Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 390: Brandi Jordan

Episode Date: July 11, 2020

Brandi Jordan, brilliant human, postpartum doula, newborn care specialist, and pediatric care specialist joins the DTFH for an intense one! Sign up for Brandi's online workshop, "Be Braver: an Anti-Racist Parenting Series," and check out Brandi's organization, The Cradle Company, for all your pregnancy and postpartum needs. This episode is brought to you by: Squarespace - Use offer code: DUNCAN to save 10% on your first site. Purple - Visit Purple.com/Duncan and use promo code DUNCAN for $150 Off any mattress order of $1500 or more! DHM Detox - Use offer code: DUNCAN at checkout and save 20% on your first order!

It's Macy's friends and family, get an extra 30% off great gifts for her just in time for Mother's Day when you use your coupon or Macy's card, and take 15% off beauty essentials or shop specials she'll love while supplies last. Plus Star Rewards members earn on every purchase except gift card services and fees at Macy's. Sign up today at Macy's dot com slash star rewards. Savings off regular sale and clearance prices, exclusions apply. Greetings dear friends, there are landscapers directly outside of my office and barking dogs and helicopters and some kind of basic chaos vortex has formed outside of my studio

so at least part of this intro is going to have to be recorded in a digital voice because I want to get the intro done today but as often happens when I set a goal, the universe is pushing back by creating a literal hurricane of instant noises. It's not just the landscapers, the dogs, my neighbour Jack hammering concrete, the toddler, or the very loud birds preventing the usual intro it's that when there is a break in the sound I get paranoid that at any moment the sound will start back up so this intro is unsatisfying as it may seem to those of you who love my deep, booming, central voice is very satisfying to me in that it represents a kind of victory over the forces of chaos.

This is the sort of thing that all of my favourite teachers have taught me regarding getting things done. That if you wait for the perfect moment then you'll end up waiting forever. Or even worse if you get caught up imagining that you need extra gear or some kind of technology you don't have access to then your need for a better camera or computer or synthesiser becomes yet another excuse to not make something. So instead you try to use the limiting factors or the chaos factors as part of whatever it is you are creating instead of attempting some kind of escape or waiting for things to

quiet down. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but to me I've begun to imagine that it's a good sign when at the very moment I try to make something there appears some kind of pushback or problem to, content with. That being said if I lived in a mansion you better believe I would have an elevator that went half a mile down into a bunker where my studio would be located in a sealed vault and where I would slide into a flotation tank that had some kind of getamine mist that it pumped into the air allowing me to telepathically recall my thoughts while travelling through

alternate dimensions. Unfortunately we are not there yet, would need to get the Patron up to 100k a month for that. Regardless we have a wonderful podcast for you today, we are gonna jump right into it but first this. Welcome back friends we got some silence praise god but really you know I kinda like the text to speech thing maybe I'll just start doing that from now on. There's something really liberating about knowing this like digital English person is

gonna take over your voice it's fantastic this is the future that I long for you know or so many things were just born into it you know you're born in I didn't want to talk this way I didn't want to look this way to be honest with you I mean some like some of my friends who are you know into the a certain idea of reincarnation would actually say well the truth is you did you did sign up for that exactly that thing that you're in right now you sign up for and PS I'm not trying to bash myself I mean I love this form that I've taken I just like it I didn't have to grow a beard to make it seem like I had a chin you know that kind of thing I don't know why when I went out in the department of reincarnation

when they're like do you want a nice strong beautiful powerful symmetrical chin or do you kind of want to like a stork thing and I'm I was like I'll do the stork and just grow beard that's the thing where I can't wait for that video or whatever you get when you before you go into the next incarnation of that I want to I would like to have a conversation with the self that shows that by the way similarly you know I don't quite understand this voice you know it wouldn't have been the first voice I picked I would want like some kind of beautiful booming deep voice you know again I'm not saying I don't like myself I like myself but this is these are the kinds of things we have to deal with you're just born you're you're

born a certain way that's just how it is you're going to be a certain you're going to have a certain height you know you're I've got scoliosis so you're going to have a kind you're going to have like weird shit I got one ball I don't know if I sign up for that I say give me hey how about no chin and one ball let's do that I wasn't born with one ball by the way I had to get one of my testicles removed but anyway this is what I look forward to if the transhumanists are right we're going to get to a point where nanobots can disassemble our bodies and reassemble them instantaneously so we get to experience every possible form come on as much as we have a culture of like you got to love yourself how many people are going to not instantaneously

change some aspect of their identity immediately how many people who up until that day have been like showing Instagram memes that say love yourself or the wonderful videos you see of the children doing the sweet affirmations in front of the mirror saying oh god I love I love you I do that sometimes and I'm hyper depressed that's one of my tricks and it honestly I'm not sure it works that well but I just would love to know how many people when it does finally when we get into that place where you just like you know press a button on your iPhone you can turn into a tiger a lamb a tree you know a neanderthal or a whale or you can you know shift your voice instantly or can pain painlessly all of a sudden have

boobs you know how many people are gonna like not change themselves give me a break everyone's gonna you won't know anyone from you only you only know your friends are anymore everyone will look so different probably people turn into little gnomes and people turn into snakes and cats you won't have any idea what anything is when that happens and I look forward to that moment but hopefully there's some precursor moments where you could just be like you know what I want to grow my ball back I want that weird little bald spot on the top of my head to fill in again I want my eyes to be a vivid blue I want to have a powerful chin and let's get the Brad Pitt abs from Fight Club and let's experiment with that weird tattoo idea

I had when I was in high school fuck it let's do that and then probably definitely make my dick bigger and then I don't know let's add a couple feet to the old body size size it up a little bit get some biceps I'd like to be able to play Flight of the Bumblebee on my mug that'd be pretty awesome and yeah then after that let's see what it feels like to be a cabbage this is what I would do but who knows we don't know we're not there yet in the meantime we've got the computer to do that stuff for us and our imaginations and until then yeah love yourself because what else are you gonna do you know push up sit up start running jogging give me a break what are you gonna do start eating healthy you just start eating healthy is that what you're

gonna do you're gonna stop stop eating these fucking perfect bars that are everywhere I don't know if you guys have had these not sponsored by the way but they're delicious but I'm starting to think these are just candy bars because these there's no way these things are okay to eat I don't know what I'm saying at this point my point is yeah I love yourself until you can change yourself into a jellyfish instantaneously wonderful podcast for you today Brandy Jordan is here with us we're gonna jump right into it but first this this episode of the DTFH has been supported by the glorious loves over at Squarespace.com friends in ancient times if you wanted to be resurrected by aliens you had to build an entire pyramid and put yourself in a painted sarcophagus

your heart would have to get sucked out with a tube it was a real mess and it took a lot of time but these days if you want to get resurrected by aliens in the coming resurrected times which are just around the corner all you need is a beautiful website that's right you will be resurrected by aliens in the coming times if you have created a website of great beauty and that will sit on the internet until it lasts the silver ships arrive and bring you back to life based on the digital thumbprint that is your website Squarespace gives you everything you need to create a beautiful compelling website don't believe me go to DuncanTrussell.com and lay your eyes on that website which not only guarantees that I will be raised from the dead re-assimilated reconfigured by

