January 17, 2023 • 41 mins
Author, Faitth Brooks, is joining us in the HER living room this week to talk about her new book, Remember Me Now: A Journey Back to Myself and a Love Letter to Black Women! Listen in as Faitth and I talk about her favorite snack, her favorite Black girl hair style, and how the ways she has learned to care for herself.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Before we get into this week's episode, please
note that this episode contains a brief mention of sexual assault.
If this topic may be triggering for you, please take
care of yourself by listening with caution or simply putting
this episode aside for another time. Hey, everybody, Welcome back
(00:40):
to a new year and a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And I'm so excited because we are
bringing writer, speaker, social worker, activist, co host of Melanated Faith,
and author of Remember Me Now, a Journey back to
Myself and a love letter to Black women, Faith Brooks. Yes,
it's in the living room. Yes, Faith that you can
(01:03):
autist applies can autist applause. I'm applied like it's like
a d M here, please, y'all. I'm just so excited
to have Faith in our living room with us because
she's my friend, she's been here before. We have talked
about internet friends here, but also because Faith Brooks is
a wonderful writer. I've been in her life long enough
(01:26):
to remember when she was like it is my dream.
That's a part of my dream. I'm going to write
books and to see this book out right now, Faith,
I feel the feelings do you feel the feelings thinking
about I feel a lot of feelings. Oh my god.
When we first met, I was talking to you and
it was just this dream I had. I had no
(01:47):
idea how it was going to happen. And actually that
year that we met, I spent that summer working on
a book proposal. You had helped me, you sent me yours,
and every time I would just kind of go to
try to finish it, I just didn't get to finish it.
Like it just wasn't it wasn't flowing, you know. And
(02:10):
it wasn't until three years later that I, you know,
got an agent, and then the next year, in year four,
started writing the book. So really crazy. Okay, I want
to talk about this because I have a lot of
things I want to talk about regarding the book. It's
it's emotional any time as a black woman you're reading
(02:31):
a book that another black woman is writing to you.
You know, she's writing two other black women, which is
very central to your book. So that's always emotional. And
then you add the layer of like this is my
friend and I'm just listen to her voice. You know,
there's so many feelings. Okay, this is the first question
I want to know. Do you remember when the idea
(02:53):
or the form for this book, because we are going
to talk a little bit more about the forum in
a minute. But sometimes the form and the idea don't
come together. So did they come together or separately? And
how did both ideas form an idea for the book
come to you? Yeah, so in two thousand and seventeen,
(03:13):
I had the idea for elements of this book, and
so I wanted to talk about my life. I wanted
it to be memoir style, but I had a different
approach to it, and um, when it came down to
beginning to put this book proposal together, I took elements
(03:34):
from what I had started, and just because of where
I was at in life, my vantage point was different.
Which you know, this is something I've learned, is like time,
sometimes neat things to marinate. So the core about wanting
to share elements of my life and my story always remaine.
And there's some chapters that I actually had from the
(03:55):
original you know, thought that kind of evolved. So everything
evolved when I put together in two thousand and seventeen
the initial idea, but what it grew into, UM was
really shaped and formed by my experience in that and
one years um of my life, I knew I wanted
(04:16):
to have a book that kind of encapsulated the past
like ten years, like the twenties, if you will, because
I didn't feel like I read books by other black women,
especially in like faith adjacent spaces that had to do
with our life and our becoming that just wasn't very popular.
It was all about like how to become a woman
(04:38):
of God, you know, or whatever that might look like,
or how to you know, like how to Thrive or
that other book how to be a Badass, like and
I really wanted a book where it was like, this
is just like my life and my story because I
feel like far too often we as black women have
to stuff that down, and I wanted to write something
(04:58):
that kind of like open that space up for us
to speak. M hmmm, I love that. I love that.
I want to talk about the form of this book,
because you're using one of my favorite things to read,
which is epistolary or letter form, and we're going to
talk about some black girl and black woman books that
you love here in a minute. But of course I
(05:21):
have to bring the color purple into the chat because
there's something so foundational about the words that black women
right to each other. That your book is very centered
on this theme of sisterhood among black women. So as
soon as I got into that letter portion and how
that keeps coming back so consistently in the book, I
(05:44):
just love that because my first exposure to that, especially
when you're thinking about black women writing to black women,
I mean those of us who grew up in Christian
homes or grew up in the Christian religion, we have
had the experience of thinking about the letter form that's
used in the Bible as a scriptural text, but thinking
about black women writing to each other the color purple
was my first time, you know, reading these sisters writing
(06:08):
back and forth and you're watching how their lives are
shifting and changing in time. So what made you want
to say this is a letter? And I don't. I'm
not just you know, calling it a letter. It is
literally a letter, many letters inside this book to black
women at various stages of life. What made that form
(06:28):
seem like that's what that book wants to be. Yeah,
So it was kind of an evolution of sorts for
how I got to the letters. But I will say
never discount where you start, I had a blog called
Lyrics and Letters for a while because I love music
and I would write songs, and that's kind of where
(06:50):
like my poetry band kind of, you know, comes from.
I wrote a lot of songs and poetry when I
was younger, and um, I called it Lyrics Letters because
I felt like my blogs and what I was sharing
was like letters to people. And so I've always been like,
had this kind of fascination with like being personable and
(07:10):
connecting with people on a personal level. And so that's
where the letters, you know, really kind of came from
within me. But then also as the book evolved, Originally
I was going to make it pretty general in the
sense that I wanted to talk to black women, but
I was going to have a you know chapter that
actually like addressed some like misconceptions about black women. And
(07:31):
I felt like, you know what, like if this is
two black women, I only want to talk to black women.
And so I had to make a shift. So I
actually shifted. Um, after my book was kind of like
accepted and everything, I was like, I'm changing and changing something,
and I was thankful to have a really great publisher
that was okay with that. That was okay with me
changing um and actually being able to, you know, share
(07:55):
what I felt like I wanted to share, which was
I want to narrow in on my audience and aybody
can read this book, we know that, but I want
to write specifically to black women. And that changed everything
for me. It made the book more free flowing, and
what I was writing I had more direction because I
knew exactly who I was talking to and I didn't
have to go back and forth between talking to black
(08:17):
women and then I'm not talking to black women. Um,
I only wanted to talk to black women, and so
that made the letters, the poetry, everything come to life.
And I got really specific about what I wanted in
the book. I wanted to have my own poetry. I
love the idea of having quotes from other, you know, artists,
but I said, you know what, I want to write
(08:38):
my own poetry. And as I was writing, the words
just came. And then I found other words that I
had written before. And so I had been writing pieces
of this book for over ten years. There's some elements
of this book I had written in different places, and um,
it's kind of just like this culmination, and it really
(08:59):
does remind me that like nothing is wasted because there's
so many words on pages. I would have thought, oh,
I'm never going to use that, and that poetry made
it the book, you know. So it's been pretty cool
to see how all the words from um, all the
different years kind of came together. Oh I love that.
I love that. And there's something so personal, you know,
(09:19):
to having the form of letter writing to be there.
And it's also personal hearing your story in this book.
So I I don't want to give you all too
many spoilers because I want you all to go to
y'all's favorite independent bookstore and buy five copies. Let me
tell you why. I'm telling you five copies, because that
way you got one for yourself, you have four to
(09:43):
just have around in your home or at the office.
And that way, when somebody walks in and you're like,
you know what, you need to read this book, you
already bought them. That's what I'm trying to tell y'all.
So just putting that out there. Okay, let's talk about
some of Faith's favorite things. This is my first important
not need to ask when you were writing this book,
did you have a favorite snack that you had to
(10:04):
have while you were writing. That's a good question. I
don't know if I had a favorite snack. I just
know that I you know, I ate plenty, but I
know that I had to have coffee. That was a must.
