February 6, 2025 • 26 mins
Imagine stepping into a world where your very existence is questioned—where just being yourself is a battle. Now imagine finding the strength, the voice, and the courage to not only survive but to stand up, speak out, and inspire a generation.
This week on Chatter that Matters, my guest is George M. Johnson. We dive into the remarkable journey of an award-winning author, journalist, and activist who turned childhood trauma into a global conversation. All Boys Aren’t Blue isn’t just a book—it’s a lifeline, a revolution, and a powerful act of defiance against those who seek to erase stories like George’s.
As we walk in George's shoes we will learn:
What It’s Like to Feel Like an Outsider – From childhood bullying to violent attacks, George opens up about the pain of growing up Black and Queer in a world that wasn’t always kind.
The Strength of Family & Finding a Place to Belong – A grandmother’s wisdom, a younger brother’s unwavering love, and the importance of having people who simply sees you for who you are.
The Power of Writing to Heal & Inspire – How storytelling became George’s weapon against ignorance and a beacon of hope for others who feel unseen.
Fighting Book Bans & Changing the Narrative – Why All Boys Aren’t Blue is one of the most banned books in America—and why that only fuels George’s mission to ensure that queer Black voices are heard, celebrated, and never erased.
Strength in Numbers & The Future of the Fight – From books to film, podcasts to activism, George isn’t stopping. This isn’t just about personal triumph; it’s about creating a world where no child feels alone in their identity.
George M. Johnson is living proof that when you embrace who you are, the world takes notice.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
I was never the fastest, funniest, the tallest,
and certainly not the best looking, but I always fit in. I
had a gang that sort of we teased each other but never bullied each
other. So I don't know what it's like to be
ostracized, to be attacked by somebody who feels they have strength
in numbers because they think they're the the normal and
(00:28):
you're the abnormal. What it's like to be a five year old
and and have your teeth kicked in
and what you do to carry that forward in life. I once was a
teenager who didn't feel seen in the world, who didn't feel like I had
any life
experience, and didn't give me the resources
(00:52):
or any type of guidance on how I was going to navigate young adulthood
as I went into adulthood as a black queer person. My guest today
is George M Johnson. He's an award winning black non binary
writer, author, and executive producer. With his brother, he wrote
the New York Times best selling All Boys Aren't Blue, discussing their
adolescence growing up as a young black queer boy in New Jersey. My book does
(01:15):
not introduce them to these things. It is reinforcing them
with the knowledge and the tools as they are already dealing with these
things such as racism and anti blackness and homophobia.
As a former journalist, George knows how to put words to paper.
It's written for Teen Vogue Entertainment Tonight, NBC BuzzFeed, and
he's recognized. Salute to Excellence Award by the National Association
(01:37):
of Black Journalists, hundred most influential of African
Americans in 2020, and he's honored as one of TIME one hundred's next
most influential people in the world.
Hi. It's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter That Matters presented
(01:58):
by RBC. If you can, please subscribe to the podcast. And
ratings and reviews, well, they're always welcome, and they're always appreciated.
George M Johnson, welcome to Chatter That Matters. Thank you.
I wanna begin by just taking me back to, you know,
10/31/1985. So you're born on
(02:20):
Halloween? Yeah. You talk a lot about your supportive family,
and more than once you mentioned nanny. Yeah. You know, she was
my grandmother, from Spartanburg, South Carolina.
You know, even though we lived in New Jersey, she kept much of
our southern roots and southern traditions live through, you know,
the foods that we cooked, her accent, just,
(02:43):
some of the colloquialisms and her wisdoms that she used to teach us.
Although she was, like, an older grandmother, she was a cool grandmother. Like, she liked
to do fun things. She would take us on vacations, and she she
actually liked hanging out with us, playing cards with
us, and gambling with us, and going to the casino, and just
so you, like, you had, like, this fun side to her, but she also was
(03:05):
very, you know, powerful in the ways in which she wanted
us to focus on our education and kinda raised us all
together like we were like a tribe in a sense, so that we
all learned how to, you know, protect one another and cover each other.
But she just had, like, this emotional capacity for
anything. There wasn't a problem that you could be having that she,
(03:27):
you know, you couldn't turn to her and talk about. I wonder if she's with
you now. She would say, and I stayed so
young because of having you and your brother,
Garrett in her life in the sense that just feeding off each other. And you
talk about us, and then obviously Garrett's played a major role in your
life as well. So tell me a little bit about your younger brother. Yeah. You
(03:48):
know, we grew up really close. We're only three years apart. We
also went to college together. And in many ways, we're, like, more than best
friends. I'm, like, we're already siblings, but it's, like, we just get each other and
know each other inside and out because, you know, we really, really grew up very,
very close to one another. And now Gee
has a child called baby Gee, and now I'm extremely
(04:10):
close with Baby G and like now me and Baby G have our own
relationship too. I guess it was just extraordinary because I was, you know,
so effeminate and he's definitely much more masculine than I am, but we
never saw that in each other, we just saw each other, you know? It
never really came up, you know. Other people would bring it up, but we
never really brought it up. And I think that's what I appreciate about having a
(04:32):
younger brother who was just so confident in me being, his older brother.
When I was reading some of the articles that you'd written and some of the
that you're into, you said that, you know, even at age five, I knew something
was different. I was attracted much more to boys than girls. I was
very effeminate. Did you have anybody to talk to? Was your grandmother or anybody
there to help you sort of come to terms with that, or was that just
(04:53):
something you sort of had to compartmentalize on your own? I think it was
something I kinda had to figure out, you know, for myself because it wasn't like
I knew what was going on. Right? So it wasn't like I could just
fully verbalize what I was feeling in those
terms because I didn't really have the language yet to verbalize it.
