Episode 26 | You Don't Have to "Get" Kendrick Lamar - Hey White Women

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
But this wasn't about Drake.

(00:03):
And I would say this isn't necessarily even about Trump or it's about no matter what.
we're still gonna speak and say, because the other thing is that Drake, I don't know allthe technicalities of the suit, the lawsuit, but has been suing based on this song that

(00:24):
Kendrick keeps teasing.
He sued him, sued somebody, sued people for playing it.
It's lots of like, he's not gonna play this song because there's a threat and there'smoney and he could have to pay a fine.
And so the whole thing of I'm not playing this game.
is the resistance.
It's more about the resistance than the opposition.

(00:46):
So it's more about sticking together and saying, do you hear this language we're speaking?
They don't speak this language.
I woke up the day after the Super Bowl and my friend was like, did you see the Kendrick'sperformance?
Now I gotta say, I didn't fully know that that was happening even, because I'm notconnected.

(01:13):
But I am obsessed.
But.
But like, it's so many, like he does such a good job with analogies to symbolism, but likesimplicity and pretty straightforward if you, I just, it's one of those things where I

(01:36):
think everyone can enjoy it if they wanted to, but like there's so many levels of culturethat you can just see are happening and like the reactions and the reactions are my
favorite part.
because it's just so cultural.
And Serena Williams, Crip Walking, I think it just like did a lot in my brain for thistype of conversation that we like to have because we talk, we hear about gangs, right?

(02:10):
The Crips and the Bloods and how scary, scary, right?
I mean, I know a lot of people who were...
in these scary, scarries and they were very nice to me.
But you think about gangs versus these groups.
Some, who's scary?
Like I...

(02:34):
especially when it comes to Kendrick Lamar.
You saw the Blood and the Crips dancing on stage during Juneteenth having a great time, ifyou saw that.
I was moved beyond.
So one of the things I've been thinking a lot about with this and with this Black HistoryMonth is like when enslaved black Brazilians were told they couldn't train fighting, they

(02:59):
invented capoeira, which is a fight dance.
That's where it comes from.
And just like, I don't know, there's just so much symbolism in that for me with like...
You know, there's these videos that are like, it just shows like people of color saying,did you know that white people send their children to school to dance?

(03:22):
And then it just cuts to images of like not white children all over the world, justdancing on the streets and like knowing how to dance.
like, we've talked about before how like color is such an important part of theresistance.
And I think like music and dance.
and rap and just so like

(03:49):
Being seen and heard.
bad book and obviously very Confederate propaganda, but in Gone With the Wind, there'sthis scene where the black character Mammy, she's grumbling under her breath about the
woman of the house.
But the woman of the house can't say anything about it because she's not supposed to Daneto be listening to the enslaved people.

(04:19):
And I just think of Donald Trump sitting there, knowing he's being dissed, but not evenunderstanding enough of the music and the language and the culture to get it.
Yeah, because he was there.
So he had to sit there and watch this, right?
And watch this incredible celebration of Black culture in America.

(04:45):
rewriting the story, but also just knowing that like he wasn't getting it.
And like, people are gonna have to explain it to him later, you know, or he's like, he'sjust sitting there oblivious to how he's being dissed because he would never deign to try
to understand.

(05:05):
Right.
And that, well, that's also why it's like, I forgot he, I didn't even, that's, you know,he's never gonna is the thing.
And it's almost like when you focus on him or the Republicans or the people who followhim, it's almost like, okay, so the Kendrick versus Drake beef is how that song, not like

(05:33):
us.
started, right?
And so there is a perspective of saying this, you know, yes, this should be killing Drake.
Drake should be, he's probably hurt right now if he cares.
He probably isn't like the way these personality types are, I'm sure it's fine.
But this wasn't about Drake.
And I would say this isn't necessarily even about Trump or it's about no matter what.

(06:02):
we're still gonna speak and say, because the other thing is that Drake, I don't know allthe technicalities of the suit, the lawsuit, but has been suing based on this song that
Kendrick keeps teasing.
He sued him, sued somebody, sued people for playing it.
It's lots of like, he's not gonna play this song because there's a threat and there'smoney and he could have to pay a fine.

(06:26):
And so the whole thing of I'm not playing this game.
is the resistance.
It's more about the resistance than the opposition.
So it's more about sticking together and saying, do you hear this language we're speaking?
They don't speak this language.
They not like us.
Like Trump should never even, we don't care if he gets it in a way.

(06:47):
Obviously not gonna get it.
And people who think, this show was blah, blah, blah.
It's not for them.
It's for us to decide despite a fear.
or our institutional success, because Drake is very institutionally successful.

(07:10):
Okay, I hear you.
That Kendrick isn't necessarily for everybody, isn't something everyone's going to play atall the parties and stuff, but he's still influential.
He says, he quotes, I think, they tried to rig the game, but you can't fake influence.

(07:31):
So it's like speaking life into the people.
Reality.
Yeah.
And I mean, what you said about that, like, the resistance is about resisting and notabout the opposition, where, like, white culture is just defined by trying to be on top,

(07:53):
right?
So it's like, that's, like, when you said that, it just became so clear to me, right?
It's like, that's why we don't have a culture.
because, and this is why, by the way, every time I get on live now, it's just people beinglike, are we gonna survive?
And today I was like, I just have no patience for this.

(08:14):
Yeah, most people survive.
Most people survive fascism.
It can be horrible, but this whole like...
I even called it out.
was like, there's something white supremacy to me about white people being like, are wegonna survive?

(08:35):
Like, yeah, the democracy might not survive, right?
Like this might not look like, our lives might look very different, but.
I hope so.
You know, yeah, this, this like, isn't it, once you hear it, it's hard to like sit withit.
Cause also these people are comfortable now.

(08:57):
Like the fact that you now fear is shown in the fact that you're now fearing, right?
And you're saying it.
So it's one thing to have the fear and the concern.
It's another to put it out there publicly without thinking or considering that people are,are
dying right now because of the system that has been and continue to have always and likebecause of this response of looking outside, looking to a different rule or a different

(09:26):
something that's keeping you, you know, this like self-imposed structure.
I made a post about white picket fences.
It's like your own thing.
You're that's keeping you in, but you are the one.
who's saying I want this.

(09:49):
Like, what if people come and step on our lawn and knock over our fences and yeah.
No, woo woo woo.
What are you actually hearing?
that's why I think it is kind of showing the white supremacy of it all, right?
Because it's like, what, I mean, what do we all fear?

(10:09):
I think what we all fear the most is like our children or our very closest loved ones aregoing to be killed, right?
Like that is for me, that is as a parent, that is my biggest fear.
And like that's already happening in the streets of America that people's children arebeing killed.
just not mine.

(10:30):
And so like, I mean, I really think more and more, especially as, you we have theseconversations that it's like, yeah, this is just gonna rest on white women getting mad
enough.
cause you know, like when we get mad enough, we can also grab the white men by their manpearls and like make them do the right thing.

(10:51):
You have to have, and it's funny, I thought about this, you know, we talked about WAP thatlike Meg, the Stallion and Cardi B had, but I want to talk about a different WAP, walk
away power.
White women need to work on their walk away power.
The way Kendrick, so the other thing about the suit is that in his performance, he looksdirectly at the camera and says,

(11:19):
Say Drake.
And so people thought he wouldn't even do the song.
Not only did he do the song, he picked the part of the song where he says specificallythis name and the allegation he's leading to and smiles.
And you will see in reactions to this, that is everything.
It's not just the choice to do it.
It's what, how, context that not only did he do it, he said, we're going to all be havingfun at the same time.

(11:45):
there's a...
there's a walk away power that has to be underneath the surface that he also knows like,yeah, you know, people gonna get it, people are not gonna get it.
I get to go home at the end of this and I feel good.
I know I did this for the culture.
Yeah, there may be an antagonist kind of at play, but it is not about your antagonist.

