Black Culture Is Sacred

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay Dot Do a production of I Heart Radio. What's up everybody. I'm so hoping that's huge. I'll live in with best life, that you're having a good time, that the things are sweet and delicious, tent like I'm here with my sister's, my girlfriend's homies, my neiges. Yes, I'm here in age of Graydon Dandler. Hey, hey, and li Ea Sinclair Hey. Now yeah, y'all my nigga nig y'all remember that was going around for a minute with Denzel y. Yes, yes, my nigga. Right. It feels good done it. It feels when you when you have something that is just your own. I mean like if if you you've got a certain little bounce to it because it belongs to you, whether it is you know, your great Grandmam's uh hallapenio corn bread with the corn in it too, you know, if it's if it's you know, a tradition or something that you have claimed in your family, like we celebrate families instead of Christmas and half for the last five years, so maybe six. We're talking today about ownership. We're talking about owning our own stuff. However that stuff is, whether it's our hairstyles, whether it's our skin color. We see a lot of orange people out here in this world. Um yeah, if whatever it is um that we hold as a cultural and I don't know if it's is it sacred sacred because not when it comes to black people's culture, but I mean it was, it was, it was it ever was ever considered sacred here right, always something that was trying to be suppressed. But you cannot suppress us. So we just continue to come up through the wood and through the earth and through the dirt and through the bottom to the top and say, oh no, we are here, we are here. What do y'all think it was the first like moment of cultural appropriation, like even back then from what we got here. I was just thinking about that. I was like, huh, I wonder what was the first moment that a white person went I see that the niggas over there doing that. But we can take that and make that out't even have to give him no credit for that. Ship. I mean they practice, I mean, they practiced, they practice slavery in Africa, but they took our they took what we were doing and took it up five thousand notches and turned it into the most evil, degrading, violent thing they could think of. They added, capitalism slavery didn't exist under those type of pretenses before the white folks looked at what we was doing. Is like and and and and also lunacy. You have to throw you have to throw that in there, that it is an insane person to uh hang somebody from a tree or cut out their organs or cut off their breast or cut out a baby like that. That takes a lot of that's that's that's insanity. That is that is total mental illness for real. And nobody does that like to come right, No, nobody to do that. Nah. I mean if you were at war, yes, you might have got your ass killed and you know, the Zulus might have had a little bit of your skin or you know, your to what it back. I'm not I don't know that Zulu's ever did that. So just I'm just saying, um I just I was thinking of warriors when I said Zulu. But I don't know if anything could have happened underwar under war pretenses, we're not talking about war. We're talking about, um, somebody stealing your juice in front of your face, and I did that or so maybe it was maybe it might have been Egypt. How we're not saying that they did. That just allows to be like, okay, let's talk about for instance, um Wu tang mm hmmm mm hmm. So okay, it's an interesting conversation because somebody say the cultural appropriation is based on a dominant culture during something to a less dominant culture. But let's let's get into a blue tank too. I wonder if that fits into that that equation. So, yes, I mean, there is a there's a there there's a respect there though, right right, I mean I think that's the right because there is a respect and there's a source cited the sources there we go, yeah, and this is why they get respect from the cultures in which they celebrate, because they do that they take time to say, yeah, this is not to mine. Wow, that's and so that's why that would not be cultural appropriation. On top of the fact, I mean to risk as performed, been infighted to the Buddhist temples at this point to speak and perform also to you know that oppressed peoples all over the world they have, you know, so much in common and so any any kind our music and hip hop music in general has been you know, adopted by so many different groups of people because there's there is a connection there. There's an absolute connection. Culturally, there's connection their storytelling, there's you know, all kinds of things. So I don't think it's that we don't want our culture to be accepted and celebrated all over the world. Who doesn't want that. We want credit, respect, respect, Yeah, you know, And I said, I really try to make this not about it's funny because unlike Asia's general, uh, it's all about white supremacy. I was like, let me see if I can go about this in a wholesome way and see if it's not just the white man that's doing this. But to be honest, although it's always different cultures, it generally is is the white man who has uh cultural appropriated from Asian to Native American with your Indian garb, Native American garb and just wearing you know, a dream catchers and