But I do think that, like, my family could notice my mannerisms at that point
(05:15):
were a little bit more, as society would deem a
little bit more effeminate, a little bit more soft spoken, a little bit more
sassy at times, and so I think, you know, my family did
notice that, but they didn't try to, like, punish me for
just being what I was naturally being. And I think they realized
early on I wasn't trying to imitate anything. I was actually just being
(05:38):
myself. And so I do think that that helped because I do
know kids will get punished for not being
tough enough and boys don't cry and all of that stuff, but
we never had that. Like, it was always like an open space for us to
just actually be who we naturally were. You know, you talk about this
wonderful inclusive space being with your family and nanny and gee, but
(06:00):
when you walked out of that, even at age five, my
heart really went out to you. But the fact it wasn't so much you were
ostracized, it was violent bullying. How did it
feel like to walk out of a door where you felt comfort and confident that
you are who you are and there was a the thought authenticity was celebrated
and to suddenly have to go out there and even play act just to survive?
(06:22):
Yeah. It's just isolating, I think, is the best way to describe it. Because
even within your own family, if you don't have too many images of yourself, you
still tend to maybe isolate yourself a little bit or stick to your own.
So even though I'm super appreciative, because I did, you know, me and my
cousins used to hang out all the time, like, it was great, but I would
also run into, you know, just situations where I just didn't feel like I
(06:45):
fit in. And so, yeah, you tend to just kinda isolate yourself. It's like
you try to find little pockets of where you could fit in and little
pockets of happiness that you could sneak in. But it's tough. It's tough
because you're really just trying to navigate your safety in many ways at
that point. And you were violently attacked when you were five too. Right? I mean,
there was there was some physical abuse. Yeah. I mean, me and my cousins got
(07:07):
jumped. It's, like, hard to pinpoint, like, whether the attack was just because
of me being, like, effeminate or if this was because my cousins were older and
they had gotten to some beef earlier that day in school, and I just happened
to be a casualty of it. But, yeah, as a five year old, I definitely
experienced trauma that was really, really tough. I guess because
I've written a book and I've processed it so many times, I kinda understand,
(07:28):
you know, how life works and and things. But that can be tough for
those who are out there who have never had the, opportunity to process it, which
is why I talk about it, because I hope that people who do read it
can, you know, get the opportunity to process it themselves. How important is
writing? I've had people that have dealt with a lot of trauma in their childhood
and the ones that seem to find a way through it, not hide it, not
(07:49):
bury it, not surrender just to a therapist, but actually write about
it. They find that that's, you know, one of the great pathways to
coming to terms with it. Writing is therapeutic for me
to get it out, I guess, on paper and like, to be able to just
like release it from my body has been extremely
helpful. All avenues of how we have to deal with trauma
(08:11):
are necessary. For me, I do prefer to
write through it. It allows me to kind of read it and allows me to
kind of process it in a way that maybe I hadn't thought about.
And once I start writing it out, I start to maybe remember
other things, too, that, maybe I had just buried that really
needed to be said out loud. And so, yeah, I do think
(08:33):
writing is like a very healthy form. Journaling is a very healthy
form of like dealing with, you know, some of the anxieties from day to
day, honestly. The last thing about your youth that I used the word
code switching, the sense of hiding aspects of your identity.
How did that help you? And as you look back in your life, did it
help you just get through the day or is this something that helped you come
(08:55):
to terms with the fact that some people would judge you
without even really knowing what was inside you? I mean, I think code switching
in many ways, especially, just as a Black person, as
a Black queer person, I mean, I think we still have to do it throughout
life. I don't think it ever stops. I think we have to
navigate certain rules in certain spaces by, you know,
(09:17):
sometimes hiding certain parts of ourselves. And like I said, I don't think it always
comes out of a place of wanting to fit in as much as it comes
out of a place of wanting to be safe. And so I think, like, the
ability to do it has just been something about how
we've had to adapt to culture and society for us to survive it
in many ways. And so I did it as a child. There are still times
(09:37):
I do it today where I give public appearances and public speeches all the
time. I would love if I could just curse in all of my speeches.
Right? Because that's how I normally talk. I talk with curse words.
So when I'm doing public speeches, though, I have to switch. Our
ability to have to do that is a lifelong thing. Most
children, you just especially Black children, Black queer children, you adapt to it
(09:59):
really quickly. How do you learn what rooms you feel safer in
versus which ones you don't, and you move in a way according
to, I feel like, your safety. And interesting you talk about Virginia
Union University and how that was a place for not
coming out as much as is coming into who I really was.
Yeah. I think, you know, going to Virginia Union, one, you know,
(10:21):
it's a historically black college, so it put me right back in especially
after going to Catholic school for four years, then going right back into a
institution where it's 95% African
American and Black, you know, it was a beautiful experience
because I got to feel back at home again.
Even if I was queer, I still felt back at home because I was surrounded
(10:43):
by people who looked like me and went through similar
circumstances to myself. I think in going to Virginia Union though, that's
when I really started to meet other queer people. And
that was life changing for me because it was like, Oh, like,
we I'm not by myself anymore. And even if we were a even if
it wasn't a whole lot of us, it was more than I ever had in
(11:06):
New Jersey. And so, it was, again, I felt like at Union I was
constantly running into the things that I had been running away from. But
now, I had the opportunity to embrace those things in a way that,
I had lost. And so at Union is really when I
started to gain my, you know, queer identity as I,
started to date guys and, you know, go to
(11:30):
gay clubs, and, you know, after I turned 21 and go to my first pride
parade that summer and, like, all of those things happened while I
was, you know, in college or about to graduate from college. And how did you
change when you walked into your home? Because you said, yeah, it's a celebration, but
there was times I still even had to code switch at home. It was still
a little bit of play acting because I just didn't feel like I was ready
(11:50):
to, like, tell my family I was gay. So I think that was really the,
the main part of the acting. Like, I didn't have to, like, change how I
walked or how I talked or how I did anything. It just was more so
of, like, keeping part, a part of my life away from them.
