Sad Boyz - Black Enough? 😬 w/ Erica Joy Baker

Episode Date: March 15, 2018

Today on Sad Boyz we're joined by THE Erica Joy Baker to discuss blackness aka the state of being black 😅 Jordan grew up in England, Jarvis in the US and Erica around the globe, but we all share the experience of being black while also having our blackness questioned by our community for superficial reasons like interests, manner of speech, and EVEN food preferences. Also in this episode, we try to teach jordan about trapper keepers and we have the VERY FIRST PEN PALZ! Let's get into it! @sadboyzpod

Do you remember the commercial? Maybe y'all are too young. Maybe you don't remember it. Hit me. Whatcha keepin' tabs on? Keepin' tabs is like a Trapper Keeper sort of shit. I don't know. Sounds like a Trapper Keeper commercial. I think I might remember if you do like three or four more verses. Yeah. That was the only verse, I'm sorry. If you have a piano here, you can play the instrumental.

You are the singer. I am the one who doesn't sing. Keepin' tabs on. No, I'm not gonna do it again. Okay, Jordan. Okay. I think, honestly, we should do Sad I'm not going to do it again. Okay, Jordan. Okay. I think, honestly, we should do Sad Boys. Honestly? Like, should we?

Okay. You know what? Since you suggested it, let's give it a go. I appreciate that. What is this? I don't know what's happening. Oh, we're about to start the show. Okay.

The podcast show. The podcast that we do sometimes. It is a Trapper Keeper commercial. Okay, go ahead. Okay. I'm glad we were able to confirm that before moving on welcome to sad boys a podcast about the trapper keeper and nothing else nothing else goodbye that's the end um their phone turns off

alexa order me a trapper keeper that's nothing she called you that's one person probably just got a trapper keeper from that um a trapper keeper still thing now if i do i understand what a trapper keeper is a trapper keeper is a notebook i yeah ish that was also the commercial it's a notebook kind of no it was a guy who's like uh hey hey jesse uh what's that you got there and she's like it was a guy who's like, uh, hey, hey, Jesse, uh, what's that you got there? And she's like, it's a notebook. But no, it's not. Immediately cuts out without a title. Trap a keeper. It's a notebook.

Kinda. Use your friends. Welcome to the Sad Boys, a podcast about feelings and other things also. I'm Jarvis. And I'm Jordan ASMR Cope. No! And this is how I'm going to talk the entire episode. You're not allowed to talk like that.

You're saying I should maybe get closer to the mic? Get closer to the mic. Okay, sorry. Do you want to do the show again? Nope. I'm going to boot it up again? You have to... I'm going to stay here.

Oh yeah, I have to make a... Wait, I have some craft paper somewhere. Does You have to... I'm going to stay here. Oh, yeah, I have to make a... Wait, I have some craft paper somewhere. Does anybody have any materials I can use? So we're joined today by a very special guest. Jordan is still trying to do ASMR into the microphone. I'm trying to improve our SEO. I know people like this. You can't improve...

You have to scratch it. You have to do like this. ASMR can't improve your SEO. Oh, I hate it. It's not going to work. Nothing against people that love ASMR, but no thank you. Can't stay with that for too long. It hurts my body to speak like that.

What goes our voice? We're joined today by Erica Joy Baker. Hey, Erica. How's it going? Or as you described, you said I should call you Hey You. Yeah, that's how I respond to things. Hey You. Hey You, girl.

Do you feel good about that nickname? No, I don't. Hey you? No, but I'm used to it because that's what people say when I'm walking down the street in San Francisco. It's one of many catcalls. That seems a bit, I mean, not that this is the main criticism we should be loving against catcallers.

That just seems a bit lazy. Has there ever been a catcaller who did an amount of effort that was commendable? Well, is that better or worse? Because if they've done the research. Yeah, then it's like, what is happening here? This is a stalker, I think. Hey, there's the security number that I know.

I know you're SSN. You know what? I was walking down the street in Oakland with one of my ex-partners and someone rode by us on a bicycle and just said to me, big juicy lips. And I was like, that was new. Oh, wow. Never heard that one before. Impressive that he was able to see that whilst high velocity with a lot of motion blur.

I was really impressed. We had a good laugh at it. And we're like, huh. And that is the current partner. He was actually. You left that person enjoying it. You hopped on the back of the bike. I did.

They were just looking at themselves in their selfie camera and giving themselves their affirmations for that day. And really, they're just misunderstood. Damn. Do you think maybe he thought it was a Manchurian candidate code phrase? Big juicy lips. I have to kill the president. In fact, I think I have to go. Something has come up that I have to tend to.

Today, we're going to be talking about blackness. And I don't even know how we should define this. Jordan, give me a definition. Yeah, sure. Let me pull down a presentation I prepared earlier. It's just the word blackness because I'm as lost as you are.

So here's the challenge. There are a lot of people who believe that none of us are qualified to talk about blackness. And that's exactly why I would like to talk about it. Exactly. I say we're all coming at this topic

with a similar agenda. I'm here specifically to talk about exactly um i say we're all coming at this topic with a similar agenda i'm here to specifically to talk about validation of blackness which is an insecurity i have like am i a valid enough a black person to speak on x topic i don't know if that vibes with the two of you as well i'm down yeah i don't talk about whatever yeah no i i keepers i i feel um yeah if all else fails let's just talk about Trapper Keepers. Yeah, let's go. It's still not crystal clear what it is. So, yeah, we're going to talk about blackness and maybe some of our own experiences with like our black identities, or at least that's what I want to talk about.

Yeah. I guess maybe we should kick it off by each of us defining what we understand that term to mean. Starting with Diva, my cat diva so diva's half diva is black and white so i don't know so is jordan and i so i'll go next i don't know if any of you are qualified no we're not but together together we can't together we are five percent yeah no uh for me, I've always identified as black because I was raised and only grew up around black people and didn't even know my actual like racial background until I did a DNA test. Spoilers. Yeah. And so I've only recently started to even consider myself a mixed race person because

of all all the people in my life. But within the black community, I've always, I've experienced like, as we talked about in like the, where are you really from episode, people said that I talked white. And I'm like, I don't even know where I got this from. This is just how I am. Where did that happen? In elementary school. But where, Like in what part of the world? So I'm from Florida. And did that happen in Florida? It did. Oh, I have follow-up. Oh, interesting. So we'll get into some of that.

Yeah. I'm very curious. Well, so follow-up here is that I heard the same thing from my cousins who live in Florida. So for some background history, whatever, my family is from generally the same place that uh jarvis's family lives in now yeah um in uh central florida yeah central florida yeah

oh thanks for the clarification let me just uh rack through my knowledge of uh florida geography yeah yeah not the so think about the shape of the state and then central so in the middle yeah yes you all of your family members sit directly in the center of yeah if they if they move from the center of florida it will go into the ocean it will secede yeah yeah i remember very vividly one of the clearest memories i have is one of my cousins asking me why i talk like a white girl when i was a white girl when I was a little kid. And I was like, what the fuck does that mean? Like, what does it mean to talk like a white girl? I talk like me. Um, but because I didn't say strawberry. Yeah. Right. That was a

thing. Do you remember that? Oh, I remember strawberry. Strawberry. Cause I didn't say strawberry. I talked like a white girl and I was like, wow, big fan of that term. Can I use it? Yeah. There's a lot like scrimp. Scp oh my god screep just just arbitrary c's it sounds like yeah uh arbitrary c's is actually our rap group it was a tlc featuring arbitrary c's it's just tlccc i mean that is like uh a part of AAVE, African American Vernacular English. Yes. Yeah, totally.

So that's like how they talk is chill, but they were not chill with how I talk. And I was like, yo, like, and that has sat with me for like my entire life. I mean, I still clearly remember. Oh my God. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And so like, I've always had like issues that people think I wasn't black enough because

I was raised in like, eh, not like super middle class, but like, not like lower middle class or whatever. It's like, oh, you didn't live in the projects. You're not black. You didn't have these experiences. You're not black. And like, well, that is not what white people think about me. Yeah, absolutely. I have a black mother and a black father. How am I not black? Do those identifying factors not exist in white communities? I've never heard of somebody's whiteness being questioned based on the way they act it's like maybe your uh status of wealth and class and living might be but not like that's not a very white way to speak i was just thinking like it's wild that there are terms like oreo yeah oh oh i know that one which is to say uh you're black on

the outside but like an oreo you're white on the inside. And then like, this is a very terrible one also, just as bad as Oreo, but banana. Like people say that one. I don't know that one. For Asian people. Oh. Yeah. It's fucked up, right?

That is fucked up. Yowza. Yeah, right? No good. We'll be discussing. And intuitively very bad. Very bad. If not something you need to be told was bad.