(12:05):
And I don't know if we've talked about, but I talk about the paranoia of the protagonistis that you're constantly looking for your antagonist.
Anytime someone comes in, you're like,
you, these people are always, and like, the whiteness is having, you know, anti-blacknessis whiteness.
Whiteness is fearing and hating and not being black, not being seen, heard, loud.

(12:33):
this is what I think gives it like the most directed analogy to a cult, right?
Because it's about being against something, right?
And people will do this all the time, I think, even when they talk about like fans, right?
And it's like, well, is that a cult?
Like, no, just being obsessed with something isn't what makes it a cult.

(12:56):
It's us versus them mentality.
Right?
Like having to be against something.
And as you said, like defining yourself by that, right?
Like white, I mean, and that is how our culture defines it, right?
And so for like, for my white women listeners that don't understand one drop theory, youknow, you are half white and half black, but you're considered black.

(13:28):
I'm considered white.
Mm-hmm.
You know, and it's because I don't have this in me.
So it's like, it's a negative definition.
Right.
Yeah.
And even that starting from a place of a negative, right?

(13:49):
And I wrote up here before the whole Super Bowl happened, I was, you know, like I said, Iwas talking about the white picket fence and hearing responses was interesting.
Cause I said, you know, ever since they just even questioning white picket fence, it'sjust so weird.
Like it's a concept I hear of and it's a real thing, but they're kind of ugly.
And then I thought, pointy hats.

(14:10):
I thought it's a bunch of pointy protectors of whiteness around your property to keep thepeople out, know, whatever it is, call it whatever you want.
And then, you know, obviously white women came in and I said, you know, what's the valueof a white picket fence to you?
Like, where do you, where, where is the value in it?
And some people gave me their actual answers about makes my hand, hydrangeas pop andstuff.

(14:34):
Okay.
I think those were men.
Or like, this is a stretch.
Cause I said the
pointy protector thing.
I was like, it's only a stretch for you.
I got there pretty quickly, unfortunately.
And ideas aren't presented for you to now prove or decide or whatever, but there's thisinherent judgment.

(14:59):
Like you're not accepting things for what they are.
It's not present, it's presented.
It's being presented to you.
My ideas.
So, you know, I'm just deciding after I Googled the history of white picket fences thatnow I agree with the idea presented.
I was like, wow, okay.

(15:19):
I already came up, like I already, whether you agree or not isn't.
I know, I love that.
Another one, someone recently commented on my video about blonde and white supremacy andthey were like, is this why golden retrievers are like the most popular dog?

(15:39):
And wait, wait, so I thought about that for one second.
You know what the most popularly abandoned dog is?
Middle sized black dogs.
And now I just, can't unsee it.
I just like, can't unsee it now.
And I think of them as the blonde dogs, right?
Yeah, and you can't say that that's not what it is.

(16:03):
That's, I mean, to me, when people are like, no, I wasn't affected by that.
It just tells me that you don't understand systems of influence and how like everythingworks together, you know?
It's like, it's more about like what you, you believe too much, like you believe yourselftoo much.
You don't believe in what's going on.

(16:24):
You're not believing other people.
You believe that you would, if it, you would say that you would know it, would blah, blah,blah.
Like it's too light.
You're too, you believe yourself too easily.
You have to believe in yourself and in your ability to have done harm and or do harm ornot know something or act out of manipulation.
But
Yeah, but you, you had said about intelligence.

(16:47):
So the thing about the white picket fence, so I did that.
And then I'm thinking that combined with like the performance part combined with the nogood days or like no good intelligence briefing, know, like there's no positive.
All holidays in like whiteness are like milestone achievement, hindsight, all likesuffering in the past.

(17:12):
It's just.
Even your birthdays are bad because you're getting older.
There's just an automatic pathway to learned helplessness and hopelessness.
If you play this game, best case scenario, white picket fence and you hate your birthday.

(17:37):
and nothing else.
watching some show and they were talking about 40.
yeah, it's this show called Younger where she's like 40, but she passes herself off as 26or whatever.
And she's like, yeah, like we're not supposed to age, right?
So it's like, you're literally, if you play this game correctly, like you're just supposedto be regretting life?

(18:00):
This is bonkers.
And this is one of the things for me.
Yeah, one of things for me with aging and cultness, know, like when you grow up withapocalypse mentality, which by the way is all through white America, you're growing up to
die.
Like you're growing up for the world to just end, right?

(18:20):
And so I was taught that in extreme form.
We were taught, you know, I wasn't gonna be 12, then I wasn't gonna be 25.
And so what we see in a lot of cult survivors is like, we don't know how to future plan.
We don't know how to finance plan because you didn't grow up thinking about what you weregonna do as adult, thinking about having grandchildren.

(18:43):
And so I just decided to reverse that mentality on myself and I will love every sign ofaging.
I will enjoy the hell out of the rest of my life that I wasn't supposed to have.
Yeah, that's, also doesn't, because I've been noticing the difference between believingyourself and believing in yourself.

(19:09):
Believing in yourself is resilience, is knowing there is it like future you will be ableto handle this, this will be okay.
And I see that.
So that's really interesting.
There's only like fault finding and the blame game.
love games.
And like, just what is right now because the future isn't like, let's just decide rightnow.

(19:30):
what's good or bad so that we can file it, not how do we take this and build on this inthe future and what happens after you win or after you lose or after, it's not even, there
is no after.
It's just like guilty, not guilty, because I've been also stewing on the innocent untilproven guilty bit.

(19:52):
Wrong?
Also, there are so many other words we could be using for that and we're using innocenceand guilt.
Like not guilty and guilty.
There's like responsible, there's in charge, accountable, needs consequences.

(20:14):
just, the proving a negative isn't possible also.
So if you make a group that's based on a negative, it's like, okay, it'll go forever,great.
It is.
that's why cult leaders can always move the goalposts, right?
Because it's like, Jesus didn't come back, so he still might, right?

(20:38):
So like a failed apocalypse to them doesn't mean they were wrong, right?
Because again, it's this negative.
And this is one of the things that I like try to teach my kid, that I'm like,
It's okay to imagine a future life or imagine the next life, but just understand thatnobody knows.

(21:01):
And because nobody knows, you should never compromise things in this life for some promiseof a next life.
Right, that's just future time, but like it doesn't, it's not this matters and thisdoesn't matter.
Like we're supposed to be accepting everything, but we, there's this, no, the decision ismade from this book and these laws and this court, also court.

(21:29):
This is really a game to everybody.
Cause we go on the court and you play court and you go there for decision-making.
So like public opinion is decided by what's said in court and the whatever.
that, you know, just giving back some autonomy and sense of discernment in ourselves isgonna be necessary.

(21:52):
And you can see it's not like it's not happening.
So Serena Williams, Crip Walkin' had more to do.
So yes, she is, she did use to date Drake.
So there's like an element of like, my God, he brought out Drake's ex girlfriend at CripWalk.
So it was like, that's crazy.
But Serena Williams crypt walked after she beat Maria Sharapova and all of the tennispublic opinion was like, animal basically.

(22:19):
And how terrible is she for doing that?
And you know, because she beat the blonde lady and she quit crypt walk and had a time.
to point out that Maria Sharapova is a blonde like supermodel
And, you know, Serena, how dare she do such blackness, essentially.
So her being on Not Like Us, clipwalking Not Like Us, during the Super Bowl after that,because this was like, she may have had braces, I'm not sure, when she did this

(22:50):
originally.
So it's like, and when you know this and you know culture, it's her standing up andsaying, yeah, but if you're great, you're great.
You know, they said all that stuff about me.
Let them say stuff about you.
They're gonna, not everyone's gonna love you, but dance if you feel like dancing, they'regonna say stuff.
But future you exists.

