Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 6

Amena Brown:

Hey, y'all. Welcome back to HER with Amena Brown. And y'all, as of the release of this episode, y'all know if you've been with me for these past several episodes since the podcast relaunched, we are always here in your... I was about to say in your inbox but in your podcast place, whatever your favorite podcast place is where you're listening to this, we are always in your podcast place on Tuesdays. And the Tuesday that this episode is releasing is November 3rd, which is Election Day. If you have not voted, November 3rd is your last chance. Okay? So make sure you do this. Voter suppression is happening all over the country. Some of you may be like, what is voter suppression? Voter suppression is things like when you get to your polling place and not all of the voting machines are working, voter suppression is what's happening when it is taking people 10 and 11 hours to be able to cast their vote. Voter suppression is happening when the locations where you can turn in your mail and ballot or where you can go in person to vote are being decreased.

Amena Brown:

All of those things are voter suppression, and that is intended to make us not vote. It's intended to make it harder for people to vote and in particular, to make it harder for marginalized people and People of Color to vote. So this is very important. Voter suppression is happening all over the country. So make sure that you do your research on polling places and for my people who are doing mail-in ballots, make sure you do the research about your county and state as far as what your options are of where to drop off your ballot or to cast your ballot in person. Here are a couple of tips, suggestions you could try if you are voting on Election Day. Try to vote at times where there may be less people or less of a line. If possible, prepare for the long haul. Voter suppression isn't right, it isn't fair. And we want to do everything we can to fight against it, this election and all of the elections to come.

Amena Brown:

However, some of us in the areas where we live, we will be dealing with voter suppression, which means you may not get in and out within 15 minutes or 20 minutes to cast your vote. So if possible, prepare for the long haul. Prepare as if it will take much longer than you think and do whatever that means for you. If you need to bring snacks, if you need to bring a chair, bring water, make sure you have your hand sanitizer, any Lysol or disinfectant, anything that you would need to be someplace for hours. If you have meds that you need to make sure you have those with you as well, and as always, wear a mask. I also want to give a special shout out and thank you to all of the poll workers all across the country. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And make sure when you go to vote, if you are voting in person that you thank your poll workers, it is a very long day for them as well. So shout out to all the poll workers, thank you so much for all of the work that you do.

Amena Brown:

Y'all I feel like now it is officially fall, and I know some of y'all are like, but girl it was officially fall in September, but I live in Atlanta, Georgia. And any of you that live in warmer climates, Atlanta does experience all four of the seasons, but it just takes us a little bit longer for it to feel like fall. We still have some days in October that feel like the summer. So by the time we get into November, it's really starting to get to a nice fall crisp in the air. It's getting cooler in the mornings, cooler at night, sometimes staying cooler through the whole day. We are notorious for getting cooler in the morning, cooler at night, and then still being 80 degrees. But by the time we get to this time, it's really getting into the fall vibes. And I have to admit y'all fall is my favorite time of year. I love all of the colors involved. I love all of the earth tones and shades of brown and gold and orange and red. It's just my thing. It's my vibe.

Amena Brown:

Let me tell you a few things that I love about fall, things that signal to me it's fall time. First of all, I love fall coffee drinks. I can't even for health reasons have fully caffeinated coffee. So I am always that person that's going to the coffee shop, ordering decaf. And then I can't have a lot of dairy either. So I used to be ordering decaf lattes with almond milk. But boy, I have discovered the joys of oat milk. And let me tell you, I have been changed. I know you pay an extra fee when you're trying to get oat milk at a coffee shop, but you know what, every time I've paid that extra dollar, I've never regretted it. That smooth taste that's happening to me. Shout out to oat milk as well. So I love to get involved in a salted caramel, a maple pecan type of situation. This is when I feel like I'm really getting into my fall bag right there, when I'm just getting involved in the drinks. And I love this time of year for that.

Amena Brown:

Also, I want to bring up something that is a little bit contentious, but I feel like this is a safe place. I feel like we've established some times together, you and I, where we can talk about this. I just want to bring this up. I want to talk about why there aren't more sweet potato pie lattes. I want to just discuss that because pumpkin pie is fine. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin spice, it's fine. But have you ever had a sweet potato pie? I mean, honestly, have you ever had a sweet potato pie? And if you've had one, have you not been like, this is better than a pumpkin pie. I mean, I'm not trying to start a fight, but I'm just trying to bring up like some facts. So I'm not saying that I avoid a pumpkin pie or pumpkin spice type of latte. I get involved in it because it's a fall thing, but I just feel like we're leaving some flavor on the table by not having a sweet potato pie latte. Can we work on this? Somebody? Please.

Amena Brown:

Also, another thing I love about fall is that it's my time to be outside with no mosquitoes and any of my people who also live in the South, you know that our summers are plagued with mosquitoes and I am the person that always gets bit by mosquitoes. It doesn't matter where I'm at. I sometimes get bit by mosquito inside the house where I didn't even make it outside. So the fall is a perfect time for me to be outside. And it's finally cooled off enough. I don't know where the mosquitoes go. I don't know if they go further South for the fall or something, how birds go to the South during the winter. I don't know if the mosquitoes hibernate and that's why you get so many mosquito bites in the summer. And it just helps them to stay warm or something when it gets to be fall. I don't know. I don't really care. I'm just glad that I see less of them or don't see them at all. It's great.

Amena Brown:

Also, the other thing I love about fall is Thanksgiving. And I'm going to talk about this more in some other episodes, but I do not love the racist histories of Thanksgiving. And in particular, the Thanksgiving narrative that we've been given here in America, that's not what I love at all. What I love is really the feast, the harvest meal that is Thanksgiving and what that has meant for me gathering with my family. So I have a nickname for Thanksgiving and I call it my cooker-palooza. Whenever Thanksgiving comes up, I take the whole week off and I basically spend the entire week cooking. And I love everything about it. Thanksgiving is the only time that I get a chance to really cook for a massive amount of people. And you actually have those people coming to your house. So you're not cooking all this food and don't have anywhere for it to go.

Amena Brown:

This year obviously things are going to be a little different and we are still in a pandemic. So it'll be figuring out, is there a safe way to gather for Thanksgiving as a family? How do we do that? But I'm going to tell y'all this. I'm the type of person that even before we began hosting Thanksgiving, because my husband and I, for most of the years we've been married, if not all of the years. Most of the years, we have hosted Thanksgiving in our home. And it's going to be really, really weird not to do that this year, but even the years that we did not host Thanksgiving at our home, I always believe in cooking some Thanksgiving food so you have it at show house. Because I feel like the big plus to Thanksgiving is the leftovers, is what you ate on Thursday but it's also having that same food that you can then make different iterations of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, so on.

Amena Brown:

So either way, whatever we make our plans to be, whether we gather with our families or not, it's going to be some Thanksgiving food in this house. And what is Thanksgiving food? Yes, it's candy yams, it's turkey, it's ham, it's macaroni and cheese. It's collard greens. It's cranberry sauce. And yes, people I like to use fresh cranberries to make my sauce. I actually love cranberry sauce so bad that I could just eat it by itself. Oh my gosh. So if you all want to have further conversations about Thanksgiving food, Thanksgiving recipe, tips, I'm here for that. You let me know. You can use the #askAmena. You can send me DMs, you can message me. I am here for you. I also want to know, are you team sweet potato or are you team pumpkin? Let's talk about it.

Amena Brown:

Y'all it's Election Day. And I feel like for a lot of us, this is a day that's going to require some self-care because I remember four years ago, I don't remember exactly what I was doing on Election Day, I just remember, I looked at the numbers for a while and I remember I was getting kind of sleepy and I was just like, Oh man, I'm going to miss this historic announcement of Hillary Clinton becoming president. And I was like, Oh, I'm sleepy, I'll watch the clips in the morning. And then woke up in the morning and was like, Oh no, this is happening totally differently. Wow. No. Okay. So because of that and because of how the last four years have been, I feel like when I talk to my friends and a lot of the people that are following me on socials, we are all feeling some stress and some tension leading up to Election Day. We made it to Election Day, but we still have the tensions and the stress of waiting to see how the votes come in.

Amena Brown:

So let's talk about some Election Day self care. And I'm going to tell you a few of the things that I'm going to try doing, and maybe you can think about what are some things you're going to do for yourself to care for yourself and your soul during this time there's going to be a lot of stress happening within. One of the things that I've been doing in general since the pandemic started is I have been doing a skincare routine. It's been going really fabulously. I tried to do some research so that I would know what order to do things in. And so is the skincare about keeping my skin hydrated and healthy? It is, but it's also just an opportunity to rub on my face and tell myself everything's okay. So obviously I use my cleanser, I wash my face. I have an exfoliant that I use once a week. Then I have another, more gentle exfoliant that I can use every day.

Amena Brown:

I'm a person who loves masks. I love a clay mask. So I get involved in that. And then I have like a moisturizing mask. I've got some little serums and stuff I put on the cotton balls and rub all over my face, got some moisturizers. So I'm working it out. That has been great self care for me. So I might just decide to do 10 or 12 masks on election day. My skin is going to be extra shiny, extra shiny. All right. Another thing I've been doing for self care is I've been watching Girlfriends on Netflix. Are y'all watching Girlfriends? I've been watching it. And I have been really enjoying it.

Amena Brown:

I think the timing of Girlfriends, I remember watching the first couple of seasons, but I don't know what happened in my life that I... There's a couple of shows like this, that I remember watching the beginning. And then I'm like, I went through some transition and didn't catch the rest of the show, the ending of the show. So this far, I have made it to season seven on Girlfriends. And it has been a wonderful palette cleanser. I've had some times I've woken up in the middle of the night, had a bad dream or something. And it's just been very soothing to watch Girlfriends. So, that's been one of my self-care things that I might do on Election Day.

Amena Brown:

Also, I have been getting into doing some deep breathing and meditation through the Shine app and I'll continue to shout out the Shine app because the Shine app is a meditation and wellness app that was founded by two women of color. I hope to have them both as a guest here, so we can all talk to them and hear their story. But if you have not checked out the Shine app, you really should, it's wonderful. I might do some yoga. I also feel like the stress of Election Day, it makes me want to think about learning the routine from Flashdance. I just feel like that moment where she's dancing, but she's also running in place, I feel like that's my election day energy. I also might try a new exercise. I don't know if you've heard of it called walk, run, jog. And basically what that exercise is, is you start out thinking you're going to run or jog and then you just walk. And I think I'm going to try that.

Amena Brown:

And another thing I might try is just a little stress cry, there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with a stress cry. Stress has to come out of our body some way. Maybe it's through sweating. Maybe you yell. Maybe you've got to just shed some tears too, there's also such thing as a stress laugh. I find myself thinking of all sorts of inappropriate crass humor, and that's carrying me through too. So whether you need to stress cry or stress laugh or stress whisper, you do what your soul needs. In all seriousness, I hope Joe Biden is our next president. I hope Kamala Harris is our next vice president. And no matter who wins this election, we still have work to do. Our work in our communities doesn't stop. It continues, we continue to work for equity and justice and equal access for the disabled, for the LGBTQ community, for Black, Indigenous and communities of color and all of the ways that so many of our identities include all or some of these things.

Amena Brown:

We will continue to hold our elected officials accountable, national leaders and local leaders as well. So if you're listening to this on Election Day, drink some tea, have some wine if that's your thing, in moderation. Take a warm bath, listen to some good music that soothes your soul, do whatever you can to take care of yourself and let's do our best to care for each other too.

Amena Brown:

Today's interview is from The HER archives. I'm excited to welcome to our living room, Juliana Brown Eyes. The whole conversation is great. And one of my favorite parts was hearing Juliana's story and connecting with her on how much her work is informed by the women in her family that came before her. Check out our conversation and get ready to be inspired.

Amena Brown:

Really excited to talk with my guest today, filmmaker, musician, photographer, makeup artist, business woman, social media influencer, multitalented Indigenous Polynesian artist, Julianna Brown Eyes on the podcast today. Hey Juliana.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

Hi, thank you for that whole long list introduction.

Amena Brown:

And I probably missed a couple of things.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

I'm blushing.

Amena Brown:

Juliana is out here making the things. So I just thought that you would be such a great guest. So I'm just excited to talk to you about this. And I can't remember when it was I found you on Instagram, but I think one of the pluses for me of this podcast, Juliana, is I'm constantly looking for brilliant women of color. So every now and then I just get down a rabbit hole of finding all these brilliant women of color. And so sometimes I'll just go down a little rabbit hole of, let me see how many Latinas I can find. And I'll find a bunch of Latinas and follow them. And then I'll be like, I also want to find some Native women and I'll find them. And then of course, after you start following different women of color, then they have friends or they have other women of color they might be collaborating with. So then I'm like, Oh, who's that? Let me go follow her. So that has really been, even not just in finding people to interview on the podcast, but just finding people to learn from and be inspired by. So that's actually how I found you.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

Awesome. Yeah. Instagram is a great tool for that. I actually use Instagram in that way, in that capacity to reach out to a lot of Indigenous women that are working on a grassroots level in their communities. And so I did a series a while ago called the Rezaissance Woman Series. And basically it was when Indigenous women, I identified these women that were doing a lot of hard work in their communities, inspiring. And I wanted to highlight these women that were working that weren't getting any praise or recognition for the work that they were doing. And so it worked on a system of, if you were nominated, you needed to nominate three to five other different women. And so that became a lot of work because I ended up writing bios for each woman and I ended up taking photos of them and posting them on Instagram during Native American Heritage Month.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And so I believe that's month of November and all month long, I was posting about 15 to 20 women a day and flooding people's, their Instagram feeds with all these brilliant women, people who were physicians or people who were drug addicts and overcame that and now they're giving talks. People that are gardeners, people that are artists and just all these brilliant women and it became something really beautiful because you have women nominating one another and they started creating this sisterhood of I support you and you support me and let's climb to the top together. And it was a photo series. And for right now, I took it back to because I cataloged all these women and I wanted to be able to create a video series now because I was like, okay, I did the photo series. So now I have a list of all these women and now I want to be able to go to them and create a video series now, because there's not a lot of attention or there's not a lot of coverage of Indigenous women in media at all.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And growing up, I would have really liked to see someone who look like me, someone who came from a reservation, someone who was Indigenous, who had Indigenous teachings, someone who still spoke their language. And I want to see them on the big screen. I want to hear them on the radio. And so for me, that's my goal as a woman is to be able to give that platform to other women of color and it's a beautiful thing because I've been all over the world. Like you said, my tribe is, I come from the Oglala Lakota tribe, which is in South Dakota. And I was raised by these brilliant, beautiful bad-ass women with all this ancestral knowledge. And I know a lot about plants and the stars and my language, and that's embedded into who I am and how I carry myself and how I present myself as an artist and how I want to give back to the community in that way.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

But I'm also a Polynesian, I'm from the Tongan Pacific islands. The kingdom of Tonga, my father's father immigrated in the 70s to America and my grandmother who was Lakota Indigenous, she hitchhiked all the way from the reservation in South Dakota to San Francisco in the 70s at the hike of the Alcatraz movement. So the American Indian movement was really big. And a lot of young teenagers, my grandmother was 17 at the time, they took off and they want it to be a part of the Alcatraz occupation. And that was an extensive social justice movement. So really my roots and who I am is all born of that. My grandmother was an amazing woman. She took off, she went there and she met my grandfather and he was Tongan. He was a Pacific Islander and so that's how you get a Pacific Islander in the middle of America.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And so I carry all of that with me and I make sure that I am able to bring visibility for all Indigenous people. It doesn't matter where you're from in the world. I believe personally, that we're all Indigenous to this land and to this earth and wherever you are in the world, you are the caretaker of the land that you're on because we think of the earth as grandmother earth. She is a living being, she needs to be taken care of and nurtured. And I try to convey that through a lot of my artwork. I do make up, I do videos, photos. I try to really stick to my teachings as a Lakota woman. A lot of my makeup looks, they're all based upon Lakota teachings about the star knowledge, about how we are spirits that come from the Milky Way. And we come here to this earth to create relationships with one another and love one another, be kind and courteous. And then when we're done here, when our work is done here, we return back to the stars and we are all one, we're all a part of one energy and it works like that in a cycle.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And so those are the teachings that I grew up with. And I didn't realize that the rest of the world didn't think like that. And so like you had asked me a little bit about social justice and about the movement. So because I come from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a lot of your listeners might know about the Standing Rock movement. The Standing Rock movement was huge. It was the first time in U.S. history, the longest stand for water. And during that time, I believe it was August 2016, nobody knew about it. There was no media coverage. There was no photos or no news. It was simply and purely a grassroots movement. And it was only about water. So the Standing Rock movement is the Missouri River was being threatened because the Dakota Access Pipeline was wanting to put a pipeline through the river.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

Now, my people, the Oglala Lakota people, the great Sioux nation, there's a lot of tribes within the great Sioux nation, our water, we have treaty rights to the Missouri River. We have rights, as long as the grass shall grow and as long as the sun shines in the language of the U.S. government, we have rights to that water. And so for me, and for the rest of the community, especially the youth, we immediately assembled and organized and mobilized one another. And we all showed up and we stood for grandmother earth and we stood for our water and we stood for our people and our elders, the women and the children, and that is our drinking water. And we're caretakers of it. We need to continue to protect it. And so that movement was huge because it was the first time in American history that a private security team like TigerSwan was deployed in America to protect private interest. And the private interest was the oil company.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

So you have Indigenous communities. I come from the poorest reservation in America, which is Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It's the poorest county in America. We were the last tribe to give up to the U.S. government. So basically we pretty much got the shitty end of the stick, if you think about it. And it's so recent for us, my grandmother she was put in a boarding school and her hair was cut and told not to speak her language. So that's so recent for us within the last 100 years, the colonization of my people. I have a lot of historical trauma within me because it's literally not even a couple of generations away to where my people, especially my grandmother, we were living with the earth and we were living with our prayers and in harmony with one another in our tribe. And then all of a sudden, the U.S. government came and they colonized us. They took us, they stripped everything away from us and took our way of life and dehumanized us.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

So a lot of that bleeds into the work that I do. And so if you've been following me on Instagram, I haven't really spoke about it, but in my stories, I've been traveling. I was in New Zealand. I was also in Brazil and I was working on doing post-production on a documentary series that I directed, and it's a five episode, each episode is one hour long. The water issue is not just in America, it's all over the world. And it has definitely hit the Indigenous people in Brazil. I spent some time with the Guarani tribe in Brazil, and it's these same companies. A lot of these oil companies have private interests within American government. And so we're up against huge corporations, when it's going to really take us as a community, all people of color to come together and work towards one goal. And that one goal is unity.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And that's pretty much most of the work I've been doing within the last two years, but fast forward to today now I'm actually in school at the Institute of American Indian Arts. And it's the first of its kind, it's the only Indigenous institution that focus primarily on art and I'm majoring in the cinematic arts program. So even though I've been creating my own documentaries and doing my own things, I still wanted to take a step back and really learn from my community of Indigenous filmmakers and really look for people that I can work with and that I can trust, because I believe that it's really important to have the Indigenous voice in cinema because we've been portrayed... The Cowboys & Indians, we had Dances With Wolves, we've had Avatar. We've had all of these White male led stories where there's this White man savior who comes in and saves the day.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And that's not necessarily, definitely not how it works in communities, because especially In Indigenous communities, we are matriarchal, we are totally ran by, what grandma's says, that's what goes. Women make the decisions in our tribe. And so I believe that we need to bring that within the world of cinema so that we can continue to inspire young women of color that you can do this. This is how it happened long time ago, and this is how we live. This is how we make decisions. And like I said, I've been here at school for this first semester. I was touring as a professional musician, a national touring art, for the last nine years. And I took a break from that because I was playing the bass and I was a vocalist in the band. And that gave me a platform to be able to speak on all these different issues, because I performed at different colleges like Dartmouth or Stanford. And I was able to take these teachings and present them to people in college and universities.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

So I did that for a while, but I needed to take a step back from my own health and my own wellbeing because being on the road that much, really did a number on my health. And so I was like, I can't do this forever. This is fun, this is great. And I was able to get a lot of people interested in the movements that are happening in America with Indigenous people. But I was like, how do I reach a broader audience? Let's take these issues globally. And so I've always been into film. I've directed our music videos that we had. And we had won a lot of awards with those. And I was like, first and foremost, I'm a writer. I write all the time. And so I've been doing a lot of screenwriting, a lot of writing really, because coming from... Like I told you, I come from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and it's the poorest county in America. I grew up with nothing, I grew up in a house with just two bedrooms and I'm the oldest of five brothers and two sisters. And I'm a survivor.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

We didn't have running water. We didn't have all of the amenities, basic necessities, and to come from that as my background and to just really like, no, I want this, I want to be able to just rise above. It doesn't matter if I don't have the money to go to school, I'm going to find a way I'm going to make my own way. And so literally, I graduated valedictorian, I made sure I had straight A's in high school and I'd show up on time. And I was like, yeah, you know what? I don't have a computer. I don't have all the things that all these other students have maybe. And even at the time, my father, he was in prison. I was like, I don't have my father. My mother was struggling with drugs and alcohol at the time, I didn't have my mother. I was like, I can't die like this. I can't be stuck here like this. I just seen a future, not just for myself, but for my siblings.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And I was like, if I don't do this now, and if I don't get out now, who's going to help them? Who's going to be the example for them? And so for me, I really use that as my driving force. Love was my driving force to be able to be something for my siblings and my community, my parents, and show them that it's possible. And so then I ended up getting the Bill Gates scholarship and the Horatio Alger scholarship, and I got a full ride and I was able to go to college and just focus all of my time on that. And then I took a break from school. And then I did music for about nine years and made it pretty big. And then I was like, you know what, I really need to focus on myself as a woman, get back to who I am, because I was really neglecting myself. People always idolize, Oh, it's the rock star life. You're living the dream and all that, but it gets really exhausting.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And I wasn't creating how I was used to, I would create and paint draw and take photos, and I just didn't have time for any that. And so the moment I took a step back and I took some time and I did some post-production work in Brazil. And I really just prayed a lot especially to my ancestors, the women that came before me that really paved the path of a strong Indigenous woman. They survived massacres, they survived all of this stuff. And I was like, how am I going to waste that? All the time and blood and all of everything that they put in, just so that I could be here today. What am I going to do to give back for that, to my ancestors and to my community. So I got to keep going. So now, I've been working really hard. I take 21 credits at the Institute of American Indian Arts. I work 20 hours doing work study, and I got all these different projects going on.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And then I will be also finishing my documentary this coming summer. So I'm pretty much booked all summer. I'm going to be filming back at home on my reservation, be filming elders and children, and just about the importance of water and how water is really the one connector that connects us all. We all need water. And that's all we were trying to say with the Standing Rock movement, but the government, they weren't understanding us on that simple level, that you're a human being and you need water. This is our water, and we've protected it for 1000s, millions of years. And we know how sacred it is.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And if you think about it, we're born of water. We come from a woman, my grandmother, she delivered me, that's how in tune we are still with our teachings and our ways. My grandmother, she delivered me. And she always talks about being the first to touch my water. She said, she felt the water that I came from and that's that water that we carry inside of us as women. And we're able to bear children and give life. And we're the only human form that is able to navigate spirits from the spiritual realm to here and onto the physical realm. So that's like a big, huge responsibility that we carry as women. And that's why in Lakota culture, we're held as sacred women are sacred because we bring life to this earth. We bring spirits from the spirit world to here, to this physical realm. And it all starts with water.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

Think about it, water is one of the main conductors of energy. And we each have water. We carry water inside of us. What are we, 75% water. Think about all the negative and positive energy that we carry inside ourselves and we're able to conduct that energy between one another, on everyday basis, like, hello, Amena, how are you doing? Or if you're pissed off and angry one day, how do you control that energy that you carry within yourself? You're responsible for it. How are you going to change that into positivity and conduct it to people in the world? And so the documentary is solely based upon water and it gets really deep. There's a lot of people that won't be able to understand it on that level, because most people they'll tune out to a certain extent when she start talking about spirituality. But it really is. It comes down to that, whether you believe in a God or an afterlife or the spirit world or anything that comes after this one thing that we all believe in is that we need to wake up and take a shower and drink water.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

As living organisms and beings on this earth, we all need water, otherwise we'll die. So God or whatever, the being is water and we need to protect it. And we need to continue to teach people in the world that not a lot of us have access to clean drinking water. It's about equity. We all need that same access to water. And so all of my artwork, basically, I try to reflect that in my spirituality, but get it across in a modern type of setting, like with Instagram. Like Oh, you're scrolling by and you see, Oh, look, there's Juliana. She looks pretty. She's using all these products, but wait, there's a teaching behind it. What is she saying? And it's all based upon just love, love one another, just continue to help one another. And that's really what I've really try to focus a lot of my artwork on.

Amena Brown:

I feel two ways Juliana. One, is just personally having grown up in a family that was full of so many strong and spiritual women. I really identified in a lot of ways with just the way you described that relationship. And I think the power of water and the equity of water, you made so many really important points right there. I wanted to ask you, you used a phrase that I really love. You used the phrase, ancestral knowledge when you talked about your grandmother and these women who came before you, what about your early life or your experiences or exposure to those women inspired you to become a creative?

Juliana Brown Eyes:

So I believe that all Indigenous people are artists in whatever capacity. When they wake up every morning, a lot of Indigenous people, they do things habitually, a lot of Lakota women and men they would wake up, they would come out of their teepee and they would paint their horse. They would take their horse down to the river. Everything was habitual. And it had this sense of, it was an art to the way that they lived and even everything down to... so Lakota women, we were in charge of the teepee. We made the teepee, the men hunted the Buffalo. They would bring a Buffalo home. The women would tan and hide the Buffalo. And then we would paint our tepees. We would paint designs and make our homes because tepee means home in Lakota, we would make our homes beautiful and we would make it a home for our children and for whoever we were taking care of at that time.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And so we were just like innately artists in everything that we did. We wore beadwork, we wore jewelry, we wore moccasins and everything had to be, there was a particular way that it was made and that was, we had designs and all these things and I believe that it really was passed down through generations because all of those traditional artworks, I know how to do all of them from porcupine quill work, we made a lot of jewelry out of porcupine hair and quills. We made a lot of beadwork out of glass beads or shells that we traded for over time. And we always made sure that everything was done in a respectful, spiritual manner. And so my mother she's an artist, every day she will wake up, in the springtime, she wakes up, she goes into her garden. She's the main green thumb in our community. She has this entire huge garden. And she allows kids to come in and pick whatever they want from the garden. Because she knows that a lot of children don't have their parents at home.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

She created a community garden on our reservation. And for me, that's art. She wakes up, she takes care of these plants and she harvest them and then she cans them and then she gives them away. It's about that transfer of energy. She put all of that hard work into it. And whether she was, maybe my mother was grieving or she had a hard day that day. And she put all of that energy into working that day, but through that she changed it into a positivity, a positive, and then she gave it away. She gave away chokecherry jam to a bunch of kids and they were happy. They took it home. They fed their grandmothers and grandpas and so it's that transfer of energy, like I said. And it's all through your art. And my mother she hand makes, she would saw clothes all the time and quilts, and she didn't know how to use, she still to this day, doesn't know how to use a sewing machine. Even though I was like, I'll buy you a sewing machine mom, it'll speed up the work faster, but she prefers to make everything by hand.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And so my mother is a amazing artists and just growing up, seeing her make something out of nothing, completely nothing. I remember when Harry Potter came out and I was telling her about the world and she made me a wand. My mom made me a wand out of the stick and it looked awesome. And I just really believed that it was a wand. So all of that artwork and all of that energy work really is passed down through generations. And I can't really describe where it comes from or how every morning I wake up, I want to make something, I want to create something just to get it off of me and out of me and pass it along to somebody else.

Amena Brown:

One of the things I really love about just everything that you're sharing here is the power for you as a Lakota woman to create from your lens inspired by your culture, your context. I mean the power, hearing you talk about the documentary I'm like, please take my money now. Please take my money now I'm ready for this because I think there is so much power in each of us in the cultural context we come from that we tell our story, that our story is not being told through the lens of someone who enters that space as outsider or as observer, but that we get a chance to tell the layers and the richness of that. That's a lot of what I hear in what you're sharing about your experience growing up in your community, that there are so many layers of richness there.

Amena Brown:

So many layers of these multi-faceted experiences that you got to have as a child, that you got to watch the other adults and elders in your community do and participate in and how that informs the work that we make as creative people, that informs what we decide to do with what it is that we have. And I think that is so, so powerful. I wanted to ask you also, I know that part of your work... I'm in awe of people that can do what you do Juliana, which is do a lot of visual work, visual arts, photography, filmmaking. Those are all gifts that I do not have. I literally got words and that's what I have. I can talk, I can write. I'm like I got that. So whenever I get a chance to encounter other artists that have this gift to see things and to say, I can make something that people can see, can watch, can experience in those ways. I want to hear more from you also, what do you think is the power of photography as a medium? And why was that one of the types of medium that you chose for your work?

Juliana Brown Eyes:

So when I got the Gates scholarship and I got my refund check back, the thing that I did was I bought myself a camera.

Amena Brown:

What was that first camera?

Juliana Brown Eyes:

The camera that I bought was a Canon 60D. And in my community, there were no photographers and the schools, they would hire the people to come and take your photos for school pictures and all these things. And I just kept seeing all these beautiful because I'm very ingrained and deep into who I am is my culture. I powwow dance, I jingle dress dance at our powwows. I partake in all of my ceremonies and we have a lot of dances and songs. And I was just like, this is so beautiful. No one knows about it in the world. No one knows these teachings and no one's recording them. And for a long time, it was actually a cultural pushback because our community wanted to, and elders wanted to protect them, protect all of our ceremonies that we have.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

So there was this, let's not take photos, let's not take videos. My generation then has been this like, well, let's preserved them. Yes, let's protect them, but let's also preserve them because now we're getting into this era of media and all of our Indigenous youth, they're all on Facebook. They're on Instagram, they're all watching YouTube. And imagine if we can record them and almost make a digital encyclopedia. A lot of our elders are dying and they're taking all of that knowledge with them. And so I started photographing a lot of our elders. And at that time, I didn't have video capability or anything. And so I was just taking these photos of say, a white man who came in and took his photos and told his story he wanted to tell and then left and made a couple thousands off of my tribe. And I seen that done so many times and I was like, no, no, no more.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

Now we have the power. Now we have the lens. Now we have the camera, we have the power to tell our own story. We are in charge of our own narrative. Let's take back the narrative from white America. They've told our story for so many decades. Let's stop that right here and right now, and let's tell our own story. And so that's really why I got into photography. That's why I'm so passionate about it. And fast forward to now, I'm now into moving pictures, moving photography. I was like, what better way to tell a story that encapsulates all of my skills as an artist, from painting to writing to music, to all of that, is in film. I can utilize all of my skills that I've learned and I can now use it to make a documentary or make a feature film. And so that's really the point that I'm at as an artist now, it's really trying to hone in on and perfect it, so that way I can do our Indigenous communities justice.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. Oh, I love that. But I want to ask you, which I'm sure you have this opportunity many times, but I just want to ask you, because I'm curious to hear, what are the words you would say to young Indigenous women who may be younger than you, maybe around the age you remember you were, when you were a little girl watching your mom and your grandma and the different women in your community. What are the words you would say to the next generation of Indigenous women?