I just had to have it for sure. Okay, let's
discuss what type of writing coffee person you are. Are
(10:27):
you a person who is just having coffee. It's no cream,
is no sugar for you. Are you a person who's
getting involved in a latte? What are the coffee vibes
when you're writing? For sure, it's either a latte or
a cold group. Come on cold and usually like a
cold group, like like the sweet cream you know, but
um yeah, latte or cold grew definitely go too for me.
(10:49):
I like this. I like this very much. Let us
talk about you. You do talk about hair in this book.
I feel like you cannot put out almost any piece
of art or literature about black women without talking about hair,
because that's the thing that we are constantly discussing. I
have I have met many a black woman whose name
(11:10):
I don't even know, on the isle of Target, just
being like, girl, did you try this product before? What
did it do on your hair? Okay, so we gotta
talk black hair a little bit, because you are definitely
talking about your journey with your own hair in this book.
When you were a little girl, what was your favorite
black girl hairstyle? Oh that is such a good question.
(11:32):
But I you know, when I was little, Um, I
had a relaxer so I used to love it. Why,
I do not know. There was two styles. It was either, Um,
I got a roller set, so I looked like Shirley Temple.
I loved Shirley Temple growing up, so you couldn't tell
me anything when I had that roller set in. And
the other way when I got a little bit older,
(11:54):
was you know how when you had your hair straightened,
but you like bumped the ends come on, come on
where it was like flip. I was all about that
flipped hair like that was a big thing for me.
So it was either that roller set or my hair
was flipped out, and you couldn't tell me anything. To
be honest, I knew I looked good. I'm gonna thank
(12:16):
you for bringing the flip into this conversation because I
had forgotten how much I too enjoyed that flip, especially
back in the day when the when the French roll
was in those of us who were wearing our relaxed hair,
and if I could get the French roll where like
part of the French roll was up but then the
back was out and that black part was flipped. Please
(12:39):
don't talk to me in class because I am so cute.
Get out, And don't forget the bump, because there was
also the bump and flip that was a big thing
when you bumped your hair and flipped it. That was
also in and maybe it was just mostly in the South.
I don't know, but I was definitely bumping and flipping
my hair. I mean, I am thinking that you and
(13:00):
I both have Texas roots, and so now I'm like,
that may have been I feel like we were in
Texas at the similar times. That may have been a
Texas style because there were certain hairstyles that when I
moved away from Texas, people were like, no, we didn't
do that, which was exactly we didn't do that where
we were from. Love to see that. Tell the people
more about how you are wearing your hair now and
(13:21):
what's your favorite way to style your hair now. Yeah,
so I have stepped into the land of freedom and
I have locked my hair. I locked my hair about
a year and a half ago, and I am the
happiest I have been with my hair. I love it
so much. I feel so much freedom, And mainly because
(13:44):
I'm not the kind of person. I've never been the
kind of person that loves to do hair. Um My
mom actually likes to do her hair, and so I
had an amazing experience growing up with her and bonding
over her doing my hair and um but me personally,
I've ever loved it. So I always had my hair
and braids. I always had my hair pulled up. And
I finally was like, you know what, I need to
(14:05):
take the leap to just lock my hair. It's braided
all the time anyway, and you know, people would say
you might regret it, what if you want to wear
your hair straight, all this other stuff, and I just
decided I'm gonna lock my hair. So I got microlocks.
And they're small enough for me to curl them or
style them in a different way. But to be honest
with you, with these microlocks, I wake up, I roll over,
(14:29):
I might sprits it with water, and you know, I
just either pull it back so it's a little bit
out of my face and wear it down, or I
pull it back in a ponytail, and I'm just so happy.
I can't even tell you. I do not stress about
my hair. I go to my lock Titsue and she
washes my hair. We sit down. I come back and
(14:49):
see her six weeks or so later, and I'm living
my best life. I love that faith. Yes, we love
for a black girl to find her own Black girls
that she wants to have with her hair like that
in itself is so much freedom discovering that. And I
do want to speak to what you said about the
(15:11):
you might regret it. I'm like, how many black women
have wanted to make a hair choice and have heard
various as sundry voices of people, Oh, I don't know
if you want to do that, you might regret it.
And it's like, well, this my hair. Let me make
my choices. Maybe I won't regret it. And if I
decide at some other point in life that I want
(15:32):
my hair to be different, I'll do that then. But
for right now, this is what we're doing exactly. And
you know what, it was really freeing to make that decision.
And at the time, I wasn't married to my husband yet,
we were still dating. But I was like you know,
I really want to do this. I'm nervous, you know,
everybody's a lot of thoughts. And I just asked him
(15:53):
when his opinion was, and he was like, well, if
it makes you happy, you should you should just do it.
And I was like, you know what, I'm going to
do it. And it still was the best decision I've
ever made. You know, you don't have to worry about
what might happen or what if you don't like it, Like, okay,
you know you can take them out. You can do that.
You can comb them out, or you can cut your
(16:15):
hair off if you want to and start over where
your hair will grow back. And one thing that I
have realized is how many decisions have I, you know,
delayed on making because I was so concerned about, Oh,
you might not like it, Oh it might not be good.
You know what. I just need to try it to know.
So I'm so glad that I tried it, and now
(16:36):
I know yes, because sometimes the thing is coming up
in you because you know yourself, you know what you
would like or what you'd like to try, and it's
worth it to you to give that a shot. Like
love to see that. But it is interesting to think
about black women in our relationship to our hair and
(16:56):
how much unfortunate feedback is given as to what we
should be doing or what we could be doing to
our hair, and just experiencing the freedom of going. That's
a decision I get to make for myself and whatever
I just offered me, if that's my piece, then that's
a good choice. Yes, absolutely, yea. Because my self esteem
(17:28):
was really tied into my hair, how I viewed myself,
my beauty, it was all attached to my hair um
and so having this level of freedom has been amazing
for me, not only personally, but just in my own
self esteem and how I feel about myself. So that's
why you have to find whatever it is works for you.
For a while being natural work, then it wasn't working anymore,
(17:51):
and so I had to find what worked for me.
I love it. Faith shout out to black woman being free. Honey,
whatever you want to do to your hair, just do
it you it. Don't let those people talk you out
of anything. Do it. Okay, you have now written a
black girl book. I mean I want to say in part,
(18:11):
every book a black woman writes is in essence a
black woman book or a black girl book, But there
are very quintessential black girl or black woman books that
we as black women are like. This was written for me.
That's what I mean when I say that you have
written a black woman book, you have written a book
that you want black women black girls to be able
(18:31):
to read and say, I see myself, I see myself
reflected the questions that Faith may have been asking at
this season of her life, I'm asking those questions too.
What are your favorite black girl books or favorite black
woman books? These could be books you grew up with
or books you may have read in the latest season
(18:51):
of your life. What are some of those that you love?
So I really, UM love this book by Rena Wiams.
First of all, let me just say Rania Wems in
general speak a word today faith speak a word is amazing.
I was introduced her a few years ago, her work
a few years ago. And when I tell you, so
(19:13):
much of what I've written and just sat with UM
has been so inspired by her work. I read UM,
I think I've read uh was it All about Love?
By her? And then I might be getting these titles wrong,
(19:33):
so we'll have to link the right ones. UM. And
then there was another one I have to find the
name of it because it is going to bother me.
But at any rate, Nita Weams is incredible. Her books
completely inspired me during this time when I was writing
this book, and I honestly, I don't know what words
(19:57):
would have come out of me had I not read
her books before. UM, I was writing because the way,
like my letters are so inspired by the way in
her books she speaks directly to you. When I tell you,
I felt as I was reading her books, like like
the words are just jumping out on the page and
(20:18):
she's talking to me. Like that's how I felt like
she's talking to me. She obviously, I feel like she
sees my life, she sees the state of the season
of life that I'm in, and she's talking to me directly.
