Goes Without Saying - privilege & shame: the devil wears depop

Episode Date: September 5, 2021

is simply 'acknowledging your privilege' enough, or is this actually just the bare minimum? how do the complexities of race, class and social hierarchies intersect with feelings of shame and guilt around identity? and is social mobility a myth, or a viable reality in our society? in this personal episode of Goes Without Saying, sephy & wing get real about privilege. from the fetishisation of racial ambiguity, to the ongoing gentrification of working-class aesthetics, join us as we explore privilege in its many forms. *horsegirl97 has left the chat* join the conversation every monday. speak your mind on the @sephyandwing instagram! you’re invited to our discord group chat: https://discord.gg/j5HsjVCtgw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay. These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals. Does that mean I'm gay?

So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts.

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Goes Without Saying. We are back for another episode of Goes Without Saying with Sefi and Wing. I'm Wing. This is Sefi. Sefi, give us a twirl. Hi, I'm Sephi. And... That was too moody. Let me do it again. Let me do it again. Okay. Hi. No, okay. Okay,

fuck it. This is it. This episode, look, I'm going to hold my hands up. I think this episode is great. Same. We are talking about, well, you've read the title. We're talking about privilege, class, race. We don't really get into gender or sexuality or really anything meaningful but i'm sure you will enjoy this episode i think this is peak sephian win content and i've been wanting to do this episode for ages so i hope you enjoy it okay do you want to go in i don't know if i just had a breakdown would you call it a breakdown or should we call it a breakthrough no i wouldn't call it a breakdown yeah i'm gonna call it a breakthrough breakthrough a, I wouldn't call it a breakdown. Yeah, I'm going to call it a breakthrough. A breakthrough.

A mild breakthrough. I'm not feeling the best today, guys. So I really was like, I had a lot of like, I want to do this episode justice. Like we wanted, we'd be wanting to do this topic for so long. Like, oh, I really want this to be an amazing episode. I want to give you the hottest takes, the best kind of insights and just give you like an amazing episode

because it's been so highly requested for so long. and on our like top of our list every week. Kind of highly requested by me. Highly requested by no one but us. But I really wanted to give the best ep but I just don't think I'm going to be able to today and obviously that's going to make me feel even worse but I just think I'm just I'm going to come with some, it's either I don't do it today or I come with kind of casual energy. So I'm coming with the most casual fucking energy possible. And I hope you like it.

I just want to clarify, I have done the whole, we don't have to do this. They don't need anything from you. They love you as you are and yada, yada, yada. She wasn't buying any of it. So we're doing it so we're doing it we're doing it yeah well i don't want us to miss a week i want this i love this app needs to go out on schedule and we're running a tight ship here yeah yeah we are yeah and my fucking own

issues can just wait for a bit are you gonna talk about your vagina issues or no no we're not talking about my vagina basically i'm never having sex again in my life okay it's been a whole time um that is all stemming from just some sensation of pain in my vagina that is making me want to die also just on that topic i listened to an old episode like i went i was on a train journey oh yeah i was listening to off menu listening to my king james talking about sort of desserts and i was like delicious times and i was like oh okay that's ended should i just listen to like five seconds like just literally five minutes of one of our old episodes just to see like so insane listen to just some random old one i think it

was like the feminist sex episode yeah how to have feminist sex what like it's hard yeah oh such a good title but it just made me laugh because i was like god we've talked some shit on here i was going i'm never having sex with a man again i'm never having sex with a man again it's quite scary it's like who is this well then you wonder why we're hyper aware coming to the episode saying i'm really sorry there's no takes from me today i can't say a word not a peep from me when it's like god i've talked some utter fucking shit on this fucking podcast and that's going out to like people are just finding us now listening to that girl going on and on

about how she's never having sex with a man again although i am saying that again i am really restating that now i'm joking but i really just think i would rather have pain anywhere in my body other than my vagina it's really stressing me out actually like it's ruined about three days for me now it is yes it's really um it's really got to you okay so it's been a time time and a half what a whirlwind also i've conquered my fear of sharks if anyone listened to the last episode oh yeah i literally just went in the water the next day and had the time of my life and there was not a shark in sight thank god kind of speaking about it was like an exorcism of the fear it was to get it out well i was almost when i was in the sea i was thinking what are the chances that i would talk about being scared of sharks on my podcast and then be eaten by a shark the chance are quite slim aren't they they're playing that clip on the news

exactly yeah but it it dramatically lowered the statistics in my favour. 100%. 100%. The odds are ever in your favour now. So that was very healing for me. That's great. And no close encounters. Not that I know of.

Not that I know of. No. Although there have been some men. When I go on my own, I'm getting proud on like a horse. Unbearable. And chatted to. Unbearable and unchatted too unbearable swimming we're shouting at each other across the sea cat called in the ocean it's quite a lot it's like swim in the other direction yeah the only predators in the ocean it's like kind of do a

deep dive underneath i have that when i do yoga in public i think it's a similar thing with swimming when you realize that a thing you've been kind of doing in your own home or swimming, a thing you've been doing early in the morning on your own can be sexualised. It's like a thing I'm doing for my own pleasure, my own body. Oh, I forgot this was also like a male gaze fucking thing. I forgot like this would be like in porn as well. It's like, ugh, fucking get away from me. Ugh, yeah.