nanobots and brought into my most beautiful form when the aliens return to earth but also that I have a wonderful website that I can upload episodes of my podcast easily Squarespace gives you everything you need you want to create a website in minutes you can do it at squarespace.com you want to create something like DuncanTrussell.com something that on one level seems incredibly simple but on another level you're looking at one of the most complexly beautiful websites ever created by a human being and we did it with Squarespace they've got everything you need you want to sell stuff you want to sell your stinky socks online to people during the pandemic well you can do that they've got shopping cart functionality you probably shouldn't do it during

the pandemic actually but I'm sure there's other things you have to sell that aren't your stinky socks Squarespace will make it possible for you to do that also they've just added mailing lists you can use the identical beautiful powerful functionality that creates websites to send out beautiful mailers to your subscribers Squarespace is very powerful very easy to figure out and I use it every single week right now why not head over to squarespace.com forward slash Duncan and give it a try when you're ready to launch use offer code Duncan and you will get 10% off your first order of a website or a domain again that's squarespace.com forward slash Duncan can try them out see if it works for you and then use offer code Duncan when you're ready to launch

that beautiful website which will not only enhance and amplify your business here in the material plane of existence but will guarantee that you and I and so many others who use Squarespace will be resurrected by aliens at the end of time thank you Squarespace technology has improved just about everything phones cars shopping yet mattresses have more less been the same since the invention of sleep by Playtoe but we deserve better and finally the mattress has evolved thanks to purple the secret to purple is the purple grid it's a patented comfort technology that instantly adapts to your body's natural shape and sleep style purple is for everybody no matter how you sleep it's soft it's cool and you're gonna love it they sent me a purple pillow

and the thing is really space age was I a little skeptical when I saw those purple commercials yes but when I lay my tired head upon this amazing pillow I was actually blown away it felt like I was kind of levitating my head above my mattress it was really wonderful relaxing and most importantly comfortable right now you can experience the next evolution of sleep go to purple.com slash Duncan and use promo code Duncan for a limited time you'll get $150 off any purple mattress order of $1,500 or more that's purple.com slash Duncan promo code Duncan for $150 off any mattress order of $1,500 or more terms apply purple it's a great mattress that's made just for sleeping purple we're back look I know what you're thinking these I don't want commercials in my podcast

I want it to be a straight shot through with no interruptions and I understand if you're interested in commercial free episodes of the DTFH head over to patreon.com slash DTFH and subscribe to the video tiers you you're gonna have access to all kinds of stuff that we've been doing we have a weekly meditation every Tuesday we've got a family gathering every Friday and next Wednesday that is Wednesday July 17th whatever next Wednesday is it's July 9th right now I don't feel like doing the math that's where I'm at in my life in the pandemic I could look at a I'm gonna look at a calendar what's wrong with me let's see here yeah next Wednesday is the 15th in fact we're gonna be doing a we're starting a book club

and we're reading dune so if you're interested sign up patreon.com forward slash DTFH we also have a wonderful shop we've got face masks baby you want crow's milk face masks we got them all kinds of stuff over there beautiful garments for you to wear on your body just go to dugatrustle.com and click on the shop link okay friends let's do this thing today's guest is a brilliant human this is a podcast that definitely I'm still spinning from it got a lot of data that I'm not going to spoil for you right now regarding what it's like to be a black person in the United States and I think it's really important right now to as much as possible get as much of that data as you can if you don't happen to be a black person in the United States it's crazy to me that all this time

I've had my face shoved into a variety of conspiracy theories when one of the more sinister conspiracies that I've ever heard of that is verifiable as verifiable can be is happening every day to black people who are in this country and wow fuck it's crazy and it changes you in a good way I think but it definitely isn't a comfortable thing necessarily I don't mean to spoil the podcast for you honestly when I reached out to brandy to have this conversation I thought we were going to talk about birth she's a postpartum doula a newborn care specialist and a lactation consultant and a pediatric sleep specialist and I wanted to talk about babies but the conversation it didn't really uh it didn't really hang out there that much and I'm glad that we didn't

hang out there that much it got really intense really heavy and really really for me very important so I hope you enjoy it if you enjoy this conversation why not sign up for one of brandy Jordan's anti-racist parenting workshops there will be a link for that at dunkatrustle.com now please everybody shine your divine internal rainbow astral light through the mycillio spiritual network that connects all beings that it comes raining down on today's guest welcome to the DTFH brandy jordan it's brandy welcome to the dunkatrustle family our podcast I am so excited to chat with you

when Erin told me that she was friends with you and that there was this possibility I was thrilled because uh I have yet to chat with anyone on the podcast who is a midwife a doula what's the right I don't even know the right word for it is a doula or is there a doula I don't help them actually deliver the baby like I'm not catching any babies um so it's a non-medical role okay I got you now I was doing a little bit of research into this and uh the history of specifically african-american midwives and um they're there may I was wondering if maybe we could just you could just talk a little bit about that or if if if if that is not something that you feel like talking about or if that's not a good place to start well I would

well how many hours do you have is more of the question all right okay it was the right question yes so I mean in America obviously we have a 400 year history of enslaved people who were black americans from africa and they were the ones who deliver the babies both for their masters owners and for themselves and so those are the women that they sought out in the community to deliver babies and many of those women delivered hundreds and hundreds of babies without incident um when there became you know modern medicine as we think about it today which were mostly white males who became you know ops you know african-american ecologists they began to kind of demonize these women and say they were unclean and they didn't know what

they were talking about and they didn't know science and um that kind of was the demise of midwifery as we knew it back then but they were the ones who are responsible for a lot of us being here right now both ancestors white and black right and a lot of them you know their names may never be known for especially for a lot of black americans who may not have had birth certificates but thousands and thousands of these thousands of babies they were basically the ones who brought their knowledge to this country and helped the people that enslaved them deliver their babies safely at the time that's gotta be some cognitive dissonance there delivering the child of the person who is human trafficking you yeah how what i mean they're

that's so wild that is so wild did now i is the reason like when we first started chatting and i called you a midwife versus a doula that's partially connected to this history right i mean women always assisted other women in birth and whatever civilization you look at that was just the thing that happened um and so for a lot of people their family members were the ones that would do that you had an aunt or a grandma or somebody that was just a person you knew and the villager in the community that was a person that came and helped everyone with their babies my own mother who's from mississippi her name is maggie and the midwife who birthed her named her maggie uh so that was the kind of relationship that these wives have in their communities yeah

and is there some there's you know okay so i'll tell you what i used to think about it which was completely informed by what you're talking about which is a paradigm that has been put out there by uh white people that is now i mean studying it that is connected to slavery another thing just no no idea but i will tell you what i used to think and it and then going and studying it you realize my god you're so conditioned because what i the things i thought you can go on wikipedia literally and it shows you what was put out there which is just what you're saying superstitious dangerous uh basically like witchcraft like basically yeah yeah like some form of like dangerous witchcraft that was you know had its roots uh in african religions maybe and

that uh also i think there was that the problem was one of power which is that doctors there were people who would rather go to a midwife to have their baby delivered because it's super expensive to go to a doctor and have your baby delivered by a doctor and also i think is it fair to say back then it seemed kind of weird and unnatural to all of a sudden have to bring yourself to a hospital or bring yourself to a dude who is also males just weren't as involved in the birth process and that's even partners weren't as involved um so that obviously was something different and so they had to have a way to convince women that it was better and safer to come into a hospital and they did that by demonizing these women i didn't know about midwifery until i was probably