So inspired by her words, hands down biggest inspiration I
have to say for me. UM. And then obviously like
(20:41):
Tony Morrison, really inspired by her words and her storytelling, UM,
which was really inspirational for me as I really tried
to hone in on that skill, which storytelling was a
newer skill to me. And let me tell you all,
it's you know, writing as a skill as I I learned, Um, people,
(21:02):
you know, think I want to write, and I say
the all the time, I should write a book, you know,
And it wasn't until I was getting into the book
that I realized, oh my goodness, this is hard work.
And when you want to write a book, especially when
that's not just an instructional or how to book, you
want to actually write a book that's like storytelling. To me,
it's even an extra layer like I have. I can
(21:22):
write the how choose kind of books that's pretty that
came pretty um easily to me. I wrote a journal
and anti racism journal, and that's more of a how to.
But to actually write a book where I'm telling the
story and I want you to feel like you're with
me and I want you to feel the emotion and
the words come up off the page, it's a totally
(21:44):
different aspect. And so you know, um, those were you know,
writers that really inspired me during this time. I love that.
I second Ranita Williams. I second her work. I am
still in the middle of reading Listening for God, which
was of my like entry point into reading her books
and just just for me, really looking for black women
(22:08):
who are writing about spirituality and are writing about Christian spirituality.
In some ways. And hearing her say, yes, we hear
a lot of men writing about the quiet place that
they go and find. We hear a lot of men
talking about all of the alone time that they need
to have with God. And she was like, the reason
(22:29):
why they have alone time is because they have employees,
they have wives, they have people handling all the other tasks,
so they have plenty of time. She was like, if
God want to meet me, God gonna have to meet
me here at this sink while I'm watching these dishes.
And she was like, one of the first writers I
(22:50):
ever heard say that, I just felt like so free
because there's a lot of sort of spiritual books, whatever
tradition that you can read that sort of will get
into this lie. Here is this perfect setting you need
to find in order to engage your spirituality. And to
hear her say, you can find pockets of beautiful things
(23:11):
and all these ways you can experience spirituality in the life.
You got not in the cabin that's in the mountains.
When you work on a job, you ain't got time
to find the cap Like, I want to read that book.
I've heard that one's really good, So I found the
titles it's showing Mary that was the first one that
had me weeping. And then what Matters Most? And Wow,
(23:32):
what Matters Most is so good. I'm want to thank
you for telling me these titles so I can give
my life together. Because Ranita Weams be out here, y'all
just get involved. Get involved. When you're going to the
independent bookstore to purchase five of Faith's books, you can
just add also to your cart, or if you go
to there in person, you know you can get the
grab bag. Whatever they have. You can just throw five
(23:56):
of remember Me now in there, grab you some Ranita
Weems while you over there. That's the thing, that's the
thing we need. Okay. I want to ask you about
this because your book is memoir. As well as having
these elements where it is writing these love letters to
us as black women, you were also bringing us to
(24:16):
the table to say, here's my story. Here are the
questions I've asked, Here's here the things I've experienced. Did
you find yourself having to have I guess I have
double questions. Faith. My first question is how did you
decide what of your personal story would go in the book?
Because I think for us as writers, there's a lot
(24:37):
of choices there of like what if my personal life
do I want to share? And some things may be
hard to write or maybe hard to say, but I'm gonna.
I'm gonna do that because I know that it could
bring freedom to someone else, or it could bring to
someone else the feeling that they're not alone. So how
did you decide of all the experiences you had in life?
I know that all of them are not included there,
(24:58):
But how did you decide that things that you're like,
these are the things I want to pull out of
my life and share here. Yeah, it took a lot
of like time and prayer and reflection. I went really
back and forth because I do get personal in the
book and I talked about being raped. I went really
back and forth about if I was going to even
(25:18):
talk about that or not, because I understand. Another book
that I really loved by Roxanne Gay is called Um
Hunger and UM that book, I mean, I was weeping
and I read it a few years ago. It really
spoke to me. But I listened to an interview that
she had done and she talked about how, you know,
(25:39):
one thing she wishes that there were certain personal things
that maybe she um wouldn't have shared so much if
I understand the interview correctly. And UM, that really stuck
to the back of my mind. And so I decided, Okay,
there are things that I will share, but there's other
portions and details that I will not share. So there
(26:00):
there's the openness, but there's also a lot that I'm
vague about, mostly because I don't want, um, certain elements
of like my trauma to live on paper forever, um
for me to have to recount. And so UM, I
did decide though to share. My family asked me really
like a lot of times, actually, are you sure? Are
(26:22):
you sure? Why? You have to know your why because
this might be difficult, um, And I said, you know what,
I'm sure, And my why is because I'm not the
only one. I am not the only one that has
experienced this. I am not the only black woman that
has grown up in traditional faith spaces that has experienced this.
(26:44):
And there's often times this sense of shame and um
embarrassment that women carry for things that are just not
their fault. And when I tell you, that's probably the
biggest thing that I've to continue to overcome, is like
shame and not letting shame um attach itself to me
(27:06):
and mark me. I really felt like it is something
that I want to share from myself because I want
to see other women get free and I want other
women to know that that's possible for them, right. And so,
you know, I wanted to share with openness, and I
wanted the letters and and my story to inspire other
(27:29):
people because we've all gone through something and sometimes we
have misconceptions of one another. I'm the kind of person
that people consider to be like the strong friend, you know,
and um, I I like to say check on your
strong people, um, you know, and sometimes that kind of
like a badge of strength per se, isn't it badge
(27:52):
that everybody really wants. Um, it's kind of bestowed upon us. Um.
But I don't want to have this, you know, badge
of you know, strength just to um be kind of
like on my chest. I can't rescue everyone, and this
book is you know, really about rescuing myself. So and
(28:15):
I felt like this is a message that other black
women need because we spent so much time trying to
rescue everybody else, trying to tend to everyone else, trying
to care for everyone else, that we lose ourselves and
at some point we get too far gone and we
have to come back home to ourselves. Yeah. Faith, Yes,
and that we deserve that we deserve, that we deserved
(28:40):
that kind of tenderness and softness. And I love what
you said about how you made the decisions of what
you were going to include of your of your life
in this book, because as black women, we are in
some situations where we are made to feel that we
we owe everyone our story, we owe everyone our time,
(29:02):
we owe everyone this, that the third, those things, and
to come into the writing space with power and to
say here and are the choices I make because these
are stories that I want to help someone, and I
want to share these parts. But I also have the
power and wisdom to say and these are parts that
(29:23):
belong to me, or these are parts that belong to
my personal life, or belong to the people in my
real life who know me. I think even the ability
to give ourselves as black women, the reminder that we
have that power over our own stories. I love that. Faith.
Thank you, Thank you so much. Just talk to her
(29:43):
all day. Okay, let me ask you about this, Faith.
Do you have a favorite black movie If you can't
just narrow one I will give a top three, But
do you have do you have a favorite black movie
that you're like, that's that's in my lexicon of all
the black movies. I love what's the top? That's really hard,
but I'm gonna go with The Whiz, just like the
(30:08):
music Classic. I have such good memories of watching The
Whiz with my family, so it's it's up there for me.
