We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 79. The Power of Rethinking Everything with Dr. Yaba Blay

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

1. Why the construct of beauty is oppressive, but the essence of beauty is freedom.  2. What living with integrity looks like. 3. Why Dr. Blay doesn’t need any more allies—and what she really wants from an accomplice. 4. How “Karens” have been around for centuries—and the direct line from “Miss Anne to Karen.” 5. Dr. Blay’s greatest hope for her granddaughters—even if she doesn’t like it.

Hello and welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. It's a good day. One of my favorite days. I'm very excited. She's very excited. We're all very excited. I'm already sweating from excitement. Sissy, I know you've been real excited for this day.

Yeah. Very much so. Yeah, because I have had a secret friend that you don't know. All right. I know. But I do. You know. She just doesn't know that I'm her friend.

Yes. Because I have watched every. that she's ever done and read everything that she's ever done. But so I have a friend. Yeah. She just doesn't have the same friend in me. Yeah. It's a one-sided friendship. But today we're going to make it two-sided because today one of our favorite humans on this planet Earth is here. And it is a great honor of yours to meet her. Okay. Dr. Yaba Blay is an author, producer, scholar and consultant born and raised in New Orleans to Ghanaian parents. Dr. Blay earned two master's degrees and then a PhD in African American Studies. Her first book one drop,

I love that book. Shifting the lens on race challenges narrow perceptions of blackness as both in identity and lived reality to understand the diversity of what it means to be black in the U.S. and around the world. Dr. Blay was named one of today's leading black voices by the Route 100 and Essence Magazine's Woke 100. She has launched several incredible viral campaigns, including hashtag professional black girl, her multi-platform digital community. She is brilliant, beautiful,

and a fiery Sagittarius and one of the wisest, most beloved people in my life. Welcome, Dr. Yaba Blay. Yeah, I feel like there should be applause. I just did. I just did. That's just me. I always squirm when people read my bio. I'm like, all right, they can read it online.

Let's get to it. But thank you. Tell us about what is most important to you about your work in the world. Much of your work as an academic and a cultural critic is about beauty. How do you describe this passion of yours that you study and teach about so beautifully? Hmm. Well, I would say it's about beauty. Beauty feels like one of the things that falls under the broader umbrella. I would say a lot of it has to do with like identity in general, like our relationship to ourselves, our relationship to other people, our relationship to the world and thinking about the systems, particularly white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and how they intersect to impact those identities, right? beauty is definitely a huge part of my work. You know, I would say it is something I've been personally invested in again because

as I think of my own identity growing up, first generation, Ghanaian American in New Orleans, always having a question about, you know, not only my identity, but my value in comparison to other folks. And beauty is one of those measures, I think, of value that is. largely comparative and oppressive in a lot of ways. What's important to me about my work in general is that we think critically about everything, that we take nothing for granted and always be open to seeing things differently. Like that's one thing that I'm excited about every single day when I read new work,

when I interact with new people, that someone gives me a new perspective or challenges. me to think differently about something I've already thought about. Like, that's exciting to me. And I think for me, that is, that's what learning is. And I think I'm a lifelong learner. I enjoy learning new things. And sometimes new things isn't like brand new facts that you've never heard before. It's just rethinking something or looking at something differently or looking through a new set of lenses. It's something you may have already thought, you know. I enjoy those moments. Like, I thought I knew something. And then somebody challenges me to look at it differently. It's like, what else don't I know? You know? And it makes me want to now then go look into something else that I thought I knew,

you know? So all of that to say, I'm big into critical thinking. What a beautiful perspective. I mean, so many people feel the opposite. They don't like the disequilibrium of the new thing that makes you rethink everything. And what a beautiful way to live that that's the goal. I know. The disequilibrium. So Yaba, you just talked about growing up in New Orleans, and you said that compare, you said beauty was oppressive there because of the comparing. Can you talk a little bit more about specifically what was oppressive? I think, no, I mean, beauty itself is no matter who we are or where we are. The construct of beauty is oppressive, I think, particularly for women.

it is oppressive as is. In my lived experience, for those of you who don't know and can't see me, I'm black. And in the realm of blackness, I would be described as very dark skin, right? And so in New Orleans, New Orleans is a magical place with a unique history. It's a port city. And so there's always been movement of folks from different places in Europe, different places in Africa, different places in Africa. because of the history of enslavement and so many cultures, you know, coming together to create a unique culture. But within that space, within what we will call the black community, historically, colorism is a huge experience to the degree that folks value, black folks value oftentimes has been measured based upon our proximity or lack thereof to white people.

