When The Locals Talk...Just Listen

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay dot im, a production of I Heart Radio. What's up Everybody, It's it's it's Jill Scott. Here, it's just Scott. Here, it's Jill Scott with an exclamation point at the damn end. It's Jill Scott. I like to throw a note on there. Let's just look Scott. Welcome to Jay dot Il the podcast and my brown Can you see my color? I too? Do? Oh like I can't stand you. Yeah, it's given a slightly toasted chocolate cookie. You can listen. These are the lies I want you to throw all the time. I want you to continue to fortify my brown skinness. Okay, all my life, okay, all my life. I thought I was brown skin I did not. You thought she was giving ginger Snap, but she was really giving Nilo Way for girls. You know. I did not give Nilla. I gave fig Newton. It's okay because I'm projecting, because I have a cousin who always pulling my neck. She's like, you're not as brown as you think. I feel like you're not giving what you think you're giving. Living a lie. I just knew. I just knew because my grandmother was brown, and that man, I was brown too. You couldn't tell me nothing different. Want to know what are you talking about. I'm just glad that the brown skinned girls are being seen, people are actually paying attention to all that beauty blue ivy girls. Well, the reason that I'm brown are benches. The reason a little brown, or if you will, the reason for that is because I went to St. Thomas over the holidays and that was awesome. Beautiful, beautiful views, beautiful island. Um sweet people, wonderful food. Um Man. We we saw three different beaches and each one was just perfect, perfect. But there was a moment when when I caught a little wake up, a little realization, if you will, like your Saint Clair and age grading Dazzler, Yeah, I had a little realization of some things. Um As we're sitting there and the sun is going down and we're like, oh, that's so nice. The kids are playing in the water. The lady that had been selling stuff along the beach, um uh so, the cutest green bag. She she was like, all right, I'm going home now, and we're like, okay, good night, thank you, and she was like, and you should go home too, and walked away and we were like, oh that was different. We're saying. You know. Then we happened to look to the right of me and the chairs that were all along the beach are now few. So the guy comes over who has graciously put up our chairs and our umbrella for ten dollars each. He says, well, it's time to take off the chairs. And I was like, what you mean. He's like, well, um, it's it's time to take off the chairs. I was like, but we're in them, you know, we rented them. He was like, you'll have to rent them again. It's different people now. I was like, what now, I don't know if that's the good same time, it's exit because thank you, thank you. I was trying to just giving us the flavors. So all of a sudden I smell like this mass weed. I was like, wow, they didn't sell that on the beach earlier, you know. And I was like, okay, I'm plotting, you know, trying to catch some of that. And it wasn't hard, I will say that, but I noticed the people that had made this amazing meal. We had some oxtail and some um some rice. Oh my god, that rice. What did they put in that rice? I don't know, but it was so good delicious meal. They're all standing outside and everybody's rolling up one and I was like, and they got a bear in hand. And I was like, oh. I keep looking around and somebody's now getting their hair braided and the music has changed, and I was like oh, And I realized I got these kids here. It's time took up. So I said, hey, y'all party the grown up party. I'll start that. So so I'm thinking, yeah, it does right, we got these kids. So I go to the car with with Jet and we're standing there. He's looking in the direction. The next thing I know, the guy is in the car in front of us, looks over at Jet and just stops in mid movement, staring at him. So I'm looking at the guy and looking at Jet. Jet is looking at him, looking at him. He's looking at the guy, and I was like what He was looking at Jet like mind f and business. He was going to get something out of his glove compartment. I said, hey, look at me, talk to me, talk to me. I'm on because that look was not wasn't friendly. He was cussing in his eyeballs. I was like, okay, you ain't got a cussing me but this is the same packing up the corn. Okay, it's not recognizing that Jet as a boy and well now he's a man, not yet amazing, I don't know, but he let him and he let it be known. Much business because I'm pulling something not just glove compartment, and it's none of your concerns. Right. So we're standing there still. I could see my family walking towards me, and I'm standing there with Jet, and I see a little girl, this cute little thing with two ponytails, and I say hi, she's walking in between the cars. She walked all the way past and came back. And when I tell you, baby girl gave me the f you finger of sounds a hard one. It was hard, and it shook a bit like it was strong. But what she meant that and looked at you in your face like that was definitely meant for you, for you, bitch, for you move your feet. You just said hello. I was like wow, and it hit me like a brick. We're on their island. They've been serving send us all day. They got her juice. There are beverages, we bought bags and trinkets. Um they made them oxtails with their bomb ass rice and served it all friendly and nice all day long. But now it's our time, tourists. It can't be our time, Like if I ain't had my kids, can we risk it is time for a time ago to go home. We're black and grown. People were getting their hair braided. People were playing dominoes. But that kind of party, why are we not what it went from island drinks with the with the little umbrella in them and playing this one love music to different different for you, for you. It's like when you go to certain restaurants where you eat certain types of Asian food in all of the tables the square, but