SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome back, everyone. On our last episode, we were discussing the current state of black lives in the world today and how we have personally been affected. We thank you for tuning back in to round off our discussion on this sensitive topic. There will always be more to discuss, and we hope you all will continue to do so for the benefit of black lives. So I'll have to ask, you know, what have been your experiences with race, and you don't have to, you know, reflect off of the horde in the traps South versus North, but just in general, what have been your experiences with racism? And you know, can you even agree with what um uh the hordex said?

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Um I absolutely can. From childhood up until now, I have experienced almost everything from being spat on to being called a nigger to having my having to have I remember one time my mom had to like go off on this white lady in a GameStop. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember where exactly I was. And this is old racist white woman, and just having just even the most interesting comical exchanges between friends of the racist things that they've experienced, um, and even having watched white teachers because I grew up, like I said, like um sushi said, I grew up and went to truly black area, and I mean so predominantly white students, I'll say, on one hand in that entire school. But I will say that there is this kind of intermingling with um a much more cultural, like southern hospitality aspect, insofar as absolutely this kind of relationship to like racism, explicit racism in southern hospitality, where there is more, there's a stronger urge for people to change their minds when they invite you into their homes and make you a part of what it means to be familial in some way or be to to break bread with them in some regard. And usually I can say that as far as um Southern moral moralism or ethics or you know, relationships go or values, that when you invite someone into your home, it is your prerogative to create a welcome and inviting space for them, as well as to make sure that you extend the same sort of affection towards them as you would a member of your family. And that kind of that kind of openness or that's kind of nestled into one's like ideological way of interacting with the rest of the world is like the one of the few things that allows some people in the South to have their racism questioned based on interacting with people. Now it absolutely makes space for people to say, oh, okay, well, you're one of the good ones, and it's not the exactly the um the reaction that you want, but it's a step in some general direction. Um and I can't say X, and even just the difference between being back in Georgia and even moving up here, I can firmly, without a doubt, say that I have never been told ever in my life that I'm very well spoken until I moved up here. And I remember I was in, I was, I just moved up here, I was at American University, I went to the Wells Fargo near the campus because I was opening up a new credit account, and this white man who I was speaking with, um, I was speaking as I normally speak, as which is which is how I'm speaking right now, and also, ooh, actually, two things. So uh when I went to open up this account and you know, we're talking, blah, blah, blah, and he looked me dead in my face, didn't bat an eye, didn't twitch, didn't anything, just told me how well spoken I was. And in my mind, I'm like, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Because I've always spoken like this, but at the same time, I've also I remember when I went, when I got up here and I went to my orientation, the head of my, yeah, the head of my department, or the interim chair at the time, I guess, the the chair of the department who was doing the orientation, she um she looked at me and was like, oh, well, where's your accent? And I'm like, I don't know what you mean. What do you mean? Where'd you? It's like, yeah, you're from the South, you know, you don't really have an accent. And that's something that's always kind of followed me. I've even had, I've had many, many people disbelieve the fact that I'm from the South because I don't speak the way that they expect me to speak. Like, even though my I sound entirely different from most of my family, like I don't have, although it's something I can turn on and off when I'm around them, it's just something that I don't naturally carry with me. And so people don't think, I think I'm usually I have gotten the the I've gotten being from California a lot or being from the West Coast in general, because I don't sound like your quote-unquote typical southerner, but um I definitely have to agree with the fact that racism up here is a lot more ideologically intertwined with the way people not only interact with one another but do business. And I think because the area, the DMV itself is so heavily reliant upon people's careers, upon the way in which businesses conduct themselves, and it's an extremely political area just based on the fact that it is the DC metropolitan area, um, it heavily influences the way in which people um make their racism less covert more covert. And when I say that, I mean people will have more habits instilled in the way in which they interact with people rather than what they say explicitly. And I think that's a that's a bit more dangerous only because that allows for a much more normalized way of being racist that doesn't allude, that doesn't make people think that they're being racist. And the more interesting part about that is that people don't want it to be political, but the issue is that, well, that's a much larger conversation about politicization and like apolitization, but it's inherently political, it's social, it's economic, it's psychological, it's ideological, it's so heavily rooted in the way in which people navigate one another and have navigated black people since the beginning, since our inception into this country, you know, involuntarily. And the the genuine intellectual dishonesty that goes along with that is so abrasive that to a degree it's it's almost it's almost depressing. Um, and oftentimes I find myself not even really wanting to do anything about it. But I I have to at least, at the very least, say something because to a degree I found that it's not even so much that and I don't say this is a product, this is uh this is something that happens in the South as well, that even like other black people and other people of color have found themselves so embedded in this ideology that subverts what it actually means to be liberated in a in a in a in a more interracial sense, that the it's it's just as normal to them as it is to people who have put it on them in the first place. And it makes it that much more difficult because now you're not on not you're not only battling racism from the people you expect it from, but you're battling racism that is so uh that's just polluted and parasitic on the people that it's actually affecting. And now they become these kind of like because I've been playing The Last of Us, they become these infected who have the potential to pass it on as well. And it just it's it's it's a lot. Like I have a lot swirling around in my head, so it's hard to organize all these thoughts. But at the what I'll my final point will I'll just say is that I think ultimately when people want to make the point that it's it's something it's too political or that it's it's too controversial somehow, yeah, it is. It deserves to be because people are dying. And they're dying for no reason whatsoever, and they're dying for reasons that uh white people and like other counterparts to blackness are not dying for. And because it's not happening to them, they don't see it as a problem, and because they don't see the disproportionate ways in which police interact with non-black folks, they don't see a problem.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

