What up, Matt Town? You are listening to your girl, Brandy Grayson, on 92.7 FM. The Black
Conversion Show. I am your hostess with the most is I don't really know what that means,
but it rhymes and it sounds good. And people say it. So there you have it. Tonight, I'm extremely
excited. You know, this show, Black Conversion Show, is really, we use this platform. I
use this platform as an opportunity to discuss tough topics, uncomfortable conversations.
And I feel like it's also been used to connect with my people from my past because a lot
of my people from my past have been co-hosting shows with me. And I mean, people who really
just played a huge role on my own understanding of the world around me. And I don't know how
to explain it. Like, the people we had on last week, I had April Kageya on. And my
peers and who are both leaders in our community. Maya sits on the school board. Kageya sits
on the, as a Dane County supervisor. And they played a huge role in the foundation and
the formation of Urban Triage, which is the nonprofit organization that I found it
and currently the CEO. And today, I have tea banks in the studio as my co-host, LK, and
Tee, we go right way back. They were part of the Young Gifted in Black Coalition, which
was the beginning of my own activism. I knew nothing. I was really like a babe, but in
my late 30s, don't tell anybody that I got started in my late 30s. So I'm kind of new.
I'm kind of old with learning. A lot of different distinctions around social justice and equity.
Because I think sometimes we think because you're black or you're part of the other
ring that you get it. And we don't always get it, right? So anyway, I invited tea banks
on the show today, founder of Loud and Unchained, a theater company in Madison to be my guest
today. And we actually were going to talk about the weaponization of LGBTQI A. And it
was based on some stuff that's been occurring in my own world and my world as a CEO of Urban
Triage. And I've been so angry about it. So angry. And I feel like I've been holding it
in. But before I get into any of those, you know, details, I just want to invite Tee to
introduce themselves to you, the audience of 92.7 FM. So Tee, tell us whatever you want.
Say whatever you want. I never have like this perfect question to ask my guest. I'm just
kind of like throw people in it. So tell us about yourself. Who are you and why should we
listen to you? Oh, my goodness. Brandi, thank you so much for having me on. You know,
I really do adore you and I love you. So what up, y'all? My name is Tee Banks. I'm a poet,
playwright, teaching artists from Madison, Wisconsin. And I'm the founder of Loud and Unchained
Theatre Co., which is a collective of black queer trans and disabled artists. We are healers,
teachers, teaching artists, abolitionists. We believe in disability justice. We believe in
queer and trans justice. And we believe in the abolition of prisons and jails and carceral systems
that punish disabled people for being mad ill sick. So yeah, that's me.
That's just me. That's under the old me doing all the hard work and helping us build
analysis and understanding of what all that means, right? Because we hear words like abolitionists
and disability rights and all these things. And we're like, okay, well, what exactly does that
mean? So Tee has come on today to educate us to school us and inspire us. So my original
request of Tee is, y'all, if people who are here that don't follow me on Facebook,
sometimes I make lives. I do these lives because I'm heated. I'm peed off, right?
And this particular life that I did a few days ago was about LGBTQIA and weaponization of
identity and how it can be used to silence, you know, avoid the conversation around racism
and often leads to more harm. And I asked Tee to come on to have that conversation because
I'm not an expert from that from that perspective and from that identity, right? From that
intersection. And doing so, okay, do I bring, okay, how do I explain how we're on the transition?
So in doing so, me and Tee had a conversation and Tee basically reflected back to me because again,
my work is all based on transformation and being accountable and aware because that's what
this work looks like. Humanism work, I'll just call or social justice or equity work. It looks
like being accountable. And accountability often is a hard pill to swallow. So Tee had a conversation
with other people who I was addressing in my live indirectly because, you know, I can be passive
aggressive at times too, Tee. Because that's what I do sometimes. And Tee had that conversation with
them. And Tee made the request of me that we actually don't go into that conversation about
weaponization of identity because it could cause more harm versus good because it can appear.