Is there a reverse for like white people? Like white on the outside, something on the inside? Is something as fucked up as those two words? The problem is that as far as I see it at least, one of the weird things about the UK especially, especially in London specifically, is that I honestly couldn't tell you traits that are specifically associated with black communities

that aren't associated with white communities amongst the same class. And I'm saying this is like not my understanding but rather like the broader cultural understanding what race is in that environment a lot of the time black culture is just associated with poorer culture and that's it and it's just like oh yeah sure uh people that are into like grime and like going to the chicken shop yeah i dig that that's the genre of music grime and the chicken shop i have so much just little pieces of iconography associated with that community but that are not entirely separate from white community that's that's the thing about it it's more like an indicator of class that's because there's like a really solid

class system in the uk especially in certain parts of london right but whenever i hear you aren't black enough what i was always being criticized on, we all share that experience. I was always being criticized, not that I acted white, but that I didn't do things that American black people did. Oh, that was interesting. Black is American. Like you don't wear Jordans. That's true. I'm not bumping on pump ups.

You know, it was really bizarre. Like a lot of the time it would come up i somewhat to my shame at this point i would like to do an american accent sometimes it's like a do it right now it's like a i purged it he purged your american accent i did i ate a bunch of thumbtacks and it destroyed the american accent try it anyway um oh uh no i can try maybe we'll uh we'll pop it at the end you gotta remind me yeah Oh, that's it. I haven't had enough champagne. ASMR spark.

And yeah, so we'll get really deep into that during the topic of the episode. But first, Erica, how was your week? It just started. It's Monday. It is. So. Yeah. How's it going so far?

So far, so good. I've had a very productive day. I've made progress on my tasks. Yes. I feel good about it. I'm feeling very happy about my friends today. Yes. I was just sitting at work thinking about like how my friends are like growing and thriving.

And I was just like, ah. What a great feeling. I love being able to watch my friends grow and just like be happy in life. It's just like, it feels so good. Do you want to give any shout outs? Oh, so many. Let's see. How many shout outs am I allowed to give?

As many as you want. Two and a third. It'd be kind of rude if you didn't give it to me in general. Did y am I allowed to give? As many as you want. Two and a third. It'd be kind of rude if you didn't give it to me in Jervis, but you can choose whoever you want. Two and impossible. Two and impossible. Oh, spades reference. Do you not play spades?

Oh, I'm going to teach you. Whoa, that's a spade. That was a thing. That was a black thing where I didn't play spades. I was one of the people who played spades, but other people were playing spades. I played Tonk. Oh, I play Tonk. Yeah.

Yeah. What is happening? Card games. That was so bizarre i honestly thought you were doing a bit oh me i played clink right see shout out to ronnie and will ronnie will who just got married um last night ronnie and will ronnie and will go for it ronnie and will don't let anybody tell you not to do the things you're doing when you do them i should say that will gave the greatest vow that has ever been uttered in the history of humankind he said i promise that to recognize and reciprocate emotional labor wow whoa that's really awesome yo that's

a vow ever that's some night level shit yeah that's really good Ronnie taught him well I'm gonna have to steal that For my vows That maybe will never be used Hashtag forever alone Just kidding But I will steal that If you are alone forever Jarvis

I promise to reciprocate Any emotional labor on your part Aww Thank you Aww You Are wearing a Full suit of armor

Please knight me my lord Jordan how is your week little old me well I have some good news for a few fans of the show that have been complaining that Jordan's socially awkward moment

has been absent from the show that's also a different title that you've ever given the show you alone I've decided to rebrand for a third time Jordan's socially awkward moment remember that it was Jordan's special space then we third time. Jordan's socially awkward moment. It was Jordan's special space.

Then we pivoted to Jordan's socially awkward, some very long title. It was Jordan's special space. And then it was Jordan's awkward and completely vexing social interaction of the week. Crap. Well, if you can do it, maybe you do the title. That was great. I'm doing that segment. But I think now we're going to pivot to Jordan's time.

Jordan's time. And then Erica does the theme that we rehearsed before the show. Go ahead. Do you remember the theme for Jordan's Time? Jordan's Time. Wow. That was... Maybe clip that and use it in the future.

That's... Are you... Do you have a record deal? Are you looking for one? Because you're getting one. Jordan's Time this week is specifically to reference... We previously played what we called Millennial D&D with Lauren Shippen. Yes.

So Millennial D&D is a game where I present you with awkward social situations. And you have to describe how you would behave. Oh, my God. No. I know. I know. That sounds funny. We did it on the social anxiety episode

because it evokes that emotion. Erica has curled up into the fetal position, has covered herself in every pillow in my apartment, is crying more tears than she has fluids. It's incredible. So my setup for this particular game of Millennial D&D is something that happened to me this week. I've actually been taking the last week off from work

as kind of a little mini staycation, taking care of some personal chores. And during that time, I had a classic Millennial D&D moment. And I want to see if anybody, how the two of you would deal with it, because I actually have not resolved it yet. I think I technically qualify as a Millennial, so let's do this. Most definitely. At the very least, you're socially awkward. Yes, very true. So this week, I bumped into, in fact me and erica were talking about this in the elevator i bumped into what can only be described as uh building loyalty

in my building oh there is a man he's very nice it's quite nice very friendly very friendly standing outside smoking or sitting by his bike says nice things as you walk into the building but he's lived here longer than anywhere uh longer than anybody else he's lived here longer than anywhere else he's lived here longer than time okay um very friendly dude um in his mid to late 40s and for the life of me every time he tells me his name which at this point it's getting close to a dozen i forget it immediately it just like he is uh some kind of transcendent alien race that is able to eliminate his experience. Yeah. In a moment's notice.

You know, some people have face blindness. Maybe you just have building royalty blindness. Wow. Somebody. Oh, wait, let me open ZocDoc and cancel the appointment. Oh, yeah. I need help because I can't ask him again. Surely.

I've asked several times. You can. It's been mostly chance. I've asked maybe three times and the rest of the times I've been with other people introducing themselves. I feel like you absolutely can ask him again. You just blame it on yourself. Or blame it on the alcohol. Or that.

You say to him, hey, building royalty dude, I'm an alcoholic. Every time you've told me your name, I've been blind drunk. And so I don't remember it. Tell me again. That could be fun. And then maybe he'll never forget me because i've got this fun trait or you're the alcoholic here's an idea instead of presenting yourself as an alcoholic you could say i can't for the life of me remember your name

can you please remind me yeah that might work yeah it might work it might now what i worry about is no promises since he's building royalty i do want to establish myself as something of an important figure i could become a jester or maybe even prince so maybe what i do is i push for a power move and i say i know your name sir right but i want you to tell me it again because i'm the new king in town is this like a black panther reference is this gonna help if i do this if i do that to him no it's oh you have to now challenge him yeah you have to challenge him and defeat him in ritual combat. Yes. Okay.

First, I'm probably going to have to spend about 18 years traveling around the world killing people. Oh, yeah, true. All you have to do is live in a cave. You will lose, mind, if you do this this way. If you live in a cave. If I live in a cave. In the ice cave and then come. Yeah, it's true.

Yeah. It's true. I feel like I would thrive in a cave environment. I think I'd do very well. Real quick. We're talking about Black Panther because because the movie is out we've seen it i've finally seen it i have an embarrassing black panther story that i have not told on the podcast i don't think you should it's too dangerous wow i've got a feeling of what it might be well i mean as a quick setup we're pretty ahead of the times and we're very proactive

is this for me that's absolutely jordan has provided bottles of water for Jarvis and I. Yeah, not to drink that. Because he's an adult. Yeah, it's true. It's bathing water. For show only? Got it. Okay, cool.

But in case anybody hasn't heard. No, it's for show. Get it? Ha ha. Okay. Oh, God. In case anybody hasn't heard, because me and Jarvis, I don't know about you, but we're very on top of things culturally, very aware of the latest happenings.

And there's this small indie film called Black Panther that that came out very recently oh i hadn't heard of it yeah we saw immediately it's a it's a nature documentary about a cat a white dog it's very bizarre um but black panther it turns out is the shit yeah i saw it recently in a in a theater a movie theater and the entire time i thought to myself well this is a good movie i was seeing it with my eyes and i was thinking yes this is the thing that i want uh-huh yeah and then right at the end i thought to myself maybe i become royalty now yeah hasn't panned out so far been chewing on that for a while but i mean i'm thinking this power move with um i'm just going to call him craig craig which is the british way of saying craig

for some reason it sounds like he's some sort of alien. Because if I said Craig, it would be like, are you okay, Jarvis? I am Craig. I come here to own your building. I'm Craig, son of T'Challa. Have you seen Black Panther? It's lit, fam. So, Jarvis, do you have a solution for how I deal with this man?

I think he just gave you the solution. Yeah. Might be. Yeah. Were you not paying attention? Shall I repeat it? No. I think I mixed up the two of you.

Blackness. People do that. I'm sorry. Both black. It happens a lot. Young Jarvis. Yes. How, and pardon my language, pardon my French, my man.

