Episode 17 | Weaponized Literacy - Hey White Women

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Rebecca (www) (00:00)Because I feel like I used to love reading. And as a kid, I loved Barnes and Noble. Like my dad was definitely like the divorced dad, who every other weekend we went to a movie and Barnes and Noble and whatever. And I get my book and I got all excited. And then America comes and school comes and they're like, okay, now reading, now that you know how to do that and you've proved it, let's make all the text real small and real boring and make it big. And that's the kind of reading adults do.

(00:01):
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (00:14)Let's go.
Rebecca (www) (00:34)So.
and like hate it and have it assigned to you. And there's always way too much. And now being an adult in my 30s, finally, like I still struggle with reading things for fun even now, like, cause my fun, I'm like, my fun involves a lot of stuff that's not so fun. So then I'm like, you know, even my fun reading was I have, I have to start taking it down a notch cause I love, so Kennedy Ryan, I want to shout out Kennedy Ryan. She's,
a black author and it was one of those moments that really hit me in terms of being a creator because I got her book. The first one I got was called my gosh, it's the name of a song anyway.
Before I let go, sorry, before I let go, I needed to get that. And I'm just enjoying this book, but it is still like, black women can't help but make it really intense, but still like good, but there's like, he goes to therapy and like, there's, you know, pregnancy issues and all that stuff, but I'm like, but this is fun reading, this is fun reading. And so, so I'm still going down the path of, okay, but what if it was not?
What if there wasn't? But anyway, Kennedy Ryan, I found her on TikTok. She's on TikTok. And she was following me already. And I was like, well, this is the best day ever. And so I have her second book. But it's reading for fun. Like reading her book, I started getting emotional just at the, like, right. Going on a little adventure that isn't.
something I have to then report back and go, okay everybody, let's talk about what we've learned and get tested on it.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (02:19)also think that lists, I think lists of things you should read like plays into coercive control, which plays into white supremacy. So I'm gonna have this survey at the end of my next book called How Culty is Your Organization? And one of my questions is like, does your organization have a recommended reading list? Right? And even just having one at all.
Not to mention like these big tech campuses, right, where it's in the store where you buy all your stuff. Next thing you know, like everyone is reading the same books. Right? So that's like the first phase, right? It's just having a recommended reading list. Then it's like, are you expected to be reading something on that reading list? Okay, that's the second level.
Then my third level is, is it like bad if you're not reading something on that reading list? That's where the army is, by the way. So if you're reading like fiction instead of military history, as one commander tried to tell me. And then the last level for me is, does your organization ban books?
Rebecca (www) (03:25)Mm-hmm.
America. America literally has our foundations in all of our textbooks. We have a curriculum. And the books that are in our curriculum are insane when you think about the amount of possibilities out there of what we could be having reading. So like we can feed that fun reading thing. We don't do that.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (03:54)Right, and yeah, and I have a degree in literature and it was 100%, right? The literary canon is absolutely dominated by white men. I did get some good James Baldwin time.
Rebecca (www) (04:13)would imagine what they had to get through for us to get. So when I think about the works that we do get right now from black women, black people, James Baldwin, Bell Hooks, think about how much.
is behind that, that that could even get through the levels of white men, the white men's systems to then get unknown enough and I can get them on my shelf in 2024. It's like, that's how you know there aren't original thoughts. It's like, these aren't the only people who thought it. It's just like, these are the people who finally made it through.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (04:46)And it's the people who've got to write it down and got to have their works last throughout the years, right? Because that's one of the things of the literary canon. It's like it lasts the test of time, know, stands the test of time. But also things like Jane Austen was considered to be too popular in her time to be a good author because this guy, I just heard somebody name it and it's called like the
Rebecca (www) (04:52)Yeah.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (05:15)It's almost like the scrub mentality or whatever, but it's like, if it's decided that like poor people like this thing or like the every person likes this thing, all of a sudden the rich won't do it anymore. And seasonings was the exact example she was using in the video. And I saw it happen with Downton Abbey.
Rebecca (www) (05:26)seasonings.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (05:34)where all of these high brow officers that I knew that thought very highly of their intelligence loved the show and then as soon as they realized it was broadly popular, it's not deep anymore.
Rebecca (www) (05:48)That's whiteness. The second, and the whole joke is like, once black people like it, it's like, that's when it's great, but then once white people like it and black people, black people have to stop liking it in order to keep white people going. And it's like, crazy, just give up on that. Just cut it out with the whiteness because you're not going to get both. can't have.

(00:22):
the rhythm without the blues. That's what whiteness tries to do is just like, now that it's great and you've used it, we're gonna just take it over and start writing the things you've said. When people talk about communism and Marx, I'm like, so a white man wrote it down, so now he's the first one who ever thought of it. If it's gotten to the point where you're reading it, then a black person has said something to the effect before. There's no way by the time you're reading it,
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (06:29)And also...
Rebecca (www) (06:37)A person of color hasn't said it a bunch of times.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (06:40)Yeah. Well, case in point, bell hooks wrote a memoir called Appalachian Elegy. And then a white man wrote a book called Hillbilly Elegy. And now he's the vice president elect.
Rebecca (www) (06:58)And that is America. You guys are now officially getting the quotes I say to my friends all the time. We like say stuff and then I go, and isn't that what America is? Always.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (07:02)You
Yep. But you know what, you know what I've realized? I've realized that I am the Blue J.D. Vance, which is to say the veteran post Trump election that has a memoir that explains what just happened. Right. And after 2016, it was his hibbiliology. Like, that's what made him famous.
Rebecca (www) (07:14)okay.
Wait, I'm sorry, I just made that connection that you said that. Okay, so that movie book was this man.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (07:37)So in 2016, in the beginning of 2017, when like everyone was in shock of Trump becoming president, very few books went popular because as somebody from the inside the publishing industry said, the left was in mourning and the right doesn't read. One of the books that got very popular was Hillbilly Elegy.
Rebecca (www) (07:56)Whoa.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (08:00)And this was JD Vance's memoir, like it's his lived story, but it was kind of, it kind of hit popularity as like, this is why, this is why the angry white man voted for Trump, right? So that was like the book.
Rebecca (www) (08:18)Yeah, I've never seen, I just.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (08:20)And so now here I am, you know, and I say like, wasn't ready in 2016 when he got elected, but like I had to go away and sit in my hole and write my book and get a master's degree and like use my voice. But now like I'm ready for this election. And I have a book that once you read Uncultured, which takes you from cult to see those parallels in the army, like you're going to understand what's happening with half your white family right now and why they're not talking to you.
And so here's the thing, who was the first group of people who weren't allowed to read?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (08:55)Black people.
Rebecca (www) (08:57)Right? So when you realize weaponizing education is based in anti-blackness and in slavery. So whenever I even hear white people kind of, this group can't read, this group can't read, education, education, and you guys can't read, what are you doing? And even if you believe that to be true, this is what you're doing about it.
You know, saying ha ha ha. Like that's the weirdest, that's terrible, that's terrible. Yeah, weaponizing, being able to read. And so that's why it kind of brings a full circle where I'm like, of course, they're gonna take something enjoyable and make it difficult, reduce access even internally to it. To say, or to give you so many options, but then narrow it down and say everybody's reading these. Because there's always been.
plenty of options, but everyone has to read Lord of the Flies and... Oedipus?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (09:59)And get this, they're not reading. Well, get this, they're not reading them, right? So in the middle of the obsession with the modern novel, I want to say it was the 20s. But this was when people were asking, why does a novel even need to have a plot? Okay. And there's this man called James Joyce, white man, of course, who wrote a book called Ulysses.