This is not your words. This is my words, Tee. It can appear as manipulative or even gaslighting
the situation and really throwing gas on the situation. And I said, okay, I'm going to respect your
request because I trust you and I love you. And I trust that you're being my mirror and supporting
me and being transformational and not responding out of anger. Now the conversation around the
weaponization will still happen just not today because it is an important conversation because I'm
not wrong in the conversation I was having on Facebook and how dangerous it is. But we're not
going to go into that today because I don't want to cause more harm, right? And it could be
positioned in a way where I'm causing more harm. But Tee, I want you to speak because what you said
to me was what? Like, instead of doing this, let's talk about this. So then I'll let you talk.
Like, what is our alternative today? And why is that so important to like really consider,
you know, just holding the mirror to myself and others in this work when we talk about disability
rights, equity justice and all that good stuff? Yeah, I just, I first want to say that,
this is a black convergence show, right? This is a black conversation that we're having and it is
an honor for folks who are not black to be witnessing this conversation between us. It's a sacred
space. And I come here out of love because that's what I really do this work for. I really care
about care for black folks. Number one, and all of us and we, and as black folks, we're not a
monolith. We hold many several different identities, right? And so today's show, we're going to switch on
like how, how do we resolve, how do we come to conflict in a way in which we can still hold
care at the center of that and the way that we can also just recognize and hear one another
and see how we can move that also, that includes education, right? That includes patients,
that includes also being brave and being ready and safe enough to have a conversation, right?
Especially when you're in conflict. So I kind of want to talk about that today and also, you know,
how we can come to each other, right? Directly.
To see how we can work things out with not always reaching for the state.
Yeah, so I thank you for that. And for people who are just joining us, you're listening to 92.7FM,
The Black Conversion Show with, with your girl, me, Brandy. I'm Brandy Grayson. Y'all love me.
And I have my co-host T-Banks. What up? What up? So we're just talking about like part, part of it is
is that your, so the conversation without providing too much contents is like, there's this situation
with someone who's by ratio, who's black, right? And I felt offended by their, their, their, their,
avoidance of dealing with a conflict over breakdown with me, right? Directly with my organization,
Urban Triage. And it led to white folks, white LGBTQIA folks in my inbox accusing us of being
transphobic and all these other things, which led to me, I want to talk about the weaponization
of identity. And then that led to TV. And like, no. And then T-SAN right now, what they just
explain is this is a space right now that we're cultivating that's about dynamics within
side, black identity, right? And how sometimes we don't even know that we are also, we're,
we're perpetrating against each other out of anger and needing the, and the need to be on
defense, right? I, you know, I got put on defense and it's like, okay, um, and the old Brandy for
folks who have been following me for a while, the old Brandy would have drug them down the street
back and forth and around the corner, caught out names, organizations, identifies, receipts,
screenshots, because that's how messy I was. But the new Brandy is doing her best to walk in
transformative justice and equity because people are going to make you mad, people are going to
tick you off. And when we talk about politics and politics and how to serve all people,
it requires difficult conversations and the ability to resolve conflicts when they happen,
right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think also to like, if we think about just the title of
with the pro, with this show was going to be about and even just addressing the word weaponization.
Right now, we're in a time that is extremely dangerous for queer folks, but specifically trans folks,
gender non-conforming folks. And we have to be careful and big on care when we are addressing
harm that is happening, because what I don't want, especially as a gender non-conforming
trans person, right? I do not want there to be a narrative out here that gives any more gas
to the legislation that is out here trying to take away rights from trans folks, right?
And so that's why it's important that we have this conversation.