whatnot. I mean, and it goes back like this culture it's been a long time globally. I'll just say that look at the bustle. The bustle a bustle back in the eighteen hundreds, they used to wear these corsets, and they had this thing that would make the backside seem to sit outs so that booty could looked like, oh girl, what's her name? Sarah Bartman, right right, right, right right. It seems like this entire beauty phase um or the shape of a body is so based off of Sarah bartment. It's all of its small ways, big but big titties, big thighs, big legs, just voluptuous and and and warm and scrumptious. You know. Just it seems like the whole whole beauty phase and crazy is based off of that, which is why so many women around the world are now built like black women. Black women but you know almost I'm some right, and some black women are actually um doing things to themselves. Try to about it, yes, to embody, this kind of caricaturized version of the black woman's body. And you know, and the bottom line is that all of this is coming from the horrible disrespect and there is no way to look back and say, hey that that really this is where that comes from. That you were you love a thing so much, you hate that you love it, and now you have to erase it that hurt. I just love a things so much that you hate it and now you have to erase it. It sounds like black people. Yeah, it's like T shirt I got. They want your rhythm but not your blues. Yeah. My questions, I was just well, young man, we were right here, go ahead, like, yeah, I'm here for it. I didn't know which one you were going to What about us as far as culturally appropriating, or what about us as far as protecting, uh, what's being appropriated from us? Because that's where I was gonna go. So I didn't know which way you was going to jail. But I do question. I'm like when us as a people, I just feel like, are we not vocal enough and saying get that back or give us our credit. It's it's people who have made who have been become millionaires, major, major, almost billion now billionaires based off of our our beauty and then being able to transform their bodies and their faces to look like us. And I still I just don't understand. I just in my militant mind, I just don't understand how we continue to let that be. It's it's kind of like how George and Men is alive. But that's a whole other thing. But I'm just I just don't. I just don't know how we continue to allow it to happen, And is there a way that we cannot kind we can stop it? Is there? I don't know. I think that ultimately we have a situation where everything is really super centered on white man, and until we shift that center, people won't see us there. They don't see us because all the focuses on that. It's kind of like if you like, you know, you know that filter on on on Instagram where you can focus on on the person in the picture and everything behind it is is blurred. I mean, I think we live in a world like that where the white man is being focused on it, everything around it is blurred, and even though those things are there and they're significant to the makeup of the photo, we're just not focused on it. And the thing is that until we can shift that focus, you know, everything will continue to push that image forward. So whatever that white man does, even if he's doing exactly what you're doing, people will see him first. When I say yeah, I don't mean exclusively. I'm just saying, like, you know that that white male had a row boom when he when that person is doing something to anyone adjacent to that is doing it. Everyone will see that, not because everything else is not allowed. You can be as loud as you want to, but if you're blurred, if you're in the background and it's blurred, yes, a matter how much you're yelling and carrying on, they're focused on what the picture is, the picture that's been taken. Our job is to continue to call that out and shift the focus to take that stupid filter off everything. I just don't think. I don't mean and y'all know, I know, I know, Joe, you hate the name names, but it's been fifteen years of these Kardashians, and I really don't think that's happening. It since because we named it, we've called it out. We're like, okay, no, Grace Jones did that? Okay? No, Like, no, those braids aren't. There's a box braids. Those aren't what you're calling them. Like I forgot what they were calling for a second. Like we keep correcting and saying, but they keep making the money off of our backs and our image and nothing's change it. It's just it's jarring. I'm like, what can we I'm sorry, I just don't get really frustrated. I think The problem there is that we buy into it too. We don't. We don't seem to have this sense of what can I call it? I don't even know what to call it? Pride? That part, god darn it, that is the ugly that I, you know, don't want to face. It doesn't seem like we have a sense of pride and ownership that we support any and everything, um just because somebody else's We're still chasing whatever it is that they're chasing, and typically what they're chasing is us. So we are chasing a varied uh, reflection of us, but it ain't exactly running after our tell yea, you know if you if you cannot, it's always the self work. We talked about this before. It always comes down to the self work. If you are not able to center