October 29, 2024 • 39 mins
In this episode of "Bruh! Speak Up," host Dr. Dametraus Jaggers shares his inspiring journey of self-discovery and highlights the importance of recognizing the unique experiences of black women within the context of ongoing race and gender issues in the U.S. He reflects on his personal encounters, critiques the double standards present in the current election cycle, and challenges the misconception that Vice President Kamala Harris poses a risk to black men. Jaggers poses a thought-provoking question: What has Donald Trump done to benefit black men? To delve deeper, we explore two impactful stories of black men influenced by Trump's "legacy." Drawing from his upbringing by a single black mother and his marriage to a black woman, Dr. Jaggers sheds light on how these experiences have shaped his understanding of black culture and love.
Tune in for an engaging and insightful discussion!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
What's going on everybody?
Welcome to the very firstepisode of Bruh Speak Up.
I am your host, demetriusJaggers, aka Dr Jaggers, aka
Jaggers, and so many otherthings that folks call me, who
(00:23):
know me, who have been in mylife for many years.
I'm excited to welcome you allto this very first episode of
this podcast.
Breath Speak Up is a podcastfor everyday people trying to
find their voice among all thenoise.
It's a podcast for everydaypeople who are tired of being
(00:44):
silent about the issues thatmatter to you, and so our
journey together, for me, isabout finding our collective
voice and being able to find away to get the courage to be
vulnerable and to really shareour voice about the things that
(01:07):
matter.
This podcast is about findingyour voice, and I am convinced
that one of the ways that we,one of the ways that we are able
to find our voice, is bylearning from the stories and
the experiences of others, andso that's what I hope that we
will be able to accomplishtogether as we go on this
(01:28):
journey.
For today's episode, I want totalk a little bit about what my
process, or what my journey, hasbeen like, through finding my
voice in the ways that exposureto a variety of people and
experiences has helped me tofind my voice.
Some of these experiences thatI will share with you have
(01:51):
helped me to find my voicebecause it had given me the
opportunity to own my voice, andthen that has given me the
(02:14):
ability to speak and find myvoice and give voice to issues
that are impacting other people.
Voice and give voice to issuesthat are impacting other people.
So I want to share a little bittoday about my story as a young
black man that was raised by asingle mother who became a first
(02:34):
generation college student.
Just for those who may not befamiliar with all of the jargon,
I do have about 15 years ofexperience working in college
and university setting, orhigher education as we refer to
it, and we use a lot of jargon,and one of those is
(02:55):
first-generation college student, and simply a first-generation
college student is a person.
Actually, let me say this thereare many definitions of a first
generation college student.
The one that I tend to use tosort of guide how I think about
my own story and my own journeyis that of someone who has a
(03:18):
parent or guardian that did notcomplete a four year degree from
a college or university,complete a four-year degree from
a college or university.
So in the fall of 2004, Ibecame a first-generation
college student.
Now I think it's important tosay that I had to find my way
(03:39):
and my beginning was somewhat ofa challenge.
So I scored an ACT of 17 when Itook the ACT in high school and
for a couple of reasons,notably because of some
financial barriers, I started mycollege journey, my educational
(04:01):
journey, at a community college, and so I don't knock small
beginnings, I don't knock theidea that different individuals
have different paths foraccomplishing their goals and
realizing their life's passion.
So for me, as a Black manraised by a single mother of
(04:23):
three kids, who was a firstgeneration college student,
scored a 17 or ACT, began hisjourney at a community college
and then transferred to a fouryear institution where my very
first semester GPA was a 2.2.
Semester GPA was a 2.2.
(04:47):
And one particular experiencethat really sticks out to me as
I think about my journey is thatmy first week of class I was
sitting in an English class.
We were reviewing the syllabusand the professor got to the
point where he began to talkabout the assignments and I had
(05:08):
done decently well as a highschool student, but as I look
back and think retrospectively,I probably didn't apply myself
in the ways that I should have.
Nonetheless, I find myself inthis English class and
professors like, hey, one of theuh primary assignments for this
class is going to be to do aneight page paper.
(05:31):
And when I tell you, uh, thatshook me, uh it, it just um
shook me in a in a completelydifferent way that I didn't
expect.
Um, thinking about eight pagesnow doesn't seem that
overwhelming, but then, at thatpoint in my life, the idea of
writing an eight page paper wasjust overwhelming, so much so
(05:54):
that, as soon as the class wasover, I went and dropped that
course.
So I want to talk a little bitabout my experience and some of
the ways in which my.
A little bit about myexperience and some of the ways
in which my, the things thatI've experienced have allowed me
to be more comfortable withowning my voice, to be more
comfortable with sharing my ownstories, even the parts of my
(06:18):
stories that I have previouslybeen ashamed of, and not just in
this episode.
But I hope that throughout ourtime together that I'll be able
to show a little bit ofvulnerability in this space and
to share about some of thoseexperiences that, in the moment,
maybe create a shame, thatmaybe create an embarrassment,
(06:45):
but, over the long term, havereally allowed me to take
ownership of my voice and of mystory and, I would say, have
given me the courage to be ableto speak up and to give voice to
some of the issues that reallymatter to me, but also to issues
that matter to those that Icare about.
(07:06):
So that's how we'll spend ourtime today, and we'll just go
ahead and jump right into it, soI'll share with you.
I started my college career as afirst generation college
student and, to be honest, Ididn't really know what I was
(07:28):
doing.
I didn't know how to study, Ididn't know how to navigate the
college environment.
I knew that I was in a placewhere I wanted to be and that,
if I was able to figure thingsout, that I would eventually be
successful.
But there was a lot that Ididn't know and a lot that I
needed to find out, and so,after participating, after
(07:51):
struggling my first semester, Idecided that hey, I'm going to
need some additional help, andso, I became a part of a
mentoring, a peer mentoringprogram on the campus, and got
connected to the multiculturalcenter at that campus and got
(08:18):
connected to the multiculturalcenter of that campus by all
accounts, based on ACT, maybeeven high school GPA would have
been deemed as somebody whocouldn't be successful in
college I was able to find apoint of connection and
belonging at this multiculturalcenter.
Now I could say today and sortof talk with some of this
(08:44):
language that I have based onwhere I've been, but in the
moment I wouldn't have been ableto really articulate what it
meant to be a black man and tobe navigating this large campus
environment that, for allintents and purposes, had not
been designed with people likeme and mine.
(09:05):
But nonetheless I found thisconnection point and so, as a
result of that connection, Ibegan to attend this annual
event that was hosted by aneighboring institution, and
(09:48):
this event was designed to bringcollege students who identified
as black men, to bring collegeprofessors, to bring staff who
worked at the college, to bringin community partners, to bring
in people around this idea ofwhat does it look like to remove
barriers for the success ofBlack men.
At that particular time therewas a lot going on, a lot of
conversations about how do weremove barriers that lead to
more successful outcomes forBlack men in education and that
was from, you know, elementaryto middle school, to high school
(10:09):
, to college level.
And so I began to.
I found myself in thisenvironment with black men who
were, who had some of the samegoals that I had had.
Some of the same goals that Ihad.
In some cases, I had anopportunity to interact with
(10:30):
Black men who had PhDs and whowere in pretty influential
positions, not only at thatuniversity but also in the
community.
And because of a platform ofthis event, we were even able to
interact with Black men whowere, you know, successful in
other industries business andhealthcare and so it really for
(10:56):
me began to shape sort of adifferent perspective of what it
meant to be a black man, ablack man for me.
And so, as I would look forwardto this event year after year
and I saw the type of communityand the, the just encouragement
(11:19):
that this type of event providedto the individuals at this
institution, at this institution, you know, I began to really
just process who I was indifferent ways.
Even still, then I wouldn'thave been able to fully have the
(11:40):
words and the language to talkabout what that experience meant
to me, the words and thelanguage to talk about what that
experience meant to me.
I will say, though, that thatexperience really opened the
door for me to really begin tothink about other experiences
that I had not been connected tobefore.
So there's this idea thatsometimes our willingness to be
(12:06):
open enough to step beyond whatwe've known can sort of be the
pathway or the door to otheropportunities that will lead us
to raising our awareness, tohaving a better understanding of
who we are, to, you know,meeting and engagement with
people that we probably wouldn'thave engaged in.
(12:27):
You know, there were so manyBlack men, specifically, that I
still have some level ofconnection to whether it's just
LinkedIn or Facebook that I wasexposed to as a result of
participating in this yearlyevent that wasn't even sponsored
by my institution, and so thatreally began to plant the seed
(12:49):
for me.