And so, in Virginia, I would, you know, go to the gay clubs and do
everything, but in New Jersey, I wouldn't do that. Like, I would kind of just
stay home. Or if I went to New York City, to the city, I wouldn't
(12:13):
tell them I was going to hang with, like, a bunch of my gay friends
in the city, you know. And then I think I finally got to a place
where I felt comfortable and then I started like I was probably around like 25.
I started bringing like my gay friends home for like Christmas and
Thanksgiving or events and things of that nature. And so it just
started to blend my world with my family's world.
(12:35):
When we return, before I get to my three takeaways, George
talks about how he was able to turn his early life lessons and experiences
into a best selling book, which in turn saves lives
of others just like it saved him.
Hi. It's Tony Chapman. I wanna talk to you about the RBC
purpose framework. This is a bold commitment to make a meaningful
(12:58):
difference in our communities. By 2035, RBC will make
a philanthropic investment of $2,000,000,000 to support
community ideas that help seed, scale, and sustain solutions in
three key areas where RBC believes they can have equitable
(13:25):
opportunities for prosperity, including food security, housing stability,
health services, and financial well-being. When communities thrive, we
all prosper, and that matters to you, to me, and to
RBC.
When I thought about what all boys aren't blue had done, I feel like that's
the present, and it helps the future. But it's like sometimes we need to
(13:48):
go back to the past, retell those stories too,
because they give us a road map and they give us a blueprint of where
we are today and how we got here today. You don't have blackness without queerness.
You don't have queerness without blackness. They all go hand in hand
together. My guest today is George M Johnson. He's an American author. He's a
journalist. He's an activist. He identifies as a queer African
(14:09):
American, and he's best known as the author of the memoir manifesto,
All Boys, Art Bleu.
How did that come about, and how did it feel
when you suddenly put that out to the public world? It was tough
because we were in the pandemic. I oftentimes grapple with
what my actual excitement level was for when my book came out
(14:33):
because we were all stuck in the house. So it was not the
happiest moment, you know, it was a very hard
moment because I was, you know, hoping that the
book would get to anyone because we had no bookstores open at that
time. And fortunately, it did work, and people were able to get the
book and word-of-mouth spread about it. And to me
(14:55):
it just felt great to put this story in the world because I saw so
many people say that this was like the first time they felt reflected in a
book. That was all I wanted. I wanted to put a
story out there that, you know, could talk to the 14, 15 year old me
that needed a book that was like this to help them navigate,
their way through life. And that's been the most beautiful thing about it. You
(15:16):
write flamboyance and it's almost like now you've
become, and I mean this with passion, a crusader.
I told you my story, but there's a lot more stories that need to be
told. Tell me about what made you shift from, I'm gonna just
share my story to now becoming a curator and an
amplifier of others. It got to a place where I was, like,
(15:38):
realizing that people, younger people,
you know, were, like, we've we have a hero in you. Like, you know,
and they were, like, this is so cool. Like, we get to meet you, we
get to talk to you, we read about your life, and you help us so
much, and you're like a hero to us, and I was like, Well, who
was the heroes to me? Like, who were my heroes? And then it like, some
(15:58):
of these people that I'm researchin', I didn't know they were queer, and so it
it kinda started to spark the idea of, like, how do
we go back in time and tell these stories of our, queer
ancestors who have either been whitewashed or have either
just not been told at all, in the proper light. Pay homage
to the totality of who they were as people while also
(16:21):
giving their stories to a new generation of people. I do want people
to see, you know, me as someone that is fighting to put our
culture out there and all of those things, but I also want them to be
able to know that Marsha P. Johnson was a role model too, and,
Gladys Bentley and, you know, James Baldwin and,
you know, Richard Bruce Newjay, like all of these people also existed too, and,
(16:43):
like, less, like the more y'all learn about them, the more you'll in turn learn
about yourself and learn about the fact that you have like history and legacy
here. So like you're not some anomaly that's happening like that we've always
existed here. The easy way would have been a, a sort of a
historical piece. You combine poetry and essays and these
beautiful illustrations to bring it to life. And it was
(17:04):
almost counter what I'd call this multimedia
TikTok world that you brought it back to almost like what I would have found
if I was a historian looking a hundred years ago. Yeah. That was a very
active choice. I didn't want it to just be about the
Harlem Renaissance. I wanted it to be the Harlem Renaissance. And so I wanted a
person to feel fully submersed in the Harlem Renaissance. And that's why even the
(17:26):
audiobook has music from several of the people that are
profiled because it was like, I need you to feel like this is Harlem.