Juliana Brown Eyes:

I would say continue to pray, continue to learn about your ancestry and your culture. Don't take for granted the language and your ceremonies and the practices that the women who came before us have left for us, because that's really what's going to ground us. And that's what sets us apart from people who have lost that. There are people who want to fill that void within themselves. But if you think about it, you were born with it. And see, it took me a long time to realize that I was born with all of these cultural teachings and how rich I was in my culture. And it has never been about money or anything. I was already rich in culture. And so for young Indigenous women, just never forget that light and beauty that you carry inside you because there have been plenty of times where I thought that it was over, I thought that I had no purpose here. And I've been at rock bottom. I've been in abusive relationships, I've been through sexual abuse and mental abuse. I've been through all of it.

Juliana Brown Eyes:

And there were times where I literally thought that I didn't want to be here anymore. And suicide is one of the biggest statistics amongst Indigenous people. And the next statistic is the missing and murdered Indigenous women. There's a lot of women that are missing. And growing up, you either, you're looking at the statistics, what do I have to choose from? I either become a statistic and I become involved with drugs and alcohol, or I end up killing myself or I become missing. I was like, no, that's not what our elders left us with. That's not how we conduct ourselves. This is not what they gave their lives for. We need to remember what they did for us. We need to remember that light that we carry inside of us. And again, back to the ancestral knowledge, any woman armed with her spirituality and her ancestral knowledge is an unstoppable force.

Amena Brown:

Y'all, I hope you are inspired and riveted by what Juliana shared with us today. Since this interview, Juliana has continued to profile Indigenous women and tell Indigenous stories through her initiative Rezaissance, you can follow at Rezaissanceofficial, and you can get more information about Juliana's work at rezaissance.com. And as always, you can check out the show notes for all of the links and things that we talked about in this episode at amenabrown.com/herwithamena. For this week's give her a crown, I want to celebrate Deb Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo from New Mexico. And Sharice Davids a member of the Ho-Chunk nation from Kansas. These two women have been the first Native American women to serve in Congress.

Amena Brown:

This month is Native American Heritage Month, but around here, we celebrate Native and Indigenous heritage all year long. We celebrate the Native people who are not just in history, but they are still here and using their voices to continue building the future of their people. I want to give a crown to Congresswoman Deb Haaland and Congresswoman Sharice Davids for using their voices and leadership to continue to uplift and celebrate the story and heritage of their people and to serve their communities. To these two Congresswomen, we give them a crown.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amen Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network and partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 5

Amena Brown:

Hey you all. Welcome back to HER with Amena Brown, and yes people, we are a week away from Election Day. In some ways, I want to say we made it. In other ways, I want to say even though we've got a week, we've still got a long way to go. This is your friendly voting reminder. Hopefully you have already voted, maybe through early voting or mailing in your ballot by now, but if you haven't, this is your reminder to do so. Make sure you get out and vote or stay home and vote, but whatever you do, vote. It's very important in every election to vote, especially important in this election. Make sure you do it.

Amena Brown:

As a woman, I have been asked quite a few inappropriate questions, and not too long ago, prior to the pandemic, I was asked a very inappropriate question in a professional setting. This just made me think about what are the things that you should never ask a woman? I thought instead of just including my own narrative, I put it out there to my social media community to ask people to tell me one thing that you should never ask a woman. I want to go through these because I want to share your responses and I'm hoping, if there's anyone listening, that you hear a question you have asked in this list that you will learn today to never ask those things of a woman.

Amena Brown:

Question number one, is that your hair? Never ask a woman is that your hair. If she decides she wants to tell you, then maybe she will. If she bought it, it's all her hair. Question two, what she wants to eat. I feel a little attacked by this question, and my husband is the producer of this podcast and I feel attacked that when I said that out loud he turned to look at me. I feel attacked because, you know what? I'm going to skip to the next question. Question three, this is a combination of questions along the same lines; why are you single, why are you still single, and why aren't you married? Stop asking people about their relationship status. If they want to share it with you, then they will, but stop asking them about it.

Amena Brown:

Sometimes I'm wondering is the problem that people just are not good at conversation, or are even not good at small talk. I get it. Some people, you just hate small talk, but a lot of these questions are coming up in some small talk situations. I do want to provide some suggestions at the end of this of things you could ask other than these questions, but I have to say also, these questions do not just come from strangers. Sometimes they also come from people that you know, but they're asking you this question in a setting that is not like you and your best friend were talking and your best friend's like... I'm saying that and I don't even know that a best friend would ever be like, "Why are you still single?" A best friend might say, "How is your dating life going?" Don't ask these questions, why are you single, why are you still single, why aren't you married? Don't ask those questions.

Amena Brown:

Question number four, were you born a woman? Do not ask these questions. Ever. Question five, a combination here, can you calm down and why are you so emotional? In the history of women womanizing, it has never helped a woman relax by asking her if she can calm down, and I resent the question why are you so emotional, because I think there's this insinuation there that to be emotional is to be a weakness. To be emotional is actually a great strength and can be a great strength, but if other people don't know how to handle their emotions, then sometimes they project onto you that you are what? Too emotional or that you have too many feelings. I think anytime the word too in the T-O-O is placed in front of a word regarding a woman is not a jam; too emotional, too thick, too big, too tall, too short, too whatever that is. You're not too anything. You are who you are in the fullness of that. Don't ever ask a woman these things.

Amena Brown:

Also, I'm covering all the pregnancy and child questions right here. Do not ask a woman, when are you due, are you pregnant, is there a baby in there? That one really makes me mad. Why don't you have kids? When are you going to have a baby? When are you going to have another baby? Let's stop and have a moment right here. Just in general, if you see a woman, I don't care if she has a stomach that looks like she's carrying another adult in there, you keep your eyes on the road. You keep your eyes on her eyes. You don't ask her anything unless she says that words to you, "I am pregnant." She says the words to you, "I would like to talk to you about my pregnancy." Because even, "I am pregnant" is not an invitation to have further conversation with her about her body. She would basically have to say a paragraph of things to you. I'm pregnant, and I would love to talk to you as a stranger about the myriad details of my pregnancy. Please ask me a question.

Amena Brown:

If you ever hear that from a woman, go on. Ask her, is there a baby in there? Ask her all these questions. Don't ask her when is she going to have another baby. Let me just give a little PSA right here. You don't know the story that a woman may have behind pregnancy, fertility, loss. You don't know any of those things. These questions that people might assume are small talk, are innocent questions, are never innocent questions. I just want to yell from the rooftops, never ask a woman these questions, and I just want to say, if you're listening and you have been asked these questions, I think it's well within your rights to just go ahead and come up with an equally uncomfortable response. I'm still trying to think through this.

Amena Brown:

There was somebody on my Facebook page who said whenever someone would ask her why she doesn't have kids or when she's going to have kids, she would say to them, "When was the last time you had sex?" They would get super uncomfortable right there. I think you should definitely come up with an answer right there. So far, one of the ones I'm sticking with is if someone is asking me why don't I have kids, if they want to know when I'm going to try, am I trying, all those things, my replacement question for them is I'm going to ask them have they had sex with a bear? I feel like that's an equally important question to ask. If you can ask me what my genitalia or my other reproductive organs are doing, then I should be able to point the question back to you. If you feel uncomfortable answering, then you should feel uncomfortable asking me. Do not inquire about what anyone's genitalia or reproductive organs are doing. Do not inquire.

Amena Brown:

Next question. What's your cup size? This question really sent me. I was commenting with people a little bit when I was asking this question, and I can't imagine a situation I would be in where someone who I don't know well or who I don't feel comfortable with would ask me my cup size. Okay. Next, this question is a banger. Is it that time of the month? I'll tell you the truth. First of all, periods have been blamed for quite a few things that are really the fault of sexism. I stand by that. I can remember times in high school that I would be overhearing a conversation where a girl is getting mad about a particular thing and it's a guy looking at her saying, more than likely, a phrase like this or similar to, "Are you on the rag?" I know I'm not the only person who remembers these types of phrases too. Is it that time of the month? Maybe it is, but whatever it is is none of your business. Whatever time of the month is none of your business.

Amena Brown:

Also, periods get thrown under the bus when periods are just fine. Periods are happening to probably more than half of the population of the world. Periods are normal. Periods are fine. There's nothing wrong with a woman having a time of the month, but also, there is this insinuation that because a woman is having her, air quote, time of the month, or because a person is having their, air quotes, time of the month, that means that person is wilding out, they're angry, they can't handle their feelings and emotions, and yet, we see men in leadership all over America who do not have an, air quote, time of the month, and yet manage to be irrational and manage to make decisions based solely on their feelings, but no one's asking them is it their testicle's time of month. Okay. Let's go on.

Amena Brown:

Next question. Asking a lesbian couple who is the man in the relationship. If you have asked this question, I hope this is your warning. Do not do that ever, ever again. Never ask a woman or a lesbian couple this question. Next question, this question actually is opening up with what is supposed to sound like a compliment and then it's not. You look good. Have you lost weight? What? Also, have you gained weight? Either of these questions regarding weight are not on the table of questions to ask. Okay. First of all, whatever a person is doing with their weight is whatever they want to do with it. You don't get to comment whether they lost it or they gained it. Sometimes isn't it interesting that in these conversations regarding lost weight or gained weight that there can be, depending on your cultural background, there can be particular value placed on whether you've lost weight or you gained weight.

Amena Brown:

I remember there'll be times that we would get together for our family reunion, and most of my family is from North Carolina. We'd all get together for a family reunion and if you had not been around the family in awhile, there was typically some commentary on your weight. There was typically this comment of either, "Baby, have you been eating? Do you even eat any food? You're wasting away." Or there would be this comment to say, "Oh, baby. You done got large. You done got huge." You can be in these situations not just with strangers, but even with your family members. People, don't comment on people's weight. Okay. Don't do that. There's no reason why you need to have that discussion. We don't need to place value upon losing or gaining weight. We don't want to place value on people based on their body. We want to place value on them based on who they are. We want to accept them in all of the ways their body represents itself. Okay. Boom. Next.

Amena Brown:

Does the carpet match the drapes? I understand that people feel very interested in home décor because of HGTV. I understand that. You're interested in what other people are doing with their shiplap, but look, you save those questions for when it's somebody's actual house. You don't need to be worried about nobody's carpet, nobody's drapes, nobody's valence, whatever. You don't need to be worried about any of that on anybody's body. Okay. You save that for some show on renovation. You don't do that when you're talking to someone. Hey, if a person gives you permission to see the carpet or see the drapes, then you'll find it, but if you're not in a situation where they're giving you permission to know what the drapes or the carpet or the wallpaper are doing, you don't need to be worried about it. Okay?

Amena Brown:

Next question. How many people have you slept with? I just tire of the ways that people are wearing us out with these questions. How many people have you slept with? I just have to go back to a very basic junior high answer, and the answer is none-ya. Yes, none-ya is a number. None-ya is an amount. It is quantified. None-ya is to say never. It is a long amount of time. None-ya involves a lot of enumeration and none-ya is basically saying whatever the number is, it's what, none of your business. Thank you Salt-N-Pepa for reminding us about that. Okay. It's none of your business. You don't need to know about that. If a person chooses to share that with you, they share it, but you don't need to be asking it. You don't need to know about that. Okay.

Amena Brown:

Next. Why don't you smile more? It is not our job as women to entertain. It's not our job as women to have to make people comfortable. We smile when we want to smile, and when we don't want to smile, we don't. You don't need to be quantifying or measuring how much I smile. You don't need to be worrying about why don't I smile more. In general, I want to remind everyone, don't ask questions about a woman's body. Don't ask questions regarding her period. Don't ask questions about things that are a woman's personal business that don't have nothing to do with you.

Amena Brown:

I want to give honorable mention. These three things were not questions but they were brought up a couple of times as I was talking to people from social media. These three statements are also things you should never say to a woman. Number one, you look tired. What am I supposed to do with that information? You tell me I look tired. What am I supposed to do? At the moment you say it to me, I'm supposed to go lay down? Take a nap somewhere? I look tired. Maybe I am tired, but maybe I'm not. Now you told me I look tired. What is the point of it? Don't say it. Number two, hush. I'm going to also add to this shh. Unless you're a librarian and I'm in the library making sure where there were clearly signs that stated don't talk in here, you should not be telling a woman to hush or shush. Lastly, you should not be telling a woman to calm down. It's not going to work actually. It's not a good tactic. Just like when a woman is angry or upset, how men in the movies always kiss her. Terrible tactic. Don't do these things.

Amena Brown:

What are things that you can say instead when you are looking to just have small talk in a personal or professional situation? Maybe you find yourself at the hors d'oeuvre table next to a woman. You just wanted to say hello. There are thousands of other questions that are not these, such as what is her favorite fruit snack? You can also ask her where did she get those shoes. You can also ask her, what is one fun thing she did this week? I just gave you three questions that are great that will actually help you get to know this person that are avoiding things that are what? None of your business. Okay. This ends my PSA of things you should never ask a woman.

Amena Brown:

This week, I was thinking a lot about a question that a friend of mine asked me a few months ago. She asked me, in my life, what are the books that have most influenced, encouraged me in my Black womanhood. It's a really interesting question to think about. I don't know how many of you are avid readers or loved reading even as a kid, but I was totally like that. I loved reading as a kid. Thinking about the books that become these different landmark readings in your life that you remember getting ahold of that book and what it meant to you to find yourself or see yourself on the page. Just recently, there have been obviously a lot of conversation right now about how we can be supporting Black creatives and Black authors included in that, and how to uplift the stories that Black people are telling, and in particular, that Black women are telling.

Amena Brown:

I wanted to lift up a few of the books that have meant the world to me in my Black girl and Black woman journey. I hope that for my Black women listeners that if you have not read some of these books, maybe you will also be encourage to read them and check them out, some of them to reread, some of them are books that I reread at certain different times. For my listeners who are not Black women that hearing some of the titles of these books or authors of these books would also be helpful for you as you are thinking about how you can engage more in supporting and learning from the work of Black women.

Amena Brown:

First book on my list is For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange. I actually saw this choreopoem as a play before I read it on it's pages. I saw it as a play when I was in college, at Spelman College, and it was, and still is, the most beautiful pieces of performance art I've ever seen. It was years later that I actually purchased the book and got to read it and reread it and reread it. It influences me so much as a poet who is writing work to perform on stage and reading the amazing things that Ntozake Shange was able to do with these words that I experienced powerfully in both forms. I experienced in powerfully as a stage play and experienced it powerfully in it's reading. I do want to say, if you have watched the For Colored Girls film that Tyler Perry made, I do highly encourage you to also buy the book and read the words that Ntozake Shange wrote. They are so powerful and as happens, the movies and films do not always or cannot always really contain all of the amazing things that are in a book, and this book, highly recommend.

Amena Brown:

Second book on my list, these are not in any particular order. Second book on my list is The Color Purple by Alice Walker, which also became a film and also became a Broadway play. I would encourage you, if you can and are able to, to experience The Color Purple is all three forms. You'll find different parts of the book highlighted in a certain way in the film, highlighted in different ways in the play and musical. The Color Purple was a book I read, I think, in eighth grade. I was actually reading The Color Purple and this other book called The Awakening. I was writing a paper on them both, but The Color Purple being, at that time, reading it so young, starting out, if you've never read The Color Purple, the first few pages of The Color Purple are some of the rawest fiction that you may have ever read. It is a very raw story, and I do want to give trigger warnings about that very raw story of abuse and assault very on in this book.

Amena Brown:

If you are able to continue on as Alice Walker unfolds the story, which is a story full of letter-writing, and some of that letter-writing is from Celie, the central character to God. Later as the story progresses, those letters are between Celie and her sister, Nettie. There's whole lexicon of things that come from The Color Purple for so many black women in America, but The Color Purple is such a quintessential work for me because I remember reading that novel as a junior high student. I don't know if that was too young or not, but I was reading it.

Amena Brown:

I remember reading it again later, maybe when I was in college. I think I was in my 20s, maybe late 20s, when I saw the musical on Broadway. The one that I went to see, Fantasia was starring as Celie. Also, obviously I watched the movie many, many time. Many, many times. So many times. There's certain parts of that movie that I know almost by heart. I reread the book not too long ago and this time in reading it, what really struck me is the strong sense of spirituality in that book. There are different things I feel that book showed me even about God and sort of the role of God in that story, the role of God in my own life. It was interesting to read that and sort of read through this lens of Black woman's spirituality. Highly recommend The Color Purple.

Amena Brown:

One other book that I'll recommend to you all, I obviously have a list of bunches and bunches of these, but one of my more recent reads is Sisters of the Yam by bell hooks. I actually started to read Sisters of the Yam during a time that I was really going through a difficult time in my health and I had this major, major surgery, required a long recovery time for me anyway. It was six to eight weeks. That was a long time for me at that time in my life to just focus on sitting still and getting well. I started reading Sisters of the Yam then and there's a lot to say about bell hooks. Anything that you see bell hooks' name on I think is worthy reading. Sisters of the Yam was really a healing text for me, helped me to really learn, as I'm continuing to learn, about what radical self care what looks, what it looks like to love yourself actually, and she really goes into the different systems that are in place that do not make it easy or make it simple even for Black women to love themselves. Big shout-out to bell hooks. She is a wonderful author and writer and thinker to read, but I highly recommend Sisters of the Yam.

Amena Brown:

I'll add one more. My other one, which is sort of like a gateway book into this writer is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and I say that because I remember when that book was a part of Oprah's Book Club and Oprah talking about what it meant to her to read those first few lines of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and I remember reading it and having grown up in church and having that Easter speech moment, but I say that I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a gateway because once you start that book, then you're opening yourself up to this whole world of the work of Dr. Maya Angelou. As a poet, Dr. Angelou obviously highly influenced me and the work that I'm doing today. Some of her work were early things that I memorized. Memorizing Phenomenal Woman for an oratorical contest that my church growing up used to do every Black History Month and memorizing Still I Rise.

Amena Brown:

Not only is Dr. Angelou's poetry amazing, but her autobiographical series that begins with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and goes on for several books. I think that's a wonderful gateway to start with and just read and read and read until you've read through all of her books. I do want to give a special shout-out to Phenomenal Woman. I watched a new movie recently called Miss Juneteenth. Miss Juneteenth is a pageant in this story of this film and the daughter of the central character is memorizing Phenomenal Woman to perform in the movie, and the mother has also memorized it and that just totally resonated with me because that's a huge part of my history to have memorized Dr. Maya Angelou's work and really her work on stage teaching me in its own way how to eventually become comfortable with my own writing voice.

Amena Brown:

Those are a few books I would recommend, books I would say have been really quintessential for me in my upbringing. I would encourage you, dig into these works and if any of my listeners have any suggestions for me, especially my Black woman listeners, you have suggestions for me of other Black womanhood books that you would love for me to shout-out here, please let me know or reach out to me on socials. I'd love to hear it.

Amena Brown:

Okay. For this week's podcast, we are doing a new segment, but it will be recurring. I'll come back and do this every now and then. This segment is called Ask Amena, and if you have questions you want to ask me, it could be questions you want to know about me, you want to know about just life or macaroni and cheese. We can also talk about that. If you have things that you might like advice on, I will also take those. You can use the hashtag #AskAmena and I can answer your questions that way.

Amena Brown:

I've got a few questions from social media. Let's dive in. Which dance movie gives you life? Okay. I feel like I'm about to disappoint with this answer because I don't really have a favorite dance movie. There are very few musicals or dance movies that I like. I just lost a listener probably right now. They were like no, I'm out of here. I don't need to listen to her anymore. I will tell you one of my favorite dance scenes, and I'm like, does this count as a dance scene? I think it does. I don't know if this is actually in the category of dance movie because so many other things were going on, but Spike Lee's movie School Daze, which was this exploration of historically black college and university life, has a scene in this hair salon that is probably one of my favorite dance scenes. If you haven't seen School Daze, you need to see it, but if you have seen School Daze, you know immediately what I'm talking about. I'm so sorry that's the only answer I have for you there. If you have dance movies suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them.

Amena Brown:

Next question says, when will we have donuts together again? Like you and I and the royal we. This is from my friend, Audrey. Audrey, thank you. Audrey, you and I, we need to figure out how we're going to have donuts together again. First of all, it's really hard for me and my anxiety to try to figure out how to meet up with my friends, especially those that have been doing a good job social distancing. It's hard to find ways to meet up with them and eat, because it's like any other activity, if we were to go for a walk outside together, if we were to just sit on each other's porches socially distanced, that's fine, but when you bring food and drink into it, I still haven't figured that out. I've had a couple of little gatherings where I've tried this, but it's hard to figure out, because it's like, okay, I've got to take this mask down to eat some food. Then at some I've got to put the mask back up, because I can't enjoy a donut or sit and drink coffee with you with my mask up.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, like many of you, I saw the clip where there was like a masked designed where it had some sort of apparatus in it where you could keep your mask on and somehow still eat, and it just grossed me out. I can't. When will we get to have donuts together again, Audrey? I hope we figure out a way to do it soon. The royal we, when will we have donuts together again, I don't know. I feel like our safest bet is to get our own collective donuts and have some sort of Zoom donut eating. That's the best best. Otherwise, I don't know. You have to find some sort of six foot long table and you and your friends sit at the ends of it. I wonder if that's going to happen eventually. Well, first of all, we hope we're not in the pandemic long enough for this to happen, but I don't know. The way that things are being handled right now, it makes me feel like we're going to be in this for awhile.

Amena Brown:

I don't know if coffee shops are going to get rid of the little small circle tables, where it was really intimate for you to go there on a date or sit there with your friend and talk. Is it going to turn into all the tables in coffee shops are six feet long? All those long farmer looking tables. Except now, instead of eight people being able to sit there, only two people sit there and they sit at either end. I just don't know. All that to say, let us talk about donuts because this is very important. I'm a big fan of donuts. I will share with you all that I have a passion project that I do with my sister-in-law. We have a pop-up podcast called Here for the Donuts, and I say pop-up because it basically pops up when she I actually have time to record it. We haven't posted a new one in awhile, but you can go there and listen to the archives of that and hear all of the amazing donut places we've been to.

Amena Brown:

I want to give a shout-out to my favorite donut place in Atlanta, Revolution Donuts. They're my favorite place. They are the place that my friend Audrey and I love to get donuts as well. What is your favorite donut place? I'd love to hear from you all. Tell me more about that. All right, next question. Somebody is trying to get vulnerable today. How do you keep going and keep your heart soft? Whew. That's deep. That's a deep question today. How do you keep going and keep your heart soft? I think the name of the game for me, I probably would never describe it as keeping my heart soft, but I think what that phrase sounds like to me is how do you remain open, how do you remain vulnerable, even in the middle of times, whether collectively or personally, that would cause you to have a heart that's hardened or cause you to not remain open to things, to people, et cetera.

Amena Brown:

I think a part of that for me is really... the phrase that came to my mind first is self care. I know when we hear that phrase, sometimes... this is the same for me too. I hear that phrase and I immediately start rolling my eyes like oh, I don't want to hear about any more bath bombs, but as a side, I actually really love bath bombs. I think when we hear self care, we just think about baths and facials and all sorts of things like that, but for me, self care encompasses quite a few things. Right now, in this season of my life, includes therapy. I think that's one thing that keeps my heart open and soft is having a place to talk to a professional about the things that I am processing mentally and emotionally. Having someone who's objective, who doesn't have any personal skin in the game of my life that can hear what's underneath the things that I might be thinking or the patterns that I have in my life. That's been really helpful.

Amena Brown:

Having a squad of wonderful women friends is also something that has kept my heart very open and soft, because when you have good and deep friendships, for me that is very much my women friendships, but whatever those friendships look like for you, just having people that you don't have to put on for them. You can tell them your insecurities, you can tell them where you're struggling, you can tell them your petty thoughts and really be vulnerable and be yourself, whether yourself feels beautiful that day, whether yourself feels not so beautiful that day. Whatever. I think having people like that in my life has been really helpful. I would say my husband also, and my husband and I were friends before we were ever together romantically. We were actually chatting about that before we started recording. I think having a spouse and a partner in life that I can really be who I am with. I live in the same house with him, but I can also be at home with him. That's a big help for me.

Amena Brown:

I've been thinking a lot about what my spiritual practice looks like in this season of life, and for me, I am a Christian, I'm a part of the Christian tradition and I have been examining a lot of, well, what are my spiritual practices within my faith context, and what are some new spiritual practices that are maybe things that I didn't grow up with in my faith context, but are wonderful spiritual practices for me? Gospel music is a big one for me. Some of those songs just still are just in the core of my soul and help remind me that there is a life and a world and God that's bigger than I am. That's something that helps keep my heart soft.

Amena Brown:

I am just ankle-deep in meditation. I'm very new to meditation. I haven't gotten to the point where I'm doing meditation unassisted. I've been doing guided meditation and there are two apps that I really love. I love the Headspace app and I love the Shine app as well. I especially love the Shine app because I'm getting to hear the voices of women of color on their guiding meditation and different sleep stories and things like that. Meditation has been really helpful for me in keeping my heart soft because it is something that helps me remain grounded and centered. It's a place where I can come back to focusing on my breath and things like that. That's been really important for me. Those are a few things that are really keeping me going right now, keeping my heart soft.

Amena Brown:

Of course, finding ways to laugh and finding things that bring me joy. I love cooking. I love cooking really for the mindfulness. I think sometimes cooking itself or baking can be a spiritual practice. I've been watching a lot more comedies lately, just to remind myself to laugh and be silly. I'll tell you something else that my husband and I have been doing. I don't know if you all have been watching Cobra Kai on Netflix. I love Cobra Kai. It's everything, and it's probably everything to me in particular because I also was a Karate Kid fan. I never took karate as a kid or anything like that, but I loved Karate Kid, the whole series. I loved it. My husband and I went back to watch Cobra Kai. It's just like this wonderful moment where you're getting to see whatever happened to Daniel's son?

Amena Brown:

One thing that we've been doing is whenever there's a fight scene in Cobra Kai, we stand up and we do our own karate kicks and we yell hi-yah, hi-yah, hi-yah. I'm going to tell you, if you have an argument with your spouse, you have a fight with your partner, you all have talked it out and then you all get to the point where there's really nothing else to say in the argument and it's just that awkward air where you either resolved it or you've resolved as much as you can in a conversation, but you still just have the awkward air and need to deal with it, listen, give yourself three karate kicks and yell hi-yah three times, totally gets rid of the awkward air. I'm here giving you all relationship tips. Okay. Please.

Amena Brown:

Next question. Do you ever struggle with putting yourself, your work, out for all to see and judge? Okay. I'm going to answer these two separately regarding putting yourself and then putting your work out there. I'll say those two are kind of different for me. Regarding putting my work out there, do I ever struggle with it? Absolutely. As I've grown older, matured as a writer, I feel like my work gets more and more vulnerable because I am becoming more and more comfortable with really being myself. There have been several pieces that I've written. In particular, more and more in the last several years that I have felt really nervous to put out there because they were so vulnerable.

Amena Brown:

I wrote a poem called Mothers of Invisible Children that was about my experience with miscarriage and I remember the first time I ever performed. I wouldn't say performed that piece. It's such a vulnerable piece. I always read it. It would be too hard and too emotional even to memorize for me, but I remember I was performing at one of our local open mics. I was the feature artist for one of the events and I don't know why, but that poem was really in my mind leading up to the event. I just decided to start my set with it and to hold space for people that had experienced miscarriage, to hold space for people that had experienced just grief and loss overall. There is this struggle, especially for me as a poet, in putting out work that is very vulnerable because sometimes as a poet I'm writing about TV sitcoms or I'm writing about all the things I think are amazing about being a Black girl. Those poems I don't as much struggle putting out there because they're not vulnerable in the same way as if I'm telling something that is a hard story for me.

Amena Brown:

A lot of times I will say, for me as a writer, I've learned that it's okay for me to write something vulnerable and that it may not be for the public. I have many poems that never see the light of day as far as anyone else seeing them, but it doesn't mean they were any less important to write. Then there are things that I have written for my own private processing, and then those things get to a point where I realize this is something that I think may help someone else or help someone else feel seen or known or understood. That makes it important to share in public. I think I do a lot of processing about the work that I do share, and I make decisions about what's private and what's public. I have to say, I worry less about how the work will be judged once I come to peace with why I put it out there. I think that's one of the things that I guess helps me in that struggle is knowing what is the purpose that makes me want to put out this work? The purpose, in a lot of cases for me, will override whatever criticism or judgment could come from it.

Amena Brown:

Let me go back to this question, considering it not just about my work, but about myself. Do you ever struggle with putting yourself out there for all to see and judge? I probably struggle with that for myself even more than my work, because as a writer, you're constantly drafting and editing. By the time a piece comes out in the public, I'm not a person that writes a first draft and then that night puts it out there. If I put something out there in the public, it's gone through a lot of drafting, which has given me time to process what I'm saying, to process if I stand for what I said and all those things. Whereas when you are just out in the world in society being yourself, you're not always able to process it all and do all these edits to yourself. You just are who you are.

Amena Brown:

Yes, I do struggle with putting myself out there for people to see and judge. Other reasons to be in therapy, because I do talk to my therapist about that. There are a lot of ways that my own inner voice is very judgmental of myself. Sometimes it's not even just the struggle of how other people will judge me. It's also the struggle of how I inwardly judge myself. A lot of my inner healing work and therapy and honestly, in prayer and in my relationships too, my family and friends, who've really helped me in the healing process of learning to love and accept who I am and be fully who I am. Of course, time and age for me has helped with that too. I just probably care less at this stage of life than maybe I would have 10 years ago as far feeling like I need to make myself something else for other people. I think all of those spaces are very helpful for me in being who I am. I think, in a way, accepting that people will judge and they will criticize.