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Rebecca (www) (10:01)Why would I ever be reading that?
Buh!
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (10:28)And it is like torture when they assign it to you in school. But someone did a survey, right? This book was all the rage. It was in all the salons. And this was a time when you still had to like cut the folios of your book. So maybe it wasn't Jim Joyce. Maybe this was further back.
Rebecca (www) (10:28)Bye.
I don't know what any of that is.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (10:51)But someone did this survey, right, of all these like literary salons and all these fancy people that were gathering together to read these books. And they were able to tell without a doubt that like more than 80 % of them had never even gone through like the first quarter of the book. So it's this thing of where like we play at having done the readings.
Rebecca (www) (11:00)Yeah, that was a read-in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I bet.
No, but I mean, we have to read those as a part of, are you a smart enough person to graduate high school? I had to, there's zero world in which I would have said, you know what I wanna read about? Greek mythology. I get mad every time because I'm like, well, hold on. This isn't curriculum. This is, when you wanna talk about the United States, like everyone in order to be an adult,
has to learn about Lord of the Flies. you have to, now, if you skip reading it and you don't do it during your summer reading, whatever, some people read certain books, some people don't, but that is consistent. To have Oedipus, have any Greek mythology, and then be like, care about history, but it's just like memorized presidents, but also that we want everything, but Greek mythology is not even from here. Like there's zero reason.
except to make it maybe miserable and complicated. The names are different, but also the useless, useless, you know, Shakespeare. How is that helpful to me today? Except to know that that guy made up a bunch of words, so you can too. That's not what we learn.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (12:24)Yeah.
Right. And that guy is suspected, there's a popular theory that it was actually his sister that did most of the writing.
Rebecca (www) (12:37)Right, right, right. We talked about the, yeah, and like...
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (12:43).
Rebecca (www) (12:43)Question what we deem as what makes a good school, what makes a good education in America involves reading these specific books, our reading list.
Yes. And I have been paying attention to this since I was 15 years old, because of course, in the cult, we had very strict rules. In the cult, I grew up in Children of God. We were allowed like no outside media. So like no television, no movies were allowed because the cult leader liked movies, but very specific movies and very specific books. And so when I got out,
Rebecca (www) (13:16)Alright.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (13:23)of the cults. And then I'm like surprised to find that like, America has this like morality attached to which books you're reading. And like, I read 250 books my senior year of high school, not a one of them was not just like a murder mystery novel that I can't even remember the name of.

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Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (13:47)And it's like, so what? I was a 17 year old that read 250 books, right? All of that good vocabulary, all of that, you know, like, and ever since then, I've been like, the whole thing is you have to let kids read whatever they want to read. And that's how they're going to grow up with a love of reading. But that is so controlled.
Rebecca (www) (13:55)Right.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Right, and then the moralized nature of like, once you get into the adult world, of like the newspaper and crossword puzzles, and if it's hard, you should enjoy it being, those, no. I had to pretend in business school that I liked reading stuff from the Wall Street Journal, I don't think everyone necessarily pretended, but I thought we were all pretending, because who cares? But I,
I didn't actively think those things out loud. I just now see it back that way. But there is a level of, as you can call the bluff of productivity. Because I actively remember starting to read for fun now and going, this still feels wrong. Even if it goes to this new career I'm starting, if I'm enjoying it,
It's like, well, this isn't the kind of reading that I'm supposed to be doing. I'm supposed to be doing, it's, you know, I would have been up with a textbook and I'd have to go to a place and I'd, okay, two hours, I'm gonna sit, I'm gonna do this, and I would struggle, and that would feel like the right way to do it. Like, that's crazy.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (15:28)And that is part of our culture. And we've talked about this before with the cultiness. It's like the struggle. And I literally used to hear this all the time in college from other students that it's like, well, your degree is not real. Or like, you just read novels and go to class and talk about them. And I'm like, yes, it's phenomenal. know, like I love reading. But you ask that kid to write a 25 page paper and he's going to melt into a ball.
Yeah!
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (15:53)Right? Like it's not like my degree was actually any less difficult, but because they perceived it as you're enjoying this, you like reading and you get to read books. it's not, you know, it's not worth anything. Tell you what though, I went back to that college and gave 10 years after giving the valedictorian speech, I went back to that college as the graduation speaker.
Rebecca (www) (16:10)felt that way.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (16:19)And my talk was called 10 Things You Can Get Paid To Do With An Arts and Humanities Degree.
Rebecca (www) (16:25)that. I love that show a different message because we get that other one a lot. We got it. We understand but like too late. I genuinely when we talk about that money and capitalism clouds reality. That's what we're talking about. I went to college and I felt like these people studying the things they actually enjoy and like knowing that there isn't a job out there for them. That is not the right decision. That's not a smart decision. That's silly.
or something. Now, did I say those things over at Lee? Maybe actually, I don't know. But that person did for them, they didn't do for the system or their place in the system or believe in the whole thing. It's just...
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (17:07)Yeah. But this also leads me to the thing that like the college degree is also very arbitrary, right? Like, so I am always telling young people I'm like, you go to school and you study something you love, because it's arbitrary anyways, right? Like when I was getting my master's degree, I studied organizational psychology. And I was happy every day that I did not choose to get an MBA, because I like my topic.
Rebecca (www) (17:17)the earth.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (17:37)But still, and you know, this was made really obvious in the army because in the military, you can be an officer as long as you have a degree. Any degree will do. For the Air Force and the Navy, sometimes they're only looking for technical degrees, but the army and the Marines will take you with any degree. This is how I become an officer in the army, knowing basically nothing about the world. I go from college into this. And I used to talk about this all the time.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (18:06)because then soldiers would be like, it's not fair. It's just a degree, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yeah, it's an arbitrary thing they selected, right? They were like, we want officers to be this type of person. So we are gonna get someone who could stick it out for four years, put up with the ridiculousness, future plan, do something hard, and that now we'll let you in because you've crossed this one barrier, but it's arbitrary.

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Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (18:35)And like I think I have noted before, anytime we see arbitrary regulations or legislations or arbitrarily applied or arbitrarily chosen standards, it's used to oppress the more powerless people.
Rebecca (www) (18:48)Mm.
Yeah, I mean, which makes sense and it's kind of the basis of the whole, keeping the whole system afloat is like keep not ever letting you think, is this necessary? Or why does this exist and could it be not to my benefit?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (19:10)And that's, you know, it's kind of funny. That's one of the things you would like soldiers, especially when they're like, sergeants that have been in longer than you. And they're like, you just walk in here and you're my boss. And I used to be like, I have a college degree, I would walk into any job and be your boss. And like, that's the system we should be looking at, right? Like that, like, I have a degree in literature, but I'm your boss, helicopter mechanic. Because this is the
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (19:38)thing that we chose to use as the discriminator.
Rebecca (www) (19:43)Right. It just, gets people nervous to think, if this is arbitrary and this doesn't matter, what about, then could I have just, and I think it's an overwhelming line of thought for a lot of people, which is what brings me back to like right to comfort, which is like I said, this one that just is really, I am stuck on this right to comfort one. And I have to, I have to calm down and give myself some like.
room for sense of urgency kicking in, because it's, I think, so much of where we sit now and how we will be able to overcome whatever the obstacles are is to really understand our right to comfort and our lack of awareness around what is real and what isn't.
in regards to safety behavior and what we think will keep us safe and what has kept us safe or if we've ever been safe. When I say like, this has been happening the whole time. Well, could we have prevented this if we knew more? Probably, but that's not really that helpful. But now that you do, how do we slow everything down and also realize like,
You're not the ones in danger?
Rebecca (www) (21:13)you're not in danger most of the time when it feels like you are. And I'm saying that as like even with myself, we have access to so much information with the internet and social media and knowing that it feeds off of our like stickiness to negative information, scary things, things to fear, things to ruminate on, know, thinking that our solutions have to be as big as our problems.
We have to know that and that we, yeah, we feel more comfortable ruminating, analyzing, thinking once I know enough, once I'm comfortable, comfortable, then I'll start. That's not really a thing. Once you get to comfortable, then that starts the new journey. like, but when you've been gaslit, and I think is where I'm coming to on this, when we've been gaslit by our entire narcissistic.
we are seeking some kind of control and truth. And we think that comfort can just look like, know what's gonna happen. I know what's gonna happen. My comfort show, I know what's gonna happen. My movie thing, I know. But we're never gonna get that. Like, that's not real in real life. But I understand and I feel that desire to like, yeah, but when I'm at home by myself with my stuff,
I'm safe, I know that much, but only for so long is that actually true. Too much couch time can make you actually less safe and less healthy without realizing that you're just seeking this fight or flight type of comfort and safety. We need more deep breaths and presence of mind and time and what has been true this whole time, what is true to me now.
How do I believe in myself and not just believe myself all the time? But that's like where I sit and I think where America really needs to, I wanna say get a grip, but kinda like, whoa, hold on. Like actually, literally get some grip, some sticky socks.
And I've been talking about this thing. So first of all, right now, I think this is the time for white women to just kind of be self analyzing and looking at each other and quietly listening to people that have been doing this stuff already, right? Building community and being part of the resistance or whatever.
And also, you know, I come to this like the best person to get people out of cults is an ex cult member. And one of the things that I learned about like using your own story and using your own experience is you have to learn how to tell it.
Right. So when I was in the process of trying to sell my book, I kept getting these rejections and my response would be like, they just don't get it. You know, like they don't get the story I'm trying to tell. And I would tell myself like, Danielle, you have to tell it better.
And this is one of the things I've been telling my audience, especially because like this election happened and we're just going right into holidays, right? So a lot of people are going to see family that like voted across the aisle from them. And I'm hoping that like, hey, white women, like here's the message, like learn how to tell it better right now. Think about the things that worked for you. Think about the things that woke you up, the comments.