(23:10):
Resiliency, she is resilient.
And black women have had to be.
And I wonder, like when I watch story times of people, you know, losing their jobs orgetting laid off, I was watching one from a black woman and yes, she was crying and she
was just stressed.
But like in the end, it's always like, well, you know,
I don't know how this is gonna work out, I don't, but it always does.

(23:33):
Like that part.
And I feel like there's a lot of victimhood maybe in the white stories where it's justkinda like, I don't understand.
so here, like one of the things I've been noticing, right, so I think it's verysignificant the amount of time since women got their major rights, because it's been a
life cycle, right?

(23:53):
Most of our grandmothers who fought for those rights, who remember not being able to havecredit cards, property, that kind of stuff, right, they are gone, right?
And so there are these women, like,
I look at my best friends and my counterparts that are these normal white women who grewup in 80s and 90s America, who were told that they could be everything they wanted to be

(24:17):
and be equal, right?
And they have no idea what is coming.
Right?
But then me and all of my cult survivor friends, like those are my people running thegovernment, right?
The National Prayer Breakfast is run by a cult that is as cult as Children of God.

(24:37):
The Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense goes to Doug Wilson's church, who the biggestlatest cult book that came out, Tia Leving's ILPB super crazy evangelical patriarchy.
That's the same church, right?
Like these are.
our people running the government.
And we know, we know they want head of household voting.
We know they want mute little white blonde house slaves to do all their stuff for them.

(25:04):
And also we know that that's survivable, right?
So like, it's like, like, I don't know.
I guess that's for me is what I'm getting out of it is like these.
these white women are just panicking because one, they don't really believe how bad it canget.

(25:31):
And two, but that's of course, because they haven't been paying attention, right?
We mostly haven't been paying attention.
I know by virtue of growing up under authoritarianism, just how much like white men, youknow, they only want white women because only white women can produce another white man.
But like,
That is the value to the system.

(25:55):
Yeah, and the control of the women.
White women are cult members, right?
We are the out group, right?
So it's never been about us.
It's about keeping white women afraid, but now you're afraid.
It's like they've just separated it.
I want white men to realize life isn't happening to you, right?

(26:19):
Damsel in distress is weird.
That as a phrase is weird.
What's a damsel?
I don't know, but being in distress is not dying, but it makes it sound like it.
Damsel in distress needs a man apparently to come save her.

(26:41):
What's the distress?
Who, what's the distress?
Because distress is tolerable.
You're actually supposed to build some distress tolerance because, but like the wholenarrative.
I was thinking about the price of privilege and what it does to you all.
Okay, men are just humans.

(27:05):
You're raising them, you're breeding them, they're in your house.
If black people talked about white women the way white women talk about men.
We'd get no, like I wouldn't be doing this.
just, you don't need an antagonist.
Maybe that's more, but my point is like I want.
I think this is part of the problem, you know.

(27:30):
So I was at the VA today for healthcare, right?
And I was sitting there just looking at all the men sitting around me that are mycolleagues, right?
And just thinking, huh, I wonder which of them like don't really believe that I'm fullyhuman, right?
Because they're going back through the government, through the military, and literallythey're covering up everything that like emphasizes that like women or black people exist,

(27:57):
right?
Yeah.
the men, the male veterans are not out there screaming about it, right?
And I think this is true for basically every white woman right now is having to realizethat like, I mean, if your white male partner is not fighting as hard as you are right

(28:18):
now, then like they also don't think you're fully human and equal.
or they don't consider, don't think, so I feel like that gives it more malice than whatthey are feeling or in, like it applies more of like a villain status to them than it is

(28:39):
complacency and complicitness that they can be activated.
I think what I've also been working on, not working on, but like those who are neutralhave been neutralized.
They've been neutralized.
things have happened, there are ways that it doesn't, it's not processing.
And because of that, they are dehumanizing people, which also means they've dehumanizedthemselves.

(29:03):
White women, I feel bad for white women, but not in a like, the way whiteness says, butmore like, damn, y'all don't have any sense of, can make it if he don't, if I'm looked at
negatively.
If I have a bad reputation, I still deserve to live.
whiteness is like believes in character assassination.

(29:27):
Like that's a thing.
There's actual assassination, like defamation, just think there needs to be more distresstolerance and like maybe your man doesn't get on board.
So if he doesn't get on board, what are you gonna do?
You need to be.

(29:50):
aware that like you have decisions and making interesting choices is going to be on you tothen hope other people make the interesting choice.
Like when I talk about Kendrick and Serena and all that stuff and the choice to saysomething that could get him sued for lots and lots of money, he could have made an easier
choice.

(30:10):
Still entertained everybody, got his Super Bowl money, but when you have something you aredoing it for, so not against.
I think community persists despite oppression and groups persist to spite theiroppression.
I don't think those are equally sustainable.

(30:31):
you are formed despite, because black people are still not seen as human according to thislegal system, does that mean we're going to stop and not do and produce and engage until
this thing that brought us over said we're not human starts to say we're human?
Now talk to the people who already believe you.

(30:53):
I'm not, if I'm not getting, know, that whole defending myself thing.
We talked about that.
Like I'm not here to convince anybody.
If you're not convinced already, that doesn't mean you won't be also.
I think there's just a lot of neutralized people here.
And that's harmful.
You know, a person who does nothing in the, that increases harm.

(31:20):
But how do you get them to do like, know, blaming and shaming is never, especially withthe distress tolerance of white women being below the floor.
I don't know.
Yeah, but that's where I'm like, I think part of it is you're just gonna have to livethrough it, you know, and I guess what's interesting for me is that like, because I am

(31:43):
obviously a white woman, and I so like today I was on there just like this, my hair is hotmess.
I'm just crocheting and calmly talking about my book being sold out, talking about what'sgoing on at West Point, you know, and people are like, why are you so calm?
I'm like, first of all, like,

(32:06):
What would be gained by me freaking out right now?
Second of all, like, I've survived some crap, you know?
Like, there is nothing that is being proposed right now that is immediately gonna put mein worse situations than I have already survived.

(32:27):
It might for some other people and I am doing my best to like keep up and figure out howto help those people, but like,
It really is, I just think that like for the average American white woman, you justhaven't experienced a world in which you weren't at least being sort of like lied to that

(32:52):
you were equal and that there was all this opportunity, you know?
Like they don't understand that when they say DEI, they mean white women too, right?
Like, which also means they don't understand
We don't really understand how much we've benefited from DEI and all of that stuff.

(33:14):
we have women here, super diverse.
I mean, I was shocked when I, even coming out of extremism, like when I joined themilitary and I found out that we were like legally banned as women from being in certain
jobs.
I mean, you could have knocked me over with a feather.
I was so shocked.
I was like, no way in America, that's crazy.

(33:39):
Little did I know.
That's the gaslighting right there.
That's, but you know what I think?
So, okay.
Cause we talked about like Mormons and stuff.
I had this theory once, not once, but.
If you just let the conservative movement do what it wants to do, you were just like, it'sa cult, it's just Mormonism, right?

(34:03):
What they want, if you let them just do all their rules of conservativeism, which isconserving it back to when men could own people, right?
That's what they're doing.
They want their little quiet lives and they're going and being Mormons.
They're doing a ton of illegal stuff.
So much illegal stuff.
But especially, you you go more like FLDS and...

(34:25):
And like offshoots, think FLDS is like the extreme version, but like it, there is nocreativity, right?
But in terms of on the liberal side, because if you don't on indoctrinate, you will end upkind of culty and an anti Mormon thing.
You're just going to be Scientologists.
That that's where the left hand cult goes into Scientology.