I had a group of builders they were filming me what yeah i haven't have i not told you this no it's like this group of builders they all like on their break i'd taken my little mat to the park and i was like doing my yoga quite a confident move for me i'm not gonna lie quite confident where were they building the park no they were building the houses around the park they weren't building the houses on the park they were sort of fixing up they were close to you or no um they were on the houses around the park they weren't building the houses on the park they were sort of fixing up they were close to you or no um they were on like a bench near me they all came and like sat on the bench near me oh right god so it's a quite scary distance and i

was like okay i'm just gonna continue and then i was like wait no they're watching a video on their phone for sure and then i was like fuck no they're literally filming me oh my god you've been gina martin 100 so what did you do i continued for a bit i moved um and then they're all still looking and then i was like oh fuck it i'm just gonna leave they just like completely ruined it oh gosh well if anyone sees that video sephie somewhere her downward dog is shit but that's horrific in the sea because it's like there's nowhere to go well you're in a bikini and it's it's comments on the bod oh for sure quote unquote bod it's terrifying scary yeah well it's like i either go out to sea or the shore well that's the thing is that one of them this is the

first time i didn't go with my boyfriend funny enough and he this guy was like you're amazing yeah and then when he got out of the sea i thought oh great he's gone so i had my eyes on him on the beach and then he was getting dressed i thought great he'll be gone soon because i wanted to leave and i thought i'm not doing a bay watch out of the water because his situation is kind of right next to my situation nightmare so i'm not walking up and then we chat like while i'm kind of in my bikini and a towel on the beach out of water it's like i'm real fish out of water it's like get me out of that situation he was getting dressed i thought great he'll be going soon then he sat down i thought you should be going soon and he started putting stuff in his bag i thought

great he's going soon and then he just sat chilling again i thought oh you should be going soon he's waiting for you and i'm swimming laps my hands getting all crinkled up i look like an old lady it's been 84 years and then slowly i could see him like looking back and forth like oh i was like really like i'm trying to wait you out here like can you scram and he's waiting you out yeah exactly it's like we could do this all day buddy i've got no plans today so i can do this all day i don't know about you i know you've got a work and a wife to go to yeah um and he he didn't leave basically so i had to run away how did you do it i he was he was literally facing the other way and i kind of swam back to shore quickly sprinted

a mix between swimming like a real evolution in real time out of the water on your legs it was a real it was just baywatch in fast forward yeah and i just picked up my towel and ran because i live close to the sea i could just run back home just in my towel and that was that i made out alive live to tell the tale it does change the experience completely changes the experience the thing is he was really nice but it's just um well you can be really nice and still be fucking terrifying yeah it's like yeah you i'm sure fucking ted bundy looked fucking nice boy does he look nice we've made a whole pop culture don't we know um phenomenon out of it but it's like yeah you can look really nice you can be oh like how you doing i still know you're looking at my boobs yeah okay it doesn't matter if you're saying oh lovely day isn't it it's like can you

get away from me at 6 a.m in the morning so there we go but anyway not scared of sharks anymore just scared of men yeah well that's great no news nothing new to update okay should we get into the app yeah let's do it okay so to the listener and actually i'm going to say this to you sephie as well which we haven't said i think this episode should not begin with us listing i have had privilege in this way i haven't had privilege in this way i've had this i haven't had this i have this i haven't had this to try and give you us contextualize in terms of the privileges we may or may not have i think we're just going to speak freely and you'll just keep inferring our situation as you have been doing if this is your first time listening then welcome but i just think that's not useful no one cares so let's get into it let's get into the good

bit that being said as well i feel like we could do a million episodes on privilege i just feel like i'll never be done talking about no this shit so no oh where do i start because there's so many good messages actually that's where i'll start is by saying thank you to everyone who has sent in messages this week any other week anytime thank you for listening even it's thanks for being here god it's quite mental really yeah yeah thank you so much for being here i mean we say it every week but it is just that thing i don't think we say it enough no i know but it just each week it's just like wait you're still here god you're actually do you like us yeah are we friends like do you like what we say do you oh my god someone said this

actually really can make me cry they were like they sent a lovely message and just one sentence was like, you didn't like, actually they were like, I've been listening for ages, but you didn't know it. But as soon as we listened, we clicked. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I didn't know, but I'm really happy to hit that. How sweet is that? Like you had no idea, but we clicked.

It's like, oh, I'm really- So stunning. Makes me emotional. Isn't that really sweet? The sweetest. Thank you so much, everyone. So nice. Okay, actually, you know what? I'm going... So stunning. It makes me emotional. Isn't that really sweet? The sweetest. Thank you so much, everyone. So nice. Okay, actually, you know what?

I'm going to read this one. This was a... Someone came to the DMs for this and it really... I was going to say wet my whistle, but it actually just kind of made me froth at the mouth with anger, which I kind of feel like this whole topic kind of does. 100%, yeah.