That's a good choice. That's a good choice. It's like
I have I know some Black people who the Whiz
is a it's a holiday movie. It's a thing that
they like, we watched this at Christmas or we always
(30:28):
watching the Thanksgiving And then I have some friends who
it's just this a year round, you know. You know,
you have some people who are like, I'll leave my
Christmas tree up all year round. Some black people are like,
and I watched The Whiz all year round. I don't
know what the problem is, Like, you don't have to
wait for the holidays. It's a perfect choice because there's
a lot of layers. I remember crying child about Diana Ross,
especially in the beginning Honey, when she was playing Dorothy
(30:50):
in the beginning and she didn't know what her life
was gonna be. She was out there crying. I was
like me to Diana, Me, So I don't know about
life's gonna be either. Yeah, there's a lot of layers
to that film. You talk in your book about You
talk in your book about what it means to care
for ourselves as black women. How how can we give
(31:14):
ourselves the kindness that we deserve, the gentleness we deserve,
even if the world, America, work, whatever other environments were
in are not always going to give us that. What
are the ways that you treat yourself? What are the
ways you give that care back to yourself. Yeah, I
(31:38):
would say this is like an area of my life
I'm ever learning and growing in and I probably will
be for the rest of my life. Um. I am
kind of in personality like a high achiever, and I
like to get things done, and I'm learning daily how
not to attach my worth to my work. And so
(32:02):
any day that I choose to not do that to myself,
that I choose not to attach the to do list
of what I got done to my worth as a
person is a sign of care for myself and love
for myself. It might sound really simple, but I think
we make care for ourselves really complicated. It's not just
(32:22):
getting your nailson and all that other stuff. Those are
nice things to do, but it really is about your mindset. Um.
Where is your mind um positioned? What are you thinking
about and what are you thinking about yourself um with
where your thoughts are also, you know, going are you
aligned like is your body aligned um with positivity about yourself?
(32:45):
Are you centering yourself on thoughts that are going to
you know, bring you up and not Oh I'm not
good as this person or um they're doing better than me.
I'm not doing good in this area. I'm struggling with this.
Try trust me, I, like any other person, struggle with
those things. And so that's why I say it's a
(33:05):
win when you get to choose yourself and when you say,
you know what, I might not have done everything I
want to do today, or I might not have had
the best day. I might have said something I shouldn't
have said. But at the end of the day, I
love myself and every day I'm getting closer and closer
to developing a life where I embody peace. My goal
(33:27):
is to embody peace within my life. I want to
walk around with my soul full of peace and less anxiousness.
And so any day where I get closer to that
goal of just embodying peace is a form of self
care for me, because that means that I'm loving myself.
(33:49):
Like I heard this one lady saying, you know, like I,
the person that I need to be like aligned with
the most is myself because I'm living with me. I
am living with myself, and this is a US, and
I need to take care of the most. This is
the person I need to be gentle with the most.
And so to me, self care is becoming more and
more aligned with who I am as a woman and
(34:12):
showing more grace to myself and being able to embody
that each day. It's like a daily practice for me.
I love that. I love that, and I love that
you that when you think about caring for yourself or
treating for yourself, that that idea is even broader than
sort of the the beauty accoutrement, you know. And it's
(34:34):
no shade. A girl loves to get her nails done,
loves to, you know, buy a little cute outfit, shoe, whatever,
you know, loves to get a massage. It is not
that we do not also need those things. I love
that you equated though you could get a massage. You
could also decide that the job you're working is not
the job that you need to stay with because that's
(34:56):
not bringing you peace. Or you could decide you need
to have a day. Or instead of you spending your
weekend on taking every body take care of everybody else,
you're gonna give yourself the weekend to just do whatever
it is. You like giving ourselves the idea that to
to say no to some things so we can say
yes to the things that matter to us. It's also
how we care for ourselves. Right to make a priority
(35:18):
of our health, our mental health, you know, the ways
we can care for ourselves. Those things are also caring
for ourselves. I love that you gave us that. That
gives us some some different examples we can think about.
I want to ask you this, and I want you
to tell the people where they can get their five
copies of Remember Me Now. So we're gonna talk about
(35:39):
that out and said it. I'm trying to get it
in y'all's subliminals, so y'all can have it in your mind.
Just you know, really, when a black woman drops a
book going and buy five copies. It's good. It's good
going and do that. You're gonna find somebody to give
those two. You got extras to give presents. It's very helpful.
So just five five five five everyone, Okay, what do
you hope black women gain from reading your book? When
(36:01):
you when you imagine, because I'm sure you thought about
this while you were writing, and I'm sure there were
some tears writing a book. When you said writing a
book is hard, y'all, faith ain't lie. Writing a book
is hard, and especially when you are digging into your
own stories and your own experiences in life, it is
a challenge to put that on paper. So now that
(36:24):
the book is out there, you have written it. This
thing you've written is going to end up in the
hands of so many black women all around the country,
all around the world. When you like close your eyes
and imagine a black woman wherever she is, she gets
to that last couple of pages. And you know how
when you like finish a really good book and it's
like you like kind of close it. I mean, I'm
(36:45):
still talking about physical books. I know some of y'all
get to the end on Kindle and then it says
other things by this writer y'all know what I mean.
You get to the end and you have that moment
where you're like, man, what are you hoping black women
feel or think or received at that moment at the
end of your book. I hope that black women feel seen,
(37:08):
and I hope that Black women feel like they have
space to heal and also to name themselves. I feel
really strongly about this because I feel like oftentimes in
our society, Um, you know, black women are named already,
you know, aggressive, ghetto, Um, you know, just name list
(37:31):
the name of negative things, right um. And and yet
you know there's so many you know, amazing traits are fashion, Um,
how we show up our hair that is you know, emulated,
you know, taken stolen from us. And and I really
want black women to feel seen and also like they
(37:51):
can name the name themselves and heal. I think, Um,
that's what I hope people feel, you know. I I
my hope was that people would read the book and
close it and feel empowered. Um. And so yeah, that's
what I hope happens when people read it. I'm excited
for people to read it. It's so nerve breaking writing
(38:12):
a book, but I'm really excited, um to see how
the message you know resonates with other people. To me,
it's like the two best parts of writing a book
is when you're actually like, hey, I got a publisher,
I'm going to write a book. That part is great,
and then when the book ends up out there, because
it feels like when you're when you're writing, you're just
(38:33):
in your room, by yourself, whatever space you know you're writing.
It's you know, especially as a stage person, it's like
I'm used to I'll just finish this poem, let me
go take it to an open mic. Then I'll be
able to see right away, you know, how do people respond?
Whereas when you're writing a book, you're just like you
feel like you're alone for a while, just writing, writing,
writing things. And then the day comes that now other
(38:55):
people are reading that. I mean that is it's a
glorious day because you get to see how people are
interacting with it and some of the ways you expected.
In some ways you're like, oh, I didn't know people
would get that from it, but all right, you know,
so I love that for you, faith, because you put
in your time, honey. You put in your time right
(39:16):
in this book, honey. So I love for black women
to get a chance to feel loved on, feel written,
to feel thought of. That it is not something that
you have to sort of try to pull out the
parts that are for you. Um, I think that's just
gonna be wonderful. So tell the people how they can
follow you and know more about you, and what are
(39:39):
the ways you recommend that they purchase their five copies?
Let me say the title for y'all, five copies of
Remember Me Now, a journey back to myself and a
love letter to black women. How can the people do this? So?
You can get the book wherever books are sold, so
even independent bookstores, and some people have also talked about
(40:01):
can I get it in my local library? Yes, you can.
You can ask your local library to order the book
if you would like access it to it there. And
you can follow me at faith b I spell money
with two T s f ai t th h and
letter b um. And you can follow me on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
(40:23):
My user name is the same in all of those places,
and my website is faithbooks dot com. And so if
you um are like you know what, I kind of
like what I'm hearing, but I'm not sure, you can
go to my website and you can download the introduction
and the first chapter and you can just get a
little taste see if you like it. And if you do,
go ahead, go buy the book, share it with some friends,
(40:45):
start a book club, spread the word, love it. Faith,
Thank you so much, not only for joining us in
our her living room today, but for bringing your story
into so many rooms. They're gonna be so many rooms
that you may not physically be there with black women
as there in their living room or maybe riding the
(41:06):
train to work. I mean so many places where black
women will be encountering this book. It's also available as
audiobook where you can hear Faith read in her voice.
And so many Black women are gonna be spending time
with you and your story. And it's beautiful that you
have given us this love letter to ourselves. That's wonderful.
Thank you, my friend, for joining me, Thank you for
(41:27):
having me. Her with Amina Brown is produced by Matt
Owen for Solo Graffiti Productions as a part of the
Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with I Heart Radio.
