Rethinking Manhood
Rethinking Manhood is all about bringing men together to unlearn patriarchal masculinity, and intentionally making space for men to heal, grow, and learn in community. If you're looking for a way to support Rethinking Manhood check out my Buy Me a Coffee page! (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/destyn) Your support (in every way) means a lot to me!
Rethinking Manhood
E3, E7: Ashley Paul Breaks Down Authentic Black Male Friendships in Media and the Gender Wars
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In this episode of Rethinking Manhood, I get to sit down with Ashley Paul (@driedinkpen), a brilliant content contributor with @FeministBookClub.
About Ashley:
Ashley Paul is a traveler, runner, and baker. She is an Everlasting Bookworm and Culture Maven. She is passionate about supporting high school juniors and seniors to write compelling stories for their post-secondary careers. She loves stories with social commentary, atmospheric writing, and compelling characters.
About the Episode:
Together we talk about the divide between Black men and women (the gender wars) that has become a cultural flashpoint, fueled by social media algorithms and the temptation to reduce complex human relationships to oversimplified stereotypes. But what happens when we pause the gender wars to examine what authentic connection might look like?
Ashley unpacks a different pathway forward: "Black men and women need to earn each other." This isn't about creating more hoops to jump through, but rather acknowledging that meaningful relationships require intentional effort and respect rather than assumptions. Ashley shares how her own friendships with men have evolved from childhood playground interactions to adult relationships grounded in mutual respect and understanding.
We dive deep into media representations that drive wedges between Black men and women, examining how these portrayals influence everything from dating experiences to platonic friendships. The conversation takes unexpected turns, from analyzing Kendrick Lamar and Drake to discussing how churches simultaneously preserve cultural touchstones while sometimes reinforcing harmful gender dynamics.
MY FAVORITE PART OF THE EPISODE!
We celebrate the rich tapestry of positive Black male relationships already depicted in media – from classic sitcoms like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to contemporary shows like Johnson – proving that healthy Black masculinity has always existed when we know where to look.
Links and Resources:
- Purchase My Book: The Rules We Live By Stories and Reflections on Unlearning Patriarchal Masculinity
- Connect with Feminist Book Club!
Want to get more connected with Rethinking Manhood?
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I get up and I get down. I must struggle till the day is done. I just want to be myself. I just want to be myself today. Wanna know just who I am. Who I am has really just begun.
Speaker 2:So hi, my name is Ashley. I am a writer and currently a content contributor with Feminist Book Club, which is based in Minnesota, Minneapolis. I write about pop culture, literature and social justice and how that all comes together through a feminist lens, and I'm excited to be on the podcast today.
Speaker 3:Yes, Thanks for being here. I also feel so disappointed that I didn't know that that that was based in Minnesota when you said that I was like it is. We're going to have to talk more about that at another time, but I'm curious for you. So one of the things that's interesting we see it a lot on social media, we see it a lot on media, whether it's TV shows, talk shows is this gender war thing that exists, where there's a lot of conversations that exist around how men and women should be in relationship to each other. And then I think about, like the whole red pill, masculinity, the incels. I'm not that into it, I barely know what that stuff means. But overall you know in your experience what have platonic relationships with men been like, Like what have your friendships with men been like? Like what?
Speaker 2:have your friendships with men looked like my friendships with men really, since even elementary school has just been on a school relationship base, like I would see my male peers at school and we would play kickball together, handball together and we just had like a nice relationship with each other. It was nothing um, it wasn't sisterly, brotherly, but it wasn't um demoralizing either, as I feel a lot of school relationships could be just like oh, you're a girl, get away from me.
Speaker 2:Da da, da, da da. And as I've gotten older they've kind of evolved to just like this is who we are as people. For this time being, I don't have many male relationships or friendships, but for the ones that I do have, it's either evolved because of the space that we're in or it's just on a very touch and go basis. But we're still in each other's lives.
Speaker 2:So, for me, it's just a matter of seeing the beautiful male relationships that I have in my family my dad, my uncles, cousins and so forth and how do I want those relationships to align with my male friendships? I'm not tolerating any disrespect. I know how I need to be treated. So if you can't provide that for me, you can kick rocks, you can get to step in. So I make sure that all of my relationships for the time being or as they go along because we're adults, we have lives there's always the respect there.
Speaker 3:Now, something that you said that fascinated me is you mentioned that you know these relationships. You wouldn't say that they're sisterly or brotherly, and I always thought about how often especially with Black folks I think that like this brother and friend thing can be so interchangeable. Or I feel like for many of my men, friends that I think is interesting is we will call each other brothers before we call each other friends. And I'm curious for you how do you make that distinction between, like sisterhood, brotherhood and friendship?
Speaker 2:First of all, I love when Black men call each other brothers. That is one of my absolute favorite things in the world because that camaraderie is so important amongst Black men.
Speaker 2:As you were saying. You know the media loves to paint groups of people in certain ways, and Black men definitely get the canvas when it comes to how they are painted in society. So just having those male friendships amongst Black men is imperative and I think for me it's just. It takes me a while to really like when I love you, I love you, and when I don't.
Speaker 3:I don't.
Speaker 2:And it takes a long time rightfully so for me to really give myself to a friendship or to have to be in someone's life and to have someone in my life because I kind of just operate in this. You can be gone in an instant.
Speaker 2:So I don't want to immediately have that attitude when I meet somebody. Like I wanted to progress. But I also understand that like you may not be here next week, you may not be here next year. So for the time that we know each other, let's one another. But I also recognize that like you could be gone yeah so that sisterly, brotherly bond.
Speaker 3:You know it, it can inch towards it or it can be a long shot away yeah, no, that's so real when I think about, like, what brotherhood means to me, when I think about, like, my experiences in a historically Black fraternity, and then I just think about growing up, where what was so significant to me about a person being a brother instead of a friend is that, like, friendship in some ways has this temporary sort of connotation to it or it's all based on maybe frequency or maybe centered around like a third space.