So this person said... Oh, it really just... Okay. It said, I have a friend at uni who i class as one of my best friends but i really struggle with how she openly admitted to me that she changes her accent and wears cheaper clothing on purpose so she doesn't come across as middle class and get judged for it god brackets i'm very much lower working class and she knows my family's financial struggles she's very well off and i just think question mark accept and acknowledge your privilege no one hates middle class people

but purposely coming across as poor when you're not leaves a really bad taste in my mouth since when was it a trend to purposely make yourself lower class or make yourself appear lower class and then she said she said thank you so much if or they said thank you so much if you read this hope you guys are having a good week it's like yeah no but thank you so much if, or they said, thank you so much if you read this. Hope you guys are having a good week. It's like, yeah, could be better. But thank you so much for sending. Hard no, hard no, but thank you. Yeah, talk about a bad taste in your mouth. Yeah, that is awful. And I know this as well. I've seen this around. More than anything. It is unbearable kind of to behold. It's like, what am I seeing? seeing someone actually said a lot of people someone said um because we asked on the story when did you first think about like privilege and your class

in particular yeah and someone said uni i went to a stuck-up uni and i've never been so looked down on and someone else also said sussex uni has so many um rich people who don't know they're rich yeah or don't think that they're privileged or whatever and i just thought you know what you're fucking right because i definitely had a similar yeah that was my experience for sure i'd never met anyone who went to a private school until i went to uni no no no well i knew people but never like well none of my friends i just never met anyone i remember they were like it was like a fucking unicorn and then all of a sudden it's like shit now we're friends oh my god everyone yeah literally everyone yeah it is crazy and they do it's just crazy

because when i was reading a really good thing on this but someone was basically saying when you're working class or like if you've actually struggled with money or whatever and it's not like oh my dad won't buy me like this new coat that i want it's like shit i don't know how i'm gonna pay my rent and i'm letting my whole house down they're all gonna know i don't have any fucking what the fuck am i gonna do it's not this cutesy thing when you're actually working class or you've actually struggled with money or when you don't have like a middle or upper class experience and i do think the class system in britain is so insane you're not proud you're not trying to proudly come across as working class well you're doing everything to kind of hide it

you're doing everything to cover it up yeah the last thing i wanted was anyone having an inkling well that's what's so like particularly like literally disgusting about kind of private school people rich people pretending like kind of performing like working classness or like quote-unquote poorness it's like you're joking right because when it was seen as cool or like desirable to be super wealthy and fit into that aesthetic like the jack wills abercrombie and fitch aesthetic i'm pretty sure you were conforming to that and now you want to wear fucking adidas not even adidas it It's like fucking Alessi. Actual working class people can't afford these clothes now.

Yeah. Because you've gentrified it. And they do the same thing with class as they do with race. It's like you want to take everything from like a black culture and take it on as your own. You want to take everything from a working class culture now because you think it's cool. It's cool. Wow. It's so hurtful, actually. Like it's cool it's cool wow it's so hurtful actually like it's so

mind-blowing and it's i i messaged that girl back who said um that you know she had that i think she calls her her best friend like one of her best friends and i said like one of the worst bits about that is you have so much shame around it that if you were to ever challenge that any you feel it you can't challenge it really because you're met with the societal view that like anyone a working class people just say bits you're just bitter they're fucking jealous they're fucking jealous that like sorry that my parents could afford to put me in a private story that my parents can afford to give me x y and z it's like no don't be sorry just don't be a dick there's often the phrase as well of like i didn't choose this i didn't choose this like i didn't and it's like what what is that like

really what is that like i didn't choose to go to private school so yeah but you still benefited from that you chose to participate in all of the things that make you benefit from that it's like no it wasn't a choice but you still lived that you still got that so then to suddenly flip it on its head and be like i especially also think with like using slang and things like that like the language that people use it's insane it's it's fascinating like i i also think when i went to uni i had the experience of realizing that what i considered was like wealthy people were actually considered like poor people oh okay like my rich wasn't rich okay got it yeah and i remember meeting someone this boy who was i'm gonna be annoyed in this whole episode yeah yes it's it's fucking angering for fuck's sake

okay it was this guy privately educated going to oxford uni like super rich rich fucking privileged guy and just the way he was speaking like he was all of a twist literally it's like this can't not be offensive like this is actually like like why do you think you can get away with speaking like this it's actually like quite um oh it just makes your blood boil doesn't it's like how dare you how dare you like appropriate the language well that's the thing why do you think i sound like emma watson now for good reason because i had to fucking try i had to spend time changing who i was training yeah because what i sounded like wasn't good enough like the slang i was using was not gonna be acceptable and also that was still in a working class town so i went from a working class town

in london to a working class town which i viewed as the countryside and it still was like oh it's just it's fucking insane you know what's a good film um the riot club i've never seen that i know and you should watch it because it will really make you sick yeah i think that's why i didn't watch it because i knew it would make me sick fucking awful i just think uni exposed me to some some crazy shit crazy shit and we didn't even go to like one of the quote-unquote yeah if you're gonna use it russell And we didn't even go to like one of the quote unquote, if you're going to use it, Russell groups. We didn't go to one that is known for having elite sort of fucking people there. We went to just like what is seen as quite a standard, normal, left-wing uni.