(41:51):
Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and
review the podcast.
Hey, everybody, Before we get into this week's episode, please
note that this episode contains a brief mention of sexual assault.
If this topic may be triggering for you, please take
care of yourself by listening with caution or simply putting
this episode aside for another time. Hey, everybody, Welcome back
(00:40):
to a new year and a new episode of Her
with Amina Brown. And I'm so excited because we are
bringing writer, speaker, social worker, activist, co host of Melanated Faith,
and author of Remember Me Now, a Journey back to
Myself and a love letter to Black women, Faith Brooks. Yes,
it's in the living room. Yes, Faith that you can
(01:03):
autist applies can autist applause. I'm applied like it's like
a d M here, please, y'all. I'm just so excited
to have Faith in our living room with us because
she's my friend, she's been here before. We have talked
about internet friends here, but also because Faith Brooks is
a wonderful writer. I've been in her life long enough
(01:26):
to remember when she was like it is my dream.
That's a part of my dream. I'm going to write
books and to see this book out right now, Faith,
I feel the feelings do you feel the feelings thinking
about I feel a lot of feelings. Oh my god.
When we first met, I was talking to you and
it was just this dream I had. I had no
(01:47):
idea how it was going to happen. And actually that
year that we met, I spent that summer working on
a book proposal. You had helped me, you sent me yours,
and every time I would just kind of go to
try to finish it, I just didn't get to finish it.
Like it just wasn't it wasn't flowing, you know. And
(02:10):
it wasn't until three years later that I, you know,
got an agent, and then the next year, in year four,
started writing the book. So really crazy. Okay, I want
to talk about this because I have a lot of
things I want to talk about regarding the book. It's
it's emotional any time as a black woman you're reading
(02:31):
a book that another black woman is writing to you.
You know, she's writing two other black women, which is
very central to your book. So that's always emotional. And
then you add the layer of like this is my
friend and I'm just listen to her voice. You know,
there's so many feelings. Okay, this is the first question
I want to know. Do you remember when the idea
(02:53):
or the form for this book, because we are going
to talk a little bit more about the forum in
a minute. But sometimes the form and the idea don't
come together. So did they come together or separately? And
how did both ideas form an idea for the book
come to you? Yeah, so in two thousand and seventeen,
(03:13):
I had the idea for elements of this book, and
so I wanted to talk about my life. I wanted
it to be memoir style, but I had a different
approach to it, and um, when it came down to
beginning to put this book proposal together, I took elements
(03:34):
from what I had started, and just because of where
I was at in life, my vantage point was different.
Which you know, this is something I've learned, is like time,
sometimes neat things to marinate. So the core about wanting
to share elements of my life and my story always remaine.
And there's some chapters that I actually had from the
(03:55):
original you know, thought that kind of evolved. So everything
evolved when I put together in two thousand and seventeen
the initial idea, but what it grew into, UM was
really shaped and formed by my experience in that and
one years um of my life, I knew I wanted
(04:16):
to have a book that kind of encapsulated the past
like ten years, like the twenties, if you will, because
I didn't feel like I read books by other black women,
especially in like faith adjacent spaces that had to do
with our life and our becoming that just wasn't very popular.
It was all about like how to become a woman
(04:38):
of God, you know, or whatever that might look like,
or how to you know, like how to Thrive or
that other book how to be a Badass, like and
I really wanted a book where it was like, this
is just like my life and my story because I
feel like far too often we as black women have
to stuff that down, and I wanted to write something
(04:58):
that kind of like open that space up for us
to speak. M hmmm, I love that. I love that.
I want to talk about the form of this book,
because you're using one of my favorite things to read,
which is epistolary or letter form, and we're going to
talk about some black girl and black woman books that
you love here in a minute. But of course I
(05:21):
have to bring the color purple into the chat because
there's something so foundational about the words that black women
right to each other. That your book is very centered
on this theme of sisterhood among black women. So as
soon as I got into that letter portion and how
that keeps coming back so consistently in the book, I
(05:44):
just love that because my first exposure to that, especially
when you're thinking about black women writing to black women,
I mean those of us who grew up in Christian
homes or grew up in the Christian religion, we have
had the experience of thinking about the letter form that's
used in the Bible as a scriptural text, but thinking
about black women writing to each other the color purple
was my first time, you know, reading these sisters writing
(06:08):
back and forth and you're watching how their lives are
shifting and changing in time. So what made you want
to say this is a letter? And I don't. I'm
not just you know, calling it a letter. It is
literally a letter, many letters inside this book to black
women at various stages of life. What made that form
(06:28):
seem like that's what that book wants to be. Yeah,
So it was kind of an evolution of sorts for
how I got to the letters. But I will say
never discount where you start, I had a blog called
Lyrics and Letters for a while because I love music
and I would write songs, and that's kind of where
(06:50):
like my poetry band kind of, you know, comes from.
I wrote a lot of songs and poetry when I
was younger, and um, I called it Lyrics Letters because
I felt like my blogs and what I was sharing
was like letters to people. And so I've always been like,
had this kind of fascination with like being personable and
(07:10):
connecting with people on a personal level. And so that's
where the letters, you know, really kind of came from
within me. But then also as the book evolved, Originally
I was going to make it pretty general in the
sense that I wanted to talk to black women, but
I was going to have a you know chapter that
actually like addressed some like misconceptions about black women. And
(07:31):
I felt like, you know what, like if this is
two black women, I only want to talk to black women.
And so I had to make a shift. So I
actually shifted. Um, after my book was kind of like
accepted and everything, I was like, I'm changing and changing something,
and I was thankful to have a really great publisher
that was okay with that. That was okay with me
changing um and actually being able to, you know, share
(07:55):
what I felt like I wanted to share, which was
I want to narrow in on my audience and aybody
can read this book, we know that, but I want
to write specifically to black women. And that changed everything
for me. It made the book more free flowing, and
what I was writing I had more direction because I
knew exactly who I was talking to and I didn't
have to go back and forth between talking to black
(08:17):
women and then I'm not talking to black women. Um,
I only wanted to talk to black women, and so
that made the letters, the poetry, everything come to life.
And I got really specific about what I wanted in
the book. I wanted to have my own poetry. I
love the idea of having quotes from other, you know, artists,
but I said, you know what, I want to write
(08:38):
my own poetry. And as I was writing, the words
just came. And then I found other words that I
had written before. And so I had been writing pieces
of this book for over ten years. There's some elements
of this book I had written in different places, and um,
it's kind of just like this culmination, and it really
(08:59):
does remind me that like nothing is wasted because there's
so many words on pages. I would have thought, oh,
I'm never going to use that, and that poetry made
it the book, you know. So it's been pretty cool
to see how all the words from um, all the
different years kind of came together. Oh I love that.
I love that. And there's something so personal, you know,
(09:19):
to having the form of letter writing to be there.
And it's also personal hearing your story in this book.
So I I don't want to give you all too
many spoilers because I want you all to go to
y'all's favorite independent bookstore and buy five copies. Let me
tell you why. I'm telling you five copies, because that
way you got one for yourself, you have four to
(09:43):
just have around in your home or at the office.
And that way, when somebody walks in and you're like,
you know what, you need to read this book, you
already bought them. That's what I'm trying to tell y'all.
So just putting that out there. Okay, let's talk about
some of Faith's favorite things. This is my first important
not need to ask when you were writing this book,
did you have a favorite snack that you had to
(10:04):
have while you were writing. That's a good question. I
don't know if I had a favorite snack. I just
know that I you know, I ate plenty, but I
know that I had to have coffee. That was a must.
I just had to have it for sure. Okay, let's
discuss what type of writing coffee person you are. Are
(10:27):
you a person who is just having coffee. It's no cream,
is no sugar for you. Are you a person who's
getting involved in a latte? What are the coffee vibes
when you're writing? For sure, it's either a latte or
a cold group. Come on cold and usually like a
cold group, like like the sweet cream you know, but
um yeah, latte or cold grew definitely go too for me.