that round table in the back it is for the family. Yeah, you are teaching me things an that round table back. Then nobody sits at that round table. Is now even on the menu? They're not. That's not even on the menu. After they close up that way they eat in that That's right. I feel like that more are welcoming, like you know, come on, y'all get some of the same time. It's that y'all might not know about. I thought that everybody was lovely, everybody was sweet and nice and helpful. We needed directions many times, and everybody was just they stopped what they were doing. It helped us out. But at a time, I think it's bigger than that. I think it's about them keeping their island to themselves, to keep their culture, to keep their way like and you're not invited unless you're invited. We were not invited. And my people from St. Timas, you look like a told you wouldn't have bought that bag, and you wouldn't have rented that ten dollar chair when you could have just took one. I don't like when y'all make points more real talk after the break. It reminds me of a situation out, you know, and this is different. But I was real cool with my daughter's principle some years ago and I was in there complaining, you know, we was just chatting it up, and I'm complaining about you don't people in the neighborhood, and yeah, neighborhood changing, you know, neighbor you know, ain't They're coming a little business here the house, you know, And I'm having a shop coffee shop, coffee shop talk at the at the school. He like he laughed at me and was just like, oh, he's like, you're a gentrifier too. Just clutches. I'm a what, I don't understand how you're gentified. You've been living in your house for like twenty years. I don't know what You've been living in my house almost twenty years. But it still remains to be true that when I bought my house, there were families and people on my block that had been there for ten plus years, twenty years, families people black folk, right, and I bought my house at the top of the market at that time. Those same people who lived on my block could not afford to buy my house when I bought it, right, But that's that's somewhat of the definition of gentry because because there is a natural steady flow of life where costs go up. At the time that I bought, my neighborhood was changing, and things weren't changing because I was again making those observations like, oh yeah, those and I and I did somewhat come in with some of that change. Now, yeah, you know, it's not exactly the same. It was highlight what I think what it did was highlights something that held the point he was trying to make is that there is a difference between the black folks in your community in terms of what is available to them as opposed to what is available to you. Now, you still black, but there's a very important difference in the way that you are experiencing this as opposed to the way some of your neighbors are experienced Right, But how about this, though, you still have some of the same disadvantages because I know, usually when we're talking about white folks justifying an area or whatnot, you know, I know the neighborhood always like to say, like, y'all call the cops. Stay there, you call the cops. It's the same rate as the people that have been living there for photo years. Like, there's still some differences with you being a black person versus like a white person. And now and now Whole Foods wants to move in. Hopefuls ain't coming because you're there. Yeah, and you're and you're you're worried about You're a hundred percent correct about that, But I think you're not rendering correct about that. What I think is a nuance here is that because we do have some parts of the way we experienced the world is black people in common, that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, the way that we experienced the world is the same and that we don't, I don't access to certain privilege. And so like I was, um, I had circled back to my reading list, and I pulled out Bill Hooks again because what I've been thinking about her since my birthday, honestly, because this this birthday, I realized that we were born on the same day. La da dada, so yes. And so I've been like, I'm circling back to some of her work and I'm reading feminist theory from margin to center. And one of the things that she talked about was the early kind of misunderstanding around feminism where you know, white women were not at all adding into the equation, nor were they caring about adding into the equation the experience of all women. They were taking a very nuanced version of of sexism that was only for educated, middle class white women and then saying that it that it was speaking for all women, right because they were women. And it's like, well, no, there's even though we all are women, it's very different from being a poor white woman, or being a poor black woman, or being a black woman or all of these things change the way that you experience, uh, you know, sexism in America, where you fall in terms of the patriarchy or the capitalist structure, or whatever the case may be, like, well, all those things together, that that that total structure together is important to acknowledge these nuances. And that's how you got from Bill Hooks to like a Kimberly Crenshaw who talks about intersectionality, where she made this super clear, like, yes, we're all black, but it's different when you're a black and a woman. When you are black a woman and you're queer. When you're a black and you're a woman and you're queer and you're overweight or disabled, these are all the ways that the world becomes smaller and smaller and less accessible to you. So it's important to understand that. Again, you're in the same time as we all black. Yeah, yeah, they don't kick us out, but you're not experienced in the world. In a country where the main source of income is tourism, tourism from people, and you're making very little money. That money is not trickling down to your community. People are coming and they're getting