Thicka Dena Snicka

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Speaker 1: Welcome to j dot il, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, friends, welcome to j dot IL the podcast. And we we're here, We are here today. My name is Joe Scott and I'm here with my sister friends Ada Graydon Danceler. Hell you notice how I said Asia because that's me. And I'm also here with st Claire Asia. Oh god, please, y'all know more Asia, Asia, Asia, Asia. It's Asia, y'all know, Asian from from from kendredj Asa, Graydon Danceler and Leyah st Clair. We're talking what we're talking about some y'all, So okay, I need you to get involved. If you have never had Cynicalese food, I don't know who is in the kitchen that the foot lemons, the pamper then and make it, and that little hiber narrow pepper and the ginger. My god, today I think I could eat myself to the villa. I could, I could lay down in that. I could that that whole coast though, that whole coast pretty much right, y'all. Yeah, No shades of Ethiopians like y'all can keep that, but that whole the West side, y'all got it. But that goodness that's h and John hole. I mean, would you stop talking about people? People wouldn't great breads? No show? I'm sorry. Do you do you like nine? Yes? I do. Don't make me a racist. I do like nine. I love I love none. I love Indian food because again you've got you've got a raising season, like a yeast, a yeast based or a flower based. Yeah it'swist African, right, Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. What I taste the East, I'd be like, I don't think I'm from there. I love lavender lemonade as well. Okay, well that's just ship. Listen. I'm just throwing all the stuff and laughing to go good at everything. Labora to Chie, oh my god, and Norstrom you know at the cafe and nors from everybody, it's it's a laborator Chie. I will all also say too. I love a good moist piece of cape. Oh. I like chocolate seven up. Who it's a very rum cake carry cake without the nuts because I'm allergic. So but yeah, chocolate, chocolate and yellow. I love a peach cobbler. Okay, the best who are making it? I've always look the best cobbler I've had. It was an Italian lady. It was a great great grandmama's recipe. They closed on the restaurant and I literally stood outside of it and cried, I promise you. They had a a strawberry apple peach cobbler with a cinnamon ice cream that was child like Cinamon. Man, my mouth is water. That was the best damn cobbler I've ever had. To remember that time we played that game and we talked about imitating Jill, talking about will pontificate listen or any experience, really you you will be like I saw this lease. She's going to talk about the little drop of dew on top of the leaf. She's gonna give you a story about some ship. Okay, you're better. You gotta right, you gotta right. Thank you friends, Thank you friends. It's really my freaking pleasure. I love to do it. Yo. Food is good, And because food is good, people are gonna be all different sizes. Yeah, yep, I know. I know that I probably be a different person if I live back in California when I lived in Cali, because the the the whole. Not a different person, but I'd be a lot more fit than I am currently because um, damn what do we roll bikes all the time every day? Ye a meeting, it's a hike that on that ship was fired? Yeah yeah. But I I've never been a skinny person, not one time. Never, I don't. I don't remember being skinny, never slimmer, but never thin. Never. Oh, I don't recall these things. If I was, I was a child, you know what I mean? Did we all have that in common? Is that YouTube agent? Was you skinny? Was you skinny? Ever? At a point you was kind of though? Well, I was definitely a skinny kid, okay, tall a skinny kid, you know, but having children changes all the things. And for me, I just wasn't never that snap back king like everybody else was. I just never was that girl. So I just have never. I haven't been under a size four teen since I was twenty two, So my whole adult life I have been considered considered plus size. A few times. I lost weight blada la, la la. And then I got pregnant and I ate car bloated while I was nursing, and YadA, YadA, YadA, And what you see is a compilation of several pregnancies and post pregnancy habits a man. So you want. That's my opinion. I don't care what you say. That's my Opinionic ages Hot give it back and makes the sexiest legs ever beautiful. And I want to say this, these legs in their age, they have a little more cellulated on them than they used to. And I was a little worried about throwing these jokers out on folks because I was like, I get so many compliments on my legs and now they're looking a little different. Let me tell y'all something. Let me tell y'all what will change a woman the temperature outside? Yeah where. What I decided was, y'all are going to get the backs of these legs and you're gonna enjoy or you're or you're not. But I'm not gonna be miss and bloo about that. I boy man, wow uh. And it's interesting that we're having this conversation right now. You guys know where I am with You know that where I am with it. I decided that I was playing Mahalia Jackson and I was gonna add some weight. And I'm telling you I loved every moment of it. But now that I'm here and I'm ready to start shooting, we're not yet but we're closer than we were before. And um, I don't feel great. I don't feel great. You know, there's new things happening, you know, um needs feel different, Ankles swelling, you know, risks are different, Like I feel different, and I'm very excited about um. When this