yourself, if you don't see yourself in the center, then you as a group are not going to be able to see yourselves at the center, and you therefore cannot really, you know, assert as a group to the outside world that you're at the center. If we're just now getting to the point where we can look at maps and say, wait a minute, why why is that? Why is Africa hell a small on that on that map. You know, we're just getting to certain realizations. And our battle with this is relatively young. Let's give ourselves a little bit of credit here, come on. The battle with this thing is relatively young, and we have been pushing back at it for you know, hundreds of years. We've been pushing back at this since the very beginning. So I'm not necessarily disappointed in our efforts. I just know that it's just gonna take more. It's just gonna take more, and that we have to do our part to push ourselves back to the center so that our children can have a little less pushed to do for themselves. So it's like this, this aspect of it is important that everyone on this call today, everyone's podcast remembers going natural with nobody who's coing natural. Everybody remembers when it was four products for natural hair and for excuse me too, when it was to prod African Pride, before that child moisturizer and Palmer's Coconut Moisturizing Nightmares when never so in so we remember, we remember that our daughters, our nieces, our mentees, they will never know that time ever, they will always know that there's they are coming into a world where there's tons of things available to them. So I just want to just shift a little bit and that I'm not super disappointed in our responses, but our responses also can't be the tools of our present. We can't. And that's not my words. I say that a lot. Those are not my words. Like Audrey Lords said that, I believe the bottom line is that we can't keep using their tools. So if we think that we're gonna be we're gonna liberate our image and take hold of it and take hold of our culture and own our culture through a capitalistic system. If we think we're gonna go out there and become billionaires and millionaires, you know, selling our culture to the highest bidder, trust and believe we will not succeed in recentering ourselves that way. You know, it's funny you say that, Asia, because in my mind, I just went light Year. What do you expect? They just got rid of the Washington football team's name? Like, what do you they just got and they say, ma'am huh And that's a that's a that's that's just NFL. Yeah, please believe, all over Philadelphia and every other American city, there's tons of names, mascots, photos, statues, all kinds of stuff that's absolutely inappropriate, offensive, everything under the sun. And you know, it's funny. As I thought about this, this topic that we were gonna speak about the day, I tried to think personally, like, like, here, have you ever appropriated? Not in the you know, defined sense of I know I'm not a dominant race or whatever, but just in a sense of I was like, Okay, it took me to a time when we used to wear and oh my god, you guys, please, I apologize if I use the wrong terms. I'm gonna say Asian because I don't know which country it belongs to. But y'all remember a time in the eighties when all of us little girls had those shoes those um even they either came in black or red, and they were cloth shoes with the plastic bottom, but they were aged. Do you guys remember these from the unit from the beauty supply? Yeah, yeah, I get where you're going with this, Like, yeah, and I'm gonna tell you there's a few. Like a year ago, I remember I was on Twitter and um and um, oh gosh, what's the child's name? Lizzo? Lizzo had to check somebody because somebody a white person. But I've seen black people do this too. Um. Somebody added her and said, you're my spirit animal, and she was like, I just want to correct you that when you say that, that's very offensive. Offensive to Indigenous people. The idea and the concept of a spirit animal is very important to their culture and and you're using it in an inappropriate way. And I thought and never really opened me up because I was like, yeah, you know, as Black people, we do involve ourselves and certain practices and things, not really understanding the implications of other people's culture and how important that might be to their culture. We participate. You know what I'm saying. I can't think of a way in which we've we've been able to, like, let's say, capitalize or I can't in social spaces. Yes, but I mean, I'm sure it exists out there because we live in a capitalist world. I get it, you know what I mean. But as Black people, we do need to check ourselves because we Chinese tattoo phase, everybody was checking. You don't even know what you got on your arm. You don't even know what it says. You don't know, Well what about um, what about we've okay. So this is a point that my boyfriend likes to make all the time. Yeah yeah, um, that we appropriate their hairstyles, um all the time, well all the time. That I once said, uh, via Twitter, and they're should be a day off from weaves. And the response was that women wouldn't come outside without them, and they wouldn't come outside. That'd be a day that they didn't go to work, that'd be a day that they didn't go grocery shopping or pick up their