Speaker 3:But Brotherhood has this kind of long lasting impact where it's like, if I don't see you for five years, if I don't see you for two months, like we gonna pick up right where we left off. And there is, you know, the time and the distance constraint doesn't feel as impactful when it does with friends versus a friend. Like I got friends from college, I got friends from a lot of different spaces, and if I don't talk to them for a while, it's kind of like, well, I talked to a bit of while, like it's not always as easy to pick up. When you were mentoring, mentioning kind of this portrayal of black men in media, how would you say like relationships between black men and women are portrayed in media?
Speaker 2:well, it's like we don't need each other, and I say this as just understanding that, like Black people need each other and we also need to earn one another, it is not guaranteed that Black people are supposed to get along with each other. I think about even one of my favorite Megan. Thee Stallion lyrics is don't call me sis, because I'm not your sister, one of my favorite Megan.
Speaker 2:Thee Stallion lyrics is don't call me sis because I'm not your sister and this notion of like. Just because we're black women in a room, it could be a bunch of sisters and it could be just the two of. We could be the two black women in a white social setting. Don't think because we're black women we're supposed to get along.
Speaker 2:So I think that is in the part of us having to earn one another and also that Black men and Black women need each other. And I think that it's as much as women being pitted against each other that it's Black men and Black women being pitted against each other because you'll see romantic relationships. You know if he's not dating the sister, he's this, this, that and the third. Or if a Black man speaks against Black women, you know he's probably had two Black women who disrespected him, so he thinks the whole, every Black woman, is a part of this monoculture. So I think the media does a great job at pitting black men and black women against each other and I do feel that black men and black women still need to earn each other.
Speaker 3:Black men and Black women still need to earn each other. Okay, so I really want to go to this idea that we need to earn each other, because when you said that, I typed it right away. I said, ooh, this is fascinating. You described what it means, but I want you to go further. Like, what does it look like for us to earn each other?
Speaker 3:And then something that I thought of I'm going to preface this with like, with, like I be in the know, but I don't be fully in the know. I'm a reference, a big thing that's happened, uh, and know that, like I haven't fully been following, but I've been following. So for me it brings up like the whole kendrick and drake thing. Like I've been following, but I, low-key, ain't been fully following. Um, and I know that one of the things that is brought into the conversation is like Drake's blackness. And when you said we need to earn each other, I kind of thought about like has Drake earned? Like I don't want to say our community, because we're not monolithic and that looks different, but I don't know if you know what I'm trying to say, but yeah, what comes up for?
Speaker 3:you if you know what I'm trying to say. But yeah, what comes?
Speaker 2:up for you. I think with Drake, a lot of his anger comes because one he wasn't raised with his father, who is a black man, and he was raised in Canada. Something that I've noticed for the most part about black Canadian men is that they have there's like a performance of blackness, as opposed to like a like a boys in the hood kind of performing a blackness when it's it should be. More of this is how your blackness arrives in black spaces. You can be the cornball, you can be the goofy one. You don't have to be hard as a Black man and it's actually preferred If that is what you grew up with, if that is what you're trying, like it's not something that you're trying, it's something that you are then that's how you arrive in the space. But if you're a cornball, if you're goofy, if you're weird often, as I am, I'm a weird black woman.
Speaker 2:That is how that is self-described. For myself, that is how you arrive in the space, and I think that's what Drake has yet to understand. He thinks baggy jeans and Timberlands and cornrows is being a black man and it's like no, wear your. You know, wear your hair short and you know. However, you want to present yourself like you don't need to wear Timberlands to be a black man. You know there's a lot of pairs of shoes that go on your feet.
Speaker 2:So I, in very few respects that I have empathy for Drake, in that respect, his blackness is what I empathize with him on because it's him trying to be something that he already is, and that's a black man and whether and even though he is biracial, he is still a black man. You know, and I think with you know, kendrick really put a spotlight on that um, just like, especially with the whole, you are not a colleague, you a colonizer and it's like dang. To tell a black man that he's a colonizer is some wild stuff yeah but it's.
Speaker 2:But I think that that should have been more of the heart of the conversation, instead of just like oh, it's these two men beefing, which I hate that it's called a beef. I think Kendrick was regulating and Drake was being a troll but, it comes from a place of insecurity yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's interesting because I feel what's standing out to me right now is I'm thinking about growing up like I grew up mostly all of my life around black folks. The time period I can remember not being around a lot of black people is not even in college, but like when I graduated from college and had my first job and that was the first time where I really experienced or felt this feeling of like dang. It's like different out here, but something that I think about in my own performance of masculinity is this association that I have with black maleness and being hard. And while I've always been a more gentle, soft spoken person, I can still remember times in my life where I've had to prove that I was hard enough. Like I think about the fights that I got in that were never about the actual thing as much as it was. Like if I don't prove that I'm hard in this setting, like I'm gonna get punked the rest of my life.
Speaker 3:And then I think back to when I was in college. Something that would be so weird is I remember we would anytime. We would go out with friends, we would go to a club or something, and if I had been drinking I would notice there would always be this like need to be ready to fight somebody, and that's just something I and then, when I think about the gender wars for lack of a better word the gender wars that exist within Black communities, I think so much of like, uh, misogyny that I hear, like misogynistic rhetoric that I hear specifically Black men say comes from this place of their gentleness, their softness, their weirdness, their corniness not being accepted particularly by, I don't want to say Black women, but usually it's by like one or two Black women.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of Black women and I'll say this In the names that men are called because of their softness it's usually terms that are female related. I'm thinking about the B word, I'm thinking about the P word, and if you are not block. You don't want to be called those terms because you still don't want to be associated with anything that isn't perceived as hard because that's a part of the think of the hierarchy as like a food pyramid.
Speaker 2:You know you will being hard is the top of the top of the pyramid, so you still don't want to be associated with these words, even as you present yourself as your most authentic self.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, no, you're so right, like, and when I think about this hierarchy, I think it goes like hard men at the top and then somewhere on the bottom is like women and then like queer men and once you become associated with either population, like your kind of social status is gone.