Okay. But you're British. How the heck was your week well um it is monday but i just like going back the last seven days my week's been really good um are you happy i'm happy that's awesome yeah it's we've had a well yeah wrap it up boys we're the happy boys now. We did it. Turn that frown upside down. Ow! I just did it. It hurt.

We had a run of some pretty dark episodes of Sad Boys. We had like a couple of burnout episodes. We had the dark trilogy. We'll forever be known by the fam as the dark trilogy. Yeah, the dark trilogy. And coming out of that, I finished up my vacation and I got a chance to go to Guerneville, California and just like chill in a cabin with some friends. And getting home after that weekend, I just started to feel like really optimistic about life and the world and my place in it and the journey that we're all on, you know? And so, yeah, i've been feeling really

positive lately that's fantastic where is gurnville exactly it is like an hour and a half north of san francisco um it's on the exact opposite side of the earth as gainesville yeah and they're in constant war everyone knows but yeah and then monday was was pretty good uh got 10 000 subscribers on youtube this weekend had a little live stream may uh put out some videos with some friends just all around good time when are you going to mobilize those 10 000 into some kind of assault on like the white house i know that's the main well i heard there's a i heard there's royalty building royalty that lives nearby here yeah honestly dude when i've got his name we'll target him immediately yeah yeah that's that's probably

how i'll mobilize him i think it's craig can my followers fight your followers your followers would win but they can't fight well that depends who do you think has the more powerful followers because if you're definitely very strong minor they're all software engineers let's be honest we can hack your followers are you saying my followers aren't software engineers um i'm saying if they were you'd still have more of them so you had a lovely week i had a lovely week good it felt good feeling real happy and and we got a submission oh for a brand new segment yeah boy called pin pals spell it with a z the whole spell the whole thing uh called Pen Pals. Spell it. With a Z.

Wow. Spell the whole thing. Including we have a new segment. W-E-H-A-V-E-A-S. Your nose is bleeding. Stop. E-G. Sorry.

Batman symbol. Oh, no. I'm going. I'm phasing out. This isn't my correct timeline. But pen pals, Erica, if you're not familiar. I'm not familiar. Please tell me about it.

We've been teasing for a little while. This is the first one? This is the first one. The inaugural pen pal. We're about to have our first pen pal. I'm special. You are special. They were right.

All right. So I have not listened to this message. Okay. So we're going to. This is a message. Who's the name? Who's this from? This is from Andre. Okay, Andre. Don't to this message. Okay, here we go. So we're going to... This is a message. Who's the name? Who's this from? This is from Andre.

Okay, Andre. Don't let me down. Hi, Andre. First ever pen pal. Here we go. Andre, let's get into it. Hello, sad boys. Hi, Andre. Jordan, Jarvis, JJ.

I'm calling in. This is Andre, your pen pal, except I I'm recording this so it doesn't really work does it well you tried it's actually a very good point want to tell a quick story of sad boys influence oh actually I was inspired on my latest dating

adventure to do the 36 question thing yes wait are we allowed to pause so right out of the gate Andre's pointed out a fundamental flaw in the system Do the 36 question thing. Whoa! Yes! Wait! Are we allowed to pause? So right out of the gate, Andres pointed out a fundamental flaw in the system in that this is an audio message in a segment called Pen Pals.

He beats it up on that one. Whoopsie-daisy. I'm not afraid to admit it. I mean, you can fix it, right? You can call it P-I-N Pals and you have to put in a certain PIN number to get access to the thing. Or, PIN Pals, send us your PIN code. Or, Pin Pal, send us your pin code.

Or, much in the way of the floppy disk save icon, the name or the symbol does not have to directly reference the segment.

Okay, so. So, questions. You did the 36 questions? In our first episode of Soundbite, we did the 36 questions with each other. Are you in love now?

Yeah. Unfortunately. I think so. We don't want to be. That's fantastic. We don't like each other at all, but we are deeply in love as a result. It's true. Beautiful.

I think it genuinely made us closer. I think so. We only did four or five. And we didn't do, we didn't finish. Oh, you didn't do all of them. We didn't do all of them. We should continue. You really should.

Sequel. Sequel. That should be part, like, that should be a segment in every show. Like, one of the 36 questions. You do it. I like that. I like that a lot. Erica.

Hey. Hey. You just made an indelible stamp on sad boys. You are a pen pal. All right, let's keep that. I like that a lot. Erica. Hey. You just made an indelible stamp on sad boys. You are a pen pal. Alright, let's keep going. Okay, let's go. I didn't use the 36 questions and it wasn't 36 of them. I just took it as inspiration, but it worked out wonderfully.

So, pro tip. Asking interesting questions turns out to be a good strategy for getting to know people. And I have a quick question, which is, do you have any strategies or go-to approaches for sort of getting at people and figuring them out when you first meet them? All right. Keep it sad.

This is Andre. Goodbye. Keep it sad. I like that. Shit, I like keep it sad. I like keep it sad. How have we gone this long without keep it sad? We haven't had a pen pal segment with a Z.

Yeah, there you go. Andre just changed the game. Andre changed the game. So Andre's question is, do we have any tips for getting at understanding a new person? Yeah. I have so many thoughts. First of all, you will never understand a person. It is impossible for you to fully understand a person.

So give up. Bad news, Andre. Sorry, Andre. Sorry, impossible for you to fully understand a person. So give up. Sorry, Andre. Sorry, Andre. Weird, his message got deleted. I had this idea that we sort of, because we can't figure out people, we sort of like fill in the gaps with what we believe about them. Yeah, that's true. And so we build them into the shape that we want them to be instead of letting them become who they are around us yeah so i just don't think there's an answer to this question you can't really understand a person however you can like get to know them in ways that are more interesting than the standard what do you do for work yeah i hate that question what would you say is a tactful method to at least as much as you can in a first interaction be it a

date or just a party hangout maybe it's not a romantic partner it's just somebody you've never met before that you think you might be able to be friends with what would you can in a first interaction, be it a date or just a party hangout. Maybe it's not a romantic partner. It's just somebody you've never met before that you think you might be able to be friends with. What would you say is a good method for making sure that you don't fall into those pit holes? An obvious one is obviously don't just ask like, hey, where do you work? What do you do?

That kind of thing. But is it in the way you ask, the way you present yourself, is there a way to limit that? I don't know. I've never thought about that. I think that the core of Andre's question is about breaking the ice oh yeah and about that like how hard it can feel when you are completely outside of someone's world and then you like take the

first step into their world how do you get through that initial superficial membrane watch this watch this jordan hey what's up jordan the in Carnegie. Where'd you get blonde hair? I'm a Saiyan. Yeah. Okay. What are you passionate about? Whoa. Whoa.

I feel like, this is going to sound crazy. I'm sweating. I feel like you just like got into me and what I'm all about. That's amazing. I'm passionate about connecting with people. Really? I think that's a neat thing say more i'm interested and passionate about finding the nuance yeah and not settling for the superficial stuff i don't think i always succeed what do you like about the nuance to pursue because it's

different every time it's never as uh generic as asking somebody what they do or asking somebody why they do what they do because usually the answers are going to fall into one of five categories, right? What are the five categories? Oh, my God. That one I don't know. Wait, I'm out of character. That one I don't. I'm Jarvis.

What's up? Whoa, how do you do that? You're me. I actually like this method quite a bit. I like the follow up questions I think actually that reminds me an interesting way which is maybe what you were getting at of making sure that people feel

like you're genuinely interested in their nuances is to highlight areas and like sub questions that otherwise kind of get ignored like if you ask somebody hey what do you do and they go well I'm a software engineer first of all don't hang out with them you have to for whatever reason, don't hang out with them.

If you have to, for whatever reason. Like, don't follow that up with like, oh, cool. Where'd you go to school? Right? Like, that's kind of interesting. But really, if you feel comfortable with it, ask them, like, how come? Why did you do that? What do you hate about it? Why did you make that? What do you hate about it? Why did you make that bad choice? Follow-up questions do a lot because they show that you're listening and that you heard someone.

I could ask you a question. You can give me an answer. And I could ask you a different question without hearing your answer. But to ask a follow-up question is to say, I've heard you. I've internalized you. And I'm interested in hearing more. And I'm interested in hearing more. And then my little hot tip is that hot tips hot tips oh erica the hot tip theme please the what the hot tip theme hot tips

charvis has it covered so my cat left no no i hate this segment my tip with with the follow up question is you can direct that in a way that connects you with the other person. So if I ask you where you go to school and you tell me you went to school in Florida, I can say, oh, I have a lot of friends who went to school in Florida. So I'm like, oh, I hear you. I'm like trying to narrow the gap between us. then you hit them with the follow-up question um just because making the effort to say like we're similar we're the same we we are not from different worlds uh i think goes a long way i also think like it's it's kind of counterintuitive to ask certain types of follow follow up questions because what your brain wants to do is follow the natural stream and river of a conversation. Right.