dry cleaning. That they were not coming outside without their weave, and that somehow and and this, I'll say this, I'll see really beautiful brown women, um, and they'll have these weaves on, and I don't It doesn't make a difference to me that it's perfectly done. It doesn't make a difference to me. I look at it and I think, are you trying to be like Becky? Well, she's been told that's it's what beautiful is for her whole exist millions billions of dollars every year on this hairy understand that I believe with with black I know, can you see it? It's just having an I'm a firm believer that hair is a culturement for black women. It doesn't make a goddamn difference if your hair is long and straight, if it's curly, if you got a ten pound wig on your head, it doesn't make a difference. If you go bald, you are still a Black woman. Pert So understand that I'm not slighting you because you got the straight hair on. What I am saying is that that straight hair doesn't belong to your ethnicity, that you are actually culturally, not culturally, because that's not a culture. That's just a reality. That's just a reality. It's not a culture but appropriation trying to look like something quite not yourself. Come on, Asia, I don't want to add more fire at the Asian funeral. I just want to also say that not for nothing, because I am a d C girl that respects both Nigeria and Ethiopia. However, I have also noticed that there is a certain type of um West at least West African woman whom really they go to the weave and they can't stop. And if you watch um the Housewives of Potomac, that's what made me think of it, because there you have three very successful West African Nigerian women, but you cannot you will not see their their natural hair at all. Okay, and Asia, go wait, wait one more, look at my little TV show. Look at look at look at the first Wives clubs of us. All three of us are natural, the natural weeds of us, all three of us are natural. None of us have natural hair. It's an ongoing debate. It is a it is is something that we're like constantly arguing about, like why can't Hazel have natural hair? For you to start, you'll throw herself on the fire. Just throw herself on the fire. Asian, what's gonna dolf on the fire? I'm like, well, ship, I think I mean, okay, I'm gonna start by saying this. I agree with y'all. I do say. I know y'all think, oh she's over there. If I came back and forth in the corner. I agree with y'all about the fact that there is a very clear and intentional thing about black women's hair, their acceptance of their own natural hair, and it's commercial acceptance, you know, in the world of entertainment, in the business world anywhere. That's quote unquote professional, which is dog whistle for white you know. But I get all of those things. I guess to me when I look, And I used to think a lot like that in terms of like that was my thinking about it singularly. But now I feel a little different about it, only because I feel no in in addition to I feel this too, that black women in there, we've White women's hair don't look like that. That's number one, their hair don't look like that. They gotta get we've too in order for their hair to look like that. And number two, um, white woman's hair could never on its own look the way black women get their we've to look. And when you say yeah, they could never hair, you seen beautiful head? I have not not. I'm just saying that's an individual, but not as a whole. Everybody wanted to that was natural. Listen, but they're a black women who have that kind of hair too. I would Blair from Blair's hair was good, but guess who did dress Blair's hair was popping. But I'm gonna tell you this, that hair was done somebody fair dresser did that. She don't wake up like that at number two. Number three, Black women in terms of what they bring to that look is very unique to them. What they bring to that, they bring all of their black girlness into that space. There is not a single space that a black woman can enter in which he does not take it over. It's not a single place. And for me and for me, it's like white women in terms of us quote unquote appropriating their stuff. They can't do that. They just can't do it. I'm sorry, I'm just I'm sorry. Maybe this point, black can do it, but women rolling around. I love this. I love when we do this. We got black who are barbies who talk about being What white woman? Listen? What white woman would you let do your weave? Yeah? No, I wouldn't the most talented one. No, you ain't letting no white woman? Do you about when the last time white when did you hear you a white guy just didn't a white gay man? No, no, he didn't know what edges were at the end of the day that he's definitely okay. They didn't work out. It didn't work out. Do I ad just to add a little more fire in here. Jason always likes to throw when the blonde thing, do we do bet or do we leave that out? Think? I got a lot of I got a lot of flat for going blind. I had blind straight here for a little while. Where I was, my hair was short and it was straight and it was blind, and people got into my d m s and went off about it. Our assist, you need to go back to your natural and I was like, well, here's the funny thing. I don't have a perman my hair. It's straightened, but it's not still natural. It is still my hair. And I used to