at 19 or 20 which was like a blessing um i was listening to um npr at the time and they had this story of this old-time career called midwifery that you know women were doing but it was very much painted as something that was created about like white women hippies like there was no mention of being rooted in you know african-american culture or in the history of america so that's something that i learned along the way but it's really what opened my knowledge and curiosity into supporting women in birth you know i cold called a i'm from houston so i cold called a uh birth center there it's like i just heard this story on npr i want to know what this is all about and for whatever weird reason they allowed a 19 year old to come and be with them and work with them and kind of

change the trajectory of my life and so 20 years later i'm still working with my babies so was that that story had you have you seen a birth before that had you been in the presence of a birth before i had you know my i have three sisters and we're all like 10 years apart and so my oldest sister had my nephew when i was 16 and i was in the birthing room with her um and so i did see a birth when i was 16 and then the second birth that i saw at the birth center i was 19 or 20 at the time a couple had a 10 pound baby in water and i was like oh like my god like bodies can do this like what what is this like that to me is witchcraft like how was she able to do this yes um and it's like you say like no one was screaming and there wasn't blood everywhere and i was like okay

so this is a hundred percent not what i've been conditioned to believe that birth is that it can be something very different um and i had the pleasure of learning that at 20 years of age before having my own children and going down that road okay do you think you could chat a little bit about that specifically in the sense that my idea of what birth is and my experience of birth is more what's in the zeitgeist because i we went to a hospital we had the injections i saw my wife was going to have an epidural and they messed it up they something went wrong and that i watched my wife her pulse just start going down i watched she didn't see it she didn't see the look on the doctor's face see she didn't see the look on the nurse's face i saw the moment of it going from

being oh this is just a you know what we do to oh shit something's really off here erin was just saying she couldn't feel under her neck but suddenly my entire life in that moment went from you know my idea of what was gonna happen which is oh you know i don't know they give her a needle it doesn't hurt there and then i have a son this is how it's gonna go to i think i might watch the my soulmate die right now in front of me with my son in her belly now also i have a prior to that of course we've all heard the whole thing like it's a bloody screaming mess and it feels like what you're saying is actually what that is is what birth turned into versus what and i wonder if you could chat about that a little bit with us well i think

i mean i always tell people you know people have this idea that doulos and mitwebs are like you have to have a natural birth and you got to be at home and you need to be like a bear in the woods and like i love science my minors in science um and so it's not that like not everyone is a good candidate to have a baby outside the hospital there are many people who need to be in a hospital and i'm so grateful we have hospitals for that right at home birth one home birth and two hospital births and they were all are amazing births it's just not about the hospital it's the way in which we care for families um and pregnant people that is the issue and so thinking about you know the wifery model of care is more of what is important for us to be thinking about so your big wife knows

you they know your they know the couple they know the children you know your visits are about an hour to two hours long you know i think about my time with my ob gyn and we probably didn't spend more than seven eight minutes together right during our visits and so you know so much of birth is about trust the ability to let go the ability to you know get yourself like in the zone so to speak yes and you're not in a space where you feel that type of connection with people you feel that kind of safety what comes up for a lot of people it's fear and we know fear doesn't make you feel relaxed or make you feel like you want to release anything you're going to hold tight and you're going to get stiff and that's the exact opposite of what we want in birth when you're trying to let go and

like like this person that you've been protecting for nine months come from your body to the outside world right and so i think it's more of the idea that we don't have that kind of community connection with our healthcare providers they don't really know you and you know i'm thinking about the black woman where we're more like four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women there's also that i'm walking into that yes wow in some places 10 times racism and bias is the only reason how can you go deeper into that what is the you know we know that people have what one people don't listen they don't trust black women when they say they're in pain or they have concerns they're usually brushed off um and so in los angeles for example they're four times more likely to die and it's

regardless of income socioeconomic socioeconomic status health status it's simply bias and so it might be that you know some things they might take more seriously with you know a non-black patient they're not taking us seriously or they're brushing off or they see them as annoying or complaining and not taking those same precautions that they would take with you know other patients in places like new york um dc it's 10 times more likely to die in childbirth what um yes and so it's a crisis and so you think about if you're going into birth already concerned like how many clients would have to say it's like i'm afraid of dying not everyone is saying that about their birth that their fear is dying you know and if you don't have that relationship with your doctors most

doctors in the united states don't necessarily look like the clients in which they are serving they don't know the issue they have preconceived notions about their families you know i know with my my first child every time i went the woman would be like oh so how are you gonna do this on your own they all assumed i was a single mom i don't have to you know tell you to guess why that was um you know simply just the way in which they you know the way in which they interacted with me didn't lead to a lot of trust happening between us i have to apologize i have not heard what you've been saying because my mind is grappling with that statistic that i had never heard before yes that is that's that is the most i mean of all the things everything we're hearing right now

regarding african-american experience are like something out of invasion of the body snatchers level of like fuck but that one i did what a poster that someone wrote um for one of the recent uh marches and it said um doctors do to black women what police do to black men oh man and i wouldn't resonate with me but it did and i tell people this story i've spoken about it a lot my third baby is now three um i went to hospital to deliver him my third baby and and for a little precursor my second baby was born in 50 minutes so this will give you some wow uh precursor 50 50 five zero congrats luckily it was a planned home birth but this when i was having at the hospital

and i arrived at the hospital you know third baby you know what's happening um the doctor you know i say i'm in labor you know my water start trickling he's like hmm i think you may have peed yourself when you thought it was your water leaking like okay i'm gonna let that one go and i said well i'm in labor you know it's my third baby um and he said to me word for word it doesn't matter that you think you're in labor what matters is when i think you're in labor holy shit and so at this point like you know this is my third baby we're an hour into this and i'm like you know i know where i'm at and i know what's happening um and so he wouldn't admit me so that meant we had to stay in a little triage room have you been in the triage room but it's like the size

of like a damn nurse closet right and you have like a door or anything like that and so i was having to go through this little closet to like the public bathroom and the lobby back and forth while i'm laboring my child uh so like every moan every cry like anyone who's in the waiting room would basically having this experience with me and so at one point we got in there doesn't have a real bed it has like kind of like a cot situation but it became too uncomfortable so i got on my hands and knees on the cold floor and i remember thinking like how am i expected to do what i know i need to do and these circumstances where i'm not even worthy of getting a hospital bed on a slow night on a tuesday um now the the important piece of this story is that this is

the hospital that i worked at for five years at the same time this was happening and in the same department but i didn't have on my fancy white coat and so i was just another black mom coming to this hospital and so word got around obviously that i was an employee and then the brigades came in and then the whole situation changed but i'm thinking about someone like me like i've been in maternal child health for 20 years you know i have a master's degree i have all the things you could think about as far as like the education or whatever and i still was not given what i know they give to clients every single night that i've been there working there for five years and so i think about if i had to endure that think about someone who doesn't have the background

who doesn't have people i had a doula i had my husband i had those people to advocate for me but many women don't have that i don't even know how they can advocate for themselves and that's how they die here's i was gonna go home here's a woo-woo interpretation and feel free to slap it down i will do you feel like maybe people like it almost sounds like you were given that experience by the universe so that you could tell people about it because i just the odds of having worked at that hospital having seen what happens when people of color come in versus white people for them to not know you were connected it was it's like you were given a story in the most awful way you could possibly be given a story because you're not someone who's like well i've

read this you know i've read this in sociology papers or i've heard it when all those things people want to refute because it's easier i don't want to live in the world that you're describing right right right i mean like i tell everyone you know even hearing that story just know that i'm one of the lucky ones i've been able to come home three times alive with three alive babies so i'm a i'm one of the lucky ones you know so when i tell this story you know i can tell us from a place of gratitude because i am alive my babies are alive and that's not the case for a lot of women who look like me so i am grateful because i do have the platform to be able to say hey this does happen and i'm someone that you guys consider respectable like i've done all the things you're