So, as I continued on in mycollege career and had an
opportunity to do a few otherthings including walking onto
the football team at theinstitution, including joining a
historically Black fraternityand, you know, getting to
(13:12):
experience life as a collegestudent from that perspective
and taking on leadership rolesfrom, you know, being involved
with the black student ledorganizational campus or the the
campus chapter of the NAACP.
You know, I began to explorethese opportunities and these
(13:35):
experiences that I had not eventhought about before, which
eventually led me to decide toparticipate in an internship
program that really changed mylife in more ways than I can
count.
So during my undergraduatecareer I changed my major a few
(13:56):
times, started off as a sportsand leisure studies, thought I
wanted to be a sports agent andsort of travel the world and
represent traditional athletes.
Once I got started in thatdegree program, my interests
began to change and thoughtperhaps it would be better for
me to pursue a general businessmanagement degree, just to give
(14:21):
me more options once I graduatedfrom college, just to give me
more options once I graduatedfrom college.
And then there was a moment intime where I felt like, hey, let
me kind of get back to my loveof cooking and this idea of
being an entrepreneur, and Ithought, hey, maybe I'll change
my major to hospitalitymanagement and pursue, you know,
(14:42):
becoming a professional chef.
Well, before I got to the pointthat I did that, I decided to
take this course, principles ofMarketing, where I essentially
just fell in love with this ideaof marketing and the psychology
and the business behindmarketing.
(15:04):
All that to say that I was amarketing major in the business.
Behind marketing, all that tosay that I was a marketing major
, I was in my junior year,heading into my senior year
Again at this time.
At that point I had, you know,been a member of the football
team.
I had been the president of myfraternity.
I've been involved in a lot ofdifferent things on campus and
so by this time, you know, I hadgone from having a 2.2 GPA to,
(15:28):
at my highest, getting a 3.8 GPA, and so I was doing really well
, I felt really comfortable.
And then I learned about thisinternship program and I was
really not interested inparticipating.
And I was really not interestedin participating.
(15:48):
Number one, I had kind of foundmy groove.
I wasn't interested in tryingto do anything that sort of
would threaten the success thatI had achieved and even just the
level of influence I had beenable to have on campus, just
because of the things that I wasdoing outside of the classroom.
But someone who was a reallygreat support in my life decided
(16:14):
to really encourage me topursue this opportunity.
Talk to my mom about it, talkto some other folks that I was.
That I would say at that time,probably were in a mentoring
capacity for me, and they said,hey, you should really consider
this opportunity.
Now, mind you, I was amarketing major.
This internship program had aspecific focus on state
(16:39):
government and politics, and soto me I didn't see the
connection.
I didn't see how participatingin an internship focused on
state government politics wouldhave any influence on my desire
to be a corporate marketingexecutive.
There just wasn't a connection.
In addition to that, I wasalready at a point in my
(17:00):
academic career that I had usedup all of my well, not all, but
a pretty decent amount of myelectives, and so the program
itself was a total of 15 credithours.
I had to, you know, I had toget to.
I only had about six to ninehours left.
(17:20):
That would go toward my hoursleft that would go toward my
electives, and so I would havebeen wasting money taking
courses that would not counttoward my degree.
It also happened to bebeneficial that, in addition to
(17:40):
myself, you know, applying forthis internship, I also knew a
couple of other of my fraternitybrothers who had applied for it
, and so it gave me some sort ofsense of comfort that going
away from this place that hadbecome home, from this place
that had become comfortable tome, me and going to a new city,
(18:04):
while it wasn't, you know, faraway, didn't have to go outside
of the state, but I did have togo about two and a half hours
away and sort of start life overin a way, you know, develop new
relationships, navigate a newcity, navigate a new environment
(18:25):
.
And so, after listening tothose around me, I decided to go
ahead and pursue thisinternship program.
Now it just turns out that, eventhough I wasn't at my home
college or university, I did getaccess to a college campus.
(18:45):
And having access to thatcollege campus students program
allowed me to still feel a senseof connection and feel like I
was still sort of experiencingthe college environment.
As a result of participating inthat program, I was able to
really see, uh, in this setting,what community looked like for
(19:11):
black college students who weretrying to black male college
students who were trying topursue, you know, a degree and
try to identify success forthemselves.
So, uh, long story short, I dothe program, participate in the
(19:33):
program, have a tremendous youknow experience, able to, you
know, just soak up so muchknowledge from people in very
influential positions in state,government and policy arenas and
lobbying areas, and just to beinvolved in a program that
(19:58):
helped me to expand my horizonand expand my understanding of
the world around me.
Expand my horizon and expand myunderstanding of the world
around me.
It was kind of like helping toconnect the dots.
I'll have to share more aboutwhat those dots were in another
episode, but the experienceliterally changed my life.
(20:19):
It also happened that while Iwas participating in that
experience I can't talk aboutthis story and not talk about
this blessing While I was awaystudying and participating in
this program, I was so fastforward I complete my bachelor's
(20:43):
degree and then decide thatperhaps it would be a good idea
to pursue a master's degreeexperience.
(21:05):
I was able to go back to my homeinstitution with about a
semester left with my bachelor's, my bachelor's degree, and I
came back with a completelydifferent perspective, with a
completely different um my mymind has shifted in a way that I
didn't even know that it neededto shift.
My eyes have been opened inways that I didn't realize they
(21:28):
needed to be open.
And you know, prior toparticipating in this program,
my mantra for going to collegewas always to just, you know
graduate, for going to collegewas always to just, you know
graduate, make as much money asI, could, become a you know, a
(21:52):
corporate executive and justsort of live life, you know, and
be able to contribute and takecare specifically of my mother.
And while all those things arestill desires, what began to
develop in me was a desire toreach back, was a desire to
leave a sense of purpose at theplace that had given me so much
(22:16):
at that time my undergraduateinstitution and also to help
create sort of the type ofcommunity that I had experienced
in these different places fromthe Black male gathering that
I'd experienced before I leftthe opportunity to engage with
Black men who were committed totheir academic success, with
(22:48):
Black men who had completedtheir PhDs and were doing really
great work, to key communityleaders.
I had a desire to sort of seethe community in the sense of
purpose that I had seen in otherplaces where I was and that
(23:09):
really drove me to to reallywant to do something that would
last beyond my existence at thatplace place.
And so, once I decided to pursuemy master's degree, I was able
to continue and I decided tostay at the same institution
(23:29):
that I was at, I was able tocontinue some of the work that
had begun and decided that, hey,I was going to try to create
some initiatives and someprogramming that I had seen
other places at the institutionthat I was at, and so I was able
to begin to build a programthat had a specific focus on the
(23:52):
academic, the professional andthe career success of both Black
and Latino men, and so myexperience up to that point had
really helped me to find myvoice and to put sort of words
to my own experience of tryingto navigate a pretty large
campus environment and beingable to overcome some barriers
(24:18):
that I brought with me to that,to that environment.
And so, as a result of that,you know, I I found myself in
spaces and in conversation withpeople and being able to have
influence on, on, really to haveinfluence on really key
(24:41):
conversations.
One specifically, once Ifinished my bachelor's degree
and my master's degree, Idecided I end up, you know,
completing this project.
So, as a result of all of thework that I had done, here I am.
I am at this national conferenceon a panel having a really what
(25:09):
I would say a really importantconversation about sort of the
state of what it means to be ablack man pursuing higher
education man pursuing highereducation.
This national conferenceprobably had about 3,000 to
4,000 people in attendance, andthe specific session or the
workshop that I was a part of,the room was standing room only,
(25:33):
and so we're having a prettyengaging conversation about how
can people who work on collegeand university campuses create
better environments where Blackmen specifically, but also other
men of color, latino men,native American or American
(25:56):
Indian, indigenous men, etc.
How can we create betterenvironments to support the
success and help this populationof students overcome some of
the barriers that exist in theinstitutions, because they're a
reflection of the largersocietal structures that create
(26:19):
systems of inequity.
And to say that I was excited,that I was proud to be in this
space with some of the peoplewho would have been considered
leaders in sort of this space,it would have been an
understatement, but I'll neverforget the moment where I would
(26:39):
say the courage and the braveryof this black woman really led
to me even more so, developingan awareness to a population of
individuals that I spent a lotof time with but I had not fully
(27:01):
understood, or really and I'mashamed to say this that at that
point I hadn't really fullytook the time to understand what
their experience was like.
So here we are in this roomhaving this conversation and
this one of the attendees who,based on my assumption of
(27:27):
looking at her was probably ablack woman who stands up and
says hey, you know, this is agreat conversation, I'm glad
we're having this conversation,and she says however, I think
(27:59):
it's also important that in thea lot of time to really think
about what that meant.
I grew up in an environmentwhere you know if, if there were
any conversations about socialissues that was happening around
us and, to be honest, I don'tnecessarily remember a lot of
(28:21):
that, those conversations comingup, but a lot of that, those
conversations coming up, but alot of it was centered around
the experiences of Black men.