luxury. You're going into these spaces, you're providing a part of that luxury, but your community is not seeing that luxury. You're being paid minimum wage. You don't have any understanding of the political landscape in that country. You don't have any understanding of the nuances and the complexities of being a Saint Thomas. And I don't know why you say that, because I was thinking. I was like, I don't know much about saying. I'm just gonna stay in Jamaica, just where I feel safe. That's where I feel like they want me, they want me there. Well, there's a big difference. We stopped at the wrong Airbnb with the wrong address, well what appeared to be the right address, but it was definitely not the house I rented, and I was like, what is going on? Had to figure it out. Found the house that we were going to, dramatically different, dramatically different. This had a view of the ocean. Uh, just beautiful. I'll say the view was just really great. But the difference between that first house and the second house was massive. And that means if the first house, you know, if that's a community, do you see what I'm saying? And there was the drastic difference between the people who live up top in the mountains, our own houses up top in the in the mountains, the Republic of the Island was was French, and another part of the island was Dutch. And I'm and then you go to like the jewelry stores, and all the jewelry stores are owned by Indian folks. So where does that leave the people of the island, the indigenous people of the island, where does that leave them? It's their island, So they want us to leave, I say, it's time to go. That comes to the idea of gate keeping. Aren't we supposed to gate keep some things far I don't know were black Americans. We didn't figure that out yet, but I'm glad they have. But I thought it was beautiful and Beau and I would go back to St. Thomas anytime and absolutely shout of respect that they deserve. Not a problem for me. Thank you so much for this delicious food and its beautiful island and your great service all day. Thank you so much. It does make you think, though, I mean, if after Asia broke it down, it's like, well, shoot, here we go with the work. It makes me feel like, you know, before we travel somewhere, we need to do a little bit of research. I said it in jest, but I just don't feel comfortable in Dominican Republic like that. I feel like it's very they shield the tourists a lot from what's going on, and it's just such a big differential. And on top of the fact that how they treat hate you. But that's the whole enough thing. But what I'm saying is is that should we start are researching and knowing some things or do we I think a big miss understanding, you know, especially I mean we're Black Americans. As we continue to move through the the sifting through and the breaking down of all the different things that we've had to deal with and unlearned, It's like, I think there is a lot of thinking around like black excellence and and black ascension, and that a lot of that's tied to wealth, and a lot of that is tied to access and power and leisure, you know what I'm saying, a kind of leisure, right, And I think what happens is that because we associate this thing with being good for us as a group, we forget that the characteristic of that is being taken from you know, historically from our oppressors, is taken from a white supremacist, you know, like vacation, ain't the thoughts of vacationing, and like vacation it's it's imagine. I'm just talking about just being able to do things right. So just being able having access to things right. So yeah, you can catch a nice little Spirit flight or Southwest flight and go somewhere. It don't cost you know who a lot of money, and we think in the end, I'm not rich. But I'm talking about the mentality of luxury, of the way we present ourselves in other countries. And then that's why, you know, you can go certain places and they're like, you're American. They don't really care about that you're black or anything else. You're American, and that for some people that that's offensive, right, because I think there is a thinking that and I think for Black Americans there isn't thinking like I'm doing a good thing by having wealth, by being able to experience luxury by doing that, and there's nothing wrong with that, or I work hard for it to make at least make y'all think that that's what it is. I just work. But I think that what it can look like when you go other places is a black face acting like them. The that that sense of um, what's the word of entitlement entitlement. Had I been somebody else, I could have raised the ruckets. What do you mean we have to pay for these chairs again? We already paid for these enjoined No, but imagine had I been somebody else, I got it. I get it. It's time for y'all to go home YouTube, because this is our beach on our island, and we're going to chill out and relax and talk to our people right here on this island. It's not it's not right on this beach, and it's not time for you. And I felt like that was a powerful thing. It's just we don't we don't have We can't do that to them. Y'all come here, you go do whatever, do the things. I don't know. It just it's interesting. I'm like, I'm kind of jealous. I guess it's coming out. I'm jealous. And I'm also trying to figure out because we're always talking about how to figure out how to do this for ourselves, but they can't protect not our intellectual properties. Or it's just like so and y'all using it too. Like what you're listening to on the beach, you ain't just listening to the dance hall, So like, come on, don't do that to us, like, yeah, but I don't think the intersectionality of all the things that we Yeah no, I mean I get what you're saying too, and I think and I think it's to know who's who right there. I ain't got time to interview you. Go home. I ain't got time for all of that. And I think that if you were to immerse yourself in the culture, if you were to go and stay for a while, you know, and spend