supposed to do in america to be quote unquote respectable and this still happened to me so yes i think it is a gift that it happened um but more importantly a gift that i'm alive and my baby's alive and i didn't go home as they instructed me to do um during this labor and so you know i think about all the people who don't have this and this is one of thousands of examples that i can give on my own personal you know history with just navigating through society so i know what it looks like you know i have the moms who call and say what do i do like you know i i feel like i'm dying like how do i advocate for myself who do i talk to who do i call like is it like a lot of men are now afraid to go to the hospital so we have the other thing happening that you have people who

want to have a baby at home by themselves because they're so afraid of what can happen in other settings not always say this is not a referendum on hospital versus home birth because i think they're both valuable because even that birth experience turned out to be something really beautiful the doctor who then came and relieved this person was amazing and he turned it around and it was this amazing experience yes i think you can have a beautiful birth in either place but it's knowing how to advocate for yourself and having people who really believe in family centered women centered you know birth person centered care in the future and i just want to put it out there that i hope this is the future where this period in american history global history of catastrophe

becomes the what people look back on as like when we really did face facts and somehow and god knows i have no idea how somehow on the other side of this we do have equality we do have we've come to terms with it there's been i don't know what the word for you even that is it some kind of global healing or evolution or healing and equity is what we need much thanks to DHM detox for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH DHM detox is the vitamin for people who like to enjoy alcohol it's a smart responsible way for you to enjoy your booze it's time to start taking care of your body when you drink whether you hate hangovers or just like to enjoy a few drinks here and there DHM detox it's a must enjoy your drinks without next day

nausea brain fog anxiety or headaches their company is built on the words no days wasted there's a misconception of the awful next day feeling is caused by dehydration that's not actually the case it's because of the buildup of alcohol's toxic byproduct DHM detox uses science to help boost your body's natural response to alcohol and help break down those toxins the key ingredient DHM is a plant extract that has been used in Asia for centuries while drinking alcohol it comes from a plant known as the tree of gods made up of natural ingredients antioxidants and vitamins you can just take two capsules after your first couple of drinks and it goes to work double up take another packet if you're having a big night they come in convenient packets that

are easy to share with friends and family while you're celebrating or socializing how important is your next day for just a couple of dollars you can wake up feeling fine after drinking also there's free shipping on all us orders DHM detox is a risk-free purchase so if you aren't satisfied after taking the product they'll give you your money back it's a no brainer you can get 20% off your order just head over to nodayswastedcode.com and use promo code Duncan and check out that's nodayswastedcode.com if you have any questions send a message to at DHM detox on instagram thanks DHM detox so equity yes people say equality but you can't give people the same when we've had you know 450 years of difference and so a lot of them talk about like we just want the same no we

need equity so if you've had a 450 year head start we have to figure out how we create equity in that race unfortunately and there's no easy answers to that that's going to make everyone happy do you say unfortunately why do you say you say unfortunately because you recognize the just sheer impossibility in that I mean it's you know is that why you say it's not impossible I am a very positive thinking person so it's not impossible you know my grandmother who just turned 99 in April thinking about what she experienced in her hundred years living almost a hundred years living in the United States to go from what she you know like separate you know found since my parents experience drinking

from separate water fountains they're from the south as well and to now see that some of that same rhetoric is happening in the United States like I don't know that feels like progress to them if anything it probably feels more like a setback because they were alive and around during this little rights movement so for them it feels like we're a setback not in progress so you know I want to remain hopeful for my children and I'm doing what I can to create that equity and to give them the idea that yes they can still do what they want and become what they want and that's what I was taught regardless of what's happening around but I can't say that I'm entirely hopeful that it's so possible for myself just because I know so many of the liberal well-meaning people that I know are

unwilling to really unpack their own racism and bias and that's the issue and if I can't get them to see it how in the heck are we gonna get the other people to see it yeah I mean that is the issue isn't it because it is it does just come down I mean it's easier for me to do that because I was raised by I was raised in the south and my this is the problem I'll tell you the problem the problem is we love our parents but one of my parents was not a liberal in the closet racist one of my parents was a born in the south racist racist do you know that's what I was born I was and I'm not trying to do like that therefore I'm okay any of the excuse I'm just saying that's the water that was poured into my plant that is me you know and so at least if I'm like looking into

myself and seeing bias and seeing like my experience as a kid and remembering what my some of the things my father would say to me and then having to like pull those things away from his soul which was beautiful every human soul is beautiful but having to pull away from that soul damn you I tell people that like I'm from the south I can tell you pretty much every racist thing that's happened to me has happened in Los Angeles not in the south and so you have this idea that like things are so much worse than the south and you know and that's not the case I think that it's easier for people to say oh yeah that's a problem that's in the south so that's a problem in Texas you know but that then keeps you from actually unpacking their own thing like here people talking about

Trump all the time and this person in that person like hey let's put all people aside say none of them exist how are you personally responsible for upholding and benefiting the system and that's where you have to start we have to stop looking outside of what's happening and a lot of people don't want to address that no it's simple makes you feel guilty and you have to name some things you don't want to name and until everyone is willing to do that it's not going to change and also people of color have a lot of their own unpacking to do like we also get brought up on the same system and so I had to like from myself over the past 41 years of my life kind of unpack all the internalized anti-blackness and racism that I absorbed to be able to walk through the system

that's right that's wild that's a that's interesting because I don't think people can you talk a little bit about that angle which is that you know we're raised to make honestly black people are raised to make white people feel comfortable everything that I was taught and I wasn't said in those terms but I understood that my physical emotional financial well-being was very much rooted in making a certain population comfortable in many ways making my boss feel comfortable making myself feel seem non-confrontational making sure you know I didn't know the only texture of my texture of my hair until I was 30 because my hair was chemically straightening until I was 30 and I realized that I like I actually even know the

own texture of my hair because this hair was considered non-professional disheveled the actual hair that comes out of my head you know you think about you know every child of color will tell you their parents always told them you need to be twice as good and work twice as hard to get the same that's what we all were raised on and that's not something I'm passing on to my kids because I don't feel like my kids need to do more or be smarter they just are you know they just have to do be them to do what they want to do but when you give that to children and my parents did it because they wanted to protect me they wanted me to be able to have something but it also was a burden as well you know so I had to unpack like it's not I don't need to prove myself to anyone because by saying

that I'm almost signing up to the idea that I'm inferior in some way people this is one of the things that I didn't I just didn't know I didn't know I feel embarrassed the whole thing it's not just guilt it's embarrassment you feel I don't I don't I don't think that we have quite you know quite the word for it for the experience of what a lot of us are feeling right now guilt is part of it but it's I think shame is probably a big part of it they're ashamed there's I think it's a new on both sides I think it's a yes I think it's a nice gumbo of all kinds of stuff like that that really is makes you if you really do you know I've worked with these spiritual people for years and I've been taught mindfulness how to work with my thoughts how to sit with my thoughts

and I'm feel lucky for that because I can create a little bit of space around the sensation of holy shit man it was right it wasn't like this was hidden in a vault somewhere it wasn't like you had to go dig underneath the Vatican or some shit to get an ancient scroll and look at it you could have talked to any black person for 10 minutes and ask them what's it like being a kid in America if you're black be easy thing easy how many of them would honestly answer that I don't know years ago not many and I wouldn't I wouldn't have felt comfortable asking the question that's the other thing I felt comfortable answering yeah I think people are having a much needed you know 450 years late conversation and there's no way to get to the