And The New Negro by Alain Locke, you know, it did the same
thing. It was combining many of these same things. And it's like, if I'm gonna
do a text about the Harlem Renaissance, then it needs to really
feel like the Harlem Renaissance. And I want you to be wowed by the
(17:48):
color of it and the flamboyance of it and all of the things that,
made the Harlem Renaissance what it was, which was poetry and essays
and personal, reflection and, you
know, illustrations. And so, it all just came together
really nicely, which I'm super excited for because sometimes
these things come in my head and I'm like, I could see it in my
(18:11):
head. I don't know how we turned it into a book. You've become this
positive force. I mean, they're calling you a hero, you're a crusader, you're opening
people's eyes, but you're still running into a very thick wall. I call
ignorance up there. I mean, people are trying to ban the book. How do you
come to terms with that? Is this just something that that you can say
over time, it can change if we keep elevating these stories and
(18:34):
celebrating them, Or do you just come to the realization that they're in that castle
and they'll never lower a drawbridge and who cares because the rest of the
world is worth celebrating? Yeah. I always say it's not my job to
always erase the ignorance of others and it's definitely not my job to erase
the ignorance of an oppressor. It is the job of those
who sit across from Thanksgiving tables and think that it's okay that we can
(18:56):
sit across from this table even if we have differing opinions that could kill
someone. Like, that's a problem. It is your job to do
that. It is your job to get your cousins and your aunts and your uncles
who think that book banning is okay when you know it's not
okay to understand why, right? That can't be the
job of the writer, and it can't be the job of the librarian, and it
(19:17):
can't be and kids shouldn't have to become activists to
fight for their own rights because one parent has an issue with a book
that their child probably doesn't have an issue with, because that's actually what we run
into the most, is that the kids do not have issues with these books. It
is the parents. I've just had to, like, going through this journey
realize, one, they're not reading the books, so you can't, like, you can't
(19:38):
fight that type of fight with a person who's never even read the book. So
this is like an ideological war, so you have to fight it from that standpoint,
and what you have to realize is sometimes that ideology
shifts, but these people, they throw, like, noodles at a
refrigerator, tryna see what sticks. And I feel like with book
bans, it's interesting because it's like, what we're seeing is,
(20:00):
like, the same books are getting banned but we know more books are coming out
every year so how are you keeping up with the
new queer books that come out every single year and the new
Black books that come out every single year and the new Latinx books that come
out, like, y'all not y'all your mission makes no sense because y'all have no actual
system of keeping up with how many new texts are still coming out that are
(20:22):
gonna be available to teens every year with the same topic that you keep the
same 10 books attacking. Right? Because the and so
I feel personally, like, we're winning in that regards
because I have a new book out that introduces 14 more queer
people into the world to young adults, you know? So unless
they catch it, like, are you going to ban it? Do you even know it
(20:44):
exists? You know, you're based in LA and you're, you know, you would argue
that American content is the dominant culture around the
world. As a Canadian, I'm always fascinated to know how does
that exist in your country when what I see from the outside
in is, oh, I'm a diehard Republican, a diehard Democrat.
How do you find a place in that says that we can still
(21:06):
create this without it driving you crazy? Because to me, it's like these
opposing forces. I, I don't understand how America could produce such
content, such books like yours, and yet have that mentality even at the
dining room table. There are just so many factions
of each of the binary parties where it's like,
there's a huge swath where you wouldn't
(21:29):
be able to tell if they're a Democrat or a Republican. Even though they
may have chosen a party, it's like, there's no, like,
monolith to it. And so it's like, you have the far left and then you
got the model right and then you have Republicans who are now like, Look, I'm
voting for the other party, right? Like, it can be daunting because
it's like you don't know what people really feel, and I kinda talked
(21:51):
about this the other day, how, like, some people
are like, I don't think books should be banned, but I also
wouldn't let my child read your book. Right? That's a interesting
person that you're dealing with, and I find myself dealing with a
lot of those people. You feel
like the right to have the choice for the book should exist, but I also
(22:14):
wouldn't let my child read that book. I don't know, there's a belief that children
can't deal with heavy topics. I was a teenager
when nineeleven happened. You're afraid of your child reading about a
book about war and about death and about the it's like we live through
it. We're watching we watch it happen. You don't want your child, you know,
to read about a book about reproductive health or that has sex in it,
(22:37):
and it's like your your child, your daughter just lost her
rights with Roe v Wade two years ago. She needs to be able to
read books about this. No, the heavy topics are
happening to them right now. They need these books.
What do you bring to an audience that when you walk away or that somebody
comes up at the end of it and looks you in the eye, not just
(22:59):
there to sign your book, but looks you in the eye and says, you said
this and it mattered. What do they say to you? Parents walk up to me
and they'll instantly start crying because of how the book
helped change their child's life. I've had people say that the book
saved their lives. People come up to me and
have me sign their book in their chosen name. Seeing me,
(23:21):
actually seeing me and talking through the things
gave them enough courage and confidence to say, I finally wanna change my name.
I've gotten letters of, you know, kids who
decided to, you know, live in their new identities,
and parents thanking me, and teachers thanking me, and librarians thanking
(23:42):
me, because they're like, I had there was a quiet kid in my class, and
I couldn't reach him, and they saw your book on the shelf, and all of
a sudden, it's a brand new person. There are a lot of heartbreaking stories
because there are a lot of parents who are just trying to protect their queer
kids. But what they appreciate the most is, like, that
somebody out there is just fighting for them as hard as I'm fighting for them.
(24:02):
And for me, I'm I'm just forever grateful for to be able to do
that work. My last question to you is where do you take the fight next?
For me, what's most important is the expansion,
of the work into TV and film,
into other mediums, whether it's podcast. I think that's
how you get beyond this is making it so
(24:25):
accessible that you can't block it. Right? So it's like,
okay, you banned the book, but there's a podcast that they can listen to about
the book. Okay. You banned the book, but we did a mini series about it,
or we made a movie about it or we made this about right like creating
as many avenues to tell these stories is just as important as telling
the story in and of itself. That's what my fight becomes it's as
(24:47):
I continue to write these stories also finding newer ways
to tell these stories that, create more access
points for those who need to hear it. I'll always end with my three
things. I'll just say the first thing I love is strength in numbers. Like, no
matter what they're gonna do, there's more books, there's more stories, there's gonna be
multi image. We're gonna release an onslaught of content and
(25:08):
creativity that moves people and opens their minds. I love that,
strength in numbers because at one time in your life, you didn't have the strength
in numbers. I think instead of running from running into, it's such
a beautiful way of describing, instead of coming out,
like all of a sudden, okay, I'm different. You're saying, no, it's not about, am
I different? It's about who I am, why I matter. And I think
(25:30):
it's just such a great insight for people because everybody seems to
struggle with what is just human nature. And the last thing that, you
know, you talk about who are my heroes, whether it was gee or
nanny or someone else in there, but somewhere in your life along the way,
pass the torch to you and probably some people looking down in the heavens
saying, keep going, man, because you're not afraid to,
(25:52):
to have these conversations like your nan wasn't afraid to go to the casino.