is I want to do it first. I can't think about when it's over. I had to to to get involved and be inside this this role, which is very excit fighting for me. But I Hellia had had arms that shook, you know, and you need that because you need to know everything. Hell you felt like with every all kinds of weight, whether every physical or otherwise. Look, I'm here, so they're here. I'm here for all of it. Yeah. It'll feel good too when you finally you know it. Yeah, because also I don't know my mind. I'm also thinking your body also knows where it's supposed to be. So when it's finally it's time, Yeah, you know what I mean, You'll be like when you get back to that person, that person that you know of yourself. Well, there's a lot of women that know exactly where they're comfortable. And it's not even you know, it's not a size fourteen it's about an eighteen twenty UM. They're comfortable with it and it looks good on them. A lot of women, a lot of women. And I love the splace that we're in right now where you start to see more of that, you know, and but still like women in the public eye, they suffer a lot. Like I followed quote unquote um influencers, models on Instagram, and eventually we get that Instagram live where they go live and somebody has done something, says something that's deeply triggering, that's deeply hurtful and make some kind of question their own comfort in their own bodies, you know what I'm saying. And so it's it's it's a hard thing to watch because it's kind of like, yeah, on one hand, now we have plus size models, we have plus sized lines, we have so much like that caters to and celebrates the beauty of women in their different shapes and sizes and stuff. But you just see that same kind of old adage that there's something wrong with you, You're supposed to hate yourself, you're not healthy, you're not done it, lub or blah blah, And it's like, uh, yeah, you see the effect on the humanity of that person see, But it also feels like, I don't know, in general, I just feel like we're gonna through all these kind of new eras and acknowledging that we are again as a people, not on the monolith, as a country, as all kind of things. And it seems like, and I know a lot of us follow like Lizzo and whatnot, the things that she's going through are are I don't I don't want to say new in a way, but I want to say because she is, she is so popular, because I don't I can't recall another person like her being as popular, right, So I feel for her in the sense that she's kind of like a sacrificial lamb. But she's gonna go through some things. But it's also in the process of opening the door. And I was telling y'all earlier, you know, I'm glad that these conversations are well rounded in a way to where, yeah, you see the sad moments. But I was telling y'all, I watched her whole season of her her reality show. One thing that I was happy she touched on to us, Listen, we're all this is a show where you guys are trying to be my dancers, and we're all thick girls and we are proud big girls. However, there is a health factor involved too. You have to have stamina. You can't just you know, this is something it's not magic that I just appear on the stage and I can work for two hours and do all these other dances that takes work as well. So I think, I don't know. I just think that I'm glad that we're having these well rounded conversations because all that need to be seen. I mean, yeah, the bulliant process of what you're going through, but also to like there's there's also a health situation involved as well. But I'm glad she approached it because I think what happens is that you gotta have a do you know how I'm really big on like, oh, you gotta hear from the person who's experience in the world. It's from that space when when somebody who is not in that is not experience in the world that way says oh, I'm concerned about your health, and they think and and that's a dog whistle wrapped up in fake concerned. That really is faphobia Like that, Yeah, no, that's not cool because the fact that you can have a woman who's a certain size who does have stamina but still ain't small. It's possible that the point is that, yeah, you gotta have stamina, but your stamina and ability to have it is not always directly as associated to your size. This is skinny people who can't walk them off. Yes, so that's important, important for us to kind of say, yes, it's good to have a well rounded conversation, but you can't have a well rounded conversation with somebody who really at the core of what they believe is that they believe that you're wrong and you're who you are is is problematic. You're you're not attractive and that you're not not I don't I don't think that everybody that's thin is attractive, or everybody that's tall is attractive, or short that's attractive. Like you know that part, that part. If you're like agent said, if you're coming from a position where you really feel like the person is unattractive, you need to you need to shut up. It is not your place to talk about somebody's health. If you're if that's on the underbelly of it all, cut that out. We'll be right back. Do y'all feel me on the sense of like Lizzo being I want to call her a pioneer of sorts, but call her a sacrificial lion. Yeah, okay, that's that's what I'm gonna call her a sacrificial because she she's out here, honey. And you know, I write more sexual songs and I think Lizzo ever has ever. Um, Lizzo songs are uplifting and funny and alive and uh there's a lot of female empowerment in them. And um, the woman is talented. She how many boat covers has she had? And