Like you say, I do this thing and you go, ah ha ha. I have a story of my own about that thing. Let's segue into this thing. I have to say about that thing. About me. Whereas what's genuinely like more interesting for both parties, despite intuitively feeling like you should talk about your own anecdote or at least like a fact, you know, it's like, ah, MIT is a college. That's what your brain wants to say. Yeah.

Whereas really it's more valid and more validating for both of you for one person to go. Actually, so to make it more anecdotal, a thing I had to do a lot when I first moved here was admit when I didn't understand or know something and ask a question. And many of my closest friends now are the result of me constantly asking questions. Like at one point in my first two weeks here, I just needed toothpaste. I just didn't have toothpaste. Like, where do you buy toothpaste? And they are Walgreens. I go, what is that?

Is that like a friend of yours? What is Walgreens? It's the chemist. And then they break it down. And as a result, there's almost this nurturing energy you get from really open, candid questions. And obviously being an immigrant sets you up for more of those because there's going to be less that you understand contextually. But at the same time, if you tell me you're a software engineer, there's kind of a lot that I don't know about software engineering. Plenty of follow up questions I can ask about that.

If we're both software engineers, there's stuff I don't know about your specific job. Like inviting somebody not to just tell you information that you can put in a dossier in the back of your brain, but instead to give you information that educates the two of you is a really cool way of connecting. I just want to hear what people are passionate about. I super don't care what they do for work. Usually people's passions are not what they do for work. Yeah. But I think it's okay if people don't have passions.

I do too. Yeah. That like journey of discovery is a short one for some and like a long one for others. So I always feel uncomfortable putting someone on the spot with a passion because I actually had a conversation with one of my roommates recently who was like, I go to these parties and people are like, what's your thing? And they're like, I don't know. I just, I'm going to parties. Trying to find. I like to read.

Sorry, what parties are these? Are these like Mason parties? That's what it sounds like. They're in West Oakland, almost certainly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What defines you? So about making relationships, I think that relationships are built on common ground a lot of the time. Like either the situation that you're both in, like you're both, here's something we have in common.

We're in the same place at the same time. That's pretty wild. If we don't try to do this, that might not even happen again, you know? And another thing is that people love like to talk about themselves so if you can like set someone up to like allow themselves to look good in a situation they're going to they might be more um drawn to you because they're like i just feel so like just feel so comfortable in myself. And here's the thing. I think a lot of the time when people talk about the fact that people enjoy talking about themselves, it's almost like an indictment, right?

It's a criticism of the human race that our culture is so self-involved that we don't talk to other people. But I think what it stems from most often is that it's the easiest thing to do. We are taught to never let there be silence, to never let a conversation die down. And as a result, we're like, well, what can I guarantee I will be able to talk about? Like my home, my cat, my boyfriend. Like these are all things that I know indelibly

so we can talk about at length. But it's actually totally chill to throw it to the other person with confidence and enjoy them talking about it it's just as validating did you have a thing no i was just seeing if we how long we could let there be silence oh because you said we were taught to never let there be silence oh i like to be uncomfortable and you know people always talk about dead air on podcasts but nobody's actually tried it yeah so i had one more thing that i wanted to uh i was really hoping diva would have me out right there

come on diva i was expecting uh flash forward a hundred years to archaeologists breaking into my apartment and finding three skeletons it's uh it's funny that did that feel uncomfortable though not at all but i think i'm it's a situation i'm comfortable with but what's funny is that jordan's so rarely in that situation that he had no idea what would follow what follows a long silence i've never experienced one i was like wow this is fun do you always feel empty silences um outside the podcast not really yeah i the podcast for me is is that's actually one of the things that taught me about the thing I was just referencing. In that it is genuinely compelling to hear somebody's perspective on something.

Yes. If you are invested, right? Yes, 100%. Like, what's your home life like just to keep the gears turning? You're not going to listen. You're not going to care. Craig's going to tell you his name. You're going to forget it immediately.

It's like going through the motions versus, versus like actually internalizing what's being said. Because there is no boring home life. There just isn't. Right. By definition, human beings are intuitively too weird for it to be boring. My home life is very boring. Okay. Yeah.

Whoa. Shit. Pour one out for that. Yeah. No, but I think when you dig down, when you dig deep, there is a reason that it's like, is it boring and you're, you don't like that? Or is it boring and you like that? And then it's like, oh, okay.

Well, if you're making a concerted effort to be quote unquote boring, that is in itself interesting to me. No, there's no concerted effort. People are just kind of. But are you at, but are you at peace with it? Or do you you want it to be different i feel like that's a different podcast okay okay oh rad boys oh no it's like we get back into like talking about depression i think that was like a couple of hours ago yeah yeah oh my god sequel um pen for a sequel it's part of the MCU. Why is Stan Lee here? He was the guy downstairs.

He's Craig. Oh, Stan Lee. He's Stanley Stanley. Stanley Stanley. We have a topic today. We do. Erica, earlier you were saying that you had what you objectively believed to be the best race. What was that again?

You did say that. The human race. Oh, I was going to say the Boston Marathon. I guess I'll show myself out. The human race. Oh, I was going to say the Boston Marathon. I guess I'll show myself out. The human Boston Marathon. I'm West Boston Marathon. So we're talking about blackness today, and I thought it would be interesting because you can't really define blackness, but maybe we could go through our thought process of like what it even is. Yeah. And then how about we go around and we each define our understanding of blackness as accurately as we like and then we identify the thing about that term that we find difficult or like the insecurity we have around it sure and

a disclaimer is that um we're just thinking about our own experiences here and we're not speaking for anyone else's experience, but just how we think about this term. Yeah, if anything, I have fuzzy news to indicate that I don't even think there is a clear definition. And that's kind of the show. Yeah, totally. Hi, welcome to Sad Boys. We don't know anything.

Jarvis, take it away. So I think that blackness to me is a connection to a community that shares a lived experience in a culture interesting and that community is like the the black community and i think a lot of it i can only really speak for like black people in america because i don't know what that culture is like in other in other So I would say to validate your point, in my experience, and again, I'm from one to two countries. There's still plenty I'm sure I have to learn and plenty that I don't understand.

But my understanding of blackness, at least with spending time in a few different European countries and then a few different states over here, is that blackness, as like a universal term, is an almost exclusively American ideology, which I think is definitely a perspective issue. And I'm sure that blackness has like a universal term is an almost exclusively american ideology which i think is uh it's definitely a perspective issue and i'm sure that blackness has different definitions but for us maybe that's what it truly means you know what i mean young erica young black

blackness is to young erica which is y-u-n-g um the state of being a black person like that to me is what blackness is i feel like there are several people who would disagree with that. But I feel for me, and this is why I have such trouble with people like questioning the blackness of anyone else. It's like the state of blackness is you are a black person. You personify blackness in whatever you do and whoever you are. It's a binary, not a gradient. You just are or are not. You are black.

Like that's what you are. That's who you are it's a binary not a gradient yeah you just are you are black like that's what you are that's who you are would you say that there are any validating factors for that or would you say the only factor is self-identification the only factor is self-identification modulo rachel dolezal right i was gonna say i was gonna say yeah like, typically that should be backed up by some sort of connection, blood-wise, to Africa. Yeah. But Erica makes an interesting point, which is race is an artificial construct where, like, that is largely based on how other people see and treat you. And that is a very significant thing. Like, it's very easy to say, like, I mean, race doesn't really exist. But to like wash away any discrimination or any like systemic oppression of a group.

But there isn't like something that's internally black about me. It's just that like my experience of being black has defined or defines my my blackness it's like i've been black so therefore like that's my blackness i'm black therefore i am i'm saying we both have to leave the podcast oh wow okay spooky. Are we in Wakanda? Wakanda forever. Tot vise. Erica, I'm curious. We will not have it. That's really good.

We will not have it. Follow-up question for the two of you on that. Yeah. Do you feel like, I mean, I know that we've sort of defined what the clarifying elements for whether or not you can identify with some degree of blackness you are in some way racially tied to it and you self-identify right like those are totally great locked it down what do you feel like are the most common misconceptions of what blackness is with the understanding that we don't fucking know it's like it's not concrete right uh i feel like you know you ever heard that term where people

are like i'm gonna pull your black card oh yeah yeah yeah pull your black card like somebody else does it for you yeah yeah it's a phrase like if you do it's like i'm gonna put mayonnaise on this baloney sandwich it's like uh daryl i'm gonna pull your black card oh like take it away yeah because like you are not acting within the acceptable behaviors for a black person. Therefore, I, me and the society of black people are going to pull your black card. And it's wild because it's like self-stereotyping sort of stuff. Yeah. Right.