So for all that and more, you know, I just really appreciate you joining me
in Chatter the Matters. Yes. Thank you. Once
again, a special thanks to RBC for supporting Chata that matters.
It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening, and let's chat soon.
I was never the fastest, funniest, the tallest,
and certainly not the best looking, but I always fit in. I
had a gang that sort of we teased each other but never bullied each
other. So I don't know what it's like to be
ostracized, to be attacked by somebody who feels they have strength
in numbers because they think they're the the normal and
(00:28):
you're the abnormal. What it's like to be a five year old
and and have your teeth kicked in
and what you do to carry that forward in life. I once was a
teenager who didn't feel seen in the world, who didn't feel like I had
any life
experience, and didn't give me the resources
(00:52):
or any type of guidance on how I was going to navigate young adulthood
as I went into adulthood as a black queer person. My guest today
is George M Johnson. He's an award winning black non binary
writer, author, and executive producer. With his brother, he wrote
the New York Times best selling All Boys Aren't Blue, discussing their
adolescence growing up as a young black queer boy in New Jersey. My book does
(01:15):
not introduce them to these things. It is reinforcing them
with the knowledge and the tools as they are already dealing with these
things such as racism and anti blackness and homophobia.
As a former journalist, George knows how to put words to paper.
It's written for Teen Vogue Entertainment Tonight, NBC BuzzFeed, and
he's recognized. Salute to Excellence Award by the National Association
(01:37):
of Black Journalists, hundred most influential of African
Americans in 2020, and he's honored as one of TIME one hundred's next
most influential people in the world.
Hi. It's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter That Matters presented
(01:58):
by RBC. If you can, please subscribe to the podcast. And
ratings and reviews, well, they're always welcome, and they're always appreciated.
George M Johnson, welcome to Chatter That Matters. Thank you.
I wanna begin by just taking me back to, you know,
10/31/1985. So you're born on
(02:20):
Halloween? Yeah. You talk a lot about your supportive family,
and more than once you mentioned nanny. Yeah. You know, she was
my grandmother, from Spartanburg, South Carolina.
You know, even though we lived in New Jersey, she kept much of
our southern roots and southern traditions live through, you know,
the foods that we cooked, her accent, just,
(02:43):
some of the colloquialisms and her wisdoms that she used to teach us.
Although she was, like, an older grandmother, she was a cool grandmother. Like, she liked
to do fun things. She would take us on vacations, and she she
actually liked hanging out with us, playing cards with
us, and gambling with us, and going to the casino, and just
so you, like, you had, like, this fun side to her, but she also was
(03:05):
very, you know, powerful in the ways in which she wanted
us to focus on our education and kinda raised us all
together like we were like a tribe in a sense, so that we
all learned how to, you know, protect one another and cover each other.
But she just had, like, this emotional capacity for
anything. There wasn't a problem that you could be having that she,
(03:27):
you know, you couldn't turn to her and talk about. I wonder if she's with
you now. She would say, and I stayed so
young because of having you and your brother,
Garrett in her life in the sense that just feeding off each other. And you
talk about us, and then obviously Garrett's played a major role in your
life as well. So tell me a little bit about your younger brother. Yeah. You
(03:48):
know, we grew up really close. We're only three years apart. We
also went to college together. And in many ways, we're, like, more than best
friends. I'm, like, we're already siblings, but it's, like, we just get each other and
know each other inside and out because, you know, we really, really grew up very,
very close to one another. And now Gee
has a child called baby Gee, and now I'm extremely
(04:10):
close with Baby G and like now me and Baby G have our own
relationship too. I guess it was just extraordinary because I was, you know,
so effeminate and he's definitely much more masculine than I am, but we
never saw that in each other, we just saw each other, you know? It
never really came up, you know. Other people would bring it up, but we
never really brought it up. And I think that's what I appreciate about having a
(04:32):
younger brother who was just so confident in me being, his older brother.
When I was reading some of the articles that you'd written and some of the
that you're into, you said that, you know, even at age five, I knew something
was different. I was attracted much more to boys than girls. I was
very effeminate. Did you have anybody to talk to? Was your grandmother or anybody
there to help you sort of come to terms with that, or was that just
(04:53):
something you sort of had to compartmentalize on your own? I think it was
something I kinda had to figure out, you know, for myself because it wasn't like
I knew what was going on. Right? So it wasn't like I could just
fully verbalize what I was feeling in those
terms because I didn't really have the language yet to verbalize it.
But I do think that, like, my family could notice my mannerisms at that point
(05:15):
were a little bit more, as society would deem a
little bit more effeminate, a little bit more soft spoken, a little bit more
sassy at times, and so I think, you know, my family did
notice that, but they didn't try to, like, punish me for
just being what I was naturally being. And I think they realized
early on I wasn't trying to imitate anything. I was actually just being
(05:38):
myself. And so I do think that that helped because I do
know kids will get punished for not being
tough enough and boys don't cry and all of that stuff, but
we never had that. Like, it was always like an open space for us to
just actually be who we naturally were. You know, you talk about this
wonderful inclusive space being with your family and nanny and gee, but
(06:00):
when you walked out of that, even at age five, my
heart really went out to you. But the fact it wasn't so much you were
ostracized, it was violent bullying. How did it
feel like to walk out of a door where you felt comfort and confident that
you are who you are and there was a the thought authenticity was celebrated
and to suddenly have to go out there and even play act just to survive?
