Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 29: To My Community...

Episode Date: June 7, 2020

A mere 2 weeks ago it would have been hard to conceive of a world that was about to heat up considerably beyond the tension and emotion already experienced in 2020. Then came the murder of George Floyd. Since then, I, living in Los Angeles, have watched the United States – and beyond – reach a boiling point on race issues. It’s a dark time, and yet it also feels like a time where real change could be possible. I find myself asking of what service I can possibly be. Another weekend rolls around, my weekly video spot awaits my thoughts, and I have no clever words chambered. It doesn’t feel like the week for a love life video. And yet it does feel like a week where I want to be with you, my community, more than ever. I ask politely that you not confuse that with my having any answers. All I have is me, letting the Black members of my community know what I have always felt – that I consider you my sisters and brothers, and that I, Matthew Hussey, stand with you, always. The fact that Black lives “mattering” is even an idea that needs support in the year 2020 is an astonishing prospect. But to all the Black members of this community, let the bloody obvious be stated here and now: My team and I love you, and you matter to us. To brighter days. For anyone interested I have included a list below of organizations I have chosen to support with donations this week. **In addition, when we first posted the new YouTube video this morning, I had it demonetized out of respect so as not to profit from this video. However many of you pointed out in the comments that it would be better to have ads turned on and have the revenue go to the cause. I love the idea, so I have, and 100% of the proceeds from this week's YouTube video will also be donated to the causes below. 1 - My Brother’s Keeper Alliance https://www.obama.org/mbka/ 2 - Center for Policing Equity https://policingequity.org 3 - Equal Justice Initiative https://eji.org 4 - NAACP https://www.naacp.org 5 - The Girls Opportunity Alliance Fund https://www.obama.org/girlsopportunityalliance/

Hello listeners and welcome to the podcast with me, your host Stephen Hussey. Today we are going to be departing from our usual love life based content to give a message from Matt addressing the reverberations following the appalling and tragic murder of George Floyd in the United States and the way obviously that event has sparked so much anger and suffering and outrage from those across the world and particularly those who have directly experienced these kinds of racial injustices that go on every day themselves or have had people close to them people in their community who have had to witness these heinous crimes happening again and again and that have such long deep historical roots that i understand why there's a sense of exhaustion uh amongst the black community for having to deal with this so frequently and repeatedly and the unimaginable sense of pain and frustration that must create so i'm going to hand

over to matthew now and wish you all the love and safety for you and your family and those around you and um over to matthew the united states is reeling with the murder of george floyd and the consequent boiling point that has been reached in america and beyond over race issues the oppression the violence towards black people which of course is nothing new uh has been going on for a very, very long time, but seems to have reached, I suppose, not even a new level of awareness because I can only imagine the frustration of the black community in knowing that these images are put forward time and again and nothing gets done, but does seem to have reached a different crescendo in terms of the the chord that it struck with people at scale i have thought long and hard this week about what to do with this week's video

about what i wanted to say about what i could possibly say that wouldn't sound trite and cliche. And I spoke to black friends of mine this week. I spoke to a friend of mine, Darian, for two hours this week where he told me we don't just want to hear a repetition of the narrative that we know so well. He said this violence has been happening to us our whole lives. It's just that white people are now being affected emotionally by the violence that has been happening physically to black people. I also am so aware of the risk that people like myself run of simply jumping on the bandwagon of something because it's popular to do so. And the last thing I want

to do is trade on the attention that this moment has created and do something just because it's expected or just because it feels like the thing to do. Everything I do, everything I've done over the last 12 years, I have strived to do with intention and with authenticity and I see this as no different and in the interests of being authentic I don't exactly know what to say about this issue I'm out of my depth in talking about these issues I certainly don't understand them. I'm working to. I have always felt that one of my greatest strengths in life, one of my natural gifts is empathy. And yet, how could anyone understand having not lived that life of both overt racism and subtle undercurrents of racism that are faced daily by people in the black community that is something that we can only begin to connect to through hearing these stories through seeing these videos and through talking to people and listening the great skill that is needed right now of truly listening what would pain me is to think that black people in our community,

people who watch me every week, think that I'm not there for them. Think that I'm not showing up for you. Think that I'm not sitting with you in some way. And so I thought, let's just take this week's video, not for me to give advice, not for me to pretend I can be an expert in any way on this or come along with some really intelligent insight, but't mean I can't be there with you in some way. That I can't, just as in a relationship, we don't always understand the thing that our partner brings us. They could bring us a family issue. They could bring us an issue from work.

They could bring us a health issue. None of which we can fully understand or solve. But we can still sit in the room with them. We don't need to leave the room and be silent. One of the things that I get messages on all the time when it comes to people's love lives is the idea of gaslighting. That the person they're with makes them feel crazy for the thing that they're upset about, for the thing that they see very clearly is wrong in that person's behavior, but their partner is making them feel crazy for saying it's wrong.

That they're being overreactive, that they're being difficult, that they're seeing things that are not there. It is a nasty, nasty thing that is done in relationships that makes people feel like they're crazy. I watched David Goggins this week make a video about the experiences that he had growing up, the racist experiences that he had and how when he wrote them in his book as an adult, there were people from his past that made him feel crazy, that made him feel like they never happened, that he was exaggerating and how crazy making that was for him. As disgusting and as horrible as these videos we're seeing are, I can't help but be grateful for the fact that we are seeing them, that we're being made to feel this uncomfortable because these things are inarguable. They are undisputable. They are

wrong. They are a disgrace. And it's time for me and for people like me to check their egos and to listen, to not be defensive when we're being told these things, when it's being revealed to us the ways that we have ignored things, the ways that we have stayed silent on things, but to check our egos and be brave enough to relinquish our story of how wonderful we think we've been and to understand what we can do to do better, to take on new ideas about how we can proactively make things better and how we can learn more about what the experience still is for so many, how so many people in this world are having such a disgraceful and uncivilized experience of our apparently civilized modern world.

For those of you listening right now, watching this, who are black members of my community, I love you. I am with you. I am in your corner. And I don't know how to contribute on the level that I want. I don't know how to solve this. Clearly, very few people do. I don't know what the answers are but I know I love you and I know that I am so so grateful that you are here and I hope that you'll leave a comment either letting me and other people like me know where we should put our attention right now, what books we should be reading, what voices we should be listening to, and perhaps most importantly of all, what your story is. I know that it's an intensely vulnerable thing to leave a comment that talks about yourself and your story, especially when it relates to race issues, but I know that we would be grateful to read it. I know I will be. I will be reading them,

every single one of them, and listening to everything you have to say. So I'm here to learn. I'm here to listen. And I'm grateful for anything that you can share with me to help me do that. I'll see you next week. Thank you.