Like I, I'm going to give an example. I don't like Kool-Aid. I hate it. Oh yeah. I hate Kool-Aid. i have had people tell me they're gonna pull my black card for that it's like but why it's like it's a stereotype that's been put upon black people usually by white people so it treats blackness as an aberration not in an offensive way but as a well default is white yeah yeah and you're currently fortunate enough to be

able to do a little bit of black stuff but don't let it slip so you gotta pass the black sat or else you get your card the black sat oh my god the black stat i i i completely identify with that i think at a point in my life i wanted to sort of deny my blackness and completely assimilate because why? Well, so because I felt, um, and it's like, I wasn't outwardly denying,

but it was more like I was brushing it under the rug and not addressing it because I felt, um, in, in like my neighborhood and like the black people I was around at school and stuff weren't like treating me as if I was a member of their community and, and, and the, the like white people that I was around were always talking about like, Oh ha, but fried chicken though. And so, and so I felt like without, I felt like I did

not have a sort of community to identify with right and that kind of drove me into like this place of like I just need to be devoid of any any cultural background I can't like talk about how I I guess I need to like listen to all this white people music and like I I don't know like I remember going to middle school and it was the first time I uh I've talked about this on the podcast before but when when I went to middle school, I had like before that only known black people and was already feeling like, uh, I was like made fun of for being a nerd and like talking white and all that stuff. Um, yeah, that's crazy to me. Yeah, no, it's weird. Uh, I wouldn't have expected it.

And they came directly into my, my pokemon fan forum to tell me so yeah uh but jokes on them they were a bunch of scrubs didn't know anything about pokemon yeah it was weird they didn't know a thing about ev training um so lost i've never seen anybody shake their head harder than erica just swivel around like an owl is that what that was i thought that was another earthquake um and so yeah i think it took me a while to come back around to my own identity um which you would now call black yeah i definitely i didn't i like identify as black with no qualifier what is a qualifier for because it's like oh well i'm well i'm black but like my mom's white or it's like i as black with no qualifier. What is a qualifier? Well, I'm black, but like my mom's white or it's like I'm black,

but like, but whatever. And I feel like people often do that. I've seen, yeah, I've done it my whole goddamn life. Yeah. Why do you feel the need to do that?

So these days I'm very fortunate to have, uh, interacted with a lot more people of color since I moved to the States. That was, that was one of the major benefits of moving here, especially to San Francisco. But me and Jarvis actually have a really interesting contrast because you grew up in a town that was...

The Bay Area. San Francisco. Well, I mean, to be totally honest, San Francisco is dramatically more diverse than where I grew up. Like, that's how white it was. Yeah, it was very... Like, we talked about this in a previous episode. Jordan was, like, the only black person.

We live in direct contrast. Yeah. You were a guy that was criticized for being a little too white in an exclusively black environment, and I was a person criticized for being

a little too black in an exclusively white environment. And my hometown was, the environment I grew up in was exclusively black because of like redlining and like the de facto segregation in the town.

Oh, do we get to talk about redlining? We may get there. We may get there, We may get there. But anyway, Jordan, you were saying. But this was, again, largely the result of the fact that blackness, air quotes, was defined by how black American are you being? Like that was the thing.

Right. All of the references and jokes were the same. It was like Kool-Aid, which is like not a thing you can buy. It's not even a reference to anything. Hey, you've been drinking grape soda? I was like, well, soda doesn't exist. I mean, pop or fizzy drink? Like, what are you talking about?

Fried chicken was hard to get. There's like a couple of stores and quite a few in London, but where I grew up, like it was one chicken place, no KFC. It was just the references pulled from American popular culture, which a lot of references did, to be totally honest. But as a result, like I have this strange personal guilt around self-identifying as a black person. I try to because I feel like the qualifiers are only harmful. Like only negative things comes from me saying like, I'm black, but like a bit, just a little bit.

It's also like you're, no no one does like society doesn't do you any favors by not identifying as black you're still treated like like people who are who are prejudiced are not going to be like well but you know what i mean like well he's from a town of white people so well his mom is white yeah yeah some of her inherent powers yeah it's like it's like barack obama like for people who didn't claim Barack Obama because he was like, oh, well, no, he's really just Hawaiian and he's just like half. He was now fighting a war on two fronts because other people were like, get this guy out of here. He's unqualified. He's not from here.

All of these things that are, if you read between the lines, he's black and i don't like it yeah um he's wrong black you aren't doing it right enough which was absolutely my experience particularly when i was after college i feel like college sort of became this moment where at the very least there was enough like liberal influence for people to not say the things but when i was i don't know 15 people would straight up say the n-word oh yeah straight up old-fashioned say the n-word as a joke and at the time where uh house parties i'd go to a house party in the uk amongst my friends and people were just like people so i i think i i have so many questions well i think if I were to guess, it would be because they're so far from, they're so disconnected from what it means that they don't know it from anything other than a bad word.

Yeah. Well, what it's treated as is like well i can say the c word because i'm with my friends what's the c word yeah what is the c word cool oh see you next tuesday yes got it like are you like planning a party or something yeah we're gonna all gonna hang out and say yeah um like i hope i can say ass that's my favorite rude word hey everybody bastard but i uh bloody bloody heck i say uh but yeah a really common thing i think honestly what it came from largely is wanting to say the n-word or really just wanting to say any like off-handed joke about race to me or with me was, well, from my perspective, as a pretty privileged white person from, like, the middle of England

where we're affluent and rich and comfortable, I think black America is pretty cool. I've seen them on TV. The Wire's fun. I like rappers a lot. I wish I could, like, somehow assimilate that culture. Jordan, can I say this? Can I say this?

Is that okay? I know you've never been to America, and you are half white, and you grew up in a white household, but can I say this word? And everyone knows that you, as long as you ask permission from a black person, you can say whatever the fuck you want. Have you discussed it with the council? Could you contact Morgan Freeman and make sure everything's set? Are you still in possession of your black heart?

They're getting further and further away from you. You like cool cards, right? Like, uh... You like cool cards? Like Sidney L. Jackson does say it a lot. That's what it was like a lot of the time. It was never that critical, which is kind of a privilege, I guess. Like, outside of any, like, bullying experiences,

my friends would make the joke because it was like, ah, we're like you. Come on, we're all the same group. Or even, like, music songs with the N-word in it. It's like, ah. It's like you hit that moment where it's like and my and then you're just like looking at every white person in the room like who's gonna do it right let's use this forum of three to lock this shit down right now you can't say it you don't say it you don't say it you don't say it it is the strangest shit to me. Wait, is cursing allowed on your podcast?

Oh, I just said the fuck. I just said the fuck. I just said the fuck word. Which one is that? It's the one with the F. I'm not going to say it, you know. I'm not a ne'er-do-well. An N-word?

Yeah. Or an N-word. That's the N-word I'm talking about. I had a partner who used to instead of saying that word would say another so my another like if someone in the song said the n-word it'd be like my another or this another that's so weird that's a weird choice interesting I appreciated it I no no I appreciate that they didn't go the length the distance right but they didn't go the distance. They couldn't go the distance, unlike Hercules. It's coming for speed.

There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you. Yeah. But I prefer that to saying it. I also prefer just like not using it. I feel like English is so versatile that you can just avoid whole words. I can decide to never say the word like for the rest of my life.

I challenge you to do that for the next week. I can't. I mean, I would have to train under the tutelage of a master. My sensei tells me it's possible. Yeah, my sensei, who speaks Japanese. So he doesn't really use that word normally because it is english but but he says the n-word all the time it's not okay so just avoid it like if use your best i was gonna say use your best judgment and avoid it

but i'm telling you your best option is to avoid it to not say it listen white people this is three black people telling you don't say it it's not okay i don't care what your black friend told you yeah i don't care that your black friend doesn't say anything when you said it really they're thinking this motherfucker here yeah say it again because like what are you supposed to do it's like uh it's like that donald glover stand-up joke where he's at a he's the only black guy at like a kanye concert in texas and everybody's like saying the n-word and they're like what are you gonna do donald right you're outnumbered it's like that's basically like right you're in the position where you sorry to interrupt no no you end up in the

position where either you say tell your friend um that they can't say that word or you lose a friend because you tell them you can't say that and they completely like flip their shit yeah and you have lost a friend and there are people who just like don't have enough friends to lose a friend yeah so they just like suck it up yeah yeah and i can i can see i can somewhat understand why somebody would want to compromise on it and i have many times especially when i was younger and even in my college oh i absolutely have the space of like i have friends right now that do it and it's because it's come up and I've addressed it and it's changed since, I assume. I don't know. But a lot of the time it just comes from this place of, okay, well, you're not being malicious.

You're just not considering the implications. No, they're being assholes. If you've asked them not to say it. I mean, if you ask them, they stop. Have you asked them? In this case, it's yes and it's stopped. No, no, no. So he's saying that he's asked them not to say it, I think in this case is yes. And he's saying that he's asked them since and it's stopped. But in the, before he had told them it was wrong, they probably knew that it was bad,

but they didn't. It's just a value proposition. I think that's the issue is that we, it's so easy. We just go, no, of course, that's not a thing you can do. But for some people, for whatever reason, it's so easy. We just go, no, of course that's not a thing you can do. But for some people, for whatever reason, it is a conflict. And if somebody is willing to change after addressing the conflict, thumbs up. You changed, you evolved. Granddad stopped saying colored.