It was experiences about aroundthe people that I knew.
I grew up going to Blackbarbershops and so, you know,
when there was conversationsthat related to social issues, a
lot of those conversationscentered around Black men.
(28:46):
When I watch BET and other TVshows, the conversations very
much so focus on or elevated theexperiences of Black men.
And so here I am, sitting inthis session and now I'm sort of
(29:10):
struggling now to figure outwhat I do with this seed that
really has been planted for me,and I remember spending a lot of
time beyond that day justthinking about what she said and
just thinking about the couragethat it took to stand up in
(29:34):
that space and to shed light onan issue that many in the space
myself included had not beenthinking about, and so that
experience really started me to,on this path of exploration, to
(29:54):
understand what was she trying,interrupt the conversation and
say, hey, listen, this is animportant conversation, but
(30:15):
there's also some otherimportant conversations
important conversations At thetime I was also.
I had been, I was in my career,had been in my career for
several years, and I was ingraduate school, working toward
my PhD, and so I was alreadydoing research and trying to
(30:42):
figure out like, hey, what willmy dissertation focus on?
And between trying to figureout what my dissertation was
focused on and trying to exploresort of this new information
that I had that had sort of beenlaid out in front of me, I
found myself really spent a lotof time researching this topic.
(31:04):
Much so to.
I found myself spending a lotof time on this topic and not as
much time exploring thespecific research topic that I
had planned to pursue.
And so one day, as I was onTwitter and I was doing research
(31:29):
, I had started following moreBlack women who were giving
voice to the specificexperiences of Black women, and
I came across this report thatwas published about the
over-policing of young Blackgirls.
The name of the report you canGoogle it, you'll find it it's
(31:52):
called Black Girls Matter PushedOut, over-policed and
Under-Protected, and this reportessentially details the harsh
disciplinary practices thatBlack girls often experience and
the ways in which Black girlsare often pushed out of the K-12
(32:18):
system because of zerotolerance policies, the K
through 12 system, because ofzero tolerance policies.
Now, again, because of the waythat I've sort of entered into
my collegiate experience and Ilooked and studied some of this
stuff, I knew a lot about theexperiences of Black men, but it
wasn't until 2016, 2015, 2016,that I had really began to
(32:46):
explore it or at least begin toask the question well, what does
life look like for a blackwoman in the US?
What does life look like for ablack woman who is black and has
to deal with racism and all ofthe things that come with racism
and also deal with being awoman and having to navigate
(33:12):
what it means to be a woman indifferent settings and then to
think what does it mean to beboth?
What does it mean to have tonavigate environments and
understand how to move andtrying to gain as much knowledge
(33:33):
as I possibly could?
One of the books that I cameacross early on is a book called
(33:55):
Sister Citizen.
It's sitting right back here.
It's a book by Melissa HarrisPerry, and I won't even do it
just to try to explain what thebook is about.
But the book itself outlinessort of what in a pretty
compelling way what it's likefor Black women to have to
(34:17):
navigate the world as members oftwo different, distinct
identities.
And so the more I read, themore I learned, the more
responsibility that I felt to dosomething.
Now, I'll remind you earlier Isaid that this was a population
(34:39):
of people that I had been aroundall my life.
My mother, she's a black woman.
She raised me as a singleparent.
I have an older sister whoidentifies as a black woman.
She's seven years older than meand in a lot of ways she is
(34:59):
sort of a second mother, and sheinvested so much in me.
I understand a lot more now ofwhat that investment was and in
terms of my taste in music andmy love for reading.
And then at that point I hadbeen married to a black woman
(35:21):
for six years.
That point, I had been marriedto a Black woman for six years.
And so here I am trying tofigure out, with this sort of
new awareness, what do I do,what is my responsibility?
And that's a lot of information, it's a lot of background, but
I think it's very relevant towhere we find ourselves in the
(35:45):
current context.
And what I'll say is that itwas through me finding out who I
was and having a betterunderstanding of my identity and
what it meant to have tonavigate these various
environments, that I began to beable to look and see and
(36:05):
explore the experiences ofanother population of people, in
this case, black women.
Ownership enough ownership ofmy own story to be able to to
sort of enter into somebodyelse's story and try to be
(36:25):
empathetic and and, in a lot ofways, to be an advocate and an
ally.
And so since then, a lot of mywork from a research perspective
.
So I went ahead and finished myPhD perspective.
So I went ahead and finished myPhD.
Even that process itself waswas interesting, but I finished
(36:46):
my PhD and, because of thissense of responsibility to be an
advocate, to be an ally, togive voice from a male's
perspective of what the impactof racism and gender has on the
experiences of Black women andother women of color, I decided
(37:08):
to research the experiences ofBlack women college students who
were involved in predominantlywhite student organizations,
predominantly white studentorganizations.
And so, to this point, you know,I've while I still have more to
learn and more ways to growI've been able to find a sense
(37:37):
of courage and being able tospeak and use my privilege and
identity as a man to say hey,this is something we need to pay
attention to.
And so it brings me to todaybecause, as we know, we are in
the middle of an election cycle,of an election cycle I wanna
(38:02):
say it's less than 20 days untilthe presidential election, but
I don't wanna dismiss the factthat there are also local and
state level elections that wealso need to pay attention to,
that we also need to educateourselves on, so that we know or
so that we can exercise ourright to vote, and in a
(38:23):
responsible way.
So I said all that to say thatyou know.
Number one, or really I'll saythe main focus, is that, hey,
two things can be true at thesame time.
Two things can be true at thesame time.
(38:45):
So earlier this week there was alot of pushback from a lot of
folks in the Black community andbeyond in regards to what the
former president, barack Obama,had to say about Black men and
about black men specificallysupporting Vice President Kamala
(39:06):
Harris in her candidacy as thenext president of the United
States.
I'm going to play the audiojust so you can have some
context to this, all right.
All right, so here is what.
Here's the audio from therecent comments from former
(39:28):
President Barack Obama thatgarnered some criticism.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Thank, you, thank you and do more and overcome.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
I'm just going to play this again, just in case we
didn't get this on the firsttime that achieves.
Here are the comments of formerPresident Barack Obama and his
commentary to, in this case,this role of what looks like
(41:32):
mostly black men and what hefeels sort of might be the
reason why there isn't the samesupport for Vice President
Harris, senator Curry.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I'm going to go ahead and just say speak some truths,
if you don't mind, please,because my understanding, based
on reports I'm getting fromcampaigns and communities, that
(42:12):
we have not yet seen the samekinds of energy and turnout in
all quarters of ourneighborhoods and communities as
we saw when I was running.
Now I also want to say that thatseems to be more pronounced
with the brothers.
So, if you don't mind, just fora second, I'm going to speak to
(42:33):
you all directly and say thatwhen you have a choice, that is
this clear choice.
(42:54):
That is this clear when, on theone hand, you have somebody who
grew up like you, knows youwent to college with you,
understands the struggles andpain and joy that comes from
those experiences.
He was able to work harder anddo more and overcome and
(43:36):
achieves the second highestoffice in the land and is
putting forward concreteproposals to directly address
the things that are vital in ourneighborhoods and our
communities, from housing tomaking sure that our mothers and
our fathers and ourgrandparents can afford medicine
and making sure that we aredealing with prices that are too
(44:00):
high and rents that are toohigh and are committed to is
committed to making sure that wemaintain the Affordable Care
Act.
So everybody's got help here andcares about things like
education and entrepreneurshipin our neighborhoods and that's
on one side and on the otherside you have someone who has
(44:20):
consistently shown disregard,not just for the communities but
for you as a person, and you'rethinking about sitting down I'm
not, but you know, becauseousinPookie might be anybody's
(44:47):
Pookie and you're coming up withall kinds of reasons and
excuses.
I've got a problem with thatBecause part of it makes me
think and I'm speaking to mendirectly part of it makes me
(45:09):
think that, well, you justaren't feeling the idea of
having a woman as president andyou're coming up with other, or
even supporting somebody who hasa history of denigrating you
(45:38):
because you think that's a signof strength, because that's what
being a man is Putting womendown.
That's not acceptable.
That's not it.
This shouldn't even be aquestion.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
There you have it.
So those are the comments thathas garnered so much lots of
criticism by a lot of differentpeople, folks who I know that
I've seen sort of commentaryabout what President Obama said.
Former Ohio Senator, senatorAnita Turner, stephen A Smith
(46:37):
who, if you have well, even ifyou don't watch sports you've
probably heard that name One ofmy favorite actors, wendell
Pierce.
He even talked about some ofthe conversations that he's had
with black men on his barbershoptalk tour.