next side until we all have these conversations just like family you got to hash it out you got to say your piece maybe got to be now with each other for a little bit to come back to some kind of okay this is what we're going to do to fix this right we're in that phase right now like we're having some hard conversations you know and they have to be had because when you don't have them like you don't see me you don't see my experience and oh everyone's learning that because I mean it wasn't so I went to college that I knew much about black history something that we are taught I remember in high school I was caught that Rosa Parks gave up her seat because she was just tired her feet were her feet hurt like that's how I learned that that's how she gave up her you

know she wouldn't give her seat on the bus but she was just so tired oh my god that is so tired and I remember like all the pictures had her with gray hair whatever she was like I think 43 or something when this happened she wasn't like 85 like I was taught in high school sounds like if you have those kind of narratives and everyone's getting that same education of this water down idea of what it was like you know 50 years 100 years 200 years ago it you know it makes sense that we're kind of like oh well it wasn't that bad they were really friends they loved each other right they loved being slaves it wasn't that bad right well that right this is I mean so you know gone with the wind classic American cinema so the other like way before the pandemic

my wife my wife and I sat down to watch gone with the wind not because of like any racial thing but just you know this is one of those movies they say is one classic classics you watch that is the most racist fucked up movie right from the start but can I tell you how much I loved this movie when I was like you're high that does that tell you the level of brainwashing I don't really want to call it but the level of complicity that we all have to play in the system wow I probably watched that movie probably 15 20 times that's like what a four hour long movie like yeah I watched so many times it's it did I was not horrified that that version of the south is a version of the south where if you're a slave you're kind of like oh well you know it's better than where I came

from you know this and that that you know they take care of you we're family we yeah you're part of our family you're not a you haven't been human trafficked you're not a hostage you're not an unpaid hostage you're you're you know you're you're you're you're lucky basically you're lucky that we we got you and yeah that's what most people learn most kids learn so you know it already starts from you know elementary school that you're already being taught either superiority or inferiority depending on you know what color your skin is when you enter to a traditional schooling in America so no one escapes this so whether you're liberal you're conservative everyone's getting that same education and so you know I I always tell people I'm not a jackass

whisperer like I have no intention of turning people who are races not races like they can continue to be races with not my I'm not working with those people but I do work with people who want to see things change who are looking for equity to see how they play a part in this call them on that call them in and out and figure out how you could how you can make the change start with you that's the people that I work with I'm not looking to change hearts and minds of people who don't want them change but I definitely think there's a lot more people who don't know how competent they are and need someone to kind of shine the mirror and it happens in every aspect of life whether it's childbirth parenting you know I think what is looking for a preschool for my

kids and LA was like trying to you know apply to Harvard because it was just so few options they walked into some of these places like oh my god my kid's gonna be the black kid and my kids are biracial so they have privilege in that like they don't have my same skin right they're exotic you know they can be fetishized and seem like they're exotic right you know and there's an issue in that as well you know so there's so many different layers to all the things that come into parenthood like play into this as well well I mean this this is thank you for that by the way and here this is what I want wanted to ask you after this and again after we have achieved equity and I do think it's possible I think partially because of the technology we we have right now it's at

least it's it can happen before I don't know but now we have technology so it's hard to suppress data like what you're putting out right now I didn't know it a lot of people hearing it just didn't know it but this is my question so we have achieved equity I don't know what that's gonna look like but we're looking back at this time period what do you think is going to be the analysis of a society where black people are being publicly executed in the streets where if they go to give birth they're four to six to ten times more likely to die what is the word for that is what I want to know what is what are people gonna say this was a genocide it's genocide yeah but it's it's it's it's like genocide evolved it's like someone

looked at what the Nazis did and said whoa they were way too out front in the way they're they're getting rid of Jews you can't just do it like that you've got to do a slow boil genocide or something but that is what it is that that but genocide I mean America has perfected that I mean with the natives uh so this isn't the first time right um but yes I mean I would call it genocide I mean I think about you know 1985 like do you know anywhere else in the world like or in the United States were they able to drop bombs on family homes in the United States of America that's what happened in 1985 in Philadelphia killing women and children inside a home in Philadelphia right like on our own soil where how else would that be allowed without outrage and people

you know in the streets in the voting box changing everything but no one cared because it was black people when you say I didn't care they didn't care enough to do more than care because I think a lot of people do care sure you know I say that really honestly and genuinely I know a lot of people who care but not enough to actually move beyond that feeling because feelings pass well I mean there was a lot of people in Germany who cared too now I want to know when you so with it with genocide the what you're saying is there's intentionality it's you know and so this I would love to chat with you about that if the intentionality implies a power intelligent decisions that are intentionally being made to kill black people to reduce the population

of black people in America so I mean who's doing who's making the decisions we can look at the criminal justice system um you know I want to say that the prison population I want to say is about about 50 something black men when they make up I don't know 15 20 percent of the population when white males are committing the same amount of crimes but that's not an narrative that you get on the news no you know you think about during the drug crisis you know a black man having two you know rocks of crack in their hand would go to jail for 20 to 30 years yep and cocaine which is something that was not something that usually people in urban areas were selling you could have a kilo and do you know 15 months there's an intentionality to that because we know what

communities are doing what the fact that they actually brought drugs into the black communities um that was by the CIA and that's very much documented that I was down on purpose yep um so you know you think about families you know they changed the way that welfare work that you could not get welfare if you were married so think about what that did to communities of color if you couldn't be married to get the substances that you needed that meant that you didn't get married and so you had generations generations of families not getting married and that broke down the family you know community that was needed to strive in so many of these you know underserved areas this about schools the question I'm asking you and I I don't know if anyone even has the

answer though is who is orchestrating this like it's so sinister many people corporations government I think whoever benefits financially is who is orchestrating this because just put it this way let's just say the top one percent said you know what I don't want to have racism anymore I don't want to have discrimination their money is what fuels everything and so if they said I'm not going to shop for any of these corporations that have someone who's supporting x those corporations would no longer cease to be in existence if they said this person is saying this you know and I don't want to pay for this they're going to lose all their sponsors because they're going to pay attention where the money flows right so we know that there is money and

people being poor there's money and people being divided you know especially for the criminal justice system it funds many of the corporations the labor basically our new evolved way of doing slavery right happens in the prison system right and so there is a financial benefit to creating a caste system right now they're calling with that but this is where the conspiracy theorist part of me this is the part because I do go on reddit conspiracy every night I shouldn't have horrible dreams I'm sorry it's the worst it's the best in the worst don't do it I love hollow earth theory part of me I'm not embarrassed to say believes there could be civilizations in the core of the I hope so but this stuff that you're talking about this is to me the crown jewel of what's

of the of conspiracy and by conspiracy I don't mean like therefore it's not real I mean holy shit if apocalypse means lifting of the veil then this is the most apocalyptic collective realization that I any society I've ever heard of is having right now which is no no no this isn't this isn't just we just haven't quite figured out a way to balance the scales you're looking at a slow motion genocide that is being perpetrated by the wealthy to eradicate people of color and it is so insidious and it is so ingrained in us that even though it's clearly happening we saw it happen we just saw it happen I mean maybe we explain it away if you've been taught your entire life that black people are dangerous and lazy then how could you see it that way

