happened
to someone or how they aren't in the world and
why they are in the world. And and what I
really want to ask you about is like this idea
of lying. You know, I carried with me for many
years as a black gay guy that my family lied
to me by not telling me that my uncle died
(15:50):
from HIV he was gay, and I had a lot
of resentment, But lately I don't because I understand why,
being in like a more rural southern place, why they
couldn't say that word. So do you in your own
story and your own family, is calling it a lie
even useful to say because it sounds like they were
just trying to survive in this world. I think that
calling it a lie is useful because I believe in
(16:10):
what I call radical accountability, right, But I'm also a
restorative justice type of person. But you can't have restorative
justice without radical accountability. And radical accountability doesn't have to
be punitive, right. Radical accountability can simply be stepping towards
healing for both victims and abusers at times. Right. So
we don't come from a people you me black people globally,
(16:34):
Brown people globally, we don't come from cultures before colonialism
that were ingrained with such staunch homophobia or transphobia. History
shows that right. Actual research shows that it was capitalism
and white patriarchal constructs that did this. That's not lost me,
but you have to call it out and and the
(16:56):
reality is as assists head black man. What I also
dealt with as a kid, which played in part, I
think into this lie, was because I was molested. I
was never the kid who was like, I really like girls,
I'm really into girls. That wasn't me. I was very
like inwardly focused or I just wanted to hang out
with boys, and I was afraid of girls. So they
(17:17):
were like in my family until I was probably sixteen,
there were rumors, oh, he must be gay. So I
think that they did everything in their power to quote
unquote make sure I wasn't gay, and then problematically and toxically,
I counteracted that by being you know, if heteronormativity exists
on a spectrum of positive and toxic, I went as
(17:38):
toxic as possible, because that's typically equated with being like,
you know, in our society, as manly as possible, right,
So I went that direction and you're like, Okay, he's
a womanizer. No, he's good right, Like so yeah, so
that lie actually built the castle of all of my
pain and trauma and the traumas and pain that I
inflicted on a ton of other people. Uh. I love
(18:03):
that you're talking about, Like I love this kind of
complicated conversation about misogyny. For instance, that you know, due
to the own pain and violence you felt in your
own life, you overcompensated by hurting other people's I think,
you know, my angel Lou says, hurt people, hurt people,
and that's like the truest thing in the world, which
makes me think a lot about I think about that,
and then this idea of radical accountability and it makes
(18:23):
me think about little Boosey and the baby and little
nos X. So let's use that as an example for folks.
How does radical accountability operate there? And how are you
seeing her people hurting people in that situation? Because that's
what I see who But you know, I have psychoanalyze
these men so many times to myself or or in
my household, right, like, like what happened to them in
(18:46):
their lives that might have been similar. There's certain things
that happened to me potentially that they did not have
the privilege of overcoming or navigating, right, or maybe nothing happening.
They were just black men in the South, and you know,
capitalism rewards toxic masculinity and misogyny. But you know, with
the three of them, I've been hurt, and I'm gonna
(19:08):
also add Dave Chappelle to that, because I have been
hurt by the things that I've seen from them as
a fellow black man. Because what they don't realize, especially
in them saying that they want to protect children and
be pro black, is that what they're doing is actually anything.
But they're actually harming children, and they are further degredating
the black community. Right. So it not only breaks my heart,
(19:30):
but it is the complete contradiction of all the work
that I'm trying to do. And then because of their
platforms versus let's say, my platform, it makes that work
that much harder. I'm gonna be really honest with you, Zack.
I wrote about Dave Chappelle years ago, So to see
him doubling down, I actually started crying. I was in
the shower, just like tearing up because I looked up
to him growing up, like he was actually like a
(19:51):
hero of mine, because I always said that he was
punching up against white supremacy and classism in many ways.
So then he's like started becoming, you know, more famous
and more wealthy, start punching laterally, and now he's just
punching down at the most like oppressed community in the
world right, black and brown trans people and specifically black
and brown trans women. So with that being said, the
(20:12):
thing that hurt the most though, is that there are
these moments of potential reclamation, as you said, or radical
accountability where the people have not said, hey, we want
to cancel you, Dave. Literally, I have watched transactivists, trans
organizations say hey, can we sit down and like explain
to you what you were doing because you're such a
powerful voice, and we know that you were such an intelligent, brilliant,
(20:35):
brilliant person when it comes to storytelling, when it comes
to getting into hearts and minds of people, and you
would be a monstrous, devastatingly powerful being to be on
the right side of things, and Dave, instead of leaning
into that, has leaned completely out of it, and that
that hurts. And when you see people doing the wrong
(20:59):
thing they don't have to. It hurts so so much
because you're like, wait, you don't have to do this.
