Adulting - #91 Civil Rights, White Supremacy & Climate Justice with Mikaela Loach

Episode Date: January 17, 2021

Hey Podulters, in this week's episode I speak to Mikaela Loach. Mikaela is a writer, climate justice and anti-racism activist and she’s also in her 4th year at medical school. We discussed the UK civil rights movement, white supremacy and climate justice. This is one of my favourite Adulting episodes ever so I hope you really enjoy, Mikaela was such a wonderful guest and as she says ‘human bean’. As always, please do rate, review and susbcirbe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Podlters. In this week's episode, I speak to Michaela Loach. Michaela is a climate justice and anti-racism activist. She's a writer and she's also in her fourth year at medical school. We discuss the UK civil rights movement, white supremacy and climate justice, which are the three things that Michaela wishes she had been taught in school. This is one of my favourite adulting episodes ever, so I really hope you enjoy it. Michaela was such a wonderful guest, and as she says, a really lovely human bean. So cute. As always, please do rate, review, and subscribe. Bye! Hello, and welcome to Adulting. Today, I by michaela loach hello how are you i'm good yeah

i'm like spending my study slash work from home time sitting in front of my sad lamp for like 10 hours a day which actually i think has made me trick myself into thinking it's summer even though it's freezing um and it's been quite good for my brain this is what everyone has been telling me to get and I for years because I definitely got really impacted by the dark and I just haven't bitten the bullet to get one and maybe this is a sign that I really need to do that no it's a really good investment um like I get like quite low in the winters usually so it's genuinely like changed my life would really recommend okay yeah I keep getting remote I need to do it because I definitely when it's sunny I can like jump out of bed I'm so excited the day ahead and if it's dark I'm like no I don't want to do anything so stressful okay so before

we get into the chat could you give us an introduction to Michaela who you are what you're doing you mentioned you're studying so just a little bit about you yeah sure um so yeah i'm mckayla luke i am a fourth year medical student uh based in edinburgh which is why it's so cold up here um so i'm currently on clinical placement um which during a pandemic is like a whole thing um but i'm also a climate justice activist and a co-host of a podcast called the yikes podcast where we talk about climate justice and anti-oppression and trying to make these conversations as like accessible and inclusive as possible um because we feel like sometimes there can be barriers in the way of people getting involved um with these things by just not kind of understanding the lingo um I'm also a writer like I write lots of

different things and I write on my Instagram as well and communicate things um through my Instagram page and I think I've covered the things I think I'm always like have I missed something I usually miss out medical student is you go I think it's ended up being like my side thing which is so weird um but I think I've got it oh that's it you're definitely a multi-hyphenate person you've got so many things um going on have you have you always been like this like when you were younger and when you're at school have you always been someone that's very proactive and creating yeah I think so I think that like I've always kind of it's this weird thing of like thriving on being busy but I'm trying to challenge myself on that a lot more recently to realize that being busy all the time isn't always a good thing

and especially if you're not looking after yourself and like caring for yourself um but I think definitely like my whole life I've always been working on whatever other projects or like caring about a lot of different like social justice issues whilst also kind of having this academic path at the same time um so I've just always kind of been busy I used to actually know this is such a random thing but yeah I used to always do loads of like drama stuff at school I completely forgot about that until now but I'd always be like doing all these random kind of small projects at the same time and then always have to check myself at some point and be like you're doing too much take a break um but I think recently especially in the last year um

I've had to like really focus a lot more on resting as well as being busy and doing all this stuff. And also realizing how much my maybe need to be busy or prioritizing busyness so much is like a manifestation of like internalized capitalism. And therefore, I need to kind of resist that as well and not just try to be busy all the time. Oh, it's so fascinating. And the thing is, it's so glamor trying to be busy all the time oh it's so fascinating and the thing is it's so glamorized to be so busy so actually I'm by nature someone that isn't I'm not necessarily kind of like predisposed to be very like hustle culture and like work I'm quite good at resting naturally but I find myself feeling really like judging myself if I'm not sort of like

at the minute obviously with the pandemic I think psychologically it can be really difficult to be on top of everything and I keep getting I'm like no it's fine we're in a pandemic like you don't have to create the next big thing whatever it is and then I get all this guilt definitely as you said like fed by capitalism for this idea that we have to constantly be striving to keep achieving and never really sitting back into contentment and it's it's funny that it's such an irrational like feeling of guilt or fear because it doesn't help anyone if you're burning the candle at both ends yeah exactly I think this is something that I've been reading a lot about um in the last year like the idea of like radical self-care and self-care resistance that um Audrey

Lorde and Angela Davis talk about a lot and i read this really great article by vice that talked about um black power naps and like the sleep gap that exists between the black community and the white community and how that um that sleep gap and the almost rest gap as well the gap between how much like rest is allowed to the white community into the black community that is um a legacy of white supremacy and a manifestation of it in today that like through sleeping and getting good sleep, your body and your brain is given that kind of ability to dream and imagine and you use parts of your brain and sleep that kind of allow yourself to manifest creativity and how much creativity and this ability to imagine is so inherently

linked to being able to see a future and being able to envision a better future and how that's been taken away from the black community and therefore to choose to rest and to choose to like to sleep and to and to get adequate sleep and look after yourself is a way that you can the black community especially can allow ourselves to envision a proper future and also like be healthy by the time that we can get to that future and I just thought that was really beautiful and moving. Wow so is that because sort of systemically I was about to say historically but also currently obviously people black people are paid with jobs or don't have the luxury or access to rest is that where that stemmed from? So yeah I think there's a lot of different things so in the time of like transatlantic and chattel slavery um like kind of deprivation of sleep and having to constantly be working was

something that was obviously quite key to that whole system and that has continued yes through like lower paid jobs but also I think part of it will be manifesting in the whole like idea that you have to work twice as hard and the black people do generally have to work twice as hard to get the same amount and therefore there's this idea of like not being able to rest because we talk so much in the black community especially about um like celebrating black excellence all the time and sometimes I'm like it's also okay to just be like normal and not be excellent and just kind of exist as a person um I think there's this there is this kind of um expectation of like having to work super hard in order to I don't know to like justify our

existence and that will manifest in how much good sleep you get as well as like the amount of sleep um yeah it's super interesting and there's so many different reasons but this is something that I've been like thinking about about and reading about a lot. No, that makes so much sense in terms of like, we so often recognize how often people of color and black people aren't given the room to be human. You're either superhuman or you're demonized. And so exactly what you're talking about, that chasm in the middle just to be, just to be, isn't facilitated in the world we live in which is fucked up um as I'm sure we know have you read um Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep no I haven't I've heard it recommended to me so many times but I really until um probably like a few months ago I was really struggling with my sleep

but I thought that reading it would stress me out more because it would show me how much me not sleeping was harming my health and I was like I can't read this right now but I think I'm at the point now where everyone I've heard so many people say it's amazing my mum um like said it was really really great um and so I do need to read it because everyone says it's so good it is really good I think it does make you want to sleep because you're like shit I need to get in those hours like I was thinking about when I was at uni and I used to do like all-nighters and it's like even one all-nighter couldn't and I'm like no I did so many that's so scary I definitely can pull an all-nighter sometimes that's great yeah I imagine with all your work on as well you're probably up I remember when my sister was doing her medical degree she just never would be asleep and we were like Emily you need to

rest um yeah oh gosh so much work also there is actually a Joe Rogan episode with Matthew Walker. I don't normally listen to Joe Rogan, but it's a really good entry into the book if you can't be bothered to read it straight away. And it kind of covers a lot of the points. It's a really good chat. Okay. It's like an entry. Okay. So as I'm sure you know, this season we're talking about the three things that you wish you'd been taught in school.