I'm just saying, I'm just saying to some people, as soon as she hits social media she starts to twork at all that somehow goods the race. I'm tired of seeing that. I don't want to see her ass when I'm not. It's a lot of asses out here, you know, people on on my Facebook because you know that's where all my seasoned people are. That no, no, no shade. But yeah, but would I be your Facebook when I'm on the Facebook, maybe like, well, I don't want to see none of the asses. And I'm like, use a motherfucking You've been looking at asses a long long time. The first one to ask is to get that link for JESSI Williams. Though, first of all, wait that link that I'm gonna be quiet on. Oh sorry, I'm sorry. I don't know what. I don't know what You're right because here your point, I feel like you an I don't know what you're referencing, like you and something to keep going. I'm sure you on the other hand, and and blushing and happy and wish to see more, and I wish I wish to see more. I am not touching my titties right now. One am not pleasuring myself for this book. More often, Thank you so much more more often. But see, this goes to our point about see because he likes them fit and that's something that you But these other body types, you know, people have problems with I see, and that's in the when you're talking about men um I personally, I like a little pot belly was on that stage with that water dripping the circulation, but not be as half. That's all as I'm saying. What I'm saying is that face on love looked at like said the same thing. We would we would be having the same Yeah, if if the if the reality a phase on Love was the same reality as this other person that no idea you're talking about. If those two things were identical, we would still be having this conversation. And let me tell you all, the fluffy men would be one and around here like we told you R. But that's actually y'all, but the fluffy thing don't work for men because also too, like I told you on the joke I wrote, it takes two inches off. So ain't not sexty about that? That's just selfish. Well, baby, I'll say this to an extent, to an extent, no, it's not. No, we don't. We don't have to talking. I'm not talking no, no no, no, I'm not talking about a little push. I'm talking about the level when we would talking about Mr. Love, I was talking about like that level of stomach definitely medically and scientifically is keeping two inches away from your sister or brother, whoever you are. So I just say that's selfish. Now, y'all can go on and talk about as much as you want. Either way, you are not getting your full potential of what you could get. Well, I ain't talking about because ain't talking about what what about something? What about some money? Who's saying you know that's big and I can't get up in there? Can I? Just? On a jade ill side note, A dude was is telling me that all the no shade to the women who have had their b B B B, but they're gonna be b B. But but um, a lot of men are have in trouble getting too. Yes, I just say something to think about. You gotta get you gotta How can I? Okay, but I know we're talking about something different, but I just want to put that on your mind. I'm just crazy to say this. I'm gonna put this out here, Okay. How can I put this so that my husband does not fully divorce me after this podcast? Why I'm gonna put it. I'm gonna put it like this, Okay. I'm saying that there's a lot of things, many many things that can happen in a relationship with two fluffy people, okay, and there is a high level of pleasure that can come out of such a coupling. Did I just in which hold on in which in which no potential has not been reached? And so I just want to put there because for those of us couples out there who jiggle, I just want you all to know what you can do. You're not a word stamp. I know what y'all can do. What y'all do? Oh my god, aga, I hear you, and I stand with you fully, fully jsy solidarity with me. I am she ain't a good example neither, and who is the person that once you wouldn't I I want to notice fluffy pein that you're talking about, because if you don't have a fluffy pant reference and again I don't want to talk about it like yet you fluffy to reference, but I had fluffy tummy peen and I was saying, when it's concentrated in the tummy and it's protruding, that's when the the inches get taken away. I want to talking about all over the body, you fluffy blah blah blah. I was talking about particularly the belly fat that protrude when he can't see it in the in the in the mirror. I'm saying that that physical because it's it is, it's medical. I want you, I want you to consider a pillow. It happened to me, a triangular pillow. Uh, they're coming velvet and all different colors. Trauma comes out in so many different ways and also a stool he was and get them. He didn't lose it for me, he lost the weight, but I wouldn't don't know more and that it comes out now, it comes out this and this is a this is a good moment. This is a teachable moment. He's the one that's told me. He's the one that told me this is a teachable moment because I just want to tell y'all this is what happens. See when we have like difficult conversations, right, our tendency and I do it to our tendency is to use our personal experience as the same And I was using my personal experience to debunk a very general statement that you were making about a group of people in which you are not experiencing the world as and with I'm just talking about so this will say, this is all love. I just want everybody here. This is this is what we have to work through