You don't have to make that decision at all. And
that's what's so frustrating with like the Dave Chappelle's and
the baby. But I want to bring it back to
you because I think you have an example in your
life right now where maybe people are doing the right thing,
and that's with a cousin of yours, correct who is
HIV positive. Talk to me about this person and kind
(21:21):
of how his experience may be very different than what
your uncle went through. So I actually have two cousins
who are HIV positive and their experiences are completely different.
As a matter of fact, So one of my cousins
opened up to the family that she's HIV positive in
the early two thousands, and there was still this moment
(21:42):
of pure ignorance. But I think that at times when
people don't realize is that a lot of black people,
all we have is our family. And I don't mean
that hyperbolically. I mean like quite literally, for a lot
of black people, we have is our family, and in
that family you find hope. So in spite of all
of the victuals he was receiving for having HIV. You know,
she just kind of took it versus my cousin, who
(22:06):
is a bit younger than me. He is just a brilliant,
brilliant young man. He's just like, you know what, you
can't possibly love me in the ways in which I
need to be loved. So I'm going to step away
from all of you and only talk to those of
you who can love me for me and like the
things I'm going through. He's like, in spite of what
(22:28):
happened for uncle, I am gay and I did get
HIV practicing sex. He's like, and and that's not your business, right,
that is my business. You're either going to support me
or you're not. And what that forced our family to
do was this moment of radical accountability. Do you lose
your cousin, do you lose your nephew, Do you lose
your son? Or do you love them enough to break
(22:53):
the walls down of your ignorance? Do you have to choose?
Did you ever truly love this person or was it
all a facade within the constructs of what makes you comfortable? Yeah? Wow, wow,
wow wow? Did you ever pose that to them, Did
you ever say those words to them? So I said
all those words. I literally like convened everybody at my
house and I was like, this is it. And if
he feels like he has to walk away, I'm walking
(23:15):
away because what we don't want to do, Like I
very much preach from the book of accomplices and co
conspirators versus allies, right, and allies Somebody who wants the
world to be better in the complice and co conspirator
there in the trenches. So if I want the world
to be better for the lgbt Q plus community, I
gotta make myself uncomfortable, right, And that for me means like, oh, hey, Darren,
I'm sorry that this has happened. No, no, forget that.
(23:36):
If Darren steps away, I'm stepping away. This Darren's not
by himself. So that's exactly what happened. I want to
talk to you about all this work you do to
give back, and like, something I read about recently was
you sending a lot of kids. I think Sissy Black
Panther a few years ago, So like, tell me about
that story, and like, why is it that like love
(23:56):
and joy at the end of the day, it seems
to be your driving kind of motive here. Actually have
the word love tattooed on my back. And that's a
funny story. When my grandmother was passing, she told my
cousins and I like, all all of us, what like,
the one thing we need to focus on was when
she was going, when she was in hospice, and for me,
it was love. And I'm like, what do you what
do you mean? She's like, you know, you give a
(24:17):
lot of love, but you'll really be able to love
when you let people love you. And in all my pain,
you're talking about being a black kid in the eighties nineties,
without a father, growing up in poverty. My family is
decimated by the crack epidemic, decimated by the heroine epidemic.
My mother had me at eighteen. I've been molested by
(24:39):
my babysitter. I've watched, you know how life works in
an over police neighborhood. I didn't have a lot of
trust in being loved, right, And when I started receiving love,
allowing myself to receive love, I'm like, oh, this changes everything.
And what I want for people is for people who
I don't even know to receive love. Right. If a
stranger can do something for you. It doesn't just have
(25:02):
to be like, hey, if a kid lives in you know, poverty,
let's give them pencils and book bags and stuff to
have the baseline fundamental things. If I can also say,
like I want you to enjoy your life, that could
be a game change, right, Like this person I didn't
know at all wanted me to enjoy my life and
loved me despite not even knowing me. And that's kind
(25:22):
of like where all my philanthropy comes from. Loving people
radically even if you don't know them, right, just having
a love for society and mankind, loving people enough to
love themselves. How has that changed how you move to
the world, having that radical love for just strangers. Do
you see yourself walking down the street differently these days?