Great. Good job, granddad. Oh my God. I don't necessarily begrudge you. Not with my granddad. Okay. With members of, whoa. I have had members of, not necessarily my family, but close friends to my family use the word colored.

Can I tell a story about that? Yes. Oh, hit me up. Okay. So I grew up for a lot of my time in Alaska. Military kid. Backstory on me. So I've been a lot of places, but we spent a long time in Alaska.

There was a point in time where my family wanted to get a bigger house. We were renting a house and my sister and I were like teenagers, and we were sharing a room. And my sister and I are very, very different people, and my parents wanted to get separate rooms. So we were looking at houses that had a room for each of us. We are looking at this house, and it's lovely. There are enough rooms for everybody, great backyard.

There is a hole upstairs that literally is just a big open floor plan. I'm sitting there thinking, oh my God, the parties we will have in this space. And there's a hot tub in the corner of that space. Oh my goodness. Come on. That's ridiculous. You're at Kanye's. Yeah.

Basically. Kanye has a place in Alaska. Calabasas, Alaska. It was Drake's house. So we're like all, everybody is stoked about the house. And like the guy who is selling the house happens to be next door the day we're looking at it. And he says to us, oh, yeah, the place is great. You'll love the house.

And we're on board and we're on board. And he's like, yeah, and there's a nice colored family that lives down the street. And the entire family dissolved. We melted and went into a sewer grate or we all just like got the look you know look like yeah yeah did you address it no we just didn't get the house what i find interesting about that is actually follow-up question about being a military kid uh-huh i assume you moved around a lot that's one of the the trade-ins yep what was your worst blackness cultural experience environment like what was the worst state place city whatever that you lived in where people were rude about my blackness alaska alaska easily the end period

i remember when we moved to alaska um i was 10 old. I was in fifth grade. And first day of school, I walk into school and this Asian girl says to me, your hair can't do what our hair does. Jesus. And I was like, the fuck? I just want to come here and like meet new friends and read books. I'm just reading my social studies textbook. Right? And now it's like, why are we talking about our hair stats? My hair has a plus two to flexibility.

Your hair is resistance against poison damage. Yeah. It's just like, how did we get here? It's like we're not even... It was out of nowhere. Like, I remember... Is it possible that her hair had very specific powers?

She was just involving you. Is it possible that she was like wearing a wig and like really insecure about her own hair? It was like, I need to put someone down this second. Two different songs, Trapper Keeper. No, just keep going for the remainder of the episode. Oh, Trapper Keeper is a thing that is a product of some kind. You were talking earlier about how you just didn't know these American cultural touch points.

And Trapper Keepers are another one that you had no idea. Trapper keeper is a big one. And guess what? Still don't. Yeah. I'm yet to receive a decent description of what the fuck a trapper keeper is. Well, idiot, they keep traps. Duh.

Oh, shit. The number of times that I've woken up unable to find my traps. Yeah. How do I defend my castle today? Yeah. And you just put them in a trapper keeper jesus how many times i have to tell you well a trapper is actually the person that set up sets up the traps so the trapper keeper is filled with people it's a it's a human-sized guitar case where you

keep igor the guy who sets up your traps so i think that a good note for us to end on is to talk about the importance of representation a lot of our discussion around blackness is this experience that is lived that we live through that other people we don't live up to stereotypes that people assume blackness to be yeah and in those stereotypes are super harmful which is why it's so important to have more like public depictions in arts and media of, you know, people like Jordan that don't include Kool-Aid or like rapping. Yeah. Right. I think that the issue and the thing that can be so challenging about trying to find more nuanced representation is that the human brain tends to trend toward trends right right like if i can find signifiers that i can tie together ah black man dangerous well he looks like lebron james so he plays basketball right the number of

fucking times i've been asked by the school also because i'm fairly tall i'm like six three not necessarily basketball tier right very tall the number of times they would ask me to play basketball. And normally schools can't talk, but strangely the school would say Hello Jordan, please play on the basketball team. It would roll up the sports field into a single limb.

Lift me into the sky and teach me. Yeah, they would dine a jersey on your back. The number of times somebody would ask me, hey, do you play football? Oh, are you interested? Maybe do some basketball, eh? I ended up playing basketball. I'm really unathletic.

I really hated it. I was always a dork. There was nothing about me that screamed basketball outside of the obvious. Every black uncle that I interfaced with, it was like, you playing ball boy? And I was like, no, I can't really. No, sorry. Are these your black uncles or just any black uncle? I played basketball,

but I was always like a stocky kid. So I got asked if I played football. I cannot picture you being stocky. Oh God, you being stocky, I can't picture. Oh, I used to weigh 60 pounds more than I can. I need yearbook photos immediately. Oh yeah, I used to be 3 foot 5, 600 pound man.

Perfectly circular. I was just an orb of a boy. They asked me if I was a basketball. I was football head. I was Hey Arnold himself. Hey Jarvis. So, yeah, no, I always, because of my, body type, they were like, a little overweight. You probably play football.

And I'm like, nope, just fat. Just Yu-Gi-Oh for me, thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a Pokemon forum for me. Thank you very much. Always back to the Pokemon forum. Yeah, no, I ended up playing basketball because I was tall and a black girl. And I always disappointed my coach.

Always. He just assumed I would be better. I'm just like, no. I'm disappointed my coach. Always. He just assumed I would be better. I'm just like, no. I'm channeling it. I am both unable to play basketball or play the bass. And I mean, I'm decent at basketball, but it wasn't my passion. It never was. But I was like, oh, black girl who's tall, she plays basketball.

Obviously. Where in the world was this? Alaska, of course. Oh, classic. Classa. You know, there was a point in time where I was the tallest girl playing basketball in the state. And that was a fun time. What?

Whoa. That's awesome. Yeah. That's cool. You were able to command the other girls to do whatever you want, I assume. Yeah. That was my whole job. Yeah.

I was. You were Craig. Oh, my God. Craig. You were Craig, the building royalty. But yeah, representation, totally important. I often, when I give talks, because I do that a lot. Yes, totally important. I often, when I give talks, because I do that a lot. Yes, you do.

I ask people, sort of in the smaller ones, like, where did you get your picture of blackness from? Because people have ideas about blackness, right? But there are a lot of people in the U.S., like, I think the statistics, I can say words, the statistics show that most white people don't have a black friend the most most the majority of because there are a lot of places thank you redlining yeah where black people don't live because we weren't allowed to live and so we just flocked to the places we were allowed to live yeah so result is oh go ahead i was just going to define redlining which was this um which was this practice that was done after the

Civil Rights era, I think. Right. Where- It was before the Civil Rights era. Before. Sort of after Jim Crow, kind of in the middle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically it was like, black people, you have a lot more freedom now, but I don't want

to see you. So all of the white-owned building developments, or a lot of them, would not allow black clientele. It actually is a little more sinister than that. So the government, the actual United States government, partnered with loan companies. Oh, yeah. And said, the areas in these red lines are considered lesser, right? Like they are a bigger credit risk. And so you don't give them loans to buy homes. Those tend to be the areas that were like black populated. And so what happens is that you have,

in times of like economic boom and property boom for like metropolitan areas, all of the fun, exciting stuff was happening in these like white owned areas where like no black people could benefit from like their property increasing in value. And that happens over generations and kind of keeps black people like economically disadvantaged. And then you couple that with white flights.

I don't know what that is. Oh, you don't? Maybe. Oh, so white flight is a thing where, uh, post redlining when redlining was, oh, God, no, the government can't say black people can't get loans. It's terrible. Right. Right. Post redlining, black people would end up getting loans, buy homes in like white suburbs and white people would run the fuck away. Oh, yeah. Like literally like the minute like black people ended up living in a neighborhood, people were like, oh my God, my property value is going to drop. There goes the neighborhood. Literally that.

My property value is going to drop. I'm running away. I'm running to some other place. And that was what white flight was. You know what fucking sucks too? Is that they weren't wrong. Like their property value probably would go down because other terrible people were the ones that would buy their houses.

And it's in it. And so that kind of stuff has kept these communities separated. Right. And so the result is that white people don't end up living around black people. It really kind of makes sense. And the issue is, I think what happens most frequently is that I have this huge complex about the fact that I'm really not that educated when it comes to civil rights, especially in the States.