And I'm trying to simplify this as best I can because, of course, this is a whole dissertation in and of itself, right? But when we think about colorism, we're thinking about a system of hierarchical perceptions of value based upon our approximated whiteness. So if you imagine a hierarchy with whiteness at the top and blackness at the bottom, there's a range of colors in between. And so literally looking at bodies, I mean, just take it back even to the historical moment of, of an auction block, this idea that you should be able to know something about a person's value based upon what their body communicates, right? And in that context, the darker your skin was, the assumption was that's, you know, fresh off the boat, closer to Africa and therefore closer to whatever characterizations of an African

body there were at the time closer to barbaric, uncivilized. I can work you to death, right? And so oftentimes the highest, the bodies that garnered the highest prices were the darkest because of how you could work them, particularly male bodies. So there's a particular masculization of dark skin for that reason. There's a feminization of light skin for the opposite reason. Like, what does it mean to be feminine and demure, right? White, fragile, white lily. And so the lighter a woman's skin is then, the more delicate she is seen, the more feminine she is seeing, the more beautiful she has seen.

So that's the truncated context to understand my lived experience of colorism in a place where communities were structured and built around folks' proximity to whiteness. So, you know, there's a group of folks there, self-identify as Creole, Jean de Colour. Historically, lots of them creating community, lots of folks who escaped the revolution in Haiti, right? Also, not just white folks owning Africans, but light skin folks, mixed race folks owning Africans as well. But in any case, creating a community in New York. Orleans, somehow distinct from those other dark Africans, right? And so in a lot of ways, the skin color was an attempt to communicate more humanness in their proximity to whiteness.

As a dark skin girl, I was very clear that I was dark skin, not because I was looking in the mirror, but because folks were constantly telling me, you're so black, you're so black. And what's interesting, you know, in Ghana, I'm not the darkest color, right? My father is much darker than I am. My sister is darker than I am. There are lots of people in creation that are darker than I am. But I wouldn't have known it. I was the blackest thing alive in New Orleans comparatively compared to other folks who were also black. And so it was a constant point of reference, a constant point of reference, my skin color. Like if I knew nothing else, I knew I was dark. skin before I knew anything else about myself. I was dark skin because it was always a measure I think of my value, you know, and in so knowing that I was dark skin, I also knew that I wasn't beautiful. The potential didn't even exist for me to be beautiful, right? And again, not just in the New Orleans context, but then if I'm looking to the media to give me some insight into the rest the world, the rest of the country even, when you look at quote unquote black media, there weren't a lot of images of women who looked like me and were being considered beautiful.

Right? So in my lived experience, I always knew there was something different about me, but I also knew that it wasn't right. Because I also had the, I was going to say balance, but it wasn't necessarily balanced. I had my lived experience in New Orleans in America, but then I had my lived experience in my Ghanaian community. And I would say not just, just Ghanaian, I would say non-American because my parents, you know, they were in community with so many African folks, not just Ghanaian, but Nigerian and South African. Like I grew up in a very diaspora community outside of, you know, my, my experiences with folks who were New Orleans or African-American. So in that global, there I say, or that African diaspora community, again, I wasn't the darkest thing.

And I saw lots of all my aunties are beautiful as far as I was concerned, you know. So I didn't have that same experience of folks pointing things out to me as much as I felt at home and normal. So I knew whatever I was experiencing, you know, in the outside world wasn't quote unquote right. Something was off. And so I'd always just been curious about what that was about, you know, where do we get these ideas from? This time of year, I am always looking for my sweaters. Luckily, Quince has all of the staple sweaters covered, from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts for

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Quince.com slash hard things. This show is brought to you by Alma. When I first tried to find a therapist, it felt like a scavenger hunt with no map, pages of names, long wait lists, voicemails that never got returned. I remember thinking if this is what it takes just to talk to someone, no wonder people give up. So when I found OMA, it felt like someone finally turned the lights on. Alma, ALMA, is this beautifully simple way to find licensed, in-network therapists without all the runaround. You can browse without even making an account, and you can filter for what actually

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But as I think critically, right, about a lot of what he taught us, a lot of what he talked about. It's so interesting. That speech he talks about, you know, who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? to the extent that you straighten it. Who taught you to hate the color of your skin to the extent that you bleach it? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose? He's asking all of these questions. On the one hand, the average person listening might hear it as he's talking to all black people in this audience. There's something in me that knows that it was very gendered.

You were talking to women. And what's so interesting when you watch a clip of that, the camera pans to that front row. and it's like at least three black girls sitting there. And one of them is sitting there. She's looking like she is so over it. Like her hair is straightened. But you can see in her face, I don't want to call it shame, but it's something. It's like she's being made to feel shame because you're talking to me.