Amena Brown:

I remember I was in, not with my current therapist, but with a therapist I had in the past, we were having a conversation about how I kept saying yes to things and I wouldn't say no to enough things, and she asked me why. I said, well, I just hate to disappoint people. She was like, I have something to tell you. She was like, no matter what you do, people will be disappointed. I know that seems so simple and so basic facts, but I just didn't think of it that way. I just really thought I can do a bunch of things so that people won't be disappointed. When she said that, it really freed me and I think it can also be freeing to realize people are going to judge. People are going to criticize you. People are not going to understand who you are, the decisions you need to make to do what's best for you.

Amena Brown:

There are just going to be people who don't get that, who think that's dumb or stupid or whatever, and they are not the center. They are not why you do what you do or why you should continue to be who you are. They deserve less energy and less space. The people accept you and do show you love and support, those people deserve more of your energy. Really, even peeling back the layer of that, that I should accept myself and judge myself less too. Great question.

Amena Brown:

Okay, next question, boy, you all came in here with some questions today. I'm glad that I have a therapy appointment today because maybe I should take these questions into therapy and ask my therapist these questions too. Okay. Next question says, how did you overcome imposter syndrome? I'm curious almost to know what is the definition of imposter syndrome. I'm actually going to look one up real quick. Okay, general definition, imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments, and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. I actually have three overcome questions right here. I want to say, before I get into any of them, that I feel like imposter syndrome, we're also going to talk about writer's block and insecurity, all three of these are things that are going to come up periodically.

Amena Brown:

I think it's less of will you ever get to a place where you're like oh, I don't think about that anymore. I don't deal with that. Maybe you will, but for most of us, that won't be the case. For most of us, it will mean those thoughts, those feelings will pop up, but it will be more of a question of what is your process for how you deal with those things when they come up. What's your emotional filing system, if that makes sense. Where do you put those things so they go in their proper place, instead of being at the center of how you have to interact and live in the world.

Amena Brown:

One of the things that helps me with imposter syndrome is, again, my community and relationships, the people who are close to me. I have amazing friends in general, but I have two friends who, and I was actually just talking to a friend about this. I think in one of these episodes I want to talk about the types of friends that I think every person should have. I'm going to work on that, but we were talking about how it's important to have friends that you know in your personal life, but it's also important to have friends that you know in your professional life as well.

Amena Brown:

I have two friends who we talk about our personal lives too, but we also talk a lot about work, because we work in similar industries, even though we all do different things. I have two friends that when I get a big meeting, for example, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, some times I'll get a big meeting with someone who's work I've admired a long time or who I'm super impressed with, and I will have to call one of those friends and go, whoa, girl. I'm about to have this meeting with, insert this person's name. Give me the talk. I have really good friends in my life. I have one friend, in particular, that I can think about and she'll tell me, "Hey, you're a badass too. Just because you're going to go in and meet with this person. They might be a badass, but you're a badass too."

Amena Brown:

I think having people that can speak the truth back to you, because imposter syndrome is inevitably and intrinsically a lie, because it is not speaking to you about who you are. It's speaking to you about how you perceive yourself, how other people perceive you. Sometimes you need somebody who's sort of outside of you that can remind you, hey girl, let me tell you who you are. Let me tell you these things that you've accomplished. Let me tell you these things you've survived and you've made it through. That's been a big help for me in walking through imposter syndrome.

Amena Brown:

I think, also, the other thing that helps me with imposter syndrome is just remaining connected to the women that I come from. I think about my mom and I think about my grandmother, and I think about my great-grandmother, and thinking about the things that they survived, that they went through, that they invested in so that I could be a podcast host and be a poet and have a business with my husband. There are all these things in my life that I would not be able to do if those women had not gone before me. I think when I remain connected to that, it also helps me to not be so focused on worrying only about myself, but it helps me to remember that I can walk in confidence because of the women who came before me and just sort of widens my view. I think that can be really helpful with imposter syndrome, when we widen the view of who we are, of our place in the world, of the people that worked hard and sacrificed so we could get to the place where we are and be who we are.

Amena Brown:

When I think about my great-grandmother not even being able to graduate high school, but she sacrificed that so that my grandmother could graduate from high school, and my grandmother sacrificed so that my mother could become a nurse and make it to college. My single mom sacrificed so that my sister and I both could go to college and graduate and be artists and live our lives according to the things we were passionate about. I wouldn't be able to do this if it weren't for those women, and that sort of helps me remember my confidence is not just only in myself and what I have, what I can do in this moment; that I am really standing in the confidence and in the strength of these women before me. That's been huge helpful for me.

Amena Brown:

Next question says, how do you overcome writer's block? Writers block sucks. It sucks. I feel like the longest period of time I've had writer's block, I think it was a year and a half. I think so far that's the longest I've gone since I've been an adult anyway without writing. I want to normalize writer's block. I think sometimes writer's block comes up for us as writers and we are afraid that it means we will never write. I think if we normalize that writer's block is going to happen, and writer's block happens for various reasons, but if we normalize it, then we know writer's block is going to come and instead of me fearing it and clinching myself and forcing myself to try to not have writer's block, we can sort of welcome the process of writer's block in a way and maybe do some digging to figure out, can we sense the reasons why we might have writer's block? How can we move past that or how can we sit in writer's block until we're not longer blocked?

Amena Brown:

there's a couple of things. Sometimes writer's block happens because we're tired. I can't write when I'm exhausted, and that can mean physically exhausted, that can mean emotionally exhausted. I also think there is such a thing as being creatively exhausted as well. That doesn't mean you're being exhausted in creative ways, but it means your creative brain, the part of you that thinks up new ideas is exhausted. When I finished writing my second book, How to Fix a Broken Record, that was the longest period I had of writer's block after I wrote that book. I didn't write a year, year and a half. I think year and a half right there was the stretch. A part of that was just having creative fatigue, in a way; that I'd put so much of myself emotionally into this book and I just kind of had to re-up, and it took me a long time and some other really terrible things happened in that same time.

Amena Brown:

Because those terrible things happened in addition to the book, that just shut me down completely, but it didn't mean anything was wrong with me, that I couldn't write. It just meant I needed some time away from it. I needed some time to rest and heal and find my voice. Sometimes we have writer's block because we're afraid of what we have to write. Sometimes we have writer's block because we know what we need to write and we fear it. That you can also walk through and sometimes, for me, when I have that type of writer's block, if I'm working on a book, for example, and books are always scary to write. I don't care who's writing them. Okay. Well, I will say, I don't know about fiction books, because I've never written fiction, but writing non-fiction is always scary for me, and most of my friends who write non-fiction books, it's always a scary process. You're always afraid. You would rather run and do anything else for weeks before you want to sit down and write this book.

Amena Brown:

Sometimes you're going to have writer's block because you're afraid. There are little techniques that you can use to help yourself work through that fear. Sometimes for me it'll just be like okay, maybe I can't sit down and write a thousand words today, but I can sit in my chair for 30 minutes, for 25 minutes, and just write whatever comes out and then as soon as my alarm goes off, I'm going to get up and run away from here. I think you have to dig underneath what are the reasons why you might be having writer's block. The other thing I will say is sometimes you have writer's block because you are letting your editor and your critic in the room with you when you write. They are not welcome in the room when you write.

Amena Brown:

You need your editor voice at a later point in your writing process, but at the very beginning, you need to just write, and if we let our editor voice in the room with us, then our editor voice can cause us to have writer's block because then we're questioning every word we write. We're questioning did the comma get put in the right place and should we use the em dash and should we use a semicolon? All those questions don't belong in the writer's room. In your personal writer's room, it should be you and your thoughts or your characters, the voice of the story that you want to tell. You let your editor in after you've written. Those are a few things I do to overcome writer's block.

Amena Brown:

Last question, how do you overcome insecurity? You all were not playing with these questions. You all really fit me with some Ask Amena questions this time. How do you overcome insecurity? I repeat what I said when I got into these first overcome questions. I don't know if insecurity is something you ever completely overcome. I don't know that there's any human being that's like, I never feel insecure. Over your whole life, you'll have different reasons to feel insecure, different things that you'll be insecure about. I think it's less about getting to a point where you no longer feel insecure at all and more about how you process insecurities when they come up and how you manage your emotions and your thoughts as you walk through that.

Amena Brown:

No, I have not overcome insecurity and I probably won't in my whole life, but I don't know if this sounds weird or not, but one of the things that has been helpful to me in overcoming insecurity is spending time alone with myself and I have really had a hard time doing that sometimes because I love engaging with people and I love talking with them. Even when I'm alone sometimes, I have all these different apps where I talk to my different friends across the country, and the times that I feel the most insecure, when I give myself some time away from the phone, when I take that time to read or sit just in silence quietly.

Amena Brown:

Evens sometimes when I'm driving and I'm just by myself driving, listening to music. Just spending time with myself. It really helps me to become more secure in who I am and to accept who I am, and that I am a beautiful person, that I'm a beautiful human being and that I'm also imperfect and I'm going to mess up. That I'm a human with imperfections, that I hurt, that I get angry, that I make mistakes and that sometimes I do things that make me so proud of myself, but in a way, our security can't be found externally. We're not going to find our security in our relationships to other people. Other people can't make us feel more secure about ourselves. That's our own work that we have to do, and when we spend time with ourselves, it helps us to get to know ourselves and it helps us to love ourselves, and I think that security and accepting who we are comes from being able to be with who we are and love us in a similar way that we sort of give that attention to other people, but giving ourselves that same energy.

Amena Brown:

My therapist said something to me when I was talking to her several sessions ago and I was telling her how I really, really love to be a good friend to my friends, to be supportive to them when they are going through a hard thing, to cheer them on when they're going through a great thing, and I told her, due to some things going on in my life, I felt like I just wasn't able to be there for my friends as much as I wanted to be. She said to me, after evaluating all the things that were going on in my life, she said, "I think it's good that you want to be a good friend." She said, "I want you to remember that you can be a good friend to yourself too." I wrote that on a Post-it Note and every now and then, I come across that Post-it Note and I remember it. We can begin the journey of becoming more secure in who we are when we remember to be our own friend too.

Amena Brown:

I hope that's helpful to you all. This was great. You all asked some great questions on this week's addition of hashtag Ask Amena. I'll come back periodically and we'll do this, and if you have any questions, you can feel free to send me DMs. I'm mostly active on Instagram, a little bit on Twitter as well. Feel free to comment on any of the podcast posts that you see and let me know what questions you have. I'd love to address them next time.

Amena Brown:

Every week here on HER with Amena Brown, I like to close the episode by choosing a woman of color and giving her a crown. What it means when I Give Her A Crown, I just think of a woman of color whose work is amazing, whose personal story really inspires me, and it gives me an opportunity to celebrate her, because women of color deserve to be celebrated. Maybe you also know some women of color in your own life that deserve a crown, so I really encourage you to give them a crown, give them their flowers while they can smell them and appreciate them. give them all of the good words and encouragement as you can, because you can't get enough of that.

Amena Brown:

For this week's Give Her A Crown, I want to give a crown to Milck. Milck is spelled M-I-L-C-K. Milck is a fabulous singer/songwriter. She wrote the song "I Can't Keep Quiet" and is the founder of the I Can't Keep Quiet Movement. I got to hear Milck on the side of state at the Together Live Tour last fall, fall of 2019, in the before times, when we were still going to live events, and I was part of the tour as well. I was performing poetry there, but Milck opened up one of the nights of the tour with her music, and just hearing her there playing at the piano, hearing her amazing voice singing was one of the most beautiful things I witnessed on the tour. I've been following her ever since, and even in these times now that we in a pandemic as well as in an uprising, and watching the ways that Milck is using her voice and her music to uplift us, to speak the truth to us, to remind us to care for ourselves and care for each other. I just think that's beautiful.

Amena Brown:

Her newest single, "Somebody's Beloved", or it could be beloved, is out now wherever you like to stream your music. Make sure you follow Milck. You could get all this information in the show notes on amenabrown.com/herwithamena. You can get a link to Milck's website there as well as information about how you can follow her, stream her music, download her music, support her music. She's amazing. Yes, Milck. Give her a crown.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network, in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 4

Amena Brown:

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of HER. I am your host, Amena Brown. Thanks for coming back into the living room with me and actually I got a story that I wanted to tell you all that I hope you will be able to identify with in some way, but I was like, "You know what? I need to share this in our living room of sorts." I hope you brought your hummus and your snacks while we talk about all of this.

Amena Brown:

I have a really exciting brand partnership that I can't wait to tell you all about, but I can't tell you about yet as of this recording anyway. In the meantime, I will tell you part of it does involve a photo shoot and possible video shoot as well, and that also involves a wardrobe stylist. I've had a wardrobe stylist before shout out to Michelle Norris, but that was very different because Michelle would style me per the event, but I would go shopping with Michelle because it would help me to know like what to wear and different things that she would pick for me to try on that I would normally pick for myself.

Amena Brown:

This is one of the first times, maybe just the first time, because I really can't think of another time for me, career-wise where this has happened. This is the first time I'm working with a stylist and they just needed my measurements and they're going to pick all of the clothes and then I'm going to get to said shoot situation and try on the clothes and see what works. A part of this meant that my husband had to take out a tape measure and measure my bust, my hips and my waist. It was a really interesting exercise because I think there's only one other time that I've done these types of measurements.

Amena Brown:

I think it was for something I was trying to buy online and they needed you to measure yourself so that they could make sure the sizing was going to be accurate. I haven't done that in a long time. It's been years. And as soon as my husband took that tape measure out and we were starting to write down the numbers to tell to the team of people that are working on this shoot, I started to feel really nervous and a little bit anxious.

Amena Brown:

And I realized that a part of that is because I still have this thing in my mind, this is something I've been working to unlearn, but I still have this thing in my mind that when it comes to my body, there's always this question of how is my body measuring up? And in this moment where now you have a number, not just how your body might look in the mirror, how you feel about your body when you look at it, when you're just standing there with no clothes on, and you're just looking at your body for what it is, for where it is, there are no spanx, there's no underwear, there's nothing, just you there.

Amena Brown:

I think a part of what was happening with me was I had gotten to a point where I was no longer associating numbers with my body as much. I made a decision a couple of years ago to not weigh myself as often, to not make even my workout routine connected to what the scale says, that my desire to want to work out is because I want to be healthy. I also wanted to be stronger. That those two things didn't necessarily have anything to do with what the number on the scale said.

Amena Brown:

To go through this moment of measuring the three parts of my body, I can say, and maybe you would feel the same about your body, measuring these three parts that there is this concern, even as I'm trying to unlearn it of are they too big or for certain areas of the body, should it be smaller? After we finished all the measurements and got everything all typed up and sent off to the team of people that needed this information, I realized how vulnerable it is to think about measuring our body.

Amena Brown:

I wanted to share that with you all, because I wanted to say these words out loud, because I think it's something that we should talk about. And I'm really thankful for all of the body positivity activists that are out there that are continuing to bring up these types of conversations and help us think through our fatphobia, help us think through the ways that we don't love and accept and embrace the bodies that we have.

Amena Brown:

And after sending off this email, I realized the only other measurements I really have to compare my body to are Sir Mix A Lot's measurements that he mentioned in Baby Got Back when he said that he wanted a woman who was 36, 24, 36. And at the time that I'm hearing, Sir Mix A Lot's song, I'm a teenager. I don't even know if at the time I was hearing that song, if I even knew what my measurements would have been for the band of a bra.

Amena Brown:

I was probably that young, and that seemed to be this standard in a way, that supposed to have these certain curves here, but these other parts of the bodies should be a certain size small. I wanted to give you all an encouragement that I actually gave to myself as I've been really personally working on improving my self-talk about my body, and I had to give myself the talk that I have measured myself because that information is needed for a project that I'm working on, but I am not working on my body or looking at my body to measure up to anything or anyone.

Amena Brown:

That there isn't this particular standard that has to be met as far as my body is concerned. That the only dream body or goal body is my body at its healthiest and really my body at its current place. That this body is my dream body too, because it is doing all the things for me that a body can do for you during the day. It's doing those things that I want to show this body gratitude. That I want to thank this body for its scars, that I'm going to have scars on his body.

Amena Brown:

I'm going to have stretch marks, and that this body will experience change that maybe this body is not the body that I was in 10 years ago or 20 years ago and maybe for some of us, the body has stayed the same, but maybe there are still things about it that you don't love or that you wish were different. I had to give myself that talk after putting the tape measure away and say to myself, "This body is good. This body is beautiful with its stretch marks, with its folds."

Amena Brown:

I want to say to you, whatever body you have, it's beautiful, whatever you do for yourself health wise, as far as how you decide to exercise or how you decide to eat. All of those things are decisions that hopefully you're able to make more so from a place of, "Hey, this is the exercise I want to do. This is the type of eating that gives my body fuel and nutrition. This is the type of eating that gives me a way to enjoy how good this type of food tastes."

Amena Brown:

Or whatever those reasons are, but those reasons do not have to be connected to the fact that something's wrong with the body that you're in and that you can accept this body. I want to say shout out to back fat and shout out to under boob and shout out to pooch of a tummy. Shout out to your thighs, whatever size they are. Shout out to your ankles, however they express themselves. Give your body some love today, give your body some good words. Your body is going to hear enough negative words from society and from other ignorant people.

Amena Brown:

Your body does not have to hear those negative words from you. That's just the lesson that I am still learning and something that came up as I was trying to take a look at my body's measurements. As of the day this episode released, we are 13 days from election day, which means if you are listening to this, not on a Tuesday, then we are less than 13 days from election day. This is your reminder, if you haven't voted already, please try to vote early if you can. Yes, your vote is important. Yes, your vote counts.

Amena Brown:

We want to make sure that all of us do what we have to do to make sure our voices are heard. From time to time, I like to do some poetic readings in here and this one is from someone who really inspires me, Megan Thee Stallion. If you're hearing that name and you're like, "I don't know who Megan Thee Stallion is." There are many ways that you can find out about Megan Thee Stallion's music, her music videos, everything.

Amena Brown:

Megan has been through a lot lately and she has survived some really tough circumstances, so I wanted to give her a shout out by turning some of her Instagram captions into a poetic reading. Every now and then I like to do a segment I call poetic readings and I like to take different things that you might not think of as poetic and make poetic readings of them. For today's poetic reading, we want to thank our modern poet, Megan Thee Stallion. This is a poetic reading of Megan Thee Stallion's Instagram captions.

Amena Brown:

"Today was a good day. Just got her hair done, trying to get her groove back. Another fresh set, thee hot girl. She bad as an MF. She still ratchet. Please know that you are perfect in your own way and never let anyone dim your light, because you don't fit in an image that pleases them. The goal is to be legendary, honey. Ain't nobody tripping, because the money already made. If you don't jump to put jeans on baby, you don't feel my pain. We ain't never give up. We doing everything they said we wouldn't. Rich, but I'm ratchet living room hottie. Midnight hotties y'all ready?"

Amena Brown:

Thank you, Megan Thee Stallion, for your words of poetic inspiration. This week, my guest is singer songwriter, Jennifer Chung. This episode is a part of the HER archives and was recorded in the before times before the pandemic. I had a great time talking with Jennifer about how she crafts her songs, and if you have not checked out Jennifer Chung's music, you will definitely want to after you hear our conversation and you'll get a little bit of a sneak peek of some songs from her EP after all. Check out my conversation with Jennifer Chung. I'm so excited to have singer songwriter, Jennifer Chung, who also is the co-founder of WATS Media and also among other things is a social media strategist. Welcome to the HER With Amena Brown podcast, Jennifer Chung. Woo. This is me, Jennifer. I always clap.

Jennifer Chung:

Thank you so much for having me again.

Amena Brown:

I always clap because there's going to actually be some applause in here, but I clap because when we're recording, you get a chance to also experience that I'm trying to clap for you.

Jennifer Chung:

Thank you.

Amena Brown:

Y'all, I am so excited to have Jennifer on the podcast and any of you that have been following my other podcast that I did for my book, the limited edition podcast I did for How To Fix A Broken Record, you may be familiar with Jennifer Chung already from that and some of you may just be familiar with Jennifer Chung because she's amazing and you've already been listening to her music, but I'm so excited that you are joining me on the podcast today, Jennifer, we have so much to talk about.

Amena Brown:

If you haven't listened to it, you should go back and listen to How To Fix A Broken Record podcast, episode five Lessons in Adulting, you will get a chance to hear some different things about Jennifer there because we talked a little bit about your music, but we're going to get a bit more in depth. Jennifer was actually at my house. We were working on another project. She and her husband and me and my husband, we were all at the house, partly working and then partly like, "Catch me up on these things and tell me what's going on about that."

Amena Brown:

And I was like, "Gosh, I got to have Jennifer on the podcast." I'm so glad you're here. I was trying to remember, Jennifer, how did we actually meet each other? Do you remember that?

Jennifer Chung:

I feel like it had to have been through John a hundred percent. I don't know if it was because we went to an event that you both were throwing. You're so kind that you probably had found out that John had met someone, and you probably reached out just being your kind self. And I remember you invited me to do a show that usually you hosted, but you weren't going to be there.

Amena Brown:

That's right.

Jennifer Chung:

But you had gracefully invited me to be a part of it. I feel like that might've been the first time I pseudo met you.

Amena Brown:

I think that might be right, and I was very sad. This was when my husband and I were still hosting our open mic at Urban Grind and I wanted you to feature so bad, and then it turned out the day that I had asked you, I was going to have to go out of town and I was like...

Jennifer Chung:

That was such a good experience and honestly it was probably one of the first shows I did it in Atlanta, so I really appreciate you even giving me a chance to show some people in Atlanta what I do.

Amena Brown:

I'll tell you though, because since I wasn't there that night, I didn't get to hear you sing live that night. But the first time that I can remember hearing you sing live was at 529 here in Atlanta, when you and your husband, John, who I have known all this time under his artist name Joules and some friends of yours did this show called The Flip Side and Matt and I, I forget where we were going that night. We had another thing we had to go to, and then we were trying to hurry up and leave that to make your show.

Amena Brown:

We got there and that place was packed. It was so packed. There wasn't even enough room for us to inside the venue. We were looking at y'all performing from outside in the entryway of the building. That was the first time that I ever heard you sing live and my life has been changed. My life has been changed.

Jennifer Chung:

Thank you. Honestly, it's been a huge adventure and it's really cool that you also got to see John and I create events, just like you and your husband do. Obviously, a lot of our community has to do with a lot of Asian Americans and it's something that we're still trying to break through in the city.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. I really appreciated that about The Flip Side, just the push to celebrate Asian American creatives, Asian-American artists. I loved everything. Every artist I saw, I was writing down all the names like, "Wants to book this person. Wants to work with them." I love, and not only the way that you perform, I've joked with Jennifer in the past, she did this cover of Khalid's Location and to me, that's your song. When I finally heard him sing it, I was like, "What's he doing singing Jennifer's song?"

Jennifer Chung:

I still have to do a cover of it and upload it online. I literally only performed it at that one show and never did it again.

Amena Brown:

I really need that in my life, so I really need you to get that on a video. Since we're talking about create, I was really interested to hear more from you as a fantastic performer and also as someone who you can cover other artists' songs and you also write your own songs. Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote? Were you writing songs as a child or did that come to you later in life?

Jennifer Chung:

I remember when I was a kid, I would literally write my own songs. Like let's say my mom yelled at me and I got in trouble, I would start singing like my life was a musical and my mom would be so upset that I was singing, but she wasn't that good at English. She probably just thought I was just singing some random song, but for me, I was singing so dramatically as if this was my valid piece of the musical, where I was at war with me and just making up words. And I think from then on that encouraged me to go to music whenever I'm feeling an extreme of a certain emotion.

Amena Brown:

What is it like to write a song? How do your songs start or begin? I feel so crazy asking this question because...

Jennifer Chung:

No. Okay. I technically was learning piano, but I really didn't learn it that well. I think my piano teacher and I just really hung out and she encouraged my singing a lot. So when I start writing songs, it starts with words, what I'm feeling I put it into musical notes and I record it through Voice Memo. Then from there, many of my songs I have written it from beginning to end and then I'll sing it to an accompanist or I'll sing it to a producer and they'll make a beat around it. But I also hear music in my head.

Jennifer Chung:

I'll hum the melody that's supposed to compliment my vocal melody. There are also times, very few times where I'd hold the guitar and I'd start strumming and then write a song through that way. But there are a couple of songs on my first album that I wrote with guitar first, but usually it's the lyrics first.

Amena Brown:

Wow. I'm very fascinated by the song writing process, because even though I also write something that's lyrical as a poet, it's just so different than the structure of songwriting and the type of economy with your words that you have to have in order to express an emotion, but in this hook or in the way the verse or the bridge is structured. Tell my listeners a little bit more about how you ended up sharing your work through social media, through YouTube.

Amena Brown:

When I think back about this, Jennifer, I'm like, "My gosh." You were sharing your work on this platform at a time that there weren't even a lot of people at that time sharing their work that way. Talk to me about how you go from here's this little girl singing these songs when she's in trouble to finding this audience for these songs that you had written.

Jennifer Chung:

Yeah. I would say when I started posting videos on YouTube, I wasn't sharing any of my original work. It was just me sharing that I loved certain songs that people were coming out with and I wanted to show to others how I sounded singing them. It was like the wild West, you didn't know what YouTube was, except that people were uploading stuff. I just decided to, and I think it was all in God's timing that I uploaded when I did and I was able to build a community slowly but surely.

Jennifer Chung:

And as an artist, I think that was such a blessing because when I did come out with my first song, I already had an audience that was engaged, but it was definitely scary to upload my first original song because then that's what's going to set the pace of what people have... People may have expectations of what that's going to be like, especially with the song choices that I had made, but I think it was a blessing to start off so early and just letting my music go because I've met so many artists now that are so talented and they have such great music, but they literally hide it and they hoard it because they think it's not ready or it's not perfect.

Jennifer Chung:

I always let them know, I don't release these songs because I think they're perfect. I release these songs because I know it's time, and I think that comes with time and knowing that what I release now may be years from now, I'll be like, "Why did I release that? What was I thinking?" But at least I let it go and I can give myself and my listeners an opportunity to realize that I've grown from that moment.

Amena Brown:

That's was one of the things I really love about your music and about you as a person, having engaged with you personally and in professional environments. I love that about your brand as an artist too, you're very authentic and genuine.

Jennifer Chung:

I appreciate that.

Amena Brown:

That's a huge thing to me because I think especially being someone who had this career trajectory that started out on a social media platform, I think there can be this temptation to have to succumb to whatever air quotes anybody is supposed to look like or be like or whatever. And I love even about following you on social media that you're like, "Hey guys, this is me. This is me being myself. This is who I am. This is me learning to love who I am. Learning to love how I am. Learning to accept myself just the way I am."

Amena Brown:

I put out on social media to see if people had any questions they wanted to ask you, and this was a really good question I wanted to get your thoughts on. Tamisha F. from Facebook. She wanted to know, can you share more about the lessons you learned as a creative after the Photoshop incident you had with a recent magazine cover that you were on? Can you tell us more about that?

Jennifer Chung:

Well, first I learned how much it still affects me when people ridicule me about my appearance, whether it was intentional or not, but also it was a reminder of how deeply ingrained certain beauty standards are, especially in my Korean American community, not even Korean American, it's my Korean culture. There are certain standards that the people have to live by, not just women, but men too. And South Korea is known to be one of the capital countries that promote plastic surgery.

Jennifer Chung:

I'm proud to say that I haven't gotten any plastic surgery done because it was my choice and I totally empower anyone who feels like they want to do that for themselves, but so many times people feel pressured to do that. I've had conversations with friends who felt pressured that they had to do it in order to be accepted, but reality is there are so many things that people think that you have to do to be accepted that it's an endless cycle. You're always going to want to nip and tuck this or change that.

Jennifer Chung:

Going from that, I practiced grace though to the people who were behind that magazine because I know they meant it well, they meant to serve me well and they thought that this would make me happier or make me more accepted by their demographic. But I had to let them know that it wasn't okay because the original reason why I decided to do that magazine interview was because they wanted me to encourage the youngsters. That's the word they said. The youngsters that are up and coming, and I did not want the audience to believe that them photoshopping me was something that I wanted.

Jennifer Chung:

I made it clear to the publishers and I had to at least post it on Instagram and to let my followers know in case there are some people who ran into the article in the Bay Area, because that's not what I'm about. I really do have goals to stay as honest as I can, and one of my best compliments that I feel I get from being on YouTube and people meeting in person is that, "My gosh, you're the same. Just as I thought you'd be online and in person."

Jennifer Chung:

I might have my bad days, but for the most part, I feel like I'm genuinely being myself, and since I had posted that, I hadn't posted anything on Instagram and I'm just giving it space for people to really read that in case they run into the magazine. I've also learned that the community is so supportive and I've gotten so much love, and I think it resonated with a lot of people too, because I'm just being honest. I didn't think that I could just get away with my face being completely altered and thinking like, "That's fine. That's how I should look."

Jennifer Chung:

It's like, "No, that's not how I look and that's not who I am." It was a huge growing experience and how it's always going to be a battle for the rest of my life to choose to love myself and to hopefully empower others to choose to love themselves too.

Amena Brown:

I love that, Jennifer, because I read the post myself and I was just like, "Yes." It's put to words the things that so many people feel. Whatever it is that in our different cultural backgrounds or according to whatever that standard of beauty is. We need that encouragement. We need to be reminded that you're not just okay, you are beautiful and worth it as you are, and that that's our work. Is to accept who it is we are. And of course, like you said, each person's going to decide what's empowering to them in that journey.

Amena Brown:

Nobody can decide that for each person, but it's beautiful to start that journey for yourself of, "This is who I am. This is how I love me." Okay, I want to talk a little bit more about writing songs. This is a curious question that I have. Some of these questions are just my nerdy stuff that I want to know from you. I know that you've had experiences co-writing songs with other people, and I would love for you to share a little bit more about what that process is like. As a poet, it's hard for me to imagine co-writing a poem with someone.

Amena Brown:

I'm always curious when I have friends who are songwriters and also write with others, describe what that process is like and how's the give and take between you and maybe the other writer or other writers.