(01:46):
Yes.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (24:52)You know, I was talking about, someone asked me about the walking racist video from this that we've talked about before, which led me to remember the advice that started that video, which was pay attention to where you're surprised on your anti-racism journey, because that's where you have stereotypes.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (25:10)And so it's like, now I can bring that back and talk about that on my show and with my people, right? But it's like, what worked for you? What are those things? How can you say it in a way that's not gonna lead to the just like the frustration and all of that stuff?
Rebecca (www) (25:27)Yeah, I love that. And I used to say, you know, think about your aha moments and like get into them. Be, and I think that digging into yourself as the project is a different, is different than centering yourself and other people's conversations. This is when you are going to meet with people who love you, they're gonna want to hear how you are doing. And this should have some impact on you, right? Even if it's,
You know, I don't even know how to process what's going on right now. I've been doing a lot of self-reflection, like telling your actual honest truth of I don't even know how to talk to you about this yet. Humanize yourself and it doesn't have to be about how you feel about other people. And I always say, you know, be, if you feel that urge to be morally superior, then be morally superior to your past self, not to other people. Don't.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (26:26)That's a good one.
Rebecca (www) (26:26)start from a position of thank goodness I'm not whatever. Don't find comfort, your right to comfort, but don't find it in at least I'm not this. Don't you hate when people go, it's not like I insert whatever. Never helpful. Instead of like, I used to think this and now I realize this. That's just an interesting story to me.
Yeah. And another thing that I think working on yourself and like working on deconstruction is you realize how much work it takes and you realize that you can like respect where people are on their journey.
Right? So examples for me were like, there was a point in time where I had to be like, I can't hang out in large groups of children of God survivors. And it's even hard for me to hang out in large group of like active duty women in the military, because you have to like internalize so much of the misogyny. And I've been through my journey of getting rid of that, right? So it's kind of like when toddlers or teenagers want to argue with you, but they don't understand
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (27:32)that we've been toddlers and teenagers, but they haven't been grownups. And so there is a thing where I remind myself sometimes, it's like, you can let people have their say, you can say a little bit, but not have to pull them into this because they're just not there yet.
Rebecca (www) (27:36)Alright.
Right, and giving them that humanized space relieves some of that from you that like, there's also a tenant called I'm the only one, that you need to come in and correct this person and give them the information as if that's what's going to be the determining factor in someone else's life. Sometimes it's planting a seed or dropping seeds and hope they plant of I used to feel that way too.
I'm starting to realize this, but I don't know. Just taking it down a level of intensity, seeing that you're just uncomfortable, you're not in danger. Whenever you have racial conversations, we were talking about, you're not in danger ever. The way people talk about...
you know, the blue bracelet thing, and they were like, why? Because you can't talk to these terrible red hat black people. What do you think is out here for you? What do you think has changed? Why do you paint this current picture of death and destruction and violence you've never seen as reasons for you to be terrible to other people and for you to dehumanize? You know, it's cult think, it's fear-based strategies.
No good. But I definitely, yeah, we want to not be pointing fingers and instead, so I used to, when it comes to gestures, I feel like white people are very pointing out, external, if you can't see me, I'm pointing out, as when I think instead what you can do is have a little bit of like a two hands in towards your heart and then open shrug. Who knows, right? This is what I think, but I don't know, you know, everyone has their own thing. I used to feel this way and so.
There are ways to have these conversations, but I do think being regulated first is gonna be your first battle. You have to understand that. It can't be about winning, it has to be about seeing a human, even if they aren't necessarily seeing humans, and doing something a little bit different. Doing something different.
doesn't have to be big, I think at holiday times. So I like the surprised thing for people to, it's almost a way to find your aha moments along the way and say, why would that surprise me that I see this specific man driving this kind of car? Where'd that thought come from?

(02:07):
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (30:26)A big one for us moving to Maryland near DC was just like high level jobs, right? And just like, why is it surprising to me that this black woman is working up, you know, whatever level at this job? And just like...
Yeah.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (30:42)And you know, like part of it is you weren't exposed. I wasn't exposed to that before, right? So it's just the exposure. Like, I guess what I'm trying to say is it doesn't have to be this like painful level of soul searching all of the time. It's just like, of course that's a stereotype. Okay, let me get rid of that. And now you have space to just.
have that there, you know? Like, that's, think, part of the deconstruction is just all of the silly little things that you've absorbed that the second they actually, like, pop into your brain or come out of your mouth, you're like, no, you know? And it's just like pay attention to that stuff.
Right.
And I guess that's also how you give yourself a little pat on the back that you have done some deconstruction because it's like, you know, hearing a song back that you heard as a kid and you're like, I'm hearing this different now. Doesn't mean it's now a terrible, terrible song or whatever. You don't have to do all of this deep purging from your life of this artist and lecture. No, just go, that's weird. No wonder I had that weird thought about that girl that one time.
Strange. And then just, that's just a little thing you have in your back pocket next time it comes on and you're around someone from that time period. That's it.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (32:02)One of my new analogies for deconstruction is like when a kid walks in on their parents.
And then like, if you're six, like the parents are freaking out. The parents are the ones that are really impacted. You're six. You don't know what was going on, right? But when you pull that memory back out when you're 16, you're gonna be like, you know? Like that's what I was saying, you know? Or even some of these songs, right? Like, blah, blah, I got it.
Yeah
Yeah.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (32:34)wand and a rabbit. Like the little kids walk around singing that and it's funny and they're not going to get it till they're teenagers and then they're going to be like, like, like you look at it with a different context that you didn't have before. And this is part of what makes deconstruction painful for people because it's like, especially with discovering things that are abuse, right? It's like that stuff already happened to you.
yeah.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (33:02)But if you didn't like code it as abuse, or if you didn't code all of that out on the streets preaching for Jesus as labor exploitation, you know, you have to go back and look at it through that lens. So I don't also want to be too lighthearted about it, right? Because there are going to be some times like I still shudder in shame every time I remember that I told the black woman at my wedding that she looked exotic because
Yeah.
Yeah.