Speaker 3:And then I think about, too, how that's often reinforced through media media. Um, when I think of um, black male relationships and I think of a movie the first movie that comes to my mind, which I know you've seen it because you don't see in all the things um, I think of the wood, like, when I think of a movie about black male fridge, oh my gosh, I think of the best man in the wood. Those are like two movies that I think of, and one of the things that's interesting about both of those movies is a theme that comes from them. Is that uplifts men in this hierarchy is like the amount of sexual partners they have, who those sexual partners are, um, or as kids, it is like the pursuit to losing your virginity that you know, welcomes you to manhood and I also think about, if you want to mention, the group boys in terms of these movies.
Speaker 2:Boys to men these guys knew each other in the wood it was since middle school and the best man it had been since college, which, even though they are legally adults, they're still growing into men.
Speaker 2:You have your boys, who you've known in one place of your life, are now meeting you in a new place you're entering, which is matrimony, which is something that is common between both films. There are two characters, or there are characters in each of the films that are getting married. They're entering this new place in their life. So they could have been freaky, deaky when they were kids, young adults, but they are now entering a place where they want to honor one woman. So it's like, how do your boys get you to this more adult and new place in your life when they knew you and you were a little freaky, deaky?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know wanting to, wanting to you know, explore your body and you know the things that come with growing up.
Speaker 3:So something you said that I really appreciated is you mentioned exploring your body.
Speaker 3:I really appreciate it, as you mentioned exploring your body, and I think that one of the things that both, like black boys, and girls are kind of robbed of is just the freedom to explore their sexuality in general, like I think that the moment you start becoming interested in sex, you are labeled fast or like it's so taboo that that freedom is never there.
Speaker 3:But then what I think is so interesting about kind of this, I think of, like you know, when the Q-Dogs in college eventually get married and you'd be thinking like dang, I was picking people up. But what fascinates me is Lance's character and what fascinates me the most is that I've seen it so many times. What's interesting to me is I call it football religion, where, like Lance, is this super religious guy like really hyper spiritual, hyper religious, um, wants to be committed to Mia, right, yes, but then I don't know. One thing I could never get with Lance is Lance was cheating all throughout their relationship and then, because Mia happened to not be a virgin, like he was acting like he couldn't marry her, and I've always wrestled with that. I've struggled. I can't stand that bad in this series.
Speaker 2:Yes, and if you've seen the best man holiday and then the later series that they did, yeah, he has to. He grapples even deeper with his faith, grapples even deeper with his faith. There's a lot that he experiences that begs him to really have a come to jesus moment yeah, and I also question like, because in college he didn't seem so like. There's maybe one scene we really see lance in college, but he's he didn't seem as pious as he did when he was in the league.
Speaker 2:I mean that man he had a jewel encrusted cross around his neck Shoot. If he wasn't carrying a football, he was carrying a Bible. You know he was all in, and so it's just like how do you as much it's interesting that we mentioned about sexuality, but also how do you grow in your faith? Like if you grew up going to church and you're like, yeah, I don't ever, you will never see me in a church house again, or you didn't have that.
Speaker 2:You had that growing up and your faith has changed in a new way for you. So it's like how do you have these pivotal experiences that everyone should have access to? How does that grow from when you were a child to now you're an adult and that's going to continue to evolve for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, and we didn't plan to go here, but that even just made me think about church in general and I think for me, like I'm a preacher's son, so I've spent, when I tell you I was a church kid, like was in the church every day and to this day, be there close to every day. I will be there tonight, eventually, and I think about what church taught me about relationships between men and women, um, but then I also think about their one is something that I think is so fundamental about the black church church in terms of, um, um, keeping Black culture. In a sense. That's not the word that I'm looking for. Maybe sustaining there's a word I'm looking for, but I'm blanking on it Because, if you think about it, it's like a very long lasting Black institution that has existed for a long time, where so much culture and history lives, and I think about how difficult it is for many people to want to see this space evolve in certain ways and yet don't want to leave it, because to leave it is to leave something very core to your culture.
Speaker 3:So I know I just said a lot in there, but any thoughts that you have, whether it's I don't know if you've had experiences in churches or faith community, what it teaches about kind of these relationships and friendships with men and women, and just the role that Black culture plays in Black or, I'm sorry, black the Black church plays, and just Black life Bible and you read this, this tone that talks about how God treated the poor, how God treated sort of groups of people and then you look at how society treats those very groups of people.
Speaker 2:There's a real disconnect. So, I think a lot of people have learned to differentiate spirit and faith and having a relationship with God from I got to go to church every Sunday and if I don't, I'm going to hell, and it's the performative piece of it.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:So it's the real tangibility to faith and to God or whoever you serve. And then how do you grapple with the sort of physical place of it being a church, for example? So you know, I'm friends with gay people. I have friends from other various backgrounds. I'm not going to stop being friends with them because of who they are. In fact, that draws me closer to them, because they stand 10 toes down in who they are and I know that God created, created everyone good or bad but they, but God created these people.
Speaker 2:So how do I serve as a vessel with what I have, to either stand with these people from various groups or to learn from them, or even both?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. You know one of the things that was interesting to me too that you mentioned. So we talked a little bit about this idea that we need to earn each other. I am thinking about how this looks, different for different Black communities, different for different Black communities, and one of the things that I think is I don't want to say difficult, but maybe something that I've been processing is the target boycott. It's a very big thing in Minnesota, I'm sure, like globally, but you know their headquarters are, it's here, and a lot of what I see people talking about is, like you know, we need a leader because back in the legacy of redlining and racial covenants in Minnesota and how that has left many Black communities specifically in areas where Target might be their only option. And then I think about are we willing? Who's going to stand in the gap for those folks who? You have a thought? Go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I live in Los Angeles. Close to I live around the corner from a Ralph's, across the street, is an Amazon Fresh. What exactly is an Amazon Fresh? I don't think we got those. It's amazon, but a grocery store so it's like amazon products and all of that.