Yeah, but it's not though. It's all middle-class white kids. Of course it's not. I'm doing quote marks this whole time, but I forget that this is a fucking podcast. We went to one that is seen as like a left-wing liberal uni tell me where that is in the actual politics of this because it seems like you've just taken in everyone that applied from private schools and you've just been like okay okay let's get some of these people not even just private schools state schools but middle class kids too it is crazy because also yeah it's just insane but loads people anyway

were talking about the uni experience because it kind of if you've only been surrounded if you've been surrounded by a working class bubble it's very confronting and i think the other way around as well like the struggle that i saw from wealthy people then being confronted with their wealth was also like oh okay yeah there were some few messages that looked like that actually yeah and i think that's an interesting way round as well totally from seeing people in that bubble suddenly having that bubble burst as well it's like okay you're are you shocked are you it was crazy to see the amount of like almost surprise that they were met with and denial i guess it is hard you know what i

would say as a tip because i actually think i've come to the conclusion i don't regret it but if i was going to uni again i wouldn't have stayed in the accommodation that i stayed in because the accommodation that i stayed in was like the en suite one which meant they were like one of the ones one of the nicer ones which meant that it was full of- Rich people. Like middle class and upper people. Yeah, which just made me feel shit from day one, I think. And I think I didn't realise how shit, I think I just really, because part of the masking within that, then you underplay how fucked it is. Yeah.

It's very isolating. Because also, I remember you even said to me, how did you afford to live in Northfield? Oh, wow. And I lied to you and I said my grandparents paid for it. They didn't. I was just on a crazy student loan in my overdraft yeah like I was not supported by like my grandparents occasionally sent me a bit of money which was really nice but I was not financially supported at that time what a weird question that I would

ask how did you afford did I say it like that I don't think you said it like that no you were just saying like god that made me sound like I'm kind of no no how did you afford to be here i think we were talking about how insane it is that the standard at uni is so high yeah and blah blah blah and you said how did you afford to pay for north because it was fucking expensive it's mental and i remember speaking to my friend who went to the same uni she was in a different accommodation she was like why did you choose that accommodation I was like well I got I'd been working the for the whole year before and I had a big student loan so it's like yeah okay well I was like okay fuck it I'll do it not realizing that actually there is a huge divide within the just you just who you're surrounded with at that at that like formative time it is um it is really crazy and then even

then so think of how crazy that was for you and then all the people who had been still working the year before and still had a massive student loan and still couldn't cover things it's crazy and it's really i think that people ask us about advice for uni and stuff like that all the time and my advice would be my advice wouldn't necessarily be don't stay in northfield at sussex but it would just be I just think if this is going to be like a sore point for you I don't know maybe be prepared for that and also like I don't know like don't don't let it get you down it's such a wanky thing to say but like I don't know I think for me I think it's important to just be true about who you are and you don't have to worry really about people who like I mean don't try and be around people who

have a really different situation to you because I didn't like you know I don't have to worry really about people who like do you know i mean don't try and be around people who have a really different situation to you because i didn't like you know i don't connect with these people so why am i with them do you know i mean literally i mean talking of uni like people did come through with so much about uni and it is so like even if you haven't you didn't go to uni or you're yet to go to uni or you went to uni fucking years ago or it's just something that is fuck the establishment yeah we fucking agree um it does come up a lot when you're talking about class because it's the first time that you everyone is in their like own little bubbles and that yeah the bubbles may extend further than some other people's bubbles but you're all in your kind of what you perceive the world to be suddenly you're uprooted from all of that shoved into another world where there's people from kind of

all over the place but yeah completely geared to like middle to upper white rich people. But there is kind of, you're thrown into a different world. You're endlessly questioning where you fit within that. And if you meet the mold of what's there, it's like, okay, cool. You might not have to think about it so much, but I still think if you're in any of the,

any form of outlier to just like wealthy, white kind of horse girl, you are going to be questioning like why is there not more of me here because at home they were all me they were all just loads of me so why am i now the only one representing that whole fucking group well kind of oh at home i i was kind of like i was pretty well off at home at home i was fucking a queen a queen i was rolling money at home it's crazy it is mental it is crazy there's just a certain level you can't keep up you can't keep up with it in a way it made me feel good like in the sense of you felt like you weren't it yeah you weren't neither of my parents didn't go to uni like my grandparents were both immigrants in

london at the same time and they like i got into uni because i went to a shitty little state school and if i would have went to a private school i'd be fucking prime minister lucky for you i'm not but shit like i must have been pretty smart also like i went to sussex and i could have gotten sussex was really low for the results that i got like i could have gone i should have gone higher really and then i would have really had a culture shock but i was really part of it made me really proud inside it was an internal thing yeah it was never something that I shared but there was there is a certain level of accomplishment there which I think is what makes middle and whatever class people feel bad because they feel like they haven't earned something and I'm sure they have and I'm not taking away

anything from them because I actually look I would love to have gone to a private school. I would love to send my kids to a private school, yada, yada, yada, because I think it's a great opportunity. And not even private school. I don't I don't even think private school really is a marker of class. I think you can be not go to a private school and be much more privileged than people who did and vice versa. But there was like an internal acknowledgement from me of like, oh, I must be all right then because i did this on my own also with all of my shit you guys know i've had some situations in my life is that oh i met i didn't i didn't kill myself by 16 and i made it to uni not bad not bad not fucking bad that is exactly the feeling that is so important to hold on to that it's like i don't know because even beyond uni but like the opportunities are privileged like affords you don't just end at uni it's like no they continue and you see that after things they the world of work is rife with this absolutely goes without saying well that's the