And I also like, in all of that, in how, in my thing that I struggle with, with a cis-heterol
person, right, is how do I balance that as a black woman in my intersection when I am, the world
around us don't give us grace. And then there's other folks in positions that, that I don't,
I don't even know the appropriate word that take advantage of folks not giving us grace. And they
don't fire, too, versus like you did when I, when you, I called you, you say, yeah, let's talk
about it. Then you turned around and say, well, let's talk about it differently, because we want to
be intentional and deliberately deliberate on not causing more harm. Like how do we move from the
place of being upset and conflict because of identities, whether it's black, white, or in between,
or right, you know, I want to say right. I was about to say white, but I meant to say right,
and then left. Like how do we, when we're not in agreement, right? And even our personality
sometimes aren't in agreement. How do we reconcile that and still move the work forward, right?
So I think that's the conversation that we're going to have today. And I think that it's going to
be based in, and it is not think, but it is going to be based on really walking the talk. And today
has been really hard for me because I was like, T, I'm ready. I'm ready to fight. I'm ready to
like call people out. And then I had to call, they had to call me in, right? And hold me accountable
and where our organization needs work in practicing what we preach really and walking in integrity.
So when we get back, we're going to talk more about this and really looking at how do we move
politics, politics into real actionable conversations that that lead us to a different place,
I guess, a place of doing the work and serving the people that are at this intersection and
deserving of our attention, right? And moving it from personal to work. So you're listening
to 92.7 FM, your girl Brandi Grayson on a black conversion show with my co-host today. T banks
we'll be back in a second.
All right, yeah, you back listening to Brandi Grayson on 92.7 FM, the black conversion show with
my guest co-host T banks founder of Loud and Unchained theater company. Check them out. They do
amazing work. We're in the studio talking about trans rights, LGBTQ, LGBTQ rights. And we're
going to get into some discussion about legislation that is coming down the pipeline. Some is already
came and waiting for our governor to sign it. Governor Ebers. This is the Evers or Ebers.
Evers? Evers? Oh, I totally messed it up. Evers.
Okay, all right, sorry, gov. Sorry, homie. Okay, so before we went on break, we were talking about
how to hold space for the conflicts that arise in the work, the work of serving people, the work
of doing disability justice, trans justice, black justice, people justice, homie justice,
and really being empathetic. So my question to you, T, is as a black woman, right? In my intersection,
in this patriarchal hierarchy, we always didn't as binary construct we've created. In our worlds,
there's only black and white, man or women, but it's actually more complicated than that.
And then we like to focus on our identity and the things that are harming us, right? So for me,
my response to is like, you're harming me because I'm a black woman, right? And no one in this
conversation in this collaboration is providing allyship. No one speaking up, no one says anything
when people attack urban trash or me on personal level, people sit there like, I understand,
I understand, but does do nothing, right? But the another person go to them and say, she harming me,
and now you want to write me up, hold me accountable, or do things that are like harmful,
causing more harm versus a clearing. So from where you sit, how do we reconcile that in a human
center, transforming a equitable way? Well, I by no means is saying that I am an expert.
I am a practice expert. I feel like I am learning how to do this thing. It's messy.
It's hard. It requires us to investigate, interrogate, ask ourselves where we are,
what things hurt us so that we can actually show up and listen and move forward. But I think also,
too, we have to investigate this word power. And where does that sit? And you have
a lot of power. Urban triage is an organization that has funding to do a lot of good work and
you all have been doing that work, right? And with that, power comes great responsibility.
Oh, why are you in my head? You know, I don't like the responsibility, but go ahead.
Yes. And so I think shout out to my baby because she has really taught me a lot. I love you,
baby. But like she would tell me that power is really like, is really broken down into like
resources, right? And power and control, right? And controlling the means of production,
being able to have control over legislation, being able to have, right? And so as an institution,
right? A body, a system that has funds, right? And can leverage its power, right? Whether in
advocacy, it can also have the potential to cause harm. And also, when we talk about transformative
justice at the core, very root of everything, transformative justice, let's us interrogate harm.