Speaker 2:You will not find me stepping foot into an amazon fresh, just that's just my personal feeling. Live not too far from other grocery stores as well, so I have access to grocery stores. And you talking about food deserts is absolutely imperative because even in a metropolis like Los Angeles, where everything is a driving distance away, there is still pockets, and whether in even in wealthy adjacent communities on the West side or even more, I'll say, just poorer communities on the East side of.
Speaker 2:Los Angeles. A commonality is that there are food deserts, there are pockets where the closest grocery store is 15 minutes away driving, so don't even account for the bus system, or even if you got to walk or if you got a big bike. So if you run out of something.
Speaker 2:You better think about new dinner plans, because you're not just going to be able to hop in a car and it's a quick trip. And I say that because Los Angeles is a metropolis where you would think there's grocery stores every mile, every half mile away. So you do have people where their only resource is a Walmart super center or a great target where it's like those massive kind of Costco looking targets. So I don't fault those people for shopping at those places because that's the greatest resource that you have. But for me and for mine, who I know I can shop, I don't have to shop at Target and Target hurt a little bit because I have so many memories with Target.
Speaker 2:But once I found out that they cut dei, and that is again just me speaking I was like, yeah, I don't, we don't have to go there any. Like oh, I don't really shop at target, like it's not a reliable, it's not reliable for me anymore, because it count, it accounts into my values.
Speaker 2:how can I talk about equality and equity and diversity and inclusivity and all of these rich key attributes and then go shop at somewhere where they don't even check for me? I don't have to shop at Amazon, fresh or Target. I can go to certain places. I'm going to do it for myself and for the people who can't you know can't leave shopping at Walmart, and this doesn't make them a bad person. It makes the system and the communities that are built for them the enemy.
Speaker 2:So, you do what you got to do for you and yours and I'm going to do it for me and mine and everyone who can't do it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I had recently stopped using, or recently like kind of parted ways with Kindle, where I'm like a huge e-reader I don't buy physical books ever and self-published author you and I use like KDP, which is Kindle direct publishing. Now what's fascinating is I'm currently in this process where I really want to move my book off of Kindle and find somewhere else to kind of host the publishing. But what's been fascinating is the way that Kindle has, or the way that Amazon has literally been trying to have, a monopoly over books where, like, if your book is on Kindle Unlimited, a great way that like boosts your sales and that kind of gives you free promotion which, like I think you know, kdp's most marginalized authors are probably using, are probably using you can't put your book anywhere else. Like it literally locks you in and makes it so hard for you to publish your book any other way. So then you think about how, like, a lot of these systems are built to kind of have a monopoly so that they make it hard for you to leave it. But what I appreciate about what you were saying too around, like your decision to not go to Amazon Fresh or to not go to Target you are also doing this for the people who can't, and I think that that is such a form of earning each other mind is, with black communities being a community of many communities, I'm always thinking about what ways, you know, let me tell you a story to get to what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3:So I think back to the uprising in Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd.
Speaker 3:At the time I was living like five minutes away five, 10 minutes away from where everything was happening, and I remember driving through the area and it feeling like I was in a war zone. I remember actually being at like the first protest before everything started and everything was peaceful, it was cool. And then officers started shooting these like I don't know what they were. I think they were kind of like smoke bombs and I remember we ran and as we were running to a parking lot the parking lot we're targeting, cub Foods is we saw these police cars with like these trucks with the door open and guns pointed. And we was out, door open and guns pointed, um, and we was out. But I think back to during that time. What I feel like is never told in the story of the uprising is how it was mostly young black, lgbt plus folks who stayed when everyone left, like when we think about george floyd square and who was like holding that space down. It was like the most vulnerable in our community and you know why?
Speaker 2:because when you think about pride is a riot pride started as a riot and pride the the police raids at Stonewall Inn. So it was a bar in New York City. So that was how pride started as a riot.
Speaker 2:So we you know gay, lesbian, bi, trans people and the allies all celebrate, they're joyous. I saw on the side of a bus here in Los Angeles an ad for World Pride DC in a couple of months, because June is rapidly approaching Yep, it's coming up To see just the pride and the rainbow flag and now adding the trans flag and the black and brown stripes to it, to even expand the fabric and the history of this community. Community without mentioning their foot, their feet, their blood, sweat and tears in rioting, in protests.
Speaker 3:And so when you mentioned that, it's so profound that even generations later, this is still, the work is still here, the, the strength of it is here as well yeah, yeah, well, and then I think too of like the ways in which I feel like black, lgbt plus folks are just left out of a lot of conversations and or even like black folks who are living with disabilities, where I wonder like there's a need.
Speaker 3:I'm blanking on how to say it the way I want to say it, but I keep thinking about this idea we need to earn each other um, and how there are populations within our community that it seems like we are comfortable with kind of continuously being left out or being treated like crap. But like I think about how many people I feel like draw the line where, you know, I'm a DEI practitioner. I lead an anti-racism program for a health care organization, lead an anti-racism program for a healthcare organization and while we have been doing this radical, like anti-racism work, uh, to advance health equity, people are down for the cause Like they. They wit it like well, no, black people are down for the cause. They wit it Right. But I'm like the project manager of bill of building out this, out this curriculum that's about health inequities that LGBT plus patients experience, and I know what's going to be fascinating is how a lot of the people who are allies in our anti-racism work are no longer going to be allies in this work. And then you think about how, like the health outcomes of like Black queer folks, often even worse, and yeah, just I think about this culture of nope, but that's where I draw the line.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of it is people having unlearning to do. Yeah, is people having unlearning to do, but telling someone that the way that you operate is foul and it is it brings nothing fruitful to the work that you are down to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're not down for everyone. You can't be down for one thing and you're we need your full mind, body and presence when this work is happening. So in some spaces you made, you know, you're like, yeah, I'm, I am down to do the DEI work, but then when it causes, when it's like, okay, disabled or people with disabilities, or the LGBTQIA community, or you know, we'll even go back to biracial people, you know, whatever that looks like, you know. You know if you're you're black and another race, you can't just be down for one thing and then, when another community is a part of it, you're like, yeah, this is where I tap out.