And the first thing that you've chosen is that you wish you'd been taught about the civil rights movement in the UK, which I think is so important. I mean, I still don't feel even that clued up on it. And we hear so much about the civil rights movement in the US, but in the UK, it's just not really what's definitely not part of our curriculum. And I don't think it's even part of like common knowledge. So when did you start to know about that was it something that you were taught about um post-school when you're at school was it family friends research what was it that enlightened you to learning about this so I think this is something that I'm still learning so much about um and that I've only I think I only started

really learning about um the civil rights movement from a UK perspective probably when I read um Akala's book Natives when he started touching on kind of some of that stuff and that was I know quite a few years ago um but that was kind of my first opening into that um but before then because so I grew up in Surrey so that's like just outside of London if people don't know where it is um but in like very very white sorry and we were like the only black family like at least in my area and um at school the only times that I was taught about um black history was being taught about chattel slavery but through the lens of but brilliant abolished slavery and um we only ever got taught about um the civil rights movement in the US and everything that we were taught was basically like oh my gosh yay um liberation has been fought

and won by people in the past there's nothing left to do Britain did nothing apart from abolished slavery woo that's the end of it and it meant that I think even like as a young person I part of me was like oh it's because if you're just being taught that then you're going to kind of believe it's true but then my parents like thankfully taught me a lot of other things but because I'm Jamaican so I was born in Jamaica I got taught a lot more about like Jamaican history and then also how Jamaican history connected more to like US history so there was this big gap in my knowledge that I only realized as an adult um about the civil rights movement in the UK um and I didn't even realize that they were black um British Black Panthers and stuff which seems like so silly to UK um and I didn't even realize that they were black um British Black

Panthers and stuff which seems like so silly to me now but I didn't I didn't know about the Mangrove Nine I didn't know about the Bristol um bus boycotts I didn't know about so many different things that happened and it's only been like yeah as an adult reading books like Natives by Carla reading Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about race by Reni Adelodge where the first chapter is just about um black history listening to the history hotline podcast which is a podcast all about black history in the UK which has episodes on the mangrove nine who were nine individuals who faced um prison um pretty much as like a consequence of them being harassed by the police and then protesting against that. From reading books and from the small act series, so I'm like rambling so many different resources, but I'm really excited by all these things that are

coming out now that hopefully will mean that kids who are like I was when I was younger will now be kind of surrounded by this information that has been deliberately restricted from us for so long for a reason. Because if we don't, if people think that racism historically has been more of a problem in the US than in the UK, and that liberation was only fought in the US and not in the UK, then they'll think that like, this kind of exceptionalism that's taught about this British exceptionalism is true when really it's just not. I totally agree. I remember when I first read Rennie's blog before her book came out and it was like, I don't think she mentioned the history in that, but she was mentioning about even just the ideas of like systemic and institutionalized racism within the UK. And I definitely had

accepted this idea that, you know, oh, it's really bad in the US, but it's not really the same over here. And obviously with my privilege blinding me to not be able to I wasn't experiencing racism so I didn't know that it was happening all the time I it was such a smack in the face to read her book and be like oh my god I remember reading it and like being with friends or being with Matt and I'd be like did you know this did you know this every page and neither has had any idea and it's it's it is so important, as you say, all of these books will come out, but it's shocking to think.

I mean, I know I've actually just ordered Audre Lorde and Angela Davis because I haven't read either of them yet, but I just ordered some of their books the other day and I'm really excited to read them. And obviously there have been texts around, but obviously they weren't accessible in the way that they are now

and people didn't speak about them in the way that they did then. All those who were speaking about it didn't have the platform to shout about them. So it seems incredible that there's been such a big time lapse between these things happening and us accessing the information about them, as you say, very deliberately. Yeah, it's just like, I think with all of these things, I think we need to always remember that all of these things are a choice. Like what's been chosen to be put in the curriculum for schools is a choice. The fact that at the school that I went to for my GCSEs, I think it was the civil rights movement in the US was like a course that schools could choose to teach their students. But there's not a course on black British history or the civil rights movement in the uk that students can learn about so it's the all of these choices are made for a reason so that we because when we

don't know about our history we're like so much more disempowered to be able to create change because we can't really learn about what's happened before and i think that i've even found like watching the small act series that came out um on bbc which is a series of um films about um like british caribbean stories um and they were directed by steve mcqueen and i even watching some of those i was like weirdly shocked at what i was watching and how these were stories that happened and that there's so much documentation about and that I was, I shouldn't have been shocked because obviously we've been like restricted

from so many things, but I was shocked to see how kind of omnipresent the police brutality and so how violent and how kind of open it was. It wasn't even disguised in any way, at least now it's disguised in some way for a lot of communities but um just watching these films that were based in not not history

that's not even that far in the past like history that's within our my within like many my parents lifetime probably within my um definitely within my grandparents lifetime um i think yeah i think there's a reason why we're not taught about this and it is really concerning and i think that a lot of other people a lot of other people in the black community will have learned about this stuff because there are things like um pan-african sas day schools and sas day schools that um are made by people within the community to try and teach their own their own kids about their actual history because there's a quote by marcus garvey that says that people without knowledge of their past history origin and

culture is like a tree without roots i think that's something that we need to think about a lot is if we don't know about our own history and black history isn't just for black people it's also so intertwined with everyone else's history because we all make up part of society and if we don't know about the holistic picture of history then we kind of it's going to be so much easier for us to perpetuate the worst parts of it um and perpetuate so much more harm and that's why i just think it's so important that we do learn about all these things and black history is british history and i just think that it's so sad how we've been kind of have that stripped away from us um yeah sorry I'm rambling a lot now no you're not rambling I was

just trying to think about when I was doing English literature at uni like how many of the books we had from black authors and there were a few but there were also separate modules that were dedicated to black writers and when you think about that like as you just said that's actually really weird that it wouldn't just be integrated because and probably more importantly it is white people and white students and white children that need to learn about the racist history of britain and the civil rights movement because as you say like as as a black person you're experiencing racism every day and that history might have been taught to you by community members or because you might start to question like where it's come from whereas the problem is like I was so blinded I really didn't

understand and it was I was much too old I was in like my 20s like my early 20s when I started really to understand this and that's much too late I think in someone's life to like not understand something that's so seismic yeah and I think that it's just like it shouldn't be that we should have to seek this stuff out ourselves like most of the stuff that I've um kind of learned from are things that are community projects or just individuals who've decided to do stuff themselves like um the history hotline podcast is just run by someone who did their masters in specifically in black in black british history and realized that there's just this huge kind of um gap in people not understanding black british

history and she wanted to make it accessible to people because it's already not that accessible like in one of the podcast episodes she talks about how um for black history month in the uk um even black politicians in the uk the examples of people that they'd used um of freedom fighters and of activists in the past would be martin luther king malcolm x and andrew davis maybe so they'd only use examples of civil rights leaders in the us to talk about um liberation and that shows how much we've kind of Americanized this whole idea of civil rights when actually there are people like Barbara Bees and Atiyah Jones-Lacoyne and so many other people in the UK who were also fighting for liberation. There were Black Panthers in the UK. There were so many other different organizations.