And let's us see that everyone has the ability to cause harm or be harmed, right? And so then we
have this issue of what happens when there's harm that exists interpersonally or black person to
black person. And then there's like, you know, systems and systems and agents and agents, you know,
the all that stuff. And, you know, I think some people are like, well, I'm more right here or just
because it looks like I have this power. I don't have this power because of all of these ways
that society or power infrastructures take away power from me, right? And then you have this
conversation of, and then there's also a lot of privilege, right? Because everybody also holds
a certain amount of privilege and also intersections of oppression, right? And so, again, it comes
down to responsibility, but it also comes down to, um, what are you sitting for?
You know, what are you standing for? What are your core values? Yeah. And I say sitting because I'm
in this power chair, right? But I feel like, um, you know, and, and at some point with that power,
also, too, means that we have to be able to hear critique. Um, and we have to be able to show up
in a way where we don't wield our power. So that doesn't take away job or access or transportation,
home, you know, the things that we need to like survive, right? Right? If you have the power to do
that, you have great responsibility. Right? And so that should be for the advocacy of, right?
I agree. Yeah. So what I hear you saying is power, we need to really look at, and for our
listeners, you listen to 92.7 FM, your girl Brandy Grayson on the black conversion show, um,
my co-host T banks, um, we are in here talking about power and other things. Uh, but what I hear you
say is we really need to look at how power works, resources and control, the impact of it and,
and looking at the core, transformative justice, which is everyone can be harmed, right? In that,
and we need to look at the privilege and the intersection of oppression, um, and looking at how
where your power lies. And I think that's difficult because on the outside looking in, people
would say urban triage has power, but people can stop our programming from launching. That's power,
right? People can stop contracts from happening. That's power. People can influence other folks
around us, not to fund us and affect our funds, which then that's power and influence. And then
you affect the work that we can do. So then the people that don't have access to the resources or
the program that they should have access that gives them housing, um, transportation, um, you know,
resources to pay their bills. They don't have because it's not launching. That's power, right?
And I think sometimes, and I want to get back into this. So we're going to go on a break in a
minute. So we're going to break this down. And it's also like, we don't talk about intersectional
power. Like that's, that's what comes to my mind because there's some different power, um, levels
of power, levels of influence. And what occurs when you are operating or just supposing a white
organization against the black organization. And in my mind, do, do my experience white always
is right. Right? So no matter how we show up and how our deliverables are, if a white person says,
I've been harmed by this organization or this, this organization is safe, safe isn't safe.
Then we write on to the cancel culture because that's also a thing that occurs, right? People will
cancel you without, um, holding space or educating you or giving you the grace. And people might
even say that you sound like white people. That's why people say, and that is also true, right? So
we can talk about that in a minute. But I, I really, the conversation around power is really
interesting to me because from our own identities again, we, we assume that we have no power, right?
And we, we project that out, but we actually do have power. Like I have power. And then I forget
I have power because sometimes I get trapped in my identity, um, and what the world has told me,
I lack in power. But then I have tons of privilege, right? So when we return, I'm gonna let T respond
to all of that because I'm just kind of vomiting as I go along, right? So, uh, we're gonna return,
in a minute, we gotta, you know, let the sponsors do what the sponsors do because they pay for
their time. But please join us in a conversation, y'all. We would love to hear you at 608-879-8255-608-879-8255. People
on Facebook plug in. You're listening to the Black Convergence Show. We'll be right back in a few
seconds.
Hey, that's a little solitary music. There. Let's sound music. Get your gun.
Okay, remind me of my mama. Okay, you listen to 92.7 FM. The Black Convergence Show with
your girl Brandi Grayson with my co-host, uh, T Banks co-founder, not co-founder, founder of
Loud and Unchained Theater Company, artist, poet, everything, uh, published author. Okay, so
I'm not forget about that. Check mark. Uh, they have accomplished a lot. And I would say they are,
I'm someone who is able to mirror back my own. Um, I guess the words wouldn't be like,
so the words that we often use is like, I don't know, so negative that that's what popped
in my head. But I would just say mirror back my own desire to expand. That's a more,
you know, better friend. So we're in in the studio talking about, um, the work, like the work of
doing the work, politics, politics, equity, collaborations, uh, coalitions, um, and really
harm. Like when, when harm is caused in the work, really, that's what it is. Like you're trying to
get to the work, you have a mission and then you harm each other. And then it's like, uh, what we
were talking about before the break was power. Like with great power comes great responsibility.