(34:47):
And then C-Org is like the most, is like the extreme over here.
That's where whiteness gets you when there's no black people.
and you finally get, you know, they start winning and then they get to the next levels.
It just goes up in those two directions, Mormonism and Scientology.
Books.
been noticing, like, you this whole time people's neg at me because I talk so much aboutthe cult of MAGA is, wow, there's cults on both sides, right?

(35:13):
And for the most part, I'm like, I'm not worried about that one right now.
They're not doing a good job culting on the left.
But the unmitigated panic by liberal white women right now, like, it has me shook.
It has me shook that, like,
maybe we're just gonna let them put us back, push us back.

(35:38):
Because like, this is not how we fight back.
The amount of times people have said to me, the amount of times people have said to me, wecan't go protest in the streets because they'll declare martial law.
And I said this all my life.
was like, there was a soldier marching down my street right now, I would walk out there.

(36:01):
I'm still in my pajamas and my bedroom slippers, by the way.
I would walk out there and I would not stop until the barrel of her rifle was in my chestand I would dare her to shoot me.
And I guarantee you, I'd be walking back into my house later, right?
isn't like, one, it's not happening yet.

(36:26):
But two, like,
Not going, that's not how you fight back.
That would be how I would fight back if the military came marching down my street.
Like, you're just, you're complying in advance.
That's the first in the book on tyranny.
The first thing not to do is don't obey in advance.

(36:49):
Every time, Kristallnacht was not the first thing that happened.
Austrians complying in advance with getting rid of Jews,
That was the first thing that happened, right?
Every time the Nazis figured out that the people would go along with the next constraintbecause they were doing it in advance.

(37:13):
Yeah, they were more afraid of a consequence, of a potential, of an unknown, of they'regonna, who knows, your discomfort.
They might arrest you and...
Yeah.
And, but then this is also the other thing.
This is also the other thing I learned from cults, you know, and we usually learn thisfrom cult teenagers.

(37:37):
There becomes a point where you're like, there's nothing you can do to me that's worsethan what you're already doing to me, except kill me.
And then it would no longer be my problem.
like, and that's when
cult teenagers start pushing back and almost always do the bullies fold, right?

(38:00):
So like, I also have this thing in my mind that it's like...
It's not gonna be, I think, until like liberal, middle class, suburban white women startto actually fear, actually be afraid that if they go out of their house and they're not

(38:22):
doing the right thing in whatever way that that's described, that they might not comehome, that we're really gonna like fight back.
And I don't know if that would even do it because white women bail on each other.
I think conceptually it sounds nice for them.

(38:44):
So proximity breeds care, distance breeds fear, right?
And because you can see a group of friends versus a friend group, how things can operate alittle bit differently.
with black women, like I've told you this, when we would go out, we already knew what therules are.
Obviously it's unspoken because we care about each other, not because we don't want to bekicked out of the group.

(39:07):
But if you're going based on you don't want to be kicked out of the group, you might leavesomeone because that's on them and then they'll get kicked out of the group and, and, or
whatever, you know, it just creates a different dynamic.
Every woman for herself after a certain point when you're not sure, but there has to be acaring that underlies some anger.

(39:31):
And or fear, because I don't know what this is that they're fearing.
It's just like a book.
It's romanticizing the fear too, because it's not just having it.
It's saying it out loud to you in a comment section.
And I wrote up here, you know, why do they want me to know this?
Why are you sharing this?
Is it to scare or to share?

(39:54):
And it's to share.
it because you care or just to scare because you're scared?
Are you scared?
of what and why is it rational?
What can you do about it?
But just, I think Dr.
Ramani says, psychologically flinging it onto somebody else is being a flying monkey forthe system.
You're doing the work of the system.

(40:16):
Yeah.
And gosh, did I just lose it?
No, I did.
What's about Flying Monkey?
No, I liked the flying monkey point, that's why I lost it.
But I just think, you know, it's like, it is that, but it's also hierarchy.

(40:38):
Okay, this is what I was gonna say.
What I was gonna say is that for all of these white women listening, who are panicking andtelling yourself that it's valid to panic, which is whatever, but like, ask yourself, what
are you actually afraid of?
You know, I used to do this with my public speaking students and even my soldiers whenthey were briefing.
I would be like, what are you afraid of?

(40:59):
Even if it goes this wrong, like, am I gonna punch you in the face?
Am I going to fire you?
Am I, you know, and just walk them all the way through where like the only consequence isyou're a little embarrassed, right?
So like, what are you afraid of?
Because if you really walk that through, I think again,

(41:20):
What we're mostly all afraid of is that our children will be killed and we won't be ableto stop it, but like, or that we will be killed.
And then I want y'all to think that like, people have been dying for America since it wasfounded, right?
And when y'all ask me like how I can be so calm, like I've been ready to die for a causemy whole life.

(41:46):
I did it for a cult, I did it for the military.
And I remember when I had to testify against my ex-husband, the white supremacist, ifthat's new to you listeners, go check out episode three.
And we asked ourselves as a family, right?
Like, it safe?
I mean, the answer is no, right?

(42:07):
If you own a home, people can find you.
And I was like, well, you know, I've been willing to die for these two other thingsbefore, and I believe in what I'm doing now.
much more than I believed in those two other things.
So like, if the worst thing happens and I'm walking down my street and I'm shot by a whitesupremacist, like, okay, you know, but like, and even that, right?

(42:37):
Just walking through it.
And that's of course my military brain being like, or what's my option?
I'll be scared all the time, all the time.
I'm be checking every person who walks by for green eyes.
I'm gonna be never going out of my house to take my kid to school at the same time by thesame route.
Like, no, I'm not gonna live like that, right?
Like, fear, like, he would be winning in destroying my life if that's what I did, right?

(43:06):
So I think there is something to like, first of all, just choose the freedom to be like,no, I'm gonna do this thing that I believe in.
And if they get me, they get me.
That thing that you fear may happen anyway, no matter what you do, no matter what rulesyou follow, no matter whatever.

(43:27):
in the end, how will you, knowing that, what's your lasting impression?
What are you gonna do with that?
when people haven't deconstructed.
Everything happens for a reason, culture.
This is a big part of conspiracy thinking and especially white liberal conspiracythinking, right?

(43:52):
And like, is why, this is why the helicopter airplane thing is triggering me so much,because it's like, y'all can't.
You can't let yourselves believe that it was just an accident.
Because if that's true, nothing has changed, right?
I got to fly out of that airspace all the time and it's dangerous.
And every single time I fly in, I'm going to be wondering if I'm going to die.

(44:14):
And that's terrifying.
nothing and and you don't realize that like your whole life you've been being trained thatnothing happens by accident.
my gosh, you know what?
I I had to have a therapist help me figure out.
I am like the world's most anxious driver, okay, other than my mother.

(44:37):
And I think part of that is because like my Audi HD and I can't like read the signs andfocus on the road.
But part of that, as my therapist pointed out after I called cars giant steel death traps,was that for the first almost 16 years of my life, growing up in this evangelical cult, we

(44:59):
did not
get in a car and start driving without laying our hands on the car and listing all thegruesome, horrible ways we didn't want God to kill
Mm, healthy.
Right?
So like, every time, every time I'm driving, I am not seeing a car as like this thing thatgets me around and makes it possible for me to go get my healthcare.

(45:28):
I'm seeing it as is today the day that I'm gonna die?
Oof.
Yeah, I'm struggling with that,
thing, like my odds of dying in a car crash are no better or no worse than if I'm thinkingabout it all the time.
Right, your worry does not make you better off.

(45:48):
Like you are not more prepared because you're more fearful.
one.
Like, whenever my husband is not home exactly on time, especially if he has the kid, I'mimmediately like, oh, they're dead, right?
They're dead.
And like, there's two things I talk myself down.
I'm like, first of all, my husband's a fricking pilot and he's a good pilot, right?