There's a rich history of resistance, especially in the black community in this country and too often like we can only ever think of these names and this is also something that I until very recently I would only have been able to name um civil rights activists in the US and yeah I just think it's something that we just need to be learning more about and it's great that there are the small acts films available on BBC iPlayer and that um the black curriculum on Instagram and on other platforms do some really amazing education and the history hotline and and sitting in limbo which is a documentary or not documentary it's a like a drama about the windrush scandal it's great that these things exist but they're so they're still

so niche and it's like why should black history be this this like niche add-on when actually it's central to all of our lives and this in this country the UK's wealth was built off the pillaging and harm of black people all over the world um and yet they want to ignore like kind of what that history has meant or what that history was um and just tell us all to move on and everything when actually that history is also happening now and that history is also present now and as you said before it's a very like recent history I actually didn't do history for you to see because I thought it was so boring I remember I can't remember what we'd done in year nine but maybe it was like Tudors and we'd done

like 1066 in like the battle of Hastings in year seven I was like this is like not interesting whereas I think I would have been really emotionally engaged in a conversation about the UK civil rights movement because it would have felt so important to me in a way that like would be relevant to our lives today and it just seems like I don't it is it's such an obvious omission isn't it really because the stuff we learned about was just not useful like it was so far back in history that actually it doesn't necessarily have the same impact as learning about things that are really really recent and unequivocally impact our day-to-day lives every single day in the way that we operate and um I guess this kind of actually leads us

quite well onto your second thing that you wish you'd been taught in school which is actually one thing actually what you just said I'd like to just say because I think that you've made a really good point there about like the fact that the things you were taught didn't impact you and I think that that's the point is that they don't want to teach us things that are going to cause us to realize the inequality that exists in the world today they can teach us about the Tudors and Henry's um six wives because that's not going to cause people to realize oh wait a minute this is unequal in our society or wait like it's not going to have the same impact of of exposing the inequality and the violence that exists in our world um and that's why I think it's like a deliberate choice I just wanted to like just comment on um what you said

there because I think that is really key it's like they don't want to teach us more recent history because they don't want us to really question the status quo that exists now it's so it's it's so insidious when you it's actually just so simple isn't it like sometimes I have a sense I'm like oh that's weird and it's not weird it's all very deliberate and um even if it's not deliberate on the part of the teachers it's like everything trickles into one another and it's quite sickening when you sort of look at it for what it is um sorry so yeah so your your second thing you said you wish you'd been taught about white what white supremacy is and how to dismantle it and I think yes I mean definitely me when when was your first knowledge of the word

white supremacy or the other concept oh that's a good question actually I'm not sure I'm not actually sure that's a really good question I actually don't know when I was because I think there was definitely a point in my life where I think I was given the words to express things that I already knew existed and I think that was a really powerful moment I think that's why language can be really powerful because it can really equip us like I actually remember I think the first time that I had read about microaggressions was in Slay in Your Lane and I think you did a podcast episode with the authors um that I listened to at the time yes yeah um and that and that book actually I found was really formative for me in um in like communicating a lot of things I've been

experiencing or at least me being able to rationalize a lot of the things I've been experiencing and realize what they were and realize that I wasn't like losing my mind like these were this was racism because the kind of world that I grew up in I was in very very white environments and very not not very like civil resistance environments and therefore I didn't have the people around me to kind of equip me with these different words or language or concepts so I think from a very very young age from for as long as I can remember I knew that white supremacy existed but I don't know if I don't know when I had the words for that or when I was given the words it was probably very early

on in my life but um because I because of the places I grew up in I was othered from quite a young age and I was like made to feel like I didn't fit in because I didn't fit in where I grew up. But then I was also experiencing like racist violence and all these different things. I think that like whilst I was aware that this was a thing, I didn't have the words to like just to know how to dismantle it or what dismantling would mean or or how it operates I think my kind of understanding of white supremacy at least as a child and as a young person was always um more in like kind of anecdotally like things I would experience or reading about the civil rights movement in the always seem to be from a US context um but I didn't I didn't have the same kind of like arsenal that I think I have

now thanks to people who I've read like René Adelodge and thanks to in my like adult years reading Angie Davis and um Audrey Lorde and reading um Lea Sard's work and just and Rachel Cargill and all these amazing people who I think for me have just kind of explained all these things and when you understand something you it's so much easier to tackle it I agree I think that um it's interesting because I was asking that because it's only in the last few years that I've learned to see white supremacy for what it is which is everywhere systemic and insidious whereas I think when I was younger and I can't remember what age but probably like early late teens I would have thought white supremacy was purely like the Ku Klux Klan or um some other group which committed over violent racism on other people and that was like who they were um I think that again through

work like Leila Saad and um Renene Adelodge my understanding of it has become the words I think that we everyone used to give that like white supremacy as a concept so much power as if it was almost like saying Voldemort like you can't the word is more powerful than the thing and never actually address the fact that white supremacy is inherently present everywhere do you know do you know what I mean I feel like that's almost how it permeated my consciousness as like um a tangible thing that you can go that's white supremacy whereas what it is is invisible and um everywhere does that make sense yeah no that does make sense I think I think like obviously existing I think also so because of the spaces I existed in like my my like blackness was

much more visible because of those spaces so I think I'd always been aware that it was intertwined into everything but I think my understanding of white supremacy as being something that has that was created deliberately and that is upheld actively has changed a lot and so therefore my understanding of and so by that I mean that white supremacy isn't like an inherent thing that has existed in the world since the start of time it's something that was um created in order to subjugate and marginalize and and commit violence against um groups who did not fit into this white category like race is a social construct and it being a social construct doesn't mean that we dismiss its existence it just means that we acknowledge that um kind of these systems like white supremacy

that have been created to harm people um are creations they're not in inherent things um and that kind of can take us away from this eugenics weird argument like i think it's only been in and i think that my understanding of things changes all the time and i think that's really important and wonderful for all of us that we can be wrong about things and change and develop our ideas um i think in recent years my understanding especially in the last like couple years my understanding of white supremacy um has impacted my life and my actions in so many ways because I've realized that if it's a system that was created by people and if it's a system that is upheld by people then um if we are if we are allowing ourselves to be comfortable within this system then we are being we are

upholding this this system we're upholding white supremacy and that as much as i think it's talked about like all the time people seem to talk all the time like oh well we need people to like what we're doing in order for change to happen or we don't want to cause too much disruption like blah blah but if we're never going to disrupt the system as it is currently then we're just upholding it like if if the actions that we're doing don't cause a real tangible shift then are we just like kind of upholding this this same system but in a different way and that's really challenged me I think on my activism a lot because I've been like how much of this is me just creating maybe pushing towards the same world as it is now but that just might be labeled differently or look a bit different like shouldn't we want to overturn all of this and completely create like a complete

new world and that requires um destruction and i don't think destruction is always a bad thing because if we're destructing something that if we're destructing white supremacy which is harmful and awful um then that is a good thing and that's why i think i use the word dismantle white supremacy and i'm still like checking myself a lot on um the word dismantle because i'm like if we dismantle it does that mean it's still possible for someone else to put it back together i know this is such like a strange thing to think about but i think a lot about language and i'm like or do we just want to destroy it so it's not possible for it to kind of come back? Do we like destruction and like, yeah, and things being agitated doesn't always have to be a bad thing. And in us doing this work and real work that really like will destroy white supremacy and create a whole new world will require people to be uncomfortable and like us to be uncomfortable in different ways i think about how i think i saw today that um in the height of martin luther king's activism who he's seen i

guess now because they've like whitewashed him and made him more palatable throughout history um but he's seen now as like the more palatable activist and yet in the height of his activism um 68 percent of people didn't agree like white people didn't like what he had to say and didn't think he was a good person and so that's the majority of people thought he let alone like imagine what people thought about Malcolm X imagine what they thought about other people so it's like we aren't going to get our freedom through appeasing people and through everyone being comfortable um yeah this is I think you've said that so you're such a beautiful orator I love listening to you talk um the I think that's such an important thing about activism that we