My hair is straightened, right, as I sit here. And so what Malcolm is responding to because he says, you know, before you start asking if Minister Elijah Muhammad teaches hate, you know, ask who taught you to hate. yourself. He's essentially responding to the idea that the nation of Islam in its pro-blackness and black-centeredness is somehow anti-white, which is historically, anytime there have been pro-black movements, folks have called them anti-white because we know that pro-white movements have always been anti-black, right? And so he's defending the nation of Islam as he says that. But even with the best of intentions and so doing, right, I'm thinking of that girl sitting in the

front row with her hair straightened, who is automatically being made to feel shame for, and I'm hesitant, but I'm going to say it this way, for taking that option, for making that choice, right, to straighten her hair. We can also argue that she doesn't have a choice. That's another conversation in a world that that positions your value, you know, in your ability to approximate whiteness. But we spend, and by we, I'm saying, saying us, and I'm also talking to Brother Malcolm, we're madder at the individuals than we are at the institutions. You're talking to black folks about the options that they have taken, and we're not thinking critically about the fact that those options exist. Right? So I think about

my work on skin bleaching. He referenced skin bleaching. My dissertation is on skin bleaching in Ghana because my maternal aunt, I came to find out later, she died. in her 50s. And so I learned that my aunt bleached her skin for most of her adult life. And that skin bleaching was a way of life for so many, not just Ghanaian women, but women, quote, unquote, of color all over the world. And it's causing all kinds of cancers, all kinds of disillness that we don't, quote, unquote, naturally experience.

All of that to say, I do suspect that my aunt died because of her long-term use of of skin bleaching agents. I'm saying all that to say. When I then looked at the research around skin bleaching, the products, what I learned is that the large majority

of these products are manufactured in Europe. And they are manufactured in Europe where those products are banned from use. So they are manufactured in Europe specifically to be dumped

in the so-called third world because of the market there. So you value European by, And you say, y'all can't use this. It's bad for you. It'll kill you. But we're going to have a whole factory system here to make these products and dump them in the so-called third world.

Why are we now on BBC online, all these articles and beauty magazines? Oh, my God, can you believe what these African women are doing to themselves? Look at these pictures. Why would they do this to themselves? They're just bleaching. They're just killing them. No, God damn it. Can we look at these factories in Europe that are making these products and dumping them in Africa?

For these women to now buy the price. You see what I'm saying? So we spend so much time focus on the quote-unquote choices that women specifically make in the name of beauty. And not looking at the institutions that make these options for women in the first place. Damn. Yes. Dr. Yababai, I would love for you to talk to us about the idea of, of Cairns.

Okay? I cannot wait for this conversation. I just want to first, before we go here, I want to apologize to my girlfriend, Karen Goodmarable, who is very upset that we are continually having this conversation about Cairns because there are Black Cairns in the world. I'm sorry, sisters, that you have to suffer for all of the ways that we talk about Cairns. And Karen has now been racialized as white. Please take one for the team.

For a good cause. We love you still. Yeah, but thank you for doing that because I always do feel bad for Cairns when I say that. But we got it. We got to reference it. Karen Waldron, I'm sorry to you if you're listening, Karen Samuels, you're good person. Okay. But and yet, here we are.

And still. Okay. So you have talked to us to Abby and I so incredibly about the path from Miss Anne to Karen. Okay. about how this is not in any way a new phenomenon. So can you chat to us about that? Well, Miss Anne is also another curricula, I would say, in the same way that we're making Karen a caricature.

But Ms. Anne is the reference to the women during the period of enslavement, plantation, life. So we talk about, quote, unquote, Massa, his wife, is going to be Ms. Anne. Massa and Ms. Anne. And so when I talk about this trajectory, this historical trajectory from Ms. Ann to Karen, what I'm hoping to get folks to dig into and to understand is that this is not a new phenomenon, right? This idea that white women are going to somehow attempt to gain access to power. And again, power in as much as they see it exemplified by white men, which in and of itself is problematic. So if I, if I'm not on equal planes with white men and they behave a particular way, how can I now perform my power?

Right. I may not have the power that white men have, but I'm absolutely having more power than these enslaved folks over here. So what we find is that white men aren't moved by us in the sense that we're not a real threat to you. if you have solidified your identity around power. So you don't have to perform in a particular way to perform your power in our presence. Not to say that they're chilling because they're also very, you know, diabolical too. But Ms. Anne has something to prove. Right?

And so what we find in plantation history, we're so busy looking at Massa. We're so busy looking at white men, right, as the face of this violence. and we overlooked the fact that the women were as violent and sometimes more violent because they had something to prove. And I talked with y'all about this. One of our conversations we had, I was running my mouth. And I reference, what's the movie now? I'm going to forget the name of the movie. Was it 12 years a slave?

12 years of slave. 12 years of slave. And there's a scene. And if you watch the movie, you know that the enslaved. labor of that plantation was consistently raping Lupita's character, which we see across history, across plantations. And his wife knew it, as did so many white women, right? You know it. Because if you have a plantation, let's say you have 15 to 20 folks enslaved, right? And then one of the women gets pregnant. And then nine, 10 months later, here comes a child that is clearly

mixed race, who's the daddy? Right? And what you're going to do as a woman who depends upon a man for your very livelihood? You're going to confront your husband? You're going to ask questions? Do you have a, you don't have a nickel in this dime, sis, so you eat it. And so now you're mad at your husband. You can't do anything about it. So who do you take that anger out on? You take it out on her, you likely take it out on her children. So the scene in this movie where, you know, they've called the enslaved Africans into the room to dance and to entertain the folks. And the white woman, we're calling her Miss Anne, she can see her husband lusting after Lupita.