And a lot of times in these dynamics, urban triage in myself are the power holders in a sense,
right? Um, we have the influence. I have the mic, you know, I have people who follow me and just
being aware of that. So I just want to open, um, hold that, you know, open the mic to UT, um,
to respond to some of the things that we've been talking about. Yes. Um, I think, you know,
with addressing power, I just want to say that, you know, I wanted to call back the situation
today and not necessarily go after what we originally intended because, again, we're in this
sensitive time where, um, gender not conforming folks, trans folks are really under attack. And
we need more education within, um, our communities and our personally and institutions. Um, and
sometimes, uh, we need to, uh, take a pause on conversations, um, especially, um, when, uh,
the climate that we're in right now, and I just before we get too far into it, I want to say,
right now coming down the pipeline is AB, um, 377, um, and AB 465. So really AB 465 right now is
prohibiting gender transition and medical intervention for youth under 18. Um, and so that has been
passed and is pending, um, governor ever, ever signature right now and whatever that you can do to
reach out to your legislators and tell them that you do not support this is, um, really important
to, um, the trans healthcare, um, and for folks really receiving the care that they need.
So going back to power, right, um, and interrogating power, we had this mic, so I needed to make
sure we knew and, um, apparently, yeah. And also, I think, you know, you said something during
break, which was really interesting. It came up in you like, yes, people are trying to, um,
say that you have harmed or urban triage is harmed. And at the same time, you're being harmed,
right? And that brings me back to so many things. It's not the same, but I'll, yeah, yeah,
you leave this example. Um, there's so, um, like, I'm a parent now too, but, um, my parents,
if they were parenting me, they would be like, um, you know, have some, have to work out their
anger of stuff that I'm able to do now, more freely. I'm able to, um, yeah, I do face violence and
harm for me, being out as a gender not conforming person. Um, I pronounced out he, him, his,
and they then was okay. Um, but, you know, they'd be like, back in my day, you couldn't do X, Y,
and Z, right? That brings up resentment and it brings up pause. It brings up ability to have
less empathy, right? And so they could parent with less empathy. But then like with my children
now or even my granddaughter, right? Um, sometimes I can look at that and be like, you have this type
of love and you're not as short, you know? And, um, that brings up to me like, you know,
why couldn't you have that type of empathy for me? Why couldn't you? My kids say that to me all the time.
Yeah, you know? And so, but we bring those into our institutions that we hid, right? And, um,
and so, but we're, but we made these systems, these organizations to actually combat that harm
that, that made us feel unsafe, that was violent towards us, right? And it's hard to know that we can
perpetuate anti-blackness. It's hard to know that we can perpetuate ageism or that we could
perpetuate policing of gender, right? When we're actually actively fighting for that. Yeah,
against that. So, um, that's what I wanted to bring up. And then it brings also to when we don't
address those things in that underlying resentment, it leads for places where microaggressions can
happen. Or we try to take away things like the program. Yeah. Or you can't have this freedom.
Or try to police more, right? So, yeah. Yeah. So, all of that is on point. And I still struggle with the,
and this is, I think we all struggle with is just the human nature, the parts of it, because there's
a part of me as I was explaining on break, that's like, yeah, that makes sense. Like, with great power,
comes great responsibility. And with great influence, come great responsibility in holding space,
in holding space with care and holding space with trust and understanding that people come to
the work, the table to do the work, carrying their own backpacks full of trauma, triggers,
identity stuff, things they haven't cleared, desires for healing, trauma. And what is hard for
me to reconcile side is how much of that are we responsible for? And where do we draw the boundary
between people harming each other, right? Like so, in our organization, you're free to talk about
what you need to talk about. We hold space for it. If there's a breakdown, then we have what we
call integrity conversations. It's a requirement, right? And the purpose of integrity conversation is
to acknowledge what occurred, right? This thing happened in the impact on you, because part of
integrity conversation is always pointing inward, right? Being like, I want to acknowledge
that I misgendered you. And the impact on you is blah, blah, blah, right? And the impact on me
is I didn't show up like I desired to be, right? And my commitment is working to do better,
right? Like doing better, like educating myself, like, that's my commitment. So in our work,
we do integrity. And what you said is like, when you don't address those things, they
fester in a sense. And they get worse. And then you hold this resentment. And then you start
holding other things because you're reaching for control, right? You feel out of control.