often I think the word's kind of been diluted too much because I can't talk about it in the sense of well I mean I could but I directly benefit from white supremacy so what I'm trying to let me explain this in a way that so okay when it comes to like feminism um I when I first learned about feminism felt quite radically about how I was going to change my life in order to to and obviously dismantling or destroying white supremacy should fall under feminism as part of intersectionality um but in terms of when it comes to like sexism sometimes I catch myself and I'm thinking um and I've spoken about this before when it comes to choice feminism how do I word this sometimes you do because um sticking with the status quo even if the the structures of it directly undervalue you or um systemically marginalize you or whatever sometimes you'll realize that

if you do the thing in the way that you're supposed to do it, there can be an individual gain, which is in direct opposition to the universal gain, which would help everyone else who's either of the same privileges or whatever as you or different. um and i wonder if with ever like that's something i don't know if i've even worded that in a way that makes sense but with activism i guess it's hard sometimes because you'll be maybe really happy and you'll get something that's really good and then suddenly you have that like oh my god mind fuck of realizing that makes you complicit and i just think that's what's you're right i agree like with activism and with anything whether that's like in order to change the this capitalist racist patriarchy that we live under the world would literally have to look completely different from how it does now in order for there to have actually been actual change and that's so scary to think about so it's really hard striking that balance I guess and what I'm trying to ask is

how do you like survive and thrive and dismantle and not do you know I mean is there how do we navigate that or how do you personally kind of like marry those things together yeah I think I just with so with trying to kind of I guess do the best work I can do um that side of it it's just constantly challenging myself on how and why I do what I do and how I choose to resist or my activism I think it's something I'd really recommend that all of us do who are trying to create social change in any way like constantly check on the ways in which we're doing it and ask yourself like why this way do you think this way is like really disrupting things do you think this way is like really disrupting things do you think it's possible that it could be upholding these issues

in some way what do you see as success how much is that kind of view of success um tainted or reflection of the world as it is um currently like I went through a bit of a phase I still do sometimes of being like so I'm very aware that my work the kind of work and activism I do I'll probably never have like a big win ever like I'm I'm not going to have a time where I've probably like had a campaign and there's a clear defined finish or there's a clear defined success from it because the work that I'm doing is trying to push the world of thinking like in into a bit of a different direction and that isn't going to have the same kind of deadlines or goals as our world does at

the moment because I like obviously like capitalist world is very like goal driven and there's a clear defined end or um that kind of thing but I've realized and I think I've I've sometimes been like maybe I should just like have more well-defined guilds and I realized that you can't actually step away from that and stepping away from that is also a way of of trying to exist outside of um this space but also it's recognizing within myself like where am I putting value on what am I putting value on and is that a reflection of the world I want to create I think that in making myself healthy as I do all this work and um like happy in myself as well as much as I can and feel joy as often as possible.

I think it's also having, I think a key part of that is something I mentioned a bit before about sleep and dreams and rest. But it's being able to imagine like, what would I be doing if this new world that I'm striving for was here, like what would I be doing in that time? And giving myself space in the world as it is now to try and do some of those things as well. Because I want to get to this new world that might not happen within my lifetime, but I want to get to this new world as like a healthy human. And I want all of us to get there as healthy humans. And if I'm like super burnt out

and just stressed all the time and sad and heartbroken all of the time then I'm not going to be the healthiest person I can be at the end of it um I also just think there's so much importance that needs to be put on joy as well as like something to be felt by all people and especially those who have been historically oppressed and who are like currently marginalized um i think we just deserve to feel joy and deserve to like really spend some time imagining like what would we do in this new world like what do you want in this new world like i know for me one thing if i was in this new world if all the problems were solved i'd just spend all day scuba diving. And that's all I do because it's my favorite thing in the whole world and reading and like

sleeping. And so obviously I can't scuba dive right now because it's very cold. But like what I do now is I just take time to rest. I take time to read silly fantasy and fiction books, as well as doing the kind of resistance work and the like important work because I think all of those things are necessary um and that is also and part of I think seeing that dismantling white supremacy also or destroying white supremacy also looks like valuing myself enough um to care for myself um in a way that sits outside of these ideals of like capitalist self-care instead it's like how can I care for myself in a way that is truly like filling myself up um rather than um kind of in a more surface way of like this like kind of falsehood of making myself feel better by I don't buying something

that's going to give me a temporary kind of joy hit of joy or something but instead like how do I sustain myself in a joyful way I think that's such a brilliant answer um I also would love to be scuba diving and reading I'd quite happily join like a commune where we just read and scuba dive that sounds amazing I'd definitely do that somewhere hot um yeah whilst we're still on this sorry to take it back to serious but i just want to ask you whilst we're on the still on on your second thing of white supremacy i wondered whilst you're studying um for a medical degree obviously to become a doctor what how how much is that permeating in your studies like how i know that during the black lives matter protest my sister's doctor

would have colleagues who finally felt like they could um speak up and talk about because obviously it's so it's systemic and it runs through everything do you feel like even when you're studying let alone in school but perhaps on your course or like even within the hospitals that there needs to be a massive kind of i guess legislative change on the way way that we do studies and um trials and stuff like that yeah I think um so not even I think in my in my experience um and in yeah in my experience I guess um medicine is a white supremacy it's um assist normative um like heteronormative horrific patriarchal white supremacy and it like I'm like kind of like laughing there as if this is this isn't funny but um I think it's more because to exist in in this space and so I think the rest of the world as a whole is also

a white supremacy it's also like a heteronormative cis-normative patriarchal white supremacy that's the the rest of the world ableist as well the rest of the world but medicine is like a lot of those things almost like amplified because um like medicine itself is built upon um a lot of kind of academia and academia itself is also very very built on white supremacy and gatekeeping and and keeping people who are kind of undesirable out of that space um but also having a lot of the norms of academia um be based upon like white people or white experiences so we look at medicine a lot of the studies that have been done have only been done on white people and then those kind of um statistics or ideals or whatever

are kind of put upon the rest of the population so for example with bmi bmi um studies the original bmi studies were only done on like white white people and that has been put upon other populations which means that a lot of black individuals experience also i think by bmi is complete bs as always my understanding but um yeah people have been put onto other populations and that's the way in which um people especially the black community can feel medical racism because they have these ideals of bmi being put up on them but like also interpersonally with doctors I've experienced loads of situations of like gaslighting of microaggressions of like full-blown like racism and these are people who have a care

over patients and that's really scary because when when someone's got kind of in charge of someone else's life um that is something that is really delicate and that's why I think I feel quite honored to be in this profession in the way that at some point I'm going to be like with someone in the most vulnerable part of their life and be a part of hopefully helping that person and it does scare me how much um doctor how many doctors I've met and this is just this isn't like this isn't a bad apples problem this is like a systemic problem um but how much as well medicine as an institution kind of uphold these ideals of white supremacy and oppression. And I think I actually don't know how to change this.

Like I find it really difficult to even kind of conceptualize because I think the problem is so deep rooted that it would take a very it would take a very very very long time for these kind of issues to be to be fixed because already um in society as a whole so many people are stuck on racism doesn't exist and so can't even move on to like anything else and so that's what I think is difficult within medicine is that especially within my experience of of medicine is there are so many people that don't even, they're not even at the baseline, they're way below the baseline of understanding about white supremacy or any of this stuff.