some time and work amnks and and eat a monkst and chill where everybody else chill. I think that way, you know, that's a way for you to be invited to the cook out. Yeah, you know. But other than that, you're here for a week or two. Yeah, we're not doing but so much. This is a transactional relationship, right and now the transaction is over and it's time for you to go home. I thought it was very powerful. Yeah, I mean, if you're a person who lives near let's saying and this is probably not black folks, you know what I'm saying, especially in Philly now, But like you know, when they have the big festival down there, you know, and people come to the city and it's like they all, right, y'all bringing all this money out of yaut of YadA, but it's Monday, Bye, it's Monday. But because they'd be all molly and all funked up and making all this trash everywhere. Yeah, but I feel like that in my neighborhood about University of Pennsylvania, I'd be so glad when the kids go back home for the summers, were making my bus go the long way. You know, I'm saying, y'all, y'all damn restaurants, you know now, And then I'd be mad too. It's a love hate relationship because when they go home, I ain't got to pay attention to I don't got to see y'all. But then when y'all go home, all the restaurants want to close early, like they cater to y'all, but they don't care about us, you know what I'm saying. It's like, yeah, when y'all on campus, if something's going down, you can find a cop like that, m Phil. But it's like, yeah, but when y'all go home, you know, I gotta be careful about wearing walking at night is my friendsifier, But go ahead, like that's why you ask you guys a question. Okay, So let's say that there is a nightclub and all kinds of black people are performing, and everybody's welcome, and everybody's having a good time. But at two am, some people and they've got to go home for some people appear to be closed. And then and then these artists continue to create amongst themselves, right, and why and you understand why? Right? Okay, that that too. So what happens at the club is is is a white club or Indian club and it's in America and you're not after two am, you gotta go, like how do how? Like I feel real good about having something from black people where we get together and nobody else is there, nobody's invited, no phones allowed, and you know, we're building something UM special between us right now? Like that excites me. But what happens when it's the other way around? All right, it's already the other way around. But I mean honestly though, like and this is recent, we had the conversation with with um. So it's just so bad, That's the what I'm asking you. Since it already exists there this we're left out of a lot of things. You know what I'm saying, the question is always the question has always been what its sacred for us? And how do we keep it sacred? And one of the reasons why we keep it sacred? And us and and and and so that that question. I feel like we're still all still trying to answer those things, you know what I mean. But one real thing is too is that being able. And one thing that's interesting about the thing that happened at the same time it's is that you're talking about something that's somewhat commodified where it's like they found a way to say this space that we occupy it do cost money. I mean, it is for sale, you know, for rent. You know what I'm saying, It is for rent, but it is not um to the point where we're willing to sell every part of it. So I think one of the things we struggle with, or one of the things I struggle with the understanding, is how do yeah, so we we we want to make everything cost something, we want to sell everything, we want to make everything into a hustle. But there's no sense of boundary, there's no sense of that some things you can't take it. But so far, you know, even with black women, I find that too where it's like sometimes I have I have some interesting thoughts around that too, because like I was thinking about this the other day, like black women right now, this whole thing, like we have made ourselves very clearly a market, not on purpose, you know, we've made ourselves a market. And so as much as it feels good to be catered to, we're also gonna it's gonna feel seasonal. That season is going to pass, and then so we have to be clear on who we are and what we are culturally as black women, and what things we hold dear and sacred. Because in a minute, they are not gonna want to print any more T shirts with Black Girl Magic on it. I'm just saying, like, I'm just saying, all that's gonna be done. Hey, listen, they're shrinking their bodies back to in a minute, the black girl body is not going to be the hot chip. People are taking that ship the funk out. Oh yeah, girl. They have something called the skinny BBL. Now did you know that? Oh shocks, Oh yes, the surgeries and folding back in. This is why this is why we gate keep. This is why we have to We have to hold on. You have to hold on to something of our own. I just wish that we could make a collective decision on what it was. It might be too late. We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back. All I'm saying is that we really are in a capitalistic society, and we were raised as capit the list. So if I have something good that I could sell to make money, it's it's inbred. It's in there, it's in there, It's all in us. I never realized how American I am until I go to another country and be like, oh, ship m h, I am one of them. We girl. We see it on the internets all the time. It's like everything that every people confuse liberation with, like, you know, making money. It's the the LLC squad. You need to get you a LLC, you need to get you a password, you need to get it. It's like that. That's that's how we're going to ascend as a race of people. But I'm gonna bring this up because we remember we talked to some show and he was saying how it is a weird kind of relationship we have with blackness and when to be black culture and where it's like race as a