I wanted to add on to what Gwen was saying regarding the racism or the silent racism of let's say the North, and everything you're saying is absolutely correct. It's not that the North is less racist, they're very much more covert with their racism. When it comes to dealing with patients or every single job that I've worked with, you know, when they hear my voice, they think that I'm a white woman. And but when they see me, they're like, oh, I'm trying to talk to the lady that I was on the phone with. I'm like, well, that was me. And they just give me a look.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Or when it comes to interviews, my name is black. You know, I I don't have a racially ambiguous name. My last name is a Nigerian name. So when people see my name, they think that I'm straight from Nigeria. But I was born here. Yeah. And you know, my mom is Jamaican, my father's Nigerian, but when they see my name and they see me and they hear me, they have so many questions.

SPEAKER_03 10:16

So many questions.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So many questions, like, how could you be this without having this accent? Like, where is your accent? Where are you from? And it's interesting because I have dealt with it from both white people and black people. And black people, which is very it was peculiar. And I can remember from going to elementary school, it was predominantly white school. Um, but I was excited to go to middle school. Um, and it was more so predominantly black. I was closer, it was still in Columbia, but a lot of children from Baltimore came there. And um, I was so excited because I wanted to be around people of my peers, you know, going from a school that was predominantly white to now being around people that look like me. I was so excited, and I didn't get uh to experience, I would say, socioeconomic change or like kind of like the difference of where you're from in the black community until I went to middle school. And you know, I was I remember I was calling uh a student that for homework advice. And I called, I was like, Oh, you know, my name is such and such, and I wanted to speak with this person. And the mother, who was black, was like, who do you think you are talking about proper? And it just hit me hard because I'm like, I don't, I was, I was taught about racism, you know, from white people, but I didn't understand the disconnect or division regarding a certain black people or comes from where you're from, how do you speak? You know, I'm thinking this is my people. I should be able, no matter if I look a certain way, you know, I'm we're all black, but I can't even talk a certain way that I'm not black. So it was just very interesting being called a white girl because I don't have a Baltimore accent. So it's like, who do I belong? Yeah, who who is the you know, who is my my kin, you know, who is supposed to be my family. You know, I expect the separation from white people, but the separation from black people hit me different. And so this is very interesting. That kind of opened my eyes to racism is very deep. Yeah, there's so many layers. There's there's racism within you know, your own people, the ideology that they're grown up with, you know, colorism. You know, you see colorism in art, the villain is always dark. I would look at different, you know, movies, the villain is always dark, and that crosses through different cultures, and it's been like that for generations. And you just start noticing things, you start unpacking things, you know. Watch Miyazaki films how's a moving castle. I'm like, why would it go and dark? You watch um this anime called Terraformers, and I'm like, what the hell?