So then trying to get them to understand how they are perpetuating it is so difficult. Like I've had conversations before with colleagues where I've ended up literally having to give like a one hour, I don't do anymore, but I used to, when I had more patients give like a whole hour or two hours of me explaining what white supremacy is and like why their behavior was harmful towards me or towards someone else or blah, blah, blah. And then having someone constantly say to you for like two hours, like you're wrong. That's not real. Like, and so and so when people are at that stage of not even believing it's real it's like how do we how do how can you do anything that's what I think is

quite difficult with this is it's like how do you go beyond that because there can be all this kind of performativeness of being like oh yeah we care about like like black lives matter in medicine um but if in if in not only my experience but also I've spoken to like other especially black women around the country who've had the same experiences um that I have or even or even worse ones um where they've literally had to leave their medical schools I've talked to multiple people who've had to leave their medical schools because of racism um and because it was that bad and yeah I think it's that's what's hard is that in the medicine is almost like an amplification of like the rest of the world in a lot of ways and I think that's why these issues exist but then this is my own theory but I also think that because at medical school and especially in

the medical profession you're told by everyone like oh my gosh you're so smart you're the best of the best you must care so much you're so good at everything that it means that if you're told your whole life or almost all the time that you're so great and so amazing it's going to be really hard to see how you can also be perpetuating harm I think that with a lot of these people like they just genuinely do not believe that they could be perpetuating harm they do not believe that it's possible because they are the best of the best and they've been told that for like their whole life um and that's why I think it's just such a deep and difficult issue that I don't, I don't really know how to solve it. I don't really know the best ways to do it.

Like, I think obviously more, more black doctors would help, but I think the institution itself is just also very racist. I'm the only black student in my year in medicine. Wow. And yeah, and that's been a whole a whole thing um a whole terrible thing um in many many ways um but then and I do think that like for me personally having other black students in my year would be great or even having maybe black teachers like black doctors to teach us but I don't think that would solve the issue and that's why I think there's kind of links to like representation and the idea that representation would would

solve things I don't think it will solve things if there's systemic issues um I think it could help I think that this is when I when I talk about like disrupting or agitating or destroying I think that medicine as an institution was built off white supremacy and racism like in the way that um so many of like gynecology as a institution was built upon um performing procedures on enslaved black women um who did not consent to procedures and were not given um anesthetic and how things happen to them like if if things are built i find it really difficult if things are built off oppression if all of its kind of roots and everything have been built off oppression then how do we use that same system to get liberation I just don't think I kind of feel like we need to overturn things as a whole

um also I realized that I just talked for like 10 minutes straight about random medicine and stuff but um yeah I think this is something I'm still working out in my head but I also really want people to be more aware of how medical racism is is a very present thing and that needs to be tackled um and i would be interested if anyone like is a black doctor doing this work like if you're listening to this like please reach out because i'm interested in how we can do that because i'm also not really sure fanduel casinos exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute?

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really enraptured in what you were saying. I think that in a similar way, it kind of sounds like a bit like the understanding that I've come to have around policing now is kind of the same where it's sort of like well the police systems were literally built off the concept of oppressing and marginalizing so how can we still use that same means and not expect it to like recreate the same systems and I think it makes complete sense to talk about medicine in that way. I think that one thing I guess that's happening that's getting quite a lot of media attention and might start to open the floodgates into people investigating this more is people talking about black women dying being five times more likely to die in childbirth. I think it's one of

the most it's one of probably one of the only things I've seen actually broadly discussed about the way that medicine is institutionally racist and that's that's still only again come to the fore in like proper media probably post our most recent civil rights protests that we've had um so it's a long time coming but yeah I mean I wrote so I did a global health policy degree last year and I wrote one of my essays on um black maternal mortality rates and in it I kind of did a deep dive into like medical racism as a whole thing and it was quite I learned so much by doing that but obviously I chose to do that myself like I chose to I made up the essay topic myself like I asked my professor if I could do that this wasn't something that was being taught to the rest of my year and I think that's what's

difficult is that even the knowledge that these things exist is something that we have to reach out and find ourselves it kind of links back to um what were you saying before about yeah I guess what we wish we were taught at school like what I wish that everyone was taught at medical school was about medical racism and the fact that it exists we had one lecture on race at my medical school and I felt like everyone was staring at me during it I was like really in first year really nervous and the lecture was basically like the lecturers who wasn't he also wasn't the lecture wasn't black and they were like um can people please let us know their experiences racism and I remember sitting there in first year like one of my first weeks being like I'm already the only black person in my year

I don't know if I want to put my hand up and like talk about this now especially when you're like I don't know 19 20 at least I just felt really nervous at that time and that was the our only education of race was like that one lecture which was quite pants to be honest and I've learned stuff about medical maternal mortality and loads of other things after because of kind of researching that myself um and it seems like like education around this stuff it shouldn't be that we have to find it out ourselves because especially anti-racism work is healthcare work um because through the case study of maternal mortality we can can see that, so people think that things are bad in the US more so than the UK,

but actually in the US, black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth than in the UK. It's five times more likely. It's actually worse in the UK. And kind of reasons around that, there are so many different reasons. There's interpersonal racism.

There's also like stress of existing in like a white supremacist society is something that is seen as a contributing factor to lower kind of worst prognosis and worse outcomes for black patients. And so therefore dismantling white supremacy is healthcare because it will improve people's health in so many different ways.

And yet we're never really taught about it in that context. And it's always like, oh, well, we've got so much science to learn that we don't have time to. I've heard this from other doctors. We've got so much, so many other things to learn. There's just no time to learn about racism. But it's also like to say that is and then but then these are the same people who will then spend like, I don't know, hours and hours of their time reading articles about like fish lungs or something like something that is just not I don't know not actually relevant to a lot of their work or that it's

not important and it's just frustrating how much people will say these things when they are literally just saying like I actually don't care like they'll make these excuses of oh yeah we've got so much other stuff to do but what you're saying is this this isn't a priority to me I don't really care um I really would love to see some significant change with that. But I mean, I'm not holding my breath now. I think I'm hoping that I can be the best doctor that I can for my patients, and especially for like for all of my patients. And I can do healthcare work that is like anti-racism work and stuff.

But I think, yeah yeah I guess I hope that there'll be there'll be change but I think I've just been scorned so much from this institution that I don't know it's just quite tricky and also like kind of what you're saying about you having to seek out that information it shouldn't really be on the like your responsibility as a black doctor to be doling out all of this information and nor should it be on any other black doctors or black students you know this is where this education becomes crucial because again it's just more emotional labor for you like your lecturer asking you to talk about I mean I do that sometimes on these on these podcasts in the

context of the guest is like talking about but I wouldn't be like in a seminar do you know what I mean yeah like talk to me about your trauma yeah it's like in my lectures I'm the only person to well so I also can't say that I'm the only person in my whole year to have ever asked these questions because I don't know if people are asking them privately I don't know if they're in a different lecture or whatever but in my personal lectures or tutorials we've been having lectures on skin and lectures on trauma and things like that so things that um present on skin and that we're always taught to look out for redness and we're showing pictures only of white skin ever and i'm the only person who ever says hey what does it like on a darker skin tone like you only showing us this on white skin is just perpetuating medical

racism will mean we won't be able to treat we won't be able to spot things on darker skin patients. And a lot of the time, I don't think that these, I really don't think these doctors are actively being like, I just want to be racist. Like that's also not how racism or white supremacy works. Like I think that it's in the omission, it's a manifestation of white supremacy and that omission still harms harms people whether it was intentional or not um and I think it is it is kind of it is exhausting to have to always be the person to to kind of raise that um because I just feel like other people should be especially I don't know especially after this summer I think that's something that's been kind of frustrating is all these people I saw post um these flipping black squares or share infographics their stories and then when it comes to actually doing something it's just silence and crickets everywhere um and that's what is has been I think most frustrating