He's just sitting back looking at it. And she can see it. So you know what she does? She just looks at him. She looks at her. She walks over and she picks up this heavy glass decanter and she bashes Lupita in the face with it. And then she turns and looks at her husband. He can't do anything about it. Lupita can't do anything about it. In that moment, perhaps she feels powerful, perhaps she's proven something. Who knows? But all of that to say, we have to stop retelling history, rethinking history, reimagining history,

and white women's relationship to it, right? Because we tend to put all of that violence on white men. And again, it's not to absolve them of it. They are absolutely all up in it. But white women, y'all are in it too. And so this history, this trajectory, this line that I'm drawing from Ms. Anne to Karen, you want to go straight to calling the manager. You want to go straight to calling the cops.

You want to go straight to showing other folks that you have as much power as white men. No? You want to remind us that you may not be a man, but you're not black. And in your whiteness, you have more power. And that power. And that power, Dr. Blay, it is power, but it has been labeled, especially recently, as in white women as fragility. Okay? So I want to talk to you or I want you to talk to me.

about that idea of white fragility, which we have come to talk about culturally as white women's inability to have any endurance or around conversations about race, and that it often manifests in every time race is brought up or white women are challenged, what happens is that white women become so centering and defensive and broken about it. it that often tears happen and then the whole conversation is derailed but that has been uh called not ironically by a white scholar robin of d'angelo fragility i have noticed dr blai that you have some feelings about the word fragility and i'm wondering if you would share with us did you see it on my face yeah i mean i've heard it in your voice a few times

You'd have such a poker face. Yeah, but such a poker face. You know, these aren't thoughts that are well thought out. They are very much, I make no apologies about talking through my feelings. That's how I feel, right? I don't separate my feelings from my thoughts and I don't think we should have to. It's some bullshit. Right?

And it's interesting. I was just having a conversation with one. one of my friends, Dr. Imani Perry, who has a book out about the history of the South. It's called South to America. We were having a conversation on Instagram last night about it. And one thing that she said that sticks with me, right, is she said that she doesn't like when people refer to historical moments or white people in history and say, oh, he was a man of his time. It's like a way to absolve them or whatever it is they, whatever decisions they made at the time or choices or whatever things they did. Oh, there was just a man of their time.

And she's like, no. These people made decisions in the same way that we want to believe that, oh, they didn't see Africans as human beings. Yes, they did. They decided it didn't matter. That we find all these ways to let white folks off the hook. So the same with fragility for me. You can't position yourself as the center of existence and exact diabolical harm to the entire world for generations and be fragile at the same time. That's some bullshit.

And that's a way that you avoid accountability, white women especially. And so there was a TikTok challenge. I don't remember the hashtag, but there was a TikTok challenge. I want to say last year, 2021, all these white girls getting in front of the camera to show how quickly they can cry and how quickly they can turn it off. And so I'm unmoved by white tears. Most of us are removed by white tears because we don't actually think they're real. It's a performance. It's a switch that you turn on because you know that we have been socialized to see you as more human and of more value.

So whatever it is you think and whatever it is you feel. we are supposed to respond to it. Y'all don't respond to black women crying the same way? Nobody does. Nobody does. The minute a white woman cries, the world has to stop. Oh my God, what's wrong with you, baby? Black women cry, we could be rolling around on the ground screaming.

And you are moved because you've been socialized not to see us as human beings. Fuck. Our tears don't matter to you, but a white woman and y'all know that shit. That's why I'm not here for the fragility. You know that. And so you very deliberately turn the shit on as a way to avoid accountability. Yep. Purposefully, that's not fragility.

That's manipulation. That's strategic. That's diabolical. That's not fragility. And so this notion of white fragility is supposed to tell us what? We're supposed to let you off the hook because you can't handle it? No, you don't want to. And every time we hold your feet to the fire, all of a sudden, I'm so sorry.

I didn't know. You didn't have to know. And now that I'm trying to make you know, you want to cry so we can end the conversation. This is how you run away. So how do I hold you accountable if you're all up in your feelings? How come I don't get to be in my feelings? I'm sitting here telling you about generations, generations of your people, yours, your ancestors, killing mine. How come I don't get to turn tears on and move you?

Sounds like I should be the one crying, no? Sounds like those tears should be mine. Sounds like the fragility might be mine, but no, I got to be strong. Look at me. I got to sit here and this is the thing that really pisses me off. In your tears, you now expect me to hold your hand and rub your back and make you feel better because you're crying. Again, you're centered. Your experiences are more important.

important than mine. That shit is diabolical. I'm not here for it. You're not fragile. Jesus. Knock it off. You just don't want to be held accountable. So good. Yeah. And it's also not just the tears translate to other things. If we're, if we're sitting here thinking, well, I don't cry, the tears also translate to saying, not, wait, not all white women. Why are you talking about me? Why are you generalizing? Why? It's like in our defensive, when a black woman shares vulnerably, when white women say immediately, when we go to defensiveness, we're proving the very fragility that we think we're denying. Right?