get a little annoyed by that. But the truth of the matter is that there that black people have these looks, even in situations where they've not been colonized. There are there are black people who have blond I'm sorry, I was, yeah, I guess averages do have been called es that's why they have it. But a bottom money is there are black people that have all aborigines. A lot of them had already had blond hair. It's like it's like a thing, they have blond hair. So there are people of color all over the world to look all types of different ways. You know. My thing is I just hate focusing on black women in their freaking hair. It just makes me. It irritates me. It's like that's always our go to, is that we want to talk bad about or tell black women they don't love themselves because they don't have they don't wear their hair in a certain way, and we keep forgetting that. A lot of the people that have this to say are people who fit within a certain texture that's acceptable to the world. The natural hair, the natural curl that people are, that people feel most comfortable with. So you think this is what about the other thing that I said about some of these some of the West African women, especially like Nigerian women, who are locked into their weaves. I wouldn't be silly enough to act like we don't deal with a lot of self hatred as black women. How could we not? I mean, what we're facing consistently, would would speak to that we would have this issue. And I'm not gonna act like we don't. I just sometimes I just get so tired of hearing the argument about our hair. Let us wear our hair anyway we want to fucking wear it. But we want to do and and and honestly, like I said, even in moments where we feel like we are trying to find some sort of you know, white adjacent looking the image, what we end up doing is creating a new thing. And that's that's what we we will always do. They can't even how if you appropriate something that means you're like a BS great value version of it. How are we going to appropriate their ship and make it so good that then they want to go back and get their weave to look like are we look now she's not lying, now that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she figured it out. Yeah. And then white girls getting black girls to do it. They wasn't. They wasn't always getting their hand corn rolled before they've got the throw and they wasn't. It wasn't getting that clips clips clips, I'm still saying, and I can feel you. I absolutely feel you are naturally. I guess we're talking about natural and not being I guess natural. I just know that this throwback um when you when you sweep the hair off of your neck, that is not something that is innate to black women because the hair you gotta staying hair braids, there are hair stands up typically or we have some kind of great business happening, but but we did not. That has not been a part like that is not somebody else's entire way of being, which is sometimes a bit flip our hair. It's a problem or it's shade because we don't do that. What are you flipping? We grab it and took it and made it a black ass thing. And that's something that happens with us all the time. We take stuff from right. So do we in turn appropriate behaviors um that we see from other cultures? I don't know. If I don't know why appropriate is like wearing me out with terms I mean in terms of us and because we can't, because we can't technically, because we're not. However, I will say that we are. Absolutely We're talking about music. We're talking. We're from rock and roll to blues, to jazz, the funk to sports to girls talking about control the money. Okay, I'm gonna give you the flip. I'm just talking. I'm gonna give you all the flip. Yeah, the flip. I will give you all the flip, the flip, the flip. Yes, that's the white that's the white girl. We have appropriated the hair flip. That's it. That's a that's it. That's all the hair flip. Okay, that's what that's all the day you're taking Okay, okay. Appropriation is according to this dictionary. Yeah, I don't know whose it is, let me see who. It just says dictionary anyway, UM, the act of appropriating or taking possession of something, often without permission or consent. Uh, an act of leed just slature authorizing money to be paid from the treasury or for a specific use app appropriate funds. Yeah, but yep, that's it. But however, cultural appropriation is the adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from disadvantaged minority culture. So maybe the idea here is that appropriation itself is something that anyone can do, but it is particularly damaging when a dominant culture does this, particularly when they are already guilty of erasing and you know, uh, marginalizing different groups, and then they do it. It's like a you know, an offense on top of an offense. It would be like Kylie Jenner's lip kit that she's made millions of dollars off of to be able to draw on your lip so that you can look like have a black woman's lip, but not quite say I'm trying to look like a black Well, let's say this. Not all black women have really full lips. Not all My bottom lip is is Rashanda. My top lip is a little Monique. Listen, not all black women got them black people lips? You got you these my Yeah, we're about to add this conversation. I'm just I'm just saying that not