as a people that we yes, we work through as a people. Right, this is this is that type of you know, beautiful work though are we use We don't use our personal experience as our world sample, as our general sample. We want to create a much larger sample, which is why a Lizzo is important. No, but this is why Lizza is important, because she's able to bring voice to and she put up a platform wide sample of people and particularly black women, who are experiencing the world in their bodies, that are really being rejected in many ways through society and of course white supremacist delusion values. And I'm gonna I'm gonna throw this in there. I'm gonna throw this in there. There are a lot of people who date who they think other people, um would like, rather than who they actually like. Right, So, and I can say that from I'm going to say this from my experience that I know a lot of actors and rappers and singers that that you know that have the the quintessential figure eight wife. Um, but are in my motherfucking d ms wanting to give me baths and rub oil or my body? Okay, okay, okay, I mean rub oil. Like, listen, everybody getting that offer. Well, I'm saying it's messed up. Though, that's messed up. That's messed up. Thought. I just appreciate, you know, I shut it down because that's that huh. No. Um, But like, look, don't fetishize me, but I appreciate it that you don't fetishis I see what you see. I get what you're getting. I do, I do. Um, I'm more than that, but thanks um. I just like the idea of someone appreciating all the meat. Yeah, all the get into it, all the suppleness, all the softness, get into it. What you act like you don't like it? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. That's the part, because the beauty thing is so and and it's like and it's so and it really does take up a lot of the room and a lot of the space in this conversation. Is what are they? What beauty standards are and how kind people are to you based on how good looking they perceive you to be or how close you are to the standard, which we all know what that standard is based on. Okay, And so there's so that whole thing where it's like the it gets down to even basic grace and kindness, you know what I'm saying. And then when you throw it into an arena where people are watching you and seeing you all the time and healing your work, it can get even more so. And I think sometimes that that turns out to be um. Like I saw somebody tweet this one time a white person was like tweeted something like white people are so scared to become minorities. It's like, are scared to become minorities, and like we don't mistreat minorities here, do we. It's like the whole question where it's like, yeah, it's like so the fear of people being overweight quote unquote or whatever. It's like, I think at the end of the day, we we have to admit how mean and nasty and just generally unpleasant we are to people when we perceived their bodies as being what we don't think is right. You know what I'm saying. Yes, ma'am, I'm gonna say this. I have had it was it was don't experience if you will. It's been many years since it occurred, but I was. I wasn't Why did I get married and I had on a fat suit? Or why did I get married? Which is you know, that's just in itself a fact. But nonetheless, that scene where we're on the plane and they were saying to Sheila that she had to get off the plane, that she needed to buy two seats. The director uh Tyler Perry had the entire extras he had them saying mean things to me while I was, you know, in that character, So it got really ugly. I'm trying to to to stay professional and save my lines and in the most honest way that I possibly can, and the extras were just going in on me. It was it was It's not really odd, it's kind of it's a part of the work. Um But I did not remember that very clearly and how painful it was. It was the thing that they's when they were allowed to say those things, when they were just egged on to say means ship. The mean ship that they said was like, wow, I mean all kinds of uglies and all. Because it's one thing for that to be scripted, but it's another thing for like it definitely wasn't I'm so worried about your blood pressure, right, But that's why I'm saying that's that's kind of traumatizing. That's trauma. It's worked trauma because it's like those people didn't have a script. They are coming out of their hearts and saying the ship as they are looking at you. That's not cool and spring and a similar thing about colorism when he did when he did Um School Days Sisters, and treated them different. Steven Spielberg did the same thing. Um. And with Sophia um when she was surrounded by those those the clan of white folks. Um. All of those things were unscripted. Yeah, that's why all these actors and actors be traumatized as a bother when they come over. Yeah, damn. I mean and for years, for years out people would say to me at the airport, for years, I think it just stopped finally maybe two years ago maybe when people would say they're gonna let you on the plane. Oh oh, but they don't even happen on an airplane. And all my years as a flight atendants daughter, there has never been a situation where a person has been asked to buy two seats and anything they give you the air to set bill. But you know what's interesting, like I said, like you pointed out where people are able to say things out of their hearts. Yeah, we're saying that that's traumatizing for an actor to experience that, but people are experiencing this every day in their everyday lives. And even they may not be getting the exact words