And it's not fragility like soft flour. It's fragility, like Frida Kahlo says, like a bomb. Like it's struck people die. When we enact our power, that. way. Like you were talking about Ms. Anne, like Karen calling the cops. It's not fragile, like gentle. It's, there's shrapnel from it. Fickle. Yeah. And unstable. I don't know. I just don't want, I don't want to use fragile at all. I know all the definitions of it. I just don't want to give it to you. It's not yours. And the irony you don't get to. Of on one side, we are so,

feminism is so interesting, right? Because on one side we're saying we're strong enough, we're going to be equal with men, we're whatever. And then on the other, immediately when blackness is brought into it, we are so sad and soft. Right? You're not. It's inconsistent. You're not. But again, you've been socialized to perform.

It's a performance. It's a script that you've been handed. Y'all are just, you're acting as you've been socialized. And it manifests in a variety of ways. Like you said, it might not be tears. But for me, I can't tell you how many DMs. It's why I've turned off the ability. I think I learned it from you, Glennon, the ability to respond to my stories on Instagram, for example.

I cannot tell you how many emails, like how many contact forms from my website, how many DMs I get from white folks apologizing to me. Why are you apologizing to me on behalf of white people? That shit is so annoying. I'm so sorry. Are you? What's sorry mean? And that's another thing. It's almost the same way I used to tell my daughter when she was little.

The minute you get caught up in something, I'm sorry. Are you? What's that mean? What does sorry look operationalize sorry for mommy? What's that look like? In this moment, you're sorry. Does that mean you're never going to do it again? What are you sorry about?

But again, sorry is that knee-jerk response. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Are you? I don't really, I don't believe you. Show me. Yeah. Get out of my DMs, please. Do something different. Something different. If you're a business owner who knows nothing about AI and feels really out of the loop, you're not alone. In today's data-driven world, you really need to understand your customers. And NetSuite can deliver those insights with zero fuss. No more waiting. With NetSuite, you can integrate AI into your operations today.

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Talk to us about your, you're also your general joy about the word ally and how everyone, and how you love to do D&I presentations during Black. History Month about allyship and how that's your favorite jam. It's not. Again, I speak for myself. I know I speak for other people, but this is my perspective, right? And there are lots of people. Again, there are lots of black folks who don't agree with me, right?

This is their work. It's bread and butter, you know. God bless you. It's not mine. And I tell folks all the time, I'm like the anti-D-I-D-I person. You know, I get called in. And integrity is a big thing for me, right? And I think about this quote-unquote moment that we in or have been in for the last two years.

And so many folks are wanting to be anti-racist, wanting to learn and know better so they can do better. And again, God bless y'all. but what I have found is that folks really want somebody to come in and tell them how not to get in trouble how not to be called a racist tell me what to do real quick

and we'll throw great money thank you trust me I'm cashing the check we'll throw great money at an hour you want me to come in and speak for 60 minutes 15 of which is going to be Q&A and somehow think that you've done something one time.

Right? And so then when I come in and I say, I don't have a checklist, I don't have a resource list. I'm not guiding you to do anything. This is the, this is not even the introduction to the conversation. This is the preface. What else are we going to do? How many more times y'all want to talk? Oh, you don't want to do anything else.

And so you want to be able to walk away from this. You want to put my face on your website. You want to then say to somebody, we had Dr. Blake come and talk to us during Black History Month last year. And now we are X, Y, you will not put my name on that shit. And so for me, when I say integrity is a big thing. And it's interesting because I've had a lot of colleagues, black colleagues, say to me, oh, no, girl, take the money. It's reparations.

And I believe that, right? But also to what end? Because the money is great and I'm able to do things with it. But at the same time, it's my name. I don't have anything in this world, but my name. y'all don't get to do with my name what you want. And so you're going to be out in the world performing anti-racism and saying that I gave you a gold star. You lie.

You won't put my name on that. And so for me, I, it's not that I don't want to do the work. I only want to do the work with folks who want to do the work. And not everybody wants to do the work. And so all of that coming back to your shady question, Jeff Glennon. Ally. It's not my jam. And not to say we don't need allies.

But again, I love language. Let's think about the emotion, the thoughts, the words, what the words generate. Right. And so ally, take this example. I prefer the word accomplice, right? And I said this the other day in a, consulting situation. And one of the participants said, yeah, but if you look up the definition of accomplice, there's crime in there. It's like this idea that somebody who's willing to work with

somebody to commit a crime and we shouldn't be committing crimes. And I'm like, that's exactly it. Think about it emotively, right? So Abby, if I call you at two o'clock in the morning, I'm like, yo, I need you to be my accomplice. I got to take care of this. What's Abby going to do? Abby's going to grease up. Get in the car and come get me, knowing, that she's taking a risk, knowing that she could get in trouble with me, but knowing that I need her and it needs to get done. If I call Abby and I say, I need you to be my ally, emotively, okay, well, how can I support you? She don't have to get in the car. She don't have to put any skin in the game.