thing as well as i would say oh my god i'm working class i'm working class but having a podcast is about as working class as a trip to waitrose yeah someone actually sent a message saying about the discrepancy between them being working class and trying to get creative roles and all of their friends having much more like financial stability and support and whatever and the way that they could you have the opportunity to take risks that's privilege though i think that is absolutely yeah that's it that's the crux of privilege that you can afford to. First crux. First crux of the episode. And it is that you can 100%. You're just bought a little bit of fucking leeway to take slightly smaller risks

or potentially slightly bigger risks than people without that privilege. You can potentially be like, maybe I want to go traveling for six months. Or can I do like three months? Or maybe I can decide to do an unpaid fucking intern listen to the little bo burnham song acas powers the world's best podcasts here's a show that we recommend nature i've got a gay rooster named franco. Is so gay. These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals.

Does that mean I'm gay? So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple,

or wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com Even when people say, like, you know, aks.com i'm genuinely happy for you i i i dream of your life that's beautiful that's i'm really happy for you because i do think that it's a really like amazing thing to privilege it's called privilege for a reason it's good it's a good thing you've got going on all you have to do you don't even have to be in my mind with when it comes to class you don't have to be extreme about acknowledging it you don't have to make it your personality that you're going to be an activist at uni and you're gonna take on all

of these left-wing liberal mantras as your own i think just understand in your own mind that people have had a different experience to you and be sensitive to it so when you're talking to your best friend you don't end up doing things like buying cheap clothing so you don't come across middle class or changing your voice so you don't sound posh and adopting their language because that to me is the problem yeah the language they've been using their entire life but you heard on um fucking skins yeah fucking a few years ago oh yeah that sounds good i'm gonna use that it's like what crazy that is the crux i'm stamping that as the crux of thank you you get fucking opportunities yeah you do. But they think they don't though, which is the strange bit is they think they don't.

Well, that's the bit. We've had big discussions about this with just people in our lives as well. I was once friends with a boy that he was so adamant that he had like earned this opportunity. It was like an amazing opportunity that just goes without saying anyone would fucking want. A work opportunity.

He was so adamant that he had like worked for this, that he had earned it and it was his just for the taking. But it caused a bit of like disruption in my friendship with him because it was like, you, you obviously didn't. And it's bothering me. Like it is actually bothering me that you can't admit that you got this

from like family connections. That's the thing is it's it's not like i'm sure he was perfect for the role i'm sure he was a great candidate i'm sure he had been working really hard absolutely yeah no one's challenging that yeah but the reason that you got this because say you're a working class boy from this from you know the next town over you wouldn't even know that company existed well that was the issue because the the big um his crux comeback that he had was no because it was an open application his crux that he was offering me was it was an open application anyone could have applied it's like but do you fucking think i bet you rejected that crux i shout all over the crux did not resound

as if any fucking other working class boy would even have heard of this they're not googling that yeah how would they have found that and it's a coincidence that your fucking family fucking like co-own it and shit like it's so out of order isn't that a coincidence yeah or like you know the people that run the application process are you joking it's just it's the blindness it's rough isn't it it is hard it is hard it's the blindness that kills me because it's just it's the blindness it's rough isn't it it is hard it is hard it's the blindness that kills me because it's like you should 100% take that opportunity you should 100% do it but he knows I don't know if he does he knows deep down he knows he doesn't he doesn't he'll live his whole life happy with himself proud of himself so I really earned that I think you still can be

proud of it I think you still can think you earned it but I think you can can think you earned it. But I think you can also say like, I worked hard and I earned something. But at the same time, I was much more likely to get it because of all the privilege I have. I still do that in my life. Go on. Can we talk about race? 100% let's talk about race.

Okay. Okay, right. Should I start with talking about Naina once again? Once again, I am talking about Naina on this podcast. Sorry. Also, I just quickly want to say, actually, how amazing it is to have Naina be someone who's shouted us out because she has an amazing audience.

Like, it's not... Like, I'm very happy to have that audience here. It's kind of the most beautiful, lovely, sweet, amazing people. It's wholesome and loving people. Yeah's not scary i'm not scared of oh fuck kind of um david dobrik sent his audience over yeah fuck that no no no we're suddenly gonna start doing prank videos no no no we've had the most beautiful people kind of sent over to us it's like wow yeah it's a lovely bunch kind of cup of teas and biscuits on the go beautiful oh thank you so much yeah so thank you thanks to nana always and thank you for coming if you

came from nana and thank you for being here if you found us organically it was meant to be thanks for coming if you came from david dobrik oh my god but please leave please show yourself out um okay so i had yeah this sounds hyperbolic but it's not an exaggeration to say that it was a life-changing kind of um earth shattering mind-blowing event that i got from a nana florence video cinematic experience yeah so it was about um it was over a year ago and i was watching nana's video on she has a video i don't know exactly what it's called but it's her talking about her experience being mixed race and it's a beautiful video you should watch it it's lovely i cried the whole time after