(06:22):
Yeah. It's just isolating, I think, is the best way to describe it. Because
even within your own family, if you don't have too many images of yourself, you
still tend to maybe isolate yourself a little bit or stick to your own.
So even though I'm super appreciative, because I did, you know, me and my
cousins used to hang out all the time, like, it was great, but I would
also run into, you know, just situations where I just didn't feel like I
(06:45):
fit in. And so, yeah, you tend to just kinda isolate yourself. It's like
you try to find little pockets of where you could fit in and little
pockets of happiness that you could sneak in. But it's tough. It's tough
because you're really just trying to navigate your safety in many ways at
that point. And you were violently attacked when you were five too. Right? I mean,
there was there was some physical abuse. Yeah. I mean, me and my cousins got
(07:07):
jumped. It's, like, hard to pinpoint, like, whether the attack was just because
of me being, like, effeminate or if this was because my cousins were older and
they had gotten to some beef earlier that day in school, and I just happened
to be a casualty of it. But, yeah, as a five year old, I definitely
experienced trauma that was really, really tough. I guess because
I've written a book and I've processed it so many times, I kinda understand,
(07:28):
you know, how life works and and things. But that can be tough for
those who are out there who have never had the, opportunity to process it, which
is why I talk about it, because I hope that people who do read it
can, you know, get the opportunity to process it themselves. How important is
writing? I've had people that have dealt with a lot of trauma in their childhood
and the ones that seem to find a way through it, not hide it, not
(07:49):
bury it, not surrender just to a therapist, but actually write about
it. They find that that's, you know, one of the great pathways to
coming to terms with it. Writing is therapeutic for me
to get it out, I guess, on paper and like, to be able to just
like release it from my body has been extremely
helpful. All avenues of how we have to deal with trauma
(08:11):
are necessary. For me, I do prefer to
write through it. It allows me to kind of read it and allows me to
kind of process it in a way that maybe I hadn't thought about.
And once I start writing it out, I start to maybe remember
other things, too, that, maybe I had just buried that really
needed to be said out loud. And so, yeah, I do think
(08:33):
writing is like a very healthy form. Journaling is a very healthy
form of like dealing with, you know, some of the anxieties from day to
day, honestly. The last thing about your youth that I used the word
code switching, the sense of hiding aspects of your identity.
How did that help you? And as you look back in your life, did it
help you just get through the day or is this something that helped you come
(08:55):
to terms with the fact that some people would judge you
without even really knowing what was inside you? I mean, I think code switching
in many ways, especially, just as a Black person, as
a Black queer person, I mean, I think we still have to do it throughout
life. I don't think it ever stops. I think we have to
navigate certain rules in certain spaces by, you know,
(09:17):
sometimes hiding certain parts of ourselves. And like I said, I don't think it always
comes out of a place of wanting to fit in as much as it comes
out of a place of wanting to be safe. And so I think, like, the
ability to do it has just been something about how
we've had to adapt to culture and society for us to survive it
in many ways. And so I did it as a child. There are still times
(09:37):
I do it today where I give public appearances and public speeches all the
time. I would love if I could just curse in all of my speeches.
Right? Because that's how I normally talk. I talk with curse words.
So when I'm doing public speeches, though, I have to switch. Our
ability to have to do that is a lifelong thing. Most
children, you just especially Black children, Black queer children, you adapt to it
(09:59):
really quickly. How do you learn what rooms you feel safer in
versus which ones you don't, and you move in a way according
to, I feel like, your safety. And interesting you talk about Virginia
Union University and how that was a place for not
coming out as much as is coming into who I really was.
Yeah. I think, you know, going to Virginia Union, one, you know,
(10:21):
it's a historically black college, so it put me right back in especially
after going to Catholic school for four years, then going right back into a
institution where it's 95% African
American and Black, you know, it was a beautiful experience
because I got to feel back at home again.
Even if I was queer, I still felt back at home because I was surrounded
(10:43):
by people who looked like me and went through similar
circumstances to myself. I think in going to Virginia Union though, that's
when I really started to meet other queer people. And
that was life changing for me because it was like, Oh, like,
we I'm not by myself anymore. And even if we were a even if
it wasn't a whole lot of us, it was more than I ever had in
(11:06):
New Jersey. And so, it was, again, I felt like at Union I was
constantly running into the things that I had been running away from. But
now, I had the opportunity to embrace those things in a way that,
I had lost. And so at Union is really when I
started to gain my, you know, queer identity as I,
started to date guys and, you know, go to
(11:30):
gay clubs, and, you know, after I turned 21 and go to my first pride
parade that summer and, like, all of those things happened while I
was, you know, in college or about to graduate from college. And how did you
change when you walked into your home? Because you said, yeah, it's a celebration, but
there was times I still even had to code switch at home. It was still
a little bit of play acting because I just didn't feel like I was ready
(11:50):
to, like, tell my family I was gay. So I think that was really the,
the main part of the acting. Like, I didn't have to, like, change how I
walked or how I talked or how I did anything. It just was more so
of, like, keeping part, a part of my life away from them.
And so, in Virginia, I would, you know, go to the gay clubs and do
everything, but in New Jersey, I wouldn't do that. Like, I would kind of just
stay home. Or if I went to New York City, to the city, I wouldn't
(12:13):
tell them I was going to hang with, like, a bunch of my gay friends
in the city, you know. And then I think I finally got to a place
where I felt comfortable and then I started like I was probably around like 25.