Jennifer Chung:

Sure. I think that everyone works very differently, but for me personally, when it has come to working with collaborators who... For example, in December, I had written for another artist and it wasn't for my project. I let be very open. The producer had created a melody and I asked the artist, "What's the story that you want to share?" And from that, I used the melodies to let the words come out of me. That's where I was able to start creating the foundational base of the lyrics and where that was headed.

Jennifer Chung:

I tend to write choruses first, actually, and then from there I have to pull out versus, but it's definitely give and take and being open to what other people have to say. Personally, I think I work better if I don't have someone telling me how to write the lyrics. I think I am a lyricist by heart, and I'm interested in seeing what it's going to be like if I write with another writer writer, because I think it'll be good practice for me because as of now, I'm like, "No, no, these aren’t my words. These are the words that are going to be solidified."

Jennifer Chung:

And if you listen to my songs, you'll notice that I tend to rhyme a lot. In a way I feel like it has this poetic rhyming scheme to it. But I think because vocally it flows through me and singing wise, it just comes naturally to me.

Amena Brown:

I want to ask a question from Instagram. Naynay wants to know how do you maintain vocal health as a singer? This is a great question. Do you have a routine, a regimen? Are there things you would recommend to other listeners who may also be singers?

Jennifer Chung:

Sure. Ever since I was young, I knew that I wanted to sing for Disney one day. I don't know if that's going to happen yet, but it's still in my bucket list and it's the princesses and the musicals, they sounded very clean and don't sound too hoarse. Ever since I was younger, I told myself, "I'm never going to smoke." And I haven't ever smoked a cigarette and it just doesn't appeal to me because I don't want to lose the vocal quality that I have right now. Even though I listen to someone like Adele or Alicia Keys and wish I had that husky tone, it's just not part of my vocal regimen.

Jennifer Chung:

Also, I've heard, I was told that whispering is actually not good for you, so I don't whisper very often. And even if I'm yelling or shouting at the top of my lungs, whether it's at a basketball game or whatever, I always support myself with my diaphragm. And if I lost my voice the night before, I did something wrong and when I'm practicing singing, if I feel any pain I stop, because it shouldn't hurt. That means I'm placing things incorrectly and also it's good to stay away from dairy on days of performances. And personally, for me, I don't actually like to eat before I sing, and that could be all day.

Jennifer Chung:

So if I have a performance where I know I'm going to have a long set, I actually fast the whole time and maybe drink water and tea just because I don't want to burp and that's about it.

Amena Brown:

I need to take some notes, honey. I don't eat before performances. Once I get within a two, three-hour threshold, whatever food I'm going to eat, I need to eat it before that time. Then I can't eat anymore, but that's actually just for nerves because I just... Speaking of YouTube, I've always been like, "Before there was YouTube, you're just afraid, I'm going to throw up on stage." That's what I was afraid of. Then once YouTube came along, I was like, "I really can't have somebody capturing footage of me throwing up on stage now.

Amena Brown:

I just have to." Mm-hmm (Negative). I have to stick with it. I have to stick with it. And I learned after getting laryngitis the first time as a performer, that whispering is bad for your voice. I had no idea. I was at some event and the singers were like, "Yeah, you're going to need to stop whispering. If your voice is gone, you either need to stop talking or talk on your regular voice. The whispering is actually making it worse for you." I had no idea about that.

Jennifer Chung:

If there's a moment that you're able to just not speak, maybe do some vocal rest every once in a while.

Amena Brown:

You know that's hard for me. As you were saying it I was like, "Yeah, that's true. That would give me a chance to contemplate my life and things." And then I was like, "Oh. I’m going to have-"

Jennifer Chung:

And carry around a post-it note to show people, "I'm on vocal rest today. Feel free to text me."

Amena Brown:

That would be so hard for me. You know how much I love talking. That would be just.... Gosh. The couple of times, which I really need to have a better vocal regimen myself, because now that I've been performing so long, sometimes the end result of me getting a cold is laryngitis now, if my voice gets really tired. I really do need to try this voice rest thing, but I just love talking so much. The times I've had laryngitis and I couldn't talk, everything inside of me was like, "I have so much to say everybody."

Jennifer Chung:

I understand. Well, as long as we continue supporting the way that we talk with our diaphragm and also, it's not so bad to strengthen your head voice. Sometimes if you want to just talk up here instead of talking down here. Just lift it up over here and talk to people like you're a Disney princess.

Amena Brown:

I don't even know about a head voice. I'm getting to educated. Let me ask you this also, because I know that not every singer writes songs and then not all songwriters are super great singers. There are some people who are really great songwriters, but then their songs end up with people that have the really great voice. Why do you think songwriting is so important? It's like we have an idea in our mind of why singing itself is important for all of the emotional connection that we have to our music, to our memories and those different things.

Amena Brown:

But we don't often think about who is writing some of the songs that we really love. Why is the song writing so important?

Jennifer Chung:

Man. Songwriting, it's such a gift to be able to share what you feel. You know. You're literally sharing your feelings and your thoughts and people receive them, and it's one thing when people are like, "It sounds nice." But it's another thing when someone's like, "It feels nice." I think that's why, even if there's vocalists who don't right, if they can sing it as if they did, that's how you know that they’re a performer and they're able to engage to the music and deliver it in a way that it's meant to be.

Jennifer Chung:

Songwriting for me is so important, because I know as I get older, my voice isn't going to be the same. Like when I’m at the age, hopefully of 80 years old, I might not be able to sing the way that I do now, but I can still continue to write and I hope that I'll continue to write for other people too. It's a gift right now to be able to sing and to be able to perform live, but I'm sure that that'll get exhausting too, as I get older, older, but I hope to be inspired by life and write for other artists and use my gifts, not just to continue my own platform.

Amena Brown:

I love that and I love as an artist, having all of these layers of what you do that can really last you through these different seasons of time. I even think about Maxwell and his first album that he put out, I think he was 23 years old and he said his goal was to make music at 23 years old, that if he were in his 60s or 70s, that he would feel no shame singing it.

Jennifer Chung:

Yeah.

Amena Brown:

I thought that was such a great thought because there are some things that maybe when I was 22 or 23, gosh. If I went back and looked at some of those poems I was writing, I'd be like, "No." I want to edit some of those. But there are some things that as a songwriter, I feel like because music can have this very timeless quality, there are these things that you can put out into the world that somebody 30 years from now maybe listening to and still resonate with, which is one of the things I really love about music.

Jennifer Chung:

Yeah. How beautiful is that, that someone could connect to it years from now or connect to it even maybe... Maybe there are certain songs where you first listen to and you're really not that into it but you keep hearing it and then there's a moment where it clicks, the words just click to you.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. There's some songs you have to grow into as well.

Jennifer Chung:

Yes. Experiences.

Amena Brown:

Where you're like, "I see why." Like there is some music my mom loved when I was growing up. My mom loved Frankie Beverly and Maze, when I was growing up. She just listened to their tape until it broke almost and I was just dying of boredom. Please rescue me from Frankie Beverly and Maze. And for some reason I got into my late 20s and I was like, Frankie Beverly and Maze are amazing. This is some of the best music anybody ever made."

Amena Brown:

I'm like, I don't know if it's your palette has to change or broaden maybe as you get older or if it's just some resistance we have sometimes just to what we deem our parents' music to be and then we get older and we understand a little bit more about life.

Jennifer Chung:

Yeah.

Amena Brown:

Okay. I want to talk about your songs and this is a new thing that I've never done on the podcast before, Jennifer. I'm so excited that I'm trying this with you and it's going to be great because it's basically me getting a chance to share with the listeners just a little bit of what your music sounds like. I want to talk through a couple of the songs from your latest mini album After All. If you're listening right now, it's okay if you want to just pause this and just go download After All right now, that's fine.

Jennifer Chung:

Check it out.

Amena Brown:

We welcome you to do that and then you can come back and we'll talk through these things, but I want to specifically go through two of these songs and just play a couple of clips from these and Jennifer, I want to tell you what I love about these songs and then I would love to hear your story of what's behind the song. How did the songs get written? What's been your experience now, not only after having recorded this music, but also performing it live for an audience? From After All, what we want to listen to first is the song, Take It One Day at a Time. Let's listen to this clip.

Recorded voice:

(Singing). Why me? Won't somebody please. Take my burdens away. I can't do this today. You've got to hold on. Hold onto what you believe in. Weather through every season. Take it one day at a time.

Amena Brown:

Y'all, are you in your feelings? Because I feel like you should be in your feelings. If you're listening to Take It One Day at a Time, you should be in your feelings. Let me tell you something, Jennifer, that I don't know, even though we are friends in real life outside of the podcast, I don't know that I ever shared this with you. The beginning of 2018 was a really, really hard time for me and for us, for my husband and I personally and professionally. I had created a couple of years ago, this playlist on Apple Music called Healing Tunes.

Amena Brown:

Every now and then if I listened to a song that was really soothing to my soul, I would just chunk it into that playlist. It's hours of music now, and I listened to this song, Take It One Day at a Time at a time that I was very sad, very full of grief, very depressed. And I added it to my Healing Tunes playlist, and I still listen to it during times that I need to be reminded to take that space. It was so beautifully written and it had so much space in it.

Amena Brown:

To me, the way you sang it and the way you approached even the gentleness with which you sang some of the parts of the song, it is really one of my favorite songs of yours. Tell us more, how did this song get written?

Jennifer Chung:

Well, I would say that growing up, I've definitely been exposed to my mother battling through depression and she's a single mom, and I think it slowly became a part of my life as I grew up being an adult as well. The only way that I could say that I was able to survive is first and foremost racism in my life and I literally could not move forward unless I was taking it a day at a time. I'm such a planner and I have all these things of like, "I need to do this. I need to do that in order for me to get there."

Jennifer Chung:

But sometimes you literally just have to take today for what it is. Now, my husband and I are going on to six years of marriage and we've learned so much about ourselves and my husband battles through a dark place as well and it was really my letter to him. When I say those first words like, "I know it hurts. Don't want to get out of bed. Much rather lay there instead, but you face what you fear. The thought that no one is near." Because you think that you're alone in this and you think that no one will understand and no one will completely understand, but you have to keep going.

Jennifer Chung:

I think that's where he and I are intrinsically a little different where I'm the type of person who keeps moving forward and maybe to the point where I don't really face it, but he sits there and he lets it soak in. And I think that's something that I could learn from too is because I've always been this type of person that's like, "Got to keep going, got to keep going." But there's beauty in being able to take it a day at a time and taking that moment and being able to just be proud of what today was and not fear what tomorrow is.

Amena Brown:

And I think that's one of the things that makes songwriting so important, is you're able to put words to something that, even as I was experiencing that very low depressed place, I was almost at the point, and for somebody that works in words, it's very hard. I was at a point where I really didn't even have the language to express how I was feeling and that's the beauty of the gift that you have and the gift that so many great songwriters have, is this ability to capture what human beings are feeling.

Amena Brown:

Even though you might have the gift to articulate what we're feeling and the other person listens to your music and didn't have the words to say, "That's what I need to do. I need to take it one day at a time. I need to pace myself." It was just so gentle and moving and healing and I'm really glad that you wrote it and so glad that you're sharing with the world. Have you performed this song any place? And what's been the experience now, not just having written it, but also sharing it in an audience?

Jennifer Chung:

Yeah. I've sang it a couple of times. I sang it at my mini album release in Atlanta and I sang it at my mini album release in LA. First of all, it's a hard song to sing. I get annoyed at myself for writing it, because I have to be mentally and physically prepared to sing it but it's also a really depressing song. Maybe I sang it three times but it's a song that really brings things out of people, so I have to think about whether or not I want to put people there and if it's the right space to do it.

Jennifer Chung:

Imagine if I was doing this lit party, where music is popping and people are drinking, and it's going on, just all these lights and then I'm out there, take it one day at a time. I just don't think that's the right time and place. But it's like my little magic power if I want to release it because I know at least one person might come up to me and share with me a story, and I also have to be ready for that.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. Right. I love that. Let's talk about my favorite song. This is my all-time favorite Jennifer Chung song. If you are ever at a Jennifer Chung show and I'm there and she does this song, it's me yelling from the crowd, "That's my song." Okay. My favorite Jennifer Chung song is Broke, which is also featured on her latest mini album After All. Let us take a listen to a little bit of Broke.

Recorded voice:

(Singing) When you came in my life, I knew you were the one. You had integrity, I wasn't just for fun. Made sure that I was yours. Got married in four months. We still out here, now it's four years. I'm saying. We were broke. Well. We're still broke but never broken. Flashy things can get distracting, from what's happening. Without 'em, we're still happy. It doesn't even matter that we're broke.

Amena Brown:

Yo, if you didn't body roll while you were listening to that, I don't know what to do. I don't know what you're doing with your life. Listening to Broke is a perfect body roll opportunity. If you missed out on it, you need to just go back and just buy the whole album and you need to listen to Broke again and body roll to it. My gosh, Jennifer. You know this is my song. You know this is my song. And Jennifer and John and Matt and I have something in common in that both of us work in our businesses with our spouses.

Amena Brown:

When I first listened to the whole album, Jennifer and I got to this song, I was like, "This is us too." I knew this was you telling your story but I was like, "This is us too." When you're in business together, you make it through the times that the gigs came in, the clients paid and there's money and you make it through the times that you're like, "Somebody please send us a check, because..."

Jennifer Chung:

Yeah.

Amena Brown:

Tell me more about the inspiration behind Broke, and what's it like to get a chance to perform that song with your husband?

Jennifer Chung:

Man. Story of our life, when we decided to commit to each other, we literally told each other, "Hey, you're broke, I'm broke. Let's just be broke together, then we could build together." And I think that's why when we wrote the song, when we say we were broke, well, we're still broke but it's this uphill climb of trying to build something and for sure God has delivered and continues to do so, but it's also us letting people know, you don't have everything figured out, but we continue to choose to figure it out together. And I hope that it encourages people.

Jennifer Chung:

You don't have to have everything to have everything. You can figure it out together, you can build together. I also thought it was a really good juxtaposition of having this contemporary hip song melody that's very resonating right now with contemporary music, but as a rapper to admit that you don't have all the chains. When John is able to rap through it and I'm singing through it, we sing it proudly because it keeps us grounded and keeps us relatable and we can continue to move towards something.

Amena Brown:

You know that's my song. I love that song so much. And I just think there is a lot of power in being able to talk about being broke too, because I know I've been in some settings, particularly professionally where I'm looking around, and I'm like, "I know we broke, but these other people in here, maybe they don't seem like they're broke." And now, I have a part of my set where I just talk about brokeness real quick. And there are some people in the room who are like, "I have no idea what you're talking about." But most people in the room are like, "Yes. Yes."

Amena Brown:

Either been there or currently there, and it's just this moment where you get to share in that with people. Everybody's not going to have it together all the time. People have bills and don't necessarily have the money to take care of those bills. That's a part of the human experience for a lot of people.

Jennifer Chung:

And that's the thing, how cool is it that we were able to create a song where people can proudly say that they're broke?

Amena Brown:

Come on, I'm broke and I’m proud. Yes.

Jennifer Chung:

Yes. It's okay. We're not broken though. How cool is it that we have the opportunity to work hard towards something? And if we're happy while we're broke, we'll definitely be happy when we're not.

Amena Brown:

Right, because it's not, it's cliché to say, but it's true. It's not the amount of money a person has that makes them happy. That's not where the center of your joy or your peace is going to come from. And I also thought Broke is just, it's a beautiful love story to tell. That's not like... There are certain different ways a love song can be written, and maybe it's written from the angle of the guy has all this money and he's like, "I want to buy you rings, girl and I want to take to do this or that."

Amena Brown:

Or it's something like Bonnie and Clyde, three type situation, where it's like, "Here we are with all our name brand." Whatever things. I just appreciate it. We can be in love and walk through our lives together and partner together and put our little nickels together.

Jennifer Chung:

Yes, and honestly, I know there's a thing where you have to or society makes you feel like you have to look like you have everything together, but we found that people have been so much more gracious and loving towards us because we're honest with what we have and don't have and still can find joy in that because people want to be around happy people. And it also just reminds us that if we can find people who relate to us on a real level, then we don't have to act like we're something we're not.

Amena Brown:

No, that's right. Jennifer, tell my people, how can they follow you, watch you, buy this music from you? Tell me all the things.

Jennifer Chung:

Well, first and foremost, I just want to thank you for having me on. You can find me on Instagram, it's @jenniferjchung, J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R-J-C-H-U-N-G. That's my username for Twitter, for Facebook. On Spotify and Apple Music and all those platforms you can find me as Jennifer Chung. I came out with my single, V-Day for Valentine's day and it's a song for single people. So if you're riding solo this Valentine's day, then this song's for you, because this is written to embrace that singlehood because it is a gift and whatever place you're in life, it's a gift.

Jennifer Chung:

I hope that y'all will keep up with me and come to a show sometime. Every stream matters and every music purchase matters and check out wats.media. That's the content agency my husband and I founded. Besides being a rapper, producer, he's also a videographer and photographer. And I also help with brand messaging and running social media accounts with people, and I love it.

Jennifer Chung:

It's one of my favorite things to do because in a world of so much content out there and social media being something that could be used for bad, I believe Amena, for example, is someone who uses it for good, and I think more people can do that. We're here to help if you need us.

Amena Brown:

Y'all check out everything that's Jennifer Chung. Check out all of it, and if she comes to your city, don't think about it, just buy the tickets. Just buy them-

Jennifer Chung:

Please.

Amena Brown:

...and come there and see her. Jennifer, thank you, not only for just joining me on the podcast, but for being such a positive force in the world. I'm so glad that your voice and your writing exists. Thank you so much.

Jennifer Chung:

Thank you so much.

Amena Brown:

For this episode's edition of Give Her a Crown, I want to give a crown to one of my favorite body positivity advocates and also my current favorite yoga teacher, Jessamyn Stanley. There are quite a few body positivity activists and advocates that I have followed over the past few years, and we have many more weeks to give all of them a crown. I want to make sure I give mention to many of them.

Amena Brown:

I wanted to give mention today to Jessamyn Stanley because I have just recently started following Jessamyn's yoga practice on her app, The Underbelly, and just all of the different yoga classes that I've taken over the years, which many of those classes have also been wonderful, but to come into a practice with Jessamine where she is giving you these affirmations, encouraging you to be kind to your body in the process of your yoga practice. Encouraging you to not see your yoga practice as a place to push yourself into pain or these huge amounts of discomfort.

Amena Brown:

I just love her for that and I loved in my current yoga practice that I'm following with her being able to incorporate more love for my body in that process. Jessamyn Stanley, yes, girl, give her a crown. Give her a crown for this amazing app. If you're looking for a way to incorporate more yoga practice into your life, you should definitely check out her app, The Underbelly. You should follow her on all the social media, she is amazing. Jessamyn, thank you, for bringing your full self, your voice, your affirmations, for taking up your space and encouraging all of us to do the same.

Amena Brown:

HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeart Radio. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 3

Amena Brown:

Hey you all. Hey. So I have taken to giving you a couple of to-do items as we are leading up to Election Day. As of the release of this episode, we are 20 days from Election Day. So here are some to do items to think about for this week coming up. Number one, make sure you come up with your voting plan. Decide if you want to vote with an absentee ballot, or if you would like to cast your vote in person.

Amena Brown:

If you decide that you want to vote with an absentee ballot, there are many great websites that you can check out to make sure that you can fill out your application for your absentee ballot, as well as finding out how to get your absentee ballot to the right place. Some places are allowing you to drop it off, some places are asking you to mail it. So you want to make sure you get all of that information. This is a part of coming up with your voting plan.

Amena Brown:

And if you decide you're going to cast your vote in person, you may want to think about bringing a few things. First of all, you definitely want to bring a mask because we are still in a pandemic. You may want to bring a chair if there are going to be long lines of waiting in case you may need to have a seat for a while. You may need some snacks, or water, or hand sanitizer, or disinfectant wipes. Think about the things that might be a little bit of a survival kit of sorts that you could have with you if you are going to cast your vote in person.

Amena Brown:

Also, my number two thing to tell you is to make sure that you vote early if possible. We are 20 days from election day today. That means there are probably most states, counties, cities that are going to have some early voting available for you. Try and do that if you can. What that does is it evens out the amount of us that are going to vote, and we are hoping huge amounts of people are going to vote. We want to make sure you do that as early as possible, hopefully, that will decrease the weight and make it so that people who are not able to vote early can have election day to vote if that's the only time for them.

Amena Brown:

To help with your voting plan, visit rockthevote.org. I'm trying to give shout outs to some sites that are really helpful. If you know of any other sites that you recommend, please let me know on social media. I would love to hear that. And if you forget all these links and stuff, you can go to the show notes at amenabrown.com/herwithamena and find out all this information there.

Amena Brown:

And my third to-do item for you is if you are available, sign up to be a poll worker. Here in Georgia where I live, all of the times that I have gone to vote, most of the poll workers have been elders in our community. And right now, during the pandemic, we want to protect our elders and our senior citizens, we want to be able to keep them as COVID-free as we can. And one of the ways that we can do that, that we can prevent there being a pull worker shortage is by volunteering to be poll workers.

Amena Brown:

And actually, it's not quite volunteering because being a poll worker is a paid gig as well. So you can definitely go to powerthepolls.org to check out more information about that. And again, you can go to the show notes and get this information. We want to make sure that the people in our communities are able to cast their votes, we want to make sure that we are able to cast our votes, so these are good things. Come up with your voting plan, vote early if possible, and if you're available, sign up to be a poll worker. These are the things we do to make sure that we can get our voices heard.

Amena Brown:

Hey everybody, another episode of HER with Amena Brown, and I am happy to be back here with you all. This is so great. We're finding a rhythm. I'm hearing from you all, getting some ratings and reviews. I love to see it. I love to get to interact with you. So please, please comment, email, smoke signal, whatever you have, send me those things. I want to hear from you.

Amena Brown:

So one thing I discovered about myself recently is what kind of alcohol beverage I prefer. I am a late bloomer people. So I know, I just turned 40 years old and I'm just now figuring this out. And I don't know, you may go through different seasons of time knowing what kind of drink person you are. In general, I'm a lightweight, meaning I have one or two drinks and that's a wrap for me.

Amena Brown:

I also realized I don't always pace myself very well on how quickly I am taking on the drink, so that might be an issue too. But I want to announce to you all something that I have discovered about myself. I wanted to share it with you. I have discovered that I am a cocktail lady. I thought for a while that I was a wine lady kind of like how, when you're watching Real Housewives, almost all of the franchises, it's all built around, at some point, somebody in somebody's house gathering around a glass of wine. And I was like, maybe I am this lady.

Amena Brown:

But I have discovered through a home-made mojito that I am a cocktail lady. I enjoy it. There's all this creativity that you can put into it. There are these herbs and fruits and essence of the this and that, that you can pair with it. So I would like your favorite cocktail recipes. I would like you to hit me up on the socials and tell me, what are your favorite cocktails, and what are your favorite cocktail recipes?

Amena Brown:

Because this pandemic time, and we still are in a pandemic, everyone, just wanted to say that out loud in case it's hard to remember, but we are still in the middle of a pandemic, so we are still needing to try our best to not have to go out a lot for unnecessary things. We are also needing to try our best to wear a mask when we are not at home. And for some of us, even when you are at home, depending on who else lives with you, you might have certain moments that may require you to wear a mask. But yes, I just want to say that out loud because sometimes, people forget that we're in a pandemic.

Amena Brown:

So anyway, during this pandemic time, I have had to learn how to be a part of making some things from home. So I tried a mojito from home, and you all, this is great. These mint leaves with the rum, and I tried one with the strawberries, the lime juice, I mean, so I'm a cocktail lady. I feel like in my older, seasoned age, I hope I find myself just having a rum and Coke in the evening sometimes. That is who I am. So which one are you? Are you more of a cocktails person? Are you more of a wine or beer person? Or are you a person that's like, none of these for me, and here is my drink that I have that comforts me.

Amena Brown:

Sometimes for me, that's just a sparkling water. I didn't think that I was going to be a person that loves sparkling water. I'm not a LaCroix person, but there are some others like sparkling water brands that I really like, and I didn't think that I would get into that because I was like, why would you want to have something that tastes like a soda, but it's minus all the things that make a soda delicious? So that was my response to sparkling water at first, but now, I'm totally on board. That can be a very comforting drink to have at the end of the day. So let me know your thoughts. I want your cocktail recipes, and I want to know which type of drink is your drink for comfort? Share with me.

Amena Brown:

So I want to talk about something that I have experienced, that many people have experienced, and that is being broke. And I want to talk about being broke because being broke can also be a great place to build your creativity and innovation. And if you've ever been broke, you know this is true because being broke forces you to have to think about what you can do with the little bit of money that you might have. And maybe you're listening and you're like, I don't know what being broke is.

Amena Brown:

Being broke is the gap between the money you make and the bills and expenses you have to pay. And to the extent that that is sizable is to the extent of how broke you are. And I experienced being broke growing up sometimes, I also experienced being broke in my adulthood. And I feel like that brokenness hit me differently because it was up to me to feed myself. So I want to talk about in particular, the food lessons that I have learned from being broke.

Amena Brown:

One of the things that learned is how to replicate dishes from my favorite restaurants because when you're broke, you can't afford to be eating out like that. So one of the first dishes I learned how to make was Maggiano's Chicken Marsala, because I was like, this dish is delicious. However, I only have $20 to make it the next two weeks, which means I can't blow my $20 on one dish of chicken Marsala. So, that is how I learned how to make that. And it actually was not that hard to make, and for close to the price of what you would pay for the one dish at Maggiano's, you got a whole meal for yourself that you could eat a few days. Let's talk about that.

Amena Brown:

Also, I learned to replicate one of my favorite fast food drinks, Sonic Drive-in's Limeade. Sonic has a lot of nostalgic feelings with me because my high school in San Antonio, Texas, shout out to San Antonio, shout out to Judson High School, my high school was across the street from a Sonic. So I went to that same Sonic my first date ever. And we would go to that Sonic and hang out after school all the time. So I have a lot of great memories of that limeade.

Amena Brown:

And you might be saying, limeades are not that expensive. Yeah, but when you're broke and you're having to choose between keeping the lights on or going out to eat a bunch of fast food, then you will learn quickly that maybe a can of Shasta and one container of strawberries and one lime can get you further maybe than you going and buying a limeade every time you want one. Also, being broke taught me the food lesson of making the cheapest but most filling meals possible. And I have to give an extra shout out to my grandma on this because my grandma taught me the power of the salad.

Amena Brown:

And I don't mean the salad that has lettuce in it. I'm talking about the salad that's basically the base of it is like eggs, Mayo or Miracle Whip, depending on how you are, where you were raised, et cetera, relish, but you can add all sorts of other proteins to this. So the basic one is the egg salad where it's just chopped up boiled eggs, relish, and Mayo, basically. But put that on some toasted bread and I'm just telling you, it is a life changing moment. It is very delicious. Then if you have the means, you can also do a tuna fish salad. Same situation as the egg salad. Now, you're just adding tuna into that. If you have a little more means, chicken salad.

Amena Brown:

So my grandma taught me these things because that's something you can pull together real cheap. I know we're still in a pandemic time. If you even have that rotisserie chicken, you can cut that up, make some chicken salad. The purpose of what you want to be doing when money is low but mouths must be fed is you want to be thinking about what you can make most cheaply that can last the longest amount of time. So I learned these initial lessons from my grandmother, I took them on into my little first apartment. I remember when I was living in my first apartment ever, I think I was about 27 years old, and my apartment had faux granite and I was very proud of that faux granite.

Amena Brown:

I was super, super proud of it. I remember when people would come over and I would have just enough money to buy one container of orange juice. And then they'd come over, you're trying to offer them something to drink. They pour a tall glass of juice, and I feel tight in my chest because I'm like, could you have just gotten like a shortcut? And then I don't know if you've ever experienced this where you invited somebody over to your home, they pour something to drink, but then they don't drink the whole thing?

Amena Brown:

And if you have ever been to the level of broke where you were just so pissed that now this half drunk glass of juice that you paid for ... It really brought home to me the things that my mother was dealing with at home because when you're a teenager, you just walking around, taking a bite out of stuff, leaving it, forgetting about it. But getting your own place and get a job and realize how much of a struggle it is just to buy those things, that those things that when you were growing up were like basics at home are now like a luxury at your house.

Amena Brown:

So what am I saying to you? If you find yourself in a broke or in a financially lean moment, there are ways you can use this to bring out your own creativity. Make up some different meals. You can bring out some innovation. Figure out some ways to do this for the low, low, low, but let it build your creativity because you're going to need them skills. You're going to need to know how to make a lot out of a little bit. And that is our lesson for the day.

Amena Brown:

This week, I'm really excited to welcome Ifeoma Ike to our HER living room. Ifeoma's interview was completed prior to the pandemic, but I believe that the things that she has to say are so timely because of the work that she's done inside of the system of our government, as well as outside, and how we can affect change, whether we find ourselves inside the system of government or outside the system of government. So as we are leading up to election season, let's get some tips and some wisdom from Ifeoma Ike. Check out our conversation.

Amena Brown:

So first of all, let me tell you all that Ify and I are a great Facebook story, and apparently, right now Facebook needs some good stories. So we are a good Facebook story because we actually met at an event in New York. This was over 10 years ago.

Ifeoma Ike:

It was.

Amena Brown:

I feel crazy to even say that, Ify.

Ifeoma Ike:

It was because wow, I've been an attorney this year for 10 years. So I met you while I was in law school.

Amena Brown:

Wow. Yeah, we met at an event, which I forgot that we met there. I just think that Ify is amazing. And I've been watching her posts and all this amazing work she's been doing in New York, in DC, and there was one time I commented and you commented back. I was like, oh my God, she commented back to me. So I've been really-

Ifeoma Ike:

It was respectful admiration. It could have easily been shocking if neither one of us liked each other, but it was a respect, like oh, dope, Amena the poet knows me? Okay. Of course, I'll respond back. So yeah, it was definitely mutual. If you were definitely somebody that I couldn't take, I'd be like, security, I'd like to report flag on the field.

Amena Brown:

So it's so funny that when I was writing, Ify, to be like, hey girl, I want to interview you for this podcast. But I think I was like, I don't know if you know me, but we have these mutual friends and I have so much respect for this work you've been doing. And if she's reading the message, girl, I met you at this event in New York. Goodbye. So I'm so glad.