I really don't know how that operates. But here's the broad scale understanding, but nothing. Do you want to know? I've learned quite a bit in this podcast. But I mean, like, here's here's the thing, right? Like, is that is that coming from an insecurity about your own blackness? Yeah. Because it's like, is it like in order to be black in America? I know i'm imported i know i've lived in this country for three years like you've or you've

lived here for yeah yeah it's like you've lived in this country for three years and now you already feel like you need to upload all of black history to your brain in this cut i have to validate my status and bizarrely is also a thing i felt when i lived in the uk people would make the joke like hey there's my guy fried chicken kool-aid grape soda references to chris rock and then i would be like i want to dribble my basketball i i get it i'm in on the joke and i'm gonna escalate but in retrospect i know fucking shit i knew all the same references that they did i was making the grape soda reference because that's the only thing i knew about black when i was in middle school i would be like yeah fried

chicken because i didn't know how to how to make it like not uncomfortable for me and this is exactly why broader representation matters and i don't necessarily mean only in the spheres of media that already exist like hey we you know movies like black panther are important for that reason but it's not the only avenue that can give additional exposure right i think the most important environments maybe you'll agree are things that the two of you do doing talks in environments that are i assume at least largely white right like a lot you you do talks in the tech scene i do yeah which i don't know does people know this uh the tech scene's actually pretty white yeah pretty white i don't think anybody else i don't think interesting i was saying I don't know, does people know this? The tech scene's actually pretty white. Yeah, pretty white. I don't think anybody else. Interesting.

I was saying I didn't know anything about culture, but I'm pretty smart because I was able to figure that out. Wow. And Jarvis, you make YouTube videos, and YouTube videos are consumed by a wide swath of people, but your particular subgenre is tech and tech culture, at least in part, right? Yeah, it's definitely like a pillar of the content.

The normalization of those two things, though, getting up on stage doing a talk or running a panel it which is the default version of that in my brain is white and having a youtube channel and talking about things that are not explicitly tied to race is very white to me we are uniquely placed to sort of raise the profile of people of color who are creators right because we like representation right we very few comics for example i see unless i specifically go to find them feature people of color right comics like web comics web comics yeah um very little of the art i see online uh features people of color unless i explicitly go to find it. Right. So like,

and I think that like, it is, the onus is on us and everybody to try to do that, to try to like increase the representation of all the creators, especially people of color. I, I completely agree. I think that it's so important to be able to see even like we, we talked about the benefits of representation from an external like standpoint but as a black person i had so many misconceptions about my own aptitude and potential as a person because of the lack of examples yeah what's your frame of reference? Right. And so if it weren't for so many people advocating for me and helping me realize like the opportunities that I could have, I would not be where I am. And so one of the things that I want to do simply by showing my

face and doing what I already cared about doing is, and just trying to support and elevate the, uh, the voices, um, and stories of people who are traditionally underrepresented is, is say, Hey, lookie over here. Like I can show you a picture of a quote unquote, like this, this, you know, storied success in, in, in tech. And guess guess what i did it while black and in that like to me it's my own experience so it doesn't feel like anything new right or interesting see this is the problem that i have and i want to hear the two of you's perspective on this maybe this is a nice way to close out okay because i really struggle to treat anything I do as anything but like the alternative. Like an anomaly?

Like, hey, he's, yeah, but he's like mixed race, not black. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like an immigrant. Whatever. It's like, at what point, maybe a nice way to close out the show would be for each of us to go around and throw out a piece of advice. Advice with a lot of salt, many, many grains of salt, a big old rock of salt. Right, just a big old...

Because, what do we fucking know? Cylinder of Morton salt. Just a big old chunk of... I prefer the pink Himalayan salt. Oh, I don't even know what that is because I'm not cultured. I'm just a boy who likes poop jokes. A little poop boy.

And Pokemon forums. I'm a Pokey poop boy. I don't like fart jokes. But yeah, if we go around and with a big old grain of salt, I'll take table, we each identify what we would advise to people in similar situations as we were in our youth. It sounds like we're all gravitating towards our youth. Yeah. We often speak to our younger selves here on Sad Boys.

Oh my God. Let's say that these younger selves exist today and have the same accessibility online that we did. We're in therapy now. Got it. Oh, this show is just therapy literally these are like things i do in therapy where i have to talk to my younger self oh oh yeah do we publish these this podcast yeah no thank god with that in mind here are some really

edgy opinions i have on race there shouldn't be finish lines i just pulled down a slideshow yeah let's go around and each identify things that we think our younger selves or people similar to our younger selves could do to find better representation or maybe even educate friends that are saying weird shit like just straight up the n-word or saying colored or referencing grape soda like what's a way that either you can comfortably educate those people or find places to educate yourself? So I think one thing is just to pay attention to creators and people who are putting things out into the world who have a different perspective than you have.

Absolutely. I think that that is true regardless of like what your background is. We can all, you know, try to, to expand our, expand our, expand our viewpoints. The, the second thing that I would say is in my personal experience, I've dealt with a lot of pure ignorance. And I mean that not actually in a negative connotation. I mean that in like purely someone does not know the impact that their words or actions have. And that situation is largely different from someone actively disliking a person because of

their race or what have you, or actively thinking that that person is lesser. And in those cases of ignorance, explaining where you are coming from in an appeal to emotion. And it sucks that we have to, I will just call out that it sucks that that labor has to fall on you. The burden is yours. But if you can say, hey, this is hurtful to me because I had had this experience in my life and I come from this community and it is actually like just broadly offensive to, to engage in so-and-so behavior or, or, and try not to say it hurts my feelings because like it's

more, it's more, it's bigger than that. Right. Well, you don't know isolate it right you don't want to isolate you want to see to invalidate somebody getting their feelings out yeah and maybe just call out hey a lot of people do this and they think it's okay but it's not okay and here's why and like we can still be friends because i think this was not coming from a place of malice but like please know this information now. I impart it on you. It's a slippery slope and your mileage may vary.

But I personally like don't know how to educate those people who had like gone their whole lives with that ignorance. Sure. Without making a personal appeal. I don't know if you have a different perspective, Erica. Now, Erica, you talk directly to younger Erica and I will be younger Erica. No, that's weird.

What did she, what's like some trait she had that I can bring to character? Younger Erica had different hair. Hey. So this would be weird. Hey, what's up? I think I was terrible at basketball.

And I like to read books in the corner and also in the shower. Leave me alone. Oh yeah, that was me. I think I would tell younger Erica to push back on people who, like, tried to put her into the stereotype boxes, right? Yeah, younger Erica. Yeah.

I don't know. Like, I don't know. Younger Erica had a lot of questions. Older Erica has a lot of fight. Yeah. I like that. So I would tell younger Ericaica just like if someone says oh like the to the girl who said oh your hair can't do what our hair does i mean we can name drop it's catherine it did start with a c catherine t l extra c's

arbitrary arbitrary c's i will name her as like okay cindy what do you mean by that just like get cindy to like say more about what she was saying like what do you mean by my hair can't do what your hair does say more and just like this is the thing i do now as older erica i like when someone says something fucked up i'm just like say more we'll force them continue digging your hole exactly please keep digging your hole. Exactly. Please keep digging your hole. Please keep going. I see you've picked up the spade. Right. Or if someone presents me with a stereotype and wants me to behave in that way, just like, why do you believe I should think I should act like that?

Like, what makes you think that this is how I should act? How do you know what black people should be? Right. And just like keep pushing at it and digging until they reveal that they actually don't know. Yeah. And they walk away feeling not so smart. until they reveal that they actually don't know. Yeah. And they walk away feeling not so smart. And it's not okay to touch our hair.

Oh my gosh. Yo, how many times have you had to do the dodge? Oh, oh, I was so like, um, like beaten down that I didn't even dodge. I was just like, whatever. Yeah, dude, the the fucking the kid was a broken horse yeah you could touch my hair anytime and i was part of the meme like yeah and it's just so sorry but it just it just like if you think it psychologically makes sense it's like what am i supposed to do in this situation i don't have the like i don't have the fight in me right and i don't

even know what i would be fighting for i'm like, there's just this weird thing about me where everybody wants to touch my hair. Oh, no. But it's so othering. Oh, absolutely. I think one of the things that led me to be so weird. I didn't know. I wasn't woke back then. So I was dead asleep.

Yeah. I think one of the things that led to me being so strangely accepting of that really fucked up behavior when I was younger was the fact that, I mean, what's the one thing you want

when you're a 15-year kid validation oh i want external validation from your peers you don't care about your parents you don't care about kids younger than you you want exactly your age telling you that you're fucking nailing it you're a jock you scored the winning touchdown yes steve you did it or like you're you're a nerd and you're just so good at magic the gathering it's like yes you did it like yeah and then you're me like um i don't really have any hobbies how do i how do i be a valid human being i just go into a blank room and keep my eyes open through the night you you didn't know me back then how'd you know but then people would come up to me and be like hey in in as subtle a way as they may have you're the black guy yeah and i would go yes an identity a tone i am a black man that's that's my role that's my path to acceptance if i

just like sort of it which is like the shittiest thing in the world because it's like what am i your circus animal like and this is the black guy and whenever we say he does an eddie murphy impression oh my god um it's some of the raw material not really that acceptable these days we are nine but uh yeah the thing that i would say to younger jordan would actually be kind of the the inverse version of what erica was saying i would both say the thing you were saying but also this which is that interrogate what other people are saying. Right. But also interrogate your own assumption. Because I spent far too much of my childhood telling myself, I think I am the black guy. I think I am actually.