cried during cried for like three four hours thereafter it was and a lot of people sent messages actually let me tie this back in a lot of people sent messages with this kind of general sentiment and a lot of people have sent messages over the past few months anyway saying a similar thing which makes me feel very much like i'm not just a nutter creating up issues in my own head because i wouldn't be surprised i wouldn't put it past me um but this nana video was so monumental to me and i'm gonna use someone's message to explain why but this person basically said that being mixed race or being able to pass as white or being able to assimilate in white spaces or having a close proximity to whiteness oftentimes makes you gaslight yourself out of your own racial identity and that was the big moment

for me watching nana's video it kind of gave you permission to be who you really are exactly like honestly couldn't say it better myself that's exactly it because it was the first person being like this is a real experience by the way exactly exactly and i can't it that's why it's really strange now that i know nana has listened to this podcast in the past because it's fake i no one no human should cry that much over a single pleasant youtube video honestly it's a lovely video and i went mental over it and i've had many a time sobbing after like since then kind of not a day goes by i don't think about how awful i feel about it why do you feel awful about it a guilt well so let me explain i feel immense guilt goes without saying you shouldn't but go on well thanks but i do i

really do because what doesn't well this also shouldn't go without saying there's immense privilege like i've obviously benefited from white privilege in my life and i'm gonna say so i'm gonna make an analogy here and it's probably really problematic won't be the first or last problematic thing i'll say on this podcast well let's do it i'm down for cancellation would you want anyway the only way i can describe it is what i've done the only way i can describe that is someone who for example was gay and they knew they were gay and they knew in their heart they were gay but they made a decision from a young age to assimilate and deny who they were kind of commit to straightness and commit to living a lie that's the only way i can describe it is i committed to living a lie and obviously

there's privilege in that because i could commit to living a lie within reason it's always come up in different ways but i could get away with it mostly um sephie always says like you know people see this space and they're just gonna see two white girls and a part of me dies inside every time so i'm like oh god do i say that well yeah like you know like people are gonna see this and they see two white girls and blah blah and i'm like oh fuck like god i'm coming across like i'm a fucking freak kind of kkk like how can you as a little white no you didn't say you didn't say that like how can you it was just that was a conversation about privilege that was just you know it's just normal conversation you just asked me a question there's i don't know a part of that is so a part of this now feeling

like oh people are just seeing two white girls kind of like you know i spent my whole life denying who i was being so ashamed and now i'm gonna really try hard and like accept who i am it's just gonna be erased anyway like no one's gonna see it anyway like just just you know it's funny though actually i did say in a different episode an episode that never saw the light of day thank god wasn't about race the episode it was about some other topic i don't know it's just not very good um and i made this tiny little point and it's not my point you know a million people have said this on the internet um and elsewhere i'm sure there is a world out there besides the internet um but people were

saying like what it means to be white passing which is essentially just you're someone who isn't necessarily white but you could pass as white people might assume you're white or you look you can look white enough to get away with it in certain spaces um what it means to be white passing is changing because the look for example of looking mixed race or quote unquote exotic or a spicy white has shifted the um standard of beauty or just shifted the way that a whole kind of cultural generation of white girls look so now you do still look mixed race you don't look white you're not white passing you look mixed race it's just all the white girls now also look mixed race which i think is a really important point is i think if you fucking look it doesn't make a genius look at me i'm obviously like there's something going on there um it's just not my fault that everyone else suddenly looks

mixed race as well so anyway but there were so many good messages about like people saying so someone said i feel like i'm very privileged because i quote-unquote pass i pass as white i pass as straight and even though neither of those things are true it keeps me safe from street harassment clear forms of discrimination etc um and i think that privilege is something that should obviously be recognized like that's the crux i'll offer up a crux there and say it's all about privilege it is the crux it's the biggest point it's all about privilege but at the same time someone else said and I don't know if I'll find it. Oh, someone said, yeah, this is a great point. Somebody said, having white passing privilege is a weird thing to navigate. I've experienced people being openly racist around me and feeling like it's okay to do so because I'm quote unquote white. And sometimes when people ask me my ethnicity and I choose to tell them, they respond, but you're white as if I'm lying to them lol yeah lol it's also had a significant impact on my sense of identity growing up at the same time I know how important it is to acknowledge this privilege and use it when necessary to intervene

in certain situations but it's also made me feel like I can't speak up about my experiences around racism as I sort of feel like a phony like I'm not black enough being mixed race hasn't helped with that I'm constantly gaslighting myself, convincing myself my feelings and experiences aren't valid because I'm only half black. And I don't know. It's just a heavy old thing. Just that idea of being kind of torn between two cultures and being like, oh, well, I can fit here. And the world is telling me that I can fit here into whiteness and that that is like the desirable option. Your life will be easier. You've been told your whole life or you've seen the desirable option your life will be easier you've been told

your whole life or you've seen through the world that life will be easier if you pass as a white woman and it's easier to assimilate towards that then you don't get yet harassed on the street and all of these things as much you can get this easier life in order to do that you have to deny an entire part of yourself half of yourself half a half of yourself but now it's even more complicated because yeah fucking pop culture media all of this stuff is then saying but what's really desirable is if you have this kind of ambiguous fucking look and then it's like well what the fuck do you want from me then you want me to be a mixed race woman that performs whiteness performing mixed race woman is like