And another podcast that Ilistened to, the Church Politics
(46:58):
Podcast with Justin Giboney andReverend Chris Butler.
They talked as well about this.
What a lot of people arecalling a lecture to black Chris
Butler, they talked as wellabout this.
That's what a lot of people arecalling a lecture to black men,
and I want to say that at thisage and this space of my life,
(47:18):
I'm a firm believer in that.
Two things can be true, allright.
So on the one hand, therethere's a there's a lot that can
be said about the approach, forinstance, that President Obama
took to having this engaged withthis group of people prior to
(47:38):
what we see on camera.
So I can't speak to any of thatagain, but I will say that two
things can be true at the sametime.
(47:59):
So we can say that maybe theapproach or perhaps the tone or
the public nature of PresidentObama's comments could have been
different or, you know, hecould have went about a
different way to communicatethis message, and that's a fair
(48:20):
assessment, that's a faircritique.
However, there is also anelement of truth to what
(48:48):
President Obama is speaking to,even if how he, which means that
if we have spent anysignificant amount of time in
the United States andeducational institutions and its
corporations and itscommunities, we know that racism
(49:12):
is a real life experience andencounter for so many Black
folks, latino folks, indigenousfolks, asian Pacific Islander
folks, and so we will look, wewill give a side out to anyone
who had the, as some people say,the unmitigated gall to tell us
(49:33):
that racism did not exist.
In the same way, if we talk toenough women, white women, black
women, asian American women,asian Pacific Islander women,
latino women, asian Americanwomen, asian Pacific Islander
women, latino women and we heardabout their experiences with
sexism, we would be completelywe would look at somebody you
(50:02):
know crazy if they said, hey,you know, sexism doesn't exist,
or and so it's the same way,like if, as a black man, if I've
been socialized, if I've beensort of told like this is how,
whether it's directly or throughmedia, through cultural norms,
(50:25):
that the hey, this is how Iinteract with, this is how I
should respond to women,specifically women in leadership
roles, women with authority.
We cannot argue with the factthat some of us he didn't say
all Black men or all men aresexist or participate in sexism,
(50:54):
but he said that some of us,who are coming up with all types
of reasons and I've heard somany reasons that you know again
, this conversation isn't abouttrying to defend President Obama
.
It's not even about trying topromote Vice President Harris as
(51:18):
a candidate although we canhave that conversation another
day but it is about the realitythat two things can be true at
the same time that perhapsPresident Obama could have taken
a different approach to thisconversation.
And also there are some of us,even Black men and other men who
(51:41):
are married to Black women, whooperate in ways that would be
considered to be sexist, like wecan't assume that just because
you were raised by black womenor you have relatives or close
friends and families of peoplewho identify as black women,
(52:01):
that we are somehow exempt frombeing sexist like that isn't how
it works.
In the same way that a you knowsomeone who is, who identifies
as white, would say well, I haveseveral black friends, so that
(52:33):
doesn't that makes me not aracist.
Because he made sort of thisassertion that black men could
possibly be sexist and thatsexism could be a reason why
we're not voting for this blackwoman.
And that's a very realpossibility.
It just is.
And you know it's hard tofathom.
(52:59):
When you look at you know ifwe're talking about making the
decision between the candidatesthat are part of the two primary
political parties.
When you look at resume onpaper, she Vice President Harris
is more qualified.
When you look at her path tothe presidency having served as
(53:23):
a vice president, having servedas a senator, having served as a
attorney general, as a stateprosecutor like how more
qualified could you get?
And I don't know about you, butI've spent enough time around
enough Black women and I knowthe saying working twice as hard
(53:47):
to be just as good, having tobe overqualified to be
considered as a viable candidate, and we're seeing it play out
in very in real time here.
So to say that none of whatPresident Barack Obama said is
factual.
It's just, you know, it sort ofmakes the point even more that
(54:12):
perhaps that some of the reasonwhy and notice that he, he, he
was talking.
He also said men, men.
There are some men who had aproblem with voting for then
candidate Hillary Clintonbecause she was a woman.
And we just have to takeownership of the fact that, yes,
(54:34):
we could be married to women.
Yes, we could be married toblack women, yes, we could have
close friendships and closerelationships with people who
identify differently, withpeople who identify differently.
But we cannot.
We cannot say that because weshare the same racial and ethnic
(54:56):
identity with someone does notmean that we will not treat them
differently or discriminateagainst them because of some
other aspect of their identity,against them because of some
other aspect of their identity.
Just ask those who identify asBlack and also a part of the
LGBTQ plus community Right.
So Blackness alone does notexempt you from being sexist.
(55:22):
It does not exempt you frombeing homophobic.
It does not even exempt youfrom being xenophobic, because
we're seeing that play out inlots of ways on one side of the
candidacy when it comes tocommentary around Haitian
immigrants.
So I think there has to be arealization that, yes, two
(55:45):
things can be true at the sametime.
Yes, president Obama could havecommunicated his thoughts
perhaps differently or in adifferent platform.
And also there are some of uswho have a really hard time
voting for a woman, specificallya Black woman.
(56:09):
I mean, we have peoplequestioning the Blackness of a
candidate who not only has hadto navigate this country with
melanin right that's had tonavigate these elite educational
(56:34):
institutions and thesestructures that oftentimes puts
up as many barriers as it can toprevent people who look like
her, male and female, fromascending to these roles.
But when you talk about somebodywho went to a historically
Black college and universityright, a historically Black
(57:00):
college and university, and yetwe're questioning the Blackness
of this candidate, somebody whois a member, who became a member
over 30 years ago, of ahistorically Black sorority, and
yet the conversation happeningon both sides of the major
(57:23):
political parties is that thiscandidate isn't Black enough,
that this candidate isn't blackenough, that this candidate
isn't genuine.
Well, how many of you all talkthe same way at work that you
talk when you're kicking it withyour homegirls or your homeboys
?
It's called code switching andfor many of us it's a survival
(57:44):
tactic and for many of us it's asurvival tactic.
So, if we can make excuses forreasons why this candidate isn't
fit for the job, and you startlooking at experience, you start
looking at pedigree, you startlooking at overall intelligence,
(58:06):
and if you can't see anyexplanation there, then you can
only come to one or really oneother conclusion.
That perhaps, well, twoconclusions, but perhaps people
are struggling with this idea ofvoting and electing a black
(58:27):
woman to be the next presidentof this country.
Now, obviously, in this shorttime frame we don't have In this
episode, I'm not going to getinto all of the policies and the
things that make this make VicePresident Harris a better
(58:48):
candidate, but I will say thisthat even if you, you know in
your heart of hearts, you feellike you can't go to the polls
and you can't vote for VicePresident Harris or you can't
support the Democratic Party,which is your right as an
educated voter, as someone whohas a right to vote, they're
(59:14):
conscious.
I want to just elevate the factthat there are other options.
So, if you don't want to votefor Vice President Harris which
again, we can talk about whatthat means but there are viable
(59:53):
option for the president of theUnited States when there are
other options on the table.
So, if you can't bring yourselfyou feel like you can't vote
for President Harris or VicePresident Harris that perhaps
(01:00:16):
you should consider some of theindependent candidates that will
be on the ballot.
That will be on the ballot andmaybe in a different episode, we
could talk about who thosecandidates are.
But, folks, two things can betrue at the same time, and that
(01:00:46):
is so in the case of thecomments from former President
Barack Obama, but also in thecase of my own personal journey
finding a sense of voice in mystory as a Black man, and then
going forward and being able tocreate spaces and programs that
support the uplifting, thegrowth, the development, the
(01:01:09):
success of black men.
Um, one of the initiatives thatI uh co-founded, uh, in 2011,
is still in existence today.
Uh, another initiative that Ifounded for, uh, black men uh,
about six or seven years ago,it's still in existence today.
(01:01:32):
And, in addition to that, I havegiven my voice to the very real
experiences of Black women whoare navigating this country,
navigating educationalenvironments, navigating
workplaces, navigatingcorporations, navigating
(01:01:53):
communities and trying to livetheir best life while
experiencing racism and sexism,and they're not experiencing
them.
You know you're notexperiencing racism here and
sexism there.
They're experiencing them atthe very same time.
(01:02:17):
And so two things can be true,and we have to.
In order for us to find ourvoice, in order for us to find
courage in our own story, wefirst have to begin with taking
a stock of who we are, but thatdoesn't have to be the end of
(01:02:39):
the road.
We can make room for thestories and the experiences of
other people as we continue tofind courage and to find our own
voice.
So thank you so much for joiningme in this first episode of
Bruh Speak Up.
I am your host, demetriusJaggers.