SPEAKER_02 13:15

The roaches would go.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

I guess they're roaches.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

They did not you know, and not only are they black, they're roaches. So you can see how spirited away of no things is black, you know. So you grow up as a child and you see it, but you don't understand that you're actually internalizing it everything. Why couldn't the back the black, you know, the black guy be the good guy? Why does he have to be reformed and now he's the good guy? No, his ass should have been white. Why couldn't he be white even other people? Like why? Why does he have to be a certain shade of color? People understand how that really sinks in to everyone. And that is why it is going to be so difficult for racism to kind of cease to an end because it's just constantly rotating in different ways, different forms, you know, and and people just don't understand that. You know, it's it's not like, oh, the old white people need to go away. And when they go away, no, that's that's what we're taught. It has nothing to do with that. It's so deep, yeah, that it's going to be here for a long, long time. And it's just people just have to understand what they're seeing and identify it and really start to do a lot of unpacking of their own. Not just white people, everyone has unpacking of their own to do.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

And I think that's definitely something we want to, we should talk about in the future. You know, colorism is huge. Talking about, you know, the different things that each of us need to unpack from, you know, you know, you know, they always say, you know, black people, not they don't always say it, but it's kind of like this um silent taboo thing about black people going to the therapist or going to death to therapy to receive some type of level of unpacking, you know, all of these things that have been packed on since childhood or even, you know, uh in into uh adulthood. And, you know, I can definitely relate uh to having to being not to being African and having an African-sounding name, and uh, but speaking the way that I do. I I remember I'm not gonna go too far into it. We'll talk about it in another episode. But late, I remember late into my adolescence, I was called the white uh white boy, white boy Nigerian. And it was because of how I spoke, who I hung out with, and how I interacted with everybody. I didn't, you know, turn up uh and you know, go uh uh Pate Najaboy. I didn't do all of that. I was just who I was, and I hung out with who I wanted to hang out with, but they called me the white boy Nigerian, and that's something that it still to this day doesn't, you know, process. But like I said, let's continue with the topic. Uh, Miss Skittles, you know, you've been kind of silent today. What have been your experiences? Um, you told us a little bit about it before we started. Um, uh, I think you, because you are in Virginia, you have a certain it's it's interesting. I've always felt like Virginia is literally, you know, how they say the Midwest or DC is a melting pot. I truly feel like Virginia is a melting pot of a lot of the Southern people. So, what have you been experiencing inside of Virginia?