construct. You know, it's a thing that we were assigned in relationship to whiteness. So it it has a funny history, you know, and I understand why are we tend to misuse it because it was never thing we ever really were. We didn't become black until we got off the boats. Before we got on them boats, we was you know, europe book. We was saying, you know, Ebo, you know what I'm saying, Ashanti. We were these things. We were ethnic groups that had practices and languages and things in which we could unify around things that we could do, you know, coming of age ceremonies. So we became black in relationship to whiteness. So it gets tricky at this by our Christmas. Yes, and now, of course we have created culture that we're proud of. Yes, innovated, and we've made this gumbo and we are responsible for this and this has influenced the world. And so yes, that's something to hold to your chest. But the fact that we don't quite know how to deal with it speak to the fact that it kind of don't exist. Black isn't even a thing. Really really did make it a thing. It may not have started as a thing, but like you just said, didn't we like said a thing what's at its root isn't a thing really, what's at it's route. So it's all there. So like from the jazz to the no, no, no, not, what we made from it is beautiful. I'm saying, I understand why we struggle with it because at the end of the day, what we built, the beginnings of it is just a response to something else, something that they put on us that we actually aren't nobody actually white, and ain't nobody actually black. You know what I'm saying, That particular binary was created and it wasn't created by us. Now now we're here now that being said, I love being black. Being said, I'm proud of all that we have done. That being said, I don't like to see people, uh making it into a commodity in any and everybody getting a piece and us getting nothing. With that being said, I hate feeling eraced. All of those things are valid, but I'm saying, this is what we're trying to achieve and talk about. It's complicated, it's hard. It is complicated. It is to see like for black Americans, well, I guess here it's gonna be for us the most out of everybody, but nobody is in their rightful place in that way, which is interesting, right because liken't we all moved from one area to multiples. Well, yeah, we're a diaspora for sure, okay. And I say, even in those islands, the history of those islands and how we got there, their story can be compared to blackness in America in a way, right, Like, I'm just it's to me, you're saying that, You're saying that regardless of where where we are. Uh, that makes sense, It does make sense. Mm hmm. You know, I gotta I gotta room in my house, and I have a lot of artwork that m I collected over the years, things that that just instinctually, I was like, Ah, this's got to come home with me. And I've I brought this artwork home and I put all of this amazing, beautiful artwork in my house. And I realized recently that I knew that I knew for certain, maybe three or four the masks on my walls. That's what I'm talking about the time in some parts. But I don't know all of those masks. I mean, I pray over them, you know, I cleanse them. You know, I saved my stuff, especially when it comes to a mask and something that I don't necessarily know what it means. What I'm saying is I collected it because it spoke to me. I was like you coming home with me. That's how I chose it. But do I do? I understand them all? Not at all? And I think that's where the interesting thing comes with being a black American. We have pieced me on ourselves into this place. We don't we don't know enough. We're aware of things. Being aware of them doesn't mean that you understand it. We have all these fabrics I know, I do something. I know what they are, something I don't. I just like the fabric to another culture, to some someone else. This could be a sacred fabric. I don't know. You know. It was a whole argument a few years ago around Kine, the whole argument about this variation. Yes girl, yes, yes, but you know again again you know, and we're moving into a different part of this conversation now, but you know what, let's speak on it. But then and again, when you think about things like quilts, that is Africa, that's that's that's our Kente. Those kinds of things are ways in which you see our Africanness described and expressed in ways that were meant to preserve who we were, right and who I believe. The Quakers were making quilts, not about certain kinds of quilts, right, So you have like I learned about this in class. Whereas like um, you know, in certain parts of the South, a lot of the a lot of the early quiotes that we may had a lot of circles on them. And this was a specific thing that spoke to the Congo people who were in large groups in certain parts of the Carolinas. And so they worked with goals and circles and things where you know, so these were symbols that came from their ethnic groups that they begin to sow into clothing that they put on to pottery all they and they start to see a lot of these things. And so that kind of those kinds of practices exist all over the diaspora. They exist in Brazil, they exist in the Carolinas, they exist in the Caribbean, they exist everywhere. So there's a very real diaspora that we're talking about here. But I think culture, because it can be so local, so specific, soul soul special. Right when we start talking about black culture as an umbrella. It's big and wide. That's a very large, big, wide thing. And to say something is black is putting something that is so complex and so diverse under an umbrella that white people invented. You can say, okay, well because like really you could say I'm from Chicago in the same way a person says I'm Nigerian. Really you can do that because you go to Chicago and it's black cultural dances in chip cargo that exists, and we're built and made out of Chicago. Now we do that. I feel like we do that when somebody say you from d C. Is like, you know what that