It's been a pleasure to spendtime with you and remember, this
(01:03:03):
podcast is a podcast foreveryday people trying to find
their voice among all the noise.
A podcast for people who aretired of being silent about the
issues that matter to them.
Identify differently as youhave conversations and be open
to hearing.
Not listening just to respond,but be open to listening, to
(01:03:32):
hear their stories and to seehow you can make space for their
stories as you continue yourjourney.
Appreciate y'all until nexttime, peace.
What's going on everybody?
Welcome to the very firstepisode of Bruh Speak Up.
I am your host, demetriusJaggers, aka Dr Jaggers, aka
Jaggers, and so many otherthings that folks call me, who
(00:23):
know me, who have been in mylife for many years.
I'm excited to welcome you allto this very first episode of
this podcast.
Breath Speak Up is a podcastfor everyday people trying to
find their voice among all thenoise.
It's a podcast for everydaypeople who are tired of being
(00:44):
silent about the issues thatmatter to you, and so our
journey together, for me, isabout finding our collective
voice and being able to find away to get the courage to be
vulnerable and to really shareour voice about the things that
(01:07):
matter.
This podcast is about findingyour voice, and I am convinced
that one of the ways that we,one of the ways that we are able
to find our voice, is bylearning from the stories and
the experiences of others, andso that's what I hope that we
will be able to accomplishtogether as we go on this
(01:28):
journey.
For today's episode, I want totalk a little bit about what my
process, or what my journey, hasbeen like, through finding my
voice in the ways that exposureto a variety of people and
experiences has helped me tofind my voice.
Some of these experiences thatI will share with you have
(01:51):
helped me to find my voicebecause it had given me the
opportunity to own my voice, andthen that has given me the
(02:14):
ability to speak and find myvoice and give voice to issues
that are impacting other people.
Voice and give voice to issuesthat are impacting other people.
So I want to share a little bittoday about my story as a young
black man that was raised by asingle mother who became a first
(02:34):
generation college student.
Just for those who may not befamiliar with all of the jargon,
I do have about 15 years ofexperience working in college
and university setting, orhigher education as we refer to
it, and we use a lot of jargon,and one of those is
(02:55):
first-generation college student, and simply a first-generation
college student is a person.
Actually, let me say this thereare many definitions of a first
generation college student.
The one that I tend to use tosort of guide how I think about
my own story and my own journeyis that of someone who has a
(03:18):
parent or guardian that did notcomplete a four year degree from
a college or university,complete a four-year degree from
a college or university.
So in the fall of 2004, Ibecame a first-generation
college student.
Now I think it's important tosay that I had to find my way
(03:39):
and my beginning was somewhat ofa challenge.
So I scored an ACT of 17 when Itook the ACT in high school and
for a couple of reasons,notably because of some
financial barriers, I started mycollege journey, my educational
(04:01):
journey, at a community college, and so I don't knock small
beginnings, I don't knock theidea that different individuals
have different paths foraccomplishing their goals and
realizing their life's passion.
So for me, as a Black manraised by a single mother of
(04:23):
three kids, who was a firstgeneration college student,
scored a 17 or ACT, began hisjourney at a community college
and then transferred to a fouryear institution where my very
first semester GPA was a 2.2.
Semester GPA was a 2.2.
(04:47):
And one particular experiencethat really sticks out to me as
I think about my journey is thatmy first week of class I was
sitting in an English class.
We were reviewing the syllabusand the professor got to the
point where he began to talkabout the assignments and I had
(05:08):
done decently well as a highschool student, but as I look
back and think retrospectively,I probably didn't apply myself
in the ways that I should have.
Nonetheless, I find myself inthis English class and
professors like, hey, one of theuh primary assignments for this
class is going to be to do aneight page paper.
(05:31):
And when I tell you, uh, thatshook me, uh it, it just um
shook me in a in a completelydifferent way that I didn't
expect.
Um, thinking about eight pagesnow doesn't seem that
overwhelming, but then, at thatpoint in my life, the idea of
writing an eight page paper wasjust overwhelming, so much so
(05:54):
that, as soon as the class wasover, I went and dropped that
course.
So I want to talk a little bitabout my experience and some of
the ways in which my.
A little bit about myexperience and some of the ways
in which my, the things thatI've experienced have allowed me
to be more comfortable withowning my voice, to be more
comfortable with sharing my ownstories, even the parts of my
(06:18):
stories that I have previouslybeen ashamed of, and not just in
this episode.
But I hope that throughout ourtime together that I'll be able
to show a little bit ofvulnerability in this space and
to share about some of thoseexperiences that, in the moment,
maybe create a shame, thatmaybe create an embarrassment,
(06:45):
but, over the long term, havereally allowed me to take
ownership of my voice and of mystory and, I would say, have
given me the courage to be ableto speak up and to give voice to
some of the issues that reallymatter to me, but also to issues
that matter to those that Icare about.
(07:06):
So that's how we'll spend ourtime today, and we'll just go
ahead and jump right into it, soI'll share with you.
I started my college career as afirst generation college
student and, to be honest, Ididn't really know what I was
(07:28):
doing.
I didn't know how to study, Ididn't know how to navigate the
college environment.
I knew that I was in a placewhere I wanted to be and that,
if I was able to figure thingsout, that I would eventually be
successful.
But there was a lot that Ididn't know and a lot that I
needed to find out, and so,after participating, after
(07:51):
struggling my first semester, Idecided that hey, I'm going to
need some additional help, andso, I became a part of a
mentoring, a peer mentoringprogram on the campus, and got
connected to the multiculturalcenter at that campus and got
(08:18):
connected to the multiculturalcenter of that campus by all
accounts, based on ACT, maybeeven high school GPA would have
been deemed as somebody whocouldn't be successful in
college I was able to find apoint of connection and
belonging at this multiculturalcenter.
Now I could say today and sortof talk with some of this
(08:44):
language that I have based onwhere I've been, but in the
moment I wouldn't have been ableto really articulate what it
meant to be a black man and tobe navigating this large campus
environment that, for allintents and purposes, had not
been designed with people likeme and mine.
(09:05):
But nonetheless I found thisconnection point and so, as a
result of that connection, Ibegan to attend this annual
event that was hosted by aneighboring institution, and
(09:48):
this event was designed to bringcollege students who identified
as black men, to bring collegeprofessors, to bring staff who
worked at the college, to bringin community partners, to bring
in people around this idea ofwhat does it look like to remove
barriers for the success ofBlack men.
At that particular time therewas a lot going on, a lot of
conversations about how do weremove barriers that lead to
more successful outcomes forBlack men in education and that
was from, you know, elementaryto middle school, to high school
(10:09):
, to college level.
And so I began to.
I found myself in thisenvironment with black men who
were, who had some of the samegoals that I had had.
Some of the same goals that Ihad.
In some cases, I had anopportunity to interact with
(10:30):
Black men who had PhDs and whowere in pretty influential
positions, not only at thatuniversity but also in the
community.
And because of a platform ofthis event, we were even able to
interact with Black men whowere, you know, successful in
other industries business andhealthcare and so it really for
(10:56):
me began to shape sort of adifferent perspective of what it
meant to be a black man, ablack man for me.
And so, as I would look forwardto this event year after year
and I saw the type of communityand the, the just encouragement
(11:19):
that this type of event providedto the individuals at this
institution, at this institution, you know, I began to really
just process who I was indifferent ways.
Even still, then I wouldn'thave been able to fully have the
(11:40):
words and the language to talkabout what that experience meant
to me, the words and thelanguage to talk about what that
experience meant to me.
I will say, though, that thatexperience really opened the
door for me to really begin tothink about other experiences
that I had not been connected tobefore.
So there's this idea thatsometimes our willingness to be
(12:06):
open enough to step beyond whatwe've known can sort of be the
pathway or the door to otheropportunities that will lead us
to raising our awareness, tohaving a better understanding of
who we are, to, you know,meeting and engagement with
people that we probably wouldn'thave engaged in.
(12:27):
You know, there were so manyBlack men, specifically, that I
still have some level ofconnection to whether it's just
LinkedIn or Facebook that I wasexposed to as a result of
participating in this yearlyevent that wasn't even sponsored
by my institution, and so thatreally began to plant the seed
(12:49):
for me.
So, as I continued on in mycollege career and had an
opportunity to do a few otherthings including walking onto
the football team at theinstitution, including joining a
historically Black fraternityand, you know, getting to
(13:12):
experience life as a collegestudent from that perspective
and taking on leadership rolesfrom, you know, being involved
with the black student ledorganizational campus or the the
campus chapter of the NAACP.
You know, I began to explorethese opportunities and these
(13:35):
experiences that I had not eventhought about before, which
eventually led me to decide toparticipate in an internship
program that really changed mylife in more ways than I can
count.