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Um, so this this topic, I could literally talk about this for I don't know how long, but um so personally, uh I've so let's start. I'm an army brat, I've lived in multiple places up and down the east coast, um from uh Pennsylvania to Florida. So um most of my family currently lives in Florida. Uh a lot of them still live in Pennsylvania, but everyone is in Florida. I am the only one still in Northern Virginia. Um as far as Virginia goes, uh I didn't experience any, I haven't personally experienced a lot of racism in my life in general. Actually, more sexism than racism, but that's another topic. Um the first time I I want to say the first time I like saw like latent racism was probably when I went to college at Virginia State University, uh Petersburg, Virginia. Petersburg is very, very southern uh Southern Virginia. Um they they fly confederate flags, they you know, they're riding through the streets and they're pickup trucks, giving you dirty looks, and you know, so it's it's it was I wouldn't say a major shocker because I know it's out there. I see it um, you know, in the news or you read about it, you hear about it. Um, so it wasn't a major shock when I went to college and seeing all of this, you know, just out and about, like regular. Um, but there's a major difference between northern Virginia and Southern Virginia. Um it when you ride down 95, you once you pass Woodbridge, Virginia, you know you're in Southern Virginia. Um the the whole atmosphere, the whole look of it, the the environment is different. Um the the people you interact with are just different, they look different um compared to Northern Virginia, which is part of the the the melting pot of DC and Southern Virginia, as far as the DMP goes. But um I I haven't blatantly experienced any racism towards me in this area. Um I have experienced racism on the internet because everybody's on the internet and and people hide behind you know their phones and desktops and uh keyboards to to say whatever they feel like they want to say without consequence. And um as far as the movement goes, I have I have been following everything that goes on, you know, with our community since I don't know. I know I I did watch the trial. Um I did watch George Zimmerman's trial. I watched I watched every minute of that case. Um and and just seeing it unfold on national television the way it did. It was probably the first time that I really felt like my life didn't matter. Like it was the first time that I literally said to myself, damn, like this here's this boy, this young child who who like my bad, sorry. It just it's just so wild to me that this did happen during you, you know, when you think about racism as as a black person, it you know it's always there, but you never well for me, I never thought that we would be here in 2020 fighting civilly for like basic human rights like we are right now. And and I think I think I'm lucky um as a cosplay from a cosplay standpoint, I think I'm lucky to have this platform during this time, and that's that's what's been keeping me busy. I haven't because I'm a germaphobe and I mentioned that in previous episodes, I have not been able to bring myself to to uh mentally get out there and protest, but I have this platform now, and I'm like, I'm gonna use it. This is I I don't have like a huge following, but if I Can change the mind of one person uh uh at a single moment, any day, anytime, then I'm I'm gonna try to do that, and that's what I am doing on my um Instagram right now. Um and it this this whole thing really is just it's just brought it's just taught me so much about myself, about my community, about the people around me. Uh I've been I've been becoming more uh I don't want to say self-aware, but it's kind of self-aware because I because I'm black. I'm black, and this is happening to black people, and I'm slowly taking a step back and looking at each and every one of the people that I interact with or or have conversation with, but listening to um just how they speak to me or or what is being said exactly, um, and and analyzing it like have I have I been oblivious this whole time? So it's really a this movement is really an eye-opener for me, and I'm glad, I'm so glad to be a part of it. It's unfortunate that I'm a part of it, a part of it, but I'm glad to be a part of it because you know, before I was just watching a tribe. Um before I was just um you know defending people in the in the background, like, oh yeah, black lives matter. Now I'm like black lives matter, like all lives matter, everybody black matters, like so to to be a part of this and to be to be able to express myself and and take care of my people and take care of my family and and to just love on black people the way they do deserve to be loved. Like I've never experienced or been a part of anything so so worldly in my life. So I'm it's overwhelming. It's definitely overwhelming, but um I'm glad that we're standing up. I'm glad we're using our voices. Um and we just gotta we just gotta I know it's gonna take time, but we have seen just just in a few weeks, we have seen some changes, some minor, some grand scale, some need to be grander, but I think you know, I think we're being hurt. Like this is it, like I that you know before it's just like oh Ferguson is riding, Baltimore is writing. No, this is worldwide riot, black lives matter. So people are listening and and they're gonna they're gonna pay attention whether they like it or not.

SPEAKER_03 25:47

Thank you. Um I definitely agree. I mean, that kind of goes back to what the doctor said about how you can use whatever platform, whatever uh type of you know protest that you potentially can do, whether you're going out, whether you're donating money to the bail fund, whether you know you're donating money to different organizations, or if you are organizing or showing things on Instagram, any way that you know how to do it, because everybody has their own um, everybody has their own lane, everybody has their own industry, everybody has their own capacity. And your capacity may not be protesting, your capacity may not be lawmaking, of course. So you're doing it the best way you know how, and it'll hopefully it could potentially grow into something else, or it could shine a light, like you said, on that, and that one person or that 10, those 10 people, those 20 people, or those 100 people may be able to click that light bulb and understand exactly what they need to understand. You know, a lot of them are asking for education, that may be something that they get from you. So I appreciate your hustle and your willingness to you know use the platform that you have that's been that that that's been given to you uh to not only showcase Black Lives Matter, but educate those who don't understand. We are still not done. Please tune in next week for our third part and the finale of our Black Nerds on Black Lives episode.