you just another criminal getting what he deserves that's right like you know think about I grew up watching cops like as a family show me too how I mean I was taught as well like you can you can make black people afraid of their own people like if that's every image that you see you start to believe that and so you have this idea that if I dress a certain way I go to college like these are the things that makes me different and protects me and then you get the huge wake-up call once you become adult and be like well that was a little bullshit like I've done all that shit and I'm no you know I'm not safer than I was not doing any of those things I'm gonna stop harping on this particular point I know what you're saying I who all who who who who is a lot of people everyone

is it a deep is it a demon is it that you know you know is it well I mean I demon in the sense of like um Carl uh Carl Jung had this theory that the ever you know everyone has a shadow the side you don't want to share and the collective shadow if the if enough people are repressing the truth in a society then that collective shadow will manifest as a tyrant that that's what happens if enough people are not looking into it not going through the what we're talking the the the thing that you will feel if you really look deep into this as a white person then what happens is it jumps out of us it takes on a form it takes on the form of an Adolf Hitler an Adolf Hitler appears and then you get that but in this case and as you're describing it it feels like a even though

look I don't I don't want to call Trump Adolf Hitler not because I like Trump but because I think it's assigning too much um organization to that person he just seems like a speed freak lunatic Hitler was a speed freak too and a lunatic but there was this this diabolical ideology and philosophies that I don't believe that Trump necessarily has thought through that deeply but here's the part that and again and this I'm not trying I'm sorry but here's the problem if we get a narcissist sociopath speed freak it doesn't matter what he thinks we just need to get around him and like start putting little ideas in his head somebody's like you know remember I'm sure you do remember when the the the racists were marching with their white torches just like

the Nazis did one of them ran over a charlotte yeah yeah and very fine people in charlotte yes now someone so I don't know that he someone may have just told him here's what you say but these you know are when he accidentally puts in his tweet uh thanks to the SS for clearing out these people it's intentional like yes right I'm sure someone like Stephen Miller who is the orchestrator of much of what he does is does it on purpose because they want to incite their base the populist movement like we've seen it before so there you go they know who their base is and what they want whether he believes it or not he knows it gets them fired up and that's what gets gets votes and that's what got him elected so we continue to fire them up and that is that has died

in the wool unapologetic white supremacists puppeteering our our political system that is not and I think the problem is that when when we say the word white supremacy most of we're thinking about people wearing a white hat and burning crosses and yes I can be one facet of white supremacy but it's also giving me a home loan that has four percent more apr than a white person it's also you know making me wait in the bank line for 45 minutes you can check to make sure my check is a real check yep like that all is the same thing it's also like my kid being like the token black kid at a school you know and that's the one you want to always take a picture of and put him on your front of your thing even though he's the only black child you know it's

all of that and so I think until we start seeing white supremacy with a broader lens you're going to continue to be focused on Trump and he is such a minor part of the issue he is a culmination of what we already had he just is allowing you guys a mirror to see it well I mean that's I guess like that's where they they really screwed up because they put somebody out there that just couldn't be subtle about it and now because of that it's that's the weird gift not just that that he's giving us and I'm sorry I don't mean to call this a gift because that the execution of George Floyd will go down in history is one of the most horrific things that as a society we had like we had to watch that that's there forever that's never going to get

forever but where what happened there was it's like the thing god this is forgive me anything I say is just not going to be sufficient and you say it anyway that's how we move forward thank you oh god I'm so dumb the movie predator right this thing he's in camouflage you don't see it killing everybody you don't see the thing it's like he's using this weird camouflage and then suddenly finally you see the fucking monster there it is plain as day and once you see the monster you can fight it you know it's there you can't deny it anymore right that was the human sacrifice that was George Floyd is that you saw a human sacrifice you saw what white people couldn't see it

exactly and you're right so and you know for you know unfortunately fortunately we have social media and video so that you guys because before you would have been able to say oh well that's not what happened like no one know he didn't do that like he must have resisted no he must have had a gun no he must have been resisting yep and now you're unable to do that because of the video that's right oh we looked telling since forever since 1619 and now you guys see it with your own eyes and so there's no way for you to tell your eyes that you didn't see what you saw that's right nope even with that I've seen people say that's not what happened that it was a hoax that oh that's a good one because he had he had see he had COVID-19 that's why he died and it was because

was on his neck and so anyone will make an excuse but I think it's forcing you all just like you know watching people be beat on the sound of bridge back in the 60s forced by people to say okay this is not okay right but how many I mean how like do we do this every 80 years until we get it like I'm hoping that's not the case no no I mean it's no I no I don't know it's no I think you can't be complacent anymore because that's the dream the dream is to be on the bench the dream is to be watching this thing go down as though you're watching a show cops you want to feel like you're watching cops and now you can't be complacent anymore now you have to look and by by you no longer say you didn't know if you're complacent right now then you're as far as I'm actually

making a decision and a choice that's right that's right you didn't know it's like this is the eight minutes and 46 seconds heard around the world no one can say they didn't know now there you go and what's that thing the weather underground said something like ignoring violence is violence it's if you it's a violent it's you don't know at this point is willful ignorant ignorance like everyone knows but this is what like people knew before this and this is what's probably frustrating to a lot of people of color is that the idea that people need to watch basically black snuff films live on their facebook feed in order to believe and trust that we've been telling the truth that there are some people who don't quite treat us the same

as they're treating you that in itself is inhumane it's dehumanizing it's so many things but uh the thing that kind of I think besides George for that kind of brought us to a head was Amy Cooper I don't want to leave her out of this conversation right because that is a video you need to see to say that everyone knows no one can say they don't know everyone knows because in that moment you saw that she was skillfully and understood a hundred percent what she could do with her whiteness to harm this black man who was telling what her what to do in her park right and everyone saw that right right so this whole thing I didn't know I didn't know no you knew it doesn't affect you in a way that made you care right yeah yeah I mean that's the new it's

that's the new uh it's a sad genre isn't it now it is it's in and no one's no one is everyone has to unpack right now you know I can tell people like I'm married to a white male who clearly has a black wife and biracial children so he's like in the struggle he know he's doing his work yeah and I still have to check him like no this isn't this is not a thing no stop you need to be quiet in the list and you need to so there's no one who is absolute absolute from doing this work everyone has to do it I don't care how deep you think you are in anti-racism work how down you are if you were the only white kid that grew up in the hood like whatever your story is none of that matters you still have to unpack can you tell me about the

being quiet part the thing is when you are taught that you are smart you're the conquerors you create civilizations it creates a lot of sense of ownership in spaces and so you go into spaces and the way that you own them that's what you've been taught and so sometimes you have to also unlearn not to take up so much space maybe you don't have to be the person who's sitting in the front maybe you don't have to be the person who's leaving the conversation or leading the revolution like sometimes maybe you have to like join other people and let them do it and not be in front yeah and but that's something that has to be unlearned when you your whole life has been like yes you are the people who lead us of course that's what you're gonna do and so you have to actually

unlearn that sometimes taking up space is another way that you that you have learned white supremacy taking up too much space yeah that's the part that i have the a very difficult time with this shutting up i loved it yeah it's just about knowing when right right and i everything doesn't belong to you like i think about like you know everyday things like there was that whole i don't even saw the sidewalk challenge that a lot of people of color did nope most people expect for me to get off the sidewalk and we're both coming both places like i've done this and i tested it out where did that where did people learn that where did you expect that people of color supposed to move out of the way for you on the sidewalk like where did you learn that holy shit it's so internalized that