So during my undergraduatecareer I changed my major a few
(13:56):
times, started off as a sportsand leisure studies, thought I
wanted to be a sports agent andsort of travel the world and
represent traditional athletes.
Once I got started in thatdegree program, my interests
began to change and thoughtperhaps it would be better for
me to pursue a general businessmanagement degree, just to give
(14:21):
me more options once I graduatedfrom college, just to give me
more options once I graduatedfrom college.
And then there was a moment intime where I felt like, hey, let
me kind of get back to my loveof cooking and this idea of
being an entrepreneur, and Ithought, hey, maybe I'll change
my major to hospitalitymanagement and pursue, you know,
(14:42):
becoming a professional chef.
Well, before I got to the pointthat I did that, I decided to
take this course, principles ofMarketing, where I essentially
just fell in love with this ideaof marketing and the psychology
and the business behindmarketing.
(15:04):
All that to say that I was amarketing major in the business.
Behind marketing, all that tosay that I was a marketing major
, I was in my junior year,heading into my senior year
Again at this time.
At that point I had, you know,been a member of the football
team.
I had been the president of myfraternity.
I've been involved in a lot ofdifferent things on campus and
so by this time, you know, I hadgone from having a 2.2 GPA to,
(15:28):
at my highest, getting a 3.8 GPA, and so I was doing really well
, I felt really comfortable.
And then I learned about thisinternship program and I was
really not interested inparticipating.
And I was really not interestedin participating.
(15:48):
Number one, I had kind of foundmy groove.
I wasn't interested in tryingto do anything that sort of
would threaten the success thatI had achieved and even just the
level of influence I had beenable to have on campus, just
because of the things that I wasdoing outside of the classroom.
But someone who was a reallygreat support in my life decided
(16:14):
to really encourage me topursue this opportunity.
Talk to my mom about it, talkto some other folks that I was.
That I would say at that time,probably were in a mentoring
capacity for me, and they said,hey, you should really consider
this opportunity.
Now, mind you, I was amarketing major.
This internship program had aspecific focus on state
(16:39):
government and politics, and soto me I didn't see the
connection.
I didn't see how participatingin an internship focused on
state government politics wouldhave any influence on my desire
to be a corporate marketingexecutive.
There just wasn't a connection.
In addition to that, I wasalready at a point in my
(17:00):
academic career that I had usedup all of my well, not all, but
a pretty decent amount of myelectives, and so the program
itself was a total of 15 credithours.
I had to, you know, I had toget to.
I only had about six to ninehours left.
(17:20):
That would go toward my hoursleft that would go toward my
electives, and so I would havebeen wasting money taking
courses that would not counttoward my degree.
It also happened to bebeneficial that, in addition to
(17:40):
myself, you know, applying forthis internship, I also knew a
couple of other of my fraternitybrothers who had applied for it
, and so it gave me some sort ofsense of comfort that going
away from this place that hadbecome home, from this place
that had become comfortable tome, me and going to a new city,
(18:04):
while it wasn't, you know, faraway, didn't have to go outside
of the state, but I did have togo about two and a half hours
away and sort of start life overin a way, you know, develop new
relationships, navigate a newcity, navigate a new environment
(18:25):
.
And so, after listening tothose around me, I decided to go
ahead and pursue thisinternship program.
Now it just turns out that, eventhough I wasn't at my home
college or university, I did getaccess to a college campus.
(18:45):
And having access to thatcollege campus students program
allowed me to still feel a senseof connection and feel like I
was still sort of experiencingthe college environment.
As a result of participating inthat program, I was able to
really see, uh, in this setting,what community looked like for
(19:11):
black college students who weretrying to black male college
students who were trying topursue, you know, a degree and
try to identify success forthemselves.
So, uh, long story short, I dothe program, participate in the
(19:33):
program, have a tremendous youknow experience, able to, you
know, just soak up so muchknowledge from people in very
influential positions in state,government and policy arenas and
lobbying areas, and just to beinvolved in a program that
(19:58):
helped me to expand my horizonand expand my understanding of
the world around me.
Expand my horizon and expand myunderstanding of the world
around me.
It was kind of like helping toconnect the dots.
I'll have to share more aboutwhat those dots were in another
episode, but the experienceliterally changed my life.
(20:19):
It also happened that while Iwas participating in that
experience I can't talk aboutthis story and not talk about
this blessing While I was awaystudying and participating in
this program, I was so fastforward I complete my bachelor's
(20:43):
degree and then decide thatperhaps it would be a good idea
to pursue a master's degreeexperience.
(21:05):
I was able to go back to my homeinstitution with about a
semester left with my bachelor's, my bachelor's degree, and I
came back with a completelydifferent perspective, with a
completely different um my mymind has shifted in a way that I
didn't even know that it neededto shift.
My eyes have been opened inways that I didn't realize they
(21:28):
needed to be open.
And you know, prior toparticipating in this program,
my mantra for going to collegewas always to just, you know
graduate, for going to collegewas always to just, you know
graduate, make as much money asI, could, become a you know, a
(21:52):
corporate executive and justsort of live life, you know, and
be able to contribute and takecare specifically of my mother.
And while all those things arestill desires, what began to
develop in me was a desire toreach back, was a desire to
leave a sense of purpose at theplace that had given me so much
(22:16):
at that time my undergraduateinstitution and also to help
create sort of the type ofcommunity that I had experienced
in these different places fromthe Black male gathering that
I'd experienced before I leftthe opportunity to engage with
Black men who were committed totheir academic success, with
(22:48):
Black men who had completedtheir PhDs and were doing really
great work, to key communityleaders.
I had a desire to sort of seethe community in the sense of
purpose that I had seen in otherplaces where I was and that
(23:09):
really drove me to to reallywant to do something that would
last beyond my existence at thatplace place.
And so, once I decided to pursuemy master's degree, I was able
to continue and I decided tostay at the same institution
(23:29):
that I was at, I was able tocontinue some of the work that
had begun and decided that, hey,I was going to try to create
some initiatives and someprogramming that I had seen
other places at the institutionthat I was at, and so I was able
to begin to build a programthat had a specific focus on the
(23:52):
academic, the professional andthe career success of both Black
and Latino men, and so myexperience up to that point had
really helped me to find myvoice and to put sort of words
to my own experience of tryingto navigate a pretty large
campus environment and beingable to overcome some barriers
(24:18):
that I brought with me to that,to that environment.
And so, as a result of that,you know, I I found myself in
spaces and in conversation withpeople and being able to have
influence on, on, really to haveinfluence on really key
(24:41):
conversations.
One specifically, once Ifinished my bachelor's degree
and my master's degree, Idecided I end up, you know,
completing this project.
So, as a result of all of thework that I had done, here I am.
I am at this national conferenceon a panel having a really what
(25:09):
I would say a really importantconversation about sort of the
state of what it means to be ablack man pursuing higher
education man pursuing highereducation.
This national conferenceprobably had about 3,000 to
4,000 people in attendance, andthe specific session or the
workshop that I was a part of,the room was standing room only,
(25:33):
and so we're having a prettyengaging conversation about how
can people who work on collegeand university campuses create
better environments where Blackmen specifically, but also other
men of color, latino men,native American or American
(25:56):
Indian, indigenous men, etc.
How can we create betterenvironments to support the
success and help this populationof students overcome some of
the barriers that exist in theinstitutions, because they're a
reflection of the largersocietal structures that create
(26:19):
systems of inequity.
And to say that I was excited,that I was proud to be in this
space with some of the peoplewho would have been considered
leaders in sort of this space,it would have been an
understatement, but I'll neverforget the moment where I would
(26:39):
say the courage and the braveryof this black woman really led
to me even more so, developingan awareness to a population of
individuals that I spent a lotof time with but I had not fully
(27:01):
understood, or really and I'mashamed to say this that at that
point I hadn't really fullytook the time to understand what
their experience was like.
So here we are in this roomhaving this conversation and
this one of the attendees who,based on my assumption of
(27:27):
looking at her was probably ablack woman who stands up and
says hey, you know, this is agreat conversation, I'm glad
we're having this conversation,and she says however, I think
(27:59):
it's also important that in thea lot of time to really think
about what that meant.
I grew up in an environmentwhere you know if, if there were
any conversations about socialissues that was happening around
us and, to be honest, I don'tnecessarily remember a lot of
(28:21):
that, those conversations comingup, but a lot of that, those
conversations coming up, but alot of it was centered around
the experiences of Black men.
It was experiences about aroundthe people that I knew.
I grew up going to Blackbarbershops and so, you know,
when there was conversationsthat related to social issues, a
lot of those conversationscentered around Black men.
(28:46):
When I watch BET and other TVshows, the conversations very
much so focus on or elevated theexperiences of Black men.