(46:11):
Like, he's safer on the road than almost everyone out there.
Second of all, if they are,
I got one good hour for the rest of my life, so I might as well enjoy this, right?
Like thinking about them being dead, like it doesn't help.
If it's true, nothing, no amount of worry is gonna change how shitty and bad that is.

(46:35):
And it's most likely not true.
So maybe I should just enjoy this hour of quiet in my home by myself drinking some wineinstead of thinking about like all the ways my family could not come home.
Yeah.
Yeah, the like justified, and we justify it to ourselves.
And that's how we end up dehumanizing other people as well.
That's what like it goes in tandem.

(46:55):
The more you give yourself grace, the easier it will be, hopefully.
I don't know.
I'm not white.
To extend that grace to others.
That's just what I've been told as well.
Like once I started accepting my own stuff and learning how to like listen with humility.
I didn't really learn.
just, once you realize, and I think this is why, you know, ex cult members, I find ex cultmembers to be safe in this regard and deconstruction, cause you're not holding on to

(47:23):
absolutes or like you're trying to conclude something all the time.
Cause you're, there's a, already an ego death has happened where you thought you knew andyou were wrong.
So you have to kind of admit that you were wrong before.
Cause if you can do that, like it shouldn't be such a big thing, but
That's a huge element that whiteness in America has not, no, you don't admit you're wrongbecause being proven guilty is the worst thing that can happen to a white person.

(47:56):
And this is like, this is like what made me think I could do this podcast, right?
And I joke about this all the time that like the only reason I speak Portuguese is becauseI'm too ADHD to be embarrassed, right?
And so like the ego death thing, right?
And it's just like, because where I came from is absolute trash.

(48:20):
Like, I don't need to defend it.
So it's not like,
It's any less embarrassing for me when I do white women all over the place, right?
It's not any less horrifying when I find out what white people have done in the past.
I just disconnected my need to, it's not not apologize for it, right?

(48:47):
But it's like, what?
just skipping that whole part where the white person goes through the guilt and then needsyou to forgive them and then the whole like.
It's more just like information.
It's information and we're all in it.
It's like, I'm not, when I say white women, you understand conceptually versusindividually, either doesn't, that nuance can be had.

(49:12):
And I feel like in groups, there is like a purposeful neglecting of nuance.
Like you have to release context from your life.
You need to go by these words and like, there needs this clarity of
thought about?
Like in groups, you have a role, right?

(49:34):
Like you're in this group because this is your role.
Whereas like in a community, you can be all of these people.
You can do all of these different things, right?
Like you're not just a mom.
You're not just this.
just like, you can be a complex person.
It's being, I was saying like, what is a role model?

(49:59):
I would rather be a soul model.
my gosh.
That's why they don't like you showing up with your personality in corporate Americabecause they are like, don't want you to get these crazy ideas that you're like a person
who can be complex and complicated and like different.
outside of speaking for the role in the company?

(50:22):
Cause a good role model follows whatever we say and is in hindsight, you know, thisinnocent, pure thing we can say, kid be like that thing.
Like those aren't people.
Those are our characters.
That's like the character assassination and the role, the performance.
When we talk about performative, Yep.

(50:42):
Yep.
Yep.
And I think it's funny, know a bunch of creators get this now, it's like people, likewhenever people are like fangirling over me, I'm always like, I'm just a normal person.
like, I get it, but like even if your odds of being responded to are one in a hundred,because I have 300,000 followers, like,

(51:08):
It doesn't make me any more special.
It's just your response is the one I got to, you know?
it's just, it's so interesting to see this and just like remind people and also myself,like I'm just a person, you know?
Like I'm just a person that is doing this stuff or putting this stuff together.
But it's like, there's bad things about me.

(51:31):
People keep asking me, they're like, oh my God, you're such an amazing leader.
Can you run for politics?
I'm like.
the amount of naked pictures of me that would be put on the internet.
And then it just like stops people and I'm like, yeah, like I'm a complicated person.
Like, well see, that's the other thing.

(51:52):
The innocence of, like there's only two ways of being like a non-existent person beforeyou present to, you know, you're not an idea present, you're an idea presented.
You're just like, you know, and if there's anything that seems like we can't control it,that is not a group, the good like member, group member, role model, whatever.

(52:16):
You can't have wisdom.
without having experiences.
They want us wisdomless.
No, this, so I was just listening to Josh Johnson explaining the beef between KendrickLamar and Drake because I am white people.
And he was talking about how like when Drake went after Wu-Tang, I think, Wu-Tang, andthen he goes, and he goes, like, Drake made a mistake.

(52:45):
Like he went after someone who was actually hard, you know?
And like,
Drake for whatever he is, like, he's not hard.
Like, he just is a rapper, but he doesn't have the experience to actually go battlesomebody who's like actually had hard things in life.
Right.

(53:05):
He is what we would call a culture vulture, right?
He is Canadian, white mom and half Jewish.
I used to be like, yes, us represent.
And because I felt represented and then, you know, people get, when you are successful ina narcissist system, that says things.

(53:29):
And then people start going, that's weird.
Why is he friends with Billy, Bobby,
Brown, whatever, Millie Bobby Brown, whatever her name is.
These kids from Stranger Things, why is he friends with them?
What is this?
What is this?
And then, you know, he gets people around him and lots of number one hits, because he'svery for the everyone.
And if you're for everyone, you're not for yourself.

(53:51):
That's what I always said, like, if I'm for everyone, then I'm not for me.
And Kendrick said, yeah, you could be for everyone.
But watch this, hit after hit right after him and go.
I hate the way you walk.
hate the way you talk.
hate the, like so direct with rhythm and joy and then Juneteenth.
And so it's just, it's not about, so when I say like take things seriously, notpersonally, cause like this was not about Drake, but it was about Drake.

(54:19):
It's about, don't come in and think you can be like one of us.
You can't digital blackface.
It doesn't translate.
You can't just say, Hey, I'm part of this now.
Cause look, I kinda,
maybe for a little bit, but you don't stand the test of time.
It is not, it doesn't regenerate on itself and build on itself like a moment like.

(54:42):
I love this, take things seriously, not personally.
my gosh.
So, okay, I had this experience where I was deployed to Afghanistan and we lost like sixof our, we lost 10 people in one day.
Okay, we lost six of our people.
And I was an intelligence officer, but it was also the team that I patrolled with, right?

(55:06):
So I was like taking this very, very hard.
And my response to this was like, I'm just gonna stay in the office for 48 hours, becauselike I should have seen it, I should have known.
And finally my boss, he like pulls me aside.
He's like, hey, go home.
And I'm like, no, and he goes, stop.
And he goes, second lieutenant, Daniela Mestenec is not important enough to have beenresponsible for what happened.

(55:38):
And this is the same guy that another time told me micromanaging was ego and he's, know,right on both of these.
And it's like, even in this situation, it was very serious.
It also wasn't personal, you know, and making it about me was not helpful in any singleway, or form.

(55:59):
You know, and my husband who was a special operations helicopter pilot, you know, whereyou're literally
getting shot at while you're flying a giant metal tube through the air.
And, you know, when you ask him like how he did it, how he survived it, and he wouldalways say like, he's like, either I'll survive or it will immediately not be my problem.

(56:23):
And that's how you do it.
That's how you survive a cult.
That's how you survive a revolution, right?
It's like, we'll survive or we won't, but.
Right?
Like we're here.
So, and that it's that you're going to die anyway.
It's like this future thinking, future faking that narcissists, probably future fake aswell.

(56:44):
Cause why are you talking about what's gonna like 17,000 things just happen and we'reyou're moving on too fast.
And that's how we keep ending up.
And I keep telling people, like nobody has a crystal ball.
Nobody knows how this is gonna go.
This is the most, have we even had a president before where like all three, one partyowned all three branches of government and then they like clearly wanted to be fascist?