Ifeoma Ike:

[crosstalk 00:16:24]. I was like, "Girl, you know me." And you were like, "Really?" And then I thought about it and I was like, "Well yeah, you know me like we knew each other if we was waiting in a long line at Starbucks," which we'll get to in a second. But yeah, it was one of those, I guess first impressions. As cheesy as it sounds, first impressions, I feel like on both ends were so great. So I'm so grateful that you asked me to be on your podcast. And congratulations, just excited for you and your show.

Amena Brown:

I was like, I have to get Ify on here to talk about The Body Politic, which if you're not familiar with this term, The Body Politic is basically to imagine that our political landscape is itself a body.

Ifeoma Ike:

Yes.

Amena Brown:

That it is all interconnected. And hopefully, we want to approach that in a communal way. Ify will tell us how that's going. I'd love to start with an origin story. And I am curious to hear from you, this career that you've had in government, and law, and policy, and politics, if you imagined that life for yourself when you were young, like I remember when I was about eight years old, I was a latchkey kid. Some of you all are like, what's a latchkey.

Amena Brown:

Anyway, this is when your parents work in and they are like, I will not be able to pick you up from school. You will get yourself home from the bus or you will walk home. I will give you this key. And my mom threatened me within an inch of my life like, "When you get into the house, you're going to lock the door. I don't want nobody in my house. You're going to watch TV for 30 minutes, you're going to that homework, you're going to eat those snacks I got from Sam's, and I'm going to see you when I get home."

Amena Brown:

Now, a couple of times I spent my 30 minutes of TV watching Eddie Murphy's Delirious on VHS. Now, this is not for eight year olds, but it is one of the first moments as a kid that I was watching that man on stage with a microphone and a stool and there was something in me going, that is something I want to do. Did you have a moment like that as your younger self, or did this become this other iteration later in your life?

Ifeoma Ike:

So it's weird. It's also why I hate titles because I feel like my origin story as far as being an attorney is probably different than my origin story of a lot of other things that I feel like I am as well, including before I went to law school, I was in grad school for research. So I thought I was going to be a psychologist. And even before I went there and even up until now, there's a whole different community of folks that know me as a writer and an artist. So I feel like my path to law was one of both accident, and then one of obviously, divine something or else. So to say, I don't know if I should be credited as much as actually taking the right steps towards becoming a lawyer.

Ifeoma Ike:

I would be lying though if I didn't say that the influence of Clair Huxtable is not real in my life. Clair Huxtable was probably one of the more eloquent debaters. She mastered the art of debating without letting you even debate. If she was correct, then that actually just ended the conversation. And in a Nigerian household where the only thing that ends up conversation was my father, who I still believe is the original lawyer in my family, I think I've always been a nerdy kid and I always had a lot of information, but I was always looking for, what are the examples of people that could beat my father?

Ifeoma Ike:

And I'm pretty sure Clair Huxtable could beat, I'm pretty sure Felicia Rashad to this day could beat my father and an argument. And that gives me so much joy. So I would say that looking back, that was probably a very subliminal messaging tool that just allowed me to at least know that I could do it. That I, at least knew I could debate. And grown up in an immigrant family as the oldest of five, our journeys are often not as discussed, and I think especially when you're in a Nigerian household and people talk about like, oh, you guys are ... Well, depending on who you talk to, we're either really brilliant, or we're the senders of an email scam that on behalf of my community, I'm sorry.

Ifeoma Ike:

But I will say that there are all these assumptions that you have to have been well off, you have to have always been great in all of your subjects, math and science had to have been your strongest subjects. And I will say that math and science were actually strong. Math more than science. Math was a strong subject for me all through my life. Science, not so much. And it actually wasn't until high school that I actually started literally becoming this lover of all things science. And I think the combination of math, science, and of course, my love for art and literature is that in many sense, all of them are extremely logical.

Ifeoma Ike:

Even in the fluidity of art, even if it's just logical to the maker, it's still logical. And I just wanted to be a part of something that made sense. I loved solving problems. So geometry was amazing because geometry, to me, was like Tetris. Like, okay, well, if this is a square, prove it. And so that, I think coupled with the fact that as I got older and became a little bit more socially aware of my being, first my Blackness, then my immigrantness, then my poorness, I will say that it actually took some time, and we'll talk about this later, for me to also add what gender and orientation and all those things, how they played into my life.

Ifeoma Ike:

Because if we're honest with ourselves, as Black girls, we're not often taught about the injustices that we face as girls, we're taught the injustices we face as Black people. So that was very prominent for me. And I was always looking with how to address those issues, but I also happened to be an environment where I wasn't necessarily with other people that I would consider today as comrades. So I went undergrad and grad school in West Virginia University, not exactly the backdrop of diversity.

Ifeoma Ike:

And that was difficult because I'm involved in a lot of students leadership stuff, but I wasn't necessarily around colleagues or even friends that looked like me that were there to want to address the issues. And I started realizing that we can all be aware, but I wasn't comfortable being aware and not conscious. And I think that that's something that can happen. You can be aware of an issue, that doesn't make you cautious.

Ifeoma Ike:

Fast-forward, during law school, my grandmother was murdered, she was murdered in Nigeria, and that tripped me out because I had a lot of questions for my parents. And I remember asking, "Who's going to investigate this?" And they both gave me this look like, what the heck are you talking about? And that's when I think my global awareness was at least highlighted to know that every country doesn't have at least the tools or the words on paper like we have in the United States. And for those that even have that, because their situations and their traditions and norms are just as corruptible, just corrupted in a different way, that I also didn't have.

Ifeoma Ike:

I wasn't equipped to know who to call in Nigeria to be like, "Can you investigate the murder of my grandmother?" So in a weird way, I kind of always knew that law and justice are not the same thing, and I'm also very clear that we've never really seen justice in the way that it's romanticized as something that's an outlet that all people deserve.

Ifeoma Ike:

But I do think that I've always been interested in A, understanding the foundations of this thing called justice that I think, in a lot of ways, American-ness is like it romanticizes it, and then B, sharing that knowledge with other communities and recognizing that whether it's law or research, which was its own space of frustration, that our communities are severely either underrepresented as subject matters or were underestimated as far as service.

Ifeoma Ike:

So it's kind of a tricky route how I got there. I think when I was younger, I felt like I was going to ... I remember distinctly saying I was going to be a doctor. Half of my scholarships for undergrad were in engineering and the other half were in pharmacy. So I was definitely always that confused kids. I also write with both hands. So I'm always confused. I'm always like, no, I want to of course jump a rope and solve this physics problem at the same damn time. I'm always all over the place.

Ifeoma Ike:

But I think law at least keeps me grounded as to understanding the rules as it's been presented to us, and then finding ways to disrupt the same system that we've been told to be in love with. And that's a challenge. And I don't even think I've mastered that. I feel like I'm still in that process, but that is kind of my origin story as far as law.

Amena Brown:

Tell me more about law school. I'm going to be really honest that I do have some friends that went to law school, but I was not close with them during the time they were in law school. So law school, in my mind, it's like a combination of LA Law. And what finals was like in undergrad, but all the time. How you would feel when it was finals in undergrad. People are not showering and they're running around shuffling papers and going to Kinko's. Somebody is like, what's a Kinko's? Okay. But just a lot of like papers and busyness of things. And that's basically all I imagined when my friends were like, I'm going to law school.

Amena Brown:

And I'm also curious, when we talk about education and we think about those postgraduate degrees, how the further we get along in our education, the less we see women sometimes, the less we see people of color or women of color. So what was that experience like for you making this choice now to go to law school and being a woman, being a Black woman, being a woman of color? How did you experience that through those different layers of who you are?

Ifeoma Ike:

That's a really amazing question. And I would actually love to hear this response from other colleagues that I went to law school with, and even people that have contemplated going to law school as far as what decisions matter to them when they go to school. So I applied to 13 different law schools. I got in to 11, which is to say, I wasn't really picky with the exception of two, one of which was Howard, and the other one was where I ended up going to, which was CUNY Law School. CUNY Law School is known as the only public interest law school with all of the accredited laws.

Ifeoma Ike:

And based off of even what I just told you, I felt like off-mission. As somebody who wanted to use law to advance the progress for all peoples, it was a no brainer. And it was in New York. It was in New York, that year was a best buy, you're Googling and you're seeing this school's connected to the largest public legal clinic to citizens of New York, which largely serves marginalized and underrepresented communities. Everything checks the box. This is it. This is probably the furthest thing from where I went to undergrad and grad school. CUNY Law also prided itself in being diverse, which mattered to me on paper. I will say that law school as an institution, I don't care where you go, is a very hostile place.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Ifeoma Ike:

It is hostile. It doesn't mean you can't have fun, and I would say, even if you went to an HBCU Law School, which is where my sister went, she went to NCCU, that it still has things that as a Black person, you almost have to stop, take a breather, and be like, what's actually happening. Are they reprogramming me? Because law is a new language.

Ifeoma Ike:

And that's the thing that people don't understand, is that there are words that they throw out like prima facie, and [inaudible 00:29:32], and even words that we use all the time, like that's my MO, which stands for modus operandi and what that means in criminal law. You are literally learning a new language, but you are also, in many ways, learning a culture.

Ifeoma Ike:

And when you're in a space where you're learning so much information and a culture, you don't have a lot of moments to stop and question either. Like why are some of these things called the way that they're called? Or why are there certain exceptions or certain procedures that apply to criminal court cases that don't apply to civil court cases?

Ifeoma Ike:

And how do those distinctions impact a system that over-incarcerates people of color? Things like that. You're there trying to figure out how you're going to get out semester by semester. Not even in three years. The three years actually goes by really quickly. It's the semester by semester feeling that you accurately mentioned is like a perpetual. You feel like you're being tested every day.

Ifeoma Ike:

So CUNY Law was progressive, but like most schools, was not equitable. They still had some racial issues. They still had some tensions between wanting to stand for social justice, but then also conforming to these traditional standards that all law schools have. And I would say they lacked racial and ethnic diversity with teachers. Although, if you were to ask them, I think that they felt like they were doing, and they probably were doing better than most other schools outside of HBCU law schools.

Ifeoma Ike:

This year marks my 10-year graduation from law school. And I am frequently asked to speak at my JD at alma mater. I also went to GW in DC for my LLM. But I speak to students and I tell them the truth when I'm asked about my experience, but I also tell them that it's not that much better anywhere else. In some ways, it's like you kind of got to grin and bear it. You will have amazing opportunities. You'll build a tribe. You'll build a squad.

Ifeoma Ike:

One of my independent studies while in law school had actually nothing to do with a legal concept. It actually had to do with the admissions criteria into law school. And why we rely so heavily on the LSAT as the tool to get us into law school, even though it has not been shown as a highly necessary tool on the other side, which is when you're applying for the bar. And it's also interesting what criteria we don't use to admit students into law school, like oral advocacy and debating, which people of color clearly, that's a skill that any kid down the street has already mastered before they're even at the age of 10.

Ifeoma Ike:

So I really question what that means as far as the larger establishment, the larger accrediting body who are the types of individuals that you actually want to be successful on the other side. And there are all these screening criteria, but both overt and covert that work together to basically funnel out this group of individuals that society isn't even aware of. As a student, you're not even aware of that you have been selected for a reason, and that also means that there have been other people that have not. So, I mean, other than that, I feel like for those that are considering going to a law school, be clear upfront that you want to be a leader when you go in.

Ifeoma Ike:

And it doesn't have to be a loud leader, it doesn't have to be a formal leader, but there are things that being in law school at a time where Katrina happened, at a time where Sean Bell was killed, he was actually killed very close to where our law school was at, and for you all listeners, Sean Bell was the young man who was killed the morning of his wedding in Queens, New York, our school at that time was in Queens, New York, so our mind set, the location we were at, Art Street where our law school was, was a post-911 checkpoint.

Ifeoma Ike:

So many of the men of color were late every day to class because they were just getting stopped and frisked before they got into the classroom. Being in that type of a backdrop, we recognized that we are in law school, but it doesn't negate the fact that we are human first. We are people of color. We are impacted by the things that impact our clients. And we were going to make sure that we used our space within the law school to further build our advocacy skills. So definitely, a mixed bag as far as feelings about law school. But it definitely was a good, I guess, testing ground for myself, who was interested in advocacy.

Amena Brown:

One of the things I hear in that story and that I also hear reflected in PoliTea, so for those of you who have not subscribed, listen now and subscribe to PoliTea. You need to do this. But one of the things that you and Turquoise have talked about is the importance of affecting change. And that sometimes when we are entering what we're thinking, this is a field where I will be able to affect change, that sometimes there are things that happen that in a PR way, or in a thing that looked good for a photograph or looked good on a video, but actually didn't change anything for the people who are really being impacted by the way our laws are set up.

Amena Brown:

So I want to ask you, as an attorney and activist, you have been a part of affecting change while working inside of the government system, which takes its own sense of grace to even do because you're affecting change inside of a system that wasn't built for everyone and is broken in a lot of ways. But you are going inside there to affect change. And you also have done work where you have worked to affect change outside of that system. So what's it like to have both of those experiences to affect change inside of a system and outside of it as well?

Ifeoma Ike:

So I am blessed that I can say that there are certain things that I have done that have visibly changed something in the lives of people that I know, communities that maybe were under-discussed or under-prioritized in certain spaces. I will say that. And I often caution people as to how we measure change because sometimes, if we don't see things moving fast enough, we think that change is not happening.

Ifeoma Ike:

And I think, in a lot of ways, some of what was happening around the larger movement for Black lives was that people, especially those who weren't at all in part of the movement, but people that I would like to say were more so spectators and watching on the sides, understandably part of what they were watching was there is a different measure of what change looks like.

Ifeoma Ike:

When you are saying this in an instance where you are a Black person in America, your reality of your day-to-day being profiled, being second-guessed at work, microaggressions, all of those things happen on a daily basis. So the type of change you're looking for is something that in a lot of ways erases all of the negative Black experiences that you're going through. And anything short of that is not change at all. For somebody who feels like they are called to do something about that, you can be really, really dismayed and disheartened if that is the measure of what change is for you.

Ifeoma Ike:

And it doesn't mean that that isn't your goal, but I think for me, I've always kept in mind that again, being logical, we can be really logical about one thing, and I feel like it's the question that I start with before I decide if I'm going to enter a space or not. And that question is Ify or Ify as my parents would call me, Ify, when you go into a space, what will be different after you leave than when you came? And I think in some ways, this is also a question that many advocates and activists don't ask themselves before they do certain activities.

Ifeoma Ike:

I'll throw out an activity that's commonly used. For example, conferences. People have conferences all the time. And I have definitely been at some extremely powerful conferences. But I've also really questioned the concept of conferences. If conferences are there and marketed as something that is there to promote change, and yet after the conference is gone, other than providing money to maybe small businesses in the area, which is very, very impactful, and then of course internally, the networking that people have with each other, are we affecting the change that we're advertising?

Ifeoma Ike:

That to me is a valid question that we all should be asking ourselves about our own personal activities and our collective activities that are happening. And some of our activities that are actually not collective, to be honest with you, you can have a lot of busy people doing a lot of things. You can have a lot of busy bees, but if those bees ain't bringing in honey, then they're not affecting the change that's supposed to happen in that ecosystem.

Ifeoma Ike:

So I think that one of the things that I know about myself, which is sometimes not always a positive thing, is that I am number one impatient with injustice, I am an empath, which is akin to being a sensitive person, I'm highly just sensitive to certain things, but I also do believe that I am empowered. For me as a person of faith, I believe I am empowered by God. And I also believe that those around me can be too. And as somebody who believes that God is the ultimate artist and the ultimate creator, that means that I am not afraid.

Ifeoma Ike:

Even if I fail forward, I'm not afraid to create something if it allows for other people to be creative about our change. And I think that's what it is, as that I think that the answers to the changes we want to see force us to not necessarily use the tools that exist, but to be creative about what doesn't. So I'm more excited about creating spaces, whether it was simply just putting a hashtag called hoodies on the hill on my G-Chat when G-Chat used to be the thing.

Amena Brown:

Come on G-Chats.

Ifeoma Ike:

Come on G-Chats, that you wasn't supposed to be doing at work. Being just this lowly judicial staffer on the judiciary committee in Congress and seeing my friends status messages changing because mindset Hoodies On The Hill, and this was all in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin. And everybody's status message just started changing to Hoodies On The Hill. And then I was getting messages like, when are we doing this? I could have easily just respond and be like, this is just how I feel. This is just a status message. Nope. 18 hours later, we organized the first congressional walk out of folks that were just ...

Ifeoma Ike:

It was hot, 80 degree weather, but we all had our hoodies and we really wanted to stand there to be like, if the only impact we're making here is that you recognize that when you pass a Black staffer, that we easily could have been Trayvon, that our family members could have been Trayvon, and we're not going to let this issue be something that people are going to just say under their breath, oh, it's so sad what happened to that young Black boy in Florida. It wasn't going to happen. So, that to me was about creating something that the space in our 9:00 to 5:00 just didn't allow for, it didn't have before we entered into that space.

Ifeoma Ike:

Two years ago now. Wow. Two years ago when a group of women came together, a group of seven of us, one of which we were fortunate to link up with Sandra Bland's sister, Sharon Cooper, we came together and we were like, you know what? We can't just keep having hashtags. At that time, hashtag Say Her Name was the hashtag that people were using when a woman of color was killed. We can't just keep talking about the inequities of Black women and girls. We actually need to create a space for it.

Ifeoma Ike:

And had a little bit of knowledge of how to create that kind of space from creating similar spaces in Congress. We worked collectively with three amazing chairs in Congress, Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, Congresswoman Robin Kelly, and all of us happened to be members of Divine Nine organizations in solidarity with Sandra Bland also was a member of SGRho because that's what hit home to us was that she literally could have been any of us. She was stopped on her way from a job interview that could have been ...

Ifeoma Ike:

Literally, everything about Sandra Bland really gets under my skin because it's like even within our own communities, we make exceptions for who the Black person or who the victim is of crime. And sometimes without knowing it, we create differences between ourselves. But Sandra Bland was no different than really any Black woman in America. And we urge them to create what is now the congressional caucus on Black women and girls.

Ifeoma Ike:

And anytime I am asked to come speak or help collaborate, or I'm just in that space, or I'm invited to one of the member's district events in their districts and I see the floods of women, girls, men, non-gender conforming individuals just wanting a space to talk about their issues with elected officials that now are going to carry their issues with them on their backs as their burdens, it really kind of trips me out.

Ifeoma Ike:

What were we doing before this? Our issues just weren't as much in the front and center before this. So anyway, I could ramble and ramble and ramble about it, but I do think that for people that feel like I want to make change, let me tell you where my change making started. I didn't know nothing about nothing when people were talking about, for us, I think it was called recycling. We've now evolved to say climate change. But the whole recycling era for any of the folks that are part of the 80s babies crew, recycling was a big thing. You got to put your cans, you got to put your papers here and whatever.

Ifeoma Ike:

And I remember feeling like, oh, this is huge. How do I get people around me to talk about it more? And I made a little crossword puzzle because I was infatuated with crossword puzzles, and decided to start making games around it to share with people my age because I figured we like games, to just help them understand what terms are around recycling. It didn't really go far because ain't nobody in the hood trying to really give two craps about pollution. To be very honest, we had bigger issues at that time. But I was less concerned about whether or not I would be received, I was more concerned about how I could then connect with more people about something that may just not be that interesting.

Ifeoma Ike:

And I think that is the challenge of the today advocate. It is just as important for us to break down the tax bill that just got passed in December as it is to talk about patrons in Starbucks being asked to leave. Excuse me, asked to leave would have been polite. Being arrested for being Black while waiting for their friend at a Starbucks. Both are just as important, one may just be a little bit more complicated.

Ifeoma Ike:

And so I do think that in many spaces, those who are effective at connecting with communities that are impacted by policies that maybe they don't know about, we need to start almost deploying troops into other categories so we can better explain these issues, so that all of our people can be informed, and that it can maybe spark something in somebody who's like, you know what? I do want to make a difference. I just need more information about how. Right?

Amena Brown:

Yeah. Oh, that's so good. And it makes me think about how even hearing you describe some of this, how politics is a language. I think you said that politics is a language. Law is a language. And some people are more privy than others to what the language is, to how to interpret that, to how to discern what's being said. I was telling you earlier how, when I was growing up, I was going to these AP classes and we would have our English AP class have a current events assignment where you had to write about a current event or something.

Amena Brown:

And I would watch all my other classmates come in and share their interpretations of this current event that they pulled from, like The Wall Street Journal and US News and World Report. These publications that some I had heard of, some I hadn't. In my house, my mom ... I mean, we had different things. We had James Baldwin and Tony Morrison and Alice Walker. That was more my mom's stuff that she read.

Amena Brown:

But I remember them talking about some of those things and discussing the law and discussing how they were interpreting what they read, and feeling really intimidated because I didn't understand a word they said, or because I would not have known how to articulate that. Why is it important, particularly for marginalized people to understand politics, to understand what it is that's happening?

Ifeoma Ike:

So one of the things that I hope everyone who's listening to this show, if they haven't been affirmed ever before, I want to affirm to everyone that's listening that whether you understand politics or not, you yourself as a being are political. If you accept that you are political, then you are entitled, and you are more than welcomed to act within that political framework, which means also empowering yourself with more information. But also recognize that even if you don't have the language, your experience is enough.

Ifeoma Ike:

So even as you were speaking, one of the things that I find that's so interesting and politicized is data. Everybody wants us to talk about data. Now we have Twitter, and you can literally select within an hour, see tweets that come from Newsweek, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Center for American Progress. You could see research and research upon research from experts that are paid to basically, in the space of like sociopolitical context, to give analysis on domestic issues that impact our lives. Those people are seen as experts. Those people are seen as the ones that they did the research, they ran the numbers. That is what we typically would call quantitative data.

Ifeoma Ike:

But we also have qualitative data. And what is interesting about every headline that I see, when it's like 40% of millennials don't see race or studies show that Black women are treated differently at the doctors, ask any Kesha, Pam, Lil' Kim that you know, Serena Williams that you know, and they'll be like yeah, been told you all that. And the problem is nobody captures the yeah, I've been told you that. Yeah, I've been told you that is data. That is a survey. That is qualitative data. You all are only getting paid to affirm what we've been telling you all since the beginning of time.

Ifeoma Ike:

So for me, we need to devise a different way to invite people as the political beings that they are. As a Black woman, as a Black man from an immigrant family, I have no choice but to be political. I also recognize my privilege of first of all, growing up in a house where for years and years on end, we didn't even have cable. And the only thing we could watch was Thursday nights because it was the Cosby Show and A Different World, maybe a little bit of Friday nights, depending on how my dad felt when family matters came out. But everything else was PBS and news. That was it.

Ifeoma Ike:

So I was privileged to be there with a dad, which I will say for your viewers because I'm not afraid to say it, who is a conservative. For the longest, I was being groomed with that mindset. I was being taught and basically being brainwashed. And we're all being taught by someone. If you're not actively teaching yourself, you're being taught by something. And it wasn't until I started doing my own research that I'm like, some of these policies don't really help us as a people.

Ifeoma Ike:

This isn't really the thing. But I do think that to your question of, how important is it for us to be political and understand the political language, it does require being uncomfortable sometimes and being immersed in spaces where literally, all that's happening is the words around you, even if they sound like jumble, they are swarming your presence.

Ifeoma Ike:

And so part of the reason why Turquoise and I created PoliTea was not necessarily because we want it to sound like the most eloquent people in the world, not because we wanted it to sound like everything we were saying was per se fact, we wanted to invite people as they are, as we are. We wake up and do it at 5:45 in the morning. So bless your heart. There's a lot of truth that comes in at that time because we haven't had time to code switch yet.

Ifeoma Ike:

So we wake up intentionally as two Black women with all of our experiences, all of our education and lack thereof, to talk about issues that we feel like are interesting. And we hope that other people get to hear it and be like, huh, maybe I'll Google it later. And we are encouraged when we do hear that people are like, I didn't know that. That we feel like is some type of change. Just that spark.

Ifeoma Ike:

To your point really quickly before we transition to talk about how political our lives are, there's a really great study that talks about the number of words an average White kid listens to just from the mere fact of two White parents versus what a Black kid listens to regardless of whether they have one parent, two parents, what have you. And that study is compelling to me because what they're talking about is the influence without a child even thinking that words can have, that exposure can have.

Ifeoma Ike:

So those Toni Morrison books impacted you because you were exposed, even if you only knew that the books were on the wall or that Song of Solomon was over here and The Fire Next Time was over there, and Beloved was over there. Even if these were the books that your mom was like, you better not touch these books, the fact that they were there says something to you. So I do think that one of the things we have to do is identify the politics and everything, including what we're exposed to.

Ifeoma Ike:

Not just what's on MSNBC, not just what's on CNN, not just what's on Fox News, even though what's on Fox News is at Israeli News, but whatever, to really identify that everything in our lives is political. And therefore, we have to participate in both the politicized nature of the way our social constructs impact us, but also the ways that we too can empower our political being to counter those narratives.

Amena Brown:

Ify isn't just speaking a word.

Ifeoma Ike:

Sorry, you all.

Amena Brown:

I'm on here like, quotes on quotes. I'm trying to get me a mug that says yeah, I've been told you that. I really need that on a mug. We're in an age right now that politically, in our country, it's fascinating, it's heartbreaking, it's hard, it's a lot of things right now. And not that it has not been hard because we know it has. But there are some interesting things right now about in particular, this political era that we're in. What would you say are some of the ways marginalized people should make their voices heard?

Amena Brown:

I think sometimes when you're in an era like we're in, sometimes people end up in an extreme. Either they are like, oh my gosh, I have to sell all my possessions and I have to just go and protest every day. I need to boycott everyone and everything, and either go to this way extreme. Or go to this other extreme of nothing I do matters anyway. Nothing that I do is going to change anything. What would you say are some of the ways marginalized people should resist, should fight, should make sure that our voices are heard?

Ifeoma Ike:

Some practical ways, and even some of the examples that I uplifted, none of those things were done in isolation. So finding your team, even identifying the people that when you yourself are discouraged, you need to be poured into is really, really important. Collaboration can be really, really hard in a capitalist society that also values this whole independent entrepreneurial blah, blah, blah, that shares the lies of the bootstraps without thinking about who had to make the boot and who had to make the straps.

Ifeoma Ike:

So recognizing that you yourself can make a difference, can make change, and think about what would happen if 10 of you made that change. And don't necessarily focus on the 25 others that don't want to change with you because I think sometimes that's also what holds people back is being discouraged that the whole choir can't sing. Well, part of the choir problem, they shouldn't be singing and that's probably not their gifting.

Ifeoma Ike:

And so it's really about being confident about your calling, but also being humble enough to know that while there are things that are unique to you, dare to believe that there are other people that also feel the same way and are just as impassioned about this issue as you are. And then form some type of a discipline in activism. So if that's going to meetings, going to NAACP meetings, and I'm not condoning any groups, I'm just throwing out examples, going to a Black Lives Matter student rally, going to a Muslim-American anti-Islamophobia session.

Ifeoma Ike:

Or just doing something that I really admire about the Black Panthers that I wish we would get back to, which is having community quiet, sit down, reading time, where they would actually just come together with their newspapers and just sit and read. And that's how they got caught up on their current events, sitting and reading and just digesting. And it reminds me of, for those of us who grew up with newspapers, what it meant to see your mother or your father sitting at the table and just reading the newspaper and just taking that information in.

Ifeoma Ike:

I do think that there is a little bit of more discipline that we should be promoting about disciplining your advocacy muscle. And all of it is not just about rushing out and doing something. Everything is about perspective. So looking at what it means to win and don't let other people define wins for you. Recognizing that effort is valuable. And also recognize that teamwork is really huge in how you accomplish and get to whatever goals you want to see.

Ifeoma Ike:

I will say that in a society that is not going to, and especially for marginalized communities, and I can only speak for the communities that I belong to, which are quite a few, in a society that's not necessarily going to give you anything, what I appreciate about your podcast, what I appreciate about PoliTea is that, look, we don't have to be the only ones doing this. There are so many free tools out there to allow you to let your voice be heard, let the voices of other people be heard.

Ifeoma Ike:

Use that phone that you pay all that money every month for and take videos of what is going on in your community. If you want to sing about it, do it through song. If it's visually, do it visually. If you're a really good event organizer, try to find some space. Maybe it's the local Y, maybe it's the boys and girls club. Invite people in your community to use art as a way to express all of their hurt and their dreams. My inclination is to create. So it's always about, how do we create spaces for other people so that they can also be creative and they can also identify solutions?

Ifeoma Ike:

The last thing I will say, and this is kind of getting to that extreme end that you had of people that are like, I'm going to boycott everything. I am going to caveat this and say, I am no longer in this space of telling people that as long as we all do something good in the spaces that we're in, we'll see change, we'll make a difference. I dream often of what it would look like if we all did things that were simple yet radical. What would happen if every Black person who was eligible voted? Oh my God. What would really happen if we actually all voted, and all voted all the time?

Ifeoma Ike:

Does that mean that "the man" is not going to change the rules and the system again? Absolutely not. The man is still going to be the man. But what would happen if the thing that they're spending so much money to make sure we can't do, what would happen if we did that thing? What would happen if we did all boycott? So I will say that while, no, my goal as an advocate is not to necessarily organize so that we are at 100% full participation, but I do want people to envision.

Ifeoma Ike:

To take the boycott even further, and not just stop at the boycott and the impact that it's going to have to capitalism. But to really envision what that means creatively for us. Is that the new Wall Street? Does that mean that we have to fill in the gaps of practical needs, like, okay, if we boycott Nike, what does that mean for [inaudible 00:59:32]? Well, think about it. What does that mean that we're going to support? What are our new principles? What are our new values?

Ifeoma Ike:

And so I don't see boycotts as us giving up something, as in as much as us unlearning what we thought we needed to have and filling it in with something else, something us, something closer to treating us as a community as humans. So I say that and encourage folks that I do think it's going to require more of us to get uncomfortable. I don't think you can stay at your cushy job for the rest of your ... I think there are periods and times in life where you have to do that because economically, that makes sense.

Ifeoma Ike:

But I don't think that all of us going into spaces and relying on our corporate social responsibility officers or our diversity and inclusion teams to come up with a solution is going to create change. I do think people who come from various diverse backgrounds, various diverse experiences, and to an extent, those of us who are privileged in ways that we don't often identify, education and degrees being one of them, that we need to be like, thank you, Lord, for what you have provided me, I am very well aware of what I could take advantage of, but I also am not clouded by what the fight is right now.