(02:28):
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (33:31)of everything I now understand about like the history of that. And like, it doesn't change. It was just as bad when I did it then, you know, like, and so it's just the context that I'm looking at it that has changed.
the cringing through it and realizing you're not going to do that again and you are using it to prove the survival point, but also like, that didn't, she probably heard it and thought, goodness, okay, well, she said that. It's not, that's not probably the worst thing that's ever happened to her, and she might not even think about it.
doesn't mean it's not something worth cringing through or having those extreme feelings about. It's just like from the spectrum of black experience, have, listen, the things I have learned since being on TikTok about.
the gaps, just how big these gaps are in awareness between black women and white women mostly. just am, and things I don't even know, and I stand in parts of the gaps, but when I hear some of the stuff that happens in these predominantly white areas, I just, it's sad, but it's.
It's affirming in a way, it's eye-opening. It's like, no, it's not like it's a great experience, you guys. We have to grieve the goals we've got here and realize we were okay the whole time when we were reading those fun things and gossiping and quote unquote all that stuff. We were fine. that part is, I don't know why that is so hard in the deconstruction because it's like.
The dopamine, that's probably right. There's a lot of dopamine in that shame rumination. Once I get it.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (35:30)and it, I think it feels like it changes your experience in some ways, right? So like, for me, when I...
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (35:41)you know, got really, really triggered. I'm about 23 and all of my like really early childhood abuse starts coming back. And I'm just kind of living through it. And therapists say this is normal. We go through at five, we go through again at 25 and we go through again at 50. But you're seeing it through these whole different lenses, right? So for me, when the abuse was happening, that was just my life. That was all that I knew.
But this time, the second time when I felt like I was going through it again, it came along with also who the F would do that to children, right? Because like now I'm an adult that has been away long enough to like understand how bad what happened to me really was, right? So there's this kind of...
Yeah, it's like, it changes it and this is what is so hard for people, right? It's like if they admit, know, let's go back to the exotic example, right? If they admit to themselves that like, yeah, that is, you know, racial ideology coming in, that is blah, blah, blah, all this stuff, then like, they're gonna start seeing that, dad actually is quite a bit racist and uncle so and so and blah, blah, blah, right? And this is...
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (37:05)part of the hard part of deconstruction, but also unlearning the cult language is, you know, as soon as I started calling what I grew up in a cult, like I was much less welcome at the family parties, right? And so that's like part of it too, but still has to be done.
Rebecca (www) (37:25)Yeah, and I think understanding maybe the inevitability of probably all of this and it's like, it hurts to realize these things, but it's not like there's no damage done if you push it away, right? So.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (37:40)Exactly, exactly. And this we find in the trauma community a lot. I cannot tell you how many times I've had people say, I'm just putting it all behind me so I can raise my kids. Right? Like, no, you're not. You're raising your kids now as a traumatized person who hasn't deconstructed yet. You know?
Yeah. You don't have that ability.
Yeah, we're overconfident in our ability to dehumanize ourselves or, you know, and like who, what message are you sending to your children when you do that? Or when you stay in a toxic relationship for the kids, what, what? Now you're blaming them for their own mistreatment because you're going to mistreat them because you're just not a healthy person. You know, there's just, there's a lot of slowing down that needs to be done and realize, no, no, no, control isn't the thing we need to seek. And it's never been.
Rebecca (www) (38:30)an option.

(02:49):
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (38:32)And you know, it's also like, when you're when you're deconstructing a worldview, like that worldview influenced your actions, right? So you are going to, you know, both deconstructing misogyny and deconstructing white supremacy has made me face palm a lot of my behavior as an officer in the military, right? And it's like, yeah, it just
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (39:00)was bad, right? And people that were more deconstructed than me could see it and I couldn't, you know? Like I was peak pick-me-girl thinking I could prove everything, you know? And like, so there is kind of a lot of like that sort of shame of like, well now I get it and I'm just feeling shame for like me that...
We had to be.
Mm.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (39:22)was so well-intentioned, but just didn't get it at the time. But I still think that comes from this need to be told that we're doing good or something, because it's just like...
Yeah, it's a feel like you're making up for that mess up that you did by being kind of a pick me and recruiting for it. This is now a me thing. Recruiting for these systems in a way. I went live recently and someone asked have I always humanized people in this way? And no, and I think the only way I can is because I didn't.
Right, so I understand the position of, at least I'm not like this, and how you guys are making decisions that are dumb or whatever. Whether I thought that actively or not, I thought I was a smart person who was making good decisions and that it was going to be successful, which had morally good connotations. I didn't think that much about it, but that's the decisions I was making were based on that. And thinking those who do.
this, this and that, whether it be sex work or something else, those people made bad decisions. Even having that and telling my brother he should cut his locks because if he wants a job then he should, like I said bad stuff. And then apologized later, but I believed I was helping him because I was older and I had gone to business school and I did really good and I got a good job so let me tell you what you need to do, Ew.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (40:30)Yup.
Rebecca (www) (40:54)I don't like that version. I wouldn't do that now. And he had enough sense of self that I'm sure he make any decisions based on what I said, but I still feel that.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (41:04)But if he was a different person, he might have, right? So that's like another part of it was like, sometimes there are impacts that that has on like the relationship or those decisions or whatever. And like, you don't get to go back and change that. You know, like they say, like, you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. You know, so it's like, yeah.
Rebecca (www) (41:07)He might've. Right.
Mm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (41:31)Some people that I have heard throughout my life might see that I have done a lot of work and then I'm a whole different kind of person now. And like, that might be enough for them, but also it might not, you know, there also might be people that were just like, no, her, whatever, don't think it was that bad of a person, but you know, like her offhanded comments about whatever had this impact to me. And it doesn't matter. doesn't change that they've
Mm-hmm.

(03:10):
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (42:01)change.
Rebecca (www) (42:03)Right, mean usually like people can see through, you know, I don't think, because my main point of view wasn't, hey every time I see you, you know, this is what I hope. I don't think he thinks that much about what I said because I brought it up myself. Now I could be wrong. But in as a whole, especially within a community, you're not really seen as wholly anything or you shouldn't be. Like you are this person who did this thing to me that one time, now I no longer trust you at
all for anything is very puritanical white supremacists throw the baby out with the bathwater. I don't know what that's about. I just realized that phrase. I'm hating that one. I'm putting that one on the I hate this phrase list. Why are we throwing babies all the time? With the bathwater.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (42:49)you
My kid has put keep your eyeballs peeled on the list of things we're not allowed to say.
Rebecca (www) (42:59)that's a good terrible one. That's a really good bad one. Yeah. With the bath water, like now we're just thinking about bath water, the naked babies, let's not do that. But you know, people aren't there every single action unless you are in a cult, then you're judged by what's the last action you did and where are you standing are you in now. If I
you know, was a person where I judged my brother on everything and I just only cared about following the rules of the thing. I just inherently thought, hey, you know, if you want a job, just the way these people are, they're not gonna want locks at the place. You I didn't think there was anything wrong with the locks, but I thought if you want the job, blah. But anyway, let's move on to the next thing. You know, there are ways that people can just tell if you have, you know, if what your intentions are. Is it to change them? To change their opinion?
Because that's evangelizing. I don't like that. I'm realizing that's what evangelizing is. I didn't really know. I'm, because, you know, as a Jewish and black person, yeah, that never really hit part of my family line. My specific brand of white woman was Jewish. you know, and it's making me realize, right, so like the, when I saw some of the electorate results or whatever between,
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (44:03)Yep. It's going for convert.
You don't, you don't evangelize.
Rebecca (www) (44:24)Jewish women, black women. It's like, this is how I ended up doing this work. Because my specific white woman that I, that one, my demographic head, my representative, was very like pro-black women and blackness in general and different and not in the performance of humaning because that's just not the lane she was allowed to sit in. the, the, a,
opinions about other people's living.
I mean that creeps in there sometimes, but.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (45:01)And this is where, like when I say like when people are like, it's just everything in America, Colteum, like it was started by the Puritans. Like the Puritans, the ones who made fun illegal and like were obsessed. Like one of the things that defines the Puritans is they were obsessed with controlling what everyone was doing, right? Like.
Rebecca (www) (45:11)Like, and what if the answer is yes?
Yeah, I don't think I like that group. got to tell you. And it's like when they ask rhetorical questions, it drives me insane. White people don't even know how to ask rhetorical questions. I realize I've been really thinking about this because black people actually do really good jobs with rhetorical questions. You just don't realize when we go, what did you say? That was a rhetorical question, but you're answering it. that was rhetorical, but it's fine.
White people go, who would do this? And that's their rhetorical question, but there are answers and you would benefit by having some of them. But instead for centuries we go, who would do that? Who would kill people because of it? Who would, it's always America. America's the answer. Is everything in America a cult? Yes. Now what? What was your plan? Whether that was right or wrong? Why did you ask?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (46:24)You
Rebecca (www) (46:24)That's for comfort. That's where the right to comfort comes in is because they're going, I need to feel better about this thing you just told me that makes me feel like everything might be a little bit. And so now I'm gonna just throw that out there as an impossibility. And now I'm done.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (46:38)my gosh, this has been cool. This has been all week for me, right? Because I've been like very busy. I've been selling 40, 50 books a day since the election. I, I mean, we all live in a cult now, right? Like this is good timing for me. Where was I going with that?
Rebecca (www) (46:47)Ooh, okay.