(57:11):
Like, no, like this is.
I'm saying, white women, like let those men be old men together in that room telling eachother what they think everyone should do.
And we go about our lives.
Let them keep doing that old delusional stuff in there in their old building.
And we go make our own thing.

(57:32):
And this is part of it too, right?
Like we know that diversity is better and makes better products.
We know that DEI is better for everyone, right?
We know that having tons of people makes a better result.
Nokia was the only cell phone that didn't predict the iPhone and they lost billions ofdollars in worth.

(57:53):
And guess what?
They were the only brand.
that all of the CEOs were from one country, which is Finland.
But like, so like I keep saying this about the military where I'm like, it is, I mean, thegains have been so hard fought for, right?
And like, it is obviously breaking my heart to watch them go around and like cover upmentions of women.

(58:15):
But like,
But just because you cover it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
then I'm also like, but I don't think that I'm upset by you making Donald Trump's militaryweaker.
You know, like.
Nuance, nuance, you have to be able to hold it.
Because the best critique, the best people to critique something are people who love thatthing as well.

(58:40):
You're not gonna get the best critique from someone who hated it from beginning to end.
they're barely watching it, they hated it.
You need someone who is deeply in it, understands it, loves it, to be able to speak toother people who also loved it.
Just hate isn't fake.
to get people out of the cult, right?
Somebody that is in the cult.

(59:01):
Like, I can speak to ex cult members, but I'm never going to be able to give the samelevel of comfort to an ex Mormon that another ex Mormon can give them.
Right?
So it's just like
to call the bluffs of it, to say, know, I validate the feeling and challenge it.
Not just tell them it's wrong.

(59:22):
Yeah.
I get this one a lot, like about the military, if you'd be like, why would I want tolisten to someone that ever joined an imperialist, whatever, whatever, whatever.
It's like, you know, unfortunately for you, the culture is too complex that while I agree,it's the American people's military and the American people are free to critique it.
You also need to partner with some of us if you want to understand the inner workings ofthis.

(59:48):
just purity culture on the other end, right?
It's like, well, I can't talk to anyone who insert random human activity.
Like that's not everybody matters.
Even people doing what you deem are the wrong things right now.
Do you think that they said I'm a bad person, so I'm going to choose this?

(01:00:10):
No, there's fear, manipulation, scares.
I'm not talking to white men.
I feel like Elon stood in front of his mirror and was like, you know what?
I choose full super villain.
because it kept working.
So here's the other thing.
It's not like we can't just wake up and be like, he just showed up here.
No, he's from apartheid South Africa.
He's a white man.

(01:00:31):
there's two, you know, and then we just treat him like he, listen, if a white man from aracist place does a racist, I'm not gonna go, you know, I need the shock and awe to be
done.
these, hold on guys, these old white men still think,

(01:00:52):
they're right.
Yeah, whatever you say.
the fact that they're there, the fact that they are there in that place, like the contextmatters here.
They get up every day and go, I'm going to put on my bib and my fancy knot and I'm goingto go make decisions on behalf.

(01:01:12):
That's it.
I heard that.
That's a cult.
That's a cult.
I'm going to make decisions for strangers who are adults, all adults.
They've decided I'm like, it's just the elders of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the people,just, you know, I love that there are black women in there, know, ruffling feathers and

(01:01:34):
things like that.
I just don't believe.
How can I believe in a thing that was written by a guy?
Like, you know, George Washington and the teeth and the never told a lie.
You're lying.
You're gaslighting me.
And I think it's just calling the bluff and also see like rehumanizing instead ofromanticizing the scariness too.

(01:02:00):
Like what future.
every time I talk about George Washington, I'm like, did, I say it, he didn't have woodenteeth, he had teeth that every time he needed a new tooth, he had a tooth pulled out from
the mouth of a human being, a living human being.
Like.
would they teach us, like, why would they teach us anything about his teeth?

(01:02:24):
I think it's just so, teeth?
Who else's teeth do we discuss?
It's like they were warning us in advance that like there was something about teeth.
So we're like, okay, we'll just tell you this so that you won't go looking.
So that you won't go looking for the real story, you know?

(01:02:46):
It's like elementary.
It's, didn't eat the cookie with cookie on your face.
Levels of historical dishonesty.
And we are still using their documents to determine today's adult behaviors.
That's what we need to change.

(01:03:07):
didn't do it.
So in my musical, there's one song that where the the fems and the women are gonna breakoff and do a little even if he did it doesn't mean he's guilty and they're gonna like just
dish on men for being like monsters throughout history and never having to pay but thenthe men the splanners they're gonna be doing wasn't me

(01:03:34):
god, it wasn't me.
Yeah, yeah.
See, at least-
ones.
And this is where like I agree with what you're saying that it's like, fine, let them haveit, right?
They think they're gonna do better, let them have it.
And like, we'll just get on with our lives and watch them fail.

(01:03:55):
And then, you know.
Like mentally detaching in a way, know, like, yes, there's going to be some people,overall dedicating your life to watching and hope like, you, okay, just zoom out and just
look at a picture of them and be like, okay, here's my goal.
And then say it out loud.

(01:04:17):
And, and I need you to realize, like, what are black women doing?
What have black women always done?
They gave us garbage.
made chicken wings and chitlins and we made all this stuff.
If you put some black women in charge in there, it'll turn the whole thing around.
But I am not volunteering black women to go in there, because that looks terrible.
So my result is I'm just devaluing their voices, their concerns, their rules, their votes.

(01:04:44):
It's a show.
It's a performance.
They get up, they put on their uniform, they go, they raise their hands like they're inschool.
They're not smarter than me.
their schools were segregated.
They learned things about like not washing their hands.
So.
I just think, you know, it's not like, don't care.

(01:05:07):
Cause I understand, but give it its place.
so first of all, know, like many a good leader has said, like, you want to, you don't wantto be the smartest one in the room, right?
You should be surrounding yourself with people that are smarter than you and haveperspectives that you don't have.
And they're like doing the opposite.

(01:05:28):
But also, but also, when your enemy thinks that they are smarter than you, that is anadvantage you, right?
So one of my jobs as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan was just telling Americansoldiers that they are not inherently better than the people they're fighting and smarter

(01:05:53):
because that's what gets you killed.
know, and like.
You know, like thinking, knitting, I swear, I swear that AOC knitting in her briefs islike part of the master chess game that she is playing and just like, my God, she is.

(01:06:16):
And there's like.
and yes, it's what you choose to do.
when women can multitask, so like knitting and having a conversation with someone withouttaking a break, Like men immediately understand that you could kill them and make it look
like an accident and it trips them out.
And so like.

(01:06:36):
that you're not like operating for their gaze because for some reason, because knittingand crocheting have this unsexy vibe apparently.
And I'm here for it.
And so they're like, they don't care about us.
And that makes me uncomfortable.
But it's beyond that.
It's more than showing them you don't care.

(01:06:57):
It's actually, you know, caring so much about yourself that it just ends up being thatway.
Right.
It's despite not in spite.
And cause I think, I feel like when you operate in spite of something, then your groupdoesn't exist.
Like then you're better when they're worse.
So the worst things Trump and Musk and all these people do, the more righteous you are.

(01:07:19):
Bad sign, bad sign.
The scarier they are, the more they're going to come to your comments and be like, did yousee?
that's like the first level of deconstructing where you're just like, I'm doing everythingopposite.
You know, like, if you're Jehovah's Witness and you still can't wear a skirt, you probablyhave some more deconstructing to do, you know, like you want to get to the point where all

(01:07:46):
of the methods of clothing are open to you, you know?
So yeah, so I think like,
That takes time.
decade of deconstruction, like usually we're just doing the opposite, right?
Like, so when I first was like thinking about getting married and settling down on what Iwanted, I was like, I absolutely will not hit children.