(10:49):
I like this. I like this very much. Let us
talk about you. You do talk about hair in this book.
I feel like you cannot put out almost any piece
of art or literature about black women without talking about hair,
because that's the thing that we are constantly discussing. I
have I have met many a black woman whose name
(11:10):
I don't even know, on the isle of Target, just
being like, girl, did you try this product before? What
did it do on your hair? Okay, so we gotta
talk black hair a little bit, because you are definitely
talking about your journey with your own hair in this book.
When you were a little girl, what was your favorite
black girl hairstyle? Oh that is such a good question.
(11:32):
But I you know, when I was little, Um, I
had a relaxer so I used to love it. Why,
I do not know. There was two styles. It was either, Um,
I got a roller set, so I looked like Shirley Temple.
I loved Shirley Temple growing up, so you couldn't tell
me anything when I had that roller set in. And
the other way when I got a little bit older,
(11:54):
was you know how when you had your hair straightened,
but you like bumped the ends come on, come on
where it was like flip. I was all about that
flipped hair like that was a big thing for me.
So it was either that roller set or my hair
was flipped out, and you couldn't tell me anything. To
be honest, I knew I looked good. I'm gonna thank
(12:16):
you for bringing the flip into this conversation because I
had forgotten how much I too enjoyed that flip, especially
back in the day when the when the French roll
was in those of us who were wearing our relaxed hair,
and if I could get the French roll where like
part of the French roll was up but then the
back was out and that black part was flipped. Please
(12:39):
don't talk to me in class because I am so cute.
Get out, And don't forget the bump, because there was
also the bump and flip that was a big thing
when you bumped your hair and flipped it. That was
also in and maybe it was just mostly in the South.
I don't know, but I was definitely bumping and flipping
my hair. I mean, I am thinking that you and
(13:00):
I both have Texas roots, and so now I'm like,
that may have been I feel like we were in
Texas at the similar times. That may have been a
Texas style because there were certain hairstyles that when I
moved away from Texas, people were like, no, we didn't
do that, which was exactly we didn't do that where
we were from. Love to see that. Tell the people
more about how you are wearing your hair now and
(13:21):
what's your favorite way to style your hair now. Yeah,
so I have stepped into the land of freedom and
I have locked my hair. I locked my hair about
a year and a half ago, and I am the
happiest I have been with my hair. I love it
so much. I feel so much freedom, And mainly because
(13:44):
I'm not the kind of person. I've never been the
kind of person that loves to do hair. Um My
mom actually likes to do her hair, and so I
had an amazing experience growing up with her and bonding
over her doing my hair and um but me personally,
I've ever loved it. So I always had my hair
and braids. I always had my hair pulled up. And
I finally was like, you know what, I need to
(14:05):
take the leap to just lock my hair. It's braided
all the time anyway, and you know, people would say
you might regret it, what if you want to wear
your hair straight, all this other stuff, and I just
decided I'm gonna lock my hair. So I got microlocks.
And they're small enough for me to curl them or
style them in a different way. But to be honest
with you, with these microlocks, I wake up, I roll over,
(14:29):
I might sprits it with water, and you know, I
just either pull it back so it's a little bit
out of my face and wear it down, or I
pull it back in a ponytail, and I'm just so happy.
I can't even tell you. I do not stress about
my hair. I go to my lock Titsue and she
washes my hair. We sit down. I come back and
(14:49):
see her six weeks or so later, and I'm living
my best life. I love that faith. Yes, we love
for a black girl to find her own Black girls
that she wants to have with her hair like that
in itself is so much freedom discovering that. And I
do want to speak to what you said about the
(15:11):
you might regret it. I'm like, how many black women
have wanted to make a hair choice and have heard
various as sundry voices of people, Oh, I don't know
if you want to do that, you might regret it.
And it's like, well, this my hair. Let me make
my choices. Maybe I won't regret it. And if I
decide at some other point in life that I want
(15:32):
my hair to be different, I'll do that then. But
for right now, this is what we're doing exactly. And
you know what, it was really freeing to make that decision.
And at the time, I wasn't married to my husband yet,
we were still dating. But I was like you know,
I really want to do this. I'm nervous, you know,
everybody's a lot of thoughts. And I just asked him
(15:53):
when his opinion was, and he was like, well, if
it makes you happy, you should you should just do it.
And I was like, you know what, I'm going to
do it. And it still was the best decision I've
ever made. You know, you don't have to worry about
what might happen or what if you don't like it, Like, okay,
you know you can take them out. You can do that.
You can comb them out, or you can cut your
(16:15):
hair off if you want to and start over where
your hair will grow back. And one thing that I
have realized is how many decisions have I, you know,
delayed on making because I was so concerned about, Oh,
you might not like it, Oh it might not be good.
You know what. I just need to try it to know.
So I'm so glad that I tried it, and now
(16:36):
I know yes, because sometimes the thing is coming up
in you because you know yourself, you know what you
would like or what you'd like to try, and it's
worth it to you to give that a shot. Like
love to see that. But it is interesting to think
about black women in our relationship to our hair and
(16:56):
how much unfortunate feedback is given as to what we
should be doing or what we could be doing to
our hair, and just experiencing the freedom of going. That's
a decision I get to make for myself and whatever
I just offered me, if that's my piece, then that's
a good choice. Yes, absolutely, yea. Because my self esteem
(17:28):
was really tied into my hair, how I viewed myself,
my beauty, it was all attached to my hair um
and so having this level of freedom has been amazing
for me, not only personally, but just in my own
self esteem and how I feel about myself. So that's
why you have to find whatever it is works for you.
For a while being natural work, then it wasn't working anymore,
(17:51):
and so I had to find what worked for me.
I love it. Faith shout out to black woman being free. Honey,
whatever you want to do to your hair, just do
it you it. Don't let those people talk you out
of anything. Do it. Okay, you have now written a
black girl book. I mean I want to say in part,
(18:11):
every book a black woman writes is in essence a
black woman book or a black girl book, But there
are very quintessential black girl or black woman books that
we as black women are like. This was written for me.
That's what I mean when I say that you have
written a black woman book, you have written a book
that you want black women black girls to be able
(18:31):
to read and say, I see myself, I see myself
reflected the questions that Faith may have been asking at
this season of her life, I'm asking those questions too.
What are your favorite black girl books or favorite black
woman books? These could be books you grew up with
or books you may have read in the latest season
(18:51):
of your life. What are some of those that you love?
So I really, UM love this book by Rena Wiams.
First of all, let me just say Rania Wems in
general speak a word today faith speak a word is amazing.
I was introduced her a few years ago, her work
a few years ago. And when I tell you, so
(19:13):
much of what I've written and just sat with UM
has been so inspired by her work. I read UM,
I think I've read uh was it All about Love?
By her? And then I might be getting these titles wrong,
(19:33):
so we'll have to link the right ones. UM. And
then there was another one I have to find the
name of it because it is going to bother me.
But at any rate, Nita Weams is incredible. Her books
completely inspired me during this time when I was writing
this book, and I honestly, I don't know what words
(19:57):
would have come out of me had I not read
her books before. UM, I was writing because the way,
like my letters are so inspired by the way in
her books she speaks directly to you. When I tell you,
I felt as I was reading her books, like like
the words are just jumping out on the page and
(20:18):
she's talking to me. Like that's how I felt like
she's talking to me. She obviously, I feel like she
sees my life, she sees the state of the season
of life that I'm in, and she's talking to me directly.