(03:31):
Mm-hmm.
The thoughts, like the rhetorical questions? Yeah.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (47:00)the right to comfort, right? And so people are like, okay, so what do we do now? And I'm like...
Rebecca (www) (47:05)exactly.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (47:08)you know, like, I or when people will be like, Okay, so how do we get our loved ones out? And I started telling people like, if I knew how to answer that question, I would be extraordinarily wealthy, right? Because people will pay a lot of money to get their loved ones back from cults. And also my own grandfather would still be running the money for a cult. But like, people get very upset.
because my job as I've defined it for myself is literally to just point out all these holes and problems and structures in our systems. And then I don't give them an easy answer for how to solve it because there's no easy answer for complicated questions. And it's discomfort that people like do not want to sit with.
Rebecca (www) (47:51)because that's what a cult would do.
Yelp.
And discomfort is not danger. But whiteness will, you have to question that. You have to remember discomfort is not danger because literally when we talk about the sidewalk thing, we talk about rights of comfort. It was literally a right that white people had to walk in the street without obstruction from any of the blacks. It was a right, it was in law. And that wasn't done. And it's done to impact you. You are the.
the demographic they want to remain comfortable and quiet and learned helplessness. That's why I have that written up here. Learned helplessness. And then they go, well, what can we do? Because knowing you're not going to give an... So I talk about anti-racist journey being like the healthy hair journey. I talked about this last week, I think. People will come onto... I would go on live and someone would say, hey...
my stepdaughter has hair just like yours, what do I do, what can I do to help her? And I said, if this is the first time you're asking or looking and it's on a live stream with hundreds of other people in here and you have the confidence to come in and type it out, like I think you need to do more connecting with your stepdaughter first. I think you need to do a little bit more on the what's her dad say, what's her mom do, you know, and just.
It's the comfort that you have in typing out the comments sometimes that shows me, we are in danger. We are actually in danger because you're so uncomfortable with your own discomfort that if I say my answers step by step are on Patreon, they'll go, I don't do Patreon, but thanks, you know. The answers could be right there, but if it's a little bit inaccessible in terms of you'd have to think really hard, that's not what you wanna do. You want to just feel bad.
and then feel okay, feel good about the fact that all you're doing is feeling bad. And that's okay, but don't make it my responsibility and come on to, you know, the man versus bear conversation came back around again, of course, and part of it is my doing because I am like, hey, white women, you know, see what I was saying? You have a role here, and it's a big one. The amount, so that video.
the original video has 1.3 million views on it. way too many, the ratio of comments is really high. Let me say like 20,000 comments. And people will still today on that video with that many views, comments, and it's from April of 2024, six months ago, they'll come in today and say, hey, can you clarify this? What is it? Like, are you saying this?
I am really trying to understand. want to do better for my sister's long comment at work and my friends, I'm really trying to understand. Submit comment.
What does that tell me about the likelihood? You haven't even scrolled one video, you haven't scrolled in the comments, you haven't zoomed out one iota and you're commenting how your discomfort and how sad and heartbroken, what can I do? you don't even realize as you say that, you're causing harm, kinda, in a way, cause I'm less hopeful now. Every time.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (51:03)You're really trying.
Rebecca (www) (51:25)A white woman comes in, finds that video and goes.
What can I do? How can I? Without scrolling just a bit to skit. I think,
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (51:37)There is this like writers group on Facebook that I'm a part of and you have to be invited in and literally every single person I invite in, am like, please go spend some time in the files. Please go spend some time just searching for questions that you have because like there are so many, there's so much resources in here that has already been done.
And one of their rules is like, you're not allowed to delete anything. So it's like, there is like loads of information here that you can go read. So please don't just like come in and be new and just start asking all the questions because like we've covered that.

(03:52):
Right? But you know, the fact that that is a thing, you know, that's, that's not in every demographic thing. Look at, look at my, you know.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (52:34)yeah, yeah, this is heavily white women for sure. Yeah.
Rebecca (www) (52:37)And that shows you that right to comfort. And that is so important because it doesn't matter. You're so blinded by the privilege part of what you don't see. And then if I say, you are on my TikTok page, you are on it. you're at like a million, you won't look around you for a second. And we get tired and there are people now who, know,
People will go explain to them in the comment section. Thank you so much because everyone's just telling me and I get it. Research it yourself. That's not easy. But if you're on the page, you could scroll a little. have playlists. have organized. My Patreon is organized. But there's this, you know, some people calling me, someone calling me irresponsible for saying, hey, I'm going to post my breakdown of this over on Patreon. Saying that on TikTok, they said, why would you do that?
Why would you do that? Shouldn't we all be able to see what you have to say that's just not responsible of you to do? Wow.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (53:45)people try to come at me when I turn off comments, which I do very rarely. And it is usually because it's something that involves like abusing children and I just can't see like people, it will just become the trauma dumping space. And then people will literally come to other comments and like other videos so they can furiously comment and try to tell me that because I chose to put it online,
Rebecca (www) (53:48)Wow.
Mm-hmm.
because you want to. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (54:14)I have to therefore leave it open to conversation. And they are not very happy when I'm just like, no, I actually don't have to do anything for you. I'm a random woman that does not answer to you. And like, you can go about your day and go either find that information or not find it. like.
Rebecca (www) (54:26)All of a sudden it's a public, yep, yep.
But the right to comfort and the right to access is where that consent part comes in. And maybe that's also why I'm struggling with right to comfort because it's whose comfort are we keeping? When these things happen, all of a sudden it's my page is a public forum. They should be able to do whatever. You can block me if you want. I can tell white women, hey.
you're making me really uncomfortable in this comment section, leave, leave me alone, leave me alone. Right. And it's, well, if you want me to, and then you block me, you do this. And I'm trying to prove a point here that you don't care about the risk, the responsibility, like being responsible for the harm you're causing because it's public and I can push me out, make me leave. I'll leave whenever I want to leave. And I'm okay. That's your choice, but realize that
all of these things, whose comfort? Because I was uncomfortable, that's the reason I made the video I made. Right, because I was uncomfortable hearing white women be so unaware of how unaware they were. And the black women just sitting here like, yeah, I wish you would get this when it came to us. But that made white women uncomfortable, and as a result, I was the one that had to stop.
Not their comfort had to be managed at my own lived experience. No, no, no, no, no. I had to understand that what I was doing was wrong because it made them feel that I something, something, something, whatever. They couldn't just scroll away. Their discomfort was my responsibility. They reported, they explained, they mansplain, they whitesplained, mansplaining to me.
I, because they were uncomfortable with what was happening and in order to ease it, it had to be me. Like it couldn't just be, you're uncomfortable. That's okay. Nope. Yeah. Yeah. I, and we should have known, no, not we should have known, but Crutches and Spice, which I love, I love their account. She said, I knew I could have told you.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (56:42)Karen's Fland.
that Karen's fucking do.
Rebecca (www) (56:57)the results of the election from the response to my video about the conference room and the man versus bear and the white woman, white man. It wasn't just the people who were mad at me. It's the people who were shocked in awe and then othered themselves from everybody else or said, I'm so heartbroken that I would ever, how can I, blue bracelet type vibes. That is not the response. What would you want men to do to the man bear thing? And they wouldn't even do that.