I started bringing like my gay friends home for like Christmas and
Thanksgiving or events and things of that nature. And so it just
started to blend my world with my family's world.
(12:35):
When we return, before I get to my three takeaways, George
talks about how he was able to turn his early life lessons and experiences
into a best selling book, which in turn saves lives
of others just like it saved him.
Hi. It's Tony Chapman. I wanna talk to you about the RBC
purpose framework. This is a bold commitment to make a meaningful
(12:58):
difference in our communities. By 2035, RBC will make
a philanthropic investment of $2,000,000,000 to support
community ideas that help seed, scale, and sustain solutions in
three key areas where RBC believes they can have equitable
(13:25):
opportunities for prosperity, including food security, housing stability,
health services, and financial well-being. When communities thrive, we
all prosper, and that matters to you, to me, and to
RBC.
When I thought about what all boys aren't blue had done, I feel like that's
the present, and it helps the future. But it's like sometimes we need to
(13:48):
go back to the past, retell those stories too,
because they give us a road map and they give us a blueprint of where
we are today and how we got here today. You don't have blackness without queerness.
You don't have queerness without blackness. They all go hand in hand
together. My guest today is George M Johnson. He's an American author. He's a
journalist. He's an activist. He identifies as a queer African
(14:09):
American, and he's best known as the author of the memoir manifesto,
All Boys, Art Bleu.
How did that come about, and how did it feel
when you suddenly put that out to the public world? It was tough
because we were in the pandemic. I oftentimes grapple with
what my actual excitement level was for when my book came out
(14:33):
because we were all stuck in the house. So it was not the
happiest moment, you know, it was a very hard
moment because I was, you know, hoping that the
book would get to anyone because we had no bookstores open at that
time. And fortunately, it did work, and people were able to get the
book and word-of-mouth spread about it. And to me
(14:55):
it just felt great to put this story in the world because I saw so
many people say that this was like the first time they felt reflected in a
book. That was all I wanted. I wanted to put a
story out there that, you know, could talk to the 14, 15 year old me
that needed a book that was like this to help them navigate,
their way through life. And that's been the most beautiful thing about it. You
(15:16):
write flamboyance and it's almost like now you've
become, and I mean this with passion, a crusader.
I told you my story, but there's a lot more stories that need to be
told. Tell me about what made you shift from, I'm gonna just
share my story to now becoming a curator and an
amplifier of others. It got to a place where I was, like,
(15:38):
realizing that people, younger people,
you know, were, like, we've we have a hero in you. Like, you know,
and they were, like, this is so cool. Like, we get to meet you, we
get to talk to you, we read about your life, and you help us so
much, and you're like a hero to us, and I was like, Well, who
was the heroes to me? Like, who were my heroes? And then it like, some
(15:58):
of these people that I'm researchin', I didn't know they were queer, and so it
it kinda started to spark the idea of, like, how do
we go back in time and tell these stories of our, queer
ancestors who have either been whitewashed or have either
just not been told at all, in the proper light. Pay homage
to the totality of who they were as people while also
(16:21):
giving their stories to a new generation of people. I do want people
to see, you know, me as someone that is fighting to put our
culture out there and all of those things, but I also want them to be
able to know that Marsha P. Johnson was a role model too, and,
Gladys Bentley and, you know, James Baldwin and,
you know, Richard Bruce Newjay, like all of these people also existed too, and,
(16:43):
like, less, like the more y'all learn about them, the more you'll in turn learn
about yourself and learn about the fact that you have like history and legacy
here. So like you're not some anomaly that's happening like that we've always
existed here. The easy way would have been a, a sort of a
historical piece. You combine poetry and essays and these
beautiful illustrations to bring it to life. And it was
(17:04):
almost counter what I'd call this multimedia
TikTok world that you brought it back to almost like what I would have found
if I was a historian looking a hundred years ago. Yeah. That was a very
active choice. I didn't want it to just be about the
Harlem Renaissance. I wanted it to be the Harlem Renaissance. And so I wanted a
person to feel fully submersed in the Harlem Renaissance. And that's why even the
(17:26):
audiobook has music from several of the people that are
profiled because it was like, I need you to feel like this is Harlem.
And The New Negro by Alain Locke, you know, it did the same
thing. It was combining many of these same things. And it's like, if I'm gonna
do a text about the Harlem Renaissance, then it needs to really
feel like the Harlem Renaissance. And I want you to be wowed by the
(17:48):
color of it and the flamboyance of it and all of the things that,
made the Harlem Renaissance what it was, which was poetry and essays
and personal, reflection and, you
know, illustrations. And so, it all just came together
really nicely, which I'm super excited for because sometimes
these things come in my head and I'm like, I could see it in my
(18:11):
head. I don't know how we turned it into a book. You've become this
positive force. I mean, they're calling you a hero, you're a crusader, you're opening
people's eyes, but you're still running into a very thick wall. I call
ignorance up there. I mean, people are trying to ban the book. How do you
come to terms with that? Is this just something that that you can say
over time, it can change if we keep elevating these stories and
(18:34):
celebrating them, Or do you just come to the realization that they're in that castle
and they'll never lower a drawbridge and who cares because the rest of the
world is worth celebrating? Yeah. I always say it's not my job to
always erase the ignorance of others and it's definitely not my job to erase
the ignorance of an oppressor. It is the job of those
who sit across from Thanksgiving tables and think that it's okay that we can
(18:56):
sit across from this table even if we have differing opinions that could kill
someone. Like, that's a problem. It is your job to do
that. It is your job to get your cousins and your aunts and your uncles
who think that book banning is okay when you know it's not
okay to understand why, right? That can't be the
job of the writer, and it can't be the job of the librarian, and it
(19:17):
can't be and kids shouldn't have to become activists to
fight for their own rights because one parent has an issue with a book
that their child probably doesn't have an issue with, because that's actually what we run
into the most, is that the kids do not have issues with these books. It
is the parents. I've just had to, like, going through this journey
realize, one, they're not reading the books, so you can't, like, you can't
(19:38):
fight that type of fight with a person who's never even read the book. So
this is like an ideological war, so you have to fight it from that standpoint,
and what you have to realize is sometimes that ideology
shifts, but these people, they throw, like, noodles at a
refrigerator, tryna see what sticks. And I feel like with book
bans, it's interesting because it's like, what we're seeing is,
(20:00):
like, the same books are getting banned but we know more books are coming out
every year so how are you keeping up with the
new queer books that come out every single year and the new
Black books that come out every single year and the new Latinx books that come
out, like, y'all not y'all your mission makes no sense because y'all have no actual
system of keeping up with how many new texts are still coming out that are
(20:22):
gonna be available to teens every year with the same topic that you keep the
same 10 books attacking. Right? Because the and so
I feel personally, like, we're winning in that regards
because I have a new book out that introduces 14 more queer
people into the world to young adults, you know? So unless
they catch it, like, are you going to ban it? Do you even know it
(20:44):
exists? You know, you're based in LA and you're, you know, you would argue
that American content is the dominant culture around the
world. As a Canadian, I'm always fascinated to know how does
that exist in your country when what I see from the outside
in is, oh, I'm a diehard Republican, a diehard Democrat.