You know? It's interesting because I think that like both
(25:44):
things are juxtaposed, right, the radical love and the radical accountability.
You know, So if you do something, for example, that's
like oppressive, racist, homophobic, whatever it is, I'm gonna hold
you accountable. And it's through that accountability, like in my opinion,
like you know, where I grew up. You know, people
just get punched in your face with some nonsense. Right,
(26:05):
So so if I hold you accountable through like systems
of being like, hey, like you did this wrong, here's
the consequence for doing this wrong. Now. Also, you're still here, right,
You're still with us, And a lot of black people,
a lot of people who are trans especially don't get
the privilege of growth because they're not still here with us.
(26:26):
So you still being here is even a privilege within
our system. So now that you are still here, you've
been held accountable. Now how are you going to grow?
And what are you gonna do with the rest of
your time? So that period is where the radical love
comes in. I can bunk you on your head with
the accountability, and then I can like hand you the
olive branch of love and be like, you know, these
two things combined will help you change the world. I
(26:50):
love that. I love that. So before I let you go,
I want to see if you'd be up for giving,
you know, the audience of advice, because I think our
audience is very much people like us and and people
that like are in our community, but are definitely not
having these conversations all the time, which is a big
part of this and something you said earlier about you know, like,
trusting and letting other people love you is a big
part of loving others. What advice you have for folks
(27:13):
listening on the best way for them to begin that
trust fall for love? Mm hmmm. I would say that
the advices to unpack the realities of your trauma. Right,
I think that all of us living in these constructs,
I don't really I don't care what aspect of it
you live in, right, Like, whether it's able, is um capitalism, well,
(27:37):
whatever is um it is or obia whatever, whatever it is,
you are traumatized. And trauma is the direct adversary of love.
So as you are unpacking, unlearning, thinking about the traumas
that you not only have face with the traumas of
just being in your body when you step out of
(27:58):
your home or you go on Instagram, when you go
on Twitter, or when you see the news, Unpacking that
and taking it out of your suitcase allows you to
put love in that suitcase, you know what I'm saying.
And and and that's been an important work for me.
And that's why I tell everybody go to therapy, because
that's where you do a lot of that unpacking. Like, hey,
take some of this out right, like and patriarch people
(28:21):
that said to my babysitter, who Lestlian, I wrote her
a letter and I told her, I wrote, I'm writing
this letter so that I can let my fiance in
more right, I literally said that to her. I'm like
this because you don't own me, So I'm releasing you
of this space that you think that you occupy. I
am not confined. You were not confined. We are not
confined to this moment in time because I'm building other moments.
(28:42):
But I can't build those moments unless I make room
for them. Uh. I love that. I'm gonna take that
with me forever. I think that was like a an aha,
thank you for that. And you know, a lot of
what you're saying right there, and what makes that possible
is due to another thing you said is that we
are all still here and you're alife and you can
make a lot of choice is moving forward. So Frederick,
thank you so much for being here today. This has
(29:03):
been an incredible, incredible pleasure. You are just brilliant. I
knew it was going to be brilliant, and it was brilliant.
So thank you for showing up for this. Zach. I
really appreciate you taking the time and making the space.
This has been phenomenal, and this is it's just been
something for me going into the holiday season over the
next few months that I'm just gonna it's gonna make
my heart full. So thank you. Our lives are collection
(29:27):
of stories, some that we tell often, some that we
are still learning, and others that stay hidden for good reason.
But as Frederick shows us, we are the narrator of
our lives, and no matter what chapter you are on today,
you still have the power to control the unwritten. All right,
until next time, remember to breathe, stay hydrated, and I'm
positive we can all live a healthier and happier life.
(29:53):
This has been in the deep stories that shape us.
Find this episode and others on the Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget
to share, rate and review if you enjoyed this conversation.
This show is produced by Vane Chien and mastered by
James Foster. Our show researcher is John and Raggio and
our writer is Yvette Lopez. A special shout out to
our guest Predrick Joseph. I'm your host, Zach Stafford
Host
Zach Stafford
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