people don't see it and i've had people literally like bulldoze me because their expectation was that i was gonna move because that's supposed to happen and i somehow internalized it because i was always moving wow i didn't even know that was a that i didn't know that i never even heard that so like now i tell you like simple things like that pay attention to how you are in spaces you know do that like every time you see someone let's like move off the sidewalk and see what happens like would you normally have done that for many people probably not if they really were honest with themselves they actually paid attention is that you have this idea that they're in your space and they're supposed to work around you that's right you know these days i get off the

damn sidewalk i don't care who it is because of covid right like i'm just trying to get that hell away from all human beings i mean a lot of that might have changed because of covid but you know i see this all the time like on buses or in trams like you know and it's not just america like people you know will say you know we spend we spend part-time in france part-time in la and um people say like you know is it less racist there i'm like it depends on how you ask like i'm not wearing a hijab so it's probably yeah for me it's better right but if you're wearing a hijab it's probably not for that person you spend part-time in france yeah my husband's french oh come on you got to invite us over when are you going we might we might not be able to go back huh like they're

saying yeah the life first are supposedly um increasing it for america's uh failure to deal with covid they are possibly closing the borders just to american travel wow that is so crazy i know there's a difference it's not less racist but the difference when i'm traveling overseas because i've lived in asia i've lived in europe you know obviously i'm from the states is that there are plenty of people who don't like black people whatever i don't care you don't have to like me but they aren't afraid of me and that's the difference of being killed versus people just like whatever being rude i don't care if you're rude right i just want to be killed and that's the difference like i have no sense that women france if anyone's going to kill me because of

my race because they don't like me they might take long to seat me at a restaurant or something but it's not a life or death situation as is the united states and that's the difference well i'm glad that you're putting out this data and i'm i'm absorbing it i don't know what to do with a lot of it but the only thing you do with it is to examine yourself and work on that if everyone did that and the problem's fixed see this is can i i just i think what i do love is like we are saying look we are all just going to be honest with each other right now yes and i love that i love that invitation i love it and i would like to make a couple of observations that i've noticed in these recent difficult

conversations i have been having with people of color and it flies in the face of everything i've been taught by my teachers because you know ramdas one of my teachers he said there is a revolution of love happening right now and you know and michael beckwith my wife and i were just listening to this beautiful sermon michael beckwith was giving on you know impossible look break down the word it means i'm possible it's possible they said the wall couldn't come down there's so many times in history where they've said it's impossible but one of the things that i've noticed in chatting with black people about this very uncomfortable beyond uncomfortable thing what are you going to say an uncomfortable

genocide i'm sorry is the genocide inconveniencing you is that y'all have a kind of optimism that i don't share it is not oh wow how could you not like i like i tell people like somehow my ancestors made it through the middle passage they made it through 450 years of slavery they made it through reconstruction they made the civil rights for me to be sitting here today how could i not be optimistic right like i don't you know it's impossible like it's not in my dna not to be optimistic like what you had to believe to be enslaved and make a family of your own and have traditions and to pass those down and to get married and have babies under those conditions you had to be a craft

like your craft was optimism to be able to do that wow like i have i don't have a right not to be optimistic that's how i feel about it are we allowed to be optimistic right now our white people everyone should be optimistic i need people to be optimistic because if you if you are if it's all doom and gloom then why would you do the work right but here like what's different now is that we're having these conversations and like i tell people now because i've unpacked my own internalized racism anti-blackness that i'm no longer willing to sacrifice my dignity and my children's lives for your comfort and so that means you're gonna get it from me straight because i can't afford to keep you comfortable anymore right and that's the difference and i think a lot of

people have that collective sense of this is the time like i will not allow for my children to be having this conversation 25 years from now and so whatever it is for you it's not what we've experienced and you're gonna get over it and be fine with it but we gotta just give it to you straight like we're not keeping anyone comfortable anymore right well there is an insidious thing there too isn't it because it can seem like the work is done see this is one of the things when i was coming up i really there were periods in my life where i would think the work is we got america it comes so far oh yeah what we were fucked up back then back then can you believe how fucked up those genocidal psychotic conquering white people were but now ah we've done it i probably

thought yeah and then you're like let's watch cops get me a beer let's sit down and watch cops which is essentially the the running it's a game show where black people get chased down by people with guns and i'm sure you know this normalize well they and they i listened to an npr story on it so once the people have been arrested and their adrenaline's pumping the crew of cops would go to them and get them to sign their releases and they would not tell them they were with cops so they thought they were just signing stuff that cops wanted them to sign yeah i mean but it's again you become desensitized and so my fear is that people will become desensitized as seeing black bodies dying on their screens

if we continue to let it happen right it's already normalized like oh okay another one today you know it's normalized like why aren't we all in a state of shock trauma and anger after watching someone be killed over an eight minute period on our on our phones right because we're desensitized all of us it's like oh okay another one he's okay that guy's like he's gonna get in diet he's gonna get off and then on the next one like i've lost count of the people and that's where we're at and so i think you know there's a part of people there's so many issues and so many layers that people are overwhelmed about where it began that's that that's how i feel and also there's this kind of lazy fatigue a blurry fatigue that sets in there's this just sense where you just feel like

well what in this again this is where my pessimism comes in and chatting with you is helping me but there's still a part something on very dark days i think well maybe this is hell is this just how are we just in a place where human sacrifice you know it's like what they're not putting them on Mayan pyramids and driving daggers into their hearts but what are they doing they're making it so if they go to the hospital and the doctor's like you you don't know your body like i do i'm gonna leave you in this little room here and you know maybe go home let's roll the dice you know what you might die but let's roll the dice it's so insidious this is to me where this is the part that's like god if it's if it were pyramids if they were wearing clan outfits if they were

self-announced if they all had Adolf Hitler mustaches you know at least then we could be like fuck this is nazis now we're looking at this slow and over time and everyone's comfortable and you have tv's and you have netflix yes you know it's it's hard for a lot of people like i was just saying like the amount of drama people had about having to stay in their house and like watch netflix like that was a that was a sacrifice in a struggle right you know we're gonna like topple structural racism overnight not gonna happen right a lot a lot of sacrifice is gonna have to go along with that and when you lose things that you thought were your right and it was actually a privilege that was afforded to you as a white person it feels like you're being discriminated against give me

some examples of that so you know you think about jobs for example and most industries unless even i was gonna say hip hop but even that like the decision makers aren't people of color most industry the people who hire in fire are non black people non people of color as well and so if there was equity and all of a sudden you know the 15 people in leadership you know are all equal then you're not necessarily going to be the person in charge you know necessarily going to have like leadership position you're not going to be the only people on the board and so if those things start getting taken away it will feel like for many people they're used to those things being theirs they'll feel like they're getting the choreo mistake i'm being discriminated against

because i'm white damn right you're losing the benefits of privilege and that for some people is going to feel like discrimination oh god i'm a you should hear i mean so many comics white comics are like just forget it you can't get a job anymore unless you're black yeah i i mean i was married to a comic for a long time i'm sorry so i know the uh he's actually passed uh in 2018 um but you know even he would say like i know the a lot of things that i do and the gigs i get black comments aren't even at the table for this like they're not going on hbo like they're not going on this tour like unless it's like the black comedy tour like they're just not at this table right you know and that's just what it is in this world um you know so it's you know