all the time, trust me, they're getting those words, but they're also getting the energy, that quiet energy. It's the same thing that when you're black, when you walk into a room, a white person could not actually even speak to you, and you can feel the discomfort. And some work is already so subversive and so built into our society that people may not even be thinking it, but it's so you. You think it, you're almost you feel it going in like, oh, I know I must feel this way. I'm also bla blah blah blah. You know what I mean, And honestly listen, and I want to be clear, like I do recognize on the spectrum of of bigness, fluffiness, fatness plus sizeness, whatever word you feel comfortable with, that I'm on the smaller end of that. And so just like being a life scamped person, I gotta recognize that I don't have the same experience as somebody who is a size twenty four or somebody who is is on the law on the opposite end of that spectrum. So I only want to make that part clear. But it's devastating. It has been in my life devastating to go into a store or to be perceived as a public person when people think you're supposed to look a certain way or just a that, and you can't find it. It's more expensive. You can't so it affects your life, not only in the emotionally, but it affects your life financially. So yeah, maybe a person doesn't have to buy an extra seat on our plane. But once upon a time, plus size clothing was deep very expensive. Look for ugly ship. I've had to buy two of things and I and and I still do bye bye two so that I could use the fabric to make it fit for me. Mm hmmmm hmm. Yeah, I'm just grateful that I could do it. I want to wear But there's a lot of people that, you know, the clothes are just they're not what they want. So they end up being creative, as we always are, finding new ways to make it work for us. We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back. I'm gonna say that I did not appreciate the comparison to to Live. I didn't appreciate that. I'm sure she didn't appreciate it either, especially the way that they made the comparison. Come on, oh, this is deal's classy, she's trashy. Fully dressed. I was fully dressed. In the picture, you know, like, and she's coming up to her to her private Jane jet with her ass out. That's her, I asked on her jet. H Okay. So the question we asked ourselves behind the scenes was why these two women, why who totally different make totally different art. But y'all decided to compare them, and you're just about to use respectability politics among other things two, you know, to make this weird compare And people rode with it. Oh they did, because on social media it's like that, that's fine, I ya gotta do it, Okay, lots on Joel. But I was proud of the people who spoke out against it, who called it for what it was, which so much, Thank you so much. I've never been a fan of comparisons at all. I just don't like it. It's like comparing this leaf to that leaf. You know. I just don't think it's that easy. You don't. You don't know the experiences of that leave. You don't know. Maybe they might be they're more than likely made of the same things, but they have not had the same experiences. Don't do that. Don't do that. I don't I don't want to be compared to anybody do you, Why would you want that? I can't imagine you're your whole, a whole individual being um with your own ways and your own experiences. That's some bullshit to me. I think it's very weak. The fact of it is that they wouldn't compare Lizzo to Jenneko or a Lizzo too. I mean insert person here that is not over a twelve. Ye. No, they wouldn't have. And the thing with Lizzo that continues to be just concerning for me is that I'm expect people at the top of the tone of pole to do what they do. I'm expect white people to white I'm gonna expect men to men. But what bothers me is just this the weird kind of conversations that I have with black women about Lizzo or about just the issue of her body and their discomfort with it. Everybody needs to be the program, Asia, I don't know, why are you surprised? We all need to not surprised. Just hurt me. I love it, I love it. I I'm here for this, I'm here for that. Okay, I'm on this podcast for that right there. But yeah, No, seriously, though, She's like you know this, this discomfort, we are going to have to really look at ourselves. Like we we pride ourselves on being a sisterhood. We pride ourselves on you know, we're proud of ourselves. We we love ourselves. Blah blah blah blah blah. But the minute that a black woman, our fellow black woman, pushes the envelope on something steps just outside of where we feel comfortable, and we leave her for the dogs, she might be embarrassing us. Speak on it. I'm only speaking on it because I had a woman from an older generation called me on that picture of her going up them steps and I had to go, person of another generation, I need to stop you for one second. Let's do a little d programming, because that's that's a whole black woman. We are not a mona lift. That's her body. She is beautiful. You enjoy her talents so much. You enjoy every word she says. You you're working out to every song she's saying. What is really the problem. But we're not embarrassed by black women who are out here, you know, perpetuating anti black politics, because she's the first such and such or so and so you by that every week We see it all the time. We see it all time, somebody in in in those the tight pants, the legings with the whatever that whatever the thing is that kind of cups your butt. We see that in the in the airport, to see