So inspired by her words, hands down biggest inspiration I
have to say for me. UM. And then obviously like
(20:41):
Tony Morrison, really inspired by her words and her storytelling, UM,
which was really inspirational for me as I really tried
to hone in on that skill, which storytelling was a
newer skill to me. And let me tell you all,
it's you know, writing as a skill as I I learned, Um, people,
(21:02):
you know, think I want to write, and I say
the all the time, I should write a book, you know,
And it wasn't until I was getting into the book
that I realized, oh my goodness, this is hard work.
And when you want to write a book, especially when
that's not just an instructional or how to book, you
want to actually write a book that's like storytelling. To me,
it's even an extra layer like I have. I can
(21:22):
write the how choose kind of books that's pretty that
came pretty um easily to me. I wrote a journal
and anti racism journal, and that's more of a how to.
But to actually write a book where I'm telling the
story and I want you to feel like you're with
me and I want you to feel the emotion and
the words come up off the page, it's a totally
(21:44):
different aspect. And so you know, um, those were you know,
writers that really inspired me during this time. I love that.
I second Ranita Williams. I second her work. I am
still in the middle of reading Listening for God, which
was of my like entry point into reading her books
and just just for me, really looking for black women
(22:08):
who are writing about spirituality and are writing about Christian spirituality.
In some ways. And hearing her say, yes, we hear
a lot of men writing about the quiet place that
they go and find. We hear a lot of men
talking about all of the alone time that they need
to have with God. And she was like, the reason
(22:29):
why they have alone time is because they have employees,
they have wives, they have people handling all the other tasks,
so they have plenty of time. She was like, if
God want to meet me, God gonna have to meet
me here at this sink while I'm watching these dishes.
And she was like, one of the first writers I
(22:50):
ever heard say that, I just felt like so free
because there's a lot of sort of spiritual books, whatever
tradition that you can read that sort of will get
into this lie. Here is this perfect setting you need
to find in order to engage your spirituality. And to
hear her say, you can find pockets of beautiful things
(23:11):
and all these ways you can experience spirituality in the life.
You got not in the cabin that's in the mountains.
When you work on a job, you ain't got time
to find the cap Like, I want to read that book.
I've heard that one's really good, So I found the
titles it's showing Mary that was the first one that
had me weeping. And then what Matters Most? And Wow,
(23:32):
what Matters Most is so good. I'm want to thank
you for telling me these titles so I can give
my life together. Because Ranita Weams be out here, y'all
just get involved. Get involved. When you're going to the
independent bookstore to purchase five of Faith's books, you can
just add also to your cart, or if you go
to there in person, you know you can get the
grab bag. Whatever they have. You can just throw five
(23:56):
of remember Me now in there, grab you some Ranita
Weems while you over there. That's the thing, that's the
thing we need. Okay. I want to ask you about
this because your book is memoir. As well as having
these elements where it is writing these love letters to
us as black women, you were also bringing us to
(24:16):
the table to say, here's my story. Here are the
questions I've asked, Here's here the things I've experienced. Did
you find yourself having to have I guess I have
double questions. Faith. My first question is how did you
decide what of your personal story would go in the book?
Because I think for us as writers, there's a lot
(24:37):
of choices there of like what if my personal life
do I want to share? And some things may be
hard to write or maybe hard to say, but I'm gonna.
I'm gonna do that because I know that it could
bring freedom to someone else, or it could bring to
someone else the feeling that they're not alone. So how
did you decide of all the experiences you had in life?
I know that all of them are not included there,
(24:58):
But how did you decide that things that you're like,
these are the things I want to pull out of
my life and share here. Yeah, it took a lot
of like time and prayer and reflection. I went really
back and forth because I do get personal in the
book and I talked about being raped. I went really
back and forth about if I was going to even
(25:18):
talk about that or not, because I understand. Another book
that I really loved by Roxanne Gay is called Um
Hunger and UM that book, I mean, I was weeping
and I read it a few years ago. It really
spoke to me. But I listened to an interview that
she had done and she talked about how, you know,
(25:39):
one thing she wishes that there were certain personal things
that maybe she um wouldn't have shared so much if
I understand the interview correctly. And UM, that really stuck
to the back of my mind. And so I decided, Okay,
there are things that I will share, but there's other
portions and details that I will not share. So there
(26:00):
there's the openness, but there's also a lot that I'm
vague about, mostly because I don't want, um, certain elements
of like my trauma to live on paper forever, um
for me to have to recount. And so UM, I
did decide though to share. My family asked me really
like a lot of times, actually, are you sure? Are
(26:22):
you sure? Why? You have to know your why because
this might be difficult, um, And I said, you know what,
I'm sure, And my why is because I'm not the
only one. I am not the only one that has
experienced this. I am not the only black woman that
has grown up in traditional faith spaces that has experienced this.
(26:44):
And there's often times this sense of shame and um
embarrassment that women carry for things that are just not
their fault. And when I tell you, that's probably the
biggest thing that I've to continue to overcome, is like
shame and not letting shame um attach itself to me
(27:06):
and mark me. I really felt like it is something
that I want to share from myself because I want
to see other women get free and I want other
women to know that that's possible for them, right. And so,
you know, I wanted to share with openness, and I
wanted the letters and and my story to inspire other
(27:29):
people because we've all gone through something and sometimes we
have misconceptions of one another. I'm the kind of person
that people consider to be like the strong friend, you know,
and um, I I like to say check on your
strong people, um, you know, and sometimes that kind of
like a badge of strength per se, isn't it badge
(27:52):
that everybody really wants. Um, it's kind of bestowed upon us. Um.
But I don't want to have this, you know, badge
of you know, strength just to um be kind of
like on my chest. I can't rescue everyone, and this
book is you know, really about rescuing myself. So and
(28:15):
I felt like this is a message that other black
women need because we spent so much time trying to
rescue everybody else, trying to tend to everyone else, trying
to care for everyone else, that we lose ourselves and
at some point we get too far gone and we
have to come back home to ourselves. Yeah. Faith, Yes,
and that we deserve that we deserve, that we deserved
(28:40):
that kind of tenderness and softness. And I love what
you said about how you made the decisions of what
you were going to include of your of your life
in this book, because as black women, we are in
some situations where we are made to feel that we
we owe everyone our story, we owe everyone our time,
(29:02):
we owe everyone this, that the third, those things, and
to come into the writing space with power and to
say here and are the choices I make because these
are stories that I want to help someone, and I
want to share these parts. But I also have the
power and wisdom to say and these are parts that
(29:23):
belong to me, or these are parts that belong to
my personal life, or belong to the people in my
real life who know me. I think even the ability
to give ourselves as black women, the reminder that we
have that power over our own stories. I love that. Faith.
Thank you, Thank you so much. Just talk to her
(29:43):
all day. Okay, let me ask you about this, Faith.
Do you have a favorite black movie If you can't
just narrow one I will give a top three, But
do you have do you have a favorite black movie
that you're like, that's that's in my lexicon of all
the black movies. I love what's the top? That's really hard,
but I'm gonna go with The Whiz, just like the
(30:08):
music Classic. I have such good memories of watching The
Whiz with my family, so it's it's up there for me.
That's a good choice. That's a good choice. It's like
I have I know some Black people who the Whiz
is a it's a holiday movie. It's a thing that
they like, we watched this at Christmas or we always
(30:28):
watching the Thanksgiving And then I have some friends who
it's just this a year round, you know. You know,
you have some people who are like, I'll leave my
Christmas tree up all year round. Some black people are like,
and I watched The Whiz all year round. I don't
know what the problem is, Like, you don't have to
wait for the holidays. It's a perfect choice because there's
a lot of layers. I remember crying child about Diana Ross,
especially in the beginning Honey, when she was playing Dorothy
(30:50):
in the beginning and she didn't know what her life
was gonna be. She was out there crying. I was
like me to Diana, Me, So I don't know about
life's gonna be either. Yeah, there's a lot of layers
to that film. You talk in your book about You
talk in your book about what it means to care
for ourselves as black women. How how can we give
(31:14):
ourselves the kindness that we deserve, the gentleness we deserve,
even if the world, America, work, whatever other environments were
in are not always going to give us that. What
are the ways that you treat yourself? What are the
ways you give that care back to yourself. Yeah, I
(31:38):
would say this is like an area of my life
I'm ever learning and growing in and I probably will
be for the rest of my life. Um. I am
kind of in personality like a high achiever, and I
like to get things done, and I'm learning daily how
not to attach my worth to my work. And so
(32:02):
any day that I choose to not do that to myself,
that I choose not to attach the to do list
of what I got done to my worth as a
person is a sign of care for myself and love
for myself. It might sound really simple, but I think
we make care for ourselves really complicated. It's not just
(32:22):
getting your nailson and all that other stuff. Those are
nice things to do, but it really is about your mindset. Um.