every black person has its characteristic of black people, just like keeping your hair. Just like keeping your hair. So I'm not that's mine, that that mine, That a's his mine and this is mine. And if you decide to widen that nose, that's gonna be mine too, period. And those braids in mine too. That So what about when you put on hazel contacts or blue contacts or green and you know, you have on this wig for the day and black girl lost, the black girl loss, that self hate, self hate, black air loss. I mean, the bottom line is, we're not about to on this thing. We do things, We do things, and we're the ones that are actually suffering the most from it. So yeah, right, if a black woman has a desire to look like something other than let's say, a quote unquote typical black woman, and it's based in self hatred, that's hurting us, not the people that we're imitating. I'm sorry, no, no, no, I'm with it, but I understand what you're saying too. It's just that, listen, we have to identify these ways that we help to suppress our own ship and that I mean, at least I think that that's really where we're coming from with it, is that, yeah, there are people out there taking our stuff, but we also don't value our stuff enough because we're out here trying to look like them. We're out here doing some of the same stuff, and in some ways they can use that as getting permission, but that trauma that ain't there. But we're not responsible for their their their craziness, you know what I'm saying. We're not responsible for that. It's just how if we're gonna change it, we do have to take responsibility for how we help to shape that list if we continue to put white people in their imagery at the center, even if we're doing it, and even if we're not, it's not motivated entirely from self hatred. We know that enough of us are are it does come from that for enough of us, and we ought to be aware of that. We want to protect each other. And that's that's for women all around the world because yea, so you can look at women in Africa as taking the opportunity to where we've more often quote unquote, but when you go to Africa, it's harder to find natural hair products. Yes it is. And so you can even look at it like that that there's there are systemic reasons why a wig might be a quicker, easier thing to do, you know. And then you can also look at a situation like, Okay, black women talk about they they're not gonna go out without their weaves, but then y'all tell them that they're ghetto and unprofessional if they go outside and a bonnet or hair wrap. So if the idea is to preserve the hair, because a lot for a lot of people, that's what it is. It takes longer to style our hair to our liking, Yes it does. So we have to go someplace quick, or we have to do something quick a lot of times to cover the hair or to use a wig or whatever is a is an option to do if we want to just go and if they're gonna rain. I I understand all of the reason. I understand all the reasons. I have definitely been in Australia and had to to get some a baby doll wig, a baby doll hair wig. I was like, what is this because you just couldn't find it. You just couldn't find our hair because we are not catered to. So that means that there is a gigantic business for us to cater to us because we're over it. We're over We're over not being able to find the products that we need or the product that that makes us feel enriched. Okay, how crazy is it that you can't find hair products for black hair in Africa? Right? I don't be I'm confused. Are they saying they don't have a Carol's daughter there? There's nobody there that's gonna making I mean the shade come from over there. The business high, the business, the business. Yeah, the business is there. The business is absolutely there. It's it's for a long time. In California, you couldn't find anybody who did natural hair over here, thank god, in secure or they still be sucked up, don't get a beau. That's who I was going back to in in two thousand in two, and Felicia Felicia, yes, and and Kim Kimball later on, right, but really and and then that wait list was outrageous. There really wasn't any natural hair it's very expensive to get natural hair downe here. But I also want to say too, it's funny that you say that, Jill about California, because how funny is that that they are behind in their natural hair scene or whatever. However, the governor is not, and he said, from now on, you will not discriminate against the black woman for the way that she chooses to wear her hair. That is the law. He is the only one in this country who has done that, which I just thought so ironic, like in Kylie, come on already anything, How crazy is it that we gotta have a whole law. I remember that this this situation when, yes, this situation when viral not too long ago, where this this this principle put out this whole thing saying that mothers couldn't come up to the school if they had bonnuts on their head, or if they had such such and such and such, and so many black people was with her. I mean they were like, yeah, that's ghetto, that's wrong, that's not the outside. And and my whole thing is like this, um, if you're coming up to the school to pick up your kids, if you're at the school as a parent at three pm, if you have the ability to do that. You can come in whatever you want to have one. You can