actually post the summer has been like the lack of translation of this anti-racism work from being online or on your stories or on your social media to being in real life yeah I think this so my sister's a dermatologist and this is something she actually said to me was like um she was like the other thing is she was like there is there is no like even if you're looking for it she's like there is no case study she's like every case that I looked through in all of my textbooks everyone is white so um it goes even further than like in that moment talking about it it's like historically there's not even yeah like even if you ask the question they might not even have thought about the answer like what does happen if if someone's got dark skin and it can't go red or there's so many things in the language that she's actually become more conscious

of she was doing she was doing a post about her dermatology and she was like oh my god i've just realized if i say this that's actually really not relevant to these people or this and it's it like does because you have that especially as a white person that natural bias to default white and don't which isn't an excuse at all it's just um it's it's really odd to think that it's gone on for that long oh my god I don't want to talk too much actually because I want to I want to hear from to did you have a point to say to that bit or can i go on to your next bit um i was just gonna say quickly um that i with all of this i think people just need to remove i think if everyone could just remove the feeling of guilt and from it because i think

that what will happen sometimes when i'll say these things is that um people will kind of take it as this personal attack towards them like oh I like I I'm not racist and it's like uh that shouldn't be the prior I think guilt can sometimes be a very self-serving emotion of like oh it becomes all about you and actually like people who are doing these things or like if maybe if you're listening to this and you're like oh my gosh I didn't realize how much I'd only learn about white patients or or just thought about what is the default like we all live in this white supremacist society so the things that we do say think acts or act on will be a manifestation of the society in some ways and it's not about the individuals it's about a system as a whole and like if we just kind of let ourselves be arrested in this state of guilt we're

not really going to get anything done um and so I think I just want people to like it's not it's not personal and we need to stop just making it just about ourselves and kind of move into a bigger space yeah and also as you said like guilt is so halting it but you become like dwelling on it and actually if you're really indignant I've had to learn it's like if you indignantly want to say oh I'm not racist I didn't mean that then you you've got to accept whatever the situation is and change it. Okay, I was going to say it onto a lighter topic, but it's not really. Your third thing is you wish you'd been taught about climate justice. And I think that's another crucial one. So yes, that's let's leap into that.

I actually think that climate justice, for me, is something that's very hopeful and very wonderful and that's why I wish I'd been taught about it because I think that the only way that I had been taught about the climate crisis was as this either is this like kind of not that important thing or as this big awful looming threat which which is but through the lens of climate justice we can see how in the way we tackle the climate crisis we can also tackle inequality and like how wonderful that is and like how many co-benefits there are um so like from a medical perspective again um in the lancet's report on climate and health so i think it was in 2005 they originally said that the climate crisis um

was the greatest threat to global health um but then in 2000 i think it was 16 2005 they originally said that the climate crisis um was the greatest threat to global health um but then in 2000 i think it was 16 or 15 i mean their next report they said that the climate crisis can be seen as the greatest global health opportunity and the reason that it can be seen as a global health opportunity is because when we take this lens of climate justice so climate justice is a principle um that sees that the climate crisis is interconnected with um other social justice struggles other struggles for liberation and other oppressive struggles. And that we cannot separate any climate work from anti-oppression work. So the climate crisis is inherently connected with gender oppression.

It's inherently connected with racism. It's inherently connected to ableism and so many other things in the ways not only in the ways that it impacts people differently um and that some people are impacted more than others but also in the ways in which um how the climate crisis was created was based off a lot of these systems of oppression so it was kind of based off this model of colonialism of extraction and going into a country somewhere and harming the land and the inhabitants of that country in order to extract things for the benefit of majority white people living in countries such as in Europe or in the United States of America and basically through a climate justice lens we see that solutions to

the climate crisis can also kind of dismantle destroy these other oppressive systems um and i see that as really hopeful and i think that's why i wish i'd been taught about climate justice because for me my route into activism was through a migrant rights and migrant justice route that's what i was involved with before i got involved with climate justice or any environmental work um because i really cared about migrant justice and then it was realizing how connected migrant justice was to the climate crisis and to racial injustice and all of these things i cared about could come together under climate justice um that i started doing i think my like most important um work because all of these things are interconnected like all of these things we have to look at them through an intersectional lens like um audrey lord says that we can't we don't have

single issue struggles because we don't live single issue lives um and climate justice is a principle which sees that um that yeah climate the climate crisis is not just a climate struggle because we all like inhabit this world and it is all connected and all of these systems are connected and I think that's why I find it really hopeful and wonderful and important what um I was just about to say that actually it's so nice because all of your points if you initially look at them on paper like the three things they seem quite disparate but of course they are in tandem with each other constantly um and you know trying to solve one problem will hopefully alleviate some of the stress of the other etc um and you know trying to solve one problem will hopefully alleviate some

of the stress of the other etc um yeah I think that's why like because I was thinking of saying because I was thinking of putting one of my things that I wish I learned at school was like there's so many things I could write and then I realized that these three things I felt like kind of encapsulated everything because I wish that I'd learned about the impact of fast fashion for example and I wish I'd learned about the I wish I'd learned about the impact of fast fashion, for example, and I wish I'd learned about intersectionality. But all of these things kind of come under the bracket of climate justice because a climate justice lens also tackles how the fashion industry harms women of colour in previously colonised countries

or in countries that would be seen as traditionally global south. It also impacts the patriarchy in so many different ways. It also impacts all these different things, like climate justice is connected to all of these different things. And if we take this lens, then we can take an intersectional lens and we can kind of alleviate a lot of these struggles. And I just think it's really exciting. And I've learned so much from people who have been doing this work for so long what was your you said that your entry into activism then was through um talking about migrants and um that kind of crisis but what was your actual first action that you took in your activism that you were like this is true activism as it were oh that's a really good question um I I think that I had been doing activism for a while and not realising it was activism. But then I think the first time that I was like, this feels like activism, was probably going to Calais is in France it's on the border of the UK and France and there are at least when I went the first time there are quite a few hundred

people who are displaced from their homes who are trying to get to the UK because there's currently no safe routes of travel to the UK for people seeking asylum and anyone anyone in the world is allowed to seek asylum and it's a human right to seek asylum but there aren't safe routes of travel so people have to take unsafe routes and people live in camps and they experience police violence and there are grassroots organizations that are kind of set up in calais that um provide food to these people provide warm clothes and tents because the police will come and they will um in sub-zero temperatures they'll steal people they'll take people's shoes from them and they will slash their tent so they have nowhere to sleep um and they will prevent them from kind of accessing food,

which is preventing them from accessing their human rights. And I went to Calais for the first time, I think I must've been like 17. I don't actually remember. I was like in my teens and I just went along because I think I'd seen it on the news and I wanted to help out in some way. And that was the first time that I met kind of real life activists if that sounds weird in the way that I'd obviously been I'd been to protests and things before but I felt like I just kind of rocked up and kind of stumbled along um I'd done kind of things I didn't see as organizing but was organizing but being there I met these people who were just kind of normal people who were who'd just seen a problem and cared about it and did something about it and were also involved in loads of other different movements

um I think that was the first time that I kind of realized that if these people who are super normal um but could do it doesn't say much stuff that they you don't have to be in Martin Luther King or Anja Davis to be an activist you just needed to do something and these people had kind of done that and I think that I found that that was a very pivotal point I think in my life. I'd love to ask you actually what your how you define activism because I think especially at the moment there's a lot of chatter and bubble going on around about you know can can influencers and activists is is that concept mutually exclusive like I think that sometimes activism is heralded as being like one specific thing so like I don't know like you said earlier a really specific

example for instance changing the law or whatever and some people think it's not individual acts and it has action it has to be legislation what how do you frame it in your mind and what I feel like it sounds like you come to with a very compassionate perspective where you think that you know everyone if everyone does what they can do you can kind of be active in your own way as it were is that how you frame it yeah I think that um so I also saw a lot of this stuff that was conversation that was going on around um influence and influences and influence activism and everything and it at first it really stressed me out because I was like is everything that I'm doing problematic and terrible um influence and influences and influence activism and everything and it at first it really stressed me out because I was like is everything that I'm doing problematic and terrible um even though