Where is your mind um positioned? What are you thinking
about and what are you thinking about yourself um with
where your thoughts are also, you know, going are you
aligned like is your body aligned um with positivity about yourself?
(32:45):
Are you centering yourself on thoughts that are going to
you know, bring you up and not Oh I'm not
good as this person or um they're doing better than me.
I'm not doing good in this area. I'm struggling with this.
Try trust me, I, like any other person, struggle with
those things. And so that's why I say it's a
(33:05):
win when you get to choose yourself and when you say,
you know what, I might not have done everything I
want to do today, or I might not have had
the best day. I might have said something I shouldn't
have said. But at the end of the day, I
love myself and every day I'm getting closer and closer
to developing a life where I embody peace. My goal
(33:27):
is to embody peace within my life. I want to
walk around with my soul full of peace and less anxiousness.
And so any day where I get closer to that
goal of just embodying peace is a form of self
care for me, because that means that I'm loving myself.
(33:49):
Like I heard this one lady saying, you know, like I,
the person that I need to be like aligned with
the most is myself because I'm living with me. I
am living with myself, and this is a US, and
I need to take care of the most. This is
the person I need to be gentle with the most.
And so to me, self care is becoming more and
more aligned with who I am as a woman and
(34:12):
showing more grace to myself and being able to embody
that each day. It's like a daily practice for me.
I love that. I love that, and I love that
you that when you think about caring for yourself or
treating for yourself, that that idea is even broader than
sort of the the beauty accoutrement, you know. And it's
(34:34):
no shade. A girl loves to get her nails done,
loves to, you know, buy a little cute outfit, shoe, whatever,
you know, loves to get a massage. It is not
that we do not also need those things. I love
that you equated though you could get a massage. You
could also decide that the job you're working is not
the job that you need to stay with because that's
(34:56):
not bringing you peace. Or you could decide you need
to have a day. Or instead of you spending your
weekend on taking every body take care of everybody else,
you're gonna give yourself the weekend to just do whatever
it is. You like giving ourselves the idea that to
to say no to some things so we can say
yes to the things that matter to us. It's also
how we care for ourselves. Right to make a priority
(35:18):
of our health, our mental health, you know, the ways
we can care for ourselves. Those things are also caring
for ourselves. I love that you gave us that. That
gives us some some different examples we can think about.
I want to ask you this, and I want you
to tell the people where they can get their five
copies of Remember Me Now. So we're gonna talk about
(35:39):
that out and said it. I'm trying to get it
in y'all's subliminals, so y'all can have it in your mind.
Just you know, really, when a black woman drops a
book going and buy five copies. It's good. It's good
going and do that. You're gonna find somebody to give
those two. You got extras to give presents. It's very helpful.
So just five five five five everyone, Okay, what do
you hope black women gain from reading your book? When
(36:01):
you when you imagine, because I'm sure you thought about
this while you were writing, and I'm sure there were
some tears writing a book. When you said writing a
book is hard, y'all, faith ain't lie. Writing a book
is hard, and especially when you are digging into your
own stories and your own experiences in life, it is
a challenge to put that on paper. So now that
(36:24):
the book is out there, you have written it. This
thing you've written is going to end up in the
hands of so many black women all around the country,
all around the world. When you like close your eyes
and imagine a black woman wherever she is, she gets
to that last couple of pages. And you know how
when you like finish a really good book and it's
like you like kind of close it. I mean, I'm
(36:45):
still talking about physical books. I know some of y'all
get to the end on Kindle and then it says
other things by this writer y'all know what I mean.
You get to the end and you have that moment
where you're like, man, what are you hoping black women
feel or think or received at that moment at the
end of your book. I hope that black women feel seen,
(37:08):
and I hope that Black women feel like they have
space to heal and also to name themselves. I feel
really strongly about this because I feel like oftentimes in
our society, Um, you know, black women are named already,
you know, aggressive, ghetto, Um, you know, just name list
(37:31):
the name of negative things, right um. And and yet
you know there's so many you know, amazing traits are fashion, Um,
how we show up our hair that is you know, emulated,
you know, taken stolen from us. And and I really
want black women to feel seen and also like they
(37:51):
can name the name themselves and heal. I think, Um,
that's what I hope people feel, you know. I I
my hope was that people would read the book and
close it and feel empowered. Um. And so yeah, that's
what I hope happens when people read it. I'm excited
for people to read it. It's so nerve breaking writing
(38:12):
a book, but I'm really excited, um to see how
the message you know resonates with other people. To me,
it's like the two best parts of writing a book
is when you're actually like, hey, I got a publisher,
I'm going to write a book. That part is great,
and then when the book ends up out there, because
it feels like when you're when you're writing, you're just
(38:33):
in your room, by yourself, whatever space you know you're writing.
It's you know, especially as a stage person, it's like
I'm used to I'll just finish this poem, let me
go take it to an open mic. Then I'll be
able to see right away, you know, how do people respond?
Whereas when you're writing a book, you're just like you
feel like you're alone for a while, just writing, writing,
writing things. And then the day comes that now other
(38:55):
people are reading that. I mean that is it's a
glorious day because you get to see how people are
interacting with it and some of the ways you expected.
In some ways you're like, oh, I didn't know people
would get that from it, but all right, you know,
so I love that for you, faith, because you put
in your time, honey. You put in your time right
(39:16):
in this book, honey. So I love for black women
to get a chance to feel loved on, feel written,
to feel thought of. That it is not something that
you have to sort of try to pull out the
parts that are for you. Um, I think that's just
gonna be wonderful. So tell the people how they can
follow you and know more about you, and what are
(39:39):
the ways you recommend that they purchase their five copies?
Let me say the title for y'all, five copies of
Remember Me Now, a journey back to myself and a
love letter to black women. How can the people do this? So?
You can get the book wherever books are sold, so
even independent bookstores, and some people have also talked about
(40:01):
can I get it in my local library? Yes, you can.
You can ask your local library to order the book
if you would like access it to it there. And
you can follow me at faith b I spell money
with two T s f ai t th h and
letter b um. And you can follow me on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
(40:23):
My user name is the same in all of those places,
and my website is faithbooks dot com. And so if
you um are like you know what, I kind of
like what I'm hearing, but I'm not sure, you can
go to my website and you can download the introduction
and the first chapter and you can just get a
little taste see if you like it. And if you do,
go ahead, go buy the book, share it with some friends,
(40:45):
start a book club, spread the word, love it. Faith,
Thank you so much, not only for joining us in
our her living room today, but for bringing your story
into so many rooms. They're gonna be so many rooms
that you may not physically be there with black women
as there in their living room or maybe riding the
(41:06):
train to work. I mean so many places where black
women will be encountering this book. It's also available as
audiobook where you can hear Faith read in her voice.
And so many Black women are gonna be spending time
with you and your story. And it's beautiful that you
have given us this love letter to ourselves. That's wonderful.
Thank you, my friend, for joining me, Thank you for
(41:27):
having me. Her with Amina Brown is produced by Matt
Owen for Solo Graffiti Productions as a part of the
Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with I Heart Radio.
(41:51):
Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and
review the podcast.
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