yeah well can i not just be myself then it's funny because I even don't feel like it's something that it's like we want you to be this it's more so just well we don't want you to be that you know what I mean like I don't it's not about are you like you should be like this it's just whatever you do don't be like that yeah and one of them is a viable option the other one's not I remember like I think my first understanding because also I've before, I grew up in a really like, the buzzword multiculturalism was zooming through early 2000s London at the time. And my, like even my school was super diverse. So it wasn't like if you were white,

you were in the minority, but it was just like very diverse. Maybe it would be the minority. I don't know. But there were like, it was so many different people, whatever. I remember my best friend, I must've been like like five i would say like maximum six years old and my best friend she was white came around to my house after school in the afternoon i spent an afternoon at mine

we've all been there and then the next day at school she was like you didn't i don't know if she said this to me or i heard her say it like or something but she basically said like you didn't i don't know if she said this to me or i heard her say it like or something but she basically said like you didn't like i didn't know erin's dad was black and also just for the story my dad isn't black but and it wasn't even it wasn't to say like she hasn't seen a black person before because she obviously had i think it was just i think that really stuck in my mind because it was the first time that i knew someone was like evaluating perceiving who i was yeah based on my race and also kind of shifting your idea of your own dad because especially at six it's like you just see dad yeah it's like that's my dad but it's like oh wait so you have a perception of my dad of otherness of difference here it's like yeah okay that's interesting because i'm six yeah and then a few

years later all right so i was 10 were we 10 in the 7-7 bombings was it in 2007 we would have been 11 so yeah we would have been 10 yeah was it 7-7-7 they did it that's a bit crazy there were bombings in london guys do you guys know sorry to bring it up let me search i'm normally or maybe 2005 i'm pretty good with dates history graduate after all yeah 2005 i was right i was right after deliberating five minutes um and also the 7-7 bombings were really i think that did a massive thing also like post 9 post 9-11 world yeah 7-7 bombings come it's like oh god every i remember people in school being like you know the muslims did it the muslims did it and i remember thinking like well the muslims couldn't do it because i was eating dinner with them last night like what do you mean the muslims did it i don't know my whole i have there's more there than just a white experience

obviously and i've denied it over time because of all of the shame and whatever and that i there is shame there i think the guilt in part is very founded like if I think about like my grandparents like my dad like your family oh I'm gonna cry it just it's it's like that's a sickening thing that I've done it's actually quite disgusting to feel that level of shame about who you are because it's not just who you are it's who your family are but the thing is it's if anyone should be feeling any feeling of shame around that, it's like this wasn't something that you, as much as it was like a decision that you made for your own safety,

it wasn't an active decision. That is, it's kind of, as a child. It's years worth of shifting, shape-shifting, yeah. And as a child, you see, okay, so I am in this privileged position of being white passing. Do I make the decision of safety or the decision of, I can oh your dad's black well he's not black i can choose otherness that's the thing and i wonder again this is also something that should be acknowledged in other crux he wasn't black but if he was how then would that even more so inform literally what it was because i also again just to go back on the privilege this experience

of this silly girl who is passing as white having all of these issues is in so minute in comparison to like the actual race like there's fucking racial violence and like real shit going on and i've experienced racism in my life it's in no way to be compared with that i hope it doesn't sound like i'm comparing myself to that experience i think it goes without saying no no one's thinking i would hope so so naina flores changed my life but i think this is why that video was so monumental because it does give you permission to be yourself because it gives you the allowance to be like just because my experience isn't the biggest you're not trying to be there as this fucking um yeah i'm the poster child of race

you're not doing that i think why that's important is there is i'm sure i just fucking know you're not trying to be there as this fucking um yeah i'm the poster child of race you're not doing that i think why that's important is there is i'm sure i just fucking know you're going to get messages after this being like i relate so hard i fucking relate to wing so much because it is a huge experience that is just diminished of being between these two things and then yeah opting for whiteness because obviously that is just okay well i can just bomb myself in in the in white culture which clearly just makes your life so much fucking easier i don't think that's anything to feel any shame or guilt and it's not like your ancestors are looking down on you and being like you fucking they'll be like yeah i would have done the fucking same you know what it is oh i don't know i don't i can't even think

about my ancestors it'll drive me crazy but you know what it is it's not even about it makes it easier it really is privilege in the sense that yeah it doesn't necessarily make it easier it just doesn't make it harder harder yeah it's the absence of the negative it's negative reinforcement yeah it's like the paracetamol that doesn't make you feel better it just takes away the headache it's just it's not giving you i didn't get a one-up from it i just got away with all of the other shit and then left myself with loads of other shit anyway i don't know i just honestly think that's such like um just what a beautiful like 10 minutes you just gave us from pure from the soul like that is so fucking important i really do think

that is gonna help so many people thank you i don't i don't i don't know because it was a bit it was a big fucking thing that that nana video nana you've done it again you saw it you saw me i really i did sob didn't i that was i sobbed to you a couple of months after i really sobbed yeah but i remember the phone call i remember where i was when you phoned me and you were like do you know who nana florence is and i was like who is this name i know this name god i'm not this did i know that i would soon fall deeply in love with her but you were like you have to watch this video like it's literally changed my life i think i even said like you don't even have to watch it because it will it'll be like do you know what i mean but just know that it changed but here's here's a play-by-play of everything she said yeah yeah it was it's a huge it's a huge fucking thing