it in the market, to see it wherever you go. If somebody has asked this out and you've got a problem with Lizza, I mean, I'm just saying it's I know why. It's about confronting the things that we secretly believe about ourselves that we know we're not true who we believed them still because they we they're deeply embedded in who we think we are. And that's that's that's the part where we have to stop being afraid to say, yeah, you know what, I'm cool with box braids, but not box braids with gold teeth, or I'm cool with, uh, you know, a head wrap, because now that's awesome and regal, right, but I don't want to bond it. I got a problem with the bucket though. Like, so there's some of this I think we really have to kind of confront. That doesn't mean that all of our thoughts are wrong. It just means like a haird wrap though, Asia, because they are kind of different. I'm listen. I remember I remember a time when I wore a hair wrap and I'm just forty three. Okay, so we didn't talk about I'm not a boomer. Um, you know what I'm saying. I remember wearing a hair wrap and people and and older black people feeling like that that was a little bit much unprofessional. Not right? Uh oh, I see. Oh you. I know you enter your little afrocentric thing, but you know you're gonna have to do something with your hair. I used to love do something with your hair. When you're gonna do something with your hair, the trauma is real, y'all. That's what every time I hear that kind of should, I'll be like, oh man, the white man that got us all fun up? You just yeah, but you see where comfortable we're talking about it as it pertains to our skin color and our hair, but we don't want to talk about it as it pertains to our sexuality or our body type. That too. You're right, you're right, right, But it's it's that also, the whole concept that once he takes it and makes it mainstream, I never looked at it like that, right right, Well, once the white man start doing it, then we're like, oh, that's cool, you do it. I'm trying to figure out how the myths just get continuously perpetuated. Um. That that part drives me nuts. Bigger girls give better head. Um, And I heard it forever. That's some silly ship because of the eating a lot. Oh that's come from. She uses her mouth to eat so much that that's what she'll She'll suck your dig like she hungry as he listen if it, if it was said, it should be repeated so that we understand just how raggedy we are. Because I heard that stuff too. And so it's okay to sexualize a woman who a woman who you perceived to be fat fluffy. Plus if you it's okay to sexualize that woman but she can't beat your black girl magic, it's like, it's good to do that. I think. I think what happens was so funny about Lizzo in particular, because you can say it's about a lot, but it was funny about Lizza was that she went straight for the body stuff, right, she went straight forward, straight forward. The stereotypes. Y'all are fine to say this until a woman decides to say it about herself, because I think that that's really when you can use it to weaponize it against somebody, can you. If you can over sexualize a woman against her will, that's okay. But if she decides to say I'm highly sexual, or she decides to say, um this or I'm that are you're gonna look at my butt no matter what it looks like to you, then now that's a problem. We can't have you out here being empowered all the same stuff that we used to put you in bondage, because that's what the funk it is. That's it. When you are empowered, when you when you have decided for yourself, how dare you? Who do you think you are? I'm going to try to minimize you, knowing knowing that if you had, if they had the opportunity two have your life or be in your in your walk, they would do it. Yeah, they hands down, they would do it. That's we gotta say, uplifted her in a way. I feel that as as a sacrificial lyon that she is in a way because the only people that are really truly half her back at the end of the day, it's probably sisters like that. I mean, I really and that's when we owe it to her and like her to check ourselves. We owe it to her, we owe it to ourselves. Really, you know what I'm saying, And this is the process age. And were trying. I think we we we we we some of us are trying. I'm trying to lie for me. I'm gonna put this out there. My daughter, she had a dress on one time, like a body kind like vibe and you know, and I made a comment about an undergodent like shape wear to keep it in one place shape and she was just kind of like, you know, you really wouldn't say this to me, if you know. I was, you know, insert other kids in the household, and I was just like, you know, I said, I'm gonna sit with that. I'm gonna sit with that because I know how I function right, And I said, and I say all these things to us to help us to kind of work through these things. But I struggle with it too. I'm I'm I go through the world in this body and I don't go in so we're clothes without without a shape wear on the knees. I wear that. You know what I'm saying. I My daughters have pushed me two live what I talk, but then also to understand there's more to the conversation than what I currently know. So it's like, yeah, that's cool what you said, But you not only have to live what you're saying, but you also have to be brave enough to push beyond what you know to be true. You have to ask us continually ask yourself these questions, why is this a concern for me? I have a cousin who posted a picture and address just like this. If you pressed, like, but she's a size for mom? Why is that? Why is