(04:13):
You know, it was, I couldn't imagine or white women saying, I wouldn't even choose the white women. Women are just so nasty and catty. No, that wasn't.
That wasn't it. I mean, you're doing the thing that they do, the caddy, the bitchy, the, you know, very, you're changing the conversation. Anyway, I don't remember what I was doing with that.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (57:54)That's okay.
Rebecca (www) (57:55)Right to Comfort is why, and this is why I have like 10 pages of stuff I want to say about it, because it's so insidious.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (58:03)Yeah, I mean, even though like, even though I'm not going to try, right, or I can't even imagine, right? It's like, you can't even think about it. You can't even put yourself in the story that somebody else is saying.
Rebecca (www) (58:18)and you typed it out to me, why? So it's like one thing, I think it's so important to remember, it's one thing to think something, to feel something, so valid, yes, journal it, but to then bring it to this internet stranger who was a black woman with hundreds or thousands of, like, look at what you're doing and why. This is the why of my talking part. Because why are you saying it? What am I getting?
I don't do this, but I love, this is so funny. don't do Patreon, but I would if I, you know, that whole thing is like, that's fine. Say it to me, why are you so comfortable? To make your, you feel bad that you're not taking the extra step, but you're taking all the steps with your fingers to tell me. I don't know. And then I'm not allowed to feel bad because, you know.
They think I'm funny or they like it.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (59:17)That's the other thing. It's like, we're never, you're never allowed to get to like snap back at them and be like, I've explained this, like I've done this. It's just like, no, no, no. Can we talk about right to comfort in names? How like white America feels entitled for you to give them an easy name for them to say. And it is crazy to use myself. I'm aware that I'm a white woman.
Mm-hmm.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (59:45)had this thing where I came from growing up in Latin America being called Beniella, right? The only conversation about my name is why does it have two L's? All of a sudden, I come to the US where people are like, what? Huh? How? Three syllable name? And then it starts, do you have something for short for that?
And like, don't like going by Danny because that was what the cult called me. And so I literally used to say to people like, yeah, my nickname where I come from is Danielinha. And right? It's like, they're not asking for a nickname to call you a friendly insider name. They're asking for you to shorten or somehow make your name easier for them to say.
Rebecca (www) (1:00:08)For Daniela?
No.
Yeah. And, and, cause yes, and I think about it, cause that's not all, your name isn't hard. And I think at a certain point, it's a way to cross that boundary, to over-familiarize yourself with this person. Now we have nicknames. You get to give me a nickname. at corporate America, one of the first things, you know, I knew hard core, like my name is Rebecca. I've always introduced myself as Rebecca.
And why is this man calling me Rebecca's, right? This manager, Rebecca's and Bud. Rebecca's not that hard. I never gave you the nickname. I asked him to call. I had to do this whole thing of, yeah, can you just call me Rebecca? What? You know, sometimes, yes, it's the comfort of the name for sure.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:01:07)Becky.
Rebecca (www) (1:01:31)But then I feel like it's also a little bit of, don't have to, I get to call you something a little special. I'm special.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:01:39)Yeah, and it's definitely like I saw a good meme once that it was like if you can say Tchaikovsky, but you can't say Katanji like that's racism.
Rebecca (www) (1:01:46)Right. Right. Right. We could always, Mikhail Barushin to call off and all that stuff, but you can't figure out how to say our names. Get out of here. In business school.

(04:34):
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:01:52)Right. We learn to say complicated names all the time, right? I always joke. I was like such the resting biatch face or whatever as an officer that nobody ever like jokingly called me Captain They just all learned how to say Mestenec. Like, it isn't that hard. Right now I'm trying to memorize the name.
Rebecca (www) (1:01:59)Yeah!
Right.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:02:18)Ludmila Pavlichenko, think, she's like one of the best snipers in history. And it's like, I'm putting a little work into it. I'm working on it every day. But like, it's not that hard. Yeah. Because you want to.
Rebecca (www) (1:02:23)Mm.
because you want to say it correctly. Because you want to. You care enough to respect this person's name. I remember in business school we had a lot of international students from India and we had this whole debrief after one of our classes because the old white man is just going around with every Indian name having so much trouble. Pooja is not hard, sir. And we all have name tags. There was, now they're not all the easiest, but if you care enough, you learn how to say.
their names, you're seeing them every day. If someone's name is Shwetong and he said, hey, can I just call you Sam? And the man, Shwetong, picks up his name, looks at it, and we all crack up, because we're just, it is, 2020? No, 2018? And we're like, this is happening in front of us all right now? Yes, yes it was. If you respect someone, you care enough to say their names. If you don't, you don't. It's pretty, we know this.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:03:20)And I am happy to report from second grade that the young people are doing a phenomenal job on this. Like I gave my daughter a three syllable name and I worked very hard to find a nickname that I liked because I thought she would need it. And like, everyone just has her name. You know, they just learn each other's names. They're not that difficult. They don't need them to be shortened. Like.
Rebecca (www) (1:03:46)They say sentences, they can say three syllables. What are we comforting our children from? like, we don't wanna have them hear about these terrible things, but what about not doing terrible things? Hold on, because not hearing about them is leading to them doing a bunch of them. So maybe we should start talking about stuff so that we can prevent the stuff. And it's like, well, what stuff? We don't talk about it. What's happening?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:04:16)This is what I always said about, you know, I always said about like, to me, the difference of like, Brazil dealing with slavery and America dealing with slavery is like, Brazil has this lack of embarrassment about talking about it. And I recently saw this thing that was like, it was a black man, I think he was some kind of preacher or politician, but he was saying that like,
Rebecca (www) (1:04:17)You know, when you talk about consent, to what?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:04:43)He said, we're not the best. Like we didn't create any of these sins, right? Like America's sins are not unique. He said, I think what is unique is our lack of taking responsibility for them. And you look at many other places. Yeah. No, it was definitely tying it back to like, we need to atone for slavery, the original sin and all of this stuff. I very much concurred with, but it was like, because
Rebecca (www) (1:04:56)Yeah, and mostly white people, but yeah. We can't, we're not.
Yeah.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:05:12)we're embarrassed to talk about it. You know, I also did a semester abroad in Germany and I was shocked at how the kids in college just discussed the Holocaust. Like it is just disgusting. mean, there's still twice in 2008, they evacuated the school to find UXO, know, unexploded ordnance, like still left over from there. It's like, they're having those conversations. And in America, we're just like, nope.
Rebecca (www) (1:05:33)Mm.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:05:41)It's in the past.
Rebecca (www) (1:05:42)Right, because here making waves is a bad thing. here's, like I think I said this last time, like waves are a natural occurrence. So at some point, we're gonna have to lay off the individuals and start going, okay, so waves happen. We're gonna look for them, we're gonna manage them, we're gonna stay out of the water when they're really big. But instead, we spend the whole time going, look, who did this? Who did this?
Who made this wave? We were floating so nicely in that stagnant water. You're gonna do, for hundreds of years. But I think there's a lot of, in order to address slavery, they'd have to get out of the us and them, win or lose, either or mindset first, and the deconstruction has to happen, because otherwise they hear, okay, we're gonna, we need to be punished for.
We need to be on the bad side for however long. We need to atone for however long. That's not what getting out of a cult is about. Like when you get out and you realize you've done harm while you were in the cult, not all of your time outside of it is spent apologizing, atoning, and no, it's just like, my goodness, I see how that happened. Now I'm gonna humanize and find the community of people who also made it out and talk about how they were recovering from that.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:07:04)Yeah.