I do need to do these things. And maybe if I do get into basketball, that will make me more valid. That will make me more cool. That will make me a fuller version of the Jordan people keep telling me that I am. And it's completely acceptable to spend a little bit of time saying, well, do you actually enjoy basketball? Is this just a thing you're pursuing because you think other people will consider it a validating factor?

I think basketball's fucking boring. It seems fine. I just don't get it. Like, it's okay that I don't get it. Right. And that doesn't devalidate how black I am. Can I ask a really sort of personal probing question no okay this isn't the show for that sorry um of course how much of that is still in you

the uh hesitation no not the hesitation the i am the black guy and that's my personality oh um i think i've gone too far the other direction. I'd say minus 20%. Yeah. Now I'm stuck in this place as we referenced. Like, I think I'm like the white black guy. I'm the white guy. I feel like the whitest person in this room right now. You know what I mean?

You're just Jordan. That's the thing. Yeah. That's the mindset that I get stuck in. Isn't that so fucked up how we have to think of ourselves in those terms? Like, I'm the whitest black guy in this room. I'm the in the room like what the fuck what does that even mean 100 but i don't even blame you for thinking like that because like that's what society has conditioned us to like oh yeah measure ourselves i like the way that you put it earlier and that like blackness is nine

tenths self-identification of the law three. Nine-tenths of the law. Three-fifths of the law? Moving on. Oh. We'll talk about that one later, Jordan. In Black History Lesson, three-fifths compromise. This podcast.

But yeah, I think that's the best way to go. Internal and external interrogation. Because I think the assumption you especially have when you're a teen is like, well, if I question these setups that people are telling me that I am and are telling me that I should be, I might break it. I might fuck everything up. But really, you're going to feel a lot more validated

if you understand what you want to be and all that. One thing that I would also add for younger Jarvis is not to let the rejection that you feel from your own community allow you to like shun your background entirely. Like, cause I did not feel even despite the fact that like, I only knew black people, I didn't feel accepted by black people. And so I was like, well, this isn't a place for me. This isn't like a place where't feel accepted by black people and so i was like well this isn't a place for me this isn't like a place where i feel accepted i feel that today like today here or oh not today not here but like in general today like that's still a thing where people still think i'm not black enough yeah and it's just never going i you it's so hard because ultimately

we want to belong and if you just feel bounced around where like over here, I'm not black enough over here, I'm too black. Uh, then it's like, well, what am I, where do I belong? And then you just like, is like, what, how do I, how do I find, like, what do I find? And I think that I've more, one thing that's been really interesting for me is uh that struggle is one of common of people of mixed race and since i'm learning that i am like half black and half white i've found uh well npr's code switch is a great podcast but there's uh that was an ad yeah yeah we're finally sponsored it's just got ven mode. I didn't hear Jordan do a thing yet. Anyway,

go ahead. But, um, I haven't heard Jordan do a thing for this whole podcast. Um, I do a backflip. So, um,

but just like learning that there is a community of mixed race people that are just like, have this experience of like not belong, feeling like they belong in either of their culture. Like that's wild to me that that exists. And as I've gone on in the world, I've, I've felt the ability to, um, claim my, my blackness, um, in a way that is empowering to me now, but that took a lot of, it was a whole, it was a whole journey. So I think, um, trying not to lean all the way out uh is is maybe some advice i'd give to my angry self bear in mind that regardless of who you are and again i like blackness as a binary not a gradient i think i think of it as a gradient far too often

like i've got a bit of blackness so i can reference this but i can never say the n-word that like that kind of mindset um bear in mind that whatever you are is you nailed it you're killing it whatever wherever you sit and whatever your beliefs are around your own personal identity is correct yeah absolutely yeah you can't like be the wrong amount of black yeah if you do believe it's degraded and you feel like a six then you're a six that's the only thing contributing to whether or not you are it's black yeah it's whatever yeah you are whatever you want to be in such a in a weird way and if it gives you some comfort to identify partially as white like i consider my cultural background to be heavily white and i cherish that it's a negative thing i i loved my childhood and i love a lot of things

i learned through the environment that i lived in but i also criticize it for being so so non-diverse right those things can live in harmony they don't have to be this weird conflict or i'm like i was like a complete human am i i have to choose a side yeah sith or jedi it's like if you don't like that if you yeah if you were if you grew up in a if you grew up in hawaii and you don't have the same like racial background as the people you grew up around but you grew up in like a community that you like identify with and that community identifies with you like i don't want to take that away from somebody based on i mean mean, save for the Rachel Dolezal clause. I, yeah, I don't, I don't like living in a world where we're like taking away people's identities because they don't fit into our box of what it means to have that identity. Which is like where like the black card comes from.

It's like there's a membership. It's a club. There are rules. You can't fall out of being white. Yeah. You just die. It's the unfortunate consequence of not having a black card.

Well, then we get into like what is whiteness? Episode two. Yeah. To wrap up, I want to give a big shout out to my boy, Andre. I feel like we really connected

this episode. Andre, thanks so much for being the first pen pal. And for saying the bar to my boy, Andre. I feel like we really connected this episode. Andre, thanks so much for being the first pen pal. And for saying the bar so fucking high, Andre. Keep it sad. Shit, keep it sad. That's staying around. Erica, can you assign some homework to our listeners for next week?

I absolutely can. Read The Warmth of Other Suns. Whoa. Whoa. Yeah. This is like real homework. This is real homework. I don't know what the parameters of the homework assignment is. I like that. I will read The Warmth of Other Suns. The Warm This is like real homework. This is real homework. I don't know what the, the parameters of the homework assignment is.

I like that. I will read The Warmth of Other Suns. The Warmth of Other Suns. Yeah. It's about the great migration, the movement of people, black people from the Jim Crow South to other parts of America. So this is how we have cities like Detroit that are predominantly black and

Oakland that have a lot of black representation. It's a great migration because people are trying to get away from Jim Crow South and move into other parts of the United States where they could have more opportunities. Wow. Yeah. That's I'm going to buy that book today. We just got a hundred five-star itunes reviews yeah and i believe you you said this to me before the show started if people tweet the receipt at you you'll pay for it i will buy five you'll buy five five kindle copies of i've done this before i'm happy to buy five kindle copies of other sons

can i have four no because you only need one um but if people want to tweet at me and be like i heard you on the sad boys and i want a copy of the warmth of other sons i will send them like a kindle copy that's so awesome damn for those who are waiting for your physical copy to arrive of the warmth of other sons a little tiny homework for you is maybe share with us your journey in finding your own identity because yeah we oh we get deep on our homeworks my homework was not good enough bearing in mind that there is no wrong story there's no wrong story the thing you send is perfect whatever it it is and and uh we please let us know if we can um feature your your message uh in pen pals um or send us any messages for pen pals the dms are open the email is open you can send us an audio message like andre uh we just want to hear from you yes let's do it we want more pen pals so let's

wrap up the show this has been the sad boys. My least favorite guy. I hate this guy. Thank you for having me, sad boys. It's fantastic. Thanks so much, Erica, for joining us. You really set the bar. You made us better. I know. You made us laugh.

You made us cry. You made me cry more so than anyone. You were pinching me the i'm sorry you're right jordan connect with the the royalty that resides over his building who is if i mean if his name isn't craig it will be it's his name is stan it's stan lee oh sorry i forgot yes mcu's the stanley yeah owns my building erica thanks for helping me figure that out and for being the guest on the show thank you for having me i loved it erica where can people find you online oh yeah shit oh my gosh don't find me online kidding um you can find me at ericabaker.com it's erica b-a-k-e-r.com or i'm on twitter at

erica joy e-r-i-c-a j-o-y i'm all over the internet i have several handles online if you can figure out what my old ones were you're very good oh that's a fun arg if you can figure out what my old ones were, you're very good. Oh, that's a fun ARG. Yeah. If you can figure out what all of them are, they get your accounts. Piece together the history. Jordan, where can we find you

on the internet? You can find me online. Okay. And done. Jarvis, where can we find you on the internet? You can find me on Twitter at Jarvis and elsewhere. Not as that. I'm Magic Jarvis, where can we find you on the internet? You can find me on Twitter at Jarvis and elsewhere.

Not as that. I'm Magic Jarvis on Instagram and Jarvis Johnson on YouTube. I'm working on consolidating the brand, everybody. One day you will just be Jay. One day, one day. I'm trying just to work on being the biggest Jarvis Johnson right now. Do you know someone has EricaJoy.com? I'm really interested.

It's a terrible website. Sorry, EricaJoy.com. That website really, it's a terrible website. Sorry. Erica joy.com. That website is not good. Do you better Erica? Not you. I mean me always do better. Every Erica do better. And I support us.

Because we believe in you. We believe in all Erica's. As is customary on side boys. We'd like to end it with a certain phrase. We love you. And we're sorry. Boom! Keep it sad!

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