(01:08:08):
But it wasn't because I had like thought through it all and realized that it was alwaysabuse and blah, blah, blah.
It was just like, I'm not doing what they did.
You know, I have seen adults lose it and beat children.
So I will never let myself be in that situation.
Right?
So like, even when it's the right answer, when it's coming from just a place of like, I'mjust doing the opposite of them, it's not, it's still not the fully deconstructed answer.

(01:08:35):
It's still not like, you still don't have an identity.
You have an anti identity.
Yes, you got the anti-denity going.
And it can be a place to start if you start finding and picking back up those materials.
Because I felt that when I left corporate America, I couldn't sit at my computer and openan email.

(01:08:56):
It just felt terrible.
And just the concept of structure for a while, like, couldn't even participate in thisnetworking or conversations felt like, well,
because I had grown accustomed to like, then you say thank you, then you do this, for youstart out your sentences, like everything was so highly controlled and prescriptive that I

(01:09:18):
didn't know how to email anymore.
And then I was like, you know what?
I don't need to be a working professional person who, you know, and like, it kind of wentextreme in terms of, but I needed that, I guess.
I needed to come back to what is my choice in this.
How can I have the consistency and have dynamics where it's business, but it's not, I'mnot a role, I'm still a person.

(01:09:40):
But yeah, time, it takes time, but.
know?
Like, I was triggered by blazers for a long time, but like now I rock blazers in a coolway, you know?
So, also, when you said anti-dentity, I just like, it just makes me think like, we need acomic strip.

(01:10:04):
We need a Hey White Women comic strip and we have anti-dentity and she like pops up.
The anti-dentity, anti-dentity pops up and like tells you when you're...
No opinions.
That's not the opinion everybody else has.
All would be perfect because I, you, I'm sure you learned about the Ash conformity study,right?

(01:10:26):
Have we ever talked about that on here?
Where it's like, you know, there's lines on a thing and you say which line is the shortestline.
And then the, and I was like, I don't see any black women in that room.
I would love to see the Ash conformity study, even like a black lady sketch show type ofskit where like, they said shortest, right?
is where they show you three lines and they're obviously different lengths and they askyou to pick out the longest one.

(01:10:52):
And then the control group, everyone picks out the longest one.
And then in the test group, like somebody picks the shorter one first and then like ahuge...
it's like they're in the room and everyone's giving the same answer.
Okay, here's which one's the shortest.
C, C, C, C, C, okay.
Now which one's the longest?

(01:11:13):
A.
And then it was like, they'll do just a different one.
Which one's the shortest?
And everyone clearly says the longest one.
And then the test subjects, are they gonna agree with everybody and say the wrong answer?
And I think they, I don't know if it was like two out of three.
I don't remember.
It was a high amount would just go with the room.
But it was white men.

(01:11:36):
course they would, what do you mean?
That's their culture, literally.
That's what they're designed to do.
So I wanna see it with the black women.
I just would find it interesting if they're like, she said shortest y'all, she saidshortest, not longest.
And like, would ruin the study.
Cause we're not, it's not in the culture to just go along with what everyone believes.

(01:12:02):
Like the truth is still the truth.
And so, but in whiteness, you're so much easier to manipulate because of theanti-identity.
The value of an anti-identity is like this, this black hole.
And now what's true, we don't know.
Now black people know that there's rules out in public where we don't say what we sayinside, you know, and you'll see black people go, that's like, there's a video of a girl

(01:12:29):
going, the mac and cheese is all right.
It's white people mac and cheese though.
And then she notices the camera and she goes,
Hehehehehe
her own camera, but it's like, I just found that so funny because I didn't learn thatrule.
I learned the, we talk about race because everyone's different races and it's interestingand cultures come from this stuff.

(01:12:50):
And I didn't learn the, don't say that in front of everybody.
and that's how we got here because I couldn't learn it.
I just, and my, don't have poker face, which I think is not more justified lying.
Poker face, resting bitch face.
I do have that, but that's just because, isn't that another thing?

(01:13:13):
Like, I'm not smiling when I'm, like, I don't, I've never had a.
that's also a white American thing that I've learned, that you're just supposed to besmiling all the time.
Well, this is why I once read a book on Melania Trump and what the woman was saying.

(01:13:34):
She was like, Americans don't get her.
And what they don't get is that she is from a former USSR country and like,
She doesn't smile unless she's happy.
So like when she's not happy, she doesn't smile.
She just stands there.

(01:13:55):
And like that's what you're not, yeah, you're not supposed to do that.
You're supposed to always be there, right?
With like the political wife smile.
Like she just doesn't play the political wife to the point that like white women aresupposed to.
Yeah, you know, and that is, but like that's

(01:14:19):
And this is, so in all cults, I think in all total institutions, like your job is don'tstand out.
And that's like, that's your job in whiteness is don't stand out.
And I honestly think that that's something that I've really seen change in myself in thelast three years is that because I don't, because I do stand out, non-white people know

(01:14:48):
that I am.
safe or safer and we'll come up and we'll start conversations and all of these things.
That's so interesting.
It's so simple, but it says so much.
Like what we can do with colors and why is white is like the absence of color, I think,right?
And black is like all of the colors.

(01:15:10):
yeah.
Well, so white is when like everything's just reflected back, right?
So black absorbs all the colors and white just nothing touches it, right?
So like, it's just the, is, it's the absence of color.
Blue eyes is the absence of melanin.
Like white skin is the absence of all of these things.

(01:15:31):
know, like there's even been things saying that like,
this whole thing that they're so scared of that like white people are gonna be gone in theUnited States or whatever that like we're all gonna be brown at some point and like we're
gonna need to because the earth is heating up.
know, like we're gonna.
population control?
Why do, what is with, why, because in the future, can we look around today for one second?

(01:15:59):
Can we spend one moment dealing with what you have already created?
And they're like, well, but in the future, can we, let me see.
It's a little blurry, so I can't, but I can see the color.
I like it.
I wish it was clearer.

(01:16:21):
Sorry.
Yeah, I don't know.
guess the internet, I don't know, I'm so old.
Yeah, I'll have to, I'm going to go on after and see.
And like the more I stay away from TikTok, but I'm having these cultural moments are hardto stay away from for me.
Cause I'm just like, this is where we can have conversations and like hearing allperspectives.

(01:16:44):
talk.
I got a reference to Hillman talk in the book, so.
that was a whole, and that was just a concept.
Then they were like, this is a place.
And I was like, uh-oh, and people got mad at me because I was talking to one.
how a mass movement could spread.
And I was like, this is like a good example.
then, you know, we have.

(01:17:04):
And this is why black women share is because they care.
And I really want people to think like, why is this being shown to me?
Like, why do they want me scared?
Who benefits?
like your attention, the attention economy, they're just trying to drain yours, right?
They don't really need yours.
They just need you to not spend it over with the humans who they're saying aren't.

(01:17:31):
Yeah, and also, again, back to who benefits, right?
Like, there's a reason that we have a negative connotation with fear mongering, right?
And even when I, like when I'm sitting here calm and people are going, why are you socalm?
And I'm like, you know who benefits from me making fear mongering videos?
Me, I would get richer, they would go more viral and I would get money.

(01:17:56):
So like, who benefit, right?
Like, who benefits from this message?
of that girl who made the video about, we're going to war with Canada.
She probably made thousands of dollars off that video.
So who's benefiting from what they're telling you?
Because fear and panic, as we've mentioned on many of these shows, don't benefit anyone.

(01:18:20):
They just freeze you in place.
Even if they were marching down the streets of Detroit and DC and Seattle with themilitary,
we would still have to go about our lives and figure out a way to respond.
And panic would not help.
think it was Cincinnati.