That's right. She can just support me from a distance. So for me, again, right or wrong, y'all can come with the definitions and the actual is it. I don't care. I'm talking about how it feels. Right? So when you say to me, I want to be a better ally, I don't need an ally. I don't need your support from a distance. What are you willing to give up? What are you willing to lose? That's right. You're not willing to lose anything? Stay over there. Talk amongst yourselves. I don't need you. But when you come at me like, yo, let's go. I want to be your accomplice. Oh, okay, let's go then. Let's burn this shit down.

Now we can talk. And that's me. That's how I roll. Somebody else will roll differently. Right? But for me, I feel more supported, more affirmed by the idea that somebody's willing to lose something because they know that it needs to get done. I'm willing to lose something.

I'm all over the place, but stay with me. No, you're not. For example. And this might be a problematic analogy, but I'm going to use it still. Nobody has to teach folks that animals' lives are valuable. If you see an animal being abused, people jump. There is no conversation. We don't have to go back and forth about history.

I don't have to hold your hand. The puppy is being abused. The people didn't feed them. You're ready to jump because it's not right. Why, we've got to have all this conversation about inequity. Why do we have to have all of this conversation about inequity? Why do I have to prove it to you? And then why do I have to hold your hand to do something different?

That's what it feels like with allyship. So not only do I have to have the experience, not only do I have to organize my own self, my own folks, to fight against it, but now I also have to tell you how to fight against it, too. Just fucking leave me alone already. Yes. Get in the car with me or leave me the fuck alone.

Right. It's like, why don't we have a million podcasts and D&I meetings about how to help animals? You don't have to teach it because people just care. So when you say, how do I be an ally? What we're hearing is how do teach me how to care? Teach me how to care. And you're saying either you care and figure it out. Think critically.

Don't ask you to teach you. And thank you for saying it that way, Glennon, because that explains my. visceral response. I don't know how I was explaining to you. It's not a right or wrong. I know there are people like, well, damn, I'm just trying to help us. I said I want to be an ally. I'm letting you know what it sounds like, how I receive it in my ears and in my spirit. You are asking me to teach you how to care about something that is so basic. If you recognize us as human beings, period. It is so basic. And now you're asking me to take time to prove it to you. If our children, if white people's children were dying, we would just figure it out. We wouldn't be going, how can people have a

podcast for us? Like, can people, we would figure it out, but we don't care enough to figure it out. Not only would you figure it out, you would demand that everybody support it. It wouldn't even be an option because we would call that human. That whiteness is the default for human. We're not all human in that way. Wow. Yaba, I want to talk to you about friendship. And about, because there's two things are related, right?

Yeah. How do you think about friendship? black women and white women being friends. And should we even try? And why or why not? Go. Do I get on my nerves. Do I think about it?

No. It's not a goal. And again, I'm willing to be the resident asshole if I must be. It's not a goal. And I know everyone is like, oh my God, this is so harsh. But my thing is like, what is this anxiety around friendship? Why is it a goal? It seems so forced, right?

So think of your same race groups. Don't bring the other people in. Y'all just being white people in white people land. Is there an anxiety about being friends with everybody? Are you worried about being friends with everybody? Is friendship a marker of anything? Why is that the goal? I don't know that friendship solves anything necessarily.

Right? So this question of should, did you say should or can? Can black can? Can black women and white women be friends? Sure, I can. I mean, friendship looks different for so many people, right? So there are lots of black women and white women who are friends. You would have to talk to them about, I guess, the standards of their friendship. But here, the disingenuous vibe for me is, can black women and white women be friends? Why is that the goal? What else is happening besides the black and the white? Do we have common interests? Right? Do we like the same music? Like, what are the other ways that we make friends? Do we have the same, you know, twisted sense of humor?

Like, do we do the same things? How does black and white become the – can we be friends? I'm sure we can. But not all black people are friends. Not all white people are friends. So black – like, you see what I'm saying? Yeah, totally. For me, I guess like when we skip all that other stuff, I'm like, we should just be friends.

Why? What's that about to solve? Mm-hmm. So what? So sure. Okay. And is it just more cover? Is it the gold star? Is it the like, if Karen's over here, then allies over here, then I'm friends with a black person's over here. I'm so far from Karen. Look at me. Look at me. It's a checklist.

But it becomes the thing that you get to parade around in the same way, you know, ooh, I was about to say somebody's name and get in trouble. We can cut anything you want. That was close. In the same way that certain people like to parade their biracial children around as a measure of their distance from racism. You can be racist and have sex with black people. You know that, right? And have mixed-race children.

You can be a racist parent of a mixed-race child. It's possible. It happens all the time. And so I don't want to be the person that you parade out. Look at my black friend. I'm friends with Dr. Blay. I'm not racist. You absolutely couldn't be friends with Dr. Blaine be racist.