that? What is it about? What is it about it that's making you huhh? Is there any gray in there? Like? Is there any functional reasons why you was like outside of you're just gonna look like you just falling out. I feel like it was completely aesthetic. That was I had no what what reason? Give me an actual reason around my child's wellness physically or emotionally that she needed to have one A girl sweat lines. But then again, I guess I guess that don't matter neither. You go ahead, sweat Honestly, I'll even put this out here because it's important to put your junk out there a little bit, right, I don't want you'll have on my junk, but I'm gonna let youall have this one. I said the word and I had to had to throw it back, said the word meat. Oh it looks neither. I mean, we are reprogramming. But you hear how terrible that sounds. Easily I said, but see that's what I'm saying, shifting the lens so you understand what you said? Now? Can you imagine that there is a chance that I said that it even though I apologize, there's a chance she'll hold that for very But but did we did we really hold it? Did we did? We? We held it like that like every word, Like every word has to be filtered. It's a lot. Every word doesn't have to be filtered, but every word you have together snatched. We we have these words we do and I know I'm guilty of it. But it's also something within you when you when you are snatched, and you look in the mirror before you build a house, you do go. It's not about other people. I don't know it is it is, though it is about other people. It is about other people. It would have to be because who who? I can't just think who wants to feel pain. Oh yeah, no the bank cool. Who wants to put on something that is holding their breath and and pushing their meat? Who wants that? No? So can I. You don't do it in your private time. You don't know when you're walking around by yourself at home, you know, or when you go run to the market real quick. You don't put on a whole contraption to do that. But I got this really weird. This is I might have this unpopular thought. I just I also feel that way sometimes in the mirror when I've been like working out good at eating right? Is that to say, like, now, I'm glad you said it all right? And we should I not feel Uh? I think what happens to feel good? Yeah, you should feel good if your body is functioning good and you like the way your body looks, that's that's fine. I guess what I'm trying to say is this is what I'm trying to say. My child, I felt good about the way she looked. Yeah, and then you kind of came in with them, and I came in and up, and then she had to put you onto your own trauma and deep, God, she was self aware enough and brave enough to check me like you, giving myself a little bit of credit, thank God, and good for me enough enough to hear what she had to say. Yes, man, this is what This is what I'm trying to say. I'm not saying that you don't have a right to decide what makes you feel good. You don't have a right to strip somebody else of that. Hi, Okay, I got it. I have never talked about them titties. Again, I'm preaching, preaching to me. He's speaking to me. I'm never talking about those titties ever that I'm talking about. Wait a minute, Wait a minute, waitnute, waitnut she yea, because that's been recording. That's fine because I see where you could go in and I see I'm working. I I'm trying to do the work. Okay, so I hear the assignment. Well you can yet, but she me and you talk about them, Titi is different. So and I love I'm not talking about I'm not gonna talk about them more conversation after the break. I love us. I love us because this is how you have conversations with people who you love, and how those conversations didn't start to spoke out, you know, within community, and so so it doesn't become as hard. You know what I'm saying. That's how things I feel like change because the real change is the change that happens in culture. Culture doesn't change without changing how you think, and then it changes again and how you interact with others. And so that's that's really what I feel like is the beauty of this moment is that we're having We're looking in wed we're talking to each other. And I know y'all love me. So when you say something to me like, I know what's coming from love. Like I tease you and stuff, but I know that it's coming from love. I know that you be better, right, you just want the best? Oh yeah, but period, you know what I mean. It is what it is. But yeah, girl, it's rough out here in these streets. But it feels hard. Let me say this as you talk about work, right, all this work the reason why it's hard, the reason why so much work, because the work is equal to the amount of crap. If it feels like a lot of work, that will show you just how much oppressive and horrible shit is out there. And if you are a certain age, that's a lot of ship to get out. That's a lot. It may not get it all out, but it's the willingness. It's the willingness, the humility, the love, the openness, the empathy, and these are all things I feel like we all think and feel that we want to be. I don't want to be kinder man who doesn't want to be more empathetic. Yo. That show work for me in that way. I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say that, Yeah, lizz oh show. I found myself crying in moments, crying because I had certain thoughts and perceptions and I was like, it was a nice little wake up call. It it's beautiful, and I just for your perspective, I just gonna say to the diversity of the contestants, the chocolate nous of it all, the chocolate