(01:18:41):
The KKK just tried to have a whole little parade.
They had all these weapons on them and police escort.
Right, because if they weren't in it, they were in it.
But it didn't work out because the black people showed up and threw cans of beans orsomething.
I don't know.
They had.

(01:19:01):
Like you can have the institutional wins and success and all the things on your pull.
Yeah, or like a whole slew of white bros got fired for doing the salute because they arenot Elon Musk, right?
that like people were like, so it's not a salute.
So you do it.
And then they did.
And then they got fired.

(01:19:23):
So like, there there.
Yeah, there are consequences.
natural consequences.
Like, you show up, black people are gonna show up.
Also, we show up in numbers because that's what community does.
And white people will fend for themselves.
They will flee.
I need white women to understand these white men are not ready for you to show up.

(01:19:44):
like, they're not actually ready for confrontation.
They want to be seen, perceived as scary.
Have you seen white men do anything though?
Like.
Have they done things for themselves?
like throw, it's only as scary as you let it be.
Black people showed up in their, I saw one guy in a KKK thing and I was like, you need tostop.
But everybody else just came with food and threw the food and that made them pack up andgo home.

(01:20:09):
It's really easy to win, but you have to take risks.
Like we have to show up where these bad people are, but like, they're just people.
I keep saying, I'm like, white women, you hear martial law, you take your pink wine andyour lawn chairs and you go sit in the street and have a little party and like, they're

(01:20:30):
not...
What are you afraid of?
Like this isn't, and one thing that Samuel L.
Jackson said in the performance was he had said, you brought your homies with you, likethe cultural cheat code.
That's not a quote, but talking about having people with you.
But then he says, deduct one lifeline.
So it's like more hinting towards, you know, the homies, all that stuff.

(01:20:52):
like, it's true.
Safety in numbers is real, but like, you have to believe that those people are gonna stayaround you.
And that comes with community, not group.
Groups will drop a leader so fast, Musk or whatever, who knows?
That's not a friendship designed to last, right?
All these

(01:21:14):
think this too, that people go like, oh, okay, so then if they open fired, they would geta few people, right?
And my people, they're not willing to take that risk, right?
That when people do resist, yeah, some people pay the ultimate price.

(01:21:40):
but they can't get all of us, right?
You cannot hold any nation really by force, but especially not a nation this diverse andthis populous.
And those are people looking at faces and like be, have mom of three on your shirt orwhatever you want.

(01:22:01):
feel like.
right.
I mean, this is why I keep saying when people are like, oh, the military is going to comemarching down your street.
And I'm like, OK, 25 year old captains, their brains have just become adults, are sending17 to 21 year olds down your streets with rifles.

(01:22:23):
Like, telling me you can't influence a 19 year old?
This is why we need to rehumanize instead of romanticize, right?
Like these aren't soldiers, they're people.
Sound of Music, right?
That's the whole thing when his daughter's boyfriend is there gonna shoot him and he justlike starts talking to the 16 year old kid like he's a 16 year old kid.

(01:22:53):
These kids call me ma'am.
They're not gonna shoot me.
I'm saying and give them a, like see them as a human and be like, are you hot?
Do you need some water?
Like you're giving up so much power.
They come marching down the streets and all these white ladies just walk out with platesof chocolate chip cookies and start handing out cookies to the soldiers.

(01:23:17):
my gosh, Beanie Babies.
okay, we're gonna have to talk, we're gonna have to talk about this in the anti-racist ABBrigade, but like soldiers, when we deployed, we would like give out Beanie Babies to
children.
Like.
We just need to walk out of our houses and give the soldiers stuffies.
I'm pretty sure every single one of us has like a thousand in our house.

(01:23:45):
This is also how you respond to cults and tyrants is by showing them how ridiculous theyare.
And your own humanity is like the repellent for the cult.
Like that's how people get out of cults.
Also, they see someone be a human and have fun when they were told, but they're notsupposed to be a human having fun.

(01:24:08):
They're supposed to be real mean and scary, but instead they help you.
That, that radicalizes people.
When you do what is unexpected because you have to remember also like MAGA people,whatever people you want to name.
They have been primed to be told, you sound foolish or you don't know what you're talkingabout.
You need to do your research.

(01:24:29):
They've been primed for this.
They've been primed to be isolated.
You doing something different and being like, I mean, I hear you, but it's hot out.
You need water?
And it may seem like, but like that's a power move.
That is real power.
Cause they're, I'm a human despite whatever dehumanization.

(01:24:51):
you try to put on me.
I'm still gonna see you as a human.
It's not easy, but it can be really simple.
that was something that radicalized me as a child, right?
Because I would be out in public being taken to bed and then the stall owner would treatme like a six-year-old girl and give me a pastry.

(01:25:17):
you know, I mean, was one of these things I didn't realize till way older where I waslike, not only did I get radicalized, but because I was growing up in Brazil in a white
commune.
I was like surrounded by people that were dangerous to me.
And then when I was out around black people, I learned that I was much safer.

(01:25:39):
And like that radicalizes you.
And that's what even allowed me to even contemplate, like leaving the cult as a teenagerand going into the world because you've had some sort of interaction with it.
And one of my...
Favorite quotes, probably a good place for us to close is, it's hard to hate up close.

(01:26:04):
This is also something else that like people are like, all these bros going into themilitary.
I'm like, okay, Army basic training is still one of the most diverse experiences you canhave in America.
And like when you're digging a eight foot foxhole with a brown dude and a black.

(01:26:24):
woman and like all having to rely on each other, like it's hard to hate up close.
So, you know.
hard to get up close because it's the whole distance.
It breeds fear and proximity breeds care.
that really it lines up.
Yeah.
And a beef is not hate.

(01:26:45):
I want to, I wanted to say that the beef is cultural, is productive.
It can produce and that's where like anger can drive culture.
Like, and you can have a beef.
I have beef with white supremacy.
I have beef with white people who have certain issues, but if they want to come around,you want to engage, that's okay.
That's serious, not personal.
Hate can feel personal and is driven.

(01:27:05):
It personally makes you a hateful, hateful person.
Toward yourself.
So.
So good.
Yay.
Oh, well, good conversation.
I have to listen to the other half of Josh Johnson now describing how it went.
Yes, yes.
Oh, that's a good that's a good call.

(01:27:26):
they were starting to beef, but again, it was still like, you got called out, so then youwhatever, but then it's all gonna explode soon.
So I'm excited in the drama.
involved, that's when it's really interesting.
So it's about to get good.
I'm so excited.
Thank you everybody so much for hanging out with us today.

(01:27:46):
Please check out Rebecca's amazing Patreon.
I always call it matri on now because that's what I did for TikTok and that it's justbetter.
So anyways, go check out her matri on.
Yeah.
And please subscribe and just a constant reminder that something I learn more and more allthe time is like listen to black women.

(01:28:08):
Black women have been doing this work.
If you're afraid, black women have been there before.
So find the people that are already doing the work that didn't think America was safe andperfect before and put your money and your time where they tell you.
There are people doing that.
T-A-P-D-T.

(01:28:29):
Tapped, it's tapped.
and also I want to say something concrete people can do is donate to the ACLU.
And also there's an organization called Vote Vets that is joining big class actionlawsuits, like pushing lawsuits against Elon Musk for illegally accessing our information.
So you can donate to either of those groups with your money and they're going to be theones trying to stand in the gap between us and a dictatorship.

(01:29:01):
So, and you know, in case the world hasn't ended by next week, come back and check us outagain.
Like and subscribe and we'll be here.
Thank you so much.

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Episode 26 | You Don't Have to "Get" Kendrick Lamar

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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 26 | You Don't Have to "Get" Kendrick Lamar