Like my kids do. When I put their backs to the wall, my seven-year-old, he would try to get
control in some kind of way, right? Just any kind of way, whether it's good, bad, or in between,
right? And we all do that as humans. And the question for me often in my work, whether it's with white
people, LGBTQI people, brown people, or whoever, right? Even the youth that we work how much space
in care do you offer when you're getting burnt in the process, like even as someone who provides
tre- you know, foster care to youth that have high emotional needs, right? There's so many things
that my household can withstand, right? Like, I have a seven-year-old, so you can't start throwing
knives in the house. You got to go, right? And I understand that you are dealing with your own
stuff, but the boundary is drawn here because now you put my life in my childhood. So it's like,
how do we manage that in the work? Like, that's an extreme version of what I'm trying to communicate,
but it's just the risk piece, right? The risk of other people causing you. I don't want to work with
a person who don't believe in black lives, and every time I talk to you about it, your microaggression
against me, or you're not hearing me, or I need to translate her. I feel like we haven't figured
out, and we're still trying to figure it out. I think there's many examples, and we do this
easily. We use an example of kids, right? Yeah. Siblings,
parents, family, community. I feel like we can act and react from a place in which
that harm and it will guide us, right? I also feel like, let me take it back. I feel like
when we allow different ways of our identities, when we allow our way of... Sorry, I just...
No, I think I'm following you. When we allow identities to avoid, for me, not seeing your humanity,
or something like that. I feel like, yeah. What I was trying to say is that we all have the
ability to harm or be harmed. We all hold intersecting privileges or oppression, right?
Okay. So we're all hold intersection privileges and intersections of oppression.
Yeah, we do. And there are different levels to that, and I know that you also brought up like,
you know, oppression, Olympics, and I really hate that term. I think it is true, though,
when you have to, you can also be a black queer, trans person in position of power.
Yeah. And you can still wage and leverage that power. But I also feel like if we're coming to
this work and we're really trying to transform our communities and our interpersonal relationships,
like that's when our family, our friends, and things, we really have to move with intention.
And that also means that we haven't all ways known how to do conflict right.
Right. We haven't... To hang. I'm so black on Facebook right now. The lights went out. You can't even see me to see my
people. We haven't always learned how to do conflict. And we also want to rush the process.
Yeah, that part. You know, it's really real that when we're in conflict that both people are parties
or multiple parties are not feeling heard. And my thing is to see in the immediate what is causing
things to be unsafe. Who is a witness to this? Who is experiencing harm? And do you have the
support right to go through the conflict? I think we also need to get away from good and bad.
Yeah, the binary of that. The binary of that, figuring out if somebody reacts in this way,
that's good or that's bad. No, feelings are real. People have reactions. But are you
wielding that power of your reaction to take away from someone else's humanity for them to get
the things that they need to survive and feel comfortable. So I'm trying to interrogate what do we
need when we're going through conflict to make us feel supported. So when that resentment arises,
when we can't hear, there's someone that holds us accountable and say, listen, maybe we need to
break and pause. What do you need here in order for us to listen to each other and move forward?