have whatever you want on the top of your head. The bottom line is that we still have a lot of inward stuff. We have a lot of inward stuff, and we we we we demonize things that we are black women due to our hair and our look that is directly associated just with our culture and who we are. It's not ghetto, it's not wrong, it's not unprofessional. Because there was a time when a black woman would tell you braids is unprofessional. Oh yeah, oh listen, trust and believe. Or if you have a shortcut or baldy and my family, let's say you're walking around looking like a chicken, m with your head. That's that was the line, walking around looking like a chicken. So here's the thing, and that goes back to what Dr Yalla Blaze said when we had her on the show. It just reminded me of the issue with costal appropriation. Sometimes is the person who's perpetuating it doesn't know the struggle and what it took for black women to be able to either confidently wear this ship, functionally wear this ship, or whatever. Because now it's just it's nothing for you just right, because please believe there was a time, and it wasn't long ago if a black woman showed up somewhere where braids with corn rolls going all the way back to her head, that we'd be all looking right and and coming up with many stereotypes of what kind of woman that was. Yeah, it's kind of lies. As we're talking about cultural appropriation, it's very easy to to look at other folks and see what they're doing and how they're stealing from us, and you can see it. It's all over the place. Um, But we're also you know, party to that as well. And that's the trick of it all. It's the ugly like facing the ugly portions of ourselves. How do we point fingers at other people when we're not checking the funk out of ourselves? Because that's what we need to do. We have to check ourselves. I'm a big fan of If any culture that I would like to appropriate, I would like to appropriate the Jewish community. Why is that? Why is that? Because there is a writer passage to maturity, there is a language to be learned, there is um this internal support, financial support of one another. Um, there's protection of their loyalty of their culture, absolute protection. Yeah, bet not. And there is a value to uh, their history um um, and their traumas as well. And I I'm just saying, I'm saying I feel like we have all of that except for possibly that idea of valuing our experience in place and value on it and value on our culture, because I do think that there's parts of our culture that we don't value. We don't value it until we have to argue that it's ours. I think we should take bits and pieces of things that that work, things that work, But we don't do all of all that stuff that you said about the Jewish community. We do do that, and we do it with no privilege. We do all of those things, and we have done all of those things. Black people have been mutually supporting one another in community, culture, and finance from the moment that we were able to this. We've been doing that. We were we were doing that from the from the gate. I understand, I understand what you're saying. I'm just saying, there's a thing. Yeah, there's a there's a scale back in style, as you know Asia. Because black holes don't want you to call that the pyramid game. They want to say that they are doing the same thing that other cultures during that it does, right, Pop, I can get what it's all. But everybody's calling you're trying to be a part of this thing right now, the whole thing. But but there was an argument also too, and this is something I want to bring up to. There was there was argument about what is a traditional African susu and what what what of folks were doing at that time. But we'll get back to that real quick. But you're right, Black people have been doing this, you know, from the beginning of the beginning. But I want to ask all this. You know, there has been the weird, the very weird energy amongst you know, Black people all over the diaspora about us appropriating from each other. So there was a there was a OpEd that was done a few years ago from a sister that was from Nigeria who said she was tired of seeing African Americans wearing kinte or and cora and it was just like, you don't that's not your culture. Dare hurt my feelings. I barely know what the funk about. Ship is saying everything up and here I got all kinds of art organ here all kinds of masks and from your privilege, who you can track your ship? Bitch? Because I'm sorry, not bitch. No, she got honey, she she had, she got the business. But it did open up that conversation where this kind of I mean, even as we do it had to be explained to me. So you are right, people do not understand the value of kin take. But tell us, tell us don't act like we like white folks, act like we are lost, okay, and we was kidnapped. Oh somebody please applause. Amen. Oh that all I felt that. But let me throw this, Let me throw this out there. Let me throw this out there. If we really want to value our culture as valid, right, we know that we are descendants of enslaved Africans, as our people in Brazil, as our people in the Caribbean, as are people in many parts of the world, but as African Americans. I mean, look at Quiote culture. It's like, to me, that's our kine. But we don't value it like that, besa Butler. So