So that would be a gold star. It's just not happening, right? But I'm just, I'm side eyeing everybody. Why do you want to be my friend? How are you about to use me? Again, integrity is huge for me. You will never have the opportunity to say my name as your friend. to prove anything.

You know what I mean? Like, either it's genuine or it's not. I'm just more concerned by that being the goal. I don't know how else to communicate that. Like, why is friendship the goal? If it happens naturally cool, but it can't happen because you made an effort. Like, I just imagine somebody sitting, you know what?

I am going to make friends with a black person. I mean, this is happening in white consciousness right now. It is happening because it's for sure part of like that stepping stone. Yeah. It's like somebody gave you a plan. There is a, somebody out here is giving you the blueprint on, on, on how not to get in trouble. It's the website, the corporate website with your face on it. It's like our own personal corporate website.

Read this book, go to this training, make a black friend, have a mixed race child. You know, like, yeah, it's not genuine in that that way. It's problematic. It was occurring to me when you were talking about the link between Ms. Anne and Karen, I feel like so many white folks don't understand that there's like this huge chunk of time between those two where we are sense of entitlement consciously or unconsciously. In my parents' lifetime, in Jim Crow South, in our parents being alive, black people were not allowed to look white people in the eye. They had to move off the sidewalk when white people were walking by. They had to refer to white men

as boss and white woman as miss something. In our parents' lifetime, And then we get to our lifetimes and somebody's playing music too loud in a park. And that disrupts our sensibility. And we think, where is the deference to my sensibility? We don't know we're thinking that way. But like, I have a right to have things be as I want them to be. It's just like a tick off of. of the enforced deference from there.

And I just... Well, part of me again doesn't want to let you off the hook and say you don't know, right? You know insofar as it's what's been socialized as normative. You exist as the measure of humanity. Period. That's whiteness. And so everyone becomes the other and things that other people do. You have the right to question.

that you would never allow it to happen the other way around. So you know. Yes. You know. Yes. Right? I, again, spent too much time on Instagram, but there was this video going around of there was a family.

I want to say, I don't know where they were from, but they were brown. They're having a celebration of sort. They're in the kitchen. Their white woman neighbor walks into the kitchen and says, can y'all keep it down? walks into their house. And when I say they cussed her out and chased her out, and we can look at it online and laugh, but it's so real.

Yeah, but that's what happened to you. That's how we became friends. That's what happened to you on Instagram. Don't wake it up, Glennon. Sorry. But don't you, I mean. Don't make me tell that story again. Okay, but you know what I'm saying.

We can share the link. We can share the link that people can go back to our. conversation. But yes, what I want to call it, sister, is an inheritance. Yes. It is what you have inherited. You talk about your parents' time. Do you remember your grandparents? Did you know your grandparents? Yes. You did? So imagine their time. Did you happen to know your great grandparents? Not really. I, not while I was living, but I know their story, yes. Yeah, yeah. No, but some folks, you know, some folks grow, you know, they knew their great grandparents, but like, if you were to do the work of opening or charting a family tree, you can, somebody knows the name of the person who owns somebody. And again, I don't want to project that because not every white family has that history. Some white folks were very poor themselves, right? I don't want to project that onto your family history. But it is to say, we talk about the history of enslaving and colonization as if it's so far away. That's right. And it's not.

And because it's not, you can't easily run away from it. It's still a part of your inheritance, right? Your relationship. And so to me, that is the necessity of learning history and relearning history and thinking critically about history. And that's why, again, referring to Dr. Perry's book, that book is haunting because it pushes us to rethink our relationship to history even. Right? And the experiences and that inheritance that is ours when we talk about enslavement and colonization, why come white people don't have to talk about or think about the inheritance that is yours? History sets up a situation that is now not only your relationship to time, it's your relationship to space, it's your relationship to property, right?

think about the trajectory between plantation and prison. There's a particular relationship that you have with black bodies, why so many prisons in the South are giving us cheap labor. There's a particular relationship that you already have with black bodies and what black bodies should be doing. We talk about inequity in pay. Why should black people make as much as white people doing the same work? because you already have, you've inherited a relationship to black people, to black bodies

that was established generations before you. No one had to sit you down and say, look, this is your relationship to black people. You're a white person and black people or these people. And no one had to tell you that. You watch it. You witness it. You experience it. It's your inheritance.

And we don't have to think critically about our inheritance because we're taught all of that as black history. We're not taught it as white history. It's white history. We are taught, this is black history, these people were enslaved. We're not taught, this is white history, these people were enslavers. Right? Exactly.

We don't look at it through our own. I mean, I think of it, my baby, one of my kids was just watching Handmaid's Tale. They're studying it as dystopian. Mm-hmm. Okay. And we just had this conversation about how it's, if it's history. Like, it's dystopian because it's a white woman, but actually everything that happened just happened in this country not too long ago to black women. And it's still happening. But we see it as dystopian. Like, it's history and it's now. But we're seeing white. But also, what is your relationship to that word history? What is my relationship to history? Maybe not yours, but peoples. I got lots of books on my shelf, right?