Speaker 2:And then telling someone that they have unlearning to do can cause this friction that you didn't want from the beginning, but it's like, yeah, you have some unlearning to do. So I think a lot of people have to come to their own accord, and that may be, you know, they hear someone speak who is in a community or who's from a community that they don't want to work with. It may come a year from now, it may come when they're on their deathbed, but it has. Unfortunately, it may not come at the time that you want them to, but the hope is that these people recognize that the work isn't fruitful if it isn't for everybody.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, in follow up question to that, I really love this idea of like we need to earn each other Like. I love it so much I'm gonna talk about it a lot. I would always say where I got it from. Yes, what does this even look like? You know, across the differences, like, like, what does this look like with? I think about intergenerational relationships, where I think about there's like elders in our community who are going to hold on to certain things that we know may be harmful, and like it seems like there's little hope in ever changing their mind, and yet elders play a huge role in our community. And what does it look like for us to be able to earn each other across, like some of these differences or barriers that may exist?
Speaker 2:I'll speak of it from a church perspective. There are a lot of, and you know, generational talk. I kind of roll my eyes at it and I guess that's just reading the news and it's like Gen Z, things like this, and now you're bringing Gen Alpha to it and it's like they're still learning algebra. Relax whatever but.
Speaker 3:I'll say a quick thing about that. Yes, I just got to add to like I think we also forget that generational research has an agenda and it's literally just about out of market to a specific generation and it's really not based in like young people of color typically. So anytime we're always talking about Gen Z, this Gen Z that I'm like we are talking about white people and like we're also talking about research. That's not very accurate. But yes. Okay, I'll be quiet. So.
Speaker 2:I'll speak from a church perspective.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of millennials who do not go to church anymore, and I think, maybe late Gen X, but definitely much of millennials do not go to church anymore, and it's either because they have to work through the trauma that they have gone through as a child, either because of their sexuality, either because of who they are as a person, something that they've experienced that carries a deep wound with them.
Speaker 2:So it's like our elders are like well, why aren't y'all going to church? And you need to be, you know, you need to be the pastor and you need to be doing altar calls, and we don't get this. And where are all the babies in the children's church and all of this stuff, the babies and the children's church and all of this stuff? And it's like, instead of understanding how to evolve the church and to make it more welcoming to those who have either dealt with trauma, who have who loves someone, who has dealt with trauma, or even people of that generation who have unchecked trauma that they haven't worked through, that there's a real disconnect among the generations of how to really help the church evolve and it's not saying, well, forget God.
Speaker 2:Like they're finding God somewhere else. They're finding God in the park, in the snow, in their car. You know, talking to God on the way home like thank you for this day. It's not that God is lost, it's the vessel which is the church is just completely dismantled and not in a way that helps generations evolve. People are going to find their faith in their community and other places. Many churches are missing the mark of how to really invite that in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I think you're spot spot on. I want to shift gears a little bit, but still related. I want to shift gears a little bit, but still related. You know, we've been talking about us just needing to earn each other as a community, which I think this applies to, like so many communities, of thinking about what does it mean to just like earn people.
Speaker 3:But then you mentioned to something earlier around how we need each other and as a person who's sick of the gender wars like I'm very sick of it I also think that there are some things that I hear get brought up, that they don't get brought up in ways that I think are productive or constructive, but like real feelings that I often feel like people need to address, or things or conversations that we need to have. But I'm curious if you have any thoughts of like, how do we I don't want to say, engage in the gender wars because I don't think we need the gender wars, because we need each other, but how do we engage kind of in these, in some of the topics that come up in these conversations that might, that might be kind of real or that, like? You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I think it's it's begins with respect.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And respect is something that you earn. It's not I mean, it's not um demanded. Like you know, you don't demand respect from people. It's something that you earn, it's something that you bring. It's something that you bring in your presence that makes people stand up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we even talk about this when men are together and they say something foul, and then everyone laughs and then that one person, who knows that what, what that person said was foul doesn't say anything because he just wants to be one of the boys. So it's like how do you check the people around you to say like yo, that's not cool, or yo, that's not how you talk to anybody, or that word.
Speaker 2:That word needs to never come out of your mouth. And how do you and I think when you Make those observations to someone, they can be, like you know, screw you Get out my presence, but you stood in your integrity and said this isn't necessary. This isn't what we need amongst each other to really thrive. We already, as Black people, have targets and enemies against us.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:We don't need that amongst each other. We don't need to hate each other. We got plenty of people who do that for us.
Speaker 2:So when someone checks you and says like yo, that's not cool, sit with it for a second yeah, let it simmer let it like, okay, you might be saying something, because I think the issue is a lot of a lot of particularly black men don't know better, because they've either seen it in their house they grew up with it in their households They've seen it in their, their neighborhoods. They all they know is one thing I need to be hard in order to survive. I need to wear my clothes, be hard in order to survive. I need to wear my clothes this way in order to survive. I need to talk this way in order to survive. I got to disrespect this person before they could ever say something about me.
Speaker 2:So we need each other to be able to share our experiences with each other. There's a lot that I've been protected from in my life because of what my parents provided for me, and there's also a lot that I've experienced, and in both circumstances, I can share that information with kids that I mentor or with kids that I've worked with, and it may resonate with them or it may not, but I shared something that's that can be pivotal to them, and to show them like you don't have to operate in certain way, you don't have to survive, you can thrive, and I think that that's how we work in a place where we show that we need one another.
Speaker 2:We're not surviving, we're thriving.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, you just brought up a lot, phoebe. You brought up a lot. One thing that I think is so important is that some of the safe space culture has really kind of misled us in terms of, like, what it means to create spaces that are actually safe, because I think a lot of them operate under the assumption that I have declared this space to be safe. That means that everybody's going to respect each other. That means that, like, everybody's going to be safe. When it is not, it is not earned, it is not worked towards, but it's kind of a demand that we, it's something we expect of people without even knowing if they are agreeing to that or not. So that's the first thing that came up to me. And then, when you were talking about, like, how do we check people, it brought me back to college people. It brought me back to college.