obviously thought about this stuff so this is something that me and a lot of my friends talk about a lot and we reflect about reflect on a lot I've noticed that um because for me a lot of my work has migrated to be online and on social media um this in the last year and I don't know it's so silly that I didn't realize it's because we're in a global pandemic like we literally can't organize in person like it's very difficult to and also there are so many other features that have made um other parts of organizing that I've been involved with more so in the past kind of inaccessible or just like just dealing with a pandemic has been stressful I think I'd really beat myself up about the fact that a lot of my work had kind of migrated to being online I was like and then loads of people online obviously

being like this isn't activism and I was like is it not activism um and basically I think reflecting on all of this I've and speaking to a lot of my friends and having like a lot of deep conversations about this I don't know how I think it's it's difficult I don't think I can say what is and what isn't activism I don't think I also don't think that like many people can say what is and what isn't activism either um I think that activism itself is just being active in the face of oppression and on a struggle and doing something about it i do think that active that like important and moving activism requires giving up of privilege and that will look different for so many different people um but i think the real activism just means causing disruption and doing

something and yeah that i i i can't say that um everyone that says that they're doing activism it is activism or i definitely don't think you have to change a law or anything like that i think that even that can be scrutinized as to um as to like that obviously through so many different lenders around like the state and blah blah there's so many things that i think every type of activism is is different um and i think that we all have different roles i think that there isn that there is definitely an issue when it comes to influence a culture and this kind of glorification of an individual and the making out this one individual

is the blueprint of activism and activism only looks like this one individual. That is definitely an issue. But I do think that activism can happen online but I just think it's really essential that all of us resist. So Angela Davis says that it's essential for us

to resist the depiction of history as the work of exceptional individuals um if i'm kind of paraphrasing here if um we're able all of us individuals to be able to realize um our own power and being part of a collective struggle um i do think that there are definitely times in which i think social media can kind of get in the way of that because we focus too much on one person's done this and that's really amazing when actually all of us can be a part of a struggle and the person who's making the person who's printing off posters for an organization their work is no less important than someone who is doing activism online on social on a platform and has loads of followers like I don't think that a hierarchy

is is useful and that kind of goes both ways I don't think that a hierarchy is useful and that kind of goes both ways. I don't think a hierarchy and saying that activism on social media is unimportant is helpful. But I also don't think that a hierarchy of saying that the only way to do activism is off social media is helpful. I think that we kind of need to have space to realize that there are so many different factors that play in. And like, I've had a lot of people since I've been talking about, because I've talked about this a lot on my Instagram recently, and I've had a lot of people DM me who like,

who are disabled and have said like, I'm really grateful that you've talked about how social media activism is real activism because other forms of organizing aren't really accessible for me. Or I've had people who live in very white areas and who are black message me and say like that they find organizing in person in their direct community quite difficult um just because their different identities are more visible so I just think that there I think there's a lot more nuance to this conversation um I do think there's some really important criticisms to be made around like profiting off liberation

movements and things like that um I think that's something that needs to be talked about i think redistribution of wealth is something that needs to be talked about a lot more especially for people who um make money in any sort of way off um liberation because if there's no redistribution of wealth then are we just kind of um oh this is something that might take longer to explain but like are we just trying to become the white man in in the way of like being like oh well we just want to accrue um the same kind of resources as as the current oppressor has yeah that's kind of what that was kind of what I was trying to say earlier but I couldn't figure out how to say it where sometimes like um it because it can become profitable it kind of isn't what I was saying but it kind of is where like you don't realize that

it feels like you're doing the right thing but actually without realizing you have become the thing that you were trying to dismantle does that make sense yeah definitely and this is something that I check in on myself a lot because I yeah I think this is and this is something that I'm still working out a lot because I recognize that by, by kind of accident, I've become part of influencer culture. Um, and that was like a complete accident. Like this summer, my following grew significantly as at the result of black people being killed. And that was quite traumatic in itself. And then that's kind of catapulted me into this different space and having to navigate different things that I didn't really expect to have to navigate and make decisions about things I didn't really expect to have to make decisions about things um but I think that's why it's important for all of us especially any

of us who are doing this work to check ourselves on these things and I think there does need to be a much bigger conversation around redistribution of wealth um and like kind of more transparency around that um especially for those people who do kind of social media activism stuff and then also kind of make money in some ways I think it's a really difficult conversation that we could probably have like a whole hour discussion about um but yeah it's something I'm definitely thinking about totally because I'm also in that in that I don't see myself as an activist but I definitely have conversations which really center around social justice and then I also make money from my platform so I then also been sitting back and thinking how did those things marry each other and and should they can they coexist and if they can um what is the correct

way of doing it kind of thing it's definitely and I think that'll be an ongoing conversation because social media is so new um yeah and also because of the way society's changed like just as you were talking and I I was thinking oh my god, I mean, I don't even class myself as an influence activist, but I was like, oh my God, is that not real activism? But actually, most people spend most of their times online. Like we don't really, people don't exist outside pandemic or not as much as we used to. And maybe there's a slight resistance because people are feeling nostalgic for the old way of writing and the old way of you know change but actually in a really sadly cynical way it's likely that lots of this stuff will just be all online now that's kind of the way we're moving so maybe we need to be less resistant about the way things are being packaged

and more um focused on whether or not it's having you know a great impact I think that there's so much kind of snobbery around things being done online when actually I think that's kind of unhelpful sometimes yeah I agree and I think that one thing that one thing that's kind of made me maybe a little bit sad out of this is I'm like I hope this doesn't I hope this doesn't just make people feel like they are less of an activist just because they do stuff online because I just think that's not that I just don't actually think that's very helpful um like I hope this doesn't push people away because one thing is I feel like people ask I'm I'm scared of um people online just dragging me for anything I do um and I do think we've kind of built up this quite troubling culture of

feeling like we are entitled to someone else um who we don't even know um and to like drag all that they are as a human being and I think it's I think it's difficult though I think this is something that like I'm also still like working out so it's quite hard to like have a line on it but I think it's just something that we all need to like check in on ourselves on a lot especially in this space but I don't want it to mean that people don't talk about issues because they're too scared that they're going to be called an influencer activist or whatever like I was like am I an influencer activist I don't know um I don't really think that these labels matter that much. But that's just me.

No, I agree. And I've even been there before where sometimes I'm like, oh my God, I'm just not going to talk about anything because I can't. I'm like, I don't want to deal with the dragging. Like I don't think I can, like mentally, I don't think that some of the pylons I've watched online, I don't think I have the mental capacity. I wouldn't be able to cope.