i even now i think about like i feel bad for him because he would have so much material right now if he were alive to be able to be during this time like i know would have given him lots of material would have made him really upset but very happy to be able to speak on what's happening right now that wasn't that long ago no it wasn't long ago at all i'm so sorry yeah 43 years old yeah what was his name can you share his name sean rouse oh wow oh i'm so sorry yeah what a world you're in i know i know 2020 2020 a lot has happened but even that like i think you know me and sean we met and we're both from houston's we met in houston and you know we came to la years and years ago he had a pilot and was working and i would think about like

when i would go to shows with him just some of the like the blatant thing you're just like like are we serious like it's in every industry like no one is you know like there is no one who can say that their industry or what they do or their community is free of this like you see it in every turn so sean rouse he was a can i tell you a story about your husband i'm sure you have some probably really funny bad stories but go ahead and tell no i have a great story about him he's my ex-husband when he passed but we have a beautiful child together who's 13 now well let me tell you about your ex-husband he was brilliant as a comment yes he was and so i go on stage this is when i was going through my uh so embarrassing my edgy i would

call it me trying to be edgy is i was which is like because it's so easy to trick yourself into thinking like if you're up there being edgy yeah and people aren't responding it's like you know okay just it's too it's too tough when it's like a fuck up you're just not writing you're not writing it's not a joke it's not a joke and there's so many so many of us out there who make that mistake and it's an embarrassment but i'll fully admit that i did i went through an anti-cop in phase two equally embarrassing that being said i'm i go on stage and i make some stupid joke about being molested as a child which i was not as far as i'm aware it was a dumb eat lazy joke and something something about trying to connect that to being a better artist or something

awful stupid edgy joke i get off stage and shan gets on stage he followed me and he's like wow dunkin said that makes you a better artist it just really makes it so i can't sleep at night very well because i think he was abused he was he was sexually abused um and he was very open about it so i'm not sure anything that he didn't talk about all the time and he was in his act a lot um by like a new gooder in the neighborhood through the church he like helped all the parents and the less at all their children basically it was one of the it was it was led to a lifelong addiction for shan it was why your ex why he was my ex that was a tough husband but that was in comedy i've had a few smackdowns that like helped me and that

was one of the great because i was he knew i respected him as a comic so and he knew i was watching his set and that was a like that was a good one for me it would really help me in my writing and i'm sorry i'm sorry for that you lost him and i'm sorry for all the people who lost him i know i know he was very quick with it and like but i still have laughed about the things that we laughed about and i tell everyone like a couple months before he died he called me and was like you know being shan and like but but not being shan apologized for how he was as a husband and told me that you know make sure our kid knows that i love him i kind of just like shan stop like whatever like stop with your melodrama you're fine like you know and for me it's like oh my god i'm

so glad we got to have that closure before he passed because he passed me three months after that phone call you know and obviously he felt it somewhere but this was happening for him um yeah you know but it's like we get to have that and you know and i see many things that happen like you know you talk about like did that happen to me for a reason so many things happened for a reason like you know i was doing a project um and i happened to like go to this office and his his um manager which is what brought us to la is like next door to the person i'm working with and i was like how in the world like i'm a doula like but i'm in the office like where this all happened you know yeah however many years ago with me and child like this is like this is for a reason

it's too much it's too much i and this is i think this is a good place i didn't know we'd get here but a way to wrap it up because i mean i have been around you know i've lost my mom and my dad i've been around dying people and i've been around my son being born and one of the things that was so wild to me was realizing that the energy in the room of a dying person is the same as the energy in the room of a person being born and i wonder if you could if you have felt that or if you know what i'm talking about that i know your feeling i wasn't i wasn't with him when he passed uh what i can say is is that i firstly i personally feel this need to like rebirth and i bear the situation like when when you're with someone who has a baby you have this

just the preciousness of life yes you get reminded of and the same thing happens when someone dies and so that feeling that energy is something i feel in both ways because losing him made me think okay he's 43 years old we have this beautiful child like you never know let me like like we have to slow down we have to like have these moments i've had these memories that have you know these traditions in the same way when i had my son my first you know i had my first at 28 my last at 38 when i had him like i was trans i became a new person like if i'm going to spend one minute away from this person this child like it has to be the most amazing thing it has to be you know worth it yeah to be able to do this and so i think what what you're talking about is just

the energy that both of those experience brings to people is the same thing this idea the preciousness of life yeah yeah oh wow what a wonderful wonderful thing to get to know you uh and for our first conversation which i hope will not be our last to be through this podcast i'm glad to know that you knew son that warms my heart uh i i had a lot a lot of he was a really deeply respected in the comedy community yeah he is so funny and such a sharp writer and my son would love to hear that so oh yeah well that's all he's gonna have to do is google his dad because that's you know like he watches this stuff to my chagrin i know i don't know if it's what can i do with his dad you know yeah yeah he was he was he was brilliant

a story that i hope that he will get to hear as he gets older about the craft and the type of artist that he was a lot of people because i had told people there's a lot of people who said they're a comic honey that doesn't really right like that doesn't have so much weight because a lot of people can say that they don't actually do comedy like um they might say funny things but that's not the same thing as being a stand-up no no no right i know what you mean son was a network a lot more than any person who's not a comic needs to be in no son was a cash on son would have this is how i these days how i know if someone's a comic is i i think you know if there were some kind of actual apocalypse and if we were living in rubble how long would it be before they figured out a way to

build a stage and start telling jokes again and that was son son you know he was he had a lot of challenges they had a lot of reasons to stay home and not go not wait to do 10 minutes of material and he i he lived for it yeah it was for it yeah he sure did well he's lucky that you were that y'all had a connection he's lucky to have known you at all and i'm i'm i think it's really wild to have lucky to have known him i would never be doing what i'm doing or have moved to la but have i had them at sean wow you know i could have easily been in houston working a nine to five and doing what you're supposed to do and collecting benefits and you know and he allowed me to be confident and not that's not what i wanted to do and being around someone like him and it was so free

and just knew like he was going to do that there was no plan b it was just comedy that's right allowed me to have that sense of freedom as well so we were equally lucky how cool well i feel like sean popped into the podcast for a second that was truly unexpected well could you do me a favor and let people know where they can find you i hope some folks listening are in la and are looking for a doula because wow you are the real deal and yeah thank you well um i'm my all my pages are public but on facebook i'm brandy jordan my instagram is brandy jordan official and that's how they can find me or um my website is the cradle company dot com um and i find people don't know how to spell cradle so it's c r a d le is one thing i've learned in the past the past 10 years is that people don't

know how to spell cradle cradle how do people usually spell it with it with a e l r a d e l okay or with a k makes it sound like or two really double d cradle well there you go thank you so much for your time uh thank you all the links y'all need to find brandy you're gonna be at dunketrussell.com if you didn't write them down and i really really appreciate you sharing yourself with us howdy christina thank you thank you that was brandy jordan everybody you can take her anti-racist parenting workshop the link to find that will be at dunketrussell.com a big thank you to all of our sponsors if you want the link to those sponsors or to the offer codes that's at dunketrussell.com too and a massive thank you to you for listening to the d t f h we will be back next week until then

harry christina ghost towns dirty angel out now you can get dirty angel anywhere you get your music ghost towns dirty angel out now new album and tour date coming this summer a good time starts with a great wardrobe next stop jc penny family get-togethers to fancy occasions wedding season two we do it all in style dresses suiting and plenty of color to play with get fixed up with brands like lis clayborn worthington stafford and jay furar oh and thereabouts for kids super cute and extra affordable check out the latest in store and we're never short on options at jcp.com all dressed up everywhere to go jc penny