Speaker 3:One of my friends she's a Black woman, still my friend today. I remember she like did this reality check with me and it was. It was shortly after I cross and I you know she, she had this conversation with me in my dorm room. Like, I don't know something about you has changed, and in my head my initial response was like but you don't know, something about you has changed. And in my head my initial response was like but you don't even know me like that, like you know me, but you don't know me, like I've always been this way, and it wasn't until years later where I really sat with that. I remember reaching out to her and I was like you know you were right.
Speaker 3:Like there was definitely things that I there were things that I was going for, that I would have never went for. Like there were things that, post Greek life, I was okay with people saying or there was probably even jokes that I would laugh at, people that I even hung out with that I would never hang out with. But then when you were mentioning how black men don't know better, you brought me back to the Pan-African Student Union when I was in college, which was like equivalent of most places, BSU, and a tension that we saw in that space a lot is that Black men were never there and the reason why and this was true at the college I went to, where I went to was right across the street from the University of Minnesota, so like the campuses interacted a lot, it was true, for, like all the campuses, Black men stayed away from those spaces and a lot of it was because they were asking genuine questions, didn't come out right and they would get got together and sometimes in ways that I think weren't always productive, and I can understand why they were gathered the way that they were gathered. Like I totally get it and it just makes me think about sorry, I know I'm sharing a lot of stories but it then makes me think about when I was an advisor in a higher education setting I was running a program that was for Black men higher education setting. I was running a program that was for Black men.
Speaker 3:Most of these Black men were the children of African immigrants. So a lot of West African students, a lot of East African students A few of them were students, were Black students who we would say were like the descendants of folks who were enslaved. I had two that were, you know, descendants of folks who were enslaved. I had two that were, you know, descendants of folks who were enslaved and I remember they got into some trouble, not real trouble, but they kind of got into a little thing at the beginning of the of the school year because they kept referring to women as the B word Like, and it made me think of growing up that that was the norm, Like growing up the B word was like the synonym for women and the N word was, you know that meant man.
Speaker 3:So I kind of knew and I'm not, you know, saying that it's not harmful but I totally got why they did that and the institution took it very, very seriously. I think there were Black folks who were the children of African immigrants, who grew up in more suburban areas, who had never experienced that culture, and I always wish that there would have been more of an ability to hold space for, yes, this is harmful and let's talk about like why? Let's just talk about this, you know, in an authentic way of yep, this is a norm in some places and it's totally acceptable and okay. And like, part of growing up and expanding your horizon is realizing that we're not all living by the same rules.
Speaker 2:And also think about like where the East African and West African students outside of their household may have learned that it was that those words were OK and that's through media and you know whether it's through music or through a movie that they watch and you know you'll have some shows that do like a kind of after school special of like. This woman got called a certain word. There was a war, and then they realized that calling her that word is not OK, or calling them that word is not OK, and so that's where media plays a role of just like.
Speaker 2:how are these people, who may have not grown up in the same setting? But, also have the same understanding that, like it may be okay in some people's minds to call these people or call someone that word, but most of us understand that that word is not okay as to call someone you call them by their name.
Speaker 3:You know, they have a name.
Speaker 2:You refer to them as a name If you're not calling them a child of God don't call them anything or anything of that, like Don't call them anything else. But it's also how. Where are you getting that information from?
Speaker 2:What access of information that you have. So you can grow up in the suburbs, but you still got access to the same movies as a lot of kids and you're probably all gathered with your friends watching this one TV show that you're not supposed to. That's why I find, like the whole, there was like the parents association, like against TV or something like that, and it was, I feel like when I was a teenager there was so much of like regulating television and it's like no matter, you can unplug television, like no more access to it, and you will still have kids who have access to the information that's being talked about on the television so it's like you might as well explain to kids like why this is wrong, instead of letting someone else do that work yes, yes, you just brought me back.
Speaker 3:My dad used to block bet. We would watch 106 and park after school every day. Couldn't stand it, so he blocked BET, he blocked MTV and he blocked VH1 and yet, like it didn't do anything because we still had access, in some ways, to the information. So, yeah, I don't know. I just keep going back to to just the way that, like our individual socialization, this process where we learn what's right and what's wrong, how that just shows up differently and how more and more, I see myself making the assumption that, like, we all have the same rules and I'm learning that it's very different.
Speaker 3:A random example that I think of is I definitely grew up that when you see black people out and about in the world, you nod your head, like if it's an older person, you probably gonna give a head nod down. If it's a younger person, you might nod your head up. Nobody does that in minnesota anymore. It is the wildest thing for me. That's. That's actually a wild thing for me now, where I feel like at one point, whether it was work school, like when you saw other black folks there and we kind of talked about this a little bit earlier too, and maybe it's me making the assumption that I've already earned uh folks when I haven't.
Speaker 3:But you know I was. So I remember the first job I had. I kind of assumed the Black folks were going to take me like under their wing and I thought that they were going to like show me things. I thought they were going to like tell me, you know, tell me what's real, you know, tell me what's up, things that I would probably do and still do. I think that when I encounter colleagues who are Black and yet now I'm just I'm thinking about like wow, the assumptions that are made and how me believing that I probably have earned people when I have not, but also acknowledging that, like we have all not been socialized to have this kind of universal brotherhood Some of us have, some of us have not.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you understand that not everyone was raised as you were. Not everyone has the same access of information as you or the person listening or just any other, any other person. Um, you know, we don't have. We don't have, we all don't have access to the same information and we don't all have the same experiences, where, again, not a monolith. So it's just like, how do you share that information in a way that you can only hope that someone receives it? And again, it may not be, it may be immediate. Oh, I didn't think about, oh, I didn't think that that joke would be offensive.