means? I'm doing. But I feel like, again, like I said, just just just not that we don't do it, just you know, continuing to press and push the idea of what culture is and how we identify culture. Once we can identify it and really own it and really recognize what is culture, what is sacred? I think you gotta first acknowledge that it ain't a big umbrella fun that's a whole lot of small, beautiful things, right, That's what I think. And it does have some things that tie it together for sure, because there's certain ways we talk and like certain ways we do things that we all do. Even like you ever read or sometimes on Twitter and people like, oh, we were raised by the same people. All black people raised by the same parents. Everybody's parents did the same thing. Everybody. There is commonality in generation that you grew up in that there's kind manality amongst certain kinds of food. You said you had that right, She's like, I don't know what was in that rice. It's you know, when you think about Joe Off and how that rice. Race is a thing for us, But Joel Loft ain't the same as Nigerian Off. They're gonna argue you down, you know what I'm saying. And so it's a thing we have to be willing to do a little more. I don't know, investigating, Investigate, That's that's where I'm at with and go with the work, y'all. Yeah, that's coming. That's the work. And I don't pretend to know every all this stuff. It's a lot. It's a lot because I do believe that it was the Quakers that we're making quilts, and then other people grasp these quilts or bought these quilts, and then slave owners had black people enslaved people make these quilts, and then they started twisting them and adding other things and symbols and such. But it started from if I if I'm not I think so I canna be wrong, But I don't know. Yeah, I'm just just talking about just the way that we start to see we adapt everything in order to make it work for us and be a representation of us. But there was a lot of adapting of things, you know what I'm saying. So like, in order to do actual research or investigation on things, you gotta do the whole work. Take one thing, Take one thing that you really like in your house. Everybody's got some black ship. We all got some good all black and be interesting black ship. Everybody got it in their house. You must, I know you do, because sometimes you don't know what it is. I got a little a piece of sculpture. I thought it was the most beautiful thing. And my maintenance man from Guatemala came into my apartment and he was like, Oh, this is from my country. That's how we call it. That's how we call the cows. Now, I thought I got this thing hanging from my door, like it's beautiful. But I'm just saying to say that, check all your ship in your house because you I mean, in order to build a culture. Because it's not fried chicken and watermelon. It's some of it. It's some of it because Dan watermelon is good at the summer. But everybody loves watermelon. I don't know. I think so. I think everybody loves watermelon. But you're not that black people. You heard that real ship about watermelon though, right like you heard it and Asian tell me if I'm wrong, But you know, that whole stereotype bout watermelon came from the fact that they said watermelon made like black men more a poem, and so then they made it the whole stereotype because of the black men's like I didn't come from never heard. I want melon is that it is a massive hydrator for those for those of us who are descending from people who had to work in fields and things like that. They had to eat things and consume things that would hydrate them. People like I didn't say what I said. I just meant what AGES said because that sounds smarter. Stay there, No, I mean if that's that's a story, I mean that that's a story that things have multiple truths. Black black shoes. But I think, you know, ultimately the gate keeping thing is still up in the air because I still think we still have a lot more owning and loving of ourselves to do. And they got left though, if you could pick something, I mean, really, girls, what do we have left to say for ourselves? It's a good question. Traditions talked about this on this podcast. Somebody got doogie braids right now. And I own not making our own traditions. That we just know things that we were passed down to us, things that we know to do. I think those are things that can never be taken from us, that cannot be sold. These are things that we just do. It's we just had cookers. We just hit a new year, right, trust me. On on the white Internet, nobody was talking about Coeople's black eyed peas, and girl was talking about to my good Korean girlfriends on that took her black eyed peace to all her good wife friends. I'm just saying everything there's there's there's people experience huff Wig on Amazon and the model was white, and I was like, thank God to be giving to be joking. Shout out the shade butter and shade moisture. Seriously, wow, Well, you know the hair been taking jail. The hair been like this, not like this, this is this is, this is the next extra. The day of the white first white man putting in the lock was the dated the head with hair was gone. Can we talk like that ship? Just map the funk up? Can we talk about a little bit of family business real quick? Though. Yes, black folks have invented and done a number of wonderful, amazing things in which they have been stolen from us. But one thing about Black Americans. If they're going to tell you black people invented some ship, did they ain't event ship? What you want to correct? You know that you know that's black? Right? No, how you know you know so and so you know the black folk you know that's that's that the black people did that. No, No, they didn't know that. They didn't. They didn't, they didn't know. They don't give us credit for nothing. They take it all proved, They didn't prove they didn't. You don't. Blacks will tell you something in admitted. Don't every great white idea is a black person about them. They'd be like, oh, russels