For our listeners, you're listening to Black Conversion show with me, Brandi Grayson and
my co-host T-Pain, so 92.7 FM. We're talking about power dynamics, transformation,
like how to be transformative, right? And I think for what my takeaway so far is,
is you have to be in it, you have to be aware of what's happening inside of you,
you have to move through your identities because you even me, when I'm having conversations,
I'm identifying as a, and you hear this in spiritual work, right? And people who do the philosophy
and the new world stuff, the stuff that I love, by the way, they always talk about moving beyond
your identity because your identity is what often constricts you. So you see through your identity.
So then you see the world operating from that. And what I'm trying to explain is like,
even in my conversation with you, I'm like, I'm a Black woman. No one shows me grace. I'm always
having to hold everything, right? Because that's the story of a lot of Black women. We hold space.
We hold this. We hold the frontline. We hold politics. We hold our men. We hold our family. We
hold, hold, hold. And I get into space to do the transformative work. And I'm expected to hold
again, right? And that's, that's a part of me, part of the narrative. And the other part of me
is like, wait a minute, what does your Blackness have to do with your humanity or the humanity of
others, right? Like, can I move and not to dismiss my Blackness? Because God, I'm wake up Black,
I go to bed Black. I love my Blackness. But how do we, how do I move that, put it aside for a
second, place it on a couch and be with the person in front of me and say, I see you, I hear you.
And I desire to move past this. And I want to be accountable for how I showed up impacted you
and work to clear that, you know? So I don't know. I don't know if I'm near, near the answer,
a question, I answer to a question that we've been pondering for 400 years. I say 400, maybe 500
because we've been in this struggle of social justice, equity and learning how to do the work
movements after movements have ended good movements because we haven't, we didn't figure out how
to heal and hold space for one another. We didn't feel we didn't figure out how to unpack patriarchy,
misogyny, sexism, homophobia, all the isms that exist in the work. So you're listening to Brandy
Grayson, join the conversation, 608879-8255, we'll be back in a few seconds.
I so wanted to hit that note, ooh, but I knew better, come back, listen to Brandy Grayson, 92.7 FM,
the black conversion show with my co-host T-Bates. We just in here talking about power, privilege,
politics and empathy and how to be transformative. Before we left on break, the conversation around
intersectionality of privilege and the intersectionality of oppression. And then I'll just let T
take it from there. Those are new words for me, by the way. That's good, that's good.
Yes, so I think I feel like we use this word intersectionality a lot and I'd like to like shout out
to Kimberly Krenshaw, that really coined that phrase. Yes, and it really was to also talk about
the ways in which oppression and privilege intersect with black womanhood, right, and the ways in
which the systems, which white women, if we just take feminism, we'll be like, oh, we need women's
rights, well, okay, it's not just the same. There are other things, other systems, and things that
are oppressing black women, and that is black womanhood is the gender. That is, you know, I cannot
separate the two, I cannot separate my womanhood and my blackness, right? So that's really where
intersectionality came into. And then now we have like added other times to it, we're really talking
about all the identities that could like come together. Well, really, it was really a time to talk
about oppression and like black women, but surviving oppression, these capitalistic white supremacist
systems. But since we're there, just to break down, you know, we're talking about transformative
justice, how do we deal with harm from a place of care, consensual radical care that really considers
everyone that is involved within the conflict of harm, and make sure that everyone's basic needs
are met so that they can show up, process what's going on, and that takes time. Sometimes the person
that is harmed or entities that are harmed, they need time. And sometimes folks that can hear that
they have harmed other folks, everybody has to agree to show up, right? To go through a
process, no matter how messy and hard that it goes, there has to be an agreement that folks will,
right? And so that's where we're coming from today. Now, when folks don't want to show up and
have conversations, blah, blah, blah, address things, that's that's a different conversation,
but we're talking about ones two or more people in a consensual space want to have a dialogue
about harm, right? Everyone needs to be supported. And I think that's what we have learned in trying
to transmute conflict is that when we have resentments and other things and not correct support,
that spills out into conflict, not being able to be resolved, and more harm gets away. Yeah,
and you know, just speaking like internationally and globally too, like earlier, we're talking about
like how resentment can come up when you witness somebody else receiving some help or things,
and you didn't get that, or we do this eye for eye, you did this for me. So this is what's about
to happen, right? We see this globally right now, and I'm not meaning to diminish or tack down to a
one, two side, this is how it is genocide, what's happening over in Palestine with the Gaza
strip that is inhumane. We call it for a ceasefire and for the occupation of Palestine and Gaza
to end, right? And in order to forward that, we need to contact Tammy Baldwin. I don't know what you
doing, but please call for a ceasefire right now. You have that power, your constituents are asking
you to do that. So please do that. And so, but bring it down to an interpersonal level, right?