my thing exactly, So my thing is why do why not we look at the culture we created here and hold it up as something to be respected, as something to be sacred, something to be important to us, so that, yes, if we do want to engage in and and and and learn more about the motherland, that's there for us, But we don't have to take ownership of it, because we have something already to take ownership of. Dances music. I'm from Washington, d C. Originally we hand dance. In Chicago, they call it stepping. In Detroit they call it something different. It's like there's variations to the culture. There's music and d C. We have go go music and you know, Baltimore, you got a house and I'm just saying you've got all this different stuff. So the thing is like, if we really want to get down to the conversation about valuing culture, that has to exist for us too. Yeah, it's it's time, and we're listen. And again we are learning as we go. Our little kid not getting that group of people. We are learning as we go. So now as you say that, yeah we should. So now we need to figure out just how to make that be like make that apart. It can be a part of curriculum. We got to be a part of like your upbringing. It has to be a part of your upbringing. It has to be in the household, and it's taking us a lot of time to get where we are. But we are here. We are here, and we're starting to have our eyes open way more than ever before. We'll say what you call it woke. You know, we're waking up. I'm not gonna say we're woke. I'm gonna say we're waking up because there's a lot of things that we're holding onto because that's what are, that's what massive do. Take that, Take that ugly. That doesn't feel good to think that you're following someone that potentially hates you. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't it. You know, there's nothing about that that feels good. So change your mind. Change your mind. Support yourself, support your businesses. Be mindful when you are allowing your daughter to address like princess, who do who be? Whoopy? Do? Be mindful? Be mindful when you're allowing your children to watch cartoons and who it is that they're saying is the most beautiful girl in the kingdom over and over and over white dolls. Sorry, I'm just saying like I'm not I don't. I am never into hating any other people. I'm not into it. I just don't think that hate is a way to to to win anything. But to be aware and to be mindful and to love yourself are not fall for the traps as much as you can. I'm gonna probably have on a blind wig tomorrow because it's fun, and I don't take it seriously. It is not a part of me. I own that old wig. It don't own me. How is your time? Here's a poem I really dig. It's called Frederick Douglas and it's written by Robert Hayden. As you can tell, I like this guy. When it is finally ours, This freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man, as air, usable as earth, when it belongs at last to all, when it is truly instinct, brain matter die a stile size, stily reflex action, when it is finally one, when it is more than the gaudy mumbo jumble of politicians. This man, this Douglas, this former slave, this negro, beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world where none is lonely, none haunted alien, This man superb in love and logic. This man shall be remembered holl not with statues, rhetoric, not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone, but with the lives grown out of his life. The live's fleshing his dream of the beautiful needful there How do you eat an elephant? One guid time? Hey everyone, I'm Eves, a producer on the show, and we're at the end of another episode, which means I have some resources for you. The law that Layah was referring to earlier is the Crown Act, passed in California in twenty nineteen. The law prohibits discrimination based on a hair style and hair texture in California workplaces and k through twelfth public and charter schools. Since it was passed in California, versions of the Crown Act have become law in several other U S states and cities, and as far is learning more about the concept of cultural appropriation and how it shows up. The Wikipedia page is a good place to start, and you can dig deeper into the subject from there, and there are a lot of places you can go with it, way beyond photos of politicians and black face and white folks and problematic costumes. For another take on the concept, you can read the Atlantic article Every Culture appropriates which I link in the episode description along with these other resources and as always, protect your own peace and blessings everybody. It's been a great conversation. Talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott Presents j dot il the podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott, Why Is st Clair and Age Are Grading Dance Claire. It's executive producers are Jill Scott, Seawan Ju and Brian Calhan. It's produced by Layah st Clair and me Beeves Stephcote. The editing and sound design for this episode we're done by Taylor Chikorn. The poem Frederick Douglas is from Collected Poems of Robert Hayden by Robert Hayden, copyright nineteen sixty six by Robert Hayden, used with permission of the publisher W. W. Norton and Company in all rights reserve. J dot Ill is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.