or well, you know, black black people invented the ruffle girl, Combs brushes soap. You know, black people have finished so what nobody clean before us? We know we clean. I love it. I love it, Jill still thinking, come on, jail, we'll be holding on to holding on to what you think, Jill mm hmm. I just it's tough because if I look at it any other race, like, I'll never understand them either. Like, the only thing that came to mind was powerful, beautiful black love between a couple. Oh girl, they trying to get that. Like, I've had the privilege to see it and I've had the privilege to be in it. But I'm also there. I'm looking at this thing, but I don't know it's that's a tough one too, because love is love. Yeah, I think it's maybe Jill Scott and Kindred, that's the last thing we got to be can hold on to ship day. I think No, I do think connection is a thing. I think connection and you know, I do think that. I think there's a tone. There's a way that black folk can communicate without talking. There's a way we talk. Have you watched Love and Hip? Have you seen the right We have talked about this before, I know, But just cash me outside, Okay, exactly. I don't. And the thing is, anytime I see love between two folks, I'm always like, M, that's nice. Anytime, you know, I'm like shot, these two people's relationship. I don't know if they know, if she knows when when um he's about to call. I don't know if she knows. You know, when romanticize thing. Basically you're romanticizing. I think I might be because I don't know. I know I I always feel good when I see two people um extend kindness to each other and are affectionate with each other. That makes me feel good no matter what race it is. I want to go ahead, y'all. So it can't be that. It can't be that because you've done it now now you don't know if this necessarily has as is black love specific to two black folks? Well, we have obviously, and what else are we gonna do like black black folks? And you know what I mean, It is specific to black folks because we're black and we folks and we love each other. Right, But what you talk about, what you're talking about, is there a specific kind of way that we experience love to GILM that cannot be duplicated? Oh, I think that's a movie. Baby, I think that's I think that's a song. I think you says, I'm thinking that it's worth investigating. Oh okay, okay, because because I'm caught, you know what I mean, Like, I'm because you don't want to romanticize black love either and make it seem like it's a mystical thing. No, it's not mythical. It's real. Yeah, mys mystical like Matt. Yeah, because because you don't want it to feel like like trauma binding or something. It's like, is it. It's got to be something more healthy and connected and mm hmm sounds like homework. Y'all ain't no answer to that. We lost It's it's take the lake the L. I mean, we still do it better, We still take that. We'll take the L for the moment. Okay, more conversation after the break. I want you guys to call us. I want you to send us messages. I want you to let us know what is that thing? What is that thing that we have that remains our own? Because you would think you just be able to pop up with a couple of answers on this thing, but how about jumping the room. It's not even head wraps, no moment, how about jumping the room. I don't really see nobody else do that. I don't do that. You reach it with that one because I got to reach. I mean, I just think it's just everything, Like you said, no one could do it like us. Whatever we do that, whatever comes from whatever. Yeah, whatever it is that comes from us, people can duplicate it, but they can't. They can't do it. They can't do it. It's like it's like you ever hear Tina Marie sing or yeahba don't do that, Darre exceptions every rule, Jill uh, that's a mighty beautiful wind. No no, no, no, Tina Portuguese. No, so that's it's some brown it's somewhere and yeah, yeah, but that's my goal down. Yes she does, she does, so we can't even black children's books. I was just thinking about it, like the sister who says, I'm gonna remember her name, but she's um, she's very Dore's a meme that goes around where she's just like, I'm not saying that the girls are not doing their thing, but they're not doing it. Okay, That's how I feel about it. It's like I'm not saying that people aren't out there doing their things, but they're not doing it. You know what I'm saying. Em Dead, that's who said it. Shout out to em C Dead. EMC dev said that. M hmm right. What's really important is not that we gate keep but that people know the history. That's what we're talking about, and then we go with that. Investigation can be tolerated. Say it again, we will not tolerate erature it is that you're saying, because that's what's happening. It's not the word rare are erasure money Those raisins and slave owners are still on the money and they have schools. Yeah that our kids go to. Yeah yeah, yeah, Well I'm really saying that we could watch ourselves be raised. We could do it. We could literally sit here and watch ourselves be raised. That ship is is now what's up in no way, shape or capacity, like, there's no way we have to do. We have to investigate. We have to find out our who who are people's is not on my watch? How did you get here? Everybody who's doing something, some black person somewhere made a sacrifice for you to get there. Trying to learn the history, the history of the history specifically in your path. Find out who opened the door for you. That's how that's something that we can hold on to. Our our history cannot be raised because it's happening. It is uh happening. It is a current event that people who have who have open doors, people who have um open doors is such a big is that that's a huge that's a huge statement. Who have opened doors so that you can advance a lot of people enter through back doors, so you can walk through the front. And that's not a cliche, that's facts. There's a lot of people who stayed up all night picketing and and the knowledge of it is