(04:55):
Rebecca (www) (1:07:08)and
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:07:09)Rebuild your relationship with the people you mistreated like while you're in the cult, you know
Rebecca (www) (1:07:13)Right? Right? Because they probably know too, like I said with your friend, like they know you're not a bad person. You know, it's re-attuning yourself with yourself and your community and saying, yeah, these weren't good things, that doesn't mean I wasn't a good person or I should not have any of that. It's, okay, what do we do today, who can we talk to today, and how do we prevent?
this from happening to others and make it a softer landing for others who are getting out. Like it's just there's always more to do. It's just
not being hit by the wave, know, open your eyes and kind of be like, yeah, it's just gonna rock. This is gonna rock my world a little bit,
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:08:00)Yeah, it's also, you know, when you're in like, trying to change systems and trying to like do the work, like you have to stop what's happening now. But you also have to go back for people that were already affected.
Rebecca (www) (1:08:01)I'm prepared.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:08:19)You know, so like I could not believe and was disgusted by when we lived in Washington state and weed was perfectly legal, just like a wine bar. And yet there's still people in jail for marijuana. Like, are you effing kidding me?
Rebecca (www) (1:08:34)Yes.
Yeah. How, how? I remember a long time ago saying to myself, like if I could, you know, wave a magic wand or whatever, it would be obviously release everybody, anything related to marijuana. my gosh. And all things related to marijuana should be mandatorily not for profit. And any money should be going directly to black communities impacted by the like, what are you talking about? It's right there. Boom.
right there.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:09:07)I have fun. I have fun breaking white men's brainwashing even white women's when people are celebrating like marijuana has been legalized in this state. I love to just drop it like, you're a straight white man. It's always been legal for you. Like, you've always been safe smoking marijuana in the privacy of your home as a white man in America, right? Like, it's just, yeah.
Rebecca (www) (1:09:22)Right.
It was cool for them. Yeah, it's never been a problem for you. And even if you did get caught, it's still not a problem for you. It wasn't the point. It wasn't trying to get you. It was trying to get everybody else, and it did. And there are people with life sentences based off of this shit. And that's the really tough part of everything is no matter what, it's...
Because it is true, and it should be allowed, it should be recreational, and it's holding the nuance of, and since it is, let's go back and just let them out. What are you so scared of? All these big scary, okay, well.
I know, figure it out. Stop making tons and tons of money or put it towards something or I don't know. Isn't that what America is? Take something from the ground that we...
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:10:27)I really believe that at some point, like at some point we are just gonna have to figure out how to pay reparations and how to give land back. That one's easy, we can just downscale our military a little bit and give land back that we took in that way. But like...
Rebecca (www) (1:10:41)Honestly, it's all really easy. It's just... It becomes hard when you...
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:10:44)I have a dream that when millennials are the ones in power and money, then Gen Z and Gen Alpha are gonna figure out solutions and we're just gonna fund it. Like that's my dream.
Rebecca (www) (1:10:56)I believe it could be done tomorrow. There are these young black women solving all these mathematical equations and they're like, yeah, because we did the math. We've always been here probably able to solve a bunch of stuff, but capitalism clouding reality made it so that good decisions didn't mean healthy decisions. If the patent isn't worth it, we're not gonna do this drug that could.
cure addictions and these things. We're not gonna invest in this because there's no money there. Like for so much for climate change and everything, but it's that we are trying to convince America.

(05:16):
Okay, if you get bit by a venomous animal in America, you best hope you're near a military base because it doesn't happen to enough people. So those drugs are basically not produced outside of the military, like just for your...
Rebecca (www) (1:11:48)my gosh, new fear unlocked, thanks. Wonderful, where's the nearest military base?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:11:54)Right, but it's like there's no thought to like, this is good for everyone. We should just create it, you know.
Rebecca (www) (1:12:00)Right, right, because it's not good under our capitalistic system of what's good is what's profitable and sustainably profitable.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:12:09)And it even, I even think that all the maintaining of the status quo is right to comfort in some way, right? Cause it's like, well what happens, right? Like, like how would we do reparations? Okay, we would have to start the process.
Rebecca (www) (1:12:18)1000 %
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:12:26)And then I guarantee you, we would have very difficult situations come up. We would even have some situations come up that have no right answers for anyone. And we would have to get in there and we would have to deal with those complicated issues and on and on it will go. Right? We want this nice, simple answer. like, as I always say, if someone's giving you a simple answer to a complicated problem, like they're trying to con you or call you.
Rebecca (www) (1:12:41)Right. Yeah, they want the like.
or they don't want the answer, right?
Right, but they really want you to go like, we figure out, or no matter what, they'll go, well, here's the problem with that. It's the other thought terminating cliche. They don't really wanna know how it would be done. To me, reparations, give it to black women. They are due historically with all the data and the numbers. We do the best with money. We know how to use it in community. We can make $20 out of five cents or whatever. So like.
It could be done yesterday, but you're trying to convince America to do it. And that is the antithesis of what America is. And so it's not gonna do it. You just have to do it. And I'm not exactly sure what that means or what that is, but it's like, how do you just do something different in your everyday life to support a black voice or whatever, or be open to it? But like the word reparations has gotten so...
Like I will say the word reparations, I said it in a video, what did I say? Or maybe I said it was about weed and anything regarding marijuana would just be reparations, go directly to black women and then let them fix everything because there's probably already so many plans, you know? And someone immediately said, well, no, this is what it was. I would want a $500 million wealth cap. $500 million, fine, you can have all that.
And anything above that goes to reparations and that goes to black women. Okay. So it wasn't even about the marijuana thing, but the first response to so many people or like no one should have a billion dollars, anything over a billion reparations, black women. said, I don't want my taxes going to the people and I didn't enslave anybody. What did I say? It's like they didn't even hear, I'll tell you, know, it's cultive response to the word. I didn't say anything about taxes actually.
I didn't say anything about you. Are you a billionaire? You know, I said billionaires shouldn't exist, like, or they can have 999 million, 900, 999, and everything above that, reparations. That's still so much money. Like, it's, honestly, the answers are not that far off. Cancel insurance, who needs it? It's a scam.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:15:07)I love it when they compare being a billionaire to hoarding. Like, if you had this much of anything other than money, we would say you have a sickness.
Rebecca (www) (1:15:18)You couldn't have that many dollars. You literally could not have, possess that many dollars. So why should we allow you to have it? Because they're now imaginary. Pull them out. Let's see them. Because that's how you know it's fake. It's not real. And if we're all, you know, I don't want to say, like killing ourselves for this. Literally, figuratively, slowly, quickly, all the way for these. And it's not even real. It's not good.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:15:23)Right. Right.
Rebecca (www) (1:15:46)It's just numbers on a computer at this point. So seeing ourselves as the value and ourselves as the resource and how can we do this and value each other better. then reparations will happen. I just think when people say it now, it's like, hmm, I don't know.
And I also think...

(05:37):
Sorry, I think about this quite a lot. Like how do I give the white privilege back? How do I do things different? You know, because like that's my personal journey. Like I showed up here in America with $0 and a white face. And I promise you, I have more money than, you know, somebody that hadn't had the white face and had gone on the same journey.
Rebecca (www) (1:16:25)Mm-hmm.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:16:34)And so part of it for me, which is like my personal reparations thing is I pay attention to and try to give more money to black women. So like, I have only so many books I'm gonna buy a year. This many are gonna be from black women, right? Like servers, I just tip them more when they are black women and I know people are gonna freak out when they hear that and I just don't care. Like.
have made more money in my life because of my white face, so I'm gonna give more of that away. And it's like that, this is, you know, I've said this before on shows, but like, it's not niche if white women go out and buy it, right? So if a black woman makes a product or writes a book or, you know, creates anything, the problem is now it's a black thing. Now your market is niche, right? And like, it's not niche.
Rebecca (www) (1:17:04)God forbid.
Yeah.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:17:27)if 100 million white women go out and buy it, right? So that's part of what I think we can do from this side is like consume the art, you know, there's so many black people out there right now educating, doing the anti-racism stuff instead of demanding that Rebecca do it for you for free, you can go join her Patreon, pay her. And it's like that works.
Rebecca (www) (1:17:45)Yeah.
I make it pretty easy. Right? I serve it up pretty easy. It's organized, all that stuff. And if that is too difficult for someone, that is okay, but don't make that my thing and don't make that something you are a victim of. That's something I just want to be very clear. Or if you don't have the funds, I totally understand that, but don't make, that's an uncomfort that you just sit with for now and then later you'll be able to pay. to, I...
Don't make it on me to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's okay, because you're uncomfortable, because now I'm uncomfortable. But I think I love that advice. Also, like just make it about race. Make whatever you're doing about race. It's okay. is a black woman? I'm gonna give her more money because she's a black woman. That's the only time it ever benefits. And then of course people will get mad. We already know how it naturally flows in the other direction. You have to actively, intentionally make it go in the other direction. You have to not.
wait for a black woman to earn your support, supporter, because she's in front of you for a reason.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:18:54)Yeah. And I love this advice broadly for thinking about privilege.
Right? Like make it about race. Think about, you know, so I, the first time I heard the term white privilege, I was a captain in the army and someone was trying to use me to prove that it didn't exist. But I was like, no, you just gave me the term for this. And so I had been someone that was like, no, like I worked really hard, but I had white privilege. But I wasn't thinking, I was thinking about like, I worked hard, but I was here in the system. Never even crossed my mind to remember that like there's an interview. Before I get to,
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:19:33)got to get started in the first place there was an interview of people that got to decide whether I was going further or not right like make it about race when my child was trilingual and she was getting praised all of the time I started asking people if they were if they praised black and brown children for speaking different languages as much as they do my white child
And the only thing you're risking here is making people uncomfortable. making it about race is gonna teach you that you're not devoid of race either. Because it exists, we have it. And so thinking back about things that you think are accomplishments or you think you achieve because meritocracy and just asking yourself, if I was a black woman, would it have been different?
Rebecca (www) (1:20:09)Right?
Right, that's it. Just like make it about race because the system tells you don't. Literally they say, why do you make it always about race? That's a rhetorical question to you. Why? Because I'm always black? I'm always black. You're always white, but you...
Like the gaslighting and the silencing is what makes it so hard. And then the comfort keeping of the status quo, which is nothing. Like that just keeps you so suffocated and so down here, but also fragile like a bomb. Cause you're like, there's so much I can't do. I can't say, I can't look like, can't be like, I can't think like, I can't sound like. And that someone comes in and goes, actually white lady, you don't have it as hard as I do. You're like, I get it.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:21:10)This is fun for me now because I have, you know, on my list of cults I have anti-skinny white women. So every once in a while I'll get someone asking me, like, why does have to be about race? And I have one of two answers. I either go, I have 25 pages of research on that. Let me read it to you. Or I just say, I didn't make it about race, America did. Okay, carry on. You know? Like.