nous with the short natural hair. You know what I'm saying. The translate the translated like it was just like, I'm gonna take this moment to pick up a plus size UM dance troop and company called Pretty Big Movement and UM is headed by a young lady named Akira Armstrong who has danced on stages with Beyonce, with Lizzo. She has done a lot of amazing work. I just want to pick her up in this moment because I just want you to know like I follow her and what she does, and I love dance. Everybody knows I love dance. I love watching her choreography. I love watching the women that she has in her in her company. She also does classes in New York, heels classes for that's for everyone. Anyone can come to class, So they do classes. They have an actual performing company. So I just want to shout them out today because the word that they're doing is amazing and it came from Akira's experience as a professional dancer, being having all the capabilities but not getting the opportunities, and feeling and hearing a lot of that energy out there in the world, in the professional world. And I think for every Lizzo, there's an Akira, there's a person who you really don't know, who you're not seeing on TV every day, who who is not pushing the envelope to the point where you have to talk about them, you know what I'm saying. So there are there are women, particularly plus size black women who are out in the world doing um doing all kinds of different jobs, all types of different things. I also want to pick up um Britney Cooper, who was victimized and talked about and vilified by a particular blogger which we will not speak their name, but somebody who was talking about her value as a woman and her being plus size, and her being dark skinned, and her being whatever else they could come up with. She is a brilliant, a brilliant writer. She talks about black feminism from a black woman's perspective. She's amazing. So I want to pick her up because, like I said, a lot of these things happen women who experienced the world in these bodies, in our bodies, you know, and we never get to talk to them. Well, Brittany who was pretty famous, But bottom line is, again that's not necessarily a household name in the same way that Lizzo is, you know. And so these things and these things are actually cost cultural too, you know, because I follow white women who are having this exact same experience, having this experience as it as it pertains to their size. I told you I'll wait for the I G lives. I've watched several I G lives from a really famous plus size model named Tests Beautiful. She's got long, uh red bright red hair, and she's really got a very pin up, you know, fifty style pin up model aesthetic. And she's a big girl Test Holiday that's her name, So Test Holidays. I want to big up Test Holiday too, because she's a person who is has made her living in the beauty business, in the modeling business. To ask she's she's been on the runway, she's done the high fashion shows, she's done this kind of stuff. And again, it's still dealing with people whenever there's a story about her, they show a picture of her eating ice cream cone while she's out with her son. Mm hmm. It's to everyday disrespect for me. Let's be clear, this is not myth that in many tribes on the continent your wealth was based on your woman's size. People knew you were wealthy because you had a larger woman, and that was something to be very proud of. There was a whole era of baroque beauty where all the women were full figured with with larger hips and wider thighs and thick uh titties. You know, there's definitely an era. Unfortunately, when Sarah Bartman was enslaved and her body became a part of I think the fabric of what this whole entire world deems is beautiful. They saw this woman with these round, big boobs in the small waist and big behind, and they have created ah a fetish, a fetish with that particular body type, a story that the saddest story, the saddest story ever. But we left her up absolutely but her, but her. Yeah, just just know that all of your quote unquote fluffiness, um, and your your thickness, your your meeting nous, all of that that is traditional beauty. That is it. And whatever anybody else has to say about it, it is um. That's from someone else's thinking. That's some some old supremacy book business. And uh, I just want you to know that. I just want I just want you to know that rock your ship, just rock your shit. It's yours. You are here, you are alive, you are vivacious. Don't get it twisted. Don't get it twisted. Follow your role, play play play play your part in this world, baby, Play your part, your beautiful thing. You. We love you here. Know that it has been a pleasure to talk to each other, to have conversation, to spark conversation. Thank you for listening. How do you eat an elephant one by it time. Hey there, it's Amber, the producer. In this episode, the Ladies really examined our cultural interpretations of body positivity. Leah talked a lot about Lizzos show Watch Out for the Big Girls. I have also watched the entire season. Um, I laughed, I cried, I healed of it myself. You can find the show on Amazon Prime. Give it a watch and let us know what you think. I'll drop the link to the show and the episode show notes. Hi if you have comments on something we said in this episode called eight six six, Hey do if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six nine five four five I buy. Don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott presents Jay dot Ill. The podcast JA 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.