literally under attack right now in many states in our country. They are absolutely erasing our history. History that was already not being taught. Now they're saying it's illegal to teach it in we are being erased. They're saying that, um, people don't read books as much as as they should, or that they could. Um, maybe that's true. I would like to invite anybody that reads stories, read stories to um your friends. Y'all ain't doing nothing else. Read read stories to your people. Haven't come over and drink some wine or drink some whatever you got I don't care, so did you knows? Is a nice thing? That's what's up. That's cool, that's a good time. Ain't i'ing wrong with that? And you can play music in between and also to ask questions because I'm gonna I'm gonna just say this. When I was cooking my collar greens and my black eyed peas, my daughter came in there and she was just like, Mom, you know, I was wondering why we did this, and I found out why. She said, you know, I was wondering why we did And she said, did you know that a lot of that that during the top of the year, that many of the slave owners would settle up their debts by selling, you know, some of their you know, human property, and they would you know, they were up to anny on their human trafficking, right, and that a lot of the enslaved people would feel nervous around this time and think, you know, and they would cook these meals as you know, just a good luck thing to have the meal the next day to celebrate if those who were able to stay. And that's how we started the whole cooking of the collar greens and the black eyed peas. That's that's where some of that comes from. Also too, there's another tradition on New Year's Um for enslaved people that makes it somewhat you know, important as well, was that when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, it didn't go into effect until the following year, and so a lot of enslaved people and free people had watch night in which they were waiting for the top of the year for it to be legal for the Emancipatient Proclamation to go into effect so they could then emancipate themselves. And so they were waiting for that time period. So that time of the year is important to us. So I think some of those things are stories we can tell our families during those times. Two on Mother's Day every year on Mother's Dad tell my children the story of their birth. The stories and the storytelling is how our history has been passed down from person to person. Yeah we have books, Yeah we have movies and documentaries and all that stuff, but let's not get rid also two of the oral that's important and for us to take that seriously within our households, we can't be erased. That's the thing we learned. The history, we write, the history we tell it it's just important. Otherwise they really are going white. Every everything we worked for, we bled for, all of that stuff is going to get forgotten. And I don't know if y'all know ever seen that movie Coco and Coco. It's an animated film that is based in Mexican culture around the day. But what it talks about is these people who were on the other side of these spirits, of these people who have passed on in your family, but that they are able to exist and come back to the day of the life of the living on the Day of the dead to visit their families once a year, but they can no longer come the moment someone in the family doesn't remember them, ah, then they're gone for good. They can exist in the spirit world. To turn to go with that, and yeah, as long as you can remember them, they can come back. And I think what's really important about that thinking culturally, even though that's not my specific culture, what I take from that is that remembrance is important. I say this, I mean, this is off topic, but when people come to my show and I'm singing songs and make them feel al randy and excited and sensual, I say, I know when you go home. You're gonna be making some good love now on the fifth stroke, I just want you to say thank you, Jill. I think do you say that? Critics? Hey, you know, shout it out. I feel it, shout. Can you imagine a collective where where everybody in the audience go home and make some good love and on that fifth stroke they'll be like, thank you, Jill. I mean, how good must that feel? If I mean, my goodness, let her say it, don't you don't say it, sir. I'm just saying I know. I was just helping it. When there is a collective energy about understanding, Yes, that is a power and we that is something that we can do. Pick up black ass thing in your house right now and just find out what it is, where it came from. It'll it'll help you understand why it's there. That instinct, that instinct that is something that has passed down to us as well. I can't forget that. Thank you so much for listening to j dB Ill the podcast. It is always a pleasure to have conversation that sparks conversation, leave us a message, let us know some more things that we should hold onto. Thanks for listening. How do you eat an elephant one by it time. Hey, listeners, it's Amber the producer here. I love that we're having these conversations and really peeling back the depth and meeting from these everyday experiences as black people have a few resources. Lincoln the show notes that I want to share with you, um one that dives deeper on how to travel respectfully, respectfully okay, and another on the layered conversation about being black genter fire. It's complicated, it really is, and I hope we all keep these conversations going in our own families and social circles. Oh and I will also share the link for Coco, the movie Aga mentioned in the episode. The film is incredibly y'all watch it immediately. Hi, if you have comments on something he said in this episode called eight six six, Hey, Jill, if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six nine five four five FI. 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 h J dot Ill is a production of I Heart Radio. 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