(05:58):
Right, right, why are you making it about race? Sometimes when someone said, why are you putting this on Patreon to do this? I said, well, because I want to. Like this is also another thing, why are you asking me why I'm doing something? Clearly because I wanted to. Like even that, the why are you doing this is culty. That's a scripted question. That is.
You don't want the answer, you want me to, like it's the craziest thing and you could just say, I'm always white, so I'm gonna always be white, so I'm trying to realize it now. And that would throw, that's doing something different, saying something different, throwing people off. Because no one wants you to feel bad for being white. That's a weird phase that I don't fully understand, I don't know where it is in the.
in the wokeness thing, and I don't know if it even aligns to the people on my side of the aisle right now, or in the neurodivergent thing, but this whole like, I'm so embarrassed to be white, I'm embarrassed, I'm so ashamed, I don't wanna be, like, when you say that to black people, what do we do now? Because.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:22:37)Nobody's mad at you for being white. Yeah. It's, to me, it's a very similar energy as when men show up and call themselves the nice guy or like say that you're just not allowed to, I've gotten it like, so what am I supposed to tell my three white sons? Like, they're just like, being a man is bad.
Rebecca (www) (1:22:41)Why do we?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:22:59)You know, I I've been having this conversation on my channel anyways, because I keep hearing of these women saying like, my son is being red pilled, right, which was like the male Manasphere Andrew Tate crowd is getting to him. Well, so what I think was up with what I think is up with that is you as the mom, like
Rebecca (www) (1:23:10)Yeah, what's up with that?
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:23:20)are failing in the way that you are talking about equality and feminism because if you are talking about it as these women hate men and blah blah blah right like all of this stuff like
Rebecca (www) (1:23:33)Right, it shouldn't really align with them.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:23:36)There's a reason like we say it's a phase, like you said it was a phase, that phase of being like, I feel guilty for being white. It's like, because you're to go through that to the argument and realize like, nope, that's not what it's about. You know, like it's about equality. When I was trying to explain, yeah, feminism to my husband. And, you know, I told him like, it's not men against women. It's you and me.
Rebecca (www) (1:23:43)Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:24:04)fighting against a world where our girl child has a one in three chance of being sexually assaulted before she makes it to college. You know, if that's the kind of rhetoric you're giving your sons, like, they're gonna see the like the cult stuff for what it is, you know.
Rebecca (www) (1:24:23)Yeah, yeah, my son is getting red pilled. What do I do? Like, I don't know. Yeah. And the coming to the internet about that. And I think that we do a lot of someone, my friend would talk a lot about family blogging and that the whole kind of culty aspect of what we're seeing is all there is. We're not really taking the camera into consideration a lot. We're not taking in the posting into consideration, the editing, the.
the comment feedback. it reminds me of this white woman who came online and said, black women, I just wanna know what makes you feel safe when you're in shared spaces around us, right? And like, I knew immediately. This is a terrible idea. But then there's stitches and stitches and stitches and everyone going, hey, stop this, this isn't it, this is a blah, blah. And it's still up, but you weren't, the.
It's remembering she posted this video. You have friends, you have podcasts, she don't follow me. Everyone's tagging me, she just don't follow me. So it's moving past the, just cause someone says it.
why are they said, where, why and how, when they're a white person. Let me just give that, because you already do that for black people. Please, go through a lot to just get it right in front of your face. But with white people, all they gotta do is show up and have a face. And they say something, and I think using that to your benefit, another way to make it about race, and I spoke about this a little bit, when they say like, you'll listen to me before you listen to a black person.
I've had another white creator who's pretty big say that after she got pissed at me for not loving the white woman's response to Kamala. you, you use that voice that people listen to to direct to the black women. Don't say what the black women are saying because they won't listen. You say, Hey, people don't listen when they speak. I'm finally listening. I think you should too.
That speaks way more than me saying you should listen to me. So when it's they listen to you more than me about me, they're going to listen to you about what I have to say more than they're going to listen to me about what I have to say, because I'm already black and I'm saying black stuff. So you can use your white voice and your white face to say, hey, I was fine. I got embarrassed the way you do, Danielle, like saying this is a way to say we survive. Like she corrected me. It was fine. It was direct and that.
was actually great for me and I'm really grateful. You saying that has so much more weight and I'll always reiterate this, than you can understand with other white faces. Because the second you say, hey, this is good, people believe you. I'm saying, hey, I'm the white woman whisperer, I'm here to help you for free, to teach you, they yell at me. And I haven't even said anything.
And then I do say, hey, I'm listening to you, I'm trying to help you not be embarrassed, I'm trying to help you pick your buggers, make sure they're not there, and then they yell at me. You get to say, white woman whisperer, you can say exactly what I say, and you'll get credit, you'll get views, you'll get hearts and DMs and maybe brand sponsorships. But if you just say like, go follow her on Patreon, that'll do a lot more than me saying it.

(06:19):
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:27:56)Yeah. And so this is this will be coming out at a perfect time to also tell people like, holidays are coming up, right? You can gift Patreon subscriptions now. So you can get so you can gift Patreon subscriptions to Rebecca's Patreon for that white woman in your life. Like I know when I heard your name, white woman whisper, was like, I need that. And so do like many people.
Rebecca (www) (1:28:08)You can?
That's amazing.
Yes.
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:28:23)So you can give Patreon subscriptions, you can buy books by Black women and give those as gifts. can take the resources, right, that helped you and give them to other people.
Rebecca (www) (1:28:33)Yeah. And share, be the like sharer of that information. It doesn't have to be the presenter of the information, share. And yeah, just kind of, I really enjoyed this, I hope you enjoy this, and it's so much better received than if you were to yell at that person and say, you need to watch white women whisper because you don't know what you're talking about. Because now they're gonna come over to me and be all hostile, right? It's a little bit better if you guys are like, it's great, she's amazing. They're gonna be.
nicer and more willing to engage. also kind of have that in mind as well. Cause I see people tagging me and I appreciate it, but I'm like, I don't want to be the face of I'm already that by being black. Like we got it. So I do appreciate always remembering that and like your voice does have impact. Use it wisely and like just make it about race, about your race.
Yeah. And you can use, we can use our voices to say both like, this is what worked for me, let me share it with you. And also like, shh, listen to her. These are two good things I'm taking away from this discussion, Rebecca.
Rebecca (www) (1:29:35)Wonderful. So easy.
Yay!
Daniella (KnittingCultLady) (1:29:41)Thank you so much once again. Thank you all to everyone who comes and listens to our very interesting, lovely, and I hope conversations that you're learning from. I am Daniella, also known as the Knitting Cult Lady with my friend Rebecca, the white woman whisperer. And her Patreon is fire and I really recommend her Tenants of White Supremacy. So definitely go check that out.
Rebecca (www) (1:29:56)See you
Yes, I'll see you there.

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Episode 17 | Weaponized Literacy

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 17 | Weaponized Literacy