Ifeoma Ike:

And I hope to eventually benefit from the fruits of my labor, but I also recognize that because there are so many people that are laboring and not benefiting at all, that that is worthy for me to join in the struggle with that person. So we just have to make choices, and it's okay to be hot or be cold. But I think when you straddle, that's when we have full progress. And we need to stop straddling. We need to just decide if we want change or not. If we want to be free or if we want to be safe. And the two are different.

Amena Brown:

My Lord. You all, my paper over here is full of notes. If you want to be safe. Oh gosh, please. And I love that you said two other phrases that are so powerful. One phrase you said and one idea that you described so well, the phrase you said, simple yet radical. I think that is so powerful because I think sometimes, especially when we are sitting in our comfort, thinking about being radical, we are starting to think about all the things we stand to lose from being radical. But that there are some even simple steps we can begin to take to live a more radical life, which is really more communal life.

Amena Brown:

It's to be in consideration of the people that we are in community with, not just our own losses-wins, however, we define that. And you also described creating as resistance, whether we create art or we create space. That when we create, we resist in justice. And that is so powerful. I hope you all is taking notes. Some of you all are driving. Don't take notes. But when you sit down somewhere, you need to take a note. Please tell the people how they can, first of all, stay connected to the PoliTea Podcast, how they can subscribe and do these things. And if they would also like to follow you, learn about your work, where are the best places they can get connected.

Ifeoma Ike:

With all of our Facebook, Insta, and every podcast outlet that we are on, best place to go to is politeapodcast.com. That's P-O-L-I-T-E-A-P-O-D-C-A-S-T.com. And you can literally get to all of those outlets there, including hearing the latest episode for our podcast. Also, if you want to go straight to Instagram or Twitter, we're @PoliTea_Podcast. We also have a Facebook page. So we ask that you connect with us, you share it. If you agree with us, tweet us. If I said something that's too far, I will deny it. That wasn't me. You're trying to blow me up at no conference. Or be like, what did you say on such and such? It was early. Okay. It was early in the morning. Be graceful.

Amena Brown:

I love it. Ify, thank you so much. For this week's edition of Give Her A Crown, I want to give a crown to Tracy Gates. Tracy Gates is the owner of Busy Bees here in Atlanta, which is my favorite soul food restaurant in Atlanta. And I want to give Tracy Gates a crown because Busy Bees has been a long established, not only a restaurant for just having fabulous food and fabulous soul food, but also being a restaurant that has been so central in the Black community for the Civil Rights Movement, and also, they have just banging fried chicken.

Amena Brown:

I make mac and cheese at my house. I am the person in my family that makes mac and cheese for all family gatherings. And when I have Busy Bees' mac and cheese, I still can't quite figure out why my mac and cheese don't taste like that. So I want to give a special shout out to Tracy Gates. I want to give her a crown for being a Black woman and business owner of one of Atlanta's most legacy soul food restaurants for keeping our cuisine and our culture right at the forefront. Tracy Gates, thank you for doing that, and thank you for making sure that we have a wonderful supply of fantastic dinner rolls, fried chicken, oxtails, ham hock. I could go on. Tracy Gates, you deserve that crown sis.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 2

Amena Brown:

Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of HER With Amena Brown, and I'm your host, Amena Brown. Thank you all so much for joining me for taking this new ride of HER being relaunched under Seneca Women's Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. I'm so excited. I have so many cool ideas I want to share with you all. Thank you for all of the comments you've been giving me on social media, I cannot wait to continue interacting with you all.

Amena Brown:

These episodes release on Tuesdays. So as of the Tuesday that this episode is releasing, we are 27 days from Election Day, and every election is important. And this election is very important. So I want to give you three things to do. Number one, make sure that you register to vote. Number two, check your voter registration. If you are already registered to vote, make sure that you check and make sure your status is current. We are seeing voter suppression happening all over the country here in the States. So make sure that you know that your status is current so that when you go to vote you know that your vote can be counted.

Amena Brown:

And number three, fill out your census. The census is really important. That has been extended until October 31st. So make sure if you have not filled out your census, that you do it, it does not take a long time, took me 10 minutes or less to be able to fill that out online. So let me tell you the sites that you can go to for this. To register to vote and to check your voter registration you can visit, whenweallvote.org. And I just picked this site. It's a good one. There are many great sites as well. So you can pick your favorite site to visit to make sure you are registered to vote, and if you're already registered to check your voter registration status. And in order to fill out your census, you can do this online at my2020census.gov.

Amena Brown:

Now, if you're listening to this and you're like, "Ooh girl, I already did all of those things because I'm on it, because I have it together," I am so glad you do. And your assignment will be to make sure you check with your friends, your family, your close people, check with them, make sure they're registered to vote, make sure their voter registration is current to make sure they have filled out their census. And don't worry if you cannot remember all of these links while you might be driving or cleaning up or whatever you might be doing while you're listening to this podcast, you can always get the links and information about the episodes from the show notes on amenabrown.com, that is /herwithamena. Amenabrown.com/herwithamena. You can check out the show notes there. Let's make sure that we are registered to vote, that you have filled out your census so we can make sure we get our voices heard.

Amena Brown:

I want to talk about some TV shows that are getting me through right now. And I think it's interesting to contemplate the TV shows that get us through certain situations. Like I remember going through a time where I was really, really depressed and what got me through was Real Housewives of Atlanta. Like I had never watched even a whole episode and I just started watching it from the very beginning and as crazy as it might seem, it just brought me a lot of peace of mind to watch it.

Amena Brown:

So as we are in a stressful time for some of us personally and collectively as a community and in our country, I wanted to tell you about a few TV shows that are getting me through right now. Number one, 90 Day Fiancé. And I mean all of them. 90 Day Fiancé, 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days, 90 Day Fiancé: After the 90 Days, 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way, 90 Day Fiancé Two Can Play, 90 Day Fiancé: B90. There's like 1,000 90 Day Fiancés and I am here for all of them, every single one of them.

Amena Brown:

This is the reason why 90 Day Fiancé is really getting me through this stressful time. Number one, if you were looking for an opportunity to yell at other people where they can't hear you, 90 Day Fiancé is a perfect opportunity for that. There are always quite a few people on this show to yell at. It's almost like the feeling I get when I was watching Catfish. And you're just like, you can't tell you being catfished?! Like you feel that urge to yell and save them even though they can't hear anything you have to say.

Amena Brown:

90 Day Fiancé is like that for me. It's just, I think the way I'm feeling about 90 Day Fiancé is maybe how other people feel when they watch a boxing match. It's like it gets out of them their own aggression yelling at the fighters in the ring. And basically 90 Day Fiancé is like that for me. I am yelling at these people. I'm yelling at this man who is trying to date Lana over in Russia somewhere and he refuses to believe that this lady is dodging him after he's been over there three, four, five times and that lady will not meet up with him. And yes, I yell at him. I yell at all of them.

Amena Brown:

So 90 Day Fiancé, yes, I'm here for it. Also while I'm talking about shows I like to yell at, I would like to bring up Married at First Sight. And Married at First Sight, if any of you have been following Married at First Sight from the very beginning, Married at First Sight is getting to a point now where I get to the end of the season, there are always only a small number of couples that actually stay together, and I get to the end and I just feel really lackluster and I feel upset with the experts.

Amena Brown:

And if you're not familiar with Married at First Sight, Married at First Sight is a show where three experts match couples and they don't meet each other right until they get married. And you follow them through their first couple of months being married and then at a certain point, 8 weeks or 10 weeks, however long, they go back to the experts and have to decide, do they stay married or do they get divorced? And at the end of every season, there's always a couple I really love that doesn't stay together, and there's always a couple I really hated that does. And I watch them, I yell at them, I get to the end of the season, I have regrets about how much time I've spent watching it, I have regrets about whatever the experts are doing wrong.

Amena Brown:

And then I'm like, "This show makes me so tired. Like this show is such a waste of time." And then they announce they're going to be in a new city the next season and when the start date is, and I'm definitely going to watch it all over again. So you need some shows to yell at when you're going through a stressful time. Get you some shows to yell at, 90 Day Fiancé and Married at First Sight are two great examples.

Amena Brown:

Another show, I'm back in the Real Housewives franchise here, I've never fully watched Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I started back from the very beginning. I actually made it to the episode where the meme of the one woman and then the cat, like I actually watched that episode and I felt, I don't know, I just felt the feeling of like what you must feel if you've never seen The Godfather before and you finally see The Godfather and you get to that scene of like the horse, the horse's head in the bed. And then you think about all the other movies you've seen where they were nodding to that scene. Like that's how I felt getting to that, but you know, it was a meme instead of an amazing film.

Amena Brown:

So I am watching this from the beginning and it is ridiculous, but it's almost like if you're having a lot of drama in your own life, there's something so healing in a way about watching something where you're like, they are having much more drama in their lives than I am. There's some sort of escape to that. So yes, I am watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills from the very beginning. I will continue to report back as I progress through the seasons. I would love to hear from you if this is also a show that you love, or if you have other tips and suggestions from me on the Real Housewives franchise overall.

Amena Brown:

I would also like to bring up number three TV show that is getting me through, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I am subscribed to HBO Max, which is where you can watch all episodes of the Fresh Prince. And first of all, I don't think that I've watched the Fresh Prince fully as an adult. I mean, I think I've had just some times in the last 20 years or so that like random episodes were on. And of course that was huge TV for me when I was in high school, that was like a TV show that you wanted to be at your friend's house or have your friend come over to your house or be on the phone talking to your friend like while you watch the show.

Amena Brown:

It's been really amazing actually watching it from the beginning. And sometimes I just need a show that makes me laugh, that doesn't have like huge amounts of triggers and things that are in it. The Fresh Prince is doing all of these things for me, and is so well-written. Like I look back on that and I'm like, "It's so well-written." So shout out to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Yes.

Amena Brown:

Last show that has been getting me through is Issa Rae's, Insecure. I have been loving Issa Rae's work since Awkward Black Girl. I forget which friend of mine it was that told me about Awkward Black Girl, but I just fell in love with Awkward Black Girl as a show. If you've never watched it, it is still on YouTube for you to watch. It is wonderful and hilarious and great. So when she got her deal with HBO, I was so excited. And Insecure does not disappoint. It does not disappoint. It was one of the few shows that I actually watch live most of the time, mainly because it is a Twitter connected show, and very specifically a Black Twitter connected show.

Amena Brown:

So that means if I am not watching the show on a Sunday, I'm out somewhere else doing something else, I have to stay away from Twitter because people are live tweeting while they're watching the show, sharing their thoughts. And I feel like it's one of those TV shows that causes me to reflect on my own like dating life before my husband and I got married and on my friends and what my 20s and early 30s were like. I mean, it is such a wonderful place of reflection and music. And I love also about Insecure that it is being written and acted and directed from this lens that is unapologetically Black, and Black in this way that refuses to stop and explain all sorts of things to you.

Amena Brown:

And I also love that it is not only unapologetically Black, but it's unapologetically Black and West Coast, but there's something very specifically LA and California about watching it. And as someone from the South and specifically who now has been in Atlanta, Georgia, for over 20 years, there are certain things that... like when I watched the Atlanta show that Donald Glover did, there's certain things that I was like, "That is very uniquely Atlanta." And I think even though it's awesome that now we have like all these ways, we can have access to different people in different cultures, all around the world, I think it's really important that we don't lose the storytelling of the city, the neighborhood, the region that we are from and what makes that place unique. So I love that about Insecure.

Amena Brown:

I love that Insecure makes me feel like I'm getting all the tea. I love that Insecure has made me yell in my house like I was watching a football game. Like I have yelled like that at the characters. I even yelled at the end of this season. I won't do any spoilers for you, but if you want to talk to me about that, please get into my comments on social media and I would love to discuss it, but I was yelling at the finale this season. Yelling.

Amena Brown:

So I'd love to hear from you what are some TV shows that are getting you through right now? What are the shows that you're yelling at? What are the shows that feel soothing to you, that are making you laugh, bringing you some joy, bringing you the information that you might want to have? Talk to me. I'd love to hear from you.

Amena Brown:

I'm excited to welcome romance fiction author, Adriana Herrera, to our HER Living Room this week. I really enjoyed this conversation with Adriana. We talked about the importance of people of color telling their own stories, and we also talked about why it's important for people of color to read and watch stories of people who look like them and get a chance to have unapologetic happy endings. Check out our conversation.

Amena Brown:

I am excited to welcome social worker, world traveler, fiction romance author who loves writing stories about people who look and sound like her people. Welcome Adriana Herrera to the podcast.

Adriana Herrera:

Yay. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

Amena Brown:

Oh my gosh. Part of what's great for me about having a podcast is it just gives me a good channel for how nosy I am. And so as soon as I was like looking into like your writing and your story, I was like, "Oh, I have so many nosy questions I want to ask." Adriana, this is going to be great. I want to give a shout out to my friend, our mutual friend, Leigh Kramer, who also does amazing work as a virtual assistant, which basically means she's my friend and she fixes my life.

Amena Brown:

One of the ways that she fixed my life is I was just going through the different guest lists that we had and she was like, "Oh, I know who you should interview." So thank you to Leigh for connecting the two of us. I think the two of you are online friends. She said you've never met in person.

Adriana Herrera:

Yeah. We have never met in person, which is a very common occurrence in the romance world or as we call it Romancelandia. You meet a lot of people through Twitter and it's basically all very connected to love of books. So Leigh and I know each other through our love of romance, which is super awesome. And it's one of the things that I really love about the romance community, but yes, she's amazing.

Amena Brown:

And she really has educated me so much on just the romance community, like when she just starts rattling off to me like the different authors that she knows. And of course, I'm just so proud of her for the book that she's also written. I'm so glad that you are on the podcast because I have so many things I want to know about what it's like to be a romance writer and the things that inspire you.

Amena Brown:

Let's get into it. I want to, first of all, I always like to start with an origin story. And one of the themes that's been coming up whenever I talk to other women who are writers, there's this interesting relationship we all have as writers to the moment that we realized we were a writer or the moment we felt comfortable to call ourselves a writer. Do you remember what the moment was when you discovered you were a writer? Was it early on in your life or was it later in life?

Adriana Herrera:

It was later in life. And I think it was very connected to my upbringing. I grew up in the Dominican Republic. I came to the US when I was 23 on my own to go to grad school. So I lived my whole life there. I went to college there and everything. And in the Dominican Republic, and I think that's a big developing world thing, it's like being an artist or being a creative person is not something that's like to a degree like really encouraged, especially like I think for middle class, upper middle class, where you really need like a solid profession. You want to be a doctor, you want a lawyer.

Adriana Herrera:

So even though my entire life like books were like the most important thing in my life, I never even dreamed the dream of being a writer. Like I just thought that was not for like someone like me. So when I came to the States, I also like toyed with it because I was starting grad school and there's just like a lot more space for creativity. Like there's creative writing degrees, things like that, which in the Dominican Republic it's like not even a thing.

Adriana Herrera:

So I think then I felt like, "Okay, like just regular people can be writers." So I think as the years passed, I started blogging about books, I had a couple of blogs where I reviewed books and those were really well received and people really like kind of commented on like how I wrote. And I was like, "Oh, maybe I could do this." So, that was like a little seed that was planted a long time ago, but my moment where I decided to do it like seriously was probably like two years ago right after the election. And I think like a lot of people had like cathartic moments after the election.

Amena Brown:

Yes.

Adriana Herrera:

So many people like saw the light, but I mean, my thing was, I was just so troubled by the narrative around immigrants that was happening at that time, and it's gotten worse, which is really sad, but I really was feeling compelled to bring, after Latinx stories, like the type of stories that I know of from like my family that came here in the 60s, of my own passage coming on my own. Like I just wanted to place those stories in the romance space because I really felt compelled to present stories of people of color thriving and getting like unapologetic happy endings.

Adriana Herrera:

Like we work for our happy endings so vigorously. It was a combination of like me kind of having this idea that I couldn't be a writer, and then kind of like coming into my own, like I'm 40, I just turned 40 last year, and I'm feeling like in a good moment to reinvent myself. So I thought this is a good time to finally do this. And romance has always been a great space of like self-care for me, reading romance. So yeah, that's like my long origin story answer.

Amena Brown:

I love it. And I love that you described for you that reading romance is a self-care practice because I think I look at my library a lot lately, Leigh and I were actually talking about this when she was in town last, and so part of it is decolonizing your library, so got rid of a bunch of things that way.

Amena Brown:

And then some of it was also just now that I've gotten rid of a bunch of stuff, it's like looking at what's on my shelves now and thinking like, "Well, what are the gaps? What are the holes of books I wish were there?" And I realized like I need more fiction and more poetry. A lot of the books in my library are nonfiction, which is great and has its use, but I think there is so much that just reading fiction gives to us and it gives to us in a different way than reading... an autobiography does or I think reading just like a nonfiction book does. So I think that's a really powerful idea to remember listeners that reading fiction and reading romance can also be a self-care practice.

Amena Brown:

So you are a writer and you are a social worker in New York City. You work with survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Would you say your vocation informs what you write or is it an outlet from your vocation? How is the relationship there between what the day gig is and your life also as a writer?

Adriana Herrera:

Definitely it influences that. I've always been a romance reader, but I'm like a very voracious reader. I'm known for my reading appetite, like I read a lot. But romance has always been like a place, like I said, of self-care, but something that I always do like for fun, like reenergizing, because I also read a lot of heavy books. My work is in trauma, I'm constantly reading books on trauma. And so romance is kind of like my way of re-imagining kind of like life. I hear so many things that are tough on a day-to-day basis.

Adriana Herrera:

So one of the things that I think my work really helps me with is it really makes me thoughtful and mindful about how I present and render relationships like power dynamics and relationships, power and control. Consent is something that I think a lot about. I've been having this conversation because my debut novel just came out, so I've been having some conversations about the book, and people are curious about that connection.

Adriana Herrera:

And I've been talking about not just consent as a yes, which of course we always want affirmative consent in any type of intimate relationship, but it's also kind of like the undergirding and like the building of a foundation for a yes that has substance.

Adriana Herrera:

From the moment that the relationship begins, and romance would call that moment the meet-cute, when two people meet for the first time, the two characters that are having the romantic relationship. So I see it almost like as a series of contracts, verbal contracts that happen between those two people and they are going on back and forth until like the moment of the big yes and there's like about to be like physical intimacy, but there's been already kind of like a building up of consent because the relationship's been like balance and power and control has been aligned. That's something like I think about a lot, and I think it's because I see so much in my work.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, so many moments where those power and control dynamics go wrong. But in your writing, you are able to write about moments when that goes right, goes well, for a character.

Adriana Herrera:

Yeah. And kind of also like the piece of specifically in men and women relationships, I think we live in a patriarchy, right?

Amena Brown:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Adriana Herrera:

So it's the piece of like the woman's only power is the ability to consent to sex. Then is that, yes, really that powerful? Because if he has the power in every other aspect of life, he's a billionaire and he's like a magnate and he's like gorgeous and he's like seven feet tall, and she's like the woman and the only thing she can consent or deny is her body, then how powerful is that? You know what I mean? So I think like I like to play with those ideas of like kind of dismantling like the patriarchy a little bit as I create those relationships.

Amena Brown:

A word. Using romance to dismantle the patriarchy. Yes. Yes. We are here for everything about that. I want to ask you as a reader and now as a writer of romance, why do you think it's important to have works of romance like out in the world? Like what do you think that brings to the reader? And being involved in a community of other authors who are also writing romance, what does it bring to the writer?

Adriana Herrera:

This is something that is not something I said, is something that... Sarah Wendell is her name. She is the founder of this website called Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. And it's a website that's dedicated to like the romance genre. And she talks about happily ever after as being revolutionary. Like the idea that you are not only happy, but that you all that happiness is absolute and yours, is revolutionary. And I think in the moment that we're living in, unapologetic happy endings is like saying all of this happiness is mine and I've earned it because I'm me not because I had to change myself, not because I had to erase my identity, who I am, my sexual identity, my gender identity, all of that encompass still gets me my happily ever after, I think it's incredibly powerful.

Amena Brown:

I think so too. And I never, until just hearing you describe this, like I don't know that I ever thought about this or put language to it, but I think what you're saying is so right. Like I remember when my husband and I were first getting married, we were in that first one to two years, that newlywed time. I remember the first several months I had to have like a talk with myself, like, "This is a beautiful and happy moment in your life. You've married somebody that you love, that loves you, that respects you, that gives you this space that you need in your life."

Amena Brown:

And I think there was this part of me sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop in life. And sometimes the other shoe does drop. I mean, that's how life is, but that there are also these moments that you can just be inside of exceeding joy and happiness. And I just had to have like a talk with myself at that time of like, you have not been married 20 years like this crusty woman that you talked to about her marriage, she's like in a terrible relationship, she hates it real bad, you know? So she's looking at me and my newlywed time like, "Oh, well, I hope you enjoy it while it's good." You know?

Adriana Herrera:

Right.

Amena Brown:

And I sort of took in her sentiments in a way and I had to just kind of take whatever that was I took in and like put it back out and say, "Hey, this is my happy ending right here, my happy beginning in some ways too, you know? And I should enjoy that moment." And I think there are a lot of times in our real lives that we're not enjoying that happy ending, and maybe that's a way to your point that reading romance can teach us how to do that, how to be even in those happy moments, right?

Adriana Herrera:

Yes. Brené Brown is like really popular and she's a social worker, but she writes like a lot of like self... it's not self help, but in one of her like talk she talks about love and how like none of us would want to live without love. Like if anyone of us is asked, "Do you want to live for the rest of your life without love?" None of us would say, "Yes," right?

Amena Brown:

Right.

Adriana Herrera:

And I think we've created this idea that like being able to like sit in our happiness it's almost something that we don't deserve. Like we have to continue to like brace ourselves because it's so life-changing to find that type of love. And like we've been taught I'm almost like socialized to expect it to be taken away almost. And I think for women of color or marginalized people, women, a person of any gender that's living at the intersections of marginalized identities, it's not just that we're told, like what we see is that the people that get to be in the movies or in the magazines getting those happy endings, don't look like us.

Amena Brown:

Yeah.

Adriana Herrera:

And so we are taught that like we're imposters, like this is not supposed to be what we get. And I think that's like also the power of romance and romance that has diversity and own voices, because then we can see ourselves, like literal reflections of ourselves in people that are getting to have the gigantic happily ever after. Like it's so affirming to see someone in a story getting that kind of happy ending that is just like you in real ways.

Amena Brown:

Ooh, I mean, Adriana got me out here like, can I find a romance about a Black woman married to this red-headed man? You know, like I'm just like, let me go looking and find my life today because I'm here for all of it.

Adriana Herrera:

I am here for the ginger and Black lady in love.

Amena Brown:

Yes. Yes. I was literally thinking like, because my first, actually to be utterly honest, Adriana, my first thought was, "Could I write that?" And then I immediately was like, "no, sis." I mean, I could write it, but it's not like when I'm doing, when I'm writing fiction, it don't sound like what you doing. Okay? It's bad. So I could try it and then one day what I'm planning to do is just release a series that's like, "Here's all my really bad novels guys." And like I'm not going to try to make these like non-cliché, I'm just going to leave all the cliches in there, please enjoy, but you are encouraging me to find some stories to read to take in. I think that is such a powerful reminder.

Amena Brown:

I want to talk about your book, and I want to make sure my listeners know that this book that has just released, American Dreamer, is in the Dreamers series. So you are going to release more books that go along the lines of this one. So talk to me about American Dreamer. Like tell my listeners a little bit, just we want to give them a little taste right here that'll make them go buy it right away. So tell us a little bit about that, and then how does American Dreamer as a book sit in the series of books to come?

Adriana Herrera:

American Dreamer is a LGBT romance. So the two main characters are two gay men, and Nesto Vasquez is a Dominican entrepreneur. I'm Dominican, so I felt like the first one should be a Dominican guy.

Amena Brown:

Right.

Adriana Herrera:

And he grew up in the South Bronx and he put himself through like culinary school and he has an Afro Caribbean food truck that he wants to make a success. So he moves upstate to try to make a go of it. His mom is already there and he's just like giving himself six months to kind of like get it off the ground. And if things just don't work out, he might just have to go to his regular job.

Adriana Herrera:

So as soon as he gets there, he meets Jude Fuller, who is a librarian in town and is also trying to like get his own project off the ground. He wants to get books to the rural areas, to the youth in the rural areas of the county where they live. And it's a striving story is what I'm starting to call it. It's like two people who are striving to be their best selves in terms of like their dreams, but also along the way figure out also different things that are valuable and that should be priorities.

Adriana Herrera:

And for Nesto, it's like he's an immigrant, right? So he's like all about the hustle. He's out there like in those like... it's like the streets trying to make this truck be a success. And Jude is someone that grew up in like a really conservative family, so he's still kind of like grappling with the emotional wreckage of coming out and being like disowned by his family. It's a love story, but I think it's also kind of like an American dream story.

Amena Brown:

I love that. I love that. Just the parts that I had a chance to read, I was like, "Oh man, like..." And knowing a little bit more of your story too, one of the things I really loved about writing my bad fiction was you have all of these experiences, places that you've been, things that you've done, and you're not writing something that's necessarily a fictionalized account of your life, but you can take these bits and pieces of your own, things you've seen, stories you've heard, and you can put that into this whole world that you get to create when you sit and write a fiction story. I mean, that is just so inspiring to me.

Adriana Herrera:

Yeah.

Amena Brown:

So talk to us about, did you know when you were first writing American Dreamer that you had enough stories here for a series? Like how did you know this is not just a book, this is going to be a series of books?

Adriana Herrera:

So romance tends to be kind of like a genre where like there's multiple books, unless you're writing like a very specific type of sub genre like fantasy or something like that, like books will come out standalone, but usually there's a series. So I kind of have that idea in mind. And then when I started thinking about this book, my hope was to be able to render, not just Nesto and his own experience, but I wanted to show thriving communities of color.

Adriana Herrera:

Because Nesto's story is not just his story, but it's like his community story. Like his mom, his friends who are like his brothers. It was important to me to show queer communities of color that were thriving. Because even in LGBT romance, which there's a lot of, it's very white. And when you do have a character that's Latinx or black, it's kind of like that friend, you know?

Amena Brown:

Yeah.

Adriana Herrera:

So I wanted to create a community, create a world, where the norm was Afro-Latinx queer people. And that's the space that I was in, and these people were thriving and thriving. That's how I kind of came up with the idea. And then for Nesto, I gave him three best friends who are all Afro-Latinx.

Adriana Herrera:

The second book is actually coming out in May and it's a Cuban-Jamaican social worker and he works in New York City. Basically, it's kind of like my same job. And then the third character is he's Haitian. And he came to the US as a refugee with his mother when he was a child. And he is an Ivy League professor and he's an economist. And the last character is a Puerto Rican man who works for the Yankees.

Adriana Herrera:

So I wanted to show like people who were like doing well. Like I didn't want to show like a struggle story. I keep saying this and I really truly like feel that it's like I don't want to write stories of people of color that are earning their happy ending through brokenness.

Amena Brown:

That's powerful.

Adriana Herrera:

Because I am tired of seeing broken black and brown people in fiction, and I want... I mean, we have struggles. Of course, we do. Our lives are full of conflict, but there's also so much joy in being who we are. And I really wanted that to come through out of the gate.

Amena Brown:

Let me ask you a question that I've never had the opportunity to ask a fiction writer. When I was in college I studied English with actual intent to be a novelist and became a poet. And just most of my writing is poetry. But we watched a documentary, I cannot remember the name of it now, but I remember part of it was this interview with Alice Walker. And she talked about how when she writes fiction, her characters talk to her. And when she said that, 18, 19 year old me is like, "That's crazy. No, that is not. Whatever she's talking about, that's crazy."

Amena Brown:

But later on as a writer, I understood more what she meant. Do you find that to be true? Do your characters talk to you when you're sitting down to write, or even if you're not sitting down to write, do you have moments that a character might sort of reveal themselves, or a piece of the plot kind of comes to you? Like how is that part of the creative process?

Adriana Herrera:

There are authors, I think there's like pansters is what we call them, people that kind of just like sit down and they're like channeling a character and they're just like in it. I find that my process is a little bit different than that, because I need to really kind of like build scaffolding for me to start writing. So I kind of have to really think about origin stories and like what is the wound? Like who hurt you? Character. Like that sort of thing.

Adriana Herrera:

And then once I'm like really feeling like I have a grip on the emotional arc and stuff like that, then I sit down and it really kind of comes through in my head. Like I can think of like what's happening in the scene and I can really see it play out. I don't have like voices, but I know that there are writers that are so in tune with their characters that they're just kind of like rendering what they're seeing, but I'm a control freak, so I need to have like an outline and a plot, basically.

Amena Brown:

I also, you know, when I wrote my first nonfiction book, I thought I was going to have the experience you watch writers have in the movies, you know? Where they sit down and it's like some bolt of inspiration hits you and you just start click-clacking at your typewriter obviously, it has to be a typewriter from people you see in the movies, but that's how you wrote a book. And I quickly discovered, oh, gnosis, like you need to have an idea of what you was trying to write today. Like you need to have like an idea or you're going to drive yourself crazy or that you're going to procrastinate and then you're never going to get this book written. That's also a good point. Scaffolding was a great word for that.

Adriana Herrera:

That's me. I'm the person with the outline. One of our most beloved romance authors is Beverly Jenkins. And she is an African American woman that writes, she writes everything, but her historicals are my favorite, some of my favorite books. And she's a pantser. So she likes sits down and she talks about having like arguments with her character because she is so in tune with her muse. I have to do a lot more work, although of course I wouldn't like even allude to being in the same category as Beverly Jenkins because she's like a treasure in basically royalty and romance, but her process is very different than mine.

Amena Brown:

I think we were talking about this before we started recording, it was really wonderful for me to hear you say that a part of the process of you beginning this book and now this series of books was you were like, "I'm turning 40. This is a great time to reinvent myself." Like now that you are on the other side of 40, like I remember being in my early 20s and like 30 feeling like, "Whoa," I had some thoughts about what I thought life was going to be, it is not that, but then it also turned out to be this totally like new decade for me of going, "Well, I don't need to hold myself to whatever I thought 30 was going to be."

Adriana Herrera:

Right.

Amena Brown:

And I, for some reason in my mind, I had an idea that 40 was going to be this like, I only have like an airplane metaphor for this, but I just thought 40 was like we've reached 10,000 feet. We unplug our seatbelts now, we move about the cabin. Like there was some sort of like cruising that was happening in my 40s. And now I feel like my whole life is about to reinvent itself. Can you talk more about what your thoughts have been about that as you're like entering this new decade of your life?