And so here I am, sitting inthis session and now I'm sort of
(29:10):
struggling now to figure outwhat I do with this seed that
really has been planted for me,and I remember spending a lot of
time beyond that day justthinking about what she said and
just thinking about the couragethat it took to stand up in
(29:34):
that space and to shed light onan issue that many in the space
myself included had not beenthinking about, and so that
experience really started me to,on this path of exploration, to
(29:54):
understand what was she trying,interrupt the conversation and
say, hey, listen, this is animportant conversation, but
(30:15):
there's also some otherimportant conversations
important conversations At thetime I was also.
I had been, I was in my career,had been in my career for
several years, and I was ingraduate school, working toward
my PhD, and so I was alreadydoing research and trying to
(30:42):
figure out like, hey, what willmy dissertation focus on?
And between trying to figureout what my dissertation was
focused on and trying to exploresort of this new information
that I had that had sort of beenlaid out in front of me, I
found myself really spent a lotof time researching this topic.
(31:04):
Much so to.
I found myself spending a lotof time on this topic and not as
much time exploring thespecific research topic that I
had planned to pursue.
And so one day, as I was onTwitter and I was doing research
(31:29):
, I had started following moreBlack women who were giving
voice to the specificexperiences of Black women, and
I came across this report thatwas published about the
over-policing of young Blackgirls.
The name of the report you canGoogle it, you'll find it it's
(31:52):
called Black Girls Matter PushedOut, over-policed and
Under-Protected, and this reportessentially details the harsh
disciplinary practices thatBlack girls often experience and
the ways in which Black girlsare often pushed out of the K-12
(32:18):
system because of zerotolerance policies, the K
through 12 system, because ofzero tolerance policies.
Now, again, because of the waythat I've sort of entered into
my collegiate experience and Ilooked and studied some of this
stuff, I knew a lot about theexperiences of Black men, but it
wasn't until 2016, 2015, 2016,that I had really began to
(32:46):
explore it or at least begin toask the question well, what does
life look like for a blackwoman in the US?
What does life look like for ablack woman who is black and has
to deal with racism and all ofthe things that come with racism
and also deal with being awoman and having to navigate
(33:12):
what it means to be a woman indifferent settings and then to
think what does it mean to beboth?
What does it mean to have tonavigate environments and
understand how to move andtrying to gain as much knowledge
(33:33):
as I possibly could?
One of the books that I cameacross early on is a book called
(33:55):
Sister Citizen.
It's sitting right back here.
It's a book by Melissa HarrisPerry, and I won't even do it
just to try to explain what thebook is about.
But the book itself outlinessort of what in a pretty
compelling way what it's likefor Black women to have to
(34:17):
navigate the world as members oftwo different, distinct
identities.
And so the more I read, themore I learned, the more
responsibility that I felt to dosomething.
Now, I'll remind you earlier Isaid that this was a population
(34:39):
of people that I had been aroundall my life.
My mother, she's a black woman.
She raised me as a singleparent.
I have an older sister whoidentifies as a black woman.
She's seven years older than meand in a lot of ways she is
(34:59):
sort of a second mother, and sheinvested so much in me.
I understand a lot more now ofwhat that investment was and in
terms of my taste in music andmy love for reading.
And then at that point I hadbeen married to a black woman
(35:21):
for six years.
That point, I had been marriedto a Black woman for six years.
And so here I am trying tofigure out, with this sort of
new awareness, what do I do,what is my responsibility?
And that's a lot of information, it's a lot of background, but
I think it's very relevant towhere we find ourselves in the
(35:45):
current context.
And what I'll say is that itwas through me finding out who I
was and having a betterunderstanding of my identity and
what it meant to have tonavigate these various
environments, that I began to beable to look and see and
(36:05):
explore the experiences ofanother population of people, in
this case, black women.
Ownership enough ownership ofmy own story to be able to to
sort of enter into somebodyelse's story and try to be
(36:25):
empathetic and and, in a lot ofways, to be an advocate and an
ally.
And so since then, a lot of mywork from a research perspective
.
So I went ahead and finished myPhD perspective.
So I went ahead and finished myPhD.
Even that process itself waswas interesting, but I finished
(36:46):
my PhD and, because of thissense of responsibility to be an
advocate, to be an ally, togive voice from a male's
perspective of what the impactof racism and gender has on the
experiences of Black women andother women of color, I decided
(37:08):
to research the experiences ofBlack women college students who
were involved in predominantlywhite student organizations,
predominantly white studentorganizations.
And so, to this point, you know,I've while I still have more to
learn and more ways to growI've been able to find a sense
(37:37):
of courage and being able tospeak and use my privilege and
identity as a man to say hey,this is something we need to pay
attention to.
And so it brings me to todaybecause, as we know, we are in
the middle of an election cycle,of an election cycle I wanna
(38:02):
say it's less than 20 days untilthe presidential election, but
I don't wanna dismiss the factthat there are also local and
state level elections that wealso need to pay attention to,
that we also need to educateourselves on, so that we know or
so that we can exercise ourright to vote, and in a
(38:23):
responsible way.
So I said all that to say thatyou know.
Number one, or really I'll saythe main focus, is that, hey,
two things can be true at thesame time.
Two things can be true at thesame time.
(38:45):
So earlier this week there was alot of pushback from a lot of
folks in the Black community andbeyond in regards to what the
former president, barack Obama,had to say about Black men and
about black men specificallysupporting Vice President Kamala
(39:06):
Harris in her candidacy as thenext president of the United
States.
I'm going to play the audiojust so you can have some
context to this, all right.
All right, so here is what.
Here's the audio from therecent comments from former
(39:28):
President Barack Obama thatgarnered some criticism.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Thank, you, thank you and do more and overcome.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
I'm just going to play this again, just in case we
didn't get this on the firsttime that achieves.
Here are the comments of formerPresident Barack Obama and his
commentary to, in this case,this role of what looks like
(41:32):
mostly black men and what hefeels sort of might be the
reason why there isn't the samesupport for Vice President
Harris, senator Curry.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I'm going to go ahead and just say speak some truths,
if you don't mind, please,because my understanding, based
on reports I'm getting fromcampaigns and communities, that
(42:12):
we have not yet seen the samekinds of energy and turnout in
all quarters of ourneighborhoods and communities as
we saw when I was running.
Now I also want to say that thatseems to be more pronounced
with the brothers.
So, if you don't mind, just fora second, I'm going to speak to
(42:33):
you all directly and say thatwhen you have a choice, that is
this clear choice.
(42:54):
That is this clear when, on theone hand, you have somebody who
grew up like you, knows youwent to college with you,
understands the struggles andpain and joy that comes from
those experiences.
He was able to work harder anddo more and overcome and
(43:36):
achieves the second highestoffice in the land and is
putting forward concreteproposals to directly address
the things that are vital in ourneighborhoods and our
communities, from housing tomaking sure that our mothers and
our fathers and ourgrandparents can afford medicine
and making sure that we aredealing with prices that are too
(44:00):
high and rents that are toohigh and are committed to is
committed to making sure that wemaintain the Affordable Care
Act.
So everybody's got help here andcares about things like
education and entrepreneurshipin our neighborhoods and that's
on one side and on the otherside you have someone who has
(44:20):
consistently shown disregard,not just for the communities but
for you as a person, and you'rethinking about sitting down I'm
not, but you know, becauseousinPookie might be anybody's
(44:47):
Pookie and you're coming up withall kinds of reasons and
excuses.
I've got a problem with thatBecause part of it makes me
think and I'm speaking to mendirectly part of it makes me
(45:09):
think that, well, you justaren't feeling the idea of
having a woman as president andyou're coming up with other, or
even supporting somebody who hasa history of denigrating you
(45:38):
because you think that's a signof strength, because that's what
being a man is Putting womendown.
That's not acceptable.
That's not it.
This shouldn't even be aquestion.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
There you have it.
So those are the comments thathas garnered so much lots of
criticism by a lot of differentpeople, folks who I know that
I've seen sort of commentaryabout what President Obama said.
Former Ohio Senator, senatorAnita Turner, stephen A Smith
(46:37):
who, if you have well, even ifyou don't watch sports you've
probably heard that name One ofmy favorite actors, wendell
Pierce.
He even talked about some ofthe conversations that he's had
with black men on his barbershoptalk tour.
And another podcast that Ilistened to, the Church Politics
(46:58):
Podcast with Justin Giboney andReverend Chris Butler.
They talked as well about this.
What a lot of people arecalling a lecture to black Chris
Butler, they talked as wellabout this.
That's what a lot of people arecalling a lecture to black men,
and I want to say that at thisage and this space of my life,
(47:18):
I'm a firm believer in that.