When we're not able to digest that we have some culpability in this, and that we need to slow down,
it allows for problems to magnify in a way where then we have to now mitigate through more harm.
Yeah, yeah. In order to get to the root causes of what is perpetuating that, right? We haven't
learned how to do conflict. We see that our governments, right? And powers that be, they don't
know how to do conflict. They don't know how to stop. In order to stop that bigger violence,
it starts with us individually. How do we mitigate harm and conflict here so that we don't believe
that taking away and acting violence, taking away a, taking away food, taking away housing,
and acting more violence against someone and, and acting power and control in that way is the way
in which we benefit, right? Because you don't even benefit. No, you just, you just feel like you got
power control. Yeah. Yeah. So I hear you say the first thing we need to do, I think the first step,
what I hear you say is you have to come to the table. You have to one be willing to make it work.
You're not make it work. We're, I'm going to, we're going to walk away and skip down the hallway.
No, but make it work to get a clearing and understand. Yeah. Like this is the harm, right? I need
you to be aware of it. And accountable for it and commit to doing something different. Yeah,
right? And if you have become in power, right? Any, and have our preventing access, right? To things
that another person in the party like or in the conflict needs access to those things need to be
rewritten. Those things need to stop, right? Right. Right. So it's also that too. Yeah, it is not
just black and white. It is not just like, I say, I'm sorry. Right. Because harm means that there
are repercussions. Things have happened. Right. So how do we make those things, right? And
sometimes you can't make things, right? And sometimes we have to investigate where power should be
and where it should not be. Right. Oh, whoa. That's good. See that you see, you see, you see,
they just be throwing out kind of good stuff out there. So where power should be and shouldn't be,
that's that's the whole another conversation we talked about that later. But I think that's really
important because allowing access and I think, let's not even go there. But okay, bring
into the table coming to the table being well, we're willing to create a clearing to reviewing,
I guess not reviewing, but really, yeah, looking at our commitment to what our intention is.
I think you said that before like, what is your attention? What are your mission? What are your
values? Like what are you even in this work for? Is it about you or is it about the work?
And you can't even get to that if you don't have what you need. Right. Do you have your sleep? Are
you hungry? Do you have the things that you need? Yeah. And that means for everyone that is
harming or feels or is harm or is causing harm or even is a bystander trying to mediate, right?
We all need to come with our cared for and in a space where we can go through that process.
So come with, you know, being full, having the support you need, being willing to clear it
and really having difficult conversations and accountability and awareness about how you're
showing up and how you contributed to the harm, which might have caused some more harm and how you
harmed other people because you could be the harmer and be harmed at the same time. And I think
sometimes we have a hard time distinguishing that just because you're harmed, I mean, you didn't
cause harm. Yeah. And if even if you do cause harm, you still should have everything that you
need to survive. Right, because that doesn't, right, that doesn't negate your humanism or your
humanists. So, okay, we out of time, like I always is. Okay. So when you're going to give me a
morning show, that's what we're waiting on. Say, do you hear me? We need Brandy Grayson on a
morning show. Y'all know it's going to happen because I'm going to keep saying it. You're listening
to 92.7 FM, the black conversion show with your girl, Brandy Grayson, T banks, and we are out,
y'all. Next week, next time, same time, not same time. You know what I meant. All right,
peace, love, and hair grease.