How do you find a place in that says that we can still
(21:06):
create this without it driving you crazy? Because to me, it's like these
opposing forces. I, I don't understand how America could produce such
content, such books like yours, and yet have that mentality even at the
dining room table. There are just so many factions
of each of the binary parties where it's like,
there's a huge swath where you wouldn't
(21:29):
be able to tell if they're a Democrat or a Republican. Even though they
may have chosen a party, it's like, there's no, like,
monolith to it. And so it's like, you have the far left and then you
got the model right and then you have Republicans who are now like, Look, I'm
voting for the other party, right? Like, it can be daunting because
it's like you don't know what people really feel, and I kinda talked
(21:51):
about this the other day, how, like, some people
are like, I don't think books should be banned, but I also
wouldn't let my child read your book. Right? That's a interesting
person that you're dealing with, and I find myself dealing with a
lot of those people. You feel
like the right to have the choice for the book should exist, but I also
(22:14):
wouldn't let my child read that book. I don't know, there's a belief that children
can't deal with heavy topics. I was a teenager
when nineeleven happened. You're afraid of your child reading about a
book about war and about death and about the it's like we live through
it. We're watching we watch it happen. You don't want your child, you know,
to read about a book about reproductive health or that has sex in it,
(22:37):
and it's like your your child, your daughter just lost her
rights with Roe v Wade two years ago. She needs to be able to
read books about this. No, the heavy topics are
happening to them right now. They need these books.
What do you bring to an audience that when you walk away or that somebody
comes up at the end of it and looks you in the eye, not just
(22:59):
there to sign your book, but looks you in the eye and says, you said
this and it mattered. What do they say to you? Parents walk up to me
and they'll instantly start crying because of how the book
helped change their child's life. I've had people say that the book
saved their lives. People come up to me and
have me sign their book in their chosen name. Seeing me,
(23:21):
actually seeing me and talking through the things
gave them enough courage and confidence to say, I finally wanna change my name.
I've gotten letters of, you know, kids who
decided to, you know, live in their new identities,
and parents thanking me, and teachers thanking me, and librarians thanking
(23:42):
me, because they're like, I had there was a quiet kid in my class, and
I couldn't reach him, and they saw your book on the shelf, and all of
a sudden, it's a brand new person. There are a lot of heartbreaking stories
because there are a lot of parents who are just trying to protect their queer
kids. But what they appreciate the most is, like, that
somebody out there is just fighting for them as hard as I'm fighting for them.
(24:02):
And for me, I'm I'm just forever grateful for to be able to do
that work. My last question to you is where do you take the fight next?
For me, what's most important is the expansion,
of the work into TV and film,
into other mediums, whether it's podcast. I think that's
how you get beyond this is making it so
(24:25):
accessible that you can't block it. Right? So it's like,
okay, you banned the book, but there's a podcast that they can listen to about
the book. Okay. You banned the book, but we did a mini series about it,
or we made a movie about it or we made this about right like creating
as many avenues to tell these stories is just as important as telling
the story in and of itself. That's what my fight becomes it's as
(24:47):
I continue to write these stories also finding newer ways
to tell these stories that, create more access
points for those who need to hear it. I'll always end with my three
things. I'll just say the first thing I love is strength in numbers. Like, no
matter what they're gonna do, there's more books, there's more stories, there's gonna be
multi image. We're gonna release an onslaught of content and
(25:08):
creativity that moves people and opens their minds. I love that,
strength in numbers because at one time in your life, you didn't have the strength
in numbers. I think instead of running from running into, it's such
a beautiful way of describing, instead of coming out,
like all of a sudden, okay, I'm different. You're saying, no, it's not about, am
I different? It's about who I am, why I matter. And I think
(25:30):
it's just such a great insight for people because everybody seems to
struggle with what is just human nature. And the last thing that, you
know, you talk about who are my heroes, whether it was gee or
nanny or someone else in there, but somewhere in your life along the way,
pass the torch to you and probably some people looking down in the heavens
saying, keep going, man, because you're not afraid to,
(25:52):
to have these conversations like your nan wasn't afraid to go to the casino.
So for all that and more, you know, I just really appreciate you joining me
in Chatter the Matters. Yes. Thank you. Once
again, a special thanks to RBC for supporting Chata that matters.
It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening, and let's chat soon.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com