Two things can be true, allright.
So on the one hand, therethere's a there's a lot that can
be said about the approach, forinstance, that President Obama
took to having this engaged withthis group of people prior to
(47:38):
what we see on camera.
So I can't speak to any of thatagain, but I will say that two
things can be true at the sametime.
(47:59):
So we can say that maybe theapproach or perhaps the tone or
the public nature of PresidentObama's comments could have been
different or, you know, hecould have went about a
different way to communicatethis message, and that's a fair
(48:20):
assessment, that's a faircritique.
However, there is also anelement of truth to what
(48:48):
President Obama is speaking to,even if how he, which means that
if we have spent anysignificant amount of time in
the United States andeducational institutions and its
corporations and itscommunities, we know that racism
(49:12):
is a real life experience andencounter for so many Black
folks, latino folks, indigenousfolks, asian Pacific Islander
folks, and so we will look, wewill give a side out to anyone
who had the, as some people say,the unmitigated gall to tell us
(49:33):
that racism did not exist.
In the same way, if we talk toenough women, white women, black
women, asian American women,asian Pacific Islander women,
latino women, asian Americanwomen, asian Pacific Islander
women, latino women and we heardabout their experiences with
sexism, we would be completelywe would look at somebody you
(50:02):
know crazy if they said, hey,you know, sexism doesn't exist,
or and so it's the same way,like if, as a black man, if I've
been socialized, if I've beensort of told like this is how,
whether it's directly or throughmedia, through cultural norms,
(50:25):
that the hey, this is how Iinteract with, this is how I
should respond to women,specifically women in leadership
roles, women with authority.
We cannot argue with the factthat some of us he didn't say
all Black men or all men aresexist or participate in sexism,
(50:54):
but he said that some of us,who are coming up with all types
of reasons and I've heard somany reasons that you know again
, this conversation isn't abouttrying to defend President Obama
.
It's not even about trying topromote Vice President Harris as
(51:18):
a candidate although we canhave that conversation another
day but it is about the realitythat two things can be true at
the same time that perhapsPresident Obama could have taken
a different approach to thisconversation.
And also there are some of us,even Black men and other men who
(51:41):
are married to Black women, whooperate in ways that would be
considered to be sexist, like wecan't assume that just because
you were raised by black womenor you have relatives or close
friends and families of peoplewho identify as black women,
(52:01):
that we are somehow exempt frombeing sexist like that isn't how
it works.
In the same way that a you knowsomeone who is, who identifies
as white, would say well, I haveseveral black friends, so that
(52:33):
doesn't that makes me not aracist.
Because he made sort of thisassertion that black men could
possibly be sexist and thatsexism could be a reason why
we're not voting for this blackwoman.
And that's a very realpossibility.
It just is.
And you know it's hard tofathom.
(52:59):
When you look at you know ifwe're talking about making the
decision between the candidatesthat are part of the two primary
political parties.
When you look at resume onpaper, she Vice President Harris
is more qualified.
When you look at her path tothe presidency having served as
(53:23):
a vice president, having servedas a senator, having served as a
attorney general, as a stateprosecutor like how more
qualified could you get?
And I don't know about you, butI've spent enough time around
enough Black women and I knowthe saying working twice as hard
(53:47):
to be just as good, having tobe overqualified to be
considered as a viable candidate, and we're seeing it play out
in very in real time here.
So to say that none of whatPresident Barack Obama said is
factual.
It's just, you know, it sort ofmakes the point even more that
(54:12):
perhaps that some of the reasonwhy and notice that he, he, he
was talking.
He also said men, men.
There are some men who had aproblem with voting for then
candidate Hillary Clintonbecause she was a woman.
And we just have to takeownership of the fact that, yes,
(54:34):
we could be married to women.
Yes, we could be married toblack women, yes, we could have
close friendships and closerelationships with people who
identify differently, withpeople who identify differently.
But we cannot.
We cannot say that because weshare the same racial and ethnic
(54:56):
identity with someone does notmean that we will not treat them
differently or discriminateagainst them because of some
other aspect of their identity,against them because of some
other aspect of their identity.
Just ask those who identify asBlack and also a part of the
LGBTQ plus community Right.
So Blackness alone does notexempt you from being sexist.
(55:22):
It does not exempt you frombeing homophobic.
It does not even exempt youfrom being xenophobic, because
we're seeing that play out inlots of ways on one side of the
candidacy when it comes tocommentary around Haitian
immigrants.
So I think there has to be arealization that, yes, two
(55:45):
things can be true at the sametime.
Yes, president Obama could havecommunicated his thoughts
perhaps differently or in adifferent platform.
And also there are some of uswho have a really hard time
voting for a woman, specificallya Black woman.
(56:09):
I mean, we have peoplequestioning the Blackness of a
candidate who not only has hadto navigate this country with
melanin right that's had tonavigate these elite educational
(56:34):
institutions and thesestructures that oftentimes puts
up as many barriers as it can toprevent people who look like
her, male and female, fromascending to these roles.
But when you talk about somebodywho went to a historically
Black college and universityright, a historically Black
(57:00):
college and university, and yetwe're questioning the Blackness
of this candidate, somebody whois a member, who became a member
over 30 years ago, of ahistorically Black sorority, and
yet the conversation happeningon both sides of the major
(57:23):
political parties is that thiscandidate isn't Black enough,
that this candidate isn't blackenough, that this candidate
isn't genuine.
Well, how many of you all talkthe same way at work that you
talk when you're kicking it withyour homegirls or your homeboys
?
It's called code switching andfor many of us it's a survival
(57:44):
tactic and for many of us it's asurvival tactic.
So, if we can make excuses forreasons why this candidate isn't
fit for the job, and you startlooking at experience, you start
looking at pedigree, you startlooking at overall intelligence,
(58:06):
and if you can't see anyexplanation there, then you can
only come to one or really oneother conclusion.
That perhaps, well, twoconclusions, but perhaps people
are struggling with this idea ofvoting and electing a black
(58:27):
woman to be the next presidentof this country.
Now, obviously, in this shorttime frame we don't have In this
episode, I'm not going to getinto all of the policies and the
things that make this make VicePresident Harris a better
(58:48):
candidate, but I will say thisthat even if you, you know in
your heart of hearts, you feellike you can't go to the polls
and you can't vote for VicePresident Harris or you can't
support the Democratic Party,which is your right as an
educated voter, as someone whohas a right to vote, they're
(59:14):
conscious.
I want to just elevate the factthat there are other options.
So, if you don't want to votefor Vice President Harris which
again, we can talk about whatthat means but there are viable
(59:53):
option for the president of theUnited States when there are
other options on the table.
So, if you can't bring yourselfyou feel like you can't vote
for President Harris or VicePresident Harris that perhaps
(01:00:16):
you should consider some of theindependent candidates that will
be on the ballot.
That will be on the ballot andmaybe in a different episode, we
could talk about who thosecandidates are.
But, folks, two things can betrue at the same time, and that
(01:00:46):
is so in the case of thecomments from former President
Barack Obama, but also in thecase of my own personal journey
finding a sense of voice in mystory as a Black man, and then
going forward and being able tocreate spaces and programs that
support the uplifting, thegrowth, the development, the
(01:01:09):
success of black men.
Um, one of the initiatives thatI uh co-founded, uh, in 2011,
is still in existence today.
Uh, another initiative that Ifounded for, uh, black men uh,
about six or seven years ago,it's still in existence today.
(01:01:32):
And, in addition to that, I havegiven my voice to the very real
experiences of Black women whoare navigating this country,
navigating educationalenvironments, navigating
workplaces, navigatingcorporations, navigating
(01:01:53):
communities and trying to livetheir best life while
experiencing racism and sexism,and they're not experiencing
them.
You know you're notexperiencing racism here and
sexism there.
They're experiencing them atthe very same time.
(01:02:17):
And so two things can be true,and we have to.
In order for us to find ourvoice, in order for us to find
courage in our own story, wefirst have to begin with taking
a stock of who we are, but thatdoesn't have to be the end of
(01:02:39):
the road.
We can make room for thestories and the experiences of
other people as we continue tofind courage and to find our own
voice.
So thank you so much for joiningme in this first episode of
Bruh Speak Up.
I am your host, demetriusJaggers.
It's been a pleasure to spendtime with you and remember, this
(01:03:03):
podcast is a podcast foreveryday people trying to find
their voice among all the noise.
A podcast for people who aretired of being silent about the
issues that matter to them.
Identify differently as youhave conversations and be open
to hearing.
Not listening just to respond,but be open to listening, to
(01:03:32):
hear their stories and to seehow you can make space for their
stories as you continue yourjourney.
Appreciate y'all until nexttime, peace.
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