Speaker 2:I say it all the time with my boys, or it may be the next day, five months a year, or again on their deathbed. But you just hope, you can only hope, that the information that you share with someone, how you, how you approach that information, instead of like being you know someone who's like, oh, you're supposed to know that, because that can be a refrain, like I don't want to say, I don't want to hear anything from you if that's how you're approaching it, but just you can only hope that the information that you share with someone, the guidance that you provide to someone, will land. Whether or not they receive it, that's not your responsibility, but you share something profound with them that will hopefully change their perspective of how they treat other people, and then that reverberates. That person, teaches them and you can be funny and you can be the center of attention without disrespecting people.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and you know, I think there is a need. When I think, just in my relationships with men, I think one of the struggles of getting there is that correction, or yeah, correction in any form is often seen as like disrespect, like I think there can be so much ego or so much of like. There's phrases that I used to hear that I can't. I ain't said them in so long that I can't I kind of forgot them. But so an example that I think of is like if they're and I remember this more so when I was younger but if whatever a man and a woman did was kind of their business and there was something that was feminine about involving yourself in it, questioning it, or yeah, like I think back to I had a friend when I was, and I probably didn't go about it the best way, but I had a friend who I didn't think was treating like their girlfriend, right, and I straight up told the girlfriend I was like I think you should leave this man, like I don't.
Speaker 3:You know, I mean I would tell him like hey, I think this was weird, like I would tell the girl where he would listen, like hey, this seems like bad and that was such a it took a toll on my friendship with this guy. It wasn't until years later that, I think, when we had grown mature, that you know we were able to rekindle still like one of one of my best friends today. But yeah, just think about how there's such this culture of you're not supposed to say anything and if you do say something, that makes you less of a man.
Speaker 2:And that's how these actions, words, experiences continue.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You have a lot of Black men. You know younger Black men who they watch their mother, their aunt, a loved one, a friend you know being being disrespected and that comes in a myriad of ways. So then you kind of develop this idea. You can develop two ideas. Either that's not cool I don't like how that happened or you think that that's the way that you're supposed to treat someone, and I hope that it's the former more than the latter um, but it oftentimes it's more of just like.
Speaker 2:This is what I saw, so I going to repeat that action. So you just you have to again, just just as your friend years later understood like yeah yeah. Destin, you were right. I didn't realize at the time, but you were right and that hopefully your friends, loved ones, or even just someone who you're just in a in a setting with, understand that, that understands that it's not coming from a place of disrespect.
Speaker 2:It's coming from a place of, or like you're supposed to, you're correcting the world order. It's just you recognizing something for what it is and hoping that that person does too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, as we're getting close to time, there's something I want to ask you that's around the content that you create. Something that I think about, especially when it comes to resisting some of the harmful things that we've talked about, is the ability to be able to explore in your mind, and one of the experiences that two things that I think have drastically changed my life is when I went to a private liberal arts college. I met free black folks Like I met black people who kind of reminded me of like Will Smith and Jada Pinkett's kids, where they were just free, like they, they didn't care. Some of them was walking around barefoot, they were wearing onesies in the middle of the day, and that drastically changed my life. And then that like coupled with reading and not like reading self-help books or academic texts, but just like really reading Black fiction and seeing how one diverse Blackness is, like how and being able.
Speaker 3:What I love about literature is the way that it can kind of open your mind to certain things without you even knowing about it, or like the ways that it can challenge bias that you have, challenge ideas that you have around the world and you don't even really notice yourself. You don't even really notice that that's what's happening. What role do you think that books play like in a person's individual and collect in, like our collective liberation?
Speaker 2:there are gateways in our vessels to know that there are black people in particularly traditional to just traditionally published spaces. You know, your, your penguin random house, your shine through your simon and schuster. All of those um big traditional publishing houses have published black people, and for how difficult it is to get a book published and then to publish a book that is about Black people. That is about our experiences, how unique and how non-unique these experiences are among Black people, but they teach us something.
Speaker 3:They affirm us.
Speaker 2:That is what books do. I am not a self-help person. I love memoir as a form of self-help. I last month I read Cicely Tyson's autobiography and it's extraordinary.
Speaker 3:It's on my list. Did you do the audio book or the?
Speaker 2:written the way you are to e-readers that is, me with audiobooks For her to have been in her. I think she died like two weeks after her book was published.
Speaker 3:Wow, did she narrate the audio?
Speaker 2:Yes. Oh, I got to get it, it was extremely close between her publishing the book and when she eventually passed on, and so books are our gateways and vessels to affirm us as black people and our experiences, and even if you know when you are a non-black person, you better write about us correctly. Okay, because don't have us in here as the dude in the passenger side, because Black men aren't all scrubs, okay, and don't have you know the sister girl affirming the white woman so that she could feel good about herself.
Speaker 2:affirming the white woman so that she could feel good about herself. You better make sure you better be writing about Black people as well as Black people writing themselves. So that is what books do for us, and it can be folklore, or it could be as a memory of being at your family reunion cookout, you having an understanding and outlook into someone else's life who is a part of the community that you are a part of, and that is being a Black person.
Speaker 3:Yes, I even think about how, when I read books, I experience being seen in ways that I don't know if movies like does for me, and maybe it's because I think when you're watching something like there is a visual that you are kind of working with and if you can't see yourself directly, sometimes in that person, but when I read books, like I feel seen.
Speaker 3:I mean, I remember when I was in high school I read Native Son and Black Boy by Richard Wright. School I read Native Son and Black Boy by Richard Wright and I felt seen in a way that I just wish I could, which is weird to think, especially think about Native Son. We're like I don't know why, but in a way I felt so seen in a way that I can't even describe that it awakened something in me, like something just became curious, something wanted more from reading those two books and I just want I always see a lot of men get caught in like this alpha, and I think black men kind of get caught in it too this like alpha male mentality where it's all about self-actualizing and reading things that lead to you becoming richer or smarter, and I'm always like I just want Black men to read fantasy or to just read get lost in a book, just for fun.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think like there's two television shows that immediately come to mind for me. I think about the Wayans brothers that comedy and just how it's literal brotherhood between Sean and Marlon, and they can. They can have a whole shenanigan, that episode, but at the end they're going to give each other a kiss, you know, you know, on the forehead, whatever, and then they're going to hug each other because, at the end of the day, they're all each other has, along with all their siblings, but that's what they have together.