Adriana Herrera:

I think it's because our age, I think maybe our generation, that you saw 40 as something like where you have to be an established person and you have to have all your things figured out by 35. And I think as I was in my 30s, it was time to really find my voice in terms of like my work and the things I believe in and how I wanted to show up in the world. I don't have enough time. Like I need like the entire decade of my 40s to really kind of like polish this new person that I feel like I'm becoming.

Adriana Herrera:

And so I think I'm going to have to like kind of push back this like cruising altitude, as you mentioned, kind of like timeline. And so I went back to school two years ago, I'm actually finishing up my master's in social work. I had a master's in international relations and then I did social work for a long time, and then I decided to go back to school. So I thought the going back to school time was a good moment for me to kind of like do the writing thing. So I kind of like used this two years moving into my 40s to do some things that I had wanted to do that I hadn't done. I feel like I'm like my best moment. I feel like I love who I am, I've found my voice, and I feel like I think I want to like another 50 years, I'm not done.

Amena Brown:

Right. Yes. Oh, that is so inspiring. Ah, like thank you for answering that question because I hadn't planned to ask you, but as we were talking, I was like, "You know, let me circle back and ask her," because I think it's good to process in a way what we expected our happy endings to be, but then maybe realizing, which is a lesson that we can learn from just brilliant writers like yourself, realizing in our real life we can also rewrite some things, we can also reinvent where we thought we might be headed and find ourselves down a totally different story that may have totally different happy endings, but they are wonderful happy endings nevertheless. Thank you for answering that for me, that was like a little nosy question I needed to know.

Amena Brown:

What tips do you have for other people that might want to also not only write fiction, but write romance. What tips would you have for writers who are interested in this genre just getting started?

Adriana Herrera:

I think get out of your own way is one thing that I had to tell myself and this I think is a very Woman of Color thing. I think we really never feel like we have enough credentials to do what we want. So like, "Oh, well, if I'm going to write, I need to get an MFA. Oh, well, if I'm going to write, I need to get a PhD and whatever." I mean, it's a reinforced message that we're like, you don't belong here.

Adriana Herrera:

I just finished the Michelle Obama memoir like two weeks ago, and I've been thinking about it a lot because she kind of like had that also that experience of like having to tell herself like, "No, I belong in this room." And I think for us, for me, for any fiction writer, it's like you have a story to tell, you can just tell it. And of course there's structure, there's technical things that you need to do to make that story polished and strong and have good pacing and plot points and all that, but you can tell your story and then you can build it into like a book that you can like put into the world. So I would say, just tell your story and get out of your own way. Like you belong here too.

Amena Brown:

And not like building these barriers in front of yourself because that's definitely a thing for a lot of women of color I know who are entrepreneurial or in creative work or just even in business and all sorts of fields. I feel like there can be this idea of like, "I got to add 10 steps to myself before I move on whatever this idea is that I have that I want to put out in the world."

Amena Brown:

And even when you talked earlier just about your initial writing being on your blog and about the books that you loved reading, that also was really inspiring to me too, because I think we have a lot of tools at our disposal now to be able to say, "Hey, this is a thing I want to do. Let me give it a shot." You know?

Adriana Herrera:

Yeah.

Amena Brown:

Let me try and see and see how people engage with that and see how you feel in the process. Like I really think, I think that's a dope way to think about it is really what can you do just to start? You know, like-

Adriana Herrera:

Yeah. Right. I think it was Elizabeth Gilbert, I think she wrote, Eat, Pray, Love. Someone was at a talk with her and she said something I think is so great. She said, "Perfectionism is fear in a bad mustache, like poorly disguised fear." And I think, again, I think for a lot of Women of Color, we really have this ingrained idea that we have to show up perfect. And not because we made it up, like it's something that we are told by all of society.

Amena Brown:

Yeah.

Adriana Herrera:

Like the twice as good thing. Like you need to be five times better than everyone else just so that you can like sit there and feel like you belong in the room. And I think that turns into like a fear of failure and a fear of like told that we're not good enough. That really hinders us just going for our stuff.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. So listeners, whatever your thing is, if it's a book, a business idea, something you want to do in your community, whatever it is, we are telling you start today. Pick something and start today. You deserve to be in the room. I love that. If people are listening to this, they want to buy your books, they want to buy more than one copy of your book because they want to have one for themselves, they want to buy one for a friend, they want to follow you, where should they go? What should they do?

Adriana Herrera:

I have a website, it's adrianaherreraromance.com. And there you can find everything that you would want to know about my books and my writing, what I'm working on. I'm pretty active on Twitter and my handle is ladrianaherrera, L-A like Ladriana. Those are the two places I'm on.

Amena Brown:

People, go there. Go there and do the things, go and buy these books right now. And I just want to thank you so much Adriana for being on the podcast. I have learned so much for answering all my nosy questions. Thanks for joining us today.

Adriana Herrera:

Thank you for inviting me. It was so wonderful to talk to you.

Amena Brown:

Yes. Yes, I loved that conversation with Adriana so much. Didn't you? Doesn't it make you want to go and read some really good romance fiction right now? You should, and you should start with Adriana's books. Make sure you check out her website, get her latest books, get all her books, do all the things. And if you forget any of these links, don't worry, all of the links for information about my guests is available in the show notes, which you can find at amenabrown.com/herwithamena.

Amena Brown:

For this week's edition of Give Her A Crown, I wanted to give a crown to Katori Hall. My husband and I had a chance right before the pandemic really tipped here, in February of this year, we had a chance to see Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, and it was fabulous. And I had no idea that Katori Hall was the book writer and co-producer of not only Tina, but also West End.

Amena Brown:

Now, I have to say the reason why I know Katori Hall's name is because Katori Hall is also the showrunner of P-Valley, which is a new Starz drama. And I have to tell you, the show is amazing. As someone who's lived in the South most of my life, I loved how Southern it was, I loved the layers of that. So many layers to the story, so many complexities and contradictions in a lot of the characters.

Amena Brown:

I was really for Lauren when season one was over, and I cannot wait to see what Katori Hall and the wonderful actors, actresses, and crew are going to do with season two of P-Valley. So make sure you check that out, and let's give her a crown. Thank you, Katori Hall.

Amena Brown:

HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 1

Amena Brown:

Hey, y'all welcome to a new episode, first new episode. I feel like I have a lot of identifying words that are supposed to go before episode. First new, yes, episode of HER with Amena Brown. I am your host, Amena Brown. I want to thank all of you for tuning in to the relaunch of my podcast. I'm so excited to be a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network and all of our partners there and at iHeartRadio. Hello to all of you. This is the first of many new episodes. Thank you for tuning into the best of HER and even more best to come. Y'all can see that I'm just throwing all sorts of words around because I'm so excited to be in here talking to you.

Amena Brown:

What can you expect from this podcast? You can expect every episode we'll have just a little catch up time, a little time to talk about maybe what's been going on this week. Could be for me personally because I just feel like I'm a person that a lot of very crazy things happen to me. And they turn out to be very interesting stories to share with you. Could also be a time that we talk about maybe some current events or a cool video that I watched online, all sorts of things. I love to have a segment of this podcast that is really me borrowing a little bit from things that I would do on stage when performing. So I've got a lot of fun, comedic bits and poetic readings that I can't wait to share with you all.

Amena Brown:

In this podcast, sometimes there will be a guest here. We will invite a guest into our HER living room. And when I'm bringing those guests into the living room, we will talk about different things that they may be doing in their work, in their life that are helping them to access joy, that are helping them to continue to be inspired. I hope as you hear their stories that that's inspiring to you too. One thing you can always expect from this podcast, you can expect that we will be centering the stories of women of color here. And when I say women of color, what do I mean? I mean, Black women, Indigenous women, Asian women, and Latinx women. You can expect those stories to be centered here. You can expect that when I bring a guest here, it's someone whose work and life that I really find inspiring. And I hope you will too.

Amena Brown:

And when we don't have a guest, I like to call this segment a time for me to pontificate. It's a time that I can share with you some things that I'm learning, things that I think are important for you to know, maybe put you on to some music, some books, some art, some people that you can also be inspired by. And you can always expect at the end of every episode, whether I do this or I invite a guest to do this I will always pick a woman of color for the segment Give Her A Crown. And Give Her A Crown is a time to think about a woman of color who is doing amazing and inspiring work and shout her out. I also hope that when you think of Give Her A Crown, that you think of women in your life who deserve a crown, deserve to be celebrated.

Amena Brown:

It could be something really huge in their life that deserves celebration. It could be that you are so proud of what to some people may seem like a small thing. For some of us, we deserve a crown for getting out of bed. For some of us, we deserve a crown for caring for our aging parents. Some of us deserve a crown for not cursing someone out that day, right? So we want to be able to give the people crowns who deserve them. That's a little bit of what you can expect from HER with Amena Brown. I am inviting you into this audio living room that we have. I hope you're getting comfy. I hope you took your shoes off. I hope you have a pillow that you can hold onto, but if you're driving, don't do any of that, hold onto the steering wheel and focus on that. Okay? Good.

Amena Brown:

Yo. Okay. We are, as of the recording of this episode in the middle of a global pandemic and I am living here in the U.S. I live in Atlanta, Georgia. We are in the thick of it here. And I've learned a few things about myself during this pandemic. It has been a very interesting time of ups and downs. My life before the pandemic was very, very busy. So there were a couple of weeks during our time of quarantine that I just enjoyed having some time off and just not doing anything and eating whatever I wanted. I will tell you a couple of things I've learned about myself during this time and maybe you also are learning these things. Number one, I learned that a pandemic for me is not a great time to start a new eating plan. I had planned to do a lot of things before the pandemic. I was going to get on this high protein, low carb situation. And as soon as the pandemic came in I was immediately like, "Oops, craving bread and craving cupcakes. And that is what I'm going to do, eating pasta, whatever. That's what I'm having."

Amena Brown:

Another thing I learned about myself since the pandemic is it's creating some really interesting social strata, right? I'm having a lot of conversation with my girlfriends about how do you decide who's in your social distancing bubble, right? And I feel like part of this is judgy, but I don't know. I'm trying to figure out if it's judgy or not. So you all can tell me if you think this is judgy. But I feel like there are different things that I'm looking for when I'm trying to find out if someone can be in my social distance bubble, right? Because at first we were all... Well, I can't say we were all, but some of us were being very strict about quarantining and social distancing, right? That basically meant that you weren't leaving your house unless you had to, right? To get food or whatever other necessary things you need to get, but otherwise you were staying at home. Even most of us that had jobs that could be done from home, that's what we did, right?

Amena Brown:

I want to also stop here and give a special shout-out to the people whose jobs could not be done from home that were and are still helping our country run. So big shout-out to all of our East Central workers, all of the people working in the medical profession, all of the people working in our grocery stores, people doing deliveries, just everyone doing essential work. Thank you. Those jobs cannot be done from home. And those of us who are staying from home, but not be able to stay home as much as we do, if it weren't for you... Thank you. Want to give that shout-out there. Okay. So while you're trying to figure out who's in your social distance bubble there's all these questions like, "Okay, are your people wearing masks?" Right? And when they say social distancing, what do they really mean? It kind of feels a little to me like when I was dating and how there were just certain little catch phrases or different little things that a guy might say that I would immediately be like, "Oh no, we can't date."

Amena Brown:

If I was talking to a guy... I remember I was dating this one guy and I asked him, "Hey, do you have a theme song? Or just a song that motivates you that really gets you going?" He was like, "No, I don't have a theme song." He was like, "I don't even really listen to music that much." And immediately in my mind, I'm like, "Ooh, we can't date." I don't know what to do with the fact that you don't listen to music. What are you doing with your entire life if you're not listening to music? I don't know. So I find myself in conversations with people like family members, friends, whoever, and we're talking and they might say something someplace they've been and as soon as they say that I'm like, "Wow, you can't be in my bubble."

Amena Brown:

I feel like such a judgy person for thinking that way, but these are the types of decisions we're having to make now. If I talk to someone and they're like, "Yeah, I just went on this date last night." And you're like, "Oh, on Zoom? You went on a Zoom date or a FaceTime date?" And they're like, "No. I went out on a date with this person. We went out and we just hung out and we held hands." They start saying some of those facts and you're like, "Oh no, you can't be in my bubble," that's how I feel. I've turned into the person that is judging those people.

Amena Brown:

Also, I did not realize how much I missed just walking through a store just because I wanted to see what was in there. I haven't done that for months until we went to Whole Foods and there is a TJ Maxx next to the Whole Foods closest to our house. It had not been open because TJ Maxx, like many stores have been closed. When I went to Whole Foods and saw that TJ Maxx open, I really could not even think of anything I have need of to buy in TJ Maxx, but just the feeling of walking through the store and being like, "Oh, look at those candles. Oh, look at those face masks. Hmm. I wonder what that shampoo smells like." I did not know how much I missed dear old TJ Maxx until I had the opportunity to just walk through there, wearing my little mask. And you know what they had that I really needed? Is a jade roller for my face. And you know what? It was $8.

Amena Brown:

There's just something about shopping in person and getting to walk through there and just come upon an item. I don't know if there's a way we can kind of replicate that online, but that's not how online shopping is for me. It's like a lot of searching and scrolling and Googling. You're not having fun walking through there and just sniffing candles. You can't do that stuff online. So, shout-out TJ Maxx and all the people that work there. I thank you for your service. Lastly, I'm a person who loves going to the grocery store in general. That's one of my favorite mundane tasks. I mean, I do make a list and I get really organized about it. I have a certain way I like to go through the store and all.

Amena Brown:

And I never thought that I would be so excited to go to the grocery store even more so than usual because for so long that's my only outing. I go so long without leaving my house and then when I do I'm like, "Oh, we're getting up early. We are putting on masks. We are going to go see what's in the store." And it has been really interesting during this pandemic time, the things that are left on the shelves and the things that are totally gone. Where we live, there's still no lysol. Every now and then we'll come upon some bleach or come upon some sort of disinfectant cleaner. And it might be a brand we don't even know, but we're so excited to find it. It's like some sort of treasure hunt type situation that I have come to enjoy. So shout-out to all of the things I've discovered about myself during the pandemic.

Amena Brown:

What have you been discovering about yourself during the pandemic? I would love for you to share it with me online on socials. I would love for you to tell me all about that. This week I am in conversation with Austin Channing Brown. And what a wonderful and fantastic person to welcome into our HER living room. I'm also excited to report that since we recorded this, Austin is now New York Times bestselling author, Austin Channing Brown, for her book, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. Listen in as Austin and I are talking like girlfriends would in a living room because she is one of my girlfriends, but we are also talking about the importance of centering the narratives and experiences of black women. We are talking about the importance of celebrating and affirming black dignity. We are talking about some of the things that Austin wrote in I'm Still Here. And if you have not read this book, I encourage you to get ahold of it. It is a fantastic and important read. Check out this conversation with me and Austin.

Amena Brown:

Y'all, I am so just excited that Austin has joined me today because I want y'all to know everything about this book because I got a few pages into and I was like, "She not going to do this to me." Something about Austin's book it's like you're having a little bit of a Harry Potter feeling. And I didn't really read Harry Potter to be honest, but other people that have read it had told me that you start reading it and then you look up and it's 5:00 AM and you're like, "Wait, I was supposed to do other things with my life." That was the feeling I had. I got a few pages in at first and I was like, "Oh no, Austin's not doing this to me. I have a job. I have things that I need to do with my life, please."

Amena Brown:

Another reason why I'm so happy to welcome Austin to the podcast is because we sort of knew of each other in an internet way. We are in some similar spaces speaking and different things. And we finally met at an event and I don't know what the sessions was doing, but we was not going. We got in this corner-

Austin Channing Brown:

We do. [inaudible 00:13:38]-

Amena Brown:

And when... And not talking about the weather and not talking about no sports teams. Like immediately was like Black girl meeting called to order went right there.

Austin Channing Brown:

Let's do this. [crosstalk 00:13:52]-

Amena Brown:

And that was just the beginning of these moments that I have loved in knowing you, Austin. She has opened her home to me when I was in some dire straits. She was like, "Just come to my house, I got this soup." She's-

Austin Channing Brown:

And Amena [inaudible 00:14:08].

Amena Brown:

[crosstalk 00:14:10]. Because it was you birthday, that's why. So we-

Austin Channing Brown:

She always brings me goodies.

Amena Brown:

We've had quite a few moments together that have involved good food-

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:14:19]-

Amena Brown:

... and good conversation. So we're letting you all in on a sliver because it'd be some realness that we're obviously not going to talk about on here, but we're going to let y'all at least have a small percentage of what this is. I wanted to talk to Austin about the dignity of the black body because this is a theme that is inherent in your work. Period. In your speaking, in your preaching, in your writing, it's always showing up, which I think is so beautiful. So I'd like to start asking each guest an origin story question. I want to ask you what was one of the earliest memories you can think of where inside yourself you were like, "I love being a black girl?"

Austin Channing Brown:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). I attended private white Christian schools growing up where I was initially often the only Black girl. There would be other Black boys in my classroom, but often the only black girl. I remember on a very regular basis all the teachers and students and the cafeteria workers asking me about my hair because it could keep a curl, because it was thick and it was long. It just like really floored them. And this was when I was a little girl. This isn't high school with the weave and the [inaudible 00:15:40] and the-

Amena Brown:

[crosstalk 00:15:41]-

Austin Channing Brown:

You know what I mean? The updo, the glitter. I wouldn't do it all that yet. Just my hair doing what it does, a little black girl with the barrette. You know what I mean?

Amena Brown:

Yes.

Austin Channing Brown:

It was just people loved it. I loved it. Now I will confess, I didn't like getting my hair done like be hard. There was a lot of wanting to be yelling and screaming. There was a lot of screaming on the inside.

Amena Brown:

Oh, please. Because we're told that you're not going to be out here screaming like I'm hurting you, but you are hurting me.

Austin Channing Brown:

Hurting me. This does not feel good. And this seat, this pillow was no longer doing it.

Amena Brown:

Please. Oh, you are bringing up some Black girl memories right now. I'm like, "It was a rare moment. I was in a salon." There were definitely some sister so and so is about to cornrow her daughter hair, so you're going to [crosstalk 00:16:35] her house-

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:16:35].

Amena Brown:

... and she going to cornrow your hair too. And I'm like, "But I'm uncomfortable and thank you. [crosstalk 00:16:42]-"

Austin Channing Brown:

It's been hours.

Amena Brown:

"... eight hours and-"

Austin Channing Brown:

We have [inaudible 00:16:45]. Yes, I just remember taking great pride in my hair because it just moved so differently.

Amena Brown:

Actually, when I was thinking about this question, my answer is about hair too. I think for me, I was probably maybe six, five or six. I had a friend and her mother knew how to cornrow really well. So she could do the ones where you could get a little design and stuff and then it went down to my shoulders and she would put the beads on the end. Whew! I would swing that hair. I thought I was in a music video, I don't know who else was performing and what they were... It was not music. I was in a video that was pretending to be a music video with no music and it was just me the clack of those bees. I just felt like I am stunting on everybody.

Austin Channing Brown:

My father actually used to cornrow my hair.

Amena Brown:

Really? Come on, dad? Your daddy about to get the dad award out here because I'm like, "I don't even... " Please don't take away my Black girl cards y'all, "But I don't even know how to cornrow." I be out here like-

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:18:00].

Amena Brown:

My fingers be like this. I be like, "You're supposed to cut this."

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:18:05]. I be like, "This is not working. Maybe I should try on a baby doll first."

Amena Brown:

Right. Because-

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:18:13]. Let me try [inaudible 00:18:14] hair.

Amena Brown:

My situation was not coming together. But it is interesting that we both felt that moment about our hair. And I still feel like now a lot of times that I have that like, "Oh, I love being a Black woman in a moment." It's like something that my hair is doing that I'm like, "You stand out, you take up space."

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:18:34]. Swinging it around. I love that we're not intentionally so, but I love that there's so many secrets around my hair. I can't get on a plane and not have somebody be like, "How long did that take?" And I'd be like, "Well, listen, there's multiple ways doing this." So-

Amena Brown:

Yes, this is me in the aisle at Target. Like being on the natural hair aisle at target, this is me becoming a consultant. And you can tell that the Black woman next to you is trying to see if she can catch your eye. If you're in the mood for that conversation, if you have time and I'll leave her around and then she'll finally say, "So I'm looking for a moisturizer. And I tried this... " Points to rejected product, "I tried this and it did not do the right things for my hair. But then my girlfriend said try this, but I'm afraid to spend the money because I don't want to... " And I'm like, "Well, sister, if you're looking for a moisturizer like this, you could try this one. If you want one, this made us some organic stuff. Try this. If you want... " We done had a whole 20 minute conversation just on the Target aisle.

Austin Channing Brown:

For me, it almost always starts with money, "Girl, you know these product's expensive?" The last time this happened, so a little sales clerk was like, "Do y'all need any help?" And she was like, "Y'all got any sales going on?"

Amena Brown:

Please.

Austin Channing Brown:

She was like, "Well, I don't see any, but that tea tree oil down there is on sale." And we both looked at each other and laughed.

Amena Brown:

What I'm going to with this is I'ma put a few drops-

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:20:18]-

Amena Brown:

... on my scalp and it was-

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:20:19]-

Amena Brown:

... what's next?

Austin Channing Brown:

What? [inaudible 00:20:21] don't need a little more [inaudible 00:20:23].

Amena Brown:

Because hair will be out here looking like the top of a cotton swab, right? If all you have is tea tree oil, there is going to be so some struggles.

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:20:37]-

Amena Brown:

I'm like, "My hair need room to breathe. It needs its moisture out here in these streets. I need to provide my hair with the things that my hair needs for this world, okay?" You mentioned in your book a poem that I love by Paul Laurence Dunbar. You mentioned We Wear the Mask and you talked about this quite a bit in your book, which I loved. I want to read We Wear the Mask for anyone here that's never heard this poem and you should know this name, Paul Laurence Dunbar, because he's amazing.

Amena Brown:

This poem We Wear the Mask says we wear the mask that grins and lies. It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes. This debt we pay to human guile with torn and bleeding heart we smile and mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise in counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us while we wear the mask. We smile, but Oh great Christ, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh, the clay is vile beneath our feet and long the mile. But let the world dream otherwise, we wear the mask. Oh, it's beautiful and haunting, right?

Austin Channing Brown:

And the fact that this could live over centuries.

Amena Brown:

It's amazing. I'm still reading it like let them only see us while we wear the mask. Paul Laurence Dunbar, speak a word. Some of what I hear in the theme of your book and just your writing your work is this idea that as a Black person that you do not have to wear the mask, which to me lends itself to being unapologetically Black. That there are so many times that many Black people we... Obviously, I joke with my friends all the time, I'm like, "Waking up black every day... Have not woken up a morning that I was not Black, woke up every morning, Black." But sometimes have been Black and apologetic for it. Talk to me about how we can deal with the layers of that mask? How do we... I don't want to say arrive at unapologetically Black. I think that takes time to work through, but how we start working towards that? What would you say?

Austin Channing Brown:

Yeah. I think a big part of this book is my journey towards that, right? When I first read that poem, I was wearing a mask and that's why it was so jarring because it was like, "Whoa! I'm doing this currently right here in this room where I'm the only Black girl in my English class." I just really didn't know what to do with that because I had never really thought about... I didn't have the terms like code-switching and I was just out here living life. I thought, "Man, there's a lot of things that all the folks in this classroom, including the ones that I really like and the folks that I really admire, don't know about my life that other Black students in my gospel choir or at the lunch table or whatever do." So it was really my first time I was like, "Oh, when I'm around white folks what am I protecting?"

Amena Brown:

Which I think is a real thing, right?

Austin Channing Brown:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Amena Brown:

The need to protect versus what am I hiding?

Austin Channing Brown:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). It's been, still is, it has been a journey to figure out in what spaces can I be unapologetically Black? This is not always safe. And I've been in plenty of jobs and particularly where it wasn't safe, girl.

Amena Brown:

Right. How do you discern when a place is safe to be unapologetically Black or not?

Austin Channing Brown:

This is real rough, but I look for signs. So during an interview, like an interview for a job, girl, I take that thing to a whole new level. I am probably the most Black in an interview because I am just like, "For a double shot on it, just in case." Because I feel like if you can handle the double shot, you can probably handle how Black I actually am.

Amena Brown:

I love this. I love it. I'm Black like I came straight from Wakanda to come straight to this interview. Yes.

Austin Channing Brown:

Do you want all of this? Then I tone it down once I actually arrived. I was like, "I got the job. [inaudible 00:25:09]."

Amena Brown:

I love it.

Austin Channing Brown:

I wish that was all that I had pretended to be, but I can't play space to save my life. So I think I'm getting wiser about particularly places where I need to make a long-term commitment, like job. I think for other spaces because I'm in and out of white evangelicals I'm a lot with speaking and preaching and that kind of thing. One has started to ask questions about how they heard about me, what they've read that they really appreciate, to kind of give me an idea of whether or not it's really me if they want or if it's an idea of me that they want.

Amena Brown:

Speak a word. Is it really me they want or is it the idea of me? Speak a word, Austin.

Austin Channing Brown:

Then I started doing other things too. There was a conference I went to recently where there was just a lot of conversation around race. They be doing the most job. And basically a professor had made an assertion that race is not about school issue. Talking about racial justice is like, "Listen, child." And I was like, "Okay." So to the conference planners where this was going to take place, I said, "Do you know what? I need all exits marked. I'ma need to know that security is in the room. I want to know if somebody makes a ruckus while I'm preaching. Which one are you white folks is going to get up and calm everybody down while I go head to seat? You don't want a public apology if something jumps off." You know what I mean?

Austin Channing Brown:

I just had some security measures and if they had written back and been like, "Oh, we don't think that's necessary. We're going to be fine." You know what I'm saying? If they didn't take it seriously, that would have been [inaudible 00:26:55]. So, I can be there via Skype. Would you like to have a Skype [inaudible 00:27:00]?

Amena Brown:

Because when I'm Skype, I'm safe. I can be someplace where I'm safe, so-

Austin Channing Brown:

The foolishness starts, you know what I'm saying?

Amena Brown:

Yes.

Austin Channing Brown:

And for that conversation she was like, "Oh my gosh." She's certainly was like, "I don't think anything would happen," but her next sentence was, "Here's your person. Here's... "

Amena Brown:

Thank you.

Austin Channing Brown:

When I arrived, she took me into the space where I was speaking so that I could see where the exits were. She just took it very seriously. So I'd be looking for signs that the white folks around me, the white folks in charge, the white folks who brought me in are taking my safety seriously.

Amena Brown:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's good.

Austin Channing Brown:

And sometimes I don't even make it about race, girlfriend. Sometimes I will even just be like, "You know what? I'm an introvert. I'm not going to be at that reception. I'm going to be at the hotel calling my boo and seeing how my son is doing." You know what I'm saying? And if they write back anything other than, "Oh, of course we completely understand. We're so grateful for your time." You know what I'm saying? If that ain't the response, then I know who I'm dealing with.

Amena Brown:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Then all of a sudden you don't have time. Like you might've had time before that, but now you don't have time. Speaking of the ways that you use your voice and platform, which is one of the things that I just love about you as just a person, but I also-

Austin Channing Brown:

Girl, thanks.

Amena Brown:

... learn a lot from you. I will tell y'all, Austin Channing Brown is one of my favorite Twitter follows for a couple of reasons. Number one, because she is not here for the foolishness. I always appreciate that. I just have a strong appreciation for people that are not here for the foolishness, but also Austin, you do something that as a poet I do not do very well. I am a-

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:28:50]-

Amena Brown:

... super slow thinker. So-

Austin Channing Brown:

Changer.

Amena Brown:

... a current event might happen and then seven months later I'm like, "[crosstalk 00:29:00]."

Austin Channing Brown:

Shut up.

Amena Brown:

That has made me think about these things that I would like to write in a poem. Whereas the current event will have happened at 9:00 AM. Before 2:00 PM, Austin is on Twitter like a word about the such and such that just happened. Here is a Twitter toolbox for the ways that you can not be about the foolishness that happened this morning at the such and such. Here are some resources where you can think about reading that so that you will not be racist. Here are some things... Austin done gave these people-

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:29:39].

Amena Brown:

... the thread. You are-

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:29:42]-

Amena Brown:

... always killing the threads every time. I'll be on the thread like, "Yes. Hmm. Oh, that person tried to comment with the foolishness. Oh, Austin, not here for that? Oh, the people that follow Austin are not here for that? Okay. Scroll, scroll, scroll." I'm paying attention. So when you are using your voice in these ways to speak very plainly, very directly, very clearly against racism, against white supremacy... I want to start with, how did you know this is going to be a part of my messaging as a communicator? Because some people believe that those of us who are communicators, writers, speakers, artists, that really we create all these things, but underneath them, some people would say underneath them is really all the same message. That some people finding your calling is like that's what's underneath their message.

Amena Brown:

It really doesn't matter how many different retreats workshops, whatever they do, they're still coming back to sort of that message. And this seems to be one of those for you that we can, not only use our voices, but take action against racism and white supremacy. Do you feel like when you look back at your upbringing, you were always like, "This is the person that I was going to become and using my voice for this?" Or did another moment come in your life where you were like, "This is what I need to... If I'm going to put pen to paper, I need to write about this." If I'm going to be on Twitter-"

Austin Channing Brown:

Such a [crosstalk 00:31:13] question.

Amena Brown:

"... I need to tweet about this?" Did you have a moment like that this epiphany or did it just slowly evolve in a way for you?

Austin Channing Brown:

Being a communicator is something that I was just aware of as a child. I remember being a kid and when teachers very first start to ask questions about like what do you think questions, what do you think about this book, what do you think of... Right? I can remember raising my hand and my other classmates telling the teacher to call on me. You know what I mean?

Amena Brown:

Yes.

Austin Channing Brown:

Just really weird. I don't think that's normal. And my dad has this video. My dad used to do the camera for Sunday services to record Sunday services back in the VHS days.

Amena Brown:

Come on, VHS.

Austin Channing Brown:

So he would have to go early on Saturday mornings to set up the video camera and make sure everything was working properly. And he has this video of me I have no idea where it is, girl, but he has a video of me somewhere where I opened the hymn book and started reading it as if I was standing. Now we in the balcony, but I was reading it as if I was standing in the pulpit reading the Bible.