And I watch it and it's very scary. And I think that when you're someone who's a creator, know what it feels like even if sometimes I'll just get loads of messages people being like oh I'm disappointed in you and that can make me feel like terrible even though that's kind of like not that's not really like someone trying to cancel me they're just kind of expressing like disappointment and if that's enough to kind of make me not want to talk to anyone I can't even imagine so I think I hope I think that because it's getting so catastrophic like these this this like huge kind of battling I'm hoping that that's going to calm down a bit and people are going to start extending all of

branches because the the huge bit of lacking that we're having right now is just people on total opposite ends of the spectrum not having any sense of communication because of echo chambers and polarization and I think that's what's heightening everything and I'm hoping that as we're seeing like every time there's been a vote for something in this country that's gone wrong like we need to kind of talk to each other more with before we get angry I guess is what I'm trying to say but it's hard yeah I think it's hard because social media like runs on the system of of being fueled by outrage and are fueled by like hot takes and being and having like a really defined line about something and not kind of allowing space for nuance and then I was talking to a friend recently who um I know through organizing and we organize together and do different community action groups together

and we were talking about how kind of the concept of accountability and community accountability from organizing spaces has been just taken completely out of context and applied to social media, which is a completely different space. And the real accountability isn't really happening online. It's just like this kind of faux accountability where actually people just being dragged and it's not actually the same as real accountability and it's and it's not actually and it's just kind of appropriating a lot of these terms that have been taken from liberation struggles that are really beautiful and important and like vulnerable and intimate things and applied to just drag people and it's not the same thing and I think that that's what's kind of frustrating and the end and it is kind of worrying because like I think that that's what's kind of frustrating and the

end and it is kind of worrying because like yeah I don't know I don't think I could mentally deal with a pylon I don't think I could do that like I find it already tricky enough when like I get racist people in my dms or even just people just yeah telling me they're disappointed in me I think that's why recently I've just I've done quite a few posts just being like please do not put me on a pedestal if you're going to then please just unfollow me and leave this space because I'm I'm not going to meet your expectations I promise you I'm sure I'm going to let you down in some way I'm sure I'm going to get something wrong because I'm a human being and I'm happy to admit when I've got things wrong and I'm happy to grow and learn but I'm not going to be this superhuman perfect person and you really need to stop expecting

anyone to do that and I'm also checking myself on that because I think I expect everyone to get nothing wrong sometimes I'm like whoa that's actually just not how people are like that's just not real um and like just expecting someone to be perfect and then dragging them when they're not isn't accountability no and I think that this is maybe a learned thing because because of being online and being on the receiving end of like constant opinions but you learn like I now am so much more patient with someone if they get because I'm like if I criticize you for not knowing something that is basically I have to be saying then I am 100% certain that I'm 100% right on everything that I know obviously for someone with really abhorrent views you can kind of like say something but it's more like when someone

gets something slightly wrong I'm just like well they probably just didn't know and that's fine because there's so many things where I've been pulled up politely and I've been oh my god I had no idea and it's fine and then in other instances people really get outraged that I didn't know something and it's like if you feel that towards other people you have to check yourself and think in this are there situations in my life where there's loopholes in my knowledge or my understanding then it's just a bit more compassion I think and it's hard to find that online sometimes yeah and I think it I think it like I think it's something I always say to myself I don't remember who said it but I saw it somewhere um it's like don't counsel people for things um that you've only just done learn yourself yeah I think that's kind of like the the way in which I because also I definitely used to believe so many horrifically horrible things um that I am really

glad I did not have social media when I was younger because I'm sure I would have written like tweets or something about things that were just stupid just because I was a child I did not understand things and then it's weird how how easy it can be for me to even forget like the times in which I had problematic viewpoints and then have these really strange expectations of everyone to just know everything now. We didn't all leap out of the womb as these unproblematic, intersectional, amazing activists. We all are going to get things wrong. wrong and I think that part of part of this though is both like I think we need to be so open to being called out about on things and being told where we're wrong about things especially where we're harming people and I think we need to check our egos when we receive messages like that or something I need to check my ego and I know when I receive messages like that not

immediately dismiss it but actually like check myself on like like am I doing this is this something I don't know about how can I create how can I change my behavior um but also we need to like look at the people that we see and realize that they are also going to be a manifestation of this harmful world and we can't expect them to get everything right all the time and if you are seeing someone get everything right all the time um they're probably not showing you part of themselves so i don't i just don't think anyone's perfect or anyone's everything right um and i think that there's so much more power in someone being honest about where they've got something wrong and being honest about how they do consistently get things wrong and they consistently believe things that like should not they should not have believed or

they're harmful but they but they are willing to change that's so much more powerful than someone just being like i'm perfect and I get everything right and I do everything right all the time like I think there's just so much more power in in being vulnerable totally and also even if at that moment in time that person is as clued up things that change I change my mind on stuff all the time like that influence activism conversation the other day really made me stop on my tracks and I was like right do I need to reassess how I'm moving forward like I'm consistently and every day going back on something which even I might have hashed out loads the first time and then everything always needs revisiting and history is always going to show up our blind spots when we look back you know in hindsight god

the things I've done and said and thought are awful but the positive the positive thing is that you're looking back and it's different from it's different now if that makes sense i just think being able to change and allowing other people to change and grow is one of the kindest things you can do because otherwise one of the things is we hold people to the same standards that they were five years ago or we expect everyone to stay the same and without change and without growth we'll never get to that beautiful world you were talking about with yoga and not yoga scuba diving and books yeah yeah like that's one thing that um so andrew davis who i do love a lot and think that she's really great at by as much as i'm trying not to glorify individuals i do think

she's really really great but she talks a lot about not glorifying individuals as well but one thing that she talks about in a recent um time magazine article was about how she like she's actually kind of almost glad that they didn't achieve the world that they were aiming for because it was limited by their understanding of things like she says that she just didn't in the 60s when she was fighting for liberation she didn't have an understanding of um trans struggles in the trans community and that the world that they were fighting for wouldn't have been um the best world because it wouldn't have been aware of those issues and she's someone who i respect loads and i think that seeing her be honest about where she's been like had a huge discrepancy in her understanding of liberation um is really helpful because it's like okay I'm sure that I

there'll be so many spaces in which I don't have a full understanding of the best way to do things or I don't understand everything completely and I think that's like quite wonderful that the world that I can imagine is the best world ever won't even be as good as it can get um there's actually so much more um that I won't even understand I think that's just really like quite lovely and I think that that's how I view things being wrong I'm like and one thing I was talking to um the co-host of the X podcast that I host I was talking to Joe for a patron episode yesterday and we were talking about um like also congratulating yourself for the person that you could have become um if you didn't unlearn these things um and like how

you've in in unlearning things and um making other decisions to change your behavior you you are where you're at now rather than feeling guilty for the things that you used to um used to believe or that how problematic that was instead you can be like I didn't choose to go down that road I can acknowledge that I was in that space but I could have become this other person um and yeah I just think that change is really important and growth and is really beautiful I love that I think that's such a nice thing to end on I don't want to keep you I've realized we're talking for ages although I speak for so much I'm so sorry oh my god no I would I would keep going for hours but I really don't want to keep you because I feel bad um but honestly you've been such an incredible guest.

You really, you know, sometimes you speak to someone and it gives you that, like, I've been feeling a bit deflated. This happened to me when I spoke to Shona Virch as well. It's probably the world, but I've lost that want to learn and do stuff and take action. But talking to you, I think you're such a positive person. And even though what we've spoken about has been so heavy, your attitude towards it is so, like, invigorating. It's just been an amazing chat so

I'm very grateful to you um if people don't follow you or um you have anything that you want to share I know you've got your amazing podcast it's called the yikes podcast it's called the yikes podcast yeah so that's like a good space to listen more about we have episodes on so many different things we have one on what it what is climate justice if anyone's interested in that and we have amazing guests and stuff on there as well um you can find me on instagram um i'm just at michaela loach or i mean twitter terrifies my soul but i also have twitter um which is also at michaela loach um and yeah i mean you can find me in all those spaces then we've got some other exciting things coming out this year and there's three different projects that um if you check out my instagram it's probably the best place

to kind of find those things when they do come out um yeah i've loved this conversation so much thank you so much for having me oh it's been so enjoyable i'm so grateful to you thank you so much and thank you everyone for listening i will see you next week bye Bye.m. with your chance at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Daily Jackpots, a chance to win with every spin and a guaranteed winner by 11 p.m. every day. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario.

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