and also shifting your identity at any point in your life because i think a part of what you felt stop me if i'm saying too much at any point absolutely yeah because i think a part of what you felt stop me if i'm saying too much at any point absolutely yeah go on a huge part of what you were saying i think you were expressing some kind of like annoyance at yourself that you didn't kind of realize this earlier yeah oh 100 you were like but but nana's so young and she's realizing this young and i feel like i'm so old realizing this well also because it seems pretty obvious like i was always like the most interested in like race and culture or the most well read on like equality and justice and it's like how could you say yeah of course you were really interested in it it's like oh god

you're really interested for a white girl it's like yeah no white girls just aren't that white girls don't care that much like there is another layer there like you it is personal yeah it's in your blood like i i feel i do feel frustrated because oh fuck they got me too the whitest mixed race girl ever and she was still impacted by racism like shit and the and that's why i think i've said before like i've toyed with how much i want to speak about it because in part goes out saying the privilege so it's almost like how useful of all of this like it's not um i'm not ignorant to the fact that i'm now on a podcast talking about my experience with race and there are a million for example black girls out there who have really insightful and

just like voices that need to be heard whether they're insightful or not and they don't have a space and in part so i've been afforded so much privilege that has allowed me to have this but then also by not talking about it how much is that making room for other people to talk or is it just me further perpetuating like just sustaining that role of the white supremacist in me the dilemma of should i speak should i not speak and the dilemma of who am i yeah it's literally an identity fucking crisis it's like who am i who have i been all this time and the answer is you've been you have been kind of brainwashed out of being half of yourself yeah it's it's funny because at the same time i never felt good about

it but it's also that i think i also have the level of frustration because as i said earlier with the class thing it's like ihift. I changed my whole fucking voice so I could sound less working class. It's like, and I did everything I could so I could be less mixed race. It's like, God, you're a real fucking Libra, aren't you, Wing? Like fucking shapeshifter. Talk about people pleasing.

And then you get a podcast review that says you're jarringly posh or unbearably posh. Quite a compliment, really. Wow. I've done a good job of transcending my class as they say yeah absolutely i've put on a good show yeah 100 oscar the oscar goes to you honestly yeah i just i love i love to hear it like i literally think that's so just fucking great just discoveries it is discoveries yeah but it's not the fun discoveries that you think you're

gonna make no no kind of discovery that makes you cry for two years okay yeah so still figuring it out we'll see i don't know i don't know i i want to redact everything else i've ever said about my own experience with race within this space and i want to deliver everything i've just said with a tablespoon of salt all over it so you can pinch pinch pinch as you like and not take me seriously because I'll probably regret speaking about it as soon as the episode goes up and can that just go with every single thing we say on the podcast as well ever yeah just cover it in salt everything we ever said was a mistake yeah I think we end it here to be honest I was think we were just sort of looking through your answers being like should we just find I'm being an aring we just-ring should we just find one more just to like kind of tide us over to a

full hour and then we're like no i think we should just leave it actually on that okay i think that's the crux of the episode like i don't think we should just scrap around for like oh my god now we're gonna go back and talk about school it's like no yeah yeah i think the crux is like oh i don't have one forget it forget i said anything we're honestly all crux is like, oh, I don't have one. Forget it. Forget I said anything. We're honestly all crux hunting. Let's find some cruxes.

Yeah. I was like, no, we found them all. Literally. We found them all. I think my crux is I'm very grateful to everyone listening. Same. It's so strange. We say it.

I know you say we don't say it enough. I kind of think we bore everyone by saying thank you. I don't know what you guys want. Yeah, I definitely don't. enough i kind of think we bore everyone by saying thank you i don't know what you guys want yeah i definitely don't we can never say it enough well thank you so much for listening and just being here and just sending all your amazing thoughts it also we're kind of having this weird thing where we're kind of growing more on spotify than on instagram so i just want to say if you're listening on spotify we have an instagram that's called sephian wing where that's where we get all these questions and stuff because people seem to not know where the Instagram is. I think people know where the Instagram is. We've had a few messages.

Not in about six months. True. You know why? Because I changed the name to Goes Without Saying Pod. So if you search Goes Without Saying, you'll find us. So we haven't had a message like that in a long time, Sefi. I'm going to call you out and say that was a big fat lie. Well, maybe that one just haunts me that we got where i was like i've been trying to find you guys for ages like

where the fuck i think it does i'm like shit we fucked up they said it really nicely they said it really nicely what's happening um but thank you so much and i hope you're privileged as fuck i hope you're listening i hope i'm booming through a mansion in the countryside somewhere you're about to go riding do i mean i hope you're fucking rolling in it oh my god actually just one funny thing that someone said to me once i met this guy at uni just like the fact like one of my first week there and he just came up to me he's like so do you ride oh fuck off and i was like right what it's like yeah i ride the bus to audi that's all you need to know i thought he was being sexual oh i thought it was like right what it's like yeah i ride the bus to audi that's all you need to know i thought he was being sexual oh i thought it was like a sexual thing like do you ride i was like

what are you saying what the i don't know what it took like two minutes i was like what are you saying like do you ride do you ride and i'm like what what do you mean do you ride and then he was like horses oh no no nice okay well let's go look if you don't hear from us you know what to do assume the worst