Amena Brown:

I love it. I'm here for it.

Austin Channing Brown:

So being a communicator has just always been in me and I've been very aware of it. I became a minister when I was 14. Became [inaudible 00:32:36] when I was 19, but it was in college when I really started to find my particular niche around justice and really developing that passion. So by that time that Twitter rolled around, I was not an early adopter of Twitter. And truth be told, the only reason I got on Twitter was because I had started my blog. One of my girlfriends was like, "Austin, I need to be able to share your blog via Twitter. I need you to be on Twitter so I can tag you and share this good blog." I was like, "I don't really get it. Isn't it just people talking about what they did all day?"

Amena Brown:

Same.

Austin Channing Brown:

I don't need to know who ate a chicken sandwich today. I just don't... How's this going to enrich my life? I don't understand. I really didn't get it. I don't understand Twitter at all, but I don't mind because I was like, "She said she needed me to... " So I was like, "Okay, cool." I fell in love with the Twitters. I like the challenge of it, particularly when it was still 140 characters. And I loved how concise I could be in a way that is very difficult honestly for me to be in person. So when I go somewhere and speak inevitably, child, somebody will walk up to me and be like, "That was not as hard as... " They searching for the word, but what they really trying to say is, "You are a lot nicer than I thought you'd be."

Amena Brown:

I'm nice, but I'm not nice about white supremacy. Get that straight and bring me some sweet tea.

Austin Channing Brown:

But I liked that about writing in general. I think it was where I figured that out that I liked that I can say the hard things because people are reading. You know what I mean? I'm not standing in nobody's face like, "You won't get rid of that white supremacy today." You know what I'm saying?

Amena Brown:

Right.

Austin Channing Brown:

I ain't doing no exorcisms, but when I write... People have a chance to process. They have a chance to... There's an emotional removal because I'm not standing in front of you. So it just feels like a space where I can be unadulterated in what I'm thinking and saying and just let the reader deal with that, handle that. I am drawn to folks who appreciate that. I am drawn to folks who are like, "Yes, give me more of that," or, "Oh, I didn't know that term. I'm so glad I have that term now" Or, "Dang! You just put language to how I was feeling and I couldn't explain it, but now that I have read this I'm like that's exactly it." So that's how I really fell in love with Twitter and decided to go a little harder in my writing than I do when I'm in person.

Amena Brown:

I want to give a special shout-out to your girlfriend that number one told you to blog and number two told you to get on Twitter. She is going to be a recipient of the She Did That award because we are appreciative that she encouraged you to do this. So-

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:35:35] I started any of this is because of a girlfriend. There was a girlfriend who told me I need to start a blog. There was the girlfriend who told me I had to be on Twitter. There was a girlfriend who took me to a meeting that she had with an editor and was like, "Yo, this girl, come write here too." Everything is because of a girlfriend.

Amena Brown:

I love that, Austin. I love it because I have such a great community of girlfriends too. I love those moments when I might text you out of the blue and be like, "Girl, such and such and such and such. What you think saying?" And we can just... Or those times that we see each other and you can just connect. But I love in particular when we can have a community of girlfriends that are sometimes seeing us-

Austin Channing Brown:

Far.

Amena Brown:

... listen past what we can see in ourselves that would push, push, push to be like, "Sis, you need to do this and you need to do that. Why don't you do this? Why are you not charging this?" Having girlfriends who are like that.

Austin Channing Brown:

I'm not even going to tell y'all how Amena be beating me up over ticket prices and what I need to be charging for stuff. I'm not even going to tell you. I'm just going to let that slide because Amena be-

Amena Brown:

[crosstalk 00:36:44]-

Austin Channing Brown:

"Get your girl." She be, "Getting your girl. I just want you to know." But that's what girlfriends are for, to remind you of how much you're worth.

Amena Brown:

Speak. Yes. Price is also going up for Austin Channing Brown next year. Okay. [crosstalk 00:36:57]. Whatever Amena is saying, I'm just letting y'all know. So I want to ask about your book process. You get to the point where you are like, "I'm going to write a book," but you obviously have this choice. You could write about anything you want. You could write in any form that you want, even with some of the content that you wrote about. It could have been more of a how to, it could have been more of something that we're going to be very research-based, but you chose the form of the memoir. I just feel endeared to that because I love to read memoir.

Amena Brown:

And it's also a similar forum that I chose for my book because I was sort of sitting at the beginning of that book process like, "What do I really have in my hand? I have that I'm a storyteller. I have that most strongly. And I would rather lean towards that and see what stories will come out." What was that moment like for you where you had the choice of form and you had the choice of content? How did you decide you would do the memoir and you would do the memoir sort of through this lens of black dignity?

Austin Channing Brown:

I actually pitched this book five years ago. At least five years, but I've lost track now. But pre-Black Lives Matter, pre-Ta-Nehisi Coates, pre-all this stuff that makes up our daily live experience right now, and child, those posters were like, "This whole book is about a white girl who touched your hair. Was you standing on a cliff when that happened? Did you almost get pushed off?" [inaudible 00:38:31] like, "Where is the life and death experience?" And I was, "Oh, okay." So child, by the time I circled back to running to print a book and having an agent and get my little proposal together, I must have written four or five proposals.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Austin Channing Brown:

Were out trying on different voices like you just said, like, "Is this going to be the how to, is this going to be filled with research?" And child, I was like... I would get started and I would be like, "Hmm. But I am not a historian" Then I would scrap that and start a new one, I'd be like, "Ooh, but I'm not a theologian." So I was, "Scrap that." You know what I mean? But I'm not an academic. I don't even know how to cite this. [inaudible 00:39:15].

Amena Brown:

What cites?

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:39:18]-

Amena Brown:

Bring that word back. Yes.

Austin Channing Brown:

I got nothing. You know what I really did? Was I went back through my blog and took note of all the posts that I enjoyed writing and were popular.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, that's good. That's a good balance, popular and the things you enjoyed writing.

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:39:40]-

Amena Brown:

It's like [inaudible 00:39:41].

Austin Channing Brown:

And one of them was a post that's not super long than I did on Dajerria Becton when... She was the Black girl who got tossed around by the police at the swimming pool. I started that out by pretending that I was in the room when she was getting her hair braided. [inaudible 00:40:03] got her sitting between her auntie's knees and hearing the click of her aunties fingernails, braiding her hair down and how she got up and stretched and how they took a break and did whatever. No, danced around their room together. And then said... She got dressed for this pool party that she was all excited about that she got her hair braided for. And all of a sudden she was on the ground in the grass with a police officer in her back.

Austin Channing Brown:

Girl, that post just came out like just my connection to her as another Black girl just made that so easy to write emotional, but not how to write. And it was one of my most popular blog posts. That was when the light bulb went on like, "Oh, when I marry these small experiences that most black women can identify with, right? To these larger social issues, that's when I've struck gold." So ultimately that's what I ended up trying to do. Then when Coates came out and I was like, "Oh, well, if we can write about being a Black man from the hood, I think we should be able to be right about being a Black girl surrounded by white folks." That's what I think.

Amena Brown:

Speak a word.

Austin Channing Brown:

That's what I think. So it really did unfold, but it was a long process job. I easily spent a year just writing proposals, trying to figure out who I am as a writer.

Amena Brown:

I think I spent a long time on proposals too because part of the proposal process is this like, "What's my voice? Or, "What am I anticipating my voice is going to be" Because I have to say, even what I sent in as my proposal was in theory what this was going be. But how the book actually came out, that was its own thing. When I sat down to actually write the book and was like, "Oh, you don't want to be that thing that I wrote in here? You want to be something else." So I need to let you be yourself while I learn to be myself. It was an interesting-

Austin Channing Brown:

That's real.

Amena Brown:

... interesting relationship with your book and with how in particular... And you'll have to tell me if this is your experience too, in particular when you are writing these personal stories of your own life experience. That there are some ways that writing healed me, like sealed up some places where I had been wounded. There were some places where it changed me, totally transformed me in some ways that I just couldn't even account for until the book had been out. And I was like, "I'm somebody different than I was when I first sat down to figure out what this was going to be." I mean, I know we're right here as your book is launching, but do you feel some of that sort of transformation in you as a writer in your voice? Do you feel any of that as you're thinking back now on the writing process of your book?

Austin Channing Brown:

I did because I think my voice was very teachery before... Because I had been doing workshops and even if you look, I haven't deleted any of my blog posts. If you go back to the very beginning, they're very teacherisk. And like, "Here's step one," or, "Here's a great metaphor for how to think about this. Come along on the journey." And girl, the closer we get to Black Lives Matter, the more that disappears. You know what I mean? But [crosstalk 00:43:30]-

Amena Brown:

You're about to get no steps there.

Austin Channing Brown:

But then when writing the book, I think what was transformative for me was making declarative sentences because I had to think about whether or not I would still be standing by those declarative sentences a year from now or two years from now or three years from now. So I want to give myself grace in that there may be things in this book that I decided to change 10 years from now and be like, "You know what? That's what I thought then." But I have grown, I have evolved. But on a whole I had to really ask myself, "Do I find white people exhausting? Yes I do." And that just had to be a sentence in the book, but it was that declarative sentence like, "This is what I think today. I'm knowing what I know." Right? "Knowing what I know, this is what I think today." That was transformative for me to think about what I believe, what I'm willing to declare.

Amena Brown:

I love the way you're describing that declarative moment because I think that is also a moment of reminding ourselves of our dignity when we are able to make these statements with no equivocations, with no apologies that this is what it is, this is how it happened, how it happens. Like this. Period. And let the space be there.

Austin Channing Brown:

Exactly.

Amena Brown:

There's a lot of power to that. I want to ask along those lines, you have a whole chapter on creative anger in this book, which I love so much because within the last month in my various conversations with black women, some of it has been with just professionally other women who are author speaker, performer world. And some of it has just been with girlfriends and there are so many moments that the phrase, "Well, I was going to do this," or, "I was going to say this, but I didn't want to be that Angry Black Woman.

Austin Channing Brown:

Yeah, Angry Black Woman.

Amena Brown:

I used to fight against it like, "Hey, I am not that Angry Black Woman. I can communicate these things and do these things without roaring about everything. I can do it." And now I'm like, "Sometimes I am Angry Black Woman and I have a right to be angry."

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:46:04]-

Amena Brown:

It is not wrong or bad for me to be angry and for me to express my anger. So yes, sometimes an Angry Black Woman and sometimes I'm hurt and I'm disappointed. And that by itself makes me mad about whatever the injustice is that has happened. But it's interesting to me that many of us as Black women are still trying to-

Austin Channing Brown:

Undo that.

Amena Brown:

Yes, to undo that thing that we learned. I loved that in this chapter... Which I want y'all to check out Austin's book because you talked about how that anger can be useful. I love just the idea of creative anger. Talk to me more about that.

Austin Channing Brown:

Yeah. In college I was definitely that girl who was... I don't think I ever, ever thought about myself as being angry. It wasn't even that I put anger away, it was just so communicated to me that you have to speak in a certain way in order for white folks to hear you that I totally bypassed my own emotional needs and went right to, "Okay. Well, getting this fixed is more important, right? So let me go ahead and talk about maybe how much I'm hurting or... " You know what I mean? Like, "Let me be sad," or like, "Let me try on any other emotion basically other than anger since anger will be dismissed." And I'd be angry.

Amena Brown:

Sis.

Austin Channing Brown:

I'd be angry.

Amena Brown:

Rightfully so.

Austin Channing Brown:

Rightfully so. That was something that I had been thinking about again, especially through Black Lives Matter and all these videos and the number of times that I find myself angry on a very regular basis. I was like, "You know what? I think I'm kind of intimate with my anger. We spent a lot of time together. We'd be sitting on the couch and things." So-

Amena Brown:

Yes. Anger, would you like some popcorn?

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 00:47:56]-

Amena Brown:

Come here, Anger, get you a snack.

Austin Channing Brown:

So I picked up Sister Outsider, which is a book that I had been meaning to read forever. Finally got around to it and got to uses of anger, the essay called uses of anger and I was like, "Ahh, what?" when I say revelation... And I'm almost ashamed to be like, "It was a revelation," but it was. I'm going to just be honest, it was a revelation to me when Audre Lorde says... And forgive me for paraphrasing here. But when she says anger is evidence that an injustice has occurred. Anger is evidence that something's not right here and it can be fueled when channeled correctly. It can be fueled for making things right. And I was like, "[inaudible 00:48:52]."

Austin Channing Brown:

I had to really pause and think about how many things Black folks, Black women create that started off with anger. You know what I'm saying? I'm real upset that all these Black girl ballerinas out here wearing nude whatever ain't nude for them, you know what I'm saying? Somebody got a little upset. So some Black girls said, "You know what? We going to fix that? We going to get some Black girl new jade's, that's what we going to do." You know what I'm saying?

Amena Brown:

Yes.

Austin Channing Brown:

There's so many things. I just be like, "I'm tired of being left out. I'm tired of being unseen. I'm tired." Right? The whole Black Lives Matter organizing is essentially rooted in anger and not just anger of and dignity and a whole lot of other things. But [inaudible 00:49:48] I'm about to sit here and pretend like we wasn't and also angry about Trayvon and about Zimmerman getting off. You know what I'm saying? We ain't going to sit around here and pretend anger doesn't also fuel action. So I think about anger very, very differently.

Austin Channing Brown:

And even when I wrote that chapter, girl, I started to try to document even in my own life things that I did that initially were out of anger. Which [inaudible 00:50:17] I wrote that were initially out of anger, what groups I started on my college campus because I was angry about something that happened, what meetings I attended because we were angry about an injustice or a crisis or... You know what I'm saying? I was like, "My life is filled with examples of the usefulness of anger, but [inaudible 00:50:39] need Audre Lorde in order to bring that into my conscience.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. It's so powerful. I think it's so powerful to be able to take something that we learn to diminish, that we learn to compartmentalize it. And even the image of you saying like, "Me and anger are friends. We hang out or we... "

Austin Channing Brown:

Yes, we do.

Amena Brown:

Sort of we get to invite these parts of ourselves that we were told to shut out and shut down and not acknowledge and not love. That we [crosstalk 00:51:13]-

Austin Channing Brown:

Well, because the first thing we're told, especially as Black women, is that we're being divisive, that we're not being unifying, that this is the opposite of love, right? The world is quick to tell us why our anger is destructive and only destructive. So it was a real gift to my life for Audre to say to me, not so. It could be if you allow it to be. It could be, but it doesn't have to be. Your anger is not inherently bad.

Amena Brown:

That's so good and so healing. Hearing you repeat that right now, it's healing for me to hear and I think it's going to be healing for so many people listening to. One of the things I wanted to bring up that I loved in your book is you described justice work as holy. I love that because it's so true. It's so true if we are in whatever arena space, whatever area we find ourselves in, if we are using our voice, using our resources, using our influence to help see justice in particular for people who have been marginalized and have been oppressed that that is holy work. I think that's so important.

Austin Channing Brown:

It's so transformative. I mean, it transforms you, it transforms the other, it transforms our relationships. It transforms your worldview. It transforms your theology. Nothing stays the same. It is such holy intimate work because it forces you to ask some new questions about yourself, about your people, about your God, about your community. I think that's what... So I used to lead short-term mission trips on the West side of Chicago and, child, I did my best to shed some light. And it was mostly teenagers. I had this one parent who... We used to give out surveys at the end and I was going through the surveys and all the surveys said parent or child or whatever. So the parent had written, this was really interesting, but I'm concerned that you have opened Pandora's box for my child.

Amena Brown:

Huh?

Austin Channing Brown:

I was like-

Amena Brown:

Did I open it or-

Austin Channing Brown:

Interesting.

Amena Brown:

... [crosstalk 00:53:47] open? I'm trying to-

Austin Channing Brown:

Right. And, girl, I couldn't even be offended, right? That seems like a really accurate metaphor. It is [inaudible 00:53:57]. Your child is going to be asking all kinds of new questions, your child is going to look at the news differently, your child is going to listen to the pastor differently, your child is going to be sitting at your dining room table asking some new questions like you're right. I think I did just open the Pandora's box.

Amena Brown:

Then you were like, "Good luck with that."

Austin Channing Brown:

[inaudible 00:54:17]. See you next summer. But I continue to be intrigued by the ways that I am changed by the work that I do, by the people that I encounter, by this new language, by the ways of reading the word, the prayers that I pray. I understand why people resist it. I understand why people resist and I understand why other folks try to contain it so that it's only gender justice or only justice for black folks or only... You know what I mean?

Amena Brown:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Austin Channing Brown:

Honestly because justice for one eventually invites the question justice for who else. And it becomes transformative very, very quickly. So I do. I think it is really the holy work.

Amena Brown:

The title of your book being I'm Still Here, which I love that, and something about being here is being present. It's being whole. It is fighting for justice and joy. What does your process look like to remain whole as sometimes you're speaking such a direct truth to people and sometimes you may be in a space where you're saying that truth to someone who has not been willing to let that in and that makes them act out because they don't even... They're like, "Well, I don't know how to process that," or, "I'm thinking I might know how and I don't want to, so this is how I respond to that."

Amena Brown:

I have this two-part question. One, how in the face of that, in the face of even when you're on Twitter you're speaking about things that happen repeatedly, you're watching what happens to the Black body in violence repeatedly, how do you find wholeness and healing as this a part of your work as a practitioner? Then what would you say for black people and maybe people of color in general that are in predominantly white space that are facing racism every day, that are facing some head-on aggressions every day? How can Black people and people of color remain whole and healed in the process too?

Austin Channing Brown:

I think the first answer for me personally changes based on the season and based on what's happening. I know that's like cheating, but I'm learning it's the truth. I'm a human being. So my son was just born about seven months ago and my ability to read headlines has declined sharply or all I can read is the headline. I have a vague idea of what's happening, but I cannot open the story. I can't watch the video. I can't do it. I'm so tender right now and spending so much time thinking about his life and his future and what I want for him. And it's too closely linked, you know what I mean? To like read that story and to try to resist the thought that I might have to insert my son's name in that story. It's too close right now.

Austin Channing Brown:

So I find myself staying aware of what's happening, but not diving into it right now. Knowing that there are other Black women and other Black folks who can, who [inaudible 00:57:56] space and who do have. And so part of it is realizing that I'm not the only voice out here speaking about racial injustice. You know what I mean? There are other times when... Like when Dajerria Becton happened, I just cried and that's just what my body needed. My body just needed to cry and I needed to be honest about my connection to the offense that she suffered as she lay on that ground and cried for her mother in embarrassment and in shame and in healing. I just so connected with that sound in her voice, right? That desperation in her voice for that to come to an end, for somebody to come rescue her, for somebody to come protect her. So in that instance all I could do was cry.

Austin Channing Brown:

Obviously writing is often how I try and process and make sense and reassert dignity. After Charleston, I had to go back to my home church because I was so devastated by my fear of walking into a church that I was like, "You know what? I'm not even just going to go to any church." That day I went to our church. That weekend, that following weekend, I went back to my home church with my father. So it's spending a lot of time being self-aware. I think if I had to boil down, being aware of what I need, being aware of how much of the pain I can contain and then figuring out how to release that, whether that's through writing or through a conversation with a girlfriend or finding each other on Twitter. You know what I mean? I feel like we've figured out some new ways to take each other.

Austin Channing Brown:

I can't even remember which verdict it was, but I remember Black Twitter was basically like, "Okay, so all day today while we were waiting for this verdict, we going to drink water, we going to have tissues ready." Do you know what I mean? But there was a checklist. We all knew we was going to be sitting in front of the TV waiting for this verdict to come through. So I just really appreciate the ways that we're learning how to process through this and not just pretending we're immune from the work. Then for the second half of your question, so I have this small, teeny-tiny little section in the book called How to Survive Racism at an Organization that Claims to be Antiracist.

Amena Brown:

Speak a word today, Austin. Speak a word.

Austin Channing Brown:

Because so often... First of all, we do be trying to vet the organizations and figure out who's for real about this inclusion life and we still get disappointed because it's racism even at these organizations that claim to want antiracism and racial [inaudible 01:00:35] and whatever they want to call it. And it's love out here. So a few things that come to mind, one is to not go into the organization believing that you have to change everything. Because there's something about even that language where... Because we want to participate, right? We want to participate in change. We want to be a part of movements. We want to be a part of doing something good. So when folks start using that language, we get really attracted to it and then find out that it's all on us and that ain't right. That ain't right. It ain't right. That ain't the way to change an organization.

Austin Channing Brown:

So that would be another one I would say to spend your first year trying to find your allies. Don't do nothing [inaudible 01:01:23] until you figure out who your allies really are, who's coming at good funding who called you when the latest crisis happened, who brought you some food, who wrote a post on their own website, who goes hard on Facebook. You know what I'm saying? Who is out [inaudible 01:01:44] really living this life that you can connect with so that you're not doing this work by yourself, right? And build up your little coalition so that you're not alone. And if you find that you are alone, I'ma need you to get out.

Amena Brown:

They want you to be in this sunken place, right?

Austin Channing Brown:

Don't be in this sunken place y'all please. Now that comes with a game plan, right? Most of us can not just be out here quitting our jobs when somebody makes us upset. I understand that. That's not what I'm saying, but there is no such thing as an exit strategy. How many for you to be out here looking for this new job is going to be thinking about this entrepreneurship life? I'ma [inaudible 01:02:22] you to be... Every organization ain't like the one you in, so maybe we can hop over to somebody else who's starting networking stuff. Where might you be safer? Where might you just be more safe and being ready and willing to move? Especially with our generation, child, we ain't about to retire from no place after being there for 30-some years. That's not the life we live in.

Austin Channing Brown:

And since that's the reality right now that comes with some hard things too, but the beautiful thing about that is that you can move. That's not unusual. That's not weird. Ain't nobody going to look at your resume and be like, "Oh, you ain't work no place for 20 years. I don't know what to expect all that." So it gives some freedom too that if you can see that the organization has gone as far as it's willing to go or you are being too harmed, then it might be time to make that move.

Amena Brown:

Oh, that's some good advice. Come through. Well, Austin, please tell the people, first of all, how they can get ahold to this book because the book is out now? I know y'all can't see me, but I'm doing my out now hands. I'm blinking my hands out now. You can get this book wherever the books be at.

Austin Channing Brown:

[inaudible 01:03:36] books. Yeah, wherever-

Amena Brown:

So where can people get these things?

Austin Channing Brown:

[crosstalk 01:03:41] get your book.

Amena Brown:

Where can they learn more about you as well if they want to follow you and learn more from you as well as access this book? What are the things? Tell me the things.

Austin Channing Brown:

So any place you like to get your books, please feel free to get this book. I personally would love if you asked your local independent bookstore to bring this book in or order it from them. That would be amazing. But if you got to get your Amazon on, you know what I'm saying? Do you, boo. Then I've got that good website, austinchanning.com. Then we already talked about how much I love the Twitters, which is @austinchanning. I also do have Instagram also @austinchanning. Then my Facebook is my whole name, Austin Channing Brown.

Amena Brown:

This week's edition of Give Her A Crown, a segment in which I like to give a shout-out to a woman of color that is inspiring me doing amazing work in the world. This week I want to give a special shout-out to Tamika Mallory. I want to give her a crown because as we are watching such a needed and continued global uprising happen in America as a part of the Black Lives Matter movement and as a part of seeing racial justice happen for Black people in America. Tamika Mallory is one of the voices and leaders at the front line of this movement. She is using her voice, using her body to community organized, to be an activist. I want to give a shout-out to her organization Until Freedom.

Amena Brown:

If you are looking for an organization to give to that is doing frontline justice work, to not only ensure that all black lives matter, but especially to ensure that the names of the Black women and Black trans women whose lives have been lost as well are continued to be uplifted and that justice is served for them as well. So, Tamika Mallory, let's give her a crown. HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown bonus episode

Amena Brown:

Welcome to HER With Amena Brown, a production of the Seneca Women Podcast Network and iHeart Radio. I'm your host, Amena Brown, and each week I'm bringing you hilarious storytelling and soulful conversation while centering the stories of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian women. Join me as we remind each other to access joy, affect change, and be inspired.

Amena Brown:

Welcome to this bonus episode of Her With Amena Brown. For this episode, I wanted to give you a little bit of a window of what some of my stage performances are like, and this is actually one of my favorite stories of all time to tell on stage. You are hearing a recording from me performing at one of Atlanta's fantastic venues, Eddie's Attic, and just know, as of this recording, we are still in a global pandemic and I miss the stage so bad, so I thought that we could all reminisce on what it was like when you could be in a venue and hear someone performing.

Amena Brown:

For me as a performer, getting to hear everyone laughing, gasping, however they respond. This story is as a reflection on the amazing things that I get to learn from my grandmother. My grandma is wonderfully inappropriate, as you should be when you are in your 80s. This story that I'm telling right now on stage is me talking about when I was bringing my now husband, then boyfriend, home to meet my mom and my grandma and what my grandma's subsequent relationship advice was. Check it out.

Amena Brown:

I love my grandma because, I don't know if you get a chance to hang around with people who are 85, but it is amazing the ways that when you're 85, you lose some concerns about the ways people might feel about the things that you want to say right now. You just need to go ahead and tell them the truth, that you're going to let them work it out, how they feel about it. Like, I'll go to visit my grandma and she'll be like, "Mena, how you doing baby?" I'll be like, "I'm doing good, grandma." She'd be like, "That's good. I want you to keep doing that, and when you exercise, do some of these."

Amena Brown:

I'll be like, did my grandma just tell me to work on my midsection, with a smile though? I don't know. I don't know how to do. I don't know what to do about that. When I was 25, I went to my grandma and I said, "Look, grandma, if the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, not going to get there. I'm not going to get there like this, because I got spaghetti, got meatloaf. Is tuna fish, does that count as a thing? I got spaghetti. That's all I have grandma. You need to tell me."

Amena Brown:

Over the years, she's been taking me in her kitchen, showing me how to make some of the soul food staples. Showing me how to make the collard greens, the mac and cheese, some of these Southern things, the rutabaga, some of y'all like, what's that? Search this, because it's delicious. You need to be a part of it. It's a turnip. It's amazing. You could turn up and turnip. Okay.

Amena Brown:

By the time I started dating my now-husband, grandma got me educated on some things, so I'm kind of feeling prepared, but I go to her and my mom and I'm like, "Look, I done met this man, and I want to bring him to y'all to have dinner," so this is immediately like a, "Hmm. She's never brought a man here to have dinner with us. What does this mean?" Right? Take Matt over there. My mom inspects him. She asks him all the Godfather Corleone questions necessary.

Amena Brown:

My grandma's all in his business. Kind of flirting with him a little bit, but we'll talk about that later. Dinner goes great. Everyone's happy with one another. Matt and I get engaged. My grandma at this time decides to start giving me relationship advice. Every time I see her, she's like, "Sit down, baby, got something to tell you." I'm like, "Tell me?" I'm like, "I just got back from the mall, grandma. I bought this, did that, the third." She's like, "Oh, did she buy Matt something?"

Amena Brown:

"But I was buying a dress for myself." "Well, I know you did that, but did you buy Matt something? What'd you have for lunch?" "Well, I had salmon. I went to Fresh to Order." "Oh, that's good. Did you order Matt something?" I don't know if y'all have the kind of grandma that like be shading you, but she looking at something else. That's how my grandma is. She'd be like, "I want to know, did Matt get something to eat?"

Amena Brown:

This one particular day, I come in and she's like, "Mena, we got to talk." I'm like, I'm sitting down at the kitchen table, like, "What's going on?" She's like "Mena, I'm going to tell you something. Don't kiss Matt too hard." There's a moment in your relationship to your family members where you're trying to understand if you should let curiosity carry you down a road, because I'm a very nosy person, so I'm immediately like, "What's this? Tell me more."

Amena Brown:

But then there's another part of me that's like, is my grandma about to tell me something that I can't unknow? Like, once she say it, I can't unknow it, I can't unsee it, but I'm like, I'm going with it. I'm like, "Grandma, why can't I kiss Matt too hard?" She's like, "I'm trying to explain to you that white people bruise easy." For those of y'all that haven't seen The Color Purple, there's a scene in The Color Purple where Celie is about to shave Mister, and some of y'all are like, I don't know what this is. We really want you to Google this. There's like a whole lexicon of things you're missing out on.

Amena Brown:

But those of you that have seen it, follow me. Okay? Celie is about to shave Mister. This is straight razor shave, where you sharpen the straight razor on the leather strap. Okay? And for various and sundry reasons, I don't want to spoil the plot for you, Celie has reason to not shave Mister and do other things with the straight razor instead. Okay? Shug Avery is in a field of lavender flowers, painting her nails. Things I wish I could do. As she's painting her nails, she realizes its time for Celie to shave Mister.

Amena Brown:

She realizes that Celie might kill Mister, so she starts running, and you hear all the African drums and Shug's trying to catch Celie, because she don't Celie to catch a case over this man. My mom is basically Shug Avery in this scenario. Okay? My mom is running from the back of her place to try to catch my grandma before my grandma say something we can't unsee. Right? My mom, like Shug, when Shug make it to Celie, She catch Celie wrist right before Celie was about the shave Mister.

Amena Brown:

My mom walk in, she like, "Mom, you don't need to tell Mena she can't kiss Matt too hard. They about to get married. She can kiss Matt as hard as she want to." Here go my grandma, "She better watch it, right here." Y'all, I love my grandma. I hope that grandma's story gave you a good laugh. I have many more grandma stories to tell.

Amena Brown:

Plus, I have a lot of great guests to bring to you, a lot of thoughtful, and what I hope is hilarious content to bring you, so I cannot wait for you to check out these next episodes of HER With Amena Brown. Stay tuned. HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network, in partnership with iHeart Radio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown trailer

HER with Amena Brown is a weekly show brought to you by Seneca Women Podcast Network and iHeart Radio.  I’m your host Amena Brown and each week I’m bringing you hilarious storytelling and soulful conversation while centering the stories of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian women. 

HER with Amena Brown is a living room where I invite you to hear new perspectives, poetic readings of things you never thought could be poetic, and celebrating women of color who because of their contributions to the world and their community are deserving of a crown.

Each week we are going to laugh, consider and reflect upon the times. Plus I’m really excited to bring women of color who are artists, authors, businesswomen, inventors, and leaders in every sector into our living room so we can learn from their expertise and have the honor of hearing their stories. Join me as we remind each other to access joy, affect change and be inspired. Listen to HER with Amena Brown on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.