There are lots of books on library shelves. There are lots of books on Amazon. We'll call some of them history. Think about our experience as being educated. Someone made a decision about which books we would learn history from. And as children, we're not ever taught to question history. History is presented as a fact. We are never taught to think critically about history because it is a fact.

Well, now that we're adults, let's think critically. Some white man made a decision about which parts of history he would put in this book for a reason. The history you're going to learn about the United States in the United States is so much different than the history of the United States you would learn if you lived in the UK. people are making decisions about what stories they're telling for a reason because they want you to have a particular relationship to the place, to the time, to the people. It's strategic. It doesn't mean it's true. It's a new year, and instead of trying to reinvent myself, I've been asking a simpler question. What would actually support me right now?

Now, and honestly, a big part of that answer is my home. I want my space to feel calmer, more functional, and a little more like a place that can reflect my goals and energy for this year, which is why I've been turning to Wayfair. It's truly a one-stop shop for everything your home needs this season. What surprised me most was how easy it was to find exactly what I wanted in my style and within my budget. whether you're organizing kids' rooms, upgrading your work from home setup, tackling clutter, or just trying to make weeknight dinners easy. Wayfair really does have everything. Your home doesn't have to be perfect.

It just has to support the life you're living right now. Get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year for way less. Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R-com. Wayfair. Every style, every home. So much we've discussed inside of white supremacy requires that people live in opposition to white supremacy, which means that there's so much lack of freedom because you are resisting something instead of being able to create the thing that you want to create.

What is your hope for your granddaughters living inside of this system that they live inside of? What do you hope for them for their lives as black girls? Hmm. I mean, I want them to be free, you know? And freedom looks different every generation, right? And so freedom, in that regard, just as individual black girls, I want them to be free, to be whoever it is they are, right? I want them to know themselves enough to aspire.

to live their freest selves, even if I don't like it. Even if I don't like it. What's most important is that you feel free in your spirit, right? And I feel like that is something I've inherited from my father, you know, something I've attempted to pass on to my daughter that even if I don't like it, it's your life. Right? I want them to know freedom, however which way they define freedom for themselves. How do you define freedom?

I mean, very similarly, just in terms of I don't really even have the words. I don't know that I have the words as an experience, as an emotion. You know, even when other people don't agree, even when it might not make sense for other people, I like not having to apologize for who I am. you might not like it and that's okay it's who I am and I'm okay with that whatever the the struggle is

it's mine and the peace perhaps it's mine it's not to make you feel comfortable but do I feel comfortable in myself am I okay with me like that's the work and so anytime I don't feel okay with me

that's when I know I got to do some work right but if Glennon's mad at me she'll be all right or not or not, am I okay? You know, with me? So I don't know that I have a definition. I just know that it's like, I think it's just like my proverbial life mission

is to seek freedom. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Yaba Blay, for this hour and for just you in the world. Thank you. All of the rest of you, I told you that it was an honor for you to meet Dr. Blah, You're welcome.

You are most welcome. I also want to give a big shout out to your mother. I know you're trying to keep us separate from one another. But mom, I'm here. I can't wait till we meet. I've already been told that we have a secret love affair. And so I can't wait to meet you. Glennon is covering her face because she can't believe that I did this.

But I cannot wait to meet you, mom. I'm so excited. I'm officially in the family. Pod Squatters, you have to understand that my 70-year-old white mother is so obsessed with Dr. Blay that I, she sends me furious texts about everything that Yaba's pissed off about, just paragraphs. She's also pissed off about the casting of whatever Yaba's just said. She's pissed off. But to me, that is such, it is such an honor that your 70 year old white mom is paying enough attention to anything that's happening in the world from a critical

lens to say, you know what, she's making some good sense. And make sure she knows that I'm listening. That means a lot to me. Dr. Yaba, last year, she spent the entire year. I'm not going to try to explain this. She realized that she never understood the history of America.

And she was so upset by that that she read literally 50 books. She went on pilgrimages to museums, to monuments, to whatever. She had an entire room in her house of 19 poster boards with a timeline where she had mapped every, like, lynching court cases, race, like marches. She was like, I will understand what happened just so she. could understand what happened. Remember her notebook, sister? Her notebooks full of dates and notes and she would sit for hours and time. And if you want to know where I get my just keep trying

attitude. I was just going to say that. I was just going to say the apple has not fallen too far here, sisters. You two are the exact fucking same. I know I know the jaw are entertained by it and I am too, but no, shout out to your mom for real because she doesn't have to do that. That's right. She don't have to do that. Not at 70. And she's doing it because she wants to. She's not out. She didn't ask you to hook us up.

She's not out here telling people that we're friends. She's not ready to parade me in front of her bridge club as her black friend. Right? She's in her room, minding her business with her poster boards and her books for herself. That's what I'm talking about. Mama's all right with me. Oh, well, now she's. She's going to be insufferable.

Thank you, Dr. Blay. We love you forever. We love you so much. We love you too. Thank you. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it.

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