Speaker 2:And then you and I have talked about I've told you about this show, but it's called Johnson. It's on Bounce TV but it's also on Hulu. All the four current seasons are on Hulu and it's about these four black men, keith Jarvis, greg and Omar. Could not be more different from each other, but they're bonded by having the same last name, johnson. And it's again this they've known each other since grade school and they're watching each other become men and all their, all the responsibilities, the downfalls and the lessons that come with being a human being. And so it's four black men and it's just special to be able to watch them help each other grow, and no matter their socioeconomic status they're, they're all well-to-do men, but they're still bonded by who they were as kids, watching each other grow into men. So those are two shows that I leave you all with. If you've not watched the Wayans Brothers, it's from the 90s, early 2000s, but it still just really resonates to today of just like how do black men, especially through comedy and through humor, really bond with each other?
Speaker 3:Can I add one more example?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:I also feel like Will Smith and Carlton, like a similar thing, where there's just this they can go through all their like riffraff and I also love that. As the show progresses you learn that there is just such an acceptance of who they are, like they kind of realize that Will is always going to be Will and Carlton is always going to be Carlton, and it is something that they cannot change about each other and they learn to like love, like love each other so deeply, despite being two very different people.
Speaker 2:And when you were talking about being in a fraternity, I think about the episode when Will and Carlton are pledging and the guy in the fraternity tells Carlton, you're not Black, and Carlton, says the hell. I'm not. I will, absolutely, you know. Don't let the sweater vest and the penny loafers or those boat shoes fool you. I am a Black man, my mother is a Black woman, my father is a Black man, my sisters are Black, my butler is Black, everything about me is Black.
Speaker 2:Don't ever get it twisted, and it's just it's one of the most special episodes that amongst many episodes that the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has given us.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I even love in that episode that Will was also like bet. We finna bounce. Like yes, he was very much like if my cousin can't be a part of it, I'm not either, and I love that type of solidarity that Will showed in that moment as like a black man who does fit in many places, or like who, yeah. So I always just think back to to that part too. Where will is refusing, right, he's like I'm. It's either both of us or none of us yes, and it's just.
Speaker 2:There's so much rich shows and television and media, despite what may be said otherwise, I also want to leave people. The Brothers with Morris Chestnut, Shemar Mordiel-Hugley and Bill Bellamy is just a fantastic example.
Speaker 3:I haven't seen that one in a minute. Yeah, I haven't seen it in a minute either.
Speaker 2:But I mean literally the brothers and how they take care of each other. I wouldn't be a Marvel fan if I didn't mention the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. That TV show.
Speaker 2:Um, it's with Anthony Mackey as he's becoming, um, captain America, and then Sebastian Stan being the Winter Soldier, and just you know, not necessarily looking at black men, but just how a black man is entering a new space, this heroism that he's taking the mantle from Steve Rogers um, and just how he bonds with the Winter Soldier's fashion stand being a white man. Um, I also just started watching New York Undercover. It's another show from the 90s with, uh, it's on Hulu with Malik Yoba and Michael Lorenzo playing uh, williams and Torres, who are undercover detectives, and just like how you watch their relationship. They should literally just be partners who work together on the force, but they really get involved with each other's lives or in each other's lives and just like how that unfolds.
Speaker 2:And then two last things the film the blackening. If you have not watched that film, it's, it's black people who go on vacation and then are terrorized, but it's a comedy, I mean it's. It's absolutely quotable, hilarious, but they're bonded by fear. So it's, it's absolutely quotable, hilarious, but they're bonded by fear. So it's like, how did they? It tackles a lot of like what we've been talking about as far as relationships between straight men and queer men and black women and black men and just how that operates, and that can be um horror in itself, but it can also be something that really bonds us.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, atlanta yes, yes um, just like the quirkiness of atlanta, especially if you compare it to the film atl, which is could not be more different but shows Atlanta and all its beauty and sides, especially as Black people.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, there's something really powerful that I'm experiencing, as you're sharing this. I think a nugget that I'm taking away is that there's so many dope examples that are already out there. So many dope examples that are already out there, and I think that sometimes one of my frustrations like in this work around, you know, unpacking patriarchal masculinity is that sometimes we make healthy masculinity appear to be this box that, like black men, one do not fit in and like it's. It's kind of trying to liberate people from one box but putting them in a different one. Um, and through these examples, as you're naming them, or for the ones that I've seen, I'm like you're so right Like there are examples of these enriching and powerful relationships between men that we can learn from that. We've already seen that we've probably grown up with, um, but just kind of have to watch it with a fresh lens and see what is it saying to us even today. Another thing I want to oh my bad, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Just top of my head also family matters.
Speaker 3:You know, Eddie and.
Speaker 2:Waldo, eddie and Urkel. You know the three of them together. You know I could give you a whole list, a whole scroll, but just know that there are beautiful representations of Black men in media. Don't let the media fool you.
Speaker 3:Now, where can people connect with your brilliance? I know people are listening and they're like look, we want the book, we want whatever, whatever we can get. How can people connect?
Speaker 2:You can follow me at dried ink pen on Instagram. I'm usually posting about my work at Feminist Book Club. You can follow Feminist Book Club at your Feminist Book Club just to see the profound work that we're doing rebuilding as now a worker-owned platform. That's something that has been worked on for the past nearly two years now nearly two years now. So just keeping in touch in those spaces. I'm so thankful to have had this opportunity to be here and to speak and just dust in all the work that you're doing, to have conversations. That's where all of this extends from is just learning from one another. Who I am has really just begun.